Same -Sex "Marriage"- PLEASE PRAY WITH ME (every day untill the decision is revealed around mid-June) THAT THE SUPREME COURT WILL VOTE TO UPHOLD THE 2 LAWS REVIEWED SUPPORTING A TRADITIONAL DEFINITION OF MARRIAGE.. PRAY that the Court will resist any pressure to MAKE new law based on "cultural trends." PRAY as though the very future of the institution of the family is at stake because it is. PRAY! - for the sake of possibly millions of children, and for our country if it is to continue to be shown any more favor by our Heavenly Father, who I promise you will be very displeased if homosexual marriage is legalized; "GOD IS NOT [TO BE] MOCKED..." - (Gal. 6:7) - Stan [Be sure to check out my brief essay at post #478.]
CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR PASTOR SAEED (Iranian-born AMERICAN pastor) who just started an 8 year sentence for helping the underground churches in Iran) If you have not already, please join over 500,000 (was recently250,000) who have signed the petition for Pastor Saeed's release and tell your friends about it. http://aclj.org/iran/save-american-pastor-from-iranian-prison-sentence As the Lord leads, please pray: *For Pastor Abedini as he endures one of Iran’s most deadly prisons, potentially beaten and abused regularly, simply because of his Christian faith. *For the pastor’s wife and family and the Holy Spirit’s comfort upon them. * For God to visit his tormenters and all in his cell with him with supernatural dreams of the risen Christ, and use the pastor's actions and words to draw them to repent and turn to Christ; that God would use the pastor's time in that prison to spark a genuine spiritual revival that will bring scores of Iranians to Christ..*For the growing world pressure to finally obtain the pastor’s release. LATEST Update - April 15 - 1)".. During the weekly prison visit today, Pastor Saeed's family reported that his physical condition is worsening - seeing first-hand the marks and symptoms left by the recent beating. These beatings and the internal injuries are causing Pastor Saeed frequent fainting spells. Iranian officials are telling Pastor Saeed it could be an additional two months before he will receive medical treatment. Such a delay is inhumane and a gross violation of Iran’s international obligations. ...In addition to refusing to give Pastor Saeed the medical care he needs, it now appears authorities are stepping up their physical abuse and psychological torture. Pastor Saeed reported that cellmates, who appear to have connections to the Iranian intelligence police, recently threatened they would suffocate Pastor Saeed in his sleep, making his death look like an accident. The daily threat that his life could be taken by his internal injuries or by the hands of cellmates, weighs heavily on Pastor Saeed. (http://aclj.org/iran/beatings-intensify-american-pastor-saeed-condition-worsens-in-iranian-prison PRAY that Pastor Saeed might finally receive the medical treatment he needs. 2) More than 550,000 people from 180 countries have signed the petition to Save Saeed. Your voice has moved the U.S., the European Union, and many others to call for his release. Go to Save Saeed.org and add your name to those sending letters to him.
CONTINUE TO PRAY FOR PASTOR SAEED (Iranian-born AMERICAN pastor) who just started an 8 year sentence for helping the underground churches in Iran) If you have not already, please join over 500,000 (was recently250,000) who have signed the petition for Pastor Saeed's release and tell your friends about it. http://aclj.org/iran/save-american-pastor-from-iranian-prison-sentence As the Lord leads, please pray: *For Pastor Abedini as he endures one of Iran’s most deadly prisons, potentially beaten and abused regularly, simply because of his Christian faith. *For the pastor’s wife and family and the Holy Spirit’s comfort upon them. * For God to visit his tormenters and all in his cell with him with supernatural dreams of the risen Christ, and use the pastor's actions and words to draw them to repent and turn to Christ; that God would use the pastor's time in that prison to spark a genuine spiritual revival that will bring scores of Iranians to Christ..*For the growing world pressure to finally obtain the pastor’s release. LATEST Update - April 15 - 1)".. During the weekly prison visit today, Pastor Saeed's family reported that his physical condition is worsening - seeing first-hand the marks and symptoms left by the recent beating. These beatings and the internal injuries are causing Pastor Saeed frequent fainting spells. Iranian officials are telling Pastor Saeed it could be an additional two months before he will receive medical treatment. Such a delay is inhumane and a gross violation of Iran’s international obligations. ...In addition to refusing to give Pastor Saeed the medical care he needs, it now appears authorities are stepping up their physical abuse and psychological torture. Pastor Saeed reported that cellmates, who appear to have connections to the Iranian intelligence police, recently threatened they would suffocate Pastor Saeed in his sleep, making his death look like an accident. The daily threat that his life could be taken by his internal injuries or by the hands of cellmates, weighs heavily on Pastor Saeed. (http://aclj.org/iran/beatings-intensify-american-pastor-saeed-condition-worsens-in-iranian-prison PRAY that Pastor Saeed might finally receive the medical treatment he needs. 2) More than 550,000 people from 180 countries have signed the petition to Save Saeed. Your voice has moved the U.S., the European Union, and many others to call for his release. Go to Save Saeed.org and add your name to those sending letters to him.
"Obama: The fall ," Charles Krauthammer
Fate is fickle, power cyclical, and nothing is new under the sun. Especially in Washington, where after every election the losing party is sagely instructed to confess sin, rend garments and rethink its principles lest it go the way of the Whigs. And where the victor is hailed as the new Caesar, facing an open road to domination. And where Barack Obama, already naturally inclined to believe his own loftiness, graciously accepted the kingly crown and proceeded to ride his reelection success to a crushing victory over the GOP at the fiscal cliff, leaving a humiliated John Boehner & Co. with nothing but naked tax hikes.
Thus emboldened, Obama turned his inaugural and State of the Union addresses into a left-wing dream factory, from his declaration of war on global warming (on a planet where temperatures are the same as 16 years ago and in a country whose CO2 emissions are at a 20-year low) to the invention of new entitlements — e.g., universal preschool for 5-year-olds— for a country already drowning in debt.
To realize his dreams, Obama sought to fracture and neutralize the congressional GOP as a prelude to reclaiming the House in 2014. This would enable him to fully enact his agenda in the final two years of his presidency, usually a time of lame-duck paralysis. Hail the Obama juggernaut.
Well, that story — excuse me, narrative — lasted exactly six months. The Big Mo is gone. It began with the sequester. Obama never believed the Republicans would call his bluff and let it go into effect. They did.Taken by surprise, Obama cried wolf, predicting the end of everything we hold dear if the sequester was not stopped. It wasn’t. Nothing happened. Highly embarrassed, and determined to indeed make (bad) things happen, the White House refused Republican offers to give it more discretion in making cuts. Bureaucrats were instructed to inflict maximum pain from minimal cuts, as revealed by one memo from the Agriculture Department demanding agency cuts that the public would feel.
Things began with the near-comical cancellation of White House tours and ended with not-so-comical airline delays. Obama thought furious passengers would blame the GOP. But isn’t the executive branch in charge of these agencies? Who thinks that a government spending $3.6 trillion a year can’t cut 2 percent without furloughing air-traffic controllers? Looking not just incompetent at managing budgets but cynical for deliberately injuring the public welfare, the administration relented. Congress quickly passed a bill giving Obama reallocation authority to restore air traffic control. Having previously threatened to veto any such bill, Obama caved. He signed. Not exactly Appomattox, but coming immediately after Obama’s spectacular defeat on gun control, it marked an administration that had lost its “juice,” to paraphrase a charming question at the president’s Tuesday news conference.
For Obama, gun control was a political disaster. He invested capital. He went on a multi-city tour. He paraded grieving relatives. And got nothing. An assault-weapons ban — a similar measure had passed the Congress 20 years ago — lost 60 to 40 in a Senate where Democrats control 55 seats. Obama failed even to get mere background checks.
All this while appearing passive, if not helpless, on the world stage. On Syria, Obama is nervously trying to erase the WMD red line he had so publicly established. On Benghazi, he stonewalled accusations that State Department officials wishing to testify are being blocked.
He is even taking heat for the Boston bombings. Every day brings another revelation of signals missed beforehand. And his post-bombing pledge to hunt down those responsible was mocked by the scandalous Mirandizing of Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, gratuitously shutting down information from the one person who knows more than anyone about possible still-existent explosives, associates, trainers, future plans, etc.
Now, the screw will undoubtedly turn again. If immigration reform passes, Obama will be hailed as the comeback kid, and a new “Obama rising” narrative proclaimed.This will overlook the fact that immigration reform has little to do with Obama and everything to do with GOP panic about the Hispanic vote. In fact, Obama has been asked by congressional negotiators to stay away, so polarizing a figure has he become.
Nonetheless, whatever happens, the screw will surely turn again, if only because of media boredom. But that’s the one constant of Washington political life: There are no straight-line graphs. We live from inflection point to inflection point. And we’ve just experienced one. From king of the world to dead in the water in six months. Quite a ride.
[bold and italics emphasis mine]
No comments:
Post a Comment