Friday, May 30, 2014

National Park Service LGBTQ Initiative.”

He said the foundations of the nation were changed by the elite without permission of the people, and now there is “no stopping” the movement.

'GAY' NATIONAL MONUMENTS TO REWRITE AMERICA'S HISTORY

The Liberty Bell center. Jefferson’s Monticello in Virginia and George Washington’s boyhood home. Mt. Rushmore. The Supreme Court building in Washington and the White House. Delaware’s “Old Courthouse.” The Daniel Webster law office in Massachusetts.

All protected by the federal government to preserve the nation’s heritage.

And soon, maybe a camera shop in San Francisco where once resided Harvey Milk, the homosexual city official who was described by a biographer as pursuing young boys most of his life and who once advocated for the leader of the Jonestown suicide cult, Jim Jones, as “a man of the highest character.”

The federal government has announced plans the set up an 18-member team within the National Park Service to consider locations of “significance” to the “history of lesbian, gay, transgender and bisexual Americans.”

Then they might be designated as a historical landmark, or placed in one of the other protected categories the federal government establishes and maintains.

Reports say Interior Secretary Sally Jewell’s appointees will “identify relevant sites” and then they will be considered for inclusion on National Register of Historic Places, among the National Historic Landmarks, or as a national monument.

Park Service Director Jonathan Jarvis said, “The Park Service is, in my view, America’s storyteller through place. It’s important that the places we recognize represent the full complement of the American experience.”

Among those locations that could be considered is Milk’s camera shop in San Francisco, where he developed into a controversial character on several fronts.

WND reported when, after state officials in California designated a “Harvey Milk Day” in public schools, family groups organized to encourage parents to send their children to private schools, homeschools or church schools instead.

A leader in the effort was SaveCalifornia.com, whose president, Randy Thomasson, said, “Boycotting Harvey Milk Day and pulling their children out of the imploding government school system is the only way for parents to protect their girls and boys.”

Read the story of Janet Boynes, in “Called Out: A Former Lesbian’s Discovery of Freedom.”

Lawmakers who adopted the special recognition for Milk didn’t make a point of highlighting Milk’s ties to Jones, leader of the massacred hundreds in Jonestown.

Jones moved his cult from San Francisco to the “Peoples Temple Agricultural Project” in Guyana in the 1970s. On Nov. 18, 1978, 918 people, including 276 children, died in a “revolutionary suicide” led by Jones. Hours before, five people had been murdered by Peoples Temple members at a nearby airport. One of the victims was Rep. Leo Ryan, the only member of Congress ever to die in the line of duty. He was investigating complaints from members who had left the cult of brutal beatings, murders and a mass-suicide plan.

Milk had spoken at several political rallies at the Jones Peoples Temple.

Only nine months prior to the mass killing, amid pressure to investigate Jones’ cult, Milk wrote a Feb. 19, 1978, letter of support for the Peoples Temple to then-President Jimmy Carter:

He said Jones was known “as a man of the highest character, who has undertaken constructive remedies for social problems which have been amazing in their scope and effectiveness.”

As WND reported, Randy Shilts, a homosexual San Francisco Chronicle reporter, wrote a favorable and telling biography of Milk called “The Mayor of Castro Street.”

Thomasson delivered copies of pages in the 1982 book to members of the California Assembly. The book describes Milk’s sexual relationships with a 16-year-old, a 19-year-old and other young men.

Federal officials said the study of possible sites is being funded by Denver homosexual activist Tim Gill, whose millions come from the Quark software empire, and who said, “LGBT history is American history.”

“While we take this important step to recognize the courageous contributions of LGBT Americans, we need to unite … to ensure we leave none of our fellow Americans behind,” he said.

More on this story right after the poll:

‘An increasingly despotic secularist movement’

The announcement immediately drew a warning from Ed Vitagliano, an official with the American Family Association, which has as constituents millions of American families and individuals.

He said, “The homosexual movement and its activists have been quite successful in pushing this ideology and now framing the debate.”

He said the shift to a “secular” nation was begun, and out of that came the “sexual revolution.” The results are a nation that “our Founders would not recognize.”

“The country is no longer being run by ‘We the People.’ The country is being run by activist federal judges, it is being run by a fairly lawless executive branch,” he said. “And there is really no real counterweight to that movement except for the church. And far too often the church remains quiet on this issue.”

He said the foundations of the nation were changed by the elite without permission of the people, and now there is “no stopping” the movement.

“The people will not be allowed to decide what is and is not right. They will not be allowed to decide what types of national sites will be honored. So the American people will become the subjects of an increasingly despotic, secularist movement.”

Hope?

Is there hope?

He said there is.

“The only hope our nation has to return to its origins and in our opinion to return to what made this country strong is a spiritual awakening, a revival that is unprecedented in human history since the first century. That’s the only way to change this nation,” he said.

“Whatever political and cultural changes follow, the prerequisite is that awakening.”

Homosexual activists have been working on the plan for a long time. Back in January, there were reports in San Francisco’s “gay” publications that the “lack of LGBT historic sites with federal recognition” was a problem.

“Looking for additional LGBT properties suitable for federal designation, staff from the National Register of Historic Places and the national Historic Landmarks Program hosted a webinar in October to discuss how LGBT community leaders can work with the National Park Service to locate, document, and protect sites associated with LGBT history,” the “gay” publication said.

The online meeting was described as a “coming out of sorts for the National Park Service LGBTQ Initiative.”

The Stonewall Inn, where homosexuals rioted against laws affirming morality, already has such a designation, as do a couple of other Eastern seaboard locations.



Thursday, May 29, 2014

How the next set of voters see America

This is a terrifying exposé 

How the next set of voters see America

We are now in the sixth year of the Obama presidency and way past the point of blaming President Bush for everything from the economy to hangnails. A lot has happened during this period, the most noticeable of which is a slow, yet apparent, dismantling of the United States. Youth growing up in the age of Bush and Obama do not comprehend the greatness that characterized America; it is a foreign concept to them. They may not appreciate how we survived WW2, put a man on the moon, and became the industrial juggernaut of the world; but they will be voting in the next election and have no comprehension of what America once was and could be again.

Our youngest voters do not understand the meaning of a massive and escalating debt, a growing welfare state, excessive spending, and a horrendously slow recovery. Since they have nothing to compare it to, they think this is the way things should be.

Militarily, we have diminished our ability to fight. Historically, American policy for defense included the ability to fight in two arenas of operation, as in WW2 (Europe and the Pacific). During the Obama administration, this was changed to accommodate only one theater of war. Since WW2, America accepted and assumed a leadership role in military matters. Today, we “lead from behind.” To young voters who do not possess a sense of history, this appears to be perfectly normal.

At one time, America was the leader of the space race. This all changed during the last six years when we no longer have a policy or major objective for space, and now depend on countries like Russia and China to allow us to hitchhike into space. Basically, we sacrificed our space initiatives for social programs. To our youth, names like Werner Von Braun, Alan Shepard, John Glenn, Gene Kranz, Neil Armstrong, Buzz Aldrin, and Michael Collins have long been forgotten, as well as their accomplishments.

In terms of energy, when you mention a gallon of gasoline was as little as 29 cents a gallon in the early 70′s, and 55 cents in the late 70′s, they are inclined not to believe you. And if you mention gas prices were $1.84/gallon at the beginning of the Obama administration, they are at a loss as to why gas today sells for approximately $3.60/gallon and do not appear to be particularly concerned about it. Whereas energy independence should be our top priority, the Obama administration blocks all attempts to revive the Keystone pipeline project and cultivate the gas fields in the Northeast, thereby putting Americans back to work, all of which is okay with youth imbued with “green” initiatives and “global warming.”

Our young voters have only known of gridlock in Washington, DC. The president thwarting Congress through any and all means seems perfectly natural to them. Ronald Reagan, even in his day of conservative politics, found a way to work with a Democratic Congress; but not Mr. Obama, not unless you count the 11th hour attempts to raise the debt limit–something he, himself, repudiated when he was a Senator from Illinois.

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by WesternJournalism.com.

Get the news the mainstream media doesn't report. Sign up to get our daily newsletter and like us on Facebook


The legal system has changed vastly. The pretrial release system for processing prisoners puts public safety at risk and is aimed at eliminating the bail bond industry. Drug offenders and illegal immigrants today only get a slap on the wrist. The Commander-in-Chief enforces only those laws he feels is pertinent, least of all guarding our borders. And his Attorney General, the nation’s “top cop,” became the first AG in history to be held in both criminal and civil contempt. If our younger voters are not concerned, why should the rest of us be?

Our public educational system has changed from teaching and motivating students to memorization and testing. Furthermore, an educational bureaucracy is about to become more invasive in the lives of our children with the coming of Common Core. Youth, who have just experienced several years of such education, are now comfortable with this approach.

Even the concept of capitalism, long an inherent part of the American free enterprise system, is under attack by the current administration. By creating a division between the “have’s” and the “have nots” and enacting legislation arresting the development of companies, such as the highest business tax rate in the world, the administration is creating a stifling business environment and moving the country closer to socialism. Young voters show no sympathy as they have been taught to view business, both big and small, as inherently evil.

The division between Americans also seems perfectly normal. Even though it isn’t politically correct, the country has been divided along racial, sexist, and economic lines. The media becomes the judge, jury, and prosecutor in the court of public opinion. By doing so, it stays in lockstep with administration policies and positions. If they do not, journalists are immediately taken to the woodshed.

The culture of corruption surrounding the White House is unprecedented. Evidently, it is now acceptable behavior for all the cabinet departments to stonewall the Congress regardless of lawful subpoenas. It has now been documented there have been hundreds of instances where the president has lied to or misled the American people. Evidently, the ends justify the means, regardless of the costs. This is what the White House and young voters understand to be “transparency.”

Some would claim President Obama is openly dismantling the United States and creating a massive bureaucracy to invade every aspect of our lives. Although studies show young voters do not necessarily trust Obama, they have been trained to accept his policies.

This is how our next set of voters understand the world, not based on our past glory. To them, this is all perfectly natural and how they perceive politics working and business conducted. This does not bode well for the next election. If you are a concerned parent, it is time to discuss with them what capitalism is, the dignity of work as opposed to entitlement, the American Dream, the Constitution (which explains how our government is supposed to work), and, above all else, an understanding of our history. Don’t rely on the teachers or media to explain it, as it is not in their best interest to do so; it is up to you, the parents, to set them straight. Do not abdicate your responsibility.

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by WesternJournalism.com.

Get the news the mainstream media doesn't report. Sign up to get our daily newsletter and like us on Facebook


Obama’s secret to dismantling America is not all of the devices mentioned above, but developing an apathetic generation of voters who will embrace Mr. Obama’s policies well into the 21st century.

Keep the Faith!

Note: All trademarks both marked and unmarked belong to their respective companies.

The views expressed in this opinion article are solely those of their author and are not necessarily either shared or endorsed by WesternJournalism.com.


STUDYING THE CONSTITUTION: Citizen's Guide to America's Founding Documents

Original Four Part Series Made for NRN and Presented by Rick Green

Citizen's Guide to America's Founding Documents On Demand Videos-- 


If you like this series, check out Rick's newest high quality product

Rally for America HERE!

PLANNED PARENTHOOD EXPOSED

Your Tax Dollars Pay for Child Rape, Sex Trafficking and Fraud at Planned Parenthood

by Jill Stanek | Washington, DC | LifeNews.com | 5/28/14 9:39 AM

Today, Lila Rose and the Live Action team are launching a new comprehensive campaign, “Lies, Corruption, and Scandal: Six Years of Exposing Planned Parenthood.”

plannedparenthood105Beginning today, Live Action will hand-deliver a packet to every U.S. congressman and senator that includes a cover letter  providing an overview of Live Action’s investigative findings against Planned Parenthood over the course of six years, and a  report detailing Planned Parenthood’s expansive malfeasance.

At the same time Live Action is conducting a public campaign by unveiling a new website, PlannedParenthoodExposed.com, launching a petition drive, and releasing a video that gives a truly shocking six minute synopsis of Live Action’s six years of undercover investigations of the United States’ largest abortion corporation.

Those findings include:

Here is that video. Each of Live Action’s undercover investigations has been shocking in and of itself. But ultimately each has revealed only a sliver of Planned Parenthood’s evil underbelly.

Put together, Live Action’s findings are truly unbelievable, particularly when one takes into consideration the fact that taxpayers hand Planned Parenthood over half a billion dollars EVERY YEAR - $1.4+ million A DAY.

Live Action is urging our legislators to halt funding of Planned Parenthood.

The report, spanning six years and documenting a series of undercover investigations, shows “an institutionalized pattern of dangerous and illegal behavior,” said Live Action president Lila Rose.

“Abortion is a sickening human rights abuse against both women and children,” Rose said.  “When I first began to go undercover in these facilities in 2007, I thought I would find illegal and harmful activity.  But even I had no idea of the huge, company-wide commitment to abortion at any cost – the fraud, the lies, the cover-ups.”

Rose is calling for the immediate and complete revocation of all taxpayer funds to Planned Parenthood.  “An organization that lies to women and kills three thousand children every day for profit can have no valid claim on a single American’s paycheck,” she said.  “It’s a grave injustice that our government and our president actively promote this extreme form of violence.  It’s a disgrace that we are all forced to fund it.”

Per its latest annual report, Planned Parenthood received $540.7 million in government (i.e., taxpayer) funds in 2011-2012.  The corporation performed 327,166 abortions during that time.

“Planned Parenthood is an abortion corporation,” Rose said, “no matter what its gold-plated marketing department tells you.  These facilities need to be investigated, inspected, and shut down.  Most if not all of these abortionists should be prosecuted – along with destroying thousands of lives, they regularly skirt or outright violate state statutes.  Our report shows where the true ‘war on women’ is – it’s front and center in America’s abortion facilities.  And it will never end until their doors are shut forever.”

I mean, really. Fund an organization that is willing to cover up the statutory rape of a 13-yr-old by a 31-yr-old? That is “excited” to take donations specifically to abort black babies? That lies to vulnerable women about child development? That aids and abets child sex traffickers, whose victims may also have been illegally smuggled into the United States? That engages in false advertising (at the highest levels) and fraud? That is willing to commit sex-selective abortions of baby girls, just because they are girls? That lies to prospective patients about the safety of their clinics? That lobbies in favor of infanticide?

Seriously, what is to like about Planned Parenthood, not loathe?

The only explanation for a politician to support taxpayer funding of Planned Parenthood is corruption – mutual back-scratching.

CLICK LIKE IF YOU’RE PRO-LIFE!

We must stop this madness. Be sure to sign Live Action’s petition and get the word out.

LifeNews.com Note: Jill Stanek fought to stop “live birth abortions” after witnessing one as an RN at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Illinois. That led to the Born Alive Infants Protection Act legislation, signed by President Bush, that would ensure that proper medical care be given to unborn children who survive botched abortion attempts.




Wednesday, May 28, 2014

Feds Attack American Businesses in “Operation Choke Point”

Feds Attack American Businesses in “Operation Choke Point”
Feds Attack American Businesses in “Operation Choke Point”  

Gingrich Productions
May 28, 2014
Newt Gingrich

To receive Newt’s weekly newsletters, click here.

In an administration that has pioneered the use of regulatory power to bully businesses into doing “voluntarily” what the bureaucrats can’t require by law, a secretive federal program that has become public in the last few months stands out as an especially disturbing abuse of power.

The program’s name, “Operation Choke Point,” is a pretty strong indication of trouble–an eerie way for bureaucrats to describe their conduct toward private citizens.

It’s a reference to the banking system as the “choke point” of businesses, a critical piece of the economic infrastructure which government can co-opt to strangle legal activities it doesn’t favor. In fact, I first learned about the program through my work as an advisor to the U.S. Consumer Coalition, which is fighting attacks like these on legal American businesses.

The revelation is alarming in part because it suggests federal officials have realized that they can leverage their strong regulatory authority over one industry, financial services, to exert broad control over many others.

The “choke point” initiative, a joint project of the Department of Justice, the FDIC, the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau and other agencies, started by targeting payday lenders. Officials approached banks and third-party payment processors, advising them that they could be held accountable if regulators concluded that any of their customers (the payday lenders) engaged in illegal behavior. The feds suggested ominously that banks ran a “reputational risk” if they serviced such clients.

The banks got the message. Nice bank you’ve got there. Shame if something happened to it.

As the Independent Community Bankers of America, an industry association, said in a letter to the Justice Department regarding Operation Choke Point, the program “gives community banks the untenable choices of either severing valuable and legal customer relationships or risking DoJ enforcement actions.” It could “close access to the financial system to law-abiding businesses,” the letter continued, “because the mere prospect of an enforcement action is sufficient to cause financial institutions to restrict access to their payment systems to only established companies that present low risks.”

Heeding the feds’ thuggish warning, the banks have been dropping the payday lenders as customers en masse. In a recent story on this phenomenon, the Washington Post quoted a letter from a banker to a payday lender with whom the bank was ending its relationship. “Based on your performance, there’s no way we shouldn’t be a credit provider,” the banker wrote. “Our only issue is, and it has always been, the space in which you operate. It is the scrutiny that you, and now that we, are under.”

Could it be any clearer?

The lenders aren’t the only legal businesses the regulators are using their authority in financial services to “choke.” A document the FDIC released in 2011 warns third-party payment processors that the agency is concerned about their business with “disreputable merchants” in 30 industries. In addition to “pay day loans,” the document warns about “ammunition sales,” “firearms sales,” “coin dealers,” “online gambling,” “tobacco sales,” “racist materials,” “pornography,” and “telemarketing,” among others.

Bureaucrats, it seems, are indeed deputizing bankers and payment processors to cut off these industries from the financial services they need to survive. The Washington Times reported last week that banks and payment processors have been terminating the accounts of law-abiding gun dealers across the country.

Much like the letter to the payday lender in the Post, the Times quotes a bank assuring a gun dealer that its decision to drop him as a client “in no way reflects any derogatory reasons for such action on your behalf. But rather one of industry. Unfortunately your company’s line of business is not commensurate with the industries we work with.”

There are reports of similar account terminations in many other industries the FDIC has labeled “high-risk.”

These developments should concern every American. For the government to hold banks responsible for monitoring the business of all their customers is unprecedented. To do so with the explicit aim of chilling the perfectly legal economic activities of private citizens is such a jaw-dropping abuse of power that it would have been unbelievable from any previous administration.

If the Department of Justice has evidence that particular businesses have broken the law, it should prosecute them. Lacking that, it certainly has no right to attack entire industries through the banking system. This story is as outrageous as they come. The federal bureaucracy has gone completely off the rails.


Debbie Dooley On Tea Party Express



http://m.wabe.org/?utm_referrer=#mobile/10365

Tuesday, May 27, 2014

UNIONS IN A SNARL IVE ACA UNAFFORDABILITY



New Costs From Health Law Snarl Union Contract Talks

Disputes between unions and employers over paying for new costs associated with the Affordable Care Act are roiling labor talks nationwide.

Unions and employers are tussling over who will pick up the tab for new mandates, such as coverage for dependent children to age 26, as well as future costs, such as a tax on premium health plans starting in 2018. The question is poised to become a significant point of tension as tens of thousands of labor contracts covering millions of workers expire in the next several years, with ACA-related cost increases ranging from 5% to 12.5% in current talks.

In Philadelphia, disagreement over how much workers should contribute to such health-plan cost increases has stalled talks between the region's transit system and its main union representing 5,000 workers as they try to renegotiate a contract that expired in March.

Roughly 2,000 housekeepers, waiters and others at nine of 10 downtown Las Vegas casinos voted this month to go on strike June 1 if they don't reach agreements on a series of issues, the thorniest of which involve new ACA-related cost increases, according to the union.

Flight attendants at Alaska Airlines voted down a tentative contract agreement with management in February, in part because it didn't provide enough protection against a possible surge in ACA-related costs, union members said. They are still without a new contract.

Labor experts on both sides say the law doesn't take into account that health benefits have been negotiated by employers and unions over decades, and that rewriting plans to meet new requirements can affect wages and other labor terms.

"It's been a challenge for even some of the stronger unions to maintain the quality health plans that they have offered over the years," said Daniel Murphy, an attorney in New York who represents employers in labor talks.

Among the earliest supporters of the health-care law, unions have unsuccessfully tried to win concessions from the Obama administration on some issues now involved in the labor talks.

An Obama administration official said: "We have worked hard to smooth implementation" of the health law.

One pressure point is the higher costs of new mandates, especially the requirement that health plans expand coverage for dependents. For Unite Here, adding that coverage for 14,000 dependents raised costs in the health-care fund run by the union's Las Vegas local by $26 million since 2011, said union spokeswoman Bethany Khan.

The union plan covers 55,000 workers and 120,000 people in total. Casinos on the Strip have agreed to pay more to meet the higher health-care costs, according to contract summaries. Unite Here President D. Taylor called the rising costs tied to the health law the biggest hurdle to reaching settlements in Las Vegas.

David Strow, a spokesman for Boyd Gaming Corp., which operates two of the nine Las Vegas casinos that have yet to reach a pact with the union, declined to comment on the health-care-related terms being negotiated. "We're making good progress," he said. Other casinos didn't respond to requests for comment.

Uncertainty about future costs is also hampering negotiations. One of the biggest looming unknowns is the so-called Cadillac tax on high-cost health plans scheduled to take effect in 2018. The provision imposes a 40% tax on the annual cost of health care above $10,200 for individual coverage and $27,500 for family coverage.

The regional transit system in Philadelphia, Septa, estimates the tax will boost its health-care costs by $15 million a year, or 12.5% of the $120 million it currently spends each year on health coverage. The transit system is already incurring several million dollars in added costs from other provisions, said Richard Burnfield, Septa's chief financial officer.

"How do you deal with that?" he said. "The options you have are you just suck it up and pay for it, or you look at plan design. Do you increase employee contributions?"

Transport Workers Union Local 234, Septa's biggest union, has rejected a proposal that its members contribute an additional 1% of pay to help cover new ACA-related costs, said Willie Brown, president of the union, which represents 5,000 bus drivers, train operators and others. "They're asking us to negotiate in the dark," said Mr. Brown. He said he didn't trust Septa's estimates.

Union officials say the law penalizes so-called union-sponsored multi-employer health plans, which are jointly run by unions and primarily small employers, and which cover workers from multiple companies in industries such as construction, trucking and retail.

People in those plans aren't eligible for the subsidies toward the cost of premiums that the law offers some people buying coverage on their own. And many multi-employer plans also must pay a $63 tax this year per covered individual to help subsidize plans sold through the new insurance exchanges. Unions and large employers had campaigned against the fee, which drops to $44 in 2015. Under regulations released in March, some labor unions and businesses will get a break, but union officials have said the vast majority of its plans don't fit the definition required to qualify.

The Obama official said the administration had worked at "providing multiemployer plans flexibility where possible." The official said that labor's request that people in such plans qualify for the subsidy couldn't be granted, according to administration lawyers.

Another provision of the law that eliminates caps on annual and lifetime health-care costs has forced multi-employer plans to purchase their own insurance to prevent potential runaway costs from bankrupting plans.

Jim Ray, a lawyer who represents the Laborers International Union of North America in benefits negotiations, said these provisions have increased construction-industry health plans' costs by 5% to 10%, and already resulted in lower wages for some laborers. He said employers are frequently seeking contract language to cap their own liability for future cost increases from the law.

"When we first supported the calls for health-care reform, we thought it was going to bring costs down," he said.

In other cases, the law has resulted in some workers losing coverage from multi-employer plans. Last year, the United Food and Commercial Workers agreed to eliminate existing coverage for thousands of newer part-time workers at New England supermarkets, in order to preserve benefits for full-time workers.

The union says it replaced the coverage with a combination of benefits, including health savings accounts. Elsewhere, the union has agreed to several supermarket contracts that eliminate health coverage for certain members' spouses who have coverage available elsewhere.

"On a broad level, the biggest challenge facing all our negotiations is certain provisions the Affordable Care Act is demanding on plans," said Jill Cashen, a UFCW spokeswoman.

Write to Kris Maher at kris.maher@wsj.com and Melanie Trottman at melanie.trottman@wsj.com


GASLIGHTING CHRISTIANS IN AMERICA

Peter Beinart gaslights us on the attack on religion

religious freedom

Gaslighting: a form of psychological manipulation that occurs when an abuser makes a victim doubt their own perceptions, memories, and sanity.

The 1938 stage play Gas Light, known as Angel Street in the United States, and the film adaptations released in 1940 and 1944 motivated the origin of the term because of the systematic psychological manipulation used by the main character on a victim. The plot concerns a husband who attempts to convince his wife and others that she is insane by manipulating small elements of their environment, and subsequently, insisting that she is mistaken or remembering things incorrectly when she points out these changes. The original title stems from the dimming of the gas lights in the house that happened when the husband was using the gas lights in the attic while searching for hidden treasure. The wife accurately notices the dimming lights and discusses the phenomenon, but the husband insists she is imagining a change in the level of illumination.

This is what Peter Beinart writing in the Atlantic does in his essay The Myth of a ‘War on Religion.’

Why does this matter? Because it’s more evidence that the claim that liberals are waging a “war on religion” is absurd. You can hardly listen to a GOP presidential hopeful or flip on Fox News without hearing the charge. In 2012, Rick Perry promised that if elected he’d “end Obama’s war on religion.” Bobby Jindal recently warned that “the American people, whether they know it or not, are mired in a silent war” against “a group of like-minded [liberal] elites, determined to transform the country from a land sustained by faith into a land where faith is silenced, privatized, and circumscribed.” Ann Coulterexplains, “Liberals hate religion because politics is a religion substitute for liberals and they can’t stand the competition.”

Notice the claim. It’s not merely that liberals are not religious themselves. It’s that they disdain people who are, and this disdain creates a cultural stigma (and a legal barrier) to religious observance. “Bigotry against evangelical Christians is the last acceptable form of bigotry in the country,” Ralph Reed said recently.

What Beinart proceeds to do is offer a series of logical non-sequiturs that serve to prove liberals are duplicitious but he doesn’t address the actual merits of whether or not religion is under attack.

  • Liberals lie about going to church.
  • Liberals have turned away from church but respect religion as a social norm.
  • Atheists are stigmatized and the real victims.
  • Liberals respect religion as a social practice.

All of these may be true but they do not mean that there is not a war on religion. Beinart is advocating what Barack Obama does, and FDR did before him, when the Constitutional right to freedom of religion is glibly described as freedom of worship. It is a way of saying that religion is a personal matter and has no place in the public square. When this happens, you no longer have freedom of religion.

One has to go no further than Obama’s egregious imposition of a requirement that employers provide birth control despite their religious beliefs. Just a note here, this matters because the employer is paying for the benefit. We saw the administration press a case to force a religious institution to be subject to EEOC jurisdiction. Abortion is covered by insurance under Obamacare. Landlords are generally prohibited from discriminating against unmarried couples despite the fact that renting to them requires the landlord to be knowingly complicit in their illicit relationship. Homosexual couples have successfully forced bakers and photographers to help them celebrate their desecration of the institute of marriage. Students are told they can’t thank God at graduation. Prayer is forbidden at public events. The Supreme Court only narrowly approved a city council opening a meeting with a prayer.

Beinart points to the odious John Kerry as an example of a religious liberal who was embraced by other liberals. He could have added Nancy Pelosi to the list. Or Joe Biden. Or any number of the Kennedy spawn. All publicly proclaim themselves to be Catholics while at the same time disdaining the teaching of the Church or abortion or adultery or calumny or scandal. That is why they are accepted. They are the house-Catholics of the liberal movement. They are the ones liberals can point to and say “some of my best friends are religious.”

The fact that atheists are, rightfully, disdained by most Americans is of no import. There is no requirement that they attend church or pray or observe religious holidays. They are never forced by the government to profess belief in order to run a business or hold a meeting.

There is a simple reason for this. The agenda of today’s liberal is at odds with religion. Abortion is forbidden by a majority of churches. Homosexual marriage is forbidden by a majority of churches. Liberals see churches as a competitor to government in the delivery of social services. They don’t want children inculcated with religious values because every child that is brought up in a religious home is one that is lost to liberalism.

The reason liberals want others to believe they are religious themselves when, in fact, they aren’t is simple. Religion is important to most Americans. If you proclaim yourself to be irreligious and attack religious beliefs you will encounter a wall of opposition. On the other hand, if you proclaim yourself religious you are able to attack religious beliefs with a degree of impunity. And over time religion is rendered a curious custom more akin to Morris dancing than a means by which your life and relationships is offered.

Beinart is engaging is a very amateurish attempt at gaslighting us. The court dockets are filled with cases of religious practices being attacked by the government. On the other hand there is not a single instance of a religious group going to court to limit the rights of atheists in the public square. It is silly on its face.

Erick Erickson

THE LOST BOYS OF AMERICA



Another Young Man Turns Violent

Another young man has turned to violence. Stabbing some and shooting others, he wanted to exact revenge for some rejecting him.

In a “war on women” culture, some vocal voices have seized on this as what happens to men questing for a fully masculine culture. In fact, nothing could be further from the truth.

Best we can tell, Elliot Rodger lived the very lifestyle the cultural left thinks men should live and that is regularly glorified on the silver screen. For all the talk of a “War on Women,” there has actually been a war on masculinity for a few decades. And more and more twenty-something young men are getting lost and acting out while society tries to find something new to replace the tried and true.

Society used to expect men to open doors, protect their families, and be champions of modesty and virtue. But chivalry is dead. Instead of men and women complimenting each other, they’re supposed to be perfectly equal even if they are not. The hook up culture, instant gratification, and selfishness pervade our culture.

Young men need role models. But all the role models are now considered outmoded creations of Victorian society and the fifties. In the world of having the most toys and getting the most hookups, life becomes far too expendable and some young men cannot cope.

What happened in California not a political cause or issue. It’s an issue of social failing. It has nothing to do with masculine culture and a great deal to do with a culture that has lost its way while trying to find something new.

It is a tragedy.

Erick Erickson

Monday, May 26, 2014

CAPTURING AMERICA’S HEART: A THIRD AWAKENING?



CAPTURING AMERICA’S HEART: A THIRD AWAKENING?

Is America completely lost to immorality, secularism and selfishness, or is there hope for a Third Great Awakening? CBN News reports on what some of America’s top spiritual, political and moral leaders think:

WASHINGTON — Some religious leaders say America is facing a spiritually dark time.

“At the root of America’s problem, we really have a spiritual cancer that’s been eating away at our nation,” Bishop Harry Jackson, senior pastor of Hope Christian Church in Beltsville, Maryland, told CBN News.

Retired Gen. Jerry Boykin used to fight America’s physical enemies overseas. He’s now working with the Family Research Council fighting spiritual foes.

Boykin said without a Third Great Awakening, forces like those that took down mighty empires of the past will also bring down the United States.

“We’re going to wind up exactly like these other great empires, which only lasted on an average about 200 years,” he said. “We’re going to completely self-destruct. And you see the beginnings of that now.”

***This Fourth of July, a two-week celebration called Celebrate America is being planned in the nation’s capital designed to bring hope back to our country. For more information click here.

South Africa-born revivalist Rodney Howard-Browne pastors The River at Tampa Bay, a mega-church in Tampa, Florida.

“In the 1700s, there was a Great Awakening. In the 1800s, there was another. And we have to have one now. It’s that critical,” he told CBN News.

Bishop Jackson ticked off some of the sins he says are plaguing the land.

“We’ve got sex-trafficking,” he said. “We’ve got abortion. We’ve got the resurgence of racism. We’ve got hatred that is abounding.”

Howard-Browne pointed to the epidemics of abortion and illegal drug use in the nation.

“Three-thousand babies aborted every single day in this country. We have over 300 million people; we use over 70 percent of the world’s drugs,” he said.

God’s Not Finished Yet

But Howard-Browne sees a special grace on America.

“Knowing what I know, we should be gone a long time ago,” he said. “But it’s the believer in this land and the hand of God that’s still on America. And God’s not finished with this land. So it’s time for the Church to rise up.”

Those past awakenings led to national transformation.

“Both resulted in extraordinary things happening,” Boykin said.

The first in the mid-1700s was a unifying factor for the colonies as it spread throughout them. It awakened in Christians a hunger to live in a land that reflected the God of liberty portrayed in the Bible.

“Ultimately, it brought the American Revolution as the pastors and the people within the Church began to seek a new nation that would give them the kinds of freedoms that they believed were biblical,” Boykin stated.

The next awakening in the early 1800s was marked by mass salvations. And as Americans became free in Christ, many could no longer abide the lack of freedom for the nation’s slaves.

“In that Second Great Awakening, it brought about the Civil War as the conscience of America was raised to a level that would no longer tolerate slavery,” Boykin explained.

Read more: CBN.com

Image credit: www.nbcftruth.org





Sunday, May 25, 2014

Cliven Bundy Accidentally Explained What’s Wrong With the Republican Party


Cliven Bundy Accidentally Explained What’s Wrong With the Republican Party

On Saturday, Cliven Bundy, the Nevada rancher who has risen to prominence because of his dispute with the Bureau of Land Management, held forth about “the Negro,” and how black people may have been better off under slavery than now.

When I read Adam Nagourney’s exclusive account in The New York Times about the remarks, my first thought was: How did Mr. Bundy even get on this topic? It turns out, Mr. Bundy’s mind ran to the condition of black Americans because the activists who have flocked to his ranch to defend his right not to pay grazing fees are almost all white.

The Washington Post later obtained video of his remarks and it quotes him: “Where is our colored brother? Where is our Mexican brother? Where is our Chinese? Where are they? They’re just as much American as we are, and they’re not with us. If they’re not with us, they’re going to be against us.”

Mr. Bundy, weirdly, is onto something here. The rush to stand with Mr. Bundy against the Bureau of Land Management is the latest incarnation of conservative antigovernment messaging. And nonwhites are not interested, because a gut-level aversion to the government is almost exclusively a white phenomenon.

A 2011 National Journal poll found that 42 percent of white respondents agreed with the statement, “Government is not the solution to our problems; government is the problem.” Just 17 percent of blacks, 16 percent of Asians and 25 percent of Hispanics agreed. In 2011 and 2012, the Pew Research Center found that 55 percent of Asian-Americans and fully 75 percent of Hispanic-Americans say they prefer a bigger government providing more services over a smaller one providing fewer services, compared with just 41 percent of the general population.

Conservatives often talk about Republican underperformance with minorities in economic terms: Minority voters with lower incomes tend to see themselves as benefiting from government programs. Or they blame the underperformance on loose-cannon Republican politicians who make offensive statements, as with Representative Don Young, of Alaska, talking about “wetbacks” or Representative Steve King, of Iowa, warning that the Dream Act would give citizenship to drug smugglers with “calves the sizes of cantaloupes.”

Those problems are real, but Republicans’ biggest problem with minorities runs even deeper than economic disparities and racist gaffes. Asian-American voters broke nearly 3-to-1 against Mitt Romney in 2012, even though they have higher median family incomes and higher average educational attainment than whites. Economic prosperity alone will not make racial minorities eager for antigovernment language.

In 2012, when I attended the Republican National Convention, there was one phrase I heard over and over again: “You built it!” Republicans thought this was a clever rejoinder to President Obama’s comments that people should be thankful for the role that government plays in individual success. The comeback was not the blockbuster Republicans thought it would be, because America is not the overwhelmingly white country it once was.

Cliven Bundy gets that. Will Republicans?

The Upshot provides news, analysis and graphics about politics, policy and everyday life. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter.




New Mexico plots criminal charges against feds in land fight



New Mexico plots criminal charges against feds in land fight

Government, locals want to fend off new Bundy-type clash

(Washington Times) – New Mexico ranchers are plenty mad over the U.S. Forest Service’s refusal to open a gate blocking their cattle from reaching water, but all sides say they are working hard to avoid an armed showdown reminiscent of Nevada’s Bundy ranch skirmish any time soon.

But that doesn’t mean a resolution will be easy or that the pressure on the local officials at the center of the clash is any less.

And still standing are the metal fences and locked gates along the banks of the Agua Chiquita, put up by the Forest Service to keep local cattle out. The federal government says the fences are merely replacing long-standing barbed-wire enclosures protecting a vital wetland habitat.

SPECIAL: Join the Tea Party REVOLUTION! The Obama Regime must be dismantled!

Otero County officials say they’re exploring possible criminal and civil sanctions against federal agencies after failing to reach an agreement with federal stakeholders. The ranching community is also reaching out to Congress to step in on behalf of cattle owners.

“It’s time for a congressional inquiry into this and probably a committee hearing somewhere in the West to deal with this, because it’s not just here. It’s Utah. It’s Nevada. It’s what’s going on in Texas,” said Albuquerque attorney Blair Dunn, who’s representing Otero County in the matter.

The Otero County Commissioners released a statement late last week saying they were “frustrated and disappointed by the inability of the USFS to work cooperatively in any meaningful way” after federal officials refused to budge at a meeting called by the U.S. attorney.

“It was very frustrating for the sheriff and the county commissioners to go all that way, have that meeting in good faith, and nobody in that room from the federal government ever had any intention of compromising,” said Mr. Dunn.

The U.S. Attorney’s Office in New Mexico released a statement following Friday’s meeting confirming that the sides remain deadlocked.

“No resolution was reached during the meeting, and the U.S. Attorney’s Office continues to monitor the situation in Otero County primarily to ensure that public safety is preserved,” according to the statement.

Fourteen federal officials and law enforcement officers attended the meeting, said Mr. Dunn, but they insisted that they have no authority to remove the pipe fencing, which is tall enough to block cattle from reaching the watering hole but short enough to allow elk and deer to leap over.

Cal Joyner, Forest Service regional forester, said the fence was included as part of the region’s National Environmental Policy Act (NEPA) planning process in 2004, which determined that 23 acres out of 29,000 needed to be cordoned off to protect the riparian area.

Mr. Joyner said the cattle have had access to water outside the fence but that four years of drought in southern New Mexico have dried up many water sources. He also said that the process was conducted in public and included input from the Medeiros family, which owns the cattle.

“Up until last summer, in the fourth year of a record drought, we have never had problems with water outside of that one fence,” said Mr. Joyner.

Opening the fence may sound like an easy fix, but Mr. Joyner said it would also require the Forest Service to reopen the NEPA planning process and change the rules governing the riparian area, which is being protected as habitat for at-risk species, such as the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse.

“Once you make that kind of decision, to undo it you have to go through a similar process to say, ‘No, we’re choosing to again allocate these scarce resources back to livestock grazing,’” said Mr. Joyner. “That’s why we can’t just open the fence. There’s a process that’s gone through that’s public. We used public funds from the state of New Mexico to actually create the fence. It’s been a highly public process that’s gotten us to this place.”

Open for years

Ranchers point out that the fence has been opened for years every spring to allow the cattle access to the creek, which is also used by elk, deer and feral wild hogs.

Federal officials “kept saying, ‘Well, we have a record of decision under NEPA, and we can’t go back and open the gate. Which is crazy, because for the last 15 years they’ve been opening the gate and allowing access,” said Mr. Dunn. “When we said, ‘Who has the authority to open the gate?’ no answer.”

So far nobody has admitted to opening the fence in the past. “At least in the last 31/2 years when James [Duran] has been the ranger, they have not been opening the fence,” said Mr. Joyner. “No one in the room knew of who opened the fence and under what authority.”

The area is being protected in part for species such as the New Mexico meadow jumping mouse, which is expected to be listed as endangered in June.

Otero County Sheriff Benny House is investigating whether to bring charges against federal agencies for violations that could include criminal trespass. There are also concerns that the agencies may have used leftover oil pipes to construct the fence, which would violate New Mexico environmental law.

Caren Cowan, executive director of the New Mexico Cattle Growers’ Association, said the feud over the fence is just the latest example of the ongoing struggle between those who make their living off the land and the federal government, which owns 42 percent of the land within the state’s borders.

“This whole federal lands’ abuse — and there’s no other term for it — has been something that has been building for years,” said Ms. Cowan. “Basically, we feel like here in the West, and particularly in New Mexico, we’re almost under siege with the federal government trying to drive us off the land.”

http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2014/may/21/new-mexico-fence-impasse-deepens-as-county-weighs-/




19-year-old college student commits suicide after shooting first porn scene



Fri May 23, 2014 12:49 EST

Alyssa Funke

Alyssa Funke, aka "Stella Ann," RIP

                                                                            

STILLWATER, MN, May 23, 2014 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A 19-year-old college student committed suicide just two weeks after making her first pornographic video.

Alyssa Funke, who starred in her first porn film earlier this year for a website called CastingCouch-X, used a shotgun to kill herself on April 16.

The teen, who adopted the stage name “Stella Ann,” was a straight-A student at the University of Wisconsin at River Falls. She told the pornographers, "I want to be a major in biology, minor in chemistry, and I want to be an anesthesiologist.”

It is widely thought she killed herself after former classmates at her high school in Stillwater, Minnesota, taunted her through Twitter and Facebook. Police say their investigation, which is still ongoing, has not yet found any criminal harassment.

Funke's parents say that she suffered from periodic depression. Local media report that the young lady's father has a record for swindling and theft, and her mother dealt drugs with a boyfriend. Funke's mother also neglected the family's younger siblings. Eventually, Funke moved in with her grandmother as a young teenager, though she still struggled with money.

Former pornstars told LifeSiteNews that troubled childhoods and deep depression – before or after a shoot – is not out of the ordinary in that industry.

Madyson Marquette, whose porn film name was Fayth Deluca, told LifeSiteNews that "after shooting porn, it seemed as if all the girls were depressed, including myself. We would shoot a scene and immediately after we would go do something to where we wouldn't have to think about what we had just done, whether that was getting so drunk we just blacked out, some type of drug like Xanax, cocaine, or ecstasy."

"The drugs contained our depression,” she said. “It took us to a fantasy world because the reality we were living was a nightmare.” Ironically, she said, their nightmare is what so many men "use as their fantasy."

To this day, Marquette says she "struggle[s] with depression, years after being out of porn."

"Women were not created to separate their emotions and sex, so if you are doing porn as a woman or a young girl, depression will creep in quick and fast," she said.

Brittni Ruiz told LifeSiteNews she had the same story. “After I shot porn I experienced severe depression for a couple of months," she said. "Once the love of Jesus hit me, I was able to discard all of my drugs and antidepressants that were supposed to make me 'happy,' but never really did."

Michelle Truax, who works with the anti-pornography non-profit XXXChurch, told LifeSiteNews that "while I don't have any official stats, I can tell you that almost all – if not all – of the women who have been mentored through our ministry have suffered with bouts of depression."

"It goes so much deeper than just the obvious," she said. "We have found that all of the women we have mentored have had issues in their past that caused them to seek out this type of work in the first place. Some will tell you that it started with stripping and the high they got from the attention was incredible for them, because they had never received that kind of attention before."

Click "like" if you say NO to porn!

According to Truax, however, "then it escalates into other things." She says that "ultimately it is a false high, a big letdown, because the attention is superficial." Deep, healthy relationships based on love are not found, "so it further tears at the core issues that were already under the surface before."

Craig Gross, who founded XXXChurch, says that his organization has "a mentor program in place for women that does not discriminate. In other words whether you are in the industry, or out of the industry, or somewhere in between, we have a network of women to mentor and walk with these gals."

Gross said partnerships are important, as well, to help women. "If a woman enters into our mentor program and she is in need of or seeking help beyond what we feel comfortable that we're qualified to give, we will see to it that they receive counseling from a licensed professional," he said.



Sent from my iPhone

Saturday, May 24, 2014

Californians gripe about Obamacare enrollment snags, lack of doctors


Copied from the following link:

Nearly 1,500 Californians have complained to state regulators in the last four months about their Obamacare coverage purchased through California's insurance exchange.

New data reveal the biggest category of complaints centers on getting confirmation of health plan enrollment and basic issues such as getting an identification card to obtain care.

Many consumers have also encountered difficulty finding a doctor who accepts their new coverage, as well as frustration with inaccurate provider lists, according to the California Department of Managed Health Care.

"If you have a medical condition and can't get care that is a very serious issue," said Marta Green, spokeswoman for the managed healthcare agency. "We are still working to resolve many of these cases."

Health insurers and officials at the Covered California exchange say they are working hard too to address consumers' gripes. They say some problems are inevitable from such a massive overhaul and that the number of complaints is a small fraction of the more than 1 million Californians who signed up under the Affordable Care Act.

Consumer frustration with smaller physician networks has drawn the most attention statewide.

About 12% of the 1,459 exchange customers who complained to the state cited an access to care problem, according to state figures. The data cover complaints received from Jan. 1 to April 30.

Not surprisingly, Green said, the two largest health plans in Covered California accounted for the most complaints overall and in the category of access to providers.

Anthem Blue Cross, a unit of industry giant WellPoint Inc., received 658 complaints through April and nearly 13% dealt with provider issues, state data show.

Blue Shield of California was next with 461 complaints and 17% focused on finding an in-network doctor.

Peter Lee, the exchange's executive director, said, "[T]hese complaints are one indicator we are looking at for the scale and scope of the problem .... We want to ensure the networks are adequate."

At an exchange meeting Thursday, Covered California credited some insurers for expanding their networks to better serve higher-than-expected enrollment.

For instance, Health Net Inc. said it boosted the number of doctors in its exchange HMO plan by 68% since Jan. 1 to 11,600.

Anthem said it has added more than 3,800 medical providers to its statewide exchange network since January, including well-known hospitals such as Cedars-Sinai Medical Center.

Blue Shield said its PPO network for individual coverage has grown to include 62% of physicians and more than 80% of hospitals on its standard PPO roster.

Industry officials point out that many consumers welcome the lower premiums a narrower network can offer.

"Some networks are very broad and others are more selective -- giving consumers the option of choosing a plan that may have fewer providers but costs less in monthly premiums," said Charles Bacchi, executive vice president at the California Assn. of Health Plans.

Covered California said health plans will submit proposed rates for 2015 in the next week. The state expects to announce the new premiums in late July after negotiating with insurers.

The exchange estimates that its enrollment from the recently completed six-month sign-up period will be about 1.2 million, assuming 85% of consumers pay their premiums.

A new forecast predicts Covered California enrollment will reach 1.7 million after 2015 open enrollment and hit 2 million by 2016.

Copyright © 2014, Los Angeles Times

NEW WORLD ORDER BEING BUILT

US Secretary of War Says ‘New World Order Being Built’ to Do Good

chuck hagel

A public admission by a politician that a New World Order is under construction should leave us all more worried than when we woke up this morning. The elite are becoming more blatant, bolder both in words and actions, as they move towards their goal of a One World Government.

“During an event honoring the 223rd anniversary of Poland’s constitution last night — Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel said we are seeing a new 21st century world order being built and although there are conflict and complications, there’s still hope.”

YouTube Preview Image

Via Activist Post


Contributed by The Daily Sheeple of www.TheDailySheeple.com

VIET REFUGEE NOW TYCOON SAYS CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS NO BETTER THAN COMMUNISTS



VIET REFUGEE NOW TYCOON SAYS CALIFORNIA OFFICIALS NO BETTER THAN COMMUNISTS

He fled his native Vietnam with virtually nothing and has built a hot sauce empire — but says dealing with California bureaucrats and excessive regulations isn’t that different from his Communist homeland.

David Tran speaking out on the CBS Morning News.

David Tran speaking out on the CBS Morning News.

“David Tran is the founder and CEO of Huy Fong Foods, the maker of the famously tasty Sriracha hot sauce,” writes Zenon Evans for Reason.com. “Grappling for months with regulators and politicians in southern California about the spicy scents that his factory emits, Tran recently compared meddlesome government to that of a Communist country.”

Huy Fong Foods is a hot sauce company based in Rosemead, California that was founded in 1980 on Spring Street in Los Angeles‘s Chinatown. It has grown to become one of the leaders in the Asian hot sauce market, especially Sriracha sauce.

The company is named for a decrepit Panamanian freighter, the “Huey Fong,” that carried Tran and 3,317 other refugees out of Vietnam in December 1978.

Tran’s successful Sriracha sauce was developed by the company’s founder, David Tran, who had grown chili peppers and produced and sold chili sauce in Long Binh, a village just north of Saigon. He fled Vietnam in 1979 as a part of the migration of the Vietnamese boat people following the Vietnam War.

But now he’s wondering if settling in California was a mistake, writes Evans. “It might sound hyperbolic, but he does know a thing or two about living under the nightmarish bureaucracy of a red utopia.”

After all, Tran escaped the Socialist Republic of Vietnam and “its many intrusions” three decades ago to start a new life in The Land of the Free.

“Today, I feel almost the same. Even now, we live in USA, and my feeling, the government, not a big difference,” Tran said from his factory outside of Los Angeles.

It’s not the first time he’s spoken out about the issue. He previously accused the local government of wanting to shut him down. Last month the city council deemed the $80 million business a “public nuisance” for giving off a peppery odor. In 2013, the city sued Tran (despite lobbying to get him to move Huy Fong Foods there in the first place) and California’s health regulators shut down the factory for 30 days.

Tran has received offers from public officials throughout the country that want to court Huy Fong Foods. Texas, which is far more business-friendly than California, has made the biggest push.

Because his peppers are grown locally, Tran is reluctant. He did indicate that he may open another factory elsewhere to meet the growing demand for his popular hot sauce.


Friday, May 23, 2014

BEN CARSON AND 2ND AMENDMENT RIGHTS

Dr. Carson’s prescription for gun control

Dr. Ben Carson came in third on the CPAC straw poll for president, making him the not-Paul not-Cruz winner.  Not to sound flippant, but that’s a significant position, since the top two spots were pretty much pre-ordained.  Run through a mental list of all the folks Dr. Carson beat out for that bronze medal, and you can see why it matters, even if you don’t place a huge amount of faith in straw polls this far out from the election.

The thing is, we’re really not that far out from the election, not for any candidate who wants to get serious.  In fact, the hour is growing late.  Presidential campaigns are massive undertakings.  Hopefully the 2012 race permanently shattered the illusion of an outsider sweeping in from nowhere, whirling across the ballroom floor to pick up the nomination, and gliding smoothly into the White House.  It doesn’t work that way.  It will never work that way.  Assembling money and support for a winning bid is serious business indeed.  Even if the candidate has a skeleton-free closet and a natural gift for avoiding self-destructive mistakes on the campaign trail, the resources to sustain fifty-state campaigns in both primaries and the general election take years to assemble.  Not even Mitt Romney did it right, and he got started very early in the game, bringing both personal wealth and formidable management skills to the task.  (Let us not dwell on what happened to those formidable management skills when it came time to assemble his campaign apparatus.  The important lesson here is that 2014 is actually very late in the game for anyone to lay the groundwork for a 2016 bid.)

So if Dr. Carson wants to play, it’s time to start lining up pieces on his side of the board.  His assets include a well-deserved reputation for great intelligence and compassion, plus a unique charisma.  People just plain like the man, including people who don’t entirely agree with him.  His CPAC speech was a rambling affair in which he just wanted to get a few things off his chest (essentially the way he himself introduced his presentation.)  The audience ate it up like candy, and responded with completely unforced wails of dismay when Carson noticed he was running out of time:

Every candidate wishes he had a bottle full of what Ben Carson brews every time he steps up to the podium.  But natural charisma and intelligence aren’t enough in politics.  Issues and positions matter too, especially in the Republican Party, which – to both its credit, and frustration – is far more serious about its core issues than Democrats are.  As long as money gets spent, taxes go up, and the government gets bigger, Democrats can hand out enough lollipops to keep their coalition together.  Even their livelier internal disputes can be smoothed over a with a billion or two in promises.  And the Left is very comfortable with concealing Party ideology to protect candidates with views that its electorate finds nominally unpalatable, such as the absurd fiction of the “pro-gun Democrat,” or the all but extinct “pro-life Democrat,” whose antics were grimly amusing back in the bygone Bart Stupak era.

Republican voters, on the other hand, allow for much more limited rhetorical flexibility with their most sensitive issues, especially gun control.  And that’s where Ben Carson runs into a bit of tough sledding, because he has expressed some sympathy for gun control efforts.  This lead to a fair number of “nice man, but I could never vote for him for President” assessments from conservatives.

Carson hasn’t actually said all that much on the topic until now.  Most of the “deal breaker” response is based on his response when Glenn Beck asked if ownership of semi-automatic weapons should be permitted.  Carson replied, “It depends on where you live.  I think if you life in the midst of a lot of people, and I’m afraid that that semi-automatic weapon is going to fall into the hands of a crazy person, I would rather you not have it.”

Now, we could spend all day parsing every word of this response, beginning with the depth of Dr. Carson’s knowledge of “semi-automatic” weapons.  (I could be wrong, but I don’t get the impression he’s big on hunting or shooting sports.)  And he concluded by saying he’d rather people in urban areas not have such guns, not “and that’s why I think they should be illegal, no matter what the Second Amendment says.”

But it’s not unfair to note that the Second Amendment is not a regional ordinance, and the right to keep and bear arms does not atrophy simply because one happens to live in Detroit rather than Montana.  (And on that score, the police chief of Detroit has famously come out in support of citizens’ right to defend themselves.)  If Carson wants to run for office, he must realize that in hyper-regulated America, people reflexively assume that the President plans to make his personal preferences compulsory.  When you say “I’d rather people not have them,” everyone naturally assumes the “… so I’ll make them illegal” conclusion.

And when it comes to gun control, everyone with proper reverence for the Second Amendment lives in fear of the Republican squish who will give it away.  No matter how badly gun control has fared at the ballot box, we all know the prevalent political and media culture strongly favors it.  Just as we view our Second Amendment rights as a crucial element of our independence, the Left thinks the right to keep and bear arms is an insult to the power and wisdom of their beloved super-State.  You’re supposed to do as you’re told, and when you get in trouble, you’re supposed to await rescue from the State and its operatives.  The implication that the State probably can’t save you, and can never stumble upon some magic formula for regulating crime out of existence, makes liberals very angry.  They could get a lot done with the aid of a prominent, beloved Republican leader who came out in favor of their agenda.

So if Carson wants to run for President, he’ll need to clear all this up.  Interestingly enough, he has been taking steps to do so.  On Monday, he declared himself opposed to gun registration, saying he “used to think they needed to be registered, but if you register them, they just come and find you and take your guns.”

And by “they” he means “pretty sinister internal forces.”  He went on to address his earlier comments about the difference between urban and rural gun ownership, saying he would “never advocate anything to interfere with Second Amendment rights,” affirming that “law-abiding American citizens absolutely should have gun rights.”

He’s spoken of his fidelity to the Constitution many times, so unless you’re inclined to think his further thoughts are just elaborate posturing to conceal a deep gun-control agenda, it sounds like he came to exactly the realization I mentioned above: the need to separate what he thinks free people should discuss among themselves, and what sort of legislation he would be willing to support.

Personally, I’m a diehard Second Amendment absolutist who is extremely nervous around guns – I am quite willing to exhaust myself fighting for your right to keep and bear arms.  Maybe Dr. Carson has similar personal reservations about firearms.  But if he truly believes in the Second Amendment, and can capably articulate the ramifications of that belief, shouldn’t that be good enough?  My guess is that some will remain uneasy because they know how hard the dominant political and media culture will hit him on this issue, either during the campaign to trip him up, or after he gets elected to squeeze support from gun control from the new President.  He’d best be ready to wrestle bears and wolves to protect our gun rights.



Thursday, May 22, 2014

Governments Use Regulatory Laws to Nullify First Amendment



Governments Use Regulatory Laws to Nullify First Amendment

One of the most frightening trends in American law is using regulations to nullify our fundamental rights, especially those found in the First Amendment. The most prevalnent tactic is campus speech codes. We’ve seen it with zoning ordinances. A Bible study group meets in homes and zoning regulations claim that the meetings can’t take place anymore.

A California family was fined for holding weekly Bible studies in their home because the meetings were said to violate the city's zoning regulations.

“Stephanie and Chuck Fromm have been living in their San Juan Capistrano home for 18 years and were shocked when they received a notice of violation from the city. They have already been fined $300 and have been told they will be fined an additional $500 per meeting if they continue to meet without a Conditional Use Permit.”

The city of San Juan Capistrano eventually changed the law after a lot of bad publicity when the story went national.

Beware if you have a temporary pond on your property. Bureaucrats want to regulate them.

At issue is a proposed rule from the federal Environmental Protection Agency that would become part of the federal Clean Water Act.

[Pennsylvania Sen. Pat Toomey] told [an] audience the rule would give the EPA authority to regulate ‘virtually all outdoor water,’ and would surely result in new permit requirements and regulations for land owners.’”

How about posting a sign on your own property? Beware! The regulators see that sign and don’t like it, especially it includes a religious or political message.

“The Texas Department of Transportation (TXDOT) is ordering that a Ten Commandments sign posted on private property near a state highway be removed.

“Jeannette Golden of Hemphill, Texas purchased the 6 x 12-foot sign from the organization God’s Ten last summer and posted it on her property just off Highway 21. However, according to reports, Golden was soon contacted by the state, which took issue with the sign, stating that the display could be classified as commercial advertising.”

http://christiannews.net/wp-content/uploads/2014/05/Sign-300x225.jpg

A $125 permit would be needed. In addition, there would be an annual fee of $75 and a $250 surety bond. And if the land owners don’t comply, they could be fined $1000 per day.

When this argument didn’t work, the Texas Department of Transportation tried another regulatory ploy. Jeannette Golden was told that “no permit is possible” because “the sign must be removed as pursuant to the Highway Beautification Act, which relates to advertising.” Of course, the sign is not an advertisement; it’s an expression of her free speech rights.

“‘I wasn’t advertising because that’s my freedom of religion, and that’s what I believe, and I was not informing anybody,’ she told reporters. ‘It was just something that I stood for.’

“Local residents have rallied around Golden by purchasing a billboard not too far from her property that reads ‘In God We Trust.’ Others have verbally expressed support for the right to display the sign.”

Of course she has the right to display the sign as long as it does not obstruct the sight line of motorists.

Regulators and bureaucrats are not constitutionally immune from the Bill of Rights.



Liberals Want Conservatives Gone



From CNN to Chicoms, Liberals Want Conservatives Gone

Liberals as a group are fanciful dreamers, with heads full of hopes and fantasies about a rosy world filled with choirs of singing cherubs ... and when their dreams don't come true, they are bloody-minded, vicious little so-and-sos who are willing to slit your throat for standing in their way.

Take for instance the case of communist China, which has clear ideas about the way the world should be. While its government pretends to promote an open-minded society, with free enterprise for all, in actuality it's still the same old Marxist claptrap and iron hand in an iron glove policy that it's always been.

Few things stand in the way of the Workers Paradise Plan more than Christianity. A personal relationship with God, complete with God-given rights and the knowledge that every individual is special doesn't exactly jibe with the Communist notion that people are just expendable resources, mere atoms in the body of the State, which is the supreme universal authority.

Some uneducated Christians may be fuzzy on the incompatibility of the two worldviews, but Karl Marx wasn't. That's why his Communist Manifesto spends so much time railing about religion being "the opiate of the masses." (Marx is probably also the source of the false notion that atheism is somehow not a religion.)

So even while China portrays itself as an open society, we get incidents like a recent one in which Communist Party officials tore down a church in Zhejiang province with the excuse that the cross on top of the building was "too shiny."

The reality, of course, is that the Chicoms have been wiping out churches by the dozens because that darned Christianity was catching on again, as it is wont to do under threat of persecution.

Liberals in this country are no different in their desire to see conservatives, particularly Jewish and Christian conservatives, go the way of the dinosaur.

At any given time, there are usually dozens of ongoing efforts to ban the Ten Commandments, crosses, Bible reading, praying, teaching of the Constitution or even discussions about American history somewhere in this country.

The Republican Party leadership, under the thrall of the likes of the serpentine Mitch McConnell and the oily Karl Rove, has been focusing on destroying conservatives (and with them the GOP's best chance of getting back in power) because at their core, the RINO Brigade is just as devoted to statism as the declared Left is in this country.

Now that they've had some recent primary successes against Tea Party candidates, the left-wing media are racing to write the Tea Party's epitaph.

I think this makes about the 15th time they've done so.

The meme this week is that the Tea Party is "on life support" because of the recent defeats and because of a totally unbiased CBS poll released today that found "only" 15 percent of Americans support the Tea Party movement, down from 31 percent back in 2010, right after conservatives took back the House.

Considering that Gallup just last week had national support for the Tea Party at 22 percent across all parties, CBS' numbers are a little suspect. Add in the fact that most journalists are unable to distinguish a genuine Tea Party group from, say, the NRA or any other conservative coalition, and it's clear some salt should be applied heavily to CBS' poll.

But that won't stop the media from running with an anti-conservative story line. And when that doesn't work out, there's always the old "Huh? What story?" play, such as CNN and other media outlets are using with the numerous Obama scandals.

CNN President Jeff Zucker said as much Monday at the Deadline Club awards dinner, where he said CNN was "not going to be shamed" into covering Benghazi and other scandal stories, not when there are stories with "real news value," such as the missing Malaysian plane that ceased to be interesting within a day after it happened.

Zucker said, "I don’t think there’s any question about our commitment to breaking news, as evidenced by all the questions about the plane. ... So we’re still there whenever that happens, but we’re going to supplement that with some different kind of storytelling. ... Climate change is one of those stories that deserves more attention, that we all talk about."

But he noted, "When we do do those stories, there does tend to be a tremendous amount of lack of interest on the audience’s part."

It should be recognized that under Zucker's leadership, CNN's ratings have been run into the ground, with its worst prime time ratings in 20 years.

It shouldn't be a shock that the Democrats, whose members such as Florida Rep. Joseph Garcia think "We've proved that Communism works," would concoct a fable about conservatives being a vanishing species and try to keep "conservative" stories out of public sight.

But the reality, dear comrades, is we are here to stay, and we're growing stronger every day despite an occasional bloody lip.



Ss