TELLING IT LIKE IT IS !

Obama’s Not Exactly’s (Repost)

This is an example of how misinformed the people of America can be.  Or, maybe the word is stupid !!! … sorry, if the shoe fits.

IT SHOULD OPEN A LOT OF EYES.

1.) Selma Got Me Born – NOT EXACTLY, your parents felt safe enough to have you in 1961 – Selma had no effect on your birth, as Selma was in 1965. (Google ‘Obama Selma’ for his full March 4, 2007 speech and articles about its various untruths.)

2.) Father Was A Goat Herder – NOT EXACTLY, he was a privileged, well educated youth, who went on to work with the Kenyan Government.

3.) Father Was A Proud Freedom Fighter – NOT EXACTLY, he was part of one of the most corrupt and violent governments Kenya has ever had.

4.) My Family Has Strong Ties To African Freedom – NOT EXACTLY, your cousin Raila Odinga has created mass violence in attempting to overturn a legitimate election in 2007, in Kenya. It is the first widespread violence in decades. The current government is pro-American but Odinga wants to overthrow it and establish Muslim Sharia law. Your half-brother, Abongo Obama, is Odinga’s follower. You interrupted your New Hampshire campaigning to speak to Odinga on the phone. Check out the following link for verification of that….and for more.
Obama’s cousin Odinga in Kenya ran for president and tried to get Sharia muslim law in place there. When Odinga lost the elections, his followers have burned Christians’ homes and then burned men, women and children alive in a Christian church where they took shelter.. Obama SUPPORTED his cousin before the election process here started. Google Obama and Odinga and see what you get. No one wants to know the truth.

5.) My Grandmother Has Always Been A Christian – NOT EXACTLY, she does her daily Salat prayers at 5am according to her own interviews. Not to mention, Christianity wouldn’t allow her to have been one of 14 wives to 1 man.

6.) My Name is African Swahili – NOT EXACTLY, your name is Arabic and ‘Baraka’ (from which Barack came) means ‘blessed’ in that language. Hussein is also Arabic and so is Obama.
Barack Hussein Obama is not half black. If elected, he would be the first Arab-American President, not the first black President. Barack Hussein Obama is 50% Caucasian from his mother’s side and 43.75% Arabic and 6.25% African Negro from his father’s side. While Barack Hussein Obama’s father was from Kenya, his father’s family was mainly Arabs.. Barack Hussein Obama’s father was only 12.5% African Negro and 87.5% Arab (his father’s birth certificate even states he’s Arab, not African Negro). From….and for more….go to…..
http://www.arcadeathome.com/newsboy.phtml?Barack_Hussein_Obama_-_Arab-American,_only_6.25%25_African

7.) I Never Practiced Islam – NOT EXACTLY, you practiced it daily at school, where you were registered as a Muslim and kept that faith for 31 years, until your wife made you change, so you could run for office.
4-3-08 Article ‘Obama was ‘quite religious in islam”   http://www.wnd.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=60559

8.) My School In Indonesia Was Christian – NOT EXACTLY, you were registered as Muslim there and got in trouble in Koranic Studies for making faces (check your own book).
February 28, 2008.  Kristoff from the New York Times a year ago:  Mr. Obama recalled the opening lines of the Arabic call to prayer, reciting them with a first-rate accent. In a remark that seemed delightfully uncalculated (it’ll give Alabama voters heart attacks), Mr. Obama described the call to prayer as ‘one of the prettiest sounds on Earth at sunset.’  This is just one example of what Pamela is talking about when she says ‘Obama’s narrative is being altered, enhanced and manipulated to whitewash troubling facts.’

9.) I Was Fluent In Indonesian – NOT EXACTLY, not one teacher says you could speak the language.

10.) Because I Lived In Indonesia, I Have More Foreign Experience – NOT EXACTLY, you were there from the ages of 6 to 10, and couldn’t even speak the language. What did you learn, how to study the Koran and watch cartoons.

11.) I Am Stronger On Foreign Affairs – NOT EXACTLY, except for Africa (surprise) and the Middle East (bigger surprise), you have never been anywhere else on the planet and thus have NO experience with our closest allies.

12.) I Blame My Early Drug Use On Ethnic Confusion – NOT EXACTLY, you were quite content in high school to be Barry Obama, no mention of Kenya and no mention of struggle to identify – your classmates said you were just fine.

13.) An Ebony Article Moved Me To Run For Office – NOT EXACTLY, Ebony has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.

14.) A Life Magazine Article Changed My Outlook On Life – NOT EXACTLY, Life has yet to find the article you mention in your book. It doesn’t, and never did, exist.

15.) I Won’t Run On A National Ticket In ‘08 – NOT EXACTLY, here you are, despite saying, live on TV, that you would not have enough experience by then, and you are all about having experience first.

16.) Voting ‘Present’ is Common In Illinois Senate – NOT EXACTLY, they are common for YOU, but not many others have 130 NO VOTES.

17.) Oops, I Misvoted – NOT EXACTLY, only when caught by church groups and Democrats, did you beg to change your misvote.

18.) I Was A Professor Of Law – NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

19.) I Was A Constitutional Lawyer – NOT EXACTLY, you were a senior lecturer ON LEAVE.

20.) Without Me, There Would Be No Ethics Bill – NOT EXACTLY, you didn’t write it, introduce it, change it, or create it.

21.) The Ethics Bill Was Hard To Pass – NOT EXACTLY, it took just 14 days from start to finish.

22.) I Wrote A Tough Nuclear Bill – NOT EXACTLY, your bill was rejected by your own party for its pandering and lack of all regulation – mainly because of your Nuclear donor, Exelon, from which David Axelrod came.

23.) I Have Released My State Records – NOT EXACTLY, as of March, 2008, state bills you sponsored or voted for have yet to be released, exposing all the special interests pork hidden within.

24.) I Took On The Asbestos Altgeld Gardens Mess – NOT EXACTLY, you were part of a large group of people who remedied Altgeld Gardens. You failed to mention anyone else but yourself, in your books.

25.) My Economics Bill Will Help America – NOT EXACTLY, your 111 economic policies were just combined into a proposal which lost 99-0, and even YOU voted against your own bill.

26.) I Have Been A Bold Leader In Illinois – NOT EXACTLY, even your own supporters claim to have not seen BOLD action on your part.

27.) I Passed 26 Of My Own Bills In One Year – NOT EXACTLY, they were not YOUR bills, but rather handed to you, after their creation by a fellow Senator, to assist you in a future bid for higher office.

28.) No One on my campaign contacted Canada about NAFTA – NOT EXACTLY, the Candian Government issued the names and a memo of the conversation your campaign had with them.

29.) I Am Tough On Terrorism – NOT EXACTLY, you missed the Iran Resolution vote on terrorism and your good friend Ali Abunimah supports the destruction off Israel.

30.) I Want All Votes To Count – NOT EXACTLY, you said let the delegates decide.

31.) I Want Americans To Decide – NOT EXACTLY, you prefer caucuses that limit the vote, confuse the voters, force a public vote, and only operate during small windows of time.

32.) I passed 900 Bills in the State Senate – NOT EXACTLY, you passed 26, most of which you didn’t write yourself.

33.) I Believe In Fairness, Not Tactics – NOT EXACTLY, you used tactics to eliminate Alice Palmer from running against you.

34.) I Don’t Take PAC Money – NOT EXACTLY, you take loads of it.

35.) I don’t Have Lobbysists – NOT EXACTLY, you have over 47 lobbyists, and counting.

36.) My Campaign Had Nothing To Do With The 1984 Ad – NOT EXACTLY, your own campaign worker made the ad on his Apple in one afternoon.

37.) I Have Always Been Against Iraq – NOT EXACTLY, you weren’t in office to vote against it AND you have voted to fund it every single time.

38.) I Have Always Supported Universal Health Care – NOT EXACTLY, your plan leaves us all to pay for the 15,000, 000 who don’t have to buy it.

The Girl Scouts’ New Radicalism

Marcia Segelstein – 7/1/2008

The Girl Scouts of the USA have been on a steady, well-documented leftward slide for many years.  (More on that later.)  But this summer, the organization is about to take a giant leap even further in that direction.

The GSUSA is introducing a new “Girl Scout Leadership Experience,” essentially a new curriculum, titled “Journeys.”  The first series of books, one for every level of scouting, will be released this summer called “It’s Your World – Change It.”  As you may have guessed from the title, it’s all about girls “taking action.”

In the words of the Girl Scouts’ literature, the mission is for girls to “lead with courage, confidence, and character to make the world a better place.”  Sounds innocuous enough.  But the GSUSA leadership has some specific ideas about what exactly “making the world a better place” means.

For example, seventh- and eighth-grade cadettes will participate in an eight-session “Journey” called “aMaze,” in which “girls create ‘peace kits’ and learn how to create more peace in the world, one relationship at a time.”  It sounds sweet, but is there a lesson in there about peace often coming with a price?

The “Journey” for the oldest Girl Scouts is called “Your Voice, Your World: The Power of Advocacy.”  In it, “girls explore the rich and global history of women’s advocacy efforts and engages girls to become advocates in their communities.”  Advocates for what, you might well wonder.

Many adults associated with the Girl Scouts have expressed serious concerns about this new curriculum.  Promoting social activism, emphasizing the power of self, and jumping on the bandwagon of politically correct causes like global warming are further evidence to them of the organization’s ever-growing radicalism.The blueprint for this new curriculum came from the Girl Scouts Arizona Cactus-Pine Council, which decided they needed to be “re-founded.”  To oversee the process, they naturally hired facilitators — in this case, from the Ashland Institute, a consulting group with a distinctly New Age bent.

The Board of Directors and the Arizona Cactus-Pine Council went into a special retreat.  After engaging in a “collective reflective process called Open Space,” they decided that some radical changes were in order.  According to their own online material, “We are living in a crisis of the spirit in a war-torn world.”  The literature speaks of female empowerment.  It asks, “Could the Girl Scouts help birth the quality of women’s leadership that the world so desperately needs today?”

It continues:  “She [Tamara Woodbury, executive director of the Cactus-Pine Council] knew the time had come for a feminine approach to leadership in the world.  What better place than the Girl Scouts to help land the possibility — but how to do it in a feminine way?”  I really have no clue how Ms. Woodbury would define a “feminine approach to leadership in the world,” and can’t think why world leadership needs to be approached from a feminine or masculine perspective.  Unless, of course, one has a radical feminist point of view.

So the Arizona Cactus-Pine Council forged ahead to find a place where “preteens and teens learn to hear and trust their own inner guidance.”  As a Christian, I look to God for guidance, and pray that my children do, too.  “Inner guidance” sounds way too much like “do your own thing,” or “follow your heart,” rather than “do the right thing.”  In fact, the online literature suggests just that:  “Juliette Low [founder of the Girl Scouts] might say to us today, ‘Follow my spirit, not my footsteps.  Lead from the heart into the unknown.'”  An interesting place to want to take teenagers.

Here’s one of the Girl Scouts’ new values:  “Girls learn to quiet themselves, taking ‘full stop moments’ where they can connect with a silence that is perfect and pure, an internal blank canvas….The girls ‘find their own compass’ through a model that starts looking within to find their purpose, values and vision and ends with clear strategies, action and planning.”

In case you weren’t already clear on this, back in 1995, the Girl Scouts made it optional to include the word “God” in their official “promise.”  So it shouldn’t be a great surprise that now girls are supposed to look within, discover a blank canvas, and find their own values.  This isn’t God-optional.  This is anti-God.

Here’s “The Girl Scout Promise,” according to the GSUSA website:

“On my honor, I will try: to serve God* and my country, to help people at all times, and to live by the Girl Scout Law.”

The asterisk is explained at the bottom of the page:  “The word ‘God’ can be interpreted in a number of ways, depending on one’s spiritual beliefs.  When reciting the Girl Scout Promise, it is okay to replace the word ‘God’ with whatever word your spiritual beliefs dictate.”

That’s right.  Go right ahead and define “God” however you like.  Telling girls to look inside themselves for direction, especially teenage girls, is like advising them to wear a blindfold while driving.  So — to be clear — along with political correctness, the Girl Scouts have now fully embraced moral relativism.

But getting back to being anti-God, there is the matter of the “Covenant of the Goddess.”  It’s a Wiccan website which, among other things, describes their awards program.  There’s the “Over the Moon Award” for ages 8-11 and the “Hart and Crescent Award” for ages 12-18.  The awards are offered “to any young person…who is a member of any nature-oriented religion (Wicca, Druid, Asatru, Native American, etc.).”  What does this have to with the Girl Scouts?  The Girl Scouts recognize these awards, which may be worn on the Girl Scout uniform.

Criticism of the Girl Scouts is not new.  A few years ago, Kathryn Jean Lopez wrote a piece for National Review Online called “The Cookie Crumbles.”  Here are some highlights:

“Exercises [from a Senior Scout manual] include working through how the Girl Scout Promise and Law relate to such situations as ‘Suppporting a decision to pull a life-support system from a dying relative’ and ‘Ending a pregnancy.’  Some activities ‘you can do as a Girl Scout to address contemporary issues’ include ‘organiz[ing] an event to make people aware of gender bias’ or ‘help[ing] organize an Earth Day celebration.”

She cites the 1997 book On My Honor: Lesbians Reflect on Their Scouting Experience as being “filled with coming-of-age stories sparked by gay encounters in the Girl Scouts.”  The book includes an essay titled “All I Really Need to Know About Being a Lesbian I Learned at Girl Scout Camp.”  According to Lopez, “staffers writing in the book claim that roughly one in three of the Girls Scouts’ paid professional staff is lesbian.”

Then there is the “cozy relationship,” as columnist John Leo put it, between Planned Parenthood and a Girl Scout council in Waco, Texas.  He wrote, “The council gave a ‘woman of distinction’ award to the local chief of Planned Parenthood, who runs an abortion clinic in Waco….The [same] council also endorsed and helped to staff Planned Parenthood’s ‘Nobody’s Fool,’ an annual half-day sex-education program…offering sympathetic treatment of abortion, masturbation, and homosexuality.”  Only after protests did the council withdraw their endorsement of the sex-ed program.

It turns out that other Girl Scout councils in Nevada and Connecticut also had relationships with Planned Parenthood.  And, according to Concerned Women for America, one Girl Scout leadership manual “gives visits to health clinics like Planned Parenthood as an acceptable option for Brownie troops.  Brownies are for girls six to eight years old.”

In 1995, when “God” became optional in the Girl Scouts’ promise, a group of parents in Ohio had had enough.  Disillusioned with the increasingly secular leanings of the Girl Scouts, they started their own organization with about 100 members.  American Heritage Girls today has chapters in 34 states, with over 6,500 members.

Here is the American Heritage Girls’ oath:

I promise to love God, cherish my family, honor my country, and Serve in my community.

You’ll note that there’s no asterisk next to “God.”

Check out their website to see if there’s a chapter near you.  And if there isn’t, they’ll help you start one of your own.

After ten years as a producer for CBS News, forty-something years as an Episcopalian, and fifteen years as a mother, Marcia Segelstein considers herself a reluctant rebel against the mainstream media, the Episcopal Church (and others which make up the rules instead of obeying them), and the decaying culture her children witness every day. Her pieces have been published in “First Things,” “Touchstone: A Journal of Mere Christianity,” and “BreakpointOnline,” and she is a contributing editor for Salvo magazine.

In his book, “The Clash of Orthodoxies”, Princeton professor Robert George writes that matrimonial law reflects a moral judgment. That judgment is that marriage is inherently heterosexual, monogamous, and permanent – a union of one man and one woman. This judgment is based on both the biblical and natural law understandings – that marriage is a two-in-one flesh communion of persons. This communion is consummated and actualized sexually.

That is, marriage is made real by acts that are reproductive, whether or not these acts result in children. They unite the spouses as a single procreative unit. This organic unity is achieved even by infertile couples. Only a mated pair can be a complete organism capable of human procreation.

By contrast, homosexual acts cannot be procreative and cannot unite people organically. As a result, these acts cannot be marital, which means relationships integrated around them cannot be marriages. In other words, same-sex partners are physically incapable of marriage; it takes a man and a woman to become “one flesh.”

I can already hear the arguments your secular neighbors will make: “Okay, that’s your definition of marriage. Why should your views be imposed on everybody else?”

That is when we have to be ready with additional, non-religious arguments for traditional marriage. For instance, if we expand the meaning of marriage to include same-sex partnerships, on what grounds could we legitimately oppose marriages between three or more people. or weddings between siblings?

Remember, we are not just defending the Christian view of marriage. Since the beginning of recorded history, virtually every society and every major religion has revered and protected traditional marriage. Why? It is the institution that produces, nurtures, protects, and civilizes children. And marriage is the cornerstone of society’s foundational institution: the family.

If the proponents of same-sex “marriage” succeed in foisting it on America, marriage itself would be reduced to nothing more than a legal contract between two (or more) people. True marriage would be abolished, and the damage to our society would be incalculable.

These are the arguments we all need to learn to defend traditional, true marriage, particularly in those states where constitutional amendments are on the ballot this fall.

Same-sex “marriage” laws pose a threat to your religious freedom. Same-Sex ‘Marriage’ will harm Christians.

It is all about equal rights, the gay “marriage” lobby keeps telling us. We just want the right to marry, like everyone else. That is what they are telling us. But that is not what they mean. If same-sex “marriage” becomes the law of the land, we can expect massive persecution of the Church.

We need to understand that legalizing same-sex ‘marriage’ is not a stand-alone policy.  Once governments assert that same-sex unions are the equivalent of marriage, those governments must defend and enforce a whole host of other social changes.

The bad news is these changes affect other liberties we take for granted, such as religious freedom and private property rights.  Several recent cases give us a sobering picture of what we can expect if we do not actively embrace – and even promote – same-sex “marriage.”

For instance, a Methodist retreat center recently refused to allow two lesbian couples to use a campground pavilion for a civil union ceremony.  The state of New Jersey punished the Methodists by revoking the center’s tax-exempt status – a vindictive attack on the Methodists’ religious liberty.

In Massachusetts, where judges imposed gay marriage a few years ago, Catholic Charities was ordered to accept homosexual couples as candidates for adoption.  Rather than comply with an order that would be harmful to children, Catholic Charities closed down its adoption program.

California public schools have been told they must be “gay friendly. But it will not stop with public schools. Just north of the border in Quebec, the government told a Mennonite school that it must conform to provincial law regarding curriculum – a curriculum that teaches children that homosexuality is a valid lifestyle.   How long will it be before the U.S. government goes after private schools?

Even speaking out against homosexuality can get you fired. Crystal Dixon, an associate vice president at the University of Toledo, was fired after writing an opinion piece in the “Toledo Free Press” in support of traditional marriage . . . fired – for exercising her First Amendment rights!

Promoters of same-sex “marriage” seem to go out of their way to target Christian businesses and churches. Their goal is not the right to “marry,” but to punish anyone who disagrees with them.

Clearly, there is a spiritual battle going on here: Christians are under attack because they are a public witness to the fact that a holy God created us male and female, and we will always put obedience to Him and His laws above obedience to any earthly demand for loyalty.

The coming persecution of Christians is one more reason why we need to get involved with efforts to pass laws at the state and federal level defining marriage as a legal relationship between one man and one woman. We must protect, not only genuine marriage, but also many of the freedoms we now take for granted: freedom of speech, freedom of religion, freedom of association, freedom to use private property the way we see fit – all are under threat.

And we must tell our friends and neighbors why gay “marriage” is not just about equality: It is about forcing religious believers to accept the validity of the homosexual lifestyle – or else!

Spain Set to Extend Human Rights to Apes

Spain’s environmental committee approved legislation Wednesday that would grant apes the right to life and freedom. The Great Apes Project would extend human rights to chimpanzees, gorillas, orangutans and bonobos.

Wesley J. Smith, a senior fellow at the Discovery Institute, said human beings are being replaced as the premier species. “Now, we are merely one great ape among several others, each with minimum rights based on individual capacities rather than due to being members of the human species,” he wrote on his blog. “This is a disaster for universal human rights.”

Under the legislation, it would be illegal to keep apes for TV commercials, filming or circuses. Zoos would be required to drastically improve their conditions.

Maybe they will be voted to run Spain’s environmental committee? … O, they are already there!

“Survey Shows U.S. Religious Tolerance” was the headline of a New York Times article about the Pew Forum’s survey of America’s religious landscape. It found that Americans have acquired a “non-dogmatic approach to faith.” In fact, 70% of Americans who claim affiliation to a religious body – including Christians – agreed that “many religions can lead to eternal life.” Nearly the same percentage said that “there’s more than one true way to interpret the teachings of my religion.” WHAT?

What’s true of faith is also true of morals when 78% say that there are “absolute standards of right and wrong.” But only 29% say that they “rely on their religion to delineate these standards.” Instead, more than half of the respondents said that they rely on “practical experience and common sense.” As the Book of Judges aptly puts it, “every man did what was right in his own eyes” has become the practice of the day.

Not surprisingly, the media repeatedly used the word “tolerant” to characterize America’s religious beliefs.

But to be regarded as “tolerant” today no longer means extending “full rights of free speech and free expression” to those of all faiths. Instead, it appears that “tolerance” now requires what journalist Terry Mattingly calls a “certain doctrine of salvation,” that regards all “religious paths” as leading “to the top of the same eternal mountain.”

So, it is not possible anymore to debate religious truth claims respectfully. Instead, the new “tolerance,” which has become our ultimate civic virtue, requires abandoning all truth claims lest we “offend” somebody.

This applies everywhere: over the water cooler at work or even in presidential politics. When asked recently in a private meeting with religious leaders whether Jesus was the only way to salvation, Barack Obama reportedly said, “Jesus is the only way for me. I’m not in a position to judge other people.” Was Obama merely trying not to offend non-Christians, or did his answer reflect what he truly believes? This growing relativism is becoming rampant even among “Christians.”

The problem is that all religions make mutually exclusive truth claims. Either Jesus is, as He Himself said, “the only way to the Father,” or He is not. What Christians, Muslims, Jews, and Hindus say about the person and work of Jesus Christ cannot be reconciled. They cannot all be true.

It’s called the law of non-contradiction – it goes back to Aristotle: If proposition A is true – that is, if it conforms to reality – then proposition B, making a contrary claim, cannot be true as well.

We can trace our debased definition of “tolerance” back to French philosopher Jean-Jacques Rousseau who rejected any distinction between “civil” and “theological intolerance.” Rousseau did not believe that people can “live at peace with those [they] regard as damned.” He saw Christian truth claims as being intolerant. Specifically, he wrote, anyone who dared to say “no salvation outside the church” should be driven out of society – that is precisely what is happening today.

Have we been so taken in by our own culture that we have abandoned truth? The antidote to this is that Christians need to be grounded in their basic beliefs, or indeed will be swept up in the tides of surging relativism.

Environmentalists are constantly clamoring for higher gas taxes as the cure-all to their insane global warming theory. Clinton proposed a 26 cent tax on gas. John Kerry said it should be 50 cents. Gore has proposed that gas taxes be raised gradually to match prices in Europe and Japan. But they write off all their gas … what does it cost them?

Consumers though, currently pay about 46 cents per gallon in gasoline taxes. That’s not including taxes paid directly to the government by the oil companies and passed onto consumers. As the inestimable economist John Lott has pointed out, in the past 25 years oil companies have paid more than three times in taxes what they have made in profits.

Barack Hussein Obama’s response to soaring gas prices is to have the oil companies collect even more money from us at the pump, proposing a “windfall profits tax” on oil companies. “Corporate taxes” sound like taxes on rich people, but all they do is force corporations to collect taxes on behalf of the government and guess who it is really costing? That’s right the taxpayer – you!

Democrats have worked hard to ensure that Americans pay as much for gas as Europeans do.  That is part of the socialist doctrine. After a quarter-century of gas tax hikes, a ban on drilling for oil (that should never had happened) and a complete destruction of the nuclear power industry in America, I guess the liberal socialists can declare: Mission accomplished!

In response to skyrocketing gas prices, liberals say, practically in unison, “We can’t drill our way out of this crisis.”  What does that mean? This is like telling a starving man, “You can’t eat your way out of being hungry!”   “You can’t water your way out of drought!”   “You can’t sleep your way out of tiredness!”  “You can’t drink yourself out of dehydration!”

Seriously, what does it mean?  Finding more oil isn’t going to increase the supply of oil?  Will not food stop you from being hungry?

It is the typical Democratic strategy to babble meaningless slogans, as if they have a plan. How do liberals propose we acquire the energy required for the economic activity and production that results in light appearing when they flick a switch? The larger enterprise involved in producing that little miracle seems to elude them.

Liberals complain that – as Barack Hussein Obama put it – there’s “no way that allowing offshore drilling would lower gas prices right now. At best you are looking at five years or more down the road.” Isn’t that why the drilling should have happened five years plus ago? Why didn’t anyone propose drilling back then? Where was Obama during these discussions, then?

You know what we need? We need a group of people paid to anticipate national crises and plan solutions in advance. It would be such an important job, the taxpayers would pay them salaries so they wouldn’t have to worry about making a living and could just sit around anticipating crises. If only we had had such a group – let’s call them “elected representatives” – they could have proposed drilling five years ago!

But of course we do pay people to anticipate national problems and propose solutions. Some of them – we’ll call them Republicans – did anticipate high gas prices and propose solutions. Six years ago President Bush had the foresight to demand that Congress allow drilling in a minuscule portion of the Alaska’s barren, uninhabitable Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR). In 2002, Bush, Tom DeLay and the entire Republican Party were screaming from the rooftops: Drill! Drill! Drill! We would be gushing oil now – except the Democrats stopped the drilling.

Drilling on only 0.01 percent of ANWR’s 19 million acres was projected to produce about 10 billion barrels of oil. From all domestic sources combined, we currently produce about 1.8 billion barrels of oil per year. To a layperson like myself, 10 billion barrels seems like a lot of oil.

The other party – plus John McCain – ferociously opposed drilling in ANWR, drilling offshore or drilling anyplace else. I refuse to believe they care about Americans having to pay high gas prices or high taxes. When will they put America and Americans first instead of themselves and their power mongering?

How long are we going to be fueled?

How destructive to the economy would a Barack Obama presidency be?

There could be a very rough time ahead.

Beneath Obama’s flowery rhetoric lies a dangerous economic plan that will wreak havoc on the American economy. Obama plans to return to the failed policies of high taxation coupled with an expansion of government spending. This coming tax-and-spend nightmare is being referred to as Obamanomics.

Worse, Obama says he is absolutely committed to almost doubling the capital gains rate – something he will easily accomplish with a Democrat Congress. In the coming months – when investors realize that Obama will raise the cap gains rate – there will easily be a stampede of asset sales as investors rush to take their profits now to avoid Obama’s doubling of the tax rates next year.

Obama’s strategies will not just affect the larger economy, but your personal wealth as well. Obama is making no bones about his plans to go on a tax rampage. Not only would he increase the capital-gains tax rate from 15% to as much as 28%, but he plans to allow the 2001 and 2003 Bush tax cuts to expire in 2010, which will raise the taxes on Americans by tens of billions of dollars.

He also wants to do away with the $102,000 FICA payroll tax cap, which means anyone making over $102,000 would pay an additional 7% in taxes on earned income. Also, the loan dividend tax rate George Bush implemented, under a President Obama will be gone.

Obama’s policies could cost more than $850 billion over four years and boost some tax rates to 60%. His Social Security plan is one giant income redistribution scheme

If you are concerned about your family’s financial well-being – and that the American economy remains strong – don’t vote him in. When Obama says trust him for change … DON’T !

While liberals like to talk about “rights,” it is becoming ever clearer that those rights are only reserved for whomever the Democrats deem deserving.  Men in dresses, homosexuals, and statutory rapists who bring underage children in for an abortion all deserve special rights.  However, unborn children, Christians and conservative radio hosts do not.

One “special interest group” that the liberals have warred against over the years is parents.  When it comes to issues like education, abortion, and medical information, today’s liberals – most of them Democrats – have consistently supported legislation that removes any decision-making ability from a child’s parents.

Yesterday the House had a chance to vote on a Motion to Recommit (MTR) presented by Rep. Michele Bachmann (R-Minn.) on H.R. 5876, the STOP Abuse Act.  An MTR is a procedural move that returns a bill to committee to amend it.  This MTR would have required parental consent before distributing any prescription medication, including contraception and Plan B.  The Democratic leadership, fearing that rank-and-file Democrats would join the Republicans and protect parental rights, instead hastily pulled the bill from the House floor.  House Republicans deserve praise for standing up for mothers and fathers – it’s a shame that the liberal leadership thinks they know better than parents what’s best for children.

Despite the angst over fuel prices and the presidential race, rumors of a high school pregnancy pact stole headlines in some of America’s largest newspapers.  This has prompted more parents to question what public education is really teaching their children about sex.  During the 2007-2008 school year, Joseph Sullivan, the principal of Massachusetts’ Gloucester High School (GHS), noticed a serious spike in the number of girls who became pregnant during the school year.  In an interview with Time, he admitted that the teen pregnancy rate had quadrupled at GHS, and he suspected that a group of sophomore girls agreed to “get pregnant and raise their babies together.”

While the media is consumed with whether or not such a pact exists, the story raises far more troubling issues regarding the school’s message on sexuality.  Even if these students never struck an agreement, as Gloucester’s Mayor Carolyn Kirk insists, at the very least that these 16-year-old girls thought it was acceptable to be sexually active and become pregnant.  And why wouldn’t they?  GHS’s own policy encourages it.  The school offers free on-site daycare for teen moms so that students can bring their babies to school.  It also teaches “comprehensive” sex education to students in the ninth grade, just in time for high school.  If the school is bending over backward to accommodate teen mothers and encouraging the promiscuity that leads to it, these girls would have no choice but to assume that premarital sex and motherhood are acceptable social norms and is not only okay but encouraged.

Sarah Brown of the National Campaign to Prevent Teen Pregnancy said, “This is not a story about sex education.”  What world does she live on?  Of course it is!  It just happens to be a story that liberals are trying to hide, as it confirms – once again – the failure of comprehensive sex education.  Planned Parenthood celebrated when Gov. Deval Patrick (D) refused the federal funds for abstinence programs in Massachusetts schools.  Had he accepted the grant and encouraged schools like GHS to use it to teach sexual restraint, the storyline in this fishing village would have been different.  Instead schools like Gloucester insist on promoting promiscuity over abstinence in direct contradiction of the wishes of 78% of parents as was expressed in a 2007 Zogby poll.  These parents don’t understand what’s wrong with telling kids to simply say “no.”  Isn’t that the message we give them on other dangerous activities like drug and alcohol use?  We tell them not to smoke.  And unlike sex education, we don’t hand them filters and say “If you’re going to light up, smoke safely.”  Now that public schools are starting to reap what they’ve sown with the “just do it” mentality, states are scrambling to accommodate kids and their poor decision-making that has been encouraged by the schools themselves.  On teen sex, it’s time to stop treating the problem and start preventing it with the only birth control that is 100% effective … this is called abstinence!

Donate | About Us | News Tom Minnery June 26, 2008 Dear Friend, This month, I need to share with you a true story. It’s stunning and highly motivating—and shows in stark terms what you and I are up against. Are you familiar with a man by the name of Tim Gill? For most Americans—even those who are well informed—the answer is no. You see, Tim Gill operates in virtual anonymity, yet he is transforming the politics of state after state with unrivaled success. He does it all to advance the cause to which he has dedicated his life—the homosexual agenda. So, will you join me for a few moments as I pull back the curtain on Tim Gill? Carrie Gordon Earll talks with a CBN reporter about Tim Gill. You can watch the entire report, as well as a Turn Signal episode about Tim Gill on our Web site. Bankrolling a dangerous movement Tim Gill is a homosexual activist living in Denver. As the founder of Quark, a very successful software company, Gill amassed a fortune worth several hundred million dollars.   Fourteen years ago, he began pouring his massive wealth into the homosexual rights movement. As a result, dozens of gay rights organizations owe their existence to Gill. By 2001, his donations accounted for 20 percent of the combined income of homosexual rights organizations. And by last year, his foundation had given more than $110 million to such groups. Gill’s Rocky Mountain prize All of that, however, is just the backdrop to the story that I really want to share with you. In addition to his “strategic philanthropy,” he recently resolved to engage in “strategic politics.” So he started the Gill Action Fund and began pouring huge sums of money into political races. But unlike most political donors, he didn’t throw most of his money into high-profile contests. Instead, he invested the vast majority of his funds into carefully targeted state legislative races. He understood that it takes far less money to make a huge difference at the state level . . . and the results can be priceless. Gill’s first target was Colorado. In 2004, he dumped $5 million into political races, mostly at the state legislative level. But he didn’t stop there. He also went out and found other millionaires and billionaires to join him in this effort. They poured huge money into blistering attack ads against conservative politicians in swing districts, who stood in support of traditional marriage. But they were clever enough not to attack the politicians over their opposition to same-sex “marriage.” Rather, the ads focused on issues important to the district—often twisting the facts beyond recognition to distort the conservative’s record. The result was what one Republican legislator called a “tsunami” of money that swept several conservatives out of office, giving liberal Democrats control of the Legislature for the first time in 30 years.     The payback for Gill came quickly. One Colorado legislator summarized a recent legislative session this way: “Windmills, mill levies and a million paybacks to Tim Gill.” And that’s exactly what Gill got: essentially a gay adoption law, a law that redefines the family as any two or more people living together, and a job protection law that can force even Christian businesspeople into hiring gays, lesbians or transgenders.   Iowa: A Case Study With the Colorado Legislature as a notch in his belt, Gill set his sights around the country in 2006. He again focused on state races, targeting key states in the battle over marriage. Specifically, he set his sights on Republicans in swing legislative districts in order to flip the state’s Senate or House to Democratic control. Among Gill’s victims was Danny Carroll, the Republican Speaker Pro-Tem in the Iowa House of Representatives. Carroll, like most Gill targets, was caught completely unawares. That’s because money didn’t come directly from Gill. He disguised his efforts by recruiting like-minded people all over the country to send small to medium-sized checks to the favored candidates. Consequently, Carroll didn’t realize he’d been a target of a national homosexual campaign until a reporter from The Atlantic Monthly magazine called him after the election and pointed out specific contributions that were made to his opponent. Targeting the country . . . state by state In all, Gill spent $15 million around the country in 2006, and he won 50 of his 70 targeted races—defeating some pro-marriage leaders and giving Democrats new control of legislative bodies in several states. Once again, Gill reaped huge policy rewards. In Iowa, Republicans lost the House. Under Democrat control, the proposed state marriage amendment was killed—a major coup for Gill considering that, just a few months later, an Iowa judge allowed the first so-called same-sex “marriage” outside of Massachusetts. Gill also helped give Democrats legislative control in New Hampshire and Oregon, and lawmakers quickly responded by giving marriage (in all but the name) to homosexuals in both states.   Face-off: Focus Action versus the Gill Action Fund But for all of Gill’s victories in 2006, his biggest investment resulted in a stunning defeat. In early 2006, Focus and Focus Action were gathering signatures to put a state marriage amendment on the Colorado ballot. Gill decided that would be a clever time to put his own domestic partnership measure on the ballot. With heavy resources going to support the marriage amendment, social conservatives would be hard-pressed to combat domestic partnerships at the same time. Plus, the many moderates on the issue would be able to split their votes, supporting marriage while still seeming “tolerant” by supporting domestic partnerships. National commentators recognized the confrontation that this set up between Gill and Focus Action founder and chairman Dr. James Dobson. Early on, polls indicated that Gill would likely win this confrontation. But thanks to the generous support of friends like you, Focus Action was able to mount a vigorous defense that fall—investing hundreds of thousands of dollars in high-quality radio and television advertising campaigns that helped to reshape the debate. Just as importantly, Focus was able to mobilize pastors and churches throughout the state. Working with our associated state group, Colorado Family Action, we conducted pastors events and provided resources for a massive grassroots effort to educate values voters and get them to the polls. In the end, the state marriage amendment passed and Gill’s measure was defeated, 53 to 47 percent, despite Gill’s $2.5 million expenditure to get it passed. Make a difference in 2008 Help support the work of Focus Action. The threat grows in 2008 Still, despite the stinging defeat that exposed Gill’s vulnerability, the threat he poses is likely to be even larger in 2008. Gill has openly boasted of an even bigger target list this year. That’s not surprising, considering the success he’s had and the fact that he continues to recruit more financial heavy hitters to join him in his efforts. In fact, he had 200 leading donors at a gathering in Miami, where he told them, according to one attendee: “If I can make a difference in Colorado, you can make a difference in your home state. So let’s work together to take it to your states.” One state that Gill is clearly targeting this year is New York. After all, the only thing that is blocking New York from becoming the first state to legislatively enact same-sex marriage is the GOP-controlled state Senate. But the Republican margin is only two seats, and Gill and his money are hard at work to flip that legislative chamber and win a major policy battle for the homosexual movement. Other states that especially need to be on the watch for Gill activity are Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey, New Mexico, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin and Wyoming. One of the big reasons for the success of Tim Gill—along with all of his millionaire/ billionaire cohorts—is the fact that he’s been able to do virtually everything under the cover of darkness. By the time his targets figure out what’s happened, it’s too late. By God’s grace and with your help, that won’t happen in 2008. With your partnership, Focus Action is planning to aggressively shine the light of day on Gill’s activity so that good people in each state can stand strong and protect their state from being hijacked by the homosexual lobby. The fact is that Tim Gill is not only pouring his life’s earnings into the homosexual agenda, he’s also an evangelist for this cause in which he believes so deeply—constantly asking others to join him in his misguided mission to, as he puts it, “punish the wicked.” How can we not have the same commitment on behalf of righteousness? Will you help us defend the family against this unprecedented assault? Our election-year efforts have never been more critical.  Most importantly, will you also pray for America and ask God what He would have you do in this critical time for our nation? God bless you for standing strong. Sincerely, Tom Minnery Senior Vice President Focus on the Family Action P.S. Very few can write checks the size of Tim Gill’s. But we can each give something of significance. Will you please earnestly pray for our work?  And if you are able, please consider supporting us financially.  I, along with Jim Daly and the team here, gratefully thank you for your prayers and support. Visit FocusAction.org to read this letter with complete endnotes.

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