I Love Jesus Christ

By John Piper
December 31, 2008


One of the most memorable moments of my seminary days was during the school year 1968-69 at Fuller Seminary on the third level of the classroom building just after a class on systematic theology. A group of us were huddled around James Morgan, the young theology teacher who was saying something about the engagement of Christians in social justice. I don’t remember what I said, but he looked me right in the eye and said, “John, I love Jesus Christ.”

It was like a thunderclap in my heart. A strong, intelligent, mature, socially engaged man had just said out loud in front of a half dozen men, “I love Jesus Christ.” He was not preaching. He was not pronouncing on any issue. He was not singing in church. He was not trying to get a job. He was not being recorded. He was telling me that he loved Jesus.

The echo of that thunderclap is still sounding in my heart. That was 40 years ago! There are a thousand things I don’t remember about those days in seminary. But that afternoon remains unforgettable. And all he said was, “John, I love Jesus Christ.”
James Morgan died a year later of stomach cancer, leaving a wife and four small children. His chief legacy in my life was one statement on an afternoon in Pasadena. “I love Jesus Christ.”

Loving Jesus is natural and necessary for the children of God. It’s natural because it’s part of our nature as children of God. “If God were your Father, you would love me, for I came from God” (John 8:42). The children of God have the natural disposition to love his Son.

Loving Jesus is also necessary because Paul says that if you don’t love Jesus, you will be cursed: “If anyone has no love for the Lord, let him be accursed” (1 Corinthians 16:22). Loving Jesus is an essential (not optional) mark of being a beneficiary of God’s grace. “Grace be with all who love our Lord Jesus Christ with love incorruptible” (Ephesians 6:24). If you hold fast to the love of anything above Jesus, you are not his disciple: “Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me” (Matthew 10:37).

Loving Jesus is not the same as obeying all of Jesus’ commands. Jesus said, “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15). That means that obedience to the commandments is the result of loving Jesus, not the same as loving Jesus. Love is something invisible and inside. It is the root that produces the visible fruit of loving others.

So here at the beginning of 2009, I join James Morgan in saying, “I love Jesus Christ.”

And as I say it, I want to make clear what I mean:

• I admire Jesus Christ more than any other human or angelic being.
• I enjoy his ways and his words more than I enjoy the ways and words of anyone else.
• I want his approval more than I want the approval of anyone else.
• I want to be with him more than I want to be with anyone else.
• I feel more grateful to him for what he has done for me than I do to anyone else.
• I trust his words more fully than I trust what anyone else says.
• I am more glad in his exaltation than in the exaltation of anyone else, including me.

Would you pray with me that in 2009 we would love Jesus Christ more than we ever have? And may our Lord Jesus grant that from time to time we would deliver quietly and naturally a thunderclap into the hearts of others with the simple words, “I love Jesus Christ.”

“Though you have not seen him, you love him. Though you do not now see him, you believe in him and rejoice with joy that is inexpressible and filled with glory” (1 Peter 1:8).

If Christ Predicted War, May Christians Pray for Peace?

By John Piper


I ask this question because some Bible-believing Christians feel that prayer for peace in these "last days" would be contrary to God's will, since Jesus said, "When you hear of wars and rumors of wars, do not be alarmed. This must take place, but the end is not yet" (Mark 13:7). If war "must take place," how can you pray for peace without opposing God?

Our prayers should be guided by what is morally right for men to do, not by what God, in his sovereign providence, may will to take place. Rarely, if ever, should we pray for moral evil to take place, but God may will that moral evil prevail for a season. For example: 1) God willed that Christ be crucified. Many of the necessary acts involved in crucifying Christ were morally evil. Therefore, God willed that this moral evil prevail for a season (Acts 2:23; 4:27-28). 2) God willed that Joseph's brothers sell him into slavery in Egypt, even though this was evil for them to do (Genesis 50:20). 3) And God ordains the sinful ravages of the end times (Revelation 17:17).

In other words, God ordains and predicts that moral evil prevail for certain seasons, but this does not mean we should pray for moral evil to happen. We should pray according to the way God has commanded us to live - in righteousness and love. We should pray that God's will be done on earth the way it's done in heaven by the perfectly holy angels (Matthew 6:10), not the way it's done on earth through the agency of sinful men.

In fact, Paul teaches us to pray for peace among nations for the sake of the gospel. The crucial text relating to prayer and peace is 1 Timothy 2:1-4. "First of all, then, I urge that supplications, prayers, intercessions, and thanksgivings be made for all people, for kings and all who are in high positions, that we may lead a peaceful and quiet life, godly and dignified in every way. This is good, and it is pleasing in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all people to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth."

Notice the link between praying for 1) national leaders, 2) the preservation of peace and order, and 3) the "desire for all to be saved." There is a connection between 1) national leadership, 2) peace, and 3) evangelism and missions. It is true that the church may grow in times of hostilities and war. But it is also true that wars have devastated the church in many areas. It is not our business to decide the sovereign purpose of God in ordaining that some wars happen. Our business is to pray that justice, peace, and the proclamation of the gospel prevail. Our business is to pray that the Christian church not be complicit in national affairs as if nation and church were one. Ours is to pray that the church be seen as aliens in the cause of Christ-exalting love and justice with no supreme allegiances to any nation.

This leaves open the possibility that Christians might support a just war. God has given to the governing authorities the right to bear the sword (Romans 13:1-6). There are occasions when justice and love painfully call for military force for the sake of opposing aggression or liberating the oppressed. In such cases our prayers would be for the minimizing of misery and the speedy triumph of justice and the restraint of animosities and cruelties.

So let us pray for the love and wisdom and courage and power and fruitfulness of the church of Jesus Christ around the world. Let us plead that she would be distinct from all the nations and all the national and ethnic manifestations of pride. Let us plead that she would be a peace-making presence of salt and light everywhere. And that she would be unafraid to call every nation into question for the sake of justice and humility. And that Jesus Christ would be magnified as no national deity, but as Lord of lords and King of kings. And let us pray that all lords and all kings see this and humble themselves and make way for the Lord of glory.

Bailout Generation

By Debra Saunders
12/11/08

For eight years, Democrats have hurled all manner of criticism at President Bush. Some of the heat was well deserved, some was not.

Either way, it is about to be their turn to be held to the standards they held for Bush -- and they are not prepared. I saw a taste of the future at the Democratic convention in Denver, when Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., sat down with journalists to discuss the now President-elect Barack Obama's economic plan. In light of an anticipated $482 billion deficit -- how quaint that humble number seems today -- I asked Stabenow, how can Obama propose a tax cut and more spending?

Her answer: "The first question is: How do you do a tax cut and fight a war, which is what George Bush did." Funny thing. Stabenow seemed genuinely and completely oblivious to the fact that her nominee was campaigning daily on a platform that promised a tax cut for 95 percent of American families, while he pledged to beef up the U.S. presence in the war in Afghanistan. Sounds like a tax cut during a war to me.

And now, after Obama spent the silly season saying he would rescind the Bush tax cuts on families earning more than $250,000, Obama is rethinking the issue. Sunday he said on "Meet the Press," "My economic team right now is examining, do we repeal that through legislation? Do we let it lapse so that, when the Bush tax cuts expire, they're not renewed when it comes to wealthiest Americans? We don't yet know what the best approach is going to be."

That is, there could be a new tax cut and old tax cuts while America is fighting two wars -- without Bush in the Oval Office.

It makes you wonder: Did Democrats not believe what they said on the campaign trail in 2008? Or did they believe what they said then, but they've moved away from their core beliefs because they'll do anything and spend any amount of other people's money to retain power?

They complained that Bush gave tax cuts to corporations. Now that they are in charge of Congress, Democrats are raiding the cookie jar so that they can toss cookies to favored industries. Note the proposed emergency credit line of $15 billion for Detroit's Big Three. (Credit Bush, by the way, for insisting that the money come from an existing program.)

Blame Bush for the $700 billion bailout bill -- which Sen. Majority Leader Harry Reid inflated by another $110 billion. Obama promised "change you can believe in." Here it is: Earlier this year, Obama proposed a $50 billion stimulus package, which grew to $175 bil before Election Day. Now the proposed price tag is reported to be $700 billion -- with well-wishers suggesting a $1 trillion package.

The bailout mentality is growing -- as is the list of people who believe they should be recipients. It's not just the auto companies who want to follow greedy investment houses. State governments want in. Experts are calling for billion-dollar infrastructure projects -- I guess because state governments weren't spending on infrastructure.

Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, proposed redistributing the unspent $350 billion in Bush bailout money by suspending federal payroll taxes for two months. It's a bad idea, in that the last stimulus package failed to stimulate the economy as hoped. It makes the entire country look like the Wal-Mart shoppers who crushed to death a Long Island temporary worker in their rush for a bargain.

So where is Barack Obama? Sure, I know many readers will jerk their knees and blame Bush. It's a freebie. But after a while, the public may start to wonder: Where's the responsibility now?

dsaunders@sfchronicle.com

A Christmas Story

I recieved this in an email this morning and I was so amazed by this young boy's words of wisdom that I had to share it with you.

This is dedicated to anyone who will have an empty seat at the table this Christmas season.

Find a Happy Place

I was having a long week and this made me feel at least a little better.

So....I'm sharing the Christmas cheer.

UN Blowback: More Than 650 International Scientists Dissent Over Man-Made Global Warming Claims

Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History'
December 10, 2008


POZNAN, Poland - The UN global warming conference currently underway in Poland is about to face a serious challenge from over 650 dissenting scientists from around the globe who are criticizing the climate claims made by the UN IPCC and former Vice President Al Gore. Set for release this week, a newly updated U.S. Senate Minority Report features the dissenting voices of over 650 international scientists, many current and former UN IPCC scientists, who have now turned against the UN. The report has added about 250 scientists (and growing) in 2008 to the over 400 scientists who spoke out in 2007. The over 650 dissenting scientists are more than 12 times the number of UN scientists (52) who authored the media hyped IPCC 2007 Summary for Policymakers.
The U.S. Senate report is the latest evidence of the growing groundswell of scientific opposition rising to challenge the UN and Gore. Full Report Set To Be Released in the Next 24 Hours – Stay Tuned…

A hint of what the upcoming report contains:

“I am a skeptic…Global warming has become a new religion.” - Nobel Prize Winner for Physics, Ivar Giaever.

“Since I am no longer affiliated with any organization nor receiving any funding, I can speak quite frankly….As a scientist I remain skeptical.” - Atmospheric Scientist Dr. Joanne Simpson, the first woman in the world to receive a PhD in meteorology and formerly of NASA who has authored more than 190 studies and has been called “among the most preeminent scientists of the last 100 years.”

Warming fears are the “worst scientific scandal in the history…When people come to know what the truth is, they will feel deceived by science and scientists.” - UN IPCC Japanese Scientist Dr. Kiminori Itoh, an award-winning PhD environmental physical chemist.

“The IPCC has actually become a closed circuit; it doesn’t listen to others. It doesn’t have open minds… I am really amazed that the Nobel Peace Prize has been given on scientifically incorrect conclusions by people who are not geologists,” - Indian geologist Dr. Arun D. Ahluwalia at Punjab University and a board member of the UN-supported International Year of the Planet.

“The models and forecasts of the UN IPCC "are incorrect because they only are based on mathematical models and presented results at scenarios that do not include, for example, solar activity.” - Victor Manuel Velasco Herrera, a researcher at the Institute of Geophysics of the National Autonomous University of Mexico

“It is a blatant lie put forth in the media that makes it seem there is only a fringe of scientists who don’t buy into anthropogenic global warming.” - U.S Government Atmospheric Scientist Stanley B. Goldenberg of the Hurricane Research Division of NOAA.

“Even doubling or tripling the amount of carbon dioxide will virtually have little impact, as water vapour and water condensed on particles as clouds dominate the worldwide scene and always will.” – . Geoffrey G. Duffy, a professor in the Department of Chemical and Materials Engineering of the University of Auckland, NZ.

“After reading [UN IPCC chairman] Pachauri's asinine comment [comparing skeptics to] Flat Earthers, it's hard to remain quiet.” - Climate statistician Dr. William M. Briggs, who specializes in the statistics of forecast evaluation, serves on the American Meteorological Society's Probability and Statistics Committee and is an Associate Editor of Monthly Weather Review.

“For how many years must the planet cool before we begin to understand that the planet is not warming? For how many years must cooling go on?" - Geologist Dr. David Gee the chairman of the science committee of the 2008 International Geological Congress who has authored 130 plus peer reviewed papers, and is currently at Uppsala University in Sweden.

“Gore prompted me to start delving into the science again and I quickly found myself solidly in the skeptic camp…Climate models can at best be useful for explaining climate changes after the fact.” - Meteorologist Hajo Smit of Holland, who reversed his belief in man-made warming to become a skeptic, is a former member of the Dutch UN IPCC committee.

“Many [scientists] are now searching for a way to back out quietly (from promoting warming fears), without having their professional careers ruined.” - Atmospheric physicist James A. Peden, formerly of the Space Research and Coordination Center in Pittsburgh.

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.” - Environmental Scientist Professor Delgado Domingos of Portugal, the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

“CO2 emissions make absolutely no difference one way or another….Every scientist knows this, but it doesn’t pay to say so…Global warming, as a political vehicle, keeps Europeans in the driver’s seat and developing nations walking barefoot.” - Dr. Takeda Kunihiko, vice-chancellor of the Institute of Science and Technology Research at Chubu University in Japan.

“The [global warming] scaremongering has its justification in the fact that it is something that generates funds.” - Award-winning Paleontologist Dr. Eduardo Tonni, of the Committee for Scientific Research in Buenos Aires and head of the Paleontology Department at the University of La Plata.

In addition, the report will feature new peer-reviewed scientific studies and analyses refuting man-made warming fears and a heavy dose of inconvenient climate developments. (See Below: Study: Half of warming due to Sun! –Sea Levels Fail to Rise? - Warming Fears in 'Dustbin of History')

The Senate Minority Report is an update of 2007’s blockbuster U.S. Senate Minority Report of over 400 dissenting scientists. See here: This new report will contain the names, quotes and analyses of literally hundreds of additional international scientists who publicly dissented from man-made climate fears in just 2008 alone. The chorus of scientific voices skeptical grow louder as a steady stream of peer-reviewed studies, analyses and real world data challenge the UN and former Vice President Al Gore's claims that the "science is settled" and there is a "consensus." The original 2007 U.S. Senate report is available here: Full Report Set To Be Released in the Next 24 Hours – Stay Tuned…

“Creating an ideology pegged to carbon dioxide is a dangerous nonsense…The present alarm on climate change is an instrument of social control, a pretext for major businesses and political battle. It became an ideology, which is concerning.”

- Delgado Domingos of Portugal, Environmental Scientist Professor and the founder of the Numerical Weather Forecast group, has more than 150 published articles.

Oxford University Press removes words associated with Christianity

By Tom Gross


What is going on in England?

Cultural suicide?

The (London) Sunday Telegraph reports today that words associated with Christianity, the monarchy and British history have been dropped from a leading dictionary for children.

One of the country’s top publishers, Oxford University Press, has removed words like “abbey” (as in Westminster), “aisle,” “bishop,” “chapel,” “empire” and “monarch” from its 10,000 word Oxford Junior Dictionary and replaced them with words like “blog,” “broadband,” “voicemail,” “MP3 player” and “celebrity”.

The publisher claims the changes have been made to reflect the fact that Britain is a “multicultural, multifaith society.”

Among the words taken out:

* Abbey, aisle, altar, bishop, chapel, disciple, minister, monastery, monk, nun, nunnery, parish, pew, psalm, pulpit, saint, sin, devil, vicar
* Carol, cracker, holly, ivy, mistletoe
* Coronation, duchess, duke, emperor, empire, monarch, decade
Among the words put in:

* Blog, broadband, MP3 player, voicemail, attachment, database, export, chatroom
* Celebrity, negotiate, interdependent, citizenship, committee, endangered, EU, Euro, and (best of all for children) biodegradable

Find a Happy Place

I know......me too.

Lets just get to it then.

Communist Party chief: U.S. on road to socialism

Calls Obama 'friend' who will redefine government to favor 'working people'


By Aaron Klein
WorldNetDaily



Sen. Barack Obama is a "friend" of the left who will make important changes to the U.S., including a hoped-for trillion-dollar stimulus package focused on low-income families as well as a reconfiguring of the role and function of the American government and corporations to favor working people, according to the leader of the Communist Party USA.

In a major speech focused on Obama, titled "A Springtime of Possibility," CPUSA leader Sam Webb declared the U.S. is now "on the road to socialism."

Webb defined socialism as a "society that is egalitarian in the rough sense, eliminates exploitation of working people, brings an end to all forms of oppression, and is notable for the many-layered participation of working people and their allies in the management of the economy and state."

In the speech, delivered at the CPUSA's national convention Nov. 15 and posted on the party's website, Webb stated it is "no exaggeration" to call Obama's victory a "sea change."

He referred to last month's election as a "rout of right-wing extremism, a reaffirmation of the decency of our country and people, a leap forward on freedom road and a people's mandate for change.

"A sense of joy, catharsis and renewal is in the air," said Webb. "Expectations are high. A new era of progressive change is waiting to become a reality. If the past eight years of the Bush administration seemed like a winter of discontent, Obama's ascendancy to the presidency feels like a springtime of possibility."

He continued: "The left can and should advance its own views and disagree with the Obama administration without being disagreeable. Its tone should be respectful. We are speaking to a friend. When the administration and Congress take positive initiatives, they should be wholeheartedly welcomed. Nor should anyone think that everything will be done in 100 days. After all, main elements of the New Deal were codified into law in 1935, 1936 and 1937."

During the speech, Webb repeatedly referred to the U.S. as "imperialist." He called on Obama to shrink the military and the country's nuclear weapons arsenal while redefining the role of the U.S. in the global community.

"I mean a reconfiguring of the role and functions of government and corporations so that they favor working people, the racially and nationally oppressed, women, youth, seniors, small business people and other social groupings," Webb clarified.

"Obama wants to be a people's reformer," said Webb. "In time he hopes to make substantive changes in health care, housing, education, retirement security, energy, environment, urban affairs, race and gender relations, foreign relations, and popular participation in public affairs. If the last 30 years was an era of people's retrenchment, Obama sees the years ahead as an era of substantial people's reforms."

Webb called on Obama to push through a trillion-dollar stimulus package:

"The Bush administration doesn't understand this, but the Obama administration does and with congressional support it will take quick action," the communist leader said. "We can expect, and should fully support, an administration stimulus package that includes, among other things, extension of unemployment compensation, assistance to distressed homeowners, aid to states and municipalities, food stamp extension, infrastructure construction, and so forth. The only unresolved question is how large a stimulus package. In our view, it should be the range of a trillion dollars or more."

Quote of the Day

“Before a standing army can rule, the people must be disarmed; as they are in almost every kingdom of Europe. The supreme power in America cannot enforce unjust laws by the sword; because the whole body of the people are armed, and constitute a force superior to any bands of regular troops that can be, on any pretense, raised in the United States.”

- Noah Webster

Quote of the Day - "Standing Armies"

"Keep within the requisite limits a standing military force, always remembering that an armed and trained militia is the firmest bulwark of republics - that without standing armies their liberty can never be in danger, nor with large ones safe."

- President James Madison

Pentagon to Detail Troops to Bolster Domestic Security

By Spencer S. Hsu and Ann Scott Tyson
Washington Post Staff Writers
Monday, December 1, 2008



The U.S. military expects to have 20,000 uniformed troops inside the United States by 2011 trained to help state and local officials respond to a nuclear terrorist attack or other domestic catastrophe, according to Pentagon officials.

The long-planned shift in the Defense Department's role in homeland security was recently backed with funding and troop commitments after years of prodding by Congress and outside experts, defense analysts said.

There are critics of the change, in the military and among civil liberties groups and libertarians who express concern that the new homeland emphasis threatens to strain the military and possibly undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old federal law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.

But the Bush administration and some in Congress have pushed for a heightened homeland military role since the middle of this decade, saying the greatest domestic threat is terrorists exploiting the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction.

Before the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, dedicating 20,000 troops to domestic response -- a nearly sevenfold increase in five years -- "would have been extraordinary to the point of unbelievable," Paul McHale, assistant defense secretary for homeland defense, said in remarks last month at the Center for Strategic and International Studies. But the realization that civilian authorities may be overwhelmed in a catastrophe prompted "a fundamental change in military culture," he said.

The Pentagon's plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces to be ready for emergency response by September 2011. The first 4,700-person unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade based at Fort Stewart, Ga., was available as of Oct. 1, said Gen. Victor E. Renuart Jr., commander of the U.S. Northern Command.

If funding continues, two additional teams will join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops in supporting local and state officials nationwide. All would be trained to respond to a domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attack, or CBRNE event, as the military calls it.

Military preparations for a domestic weapon-of-mass-destruction attack have been underway since at least 1996, when the Marine Corps activated a 350-member chemical and biological incident response force and later based it in Indian Head, Md., a Washington suburb. Such efforts accelerated after the Sept. 11 attacks, and at the time Iraq was invaded in 2003, a Pentagon joint task force drew on 3,000 civil support personnel across the United States.

In 2005, a new Pentagon homeland defense strategy emphasized "preparing for multiple, simultaneous mass casualty incidents." National security threats were not limited to adversaries who seek to grind down U.S. combat forces abroad, McHale said, but also include those who "want to inflict such brutality on our society that we give up the fight," such as by detonating a nuclear bomb in a U.S. city.

In late 2007, Deputy Defense Secretary Gordon England signed a directive approving more than $556 million over five years to set up the three response teams, known as CBRNE Consequence Management Response Forces. Planners assume an incident could lead to thousands of casualties, more than 1 million evacuees and contamination of as many as 3,000 square miles, about the scope of damage Hurricane Katrina caused in 2005.

Last month, McHale said, authorities agreed to begin a $1.8 million pilot project funded by the Federal Emergency Management Agency through which civilian authorities in five states could tap military planners to develop disaster response plans. Hawaii, Massachusetts, South Carolina, Washington and West Virginia will each focus on a particular threat -- pandemic flu, a terrorist attack, hurricane, earthquake and catastrophic chemical release, respectively -- speeding up federal and state emergency planning begun in 2003.

Last Monday, Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates ordered defense officials to review whether the military, Guard and reserves can respond adequately to domestic disasters.

Gates gave commanders 25 days to propose changes and cost estimates. He cited the work of a congressionally chartered commission, which concluded in January that the Guard and reserve forces are not ready and that they lack equipment and training.

Bert B. Tussing, director of homeland defense and security issues at the U.S. Army War College's Center for Strategic Leadership, said the new Pentagon approach "breaks the mold" by assigning an active-duty combat brigade to the Northern Command for the first time. Until now, the military required the command to rely on troops requested from other sources.

"This is a genuine recognition that this [job] isn't something that you want to have a pickup team responsible for," said Tussing, who has assessed the military's homeland security strategies.

The American Civil Liberties Union and the libertarian Cato Institute are troubled by what they consider an expansion of executive authority.

Domestic emergency deployment may be "just the first example of a series of expansions in presidential and military authority," or even an increase in domestic surveillance, said Anna Christensen of the ACLU's National Security Project. And Cato Vice President Gene Healy warned of "a creeping militarization" of homeland security.

"There's a notion that whenever there's an important problem, that the thing to do is to call in the boys in green," Healy said, "and that's at odds with our long-standing tradition of being wary of the use of standing armies to keep the peace."

McHale stressed that the response units will be subject to the act, that only 8 percent of their personnel will be responsible for security and that their duties will be to protect the force, not other law enforcement. For decades, the military has assigned larger units to respond to civil disturbances, such as during the Los Angeles riot in 1992.

U.S. forces are already under heavy strain, however. The first reaction force is built around the Army's 3rd Infantry Division's 1st Brigade Combat Team, which returned in April after 15 months in Iraq. The team includes operations, aviation and medical task forces that are to be ready to deploy at home or overseas within 48 hours, with units specializing in chemical decontamination, bomb disposal, emergency care and logistics.

The one-year domestic mission, however, does not replace the brigade's next scheduled combat deployment in 2010. The brigade may get additional time in the United States to rest and regroup, compared with other combat units, but it may also face more training and operational requirements depending on its homeland security assignments.

Renuart said the Pentagon is accounting for the strain of fighting two wars, and the need for troops to spend time with their families. "We want to make sure the parameters are right for Iraq and Afghanistan," he said. The 1st Brigade's soldiers "will have some very aggressive training, but will also be home for much of that."

Although some Pentagon leaders initially expected to build the next two response units around combat teams, they are likely to be drawn mainly from reserves and the National Guard, such as the 218th Maneuver Enhancement Brigade from South Carolina, which returned in May after more than a year in Afghanistan.

Now that Pentagon strategy gives new priority to homeland security and calls for heavier reliance on the Guard and reserves, McHale said, Washington has to figure out how to pay for it.

"It's one thing to decide upon a course of action, and it's something else to make it happen," he said. "It's time to put our money where our mouth is."

Quote of the Day

"The will of the people is the only legitimate foundation of any government, and to protect its free expression should be our first object."

- Thomas Jefferson

Gay Marriage and the California Courts

Democracy loses if Prop. 8 is overruled.
By WILLIAM MCGURN

If it walks like a culture war, squawks like a culture war, and has all the ugliness of a culture war, surely it is a culture war -- right?

APMaybe not. It's true that we've seen some wild things in the days since California voters approved Proposition 8 -- a measure on the state ballot prohibiting same-sex marriage. We've had the burning of the Book of Mormon. The mailing of envelopes filled with white powder to Mormon temples. And activists marching on Mormon churches with signs and shouts of "hate" and "bigot" directed at anyone who might have a difference of opinion.

In modern America, of course, these acts all come under the banner of "tolerance." And it's interesting that all those so outraged by the alleged disrespect toward the Quran shown by Guantanamo prison guards (the most sensational report was later retracted by Newsweek) appear unperturbed by the ugliness directed against our Mormon brothers and sisters. The temptation can be to saddle up the horse and ride out to take one's assigned place in the Great American Culture War.
Except for one little thing. What we have in America is less a culture war than a constitutional war. And if we could just straighten out the latter, we'd go a long way toward diffusing the former.

That much has become clearer in the wake of last week's decision by the California Supreme Court to review the legality of Proposition 8. In California, gay Americans have marriage in all but name -- which many Americans might think a pretty reasonable compromise. But courts tend to think in absolutes -- and when they intervene, woe unto the losing side.

The great achievement of our system was to create a political order where these great moral disputes, as a matter of policy, are left to the people -- with allowance for differences according to region and locale. Moral agents have a role to play, generally by shaping the larger culture in which these decisions are framed and debated. But the outcome is left to the people acting through their elected representatives, a process that inevitably involves compromise, trade-offs and messy accommodations.

These political accommodations can be thought illogical or even corrupt by those focused solely on the moral. Partial-birth abortion is a good example. In the moral sense, surely the humanity of an unborn child is not affected by whether he or she happens to be aborted inside the womb or, a few minutes later, outside the womb. And gay-rights activists see no moral difference between two men who want to get married and the traditional male-female couple making their walk to the altar.

What people hold as a moral ideal, however, and what they will accept as a workable compromise are two different things. Left to their own devices, most Americans can work these differences out in politics much as they do in their everyday lives, as untidy as these solutions may be. Unfortunately, when the courts short-circuit this process, they do three things corrosive to our politics.

First, they act as dishonest referees, imposing one set of preferences over another.

Second, they cheat the American people of an honest political contest, where candidates need to persuade the people of their views to put them into effect. Ed Whelan, a former Justice Department official who now runs the D.C.-based Ethics and Public Policy Center, notes that when moderator Gwen Ifill asked Joe Biden in the vice-presidential debate whether he and Barack Obama support gay marriage, Mr. Biden answered, "No."

"The gay-rights activists know it's not true -- or they would be protesting," says Mr. Whelan. "As supporters of liberal judicial activism, Mr. Obama and Mr. Biden have the luxury of winking as the courts do their work for them. That leaves them free to pretend to public positions they do not actually hold -- and that they will subvert through their judicial appointments."

Finally, when courts usurp the role of the people, they inject cynicism and bitterness into America's body politic. In his dissent in Casey v. Planned Parenthood (1992), Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia put it this way: "[B]y foreclosing all democratic outlet for the deep passions this issue [legalized abortion] arouses, by banishing the issue from the political forum that gives all participants, even the losers, the satisfaction of a fair hearing and an honest fight, by continuing the imposition of a rigid national rule instead of allowing for regional differences, the Court merely prolongs and intensifies the anguish."

Plainly this is what we have seen with abortion. With the latest intervention by the California Supreme Court, it is beginning to look the same for same-sex marriage. How much healthier our politics would be if those so convinced of the rightness of their views would have equal faith in the decency of their fellow Americans -- and their openness to being persuaded by clear, fair and honest argument.

Find A Happy Place (Yes, Again)

The news coming out of Washington day after day keeps getting worse and worse.

Don't be fearful. Be prepared.

I know it is hard and a bit scary, but there is no more time for complacent procrastination because trouble is no longer 'coming', its here.

From one American to another, if you haven't been paying attention and the recently exposed state of our economy has come as a complete surprise, then I can't stress enough how important it is that you educate yourself on the issues. Most of the panic and chaos is going to come from individuals who have no idea what is going on.

By understanding where we are and how we got here, you will be in a much better position to know where we are going so that you can prepare yourself mentally as well as spiritually and emotionally.

In the mean time, I'd like to offer another piece of comfort in the form of a "wascally wabbit".

Quote of the Day

"Government is like a baby: An alimentary canal with a big appetite at one end and no sense of responsibility at the other."

"Government's view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it."

- Ronald Reagan

U.S. Pledges Top $7.7 Trillion to Ease Frozen Credit

By Mark Pittman and Bob Ivry
November 24, 2008


The U.S. government is prepared to provide more than $7.76 trillion on behalf of American taxpayers after guaranteeing $306 billion of Citigroup Inc. debt yesterday. The pledges, amounting to half the value of everything produced in the nation last year, are intended to rescue the financial system after the credit markets seized up 15 months ago.

The unprecedented pledge of funds includes $3.18 trillion already tapped by financial institutions in the biggest response to an economic emergency since the New Deal of the 1930s, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. The commitment dwarfs the plan approved by lawmakers, the Treasury Department’s $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program. Federal Reserve lending last week was 1,900 times the weekly average for the three years before the crisis.

When Congress approved the TARP on Oct. 3, Fed Chairman Ben S. Bernanke and Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson acknowledged the need for transparency and oversight. Now, as regulators commit far more money while refusing to disclose loan recipients or reveal the collateral they are taking in return, some Congress members are calling for the Fed to be reined in.

“Whether it’s lending or spending, it’s tax dollars that are going out the window and we end up holding collateral we don’t know anything about,” said Congressman Scott Garrett, a New Jersey Republican who serves on the House Financial Services Committee. “The time has come that we consider what sort of limitations we should be placing on the Fed so that authority returns to elected officials as opposed to appointed ones.”

Too Big to Fail

Bloomberg News tabulated data from the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. and interviewed regulatory officials, economists and academic researchers to gauge the full extent of the government’s rescue effort.

The bailout includes a Fed program to buy as much as $2.4 trillion in short-term notes, called commercial paper, that companies use to pay bills, begun Oct. 27, and $1.4 trillion from the FDIC to guarantee bank-to-bank loans, started Oct. 14.

William Poole, former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis, said the two programs are unlikely to lose money. The bigger risk comes from rescuing companies perceived as “too big to fail,” he said.

‘Credit Risk’

The government committed $29 billion to help engineer the takeover in March of Bear Stearns Cos. by New York-based JPMorgan Chase & Co. and $122.8 billion in addition to TARP allocations to bail out New York-based American International Group Inc., once the world’s largest insurer.

Citigroup received $306 billion of government guarantees for troubled mortgages and toxic assets. The Treasury Department also will inject $20 billion into the bank after its stock fell 60 percent last week.

“No question there is some credit risk there,” Poole said.

Congressman Darrell Issa, a California Republican on the Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said risk is lurking in the programs that Poole thinks are safe.

“The thing that people don’t understand is it’s not how likely that the exposure becomes a reality, but what if it does?” Issa said. “There’s no transparency to it so who’s to say they’re right?”

The worst financial crisis in two generations has erased $23 trillion, or 38 percent, of the value of the world’s companies and brought down three of the biggest Wall Street firms.

Markets Down

The Dow Jones Industrial Average through Friday is down 38 percent since the beginning of the year and 43 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The S&P 500 fell 45 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 49 percent from its peak on Oct. 9, 2007. The Nikkei 225 Index has fallen 46 percent from the beginning of the year through Friday and 57 percent from its most recent peak of 18,261.98 on July 9, 2007. Goldman Sachs Group Inc. is down 78 percent, to $53.31, on Friday from its peak of $247.92 on Oct. 31, 2007, and 75 percent this year.

Regulators hope the rescue will contain the damage and keep banks providing the credit that is the lifeblood of the U.S. economy.

Most of the spending programs are run out of the New York Fed, whose president, Timothy Geithner, is said to be President- elect Barack Obama’s choice to be Treasury Secretary.

‘They Got Snookered’

The money that’s been pledged is equivalent to $24,000 for every man, woman and child in the country. It’s nine times what the U.S. has spent so far on wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, according to Congressional Budget Office figures. It could pay off more than half the country’s mortgages.

“It’s unprecedented,” said Bob Eisenbeis, chief monetary economist at Vineland, New Jersey-based Cumberland Advisors Inc. and an economist for the Atlanta Fed for 10 years until January. “The backlash has begun already. Congress is taking a lot of hits from their constituents because they got snookered on the TARP big time. There’s a lot of supposedly smart people who look to be totally incompetent and it’s all going to fall on the taxpayer.”

President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s New Deal of the 1930s, when almost 10,000 banks failed and there was no mechanism to bolster them with cash, is the only rival to the government’s current response. The savings and loan bailout of the 1990s cost $209.5 billion in inflation-adjusted numbers, of which $173 billion came from taxpayers, according to a July 1996 report by the U.S. General Accounting Office, now called the Government Accountability Office.

‘Worst Crisis’

The 1979 U.S. government bailout of Chrysler consisted of bond guarantees, adjusted for inflation, of $4.2 billion, according to a Heritage Foundation report.

The commitment of public money is appropriate to the peril, said Ethan Harris, co-head of U.S. economic research at Barclays Capital Inc. and a former economist at the New York Fed. U.S. financial firms have taken writedowns and losses of $666.1 billion since the beginning of 2007, according to Bloomberg data.

“This is the worst capital markets crisis in modern history,” Harris said. “So you have the biggest intervention in modern history.”

Bloomberg has requested details of Fed lending under the U.S. Freedom of Information Act and filed a federal lawsuit against the central bank Nov. 7 seeking to force disclosure of borrower banks and their collateral.

Collateral is an asset pledged to a lender in the event a loan payment isn’t made.

‘That’s Counterproductive’

“Some have asked us to reveal the names of the banks that are borrowing, how much they are borrowing, what collateral they are posting,” Bernanke said Nov. 18 to the House Financial Services Committee. “We think that’s counterproductive.”

The Fed should account for the collateral it takes in exchange for loans to banks, said Paul Kasriel, chief economist at Chicago-based Northern Trust Corp. and a former research economist at the Federal Reserve Bank of Chicago.

“There is a lack of transparency here and, given that the Fed is taking on a huge amount of credit risk now, it would seem to me as a taxpayer there should be more transparency,” Kasriel said.

Bernanke’s Fed is responsible for $4.74 trillion of pledges, or 61 percent of the total commitment of $7.76 trillion, based on data compiled by Bloomberg concerning U.S. bailout steps started a year ago.

“Too often the public is focused on the wrong piece of that number, the $700 billion that Congress approved,” said J.D. Foster, a former staff member of the Council of Economic Advisers who is now a senior fellow at the Heritage Foundation in Washington. “The other areas are quite a bit larger.”

Fed Rescue Efforts

The Fed’s rescue attempts began last December with the creation of the Term Auction Facility to allow lending to dealers for collateral. After Bear Stearns’s collapse in March, the central bank started making direct loans to securities firms at the same discount rate it charges commercial banks, which take customer deposits.

In the three years before the crisis, such average weekly borrowing by banks was $48 million, according to the central bank. Last week it was $91.5 billion.

The failure of a second securities firm, Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., in September, led to the creation of the Commercial Paper Funding Facility and the Money Market Investor Funding Facility, or MMIFF. The two programs, which have pledged $2.3 trillion, are designed to restore calm in the money markets, which deal in certificates of deposit, commercial paper and Treasury bills.

Lehman Failure

“Money markets seized up after Lehman failed,” said Neal Soss, chief economist at Credit Suisse Group in New York and a former aide to Fed chief Paul Volcker. “Lehman failing made a lot of subsequent actions necessary.”

The FDIC, chaired by Sheila Bair, is contributing 20 percent of total rescue commitments. The FDIC’s $1.4 trillion in guarantees will amount to a bank subsidy of as much as $54 billion over three years, or $18 billion a year, because borrowers will pay a lower interest rate than they would on the open market, according to Raghu Sundurum and Viral Acharya of New York University and the London Business School.

Congress and the Treasury have ponied up $892 billion in TARP and other funding, or 11.5 percent.

The Federal Housing Administration, overseen by Department of Housing and Urban Development Secretary Steven Preston, was given the authority to guarantee $300 billion of mortgages, or about 4 percent of the total commitment, with its Hope for Homeowners program, designed to keep distressed borrowers from foreclosure.

Federal Guarantees

Most of the federal guarantees reduce interest rates on loans to banks and securities firms, which would create a subsidy of at least $6.6 billion annually for the financial industry, according to data compiled by Bloomberg comparing rates charged by the Fed against market interest currently paid by banks.

( article continued below)


































Not included in the calculation of pledged funds is an FDIC proposal to prevent foreclosures by guaranteeing modifications on $444 billion in mortgages at an expected cost of $24.4 billion to be paid from the TARP, according to FDIC spokesman David Barr. The Treasury Department hasn’t approved the program.

Bernanke and Paulson, former chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, have also promised as much as $200 billion to shore up nationalized mortgage finance companies Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, a pledge that hasn’t been allocated to any agency. The FDIC arranged for $139 billion in loan guarantees for General Electric Co.’s finance unit.

Automakers Struggle

The tally doesn’t include money to General Motors Corp., Ford Motor Co. and Chrysler LLC. Obama has said he favors financial assistance to keep them from collapse.

Paulson told the House Financial Services Committee Nov. 18 that the $250 billion already allocated to banks through the TARP is an investment, not an expenditure.

“I think it would be extraordinarily unusual if the government did not get that money back and more,” Paulson said.

In his Nov. 18 testimony, Bernanke told the House Financial Services Committee that the central bank wouldn’t lose money.

“We take collateral, we haircut it, it is a short-term loan, it is very safe, we have never lost a penny in these various lending programs,” he said.

A haircut refers to the practice of lending less money than the collateral’s current market value.

Requiring the Fed to disclose loan recipients might set off panic, said David Tobin, principal of New York-based loan-sale consultants and investment bank Mission Capital Advisors LLC.

‘Mark to Market’

“If you mark to market today, the banking system is bankrupt,” Tobin said. “So what do you do? You try to keep it going as best you can.”

“Mark to market” means adjusting the value of an asset, such as a mortgage-backed security, to reflect current prices.

Some of the bailout assistance could come from tax breaks in the future. The Treasury Department changed the tax code on Sept. 30 to allow banks to expand the deductions on the losses banks they were buying, according to Robert Willens, a former Lehman Brothers tax and accounting analyst who teaches at Columbia University Business School in New York.

Wells Fargo & Co., which is buying Charlotte, North Carolina-based Wachovia Corp., will be able to deduct $22 billion, Willens said. Adding in other banks, the code change will cost $29 billion, he said.

“The rule is now popularly known among tax lawyers as the ‘Wells Fargo Notice,’” Willens said.

The regulation was changed to make it easier for healthy banks to buy troubled ones, said Treasury Department spokesman Andrew DeSouza.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said he was angry that banks used the money for acquisitions.

“The only purpose for this money is to lend,” said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. “It’s not for dividends, it’s not for purchases of new banks, it’s not for bonuses. There better be a showing of increased lending roughly in the amount of the capital infusions” or Congress may not approve the second half of the TARP money.

To contact the reporters on this story: Mark Pittman in New York at mpittman@bloomberg.net; Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: November 24, 2008 13:26 EST







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Quote of the Day

"Every step we take towards making the State the Caretaker of our lives, by that much we move toward making the State our Master."

-Dwight D. Eisenhower

America: In Search of a King?

By Tim Connolly
November 22, 2008


Consider this:

1 Samuel 8:7,10-20

7 And the Lord said to Samuel, "Heed the voice of the people in all that they say to you; for they have not rejected you, but they have rejected Me, that I should not reign over them.......
10 So Samuel told all the words of the Lord to the people who asked him for a king. 11 And he said, "This will be the behavior of the king who will reign over you: He will take your sons and appoint them for his own chariots and to be his horsemen, and some will run before his chariots.
12 He will appoint captains over his thousands and captains over his fifties, will set some to plow his ground and reap his harvest, and some to make his weapons of war and equipment for his chariots.
13 He will take your daughters to be perfumers, cooks, and bakers.
14 And he will take the best of your fields, your vineyards, and your olive groves, and give them to his servants.
15 He will take a tenth of your grain and your vintage, and give it to his officers and servants.
16 And he will take your male servants, your female servants, your finest young men, and your donkeys, and put them to his work.
17 He will take a tenth of your sheep. And you will be his servants.
18 And you will cry out in that day because of your king whom you have chosen for yourselves, and the Lord will not hear you in that day."
19 Nevertheless the people refused to obey the voice of Samuel; and they said, "No, but we will have a king over us,
20 that we also may be like all the nations, and that our king may judge us and go out before us and fight our battles."

There are many things to learn from the Bible. And considering the bizarre behavior we saw from millions of Obama supporters this past election, this particular story holds tremendous relevance as history continues to repeat itself.

Please watch this video. Pay close attention the written narrative and words of the song being played.



And this one....



When did we start looking to ONE man to fix all of our problems? When did we stop looking to God, ourselves, and each other to find the solutions to our challenges, great or small?

Well, we've all heard the saying, "be careful what you wish for".
With the current state of things and the similarly clichéd "the grass is always greener" being a very convenient mind set to consider in times like these, I'd like to offer a few important reminders.

No matter what might come our way in next few years; no matter what challenges we may face, if we will remember who we are and what it is that made this country great to begin with, such as: our faith in God, love of family and country, our pursuit of justice, equality, and freedom for every American. If we can find a way to remember these simple things; if we will hold on to them as if our way of life depends on it, we will weather any storm. And America will be a stronger and more united Nation for having gone through it.

But if not. If we allow a group of men, driven by greed and the thirst for power, to convince us that we need THEM to tell us how to make things right; if we will not stand up and fight for ourselves, our freedom, and for what we know is true, then I know without any doubt that America will not survive the coming storm. And the freedoms we cherish will be the first to die.

I can only speak for myself and we all must do our part; but I would rather die a free man than live a long life as a slave.

Now is the time for us to stand up, get involved, and speak out.

Its OUR Country.....and WE can fix it.



"If ever time should come, when vain and aspiring men shall possess the highest seats in Government, our country will stand in need of its experienced patriots to prevent its ruin."

-Samuel Adams

Find A Happy Place (Part Deux)

A Message From The Editor


Well, I think its about that time again. With Thanksgiving next week and Christmas around the corner, both the political and economic systems have continued to spiral out of control right on cue and reality is starting to settle in for millions that we are in for a long and bumpy ride.

So, its time for a little pick me-up! Something small yet therapeutic; distractingly shiny and hypnotic; something that, if for but a moment, carries me away to a happy place with prancing Unicorns and chocolate rivers. (Hey, you have your happy place and I have mine, OK. So.....back off.)

I'm gonna be honest with you, this one might be more for me than for you.
But I'm quite sure it'll do you some good as well.

Quote of the Day

“If Congress can employ money indefinitely to the general welfare, and are the sole and supreme judges of the general welfare, they may take the care of religion into their Own hands; they may appoint teachers in every state, county, and parish, and pay them out of their public treasury; they may take into their own hands the education of children, establishing in like manner schools throughout the Union; they may assume the provision for the poor; they may undertake the regulation of all roads other than post-roads; in short, everything, from the highest object of state legislation down to the most minute object of police, would be thrown under the power of Congress; for every object I have mentioned would admit of the application of money, and might be called, if Congress pleased, provisions for the general welfare. … I venture to declare it as my opinion, that, were the power of Congress to be established in the latitude contended for, it would subvert the very foundations, and transmute the very nature of the limited government established by the people of America …”

- President James Madison

Don't Drink the Kool-Aid on Jonestown

Thirty years ago today more than 900 followers of Jim Jones committed "revolutionary suicide" by drinking cyanide-laced Flavor-Aid.

"I just want to say something to everyone that I see that is standing around and are crying. This is nothing to cry about. This is something we should all rejoice about. We can be happy about this. They always told us that we should cry when you're coming into this world, but when we're leaving and we're leaving it peaceful ... I tell you, you should be happy about this. I was just thinking about Jim Jones. He just has suffered and suffered and suffered. He is the only god and he don't even have a chance to enjoy his death here. (clapping and voices in background)... I wanted to say one more thing. This is one thing I want to say. That you that've gone and there's many more here. He's still--the way, that's not all of us, that's not all yet. There's just a few that have died. A chance to get ... to the one that they could tell ... their lies to. So and I say I'm looking at so many people crying, I wish you would not cry, and just thank Father, just thank him. I tell you about ... (clapping and shouting) ... I've been here, uh, one year and nine months and I never felt better in my life. Not in San Francisco, but until I came to Jonestown. I enjoy this life. I had a beautiful life. I don't see nothing that I should be crying about. We should be happy. At least I am. Let's all be the same."

This comes from an unidentified woman on the FBI death recording from Jonestown, Guyana. Within minutes, she would be dead. For anyone familiar with the National Socialists' "night of the long knives" or the Soviet Socialists' show trials, replete as they were with a socialist dictator's victims professing their love and allegiance for that dictator in the moment of death, the pathetic hosannas to Jim Jones by the people of Peoples Temple plays as a disturbing socialist deja vu.

On November 17, 1978, Jim Jones was a hero to American leftists. On November 18, 1978, Jones orchestrated the killings of 918 people and strangely morphed in the eyes of American leftists into an evangelical Christian fanatic. An unfortunately well-worn narrative, playing out contemporaneously in Pol Pot's Cambodia, of socialist dreams ending in ghoulish nightmares, then, conveniently shifted to one about the dangers of organized religion. But as The Nation magazine reported at the time, "The temple was as much a left-wing political crusade as a church. In the course of the 1970s, its social program grew steadily more disaffiliated from what Jim Jones came to regard as 'Fascist America' and drifted rapidly toward outspoken Communist sympathies." So much so that the last will and testament of the Peoples Temple, and its individual members who left notes, bequeathed millions of dollars in assets to the Soviet Union. As Jones expressed to a Soviet diplomat upon upon his visit to Jonestown the month before the smiling suicides took place, "For many years, we have let our sympathies be quite publicly known, that the United States government was not our mother, but that the Soviet Union was our spiritual motherland."

Jim Jones was an evangelical communist who became a minister to infiltrate the church with the gospel according to Marx and Lenin. He was an atheist missionary bringing his message of socialist redemption to the Christian heathen. "I decided, how can I demonstrate my Marxism?," remembered Jones of his days in 1950s Indiana. "The thought was, infiltrate the church." So in the forms of Pentecostal ritual, Jones smuggled socialism into the minds of true believers--who gradually became true believers of a different sort. Unless one counts his drug-induced bouts with self-messianism, Jones didn't believe in God. Get it--a Peoples Temple. He shocked his parishioners, many of whom certainly did believe in God, by dramatically tossing the Bible onto the ground during a sermon. "Nobody's going to come out of the sky!," an excited Jones had once informed his flock. "There's no heaven up there! We'll have to have heaven down here!" Like so many efforts to usher in the millenium before it, Jones's Guyanese road to heaven on earth detoured to a hotter afterlife destination.

The horrific scene in a Guyanese jungle clearing could have been avoided. Thousands of miles north, for years leading up to Jonestown, San Francisco officials and journalists had looked the other way while Jones acted as a law unto himself. So what if he abused children, sodomized a follower, tortured and held temple members at gun point, and defrauded the government and people of welfare and social security checks? He believes in socialism and so do we. That was the ends-justifies-the-means attitude that enabled Jim Jones to commit criminal acts in San Francisco with impunity. The people who should have stopped him instead encouraged him.

Mayor George Moscone, who would be assassinated days after the Jonestown tragedy, appointed Jones to the city's Housing Authority in 1975. Jones quickly became chairman, which proved beneficial to the enlargement of the pastor's flock--and his coffers, as Jones seized welfare checks from new members. One of the Peoples Temple's top officials becoming an assistant district attorney, a man so thoroughly indoctrinated in the cult that he falsely signed an affidavit (ultimately his child's death warrant) disavowing paternity to his own son and ascribed paternity to Jones, similarly enhanced the cult's power base within the city. How, one wonders, did victimized Peoples Temple members feel about going to the law in a city where Jones's henchman was the law?

Going to the Fourth Estate was also a fruitless endeavor, as San Francisco media institutions, such as columnist Herb Caen, were boosters of Jones and his Peoples Temple. When veteran journalist Les Kinsolving penned an eight-part investigative report on Peoples Temple for the San Francisco Examiner in 1972, his editors buckled under pressure from Jones and killed the report halfway through. Kinsolving quipped that the Peoples Temple was the "the best-armed house of God in the land," detailed the kidnapping and possible murder of disgruntled members, exposed Jones's phony faith healing, highlighted Jones's vile school-sanctioned sex talk with children, and directed attention toward the Peoples Temple's massive welfare fraud that funded its operations. "But in the Mendocino County Welfare Dept. there is the key to Prophet Jones' plans to expand the already massive influx of his followers--and have it supported by tax money," Kinsolving wrote more than six years before the tragedy in the Guyanese jungle. "The Examiner has learned that at least five of the disciples of The Ukiah Messiah are employees of this Welfare Department, and are therefore of invaluable assistance in implementing his primary manner of influx: the adoption of large numbers of children of minority races." Unfortunately, four of the series' eight articles were jettisoned after Jones unleashed hundreds of protestors to the San Francisco Examiner, a programmed letter-writing campaign, and a threatened lawsuit against the paper. The Examiner promptly issued a laudatory article on Jones. A few years later, after Jones had moved operations from Ukiah to San Francisco, California, a writer for the San Francisco Chronicle penned an expose on the Peoples Temple. A Chronicle editor sympathetic to Jones spiked that piece, which ultimately made its way to New West magazine and so alarmed Jones that he hastily departed San Francisco for his agricultural experiment in Guyana.

By virtue of producing rent-free rent-a-rallies for liberal politicians and causes, Jim Jones engendered enormous amounts of good will from Democratic politicians and activists. They allowed their political ambitions to derail their governing responsibilities. Frisco pols like Harvey Milk never seemed to care how Jones could, at the snap of his fingers, direct hundreds of people to stack a public meeting or volunteer for a campaign. City Councilman Milk just knew that he benefitted from that control, and therefore never bothered to do anything to inhibit the dangerous cult operating in his city. Instead, he actively aided and abetted a homicidal maniac. It wasn't just local hacks Jones commanded respect from. He held court with future First Lady Rosalyn Carter, vice presidential candidate Walter Mondale, and California Governor Jerry Brown.

A man who killed more African Americans than the Ku Klux Klan was awarded a local Martin Luther King Jr. Humanitarian Award and won the plaudits of California lieutenant governor Mervyn Dymally, state assemblyman Willie Brown, radical academic Angela Davis, preacher/politician Jesse Jackson, Black Panther leader Huey Newton, and other African American activists. From Newton, whom Jones had visited in Cuban exhile in 1977, Jones got his lawyer and received support, such as a phone-to-megaphone address to Jonestown during a "white night" dry run of mass suicide. This was appropriate, as it was from Newton whom Jones appropriated the phrase "revolutionary suicide"--the title of a 1973 Newton book--that he used as a moniker for the murder-suicides of more than 900 people on November 18, 1978. "We didn't commit suicide," Jones announced during the administering of cyanide-laced Flavoraid to his flock, "we committed an act of revolutionary suicide protesting the conditions of an inhumane world." Newton's comically idiotic slogan boomeranged on him, as several of his relatives perished in the Kool-Aid carnage.

It's worth remembering that before the people of Peoples Temple drank Jim Jones's Kool-Aid, the leftist political establishment of San Francisco gulped it down. And without the latter, the former would have never happened.

The Waxman Democrats

What the coup against Dingell means for business.


John Dingell's fall from power yesterday is an important inflection point in the history of the modern Democratic Party. The House purge marks the final triumph of the Congressional generation that came of political age during the 1970s over the last lion of New Deal liberalism, and it is symbolic of the party's change in culture and policy priorities in the Barack Obama era.

Sitting chairmen are nearly impossible to depose, never mind one with the seniority and record of Mr. Dingell, who has served longer than anyone else in the House. The Democratic caucus nonetheless stripped him of his 28-year position atop the Energy and Commerce Committee, which has great power over the climate change and health-care bills that Mr. Obama hopes to pass next year. Instead, California's Henry Waxman, who was elected by a reported 137 to 122, will do the honors. (We say "reported" because the vote was by secret ballot, which in a rich irony Democrats want to prevent for union organizing votes.)

Speaker Nancy Pelosi claimed to be neutral, though it was clear all along that she was twisting arms on Mr. Waxman's behalf. "I assume that not playing a role is playing a role," as Charlie Rangel, another venerable committee chairman, put it yesterday. Ms. Pelosi loathes Mr. Dingell's independence -- especially on environmental matters.

That fissure neatly separates the Waxman Democrats from the old vanguard that Mr. Dingell represents. He was first elected in 1955 and has always tried to protect his hometown Detroit auto makers from the eco-mandates that ultimately helped to land them in their present predicament. Mr. Dingell's rough-hewn candor about the realities of "doing something" about climate change also helped to make him a green pariah. He knows that carbon regulation and taxes will fall most heavily on domestic manufacturing and Midwest states that rely on coal-fired power. His sympathies lie with the people who work near (or in) factories and drive Fords or Chevys.

Mr. Waxman, speaking for the upscale precincts of Beverly Hills, wants to phase out coal and cars that use gasoline. The coastal elites who now dominate Democratic politics will happily trade the blue collar for the green collar.
In today's Opinion Journal

Barney Frank and the other liberals produced by Vietnam and Watergate, Mr. Waxman belongs to a cohort whose power has been checked -- one way or the other -- by Ronald Reagan, Bill Clinton's New Democrat tendencies, the Republican sweep of 1994 and George W. Bush. Now with a new Democratic President and a crisis to use as a lever for a sweeping expansion of government, they aren't about to let an old warhorse with scruples about the costs of regulation interfere with their moment to govern.

We should add that Mr. Dingell is hardly some business apologist. At Energy and Commerce in the 1980s and early 1990s, Mr. Dingell would burn the paint off the committee room walls with his interrogations of energy, insurance and drug company executives. The irony is that Democrats have found, in Mr. Waxman, an even more extreme antibusiness tribune, who will no doubt use his new powers to go after any concern that turns a profit but refuses to pay his party the obeisance of campaign cash and regulatory submission. In short, the Democrats have ousted the dean of the House for the spleen of the House.

Meanwhile, in another sign of the Waxman ascendancy, President-elect Obama has named Philip Schiliro, a Waxman loyalist and his former chief of staff, as the new White House director of Congressional relations. Robert Sussman, who leads the transition's Environmental Protection Agency "review team," has been an astringent critic of Mr. Dingell on carbon regulation. And Carol Browner, Al Gore's protégé turned Clinton EPA administrator turned director of Mr. Obama's "energy working group," is another old Dingell foe.

It's obvious who now pulls the Democratic levers of power, and anyone in the energy or health-care business had better erect the barricades. In the small favors department, Mr. Waxman will allow Mr. Dingell to hold the title "chairman emeritus."

The Auto Bailout is a Shakedown

Friday, November 21, 2008


The U.S. auto industry needs a shakeout, not a bailout. What we are witnessing is an attempted shakedown.

One day before the CEOs of General Motors, Ford, and Chrysler told the Senate Banking Committee that their industry faced imminent collapse without an emergency infusion of $25 billion, a new automobile assembly plant opened for business in Greensburg, Indiana. Although the hearing on Capitol Hill received far more media coverage, the unveiling of Honda’s latest facility in the American heartland speaks volumes about the future of the U.S. car industry—and shows why the proposed bailout of Detroit’s Big Three is so misguided.

The intellectual arguments against an auto industry bailout are well established. Taxpayers should never be forced to subsidize any company, let alone a poorly run company. Subsidizing the Big Three would be tantamount to subsidizing failure. That’s bad policy.

Corporate bailouts are clearly unfair to taxpayers, but they are also unfair to the successful firms in a particular industry, who are implicitly taxed and burdened when their competition is subsidized. In a properly functioning market economy, the better firms—the ones that are more innovative, more efficient, and more popular among consumers—gain market share or increase profits, while the lesser firms contract. This process ensures that limited resources are used most productively.

Some iconic U.S. automakers are now in dire straits, but the car industry itself is not in crisis. Even if one or all of the Big Three failed, there would still be plenty of strong auto companies operating throughout the United States. The Big Three currently account for slightly more than half of all light vehicle production and slightly less than half of all light vehicle sales in the United States. The rest of the U.S. auto industry includes Honda, Toyota, Nissan, Kia, Hyundai, BMW, and the other foreign nameplate producers who manufacture vehicles here. These companies employ American workers, pay U.S. taxes, support local businesses, contribute to local charities, have genuine stakes in their communities, and face the same cyclical contraction in demand as do the Big Three. The difference is that they have been making more products that Americans want to buy and will endure this recession without any taxpayer assistance because they have more efficient cost structures.

Even if one or all of the Big Three failed, there would still be plenty of strong auto companies operating throughout the United States.The decline of the Big Three is hardly a recent phenomenon. Detroit has been losing market share for decades. It has not produced a top-five selling passenger car in years. Detroit’s once-popular SUVs and large pickup trucks have fallen out of favor with consumers. The Big Three failed to sufficiently diversify into reliable, efficient, and aesthetic passenger cars when they were earning big profits and had the money to do so. Their bloated cost structures have given non-Detroit competitors a $30-per-hour advantage in labor costs.

Want proof that automobile production remains alive and well in the United States? Just look at the success of Honda’s operations in Ohio, Toyota’s in Kentucky, Nissan’s in Tennessee, BMW’s in South Carolina, and Hyundai’s in Alabama, as well as the proliferation of new plants across the country, such as the new Honda facility in Indiana and the new Kia plant in Georgia.

If one or two of the Big Three went under, people would lose their jobs. That’s what happens in an economic recession, when less competitive firms are forced to contract. But the number of job losses wouldn’t be anywhere near as large as Detroit is telling us. Realistically, the failure of one or two major auto producers would improve prospects for the firms and workers who remain in the industry. If GM fails, the market shares of Ford and Chrysler (not to mention those of the foreign nameplate producers) are likely to increase, as they compete for GM’s former customers and best workers.

The bailout sought by Detroit would interfere with the adjustment process, while doing nothing to make the Big Three more competitive. A $25 billion infusion for companies that are losing $6 billion each month is not a rescue plan; it’s an expensive way of kicking the can down the road.

Funneling $25 billion to the Big Three would amount to a waste of taxpayer dollars and also a tax on the successful auto companies, such as Honda and Toyota. Indeed, bailing out Detroit would discourage the successful companies from opening new facilities in the United States.

To dampen criticism, Congressional Democrats speak of a bailout “with strings attached.” But even a strings-attached bailout poses problems.

First, Congress doesn’t know enough about the auto business to dictate operational conditions. “Strings” that cap executive compensation will chase talent away. Strings that force Detroit to produce high-mileage vehicles when gas prices are plummeting will lead to a repetition of past mistakes.




Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process.Second, strings will make it easier for the Big Three to come back for more federal aid after they blow through the first $25 billion. Their CEOs will be able to say that they complied with the conditions of the original bailout, which happened to make matters worse for them.

Bailing out Detroit is unnecessary. After all, this is why we have the bankruptcy process. If companies in Chapter 11 can be salvaged, a bankruptcy judge will help them find the way. In the case of the Big Three, a bankruptcy process would almost certainly require them to dissolve their current union contracts. Revamping their labor structures is the single most important change that GM, Ford, and Chrysler could make—and yet it is the one change that many pro-bailout Democrats wish to ignore.

The Big Three, the United Auto Workers (UAW), the Michigan Congressional delegation, Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid all know that $25 billion is nowhere near enough money to fix the problems ailing Detroit. The politicians must know that bankruptcy is the better course for auto companies and their workers (indeed, it could save 100,000 jobs). But they also know who fills their political coffers, and the UAW leadership is opposed to Chapter 11 because its labor contracts would be deemed toxic and abrogated by a bankruptcy judge.

The U.S. auto industry needs a shakeout, not a bailout. What we are witnessing, unfortunately, is an attempted shakedown. Let’s hope it doesn’t succeed.




Daniel J. Ikenson is associate director of the Cato Institute’s Center for Trade Policy Studies.

Bush's Legacy: European Socialism

By Dick Morris
November 19, 2008

The results of the G-20 economic summit amount to nothing less than the seamless integration of the United States into the European economy. In one month of legislation and one diplomatic meeting, the United States has unilaterally abdicated all the gains for the concept of free markets won by the Reagan administration and surrendered, in toto, to the Western European model of socialism, stagnation and excessive government regulation. Sovereignty is out the window. Without a vote, we are suddenly members of the European Union. Given the dismal record of those nations at creating jobs and sustaining growth, merger with the Europeans is like a partnership with death.

At the G-20 meeting, Bush agreed to subject the Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) and our other regulatory agencies to the supervision of a global entity that would critique its regulatory standards and demand changes if it felt they were necessary. Bush agreed to create a College of Supervisors.

According to The Washington Post, it would "examine the books of major financial institutions that operate across national borders so regulators could begin to have a more complete picture of banks' operations."

Their scrutiny would extend to hedge funds and to various "exotic" financial instruments. The International Monetary Fund (IMF), a European-dominated operation, would conduct "regular vigorous reviews" of American financial institutions and practices. The European-dominated College of Supervisors would also weigh in on issues like executive compensation and investment practices.

There is nothing wrong with the substance of this regulation. Experience is showing it is needed. But it is very wrong to delegate these powers to unelected, international institutions with no political accountability.

We have a Securities and Exchange Commission appointed by the president and confirmed by the Senate, both of whom are elected by the American people. It is with the SEC, the Treasury and the Federal Reserve that financial accountability must take place.

The European Union achieved this massive subrogation of American sovereignty the way it usually does, by negotiation, gradual bureaucratic encroachment, and without asking the voters if they approve. What's more, Bush appears to have gone down without a fight, saving his debating time for arguing against the protectionism that France's Nicolas Sarkozy was pushing. By giving Bush a seeming victory on a moratorium against protectionism for one year, Sarkozy was able to slip over his massive scheme for taking over the supervision of the U.S. economy.

All kinds of political agendas are advancing under the cover of response to the global financial crisis. Where Franklin Roosevelt saved capitalism by regulating it, Bush, to say nothing of Obama, has given the government control over our major financial and insurance institutions. And it isn't even our government! The power has now been transferred to the international community, led by the socialists in the European Union.

Will Obama govern from the left? He doesn't have to. George W. Bush has done all the heavy lifting for him. It was under Bush that the government basically took over as the chief stockholder of our financial institutions and under Bush that we ceded our financial controls to the European Union. In doing so, he has done nothing to preserve what differentiates the vibrant American economy from those dying economies in Europe. Why have 80 percent of the jobs that have been created since 1980 in the industrialized world been created in the United States? How has America managed to retain its leading 24 percent share of global manufacturing even in the face of the Chinese surge? How has the U.S. GDP risen so high that it essentially equals that of the European Union, which has 50 percent more population? It has done so by an absence of stifling regulation, a liberation of capital to flow to innovative businesses, low taxes, and by a low level of unionization that has given business the flexibility to grow and prosper. Europe, stagnated by taxation and regulation, has grown by a pittance while we have roared ahead. But now Bush -- not Obama -- Bush has given that all up and caved in to European socialists.

The Bush legacy? European socialism. Who needs enemies with friends like Bush?


Dick Morris is a former political adviser to Sen. Trent Lott (R-Miss.) and President Bill Clinton