CovenantNews.com

Does Anyone Finish The Race Anymore?

Pastor Matt Trewhella / The Covenant News:
Ed Dobson, pastor emeritus of the mega-Calvary Church in Grand Rapids, Michigan, is the latest older Christian man I have watched apostatize. This past weekend, on January 4th, 2009, Dobson, with beaming face, proudly told the world on ABC's Good Morning America that he voted for Barack Obama. Dobson said that he voted for Obama because "I felt that he more than any other candidate represented the teachings of Jesus, so I voted for him." Right. Do we really believe a man who publicly calls for the murder of the preborn and openly supports sodomy best represents the teachings of Jesus?

Moody Radio: The Call to Dunkirk

Paul Butler / Moody Radio Podcast:
Dr. Ray Moore and Dr. Richard Land on Prime Time America. Land was interviewed to counter the Exodus Mandate call and readers need to know where he stands...on the wrong side of this issue. ... Over the last few years there have been a number of resolutions presented at both the Southern Baptist and the PCA Conventions regarding Christian children in public schools. In recent weeks, a new initiative has been unveiled, challenging parents to pull their children out of government schools called "The Call to Dunkirk." This report explores both this new initiative and the ongoing debate. Dr. Ray Moore of the Exodus Mandate and Dr. Richard Land of the Southern Baptist Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission are today's guests.

The Call to Dunkirk

The Bubble of U.S.-Israeli Dominance

William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
As is the case whenever Israel conducts a major military campaign, the ongoing IDF assault on Gaza - which has annihilated hundreds of non-combatants, including children -- has flushed the bigots out of the brush. One particularly notorious specimen encapsulated the message sent by Israel's strike against Hamas in terms that should resonate among die-hard anti-Semites: "Do not f**k with the Jews." That sentiment was not put into play by a neo-Nazi or someone else plagued by similar ethnic obsessions. It was Martin Peretz, editor-in-chief of The New Republic, self-appointed authority on matters of ethnic etiquette, and Al Gore’s Harvard-era academic Pygmalion, who blessed the blogosphere with that elegantly phrased insight.

Good News for 4th Generation Fighters

William S. Lind / LewRockwell.com:
The Israeli assault on Hamas in Gaza will succeed physically, prove a mixed bag mentally and fail on the moral level of war. Hamas is militarily a pushover compared to Hezbollah, which makes the David vs. Goliath nature of the conflict all the more evident. The stronger the contrast, the worse the outcome for Goliath. The fact that the timing if not the event is driven by Israeli electoral politics makes the moral picture even grimmer. Add in that absent a deal Hamas’s rocket fire will continue and we see the makings of a debacle for Israel.

Related:
4GW -- Fourth Generation Warfare
John Robb
4GW (fourth generation wafare) is the term used by military thinkers to describe conflict at the end of the 20th century. In general, 4GW is an extremely effective method of warfare that the US and its allies will find very difficult to defeat (a slow burn, rather than complete eradication, may be the best possible outcome). I have outlined the basics of 4GW warfare below to enhance your understanding of the term.

Think About It

Iron Ink:
1.) Recent reports suggest that the Obama stimulus package will create 600,000 government jobs.

2.) Obama, during the campaign, called for a civilian corps that is as every bit as powerful and every bit as effective as the U.S. military.

3.)Rahm Emmanuel, Obama’s chief of staff, has written a book calling for mandatory service for youths between 18-25 years old in a kind of civilian peace corps.

4.) Now, given all this, what quicker way can you think of to employ 600,000 people in government jobs than by creating some kind of draft.

Those of us with children in this age bracket better start doing some hard thinking about how we are going to respond to this potentiality.

Both Major Parties Brought Police State To America

Mary Starrett / Constitution Party:
The word "fascism" has been used for decades to deride political ideaologies of both the right and left. Fact is, fascism has come to America and we have allowed it to happen. Back in 1944 economist and author John Flynn pointed out that we have been laying the basecoat of fascism here in the U.S. in the book As We Go Marching.

FBI Launches Massive Hiring Blitz

Reuters:
Wanted by the FBI: agents, language specialists, computer experts, intelligence analysts and finance experts. The FBI said on Monday it had launched one of the largest hiring blitzes in its 100-year history involving 2,100 professional staff vacancies and 850 special agents aimed at filling its most critical vacancies. The agency, which seeks to protect the United States from terrorist attack, fight crime and catch spies, among other duties, said it currently has more than 12,800 agents and about 18,400 other employees.

Is Conservatism Dead?

Patrick Krey / The New American:
The rise of the neoconservatives within the GOP has not only discredited the Grand Old Party but tarnished the image of conservatism. The Republican party suffered an overwhelming electoral defeat this past November. The establishment media were all too quick to proclaim that conservatism is dead and we're now at the dawn of a liberal age. Peter Beinart, Senior Fellow for U.S. Foreign Policy for the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), wrote in Time magazine that we are facing the dawn of a "new liberal order." In making this proclamation, Beinart overlooks the fact that the public was not voting for President-elect Obama, but rather against Republicans like John McCain and George W. Bush.

Krugman's Nanny State

David Gordon / The American Conservative:
The Return of Depression Economics and the Crisis of 2008, Paul Krugman, W.W. Norton, 191 pages. At first sight, Paul Krugman appears to have written exactly the book we need. Cries of recession go up everywhere. Nearly every day brings an account of a fallen financial giant or a major industry facing bankruptcy. Lenin’s famous question—though not, one hopes, his answer—inevitably arises: what is to be done? Krugman seems ideally qualified to answer. He is an economic theorist of great distinction, the winner of the Nobel Prize for Economics in 2008. Moreover, unlike the vast majority of his fellow theorists, the popular New York Times columnist writes for the public in simple and clear prose. Agree with him or not, you know that Krugman will not try to bamboozle you with jargon.

The Global Poverty Act: Redistributing Wealth

Jim Kouri / NewsWithViews.com:
Are Americans responsible for the welfare of everyone in the world? "Obama and Biden think so!" claim many US conservatives. According to conservative activists, there is a clandestine senate bill that awaits signing by President Barack Obama once he's sitting in the Oval Office. This legislation requires the President of the United States "to develop and implement a comprehensive strategy to further the United States foreign policy objective of promoting the reduction of global poverty, the elimination of extreme global poverty, and the achievement of the Millennium Development Goal of reducing by one-half the proportion of people worldwide, between 1990 and 2015, who live on less than $1 per day."

Trans-Texas Corridor Is Dead Says Texas DOT

Rosanna Ruiz / Houston Chronicle:
In response to public outcry, the ambitious proposal to create the Trans-Texas Corridor network has been dropped and will be replaced with a plan to carry out road projects at an incremental, modest pace, a state transportation official announced today. "The Trans-Texas Corridor, as it is known, no longer exists," said Amadeo Saenz Jr., executive director of the Texas Department of Transportation, at the agency's annual forum in Austin.

Lame Duck Days: Hope Over Experience

Gary North / LewRockwell.com:
George W. Bush is the most memorable lame duck President in 75 years. The last lame duck President as lame as Bush was Herbert Hoover. What is a lame duck President? The general definition is this: "A President whose term has ended because he was not re-elected, but who has not yet been replaced by the newly elected President." His period of lameness lasts from election day to inauguration day. I think this definition is inadequate. I define a lame duck President as follows: A President who remains in office after a Presidential election, whose term will end on January 20, and who will be replaced by a President of the rival party.

Scapegoating Christians: The New Nazism

Gary DeMar / American Vision:
John Sack's An Eye for an Eye is a disheartening book. It tells the story of Jewish revenge against their German oppressors in 1945. The book describes how the Russian liberators of the death camps in Poland recruited holocaust survivors to carry out a policy of de-Nazification of the war-torn area. What began as a desire to find, incarcerate, and try their Nazi antagonists, the Jewish survivors became like their tormentors in that they went after noncombatants. The Russians established the Office of State Security and put Jews in charge of the interrogations. "The Office entered German homes and rounded up German men, women, and children--99 percent of them noncombatant, innocent civilians--and took them to cellars, prisons, and 1,255 concentration camps, where inmates subsisted on starvation rations, where typhus ran rampant, and where torture was commonplace. In this brief period, between 60,000 and 80,000 Germans died in the Office's custody."

Barack Obama And The Threat That Isn't There

Phil Brennan / Ether Zone:
"Yesterday upon the stair, I met a man who wasn't there. He wasn't there again today, Oh how I wish he'd go away." "Antigonish" by William Hughes Mearns, 1899. That bit of poesy pretty well sums up Barack Obama's fixation on the threat that isn't there. He appears to have met Global Warming somewhere and it isn't there, and met it again and it's still not there and Oh how he plans to make it go away - no matter what it costs. Anyone with the sense to go indoors when it rains - that's what my sainted father defined as common sense - must realize that the planet is heading into the deep freeze and has been for the last decade. To fail to understand that Global warming is a fiction, is to close one's eyes to reality and the chill climate of the world around them.

Congress' Plan Would Let AG 'Ban Guns At Will'

Bob Unruh / WorldNetDaily:
A perfect storm is developing for Second Amendment opponents that could allow Barack Obama's choice for attorney general -- Eric Holder -- to "ban guns at will" despite the 2008 affirmation from the U.S. Supreme Court that U.S. citizens have a right to bear arms. The situation was described with alarm by Alan Korwin, author of Gun Laws of America, in a recent commentary.

Related:
Holder Nomination to Be a Fight
Civilrights.org
Holder has broad support from the civil rights community as well as law enforcement groups. LCCR's December 18 letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee in support of the nomination was signed by more than 20 organizations, including the NAACP, the Human Rights Campaign, and the National Council of La Raza.

Eric Holder's Sixth Amendment Problem
The Foundry:
For more than three years, a diverse coalition from all quarters of the legal community have been pushing Congress to help restore Americans' Sixth Amendment guarantee to assistance of counsel in all criminal prosecutions. This right has been steadily eroded since a Deputy Attorney General issued a memo in 1999 outlining how the Department of Justice should make prosecutorial decisions when investigating possible wrongdoing by companies and their employees. That attorney … Pressident-elect Barack Obama’s Attorney General appointee Eric Holder.

Amendment VI
In all criminal prosecutions, the accused shall enjoy the right to a speedy and public trial, by an impartial jury of the State and district wherein the crime shall have been committed, which district shall have been previously ascertained by law, and to be informed of the nature and cause of the accusation; to be confronted with the witnesses against him; to have compulsory process for obtaining witnesses in his favor, and to have the Assistance of Counsel for his defence.

Palestinian Christians Demonstrate for Justice

Palestinian News Network:
Beit Sahour -- Throughout Palestinian Christian communities services focused today on peace and justice for the Gaza Strip. Christians in Gaza are holding limited organized events as Israeli forces continue to pummel the Strip by both air and land. Beit Sahour, to the east of Bethlehem, hosted a march beginning at the Greek Orthodox Church on Sunday. Walking toward the central market, demonstrators chanted against the Israeli occupation and the massacre on Gaza, the year and a half siege and the ongoing closure. The nonviolent Palestinian resistance movement has been active for decades in Beit Sahour, working against Israeli settlement policy and occupation.

Best And Worst Of 2008

Chuck Baldwin / The Covenant News:
With 2008 just concluded, today's column will be my analysis of the best and worst of the year just spent. First, the best: my wife, Connie, and our family. As the Constitution Party candidate for President, I logged more than 30,000 miles and visited more than 30 states. I traveled most of those miles alone--as costs prohibited my wife from traveling with me--and most flights were flown in the coach cabin. In fact, my wife and I were apart more last year than the previous 34 years of married life combined. Needless to say, I am not cut out to be a traveling salesman. The time away from home was extremely difficult.

Must Evangelicals Be Conservatives?

Laurence M. Vance / LewRockwell.com:
Because I am a conservative evangelical, but not an evangelical conservative, I was intrigued by the title of a new book I saw recently on display in the book exhibit hall at the annual meeting of the Society of Biblical Literature: How to Be Evangelical without Being Conservative (Zondervan, 2008). Did the author mean conservative in the theological sense or the political sense? Since one of my primary interests is the intersection of religion with politics and economics, I could almost hear the book begging for a review. I was both pleasantly surprised and tremendously disappointed.

Pat Robertson 'Remarkably Pleased' With Obama

Huffington Post:
In an interview with CNN's Suzanne Malveaux, Pat Robertson said he was "remarkably pleased" with President-elect Barack Obama. Malveaux: Are you looking forward to an Obama administration? A change? Robertson: I am remarkably pleased with Obama. I had grave misgivings about him. But so help me, he's come in forcefully, intelligently. He's picked a middle of the road cabinet. And so far, if he continues down this course, he has the makings of a great president. So, I'm very pleased so far.

Flashback - January 28, 2006
$14 Million In Federal Faith-Based Money Goes To Pat Robertson
News Wire Service:
"[T]he federal government has become a major source of money for Operation Blessing ... In two years, the group's annual revenue from government grants has ballooned from $108,000 to $14.4 million," the Virginian-Pilot's Bill Sizemore recently reported. ... Operation Blessing has also received "smaller grants from the (pro-abortion) U.S. Agency for International Development to cover freight costs for humanitarian relief shipments to Guatemala and Romania ... [and] It is also part of a consortium of eight organizations that recently received a (pro-homosexual) USAID grant for HIV/AIDS treatment, care and prevention in 14 countries, mostly in Africa."

Bailout Mania!

William F. Jasper / The New American:
The Treasury Department and Federal Reserve are spending trillions -- and Congress is letting them get away with the biggest theft in history. "Jet-setting CEOs battered and humbled by outraged lawmakers." This, or some similar title, may be affixed to what will undoubtedly become for many people the iconic event of the unfolding economic debacle known as "The Bailout-O-Rama that Grew, and Grew -- and GREW."

The Problem With Federal Reserve Counterfeiting

James Grant / The Wall Street Journal:
The world ran out of trust in 2008 -- but there is no shortage of money because the Fed is printing like mad. It's the wrong approach, with potentially dire consequences: It is a sorry place at which we Americans find ourselves this none-too-festive holiday season. The biggest names on Wall Street have gone to their rewards or into partnership with the U.S. Treasury. Foreigners stare wide-eyed from across the waters. A $50 billion Ponzi scheme (baited with, of all things in this age of excess, the promise of low, spuriously predictable returns)? Interest rates over which tiny Japanese rates fairly tower? Regulatory policy seemingly set by a weather vane? A Federal Reserve that can't make up its mind: Is it in the business of central banking or of central planning? And to think -- our disappointed foreign friends mutter -- all of these enormities taking place under a Republican administration.

The Great Credit-Crunch Hoax of 2008

Robert Higgs / LewRockwell.com:
Remember the credit crunch? Of course, you do. We'd never seen anything like it, or so the highest financial authorities and their lapdogs in the news media told us -- not in a cool, calm, and collected way, either, but in a breathless delivery that suggested imminent economic doom unless the government immediately undertook to "do something." Which it did, of course, on a scale never before witnessed in U.S. history. But, wait, something is terribly wrong in the statistical record! The devastating credit crunch, the greatest threat to this country since the Russians exploded an H-bomb, the most menacing economic event since the stock-market crash of 1929, the . . . (sputter) . . . (sputter) . . . (words fail me in the face of such terrors as it evoked in the minds of government ministers and financial titans of all stripes) . . . . Well, I am rather embarrassed, on behalf of all these giants of the ruling elite, to inform you that in retrospect the Monster from Lack-of-Liquidity Lagoon doesn't really show up as such in the most relevant statistical series.

Home Schooling Grows

Janice Lloyd / USA TODAY:
The ranks of America's home-schooled children have continued a steady climb over the past five years, and new research suggests broader reasons for the appeal. The number of home-schooled kids hit 1.5 million in 2007, up 74% from when the Department of Education's National Center for Education Statistics started keeping track in 1999, and up 36% since 2003. The percentage of the school-age population that was home-schooled increased from 2.2% in 2003 to 2.9% in 2007. "There's no reason to believe it would not keep going up," says Gail Mulligan, a statistician at the center.

Richardson Scandal 'The Shape of Things to Come'

News Wire Service:
The scandal that led to the withdrawal of Commerce Secretary-designate Bill Richardson may be "just the beginning of a string of scandals unlike anything we've seen in American history," Richard A. Viguerie said. Richardson faces a grand jury investigation into whether he exchanged infrastructure-related state contracts for political contributions. "The federal government is on the verge of handing out hundreds of billions of dollars of so-called 'economic stimulus,'" said Viguerie, chairman of ConservativeHQ.com. "You can rest assured that big contributors and others with the right political connections will get big chunks of that money, and that a lot of it will never be accounted for.

Flashback - October 03, 2007
Why Christians Are Leaving the GOP
John Lofton / The American View:
Since Richard Viguerie and other so-called Christian/conservative "leaders" are in the news talking about Third Party possibilities, I thought you'd be interested in reading or re-reading this interview of Viguerie by me about a year ago. At the time, he was pushing his book "Conservatives Betrayed: How George W. Bush And Other Big Government Republicans Hijacked The Conservative Cause."

Bill Richardson - Kissinger-American

Greg Palast / OfficialWire:
Bill Richardson is out: Caught with his hand, if not exactly in the cookie jar, at least you could say his sticky finger were near it. I'm not surprised. For years I've been investigating the second-most corrupt state in the USA (after Alaska). I like to check in on the enchanted state with my bud Santiago Juarez. I knew it was not a polite question, but it was really bugging me, so I asked him, "Exactly how does a Mexican get the name William Richardson?" Governor Richardson’s dad, Santiago explained, was a Citibank executive assigned to Mexico City. There he met Governor Bill’s mom, and-milagro!-a Mexican-American was born. Richardson gets big mileage out of his mother's heritage, and that makes him, legitimately, a Mexican-American, a politically useful designation. But it's just as legitimate to say that Richardson is a Citibank-American.

World's Largest Embassy Opens in Baghdad

Antiwar.com:
Three and a Half Years and $700 Million Later, American Diplomats Finally Move Into Embassy. Weeks of moving are finally completed, and the United States has opened its enormous new embassy in Baghdad. Taking over three and a half years to complete and costing in the realm of $700 million, the gargantuan compound is bigger than the Vatican, and the largest and most expensive embassy on the planet. A city within a city, the compound will employ thousands, and features a power station, a water treatment plant, schools, restaurants, and shopping areas. All in a fortress-like environment that will make security even in the Green Zone seem lax.

Related:
U.S. Inaugurates 104 Acre Embassy In Iraq
The Associated Press:
BAGHDAD -- The United States inaugurated its largest embassy ever on Monday, a fortress-like compound in the heart of the Green Zone - and the most visible sign of what U.S. officials call a new chapter in relations between America and a more sovereign Iraq. U.S. Marines raised the American flag over the adobe-colored buildings, which sit on a 104-acre site and has space for 1,000 employees - more than 10 times the size of any other American Embassy in the world.

Opportunities for Peace and Nonintervention

Ron Paul / Texas Straight Talk:
Last week I discussed our worsening economic situation and the fact that there are very few options for the new administration to improve things in the long run. The same is not true on the foreign policy front. Our interventionist foreign policy stands ready to be put on a new course with the new administration. Unfortunately, it seems the new administration is likely to continue the mistakes of the past. I've often discussed interventionist foreign policy and the resulting blowback. The current administration's foreign policy, I'm afraid, has created a huge impetus for blowback against the United States. However, I truly believe much of the world stands ready to look beyond our nation's recent blunders if the new administration proves to be heading in a more reasonable direction.

Ron Paul Stresses Neutraliy In Gaza

Press TV / YouTube.com:
Ron Paul Stresses Neutraliy In Gaza "a Concentration Camp" 01-05-09...Listen closely to what Dr. Paul says Then do your homework. Google: "Arthur James Balfour" and "Balfour Declaration of 1917". Also, know that Israel came into existence through British doctrine fulfilling an "obligation" to Rothschild, and ultimately U.N. intervention. Wherever there was/is British foreign policy and the U.N., there is evil. You MUST read The Fearful Master, by G. Edward Griffin, to fully understand the history and purpose of the U.N.... Join the Campaign ofr Liberty!!!

And There Lie The Bodies

Gideon Levy / Haaretz:
The legend, lest it be a true story, tells of how the late mathematician, Professor Haim Hanani, asked his students at the Technion to draw up a plan for constructing a pipe to transport blood from Haifa to Eilat. The obedient students did as they were told. Using logarithmic rulers, they sketched the design for a sophisticated pipeline. They meticulously planned its route, taking into account the landscape's topography, the possibility of corrosion, the pipe's diameter and the flow calibration. When they presented their final product, the professor rendered his judgment: You failed. None of you asked why we need such a pipe, whose blood will fill it, and why it is flowing in the first place. Regardless of whether this story is legend or true, Israel is now failing its own blood pipeline test. As Israel has been preoccupied with Gaza throughout the entire week, nobody has asked whose blood is being spilled and why.

'As I Ran I Saw Three Of My Children. All Dead'

The Guardian:
The small dead bodies were laid next to one another on the tiled floor of the morgue corridor, the blood drained from their cheeks. One had a bandage still wrapped around his head, another lay with his mouth half-open in his oversized, bloodstained clothes. For a week the Samouni family had taken shelter in their small, single-storey home in Zeitoun, south-east of Gaza City, and there they survived wave after wave of Israeli bombing and artillery strikes. Then came Israel's ground offensive, the next phase in what Israel argues is a necessary and justified battle against the Palestinian militants firing rockets out of Gaza.

Wounded Gaza Family Lay Bleeding For 20 Hours

Amira Hass / Haaretz:
Three hours after the Israel Defense Forces began their ground operation in the Gaza Strip, at about 10:30 P.M. Saturday night, a shell or missile hit the house owned by Hussein al A'aiedy and his brothers. Twenty-one people live in the isolated house, located in an agricultural area east of Gaza City's Zeitoun neighborhood. Five of them were wounded in the strike: Two women in their eighties (his mother and aunt), his 14-year-old son, his 13-year-old niece and his 10-year-old nephew. Twenty hours later, the wounded were still bleeding in a shed in the courtyard of the house. There was no electricity, no heat, no water. Their relatives were with them, but every time they tried to leave the courtyard to fetch water, the army shot at them.

New Episode of Law and Liberty

Chalcedon Blog / Podcast:
Law and Liberty Part II of Interview with Chalcedon Vice-President, Martin Selbrede. In-depth discussion of understanding God's law as a refuge--a refuge from the crises of history. Great interview!

Michael and John Discuss a Lot of Stuff

Michael Peroutka & John Lofton / The American View Radio:
On this program, co-host Michael Anthony Peroutka and John Lofton discuss: The importance of principles; Sam Adams; how separation of church/state is in Russian Constitution; how, in many ways, Democrats & Republicans are Marxist/Communist; Groucho's 7-cent nickel proposal. You'll also hear Ted Turner praise the KGB as an "honorable organization" and there is a guess-which-movie quiz featuring Robert De Niro, Billy Crystal and "Klaatu."

A Bit Of Nostalgia

Al Cronkrite / The Covenant News:
Many successful people have had mentors. They are often religious leaders, parents, teachers, coaches, or business associates. Mine was different. For those saved from hopeless addiction the advent becomes a permanent defining moment. It is as if life began at that transition and what went before was but a terrible nightmare. I am now in my eightieth year but the life I was intended to live began a scant forty-six years ago. Evidence of the reality of my nightmare still remains as a perennial reminder of past perversion.

One Giant Rez

William Norman Grigg / Pro Libertate:
Shortly before the U.S. Army slaughtered hundreds of starving, desperate Sioux who had been herded to the frozen shore of Wounded Knee Creek in South Dakota, the Census Bureau announced the disappearance of a contiguous frontier line for the first time in American history. Manifest Destiny had run out of room, and the American Empire – a term used unblushingly in triumphalist literature of the period – now girded the entire North American continent, and its rulers were free to confer the blessings of civilization on untutored masses beyond our shores.

Buy, Buy, Buy

Michael Gaddy / LewRockwell.com:
While we stumble along economically with bailouts, buyouts, and poor sales in almost all sectors, two products in America are seeing dramatic increases in sales: guns and ammo. People who never owned a gun before are buying; people are buying multiples of military style weapons and ammo is being bought by the case instead of by the box. Many explain this away as folks simply worried that Obama will move to ban certain firearms, especially those referred to by the ignorant as "assault weapons," I believe the motivation to buy firearms and ammunition goes much deeper.

Know Your History, Or Die

Alan Stang / NewsWithViews.com:
Recently, I received a complaint from a now happily departed reader. He took issue with a recent piece in which I recalled the history of our centuries-long conflict with Islam. The reader said he has no interest in history. He is only interested in "now." Specifically, he wants to hear about the Jews, nothing else. Happily, he announced that he is no longer with us, so there is no chance that these modest comments could offend his belligerent ignorance.

What's Happening in Gaza

Eric Margolis / LewRockwell.com:
There are two completely different versions of what is currently happening in Gaza. In the Israeli and North American press version, Hamas -- "Islamic terrorists" backed by Iran -- have in an unprovoked attack fired deadly rockets on innocent Israel with the intent of destroying the Jewish state.

Obama Shares FDR's Arrogant Conceit

John Stossell / Constitution Party:
Barack Obama wants to use the recession to remake the U.S. economy. "Painful crisis also provides us with an opportunity to transform our economy to improve the lives of ordinary people," Obama said. His designated chief of staff, Rahm Emanuel, is more direct: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste." So they will "transform our economy." Obama’s nearly trillion-dollar plan will not merely repair bridges, fill potholes and fix up schools; it will also impose a utopian vision based on the belief that an economy is a thing to be planned from above. But this is an arrogant conceit.

Obama Wants 600,000 New Government Employees

Jake Tapper / ABC News.com:
In a radio address, Obama uses some new language when discussing what he wants the stimulus package to achieve in terms of jobs. First off, he has a name for the package -- the "American Recovery and Reinvestment Plan." Obama says he wants to "create three million new jobs" -- this is a change from a few weeks ago, when he said he wanted the plan to create OR SAVE two million jobs. He says the "No. 1 goal of my plan ... is to create three million new jobs, more than 80 percent of them in the private sector.” If you do the math: 20 percent of three million means 600,000 new government employees.

Impeach Obama?

Devvy Kidd / NewsWithViews.com:
Americans all across this country are expressing their doubt as to whether or not Barack Hussein Obama (or whatever his real, legal name might be) is constitutionally (legally) eligible to hold the office of President of the United States. Last month, America Online (AOL) conducted a poll that must have shocked Obots and his attorneys. The question was: Do you think there is any merit to the controversy surrounding Barack Obama's citizenship? A whopping 52% said yes; 42% said no and 6% said not sure. Looks like O'Reilly's flogging of the 'tin foil' kook aid drinkers isn't selling so well out there. Not that the big O would dream of giving any credible coverage to the issue; he's fair and balanced didn't ya know?

Bail Us Out, Say Madoff Victims

James Doran / The Observer:
Lawyers representing the victims of Bernard Madoff's alleged $50bn fraud are calling on the US government to bail them out with billions of taxpayers' dollars. They say the government should bolster the Securities Investor Protection Corporation, which helps creditors of collapsed brokerages.

Madoff's Ponzi Scheme Victimizes ACLU, Others

John F. McManus / The New American:
In a December 23 communication sent to the American Civil Liberties Union's benefactors, administration and finance director Alma Montclair reported that the organization will not receive the sum of $850,000 from two foundations whose contributions were counted on to continue the group's work. The unnamed donors, she stated, have been "forced to close their doors and terminate their grants" because they "have been victimized by the Madoff scandal." Claiming that the ACLU is the nation's leader in the "critical" areas of "national security and reproductive freedom," Monclair, a 23-year veteran ACLU employee, asked for end-of-the-year donations from the group's long-standing supporters to cover the lost contributions.

Where Have All the Neocons Gone?

Jacob Heilbrunn / The American Conservative:
Having wrecked the Right, will neoconservatives revert to their left-wing origins or double down on the GOP? ... As Barack Obama prepares to take the inaugural oath, it almost seems otiose to note that his victory represents a sweeping repudiation of the neoconservative movement. Though neocons such as Randy Scheunemann formed a kind of Praetorian Guard around John McCain during his presidential campaign, their truculent approach to foreign affairs sabotaged rather than strengthened McCain’s electoral appeal. The best that Sarah Palin, a foreign-policy neocon on training wheels, could do was to offer platitudes about standing by Israel. It seems safe to say, then, that the neocon credo is ready to be put out to pasture.

U.S. Troops Shoot Female TV Producer

Ernesto Londono / The Washington Post:
The employer of an Iraqi television producer shot and wounded by U.S. troops on New Year's Day disputed the military's assertion Saturday that she had acted suspiciously and had failed to heed warnings before the troops opened fire. Hadil Imad, who works for the satellite station Beladi TV, was shot on a bridge in central Baghdad as she approached a group of U.S. troops working with Iraqi police. A statement posted Saturday on the station's Web site said Imad was shot "in cold blood" and noted that the incident coincided with the implementation of the security agreement that Iraqi and U.S. officials have exalted as an affirmation of Iraq's sovereignty.

Related:
American Troops Shoot Woman in Baghdad
Campbell Robertson / The New York Times:
BAGHDAD — A woman was shot and badly wounded in Baghdad by American soldiers last week when she failed to respond to repeated warnings, according to a military statement. The military said the woman, who was shot Thursday, had been “acting erratically,” adding that suicide bombers had recently taken aim at the area where the shooting occurred. The woman who was shot, Hadeel Emad, is a 24-year-old editor for the Biladi satellite television channel, said Muhsin Kadem, a spokesman for the channel. She suffered severe internal bleeding and organ damage, Mr. Kadem said, and she was taken by the Iraqi security forces to a hospital, where one of her kidneys was removed. The American military said that it and Iraqi security officials were investigating the shooting.

A Man Named James

David Alan Black / Dave Black Online:
I want to tell you about a perfectly astonishing fellow, our translator James. He accompanied Jason and me when we went to the Gujis. I truly believe he was willing to sacrifice his life to go where he felt God was calling him and to stay loyal to brothers whom he had only recently met. And what was the danger? James is a Burji, and Burjis are not very welcome these days among the Gujis. It took courage and Holy Spirit-sized faith to reach out beyond his comfort zone to people who both fear and hate the Burjis.

'Best Practices' for Bible Teachers (Part VI)

Buddy Hanson / The Covenant News:
Know How to Get Your Congregation (or small group) to Where You Want Them to Be. We all know how to lose the culture war. We've got lots of practice at it. What we need to do is to begin conforming our worldview and lifestyle to God's Word so it won't be necessary to "tell" someone that we are a Christian. They will "see" it in our lifestyle, because it will be 180-degrees different from the non-Christian lifestyle most of us are conforming to today! As a Bible teacher, it is your calling and accountability to awaken the 21st American church from its self-serving doldrums by instructing your learners in God's will for the earth, and then challenging them to apply the biblical truths they profess to believe into their everyday decision-making. This is the only way to begin winning the culture for Christ.

The Sovereign King

Rev. Paul Michael Raymond / The Covenant News:
As we enter into a New Year, one which is to be most challenging for both the United States and the entire global community, we must reflect back for a moment at the celebration of Christ's Advent festival. What exactly is the meaning of this celebration? What has Western Civilization actually celebrated by recognizing Christ's birth? The Incarnation of God in the person of Jesus is the most astounding and yet, most misunderstood phenomena ever to grace the history of mankind.

How Are Your Verbs?

David Alan Black / Dave Black Online:
My sabbatical officially ends today. On Monday I'll resume my teaching duties at the seminary with my J-term Greek class. I can honestly say that 2008 was a tremendous year in every way. I have learned more about language than ever before - the language of love in particular. I have seen how the intellect is so easily enslaved by bizarre abstractions. Education has become a Utopia for Americans, and becoming a "Christian intellectual" a god.

One-World Government Biblical?

Gary DeMar / American Vision:
Some readers get upset any time I point out how modern-day prophecy writers misrepresent the Bible. My critics don't seem to mind that Hal Lindsey has been wrong over the years in an area of study that has made his reputation and so much of Christendom has embraced as "gospel." I've pointed out a number of these "miscalculations" in previous articles and books. It was amazing to see how people defended Lindsey even though I quoted Lindsey's own words that he would be a "bum" if his 1948–1988 rapture scenario did not come to pass as he claimed it would. In addition to predicting that the rapture would take place before 1988, Lindsey argued the Roman Empire would be revived: "I saw this coming in 1969, as I discussed in my book, 'The Late Great Planet Earth.'"

Calling Evil Good

Coach Dave Daubenmire / Pass the Salt Ministries:
I continue to be amazed at how evil is supported in this nation. Now don't get me wrong. That is exactly the type of behavior that one would expect from those who have not been regenerated by the Spirit of God. What was it Jesus said "You are of your father the devil"? He wouldn't get away with that today, at least not in modern evangelical circles...way to judgmental. Jesus would make American-Christianity look bad. How has America gotten so upside down?

Atheists File Suit to Block Inaugural Prayer

Daniel Burke / Religion News Service:
Led by a California atheist who has tried to remove the phrase "under God" from the pledge of allegiance, a group of atheists filed suit in federal court Tuesday (Dec. 30) to block prayers and mentions of God at President-elect Barack Obama's inauguration on Jan 20. Michael Newdow, joined in his complaint by 11 atheist and humanist groups, filed similar, unsuccessful suits in 2001 and 2005, when President Bush was sworn in. He has also tried to remove the reference to God in the pledge of allegiance, arguing that it constitutes an illegal government endorsement of religion.

Emergent Church: Down With Sola Scriptura

Pastor Ken Silva / Apprising Ministries:
We have been discussing here at Apprising Ministries an escalating rebellion against Sola Scriptura in the Emergent Church. And in Faith House Manhattan: Project of Apostasy by Samir Selmanovic AM has introduced you to self-proclaimed “Presbymergent” Adam Walker Cleveland. Cleveland was a contributor to the recent book An Emergent Manifesto of Hope (EMH) co-edited by the Emergent Church leader Tony Jones and his Emerging Church pastor Doug Pagitt.

'The Obsolete Man'

Twilight Zone / CBS.com:
The State where religion and books have been banned, a librarian is judged obsolete by the Chancellor and sentenced to death.

The Bush Legacy

John Lofton / The American View Radio:
The Bush Legacy: Eight years of Un-Godly, Un-Constitutional Government; And what in the world does Mr. Bush mean when he says "we have different routes to getting to the Almighty." Mr. Bush is proud of No Child Left Behind, The Wall Street Bailout (Bush: "I'm a free market guy"), Medicare Prescription Entitlements, The Faith Based Initiatives, Middle East "Freedom Agenda," $50 Billion AIDS Bill and his Compassionate Conservatism; Bush did nothing to outlaw abortion, he gave Planned Parenthood $2.2 Billion (Bush: "If it works fund it.")

Warren And Obama Walk Hand In Hand

Paul Proctor / NewsWithViews.com:
American Family Association's news editor, Ed Vitagliano, ended 2008 with a curious column at their affiliated OneNewsNow.com website titled, Praying for the new president, where he chastised WorldNetDaily.com's founder and editor Joseph Farah for taking Pastor Rick Warren to task for accepting President-elect Barack Obama's invitation to lead the invocation at his upcoming inauguration.

Review: Same-Sex Marriage and Religious Liberty

Lee Duigon / The Chalcedon Foundation:
When the serpent told Eve that she and Adam would be as gods if they disobeyed God and ate the forbidden fruit, he meant that they would be able to decide for themselves what was good and what was evil. They would, in Justice Kennedy's words, acquire "the right to define one's own concept of existence, of meaning," etc. One wonders whether it ever occurred to the Supreme Court justice that he was talking just like Satan.

The Necessity for Biblical Law

Stiles Watson / Chalcedon Blog:
According to the rabbinic reckoning, the Torah has 613 laws. In terms of Christian tallies, the number is somewhat less because the ancient rabbinic count sometimes divides a single statement into more than one law. Whichever approach to counting laws is used, a very significant fact emerges. God’s purpose is that all of society, and all men and nations, be governed by His law.

Eat, Heal, and Tell

David Alan Black / Dave Black Online:
We tend to think that evangelism means, first and finally, telling other people about the saving grace of our Lord Jesus Christ. We cite such passages as Mark 16:15 (if we believe it is authentic) and Acts 16:31 to justify our approach. And we are not far wrong. But a passage that normally gets less attention from missions-minded Christians is Luke 10:8-9. Perhaps we should look at it again:

Whenever you go into a city and the people welcome you, eat whatever they serve you. Heal the sick that are there, and tell the people, “The kingdom of God has come near!”

There is a lot to be said for such an approach. I think of an occasion on my recent trip to Ethiopia when I was out among the warrior-like Gujis, telling them about the love of the Lord Jesus.

I Escaped Life in an Auto Plant

Karen De Coster / LewRockwell.com:
I was listening to NPR and one of the news hosts made a comment that struck me as being nonsense. She was talking about the unfortunate auto plant workers in Michigan who will be displaced from their high-paying jobs. She said (to paraphrase) "all of those uneducated, unskilled workers..." Whoops, she stopped because she realized it was too un-pc to say "uneducated." Then she corrected herself, mentioning that the plant life is all they've ever known and the only option they've ever had, so, it's really not their fault that they are in such a rotten predicament. What bunk!

Illegals Living In Public Housing

The Associated Press:
Untold thousands of illegals live in public housing at a time when hundreds of thousands of citizens and legal residents are stuck waiting years for a spot. Illegals make up a tiny portion of the 7.1 million people in federal housing, according to government statistics. But authorities may be unaware of thousands more, and critics say no illegal should get housing benefits. The federal government, which funds the lion's share of the nation's public housing, requires only that illegals share a home with at least one family member who is in the country legally and pay their share of the rent.

The Enoch Syndrome vs. Noah's Paradigm

David Paul / The Covenant News:
It seems as if since the foundation of the nation of Israel in 1947 certain Christian groups have hailed it as a sign of the imminent return of Our Lord. They have written books, preached sermons, taught Sunday school lessons and much more predicting Jesus second return over and over again, only to be disappointed.

Uncivil War: Detroit Blames the South

Karen De Coster / Mises.org:
The Union is squaring off against the South again. This time it's Detroit's union -- the UAW -- partnering with the auto manufacturers, politicians, and media supporters of the domestic auto industry to wage warfare against the entire South.

What's Really Happening?

Chris Ortiz / Chalcedon Blog:
I saw a film by a conspiracy theorist/documentarian in 2005 entitled "Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State" by Texas radio host, Alex Jones. A scene from the film came back to mind, as I was contemplating the developing economic crisis in America. I recalled a scene where Jones is describing the corporate-controlled transition from free market thinking to a fascist system. Here's what he said:

"We're going out of the free market economy into the fascist economy. The elite has used socialism to consolidate the people's wealth; now that it's under their control, they're going to phase out all of the programs for the population, and it's all going to corporate welfare. This is the new America." ~ Alex Jones, Martial Law 9/11: The Rise of the Police State (2005)