[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EuXqpK6Awmo&w=480&h=360]
Results of a recent survey of Republican women affirm that women are most concerned about economic and fiscal issues during this presidential election year.
“Obama’s economic policies have failed our entire nation, but women have been disproportionately affected,” National Federation of Republican Women (NFRW) President Rae Lynne Chornenky says:: “Our survey affirms that women believe that the economy, unemployment, federal spending and personal finances are our biggest problems, both nationally and locally.”
What’s more, many respondents are feeling the economic strains personally. When asked whether they are struggling to make ends meet, nearly 40% indicated that they are either struggling or somewhat struggling.
More than 8,500 Republican women from all 50 states and many U.S. territories participated in the online survey, which was conducted by the NFRW from July 1 through Aug. 6. Both a summary and a full report of results are available at www.nfrw.org/programs/survey.htm.
The NFRW had two requirements for participants: they had to be female, and they had to describe themselves as Republicans. The survey covered a range of topics on domestic and foreign policy, societal concerns, perceptions about women, elections, politics, personal beliefs, and demographics. Economic and fiscal issues noticeably dominated.
“It’s clear that we need new leadership in Washington to turn our country around,” Chornenky says. “The NFRW will be speaking out between now and Election Day, educating women about Obama’s failed economic record and offering Mitt Romney as the candidate with the expertise and the solutions to put Americans back to work.”
Dr. Matthew Spalding
The United States was born when rebellious colonists declared their independence from an imperial ruler who had vastly overstepped his bounds. “The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States,” they wrote in their Declaration of Independence.
Today’s presidency lacks the regal air of George III. But imperialism is back, in a big way.
Last week, the Obama Administration’s Department of Homeland Security issued a memorandum instructing U.S. immigration officials to use their “prosecutorial discretion” to create a policy scheme contrary to existing law, designed to implement legislation that Congress hasn’t passed.
The President himself has admitted he doesn’t have the authority to do this. “The idea of doing things on my own is very tempting, I promise you, not just on immigration reform. But that’s not how our system works,” he told Hispanic activists last year. “That’s not how our democracy functions.”
Indeed.
We can now see before us a persistent pattern of disregard for the powers of the legislative branch in favor of administrative decision-making without—and often in spite of—congressional action. This violates the spirit—and potentially the letter—of the Constitution’s separation of the legislative and executive powers of Congress and the President.
Examples abound:
Even though the Democrat-controlled Senate rejected the President’s cap-and-trade plan, his Environmental Protection Agency classified carbon dioxide, the compound that sustains vegetative life, as a pollutant so that it could regulate it under the Clean Air Act.
After the Employee Free Choice Act—designed to bolster labor unions’ dwindling membership rolls—was defeated by Congress, the National Labor Relations Board announced a rule that would implement “snap elections” for union representation, limiting employers’ abilities to make their case to workers and virtually guaranteeing a higher rate of unionization at the expense of workplace democracy.
After an Internet regulation proposal failed to make it through Congress, the Federal Communications Commission announced that it would regulate the Web anyway, even despite a federal court’s ruling that it had no authority to do so.
Although Congress consistently has barred the Department of Education from getting involved in curriculum matters, the Administration has offered waivers for the No Child Left Behind law in exchange for states adopting national education standards, all without congressional authorization.
Likewise, the Administration has often simply refused to enforce laws duly enacted by Congress:
Since it objects to existing federal immigration laws, the Administration has decided to apply those laws selectively and actively prevent the state (like Arizona) from enforcing those laws themselves.
Rather than push Congress to repeal federal laws against marijuana use, the Department of Justice (DOJ) simply decided it would no longer enforce those laws.
DOJ also has announced that it would stop enforcing the Defense of Marriage Act or defending it from legal challenge rather than seeking legislative recourse.
On Tuesday, the President invoked executive privilege to avoid handing over some 1,300 documents in an ongoing Congressional investigation. The Supreme Court has held that executive privilege cannot be invoked to shield wrongdoing. Is that what’s happening in this case? “Congress needs to get to the bottom of that question to prevent an illegal invocation of executive privilege and further abuses of power. That will require an index of the withheld documents and an explanation of why each of them is covered by executive privilege—and more,” Heritage legal scholar Todd Gaziano writes.
Earlier this year the President crossed the threshold of constitutionality when he gave “recess appointments” to four officials who were subject to Senate confirmation, even though the Senate wasn’t in recess. Gaziano wrote at the time that such appointments “would render the Senate’s advice and consent role to normal appointments almost meaningless. It is a grave constitutional wrong.”
There is no telling where such disregard may go next, but the trend is clear, and it leads further and further away from the constitutional rule of law.
The President has unique and powerful responsibilities in our constitutional system as chief executive officer, head of state, and commander in chief. Those powers do not include the authority to make laws or to decide which laws to enforce and which to ignore. The President – like judges or Members of Congress – takes an oath to uphold the Constitution in carrying out the responsibilities of his office.
Indeed, the President takes a unique oath, pledging he “shall faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States” and “preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.” We don’t need a new Declaration of Independence, but we do need a President who will defend and vigorously exert his or her legitimate powers, recognizing that those powers are not arbitrary or unlimited.
This article was originally posted in the Heritage Foundation blog, The Foundry,/a>, on June 22, 2012. Dr. Matthew Spaldingis the Vice President for American Studies and Director of the B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics at The Heritage Foundation. He is also the author of We Still Hold These Truths.
Posted in politics
The Buckeye Institute’s July 2012 Ohio by the Numbers report shows continuing positive signs for Ohio’s private economy. According to preliminary Bureau of Labor Statistics data, Ohio’s private sector gained 16,300 jobs, allowing the state to move up another notch, having the 13th fastest growing private sector since January 2010. It was 20th in January’s report. Ohio did lose 5,300 government jobs.
While 2012 continues to show Ohio’s private sector making gains and pushing the state’s unemployment rate below the national average, 7.2 percent vs. 8.3 percent, there are some troubling trends. Chief among them is that the labor force shrunk by 24,000 in July. In fact, though labor force participation increased by nearly 23,000 from January to May, it has declined by over 41,000 over the course of two consecutive months which leaves Ohio’s labor force 19,000 smaller than in January.
Meanwhile, a full recovery of Ohio’s private sector economy to its peak private sector employment numbers of March, 2000 is getting closer. Using the “boom” growth rates from the 1990s (nearly 95,000 per year on average), it will take until February of 2017 for Ohio to return to its previous private sector employment peak of 4.85 million last seen in March of 2000. However, that is an improvement over last month when the recovery date was projected to be March, 2017.
Overall highlights from the Buckeye Institute report include:
Within individual industry sectors, only Professional and Business Services and Education and Health Services continue to have more people employed in them today than in either 1990 or 2000.
The report shows that Forced Union states (which includes Ohio and most of its neighbors with the recent exception of Indiana which became a worker freedom state in February) had a private sector growth rate far below Worker Freedom states. Since 1990, Worker Freedom states’ private sector jobs grew at a 36 percent rate vs. only 13 percent for Forced Union states (12.3 million vs. 7.8 million).
EEven during the decade from 2000-2010, which included the tech bubble burst of 2000 and the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009, Worker Freedom states gained jobs for a minimal growth of around 0.1 percent while Forced Union states lost 5 percent. Since 2010, Worker Freedom states also outperformed Forced Union states, growing at a 4.4 percent rate vs. only 3.7 percent.
Even during the decade from 2000-2010, which included the tech bubble burst of 2000 and the “Great Recession” of 2008-2009, Worker Freedom states gained jobs for a minimal growth of around 0.1 percent while Forced Union states lost 5 percent. Since 2010, Worker Freedom states also outperformed Forced Union states, growing at a 4.4 percent rate vs. only 3.7 percent.
In the following, Constitutional lawyer John Whitehead comments on the ex-Marine veteran Brandon Raub’s arrest and the blatant Constitutional violations committed by the local police and FBI agents. Whitehead also addresses the growing abuses power by our government officials.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qeKRhAK4l1Q&w=560&h=315]
by Daniel Downs
A recent article by Charles Gave of GaveKal reports Germany entering a recession. His initial analysis points to a mild recession for Germany. However, the impact of a stagnant recessionary German economy would result in a secondary depression on the southern nations of Europe. For Germany and the EU, the repercussion of such a depression could result in a much more severe recession for strongest EU economy. If that happens, Gave predicts the EU would break apart.
Of course, a German recession would have a negative impact on the U.S. economy, according to the Fiscal Times. Because exports to Germany and other European nations would diminish, our economic would also slow down possibly to greater recessionary levels.
The latest update to U.S. Budget and Economic Outlook projections by the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) predicts a recession in 2013. While the CBO estimates the national budget deficit to decline from $1.1 trillion to $641 billion, its analysts also estimate a decline in real GDP of 0.5 percent. At the same time, they predict unemployment to rise again to 9 percent.
The CBO projections for 2014-2017 show slow but steady improvement. By the end of 2017, they predict the rate of unemployment to have decreased to 5.7 percent. While the unemployment is expected to decline, the growth rate of the national economy is expect to increase to 4.3 percent.
Of course, CBO projections are dependent on the policies made on Capitol Hill and the economic conditions of those nations who buy our goods and services and invest in our capital markets.
By Stefano Gennarini, J.D.
(GENEVA – C-FAM) Likely the Russians are furious. Last year the Russian government initiated a process at the Human Rights Council in Geneva that was supposed to lead to a resolution touting traditional values. They rediscovered what they likely already knew, that such debates at the UN are fraught with danger, particularly for those who want to support traditional values. The constellation of forces hostile to traditional values is large and aggressive.
The Russians had hoped their resolution could find a positive link between traditional values and human rights generally. A drafting committee offered a preliminary study last February that was acceptable to pro-family delegates. But opposition quickly formed. Homosexual groups were particularly vocal in opposing the draft report. Opponents charged that the draft failed to address what they consider to be a conflict between traditional values and human rights.
The preliminary study emphasized universal traditional values shared by all people, in the spirit of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. It highlighted the connections between traditional values and human rights, maintaining that the normative force of human rights has its roots in the moral force of traditional values. It contained explicit references to the right to life, the role of the family in society, as well as major religions.
But the United States and some European countries objected that the rights of women and homosexual and transgender persons are frequently undermined by traditional values and religion, and that something should be said in the study about the conflict. The International Lesbian and Gay Association (ILGA) joined the criticisms.
Following this objection, the Chinese expert on the Advisory Committee of the Human Rights Council (HRC), Chung Chinsung, re-wrote the study, omitting positive references to the right to life, the family, and religion. The new draft study was discussed last week in Geneva, and countries, experts, and NGOs that had complained were overall satisfied with the changes.
The new draft drops the universalistic approach. In fact, the new draft does not even recognize the existence of universal traditional values, dismissing the quest for universality as a red herring. Instead, it points out that multiple traditional values exist, and they are constantly evolving. Some are consonant with human rights. But others are not.
This new approach puts human rights squarely above and against traditional values. In the draft study, the Advisory Committee declares which traditional values are in conflict with human rights, and which ones are not.
The new draft makes the case that traditional values undermine the rights of women and minorities. It finds that certain traditions and religions spread “stereotypes about femininity, sexual orientation and the role and status of women in society.” It also lists some “best practices” to show how, in some circumstances, traditional values can reinforce human rights. None of these examples are from western countries. In fact, the new draft finds that “traditional and cultural values in Western countries propagate harmful practices, such as domestic violence.”
The new study was scheduled to appear during the September session of the HRC. But it clearly requires some further polishing, and the Committee has asked the HRC for more time.
“Gay parades banned in Moscow for 100 years” 17 August 2012
Moscow’s top court has upheld a ban on gay pride marches in the Russian capital for the next 100 years.
Earlier Russia’s best-known gay rights campaigner, Nikolay Alexeyev, had gone to court hoping to overturn the city council’s ban on gay parades.
He had asked for the right to stage such parades for the next 100 years.
He also opposes St Petersburg’s ban on spreading “homosexual propaganda”. The European Court of Human Rights has told Russia to pay him damages.
On Friday he said he would go back to the European Court in Strasbourg to push for a recognition that Moscow’s ban on gay pride marches – past, present and future – was unjust.
The Moscow city government argues that the gay parade would risk causing public disorder and that most Muscovites do not support such an event.
In September, the Council of Europe – the main human rights watchdog in Europe – will examine Russia’s response to a previous European Court ruling on the gay rights issue, Russian media report.
In October 2010 the court said Russia had discriminated against Mr Alexeyev on grounds of sexual orientation. It had considered Moscow’s ban on gay parades covering the period 2006-2008.
This article written by Stefano Gennarini, who is Director of the Center for Legal Studies at the Catholic Family and Human Right Institute (C-FAM), first appeared in FridayFax, an internet report published weekly by C-FAM. C-FAM is a New York and Washington DC-based research institute (http://www.c-fam.org).
by Efraim Karsh
The sustained anti-Israel de-legitimization campaign is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds. Since Israel is the world’s only Jewish state, and since Zionism is the Jewish people’s national liberation movement, anti-Zionism—as opposed to criticism of specific Israeli policies or actions—means denial of the Jewish right to national self-determination. Such a discriminatory denial of this basic right to only one nation (and one of the few that can trace their corporate identity and territorial attachment to antiquity) while allowing it to all other groups and communities, however new and tenuous their claim to nationhood, is pure and unadulterated anti-Jewish racism, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known.
By any conceivable standard, Israel has been an extraordinary success story: national rebirth in the ancestral homeland after millennia of exile and dispersion; resuscitation of a dormant biblical language; the creation of a modern, highly educated, technologically advanced, and culturally and economically thriving society, as well as a vibrant liberal democracy in one of the world’s least democratic areas. It is a world leader in agricultural, medical, military, and solar energy technologies, among others; a high-tech superpower attracting more venture capital investment per capita than the United States and Europe; home to one of the world’s best health systems and philharmonic orchestras, as well as to ten Nobel Prize laureates. And so on and so forth.
Why then is Israel the only state in the world whose right to exist is constantly debated and challenged while far less successful countries, including numerous “failed states,” are considered legitimate and incontestable members of the international community? The answer offered by this article is that this pervasive prejudice against Israel, the only Jewish state to exist since biblical times, is a corollary of the millenarian obsession with the Jews in the Christian and the Muslim worlds.
On occasion, notably among devout and/or born again Evangelical Christians, this obsession has manifested itself in admiration and support for the national Jewish resurrection in the Holy Land. In most instances, however, anti-Jewish prejudice and animosity, or anti-Semitism as it is commonly known, has served to exacerbate distrust and hatred of Israel. Indeed, the fact that the international coverage of the Arab-Israeli conflict and the libels against Zionism and Israel, such as the despicable comparisons to Nazi Germany and apartheid South Africa, have invariably reflected a degree of intensity and emotional involvement well beyond the normal level to be expected of impartial observers would seem to suggest that, rather than being a response to concrete Israeli activities, it is a manifestation of long-standing prejudice that has been brought out into the open by the vicissitudes of the conflict.
To read more, click here.
The above excerpt originates from an article by the same title and author as first published on-line by the Middle East Forum, where the author is principal researcher. He is also research professor of Middle East and Mediterranean Studies at King’s College London and author, most recently, of Palestine Betrayed (Yale University Press, 2010).
A heavily armed black gay activist with a bag of Chic-fil-A sandwichs was petrubed about the unashamed and progressive* views of the Family Research Council’s about traditional marriage. The gay man obviously was offended by very public and very exclusive adefinition FRC’s one-man and one-woman defintion of marriage. At root at the offense is the FRC’s view that gay marriage is an offense to God and serious problem for a good society.
The questions being raised is will public officials and other social institutions (especially liberal ones) define this act as terrorism or a hate crime. Another question that might surface is whether or not Christian-oriented family organizations like the FRC should be allowed to instigate hate crimes or domestic terrorism. That is, will the gays and liberal public officials deem the moral views and public activism to spread them and even make them law (as the gay activists do) a crime punishable by law.
The Infowars.com video below address the first question and comments by The National Organization for Marriage (NOM) address the second question.
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=E5UX-hO4OHk&w=560&h=315]
http://www.infowars.com/frc-shooting-will-pro-abortion-and-gay-rights-liberals-call-it-terrorism
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NOM Comments:
Five days ago, a gay activist stormed the offices of the Family Research Council (FRC), a pro-marriage ally in our fight, attempted to barge into their offices with a loaded weapon, and when confronted by a security officer, tried to murder the guard and thereby intimidate Christians and marriage supporters everywhere. It’s the same thing that terrorists try to accomplish—use deadly force to intimidate opponents into submission.
The armed gay activist was reportedly carrying a large cache of ammunition and bags of food from Chick-Fil-A. He apparently complained about our side’s pro-marriage position. You may recall that NOM and others recently led a nationwide show of support for the CEO of Chick-Fil-A’s public defense of marriage as the union of one man and one woman. It’s been reported that the attacker may have intended to leave Chick-Fil-A sandwiches as he shot his way through the offices.
Fortunately, despite being shot, the security officer was able to stop the would-be assassin. That guard is a true hero, and his courage no doubt saved many lives. But this is a wakeup call for marriage supporters everywhere.
It’s been five days now and still the DC police department refuses to characterize the attempted murder of pro-marriage Christians as a hate crime. It’s outrageous. A gay activist tries to murder executives at a prominent pro-marriage group; he specifically complains about pro-marriage positions; and he’s carrying foodstuffs from a pro-marriage restaurant with the apparent intention of leaving them as a “calling card” during his murderous spree of terror.
And this is not a hate crime?
Can you imagine what would happen if a pro-marriage activist did something like this to a prominent gay group? It would be international news for weeks, and there would be unceasing demands for federal investigations.
The attempted murder by the gay activist occurred just one day after the so-called Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest and wealthiest homosexual lobby, publicly branded the FRC a “hate group.”
The Southern Poverty Law Center, a once-proud civil rights group that is now nothing more than a hard-left attack machine, has also tagged the FRC with this epithet, and they’ve threatened to do so with NOM as well. Our hateful crime? Opposing homosexual “marriage.”
Sadly, this isn’t the first time that an attack against a pro-marriage group has been mishandled by the DC police. Just a few days before the shooting at the FRC, homosexual activists assaulted NOM’s headquarters with a bag containing gay sex toys and soiled adult diapers filled with human feces. They also left a disgusting note designed to intimidate our hardworking staff of believers, who are doing nothing more than fighting for God’s definition of marriage.
The DC police sent officers, including an “LGBT unit” officer, to investigate the crime and almost immediately the LGBT unit declared this NOT to be a hate crime. As far as we know, nothing has been done to attempt to find the thugs responsible for this harassment.
What does it take for the DC cops to declare attacks against Christian, pro-marriage supporters to be a hate crime?
One has to wonder if we are seeing the practical manifestations of what Mayor Vincent Gray declared in the wake of the Chick-Fil-A CEO’s support for traditional marriage. Gray told reporters, “You know, when people don’t support marriage equality, it is the law here in the District of Columbia…there just is no place for them in this city.” It seems that the police department may have heard the mayor’s message loud and clear.
— From an August 20, 2012 email.
* By progressive, I mean advancing the value and inherent morality of traditional marriage and natural family.
Posted in commentary, politics
Tagged Family Research Council, gay activism, hate crime, marriage, terrorism
War On Christianity
by Dallas Henry
Matt. 24:9 “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for my name’s sake.”
Day after day, night after night, the news media question, denounce, or just plain ignore the good news. They want higher taxes to fund massive new federal spending for more liberal experiments. They want America – and the world – to see our military as corrupt and barbaric – and failing. And they’ll denounce anyone or anything that stands in the way of that message.
Brent Bozell (founder and president of the Media Research Center,) surveyed 18,000 nightly news shows broadcast by ABC, CBS, NBC, the Cable News Networks and the Public Broadcasting Service, and found only 212 stories that focused on religion. That amounts to 1 percent of coverage although 52 percent of Americans say they attend church and more than 90 percent say that they pray regularly.
The ACLU fights for the free speech and expression “rights” of Pornographers, Witches, Abortionists, Homosexuals, Convicted Criminals, Child Molesters, Occultists, Communists, Lesbians, Nazis, Illegal Aliens, Aids Patients, and Satanists. They have resolutely attempted to deny those same privileges to Christians.
The ACLU has sought to halt the singing of Christmas carols like “Silent Night” and “Away in a Manger” in public facilities; deny the tax-exempt status of all churches – yet maintaining it for themselves as well as for various occult groups; disallow prayer – not just in the public school classrooms, but in locker rooms, sports arenas, graduation exercises, and legislative assemblies; terminate all military and prison chaplains; deny Christian school children access to publicly funded services; eliminate nativity scenes, crosses, and other Christian symbols from public property; repeal all blue law statutes; prohibit voluntary Bible reading in public schools – even during free time or after classes; remove the words “In God We Trust” from our currency; deny accreditation to science departments at Bible-believing Christian Universities; prevent the posting of the Ten Commandments in classrooms and government property; terminate all voucher programs and tuition tax credits; prohibit census questions about religious affiliation; and purge the words “Under God” from the Pledge of Allegiance.
WorldNetDaily reported that a Christian employee of Hewlet Packard was fired for posting Bible verses condemning homosexual behavior on his desk in response to posters displayed during a company campaign to promote a diverse work force.
CNN founder Ted Turner asked employees who had ashes on their foreheads on Ash Wednesday if they were “a bunch of Jesus freaks?”
A teacher confiscated book covers that contained the Ten Commandments and threw them in the trash saying the Commandments were “hate speech” that might offend other students.
Samuel B. Kent of the Southern District of Texas decreed that any student uttering the word “Jesus” would be arrested and tossed in jail for six months.
Well known, Alabama judge, Roy Moore was roundly denounced by the big media for erecting and refusing to remove Ten Commandments stone tablets from his courthouse. The media hated him so much, that they bashed him out of office.
There were two mayors, one in San Francisco and one in New Paltz, New York. The media described the San Francisco mayor has young, handsome and Catholic. Everything they wrote about him was in the positive. It was the same with the mayor of New Paltz, New York. Both mayors were breaking state law by performing same-sex marriages.
Christians are often subjected to scorn and ridicule and denied their religious freedoms. They are often are called “Bible-thumping idiots.”
In Dec 2002 – MSNBC talk-show host Phil Donahue asked Dr. Jerry Falwell: “Do You Have to Be a Christian to Get into Heaven?” Dr. Falwell quoted John 14:6. Many in the audience applauded the Rev. Falwell’s statement. Donahue expressed disdain for their reaction. They were characterized as bigoted, ignorant, hateful and unenlightened.
Ever heard of Rosie O’Donnel & Elizabeth Hasselbeck? Rosie’s statement 9/12/06 “radical Christianity is just as threatening as radical Islam in a country like America.” One British writer saw them as overbearing lesbians and fundamentalist left-wing bubbleheads furiously howling at each other.
68% of Americans say the media have damaged moral values in America, according to a report released by the Culture and Media Institute.
1 Cor. 1:18 “For the preaching of the cross is to them that perish foolishness; but unto us which are saved it is the power of God.” Continue reading →
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Posted in commentary, politics, religion