RNC URGED TO DENOUNCE SOCIALIST BAILOUT AND POLICIES OF PRESIDENT AND CONGRESSIONAL REPUBLICANS

Yesterday The Washington Times reported that members of the Republican National Committee will consider a resolution in January that is critical of President Bush and Republican Members of Congress for supporting the $700 billion bailout of the financial sector and other socialist policies.

Sunlit Uplands has obtained the full text of the resolution which has been drafted by RNC Vice Chairman James Bopp, Jr. and is supported by 24 other Republican National Committee members.

We strongly support this effort to return the Republican Party to its moorings and the core principles of freedom, small government, low taxes, free enterprise and individual liberty. We have lost the White House and the Congress because the President and too many Republican members of Congress abandoned those principles. Having lost national leadership, it is now essential that the Republican National Committee take a major, unprecedented role in defending the U. S. Constitution and the principles to which the Republican Party has historically been committed. In the words of Ronald Reagan, let's raise "a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people."

The full text of Mr. Bopp’s resolution follows. Readers who wish to support this resolution and return the Republican Party to the conservative vision of Ronald Reagan are encouraged to show their support by signing an online petition here.

RESOLUTION AUTHORIZING THE REPUBLICAN NATIONAL COMMITTEE TO TAKE ALL STEPS NECESSARY TO OPPOSE BAILOUTS OF INDUSTRIES, INDIVIDUALS, OR GOVERNMENTS BY THE FEDERAL GOVERNMENT AND TO AGGRESSIVELY PROMOTE THE CONSERVATIVE PRINCIPLES OF THE REPUBLICAN PARTY IN PUBLIC POLICY DEBATES

WHEREAS, America is embroiled in an economic crisis which threatens to become a severe and prolonged recession; and

WHEREAS, as an alleged remedy to the economic crisis, the United States Congress proposed the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008 (“Bank Bailout Bill”), which would authorize the United States Secretary of the Treasury to spend up to $700 billion dollars to bail out the financial industry from the consequences of its own poor decisions and misguided government policies, by purchasing distressed assets, especially mortgage-backed securities, and make capital injections into banks; and

WHEREAS, when the original Bank Bailout Bill failed to pass, it was augmented with$150 billion dollars in additional, unnecessary spending designed to earn the incumbent politicians who voted for it the support of their constituents back home; and

WHEREAS, Congress adopted, and the President signed, the bloated Bank Bailout Bill; and

WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill has neither reversed the economic crisis nor protected the taxpayers, but rather has added $850 billion dollars to their tax bill and raised the national debt ceiling from $10 trillion to $11.3 trillion, which has the potential long-term effect of further weakening the economy; and

WHEREAS, the Bank Bailout Bill effectively nationalized the Nation’s banking system, giving the United States non-voting warrants from participating financial institutions, and moving our free market based economy another dangerous step closer toward socialism; and

WHEREAS, what was needed, and is still needed, to fix the banking industry is not a bailout, but rather a commitment to fiscal responsibility. This entails more than considering only the quick fixes for Wall Street. It also entails considering how to restore Wall Street to sustainable profitability. It involves common sense legislation from Congress, such as (1) eliminating the capital gains tax, which will lead investors to flood the real estate and financial markets in search of tax-free profits, creating liquidity in the markets; (2) examining, and if need be, amending the Community Reinvestment Act (Pub.L. 95-128, title VIII, 91 Stat. 1147, 12 U.S.C. § 2901 et seq.), to ensure that it accomplishes its purpose of preventing discriminatory lending without also forcing the financial industry to engage in high risk lending; and (3) adopting a “hands off” approach from government toward the financial sector, so that free-market forces can correct the market; and

WHEREAS, there have been other federal government bailouts, including the $85 billion dollar bailout of American International Group Inc. in return for its nationalization, with the United States acquiring an almost eighty percent equity stake in the company, a bailout and nationalization of Fannie Mac and Freddie Mac, and a bailout of Bear Sterns; and

WHEREAS, the cost to the American taxpayers of the various bailouts enacted by the 110th Congress and signed into law by the President is potentially $8.7 trillion dollars; and

WHEREAS, none of these bailouts have forestalled the economic recession, protected the jobs of American workers, made American companies more competitive, or relieved the tax burden on American taxpayers, but rather have threatened to deepen the economic recession, and have increased the national debt and the burden faced by the American taxpayers; and

WHEREAS, the “Big Three” Automakers (Chrysler, General Motors, and Ford) appealed to Congress for a bailout bill of their own, seeking up to $34 billion dollars in emergency aid; and

WHEREAS, the American people overwhelmingly oppose a bailout of the Big Three, with 61% of those polled opposing government assistance to the automakers and 70% saying that such assistance would be unfair to American taxpayers; and

WHEREAS, when faced with both Congressional and public disapproval, Ford announced that it
did not need actually need federal money at this time, but Chrysler and General Motors continued to request financial assistance from the government; and

WHEREAS, on December 11, 2008, the House of Representatives passed the Auto Industry Financing and Restructuring Act (H.R. 7321) (“Auto Bailout Bill”), which authorized $14 billion dollars in loans to the automobile industry in exchange for, among other things, the nationalization of the auto industry, whereby the United States receives warrants for up to 20% of the common or preferred stock of each automaker, and the appointment by the President of an executive officer (“Car Czar”) to oversee various aspects of the auto industry’s business; and

WHEREAS, the Auto Bailout Bill was rejected in the United States Senate, garnering only 52 of the 60 votes necessary to bring the Bill to the Floor for consideration; and

WHEREAS, on December 19, 2008, the President announced that he would create a $17.4 billion dollar Auto Bailout Package for the auto industry, taking the money from the funds appropriated by the Bank Bailout Bill; and

WHEREAS, the President has announced that Chrysler and GM must prove they are financially viable by March 31, 2009, or face the possibility—but only the possibility—of the recall of the funds extended to bail them out; and

WHEREAS, President-elect Obama is under no obligation to insist that Chrysler and GM meet this obligation, or pay back the money used to bail them out and the UAW is already calling on President-elect Obama to reject the wage reduction requirements of the Auto Bailout Package; and

WHEREAS, the Auto Bailout Package is not only a bailout of the bad management decisions of the leadership of the automobile industry, but also a bailout of the leadership of the United Auto Workers union (UAW), whose excessive labor wage and benefit demands have substantially contributed to the automobile industry’s financial woes, as demonstrated by the fact that the average hourly cost to the unionized Big Three Automakers for its workers’ salary and benefits is nearly $80 per hour, compared with Toyota, Honda, and Nissan, whose total hourly U.S. labor costs, with benefits, are about $48 per hour; and

WHEREAS, the UAW has steadfastly refused to renegotiate its current labor contracts to ease the financial burden on the Big Three, and has also self-servingly insisted that bankruptcy was not an option for any of the Big Three, because bankruptcy would allow a renegotiation of their labor contracts; and

WHEREAS, bailing out the UAW with the Auto Bailout Package will not make the automobile industry solvent, because it does not address the underlying cause of its financial difficulties, but merely applies a band aid to tide the industry over for the time being; and

WHEREAS, the open-ended nature of the Auto Bailout Package, which only contains the possibility of a recall of the bailout money if Chrysler and GM do not have a plan for financial viability by March 31, 2009, will not provide incentive to their leadership and the leadership of the UAW to create a financially viable business plan, but rather will encourage them to continue ‘business as usual’ and count on future government bailouts whenever such are needed; and

WHEREAS, the men and women who work in the automobile industry are patriotic Americans who work hard to supply America with automobiles and also to provide a decent living for themselves and their families; and

WHEREAS, America’s auto workers are not helped by a temporary band aid which does not require the automobile industry and the UAW to change practices and create a sustainable profitability. Rather, they need a solution that will enable the American automobile industry to recover and thrive again in order to ensure the long-term survival of their jobs; and

WHEREAS, what is needed to fix the American automobile industry is restructuring that will eliminate the competitive disadvantage faced in their costs and finished products relative to foreign brands, which can only be accomplished by (1) negotiating new labor agreements to align their pay and benefits to match those of their competitors; (2) reducing the benefits paid to their retirees so that the total burden per auto for the Big Three is not higher than that of foreign companies; (3) restructuring their business plans with an eye to the future, such that they invest in competitive products and innovative, fuel-saving technologies; and (4) recruiting management teams who excel in marketing, innovation, creativity and labor relations; and

WHEREAS, a group of governors met with President-elect Obama to press for their own bailout plan, whereby federal taxpayer would pay $136 billion for state infrastructure projects and untold billions of dollars for state health care costs; and

WHEREAS, President-elect Barack Obama decided to propose an enormous public works project, which is really a cleverly disguised Government Bailout Plan designed to bail out state and local governments by providing federal tax dollars to repair and rebuild their local infrastructure; and

WHEREAS, some have proposed spending up to $1 trillion dollars to fund the President-elect’s Government Bailout Plan; and,

WHEREAS, the Government Bailout Plan will be the biggest earmarked spending program in our Nation’s history;

WHEREAS, the Government Bailout Plan will not fix our economic woes, but rather will extend the current economic crisis, much as President Franklin Roosevelt’s Works Progress Administration extended the Great Depression, and will cost the American taxpayers $1 trillion dollars or more; and

WHEREAS, what is needed to ease unemployment and stimulate the economy is not a Government Bailout Plan to bail out state and local governments from their deficit spending, but rather common sense solutions which will work, including (1) lowering our corporate tax rate which is the second highest in the world and fifty percent higher than our international competitors, so that corporations will have more ability to invest in product development and job creation; (2) lowering taxes on the middle class and eliminating the capital gains tax, so that America’s families will have more money to invest and spend for their families’ needs; (3) spending to replenish and, where necessary, modernize our military equipment and improve our national defense capabilities against both foreign nations and terrorists; (3) investing in energy research, exploration and development to free our Nation from its dependence on foreign oil; and (4) eliminating wasteful government spending and restructuring government programs that can be accomplished more efficiently. Together, these measures will create jobs, energize the economy and protect our national freedoms, all of which will improve the quality of life of the American family; and

WHEREAS, the Republican Party must, for the good of America, reestablish our commitment to the common sense, conservative values of free enterprise, free markets, limited government, and personal responsibility, which are advocated by the Republican National Committee in its national platform; and

THEREFORE, BE IT RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee commend the Members of Congress who have opposed the bills seeking to bailout American industries and to nationalize American companies; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee call for all Members of Congress to oppose any and all future bailouts that might come before the Congress, including President-elect Obama’s public works program; and

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Members of the Republican National Committee call on Congress to identify the government programs and policies which have lead to the current economic crisis and to revise or repeal them in favor of government policies which promote free enterprise and free markets;

BE IT FURTHER RESOLVED, that the Republican National Committee, in cooperation with Republican Members of Congress and the Republican Governors of the various states, shall be authorized to engage in vigorous debate on public policy issues, including calling for Congress to oppose measures which are detrimental to the welfare of our Nation and our People, consistent with the conservative principles of the Republican Party as expressed in its national platform, and to devote appropriate resources of the RNC for this purpose.

Submitted by

James Bopp, Jr., NCM IN
Randy Pullen SC AZ
Lilly Nunez NCW CO
Dick Wadhams SC CO
Sharon Day NCW FL
Steve Scheffler NCM IA
Kim Lehman NCW IA
Cindy Moyle NCW ID
Dee Dee Benkie NCW IN
Helen Van Etten NCW KS
Kris Kobach SC KS
Evie Axdahl NCW MN
Cindy Phillips NCW MS
Pete Ricketts NCM NE
Sean Mahoney NCM NH
Rosie Tripp NCM NM
Carolyn L. McLarty NCW OK
Solomon Yue NCM OR
Donna Cain NCW OR
Giovanni Cicione SC RI
Cynthia Costa NCM SC
Mary Jean Jensen NCW SD
Cathie Adams NCW TX
Fredi Simpson NCW WA
Diana Vaughan SC WY

Catholic-Orthodox Statement Raises Alarm Over Declining Global Birth Rates

From LifeNews.com
By Steven Ertelt

Participants in the First European Catholic-Orthodox Forum chose to emphasize the coming crisis of declining birth rates as the main topic of their meeting. That came as a delight to the producer of the move Demographic Winter, who says the underpopulation problem is growing.

Meeting in Trent, Italy earlier this month, 30 delegates from the Orthodox Churches, European Bishops Conference and the Vatican met to discuss their common concerns on family matters.

In their joint statement, "The Family: A Good for Humanity," the delegates observed that, despite the current focus on the global economic crisis, "Another vital element of this turning point is the crisis in regard to the family."

"The demographic trends alone in Europe are clear signals of a crisis much greater than the financial one," the statement said.

It added that families and their resulting children "needs to be rediscovered as valuable social capital."

"We appeal to political and social leaders to address this major issue before it is too late. Without this attention, lack of financial funds will pale before the lack of social and human resources that the family brings," it added.

Barry McLerran, producer of the documentary that has drawn such international attention to the underpopulation problem, said he was encouraged by the statement.

"We hope this ecumenical recognition of what could be the most important issue confronting humanity in the 20th century will spark renewed interest in 'Demographic Winter,' the only documentary of its kind," McLerran told LifeNews.com.

"While our approach emphasizes the social sciences - including the views of demographers, economists and sociologists - our conclusion is the same as that reached by these distinguished religious leaders," he added.

Those attending the historic Forum included Russian Orthodox Bishop Hilarion Alfejev and Hungarian Cardinal Peter Erdo, Archbishop of Budapest and Primate of Hungary.

Chicago School Reform Could Be a U.S. Model

From The Washington Post
By Maria Glod

CHICAGO -- At Cameron Elementary School west of downtown, most kids don't know the alphabet when they start kindergarten, nearly all are poor, and one was jumped by a gang recently, just off campus. But the school this year posted its highest reading and math scores ever -- a feat that earned cash bonuses for teachers, administrators, even janitors.

City schools chief executive Arne Duncan, President-elect Barack Obama's choice for education secretary, pushed that performance-pay plan and a host of other innovations to transform a school system once regarded as one of the country's worst. As Duncan heads to Washington, the lessons of Chicago could provide a model for fixing America's schools.

"Obama chose Arne Duncan for a reason, and part of that reason is the experimentation that Duncan has done in Chicago and his real attention to data and outcomes," said Elliot Weinbaum, assistant professor at the University of Pennsylvania's Graduate School of Education. "Duncan's willing to try new things and see if they work, hopefully keep the ones that do and drop the ones that don't. I expect that experimentation to continue on a national scale."

With a 408,000-student system, smaller than only New York's and Los Angeles's public schools, Chicago has become a laboratory for reform in Duncan's seven-year tenure. Officials here court new charter schools, teacher training is being reinvented, and some low-performing schools have been shuttered and reopened with new staff. Officials are also offering some students cash for good grades and seeking proposals for boarding schools. In addition, Duncan backed a plan to start a gay-friendly high school. For the most part, the changes came with little organized opposition, except for some skirmishes with the teachers union.

Duncan, a longtime Obama friend and basketball buddy, helped shape the incoming administration's education platform. As education secretary, he will be Obama's point man for carrying out the No Child Left Behind law and negotiating revisions with Congress. Through regulatory power, federal funding and a pulpit he can bring to classrooms nationwide, Duncan will be able to push for changes in schools.

Duncan, appointed by Mayor Richard M. Daley in 2001, has shown unusual longevity for a big-city school leader, cultivating ties with unions, nonprofit groups and other stakeholders. The wide-ranging reforms he has pushed appeal to struggling school systems and highly regarded suburban districts looking to boost performance. Many educators in Chicago say Duncan's efforts have upended school culture, building a record of progress, although the high-poverty system has far to go.

"This is no utopia. It's no Candy Land," Cameron Principal David B. Kovach said one day this month. "But teachers enjoy their job more, because they are learning and getting better at it, and the kids are able to do things that they weren't able to do before."

Across the city, educators point to improvements. At Noble Street College Prep charter school, every senior graduated last school year, and the class logged nearly $2 million in college scholarships. The flexibility given to independently operated charter schools means a longer school day, with a class dedicated to helping seniors complete college applications, navigate financial aid and write résumés.

At the National Teachers Academy, another Chicago school, Erin Koehler Smith did a better job teaching fourth-graders to estimate centimeters and meters with help from a mentor teacher. Next year, the former theater major and other trainees will take on classes of their own in struggling schools.

Little more than half of Chicago students graduate on time. But since 2001, fewer students are dropping out and more are heading to college. The number taking Advanced Placement classes has tripled. Chicago students lag behind the statewide average on Illinois tests, but the gap has narrowed.

Cameron's Kovach said the 1,040 students at the red-brick schoolhouse come from a high-crime, high-poverty area in West Humboldt Park. Teachers, worried about the safety of neighborhood parks, agreed to work an extra 20 minutes each day to ensure that kids can have recess and to maximize class time.

"Our kids come in two steps behind," Kovach said. "We can't control what happens to them on the outside -- drugs, gangs, an incarcerated parent."

Cameron Elementary is using powerful tools to jolt teaching and boost achievement: money, coaching and collaboration. With the overwhelming approval of teachers, the school last year began a performance-pay pilot program now in place at numerous city schools. Much of the money for the program has come from a federal grant and private foundations.

Teachers earn extra cash for taking on additional responsibilities and are judged in a series of evaluations. Entire staffs get bonuses when state test scores rise. Slightly more than 50 percent of students passed the latest state reading exam, but the trend is up. The gains meant about a $1,000 bonus for most teachers, about $250 for janitors and $625 for the principal.

Teacher Erin Montana, 33, fresh out of education school and a three-month student teaching gig, took over a class in chaos two years ago. Students cursed, fought, even threw desks. "Every day I came in thinking I was doing the worst job ever," she said.

One afternoon last week, Montana's fifth-graders huddled quietly, reading a story about a boy who destroys a neighbor's garden in a vegetable-throwing fight. The students then built "story mountains," identifying characters, plot and theme.

"They trash Mr. Bellavista's garden," said Shanygne, 11, a slight girl with a ponytail. She scrawled the sentence on a Post-it note and added it to her "mountain."

Montana, crouching to check the group's progress, pointed to a picture of the glum boy. "What do you think is happening here?" she asked. "Do you think it's important?"

Eleven-year-old Shawnell, nodding at her teacher, began writing that the boy "felt sorry because he looked at the garden and the mess he made."

Montana said the isolation of her first year has disappeared. Her class is well-behaved, thanks partly to her growing experience and partly to advice from colleagues, including the "doing the right things raffle" she started at the suggestion of a mentor teacher.

Teachers meet weekly to discuss the best way to reach kids. Master teachers pinpoint where students fall short, study research and script lessons to target weak spots. They try lessons on a handful of kids, and when they find an approach that works, the school takes it to all kids.

"It's not like pulling something out of a book," Montana said. "We know that it's really thought through specifically for our kids."

Washington area schools have launched experiments similar to Chicago's. Charter schools are multiplying in the District, and D.C. schools are trying cash incentives for students. A Fairfax County initiative bumps salaries for some teachers who work a longer year and take on extra tasks, such as coaching colleagues. Pay for performance is underway in Prince George's County, tying some teacher bonuses to test scores.

What sets Duncan apart, education experts said, is his willingness to embrace a range of reforms and his ability to work with people who hold diverging, often conflicting views on how to fix schools. He has straddled the reform divide: On one side are advocates of dramatic shake-ups and tough accountability, and on the other are teachers unions and some educators who want more flexibility, support and money.

Chicago Teachers Union President Marilyn Stewart said that the union clashed with Duncan when he closed failing schools and replaced staff but that school and union leaders teamed up on performance pay. "He had my home phone number," Stewart said. "He always returned my calls, and I returned his. You can't not talk when you need something done."

Consensus-building will prove critical as Congress considers an overhaul of the 2002 education law, which spotlighted the failings of schools as well as deep rifts among unions, civil rights groups and education advocates. From his on-the-ground perspective, Duncan has praised the law's "high expectations and accountability" but pushed to give credit to schools that make gains even if they fall short of state academic standards. He also has called on Congress to double federal funding over five years.

The next challenge is reaching agreement on a new blueprint for school reform. Obama has said he wants to add $18 billion in annual federal education funding (equal to nearly a third of the Education Department's $59 billion discretionary budget), reduce high school dropout rates and improve math and science education. He also has vowed to double federal funding for successful charter schools to $400 million a year and promote alternative teacher training.

"There will be disagreements, but Duncan's personality is going to minimize the negativity," said Jack Jennings, president and chief executive of the Center on Education Policy in the District. "You get a feeling of somebody who is willing to listen and be open to ideas."

The Dutch Left Calls for an End to 'Multi-Culti' Tolerance and Islamisation

One should check for seismic activity in Holland because an enormous shift of attitudes on the part of that nation's largest liberal political party, the Labour Party, has occurred.

The party has issued a position paper calling for an end to the failed model of Dutch "tolerance." Apparently, one too many liberals has been raped, mugged or murdered in that nation. Public opinion has reached the boiling point and, just as overwhelming opposition to open borders and amnesty forced the retreat of the political elites in this country, the Dutch are rejecting the socialists' agenda. Let us hope the change of attitudes in one of Europe's most liberal countries will quickly spread to the others. The International Herald Tribune's report on this extraordinary development follows:

From the left, a call to end the current Dutch notion of tolerance

By John Vinocur

Monday, December 29, 2008

AMSTERDAM: Two years ago, the Dutch could quietly congratulate themselves on having brought what seemed to be a fair measure of consensus and reason to the meanest intersection in their national political life: the one where integration of Muslim immigrants crossed Dutch identity.

In the run-up to choosing a new government in 2006, just 24 percent of the voters considered the issue important, and only 4 percent regarded it as the election's central theme.

What a turnabout, it seemed - and whatever the reason (spent passions, optimism, resignation?), it was a soothing respite for a country whose history of tolerance was the first in 21st-century Europe to clash with the on-street realities of its growing Muslim population.

Since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, the Netherlands had lived through something akin to a populist revolt against accommodating Islamic immigrants led by Pim Fortuyn, who was later murdered; the assassination of the filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, accused of blasphemy by a homegrown Muslim killer; and the bitter departure from the Netherlands of Ayaan Hirsi Ali, a Somali woman who became a member of Parliament before being marked for death for her criticism of radical Islam.

Now something fairly remarkable is happening again.

Two weeks ago, the country's biggest left-wing political grouping, the Labor Party, which has responsibility for integration as a member of the coalition government led by the Christian Democrats, issued a position paper calling for the end of the failed model of Dutch "tolerance."

It came at the same time Nicolas Sarkozy was making a case in France for greater opportunities for minorities that also contained an admission that the French notion of equality "doesn't work anymore."

But there was a difference. If judged on the standard scale of caution in dealing with cultural clashes and Muslims' obligations to their new homes in Europe, the language of the Dutch position paper and Lilianne Ploumen, Labor's chairperson, was exceptional.

The paper said: "The mistake we can never repeat is stifling criticism of cultures and religions for reasons of tolerance."

Government and politicians had too long failed to acknowledge the feelings of "loss and estrangement" felt by Dutch society facing parallel communities that disregard its language, laws and customs.

Newcomers, according to Ploumen, must avoid "self-designated victimization."

She asserted, "the grip of the homeland has to disappear" for these immigrants who, news reports indicate, also retain their original nationality at a rate of about 80 percent once becoming Dutch citizens.

Instead of reflexively offering tolerance with the expectation that things would work out in the long run, she said, the government strategy should be "bringing our values into confrontation with people who think otherwise."

There was more: punishment for trouble-making young people has to become so effective such that when they emerge from jail they are not automatically big shots, Ploumen said.

For Ploumen, talking to the local media, "The street is mine, too. I don't want to walk away if they're standing in my path.

"Without a strategy to deal with these issues, all discussion about creating opportunities and acceptance of diversity will be blocked by suspicion and negative experience."

And that comes from the heart of the traditional, democratic European left, where placing the onus of compatibility on immigrants never found such comfort before.

It's a point of view that makes reference to work and education as essential, but without the emphasis that they are the single path to integration.

Rather, Labor's line seems to stand on its head the old equation of jobs-plus-education equals integration. Conforming to Dutch society's social standards now comes first. Strikingly, it turns its back on cultural relativism and uses the word emancipation in discussing the process of outsiders' becoming Dutch.

For the Netherlands' Arab and Turkish population (about 6 percent of a total of 16 million) it refers to jobs and educational opportunities as "machines of emancipation." Yet it also suggests that employment and advancement will not come in full measure until there is a consciousness engagement in Dutch life by immigrants that goes far beyond the present level.

Indeed, Ploumen says, "Integration calls on the greatest effort from the new Dutch. Let go of where you come from; choose the Netherlands unconditionally." Immigrants must "take responsibility for this country" and cherish and protect its Dutch essence.

Not clear enough? Ploumen insists, "The success of the integration process is hindered by the disproportionate number of non-natives involved in criminality and trouble-making, by men who refuse to shake hands with women, by burqas and separate courses for women on citizenship.

"We have to stop the existence of parallel societies within our society."

And the obligations of the native Dutch? Ploumen's answer is, "People who have their roots here have to offer space to traditions, religions and cultures which are new to Dutch society" - but without fear of expressing criticism. "Hurting feelings is allowed, and criticism of religion, too."

The why of this happening now when a recession could accelerate new social tensions, particularly among nonskilled workers, has a couple of explanations.

A petty, political one: It involves a Labor Party on an uptick, with its the party chief, Wouter Bos, who serves as finance minister, showing optimism that the Dutch can avoid a deep recession. The cynical take has him casting the party's new integration policy as a fresh bid to consolidate momentum ahead of elections for the European Parliament in June.

A kinder, gentler explanation (that comes, remarkably, from Frits Bolkestein, the former Liberal Party leader, European commissioner, and no friend of the socialists, who began writing in 1991 about the enormous challenge posed to Europe by Muslim immigration):

"The multi-cultis just aren't making the running anymore. It's a brave step towards a new normalcy in this country. "

As if Things Weren't Bad Enough, Russian Professor Predicts End of U.S.

In Moscow, Igor Panarin's Forecasts Are All the Rage; America 'Disintegrates' in 2010

From The Wall Street Journal

By Andrew Osborn

For a decade, Russian academic Igor Panarin has been predicting the U.S. will fall apart in 2010. For most of that time, he admits, few took his argument -- that an economic and moral collapse will trigger a civil war and the eventual breakup of the U.S. -- very seriously. Now he's found an eager audience: Russian state media.

In recent weeks, he's been interviewed as much as twice a day about his predictions. "It's a record," says Prof. Panarin. "But I think the attention is going to grow even stronger."

Prof. Panarin, 50 years old, is not a fringe figure. A former KGB analyst, he is dean of the Russian Foreign Ministry's academy for future diplomats. He is invited to Kremlin receptions, lectures students, publishes books, and appears in the media as an expert on U.S.-Russia relations.

But it's his bleak forecast for the U.S. that is music to the ears of the Kremlin, which in recent years has blamed Washington for everything from instability in the Middle East to the global financial crisis. Mr. Panarin's views also fit neatly with the Kremlin's narrative that Russia is returning to its rightful place on the world stage after the weakness of the 1990s, when many feared that the country would go economically and politically bankrupt and break into separate territories.

Read the rest of this entry >>

Religion's Big and Unprecedented Role in '08 Politics

From the Presidential Election to the Debate on Gay Marriage, Faith-Based Issues Dominated

From The Washington Post
By Kevin Eckstrom

Barack Obama chose Joe Biden, and John McCain turned to Sarah Palin, but in the end the most sought-after running mate in the 2008 campaign never appeared on a single ballot.

God, it seems, couldn't be entirely wooed by either party.

The unprecedented and extraordinary prominence of religion in the 2008 election was easily the year's top religion story. Both parties battled hard for religious voters, and both were forced to distance themselves from outspoken clergy whose fiery rhetoric threatened to become a political liability.

Read the rest of this entry >>

The Unitarian Church and Obama's Religious Upbringing

From American Thinker
By Andrew Walden

With the media carefully pretending not to notice, Barack Obama's choice to hold a memorial service December 23 for his late grandmother Madelyn "Toot" Dunham at Honolulu's First Unitarian Church underlines one part of the story of Barack Obama's leftist religious upbringing.

What is First Unitarian Church? Their website describes counter-recruitment efforts intended for "deconstructing the myth" ... "used in propaganda for the military (as with ads for Marine recruitment)."

Another set of clues come from the Honolulu Star-Bulletin February 8, 2003 description of First Unitarian's 2003 golden anniversary celebration -- complete with "Liberal Religion for 50 Years" T-shirts. The Star-Bulletin explains:

Read the rest of this entry >>

Choir of King's College - "What Child Is This?"

Al Gore Sued for Fraud by Over 30,000 Scientists

John Coleman, the founder of The Weather Channel and weatherman for KUSI-TV, leads 30,000 scientists in a lawsuit charging Al Gore with fraud in the global warming scam. Also supporting the scientists are 9000 Ph.D. researchers.

Fixated

From Catholic Culture: "Off the Record"
By Diogenes

In his annual address to the Roman Curia, Pope Benedict mentioned that the Church cannot accept "gender ideology" because it is contrary to God's design for the human person. No one even vaguely familiar with Church teachings could possibly have been surprised by the Pope's statement; it reflects the constant teaching of the Church. Yet dozens of commentators have professed shock that the Pontiff would dare say such a thing.

The Pope's speech that ran for several pages, and the reference to sexuality occupied a couple of sentences. That didn't matter. It is axiomatic, among critics of Catholicism, that the Church is obsessed with sex. So when a Catholic leader says something about sexuality, the media fixate on it. Never mind the other 3,500 words of the papal address; these 50 words are the important ones-- the only important ones-- because they're about sex.

The Pope spoke to the Curia about the Synod of Bishops and the preaching of the Word of God.

Oh, yeah, sure. I know. But what did he say about sex?

The Pope spoke about World Youth Day and the missionary impulse of the Pauline year.

Sure, sure. All that stuff. What'd he say about sex?

The Pope spoke about protecting the environment, and saving humans from inhuman ideologies.

See? See?! He's obsessed! He can't let it go!

The newspaper headlines convey the sense of frenzy:

Pope Benedict at Christmas: Preaching bigotry disguised as compassion (San Francisco Chronicle)

Pope's Anti-Gay Remarks Spur Controversy (Sofia)

Gay groups angry at Pope remarks (BBC)

and my favorite example of hysteria:

Pope says gays could end human race (The First Post)

The UPI story is headlined more soberly: "Pope's speech draws criticism from gays." That's accurate, at least; gay activists did indeed criticize the Pope. Still it's telling that UPI felt the criticism was noteworthy. When was the last time gay activists did not criticize the Pope? For that matter, why do we need to know what gay activists think about the Pope's year-end discussions with the Roman Curia? What did the Albigensians think of the Pope's speech? Did proponents of the gold standard have any strong opinions? UPI readers will never know. Instead the UPI story informs us:

Gay and lesbian activists say a speech by Pope Benedict XVI comparing homosexuality to global warming was irresponsible and encouraged homophobia.

Irresponsible: an interesting word. Is it responsible for journalists to fasten on one passage from a text? Is it responsible to seek reactions exclusively from those activists who will predictably denounce the speaker? The Pope is not encouraging homophobia; he's encouraging Christianity. What are the media encouraging?

Obama's Plan to Rejoin the World Community

By Phyllis Schlafly

When Candidate Barack Obama declared himself a "citizen of the world" before thousands of cheering German socialists, and later pledged to "rejoin the World Community," those weren't just his usual platitudes about "change." Those words sounded the trumpet for his specific and far-reaching globalist agenda.

Obama plans to use his presidential power to get the Democratic-majority Senate to ratify a series of treaties that would take us a long way toward global rule over our money, our laws, our military, our courts, our customs, our trade, and even our use of energy. Here are the treaties he says he wants.

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Canadians Fight for Free Speech

From OneNewsNow
By Chad Groening

A Canadian pro-family leader is pleased that the Canadian Conservative Party has overwhelmingly approved a resolution to repeal the "hate speech" provision that has been used to squelch the free speech rights of Christians and others who speak out against homosexuality.

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Some Christians Under Siege in 'Season of Hope'

An Indian Christian prays on Christmas Eve in New Delhi

December 25, 2008

From Radio Free Europe / Radio Liberty
By Jeffrey Donovan

On the snowy outskirts of Moscow, beneath a tent awning flapping in the freezing wind, Pastor Bakur Azaryan is preparing for Christmas service at Emmanuel Pentecostal Church. He's got all the essentials: Bibles, hymnals -- and electricity generators to power portable heaters to warm his flock of 700 faithful.

It will be a cold Christmas, for sure. Over the years, Azaryan's church -- part of a Protestant movement with 130 million global followers -- has faced such hostile red tape from local officials that worshipers have been forced to pray in a tent next to the church building, which was also hit by arsons last year.

"They cannot use the building for worship because bureaucrats won't complete the paperwork on it to allow it to be used," says author Felix Corley, the news editor of Forum 18, a Norway-based religious rights news service. "So they've got to set up a tent. They've got to bring in benches. They've got to bring in portable heaters and generators. It's expensive. And a lot of people don't want to come because it's cold."

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South Carolina Projected to Gain Power

Population shift forecast for 2010 adds U.S. House seat

From The SunNews
By Robert Morris

South Carolina's chances of gaining an extra seat in Congress in 2010 - and the added clout that comes with it - continued to increase with the release of new Census projections this week, according to one analyst's report.

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On the Feast of Stephen, "Good King Wenceslas" from York Minster

From Wikipedia:

"Good King Wenceslas" is a popular Christmas carol about a king who goes out to give alms to a poor peasant on the Feast of Stephen (the second day of Christmas, December 26). During the journey, his page is about to give up the struggle against the cold weather, but is enabled to continue by the heat miraculously emanating from the king's footprints in the snow. The legend is based on the life of the historical Saint Wenceslaus I, Duke of Bohemia (907-935), known in the Czech language as Svatý Václav.

The legend is an old one, but its power is such that it has persisted for more than a millennium. Considered a martyr and a saint immediately after his death, a cult of Václav grew up in Bohemia, and also in England. Within a few decades of Václav's death four biographies of him were in circulation. These hagiographies had a powerful influence on the High Middle Ages conceptualization of the ‘’rex justus’’, or “righteous king”—that is, a monarch whose power originates not merely from the unconditioned Divine Right of Kings, but which stems mainly from his great piety, as well as from his princely vigor."

Christmas Broadcast of Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II

Placido Domingo, Julie Andrews, John Denver - "A Christmas Concert"

Homily of His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI Christmas Midnight Mass

From Vatican Radio

Dear Brothers and Sisters,

“Who is like the Lord our God, who is seated on high, who looks far down upon the heavens and the earth?” This is what Israel sings in one of the Psalms (113 [112], 5ff.), praising God’s grandeur as well as his loving closeness to humanity. God dwells on high, yet he stoops down to us… God is infinitely great, and far, far above us. This is our first experience of him. The distance seems infinite. The Creator of the universe, the one who guides all things, is very far from us: or so he seems at the beginning. But then comes the surprising realization: The One who has no equal, who “is seated on high”, looks down upon us. He stoops down. He sees us, and he sees me. God’s looking down is much more than simply seeing from above. God’s looking is active. The fact that he sees me, that he looks at me, transforms me and the world around me. The Psalm tells us this in the following verse: “He raises the poor from the dust…” In looking down, he raises me up, he takes me gently by the hand and helps me – me! – to rise from depths towards the heights. “God stoops down”. This is a prophetic word. That night in Bethlehem, it took on a completely new meaning. God’s stooping down became real in a way previously inconceivable. He stoops down – he himself comes down as a child to the lowly stable, the symbol of all humanity’s neediness and forsakenness. God truly comes down. He becomes a child and puts himself in the state of complete dependence typical of a newborn child. The Creator who holds all things in his hands, on whom we all depend, makes himself small and in need of human love. God is in the stable. In the Old Testament the Temple was considered almost as God’s footstool; the sacred ark was the place in which he was mysteriously present in the midst of men and women. Above the temple, hidden, stood the cloud of God’s glory. Now it stands above the stable. God is in the cloud of the poverty of a homeless child: an impenetrable cloud, and yet – a cloud of glory! How, indeed, could his love for humanity, his solicitude for us, have appeared greater and more pure? The cloud of hiddenness, the cloud of the poverty of a child totally in need of love, is at the same time the cloud of glory. For nothing can be more sublime, nothing greater than the love which thus stoops down, descends, becomes dependent. The glory of the true God becomes visible when the eyes of our hearts are opened before the stable of Bethlehem.

Saint Luke’s account of the Christmas story, which we have just heard in the Gospel, tells us that God first raised the veil of his hiddenness to people of very lowly status, people who were looked down upon by society at large – to shepherds looking after their flocks in the fields around Bethlehem. Luke tells us that they were “keeping watch”. This phrase reminds us of a central theme of Jesus’s message, which insistently bids us to keep watch, even to the Agony in the Garden – the command to stay awake, to recognize the Lord’s coming, and to be prepared. Here too the expression seems to imply more than simply being physically awake during the night hour. The shepherds were truly “watchful” people, with a lively sense of God and of his closeness. They were waiting for God, and were not resigned to his apparent remoteness from their everyday lives. To a watchful heart, the news of great joy can be proclaimed: for you this night the Saviour is born. Only a watchful heart is able to believe the message. Only a watchful heart can instil the courage to set out to find God in the form of a baby in a stable. Let us ask the Lord to help us, too, to become a “watchful” people.

Saint Luke tells us, moreover, that the shepherds themselves were “surrounded” by the glory of God, by the cloud of light. They found themselves caught up in the glory that shone around them. Enveloped by the holy cloud, they heard the angels’ song of praise: “Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace on earth to people of his good will”. And who are these people of his good will if not the poor, the watchful, the expectant, those who hope in God’s goodness and seek him, looking to him from afar?

The Fathers of the Church offer a remarkable commentary on the song that the angels sang to greet the Redeemer. Until that moment – the Fathers say – the angels had known God in the grandeur of the universe, in the reason and the beauty of the cosmos that come from him and are a reflection of him. They had heard, so to speak, creation’s silent song of praise and had transformed it into celestial music. But now something new had happened, something that astounded them. The One of whom the universe speaks, the God who sustains all things and bears them in his hands – he himself had entered into human history, he had become someone who acts and suffers within history. From the joyful amazement that this unimaginable event called forth, from God’s new and further way of making himself known – say the Fathers – a new song was born, one verse of which the Christmas Gospel has preserved for us: “Glory to God in the highest heavens and peace to his people on earth”. We might say that, following the structure of Hebrew poetry, the two halves of this double verse say essentially the same thing, but from a different perspective. God’s glory is in the highest heavens, but his high state is now found in the stable – what was lowly has now become sublime. God’s glory is on the earth, it is the glory of humility and love. And even more: the glory of God is peace. Wherever he is, there is peace. He is present wherever human beings do not attempt, apart from him, and even violently, to turn earth into heaven. He is with those of watchful hearts; with the humble and those who meet him at the level of his own “height”, the height of humility and love. To these people he gives his peace, so that through them, peace can enter this world.

The medieval theologian William of Saint Thierry once said that God – from the time of Adam – saw that his grandeur provoked resistance in man, that we felt limited in our own being and threatened in our freedom. Therefore God chose a new way. He became a child. He made himself dependent and weak, in need of our love. Now – this God who has become a child says to us – you can no longer fear me, you can only love me.

With these thoughts, we draw near this night to the child of Bethlehem – to the God who for our sake chose to become a child. In every child we see something of the Child of Bethlehem. Every child asks for our love. This night, then, let us think especially of those children who are denied the love of their parents. Let us think of those street children who do not have the blessing of a family home, of those children who are brutally exploited as soldiers and made instruments of violence, instead of messengers of reconciliation and peace. Let us think of those children who are victims of the industry of pornography and every other appalling form of abuse, and thus are traumatized in the depths of their soul. The Child of Bethlehem summons us once again to do everything in our power to put an end to the suffering of these children; to do everything possible to make the light of Bethlehem touch the heart of every man and woman. Only through the conversion of hearts, only through a change in the depths of our hearts can the cause of all this evil be overcome, only thus can the power of the evil one be defeated. Only if people change will the world change; and in order to change, people need the light that comes from God, the light which so unexpectedly entered into our night.

And speaking of the Child of Bethlehem, let us think also of the place named Bethlehem, of the land in which Jesus lived, and which he loved so deeply. And let us pray that peace will be established there, that hatred and violence will cease. Let us pray for mutual understanding, that hearts will be opened, so that borders can be opened. Let us pray that peace will descend there, the peace of which the angels sang that night.

In Psalm 96 [95], Israel, and the Church, praises God’s grandeur manifested in creation. All creatures are called to join in this song of praise, and so the Psalm also contains the invitation: “Let all the trees of the wood sing for joy before the Lord, for he comes” (v. 12ff.). The Church reads this Psalm as a prophecy and also as a task. The coming of God to Bethlehem took place in silence. Only the shepherds keeping watch were, for a moment, surrounded by the light-filled radiance of his presence and could listen to something of that new song, born of the wonder and joy of the angels at God’s coming. This silent coming of God’s glory continues throughout the centuries. Wherever there is faith, wherever his word is proclaimed and heard, there God gathers people together and gives himself to them in his Body; he makes them his Body. God “comes”. And in this way our hearts are awakened. The new song of the angels becomes the song of all those who, throughout the centuries, sing ever anew of God’s coming as a child – and rejoice deep in their hearts. And the trees of the wood go out to him and exult. The tree in Saint Peter’s Square speaks of him, it wants to reflect his splendour and to say: Yes, he has come, and the trees of the wood acclaim him. The trees in the cities and in our homes should be something more than a festive custom: they point to the One who is the reason for our joy – the God who for our sake became a child. In the end, this song of praise, at the deepest level, speaks of him who is the very tree of new-found life. Through faith in him we receive life. In the Sacrament of the Eucharist he gives himself to us – he gives us a life that reaches into eternity. At this hour we join in creation’s song of praise, and our praise is at the same time a prayer: Yes, Lord, help us to see something of the splendour of your glory. And grant peace on earth. Make us men and women of your peace. Amen.

A Christmas Greeting

Adoration of the Shepherds

Charles Le Brun (1619-1690/French)
Musee du Louvre, Paris

Ring out, wild bells, to the wild sky,
The flying cloud, the frosty light:
The year is dying in the night;
Ring out, wild bells, and let him die.

Ring out the old, ring in the new,
Ring, happy bells, across the snow:
The year is going, let him go;
Ring out the false, ring in the true.

Ring out the grief that saps the mind,
For those that here we see no more;
Ring out the feud of rich and poor,
Ring in redress to all mankind.

Ring out a slowly dying cause,
And ancient forms of party strife;
Ring in the nobler modes of life,
With sweeter manners, purer laws.

Ring out the want, the care, the sin,
The faithless coldness of the times;
Ring out, ring out my mournful rhymes,
But ring the fuller minstrel in.

Ring out false pride in place and blood,
The civic slander and the spite;
Ring in the love of truth and right,
Ring in the common love of good.

Ring out old shapes of foul disease;
Ring out the narrowing lust of gold;
Ring out the thousand wars of old,
Ring in the thousand years of peace.

Ring in the valiant man and free,
The larger heart, the kindlier hand;
Ring out the darkness of the land,
Ring in the Christ that is to be.

My dear friends,

I want to wish all visitors to these pages - and I think of you all as friends - all the joy, peace and hope of the holy Christmas season. May God richly bless you and all those you love, in this life and the next, now and forever.

Daniel Cassidy

Choir of Christ Church Cathedral - "For Unto Us a Child is Born"

This performance of the Choir of Christ Church Cathedral, Oxford, took place at St. Jacob's Church in Prague on December 23, 1990. It was the first time in forty years that Christmas could be openly celebrated in Prague.

Obama Wants Bush War Team To Stay

From the Washington Times
By Bill Gertz

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates is asking many of the Bush administration's 250 Pentagon political appointees to remain on the job until the incoming Obama administration finds replacements -- a move designed to prevent a leadership vacuum with U.S. troops engaged in wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

The unusual request by Mr. Gates, whom President-elect Barack Obama has asked to continue in his Cabinet post, ensures that key policy positions will not be left to "acting" subordinates as typically occurs when political appointees are directed to resign during a presidential transition.

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Royal College of Music Chamber Choir with Aled Jones - "O Little Town of Bethlehem"

This hymn was written by Phillips Brooks, an Episcopal priest and rector of Holy Trinity Church in Philadelphia. He was inspired by an 1865 visit to Bethlehem on Christmas Eve, where he as­sist­ed with the mid­night ser­vice:

"I re­mem­ber stand­ing in the old church in Beth­le­hem, close to the spot where Je­sus was born, when the whole church was ring­ing hour after hour with splen­did hymns of praise to God, how again and again it seemed as if I could hear voic­es I knew well, tell­ing each other of the Won­der­ful Night of the Sav­ior’s birth."

New York Times Profiles the Economic Downturn in Columbia

The New York Times has profiled Columbia, South Carolina's worsening economic climate in a story published today titled "Reeling South Carolina City Is a Snapshot of Economic Woe." According to the Times, Moody's Economy.com has determined that "based on a range of indicators, from job growth to change in household worth — this metropolitan area came closer than any other to being a microcosm of the nation over the last decade."

The article, which describes the tightening credit market and rising unemployment, mentions Mayor Bob Cobles' hope to capture some of the $775 billion that the incoming President proposes to spend on infrastructure projects like bridges, roads and classrooms, to put people back to work.

The full article is here.

The Death of Deep Throat and the Crisis of Journalism

From Stratfor

By George Friedman

Mark Felt died last week at the age of 95. For those who don’t recognize that name, Felt was the “Deep Throat” of Watergate fame. It was Felt who provided Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of The Washington Post with a flow of leaks about what had happened, how it happened and where to look for further corroboration on the break-in, the cover-up, and the financing of wrongdoing in the Nixon administration. Woodward and Bernstein’s exposé of Watergate has been seen as a high point of journalism, and their unwillingness to reveal Felt’s identity until he revealed it himself three years ago has been seen as symbolic of the moral rectitude demanded of journalists.

In reality, the revelation of who Felt was raised serious questions about the accomplishments of Woodward and Bernstein, the actual price we all pay for journalistic ethics, and how for many years we did not know a critical dimension of the Watergate crisis. At a time when newspapers are in financial crisis and journalism is facing serious existential issues, Watergate always has been held up as a symbol of what journalism means for a democracy, revealing truths that others were unwilling to uncover and grapple with. There is truth to this vision of journalism, but there is also a deep ambiguity, all built around Felt’s role. This is therefore not an excursion into ancient history, but a consideration of two things. The first is how journalists become tools of various factions in political disputes. The second is the relationship between security and intelligence organizations and governments in a Democratic society.

Watergate was about the break-in at the Democratic National Committee headquarters in Washington. The break-in was carried out by a group of former CIA operatives controlled by individuals leading back to the White House. It was never proven that then-U.S. President Richard Nixon knew of the break-in, but we find it difficult to imagine that he didn’t. In any case, the issue went beyond the break-in. It went to the cover-up of the break-in and, more importantly, to the uses of money that financed the break-in and other activities. Numerous aides, including the attorney general of the United States, went to prison. Woodward and Bernstein, and their newspaper, The Washington Post, aggressively pursued the story from the summer of 1972 until Nixon’s resignation. The episode has been seen as one of journalism’s finest moments. It may have been, but that cannot be concluded until we consider Deep Throat more carefully.

Deep Throat Reconsidered

Mark Felt was deputy associate director of the FBI (No. 3 in bureau hierarchy) in May 1972, when longtime FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover died. Upon Hoover’s death, Felt was second to Clyde Tolson, the longtime deputy and close friend to Hoover who by then was in failing health himself. Days after Hoover’s death, Tolson left the bureau.

Felt expected to be named Hoover’s successor, but Nixon passed him over, appointing L. Patrick Gray instead. In selecting Gray, Nixon was reaching outside the FBI for the first time in the 48 years since Hoover had taken over. But while Gray was formally acting director, the Senate never confirmed him, and as an outsider, he never really took effective control of the FBI. In a practical sense, Felt was in operational control of the FBI from the break-in at the Watergate in August 1972 until June 1973.

Nixon’s motives in appointing Gray certainly involved increasing his control of the FBI, but several presidents before him had wanted this, too, including John F. Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson. Both of these presidents wanted Hoover gone for the same reason they were afraid to remove him: He knew too much. In Washington, as in every capital, knowing the weaknesses of powerful people is itself power — and Hoover made it a point to know the weaknesses of everyone. He also made it a point to be useful to the powerful, increasing his overall value and his knowledge of the vulnerabilities of the powerful.

Hoover’s death achieved what Kennedy and Johnson couldn’t do. Nixon had no intention of allowing the FBI to continue as a self-enclosed organization outside the control of the presidency and everyone else. Thus, the idea that Mark Felt, a man completely loyal to Hoover and his legacy, would be selected to succeed Hoover is in retrospect the most unlikely outcome imaginable.

Felt saw Gray’s selection as an unwelcome politicization of the FBI (by placing it under direct presidential control), an assault on the traditions created by Hoover and an insult to his memory, and a massive personal disappointment. Felt was thus a disgruntled employee at the highest level. He was also a senior official in an organization that traditionally had protected its interests in predictable ways. (By then formally the No. 2 figure in FBI, Felt effectively controlled the agency given Gray’s inexperience and outsider status.) The FBI identified its enemies, then used its vast knowledge of its enemies’ wrongdoings in press leaks designed to be as devastating as possible. While carefully hiding the source of the information, it then watched the victim — who was usually guilty as sin — crumble. Felt, who himself was later convicted and pardoned for illegal wiretaps and break-ins, was not nearly as appalled by Nixon’s crimes as by Nixon’s decision to pass him over as head of the FBI. He merely set Hoover’s playbook in motion.

Woodward and Bernstein were on the city desk of The Washington Post at the time. They were young (29 and 28), inexperienced and hungry. We do not know why Felt decided to use them as his conduit for leaks, but we would guess he sought these three characteristics — as well as a newspaper with sufficient gravitas to gain notice. Felt obviously knew the two had been assigned to a local burglary, and he decided to leak what he knew to lead them where he wanted them to go. He used his knowledge to guide, and therefore control, their investigation.

Systematic Spying on the President

And now we come to the major point. For Felt to have been able to guide and control the young reporters’ investigation, he needed to know a great deal of what the White House had done, going back quite far. He could not possibly have known all this simply through his personal investigations. His knowledge covered too many people, too many operations, and too much money in too many places simply to have been the product of one of his side hobbies. The only way Felt could have the knowledge he did was if the FBI had been systematically spying on the White House, on the Committee to Re-elect the President and on all of the other elements involved in Watergate. Felt was not simply feeding information to Woodward and Bernstein; he was using the intelligence product emanating from a section of the FBI to shape The Washington Post’s coverage.

Instead of passing what he knew to professional prosecutors at the Justice Department — or if he did not trust them, to the House Judiciary Committee charged with investigating presidential wrongdoing — Felt chose to leak the information to The Washington Post. He bet, or knew, that Post editor Ben Bradlee would allow Woodward and Bernstein to play the role Felt had selected for them. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee all knew who Deep Throat was. They worked with the operational head of the FBI to destroy Nixon, and then protected Felt and the FBI until Felt came forward.

In our view, Nixon was as guilty as sin of more things than were ever proven. Nevertheless, there is another side to this story. The FBI was carrying out espionage against the president of the United States, not for any later prosecution of Nixon for a specific crime (the spying had to have been going on well before the break-in), but to increase the FBI’s control over Nixon. Woodward, Bernstein and above all, Bradlee, knew what was going on. Woodward and Bernstein might have been young and naive, but Bradlee was an old Washington hand who knew exactly who Felt was, knew the FBI playbook and understood that Felt could not have played the role he did without a focused FBI operation against the president. Bradlee knew perfectly well that Woodward and Bernstein were not breaking the story, but were having it spoon-fed to them by a master. He knew that the president of the United States, guilty or not, was being destroyed by Hoover’s jilted heir.

This was enormously important news. The Washington Post decided not to report it. The story of Deep Throat was well-known, but what lurked behind the identity of Deep Throat was not. This was not a lone whistle-blower being protected by a courageous news organization; rather, it was a news organization being used by the FBI against the president, and a news organization that knew perfectly well that it was being used against the president. Protecting Deep Throat concealed not only an individual, but also the story of the FBI’s role in destroying Nixon.

Again, Nixon’s guilt is not in question. And the argument can be made that given John Mitchell’s control of the Justice Department, Felt thought that going through channels was impossible (although the FBI was more intimidating to Mitchell than the other way around). But the fact remains that Deep Throat was the heir apparent to Hoover — a man not averse to breaking the law in covert operations — and Deep Throat clearly was drawing on broader resources in the FBI, resources that had to have been in place before Hoover’s death and continued operating afterward.

Burying a Story to Get a Story

Until Felt came forward in 2005, not only were these things unknown, but The Washington Post was protecting them. Admittedly, the Post was in a difficult position. Without Felt’s help, it would not have gotten the story. But the terms Felt set required that a huge piece of the story not be told. The Washington Post created a morality play about an out-of-control government brought to heel by two young, enterprising journalists and a courageous newspaper. That simply wasn’t what happened. Instead, it was about the FBI using The Washington Post to leak information to destroy the president, and The Washington Post willingly serving as the conduit for that information while withholding an essential dimension of the story by concealing Deep Throat’s identity.

Journalists have celebrated the Post’s role in bringing down the president for a generation. Even after the revelation of Deep Throat’s identity in 2005, there was no serious soul-searching on the omission from the historical record. Without understanding the role played by Felt and the FBI in bringing Nixon down, Watergate cannot be understood completely. Woodward, Bernstein and Bradlee were willingly used by Felt to destroy Nixon. The three acknowledged a secret source, but they did not reveal that the secret source was in operational control of the FBI. They did not reveal that the FBI was passing on the fruits of surveillance of the White House. They did not reveal the genesis of the fall of Nixon. They accepted the accolades while withholding an extraordinarily important fact, elevating their own role in the episode while distorting the actual dynamic of Nixon’s fall.

Absent any widespread reconsideration of the Post’s actions during Watergate in the three years since Felt’s identity became known, the press in Washington continues to serve as a conduit for leaks of secret information. They publish this information while protecting the leakers, and therefore the leakers’ motives. Rather than being a venue for the neutral reporting of events, journalism thus becomes the arena in which political power plays are executed. What appears to be enterprising journalism is in fact a symbiotic relationship between journalists and government factions. It may be the best path journalists have for acquiring secrets, but it creates a very partial record of events — especially since the origin of a leak frequently is much more important to the public than the leak itself.

The Felt experience is part of an ongoing story in which journalists’ guarantees of anonymity to sources allow leakers to control the news process. Protecting Deep Throat’s identity kept us from understanding the full dynamic of Watergate. We did not know that Deep Throat was running the FBI, we did not know the FBI was conducting surveillance on the White House, and we did not know that the Watergate scandal emerged not by dint of enterprising journalism, but because Felt had selected Woodward and Bernstein as his vehicle to bring Nixon down. And we did not know that the editor of The Washington Post allowed this to happen. We had a profoundly defective picture of the situation, as defective as the idea that Bob Woodward looks like Robert Redford.

Finding the truth of events containing secrets is always difficult, as we know all too well. There is no simple solution to this quandary. In intelligence, we dream of the well-placed source who will reveal important things to us. But we also are aware that the information provided is only the beginning of the story. The rest of the story involves the source’s motivation, and frequently that motivation is more important than the information provided. Understanding a source’s motivation is essential both to good intelligence and to journalism. In this case, keeping secret the source kept an entire — and critical — dimension of Watergate hidden for a generation. Whatever crimes Nixon committed, the FBI had spied on the president and leaked what it knew to The Washington Post in order to destroy him. The editor of The Washington Post knew that, as did Woodward and Bernstein. We do not begrudge them their prizes and accolades, but it would have been useful to know who handed them the story. In many ways, that story is as interesting as the one about all the president’s men.

Kenyan Government Imposes Gag Order on Obama Family

Gagged: Mama Sarah Obama

No media contact: 'We are doing this because we want to ensure better flow of information'

From WorldNetDaily

The Kenyan government has barred unapproved contacts between the media and President-elect Barack Obama's

extended family.

Family members will be required to receive permission from the government before making any public statements about their famous relative, according to the Nairobi Star.

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Choir of King's College - "Once in Royal David's City"

General George S. Patton was Assassinated to Silence His Criticism of Allied War Leaders Claims New Book

George S. Patton, America's greatest combat general of the Second World War, was assassinated after the conflict with the connivance of US leaders, according to a new book.

From The Telegraph
By Tim Shipman

The newly unearthed diaries of a colourful assassin for the wartime Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the forerunner of the CIA, reveal that American spy chiefs wanted Patton dead because he was threatening to expose allied collusion with the Russians that cost American lives.

The death of General Patton in December 1945, is one of the enduring mysteries of the war era. Although he had suffered serious injuries in a car crash in Manheim, he was thought to be recovering and was on the verge of flying home.

But after a decade-long investigation, military historian Robert Wilcox claims that OSS head General "Wild Bill" Donovan ordered a highly decorated marksman called Douglas Bazata to silence Patton, who gloried in the nickname "Old Blood and Guts".

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Is Obama Vulnerable to Blackmail?

From American Thinker
By James Lewis


Suppose you're Bashir Assad or Putin, and you watch the Blago Blowup, a month before the next president even takes office.

What are you thinking right now?

First, Obama looks vulnerable to blackmail. His homey network is full of people who can't stand the light of day. They know all kinds of things the leftist media suppress -- people like Auchi (the Iraqi billionaire), Rezko (the corrupt Syrian multimillionaire), Emil Jones (the Godfather of Southside), and the whole Daley Machine.

That's not even counting the freaky radicals or the pols Obama has surrounded himself with. Mayor Daley's brother is one of the official transition leaders, for heavens' sake, along with Valerie Jarrett and a whole, privately paid operation that doesn't have to follow Federal rules on transparency, lobbying or accounting.

Leverage on the people around Obama is the first step. So you ask your handy secret agents in the US to beat the bushes for more blackmail material. Easy enough. Chicago is a Machine town, and there's always a rumor mill in a town full of neighborhood taverns.

Here's what else the spy masters are sure to be wondering.

1. Is there an organized crime connection in the Obama network? Not just Chicago politics, but drug money, prostitution, extortion, racketeering, money-laundering, violent Soprano types. In a political monolith like Chicago wouldn't you keep an eye out for that -- if you were running China's Red Army Intelligence, let's say?

2. Can Machine politicians be played to ask favors of their friends in the administration? Bill Clinton allowed the sale of missile launch secrets to the Chinese. Is there something China wants very badly that some Machine pols can get for them? Or the North Koreans? Or the mullahs? Or Putin?

3. Even if the US prop-media won't publish anything bad, Patrick Fitzgerald is investigating corruption on Obama's turf. A financial record mailed anonymously could prove a valuable lead for investigators. Such threats could provide unbelievable arm-twisting power in DC.

I've long wondered about a French connection to the phony Valerie Plame "spy scandal," conjured up to destroy the Bush Administration. Chirac and Villepin may have leaked the faked Niger documents about uranium for Saddam Hussein -- the little country of Niger being almost a de facto department of Paris. We know Chirac-Villepin tried to drop a phony scandal on the current president of France, Sarkozy, so this could just be their modus operandi. The Plame-Wilson farce had all the appearance of a huge disinformation campaign, helped by the Gail Collins of the Editorial Page of the New York Times, former Clinton NSC staffers, and, yes, by media darling Colin Powell. Powell's bosom friend Richard Armitage leaked Plame's name, but Scooter Libby went to jail.

How's that for justice?

4. What about obvious DC corruptocrats like Harry Reid (Nevada real estate), Barney Frank (banking scandals), Chris Dodd (ditto), the folks at Treasury who are handing out a trillion dollars to favored banks in secret? Such men may have other secrets. And if they do, how can a ruthless foreign secret service exploit that?

J. Edgar Hoover kept files on Washington politicians from the 1930s onward. The Watergate scandal was triggered by Hoover's second in command, Mark Felt, after he was passed over for promotion. Nixon was forced out of office because he failed to promote Mark Felt to FBI Director. So blackmail is nothing new in DC. The Washington Post was complicit in the Mark Felt revenge campaign. The media and the permanent bureaucracy won unprecented power and prestige as a result of Watergate. The voters lost. In the end, millions of South Vietnamese and Cambodian people died as a result.

(No media campaign was ever launched to oust LBJ, who was no better than Nixon. LBJ was a Democrat, and probably knew where all the bodies were buried around town. The War on Poverty was the biggest Democrat payoff machine since the New Deal, before Obama).

We know that the media keep explosive secrets and threaten to expose them if they don't get their way. Some politicians do it, and the Federal bureaucracy does it. The New York Times has dumped one huge CIA leak after another, just to sabotage the Bush Administration and its foreign policy objectives. Why shouldn't the Chinese? The Saudis? The Syrians and their close friends in Tehran? Maybe the North Koreans are carrying on an international trade in Washington secrets?

Nobody knows Fitzgerald's real reason for triggering the Blago circus, rather than following his Plame strategy and walking the cat up the hill. The appointment of Eric Holder at Justice might have triggered that warning, since Holder could fire Fitzgerald. Fitz might be firing a warning shot across the bow of the Daley Machine, to signal that yes, you've got the White House now, but don't go too far. But there are other possibilities. This could be a hidden battle between Clinton holdovers and Obamanistas. There might actually be some honest patriots at Justice, trying to stave off a new wave of corruption. Or it might be exactly as Fitzgerald claims. (You never know).

Whatever the truth may be, you can bet that all the embassies and spy services are looking for ways to exploit this mess. Obama, Axelrod, Rahm and their friends have already exposed a lot of weak spots in the next administration.

Welcome to the Big Leagues, Slugger.

A Spiritual Reflection for the Fourth Sunday of Advent

FOURTH SUNDAY OF ADVENT

2 S 7:1-5, 8-11, 16 -- Rm 16:25-27 -- Lk 1:26-38

Our Duty to Be Prophets
By Harold A. Buetow, PhD, JD

These days, everywhere you go you meet people who profess to be speaking for God. You see them on the street corners, often sandwich signing the need for repentance. You meet them at social gatherings, prophesying the possibility of the technology of our age leading to the last things. But what is true prophecy? Today's liturgy on this last Sunday before Christmas, recapitulating all salvation history, speaks to that.

When St. Luke pictured God's announcement to Mary of the coming birth of the Savior, much of what he wrote had to do with prophecy. Luke's narrative is a study in contrasts between the angel's message to Zechariah, the father of John the Baptist, and his appearance to Mary. When Luke describes the message to Zechariah, he gives many details; in the announcement to Mary, simply the time and the place. When the angel came to Zechariah, it was within the gold-plated walls of the Temple at Jerusalem; when within six months he came to Mary, it was to a humble dwelling in Nazareth (v. 26). The angel's appearance to Zechariah involved a large crowd, his appearance to Mary was private.

To Zechariah, the angel had delivered his pronouncement without first addressing any greeting; in Mary's case, he greeted her beautifully. In fact Mary, more than any human being in the Bible, is the recipient of the most impressive salutations. The Church has added to them. We call Mary not only the mother of Jesus, but the "mother" of divine grace, most pure, inviolate, and undefiled. We call her amiable, admirable, counselor, prudent, venerable, most powerful, merciful, and faithful. She's the mirror of justice, seat of wisdom, singular vessel of devotion, the tower of David. She's the house of gold, a gate of heaven, healer of the sick, a refuge of sinners, and comforter of the afflicted.

When the angel came to Mary, she wasn't much more than a young girl. How much was she like other girls? Poets have written about girls, and their observations are heart-warming as well as humorous. They've called them the nicest things that happen to people. They're born with a little bit of angel-shine about them and, though it wears thin sometimes, there's always enough left to lasso your heart. A little girl can be sweeter (and badder) more often than anyone else in the world. A girl is Innocence playing in the mud, Beauty standing on its head. God borrows from many creatures to make a little girl. He uses the song of a bird, the squeal of a pig, the antics of a monkey, the spryness of a grasshopper, the curiosity of a cat, the slyness of a fox, the softness of a kitten.

A little girl likes new shoes, party dresses, small animals, make-believe, make-up, and tea parties. She doesn't care so much for large dogs, hand-me-downs, or vegetables. She's prettiest when she's provoked you, busiest at bedtime, quietest when you want to show her off, and most flirtatious when she absolutely mustn't get the best of you again. But when your dreams tumble down and the world is a mess, she can make you a king when she climbs on your knee and whispers, "I love you best of all!" Was Mary ever like that?

With Mary, the angel's greeting began by calling her God's favored one (v.28). Honoring God with her whole being, Mary displayed what it meant for a human being to be "full of grace." The angel's statement that the Lord was with Mary, when it comes from God, implies a special prerogative. Much more intimate than God's presence to David, the Lord is literally with her. She's the new Ark, beyond all our reasonable expectations. She was to be the first human being who could say of Jesus, "This is my body, this is my blood." It's no wonder, then, that this simple girl was greatly troubled (v. 29). Unlike Zechariah, however, who was afraid at the sight of an angel, Mary was only troubled by his words. Gabriel understood Mary's perplexity, and spoke her name (v. 30) for reassurance.

He then proceeded with the promise that Mary would conceive and bear a son (v. 31). Mindful that the very first command given to people was to be fertile and multiply (Gn 1:28), Jews knew in addition that the whole purpose of their nation was to hand down their belief in one God until the Messiah would come: This meant rearing children. The childless man had his name struck out of family registers. And men wanted to have sons to pray the Mourner's Kaddish for them at death.

Mary was full of questions. "How can this be?" (v. 34), she asked. How was she to know that the child she was to conceive would be the Son of the Most High -- because, as she said, she had no relations with a man, actual or intended. The angel's answer was, in short, that everything would be accomplished by the Holy Spirit coming upon her (v. 35). This pictured the brooding Spirit sweeping over the waters of creation (Gn 1:2). It recalled also the cloud signifying God's presence that covered with glory the Meeting Tent and the Temple, and that would be present at Jesus' Baptism and Transfiguration. The same Spirit coming upon Mary brought about a new creation. By speaking of the Spirit coming upon Mary, Luke draws attention to the warmth and life of God present in this new creation as it was in the first.

When the angel added that the holy offspring to be born would be called Son of God, did Mary understand him to be announcing that her son would be divine? The First Testament was familiar with the idea of divine fatherhood. The prophets had declared Israel to be God's firstborn son, and King David, the shepherd, for one, was an embodiment of this sonship. But it would have been blasphemy for Jews to consider that God would be born of a woman, and Mary, as a Semite, wasn't in the habit of thinking in abstract terms like two natures in one person, a habit of the Western mind that would take hold later.

Indeed, there are indications that before Pentecost Mary didn't fully understand the divine nature of her son's mission (Lk 2:48-50). So she pondered him ever anew. Presently Mary, in an agreement that's a magnificent lesson to us in affirming God's plan even when we don't fully understand, assented (v. 38). Her prayer wasn't the usual one -- "May God's will be changed" -- but the greatest prayer in the world: "May God's will be done." If God wanted it, with faith and hope she would live with her uncertainties and fear. Would that all baptized persons, in spite of fear and doubts and uncertainties, were willing, with similar faith and hope, to let Christ be born and show the world God's love and compassion and joy!

As soon as she pronounced her words, the Son of God took upon himself our human nature. At once the good tidings were known in heaven, and little by little they were spread on earth. God's intention to express himself in the terms of humanity began to be fulfilled. Through the Incarnation, people were to know of the salvation, love, truth, justice, mercy, and other qualities of God.

Today's reading from the Second Book of Samuel and today's Gospel echo each other. The passage in the Jewish Scriptures is a famous messianic prophecy, written long after David lived. With the objective hind-sight of history, it shows David to have been Israel's ideal king, his age the golden age of Israel. He was wise and, despite his failings, loyal to God. Joseph, who was thought to be Jesus' father, belonged to the house of David. Just as Mary's relationship to Elizabeth, who was descended from Aaron the priest, showed Jesus' priestly character, so Joseph's membership in the house of David was intended to show Jesus' kingly character.

Today's passage tells of David's resolve to build a house to the Lord. He was disturbed to be living in a cedar palace while God's ark was confined in a tent. There was peace: With God's help David had defeated the Philistines, captured Jerusalem, and brought the Ark of God to the city. That Ark, which according to tradition contained the two tablets of the commandments given to Moses on Mt. Sinai, symbolized the presence of God with the Jewish people. The Ark had accompanied them on their journeys, even being carried into battle.

But God opposed the temple-palace David was proposing, and the class distinctions it would bring. So the prophet Nathan brought God's promise to build David a better house -- not a house made of wood or stone or gold, but a royal house, a lineage, that would last forever. What Nathan was talking about was the establishment of a New Covenant between God and the Israelites; it's the first mention of the promise that became a basic part of Jewish hope and expectancy. This prophecy to David -- this time a prophecy in the sense of foretelling the future -- formed the basis for Jewish expectations of a messiah. Jesus, of David's family and town, would fulfill this prophecy. The offspring of the virgin, as promised, restored David's dynasty, which by then hadn't existed for 600 years.

St. Paul, in today's portion of his letter to the Romans, uses the work "prophecy" in both of its senses: the foretelling of the future and the duty of speaking up on God's behalf -- a forthteller. Paul here brings his letter to an end in a song of praise that's also a summary of the Gospel. The Gospel is the revelation of the mystery kept secret for long ages (v. 25). That mystery has to do with the identity of Jesus.

Paul's idea is that God is present in history, whose central person is Jesus. Jesus is the one in whom all God's promises are fulfilled, the one to whom all nations must look for salvation. Through God's command Paul has made Jesus known not only to the Jews, but to the Gentiles as well. Jews and Gentiles hated each other. Strict Jews saw Gentiles as being immoral, unloved by God, and condemned. Gentiles saw Jews as snobbish, fanatic, pushy, and constant trouble-makers. Jews wouldn't eat with Gentiles, visit their homes, or even use money coined by them. That Paul, the strict Pharisaical rabbi, would become the apostle of the Gentiles, reconcile Jew and Gentile, and bring Jesus to the world is a lesson for all of us.

God has done the unexpected throughout salvation history. He took an obscure shepherd boy, David, built from him a royal house, and promised that his dynasty would last forever. Jesus, of that royal line, became man in order to save us. In Jesus, God reconciled Jew and Gentile. In our time, Jesus is there to help reconcile us all. These days, we contemplate the unexpected spectacle of Jesus' birth at Christmas. Every new birth is a wonder, but the newness of this one is an especial marvel. On this last Sunday before Christmas, it makes us straighten up, square our shoulders, and face our responsibility to let this newness enter and open ourselves to the possibilities of growth through God's creative action. Let's create the wonder of Christmas anew by saying "yes" to God at all times and bringing Jesus to the world.

Gloucester Cathedral - "In the Bleak Midwinter"

The words of this familiar hymn were written by the Victorian poet, Christina Rossetti (1830-1894). It is unlikely that her poem has ever been performed with more reverence and beauty than here, by the choir and congregation of Gloucester Cathedral.

Root Cause of the War on Christmas

From the Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights

Catholic League president Bill Donohue explains why the war on Christmas exists:

“The root cause of the war on Christmas, which is conducted almost exclusively by well-educated white people in the U.S., Canada, Europe and Australia—the very same people who like gay marriage—has almost nothing to do with fidelity to law (the First Amendment in the U.S.): it has to do with ideology.

“The ideology is plainly an expression of left-wing secularism, and it is nothing if not anti-Western and anti-Christian. At its worst, it is driven by hatred; at its best, it is driven by a defensive posture, a deep sense of embarrassment over the legacy of Western civilization. There is no historical or moral justification for either. Moreover, those who are pushing this agenda generally lie about their work.

“When Patricia Short, the principal of Will Rogers Elementary in Ventura County, California, says of the school’s holiday choir that ‘We can’t have anything with a religious reference,’ she is flatly wrong: not only is there no law barring religious songs being sung in the public schools, the courts have affirmed just the opposite (see the 1980 U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals decision, Florey v. Sioux Falls School District). To show how duplicitous these cultural fascists are, consider that when a Jewish woman from North Carolina failed to get an elementary school to ban ‘Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer,’ she pushed to get a Hanukkah song sung. So it’s not religious songs that bother her, just Christian ones.

“Want proof that hate is driving this assault? The head of the ACLU in New Hampshire, Claire Ebel, advises that if crèches are allowed in parks, it is permissible ‘for a display of satanic ritual.’ And this hatred of Christmas is not exclusive to the U.S. In England, Muslim preacher Anjem Choudary called Christmas ‘evil’ in a recent sermon. No wonder they are banning words like ‘bishop,’ ‘chapel,’ ‘monk’ and ‘nun’ from the Oxford Junior Dictionary. And all of this is being endorsed, if not promoted, by self-hating Christians, as well.”

Obama Short on Southerners in Cabinet Appointments

Perhaps some of our local Obamanistas can explain this curious development.

From the Associated Press

The South may have inched toward Democrats in November, but that progress isn't showing in President-elect Barack Obama's Cabinet selections. Obama hasn't nominated a single Southerner among his 15 Cabinet secretaries. So far, Obama's only pick from the region is a borderline Southerner in a relatively low-profile position: former Dallas mayor Ron Kirk for U.S. trade representative.

The disparity isn't an accident — critics already are calling it a snub — and that perception could slow the pace of recent electoral gains Democrats have made below the Mason-Dixon line.

"Southerners need not apply," said Rep. Jack Kingston, R-Ga. "It's hard to believe that there wasn't anybody qualified for something from the South."

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What Are the "O Antiphons"?

December 19 - Root of Jesse

From Catholic Education Resource Center
By Father William Saunders

The “O Antiphons” refer to the seven antiphons that are recited (or chanted) preceding the Magnificat during Vespers of the Liturgy of the Hours. They cover the special period of Advent preparation known as the Octave before Christmas, Dec. 17-23, with Dec. 24 being Christmas Eve and Vespers for that evening being for the Christmas Vigil.

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Tyrants of Tolerance Go After Obama, Rick Warren

From Idaho Values Alliance
By Bryan Fischer

VOICES OF TOLERANCE, DIVERSITY, MULTICULTURALISM COME UNGLUED

Prediction: for the first time in American history, a speaker at a presidential inauguration may be booed unmercifully, and his remarks completely drowned out by angry jeers from an incensed crowd. We may even see shoes tossed at the inauguration platform by the hundreds. It could be a modern day lynching, only this time the victim of a vigilante mob will be proverbially strung up not because of skin color but creed.

Liberals in general and homosexual activists in particular claim to be all about tolerance, diversity, pluralism, multiculturalism and respect for differences.

Well, their commitment to those values has just been challenged by President-elect Barack Obama, and they have failed the test miserably.

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More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

From LifeSiteNews

The UN global warming conference which concluded Friday in Poland faced a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who criticized the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. A newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report was released last week featuring the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN.

The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.

The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Scientific meetings are now being dominated by a growing number of skeptical scientists. The prestigious International Geological Congress, dubbed the geologists' equivalent of the Olympic Games, was held in Norway in August 2008 and prominently featured the voices and views of scientists skeptical of man-made global warming fears.

Pro-life advocates have long mistrusted the Kyoto protocol and similar climate schemes as they are usually tied to population control, which could be implemented with the pressure coming from the alarmist claims Kyoto advocates have made in the past.

The report quotes Ivar Giaever, a Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, saying: "I am a skeptic … Global warming has become a new religion."

UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist said that warming fears are the "worst scientific scandal in the history … When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists."

Geologist Georgia D. Brown, an instructor of Geology & Oceanography at College of Lake County in Illinois, who co-authored a 1993 peer-reviewed study on the CO2 content in the magma from Kilauea Volcano in Hawaii in the prestigious journal American Mineralogist, rejected climate fears and supported the notion of a coming global cool down. "I talk to my students about this topic every semester, not just when we are covering glacial geology, but at different points throughout the term. I want them to know that they shouldn't take every alarmist claim at face value," Brown wrote on December 13, 2006. "Fear is a means of controlling a population, and since the cold war has ended, the government needed new fuel for its control fire," Brown wrote.

See the full Senate Minority Report here: http://epw.senate.gov/public index.cfm?FuseAction=Files.View...

Conservative Leader Paul Weyrich Dies

In the passing of Paul Weyrich, Chairman and CEO of the Free Congress Foundation, the conservative movement has lost one of its greatest leaders and probably its best political strategist. I had the opportunity to meet and work with him from time to time over the past three decades, and one was always struck by his commanding presence, clarity of vision, and his deep Christian faith that was the foundation and unity to all that he accomplished. In his last message published on his website and dated today, Weyrich reminds us that when times are perilous and dark, a Christian can see stars. May he rest in peace.

The Next Conservatism, A Serious Agenda for the Future

By Paul M. Weyrich

December 18, 2008

It was the best of times. It was the worst of times. It is the worst of times because millions of Americans are unemployed this Christmas. It is the worst of years because we have mortgaged the future of our children and grandchildren for decades to come. It is the worst of years because many good friends have left us. It is the best of times because we still live in the greatest nation on earth. It is the best of years because we have the freedom to speak our minds. It is the best of years because we can organize as we see fit to support the political candidates of our choice.

It is the worst of years because we have to witness the troglodytes from Hell kill innocent people in Mumbai, formerly Bombay. It is the best of years because we have a peaceful transition from a Republican to a Democratic President with exemplary co-operation between President George W. Bush and President-elect Barack H. Obama.

It is the best of years because the test of the sea-based missile defense system has worked. It is the worst of years because most of America is not defended against a missile attack. It is the best of times because the 22nd city opens a light-rail system this December after light-rail nearly died out a few years ago. It is the worst of times because the Bush Administration has turned down 70 some cities which want light rail or streetcars. It is the best of times because Amtrak has set records in number of passengers carried. It is the worst of times because the airlines carry more people on one day than Amtrak does in a year.

It is the best of years because various factions are co-operating toward an agreement about the withdrawal of United States troops from Iraq. It is the worst of years because we are struggling in the war in Afghanistan.

It is the best of times because medical science continues to make great progress. It is the worst of times because we are about to suffer a government takeover of the most successful medical system in the world.

It is the worst of times because conservatives appear lost and without a serious agenda or a means of explaining such an agenda to the public. It is the best of times because Free Congress Foundation has a serious agenda called the Next Conservatism which should ignite a meaningful debate about the future.

New Study Find Children Who Live with Biological Parents and go to Church Fare Best Developmentally

From LifeSiteNews

A new study from the Mapping America project, co-released by more than 30 state family policy councils, has fund that children have fewer problems at school and home when they live with both biological parents and frequently attend religious services.

Dr. Nicholas Zill, the founding president of Child Trends, and Dr. Philip Fletcher, a research psychologist at Westat, co-authored the new study, which analyzes data from the National Survey of Children's Health.

Among their remarkable findings: children in this group are five times less likely to repeat a grade, less likely to have behavior problems at home and school, and are more likely to be cooperative and understanding of others' feelings. Parents of these children report less stress, healthier parent-child relationships, and fewer concerns about their children's achievement. These differences hold up even after controlling for family income and poverty, low parent education levels, and race and ethnicity.

See the full study here: http://downloads.frc.org/EF/EF08L48.pdf

Is Rahm Emanuel in trouble?

From American Thinker
By Rick Moran

Not legal trouble, mind you. But the Chicago Sun Times is reporting that Rahmbo's contacts with Blagojevich over Obama's senate seat are much more extensive than either Obama or Emanuel have led us to believe.

President-elect Barack Obama's incoming chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, was pushing for Obama's successor just days after the Nov. 4 election, sources told the Chicago Sun-Times.

Emanuel privately urged Gov. Blagojevich's administration to appoint Obama confidante Valerie Jarrett, and the Sun-Times learned Tuesday that he also pressed that it be done by a certain deadline.

Jarrett was initially interested in the U.S. Senate post before Obama tapped her to be a White House senior adviser, sources say.

The disclosure comes days after Obama's camp downplayed Jarrett's interest in the post.

At one point, an "emissary" who said he represented Jarrett had discussions with Blagojevich chief of staff John Harris and the governor about naming Jarrett to the post, according to a criminal complaint.

In addition to the discussions, Emanuel submitted a list of names of candidates suitable to the Obama team to the governor's administration. Jarrett was not among those names because she had pulled herself out of the running at that point, a source with the Obama camp said.

The Sun Times also printed a rumor picked up by the inconsistent Michael Sneed that Emanuel was on 21 of the taped conversations made by the Feds. That could mean almost anything. It could mean that other topics were discussed between the two besides the senate seat. It could also mean that Emanuel kept calling Blago back urging him to make up his mind already and appoint one of the approved candidates. Of course, it could also mean that Emanuel was negotiating something with Blago. We'll have to wait to find out if Emanuel even addresses the substance of his conversations with Blago.

There has always been one curious angle to the Jarrett for senate story. According to Jim Lindgren's timeline culled from the criminal complaint, Obama let it be known on the weekend of November 8-9 that his choice to replace him was Jarrett. On Monday the 10th, Blago had a conference call with several advisors and perhaps even the "emissary" noted above where he discussed several scenarios that would enrich himself by selling the senate seat. (By this time, anyone involved in the negotiations could see that Blagojevich was seeking monetary considerations in return for the seat.)

That very night - November 10 - Obama named Jarrett to his White House staff. As Lindgren points out:

The likeliest scenario is that one of the many participants in Blagojevich’s Monday phone calls either floated his plans to the Obama transition team to assess their response or tipped off the Obama camp about the reckless ideas that Blagojevich had planned.

In any event, within hours of Blagojevich substantially expanding his circle of confidants, the Obama camp withdrew Jarrett’s name from consideration and attributed that withdrawal to the President’s wanting Jarrett in the White House. And the Obama staffers went out of their way to depict this as Obama’s choice, rather than Jarrett’s, which would have been more common. The report claims Obama’s involvement in the decision and suggests a direct effort to undercut the idea that Obama was pressuring Blagojevich to appoint Jarrett.

It could be coincidence that Obama pulled Jarrett out of a prickly ethical situation and the two events may not even be connected. What the two timelines suggest however, is that Obama either knew or suspected that Blago was trying to sell the seat and, to his credit, wanted no part of it.

This raises the equally troubling question if he knew, why didn't he inform the authorities? This is the real exposure of the Obama camp to trouble; the idea that they are a lot less "transparent" than they are bragging they are. And the problem for Emanuel is that he may have listened to Blago's attempted bribes and did nothing to inform Fitzgerald.

Would it be enough to cost Emanuel his job? The fact that he is not speaking to the press suggests that it is that serious.

Lawsuit Filed Against Treasury Dept: Stop AIG Bailout Financing Terrorism

From The Thomas More Law Center

A federal lawsuit was filed this morning against U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry M. Paulson, Jr. and the Federal Reserve Board to stop all bailout funds from going to American International Group, Inc. (“AIG”). According to the lawsuit, the U.S. government, through its ownership of AIG, is not only violating the Constitution, but also promoting and financing the destruction of America using American tax dollars.

The basis of the lawsuit is that AIG intentionally promotes Shariah-compliant businesses and insurance products, which by necessity must comply with the 1200 year old body of Islamic canon law based on the Quran, which demands the conversion, subjugation, or destruction of the infidel West, including the United States. To help achieve these objectives and with the aid of federal tax dollars, AIG employs a three-person Shariah Advisory Board, with members from Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, and Pakistan. According to AIG, the role of its Shariah authority “is to review operations, supervise its development of Islamic products, and determine Shariah compliance of these products and investments.”

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Millions Warned Not to Use Internet Explorer after Chinese Fraudsters Use Security Flaw to Hijack Computers

From Daily Mail
By Sean Poulter and Vanessa Allen

Millions of internet users are threatened by a flaw that can allow criminals access to personal and bank details.

A major security fault has been discovered in Microsoft's Internet Explorer web browser, which is used by 70 per cent of all computers.

Around two million computer users are believed to have fallen victim after visiting apparently safe websites - and the problem threatens to sweep the worldwide web.

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Anglicans Give Christmas a Multicultural Makeover

The Church of England has backed plans to turn Christmas into a more multicultural event.

From The Telegraph
By Jonathan Wynne-Jones

It may have become traditional for angels, three wise men and the baby Jesus to play a starring role in the festive season.

But now Hindu snowmen, a Chinese dragon and a Jewish temple are also to be included in an attempt to make the celebrations more inclusive of Britain's diverse communities.

Westminster Abbey will unveil life-size snowmen that Anglican clergy hope will help to improve relations and dialogue between other faiths.

Dressed in turbans, with bindi dots on their foreheads, they are intended to demonstrate that Christmas should not be exclusively for Christians.

The Rev Jane Hedges, a canon at the abbey, said that it was important to encourage people from other faiths to join in the celebrations.

"We've done this as it creates a good opportunity for Christians to meet and hear about the stories of people of other faiths," she said.

"Christmas is an opportunity for everyone to stop and think and is a great opportunity for the different faiths to talk to one another.

"Wherever you're coming from there should be something to celebrate at Christmas."

She pointed out that for Muslims they can appreciate the story of Christ's birth because it is included in the Koran, adding that the Hindu snowmen were not an attempt to dumb down.

"Strictly speaking, the message of Christmas is about the birth of Christ, but it has a much broader message of peace and goodwill."

Meanwhile in the diocese of Liverpool, a nativity is being staged that features a Chinese dragon and lantern procession.

It has been backed by the Archbishop of York, Dr John Sentamu, who is taking part in the event via a big screen.

The nativity, which is being performed in Scouse, marks the end of Liverpool's year as the capital of culture.

Annie Spiers, who co-ordinated the event, said that the nativity aimed to give "a fresh slant" to a familiar story.

However, some traditionalists warned that making Christmas multicultural and multi-faith threatened to undermine the Christian message.

Alison Ruoff, a General Synod member, said: "Christmas is a time for everyone, but the Church needs to be confident in its message, which is that Christ came to save people of all faiths and none."

She added: "Why are they putting such a ridiculous spin on Christmas? It's a nonsense and makes me really quite cross."

The Rev Rod Thomas, chair of Reform – a leading evangelical group, also expressed concern.

"People want Christians to celebrate Christmas without compromise," he said.

"It's only by doing this that people of other faiths respect what we stand for, not by attempting to introduce something that is sub-Christian.

"This all seems very bizarre."

Obama Picks Duncan for Education Secretary

In selecting Chicago's schools chief Arne Duncan to be the ninth United States Secretary of Education, the President-elect has made a good choice, relative to some of the alternatives.

Duncan, unlike South Carolina's Inez Tenenbaum, has actually focused his efforts on results, not on mere compliance with the rules and regulations. He is a proponent of charter schools, alternative schools, public school choice, and has not hesitated to close schools that failed. According to the website of the Chicago Public Schools:

• Elementary test scores hit an all time high with more than 65% of students meeting or exceeding state standards – our seventh consecutive gain.

• Over the past five years, our high school students have gained twice as much as the state and three times as much as the nation on the ACT test.

• Over the past five years, the number of CPS high school students taking advanced placement classes has more than doubled.

• The graduating class of 2008 received a record $157 million in competitive college scholarships.

• The number of teacher vacancies at the start of the school year hit an all-time low of 3%.

• All time high first-day attendance of more than 93%.

• A record 34 new school openings.

Mr. Duncan appears to bridge two factions of education policy within the Democrat Party -- the labor union faction concerned with ensuring teachers have the best compensation and job security with the least amount of accountability for results, and a new network of urban reformers headed by New York City Schools Chancellor Joel I. Klein. Klein's Education Equality Project has challenged "entrenched impediments to real reform, focusing on teacher quality and pay; accountability for results; and maximizing parents' options."

Unfortunately, the U. S. Secretary of Education has no authority to effect change at the state and district level except by using federal funds as a carrot and a stick. This has resulted in the current administration opting to throw even more money at education than did the Clinton administration, with little to nothing to show for the "investment."

As a Democrat with close personal ties to the President, a record of accomplishment in a large urban district, and with the opportunity to soon preside over the reauthorization of The No Child Left Behind Act -- or whatever the next mutation of the Elementary and Secondary Education Act of 1965 will be called -- Mr. Duncan could do what a Republican Secretary has not -- bring about fundamental, systemic education reform through moral suasion from the bully pulpit he will soon occupy. If he does that he will far exceed his eight predecessors in the job and make an enormous change for the better in the nation.

The Death of Conservatism

It abandoned culture, tradition and learning.

From Forbes
By Melik Kaylan

What a strange, appalling time to be an American conservative. Obama is the hope of the world; G.W. has duck shoes hurled at him. At home: the severest deflation, unemployment, bankruptcies, bailouts since ... well, the marker keeps changing, shifting all the way back to the 1930s. Abroad: yes, after eight years, there's a clear victory in Iraq.

That's no small matter. But it is a small matter if Iran, Syria, Lebanon and Palestine remain unchanged, more intractable than ever, more intractable for being exacerbated by the retrogression in Russia, Afghanistan, Georgia, Pakistan. It's not axiomatic that all leaders on the right are universally vilified anyway because they make the tougher choices, therefore, when they're vilified we should take comfort. This is not how the conservative cause looked after Reagan, Thatcher or Bush the elder.

One keeps hearing that there's a broad, behind-closed-doors, reconsideration afoot of basic principles--heaven knows we need it--but look and listen as I might, I see no evidence of it. For some years now, I've been puzzled by what has increasingly passed for conservatism in the Republican party. Herewith, I offer a short list of such puzzlements, at first modest-seeming perhaps, but ultimately at the heart of the debate we must have.

Consumption Trumps Thrift. After 9/11, we were told to go shopping. And now again, consumer confidence, the restoration thereof, is first priority--for which we must borrow against the future. Borrowing is not a conservative cause, nor spending a conservative virtue. The Founding Fathers did not espouse "life, liberty and the pursuit of shopping." Suddenly, thrift, sacrifice, saving--the process by which real wealth gets incrementally generated over time--have disappeared from the pantheon. Apparently, if the economy whizzes around at a faster and faster rate, the very act of unrestrained mass selling and buying creates a Brave New World, new value, new wealth, even though the money is borrowed. Well, we now know it doesn't. It creates a new class of charlatan zillionaires and money that blurs around so fast that there's no accounting possible.

Down With The Elites. Here's a puzzle: Suddenly, the orators of the right have taken up the 1970s leftist obsession with overthrowing "elites." Certainly, it's true enough that 30 years on, those leftists have become the elites, in academe, in art, in Hollywood and many parts of the media. But advocating class war, even intellectual class war, is hardly a sound conservative policy. The sight of Bill O'Reilly hurling accusations of elitism at his guests appeals merely to the basest populist instincts. Elites are necessary, have always existed and will exist willy-nilly in nature and in society whatever rancor we may feel. The top athlete, top chef, the airline pilot, the engine driver, the semi-conductor expert, the solo-violinist are all members of elites. If we don't like the current elites, we ought to best them through argument and ideas, not Robespierrian envy.

Anti-Intellectualism. Bill Buckley, the ideological father of the modern conservative movement, was arguably the most intellectual figure in the land and prevailed because his erudition, sense of context and history went deeper than the trendy new leftist thinkers he confronted. Conservatism is about studying and preserving the highest, oldest intellectual traditions--not about making the ignorant feel good about being uneducated. What's all this pride in heartland provincialism and ignorance of world geography? This is what Putin appeals to in Russia. If the education system has excluded conservative values, we don't ditch education, we redouble efforts to instruct the heartland in Western Civilization at its highest expression.

Entertainment Trumps Culture. Conservatives have largely ceded the landscape of cultural life to the left. You do not hear aesthetic commentary from Rush Limbaugh or Bill O'Reilly on their favorite Shakespeare tragedy or the loveliest painting they've seen. You might hear polemical words on a movie flouting family values and offending decency--and good for them for saying so. But on the left, you will hear discussions of art and culture at all levels of discourse. On the right, serious thought, erudition in general, remains largely political.

Here again we see a direct reversal of roles since the '70s, when the left viewed all culture from political or polemical criteria. When did conservatism become a lowbrow pursuit? Traditional values created the greatest churches, paintings of the Renaissance, country houses, book collections and a love of learning. As it stands, these days, the conservative masses mostly consume entertainment, and culture is considered elitist. This is nonsense. We need an aesthetics of conservatism.

Much of this may sound Utopian, and yet it's not new, not invented from whole cloth. It's about rediscovering lost traditions deep in the roots of our collective memory. This is where values come from, not from the economy or from political ideas alone. It's time for a profound consideration of what conservatism meant before we lost our way. Let the debate broaden and deepen. At the very least, let it begin.

Melik Kaylan, a writer based in New York, writes a weekly column for Forbes.com. His story "Georgia In The Time of Misha" is featured in The Best American Travel Writing 2008.

The Arlington Christmas Wreath Project

A great American poet, James Russell Lowell (1819-1891), wrote:

Be NOBLE! and the nobleness that lies
In other men, sleeping, but never dead
Will rise in majesty to meet thine own.

The wisdom of the poet's words has blossomed in a new American Christmas tradition. The following video tells the story of how "one man's gesture of remembrance and respect" has inspired thousands of generous volunteers throughout the nation.

A Spiritual Reflection for the Third Sunday of Advent

THIRD SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Is 61:1f,10f -- 1 Th 5:16-24 -- Jn 1:6-8,19-28

Joy: What It Means, Where You Look for It, and How You Get It
By Harold A. Buetow, PhD, JD

Thinking people have over the ages tried to plumb the meaning of joy, where to look for it, and how to get it. Some have observed that joy is most intense in the years of childhood, and that some sights from the years of youth – a meadow, a house once lived in, a familiar face – can resurrect the joy of youth. Others have said that the deep power of joy can enable us to see into the true life of things. Some have contrasted the whole-hearted joy of the poor with the relatively stiff joy of the rich. The more religious-minded have said that the spelling of JOY reminds us that “Jesus” is first, “you” are last, and “others” are in-between. One religious-minded person, Abbot Marmion, described joy as “the echo of God’s life within us.”

The life of John the Baptist, despite his sacrifices and hardships, was full of joy – if you define joy as the state of bliss over having or expecting something or someone that you love. In today’s Gospel, the Evangelist introduces the Baptist with a contrast between the temporality of creation and the eternity of the Word: A man named John was sent from God (v. 6). And, while we call John “the Baptist,” or “the baptizer,” “the immerser,” “the dipper, or “the plunger,” he might with equal accuracy be called “the witness”: The Gospel says that he came to testify (v. 7). The Evangelist puts forth witness after witness to the truth of the claims of Jesus: God the Father; the Holy Spirit; Jesus’ own words; his works; the Jewish prophecies; people with whom Jesus came in contact such as the Samaritan woman, the lepers, and the man born blind; the crowds; the disciples; and -- now – John the Baptist.

Today’s Gospel tells of the Baptist’s witness when the Jews sent to ask his identity (v. 19). It was a time when some of the Baptist’s followers weren’t becoming Christians because they were disillusioned over Jesus’ not showing all the spectacular “signs” they expected of the Messiah. John’s unconverted followers were spread throughout the whole Mediterranean world. St. Paul encountered them, still unconverted to Jesus, at Ephesus and in Asia Minor (see Ac 18:24-19:4); followers of John were also in Alexandria, Egypt. John, however, still maintained his faith and his hope; from these came joy.

The first question of the religious authorities from Jerusalem was direct: “Who are you?” (v. 19). It’s a question, perhaps unspoken, which is continually asked of us by others – and, hopefully, by ourselves too. All their questions pertained to some of the persons expected to return when the Messiah would come. John answered forthrightly, first with a negative definition of himself. Because they were expecting the Messiah, John answered that he wasn’t he; because they were awaiting the prophet Elijah who had been taken up to heaven and was expected to return to prepare the way of the Lord, John said he wasn’t he, either; nor was he a prophet like Moses, expectations of whose return were also current in several circles. We, too, need to say who we’re not -- to have a healthy sense that we aren’t defined by the expectations of others, nor by our job, nor even by our family.

More positively, John quoted a text (Is 40:3) that every one of the Gospels uses about him: that he was the voice of one crying out in the desert, ‘Make straight the way of the Lord’ (v. 23). The roads of the time weren’t paved, or even surfaced, unless a King or a conqueror was about to make a journey. Then, repairmen would straighten the roads over which the Great One’s litter would be carried. John’s answer was startling, unique, and beautiful. Our positive self-definition should, like the Baptist’s, also give expression to our singularity, our creativity, and our beauty.

The Pharisees’ emissaries weren’t satisfied with the Baptist’s answers, and asked about his authority: Why then do you baptize? (v. 25). It was a proper question. The Baptist was making Jews who already embraced the faith do what only unbelievers who were just coming into the Jewish faith had had to do: wash to be clean enough to be one of God’s people. John pointed to Christ, the one among them whom they don’t recognize (v. 26) – a remark that applies to our generation as well. John humbly observed that he wasn’t worthy to untie this one’s sandal-strap (v. 27). The unfastening of a master’s sandals was a slave’s work; the rabbis had a saying that a disciple could do anything for his master but unfasten his sandals, because that job was simply too lowly.

Today, though, John was fulfilling the words of Isaiah in today’s First Reading. This last part of Isaiah began with the prophet’s uplifting reference to his having been anointed with the spirit of the Lord God (61:1f.). This language always signals a monumental work of God, beginning with the very first verses of Genesis, when God created the heavens and the earth from the formless waste and the Spirit of God brooded over the waters. Here, God’s mighty work is to bring glad tidings, to heal, and to proclaim liberty. The last is similar to the words from Leviticus (25:10) inscribed in the Liberty Bell in Independence Hall, Philadelphia: “Proclaim liberty throughout all the land unto all the inhabitants thereof.”

The basic idea is the total salvation of God’s people: bodily and spiritual, individual and social. That’s the meaning of the year of favor and the day of vindication (v. 2), a reference to the “Jubilee Year” (Lv 25:8-22) when offenses were forgiven and the people rejoiced. Isaiah wanted his dispirited people to realize that, despite the hardships, cares, and worries of this crucial time, it was truly a “jubilee Year”: The people had been freed from their captivity and were under God’s own care.

When in the second part of this passage we hear the voice of the people, we understand that the first recipients of the message are the little folk – those who rely on God because they have so few resources of their own (vv. 10f.) They sing a song of joy for salvation; they see salvation as being as ecstatic as a bride at the approach of her bridegroom, a fond image. These lines have caught the joyous spirit of those Jewish feasts on which pious men dance and sing. Closely resembling this song is the song of the Blessed Virgin Mary when the angel presented her with the news that she was to become the mother of God (Lk 1:46-55, today’s Responsorial Psalm). Among other things, the song joyfully celebrates the wonder of salvation. Yet Jesus didn’t heal all ills or right all wrongs; he didn’t intend to. Hence his non-acceptance by many who expected a messiah who would.

Today’s portion of Isaiah is the passage that Jesus chose when he gave his first sermon in his home-town synagogue at Nazareth. On that occasion, after Jesus read this passage, he rolled up the scroll, sat down, and proclaimed that the passage was being fulfilled in the hearing of his audience – by him!

St. Paul, at the end of his first letter to the Thessalonians which is today’s Second Reading, reminds disgruntled worry-warts – and all Christians – that we’re to be joyous. Like the Thessalonians who were discouraged because of the delay in the Lord’s Second Coming, we can find reasons to find the glass of live half-empty. But Christianity is a way of life in joy: not a passive wait for Christ’s coming, but an active participation in life. Paul emphasizes three pieces of good advice that summarize the Christian life: rejoice, pray, and render thanks. As in Paul’s life, so now and always joy is the infallible sign of Christ’s presence. St. Augustine said that “the Christian should be an alleluia from head to foot,” and St. John of the Cross that “the soul of one who serves God always swims in joy, always keeps holiday, and is always in the mood for singing.”

Because this isn’t easy, we should pray without ceasing (v. 17), an exercise Paul amply demonstrates in this letter – especially in his final words in today’s reading (vv. 23f.). These words stand by themselves as a perfect prayer as well as a perfect blessing for Advent. And we should in all circumstances give thanks (v. 18). Paul’s “thank you notes” appear in this and almost every other letter he wrote. Even on the darkest days, there’s always something to be thankful for, if we but reflect.

And reflect we must. Inspired by the questions to John the Baptist, we can reflect, for one thing, on what sort of God we worship. Is he an insurance agent (“I’ll do this just in case”); a referee (“Mustn’t break any of God’s rules”); an accountant (“Have to have the books balanced”)? Or do I really live out of the vision and attitude of a God of love revealed as such by Jesus Christ, whose birth we’re preparing to celebrate?

Let’s take home with us the message that we, like John the Baptist and many others in the Gospels, must be joy-filled witnesses to Jesus. In these days, that often takes courage. It also requires that we be rays of sunshine to a sometimes dark world.

Jon Christos -- "Jubilate Domum"

Virginians Call for New Statute for Religious Freedom

By Stephen Strehle

In 1786, our state passed the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom, which disestablished the Anglican Church. The statute rejected the notion of supporting certain religious denominations and excluding certain people by law from participating in the political process, at least based on their profession of faith. The statute made a monumental contribution to the cause of liberty in the state and helped inspire the disestablishment clause in the U.S. Constitution, which says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion."

Through this amendment, the country decided to distance itself from Mother England and reject the practice of exalting a certain denomination of the church through the power of the national government.

But neither document went so far as to establish an "a-theocracy" in its place and eliminate religious influence from the government. The Virginia Statute and the U.S. Constitution rejected any prior commitment to certain religious groups and their ongoing status, but never pretended that religion and its deconstruction provide no contribution to the people's concept of government or deserve no provisional representation in public.

Since those days, secular forces have worked to create their own hegemony by separating religious people, along with their ideas and symbols, from representation in the government. Secular jurists like Hugo Black and Felix Frankfurter found religion destructive to the government and sentenced its activities to the margins of society, using the United States Supreme Court to erect a "wall between church and state," which is "high and impregnable."

In subsequent cases, the court tried to maintain the wall, but its decisions lacked consistency in trying to do the impossible — separate religious affections from the nation's statutes (morals), symbols, ceremonies and policies. Eventually, in 1971 the court admitted its wall was more like a "line," which seemed "blurred, indistinct, and variable," and in recent cases, it has shown more sympathy toward religious people by granting them some access to public facilities and funding.

Today the court's decisions no longer display the open hostility of the wall, but still labor under an unfair and unclear distinction that seeks to privilege secularity.

This is why the citizens of our state need to support a New Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom. Secularism is now the enemy of religious freedom, not the Anglican Church.

The new statute is needed to update the old in light of the current threat to religious liberty and provide clear direction to the nation as it did in the past. The purpose of the statute is found in granting religious people access to the public square and recognizing the importance of religion in our civil lives.

The statute rejects the muddled thinking of the Supreme Court in its attempt to define, distinguish and untangle what is secular and sacred, playing a ridiculous name game. It finds a better and fairer distinction by rejecting any guarantees that ensure a permanent place of privilege for any specific religious profession, while honoring and representing the valuable contribution of religion in shaping the civil government.

All of this might not matter if the government stayed within its original, limited role, but the situation has changed dramatically. In an age of large and increasing government, religious people can no longer sit back in their decreasing margin in society and watch their communities fold while the state promotes secularity.

The time is right to press the issue with the election of politicians like Barack Obama and Tim Kaine, who recognize the importance of their own religious affections in shaping their political lives.

You can check out the new statute and its rationale at our Web site: newvastatute.org. Please join us and help our effort to pass the statute.


Strehle is an associate professor of philosophy and religion at Christopher Newport University. He has written a number of books and articles, the latest of which, "The Egalitarian Spirit of Christianity: The Sacred Roots of American and British Government," was published by Transaction Publishers.

The Doctor Will See All of You Now

Governor Romney's Universal Health Care Becomes Law in Massachusetts

By Phyllis Schlafly

You are sitting in a doctor's waiting room with eight other sick patients and the nurse announces: The doctor will see all of you now — at the same time. That's how the Boston Globe recently described shared visits that are being used to cope with the long waits now customary in Massachusetts.

Ted Kennedy and Barack Obama are planning that the new Democratic Congress's first order of business will be to extend the Massachusetts health-care mistake to all 50 states. Like other legislative rush-acts (i.e., the 2007 amnesty bill and the 2008 bailouts), details are currently withheld to avoid giving members of Congress and the public adequate time to analyze the bill before the vote is called.

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Obama Names NY Housing Commissioner to Head HUD

From OneNewsNow
By Philip Elliot

President-elect Barack Obama on Saturday named New York City housing commissioner Shaun Donovan to lead the Department of Housing and Urban Development, turning to a former Clinton administration aide with a national reputation for developing affordable housing.

Obama praised Donovan's record at the New York City Department of Housing Preservation and Development, where he managed a $7.5 billion plan that put a half million New Yorkers in affordable housing. The Harvard-educated architect also kept foreclosures away from New York's low- and moderate-income home ownership plan, with just five foreclosures out of 17,000 participating homes.

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Avery Cardinal Dulles, Requiescat In Pace

Avery Cardinal Dulles, 1918–2008

From First Things
By Joseph Bottum

Word has reached us that Avery Cardinal Dulles, S.J., died here in New York early this morning.

Created cardinal for his theological work by John Paul II, Avery Dulles was one of the great figures of the twentieth century: a theologian, an intellectual, a teacher, a writer, a lecturer, and a kind and gentle man.

In his long life, he wrote more than 700 articles and twenty-two books, and it is hard to imagine how anyone today can fill the roles he played in the Catholic world and American public life. As the disease that took his life progressed, his final months were a trial that took away his powers to speak, write, and move. But he seemed, in those months, to live even more serenely, more spiritually, and more beautifully. May God welcome him home.

Former SC School District Official Sentenced to Two Years in Jail for Fraud Scheme

From US Department of Justice

A former South Carolina school district official was sentenced to serve two years in jail and to pay $468,496 in restitution for using the mail to submit fraudulent applications for E-Rate funding on behalf of Bamberg County School District One in Bamberg, S.C., the Department of Justice announced today.

Cynthia K. Ayer, the school district’s former technology director, pleaded guilty on April 30, 2008, to committing mail fraud by submitting applications containing false information to the E-Rate program. She requested funds she was not entitled to and caused Universal Service Administrative Company (USAC) to mail her a $25,243 check made payable to her company, Go Between. Ayer was previously indicted by a federal grand jury in Columbia, S.C., on April 20, 2006. She pleaded guilty to a mail fraud charge of the indictment. Ayer will pay the restitution to USAC.

"Today’s sentencing demonstrates the Department’s resolve to hold accountable individuals who subvert the competitive process and frustrate efforts to help children in our nation’s economically disadvantaged schools," said Deborah A. Garza, Acting Assistant Attorney General in charge of the Department’s Antitrust Division.

The E-Rate program subsidizes the provision of Internet access and telecommunications services, as well as internal computer and communications networks, to economically disadvantaged schools and libraries. The program was created by Congress in the Telecommunications Act of 1996 and is administered by USAC, a non-profit corporation, under the auspices of the Federal Communications Commission.

The charges in the indictment resulted from an ongoing federal investigation of fraud and anticompetitive conduct in the E-Rate program. The investigation was conducted jointly by the United States Attorney’s Office for the District of South Carolina and the Antitrust Division’s Atlanta Field Office, with the assistance of the Federal Communications Commission Office of Inspector General.

As a result of the Antitrust Division’s investigation into fraud and anticompetitive conduct in the E-Rate program, a total of seven companies and 17 individuals have pleaded guilty or have been convicted and found guilty or entered civil settlements and have paid, agreed to pay, or been sentenced to pay criminal fines and restitution totaling more than $40 million.

Anyone with information concerning fraud or anticompetitive conduct in the E-Rate program should contact the Atlanta Field Office of the Antitrust Division at 404-331-7100.

Under-Performing Schools Praised for Educational Quality

From OneNewsNow
By Pete Chagnon

Three-hundred schools were recently honored in Washington, DC, as "No Child Left Behind-Blue Ribbon Schools," but one advocate for school choice says the tribute might have been a bit premature.

Under No Child Left Behind (NCLB), public school administrators must administer a yearly standardized test to all students in order to show progress as the students advance through the grade levels. If the students fail to show adequate progression, then the school gets put on a list of "failing schools."

Dr. Vicky Murray, a visiting scholar with the Independent Women's Forum, says the so-called Blue Ribbon schools that were recently honored in DC may not be blue-ribbon quality.

"I'm looking at schools that did receive the Blue Ribbon distinction in 2007 and have everything going for them, but students in at least one grade in one subject -- at least a quarter of those students or more -- did not test proficient in a course subject," she points out.

Murray is also surprised that these schools are "low poverty" schools and fears that parents could be misled into thinking that schools that were honored are educating their children. She believes a way to enhance NCLB would be to require more course-level proficiency tests in addition to the already required reading and math tests, adding that the real solution would be to provide parents with an exit strategy from schools that fail to perform.

Pro-Life World Coming to the Defence of Luxembourg Monarch’s Stand Against Euthanasia

From LifeSiteNews
By Hilary White

The US-based Alliance Defence Fund (ADF) has announced they will be launching a legal challenge to a new law in Luxembourg legalizing euthanasia. Last week, the world was shocked when the parliament of the tiny but venerable European state of Luxembourg proposed to strip its head of state, the Grand Duke Henri, of his veto powers when the latter announced he would refuse to give royal assent to the law.

The ADF, a network of Christian attorneys, announced today that attorneys were standing ready to offer pro bono legal assistance to physicians willing to bring suit regarding the constitutionality of the law.

ADF Legal Counsel Roger Kiska, who is based in Europe, said, “Everyone deserves a chance to recover. The proposed legislation does not allow for that, and we believe it is unconstitutional.”

Kiska warned Americans that the “culture of death does not stay contained within foreign borders.”

“American courts are increasingly pointing to the laws of foreign countries in their own decisions.”

A proposal brought forward by Luxembourg’s Minister of State, Jean-Claude Juncker, to change the constitution to remove the veto powers of the Grand Duke has been approved by the country’s Constitutional Commission. The proposal would change the constitution so that the signature of the Monarch would no longer be necessary for a law to take effect. The Grand Duke has said that for him this issue is a “question of conscience.”

Should the euthanasia law come into effect, Luxembourg will become the third country in the European Union to legalize the practice. The proposed law will allow doctors to kill patients diagnosed as “terminally ill” if the patient requests it and two doctors and a panel of “experts” agree.

Luxembourg has a population of under half a million people in an area of approximately 2,586 square kilometres, but is significant for its historical importance. Although it is officially a secular state, Luxembourg’s population is predominantly Roman Catholic, with 87 percent professing membership in the Church. Its head of state, the very popular Grand Duke Henri de Luxembourg, is one of the last European monarchs with concrete ruling powers.

A letter to the Luxembourg monarch from Human Life International lauded the Duke’s determination not to be party to the legalisation of euthanasia in his country. Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer, STL, president of Human Life International (HLI), said that the action of His Royal Highness is a courageous one in the face of international opposition.

Fr. Euteneuer wrote, “Please accept on behalf of all the associated member organizations of Human Life International in eighty countries our greatest admiration for your courage in refusing to sign the legislation legalizing euthanasia in Luxembourg.”

“Your well-formed Catholic conscience is a precious gift that honours the Royal Family of Luxembourg, as one of the greatest responsibilities of the monarchy is the duty to resist demagoguery and all attacks on public morality.

“You have our deepest admiration and support in this battle to respect life. Thank you for the magnificent example that you have given to all the heads of state in this difficult period of history.”

This week, Monsignore Ignacio Barreiro, the head of the Rome office of Human Life International, attended a demonstration in support of the Duke’s decision at the offices of the Luxembourg embassy in Rome. He told LifeSiteNews.com that the issue is important because it is an example of a man acting according to a “rightly formed conscience.”

“His Royal Highness should be praised,” he said, “for having taken a stand in defence of life, and acting according to his rightly formed conscience.”

“It’s very, very important to insist that the only conscience that has rights, that has to be followed, is one that is rightly formed,” in accordance with objective moral norms.

News media is calling the Luxembourg situation an “unprecedented” constitutional crisis; in fact, however, it is not the first time a Catholic monarch has had his legal powers removed for his refusal to accede to the desires of anti-life campaigners. In 1990, King Baudouin I of Belgium, described as a deeply religious Catholic, refused royal assent to a law that legalised abortion.

The Belgian constitutional problem was “solved” when King Baudouin asked the government to declare him temporarily “unable to reign” to allow him to avoid signing. Baudouin’s monarchy was suspended for a day, during which all members of the government signed the bill. The next day the government declared that Baudouin was capable of reigning again and he was reinstated. After Baudouin’s death, Belgium went on to become a world leader in the Culture of Death, expanding abortions and legalising euthanasia.

Politics in the Anti-Christian Age

"False messiahs only appeal to societies that have abandoned the True One"

From Chronicles

By Gregory M. Davis

So what is the real significance of Barack Obama’s victory? Pundits’ fingers and tongues have been flying, of course, scoring the triumph in a variety of ways: the terrible legacy of slavery and racism has been dealt a conclusive blow; the Democratic Party has displaced the Republicans as the party of Middle America; the nation has rejected the pro-war policies of the last seven years; etc., each with its grain of truth. At the same time, shell-shocked Republican fingers are pointing: McCain was too old; it was the financial crisis; it was Bush; it was Iraq; it was Tina Fey. But the real reason that the near-nobody Barack Obama bested the war hero and veteran senator John McCain was that the latter’s campaign was insufficiently messianic. More important than the black or white or Jewish or Hispanic vote, Obama took the messiah vote, that burgeoning segment of the electorate consciously or unconsciously looking for a savior, an ersatz Christ figure, who will deliver them from the oppressive burden of post-Christian existence.

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Obama's Atomic Umbrella: U.S. Nuclear Strike If Iran Nukes Israel

From Haaretz
By Aluf Benn

U.S. President-elect Barack Obama's administration will offer Israel a "nuclear umbrella" against the threat of a nuclear attack by Iran, a well-placed American source said earlier this week. The source, who is close to the new administration, said the U.S. will declare that an attack on Israel by Tehran would result in a devastating U.S. nuclear response against Iran.

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Global Warming Freeze?

From The Washington Times
Commentary By David Deming

President-elect Barack Obama recently declared his intention to mitigate global warming by enacting a cap-and-trade policy that would reduce carbon emissions 80 percent by the year 2050.

But the last two years of global cooling have nearly erased 30 years of temperature increases. To the extent that global warming ever existed, it is now officially over.

This year began with a severe spell of winter weather in China. Observers characterized it as the largest natural disaster to hit China in decades. By the end of January, blizzards and cold temperatures had killed 60 people and caused millions to lose electric service. Nearly a million buildings were damaged and airports had to close. Hong Kong had the second-longest cold spell since 1885. A temperature of 33.6 degrees Fahrenheit was barely higher than the record low of 32 degrees F set in 1893.

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South Carolina Car Dealer Gets National Attention for Radio Ads

O.C. Welch Ford/Lincoln/Mercury in Hardeeville, South Carolina has been going through rough times, and President O. C. Welch decided that something had to be done. He put out five different radio spots on local airwaves recently and they have become the talk of talk radio throughout America.

God References Added to Capitol Visitor Center

From The Christian Post
By Katherine T. Phan

Congressional committees have agreed to include references to "In God We Trust" and the Pledge of Allegiance to the newly opened Capitol Visitor Center thanks in part to efforts from the Congressional Prayer Caucus and Virginian Senator J. Randy Forbes.

Before the $621 million attraction opened last Tuesday, the Architect of the Capitol came under fire from Forbes and other conservative lawmakers like Senator Jim DeMint of South Carolina, who protested factual inaccuracies and the omission of historical religious content in the Center.

During an initial tour of the 580,000 square feet Center in September, DeMint had noticed that the phrase "E. Pluribus Unum" — Latin for "from many, one" — was erroneously described as the national motto rather than "In God We Trust."

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Created Equal: How Chistianity Shaped The West

In its flagship publication, Imprimis, Hillsdale College has reprinted a speech that best-selling author Dinesh D'Souza delivered at their National Leadership Seminar in Colorado Springs. Mr. D'Souza has thought deeply and written eloquently about the Christian roots of our culture and their importance in securing our rights, freedoms and human dignity. As the battles between Christians and secularists heighten during the Christmas season, this speech is an important reminder that the struggle is about much more than nativity scenes at the courthouse and Christmas carols at the school assembly; at stake are the most fundamental values of Western civilization.

Created Equal: How Chistianity Shaped The West

By Dinesh D'Souza

IN RECENT YEARS there has arisen a new atheism that represents a direct attack on Western Christianity. Books such as Richard Dawkins’ The God Delusion, Christopher Hitchens’ God Is Not Great, and Sam Harris’ The End of Faith, all contend that Western society would be better off if we could eradicate from it the last vestiges of Christianity. But Christianity is largely responsible for many of the principles and institutions that even secular people cherish—chief among them equality and liberty.

When Thomas Jefferson wrote in the Declaration of Independence that “all men are created equal,” he called the proposition “self-evident.” But he did not mean that it is immediately evident. It requires a certain kind of learning. And indeed most cultures throughout history, and even today, reject the proposition. At first glance, there is admittedly something absurd about the claim of human equality, when all around us we see dramatic evidence of inequality. People are unequal in height, in weight, in strength, in stamina, in intelligence, in perseverance, in truthfulness, and in about every other quality. But of course Jefferson knew this. He was asserting human equality of a special kind. Human beings, he was saying, are moral equals, each of whom possesses certain equal rights. They differ in many respects, but each of their lives has a moral worth no greater and no less than that of any other. According to this doctrine, the rights of a Philadelphia street sweeper are the same as those of Jefferson himself.

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Former Muslim Makes Film on Prophet Muhammad

Following on the heels of Dutch politician Geert Wilders' film on Islam, another Dutch politician who is also a former Muslim has made a film entitled "An Interview with Muhammad. Ehsan Jami's "Interview with Muhammad" is less confrontational, but has provoked worldwide Muslim rage and puts his life at risk.

Twenty-three-year-old Ehsan Jami is a member of the council of the small Dutch town of Leidschedam-Voorburg.

In the 15 minute film Mr. Jami interviews the prophet Muhammad, discussing his life and the ways the Koran has been interpreted by his followers.

According to Jami, "Muslims should interpret the deeds of Muhammad differently, that's what I hope, that's what I try to do. The realization has to come with their conscience, with a reformation."

"Crook County:" The Audacity of Corruption

America will be hearing much more of the "Crook County" political machine exposed today. It is the machine that formed and promoted the President-elect, his chief-of-staff, and the incoming White House staff. Rick Moran sums up the audacity of its corruption.

"Staggering" Corruption by Blagojevich

It just boggles the mind. Trying to sell a senate seat (person is identified only as "candidate #5")? Speculation who that might be centers on Jesse Jackson, Jr. who wanted Obama's seat so bad he could taste it. Also, there are indications he approached the Obama camp with a similar offer, probably in connection with the early front runner for the seat Valerie Jarrett. This from Politico :

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich was captured on tape saying that unless he received “something real good” for the appointment of a top adviser to Barack Obama to fill the president-elect’s Senate seat he would appoint himself, according to the criminal complaint.

“Unless I get something real good [for Senate candidate 1], s***, I’ll just send myself, you know what I’m saying,” Blagojevich was taped saying on November 3rd, the day before Election Day.

Blagojevich added that the Senate seat: “is a f***ing valuable thing, you just don’t give it away for nothing.”

The complaint does not mention her name, but the description makes clear that Blagojevich is referring to Valerie Jarrett, a senior campaign adviser to Obama who has been tapped as a top White House aide.

“By this time, media reports indicated that Senate Candidate 1, an adviser to the President-elect, was interested in the Senate seat if it became vacant, and was likely to be supported by the President-elect,” the complaint states.

Obama most likely convinced Jarrett to take a job as his advisor in the White House rather than get caught up in what he surely realized was an attempt by Blagojevich to bribe his campaign. Then there's the incredible deal Blagojevich tried to strike with the Service Employees International Union (SEIU):

The complaint also details Blagojevich's discussion of trading Jarrett's appointment for the top job at the Change to Win labor federation; Change to Win's key sponsor, the Service Employees International Union, backed Jarrett.

Says the complaint:

HARRIS said they could work out a three-way deal with SEIU and the President-elect where SEIU could help the President-elect with ROD BLAGOJEVICH’s appointment of Senate Candidate 1 to the vacant Senate seat, ROD BLAGOJEVICH would obtain a position as the National Director of the Change to Win campaign, and SEIU would get something favorable from the President-elect in the future.

For those wondering if Obama was stupid enough to get involved in such dealings, you can forget about it. Obama likely already knew of Blagojevich's incredible corruption because of his relationship with Tony Rezko, the convicted Chicago political fixer who was a valuable associate of both Obama and Blagojevich. In fact, it came out at Rezko's trial that Obama was present during a couple of meetings where Rezko alluded to his "pay for play" scheme that has now ensnared the governor.

Obama no doubt gave Blagojevich a wide berth after learning about how interested the prosecutors were in the governor's wheeling and dealing.

Another charge against the governor - surreal in its affrontery - was Blagojevich trying to get the Tribune to fire several members of their editorial board in exchange for help in selling one of the Trib's most valuable properties - the Chicago Cubs baseball team. To think that Blagojevich actually believed he could accomplish the brazen attempt to silence his critics is beyond belief.

But it is the selling of the senate seat that has everyone buzzing today - and rightly so. It evidently involves not only some high profile politicians but also the president elect's staff and a major union backer of Obama. It is unknown at this point whether any of these parties actually entertained offers from Blagojevich nor how serious they took the governor's promises. It should be interesting as the names and circumstances leak out - as they almost surely will.

This is the most breathtaking corruption of high office that I have ever heard of. It not only calls into question Blagojevich's morals but his mental health. With the feds swarming about him and his cronies he offered to sell a senate seat? Not just to one person but evidently several? The bespeaks a lack of contact with reality - or a streak of hubris so wide that the governor actually believed he was invulnerable.

The UK: Last Call for Democracy

From The Brussels Journal

Sometimes I marvel at the assumption of the British public, that no matter how bad things get, the country will somehow never turn into a tin pot dictatorship. Perhaps this belief is part of the residue of the British Empire. It seems impossible that a country that once ruled half the world, could itself hit bottom. But if history repeats itself, it also tells us to expect the unexpected. Cuba was synonymous with the casino until the Revolution, and Germany with the cabaret as Nazism was marching to power. Today, Britain leads the world in multiculturalism and political correctness, yet has more CCTV cameras than any other country in the world. And a government that shouts about human rights is determinedly undermining the most basic of freedoms.

In the last few years alone, anti-terror laws have been routinely invoked by local councils, to enable them to spy on residents, for such trivial reasons as checking if rubbish bags (US: trash bags) have been put out on the wrong day. Compulsory ID cards linked to a central database, and containing fifty categories of personal information, including biometrics, will be introduced in 2010. As unveiled in the Queen’s speech, police will also soon be able to criminalize anyone who has ever been abroad, but does not produce identification on request.

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Liberal Episcopalians Want More Homosexual Clergy

From OneNewsNow

The Episcopal Diocese of Los Angeles has joined seven other dioceses in passing a resolution asking the church to let lesbians as well as homosexual men become bishops.

The vote at the diocesan convention rejected the Episcopal Church's de facto moratorium on electing homosexual bishops since its 2003 consecration of Bishop Gene Robinson of New Hampshire, who lives with his same-sex partner. The resolution will be considered at the Episcopal Church's national convention next July.

The Los Angeles diocese also expressed support for homosexual "marriage" with the creation of the "Sacramental Blessing for a Life-long Covenant."

Obama Education Pick Sparks Conflict

From Associated Press
By Libby Quaid

President-elect Barack Obama has not signaled what he will do to fix the country's failing schools, but his choice of education secretary will say a lot about the policies he may pursue.

Debate is simmering among Democrats over whom Obama should name.

Teachers' unions, an influential segment of the party base, want an advocate for their members, someone like Obama adviser Linda Darling-Hammond, a Stanford University professor, or Inez Tenenbaum, the former state schools chief in South Carolina.

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Italy’s Most Prominent Muslim Convert to Catholicism to Establish Party to Defend “Europe’s Christian Values”

From LifeSiteNews
By Hilary White

A well-known convert to Catholicism from Islam has announced that he will be starting a new European political party that will uphold “the sanctity of life of every human being.” Magdi Allam, an Egyptian journalist living in Italy, said that he and others will run in European Parliament elections on June 7, 2009 for a new party called Protagonists for Christian Europe.

“The party,” he said, “will be committed to promoting and defending Europe’s Christian values.” It will “fill the ethical void” that he says exists in Italy and in Europe and will be based on the “Judeo-Christian roots of Europe.” These values “must be recovered and affirmed with clarity now more than ever” in response to the threats of “savage capitalism, relativism and the spread of Islamic extremism,” Allam said.

He warned against the growing incursions of Islamic law in Europe, which, he said, represent a threat to the traditional Christian family structure, “as is occurring already in England, where decisions by private Muslim courts regarding polygamy are indirectly beginning to be legitimized.”

He wrote recently of his conversion to Catholicism: “On my first Easter as a Christian I not only discovered Jesus, I discovered for the first time the face of the true and only God, who is the God of faith and reason.” He has received numerous death threats from Islamic extremists since his baptism.

Allam, who was baptised and received into the Catholic Church in a well-publicised Easter Vigil ceremony at St. Peter’s Basilica by Pope Benedict XVI this year, is a long-time supporter of Israel and was honoured last year by the American Jewish Committee. Author of the Italian best-seller, “Long Live Israel - From the Ideology of Death to the Civilization of Life: My Story,” he has continued to defend Israel despite the fact that the Islamic Palestinian authority Hamas condemned to death in 2003.

Allam was exposed to Christianity early in life, being raised in part by a member of the Catholic religious order, the Comboni Missionary Sisters, and later sent to a Catholic boarding school in Egypt - the Institute of Don Bosco - for junior high and high school. He is a deputy editor of Milan-based Corriere della Sera newspaper, regarded in Italy as a paper with a conservative editorial position.

Christian College Students Arrested at Underground Churches

From OneNewsNow
By Allie Martin

Persecution against Christians continues to increase in China, this time focusing on college-age students.

China Aid Association (CAA) has learned that from the end of September through early November, large numbers of police were dispatched to raid house church gatherings in Beijing and in areas near college campuses in Hangzhou. More than 400 Christian college students were arrested and interrogated.

Four house church leaders were sentenced to "re-education" through labor for one to one-and-a-half years. Katherine Cason, a spokesperson for CAA, says most of the crackdowns targeted future leaders of the underground church, who were also college students.

"The students came from 14 different universities, and so the school officials were called and then the students were actually questioned by their respective university officials, forced to write statements...guaranteeing they would not meet for religious events again" she explains. "And all of these students were of adult age; they were all over 18, [the age at] which, according to Chinese law, they're allowed to choose what religion they'd like to follow."

Cason, among other Christians, believes the large-scale persecution is part of the government's efforts to limit citizens' religious freedoms after the 2008 Olympic Games, which concluded in late August.

The Priests -- "Ave Maria"

Post-American Century: The Emergence of a New World Order?

Dr. Robert D. Crane was a key player when America's foreign policy of the last half century was being established. He is a co-founder of the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and was the principal foreign policy adviser to Richard Nixon from 1962 until he assumed the presidency in January 1969. He was then appointed Deputy Director for Planning at the National Security Council, a position he held for one day until an old nemesis and the Council's Director, Henry Kissinger, fired him.

Crane, who is a cousin of former Republican US Representatives Phil and Dan Crane, is also an American Muslim who has been an activist in Muslim affairs since the early 1980's. He heads his own research center, the Center for Policy Research, located in Santa Fe, New Mexico and is an editor for the online magazine The American Muslim.

In October Dr. Crane gave an extraordinary talk at the London Muslim Centre. That talk provides an overview of the American foreign policy establishment and the policies that they are imposing on the world. Crane confirms all the worst fears of paleo-conservatives -- that an unelected elite operating above politics, yet shaping the policies of both political parties, is moving the world toward what Henry Kissinger calls the "new architecture" of one-world government.

Whatever one may think of Crane and his views, this is a "must read" article for anyone interested in geo-politics and the forces that are shaping a "new world order." Dr. Crane's address entitled "Post-American Century: The Emergence of a New World Order?" was delivered at the London Muslim Centre on October 19, 2008, at a seminar convened by The Centre for the Study of Terrorism with the Islamic Forum for Europe.

A Spiritual Reflection for Advent

SECOND SUNDAY OF ADVENT

Is 40:1-5,9-11 -- 2 P 3:8-14 -- Mk 1:1-8

Preparing for Christ's Coming: Repentance
By Harold A. Buetow, PhD, JD

People have for a long time alternatively loved and hated living in cities. One poet said that the builder of cities was Eros, the spirit of life, but another spoke of "the hum of human cities" as torture. When people get filled up with the dirt, corruption, and crime of cities they move out; at other times, impressed with cities' convenience, culture, and nearness to other people, they move back. In the long span of history, suburbs are a relative newcomer.

It's difficult to fathom why in the time of Jesus the people left relatively comfortable cities like Jerusalem to go out into the desert to hear John the Baptist. Despite the stirring and spine-tingling opening words of today's Good News, sometimes the Good News seems to have a packaging problem. In New Testament times the "Good News," or Gospel, had come to mean in particular political good news, one being the visit of a king to one of his subject cities. In the ancient world such a visit could mean pardons, the promise of new buildings, and other benefits.

Nothing in today's Gospel looked much like good news. That desert was one of the most abandoned places in the world. Its deep gulches, arid limestone soil, and rocky precipices looked warped and twisted. Its days were unbearably hot, its nights terribly cold.

John's food was locusts and wild honey. The locusts supplied his body's need for protein, the honey its requirement of sugar. Whereas locusts are unlikely candidates for an American dinner menu, that's in part the result of cultural eating habits. Americans consume by the millions less clean-living animals such as lobsters and oysters. In the bayous of Louisiana, some people eat a stew of nutria, which is a water-dwelling rodent. One United States cookbook on strange foods has recipes for things like rodents, pigeons, reptiles, sharks, insects, and fish sperm.

Locusts remain high-protein foods that nourish people in other countries. A young man in Korea, hearing of the Baptist's menu, said, "Ugh, that's disgusting! I hate honey!" Bushmen of Africa's Kalahari desert eat cockroaches. Crickets and termites are standard in other parts of Africa; termites, ounce for ounce, have twice the protein of sirloin steak. In Bali, butterflies and moths, lightly toasted, are staple fare. In Thailand and elsewhere, plump, juicy, high-protein, low-fat dragonfly larvae are considered a delicacy. In China, people eat camel hump, dog, cat, raw monkey brains, snake, armadillo, and bear paw -- and make most of it taste good. In Japan, grilled snake meat is eaten; in Mexico, fried caterpillars; in Samoa, baked bat; in Turkey, charcoal-grilled lamb testicles.

John's skin was like leather, his feet strong and hard, his face emaciated and stern, his hair never cut or shaved, and his body wiry. His clothes were a loose weave of camel's hair, tied about his waist by a leather belt. No political marketer would permit John to appear in public looking like that today.

Another side of John caused some of the people to think that he was the Messiah; his remarkable austerity, which struck the imagination; the very suddenness of his appearance; his mighty voice which shook the people from their listlessness; and the fact that there had been no prophet for about 400 years. John's self-sacrificing way of life resulted in a piercing eye, a majesty of bearing, a voice of authority together with a touching humility.

John's message was present not only in his words but in his whole life: The man was the message. The time of Jesus was a time of elegance for the rich. That a messenger should make paths straight (v.3) by filling in the valleys and cutting into the hills (Is 40:4) was the custom of kings. A herald would precede a king on a journey, to forewarn the inhabitants of his arrival so that they might thus smooth out their ill-kept roads.

John's essential message was repentance. This would be an important message of Jesus, too. Repentance doesn't mean only regret for the past or the performance of penance, but in addition a change of mind and heart, a new direction of life, and a new beginning, in keeping with the will of God. Its outward sign for both John and Jesus was baptism. John's baptism was an external sign and no more. The Jews were familiar with ritual washings like that. Symbolic washing and purifying was part of the very fabric of Jewish life, as we know from the regulations in the Book of Leviticus (11-15) and from part of the Pharisees' criticisms of Jesus. All of this is, of course, different from Jesus' Baptism, which is a Sacrament containing the Holy Spirit.

St. Mark, the first of the Gospels to be written, shows us that Jesus' story didn't begin with his birth on earth, but began in the mind of God long before. Mark reminds us that what he is presenting is the Gospel of Jesus Christ. The word "Christ" is not a surname, and it means "Anointed One" or "Messiah." To his contemporaries Jesus, whose name means "Savior," would have been referred to as Jesus the Son of Joseph, to signify whom they thought his father to be, or Jesus the Nazarean, indicating his city of origin, as later with Francis of Assisi, Catherine of Siena, and others.

Mark calls Jesus the "Son of God," These opening words are special: They fling us right into the middle of Jesus' reason for coming into this world; they make us want to read on. Mark tells us about it here in the very first verse of his Gospel, and again at the end, when the soldier who stood facing him on the cross will declare that this man was truly the son of God! (15:39).

Even in early Christianity, though, not all the disciples of John the Baptist followed his advice. As with us when things go wrong, they wondered where God was in all of this, and became discouraged because justice didn't seem to be triumphing. Many of John's followers didn't become Christians. These were a difficult problem for the primitive Church.

The vision of what can happen for those who live by God's word is contained in Isaiah, especially in passages like today's First Reading. This is the part of Isaiah that is set most beautifully to music by Handel in his Messiah. It's the part of Isaiah that Mark was quoting in the beginning of his Gospel in today's reading. It was written when the Exile in Babylon was about to end, and the people of Israel about to be set free from their captivity. To capture the joy and excitement of the time, the sacred writer tried to rekindle the vision of the great events of the first Exodus.

Isaiah's command in the first verse, to give comfort, sets a tone of mercy. The beautiful injunction to speak tenderly (v. 2) indicates that the prophet is to speak to the heart, like the deeply-felt words with which a lover woos his beloved. But Jerusalem at this time was in shambles, hardly able to listen to God's words -- like us when we're wrapped too much in pain.

Isaiah's phrase about the glory of the Lord (v. 5) promises a wonderful manifestation of God's redeeming presence, like what we have in the wonder of the undeserved enthralling gift at Christmas. The remaining verses (9-10) move with a mounting crescendo to the point where we fear not to cry out the good news. The climax is God as both powerful conquering hero and gentle shepherd-king who is close to his people (v. 10f), a familiar figure to the Jews. One of the most moving modern uses of this passage of Isaiah was Martin Luther King's "I Have a Dream" sermon, pleading for freedom and equality for all forgotten peoples, a true messianic expectation.

Reconciling our vision with God's sometimes seeming absence from our lives is what today's Second Reading is about. Written in the tradition of St. Peter, probably after the turn of the first century, it's the last book of the Bible to be written. Two generations had come and gone since Jesus and, contrary to expectations, the Lord hadn't returned. Many people were disillusioned.

The passage reminds us that Jesus' comings other than the first Christmas may seem like delay. We associate delay with a tactic of bureaucracy, and we don't like it whenever we're its victims. As the letter reminds us, however, time isn't the same to God as to us: A thousand years to us are as a day in the sight of God. Perhaps the author got his statement from Psalm 90, which says to God that a thousand years in his sight are as yesterday. To God, time is vertical: that is, all time is always present. To us, on the other hand, time is horizontal: that is, Saturday follows Friday, eleven o'clock follows ten, December follows November. So when we do wrong we're causing Jesus' sufferings in the past, in the present, and in the future.

And though all of our life -- not God's -- is a waiting, an Advent, we can't hold God to our time-table: He will come. In the case of the Lord's coming into our lives -- at the death and at the end of the world -- it's not delay; it's God's patience. And God's patience is for our benefit: God doesn't want anyone to perish (v. 9), and we who live in the order of time have with every day an opportunity, a gift of God's mercy. The "day of the Lord" (v. 10), a phrase we find throughout the First Testament, offers a larger hope.

For us to put off hearing and acting upon John the Baptist's message of repentance, however, isn't like the patience of God; that is delay. We delude ourselves if we think that our experience is the reality, and all of these lessons a dream. Just as the earth which we think so solid is really a group of giant plates underground, whose movements produce the turbulence of earthquakes and volcanoes, so Advent reminds us that we don't live on firm time but on giant shifting epochs whose transitions mark the advents of God.

Think, for example, of the consequences of unprepared-for volcanic eruptions. The volcano of Santorini, near Crete, in 1600 B.C., exploded with a force that spelled the end of the entire Minoan civilization. In the eruption of Mt. Vesuvius near the Roman city of Pompeii in A.D. 79, many thousands of victims died. When Mount Tambora near Java erupted in 1815, it caused summer crops in France to fail, snow in New England in June, and fields white with frost on the Fourth of July in the United States South.

With the explosion of Krakatoa, a 2700-foot-high volcano in Indonesia, in 1883, the noise shattered the eardrums of sailors 25 miles away, and the eruption set off seismic sea waves -- tsunamis -- that swept miles inland on nearby islands and killed some 36,000 people. In 1906, when the rocky masses of the San Andreas fault heaved violently, it distinguished San Francisco as the only United States city ever to have been destroyed by earthquake; fire raged uncontrollably for three days until extinguished by rain; four square miles in the center of town were gone, many lives lost, and incalculable property damage caused. San Francisco's 1989 earthquake was minor in comparison. Seismologists warn that the next great rumbling of the San Andreas fault may take a vastly greater toll.

When Mount St. Helens in Washington State in May 1980 erupted with a force equivalent to more than 20,000 Hiroshima-sized bombs, it blew down forests as if the trees were toothpicks, some as far as 17 miles away. The outbursts of Mount Pinatubo in the Philippines in June 1991 blasted up to 20 million tons of sulfur dioxide into the stratosphere. Hot pumice rained from the sky, blotting out the sun. An observer said it looked like the end of the world.

We can be certain that this present age of which the Bible speaks will one day for all of us change into what the Bible calls "the age to come." The character of the age to come is going to depend on what we do in this present age. There comes a day when Christ will break into the life of each of us. Our life is a perpetual advent for that. Let's not delay to prepare for the coming of the Lord.


From All Things Made New: Homily Reflections or Sundays and Holy Days, by Harold A. Buetow, published by Alba House.

The Choir of Winchester Cathedral "Gabriel's Message"

FreedomWorks Launches Grassroots Campaign to 'Make it DeMint'

From International Business Times

FreedomWorks believes Senator Jim DeMint (R-SC) is the best choice for the open seat on the Senate Finance Committee. The Senate Finance Committee is one of the Senate's most influential, with jurisdiction over taxation, healthcare, trade, and entitlement programs.

It is up to Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY) to appoint a Republican Senator to the open seat.

FreedomWorks is running radio ads across Kentucky asking citizens to contact Senator McConnell's office to register support for Senator DeMint. The radio ads will run in the Louisville, Glasgow, Lexington, and Somerset markets.

Senator Jim DeMint has a legislative record of fighting for fundamental tax reform, consumer-driven healthcare, free trade, proposing bold solutions for Social Security, and reining in spending. But he can do even more by attacking the issue at its choke-point; from inside the Senate Finance Committee.

On the Senate Finance Committee, Senator DeMint would continue to lead the charge against abusive earmarks and fight attempts to raise taxes. He would help keep conservatives on principle and fight massive left-wing expansions in government.

To help support Senator DeMint's bid, FreedomWorks issued a call to action and grassroots activists from across the country are calling and emailing Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell to 'Make it DeMint!' FreedomWorks also set up the web site www.makeitdemint.com to lead the effort, and will hand deliver a petition signed by thousands of Americans to Senator McConnell's Washington office.

FreedomWorks President Matt Kibbe commented:

"It is clear that Senator Jim DeMint is the choice of grassroots activists. The next Congress will debate and vote on once in a generation sized expansion of government and will also face trillion dollar deficits. Taxpayers need to have an advocate of limited government in the critical Senate Finance Committee. There is no one better for the task than Jim DeMint. He has earned his reputation the hard way by challenging other Senators' pet projects and profligate ways. DeMint did not come to Washington to go along to get along, he came to Washington to cut wasteful government and protect taxpayer dollars. FreedomWorks and our half million activists are proud to support Senator Jim DeMint."

Freedom Imperilled

From The New Criterion

On Democratic Despotism

“It is seldom,” David Hume wrote, “that liberty of any kind is lost all at once.” That admonitory sentence furnishes one of the epigraphs for Friedrich Hayek’s The Road to Serfdom, first published in 1943. How is freedom faring in the United States today? Peter Robinson, a scholar at the Hoover Institution at Stanford, provided a melancholy précis in “The Loss of Individual Liberty,” a column that appeared in Forbes last month. Mr. Robinson recalled a dinner he shared with Milton Friedman several years ago. He complimented the venerable economist on his role in transforming the intellectual landscape, especially in fostering widespread appreciation of the inextricable connection between free markets and individual liberty. Friedman refused the compliment. “We may have won the intellectual battle,” he said, “but in practical politics, it’s difficult to see that we’ve had any effect at all.” Even a few years ago, it would have been easy to react as did Mr. Robinson at the time: to think that Friedman was responding with false modesty. After all, had not the power of the free market been demonstrated beyond cavil in America’s triumph over the Soviet Union, its unparalleled prosperity, its culture of political freedom?

That, as Mr. Robinson puts it, was then. Now, today, we have witnessed an expansion of government into every corner of economic and social life that has been as sudden as it has been extraordinary. Having just lived through a presidential election in which the winning candidate cheerfully admitted that his goal was “to spread the wealth around,” we might think Mr. Robinson, a well-known conservative, was making a partisan point. He wasn’t. Over the last several years, he observes, we have witnessed, under a Republican administration, a prescription drug program that “represents the biggest expansion of the welfare state since the Great Society.” At the same time, Congress sharply increased domestic spending and passed “the biggest farm bill in history, a massive transfer of resources to the 2 percent of the population still engaged in agriculture.”

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CNN Poll Has Huckabee and Palin Leading Potential 2012 GOP Presidential Picks

From LifeNews
By Steven Ertelt

The third major poll since the elections to survey Republican voters on their preference for a presidential candidate in 2012 finds Mike Huckabee and Sarah Palin topping the list. Palin led in the two previous polls while Huckabee finished in the top three along with Mitt Romney.

The CNN poll asked Republicans to pick from among a group of several candidates and Huckabee received the support of 34 percent of the Republicans and Republican-leaning voters in the poll.

Palin garnered 32 percent while Romney placed third with 28 percent.

Looking at other candidates, former House Speaker New Gingrich gets 27 percent, 23 percent back pro-abortion former New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, and Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal gets 19 percent.

Oddly enough, the CNN poll finds Palin doing better with men while Huckabee fares better with women.

“It might come as a surprise to some that Palin does better than Huckabee among GOP men but that Huckabee beats Palin among Republican women,” says CNN Polling Director Keating Holland. “Palin's strength is also concentrated among older Republicans, but Huckabee may have a slight edge among conservative Republicans."

Huckabee has a 9 percentage point lead with evangelical Republicans while Palin leads by 7 with those who are not evangelicals.

A November Zogby poll found 24.4 percent said Palin was their top choice to face Obama in 2012. Romney came in second with the support of 18 percent, Jindal placed third with 15.6 percent, Huckabee came fourth with 9.7 percent, and 8.2 percent of Republicans said someone else was their top choice.

The Zogby poll found Palin stealing Huckabee's thunder among Republican religious conservatives and working class voters. Huckabee's highest GOP totals still come from born-again Christians (15%) and weekly churchgoers (18%), but those numbers are about half of those drawn by Palin.

The Zogby survey follows a Gallup poll LifeNews.com reported on showing Palin leading and Romney and Huckabee second and third.

Gallup interviewed Republicans and Republican-leaning independents and asked whether certain potential candidates should run or not.

Some 67 percent of Republicans said Palin should run, helping her top the list. Another 62 percent wanted to see Romney run, and 61 percent favored Huckabee.

The rest of the potential names came in at under 50 percent, in some cases because they are not as well known. Jindal received the backing of 34 percent of Republicans but his numbers were low because 30 percent of GOP voters had no opinion and are apparently not familiar with him.

Archbishops Hold Canterbury Summit Over Threat of Schism

From TIMESONLINE
By Ruth Gledhill

Anglican archbishops will hold an emergency meeting with the Archbishop of Canterbury today to discuss the unfolding schism in the Church in America.

The meeting between Dr Rowan Williams and the primates of Nigeria, Kenya, Rwanda, Uganda and the Southern Cone comes two days after conservatives in the US unveiled the constitution and canons of the new Anglican Church in North America.

With a membership of 100,000, drawn from disaffected members of the Episcopal Church of the US and from churches that broke away over the women’s ordination dispute, leaders of the new “province” claim they are not splitting from the 75 million-strong Anglican Communion.

A formal proposal arguing for recognition as the 39th province of the Anglican Communion will be put before the primates at their meeting in Alexandria, Egypt, at the end of January.

However, a statement from Lambeth Palace last night made it clear that no request for recognition as a province had been made and seemed to indicate that this was unlikely.

The Palace said there are “clear guidelines” set out for the creation of new provinces. “Once begun, any of these processes will take years to complete,” it said, making it clear that in the case of the US conservatives no such process had begun.

The new church remains relatively small compared to the 2.2 million members of the Episcopal Church, which sparked the crisis in 2003 with the consecration of the openly gay Bishop of New Hampshire, the Right Rev Gene Robinson.

Today Archbishop Peter Akinola of Nigeria, Bishop Gregory Venables of the Southern Cone (South American states), Archbishop Benjamin Nzimbi of Kenya, Archbishop Emmanuel Kolini of Rwanda and Archbishop Henry Orombi of Uganda will discuss the crisis with Dr Williams at The Old Palace, his home in Canterbury, in a meeting arranged at their initiative.

Bishop Venables said the meeting had been in the diary for some time. He said the founders of the new province wanted to maintain unity. He said: “It would be unthinkable if those who believe in original Anglicanism found there was no place for them in the new Anglicanism.”

However, Jim Naughton, of the Episcopal Church denied charges of unorthodoxy. He said: “There are small antigay Christian denominations all over the US and we have existed in the midst of these denominations for ages. At this point, this is just another of those small antigay Christian denominations. They are distinguished from other small antigay churches in the US by their global pretensions, but the relationships they have cultivated with a handful of like-minded leaders in Africa do not really change the dynamic here in the US.”

533,000 Jobs Lost in NOV -- But the Feds Imported Another 140,000 Foreign Workers the Same Month!

From NumbersUSA
By Roy Beck

With the federal government reporting another giant loss of jobs for November, isn't it time to stop the massive importation of foreign workers?

Non-farm employers in the U.S. eliminated 533,000 jobs in November. At the same time, in a typical month the feds give out approximately 140,000 new work permits and green cards to foreign workers.

How can this make any sense for the American people's own government to be recruiting more competitors for a dwindling number of jobs? Month after month as hundreds of thousands of Americans lose their jobs, the feds keep pumping another 140,000 new foreign workers into the laborforce.

The new foreign workers compete with the laid-off and underemployed highly skilled Americans in most professions and occupations, but most foreign workers compete directly in the construction, service and manufacturing industries where unemployment is the highest and where Americans have the least margin of financial security.

The feds add workers in two major ways.

• The most recent government data show that the feds granted greencards to 744,531 new working-age permanent immigrants (age 20-64) in 2007. Every one of them can immediately apply for a job (as can many more immigrants who are below and above that age range).
• The Department of Homeland Security reports that in the fiscal year just ended it issued NEW work permits to another 912,735 foreign workers who are not permanent immigrants.

That adds up to an astounding rate of 1,657,266 foreign workers per year, and that doesn't count renewals on foreign work permits or the flow of illegal workers.

While the new Congress and President determine how to best spend a trillion dollars to stimulate more jobs, they should immediately in January suspend most foreign-worker importation. Limiting immigration mostly to nuclear families and our fair share of internationally recognized special needs refugees seems like the logical response to job-loss reports like the one today (Dec. 5).

Roy Beck is Founder & CEO of NumbersUSA

Russian Orthodox Patriarch Dies

The Russian Orthodox Patriarch, Alexei II, died this morning at the age of 79.

• Russian Orthodox Church Patriarch Alexy II dies (AP)

• His Holiness the Patriarch: Biography (Moscow Patriarchate)

• Death of Alexy II a tragic and sorrowful event – Putin

• Russian Orthodox Church Council to elect Patriarch within six months

• Medvedev expresses condolences on Patriarch's demise

• Gorbachev shocked by Alexy II death

• Holy Synod to hold emergency session on Saturday

• Patriarch expected to be buried in Epiphany Cathedral in Moscow as he wished

Conservative Anglicans Fight for 'Orthodox Historic Faith'

A new Anglican church has officially been formed in North America.

From OneNewsNow

By Allie Martin

Earlier this week, conservatives within the Anglican Church unveiled a draft constitution for a new entity. That move comes as conservatives feel alienated by the liberal leanings of the Episcopal Church USA. Five years ago, tensions erupted when Episcopalians consecrated the first openly homosexual bishop, V. Gene Robinson of New Hampshire.

Robert Lundy, a representative for the American Anglican Council, believes the time for a new Anglican Church in North America is long overdue. "It's finally come to the point where so many people have left the Episcopal Church and the Anglican Church of Canada that they want to come together and...join together for purposes of mission and say that we're fighting for the orthodox historic faith," he explains.

The network of conservative Anglicans is known as The Common Cause Partnership. According to a press release, the movement unites 700 congregations representing approximately 100,000 people.

The Anglican Church in North America plans to assemble next summer in Bedford, Texas, where those who choose to join the new Anglican church will have the opportunity to ratify a provisional constitution and the first set of canons that were unveiled Wednesday in Wheaton, Illinois.

Vatican Official Defends Rights of Parents to Educational Choice

From LifeSiteNews

By Hilary White

An “inclusive” education means that which respects the rights of parents to choose the kind of education that shall be given to their children, a Vatican Cardinal told the U.N.’s International Conference on Education last week.

Citing the UN’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights, Archbishop Silvano Tomasi, the Holy See's permanent observer at the U.N. offices in Geneva, said, “Educators should remain aware that they carry out their service in cooperation with parents, who are the first 'educational agency' and have the priority right and duty to educate their children. This convergence of efforts is an evident application of the basic principle of subsidiarity.”

The concept of subsidiarity in Catholic social teaching means that the needs of the individual are best served by the stratum of society closest to him, starting with the family. Catholic teaching holds that it is the purpose of the state to safeguard the family and the family’s rights. This doctrine is directly opposed to the high-level statist concepts of social theory that are currently at the fore in the UN and European Union, where governments are creating increasingly tightly regulated social conditions.

Tomasi’s assertion on the rights of parents is directly opposed by some European countries, most notably Germany, which retains a Nazi-era law forbidding homeschooling. In recent years, parents who have chosen to shield their children from the heavily secularised, and sexualised, state education have been hounded in the courts and had their children seized by the state.

Archbishop Tomasi also criticized the emphasis on “efficiency” in education and in society in general, saying that the global financial crisis is a “concrete lesson” in what happens when a society subordinates the needs of the individual to utilitarian ideals.

"‘Inclusion’ works through the promotion of a society that respects the dignity of every human person and goes beyond criteria of efficiency.”

“Only the person that conceives relations with others beyond criteria of productivity and control can value reality in a balanced perspective and assume appropriate responsibility.”

Britain: Catholic Bishops Bowing to Islam Deserve Swift Kick

From Tundra Tabloids

Catholic Bishops in England and in Wales bow to Islam by calling for Catholic schools to accommodate Muslim prayer rooms and religious washing facilities.

And while these Bishops are down on the ground groveling before the Islamic community, it would be a most opportune time to complete the spectacle by delivering to each and every one of them a swift kick in the seat of their pants for good measure. Stupid is as stupid does.

Daily Mail.co.uk:

Muslim prayer rooms should be opened in every Roman Catholic school, church leaders have said. The Catholic bishops of England and Wales also want facilities in schools for Islamic pre-prayer washing rituals.