David Paul / The Covenant News:
It seems as if since the foundation of the nation of Israel in 1947 certain Christian groups have hailed it as a sign of the imminent return of Our Lord. They have written books, preached sermons, taught Sunday school lessons and much more predicting Jesus second return over and over again, only to be disappointed.
Karen De Coster / Mises.org:
The Union is squaring off against the South again. This time it's Detroit's union -- the UAW -- partnering with the auto manufacturers, politicians, and media supporters of the domestic auto industry to wage warfare against the entire South.
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
I saw a film by a conspiracy theorist/documentarian in 2005 entitled "Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State" by Texas radio host, Alex Jones. A scene from the film came back to mind, as I was contemplating the developing economic crisis in America. I recalled a scene where Jones is describing the corporate-controlled transition from free market thinking to a fascist system. Here's what he said:
"We're going out of the free market economy into the fascist economy. The elite has used socialism to consolidate the people's wealth; now that it's under their control, they're going to phase out all of the programs for the population, and it's all going to corporate welfare. This is the new America." ~ Alex Jones, Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State (2005)
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
One of the best tests for determining whether a financial columnist or a professional economist is a Keynesian is to examine his views on personal spending. If he favors an increase of personal spending as a means to stimulate the economy, he is a Keynesian. He may not call himself a Keynesian, but he is a Keynesian.
The American View Radio:
Mike Huckabee Demonstrates How NOT To Argue The Homosexual "Marriage" Issue. Huckabee, in his debate with John Stewart, host of the Comedy Channel's "The Daily Show," never once mentioned what God's Word says about marriage or homosexuality.
WorldNetDaily:
You've heard all about the disputes: "Silent Night" banned at the "holiday" program, artistic references to the Bible censored and faith-inclusive children's programs facing discrimination. Now some people are fed up with public school treatment of Christianity and have launched a campaign calling for a rescue of kids from government education programs – a "Call to Dunkirk."
Charles Montaldo / About.com:
The top crime stories of 2008 include a 2-year-old girl who was not reported missing for a month, a former football hero who finally faced justice, an Academy Award winner's family murdered, the death of a popular student body president, a death sentence for a serial sexual offender and last minute reprieves for a death row inmate.
Peter Coy / BusinessWeek:
Here are some of the worst predictions that were made about 2008. Savor them -- a crop like this doesn't come along every year. 1. "A very powerful and durable rally is in the works. But it may need another couple of days to lift off. Hold the fort and keep the faith!" -- Richard Band, editor, Profitable Investing Letter, Mar. 27, 2008
Texas Straight Talk:
As another year draws to a close, there are some important transitions ahead of us. Not just transitions to a new administration, but also economically, politically and culturally. Many hoped that the changes would signify overwhelming positive steps for our country, and that we would enter a new era, as promised during the campaign. I would like for this to be true, but based on the continuity so far, I would not be surprised to see America stay on the same course of failed monetary and economic policies.
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
Wall Street Journal | Mr. Panarin posits, in brief, that mass immigration, economic decline, and moral degradation will trigger a civil war next fall and the collapse of the dollar. Around the end of June 2010, or early July, he says, the U.S. will break into six pieces -- with Alaska reverting to Russian control.
Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com:
In their attempts to halt credit deflation, the government and the Fed are unleashing a torrent of corruption, inefficiency, misuse of funds, and fraud. If a bank is too big to fail and the government and/or the Fed make sure that it survives, despite the past mis-behaviors of its officers, then they invite those officers to misuse the funds that they infuse.
Peter Schiff / The Wall Street Journal:
As recession fears cause the nation to embrace greater state control of the economy and unimaginable federal deficits, one searches in vain for debate worthy of the moment. Where there should be an historic clash of ideas, there is only blind resignation and an amorphous queasiness that we are simply sweeping the slouching beast under the rug. ... Individuals, companies or cities with heavy debt and shrinking revenues instinctively know that they must reduce spending, tighten their belts, pay down debt and live within their means. But it is axiomatic in Keynesianism that national governments can create and sustain economic activity by injecting printed money into the financial system. In their view, absent the stimuli of the New Deal and World War II, the Depression would never have ended.
Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow, Ret. / NewsWithViews.com:
As one who was raised to love, trust and respect God's Word, and one who values the truth, appreciates justice and hates injustice, values integrity, detests things dishonorable and who believes in Jesus Christ and accepts His deity by faith - It is difficult, I would say virtually impossible, to respect or value anymore the United States, the country of my birth. A great evil mind-bending fog - in the midst of which Satan rages to and fro - has rolled across the land and within it a virulent spiritual disease has seized and afflicted the people and delivered them up to demonic control and made them the willing servants of that dragon of old, the god of this world.
The Associated Press:
The daughter of former vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin has given birth to a son, a magazine reported Monday. Bristol Palin, 18, gave birth to Tripp Easton Mitchell Johnston on Saturday, People magazine reported online. He weighed 7 pounds, 4 ounces. Colleen Jones, the sister of Bristol's grandmother, told the magazine that "the baby is fine and Bristol is doing well." The governor's office said it would not release information because it considers the baby's birth a private, family matter. Sherry Johnston, Levi's mother, said in October that Bristol and her son were considering a summer wedding.
Amira Hass / Haaretz:
This isn't the time to speak of ethics, but of precise intelligence. Whoever gave the instructions to send 100 of our planes, piloted by the best of our boys, to bomb and strafe enemy targets in Gaza is familiar with the many schools adjacent to those targets - especially police stations. He also knew that at exactly 11:30 A.M. on Saturday, during the surprise assault on the enemy, all the children of the Strip would be in the streets - half just having finished the morning shift at school, the others en route to the afternoon shift.
Chalcedon Blog:
Q: What do you expect in the future - twenty or fifty years? Are you optimistic or pessimistic? Rushdoony: In the short term - say the next ten, fifteen, twenty years - its going to be grim. Long-term, very good, because I believe the Word of God. It tells us that the wages of sin are always death. And all they that hate me, God says, love death. It is ridiculous for Christians to believe that the opposition can win. They have been destroying - through state education - the Christian character of this country, and therefore have been destroying themselves.
Charles Scaliger / The New American:
Not very long ago, Congressman Ron Paul was anything but a household word, except to those of us in an apparently shrinking minority of freedom's partisans who had followed the career of Capitol Hill's "Dr. No" for years. When he announced his candidacy in the 2008 presidential campaign, many of us who knew or knew of him were taken off guard by his meteoric rise to national prominence. The Ron Paul presidential campaign, though not a success in conventional political terms, was responsible for more "pinch me" moments than this author can recall.
Jacob Heilbrunn / The American Conservative:
As Barack Obama prepares to take the inaugural oath, it almost seems otiose to note that his victory represents a sweeping repudiation of the neoconservative movement. Though neocons such as Randy Scheunemann formed a kind of Praetorian Guard around John McCain during his presidential campaign, their truculent approach to foreign affairs sabotaged rather than strengthened McCain’s electoral appeal. The best that Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels, could do was to offer platitudes about standing by Israel. It seems safe to say, then, that the neocon credo is ready to be put out to pasture. Or is it?
Robert Higgs / LewRockwell.com:
It's hardly a news flash that many people who are widely regarded as lions of the pro-market side have gone over to the dark side in recent months. I am not going to name any names; if you are one of the guilty parties, you know who you are; and the rest of us know, too, owing to your public expressions of anti-market sentiment in newspapers and on the World Wide Web. Why have so many notable economists and others jumped ship?
Robert Higgs / The Independent Institute:
During recent months, the Fed has flooded the banking system with reserves, which the banks have chosen to accumulate as (legally) excess reserves, rather than using the funds to add to the volume of their outstanding loans and investments. The Fed’s recently adopted policy of paying a small rate of interest on bank reserves accounts for some of this accumulation, but the amount is so gigantic that it seems much more likely that the banks have greatly increased their assessment of the risk involved in lending and investing as usual and therefore have chosen the lower yielding but less risky alternative of accumulating more and more reserves. Since August, the amount of excess reserves has risen from $2 billion to $559 billion. A graph of this astonishing development shows an abrupt transition from a virtually horizontal line (approximately zero excess reserves for decades) to a virtually vertical line (a quick jump of $557 billion in three months).
Dr. Edwin Vieira, Jr. / NewsWithViews.com:
A militarized police state is coming to this country--into your own neighborhood, and with you and your family as its targets--unless you start, right now, to enforce the Constitution, as is your right and your duty. In addition to their long-standing strategy of "federalizing" and para-militarizing State and Local police departments under the General Government's Department of Homeland Security, the big brains in the Disgrace of Columbia have two additional schemes openly in the works: (i) the overtly military, which depends upon the deployment of the Armed Forces as domestic police; and (ii) the covertly military, which depends upon the creation of SOME new, ostensibly civilian, "national-security force."
Franklin Graham: Obama/Warren Criticisms Ludicrous
Ingrid Schlueter / Slice of Laodicea:
Franklin Graham finds it "ludicrous" that any Christian could object to Rick Warren invoking God's blessing on Barack Obama and his administration. Frankly, I find it ludicrous that any Christian would even consider asking for God to bless a man who has sworn to defend child-killing and homosexual rights. As Joseph Farah put it, God isn’t going to bless that no matter what Warren intones at the inauguration. The Graham family has made a practice of speaking smooth, silky, easy messages to U.S. Presidents. There is no John Knox blood running in the Graham veins.
Amira Hass / Haaretz:
At 3:19 P.M. Sunday, the sound of an incoming missile could be heard over the telephone. And then another, along with the children's cries of fear. In Gaza City's Tel al-Hawa neighborhood, high-rise apartment buildings are crowded close together, with dozens of children in every building, hundreds in every block. Their father, B., informs me that smoke is rising from his neighbor's house and ends the call. An hour later, he tells me that two apartments were hit. One was empty; he does not know who lives there. The other, which suffered casualties, belongs to a member of a rocket-launching cell, but no one senior or important.
Amira Hass / Haaretz:
There are many corpses and wounded, every moment another casualty is added to the list of the dead, and there is no more room in the morgue. Relatives search among the bodies and the wounded in order to bring the dead quickly to burial. A mother whose three school-age children were killed, and are piled one on top of the other in the morgue, screams and then cries, screams again and then is silent.
Frederick Meekins / Ether Zone:
From at least 1994 when I remember writing my first column on the subject, despisers of the Almighty and liberals of the most spineless of stripes have conspired to undermine Christmas as a national celebration in the attempt to downplay and ultimately eliminate public recognition of God in general and His only begotten Son Jesus Christ in specific. These efforts have been so widespread that I was able to compile columns written about them over the years into a book titled "Yuletide Terror & Other Holiday Horrors". Though the American people have been manipulated and their resistance worn down on a number of fronts to the point that they now let slide any number of outrages that would have caused considerable uproar in the past, for the most part citizens have been quite vocal about attempts by secular leftists to ban acknowledgement of the Christmas season.
William Norman Grigg / LewRockwell.com:
"We no longer have a civilian-led government." This ominous conclusion comes to us from Thomas A. Schweich, who held the title of deputy assistant secretary of state for international law enforcement affairs in the Bush Regime, by way of a December 21 Washington Post op-ed column. Lamenting "the silent military coup d’etat that has been steadily gaining ground below the radar screen of most Americans and the media," Schweich describes the infusion of the military "into a striking number of aspects of civilian government" as "the most unnerving legacy of the Bush administration."
John LeBoutillier / Ether Zone:
If the Kennedy Mystique and Money do not overwhelm New York Governor David Paterson and convince him to appoint Caroline Kennedy to fill out the remaining two years of Hillary's term, a gay, disgraced, former Catholic priest will. (Former) Father Charles O'Byrne is the hidden player in this saga who will broker this deal. How? O'Byrne is unusually close to both the Kennedy Family and Governor Paterson. In fact, he was the New York Governor's Chief of Staff (entitled Secretary in New York political parlance) for the past year until it was revealed that he had not filed tax returns for five years. That scandal forced him from the job amid revelations of "chronic depression" and cash payments to gay lovers. But he remains an extraordinarily influential Paterson adviser.
Bob Strodtbeck / Ether Zone:
The problem with America's health care system is, well, the term, "health care system." I hearken back to a simpler time when those words were not put together and we knew where we had to go when we didn't feel so well. If we were in good "health" we went to work or outside to play and went about our daily lives. If we weren't in good "health", we would stay home and our mothers would take "care" of us. This "care" would involve staying in bed, taking plenty of fluids, and, of course, chicken soup. Generally we weren't in good "health" and needed "care" because some malady had overtaken our respiratory "system" or digestive "system" or some other "system" that was important to our bodies performing its routine tasks. Simply put, we didn't need an insurance company or federal bureaucrat to tell us we didn't feel so good.
John Lofton / The American View:
In my 1986 cult-classic, CNN-"Crossfire" debate with the late but not great Frank Zappa, which has almost one million hits on You Tube, Zappa says, at one point, when I object to some song lyrics, that what I am complaining about are "just words" - as if words are irrelevant. But, of course, words are very powerful and have moved some people to commit murder. The following is a piece I wrote which appeared in "The Washington Times" newspaper on August 12, 1987. I was a regular columnist for the “Times” from 1982-1989.
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
Some timorous complaints are arriving about my use of such terms as "faggots" and "butt jumpers" to name faggots and butt jumpers. The complainants say they know some practitioners of that perverted persuasion who are remarkably fine people they would let baby sit their kids. And so the complainants experience discomfort when venturing into one of my articles or broadcasts.
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
"By the term kingdom of God we mean the realized program of God for man. We would think of man as (a) adopting for himself this program of God as his own ideal and as (b) setting and keeping his powers in motion in order to reach that goal that has been set for him and that he has set for himself. We propose briefly to look at this program which God has set for man and which man should have set for himself.
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
Little did Charles Dickens suspect in 1843, when he sat down to write "A Christmas Carol" in the hope of earning enough royalty income to pay off a debt, that his story would become the most popular piece of fiction in the English language. Generations that ceased to read it have seen it performed on stage and on screen, both large and small. I doubt that any other work of literature has been transferred from the printed page to the silver and digital screens with such artistic faithfulness to the original. In the case of Alastair Sim’s 1951 portrayal of Scrooge, the movie version is better than the original.
Coach Dave Daubenmire / NewsWithViews.com:
There is a part of me that doesn’t like the Christmas season. I hate what it has done to Christianity. The birth of the Savior has been hi-jacked. The arrival of Emmanuel has been relegated to a secular celebration highlighted by a trip to the local mall. What a way to celebrate the ultimate spiritual-bailout.
Lew Rockwell / LewRockwell.com:
At the heart of the Christmas story rests some important lessons concerning free enterprise, government, and the role of wealth in society. Let’s begin with one of the most famous phrases: "There’s no room at the inn." This phrase is often invoked as if it were a cruel and heartless dismissal of the tired travelers Joseph and Mary. Many renditions of the story conjure up images of the couple going from inn to inn only to have the owner barking at them to go away and slamming the door.
The Associated Press:
The Federal Reserve gave an early Christmas present to General Motors' finance arm, allowing the ailing provider of auto loans to qualify for the government's $700 billion rescue fund. The Fed announced late Wednesday that it had approved GMAC Financial Services' request to become a bank holding company. That designation makes GMAC eligible to receive a portion of the bailout fund and get emergency loans directly from the Fed. The plan also significantly reduces the ownership stakes of GM and Cerberus Capital Management, LP., in GMAC.
David Hambling / New Scientist:
The research arm of the US Department of Justice is working on two portable non-lethal weapons that inflict pain from a distance using beams of laser light or microwaves, with the intention of putting them into the hands of police to subdue suspects. The two devices under development by the civilian National Institute of Justice both build on knowledge gained from the Pentagon's controversial Active Denial System (ADS) - first demonstrated in public last year, which uses a 2-metre beam of short microwaves to heat up the outer layer of a person's skin and cause pain.
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
The sentiments and statements of America's founders make it clear that this nation has enjoyed a love and appreciation for the rights and freedoms recognized in Natural Law that is unique in the annals of human history. No other people have such a heritage.
John Lofton and Pastor David Whitney / The American View Radio:
The Lord Jesus Christ The First, True Libertarian; His Coming Most Important "Political" Event In History. On this program, co-host John Lofton and Pastor David Whitney discuss the "political" significance of the coming of our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ. Joy to the world indeed! David is Pastor of the Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, Maryland. He is also Senior Instructor at "Institute On The Constitution."
Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
Knowing Who Your Congregation Is and Where You Want Them to Be in their Collective Worldview and Lifestyle. The way to establish respect and trust is by building a relationship with each of your learners. This can only be done by devoting time to listen to their cares and concerns. Regardless of how crowded your schedule becomes, always leave time for listening, because this is arguably the single most important thing you can do.
Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk:
Billions of dollars were recently lost in the collapse of Bernie Madoff's self-described Ponzi scheme, in which too-good-to-be-true returns on investments were not really returns at all, but the funds of defrauded new investors. The pyramid scheme collapsed dramatically when too many clients called in their accounts, and not enough new victims could be found to support these withdrawals. Bernie Madoff was running a blatant fraud operation. Fraud is already illegal, and he will be facing criminal consequences, which is as it should be, and should act as an appropriate deterrent to potential future criminals. But it seems every time someone breaks the law, politicians and pundits decide we need more laws, even though lack of laws was not the problem.
Chris Petherick / Heartland News:
The holiday season is here, and for weeks now we have been hearing it is our patriotic duty to go out and spend, spend, spend in order to keep the country from falling into another great depression. You may be asking, how could anyone say with a straight face that squandering your hard-earned money is a way to show patriotism? Before you answer, take a trip back 20 years with the ghost of America past to see how it is we reached the point where our patriotism could be gauged by how much Americans spend at the mall.
Daniel Taylor / Old Thinker News:
In October of 2007, the annual Frontiers in Education Conference met in Milwaukee Wisconsin. Among the several papers presented at the conference was, Critical Theory, Globalization and Teacher Education In A Technocratic Era. The paper was written by three professors, Mark Malisa, Randall Koetting, and Kristin Radermacher. The authors opening statements read, "Our perspective is that of educators who view the current world as one that is highly internationalized and intensely global, rendering nationalistic orientations obsolete. We also view education and educators as involved agents in the construction of a just social world, and contend that this implies infusing the curriculum and teacher education with cosmopolitan sensibilities, frequently, through critical theory and critical pedagogy."
General critical consensus holds Mahalia Jackson as the greatest gospel singer ever to live; a major crossover success whose popularity extended across racial divides, she was gospel's first superstar. Throughout the 1950s, Mahalia's voice was heard on radio, television and concert halls around the world. Her shows were packed in Europe, and her audience very enthusiastic at the 1957 Newport Jazz Festival, at a special all-gospel program she requested. In 1954, she began hosting her own Sunday night radio show for CBS. She performed on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956 where she catapulted gospel music into America's mainstream. She sang for President Dwight Eisenhower and at John F. Kennedy's inaugural ball in 1960. Through her recordings she lives and leaves behind a glorious legacy- truly joyful sound. She will always be the uncontested queen of gospel music.
Bret McAtee / The Backwater Report:
Ancient Egypt ran according to what might be called the Mahat system. In this societal organizational system the Pharaoh sat at the top of the authoritarian food chain as the incarnated son of Ra. Pharaoh ruled by fiat power and there was no authority that was transcendent to the word of Pharaoh. All of Egypt was owned by Pharaoh and all Egyptians were slaves to Pharaoh. Beneath Pharaoh was the Vizier who was the highest slave in the Mahat system. The only person that the Vizier was a direct slave was to Pharaoh. All beneath the Vizier were slaves to Pharaoh through slavery to the Vizier. Beneath the Vizier were further layers of authoritarian rule – each layer being a slave to Pharaoh through their slavery to the next levels above them.
John Lofton / The American View:
Edwin F. Kagin is National Legal Director of American Atheists, Inc. He and some fellow God-haters are suing Kentucky because one of the state's laws says that God is our number one protector in terms of "homeland security." I chatted with him recently and apologize that our talk turned quickly into a rather messier discussion than I had wanted. This interview -- if that's what this is -- begins a few seconds after we began to talk. * St. Paul tells us in Romans 1:18ff that there’s no such thing as an "atheist." Everyone knows there is a God which is why, when the unbeliever stands before God, he is without excuse for his "atheism."
Doug French / LewRockwell.com:
A punk economy is doing what legislators around the country could never do: shrink state and local governments. California Governator Arnold Schwarzenegger has declared a fiscal emergency because his state is $40 billion in the red and may actually be completely busted by February. He even "ordered state officials to prepare to furlough and lay off employees to cut costs," according to Reuters, which would make the Golden State’s 8.4 percent unemployment rate still worse. The city of Vallejo, California has already filed for bankruptcy protection and two small towns northeast of San Francisco, Iselton and Rio Vista, are "consulting with bankruptcy lawyers," reports the Wall Street Journal. State Treasurer Bill Lockyer went as far as to say, "California’s fiscal house is burning down."
Olivia Ward / TheStar.com:
It was the thud heard around the world. Just hours after Iraqi journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi tossed his footwear at U.S. President George W. Bush, who was making a farewell appearance in Baghdad, the other shoe dropped. Thousands of Iraqis poured out their support for the angry gesture, al-Zeidi's backers plunged the parliament into bitter controversy, and Bush's insistence that his "surge" of increased U.S. troops had put the country on the road to peace and progress rang hollow.
Sahar Issa / McClatchy Newspapers:
The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President Bush intends to press charges against the people who he says beat him as he was taken into custody, said a member of the Iraqi parliament who's urging his release. Bahaa al-Araji, a member of parliament from a party tied to anti-American Shiite cleric Muqtada al-Sadr, said journalist Muntadhar al-Zeidi earlier Friday had presented his case to an Iraqi judge. Al-Zeidi's outburst at a news conference that Bush held with Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki on Sunday has sparked rallies all around the country, and now Sunni leaders are lionizing the Shiite journalist.
Related:
Judge Says Reporter Beaten The Associated Press:
BAGHDAD -- A judge announced a probe Friday into the beating of an Iraqi journalist after he hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush. The statement by investigating judge Dhia al-Kinani was the first official word that Muntadhar al-Zeidi was hurt after his outburst at a Sunday news conference. Al-Zeidi has been in custody since the attack and hasn't been seen since by relatives or a lawyer.
Shoe Thrower Journalist Viciously Beaten
The Guardian:
The Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George Bush was viciously beaten after being taken into custody, according to a police officer who accompanied him to prison. Wrestled to the ground and then buried under a frantic mound of security officers, Muntazer al-Zaidi was last seen being dragged into detention. Controversy has since raged over what treatment was meted out to the man hailed a hero in many parts of the Arab and Muslim world for his protest against the invasion of Iraq. Yesterday there were further demonstrations in the Middle East calling for his immediate release.
Lew Rockwell / LewRockwell.com:
The mystery of Bernard Madoff will be storied a hundred years from now. As history's biggest financial criminal, he took a cheap rip-off that you can use at home -- the Ponzi scheme -- and turned it into a global empire worth some $50 billion. One ingredient was financial intelligence. Madoff had buckets of it. Early in his career, he was the real deal, an actual innovator. He combined this with an amazing lack of conscience, for his scam was rooted most fundamentally in lying and stealing. The difference between him and all who came before was his grand scale, the grandest scale imaginable.
Cliff Kincaid / NewsWithViews.com:
Business cable network CNBC is asking, in a special report, whether investment manager Bernard Madoff pulled off the "scam of the century." But Madoff is only accused of a $50 billion heist. That's peanuts compared to what the politicians have done to us. On Monday, December 15, in a story that went unnoticed, the General Accountability Office (GAO) reported that the federal government has failed another financial audit. It was the 12th year in a row that the federal government has been unable to accurately report on its fiscal condition. Frankly, nobody knows precisely where the money is going. But we know where it's coming from-the beleaguered taxpayers.
Jordy Yager / The Hill:
A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay. Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries. "As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain," said Daniel O'Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group.
Related: Another Pay Raise For Congress
Judicial Watch Blog:
Not that long ago, lawmakers demanded that high-paid executives work for free to ease the pain of their financially struggling companies. Evidently, legislators are not willing to at least freeze their generous $169,300 annual salary (House Speaker Nancy Pelosi makes $217,400 and minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100) for the good of the nation.
The Associated Press:
Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits last year, an Associated Press analysis reveals. The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.
The Associated Press:
Crisscrossing the country in corporate jets may no longer fly in Detroit after car executives got a dressing down from Congress. But on Wall Street, the coveted executive perk has hardly been grounded. Six financial firms that received billions in bailout dollars still own and operate fleets of jets to carry executives to company events and sometimes personal trips, according to an Associated Press review.
Robin Shulman / The Washington Post:
Humanist Parents Seek Communion Outside Church - They are not religious, so they don't go to church. But they are searching for values and rituals with which to raise their children, as well as a community of like-minded people to offer support. Dozens of parents came together on a recent Saturday to participate in a seminar on humanist parenting and to meet others interested in organizing a kind of nonreligious congregation, complete with regular family activities and ceremonies for births and deaths.
Reuters:
Scientists said they had replicated an experiment in which people obediently delivered painful shocks to others if encouraged to do so by authority figures. Seventy percent of volunteers continued to administer electrical shocks -- or at least they believed they were doing so -- even after an actor claimed they were painful, Jerry Burger of Santa Clara University in California found. "What we found is validation of the same argument -- if you put people into certain situations, they will act in surprising, and maybe often even disturbing, ways," Burger said in a telephone interview. "This research is still relevant."
Obama's War: Afghanistan Could Get 30,000 More Troops
The Associated Press:
The top U.S. military officer said Saturday that the Pentagon could double the number of American forces in Afghanistan by next summer to 60,000 - the largest estimate of potential reinforcements ever publicly suggested. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said that between 20,000 and 30,000 additional U.S. troops could be sent to Afghanistan to bolster the 31,000 already there.
Michael Flynn / IPS News:
In the first two pages of his book on the neoconservative movement, historian Stephen Sniegoski tells us that U.S. Mideast policy during the George W. Bush presidency has been "colossally erroneous" and "disastrous to U.S. interests", that the Iraq War is a "blunder of colossal proportions", and that an attack on Iran is a "highly likely" "disaster" unless the country "eschews all elements of the Middle East war policy".
Evan Sparks / The Wall Street Journal:
Short-term mission trips to Africa, South America and Southeast Asia have become very popular in the past few years. They are a keystone strategy of evangelical pastor Rick Warren's plans to help Rwanda. These trips, like Christian missionary endeavors overall, encompass a wide variety of activities, from evangelization and "church planting" to health care and economic development. The billion-dollar question, however, is whether they're worth the cost. Are short-term missions the best way to achieve the goals of Christians? Critics argue that sightseeing often takes up too much of the itinerary, leading some to call short-termers "vacationaries."
Chris Ortiz & Andrea Schwartz / Chalcedon Podcast:
On this show Chris and Andrea interview Martin Selbrede, Vice-President of The Chalcedon Foundation. They discuss Mr. Selbrede's published position papers and the challenges of employing Christian Reconstruction thought and practice in churches today. Great interview.
Robert Parsons / The Forerunner:
Christian Reconstruction is a call to the Church to awaken to its biblical responsibility to revival and the reformation of society. While holding to the priority of individual salvation, Christian Reconstruction also holds that cultural renewal is to be the necessary and expected outworking of the gospel as it progressively finds success in the lives and hearts of men. Christian Reconstruction therefore looks for and works for the rebuilding of the institutions of society according to a biblical blueprint.
John Lofton / The American View:
Should Bush/Cheney, Others Be Prosecuted If Evidence They Committed War Crimes, Domestic Crimes? Yes! Where Are Christian/Conservative Leaders On This Issue? If there is evidence that Bush Administration officials - including the President and the Vice President - were involved in war crimes, or domestic crimes here at home, should they be prosecuted? The obvious answer is: Of course! Yes! And there does appear to be such evidence.
Neal Horsley / Christian Gallery News Service:
Who were the Lapsi? To Christians who identify with the persecuted saints of the ancient Church, there is only one name more odious than the name Lapsi: that name is Judas Iscariot. The Lapsi were the Christians who in the midst of the persecution of the ancient church “lapsed” back into the pagan culture of the Roman Empire and bowed before Caesar as if to God, burned incense to Caesar as if to God. The Lapsi were thrust into the historical record when the Roman Empire outlawed the Christian religion and forced everyone in the Empire to prove they were not Christian by proclaiming Caesar to be God or by offering sacrifice on the altar of Caesar.
Ingrid Schlueter / Slice Of Laodicea:
Focus on the Family's Citizen Link publication presents conservative political talker Glenn Beck's "Christian" testimony in this month's online edition. The only problem is, Glenn Beck is a member of the Latter Day Saints. That's the Mormon Church that teaches that Jesus and Lucifer were spirit brothers. Here's a web page that shows how Mormonism denies biblical doctrine.
Ann Shibler and Art Thompson / The New American:
Is Obama's choice of Rick Warren to give the invocation at the presidential inauguration purposefully driven? The news media, Evangelicals, the gay community, pro-lifers, and the general public are all agog either positively or negatively, over Obama’s choice of Rick Warren, pastor and founder of the mega Saddleback Church to give the inaugural invocation.
Briggs Armstrong / Mises.org:
Few Wall Street gurus or members of the financial press, if asked on December 11, would have said that the news of Senate Republicans spurning Bush and killing the automotive bailout would not be the next day's top headline. They would have been sadly mistaken. News broke on December 12 that Bernard Madoff, former chairman of the NASDAQ stock market, was arrested for committing fraud. This was not in the form of some minor chicanery, but a fifty-billion-dollar scam. Lest the reader think that the word scam is too harsh, I will put it in Madoff's own words; he referred to his operation as "all just one big lie" and "basically, a giant Ponzi scheme."
Related:
Madoff Scandal Could Lead to Tax Losses Nationwide The Associated Press
Even Uncle Sam may get burned by Bernard Madoff. Investors who lost their fortunes in Madoff's alleged Ponzi scheme will end up paying far less in taxes and may even be eligible for refunds, according to accounting experts. By some estimates, the Internal Revenue Service could be out as much as $17 billion in lost tax revenue.
Karen DeCoster / The LRC Blog:
Here is GM's Restructuring Plan for Long-Term Viability which was submitted to the Senate Banking Committee & House of Representatives Financial Services Committee. Page 8 correctly states that GM had a ($60) billion negative net worth position at September 30, 2008. $60 billion negative. Not one time has any media commentator or government official proposed how this can be overcome, allowing GM to continue to operate in the long term. No one dares to address one of the largest elephants in the room. Can you tell that government is run by lawyers and not businessmen or accountants?
The Associated Press:
Citing imminent danger to the national economy, President Bush ordered an emergency bailout of the U.S. auto industry Friday, offering $17.4 billion in rescue loans and demanding tough concessions from the deeply troubled carmakers and their workers. Detroit's Big Three cheered the action and vowed to rebuild their once-mighty industry, though they acknowledged the road would be anything but smooth as they fight their way back from the brink of bankruptcy. The autoworkers union complained the deal was too harsh on its members, while Bush's fellow Republicans in Congress said it was simply bad business to bail out yet another big industry.
ABC News:
It might be easy to guess the social views of Chris LaTondresse, the son of white evangelical missionaries who served as a Bible camp counselor and attended the Christian Bethel University in Minneapolis. But LaTondresse, 26, favors civil unions for gay couples and takes a "pro-life" stance, worrying more about what happens to the child "after the womb" and how to help pregnant women in trouble. He applauded a recent National Public Radio interview with the man who has been considered a "hero" among young evangelicals -- Richard Cizik, the chief lobbyist for the National Association of Evangelicals -- who said that religious attitudes toward abortion and gay marriage are shifting[?].
"Jesus Christ the same yesterday, and to day, and for ever." (Hebrews 13)
For an Evangelical College, Home Is Where the Sin Is
Cara Buckley / The New York Times:
Out of the myriad and random tenants that fill the Empire State Building, there is one that seems both perfectly situated, yet jarringly out of place. It is the King's College, an evangelical Christian school that is all but hidden in plain sight, occupying three of the building’s floors -- two of them subterranean -- since 1999. On the one hand, it seems apt that a school claiming close adherence to God's word would occupy New York's tallest skyscraper. On the other hand, most of the college's 258 students are politically and economically conservative, opposed to abortion and generally against gay marriage, drunkenness and premarital sex. The polar opposites, in other words, of the kind of boozing, godless, kick-up-your-heels, bed-hopping liberals that Manhattan supposedly draws.
Diane Macedo / FOX News:
A 49-year-old Florida woman says her former church is threatening to reveal her sins to its congregation after learning that she is in a "sexually immoral relationship." Rebecca Hancock told FOXNews.com that Grace Community Church, a non-denominational church in Jacksonville, Fla., was against her relationship with boyfriend Frank Young because the two were sexually active but not married. Despite knowing her relationship was against church rules, Hancock said she never realized that disclosing it would trigger the first in a three-step process used by the church to deal with sinners: private admonishment, admonishment in the presence of witnesses and finally public admonishment.
"Moreover if thy brother shall trespass against thee, go and tell him his fault between thee and him alone: if he shall hear thee, thou hast gained thy brother. But if he will not hear thee, then take with thee one or two more, that in the mouth of two or three witnesses every word may be established. And if he shall neglect to hear them, tell it unto the church: but if he neglect to hear the church, let him be unto thee as an heathen man and a publican." (Matthew 18: 15-17)
"I wrote unto you in an epistle not to company with fornicators:
Yet not altogether with the fornicators of this world, or with the covetous, or extortioners, or with idolaters; for then must ye needs go out of the world. But now I have written unto you not to keep company, if any man that is called a brother be a fornicator..." (1 Corinthians 5: 9-11)
"Know ye not that the unrighteous shall not inherit the kingdom of God? Be not deceived: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, Nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor revilers, nor extortioners, shall inherit the kingdom of God." (1 Corinthians 6: 9-10)
"Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; Adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness, Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies, Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God." (Galatians 5: 10-21)
"Be ye therefore followers of God, as dear children; And walk in love, as Christ also hath loved us, and hath given himself for us an offering and a sacrifice to God for a sweetsmelling savour. But fornication, and all uncleanness, or covetousness, let it not be once named among you, as becometh saints; Neither filthiness, nor foolish talking, nor jesting, which are not convenient: but rather giving of thanks. For this ye know, that no whoremonger, nor unclean person, nor covetous man, who is an idolater, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God. Let no man deceive you with vain words: for because of these things cometh the wrath of God upon the children of disobedience. Be not ye therefore partakers with them. For ye were sometimes darkness, but now are ye light in the Lord: walk as children of light: (For the fruit of the Spirit is in all goodness and righteousness and truth;)" (Ephesians 5: 1-9)
"Them that sin rebuke before all, that others also may fear. I charge thee before God, and the Lord Jesus Christ, and the elect angels, that thou observe these things without preferring one before another, doing nothing by partiality." (1 Timothy 5: 20-21)
The Heritage Foundation:
Paul M. Weyrich, chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation and first president of The Heritage Foundation, died Thursday morning around 1 a.m. He was 66 years old. Weyrich was a good friend to many of us at Heritage, a true leader and a man of unbending principle. Heritage President Ed Feulner released a statement praising Weyrich for his dedication and leadership: "Moral courage was a defining trait of Paul himself. On any policy issue that turned on a core principle, he never failed to take a public stand–regardless of how that stand might affect his professional or personal relationships. A political animal of the highest order, he always chose principle over any temporary "strategic" abandonment of principle designed to win some transitory political victory."
Michael Peroutka & John Lofton / The American View Radio:
Mr. Bush Ducks Those Shoes But He's Nailed By ABC's Martha Radditz; And Did VP Cheney In That Interview Confess To Complicity In War Crimes? On this program, Michael and John discuss, of course, The Man Who Threw The Shoes. Also discussed: Mr. Bush's un-Godly, un-Constitutional, unnecessary Iraq War; how he was caught in a lie about Al-Quaeda being in Iraq before the war; and how VP Cheney appears to have admitted, in an interview on network TV, that he was a party to the commission of war crimes.
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
"Hey, Will - we just got a letter from a Marine saying that he was part of a project dealing with civilian arms confiscation by the military. Are you interested?" It had been a fairly slow morning up until the point Dave Bohon, at the time the managing editor at The New American, came down to the research department with the aforementioned letter clutched in his hands and a puzzled expression inscribed in his aquiline features.
William F. Jasper / The New American:
As we reported yesterday, the world-government-building plans of globalists such as Gideon Rachman and Strobe Talbott, which are so appealing to one-world elites, and their propagandists, still don’t set well with average Americans.
David Gordon / LewRockwell.com:
Nearly every day brings new reports of the collapse of a large financial institution or the impending bankruptcy of a major company. Plans for bailouts and government intervention are in the air. Even those who profess devotion to free enterprise have wavered. Are we not faced with an emergency that calls for immediate action to "save" capitalism? Faced with this situation, we need to be more resolute than ever in defense of the free market, with no government restrictions whatever. If we do not defeat these measures, we face grave danger. The record of National Socialist Germany during the 1930s shows how quickly government intervention leads to full-scale socialism. Ludwig von Mises warned of this many years ago.
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
There was a very strange announcement made recently in the form of a press release posted on the Dow Jones & Company's Market Watch website dated December 12, 2008, that bears mentioning, if for no other reason, because it reads like something from a supermarket tabloid. Come to think of it, didn’t Rupert Murdoch just buy Dow Jones & Company not long ago? If you're not aware, they also publish, among other things, the Wall Street Journal. Anyway, whether this speaks to the decline of a once great business publication or the growing power and influence of a coming world leader, only time will tell. Either way, it is clearly another ominous sign of the desperate times in which we live. The article in question titled, Share International Reveals Christmas Miracle, advises readers to prepare for a coming miracle that all of us will see in the sky shortly before the "emergence of Maitreya and his group, the Masters of Wisdom."
Sodomizing the Military: Homosexual as Navy Secretary?
The Washington Times reports that some retired military leaders and some Democrats in Congress are backing
a homosexual to be the next secretary of the Navy -- a move that would put a sex offender at the top of one of the services. William White, a known sodomite, is chief operating officer of the Intrepid Museum Foundation. The secretary's job is a civilian position, so it would not run afoul of the watered-down law protecting the nation against the abomination of homosexuals serving in the military.
Related: Put Homosexuals To The Sword By Jim Rudd / The Covenant News
Civil officials have a God ordained duty to execute sodomites. The word of God commands, "If a man also lie with mankind, as he lieth with a woman, both of them have committed an abomination: they shall surely be put to death; their blood shall be upon them" (Lev.20:13). The Magistrate, in his proper role, "beareth not the sword in vain: for he is the minister of God, a revenger to [execute] wrath upon him that doeth evil" (Rom.13:4).
Barack Obama and Joe Biden have officially invited the Lesbian and Gay Band Association to march in the Inaugural Parade. The LGBA is a network of sex offenders "comprised of concert and marching bands from various American cities." According to their December 8 press release, the group's appearance in the Inaugural Parade on January 20 "is the first time in history that a lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender group will march in a Presidential Inaugural Parade."
The Denver Post:
Disgraced evangelical leader Ted Haggard has agreed to help promote a new documentary following his life in exile after a 2006 homosexual scandal -- no longer bound by an agreement with his former church that prohibited him from talking publicly about the events that led to his downfall. Haggard, 52, resigned as president of the National Association of Evangelicals and was fired as senior pastor of New Life Church in Colorado Springs, Colo., in November 2006 after a former male prostitute went public with allegations that Haggard paid him for sex and used methamphetamine. "The Trials of Ted Haggard," directed by Alexandra Pelosi, daughter of U.S. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, is set to air next month on HBO. Haggard has agreed to take part in publicity for the project, HBO said.
The Associated Press:
The Associated Press is reporting that Muntadhar al-Zeidi, the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush is "begging for a pardon" for what he described as "an ugly act." But the journalist's brother, Dhargham al-Zeidi, said he was skeptical that his brother would write such a letter. Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for an Iraqi-owned television station based in Cairo, Egypt, could face two years imprisonment for insulting a foreign leader. He remained in custody Thursday night.
TheShofar.org / Wire Service:
Petition Calling For The National Association Of Evangelicals To A Public Declaration Of Repentance And Commitment To Restoration. "In light of the recently released Senate Armed Services Committee report implicating members of the Bush cabinet in war crimes it seems public rebuke and repentance is in order. Just as we cannot in good conscience turn away from the facts that the American war machine has been kidnapping foreign nationals and holding them in secret prisons, waging illegal wars based on deception and misinformation, engaging in torture, human rights abuses, war profiteering and a multitude of other unchristian practices neither can we let the leaders of the Evangelical communities ignore their responsibility in putting this machination in action through aggressive political support."
Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
Creating the "Vision" for Your Congregation: The information in these "Best Practices" is explosive. If practiced by pastors it will turn our current ungodly culture upside down. Sadly, most, If not all of what you will read about in this series is unfamiliar and may even sound irreverent. But the truth is, it is not really new. To the contrary, it is merely a recap of how the Protest Reformers, Puritans and Pilgrims taught the Bible.
Dr. Patrick Johnston / The Covenant News:
Pro-life organizations around the nation are in a full sprint fund-raising campaign to get signed petitions to Washington, D.C., to try and sabotage Obama's announced plan to sign the Freedom of Choice Act. The Freedom of Choice Act (FOCA), in essence, will overrule all of the restrictions that states have passed limiting abortions. It would be the most pro-abortion piece of legislation that Congress has ever passed, finally putting to rest the argument that legal abortion is a Supreme Court usurpation of Constitutional limitations. With FOCA, Congress would finally transcend the absurdity of the Supreme Court’s Roe v. Wade decision to make abortion a fundamental right – like freedom of speech.
William F. Jasper / The New American:
"And now for a world government." That is the title of an important op-ed by Gideon Rachman that appeared in the Financial Times of London -- important both for the showcase in which it appeared and the smug admissions it makes. The Financial Times (FT) is notable not only for the distinctive salmon-colored paper on which it is printed, but for who reads it. It is the main competitor of the Wall Street Journal for the position of top "must read" daily economic newspaper for global business, financial, and political elites.
Dom Armentano / LewRockwell.com:
The National Bureau of Economic Research has officially confirmed what everyone already knew: The U.S. economy has been in recession for many months. The question now is whether anything constructive can be done about it. Historically there have been two very different public policy responses to a serious economic slowdown. The first – laissez-faire – is to simply allow market prices to adjust to the new economic reality. ... An alternative policy approach, which is being tried this time, is to treat the recession with almost unprecedented doses of government intervention. In this scenario, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve engage in policies aimed at "reflating" the bursting credit bubble.
Charles Scaliger / The New American:
On December 16th, the Federal Reserve announced a record-setting cut in interest rates, targeting the federal funds rate at zero to a quarter of a percent. There were hosannas and flourishes on Wall Street, with the Dow surging more than three hundred points. In the long run -- say, a week or two at the most -- the Fed's latest action will likely have the same effect as its other recent moves, moves intended to soften the effects of an economic calamity the Fed itself has been largely responsible for creating. In point of fact, the federal funds rate -- the average interest rate that Fed member banks charge one another to make short-term (usually overnight) loans of reserves kept at the Fed -- is not "set" by the Fed at all.
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
As I write, Barack Hussein Obama, aka Barry Soetoro, aka Barry Obama, aka Barack Dunham, aka Barry Dunham, aka Barack Soetoro, et al., persists in refusing to prove his eligibility to be President. The nation faces a historic constitutional crisis, in the midst of which Republicrud Party activists – typically treasonous – are once again trying to sneak a new constitutional convention through the state legislatures. If they succeed, they will repeal the Constitution and abolish the country.
Philip Jenkins / The American Conservative:
Historical analogies have been much in vogue since this election. Are we living at the end of 1932, preparing to face the glories and disasters of a revived New Deal? Or are we in a mirror-image 1980, the beginning of an era of liberal dominance, with a massive party realignment that might not even reach full fruition for another decade or so? These questions matter, not just because such debates give employment to academic historians. Deciding which year offers the closest parallel to the present forces conservatives to think how they will adjust to the new order. Just how radically have public attitudes shifted?
Slice Of Laodicea:
Rick Warren is headlining at the 8th Annual Muslim Public Affairs Counsel convention coming up on December 20th in Long Beach, California. Think about that one for a moment. "New Era, New Role" is the name of the gathering. As a friend put it, "The puzzle pieces keep coming together." Rick will not be there to proclaim Christ crucified, the only hope for the world. He will not be there to warn the Muslims that they worship a false god who will lead them to hell. He will give them instructions on how they can link arms with Christians to make the world a jollier, nicer place.
Laurie Higgins / IllinoisFamily.org:
Obama searched the nation for the best candidate to serve as Secretary of Education, and, lo and behold, he found just the person right here in Illinois: Arne Duncan, current CEO of the Chicago Public School system. Duncan ...recommended approval of the proposed Chicago Social Justice High School-Pride Campus that was committed to affirming, and therefore normalizing, homosexuality. This publicly subsidized high school, which the proposal designers have promised to reintroduce next year, would have had homosexuality-affirming curricula. Duncan's approval of this highly controversial proposal was foolish, irresponsible, unethical, and pedagogically unsound.
Michael Peroutka & John Lofton / The American View Radio:
On this program, Michael & John interview E. Ray Moore, head of the "Exodus Mandate Project," a Christian ministry to encourage and assist Christian families to leave government schools for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling. It is "EM's" hope that this fresh obedience in educating our children according to Biblical mandates will prove to be the key for revival in our families, churches and nation.
Al Cronkrite / The Covenant News:
Anyone who is not aware that the United States is in deep trouble needs to learn to read. Debt, private and public, is about to sink the good ship America into the sea of world government. The legal structure for Fascism has been set in place by the votes of the farcical individuals we continue to elect to our congress and we are on the brink of a police state. The heads of our Christian leaders being full of a selfish desire to build their own ministries and empty of true history and a zeal for the Kingdom of God have allowed a wicked belligerence to pervade their constituents and failed to inform them of the evil that is about to overwhelm us. In our current straits the Devil is delighted to erase our guilt and make our wickedness seem righteous.
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
The most remarkable thing about the gesture was the fact that it was an act of defiant contempt, rather than one of criminal violence. Bush's reaction was remarkable only in the sense that he displayed, for perhaps the last time before he becomes deservedly inconsequential, the depth of his ignorance and the utter impregnability of his unearned self-regard.
Middle East News Aljazeera:
An Iraqi journalist arrested after throwing his shoes at the US president has been tortured during his detention, his brother has said. Muntazer al-Zaidi, who called George Bush "a dog" during his attack, was beaten by security guards after his arrest, Durgham al-Zaidi told Al Jazeera on Tuesday. "We know that [Muntazer] has been tortured and his hand was broken. I asked them to go and check on him in the Green Zone [in Baghdad]," he said. Al-Baghdadia television, Muntazer's employer, reported that al-Zaidi had been "seriously injured" while in custody.
Related:
Brother: Shoe-Thrower Seen By Judge In Jail The Associated Press
BAGHDAD -- The Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at President George W. Bush appeared before a judge Wednesday but in his jail cell, his brother said, alleging the reporter must have been too seriously injured to appear in a courtroom. The family of Muntadhar al-Zeidi went to the Central Criminal Court expecting to attend a hearing, said his brother, Dhargham. He added they were told the investigative judge went to see him in jail and that they should return in eight days. "That means my brother was severely beaten and they fear that his appearance could trigger anger at the court," he added.
"This is a farewell kiss, you dog. This is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." --Muntader al-Zaidi, Iraqi journalist who threw his shoes at George W. Bush during Baghdad news conference, December 14, 2008.
SockAndAwe.com:
Following in the footsteps of the Iraqi journalist who hurled his shoes at President George W. Bush, anyone can take a virtual swipe at Dubya thanks to a new game. The aim of Sock and Awe, launched by Alex Tew, is to knock Bush out with a shoe. Aptly named after the US "Shock and Awe" military campaign to knock out Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein, the game gives players 30 seconds to aim at a figure of Bush ducking behind a rostrum. (If the Server times out it means that too many people are trying to play the game at the same time. Try back later)
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
My father died at the age of 91 on December 2. He was not a man to make profound observations. He was a facts man. He spent World War II in the military police and two decades in the FBI. The FBI mostly investigated. He liked Sergeant Joe Friday's line: "Just the facts, Mam." Jack Webb made that line famous on Dragnet, which started on TV the year he joined the FBI: 1951. He was a big Dragnet fan.
George F. Smith / Mises.org:
As we await Bush's replacement to straighten our wayward lives, it's crucial to understand how we got here and why policy makers are so determined to do the wrong thing. Austrian economics explains why their policies are flawed, but no one with a voice seems to care. When history confirms that hands-off is the only effective and humane approach to a bust, and to prosperity generally, while hands-on brings ruination, why do governments today consider every option but free markets?
The Associated Press:
Barack Obama announced Arne Duncan, the head of the Chicago school system, as education secretary Tuesday and declared that failing to improve classroom instruction is "morally unacceptable for our children." Duncan has run the country's third-biggest school district since 2001, pushing to boost teacher quality and to improve struggling schools and closing those that fail. Duncan's nomination may please the unions, who have said Duncan seems willing to work with them. "Arne Duncan actually reaches out and tries to do things in a collaborative way," Randi Weingarten, head of the 1.4 million-member American Federation of Teachers, said in an interview earlier this month.
Matt Hadro / CNSNews.com:
Randi Weingarten, president of the American Federation of Teachers, the nation's largest teacher's union said the AFT "would love to see" children "from age three on" attending these programs. "The research is completely conclusive of the issue that our brains develop faster between birth and five years old than they do pretty much at any other time."
The Associated Press:
An accelerant was poured around the exterior of Gov. Sarah Palin's church before fire heavily damaged the building, federal investigators said. The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives said the accelerant was poured at several locations around the church, including entrances. Lab tests will determine the type of substance involved. Possibilities include gasoline, kerosene, diesel fuel or even lamp oil, Agent Nick Starcevic said. The blaze was set Friday night at the main entrance of the Wasilla Bible Church while a small group, including two children, were inside. No one was injured. Fire authorities were called to the scene at 9:40 p.m., unusually early for many arson fires, Starcevic said.
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
My good friend, Tom DeWeese, chairman of the American Policy Center, recently issued an urgent alert regarding a revived effort to assemble a modern Constitutional Convention. Mind you, the United States has not assembled such a Convention since 1787, when a Constitutional Convention replaced the Articles of Confederation with the U.S. Constitution. Fortunately, the delegates to the Con Con of 1787 were composed of freedom-loving patriots who had just fought a bloody war for independence and were in no mind to reenact tyranny upon the land they had just fought to liberate. However, can one imagine what would happen if the current bunch of politically correct leftists in Washington, D.C., were to be granted the power to rewrite our Constitution? It would be the end of the United States of America, and that is no hyperbole.
U.S. Troops' New Mission: America's 'Special Events'
Bob Unruh / WorldNetDaily:
New rules published in the Federal Register would allow certain civilians to call American soldiers into action inside the U.S. to prevent environmental damage or respond to "special events" and "other domestic activities." The alarming warning is contained in proposed rules published last week for the Department of Defense's "Defense Support of Civil Authorities" plan.
John Lofton / The American View Radio:
One of the organizations joining a law suit against the state of South Carolina for issuing a license plate featuring a cross, a stained-glass window and the words "I Believe" is the Arab-American Anti-Discrimination Committee. I chatted recently with the group's Communications Director Laila Al-Qatami. Our conversation - well, it - she was somewhat - it ended rather abruptly.
Related:
Federal Judge Halts South Carolina's Christian License Plate Program Associated Baptist Press
COLUMBIA, S.C. -- South Carolinians who want to advertise their Christian faith on their car tags won’t get to anytime soon, according to a Dec. 11 ruling by a federal judge. In a preliminary injunction, United States District Judge Cameron McGowan Currie ordered state officials to halt production, sales, advertising and distribution of the new license plates. The tags feature a cross superimposed on a stylized stained-glass window and the inscription “I Believe” above the tag number and the name of the state.
Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk:
The freedom to fail is an essential part of freedom. Government- provided financial security necessitates relinquishing the very essence of freedom. Last week, the big 3 American automakers came back to Capitol Hill with their hands out to the government. Congress spent this past week debating how much money to give them and what strings should be attached. Though the bailout plan for the auto industry has suffered what I would call a temporary setback in the Senate, other avenues for public funding are being explored through the Federal Reserve and the Treasury Department. I am afraid the American auto industry will soon learn that having billions rain down from Washington will not be the blessing one might expect.
Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com:
Rumor has it that the Federal Reserve is considering selling bonds. The legality is in question. Leaving that aside, why would the Fed do such a thing? If it did, how would such a thing work? What would be its effects? The Fed can issue non-interest bearing debt now. This is the Federal Reserve notes that we use as a medium of exchange. When the Fed buys things like Treasury bills, commercial paper, junk bonds, stocks, or many other securities, it pays by creating reserves for banks that can be cashed out, if desired, as Federal Reserve notes.
F. William Engdahl / Online Journal:
The Federal Reserve has bluntly refused a request by a major US financial news service to disclose the recipients of more than $2 trillion of emergency loans from US taxpayers and to reveal the assets the central bank is accepting as collateral. Their lawyers resorted to the bizarre argument that they did so to protect 'trade secrets.' Is the secret that the US financial system is de facto bankrupt?
Bob Strodtbeck / Ether Zone:
All those conservatives worried that President Obama is going to socialize the economy and try to control everybody all the time, relax. He's too late. Not only is he too late to place the federal government in control of America's economic and social systems, those systems are rapidly collapsing to being valueless and debauched. The passing Bush Administration did its part to wreck both as he entered the White House pledging budgetary parsimony and humility in foreign affairs but is leaving after doubling the federal debt due largely to the War Against International Terrorism that pursued the Utopian wish that all the world would live in democratic harmony.
The Associated Press: "This is a farewell kiss, you dog, this is from the widows, the orphans and those who were killed in Iraq." ... The Iraqi TV reporter who hurled his shoes at George W. Bush (See Video) was kidnapped once by militants and, separately, detained briefly by the U.S. military. Over time, Muntadhar al-Zeidi, a 28-year-old unmarried Shiite, came to hate both the U.S. military occupation and Iran's interference in Iraq, his family told The Associated Press on Monday. Al-Zeidi's act of defiance Sunday transformed an obscure reporter from a minor TV station into a national hero to many Iraqis fed up with the nearly six-year U.S. presence here, but also fearful that their country will fall under Iran's influence once the Americans leave.
Yahoo News Search:
In Iraq, Muntadhar al-Zeidi is a certified hero and all he had to do was throw his shoes. On Sunday, the Arab journalist launched both his shoes at U.S. President George Bush during a press conference in Baghdad. The first shoe nearly pinged Bush in the head but he managed to duck just in time. Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki tried to block the second shoe as it flew directly over Bush's head.
Related:
Shoe-Throwing Goes Viral Stephen Dinan / The Washington Times:
It took two shoes to do it, but the lame duck finally has become an Internet phenomenon. President Bush's shoe-dodging in Iraq this weekend is burning up YouTube, garnering 11 of the top 20 most-watched videos as of late afternoon Monday. But it's also become a forum for anti-Bush - and, almost as common, anti-American - sentiment. "This is going viral at a rapid pace, unlike anything I've seen postelection," said David Burch, marketing manager for TubeMogul, which tracks YouTube video views. "People are uploading videos of the incident to YouTube at an average rate of 209 per hour. Currently, there are over 5,000 versions, totaling over 8,145,000 views."
Schuller's Son Resigns as Crystal Cathedral Pastor
Christopher Goffard / Los Angeles Times:
Ousted from the "Hour of Power" TV show a month earlier, the Rev. Robert A. Schuller leaves his father's Garden Grove church and plans to open his own ministry. The Rev. Robert A. Schuller, ousted in October as the preacher of the long-running Christian television program "Hour of Power," has resigned as senior pastor at the Crystal Cathedral and plans to open his own ministry.
Jim R. Schwiesow / The Covenant News:
On January 20th upwards of four million Americans are expected to gather in the nation's capitol to celebrate the swearing in to Presidential Office of the one that they have anointed as their savior, and to drink of the golden vessels containing the fruits of the victory of their exalted elect and praise the secular gods of this nation. ... How is it, one might ask, that such a man could be elected to the Office of Presidency of the United States? The answer is easy the level of ignorance in this nation has reached a saturation point that brings a flush of shame to the countenance of knowledgeable thinking Americans.
AFP via Yahoo! News:
Homelessness and hunger increased in an overwhelming majority of 25 US cities in the past year, driven by the foreclosure crisis and rising unemployment, a survey showed Friday. Out of 25 cities across the United States surveyed by the US Conference of Mayors, 83 percent said homelessness in general had increased over the past year while 16 cities, or nearly two-thirds of those polled, cited a rise in the number of families who had been forced out of their homes.
Chalcedon Blog:
"So, in our generation, Jesus Christ is calling to his church by the woes of a perishing world, and by the critical conjuncture of such opportunities for evangelizing it as the world never saw before, and may never see again, for then thousand volunteers; but only a few here and there sluggishly and dubiously respond. Should not every brave man, then, arise and fly to the front, that his gallant example may rebuke the fatal sloth of his comrades and teach them to be ashamed of their hesitation?"
Robert Higgs / LewRockwell.com:
Turned away by the Senate, the Big Three auto makers have resorted to begging the Bush administration to rescue them from the plight in which they now find themselves as a result of decades of poor management. Wailing and gnashing of teeth are all the rage in Washington as these wannabe plunderers warn us of dire consequences unless the government acts as the middleman in their attempts to raid the taxpayers' bank accounts.
Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
It seems like I've been writing about saving American jobs forever. Actually, along with thousands of others, we began yelling at the top of our lungs back in 1993 when the vile NAFTA treaty was about to be passed. We warned what would happen and sure as the sun shines, millions of good paying jobs have vanished since unconstitutional treaties like NAFTA, GATT and CAFTA were passed by corrupt Congresses controlled by both parties. Union and non-union jobs went over seas to our enemy the communist Chinese; Americans were left standing in unemployment lines.
Robert F. Bruner / Forbes:
Bernie Madoff confessed on Dec. 11 to running the biggest Ponzi scheme ever. Named for a prominent practitioner, Charles Ponzi (1882-1949), the con artist in this game builds a pyramid of investors by paying very high returns from the cash inflows from new investors. There is no source of real value creation; early investors profit from the gullibility of later investors. As word spreads of the high returns, an investment bubble is created: Investors throw their money into the scheme. But no bubbles inflate forever. Eventually it becomes impossible for the con artist to keep paying the high returns. Just before that tipping point, the skillful con artist will abscond with the cash. But Bernie Madoff wouldn't or couldn't run off. This is one for the record books featuring a spectacular fall of one of the pillars of the New York financial community and possibly the biggest loss ever (up to $50 billion, by some reports).
Henry Makow / Ether Zone:
The arrest of financier Bernard Madoff Thursday for operating a "Ponzi scheme" costing investors $50 billion made the TV network news. Curiously, a lawsuit the same day against Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin for defrauding Citibank shareholders of more than $122 billion, also described as a "Ponzi scheme," got no airplay whatsoever. As we shall see, Rubin, a Director of Citibank, profited from the shady practices that destroyed the financial system and sent the world's economies into a tailspin. Then, to repair the damage, he and his banker friends put the taxpayer on the hook for trillions. Rubin didn't get the same publicity as Madoff because of his close connection to Barack Obama.
Mike Adams / Natural News:
The world press is ablaze today with news of the arrest of elite Wall Street broker Bernard Madoff. They say he ran an elaborate Ponzi scheme that bilked high-profile investors for more than $50 billion. Even Geneva banks lost more than $4 billion, Reuters is reporting.
CNNMoney.com:
American homeowners will collectively lose more than $2 trillion in home value by the end of 2008, according to a report released Monday. The real estate Web site, Zillow.com, calculated that home values have dropped 8.4% year-over-year during the first three quarters of 2008, compared with the same period of 2007. Some 11.7 million Americans are now "underwater," owing more on their mortgage balances than their homes are worth.
The Associated Press:
Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin's home church was badly damaged by arson, leading the governor to apologize Saturday if the fire was connected to "undeserved negative attention" from her campaign as the Republican vice presidential nominee. Damage to the Wasilla Bible Church was estimated at $1 million, authorities said. No one was injured in the fire, which was set Friday night while a handful of people, including two children, were inside, according to James Steele, the Central Mat-Su fire chief.
The Associated Press -- See Video:
(Aiming for the president's head it looks like the guy threw the shoes pretty good, but Bush was able to duck out of the way -- good reflexes.) On an Iraq trip shrouded in secrecy and marred by dissent, President George W. Bush on Sunday hailed progress in the war that defines his presidency and got a size-10 reminder of his unpopularity when a man hurled two shoes at him during a news conference. "This is the end!" shouted the protester, later identified as Muntadar al-Zeidi, a correspondent for Al-Baghdadia television, an Iraqi-owned station based in Cairo, Egypt. Bush ducked both shoes as they whizzed past his head and landed with a thud against the wall behind him.
The Chalcedon Foundation:
Dr. R.J. Rushdoony, one of the great scholars of the 20th Century, delivers a prophetic warning to the West. In this rare, never-seen-before video excerpt - taken from a lecture he gave in Tampa Bay in the early 90's - "Rush" uses autism as a metaphor for a spiritual sickness that has become epidemic: an obsession with self; that whether we are talking about church or politics, people are asking the same thing: "What's in it for me?" Prescient as always, his warning that this form of autism, if left unchecked, could spell a 200 year dark age for Western Civilization may well be coming true.
Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
When was the last time your pastor, or small group leader closed their message with this statement? Sadly, for many or you, the answer is, "Never!" If you were to survey your friends about what they expect their lifestyle will have on our culture, most would probably answer, "Little, if any." That certainly wouldn't have been the answer you would have received several hundred years ago if you asked the Puritans, Pilgrims, or the Protestant Reformers. Their answer would have been the same as those who landed at Plymouth Rock: "We expect to be a city on a hill, and a light to the nations." [Part I] [Part II] [Part III]
John Lofton / The American View Radio:
On this program you'll hear interviews with: Bishop Charles Ellis of the 8,000 member, Detroit-based, Pentecostal Greater Grace Temple; Michael Hovey, a spokesman for the Archbishop of Detroit, Cardinal Adam Maida; Rabbi Daniel Syme of Temple Beth El in Bloomfield Hills, Michigan; and Victor Ghabib Begg, chairman of the Council of Islamic Organizations of Michigan. All favor some kind of Federal loan for Ford, Chrysler, GM. A warning: Hearing these interviews may be hazardous to your mental health.
Campaign for Liberty:
Dr. Paul sat down Thursday to present his thoughts on the House passage of the auto bailout. The bill was defeated in the Senate later that night.
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
I've got some good news and some bad news today. The bad news is: A lot of people are going broke. The good news is: They know it now. You see, as long as they were able to borrow money and stay employed, they looked and felt prosperous, even though living paycheck to paycheck is not prosperity. But now, jobs are in jeopardy – those that still have one. Credit cards are maxed out – those that haven’t been canceled – and the prospects for prosperity next year, real or illusionary, are fading with each new report on our collapsing economy. That’s why so many are now dining at McDonalds, shopping at Wal-Mart and not buying anything they can’t eat or live without.
Lew Rockwell / LewRockwell.com:
If you write and follow politics enough, you eventually realize that most evil in this world is brought about by those seeking a lesser of two evils. And those who assist in this very much resent it when you point out that they are promoting evil. My inbox has been inundated in recent days with people who think along these lines. Consider the Detroit bailout for example. Now, this idea is preposterous on the face of it. One of the glorious aspects of this recession is that it will finally deal the crippling blow to this industry that has been a decades-long drag on American productivity.
Lynnley Browning / The New York Times:
A little-noticed provision in the proposed bailout plan for Detroit's automakers blesses an aggressive tax shelter sold by large banks and insurers to municipal transit agencies across the country. The provision asks the government to help the agencies by guaranteeing the economics of the complex shelter, despite years of efforts by the Treasury Department and the Internal Revenue Service to shut it down and collect billions of dollars of unpaid taxes, interest and penalties owed by the banks and insurers.
Gary North / LewRockwell.com: Hope deferred maketh the heart sick: but when the desire cometh, it is a tree of life (Proverbs 13:12). Political desire never comes. Political hope is never realized. But the dream never dies. And a sucker is born every minute. From the first year of operation of the Federal Reserve System in November 1914 until today, the official statistics of the Federal government indicate that the dollar has declined in purchasing power by 95%. You can verify this with the inflation calculator, posted by the Bureau of Labor Statistics.
G Edward Griffin:
The total money scam. The government can only tax it's people so much. So whatever extra money they want, they get the FED to print or create out of thin air. This devalues the dollars you hold in your hand, thus is the inflation tax. Ron Paul is the only person in Washington that would guarantee an end to this. This is the issue of our day and our nation hangs in the balance of a MAJOR financial meltdown. The money changers of our day are running short on tricks and we need a return to sound money.
Monica Guzman / Seattle Post Intelligencer:
A controversial Kansas church known for blaming American casualties in Iraq on nationwide tolerance for homosexuality has asked the state for permission to erect a sign stating that "Santa Claus will take you to hell." The sign would join a Christian Nativity set, three signs mocking atheism, and the one that started it all - the sign from the atheist group Freedom From Religion whose message that "religion hardens hearts and enslaves minds" sparked a furious nationwide debate over the nature of atheism and the boundaries between church and state. According to the Spokesman Review, the text of the Westboro Baptist Church's message would read:
"You'd better watch out, get ready to cry, You'd better go hide, I'm telling you why 'cuz Santa Claus will take you to hell. He is your favorite idol, you worship at his feet, but when you stand before your God He won't help you take the heat. So get this fact straight: you're feeling God's hate, Santa's to blame for the economy's fate, Santa Claus will take you to hell."
The Associated Press:
A day after the sudden demise of rescue legislation in Congress, carmakers were talking with the administration and the Federal Reserve about how they could still get the billions of dollars they say they need to survive. In a reversal, the most likely rescue option under consideration involved billions of dollars originally ticketed for the bailout of the financial industry. President George W. Bush had earlier declared that money off-limits to the beleaguered automakers. TARP is the $700 billion Troubled Assets Recovery Program, the financial industry bailout plan enacted in October. All but $15 billion of the first $350 billion has been dedicated to troubled banks or insurance companies, and the Treasury Department is barred from dipping into the second $350 billion without a formal notification of Congress.
Julia Duin / The Washington Times:
A top official for the National Association of Evangelicals resigned Thursday after his earlier remarks favoring 'homo-sex unions' caused an uproar among evangelicals. The Rev. Richard Cizik, the NAE's vice president for governmental affairs for 28 years, stepped down after protests over a Dec. 2 interview on National Public Radio's "Fresh Air" show with Terry Gross.
MSN Money Central:
Aetna Health Insurance announced Friday the members of its newly formed Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Advisory Council. This move will strengthen Aetna's efforts to integrate business, philanthropic and outreach activities to improve access and care for its LGBT members. The LGBT Advisory Council will support Aetna and the Aetna Foundation in identifying new initiatives that specifically focus on enhancing outreach to the LGBT community.
Related:
Medical Consequences Of What Homosexuals Do
Throughout history, all civilized societies have condemned homosexuality. Until 1961 homosexual acts were illegal throughout America.
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
Regular readers of this column know that one of my chief frustrations is the way Christian conservatives (otherwise known as the "Religious Right") are so easily deceived by Republican politicians. The all-time classic illustration of this foible is the way the Religious Right was (and is) so enamored with President George W. Bush. No matter what Bush did: no matter how egregiously unconstitutional, no matter how utterly stupid, no matter how blatantly evil his actions were, Christian conservatives (almost universally) either robotically accepted and approved what he did, or blindly looked the other way. It was maddening!
Related: Bush: Bible Not Literal, All Religions
Pray To Same God, Evolution Is Fact
WASHINGTON -- President George W. Bush said his belief that God created the world is not incompatible with the scientific theory of evolution. In an interview with ABC's "Nightline" on Monday, the president also said he probably is not a literalist when reading the Bible although an individual can learn a great deal from it, including the New Testament teaching that God sent his only son.
Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
When you were a child, did your teacher ever have the class sit in a circle around the room and then whisper a statement in the first child's ear and have that child whisper it to the person sitting next to them and continue this process until the last person told the class the statement that was just whispered in his ear? If so, you'll remember that the last person was surprised that his statement caused some giggles from some of the earlier classmates in the circle, and when the teacher had the first child repeat what she told him or her, then everyone got a big laugh because what the last person heard and repeated was not close to the original statement. [Part I]
Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
By now you know that the Supreme Court has denied certiorari without comment to New Jersey attorney Leo Donofrio's petition, a document that was simple enough for even a Member of Congress to understand. Donofrio's argument did not depend on where Illegal Alien-Elect Hussein was born. All the evidence available so far – including the fact that he refuses to produce a genuine Hawaiian birth certificate and the fact that his grandmother says she was there when he was born in Mombasa – says he is not a natural born citizen and therefore is ineligible to be President.
Joe Sobran / Fitzgerald Griffin Foundation:
In most times and places of which history has some record, it has been taken for granted that the duty of a good ruler is to govern in accordance with the customs and morals -- what we now call the "culture" -- of his people. Even the cruelest tyrants have usually been preoccupied with nothing more than advancing their own personal interests and appetites. They may violate the commonly accepted morality of their societies; they may murder, torture, rape, and rob; but they seldom try to change that morality. Breaking the rules is one thing; overthrowing the rules is another matter altogether. But in the twentieth century we witnessed the eruption of a new kind of politics, whose goal was to “build a new society.” This ambition went far beyond changing regimes (from monarchy to republic or democracy, for example); it aspired to use the power of the state to change the very fabric of social life.
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
It was neither a demonic wind nor "the fire of God" that destroyed the home of San Diego resident Dong Yun Yoon. The culprit was a crippled F/A-18 Hornet fighter jet that spiraled to the ground out of control after its pilot ejected two miles short of the runway at Miramar Air Station. The pilot survived the experience. Yoon’s family did not. The crash destroyed his home and killed his wife, daughters, and mother-in-law, none of whom arose that morning expecting to become collateral damage in a military training exercise gone lethally wrong.
Patrick Cockburn / Counter Punch:
It's All Spelled Out in Unpublicized Agreement. On November 27 the Iraqi parliament voted by a large majority in favor of a security agreement with the US under which the 150,000 American troops in Iraq will withdraw from cities, towns and villages by June 30, 2009 and from all of Iraq by December 31, 2011. The Iraqi government will take over military responsibility for the Green Zone in Baghdad, the heart of American power in Iraq, in a few weeks time. Private security companies will lose their legal immunity. US military operations and the arrest of Iraqis will only be carried out with Iraqi consent. There will be no US military bases left behind when the last US troops leave in three years time and the US military is banned in the interim from carrying out attacks on other countries from Iraq.
William D. Hartung / New America Foundation:
Beyond the Bush Legacy: The United States, which entered into over $23 billion in Foreign Military Sales agreements in fiscal year 2007 and $32 billion in FY 2008, is the world's largest arms supplier. U.S. exports range from combat aircraft to Pakistan, Morocco, Greece, Romania, and Chile to small arms and light weapons to the Philippines, Egypt, and Georgia. In 2006 and 2007, the United States sold weapons to over 174 states and territories, a significant increase from the beginning of the Bush administration when the number of U.S. arms clients stood at 123. While many of these sales were relatively small deals licensed commercially by the State Department, a number of important new states were added or restored to the U.S. client list, including the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Liberia, East Timor, Indonesia, Iraq, Afghanistan, India, Kyrgyzstan, Pakistan, and Uzbekistan.
Gun Owners of America:
Change. That's what the next four years are going to bring. More government regulations... more government spending... and more battles over gun control. Once Barack Obama takes his oath of office in January, he will become, without a doubt, the most anti-gun President this nation has ever seen.
Matt Hawes / Campaign for Liberty:
Coming on the heels of the auto bailout's defeat in the Senate, the White House and the Treasury are announcing their intentions to take money from TARP and act anyway. If it hasn't been apparent to mainstream conservative voters that legislative check and balances mean nothing to this administration, it should be clear to everyone now. The UAW announced this morning that they want the Treasury or the Fed to act "for the good of the country," yet they refuse to renegotiate their contracts in an attempt to have their cake and eat it too. Their "woe is me" defense in their press conference just doesn't cut it anymore.
Related: Union Balks and $14B Auto Bailout Dies in Senate The Associated Press:
A $14 billion emergency bailout for U.S. automakers collapsed in the Senate Thursday night after the United Auto Workers refused to accede to demands for swift wage cuts. The collapse came after bipartisan talks on the auto rescue broke down over demands that the United Auto Workers union agree to steep wage cuts by 2009 to bring their pay into line with Japanese carmakers.
Before the House of Representatives, December 10, 2008
FOX News:
Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton would make about $4,700 less as secretary of state than her predecessor, Condoleezza Rice. Congress late Wednesday lowered the salary for the nation's top diplomat to keep Clinton's nomination from running afoul of the Constitution. An obscure section on compensation for public officials, the Emoluments Clause, says that no member of Congress can be appointed to a government post if that job's pay was increased during the lawmaker's current term. In other words, Clinton, D-N.Y., might have been ineligible to serve in the post because she was serving in Congress when Rice's salary was raised to its current level of $191,300.
Pastor Matt Trewhella / The Covenant News:
Drew Heiss is a husband and father. He and his wife, Maura, have five young children, all of whom live at home. However, the State of Wisconsin wants to put him in prison for one year. What is his crime? He allegedly held a sign outside a Milwaukee abortion clinic on a public sidewalk closer than 25 feet from the door. Let me give you the details and a little history here.
Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
One of the popular "reality" programs on TV is "So you think you can dance?" Amateur dancers from across the nation audition to see who can win the big prize. As you would expect, some of the dancers are pretty bad, some are pretty good, and some are excellent. If there were ever a TV program entitled, "So you think you can teach?" there would no doubt be teachers who were pretty bad, pretty good and excellent. However, there is a big difference between being an excellent dancer and an excellent teacher. In dancing, a person can improvise and develop a unique style that is appealing to the audience. Becoming an excellent teacher, however, requires that we follow God's instructions and Jesus' example. "Best Practices" for Bible Teachers points out the teaching and preaching methods of Jesus and His disciples. These methods were used by the Protestant Reformers, Puritans and America's first pastors. [Part II]
KABC TV-7 - ABC7 Eyewitness News:
The pastor of a Highland church is in critical condition after he was beaten and robbed by two men while trying to decorate his church with Christmas lights. Now he's fighting for his life in a Loma Linda hospital. Pastor Dennis Warman is in critical condition. He suffered skull fractures, internal bleeding and is in a medically-induced coma.
Related:
Attack By Robbers Leaves Pastor Badly Injured By Paul Larocco / Riverside Press-Enterprise
Anyone with information about the attackers is asked to call sheriff's Detective Matt Yost at 909-425-9793 or WeTip at 1-800-782-7463.
Coach Dave Daubenmire / NewsWithViews.com:
"Boy you sure are coming increasingly negative." an e-mailer recently said to me in regards to my recent commentaries. "It's not that I disagree with what you have to say, it is just that it all seems so gloomy. I wish that our future were brighter." I am so sorry if I come across as negative. That really is not my intention. In fact, that is not even what I feel in my heart. I don’t know how to explain it, but I am full of hope and anticipation. I have great expectations of what God is getting ready to do. Sorry if my writings have given you the opposite feeling. It is just that it is hard to give a pretty description of a train wreck.
Laurence M. Vance / LewRockwell.com:
Apologists and defenders of Bush’s global war on terror have always had one thing they could fall back on should none of their other lame arguments for war, militarism, the suppression of civil liberties, an imperial presidency, and an aggressive foreign policy be convincing: to dissent when America is at war is to be un-American or anti-American. Not any more. This pathetic argument has been laid to rest once and for all by Murray Polner and Thomas E. Woods with the publication of We Who Dared to Say No to War: American Antiwar Writing from 1812 to Now (Basic Books, 2008). Polner, who has written for the Nation, and Woods, who has written for the American Conservative, are as opposite politically as two men can be. They are united in this book by one, great, noble idea – mass murder is wrong, even when undertaken by governments.
Doug French / Mises.org:
In response to the meltdown of financial institutions, unprecedented power has been unleashed by the federal government. Between actions by the Federal Reserve, the TARP, guarantees made by the FDIC, and other direct bailouts, the total comes to nearly $8 trillion. That's over 30 times the inflation-adjusted cost of the S&L bailout, according to Bianco Research. But the mainstream financial press is urging the Fed to do much, much more. "Look, this is no time for the Fed to act like a bashful virgin," ex-Fed operative Vincent Reinhart told Barron's.
David Calderwood / LewRockwell.com:
In a recent email exchange about our larger social situation Robert Klassen used a term that simply jumped off the computer screen at me. Cargo Cult. It may not hit you the same way, but it sure raised the wattage of the lights in my world. I turned to Wikipedia for a few details and didn’t need to even page down to see all that I needed. "Members, leaders, and prophets of cargo cults maintain that the manufactured goods ("cargo") of the non-native culture have been created by spiritual means, such as through their deities and ancestors, and are intended for the local indigenous people, but that, unfairly, the foreigners have gained control of these objects through attraction of these material goods to themselves by malice or mistake."
Bloomberg:
The House approved a $14 billion loan package intended to prevent a collapse of domestic automakers that would threaten millions of U.S. jobs. The 237-170 vote sends the measure to the Senate, where opposition is growing. Tonight’s action could be a lifeline to General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC, which said they would run out of cash by early next year. The Bush administration and Democratic leaders in Congress backed the measure, which they said would force the automakers to restructure to achieve financial viability or repay the loans.
Related: House OKs Auto Bailout; Senate Iffy Matt Canham / The Salt Lake Tribune:
Even as the House passed emergency legislation meant to keep General Motors and Chrysler from falling into bankruptcy, Senate Republicans on Wednesday placed a major roadblock in front of the measure. The White House and Democrats carefully crafted a compromise that would funnel $14 billion to the embattled automakers as early as next week to keep them functioning until the end of March. It has the support of President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack Obama. And Late Wednesday, the bill passed the House on a largely party-lines vote of 237-150. Before the automakers get the cash, the proposal needs the votes of 60 senators to overcome procedural hurdles, which requires some Republican support. And that appears unlikely.
The Associated Press:
The federal government registered a record budget deficit for the month of November, reflecting the impact of a recession on tax receipts and the mounting costs of the $700 billion financial rescue program. The country remains on track to hit a record deficit of $1 trillion or more for the entire year, which would be more than double the previous all-time high set last year. The Treasury Department said Wednesday that the gap between the government's revenue collections and what it paid out last month totaled $164.4 billion, the largest deficit ever recorded for the month of November.
Michael Mackenzie / Financial Times:
Nervous investors paid for the privilege of owning US government debt, pushing interest rates on three-month Treasury bills to negative levels for the first time in postwar history. The implied yield for three-month bills briefly traded at negative 0.01 per cent – the first time that has happened since 1940, traders said. At such a level, an investor is essentially paying someone to own the security.
Environment & Public Works / EPW.Senate.gov:
The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
The Associated Press:
Barack Obama intends to round out his environmental and natural resources team with a Nobel Prize-winning physicist and three former Environmental Protection Agency officials from the Clinton administration. Obama has selected Steven Chu for energy secretary, Lisa Jackson for EPA administrator, Carol Browner as his energy "czar," and Nancy Sutley to lead the White House Council on Environmental Quality, Democrat officials with knowledge of the decisions said Wednesday. Obama plans to name the four to the posts in the coming weeks, barring unforeseen developments.
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
"Insanity," according to a famous definition, is a condition revealed by the habit of doing exactly the same thing repeatedly in earnest anticipation of a different result. A closely related form of derangement is megalomania, a prominent symptom of which is an individual’s self-exalting belief that he is the divine exception that can make that different result occur. When it's displayed in private pursuits, megalomania is a harmless if pitiable condition. When coupled with political power, it becomes the propellant of large-scale social experiments that ruin societies and kill people by the tens of millions. Barack Obama suffers from an acute case.
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
On April 29, 2004, the last Oldsmobile rolled off the assembly line in Lansing, Michigan. The Olds Cutlass had been the #1 selling car in America in the mid-1970's. In the 80's, Olds did well. But in the 90's, it became a stodgy, nothing-special vehicle, stuck in between Pontiac (youth) and Buick (successful middle age). I knew it was not long for this world when an ad agency introduced this slogan: "This is not you father's Oldsmobile!" This immediately popped into my head: "Is it my grandfather's?" Do you miss the Oldsmobile? Have you given it much thought? Fast forward to today. Imagine a TV film clip of President-elect Obama. "Oldsmobile is the backbone of American manufacture." You would think he has gone nuts. Who cares about Oldsmobile? It's gone. Forgotten. Unlamented.
John F. McManus / The New American:
As Obama continues to name the men and women who will fill his administration, I searched in vain for a newly anointed appointee who supplies even a glimmer of hope that the nation's economic meltdown will be properly addressed. What is so desperately needed is an across-the-board shrinkage of government and a return to honest money. But there's no more chance of this happening than there is of the sun rising in the West tomorrow.
Gideon Rachman / Financial Times:
I have never believed that there is a secret United Nations plot to take over the US. I have never seen black helicopters hovering in the sky above Montana. But, for the first time in my life, I think the formation of some sort of world government is plausible. A “world government” would involve much more than co-operation between nations. It would be an entity with state-like characteristics, backed by a body of laws. The European Union has already set up a continental government for 27 countries, which could be a model. The EU has a supreme court, a currency, thousands of pages of law, a large civil service and the ability to deploy military force. So could the European model go global? There are three reasons for thinking that it might.
Jeffrey A. Tucker / LewRockwell.com:
Today the highest-price good that people buy besides their houses is their car, and this reality leads people to believe that we can't possibly let the American car industry die. We couldn't possibly be a real country and a powerful nation without our beloved auto industry, which is so essential to our national well-being. What about the time before the car? Between 1870 and 1930, the biggest ticket item on every household budget besides the house itself was its piano. Everyone had to have one. Those who didn't have one aspired to have one. It was a prize, an essential part of life, and they sold by the millions and millions.
The Associated Press:
Congressional Democrats and White House officials agreed in principle Tuesday on a $15 billion bailout of U.S. automakers by U.S. Taxpayers that would give the federal government extraordinary power to restructure the floundering industry. The bailout could face substantial obstacles from congressional Republicans, who remained skeptical of the White House-negotiated plan. A group of conservatives led by Sen. John Ensign, R-Nev., has threatened to block the measure.
The News-Star:
An attorney representing the World Wide Street Preachers' Fellowship said Monday he has appealed U.S. District Court Judge Robert G. James' ruling that the town of Columbia, Louisiana did not violate the group's civil rights. Randy Wenger said the appeal was filed Dec. 2 with the U.S. 5th Circuit Court of Appeals. The Street Preachers had filed a lawsuit claiming their First and 14th amendment rights of free speech, religious freedom and right to assemble were violated in several 2004-05 incidents. In an Oct. 7 bench trial before James, witnesses testified the group came into town on a bus, told the local Methodist minister her congregation was going to hell, called her a lesbian and eventually sued the town.
The Associated Press:
Idaho Sen. Larry Craig has lost his latest attempt to withdraw his guilty plea in the Minneapolis airport men's room sex sting that effectively ended his Senate career. A three-judge panel of the Minnesota Court of Appeals on Tuesday rejected the Republican's bid to toss out his disorderly conduct conviction. Craig still has the option of appealing to the Minnesota Supreme Court, and he said Tuesday he was considering future options. Craig was arrested June 11, 2007, by an undercover police officer who was conducting a sting operation against men cruising for gay sex at the Minneapolis-St. Paul International Airport.
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
Many conservatives are up in arms regarding the charge that President-elect Barack Obama may not have been born in the United States and is, therefore, not qualified under the U.S. Constitution to be President of the United States. Article. II. Section. 1. of the U.S. Constitution states, "No Person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President . . . ." Some accuse Mr. Obama of not being born in the State of Hawaii as claimed, but in Kenya, Africa. Several people have filed various lawsuits challenging Mr. Obama's U.S. citizenship.
Mary Starrett / NewsWithViews.com:
The Constitution Party, the fastest- growing of any political party (Republican, Democrat and all other third parties) saw unprecedented growth this past election. CP voter registration increased close to 67% (not including the state of California) since 2004. (Ballot Access News, 12/08) Constitution Party presidential candidate Chuck Baldwin, who wasn’t even on the ballot in big states like Texas and California, and whose name appeared on only 37 state ballots broke all Constitution Party vote total records. Despite a virtual blackout by the media, and with no money for ads, Baldwin’s message resonated with Constitution-minded Americans who simply would not vote for evil again.
Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk:
Tragically, over the Thanksgiving holiday, the world was reminded how evil and cruel people can be. According to emerging accounts of the events in India, about a dozen well-armed and devastatingly well-trained terrorists laid siege on the city of Mumbai, killing almost two hundred people, and terrorizing thousands. Regardless of the reasons, the indiscriminate shooting on masses of unarmed and defenseless people is chilling and reprehensible. How were these terrorists able to continue so long, relatively unchallenged, killing so many? India's gun laws are her business, of course. However, once the shock of these events and the initial reaction of fear passes, Americans should take away a valuable lesson about real homeland security and gun control from this tragedy.
Abdon M. Pallasch / Chicago Sun Times:
As gun sales shoot up around the country, President-elect Barack Obama said Sunday that gun-owning Americans do not need to rush out and stock up before he is sworn in next month. "I believe in common-sense gun safety laws, and I believe in the second amendment," Obama said at a news conference. "Lawful gun owners have nothing to fear. I said that throughout the campaign. I haven't indicated anything different during the transition. I think people can take me at my word." But National Rifle Association spokesman Andrew Arulanandam said it's not Obama's words — but his legislative track record — that has gun-buyers flocking to the stores.
Becky Akers / JBS.org:
Distinguishing America from banana republics used to be easy. In the former, citizens walked freely, without interference from soldiers; in the latter, soldiers patrolled freely, without interference from citizens. But that distinction is dying. A federal government that now rivals third-world despots when it comes to torturing folks or imprisoning them without trial no longer scruples to turn its military on its own citizens. Accordingly, the Pentagon hopes to deploy 20,000 American troops for domestic duty by 2011.
Interview: Joyce Burges, National Black Home Educators
John Lofton and Pastor David Whitney / The American View:
Interviewed by "The American View" co-host John Lofton and David Whitney, Pastor of the Evangelical Free Church in Pasadena, Maryland, and Senior Instructor, "Institute On The Constitution." Mrs. Burgess is shown here with her husband Eric.
Lew Rockwell / LewRockwell.com:
The downturn is following a path so predictable, day by day, that people who comprehend the business cycle don't even need to read the news. You can intuit what will happen next because it's happening like a textbook case - even as it is reported with a continued sense of surprise. Press reporting on the downturn has been like reports from a committee that knows nothing about gravity, but which has nonetheless been assigned to watch what happens when you drop objects from high places. They keep filing surprised reports about how the objects fall – what a bizarre and unwelcome turn of events – and then they conjure up ways to keep this from happening through some outside intervention. They recommend bailouts, spending, programs, controls, and inflation.
The Associated Press:
Congressional Democrats and the White House worked to resolve their last disputes Monday over terms of a $15 billion bailout for U.S. auto makers - complete with a federal "car czar" to oversee the industry's reinvention of itself - that's expected to come to a vote as early as Wednesday. "While we take no satisfaction in loaning taxpayer money to these companies, we know it must be done," said Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev. "This is no blank check or blind hope."
Gary Benoit / The New American:
Addressing the Saban Forum on December 5, President George W. Bush stated: "It is true, as I've said many times, that Saddam Hussein was not connected to the 9/11 attacks." Really? Well, Bush has acknowledged in the past that Saddam Hussein did not attack us on 9/11. For example, in response to a question on September 17, 2003, Bush stated: "We've had no evidence that Saddam Hussein was involved with the September 11th [attacks]."
Al Cronkrite / The Covenant News:
With great exuberance we are told by our media that we have elected our first Black President who is about to bring needed change to our nation. Naive voters are filled with high expectations. The actions of the president-elect belie his promises. He is choosing cabinet members who have been active promoters of world government. Read about his choices here. Paul Volker, his latest pick, is an ultimate insider, a former chairman of the Federal Reserve. In 1981 he created a recession by tightening the financial reins. This is a sure sign that Obama is a puppet for the establishment and that instead of bringing promised beneficial changes to the nation he will continue to push us toward the world government prison.
Judicial Watch:
Judicial Watch announced that Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton is constitutionally ineligible to serve as Secretary of State in the Obama administration. According to the Ineligibility Clause of the United States Constitution, no member of Congress can be appointed to an office that has benefited from a salary increase during the time that Senator or Representative served in Congress. A January 2008 Executive Order signed by President Bush during Hillary Clinton's current Senate term increased the salary for Secretary of State, thereby rendering Senator Clinton ineligible for the position.
Tom DeWeese / NewsWithViews.com:
Former Vice President Al Gore had quite a year. He produced an Oscar-winning film warning of the coming global warming Armageddon. The film and his activism led to a Nobel Prize. Flush from those victories, Gore "took the Hill," as he testified before a hushed hearing room in his old Senate haunt, predicting more dire consequences if global warming isn’t stopped. All of that was followed by mass rallies across the nation, with energized college students; editorials and magazine covers, and even legislation in Congress to curtail the use of carbon fuels. Gore concluded his triumphant moment in the spotlight with a major address in Washington on July 17, 2008, in which he boldly laid out his plan for a "wrenching transformation" of society he deemed necessary for man to survive.
CBS News:
Democrats have reached an agreement to clear the way for the Big Three to get the money (from taxpayers) they need to survive ... for now. Significant progress came Friday night, when Democrats from both the House and Senate agreed to bail out the struggling General Motors, Chrysler and Ford with federal funds. They say the breakthrough came after House Speaker Nancy Pelosi bowed to a demand by President Bush that any aid come from a fund that had been intended to help Detroit produce more fuel-efficient cars.
Richard Ebeling / Mises Economics Blog:
While a good deal of the attention has been on the bailouts for the banking and financial sectors and most likely the Detroit automakers and home owners who can't meet their mortgage payments, there is another group that is counting heavily on the larger Democratic majority in the Congress and an new Democratic president in the White House: Big Labor.
The Associated Press:
Barack Obama said Saturday he wants to revive the economy through a job-creating public works plan. He offered no price estimate for the grand plan, how the money might be divided or the effect on the country's financial health at a time of burgeoning deficits. The ideas were outlined in the weekly radio address the day after the government reported that employers cut 533,000 jobs in November, the most in 34 years. Obama never once used the word "spend," relying instead on "invest" or "investments," and pledging wise stewardship of taxpayer money in upgrading roads and schools, and making public buildings more energy-efficient.
Bob Higgs / The LRC Blog:
The New Deal has been a hot topic recently. Aside from the looming likelihood of a new New Deal a la President Obama and company, the present recession, which many fear may turn into a serious depression, has given new currency to assessments of the original New Deal. It says something about the state of economics that economists continue to debate this topic almost as hotly now as they did seventy years ago. Over the years, I have ventured to make small contributions to this debate, most notably in a 1997 article titled "Regime Uncertainty: Why the Great Depression Lasted So Long, and Why Prosperity Resumed after the War."
James Perloff / The New American:
On Sunday, December 7, 1941, Japan launched a sneak attack on the U.S. Pacific Fleet at Pearl Harbor, shattering the peace of a beautiful Hawaiian morning and leaving much of the fleet broken and burning. The destruction and death that the Japanese military visited upon Pearl Harbor that day -- 18 naval vessels (including eight battleships) sunk or heavily damaged, 188 planes destroyed, over 2,000 servicemen killed -- were exacerbated by the fact that American commanders in Hawaii were caught by surprise. But that was not the case in Washington. Comprehensive research has not only shown Washington knew in advance of the attack, but deliberately withheld its foreknowledge from our commanders in Hawaii in the hope that the "surprise" attack would catapult the U.S. into World War II. Oliver Lyttleton, British Minister of Production, stated in 1944: "Japan was provoked into attacking America at Pearl Harbor. It is a travesty of history to say that America was forced into the war."
Related: Pearl Harbor: Motives Behind the Betrayal By James Perloff / The New American:
There are several interpretations of the facts surrounding Pearl Harbor. The first, as expressed by Jerry Bruckheimer, producer of the film Pearl Harbor, is to simply deny the overwhelming evidence. A second interpretation: President Franklin D. Roosevelt, General George C. Marshall, and Admiral Harold Stark received the warnings and intercepts, but somehow "blundered" and forgot to warn Pearl Harbor. However, there is too much evidence of deliberate calculation. One does not become president of the United States or Army Chief of Staff through gross stupidity. It was FDR himself who said: "In politics, nothing happens by accident. If it happens, you can bet it was planned that way."
Pearl Harbor: Scapegoating Kimmel and Short By James Perloff / The New American:
Pearl Harbor's secrets had been successfully preserved before the fact — but what about after? People around the nation, including some vocal congressmen, asked why America had been caught off guard. President Franklin D. Roosevelt said he would appoint an investigatory commission. Supreme Court Justice Owen Roberts — a pro-British internationalist friendly with FDR — was selected to head it. Also appointed to the group: Major General Frank McCoy, General George Marshall's close friend for 30 years; Brigadier General Joseph McNarney, who was on Marshall's staff and chosen on his recommendation; retired Rear Admiral Joseph Reeves, whom FDR had given a job in lend-lease; and Admiral William Standley, a former fleet commander. Only the last seemed to have no obvious fraternity with the Washington set.
The American View:
The following material is about the goals of state-run education: To destroy Christianity and (supposedly) to bring salvation through humanistic schooling. This material is from a tape series by Pastor Steve Wilkins of the Auburn Avenue Presbyterian Church in Monroe, Louisiana, titled “America: The First 350 Years.” This tape series can be ordered in MP3 format with lecture notes in pdf files all on one CD for $25.00. Order from: Covenant Publications, 224 Auburn Ave., Monroe, LA 71201.
Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
What a great interview. Watch until the end. You'll enjoy the praise Stein heaps on our own R.C. Sproul. Bahnsen may have passed on, but R.C. is still on duty. Let's always pray for him.
Michael S. Rozeff / LewRockwell.com:
Dictatorship is unlimited rule. Collective dictatorship is unlimited rule by an assembly. National government in the U.S. has tended toward collective dictatorship over its entire history. No new alarm bell is rung when I say that the U.S. collective dictatorship is now enlarging, for that is its usual tendency. We recognize this tendency at the grass-roots level by the increasing control that government has over our personal lives. There is almost nothing that we do that is not touched by government rules and power. We cannot work, play, invest, obtain medical care, drive a car, eat, smoke, speak, gesture, wash, have a baby, buy or sell a good, or even have a bowel movement without encountering the government. Yet the alarm bell needs now more than ever to be rung loudly and vigorously, for the most recent enlargement is coming in the area of financial control over the banking system and thus the economy.
Friedrich A. Hayek / Mises.org:
The particular occasion of this lecture, combined with the chief practical problem which economists have to face today, have made the choice of its topic almost inevitable. On the one hand the still recent establishment of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Science marks a significant step in the process by which, in the opinion of the general public, economics has been conceded some of the dignity and prestige of the physical sciences. On the other hand, the economists are at this moment called upon to say how to extricate the free world from the serious threat of accelerating inflation which, it must be admitted, has been brought about by policies which the majority of economists recommended and even urged governments to pursue. We have indeed at the moment little cause for pride: as a profession we have made a mess of things.
Martin G. Selbrede / The Covenant News:
The Bible ties a nation's monetary policy to the concept of justice. To God, the two are inseparable. You see how just a society is by examining the foundational nature of its money. People were forbidden to possess false weights on their person or in their home. Every measure of value (particularly monetary value) was to be just and perfect. They were either a delight or an abomination to God (Prov. 11:1, Prov. 16:11). We live in an age where “the law is slacked” (Hab. 1:4).
John R. Lott, Jr. / Gun Owners of America:
Banning guns is in the news. India practically bans guns, but that didn't stop the horrific Muslim terrorist attacks this last week. A football player concerned for his safety violates New York City's tough gun control regulations by carrying a concealed handgun, and people call for everything from banning NFL players from carrying guns to demanding that the athlete serve many years in jail. Where is the sympathy or debate in either case over letting people defend themselves? Given that the terrorists smuggled their machine guns in with them, would anyone argue that India's extremely strict gun licensing and artificially high prices for guns helped prevent the terrorist attacks? In fact, the reverse is more likely the case.
Judicial Watch Blog:
A high-ranking Homeland Security official, who oversees a large division responsible for preventing illegal immigrants from entering the U.S., has been arrested and charged with hiring them as domestic workers. For years, the Massachusetts regional director of Customs and Border Protection (Lorraine Henderson) paid illegal immigrants cash to clean her house and she even coached them on how to avoid deportation.
Geoffrey Botkin / The Vision Forum:
For several years, frustrated American readers have been wondering just who in the world is discipling the writers at Christianity Today magazine. The recent CT review of Milk may hold clues - important theological clues. The review appears to reflect doctrines of an obscure religious order which uses uniquely creative theology to unchain the human spirit, respect diversity, and expiate stigmatic guilt, especially in the interpretation of popular culture.
Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
One reason why it is so easy to predict a business-as-usual Obama Presidency is the people that Obama has surrounded himself with. Former New York Federal Reserve chairman Timothy Geithner* for Secretary of the Treasury; former Secretary of the Treasury Lawrence Summers* for National Economic Council director; Bush's Defense Secretary Robert Gates* will keep his job; Illinois Representative Rahm Emanuel for Obama's Chief of Staff; Hillary Clinton for Secretary of State; Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano* for Secretary of Homeland Security; former South Dakota Senator Tom Daschle* to head the Health and Human Services Department; former Assistant Attorney General Eric Holder to be Attorney General; New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson* as Secretary of Commerce; Susan Rice* for U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations; Paul Volcker* for the Economic Recovery Advisory Board; James Steinberg* as Deputy Secretary of State; Mona Sutphen* for Deputy White House Chief of Staff, and Louis Caldera* for Director of the White House Military Office.
Judicial Watch Blog:
The auto industry spent tens of millions of dollars lobbying Congress this year and, not surprisingly, a big chunk of the money went to the Michigan legislators who are pushing hardest for a government bailout of the ailing companies. A major news agency is reporting this week that Michigan Senator Carl Levin received $438,304 from the auto industry and his counterparts in the House, representatives Joe Knollenberg and John Dingell each got nearly a million dollars from auto manufacturers. Dingell, a Democrat who has represented Detroit in the House since 1955, has the biggest stake in the industry and stands to lose a fortune if it goes under. He and his wife, a senior General Motors executive, have major holdings—worth up to $5 million—in GM stock options and at least $350,000 in stock.
News.Yahoo.com:
The United States gave its go ahead Wednesday to a 197-million-dollar, anti-crime and -drug trafficking program for Mexico, said US Ambassador to Mexico Tony Garza. The Merida Initiative, which US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice gave a national security priority, totals 1.6 billion dollars in aid over three years for Mexico, Central American and Caribbean nations to deal with organized crime in their regions. It will boost regional anti-crime efforts with additional helicopters, surveillance aircraft and weapons systems. "This letter of agreement we have signed frees up 197 million dollars of the 400 million the US Congress approved from its supplementary funds for fiscal 2008," Garza said after signing the document with undersecretary for North America Carlos Rico.
Steve Lefemine / LefemineforLife.net:
New video posted at You Tube details the issues in Berg v. Obama.
Illuminati Films has produced a 10 minute video in which Phil J. Berg is interviewed. Mr. Berg lays out his case in Berg v. Obama, and explains why it is important for the case to be resolved quickly. In his argumentation, Mr. Berg points out that Senator Obama could settle the lawsuit immediately by producing the proper documents to prove Obama is a natural-born citizen as required by our constitution.
United Press International:
Israelis and Palestinians alike should be in no doubt. The new report on the Middle East from the Brookings Institution and the Council on Foreign Relations is no mere straw in the wind: It spells out in considerable detail what the Obama administration's strategy and priorities for Iran and the Israeli-Arab peace process are going to be. The report covers the entire Middle East. But it is notable for its explicit rejection of and reversal from eight years of deliberate neglect of Israeli-Palestinian negotiations by the outgoing administration of current U.S. President George W. Bush.
Warren Mass / The New American:
During a nationwide call-in program called "A Conversation with Vladimir Putin," broadcast live from a Moscow studio on December 4, the Russian prime minister and former president conveyed a positive forecast for U.S.-Russian relations during the impending administration of Barack Obama. "Usually ... when there is a change of power in any country, and even more so in a superpower such as the United States, some changes occur," said Putin, whose comments were reported by Reuters. "We very much hope that these changes will be positive. We are now seeing these positive signals."
The Associated Press:
For farmers (and consumers at the grocery market), this stinks!: Belching and gaseous cows and hogs could start costing them money if a federal proposal to charge fees for air-polluting animals becomes law. Farmers so far are turning their noses up at the notion, which is one of several put forward by the Environmental Protection Agency after the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2007 that greenhouse gases emitted by belching and flatulence amounts to air pollution. "This is one of the most ridiculous things the federal government has tried to do," said Alabama Agriculture Commissioner Ron Sparks, an outspoken opponent of the proposal.
Drew Zahn / WorldNetDaily:
The mother of a Wisconsin teenager was stunned when her high school senior brought home a questionnaire assigned by his English teacher that asked, among several provocative questions, "Is it possible that your heterosexuality stems from a neurotic fear of others of the same sex?" The mother, Marilyn Hanson, reviewed the questionnaire and thought it completely inappropriate for any class, but especially for a required English class, where, Hanson said, "They should be taught to read and write and prepare for college."
John Lofton / The American View:
To put a child through 15,000 hours of Godless, Christless, Holy Spiritless, no-Bible, non-Christian "education" (K through 12) is sin and ignores what has been said by many of the greatest teachers of the Reformed faith. A Godless "education" is not bringing children up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Such an “education” is not "for the glory of God" (1 Corinthians 10:31) -- or which we are commanded to do everything.
William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
Peeling away the sentiment and mythology that encrust the relevant history, the comparison between Obama and Lincoln is an apt one, and not just because they're both tall, skinny men from Illinois (albeit by way of Kentucky in Lincoln's case, and Kenya -- most likely -- in Obama's). Obama, a well-compensated legal agitator and foundation-connected "community organizer," straddles the narrow divide between collectivists of the corporate variety and those of the cultural Marxist persuasion.
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
Alan Greenspan never had a playbook, as far as we know. His famous Fedspeak was designed, not to conceal the plays from investors, but rather to conceal the fact that he had no playbook. Ben Bernanke is different from Greenspan. He has a playbook. He has spent his career studying Milton Friedman's now-dominant 1963 interpretation of the failure of Federal Reserve Policy, 1930–33, in not reversing the Great Depression.
Coach Dave Daubenmire / NewsWithViews.com:
Instead of the "land of the free and the home of the brave," that our fore-fathers fought to preserve we are rapidly becoming "the land of the fleeced and with one foot in the grave." America has been taken over by robbers. After surviving another phony election where one side didn’t even try to win, we are now faced with some of the direst circumstances any American could have ever imagined.
William F. Jasper / The New American:
[T]he Washington Post reported on December 1. "The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said." The Post article notes there are some critics who worry that the new move may "possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement." However, the Bush administration's new policy of deploying federal troops in American cities and communities does more than "possibly undermine" the Posse Comitatus Act; it guts the act and the protections that it provided American citizens against military dictatorship.
The Washington Times:
When the liberal American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are singing the same song, it's time to pay attention to the tune. The two organizations are rightfully concerned by the expansion of executive authority that is inherent in plans to have 20,000 troops inside the United States whose role is to respond to any domestic catastrophe. This homeland security role cries out for oversight and strict guidelines. Since 1878, in the wake of the Civil War, the military has been constrained by the Posse Comitatus Act from having a domestic law enforcement role under most circumstances.
Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
Back in September, I happened upon a column titled 'Time for a Taxpayer Revolt.' As I began to read the column, I thought, "This is good." The two authors were outlining the disaster of the so-called "bail outs" underway. As I worked my way through the column, I realized it was just more blame Republicans. At the bottom of this drivel, out popped the ignorance of the authors as they spewed their socialism: the government should help people build houses, create jobs for the greenie movement and universal health care.
Alex Newman / The New American:
The new administration's Blueprint for Change devotes four pages to most of the political issues it encompasses, but on immigration there are two. But it says enough to know where Obama intends to take the country. Obama opens the section on immigration with an excerpt from a speech he made in 2007 on the Senate floor where he calls for reuniting immigrant families, implying that he believes the United States needs to continue both "chain migration" -- whereby immigrants to the United States are allowed to sponsor an almost endless linkage of family members to become citizens -- and enact an amnesty.
Judicial Watch Blog:
Illegal immigrants fired because of a landmark Arizona law that severely punishes businesses caught hiring them have remained in the workforce by using other people's identities to get jobs. Fed up with the devastating effect of illegal immigration, legislators in the border state have enacted the nation’s toughest laws to curb the crisis. Among them is a measure, passed last year, which makes it illegal for businesses to hire undocumented workers. Those that do face stiff fines and license revocation.
The Associated Press:
More than 200 people have complained to Metro about an ad campaign that questions believing in God. One person praised the campaign. The ads by the American Humanist Association first appeared on buses two weeks ago and inside buses on Monday. They say, "Why believe in a god? Just be good for goodness' sake." Metro spokeswoman Candace Smith said the ads have sparked more complaints than usual.
WorldNetDaily:
A filmmaker who recently released an independent project about a formula that turns all heterosexuals into "gays" now has announced he's working on "The Princess Diana Bible" in which "God" ordains homosexuality as the better lifestyle. "There are many different versions of the Bible; I don't see why we can't have one," stated Max Mitchell in a statement on a website for his new project. The "gay Bible," produced by the New Mexico-based Revision Studios, states God instructs "it is better to be gay than straight."
Related:
Homo 'Bible' Angers Christians Alison Flood / Guardian UK:
A gay version of the Bible, in which God says it is better to be gay than straight, is to be published by an American film producer. New Mexico-based Revision Studios will publish The Princess Diana Bible – so named because of Diana's "many good works", it says – online at princessdianabible.com in spring 2009. A preview of Genesis is already available, in which instead of creating Adam and Eve, God creates Aida and Eve.
Vatican Thanks Muslims for Returning God to Europe
Tom Heneghan / Reuters:
A senior Vatican cardinal has thanked Muslims for bringing God back into the public sphere in Europe and said believers of different faiths had no option but to engage in interreligious dialogue. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, head of the Catholic Church's department for interfaith contacts, said religion was now talked and written about more than ever before in today's Europe. Vatican officials have long bemoaned the secularisation of Europe, where church attendance has dwindled dramatically in recent decades, and urged a return to its historically Christian roots. But Tauran said no society had only one faith. "We live in multicultural and multireligious societies, that's obvious," he told a meeting of Catholic theologians in Naples. "There is no civilisation that is religiously pure."
There is no such thing as multireligious Multiculturalism By Jim Rudd
According to our Lord Jesus Christ, there are only two kinds of people in the world: People that believe and doeth the will of the Father in heaven (Matt. 7:21), and people who do not believe and are condemned to eternal damnation already (John 3:18). Therefore, there's no such thing as "multicultural and multireligious societies."
In doing the work of an evangelist it is the Christians' responsibility to teach unbelievers exactly what the Word of God says about their sin, the impending judgment of eternal damnation upon them already, and that their only hope is repentance through the righteous redemption found in believing on our Lord and Savior, Jesus Christ.
"The LORD said unto my Lord, Sit thou on my right hand, till I make thine enemies thy footstool?" (Matthew 22: 44)
The American View:
Exodus Mandate's "Call to Dunkirk" asks Christian parents to obey God, get Christian children out of Caesar's schools, give them Christian education. This video features: E. Ray Moore, the head of "E.M."; Dr. Bruce Shortt, author of "The Harsh Truth About Public Schools;" and Pastor Voddie Baucham, Jr., author of "Family Driven Faith."
Kurt Williamsen / The New American:
As we have reported earlier in our article "Barack Obama and the Citizenship Scandal," it has been alleged that Barack Obama is ineligible to become president for two reasons: evidence has come forward that Obama was born in Kenya, not the United States as required by the Constitution (because only one of Obama's parents is an American); and even if he was born here, his mother relinquished his citizenship by marrying an Indonesian and becoming a naturalized Indonesian citizen.
Judicial Watch Blog:
A rapper serving a lengthy prison sentence for smuggling cocaine, an embezzler and a tax evader are among those thankful for presidential pardons while a pair of U.S. Border Patrol agents spend another Thanksgiving in prison for intercepting an illegal immigrant drug smuggler. Once again President George W. Bush has pardoned or reduced the sentences of serious criminals while the veteran federal agents— Ignacio Ramos and Jose Compean—rot in jail for doing their job. The men intercepted a van loaded with drugs while guarding the Mexican border near El Paso in 2005. The admitted drug smuggler, an illegal alien named Osvaldo Aldrete-Davila, tried to flee and one of the agents shot him in the buttocks though he still got away.
Robert Higgs / Mises.org:
We are now hearing ominous warnings about imminent deflation. Checking the welcome page at AOL this morning, I see that the lead item in the financial news section heralds "The Looming Threat of Deflation." This headline encapsulates two highly problematic ideas. The first is that deflation would necessarily be a bad thing. The second is that deflation is likely to occur in the near term.
Paul Craig Roberts / LewRockwell.com:
Undeterred by massive budget deficits from wars, a falling economy, and financial bailouts, the US government has managed to start a new cold war with Russia. Last Friday, the Russian military announced that it was developing a new generation of ballistic missiles in response to the US government’s decision to deploy ballistic missile defenses in Poland and the Czech Republic. The "peace dividend" that the Reagan-Gorbachev accord provided has been squandered by an arrogant American government seeking world hegemony.
Ethan Allen / Rogue Government:
"A system that unites military and civilian service, launched with a new ''Uncle Sam wants you!" campaign, should offer one-stop recruitment centers in colleges, malls, neighborhood store fronts, and online. ROTC should be restored to all campuses and its mission expanded to prepare young leaders for military and civilian service. A US Civic Leadership Academy should develop civilian leaders just as the four major military academies prepare the leaders of our armed forces." - Alan Khazei, founder of City Year.
Reuters:
Croatian police have detained and questioned web activists who are criticizing or ridiculing the government, media and the opposition say, accusing authorities of violating basic civil rights. Media said on Tuesday police had detained organizers of a group on Facebook, the online social networking site, which called an anti-government rally in several towns, including the capital Zagreb, for December 5. The group has over 80,000 members. "For the first time since the 1990s, Croatia is starting to enforce repression against its citizens who want to freely express their political stands," Nacional weekly said.
Brendan Keefe / Gun Owners of America:
There have been so many school shootings over the last 40 years that researchers have been able to develop a profile of the typical mass murderer. They're called "active shooters" or "active killers" and their crimes play out in a matter of minutes. After the Columbine High School massacre in 1999, police changed their tactics. The two student gunmen killed 15 people and themselves before the SWAT team was in position. Commanders realized that it simply takes too long to assemble a tactical team in time to stop an active killer. The new tactics developed in response to Columbine involved creating an ad-hoc tactical team using the first four or five patrol officers on the scene. They would enter the shooting scene in a diamond formation with guns pointing in all directions. This technique was employed by police departments around the country.
The Atlanta Journal-Constitution:
A man and a woman have been arrested in connection with the killing of a church youth minister. Cleveland police chief John Foster identified the suspects as 21-year-old William Joseph Dyer and 29-year-old Jennifer Dawn Lineberger. Both are charged with felony murder, and Dyer is also charged with armed robbery. The body of the Rev. Edward Frank Harris Jr. of Clermont was found shortly before 4 a.m. Monday in the yard of a home in Cleveland. The 44-year-old Harris called his family Sunday afternoon after church to say that he was giving two stranded people a ride to Cleveland before he returned home.
The Associated Press:
Georgia Republican Sen. Saxby Chambliss handed the GOP a firewall against Democrats eager to flex their newfound political muscle in Washington, winning a bruising runoff battle Tuesday night that had captured the national limelight. Chambliss' victory thwarted Democrats' hopes of winning a 60 seat filibuster-proof majority in the Senate. It came after a bitter month long runoff against Democrat Jim Martin that drew political luminaries from both parties to the state and flooded the airwaves with fresh attack ads weeks after campaigns elsewhere had ended.
Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk:
As the printing presses for the bailouts run at full speed, those in power are no longer even pretending that the new giveaways will fix our problems. Now that we are used to rewarding failure with taxpayer-funded bailouts, we are being told that this is “just a start,” more funds will inevitably be needed for more industries, and that things would be much worse had we done nothing.
Monica Langley / Wall Street Journal:
Ford Motor Co. Chief Executive Alan Mulally plans to tell Congress he is accelerating the company's development of hybrid and electric vehicles and is willing to cut his salary to $1 a year as part of a renewed push to win a federal bailout of the Big Three auto makers. The efforts will be outlined in a recovery plan Ford is scheduled to deliver to Congress on Tuesday. General Motors Corp. and Chrysler LLC also are set to present plans of their own. GM's presentation is expected to focus on efforts to lighten the company's heavy debt and consolidate or sell several of its eight automotive brands, people familiar with the matter said. Chrysler is likely to emphasize its need for cash to stabilize the company and eventually to join an alliance with one or more foreign auto makers, a person close to Chrysler said.
Related:
Autoworker's Union Chief Pleads for Taxpayer Bailout The Associated Press:
WASHINGTON -- The head of the United Auto Workers made a public plea Sunday for government help for U.S. carmakers as the Big Three put the final touches on stabilization plans to submit to Congress. "We cannot afford to see these companies fail," said Ron Gettelfinger, the UAW chief, calling on Congress to approve the aid during a special session the week of Dec. 8.
UAW May Offer Concessions as Big Three Face Congress The Plain Dealer:
If it means getting federal bailout loans for Detroit's Big Three automakers, union workers may be willing to give up longstanding benefits that pay some employees after their plants close, leaders said Monday. "The membership recognizes the importance of sustaining the auto industry," said Dave Green president of the United Auto Workers Local 1714, the local that represents stamping plant workers at General Motors' Lordstown plant. "We've done what it takes in the past, and we'll do what it takes this time."
Thomas E. Woods, Jr. / LewRockwell.com:
So much to read and learn, and so little time. Thanks in no small measure to the energy that Ron Paul's candidacy unleashed, more people than ever are eager to cut through the propaganda and uncover the truth. But where to start? And how can you get the most out of the time you have to devote to reading and study? I put together the resources that follow as my way of answering these questions. I've included books (many in free online versions) and articles, as well as audio and video files that are also free. For the current crisis, see especially The Bailout Reader. Take a look also at the reading list Dr. Paul includes in his book The Revolution: A Manifesto. Many of these titles also appear in the categories below: economics, sound money, foreign policy, the Constitution, and civil liberties.
American Vision:
American Vision is pleased to announce our redesigned main site! Plans for this project have been in the works for over a year, and the many hours dedicated to designing the new look and feel have finally paid off with the launching of the redesigned site. November realized a new look and feel for our online store as well.
Jerry Bowyer / American Vision:
It's astonishing and a little horrifying that America's elites know so little about their country's history. Case in point: Jared Bernstein of the Economic Policy Institute. Jared is an influential left-ish economic polemicist and a sometime adviser to Barack Obama on economic affairs. I've debated with Jared dozens of times over the past several years, but what happened this week was especially disturbing. On Monday night, November 24, 2008, I told Larry Kudlow about the story of the first Thanksgiving. I explained that the first Thanksgiving was a celebration of abundance after a period of socialism and starvation. It seems Bernstein never heard about this chapter in U.S. history; he called it an "exercise in revisionist history."
William F. Jasper / The New American:
"Brilliant," "brainy," "super-smart," and "Wall Street smarts" -- these seemed to be some of the recurring words used to describe President-elect Barack Obama's two top economic picks -- Timothy Geithner, chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, for sectretary of the Treasury; and former Secretary Treasury Lawrence Summers for National Economic Council director. The praise for Geithner and Summers did not just come from Democrats. According to USA Today, "'Brilliant,' 'outstanding' and 'exceptionally talented' were some of the words used to describe [Obama's] two top choices ... and that came from Republicans." Not surprisingly, both Summers and Geithner are veteran members of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), as have been most of their predecessors, who have led our nation's economy into the present debacle.
Judicial Watch:
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton issued the following statement in response to Barack Obama's selection of New York Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton to serve as Secretary of State. "Hillary Clinton is ethically challenged. Her husband is ethically challenged. From their days in the White House to the present day, the Clintons have consistently abused their public office for personal and political gain. Hillary and Bill (not to mention their siblings) are scandals waiting to happen. Hillary Clinton has neither the temperament nor ethics to be in such a sensitive office. In tapping Hillary Clinton as his Secretary of State, Obama now owns the Clinton scandals."
Spencer S. Hsu / The Washington Post:
Police State: In spite of the Constitution, the U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials. The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.
Related: 20,000 More U.S. Troops To Be Deployed For 'Domestic Security' By Paul Joseph Watson / Prison Planet.com:
The Washington Post today reports on plans to station 20,000 more U.S. troops inside America for purposes of “domestic security” from September 2011, an expansion of Northcom’s militarization of the country in preparation for potential civil unrest following a total economic collapse or a mass terror attack. As Alex Jones exposed back in the late 1990’s, U.S. troops have been training for this eventuality for a considerable amount of time. During numerous urban warfare drills that Jones attended and reported on, troops were trained to raid, arrest and imprison U.S. citizens.
Tim Shipman / The Telegraph:
The US Army and Navy have both hired experts in the ethics of building machines to prevent the creation of an amoral Terminator-style killing machine that murders indiscriminately. By 2010 the US will have invested $4 billion in a research programme into "autonomous systems", the military jargon for robots, on the basis that they would not succumb to fear or the desire for vengeance that afflicts frontline soldiers.
ExodusMandate.org:
Exodus Mandate video calling all Christians to remove God's children from the Government schools. Exodus Mandate Project is a Christian ministry to encourage and assist Christian families to leave government schools for the Promised Land of Christian schools or home schooling. It is our hope that this fresh obedience in educating our children according to Biblical mandates will prove to be the key for revival in our families, churches and nation.
Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
A Wal-Mart employee opening the doors on Black Friday gets trampled to death by Christmas shoppers? Well, I guess it was bound to happen sooner or later. One witness that was interviewed said they acted like "savages." An Associated Press writer that reported on the incident, went on to say: "Other workers were trampled as they tried to rescue the man, and customers stepped over him and became irate when officials said the store was closing because of the death..." I know we live in increasingly difficult times folks, but these weren’t people pushing and shoving their way to food and water or homeless people struggling to survive on the streets. They were simply bargain hunters arriving early for toys, trinkets, TVs, games and other assorted amusements.
Darrell Dow / The Backwater Report:
The late Samuel T. Francis once lamented that Americans don't have two ideologically distinct parties. Rather we have an evil party (the "liberals") and a stupid party (the "conservatives"). Occasionally there is a synthesis of evil and stupidity. This is otherwise known as "bipartisanship". To see the confluence of evil and stupidity at work, check out these remarks by Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid in an interview with the Detroit Free Press.
Jacob G. Hornberger / LewRockwell.com:
As Barack Obama prepares to assume the presidency, it would be appropriate today to remember that the original Thanksgiving celebrated the demise of the "spread-the-wealth" economic system that the colonists at Plymouth Rock initially established. The story of socialism at Plymouth Rock is one that few Americans are taught in their public (i.e., government) schools. On landing at Plymouth Rock, the Pilgrims established an economic system in which all their crops would be owned in common and whose harvest would be distributed to each family in accordance with its needs. The colonists felt that such a socialist system would be consistent with their deep religious convictions.
Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
In a confrontational and much-needed LewRockwell.com article, Prof. William Anderson launched a counter-attack against mainstream academic economists' refusal to consider seriously the Austrian School's theory of money. Despite the fact that Ludwig von Mises' 1912 theory of money explains booms and busts better than rival theories, and despite the fact that Austrian School disciples predicted the most recent bust when academic economists denied that such a bust was imminent, Austrian School economists get no respect. I could almost hear Aretha Franklin as I read Anderson's essay.
Charles Pena / NewsWithViews.com:
While the Fourth Amendment guarantees "the right of the people to be secure in their persons ... and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures," the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA) made it clear earlier this month that the Constitution does not apply in D.C. According to Metro Transit Police Chief Michael Taborn, "Inspections could take place at any Metrorail station or Metrobus stop. They will be random, unannounced and focused on explosive detection." While the justification supplied for ignoring the Constitution was one of deterring terrorists, the unfortunate reality is that this gross violation of rights is likely to be completely ineffective.
David Barstow / The New York Times:
In the spring of 2007 a tiny military contractor with a slender track record went shopping for a precious Beltway commodity. The company, Defense Solutions, sought the services of a retired general with national stature, someone who could open doors at the highest levels of government and help it win a huge prize: the right to supply Iraq with thousands of armored vehicles. Access like this does not come cheap, but it was an opportunity potentially worth billions in sales, and Defense Solutions soon found its man. The company signed Barry R. McCaffrey, a retired four-star Army general and military analyst for NBC News, to a consulting contract starting June 15, 2007.