Muddling Toward Maturity Blog

OBAMACARE CHAOS

For elected representatives of the people of the United States to pass this legislation is beyond belief.  We never asked to be governed by a vast bureaucracy which makes up rules we never approved.  It represents the crippling and suicide of a once great nation.  The Family Research council writes of the chaos as follows:

If anyone should be outraged by ObamaCare, it's the environmentalists! So far, the President's law has wasted enough paper to topple entire forests--and the implementation process has barely begun. If the bill's 2,700 pages were too much for Congress to read, who's going to bother wading through the 13,000 pages of regulations from last December alone? According to most experts, those 26 reams of rules don't even touch on the "nuts and bolts" of a system that Secretary Kathleen Sebelius wants up and running by next year.

All of the regulations that President Obama had bottled up before the election are now gushing from Health and Human Services faster than the states, businesses, and health care industry can process them. For now, it's all a chaotic maze of bureaucracy and secrecy that has people questioning the system's chance of success. "No one knows where the current magical mystery tour is headed," the Wall Street Journal warns, "especially not HHS." Most states gave up on waiting and just opted out of the legislative tangle altogether. Others, like the health care community, are desperately trying to get answers from HHS--to no avail. "There is an urgent need for more regulatory clarity..." pleaded Dan Durham of America's Health Insurance Plans at a special House hearing.

Of course, it's no wonder everyone is confused. One simple rule--defining a "full-time employee"--took HHS 18 pages to explain. Multiply that by 13,000 sheets of regulations (and climbing), and it's absolute bedlam. One unintended consequence of all the confusion is Congress's inability to hold the Obama administration accountable. With the explosion of new rules and regulations, conservatives are having a difficult time keeping up. Their staffs and attorneys are doing their best to go over each guideline with a fine-toothed comb, but even the problems they've identified are being ignored.

As far back as last August, the House oversight committee raised some red flags over a batch of IRS rules that no one had approved. In one instance, Chairman Darrell Issa (R-Calif.) points out that the IRS extended the tax credits for the ObamaCare exchanges beyond what the law called for--an overreach that could cost taxpayers a half-trillion dollars over the next 10 years. Together with the Ways and Means Committee, Rep. Issa sent four separate letters to the IRS and Treasury Department, demanding an explanation. They've received none. "At the Committee's hearing on August 2, 2012," the members write, "you testified that your 'main job was to implement the law that was written.'" According to the Congressional Research Service, there's ample evidence that the IRS implemented more than that. The administration has a pattern of ignoring Congress, but it will have a difficult time ignoring taxpayers if they're forced to pay even higher taxes to accommodate this additional $500 billion power grab.

Meanwhile, Senators like Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.) haven't given up hope of abolishing the President's monstrosity altogether. "The case for repealing this law has only grown stronger as American businesses and families have begun to feel the pain of its impact--a half-trillion dollars of new taxes, premiums going up, employers cutting hours and jobs just to stay in business..." He was one of the 23 cosponsors on Sen. Ted Cruz's new legislation to pull the plug on ObamaCare. "I promised the voters of Texas that the first bill I would file as a U.S. Senator would be to repeal every last word of ObamaCare," said Sen. Cruz yesterday, "and that's a promise I'm proud to keep." Now the challenge is to make the repeal a reality.

RELIGIOUS LIBERTY UNDER FIRE AROUND THE WORLD

Elizabeth Kendal, a member of the Australian Evangelical Alliance Religious Liberty Commission (AEA RLC), monitors situations around the world ignored by mainstream media in the West.  That the West no longer cares about religious liberty is shameful and depressing.  Kendal's work represents a mighty call to prayer.

Below is the latest installation of Kendal's reporting which offers updates on Sudan, Burma, Egypt, Eritrea, the EU, Iran, and Vietnam.  I've been bowled over by this report. 

I value the way she begins:

'Break the arm of the wicked and evildoer . . . ' (Psalm 10:15a ESV), the 'arm' being the machinery of action that facilitates evil: military and economic supply lines; power structures, relationships and networks; forums that disseminate ideologies of death. Lord, break them all!


* SUDAN (RLPB 194), where the Nuba and other African tribes across the 'new south' (Abyei, Sth Kordfan and Blue Nile) are facing genocide at the hands of the Islamist and racist, Arab-supremacist regime in Khartoum. 

UPDATE: On Friday 25 January some 350 African Non-Government Organisations (NGOs) presented their appeal to the African Union (AU) for action concerning the 'war in South Kordofan and Blue Nile'. Meanwhile, senior leaders of the Sudan People's Liberation Movement-North (SPLM-N), including Yassir Arman and Malik Agar, met with the US envoy Princeton Lyman in Washington to appeal for action to prevent genocide. Lyman, however, merely exhorted them to renounce violence and lay down their arms, adding that the Obama administration leans towards a political resolution and believes 'the ongoing tracks are acceptable'. Well, God does not find the situation acceptable! So let us put our trust in God, not humanity, and pray Psalm 10, that HE will intervene in Sudan.

* BURMA (RLPB 192), where the Buddhist and racist, Burman-supremacist regime in Naypyidaw has launched a full-scale war against the Christian Kachin, deploying helicopter gunships and bomber jets against civilians in Laiza.

UPDATE: Guy Horton of the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London, says the fighting is unlike anything he has previously witnessed in Burma (see video interview). He writes from northern Kachin State: 'The churches are open on a 24-hour basis. The people pray for deliverance from a conflict where Kachin soldiers, with the support of tens of thousands of civilians, are fighting for survival against an army several times their number.' He notes that the Kachin people are 'bonded by their Christian faith', adding that they are targeted by the Burmese army precisely because of 'their religion and their ethnicity. The law of genocide thus applies.' Horton reports: 'Kachin fixed defensive positions protecting civilians are probably unsustainable. Confronted with jet bombers, artillery, heavy mortars and overwhelming numbers of ground troops, Kachin soldiers may be unable to protect their civilians in the long- or even medium-term.' He expects not a mere humanitarian disaster but 'appalling human rights violations' and regards the West's silence as 'complicity with evil'. (For more detail see Religious Liberty Monitoring.) Pray Psalm 10 for Burma.

BOY SCOUTS OF AMERICA ABOUT TO CAPITULATE TO HOMOSEXUAL ACTIVISTS?

The Family Research Council offers important comment:

For 103 years, the mission of the Boy Scouts has been "to prepare young people to make ethical choices." Unfortunately, the organization's leadership seems less inclined to make those same choices themselves, as rumors swirl that the Board is on the verge of reversing its longtime policy on homosexuality. To most parents, the news that the Scouts were even considering a change is a shock. After all, it was just seven months ago that the same spokesman told reporters that, after a two-year review, a special committee had unanimously recommended keeping the ban. "The vast majority of parents," Deron Smith had explained, "value their right to address issues of same-sex orientation within their family... at the appropriate time and right setting."

Now, suddenly, after decades of withstanding pressure, lost sponsors, and evictions, the Boy Scouts are a Board meeting away from destroying a century-old legacy of courage in exchange for weak-kneed compromise that pleases no one. According to the press release yesterday, the BSA would peel away the national prohibition on open homosexuality and pass the political hot potato of "sexual inclusion" to individual troops--most of whom won't have the financial means or the will to beat back the coming onslaught. A new policy would only shift the attention to local councils, who would be under unfathomable stress to fall in line with BSA headquarters. And as homosexual activists well know, it will be a lot easier to pick off one council at a time than to take down the entire Boy Scouts of America.

Great Article by David Mamet in Newsweek

I know that's not the greatest heading, but it will have to do.  Please go and read the entire article.  It will do you good, and enhance your sense of logic and good sense.  The article begins:

Karl Marx summed up Communism as “from each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.” This is a good, pithy saying, which, in practice, has succeeded in bringing, upon those under its sway, misery, poverty, rape, torture, slavery, and death.

For the saying implies but does not name the effective agency of its supposed utopia. The agency is called “The State,” and the motto, fleshed out, for the benefit of the easily confused must read “The State will take from each according to his ability: the State will give to each according to his needs.” “Needs and abilities” are, of course, subjective. So the operative statement may be reduced to “the State shall take, the State shall give.”

All of us have had dealings with the State, and have found, to our chagrin, or, indeed, terror, that we were not dealing with well-meaning public servants or even with ideologues but with overworked, harried bureaucrats. These, as all bureaucrats, obtain and hold their jobs by complying with directions and suppressing the desire to employ initiative, compassion, or indeed, common sense. They are paid to follow orders.  [more . . .]

SUDAN: racial-religious genocide in 'new south'. 'Worse than Darfur' -- but who cares?

From Elizabeth Kendal of Religious Liberty Prayer Bulletin:  (January 22, 2013)

In 1992, during its war against South Sudan, Khartoum declared a jihad against the 'rebellious' Nuba: the African tribes of the north's Nuba Mountains who along with the southerners were resisting Islamisation and racist Arab supremacy. A government-sponsored fatwa legitimised the jihad by labelling Muslim 'rebels' as 'apostates' and Christians as 'kaffirs [infidels / unbelievers] standing as a bulwark against the spread of Islam', and affirming that 'Islam has granted the freedom of killing both categories'. Nothing has changed -- same genocidal regime, same racial and religious hatred, same jihad, same aim: genocide.

Reporting on the situation across Sudan's 'new south' -- Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile -- Dr Mukesh Kapila, the former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Sudan (2003-04) laments: 'The ethnic cleansing is largely complete.  . . . Rebel areas are depopulated and largely empty.' He says that in Blue Nile, some 450,000 people have been affected with fields and villages being razed as Sudanese radio calls for the region to be 'combed' and cleansed of Africans who are de-humanised as 'black plastic bags'. He reports that in South Kordofan -- where soldiers have been ordered to 'sweep out the trash' (i.e. the Africans) and 'eat them alive' -- displaced families have retreated to remote cave networks where food is scarce. Whilst many are determined to remain, saying 'This is our country', others are simply too weak to attempt the long trek south. It is a journey that is itself incredibly dangerous, for Khartoum wants the Nuba not just gone, but dead -- unable to return.  A delegation from HART (Humanitarian Aid Relief Trust) recently confirmed that on 12 December 2012 1700 civilians from Ulu Payam (Kirmuk County) left for South Sudan, only to be attacked en route by SAF (Sudan Armed Forces) ground troops. Many were killed and many children scattered, with only 700 of the original 1700 arriving in Maban, South Sudan.

Dr Kapila adds: 'What I've seen in the Nuba Mountains and Blue Nile is all that I've seen in Darfur, plus the addition of modern technology. Ten years after, we have precision guided missiles, land mines which I don't remember seeing in Darfur, anti-personnel bombs, cluster bombs which I did not see in Darfur, we see MiG fighters which I don't remember seeing in Darfur, and we have a much more precision-guided approach with distance over the horizon artillery. So this is not just another Darfur; quite possibly, it is worse than Darfur.'

Human Rights Watch estimates that a total of 900,000 African (non-Arab) Sudanese are now affected. Having razed the farms and villages, the regime maintains a blockade on humanitarian aid, using starvation as a weapon of mass destruction. This has long been the regime's preferred method of mass killing: engineering a famine and just waiting as the population turns skeletal and quietly drops into the dust. Khartoum has a long history of this type of warfare -- indeed President Omar el-Bashir has perfected mass murder and his conscience is untroubled. Despite this, the US administration has assured Khartoum that it is not seeking regime change but rather normalising relations. This is because the US believes friendship with Khartoum is in its geo-strategic interests on the spurious grounds that it thinks Khartoum could be helpful in the fight against terrorism. In truth, the West's interests would be better served if it feared the LORD!

Bishop Andudu Adam Elnail of the Anglican Cathedral in Kadugli only survived the ethnic-cleansing of Kadugli (the capital of South Kordofan) because he was receiving medical treatment in the US when Kadugli was invaded and ethnically cleansed in June 2011. This week Bishop Andudu and Dr Kapila will attend the African Union (AU) Summit in Addis Ababa to lobby for action to end the suffering in Sudan's 'new south'. They have identified Friday 25 January 2013 'Heads of State meeting on Sudan' as a key test of the AU's 'credibility'. Bishop Andudu is praying the AU will soon take action and send humanitarian aid, implement a ceasefire and  send a delegation to the conflict areas. 'That [would] be very helpful,' he said.

HISTORICAL NOTE: In 1913 the newly formed Sudan United Mission (SUM) Australia-New Zealand began sending pioneer missionaries into the Nuba Mountains. The first 'Sudanese Church of Christ in the Nuba Mountains' was planted in 1914. By 1936 there were 33 Australian and New Zealand SUM missionaries working in the Nuba Mountains alongside others who had arrived from various missions (in particular Church Missionary Society) and from the USA. After Sudan became independent in 1956 under a repressive Muslim, Arabist government, the missionaries, sensing their time was limited, redoubled their efforts in Bible translation. By the time the missionaries were forced to leave in 1962, Australian SUM (now Pioneers) missionaries had translated the New Testament into five Nuba languages. Today the Nuba are predominantly Christian. Germany, the USA, New Zealand and particularly Australia, all have strong spiritual ties (does that imply responsibilities?) to the people of the Nuba Mountains. May this centenary year be the year the battle is turned back. Remember - our struggle is not primarily against flesh and blood. (Ephesians 6:12)

PLEASE PRAY SPECIFICALLY THAT THE LORD OF HOSTS WILL --

* intervene in Sudan, so that 'the wicked will be caught in the schemes that they have devised' (Psalm 10:2b ESV).

* 'Break the arm [the machinery of action] of the wicked and evildoer; call his wickedness to account till you find none' (v15); may the machinery of evil -- the government in Khartoum, the Sudan Armed Forces, the military hardware -- be disrupted so that forces of liberty, justice and equality might be able to rise against it.

* show Omar el-Bashir and all who wield power in Khartoum (vv3-13) that YAHWEH reigns and is King forever (v16).

* see the suffering of the victims (Ps 10:14), hear their cry (v17a), strengthen their hearts (v17b) and provide them with justice (v18a) 'so that man who is of the earth may strike terror no more' (v18b).


SUMMARY FOR BULLETINS UNABLE TO RUN THE WHOLE ARTICLE
------------------------------------------------------------------
RACIAL-RELIGIOUS GENOCIDE IN SUDAN'S 'NEW SOUTH'

According to Dr Mukesh Kapila, the former UN Humanitarian Co-ordinator in Sudan (2003-04), the ethnic cleansing of Sudan's 'new south' -- Abyei, South Kordofan and Blue Nile -- 'is largely complete'. He comments that due to advances in technology, this war is 'worse than Darfur'. Displaced Africans (non-Arabs) unable to reach the massively over-populated refugee camps in South Sudan have retreated to remote caves. Having destroyed their food supply, the Arab-Islamist regime is blockading all humanitarian aid and using starvation as a weapon of mass destruction. These Africans are predominantly Christian. Christianity in the Nuba Mountains dates back nearly a century to when pioneer missionaries from Sudan United Mission Australia-New Zealand planted the first church there in 1914. Please pray for the Lord to intervene in Sudan.

SHOULD WOMEN BE IN COMBAT?

The Family Research Council offers important commentary, some sentences of which I have highlighted.

In another triumph of political correctness over common sense, the Pentagon is lifting its ban on women in combat and direct combat units. Senior officials leaked the news yesterday during the House's Benghazi hearings, making the timing even more suspect. If Defense Secretary Leon Panetta was hoping to distract the country from Hillary Clinton's Libyan testimony, he succeeded. According to leaders, even Congress wasn't warned. Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), one of the many politicians taken by surprise, was stunned by the policy's lack of vetting. "Congress should be consulted about that," he said. "I think that's a historic policy of the Department of Defense. There are physical differences of the sexes... It's a major decision and I'd like to see how they came to it, what their recommendations are, and who makes it."

No one is suggesting that women are not capable or have not served their country with distinction. They are and have. But much like the plan to repeal "Don't Ask, Don't Tell," the risks of this integration (physical stamina and injury, emotional stress, sexual assault, pregnancy, adultery, unit readiness, family breakdown) seem secondary to the administration's liberal agenda. How much national security is our President willing to forgo to promote this kind of progressive feminism? While liberals celebrate the decision--and the military's desk workers advise it--some active-duty women insist the change wasn't something they asked for. "Who is driving this agenda?" asked Marine Captain and combat-tested Katie Petronio. "I am not personally hearing female Marines, enlisted or officer, pounding on the doors of Congress claiming their inability to serve in the infantry violates their right to equality. Shockingly this isn't even a congressional agenda." In fact, she said, "it's very surprising to see that none of the [decision-makers] are on active duty or have any recent combat or relevant operational experience relating to the issue they are attempting to change."

In an incredibly compelling article for the Marine Corps Gazette, Capt. Petronio says that while she was extremely successful during both combat tours, she is a shell of her former self. (And based on the nightmarish conditions Ryan Smith shares in the Wall Street Journal, it's no wonder.) "Five years later, I am physically not the woman I once was," (including a diagnosis of deployment-induced polycystic ovarian syndrome), "and my views have greatly changed on the possibility of women having successful long careers while serving in the infantry. I can say from firsthand experience in Iraq and Afghanistan, and not just emotion... that should the Marine Corps attempt to fully integrate women into the infantry, we as an institution are going to experience a colossal increase in crippling and career-ending medical conditions for females." Like us, she appreciates what the Pentagon is trying to do but believes that diversity is not a military necessity. "Let's embrace our differences to further hone in on the Corps' success instead of dismantling who we are to achieve a political agenda," she pleads.

Senior officials said yesterday the military's goal is "to provide a level, gender-neutral playing field." But as America's defense, shouldn't the goal be to have the most lethal fighting force in the world? The military isn't--and should never be--the great societal equalizer. Under this administration, Pentagon bureaucrats have engaged in social experiments with our troops on a massive scale--and risked the lives of countless soldiers in the process. And what of the young girls who don't want to go to war? Will they have a choice? Joe Carter, a Marine veteran and former FRC employee, lamented this on First Things.

"Of course when the government begins to draft our daughters for combat roles--and that day will certainly come--the children and grandchildren of the egalitarian elite will be the ones to get deferrals. Most of the men and women championing a woman's right to choose combat have never served in the military and would certainly not want their own daughters to join the infantry. They are concerned only with choice and equality in the pristine abstract, rather than in the bloody, concrete world of warfare... Men were created to be self-sacrificial protectors of the family, and by extension, of the nation. Forcing women into that role will not lead to more freedom but rather to less equality, more violence toward women, and a general degradation of humanity. As C.S. Lewis said, battles are ugly when women fight. But societies that send their women off to war are even uglier.

In the last thirty years, we have watched as the world has desperately tried to redefine the genders, gender roles, and even marriage. But in the end, nothing humanity does--through medicine or policy--can alter that fundamental truth: "male and female He created them."

ANTIBIOTIC-RESISTANT DISEASES POSE 'APOCALYPTIC' THREAT, TOP EXPERT SAYS

From the U.K. Guardian (HT: Drudge):

Britain's most senior medical adviser has warned MPs that the rise in drug-resistant diseases could trigger a national emergency comparable to a catastrophic terrorist attack, pandemic flu or major coastal flooding.

Dame Sally Davies, the chief medical officer, said the threat from infections that are resistant to frontline antibiotics was so serious that the issue should be added to the government's national risk register of civil emergencies.

She described what she called an "apocalyptic scenario" where people going for simple operations in 20 years' time die of routine infections "because we have run out of antibiotics". . . .

Drug resistance is emerging in diseases across the board. Davies said 80% of gonorrhea was now resistant to the frontline antibiotic tetracycline, and infections were rising in young and middle-aged people.  Multi-drug resistant TB was also a major threat, she said.    [more . . .]

 

THE FUTURE? - STORING DIGITAL DATA IN DNA

Amazing.  Gautam Naik's Wall Street Journal article is subtitled: Technique One Day May Replace Hard Drives as Web Leads to Information Deluge.  (HT: Drudge headlines the article: "iBods: Scientists store music, books in human DNA. . .")

I'm especially impressed with the incredible marvel of DNA which comes, I believe, from the hand of God.  And now we are finding ways to harness it's miraculousness in ways other than its original biological service.

WHAT DO LEGAL SCHOLARS THINK ABOUT ROE V. WADE AS CONSTITUTION INTERPRETATION?

Rob Schwarzwalder of the Family Research Council writes:

As is widely known, this week marks the 40^th anniversary of the infamous Roe v. Wade decision, which made unrestricted access to abortion-on-demand the law of the land. Its sister ruling, Doe v. Bolton, authorized abortion for women after the unborn child became "viable" for reasons of a woman's "health" - a term so broadly defined that it makes abortion accessible at any time throughout the nine months of pregnancy.

This week also marks 40 years during which people of conscience have striven to correct this ruling, because 55 million children have been aborted and tens of millions of women victimized and permanently scarred.

In addition to the lives lost and families damaged by Roe, the ruling was, as constitutional interpretation, without basis. As Harvard Law School professor Mary Ann Glendon writes:

Among legal scholars, what attracted the most attention about Roe and Doe were the separation of powers and federalism issues. Leading constitutional lawyers such as Paul Freund and Archibald Cox were critical of the Court majority for striking down the statutes of all fifty states with so little warrant in constitutional text or precedent. Even Court watchers who favored legislative liberalization of abortion law were inclined to agree with dissenting Justice Byron White that the case represented an extraordinary judicial power grab.

And in his elegant dissent to Doe, Justice White wrote this scathing evaluation of his colleagues' handiwork in these two anvil-striking cases:

I find nothing in the language or history of the Constitution to support the Court's judgment. The Court simply fashions and announces a new constitutional right for pregnant women and, with scarcely any reason or authority for its action, invests that right with sufficient substance to override most existing state abortion statutes ... As an exercise of raw judicial power, the Court perhaps has authority to do what it does today; but, in my view, its judgment is an improvident and extravagant exercise of the power of judicial review that the Constitution extends to this Court.

For three decades, Family Research Council has been at the forefront of protecting unborn life and seeking to provide practical aid to women in crisis pregnancies. From helping state legislators draft pro-life legislation to partnering with pregnancy care centers nationwide, FRC has been a leader in advancing a "culture of life" for all Americans, born and unborn.

To access some of our most compelling resources (all of which can be downloaded at no charge), visit our website, One Life. There you will find user-friendly research papers, op-eds and videos that not only will encourage you but which also will challenge you to act.

Our newest publication, "40 Years after Roe v. Wade - Six women Reflect on Tragedy and Hope," contains the stories of six women pro-life leaders who represent the next generation in the battle for life. It will encourage and inspire you as you pray and work for the little ones and their mothers.

In words familiar to pro-lifers but which never lose their power, the Psalmist prays, "You formed my inward parts, You wove me in my mother's womb" (139:13). Life is precious to God. May we work to sustain it for the unborn and the born, now and always.

U.S. GIFT OF F-16 FIGHTERS HEADED TO EGYPT, DESPITE MORSI'S HARSH RHETORIC

Maxim Lott of Fox news reports:

Four F-16 fighter jets left the U.S. this morning, bound for Egypt as part of a foreign aid package critics say should have been scrapped when the nation elected a president who has called President Obama a liar and urged that hatred of Jews be instilled in children. 

A source who works on the Naval Air Force Base in Dallas confirmed the departure of the state-of-the-art fighter planes to FoxNews.com. Sixteen F-16s and 200 Abrams tanks are to be given to the Egyptian government before the end of the year under a foreign aid deal signed in 2010 with then-Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak, a longtime U.S. ally..

Critics, including several in Congress, say it doesn't make sense to follow through with the package, given that new Egyptian President Mohammed Morsi, elected last summer, has given decidedly mixed signals about relations with the U.S. While he has toned down his rhetoric since his election, in 2010 - the same year the aid package was struck - Morsi attacked Obama for supporting Israel.   [more . . .] 

FAMILY RESEARCH COUNCIL EVALUATES OBAMA'S 2ND INAUGURAL ADDRESS

I've highlighted certain sentences of the FRC evaluation and especially appreciate the last paragraph:

Of the two enduring themes of Barack Obama's first inauguration, one remains: change. The "hope" that propelled more than a million and a half people to Washington four years ago, has dimmed--replaced, as we watched yesterday, by the promise of more strident and aggressive liberalism. When the President put his hand on Abraham Lincoln's Bible and swore to uphold the office, he did so as the leader of a deeply divided nation. And although his inaugural speech contained several noble themes--unity was not one of them.

As he launched into his vision for a second term, his premise was not "We, the People," but "We, Some of the People." Gone was the inspirational rhetoric of four years ago--and in its place was a profoundly political and partisan warning. "We have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action."

With every reinvention of the Founder's ideals, President Obama made it clear that he is committed to continuing his push for big, centralized, and expensive government. And paramount to that push is a highly controversial vision that includes everything from unlimited entitlements and gun bans to illegal immigration to special rights based on sexual behavior. "Our journey is not complete," the President said, "until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law--for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal as well." In these instances, a speech that could have built bridges only widened the gaps.

OBAMA THE MESSIAH

Last night I read the series of blog posts Weasel Zippers put up throughout the day covering numerous news stories.  I went to bed under a heavy cloud, conscious that our country was following a Destructive Force cheered on by a mindless, deceived (or in cahoots) mainstream media.  Then this morning I received an email from a friend (TC) who provided a link to a post I found truly shocking.  Please go to the original post.  It is well formatted, my reproduction below is not.  But I needed to provide you, my reader, a sense of what is happening, knowing many do not follow links.  Here is Tod Starnes post without the proper formatting:

Inauguration Poster Likens Obama to Jesus

Jan 20, 2013

By Todd Starnes

Street vendors and souvenir stores across Washington, D.C. are selling posters depicting President Obama as Jesus Christ — and one national news publication called him the “Second Coming.”

FOLLOW TODD ON FACEBOOK FOR CULTURE WAR NEWS. CLICK HERE!

The poster, which does not have the official endorsement of the White House,  features an image of the president in prayer with the headline, “Prophecy Fulfilled.”

“Barak is of Hebrew origin and its meaning is ‘flash of lightning,” the poster notes, referencing a passage in in the Old Testament book of Judges.

Hussein, they allege, is a Biblical word meaning “good and handsome.”

“So you see, Barak was destined to be a good and handsome man that would rise like a flash of lightning to win victory in a battle against overwhelming odds,” the poster read.

This week’s cover of Newsweek depicts President Obama as the “Second Coming” – a biblical reference to the return of Christ.

It’s not the first time that Obama has been deified by his supporters.

Actor Jamie Foxx called President Obama “our Lord and Savior” during a recent television appearance.

“It’s like church over here,” Foxx told the audience. “First of all, give an honor to God and our Lord and Savior Barack Obama.”

“Barack Obama,” he shouted as the audience cheered.

Florida A&M professor Barbara Thompson published a book titled “The Gospel According to Apostle Barack.” The book likens Obama to Jesus Christ and Martin Luther King, Jr.

“I learned that Jesus walked the earth to create a more civilized society, Martin (Luther King) walked the earth to create a more justified society, but, Apostle Barack, the name he was called in my dreams, would walk the earth to create a more equalized society, for the middle class and working poor,” she wrote in an excerpt published by The Daily Caller. “Apostle Barack, the next young leader with a new cause, had been taken to the mountaintop and allowed to see over the other side.”

A controversial painting of President Obama, posed as Jesus Christ on the cross, was part of an art exhibit at Bunker Hill Community College in Boston.

Photo by Art & Response

The Michael D’Antuono painting is called “The Truth” — and features the president with his arms stretched out — wearing a crown of thorns.

The original debut of the painting four years ago was cancelled due to public outrage, Design & Trend reported.

At the time D’Antuono told Air America that he didn’t mean to “disrespect people’s religion. It’s meant as a political piece.”

And at the Democratic National Convention street vendors were selling an array of products including a prayer garment embroidered with President Obama’s name — along with a calendar that declared him “heaven sent.”

The entry also included a photograph of Obama along with a passage of Scripture from the New Testament.

“For God so loved the world, that He gave His only begotten Son, that whosever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life,” the entry read — referencing John 3:16.

The month of November includes an image of individuals with their hands on Obama’s back — with the words “The Lord is my Shepherd, I shall not want.”

Todd Starnes is the author of “Dispatches From Bitter America.” The book is endorsed by Sarah Palin, Mark Levin and Sean Hannity. Click here to get your copy!

Related posts:

1. Actor Calls Obama “Our Lord and Savior”
2. Artwork Likens Obama to Jesus
3. Obama Joins Jesus in Nativity Scene
4. Rick Warren Says Obama Deification is Blasphemy
5. Painting Depicts Obama as Crucified Christ

QUOTE OF THE DAY

On the non-negotiating policy of President Obama, George Gilder writes:

People actually imagine they can negotiate with him. Having high hopes for the second Obama administration is like having great expectations for a second date with Ted Bundy. I mean, it’s just not going to work out.”

SHOULD A PRESIDENT USE CHILDREN'S LETTERS IN SUPPORT OF A POLICY HE WISHES TO ADOPT?

Charles C.W. Cooke answers sensibly:

. . . It is not beyond the wit of man to recognize that children’s letters could be put to propaganda use in support of almost any policy position you can imagine. How about a letter from a child that said, “Dear Mr. President. New York State has just made my Daddy’s gun illegal. We live in an area with a lot of bad men. I am really scared at night. Please don’t take away Daddy’s gun”? Or: “Dear Mr. President, I find it really gross when men kiss each other. I don’t like seeing it because it is icky. Please make it illegal, Mr. President. Thank you.” Or, perhaps: “I love everyone in the world, Mr. President. Uncle James tells me that in Pakistan little girls of my age are being killed by flying death robots. Uncle James says that you have the power to stop it. Please stop little girls in Pakistan being killed by flying death robots Mr. President!” And so on and so forth.

WHY OBAMA NEEDS TO READ ALEXIS DE TOCQUEVILLE

Matthew Frank writes perceptively that

the most notable thing about ... [Obama's 2nd inaugural] speech is not what it contains but what it lacks. The overwhelming impression one gets is that in Obama’s America, there is no civil society — no arena of private action, of voluntary responsibility, of free associations of citizens for solving the community’s problems. There are only the government (by default, the federal government, at that) and the individual. This is the “Life of Julia” campaign philosophy rendered in inaugural rhetoric: Without government’s aid in every aspect of our lives, we are lost, we are helpless, we are nothing. Every “we,” every “our,” every reference to “the nation” in this speech was a reference to a government solution to a “problem.” In this vision of America, no families, churches, charities, voluntary groups, or other institutions of civil society make any appearance at all. And when there are only the government and the individual, we know which one will be in charge.

Writing in a similar vein, Samuel Gregg shows how Obama's emphasis on the federal government doing everything contrasts with America as it was known to foreign visitors in its history.  Gregg writes:

     Presidential inaugural addresses are usually inspiring affairs, but the devil is invariably in the details. In that regard, President Obama’s second inaugural address proved to be no exception.

    Of course there were all sorts of highly questionable assertions made in this address. “A decade of war is now ending.” Really? Someone obviously forgot to inform al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb, not to mention the Americans and other innocents recently slaughtered by terrorists linked to that group in Algeria.

    “An economic recovery has begun.” So why is the unemployment rate exactly the same as it was at the same point in history four years ago? And how about that $16 trillion debt, $5 trillion of which has been racked up over the past, ahem, four years?

But leaving that and other inconvenient details aside, there’s one thing that’s very, very apparent from this inaugural address. And it’s our president’s worldview that the government is the primary way in which we address our common problems and realize our responsibilities and obligations to each other as citizens and as human beings. That many such responsibilities and obligations might be realized outside the realm of politics is not, apparently, something that has occurred to the president.

In that regard, I’ve often wondered what President Obama would think if he took the time to put aside the bible of modern liberalism, John Rawls’s Theory of Justice, for a moment and picked up a far more interesting (not to mention readable) text, Alexis de Tocqueville’s Democracy in America. One suspects the president would be astonished to learn how the Americans observed by the young French aristocrat dealt with all sorts of problems that were beyond the capacity of individuals to address and which were not resolved by the beneficial effects of commerce and business.

Tocqueville noted that 19th-century Americans dealt with such matters through the habit of free association — especially through the medium of churches and other religious associations — rather than initially looking to the government. For Tocqueville, the contrast with France, where a highly centralized state was seen as the first port of call for help, was astounding:

Americans of all ages, all conditions, and all dispositions constantly form associations. They have not only commercial and manufacturing companies, in which all take part, but associations of a thousand other kinds, religious, moral, serious, futile, general or restricted, enormous or diminutive. The Americans make associations to give entertainments, to found seminaries, to build inns, to construct churches, to diffuse books, to send missionaries to the antipodes; in this manner they found hospitals, prisons, and schools. If it is proposed to inculcate some truth or to foster some feeling by the encouragement of a great example, they form a society. Wherever at the head of some new undertaking you see the government in France . . . in the United States you will be sure to find an association.

The same phenomenon was noted 120 years later by yet another famous French Catholic living and working in America. The United States observed by Jacques Maritain in the 1940s and 50s was a very different society to that analyzed by Tocqueville, not least because of the economic and social effects of the New Deal. Yet despite these developments, Maritain (who knew Tocqueville’s writings very well) observed that something had not changed:

One of the most striking characteristics of the picture is the infinite swarming, on the American scene, of private groups, study clubs, associations, committees, which are designed “to look out for one aspect or another of the common good” . . . The effect is a spontaneous and steady collective regulation and prodding of the tremendous effort of the whole country, which is of invaluable importance.

This seemingly endlessly varied web of associational activity was matched by a financial generosity that plainly astounded Maritain:

Americans like to give. Of course, there is the exemption from taxes for gifts directed to the common welfare; but this very law about taxes would not have been possible if the astute legislator did not know that as a rule the American people are aware of the fact that it is better to give than to receive. Not only the great foundations, but the ordinary course of activity of American institutions and the innumerable American private groups show us that the ancient Greek and Roman idea of the civis praeclarus, the dedicated citizen who spends his money in the service of the common good, plays an essential part in American consciousness. . . . There is no materialism, I think, in the astonishing, countless initiatives of fraternal help which are the daily bread of the American people, or in the profound feeling of obligation toward others which exists in them, especially toward any people abroad who are in distress.

Naturally, as no less than Adam Smith pointed out, there are some things that only governments can do — national defense and public works being some of the more prominent examples used by the Scottish sage. But it’s our president’s constant equivalence of the common good with state initiatives, government schemes, and political programs that is perhaps one of the most troubling things about his inaugural address. Alas, I fear that that tendency on the part of the current occupant of the White House isn’t going to change any time soon.

           — Samuel Gregg is research director at the Acton Institute and author of Becoming Europe: Economic Decline, Culture, and How America Can Avoid a European Future.

 

OBAMA'S 2ND INAUGURAL SPEECH

I think Paul Kengor has it right in his post, "A Second Reagonite speech?"

It was an inaugural address that, on the surface, is eloquent and seems unobjectionable. One Reagan scholar e-mailed me and said it sounded like a speech that Ronald Reagan could have given. Perhaps so. But the problem is the deeper meaning and intentions behind Barack Obama’s carefully chosen words.

For instance, take this line: “Through it all, we have never relinquished our skepticism of central authority, nor have we succumbed to the fiction that all society’s ills can be cured through government alone.”

Well, that’s closer to what Ronald Reagan stated in his 1981 inaugural, “government is not the solution  . . .  government is the problem,” but it’s a far cry from this statement from Obama in February 2009, after his first inauguration: “The federal government is the only entity left with the resources to jolt our economy back into life. It is only government that can break the vicious cycle where lost jobs lead to people spending less money which leads to even more layoffs.”

What Obama said in 2009 is, in truth, what he has pursued for four years. What he said today is mere public relations and window dressing.

But that isn’t the worst part of the speech. Amid all the unnerving references to life, dignity, and God, not to mention the appalling line about a “nation of takers”—which, in truth, is precisely what Obama and Democrats are generating—the most telling theme of the speech that most alarmed me was the underlying progressive manifesto that Obama subtly laid out. Take these two lines:

“But we have always understood that when times change, so must we; that fidelity to our founding principles requires new responses to new challenges; that preserving our individual freedoms ultimately requires collective action.”

“Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life; it does not mean we will all define liberty in exactly the same way, or follow the same precise path to happiness. Progress does not compel us to settle centuries-long debates about the role of government for all time — but it does require us to act in our time.”

In the hands of a conservative like Ronald Reagan, this would be just fine, a return to our Founding principles. Yet, in the hands of a radical-left “progressive” like Barack Obama, these are not the soothing words they appear to be on the surface. They are a blueprint for what Obama has more precisely called a “fundamental transformation” of America. These are not benign words. The words must be paired to actions. They are a call to action, to redefine everything from our understanding of religious liberty and the family to the very notion of what is America. Underlying this sweet speech is a sweeping agenda, and Barack Obama knows it, even as his cheering, fawning masses do not.

       — Paul Kengor is professor of political science and executive director of The Center for Vision & Values at Grove City College. He is author of the new book The Communist: Frank Marshall Davis, The Untold Story of Barack Obama’s Mentor. His other books include The Crusader: Ronald Reagan and the Fall of Communism and Dupes: How America’s Adversaries Have Manipulated Progressives for a Century.

MARTIN LUTHER KING AND THE MORAL LAW

Martin Luther King appealed to "God's law" which surpassed human law.  His Biblical roots and Biblical perspective are generally overlooked today.  The late Charles Colson sets the record straight:

Listen Now | Download

More than forty years ago, on August 28, 1963, a quarter million people gathered in front of the Lincoln Memorial. They marched here for the cause of civil rights. And that day they heard Martin Luther King Jr. deliver his famous “I Have a Dream” speech, a speech in which he challenged America to fulfill her promise.

“I have a dream,” he said, “that one day this nation will rise up and live out the true meaning of its creed. ‘We hold these truths to be self-evident that all men are created equal.’ ”

While we know of the speech, most people are unaware that King also penned one of the most eloquent defenses of the moral law: the law that formed the basis for his speech, for the civil rights movement, and for all of the law, for that matter.

In the spring of 1963, King was arrested for leading a series of massive non-violent protests against the segregated lunch counters and discriminatory hiring practices rampant in Birmingham, Alabama. While in jail, King received a letter from eight Alabama ministers. They agreed with his goals, but they thought that he should call off the demonstrations and obey the law.

King explained why he disagreed in his famous Letter from a Birmingham Jail. “One might well ask,” he wrote, “how can you advocate breaking some laws and obeying others?” The answer “is found in the fact that there are two kinds of laws: just laws … and unjust laws. One has not only a legal but a moral responsibility to obey just laws,” King said, “but conversely, one has a moral responsibility to disobey unjust laws.”

How does one determine whether the law is just or unjust? A just law, King wrote, “squares with the moral law of the law of God. An unjust law ... is out of harmony with the moral law.”

Then King quoted Saint Augustine: “An unjust law is no law at all.” He quoted Thomas Aquinas: “An unjust law is a human law not rooted in eternal or natural law.”

This is the great issue today in the public square: Is the law rooted in truth? Is it transcendent, immutable, and morally binding? Or is it, as liberal interpreters argue, simply whatever courts say it is? Do we discover the law, or do we create it?

Many think of King as a liberal firebrand, waging war on traditional values. Nothing could be further from the truth. King was a great conservative on this central issue, and he stood on the shoulders of Augustine and Aquinas, striving to restore our heritage of justice rooted in the law of God.

Were he alive today, I believe he’d be in the vanguard of the pro-life movement. I also believe that he would be horrified at the way in which out of control courts have trampled down the moral truths he advocated.

From the time of Emperor Nero, who declared Christianity illegal, to the days of the American slave trade, from the civil rights struggle of the sixties to our current battles against abortion, euthanasia, cloning, and same-sex “marriage,” Christians have always maintained exactly what King maintained.

King’s dream was to live in harmony with the moral law as God established it. So this Martin Luther King Day, reflect on that dream—for it is worthy of our aspirations, our hard work, and the same commitment Dr. King showed.

Further Reading and Information

Martin Luther King Jr., Letter from a Birmingham Jail, April 16, 1963.

Read the text of Martin Luther King Jr.'s "I Have a Dream" speech.

Visit the Martin Luther King, Jr., Research and Education Institute website.

St. Augustine, City of God (Penguin Classics reprint, 2003).

Me:  Thank God for all that Martin Luther King did to rectify wrongs towards the Black people of this nation that had been enshrined in law and carried out in practice.  But there remains much work to be done, as Brian Brown (President of the National Organization for Marriage) reminds us.  Citing King's moral stance (as did Colson), Brown applies that same moral stance to other areas today.  He writes:

Marriage is the very type of relationship that Dr. King would no doubt have recognized as just, rooted as it is in the moral law, observed over thousands of years as an eternal law, in perfect harmony with the law of God. It is a profoundly just institution that brings men and women together and provides children with the best opportunity to be raised by a mother and a father.

So many of our laws and policies today are out of harmony with natural law and nature's God. The killing of the preborn innocent in the name of privacy; the euthanizing of the infirm in the name of compassion; the destruction of embryonic humans in the name of advancement; the protection of pornography purveyors and the merchants of violence in Hollywood and the video game industry in the name of free speech; and the restructuring of instutions like marriage to provide emotional satisfaction to politically powerful adults, even as they strip from the law the right of children to a mother and father.

JESSIE DUFF, CHAMPION SHOOTER, OFFERS A DEMONSTRATION OF SEMI-AUTOMATIC GUNS

Two days ago Hannity televised a terrific segment (video) featuring Jessie Duff, a world champion shooter.  Using a variety of semi-automatic weapons, she demonstrated how they fire and the size of the damage they do.  This will be an eye-opener for many. 

Also to be noted, Mike Huckabee highly recommends Larry Correia's article on guns and gun control as one of the best things he has read on the subject.  It's long but thorough.

TORTURED AMERICAN CITIZEN IN AN IRANIAN COURTROOM

His "crime"?  He's a Christian. He's to stand trial tomorrow before the notorious "hanging judge."

From the Family Research Council:

While people stream into Washington on Monday to celebrate one of freedom's greatest spectacles--the inauguration--another American will be sitting in an Iranian courtroom wondering if he'll hang for his faith. At 32, Pastor Saeed Abedini was just getting settled into his family life with his wife and two children in Idaho, when he took a trip home to Iran that not only changed his life--but may end it. The former Muslim, who converted to Christianity 13 years ago, was home for a humanitarian mission when he was pulled off a bus and arrested. Authorities claim his conversion has "endangered" the national security of Iran. After four months of unspeakable brutality, the Iranians set a trial date of January 21 in a court headed by a man many have nicknamed "the hanging judge."

Pastor Abedini's wife and his attorney have pleaded for help from the U.S. State Department, but officials insist their hands are tied because Iran doesn't recognize Abedini's U.S. citizenship--an excuse that Congressman Trent Franks (R-Ariz.) finds ridiculous. "Let me be clear: under no circumstances should the U.S. State Department allow Iran to determine who is or isn't a U.S. citizen and who the U.S. should protect," he said.

Meanwhile, a dozen senators, led by Sens. James Risch (R-Idaho) and Roy Blunt (R-Mo.) have sent a letter to Secretary Clinton urging the agency to intervene. "We should not stand idly by while the Iranian regime arbitrarily persecutes a U.S. citizen who has committed no crime," they write. Still, the State Department has been relatively mute. This is exactly the kind of apathy that Congressman Frank Wolf condemned in his letter to hundreds of American church leaders. "The Church globally is under assault. Our response must not be to simply sing more loudly thereby drowning out the cries for help from our brothers and sisters. Rather we must speak out, advocate and act on their behalf."

The White House is at least attempting to speak out before Pastor Abedini's trial. Earlier today, the President's team finally released a statement saying that it "remains troubled the case of U.S. citizen Saeed Abedini, who was arrested by Iranian officials more than three months ago on charges relating to his religious beliefs. We call upon Iranian authorities to release him immediately." With your help, we can make sure they put action behind their words.

HOW AN UNBELIEVING LESBIAN ENGLISH PROFESSOR BECAME A REFORMED PASTOR'S WIFE

Justin Taylor writes:

"What a fascinating and instructive and encouraging interview, as Marvin Olasky talks with Rosaria Butterfield about her memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith."

This is, indeed, a fascinating interview.  I know it's long (about an hour), but it will be time well spent.

You can read a sample here.   Justin Taylor goes on to quote Carl Trueman:

"This autobiography is the launchpad for numerous sophisticated reflections on the nature of life, faith, sexuality, worship, education and other matters. As one would expect from a lover of nineteenth century literature, the book is also beautifully written with many a well-turned sentence; and as one would expect from someone schooled at the highest levels in critical theory, it eschews simplistic pieties for stimulating analyses of both Christian and non-Christian culture.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I do not agree with everything she says; but I did learn from everything she wrote. It deserves the widest possible readership."

About Justin Taylor

 

Follower of Christ. Husband of one, father of three. Elder at New Covenant Bible Church. VP of Editorial at Crossway. More…

 

 

• Subscribe via Feed
• Subscribe via Email

• Subscribe via Kindle
• Follow on Twitter

 

 

 

Sponsors

Advertise Here

Blogroll

 

• 9Marks Blog
• Albert Mohler
• Andy Naselli
• Cranach Blog
• Denny Burk
• Desiring God Blog
• Evangel
• First Thoughts
• Girl Talk
• In Light of the Gospel
• Jim Hamilton
• Joe Thorn
• Josh Harris
• Kevin DeYoung
• Kingdom People
• Ligonier
• Radical Womanhood
• Resurgence
• Russell Moore
• Scriptorium Daily
• Stand to Reason
• TGC Blog
• Thabiti Anyabwile
• The Sola Panel
• Tim Challies
• Tullian Tchividjian
• Vitamin Z
• What's Best Next?
• Worship Matters

 

Magazine & Journals

 

• Books & Culture
• Boundless
• Christianity Today
• First Things
• Journal of Biblical Counseling
• Modern Reformation
• Reformation21
• Tabletalk
• The Briefing
• Themelios
• Touchstone
• World Magazine

 

Ministries

 

• 9Marks
• Acts 29
• Biblical Spirituality
• CBMW
• CCEF
• Centre for Public Christianity
• Crossway
• Desiring God
• Founders Ministries
• Grace to You
• Ligonier
• Matthias Media
• Sovereign Grace Ministries
• Stand to Reason
• TGC Reviews
• The Gospel Coalition
• Truth for Life
• White Horse Inn

 

Archives

 

Jan

18

2013

Justin Taylor|12:00 pm CT

How an Unbelieving Lesbian English Professor Became a Reformed Pastor’s Wife

What a fascinating and instructive and encouraging interview, as Marvin Olasky talks with Rosaria Butterfield about her memoir, The Secret Thoughts of an Unlikely Convert: An English Professor’s Journey into Christian Faith.

You can read a sample here.

Carl Trueman writes:

This autobiography is the launchpad for numerous sophisticated reflections on the nature of life, faith, sexuality, worship, education and other matters. As one would expect from a lover of nineteenth century literature, the book is also beautifully written with many a well-turned sentence; and as one would expect from someone schooled at the highest levels in critical theory, it eschews simplistic pieties for stimulating analyses of both Christian and non-Christian culture.

I cannot recommend this book highly enough. I do not agree with everything she says; but I did learn from everything she wrote. It deserves the widest possible readership.

In particular Carl highlights her discussion of sexuality:

Her treatment of sexual sin and gender politics is fascinating and so much more sophisticated than the kind of simplistic drivel which passes for discussion in evangelical circles. Chapter Two, ‘Repentance and the Sin of Sodom’ along with her accounts in Chapter Three of talking to students at Geneva College about sexuality, are worth the price of the book. Every pastor should read these chapters and take her analysis to heart.

THANK YOU, MR. PRESIDENT, FOR THESE PRO-LIFE MARCHING ORDERS

HT: Justin Taylor

 

DENNIS PRAGER - THE INTELLECTUAL AND EMOTIONAL EMPTINESS AT THE HEART OF ATHEISM

In an attempt to show that atheists can offer consolation to victims of tragedies like Sandy Hook, atheist Susan Jacoby, writing in the New York Times ("The Blessings of Atheism"), cited approvingly Robert Ingersoll who "tells us that death, even at its worst, is only perfect rest . . . The dead do not suffer” (ellipsis in original).

Prager, a practicing Jew, says "in terms of consolation, there is no comparison between 'The dead do not suffer' and 'Your child lives on and you will be reunited with her.'"   A truthful atheist, he says, would have to state something like the following:

“As atheists, we truly feel awful for you. And we promise to work for more gun control. But the truth is we don’t have a single consoling thing to say to you because we atheists recognize that the human being is nothing more than matter, no different from all other matter in the universe except for having self-consciousness. Therefore, when we die, that’s it. Moreover, within a tiny speck of time in terms of the universe’s history, nearly every one of us, including your child, will be completely forgotten, as if we never even existed. Life is a random crapshoot. Our birth and existence are flukes. And you will never see your child again.”

Prager:  "An atheist with the courage of her convictions would have written that. But the New York Times would not have published it."

CLOSING THE GUN SHOW LOOPHOLE WON'T AFFECT SHOOTINGS

Why not?  Criminals don't buy guns, they steal them.  Clayton E. Cramer writes:

It is an article of faith that closing the “gun-show loophole” would make America a safer place. But that is what it is: faith. In 2008, three criminologists (one of them not at all friendly to guns) studied the effects on murder and suicide rates in California (which prohibits private sales without a background check) and Texas (which does not). They looked at homicide and suicide rates for adjacent ZIP codes for a week after gun shows. They found no change in suicide rates, and in Texas, which has no restrictions on private party sales, a small but statistically significant reduction in gun homicides.

This might seem surprising, and at first glance, it is. Except for one little detail: Criminals appear not to buy guns at gun shows, because guns are expensive.  It is so much cheaper to steal guns instead. At Newtown, the killer first murdered his mother to steal the gun. At Clackamas Mall in Oregon in December, the shooter used a rifle he’d acquired by stealing it from a friend. In April of 2007, David Logsdon of Kansas City, Mo., murdered his neighbor and stole her late husband’s rifle for a mass murder.

I do not have a serious problem with requiring all firearms sales to go through a background check. But I do have a serious problem with pretending that this is going to make much of a difference in murder rates. You want to do something about murder? Look at the typical murders — not the highly atypical ones.

  — Clayton E. Cramer teaches history at the College of Western Idaho. His most recent book is My Brother Ron: A Personal and Social History of the Deinstitutionalization of the Mentally Ill (2012).

WE'RE NOW IN THE POST-CHRISTIAN AMERICA FRANCIS SCHAEFFER PREDICTED

John Stonestreet reflects on recent events and counsels that though we've entered post-Christian America, we should not become silent and retreat from the public square.   I agree.  Listen Now | Download

Stonestreet writes:  [I've offered personal highlights in bold print]

Last Friday on BreakPoint, I suggested that we must face the facts that we are now in a new era: the post-Christian America that Francis Schaeffer, Chuck Colson and many others predicted would come.

I was referring then to Hobby Lobby facing millions of dollars in fines for refusing to obey the HHS mandate.  If any further proof is needed, last weekend’s broo-ha-ha over who’s praying at the presidential inauguration is exactly that.

A rock-solid evangelical pastor who has mobilized thousands of young people to campaign against human trafficking was invited by the White House to give the benediction at the inauguration. But within hours, a small handful of homosexual activists hit the roof, because the same pastor, years prior, had the gall to say in a sermon that homosexual activity was sinful.

Thoroughly tarred with the “hater,” “bigot,” and “anti-gay” labels, this pioneer for human rights, Pastor Louie Giglio of Passion City Church, respectfully stepped aside.

 

WHY AUSTRIA WELCOMED HITLER

I received the following link from a friend.  In it a lady describes her firsthand account of what happened to her and her fellow Austrians under Hitler.  We as Americans are drifting more and more away from our historical freedoms.  There is a warning here. 

---

Kitty Werthmann writes:

What I am about to tell you is something you've probably never heard or read in history books. I am a witness to history. I cannot tell you that Hitler took Austria by tanks and guns; it would distort history.

We voted him in. If you remember the plot of the Sound of Music, the Von Trapp family escaped over the Alps rather than submit to the Nazis. I wasn't so lucky. My family chose to stay in our native Austria. I was only 10 years old, but bright and aware. And I was watching. We elected him by a landslide – 98 percent of the vote.

I wasn't old enough to vote in 1938 just nearly 11 years old. But I do vividly remember. Everyone thinks that Hitler just rolled in with his tanks and took Austria by force. Not so. Hitler was welcomed to Austria. In 1938, Austria was in deep Depression. Nearly one-third of our workforce was unemployed. We had 25 percent inflation and 25 percent bank loan interest rates. Farmers and business people were declaring bankruptcy daily. Young people were going from house to house begging for food. Not that they didn't want to work; there simply weren't any jobs.

My mother was a Christian woman and believed in helping people in need. Every day we cooked a big kettle of soup and baked bread to feed those poor, hungry people – about 30 daily. We looked to our neighbor on the north, Germany, where Hitler had been in power since 1933. We had been told that they didn't have unemployment or crime, and they had a high standard of living.

Nothing was ever said about persecution of any group – Jewish or otherwise. We were led to believe that everyone in Germany was happy. We wanted the same way of life in Austria. We were promised that a vote for Hitler would mean the end of unemployment and help for the family. Hitler also said that businesses would be assisted, and farmers would get their farms back.

Ninety-eight percent of the population voted to annex Austria to Germany and have Hitler for our ruler. We were overjoyed, and for three days we danced in the streets and had candlelight parades. The new government opened up big field kitchens and everyone was fed. German officials were appointed, and like a miracle, we suddenly had law and order. Three or four weeks later, everyone was employed. The government made sure that a lot of work was created through the Public Work Service.

Hitler decided we should have equal rights for women. Before this, it was a custom that married Austrian women did not work outside the home. An able-bodied husband would be looked down on if he couldn't support his family. Many women in the teaching profession were elated that they could retain the jobs they previously had been required to give up for marriage. Then we lost religious education for kids. Our education was nationalized. I attended a very good public school. The population was predominantly Catholic, so we had religion in our schools. The day we elected Hitler (March 13, 1938), I walked into my schoolroom to find the crucifix replaced by Hitler's picture hanging next to a Nazi flag. Our teacher, a very devout woman, stood up and told the class we wouldn't pray or have religion anymore. Instead, we sang `Deutschland, Deutschland, Uber Alles,' and had physical education.

Sunday became National Youth Day with compulsory attendance. Parents were not pleased about the sudden change in curriculum. They were told that if they did not send us, they would receive a stiff letter of warning the first time. The second time they would be fined the equivalent of $300, and the third time they would be subject to jail.

The first two hours consisted of political indoctrination. The rest of the day we had sports. As time went along, we loved it. Oh, we had so much fun and got our sports equipment free. We would go home and gleefully tell our parents about the wonderful time we had. My mother was very unhappy. When the next term started, she took me out of public school and put me in a convent. I told her she couldn't do that and she told me that someday when I grew up, I would be grateful.

There was a very good curriculum, but hardly any fun – no sports, and no political indoctrination. I hated it at first but felt I could tolerate it. Every once in a while, on holidays, I went home. I would go back to my old friends and ask what was going on and what they were doing. Their loose lifestyle was very alarming to me. They lived without religion. By that time, unwed mothers were glorified for having a baby for Hitler. It seemed strange to me that our society changed so suddenly.

As time went along, I realized what a great deed my mother did so that I wasn't exposed to that kind of humanistic philosophy. Then food rationing began. In 1939, the war started and a food bank was established. All food was rationed and could only be purchased using food stamps. At the same time, a full-employment law was passed which meant if you didn't work, you didn't get a ration card, and if you didn't have a card, you starved to death.

Women who stayed home to raise their families didn't have any marketable skills and often had to take jobs more suited for men. Soon after this, the draft was implemented. It was compulsory for young people, male and female, to give one year to the labor corps. During the day, the girls worked on the farms, and at night they returned to their barracks for military training just like the boys. They were trained to be anti-aircraft gunners and participated in the signal corps. After the labor corps, they were not discharged but were used in the front lines.

When I go back to Austria to visit my family and friends, most of these women are emotional cripples because they just were not equipped to handle the horrors of combat. Three months before I turned 18, I was severely injured in an air raid attack. I nearly had a leg amputated, so I was spared having to go into the labor corps and into military service.

When the mothers had to go out into the work force, the government immediately established child care centers. You could take your children ages four weeks old to school age and leave them there around-the-clock, seven days a week, under the total care of the government. The state raised a whole generation of children. There were no motherly women to take care of the children, just people highly trained in child psychology. By this time, no one talked about equal rights. We knew we had been had.

Before Hitler, we had very good medical care. Many American doctors trained at the University of Vienna. After Hitler, health care was socialized, free for everyone. Doctors were salaried by the government. The problem was, since it was free, the people were going to the doctors for everything. When the good doctor arrived at his office at 8 a.m., 40 people were already waiting and, at the same time, the hospitals were full. If you needed elective surgery, you had to wait a year or two for your turn. There was no money for research as it was poured into socialized medicine. Research at the medical schools literally stopped, so the best doctors left Austria and immigrated to other countries.

Our tax rates went up to 80 percent of our income. Newlyweds immediately received a $1,000 loan from the government to establish a household. We had big programs for families. All day care and education were free. High schools were taken over by the government and college tuition was subsidized. Everyone was entitled to free handouts, such as food stamps, clothing, and housing. We had another agency designed to monitor business. My brother-in-law owned a restaurant that had square tables. Government officials told him he had to replace them with round tables because people might bump themselves on the corners. Then they said he had to have additional bathroom facilities. It was just a small dairy business with a snack bar. He couldn't meet all the demands. Soon, he went out of business. If the government owned the large businesses and not many small ones existed, it could be in control.

We had consumer protection, too. Austrian kids loyal to Hitler were told how to shop and what to buy. Free enterprise was essentially abolished. We had a planning agency specially designed for farmers. The agents would go to the farms, count the live-stock, and then tell the farmers what to produce, and how to produce it.

In 1944, I was a student teacher in a small village in the Alps. The villagers were surrounded by mountain passes which, in the winter, were closed off with snow, causing people to be isolated. So people intermarried and offspring were sometimes retarded. When I arrived, I was told there were 15 mentally retarded adults, but they were all useful and did good manual work. I knew one, named Vincent, very well. He was a janitor of the school. One day I looked out the window and saw Vincent and others getting into a van. I asked my superior where they were going. She said to an institution where the State Health Department would teach them a trade, and to read and write. The families were required to sign papers with a little clause that they could not visit for 6 months. They were told visits would interfere with the program and might cause homesickness.

As time passed, letters started to dribble back saying these people died a natural, merciful death. The villagers were not fooled. We suspected what was happening. Those people left in excellent physical health and all died within 6 months. We called this euthanasia.

Then they took our guns by first having gun registration. People were getting injured by guns. Hitler said that the real way to catch criminals (we still had a few) was by matching serial numbers on guns. Most citizens were law abiding and dutifully marched to the police station to register their firearms. Not long afterwards, the police said that it was best for everyone to turn in their guns. The authorities already knew who had them, so it was futile not to comply voluntarily.

There was no more freedom of speech. Anyone who said something against the government was taken away. We knew many people who were arrested, not only Jews, but also priests and ministers who spoke up. Totalitarianism didn't come quickly, it took 5 years from 1938 until 1943, to realize full dictatorship in Austria. Had it happened overnight, my countrymen would have fought to the last breath. Instead, we had creeping gradualism. Now, our only weapons were broom handles. The whole idea sounds almost unbelievable that the state, little by little eroded our freedom.

This is my eye-witness account. It's true. Those of us who sailed past the Statue of Liberty came to a country of unbelievable freedom and opportunity. America truly is the greatest country in the world. Don't let freedom slip away. After America, there is no place to go.

END KITTY WERTHMANN'S TESTIMONY

CAN WE STILL PRAY AT GOVERNMENT MEETINGS?

From the Family Research Center (FRC):  [I have highlighted in bold print certain sentences to help introduce the subject under discussion}

On January 7, the director of FRC's Center for Religious Liberty, Ken Klukowski, filed a compelling brief with the U.S. Supreme Court concerning efforts to prevent prayer at the beginning of government meetings (whether they be municipal, county, state, or federal).

Signed by 49 Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, the document makes a convincing argument that prayers before government meetings are constitutional and a matter of religious liberty for all Americans. You can read the brief in its entirety here.

FRC filed the brief on behalf of the Members to support the Alliance Defending Freedom's petition to the U.S. Supreme Court in the case Town of Greece v. Galloway. In Galloway, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Second Circuit ruled that the use of public prayer before town meetings in the town of Greece, New York was an unconstitutional violation of the First Amendment.

The Second Circuit Court maintained that a prayer is unconstitutional if it contains frequent Christian references or if those saying the prayer say "we" when offering it. Also, the Second Circuit Court ruled that government-meeting prayers are unconstitutional if too few prayers in a given venue are offered by non-Christians. Ironically, this was despite the town of Greece's highly inclusive policy that allowed even practicing Wiccans and atheists to offer civic prayers.

In the brief, Klukowski argues:

Since its creation, the United States House of Representatives has begun its daily sessions with prayer. Both chambers of the First Congress passed resolutions to hire a salaried chaplain, whose foremost duty is to open each session with a formal invocation seeking the blessing of God on the people's elected Representatives as those leaders discharge their official duties ... These (congressional signatories) regard legislative prayer as important for policymaking bodies, both to solemnize official occasions and to seek God's blessing, wisdom, and guidance in making consequential decisions. Each Member also represents municipalities, school districts, and counties--not unlike Petitioner Town of Greece--and part of a sovereign State, each of which is governed by a body that practices legislative prayer at the outset of its meetings and sessions.

FRC President Tony Perkins, noting the importance of the case, said:

The Founders understood that religion is good for society, and defended "the free exercise thereof." Family Research Council is honored that 49 Members of Congress, including the chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, have chosen FRC to present their arguments to the nation's highest Court. We hope the Supreme Court will reject the freedom-threatening Second Circuit opinion in this case, and reverse it.

FRC's friends at the Alliance Defending Freedom have compiled a list of all relevant briefs, including FRC's and that of a group of distinguished theologians.

As we go forward advancing our cherished religious liberty in this effort, we ask for your prayers, both for wisdom for us and for a sound outcome from the nation's senior jurists.

Sincerely,

Rob Schwarzwalder
Senior Vice-President
Family Research Council

QUOTES OF THE DAY

Selected from an email:

--   Prayer is not a "spare wheel" that you pull out when in trouble, but it is a "steering wheel" that directs the right path throughout.

--  Friendship is like a book. It takes a few seconds to burn, but it takes years to write.

--  A blind person asked St. Anthony, "Can there be anything worse than losing eye sight?" He replied, "Yes, losing your vision!"

-- When you pray for others, God listens to you and blesses them; sometimes, when you are safe and happy, remember that someone has prayed for you.

-- Worrying does not take away tomorrow's troubles, it takes away today's peace.

MARGARET SANGER AND PLANNED PARENTHOOD - from JONAH GOLDBERG'S "LIBERAL FASCISM"

This material is subtitled: "Contraception, abortion, and the eugenics movement."  It was Kathryn Lopez who linked to the following excerpt from Jonah Goldberg's book, Liberal Fascism.

Margaret Sanger, whose American Birth Control League became Planned Parenthood, was the founding mother of the birth-control movement. She is today considered a liberal saint, a founder of modern feminism, and one of the leading lights of the Progressive pantheon. Gloria Feldt of Planned Parenthood proclaims, “I stand by Margaret Sanger’s side,” leading “the organization that carries on Sanger’s legacy.” Planned Parenthood’s first black president, Faye Wattleton — Ms. magazine’s “Woman of the Year” in 1989 — said that she was “proud” to be “walking in the footsteps of Margaret Sanger.” Planned Parenthood gives out annual Maggie Awards to individuals and organizations who advance Sanger’s cause. Recipients are a Who’s Who of liberal icons, from the novelist John Irving to the producers of NBC’s West Wing. What Sanger’s liberal admirers are eager to downplay is that she was a thoroughgoing racist who subscribed completely to the views of E. A. Ross and other “raceologists.” Indeed, she made many of them seem tame.

AMERICA GOING DOWNHILL FOLLOWING FRANCE

Socialists choose illusion, but reality can be ignored only so long.  France is far along the illusory road, and the U.S. under Obama follows in pursuit.  Idiotic.

Dale Hurd reports:

  Text:

PARIS -- If Americans want a glimpse into their possible economic future, they should look to France where there's high unemployment, low growth, more taxes, and more people on welfare.

Some are calling America's stagnant economy the "new normal." Some say America is looking more and more like Europe.

France should be a warning to Americans who have just voted for four more years of big government spending. The French are experts at big government. They've been deficit spending for decades, and it's made the country poorer.

A Welfare Time Bomb

America's exploding welfare state and huge deficit is starting to look so European that after the recent "fiscal cliff" fiasco, the Economist magazine dressed up President Obama in a French marinière shirt and House Speaker John Boehner in lederhosen.

Now the White House has decided to hire a famous left-wing French economist, Esther Dufflo, to help formulate economic policy. While France does some things well, economics might not be on the list.

France's bloated welfare state has been dubbed a "time bomb." Big government has not only weakened the French economy, it has crippled the entrepreneurial spirit.

"The entrepreneurial young people, they're going to London; they're going to Asia; they're going to the United States because they want to achieve something that is not automatically taken away by a state that says, 'you have, therefore I take it,'" said Jacob Arfwedsons, a Paris-based free market economist at the Institute for Research in Economic and Fiscal Issue.

France's Millionaire Exodus

The wealthy are fleeing, too, because of high taxes. French actor Gerard Depardieu recently collected his Russian passport, offered by Russian President Vladimir Putin. Russia has a flat tax of only 13 percent.

France has one of the lowest numbers of millionaires per capita in Western Europe.

One clue as to why can be found in a newspaper headline over a photo of France's wealthiest man, Bernard Arnault, who threatened to leave France over high taxes.

It reads, "Beat it, rich jerk."

Some joke that France is the one country where communism succeeded. It hasn't had a balanced budget in 40 years. The government sector of the French economy is larger than the private sector.

Most French are dependent on the state not only for benefits but for jobs. Three out of four French young people say their dream is to get a government job someday.

"France is addicted to public spending like a drug," Florian Silnicki, with the Club of Entrepreneurs, told CBN News. "We turn to government spending as the solution to our problems. Businessmen are telling us, 'We can't take it anymore.'"

"The system we have is very generous. But it's also very expensive, and we simply cannot pay for it," Dr. Emmanuel Martin, a French economist with the Atlas Foundation, said. 

Welfare = Stingy Society

Martin said France demonstrates that when the welfare state starts caring for people, people stop caring for each other.

The level of charitable giving in France and other nations in Western Europe is much lower than in the United States.

Martin said the welfare state "kills the natural move toward solidarity among individuals. And no wonder we're not a very philanthropic country." He says welfare makes societies "mean."

Socialism allows politicians to essentially buy votes by offering benefits paid for with money they don't have; and they won't be around when the state finally goes broke.

"More and more companies are dying, so there's more and more destruction of jobs," Martin said.

Coming Reality Check

IREF's Arfwedson said France has all but guaranteed that its future will be poorer.

"Oh, and that day is coming very soon, very soon," he warned. "There is growing awareness that we're heading right into the wall, which is called 'reality.'"

An excellent question is why American leaders would want to emulate France, or Europe, for that matter. 
 
Polls show most Democrats now have a favorable view of socialism, and it's very popular among America's college-age young people.

Maybe they should have a talk with a French economist.

**Follow Dale on Twitter @HurdontheWeb and "like" him at Facebook.com/DaleHurdNews.

THE DESTRUCTIVE SIDE EFFECTS OF LEGALIZING SAME-SEX MARRIAGE

Kathryn Jean Lopez's post "Religion and Same-Sex Marriage," helps clarify a lot that remains fuzzy or not totally grasped in the minds of many liberals regarding the consequences of same-sex marriage.  She writes:

The push in Illinois for gay marriage is instructive in the alarm bells it sounds on religious liberty (the Republican party chairman’s satisfaction on this front aside). As Bishop Thomas John Paprocki of Springfield explained it:

The pending bill is not only a dangerous social experiment about marriage. It is also a lethal attack upon religious liberty. This so-called “religious freedom” would not stop the state from obligating the Knights of Columbus to make their halls available for same-sex “weddings.” It would not stop the state from requiring Catholic grade schools to hire teachers who are legally “married” to someone of the same sex. This bill would not protect Catholic hospitals, charities, or colleges, which exclude those so “married” from senior leadership positions. Nor would it protect me, the Bishop of Springfield, if I refused to employ someone in a same-sex “marriage” who applied to the Diocese for a position meant to serve my ministry as your bishop. This “religious freedom” law does nothing at all to protect the consciences of people in business, or who work for the government. We saw the harmful consequences of deceptive titles all too painfully last year when the so-called “Religious Freedom Protection and Civil Union Act” forced Catholic Charities out of foster care and adoption services in Illinois.

These threats do not raise a question about drafting a better law, one with more extensive conscience protections. There is no possible way—none whatsoever—for those who believe that marriage is exclusively the union of husband and wife to avoid legal penalties and harsh discriminatory treatment if the bill becomes law. Why should we expect it be otherwise? After all, we would be people who, according to the thinking behind the bill, hold onto an “unfair” view of marriage. The state would have equated our view with bigotry—which it uses the law to marginalize in every way short of criminal punishment.

It’s an issue I’ve talked about with Tom Messner of Heritage and the aforementioned Robby George, among others. From an interview last year with Messner:

Same-sex marriage does not simply include more people in the definition of civil marriage; it labels the natural understanding of marriage as a form of irrational prejudice, ignorance, bigotry, and even hatred. In other words, same-sex-marriage laws teach the public that people who view marriage in the natural way are morally equivalent to racists.

Once this idea is embedded in the law, there will be enormous pressure to take it to its logical conclusion by marginalizing and penalizing people who continue to think marriage is one man and one woman. Some of this pressure will come from state sources and some will come from private sources, but in both cases it will find ways through whatever cracks might exist in protections for religious and moral conscience. As Princeton professor Robby George put it in your recent interview with him, “If you ask, ‘What can be done going forward around the country to protect religious liberty?’ the answer is this: Win the fight to preserve the legal definition of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife. Period.”

So many of the most contentious issues of the day come down to a fundamental misunderstanding about words like freedom and equality. As I’ve discussed in recent days with Eric Metaxas and Christopher West, license isn’t the rock of civilization, but throws rocks at it, especially as we institutionalize and mandate (see the HHS Mandate) our radical misunderstandings. 

See also her earlier column, "Is Gay marriage Inevitable?"

PSYCHIATRIC DRUGS AN UNDERRATED, UNDERSTUDIED FACTOR IN MURDER CASES

Blame the guns, says the media.  But shouldn't the media take a hard look at the prescribed medicine most killers are on when they commit murders?   In an article titled, "The giant, gaping hole in Sandy Hook reporting, David Kupelian says:   (HT: Drudge)

Whether we like to admit it or not, it is undeniable that when certain people living on the edge of sanity take psychiatric medications, those drugs can – and occasionally do – push them over the edge into violent madness.

Kupelian cites case after case where psychiatric drugs played a role in murders.  His list is long!  Since so little reporting of this fact exists, one must ask, are drug companies being protected?  At the end of his article Kupelian urges:

[We] respectfully but urgently ask the question: When on earth are we going to find out if the perpetrator of the Sandy Hook school massacre, like so many other mass shooters, had been taking psychiatric drugs?

In the end, it may well turn out that knowing what kinds of guns he used isn’t nearly as important as what kind of drugs he used.

That is, assuming we ever find out.        

Read the whole article.

.  I should mention that I dropped off the two series of videos (Truth Project and Ask) on Mark Carlson’s desk. 

THE PRESS CONTINUES TO "COVER" OBAMA WITH FRAGRANCE AND FLOWERS

In his article, "Will the press ever give Obama tough coverage?", Fred Barnes summarizes what most of us have  already perceived.  The press coverage of Bush contrasts wildly with that of Obama.  Barnes writes:

President Obama never disappoints. When the monthly unemployment rate fails to drop, forget it. What’s important is the number of jobs created. But when the rate actually does drop, forget the growth (or lack of it) in jobs. It’s the rate that matters. And don’t blame Obama for the persistence of slow economic growth and high joblessness. That’s the “new normal.” As for the millions of dropouts from the job market, that’s no big deal, hardly worth more than a passing mention.

Full credit is due Obama for his role in the overthrow of Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi. He was cleverly “leading from behind.” But the killing of the American ambassador to Libya and three others in Benghazi—the president bears no responsibility for that. Perish the thought.

Meanwhile, in the months before his reelection in November, Obama doled out government favors to Democratic interest groups like unions, Hispanics, teachers, and single women. This may have looked like shameless exploitation of his high office, but it really was unusually skillful politicking by a master of the game.

My drift here ought to be obvious. I’m referring to the way the media treat Obama. It’s not always adoring. It’s intermittently fair and even-handed. But overall, what’s distinctive about the press coverage of Obama is the absence of fault-finding, criticism, and dogged questioning. And when Obama makes excuses, as he often does, the media tend to echo them.

No president in my lifetime has been covered so favorably and so gingerly. Never has the press corps been so unwilling to pursue stories that might cast the president in an unflattering light. As a group, the media pride themselves on taking an adversarial approach to politicians and government officials. But in Obama’s case, the press acts like a helpmate.

FBI: MORE PEOPLE KILLED WITH HAMMERS, CLUBS THAN RIFLES

Interesting statistics, to say the least.  Awr Hawkins reports:  (HT: Drudge)

According to the FBI annual crime statistics, the number of murders committed annually with hammers and clubs far outnumbers the number of murders committed with a rifle.

This is an interesting fact, particularly amid the Democrats' feverish push to ban many different rifles, ostensibly to keep us safe of course.

However, it appears the zeal of Sens. like Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Joe Manchin (D-WV) is misdirected. For in looking at the FBI numbers from 2005 to 2011, the number of murders by hammers and clubs consistently exceeds the number of murders committed with a rifle.

Think about it: In 2005, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 445, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 605. In 2006, the number of murders committed with a rifle was 438, while the number of murders committed with hammers and clubs was 618.

And so the list goes, with the actual numbers changing somewhat from year to year, yet the fact that more people are killed with blunt objects each year remains constant.

For example, in 2011, there was 323 murders committed with a rifle but 496 murders committed with hammers and clubs. . .   Another interesting fact: According to the FBI, nearly twice as many people are killed by hands and fists each year than are killed by murderers who use rifles.

All of this is exceedingly interesting, indeed.   

HOBBY LOBBY STANDS ON THE FIRST AMENDMENT, REFUSING TO COMPARTMENTALIZE RELIGION

And Hobby Lobby is absolutely right!   The Obama administration refuses to see the point, in effect delimiting  "freedom of religion" to mean only "freedom of worship."  There's a huge difference between "freedom of religion and "freedom of worship."  Businesses that want to run on biblical principles, reflecting a Christian ethos, should not be forced to give out "morning after" pills if it goes against their conscience. Kathryn Lopez writes:

“It’s more than just work,” Mart Green, treasurer of Hobby Lobby and CEO of Mardel, a Christian bookstore chain, says in a video explaining why his family simply cannot and will not comply with the Department of Health and Human Services mandate insisting they provide abortion drugs to their employees. As of yesterday, Hobby Lobby, the arts and crafts chain, is in violation of federal law. Barack Obama’s Department of Justice has been arguing that religious liberty doesn’t have the role in the life of a business. But the Green family knows that their business lives cannot be cut off from their lives as Christians. And so the business makes decisions seeking to strengthen family, seeking to lives integrated lives, as Mart Green explains:

 

The Green family provides a real lesson to a culture that has become all too content compartmentalizing religion. And now by government mandate …

The Family Research Council has commented on the Holly Lobby dispute with the coercive Obama administration.   Pull quote:

The HHS Mandate is a gross violation of the religious beliefs of the Green family. The issue before the courts here is whether the Greens religious-liberty rights include running their secular, for-profit business consistent with their religious beliefs. In other words, is religious liberty just what you do in church on a Sunday morning, or does it include what you do during the week at your job?  [more....]

QUOTE (TWEET) OF THE DAY

MATT DRUDGE @DRUDGE There will be over 3,500 killed in USA today from abortion. No flags lowered, no presidents crying. No media hyperventilating. Normal day.