"Senator John McCain could never convince me to vote for him. Only Hillary Clinton or Barack Obama can cause me to vote for McCain." - Thomas Sowell Random Thoughts

Have Our Leaders Lost Their Minds? by Newt Gingrich - "Hitler Tamed By Prison" - The Unexplainable Desire of Elites to Lie to Themselves As a historian, I look for clues for how to manage our present from how we've managed our past. One thing history shows is that some elites have a dangerous and unexplainable desire to lie to themselves. A case in point: In 1924, Adolph Hitler was released from a German prison after serving time for conspiracy to overthrow the German government. Nine years before he took power and led Germany on an irrevocable course toward world war and a campaign of systematic genocide against Jews, Gypsies, Catholics and others, the headline in the New York Times was:  "Hitler Tamed By Prison" - Read closely. The article concludes on this deluded note: "[Hitler's] behavior during imprisonment convinced the authorities that [he], like his political organization, known as the Volkischer, was no longer to be feared. It is believed he will return to private life and return to Austria, the country of his birth." When the Negotiations Don't Work, What Are We Prepared to Do? As America looks ahead to the swearing in of a new president next January, we need now, more than ever, leaders who resist the temptation to delude themselves about the nature of our enemies. As a young Senator with little foreign policy experience, Barack Obama faces a unique challenge. As I write this, Senator Obama is traveling abroad seeking to convince the American people that he has the leadership ability to be commander in chief. Senator Obama has also repeatedly assured us that he, too, will negotiate with regimes like Iran. But the question we owe to ourselves is to ask Senator Obama and our current State Department: When negotiations don't work, what are you prepared to do? Talking isn't a policy, it's a process. And talking to people who have vowed your destruction is at best a futile and at worst a dangerous process. /Just ask the Israelis. After greeting Samir Kuntar with a hug and a kiss when he returned to Lebanon last week, Hezbollah leader Sheikh Nasrallah declared, "The time of defeat is long gone. Today is the time of victory."

Glenn Beck: DNC takes a gas holiday - I've read a lot of incredible stories today. Here's one from the DNC host committee in Denver, tanking up at city gas pumps to avoid paying the $0.40 a gallon in combined Federal and State gas taxes. Let me repeat that. The DNC would like to save money for their convention and so they have decided that they're going to buy it from the State gas pumps. You know where the police officers and State troopers and everybody else, you know, the snow removal trucks, where they gas up. The DNC has struck a deal that they can gas their cars up during the convention and they've already started this, to avoid the $0.40 a gallon gas tax. From the same people who said the gas tax won't make any difference, the gas tax means nothing. I mean, is there economists that have approved this, because this is fantastic. The gas tax doesn't make a difference. Now, I'm sure they'll counter with saying, we're buying so much gas, which makes sense, because now when you think about it, you realize that they did suspend the gas tax for all the trucking companies ‑‑ oops. No, no. They didn't do that. But they did cut it for small business people because small business people are ‑‑ um, no, no, they didn't do that, either. This is the same party that wanted to temporarily suspend the Federal portion of the gas tax, 18.4 cents a gallon for the summer, remember, because it doesn't really add up to very much. That's what they ‑‑ that's what they said when they were against suspending the Federal gas tax, but I think this goes even further. They also say that the republicans are doing it at the GOP convention. Well, do you know what? Two wrongs don't make a right. The GOP at this point says that they're not doing that. They can show you the gas bills where they're, you know, buying it at private pumps.

How Big Can Government Get? by Terence Jeffrey - Three studies published this year put some perspective on just how big our government has grown, and how much bigger it could grow in the near future.  ...Government, the Tax Foundation notes, is now the most expensive thing in our lives. ...In fact, because it is based only on tax revenue and does not include deficit spending or the cost of regulation, the Tax Freedom Day calculation does not even reflect the entire cost of government. ...By ATR's calculation, Americans will need to work 21 days this year to cover the costs of complying with local and state regulation, 42 days to cover the costs of federal regulation, 50 days to cover the cost of local and state spending, and 84 days to cover the cost of federal spending. That puts "Cost of Government Day" on July 16, more than halfway through the year.

Time for Governmentaholics Anonymous by Terry Paulson - “Hi, my name is Bill, and I’m a governmentaholic!” After listening to Barack Obama’s economic plan, you can expect the number of addicted Americans to grow. He calls for substantial government subsidies for healthcare, college, foreclosure relief, pension plans and alternative energies. He favors tax cuts for middle-class workers and tax increases for top earners and businesses. Those tax increases will need to be very high to pay for his massive increases in spending and his proposed takeover of healthcare. But, like any addiction, the costs keep going up the more citizens are addicted. Too many Americans have a need for a 12-step program to help break their addiction to government assistance. Unfortunately, some Americans don’t even realize that Democrats are selling a dangerous addiction that further undermines personal responsibility and freedom while creating more government dependence and out-of-control spending.

A Purpose-Driven Debate? No one can blame Sen. John McCain for wanting to reach out to evangelicals. The latest poll from the Pew Forum shows the Arizona Senator lagging seven percentage points behind President Bush's support from this valuable constituency in 2004. Although 61 percent of white evangelicals still prefer McCain to Democratic nominee Sen. Barack Obama (Ill.), more of them are "undecided" (12 percent) compared to this point in the last two elections. Both candidates will attempt to shore up vital support from this community at a forum hosted by Rev. Rick Warren of California's Saddleback Church. On August 16, McCain and Obama will appear separately to discuss what Warren describes as "main areas of focus"-AIDS, poverty, human rights and the environment. While the Left would have us believe that this is the faith community's new agenda, a candid discussion of traditional values issues such as life, marriage, and religious freedom is what American voters need and deserve. Surely Rev. Warren won't ignore the most crucial initiative in his state (and perhaps the entire nation) as California determines the fate of marriage this November. Saddleback Church has the rare opportunity to crystallize the debate over abortion and homosexuality before FRC Action's Values Voter Summit in September. The candidates should be asked: 1. What is your position on man-woman marriage? 2. Where do you stand on partial-birth abortion and the killing of nearly-born babies? 3. Would you sign the Freedom of Choice Act into law? 4. How can the federal faith-based initiative survive without hiring protections for religious charities? Additional Resources NYT: McCain and Obama Agree to Attend Megachurch Forum

Can you be a Christian and Democrat? - "You've got to help me with a question," said the caller. "Tell me now, can you in any way be a Christian and vote Democrat?" I have been doing talk radio for 15 years or so, smack dab in the middle of the Bible Belt. Believe me when I say that, through the years, my listening audience has considered the social agenda of the Democrats and voiced the same question on the air at least a couple of hundred times. • Abortion on demand • The homosexual agenda • Slow dismantling of the Judeo-Christian tradition, not the least from left-wing judicial nominees • Public monopoly of education and a secular humanistic curricular emphasis • Welfare dependency (government is your "daddy") This is not the stuff of Jesus, I dare say. So, can you be a Christian and vote Democrat? My question for the caller. "Hey, man, what does it mean to be a Christian -- to be saved?" There was momentary silence on his end so I just continued. "We are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus. Period. The Republican Party cannot save, although that is news to some. The Democratic Party can't save, and that is obvious to most. But politics or political positions cannot and will not save us. For we are saved by grace through faith in Christ Jesus." ...Political power and ideological platforms cannot save. And the Kingdom of God is bigger than our corridors of power and our political solutions. Even so, my faith, grounded hopefully in Holy Writ and an intimate relationship with God, leads me to be pro-life and to hold a strong view of heterosexual marriage and a conviction that the Judeo-Christian worldview belongs in our nation's schools. I believe that disciplined liberty, not license, is the path to a healthy society with a hopeful future and that a dependency mentality virtually enslaves the poor and impedes them from knowing that hope.

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• Wage Reports For Illegal Workers A Huge Hidden Cost To Social Security
• Since last month, over 2,500 seniors have signed our Petition to Congress Protesting Illegal Alien Amnesty 'Guest Worker' Legislation and U.S. Social Security Totalization With Mexico. Have you?
• Press Release: Loophole Could Cost You Future Social Security Benefits

• Seniors Lose 51% Of Buying Power
• Ask the Advisor: Medicare Premium Taking Big Chunk of My COLA
• Notch Bulletin: The Notch Fairness Act Gets its 125th co-sponsor
• In the last few weeks over 1,200 seniors have signed the Notch Fairness Petition. Have you?

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"Politically Correct" - (Politically Correct) Examples and results of using unrighteous deception which lack Biblical Moral Virtue. Remove the Light (Jesus) and darkness (politically correct secular humanism) inevitably ensues.

(Click links for complete columns or reference.)

First corrupt their young minds, then subject their health to the "natural" results of that corruption (as politicians, school administrators, judges, and worse, parents appease because of "political correctness.")

Federal Manual Issued on Religion in Workplace - A new manual for handling religious diversity issues in the workplace has been issued by the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. A commission spokesman says the "consolidated and updated" guidelines were issued as a result of the growing number of religious discrimination allegations. Last year, there were about 2,900 religious discrimination filings with the EEOC, up 13 percent from 2006 and double the number in 1992. For companies with more than 15 people, federal law requires employers to "reasonably accommodate" an employee's religious beliefs. Employers are exempt only if they can show the accommodation would cause an "undue hardship" on business. On the Net: www.eeoc.gov/policy/docs/religion.html

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