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Wednesday, October 30, 2013

Breakout In The Budget Conference

House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan was right last week to predict the budget conference would not succeed by trying to reach a “grand bargain.”

“If we focus on some big, grand bargain then we’re going to focus on our differences, and both sides are going to require that the other side compromises some core principle and then we’ll get nothing done,” Ryan told the Washington Post. “So we aren’t focusing on a grand bargain because I don’t think in this divided government you’ll get one.”

The double-pain strategy that would be at the heart of any grand bargain–tax hikes and entitlement cuts–wouldn’t just be difficult to pass in the current Congress. It would also be a dead loser for the American people. Asking the public to bear the pain of austerity so that Washington doesn’t have to is no way to deal with overspending and bureaucratic bloat.

Looking for small places the two parties can agree, as Chairman Ryan recommended, is the best viable way forward. And practically anywhere in the federal government the conference committee looks, it will find lots of significant “small” bipartisan opportunities that could add up to a “big” deal.

Take a few examples which both sides should be able to agree on:

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NSA Bombshell Shocks Former Spooks: "Why in The World Would We Burn Google?"

Former intelligence officials and technology industry executives reacted with anger and anxiety over the latest revelations that the National Security Agency is reportedly infiltrating some of the world's biggest technology companies and making off with the private communications of millions of their customers. And if the reports are accurate, it could be very bad news for U.S. technology companies, who have been complaining for months that their government's secretive intelligence operations are threatening their business and driving customers towards their foreign competitors.

"I think they're in an almost impossible situation," Rep. Adam Schiff, a senior member of the Intelligence Committee, told The Cable. Speaking of Silicon Valley firms who are obligated to cooperate with the NSA, Schiff said recent leak revelations threatened to negatively impact their bottom lines. "It's definitely going to hurt their business and I think we ought to do everything we can to mitigate that damage. I'm very sympathetic to what they have to confront."

The Washington Post reported today that the agency "has secretly broken into the main communications links that connect Yahoo and Google data centers around the world." According to documents provided by former NSA contractor Edward Snowden, the agency is intercepting emails, documents, and other electronic communications as they move between the companies' privately controlled facilities and the public Internet, giving the NSA access to data in nearly real-time.

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What’s Wrong With The English Language Arts (ELA) Standards?

According to Dr. Stotsky, an expert on ELA standards, Common Core consists of “empty skill sets . . . [that] weaken the basis of literary and cultural knowledge needed for authentic college coursework.” This means they state what students should be able to do – such as identify the main idea in a piece of writing – but not what they should know – for example, specific works of great writers.

This means that almost anything could qualify for “English language arts” study – even anti-capitalist tracts like Barbara Ehrenreich’s Nickel and Dimed, or photo essays from a newspaper.

But will Common Core require students to read more complex texts, as claimed? Dr. Stotsky cites a report that assesses the grade levels of some of the books in Common Core’s recommended reading list. According to this study, some of the novels for grades 9/10 in Common Core average about a grade 5 reading level; for grades 11/12, about a grade 8 reading level.

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FBI To Lavabit Founder: ‘Do You Really Think Users Trust You Over Us?’


The FBI fined, threatened, and forced Ladar Levison to suspend the operation of his secure email service, Lavabit LLC, telling the entrepreneur that his users were more likely to trust the government than him.

This year, the government demanded that Levison turn over his private SSL (secure socket layer) so that the FBI could investigate a single user account allegedly belonging to NSA leaker Edward Snowden.

“By taking these keys from me they were able to unlock everything coming in and out…gaining access to email content, passwords, and credit card numbers,” Levison told The Daily Caller in an interview. The keys allowed the FBI to “masquerade” as Levison himself, giving the agency administrative access to his system.

“They were completely unwilling to provide any kind of transparency back to me to assure me that the only information they were collecting was the information on this one specific user,” said Levison. “Users trusted me to protect their private information and I was essentially opening up the doors wide for the feds to come in and take whatever they wanted.”

Levison said he was willing to provide the FBI limited access to what they wanted, but the bureau told him that was not sufficient, insisting on full access.

He recalls lead prosecutor Jim Trump asking, “Do you really think users trust you over us?” Levison answered in the affirmative and Trump replied that Levison was “lucky” he had not already been arrested.



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Tuesday, October 29, 2013

Snowden's Latest Offense: Letting Foreign Voters Know What Their Leaders Have Long Known

Edward Snowden's stories keep leaking out, yet Russia says he must not do this. The latest one is on how the NSA spies on European leaders.

They all knew this. Their voters did not. This is the threat Snowden poses, and American foreign policy experts know this.

In an article for the forthcoming edition of Foreign Affairs magazine, Henry Farrell and Martha Finnemore argue that it's the disclosure of such practices rather than their existence that is damaging.

"When these deeds turn out to clash with the government's public rhetoric, as they so often do, it becomes harder for U.S. allies to overlook Washington's covert behavior and easier for U.S. adversaries to justify their own," they write.

"The U.S. government, its friends, and its foes can no longer plausibly deny the dark side of U.S. foreign policy and will have to address it head-on," they argue.

The U.S. government will pretend to address this head-on. It will do nothing substantive, which would involve cutting the NSA's budget. This, politicians will not do, since the NSA has been monitoring their phone calls. The politicians know who holds the hammer: the NSA.

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Politicians’ Extortion Racket

WE have long assumed that the infestation of special interest money in Washington is at the root of so much that ails our politics. But what if we’ve had it wrong? What if instead of being bribed by wealthy interests, politicians are engaged in a form of legal extortion designed to extract campaign contributions?

 Consider this: of the thousands of bills introduced in Congress each year, only roughly 5 percent become law. Why do legislators bother proposing so many bills? What if many of those bills are written not to be passed but to pressure people into forking over cash?

This is exactly what is happening. Politicians have developed a dizzying array of legislative tactics to bring in money.

Take the maneuver known inside the Beltway as the “tollbooth.” Here the speaker of the House or a powerful committee chairperson will create a procedural obstruction or postponement on the eve of an important vote. Campaign contributions are then implicitly solicited. If the tribute offered by those in favor of the bill’s passage is too small (or if the money from opponents is sufficiently high), the bill is delayed and does not proceed down the legislative highway.

House Speaker John A. Boehner appears to be a master of the tollbooth.

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The Right Fix For America: Grass-Roots – The Power Of The People

By Chuck Collins October 16, 2013
Conservatives for Responsible  Government PAC, Inc.
511 1st Ave S, North Myrtle Beach, SC 29582

In the 2014 elections, we must unmask our national politician’s best-kept secret: that what they see as the be-all and end-all of modern governance, the states, are fast becoming an obsolete political structure.

In the United States, for the first time in many decades, a new generation is coming of age with a lower standard of living than their parents’. They are faced with a choice: continued loss of personal freedoms and a prolonged drift into irrelevance or they can stand up and face the issues head on.

The time is ripe for a national, generational, non-partisan, grass-roots movement to take back our country and our way of life. And before forming a new political party, we should look to the success stories of the many states where there have been numerous advances in the areas of education, health care, flexible employment, border security, gender equality and much, much more, to determine what our national platform might be. We then can bring these solutions to the other states to look critically at these successes to see if they are applicable to their needs.

At times, we conservatives will differ on many issues. These differences should not cause us to splinter into fighting factions trying to get to the same result; they should cause us to pause and come to agreement on the basic issues of where we as a country want to go in the future. We will agree on about 80% or more of the issues facing us. The other 20% can be implemented in the states and allowed to bubble up to the national level at the right time with more robust solutions from which we can choose.

Also, we cannot continue to sacrifice good, solid conservatives because of one perceived mistake in voting. If we continue to do this then we will have no real conservative leadership; we’ll only have the moderates who want to compromise our values away. All of us must remember that only one man has ever lived in this world that did not make a mistake or commit a sin.  We must share with these leaders our frustrations and really support those with a strong conservative service record of supporting us.

We can take our country back to its founding roots where we can experience the freedoms of our ancestors. Many of us do not know what has been lost and need to examine our current political environment and direction to see if we are willing to give up any more of our remaining freedoms.

It is not that our elected leaders are malevolent or incapable of facing this challenge. They simply are not wired to understand the reality of today’s political landscape. It has changed considerably over the last 7 to 12 years. It is naive to expect traditional politicians who have been repeatedly elected for many terms to adequately address issues like resource scarcity, chronic under- or unemployment, border security, educational initiatives that are not working, oil independence, among other global issues that will take decades to resolve at our current stalemated pace.

Today’s solutions need to be grounded in the 50 laboratories (the individual states) that have the flexibility and the will to responsibly meet the needs of their citizens, or they won’t be real solutions at all and those local politicians won’t remain in office. The goods and services that have been provided at the federal level are mediocre, at best, if they work at all!

We cannot afford to continue to be fooled by our leaders’ self-aggrandizing delusion that, in terms of policy making, the federal state is the appropriate vehicle for our times. Our national politicians do not even read the bills they are passing. Nor do they approve the regulations that the non-elected bureaucrats write and implement as laws that we must follow. Our federal representatives have abdicated their primary responsibility which is to represent the people of this great country.

Instead, we must fully embrace what many of us already sense – that we stand at the mid-day of a progressive era in which Americans have a choice to continue to embrace or outright reject. If we continue to embrace the centralization of power at the federal level, we will continue down the path of dependency leading to a laggardly people and, I dare say, within 10 years we will not recognize our country. Or we can stop this madness and embrace the original path of state’s rights with a small federal government and return the United States of America to its rightful place as a national leader on the world stage letting the individual states govern their people.

If we don’t, America risks becoming a stereotype of Europe: a place with good hospitals and millions of people without adequate medical care in a timely manner, lacking in technological leadership in many areas, and many people, at times, with limited access to world-class universities, and generations held back because of parochial worldviews.

We are, strangely, the first generation of citizens that doubt our own political project. A republic that is unique in the world and that still draws people from every country in the world to our shores. Our country still offers anyone, regardless of class or ethnicity, the opportunity to freely succeed in any entrepreneurial endeavor without governmental interference. It is the exceptionalism of the American people that is unique to the world that draws these people to our borders. We will lose this freedom in this generation if we do not stand up now!

There is an old Jewish saying, “If you have only two choices, then choose the third.” The point is not to replace America’s “go along to get along” style of leadership with a dictatorship of the young. The point is to focus this movement – it must be carried by all those who, regardless of their age, agree that we must shift more power to the rising youth as citizen-legislators so we can successfully reduce the debt and governmental burdens with which we are saddling our future generations.

These younger Americans have grown up in austerity, having to cut budgets and who are digital natives. Unlike our leaders today, they are well adapted to an increasingly rapid pace of change, and their instinct is to use the most innovative and cost-effective methods to achieve the goals of the American people.

In America, politics has become much too about individual personalities, careers and partisanship, and too little about what produces tangible results. Rather than bickering over whose federal policies are preferable, we need an “American” effort to determine our best practices in every field and adopt them principally to external objects, such as war, peace, negotiation and foreign commerce with taxation restricted to only these. Thus, in limiting the reach of the federal government into every citizen’s life, restores the liberties and properties of the people, and the internal order, improvement, and prosperity of the state.

From the 50 laboratories mentioned earlier, we can determine, on a national level, which models offer the experience of which tested improvements to the human condition are successful, scalable and applicable to the national population. We have never allowed this to happen in our country’s existence. One recent idea, health care at a state level, was thought to be applicable at the national level without looking at its successes or failures, and without looking at whether the idea was scalable to the national level. We currently have an unworkable health care program that was never carefully thought out or debated to see which features were applicable or affordable. The rules are still being written and no one knows where our health care rules and regulations are going to take us. There is no accountability for these rules and regulations.

America will not be changed by the elections of 2014. It will only change when freedom-minded politicians who are elected to the federal legislature agree to transfer many of the powers the federal government has usurped back to the states, where they rightfully belong.

We need our politicians to know that we no longer buy their federal bluff, that we don’t share their fear of ‘we, the people don’t know what we’re doing.’ If we continue moving more toward the federal state, our current state legislatures and elected officials become irrelevant.

Either we harness the power of our people and our resources and change the direction of our political landscape to restore the greatest form of government the world has ever seen, or we let the pace of world government (United Nations) overtake our laws and rights leaving us without any right of self-government or personal rights or the right to own property.

The first step is to start voting not as Democrats, Republicans, Independents, Libertarians, Green Party, or whatever other political flavor of the day, but voting as “Americans” for our freedoms, our rights to own property, to choose our profession, to choose where we live, and to choose with whom we fellowship.

As one of my favorite commentator’s used to say, Wake Up America!

Tuesday, October 1, 2013

Divine Providence: A Forgotten Treasure (Part 1)

By, Rev. J. R. (“Randy”) Riddle
Coordinator
Conway Area First Friday Day of Prayer and Patriotism

Had someone living during America’s 18th century colonial period been asked, “Are you familiar with the meaning of ‘divine providence’”, most likely the vast majority would have said, “Absolutely!”  Had the same question been asked of someone living during our nation’s 19th century, their answer most likely would have been similar, “I believe so.”  Had the same question been asked of someone living during America’s 20th century, their answer most likely would have been, “I’m not sure; I’ve read about it somewhere in my high school history class, but I really couldn’t tell you what it is.”  Again, ask the same question to someone living today in our 21st century, most likely they would look at you with a blank look and respond with, “No, I’m not familiar at all with ‘divine providence’.  What is it?” 

The main point to be made here is the fact that as Americans’ understanding of divine providence has been gradually lost, which means that our nation has not only lost a priceless treasure, but our ignorance has made us vulnerable to many needless problems with serious consequences that threaten to destroy us as a nation.  Given the fact that we as a nation are facing the greatest crisis in our history, I believe it’s imperative that we give “divine providence” its due consideration and to do so by answering three questions:  First, what is “divine providence”?  Second, how has “divine providence” played a prominent role in our nation’s history and preservation of liberty?  Third, what should be our response to the reality of “divine providence”? 

With that as an introduction to the subject, let me seek to answer the first question:  What is “divine providence”?  The only accurate answer to this question will come from one of two sources.  Either the answers will come from God or the answer will come from man.  Which is the most reliable source?  The Psalmist in Psalm 118:8 gives us the answer:  “It is better to trust in the Lord than to put confidence in man.”  It was America’s Founding Fathers’ trust in the Lord (i.e., “divine providence”) that gave us our Freedom documents and government – Declaration of Independence, Constitution, and Bill of Rights – and in so doing, gave us a nation of freedom, prosperity, and peace. 

Thus,  wisdom dictates that we define “divine providence” from God’s perspective as it’s set forth in the Holy Bible, which has been historically, the most influential guidebook for shaping American government, law, education, free enterprise, ownership of private property as well as every aspect of daily life.  This has been true because the Bible is the story of God and His plan through time and eternity.  Stating the same truth differently, the Bible tells us what we are to know about God and what duty God requires of man.

The opening words of the Bible are found in Genesis 1:1 “In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth.”  As one continues to read the first eleven chapters of the Bible, it becomes clear that God does have a definite plan (sometimes referred to theologically as “decrees”).  God works out His plan in two ways: through Creation and through Providence.  To use a human illustration, God’s plan is like an architect drawing up the blueprint for the construction of a particular house, then gathering the materials for its construction, and using those materials to construct the house according to the blueprint.  So, the Bible teaches us that God is not only the Creator, but He is also the Sustainer of all that He has created.  Biblical religion is not deism, which acknowledges God as the Creator, but much like a clockmaker would make a clock, winds it up and then lets the clock run independently of its maker.  Biblical religion reveals God not only to be the Creator of all things, but He continues to act in His creation to preserve it and to direct it to His ends (Genesis 1:1-2:3; Ephesians 1:11).

This was the commonly held view and understanding throughout human history up until the second half of the 19th Century when the authority and trustworthiness of the Bible came under attack by those who believed “THE LIE” of humanism:  that man does not need to depend upon God, but can decide for himself what’s good and what’s evil (cf. Genesis 3:1-5).

I conclude this first of three articles on this subject of “divine providence” with Noah Webster’s definition:

 “3. In theology, the care and superintendence which God exercises over His creatures.  He that acknowledges a creation and denies providence, involves himself in a palpable contradiction; for the same power which caused a thing to exist is necessary to continue its existence.  Some persons admit a general providence, but deny a particular providence, not considering that a general providence consists of particulars.  A belief in divine providence, is a source of great consolation to good men.  By divine providence is often understood God Himself” (American Dictionary of the English Language, 1828).

One final word:  Unless and until we who call ourselves patriots recover the “forgotten treasure of divine providence”, our once-great nation called America will continue  down the same path to destruction as did those nations before it, be it the Assyrians, the Babylonians, the Persians, the Greeks or the Romans.


To be continued

Am I A Soldier Of The Cross as above on YouTube