The Voice of the White House

            Washington, D.C. July 7, 2012: “The coming elections will merely be much of the same. The rabid right-wing Republicans are determined to help the rich (which many of them are via massive bribing by K Street lobbyists ) and screw the poor. If it were up to Romney and his friends, like the Koch family, all Social Security, food stamps and Medicaid would be abolished. What those who depend on these programs to survive will do will be eventually take to the streets and, as the French were wont to say, go to the barricades. To prevent this, the government has redoubled its surveillance efforts to detect, identify and eventually neutralize any group that could reprise the widespread public anti-war and anti-government movements of the Vietnam war period. The well-armed public would eventually erupt into full-scale rebellion and the soon-to-be flooded national capitol would have legions of crooked officials dangling from lampposts or the local trees whilst the burning official buildings lighted the scene. The economic problems this country suffers from now are directly the result of the Republican deliberate removal of market controls designed to prevent economic bubbles from reprising the 1929 boom-and-bust economy. But they do not need to worry if the Republicans gain the White House. The Republicans want to pass laws through Congress neutering possible resisters and at the same time, protect themselves and their thieving friends.”

 

Rift Forms in Movement as Belief in Gay ‘Cure’ Is Renounced

July 6, 2012

by Erik Eckholm

:New York Times

 

For more than three decades, Exodus International has been the leading force in the so-called ex-gay movement, which holds that homosexuals can be “cured” through Christian prayer and psychotherapy. Exodus leaders claimed its network of ministries had helped tens of thousands rid themselves of unwanted homosexual urges. The notion that homosexuality is not inborn but a choice was seized on by conservative Christian groups who oppose legal protections for gay men and lesbians and same-sex marriage.

But the ex-gay movement has been convulsed as the leader of Exodus, in a series of public statements and a speech to the group’s annual meeting last week, renounced some of the movement’s core beliefs. Alan Chambers, 40, the president, declared that there was no cure for homosexuality and that “reparative therapy” offered false hopes to gays and could even be harmful. His statements have led to charges of heresy and a growing schism within the network.

“For the last 37 years, Exodus has been a bright light, arguably the brightest one for those with same-sex attraction seeking an authentically Christian hope,” said Andrew Comiskey, founder and director of Desert Stream Ministries, based in Kansas City, Mo., one of 11 ministries that defected. His group left Exodus in May, Mr. Comiskey said in an e-mail, “due to leader Alan Chambers’s appeasement of practicing homosexuals who claim to be Christian” as well as his questioning of the reality of “sexual orientation change.”

In a phone interview Thursday from Orlando, Fla., where Exodus has its headquarters, Mr. Chambers amplified on the views that have stirred so much controversy. He said that virtually every “ex-gay” he has ever met still harbors homosexual cravings, himself included. Mr. Chambers, who left the gay life to marry and have two children, said that gay Christians like himself faced a lifelong spiritual struggle to avoid sin and should not be afraid to admit it.

He said Exodus could no longer condone reparative therapy, which blames homosexuality on emotional scars in childhood and claims to reshape the psyche. And in a theological departure that has caused the sharpest reaction from conservative pastors, Mr. Chambers said he believed that those who persist in homosexual behavior could still be saved by Christ and go to heaven.

Only a few years ago, Mr. Chambers was featured in advertisements along with his wife, Leslie, saying, “Change is possible.” But now, he said in the interview, “Exodus needs to move beyond that slogan.”

“I believe that any sexual expression outside of heterosexual, monogamous marriage is sinful according to the Bible,” Mr. Chambers emphasized. “But we’ve been asking people with same-sex attractions to overcome something in a way that we don’t ask of anyone else,” he said, noting that Christians with other sins, whether heterosexual lust, pornography, pride or gluttony, do not receive the same blanket condemnations.

Mr. Chambers’s comments come at a time of widening acceptance of homosexuality and denunciation of reparative therapy by professional societies that say it is based on faulty science and potentially harmful.

A bill to outlaw “conversion therapy” for minors has passed the California Senate and is now before the State Assembly. Earlier this year, a prominent psychiatrist, Dr. Robert L. Spitzer, apologized for publishing what he now calls an invalid study, which said many patients had largely or totally switched their sexual orientation.

Defenders of the therapy say that it can bring deep changes in sexual orientation and that the attacks are politically motivated.

David H. Pickup, a therapist in Glendale, Calif., who specializes in the treatment, said restricting it would harm people who are unhappy with their homosexuality by “making them feel that no change is possible at all.”

Mr. Pickup, an officer of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality, composed of like-minded therapists, said reparative therapy had achieved profound changes for thousands of people, including himself. The therapy, he said, had helped him confront emotional wounds and “my homosexual feelings began to dissipate and attractions for women grew.”

Some in the ex-gay world are more scathing about Mr. Chambers.

“I think Mr. Chambers is tired of his own personal struggles, so he’s making excuses for them by making sweeping generalizations about others,” said Gregg Quinlan, a conservative lobbyist in New Jersey and president of a support group called Parents and Friends of Ex-Gays & Gays.

In another sign of change, the vice chairman of the Exodus board, Dennis Jernigan, was forced to resign in June after he supported anti-sodomy laws in Jamaica. The board pledged to fight efforts anywhere to criminalize sexual acts between consenting adults.

Robert Gagnon, an associate professor at the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary and author of books on homosexuality and the Bible, last week issued a public call for Mr. Chambers to resign. “My greatest concern has to do with Alan’s repeated assurances to homosexually active ‘gay Christians’ that they will be with him in heaven,” he said in an e-mail.

Gay rights advocates said they were encouraged by Mr. Chambers’s recent turn but remained wary of Exodus, which they feel has caused enormous harm.

“Exodus International played the key role in planting the message that people can go from gay to straight through religion and therapy,” said Wayne Besen, director of Truth Wins Out, a group that refutes what it considers misinformation about gays and lesbians. “And the notion that one can change is the centerpiece of the religious right’s argument for denying us rights.”

Many of the local ministries in Exodus continue to attack gays and lesbians, said David Roberts, editor of the Web site Ex-Gay Watch, and they often have close ties with reparative therapists. He speculated that Mr. Chambers was trying to steer the group in a moderate direction because “they were becoming pariahs” in a society that is more accepting of gay people.

Mr. Chambers said he was simply trying to restore Exodus to its original purpose when it was founded in 1976: providing spiritual support for Christians who are struggling with homosexual attraction.

He said that he was happy in his marriage, with a “love and devotion much deeper than anything I experienced in gay life,” but that he knew this was not feasible for everyone. Many Christians with homosexual urges may have to strive for lives of celibacy.

But those who fail should not be severely judged, he said, adding, “We all struggle or fall in some way.”

 

Poll: Mormons excited about Romney’s rise, but wary of media

 

June 25, 2012

by Daniel Burke

Washington Post

 

Most Mormons in Utah believe that Mitt Romney’s rise to become the likely GOP presidential nominee is a good thing for the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. But many do not trust the media to cover the church fairly, according to a new poll released Monday (June 25).

The study, conducted by Key Research and Brigham Young University’s Center for the Study of Elections and Democracy, is believed to be the first to gauge Mormons’ reaction to Romney’s barrier-breaking achievement. He is the first Mormon to clinch the presidential nomination of a major U.S. political party.

More than eight in 10 Utah Mormons said they are “very excited” or “somewhat excited” about Romney’s feat. Nearly as many (77 percent) said his nomination is a good thing for the LDS church; just 2 percent told pollsters it was a negative development.

Utah Mormons do not differ in many respects from Mormons in other states, according to studies conducted by the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life.

Kelly Patterson, a political science professor at Brigham Young University, said it is not clear whether the positive feelings toward Romney derive from shared faith or politics. Separate polls show that Mormons are more than twice as likely as other religious groups to vote Republican.

Despite their excitement about Romney, many Mormons remain wary of the media, according to the Key Research/BYU survey.

More than two-thirds of Utah Mormons said the Romney’s nomination will bring bad and good publicity for the LDS church. An identical percentage (68 percent) said they do not trust the media to cover the church fairly.

“It seems like the excitement is higher than the dread,” Patterson said, “even though many members of the LDS faith know that there will be some very uncomfortable moments during this campaign.”

The survey, first published on the blog, Utah Data Points, is based on telephone interviews with 341 Mormons who are registered to vote in Utah. It was conducted June 12-19 and the margin of error is plus or minus 5.3 percentage points.

 

Big Foreclosure Compensation, But Only for the Right Wrongs

 

July 3, 2012

by Paul Kiel
ProPublica

 

 

Can you put a price on the damage caused by a wrongful foreclosure? Banking regulators have. And it’s $125,000. Or $60,000. Or $15,000. Or… it’s unclear.

Last November, banking regulators launched a process to force the big banks to compensate homeowners victimized by their foreclosure abuses. Many crucial details remained unclear , including how much victims might receive.

More than seven months later, regulators finally released a “framework”  that shows some of the possible outcomes. It’s a list of thirteen mortgage servicing “errors,” each with its own associated form of compensation. In addition to fixing the bank’s errors, remedies include cash payments ranging from $500 all the way up to $125,000.

It turns out that, for homeowners seeking compensation for those errors and abuses, it’s crucially important just how the servicer messed up. The logic for the differences in payment isn’t always apparent and in some instances seems to defy common sense.

Two homeowners who each had their bid for a modification mishandled, for instance, could emerge with either $125,000 or $15,000 depending on just where in the process the error occurred. Regulators also left unsettled how homeowners will be compensated for so-called robo-signing, the scandal that provoked the foreclosure review to begin with.

With consumer response to the review so far underwhelming , regulators also extended the deadline for homeowners to submit a claim to September 30. It was originally April 30.

Attorneys with the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency (OCC), the primary regulator for the largest banks, told us the compensation is appropriately tailored for differing circumstances.

 

The worst errors, the ones reaping the $125,000 payouts, fit into three categories. The first covers active duty members of the military who were foreclosed on while protected by the Servicemembers Civil Relief Act [5]. The OCC attorneys said they arrived at $125,000 for these worst errors in part because it’s close to what the Justice Department used in recent legal settlements with banks for violating that law. (In all cases, the cash compensation drops to $15,000 if the servicer returns the home to the borrower.) The $125,000 payment is the same regardless the size of the borrower’s mortgage, but since homeowners aren’t being required to waive any legal claims to accept the money, they could go to court to recoup more.

The other two categories for max compensation encompass a far broader range of homeowners: those who ended up in foreclosure as a direct result of bank error (by mishandling payments, for example) and those who were in trial modifications when the bank foreclosed.

Over the years, we’ve reported extensively [6] on the number of ways  that mortgage servicers botched the applications of homeowners trying to avoid foreclosure through a loan modification. Servicers regularly lost homeowners’ income documentation, miscalculated incomes [8], and generally made homeowners run a gauntlet of errors, confusion and frustration to emerge with a modification. Trial modifications, which were supposed to last only three months and easily transition to a permanent modification, often lasted many months longer only to end badly. Many homeowners were foreclosed on prematurely [9].

A number of the 13 categories regulators have laid out focus on these modification errors. For instance, if the bank simply never evaluated a homeowner for a modification before foreclosing and the homeowner would have qualified, then the review will result in compensation of $15,000. If the bank denied a modification in error, that’s also $15,000.

But trial modification errors result in much larger compensation, resulting in a discrepancy that seems to make little sense. If the homeowner was accepted for a trial modification, made the payments as agreed, and then the servicer foreclosed without giving a final answer, that would be $125,000. But if the servicer did give an answer to that homeowner, even if it was entirely baseless wrong denial, and then foreclosed, it would be only $15,000.

The attorneys for the OCC said there were a number of reasons that homeowners foreclosed on while in trial modifications deserve much higher compensation than those who suffered other modification abuses. The first and main reason is that there’s a clear legal distinction between the servicer plainly violating a written agreement with the homeowner and other situations. That was one of the main guiding ideas in how they allocated the compensation, they said. The highest amounts are reserved for scenarios where the servicer either violated the mortgage by improperly handling the account or didn’t abide by the trial modification agreement.

If a homeowner fell behind on her payments, applied for a modification, but was foreclosed on before the bank even gave an answer, that’s an entirely different scenario, they said. The servicer’s failure to process the loan modification application “is not the reason why the borrower was foreclosed upon,” said one attorney. “They were foreclosed upon because they were delinquent on their mortgage terms.”

Furthermore, they said, that homeowner wouldn’t have much of a shot in court if she sued, even if it’s clear that the bank broke the rules of the government’s loan modification program (as they regularly did ). That’s because the largely toothless  program didn’t provide homeowners with any legal recourse for rule-breaking servicers. If, however, the homeowner could point to a clear violation of a written agreement, they might be able to win damages in court.

Such reasoning “turns the idea of remediation on its head,” said Diane Thompson of the National Consumer Law Center. “Borrowers who lose their homes wrongfully for any reason suffer the same amount of financial injury and harm, whether or not they could or would bring a separate lawsuit to challenge that wrongful foreclosure.”

It also sends the wrong message to mortgage servicers, Thompson said, to have such a mild penalty for failing to consider a homeowner for a modification at all when there’s such a significant payment associated with trial modification errors. “This essentially rewards servicers for having failed to process loan mods.”

The OCC said it arrived at its framework after seeking a variety of viewpoints, including those of consumer advocates.

One major aspect of the framework that remains unclear is what might be offered as compensation for robo-signing. The foreclosure review was prompted by revelations  that the major banks had filed thousands of false affidavits in courts across the country when seeking to foreclose on homeowners. Banks have also often filed forged or flawed documents when attempting to demonstrate the right to foreclose. But the framework only says that compensation in cases where the servicer didn’t properly document the right to foreclose will be “determined on a case-by-case basis as state law dictates.” The OCC attorneys could give no further information about this.

US bakes under heatwave as fears grow over rising death toll among elderly

The mercury is set to top 100 degrees in America’s midwest and some eastern states, where power outages add to concern

 

July 7, 2012

Associated Press

 

Highways buckled in Wisconsin, water use was cut back in Indiana and those who had power in the mid-Atlantic were urged to conserve it, but the heat gripping much of the country was only expected to worsen Saturday.

Temperatures of more than 100 degrees were forecast in Philadelphia, authorities warned of excessive heat in the Midwest and the power outages surpassed a week in the mid-Atlantic, where extreme heat was expected into the weekend.

A major storm in the area last week left behind damage, which combined with the high demand for power to stress the electrical system’s capabilities, a Washington-area utility said.

Hundreds of thousands remained without power Friday night in the Appalachians and mid-Atlantic.

Tens of thousands were still without power in the Midwest as well after storms there this week.

Utilities hoped to restore service over the weekend in Michigan, where temperatures were forecast in the 90s.

The heat wave has so far been blamed for at least eight deaths.

In Ohio, a man in his 70s and two women – one in her late 60s, the other in her 80s – were found dead this week inside stifling hot houses.

Doctor Jeff Lee, deputy coroner in Licking County in central Ohio, said all three were suffering from heart disease but died from stress caused by high temperatures.

In two cases, temperatures inside the homes – with windows shut and no ventilation – were in the 90s. The houses lacked electricity because of recent power outages.

“If they had gotten cooling, we would have expected them to survive,” he said.

Three deaths in Wisconsin and two in Tennessee were also reported to be heat-related.

Record temperatures were set Friday in the Indiana cities of Indianapolis, South Bend and Fort Wayne, where temperatures could reach 106 degrees but feel more like 114.

In central Arkansas, Russellville reached 106 degrees, breaking a record set in 1964.

Relief was on the way in the form of a cold front as the weekend ends, but forecasters expected it to bring severe weather, too.

The rain should help dry spells in many places.

Much of Arkansas is enduring brown grass and seeing trees lose their green, and farmers in Ohio are growing concerned about the dry conditions, considered among the worst of the past decade.

 

California lawmakers approve first dedicated high-speed rail in the US

Ambitious bullet train passes legislative hurdle without the votes of state Republicans, who argued project was too costly

July 7, 2012

 AP

 

California lawmakers gave the green light to start building the nation’s first dedicated high-speed rail line, a multibillion dollar project that will eventually link Los Angeles and San Francisco.

The move marked major political victories for Democratic governor Jerry Brown and the Obama administration. Both have promoted bullet trains as job generators and clean transportation alternatives.

In a narrow 21-16 party-line vote that involved intense lobbying by the governor, legislative leaders and labor groups, the state senate approved the measure marking the launch of California’s ambitious bullet train, which has spent years in the planning stages.

“The legislature took bold action today that gets Californians back to work and puts California out in front once again,” Brown said.

Brown pushed for the massive infrastructure project to accommodate expected growth in the nation’s most populous state, which now has 37 million people. State and federal officials also said high-speed rail would create jobs.

“No economy can grow faster than its transportation network allows,” US transportation secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “With highways between California cities congested and airspace at a premium, Californians desperately need an alternative.”

The bill authorizes the state to begin selling $4.5bn in voter-approved bonds that includes $2.6bn to build an initial 130-mile stretch of the high-speed rail line in the agriculturally rich Central Valley. That allows the state to draw another $3.2bn in federal funding.

The first segment of the line will run from Madera to Bakersfield.

Senate Republicans blasted the decision, citing the state’s ongoing budget problems. They said project would push California over a fiscal cliff. No GOP senators voted for the bill Friday.

The final cost of the completed project from Los Angeles to San Francisco is projected to be $68bn.

“It’s unfortunate that the majority would rather spend billions of dollars that we don’t have for a train to nowhere than keep schools open and harmless from budget cuts,” senator Tom Harman, said in a statement.

Dan Richard, chairman of the California high-speed rail authority, which is managing the project, said California would have lost billions of dollars in federal aid if the senate failed to pass the bill before adjourning Friday for a monthlong recess.

California entered a contract that called for the federal government to provide money for building the Central Valley segment if the state also put up its share, he said.

“Not only will California be the first state in the nation to build a high-speed rail system to connect our urban centers, we will also modernize and improve rail systems at the local and regional level,” Richard said Friday.

California was able to secure more federal aid than expected after Florida, Ohio and Wisconsin turned down money.

Before Friday’s vote, at least half a dozen Democrats in the 40-member senate remained opposed, skeptical or uncommitted. Some were concerned about how the vote would impact their political futures, while others were wary about financing and management of the massive project.

In recent days, Democratic leaders included more state funding to improve existing rail systems in an effort to entice support for the bullet train.

The bill authorizes the state to sell nearly half of a $10bn high-speed rail bond that voters approved four years ago under Proposition 1A. In addition to financing the first segment of high-speed rail, it allocates a total of $1.9bn in bonds for regional rail improvements in Northern and Southern California.

The upgrades include electrifying Caltrain, a San Jose-San Francisco commuter line, and improving Metrolink commuter lines in Southern California.

One dissenter, Democrat Joe Simitian, said public support had waned for the project, and there were too many questions about financing to complete it.

“Is there additional commitment of federal funds? There is not. Is there additional commitment of private funding? There is not. Is there a dedicated funding source that we can look to in the coming years? There is not,” Simitian said.

The Bay Area Council, a group of business leaders from the San Francisco Bay and Silicon Valley areas, cheered the vote.

The bill, which already passed the state assembly, heads to Brown for his signature.

 

Dismal hiring shows economy stuck in low gear

 

July 7, 2012

by Jason Lange

Reuters

 

Washington- U.S. employers hired at a dismal pace in June, raising pressure on the Federal Reserve to do more to boost the economy and dealing another setback to President Barack Obama’s reelection bid.

The Labor Department said on Friday that non-farm payrolls grew by just 80,000 jobs in June, the third straight month below 100,000.

Job creation was too weak to bring down the country’s 8.2 percent jobless rate and the report fueled concerns that Europe’s debt crisis was shifting the U.S. economy into low gear.

“We’re just crawling forward here,” said Nigel Gault, an economist at IHS Global Insight in Lexington, Massachusetts.

While Obama holds a narrow lead in most national polls, many voters are critical of his handling of the economy. Speaking at a campaign rally in Ohio, Obama said the pace of job creation needs to pick up.

“It’s still tough out there,” he said.

Mitt Romney, Obama’s Republican challenger, assailed the president for not doing enough to get people back to work.

“This kick in the gut has got to end,” Romney told reporters in New Hampshire.

U.S. stocks closed about 1 percent lower, while yields on U.S. government debt fell on bets the Fed would launch a new round of bond purchases to lower borrowing costs and spur hiring. The dollar fell against the yen, but rose against the euro as investors sought a safe haven.

 

HIRING STRIKE

Last month, the Fed extended a program aimed at keeping long-term interest rates down and said it was prepared to do more to spur the economic recovery if needed.

The somber jobs report could move the central bank closer to a third round of so-called quantitative easing, or QE3.

Reuters polled 16 primary dealers – the large financial institutions that do business with the Fed – and found 12 expect QE3 by year-end, with eight expecting it either at the Fed’s next meeting, which wraps up on August 1, or its subsequent gathering in September.

“You could see something as early as next month,” said Brian Levitt, an economist at OppenheimerFunds in New York.

Economists estimate roughly 125,000 jobs are needed each month just to hold the jobless rate steady. During the second quarter, job creation averaged 75,000 per month, down from an average of 226,000 in the first quarter.

Part of the slowdown could be because mild weather led companies to boost hiring during the winter at spring’s expense.

But weakness in everything from factory activity to retail sales suggests something more fundamental is at play and the jobs data buttressed that view.

In June, factories added 11,000 workers and construction employment edged up 2,000, the first gain since January and further evidence the long-depressed housing market is steadying.

However, hiring slowed sharply in the services industry, with retailers cutting 5,400 workers. Overall, private-sector hiring was the weakest since August.

 

UNCERTAINTY AND INSTABILITY

Debt woes have bogged down much of Europe, sending some countries into recession. The crisis in turn has dulled economic growth around the world and central banks in China, the euro zone and Britain all eased monetary policy on Thursday.

Europe is not the only weight on the U.S. outlook. Washington plans enough belt-tightening at the start of 2013 to easily send the economy into recession if Congress and the White House cannot find a way to avoid this “fiscal cliff.”

Until recently, the United States had been a relatively bright spot in the global economy, especially in manufacturing, and most economists still expect lackluster growth over the rest of 2012 rather than a slip toward recession.

Although jobs growth in June fell short of economists’ already subdued expectations for a 90,000 gain, the report did offer some hopeful signs.

Average hourly earnings rose 6 cents, the biggest increase in four months.

In addition, a measure of total hours worked hit its highest level since November 2008, suggesting business is brisk enough for employers to demand more from workers, even as they hold the line on hiring.

Temporary employment rose by the most in four months.

“I think a lot of that has to do with the uncertainty that everyone’s feeling,” said Joanie Ruge, an analyst at temporary staffing company Randstad Holdings US. “Employers are not feeling like things are stable.”

(Additional reporting by Herb Lash and Ernest Scheyder in New York; Editing by Andrea Ricci, Tim Ahmann and Andre Grenon)

 

In Afghanistan, Costs and Casualties Mount

 

July 6, 2012

by Kelley Vlahos

The American Conservative

 

Five Fort Bliss soldiers serving in Afghanistan were shot Tuesday by an Afghan wearing an Afghan Army uniform. One soldier, Pfc. Jeremy Young of Archdale, N.C., was shot 12  times before the attacker fled on foot and remained “at-large” as of Thursday.

The incident happened in the eastern province of Wardak, known for being a “Taliban hotbed.” (Yes, after nearly 12 years and a million soldiers and a dozen hearings in which generals tell us we’ve broken their momentum, there are still Taliban “hotbeds” in Afghanistan.) This, by the way, was the province where 38 people died when the Taliban shot down a Chinook helicopter carrying mostly U.S. military personnel, plus 8 Afghans, in August 2011.

It’s certainly not the first instance of “green-on-blue” attacks–Afghan “allies” engaging in surprise “fragging” of their international partners. On Monday, three British soldiers were killed in a similar fashion.

According to reports on Thursday, there have been a total of 19 such attacks involving 26 deaths, 13 of them American, as of early July. That nearly equals the number of attacks in all of 2011 — 21, with 35 deaths.

If you haven’t heard about any of this, don’t worry — the story barely registered a blip on the mainstream news radar. Years ago, a report that five soldiers were shot by a supposed Afghan ally would have raised a much bigger ruckus. As for fatalities, I bet you didn’t know we lost 165 servicemen in Afghanistan since the beginning of the year, 77 of them from improvised explosive devices (IED) planted by insurgents. We can only guess how many were injured by these IEDs but did not die because the Pentagon is not very generous with its non-fatal-injury statistics.

For example, according to icasualties.org, which is the best aggregator of such statistics around, there were only three Americans wounded in February, and that is the last month for which there is a record. Right. Seeing that in early March there were reports of soldiers banking their own sperm because the odds they would get their genitals blown off on the next tour of duty were nearly better than the reliability of Hamid Karzai wearing a Karakul hat at his next press conference, the numbers clearly reflect casualty stats the Pentagon wants to see, rather than what they really are.

But in a bubble-like corporate news environment, demand for vigorous reporting on the war now seems to be lacking. Switching on the telly Thursday, one would think the only burning question in America was whether Mitt Romney considers the penalty for not purchasing health insurance under the Affordable Healthcare Act a “tax” or “a penalty,” or as MSNBC’s Chuck Todd demanded with the smoothness of one whose tongue is swollen by bee stings: “so he believes that you should not call the man–the tax … penalty, a tax, you should call it a penalty or a fee or a fine?” He then asks Romney’s advisor to respond to a tweet by Rupert Murdoch calling for the prospective Republican nominee to “drop old friends” and hire a better team.

Stop the presses: Rupert Murdoch tweets? It would seem he has better things to do, considering his own “team” is slowly forming up a chain gang back in the UK. Never mind. It didn’t take long for Romney to change his tune, finally calling the penalty “a tax,” giving Todd and other intrepid political reporters gotcha goosebumps for the rest of the week.

Curiously, reporters never drill down like this on Romney’s foreign-policy views, so no one really knows what he plans to do about Afghanistan if he suddenly finds himself commander-in-chief next January. As someone who has toed the GOP line and criticized Obama’s “timeline” for withdrawing all combat troops by the end of 2013 (in fact he called the plan “naive”), will Romney defer to his generals and freeze the drawdown after his inauguration? If so, what does he plan to do with the 70,000 servicemen and women remaining in-country after that? (As of today there are about 88,000 U.S military still in Afghanistan. If you didn’t know that, again, blame the media.) What are his plans for working with Karzai? Negotiating with the Taliban? Pakistan?

To be fair, President Obama’s 10-year pact with Karzai doesn’t tell us much about his real plans for Afghanistan, either. We know that the majority of U.S. troops are supposed to be out by the end of 2014, but we don’t know how many will remain or in what capacity. We also promise, apparently, to help rebuild Afghanistan, but for how much? Turns out our international partners aren’t hasty to help with training and financial assistance. In fact, they’re making great haste for the exits.

Meanwhile, reports, if you can find them, are painting a grim picture for the future of Afghanistan. First, it seems we are bringing trainers home as fast as the troops, so the quality of the Afghan security forces is likely to be even worse than we expected. Poverty, displacement of civilians, human-rights violations, all are on the rise as we pull out, too.

Second, there are no American-led negotiations with the Taliban to ensure the best outcome, since it is obvious that the Taliban isn’t going anywhere, now or after we leave. There have been some baby steps in talks between Afghan government officials and Taliban, but no real progress can be made until the two major sides get together. No one has pressed Obama, or Romney, about this lately. Where is the diplomacy? It would seem nonexistant on this front–unless you consider Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent “apology” to the Pakistanis, “diplomatic progress.” All it did was re-open the less expensive border crossings for our supply trucks — in other words, back to the status quo.

Third, Karzai wants $4 billion a year in aid, $2 billion of that coming from the U.S. Seriously, do we have this kind of cash? We know our partners don’t.

Which brings us to the money. If ground zero of our national political debate is the ever-expanding federal pie, shouldn’t we pay just a little more attention to what we’re doling out in Afghanistan? The fiscal year 2013 defense budget calls for $88 billion more for the Afghanistan War. That’s less than previous years, but it’s still a lot. ($115.1 billion was approved in 2012, $158.8 billion spent in 2011, and $162.2 billion spent in 2010.) This, of course, does not account for the costs associated with “rebuilding” via USAID or the protracted costs of paying for veterans’ healthcare and disabilities over a lifetime.

Experts say that foreign-policy and national-security issues will continue to take a back seat in the presidential campaign, in part because the candidates’ views are so similar (lacking the tension needed for good copy) and Americans are “war weary” and more concerned with domestic bread-and-butter topics.

But war is a bread-and-butter issue. The military-industrial complex has generated a massive fiscal bubble, being both a jobs program and an economic engine that has become dysfunctional in its size and capacity for corruption and abuse, and unsustainable as we try to live with new budget constraints. We must talk about this because, even if indirectly, it will affect most of us right at the pocketbook and kitchen table.

Furthermore, the candidates’ views may be similar, but they are also largely undefined and will remain that way as long as no one in the media demands they make themselves clear. Instead news outlets have all convinced the rest of us that it’s not really that important. Personally, I see more lives and tax dollars at stake. I see Afghanistan on the precipice of being worse-off than when we got there, despite all the money spent and lives sacrificed.

That should be reason enough to care, at least more than about whether Romney calls a tax a penalty or a mandate a tax.

 

The Military Solution: The Lessons Washington Can’t Draw From the Failure of the Military Option
by Tom Engelhardt

 

Americans may feel more distant from war than at any time since World War II began.  Certainly, a smaller percentage of us — less than 1% — serves in the military in this all-volunteer era of ours and, on the face of it, Washington’s constant warring in distant lands seems barely to touch the lives of most Americans. 

And yet the militarization of the United States and the strengthening of the National Security Complex continues to accelerate.  The Pentagon is, by now, a world unto itself, with a staggering budget at a moment when no other power or combination of powers comes near to challenging this country’s might. 

In the post-9/11 era, the military-industrial complex has been thoroughly mobilized under the rubric of “privatization” and now goes to war with the Pentagon.  With its $80 billion-plus budget, the intelligence bureaucracy has simply exploded.  There are so many competing agencies and outfits, surrounded by a universe of private intelligence contractors, all enswathed in a penumbra of secrecy, and they have grown so large, mainly under the Pentagon’s aegis, that you could say intelligence is now a ruling way of life in Washington — and it, too, is being thoroughly militarized.  Even the once-civilian CIA has undergone a process of para-militarization and now runs its own “covert” drone wars in Pakistan and elsewhere.  Its director, a widely hailed retired four-star general, was previously the U.S. war commander in Iraq and then Afghanistan, just as the National Intelligence Director who oversees the whole intelligence labyrinth is a retired Air Force lieutenant general.   

In a sense, even the military has been “militarized.” In these last years, a secret army of special operations forces, 60,000 or more strong and still expanding, has grown like an incubus inside the regular armed forces. As the CIA’s drones have become the president’s private air force, so the special ops troops are his private army, and are now given free rein to go about the business of war in their own cocoon of secrecy in areas far removed from what are normally considered America’s war zones.

Diplomacy, too, has been militarized.  Diplomats work ever more closely with the military, while the State Department is transforming itself into an unofficial arm of the Pentagon — as the secretary of state is happy to admit — as well as of the weapons industry. 

And keep in mind that we now have two Pentagons, thanks to the establishment of the Department of Homeland Security (DHS), which is focused, among other things, on militarizing our southern border.  Meanwhile, with the help of the DHS, local police forces nationwide have, over the last decade, been significantly up-armored and have, in the name of fighting terrorism, gained a distinctly military patina.  They have ever more access to elaborate weaponry and gadgets, including billions of dollars of surplus military equipment of every sort, often being funneled to once peaceable small town police departments.

The Military Solution in the Greater Middle East  

Militarization in this country is hardly a new phenomenon.  It can be traced back decades, but the process hit warp speed in the post-9/11 years, even if the U.S. still lacks the classic look of a militarized society.  Almost unnoticed has been an accompanying transformation of the mindset of Washington — what might be called the militarization of solutions. 

If the institutions of American life and governance are increasingly militarized, then it shouldn’t be surprising that the problems facing the country are ever more often framed in militarized terms and that the only solutions considered are similarly militarized.  This paucity of imagination, this constraining of what might be possible, seems especially evident in the Greater Middle East. 

In fact, Washington’s record there, seldom if ever collected in one place, should be eye-opening.  Start with a dose of irony: before the invasion of Iraq in 2003, it was a commonplace among neoconservatives to label the region extending across the oil heartlands of the planet, from North Africa to the Chinese border in Central Asia, “the arc of instability.”  After a decade in which Washington has applied its military might and thoroughly militarized solutions to the region, that decade-old world now looks remarkably “stable.”  

Here, in shorthand, is a little regional scorecard of what American militarization has meant in the Greater Middle East, 2001-2012:

Pakistan:  The U.S. has faced a multitude of complex problems in this nuclear nation beset with insurgent movements, its tribal areas providing sanctuary to both Afghan and Pakistani rebels and jihadis, and its intelligence service entangled in a complicated relationship with the Taliban leadership as well as other rebel groups fighting in Afghanistan.  Washington’s response has been — as Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta recently labeled it — war.  In 2004, the Bush administration launched a drone assassination campaign in the country’s tribal borderlands largely focused on al-Qaeda leaders (combined with a few cross-border special forces raids).  Those rare robotic air strikes have since expanded into something like a full-scale covert drone war that is killing civilians, is intensely unpopular throughout Pakistan, and by now is clearly meant to punish the Pakistani leadership for its transgressions as well. 

Frustrated by what they consider Pakistani intransigence, elements in the U.S. military and intelligence community are reportedly pressing to add a new set of cross-border joint special operations/Afghan commando raids to the present incendiary mix.  American air strikes from Afghanistan that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers last November, with no apologies offered for seven months, brought to a boil a crisis in relations between Washington and Islamabad, with the Pakistani government closing off the country to American war supplies headed for Afghanistan. (That added a couple of billion dollars to the Pentagon’s expenses there before the crisis was ended with a grudging apology this week).  The whole process has clearly contributed to the destabilization of nuclear Pakistan.

Afghanistan: Following a November 2001 invasion (light on invading U.S. troops), the U.S. opted for a full-scale occupation and reconstruction of the country.  In the process, it managed to spur the reconstruction and reconstitution of the previously deeply unpopular and defeated Taliban movement.  An insurgent war followed.  Despite a massive surge of U.S. forces, CIA agents, special operations troops, and private contractors into the country, the calling in of air power in a major way, and the expansion of a program of “night raids” by special ops types and the CIA, success has not followed.  By the end of 2014, the U.S. is scheduled to withdraw its main combat forces from what is likely to be a thoroughly destabilized country.

Iran: In a program long aimed at regime change (but officially focused on the country’s nuclear program), the U.S. has clamped energy sanctions — often seen as an act of war — on Iran, supported a special operations campaign of unknown proportions (including cross-border actions), run a massive CIA drone surveillance program in the country’s skies, and (with the Israelis) loosed at least two major malware “worms” against the computer systems and centrifuges of its nuclear facilities, which even the Pentagon defines as acts of war.  It has also backed a massive build-up of U.S. naval and air power in the Persian Gulf and of military bases in countries on Iran’s peripheries, along with “comprehensive multi-option war-planning” for a possible 2013 strike at Iran’s nuclear facilities.  (Though little is known about it, an assassination campaign against Iranian nuclear scientists has usually been blamed on the Israelis.  Now that the joint U.S.-Israeli authorship of acts of cyberwar against Iran has been confirmed, however, it is at least reasonable to wonder whether the U.S. might also have had a hand in these killings.)  All of this has embroiled the region and brought it to the edge of yet more war, while in no obvious way shaking the Iranian regime.

Iraq: The U.S. invaded in March 2003, occupying the country.  It fought (and essentially lost) an eight-year-long counterinsurgency war, withdrawing its last troops at the end of 2011, but leaving behind in Baghdad the world’s largest, most militarized embassy.  The country, now an ally and trading partner of Iran, remains remarkably unreconstructed and significantly destabilized, with regular bombing campaigns in its cities.

Kuwait: Just across the border from Iraq, the U.S. has continued a build-up of forces.  In the future, according to a U.S. Senate report, there could be up to 13,000 U.S. personnel permanently stationed in the country. 

Yemen: Washington, long a supporter of the country’s strong-man ruler, now backs the successor regime.  (In Yemen, as elsewhere, Washington has been deeply uncomfortable with Arab-Spring-style democracy movements among its allies.)  For years, it has had an air campaign underway in the southern part of the country aimed at insurgents linked to al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP).  More recently, it has put at least small numbers of special operations troops on the ground there as advisers and trainers and has escalated a combined CIA drone and Air Force manned-plane air campaign in southern Yemen.  There have been at least 23 air strikes already this year, evidently causing significant civilian casualties, reportedly radicalizing southerners, increasing support for AQAP, and helping further destabilize this impoverished and desperate land.

Bahrain: Home of the U.S. Fifth Fleet, tiny Bahrain, facing a democratic uprising of its repressed Shiite majority, called in the Saudi military on a mission of suppression.  The U.S. has offered military aid and support to the ruling Sunni monarchy.

Syria:  In radically destabilized Syria, where a democracy uprising has morphed into a civil war with sectarian overtones that threatens to further destabilize the region, including Lebanon and Iraq, the CIA has now been dispatched to the Turkish border.  Its job: to direct weapons to rebels of Washington’s choice (assuming that the CIA, with its dubious record, can sort the democrats from the jihadis).  The weapons themselves are arriving, according to the New York Times, via a “network of intermediaries including Syria’s Muslim Brotherhood and paid for by Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and Qatar.”  It’s a project that has “this can’t end well” written all over it.

Somalia: Long a failed state, Somalia has suffered, among other things, through a U.S.-fostered Ethiopian invasion back in 2006 (and another more recently), drone attacks, CIA and special forces operations, a complicated U.S. program to subsidize a force of African (especially Ugandan) troops in the capital and support for a Kenyan invasion in the south — each step in the process seemingly leading to further fragmentation, further radicalization, and greater extremism. 

Egypt: Ever since Tahrir Square, Washington has been focused on its close ties with the Egyptian military high command (key figures from which visit Washington every year) and on the billions of dollars in military aid it continues to provide to that military, despite the way it has usurped democratic rule. 

Libya: The Obama administration called in the U.S. Air Force (along with air power from NATO allies) to support an inchoate uprising and destroy the regime of long-time strong-man Muammar Gaddafi.  In this they were successful.  The long-term results still remain unknown.  (See, for instance, the Islamist revolt in destabilized neighboring Mali.) 

How to Set the Planet on Fire and Learn Nothing

This remains a partial list, lacking, to give but one example, the web of drone bases being set up from the Seychelles Islands and Ethiopia to the Arabian Peninsula — clearly meant for expanded drone wars across the region.  Nonetheless, it is a remarkable example of the general ineffectiveness of applying military or militarized solutions to the problems of a region far from your own shores.  From Pakistan and Afghanistan to Yemen and Somalia, the evidence is already in: such “solutions” solve little or nothing, and in a remarkable number of cases seem only to increase the instability of a country and a region, as well as the misery of masses of people. 

And yet the general lack of success from 2002 on and a deepening frustration in Washington have just led to a stronger conviction that some recalibrated version of a military solution (greater surges, lesser surges, no invasions but special forces and drones, smaller “footprint,” larger naval presence, etc.) is the only reasonable way to go. 

In fact, military solutions of every sort have such a deep-seated grip on Washington that the focus there might be termed obsessive.  This has been particularly obvious when it comes to the CIA’s drone wars.  Back in the Vietnam War years, President Lyndon Johnson was said to have driven his generals crazy by “micromanaging” the conflict, especially in weekly lunch meetings in which he insisted on picking specific targets for the air campaign against North Vietnam. 

These days, however, Johnson almost looks like a laissez-faire war president.  After all, thanks to the New York Times, we know that the White House has a “nominating” process to compile a “kill list” of terror suspects, and that the president himself decides which drone air attacks should then be launched, not target area by target area, but individual by individual.  He is choosing specific individuals to kill in the Pakistani, Yemeni, and Somali backlands. 

It should be considered a sign of the times that, whatever shock this news may have caused in Washington (mainly because of possible administration leaks about the nature of the “covert” drone program), few have even mentioned presidential micromanaging, nor, it seems, are any generals up in arms.  Some may have found the “nomination” process shocking, but rare are those who seem to think it strange that a president of the United States should be involved in choosing individuals (including U.S. citizens) for assassination-by-drone in distant lands.  

The truth is that such “solutions,” first tested in the Greater Middle East, are now being applied (even if, as yet, in far more modest ways) from Africa to Central America.  In Africa, I suspect you could track the growing destabilization of parts of that continent to the setting up of a U.S. command for the region (Africom) in 2007 and in subsequent years the slow movement of drones, special forces operatives, private contractors, and others into a region that already has problems enough.

Here’s a 2012 American reality then: as a great power, the U.S. has an increasingly limited toolkit, into which it is reaching far more often for ever more similar tools.  The idea that the globe is a chessboard, that Washington is in control of the game, and that each militarized move it makes will have a reasonably predictable result couldn’t be more dangerous.  The evidence of the last decade is clear enough: there is little less predictable or more likely to go awry than the application of military force and militarized solutions, which are cumulatively incendiary in unexpected ways, and in the end threaten to set whole regions on fire.  None of this, however, seems to register in Washington.

The United States is commonly said to be a great power in decline, but the militarization of American policy — and thinking — at home and abroad is not.  It has Washington, now a capital of perpetual war, in its grip. 

This process began, post-9/11, with the soaring romanticism of the Bush administration about, as the president put it, the power of the “greatest force for human liberation the world has ever known” (a.k.a. the U.S. military) to change the world.  It was a fundamental conviction of Bush and his top officials that the most powerful military on the planet could bring any state in the Greater Middle East to heel in a “cakewalk.”  

Today, in the wake of two failed wars on the Eurasian continent, a de-romanticized version of that conviction has become the deeply embedded, increasingly humdrum way of life of a militarized Washington.  It will remain so. 

If Barack Obama, the man who got Bin Laden, is reelected, nothing of significance is likely to change in this regard.  If Mitt Romney wins, the process is likely to accelerate, possibly moving from global misfire, failure, and obsession to extreme global fantasy, with consequences — from Iran to Russia to China — difficult now to imagine. 

Tom Engelhardt, co-founder of the American Empire Project and author of The United States of Fear as well as The End of Victory Culture, runs the Nation Institute’s TomDispatch.com. His latest book, co-authored with Nick Turse, is Terminator Planet: The First History of Drone Warfare, 2001-2050. To listen to Timothy MacBain’s latest Tomcast audio interview in which Engelhardt discusses drone warfare and the Obama administration, click here or download it to your iPod here.

 

US jobs slowdown is bad news for the world economy

Economies and financial systems are so closely intertwined that if a crisis is deep enough, everyone is dragged in

 

July 6, 2012

by Heather Stewart

guardian.co.uk,

 

            America’s recovery from the deepest economic crisis in living memory is grinding to a halt. That is the message from today’s payrolls report, and it’s bad news for the world’s biggest economy, and bad news for the world.

Yesterday’s rash of rate cuts, from central banks in Britain, the eurozone and China, underlined the fact that policymakers everywhere fear the global economy is sliding into a synchronised downturn.

Barack Obama‘s more aggressive approach to keeping the public spending taps turned on, combined with the Federal Reserve’s everything-but-the-kitchen sink monetary policy, has helped the US to escape the worst of the chill afflicting Europe and many developing countries over the past twelve months, and the Fed could yet take yet more action – perhaps launching a third round of quantitative easing.

But with just 80,000 new jobs created in June – fewer than the 90,000 expected by experts, and far too few to bring down the unemployment rate, which is stuck at 8.2%, it’s become increasingly clear that the economy is slowing, even before it plunges over the “fiscal cliff” in 2013, when spending cuts and tax rises will put the squeeze on US growth.

Few observers think the coming global slump is likely to be as deep or long-lasting as the recession that followed the collapse of Lehman Brothers in September 2008, as confidence collapsed just about everywhere.

But that grim episode showed policymakers that in the age of globalisation, there is no such thing as “decoupling”: today’s economies and financial systems are so closely intertwined that if the crisis is deep enough, everyone gets dragged in. With the US also, it seems, succumbing to the collective cold, there is little hope of anything but a grim year for the world economy in 2012.

China is expected to reveal next week that its growth rate has slipped; much of Europe (including the UK) is already in recession; and with Spanish and Italian bond yields back at danger-levels, the deal painstakingly assembled at last week’s latest “make-or-break” euro summit appears to be falling apart. So it’s hardly surprising US firms are not in the mood to hire thousands of new staff.

Like politicians everywhere in the past twelve months, Obama will no doubt do his best to argue – with some justification – that America’s slowdown was made overseas. But for the 8.2% of the US workforce who remain stuck on the scrap heap, that will be scant comfort — and this latest news certainly won’t help smooth his path back to the White House.

External device causes smart phone fire: Samsung cites report

July 7, 2012

Reuters

 

            SEOUL SEOUL- Samsung Electronics Co on Saturday cited a report by fire investigators as saying an external energy source had caused one of its flagship Galaxy S III smart phones to catch fire in Ireland last month.

The world’s top smart phone maker said an investigation by Fire Investigations (UK) had stated that the Samsung device was not responsible for the cause of the fire, and that an “external energy source was responsible for generating the heat”.

The new Galaxy S series, the strongest rival for Apple’s iPhone, was launched in Europe in late May and in the United States last month.

A Dublin-based consumer posted comments and photos on a web site in June, saying his Galaxy phone had “exploded” while mounted on his car dashboard.

He wrote that while he was driving, “suddenly a white flame, sparks and a bang came out of the phone.

            The South Korean electronics giant said it had contracted FI-UK, an independent British provider of consultancy services into fires and explosions, to determine the cause of the fire.

Samsung added it had provided FI-UK with several Galaxy S III phones, including the burnt smart phone, for a series of tests.

“Additionally, the investigation results state, ‘The only way it was possible to produce damage similarly to the damage recorded within the owner’s damaged device was to place the devices or component parts with a domestic microwave,'” Samsung said on its official global blog (here).

It also showed the unnamed user’s latest comments posted on a web site, saying the phone had been recovered from water and the damage “occurred due to a large amount of external energy” which apparently was used to dry out the device.

“This was not a deliberate act but a stupid mistake,” the user added, according to the Samsung blog.

There have been other reports of Samsung smart phones overheating. In March, a Korean schoolboy reported that a spare battery for his Galaxy S II exploded in his back pocket. Samsung said then that the cause was massive external pressure or force.

Heat issues have been reported with other devices. In March, influential consumer watchdog Consumer Reports said Apple’s latest iPad tablet threw off a lot more heat than the previous version, lending weight to complaints on Internet forums that the device could get uncomfortably warm after heavy use.

(Reporting by Sung-won Shim; Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Casualty Lists- DoD

July 02, 2012

            The Department of Defense announced today the deaths of two soldiers who were supporting Operation Enduring Freedom.

            They died June 24, in Kandahar, Afghanistan.  They were assigned to the 96th Transportation Company, 180th Transportation Battalion, 4th Sustainment Brigade, 13th Sustainment Command (Expeditionary), Fort Hood, Texas.

            Killed were:

            Staff Sgt. Robert A. Massarelli, 32, of Hamilton, Ohio, and

            Sgt. Michael J. Strachota, 28, of White Hall, Ark.

July 04, 2012

            The Department of Defense announced today the death of a soldier who was supporting Operation Enduring Freedom. 

            Pfc. Cody O. Moosman, 24, of Preston, Idaho, died July 3, in Gayan Alwara Mandi, Afghanistan, when enemy forces attacked his unit with small arms fire.  He was assigned to the 1st Battalion, 28th Infantry Regiment, 4th Infantry Brigade Combat Team, 1st Infantry Division, Fort Riley, Kan. 

 

 

 

Baptist Brotherly Love, courtesy of the Baptist Archives

The New Christian National Socialist Manifesto

by Oral Shockley, DD
The New Christian Journal

 

            To Our Brothers and Sisters in Christ, Greetings!

            It is with glowing pride that we contemplate the growing control and spiritual influence of True Christians in establishing strict control of the American political and educational realms. America was founded in 1620 by Religious Dissenters, True Christians, who fled from secular persecutions in England. They set up a religious community in Plymouth Bay and flourished greatly. But in subsequent years, America drifted away from her True Christian origins and became a nest of Secularism. Americans have turned away from the One True God to worship Mammon and materialism! Self-indulgence has replaced self-discipline and the cell phone has replaced Our Lord Jesus Christ in daily importance! But rejoice in your hearts because the True Disciples of Christ have organized to save America from Secular Humanism and hedonism and we are now at the very gates of the True Kingdom of Heaven on earth! The True Disciples have begun their Sacred Mission by gaining virtual control over the Republican Party in almost every state in the Union, have elected a President of our One True Faith, have filled the halls of Congress with Representatives of both the people and Christ the Lord! We are well on our way to reestablish the True Christian nation, under God Almighty, that was founded in 1620.

           

            The Politics of God

            By faith and determination, we have placed many of our people into the ranks of the Republican Party; have organized local elections to put our members on vital school boards where they can, and have, successfully supplanted the false Darwinism with the Divinely Inspired Biblical Creationism. We have elected members to serve in Congress who are sensitive to our needs and wishes but we need far more in order to establish a firm majority.

            Since 2001 dozens of True Christians, by Presidential order have been placed in key positions within the Department of Health and Human Services, the Federal Drug Administration and on commissions and advisory committees where they have made serious progress. Three years later God-sent Bush Administration has established one of the most righteous sexual health agendas in the Western world.

            As one example of the growing power of the Lord in American politics, the Texas Republican Party Platform for 2002, called for rescinding United States membership in the United Nations and removing the United Nations from US soil. Pat Robertson, in his book, “The Millennium”, depicts the United Nations as a Satanic plot to take control of the world. And in the LaHaye “Left Behind” books, we can see that the United Nations is firmly in the hands of the anti-Christ!

            Herewith we present our Watchwords and our Credo to you for your guide and inspiration.

            1.Rule the world for God!

            2.Give the impression that you are there to work for the Republican party, not push an ideology.

            3.Hide your strength.

            4.Don’t flaunt your Christianity.

            Our Credo is:

            Jesus Christ is Lord in all aspects of life, including civil government.

            Jesus Christ is, therefore, the Ruler of Nations, and should be explicitly confessed as such in any constitutional documents. The civil ruler is to be a servant of God, he derives his authority from God and he is duty-bound to govern according to the expressed will of God.

            The civil government of our nation, its laws, institutions, and practices must therefore be conformed to the principles of Biblical law as revealed in the Old and New Testaments.

            In confronting Secular Humanists and Satanists, we must realize that it is vital to stress the following Proclaimed Truths:

            1. The unique divine inspiration of all the canonical books of the Old and New Testaments as originally given, so that they are infallible and uniquely authoritative and free from error of any sort, in all matters with which they deal, scientific and historical as well as moral and theological.

            2. Special creation of the existing space-time universe and all its basic systems and kinds of organisms in the six literal days of the creation week.

            3. The full historicity and perspicuity of the biblical record of primeval history, including the literal existence of Adam and Eve as the progenitors of all people, the literal fall and resultant divine curse of the creation, and worldwide cataclysmic deluge and the origin of nations and languages at the Tower of Babel.

            Brother Pat Robertson said in 1992,

            “We want…as soon as possible to see a majority of the Republican Party in the hands of pro-family Christians…”

            Ralph Reed said in 2001,

            “You’re no longer throwing rocks at the building; you’re in the building.”

            Once dismissed as a small regional movement, Christian conservatives have become a staple of politics nearly everywhere. Christian conservatives now hold a majority of seats in 36% of all Republican Party state committees (or 18 of 50 states), plus large minorities in 81% of the rest, double their strength from a decade before.          

            The twin surges of Christians into GOP ranks in the early 1980s and early 1990s have begun to bear fruit, as naïve, idealistic recruits have transformed into highly proficient operatives and leaders, building organizations, winning leadership positions, fighting onto platform committees, and electing many of our own to public offices at all levels of American governance.

            Christians need to take leadership positions. Since Republican Party officers control the membership and our legislative bodies, it is very important that mature Christians have a majority of leadership positions whenever possible, God willing.

            One of our brilliantly successful tactics in gaining control of Republican organizations is to tie up the meetings for hours until people left. Then we appointed ourselves leaders and make key decisions. Once we took over the local leadership throughout our target State, we can then control the state party apparatus. Once we have a target state under Christian control, we can then use the same tactics in other states until we build a solid Christian foundation that can control any election, state or national.

           

            The strategy of the coming Christian Based Republican Party is simple.

            First, enact a permanent tax cut which will eliminate $6 trillion in revenue over the next 20 years. This will in effect starve the federal government so it will be unable to fund many liberal and essentially anti-Christian governmental functions instituted since the Communist-inspired New Deal.

            Second, fill the liberal and secular federal judiciary with Christian advocates whose judicial philosophy will reverse the disastrous trends on civil rights, environmental protections, religious liberty, reproductive rights and privacy and so much more.

            Third, mandate the teaching of Divine Creationism in all public and private schools and remove from all school curriculums the Secular Humanist false theories of Darwin and others.

            Fourth, revise the Federal Constitution so that it better reflects Divine Will and strips away false secularism entirely.

            A Constitution that conforms to Biblical Law will rely on the Ten Commandments of the Old Testament as its guiding source. Therefore, the Ten Commandments hold a special meaning. The New Christian lawmakers are going to pass legislation in various state legislatures that will mandate government posting of the Ten Commandments in all public buildings.

            Rev. Joseph Morecraft is pastor of the Reconstructionist Chalcedon Presbyterian Church in Marietta, Georgia and he states his belief in the persecution of nonbelievers and those who are insufficiently orthodox is crystal clear. Reverend Morecraft describes democracy as “mob rule,” and states that the purpose of “civil government” is to “terrorize evil doers. . . to be an avenger!” and “To bring down the wrath of God to bear on all those who practice evil!”

            “And how do you terrorize an evil doer?” he asks. “You enforce Biblical law!” The purpose of government is “to protect the church of Jesus Christ,” and, “Nobody has the right to worship on this planet any other God than Jehovah. And therefore the state does not have the responsibility to defend anybody’s pseudo-right to worship an idol!” “There is no such thing” as religious pluralism, he declared. Further, “There has never been such a condition in the history of mankind. There is no such place now. There never will be.”

            “When God brings Noah through the flood to a new earth, He re-establishes the Dominion Mandate but now delegates to man the responsibility for governing other men in order to protect human life. He does this by instituting capital punishment – the backbone of civil government.” U.S. Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia

            Now let us begin with some realistic soul-searching. Let us define the purposes and directions of our ranks for, although we may see the same Enlightenment in different ways, in the end, we are all True Christians.

           

            A definition of the True Christian membership:

            The implementation of Biblical Law is central to the mission of building the Kingdom of God on earth. The way to get to Biblical Law is through politics. Therefore, God’s law as manifested in the Bible should govern. References to the Ten Commandments are more than symbolic. It reflects a belief that the Bible, not the Constitution, represents the final legal authority.

            1) The federal government should recede into the background through massive tax cuts. This concept, heartily embraced by President Bush, has more than one benefit. As money available for corrupting so-called “entitlements” dries up, there will not be funding for welfare leeches, birth control programs, support for the army of illegal aliens now flooding out country and the notorious Social Security give-aways.

            2)  Churches should be mandated to take over responsibility for welfare and education by Faith-based initiatives and school vouchers. By these means, True Christians can establish a firm control over the education of American youth. We can, and will, instill Christian Values in our youth and by this means insure a growing body of young Christians, ready, willing and able to assume leadership positions in a Christian United States.

            3)  Capitalism is the sole reason that America is now the greatest nation on earth and the Christian Community firmly believes that this engine of national success and power should be freed of current regulations that harmfully restrict America’s major corporations in achieving their maximum growth potential. We are therefore opposed to so-called “environmental” rules and regulations, restrictive and repressive work safety regulations, involvement by the Federal government in civil rights matters. We must first and foremost introduce and secure legislation to halt devastating personal injury lawsuits against Corporate America.

            4)  The U.S. Constitution should conform to Biblical Law.

            The Constitution Restoration Act of 2004, introduced into both houses of Congress on February 11, 2004, included the acknowledgment of God as the sovereign source of law by an official in his capacity of executing his office. This is another firm and ascending step in the establishment of a true Christian society in America.

            Among the sponsors of the bill were Rep. Robert Aderholt AL, Rep. Michael Pence IN, Sen. Richard Shelby, AL,Sen. Zell Miller, GA, Sen. Sam Brownback, KS, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, SC.

             

            The Council on National Policy:

            The Council for National Policy, which was co-founded by former Moral Majority head LaHaye, has included: John Ashcroft, Ed Meese, Ralph Reed, the editor of The National Review, Pat Robertson, Jerry Falwell, Grover Norquist and Oliver North.

            The CNP has rendered yeoman service in assisting Christian conservatives take control of the Republican state party organizations in Southern and Midwestern states. It has assisted in spreading the word about the infamous ‘Clinton Chronicles’ videotapes that linked the president to a host of crimes in Arkansas, and was a determinant factor in bringing about the impeachment of Clinton.

            The CNP, after much soul-searching, determined on George W. Bush as their candidate for President as early as 1999. George Bush had little or nothing to do with the decision to run for the Presidency. He was put in place by a coalition of the Religious Right, the ultra-conservative wing of the Republican Party and a group of wealthy, conservative businessmen. Claims of deliberate voter fraud in  Florida, where his brother, Jeb, controlled the Republican party machinery and local enforcement agencies are entirely true but it has been felt that it was necessary to put in a man who would be loyal to true Christian principals and who would certainly assist in propagating the Evangelical doctrines as the true basis for a renewed American theocracy.

            Speaking before the CNP, George Bush promised to appoint only anti-abortion-rights judges to the Supreme Court, or he stuck to his campaign ‘strict constructionist’ phrase and took a very firm stand against the proliferation of homosexuals and lesbians. The President, through the guidance of the CNP is fully supporting an amendment that can effectively severely limit public access to birth control, abortion, and any form of non-procreative sex.

            Critics exist but we will silence them

            The Republican National Committee is now very effectively securing the support of the Federal Election Commission to issue new rules that will effectively silence deviant groups that have dared to communicate with the public in ways critical of President Bush or Conservative and Christian members of Congress. Happily, these labors in the vineyard of the Lord are bearing fruit. Under the President’s firm guidance, the FEC has just proposed rules that would do exactly that. Any kind of non-profit — conservative, progressive, labor, religious, secular, social service, charitable, educational, civic participation, issue-oriented, large, and small — will be affected by these rules. No longer will secular humanists, so-called liberals, sexual perverts and non-Christians be able to confuse, obfuscate and confound our President and our Christian legislators in the prosecution of the establishment of a truly Christian Nation, under God.

            On March 4, 2004, the FEC voted 5-1 to consider new rules that would have the effect of redefining many nonprofit groups as political committees, thereby forcing these groups to meet vastly more stringent financial and reporting requirements or to forego many of the advocacy and civic engagement activities at the core of their missions. By merely expressing an opinion about an officeholder’s policies a nonprofit group could turn overnight into a federally regulated political committee with crippling fund-raising restrictions. Then these divisive voices will fall silent and we need to hear their lies and obfuscations no longer.

            Under the leadership of President Bush and a Republican and increasingly Christianized Congress, we are more than pleased to see that faith-based organizations will have new access to tax funds in excess of  $40 billion dollars.

            But note that in spite of the Administration’s efforts, the Senate wrongfully has refused to overturn decades of anti-discrimination laws that prevent federal funds to go to charities that that discriminate in hiring. In defiance of the Senate bill passed in 2003, the President has been disbursing funds to charities that openly proselytize for the Christian Cause and are firm in policies of not hiring gays, illegal aliens, Jews, Muslims or other alien groups.

            The White House firmly by-passed Congress’s legislative functions in the year 2002. At the President’s direction, the Department of Health and Human Resources set up a Compassion Capital fund of $30 million that allocated funds released by Congress for a different purpose.

            Roe V. Wade

            In order to eliminate this gross aberration, the Bush Administration  has named a fetus a human being, thus flouting Roe v. Wade and the authority of the courts.

            Just twenty-two days after taking office, Bush re-imposed restrictions known as the “Global Gag Rule.” This policy restricts foreign non-governmental organizations (NGOs) that receive U.S. family planning funds from using their own, non-U.S. funds to provide legal abortion services, lobby their own governments for abortion law reform, or even provide accurate medical counseling or referrals regarding abortion.

            Bush has chosen pro-Christian and anti-choice extremists for key positions such as Attorney General and Secretary of Health and Human Services. His administration has named a fetus a ‘human being’ preparing the way to argue that abortion is murder. And Bush’s nominees to the federal courts are consistently anti-choice

            Gun Control

            The Christian Right absolutely opposes any form of gun control. The House of Representatives, now dominated by the Religious Right, passed a bill that immunizes gun makers and sellers from liability.  On March 2, 2004, because of the actions of organized secular humanists, the Senate rejected the bill.

            The ten-year ban on assault weapons expires in September, 2004. The House Majority Leader, Tom DeLay, who decides what bills will and won’t come up for a vote, has announced that a vote to continue the ban on assault weapons will not come up for a vote, so Tom DeLay will have decided that assault weapons will become available once again.

            President Bush opposes ballistics finger printing, “because it would interfere with a gun owner’s privacy.”

            The Conversion of the Muslims to Christianity.

            With the active and even enthusiastic support of our President, Christians are now aiming at a great conversion of the Muslim population of Iraq. Once closed to our workers, now, Iraq lies at our feet and because we will be protected by the armed might of the United States, we can do the Lord’s work in safety.

            Franklin Graham, founder of Samaritan’s Purse said in an interview with Beliefnet.com,

            “I believe as we work, God will always give us opportunities to tell others about his Son….We are there to reach out to love them and to save them, and as a Christian I do this in the name of Jesus Christ.”

            About the International Mission Board, the missionary arm of the Southern Baptists:

            Organizing in secrecy, and emphasizing their humanitarian aid work, Christian groups are pouring into conquered Iraq , which is 97 per cent Muslim, bearing Arabic Bibles, videos and religious tracts designed to “save” Muslims from their “false” religion. The International Mission Board, the missionary arm of the Southern Baptists, is one of those leading the charge. John Brady, the IMB’s head for the Middle East and North Africa, this month appealed to the 16 million members of his church, the largest Protestant denomination in America. “Southern Baptists have prayed for years that Iraq would somehow be opened to the gospel,” his appeal began. That “open door” for Christians may soon close. “Southern Baptists must understand that there is a war for souls under way in Iraq,” his bulletin added, listing Islamic leaders and “pseudo-Christian” groups also flooding Iraq as his chief rivals.

            Although proselytizing is usually forbidden, most countries in the region are eager to have Western religious groups running hospitals and clinics, and working on economic development and education. Some long-established missionary groups in the Middle East have come to terms with this by focusing their work on serving the social needs of the local population, and hoping that they might draw Muslims to Christianity more indirectly, through example.

            But other missionaries, including many evangelicals, say it is part of their faith as Christians to try to spread the gospel.

            Sometimes, these efforts have led to friction not only with Muslims, but also with other Christian missionary groups, which fear that such efforts put them in danger and their work in jeopardy.

            We view with anticipation the projected “Americanization” of the Middle East. Syria, Iran, Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries are slated for our “American Freedom” projects and if we are successful in Christianizing Iraq, soon enough we will have even wider horizons in which to plant the seeds of Christianity throughout an area that by rights is a Christian domain.

            An Expanded Israel

            Certain events have to occur for Falwell’s version of prophecy to be fulfilled. As quoted by a fellow Christian pilgrim in Prophecy and Politics, a book by Grace Halsell who participated in two Falwell-led pilgrimages to Israel in 1983 and 1985,

            “The Jews must own all of the land promised by God before Christ can return. The Arabs have to leave this land because this land belongs only to the Jews. God gave all of this land to the Jews.” (p.87)

            Ed MacAteer, one of the founders of the Moral Majority has spoken of his beliefs.

            “I believe that we are seeing prophecy unfold so rapidly and dramatically and wonderfully and, without exaggerating, makes me breathless. Every grain of sand between the Dead Sea, the Jordan River and the Mediterranean Sea belongs to the Jew. every bit of it.”

            The Fate of the Jews

            The Reverend Tim LaHaye describes the fate of the Jews in the book Left Behind.

            “The final battle in the history of the future will be fought on this ancient battleground in Northern Israel called Armageddon. And the Jews? Well two-thirds of them will be wiped out by now and the survivors will accept Jesus at last.”

            Settlements in West Bank and Gaza: Key to Fulfilling Prophecy

            Falwell made his first trip to Israel in 1978 with an invitation from Prime Minister Menachim Begin. This began a strong relationship between the Likud Party, the hawkish party of Israel, and the Religious Right in the United States. Falwell has led many groups of Christian Zionists on pilgrimages to Israel, and the Religious Right has been subsidizing settlements ever since.

            A Colorado-based group called Christian Friends of Israeli Communities – communities translates as settlements in the West Bank and Gaza – runs an adopt-a-settlement program. According to the director of its Jerusalem office, one-third of the 145 settlements receive funds from Christians.

            The late Grace Halsell’s book, Prophecy and Politics, is no longer in print, but can be found in some libraries. It was published in 1986 by Lawrence Hill and Co. Halsell was an author and journalist who worked in the Johnson White House. She grew up in rural Texas in a fervently fundamentalist Christian culture. Halsell attended two pilgrimages organized by the Reverend Jerry Falwell — one in 1983 attended by 630 pilgrims, and a second in 1985 attended by 850 pilgrims. She also attended the First Christian Zionist Congress in 1985. One resolution at that Congress called for all Jews living outside Israel to move to Israel.

            The Christians also urged Israel to annex that portion of occupied Palestine called the West Bank, with its near one million Palestinian inhabitants. An Israeli Jew, seated in the audience, rose to suggest that perhaps the language might be modified. He pointed out that an Israeli poll showed that one-third of the Israelis would be willing to trade territory seized in 1967 for peace with the Palestinians.

            “We don’t care what the Israelis vote!” declared van der Hoeven [spokesman for the International Christian Embassy]. We care what God says! And God gave that land to the Jews!” After his impassioned outburst, the Christians by a nearly unanimous show of hands passed the resolution. (p.133)

            Halsell interviewed Charles Fischbein, executive director of the Jewish National Fund, who described his work with the American Christian Trust headed by Mrs. Bobi Hromas, wife of a top official with a West Coast defense contractor:

            “The trust enjoys 501(c)(3) status and receives funds from private individuals, estates and large evangelical-fundamentalist organizations… The Trust in turn gives this money to Israel, expressly for Jewish settlements in the West Bank… Mrs Hromas told me the Trust planned to raise a hundred million dollars to purchase land for Jewish settlements in the West Bank, the present target area being in the Palestinian town of Hebron… This I was told would help fulfill biblical prophesy. (p,170-171)

            House Majority leader, Tom DeLay, is a strong supporter of Israeli expansion as fulfillment of Biblical Prophecy. When President Bush began to propose a road map for peace in the Middle East that would lead to a two-state solution, DeLay was speaking to members of the Israeli Parliament saying, “Israel is not the problem. Israel is the solution.” (Meaning the settlements are not the problem. They are the solution.)

            Gays and the Christian Community

            Jerry Falwell:

            “[T]hese perverted homosexuals…absolutely hate everything that you and I and most decent, God-fearing citizens stand for…Make no mistake. These deviants seek no less than total control and influence in society, politics, our schools and in our exercise of free speech and religious freedom….If we do not act now, homosexuals will own America!” 1999

            Lou Sheldon, founder of the Traditional Values Coalition:

            “Our little children are being targeted by the homosexuals and liberals who are pushing for this legislation,” wrote Sheldon. “They want our preschool children…. They want our kindergarten children….They want our grade school children….They want our middle school and high school children….To be brainwashed to think that homosexuality is the moral equivalent of heterosexuality. We can’t let that happen.”

            Dr. James Kennedy, Senior Minister of Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale and the president of Coral Ridge Ministries, calls for a constitutional “Firewall” to protect the nation from counterfeit marriage.

            From the Baptist Press:

            “I see this becoming probably the largest domestic issue that will be addressed in this election cycle — if the economy continues to improve,” Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council, told Baptist Press. Conservatives are pushing for a constitutional amendment protecting the traditional definition of marriage, and one such effort — the Federal Marriage Amendment — already has some 100 cosponsors in the House of Representatives. If passed, it would trump the Massachusetts ruling as well as any other such ruling by a court. To become law it would require passage by two-thirds of the House and Senate and three-quarters of the states.”

            From Donald Wildmon of the American Family Association:

            “The sacred institution of marriage is under attack. There are those who want to redefine marriage to include two men, or two women, or a group of any size or mix of sexes: One man and four women, one woman and two men, etc. If they fail to secure legal protection classifying these arrangements as ‘marriage,’ they want to include all these mixtures under the definition of ‘civil union,’ giving them identical standing with the marriage of one man and one woman.

            They have gained the support of the national media and many politicians. Their efforts are intended to force, by law, 97% of Americans to bow down to the desires of the approximately 3% who are homosexuals.”

            From the Concerned Women for America’s Janet LaRue:

            “These are the court jesters of the century. The Massachusetts Legislature should summon the moral courage to impeach the majority for their abuse of power and distortion of the state constitution.”

            President of Family Research Council, Tony Perkins:

            “This is THE wake-up call for both the American public and our elected officials. If we do not amend the Massachusetts State Constitution so that it explicitly protects marriage as the union of one man and one woman, and if we do not amend the U.S. Constitution with a federal marriage amendment that will protect marriage on the federal level, we will lose marriage in this nation.”

            Anti-Gay Politics and the Religious Right

            Sen. Trent Lott has equated gays with alcoholics and kleptomaniacs, but it has long been a central tenet of True Christian Right groups that homosexuals are diseased, and can be cured with a combination of religious indoctrination and psychological counseling. Reparative therapy as practiced by a variety of ex-gay ministries includes a large dose of gender stereotyping: men are encouraged to play football or learn auto mechanics, women to wear dresses and makeup. John Paulk and his wife Anne are the current “poster children” of the “ex-gay” movement, appearing on the cover of Newsweek; in 1993 John Paulk told the Wall Street Journal that “To say that we’ve arrived at this place of total heterosexuality – that we’re totally healed – is misleading.”

            Politically, Religious Right groups use the disease or addiction model to assert that civil rights protections should not be afforded to gays and lesbians. According to this “logic,” public policy that treats gays with equality and dignity actually inhibits individuals from seeking to be “cured.” In Maine earlier this year, “ex-gays” were featured in one of the television commercials run by Religious Right groups during the successful campaign to overturn a statewide anti-discrimination law.

            The recent ads also attempt to equate homosexuality with AIDS and other diseases; one of the recent ads was titled, “From Innocence to AIDS,” cleverly alluding to Religious Right myths about gay recruitment of children and promoting Religious Right efforts to portray homosexuality as a “death-style.” Typical of such rhetoric was a recent Chuck Colson article about Billy, a doll being marketed in the gay community. Colson suggested that all Billy dolls should come with a plastic coffin, asserting that most gays are “men whose lives are tragically marked by disease, addition, misery, and early death.”

            Misrepresenting ideology as science is a favored tactic. Paul Cameron is a virulently anti-gay “researcher” whose methods led to his being ousted from the American Psychological Association. Although Cameron has been thoroughly discredited, his “research” continues to be a favored source of ammunition for the Religious Right. William Bennett, Chuck Colson, and others continue to repeat Cameron’s conclusion that the life expectancy for gay men is 43 years, a statistic based on his reading of obituaries in gay newspapers. (Cameron’s statistic was effectively demolished in online magazine Slate) Bennett’s trumpeting of this statistic last year on ABC’s This Week and in the Weekly Standard was picked up by National Review and continues to circulate as the kind of “truth” that the Religious Right wants to tell America.

            The Death Penalty for Homosexuality

            Among those of us who embrace “reconstructionism,” which advocates imposing a radically fundamentalist interpretation of “Biblical law” onto American society are many outspoken advocates of the Christian America concept. On the September 4, 1998 Armstrong Williams talk show, Colorado talk-radio personality Bob Enyard called for the death penalty for gays and adulterers. Last year, a Christian radio talk-show host in Costa Mesa, California said, “Lesbian love, sodomy are viewed by God as being detestable and abominable. Civil magistrates are to put people to death who practice these things.” The announcer urged listeners to contact legislators and ask that they enact capital punishment for homosexuality. The station manager called the program “an honest dialogue concerning Christian beliefs.” Congressional candidate Randall Terry, former head of Operation Rescue, extends this view of “Biblical law” to include a removal of all homosexuals from positions of influence in American society with especial reference to the American education system at all levels. This even extends to suspected perverts as well as brazen practitioners of perversions

            In addition, the battle cry against “special rights” was the centerpiece of opposition to a federal anti-discrimination bill, the Employment Non Discrimination Act (ENDA), which was defeated by one vote in the U.S. Senate in 1996. More recently “no special rights” was the core message of the Religious Right’s campaign to overturn President Clinton’s executive order banning discrimination against gays in the federal workplace. Carmen Pate of Concerned Women for America said the executive order was “not about equality under the law, but about special privileges.” In the last instance, the rhetoric was so plainly and patently untrue that a sufficient number of Republican members of Congress voted in favor of equality on the job and the executive order was allowed to stand.

            Our Church has launched many attacks on corporations that offer domestic partner benefits and make it very clear that our leaders’ anti-gay ideology will not permit any special treatment or recognition of their gay employees. A few years ago, American Airlines was attacked for its gay-acceptance policy in hiring and for its support of gay community organizations. A host of Religious Right leaders, including D. James Kennedy, Gary Bauer, James Dobson (Focus on the Family), Beverly LaHaye (Concerned Women for America), Don Wildmon (American Family Association), and Richard Land (Southern Baptists) signed an open letter, printed as a newspaper ad, attacking American Airlines. American Airlines officials met with Christian Community leaders but rejected demands that they discontinue marketing to the gay community.  This is a battle to which we will certainly return and we now plan to extend our efforts to other large American corporations. We are planning to promulgate a nation-wide boycott against any such corporation that either hires homosexuals or supports the so called “Special Interest” programs cleverly designed to introduce gays into normal society by making them acceptable to the gullible and uninformed.

            A Prayer for our Members: Oh Lord, we beseech Thee to bless our God-Instructed President that he may smite the unbelievers of the Muslims, correct the errors of thought in our people and bring again the reign of Our Lord Jesus Christ upon this earth!

 

 

Obama Regime: Love liberty? You might be a terrorist
 
July 3, 2012

http://rt.com/usa/news/liberty-terrorist-study-security-335/

            A person carries an American flag while marching in favor of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act in front of the U.S. Supreme Court (Mark Wilson/Getty Images/AFP)
TAGS: Terrorism, USA
            Are you suspicious of federal authority? How about really into individual liberty? Well according to a new study funded by the US Department of Homeland Security, you very well might be a terrorist.
            A report published earlier this year by the National Consortium for the Study of Terrorism and Responses to Terrorism (START) at the University of Maryland has surfaced, and in their DHS-funded findings, Americans “reverent of individual liberty” and others adamant about protecting their personal freedoms are categorized as extreme right-wing terrorists.
In the paper, Hot Spots of Terrorism and Other Crimes in the United States, 1970-2008, researchers used definitions from another START study, 2011’s Profiles of Perpetrators of Terrorism, to characterize what traits should be considered when describing right-wing terrorists. Both papers were funded with grants from the US Department of Homeland Security provided to START.
            Although the authors of the paper note that the study’s findings do not necessarily represent the opinions of START of the DHS, the website PrisonPlanet.com notes that the organization was started with the aid of $12 million of Homeland Security funds. The latest report is described by its authors as the latest part in a series of studies sponsored by the Human Factors/Behavioral Sciences Division, Science and Technology Directorate and the US Department of Homeland Security in support of the Counter-IED Prevent/Deter program.
“The goal of this program is to sponsor research that will aid the intelligence and law enforcement communities in identifying potential terrorist threats,” write the authors, which is done “using state-of-the-art theories, methods and data from the social and behavioral sciences to improve understanding of the origins, dynamics and social and psychological impacts of terrorism.”
            Apparently, loving America is precisely one of those factors found out through the latest space-age understanding of the human mind.
            In explaining how START’s earlier study categorized terrorists in groups such as religious, ethno-nationalist and extreme left-wing, researchers recall that the organization considers right-wing extremists terrorists as “groups that believe that one’s personal and/or national ‘way of life’ is under attack and is either already lost or that the threat is imminent (for some the threat is from a specific ethnic, racial, or religious group) and believe in the need to be prepared for an attack either by participating in paramilitary preparations and training or survivalism.”
            “Groups may also be fiercely nationalistic (as opposed to universal and international in orientation), anti-global, suspicious of centralized federal authority, reverent of individual liberty and believe in conspiracy theories that involve grave threat to national sovereignty and/or personal liberty,” the report adds.