News and commentary (News & Commentary)

(Click links for complete columns)

California Supreme Court Betrays 'We the People' on Marriage Today the California Supreme Court imposed, through judicial fiat, so-called same- sex marriage on Californians, thus totally disregarding the sanctity of marriage and the will of the people. In 2000, Californians adopted Proposition 22 to protect marriage and maintain its definition as a union between one man and one woman, and expressly prohibiting the state from recognizing same sex marriages. To ensure that marriage is protected and the voice of the people is heard, a constitutional marriage amendment must be placed on the November ballot and national efforts need to be made to generate a federal constitutional marriage amendment. The decision must be removed from the hands of judicial activists and returned to the rightful hands of the people.

Oil Prices Too 'Complex'? By Thomas Sowell - Some people think that the reason the public misunderstands so many issues is that these issues are too "complex" for most voters. But is that really so? ...What about those "obscene" oil company profits we hear so much about? An economist might ask, "Obscene compared to what?" Compared to the investments made? Compared to the new investments required to find, extract and process additional oil supplies? Asking questions like these are among the many reasons why economists have never been very popular. They frustrate people's desires for emotionally satisfying explanations. If corporate "greed" is the explanation for high gasoline prices, why are the government's taxes not an even bigger sign of "greed" on the part of politicians-- since taxes add more to the price of gasoline than oil company profits do? ...Senator Barack Obama clearly understands people's emotional needs and how to meet them. He wants to raise taxes on oil companies. How that will get us more oil or lower the price of gasoline is a problem that can be left for economists to puzzle over. A politician's problem is how to get more votes-- and one of the most effective ways of doing that is to be a hero who will save us from the villains.

Congressional Problem Creation By Walter E. Williams - Most of the great problems we face are caused by politicians creating solutions to problems they created in the first place. ...Congress' solution to our energy supply problems is not to relax supply restrictions but to enact the Energy Independence and Security Act of 2007 that mandates that oil companies increase the amount of ethanol mixed with gasoline. Anyone with an ounce of brains would have realized that diverting crops from food to fuel use would raise the prices of a host of corn-related foods, such as corn-fed meat and dairy products. Wheat and soybeans prices have also risen as a result of fewer acres being planted in favor of corn. A Purdue University study found that the ethanol program has cost consumers $15 billion in higher food costs in 2007 and it will be considerably higher in 2008. Higher food prices, as a result of the biofuels industry, have not only affected the U.S. consumer, they have had international consequences as seen in the food riots that have broken out in Egypt, Haiti, Yemen, Bangladesh and other nations. What's the congressional response? On May 1, Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., chairman of the Joint Economic Committee, convened a hearing on rising food prices saying, "The anxiety felt over higher food prices is going to be just as widespread, and will equal or surpass, the anger and frustrations so many Americans have about higher gas prices." Congress' proposed "solutions" to the energy and food mess they've created include a windfall profits tax on oil companies, a gasoline tax holiday for the summer, increases in the food stamp program and foreign food aid. These measures will not solve the problem but will create new problems.

Green: The New Color of Catastrophe by Iain Murray - Is there an advert on TV that doesn’t claim the product or company involved is “doing its best for the planet” or something like that? I feel like I’m drowning in a sea of green every time a program goes to a commercial break. Yet the recent stories of food riots all over the world and wildfires in California should remind us that there’s a downside to environmentalism — a pretty big downside. It’s a downside I explore in my new book, The Really Inconvenient Truths: Seven Environmental Catastrophes Liberals Don’t Want You to Know About — Because They Helped Cause Them. The problem is the way liberal environmentalists work to achieve their policy aims.

The Politicians' Energy Crisis -- And Its Cure by Newt Gingrich - In this week's Winning the Future I am going to focus on how Washington has created the high energy prices Americans are paying and what we can do to bring them down.

Prescription For a Strong America by Thor H. Asgardson - We can´t exploit nuclear power or drill for oil in ANWR or the Gulf because Democratic members of congress have been bought and paid for by the most dangerous terrorists in America, the radical environmentalists... they are the American people´s deadliest enemies." Michael Reagan - It might be said that these radical environmentalists, are really communists in disguise, who would weaken our nation, by hook-or-crook. The emperor has no clothes, when this nation stands stark naked, stripped of all assets, and begging radical Islamic states for energy, and goodwill.

Congress to transform America to socialism? Henry Lamb - The classic definition of socialism is: government control of the sources of production. A bill now before Congress, H.R. 2421, will give the federal government absolute control over all sources of production. This bill, if enacted, will instantly convert the United States into a socialist nation. ...With all the wailing and gnashing of teeth about the current economic downturn, no one seems to be pointing to government's involvement in and mismanagement of the marketplace. Why Americans sat by and allowed government to take their freedom away piecemeal is a mystery posterity will surely ponder. Historically, Americans rallied behind whatever effort it took to keep socialism from overtaking this nation. Now, Congress is moving rapidly toward enacting a law that will effectively embrace socialism.

Is Obama really the man blacks need? By Star Parker - Religion for Senator Obama is not something too serious. It may satisfy some social needs and provide intellectual and emotional salve. But it doesn't translate into behavioral absolutes. ...In a recent column, Hentoff noted that, while in the Illinois State Senate, Obama voted against the Born Alive Infant Protection Act. This Act addressed cases where, during an abortion procedure, the live infant was actually born. The Act would have banned killing the living child. Responding to John McCain's remarks delivered the other day at Wake Forest University about law and judges, Obama contrasted McCain's pledge of "judicial constraint" with his own concept of legal activism. Obama said he'd seek out judges "who are sympathetic to those who are on the outside, those who are vulnerable, those who are powerless." Aside from this bizarre idea about the role of law, what irony there is in hearing this from a man with zero empathy for our most vulnerable -- the helpless infant in the womb. For the 90 percent of blacks who are casting votes for Obama, know that almost 50 million children have been aborted since Roe V. Wade in 1973, a third of which were black babies. Is this really the man whom our community needs?

Wesley Pruden: No one bothers to consider what those working whites in North Carolina, Indiana and the other big states that Mr. Obama couldn’t win find suspicious about the man from Illinois. Maybe it’s the company he keeps in Chicago, the crazy bigoted preacher, the unrepentant and unredeemed terrorists, the sleazy slumlords. Maybe the working stiffs don’t trust his wife, who decided America was OK only when it looked like Americans might reward her with a lease on a big house on Pennsylvania Avenue. Maybe it’s the mystery about the why and how he keeps so much hidden in the shadows. Maybe it’s the change they can’t believe in.”

FOR THE RECORD “In his victory speech after the North Carolina primary, Sen. Barack Obama...[defended] his stated intent to meet with America’s enemies without preconditions...: ‘I trust the American people to understand that it is not weakness, but wisdom to talk not just to our friends, but to our enemies, like Roosevelt did, and Kennedy did, and Truman did.’ That he made this statement, and that it passed without comment by the journalists covering his speech indicates either breathtaking ignorance of history on the part of both, or deceit. I assume the Roosevelt to whom Sen. Obama referred is Franklin D. Roosevelt. Our enemies in World War II were Nazi Germany, headed by Adolf Hitler; fascist Italy, headed by Benito Mussolini, and militarist Japan, headed by Hideki Tojo. FDR talked directly with none of them before the outbreak of hostilities, and his policy once war began was unconditional surrender. FDR died before victory was achieved, and was succeeded by Harry Truman. Truman did not modify the policy of unconditional surrender. He ended that war not with negotiation, but with the atomic bomb. Harry Truman also was president when North Korea invaded South Korea in June, 1950. President Truman’s response was not to call up North Korean dictator Kim Il Sung for a chat. It was to send troops... Sen. Obama is on both sounder and softer ground with regard to John F. Kennedy. The new president held a summit meeting with Soviet leader Nikita Khruschev in Vienna in June, 1961. Elie Abel, who wrote a history of the Cuban missile crisis (The Missiles of October), said the crisis had its genesis in that summit... Mr. Abel wrote, ‘There is no evidence to support the belief that Khrushchev ever questioned America’s power. He questioned only the president’s readiness to use it.’... It’s worth noting that Kennedy then was vastly more experienced than Sen. Obama is now. A combat veteran of World War II, Jack Kennedy served 14 years in Congress before becoming president. Sen. Obama has no military and little work experience, and has been in Congress for less than four years... History is an elective few liberals choose to take these days... The lack of historical knowledge among journalists is merely appalling. But in a presidential candidate it’s dangerous. As Sir Winston Churchill said: ‘Those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it’.” Jack Kelly

Indoctrination - (Education?)
Without a Heritage every generation starts over
Will our descendants know moral virtue?

(Click links for complete columns / footnotes)

Assaults on Teachers: Not Just for Crackers Anymore By Mary Grabar - One of the unwritten codes for white teachers teaching in public schools has been that when it comes time to discipline a black student, the task should be left to another black teacher or administrator. This is to avoid the possibility that the student might mistake the discipline for just another display of the Eurocentric-White-Power-That-Rules-the-World-and-Keeps-All-People-of-Color-Enslaved-Hegemony. Sometimes, however, a white teacher needs to make requests in the classroom, like telling a poor, disadvantaged student to turn off the blaring music on his iPod. There are classes and workshops for teachers on how to do this “sensitively.” ...But, some months earlier, when Burd asked a student to turn off his loud iPod, the 60-year-old teacher suffered a broken neck, brain damage, and a shoulder injury, his lesson for not making the request sensitively enough, apparently.

BRAVE NEW SCHOOLS 3rd-graders asked to help classmate in gender change Parents given 1-day notice of presentation explaining boy would now wear girl clothes - A Pennsylvania elementary school has angered parents by giving them one-day's notice of planned counseling sessions with 100 third-grade students to explain that one of their male classmates would soon begin wearing girls' clothing and taking a female name and to ask that they accept him as a girl and not make unkind remarks. The exercise in "social transition" was initiated by the boy's parents who approached the administration at Chatham Park Elementary School in Haverford Township asking that the school help in having their child's female identity find acceptance among his peers. After consulting experts on transgender children, the Haverford School District sent letters to parents advising them the school guidance counselor would meet with their children, reported the Philadelphia Inquirer.

Homosexual "Youth Pride Day" includes hardcore "gay" anti-religious propaganda. Speaker incites crowd to attack photographers. Your tax money at work again. - Pushing homosexual radicalism and anti-religious bigotry The "celebration" drew a huge crowd of hundreds of kids around a stage and several invited speakers. There was a main theme, which was constantly repeated: That the kids need to understand that they are being oppressed by our homophobic society, which doesn't not allow them to enjoy their true (gay) sexuality. The kids were given these (7) hardcore sexual propaganda handouts: (Including) "History of Saints Servius and Bacchus", handed out by a man dressed as a Catholic priest, claiming that these two Catholic saints were actually homosexual lovers.

To Those Students Who Stood Tall and Walked Out on the 'Day of Silence' (An Open Letter by Lee Taylor Former United Church of Christ Minister) ...You stood tall as heroes of democratic freedom, walking your talk, protesting gay activist hypocrisy, demanding to speak truth to the Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network and our public school system.  You have inherited a morally toxic society made possible by my generation, which by default has endorsed gay activism with all its self-centered, socially reckless and tragic consequences.  If you really are committed to a society where respect for the sacredness and dignity of human life once again becomes a way of life, if you will come to the rescue of the democratic institutions which represent the voice of our citizens and protect our freedoms, we will survive as a free democracy. Your courageous protest against pop culture perversion piety and its tactics of tyranny marks the beginning of a moral and civic revolution.

Extra, Extra...

ShowMeTheSpending.org a coalition of organizations who are working to establish "Google-government" websites where users can easily search for state spending information, including data on grants and contracts.

In Iran, Covert Christian Converts Live With Secrecy and Fear A draft Iranian law would mandate the death penalty for apostasy By Anuj Chopra - The government of President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad has introduced legislation before the Iranian Majlis that would mandate the death penalty for apostates from Islam, a sign that it will brook no proselytizing in the country.

Crouse to Testify on Capitol Hill Regarding United Nations Treaty Crouse said, "The problem is that the United States has not agreed to the obligations of the UN Security Resolution 1325. For instance, we have not ratified the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) or the Convention on the Rights of the Child. We have withdrawn from the International Criminal Court. The United States is not obligated to meet any commitments under these agreements nor do we have any of the obligations that are mentioned in H.Res.146." Crouse continued, "In the United States equal rights are protected under the Constitution and the Bill of Rights. The human rights provisions of the U.N. treaties are already available to citizens in the United States.

From http://www.earstohear.net/Separation/warnings.html:...

Apathy may result in our American descendents becoming unrepresented UN drones. The choice is either a government of the people, by the people, for the people, or a government of the unelected UN Security Council, by the Security Council, for the Security Council.

"My ardent desire is, and my aim has been...to comply strictly with all our engagements foreign and domestic; but to keep the U States free from political connections with every other Country. To see that they may be independent of all, and under the influence of none. In a word, I want an American character, that the powers of Europe may be convinced we act for ourselves and not for  others; this, in my judgment, is the only way to be respected abroad and happy at home." Letter to Partick Henry, 9 October 1775 - Reference: The Writings of George Washington, Fitzpatrick, ed., vol. 34 (335)

...“But if we are to be told by a foreign Power... what we shall do, and what we shall not do, we have Independence yet to seek, and have contended hitherto for very little.”  ... “There is a rank due to the United States, among nations, which will be withheld, if not absolutely lost, by the reputation of weakness.” George Washington letter to Alexander Hamilton, 8 May 1796 - Reference: The Writings of George Washington, Fitzpatrick, ed., vol. 35 (40)

"Foreign influence is truly the Grecian horse to a republic. We cannot be too careful to exclude its influence." and... “There is nothing absurd or impracticable in the idea of a league or alliance between independent nations for certain defined purposes precisely stated in a treaty regulating all the details of time, place, circumstance, and quantity; leaving nothing to future discretion; and depending for its execution on the good faith of the parties.” Alexander Hamilton

Some are now asking that instead of supporting a blatantly obvious corrupt and weak United Nations where a  consensus on almost all issues appears impossible, that instead, the U.S. should form alliances with like-minded nations encompassing virtue.

"Tis folly in one Nation to look for disinterested favors from another; that it must pay with a portion of its Independence for whatever it may accept under that character; that by such acceptance, it may place itself in the condition of having given equivalents for nominal favours and yet of being reproached with ingratitude for not giving more. There can be no greater error than to expect, or calculate upon real favours from Nation to Nation. 'Tis an illusion which experience must cure, which a just pride ought to discard." George Washington (Farewell Address, 19 September 1796) Reference: Washington's Maxims, 71.

See also http://www.earstohear.net/Archives/unagenda.html

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