April 30, 2008
How Not to Interpret the Bible
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
Children of God (COG), a cult founded by David (Moses David) Berg, used sex as an intoxicant to keep the cult together. Homosexuality, lesbianism, incest, and group sex were all legitimized by the COG cult. Berg’s daughter, Deborah (Linda Berg) Davis, writes in The Children of God: The Inside Story, of how her father justified his perverted view of sex because he first perverted Scripture. He promoted "Flirty Fishing," using sex to entice young people into the cult, a way to "win souls to Christ." The Bible was used to support this immoral practice: "Just as Jesus laid down His life, so you must lay down your life (or wife) for these men." As time went on, the question of lesbianism arose. "There is nothing in Scripture that forbids it," Berg maintained. If it's done "in love, it's okay."
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09:26 AM
It's That Time of Year Again
Jim Rudd / The Covenant News:
Preaching to Sodomites: You are a local pastor, and you just found out that sodomites are planning to parade themselves in the middle of town -- publicly flaunting their sinful activities. What are you going to do about it?
CDC Study: Gays Mentally Disturbed
Dr. Paul Cameron / Press Release
Ever wonder how sane people could do what gays do in Gay Pride parades? The nudity, the sex acts, the weird costumes? A new Centers for Disease Control study provides one answer: more gays are mentally disturbed.
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09:01 AM
Chuck Baldwin: U.S. Sovereignty at Risk
Bob Unruh / WorldNetDaily:
The Constitution Party candidate for president says the biggest danger America faces is from Washington, D.C., not Tehran or Baghdad, and that he would jump at the opportunity to cut it down to size. "I really believe that our nation is fast becoming a nation that does not respect the freedoms and liberties that this country was founded upon," Chuck Baldwin told WND in an exclusive one-on-one interview today. "George Bush's Patriot Act ... in essence eviscerated the Fourth Amendment and did serious damage to other amendments in the Bill of Rights. I do believe that this burgeoning North American Union that Dr. Corsi has written so much about ... is a real threat to our national sovereignty and our national independence."
Related:
Baldwin: I would bring our troops home
Constitution Party candidate says enemy uses 'occupation' as recruiting tool. WND: What should and could the United States be doing in the war on terror? Baldwin: The first thing that I would if I were elected president would be to begin the process of bringing our troops home from Iraq. I do not believe that the war in Iraq is serving to make our country safer. I think just the opposite. The longer we occupy Iraq, the more the enemy uses that occupation as a recruiting tool for those that would hurt us.
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09:00 AM
Why Not Push For Godly/Biblical Government?
John Lofton / The American View:
A press release informs me that the Governors of all 50 States and the Virgin Islands have issued Proclamations for the National Day of Prayer. Some of the activities on that day will include: Private pilots flying over all 50 state capitols as part of something called Prayerflight. Also, each state's constitution and its acknowledgement of God’s guidance will be read aloud. "It is our goal to unify our nation from the air and land, by each state praying for return to gratitude and dedication to God," says Michael Harnishfeger, Prayerflight founder. Well - wonderful - great - sort of, but not really. I believe God hates this kind of thing.
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08:58 AM
The Coming Brave New World
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
In Huxley's Brave New World, a future society is controlled by means of hedonism and the use of psychotropic drugs. The drug "SOMA" is utilized in the story to help citizens escape emotional pain by taking them on a "Holiday." It seems America is quickly mirroring such a society as the scientific planners within our system are experimenting with the guinea pig children in foster care by placing them on a myriad of psychotropic drugs.
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07:11 AM
Dave Barry Explains the Tax Rebate
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
The tax rebate of 2008, which is scheduled to begin this week when the first checks go into the mail, is the latest example of American mercantilism in action. I did my best to explain American mercantilism in the April 26 issue of Gary North's Reality Check. There, I explained modern Keynesian economics as the American version of mercantilism. My article, "Climbing of China's Paper Money Tiger," warned that the United States has adopted the Keynesian version of mercantilism: national consumption without production. It is a perfect match for China's more traditional mercantilism, national production without consumption.
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07:05 AM
Farmers Are Siphoning Corn to Fuel Our Cars
Steven Mufson / The Washington Post:
Burning Food For Fuel -- Erwin Johnson picks up a clump of the dark, rich soil that he has farmed for 35 years, like his father and grandfather before him. In a few months, this flat expanse of northern Iowa will be crowded with corn ready to be trucked to market. A year ago, that market got a little closer -- and a lot better. Instead of sending his corn to a barge company to be shipped down the Mississippi River for export, Johnson now loads it into an open truck and sends it two miles up the gravel road to a hulking new ethanol distillery that he can see from his field. The plant is paying him $5.50 or more a bushel, more than twice as much as Johnson could get just a couple of years ago. "This is a fantastic time to be farming," Johnson says. "I'm 65, but I can't quit now." [But] not everyone thinks it's fantastic. People who use corn to feed cattle, hogs and chickens are being squeezed by high corn prices. On Monday, Tyson Foods reported its first loss in six quarters and said that its corn and soybean costs would increase by $600 million this year.
Related:
Biofuels 'Crime Against Humanity'
The BBC:
A United Nations expert has condemned the growing use of crops to produce biofuels as a replacement for petrol as a crime against humanity. The UN special rapporteur on the right to food, Jean Ziegler, said he feared biofuels would bring more hunger. The growth in the production of biofuels has helped to push the price of some crops to record levels. He complained of an ill-conceived dash to convert foodstuffs such as maize and sugar into fuel, which created a recipe for disaster.
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07:04 AM
Treasury Eyes Stronger Powers for Fed
Gillian Tett and Krishna Guha / FT.com:
The Federal Reserve could use proposed new regulatory powers to try to stop credit and asset market excesses from reaching the point where they threaten economic stability, the US Treasury said on Tuesday. David Nason, assistant secretary for financial institutions, said the Fed could even use its proposed "macro-prudential" authority to order banks, hedge funds and other entities to curtail strategies that put financial stability at risk. By "leaning against the wind" in this way, the US central bank could "attempt to prevent broad economic dislocations caused by potential excesses", he said.
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05:18 AM
Beliefs That Central Bankers Will Save the Day
Bill Bonner / The Daily Reckoning:
"Credit crisis...foreclosures...market crash...recession...falling dollar...bankruptcy...inflation: Why the Smart Money is Buying," says this week's Forbes cover. Forbes thinks it is being bravely contrarian. "Buy when blood is running in the streets," it quotes a Rothschild. After the traffic accidents of the last 9 months, it thinks it sees an opportunity - similar to the one in 2002. Of course, everyone wants to go against the crowd, provided everyone else is doing it too. Today, the markets are as crowded with people who believe that central bankers will save the day. Blood may be running in the streets, they say. But the ambulances are on the way. The whole mess will be cleaned up quickly. And with dividend yields near 2% and earnings ratios near 20, a 'contrarian' might feel a little hemmed in, like a passenger on a cheap airline.
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04:09 AM
Brainwashed SEALS
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
Recently, we looked at the Rules of Engagement under which our military must labor. We saw that those rules are a prescription for defeat; that they are the main reason we have failed to win a war since World War II, and that el presidente Jorge W. Boosh administers them today. We saw that Señor Boosh could replace them whenever he likes with a prescription for victory, but of course he does not, because victory is the last thing he wants. One of the examples we looked at was Operation Redwing, in which Boosh’s Rules of Engagement led directly to the deaths of nineteen of our men, three members of a four-man Navy SEAL team and the sixteen men who choppered in to rescue them. Today, let's take a closer look.
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03:10 AM
Bible Scholars Challenge Pelosi's 'Scripture' Quote
Pete Winn / CNSNews.com:
House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) is fond of quoting a particular passage of Scripture. The quote, however, does not appear in the Bible and is "fictional," according to biblical scholars. In her April 22 Earth Day news release, Pelosi said, "The Bible tells us in the Old Testament, 'To minister to the needs of God's creation is an act of worship. To ignore those needs is to dishonor the God who made us.' On this Earth Day, and every day, let us pledge to our children, and our children's children, that they will have clean air to breathe, clean water to drink, and the opportunity to experience the wonders of nature."
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01:45 AM
April 29, 2008
Interviews With Chuck Baldwin and Howard Phillips
Missouri Viewpoints / Wire Service:
Less than an hour after being nominated for President of the United States by the Constitution Party, Rev. Chuck Baldwin joined us for an interview on "Missouri Viewpoints". This is his first in-depth television interview following his nomination. The second half of the program featured former Nixon administration official, and Constitution Party founder, Howard Phillips. Phillips stated that Baldwin’s campaign will benefit from the energy of Ron Paul's supporters and will win more support from the "Ron Paul Revolution" than Bob Barr will if he is nominated by the Libertarian Party.
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09:56 AM
Hijacking the Declaration
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
It's been said that you can tell a book by its cover. You can also tell a book by those who endorse it. Consider Alan Dershowitz's Blasphemy: How the Religious Right is Hijacking our Declaration of Independence. The book is endorsed by at least two high-profile published atheists (Steven Pinker and Sam Harris), the president of the ACLU (Nadine Strossen, who speaks to atheist groups and may be an atheist herself), an anti-Christian and self-avowed atheistic Congressman (Pete Stark, D-CA), and the Executive Director of Americans United for Separation of Church and State (Barry W. Lynn) who rarely has anything good to say about religion and the public square and whose organization takes the atheist position in court battles.
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08:41 AM
Are There Limits to Lincoln Idolatry?
Thomas J. DiLorenzo / LewRockwell.com:
The answer to the question posed in the title of this article is: No. There are no limits to the lies and misrepresentations about Lincoln’s political legacy -- and about those who question the Official Version of it -- that are spread by what I call the Lincoln cult. It almost seems congenital. As soon as The Real Lincoln was published in 2002, the Lincoln cult swung into action with outlandish and outrageous misrepresentations of what I say in the book in an obvious attempt to keep people from reading it.
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07:07 AM
The Iraq War Morphs Into The Iranian War
Paul Craig Roberts / VDARE.com:
It is 1939 all over again. The world waits helplessly for the next act of naked aggression by rogue states. Only this time the rogue states are not the Third Reich and Fascist Italy. They are the United States and Israel. The targeted victims are not Poland and France, but Iran, Syria, the remains of the Palestinian West Bank and southern Lebanon. The American mass media is overjoyed. War coverage attracts viewers and sells advertising. The neoconservatives are ecstatic. Hegemony uber alles is back on track. The US Air Force can’t wait "to show what it can do."
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05:45 AM
Kagan's Definition of Success in Iraq
Bob Murphy / LewRockwell.com:
When it comes to theoretical justifications for the continued occupation of Iraq, the gold standard is the Weekly Standard. Bill Kristol and Fred Kagan must be extremely intelligent and gifted writers, because whenever I read their work or hear them speak, I’m halfway to killing 30 foreigners before suddenly snapping out of it. Kristol and Kagan are quite simply masters at making their reckless positions sound eminently reasonable and "conservative." The latest case in point is Kagan’s article, "How We’ll Know When We’ve Won: A definition of success in Iraq." (Note that it’s titled when, not if.)
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05:43 AM
Southern Baptists Now In Decline
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
In a story from the Christian Post, Lillian Kwon reports that Southern Baptists are now a declining denomination, meaning they are no longer getting the Results and Relationships they covet. The troubling article begins this way: For the first time, Southern Baptists can say membership has reached a tipping point and the nation's largest Protestant denomination is now declining, says one long-time Southern Baptist.
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03:06 AM
April 28, 2008
Constitution Party Picks Chuck Baldwin for President
Jo Mannies / St. Louis Post-Dispatch:
This just in, courtesy of the
Missouri Constitution Party: At its national convention, Pastor Chuck Baldwin has accepted the Constitution Party's nomination for President of the United States. Pastor Baldwin is a minister, author, radio talk show host, and syndicated columnist. He was also the Constitution Party's 2004 Vice-Presidential candidate. To see Pastor Baldwin's stands on the issues (including pro-life and pro-family), as well as more thorough biographical information, click here. Later Saturday, the party selected Darrell Castle of Tennessee as its vice presidential nominee.
Related:
Out of Keyes
By W. James Antle III / American Spectator
Things aren't working out well for Alan Keyes. The perennial candidate with a worse electoral track record than Harold Stassen spent most of his adult lifetime in the Republican Party. He lasted in the Constitution Party for less than two weeks. After his defeat at the hands of relatively unknown members of a small third party, Keyes the pro-life stalwart analogized his political career to an abortion. On entering the race, Keyes was the biggest-name presidential candidate the Constitution Party had ever attracted. But he disagreed with the paleoconservative party's positions on the Iraq war and foreign policy more generally. Keyes's supporters tried to modify the platform and were overwhelmingly defeated. Shortly afterward, so was Keyes himself.
Constitution Party chooses talk-show
host over Keyes for presidential nomination
By Steve Kraske / The Kansas City Star:
Meeting in Kansas City on Saturday, the Constitution Party tapped talk show host Chuck Baldwin over former ambassador Alan Keyes as its 2008 presidential nominee. The pick was seen as something of an upset, given Keyes’ higher national profile. Known for his fiery stemwinders, Keyes is a two-time GOP presidential candidate who abandoned the Republican Party this month to join the Constitution Party, which stands for limited government and is committed to ending abortion and bringing U.S. troops home from Iraq.
Chuck Baldwin KOs firebrand Alan Keyes
Steve Kraske / Kansas City Star:
Convening its national convention in Kansas City (Saturday), the Constitution Party picked radio talk-show host Chuck Baldwin over former Ambassador Alan Keyes as its 2008 presidential candidate. The pick was seen as something of an upset, given Keyes' higher national profile. Known for his fiery stem-winders, Keyes is a two-time GOP presidential candidate who abandoned the Republican Party this month to join the Constitution Party, which believes in limited government and is committed to ending abortion and bringing American troops home from Iraq. But Baldwin's roots in the Constitution Party run deeper. He was the party's 2004 vice-presidential candidate, and party members said his stands were more in line with party thinking.
Chuck Baldwin Defeats Alan Keyes for CP Nomination
Eric A. Garris / The LRC Blog
The Constitution Party just overwhelmingly defeated the warmongering neocon Alan Keyes by nominating Chuck Baldwin, 383 to 125. Last night, CP founder Howard Phillips strongly denounced Keyes as a warmonger, neocon, and egomanic. Phillips was subsequently attacked by Jim Clymer, the CP national chairman. In spite of Keyes bringing in a lot of delegates, the CP remained true to their anti-interventionist views and rejected Keyes.
re: Chuck Baldwin Defeats Alan Keyes
Thomas DiLorenzo / The LRC Blog
Good for my old friend Howard Phillips and the Constitution Party for preventing yet another neocon takeover of a traditional conservative, limited government organization -- the Constitution Party. Keyes is the quintessential Neocon insider: He was a student of the flamboyant "Straussian" Alan Bloom at Cornell, and lived in the same house as Bloom, along with several other male neocons who called the womens' dress-wearing Bloom "master."; he studied at Harvard under Straussian neocon Harvey Mansfield; and he entered national politics as a sidekick of neocon UN Ambassador Jeane Kirkpatrick during the Reagan years.
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06:28 AM
The Corrupt Southern Poverty Law Center
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
There is probably no more corrupt "non-profit" organization than the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC). There is also none more intentionally ironic. They espouse to be the watchman traversing the lonely walls of American culture scanning their compassionate eyes in search of hate regardless the form it may take. I should have made REGARDLESS all caps, because the SPLC will stop at nothing to redefine anything as a form of racism.
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05:25 AM
It Didn't Start With Bush
Ira Katz / LewRockwell.com:
George W. Bush should be the poster boy for Hayek's dictum of Why the Worst Get On Top; in other words, he is the worst. His statements are the worst; virtually everything that comes out of his mouth is either stupid, illiterate, ill informed, false and/or a lie (e.g.; "Major combat operations have ended," "I'm the decider."). His administration is the worst, responsible for putting the US in its worst condition in terms of the economy, military readiness, international standing, education, and medical care. From the 2000 election to the present, Bush and his administration have consistently and successfully worked to undermine the remains of the constitutional republic that was the United States.
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04:06 AM
MSM Will Be Complicit In Next Terrorist Attacks
Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
On April 24, 2008, The Arizona-Republic, published a hit piece on Sen. Karen Johnson, who currently serves in the Arizona State Legislature. This piece of drivel is titled, 'Drinking the 9/11 Kool-Aid.' As you can see by reading it, the author believes that no elected official should question any aspect of the Bush Administration's fairy tale of the events of September 11, 2001. This has been the prevailing attitude of the so-called mainstream media, including cable "news" networks since that day. Anyone questioning the hoax perpetrated on the American people is a Kool-Aid drinker or worse.
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03:09 AM
High Time for CBS to Pull 'Dexter'
Parents Television Council:
The Parents Television Council renewed its call to CBS to cancel the remaining episodes of "Dexter" that are slated to air this spring. On Sunday, April 20, a family-friendly Hallmark Hall of Fame movie, "Sweet Nothing in My Ear," aired in place of "Dexter." As a result, CBS showed a 25% improvement over the average "Dexter" household audience numbers and a 27% improvement over last week’s airing of "Dexter." The serial killer show was moved to broadcast television in February after debuting on the premium-tier cable network, Showtime.
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02:36 AM
Oral Roberts U. Exploring Layoffs, Budget Cuts
The Associated Press:
Layoffs and other budget cuts are possible for debt-ridden Oral Roberts University, as the tiny evangelical school looks to regroup from several financial scandals and keep enrollment from sliding further, the school's trustees chairman said. "We can't spend more than we bring in," said Mart Green, an Oklahoma City businessman who recently donated $70 million to the school. "Let's find out where we're fat, where we're thin and make this place strong, and not just going hand to mouth year after year."
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01:29 AM
Bush Wants Federal Funding for Faith-Based Schools
Amy Fagan / The Washington Times:
President Bush, at a White House summit, pushed the idea of providing federal funding to help inner-city faith-based schools that are struggling financially or closing, calling them "a critical national asset" that provide children from low-income families with valuable education. "We have an interest in the health of these institutions," Mr. Bush told government leaders, university researchers and educators from schools of various faiths who are attending the daylong White House Summit on Inner-City Children and Faith-Based Schools. Mr. Bush and his supporters aimed to bring attention to the financial struggle of inner-city faith-based schools.
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01:15 AM
April 26, 2008
Global Warming Hoax & The Evil Federal Government
Michael Peroutka and John Lofton / The American View:
On this program, Michael Anthony Peroutka and John Lofton discuss our Constitution, global warming and Earth Day. They also talk about those hundreds of kids who, in San Angelo, Texas, have been seized and separated from their parents. The Governor of Texas says he has "full faith and confidence" in the Texas Department of Public Safety and Child Protective Services. Michael and John, as you might have guessed, do not have such full faith and confidence in any government agency to protect any child! They believe that if various levels of government really want to stop "child abuse," they should recognize abortion for what it is - the ultimate child abuse in that the unborn baby is murdered! And these governments should prosecute as murderers all those who commit abortion and the women who request the murder of their unborn children. On this show, you will hear all this plus a stirring song about Francis Marion - the "Swamp Fox."
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03:51 PM
'Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality'
Lee Duigon / The Chalcedon Foundation:
A Review of Not My Child: Contemporary Paganism and the New Spirituality -- What is the nature of the problem? Why should it be dangerous for children and teenagers to dabble in spells, witchcraft, fortune-telling, and prayers to pagan gods and goddesses? "[O]ur children are being convinced that truth is unknowable or irrelevant," Mrs. Harvey answers, and being given "the notion of shaping and creating God by our actions" (p. 44).
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02:44 PM
Mark Twain Was Right
Charley Reese / LewRockwell.com:
Why would it be a stain on our honor to end the occupation of Iraq and hand the country back to the Iraqi people to govern as they please? It is, after all, their country, not ours; the oil is their oil, not ours. Not one candidate has the guts to say, "As soon as I'm president, I will order American troops to begin withdrawal." What happens after we leave is an Iraqi problem, not ours. Americans had better get shut of their imperial delusions and fast, because we are following the path of every empire that has ever existed toward bankruptcy.
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02:43 PM
North American Leaders Summit
Coalition To Block The North American Union / Wire Service:
At a news conference in New Orleans, coalition leader Howard Phillips stated "It's long past time for the American media to do its duty and report to the American people those steps being taken by the Bush Administration to incrementally move the United States into a North American Union (NAU), via the so-called Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) and a NAFTA Superhighway system. "With no approval by Congress, his Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) is working to bureaucratically harmonize the policies of the three North American countries through more than 20 unelected, unaccountable Executive Branch working groups."
NEW WEBSITE:
NAU War Room
Coalition To Block The North American Union:
Welcome to the North American War Room – the headquarters of The national campaign to expose and halt America's absorption into a "North American Union (NAU)" with Canada and Mexico. We are also on the front lines of the battle to prevent the construction of a massive, continental "NAFTA Superhighway."
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02:30 PM
April 25, 2008
War is a Racket
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
This is outrageous. The grotesque corruption and fraud tied to military spending deserves a unified shout of outrage by conservative Christians; but you can bet your last devalued dollar they won't make a peep. The very fact that the most noteworthy Reformed ministries have said NOTHING for the last seven years about unjust war, government lying, torture, the growing police state, and the racketeering and theft within the military-industrial complex is beyond deplorable. I better not hear a word out of them when a "Democrat" gets in office and does the very same things. They are Pavlovian-controlled by the psychological manipulation of thinking only within the categories of "Right vs. Left" and "Conservative vs. Liberal."
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06:32 AM
How The Pentagon Invades Your Life
Tom Engelhardt and Nick Turse / LewRockwell.com:
Last Sunday, David Barstow of the New York Times revealed just how effectively the Pentagon orchestrated a propaganda campaign for "information dominance" when it came to the President's various wars (and prisons). Pentagon officials, from the Secretary of Defense on down, put together a "rapid reaction force" of retired generals and other retired military officers (aka "message force multipliers" or "surrogates"). With copious Pentagon help and perks, these "experts" became key go-to guys for the mainstream media when it came to the War on Terror and the war in Iraq.
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05:31 AM
Formal Complaint: FEC investigate McCain
Judicial Watch:
Judicial Watch announced that it filed a formal complaint with the Federal Election Commission (FEC) related to a fundraising luncheon held at London's Spencer House to benefit Senator John McCain's presidential campaign. The venue for the event was apparently donated to the campaign by foreign nationals, in violation of federal campaign finance laws. "Recent news reports suggest that Sen. John McCain and John McCain for President may have accepted an in-kind contribution from foreign nationals Lord Rothschild OM GBE and the Hon. Nathaniel Rothschild of Great Britain in contravention of federal election laws," Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton wrote in a complaint letter dated April 22, 2008. "On behalf of Judicial Watch and its supporters, I hereby request that the FEC investigate the matter."
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05:28 AM
Prison Nation
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. / LewRockwell.com:
Americans, perhaps like all people, have a remarkable capacity for tuning out unpleasantries that do not directly affect them. I'm thinking here of wars on foreign lands, but also the astonishing fact that the United States has become the world's most jail-loving country, with well over 1 in 100 adults living as slaves in a prison. Building and managing prisons, and locking people up, have become major facets of government power in our time, and it is long past time for those who love liberty to start to care. Before we get to the reasons why, look at the facts as reported by the New York Times. The U.S. leads the world in prisoner production. There are 2.3 million people behind bars. China, with four times as many people, has 1.6 million in prison. In terms of population, the US has 751 people in prison for every 100,000, while the closest competitor in this regard is Russia with 627. I'm struck by this figure: 531 in Cuba. The median global rate is 125.
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05:23 AM
'Which Old Testament Prophet Was the Nicest'?
Dr. Richard A. Jones / American Vision:
Almost the entire 20th century was a sugar-coating festival as wimpy church leaders increasingly played the "gentle Jesus, it's all about love" card, and we are now paying the piper for that failure to obey God’s sometimes tough and self-sacrificial commands. Who likes prophets? In your opinion, which of the Old Testament prophets was the "nicest"? Offending, it seems, has turned out to be one of the major, politically correct no-no's of the age and look where we are because of it.
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05:21 AM
School of Evangelism in the news
Faithful Soldiers School of Evangelism:
Evangelical Group Protests Gays, American Society: Sierra Quad was the site of a hostile encounter between an evangelical group preaching against homosexuality and the downfall of Americans and CSUN students who oppose their views on Tuesday. The group members, who were on a campus tour of southern California colleges and universities, were holding signs displaying their beliefs. The sign that received much criticism from students read, "Thousands of homosexuals experience the life-changing love of Jesus Christ," and had ex-homosexual testimonies at various websites displayed on the sign.
(
Faithful Soldiers School of Evangelism)
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05:19 AM
Does Winfrey Ride The Beast?
Frederick Meekins / Ether Zone:
At one point in her career, Oprah Winfrey was pretty much seen as a harmless crank as to the casual viewer catching the show in passing assumed that the program dealt primarily with her seesawiing weight and whether or not her shackup might secretly prefer to be paid in three dollar bills. However, as she has amassed considerable power and influence during her 20 plus years in the public limelight, this broadcaster is no longer an innocent afternoon distraction filling the time between when one arrives home from work and when dinner is set on the table but rather has intentionally set out to subvert American culture and the spiritual well being of the nation.
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02:21 AM
When Pope Becomes Chaplain of Masonry
Tradition In Action:
On April 18, 2008, Benedict XVI went to the United Nations headquarters to officially commemorate the 60th anniversary of the promulgation of the Declaration of Human Rights. As anyone knows, this declaration closely follows the Declaration of the Rights of Man and Citizen of the French Revolution, inspired by the principles of the Enlightenment, which professes a system called Deism, a belief in a vague "god." In his speech Benedict could not have been more admirative of this Masonic document. Indeed, he affirmed, "It is evident that the rights recognized and expounded in the Declaration apply to everyone by virtue of the common origin of the person, who remains the high-point of God's creative design for the world and for history." Therefore, the Pope conferred a kind of divine mission to this Declaration.
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01:12 AM
April 26 Is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia
Sons of Confederate Veterans:
Saturday, April 26, 2008, is Confederate Memorial Day in Georgia and has been a legal holiday since 1874, when this day was first adopted by the Georgia General Assembly. Since that time Confederate Memorial Day Events have been sponsored annually throughout the state by the United Daughters of the Confederacy, Ladies Memorial Association, Sons of Confederate Veterans, government agencies and other historical groups.
The Hargrett Library of the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia "will display" the Constitution of the Confederate States of America from 8 AM to 5 PM on Friday April 25, 2008. See More information at:
http://www.libs.uga.edu/hargrett/speccoll.html
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12:12 AM
April 24, 2008
EXPELLED! The Movie
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
If you've not heard about it yet, you soon will. Ben Stein's film "EXPELLED: No Intelligence Allowed" hit theaters nationwide this past weekend, and it's receiving favorable reviews throughout Christian media outlets while spurning equal outrage from the Darwinist camp. I saw the film over the weekend, and in all honesty, I don't want to take the time to write a lengthy review when there's millions of digits already dedicated to the movie. So, I'll make this simple.
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07:21 AM
Expelled - A Documentary Review
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
I have only one beef with the movie and I will go ahead and mention it up front. My one problem is that Stein let the Evolutionist get away with contending that they were against religion and were against God when in point of fact they are really only against every religion except their own and every god except their own. This problem also surfaced when Stein spoke with the 'Intelligent Design' gentleman in Seattle who was insisting that 'Intelligent Design' didn't have anything to do with the religion. Actually 'Intelligent Design' like ‘Evolution’ does have a great deal to do with religion – indeed neither could even exist if it weren’t for their respective religions. Now, I understand why the Scientist from the 'Discovery Institute' (the pro 'Intelligent Design' think tank) is put off by being associated with 'religion' by his enemies the 'Evolutionists,' since being associated with religion is like being associated with the plague in our culture.
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07:17 AM
Ban The Bible
Coach Dave Daubenmire / NewsWithViews.com:
For the past week I have been standing by my friend, John Freshwater, a public school teacher who has been ordered by the Mount Vernon City Schools to remove his own personal Bible from his desk. The students turned out en masse to support this popular science teacher. The ACLU has done all that they can do to scare everyone. Yesterday the school board switched tactics. Because the public uproar in support of Mr. Freshwater was so great they decided it was time to pull out the smoke and mirrors. They knew that they had made a huge overreach, so to cover their own rear-ends they decided to attack the credibility of Mr. Freshwater. It is a classic attempt to divide and conquer.
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06:03 AM
Should Christians Obey The Antichrist?
Doug Newman / Fountain of Truth:
Even when he was at the height of his glory and fame and at the depth of his depravity, Elvis Presley was uneasy with being called the "King of Rock and Roll." On more than one occasion, Elvis made the point that Jesus was the only King. If only all Christians were as sound as Elvis in their understanding about Who their King really is. I had never heard of Pastor Mark Jeske of Milwaukee until the other day. However, some clips from a sermon he preached – captured on YouTube – epitomize the very dangerous direction in which so many pastors are leading their flocks nowadays. He preaches what the maker of the video calls "The New American Theology of Civil Submission." This is the big fat lie that Christians should just go ahead and do whatever their earthly government tells them to do.
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05:34 AM
Attack Of The Bull Dykes
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
Something happened in the campaign for President last week that turned my stomach, which is not easy to do after more than forty years in the battle for America. Erstwhile and would-be First Daughter Chelsea Clinton was campaigning in Philadelphia for her maternal incubator. Philadelphia, birthplace of the nation, home of Rocky Balboa, the Italian Stallion, is now run by faggots. Remember that Philadelphia faggots attacked some Christian evangelists at a demonstration a while back; the Christians were arrested and threatened with life in prison.
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05:23 AM
What the Iraq War Is About
Paul Craig Roberts / LewRockwell.com:
The Bush Regime has quagmired America into a sixth year of war in Afghanistan and Iraq with no end in sight. The cost of these wars of aggression is horrendous. Official US combat casualties stand at 4,538 dead. Officially, 29,780 US troops have been wounded in Iraq. Experts have argued that these numbers are understatements. Regardless, these numbers are only the tip of the iceberg. On April 17, 2008, AP News reported that a new study released by the RAND Corporation concludes that "some 300,000 U.S. troops are suffering from major depression or post traumatic stress from serving in the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and 320,000 received brain injuries."
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05:02 AM
Desperate Americans Vote For America's Destruction
Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
With the exception of approximately 128,188 Americans who voted for Congressman Ron Paul in the PA primary, the other 2.7 million voters cast their endorsement for liars, crooks and more big government. Two things that were not mentioned by any of the cable news networks who blatantly censor the truth, is the alleged 91,211 votes cast for Pastor Huckabee who dropped out of the race, March 4, 2008 - a full seven WEEKS before this primary. Pennsylvania is not California in population and it seems to me the State of Pennsylvania had plenty of time to get accurate ballots to the voters - meaning ballots with only legitimate candidates on it. Oh, that's right. We're supposed to believe almost 92,000 people wasted their vote on a non candidate as some sort of protest or support vote. What nonsense. Oh, wait a minute! The numbers used Tuesday night as winners on all the cable networks has now changed several times then. Ron Paul is now at 128, 431. Who knows what it will be when the "final" results are certified. What a hoax.
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04:41 AM
Lincoln and His Legacy
Joseph Sobran / Sobran.com:
At this point it is probably futile to try to reverse the deification of Abraham Lincoln. Next year, if I know my countrymen, the bicentennial of his birth will be marked by stupendously cloying anniversary observances, all of them affirming, if not his literal divinity, at least something mighty close to it. No doubt we will hear from the high priests and priestesses of the Lincoln cult: Doris Kearns Goodwin, Garry Wills, Harry V. Jaffa, and all the rest of the tireless hagiographers of academia, who regularly rate Honest Abe one of our two greatest presidents, right up there with Stalin’s buddy Franklin D. Roosevelt, father of the nuclear age and defiler of the U.S. Constitution. Such, we are told, is the Verdict of History. But if Lincoln was so great, we must ask why nobody seems to have realized it while he was still alive. The abolitionists considered him unprincipled, Southerners hated him, and most Northerners opposed his war on the South. Only when the war ended and he was shot did people begin to transform him into a hero and martyr of the Union cause. But that cause was badly flawed.
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04:09 AM
ISP Subscriber Info Is Private, Court Rules
Richard Adhikari / E-Commerce Times:
The New Jersey Supreme Court has ruled that people have an expectation to privacy online and that the authorities can't just demand citizens' Internet protocol (IP) addresses from their Internet service providers without a grand jury warrant. . . . The New Jersey court's ruling runs counter to that handed down by the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco in July 2007 in the case of the U.S. v. Forrester, in which two California men were charged with trying to set up a massive ecstasy lab in an insulated shipping container near Escondido. The New Jersey court's ruling will open the door for a flood of legal actions over the right to sue in a bid to get a final ruling on the issue of online privacy . "That's a tried and true methodology," Owen Seitel, founding partner of San Francisco legal firm Idell & Seitel, which has an Internet law practice, told the E-Commerce Times.
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03:25 AM
Toyota Takes World Sales Lead from GM
The Associated Press:
Toyota Motor Corp. has taken the first-quarter global automotive sales lead from General Motors Corp., selling 2.41 million vehicles to GM's 2.25 million over the first three months of the year. GM said Wednesday its first-quarter sales dropped across the globe by less than 1 percent, but Toyota said its sales were up 2.7 percent during the January-through-March period. GM barely won the global sales race with Japan-based Toyota last year.
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01:08 AM
April 23, 2008
John Lofton kicked off Neocon Website
John Lofton / The American View:
I've been kicked off the "Free Republic" web site. No more posting allowed. The problem? The results of my brain scan. It revealed I had one - a definite no-no if you're posting among the "FReepers." . . . But, seriously...Have any of you spent any time looking at the "Free Republic" web site? Yikes! If most of the folks posting on this site are what a "Free Republic" produces, then give me Communist Slavery every time. Just kidding— about the "Communist Slavery" crack. But, I'm not kidding about the "Free Republic" site. So, why, seriously, was I dumped? Well, I posted this comment...
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07:12 AM
Never Say Retire!
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
Recently, I saw a network news segment on retirees who have been forced to go back to work. One woman had planned to travel in her golden years. She had invested in the stock market instead of gold, 2000–2008. She failed to notice that the S&P 500 is lower today than it was eight years ago. To this loss add 20% price inflation. She said that she finally sat down to see what income she would have in retirement. She said she cried when she got the figures in front of her.
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06:19 AM
WARNING: Globalist Power Grab Underway
Phil Brennan / Ether Zone:
King Canute demonstrated the futility of defying nature when he ordered the tides to cease crashing upon the shoreline. Nature ignored him. There was a Biblical precedent to this demonstration of man's inability to command nature when the descendants of Noah tried to avert the danger of another flood by building a tower so tall no floodwaters could inundate it. God responded to puny mankind's attempt to overrule nature by establishing the foundation for future Berlitz-style schools of languages, sowing lingual confusion. The Bible doesn't identify the would-be contractors but you can be certain the architect was a man who had a name something like Algore.
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06:12 AM
The Greenhouse Effect
Patrick J. Buchanan / Chronicles Magazine:
Last week, the Supreme Court held, 7 to 2, that Kentucky's method of lethal injection remains a constitutional way of executing the rapist of a child. Justice John Paul Stevens concurred. In his opinion, however, Stevens exhilarated liberals by coming out of the closet as a born-again abolitionist of capital punishment. . . . What we see here is a textbook example of what U.S. Judge Laurence Silberman calls "The Greenhouse Effect." This is the effect on aging and weak-minded Republican justices, like Harry Blackmun, David Souter, Anthony Kennedy, Sandra Day O'Connor and John Paul Stevens, of the lure of fawning publicity, if they will but recant their convictions and embrace the agenda of the left.
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05:35 AM
Evolutionists should be Supporting Polygamy Cult
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
In Late Corporation of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints v. United States (1890), the Supreme Court declared: "It is contrary to the spirit of Christianity and the civilization which Christianity has produced in the Western world." In an earlier decision that year, the court declared in Davis v. Beason that "Bigamy and polygamy are crimes by the laws of all civilized and Christian countries. . . . To call their advocacy a tenet of religion is to offend the common sense of mankind." Once the Bible is rejected as a standard for moral values, then everything is up for grabs. It's getting more difficult to argue against polygamy after the way consensual homosexuality is being legalized. In fact, what we're hearing about the Texas polygamy cult is about the forced sex that's going on with underage girls. If the state is against polygamy, then why haven't "wives" been arrested for violating the law?
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05:30 AM
Government War on Women and Children
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
In the Texas government's war against the women and children of the FLDS Church, Colorado Springs resident Rozita Swinton, a 33-year-old woman (a precinct delegate for the El Paso County Democratic Party who intends to vote for Barack Obama at the state convention in May), is "Curveball." That was the code-name of a veteran con artist whose patently false intelligence provided the pretext for a the Iraq invasion. In this case, "Curveball" was "Sarah," the purported 16-year-old FLDS polygamist wife who called a domestic abuse hotline and set in motion the invasion of the sect's YFZ Ranch commune in El Dorado.
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05:20 AM
Feds Trash 4th Amendment at Airports
Laptops Fair Game for Airport Customs Searches.
San Francisco Chronicle:
Customs agents at U.S. airports don't need any evidence of wrongdoing to search the contents of passengers' laptop computers, a federal appeals court ruled Monday. Reinstating child pornography evidence against a passenger at Los Angeles International Airport, the Ninth U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco said a computer is no different from a suitcase, a car or any other piece of property subject to search at an international border. Although police need probable cause - specific evidence of criminal activity - to search someone on the street, the U.S. Supreme Court has ruled that no such evidence is necessary for a border search. Courts have also ruled that an international airport is the equivalent of a border.
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04:39 AM
Food Industry Seeks New Rules
Patrice Hill / The Washington Times:
Farmers and food executives appealed fruitlessly to federal officials yesterday for regulatory steps to limit speculative buying that is helping to drive food prices higher. Their pleas did not find a sympathetic audience at the Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), where regulators said high prices are mostly the result of soaring world demand for grains combined with high fuel prices and drought-induced shortages in many countries. The regulatory clash came amid evidence that a rash of headlines in recent weeks about food riots around the world has prompted some Americans to stock up on staples such as rice, flour and oil in anticipation of high prices and shortages spreading from overseas.
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03:05 AM
April 22, 2008
Why They're Not Emergent
Eric Rauch / American Vision:
We live in an interesting era of church history. The once dominant voice of American Christianity is beginning to weaken, being replaced by the strengthening choruses of places like Africa and China. The mega-church mentality and method has been tried and found shallow. Bill Hybels has admitted that his Willow Creek approach over the last ten years was "a mistake." Even as the American church seems to be witnessing a resurgence of interest in the historic and orthodox theology of the Protestant Reformation, several undercurrents are calling into question these very same orthodox interpretations of Scripture. Probably the most vocal (or at least the most prolific) contemporary antagonist of traditional Christianity is a movement known as the "emerging church." The emergents are looking for a new way to "do church."
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05:54 AM
The State, FLDS, and The Benefit of the Doubt
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
I was a foster child. I spent a year in the foster system in the State of Michigan and while the family that took me in was outstanding even a 17 year old could recognize that the system itself was corrupt from top to bottom. I could tell you horror stories about the social workers and judges I was forced to endure during my time in the system. These people were certifiably nuts, and yet they sincerely believed that they were knights of compassion helping Michigan families. Many years later as a pastor I dealt with State agencies in two states related to child care issues and in the years that passed between my own time being caught in the web of the state and my time trying to help people caught in the web of the state I concluded that these people — state social workers, contracted psychologists, state apparatchiks, and judges, are, with some exceptions, deluded and dangerous.
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05:45 AM
No Country for Free Men
Rick Fisk / LewRockwell.com:
I picked up my local paper this Sunday only to find a half-dozen "background" articles on the polygamists who have recently been shown what Texas-style hospitality looks like. I was treated to various articles on the history of the group's leaders and their persecution by state officials in Arizona, Colorado and now finally, Texas. Of course, it wasn't called persecution. The raid was said to be an act of kindness for young women who are forced to marry against their will. These evil, evil, men, women and children are refusing to bow down to the state and conform to societal norms so they must be punished, apparently.
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05:44 AM
The End of Freedom in America
John W. Whitehead / Borderfire Report:
According to the New Jersey ACLU legal director, Marcus Borden has fostered a 'destructive environment' for students. What did Borden, a high school football coach in East Brunswick, N.J., and a recipient of the national Caring Coach of the Year award, do to create such a 'destructive' environment? He bowed his head silently. Sometimes he knelt down on one knee silently. Coach Borden wasn't attempting to pray with his football players, nor was he leading them in prayer. He was showing silent respect for their longstanding pre-game tradition by bowing his head. But the forces of political correctness have gotten so absurd that even the most obscure, non-verbal expressions are targeted for censorship if religion is even remotely involved.
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05:43 AM
54 Unique Benefits of Homeschooling
Joel Turtel / NewsWithViews.com:
Parents, is homeschooling the right choice for you and your children? Maybe you think you don't have the time to homeschool because you work. Perhaps you don't have confidence in your ability to teach your kids because you never took "teaching" courses. But consider the alternative. Public schools can destroy your children's self-esteem, destroy their ability to read, strangle their love of learning, put them in physical and moral danger, and wreck their future. In contrast, here’s 54 unique benefits homeschooling can give you and your kids, as written and explained by Laura B., a smart, wonderful wife, mother of three, homeschooler, and business owner who works from home and still focuses on her family!
Resources: Homeschool Links
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05:42 AM
Tearing Down the Wall
Andrea Schwartz / The Chalcedon Foundation:
In a previous blog I included the trailer of an upcoming documentary release entitled Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed. Well, today I saw the movie with my daughter (as part of our homeschool science class), and I strongly urge you to take your families and watch this film together. In fact, churches would do well to call this movie to the attention of members who have their children enrolled in public school. This will be an eye-opener for parents and students alike as to what philosophy lurks behind our national science standards and the ideology behind the "high priests" of evolutionary thought and what they hope to accomplish.
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05:41 AM
Americans Face Food Rationing?
Josh Gerstein / The New York Sun:
Many parts of America, long considered the breadbasket of the world, are now confronting a once unthinkable phenomenon: food rationing. Major retailers in New York, in areas of New England, and on the West Coast are limiting purchases of flour, rice, and cooking oil as demand outstrips supply. There are also anecdotal reports that some consumers are hoarding grain stocks.
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04:24 AM
Chelsea Clinton Wallows In The Gutter
MSNBC.com:
Chelsea Clinton stopped traffic Friday night as she wandered the streets of Philadelphia on a gay bar crawl, winning rave reviews for both her politics and her appearance. Led around the neighborhood by Gov. Ed Rendell, Chelsea was mobbed by local gays and lesbians, as she walked from one club to the next. They ran up to hug her, posed for pictures and certainly invaded her personal space. "I grabbed her ass," one young woman exclaimed to her friends after snapping a picture with her arm around the former first daughter.
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02:15 AM
April 21, 2008
Two-Party System Is An Abomination
Al Cronkrite / The Covenant News:
The Fourth Year Itch:
Loyalty to party rather than principle distorts righteousness, brings a degrading pragmatism into play, and creates an alien competition that vies with sound judgment. It was flawed from the beginning. Though most of the men who set the stage for the government of the United States mouthed Christianity their failure to understand God’s governmental structure provided a clue to the nature of their Christian education. John Adams and his wife Abigail were Unitarian, non-Trinitarian Deists while Thomas Jefferson, whom they attacked as being a Deist, wrote his own bible scorning the Old Testament in favor of the New. Both of these men were antinomian heretics who used Christianity as an instrument of political manipulation.
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01:28 PM
Constitutionally Contentious
W. James Antle III / The American Spectator:
This week Alan Keyes is expected to make a bid for the Constitution Party's presidential nomination, which will be determined at the party's national convention in Kansas City, Missouri, on Friday and Saturday. THE BIGGEST issue separating Keyes from the Constitution Party is the Iraq war. Keyes has said that he would not have picked Iraq as the next target in the war on terror, but supported the president's policy in debates with Obama four years ago and would not withdraw U.S. troops today. His new party, however favors a noninterventionist foreign policy and opposes the war. This is not an insignificant difference of opinion.
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12:01 PM
Melting Pot or Going to Pot?
Dr. Richard A. Jones / American Vision:
The embarrassing farce that is the U.S. Presidential campaign continues to stagger towards "S-Day" next November. That's when one of the three big-government-loving socialist candidates will emerge on top. The winner will have won the right to try and addict several million more dumbed-down voters with new doses of "free" government stuff on which vote-buying socialist politicians thrive. The dumbing-down comes courtesy of the leftist media and humanistic public schools; a wicked combination.
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11:18 AM
The Double Trouble of Taxation
Rep. Ron Paul, MD. / Texas Straight Talk:
Taxes were on the forefront of many Americans' minds this week as they scrambled to meet the April 15th deadline to file their returns. Tax policy in this country hurts taxpayers twice - once when they pay taxes, and then when the government spends the money. Americans are sick and tired of the financial burden and the endless forms to fill out. To add insult to injury, after collecting this money the government does some very detrimental things to the economy.
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10:43 AM
War Consumers' Alert
Bill Huff / LewRockwell.com:
Before you send Johnnie off to earn his college tuition the hard way - make sure he can read all the "Warning Labels" that pertain to military service. He won't find these as easily as the Surgeon General’s Warning on his cigarettes even though cigarettes are slower killers. There are classes in schools that warn about "casual unprotected sex," but not many about casual unprotected war. The government schools, being infested by sycophants beholden to the State, will have coffee and doughnuts ready when the recruiters arrive to make sure Johnny gets a crack at trading an eye or a leg or a mind or a life for some college tuition and some shiny medals - maybe even a Gold Star.
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06:25 AM
FBI ID's Domestic & Islamic Terrorists In OKC Bombing
Patrick Briley / NewsWithViews.com:
The FBI has stated in court and to the public that no other persons helped McVeigh and Nichols bomb the Murrah Federal building. Yet FBI documents recently released in early 2008 support eyewitness accounts and the findings of investigators that domestic terrorists and Islamic terrorists participated in the OKC bombing. Many of these FBI teletypes about these terrorists have been finally released to Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue under FOIA requests and a court order made by federal judge Dale Kimbal over two years ago.
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06:20 AM
Focus on Financial Picture, Not Televangelists
David Boaz / The Dallas Morning News:
Sen. Charles Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, is a busy man. The Iowan spends his time supervising private colleges, private charities, churches and now ministries. Oh, and when he has time, he's supposed to be supervising the federal budget. Mr. Grassley is threatening to subpoena ministries run by Kenneth Copeland, Paula White, Creflo Dollar and Eddie Long – four of six televangelists under investigation for using their tax-exempt status to support avaricious lifestyles. Lawyers for the Copeland and Dollar organizations have told the Senate that they do not plan to comply with a probe on grounds that it threatens religious rights.
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06:03 AM
White House Challenges Release of Visitor Logs
The Associated Press:
A federal judge ruled in December that Secret Service visitor logs must be released. The court sided with a watchdog group that sought records showing visits by prominent "religious conservatives" to the White House and Vice President Dick Cheney's residence. The Bush administration appealed and lawyers were scheduled to argue the case Monday before the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit.
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04:31 AM
Bush Seeks to Expand NAFTA
The Associated Press:
President Bush, joining the leaders of Canada and Mexico for one final time, is eager to expand a trading relationship that has been lucrative for the United States and both of its neighbors. But he is up against rising anti-trade sentiment. Bush joins Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper and Mexican President Felipe Calderon on Monday in New Orleans for his fourth and final North American Leaders' Summit. Despite its lofty name, the two-day meeting is more about technical cooperation than dramatic dealmaking.
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03:13 AM
White House defends NAFTA
The Associated Press:
The White House on Friday vigorously defended the 14-year-old free-trade agreement among the United States, Mexico and Canada against sharp criticism. "There's nothing broken. Why fix it?" said Dan Fisk, senior director of Western hemisphere affairs for National Security Council. On NAFTA, the White House contends the agreement has been a boon for the economies of all three countries. Three-way trade has swelled from roughly $290 billion in 1994 to about $1 trillion by the end of this year, Fisk said at a briefing on next week's summit.
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03:09 AM
April 20, 2008
I Have to Walk
David Alan Black / Dave Black Online:
I have been reading the amazing story of Philippe Petit. I still can't believe it. Petit walked on a rope shot with a crossbow between the twin towers of the World Trade Center. Previously he had done the same thing between the twin spires of Notre Dame in Paris. But here's the remarkable thing about the story. When asked why he risked his life to walk on a slender wire between the two tallest towers in New York City, everyone thought he did it for the fame, for the publicity, for the money. But he said, "If I see three oranges, I have to juggle. And if I see two towers, I have to walk." New Yorkers thought he was crazy, and in fact the police took Petit to a city hospital for a psychiatric examination. But he turned out to be as sane as you or me.
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06:32 PM
Cultural Ecosystems
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
"Our anti-philosophers are especially vulnerable in this age, because the media fill our environment with popularized philosophies. Marshall McLuhan was right in saying that environments tend not to be noticed...We see many of their explicit contents, but the environments themselves are imperceptible. We do not see the environment, as Os Guinness says, because we see with it. That means we are influenced by ideas we do not notice and therefore are not aware of their effect on us. Or, if we see the effect, we find it difficult to discover the cause." --Herbert Schlossberg, Idols For Destruction
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06:01 PM
April 19, 2008
Clinton/Obama: UnConstitutional Proposals
John Lofton / The American View Radio:
A wise man once said -- I think it was me, about a half-hour ago -- that if God wanted Christians to vote he would have given us Godly men as candidates - which He has not. I thought about how wise this saying is when I watched Clinton and Obama recently talking at Messiah College about their "religion" -- a discussion where the Messiah was not mentioned, incidentally. And I thought again about the wisdom of my saying when I saw Clinton and Obama supposedly "debating" at the National Constitution Center -- a debate in which everything proposed by both candidates was blatantly UNCONSTITUTIONAL! -- something not noticed by the brain-dead men questioning C/O -- Charlie Gibson and George Stephanopolous. A warning: Listening to the "answers" from these two candidates may be hazardous to your mental health.
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05:05 PM
B. Hussein Obama and his Hamas Homies
The Washington Times:
Sen. Barack Obama's campaign was forced to reject an unsolicited endorsement by the Islamist terror group Hamas as the candidate worked to reassure leery Jewish voters, and his supporters derided Wednesday's debate as unfair. In Pennsylvania, Mr. Obama's prodigious fundraising is allowing him to flood the airwaves with ads to cut away rival Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton's lead here, but voters say they can't click the remote control without seeing the Democrat aspirant's face -- and even supporters think it's too much.
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04:54 PM
Betraying Jesus: Judas Did It With A Kiss
Roderick T. Beaman / Ether Zone:
One of the most memorable moments of the 2000 presidential campaign was when the candidates were asked who their favorite philosophers were. George Bush answered, "Jesus Christ." I shuddered slightly, thinking it was a combination of disingenuousness and playing to the crowd. I had never thought of Jesus as a philosopher, in the sense of Aristotle, Montaigne, etc.and I don't think most people do. Philosophy is more concerned with the nature of experience and reality. It has elements of a moral code but I think Jesus' teachings are more to do with only a just moral code of how to behave and treat others. Nothing fancy with contorted locutions, just a straightforward message of peace, brotherhood and love for one another.
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04:45 PM
Abusive Texas CPS and Foster Care Systems
William N. Grigg / Pro Libertate:
Collectivist Child Abuse -- Combat-ready paramilitaries from the Midland County Sheriff's Department chill next to their LESO-provided APC during the raid on the YFZ Ranch. ... The children suffer behind an iron curtain of corrupt secrecy. That curtain was lifted a few years ago, long enough to get a brief but terrifying glimpse of what was being done by people who had placed themselves beyond accountability. Scores of children were killed, poisoned, beaten, and otherwise abused each year. Child rape was terrifyingly common: The largest group of victims were between 12 and 15 years of age, but thirteen percent of the victims were three years old or younger.
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04:42 PM
Judge Rules Children Will Stay in State Custody
Amy Joi O'Donoghue / Deseret News:
A Texas judge ruled Friday evening that all of the 416 children taken from the YFZ Ranch will remain in temporary state custody. The ruling followed a marathon two-day hearing that included hundreds of lawyers. Following the ruling, the sadness in the eyes of the children's mothers spoke volumes about their disappointment. "It's awful," said one mother leaving the courtroom. "Why don't people stand up and say something about this?"
Related:
Judge Orders Genetic Tests in Polygamy Case
Valerie Richardson / The Washington Times
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- More than 400 children taken from a ranch run by a polygamous sect will stay in state custody and be subject to genetic testing, a judge ruled yesterday. State District Judge Barbara Walther heard 21 hours of testimony over two days before ruling that the children be kept by the state. Individual hearings will be set for the children over the next several weeks. Judge Walther ordered that all children and parents, members of the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, be given genetic testing. Child welfare officials have said they've had difficulty determining how the children and parents are related because of evasive or changing answers.
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04:41 PM
From Local Police to Occupying Army
William Norman Grigg / LewRockwell.com:
There are Peacekeepers deployed in US cities, but they're not under UN command. They're armored personnel carriers supplied to "local" police agencies for little or no cost through the Pentagon's Law Enforcement Support Office (LESO), established in 1995 as part of the Defense Logistics Agency. Since that time, the LESO has made huge amounts of military hardware - from boots to helmets to ammo to helicopters and the "Peacekeeper" APCs ' available to local and state police agencies, often at little or no cost.
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04:34 PM
April 18, 2008
There Must Never Be Another Waco!
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
On February 28, 1993, agents of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms (BATF, now known as the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives or BATFE) began their assault on the home of the Branch Davidians outside Waco, Texas. An unarmed David Koresh was shot by the agents as he stepped onto his front porch. A shootout resulted with several deaths on both sides. Shortly afterward, the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) took charge of the situation, and on April 19, 1993 agents from both departments (utilizing military hardware and both U.S. and foreign military advisers) assaulted the dwellings, which resulted in the deaths of 80 American citizens. Most of the victims were old men, women, and small children.
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06:41 AM
Ohio Should Execute Child Rapists
Dr. Patrick Johnston / The Covenant News:
The U.S. Supreme Court will hear arguments this week in a case challenging Louisiana's law which allows the execution of those who rape children twelve years of age and younger. The popular legislation breezed through the Louisiana legislature in 1995, and was only held up by the debate on whether child rapists should be castrated. In addition to Louisiana, Georgia, Montana, Oklahoma, Texas, and South Carolina also have laws allowing convicted child rapists to be executed.
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06:40 AM
Defending Blue Collar From The Illinois Marxist
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
First, let us consider the bitterness. At least some blue collar middle class Americans are bitter because the Government is creating the conditions whereby their way of life is disappearing. It is the policies of Democrats and Republicans alike that are exporting our industrial base overseas. It is the policies of Democrats and Republicans that levy such onerous taxes on the small businesses in small town America that result in people not being able to keep their heads above water. If blue collar middle class America is bitter, it is bitter because the State is crushing the life out of them.
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06:39 AM
Has Capitalism Failed?
Ron Paul / LewRockwell.com:
It is now commonplace and politically correct to blame what is referred to as the excesses of capitalism for the economic problems we face, and especially for the Wall Street fraud that dominates the business news. Politicians are having a field day with demagoguing the issue while, of course, failing to address the fraud and deceit found in the budgetary shenanigans of the federal government – for which they are directly responsible. Instead, it gives the Keynesian crowd that run the show a chance to attack free markets and ignore the issue of sound money. So once again we hear the chant: "Capitalism has failed; we need more government controls over the entire financial market."
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06:35 AM
Ultimate Proof, Bush Is A Traitor
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
There are many proofs of the assertion that el presidente Jorge W. Boosh is not loyal to the United States, that he is in fact a traitor. One of those proofs is of course his refusal to stop the illegal alien invasion of our country, which he could stop in ten minutes by picking up the phone. The fact that he does not pick up the phone is proof that he wants the invasion, that he is leading it. Another proof is his sponsorship of the North American Union, which means that he is literally leading a campaign to abolish this country by submerging it in a regional government with Mexico and Canada.
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06:15 AM
Congress Quietly Repeals Martial Law Provision
James Bovard / Antiwar.com:
In late 2006, Congress revised the Posse Comitatus Act and the Insurrection Act to make it far easier for a president to declare martial law. Those changes were repealed at the end of this January as part of Public Law 110-181 (HR 4986), the National Defense Authorization Act for Fiscal Year 2008 (signed into law by President Bush on January 28, 2008). Senator Patrick Leahy (D-Vt), who championed the opposition to the original law, was also the hero of the repeal. It helped that all the nation’s governors opposed the 2006 law. Boise State Professor Charlotte Twight, the author of the excellent Dependent on DC, alerted me to the change last night. I checked on Nexis and the only news coverage I found regarding the repeal was a 322-word Gannett News wire story from February 1 that focused on how the repeal made governors happy.
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05:08 AM
Emergent Church Spreading Spiritual Cancer
Marsha West / NewsWithViews.com:
Some Christians believe a paradigm shift is taking place in the Church and as a consequence "everything must change." This is anything but good news for Christendom, my friends. In a radio interview with Worldview Network's Brannon Howse, Professor Peter Jones of Westminster Seminary warned listeners that the Christian theistic West has been turning back to pagan, pantheistic monism. Many in contemporary western culture now hold to a pantheistic belief in the unity of nature and God, of body and spirit -- all is One.
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04:57 AM
High Pump Prices Prompt Gas Thefts
Tamara Race / The Patriot Ledger:
Police say it's a 1970s crime wave all over again. Only this time, thieves drilled into gas tanks instead of siphoning to steal fuel. Someone cut through a fence at King Collision on Holman Road, drilled holes into gas tanks on a pickup truck and mini-van, and stole 30 to 40 gallons of gas, police said. The incident was discovered by company officials just before 9 a.m. Tuesday. About five hours later, an 80-year-old Duxbury woman discovered that someone had done the same thing to her car.
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02:14 AM
Japanese Buddhists Refuse Communist Torch
The Associated Press:
A major Japanese Buddhist temple withdrew Friday from a plan to host the Beijing Olympics torch relay, citing safety concerns and sympathy among its monks and worshippers for Tibetan protesters facing a Chinese crackdown. Zenkoji Temple has refused to serve as the starting point for the April 26 relay, said Kunihiko Shinohara, secretary-general of the Nagano city organizing committee for the event. The relay has drawn protests around the world against China's crackdown on Tibetan demonstrators.
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01:30 AM
April 17, 2008
'Your Children Are Ours'
William N. Grigg / Pro Libertate:
The Fundamentalist Latter-day Saints Church (FLDS) is, by any rational definition, a cult. Its adherents are the property of the church's ruling sacerdocracy, an all-powerful priestly caste headed -- until recently -- by Warren Jeffs, the hereditary "prophet" of the sect.
The government of the State of Texas presides over an administrative unit of a Regime that is, by any definition, tyrannical and corrupt. That Regime, and all of its subsidiaries, implicitly claims ownership (including the power of discretionary killing) over every human being residing within our national borders, and any human being anywhere the Regime can project its power.
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07:40 AM
Enemies Foreign, Enemies Domestic
Jeff Huber / Military.com:
In an April 10 speech at the White House, Mr. Bush stated that, "two of the greatest threats to America in this new century" are "al Qaeda and Iran." For once in his presidency, Mr. Bush is probably right. Al Qaeda and Iran, in fact, may be America's only two remaining foreign threats. Russia and China won’t try to beat us militarily; they’ll take us down economically.
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05:13 AM
It's an Occupation, Not a War
Charley Reese / LewRockwell.com:
The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan ended some years ago. In Iraq, the war ended with the fall of Saddam Hussein's government; in Afghanistan, with the fall of the Taliban government. What's been happening since is occupation and resistance to occupation. It's always helpful to call things by the right name. One of the ways using the wrong word can trip us is illustrated by John McCain's campaign theme. We have to win the war in Iraq, he keeps saying. Ending a war implies either winning or losing. No such baggage is attached to an occupation. You can end an occupation without either winning or losing. You just withdraw your troops.
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05:01 AM
McCain's Support for the 'New World Order'
Daniel Taylor / Old Thinker News:
Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has openly declared his supportive stance on the Security and Prosperity Partnership in a March 2008 speech to the Los Angeles World Affairs Council. An article by Kat McConnell on The Conservative Voice website comments on McCain's statements, "McCain's World Affairs speech must rightfully be considered his "coming out" speech in which he unflinchingly revealed his true globalist nature and his mission as a foot soldier in the New World Order."
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04:02 AM
Neocon: Shred the Constitution for World Government
Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet:
A recent Austin-American Statesman review of Neo-Con Philip Bobbitt's new book Terror and Consent features an image of a shredded Constitution under the words "Everything must go," which acts as a suitable entree to a disgusting diatribe which praises Bobbitt's call for the end of America and its replacement with a de facto world government in the name of fighting terror. The words, "How to Fight Terrorism" are in place of a torn piece of the Bill of Rights.
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03:58 AM
Here Comes the Next Mortgage Crisis
Mark Gimein / Slat.com:
Subprime was just the beginning. Wait until California's prime borrowers start handing their keys to the bank. California is to mortgage lending what Chicago is to pork bellies. For years, that meant it was a place with soaring house values; today, the foreclosure rate across the state is twice the national average and going up fast. Riverside County, outside Los Angeles, may be the foreclosure capital of the country, with a rate close to six times the national average. And housing prices are in freefall.
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02:38 AM
Drinking Water Contamination
Jim Kouri / NewsWithViews.com:
The discovery in 2004 of lead contamination in the District of Columbia's drinking water resulted in an administrative order between the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) and the District's Water and Sewer Authority (WASA), requiring WASA to take a number of corrective actions. WASA also took additional, longer-term measures, most notably a roughly $400 million program to replace what may be 35,000 lead service lines in public space within its service area.
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01:54 AM
April 16, 2008
'All the News We Say Is Fit To Print'
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
The New York Times is known by the slogan and masthead logo as "All The News That's Fit To print." A more accurate slogan would be, "all the news we say is fit to print." Vincent Fox sent this one: "All the news that fits, we print." But even these don’t tell the whole story. For the Times and every other newspaper and magazine, it's all the news and our opinion about that news that's fit to print. Christians have fallen into the trap set by secularists that facts and evidences speak for themselves.
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06:25 AM
Keyes Leaves GOP, Considers 3rd-Party Run
Wilkes Barre Times-Leader:
Alan Keyes, who worked in the administration of Ronald Reagan and unsuccessfully sought the Republican nomination for president three times, announced Tuesday night that he has left the party. Speaking to a group of about 60 people in the Lincoln Ballroom at Genetti’s Best Western Inn in Hazleton, Keyes, 57, said he could no longer stay in a party that has lost its way. He said the "Republican Party has come to a dark and confused place."
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06:24 AM
Hucksterbee to raise money for McCain
Arkansas News Bureau:
SOMETHING WICKED THIS WAY COMES: Mike Huckabee on Tuesday announced he is establishing a political action committee to back Republicans who share his ideology. The former GOP presidential candidate launched a fundraising organization called "Huck PAC." The first beneficiaries will be three key supporters of Huckabee's White House bid. Presumptive GOP presidential nominee John McCain will also benefit from Huck PAC, the former Arkansas governor said.
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06:22 AM
The Myth That Equality Brings Utopia
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
"Fairness for all citizens is not the same as equality of all citizens. To level all individual citizens without regard for their abilities, achievements, offices, or obligations is not only unfair and unjust it will only bring manifest disorder." Johannes Althusius – 157-1638, Calvinist Political Theorist
The Christian believes in equality of all men before God's law, which is to say that it is the Christian teaching that there is one law, by which all men are measured and held accountable to, regardless of their station, rank or place. This is the Christian idea of equality. This Christian idea of equality does not, as Althusius understood, serve as a means by which superior men are leveled, nor does it eliminate the idea of social hierarchy intent on flattening out the kind of distinctions among men that Althusius mentions (distinctions of abilities, achievements, offices and obligations).
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06:21 AM
Banksters and Bailouts
Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com:
No doubt nearly all bankers want the broad foundations of the existing banking system to be maintained. That system is their bread and butter and it has served them well. All resources that are no longer unappropriated are owned by some person or persons, where ownership means having exclusive control. Who owns the central bank of the United States, which is the Federal Reserve or the Fed? Its stockholders are member banks. The most powerful of the 12 Federal Reserve banks is the New York Fed. Its ownership is concentrated among a few large banks such as Citibank and JP Morgan Chase.
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06:20 AM
The Intolerance of the Homosexual Agenda
Judge Roy Moore / WorldNetDaily.com:
In the past, homosexuals have always called for "tolerance" and "privacy," but today they flaunt their perversion in public parades, "gay" television shows and Hollywood movies. Demanding laws for same-sex "marriages" and "hate crimes" legislation, they would require Christians and everyone else to recognize and never question their immoral lifestyle. Now homosexual advocates are moving to mandate their agenda of calling evil good by court orders and government regulation. Two recent examples bear witness.
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06:20 AM
State Now a Danger to Children
Eldorado, Texas / CNN.com:
The mothers of some of the 416 children taken from a polygamous sect's ranch say authorities have denied them their constitutional rights and they want their children back. "The state of Texas has confiscated our children on an alleged allegation that has no facts. And now they're holding our children. And we want the children back," a woman who identified herself as Kathleen told CNN. "The state of Texas has taken away a whole community of children and withheld their parents from them on an allegation from outside," said Kathleen, 42, who said she was separated from her five children, ages "18-plus," 16, 15, 11 and 9 and a 10-month-old grandchild. Another woman interviewed at the ranch Monday said the children suffered no abuse there. "Our children have good mothers. We take very good care of them. We are not child abusers. The only abuse they've ever had is since the CPS has taken them. They are innocent and sweet children," she told CNN.
Related:
'Billable hours for the soul' drive lawyers to West Texas
The Associated Press
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- They don't know where they're staying. They don't know if there's a courtroom large enough to hold them all. And they don't know who their clients are. But some 350 lawyers from all over the Lone Star State are converging on this West Texas city to represent free of charge the 416 children and scores of parents caught up nearly two weeks ago in a raid on a polygamist sect's compound. "We've got a saying in this pro bono business here that it's 'billable hours for your soul,'" said Dallas attorney Ken Fuller, as he geared up to head to San Angelo, about 275 miles away. He jokingly added: "We're just redneck lawyers. We're just going down there to make sure due process is followed."
FDLS members responded to raid with song, prayer
The Associated Press
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- When police officers armed with weapons and protective gear descended on a West Texas ranch owned by a polygamist church, its members responded by going to their knees in prayer. Images released Tuesday show police entering the Yearning for Zion ranch on April 3 wearing body armor and carrying automatic weapons, backed by an armored personnel carrier. "They responded by singing and praying," said Rod Parker, a Salt Lake City attorney who serves as a spokesman for the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints. He released four still photos and a slice of video to The Associated Press.
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04:54 AM
19 April 1775 vs. The D.C. Gun Case
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. / NewsWithViews.com:
From what I have heard, the oral argument in the Supreme Court on the District of Columbia gun case suggested that a majority of the Justices just might discover an "individual right" "to keep and bear Arms" in the Second Amendment, and on that basis might declare the District's draconian "gun-control" laws to some degree unconstitutional. Such a decision might lead to further victories against "gun-control" statutes and ordinances in other jurisdictions. Yet it might prove instead to be a Trojan Horse, because it could come down larded with so much judicial mumbo jumbo about "reasonable regulation" and "compelling governmental interests" as grounds for "gun control" that the Second Amendment would be left guaranteeing less of a "right" than of an occasion for endless legislation and litigation.
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04:30 AM
Weapons of Mass Production
John Hockenberry / Portfolio.com:
In early 2003, when "shock and awe," not "fiasco," was the brand, war enthusiasts like Paul Wolfowitz and others in the U.S. government claimed the treasury was good for a few billion in the mission to defeat terrorists, topple Saddam Hussein, and set up a democracy in Iraq. Some $500 billion later, the only shock and awe left in the conflict is its cost. According to the Congressional Research Service, the combined cost of the Iraq war (Operation Iraqi Freedom, in Pentagon jargon) and its companions, Operation Enduring Freedom in Afghanistan and the global war on terror, will easily top $600 billion this year.
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04:28 AM
US military deaths in Iraq at 4,034
The Associated Press:
As of Tuesday, April 15, 2008, at least 4,034 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,291 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The AP count is one less than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Tuesday at 10 a.m. EDT.
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04:24 AM
Coalition To Block The North American Union
The Conservative Caucus / Wire Service:
Prominent public policy activists opposing a North American Union (NAU) among the United States, Canada, and Mexico will challenge President Bush's avowed intention to economically integrate the three countries when Mr. Bush meets in New Orleans on April 21 and 22 with the heads of Mexico and Canada. Event: News Conference to challenge the closed door summit of the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America, being conducted by President George Bush of the United States with Prime Minister Stephen Harper of Canada and President Felipe Calderon of Mexico.
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03:32 AM
April 15, 2008
Only A Miracle Can Save America Now
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
Every four years, conservative "pragmatists" trot out the "We Can't Let So-And-So Win" mantra. Of course, the so-and-so in question is always the Democratic Presidential candidate. For all of my adult life, I have been listening to so-called "conservative" Republicans warn us of the impending doom that would befall our country if the Democratic candidate were elected. And this year is no different. This year's Republican primary did provide a wonderful aberration, however, to the usual choices between Tweedledee and Tweedledum. Republicans had an opportunity to nominate a real American constitutionalist, a statesman in the similitude of Thomas Jefferson or James Madison. That man was Texas Congressman, Ron Paul.
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05:33 AM
Taxation Under the Pharaohs and Today
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
On this, the 15th day of April, 2008, it does not hurt to do a brief comparison between the Bible's account of the tyranny of Egypt and our own democratically elected taskmasters. The story of Joseph in Egypt is the story of how the people of Egypt came under the tyranny of a king who claimed divinity for himself. The biblical text does not say that this Pharaoh made such a claim, but we know from historical texts that the pharaoh was regarded as a divine-human link. When he died, he was believed to journey to the realm of the gods. He was the official source of meaning in the cosmos.
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05:10 AM
First Step - Fire the Fed
Fred Sheehan / LewRockwell.com:
Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson has proposed the Federal Reserve be given broad powers to regulate the financial industry. He could not have nominated a more incompetent body. The Coast Guard would do a better job. Financial upheaval owes homage to derivatives that shrouded the massive growth in debt and leverage. This murky world inflated the incentives of those who ran the machinery over the cliff -- bankers, mortgage brokers, law firms, appraisers, rating agencies, politicians, and on it goes. This is well known. Despite protestations, the parties knew they were behaving either recklessly or criminally at the time. The Federal Reserve encouraged them.
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05:01 AM
Americans Easily Duped and Deceived
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
Propaganda has a stranglehold on the American citizenry both saved and unsaved unlike. In fact, conservative Christianity retains record numbers of deluded hordes within their ranks prepared to send America's best to die for the likes of Halliburton, Wall Street, the City of London, and Israel. Listen to Charles Lindbergh, Sr. make a case against war in a speech that could easily be given today.
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04:45 AM
On Generals Testifying Before Congress
Fred Reed / Fred On Everything:
Whenever I see that some dismal general will testify to Congress regarding the war against Iraq, I imagine the first paragraph of his Power Point presentation: "All metrics show a downsurge in the violence in Iraq, and a continuing improvement in indicators of the production of a better life. Next slide. The Iranians are aiding the enemies of America, and must be bombed. This is a recording." What solemn, fraudulent, emetic mummery. Congressmen will—do—ask the General puffball questions, after which they will do whatever the President tells them to do. I can make no criticism of this. It is the American way. Still, may I suggest a few questions I would like to see the General, any general, asked?
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04:18 AM
The Pentagon's $1 Trillion Problem
Scot Paltrow / Portfolio.com:
On a winter afternoon in Indianapolis, Jessica Hilligoss, a young Defense Department worker, types long strings of numbers and letters into a computer, helping the United States armed forces transfer the billions of dollars it draws each week from the Federal Reserve to contractors, vendors, and military and civilian personnel. Her job is to review invoices for everything from construction projects to lawnmowing, and to approve payment. Within a few days, another computer system—behind locked doors in the building's basement—deposits the money in the recipients' bank accounts.
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04:17 AM
REAL ID Side Effects
Mark Sanford / The Washington times:
If I were a betting man, I would wager most people haven't followed the debate on REAL ID. If you indeed missed it, I would ask you take the time to learn about what I consider the most troubling piece of legislation I've seen come from Washington since I have been governor. REAL ID would surreptitiously require all 50 states to change their driver's licenses to act as de-facto national ID cards. It's outrageous, and not just because it was a backdoor way of doing something proponents in Washington have never been able to pull off in the past. I say "outrageous" because REAL ID was never really debated in Congress; because the cost of its implementation is handed down to states and individuals; and because it is an affront to Americans' privacy concerns.
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04:01 AM
Food Costs Rising Fastest in 17 Years
The Associated Press:
The U.S. is wrestling with the worst food inflation in 17 years, and analysts expect new data due on Wednesday to show it's getting worse. That's putting the squeeze on poor families and forcing bakeries, bagel shops and delis to explain price increases to their customers. U.S. food prices rose 4 percent in 2007, compared with an average 2.5 percent annual rise for the last 15 years, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture. And the agency says 2008 could be worse, with a rise of as much as 4.5 percent.
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03:35 AM
Anarcho-Tyranny--Where Multiculturalism Leads
Sam Francis / VDARE.com:
In Europe, if not in the United States, some people are beginning to grasp that just maybe they made a mistake when they decided to welcome millions of immigrants over the last several decades. The most recent European to get it is former West German Chancellor Helmut Schmidt, who has been making noises about the damage he and his colleagues have inflicted on their own societies. Interviewed in a Hamburg newspaper last month, Mr. Schmidt confessed, "The concept of multiculturalism is difficult to make fit with a democratic society" and that importing thousands of Turkish "gastarbeiter," or foreign guest workers, into Germany over the last several decades was a bit of a boo-boo.
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03:34 AM
April 14, 2008
Ron Paul on Bailing Out Banks
Ron Paul / Wire Service:
There has been a lot of talk in the news recently about the Federal Reserve and the actions it has taken over the past few months. Many media pundits have been bending over backwards to praise the Fed for supposedly restoring stability to the market. This interpretation of the Fed's actions couldn't be further from the truth. The current market crisis began
because of Federal Reserve monetary policy during the early 2000s in which the Fed lowered the interest rate to a below-market rate. The artificially low rates led to overinvestment in housing and other malinvestments.
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03:29 PM
Continuity - Sparse and Sparser
Al Cronkrite / The Covenant News:
Continuity refers to continuation through time, it does not involve truth or righteousness. However, implicit in the definition is an element of authenticity. Continuity centered on Truth has ultimate potential. The Founders of the United States of America created a Constitutional Republic with checks and balances designed to prevent a concentration of power. It was a democratic form of government designed to allow the election of representatives to carry out the will of the citizens. It was not a Democracy since it was to be tightly restrained by a Constitution and a Bill of Rights.
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03:19 PM
The Ground of Liberty
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
The Religious Right is remarkably ignorant of the fact that the humanistic state is inherently atheistic--you cannot reform it by filling its thousands of bureaucratic seats with graduates from Patrick Henry College. Or, as David Chilton once wrote, "We are not to help build the Tower of Babel in hopes of getting a Bible study in the basement. We must build the city of God."
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06:16 AM
American Hegemony Is Not Guaranteed
Paul Craig Roberts / VDARE.com:
Exactly as the British press predicted, last week's congressional testimony by Gen. David Petraeus and Green Zone administrator Ryan Crocker set the propaganda stage for a Bush regime attack on Iran. On April 10 Robert H. Reid of AP News reported: "The top US commander has shifted the focus from al-Qaida to Iranian-backed 'special groups' as the main threat . . . The shift was articulated by Gen. Petraeus who told Congress that 'unchecked, the special groups pose the greatest long-term threat to the viability of a democratic Iraq.'" According to the neocon propaganda, the "special groups" (have you ever heard of them before?) are breakaway elements of al Sadr's militia.
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05:33 AM
Feds Aim Spy Satellite at U.S. Citizens
The Washington Post:
The Bush administration said Friday that it plans to start using the nation's most advanced spy technology for domestic purposes soon. Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff said his department will activate his department's new domestic satellite surveillance office in stages, starting as soon as possible with traditional scientific and homeland security activities -- such as tracking hurricane damage, monitoring climate change and creating terrain maps.
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04:32 AM
First look inside YFZ Ranch
Nancy Perkins and Brian West / Deseret News:
The children's shoes still sit neatly, side by side where they last left them. Child-sized shovels and miniature wheelbarrows sit on the porch of their three-story, log cabin-like home. The only noise now emanating from this 1,700-acre compound is the rustle of the wind, birds chirping, the occasional scurry of a roadrunner or a truck traveling along the dirt roads. (
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Related:
Sect Mothers Appeal to Texas Governor
SAN ANGELO, Texas -- The mothers of children removed from a polygamous sect's ranch in West Texas after an abuse allegation are appealing to Gov. Rick Perry for help, saying some of their children have become sick and even required hospitalization. In the letter, a copy of which was obtained by The Associated Press, the mothers from the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints also say children are "horrified" by physical examinations they have undergone while in state custody.
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03:32 AM
Buying Your First Handgun
Dick Clark / LewRockwell.com:
Okay, so something has finally tipped the scales of your judgment in favor of acquiring your first handgun. Maybe you know someone who was just victimized by a criminal. Maybe you have a new family and feel the urge to make yourself ready to protect them. Whatever the reason, you have decided to buy a handgun. Here's how to do it.
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02:31 AM
The George W. Bush of 1929
Murray N. Rothbard / LewRockwell.com:
If government wishes to alleviate, rather than aggravate, a depression, its only valid course is laissez-faire – to leave the economy alone. Only if there is no interference, direct or threatened, with prices, wage rates, and business liquidation will the necessary adjustment proceed with smooth dispatch. Any propping up of shaky positions postpones liquidation and aggravates unsound conditions. Propping up wage rates creates mass unemployment, and bolstering prices perpetuates and creates unsold surpluses.
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02:29 AM
Globally-Acceptable Truths in the Land of Eden
Tom DeWeese / BorderFire Report:
I wrote the following article in 2006. To me, the discovery of the Eden Institute and its promotion of a concept called "globally-acceptable truth" was the answer to so many questions. It is the root of political correctness. It is the cause of intolerance of independent thought and values in our society. It explains the purpose of the restructuring of our schools. So many parents have asked why the schools are failing to teach basic academics. The fact is, the schools are working perfectly for the purpose they are now designed to perform – globally acceptable truth. In other words, the education system has become a behavior modification laboratory to provide students with the "proper" attitudes, values and beliefs for the "proper" global citizen. No other thought is required. No one is to question the "global standard for inquiry." Astonishing.
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02:27 AM
Internet Full of 'Black Holes'
Clara Moskowitz / LiveScience:
You're pounding the keyboard, double-clicking away, sighing and grumbling, but to no avail: That devilish little hourglass icon refuses to give way to the Web site you're trying to reach. Most Internet users have encountered trouble reaching online destinations, but they often attribute the problem to their wireless network cutting out or a server momentarily going down. Sometimes, though, the problem is more mysterious. At any given moment, messages throughout the world are lost to cyber black holes, according to new computer science research.
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01:55 AM
April 12, 2008
Mercenary Leaders
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
"They build up Zion with blood, and Jerusalem with iniquity. The heads thereof judge for reward, and the priests thereof teach for hire, and the prophets thereof divine for money: yet will they lean upon the Lord, and say, Is not the Lord among us? none evil can come upon us." Micah 3:10-11
As of late, I've not read a more fitting description of the leadership of so-called "Christian America." Micah indicted heads (judges), priests, and prophets that work for reward, for hire, and for money. All leaders, whether political, judicial, or religious, do what they do for the reward it brings, and the reward is not that which proceeds from God. It is the monetary and positional reward that only comes from a fallen people.
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07:41 AM
Meandering Thoughts on 'Faithful Dissent'
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
"I can't help but wonder how the despotism and usurpations that we are currently living under are substantially or materially different then the despotism and usurpations that our colonialist fore-fathers lived under. The difference, I would say, is that because we are no longer Reformed our collective backbone has been removed. This has been accomplished by long generations of assiduous effort whereby the American people have been trained into the mindset of well kept slaves. Whereas our colonial fore-fathers spent time and effort in proper petitioning and noble resistance today, Americans who are intellectually stunted, spend their time and effort watching television or if they are of an intellectual stripe, they spend their time and effort rationalizing and justifying our slavery to our political overlords — overlords who no longer have anything in common with us except the hollowed out name of 'American.'"
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07:41 AM
Is There Conservatism Beyond Christianity?
Grant Havers / Taki's Magazine:
Christians on the right are used to witnessing attacks on their faith from atheistic leftists. Ever since the highly influential "cultural Marxists" of the Frankfurt School emigrated to America and proceeded to spew their venom onto bourgeois Christianity from the 1950s onwards (as Paul Gottfried has documented in The Strange Death Of Marxism), it has become de rigeur for the chattering classes in the media and academe to tear down the historic faith of Western civilization. What often goes unnoticed among conservative Christians is that large elements of the Right often despises Christianity as well. Protestant Christianity in particular has far too often been the flavor of the month for many decades.
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07:40 AM
An Economy Built On Lies
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
In this report, I am going to present an astounding document. You have not heard of it. It is at the heart of the current residential real estate crisis. It has to do with liar loans. By now, the term "liar loans" is common. Prospective house buyers provided false information to representatives of loan-initiating firms. The loan-initiating firms knew that there were people who did this, but they winked at the practice. Their well-compensated job was to pass on the paperwork to a government-created agency, either Fannie Mae or Freddie Mac, who then sold scientifically diversified packages of statistically safe mortgages to investors.
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07:39 AM
Fed Up With The Fed
Dr. Richard A. Jones / American Vision:
Since the Fed is much in the news lately, here's a handy citizen's alert. According to our political betters, a "reserve bank" (i.e., a "National" bank as opposed to a competitive network of private, free-market banks) is needed to prevent inflation, minimize "boom and bust" cycles, and to make sure a nation's economy runs smoothly. But few scams perpetrated on the economically dumbed-down could ever surpass the con job done on gullible Americans such as resulted with government passage of the Federal Reserve Act in 1913. Famously, the Fed's abysmal performance in 1929–1931 lead straight to the onset of the Great Depression. Current chairman Ben Bernanke has even admitted that it did.
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07:39 AM
Petraeus Points to War With Iran
Patrick J. Buchanan / VDARE.com:
The neocons may yet get their war on Iran. Ever since President Nouri al-Maliki ordered the attacks in Basra on the Mahdi Army, Gen. David Petraeus has been laying the predicate for U.S. air strikes on Iran and a wider war in the Middle East. Iran, Petraeus told the Senate Armed Services Committee, has "fueled the recent violence in a particularly damaging way through its lethal support of the special groups."
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07:37 AM
There Is Still Hope for America
Tom Rose / Ether Zone:
This past week my wife and I drove from Mercer, Pennsylvania, to attend a meeting at Indiana University of Pennsylvania where presidential candidate Dr. Ron Paul was invited to speak. It was a round trip of 170 miles or so, and it was very worth while to hear what he had to say. It was also very worth while to note the warm charisma he expressed in his freedom-oriented message that positively motivated his eager audience. While there we met many down-to-earth people who expressed thorough disgust with the political leadership of our country. Not one person in attendance mentioned the media-spread lie that America is a "democracy;" but in contrast we often heard reference to America’s being a constitutional republic! "Freedom really works, if we will but give it a chance!" was an oft-repeated point that Ron Paul made during his talk.
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07:31 AM
Bush's Phony Free-Trade Agreement
Cliff Kincaid / NewsWithViews.com:
The White House wants a quick vote in favor of a "U.S.-Colombia Trade Promotion Agreement," saying it will help U.S. business, bolster the anti-communist government of Colombia, and deal a setback to the anti-American ruler of Venezuela. The name has been changed from the "U.S. Colombia Free-Trade Agreement." Whatever they call it, however, a trade agreement isn't necessary to accomplish any of these worthwhile objectives. In fact, it is a major distraction. We shouldn't be pretending that we can fight Colombia's communist drug-dealing terrorists, or Hugo Chavez, with trade agreements.
Posted by Editor at
02:35 AM
Leftists Demand Christians Vote for Obama?
Frederick Meekins / Ether Zone:
Just because some white liberals are going out of their way to vote for Barack Obama for no other reason than that he happens to be half-black, some within the Evangelical leadership are once again beating on their drums about congregations being too split along racial and ethnic lines. However, it they are the ones noticing this, isn't that proof that those patting themselves on the back for their embrace of racial diversity are in fact the ones looking at the color of skin rather than the content of character?
Posted by Editor at
01:17 AM
April 11, 2008
Mr. Bush's Murderous War
John Lofton / The American View Radio:
Well, we've been in Mr. Bush's unGodly, unConstitutional, unnecessary, murderous Iraq War now for 5 years, which is longer than World War II, longer than Mr. Lincoln's murderous war against the South. In Mr. Bush’s Iraq War, we've suffered more than 4,000 dead American troops, including dead American women - Moms - some single Moms - sisters, wives. We've also suffered more than 40,000 wounded Americans, including women - many of the wounded with their brains damaged for life. And tens of thousands of innocent Iraqis have been killed in this war.
Posted by Editor at
10:50 AM
A Paleo Epitaph
Paul Gottfried / Taki's Magazine:
In October 2004, my longtime friend Sam Francis responded to a recent commentary by Franklin Foer in the New York Times about the paleoconservatives as a rising antiwar opposition to the neoconservatives. Foer, a New Republic editor, believed that a defeat for Bush in the fall 2004 election might lead to a repudiation of his neoconservative advisors, and the return of the Old Right to favor. Sam and I had our doubts.
Posted by Editor at
07:49 AM
Defending Non-Interventionism
John V. Denson / LewRockwell.com:
Whenever I debate the original American foreign policy of non-interventionism with an advocate of America's 20th Century foreign policy of interventionism I am confronted with the statement that World War II occurred because America returned to its policy of "isolationism" after World War I. They argue that our failure to adopt the Versailles Treaty and to join the League of Nations allowed Hitler to come to power and eventually conquer Europe after the appeasement of Great Britain and France.
Posted by Editor at
06:23 AM
Should We Fight for South Ossetia
Patrick J. Buchanan / The American Cause:
In echo of Warren Harding's "A Return to Normalcy" speech of 1920, George Bush last week declared, "Normalcy is returning back to Iraq." The term seemed a mite ironic. For, as Bush spoke, Iraqis were dying in the hundreds in the bloodiest fighting in months in Basra, the Shia militias of Moqtada al Sadr were engaging Iraqi and U.S. troops in Sadr City, and mortar shells were dropping into the Green Zone. One begins to understand why Gen. Petraeus wants a "pause" in the pullout of U.S. forces, and why Bush agrees. This will leave more U.S. troops in Iraq on Inauguration Day 2009, than on Election Day 2006, when the country voted the Democrats into power to bring a swift end to the war.
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06:21 AM
The Age of Indistinction
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
The one guiding star of the Revolutionary West (starting with the fall of the Bastille and continuing on through the countless revolutions that it has inspired) is the pursuit of equality and hence the elimination of distinctions. Most cheered when the distinction between slave and master was erased, chattering on how uncivil such an arrangement was, but now, having given egalitarianism its head, it demands further erasures. Distinctions between men and women? Why, women can be as 'Butch' as any man and men can be as caring and sensitive as any woman.
Posted by Editor at
05:16 AM
Women and War
Alan Stang / Ether Zone:
A military myth has been created, according to which warfare has changed to accommodate the female military. According to the myth, war is no longer like those movies. Now, in large part, says the myth, it is conducted by beautifully coiffed, highly educated females in uniform, who sit at consoles and give orders like men while they do their nails. Thousands of feet above them, other such females, wearing US Air Force and Navy pilot costumes with the appropriate costume insignia, do the same. . . . The fact that we are willing to let females do our fighting is a badge of corruption, a metastasizing fungus that will finish off our Constitution and our liberties. Since that is the inevitable effect of such feminization, could it be the reason the conspiracy for world government has imposed it?
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04:20 AM
'Sustainable Development' Is Mental Illness
Darren Weeks / NewsWithViews.com:
Recently, I read an account of some academic meatheads at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom. Buying into the false notion that we can and need to do something about climate change, they studied the issue and eventually came to the conclusion that the "problem" was much easier to solve than previously thought. They determined that all that needed to happen to save the planet from wide-spread devastation and complete extinction is for everyone to simply quit breathing.
Posted by Editor at
03:19 AM
Ron Paul's Statement on Earmark Reform
Congressman Ron Paul / Wire Service:
Abuses of the earmark process by members of both parties demonstrate the need for reform. However earmarks are hardly the most serious problem facing this country. In fact, many, if not most of the problems with earmarks can be fixed by taking simple steps to bring greater transparency to the appropriations process. While I support reforms designed to shine greater sunlight on the process by which members seek earmarks, I fear that some of my colleagues have forgotten that the abuses of the earmarking process are a symptom of the problems with Washington, not the cause. The root of the problem is an out-of-control federal budget. I am also concerned that some reforms proposed by critics of earmarking undermine the separation of powers by eroding the constitutional role Congress plays in determining how federal funds are spent.
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02:17 AM
April 10, 2008
Environmental Doomsayers
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
The next time you hear someone predict environmental doom, remember Paul R. Ehrlich. In his book The Population Bomb, first published in 1968, Ehrlich made a number of predictions about the future of our planet based on a faulty understanding of population growth and food supplies. Ehrlich's projections were not new. Thomas Robert Malthus (1766–1834), a British political economist and mathematician, proposed that population growth would outstrip any increase in food supplies in his day. The failure of the Malthusian worldview did not deter Ehrlich from making similar predictions. He asserted dogmatically, "The battle to feed all of humanity is over. In the 1970s and 1980s hundreds of millions of people will starve to death in spite of any crash programs embarked upon now."
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08:57 AM
The Inflation Monster
Llewellyn H. Rockwell, Jr. / LewRockwell.com:
When central bankers blast central banks for being reckless, you know the problem is serious. Indeed, it seems that everyone suddenly really cares about inflation. Everywhere you go, this is the talk, at the grocery, the gas station, among your neighbors. Price increases have been persistent in major sectors such as medicine and education for decades, but today the trend is conspicuously hitting the stuff that people buy every day. So the reminders are ubiquitous, and public anger is growing.
Posted by Editor at
07:27 AM
The Fading American Economy
Paul Craig Roberts / VDARE.com:
According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the US economy lost 98,000 private sector jobs in March, half of which were in manufacturing. Today 13,643,000 Americans are employed in manufacturing, of which 9,849,000 are production workers. Government employs 22,387,000 Americans, 8,744,000 more than manufacturing. Even the category leisure and hospitality employs 13,682,000 Americans, slightly more than manufacturing. There are as many waitresses and bartenders as production workers.
Posted by Editor at
06:26 AM
With US in Crisis, Global Economy in Peril
AFP News:
The global economic outlook is becoming increasingly grim as the United States appears unable to escape recession from a housing meltdown whose effects are still spreading, the
IMF said Wednesday. Global expansion is set to slow to 3.7 percent in 2008 amid an unfolding crisis that began in the United States, the International Monetary Fund said in its semiannual World Economic Outlook (WEO) report.
Posted by Editor at
04:46 AM
The Martial Law Act of 2006
James Bovard / LewRockwell.com:
Martial law is perhaps the ultimate stomping of freedom. And yet, on September 30, 2006, Congress passed a provision in a 591-page bill that will make it easy for President Bush to impose martial law in response to a terrorist "incident." It also empowers him to effectively declare martial law in response to what he or other federal officials label a shortfall of "public order" – whatever that means.
Posted by Editor at
04:04 AM
Global Food Riots Turn Deadly
David R. Sands / The Washington Times:
Anger over spiraling world food prices is becoming increasingly violent. Deadly clashes over higher costs for staple foods have broken out in Egypt, Haiti and several African states, and an international food expert yesterday warned of more clashes with no short-term relief in sight. "World food prices have risen 45 percent in the last nine months and there are serious shortages of rice, wheat and [corn]," Jacques Diouf, head of the Rome-based U.N. Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO), said at a major conference in New Delhi yesterday.
Related:
U.S. Farmers Spurn Feds Guarantee Payment Not To Plant
David Streitfeld / The New York Times
Thousands of farmers are taking their fields out of the government's (unconstitutional) program, which pays them NOT to cultivate. They are spurning guaranteed annual payments for a chance to cash in on the boom in wheat, soybeans, corn and other crops. Last fall, they took back as many acres as are in Rhode Island and Delaware combined. Environmental and hunting groups are warning that years of progress could soon be lost, particularly with the native prairie in the Upper Midwest. But a broad coalition of baking, poultry, snack food, ethanol and livestock groups say bigger harvests are a more important priority than habitats for waterfowl and other wildlife.
Posted by Editor at
03:28 AM
Ron Paul Not Endorsing Bob Barr
Ernest Hancock / Freedom's Phoenix:
Ron Paul is still running for President of the United States, collecting convention delegates and going to the Republican National Convention in September. Why would Dr. Paul endorse a 3rd party candidate that endorses the Flat Tax he opposes?
Posted by Editor at
03:07 AM
Congressional Staffers Livid Over Web Site
Paul Kane / The Washington Post:
In an unusual conflict over constitutional rights, top House staffers argue that the recent personal finance disclosures leave them highly vulnerable to identity theft. But the Web site,
LegiStorm, contends that it has a First Amendment right to publish already public information about some of the Capitol's most powerful players -- the high-level staffers -- and is creating a new check against potential corruption. "Congressional staffers are among the most powerful people in Washington, and in the past they have received very little scrutiny. It's about time there was a little more scrutiny given to what they're doing," said Jock Friedly, president and founder of
LegiStorm, which has six employees.
Posted by Editor at
02:39 AM
'Mcdonald's Disingenuous About Homosexuality'
WorldNetDaily:
McDonald's restaurants, famed for the Golden Arches, Ronald McDonald and kids meals, launched an e-mail response defending its advocacy for homosexual influences in business after the American Family Association alerted its constituency about the company's activities. But the AFA now is calling on the giant fast-food corporation to be honest in its discussion. "Here is the indisputable fact about McDonald's: McDonald's joined the [National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce] and have a position on the NGLCC Board of Directors," AFA said in a statement on its website.
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02:05 AM
Report Details Catholic Role in Nazi Abuses
Reuters:
The Roman Catholic Church in Germany exploited nearly 6,000 forced laborers during the Nazi era, the church said in a report released Tuesday. In 2000, the church acknowledged its use of forced labor under Hitler; it has paid about $2.35 million in compensation to foreign workers. The report, "Forced Labor and the Catholic Church 1939-1945," is the most thorough look at the issue. It documents the fate of 1,075 prisoners of war and 4,829 civilians who were forced to work for the Nazis in nearly 800 Catholic institutions -- including hospitals and monastery gardens -- to help the war effort.
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02:00 AM
A Hegelian at Gettysburg
Richard Wall / LewRockwell.com:
On July 4, 1913 President Woodrow Wilson, who had been inaugurated exactly four months previously, went to Gettysburg to address Civil War veterans gathered to celebrate the fiftieth anniversary of that decisive battle of July 1863. He was following in the footsteps of one whom he admired intensely: he had once described Lincoln as "the supreme American... a common man with genius, a genius for things American, for insight into the common thought, for mastering the fundamental things of affairs. The whole country is summed up in him" (Arthur S. Link et al. The Papers of Woodrow Wilson, Vol. 8, p. 378).
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01:16 AM
April 09, 2008
Blood On The Pulpits
Pastor Matt Trewhella / The Covenant News:
In March of this year, Joel Osteen had former president Bill Clinton at his Lakewood Church. Osteen said he was "honored" to have Clinton there while his congregation applauded wildly. That's right, he said he was "honored" to have someone who upholds murder, perversion, immorality, and infidelity, and then thanked Clinton for his "service to our country." This is a perfect example of why baby-killing continues in our nation. The American Church not only does not fight on behalf of the preborn, it panders to those who propagate it in our nation.
Posted by Editor at
07:38 AM
Police Indifferent to Crime and Threats
Uncle Raisin:
Kevin Rilott is bringing a federal lawsuit against the City of Rockford, IL for violation of 1st Amendment rights of free speech. In 2006, Mr. Rilott and a small group of individuals contracted Wright Advertising and signed a 1 year contract to place an ad on a bus bench on the corner of E. State St. and Summit Av. The principle problem is not the constant destruction of the bench message, nor that the individual was known to the police who was being destructive: it is about the City of Rockford putting pressure on Wright Advertising to break the contract with 6 months remaining in the 12 month contract with Mr. Rillott. This action is what is at the center of the contention in the federal suit being filed.
Related:
Residents Suing Rockford Over Anti-Abortion Ad Expand Lawsuit
ROCKFORD -- A group of residents that is suing the city for pulling its anti-abortion message off a bus bench two years ago has expanded its lawsuit to include further allegations stemming from the group’s activities outside an abortion clinic on Broadway.
Posted by Editor at
06:09 AM
Oprah and the Gospel of Me
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
There are a couple of You Tube video clips making their rounds on the Internet that have aroused a lot of attention lately. I know this because they keep showing up in my email inbox from readers of this column. I've seen two versions – both of which reveal celebrity talk show host, Oprah Winfrey, denying the exclusivity of Jesus Christ as the only way to God – going so far as to tell members of her studio audience: "There couldn’t possibly be just one way."
Posted by Editor at
05:19 AM
How To End REAL ID
Thomas Andrew Olson / LewRockwell.com:
As of this writing, only a handful of states have formally resisted implementation of the draconian REAL-ID act, where the Feds create a de facto national ID card by hijacking the driver licensing agencies of all 50 states. Despite the chilling "papers, please!" overtones to this, some states are falling into line like so many obedient sheep, while the majority have resorted to sending the Department of Homeland Security a letter of intent to comply, which extends them another year or so of lead time before the mandate finally kicks in. Of course that path only legitimizes the law, as opposed to standing up to the Feds and declaring the law the unconstitutional usurpation that it is.
Posted by Editor at
04:24 AM
5,000 Surveillance Cameras Opened in D.C.
Gary Emerling / The Washington Times:
D.C. officials are giving police access to more than 5,000 closed-circuit TV cameras citywide that monitor traffic, schools and public housing - a move that will give the District one of the largest surveillance networks in the country. "The primary benefit of what we're doing is for public health and safety," said Darrell Darnell, director of the city's Homeland Security and Emergency Management Agency who announced the initiative along with Mayor Adrian M. Fenty yesterday.
Posted by Editor at
04:08 AM
Global Warming or Slapstick Comedy?
Phil Brennan / Ether Zone:
As the list of global warming skeptics lengthens the alarms warning of a planet about to be barbecued sounded by the fanatical adherents of man-made climate change grow more shrill and sometimes border on the comical. This latter feature was recently ridiculed by a parody posted on April Fool's day by skeptic physicist James Peden where an imaginary 8-year scientific study discovered a link between global warming and tooth decay in children. It sounded exactly like the global warming propaganda that blames everything on global warming.
Posted by Editor at
02:25 AM
Los Angeles Considers Global Warming Tax
The Orange County Register:
To fight global warming, a bill in Sacramento would enable Los Angeles County transit officials to increase taxes on motorists. It's a bad idea that may foreshadow even worse to come. Billed as a "climate change mitigation and adaptation fee," the measure would cost motorists either an additional 3 percent motor fuel tax, or up to a $90 annual flat fee, based on vehicle emissions. The new charges would be on top of taxes already paid at the pump. Either option requires a majority approval by a vote of the people.
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02:12 AM
A Fateful Day for Many Southerners
Lewis Regenstein / LewRockwell.com:
One hundred and forty-three years ago today, on 9 April, 1865, Robert E. Lee surrendered his Army of Northern Virginia to Union Commander Ulysses S. Grant, marking the effective end of the South's struggle for independence. It was a fateful day for the South, and in particular for my great grandfather and his four elder brothers, all of whom were fighting for the Confederacy.
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01:13 AM
April 08, 2008
Christian Idolatry
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
In these United States, there is perhaps no area where the sin of idolatry is more universally practiced than in the area of government. Call it civil affairs, or politics, or affairs of state. Call it what you will, the result is the same: Christians by the millions have surrendered Christ's authority and principles to humanism and pragmatism. For one thing, a sizeable number of believers allowed President George W. Bush to redefine their Christian principles almost out of existence. They willingly looked the other way while Bush betrayed his word (not to mention the Constitution) and catapulted conservative principles into outer darkness. To the point, that they can now even support someone as liberal as John McCain and still call him a "conservative."
Posted by Editor at
01:01 PM
What Do We Stand For?
Paul Craig Roberts / LewRockwell.com:
Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. In the words of Arthur Silber: "The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for." Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question, "Why do you support" these horrors? His question goes to the heart of the matter. Do we Americans have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have a moral conscience?
Posted by Editor at
12:58 PM
Will Dobson Opt for 'Worst Choice'
Mary Starrett / NewsWithViews.com:
Having called November's current presidential lineup "the worst choices for president in my lifetime," influential evangelical leader Dr. James Dobson said he "cannot and will not vote for Senator John McCain, as a matter of conscience." Dobson made that statement two months ago- before the Arizona senator became the apparent GOP presidential nominee. Now is the time for all good men and women who are left scratching their heads to ask whether a comment Dr. Dobson made just days ago means the evangelical leader plans to change his mind and vote for McCain.
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08:48 AM
Boom, Bust, Dust
Doug French / LewRockwell.com:
Boom, bust and dust: That was the story of what my parents always referred to as the "dirty thirties," or the Dust Bowl. The Great American Dust Bowl steeled the resolve of a generation of Midwesterners. The hard-earned lessons they learned have been passed on to their baby-boomer prodigy but have been forgotten. Unlike the New Orleans floods, there was no FEMA to house the victims in trailer cities: only days on end of coating ones nostrils with Vaseline to filter the dust and try to breathe.
Posted by Editor at
07:42 AM
Why It Might be OK to Eat Your Neighbor
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
Ted Turner, the founder of WTBS, CNN, and Ted's Montana Grill chain of restaurants, which serve a very good and lean bison burger, has gotten into the prediction business. "The Mouth of the South," as Turner is affectionately known as, told PBS's Charlie Rose that in 30 or 40 years "we'll be eight degrees hotter . . . and basically none of the crops will grow." Not knowing when to shut up, Turner went on to say that "most of the people will have died and the rest of us will be cannibals. . . . Civilization will have broken down. The few people left will be living in a failed state--like Somalia or Sudan--and living conditions will be intolerable."
Posted by Editor at
07:20 AM
Pat Robertson Pushes 'Global Warming' Lie
John Lofton / The American View:
Well, I saw it on April 1st but, sad to say, it was no April Fool's Day joke. There on the "700 Club," I saw Pat Robertson announcing that he had made a TV ad with Al Gore and Al Sharpton, an ad that will help Gore push his "global warming" Big Lie - this despite the fact that the "700 Club" has run many excellent reports proving that Gore's version of global warming is a fraud! Robertson also referred to the race-baiting liar Sharpton as "a nice guy" with whom he (Robertson) had "a lot of fun."
Posted by Editor at
05:01 AM
Hageeites March Through Jerusalem
The Associated Press:
American televangelist John Hagee led several hundred flag-waving followers across Jerusalem on Monday, a colorful display of the growing alliance between Christian evangelicals and Israel. Hagee, who calls himself a Christian Zionist, pledged his unconditional backing for the Jewish state. He also vehemently denied he is anti-Catholic, telling reporters that comments attributed to him were either false or mischaracterized.
Related:
'Christian' Zionist Gives $6 Million to Jews
The Associated Press
John Hagee announced donations of $6 million to Israeli causes on Sunday and said that Israel must remain in control of all of Jerusalem. Hagee, a "Christian" Zionist who has been in the spotlight lately for endorsing presidential candidate John McCain and criticizing the Catholic Church, brought hundreds of backers on a solidarity trip to Israel. Hagee and his group, Christians United for Israel, joined keynote speaker Benjamin Netanyahu, the leader of Israel's hard-line opposition Likud Party, at a rally in support of Jerusalem remaining united and under Jewish control.
Posted by Editor at
04:04 AM
Is China Paying for U.S. Taxpayer Rebates?
John W. Schoen / MSNBC:
As millions of Americans figure out how they're going to spend their tax rebate checks, some readers are wondering: Just where is this money coming from? Is it true we're borrowing it from China? These days, digital money flows around the world with the speed of electrons. Or at least it's supposed to; lately, the credit crunch has slowed things down a little. But tracing the flow of individual dollars gets complicated pretty fast. Nowhere is that more true than the money that flows into and out of the nearly $3 trillion U.S. budget.
Posted by Editor at
03:53 AM
No Vaccination, No Autism
United Press International:
It's a far piece from the horse-and-buggies of Lancaster County, Pa., to the cars and freeways of Cook County, Ill. But thousands of children cared for by Homefirst Health Services in metropolitan Chicago have at least two things in common with thousands of Amish children in rural Lancaster: They have never been vaccinated. And they don't have autism.
Posted by Editor at
01:21 AM
April 07, 2008
Ron Paul on The Emerging Surveillance State
Press Release / Wire Service:
Texas Straight Talk -- Last month, the House amended the 1978 Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to expand the government's ability to monitor our private communications. This measure, if it becomes law, will result in more warrantless government surveillance of innocent American citizens.
Posted by Editor at
12:20 PM
Feds Adjust National ID Schedule
Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
Almost two dozen states have been openly opposing and fighting Michael Chertoff, one of the most evil people ever to hold a cabinet position in the history of this country and his Department of Fatherland Security. Let's call these agencies for what they are and quit fooling around with flowery language over tea and crumpets. ... This fight is far from over and so far, we the people are winning. Chertoff has extended so-called deadlines to the states three different times. He KNOWS the states cannot be forced to comply with this junk law passed by evil doers and just down right fools in the U.S. Congress. Chertoff continues trying to strong arm the states and coerce them with the threat of taking away our right to travel, but in the end, we can and will defeat this guaranteed failure called a National ID.
Posted by Editor at
09:58 AM
Labor - A Divine Purpose for Our Lives
Bob Strodtbeck / Ether Zone:
If you take the Biblical account of creation seriously, as does this writer, you would see significance behind the fact that before God did anything else with man, he gave him the wherewithal for his basic needs, the Garden of Eden, put him in the midst thereof, then expected him to, "...cultivate and keep it." Later, after Adam violated the only limit God put upon him, he punished him with the judgment, "Cursed is the ground because of you; In toil you shall eat of it all the days of your life...." From this Biblical account, it seems that God expects us to do something with our minds and bodies to provide for our basic needs. Now that the Masters of the Universe have run the economic system of the Indispensable Nation over a cliff, many of us are faced with finding employment for our minds and bodies to provide for our basic needs?and the fact of the matter is, our needs are going to become much more basic.
Posted by Editor at
08:58 AM
Our Own Worst Enemy
Tim Case / LewRockwell.com:
Whether we wish to attribute current events to divine retribution or not, the simple fact is that throughout history man has been his own worst enemy. The short history of mankind can be summed up as a continual trampling of every social and natural law that has proven to benefit man’s existence or aid him in his quest for peace and prosperity. Recently, I have had an occasion to review the concepts surrounding what is known as the four horseman of the Apocalypse (Revelation 6:2–8) with some friends. Putting aside the religious dogma surrounding these passages I wonder if this text isn’t more of a historical road map of human folly rather than a prophetic utterance. In the light of its possible historical significance let’s put aside the religious canon of this account in Revelation and examine the testimonial from a strictly chronological perspective.
Posted by Editor at
08:56 AM
Dumb Wish
R.C. Murray / NewsWithViews.com:
Sometimes I wish I didn't know what I know about our pathetic public school system, corrupt political system and apostate churches. Sometimes I wish I was as dumb as some of my fellow Americans. If I didn’t know what I know about government schools, I could go through life foolishly believing little boys and girls go to school to learn to read and write, add and subtract - instead of getting brainwashed with anti-American multiculturalism...
Posted by Editor at
01:03 AM
For Lease: 1 Airport, Slightly Used
Jerome R. Corsi / WorldNetDaily:
Plan allows foreign investors to bid on Chicago's Midway: Chicago has announced plans to privatize its second-largest commercial airport, Midway Airport, through a lease being offered to private investors under a public-private partnership. In a move seen as advancing yet further the agenda of turning over pieces of the U.S. public infrastructure to private profiteers, Mayor Richard Daley said plans are being made to turn Midway into the nation's first privately run airport under a PPP.
Posted by Editor at
01:02 AM
NAFTA Countries to Introduce Legislation
Dana Gabriel / Oped News:
Elected representatives from Canada, the U.S., and Mexico have agreed to a plan to introduce simultaneous legislation in an effort to stop the Security and Prosperity Partnership (SPP) of North America. This cross border cooperation will go a long way in further exposing the North American Union agenda.
Posted by Editor at
01:01 AM
Federal Judge: No 10 Commandments, ever
Louisville Courier-Journal:
Thou shalt not post the Ten Commandments on public property with religion in mind. A federal judge made that clear, issuing a permanent injunction against a display of the commandments in Grayson County, the latest in a series of high-profile decisions involving similar displays in Kentucky county courthouses. The Grayson Fiscal Court had a "religious purpose" for erecting the display, and later efforts to depict it as educational were a "sham," according to the ruling issued Friday by U.S. District Court Judge Joseph H. McKinley Jr. for the Western District of Kentucky.
Posted by Editor at
01:01 AM
15 Reasons to take Genesis as History
Brandon Vallorani / American Vision:
Our good friends at Creation Ministries International (CMI) have produced an excellent booklet called, 15 Reasons to Take Genesis as History. It was written because so many have been misled into thinking that the Genesis account of creation is not actual history and that it is just some sort of theological argument or "polemic." In this 32-page booklet, Dr. Don Batten and Dr. Jonathan Sarfati demonstrate why those who believe in the inspiration of Scripture have no intellectually honest choice but to take Genesis as straight-forward history, just as Jesus did.
Posted by Editor at
01:00 AM
Westboro Church Ordered to Post Bond
The Associated Press:
A federal judge in Baltimore has ordered a fundamentalist Kansas church to post a bond while it appeals a $5 million judgment resulting from its protest at the funeral of a Marine who was killed in Iraq, the Baltimore Examiner reported today. The Westboro Baptist Church was ordered Thursday to post the church building and nearly $500,000 in cash and property. U.S. District Court Judge Richard Bennett ruled it would require "extraordinary circumstances" to avoid posting a portion of the judgment.
Posted by Editor at
01:00 AM
Atheist Evolutionists No Match for 'Expelled'
Baptist Press:
Actor, commentator and comedian Ben Stein promises he hasn't lost his mind. Well, he says with his famous dry monotone humor, at least not in this instance. On the contrary, Stein -- whose documentary film "Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed" opens in two weeks, April 18 -- believes he's involved in one of the leading cultural and political battles of his life: the fight for academic freedom against an establishment that teaches Darwinian evolution as fact. Intelligent Design (ID) -- the belief that certain aspects of the world are so complex that they must have been created by an intelligent being, instead of by a random process -- deserves a place at the academic table, he says.
Posted by Editor at
12:59 AM
Jewish Idolatry of Animal Sacrifice Protested
Gil Ronen / Israel National News:
Competing Idolatries: Animal Rights vs. Animal Sacrifice -- Animal rights group "Tnoo Lachayot Lichyot" ("Let the Animals Live") is threatening to take legal action to prevent the Jewish Temple movement from carrying out an educational demonstration of the Pesach (Passover) sacrifice next week. The group's chairman, Attorney Reuven Ladiansky, sent a letter to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski and to Temple Institute Director Yehuda Glick, urging them to cancel the planned event or face legal action. The group sees the planned sacrifice as an act of illegal cruelty to an animal.
Related:
Animal Rights Groups against Animal Sacrifice Groups
By Rabbi Levi Brackman / yNetNews.com
The Temple movements' intention to hold a public slaughter of the Passover sacrifice was slammed by the animal rights movement, Let Animals Live. The activists demanded that the event's coordinators cancel their plans, and sent letters to Jerusalem Mayor Uri Lupolianski, and to the Director of the Temple Institute, Yehuda Glick, threatening to sue if their demands were not met within 24 hours.
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12:46 AM
April 06, 2008
Charlton Heston Dies at 84
The Associated Press:
Charlton Heston, the Oscar winner who portrayed Moses and other heroic figures on film in the '50s and '60s and later championed conservative values as head of the National Rifle Association, has died. He was 84. The actor died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills with his wife Lydia at his side, family spokesman Bill Powers said. He declined to comment on the cause of death or provide further details.
Charlton Heston, Epic Film Star and Voice of N.R.A., Dies at 84
By Robert Berkvist / The New York Times:
Charlton Heston, who appeared in some 100 films in his 60-year acting career but who is remembered chiefly for his monumental, jut-jawed portrayals of Moses, Ben-Hur and Michelangelo, died Saturday night at his home in Beverly Hills, Calif. He was 84, according to his family. His death was confirmed by a spokesman for the family, Bill Powers, who declined to discuss the cause. In August 2002, Mr. Heston announced that he had been diagnosed with neurological symptoms "consistent with Alzheimer's disease."
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01:20 PM
April 05, 2008
Moral Hazard and Really Stupid Loans
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
With the Federal Reserve System's latest proposal, presented to the public by Secretary of the Treasury Henry "Goldman Sachs" Paulson, the FED is asking the United States government to make it the Great Protector of Capital. Think of the bank run scene in It's a Wonderful Life. Ben Bernanke wants us to view him as kindly Jimmy Stewart, handing out his honeymoon money to save the family business from fearful depositors who want their money back. Sorry, but the best I can mentally conjure is an image of Donna Reed with a beard.
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11:46 AM
Lawmakers Have Millions Invested in Defense Companies
The Associated Press:
Members of the U.S.Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the start of the Iraq war, according to a new study by a nonpartisan research group. The review of lawmakers' 2006 financial disclosure statements, by the Washington-based Center for Responsive Politics, suggests that members' holdings could pose a conflict of interest as they decide the fate of Iraq war spending. Several members who earned the most from defense contractors have plum committee or leadership assignments, including Democratic Sen. John Kerry, independent Sen. Joseph Lieberman and House Republican Whip Roy Blunt.
Related:
Lawmakers Have as Much as $196M Invested In Defense
USA TODAY
Members of Congress have as much as $196 million collectively invested in companies doing business with the Defense Department, earning millions since the onset of the Iraq war, according to a study by a non-partisan research group.
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11:28 AM
American Form of Government and the Paulson Plan
Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com:
I have difficulty briefly describing America's form of national government. According to the CIA, the U.S.A., which is the Federal government, is a constitutional federal republic with a strong democratic tradition (representative democracy). On paper, this is correct. But these terms do not describe our national government. If they did we’d see, which we do not, the government establishing justice, promoting the general welfare and securing the blessings of liberty to the sovereign people and its posterity. The government would obey the U.S. Constitution, which it does not.
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11:21 AM
The Paradigm Shift
Betty Freauf / NewsWithViews.com:
One meaning of paradigm in my Webster's Dictionary says, "an example serving as a model: pattern: a paradigm of virtue" and for virtue it says, "conformity of one's life and conduct to moral and ethical principles: moral excellence: rectitude." Today, the transforming of our whole society with "change agents" has frequently been referred to as restructuring or a paradigm shift. This gradual shift has been happening in our world for the last 80 years and there is nothing virtuous about it!
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11:12 AM
April 04, 2008
It's Time for Conservatives to Dump the GOP!
Don Boys, Ph.D. / The Covenant News:
I am weary of hearing GOP leaders talk about the "big tent" accommodating perverts, baby killers, etc., then hearing those leaders ridicule the Christian right. How much longer will we put up with such uncivil, unreasonable, and unfair treatment? Even a dumb dog can tell the difference in being kicked around and being stumbled over. Republican leaders have "used" Christians and conservatives long enough.
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07:41 AM
Books I Have Recently Found Helpful
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
There is an old adage that says, "Leaders are readers." Another one says, "You are what you read." Whatever the adage, there is no question that reading is an absolute necessity if freedom and liberty are to be maintained. It is very difficult to enslave a mind that has been quickened by the extensive reading of good books. Most great men are voracious readers.
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07:40 AM
A Conquered Kingdom
by Daniel F.N. Ritchie / Lulu Marketplace:
This 787 page book is an examination of what the Bible teaches on the role and limits of civil government. Those looking for a solid defence of Theonomic ethics, Christian and limited government will find this volume most useful. "The reader should find all the basic information necessary for understanding the Theonomic thesis. As an added benefit, he provides material demonstrating the post-millennial hope which opens the door to our labouring toward the implementation of God's law in the modern world." Dr. Kenneth L. Gentry "I view it as a tremendous addition to the Christian world." Rev. John M. Otis "I would encourage everyone to purchase Daniel Ritchie's book, especially if you are not a Theonomic Reconstructionist.
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07:39 AM
What Do We Stand For?
Paul Craig Roberts / LewRockwell.com:
Americans traditionally thought of their country as a "city upon a hill," a "light unto the world." Today only the deluded think that. Polls show that the rest of the world regards the United States and Israel as the two greatest threats to peace. This is not surprising. In the words of Arthur Silber: "The Bush administration has announced to the world, and to all Americans, that this is what the United States now stands for: a vicious determination to dominate the world, criminal, genocidal wars of aggression, torture, and an increasingly brutal and brutalizing authoritarian state at home. That is what we stand for." Addressing his fellow Americans, Silber asks the paramount question, "Why do you support" these horrors? His question goes to the heart of the matter. Do we Americans have any honor, any humanity, any integrity, any awareness of the crimes our government is committing in our name? Do we have a moral conscience?
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07:38 AM
A Moment of Silence
Eric Rauch / American Vision:
The Christians in this country have a decision before them: make a difference in this culture of death and despair, or leave it to the heathen. The decision is easy, but the work is hard. The Church in America needs to have a solemn moment of contemplation. There's much work to be done.
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07:36 AM
Normal or Sex Offender?
Federal Court Says Website Can't Ask.
Reuters:
A roommate-finding site cannot require users to disclose their sexual orientation, a U.S. appeals court ruled on Thursday, in the latest skirmish over whether anti-discrimination rules apply to the Web. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals said Roommates.com, which obliges users to list their sexual orientation, was different than Internet sites where people can volunteer or withhold personal information. To inquire electronically about sexual orientation would not be different from asking people in person or by telephone if they were black or Jewish before conducting business, the panel said in an 8-3 ruling that partly overturns a lower federal court decision.
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07:21 AM
Jimmy Carter hints at supporting Obama
Alexander Mooney / CNN Political Ticker:
Former President Jimmy Carter all but said Wednesday he plans to cast his superdelegate vote for Barack Obama. Speaking with a Nigerian paper while in Abuja, Carter noted several reasons why he might be leaning toward the Illinois senator. "Don’t forget that Obama won in my state of Georgia," Carter said. "My town, which is home to 625 people, is for Obama, my children and their spouses are pro-Obama. My grandchildren are also pro-Obama."
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07:17 AM
Christian Hedonism
Coach Dave Daubenmire / NewsWithViews.com:
Obama recently called abortion a "difficult issue." That is a nice way of saying you must ignore all of your moral instincts. Killing an unborn baby is not a "difficult issue" if your conscience still works. Everyone knows the "fetus" is a human being, unless, of course, you are looking for an excuse to do wrong. Going against your conscience is difficult business. He called the miraculous creation of a baby "punishment." I know you think I am making this up. Watch for yourself. And this man is being considered as president of the United States?
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07:15 AM
The Republican Police State
Thomas DiLorenzo / The LRC Blog:
This kind of thing was originated by Lincoln, not surprisingly. Quoting myself from page 139 of
The Real Lincoln: "The [Lincoln] administration protected itself from criminal prosecution for depriving so many citizens of their constitutional rights by orchestrating the passage of an 'indemnity act' in 1863 that placed the president, his cabinet, and the military above the law with regard to unconstitutional and arbitrary arrests."
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07:12 AM
Bear Stearns 'Rescue' Defended
Martin Crutsinger / AP Economics Writer:
Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke and the Bush administration on Thursday defended the decision to rescue Bear Stearns amid questions by lawmakers about why the government was helping Wall Street investment houses but not people on Main Street. Bernanke and Treasury Department Undersecretary Robert Steel said that the consequences to the U.S. economy and financial system would have been far more serious had the government allowed the nation's fifth largest investment house to go bankrupt. The investment house was purchased by JP Morgan Chase & Co. with assistance from the Fed in the form of a loan backed by $30 billion of Bear Stearns assets. JP Morgan has agreed to absorb the first $1 billion of losses if the value of the assets declines, but
taxpayers are at risk for the remaining $29 billion.
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05:45 AM
We Robbed You to Protect the Economy
Christopher Manion / The LRC Blog:
Back in the early 80s, a fellow senate staff member darkly warned me of the consequences to "the American Financial System" if we didn't bail out the NY banks from their failed Latin American loans. I asked, "what happened to those loan officers? Were they punished? Tried?" He grimaced and walked away. Of course, because of their fantastic **success** (millions in new loans as **assets** on the bank's balance sheet!), they all got promoted long before the bill came due. And, as Sol Sanders testified, all those billions the USG sent from the New York Fed to "ailing" Latin America had a "rubber band" on them -- they came right back to the private accounts of the New York banks that had made the failed loans in the first place.
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05:43 AM
CA Court of Appeal Homeschool Ruling
Home-Schooling.org:
The Court of Appeal of the State of California has vacated its ruling and has granted a rehearing of In re Rachel L. Oral arguments may be heard as early as June. The Court of Appeal will hand down a new ruling at the end of this process (approximately 3-4 months after the rehearing). It will be determined at that time what the necessary steps will be as a result of the new ruling. The court has invited Amicus Curiae briefs of the following organizations: California State Superintendent of Public Instruction, California Department of Education, Los Angeles Unified School District, Los Angeles County Board of Education, California Federation of Teachers, CTA State Headquarters, United Teachers of Los Angeles and Sunland Christian School. Others (HSLDA, etc) may petition the court to file a brief. The court will determine if they will allow them to file.
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05:36 AM
Expelled: No Intelligience Allowed
Andrea Schwartz / Chalcedon Blog:
From Rick Oliver's website: "I highly recommend this movie to all people who can think for themselves. Here is an opportunity to hear and see both sides of an issue and then make up your own mind based on all the information, not just the one sided mandated information but all of the information. It is time that the education system in this country wake up and teach students 'how to think not just what to think.'"
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05:34 AM
April 03, 2008
Ron Paul: Disband NATO
Rep. Ron Paul, M.D.:
Statement on H Res 997 -- Mr. Speaker, I rise in opposition to this resolution calling for the further expansion of NATO to the borders of Russia. NATO is an organization whose purpose ended with the end of its Warsaw Pact adversary. When NATO struggled to define its future after the Cold War, it settled on attacking a sovereign state, Yugoslavia, which had neither invaded nor threatened any NATO member state. ... NATO expansion only benefits the US military industrial complex, which stands to profit from expanded arms sales to new NATO members. The "modernization" of former Soviet militaries in Ukraine and Georgia will mean tens of millions in sales to US and European military contractors. The US taxpayer will be left holding the bill, as the US government will subsidize most of the transactions.
Related
NATO Turns Down Bush Request
The Associated Press:
President Bush suffered a painful diplomatic setback Wednesday when NATO allies rebuffed his passionate pleas to put former Soviet republics Ukraine and Georgia on the path toward membership in the Western military alliance. The decision, to be made final on Thursday, was sure to be cheered by Moscow, which heatedly opposes NATO's eastward expansion.
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09:11 AM
Battle of Hastings - The Battle for America
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
When William the Conqueror's spokesman laid down the terms of surrender before the English court those English nobles realized that they only had two choices. They could on one hand die fighting to defend their liberties as Saxons or on the other hand they could surrender and willingly consign themselves and their descendants to Norman slavery for generations. They decided to fight — and fight they did like men realizing that defeat meant not only personal loss but the loss of all that their fathers had handed them as well as the loss of all that they could ever bequeath to their descendants.
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09:09 AM
Memo Justified Warrantless Surveillance
The Associated Press:
For at least 16 months after the Sept. 11 terror attacks in 2001, the Bush administration believed that the Constitution's protection against unreasonable searches and seizures on U.S. soil didn't apply to its efforts to protect against terrorism. That view was expressed in a secret Justice Department legal memo dated Oct. 23, 2001. The administration on Wednesday stressed that it now disavows that view.
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09:00 AM
Senators Fault DHS Pressure On Real ID
Lyndsey Layton / The Washington Post:
Members of the Senate Judiciary Committee criticized the Department of Homeland Security yesterday for pressuring reluctant states to adopt new federally approved driver's licenses, with one accusing Secretary Michael Chertoff of "bullying" the states into compliance under a threat of blocking citizens' travel. "We ought to engage in a fairer, more productive negotiated rule-making with the states," the committee's chairman, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy (D-Vt.), told Chertoff. "Maybe people want to have a national ID card in their state. In my state, they don't."
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08:41 AM
The Fed On Steroids
Geoff Metcalf / Ether Zone:
So the Treasury Department wants Congress to gift the Federal Reserve with broad new authority and power to ride rough shod over financial market stability (or lack thereof). The New York Times described it as "allowing it to send SWAT teams into any corner of the industry or any institution that might pose a risk to the overall system." Giving the Fed more power is like giving crack cocaine to jihadists…it’s NOT a good idea.
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07:40 AM
US Military Deaths in Iraq at 4,011
The Associated Press:
As of Wednesday, April 2, 2008, at least 4,011 members of the U.S. military have died since the beginning of the Iraq war in March 2003, according to an Associated Press count. The figure includes eight military civilians. At least 3,271 died as a result of hostile action, according to the military's numbers. The AP count is one more than the Defense Department's tally, last updated Wednesday at 10 a.m. EDT.
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07:25 AM
A Submarine to Fight al-Qaida's Navy
Robert Scheer / truthdig:
A trillion dollars here, a trillion dollars there, and soon you're talking real money. But when it comes to reporting on what the Bush war legacy has cost American taxpayers, the media have been shockingly indifferent to the highest run-up in military spending since World War II. Even the devastating defense spending audit released Monday by the Government Accountability Office documenting the enormous waste in every single U.S. advanced weapons system failed to provoke the outrage it, and five equally scathing previous annual audits, deserved.
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07:22 AM
Unbrainwash Yourself
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
Again and again in these columns I have respectfully reminded you that the main reason this country is now on its knees is the communist government schools. We could not have arrived at the end of the plank had not those schools cooked our brains from the beginning. The communist media left and right – from the Communist Broadcasting System and the Communist News Network to Loopy Laura and Limbag – would not be enough. It could not have been done without the communist schools.
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07:09 AM
Argentina Lays New Claim to Falklands
Buenos Aires - News.com.au:
Argentina's claim to the Falkland Islands, which remain in British hands after a 1982 war, is "inalienable", President Cristina Kirchner says. "The sovereign claim to the Malvinas Islands (Argentina's name for them) is inalienable," she said in a speech marking the 26th anniversary of Argentina's ill-fated invasion of the two islands 480km offshore. The April 2, 1982 invasion prompted the British prime minister at the time, Margaret Thatcher, to deploy naval forces to retake the Falklands. They did so, resulting in Argentina's surrender on June 14 after the death of 649 Argentines and 255 Britons.
Related:
Drilling for oil to start in Falkland Islands
By Jasper Copping / London Telegraph:
The inhabitants of the Falkland Islands are preparing for a South Atlantic oil rush which they hope will make them among the richest people in the world. After 10 years of frustrating delays since oil fields containing up to 60 billion barrels of "black gold" were discovered off the islands, oil companies are planning to start drilling within the next 12 months. The successful extraction of oil could bring billions of pounds to the 3,000 islanders, in a cash bonanza similar to that enjoyed by Gulf states after the development of oil fields there.
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07:02 AM
April 02, 2008
Tyranny vs. Despotism
Bill Huff / LewRockwell.com:
According to John McCain... "the transcendent challenge of our time: [is] the threat of radical Islamic terrorism [speaking to the World Affairs Council of course]." McCain is not even close! But he is way too close to the White House. According to Ron Paul,
these are the transcendent challenges of our time. Come next November, Diebold and the Supreme Court notwithstanding, we will get to choose between Tyranny and Despotism with Lies, and Liberty with Truth.
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07:12 AM
Homeland Security Cuts Off Travel Freedom
Corporate Meetings & Incentives:
The Department of Homeland Security has issued a final rule ordering that the land and sea requirements of the Western Hemisphere Travel Initiative go into effect June 1, 2009. On and after that date, U.S. citizens entering the U.S. by sea or land from within the Western Hemisphere will have to present "
acceptable documentation," such as a passport or a U.S. passport card, to get back into the country.
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06:07 AM
Centers Access Personal Data
Robert O'Harrow Jr. / The Washington Post:
Intelligence centers run by states across the country have access to personal information about millions of Americans, including unlisted cellphone numbers, insurance claims, driver's license photographs and credit reports, according to a document obtained by The Washington Post. One center also has access to top-secret data systems at the CIA, the document shows, though it's not clear what information those systems contain. A document that lists resources used by the fusion centers shows how a dozen of the organizations in the northeastern United States rely far more on access to commercial and government databases than had previously been disclosed.
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04:52 AM
Mukasey: Internet Piracy Funding Terror
Ann Shibler / JBS.org:
In remarks made to an audience of Silicon Valley executives during a three-day California trip, Attorney General Michael Mukasey said his department's mission is to go after Internet criminals. He also met privately with representatives from Apple Inc., Adobe Systems, Inc., and entertainment industry executives. Mukasey warned that "huge profits" are being generated from piracy and counterfeiting -- enough, he says, to fuel terrorist groups and their activities. "Criminal syndicates, and in some cases even terrorists groups, view IP [intellectual property] crime as a lucrative business and see it as a low-risk way to fund other activities," he said.
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04:11 AM
Become a Better American, Become a Rifleman
Greg Perry / LewRockwell.com:
April 19th is coming up fast. Throughout American history a lot happened on April 19th. Americans can associate much pride to that fateful date; sadly, Americans can also associate their share of shame. Consider for a moment these tide-turning events.
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03:42 AM
The Atheist's Problem
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
The following comment was in response to my article "Trying to Account for the Invisible in the Atheist World": "Atheists claim that only physical things exist." Straw man argument. You set up a bad foundation so you can tear it down. And if morality in your argument can't come from atheists, then explain the Christian worldview of the morality of slavery in the Bible.
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03:29 AM
Only 1 of 2 Graduate High School in US
Straits Times:
In a report on graduation rates around the country, the EPE Research Center and the America Promise Alliance showed that the high school graduation rate -- finishing 12 grades of school -- in big cities falls to as low as just 34.6 percent in Baltimore, Maryland, and barely over 40 percent for the troubled Ohio cities of Columbus and Cleveland. And it said that black and native American student's have effectively a one-in-two chance of getting a high school diploma. "Our analysis finds that graduating from high school in America's largest cities amounts, essentially, to a coin toss," the study said. "Only about one-half (52 percent) of students in the principal school systems of the 50 largest cities complete high school with a diploma."
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02:33 AM
Obama's UN Sanctioned Global Tax Plan
Jim Kouri / NewsWithViews.com:
The Global Poverty Act (S.2433) is expected to come up for a vote in the US Senate any time before the November presidential elections, according to conservatives who fear it is a giant step towards handing over US sovereignty to the United Nations and foreign governments. This is the newest liberal-inspired plan to allow a United Nations style tax on American citizens, according to officials at the American Conservative Union.
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02:04 AM
Seeing Is Believing?
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
If you were one of the lucky recipients of the London Telegraph's flying penguins story sent to you by some mischievous friend or family member on April 1st, showing a flock of them flapping thousands of miles across the frigid Antarctic to the Amazon rainforest, you know all too well what it's like to be played for a fool – even if only for a humorous moment. Today’s computer graphics capabilities make illusion almost effortless for those who would deceive us – innocently or otherwise – especially in a world where "seeing is believing." It’s funny how easily we can be turned into enchanted children when confronted with the impossible made possible by illusion.
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01:11 AM
Evangelicals: Jews need Jesus Christ
Christian Today:
Dozens of evangelicals have endorsed a statement declaring a fact that many Christians already hold to be true - that Jewish people need the Gospel and Jesus Christ to receive eternal life. The statement, sponsored by the World Evangelical Alliance (WEA), expressed friendship and love for the Jewish people, but unapologetically declared that salvation comes only through Jesus Christ.
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01:02 AM
April 01, 2008
Apathetic Pastors and Christians Killing America
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
America's most celebrated jurist, Daniel Webster (himself a dedicated Christian man), said, "God grants liberty only to those who love it, and are always ready to guard and defend it." Obviously, Christian men down through our history have personally and collectively shown themselves more than willing to "guard and defend" our liberties. From Bunker Hill to the Alamo, Christian men stood tall in the defense of America's freedom. So, it is more than a little disconcerting to realize that there is a sizeable percentage of today's Christians who seem completely unwilling to "guard and defend" liberty in these United States of America.
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07:38 AM
Confessions of a Missional Greek Prof
David Alan Black / The Covenant News:
Not long ago I took the wholly unthinkable step of deciding to publish a book on politics, which, while it didn't excite the general public terribly, rubbed many Christians the wrong way. However, I make no apology for questioning the unconditional loyalty that American evangelicals pay to the god-state, especially in its GOP manifestation. Similarly, while not a church historian per se, I am completing a study of the sixteenth century Anabaptists who took incredibly dangerous steps to restore the church to its New Testament patterns.
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07:04 AM
Dabney Saw Clear to Our Day
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
Dr. Robert Lewis Dabney saw the aftermath of the Civil War as a loss of liberty for all generations. He understood that the Old South was fighting for much more than their own Christian liberty--they were fighting for Christian liberty in its entirety. And it was a battle whose fallen shared much with the blood spilled of Christian martyrs throughout history. This is anathema to modern man who decries an impostor of the Old South--a Frankenstein creature derived from the creative minds of the Southern Poverty Law Center--as a generation of cruelty that received its due. But ask a Confederate soldier why he fights, and 9 out of 10 will not mention slavery. They were fighting for a constitutional republic of free states.
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06:01 AM
The Complete Biblical Picture
Gary DeMar / American Vision:
From March 28-30 I was speaking at the Cincinnati Homeschool Convention. I was amazed to hear how so many people in attendance have been influenced by the work of American Vision. It was humbling to learn that our work has changed so many lives, especially in the area of a comprehensive worldview. Their previous fragmented worldview came into sharp focus once their eschatology changed. There is a growing worldview shift taking place. How do I know this? First, by the number of people who are abandoning dispensationalism and its dead-end theology. Second, by the refusal of most dispensationalists to defend their position publicly unless they get to control the debate. Third, Christians are beginning to see the connection between personal salvation and a broader transformation and how eschatology is a factor.
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04:41 AM
Expect U.S. Attack On Iran
Paul Craig Roberts / VDARE.com:
The US Congress, the US media, the American people, and the United Nations, are looking the other way as Cheney prepares his attack on Iran. If only America had an independent media and an opposition party. If there were a shred of integrity left in American political life, perhaps a third act of naked aggression--a third war crime under the Nuremberg standard--by the Bush Regime could be prevented.
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04:07 AM
Later May Be Too Late
Tim Case / LewRockwell.com:
In many ways it is easy to empathize if not identify with our forefathers because like them we are increasingly subjected to government oversight, regulation, taxation, and continual loss of our privacy. Now, with the Supreme Court "looking into" the question of the Second Amendment, Americans are once again faced with the real problem of what response will be appropriate to any threat of being disarmed by a government out of control. The very idea that there is a question, as to the meaning of the Second Amendment or how it should be applied, now being "debated" by the Supreme Court is absurd. It only accentuates the mental illness and moral vacuum that exists at the highest levels of government while exposing our humanoid politicians as pusillanimous imitators of Fidel Castro.
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03:56 AM
Bush to Congress: 'Act Fast' on Key Legislation
AFP / Yahoo! News:
President George W. Bush urged U.S. lawmakers to pass a controversial free trade pact with Colombia. He also asked Congress to pass legislation to modernize the Federal Housing Administration and to provide U.S. intelligence experts with warrantless wire-taps to monitor domestic communications. Speaking just before leaving Washington for the Ukraine and the NATO summit in Bucharest, Bush said the US legislature has "a lot of work to do" as it returns from recess.
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03:27 AM
Obama's Church Founded on Radical Creed
S.A. Miller / The Washington Times:
The church where Sen. Barack Obama has worshipped for two decades publicly declares that its ministry is founded on a 1960s book that espouses "the destruction of the white enemy." Trinity United Church of Christ's Web site says its teachings are based on the black liberation theology of James H. Cone and his 1969 book "Black Theology and Black Power." "What we need is the divine love as expressed in Black Power, which is the power of black people to destroy their oppressors here and now by any means at their disposal. Unless God is participating in this holy activity, we must reject his love," Mr. Cone wrote in the book.
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02:02 AM
Supreme Court to take Ten Commandments case
Robert Barnes / The Washington Post:
The Supreme Court said yesterday that it will decide whether a city's decision to place a monument to the Ten Commandments in a public park means it also must make room for the display of other directives purportedly sent from above. In this case, a religious group that operates from a pyramid outside Salt Lake City wants to place what it calls the Seven Aphorisms in a city park, contending that the words are lesser-known instructions that Moses received from God.
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01:34 AM
USA 2008: The Great Depression
David Usborne / The Independent:
We knew things were bad on Wall Street, but on Main Street it may be worse. Startling official statistics show that as a new economic recession stalks the United States, a record number of Americans will shortly be depending on food stamps just to feed themselves and their families. Dismal projections by the Congressional Budget Office in Washington suggest that in the fiscal year starting in October, 28 million people in the US will be using government food stamps to buy essential groceries, the highest level since the food assistance programme was introduced in the 1960s.
Posted by Editor at
01:03 AM
The Coolest Christian Movie Ever
Jeffrey A. Tucker / LewRockwell.com:
I've been meaning to see the "Zombie movie" that many people, especially kids, had been telling me about. I had seen the trailers and it looked rather typically apocalyptic. New York looked intact but no one was there. Will Smith was wandering around trying to find someone, and the plot line seemed obvious. Some bugaboo would emerge that he would fight and blah blah blah. No thanks. Well, I watched it anyway, and found it impossible not to watch.
Posted by Editor at
12:41 AM