http://youtu.be/cgNJBdTaKE8
By Dallas Henry
Have you been asked the question yet? The questions are coming from members of the church I serve. “Pastor, who are you voting for?” Of course, by law, we are not permitted to endorse candidates from the pulpit, but when people ask us, we can legally share our opinions with them and why we have them.
There was a talk show that included a discussion of candidates for president and their faith. The host remarked, “What a person believes really shouldn’t matter because religion and politics don’t mix.”
That is a well known phrase. In any group of people there will be varying political opinions, but it incorrect to say that religion and politics do not mix. In fact, the Bible addresses many political issues. Government was an issue that Biblical writers frequently addressed. Scriptures talk about the role of government, how we should respond to government and, in besides, much of our laws are taken from the Bible. It is fair to say that Christians should be concerned about politics because God seems to be concerned about politics. I Peter 2:13 tells us that we are to submit to the governing authorities and I Timothy 2:1 urges us to pray for those who lead us. Saying that religion and politics do not mix is often an excuse for people who are not involved. It’s interesting that it is okay to sing patriotic hymns in church and politics and religion can mix on that realm, but they cannot mix when we talk about elections and the issues.
It is vital that Christians be involved in the process. We should be concerned about all elections. We should be concerned about who is leading us because they decide what freedoms we have and don’t have and what rights we have and don’t have. But, just how do Christians interact with government? What does the Bible say about issues that relate to this? In this critical time in the history of our country, it is important to be informed and to see what our Biblical responsibility is with government and not to simply withdraw and avoid it all. Remember government is; “of the people, by the people, and for the people.”
All citizens have been given the freedom and the responsibility to vote. This freedom is our only chance to voice our opinion. We are all influenced to vote the way that we do for different reasons, but Christians, especially, must guard against the false notion that voting and religion do not mix. A Christian’s faith does come into play in the decision making while voting.
It is important to remember that God, His Word and His Son Jesus Christ are foundational parts of our government and that should never be forgotten. There’s a good reason that In God We Trust is on our currency and a good reason our Pledge of Allegiance contains the phrase “One nation Under God” and there is a good reason that The Declaration of Independence speaks of the “Laws of Nature and of Nature’s God” and of certain unalienable Rights endowed on them by their Creator. We hear a lot today about the separation of Church and state, which is not in our constitution, no matter who many claim that it is.
In a few months the primaries will be over and the various candidates for each political party will have been chosen, on the national, state and local levels. The campaign ads will be over, the commercials will stop airing, for the time being, and then it’s time for Christians to do their homework.
It is important for us to take time and look into the Scriptures and see, first of all, what the Bible has to say regarding the purpose of government, secondly our responsibility as Christians, and thirdly how the church is called to Biblically interact with government.
Romans 13:1-7
“Let every soul be subject to the higher authorities. For there is no authority but of God; the authorities that exist are ordained by God. So that the one resisting the authority resists the ordinance of God; and the ones who resist will receive judgment to themselves. For the rulers are not a terror to good works, but to the bad. And do you desire to be not afraid of the authority? Do the good, and you shall have praise from it. For it is a servant of God to you for good. For if you practice evil, be afraid, for it does not bear the sword in vain; for it is a servant of God, a revenger for wrath on him who does evil. Therefore you must be subject, not only for wrath, but also for conscience’ sake. For because of this you also pay taxes. For they are God’s servants, always giving attention to this very thing. Therefore give to all their dues; to the one due tax, the tax; tribute to whom tribute is due, fear to whom fear is due, and honor to whom honor is due.”
Christians should not have an anti-government mindset because God has established governments that exist. God had a reason for appointing government. Continue reading
Posted in government, issues, politics, religion
Tagged biblical principles, God, principled public leadership, public morality, voting
The Thomas More Law Center, a national public interest law firm based in Ann Arbor, Michigan, whose mission includes restoring America’s Judeo-Christian heritage and promoting a strong national defense, announced Tuesday that it filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the Department of the Navy. The lawsuit seeks to obtain records that the plaintiffs believe will show intentional deception by the Pentagon to gain congressional support for repeal of the 1993 law regarding open homosexual conduct in the military, usually called “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
Prompting the lawsuit was a Department of Defense Inspector General’s report which suggested that a distorted Pentagon study of homosexuals in the military was produced and leaked solely to persuade Congress to lift the ban on open homosexuality in the military (Repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell”).
Erin E. Mersino, the Thomas More Law Center attorney handling the case, explained the reason for the lawsuit, “The Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy have failed to produce a single document despite numerous FOIA requests over the last two years for information to uncover the truth surrounding the congressional repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell.”
The lawsuit was filed in the U.S. District Court in Washington D.C. on behalf of Plaintiffs Elaine Donnelly and the Center for Military Readiness (CMR). Plaintiffs are seeking information to determine the extent to which the Department of the Navy engaged in a campaign of deception as suggested by the Inspector General’s Report.
The Plaintiffs are also seeking the information to determine the extent to which the Department of Defense and the Department of the Navy fulfilled the requirements mandated by Congress for the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” to become valid law. Congress required specific regulations and procedures be implemented to protect national security prior to the repeal taking effect. [See lawsuit here]
CMR is an independent, non-partisan public policy organization that concentrates on military issues. CMR’s president, Elaine Donnelly, has done extensive reporting on and analysis of the 1993 law regarding homosexuals in the military, and the consequences of repealing that law.
Plaintiffs first submitted their FOIA requests on August 31, 2011 requesting all records, documents and e-mails concerning the repeal of “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” shared among the military Chiefs of Staff, various combatant commanders, and political appointees at the Pentagon and White House. To date, the Department of the Navy has failed to provide any of the requested documents.
Richard Thompson, the Law Center’s President and Chief Counsel, commented, “ Ever since the beginning of the Continental Army of 1775, homosexuality in the military has been prohibited. President Obama changed all that at the expense of our future national security merely to curry favor with his radical homosexual supporters, and Congress went along with him. The purpose of our Armed Forces is to win on the field of battle. This new law will eventually have a devastating impact on unit cohesion and the fighting effectiveness of our combat branches. That’s why we must undo this ill conceived law, and the first step is to discover what went on behind the scenes.”
Contrary to media headlines based on selective misleading leaks about the survey, the actual survey numbers show that nearly 60% of those in the Marine and Army combat units, and among Marine combat arms the number was 67%, thought repealing the DADT law would harm their unit’s ability to fight on the battlefield.
Concerns of Senior Military Leaders Disregarded
During 2010 hearings prior to the rushed lame-duck vote for repeal, both the Commandant of the Marine Corps, General James T. Conway, and the incoming Commandant, General James Amos, informed the Senate Armed Services Committee that their best military advice was to keep the ban in place. Army Chief of Staff General George W. Casey told the Senate Committee that he had serious concerns about the impact of the repeal on a force engaged in two wars.
However, Secretary of Defense Gates and Admiral Mullen, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, muzzled other combat commanders from publicly expressing their opinion opposing repeal of the ban. Three-star General Benjamin Mixon, Commander of the U.S. Army Pacific Command, was publicly reprimanded by both Gates and Mullen for publicly expressing his objection to repeal.
To overcome these constraints on active duty senior officers to honestly express their opinion, 1,167 retired flag and general officers, 51 of them former four stars, signed an open letter to President Obama and Congress expressing great concern about the impact that a repeal would have on morale, discipline, unit cohesion and overall military readiness.
An Anti-Christian Policy
Despite the fact that an overwhelming majority of America’s Armed Forces are Christian, the Pentagon brushed aside the religious and moral objections to homosexuality by service members. The Department of Defense recommended elimination of longstanding military laws prohibiting consensual sodomy and adultery to go along with repeal of the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law. Moreover, recognizing that a large number of military chaplains believe that homosexuality is a sin and are required by God to condemn it as such, the Pentagon claimed that their objections, based upon deeply held religious beliefs, could be overcome through education and training. Ongoing controversies about the Defense Department’s attempts to circumvent the Defense of Marriage Act by authorizing same-sex “ceremonies,” which are simulated marriages on military bases, remain unresolved. Documents obtained by this FOIA lawsuit will improve public understanding of what happened during the lame-duck Congress in 2010, and what must be done to repair the damage.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fdBTuUH5AAA&w=560&h=315]
You have to watch the Third Jihad video to understand difference between moderate and radical Islam. If you watch the video, remember the scene of Muslim celebrating Islam Day and Jasser’s comment about it.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwbBWEljyYE&w=640&h=360]
For more info about Endorse Liberty, go to www.endorseliberty.com.
Posted in politics
Tagged American military, blow back, Election 2012, intelligence perspective, liberty, Ron Paul
By Cameron Smith
When President Obama released his budget for fiscal year 2013, the political reactions were swift … and predictable. Republicans immediately branded the budget “Debt on Arrival,” Nancy Pelosi called the President’s budget “a fiscally responsible plan,” and Harry Reid dodged the budget entirely, opting instead to talk about the need for transportation spending.
While the President is touting more than $4 trillion in deficit reduction, Republicans see as little as a $300 billion difference between Obama’s proposals and the consequences for the national debt if Congress does nothing but continue current policies. Regardless of how much deficit reduction actually takes place, the President’s “best case” scenario calls for $6.7 trillion in additional debt over the next decade.
Jack Lew, President Obama’s Chief of Staff, set the tone for the President’s budget by suggesting that “[t]here’s pretty broad agreement that the time for austerity is not today.” That sounds better than telling America that President Obama has proposed the largest budget in American history at a time of record national debt.
To make matters worse, the President is relying on an overly optimistic economic output to limit his requested deficit to “just” $901 billion for fiscal year 2013. The non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projects real gross domestic product (GDP), an inflation-adjusted measure of America’s economic output, to increase year to year by just one percent for fiscal year 2013. President Obama’s budget assumes three times that amount of growth.
Why do the President’s projections about the performance of the American economy matter? Estimates of income taxes and social insurance taxes hinge entirely on how the economy actually performs. When GDP growth is lower than projected, tax receipts are often proportionally lower, increasing the amount of the deficit.
The cavalcade of press releases, news conferences, and political punditry serve only to mask the harsh reality buried in the pages of the President’s budget. First of all, entitlements are at the heart of America’s budgetary problems. Period. Politicians address earmarks, tax increases, foreign aid, welfare programs and a host of other topics before the heaviest line item on the budget-entitlements-is ever mentioned.
In truth, the vast majority of Republican and Democrats in Washington would sooner play egg toss with a hand grenade than talk seriously about entitlement reform. And there is apparently little political advantage in doing so.
According to a Pew Research Center poll conducted in 2011, Americans have a split personality when confronted with the realities regarding entitlements. Sixty percent of respondents said maintaining current benefits under Social Security was more important than reducing the federal budget deficit. However 52 percent said Social Security needed major changes or to be completely rebuilt.
The President’s budget clearly demonstrates the impact of mandatory programs on America’s spending.
President Obama’s budget calls for $2.3 trillion in mandatory spending, which includes Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Add to that $851 billion in security spending which includes programs such as Defense, Homeland Security, and Veterans Affairs, and $248 billion in interest payments and those items account for 117 percent of the revenues coming in to pay for all of the federal government. Even if the President raises taxes exactly as he wants, mandatory and security spending alone will automatically cause America to deficit spend.
Maintaining the status quo for mandatory spending not only has serious consequences for America’s budgets, but also leaves the programs themselves in jeopardy. The Social Security and Medicare Board of Trustees Report for 2011 states clearly that, after 2036, “tax income would be sufficient to pay only about three-quarters of scheduled benefits through 2085.” The same report also notes that general fund revenues rather than Medicare payroll taxes “accounted for more than 45 percent of Medicare’s outlays” in fiscal year 2010.
The President’s budget continues the unfortunate trend of Presidential budgets that read more like a child’s Christmas list than a good faith effort for America to live within its means. Unfortunately, neither end of the political spectrum has shown leadership in dealing with America’s budgetary challenges. The President has clearly developed a budget aimed at improving his prospects with his political base, and Republicans, concerned with the reaction of senior citizens, remain conspicuously silent on ways to deal with entitlements, the most glaring economic burdens in the budget.
In this election year, political courage is in short supply on both sides of the aisle when it comes to fiscal responsibility.
Cameron Smith is General Counsel and Policy Director for the Alabama Policy Institute, a non-partisan, non-profit research and education organization dedicated to the preservation of free markets, limited government and strong families, which are indispensable to a prosperous society.
By John Mitchel
This reporter recently requested records related to the 2003 BRAC Initiative Agreement (October, 2003 to September, 2006) where Greene County Commissioner Marilyn Reid and two retired commissioners signed a contract for $1.9 million with the Dayton Development Commission to lobby for Wright Patterson Air Force Base. It appears that part of that money was used as a loan for $900,000, with interest paid by Greene County taxpayers, to provide matching funds to qualify for a State grant. Greene County taxpayers and others around Ohio should be outraged to learn where and to whom those tax dollars went.
Although Ms. Reid and Mr. Perales have not produced the requested public records, including the Ohio grant application and Ohio Department of Development’s response, there is sufficient information available in the public domain to give Greene County voters good reason not to vote for Reid or Perales in the March 6th primary. Ms. Reid is running for reelection as Greene County Commissioner and Mr. Perales left his County Commissioner seat to run for District 70 State Representative.
For starters, in a display of corporate cronyism at its worst, the Dayton Development Coalition paid their President and CEO over $285,000 in salary and benefits in 2005, the last full year of the Agreement (Source: Dayton Development Coalition 2005 IRS Form 990). But that’s not the worst of it. The Coalition also paid $560,000 to the Paul Magliocchetti & Associates (PMA) Group, a Washington lobbyist, between 2003 and 2006 (Source: www.opensecrets.org ). Magliocchetti, PMA’s founder and president, is currently serving 27 months in federal prison for illegally bundling campaign contributions to dozens of congressmen, including former Congressman Dave Hobson and his successor, Steve Austria (Source: www.fec.gov ).
Follow the money, and you will learn as I did that Reid, Perales, Hobson, Austria and others are not the limited government conservatives they claim to be. Contrary to their rhetoric, they are more than happy to shovel our tax dollars to public-private partnerships like the Dayton Development Coalition that tragically draws support from so many leaders in academia, the private sector, local governments and even Wright Patterson AFB. Remember, when you hear the buzz phrase, “public private partnership,” invariably you can follow the money from taxpayers to private pockets and then back to the politicians through campaign contributions. Enough is enough; on March 6th let’s send a message to the career politicians that we want our government back. Sending Marilyn Reid and Rick Perales back to the private sector would be a good start.
Posted in government, Greene County, news, politics
(WAXHAW, NC) — The Rutherford Institute has come to the defense of an eighth-grade public school student who was suspended for allegedly playing a joke on a fellow student by giving him a bag of the Italian herb oregano. As a result of his prank, the 13-year-old Cuthbertson Middle School student was initially suspended for 10 days and charged with being in possession of and having the intent to distribute an “illegal drug, counterfeit or synthetic drug.” School officials with Union County Public Schools have since suspended the boy for an additional 45 days with attendance in an alternative school program. In addition to the suspension being a gross overreaction to a childish prank, Institute attorneys point out that oregano cannot properly be considered a “counterfeit or synthetic drug” under the school’s Code of Conduct or the North Carolina statute pertaining to counterfeit drugs.
“Zero-tolerance discipline cases are becoming increasingly absurd,” said John W. Whitehead, president of The Rutherford Institute. “Rather than responding with reason, proportionality, and compassion to childish indiscretions, schools are subjecting young people to treatment far worse than is meted out to adult defendants in the criminal justice system. It doesn’t make any sense.”
On January 20, 2012, the eighth grader in question, whose family has asked that he not be identified publicly (referred to hereafter as “B”), brought a bag containing oregano to Cuthbertson Middle School. “B” played a joke on a fellow student who had spoken to him about marijuana—the students having discussed it in health class—by giving his classmate a bag of oregano. Claiming they didn’t want other children to be in danger, school officials charged “B” with having the intent to distribute an “illegal drug, counterfeit or synthetic drug,” and initially suspended him for 10 days, later extending it to an additional 45 days. Insisting that her son had merely engaged in a schoolboy prank with no intention to harm anyone, “B’s” mother turned to The Rutherford Institute for help.
In a letter to officials with the Union County Public Schools, John W. Whitehead warned that the school’s unwarranted overreaction to the incident could be construed as a violation of “B’s” constitutional rights. Moreover, in light of the fact that oregano is not defined as a “counterfeit or synthetic drug” in accordance with the school’s Student Code of Conduct, nor does it meet the statutory definition of “counterfeit drug” as set forth in North Carolina General Stat. Ann. §106-121(4a), Institute attorneys argue that “B” cannot be subjected to long-term suspension. Pointing out that North Carolina law not only confers upon school officials the authority to issue long-term suspensions only when a student’s conduct demonstrates a willful violation of school policies, but also discourages such punishments except for serious violations that either threaten the safety of students, staff or school visitors or threaten to substantially disrupt the educational environment, Whitehead has asked that the long-term suspension be revoked immediately in favor of a reasonable response that takes “B’s” best interests into account and avoids unnecessary interference with his education.
By Jonathan Benson
(NaturalNews) Why would you forcibly medicate the population with fluoride chemicals via the water supply when you could instead forcibly medicate them with birth control drugs? That seems to be the opinion of Nolan Finley, the editorial page editor at The Detroit News, who says that too many people on welfare are having babies in Detroit, Mich., and that adding birth control sterilants to the water supply just might be a good solution to the problem.
While seemingly intended to be a commentary on the immense burden that excessive pregnancies are on the social welfare system in the city — his focus seems to be on the city’s poor whose wombs are a “poverty factory”, his own words — Finley’s strongly-worded diatribe reads more like a page out of a eugenics manual. Seething with disgust over the dismal state of affairs in Detroit, Finley’s column makes some very drastic recommendations about how he thinks the state should handle the city’s higher-than-he-would-like birth rate.
In all reality, Detroit is the new poster child city for what happens when globalists take over a nation and destroy its industrial base. Rapidly decaying infrastructure, out-of-control crime, decimated industry, and a resultant mass exodus of middle and upper-class families are all the result of America’s deindustrialization, which is something for which the city’s poor were obviously not directly responsible.
And yet Finley seems to suggest that the city’s poor are a cause, rather than a consequence, of this raping and pillaging of the American economy. He goes on to suggest that the very same government responsible for causing the debacle in the first place became directly involved in “fixing it” by embracing a philosophy of “reproductive responsibility.” And one of his suggestions for doing this appears to be lacing the city’s water supply with contraceptive drugs.
He could be speaking tongue-in-cheek, of course. But he could also be dead serious. Based on his apparent belief that the government needs to get involved in regulating how many children a person can have, Finley seems to embrace a philosophy of reproductive responsibility that looks more like government-mandated population control.
n a recent analysis of Finley’s piece, Aaron Dykes over at InfoWars.com explains how such eugenicist ideas are rooted in corrupt, collectivist governments who want complete control over the population. The poor that are having too many babies, in other words, are a scapegoat for implementing outlandish public policy initiatives like adding chemicals to the water supply for the “greater good.”
This is exactly the argument that has long been used to support adding fluoride chemicals to the water supply. Poor families and their children, we are told, are all losing their teeth because of a lack of proper dental care, and the only way to fix it is to dump toxic fluoride waste into the water supply, 99 percent of which ends up going down the drain anyway (http://www.naturalnews.com/034499_fluoride_vans_water_supply.html).
Learn more: http://www.naturalnews.com/034977_water_supply_birth_control_Detroit.html
Jonathan Benson is staff writer at Natural News.
Posted in health, news, Ohio, politics
Tagged birth control, eugenics, mass medicating, poor population control, secularism
