1. law, govt and politics
2. government

Just for Your Consideration
Watch ye, stand fast in the faith, quit you like men, be strong. ― 1 Corinthians 16:13
Compiled by Pastor Greg Wilson, Landmark Baptist Church, Archer, Florida  April 12, 2015
World Net Daily
'If It Comes To Civil Disobedience, So Be It'
Calls for a stand on 'God-given right and constitutional principle'
By Pat Buchanan
“The LGBT militants are not asking to be left alone,” he
said. “They are demanding that we accept the morality of
homosexuality and same-sex marriages, and manifest that
acceptance, under pain of law and sanctions, in our daily
lives.”
Buchanan added, “As the Romans demanded of the
Christians, the LGBT fanatics want us to burn incense to
their gods. The answer is no. If it comes to civil
disobedience, so be it.”
It’s not the first time “civil disobedience” has been
mentioned in the context of looming mandates regarding
same-sex marriage.
Conservative leader Pat Buchanan is urging Christians to
fight the “LGBT fanatics” who are demanding they betray
their faith, even if it means civil disobedience.
WND recently reported a team of prominent Christian
leaders worked on a statement to inform the public –
including justices on the U.S. Supreme Court who soon
will hear arguments on the issue – that they will engage in
civil disobedience rather than follow a ruling that
establishes homosexual marriage in the United States.
And the conservative grassroots is showing signs it is
ready for a showdown, supporting a pizzeria targeted by
left-wing activists with donations rapidly approaching $1
million.
In an exclusive interview with WND, Buchanan, the
author of “Suicide of a Superpower: Will America Survive
to 2025?” and other bestsellers, spoke on the controversy
over the Indiana Religious Freedom Restoration Act.
Two justices, Elena Kagan and Ruth Ginsburg, already
have made public statements in support of gay marriage
by performing ceremonies.
Buchanan forcefully condemned defeatism among social
conservatives and rejected retreat or even compromise.
Instead, the one-time presidential contender and Reagan
White House aide urged Christians to put the laws of God
above the laws of man.
Among those leading the charge are James Dobson
of Family Talk Radio, Rick Scarborough of Vision
America Action, Mat Staver of Liberty Counsel and James
Robison of Life Today, whose new publication called The
Stream reported on a telephone conference call discussing
the issue.
“This battle can be won, but it cannot be won if we do not
stand our ground and fight against this moral onslaught
from the left,” he said. “The hill to stand on and fight on is
the God-given natural right and the constitutional
principle that people of faith may choose not to associate
with those whose actions are abhorrent and whose lifestyle
is insulting and offensive to that faith.”
Stream Executive Editor Jay Richards told WND there
were about 20 other Christian leaders on the call. He said
members of Congress have expressed an interest in the
plan.
“We’re taking a very adamant stand,” he said. “If the court
declares same-sex marriage to be on the same par as a
civil right, that’s a bridge too far. We won’t obey. We’ll
go to jail.”
Buchanan dismissed arguments that “gay”-rights activists
are simply asking for political freedom or the same rights
as any other citizen.
Dobson, who publicly warned Obama he would not
submit to mandatory payments for abortion – said
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Brown, the author of a history of the homosexual rights
movement, “A Queer Thing Happened to America: And
What a Long, Strange Trip It’s Been,” argues, “It’s time
for people of conscience around the nation to wake up and
say, ‘Enough is enough.’
Christians must stand together against the clearly
unbiblical same-sex marriage.
“We will be attacked from every direction,” Dobson said
in the report in the the Stream, “and critics will do all they
can to weaken and embarrass us, but so what?”
“We will treat everyone with civility and respect, but the
government or the media or popular pressure will not
force us to violate our convictions and beliefs. You will
not steal our religious freedoms.”
“Are we going to sit on our reputations and go to our
graves without having played a role? This is Roe v. Wade
all over again. I am standing shoulder to shoulder with all
who will stand up for God’s Word concerning marriage.
We don’t know all of the steps that must be taken, but
God will reveal His will. To the extent that I am able to
influence anybody, I will do it with passion,” Dobson said.
In response to the Indiana controversy, pro-family
activists are pushing the Marriage and Religious Freedom
Act, which would bar government discrimination against
individuals or groups that support traditional marriage.
Buchanan continued: “As Aquinas wrote, we do not have
to obey immoral or unjust laws. We should defy them.
And support the brave people who do.”
But Brown said conservative statesmen need to go further
by boldly defending religious freedom and the views of
their constituents.
Grassroots conservatives around the country are already
following this advice with their enthusiastic financial
support of Memories Pizza. The small business has been
targeted by death threats and hostile media coverage after
the owners said they would decline to cater a same-sex
wedding. As of this writing, a GoFundMe page created by
the Blaze has raised almost $1 million from more than
30,000 donors.
“This is the time for politicians to make clear that they
will not bow down to the pressure of the misinformation
mobs. They will stand up for what is right and propagate
the truth until the bullies are exposed,” he said.
WND, reporting earlier on the issue of civil disobedience,
noted Staver said: “Immediately, when elevated to that
level of a constitutionally protected category, [same-sex
marriage] is given the same status as race. What you
cannot legally do with respect to race, you will not be able
to do legally with respect to same-sex unions and sexual
immorality.
However, even as grassroots conservatives rallied,
Republican politicians such as Gov. Mike Pence were in
full retreat. He signed a revised version of the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act Thursday containing changes
that pro-family activists say are actually worse than
passing no law at all.
“Think of race in the context of religious expression or
conscience expression and replace it with sexual
immorality, transsexualism or so-called gender identity.
For example, churches and other religious organizations
are exempt from the religious discrimination provisions of
federal, state or local nondiscrimination laws. But they are
not exempted from the race provisions. So Catholics can
hire Catholics, and Baptists can hire Baptists, but they
cannot hire only ‘white’ Catholics or only ‘white’
Baptists. They would face significant penalties. You can’t
have separate restrooms or drinking fountains for people
of a different color. If a church did that they would be
liable for a significant amount of damages because of
discrimination on the basis of race.
Republican presidential candidates such as Jeb Bush are
also shifting their positions. According to audio tapes
obtained by the New York Times, the former Florida
governor told a meeting of donors “we shouldn’t
discriminate based on sexual orientation” and suggested
Indiana should have come up with a “better approach” to
protecting religious freedom.
Michael Brown, an expert who holds a Ph.D. from New
York University and has researched and written a number
of books on homosexuality, says he is not surprised by the
reaction of Republican politicians. And, like Buchanan,
Brown warns Christians will have no choice but to resist
or submit.
“Same-sex marriage or laws including sexual orientation
or gender identity as a non-discrimination category
directly impact religious organizations and churches. If a
man wants to use the women’s restroom and a church
official told him he could not, then that act would be like
telling people of color they cannot use the ‘white only’
restroom. You will also have the same issues with tax
exemption over sexual preference as you have now over
race,” he said.
“This is what we’ve been saying for years. Those who
came out of the closet now want to put us in the closet,”
he said. “This is not a matter of tolerance and diversity.
This is a matter of ‘My way or the highway.’ And the
lesson is clear: If you throw enough of a fit, conservatives
will capitulate.”
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Haters' End Goal: Wipe Out Christianity in America
Warns, 'Homosexual campaign is not about freedom'
By Star Parker
The truth is that the objective of the homosexual
campaign is not about American freedom. The
objective is the de-legitimization and annihilation of
Christianity in America.
Columnist George Will points out that Apple’s
openly gay CEO, Tim Cook, “thinks Indiana is a
terrible place. (But) He opened marketing and retail
operations in Saudi Arabia two months before a man
was sentenced to 450 lashes for being gay.”
This did not begin yesterday.
Will was commenting on Cook’s recent Washington Post
op-ed protesting Indiana’s new, now amended, Religious
Freedom Restoration Act and similar initiatives around the
country.
It has now been well over a half-century that the words of
our Constitution have been distorted so the very
protections guaranteed for Christians are used as weapons
against them.
World Magazine reports that Cook has recently been in
the United Arab Emirates negotiating on behalf of Apple,
where homosexuality is against the law and the penalty is
death.
From the prohibition of prayer in school, to prohibitions of
public displays of the Ten Commandments and Christian
symbols, to lawsuits against Christian photographers for
refusing to provide the photography for gay weddings, the
war against Christian presence in America becomes
increasingly open and aggressive.
Cook’s duplicity is not just in deeds, but also in words.
The Indiana law was passed to protect religious freedom,
mirroring existing federal law and law in 31 states around
the nation.
And what has happened over the last half-century while
this has been going on?
Our Declaration of Independence notes our inalienable
rights to “life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.” But
for Cook, who purports in his op-ed to care about
freedom, protection of “life, liberty, and the pursuit of
happiness” for a Christian is an act of aggression against
gays.
The institutions and behavior that provide the glue holding
together a faithful, civil and virtuous society have
collapsed. The traditional American family is in shambles.
Forty-three percent of our babies now born to unwed
mothers compared to 5 percent a half-century ago. And
there have been 56 million aborted unborn children.
He renders religious freedom meaningless by accusing
those, who exercise their right of protection, of
discrimination against those who wish to violate their
rights.
It was not by accident that America’s first president,
George Washington, warned the young nation, in his
Farewell Address, that religion and morality are
“indispensible” to “political prosperity,” and he cautioned
against “the supposition that morality can be maintained
without religion.”
“This isn’t a political issue. It isn’t a religious issue. This
is about how we treat each other as human beings,” he
writes. You would think that Cook, CEO of the most
valuable company in the world, with a reported personal
net worth of $400 million, could perceive his transparent
double standard.
Meanwhile, as legal violence is used in the war on
Christianity at home, physical violence is used in the same
war in Muslim countries abroad. The Wall Street Journal
reports that Christians today make up 5 percent of the
population in the Middle East compared to 20 percent a
hundred years ago.
For him and other homosexual activists, Christians cannot
observe their religion and live by the Bible’s words they
hold sacred without discriminating against gays. If this is
about “how we treat each other as human beings,” as
Cook writes, then how can he justify a same-sex couple
going to a baker or photographer they well know is
Christian, for whom homosexuality is a sin, and demand a
cake or photography for a gay wedding? Can Tim Cook
really believe that this is decent, tolerant, freedom loving
human behavior?
As many political and business leaders cowardly enable
this global war on Christianity, Christians must stand in
defense of themselves and their religion and convictions.
Star Parker is president of CURE, the Center for Urban
Renewal and Education, and author of the recently rereleased "Uncle Sam's Plantation: How Big Government
Enslaves America's Poor and What We Can Do About It."
3
Saving Ourselves from This Corrupt Generation
On fortifying her 19-year-old to survive in the world
By Patrice Lewis
schools for six hours a day, how many hours would
his or her parents have to spend to undo that
influence?”
Recently while reading Acts 2, this verse leaped out
at me: “With many other words he [Peter] warned
them; and he pleaded with them, ‘Save yourselves
from this corrupt generation.’”
Later in the column, he wrote, “Parents, and
especially fathers, are called to provide their children
spiritual instruction (see Deuteronomy 6: 4-9); we are not
to leave it to hired professionals and expect them to
miraculously wash away the imprint of today’s American
youth culture.”
The reason this caught my attention is because we are
about to launch our oldest child (who is now 19) into the
world. Soon she will be on her own, mingling with new
people in new places. She will face temptations, she will
experience different lifestyles, she will be challenged by
others whose morals and values she does not share, and
she will make mistakes.
When our girls were babies, we moved heaven and earth
to avoid putting them in day care. We worked weird
hours, lived in poverty and adopted a home-based routine
to make sure they always had parental care.
Homeschooling was a natural extension of this lifestyle.
In short, she will be launched into a corrupt generation.
I’m a history buff, so I’m fully aware that virtually every
generation throughout the ages has been called corrupt
by someone (usually the elders). And the elders are
generally right: Every generation has its degree of
corruption. We are certainly no exception.
At the time, none of this was due to particularly strong
opinions about education or peer pressure (those concerns
came later). But at some level it made sense that the
longer our kids were away from our influence, the more
likely we would be dealing with behavioral repercussions
we didn’t want, especially as they grew older.
But there are differences today that worry me. In the days
of old, it might shock some to see a husband and wife
holding hands. Now the astonishment is that someone
bothered to marry at all. Race riots are this weekend’s
low-cost entertainment. Wardrobe “malfunctions” are
scored for creativity. Living on the dole in your parent’s
home, while agitating for more welfare, is laudable.
I don’t mean we’ve kept our girls isolated or ignorant. As
parents, that would be a foolish and naïve thing to do. But
we’ve tried to impart to our kids what is beautiful and
worthy in the world, and what is foolish and wasteful and
detrimental.
This got me thinking: How can we save ourselves from
this corrupt generation? Or more specifically, how can we
save our children?
In short, we felt we had a responsibility to make sure our
daughters were safe from this corrupt generation until
they’re old enough to make their own decisions. To this
end, we tried to make sure our girls were raised IN but not
OF this world.
Some groups have taken these words to their literal end
and created an entire subculture divorced from “the
world,” such as the Amish.
What does that mean, IN but not OF? The way I see it, it
means we’re involved in our culture and community, but
we do not necessarily adopt its values.
Without really planning it, my husband and I sort of did
the same thing. By living rural and by homeschooling our
daughters, we have effectively removed them from the
“real” world of easy drugs, casual sex, gutter morals,
rebellious behavior and other ills of adolescence.
Throughout the last 19 years, this course of action has
proved worthwhile since it seems that society’s efforts
have become ever more aggressive in removing kids from
the devious clutches of their parents in order to mold and
shape them into “acceptable” citizens.
We didn’t embark on this lifestyle with those goals in
mind, but as our kids got older we began to realize the
value of these choices.
Parents can no longer trust that schools will reflect the
values they hold dear, or teach things of value to kids.
Instead, schools indoctrinate children into attitudes
entirely antithetical to the standards of their parents and
the moral standards needed for a functional society, thus
setting the scene for rebellion and strife.
A few years ago my WND editor published a column
called “Too lazy NOT to homeschool.” In it he said:
“Sure, homeschooling is a lot of work, especially for the
mother, but it doesn’t compare with the work needed to
effectively deprogram a child who is not homeschooled.
… Do the math. If a child is subject to the current atheistic
indoctrination that passes for education in the government
In such “worldly” schools, history is rewritten, falsehoods
are taught, faith is mocked, purity is sneered at, morals are
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dismissed, and standards are lowered. Children are
humiliated and subdued until they come into conformity
with worldly standards, which cause strife and rebellion
and anger between parents and offspring. Wheeeee.
mock our faith don’t bother us. We try to keep our “eyes
on the prize” (Luke 9:62) and dismiss the influences of the
corrupt generation as unimportant in the grand scheme of
things.
And after formal schooling, the progressive education
continues in movies, on television and in music. You
might call them refresher courses in moral decay. But
we’re not especially worried about our girls becoming
contaminated by this junk because we taught them
as Proverbs 22:6 states: Train up a child in the way he
should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.
Remember that the risen Son of God means that those who
believe will not perish and will be saved from this corrupt
generation.
Have a blessed Resurrection Day.
Patrice Lewis is a freelance writer whose latest book
is "The Simplicity Primer: 365 Ideas for Making Life more
Livable." She is co-founder (with her husband) of a home
woodcraft business. The Lewises live on 20 acres in north
Idaho with their two homeschooled children, assorted
livestock, and a shop that overflows into the house with
depressing regularity.
As Christians throughout the world spend this week in
contemplation of the sacrifice Jesus made on the cross, we
are once again blessed to have our family IN but not OF a
world that dismisses the significance of the most
important event in history. Those who would sneer or
Mike Pence Accused of Gutting Religious Freedom Law
So-called 'fix' called a cave to Big Business
By Cheryl K. Chumley
Perkins also warned the new proposal would actually
“force religious businesses and even nonprofits deemed
‘not religious enough’ to participate in wedding
ceremonies contrary to their owners’ beliefs,” he wrote.
“If the government punished people for living their faith,
there are no limits to what government can control.”
Various businesses, from Walmart to Apple to Salesforce,
threatened to leave Indiana or take other actions that
would impact the states’ overall revenues if Pence and
lawmakers didn’t abandon the law.
Indiana Gov. Mike Pence
Pence, a talked-about candidate for the White House
in 2016, then said he would go back to the
legislature and request a clarified version.
Indiana Republican Gov. Mike Pence, facing
widespread pressure from “gay” activists and
business owners, signed a clarification of the muchdiscussed Religious Freedom Restoration Act, but
his revision is being slammed for going too far in
the opposite direction.
He said, during the signing of the revision: “There
will be some who think this legislation goes too far
and some who think it does not go far enough, but
as governor I must always put the interest of our state first
and ask myself every day, ‘What is best for Indiana?’”
On the Fox New show “Fox & Friends” Friday morning,
the conclusion was Pence gutted the law. The sentiment
was echoed by Family Research Council President Tony
Perkins who, in the lead-up to Pence’s revision, sent out
an email blast to supporters warning of the changes.
But as WND previously reported, many are upset with the
new changes and urged lawmakers to band together and
veto them.
Perkins’ email: “Big Business is pressuring Indiana to take
the silver over religious freedom. The ‘fix’ being forced
through by legislative leaders actually guts Indiana’s
Religious Freedom Restoration Act, and empowers the
government to impose punishing fines on people for
following their beliefs about marriage.”
Cheryl K. Chumley is a staff writer for WND and author
of "Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is
Becoming our Reality." Formerly with the Washington
Times, she is a journalism fellow with The Phillips
Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she spent a year
researching and writing about private property rights.
5
Repugnant Realities Behind Obamatrade's Veil
Spotlights plan's 'temporary entry' guest worker visas
By Curtis Ellis
Guest workers visas top the wish list of Big
Surveillance in Silicon Valley and the
administration’s other corporatist cronies pushing
immigration reform.
Supporters of the TransPacific Partnership say the
text of the agreement needs to kept secret because if
the public knew what was in it they’d oppose it.
When it comes to this sweeping international
regulatory agreement with 12 countries in Latin America
and Asia, the administration has been performing a dance
of the seven veils, suggesting tantalizing treats, promising
pleasures to come, but never actually revealing anything.
The Obama administration used the South Korea-U.S. free
trade agreement as a vehicle to expand the L1 visa
program, a category of visas companies use to transfer
foreign workers into the U.S. L1 visas are notoriously
abused to replace American workers with low-paid labor
from overseas.
We’ve now seen the chancres beneath the gossamer, and
anyone with eyes will be repelled. The only chance
Congress will have to reject the TransPacific Partnership
will be the vote on fast track trade promotion authority
that could come later this month.
Speaking at an international corporate business summit in
March, Obama said comprehensive immigration reform
“would make America even more attractive to
businesses.” Fulfilling his promise to take executive action
to further his immigration agenda, he announced “a new
action I’m also taking to make it easier for global
companies. … My administration is going to reform the L1B visa category, which allows corporations to
temporarily move workers from a foreign office to a U.S.
office in a faster, simpler way. … [T]his could benefit
hundreds of thousands of non-immigrant workers and
their employers.”
Thanks to Wikileaks, we know that the TransPacific
Partnership, aka Obamatrade, sets up U.N.-run tribunals
with jurisdiction over the U.S. Under a provision in the
agreement known as Investor State Dispute Settlement, or
ISDS, China’s Vietnamese cronies will be able to haul our
local, state and federal governments before U.N.administered “courts” in Geneva. These kangaroo courts
will force American taxpayers to shell out money to
foreign cronies who feel their “rights” under Obamatrade
were violated. Of course, American citizens won’t have
access to these “courts” – nor will we be able to appeal
their rulings.
Lest you be misled by the weasel words, make no mistake:
“non-immigrant workers” are not American workers. This
is bureaucratic parlance for foreign workers not counted as
immigrants … yet.
These U.N. courts, staffed by unelected “experts” paid by
the same global companies they’ll be judging, are a
corporate trial lawyer’s dream come true – and the death
knell for American sovereignty. The landmark decision
Marbury v. Madison gave the Supreme Court the power to
strike down laws passed by Congress or the states.
Obamatrade gives the U.N. the same power, and more –
the power to overrule even the Supreme Court.
Will this sovereignty-busting, immigration-enabling,
regulation-loving agreement secretly negotiated by Obama
and his cronies become the law of the land?
That will soon be up to Congress. Obama, Boehner,
McConnell and the U.S. Chamber of Commerce, the same
crowd who brought us executive amnesty, are asking
Congress to pass fast track “trade promotion authority.”
Fast track makes it possible to pass the TransPacific
Partnership with a simple majority vote in both houses of
Congress, no amendments, no filibuster.
And there’s more.
The U.S. trade representative’s website says “temporary
entry” guest worker visas are a “key part” of the
TransPacific Partnership agreement. The concept of
“temporary entry” visas brings to mind Milton Friedman
who said, “Nothing is as permanent as a temporary
government program.”
Why should we trust Obama and take a chance his
misbegotten deal will pass on a simple majority?
Congress must vote no on fast track.
Curtis Ellis is a political communications consultant and
writer.
The administration won’t publicly disclose details of the
“temporary entry” visas in the TransPacific Partnership,
but we have every reason to be suspicious.
6
Culture-Death: America Has Lost Her Story
Sees harmful combination of narcissism, collectivism
By Joshua Charles
pressing matters of our time. As a result, we have
become a society run on emotion, not reason.
What a week it has been. We have been told
religious liberty is under attack. And so it is, in
perhaps the most distressing way it has ever
occurred in this republic. We have been told that a
fascistic leftist mob is out for blood. And so it is.
Postman, who was not a Christian, observed, “I
believe I am not mistaken in saying that Christianity
is a demanding and serious religion. When it is delivered
as easy and amusing, it is another kind of religion
altogether.” On modern politics, he noted: “Tyrants of all
varieties have always known about the value of providing
the masses with amusements as a means of pacifying
discontent. … How delighted would be all the kings, czars
and fuhrers of the past to know that censorship is not a
necessity when all political discourse takes the form of a
jest.” On education, he lamented: “It would not have come
easily to the mind of such a man [Thomas Jefferson], as it
does to political leaders today, that the young should be
taught to read exclusively for the purpose of increasing
their economic productivity. Jefferson had a more
profound god to serve. … The question is, ‘What kind of
public does it create?’ A conglomerate of self-indulgent
consumers? Angry, soulless, directionless masses?
Indifferent, confused citizens? Or a public imbued with
confidence, a sense of purpose, a respect for learning, and
tolerance? … The right answer depends on two things, and
two things alone: the existence of shared narratives, and
the capacity of such narratives to provide an inspired
reason for schooling.”
But for me, as distressing as these things are, I am yet
again drawn to the conclusion that there is something
bigger and more distressing going on here – it is a more
fundamental and foundational issue: namely, that far too
many Americans on both left and right (and those in
between) have had their minds dumbed-down to a degree
that is simply incompatible with a society seeking to be
both free and self-governing. The great civic issue of our
time is this: that we are quickly, distressingly and with
breathtaking speed losing our ability to converse with one
another. Our common language is disappearing. We are
being overtaken by a flood of superficiality in which very
few of us know much of anything beyond zingers, oneliners, clichés and stereotypes.
Look at the state of the church today (and religion in
general). Look at the state of education today. Look at the
state of our politics today. We used to be a nation of
readers. We now are a nation of tweeters. We used to be a
nation where whole towns would turn out for seven hours
to hear the likes of Stephen Douglas and Abraham Lincoln
debate the great issues of the time. Now, most of us can’t
and don’t even watch our presidential “debates.” I
challenge ever person reading this: Watch a few minutes
of the Nixon-Kennedy debate. If you have the time, watch
a minute or two of each presidential debate (in order)
since then. You will notice a deleterious corrosion in the
substance and civility of our presidential “debates.” They
began as a stage upon which those vying for the most
powerful office on earth could display their civility, their
knowledge, their wisdom and their grace. They are now
choreographed circuses where those vying for our nation’s
most august office do little more than spout their preapproved talking points and rarely, if ever, offer
substantive responses to each other’s arguments.
And it is our shared narrative, and our growing loss of it,
that lies at the root of this problem.
America has lost her story, and we need to get it back. It’s
become mired in a quicksand of narcissistic hyperindividualism combined with totalitarian collectivist
degradation: the exact opposite of our founders’ vision,
which imagined an America where the government was
efficient, responsible and liberty-respecting, and the
citizens were bound together by a common set of moral,
religious principles (notice I didn’t say “doctrines”),
which allowed them to manage and govern their own
affairs in a responsible, society-benefiting manner.
It is because we have lost this vision that we are drowning
in the paradoxical, counterintuitive, but ultimately
predicted juxtaposition of collectivism and narcissistic
hyper-individualism.
This is all because of what I called the “Postman thesis,”
the prophetic message delivered by Neil Postman in his
seminal work, “Amusing Ourselves to Death.” Although
published in 1985, its prophetic relevance has only
increased with time. Postman observed, and predicted, that
the proliferation of electronic media, while not bad in
itself, was transforming the way we think (or don’t think):
In every area of life, we were being dumbed-down,
because we were becoming more and more desirous of
entertainment and less desirous of the serious thought and
contemplation necessary to sort out complex issues and
Washington predicted it. Adams predicted it. Jefferson
predicted it. Franklin predicted it. Tocqueville predicted it.
Montesquieu predicted it. Cicero predicted it. Postman
predicted it.
And that is why the recovery of this narrative, a recovery
of the American mind, a recovery of self-government and
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Jefferson’s reminder thus ought to sear our consciences:
“Where then is our republicanism to be found? Not in our
Constitution certainly, but merely in the spirit of our
people. That would oblige even a despot to govern us
republicanly [sic]. Owing to this spirit, and to nothing in
the form of our Constitution, all things have gone well.”
true discourse, ought to be the greatest task of all of us
most concerned about the future of this republic. For, as
Postman noted, “What Huxley teaches is that in the age of
advanced technology, spiritual devastation is more likely
to come from an enemy with a smiling face than from one
whose countenance exudes suspicion and hate. In the
Huxleyan prophecy, Big Brother does not watch us, by his
choice. We watch him, by ours. There is no need for
wardens or gates or Ministries of Truth.”
Joshua Charles is the No. 1 New York Times best-selling
co-author (with Glenn Beck) of "The Original Argument:
The Federalists' Case for the Constitution, Adapted for the
21st Century." He is currently a research fellow at the
Public Policy Institute at William Jessup University,
where he is researching the writings of the American
Founders, as well as many other champions of human
liberty throughout history. He earns his MA in
Government in 2014, and despite being a former concert
pianist, will begin law school at Regent University in Fall
2014.
In such a society, tyranny does not ultimately come from
the government, but the people themselves. “When,”
Postman eerily predicted, “a population becomes
distracted by trivia, when cultural life is redefined as a
perpetual round of entertainments, when serious public
conversation becomes a form of baby-talk, when, in short,
a people become an audience and their public business a
vaudeville act, then a nation finds itself at risk. Culturedeath is a clear possibility.”
Newsmax Finance
A Precious Metal Indeed: Gold Outperforms Stocks This Year
By Dan Weil
Gold has been on a tear over the past three weeks, rising
6.3 percent amid signs of economic weakness that may
slow the Federal Reserve's hand in raising interest rates.
Analysts predict a 4.6 percent drop in S&P 500 profits for
the first quarter, following a 3.7 percent increase in the
fourth quarter, according to FactSet.
Thanks to that sharp rally, gold has outperformed the S&P
500 index so far in 2015. The precious metal has returned
2.7 percent during that period, compared to 1.6 percent for
the S&P 500.
On the gold front, "now, with so many bears in the woods,
the fact that the Fed seems to be kicking the can down to
the road to maybe September instead of June is helping
gold tremendously," George Gero, a precious metals
analyst with RBC, told CNBC.
Gold closed Monday at $1,214.90 an ounce, and the S&P
500 at 2,080.62.
Meanwhile, international investor Jim Rogers has been
bullish on gold for years, but that doesn't mean he sees the
precious metal's strength lasing forever.
As for the signs of economic weakness, non-farm payrolls
rose only 126,000 in March, the smallest increase since
December 2013. And consumer spending rose just 0.1
percent in February, after dropping 0.2 percent in January.
"Gold is going to turn into a bubble eventually, and when
it turns into a bubble, I hope I’m smart enough to sell it,"
he told Sprott Money News, when asked what would push
him to dump his gold holdings.
The Atlanta Federal Reserve's GDPNow model forecast
economic growth of only 0.1 percent, as of Thursday. And
that's an improvement from Wednesday when the
projection was zero growth.
"On the other hand, on the down side, I’m not quite sure
that I can think of anything that would cause me to sell my
gold. If nothing else, it’ll be for my children someday."
The sluggish economic data has pushed out expectations
of when the Federal Reserve will begin raising interest
rates. Many economists expect the Fed to move in
September.
Rogers sees major financial trouble ahead in our country.
"The United States is the largest debtor nation in the
history of the world," he said. "No debtor nation has ever
gotten like this, and the debts are going higher and higher.
That is a reason to own gold and silver."
All that is good for gold and bad for stocks to the extent
that a weaker economy means weaker earnings.
8
Can Evil Be Defeated
By Paul Craig Roberts
year old, a 95-year old, a double amputee? The fact
that police get away with this brutality shows their
total lack of humanity and the total transformation
of the purpose of police. Today a paranoid police
protect not the public but the police state and
themselves from an imaginary threatening public.
We pay them to abuse and murder us.
John W. Whitehead is a constitutional attorney. As
head of the Rutherford Institute he is actively
involved in defending our civil liberties. Being
actively involved in legal cases, he experiences first
hand the transformation of law from a shield of the
American people into a weapon in the hands of the
government.
On September 6, 7, and 8, 2014, the Washington Post
reported that state and local police had become bandits, as
in Mexico, who stop drivers in order to rob them. In “Stop
and Seize,” the Washington Post reported that “aggressive
police take hundreds of millions of dollars from motorists
not charged with crimes.”
American civil liberty was seriously eroded prior to 9/11
and the rise of the police/warfare state, a story I tell in
How America Was Lost. Lawrence Stratton and I
documented the loss of law as a shield of the American
people in our book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions
(2000, 2008). Whitehead in his book, A Government of
Wolves (2013) and in his just released Battlefield America
(2015) shows how quickly and thoroughly the police state
has taken root.
There are now training courses in which police are trained
in the art of highway robbery. September 11, 2001, was
used to create an industry that trains police in the
aggressive techniques of highway interdiction. It is now
routine for a traffic stop, whether justified or not, to result
in the confiscation of your cash, other possessions, and
your car itself. You can be robbed by police on the basis
of their assumptions without being ticketed or charged
with a crime.
We live in an electronic concentration camp. We are
addicted to images on screens that disinform and
propagandize us to accept and even welcome the police
state activities that have destroyed our autonomy, privacy,
and independence.
I write many columns on this subject. The advantage of a
book is that it all comes together under one cover, and that
is what Whitehead has done in Battlefield America.
Whitehead reports that in fiscal year 2012 the federal
government alone seized $4.2 billion in assets despite the
fact that in 80 percent of the cases no charge was issued.
“The outlook for civil liberties grows bleaker by the day,
from the government’s embrace of indefinite detention for
US citizens and armed surveillance drones flying
overhead to warrantless surveillance of phone, email and
Internet communications, and prosecutions of government
whistle-blowers. The homeland is ruled by a policeindustrial complex, an extension of the American military
empire. Everything that our founding fathers warned
against is now the new norm. The government has trained
its sights on the American people. We have become the
enemy. All the while, the American people remain largely
oblivious.”
Did you know that the school security industry is a $4.9
billion annual business that instills in youth acceptance of
tyranny and punishments for infractions that are simply
the normal behavior of youth?
Did you know that in 2006 a Halliburton subsidiary, Dick
Cheney’s firm, was awarded a $385 million federal
contract to build concentration camps in the US?
Did you know that Republicans have privatized the prison
system and turned it into a $70 billion per year industry
that demands ever more incarceration of citizens in order
to drive profits. Consequently, 2.7 million American
children now have at least one parent in prison, often on
charges that would not constitute crimes in a civilized
country.
Whitehead gives it to us straight. We are continually
abused in the name of protecting us. Ordinary Americans
are subject to far worst abuse from government than they
ever could be from criminals and terrorists, both of which
are bogymen used to justify the government’s terrorism of
the citizenry.
US prison labor is now the cheapest form of labor
available with prisoners paid between 93 cents and $4.73
per day. Prisoners make office furniture, work in call
centers, fabricate body armor, take hotel reservations,
work in slaughterhouses, manufacture textiles, shoes, and
clothing, process agricultural products like milk and beef,
package Starbucks coffee, shrink wrap software for
Microsoft, sew lingerie for Victoria’s Secret, produce the
military’s helmets, shirts, pants, tents, bags, canteens, and
Four-year old children are handcuffed by police. Ninetyfive year old citizens with walkers are body-slammed with
their neck broken by police. War veterans without legs
and wheelchair bound are shot and murdered by police.
The police always justify their abuse and criminal acts by
claiming they felt threatened. What kind of heavily armed
police, usually together in gangs, is threatened by a four9
between 2001 and 2010 were prosecuted not for deeds, but
for beliefs, ideology, or religious affiliations.
a variety of other equipment, make circuit boards for IBM,
Texas Instruments and Dell. Sew McDonald’s uniforms,
and perform labor services for Boeing, Motorola,
Compaq, Revlon and Kmart.
The two most engaging chapters in Battleground America
are “The Matrix” and “The Posthuman Era,” together a
mere 17 pages. The fusion of machines with humans to
which trans-humanists are committed will destroy human
sensibility, memory, and morality, and probably humans
themselves.
Even the “mainstream” presstitute media has reported the
US military drills in South Florida where military teams
working with local police practiced rounding up American
citizens for detention. The media has also reported the
upcoming military occupations in Texas and Utah. There
are protests but not on the level that a people conscious of
the threat to their liberty would mount.
Corporate America is in it for the money. Whitehead tells
us: “With every smartphone we buy, every GPS device we
install, and every Twitter, Facebook, and Google account
we open, we’re helping Corporate America build a dossier
for its government counterparts on who we know, what we
think, how we spend our money, and how we spend our
time.”
It seems clear that these are federal troops practicing
control of the population which is being stripped of the
constitutional right to hold government accountable. The
pointless lockdown of Boston and its suburbs and the
gratuitous house to house searches, a martial law exercise
clearly prepared prior to the Boston Marathon Bombing,
used fear created by the bombing, possibly a false flag
operation, to teach the population compliance with, and
acceptance of, martial law. The insouciant American
population went along with it. If someone points out how
they were manipulated, the fools scream “conspiracy
theorist.”
Whitehead quotes Bill Joy, a cofounder of Sun
Microsystems: “I think it is no exaggeration to say we are
on the cusp of the further perfection of evil.”
Jim Edwards says, “we humans are now data bits.”
In the penultimate chapter, Whitehead tells us what we
can do, a question that I am forever asked by readers.
Whitehead says that armed revolt is not an option. He
believes that the tens of millions, perhaps 100 million,
Americans who have pistols, rifles, and shotguns are not
only unorganized, but outgunned. The 21st century has
been used to militarize state and local police forces and to
brutalize their attitude toward the American public. Even
police in small towns now have helicopters, armored
personnel carriers, tanks, machine guns, rocket-propelled
grenades, drones, night vision, heat sensors, sensors that
can see through the walls of houses and into cars.
The official explanation of the military exercises
practicing population control in South Florida, Texas and
Utah is that the military is practicing for overseas actions.
Why then are local police involved? More likely we are
witnessing drills described in the US Army’s 2010
publication, “Internment and Resettlement Operations.”
It is now routine for police to amuse themselves by
carrying out strip searches and vaginal searches of
women. Police go out of their way to provoke resistance
so that they can beat, taser, and murder. If they can’t
provoke it, they beat, taser, and murder anyway and claim
their victim resisted arrest or threatened them. Have you
noticed how the police find everyone threatening?
If this is not enough, in comes the National Guard or
federal troops, Army Rangers, Navy Seals. Or simply the
release of germs. Washington can deal with its citizens the
same way it dealt with the indigenous peoples we call
Indians. Washington has retained in its hands live
smallpox, a deadly killer, and there now have been several
generations of Americans who have not had smallpox
vaccination, because the disease was eliminated by
vaccination. All the government has to do is to release
smallpox on resistant populations, and, of course, the
government has numerous other such means.
Whitehead shows that the educational system,
entertainment, and television serve to indoctrinate and
teach compliance. Television can do more than form
public opinion. It is used to alter the worldview of the
population. Our cars, household appliances, and smart
homes are becoming devices designed to spy on us and
report noncompliance. A society is being created in which
there can be no autonomy and no freedom.
How did it come to this?
The technology that permits the electronic concentration
camp is produced by thoughtless people who have no
concern for liberty. How, Whitehead asks, do we maintain
our humanity in the face of technologies designed to
dehumanize us?
In my opinion, as I so often write, Americans are
distracted by sex, entertainment, the difficulty of
providing for themselves and for families. They are locked
into the disinformation that sustains the American Matrix,
blinded by their patriotism and the 4th of July speeches
and by their indoctrination that Americans are
“exceptional and indispensable.” And, of course, by their
ignorance and arrogance. Americans simply have no clue.
America now has preemptive prosecution. Whitehead
reports that 95 percent of those convicted of terrorism
10
to control them, by amusing themselves in front of
propaganda screens, by learning again how to think, how
to be human, how to be moral, the American police state
can be defeated.
The purpose of the evil that masquerades as a government
in Washington is to prevent those few Americans who do
have a clue from informing the rest of the population.
Whistleblowers are arrested and falsely prosecuted and
imprisoned. Journalists have been intimidated into silence.
It worked in the past, and possibly it can work again. If
not, Washington will remain the home of Sauron, a threat
to every American citizen and to the entire world.
Now, to Whitehead’s answer to what can we do. He says
that we can mount “militant nonviolent resistance.” This
worked for Christians in the decomposing Roman Empire.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the
US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall
Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of
prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his
book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with
Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how
americans lost the protection of law, has been released by
Random House.
It worked for Mahatma Gandhi in India against the British
colonialists. It was working for Martin Luther King in
America before he was assassinated, most likely by the
FBI.
Whitehead says that the mass of the citizenry cannot be
assassinated. If citizens simply stop cooperating by
listening to the lies on TV, by purchasing the devices used
President Zeman Tells Washington That the Czech Republic
Is Not an American Protectorate
By Paul Craig Roberts
Of course Washington and its corrupt court
historians are at work revising the history of World
War II in order to cleanse the record of Russia’s
victory over Germany. Of course, everyone in
Europe knows that this is just another Washington
attempt to control all explanations regardless of the
facts, but vassals are accustomed to vassalage and
its humiliations. Proud peoples are not what
Europeans any longer are.
As readers know, I have emphasized for years that
European governments are regarded by
Washington as vassals who behave according to
Washington’s wishes. It has been 70 years–two or
three generations–since former world powers, such
as Great Britain and Germany had an independent
foreign policy.
In addition to this ignobility, European governments are
also vassals to the EU, so on the sovereignty front
European countries are twice damned. They simply have
no sovereignty.
Petr Hajek, who served as an advisor to former Czech
president Vaclav Klaus, said that the US ambassador
thinks he is the governor of a conquered territory issuing
orders to the locals and that previous ambassadors from
Washington had the same idea:
This is why it is so easy for Washington to spin a web of
lies and drive its vassals into a “crisis” with Russia that
does not serve the interests of Europeans. Washington’s
European puppets don’t count. Only Washington counts.
“President Zeman’s position rejecting the advice of the
US ambassador is the only possible adequate response.
Our country’s leader has carried himself as the President
of the Czech Republic, and not as the head of a
protectorate of the United States.”
Next month is Russia’s Victory Day celebration over Nazi
Germany. Washington has told its puppets not to attend,
and many including German chancellor Merkel have
complied with their overlord’s demand. But not the
President of the Czech Republic.
Paul Craig Roberts, a former Assistant Secretary of the
US Treasury and former associate editor of the Wall
Street Journal, has been reporting shocking cases of
prosecutorial abuse for two decades. A new edition of his
book, The Tyranny of Good Intentions, co-authored with
Lawrence Stratton, a documented account of how
americans lost the protection of law, has been released by
Random House.
When the US ambassador to the Czech Republic, Andrew
Schapiro, advised President Milos Zeman to cancel his
participation in the Russian celebration, President Zeman
threw the Obama fundraiser out of the presidential castle.
The Czech people, President Zeman said, were next in line
for extermination by the Nazis, and it was the Red Army
that saved the Czech people.
11
The National Review
Obama’s Chicago Presidency
By Victor Davis Hanson
During the seven years when Obama faced election,
reelection, and two midterm elections, he warned on over
20 occasions that it would be neither legal nor ethical to
grant executive amnesties to illegal aliens. What was
stunning about his refrain was the high-minded manner in
which he disarmed his base by warning them that he could
not act unconstitutionally. But once he faced no more
referenda on his power, he cared little about polls that
showed widespread disapproval of amnesty, and simply
began issuing the sort of presidential fiats that he had
correctly said he didn’t have the power to issue.
The Right was shocked by the brazen hypocrisy of
Obama, who once warned the country of just the sort of
renegade president that he proved to be. But that again
misses the point. Obama was not embarrassed, but
emboldened, by the disconnect, as if to say, “I not only
bypassed Congress to issue amnesties, but also refuted my
own warnings that to do so would be illegal. And so what
are you going about it?” If the speeder goes through a red
light with impunity right in front of a parked patrolman,
what then do we think of the patrolman, the speeder —
and the sanctity of traffic lights?
What you can do if you don’t care what
anybody says.
Senator Robert Menendez (D., N.J.) was a vocal critic
both of President Obama’s executive-action opening to
Cuba and his nuclear non-proliferation talks with Iran. In
the midst of his loud opposition, he found himself
suddenly the target of renewed federal charges that had
aired much earlier without consequence. I think the
message was not that the administration was worried over
appearances, but rather that it wished to remind all of
Washington that it actually welcomed the appearance of
not being worried over the idea of federal prosecutorial
power being used for tit-for-tat vendettas. Malice is a
valuable political tool for Barack Obama.
We see the Chicago way with Iran as well. In the midst of
negotiations, Iran’s supreme leader chants the tired mantra
“Death to America.” The Iranian military builds a mockup
of a U.S. carrier to practice attacks on it. The Obama
position proves more lenient than that of either the U.N. or
our European partners, which is not an easy thing to do.
Yet Obama doubles down and continues full bore to
squeeze out any kind of agreement he can — even if that
means it might be merely oral, not written, and a
bastardized treaty somehow designed to avoid Senate
scrutiny. The point is not that all this is outrageous, but
rather that it is deliberately outrageous, again begging the
question, “So what are you going to do about it?”
Obama’s Chicago sense appeals to the lowest common
denominator: The more brazenly he is making a point, the
more he thinks he will earn a certain admiration from his
base, a sense of some sort that he is capable of anything
and that progressive morality trumps antiquated laws. The
full Obama reminds me of a high-school incident when a
teacher corralled an aggressor accused of serially bullying
another student; when he asked the perpetrator to
apologize to his target, the aggressor instead slugged his
victim in front of the teacher, and shouted, “What are you
going to do about it?”
Benjamin Netanyahu apparently bothered President
Obama. What could that possibly entail, given the historic
alliance between Israel and the United States? From the
petty malice of Obama-administration aides leaking slurs
that Netanyahu was a coward and chickens–t to the
fundamental malevolence of community-organizing
Netanyahu’s opponents in an effort to defeat him at the
polls to leaking previously classified information about
Israel’s nuclear deterrent, the message is again Chicagoan.
Obama in adolescent fashion put it best in the 2008
campaign when he urged his flock, “I want you to argue
with them and get in their face,” and when he later lifted a
Chicago line from screenwriter David Mamet’s dialogue
inThe Untouchables to say to his base, “If they bring a
knife to the fight, we bring a gun.” No wonder Obama —
despite having once been on the receiving end of a racial
slur from Senator Harry Reid — recently praised the
outgoing Senate majority leader, whose style and modus
operandi were akin to Obama’s own.
Some thought Obama’s serial untruths about Obamacare
would doom the ill-fated program: Millions really did lose
their plans; they lost their doctors as well; Obamacare
proved not to lower but to raise costs; it did not shrink the
12
deficit but caused more federal expense. When Obama
picked and chose which parts of the federal law he would
enforce, others objected that it was patently illegal for an
executive not to faithfully execute laws on the books. But
again, that is exactly the point: If a president can lie about
a program to secure its passage and, when it proves
flawed, select elements to discard or delay, then he can do
almost anything — and we should appreciate that
he can do almost anything.
Springs irrigated golf courses? All that is not the
disconnect, but the point.
It is distasteful for a president to weigh in on a local,
ongoing, and racially charged criminal case. Obama not
only did just that with the Trayvon Martin shooting, but in
such a way that could only exacerbate racial tensions —
and in a reactionary fashion of expressing solidarity with
critics of George Zimmerman on the basis of his own
shared skin color with the deceased. If President Clinton
had editorialized in mediis rebus about the O.J. trial with
something like “Nicole might have looked liked the
second daughter I never had,” then we would have
assumed not just that he was a racist, but that he wanted us
to think he was a racist — and that we could not do much
about that fact.
If the president believes that, after all the shenanigans of
Lois Lerner, there is still not even a “smidgen” of
corruption in the IRS, then the shot across the bow is not
that the IRS is now politicized, but that it is hopelessly
politicized. Again,what are we going to do about it?
In the old Clinton–Gingrich formula of budget give-andtake, when the national debt was about a third of the
present $18 trillion, Republicans agreed to defense cuts
and tax increases, and Democrats conceded budget
freezes, and eventually for a time there was a balanced
budget, gimmicks and all. Under Obama, Republicans are
to agree to defense cuts and tax hikes — while Obama
increases social spending, runs $600 billion annual
deficits, laments frugality and austerity, and lets others
worry about the crushing debt incurred on his watch, the
diminution of national security, and the stifling effect of
tax hikes. What is the next president going to do — raise
taxes higher, cut popular entitlements, disband the Marine
Corps, and scrounge to pay down the debt?
Susan Rice on five televised occasions lied about
Benghazi when she serially insisted that the deaths of four
Americans were due to a spontaneous demonstration over
a video — a deception she never later corrected. More
recently, she insisted that Bowe Bergdahl served with
“honor and distinction” when she knew that most of the
evidence clearly pointed to his being a deserter at best and
a traitor at worse, and that the five Afghan terrorists we
freed in the exchange from Guantanamo were the worst of
the worst in captivity there. Just as Rice was promoted to
national security adviser after the Benghazi untruth, so too
she knows there will be no fallout over her flat-out
distortions about Bergdahl. Obama’s point, again, is not
that Rice has a problem with the truth, but that the fact of
a national security adviser’s disingenuousness is of
absolutely no consequence.
Obama has chosen to skip various widely attended
anniversaries, including the liberation of Auschwitz and
the Battle of Gettysburg. He passed on the
commemorative march of world leaders who condemned
the terrorist killings in Paris. Critics pounced. How does
the president have time to meet with GloZell, do his
March Madness NCAA-tournament basketball picks, or
banter with Internet bloggers if he cannot meet with the
current chief of NATO? Why does he jet out to California
to do Jimmy Kimmel, but refuse to fly to Paris to show
solidarity against Islamic violence? Why would Obama
fly all the way to Denmark to lobby for a Chicago
Olympics, but not attend the anniversary of the fall of the
Berlin Wall? Again, those are the wrong questions.
What then is the full Obama presidency? It is the quest for
extralegal power not just by ignoring the law, tradition, or
custom, but by doing so flagrantly and without concern, to
the point of rendering critics impotent — and thereby
accruing even more power to enrage and embarrass them.
In similar circumstances, the Roman biographer Suetonius
noted of the Twelve Caesars that the offense itself was not
so much the point, but rather the demonstration of
committing the offense with impunity and disdain.
Once that pen-and-phone threshold has been crossed,
anything is possible — and even the critics of Obama now
belatedly accept that. In brilliantly diabolical fashion, the
president of the United States has all but ruined the
Democratic party in Congress and the state legislatures,
but has also confounded his Republican opponents by not
caring a whit about his own nihilism — as if he is
supposed to worry about ending the congressional careers
of his supposed allies?
Whether Obama avoided these events out of lassitude or
by intent matters little: The point is that it was his pleasure
not to attend any of them. The full Obama cares nothing
about appearances. Indeed, he feels that such disdain
magnifies his godhead, as someone absolutely immune to
tradition, protocol, and criticism. Say that he golfs too
much, and he will golf even more. You object that he
sermonizes on global warming while setting records for
use of Air Force One, often on a parallel track with his
wife’s jumbo jet, or lectures farmers on the California
drought for a few minutes on his way to hit the Palm
After all, if someone is going to ignore the law or what
tradition demands, then why does he need a legislative
majority to do it? Obama is more powerful in defeat than
he ever was in victory. Like a seasoned Chicago pol, he
13
reminds his auditors and critics that not only does he not
care about the appearance of his actions, but also that no
else does either. He all but says, “Each time I issue an
illegal executive order, my polls go up, and the more my
enemies howl and my friends cringe.” It becomes more
hazardous — ask Senator Menendez or an audited Tea
Party group — to object to an Obama abuse than for
Obama to commit the abuse, which makes further abuse
only more certain.
conduct hurts the future of Hillary Clinton, who cares? Or
rather, perhaps there is a hint that the damage was by
intent. If Obama’s executive-order presidency weakens
the stature of the U.S. abroad, then maybe it needed to be
weakened. In a country where almost any law can be
contravened by an executive order, where any statute can
die through selective non-enforcement, where the IRS can
hound opponents, where Israel is the enemy and Iran the
friend, and even a senatorial ally can face indictment,
anything is now possible.
Given media obsequiousness, Obama feels that little
scrutiny of his actions will follow. A move toward
impeachment he might even hope for, given his iconic
status and the community-organizing chance to smear
anyone foolish enough to try it as a racist or bigot. If his
And was not that the point all along?
NRO contributor Victor Davis Hanson is a senior fellow
at the Hoover Institution and the author, most recently,
of The Savior Generals.
World Net Daily
'Gay' Cakes Protected, Anti-'Gay' Cakes Not
Colorado civil rights ruling finds no discrimination in latter
Silva told 7NEWS in January, “If he wants to hate people,
he can hate them not here in my bakery.”
The Colorado Civil Rights Division, which earlier ruled a
Christian bakery could not refuse to make a wedding cake
for a “same-sex” marriage, has denied any discrimination
took place when another bakery turned down a request to
make cakes that including Bible verses labeling
homosexual conduct as sin.
The agency’s decision found that the baker did not
discriminate against Jack based on his creed. Instead,
officials state the evidence shows Silva refused to make
the cakes because the customer’s requests included
“derogatory language and imagery.”
Last week, the state agency ruled that Denver’s Azucar
Bakery did not discriminate against William Jack, a
Christian from Castle Rock, by refusing to make two
cakes with “groomsmen” X’d out and Bible verses the
following Bible verses: “God hates sin. Psalm 45:7,”
“Homosexuality is a detestable sin. Leviticus 18:2,” “God
loves sinners” and “While we were yet sinners Christ died
for us. Romans 5:8.”
The baker said “in the same manner [she] would not
accept [an order from] anyone wanting to make a
discriminatory cake against Christians, [she] will not make
one that discriminates against gays,” according to the
decision.
“The evidence demonstrates that [Silva] would deny such
requests to any customer, regardless of creed,” the civil
rights agency’s decision stated.
He told the civil rights agency he ordered the cakes with
the imagery and biblical verses to convey that same-sex
marriage is, in his words, “un-biblical and inappropriate.”
“I find it offensive that the Colorado Civil Rights Division
considers the baker’s claims that Bible verses were
discriminatory as the reason for denying my claim,” Jack
told 7NEWS on Saturday. “I find it offensive that the legal
director of the Colorado division of the ACLU called the
Bible verses on the cakes obscenities. Especially at this
time on the church calendar – Holy Week – I find it
offensive that the Bible is censored from the public
arena.”
Marjorie Silva, the owner of the bakery, told Jack that she
would make him the Bible-shaped cakes, but would not
decorate them with the biblical verses and the image of the
groomsmen that he requested. Instead, she offered to
provide him with icing and a pastry bag so he could write
or draw whatever messages he wished on the cakes.
Silva also reportedly told the civil rights agency that she
also told Jack her bakery “does not discriminate” and
“accept[s] all humans.”
Jack said he is in the process of filing an appeal with the
Colorado Civil Rights Division.
Jack told the civil rights agency the bakery treated him
unequally and denied him goods or services based on his
religious creed, Christianity. He said he found this
“demeaning to his beliefs.”
Last year, the Colorado Civil Rights Division ruled that
another bakery, Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood,
could not refuse to make a wedding cake for a gay couple,
calling it discriminatory.
14
What's Wrong with Discrimination?
Combats public-school, media lie of 'intolerance'
By Jesse Lee Peterson
Christians like Chrystal O’Connor and her father,
owners of Memories Pizza in Walkerton, Indiana, felt
the dark side of discrimination when they were
mercilessly attacked by the left after telling ABC
News that they’re willing to serve all customers, but
won’t cater a same-sex wedding. They’ve received bomb
threats and had to close their business. And they
call us “intolerant”!
Discrimination: noun discrim·ina·tion: The ability to
recognize the difference between things that are of
good quality and those that are not.
– Merriam Webster Dictionary
At the request of Republican Indiana Gov. Mike Pence,
the state’s General Assembly “fixed” the Religious
Freedom Restoration Act, or RFRA, language to appease
LGBT activists and leftists who claimed the bill promotes
“discrimination.”
Fortunately, there are still plenty of good people in
America. Blaze TV host Dana Loesch and her team set up
a GoFundMe.com page to help out the family and raised
more than $800,000!
The original idea for the bill was good. It would protect
religious liberties when the overreach of government
intrudes on the rights of people of faith.
The support shown to the owners of Memories Pizza is
encouraging, but homosexual activists have successfully
attacked other Christian businesses with little outcry from
Christians. What has happened to those who bear the
name of Christ? Where Christians once took faith
seriously and could withstand serious persecution, they’re
now easily intimidated by mere words.
But the “fix” turned the bill on its head. Instead of
protecting the rights of Christian business owners, the
amended bill violates their rights and makes LGBT a
protected class. Thanks, Gov. Pence – a real profile in
courage you are.
America was much better off when its businesses
routinely posted signs that read, “We reserve the right to
refuse service to anyone,” and meant it. After all, they
“built it,” and freedom – like the freedom of association –
was universally understood to be a natural, God-given
right.
Christian families today are largely not modeling
authentic Christianity. The proof of that is in the children.
They have shallow roots that are easily pulled up by a
culture that mocks traditional values.
Christian children are led into the government schools,
like sheep to the slaughter. The schools use a welldeveloped brainwashing system: 1) Challenge the
traditional beliefs, 2) Replace with new immoral beliefs,
3) Demonstrate a consensus about the new belief –
“Here’s what educated, cool people think,” 4) Repetition:
Keep pounding the message home, day after day, year
after year, until it sticks deep.
But now, in our more “enlightened” age, freedom has
been squashed in favor of special rights for protected
groups, and “hell to pay” for unprotected groups.
Where once laws protected good people from the bad,
America has devolved to the point where Christians are
forced by law to bake same-sex “wedding” cakes.
Welcome to the “new” America.
The public-school system, the liberal news media and
Hollywood also reinforce the lie that the older generation
is “intolerant.” After all, they’re the descendants of
slaveholders and those who denied women the vote. Oh
yeah, and they “hate” gays.
LGBT groups have been effective in linking their immoral
cause to the noble civil rights movement. In reality, gays
never wanted equality. They wanted society to accept their
sinful lifestyle, or else. LGBT groups – to be blunt – act
like fascists. Just like militant Islam demands Shariah law,
homosexual pressure groups demand “sodomy law.”
Is it any wonder that a Pew Research Center study says 61
percent of Republicans under 30 now favor “gay
marriage”?
So what’s so bad about discrimination anyway?
Discrimination has always been a hallmark of freedom.
The ability to discriminate is given to us by God so that
we can make right choices. People discriminate all the
time. We discriminate when we date, marry, pick our
friends and in countless other ways, just like homosexuals
do. And LGBT groups and liberals discriminate against
people of faith all day long!
Christians are hated around the world because Christianity
is the best religion. It’s the only religion that requires its
followers to examine their hearts, repent and overcome
their sinful nature.
Muslims are on pace to be the world’s majority religion by
2050, due in part to the slaughter of Christians in places
like Iraq, Syria and Kenya. But they’re not just going after
Christians. In some Muslim countries, homosexuality is
15
punishable by death, yet there’s no outcry from
homosexuals. Why? It’s because the LGBT crowd hates
Christians more than they fear Muslims.
Americans – to greater involvement in the moral, cultural
and political issues that threaten our great country. In
2011, Jesse founded The South Central L.A. Tea Party.
He's a media commentator and also hosts "The Jesse Lee
Peterson Radio Show", and is the author of "SCAM: How
the Black Leadership Exploits Black America."
For Christians to regain the power to live freely –
to discriminate with Godly wisdom – we must live and
model truth, not just talk about it. When we do this, the
unshakeable values of our faith will be rooted deep in us
and passed down to our children. We will have overcome
evil with good.
“He is like a man which built an house, and digged deep,
and laid the foundation on a rock: and when the flood
arose, the stream beat vehemently upon that house, and
could not shake it: for it was founded upon a rock”
– Luke 6:48.
Jesse Lee Peterson is the founder and president of two
dynamic organizations: BOND (Brotherhood
Organization Of A New Destiny), a national 501(c) (3)
nonprofit organization dedicated to "Rebuilding the
Family by Rebuilding the Man," and BOND Action, a
501(c) (4) organization whose purpose is to educate,
motivate and rally Americans – especially black
Newsmax
Weather Expert Bastardi: Calif. Drought Is Not Global Warming
By Bill Hoffmann
On Wednesday, for the first time in the history of the
Golden State, Gov. Jerry Brown ordered mandatory water
reduction for residents, businesses and farms.
California's alarming drought is the result of a historic
weather pattern — not global warming, as some scientists
insist, says Joe Bastardi, chief forecaster for WeatherBell
Analytics.
"We're in a new era. The idea of your nice little green
grass getting lots of water every day, that's going to be a
thing of the past," Brown said in announcing the 25
percent cut in usage.
That pattern occurs when the Pacific Ocean cools,
bringing drier air to the mainland.
"This happened back in 2005-2006 after the hurricane
season," Bastardi on Friday told Rick Ungar and Betsy
McCaughey, guest hosts of "The Steve Malzberg Show"
on Newsmax TV.
Making the California drought particularly tough this time
around is the exploding population increase, Bastardi said.
"There are a lot more people living in California now, and
the southern part of the United States, than we had
before," he said.
"The southern part of the United States and in California
was going to start getting dry because the Pacific …
[triggers] this cycle, well known to a lot of us in the field
— what we call a pacific decay.
"[It switches] from its warm phase to its cold phase and …
the amount of water vapor over the deep tropics in the
Pacific … decreases and that rich moisture gets cut off."
"[It will] have more impact now because there are more
people golfing, more people using water for their gardens
and things like that.
"It's a prudent thing that the governor is doing … we are
in this cycle for quite a time."
16
Bonner & Partners
The Coming War with China
By Bill Bonner
Most likely, history will trundle forward. And the
dollar will be knocked off its perch as the world’s
leading currency sometime before the 21st century
comes to a close.
Somehow, like it or not, the world turns. Today’s
hegemon becomes tomorrow’salso-ran. Today’s
reserve currency becomestomorrow’s toilet paper.
Today’s cock o’ the walk becomes tomorrow’s
dinner.
But how exactly will that happen?
Hey, we didn’t create this system. We don’t even
especially like it. But that’s just the way it is.
Whether you already have made a fortune, or are
trying to build one, you need to be very careful about what
currency… or currencies… your wealth is denominated in.
No one knows. But few imperial elites give up the
No. 1 position without a fight. As they see their
power, their status and their wealth challenged,
they typically find a casus belli, hoping to stomp the
newcomer before it is too late.
The End of History?
The End of History?
Governments were set up to take control. Ruling elites –
by force of arms – established laws, protocols and armies
to try to prevent anyone from taking their place.
The phenomenon is known to historians as the
“Thucydides Trap.” Political scientist Graham Allison
explains:
Their wealth, power and status were to be preserved at all
costs. But in the 18th and 19th centuries, firearms started
to become ubiquitous. It was harder for elites to maintain
their authority over the masses.
When a rapidly rising power rivals an established
ruling power, trouble ensues. In 11 of 15 cases in
which this has occurred in the past 500 years, the
result was war.
Every farmer on the American frontier had a rifle. A
ragtag band of insurgents in the American colonies (with
the help of the French Navy) could defeat the best army in
the world. An out-of-work actor could buy a handgun and
pop off a president.
The great Greek historian Thucydides identified
these structural stresses as the primary cause of the
war between Athens and Sparta in ancient Greece.
In his oft-quoted insight, “It was the rise of Athens
and the fear that this inspired in Sparta that made
war inevitable.”
Unable to stay in control by force alone, governments had
to resort to fraud. Ordinary citizens were allowed to vote
on who would rule over them. They were also promised
the fruits of others’ labors, if they voted the right way.
Note that Thucydides identified two factors: a rising rival
and fear of that rise. China is rising. The US power elite
fears its rise.
For a time, it looked as though this new model – social
democracies run by flaming politicians and professional
functionaries – had defeated all rivals.
And for good reason: Having the world’s reserve currency
is an “exorbitant privilege,” as former French president
Charles de Gaulle described it.
The Soviet Union – which relied on more old-fashioned
blunt force to run its slave-driven economy – fell in about
1991.
It allows Americans to buy things from overseas without
ever really paying for them. Instead, we send over pieces
of paper that we create ex nihilo. That paper is then sent
back to the US to buy Treasury bonds and other dollardenominated assets.
Maoist China had thrown in the towel, more or less, 10
years earlier when the country’s “paramount leader,”
Deng Xiaoping, announced, “To get rich is glorious.”
(Historians now claim he never uttered those words. But
they accurately captured his vision for China.)
From an economic point of view, the system (established
by Richard Nixon in 1971) is loopy.
The Chinese pretend they have good customers.
Americans pretend they have good credit. And everyone
pretends to get richer… based on promises to settle up
sometime in the future.
And Francis Fukuyama – hallucinating – wondered if the
“end of history” was at hand.
If the end of history were at hand, the dollar, the Fed and
federal finances would have nothing to worry about. But
between history and the greenback, if we were taking bets,
we’d put our money on history.
In practice, nobody wants the day of reckoning to come.
Because they all know that there are vastly more claims on
tomorrow’s output than tomorrow can satisfy.
17
It builds weapons systems that are often obsolete before
they are put into service. It coddles armies of lobbyists,
contractors, consultants, retirees, hangers-on and
malingerers.
Between 1971 and today, roughly $10 trillion more has
been received by Americans in goods from overseas than
has been shipped to foreigners. That money is an
outstanding claim on US existing wealth and future
output.
Like all bureaucracies, it looks out first and foremost for
itself. Looking out for the security of the nation is a distant
second.
There is also (with some overlap) about $17 trillion worth
of US government debt – also a claim on future American
output. And this is just part of the total credit market debt
of $55 trillion.
America’s 10 huge aircraft carriers, for example, may be
marvelous ways to generate contracts, fees and expenses.
They may also be great ways to throw US military muscle
into two-bit conflicts around the world.
And that’s not to mention Washington’s unfunded
liabilities…
But put them up against a modern, electronically
sophisticated enemy… Then what?
Editor’s note: Boston University professor Laurence
Kotlikoff recently told Bonner & Partners Investor
Network subscribers that America’s “fiscal gap” – the
difference between Washington’s projected financial
obligations and the present value of all its projected future
tax income – is a mind-boggling $210 trillion. That’s
about 211% of US GDP.
We will probably find out…
Bill Bonner is an author of books and articles on
economic and financial subjects. He is the founder and
president of Agora Publishing, and author of a daily
financial column, Diary of a Rogue Economist. He is also
co-founder and regular contributor to The Daily
Reckoning. He has written articles for the news and
opinion blog, LewRockwell.com and Money Week
magazine.
To honor these claims, the US would have to run a budget
surplus. (When? How?) But instead of running a surplus,
we run deficit after deficit.
Edging Toward a Reckoning
Instead of edging toward a reckoning, all major
governments seem to want to make the situation worse.
The US stimulates its people to buy more Chinese-made
goods. And China stimulates its manufacturers to make
more stuff for people who can’t really afford it. Both are
heading for trouble.
Americans are hooked on spending. They consume their
wealth… and more.
China is hooked on producing. As it adds productive
know-how and capacity, it becomes more and more
competitive. Not only can it produce more consumer
gadgets at lower prices, but also it can produce the latest
in military hardware.
It’s a matter of time before that fighting gear comes out.
At least, that’s what history suggests.
If there is a military conflict, how will it turn out?
The US spends three times more than China on “defense.”
Advantage: Pentagon. But as the Persians discovered in
their wars with the Greeks, having the biggest, bestfunded army does not necessarily give you an edge.
Instead, it can invite sluggishness, complacency and
overreaching.
The US military is the fattest, most zombie-infested
bureaucracy in the world. It suffers from an
overabundance of resources. It supports troops (at a cost
of $1 million per soldier per year) all over the globe.
18
No Lie Was Off Limits to the Late Sarah Brady
in Her Quest to Disarm Law-Abiding Americans.
By Paul Huebl
Sarah Brady had been the face of Gun Control in
America for more than three decades. However
today at age 73 she has succumbed to a bout of
pneumonia.
She cleverly called the ATF gun trace requests as
crime gun incidents. ATF routinely traced any and
all found weapons or whenever their ownership
was questioned. To suggest those guns were
involved with criminal events was another very
bold lie.
Brady became the convenient standard bearer for
the forces that hate all guns and gun rights. This
after a armed madman wounded her husband
James Brady who was President Ronald
Reagan’s Press Secretary during a 1981assassination
attempt.
Brady published a grading list for jurisdictions on
the basis of their gun laws. The paradox there was
that the “A” list states with gun bans or draconian
restrictions had the highest murder rates. The “D” list
states had few gun laws along with little or no violent
crime.
Brady led a very deceptive campaign that was intended to
incrementally outlaw all firearms. She cleverly began to
change firearm adjectives and successfully demonized
firearms based on simple cosmetics.
Finally Brady ran out of lies and all but a few states
passed laws allowing the law-abiding the right to carry
concealed weapons. Her landmark Assault
Weapons Ban was allowed to expire.
Courts nearly everywhere have reasserted
Constitutional Second Amendment rights.
Like Brady most Americans were ignorant
about guns. She renamed all the firearms
that looked somewhat scary as assault
weapons.
Brady was clearly humiliated into her
obvious forced retirement. she quickly
dropped out of sight.
Assault rifles were actually classic military
combat weapons and were by that definition
all fully automatic. That meant one pull of
the trigger could cause the weapon to fire
until it was empty.
Brady's dream was forced registration of all
firearms so government agents could locate
and confiscate them later with the next laws
she’d hope to champion.
Assault weapons were really machine guns
already banned by federal laws. Machine
guns were already unpopular because they extravagantly
consume expensive ammunition.
Brady somehow convinced politicians that pre-purchase
background investigations would insure criminals and
mental defectives would be unable to obtain weapons.
Another expensive failure!
What she did was redefine millions of semi-automatic
rifles and pistols confusing anyone and everyone that they
too were machine guns.
Phony identification and purchasing fraud efforts routinely
overcome the expensive and ineffective Brady check
system. Of course the Brady checks created every kind of
obstacle for the law-abiding especially those with similar
names to convicted criminals.
She succeeded to get the so-called Assault weapons ban
passed into law by a single vote. The law lasted ten years
and the crime rate soared anyway.
When the law expired millions of the formerly banned
guns were suddenly purchased and the crime rate began to
drop like a rock.
Nobody wants to see armed criminal and mental
defectives on our streets. They are and always will be out
there. Well-trained and armed law-abiding people are the
only way control cowardly criminals. There will never be
enough cops to do this.
Brady always pretended she just wanted to go after the
scary guns when she really wanted every last law-abiding
American defenseless and helpless to criminals or
government gone wrong.
Sarah Brady ran a successful but deceptive scam on
America that gave her a huge financial reward and
sainthood among her gun rights hating disciples.
Brady redundantly invented her own statistics, overstated
claims of gun deaths and injuries. She used FBI Uniform
Crime Reports that lumped justifiable killings by cops
and citizens as Homicides suggesting they were all
murders.
I will not mourn the loss of Sarah Brady. I do however
mourn the loss of those who were murdered because they
were enjoined by unconstitutional laws to defensive
weapons.
19
Government must stop insuring that only violent criminals
are armed.
Paul Huebl is a licensed private detective, former Chicago
policeman, investigative journalist, actor and proud
member of SAG-AFTRA.
Fox News
State Department rejects call for Iran deal to affirm Israel's 'right to exist'
Cabinet is uniformly opposed to it. He closed his brief
address by demanding that any final agreement include "a
clear and unambiguous Iranian recognition of Israel's right
to exist."
The statement was prompted by reported statements from
a top Iranian military official, who was quoted saying
"erasing Israel" off the map is "non-negotiable."
To that, Netanyahu said: "The survival of Israel is nonnegotiable."
Israel's objections promise to be a major hurdle for the
Obama administration as its representatives huddle with
those from Iran and five other world powers in pursuit of a
final deal by a June 30 deadline.
April 1, 2015: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
speaks during a press conference in Jerusalem.
A State Department official dismissed a plea Friday from
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu that the Iran
nuclear agreement include clear recognition of his nation's
"right to exist," declaring negotiations are "only about the
nuclear issue."
Last month, Netanyahu railed against the pending
agreement in an address before the U.S. Congress. He
repeated many of those concerns again, on Thursday and
Friday, after the framework was unveiled.
State Department spokeswoman Marie Harf, in a terse
response to a question about Netanyahu's concerns, told
reporters, "This is an agreement that is only about the
nuclear issue" -- a comment that indicates the Obama
administration is not looking to enshrine Israel's security
into a final agreement.
Netanyahu said it would not shut down a single nuclear
facility or destroy a single centrifuge.
"The deal would legitimize Iran's illegal nuclear program,"
Netanyahu said. "It would leave Iran with a vast nuclear
infrastructure."
Harf, for her part, suggested the talks are complicated
enough already.
President Obama and Netanyahu spoke by phone late
Thursday.
"This is an agreement that doesn't deal with any other
issues, nor should it," she said.
In a statement on that conversation, the White House said
Obama "underscored that progress on the nuclear issue in
no way diminishes our concerns with respect to Iran's
sponsorship of terrorism and threats towards Israel and
emphasized that the United States remains steadfast in our
commitment to the security of Israel. "
Obama administration officials have insisted all along that
despite their public disagreement with Netanyahu over the
Iran deal framework, the U.S. commitment to Israel's
security is unwavering. Further, White House spokesman
Eric Schultz told reporters on Air Force One on Friday
that the U.S. would not agree to any deal that would
threaten Israel.
According to the White House, Obama told his Israeli
counterpart he has directed his national security team to
"increase consultations with the new Israeli government
about how we can further strengthen our long-term
security cooperation with Israel and remain vigilant in
countering Iran's threats."
The Israeli prime minister, though, made the call for
the "right to exist" measure during brief remarks early
Friday. He blasted the Iran framework deal and said his
20
Russia Today
5 Ways Vladimir Putin is Driving America Crazy
By Robert Bridge
crisis. Yet Putin would get most of the blame for
keeping America out of war.
Although Russian President Putin has worked to
form a strong and lasting partnership with
Washington – in fields as diverse as fighting
terrorism and exploring outer space – the spirit of
goodwill and bilateral relations has not been
reciprocated.
US news website Breitbart described Putin’s
diplomatic overtures in Syria as “an obvious desire
to make Kerry pay for his flub and throw a wrench
in Obama’s determination to go to war with Syria.”
US-led NATO forces continue to push inexorably
towards the Russian border, while plans are in progress to
build a missile defense shield in Eastern Europe, which
threatens the strategic balance in the region, thereby
paving the way for another arms race.
Now if Putin failed to get positive press by keeping
America out of war, then what are the chances of him
getting positive reviews under normal conditions?In any
event, Washington is doing precisely what it wanted to do
before Putin got involved: Bombing Syria – on the flimsy
pretext of Islamic State threatening the country.
At the same time, the United States and its allies have
launched a number of disastrous and illegitimate wars
against sovereign states, while portraying Putin as the
greatest threat to global peace. The question that must be
asked is: What has the Russian leader done to attract this
sort of vilification on the part of the US? The answers
reveal much more about the current state of affairs in
Washington than anything that could be described as
threatening on Putin’s part.
4. Putin awards Edward Snowden asylum
On May 20, 2013, an idealistic young man named Edward
Snowden, a former NSA contractor, caught a flight out of
Hawaii non-stop to Hong Kong, where he handed over a
massive stash of classified documents to journalists Glenn
Greenwald and Laura Poitras. The leaked information
showed explosive details of a previously unknown global
surveillance network run by the NSA in cooperation with
the so-called Five Eyes, which include the UK, Australia,
New Zealand and Canada.
5. Putin gave US a ‘Get out of War Free’ card
One would think that the United States would be grateful
to the Russian leader for his last-minute mediating efforts
that allowed Washington to avoid what would have been a
costly and certainly disastrous military confrontation in
Syria. One would have thought wrong.
Although Russia may not have ranked among Snowden’s
top-10 global getaway destinations, on June 23 the CIA
agent-turned-whistleblower got a flight from Hong Kong
to Moscow’s Sheremetyevo International Airport. On July
12, while still awaiting lengthy processing, Snowden
released a statement extending his “gratitude and respect”
to Russia, alongside a short list of other countries, for
being “the first to stand against human rights violations
carried out by the powerful rather than the powerless.”
August 29, 2013 marks the day when the wheels of
America’s global juggernaut began to go wobbly. It was
the moment when UK Prime Minister David Cameron lost
a historic vote in the House of Commons to join a US-led
attack on Syria following on dubious claims that President
Bashar Assad had used chemical weapons against a Syrian
village.
Suddenly, Russia was propelled from relative obscurity in
the world of human rights defenders to the protector of
oppressed and weary the world over. To call this situation
an embarrassment for the United States would be an
understatement. Snowden not only hung out the dirty
laundry on America’s incredibly intrusive global intel
network, but he sought refuge in ‘Putin’s Russia,’ a place
that rarely receives a sliver of sunshine from the Western
media and military complex.
The British people, tired of being dragged into poorly
scripted war sequels, were no longer America’s poodle.
Cameron’s failed bid placed the Obama administration in
a nasty pickle: Risk attacking Syria without the support of
its (former) most-reliable ally, or lose face on the
international stage by calling off the dogs of war. Russia
offered a third way. After US Secretary of State John
Kerry remarked that Syria could avoid US cruise-missile
diplomacy if it agreed to surrender its chemical weapons
“within one week,” Moscow jumped at the opportunity to
mediate on behalf of peace.
Meanwhile, Snowden does not seem ready to live the
cloistered life of a whistleblower on the run, drinking
scotch and watching James Bond reruns in some
backwater hotel in his underwear.
Indeed, last January it was announced that the former
NSA contractor would partner with Pentagon Papers
whistleblower Daniel Ellsberg and Greenwald on the
It should be noted that Kerry got dragged over America’s
sizzling media coals for committing the “blunder” of
opening the door to a peaceful settlement to the Syrian
21
executive board of the non-profit Freedom of the Press
Foundation, which claims to work on behalf of publicinterest journalism.
This easy to understand law did not stop dozens of media
commentators unleashing a torrent of absolute lies
regarding the subject.
“We began this organization to protect and support those
who are being punished for bringing transparency to the
world’s most powerful factions or otherwise dissent from
government policy,” Greenwald said, while calling
Snowden’s actions “heroic.”
Harvey Fierstein wrote in the New York Times that
“Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin, has declared war
on homosexuals… allowing police officers to arrest
tourists and foreign nationals they suspect of being
homosexual, lesbian or “pro-gay” and detain them for up
to 14 days.” Fierstein, an actor and playwright, not a
lawyer, went on to explain in perfect nonsense that “the
law could mean that any Olympic athlete, trainer,
reporter, family member or fan who is gay — or suspected
of being gay, or just accused of being gay — can go to
jail.”
In April, Snowden made a video-link appearance during
Putin’s annual Q&A marathon session, questioning the
president about Russia’s attitude on mass surveillance.
Putin, assuring that Russia did not have any such program
comparable to that of the NSA global system, did not miss
a chance to take a thinly disguised dig at the US legal
system: “Our agents are controlled by the law,” he told
the audience. “You have to get a court’s permission to put
an individual under surveillance. We don’t have mass
permission, and our law makes it’s impossible for that
kind of mass permission to exist.”
How did Fierstein come up with this delusional idea?
Well, instead of quoting a Russian source that might just
have some clue as to what the law really was about,
Fierstein quotes another equally clueless US publication,
Huffington Post, who got their bogus information from a
Canadian travel site (!) Well, so much for investigative
journalism.
For all those people who initially supported Snowden’s
whistleblowing crusade, many of them turned viciously
and hypocritically against him when they realized that
they would be lectured on their own faults from not only
Moscow, Russia, but from Vladimir Putin himself.
Now, with everybody believing that homosexuals were
being rounded up by anti-gay goon squads and shipped off
to a colorless Siberian archipelago, a number of
celebrities, including Madonna and Lady Gaga, jumped on
the propaganda express by shouting some mindless
statements during their concerts that were totally detached
from the reality.
3. The (wildly successful) Sochi Games
Despite the gigantic ‘shitstorm’ American weathermen
had predicted for the 2014 Sochi Games, the event turned
out to be much more of a success than most people could
have predicted. Not only did the dire, apocalyptic
predictions of total failure not materialize, Russian
athletes did not have far to go to haul home their 13 gold
medals – the highest count of the Games.
Finally, there were even calls on part of the gay (and
straight) community for the United States to declare a
boycott of the Sochi Games, a move that was more about
attempting to ruin Russia’s international event than any
real and legitimate concerns about a non-existent ‘antigay’ law. Although the US did not go to the extreme of
boycotting Sochi, Barack Obama did not attend.
However, many would-be visitors to Sochi shied away
from the event thanks to the incessant doom-mongering of
the Western media, which focused its pre-Game attention
on ridiculous subjects, like the occasional stray dog, a
couple of strange-looking toilets, and who could ever
forget terrorism. But most damaging of all, perhaps was
the uninformed discussion of Putin’s so-called ‘anti-gay’
ban, which the Western media has yet to properly explain.
That is a shame, because he missed one of the best Winter
Games the world has seen in a long time. Incidentally,
IOC President Thomas Bach said Russia would set up
public protest zones in Sochi for “people who want to
express their opinion or want to demonstrate for or
against something.” They ended up being the emptiest
sections in Sochi.
In an interview with world media, Putin explained that in
Russia “all people are absolutely equal regardless of their
religion, sex, ethnicity, or sexual orientation. Everybody is
equal. We have recently only passed a law prohibiting
propaganda, and not of homosexuality only, but of
homosexuality and child abuse, child sexual abuse. But
this has nothing in common with persecuting individuals
for their sexual orientation. And there is a world of
difference between these things.”
2. Putin is not fomenting global wars
Despite the West’s relentless efforts to portray Putin as
some sort of warmonger in the style of, well,
contemporary Western warmongers, Putin’s track record
for keeping Russia out of foreign military entanglements
has been impeccable. This indisputable fact continues to
be a source of great irritation, I believe, for Western
governments.
22
Consider the situation in Ukraine, where Putin has
displayed a remarkable level of wise statesmanship to the
point where the Western media must actually fabricate
grand works of fiction in order to support the West’s
increasingly delusional rhetoric against him. The most
ludicrous work of fiction to date is entitled something like,
“Putin’s Invisible Invasion of Ukraine.”
It should be mentioned that Rasmussen himself was in
charge of the 18-nation Western military alliance when
Russia’s efforts to join the US missile defense shield in
Eastern Europe were shot down, thus confirming
Moscow’s valid suspicions that Russia – and despite an
appeal to a ‘reset’ by Washington – was the actual target
of this system.
Here is how Business Insider lauded Putin for his
contribution in brokering a ceasefire in Ukraine: “As
Vladimir Putin engaged in marathon peace negotiations
with Germany, France, and Ukraine in the capital of
Belarus, Russian tanks were allegedly rolling into
Ukraine.”
Personally, I believe that the West and NATO were
gambling that Putin would blink first and rush into an allout military invasion of Ukraine. There are many reasons
why the West would be desirous of such an outcome. The
most obvious is that it would forever ruin Russia’s
influence among European countries, and that would only
serve the interests of NATO and Washington, not to
mention the West’s military industrial complex. So when
Putin did not jump at the tempting Ukrainian bait, the
West was forced to begin circulating scare tactics that said
Russia is planning for more ‘hybrid warfare’ schemes
elsewhere.
There’s just one huge problem with that little line: It’s
utterly false. Any guesses as to where Business Insider’s
Michael B. Kelley got his military intelligence? Of course,
from a Ukrainian military spokesman. Yes, an entire
column of Russian tanks were said to have rolled into
Ukraine at the very moment Putin was in Minsk
hammering out the details of a peace deal. Did the
Ukrainian side offer satellite evidence to support their
very serious claims? No, they did not. Did the Western
side request evidence to support the claims? Well, we
don’t know, but one thing is for sure there are no such
photos because there have been no such invasions.
Fortunately, even Washington’s most trusted allies have
exposed the warnings as sensationalism and propaganda.
Der Spiegel wrote that “battles between the Ukrainian
army and the pro-Russian separatists had largely stopped
and heavy weaponry was being withdrawn. The Minsk
cease-fire wasn’t holding perfectly, but it was holding.”
But we should not expect a mere thing like facts to spoil
the West’s anti-Putin party, which has been going fullthrottle for years.
It went on to note, however, that despite the relative
success of the Minsk Agreement, General Philip
Breedlove, the top NATO commander in Europe, told the
media in Washington that Putin had “upped the ante” in
eastern Ukraine – with “well over a thousand combat
vehicles, Russian combat forces, some of their most
sophisticated air defense, battalions of artillery” having
been sent to the Donbass.
Meanwhile, no less a respectable periodical than The
Economist penned a vacuous Valentine Day’s allegation
that simply don’t hold water under scrutiny: “The EU and
NATO are… Putin’s ultimate targets. To him, Western
institutions and values are more threatening than armies.
He wants to halt their spread, corrode them from within
and, at least on the West’s fragile periphery, supplant
them with his own model of governance.”
“What is clear,” Breedlove said, “is that right now, it is
not getting better. It is getting worse every day.”
According to Der Spiegel, German leaders “were stunned”
by the comments, this flew in the face of the realities on
the ground.
So how does the West ‘prove’ Russia’s military invasion
of Ukraine, which has never been captured either by
mobile phone, photojournalist or the constellation of
surveillance satellites circling the planet? Putin’s invisible
war in Ukraine is described as “hybrid warfare.”
“They didn’t understand what Breedlove was talking
about. And it wasn’t the first time. Once again, the
German government, supported by intelligence gathered
by the Bundesnachrichtendienst (BND), Germany’s
foreign intelligence agency, did not share the view of
NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander Europe (SACEUR).”
Anders Fogh Rasmussen, NATO’s former secretarygeneral, irresponsibly and at great risk to the global peace,
warned that Putin’s invisible armies now rolling over
Ukraine would eventually take their magic traveling show
to other Eastern European countries.
For anybody who understands the increasingly pugilistic
mentality of the US, where opportunities for militaristic
expansion are deemed too valuable to waste, Putin’s
“failure” to attack Ukraine is nothing less than a strategic
setback for the West.
“This is not about Ukraine,” Rasmussen – changing the
subject to fit his theme – told The Telegraph in an
interview. “Putin knows that if he crosses the red line and
attacks a NATO ally, he will be defeated. Let us be quite
clear about that. But he is a specialist in (wait for it)
hybrid warfare.”
23
European liberals of exposing children to a “hotbed of
sodomy”. Indeed, it can hardly be denied that, over the
long-term, such outrageous displays of ‘culture’ must
eventually take its toll on any society, and not least of all
in the area of simple demographics.
1. Defending traditional values against ‘new world
order’
Although talk of a ‘new world order’ is largely confined to
the more conspiratorial corners of respectable society, it
would be difficult to deny that a frontal assault against
traditional values and modes of (moral) behavior has been
increasing of late. If I am reading the situation correctly,
Russia – a traditional, conservative country that is being
slowly rebuilt on the foundation of Orthodox Christianity
– wants none of it.
Because Vladimir Putin is fighting against the steady
encroachment of increasingly aggressive and irresponsible
behavior flooding the world from the West, the Russian
leader has attracted the scorn of sell-out Western
politicians the world over. Yet he has also won over a
huge number, the hearts and minds of millions of
individuals – Americans included – who understand that
Putin is fighting for traditional conservative values in a
world gone mad.
One does not need to talk about the crude escapades and
eventual arrest of Pussy Riot, for example, to understand
that Russia is not willing to bargain when it comes to
maintaining some level of decency and morals in society.
For that he deserves to be not simply applauded, but
followed.
Russia’s already-mentioned law regarding the
dissemination of “gay propaganda” is a perfect example.
On the one hand, while the law does not infringe upon any
person’s freedom to engage in whatever sort of sexual
arrangements they prefer, it also ensures the freedom of
children not to be forced to consider such issues. This
sounds like nothing more than the soundest common
sense. However, the West, which is becoming increasingly
godless in terms of its hyper-liberal prerogatives, wants to
unleash any and all subject of carnal interest into the
public square.
Robert Bridge, originally from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania,
has worked as a journalist in Russia since 1998. His
articles have appeared in a number of publications,
including Russia in Global Affairs, The Drudge Report
and Infowars.com. Formerly the editor-in-chief of The
Moscow News, Bridge is the author of the book
“Midnight in the American Empire”, which was released
in early 2013.
I know I may be stepping into a cultural mine field here,
but the latest attempt, I think, to impose a warped vision
of humanity – the celebration of transgender – arrived
courtesy of the 2014 Eurovision first-place winner, drag
queen Conchita Wurst (who I can’t help thinking also
bears an uncanny resemblance to Jesus Christ –
coincidence?).While some may say this latest persona to
enter the global consciousness is a harmless artist cashing
in on his/her ‘uniqueness,’ others would disagree.
Considering that millions of people – many of them
impressionable children and adolescents – watch this
annual program, should we be so quick to dismiss what
kind of psychological impact a bearded transgender
woman might leave on this group? Are these the “heroes”
that our children should be emulating?
Shortly after the Eurovision show, Putin, who described
himself as “very liberal,” gave his view on the winner:
“For us it is important to reaffirm traditional
values…People have the right to live their lives the way
they want. But they should not be aggressive, or put it up
for show.”
Many Russians sided with their leader on the matter as
thousands signed a petition demanding that Eurovision be
removed from the TV lineup, accusing “godless”
24
Zero Hedge
Subprime Nation: Risky Loans Are in the "Driver's" Seat
By Tyler Durden
Amid a cacaphony of pundit parroting about strong US
auto sales — which culminated in CNBC’s now infamous
“car-stock arbitrage” recommendation — we have said
repeatedly that at the margin, growth is being driven
(no pun intended) by lenders’ willingness to extend
credit to underqualified (read: subprime) borrowers.
This was later confirmed by Goldman in a note which
pointed out that subprime loans accounted for more than a
fifth of all US new vehicle sales in January, which is
500bps above the post-crisis norm of 16%. Furthermore,
as of January, the percentage of new vehicle sales
attributable to subprime loans had been running ahead of
the post-crisis average for 7 straight months.
And as the following commentary from BofAML makes
clear, auto-related securitizations are driving the market
for consumer ABS issuance:
The auto ABS market continues to dominate new
issue volume with 53% of the total ABS volume.
Prime auto loan ABS represents the largest subsector with 32% of auto ABS volume and 17% of
total ABS volume. Non-prime auto loan and auto
lease ABS saw nearly the same amount issued.
It doesn’t take a leap of logic to determine the reason for
the trend towards subprime (via Goldman): “We attribute
the ongoing strength in subprime to (1) pent-up demand
by subprime borrowers as lenders pulled back
significantly from subprime auto lending during the
recession and 1-2 years afterwards, and (2) the low
interest rate environment, which has made subprime
loans more attractive for investors chasing yield.”
In this type of environment, one would certainly hope that
credit fundamentals are not deteriorating in the subprime
auto space. Unfortunately, they are:
In other words, it’s the same story everywhere you look,
whether it’s elevated HY issuance by insolvent E&P
companies or heavy demand for ABS backed by subprime
auto loans:investors are starved for yield and they’ll
take it wherever they can find it even if it means
forgetting that an 11% coupon on a new issue from a
struggling oil producer likely spells trouble or
disregarding a 550 average FICO on the latest billion
dollar subprime auto ABS securitization.
The trend in credit performance for the non-prime
auto loan sector is clearly more negative than the
prime auto loan sector. The 30+ days delinquency
and net loss rates for the non-prime sector
continues to trend up, while the same for the prime
sector have been relatively stable. Even though net
losses for non-prime loans are below normalized
levels and employment situation continues to
improve, the trends in 30+days delinquency and net
loss rates argues for tighter lending standards in the
sector. Based on normalized levels we expect to see
net losses increase by another 50bp in the prime
auto loan market and 110bp in the nonprime auto
loan market.
As we’ve pointed out on a few occasions, the appetite for
Santander Consumer’s “deep” subprime DRIVE 2015-A
demonstrates the extent to which the hunt for yield is once
again driving Wall Street’s securitization machine which
is in turn incentivizing lenders to lower their standards in
order to lure more buyers.
For those who demand still more proof, consider the
following which shows that the subprime and leasing
sub-sectors of the auto-related ABS space are the only
two sub-sectors to show Y/Y growth in issuance every
year since 2012, and looking at the figures for Q1 2015,
it certainly appears as though this could be a banner
year for subprime ABS issuance.
25
Meanwhile, the trend is not your friend when it comes to
subprime net loss rates which despite having ticked lower
in February, are still at their widest levels compared to
prime in years…
With interest rates still low, buyers today rely more
on financing to purchase their vehicle. According to
Experian Automotive, in Q4 2014 84% of new
vehicles and 55% of used vehicles were financed via
lease or loan. This compares to 2009 when 74% and
46% of new and used vehicles, respectively, were
financed.
This has supported auto ABS issuance, a trend
which we expect to continuethroughout 2015. Auto
ABS issuance totaled $7.7 billion in March,
bringingYTD new issue supply to $30.1 billion.
Nonprime auto ABS issuance totals$7.2 billion yearto-date. Overall, auto ABS issuance is up 13% yearover-year.
* * *
We’ll close with this, because nothing spells trouble like
the idea that if you have the cash, you should take out
a loan with a rapidly amoritizing asset as collateral in
order to invest in stocks or, in other words, it’s a good
idea to pledge a devaluing asset to buy an overvalued
asset.
…and predictably, the percentage of buyers opting to
finance is trending higher as interest rates remain
suppressed by Fed largesse…
Here’s more, via Deutsche Bank:
26
Purity of Soul
An Excursion into Northern Politics of Race
By Fred Reed
and practiced hypocrisy. I mean to state it. To talk to these
geysers of virtue, you would be sure that their principal
object in life was to help the black man, to admit him to
the human race as an equal and a brother. I imagine them
waking up in the middle of the night thinking how they
might advance their darker brethren. Most of them likely
do not get enough sleep because of it.
Yet I confess a desire for confirmation. I want to say to
them, “Yea, verily. And when was the last time you had
black friends to dinner?”
Race riot in the South, 1863. Wikipedia: "Rioters
subjected black men to the most brutal violence: torture,
hanging, and burning." Eleven were lynched. The
Southern mob depicted here were afraid that if the North
won the Civil War, freed slaves would take the jobs of
whites.
Or even, “And while we are thinking of your deep wells of
goodness, those crystalline pools of measureless depth—
when was the last time you dined in a restaurant where the
majority of the patrons were black…ummm?”
As I thought.
Virginian though I am, a son of the Shenandoah, and
brought up among the lazy rivers of the state of Marse
Bob Lee and Stonewall—rivers where the sun always
seemed to shine and you could mostly catch
catfish, and almost think that being alive was a
good thing until further experience intervened—
I have to admit the deep vileness in the Southern
soul. Yes. It was this that brought forth such
scenes as above. I cannot deny that the events
portrayed happened in the South.
I remember years back that the Washingtonian, the
suburban coffee-table magazine of the Yankee Capital,
surveyed the news room of the Washington
Post, that epicenter of racial oneness, of
inattention to color, to see how many of the
white reporters sent their children to the black
public schools of Washington. “All of them,” I
hear you say. “Such paladins of brotherhood
could do nothing else.”
The south of Manhattan, anyway, the drawing
being of the race riots of 1863 in New York, in
which Yankee mobs killed 115 or so innocent
people, many of them black.
Zero. Not one child in a black school. The
minute the wife knew that she was pregnant, the
couple moved to Montgomery County, Maryland. But
no, no! Not because of race! Perish forefend. It was
because, well…the shopping was better. Yes, that was it.
The shopping.
Here was early evidence of the deep regard in which
Yankees held black men—and still hold them if you look
at actions and not protestations. There is nothing like a
damn Yank to tell how good he is, how drowning in the
curds and cream of human kindness, without in his actions
displaying a trace of it.
But perhaps the best way to compare the dark night of the
Southern soul with the supernal radiance to the north is to
compare the schools the two regions provide for their
freed slaves. One would expect schools in the South to be
poor, and they are. But in the North, surely the schools are
of a high order, well regulated, producing through their
lofty academic standards black graduates scoring high on
the SATs and not needing the humiliations of affirmative
action.
But should we be surprised? These were the same bluecoats who exterminated the Indians. "The only good
Indian," said the Yankee general Sherman, "is a dead
Indian." Such charitable musings were not unique to him.
It was a Yankee named Custer, if memory serves, who
after the war devoted himself in the name of the Yankee
government to killing Indians, though with mixed results.
Yet another Yankee general, Phil Sheridan, wanted to
slaughter the western buffalo to starve the Indians to
death. I cannot withhold my admiration for Northerners
for the consistency of their racial philosophy.
Surely this is what we will see. Otherwise we would have
to concede that, 150 years after the Civil War, the North is
still holding black children in illiteracy and squalor. Then,
Lord save us, we might doubt the purity of Northern
intentions.
Fear not! Nothing can be more admirable that the black
schools of such northern precincts as, say, Newark,
Trenton, Camden, New York, Philadelphia, Detroit,
Do not misunderstand me. I do not mean to imply that
Northerners are the world’s mother lode of preening fraud
27
Cincinnati, Flint, Gary, St. Louis, Pittsburg, Baltimore,
Chicago, and Washington—schools in the very intestines
of Yankeedom. Why, one can hardly tell them from
Groton. They display for all to see the superior morals of
the North.
They do indeed.
Yanks love to talk about slavery, which they say was
horrible and inexcusable. It was. This is today like
blaming Jews for killing Christ ("Gosh, Rachel, you don't
look old enough.") But logic confuses Yanks, so I will not
essay it. Anyway, slavery existed because in economic
terms it was well suited to plantations, and accomplished
the enrichment of greedy men of negligible decency—
which is to say, businessmen.
Halloween in New York. The children are disguised as
malnourished slum kids with no schools, while their pet
horse naps.
After the Civil War, Yankees continued, as they do today,
their encouragement of integration for everyone else.
Yankees are always sure of what someone else ought to
do. Since most blacks were in the South, it was safe to be
for racial amity as the North would not have to practice it.
When blacks migrated north, the Yanks contained them in
poor parts of the cities, as they do today (consult the list of
cities foregoing). There were occasional adventures such
as the Harlem Renaissance, when fashionable Northerners
could go to the Cotton Club and mingle, barely, with real
blacks. “Why, they are just like people, almost. Look at
them dance!” Uptown, they might keep a few trained and
gelded blacks around as ornaments. That was the extent of
it.
But slavery was ill-suited to an industrial state. It lacked
flexibility. You had to feed and maintain slaves whether
business was up or down. They were a burden and a
responsibility. Kindly Yankees hit upon the superior idea
of sweated labor, usually of immigrants who had no way
of defending themselves. These could be fired when
convenient. If they then died it was a matter of no account
as, the Lord be praised, more were arriving by the
boatload.
And so the pious men of Northern money, who went to
church every week, learned to work children twelve hours
a day in tubercular dimness, where they grew deformed
from poor diet and died early of lead poisoning and
rickets.
Is this not what one would expect, in the light of the
Yankee’s firm belief that blacks are an inferior strain, half
devil and half child, bearing the mark of Ham and
incapable of the higher forms of civilization? No, Yanks
do not say this, but their every action gives the game
away. Always they lower the standard for the black man,
but never try to raise the black man to the standard. Why?
Because they do not believe that blacks can reach the
standards of whites. What is “affirmative action” but the
belief that a black cannot perform at the white man’s
level? Sometimes they talk of “the tyranny of low
expectations.” Indeed. But who in Newark holds those low
expectations?
Immigrant children in New York, cared for with humanity
and love.
Southerners, I reckon.
Forgive me. I do not mean to offend residents of the
North, where virtue runs in the streets until it clogs the
storm drains, and the low-hanging branches of trees are
damaged by the halos of pedestrians.
Of course this wholesome system sometimes resulted in
unfortunate revelations. If to save a few dollars the master
of a noisesome tenement neglected to install fire escapes,
and in the ensuing conflagration girls were clutching each
other and jumping to their deaths from the seventh floor to
avoid being burned to death—ah, well. The ways of God
were mysterious, and girls easily replaced.
Fred Reed is author of Nekkid in Austin: Drop Your Inner
Child Down a Well, A Brass Pole in Bangkok: A Thing I
Aspire to Be, Curmudgeing Through Paradise: Reports
from a Fractal Dung Beetle, Au Phuc Dup and Nowhere to
Go: The Only Really True Book About Viet Nam, and A
Grand Adventure: Wisdom's Price-Along with Bits and
Pieces about Mexico.
There was no slavery, though. That would have been
immoral.
28
From "Civil Rights" to Cultural Totalitarianism
By William Norman Grigg
In announcing his opposition to the Act, Senator
Barry Goldwater emphasized the latent
totalitarianism of that provision:
The public memory of the 1960s Civil Rights
Movement has been shaped by iconic images of
state-licensed violence – peaceful protesters being
beaten and otherwise abused by police for
exercising the right to seek redress of grievances.
The civil rights movement began as an effort to
remove government impediments to individual
liberty. By 1964 it had become a concerted effort to
subject all private functions to government scrutiny and
regimentation.
“To give genuine effect to the prohibitions of this
bill will require the creation of a Federal police
force of mammoth proportions. It also bids fair to
result in the development of an ‘informer’
psychology in great areas of our national life – neighbors
spying on neighbors, workers spying on workers,
businessmen spying on businessmen, where those who
would harass their fellow citizens for selfish and narrow
purposes will have ample inducement to do so.”
According to the custodians of acceptable opinion, the
campaign to compel acceptance of same-sex marriage is
the legitimate heir to the Civil Rights movement. The
symbolic image of the contemporary movement could be a
photograph of a shell-shocked Crystal O’Connor, manager
of the family owned Memories Pizza restaurant in
Walkerton, Indiana, after the business became the focal
point of an orchestrated campaign of mass vilification.
“These, the Federal police force and an ‘informer’
psychology, are the hallmarks of the police state and
landmarks in the destruction of a free society,” concluded
Goldwater, whose peroration proved to be prophetic.
The nation-wide convulsion of collectivist rage triggered
by enactment of the Indiana religious freedom act
illustrated that “civil rights,” as currently defined, requires
the immediate punishment of any business owner who
exercises the right to refrain from commerce. Yes, selfstyled proponents of “tolerance” can succumb to the
temptations of punitive populism, just like their
counterparts on the Right.
Her offense was to speak favorably of Indiana’s recently
enacted – and hastily modified – religious freedom act.
The advertised purpose of that measure was to protect the
rights of business owners to decline commercial
opportunities that would require them to compromise their
values.
In response to a contrived question by a TV reporter
seeking to engineer a controversy, O’Connor said that her
company would decline an invitation to cater a same-sex
wedding. She also made a point of saying that the store
would accept paying customers of all varieties – but this
distinction is too subtle for people in the throes of
collectivist pseudo-outrage.
An even more compelling illustration of the totalitarian
mindset that typifies what is now called “civil rights” was
offered by Idaho’s HB 2, more commonly known as the
“Add the Words” bill. If it had been enacted by the state
legislature, HB 2 would have added “sexual orientation”
of various kinds to the state’s Human Rights Act as a
protected category with regard to discrimination in
employment and “public accommodations.” It also would
have explicitly criminalized – perhaps for the first time
anywhere in the Soyuz – the act of reserving one’s right to
refuse service.
O’Connor and her family, who had never injured a living
soul or expressed any intention to do so, underwent a
baptism in bile and were ritually execrated as proponents
of “hate.”
Section 67-5909 (5) (b) of the legislation would have
made it a “prohibited act” for “a person” to “print,
circulate, post, or mail or otherwise cause to be published
a statement, advertisement, or sign which indicates that
the full and equal enjoyment of the goods, services,
facilities, privileges, advantages of a place of public
accommodation will be refused, withheld from, or denied
an individual or that an individual’s patronage of or
presence at a place of public accommodation is
objectionable, unwelcome, unacceptable, or undesirable.”
Thankfully, a counter-movement quickly coalesced to
raise funds for the besieged – and thoroughly befuddled –
Christian business owners, who had no agenda apart from
tending to their customers. They hadn’t gotten the
message that their business, as a “public accommodation,”
was not theirs to operate as they see fit.
Many businesses still display a sign asserting their right to
discriminate, which is an indispensable element of
property rights: “We reserve the right to refuse service to
anyone.” Title II of the Civil Rights Act of 1964, which
deals with “public accommodations,” was designed to
nullify that right.
If HB 2 or a future measure employing the same language
were to be enacted, a business owner who posted the
“right to refuse” sign could not only be sued, but dragged
away from his property in handcuffs. A critic of the
29
measure could likewise find himself being prosecuted for
publishing a letter to the editor, a Facebook post, or a blog
comment urging business owners to exercise the right of
refusal.
Fred Korematsu had committed no crime apart from
defying an edict that expropriated him – through racespecific banishment from a “military exclusion zone” that
encompassed his property.
Punishing the peaceful expression of such opinions would
be justified, according to the civil rights commissariat,
because government has a “compelling interest” in
preventing discrimination – even at the expense of
individual liberty.
Clothing the sentiment of “sucks to be you” in the rarefied
language of jurisprudence, the Supreme Court upheld
Korematsu’s federal conviction as an exercise of vital
wartime powers by “properly constituted military
authorities” with a congressional mandate. The Warren
Court would later redeploy that wartime doctrine to
facilitate the federal government’s domestic war against
“discrimination.”
The incantation “compelling government interest” is a
useful illustration of the fact that the lexicon of federal law
enforcement is an inexhaustible, self-replenishing
reservoir of deceit.
The Japanese relocation camps were filled with people
whose homes, farms, personal effects, businesses, and
individual liberty had been taken from them by people
acting in the name of what would later be called a
“compelling government interest.”
Most people exposed to this masterpiece of semantic
engineering hear what its designers intended – a claim that
the government is compelled to do something – rather than
what it actually means – that the government is claiming
the authority to compel individuals to do something.
Among the innocent people who suffered this inexcusable
mistreatment was the family of a young JapaneseAmerican named George Takei, who would later become
universally beloved for his portrayal of the heroic
helmsman Hikaru Sulu of the Starship Enterprise.
This term of art litters court orders and bureaucratic edicts
through which our rulers impose economic and cultural
alterations that are intended to remold society nearer to
their hearts’ desire.
More recently, Mr. Takei has become one of the most
prominent supporters of the ongoing effort to compel
acceptance of gay marriage through both social pressure
and government coercion. Last January 30, Mr. Takei
delivered the keynote address during the 5th Annual Fred
T. Korematsu Day observance, most likely ignorant of the
fact that he’s promoting the same evil doctrine that led to
his childhood dispossession.
As an abstract fiction without body, parts, or passions, the
state cannot have a legitimate “interest” in anything.
Indulging, for a moment, the contrary view, the state’s
interest in self-preservation would always dictate the
expansion of power, and the corresponding curtailment of
liberty. This shouldn’t be considered surprising once it’s
understood that the “compelling state interest” doctrine
had its origins in the Supreme Court’s 1944 decision
Korematsu v. United States – which upheld the mass
internment, in military custody, of Japanese-Americans
who had broken no law.
William Norman Grigg publishes the Pro Libertate blog
and hosts the Pro Libertate radio program.
Rise of Scottish and English nationalists threatens old order
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
that, voters are deserting the Conservatives and
Labour, Britain’s two main parties of the right and
left since the 1920s, in droves.
Change is a-comin' to Great Britain, and that's not just
wishful thinking; that's a fact. Britain's old party system is
going down:
On 7 May, Britain goes to the polls. Voters are
deserting Labour and the Tories in favour of
resurgent Scottish nationalists and an English
version of the Tea Party. The result could spell the
end for the system as we know it
In the 1951 election, Labour and the Conservatives –
or Tories – shared 96% of the vote. By 2010 they
could only manage 66% between them.
(The Guardian, UK)
Serves the old parties right -- they're the ones engineering
the displacement of Britain's native population with the
Third World. Now if we could just jump-start a similar
revolt here in the Colonies...
Public mistrust of government is high in Britain, and
deference to the political elite has also collapsed as
economic woes erode living standards. Amid all
30
US Military to Invade, Occupy Southwestern US
By Jack Perry
to prepare you for fighting Americans. That’s why you’re
training on how to infiltrate American civilian populations
undetected and undertaking whatever it is you plan to do
afterwards. But do that on your own turf. Again, we didn’t
ask to be involved in a military training exercise, nor did
we give our consent. So, what, you told the local cops
you’re going to do this and that makes it ok? Wrong, it
doesn’t make it ok. You didn’t ask those cops, you told
those cops. What’re they going to do, say no? Right, then
you won’t give them any more Humvees and armored
personnel carriers. “Nothing to see here, folks, move
along. Just the U.S. military learning how to occupy
American cities and towns and identify people to be carted
off and disappeared, that’s all…”
Hey, have you guys heard about this Operation Jade Helm
shindig? Yeah, it kind of came as a surprise to me, too. I
didn’t know I’m about to be living in a region soon to be
occupied by a U.S. military invasion force. I didn’t know
the Southwest was a hotbed of insurgent activity, or when
the revolution actually started. It wasn’t in the paper or on
the community bulletin board along with the notices
asking about missing horses. It wasn’t in the gossip at the
local grocery store. But oranges were on sale and there’s
spring lambs for sale from local herders! Wow, and who
knew that Utah was hostile territory? That’s only a hop,
skip, and a guerrilla night march away from here! Yeah,
good ol’ Mexican Hat, Utah, we hardly knew you had it in
you! And Texas, boy, I guess the feds took you seriously
when you just flippantly talked about secession a few
years ago. Now you’re one of the hostile states.
And another thing. If you clowns intend to involve us in
this cockamamie war game, then we want to be paid for it.
Ok, so you will designate the entire Southwest a makebelieve combat zone. Then I want to see a check for
unwillingly being forced to participate in your ridiculous
charade. You’re using me and everyone else here as a
marker on your little war game board, so we should be
paid just like your soldiers. And have the UN do some
food aid drops here, too, while you’re at it. I can always
use the rice. It’ll be more good training in how this works.
That’ll go along way to keeping us here from throwing in
with the enemy over in Utah. But only if the UN aid drops
have decent coffee, otherwise, count on us crossing the
San Juan River and forging an alliance with them. Utah
has already sent out feelers and said they can promise
some gourmet dark roast, so you’re going to have to beat
that. We’re in an area not yours totally, according to your
war game, but leaning towards you. Yeah, well, you got to
pay for that. That’s how it works. That’s how it worked in
Iraq, right? What’s in it for us?
Ok, so, Operation Jade Helm is only a military training
exercise. Well, anyway, that’s what the government wants
us to believe. Evidently, the golden boys over at SOCOM
(Special Operations Command) aren’t able to make do
with the several hundreds of square miles they’ve already
got for training in vast military installations spread out
across the Southwest. Therefore, these exemplars of
military wisdom, such as it is and if such a thing actually
exists, are planning to use the states of Texas, Arizona,
New Mexico, Colorado, Utah, and possibly the part of
California that borders Mexico, in a military exercise
called Operation Jade Helm. About 1,200 of these stalwart
heroes will attempt to infiltrate American civilian
populations and engage one another in fierce firefights
with blank ammunition. There will certainly be fun for the
entire family with airdrops of paratroopers and helicopter
air assault operations. They want to see if American
civilians will be able to finger U.S. military infiltrators in
their midst. Well, unless they’re shepherds or ranchers,
they aren’t going to successfully infiltrate anything out
here where I am. Perhaps they’ll be disguised as goats,
who knows? I saw a suspicious looking mule the other
day.
So, ok, here’s the U.S. military training to fight an
American civilian population. Dig what that means. If
they were training to fight a foreign power, they could do
that at Fort Irwin, which was created for that. If they were
training to infiltrate a civilian population, why use the
American civilian population? Our social customs and
culture are different from those of the Middle East and, to
some extent, Russia. The answer is to be found in the very
motto the U.S. military has written for Operation Jade
Helm. That motto is “Master The Human Domain”. Now,
I ask you, does that sound like something the Founding
Fathers would have said? No, it sounds like something
Caligula or Nero would have said. Not to “guard” or
“defend” the “human domain” (that is, the American
people) but to MASTER it. In other words, enslave it and
subjugate it. Master it. That motto is something a tyrant
would say. And certainly has.
But the point is, look here, General Patton. You guys were
given huge swaths of Southwestern states so you had
room to do this crap without risking or pulling civilians
into your silly little games. Ok? Got that? I wasn’t asked
for my consent, nor was anyone else I know. We live here.
We don’t want to be involved in your childish games of
“war” or “cops and robbers”. Go play those games on
your own land, not ours. Places like Fort Irwin, which
were built for that at great expense to the American
taxpayer, that is, us. We don’t need or want you sneaking
around our women and children firing blanks or
who knows what else you plan on doing. It’s bad enough
how obvious it is that this is a training exercise designed
31
atmospheric nuclear weapons testing over at the Nevada
Test Site, the fallout drifted across the Southwest. Lots of
innocent people died from cancer as a result. You can go
into medical clinics here to this day and see notices that
say: “Are You A Downwinder?” A Downwinder is
someone who was here when those tests were being done.
The government won’t even admit to the possible longterm genetic damage that may have resulted from those
tests. And we’ve got abandoned uranium mines, mills, and
tailings piles strewn all over the place out here. So, no, we
don’t trust them. And we have good reason not to. They
said it was for national defense, like they’re saying about
Operation Jade Helm. Well, excuse us, but we’re a bit
jaded ourselves.
So, here I am, your accidental war correspondent in the
Second Civil War military exercise. I hope they don’t start
moving tanks in this exercise. Many of our bridges can’t
take the weight. We just got a new bridge over the Little
Colorado River out on Highway 89 in Cameron and I’d
hate to see it collapse because they tried moving a tank
over it. And, hey, all these mock battles they plan to fight
using blanks, I have some questions. Will there be
bleachers set up so we can watch? Shoot, we can make
bets on which side will win. We can set up food
concessions, hot dog stands, and sell t-shirts. “The Federal
Government Occupied My State And All I Got Was This
Lousy T-Shirt”. And where will these paratroopers be
landing? If we knew that, we could set up a
snowcone stand there, maybe make a couple bucks. Hey,
it’ll be July in the Southwest! Everyone loves snowcones!
Or, better yet, our regional favourite: Paletes! If these
troops stay a little past July, we’d set up a green chile
roasting operation, too. Who doesn’t love roasted green
chiles? Those would go a long way to making MREs
halfway edible.
Jack Perry is an arrowmaker and writer who lives in the
Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States. He
has been a truck driver, a purchasing agent at a nowdefunct renewable energy company (don't even ask him
about the "Green energy" scam), and served in the 101st
Airborne Division. He spends his time practicing
traditional archery, making arrows in the wilds of the
Arizona high desert, and finding himself only mildly
amused by the antics of the Great Father in Washington.
Look, we have good reason not to want to be involved in
their military training without our consent or knowledge
of what they’re actually doing. When they did
And shall not God avenge his own elect, which cry day and night unto him?
-- Luke 18:7
By J. C. Philpot (1802-1869)
"Behold, he prayeth," was the word of the Lord to Ananias
to convince him that that dreaded persecutor, Saul of
Tarsus, had been quickened by the Spirit. And what a
mercy it is for the quickened soul that the blessed Spirit
thus helps his sinking, trembling spirit, puts life and
energy into his cries and sighs, holds him up and keeps
him steadfast at the throne, and thus enables him to
persevere with his earnest suings for mercy, mingles faith
with his petitions, and himself most graciously and kindly
intercedes within him and for him with groanings which
cannot be uttered. This is "praying with the spirit" (1 Cor.
14:15) and "in the Holy Ghost" (Jude 20). This is pouring
out the heart before God (Psalm 62:8), pouring out the
soul before the Lord (1 Sam. 1:15); and by this free
discharge of the contents of an almost bursting heart,
sensible relief is given to the burdened spirit. By this
special mark, the convictions of a quickened soul are
distinguished from the pangs of guilt and remorse which
are sometimes aroused in the natural conscience. Cain
said, "My punishment is greater than I can bear," but there
was neither repentance nor prayer in his heart; for "he
went out from the presence of the Lord "—the very
presence which the living soul is seeking to reach and be
found in, and into which the Spirit brings him (Eph. 2:18).
Saul was "sore distressed," when God answered him,
"neither by dreams, nor by Urim, nor by prophets," but he
goes to the witch of Endor, and in the end falls upon his
own sword. Judas repented himself of his accursed
treachery, but went and hanged himself. No prayer, no
supplication was in either of their hearts. So it is
prophesied that men shall gnaw their tongues for pain, and
yet shall blaspheme the God of heaven because of their
pains and their sores, and not repent of their deeds (Rev.
16:10, 11). But the elect cry day and night unto God; and
their prayers, perfumed with the incense of their allprevailing Intercessor at the right hand of the Father, enter
into the ears of the Lord of Sabaoth.
32
The Drug War Litmus Test
By Laurence M. Vance
within their borders. And former Texas Gov.
Rick Perry (R) said last year that he doesn’t
support legalization personally, but that states
should be able decide their own marijuana
policies.
Conservative Republicans are sometimes said by
the media to be “libertarian” or “libertarianleaning.” This is especially true if they say
something about marijuana legislation being left up
to the states because of the Tenth Amendment.
I should add that although former Florida governor
Jeb Bush opposed Florida’s medical-marijuana
ballot initiative, he also said that “he’s not sure if the
federal government should enforce federal cannabis laws
if the Sunshine State proposal passes.” (It didn’t.) Bush
also “refrained from repudiating the current White
House’s position to de-emphasize enforcement of certain
marijuana laws in the 20 states that have legalized medical
cannabis, plus Washington D.C., and the two states that
have completely legalized adult personal use of the drug,
Colorado and Washington.” When asked about the federal
government’s role in prosecuting marijuana laws in states
that have legalized medical marijuana, Bush said “he’d
have to give it more thought” and “have to sort that out.”
A recent article in the Huffington Post about the
attitude of certain Republican politicians—all
presidential hopefuls—toward marijuana legalization
reminds me to mention the drug war litmus test, especially
as we head into another election season.
In an interview with Reason last year, Ted Cruz—the first
to declare his candidacy for the Republican nomination for
president—said: “I think we can have an intelligent
conversation about drug policy and the degree to which it
may or may not be achieving the ends we hope it would
achieve.” In an interview with Sean Hannity at the recent
Conservative Political Action Conference, Cruz was asked
if he thought Colorado’s legalization of marijuana was a
good idea. “Look, I actually think this is a great
embodiment of what Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis called ‘the laboratories of democracy,’” Cruz
replied. “If the citizens of Colorado decide they want to go
down that road, that’s their prerogative. I personally don’t
agree with it, but that’s their right.” Cruz is upset with
President’s Obama’s response to the legalization of
marijuana for recreational use in Colorado and
Washington:
Conservative Republicans who are not running for office,
like Sean Hannity, Newt Gingrich, and Bill O’Reilly, are
rabid drug warriors. I suspect that many Republican
politicians really are too, including some presidential
aspirants; they just talk about marijuana in the context of
“states’ rights” or “federalism” or “the Tenth
Amendment” to both mask their true opinions and to
sucker the voters who are concerned about the
Constitution.
“The Obama administration’s approach to drug
policy is to simply announce that across the country,
it is going to stop enforcing certain drug laws,” Cruz
told Reason in that same interview. “Now, that may
or may not be a good policy, but I would suggest
that should concern anyone—it should even concern
libertarians who support that policy outcome—
because the idea that the president simply says
criminal laws that are on the books, we’re going to
ignore [them]. That is a very dangerous precedent.”
I write not to specifically criticize Republican
politicians—I have done my share of that—but to explain
the drug war litmus test.
There is nothing bold and brave about saying that the issue
of medical marijuana should be left up to the states. It
takes no courage to invoke the Tenth Amendment when
asked about the subject of marijuana legalization. Unlike
most members of Congress, any junior high school student
could read the text of the Constitution and come to the
conclusion that the federal government has no authority
whatsoever to institute a DEA, classify drugs on a
schedule, or wage war on marijuana or any other drug.
Tenth Amendment or no Tenth Amendment, of course
drug policy should be left up to the states.
The Huffington Post article goes on to mention other
Republican presidential hopefuls who have likewise
addressed the issue of marijuana legalization:
Recently, some have said they support states’ right
to decide, even if they don’t exactly support
legalization. Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), who favors
legalization of medical but not recreational
marijuana, said that he’s against the federal
government telling states that “they can’t” legalize.
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-Fla.) has called legalization of
recreational marijuana a “bad idea,” but a
spokesman said that Rubio believes, “of course,”
that states can make their own decisions about laws
What takes intestinal fortitude is saying that drug policy
should be the domain of the states, including:
 the recreational use of marijuana
 the repeal of all federal drug regulations
 the repeal of all federal drug laws
33
 the elimination of the federal DEA
incarcerated drug offenders should be pardoned and
released from jail or prison, and every facet of the drug
war should be ended. And because the drug war is such a
great injustice, this should all be done immediately.
 the ending of the federal war on drugs
 the legalization of other drugs like heroin and cocaine
The drug war is a great libertarian litmus test. No one who
supports government at any level having any kind of a war
on drugs is even remotely a libertarian. It doesn’t matter
what else he believes about foreign policy, the welfare
state, the warfare state, or the surveillance state. No one
can “lean libertarian” and support such a gross violation of
individual liberty, personal freedom, property rights, a free
market, and a free society as the war on drugs.
Now, one can say these things and still favor a war on
drugs on the state level. But I know of no Republican
member of Congress or conservative columnist, talking
head, or radio talk show host who would even say these
things.
Libertarians, of course, go even further. Although drug
policy is constitutionally the domain of the states and not
the federal government, the states shouldn’t regulate
drugs, criminalize drugs, have a DEA, or wage war on
drugs any more than the federal government should.
Ted Cruz may believe in having “an intelligent
conversation about drug policy and the degree to which it
may or may not be achieving the ends we hope it would
achieve,” but to the libertarian, there should be no
government drug policy to begin with and no ends that the
government should be hoping to achieve.
The libertarian view on the drug war is simple and
consistent: Since it is not the business of government at
any level to prohibit, regulate, restrict, license,
criminalize, limit, or otherwise control what someone
wants to smoke, snort, sniff, inject, or swallow, then there
should be no laws whatsoever regarding the buying,
selling, possessing, trafficking, using, growing,
cultivating, processing, or manufacturing of any drug for
any reason.
Laurence M. Vance writes from central Florida. He is the
author of King James, His Bible, and Its Translators, The
War on Drugs Is a War on Freedom, War, Christianity,
and the State: Essays on the Follies of Christian
Militarism and War, Empire, and the Military: Essays on
the Follies of War and U.S. Foreign Policy. His newest
book is The Making of the King James Bible—New
Testament.
Therefore, on both the federal and the state level, all drugs
should be legalized, all drug laws and regulations should
be repealed, all DEAs should be eliminated, all
Special Operations Troops Doubt Women Can Do the Job
By Herschel Smith
Dan Bland, force management director for U.S.
Special Operations Command, said the survey
results have “already driven us to do some different
things in terms of educating the force.”
From Stars and Stripes:
Surveys find that men in U.S. special operations
forces do not believe women can meet the physical
and mental demands of their commando jobs, and
they fear the Pentagon will lower standards to
integrate women into their elite units, according to
interviews and documents.
Well, there you go. If the force believes that women can’t
do the job, the only recourse is to educate them
differently, because surely, surely, surely they must be
wrong. Otherwise the advocates of gender homogeneity
would be wrong, and that couldn’t be the case because
command says so because the administration and Godhating, elitist, Marxist liberal arts colleges around the
nation say so.
Studies that surveyed personnel found “major
misconceptions” within special operations about
whether women should be brought into the maleonly jobs. They also revealed concerns that
department leaders would “capitulate to political
pressure, allowing erosion of training standards,”
according to one document.
Dan Bland responded the way he did because he has lost
his soul and joined the dark side.
Some of those concerns were not limited to men,
researchers found, but were found among women in
special operations jobs.
Herschel Smith hails from Charlotte, N.C.
34
World Net Daily
The Big List of Christian Coercion
Cases allowing homosexuals to bludgeon believers
Paster and Bernstein filled out a reservation form, the
pavilion was a public accommodation. The judge
determined that the Ocean Grove Camp Meeting
Association breached its agreement to make the pavilion
available to the public on an equal basis.
Here’s a list of cases in which Christians have been
accused of violating non-discrimination laws for following
the dictates of their faith:
Christian pizzeria
Family-owned Memories Pizza in Indiana came into the
crosshairs of homosexuals when an owner was
interviewed by a local TV station in the aftermath of the
adoption of the state’s religious freedom law.
Liberty Ridge
The owners of a Christian farm in upstate New York
recently were fined $10,000 and assessed $1,500 in
damages for not allowing a lesbian duo to use their land
and home for a wedding.
Responding to a reporter’s question, the owner said that
while her restaurant serves gays, her Christian faith
wouldn’t allow her to cater a “gay
wedding.”
Cynthia and Robert Gifford, owners of
Liberty Ridge Farm near Albany, had
allowed others to use their land for
birthday events and a few weddings. But
when Jennifer McCarthy and Melisa
Erwin asked for access, the owners said
they would allow a reception but not a
wedding, because of their religious
beliefs.
The restaurant immediately became a
focal point of outrage toward the law,
with threats of death and and destruction,
causing the owners to shut down their
business.
In response, however, an Internet
campaign raised more than $840,000 for
the family in just a few days.
The state said the couple’s religious
beliefs were of no account.
Owners Kevin and Christie O’Connor
said they eventually planned to reopen
their doors.
Administrative Law Judge Migdalia
Pares said the Giffords’ home is a place
of public accommodation and, therefore, is subject to the
New York Human Rights law.
Ocean Grove
The judge ruled, “The fact that the Giffords also reside at
Gifford Barn does not render it private.”
The Ocean Grove Camp Meeting Association was begun
in 1869 to provide a place for Christian meetings and
assemblies, and it still operates as one of the more popular
destinations for such events on the East Coast.
Masterpiece
The case developed when homosexuals demanded a
Christian baker provide a wedding cake for their
event, and he declined on the grounds it would violate his
Christian faith.
It houses one of the world’s 20 largest pipe organs and
there are both traditional and contemporary worship
programs all summer long that have featured speakers
such as Billy Graham, Norman Vincent Peale, Robert
Schuller, Billy Sunday, D. James Kennedy and Charles
Stanley.
The Colorado Civil Rights Commission eventually
ordered the baker, Jack Phillips of Masterpiece Cakeshop,
to use his artistry to celebrate homosexual unions in
violation of his Christian beliefs, but the case is on appeal
in the courts.
But the location no longer is used for weddings, because a
lesbian duo was denied permission to use it, and a state
discrimination complaint was filed.
A state commissioner, Diann Rice, likened Christians to
slaver owners and Nazis.
The ACLU reported in 2012 that the ruling from an
administrative law judge found the Christian group was
guilty of discrimination for refusing to grant Harriet
Bernstein and Luisa Paster access to its property for their
ceremony.
Her words: “I would also like to reiterate what we said in
the hearing or the last meeting. Freedom of religion and
religion has been used to justify all kinds of discrimination
throughout history, whether it be slavery, whether it be the
Holocaust, whether it be – I mean, we – we can list
hundreds of situations where freedom of religion has been
Solomon A. Metzger of the state’s Office of
Administrative Law found that in March 2007, when
35
… are permanently enjoined and restrained from violating
the Washington Law Against Discrimination.”
used to justify discrimination. And to me it is one of the
most despicable pieces of rhetoric that people can use to –
to use their religion to hurt others.”
There was no claim in the case that the homosexuals were
unable to get a cake, only that they were unable to get it
from Masterpiece.
Ekstrom also said the homosexuals, Robert Ingersoll and
Curt Freed, “are entitled to an award of actual damages,”
but he reserved determination of the amount until after
any appeal has been exhausted.
Hitching Post
The Benhams
The Hitching Post wedding chapel in Coeur d’Alene,
Idaho, is under fire.
The Benham brothers were en route to a new HGTV
television show when homosexual activists made an issue
of their belief in biblical marriage.
The city is demanding the Christian ministers at the chapel
perform same-sex weddings in violation of their faith, and
WND reported recently the case is headed back to court
after negotiations between the parties failed.
The network canceled their real estate show, which was to
be called “Flip it Forward.”
Jason and David, who just weeks ago began writing an
exclusive WND column, posted on Facebook a video
supporting the Indiana law.
“The government can’t tell ministers they must perform
same-sex marriages under threat of jail time and crippling
fines,” said Alliance Defending Freedom Senior Legal
Counsel Jeremy Tedesco.
The video explains: “So the RFRA is a shield, not a
sword. It doesn’t get offensive and promote ‘hate’ as the
hype said. But it’s a shield to protect companies, like, for
instance, a Jewish-owned jewelry. It keeps the state from
forcing him to create rings with the Nazi symbol on it. Or
a Muslim-owned apparel company. It prevents the state
from forcing him to maybe make T-shirts with the cross
over the crescent.
“That’s exactly what the city did to Pastor Knapp and
what the ordinance allows the city to do to others. In the
absence of a settlement agreement, we look forward to
vindicating our client’s freedom in court.”
Arlene’s
In Washington state, florist Barronelle Stutzman already
has been penalized $1,001 for declining to support a samesex wedding with her floral talents.
“Or even a gay-owned apparel company from creating Tshirts that say Leviticus 18:22. Homosexuality is a sin.”
Very simply, “the state should never force business
owners to promote a message or an idea that conflicts with
their beliefs,” David Benham states.
And the judge ruling in the case has opened her savings,
personal possessions and even home up as a target for the
homosexuals who wanted her artistic talents and now are
claiming her assets as damages.
Elane’s Photography
In a New Mexico dispute, courts ordered that a
photographer could not refuse to use her talents to
memorialize a homosexual wedding.
Alex Ekstrom, the judge, said Stutzman, owner of
Arlene’s Flowers in Richland, Washington, must pay
$1,001 to the state prosecutors who charged her with
discrimination.
Elaine Huguenin, co-owner with her husband, Jonathan, of
Elane Photography, had declined to provide her artistic
talents to Vanessa Willock.
But the Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys
representing Stutzman warned that the precedent, not the
dollar figure, is the problem.
Willock, who found another photographer for the event,
filed a complaint with the state under its antidiscrimination law. The state Supreme Court said the
photographer had no right to not be forced to express
statements through her work that violated her Christian
beliefs.
Kristen Waggoner, ADF senior counsel, said the award to
Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson boils down
to a government threat to Christians: “Surrender your
religious liberty and free speech rights, or face personal
and professional ruin.”
Giving up one’s religious faith, the court said, was “the
price of citizenship.”
Stutzman was sued even though the man who filed the
complaint was referred to several other willing florists and
even was offered free flowers.
An Oregon baker also was caught in the same fight, as
well as several other venue owners, and there’s even the
same conflict in the United Kingdom.
Ekstrom’s latest order also said the “defendants and their
officers, agents, servants, employees, and attorneys, and
those persons in active concert or participation with them
36
Brendan Eich
Just Cookies
Then there was the case of Brendan Eich, the chief
executive officer of Mozilla, the company best known for
creating Firefox.
The owners of Indiana’s “Just Cookies” were charged
with “discrimination” under the city’s “sexual orientation”
law for refusing to fill a special order for “rainbow
cookies” for an LGBT group.
He was attacked by homosexual activists and eventually
lost his position for donating $1,000 to support the 2008
Proposition 8 marriage-definition initiative that was
approved by the majority of voters of progressive
California.
Victoria’s Cakes
Iowa’s “Victoria’s Cake Cottage,” whose owner, Victoria
Childress, refused to provide a wedding cake for a
homosexual couple out of “convictions for their lifestyle.”
According to WND CEO Joseph Farah’s commentary on
the issue, “Apparently, according to this new litmus test of
the ‘tolerance’ police, anyone who supported the popular
proposition no longer deserves to work in California.”
Fleur Cakes
Oregon’s Fleur Cakes joined Sweet Cakes in refusing to
bake a wedding cake for a same-sex couple and is being
boycotted by homosexual activist groups.
Eich was described as a tech prodigy, “having invented
the programming language Javascript and co-founded
Mozilla.”
All Occasion
Texas’ All Occasion Party Place, a Fort Worth venue,
refuses, on religious grounds, to rent out a banquet hall for
same-sex wedding receptions.
Aloha Bed & Breakfast
The Aloha Bed & Breakfast in Hawaii, a Christian
business, was forced to “accommodate” two Southern
California lesbians after a judge ruled the B&B violated
state law when the owner told Taeko Bufford and Diane
Cervelli she wasn’t comfortable having them stay together
in her home due to her religious beliefs. Aloha has since
been ordered by the state “to provide a room to any samesex couple that wishes to stay there.”
T-shirts
A Christian T-shirt maker in Kentucky was targeted by the
Lexington-Fayette Urban County Human Rights
Commission for refusing to print “gay pride” designs for a
local homosexual group.
Twilight Room
Walders
Chris Penner, owner of the Twilight Room Annex bar in
Portland, was fined $400,000 under the Oregon Equality
Act for excluding transsexual men who, dressed as
women, had been alienating other customers by using the
women’s restroom. According to the Seattle Times, 11
people – calling themselves the “T-girls” – “will get the
money, with awards ranging from $20,000 to 50,000.”
In Illinois, Christian B&B owners Jim and Beth Walder
are being sued by homosexual activist Todd Wathen, who
demands monetary damages, attorneys’ fees and “an order
directing [the Walders] to cease and desist from any
violation” of the state’s Human Rights Act.
Wildflower
Phil Robertson
Vermont’s Wildflower Inn paid a settlement and shut
down its wedding reception business after the ACLU won
a $10,000 civil penalty for two lesbians. The settlement
also requires the inn’s owners to place $20,000 in a
charitable trust for the lesbians.
The “Duck Dynasty” star Phil Robertson, an evangelical
Christian, faced a firestorm of protest after he told GQ
magazine he believed homosexuality is a sin. A&E, the
show’s creator, said it was suspending him indefinitely,
but then a massive public backlash forced the network into
retreat and he was reinstated.
Sweet Cakes
Oregon’s “Sweet Cakes by Melissa” bakery shut down
after declining to bake for a “gay wedding.”
Craig James
Fox Sports Southwest broadcaster Craig James was fired
after a GOP debate tape showed him expressing Christian
beliefs in opposition to “homosexual marriage” surfaced.
37
'Gay' Leader to Churches: Support Homosexuality or Be Taxed
Activist sets litmus test for religious freedom in America
By Bob Unruh
A “gay” activist contends churches that
lobby to preserve the right of religious
believers not to promote homosexual
behavior should lose their tax-exempt
status.
he continues to run it consistent with his faith. Such
blatant religious discrimination has no place in our
society.”
Jeran Artery of the homosexual-rights group Wyoming
Equality made the assertion on his Facebook page and
deleted it a short time later, reported Jason DeWitt at Top
Right News.
On an ADF blog, Joshua Tijerina decried the outright
“hypocrisy” of corporations such as Walmart, Apple,
Microsoft and Angie’s List, which all opposed the Indiana
religious freedom law.
The issue arose recently because of the fierce opposition
to Indiana’s adoption of a Religious Freedom Restoration
Act that would allow groups to use their faith as a defense
in claims of discrimination. But the opposition prompted
lawmakers and the governor to “fix” the law and insert
specific protections for “gays.”
“It is important to clear the fog of this hypocrisy: It is OK
for a business to support LGBT issues with its decisions
and values (like Apple did), but it must shutter its doors if
a business seeks to exercise religious freedom (like
Barronelle Stutzman did),” he wrote.
Stutzman is a Washington state florist who now faces
fines because she declined to support same-sex marriage
with her artistry.
This issue isn’t new, with such cases dating back a
decade. However, they have been increasing in recent
years.
“Now, ADF is a legal organization, so what does the law
say? According to ADF attorney Doug Wardlow religious
freedom is a fundamental right, and ‘wherever we go and
whatever we do, our freedoms go with us,’” wrote
Tijerina.
The dispute is illustrated in Colorado, where a Christian
baker, Jack Phillips, is defending himself in court for
declining to bake a case for same-sex ceremony.
And the same time, Colorado’s Civil Rights Commission
ruled that “cake artists” at Azucar Bakery, Gateaux and Le
Bakery Sensual were perfectly justified in refusing to bake
cakes that “violated their conscience.”
“He points to the recent U.S. Supreme Court decision in
Conestoga Wood Specialties v. Burwell as a prime
example: The United States Supreme Court held that the
federal RFRA, which applies to ‘a person’s’ exercise of
religion, includes natural persons as well as entities such
as corporations, partnerships, firms, societies, and the like.
Both Indiana’s RFRA and its federal counterpart thus
recognize that a person doesn’t give up her religious
liberty just because she forms a business entity,” Tijerina
wrote.
Senior Legal Counsel Jeremy Tedesco of the Alliance
Defending Freedom said Colorado’s decision establishes
discrimination as a precedent.
“We commend the commission for reaching the right
conclusion that these cake artists should not be forced to
violate their conscience, but clearly the commission
should have done the same for Jack Phillips,” he said
Monday.
“Opponents of religious freedom agree that business
entities should act on what they believe, but only if those
businesses agree with them,” he wrote.
The commission found that the three cake artists have the
freedom to decline creating unique cake creations because
the artists found the requests offensive.
In the latest court brief in the Phillips case, ADF argued
that Americans are guaranteed freedom to live and work
according to their faith.
But all Americans “should be alarmed that the same
commission determined that Jack doesn’t have that same
freedom,” Tedesco said.
ADF said the rights Phillips seeks to preserve would
“protect the right of Colorado baker Marjorie Silva to
decline to create a cake that references biblical teaching
about sex and marriage based on her ‘standards of
offensiveness’ or a gay Colorado photographer to decline
an offer from Westboro Baptist Church to shoot photos at
its latest demonstration.”
“Like the other bakers, Jack happily serves all people but
declines to use his artistic talents to create cakes that
violate his conscience. The commission’s inconsistent
rulings mean that the owners of these three cake shops
may run them according to their beliefs, while Jack
cannot. He risks losing his life-long business altogether if
38
defense of historic, Judeo-Christian teachings on sex and
marriage as Hate, Bigotry & Homophobia – Big Gay
Inc.’s top three slanders against people of faith and morals
– is itself profoundly hateful and bigoted.”
“These are just results that rightly and universally protect
conscience. Phillips’ conscience is deserving of the same
respect and protection.”
But the left-leaning Think Progress equated a Christian
baker or photographer wanting to practice their faith in
their business to racism.
“But we should expect such calculated smears from a Sin
Movement that is essentially engaged in a political and
cultural war against Nature and Nature’s God. Casting
aside the lies and slanders, we will not be deterred in our
defense of Truth.”
The website wrote about Maurice Bessinger, who
reportedly argued pro-slavery issues and failed to
convince the courts he should be exempt from anti-racism
laws.
Matt Slick at Christian Apologetics and Research
Ministry explained: “Discrimination is not automatically
bad. I discriminate on the kinds of foods I eat, on the
programs I watch, and what movies I let my kids see. In
fact, we all discriminate. We all have criteria by which we
judge what is and is not acceptable. I discriminate against
child molesters, and I will not let them be with my
children unattended. I discriminate against various
theological teachings that contradict the Bible. I
discriminate all the time and so do you.
“Bessinger’s legal claim that religion should provide a
license to discriminate rears its head over and over again
in modern American history. It reared its head just over a
week ago in Indiana, when religious conservatives briefly
pushed through legislation that could have enabled them
to ignore local ordinances protecting against anti-LGBT
discrimination,” the site said.
WND reported a few weeks ago that a number of
homosexual bakers, approached about doing a cake with a
message supportive of traditional marriage would refuse.
“When it comes to homosexuality, I believe that God has
condemned it as a sin (Rom. 1:18ff). But my agreeing
with God that homosexuality is a sin is not the same as
discriminating against homosexuals. I have no problem
working with homosexuals in a secular environment. I
have no problem with homosexuals being my neighbors. I
have no problem with working out at the gym with
homosexuals. In things like these, I don’t discriminate.”
That’s from a report by Theodore Shoebat on
the Shoebat.com website, which more often deals with
Islam and jihad.
“Christian bakeries that refuse to make pro-homosexual
marriage cakes are getting sued left, right and center. They
get fined, they get death threats, and they lose their
businesses,” Shoebat observed.
He explained: “To say that condemning homosexuality is
wrong is a statement dealing with morality – not with
legality. There might be various laws for and/or against
homosexuality, but saying that condemning
homosexuality is wrong is a moral issue.”
So, Shoebat.com decided to call 13 prominent pro-gay
bakers and ask them to make a cake with the message
“gay marriage is wrong.”
“Each one denied us service, and even used deviant insults
and obscenities against us,” he said.
Bob Unruh joined WND in 2006 after nearly three
decades with the Associated Press, as well as several
Upper Midwest newspapers, where he covered everything
from legislative battles and sports to tornadoes and
homicidal survivalists. He is also a photographer whose
scenic work has been used commercially.
“One baker even said that she would make me a cookie
with a large phallus on it just to insult us because we are
Christian,” said Shoebat.
At Americans for Truth, President Peter LaBarbera said
the LGBT lobby’s “campaign to portray the fervent
39
The Definition of Anti-Semitism
Explains why 'Jew-hatred' is best synonym
By Joseph Farah
Only after World War II did the term “antiSemitism” become widely used by those who viewed
it negatively.
Anti-Semitism is alive and thriving on planet Earth,
once again.
Maybe it’s about time we understood where the term
originated.
Am I nitpicking?
It was predictable when I wrote a recent column
about why Barack Obama is not-so-latently antiSemitic that I would be challenged on the use of the word.
It happens every time.
Yes and no.
I want to explain that anti-Semitism, despite the literal
meaning, has never been used to hatefully condemn all
those speaking Semitic languages, as one might suspect.
Some wise guy literalist will always point out that Semites
are all the people of the Middle East. As an ArabAmerican, I am more than familiar with this assertion, I
assure you.
So I use it, occasionally, in the way the term has always
been used – by both Jews and Jew-haters.
Yet, on the other hand, I must say I have a certain
appreciation for those who challenge its use – as more of a
euphemism for the more direct and hideous “Jew-hatred.”
They cite the standard dictionary definition of Semitic:
“designating or of the Semites or their languages, – n. a
major group of African and Asian languages, including
Hebrew, Arabic etc.”
So I use both – interchangeably.
But “Jew-hatred” is more to the point. It doesn’t beat
around the bush. It doesn’t soft-pedal the true evil that
lurks behind this age-old condition. It hits it right between
the eyes.
Let’s begin by exploring where the term was invented –
Germany in the late 19th century. It was coined as a
scientific-sounding word for Judenhass, or Jew hatred.
It has meant this and only this ever since.
And it is not lost on me that many, if not most, of the
practitioners of this disease are either “Semitic”
themselves, in the literal sense of the word, or sympathetic
to the dominant religion of today’s “Semites.”
Jew hatred was on the rise in the late 19th century
throughout Europe – nowhere more strongly, however,
than in Prussia where a nationalistic historian by the name
of Heinrich von Treitschke did his best to promote it. The
term always meant Jew-hatred, as opposed to hatred of
other Semitic peoples.
No matter what you call it – anti-Semitism or Jew-hatred –
it’s a virulent pandemic in the world today.
The worst of the anti-Semites today – whether they call
themselves Hamas or Hezbollah or ISIS or al-Qaida or the
al-Aqsa Martyrs Brigade – make no bones about who it is
they hate. They may arm themselves as suicide bombers,
but it is not out of self-loathing. It’s motivated by the
worst kind of malevolence – the kind that suggests there’s
no room in this world for both the Jews and the Jewhaters.
Von Treitschke served as an inspiration to German Jewhaters, and the term was widely used in written form –
always pertaining to Jews alone. It was a term used almost
exclusively by Jew haters themselves.
For instance, after the Kristallnacht pogrom in 1938,
German propaganda minister Josef Goebbels announced:
“The German people is anti-Semitic. It has no desire to
have its rights restricted or to be provoked in the future by
parasites of the Jewish race.”
That’s why there’s no accommodating them in “peace
talks” and negotiations and land swaps.
It’s further worth noting that Adolf Hitler had no
acrimony toward those who spoke other Semitic
languages, or other descendants of the biblical Shem. He
funded a battalion of Arab Nazi recruits for the grand
mufti of Jerusalem as you will learn in the spectacularly
well-documented book, “The Nazi Connection to Islamic
Terrorism.” No two ideologies did more to incubate the
plague anti-Jewish terrorist hate than Nazism and
Communism, the latter well-documented in Ion Mihai
Pacepa’s masterpiece “Disinformation.”
Their goal is simple – one they shared with Hitler and
Haman: The total eradication of the Jews from planet
Earth.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a
nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News
Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books. Farah
is the former editor of the legendary Sacramento Union
and other major-market dailies.
40
America's Decay Is Speeding Up
Universities have become secular seminaries for dissemination of leftism
By Dennis Prager
gender doesn’t matter. Marriage is marriage, and
gender means nothing, the argument goes. So, too,
whether children are raised by mother and father or
two mothers or two fathers doesn’t matter. A father
has nothing unique to offer a child that a mother can’t
provide and vice versa.
As one who loves America – not only because I am
American, but even more so because I know (not
believe, know) that the American experiment in
forming a decent society has been the most
successful in history – I write the following words in
sadness: With few exceptions, every aspect of American
life is in decline.
Why? Because – for the first time in recorded history –
gender is regarded as meaningless. Indeed, increasingly
gender doesn’t even exist; it’s merely a social construct
imposed on children by parents and society based on the
biological happenstance of their genitalia. When signing
up for Facebook, one is offered nearly 60 options under
“gender.” In various high schools across the country, boys
are elected homecoming queen. A woman was recently
kicked out of Planet Fitness for objecting to a man in the
women’s locker room. She was accused of intolerance
because the man said he felt that he was a woman.
“Decay” is the word.
The Decline of the Family: Nearly half (48 percent) of
American children are born to a mother who is not
married. Forty-three percent of American children live
without a father in the home. About 50 percent of
Americans over 18 are married, compared to 72 percent in
1960. Americans are having so few children that the
fertility rate fell to a record low 62.9 births per 1,000
women in 2013. And in an increasing number of states,
there are now more deaths than births.
The End of Right and Wrong: At least two generations of
American young people have been taught that moral
categories are nothing more than personal (or societal)
preferences. Recently, an incredulous professor of
philosophy wrote an opinion piece in the New York Times
titled “Why Our Children Don’t Think There Are Moral
Facts.” In it he noted, “Without fail, every value claim is
labeled an opinion” (italics in original). This extends to
assessing the most glaring of evils. Since the Nazis
thought killing Jews was right, there is no way to know for
sure whether it was wrong; it’s the Nazis’ opinion against
that of the Jews and anyone else who objects. I have heard
this sentiment from American high school students –
including many Jewish ones – for 30 years.
The Decline of Education: Compared to nearly all of
American history, the average American school teaches
much less about important subjects such as American
history, English grammar, literature, music and art.
Instead, schools are teaching much more about “social
justice,” environmentalism and sex.
Any of us who receive emails from large numbers of
Americans can attest to the deteriorating education –
including among those who attended college – in written
English. In sophisticated commentary on websites as well
as in email, one encounters the most basic errors: “it’s”
instead of “its”; “their” instead of “there”; “then” instead
of “than,” etc.
The End of Religion: There are no moral truths because
there is no longer a religious basis for morality. More than
the Enlightenment, it was the Bible – especially the
Hebrew Bible (which was one reason America’s
Christians were different from most European Christians)
that guided the founders’ and other Americans’ values.
Not anymore. Instead of being guided by a code higher
than themselves, Americans are taught to rely on their
feelings to determine how to behave. Instead of being
given moral guidance, children are asked, “How do you
feel about it?”
Most universities have become secular seminaries for the
dissemination of leftism. Moreover, aside from
indoctrination, students usually learn little. One can earn a
BA in English at UCLA, for example, without having read
a single Shakespeare play.
To the extent that American history is taught, beginning in
high school and often earlier, American history is
presented as the history of an immoral nation
characterized by slavery, racism, colonialism,
imperialism, economic exploitation, and militarism – not
of a country that, more than any other, has been the
beacon of freedom to mankind, and the country that has
spent more treasure and spilled more blood to liberate
other peoples than any other nation.
The End of Beauty: Just as morality is subjective; so are
beauty and excellence. There is no good or bad art or
literature. You like Beethoven; I like rap. You like
Shakespeare; I like Batman. “Street art” (aka graffiti) is
worthy of museum exhibition; paint thrown by an “artist”
from atop a ladder onto a canvas is considered high art
and fetches over $100 million; and a giant sculpture of a
The End of Male and Female: Whatever one’s position on
same-sex marriage, one must acknowledge that at the core
of the argument for this redefinition of marriage is that
41
dog with lifted leg urinating adorns the front of the Orange
County Museum of Art in California.
Dennis Prager is a nationally syndicated radio show host
and creator of PragerUniversity.Com. His latest book is
"Still the Best Hope: Why the World Needs American
Values to Triumph."
If you acknowledge that American society is in decay, it is
your obligation to fight to undo it. If you can’t
acknowledge that American society is in decay, you are
providing proof that it is.
The IRS and Congress Both Hold Our Liberty in Contempt
By Ron Paul
My Campaign for Liberty organization has had to
battle an IRS demand that it hand over personal
information regarding some of its top donors. The
IRS is either ignoring, or ignorant of, the numerous
precedents protecting the right of organizations like
the Campaign for Liberty to protect their members’
privacy from government officials.
This week the Justice Department announced it
would not charge former Internal Revenue Service
(IRS) official Lois Lerner with contempt of
Congress. Some members of Congress requested
that Lerner be charged with contempt after she
refused to testify at a congressional hearing
investigating her role in denying or delaying the
applications for tax-exempt status of “tea party”
and pro-limited government organizations.
The IRS is drafting a new regulation that would
empower the agency to revoke an organization’s taxexempt status if that organization sends out a
communication to its members or the general public
mentioning a candidate for office by name sixty days
before an election or thirty days before a primary. By
preventing groups from telling their members where
candidates stand on issues like Audit the Fed and repeal of
the PATRIOT Act, this anti-First Amendment regulation
benefits those politicians who wish to hide their beliefs
from the voters.
Cynics might suggest it is not surprising that a former
government official would avoid prosecution for refusing
to tell Congress about how federal employees abused their
power to help the incumbent administration. These cynics
have a point, but the problem goes beyond mere
partisanship. Government officials are rarely prosecuted
for even the most blatant violations of our liberties. In
contrast, federal prosecutors routinely pursue criminal
charges against whistleblowers. For example, the only
American prosecuted and imprisoned in relation to the
government’s use of torture was whistleblower John
Kiriakou!
Since the IRS’s power stems from the tax system, the only
way to protect our liberty from this agency is to eliminate
the tax code. Promising to end the IRS is a popular
applause line for politicians wishing to appear as
champions of liberty. This week, John Koskinen, the
current IRS commissar, responded to these cries to end the
IRS by pointing out that shutting down the IRS would
deprive Congress of the revenue needed to fund the
welfare-warfare state. Koskinen has a point. Congress
cannot shut down the IRS until it enacts major reductions
in all areas of government spending.
While some officials like Lois Lerner who find themselves
at the center of a high-profile scandal or partisan dispute
can expect harsh treatment from Congress, this is the
expectation, not the rule. Executive branch officials
usually receive deferential treatment from members of
Congress. I recall one hearing on government surveillance
where a representative actually apologized to a
government official because Congress had the gall to ask
that official to testify about the government’s ongoing
surveillance of the American people.
Politicians who vote for warfare abroad and welfare at
home yet claim they want to shut down the IRS should not
be taken seriously. Freeing the people from the IRS’s
tyranny is one of the best reasons to end the welfarewarfare state and return the federal government to its
constitutional limitations.
In contrast, private citizens called before Congress are
harangued and even bullied. Congress should stop using
the hearing process to intimidate private citizens and start
using it to intimidate those government officials who are
threatening our liberty. For example, Congress should
continue to investigate the IRS’s ongoing attempts to
silence organizations that work to advance free markets
and individual liberty.
Ronald Ernest "Ron" Paul is an American physician,
author, and former Republican congressman, two-time
Republican presidential candidate, and the presidential
nominee of the Libertarian Party in the 1988 U.S.
Presidential Election.
42
'Full Equality' for All 'Philias'?
By Les Kinsolving
“The perception of what’s going on here (as driven
by the media) is that this is a gay rights-versusdiscrimination sort of scenario, and businesses want
to be on the gay rights side of that, because that’s
more popular.”
“Social media frenzies push businesses to pro-gay
stance”
That is the Page 1 headline in the Washington Times,
over which Eunice Rho, ACLU Advocacy and Policy
Council, declared the following:
At the same time, some companies have opened
themselves up to charges of hypocrisy. Apple CEO Tim
Cook, for example, has come under fire for doing business
in China and Saudi Arabia, which are far less gay-friendly
than is Indiana.
“We are encouraged by the business community standing
not only with the LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual,
transgender) community, but all Americans in their
endorsement of full equality for all citizens.”
Let me repeat that: “All Americans in their endorsement of
full equality for all citizens.”
Mark Benioff, CEO of Statesforce.com, has been
criticized for shutting down company travel to Indiana
even though the company operates an office in Beijing, “a
Communist-controlled country that is a human rights
nightmare,” said pundit Mollie Hemingway in the
Federalist.
“All Americans” include polygamists, polyandrists,
pedophiles, necrophiliacs and practitioners of bestiality.
Not only those but coprophilia, incest, exhibitionism,
transvestic fetishism, voyeurism, apotemnophilia,
asphyxiaphilia and other “philias.”
“So how is it that these businesses can justify boycotting
Indiana when they consistently turn a blind eye to
international partners that deal in child slavery, forced
abortions, real sexual persecution or human trafficking?”
said Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research
Council in an op-ed.
Considering the high rate of AIDS within the homosexual
community, how is it that that sexual orientation (plus
bisexuality and transsexuality) should be accepted – but
not the dozen other sexual orientations just listed?
The Times reported that Memories Pizza in Walkerton,
Indiana, closed down.
Critics have also noted that companies that take a strong
stance against the RFRA laws may be at risk of a lawsuit,
not from gay employees but from religious-minded
workers who may see the anti-RFRA activism as evidence
of a hostile workplace.
Asked by a TV reporter about the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, this family business said it would serve
homosexuals, but, for religious reasons, would not cater a
same-sex wedding.
Jeff Mateer, general counsel of the Liberty Institute in
Plano, Texas, noted:
“We’re not discriminating against anyone. That’s just our
belief,” said Crystal O’Connor, whose family owns the
shop. “Anyone has the right to believe anything.”
“If these corporate CEOs are speaking out against
religious liberty and people who hold religious views
concerning traditional marriage, for instance, then they’d
better watch, because they may be creating a hostile work
environment for people of faith. … These millions of
people that they’re opposing on religious liberty rights,
they are consumers.”
Ms. O’Connor added that the family would never refuse to
serve a customer for religious reasons, but the result was
an avalanche of angry criticism on the company’s Yelp
page, a rash of national stories and a protester who turned
up in front of their shop Wednesday with a sign that said,
“Bigots.”
Law professor Douglas Laycock of the University of
Virginia declared:
On top of that, a local high-school golf coach, Jessica
Dooley, was suspended pending an investigation for
allegedly posting a threat on Twitter to burn down the
pizzeria, ABC-57 reported.
“Gay rights groups, as they become stronger and get more
support for same-sex marriage, keep demanding more and
more. … Now they don’t want a religious exception for
anybody.”
“Who’s going to Walkerton, IN to burn down
#memoriespizza w me?” said a post on her account that
has since been deleted.
Les Kinsolving hosts a daily talk show for WCBM in
Baltimore. His radio commentaries are syndicated
nationally. Before going into broadcasting, Kinsolving
was a newspaper reporter and columnist – twice
nominated for the Pulitzer Prize for his commentary.
Ilya Shapiro, senior fellow in constitutional studies at the
Cato Institute, said:
43
Forbes
Disaster Is Inevitable When the Two Decade-Old Stock Bubble Bursts
By Jesse Colombo
cycle for the past two decades. Each time, the
bubble gets larger, and the Fed has to keep reinflating it to avoid the economic Depression
that would occur if asset prices were allowed to
find their true value.
Six years after the Global Financial Crisis, the
U.S. stock market continues to soar to new
heights with nary a pullback or correction. In
this piece, I will explain why the stock market is
experiencing a new bubble that is actually
another wave of the bubble that has existed
since the mid-1990s.
The incessant push to inflate our economy and
financial markets has created an unprecedented
situation in which stocks have been trading at
overvalued levels for a record length of time. Nearly every
stock market valuation indicator is giving the same
reading: stocks are currently at levels that preceded other
major historic busts.
A two-decade old bubble? Yes, you’ve read that
correctly. Most people will consider this assertion
preposterous, but the facts don’t lie. Though the U.S.
stock market has been experiencing a bubble for two
decades, it will not last forever. I believe that the ultimate
popping of this bubble will have terrifying consequences
for both investors and the global economy that is tied so
closely to the stock market.
For example, look at the Cyclically Adjusted P/E Ratio
(CAPE), or the price-to-earnings ratio based on average
inflation-adjusted earnings from the previous 10 years.
The 1929 Stock Market Crash and 1970s stagnation
occurred after the CAPE rose over 20 – a level that
indicates stock market overvaluation. Incredibly, the
CAPE has remained over 20 for much of the past two
decades, aside from a few short months during the Global
Financial Crisis. Without constant Fed intervention, there
is no doubt that the U.S. stock market would have
corrected violently like it has in the past.
The SP500 stock index has more than tripled since its low
in 2009, but that doesn’t mean that we are out of the
woods. On the contrary, this is the calm before the storm.
Since the mid-1990s, the U.S. economy and stock market
has experienced three different bubbles: the 1990s Dotcom bubble, the mid-2000s housing bubble, and now
another bubble that includes stocks, bonds, tech startups,
certain segments of the housing market, higher education,
and much more. I believe that this new bubble is creating
what I call a “Bubblecovery” or a bubble-driven temporary
economic recovery that will end in another crisis.
Jesse Colombo is an economic analyst who is warning of
dangerous post-2009 bubbles in Canada, Australia,
Nordic countries, China, emerging markets, Web 2.0
startups, U.S. higher education, and more. He believes
that the popping of these bubbles will cause the next
financial crisis.
The U.S. Federal Reserve also created a Bubblecovery in
the early-2000s to recover from the Dot-com bust, which
led to the housing bubble. After the housing bubble burst,
the Fed inflated the post-2009 Bubblecovery. After each
bubble/Bubblecovery ends, the Fed simply inflates
another bubble to recover from the last one. In essence,
the U.S. economy and stock market has been in a bubble
44
Breitbart
Hit Me With Your Best Shot: The Economist’s Epic Fail on Guns
by AWR Hawkins
On April 4, The Economist mocked the NRA and
Second Amendment supporters with a column
that turned out to be an epic fail because it was
built on numbers from a debunked Everytown for
Gun Safety study, an erroneous claim that “armor
piercing” M855 ammo endangers police, and a
not-so-veiled attempt to undercut the push to arm women
for self-defense on college campuses.
arguments for arming women on college campuses
for self-defense.
They did this by presenting a cliff notes version of
Republican arguments for campus carry, then
explaining in greater detail University of Texas
Chancellor William McRaven’s opposition to making it
legal for women to carry guns on campus. They cite
McRaven’s former military service as an attempt to show
that if he is opposed to women
being armed for self-defense, then
that must mean that women being
armed for self-defense is not a
good idea.
For example, The
Economist quoted Everytown’s
numbers to claim “there were at
least 95 shootings at American
schools and colleges” during “the
first two years after Newtown.”
Based on these numbers, they
claimed the shootings resulted in
“45 deaths.”
In the end, The Economist comes
back to the NRA, whom they
claim is having a banner year but
refuses to “declare victory”
because they can’t risk losing the
edge.
What The Economist failed to
note is that some of the school
shootings reported by
Everytown never even happened.
Others were accidental discharges
of legally possessed guns in which no one was harmed and
still others were accidental discharges of guns students
possessed illegally, but which they did not use to commit
a “school shooting.”
In reality, The Economist should
note that the NRA refuses to
“declare victory” because the fight isn’t over—and it
won’t be over, until Democrats, news outlets, and
economic publications quit looking for ways to revive
America’s flailing gun control movement.
Breitbart News reported on the Everytown list in
December 2014 and showed that one of the shootings
actually happened at a “non-school related private
function.” The Annapolis Dispatch provided detail on this
shooting, explaining that it happened on a house boat and
left one person grazed with non-life threatening injuries.
AWR Hawkins writes for Andrew Breitbart's BIG sites,
for Pajamas Media, for RedCounty.com, and
for Townhall.com. He was a Visiting Fellow at the Russell
Kirk Center for Cultural Renewal (summer 2010), and
holds a PhD in military history from Texas Tech
University.
In addition to citing the exaggerated Everytown
numbers, The Economist points to the ATF’s decision to
drop the proposed AR-15 ammo ban as proof that “the gun
lobby” successfully pressured the government into leaving
police in a vulnerable situation. After all, the ban was
focused on “a type of bullet that can pierce body armor.”
What The Economist didn’t report is that one of the
leading groups against the proposed ban was the Fraternal
Order of Police (FOP). On March 5, Breitbart News
reported that FOP president James Pasco described the
ban as unnecessary and pointed out that the round in
question—the M855—”has not historically posed a threat
to law enforcement.”
After reporting Everytown’s misinformation as fact and
suggesting the M855 round endangers police—although
the FOP says it doesn’t—The Economist tried to undercut
45
The Truth About Guns
Deer Don’t Wear Combovers
By Bruce W. Krafft
The M995 was designed to go through Soviet BRDM-2
APCs. One was about ¼” of mild steel and the other was
about ½” to 1” (14 – 30 mm) of armor plate.
And that was just his first sentence.
ATF’s finding that these bullets can be loaded into
easily-concealed handguns – and that they pose a
grave threat to police – means that they are no
longer just tools for hunters.
Okay, the ATF never “found” anything of the sort; 5.56
semi-auto pistols have been available for decades. As I
pointed out in an earlier piece, as long as they have that
buffer tube there ain’t no way an AR pistol is going to be
“easily concealable.” And just because green-tips may be
able to penetrate cops’ standard soft body armor when
fired from a rifle barrel, that most emphatically
does not mean that they can do it when fired from a pistol
barrel.
As I pointed out in a different earlier piece, the ATF
can fabricate *ahem* I mean “find” any sort of hogwash
they want, it doesn’t change facts. In this case the fact of
the matter is that cops don’t think that these rounds pose a
threat to cops. Specifically James Pasco, the executive
director of the Washington office of the Fraternal Order of
Police who stated:
When I first saw Congressman Eliot
Engel’s picture at the head of his LoHud
editorial “Deer don’t wear Kevlar” the
very first thing I thought was, Don’t mock
him because of that idiotic comb-over;
that’s anad hominem attack and is beneath
the People of the Gun. Besides, maybe he just doesn’t own
a mirror. But the more of his piece I read, the more I
realized; the C-O did not lie. This guy is a moron. And no,
that is not an ad hominem attack, it’s a considered opinion
based on the fact that he has to be be a moron to think that
anyone is going to fall for his line of complete and
unadulterated horse hockey . . .
“Any ammunition is of concern to police in the
wrong hands, but this specific round has historically
not posed a law enforcement problem.”[2]
But Engel isn’t just worried about cops:
These bullets are a threat to our police officers and
to our military men and women.
The distinguished Congressman opens by stating:
Really? Our military men and women? Can someone
explain to me just how it’s possible that having these
rounds in the hands of law-abiding American sportsmen
and women could pose a threat to ourmilitary? Is Eliot
privy to some plan to use the U.S. military against civilian
targets in the United States? Because I think that there are
some laws against that sort of thing, not to mention the
possibility of such a plan backfiring[3].
I was shocked earlier this month when the [ATF]
withdrew its proposal to prohibit the sale of 5.56
NATO armor-piercing bullets – so-called “green
tip” rounds.
Okay, first of all you don’t say “so-called” and then put
the offending word or phrase in quotes, Eliot; it’s either
one or the other. Using both is just redundant[1]. Second,
they aren’t “so-called ‘green tip’ rounds,” they actually do
have green tips on the end. Third, they are not armorpiercing rounds, AP rounds are, in fact, black-tipped. The
green-tip’s NATO designation is M855 ball ammunition,
while the AP round is designated M995 armor piercing.
But Engel goes on to demonstrate his utter lack of
knowledge on the subject:
The only people who should have access to these
bullets are law enforcement and the military.
Okay I can see why the military would need AP rounds,
which is why the M995 was developed, but, assuming that
the M855 is the sort of AP round that Eliot thinks it is,
M855 was designed to go through the Soviet Army’s steel
helmet that was standard issue in the 70s and 80s.
46
Eliot finishes up with news that he is going to . . . well, I’ll
let him explain:
why on Earth would the cops need it? They already have
actual AP rounds in their arsenal which most of them are
loathe to use since AP makes neat little holes[4] which are
not the best thing for stopping a bad guy. That means
more rounds must be fired which means more chances of
hitting innocent bystanders, especially since, when fired
from a rifle, even phony AP rounds like the green-tip have
a nasty tendency to go through bodies, vinyl siding, sheetrock, etc., thus again increasing the chance of hitting
innocent bystanders.
So I have introduced a bill in the House that will
enact into law the changes ATF proposed. …
This legislation is not stopping hunters from
continuing to participate in legal sporting activities.
What it does is make the rational point that “green
tips” are not necessary for those purposes. …
Which is yet another lie. What his legislation will do is
ensure that rimfire .22 ammo with a bullet weight of 40
grains or less is, by definition, “sporting purpose
ammunition” while leaving it up to the sole discretion of
the Attorney General to decide if any other such
ammunition (not just green-tip) is “primarily intended to
be used for sporting purposes.”
There is no conceivable reason for anybody else to
need access to a handgun round that can pierce
body armor. …
Hunters and law-abiding gun owners have no need
for a compact, semi-automatic firearm with
ammunition that punches through body armor. Deer
don’t wear Kevlar.
So, ignorant moron or despicable bottom-feeding sleaze
ball of a lying politician; you make the call.
Deer may not wear Kevlar, but deer and larger game
animals do have big bones which may need to be
penetrated for a clean, humane kill, which is completely
irrelevant since the Second Amendment is
not about HUNTING. And while deer may not wear
Kevlar, goblins (of whatever stripe of law or lawlessness)
kicking in your door at 2AM might just be wearing
Kevlar. Or some nut-job shooting up a movie theater[5] or
hosing an immigrant community center.
[1] And yes I have fallen prey to this error myself in the past,
then I learned better.
[2] From the Washington Examiner piece Police say Obama
bullet ban isn’t needed, AR-15 round isn’t a threat
[3] Think about it for a minute; if El is worried about us gunowners using this ammo against the military then it necessarily
means that someone is using the military against us, and as
Mike Vanderboegh, David Codrea and any number of other
gun-people have pointed out, just whose kids do you think make
up the military? The sons and daughters of freedom hating
statist Leftist antis or the “rabble” they are so desperate to
disarm?
Yet over and over again, we hear the gun industry
lobby arguing to ensure that civilians have access to
cop-killing bullets.
I have to wonder if Eliot is a complete and utter moron No
matter how many times you repeat the lie, El, it remains a
lie. See above about how “this specific round has
historically not posed a law enforcement problem.”[6] But
Eliot is not done repeating his lies:
[4] Relatively speaking, as compared to hollow-points.
[5] The Aurora shooter was initially (and erroneously) reported
to have worn body armor. The Binghamton NY shooter actually
was wearing body armor.
The “green tip,” frequently used in the AR-15
assault rifle, has been included under this “sporting
purposes” exemption. But new technology has led to
compact, easily-concealed short guns that can fire
these rounds at police officers who won’t be able to
see the weapons coming.
[6] From the Washington Examiner piece Police say Obama
bullet ban isn’t needed, AR-15 round isn’t a threat
Bruce W. Krafft is a bit of a Johnny-come-lately to the
civil rights (firearms flavor) movement, having not really
gotten involved until after he hit 40. He is not really a
"gun guy"; he can generally hit what he aims at, but is not
a competitive shooter. He enjoys the craftsmanship of a
fine pistol or rifle, but is not knowledgeable about
firearms in general nor is he a Glock guy, or 1911 guy,
he’s just a guy. What he is passionate about is civil rights,
especially those of the firearm flavor.
At least he didn’t say so-called “green-tip” this time. But
he does repeat the lie about the AR pistol being a new
development, and the lie about it being compact, short and
easily-concealed.
47
Dedicated Christians Cannot Support “Gay” Marriage!
By Don Boys
Christian businesspeople have lost the right to
practice their beliefs so that a bunch of
homosexuals will not get their feelings hurt! It is
not a crime to offend someone! Let me be very
clear: do not discriminate is not one of the Ten
Commandments. Even if it were, those beating
the homosexual drum usually don’t obey the
original Ten! But that crowd has far more faith
in a commandment that does not exist than for
the Ten that do exist and for which we all will
be held accountable.
It seems everyone has missed the issue
concerning Christians’ support of same-sex
“marriage.” We have no problem selling a cake
to homosexuals but we cannot, we dare not give
any kind of approval of their sin. The Bible
clearly warns us to “have no fellowship with the
unfruitful works of darkness, but rather reprove
them.” To approve any evil is to partake in their
evil deeds. We cannot to that. Not only must we
not do the evil thing but we must reprove them.
We will sell them a meal in our restaurant but will not
cater their “wedding” reception or bake a cake declaring
“The Bible Supports Same-sex Marriage!” Is that too hard
to understand?
Think about it: a person risks his or her money to start a
business, works day and night to get it going, and while
risking everything is then asked to do something that
endorses, encourages, and emboldens a lifestyle that is
contrary to his or her sincerely held religious beliefs. He
will sell to and service anyone but to certify or accredit
sinful behavior he will not do. And may lose everything
for acting according to his beliefs. No honest, informed
person says that that was part of early America. Those
who declare otherwise have perverted truth. We are
castigated if we do not “love” homosexuals but they don’t
have to love us whom they call “homophobes”!
Let me be very clear: no informed, honest Christian can
ever, under any circumstances, accept, approve, or
applaud “gay” marriage or any other abnormal behavior.
Never, even if there is a loss of income, home, job, or
threat of prison! The non-thinkers and bigots will accuse
me of bigotry followed by their usual diatribe but that is
not an answer. The Homosexual Lobby’s policy is if we
don’t approve them then they accuse and attack our lack
of tolerance! Hypocrites!
Non-thinkers compare the civil rights demonstrators
sitting at a lunch counter to “gays” being refused an
endorsement of their lifestyle by a cake or photographs. It
appears that constant media exposure is rotting the brains
of people. I’m sure perversion does.
It has nothing to do with hate, envy, fear, or twisted
thinking, but a dedication to truth. Sodomy is evil, wrong,
wicked, sinful, corrupt, perverse, bad, immoral, depraved,
decadent, dissolute, debauched, and disgusting. And
whether I’m writing in love or hate doesn’t change the
facts.
But forcing Christians to act contrary to their beliefs is not
only a threat to religious belief. It is a matter of personal
rights even apart from religion. In the “old days” an
American could choose his own friends, belong to
whatever organizations he desired, and disagree with
(even ridicule) political, religious, or academic groups
without fear. He might be considered a little odd but it was
legal to be odd in the old days.
Homosexual behavior has been forbidden since the
beginning of time by every religion and every civilization.
Even during the “Golden Age” of the Greeks,
homosexuality was rather common among the ruling class
and the philosophers. The common people had enough
sense to know that such activity was contrary to nature
and could destroy the human race.
If that “odd” American started a business he could choose
to serve anyone he wanted. If a barber especially liked to
cut red hair that was somewhat odd but he could choose to
cut only red hair–and soon go out of business. But that
was his right as an American.
It is not a matter of forbidding one person to love another
because we should love everyone! I love people (even
people I don’t like!) enough to tell them the truth about
perversion and other matters. Love everyone but don’t
sleep with everyone! To do otherwise is obviously
abnormal, abominable, and awful.
If a lawyer chose to represent only the Irish or Jews or
Italians or Germans, that was his right. After all, this was
America. He had a right to not like other people. It was
not Christian, but it was an American’s right.
The Homosexual Lobby has taken control of America
with the collusion of the media moguls. Even “Christian”
churches, colleges, and conventions have been snookered
by the loony left. No one wants to appear unkind,
unreasonable, or be unemployed; so, religious leaders
have climbed on the bandwagon to perdition with a
modern Bible version in their hands and a whining,
spurious prayer on their lips.
A businessperson could hire whomever he chose and pay
whatever salary they agreed on with whatever benefits or
no benefits. The owner could set the working hours and
the employee could work those hours or not. It was
48
entity of government has any constitutional right to lend
money. That’s why we have banks.
America. The owner did not have to get permission from
the city or state to start his business and did not have to
give an account how the business was run. As long as he
paid the applicable taxes.
In recent days we have seen the governors of Indiana and
Arkansas show cowardice in face of the Homosexual
Lobby. Governor Pence committed political suicide when
he cowed to the screaming homosexuals who bullied,
badgered, and browbeat him. If he can’t stand up to
perverts, he sure can’t stand up to Putin.
The city of Coeur d”Alene, Idaho informed the Hitching
Post wedding chapel that they must perform same-sex
“marriage;” however the preachers refused and sued the
city. The city fathers backed down following the suit.
Here is where Christians have failed: we have the same
rights as others and we should have swamped the courts
with aggressive lawsuits against those who slander,
harass, and intimidate us.
The weak, wobbly, and wimpy politicians, including
judges, have destroyed personal rights and religious rights.
They have put our nation in a place where there is nothing
but conflict, confusion, and chaos ahead.
Recently a Christian asked thirteen major “gay” bakers to
make a cake: “Gay Marriage is Wrong” and all refused
and some even were insulting and threatening. He should
sue every baker.
Of course, a Christian baker or photographer or flower
shop should not be forced to celebrate perversion. Nor
should a Muslim baker be forced to bake a cake
celebrating a homosexual wedding, or the ACLU or
similar group be forced to publish an ad in their magazine
titled, “Senator Joe McCarthy Was Right!” Or how about
a Jewish baker being forced to bake a cake for a Nazi
party? How about a homosexual baker being forced to
bake a cake with “Same-sex Marriage is Perversion!” for
Westboro Baptist Church? Or an atheist printer being
forced to print a gospel tract titled “God’s Simple Plan of
Salvation!”? Whatever happened to freedom?
The issue is not sexual rights but the obsessive desire by
the Homosexual Lobby to suppress Christians’ freedom of
religion. Homosexuals will brook no disagreement and in
this new America they have more rights than normal,
decent people.
Homosexuals want acceptance of their beliefs but refuse
Christians that same right. They want to have their cake
and eat it too. That can’t be done, just as Christians cannot
compromise and become an enabler of perversion.
Dr. Don Boys is a former member of the Indiana House of
Representatives, author of 15 books, frequent guest on
television and radio talk shows, and wrote columns for
USA Today for 8 years. His shocking books, ISLAM:
America's Trojan Horse!; Christian Resistance: An Idea
Whose Time Has Come–Again!; and The God Haters.
Frankly, any businessperson should be permitted to refuse
service for any reason unless his business was financed by
a state or federal loan. Of course, I don’t believe any
49
Kick Open the Doorway to Liberty: What Are We Waiting For?
By John W. Whitehead
 Harold Hodge was arrested for standing silently in
Everything this nation once stood for is
being turned on its head.
front of the U.S. Supreme Court building, holding a
sign in protest of police tactics.
Free speech, religious expression,
privacy, due process, bodily integrity,
the sanctity of human life, the
sovereignty of the family, individuality,
the right to self-defense, protection against police abuses,
representative government, private property, human
rights—the very ideals that once made this nation great—
have become casualties of a politically correct, misguided,
materialistic, amoral, militaristic culture.
 Marine Brandon Raub was arrested for criticizing the
government on Facebook.
 Pastor Michael Salman was arrested for holding Bible
studies in his home.
 Steven Howards was arrested for being too close to a
government official when he voiced his disapproval of
the war in Iraq.
Indeed, I’m having a hard time reconciling the America I
know and love with the America being depicted in the
daily news headlines, where corruption, cronyism and
abuse have taken precedence over the rights of the
citizenry and the rule of law.
 Kenneth Webber was fired from his job as a schoolbus
driver for displaying a Confederate flag on the truck he
uses to drive from home to school and back.
 Fred Marlow was arrested for filming a SWAT team
raid that took place across from his apartment.
What kind of country do we live in where it’s acceptable
for police to shoot unarmed citizens, for homeowners to
be jailed for having overgrown lawns (a Texas
homeowner was actually sentenced to 17 days in jail and
fined $1700 for having an overgrown lawn), for kids to be
tasered and pepper sprayed for acting like kids at school
(many are left with health problems ranging from comas
and asthma to cardiac arrest), and for local governments to
rake in hefty profits under the guise of traffic safety (NPR
reports that police departments across the country
continue to require quotas for arrests and tickets, a
practice that is illegal but in effect)?
And then there were the three California high school
public school students who were ordered to turn their
American flag t-shirts inside out on May 5 (Cinco de
Mayo) because school officials were afraid it might cause
a disruption and/or offend Hispanic students. Incredibly,
the U.S. Supreme Court actually sided with the school and
the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals, affirming that it might
be disruptive for American students to wear the American
flag to an American public school.
While there are all kinds of labels being put on so-called
“unacceptable” speech today, from calling it politically
incorrect and hate speech to offensive and dangerous
speech, the real message being conveyed is that
Americans don’t have a right to express themselves if
what they are saying is unpopular, controversial or at odds
with what the government determines to be acceptable.
Why should we Americans have to put up with the
government listening in on our phone calls, spying on our
emails, subjecting us to roadside strip searches, and
generally holding our freedoms hostage in exchange for
some phantom promises of security?
Whether it’s through the use of so-called “free speech
zones,” the requirement of speech permits, the policing of
online forums, or a litany of laws and policies that
criminalize expressive activities, what we’re seeing is the
caging of free speech and the asphyxiation of the First
Amendment.
As I document in my new book Battlefield America: The
War on the American People, it doesn’t matter where you
live—big city or small town—it’s the same scenario being
played out over and over again in which government
agents ride roughshod over the rights of the citizenry.
In such an environment, it’s not just our Fourth
Amendment rights—which protect us against police
abuses—that are being trampled. It’s also our First
Amendment rights to even voice concern over these
practices that are being muzzled. Just consider some of the
First Amendment battles that have taken place in recent
years, and you too will find yourself wondering what
country you’re living in:
Long before the menace of the police state, with its
roadside strip searches, surveillance drones, and SWAT
team raids, it was our First Amendment rights that were
being battered by political correctness, hate crime
legislation, the war on terror and every other thinly veiled
rationale used to justify censoring our free speech rights.
By suppressing free speech, the government is
contributing to a growing underclass of Americans who
are being told that they can’t take part in American public
life unless they “fit in.” Mind you, it won’t be long before
50
destruction of property. A town meeting in Bristol,
Massachusetts, condemned the action. Ben Franklin even
called on his native city to pay for the tea and apologize.
But as historian Pauline Maier notes, the Boston Tea Party
was a last resort for a group of people who had stated their
peaceful demands but were rebuffed by the British: “The
tea resistance constituted a model of justified forceful
resistance upon traditional criteria.”
anyone who believes in holding the government
accountable to respecting our rights and abiding by the
rule of law is labeled an “extremist”and is relegated to an
underclass that doesn’t fit in and must be watched all the
time.
It doesn’t matter how much money you make, what
politics you subscribe to, or what God you worship: we
are all potential suspects, terrorists and lawbreakers in the
eyes of the government.
The rest, as they say, is history. Yet it’s a history we
cannot afford to forget or allow to be rewritten.
In other words, if and when this nation falls to tyranny, we
will all suffer the same fate: we will fall together.
However, if it is possible to avert such an outcome, it will
rest in us remembering that we are also all descendants of
those early American revolutionaries who pushed back
against the abuses of the British government. These
people were neither career politicians nor government
bureaucrats. Instead, they were mechanics, merchants,
artisans and the like—ordinary people groaning under the
weight of Britain’s oppressive rule—who, having reached
a breaking point, had decided that enough was enough.
The colonists suffered under the weight of countless
tyrannies before they finally were emboldened to stand
their ground. They attempted to reason with the British
crown, to plea their cause, even to negotiate. It was only
when these means proved futile that they resorted to
outright resistance, civil disobedience and eventually
rebellion.
More than 200 years later, we are once again suffering
under a long train of abuses and usurpations. What
Americans today must decide is how committed they are
to the cause of freedom and how far they’re willing to go
to restore what has been lost.
The colonists’ treatment at the hands of the British was
not much different from the abuses meted out to the
American people today: they too were taxed on everything
from food to labor without any real say in the matter, in
addition to which they had their homes invaded by armed
government agents, their property seized and searched,
their families terrorized, their communications,
associations and activities monitored, and their attempts to
defend themselves and challenge the government’s abuses
dismissed as belligerence, treachery, and sedition.
Nat Hentoff, one of my dearest friends and a formidable
champion of the Constitution, has long advocated for the
resurgence of grassroots activism. As Nat noted:
This resistance to arrant tyranny first became part of
our heritage when Samuel Adams and the Sons of
Liberty formed the original Committees of
Correspondence, a unifying source of news of
British tyranny throughout the colonies that became
a precipitating cause of the American Revolution.
Where are the Sons of Liberty, the Committees of
Correspondence and the insistently courageous city
councils now, when they are crucially needed to
bring back the Bill of Rights that protect every
American against government tyranny worse than
King George III’s? Where are the citizens
demanding that these doorways to liberty be opened
… What are we waiting for?
Unlike most Americans today, who remain ignorant of the
government’s abuses, cheerfully distracted by the
entertainment spectacles trotted out before them by a
complicit media, readily persuaded that the government
has their best interests at heart, and easily cowed by the
slightest show of force, the colonists responded to the
government’s abuses with outrage, activism and rebellion.
They staged boycotts of British goods and organized
public protests, mass meetings, parades, bonfires and other
demonstrations, culminating with their most famous act of
resistance, the Boston Tea Party.
What are we waiting for, indeed?
On the night of December 16, 1773, a group of men
dressed as Indians boarded three ships that were carrying
tea. Cheered on by a crowd along the shore, they threw
342 chests of tea overboard in protest of a tax on the tea.
Many American merchants were aghast at the wanton
Constitutional attorney and author John W. Whitehead is
founder and president of The Rutherford Institute. He is
the author of A Government of Wolves: The Emerging
American Police State and The Change Manifesto
(Sourcebooks).
51
World Net Daily
Reposting Criticism of Islam Costs Coach Job
of your family’s ‘rich Islamic heritage,’ doesn’t it Mr.
Obama?”
'I just thought it was an interesting article'
A Maine lacrosse coach who reposted on Facebook a viral
open letter challenging President Obama’s claim that
Muslims have played a role in America throughout its
history has lost his job.
The piece also questions Muslim participation in the Civil
Rights Movement and the pursuit of Women’s Suffrage. It
points out Muslims were aligned with Adolf Hitler during
World War II and were found “rejoicing” after the 9/11
attacks.
The Conway Daily Sun reported Scott Lees, who had
coached the Fryeburg Academy’s boys lacrosse team for
four years, was forced to resign over the posting.
Islam expert Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch
wrote: “Freedom of speech, you say? Increasingly not, in
the United States: those who dare notice jihad violence
and Islamic supremacism are vilified, marginalized, and
defamed. When Scott Lees was fired, was truth a
criterion? Apparently not.”
“I thought it was an interesting letter to President Obama
and his current administration, who are not paying
attention to Israel and focusing on Iran,” he told the Sun.
The school, whose team was winless the first year Lee
coached but reached the playoffs last year, reportedly had
told the coach he would have to leave, so he resigned, the
report said.
The Sun said Lees, 48, who calls himself a politically
independent conservative, posted the letter on his personal
Facebook page March 17.
Late Tuesday, WND was unable to make contact with
anyone at Fryeburg Academy to obtain a comment.
The school reacted immediately, and he resigned two days
later.
The letter, which has been circulating on the Web, is a
challenge to Obama’s statement in Cairo, Egypt, early in
his administration that Islam “has always been a part of
America’s history.”
“He said that although he was supposed to meet with Head
of Schools Erin Mayo and Dean Charlie Tryder on March
19, Athletic Director Sue Thurston told him a decision to
fire him had already been made,” the Sun reported.
The letter asks: “Have you ever seen a Muslim hospital?
Have you heard a Muslim orchestra? Have you seen a
Muslim band march in a parade? Have you witnessed a
Muslim charity?”
School officials now are looking for a replacement.
“Were those Muslims that were in America when the
Pilgrims first landed? Funny, I thought they were Native
American Indians. Were those Muslims that celebrated the
first Thanksgiving day? Sorry again, those were Pilgrims
and Native American Indians. Can you show me one
Muslim signature on the United States Constitution?
Declaration of Independence? Bill of Rights? Didn’t think
so. Did Muslims fight for this country’s freedom from
England? No. Did Muslims fight during the Civil War to
free the slaves in America? No, they did not. In fact,
Muslims to this day are still the largest traffickers in
human slavery. Your own half-brother, a devout Muslim,
still advocates slavery himself, even though Muslims of
Arabic descent refer to black Muslims as ‘pug nosed
slaves.’ Says a lot of what the Muslim world really thinks
He said as a coach he never heard of a policy regarding
what coaches could do with their personal social media.
The job pays only $3,200 over the course of the spring,
and Lees said that works out to about $7 an hour.
At the Gateway Pundit blog, Jim Hoft wrote: “The first
mosque constructed in the United States was not built
until 1929 on a remote prairie in North Dakota. Before
that the U.S. fought Barbary Muslims pirates off the
Mediterranean coast in 1801.”
Lees, a property manager, said he got the letter from a
friend, and he posted it “to see what people would say,”
the Daily Sun reported.
A Muslim former student told the newspaper that Lees
was never viewed as a bigot. The student, in fact, stayed in
Lees’ home with the family when he needed to visit the
region a few years ago.
52
Northwest Indiana Times
Woman said safety was reason she didn't pull over for police
By Bob Kasarda
Portage resident DelRea Good said she did not
immediately pull over for the flashing lights behind her
because, as a 52-year-old woman traveling alone at 11:21
p.m. on a dark county road, she was concerned for her
safety.
Marshall described Good in his report as "highly agitated
and uncooperative." She reportedly told him she was
aware he was a police officer, but drove to where she felt
safe.
"I don't care who you are I don't have to stop on a county
road, I'm a single female," Marshall quoted her as saying.
Assuming the car behind her was a police officer, Good
said she slowed her vehicle, put on her emergency
flashers, waved her arm out the window to acknowledge
the pursing car and continued for less than a mile where
she pulled over into the lighted parking lot at the Kohl's
department store in Portage.
After Good refused to listen to how her actions put her
and others in danger, Marshall said he arrested her.
Good, who said she did not resist the arrest or make any
further comments, claims the officer bruised her arm
while leading her to his police car
and continued to "bully" her at the
jail by claiming Advil and other
medications she had were
controlled substances.
The decision not to immediately
stop resulted in her being
handcuffed and taken to jail by
Porter County Sheriff's Department
Patrolman William Marshall on a
felony charge of resisting arrest. It
may also cost her her job, because a
nurse cannot work after being
convicted of a felony, she said.
Good, who reportedly has no prior
criminal record, said as a nurse, she
is accustomed to following rules.
"I follow rules every day or people
could get hurt," she said.
"I felt I didn't do anything wrong,"
Good said. "I got to a safe place and
I told him that."
She is scared about the impact of a felony conviction, but
said the issue is bigger than just herself.
Porter County Sheriff's spokesman Sgt. Larry LaFlower
said, "The sheriff's office supports our officer's decision in
this matter."
"This is serious," she said. "This could be your mom, your
sister, your daughter next time."
He cited state law requiring motorists to yield to
emergency vehicles and said Marshall was driving a fully
marked squad car and used the lights and siren.
Defense attorney Bob Harper, who is representing Good,
said her concerns about pulling over along a dark county
road are not unwarranted.
Marshall wrote in the incident report he initiated the
March 20 traffic stop just north of County Road 700 North
on northbound County Road 500 West (Airport Road)
after clocking Good's car traveling 54 mph in a 35 mph
zone. Good told The Times she was unsure how fast she
was driving.
He referred to a case in 1991 where a woman pulled over
in Valparaiso for a car with flashing red lights and was
attacked by a man pretending to be a police officer.
Portage police issued a warning two years ago after
someone using flashing red and blue lights, possibly
impersonating a police officer, tried to get a woman to
pull over.
Marshall acknowledged Good waved out her car window
and turned on her flashers before pulling over less than a
mile later in the store parking lot.
Portage Police Sgt. Keith Hughes said at the time the
woman used good judgment by not stopping for the man.
Good said Marshall was very angry as he approached her
car and said to her, "What in the hell are you doing? I
could arrest you for this."
He recommended drivers call 911 if they question who is
attempting to pull them over and if unable to reach a
dispatcher, acknowledge the officer by waving at them
and then drive to a well-lit public location before stopping
and tell the officer about your concern.
Good said she was surprised by his reaction and told him
to stop yelling at her.
53
Who Is Speaking Up for Religious Liberty?
By Joseph Farah
People have been telling me for years to keep an eye
on Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, way back when he
was just a little-known member of Congress.
But why is he virtually alone?
Where are the other articulate voices of reason and
sanity in this hour of crisis?
I watched him speak. He hit all the right notes. But
there was something about him that bothered me. I just
couldn’t put my finger on it, until last week. He’s a gutless
weakling who cares more about bad press than right and
wrong.
Where is the Christian leadership?
Where are the mega-pastors?
Where is the rest of the church?
Why are the only people standing up against this
onslaught pizzeria owners and florists and bakers and
caterers and wedding photographers?
The days when he was taken seriously as presidential
timber are over – and rightfully so. He had his moment
when God gave him a platform on the national stage, and
he caved like a house of cards. It was pathetic to behold.
Some presidential candidate has a great opportunity to
lead by example right now – to speak the truth boldly and
forcefully.
But where is the leadership to stand in the gap during this
crisis? And make no mistake about it: It’s a crisis we face
at this moment. The stakes are high. Homosexuals and
their champions from the squishy liberals to the radical
left are going for the kill.
If not, this fight could be over quickly – without any
reasoned national debate.
Will this madness affect the imminent Supreme Court
decision on same-sex marriage, which, fundamentally, is
the bulldozer being used to run roughshod over religious
liberty?
The issue is whether religious freedom – the very basis for
the settling of the America and the foundation for the
republic in which we live – will have to take a permanent
backseat to bogus “non-discrimination” laws elevating
aberrant behavior and sinful lifestyles. It’s just that simple.
Barack Obama got elected president twice by promising to
deliver the “fundamental transformation of America.” He
has more than lived up to that campaign vow. But what’s
happening culturally now, without his speaking a word
about it, could be more powerful and transformative for
the country in the long run than any of his unconstitutional
executive orders, his misuse of the Justice Department, his
abuse of the Internal Revenue Service to target political
enemies and chaotic foreign policy adventures.
Without a doubt, this issue is not going away.
It will be a major focus for presidential candidates over
the next 18 months.
It’s the new litmus test for the media.
How Christians and their leadership respond will
determine who wins the debate.
I really believe the stakes are that high.
So who is articulating truth boldly and forcefully in this
challenging time?
Meanwhile, the state of the church in America is in
shambles. Where are the prayer vigils? Where are the
prophetic voices? When is the congregation of the saints
going to arise? Are they aware of the sacrifices previous
generations made for their protection? Do they care about
the rights of future generations of believers to practice
their faith?
Where is the church?
Where is the salt and light?
Don’t get me wrong. I’m grateful for his articulate stands,
but I would have to say the premiere defender of faith in
this crisis is a talk-show host. Granted he’s not just a talkshow host. He’s No. 1. He’s a superstar – Rush Limbaugh.
But he’s also one who, throughout much of his career, has
avoided questions of faith in favor politics. Perhaps he
sees what I see: that the art of politics is shallow,
meaningless and useless without a foundation built on
transcendent values – especially when the opposition is
hell-bent on denying or destroying such values.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a
nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News
Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books,
including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his
classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition
and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the
legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market
dailies.
Anyway, Rush Limbaugh may be experiencing his finest
hour. I’m amazed at how beautifully he, virtually alone,
has been, day after day, speaking truth to brute force.
54
Sexual Revolution Began in Indiana
Spotlights discredited research of Alfred Kinsey
By Jerry Newcombe
for example, the rise in venereal diseases. When we
see the rise in poverty, in crime, in sexual crime and
pornographic addictions, massive sex addictions, we
are looking at the consequences of Kinsey.”
Recently, we have seen many lies told in and about
Indiana.
First, there was a noble attempt to ensure that
religious freedom continue there – –using the same
template for a law passed in many other states and even
signed at the federal level by Bill Clinton.
Sadly, America bought his lies hook, line and sinker.
And so now we’re in a place where religious freedom
appears to be losing to the forces of sexual anarchy. It
would seem as if virtually all the fronts in the culture war
are connected to the sexual revolution in one way or
another. Abortion and homosexuality certainly are.
As a result of the falsely driven outrage and bullying
tactics, Indiana has ended up with a worse law than if
there had never been any attempt of change in the first
place. The big lie was that the law, which was originally
intended to protect people from having to violate their
consciences, was designed to give Christians a license to
discriminate against people.
Liberty Counsel of Orlando, Florida, founded by Christian
lawyer and culture warrior Mat Staver, has filed a friendof-the-court brief in reference to the Supreme Court’s
upcoming case on same-sex marriage.
This was a blatant falsehood. The law simply guaranteed
that any state that would force someone to violate their
constitutionally protected religious conscience would have
to show a compelling reason for doing so. Rob
Schwarzwalder of the Family Research Council provides a
great case for the original law.
In its brief, Liberty Counsel notes, “For the past 67 years,
scholars, lawyers and judges have undertaken fundamental
societal transformation by embracing Alfred Kinsey’s
statistically and scientifically fraudulent ‘data’ derived
from serial child rapists, sex offenders, prisoners,
prostitutes, pedophiles and pederasts.”
What I find ironic about this entire brouhaha is that this is
just a natural outworking of the sexual revolution, which
in fact originally began in Indiana.
They continue: “Now these same change agents, still
covering up the fraudulent nature of the Kinsey ‘data,’
want this Court to utilize it to demolish the cornerstone of
society, natural marriage.”
The sexual revolution was based on the “scientific” work
of Dr. Alfred Kinsey of Indiana University. The reason I
put scientific in quote marks is because of his study
samples. His studies were hopelessly flawed. His study
samples were not random, nor were they representative of
the American population as a whole. But they were
pawned off as such.
The battle over same-sex marriage is just the latest front in
the evolution of the sexual revolution.
Don’t take my word for it. Dr. Judith Reisman, now at
Liberty University, wrote the book on Kinsey. Actually,
she wrote several books on him and his flawed research,
including “Kinsey: Crimes and Consequences.”
Staver once told me in an interview, “God’s laws are
designed to give us life and liberty. And so when the
natural created order as well as the revealed Word of God,
for example, when it talks about sexual activity outside of
marriage between one man and one woman, it is designed
to give us the optimum that God created us for.”
Her research uncovered the fact that a sizable percentage
of the men Kinsey included in his survey (and from which
he drew his conclusions) were prisoners or people who
had been abused as children.
He added, “If we try to push the limits and color outside
the lines, we may think we’re experiencing liberty, but
ultimately we experience the very bondage that God is
trying to protect us from.”
I once asked her about this in an interview. She
commented: “That is not a normal population. Nobody
would call that a normal population from which to draw
information about sexual behavior in the human male.”
Nor were his female study samples representative of
American women as a whole.
Because of the widespread acceptance of Kinsey’s lies,
freedom of conscience is now at risk.
In light of the fact that Indiana University was Kinsey’s
honored home, it is ironic that this current battle over the
protection of conscience rights began in Indiana.
When he was for the law, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence said
that tolerance is not a one-way street. I agree with him.
But now it seems that it is a one-way street after all. In a
Reisman added, “The crimes that Kinsey committed
brought about massive consequences. When we look
around us, we see the incredible problems that we have,
55
nation founded by Christians seeking liberty, which they
then extended to all, Christians are losing theirs.
written 24 books, including "The Book That Made
America" (on the Bible) and (with D. James Kennedy)
"What If Jesus Had Never Been Born?" and (with Peter
Lillback) "George Washington’s Sacred Fire."
Jerry Newcombe, D.Min., is a TV producer and the cohost of "Kennedy Classics." He has also written or co-
Down Trend
Florida Police Dept. Definitely NOT Lowering Standards
to Attract More Minorities
By Robert Gehl
Open the pool? Open the pool to whom? Minorities who
don’t have college degrees?
“We need to see more diversity in Sarasota.”
Especially in its police department says Newtown
Community leader Jetson Grimes. “It’s important we
see people that represent us in a position of authority
that’s important.”
I’m guessing that Mr. Grimes is black. Either that or when
he says “people that represent us,” he means the
uneducated.
In lowering their hiring standards, the
Sarasota Police Chief Bernadette
DiPino wants you to know they’re
definitely NOT lowering their hiring
standards.
Oh wait … I get it now:
“If you have individuals look the same way you do
on the police force people are more likely to be
trusting, it reduces biases, builds up relationships,”
adds DiPino.
Police officials there say they are
running low on officers – there are already 12 vacancies –
and have decided that a GED or high school diploma is
good enough to become a law enforcement officer in the
city. In the past, at least a two-year Associate’s degree was
required, but no more.
So is it a good idea for the Sarasota Police Department to
lower their standards to attract minorities? Oh wait …
“We’re not lowering our standards. We’re looking
for people with good character, integrity, it doesn’t
matter color of skin, religion they practice sexual
preference,” says DiPino.
“Over the next 4 years we’ll lose 38 officers,” says
Sarasota Police Chief Bernadette DiPino. She says a
two year college degree as a requirement made
recruiting difficult but not anymore a high school or
GED is now enough along with standard police
training.
Glad we’re clear there, Chief DiPino. You’re lowering
your standards but notlowering your standards.
Got it.
Robert Gehl is a professor at a local college in Phoenix,
Arizona. He has over 15 years journalism experience,
including two Associated Press awards. He lives in
Glendale with his wife and two young children.
So how do we know they’re (DEFINITELY NOT!)
lowering their standards to get more minorities on the
force? Just listen to what they say:
DiPino says, “I think it discounted a number of
individuals that had good qualities qualifications to
be a police officer that’s what we’re hoping this will
do open the pool of candidates.”
56
Breitbart
NYT Writer: Christians ‘Must Be Made’ To Embrace Gay Lifestyle
by Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D.
In the wake of the Indiana donnybrook over
religious liberty, which somehow was transformed
overnight into a question of gay rights, it couldn’t
be long before the New York Times weighed in
against Christians.
vestige of an archaic worldview that went out
definitively with Freud.
The scary part about Bruni’s essay is not his
awkward attempt at playing the biblical scholar,
but the undertone of evident disdain for Christians
and his proposal that those who resist should be forcibly
reeducated.
Yet who could have expected the draconian measures
the Times would propose? Either Christians fully embrace
the gay lifestyle, or you will be coerced into doing so.
In Christians’ refusal to bend with the times, Bruni sees
not faithfulness to God but willful obstinacy that must be
broken.
Op-ed writer Frank Bruni, onetime Times restaurant critic
and a gay activist, has writtenthat Christians who hold on
to “ossified,” biblically-based beliefs regarding sexual
morality have no place at America’s table and are
deserving of no particular regard.
“So our debate about religious freedom should include a
conversation about freeing religions and religious people
from prejudices that they needn’t cling to and can indeed
jettison, much as they’ve jettisoned other aspects of their
faith’s history, rightly bowing to the enlightenments of
modernity,” Bruni writes.
In one fell swoop, Bruni trashes all believing Christians as
“bigots,” saying that Christians’ negative moral
assessment of homosexual relations is “a choice” that
“prioritizes scattered passages of
ancient texts over all that has been
learned since — as if time had
stood still, as if the advances of
science and knowledge meant
nothing.”
But what if Christians don’t want
to change? What if they don’t want
to “bow to the enlightenments of
modernity”? What if they are
convinced that the modern
worldview is not necessarily the
most enlightened path when it
comes to the ultimate meaning of
life and death, time and eternity?
In other words, if you still cling to
your benighted views and your
“ancient texts,” you are living in
the past and your views merit no
respect.
“Religion,” writes Bruni, “is going
to be the final holdout and most
stubborn refuge for homophobia. It
will give license to discrimination.”
Bruni’s solution to the impasse is
not some sort of goodwill
compromise or a treaty of mutual
respect, but a take-no-prisoners ultimatum to Christians to
abandon their beliefs or else. When Bruni says that
Christians’ understanding of sexual morality is “a choice,”
what he means is that there is a way out without
completely losing face: just embrace the new morality
preached by mainstream liberal churches that see nothing
wrong with any sexual arrangement you are comfortable
with. Then we will accept you.
And thus it must be stamped out.
Bruni cites fellow gay activist Mitchell Gold, founder of
the advocacy group Faith in America, as saying that
church leaders must be made to take homosexuality off
the sin list. “His commandment is worthy — and
warranted,” writes Bruni.
So now government should be dictating belief to churches
and enforcing theological orthodoxy? Now politicians and
courts will be telling Christians what they are allowed to
consider as sinful? Isn’t this what America was founded to
escape from?
As a food critic, NY Times writer Frank Bruni was
entertaining and occasionally informative. As an op-ed
columnist he is adolescent and often repetitive. But as a
theologian, he is simply abysmal.
People are already talking about forcing churches to
perform same-sex weddings, whether they like it or not, or
get out of the marriage business. Christians founded
America and yet now the minority gay lobby is trying to
tell them they are personae non gratae and their beliefs
are no longer welcome.
Bruni takes it upon himself to explain how the Bible can
be interpreted to read that God is really fine with sodomy
and that all that antiquated stuff against adultery,
fornication, and “men lying with other men” is a quaint
57
America has a grand tradition of tolerance and religious
freedom, respect for a diversity of beliefs, and an honest
engagement with ideas of all sorts. It seems that some
would like to force all Americans to walk in lockstep,
marching to the same drummer.
But attempts to force them to abandon their ethical
standards and their principles reveal not open-mindedness
or fairness, but intolerance, chauvinism, and hate.
Sincere Christians have no problem accepting other
people with all their sins, inclinations, and struggles, fully
understanding that they are in no way superior to the next
guy and no better in God’s eyes.
Thomas D. Williams, Ph.D. is a theologian, author,
speaker, consultant and wine enthusiast. He is a
permanent research fellow at the Center for Ethics and
Culture, Notre Dame University.
These are the attitudes that have no place in America.
58
Let Them Eat Cake!!
By Jack Perry
on the other side and they went to the government,
too, and got a law passed you don’t like. Hey, just take
your money elsewhere. That’s what I did when Starbucks
wanted to turn my cup of coffee into a social engineering
experiment. I got a cheaper cup of coffee, too, and that’s
always a good thing. To the pro-religious freedom people,
guess what you did? You just opened the door for Sharia
law, which you said you were against and wanted laws
passed to ban not long prior to this mess. See what I
mean? Asking the government to solve your problems just
creates problems. What is the government anyway, the
yard duty on the playground?! Really, grow up, people.
It’s food, ok? That’s what this is about. A flippin’ cake!
My word, when did the simple act of eating food pass into
the realm of being such a pain in the keester?! It wasn’t
bad enough we’ve got all the “dietary options” now. You
know, vegetarian, vegan, ovo-lacto vegetarian, glutenfree, paleo diet, macrobiotic, kosher, halal, and all the rest.
Geez, the simple act of ordering a meal is more like
planning the D-Day Invasion. “Hello, sir, I’m Mandy and
I’ll be your server tonight! Do you require a vegan or
vegetarian menu, a halal menu, gluten-free, or—” Hey,
look, bring me out a steak and a baked potato if that’s still
legal in this allegedly free country! Eating has never
before in history taken on such socio-political headaches.
When FRUIT, excuse me, FRUIT has to be labelled
“gluten-free”, we’ve got serious problems. If people don’t
know fruit is obviously gluten-free, they can’t tell the
difference between an orange and a dinner roll. Not that I
doubt such people exist. “Let us sit down and break bread
together in the spirit of peace and–” “Oh, sorry, I’m on a
gluten-free diet…” Of course. Somehow, sitting down to
break rice crackers hasn’t got the same ring to it, though.
But that didn’t take the cake, pardon the pun. Then there
was a Christian who went to a bakery and wanted a cake
with an anti-gay Biblical passage written on it with icing.
The bakery refused and now he wants his day in court
over discrimination! These cakes are taking on lives of
their own! “Night of the Living Cakes”! The cakes are
returning to life! Igor, look, the cake is aaaalllive! This is
like a pastry Cold War. “Uh-oh, we’ve got a Cake Gap. If
we let the pro-gay wedding bakery bake more cakes than
we can, they’ll have a strategic advantage over us! Quick,
get busy! Make up for it with smaller, tactical cupcakes!
We can put ten cupcakes into the same box as one cake,
each cupcake independently targeted!” Mutually Assured
Dumbness on both sides. Again, all of this over cakes!
And all the political wrangling over these religious
freedom and anti-discrimination laws have turned the
whole thing into CakeGate.
Now in one of my previous articles, I discussed at length
how a simple cup of coffee could be turned into a weapon
of political and/or social engineering. Ok, so, what goes
with coffee? Cake! And right now in America, cakes have
entered into the political domain as the “Doomsday
Weapon” of political correctness. This all started when a
Christian bakery refused to bake a cake for a gay wedding.
The ensuing kerfuffle resulted in a whole heap of doings
that went far beyond what a simple cake truly deserves.
I’m sorry, but no cake is worth that kind of hassle, I don’t
care if that cake can dance the kazotsky while whistling
the theme song from Doctor Zhivago. But then came the
allegations of discrimination, enter the courts and
lawyers, and then the whole shtick of religious freedom
came up. Over a cake?! Yeah, I know, I know. If someone
doesn’t provide you with proper service at a business for
any reason, vote with your wallet and don’t go back. Ain’t
that simple? No lawyers, no courts, no politicians. Just
simple leaving and finding a place that values your
business. But in America these days, there is no shortage
of eager activists looking for a cause and so a cake
became the battle cry of both sides in the hootenanny.
The really obvious thing is that the market had the
solution all along. Hey, they don’t want to bake you a
cake for your wedding? Guess what? They just gave you a
multi-million dollar business plan—for free! Open your
own cake shop for gay weddings. You could even
subcontract with bakeries all over the country and have an
online business. They order and pay you online and they
go to the nearest bakery to them to pick it up. Everyone
wins, everyone makes a buck, and you didn’t patronize the
business that didn’t want your business in the first place.
No, instead you wasted the money on lawyers probably.
And if you don’t want to bake a cake for a gay wedding,
just tell them you don’t have frickin’ time! Tell them
you’re busy, booked solid, swamped, can’t do it in time,
whatever! Dentists do that all the time! So do doctors, car
mechanics, and all kinds of other businesses. But really,
all this malarkey over a dadgum cake?! Hey you guys,
people dodge machine gun fire just to get a loaf of bread
over in Syria and you guys—both sides—are whining over
cakes?
Christian bakeries feared they’d be compelled by law to
bake cakes for gay weddings. So, what’d they do? They
lobbied the government to pass a law saying they don’t
have to. Now everyone is in a lather about that. Hey, you
guys, listen. Asking the government to solve your
problems is like asking ISIS to measure your hat size: It’ll
get done, but maybe not in the way you’d like. To the progay wedding cake people, you stepped in it when you
made a fuss over a frickin’ cake and wanted the
government involved. All that did was rally the activists
59
do that without a massive protest, then your business
deserves to fail and so does the protest movement also. If
you can’t just take your business and your
money elsewhere, you need to grow up and get a life.
Food isn’t supposed to be causing us these kinds of
problems. Now other countries have food problems.
They’ve got famines, some of them engineered by their
own government’s failed policies. Remember that fact the
next time you go whining to the government to solve your
problems. So you know what? Sit down, pipe down, have
a cup of coffee and some cake. You’ll feel better.
Remember when your parents told you, “Eat your
vegetables! There are starving children in this world that
would love to have those!” Well, guess what? Your
parents were right. The bigger point is, you assume this to
be a major human rights catastrophe and there are people
getting their heads sawed off with rusty Khyber knives
over in Syria. Just because they were in the wrong place at
the wrong time and of the wrong religion. You think a
cake is a big deal? Yeah, try eating one without a head.
That’s how other folks are living and not living. But guess
what else? Every time you drag the government into this,
you make all of us a little less free. I no more want the
government involved in my religious beliefs than I want
them involved in my dietary choices. Yeah, like those
soda and junk food taxes the government is still thinking
about. Nor should they involved in customer service
issues, which is what these are. Let the market punish
those businesses for that, because it will.
Jack Perry is an arrowmaker and writer who lives in the
Four Corners area of the Southwestern United States. He
has been a truck driver, a purchasing agent at a nowdefunct renewable energy company (don't even ask him
about the "Green energy" scam), and served in the 101st
Airborne Division. He spends his time practicing
traditional archery, making arrows in the wilds of the
Arizona high desert, and finding himself only mildly
amused by the antics of the Great Father in Washington.
So can we just stop politicizing food already? People just
want a cup of coffee. People just want a cake. If you can’t
How about we keep our firearms AND our tax money, you collectivist harpy?
By Mike Vanderboegh, an alleged leader of the merry band of Three Percenters
Here the repellent harpies make their nests,
Who drove the Trojans from the Strophades
With dire announcements of the coming woe.
They have broad wings, with razor sharp talons
and a human neck and face,
Clawed feet and swollen, feathered bellies; they caw
Their lamentations in the eerie trees.
-- Dante's Inferno.
Get a $2,000 Tax Credit
for Turning in Your Assault Rifles
“Assault weapons are not about hunting, or even
self-defense,” DeLauro said. “There is no reason on
earth, other than to kill as many people as possible in
as short a time as possible, that anyone needs a gun
designed for a battlefield.”
(Town Hall)
You know, this collectivist harpy is right about one thing.
DeLauro is prominent in the firearm confiscationist/
"government monopoly of violence" crowd. If she gets the
civil war she is apparently soliciting I have no doubt that a
semi-auto rifle of military utility will not be necessary to
shoot regime tyrants. Indeed, hypothetically speaking, in a
4GW civil war against a nascent dictatorship, far more
will fall to the aimed single shots of common deer rifles,
or suppressed pistols, or knives in the dark, or bombs
attached underneath limousines. . . She just might be
trying to ban the wrong things.
Collectivist harpy Rosa DeLauro
in her natural habitat.
60
The Secular Jihad Against Religious Freedom
Identifies 'motivating force' behind LGBT crowd, supporters
By Joseph Farah
How do I know this is a central motivation just under
the surface of the agit-prop and death threats and
boycotts against the Indiana law?
Maybe you think everything that could be said about
the outrage over Indiana’s law protecting religious
freedom has been said.
Because there were active efforts across the country
to use “same-sex marriage” as a tool of entrapment against
believers. Lawsuits were filed against florists,
photographers, videographers, caterers and bakers who
chose not to service “same-sex weddings,” as would be
their absolute, God-given, constitutionally protected right
in a society that recognizes individual religious freedom.
There’s one important motivating force behind the
angry jihad by the LGBT crowd and their supporters
including the radical left and the “useful idiots” among
recently programmed college graduates and lowinformation Democratic voters.
But before we get to that very important motivation, let’s
review the facts:
I also know it because I have as a Christian shared the
good news of the Gospel with people over the years and
found there are generally two reactions:
 Indiana’s religious freedom law was just that before all
hell rained down on it. It didn’t mention “gays.” It
didn’t give an excuse to discriminate against anyone. It
didn’t mention Christians. It didn’t mention “same-sex
marriages.” It was a simple law offering protection for
anyone and everyone against being coerced into
violating their religious principles. It was modeled on
a federal law passed in the 1990s and signed by Bill
Clinton – who was lionized for doing so at the time by
the same crowd that’s outraged about Indiana’s illfated but absolutely vital law. It was passed and signed
in the spirit of the Constitution’s First Amendment,
which certainly is clear on religious freedom.
 openness to the idea that God has actually ordained
some activity as sinful and that we are all in need of
salvation through repentance for those acts; and
 rejection about being confronted with the notion of sin.
 For decades now, a new false gospel of “tolerance”
has been preached across the nation by the media, in
our educational systems, in our popular culture and in
our politics. It’s false because:
 It suggests there is widespread personal hostility
 Many other states have similar laws in place, and
against people based on their sexual choices;
many more were considering instituting them. That
may be why a concerted effort inclusive of nearly the
entire establishment media and the aforementioned
LGBT activist bloc reacted with such venom and lies
in denouncing it. Indiana was going to be their line in
the sand.
 It suggests sexual choices are all inherently good;
 “Tolerance” is actually defined as approval or even
celebration of all sexual choices (note the term “gay
pride”);
 It resulted in redefining what marriage has always
 This was an important battle for the LGBT crowd. If it
been through the course of history in every culture and
every nation and every community for the last 6,000
years.
can subsume America’s historic commitment to
religious freedom beneath the fad “nondiscrimination” against certain lifestyle choices, the
sky would be the limit for the sexual revolutionaries.
In effect, the reigning ethos of the country would be
shifted from individual liberty to special privileges for
special-interest groups based on their sexual behavior.
And the work of this new false gospel is not finished yet –
not by a long shot. In order for that work to be finished,
this new false gospel must be spread through all the world.
It must be embraced by everyone – or else.
Yet, there’s more to the motivation for the all-out war on
Christianity this has become.
The evangelists of this new false gospel seek to punish
those who don’t accept, tolerate and actively participate in
this new ethos – punishment that has already has meant in
a dozen instances being fined, facing lawsuits and even
losing one’s livelihood.
Here it is in simple, stark terms: Non-believers often react
with hostility when they are confronted with the notion
that they are doing something sinful. That’s not to say the
law did it. It did not. But the law certainly would have
provided Christians with the protection they desperately
need so as not to be forced into participating in behavior
they consider sinful.
That’s what’s really going on here.
In the face of those facts, tell me who the real haters are.
Tell me who is being “intolerant.” Tell me who is
61
discriminating. Tell me who is bullying. Tell me who is
not practicing “diversity.” And tell me who the real targets
of bias and prejudice are.
Service.. He is the author or co-author of 13 books,
including his latest, "The Tea Party Manifesto," and his
classic, "Taking America Back," now in its third edition
and 14th printing. Farah is the former editor of the
legendary Sacramento Union and other major-market
dailies.
Joseph Farah is founder, editor and CEO of WND and a
nationally syndicated columnist with Creators News
Republican Governors Rush to Appease 'Gay' Activists
North Dakota, Michigan among states seeking protections for homosexuals
By Cheryl K. Chumley
State Rep. Warwick Sabin, a Democrat, supported the
move, saying the issue isn’t going away any time soon.
“Other states are moving ahead of us and Arkansas is
being left in the dust,” he said, the New Zealand Herald
reported. “We need to make an affirmative statement
about our values as a state and I know that the vast
majority of Arkansans believe in fairness and opportunity
for all of its citizens.”
The wave of action started when Indiana Gov. Mike Pence
signed into law a Religious Freedom Restoration Act
condemned by critics as a government stamp of approval
to discriminate against the LGBT community.
Gay rights’ activists are causing quite a shake-up in
Republican Party policies.
Republican governors in at least two states – North
Dakota and Michigan – watching the negative
fallout from Indiana’s recently passed Religious
Freedom Restoration Act have now set their
lawmakers on notice and told them: We need more
protections for “gays.”
Pence, facing widespread fire, then called for
lawmakers to pen a clarification of the law to ensure
businesses would not be sheltered from lawsuits if
they discriminated against “gays.” That clarification
was then assailed by religious freedom advocates as
a gutting of the law
Lawmakers in North Dakota, where the majority
rule is Republican, recently voted against a bill to include
protections for “gays” in housing and employment. But
the move angered Gov. Jack Dalrymple, a fellow
Republican, the New Zealand Herald reported.
Shortly after, Republicans in Arkansas softened their
stances on a religious-freedom bill that was supposed to
be a model of Indiana’s law and instead presented a
compromise measure that critics again condemned as a
cave to “gay”-rights pressures.
Meanwhile, Republican Gov. Rick Snyder issued
Michigan lawmakers a stern warning against passing any
type of religious freedom bill that doesn’t include specific
protections for homosexuals. Citing the furor in Indiana,
Snyder said he will veto any such bill, the newspaper
reported.
Cheryl K. Chumley is a staff writer for WND and author
of "Police State USA: How Orwell's Nightmare is
Becoming our Reality." Formerly with the Washington
Times, she is a journalism fellow with The Phillips
Foundation in Washington, D.C., where she spent a year
researching and writing about private property rights.
Arkansas Gov. Asa Hutchinson has also said he may
consider an executive order to guarantee “gays,” along
with transgenders and bisexuals, aren’t discriminated
against by state agencies.
62
Islam and the Left: United Against Christians
Wonders which group will rule once republic is 'done away with'
By Erik Rush
become so common, people perceive few
alternatives. There oughtta be a law …
“If the world hates you, keep in mind that it hated
me first. If you belonged to the world, it would love
you as its own. As it is, you do not belong to the
world, but I have chosen you out of the world. That
is why the world hates you.” – John 15:18-19 (NIV)
Well, now they have one. It’s redundant, but these are
the fruits of our ongoing neglect of civic issues.
Earlier, WND reported on the case of a judge in the
United Kingdom who convicted a street evangelist for
quoting Leviticus 20:13, which prescribes the death
penalty for homosexuality. On April 2, former
paratrooper-turned-Christian-evangelist Mike Overd was
fined, as well as being ordered to pay court costs and
compensation to the homosexual activist who lodged a
complaint against him.
We are living in a time when the government, press and
entertainment media tell us that our economy is on the
rebound, Obamacare is facilitating health care for millions
more Americans than before its implementation,
unemployment has plummeted, and the Islamic Republic
of Iran has apparently become America’s ally. So I
suppose it should be no surprise that we’re also being told
there is nothing at all sinister in the myriad anti-Christian
exertions on the part of certain political factions, and that
there certainly isn’t any “war on Christianity” going on.
The presiding judge, Shamim Ahmed Qureshi of Bristol
Crown Court, is a Muslim who serves with the Muslim
Arbitration Tribunal, the overseer of the U.K.’s Shariah
courts. So despite homosexuality being a capital crime
under Shariah law, this supposedly observant Muslim
judge was happy to persecute a Christian in the realm of
secular law for an alleged slight against homosexuals.
Apart from recognizing that there is emergent and
coordinated antipathy toward Christians in America, it is
of paramount importance to understand some of the
universal mechanisms behind the misrepresentations (or
lies) I listed, because this will not only facilitate
combating these mechanisms, but could serve to rally the
troops, as American Christians come to comprehend the
level of abject evil within our government and other
institutions.
The alliance between leftists and Muslims against
Christians may be more apparent in Britain than it is in
America, since the process has advanced much further in
the U.K. – but not to worry; President Barack Hussein
Obama has been moving the course of Islamist infiltration
handily along.
Last week in this space, I described how the political left
has advanced a phony “gay rights” agenda, which in
reality is calculated to demoralize Americans at large and
coalesce political power – that of the left, not
homosexuals. Neutralizing the moral anchor of
Christianity is essential to this objective, so homosexual
activists have been given the latitude to designate as
“discrimination” essentially any speech or practice on the
part of Christians they choose to condemn.
This week, The Hill reported that Rep. Rosa DeLauro, DConn., had introduced a federal “firearms buyback” bill.
The “Support Assault Firearm Elimination and Education
of our (SAFER) Streets Act” would provide America’s
more gullible gun owners with the “incentive” to turn
firearms in to local law enforcement. It’s supposed to
make the streets safe from all of the law-abiding gun
owners who run around randomly shooting people, I
guess.
As ironic as this sounds, America’s enemies have made
great use of our Constitution itself as a weapon against
liberty. From flag-burning to adopting Marxist principles
into our political process, leftists have routinely cited the
Freedom of Speech and Equal Protection clauses as
explicit license for all manner of permissible and imposed
cultural subversion.
DeLauro, a far left lawmaker, had not only other uberprogressive and socialist Congress creatures cosponsoring the bill, but Muslim Rep. Keith Ellison, DMinn., as well.
“This should come as no surprise,” wrote Tim Brown at
Sons of Liberty Media, “since we know there are many
Muslim Brotherhood front groups working in America to
undermine the ability of Americans to keep and bear
arms.”
As more activist jurists took to the federal bench, civil
rulings increasingly tended to favor leftist policy. This is
one reason states such as Indiana found it necessary to
pass legislation in the vein of the Religious Freedom
Restoration Act, despite guarantees of religious freedom
in the Bill of Rights. We have reached a point where the
affronts against religious liberty by government have
Many have asked how those on the far left and Islamists
plan to co-exist once they have done away with America’s
Christians, the Constitution and the republic. Perhaps they
do not plan to co-exist at all, each group believing that
63
they will ultimately overcome the other. Maybe both
groups suppose that the pre-eminence of either is
immaterial so long as America has been laid waste.
Erik Rush is a columnist and author of sociopolitical fare.
His latest book is "Negrophilia: From Slave Block to
Pedestal - America's Racial Obsession." In 2007, he was
the first to give national attention to the story of Sen.
Barack Obama's ties to militant Chicago preacher Rev.
Jeremiah Wright, initiating a media feeding frenzy. Erik
has appeared on Fox News' "Hannity and Colmes," CNN,
and is a veteran of numerous radio appearances.
I haven’t settled on a plausible answer to this question, but
I do know that once they have done away with America’s
Christians, the Constitution and the republic, it probably
won’t matter too much to you and me who winds up in
charge.
Newsmax
Obama Calls Out 'Less Than Loving' Christians at Prayer Breakfast
By Andrea Billups
Christianity at the National Prayer Breakfast. Critics
berated him for stating that Christians shouldn't get on
their 'high horse' about religious barbarism, given the
Crusades and Christian backing for slavery and Jim Crow
laws."
President Barack Obama veered in and quickly out of a
national debate over religious freedom legislation, calling
out Christians as "less than loving" at an annual Prayer
Breakfast on Tuesday in Washington, Mediaite reported.
"On Easter, I do reflect on the fact that as a Christian, I am
supposed to love," Obama told the group, gathered at the
Washington Hilton hotel, turning from his scripted speech.
"And I have to say that sometimes when I listen to lessthan-loving expressions by Christians, I get concerned,"
he said as the murmur in the crowd turned audible,
Mediate said.
"But that’s a topic for another day… I was about to veer
off. I’m pulling it back," the president quickly added.
He then pivoted to his prepared remarks, which carried the
flavor of civil rights speeches of the past.
"Where there is injustice we defend the oppressed,"
Obama said. "Where there is disagreement, we treat each
other with compassion and respect. Where there are
differences, we find strength in our common humanity,
knowing that we are all children of God."
Fox News noted that the president did not mention recent
attacks in Kenya where Christian university students were
slaughtered, Mediaite reports.
The president's oddly timed remarks will likely fuel the
flames of his critics on the right who question why he has
failed to denounce Muslim extremist violence directed at
Christians worldwide.
ABC News described his jibe as a "mild poke."
The Daily Caller, however, described them as words that
"malign Christians."
Talking Points Memo noted it was not the first time that
the president offered eye-raising remarks at a prayer
service. It noted that: "Obama faced a barrage of criticism
from the right earlier this year for his comments about
64
The Wrong Way to Save for Americans' Retirement
By Megan McArdle
to lottery winners; we still need to find the money to make
good on that check.
It is a truth universally acknowledged that Americans are
underprepared for retirement. And given this sad fact,
there's a growing movement on the left saying we need a
government solution, stat: specifically, an expansion of
Social Security benefits.
Before we start adding new benefits, we should think
about where we're going to get the money to pay the ones
we still haven't funded. And then carefully count the cost
of making them more generous still.
Perhaps you are confused. Weren't we just talking about
entitlement reform so that we could spend less on the
program? Why, yes, we were. But since no one, left or
right, really wants to take on our vast army of retirees, that
chatter has died down.
So where is the money going to come from, for our once
and future Social Security program? The unhelpfully
vague answer is generally "the rich." Some specific
numbers would be useful here, and thankfully, some folks
from the Third Way have actually provided some.
Now that it has, progressives who are ideologically
opposed to shrinking the welfare state and are, of course,
worried about retirees have decided that the best defense
is a good offense, as Jamelle Bouie chronicles in Slate.
Instead of reluctantly agreeing to a compromise where
Republicans let some taxes rise and Democrats agree to
entitlement cuts, they're demanding bigger tax hikes to
fund bigger entitlements.
Let's say the top income tax rate was raised a
whopping 10 points, to 49.6 percent — a level
higher than anything under serious consideration.
Tack on the "Buffett rule," with its 30 percent
minimum tax on millionaires to squash loopholes.
And let's take a whack at wealthy inheritances,
cutting the estate tax exemption by about one-third
and setting the rate on large estates at 45 percent.
At the core of their argument is a good point: Americans
really do need more money for retirement. Missing,
however, is a realistic discussion of where that money
might come from.
If we leave entitlements be, our annual budget
deficit in 2030 would still be $1.3 trillion in today's
dollars, not much different from the $1.6 trillion
deficit we'd have if income tax rates for the wealthy
were kept the same. Sure, raising some additional
taxes on the wealthy is necessary, but it is not nearly
sufficient.
And it's a lot of money. The OASI Trust Fund (the portion
of Social Security that covers old-age benefits) already
pays out more in benefits than it collects in tax income. In
2014, the Social Security Trustees expect the system to
collect $643.9 billion in payroll taxes and spend $716.4
billion on benefits and administrative overhead. If you add
in the taxes collected on Social Security benefits, you get
$671.9 billion in total tax revenue, which leaves a $44.5
billion deficit between outflow and inflow. Under its
middle-of-the-road "intermediate" assumptions, the
trustees' report predicts that by 2023, the gap between
taxes collected and benefits paid will be almost $170
billion. The only reason that the system isn't in the red
already is the net interest the government is paying itself
on the bonds in the trust fund.
Another favorite is eliminating the cap on Social Security
taxes, which is a slightly less vague way of saying "the
rich." Every time I discuss Social Security, at least one
angry person will demand to know how I can so
disingenuously claim the system is in need of reform,
when "all we need to do is get rid of the cap on the payroll
tax." All? "All we need to do" implies some sort of
modest, unremarkable undertaking. In fact, as the
Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget points out,
this amounts to a 12.4 percent surtax on all income above
$118,500. That's an enormous tax hike, which would
generate exactly the same pushback you'd get if you
announced, well, a 12.4 percent surtax on all income
above $118,500. And as the committee notes, with
admirably dry understatement, "a tax increase that large
would make it politically challenging to raise more
revenue from the wealthy, if it all."
Now, I don't want to get mired in the tired old arguments
about whether the trust fund is "real" — whether it's a
stupid accounting abstraction or a profound moral promise
on the part of the U.S. government — because this
obscures the actual point we need to be concerned with: If
we want to pay Social Security beneficiaries more money
than we are collecting in payroll taxes, the money has to
come from somewhere, and ultimately, that "somewhere"
is the United States taxpayer. It is supremely irrelevant
whether that money flows through the "trust fund" or
Uncle Sam holds an annual ceremony in which the
trustees are handed one of those giant checks they present
By that point, the top marginal tax rate would be well
above 50 percent — closer to 60 percent in high-tax blue
states. That would pretty much exhaust our fiscal capacity
to tax the wealthy, meaning that any new program that
liberals want to implement, from early-childhood
education to high speed rail, will have to come paired with
65
an announcement that middle-class taxes will be rising
significantly to pay for it. And I haven't even mentioned
the current programs we have to find money for, such as
Medicare. Even assuming you could get such a large tax
hike through Congress, is expanding retirement benefits
really the one thing you want to spend all the money on?
should think long and hard about whether they want to
break that link. Social Security's great political strength is
the perception that beneficiaries have earned their benefits
with previous payments. The more clearly untrue that
statement becomes, the more political risk there is to the
less well-off beneficiaries.
Moreover, increasing the tax cap won't even raise enough
money to cover Social Security's costs unless we also
break the link between payments and benefits. Otherwise,
we'll run a surplus for a few more years, then pay out a lot
of that surplus in the form of higher benefits. Progressives
What to do about America's anorexic retirement accounts?
Friend, ask me an easy one. But here's at least a partial
answer to your question: not this.
Megan McArdle is a Bloomberg View columnist who
writes on economics, business and public policy.
The Leftist About-Face on Marriage
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
Once upon a time, leftists denounced marriage as a relic of
the bad ol' past. They slammed marriage as the primary
institution responsible for inequality. After all, inherited
wealth perpetrated uneven distributions of property
through generations of the same bloodline. Can't have
that. Alexandra Kollontai, one of the leaders of the
Communist Revolution in Russia, issued this challenge to
Soviet women: “Cast off your chains! Do not be slaves to
religion, to marriage, to children. Break these old ties, the
state is your home, the world is your country!”
Why the flip-flop? The issue is not that leftists have no
scruples (they don't!) or that they lack any principles
whatsoever -- they still want to raze traditional society and
place themselves in charge of reconstructing the world.
No, the point is that, per Gramsci, they've learned that
screaming for the destruction of traditional society simply
doesn't work. Undermining traditional society from within
is the ticket to power.
I believe traditional society is much more resilient than its
enemies realize because it reflects human nature as
expressed over millennia. But how much suffering can the
left inflict? Sadly, the answer is a lot, as the history of
leftist devastation in pursuit of utopia graphically
illustrates.
And when the so-called Women's Liberation movement
revved up, marriage remained the number one target. This
denunciation from feminist Linda Gordon is typical: "The
nuclear family must be destroyed... Whatever its ultimate
meaning, the break-up of families now is an objectively
revolutionary process."
That's the challenge confronting us.
That couldn't be any clearer, could it? But that was then.
These days, the left is howling that homosexuals should be
allowed to marry because AS EVERYONE KNOWS,
marriage is the most important of all civil rights. Julian
Bond, the chairman of the NAACP Board, has said,
“Discrimination is discrimination no matter who the
victim is, and it is always wrong. There are no special
rights in America, despite the attempts by many to divide
blacks and the gay community with the argument that the
latter are seeking some imaginary special rights at the
expense of blacks.”
And in its continuing crusade to find more oppressed
persons to liberate, the Southern Poverty Law Center has
set up a special page dedicated to promoting the "right" of
homosexuals to marry.
66
Anti-gun Congresswoman Wants Americans
to Sell Their Liberty, Children's Futures
By Kurt Hofmann
United States Representative Rosa DeLauro (D-CT)
has never met a draconian restriction on guns she
didn't like, except in the sense that she would prefer
that such proposals go further than they often do.
This is the case with even her own legislation, such
as the bill she recently announced that she would soon be
introducing, "Support Assault Firearm Elimination and
Reduction for our Streets (SAFER) Act," which she also
introduced in January, 2013, hoping to exploit
public horror and outrage over the Sandy
Hook Elementary atrocity.
that the tax revenue plundered from the people be
used to compensate the people who value wealth
more than the means to defend life and liberty.
And sure--some might argue that a tax credit for
some is not a new tax burden on the rest, but the
legislation does not provide for any reductions elsewhere
in the budget to compensate for the "$2000 refundable tax
credit," for each of the voluntarily disarmed (and that's
before we even get into the administrative
costs of this boondoggle).
Compensation for that newly created shortfall
has to come from somewhere, and, knowing
Congress, that "somewhere" is very likely our
grandchildren, and their children,
and their children--and that's if we're sufficiently "lucky"
to die off ourselves before the out-of-control deficit
spending chickens come home to roost.
Although "Elimination and Reduction" of
these so-called "Assault
Firearm[s]" sounds like a ban, it's not--as
much as she would prefer that it
were.From The Hill, quoting her own her press release
(which managed to mess up the title of the bill, calling it
the "Support Firearm Elimination and Education of our
Streets Act"--how these guns are causing the streets to be
uneducated is not explained):
And come home to roost they some day most assuredly
will. Our nation's friendly creditors are not going to
eternally continue to offer us a bottomless credit card, and
indeed, when the suspension of disbelief in our ability
to ever pay off the debt is no longer sustainable for even
the most incurable optimists, Americans will face a
darkness like we have never known.
Though DeLauro is in favor of stronger guns laws
that would completely ban assault weapons and
high-capacity ammunition [magazines, presumably],
she emphasized this bill would not force gun owners
to turn in their firearms.
In that time of rioting, looting, starvation, and disease--all
on a scale too massive for most Americans to even
imagine, it will be up to private citizens to secure their
lives and liberty--and their families'. And if DeLauro has
her way, those private citizens will have handed the best
means of providing that security over--for two-thousand
now valueless dollars.
The legislation would provide up to $2,000 in tax
credits for gun owners who voluntarily hand over
assault weapons to their local police departments.
That being the case--that it's not a
ban--and is indeed entirely
voluntary, some might wonder if
gun rights advocates should find the
legislation terribly objectionable.
The short answer is "yes," and not
only because it demonizes the very
firearms that in the hands of private
citizens are most necessary to the
security of a free state.
If DeLauro wants to buy your "assault weapon," tell her it
can only be paid for in blood--and she can't afford it.
A former paratrooper, Kurt Hofmann was paralyzed in a
car accident in 2002. The helplessness inherent to
confinement to a wheelchair prompted him to explore
armed self-defense, only to discover that Illinois denies
that right, inspiring him to become active in gun rights
advocacy. He also writes the St. Louis Gun Rights
Examiner column.
While a "tax credit" might sound like a good deal for the
taxpayers, this is anything but. What she is proposing is
67
When everything is a crime
By George F. Will
behavior is proscribed or prescribed. The
presumption of knowledge of the law is refuted by
the mere fact that estimates of the number of federal
statutes vary by hundreds. If you are sent to prison
for excavating arrowheads on federal land without a
permit, your cellmate might have accidentally
driven his snowmobile onto land protected by the
Wilderness Act.
What began as a trickle has become a stream that
could become a cleansing torrent. Criticisms of
the overcriminalization of American life might
catalyze an appreciation of the toll the
administrative state is taking on the criminal justice
system, and liberty generally.
In 2007, professor Tim Wu of Columbia Law
School recounted a game played by some prosecutors.
One would name a famous person — “say, Mother Teresa
or John Lennon” — and other prosecutors would try to
imagine “a plausible crime for which to indict him or her,”
usually a felony plucked from “the incredibly broad yet
obscure crimes that populate the U.S. Code like a kind of
jurisprudential minefield.” Did the person make “false
pretenses on the high seas”? Is he guilty of “injuring a
mailbag”?
Regulatory crimes, Cottone observes, often are not
patently discordant with our culture, as are murder, rape
and robbery. Rather than implicating fundamental moral
values, many regulatory offenses derive their moral
significance, such as it is, from their relation to the
promotion of some governmental goal.
The presumption of knowledge of the law is, Cottone
argues, useful as an incentive for citizens to become
informed of their legal duties. Complete elimination of the
presumption would be a perverse incentive to remain in an
ignorance that might immunize a person from culpability.
But “there can be no moral obligation to do something
impossible, such as know every criminal law,” let alone
all the even more numerous — perhaps tens of thousands
— regulations with criminal sanctions. The morality of
law, Cottone argues, requires laws to be, among other
things, publicized, understandable and not subject to
constant changes. Otherwise everyone would have to be a
talented lawyer, “a result hardly feasible or even
desirable.”
In 2009, Harvey Silverglate’s book “Three Felonies a
Day” demonstrated how almost any American could be
unwittingly guilty of various crimes between breakfast
and bedtime. Silverglate, a defense lawyer and civil
libertarian, demonstrated the dangers posed by the
intersection of prosecutorial ingenuity with the expansion
of the regulatory state.
In 2013, Glenn Harlan Reynolds, University of Tennessee
law professor and creator of Instapundit, published in the
Columbia Law Review “Ham Sandwich Nation: Due
Process When Everything is a Crime.” Given the axiom
that a competent prosecutor can persuade a grand jury to
indict a ham sandwich, and given the proliferation of
criminal statutes and regulations backed by criminal
penalties, what becomes of the mens rea principle that
people deserve criminal punishment only if they engage in
conduct that is inherently wrong or that they know to be
illegal?
Overcriminalization, says professor Reynolds, deepens the
dangers of “a dynamic in which those charged with crimes
have a lot at risk, while those doing the charging have
very little ‘skin in the game.’ ” With a vast menu of crimes
from which to choose, prosecutors can “overcharge” a
target, presenting him or her with the choice between
capitulation-through-plea-bargain or a trial with a
potentially severe sentence.
Now comes “Rethinking Presumed Knowledge of the Law
in the Regulatory Age” (Tennessee Law Review) by
Michael Anthony Cottone, a federal judicial clerk.
Cottone warns that as the mens rea requirement withers
when the quantity and complexity of laws increase, the
doctrine ofignorantia legis neminem excusat — ignorance
of the law does not excuse — becomes problematic. The
regulatory state is rendering unrealistic the presumption
that a responsible citizen should be presumed to have
knowledge of the law.
Given the principle — which itself should be reconsidered
— of prosecutorial immunity, we have a criminal justice
system with too many opportunities for generating
defendants, too few inhibitions on prosecutors and
ongoing corrosion of the rule and morality of law.
Congress, the ultimate cause of all this, has work to undo.
George F. Will writes a twice-weekly column on politics
and domestic and foreign affairs. He began his column
with The Washington Post in 1974, and he received the
Pulitzer Prize for Commentary in 1977. He is also a
contributor to FOX News’ daytime and primetime
programming.
There are an estimated 4,500 federal criminal statutes —
and innumerable regulations backed by criminal penalties
that include incarceration. Even if none of these were
arcane, which many are, their sheer number would mean
that Americans would not have clear notice of what
68
Why the Confederacy Lives
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
argued presciently and powerfully that the rise of
single-parent households would make poverty more
intractable.
The very existence of opposition gnaws at radical leftists.
They particularly despise Southerners because the South's
resilient culture is a major impediment to their agenda.
Culture is an organic and tireless organizing force, and
therefore a threat to far-left schemes that would dismantle
society and put the left in charge. Just look at how
traditional culture overthrew the Soviet bloc in the 1990s,
and how it's challenging overgrown governments around
the world today.
“The fundamental problem,” Moynihan wrote, is
family breakdown. In a follow-up, he explained:
“From the wild Irish slums of the 19th-century
Eastern seaboard, to the riot-torn suburbs of Los
Angeles, there is one unmistakable lesson in
American history: a community that allows large
numbers of young men to grow up in broken
families ... never acquiring any stable relationship to
male authority, never acquiring any set of rational
expectations about the future — that community
asks for and gets chaos.”
So it's no surprise to see yet another slam against the
South by the tag team of Euan Hague, Heidi Beirich, and
Ed Sebesta. Their latest hit piece, entitled "Why the
Confederacy Lives," neatly and blindly dismisses
Southern heritage, the rise of self-government, and
growing distrust of social reengineering as -- drum roll,
please -- racist.
Liberals brutally denounced Moynihan as a racist.
Kristof concluded that tossing the word "racist" at every
study of black dysfunction is counter-productive:
What, again?
Yes, again. It's an entirely predictable article. As Hague
and company see it, there is no reason for distrusting big
government other than blind, irrational racial hatred.
Here's just one example they cite:
Growing up with just one biological parent reduces
the chance that a child will graduate from high
school by 40 percent, according to an essay by Sara
McLanahan of Princeton and Christopher Jencks of
Harvard. They point to the likely mechanism: “A
father’s absence increases antisocial behavior, such
as aggression, rule-breaking, delinquency and illegal
drug use.” These effects are greater on boys than on
girls.
In more public venues, the SCV’s dog-whistle
politics come into play. Casting an eye over recent
events in Ferguson and elsewhere, although never
explicitly stating this, SCV deputy commander-inchief Thomas V. Strain Jr. recently decried the
“young men with no guidance attacking law-abiding
citizens and law enforcement officers,” officers who,
when they “remedy the situation and protect the
innocent … are called murderers.”
Read the Hague hit piece and you'll see no mention of
how the resurgence of smaller, more responsive political
units are in direct response to the horrendous history of
big governments. Post-Lincoln America has a bloody
record of launching wars of aggression, and will continue
its policy of perpetual war as long as it exists. The central
government in DC is the greatest threat to our safety and
liberty. That's not hype -- that's fact. Yet, Hague sees what
he calls "Confederate ideology" as the real problem.
Of course, it's not just "neo-Confederates," as Hague &
Co. call their various targets, who now realize that
government welfare and other programs have undermined
traditional family formation and unleashed a mostly black
underclass of rootless, anti-social young people. Just last
month, Nicholas Kristof, hardly a pro-Southern pundit,
said this of failed federal programs that have done more
harm than good:
If you're looking for dangerous ideologies, look no further
than Mr. Hague himself. He's a Marxist, an adherent of the
most anti-human, murderous ideology the world has ever
seen. Hague's Marxist allegiance is well documented.
Fifty years ago this month, Democrats made a
historic mistake.
This isn't the first time the SPLC has played footsie with
Marxists. And seeing as how communism has re-branded
itself as "anti-racism," it probably won't be the last.
Daniel Patrick Moynihan, at the time a federal
official, wrote a famous report in March 1965 on
family breakdown among African-Americans. He
69
Mark Twain Loves Ron Paul
By Michael S. Alford
He was quoted in the Chicago Tribune as saying, when
asked if he was an anti-imperialist:
The Bible says “There is nothing new under the sun” and
over a hundred years ago before a soft-spoken Texas
Congressman was making waves in the GOP because of
his non-interventionist ideas, it turns out the most
celebrated American author in history was saying the
exact same thing. Samuel Clemens, or as he was better
known, Mark Twain, had enjoyed the success and fame of
his literary achievements. By the late 1800’s, he had
circled the globe giving speeches and readings from his
books. By his own admission, visiting almost every
continent on earth, and seeing firsthand the effects of an
increasingly belligerent foreign policy changed his mind
on how the American government should treat its
neighbor nations. Since he had the ability to speak his
mind and be applauded for it, and the skill to illustrate
absurdity while doing so, he spent the last years of his life
speaking out against interventionism, or, as it was known
back then ‘imperialism’. He arrived back in America after
a 9 year absence just as the Philippine-American war was
cresting. The American government had committed itself
to liberating the Philippine Islands from the Spanish, and
had committed troops to the same. As Mark Twain
stepped off the boat in 1900, the press was anxious to
know his thoughts on the events of the day. He told the
New York Herald:
“Well, I am. A year ago I wasn’t. I thought it would
be a great thing to give a whole lot of freedom to the
Filipinos, but I guess now that it’s better to let them
give it to themselves. Besides, on looking over the
treaty I see we’ve got to saddle the friars and their
churches. I guess we don’t want to.”
The Missourian who wrote Huckleberry Finn had seen upclose and personal what this particular export of American
interventionism was doing to the world opinion of the
United States. A year later, at a meeting of the AntiImperialist league of New York, Mr. Twain referred to the
‘uncivilized’ people of the world and what they thought of
our ‘freedoms’ exported at the point of a gun. Mark Twain
had figured out early on that war is a racket;
The Blessings-of-Civilization Trust, wisely and
cautiously administered, is a Daisy. There is more
money in it, more territory, more sovereignty, and
other kinds of emolument, than there is in any other
game that is played. But Christendom has been
playing it badly of late years, and must certainly
suffer by it, in my opinion. She has been so eager to
get every stake that appeared on the green cloth, that
the People who Sit in Darkness have noticed it —
they have noticed it, and have begun to show alarm.
They have become suspicious of the Blessings of
Civilization. More — they have begun to examine
them. This is not well. The Blessings of Civilization
are all right, and a good commercial property; there
could not be a better, in a dim light.
“I left these shores, at Vancouver, a red-hot
imperialist. I wanted the American eagle to go
screaming into the Pacific. It seemed tiresome and
tame for it to content itself with the Rockies. Why
not spread its wings over the Philippines, I asked
myself? And I thought it would be a real good thing
to do. I said to myself, here are a people who have
suffered for three centuries. We can make them as
free as ourselves, give them a government and
country of their own, put a miniature of the
American constitution afloat in the Pacific, start a
brand new republic to take its place among the free
nations of the world. It seemed to me a great task to
which we had addressed ourselves. But I have
thought some more, since then, and I have read
carefully the treaty of Paris, and I have seen that we
do not intend to free, but to subjugate the people of
the Philippines. We have gone there to conquer, not
to redeem. We have also pledged the power of this
country to maintain and protect the abominable
system established in the Philippines by the Friars. It
should, it seems to me, be our pleasure and duty to
make those people free, and let them deal with their
own domestic questions in their own way. And so I
am an anti-imperialist. I am opposed to having the
eagle put its talons on any other land.”
Mr. Twain cited a specific example where the slaughter of
some missionaries had given the Kaiser an excuse to
interfere in Chinese politics.
He lost a couple of missionaries in a riot in
Shantung, and in his account he made an overcharge
for them. China had to pay a hundred thousand
dollars apiece for them, in money; twelve miles of
territory, containing several millions of inhabitants
and worth twenty million dollars; and to build a
monument, and also a Christian church; whereas the
people of China could have been depended upon to
remember the missionaries without the help of these
expensive memorials. This was all bad play. Bad,
because it would not, and could not, and will not
now or ever, deceive the Person Sitting in Darkness.
He knows that it was an overcharge. He knows that a
missionary is like any other man: he is worth merely
what you can supply his place for, and no more. He
is useful, but so is a doctor, so is a sheriff, so is an
70
to remember the clever, witty bard of the Mississippi in
light of his less controversial works. Recent years and
fresh scholarship have revealed more of the whole man
though, including the introduction Mark Twain gave to a
young Winston Churchill in 1900 when Churchill was to
speak before a group of New York businessmen. No doubt
Twain had been brought in to lionize the younger man, but
Twain was old enough, rich enough and opinionated
enough to take this opportunity to address what he saw as
poor British foreign policy that was being emulated by the
United States. He told the assembled crowd;
editor; but a just Emperor does not charge war-prices
for such. A diligent, intelligent, but obscure
missionary, and a diligent, intelligent country editor
are worth much, and we know it; but they are not
worth the earth.
Over a century before Dr. Paul made his historic “Armed
Chinese Troops in Texas “ speech, Mark Twain put forth a
similar scenario for his audience.:
Would Germany charge America two hundred
thousand dollars for two missionaries, and shake the
mailed fist in her face, and send warships, and send
soldiers, and say: ‘Seize twelve miles of territory,
worth twenty millions of dollars, as additional pay
for the missionaries; and make those peasants build a
monument to the missionaries, and a costly Christian
church to remember them by?’ And later would
Germany say to her soldiers: ‘March through
America and slay, giving no quarter; make the
German face there, as has been our Hun-face here, a
terror for a thousand years; march through the Great
Republic and slay, slay, slay, carving a road for our
offended religion through its heart and bowels?’
Would Germany do like this to America, to England,
to France, to Russia? Or only to China the helpless
— imitating the elephant’s assault upon the fieldmice? Had we better invest in this Civilization —
this Civilization which called Napoleon a buccaneer
for carrying off Venice’s bronze horses, but which
steals our ancient astronomical instruments from our
walls, and goes looting like common bandits — that
is, all the alien soldiers except America’s; and
(Americans again excepted) storms frightened
villages and cables the result to glad journals at
home every day: ‘Chinese losses, 450 killed; ours,
one officer and two men wounded. Shall proceed
against neighboring village to-morrow, where a
massacre is reported.’ Can we afford Civilization?”
For years I have been a self-appointed missionary,
and have wrought zealously for my cause–the
joining together of America and the motherland in
bonds of friendship, esteem and affection–an
alliance of the heart which should permanently and
beneficently influence the political relations of the
two countries. Wherever I have stood before a
gathering of Americans or Englishmen, in England,
India, Australia or elsewhere, I have urged my
mission, and warmed it up with compliments to both
countries and pointed out how nearly alike the two
peoples are in character and spirit. They ought to be
united…….yet I think England sinned in getting into
a war in South Africa which she could have avoided
without loss of credit or dignity–just as I think we
have sinned in crowding ourselves into a war in the
Philippines on the same terms.
Mr. Churchill will tell you about the war in South
Africa, and he is competent–he fought and wrote
through it himself. And he made a record there
which would be a proud one for a man twice his age.
By his father he is English, by his mother he is
American–to my mind the blend which makes the
perfect man. We are now on the friendliest terms
with England. Mainly through my missionary efforts
I suppose; and I am glad. We have always been kin:
kin in blood, kin in religion, kin in representative
government, kin in ideals, kin in just and lofty
purposes; and now we are kin in sin, the harmony is
complete, the blend is perfect, like Mr. Churchill
himself, whom I now have the honor to present to
you.
As a parting shot towards America policy, Twain put forth
words that sting almost as if they were written yesterday.:
The Person Sitting in Darkness is almost sure to say:
“There is something curious about this — curious
and unaccountable. There must be two Americas:
one that sets the captive free, and one that takes a
once-captive’s new freedom away from him, and
picks a quarrel with him with nothing to found it on;
then kills him to get his land.”
And the rest, as they say, is history.
Michael S. Alford is the author of Swindled: How the
GOP Cheated Ron Paul and Lost Themselves the Election.
Mark Twain’s anti-imperialist sentiments were suppressed
a bit by the inheritors of his estate, who wanted the world
71
License to Kill
By Dmitry Orlov
destruction, leaving piles of corpses and
smoldering ruins in its wake.
The story is the same every time: some nation, due
to a confluence of lucky circumstances, becomes
powerful—much more powerful than the rest—
and, for a time, is dominant. But the lucky
circumstances, which often amount to no more
than a few advantageous quirks of geology, be it
Welsh coal or West Texas oil, in due course come
to an end. In the meantime, the erstwhile
superpower becomes corrupted by its own power.
Another unmistakable trend has to do with the
efficacy of spending money on “defense” (which,
in the case of the US, should be redefined as
“offense”). Having a lavishly endowed military
can sometimes lead to success, but here too
something has shifted over time. The famous American
can-do spirit that was evident to all during World War II,
when the US dwarfed the rest of the world with its
industrial might, is no more. Now, more and more,
military spending itself is the goal—never mind what it
achieves.
As the endgame approaches, those still nominally in
charge of the collapsing empire resort to all sorts of
desperate measures—all except one: they will refuse to
ever consider the fact that their imperial superpower is at
an end, and that they should change their ways
accordingly. George Orwell once offered an excellent
explanation for this phenomenon: as the imperial endgame approaches, it becomes a matter of imperial selfpreservation to breed a special-purpose ruling class—one
that is incapable of understanding that the end-game is
approaching. Because, you see, if they had an inkling of
what’s going on, they wouldn’t take their jobs seriously
enough to keep the game going for as long as possible.
And what it achieves is the latest F-35 jet fighter that can’t
fly; the latest aircraft carrier that can’t launch planes
without destroying them if they are fitted with the
auxiliary tanks they need to fly combat missions; the most
technologically advanced AEGIS destroyer that can be
taken out of commission by a single unarmed Russian jet
carrying a basket of electronic warfare equipment, and
another aircraft carrier that can be frightened out of deep
water and forced to anchor by a few Russian submarines
out on routine patrol.
The approaching imperial collapse can be seen in the ever
worsening results the empire gets for its imperial efforts.
After World War II, the US was able to do a respectable
job helping to rebuild Germany, along with the rest of
western Europe. Japan also did rather well under US
tutelage, as did South Korea after the end of fighting on
the Korean peninsula. With Vietnam, Laos and Cambodia,
all of which were badly damaged by the US, the results
were significantly worse: Vietnam was an outright defeat,
Cambodia lived through a period of genocide, while
amazingly resilient Laos—the most heavily bombed
country on the planet—recovered on its own.
But the Americans like their weapons, and they like
handing them out as a show of support. But more often
than not these weapons end up in the wrong hands: the
ones they gave to Iraq are now in the hands of ISIS; the
ones they gave to the Ukrainian nationalists have been
sold to the Syrian government; the ones they gave to the
government in Yemen is now in the hands of the Houthis
who recently overthrew it. And so the efficacy of lavish
military spending has dwindled too. At some point it may
become more efficient to modify the US Treasury printing
presses to blast bundles of US dollars in the general
direction of the enemy.
The first Gulf War went even more badly: fearful of
undertaking a ground offensive in Iraq, the US stopped
short of its regular practice of toppling the government
and installing a puppet regime there, and left it in limbo
for a decade. When the US did eventually invade, it
succeeded—after killing countless civilians and
destroying much of the infrastructure—in leaving behind a
dismembered corpse of a country.
With the strategy of “destroying in order to create” no
longer viable, but with the blind ambition to still try to
prevail everywhere in the world somehow still part of the
political culture, all that remains is murder. The main tool
of foreign policy becomes political assassination: be it
Saddam Hussein, or Muammar Qaddafi, or Slobodan
Milošević, or Osama bin Laden, or any number of lesser
targets, the idea is to simply kill them.
Similar results have been achieved in other places where
the US saw it fit to get involved: Somalia, Libya and, most
recently, Yemen. Let’s not even mention Afghanistan,
since all empires have failed to achieve good results there.
So the trend is unmistakable: whereas at its height the
empire destroyed in order to rebuild the world in its own
image, as it nears its end it destroys simply for the sake of
While aiming for the head of an organization is a favorite
technique, the general populace gets is share of murder
too. How many funerals and wedding parties have been
taken out by drone strikes? I don’t know that anyone in
the US really knows, but I am sure that those whose
relatives were killed do remember, and will remember for
the next few centuries at least. This tactic is generally not
72
license to kill will be revoked, and they find themselves
reclassified from global hegemons to mere murderers.
conducive to creating a durable peace, but it is a good
tactic for perpetuating and escalating conflict. But that’s
now an acceptable goal, because it creates the rationale for
increased military spending, making it possible to breed
more chaos.
As empires collapse, they turn inward, and subject their
own populations to the same ill treatment to which they
subjected others. Here, America is unexceptional: the
number of Americans being murdered by their own police,
with minimal repercussions for those doing the killing, is
quite stunning. When Americans wonder who their enemy
really is, they need look no further.
Recently a retired US general went on television to
declare that what’s needed to turn around the situation in
the Ukraine is to simply “start killing Russians.” The
Russians listened to that, marveled at his idiocy, and then
went ahead and opened a criminal case against him. Now
this general will be unable to travel to an ever-increasing
number of countries around the world for fear of getting
arrested and deported to Russia to stand trial.
But that is only the beginning: the precedent has already
been set for deploying US troops on US soil. As law and
order break down in more and more places, we will see
more and more US troops on the streets of cities in the
US, spreading death and destruction just like they did in
Iraq or in Afghanistan. The last license to kill to be
revoked will be the license to kill ourselves.
This is largely a symbolic gesture, but non-symbolic nongestures of a preventive nature are sure to follow. You see,
my fellow space travelers, murder happens to be illegal. In
most jurisdictions, inciting others to murder also happens
to be illegal. Americans have granted themselves the
license to kill without checking to see whether perhaps
they might be exceeding their authority. We should
expect, then, that as their power trickles away, their
Dmitry Orlov is a Russian-American engineer and a
writer on subjects related to "potential economic,
ecological and political decline and collapse in the United
States," something he has called “permanent crisis”.
This just in: Americans don't support their own displacement
by Old Rebel (Mike Tuggle)
Just 16% of Likely U.S. Voters think the U.S.
government is too aggressive in deporting those who
are in the country illegally. A new Rasmussen
Reports national telephone survey finds that 62%
believe the government is not aggressive enough in
deporting these illegal immigrants, up from 52% a
year ago and 56% in November.
The media, academia, government, and Hollywood all
agree: Importing a Third-World majority to replace
America's traditional population isn't just the right thing to
do, it will magically usher in economic and cultural riches
galore. (Of course, they never explain how those who
created the impoverished hell-holes they spawned in the
old country will morph into creators of culture and wealth
once they come here.) Meanwhile, the SPLC and other
bully-boys slam dissidents who fail to embrace the party
line as unhip-white-supremacist-neo-nazi-bad-people.
How about that? There's still a stubborn spirit of rebellion
in this country. No matter how much the ruling elite and
its flying monkeys threaten and curse, we still refuse to
believe their lies. Makes you proud.
Despite all that, an overwhelming majority doesn't buy it,
as this Rasmussen survey on illegal immigration shows:
The inevitable question is this: Will DC's policies change
in response? No. The 1 Percenters want even more cheap,
exploitable labor, and Democrats want more clients. So
brace yourself for more illegal immigration and the
problems it will import. And those childish fools who
think we live in a "democracy" have some 'splainin' to do.
More voters than ever feel the United States is not
aggressive enough in deporting those who are here
illegally, even as President Obama continues to push
his plan to make up to five million illegal
immigrants safe from deportation.
73
The US Lost Its Wars on Iraq and Afganistan
By Michael S. Rozeff
sort out which of the males there … might be
insurgents, [or] who might be just people living in
the area, [or] who might potentially be government
supporters, when you don’t speak the language
and you really don’t understand what’s going on in
that village very well.”
Chaos and instability in Iraq, Afghanistan, Libya,
Syria and Yemen (and some other countries) are
not the planned outcome of the U.S. government.
They have occurred because of faulty strategies
and operations, which in turn have multiple roots
that can be explored and identified. These results
are outright failures. Current U.S. activities in
Yemen and Ukraine suggest that these faults
continue.
All of this was known and predictable to anyone
who looked at the past objectively based on earlier
interventions in places like Vietnam. Clearly, the U.S.
political-military-intelligence system is bad at learning
from history and it’s bad at using power rationally to
attain the objectives it sets up. This is like saying that the
U.S. is bad at eradicating drug use, bad at helping poor
farmers, bad at laying down dietary guidelines, bad at
handling disasters and bad at regulating drugs, among
other of its portfolio of activities. The U.S. is also bad at
interventionist foreign policy and foreign policy in
general. Fundamentally, the government shouldn’t be
doing any of these things. It shouldn’t have the power to
do any of them. Americans should not expect that
government can do these things, and when it does
establish objectives what should be expected is that it will
not attain them but will do them badly. We need not
expect utter disaster from government’s policies, although
that too may come. Even the government knows enough to
pull back when the costs get too high, but the point at
which this learning takes place and the time it takes for
this learning to occur do not arrive until enormous costs,
errors and burdens have been imposed on Americans and
other peoples. The system attempts rationality and wears
the clothing of rationally-considered judgments and
analyses, but it’s fundamentally stupid, ignorant and
irrational. This is what must be admitted and recognized.
General Bolger has written a 500-page book. Below, I
quote some of his remarks from a recent interview.
“I am a United States Army General, and I lost the Global
War on Terrorism.
“It’s like Alcoholics Anonymous. Step one is admitting
you have a problem. Well, I have a problem. So do my
peers. And thanks to our problem, now all of America has
a problem. To wit: two lost campaigns and a war gone
awry.
“What I saw almost immediately was trouble figuring out
who the enemy was. We knew within a day or two of the
9/11 attacks that it was al-Qaida, a terrorist network that
had a headquarters element, if you would call it that, or a
chairman of the board in Osama bin Laden. And they were
operating out of Afghanistan.
“But that’s not who we ended up fighting most of the
time. Sure, we went after al-Qaida at times. But we ended
up fighting the Taliban, which were Pashtun people in
Afghanistan who were trying to run that country. We
evicted them in 2001. And we ended up fighting Sunni
Arab insurgents in Iraq, who, again — although they
might make common cause with al-Qaida — those
weren’t the guys who attacked us on 9/11.
The stupid mistakes that General Bolger outlines flow
from an over-reliance on government to accomplish things
that it cannot accomplish, even when it’s manned by
people of good will who try their best to achieve what are
thought to be sound objectives, but which frequently are
not sound in the first place. The government takes on
quixotic ventures. They have appeal to voters, enough
appeal to gain public support; but they are deeply flawed
matters to demand of government.
“One of the things that we often say in the military is you
have to fight for information, or fight for intelligence. So
as we developed this picture and it became obvious that
we were fighting an insurgent enemy mixed into a civil
population that was suspicious of us anyway as outsiders
(and that was true in both Afghanistan and Iraq), it really
brought up the second point, which is, what is the U.S.
military trained to do? And the U.S. military is trained to
carry out short and decisive conventional operations
against a uniformed [enemy in formations].
Government is power, and power cannot solve social and
economic problems, like drugs and poverty. Power cannot
eradicate terrorism overseas. What’s remarkable about
government is that although it cannot resolve problems
like drug use, alcohol use, poverty, and terrorism, it can
make them worse or create new problems in trying to
solve these. It can cause criminal elements to thrive by
prohibiting drugs. It can cause police corruption. It can
“So if you want us to go in and do something along the
lines of 1991 Desert Storm, where we go against armored
divisions and air force squadrons of the Iraqi forces and
destroy them and capture the remainder, that’s what we’re
trained to do. It’s very, very difficult to take even the great
troops that we have and send them into a village to try and
74
break up and undermine minority families and
communities. It can cause jihadist recruiting to soar.
government. Government needs to be rethought and then
reconfigured.
These effects and many others like them argue for limiting
government severely. Americans have not learned this
lesson. In some ways such as the raising of freedom as an
ideal, there is lip service to limited government; but this
lesson has not penetrated deeply into the American way of
Michael S. Rozeff is a retired Professor of Finance living
in East Amherst, New York. He is the author of the free ebook Essays on American Empire: Liberty vs. Domination
and the free e-book The U.S. Constitution and Money:
Corruption and Decline.
Newsmax
Wall Street Journal: NRA Snubs Rand Paul Because He Supports Rival Group
By Jason Devaney
Several Republicans who are either in the presidential race
or are expected to join it will speak at the National Rifle
Association's three-day annual convention starting Friday,
minus one newly confirmed candidate: Kentucky Sen.
Rand Paul.
Journal report that cites the group's president Dudley
Brown.
The Wall Street Journal reports the reason is because Paul,
who joined the 2016 race for the White House this week,
has long supported the National Association for Gun
Rights (NAGR). That group, according to the Journal,
markets itself as a "more conservative alternative" to the
NRA.
"I've been a gun lobbyist for 22 years and there's never
been a point at which we did not have tension," Brown
said, referring to the NRA and the NAGR. "We're
younger, we're hungrier and we care less about the
cocktail parties in Washington, D.C."
"It was no secret that Sen. Paul is more pro-gun than the
NRA," Brown told the Journal.
The NAGR has close ties with the Paul family, according
to the Journal report. The NAGR's founder Michael
Rothfeld still works with the NAGR and also owns a
direct mail firm that has been used by both Rand Paul and
his father Ron Paul, who unsuccessfully ran for president
in 1988, 2008, and 2012.
Neither Paul nor New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie, who is
mulling a presidential run, were invited to the NRA's
convention in Nashville, Tenn.
The NRA said Tuesday it "could not accommodate
everyone," alluding to its packed speaking schedule as a
reason. The Journal report claims politics were the real
reason.
There's also attorney David Warrington, the NAGR's
chairman and who served as Ron Paul's general council
during the 2012 presidential campaign, according to the
Journal.
According to the report, the NRA has informed Paul's
team he will not be invited to any NRA events unless he
severs his ties with the NAGR.
Next year's NRA convention is in Louisville, but it's
unlikely Rand Paul would be invited to speak despite it
being in his home state.
Three other potential candidates for president — South
Carolina Sen. Lindsey Graham, former Arkansas Gov.
Mike Huckabee, and retired neurosurgeon Ben Carson —
were not initially invited to speak at the NRA's
conference, but they were added to the list of speakers
after requesting to be put on the schedule, according to the
Journal.
Paul launched his presidential campaign in Louisville on
Tuesday, and has been on a tour of the country touting his
message since. He was in New Hampshire on Wednesday,
followed by a visit to South Carolina on Thursday. He
also plans to visit Iowa and Nevada this week.
Paul was the second major candidate to enter the
presidential race, behind Texas Sen. Ted Cruz. Among the
other Republicans expected to join the race are former
Florida Gov. Jeb Bush, Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker, and
Florida Sen. Marco Rubio.
The report adds that Paul and Christie did not submit a
request to speak at the convention, which is expected to
draw more than 70,000 attendees.
Paul is the only candidate or potential candidate for
president who is a member of the NAGR, according to the
75
Christians' Long Retreat in the Culture War
Explains 'the Republican rout in the Battle of Indianapolis'
By Pat Buchanan
Soon, same-sex marriages will likely be declared a
right hidden in the Constitution and entitled to all the
privileges and benefits accorded traditional
marriages. Next, those who refuse to provide services
to same-sex weddings will become the criminals.
The Republican rout in the Battle of Indianapolis
provides us with a snapshot of the correlation of
forces in the culture wars.
Faced with a corporate-secularist firestorm, Gov.
Mike Pence said Indiana’s Religious Freedom Restoration
Act would not protect Christian bakers or florists who
refuse their services to same-sex weddings. And the white
flag went up again.
Thus does biblical truth become bigotry in Obama’s
America.
And the process has been steadily proceeding for
generations.
Politics follows culture. And the cultural revolution of the
’60s is triumphant. Traditional Christianity, driven out of
schools and the public square, is being whipped back into
the churches and told to stay there.
First comes a call for tolerance for those who believe and
behave differently. Then comes a plea for acceptance.
Next comes a demand for codifying in law a right to
engage in actions formerly regarded as debased or
criminal. Finally comes a demand to punish any and all
who persist in their public conduct or their private
business in defying the new moral order.
America has gone over to the revolution.
Looking back, the sweep of the capitulation becomes
stark.
First came the plea of atheists not to have their children
forced to participate in prayers at school. Fair enough.
Americans do not believe in compelling people to do as
they disbelieve.
And so it goes with revolutions. On the assumption of
power, revolutionaries become more intolerant than those
they dispossessed.
The French Revolution was many times more terrible than
the Bourbon monarchy. The Russian Revolution made the
Romanovs look benign. Fidel Castro’s criminality
exceeded anything dreamt of by Fulgencio Batista.
Then followed the demand that no child be exposed to
prayers or religious books, including the Bible, nor have
any day or week set aside as a holiday if connected to
Christianity.
Looking back, one appreciates why we hear so often,
“This isn’t the country I grew up in.” For it isn’t.
Out went Christmas and Easter. In came winter break and
spring break. Coaches of high school teams were ordered
to dispense with prayers before games. The coaches
complied.
But how did this moral-cultural revolution succeed so
easily?
No matter what the majority wanted, the minority
prevailed, thanks to a Supreme Court whose dictates were
never challenged by democratically elected presidents or
Congresses, nor ever defied by a Christian majority.
How was it that the Greatest Generation that won World
War II let itself be intimidated by and dictated to by nine
old men with lifetime tenure who had been elected by no
one?
In the sexual revolution there came first the plea that
abortion in extreme cases be decriminalized, then
legalized, then subsidized, then declared a right. From
crime to constitutional right in two decades!
How did this happen in a republic where minority rights
exist but the majority rules? Why did Middle America
meekly comply and not resist?
By the mid-’50s and early ’60s, black folks were engaged
in civil disobedience, refusing to move to the back of the
bus, sitting at segregated lunch counters, getting clubbed
by cops, and marching for equal access to schools, hotels,
motels and voting booths.
Under Obamacare, Christian businesses must dispense
abortion-inducing morning-after pills to employees.
On gay rights, first came the demand that a bar in
Greenwich Village patronized by homosexuals be left
alone by the cops.
And across the South there was resistance to the civil
rights revolution: Southern manifestos, governors standing
in schoolhouse doors, federal marshals and federal troops
called out.
Next came the demand that homosexuality be
decriminalized and then that this, too, be declared a
constitutional right. And so it went.
76
Whatever side of the civil rights revolution one was on,
folks on both sides fought for what they believed in.
When that father and daughter at Memories Pizza in
Walkerton, Indiana, said their religious beliefs forbade
them from catering a same-sex wedding, they were
subjected to a hailstorm of hate, but were also showered
with $840,000 from folks who admired their moral
courage.
Amazing. The old segregationists who, morally speaking,
held a pair of deuces resisted. But a Christian majority that
had the Faith that created Western civilization behind it
rolled over and played dead.
Religious folks who do not believe in collaborating with
what they think is wrong should go forth and do likewise.
Christians watched paralyzed as their country was taken
from them.
Courage as well as cowardice is contagious.
What explains the rout in Indianapolis? The GOP simply
cannot stand up to media denunciations as intolerant
bigots, especially if the corporations upon which they
depend threaten economic reprisals.
Pat Buchanan was twice a candidate for the Republican
presidential nomination and the Reform Party's candidate
in 2000. He is also a founder and editor of The American
Conservative. Buchanan served three presidents in the
White House, was a founding panelist of three national TV
shows, and is the author of 10 books. His latest book
is "The Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose
From Defeat to Create the New Majority."
With the Democratic Party irretrievably lost, and the
Republican Party moving to neutrality in the culture wars,
traditionalists should probably take comfort in the counsel,
“Put not your trust in princes.”
AFP
Human Rights Watch Sues DEA Over Surveillance
Human Rights Watch said Wednesday it filed a suit
alleging the US Drug Enforcement Administration
illegally collected records of its phone calls to foreign
countries for years.
"The DEA's program is yet another example of federal
agencies overreaching their surveillance authority in
secret," said Mark Rumold, staff attorney at the Electronic
Frontier Foundation, which is representing the human
rights organization.
The lawsuit comes after a series of media reports and
disclosures in public documents revealing a surveillance
program dating back to the 1990s, which reportedly
collected data on virtually all international phone calls.
"We want a court to force the DEA to destroy the records
it illegally collected and to declare -- once and for all -that bulk collection of Americans' records is
unconstitutional."
"At Human Rights Watch we work with people who are
sometimes in life-or-death situations, where speaking out
can make them a target," said Dinah PoKempner, general
counsel at the watchdog group.
According to the complaint, the DEA disclosed the
existence of its mass surveillance program in January
2015, after a federal judge ordered the government to
provide more information in a criminal case against a man
accused of violating export restrictions on goods to Iran.
"Whom we communicate with and when is often
extraordinarily sensitive -- and it's information that we
wouldn't turn over to the government lightly."
News reports have said that the operation gathered records
on calls to over 100 countries.
The suit filed in federal court in California asks a judge to
declare the surveillance a violation of the group's
constitutional rights, and to purge all records from the
program.
USA Today reported this week that the DEA program -aimed at tracking drug traffickers -- harvested data from
more than one billion calls from as early as 1992.
77
When a Conservative Is Not a Conservative
Looks at evangelical change-agents
By Jim Fletcher
For example, a now-annual question I have for
Catalyst conferences (where Merritt has spoken) is,
“Why do you allow left-leaning speakers – such as
the radical Cornel West – to address evangelical
pastors and youth pastors?”
This week, before he scrubbed his comment from
Facebook, progressive writer Jonathan Merritt told
me he doesn’t like the work I do, or that WND
does.
Why?
It’s a simple question, but one that Catalyst
leadership refuses to answer.
Because as a member of conservative Christian royalty,
Jonathan Merritt doesn’t like conservative writers.
So too does Jonathan Merritt resent when I point out that
he is not – as he claims – moderately conservative.
Read his blogs.
The son of the former president of the Southern Baptist
Convention (Dr. James Merritt), Merritt is what I call a
change-agent within evangelicalism. His career as a writer
(from impressively large perches like Religion News
Service) makes him a leader in this area.
Note too that many national evangelical leaders, including
folks like Ed Stetzer and Mark Batterson, endorse or
provide cover for Merritt’s left-wing views.
In essence, Jonathan Merritt introduces left-wing thought
to evangelical audiences. Of course a big target area is the
Millennial generation, those 18- to 35-year-olds who do
not share the bedrock conservative principles of their
parents and grandparents.
Such evidence is found in, to cite just one example, the
Amazon endorsements for Merritt’s 2014 book, “Jesus is
Better Than You Imagined” (I’ve never “imagined” Jesus,
myself).
Batterson. Tullian Tchividjian. Leonard Sweet. Rebekah
Lyons. Shane Claiborne. Brad Lomenick. Rachel Held
Evans. (If you want to search for some interesting info on
each, go to Apprising Ministries.)
Generally speaking.
For example, younger generations unquestionably are
much more likely to embrace the homosexual agenda.
This is the generation raised on Oprah and Ellen.
Merritt engages in what I call the manipulation of
language. From his perch as a progressive writer, he is
able to interview fellow change agents like Held Evans
and Rob Bell. This introduces their progressive ideas
about Christianity and faith.
Merritt himself was “outed” a couple years ago, and his
odd public acknowledgment of an encounter with another
man made some headlines.
Interestingly, however, the revelation did not impede his
career. Nor am I aware of celebrity pastors who
questioned his story, in a negative sense. This is part of
the New Evangelicalism.
Through it all, Merritt self-identifies as a “moderate
conservative.”
This is to fool rank-and-file evangelicals. Shame on the Ed
Stetzers of the world for helping mainstream him.
The reason for that is, in my opinion, the spirit of the age
is with Jonathan Merritt. Progressivism, center-left
thought, cultural acceptance and multi-cultural emphasis
in schools and even churches have brought us to the place
where a Jonathan Merritt can enjoy a booming
writing/speaking career, even as he helps transition the
American church into a left-wing entity.
On a wide range of social and theological issues, Merritt
outs himself as a progressive. But he insists on calling
himself a moderate conservative.
Curious, curious.
He doesn’t like my writing, or the focus of WND, because
we are one of the relatively few voices spotlighting such
an agenda.
This past week, I engaged him on his Facebook page,
calling him progressive. Eventually he weighed in, finally
accusing me of “pleading” for an interview with him.
And it is an agenda.
That is classic smokescreen.
It is fascinating to note that when I attempt to dialogue
with these change-agents, they become annoyed and try to
marginalize me. But they never answer my questions.
I admit that I would like to ask him many questions,
including why he spoke at a Telos gathering in 2013. The
gathering was a strategy session for engaging audiences
regarding the Israel/Palestinian issue. Telos presents itself
as a “pro-pro-pro” group, meaning they are for everyone,
78
yet curiously they constantly promote a view of the ArabIsraeli conflict that sounds like a PLO press release.
The name of the game today in evangelicalism is
obfuscate, marginalize “critics” and shield progressive
agendas from the rank-and-file.
I don’t get to have questions like this answered because
the best-known evangelical leaders in the U.S. do not wish
to answer questions like this.
“Nothing to see here, move along.”
Except, there is much to see.
Jonathan Merritt chose to scrub my comments and our
exchange from his Facebook page. That is classic evasion,
and it doesn’t serve the Christian community Merritt and
his friends purport to serve and love.
Blogger and researcher Jim Fletcher has worked in the
book publishing industry for 15 years, and is now director
of the apologetics group Prophecy Matters. His new book,
"Truth Wins," provides important analysis of Rob Bell and
his Emergent friends.
Key gun rights questions likely to go unasked at NRA meeting
By David Codrea
immigrants in this country have “earned the right to be
citizens.” And then look at what some of the leading
Republicans have said about the issue.
No candidate for NRA director has campaigned for office
with the amnesty/pathway danger being even an
acknowledged issue, let alone the most critical one
threatening legal recognition of the right to keep and bear
arms. Indeed, quite the opposite has occurred.
Ditto for holding politicians accountable for policies they
endorse, despite an admission from a Democrat
congressman that immigration “will decide who is in
charge of this country for the next 20 or 30 years.”
There’s a real simple way for those in the gun rights
community who wish this issue to go away to get those of
us who keep bringing it up to stop: Provide credible
evidence -- not anecdotes and platitudes, but something
that can be independently validated -- that refutes and puts
to rest the concerns. If injecting millions of antigun voters dependent on Democrat “entitlements”
into the electorate will not result in an unbeatable
“progressive” super-majority, having a disastrous
effect on politicians elected, laws passed, judges
confirmed, and decisions upheld, all they need do
is share with us how they know that.
While NRA meeting attendees preoccupy themselves with
the immediately fun aspects of cool firearms on display
(and watch that trigger discipline!), lack of awareness and
focus on a critical threat portend a bleak future for gun
owners.
As gun owners gather this weekend for the
National Rifle Association’s annual meeting in
Nashville, two events are scheduled to take place
that will have lasting effects on politics affecting
the right to keep and bear arms: This
year’s meeting of members, and appearances
by politicians of national stature, including one
announced and several likely presidential contenders.
Likely to go unchallenged and unchanged is NRA’s
deliberate indifference to the one issue that has the
potential to undo and reverse all legislative and judicial
gains for gun rights won to date: Amnesty for illegal
aliens followed up with a “pathway to citizenship.”
There's a chance to do something significant to alter the
most likely outcome now, this weekend in Nashville.
Chances are, though, no one of import in the gun
community will put it to the members, or even allow it to
be brought up. The reason for that is something else that
ought to be shared.
All credible polls reveal a demographic that
overwhelmingly supports Democrats, and further,
overwhelmingly supports stricter government controls on
guns. Couple that with Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson declaring the millions of undocumented
David Codrea is a long-time gun rights advocate who
defiantly challenges the folly of citizen disarmament. He is
a field editor for GUNS Magazine, and a blogger at The
War on Guns: Notes from the Resistance.
79
Deadly Pair: Corrupt Media & Ignorant Populace
'Who gave high court permission to redefine anything?'
By Bradlee Dean
For example, the American people are led to believe
that the Supreme Court can redefine God’s definition
of marriage (Genesis 2:24).
“How is it, America, that these criminals in
government know how to lie better than most in this
country know how to tell the truth?”
– Bradlee Dean (1 Kings 18:21)
Americans are now awaiting a very radical and
corrupt court to make a decision on the definition of
marriage. Let me tell you plainly that government did not
create marriage and, therefore, has no business redefining
it. So, why are Americans awaiting a decision from the
high court? They are to discover God’s Law and apply
God’s Law. Who gave the Supreme Court permission to
redefine anything? The ignorance of the American people
has done this (Hosea 4:6).
I have to ask the American people a question: Do you
really want Jeb Bush as president? Really? Have the
American people not judged the corrupt tree for what it is
and the fruit it has borne (Luke 6:44)? Is it that Americans
cannot see the Bush family for who they are after years of
corruption?
Now, the state-controlled media, namely the conservative
outlets, are trying to convince us that Jeb Bush is the No. 1
pick through polls that are clearly skewed, as well as
fraudulent.
“If the Supreme Court is the final arbiter of what the
Constitution says, then we have ceased to be our own
rulers (Under God), and the Supreme Court is our ruler.”
– President Andrew Jackson
President Hilary Clinton? Really? Who is attempting to
legitimize this criminal? Do I need to say anything about
Hilary and her crime-strewn past? To latch on to the fact
that she is a legitimate pick for the presidency of the
United States is far beyond comprehension.
Americans have been, for years, talking about Obamacare.
Yet, Obamacare is unconstitutional and, therefore, illegal,
according to Article I, Section 8, of the United States
Constitution. Instead of the state-controlled media doing
their job by exposing its unconstitutionality and putting
the question to this administration as to where they
derived their authority to enact an unconstitutional agenda,
they divide the people into opposing groups to debate
what is illegal. Who gave corrupt government permission
to violate constitutional law? Ignorance has (Hosea 4:6)!
Isn’t everyone across the board, and I mean everyone,
talking about how sick and tired they are of the
establishment? Yes, they are! Yet, this exhibits the
media’s willingness to stay persistent regardless of what
the American people are really calling for. In other words,
shove it down their throats until they accept that we (the
Establishment) are the ruling class, like it or not! This is
becoming more apparent every day in this country.
These useful idiots lead Americans on with a cycle of
rhetorical talk day after day with the same backward flow
of information through a system that corruption means to
destroy. It is like giving bad medicine to a healthy body.
But rest assured – the body can only take so much before
it will fail.
When did this all go wrong?
“Kings become tyrants through policy when subjects have
become rebels from principles.”
(Psalm 18:21, Exodus 20)
The good news is that it all stops when the American
people have had enough!
There is no doubt the state-controlled media are pushing
the talking points of the day, which get the American
people to ask the wrong questions to create debate in an
attempt to implement illegal legislation through their
propaganda. And propaganda it is. Yet, it does not go
forward without the ignorance of the people that have
allowed it to go on.
Bradlee Dean is an ordained preacher, heavy metal
drummer, talk-show host of the Sons of Liberty Radio, and
a speaker on college and high school campuses, in
churches, and headlines for patriot events across the
country.
80
Pols and Reporters: Lying with Impunity
We're in grave peril when leaders, journalists get away with fabrication
By Laura Hollis
overlooked his administration’s grievous ruptures of
the public trust, including Obamacare, Fast and
Furious, Benghazi and the Bowe Bergdahl trade for
terrorists (to say nothing of his disregard for the
constitutional limits of his office). The press dutifully
repeats White House talking points like victims of Jedi
mind control: “You can keep your doctor. … We knew
nothing about the guns. … It was a video. … He served
with distinction. … These aren’t the droids we’re looking
for.” Nothing to see here, folks; move along.
There is a disturbing pattern to recent events in the
news.
On April 5, Columbia University’s School of
Journalism released its damning report on the
Rolling Stone article about a supposed brutally violent
gang rape at the University of Virginia. As many
suspected, the report reveals that author Sabrina Rubin
Erdely did not do even the most basic investigative work
on the allegations made by “Jackie,” the accuser. None of
the facts related to the attack can be proven (and many
have been disproven). Rolling Stone has officially
retracted the story, and Erdely has apologized (though not
to the members of the fraternity accused of rape). But the
damage to UVA and the accused fraternity – not to
mention future victims of actual assaults – is incalculable.
This would be dangerous enough if it were an isolated
case of cult of personality. But as the Rolling Stone/UVA
rape story demonstrates, principles of journalistic integrity
have been abandoned more broadly, in favor of what’s
called the “larger narrative”: It doesn’t matter if this
particular story isn’t true or who is falsely accused; what
matters are the social ends we want to accomplish.
A few days earlier, we were treated to Senate Minority
Leader Harry Reid’s interview with CNN’s Dana Bash. In
July of 2012, Reid had taken to the Senate floor and
accused Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney
of having evaded taxes for a decade. Pressed for details,
including a source, Reid demurred, insisting that an
“insider” at Bain Capital had provided the information.
PolitiFact characterized this as a lie of “pants on fire”
magnitude, but widespread press coverage produced the
intended effect.
In their articles about the Columbia report, authors Clay
Shirky in The New Republic, and Jay Rosen in
PressThink, both identify a key word: “emblematic.”
Erdely was searching for an “emblematic” rape case. Phi
Kappa Psi was seen as an “emblematic” fraternity. In
response to the statement that Erdely was looking for a
school with the “right feel,” Rosen retorts, “What kind of
‘feel’ is this? It’s feeling for a fit between discovered story
and a prior – given – narrative.”
In the interview, Bash asked Reid whether he regretted
using such deceitful tactics. “Some might call it
McCarthyite,” she suggested. Reid was impenitent. “They
can call it whatever they like,” he sneered. “Romney
didn’t win, did he?”
Bingo.
There seems to be a collective shrug of helpless
resignation when politicians or policymakers lie. But we
should be appalled when journalists facilitate those lies (or
create their own) because they share the liars’ social
objectives.
The social mediaverse erupted. Even in today’s jaded
political climate, this struck observers as brazen. But why
are we surprised? Deceit by politicians has become de
rigueur, one more tool to be used in pursuit of a desired
end.
When politicians can lie with impunity and “journalists”
are more enamored with a “narrative” than with facts, we
are in grave peril, indeed. It is hard to know which is more
damaging: believing the lies we are being told or sinking
into a state of cynical resignation, assuming that no
one tells the truth anymore. Either result rewards the liars
and corrodes the culture.
Last fall, we heard MIT economics professor Jonathan
Gruber’s videotaped admissions that “lack of
transparency” was necessary in order to pass Obamacare,
because Americans are “too stupid” to do what he and the
rest of the political elite think is best for us. This was
preceded by the abysmal launch of Healthcare.gov, and
the revelations that President Obama’s years of assurances
about his signature piece of legislation were lies. He had
promised Americans that they would lose neither their
insurance plans nor their doctors, knowing it wasn’t true.
Millions lost both.
We deserve better. But we will not get it unless we
demand it. From deceitful politicians, we can withhold our
vote. From deceitful media, we can withhold our money.
Those are – apparently – the primary currencies they
understand.
Laura Hollis is associate professor of teaching,
Department of Accoutancy at Mendoza College of
Business, and concurrent associate professor of law at
Notre Dame Law School, University of Notre Dame.
The American media’s obsequious love affair with Obama
has played a key role in this manipulation, as they have
81
What Really Is 'Gun Violence'?
Shines light on 'studies' that skew statistics about firearm use
By Jeff Knox
arsenal in the 1970s and which has fueled massive
surges in violent crime in “controlled” nations like
Great Britain.
When you hear terms like “gun violence” and “gun
deaths,” what do you think of? For most people, the
first thought is of thugs waving guns and shooting
people during the commission of a violent crime.
But that’s not what’s being talked about in “studies”
and “statistics” published in the media. Sure they include
this terminology when they report on those types of
crimes, but most of the time, when the media talks about
“gun violence” or “gun deaths,” they’re following a game
plan from gun control advocacy groups, and the data are
based on much more than violent criminals. The “gun
violence” and “gun deaths” they’re talking about also
includes armed citizens using guns to defend themselves
and their families, police using guns to stop criminals,
hunters unintentionally shooting themselves or others in
the fields and people who use guns when they choose to
take their own lives. Over 60 percent of all firearm-related
deaths are suicides.
Newspapers, TV and radio news and talk shows and
Internet sites across the country have been promoting the
“study” as a significant news story under such catchy
headlines as “Bullets vs. Buicks” and “Bangers vs.
Bullets.” Some of the stories make a halfhearted effort
toward balance by pointing out in passing that suicides
and justified shootings are included in the aggregate, or
including a comment from a rights supporter, but never do
you see any rational analysis of the methodology of the
“study,” the bias and agenda of the authors, or discussion
of various factors involved in the statistics.
In all of the mainstream media reports on this “study,”
which has been re-released annually with updated
numbers for at least the past five years, I have never seen
mention of the fact that nationally, and in every state I’ve
analyzed, murders and unintentional deaths by firearm
have been declining at a faster rate than traffic fatalities.
Never have I seen it pointed out that this decline has been
occurring while the numbers of guns and gun owners has
been increasing dramatically. Nor have I ever seen
mention that total miles driven in the U.S. and in most
states, particularly among younger drivers, was going
down throughout the “study” period thanks to escalating
gasoline prices. And I’ve never seen a story discussing
justifiable “car deaths.”
When you hear the term “gun violence” do you think of a
mom shooting a violent intruder in her home? Or a police
officer shooting an armed criminal? While all of these
describe “gun deaths,” they are not the sort of gun deaths
most people think of when the term is thrown out on the
table.
It’s the use – and abuse – of this type of terminology in
the media and from politicians that keeps the American
public confused about the role of guns in our society.
The confusion is no accident. Gun control groups
intentionally use deceptive terminology in bogus “studies”
and false or misleading statistics, and media outlets
regurgitate this distorted information with no skepticism,
analysis or basic fact-checking. Media reports are often
verbatim republications of these advocacy groups’ press
releases.
The one statistic that skews the charts is suicide. Over 60
percent of all firearm-related deaths in the U.S. are
attributable to suicide. Rates of suicide by gun are not
surprisingly higher in states where guns are more
common, and guns tend to be more common in lower
populated, Western states where traffic fatalities tend to be
lower. Suicide rates have been edging up slightly over the
past decade, with the predominant demographic of
increase being young military veterans.
The Violence Policy Center – a gun control advocacy
group funded almost entirely by the Joyce Foundation, on
whose board of directors Barack Obama once served – has
been getting tons of free media with a nonsensical
comparison between “gun deaths” and traffic fatalities. In
the “study,” which is really nothing more than an opinion
piece with some carefully selected statistics thrown in,
they make much of the fact that “gun deaths” are eclipsing
traffic deaths in many states. They credit reductions in
traffic fatalities to government regulations like drunk
driving laws and safety requirements for cars. The
suggestion is that additional regulations on guns and gun
owners would have a similar positive impact on “gun
deaths.” This is the same sort of “magical thinking” that
encouraged unilateral destruction of the U.S. nuclear
That is a tragic reality, and it is something that is just as
much a concern to gun owners as any other American. We
at The Firearms Coalition believe that this is another area
where education can make a significant impact, just as it
has in reducing unintentional firearm deaths and injuries.
While there is some research suggesting that waiting
periods for firearm purchases might have some positive
impact on suicide rates, the most comprehensive
research to date to reach this conclusion found only a very
small impact on a fairly narrow demographic: white males
over 55 years of age. It is also worth noting that the
research was funded by the Joyce Foundation, the same
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The next time you see a report about “gun violence,” look
closely to see if it’s really about gun violence or actually
about promoting gun control. The 50 percent reduction in
“gun murder” in the U.S. over the past 20 years, while
guns and gun ownership have been going up and gun
control laws have been being liberalized, clearly shows
that guns don’t cause violence. Using a gun to stop a
violent criminal should never be labeled as “gun
violence.”
folks who fund the Violence Policy Center and many
other anti-rights activities. Any positive impact of these
types of laws is unlikely to outweigh the negative impact
on people in immediate need of a firearm for self-defense
purposes.
Gun groups have always been the front line in true gun
safety efforts, and we have been amazingly effective at
reducing accidental deaths attributable to negligent
discharges. Gun groups should also be in the vanguard of
efforts to prevent firearm suicides, understanding that the
goal must be preventing suicides, not just reducing the
percentage of them committed using firearms. For more
information on suicide prevention, check
out www.afsp.org.
Jeff Knox is a second-generation political activist and
director of The Firearms Coalition. His writing can
regularly be seen in Shotgun News and Front Sight
magazines as well as on WND.
Newsmax Finance
Brookings' Haskins: 'We're Headed Toward a Fiscal Black Hole'
By Dan Weil
Boston University economist Laurence Kotlikoff is
concerned too. To those who say the government debt is
easily manageable, he has a sobering reply.
While public focus on the government's massive debt
burden has faded a bit in recent months, it remains a huge
problem, says Ron Haskins, an economist at the
Brookings Institution.
"Our country is broke. It's not broke in 75 years or 50
years or 25 years or 10 years. It's broke today," Kotlikoff
told the Senate Budget Committee in February. "Indeed, it
may well be in worse fiscal shape than any developed
country, including Greece."
"Of all the failures of recent Congresses and Presidents,
none is more important than their failure to deal with the
nation's long-term debt," he writes in an article for Real
Clear Markets.
And what about official figures showing that federal
government debt is "only" 74 percent of GDP?
"Unfortunately, the federal debt is not an economic
measure of anything, including our nation's fiscal
position," Kotlikoff said.
"Although Congress tied itself in knots trying to address
the problem, the growth of debt remains, in the words of
the Congressional Budget Office, 'unsustainable.'"
When the Great Recession began in 2007, the federal
government's debt totaled about 40 percent of GDP. But
that ratio surged to 78 percent of GDP in 2013.
For example that figure omits the almost $750 billion the
government is collecting this year in Social Security
payroll taxes from workers and the future Social Security
transfer payments these FICA contributions secure, he
explains.
"The annual deficit is now declining at a stately pace, but
by 2016 it will begin increasing again," Haskins explains.
Debt will jump to well over 100 percent of GDP by 2039,
according to a conservative estimate by the Congressional
Budget Office.
In reality we're facing a fiscal gap of $210 trillion
Kotlikoff contends. That's almost 12 times current GDP of
$18 trillion.
"But little if any congressional action is planned to deal
with the notorious level of debt," Haskins writes. "We're
headed toward a fiscal black hole."
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Newsmax
Grover Norquist: White House Ordered IRS to Stop Tea Party Groups
By Courtney Coren
unions, allowing for a significant increase in donor
spending.
The Obama administration ordered the IRS to shut down
tea party and conservative groups so they wouldn't be a
threat to the president's chances of re-election,
conservative activist Grover Norquist alleges in his latest
book.
"Everyone is up in arms because they don't like it," Lerner
said about the Supreme Court decision during a speech at
Duke University in October 2010, Norquist cites.
Norquist, president of Americans for Tax Reform, makes
the case for a fairer, simpler tax system in "End the IRS
Before It Ends Us," which was released Tuesday, as he
also makes a case for what happened during the IRS-tea
party scandal, according to review by Paul Bedard of The
Washington Examiner.
"The Federal Election Commission can't do anything
about it. They want the IRS to fix the problem. The IRS
laws are not set up to fix the problem ... so everyone is
screaming at us right now: Fix it now before the election,"
she is quoted as saying.
The tax reform advocate makes his case for the White
House's involvement based on studies on the electoral
system, while showing what was happening with the IRS
and tea party groups in the years leading up to 2012, and
how the agency's efforts slowed the growth of the tea
party movement.
Norquist claims that after that, the IRS started working to
do what it could to curtail the growth of the tea party
movement and keep voters from voting for presidential
contender Mitt Romney in 2012 by putting tea party
groups through extensive scrutiny and slowing down the
processing time for nonprofit approval.
"Had the tea party repeated and built on their activism of
2009 and 2010 in 2011 and 2012, Obama would have lost
the election. What happened to the tea party boost? It
didn't grow from 2010. It appeared to weaken," Norquist
writes.
"In our modern kneecapping, President [Barack] Obama
was Tonya Harding. The American people who had voted
strongly in 2010 and threatened the president's chances of
winning ... [re-election]," Norquist writes.
However, he says that it isn't because the tea party fell
"down the stairs. It was pushed."
The conservative activist contends that slowing down the
process for tea party groups to acquire tax-exempt status
kept groups from getting off the ground and may have
prevented others "by stopping them from organizing."
Norquist cites a study on the tea party movement showing
that an extra 5.8 million more Republican voters went to
the polls to vote in the 2010 midterm elections, giving the
Republicans control of the House, because of the effort of
tea party groups.
California Rep. Darrell Issa, who used to head the House
Government Oversight Committee, made similar
allegations about Lerner in July while appearing on Fox
News Channel.
"She was an active participant in trying to undo what she
saw — and the president saw — as the damage of the
Citizens United Supreme Court decision," Issa said.
By contrast, former IRS official Lois Lerner claimed that
she was given orders to "do something" to prevent
conservative groups from receiving funding to do the
same thing before the 2012 election after the Supreme
Court's decision on Citizens United, Norquist also cites.
"The president doesn't like what the Supreme Court says.
She doesn't like it, and they think they're going to overturn
it," he added.
The Citizens United decision prevents restrictions on
political spending by corporations, associations, or labor
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A classic case of asking the wrong question.
The real question is "How many dead tyrannical politicians and rogue cops
does it take to stop firearm confiscation?"
By Mike Vanderboegh, an alleged leader of the merry band of Three Percenters
This is entirely the wrong question. Let's accept the
premise, as those who live behind enemy in states like
Connecticut are forced to every day. The salient question
is instead: How many tyrannical politicians and rogue
cops doing their bidding is it necessary to kill before the
raids stop? My guess is, not very many.
"Remember: Evil exists because good men don't kill the
government officials committing it." -- Kurt Hofmann.
The French have a saying, "pour encourager les autres."
"To encourage the others." This is used ironically as in
"The Colonel had to be shot in order to encourage the
others." Exactly.
An article in Guns.com asks: “Will police confiscate
guns if the government orders it?”
Newsmax
Richard Land: At Easter Event, Obama Took 'Sly Pot Shot' at Christians
By Courtney Coren
President Barack Obama's recent comments on religious
issues shows that "he has a very strange definition of
freedom of religion," says Dr. Richard Land, president of
the Southern Evangelical Seminary.
"This is the weaponization of government, and it's one of
the things that Mr. Obama is very good at," he added.
At an Easter Prayer Breakfast on Tuesday, Obama said
that while he reflects on his Christianity, "I am supposed
to love, and I have to say that sometimes when I listen to
less-than-loving expressions by Christians, I get
concerned."
"He believes in freedom of religion as long as you agree
with him, but if you disagree with him on gay marriage,
for instance, then he wants to weaponize the government
against you," Land told J.D. Hayworth on "America's
Forum" on Newsmax TV.
Land said that he thought "it was a curious venue, an
Easter breakfast, to take a sly pot shot at Christians.
"He doesn't speak up for florists and bakers and
photographers who don't want to be coerced into having to
participate in a gay wedding when they find this to be
morally reprehensible," he said.
"Most people feel that he was referencing the recent flap
in Indiana," he said.
"In the recent flap in Indiana, it was the Christians who
were the objects of hate, it was the Christians who were
the objects of prejudice, it was the Christians who were
bullied and it was the Christians who were threatened, not
non-Christians," he said.
"I believe they have a right to say, 'we are not going to
provide that service for you,'" he said. "There is no
community in America where they won't be able to find
people to provide that service.
"The president has an odd way of looking at things."
"Why do they want to compel someone to, under penalty
of law, violate their conscience?" Land asked.
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Free
Florida
First
For a Free, Independent, Godly, Prosperous
and Traditionally Southern Florida
Next Meeting: Monday, April 13th at 7:30pm
Our next meeting is scheduled for Monday,
April 13, at 7:30pm at the church meeting house,
circle the date on your calendar today, and plan to be
with us.
Free Florida First is an independent organization
advocating the secession of Florida from the United
States and its subsequent independence.
If you agree, we invite you to join the Southern resistance.
Visit us on the web at:
www.freefloridafirst.org
Just for Your Consideration is compiled by Pastor Greg Wilson of Landmark Baptist
Church, Archer, Florida. The articles contained within do not necessarily reflect the
opinions of Pastor Wilson or of Landmark Baptist Church.
Much of what you will find is not available via the so-called “main stream media.”
The articles are presented just for your consideration, education and edification.
For more information about our church, please visit our web site at:
www.libcfl.com
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