# 1199 (5/31) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Jesus Ended the War on Women"

"Jesus Ended the War on Women" - by Dr. Karen Gushta, Truth in Action Ministries,April 1, 2015; http://www.truthimpact.me/index.php/2015/04/jesus-ended-the-war-on-women/?utm_source=impact&utm_medium=april&utm_campaign=whoisthis&utm_content=L0360#.VR_4GdzF9A0 [AS I SEE IT:  About 2 months, when I donated blood, the woman who drew the blood was Muslim (I immediately noticed her head scarf.) I allowed her to share why she chose to be a Muslim but I didn't have a chance to share with her afterwards. I wish I had a chance to share some of what is  in this article to point out the difference only Christ has made in our world. Please be praying for Tabitha and that I may be able to contact her sometime in the near future. - Stan]

     If you were looking for a credible witness of any event in first century Rome, you would not think to ask a woman for her testimony. The same held true throughout the entire Roman Empire. So why did God choose a woman to be the first to witness Christ in His resurrected body? And a woman with an unsavory past at that?

Jesus’ death and resurrection ushered in a new covenant order. An order that Paul would later articulate in his letter to the Galatians:"There is neither Jew nor Greek, there is neither slave nor free, there is neither male nor female; for you are all one in Christ Jesus." (Galatians 3:28).

This was a revolutionary teaching for every culture of that day. It is still revolutionary in places where ethnic, racial, and gender differences divide people into separate identity groups.

But Christ came to make us one in Him; and He ended the “war on women,” which was universally waged in even the more civilized cultures of His day. The philosophers Plato and Aristotle, revered by so many, had a low view of women. Plato taught that if a man lived a cowardly life, he would be reincarnated as a woman. According to Aristotle, the status of women in society was somewhere between a free man and a slave, and slaves were of little value. In ancient Rome, infant girls were exposed in such great numbers that marriage customs were affected, and girls who survived infancy married at a young age.

In non-Christian cultures today, men still treat women as property to be used and abused at will. The major religions of Hinduism, Buddhism, and Islam all consider women inferior to men. Until Christianity began to impact the society of India in the first quarter of the 19th century, a widow was required to throw herself on her husband’s funeral pyre. Christian missionaries who entered China in the late nineteenth-century found that baby girls were often exposed at birth. Today so many baby girls are being aborted it is affecting China’s population balance, and it is commonplace in India. The Muslim terrorists of ISIS are systematically raping women as part of their campaign of terror.

In contrast to the subjugation and mistreatment of women and girls found in virtually every pagan and non-Christian culture, with the first announcement of God’s promise of a coming redeemer in Genesis 3:15, women have had a special place of significance in God’s kingdom. Every Israelite woman could potentially be the one who would bear the promised Messiah. As Dr. D. James Kennedy pointed out, “Throughout Scripture people are referred to as having come from a man.     Only Christ is the seed of a woman.”

But for that seed to come, God had  to bring life into the dead wombs of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel. Only then could His promise to Abraham that in him “all the families of the earth shall be blessed” be fulfilled.

Although He chose twelve men to be His disciples, in Luke 8, we learn that Jesus’ ministry was funded in part through substantial financial gifts of women. As the gospel writer Mark tells us, there were women who followed Jesus and ministered to Him in Galilee, and many went with Him to Jerusalem. Mark also specifically notes that when Jesus was crucified a number of these women stood “looking on from a distance.” Among them was Mary Magdalene.

Giving Mary Magdalene the honor of being the first to see Jesus in His resurrected state was tantamount to making her the first to experience the new order of the new covenant in which every believer exercises the office of priest.

When Mary looked into the tomb and saw the two angels, one sitting at the head and the other at the feet of the place where Jesus had lain, she saw the final “mercy seat”—the place where God’s mercy was fully realized in Jesus’ sacrificial death as the Lamb of God. Now there was no need for another sacrifice for sin—no longer would the High Priest enter the Holy of Holies to sprinkle blood on the mercy seat of atonement. The blood of the final sacrifice for sin was sprinkled on the slab in the tomb where He had lain.

The Almighty God who gave life to the dead wombs of Sarah, Rebecca, and Rachel, gave life again to the Seed of the woman—and He walked out of the tomb. The first to see Him was a woman.

Jesus’ resurrection ushered in a new order. Jesus Christ has ended the war on women.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Dr. Karen Gushta is a writer and researcher at Truth in Action Ministries and has recently written How Can America Survive?--The Coming Economic Earthquake. She is also author of The War on Children, and co-author of Ten Truths About Socialism. As a career educator, Dr. Gushta has taught at levels from kindergarten to graduate teacher education in both public and Christian schools in America and overseas. She has a Ph.D. in Philosophy of Education and Masters Degrees in Elementary Education and in Christianity and Culture.

# 1244 (5/30) [The Record Of Our MOST Pro-Abortion President EVER]

[THE RECORD OF OUR MOST PRO-ABORTION PRESIDENT EVER] - "What the Designer of the Infamous 'Hope' Poster Says About Obama’s Presidency Will Shock You" - STEVEN ERTELT,  MAY 28, 2015  |  http://www.lifenews.com/2015/05/28/what-the-designer-of-the-infamous-hope-poster-says-about-obamas-presidency-will-shock-you/

The man who designed the infamous “Hope” poster the campaign of President Barack Obama employed during the 2008 and 2012 elections to propel the abortion activist to the White House has some not-so-flattering comments about whether Obama’s presidency has been a success.

Has Obama’s two terms as president lived up to his expectations? Here’s what he said: “Not even close,” Shepard Fairey said when asked in an Esquire interview published Thursday if Obama had lived up to the promise of his famous portrait. “Obama has had a really tough time, but there have been a lot of things that he’s compromised on that I never would have expected,” Fairey said.
The graphic designer suggested Obama should be “more courageous” but acknowledged some of the president’s actions were out of his control.

The Obama presidency has been one of the most pro-abortion presidencies since Roe v. Wade with Obama repeatedly threatening to veto pro-life legislation and celebrating abortion. When it comes to Roe v. Wade, Obama has repeatedly voiced his support for the infamous abortion decision.

The Obamacare health care law President Obama signed contains absolutely no limits on abortion funding. Every pro-life group has confirmed that Obamacare will fund abortions and fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business. The pro-abortion mandate in Obamacare has led to more than 100 lawsuits from Catholic and evangelical groups, colleges, and businesses that would be subjected to millions in fines if they did not pay for abortion-causing drugs and birth control for their employees.

Obama has bent over backward to force taxpayers to fund the Planned Parenthood abortion business. He repeatedly refused to sign a bill in Congress to revoke its hundreds of millions in taxpayer funds and, on several occasions, he forced states to fund the abortion giant even after they approved legislation to de-fund it. Planned Parenthood’s funding jumped from 33% to nearly 50% – over $487 million in taxpayer funding now goes to the abortion giant (under Obama and his administration). This is almost half a billion dollars that American families are forced to pay in tax dollars to the nation’s largest abortion provider, Planned Parenthood.

On his third day in office, President Obama repealed the pro-life “Mexico City Policy.” By doing this, President Obama made groups that perform and promote abortion eligible for U.S. foreign aid funds.

In May 2012, the House of Representatives voted on legislation that would ban sex-selection abortions, which occur when the gender of the child is not preferred by the parents. A study by the Lozier Institute shows that sex-selection abortion is happening here in the United States, with unborn baby girls falling victim. The majority of U.S. representatives – 246-168 – voted in favor of this ban. President Obama opposed the ban on sex-selection abortions, saying, “The government should not intrude in medical decisions … in this way.”

After taking office, Obama immediately restored funding to the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), which helps implement China’s brutal One-Child Policy. From 2009 to 2011, $145 million has been appropriated for UNFPA, and $47 million was requested in the President’s 2012 budget.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

# 1243 (5/29) "...BEYOND DEAD-END ENVIRONMENTALISM"

"A Murderous Mother - BEYOND DEAD-END ENVIRONMENTALISM" - By: Eric Metaxas|Breakpoint.org: March 4, 2015; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/26978

The core message of the modern environmental movement seems to be utter contempt for the human species. 

The London Times once asked its readers, “What’s wrong with the world today?” G. K. Chesterton, never one to pass up a chance like that, reportedly wrote back a simple response: “Dear Sir, I am.”

Modern environmentalists seem to share Chesterton’s answer, though their reasoning could hardly be more at odds with his. Humanity, they insist, is what’s wrong with the world. We’re destroying it, pushing species after species into oblivion and permanently altering earth’s climate. But besides voluntary self-extinction, these environmentalists don’t offer any solutions.

Instead, they spend their time and money fantasizing about human annihilation. I’m thinking of movies like “The Day After Tomorrow,” “The Happening,” or disturbing commercials like the infamous ad showing children exploding into bloody pulp because, you see, they wouldn’t reduce their carbon footprints.

And last month, a new series of public service messages took up that mantle. Produced by Conservation International, the ads feature A-list celebrities voicing an assortment of living things and habitats who all have one message for us: Nature doesn’t need humans, and it can kill us if it likes.Cast in the role of the ocean, Harrison Ford growls, “I’m most of this planet…every living thing here needs me. I’m the source. I’m what they crawled out of…I don’t owe [humans] a thing. I give. They take. But I can always take back…I covered this entire planet once and I can do it again.”

The series of ads, which aired on CNN, also includes Robert Redford as a frustrated redwood tree, Penelope Cruz as a passive-aggressive stream, and Kevin Spacey as a sarcastic rain forest.But the capstone of it all is Julia Roberts’ icy performance as Mother Nature.“I’ve been here for over four and a half billion years,” declares Roberts—“22,500 times longer than you—I don’t really need people…I have fed species greater than you, and I have starved species greater than you…My oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests, they all can take you or leave you…I’m prepared to evolve. Are you?” Roberts’ ominous tone led one journalist to observe that she sounds more like the White Witch of Narnia than Mother Nature.

But what’s most striking about Conservation International’s message isn’t its thinly-veiled misanthropy, but just how little it offers in the way of solutions. Humankind does more harm than good, we’re told, and boy, have we got it coming. And that’s about it. Well, if humans truly are the problem, maybe having fewer of us would do a lot of good. Actually, that’s the very conclusion Eduardo Porter came to last summer in the New York Times where he suggested population control as a solution to climate change.

Secular environmentalists have reached a dead end—literally. Humans are the problem, so saving the planet will mean lots of people winding up, well, dead in the end.

But this is where Christianity offers a surprising response.With Chesterton, all Christians agree that we are the problem. But that’s not the whole story. We’re also the solution, because the Christian worldview offers something secular ecology cannot: a concept of stewardship.

You see, if we are merely “the other great ape” as naturalists assume, then we have no moral obligation to care for our planet. But if, as Genesis teaches, we are fashioned as God’s vice-regents, placed on earth to love one another and to cultivate creation, then we have a duty to Someone much higher up the totem pole than Mother Nature. What we need are Christian environmentalists—believers with a theology of ecology. Only then can we counter this movement’s death wish with life-giving solutions.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

RESOURCES - Christians who want to cherish and protect the environment aren’t starting from scratch. Great men and women of the past like Theodore Roosevelt modeled how to balance love for the environment and respect for mankind. And as Peter Leithart pointed out recently at First Things, Christians in the U. S. have a forgotten legacy of fervor for the environment springing from a "theology of creation.” For more information on this issue, check out the links below.

Nature is Speaking, video series - Conservation International - http://natureisspeaking.org/home.html#Home
"Julia Roberts as Mother Nature: She Wants to Kill Us" - Jason Jones & John Zmirak | thestream.org | February 15,2015; https://stream.org/julia-roberts-mother-nature-wants-kill-us/
"Reducing Carbon by Curbing Population " - Eduardo Porter | New York Times | August 5, 2014; http://www.nytimes.com/2014/08/06/business/economy/population-curbs-as-a-means-to-cut-carbon-emissions.html?_r=1
"Environmentalists: Shrink Population to Shrink Carbon Footprint" - Celina Durgin | National Review | August 7, 2014; http://www.nationalreview.com/article/384770/environmentalists-shrink-population-shrink-carbon-footprint-celina-durgin
"Presbyterian Environmentalism" - Peter Leithart | First Things | February 23, 2015; http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/leithart/2015/02/presbyterian-environmentalism
"Overpopulation is Not the Problem " - Erle C. Ellis | New York Times | September 13, 2013;http://www.nytimes.com/2013/09/14/opinion/overpopulation-is-not-the-problem.html?_r=0
"More than Voles: Humans, Creativity, and Overpopulation" - Eric Metaxas | BreakPoint.org | October 2, 2013; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/23472

# 1242 (5/28) "DON'T GO!"

"DON'T GO!" - John Stossel | May 27, 2015;
http://townhall.com/columnists/johnstossel/2015/05/27/dont-go-n2004039/page/full [AS I SEE IT: In recent years there have been others such as the writer of this article who've questioned whether a college degree is really necessary for every young person, whether it is truly the guarantor of a successful career. (Wait till you read how many bartenders there are with college degrees -  yikes!) After I graduated many decades ago, I asked a businessman what my college degree signified to him. He honestly told me that it didn't signify that I had learned a lot (I, in fact, had difficulty telling him what I remembered learning from any of my classes just weeks (and now YEARS afterwards) but that I had "the stuff" to "do well" in a demanding environment. It's why, when I pray for young people in school at any age, I pray that they not just do well but that they learn much. If we are not really educating people by sending them through our schools, that how really well informed are our citizens, our leaders? - Stan]

It's graduation time! Have we learned much? No. College has become a scam.

Some students benefit: those with full scholarships and/or rich parents so they don't go deep into debt, those who love learning for its own sake and land jobs in academia and those who get jobs that require a college credential. But that's not most students.

Half today's recent grads work in jobs that don't require degrees. Eighty thousand of America's bartenders have bachelor's degrees.

Politicians such as Hillary Clinton promote college by claiming that over a lifetime, college graduates "earn $1 million more." That statistic is true but utterly misleading. People who go to college are different. They're more likely to have been raised by two parents. They did better in high school. They'd make more money even if they never went go to college.

Economist Bryan Caplan argues that there isn't much evidence that college grads are paid more because they learned anything at college that is valuable to their jobs.

Getting into elite universities and graduating from them is mostly a "signaling" device, he says. It tells employers you're a smart person, so employers can begin teaching you things you really need to know. Employers, not the colleges, turn out to be the ones making students valuable contributors. This suggests college is more like a hurdle than an investment. It would be better if companies found cheaper ways to screen for talent than four years of college.

Most of America's prestigious universities started out as training centers for the priesthood and ways of confirming your status as part of the upper crust. In many cases, that's still true today. Taxpayers shouldn't be forced to subsidize that. But we are.Now President Obama proposes spending more of your money on "free community college." Senator and presidential candidate Bernie Sanders goes further, proposing "free tuition" at four-year public colleges. Of course, "free" just means taxpayers are forced to pay.

This is nuts. When government subsidizes services, people supplying those services get wasteful. Colleges now spend millions on manicured lawns and fancy gyms. A University of Missouri admissions officer bragged to my TV show crew about the university's "day spa" and said when it comes to recruiting students, "more important than reading, writing and arithmetic" is giving "our Tigers spring break every time they step into the student recreation complex." I'm happy that Missouri's students like their luxurious gym, but I don't want to help pay for it. If the school thinks its "day spa" is crucial for recruiting, let them sucker their own alumni into making voluntary contributions for it. Leave taxpayers alone.

Government subsidies encourage students who don't belong in college to go anyway. Many don't graduate, feel bad about themselves and end up deep in debt. The subsidies also invite schools to increase the cost of tuition.

Democrats complained we need Obamacare because health care costs "were skyrocketing." But while the cost of health care rose 296 percent over the past 30 years, college tuition rose 553 percent. College is now a grotesque spending bubble, funded by government, that's about to burst.

Law professor Glenn Reynolds, author of "The Education Apocalypse," writes, "The rapid increase in college tuition began just about exactly the time the federal government started helping to subsidize college ... (Y)ou don't want to engage in subsidies that make universities more bloated and more inefficient." But that's what Obama and Sanders propose to do.

A more compassionate move would be to warn people that college is not as valuable as colleges advertise themselves to be. PayPal co-founder Peter Thiel encourages students to escape the college trap by paying them $100,000 not to go to college and instead to found their own capitalist ventures.

If we really want to build a better future and not just keep going through the same old motions, experiments like that are a much smarter idea than throwing more money at the college bubble.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

# 1241 (5/27) " ...DEALING WITH TECTONIC CULTURAL SHIFTS"

"From Serving Others to Serving Self - DEALING WITH TECTONIC CULTURAL SHIFTS" - By: John Stonestreet|Breakpoint.org: May 12, 2015; http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/27344

Like the earth itself, we can identify tectonic shifts in cultures too. And when they shift, they can leave quite a trail of destruction.

Most people who look at the cultural decline of the United States will say it started in the 1960s with the sexual revolution and the drug culture. But according to New York Times columnist David Brooks, it began not in the psychedelic Sixties, but in the frumpy Forties.

“By the fall of 1945,” Brooks writes, “Americans had endured 16 years of hardship, stretching back through the Depression. They were ready to let loose.”As Brooks notes, this led to a shift from a more self-denying culture to one that celebrated individualism, and we could add, libertinism. And it actually started in pop culture, advertising, and, interestingly, books.

Notions of sin and service were out. Self-actualization and self-expression were in. A 1946 book by Rabbi Joshua Liebman titled “Peace of Mind,” topped The New York Times’ best-seller list for 58 weeks and told readers to relax and start loving themselves. Liebman even offered a new list of commandments, including “Thou shalt not be afraid of thy hidden impulses.”

Then in 1952, Norman Vincent Peale published “The Power of Positive Thinking,” which, as Brooks notes, “rejected a morality of restraint for an upbeat morality of growth.” Rev. Peale’s book was the No. 1 seller not for 58 weeks, but for 98.

Brooks writes that we’ve gone “from a culture of self-effacement, which says, ‘I’m no better than anybody else and nobody is better than me,’ to a culture of self-expression, which says, ‘Look at what I’ve accomplished. I’m special.’ ” A quick glance at today’s social media environment confirms Dr. Brooks’s diagnosis.

And I think this “look at me, I’m great” philosophy also provides much of the underpinnings of the gay-rights movement, which is becoming ever more aggressive. Just think about it: We’ve gone from “gay pride” parades that celebrate what used to be considered deviant sexual behavior, to threats against Christian business owners. The idea is, “I’m so great, you have to approve of me—or else.”

This attitude also may explain why people tend to be so easily offended these days. Self-worship never stops at self. It eventually looks for the worship of others, too. The god of self is a jealous god, a black hole that draws others into its deadly orbit. No one is allowed to pass. All must worship at its altar.

So how can Christians respond to this tectonic cultural shift?
     Robert George, the great scholar from Princeton, says we must begin to rebuild “the character—or soul-shaping role of culture.” He sees two avenues to improving what he calls our “moral ecology,” or what is sometimes called public morality. One is establishing political and legal boundaries, which certainly have their place. The other primary one, however, is supporting society’s cluster of private institutions—those “little platoons,” like families, churches, and other institutions of civil society.

Dr. George says, “Despite the fact that public morality is indeed a public good, its maintenance depends far more on contributions of private institutions, beginning with the family, and then the other institutions of law and government.”

I couldn’t agree more. In fact, this is what Warren Smith and I, in our new book, "Restoring All Things," call “restoration from the middle.” As I’ve said before on BreakPoint, we will begin to see the tectonic shifts in culture we want to see even as Christian individuals, organizations, and businesses—with renewed intentionality—go about the business of the Gospel: helping the poor, building a culture of life, shoring up families, seeking racial reconciliation, and of course offering the hope of redemption and salvation to sinners.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

FURTHER READING AND INFORMATION
     As John said, Christians must intentionally live out the Gospel, in word and deed. For examples of everyday people who have modeled a Christ-like life of service in communities around the nation, get your own copy of John and Warren Smith's book "Restoring All Things". And join the "little platoons" in the mission of moral restoration and reconciliation through Christ.

RESOURCES
"When Cultures Shift" - David Brooks | New York Times | April 17, 2015; http://www.nytimes.com/2015/04/17/opinion/david-brooks-when-cultures-shift.html?_r=0
"Robert Bork and 'Slouching Toward Gomorrah' ” - Robert P. George | First Things | November 21, 2012; http://www.firstthings.com/blogs/firstthoughts/2012/12/robert-bork-and-slouching-toward-gomorrah
BreakPoint This Week: "Restoring All Things" - John Stonestreet | BreakPoint.org | March 20, 2015; https://www.colsoncenter.org/features-columns/discourse/discourse-archive/entry/15/27078
Restoring All Things: God's Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People
- John Stonestreet, Warren Smith | Baker Books | May 2015http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-archive/entry/13/27360

#1240 (5/26) "Islamic Terrorists Should Be Called Islamic Terrorists"

"ISLAMIC TERRORISTS SHOULD BE CALLED ISLAMIC TERRORISTS" - Lee Edwards/ Josiah Lippincott / May 21, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/21/islamic-terrorists-should-be-called-islamic-terrorists/

Osama bin Laden. (Photo: Al-Jazeera/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

For more than three decades, they have sought out and killed Americans. In 1983, in one of the first major anti-American attacks, they bombed the Marine barracks in Beirut, killing 241 American servicemen. In 1992, they used bombs to kill two people in Aden, Yemen, in hopes of killing American troops that might be passing through. In February 1993, they used a truck-based explosive to try and topple the World Trade Center in lower Manhattan. They failed, but their attack killed six New Yorkers and injured a thousand others.

What would you call the perpetrators of such acts—militants? Would you copy President Obama and call them violent extremists or simply terrorists? What is missing in such formulations? Even as he identified al-Qaeda as a threat to America, Obama refused to describe the enemy as it describes itself: “Islamic.”

Islamic Terrorists Have a Religious Goal
     Emboldened by their success in Beirut and their almost-success in New York City in 1993, terrorists used bombs in 1995 to kill five U.S. servicemen in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. The following year, al-Qadea struck again at American troops in Saudi Arabia in the Khobar Tower bombings, killing 19 Americans and wounding 372.

Why did the terrorists persist in their plots to kill Americans? What was it about America that so enraged them? In February 1998, Osama Bin Laden provided an answer when he declared a “fatwa” (a religious decree) declaring war against America in the name of the World Islamic Front, calling for the killing of civilians as well as soldiers: "The ruling to kill the Americans and their allies—civilians and military—is an individual duty for every Muslim who can do it in any country [emphasis added] in which it is possible to do it, in order to liberate the al-Aqsa Mosque and the holy mosque [Mecca] from their grip, and in order for their armies to move out of all the lands of Islam, defeated and unable to threaten any Muslim."

By their own words, Bin Laden and his fellow travelers declared themselves to be not just terrorists but Islamist terrorists with a religious goal—to re-establish true Islamic society in the Middle East by removing any “stain” of American influence by force. Bin Laden believed the whole world was meant to accept his universal message.

While the majority of Muslims prefer peaceful, non-violent, socio-political approaches that lead in time to a peaceful transition to Islamic society, a minority, led by revolutionary groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS, favor a jihad or holy war dependent upon violence and military action. This brand of Salafist Islam does not distinguish between combatants and civilians as the West does but sees the West as an imperialist enemy with America as its leader.

It is self-evident that the terrorists who have sought to kill us all these years are Islamist. Al-Qaeda and ISIS terrorists consider themselves to be holy warriors who believe in a specific ideology (Islamist extremism) that is tied to a specific religion: Islam.

From Al-Qaeda to ISIS
     Following Bin Laden’s fatwa, the killing continued. In January 2000, al-Qaeda attacked the USS Cole in the port of Aden, killing 17 and injuring 39 Americans. In the world today, Bin Laden said, “the worst terrorists are the Americans,” and he predicted “a black future for America.” We did not understand how black they would try to make it.

On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, two hijacked passenger jets smashed into New York City’s World Trade Center, destroying the two towers and killing 2,753 people. A third hijacked jet slammed into the side of the Pentagon in Washington, D.C., killing 184 civilians and military personnel. A fourth plane, whose target was probably the U.S. Capitol, was diverted by courageous passengers and crashed in the Pennsylvania countryside, killing 33 passengers, seven crew, and four hijackers.

In response, President George W. Bush approved and later President Barack Obama supported a global manhunt for Bin Laden, which ended on May 1, 2011, in Abbottabad, Pakistan, with his death in a raid by American Navy SEALs. Commented President Obama: “For over two decades, bin Laden has been al-Qaeda’s leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of Bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation’s effort to defeat al-Qaeda.”

While President Obama acknowledged that the fight against al-Qaeda was not over, neither he nor any other Western leader foresaw the change that Islamist terrorism would undergo.

As the central branch of al-Qaeda withered under American assault, a regional affiliate, known as al-Qaeda in Iraq or AQI, grew and spread. In 2013, this group rebranded itself as ISIS, or the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria. ISIS’s mission was to do more than harass American troops with improvised explosive devices or commit acts of terror. Rather, it aspired to territorial government and expansion across the Muslim world in the name of Sunni Islam. ISIS has proclaimed itself to be a re-establishment of the caliphate, or transnational Islamist state that ruled the Middle East and much of Europe a thousand years ago.

Beheadings and Massacres: Yes, They’re Serious
     It shocked the world by beheading on camera James Foley, a freelance reporter with the GlobalPost; former Army Ranger Peter Kassig; and freelance journalist Steven Sotloff. In addition, ISIS hostage Kayla Mueller, an American volunteer worker in Syria, was accidentally killed by a coalition airstrike.

While the West condemned the callousness of the beheadings, ISIS’s reach grew. “We announce our allegiance to the Caliph … and will hear and obey in times of difficulty and prosperity,” announced Abubakar Shekau, leader of Boko Haram, a Nigerian terrorist group dedicated to the goals of an Islamist society that ISIS represents.

Boko Haram is merciless. In the past year, it has killed more than 10,000 people. This includes a brutal massacre of some 2,000 women, children, and elderly in the town of Baga, Nigeria. Nor is its reach limited to Nigeria. Boko Haram continues to spread havoc across parts of Niger, Cameroon, and Chad. Its declared allegiance to ISIS further demonstrates the accelerating appeal of Islamist terrorism not just in the Middle East and in Africa but around the world.

In Islamist terrorism, the United States and the West face a foe of the same ideological mold as the Soviet Union. Both communism and Islamist terrorism are threats grounded in principles deeper than geo-political or social considerations. In the 14 years since 9/11 there have been 65 separate Islamist terrorist plots or attacks on U.S. soil. Thanks to the diligence of American intelligence and security operations, few of these plots have come to fruition. However, Islamist terrorism will only be defeated when we see it is as far more than mindless violence and “extremism.”

President Obama recognizes that Islamist terrorism is a problem, sort of. Last September he declared that America would use a broad coalition to ultimately “degrade” and “destroy” ISIS. Destroy? Yes. Degrade? No. ISIS is a terrorist group, not a street gang.

President Obama’s preferred use of the euphemistic “violent extremism” to describe our enemies is problematic. The President’s desire not to offend Muslims who are not engaged in terrorism may win some points in the Muslim world but it will weaken efforts to build a broad coalition against ISIS. Furthermore, it will confuse the American public. Without clarity in language there can be no clarity in strategy.

Don’t Impose Western Values on Islamic Terrorists
    Obama’s socio-economic analysis of 9/11, at the time of the tragedy, reveals an inability to see clearly on a matter of national security: "The essence of this tragedy, it seems to me, derives from a fundamental absence of empathy on the part of the attackers … It may find expression in a particular brand of violence, and may be channeled by particular demagogues or fanatics. Most often, though, it grows out of a climate of poverty and ignorance, helplessness and despair."

But the root of the 9/11 terror attacks was not a “lack of empathy” or “poverty and ignorance.” It was an ideology of religious terrorism that Bin Laden willingly embraced. His beliefs flowed from forces more potent than the superficial categories Obama suggested. Islamist terrorism is grounded in a rigid theocratic political view of the world. As Walter Lohman, director of Heritage’s Asian Study Center has put it, “the threat cannot be honestly separated from its religious context … Calling the threat ‘Islamist’ allows us to distinguish friend from foe.”

There is no need for America to declare its own “fatwa” against all Muslims. Rather, we must recognize that ISIS and al-Qaeda represent a clear and present transnational danger that calls for precise definition and decisive action. We must be willing to understand our enemy as he is, not as we might wish him to be.

[Originally published in The Federalist ] [bold and italics emphasis mine]

Lee Edwards is the distinguished fellow in conservative thought at The Heritage Foundation's B. Kenneth Simon Center for Principles and Politics. A leading historian of American conservatism, Edwards is the author or editor of 20 books, including biographies of Ronald Reagan, Barry Goldwater and Edwin Meese III as well as histories of The Heritage Foundation and the movement as a whole.
Josiah Lippincott is a member of the Young Leaders program at The Heritage Foundation.
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"Obams Dangerous Thinking About Climate Change and National Security" - Dakota Wood/ May 22, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/22/obamas-dangerous-thinking-about-climate-change-and-national-security/

#1239 (5/25) "This World War II Soldier’s Story Reminds Us of Why Memorial Day Matters"

ATTENTION: Please SCROLL DOWN this page to find the article titled on this post in LARGE BRIGHT BLUE CAPITAL LETTERS. Thank you.)



MEMORIAL DAY:"Just A Common Soldier" -  http://justacommonsoldier.com/ Hard to find a more powerful tribute to those in our military - present and veterans. Be sure to take the 5 minutes to view this video and share it. (Spoiler alert: If you're a politician, this will be humbling.) P.S. - I hope you made time to watch the PBS Memorial Day special  last night. In case you missed it please go to > htp://www.pbs.org/national-memorial-day-concert/videos/  Take a moment to esp. view the stories of 1) the two Gold Star children whose father was killed while serving in Iraq, and 2) disabled veteran Romy Camargo and his wife Gaby turned tragedy into a love story. Awesome tear-jerking reminders of why we have Memorial Day.

P.S.- Also worth your time is the following tribute by Casting Crowns: 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbRGksthTHQ&feature=share

"A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to The United States of America for an amount up to and including their life."

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"THIS WORLD WAR II SOLDIER'S STORY REMINDS US OF WHY MEMORIAL DAY MATTERS" - James Carafano / @JJCarafano / May 25, 2015 /http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/25/this-soldiers-story-reminds-us-of-why-memorial-day-matters/ [AS I SEE IT: I heard a brief mention of this story months ago at the end of a TV news segment. It moved me to begin praying daily for the "POW-MIA" office of the military. Of all the departments of the military, it seems to me that this office should have a sense of urgency to return/identify and bring closure for the families of those of our military. As the follow-up story briefly noted after this one states, "the process of finding the remains of those who are missing in action 'hasn’t kept up with modern technology.'” It goes on to call the failure to do their work in a timely way a case of "inefficiency." I could not agree more. I believe that every Memorial Day and Veterans' Day, the POW-MIA office should be required (held accountable) to report on what they have accomplished and why their efforts are slowed. Also,  more effort should be made to identify those of the wars of our most distant past. (For example, more effort should be made to identify soldiers of World War II, then those of the Korean War, the Vietnam War, etc.) The goal of the office should be to put itself out of business (to be able to lower the flag representing the office) as soon as possible. When we consider the increasing technology available for such work, making the families of POWS or the missing wait - in this case 70 years! - is inexcusable! - Stan]

Arlington National Cemetery. (Photo: Ryzner Zdenek/ZUMA Press/Newscom)

If any day is more than just a day, then Memorial Day is it. Sometimes remembering just one soldier reminds us why.

His name was Lawrence Gordon. He grew-up on a hard-scrabble farm in Canada. After Pearl Harbor, he decided to join the American Army. The Americans had better “kit.”

The Army sent Gordon into the center of the storm, as the allies battled from the beaches of Normandy breaking through the German defenses and then racing to encircle the enemy as it withdrew from France.

Gordon was on the sharp edge of the bayonet. His cavalry unit, in thinly skinned armored vehicles, was dispatched way to the front or the flanks to find the enemy before the more heavily armored columns were called up to engage. Sometimes “finding” the enemy started with a wild exchange of gunfire or the unexpected burst of mortar rounds. Patrols could go from tense silence to vicious firefights in seconds. Gordon’s letters home to the family and his girl kept up their spirits with assurances he was safe and surrounded by dependable comrades and delivered a travelogue of his little unit’s march across France.

One day the letters stopped.

The family received a partially burned wallet. They knew it was his. The picture of his girl was singed but still recognizable. But other than a few personal effects, there was no explanation of what had happened to Lawrence Gordon—and no body. He was missing in action—and would remain so for almost 70 years.

A documentary, “Honoring a Commitment,” by a young filmmaker named Jeb Henry, tells the extraordinary story of how his loved ones found Private Gordon and brought him home. The new film, recently screened at The Heritage Foundation in partnership with National Review, is part detective story and part love story, a journey of a family’s determined unrelenting effort to find and honor a brave man.

Remembering Private Gordon is important for all of us. Any remembrance of war that doesn’t include the telling of individual stories lessens the purpose of the day–and why it is important that we remember.

Sometimes the enormity of war overwhelms the truth that all great struggles are just the sum of individual stories. Each is more than just the story of one soldier’s service and sacrifice. Their service ripples across their families, friends and their communities. Memorial Day reminds us it is the noble sacrifice of many that makes us who we are.

Every soldier’s story of World War II is worth telling. Every story of every soldier in every war has value. Every generation of American soldiers is the greatest generation. What is most extraordinary about the extraordinary story of Private Gordon and his extraordinary family is that it is singularly representative of what the fight for freedom and the eternal struggle for the preservation of liberty really means.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

James Jay Carafano, a leading expert in national security and foreign policy challenges, is The Heritage Foundation’s Vice President, Foreign and Defense Policy Studies, E. W. Richardson Fellow, and Director of the Kathryn and Shelby Cullom Davis Institute for International Studies. Read his research.

"‘Honoring a Commitment:’ Soldier’s Remains Found After 70 Years" - Kate Scanlon / @scanlon_kate / May 20, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/20/honoring-a-commitment-soldiers-remains-found-after-70-years/
     "...After he was killed, Gordon was misidentified as a German, and was laid to rest in a French cemetery for German soldiers. French authorities performed a DNA test. Gordon had been found.

Henry [his grandson] said that Gordon’s story is “a case study,” showing that the process of finding the remains of those who are missing in action “hasn’t kept up with modern technology.” He said that he hopes that the film [a video about the incident that Henry had made] “sheds light on the MIA community.” “I hope it opens people’s eyes to the inefficiency,” said Henry. “I don’t think we’re fulfilling the promise to bring everyone home.” [bold and italics emphasis mine]

# 1238 (5/24) SUNDAY SPECIAL: "Is the Atheist Population Skyrocketing?"

"IS THE ATHEIST POPULATION SKYROCKETING?" - Jerry Newcombe | May 20, 2015;http://townhall.com/columnists/jerrynewcombe/2015/05/20/is-the-atheist-population-skyrocketing-n2001747/page/full [AS I SEE IT: It was easy as a Christian to be discourged byar the results of a recent Pew Research study on religion in America. But in this article (and the ones listed afterwards) we are reminded that the mainstream media tends to interpret things in a way that fits their worldview and not necessarily tells the whole story. Also, I appreciate the perspective of Dr. Moore in the second article that follows. Be encouraged! - Stan]

Will the last true Christian in America please turn out the lights on the way out? A recent study on religion and America that has received much attention has been interpreted by some to indicate that Christianity is on its virtual deathbed. But as the saying goes, “The good news is the bad news is wrong.”

     The study comes from the respected Pew Research Center: “America’s Changing Religious Landscape” (5/12/15). The subtitle is: “Christians Decline Sharply as Share of Population; Unaffiliated and Other Faiths Continue to Grow.” They note that as recently as 2007, nearly eight in 10 Americans identify themselves as Christians; whereas today, that number is down to about seven in 10. Liberal mainline Protestants are losing the largest numbers; the number of self-identifying Catholics has also shrunk somewhat. Evangelicals are basically holding their own. Certainly, the church in all its branches has its work cut out for it.

    But the biggest shocker is what we could call the rise of the “nones”: “Over the same period, the percentage of Americans who are religiously unaffiliated---describing themselves as atheist, agnostic or ‘nothing in particular’---has jumped more than six points, from 16.1% to 22.8%.” This includes many young people who are part of the “nones.”

     Dr. Byron Johnson, a great researcher who often works with Gallup on the subject of religion in America, cautions us on the interpretation of the data. The author of the book, "More God, Less Crime," Johnson teaches at Baylor and has taught at the University of Pennsylvania and Princeton.
I asked Dr. Johnson about the new study, especially about the rise of the “nones.” He said, “Don’t be fooled, Jerry. We have some of the world’s top religion scholars doing social science research. We publish books and scientific articles in peer-reviewed journals---the other side doesn’t do either.”

      In a recent radio interview I did with him, Dr. Johnson made some fascinating remarks on the perceived decline of Christianity in America and the rise of the “nones.” He said, “There are these ongoing reports by the media that indicates religion is declining. Most of the secular media is looking for something that shows that religion is declining…so that’s why you hear all these reports about the growth of atheism.”

     For example, says Johnson: “In one of their recent studies, Pew found that 44 percent of Americans are not affiliated with the religious tradition/denomination in which they were raised. That finding was interpreted to mean that 44 percent of Americans had abandoned the faith. But this simply acknowledges that Americans shop around in a highly competitive religious economy---looking for the best product. It’s a sign of religion’s vitality not a sign of leaving faith behind. “

    He added, “Much to the chagrin of most of the media, atheism has remained flat for over seven decades. Four percent of Americans fall into that category. It hasn’t changed. If atheism were on the rise, it would be such a phenomenal story. But instead, since it isn’t, they have to do what they can to make us believe that it is.” But he cautioned, “You’d be blind not to know we have a secular society. But the reality is we have a religious society as well. It’s very vibrant.”

     I asked him about the “nones” and their significant growth in recent times. He answered: “There are a number of people who would mark ‘none,’ n-o-n-e, on a survey, and two or three questions later will give you the name and address of a place [house of worship] they regularly attend, and guess what? Almost all of these are non-denominational, evangelical churches. I’m not saying all of the ‘nones’ are evangelical.” But many of them are.

     Here’s the rub: Are all the “nones” (or even a majority of them) atheists? No, says Johnson: “The ‘nones’ have been equated with atheism. That’s what’s really going on here. The number of ‘nones’ is growing, and it is true. But what I’m saying to you is that when you unpackage it, it looks completely different.” In other words, the recently released report is being interpreted by some to indicate that America is becoming more atheistic because of the increase of those who list no religious identification. He said that’s where interpreters of the Pew study are in error.

     Meanwhile, how many evangelicals are in the country at present? Using a three-fold criterion to define an evangelical (i.e., one who has accepted Jesus as Savior, believes in the authority of the Bible, and shares the faith), Johnson says based on years of his surveying, there are about 100 million. “That’s a huge, huge category.”

All this reminds me of the Mark Twain line: "The rumors of my death have been greatly exaggerated."

Dr. Jerry Newcombe is a key archivist of the D. James Kennedy Legacy Library and a Christian TV producer.

"Is Christianity Really Dying in America?" - CBNNews.com, May 15, 2015;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/May/Is-Christianity-Really-Dying-in-America/
     A recent survey by the Pew Research Center shows the number of people who call themselves Christians is at all-time low, while those who profess no religious affiliation is at an all-time high.
The mainstream media is reporting the story as if it's the end of Christianity. But Dr. Russell Moore, with the Southern Baptist Convention's Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission, has a different perspective.
     "We do not have more atheists in America today than in previous generations. We simply have more honest atheists in America," he wrote on his blog recently. Despite the rise in those who don't believe, Moore said the study actually reveals hope for the faith.

"Christianity isn't normal anymore. It never should have been. The increasing strangeness of Christianity might be bad news for America, but it's good news for the Church," he wrote. "The Bible Belt may fall. So be it. Christianity emerged from a Roman Empire hostile to the core to the idea of a crucified and resurrected Messiah," he said. "We've been on the wrong side of history since Rome, and it was enough to turn the world upside down."

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

"How to Share Christianity in an Age of No Faith" -  May 13, 2015;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2015/May/Changing-Landscape-Non-Religion-Taking-Hold-in-US/
"Post-Christian Era? The Future of Faith in America" - By Paul Strand, April 29, 2013;
http://www.cbn.com/cbnnews/us/2013/January/Post-Christian-Era-The-Future-of-Faith-in-America/

#1237 (5/23) "American College of Pediatricians Confirms Abortion-Breast Cancer Link..."

"AMERICAN COLLEGE OF PEDIATRITICANS CONFIRMS ABORTION-BREAST CANCER LINK: 'Not Merely Correlational' ”- Brad Mattes / Apr. 24, 2015 | http://www.lifenews.com/2015/04/24/american-college-of-pediatricians-confirms-abortion-breast-cancer-link-not-merely-correlational/

Breast cancer. Two of the scariest words a woman can hear.

You’d think people who claim to advocate for women would do everything possible to educate them about their risks. You’d think they’d offer all the information and all the research.But the abortion industry has a vested interest in making sure women don’t hear about the link between abortion and breast cancer. In fact, they deny it exists, even in the face of another medical entity warning young girls of the risk.

Earlier this month, after considering research, the American College of Pediatricians firmly reiterated its stand on the abortion and breast cancer (ABC) link. The president of the College flatly stated, “When one considers the normal anatomy and physiology of the breast it becomes clear that this link is causal not merely correlational.”

Here’s the link in a nutshell: before pregnancy, lobules in the breast are immature and undifferentiated—not yet milk-producing cells. Days after conception, though, estrogen levels start rising, triggering changes. By the end of the first trimester, estrogen is up by 2,000 percent. By 20 weeks into pregnancy, lobules have increased so much that breast volume doubles. In the last 20 weeks, the lobules mature until they can produce milk. At 40 weeks, 85 percent of the lobules have differentiated and matured into Type 4 cells, known to be more cancer-resistant.

The exposure of immature lobules to estrogen is when they’re quickly growing and changing. It’s at this time they’re most vulnerable to breast cancer. If a woman has an abortion before 32 weeks, her lobules and ducts have increased and been exposed to an estrogen bombardment, but they never get the chance to mature into the protective Type 3s and 4s. She only has more Type 1s and Type 2s—more places for cancer to form.

Metastatic breast cancer is on the rise in the US among women ages 25 to 39. And it’s not just here: other countries where abortion has increased also show a rise in breast cancer. Studies also show that risk increases with every subsequent abortion, as the lobules are stimulated again and again with estrogen but never allowed to mature. Learn more about the ABC link on our website.[http://www.lifeissues.org/category/abortion/abortion-cancer/]

Both Planned Parenthood and—amazingly—Susan G. Komen for the Cure deny the link. Planned Parenthood calls it a myth. Planned Parenthood and Komen don’t have any trouble talking about other risk factors for breast cancer. But they won’t talk about abortion. Planned Parenthood starts its explanation by smearing those who do want women to have full information. Komen lumps abortion right up there with “left-handedness” as a non-factor.

Komen’s recent experience with Planned Parenthood’s mafia thuggery explains why they deny the ABC link. But Planned Parenthood’s zeal for all things abortion is understood by the millions of dollars they rake in by committing abortions.

Imagine the loss of income to Planned Parenthood should the truth about the ABC link be widely known. Killing babies is their cash cow and they’ll protect it at all costs, even when Komen gets in the way. It’s not about safeguarding the health of women. It’s all about the money.

Each year thousands more are diagnosed with those two frightening words, “breast cancer.” Imagine the number of women who could be spared this horrible and often deadly experience if the abortion industry would come clean and stop putting ideology over the lives of countless women. Sounds like a real war on women, if you ask me.

Begin helping women today. Get informed and then share your life-saving knowledge with others. We’re on the side of more information to empower women. You can read the College’s full statement here.[http://www.acpeds.org/the-college-speaks/position-statements/health-issues/abortion-and-the-risk-of-breast-cancer-information-for-the-adolescent-woman-and-her-parents]

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

LifeNews.com Note: Bradley Mattes is the executive director of Life Issues Institute.

#1166 (5/22) "Debunking Global Warming Claims..."

"DEBUNKING GLOBAL WARMING CLAIMS:National Security Concerns and Shrinking Glaciers" - February 18, 2015; http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25377&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD [AS I SEE IT: Recently, President Obama was at it again, declaring in a commencement speech that climate change (ie, the latest term for "global warming") is the greatest threat facing America. When the leader of the free world doesn't even recognize who or what is and what isn't a danger to America, it emphasizes just how much danger we all face from our true enemies. - Stan]

Many of the claims made by environmentalists about the catastrophic effects of global warming have failed to transpire.  James Taylor, senior fellow at the Heartland Institute, dispels some of the most outrageous in a recent Forbes article.  Two claims seem particularly egregious and worthy of refutation: first, that global warming threatens national security and second, that global warming is causing glaciers to shrink.

President Obama himself said climate change posed "immediate risks to our national security" in his January State of the Union speech, a claim echoed by many environmentalists who believe global warming will cause instability in already unstable regions by creating weather such as droughts and natural disasters that could endanger food supplies, ultimately leading to resource shortages, mass migrations and conflict. Taylor says the claim is faulty:

Is global warming really causing a reduction in food and water? No. In fact, warming has promoted rather than damaged crop production -- it has lengthened the growing season, and higher concentrations of carbon dioxide have increased crop yields.

Water, too, is safe: soil moisture has improved, and the earth has seen more precipitation due to warming temperatures.

As for concerns about shrinking glaciers, the claim is equally misleading. In fact, Taylor says the Antarctic Ice Sheet has grown steadily since the government first began measuring it in 1979, despite that icebergs have broken off of it. While environmentalists point to an iceberg ("larger than the city of Chicago") that broke away from the Pine Island Glacier (part of the West Antarctic Ice Sheet) in 2013, Taylor says the Antarctic Ice Sheet actually set a record that year for being more extensive than any time in recorded history, and it grew even larger in 2014.

Additionally, environmentalists will contend that Montana's Glacier National Park has seen a reduction in glaciers from 150 to 35 over the last 100 years. Again, Taylor says that's entirely misleading: those glaciers have been receding for over 300 years, well before the rise of SUVs or coal-fired power plants.

[To read the rest of Taylor's debunking of global warming myths, go to the website noted below.]

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

Source: James Taylor, "Top 10 Global Warming Lies That May Shock You," Forbes.com, February 9, 2015. http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/02/09/top-10-global-warming-lies-that-may-shock-you/
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"Fix, Don't Raise The Gas Tax" - by James Taylor, 1/09/2015; http://www.forbes.com/sites/jamestaylor/2015/01/09/fix-dont-hike-the-gasoline-tax/

"Wind Power Is Not Economically Feasible" - March 25, 2015; http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25492&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

"The Cost of the Renewable Fuel Standard to Motorists" - March 16, 2015; http://www.ncpa.org/sub/dpd/index.php?Article_ID=25460&utm_source=newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=DPD

#1236 (5/21) "How Government Debt Disinherited the Next Generation…and How To Fix It"

"HOW GOVERNMENT DEBT DISINHERITED THE NEXT GENERATION...AND HOW TO FIX IT" - Diana Furchtgott-Roth, Jared Meyer| 05/12/2015 | http://www.economics21.org/commentary/government-debt-disinherited-millennials-aca-regulation-05-12-2015 (This article originally appeared in The Fiscal Times. It is adapted from "Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young.")[AS I SEE IT: It concerns me that thus far 2 "conservatives" who may be candidates for President next year have recently said that they will "not touch entitlements." In light of what is shared in this article - which I have to believe every conservative (yes, even every liberal) in our government knows is true - such statements are clearly self-serving and not realistic. If Americans have any hope of turning the tide of our growing national debt, we need leaders who are committed to be REAL with us. - Stan]

    Burdened with an obligation to pay government debt they did not incur, young Americans – those born between the early 1980s and the beginning of the 21stcentury, or millennials – begin life at least partially robbed of their birthright. This is the first generation of young Americans that our government systemically disfavors and the first generation whose prospects are lower than those of their parents.
    Their parents and grandparents, beneficiaries of the New Deal and Great Society programs that are bankrupting America, never intended this. They are deeply concerned that their children and grandchildren cannot find jobs and are facing a future of decreased opportunity. They never anticipated their comforts would come at the expense of their progeny.

What can be done to create a system that’s more fair and sustainable?
      Mary Parrilli, now in her twenties and living outside of Chicago, told us, “I am outraged. We have been scammed, end of story. I do not expect to get back any of the money I am paying into Social Security – to me, it’s just another tax. I think people should help the elderly, especially their own family, but it is immoral for the government to force this on us. This is a perfect example of punishing the young and the successful and rewarding the irresponsible.”
      Increasingly devastating fiscal conditions are being handed to our nation’s youth. Every Social Security and Medicare Trustees Report and every Budget Outlook from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office shows fiscal deficits far into the future. These deficits drive the national debt even higher and someday the bill will come due. Only substantial tax increases or spending cuts will solve the problem – and judging by the current political climate, these aren’t coming any time soon.
      Because of automatic entitlement spending, Congress is unable to balance the budget without taking direct action to rein in the growth of these programs. To make matters worse, spending in 2009 was $3.5 trillion and revenue was $2.1 trillion, leaving a deficit of $1.4 trillion. Seven years from now, the deficit is expected to surpass $1 trillion again and continue rising after that. This will leave debt held by the public at more than 79 percent of GDP in 2024, compared with about 73 percent now.
     The Affordable Care Act has also raised health insurance premiums for young Americans and lowered them for middle-aged and older people. Young, healthy Americans are, in effect, required to pay for the health care of older Americans. Yet Washington has added to it by raising the cost of insurance for millennials and lowering it for their parents.
    Young people also encounter an education system that bankrupts them and leaves them far behind their peers in other countries. When young people leave school, they face a hostile job market littered with government regulations. These problems are systematic – and only a radical shift in politics and the policies they produce can turn the tide.

Why do politicians refuse to respond to the mistreatment of so many young Americans? Why is it so difficult to alter the egregious policies that keep young people unemployed, uneducated, and liable for trillions of dollars in unfunded promises?
     In Washington, D.C., and in state capitals around the country, entrenched interests protect the old, who have had the time and resources to build up a powerful political apparatus. Washington dare not take on the American Association of Retired Persons, one of the largest interest groups in the country, and change the unsustainable trajectory of entitlement programs.
    Rather than modify Social Security to defend its solvency, AARP chose to protect generous benefits for today’s retirees and disregard the future. (AARP spent $25 million on lobbying in the 2012 presidential election cycle and more than $16 million in the 2014 midterm election cycle. Based on money spent, AARP consistently ranks in the top 1 percent of organizations tracked by the Center for Responsive Politics.)
    Medicare, which will become insolvent sooner than Social Security, is defended by its own interest groups, such as the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare. The committee is rated has a “heavy hitter” in terms of political spending and one of the largest donors to federal elections since 1990.
    At the state level, public sector unions keep in place defined benefit pension plans that promise generous payouts to today’s retirees at everyone else’s expense. While union bosses are free to negotiate favorable contract terms with the politicians they bankroll, critical parties are left out – taxpayers and those who will be responsible for paying unfunded liabilities in the future.
    Many other interest groups lobby for policies that harm people, such as minimum wage hikes and other labor-market regulators that prevent the unskilled from entering the job market. Occupational licensing laws stay in play thanks to the efforts of those who already hold those licenses and want to defend their favored positions. Teachers’ unions protect the jobs of poor educators and stand in the way of meaningful education reforms that would greatly benefit students and younger, more effective teachers.
    Proportionately, the young do not vote. “Our generation has grown up with full acceptance of crushing national debt,” one frustrated 25-year-old told us. “We might not care as much as we should because we have never known life without it.” Two thirds of millennials perceive government to be inefficient and wasteful.

How can we change Washington’s direction to paint a brighter future for America’s next generation? Certain programs must be reformed; certain laws must be changed or repealed. The steps we must take are not politically easy – but each is necessary. Here are some of the most vital:
    --Congress must examine its spending every year and cut out waste, such as redundant, ineffective job-training programs, government-guaranteed loans to politically connected companies, and costly subsidies to favored industries.
    --Cutting back on government regulations that do little more than increase the size of bureaucracies and protect politically connected interests should be a bipartisan priority.
    --Enacting long-term reforms to entitlement programs to make them sustainable is necessary. Congress should vote on every dollar spent, every year. While it would make the budgeting process larger and more complicated, it would restore accountability and force Washington to make tough choices.
    --Gradually raising the retirement age for collecting Social Security benefits makes sense as people live longer. It’s unwise to provide full retirement at age 67 for those born after 1990. Raising the retirement age will also take away federal disincentives that discourage people from working longer. More work benefits the economy – leading to economic growth. Additionally, Social Security benefit increases should be pegged to the price level in the economy rather than wage level. What a person needs to live, not what other people make, should determine payouts.
    --Reforming the Affordable Care Act, starting with modified community ratings that prevent insurance companies from charging older people more than three times as much as younger ones, and the employer mandate penalty. The effort to extend coverage to the uninsured is admirable, but requiring employers to provide the insurance or pay a fine is not an integral component of ACA. American health care policy should harness the power of competition by repealing burdensome laws such as the ban on buying insurance across state lines and the preferential tax treatment given to employer-sponsored health plans.

America’s problems have solutions. We need a joint effort from the young and old to force politicians to discuss the issues and begin implementing solutions. Older Americans do not want to pass a future of higher taxes on to their grandchildren and great-grandchildren. They want solutions as much as anyone else.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Diana Furchtgott-Roth is director of Economics21 at the Manhattan Institute and Jared Meyer is a fellow at the Manhattan Institute. They are the coauthors of “Disinherited: How Washington Is Betraying America’s Young.” Follow Diana on Twitter @FurchtgottRoth and Jared @JaredMeyer10.

# 1235 (5/20) "You Gotta Have a Purpose..."

"YOU GOTTA HAVE A PURPOSE - START BY ASKING THE RIGHT QUESTIONS" - 
By: John Stonestreet| Breakpoint.org: May 19, 2015;
http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/entry/13/27384?spMailingID=11417245&spUserID=MTMyMjM2ODE5OQS2&spJobID=541210406&spReportId=NTQxMjEwNDA2S0

Want to start an argument? Bring up religion or politics. Want to start a thoughtful discussion? Mention purpose!

New York Times columnist David Brooks, who was one of Chuck Colson’s favorites, has a new column that I think Chuck would have loved. Brooks, who is on a tour promoting his new book, “The Road to Character,” says that people he meets are searching for purpose. “They feel a hunger to live meaningfully,” he writes, “but they don’t know the right questions to ask, the right vocabulary to use, the right place to look or even if there are ultimate answers at all. I find there is an amazing hunger to shift the conversation. People are ready to talk a little less about how to do things and to talk a little more about why ultimately they are doing them.”

A generation or two ago, Brooks says, there were lots of public authority figures talking about why—some of them good, others not so much. Theologian Reinhold Niebuhr and Rabbi Abraham Joshua Heschel were household names. Author Harry Emerson Fosdick and philosophers Hannah Arendt and Jean-Paul Sartre led very public discussions on the meaning of existence or the nature of evil. And Brooks forgot to mention Billy Graham! Back then there was an appetite for street-level philosophy—and maybe there still is.

Also, schools back then were more than job training programs. There was a coherence to the educational process that, as Neil Postman wrote about a few decades ago, has been replaced by the acquisition of skills. So education no longer pursues a purposeful vision, it pursues a career alone.

This is largely the result of knowledge becoming ever more specialized. “Intellectual prestige,” Brooks writes, “has drifted away from theologians, poets and philosophers, and toward neuroscientists, economists, evolutionary biologists and big data analysts. These scholars have a lot of knowledge to bring, but they’re not in the business of offering wisdom on the ultimate questions.”

Chuck Colson used to ask four “ultimate” or “worldview” questions, critical tools that we can use in searching for purpose. Question one: Where did I come from?  Two: What’s wrong with the world? Three: Is there a solution? And Four: What is my purpose? As Vaclev Havel observed, it’s not that we aren’t finding answers to these questions. It’s that these questions are no longer being asked.

Of course, questions about purpose can only be answered in the One who purposed us. As Augustine said, “You have made us for yourself, O God, and our hearts are restless until they find their rest in you.”

Our hearts certainly won’t find rest in money. Gallup did a survey of 132 countries and found those with lower per capita economic output actually had higher rankings for meaning. And generally lower suicide rates, too. Why, when so many of us in the West equate wealth with happiness? Well, it turns out those countries are more religious, giving people a sense of purpose. Even among wealthier countries where religion plays a more prominent role in people’s lives, we report higher levels of meaning. 

Increasing numbers of Americans, of course, are going outside of organized religion, seeking to construct their own meaning. Yet those self-made answers rarely quiet our restless hearts. As Pascal said, “It is in vain, oh men, that you seek within yourselves the cure for all your miseries. All your insight has led to the knowledge that it is not in yourselves that you discover the true and the good.”

The Christian worldview, based on biblical revelation, answers all four of Chuck’s questions, explains both our human dignity and our depravity, and points us to a fixed reference point by which we can orient our lives: God Himself. “Man’s chief end,” the Westminster Shorter Catechism states, “is to glorify God and to enjoy Him forever.”

Come to BreakPoint.org and click on this commentary. We’ll link you to resources that will help you, your children, and your searching neighbors connect with God’s grand purpose for our lives—and His grand purpose for all of creation—which, by the way, is the subject of my new book with Warren Smith entitled, “Restoring All Things: God’s Audacious Plan for Changing the World through Everyday People.” Again, check it all out at BreakPoint.org.

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

RESOURCES
"What is Your Purpose?" - David Brooks | New York Times | May 5, 2015; http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/05/opinion/david-brooks-what-is-your-purpose.html?_r=1
"The Issue Is Truth" - Chuck Colson | BreakPoint.org | July 25, 2003;http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/12206
"Answering before They Ask" - Mark Earley | BreakPoint.org | August 20, 2003;http://www.breakpoint.org/bpcommentaries/breakpoint-commentaries-search/entry/13/12264
AVAILABLE AT THE ONLINE BOOKSTORE
Restoring All Things: God's Audacious Plan to Change the World Through Everyday People
John Stonestreet, Warren Smith | Baker Books | May 2015
How Now Shall We Live? -Chuck Colson, Nancy Pearcey | Tyndale House Publishers | August 1999
Making Sense of Worldviews with John Stonestreet, CD - John Stonestreet | Colson Center
Wide Angle: Framing Your Worldview DVD - Chuck Colson, Rick Warren | Colson Center
Wide Angle: Framing Your Worldview Small Group Study Guide
Chuck Colson, Rick Warren | Colson Center
Rewired: A Teen Worldview Curriculum, book and CD - Prison Fellowship & Teen Mania
Worldview and Why It Matters Leadership Training Course DVD -Chuck Colson, Glenn Sunshine, T.M. Moore | Colson Center

# 1234 (5/19) "Unraveling the Poverty Myths Obama Is Promoting"

"UNRAVELING THE POVERTY MYTHS OBAMA IS PROMOTING" - Stephen Moore/ @StephenMoore / May 18, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/18/unraveling-the-poverty-myths-obama-is-promoting/

President Obama participates in a panel discussion during the Catholic-Evangelical Leadership Summit on overcoming poverty at Georgetown University. (Photo: Aude Guerrucci/CNP/AdMedia/Newscom)

Our class warrior in chief was at it again last week complaining about our “ideological divides that have prevented us from making progress” in solving problems like poverty. Just when you thought you’d heard it all.

Our most ideological president perhaps ever is arguing that there is too much ideology in Washington. Wow. Apparently an ideology is a firmly held belief that is held by other people—especially those on the right. In a discussion on poverty at Georgetown University, the president managed to blame the slow-growth economy and stagnant wages on everything from Ayn Rand (who promoted “cold hearted policies” and classified everyone as a “moocher”) to California’s Proposition 13 (which is responsible for the Golden State’s dreadful schools). Everything has contributed to our current malaise except for his own failed policies.

Here’s a brief truth squad examination of Obama’s mythologies and misstatements of fact.

[1] President Obama: “The stereotype is that you’ve got folks on the left who just want to pour more money into social programs, and don’t care anything about culture or parenting or family structures … ” After more than $22 trillion spent on the War on Poverty since 1964 (in inflation adjusted dollars)—how is it a stereotype to say the left only wants to pour money at programs? This official poverty rate has remained virtually stagnant since the War on Poverty began.

Just a few weeks ago the president blamed the Baltimore riots on Republicans for not spending and borrowing even more money on his social programs. He sounded like a parody of himself.
      If the left really wants to advance cultural values like work, why do they oppose reforms to a welfare system that requires able-bodied adult Americans to work in exchange for receiving welfare benefits like food stamps?

[2] Obama: “It is a mistake for us to suggest that somehow every effort we make has failed and we are powerless to address poverty. That’s just not true. First of all, just in absolute terms, the poverty rate when you take into account tax and transfer programs, has been reduced about 40 percent since 1967.” 
     There are two problems with this defense of the welfare state. First, the official poverty was falling before 1965 and at a faster rate than after the Great Society got rolling in the mid-1960s.This official poverty rate has remained virtually stagnant since the War on Poverty began.
     Second, the decline in poverty that Obama is boasting about is only after taking into account tax credits and government handouts and welfare benefits. When excluding these programs there has been little progress at all.
     Redistribution may have raised the material living standards of some of the poor. But it has not increased self-sufficiency. The original purpose of the welfare state was to lift people into self-sufficiency, not to create a permanent underclass dependent on taxpayers. Lyndon Johnson told us when he started these programs that “the days of the dole are numbered.” We have passed day 18,000.
    Obama also wants it both ways. He says over and over, even in this speech, that the biggest problem with the economy is income inequality because the rich are getting richer and the poor poorer. So if the poor are getting poorer, how have his social programs worked to reduce poverty?

[3] Obama: “In some ways, rather than soften the edges of the market, we’ve turbocharged it.” Wait, we’ve turbo-charged the free market? When? Where?

[4] Obama: “There are programs that work to provide ladders of opportunity … but we just haven’t figured out how to scale them up.”
     Hold on. One of the few programs that has proven to provide “a ladder of opportunity” is the Washington D.C. Opportunity Scholarship Program for roughly 1,500 kids each year to attend private schools. They are all poor and almost all black. The graduation rates for these kids have improved in some cases markedly. But guess who doesn’t want to “scale up” this successful program (which is, by the way, one of the few programs that would actually be appropriate for the federal government to scale up)? In every budget Obama has submitted, he has proposed eliminating the program.
      It’s more than a little hypocritical for a president who sends his own daughters to private schools that cost $30,000 a year to prevent poor children in Washington, D.C., from attending those same schools.

[5] Obama: “And so over time, families frayed. Men who could not get jobs left. Mothers who are single are not able to read as much to their kids.”
     The president acts as though “families frayed” by accident. No, there were major cultural shifts that contributed to the major decline in marriage and rise in unwed births, not to mention the introduction of a massive government welfare system that financially took the place of the father.
     In 1960, not even one in four black children were born without a father in the home. By 2013 that number had soared, tragically, to nearly three of every four black children being born outside of marriage. As economist Thomas Sowell has put it: “the black family survived centuries of slavery and generations of Jim Crow, but it disintegrated in the wake of the liberals’ expansion of the welfare state.”

[6] Obama: “You look at state budgets, you look at city budgets, and you look at federal budgets, and we don’t make those same common investments that we used to. … And there’s been a very specific ideological push not to make those investments.”
    In 1950 total state, local and federal government spending was just over $500 billion (in constant 2015 dollars) and 22.2 percent of our GDP. Today it is nearly $6 trillion and 33 percent of our GDP. Under Obama federal spending will reach $4 trillion next year and borrowing to finance these “common investments” will have risen by $8 trillion over his tenure.

The only thing that has been underfunded over the last decade is middle-class family incomes, which have stagnated.

[7] Obama: “We don’t dispute that the free market is the greatest producer of wealth in history—it has lifted billions of people out of poverty. We believe in property rights, rule of law, so forth.”
    No, you don’t. And that’s the whole problem.

[bold, italics, and colored emphasis mine]

Stephen Moore, who formerly wrote on the economy and public policy for The Wall Street Journal, is a distinguished visiting fellow for the Project for Economic Growth at The Heritage Foundation. Read his research.

"On Poverty, President Shows Poor Judgment" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, May 13, 2015; http://www.frc.org/washingtonupdate/20150513/on-poverty
     "...Anyone involved in faith-based ministry must have needed a strap to pick their jaws up off the floor. This President is accusing the church -- the most effective social outreach program in the history of America -- of ignoring the poor to fight a war on social issues that, oh by the way, he started? That's not only ignorant of the church's activities -- it's insulting. The religious community hasn't ignored the poor. On the contrary, there's no more generous segment of society than Christian conservatives and the ministries that their giving makes possible..."

#1233 (5/18) "Regs to Riches?"/"Obama Administration’s Regulations Cost Americans $80 Billion a Year"

"REGS TO RICHES?" - Tony Perkins, Washington Update, May 12, 2015; 
http://www.frc.org/updatearticle/20150512/regs-riches

If you can't legislate -- regulate! That's the slogan of the Obama administration, which has apparently been stuffing the rulebooks at government agencies to get its way on everything on health care to greenhouse gases. In its new "Ten Thousand Commandments" report, the Competitive Enterprise Institute counted 3,554 new regulations in 2014 alone. "If U.S. federal regulation was a country, it would be the world's 10th largest!" CEI pointed out. [[http://m.washingtonexaminer.com/report-obama-regs-cost-1.88-trillion-14976-per-house-13rd-of-income/article/2564347]

And those guidelines aren't just oppressive -- they're pricey. Just implementing these changes costs about $1,880,000,000,000 each year. That's some expensive red tape! To put it in perspective, Congress passed 224 new laws in the same time frame -- which gives the Obama administration a 16-1 advantage over actual legislators in directing government activities. And these aren't insignificant changes either. They define things like "marriage" for federal benefits and, as we saw today, "gender" for health care.

Even "progressives" like Matt Schudtz think it's ridiculous that the administration has tried to slip these changes past Americans when nobody's looking. "It's become an unfortunate tradition of this administration," he said of the President trying to accomplish his agenda without following the constitutional process. "Congressional rather than agency approval of regulations and regulatory costs should be the goal of reform," the report's author insisted. "When Congress ensures transparency and disclosure and finally assumes responsibility for growth of the regulatory state, the resulting system will be the one that is fairer and more accountable to voters."

The American people were clear on Election Day that there was no appetite for the President's lawlessness. Seven months later, that hasn't changed! 

[bold and italics emphasis mine]

"OBAMA ADMINISTRATION'S REGULATIONS COST AMERICANS $80 BILLION A YEAR" - James Gattuso/ @Jamesgattuso / Diane Katz/ @Dianeskatz / May 16, 2015 / http://dailysignal.com/2015/05/16/obama-administrations-regulations-cost-americans-80-billion-a-year/

(Photo: Miguel Vasconcellos/ZUMAPRESS/Newscom)
What do restaurant menus, refrigerators, community banks and escalators have in common? All were subjected to yet more federal regulation last year.

No fewer than 184 “major” new rules have been imposed since the start of the Obama administration, costing Americans about $80 billion per year in additional regulatory costs. And many more regulations are on the way. Another 126 such rules are on the administration’s agenda, such as directives to farmers for growing and harvesting fruits and vegetables; strict limits on credit access for service members; and another redesign of light bulbs.

A new Heritage Foundation study found that in 2014, red tape entangled virtually every aspect of American life. The largest single area was financial services, which has been inundated with hundreds of new regulations as a result of the 2010 Dodd-Frank law. The full effects of the act have yet to be felt, but its restrictions are already crippling community banks and increasing consumers’ banking costs, while doing little to reduce the threat of bailouts.

Energy use was also a favorite target for regulators last year. New “efficiency” rules imposed on everything from ice cream coolers and cellphone adapters to the electric motors that power escalators.

Regulators say these rules will help consumers and businesses by lowering energy bills. But this “benefit” will likely be offset by higher product costs. Whether energy savings are worth the higher cost of a more efficient item is a decision that consumers and business owners can and should make for themselves. Taking away their choice is not a benefit; it is, in fact, a steep cost.

The U.S. Food and Drug Administration also devised costly new rules intended to control Americans for their own good. For example, the agency issued rules mandating that restaurants and even vending machine operators provide calorie counts for all the food they sell. Alas, as much as the bureaucrats wish they could “nudge” citizens to behave in prescribed ways, such measures rarely turn out as planned. In the case of nutrition labeling, a mountain of research has documented that nutrition labeling does not change eating patterns.

Altogether, Obama administration regulators imposed 27 “major” new rules last year (defined as those that cost the economy at least $100 million annually). Against this were just two actions to decrease regulatory burdens—despite a widely touted “retrospective review” initiative that President Barack Obama claimed would take outdated rules off the books.

Minus these two lonely reductions, the cost of red tape rose by $7.6 billion last year, and a six-year increase of $80 billion. That’s more than twice the cost imposed by President George W. Bush at the same point in his presidency. There was also $1.8 billion in reported one-time implementation costs for the 2014 rules, bringing the administration’s six-year total for such costs to about $17 billion.

And that’s only the costs reported by the regulators themselves. Almost half the time, the rule makers failed to fully quantify the real impact of their dictates and prohibitions.

This represents a major dysfunction in the administrative process. Analyzing costs is necessary to identify the trade-offs inherent in rulemaking, and to determine the most efficient and effective course of action among various alternatives. It is also crucial information that allows the public to hold regulators accountable.

The Obama administration defends its regulatory record by touting the projected benefits of the rules. But benefit estimates—as calculated by the agencies—need to be considered with skepticism. While regulators have an incentive to minimize the costs of regulations, they also have an incentive to misconstrue the benefits.

Absent substantial reform, economic growth and individual freedom will continue to suffer. Immediate changes should include requiring every major regulation to obtain congressional approval before taking effect, and requiring legislation that would increase red tape to undergo an analysis of its likely impacts before being voted on. Sunset deadlines also should be set in law for all major rules, and independent agencies should be subject—as are executive branch agencies—to the White House regulatory review process.

The need for reform of the regulatory system has never been greater. To prevent further harm to the economy, and to the individual liberties of Americans, Congress should take immediate steps to control the flood of red tape.

[bold and italics emphasis mine] (Originally distributed through McClatchy Tribune.)

James Gattuso handles regulatory and telecommunications issues for The Heritage Foundation as a Senior Research Fellow in its Roe Institute for Economic Policy Studies. Read his research.
Diane Katz, who has analyzed and written on public policy issues for more than two decades, is a research fellow in regulatory policy at The Heritage Foundation. Read her research.