More evidence that Hollywood hates rebels.
"Four California firefighters forced to participate in a 'gay' pride parade in July 2007 are victorious after the California Supreme Court this week refused to hear the city’s petition to review an appellate court decision last year," reports LifeSiteNew.com.
"The four men, led by Fire Capt. John Ghiotto of the San Diego Fire-Rescue Department, filed the suit against the city of San Diego for sexual harassment a month after a battalion chief directly ordered them to ride a fire engine in a lewd parade through the city streets. The men endured verbal abuse and come-ons, as well as overtly sexual gestures from the crowd," says LifeSiteNews.
Bravo to these firefighters for standing against a statist agenda that contradicts America's God-given and Creator-based unalienable rights, as recognized in the Declaration of Independence.
The Creator who gives these rights also provides liberating and healthy norms for family life, marriage, and human sexuality, all of which are under aggressive assault by homosexual extremists at war with the defining and enduring American -- and human -- mainstream.
Free-thinking people look forward to the day when an American president and the homosexual axis cease and desist from discriminating against those who, like the Founders of this exceptional nation, respect the emancipatory norms for human society available to any seeking individual and to any society willing to take verifiable information from the Creator with the seriousness -- and joy -- that it deserves.
Related
Coulter on Faggot Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America
"It's clear that [Marxist agitator Francis Fox Piven] and The Nation are in fact calling for violence," writes Arlen Williams at American Thinker.
It is also clear from the second YouTube video embedded in the article that Ms. Piven holds a disturbingly inaccurate view of the "crazy" Tea Party movement, reducing it to a bunch of economically comfortable "backward-looking" white people "distressed" about changes in sexual attitudes in what used to be their country.
Those who prefer a reality-oriented understanding of the rise and promise of the Tea Party movement may find of interest my comments in "How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War."
In an age of civility, Sir Glenn Beck rises to defend Lady Michele Bachmann against the stone-throwing caterwauling of errant Black Knight Chris Matthews of the formerly mainstream media.
I would encourage men and women of honor who see Matthews in the course of this day, and of days to come, to suggest to him, in a friendly aspect, the wisdom of adapting a more noble manner of engagement.
Here is video at TheRightScoop.
To make matters worse, IT specialist David Coppedge, reportedly the most senior staff on his team at the Jet Propulsion Lab, also passed around a couple of DVDs that make a case for intelligent design.
Clearly, the guy is a threat to civil society, science, and global warming. Or not.
Recommendation: Somebody at NASA needs sensitivity training in the Declaration of Independence, which states:
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. (emphasis added)
The Declaration of Independence affirms human liberty, which includes freedom of thought and discussion. Even at NASA.
And it recognizes the Creator as the center of gravity for American freedoms and American polity. Even at NASA.
So, NASA, free-thinking people would like to know: What exactly is your problem with the Creator, principles of freedom, and the Declaration of Independence?
For more, see "Protest David Coppedge's Persectution, Direct to NASA."
David Solway writes at Frontpagemag.com:
What the Democrats and their supporters earnestly fear is not only that Palin may be around for the indefinite future, but that she is indeed potentially electable in 2012 and must be stopped at all costs.
That Was Then: "A celebrity journalist [Mike Evans] now claims he misspoke when he said last week that Hawaii’s governor told him he was unable to find President Barack Obama’s original birth certificate after a search of state and hospital archives," reports FoxNews.com.
Here's a comment from Prisonplanet: "Reporter Mike Evans is either a filthy lying . . . or he is scared re: Birth Cert."
Related
Report: Gov. Abercrombie Admits No Obama Birth Certificate in Hawaii -- Audio
Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota delivered the Tea Party response (video) to President Barack Obama's State of the Union speech last night. Here is a transcript of her remarks:
Good evening. My name is Congresswoman Michele Bachmann from Minnesota's 6th District.
I want to thank the Tea Party Express and Tea Party HD for inviting me to speak this evening. I'm here at their request and not to compete with the official Republican remarks.
The Tea Party is a dynamic force for good in our national conversation, and it's an honor for me to speak with you.
Two years ago, when Barack Obama became our president, unemployment was 7.8%, and our national debt stood at what seemed like a staggering $10.6 trillion. We wondered whether the president would cut spending, reduce the deficit, and implement real job-creating policies.
Unfortunately, the president's strategy for recovery was to spend a trillion dollars on a failed stimulus program, fueled by borrowed money. The White House promised us that all the spending would keep unemployment under 8%.
Not only did that plan fail to deliver, but within three months, the national jobless rate spiked to 9.4%. It hasn't been lower for 20 straight months. While the government grew, we lost more than 2 million jobs.
Let me show you a chart. Here are unemployment rates over the past 10 years. In October of 2001, our national unemployment rate was at 5.3%. In 2008, it was at 6.6%.
But just eight months after President Obama promised lower unemployment, that rate spiked to a staggering 10.1%. Today, unemployment is at 9.4% with about 400,000 new claims every week.
After the $700-billion bailout, the trillion-dollar stimulus, and the massive budget bill with over 9,000 earmarks, many of you implored Washington to please stop spending money that we don't have.
But instead of cutting, we saw an unprecedented explosion of government spending and debt. It was unlike anything we've ever seen before in the history of the country.
Well, deficits were unacceptably high under President Bush, but they exploded under President Obama's direction, growing the national debt by an astounding $3.1 trillion.
Well, what did we buy? Instead of a leaner, smarter government, we bought a bureaucracy that now tells us which lightbulbs to buy and which may put 16,500 IRS agents in charge of policing President Obama's healthcare bill.
Obamacare mandates and penalties may even force many job-creators to just stop offering health insurance altogether, unless, of course, yours is one of the more than 222 privileged companies, or unions, that's already received a government waiver under Obamacare.
In the end, unless we fully repeal Obamacare, a nation that currently enjoys the world's finest healthcare might be forced to rely on government-run coverage. That could have a devastating impact on our national debt for even generations to come.
For two years, President Obama made promises, just like the ones we heard him make this evening, yet still we have high unemployment, devalued housing prices, and the cost of gasoline is skyrocketing.
Well, here's a few suggestions for fixing our economy:
- The president could stop the EPA from imposing a job-destroying cap-and-trade system.
- The president could support a balanced budget amendment.
- The president could agree to an energy policy that increases American energy production and reduces our dependence on foreign oil.
- The president could also turn back some of the 132 regulations put in place in the last two years, many of which will cost our economy $100 million or more.
- And the president should repeal Obamacare and support free-market solutions, like medical malpractice reform and allowing all Americans to buy any healthcare policy they like anywhere in the United States.
We need to start making things again in this country, and we can do that by reducing the tax and regulatory burden on job-creators. America will have the highest corporate tax rate in the world. Think about that. Look no further to see why jobs are moving overseas.
But thanks to you, there's reason for all of us to have hope that real spending cuts are coming, because last November, you went to the polls, and you voted out the big-spending politicians and you put in their place great men and women with a commitment to follow our Constitution and cut the size of government.
I believe that we're in the very early days of a history-making turn in America.
Please know how important your calls, visits and letters are to the maintenance of our liberties. Because of you, Congress is responding, and we're just beginning to start to undo the damage that's been done the last few years, because we believe in lower taxes, we believe in a limited view of government and exceptionalism in America. And I believe that America is the indispensable nation of the world.
Just the creation of this nation itself was a miracle. Who can say that we won't see a miracle again?
The perilous battle that was fought during World War II in the Pacific at Iwo Jima was a battle against all odds, and yet this picture immortalizes the victory of young GIs over the incursion against the Japanese. These six young men raising the flag came to symbolize all of America coming together to beat back a totalitarian aggressor.
Our current debt crisis we face today is different, but we still need all of us to pull together. But we can do this. That's our hope.
We will push forward. We will proclaim liberty throughout the land. And we will do so because we, the people, will never give up on this great nation.
So God bless you, and God bless the United States of America.
The information in this stunning audio may be one reason Obama's State of the Union speech last night was so flat.
Here's the opening visual statement as the audio begins:
Neil Abercrombie admitted to close friend and reporter Mike Evans -- There are no records of Obama's birth in Hawaii.
Here's more at Breitbart.com. Author Jack Cashill on Denver radio with AM 630 KHOW host Peter Boyles weighs in here.
"Watch the live broadcast here," says the Tea Party Express.
"Former Hawaii elections clerk Tim Adams has now signed an affidavit swearing he was told by his supervisors in Hawaii that no long-form, hospital-generated birth certificate existed for Barack Obama Jr. in Hawaii and that neither Queens Medical Center nor Kapi'olani Medical Center in Honolulu had any record of Obama having been born in their medical facilities," reports WorldNetDaily.
According to his blog, Donald McConnell teaches "Legal Institutions and Values" at Trinity Law School. Here is his review of Saving Leonardo.
They're discussing Saving Leonardo at the Providence Presbyterian Church in Sugar Land, Texas.
"In January the class begins a new discussion on Secularism and Christian Worldview with Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning by Nancy Pearcey. Copies are available from Pastor McCall," says the church website.
Here is the report from LifeSiteNews.com.
In case you didn't hear it on the grapevine, there's some black gold bubblin' up in Texas. And having read the press release, it's looking mighty fine. Well done, good and faithful supporters of the "Crispus Attucks Tea Party" in Houston, Texas.
Nancy will be speaking at the Educational Policy Conference next week in St. Louis, Jan. 27-29, 2011. Also speaking are Ann Coulter, Rick Santorum, David Kupelian, Judith Reisman, Frank Gaffney, Kelly Shackelford, and others.
I just got off the phone with conference organizer Donna Hearne and can let you know that Nancy will be speaking Saturday at 2:00.
Nancy will be happy to autograph books, so don't forget to bring copies of Saving Leonardo (and her other books as well!).
This conference is sponsored by the Constitutional Coalition. For more information or to register, please see this website or call 1-636-386-1789. Visit the Facebook page here.
Here is a preliminary schedule and partial list of speakers and working titles of their talks.
COURAGE AND CONVICTION
Lessons From Our History -- Extraordinary Plans for the Future!
Thursday, Jan. 27, 2011, 7:00 p.m. Open (Registration Begins at 5:00 pm)
Lessons From Our History
* Erick Metaxas, author of Bonhoeffer: Pastor, Martyr, Prophet, Spy, speaking on The Education of a Martyr
* David Kupelian, author of How Evil Works: Understanding and Overcoming the Destructive Forces that are Transforming America
Friday, Jan. 28, 2011, 9:00 a.m. Open
Understanding the Battle --
Our Toxic Culture: Dehumanizing Individuals
* Dr. Judith Reisman, author of Sexual Sabotage on Why our Schools and Culture Promote Toxic Sexuality
* Barbara Anderson, Minnesota Family Public Policy, The Fed’s push on Schools to Promote Toxic Sexuality: Money and Curriculum
* Janet Boynes, One Person’s Journey Back to Human Dignity
* Candi Cushman, Focus on the Family, Bullying and How to Effectively Confront It
Understanding the Battle --
Science’s Corruption
* Dr. John West, Discovery Institute, Science and Religion: Evolution or Purpose – Where does Theistic Evolution fit?
* John Calvert, attorney, Defining Terms: Materialistic Science vs. Theistic Science
FRIDAY LUNCH
* James Wanliss, physic professor, Post Normal Science in the Classroom
Understanding the Battle --
History: Facts or PC’s Fudging?
* Don McLeroy, Texas State School Board, History Standards and Freedom
* Betty Peters, Alabama State School Board, Federal Standards and Mind Control
* Peggy Littleton, former Colorado State School Board, Why Common Core Standards are Bad
* Kathy Wilmot, former Nebraska State School Board, How the Feds Intend to Enforce Toxic Secularism
Understanding the Battle --
How to Teach Children Healthy Risk
* Abby Sunderland, 16-years old, Circling the Globe Solo in a Sailboat – Lessons Learned
FRIDAY DINNER
* Ann Coulter, author, lawyer, conservative social and political commentator, syndicated columnist, Why Liberals Never Learn the Lessons of History
Saturday, Jan. 29, 2011
Understanding the Battle --
What Kind of "Rule of Law" Produces a Civil Society?
* Frank Gaffney, Center for Security, Shariah, the Threat to America
* Speaker to be announced – The Founder’s Biblical Constitutionalism
* Speaker to be announced – We, the People, or I, the Chief Executive?
* Hon. Sen. Rick Santorum, former U.S. senator from Pennsylvania, How is Human Dignity treated by the Constitution and Shariah and Why is it Important?
* Larry Reed, president, Foundation for Economic Education, The Best Road to Prosperity and Why
SATURDAY LUNCH
NEW! Breakout Session for young people ages 9-14 (Runs simultaneously with sessions on “Winning the Battle …,” joining the concluding session “Leaders We Must Know and Emulate”)
* Debby Brezina – Why America is the BEST!
* Abby Sunderland – My Stories and Lessons of Sailing Alone
Winning the Battle –
Why We Must Go Back into the Public Square
* John Stonestreet, Summit Ministries, Opposing Views of Humanity
* David Brog, author of In Defense of Faith: The Judeo-Christian Idea and the Struggle for Humanity
* Nancy Pearcey, described in The Economist as "America’s preeminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual," author of Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals & Meaning, on the faculty of Rivendell Sanctuary, editor at large of The Pearcey Report
Winning the Battle –
How to Go Back into the Public Square
Apologetics: The Arguments of the Secularists
and How to Win the Discussion
* Kelly Shackelford, president, Liberty Legal Institute and Free Market Foundation and Dick Thompson, president, Thomas More Center, How to Conquer the Public Square
Leaders We Must Know and Emulate
* Dr. William Forstchen, author of To Try Men Souls, speaking on Why Character Matters: George Washington
* Dr. Peter Lillback, author of George Washington’s Sacred Fire, speaking on Documenting a Biblical George Washington
Establishment elites left and right let loose almost daily cynical avalanches of pompous peer pressure to get Sarah Palin to shut up and sit down and be a good little girl.
But Palin keeps on smiling. And fighting. Resisting. And overcoming.
Jedediah Bila explains all at Human Events.
Eric Scheiner reports at CNSNews.com:
Rep. Steve Cohen (D-Tenn.) likened Republican critics of Obamacare to the Nazis and their propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels during the House floor debate late Tuesday night.
Cohen claimed that describing the health-care law signed last year as a government take over of the health care system, as many Republicans have, is a "big lie" in the style of the Nazis.
Widely read blogger and book reviewer Tim Challies writes:
I’ve made no secret of the fact that I enjoyed reading Eric Metaxas’ biography of Dietrich Bonhoeffer. Actually, it’s one of my all-time favorite biographies; it’s readable, engaging and it deals with a fascinating part of history. But lately I’ve come across a few articles by experts in Bonhoeffer who say that it’s just plain wrong -- it’s a portrayal of the man that is geared toward evangelicals and, in seeking to make the reader happy, it succumbs to all sorts of errors.
Richard Weikart (California State University) and Clifford Green ("executive director of Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works") are two of the scholars Challies cites.
Challies and others might also want to take a look this review by Victoria Barnett. Barnett, identified as "general editor, Dietrich Bonhoeffer Works, English edition," gets directly to the point in her opening sentence: "This is a badly flawed book."
A cautious Challies says he "did not want to believe what those authors . . . are saying about Metaxas and his biography. But I am inclined to believe them as they bring the weight of scholarship and experience. They may well be right in suggesting that Metaxas got in over his head; and they may be right in suggesting that the true Bonhoeffer was simply too unorthodox to appeal to the likes of me -- the kind of person who read, enjoyed and enthusiastically recommended the book."
Challies concludes, "Sometimes the truth just doesn’t sell as well as a half-truth. And I’m afraid that we evangelicals may just prefer a safe and friendly character over an accurate one."
In a column titled "Preserving States' Rights and the Constitution," Bruce Walker at American Thinker writes:
It is a grim fact of history that strong central governments have gone hand in hand with horror.
Nazis, very quickly, essentially ended the system of strong state governments in Germany.
The Soviet Union was also ruled with an iron hand from Moscow, and the destruction of whole peoples followed its central policies.
The closer people are to the elected officials governing them, the more freedom flourishes. The more remote the government, the less citizens feel like equals and the more they seem like cattle.
That is why the Founding Fathers considered states' rights as absolutely indispensable to the purposes of our nation.
Although Quin Hillyer at American Spectator continues "to believe" Sarah Palin "is not yet qualified to be president," his "admiration for her continues to grow."
Hillyer continues:
Her interview with Sean Hannity, just aired, was almost pitch-perfect. It was dignified. It was well-modulated. It was strong. And it was thoughtful. She kept her composure even as Hannity put on the screen some of the vilest, most vicious attacks against her -- the sorts of things that were so bad that if they were said about me they might shake me to my core.
She explained her thought process after hearing about the shooting in Tucson, and explained the timing of her videotaped message, and explained her use of the term "blood libel." She insisted, rightly, that strong and honest -- but respectful -- political debate should not be stifled, and noted that it only seems like the right is asked to stifle its views. She was correct on all counts.
Here is video of Palin's interview last night with Sean Hannity. Here is "America's Enduring Strength," Palin's videotaped response to the Tucson shooting.
They're from Washington, and they have ways of making sure your downspouts and basement drains are in order.
Happy to see Breitbart.com publish a link to the Rivendell/Pearcey press release announcing our coming onboard as faculty at Rivendell Sanctuary.
Breitbart.com ranks 579 in website traffic in the U.S. today, according to Alexa.
I've copied and pasted below the notice from Breitbart.com, just in case the link changes:
NETWORKS & NEWS SITES
All ABC NewsThe First PostFox NewsGreat ReporterLuciannePower LineWorld Tribune
From the Augusta Chronicle: "Another Madman, Firing Indiscriminately."
Hat tip: Instapundit
"74 percent of officeholders failed the exam," reports WorldNetDaily.
Question: How can lawmakers possibly legislate for freedom if they don't know, and thereby follow, the rules of freedom?
"A man whose heart had stopped was brought back from the dead after three and a half hours thanks to a machine that performed 20,000 life-saving compressions," reports the UK Daily Mail.
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach writes:
Despite the strong association of the term with collective Jewish guilt and concomitant slaughter, Sarah Palin has every right to use it. The expression may be used whenever an amorphous mass is collectively accused of being murderers or accessories to murder.
The abominable element of the blood libel is not that it was used to accuse Jews, but that it was used to accuse innocent Jews -- their innocence, rather than their Jewishness, being the operative point. Had the Jews been guilty of any of these heinous acts, the charge would not have been a libel.
"How unfortunate that some have chosen to compound a national tragedy by politicizing the murder of six innocent lives and the attempted assassination of a congresswoman," Rabbi Boteach writes.
"To be sure," he concludes, "America should embrace civil political discourse for its own sake, and no political faction should engage in demonizing rhetoric. But promoting this high principle by simultaneously violating it and engaging in a blood libel against innocent parties is both irresponsible and immoral."
Hat tip: MarkLevinshow
May 11, 2012, Update: Pearceys Resign From Rivendell Sanctuary
Going out across PressWire today is the following announcement:
Worldview Thinkers
Nancy Pearcey & J. Richard Pearcey
to Join Faculty at Rivendell Sanctuary
Bloomington, MN (Jan. 13, 2011) -– Rivendell Sanctuary, an innovative new college, announces that best-selling author and scholar Nancy Pearcey, and editor-publisher J. Richard Pearcey, will join the Rivendell faculty. The couple begins team-teaching classes in the Fall 2011.
Best known for award-winning books such as Total Truth, Nancy Pearcey is currently a columnist with the Capitol Hill newspaper Human Events and editor at large of The Pearcey Report. Nancy studied with Francis Schaeffer at L'Abri in Switzerland and served as the Francis A. Schaeffer Scholar at the World Journalism Institute. Her most recent position was Scholar of Worldview Studies at Philadelphia Biblical University. An article in The Economist describes Nancy as “America’s pre-eminent evangelical Protestant female intellectual.” Her latest book is Saving Leonardo: A Call to Resist the Secular Assault on Mind, Morals, & Meaning.
“What appeals to me about Rivendell Sanctuary,” Nancy says, “is that it is a ‘great books’ program with an integrated curriculum, using a Socratic method of teaching. Students are taught to dig deeply into a text and learn how to think for themselves.”
J. Richard Pearcey, also a published writer, has worked in the Washington, D.C., area for several years as an editor at The World & I, managing editor of Human Events, and associate editor of the Evans-Novak Political Report. He has edited books by David Limbaugh, Hal Lindsey, and John Erickson and is currently writing a manuscript on worldview and resistance in a secular age. In 2005 he launched the influential Pearcey Report (www.pearceyreport.com).
Rick and Nancy met at Swiss L’Abri, and they see Rivendell as encouraging a similar kind of honest and intensive engagement with ideas that helped thousands of young people discover a vibrant Christian worldview through the Schaeffers’ work. As Rick puts it, “In a sense, Rivendell is L’Abri with a bit more structure.”
In the 18-month program, students learn to think independently and Christianly while earning an Associate of Arts degree that they can take to any four-year college. A Rivendell education emphasizes:
“I consider myself a free-thinker who embraces the Christian worldview as a liberating way of life based on verifiable information about God, humanity, and the cosmos," Rick says. "That's what I hope to communicate to students. The founding of a unique educational venture like Rivendell at such a critical moment in our nation’s history surely has a relevance and meaning that is both immediate and enduring.”
Bobby Norment, co-founder and CEO of Rivendell, says, “We are delighted to welcome the Pearceys to our team at Rivendell Sanctuary. Their high standards of excellence and dedicated pursuit of truth align perfectly with our vision for developing students of honor.”
To learn more about Rivendell, go to www.rivendellsanctuary.com. To find out how you can enable a student to attend this life-changing new college, look into their “Take Back Education Scholarship Fund” at www.takebackeducation.org.
To schedule media interviews with the Pearceys, or to talk with someone about Rivendell Sanctuary, please contact A.J. Hofstetter (email: aj@rivendellsanctuary.com; phone: 952-996-1451).
In a review titled, "Metaxas's Counterfeit Bonhoeffer: An Evangelical Critique," Richard Weikart, professor of modern European history at California State University, writes:
Eric Metaxas's Bonhoeffer biography has won many accolades from evangelicals, not only because Metaxas is an excellent writer, but also because he serves up a Bonhoeffer suited to the evangelical taste. Many evangelicals admire Bonhoeffer and consider him a fellow evangelical. Metaxas's book confirms this image. In an interview with Christianity Today Metaxas even made the astonishing statement that Bonhoeffer was as orthodox theologically as the apostle Paul.
As orthodox as Paul? Metaxas does not seem to know that in his Christology lectures in 1933 Bonhoeffer claimed, "The biblical witness is uncertain with regard to the virgin birth." Bonhoeffer also rejected the notion of the verbal inspiration of scripture, and in a footnote to Cost of Discipleship he warned against viewing statements about Christ's resurrection as ontological statements (i.e., statements about something that happened in real space and time). Bonhoeffer also rejected the entire enterprise of apologetics, which he thought was misguided. . . .
How did Metaxas get it so wrong? Part of the problem, perhaps, is that Metaxas simply got in over his head.Bonhoeffer was a sophisticated thinker immersed in early twentieth-century German philosophy and theology. Even though I have a Ph.D. in modern European intellectual history and have read Hegel, Kierkegaard, Nietzsche, Heidegger, Barth, Bultmann, and many other philosophers and theologians who shaped Bonhoeffer's thought, I do not find Bonhoeffer's writings an easy read. For one thing, Bonhoeffer (like his mentor Barth) admitted that Kierkegaard was one of the most powerful influences on his theology, which means that Bonhoeffer was committed to an irrationalist, existentialist worldview that is quite different from the mindset of American evangelicals.
Though most evangelicals probably do not know it, most Bonhoeffer scholars dismissively reject the idea that Bonhoeffer's theology is compatible with American evangelical theology.
Weikart is author of The Myth of Dietrich Bonhoeffer: Is His Theology Evangelical? and says he is writing another book on the topic, with the working title Why Evangelicals Do Not Understand Bonhoeffer.
Robert M. Goldberg writes at American Spectator:
The Left's effort to link Jared Loughner's actions to conservative talk radio, hate speech, Sarah Palin's targets, etc., had nothing to do with urging us all to consider the consequences of political statements and symbols.
Rather, it's part of a constant campaign to use the Web organize and energize its base around sensational narratives consistent with an ideological or cultural view as substitute for facts or events as they really unfold.
The deliberate use of the Web to create instant mobs or spread fear has long-term consequences for our ability to function as a society.
"It's been exactly a month since the release of the 'Voyage of the Dawn Treader,' the third of the Chronicles of Narnia movies, and domestically, box office receipts have been disastrous," writes Julia Duin at "Under God," a blog at the Washington Post.
If you wonder how Hollywood could possibly scuttle a film based on the authorial genius of the unsinkable former atheist C.S. Lewis, you do well to chart your course by Duin's column.
You may remember Julia Duin from her reporting as religion editor at the Washington Times. This Dawn Treader entry is her first at the Post after coming onboard to anchor "Under God."
We look forward to more. Meanwhile, here's some of what she did before setting sail on her new ship.
Nancy is scheduled to be interviewed by Stephanie Kay on Faith Radio today at 1:00 pm (eastern time).
Here is Matt Barber's latest column:
From the instant his fruitful eight-year reign ended, Republicans have pined for the next Ronald Reagan. To date, no man has succeeded in filling the conservative standard-bearer's legendary boots. Well, maybe it's time to swap boots for pumps. Could he be a she?
Sarah Palin, you say? Perhaps, but there's actually another outspoken, attractive, fearlessly conservative Tea Party favorite firing up the center-right grass roots: Rep. Michele Bachmann, Minnesota Republican.
Forget a Senate run. The buzz inside the Beltway is that Mrs. Bachmann may be looking to add a woman's touch to the Oval Office (beyond just sprucing up its temporary occupant's eyesore decor). Her spokesman, Doug Sachtleben, has confirmed to media that the congresswoman is considering a potential presidential run, saying: "Nothing's off the table."
Mrs. Bachmann also hinted at the possibility, recently telling MinnPost.com: "We're going to have a deep bench for 2012, I have no doubt, and I think what people are asking for is a bold, strong, constitutional conservative."
Mrs. Bachmann is all that and more. Let's put aside for a moment the delightful prospect that the mere chance of a President Bachmann would be worth the price of admission if only to watch Chris Matthews' punkin burst about the set of his ratings-scraping MSNBC sideshow. The truth is that a Bachmann presidency could be just the shot in the arm Republicans -- and our worse-for-the-wear republic -- desperately need.
Mrs. Bachmann has shown unwavering commitment to the same conservative precepts -- be they fiscal, national defense or social -- held near and dear by the Gipper himself. Precepts that, when properly applied, took us from a deep Carter recession -- a tiny scale model of the Obama recession -- to abiding prosperity. Abiding, that is, until the Reagan Revolution dust settled and godless, big-government "progressives" wormed their way back into leadership.
Mrs. Bachmann has been a stalwart in advocating on behalf of constitutional conservatism. She's chairman of the HouseTea Party Caucus and has put her money where her mouth is, voting consistently in Congress to limit the size and scope of government, fortify national security and protect life, liberty, and the natural family. National Journal rated Mrs. Bachmann among the most conservative members of Congress in 2009.
Moreover, as with Reagan, it's principle over popularity with the feminine firebrand. She's evidently indifferent to what the moonbat media and the larger loony left think about her. This is an indispensable quality in a leader "We the People" can get behind. She's a maverick's maverick, not the media's.
Still, Mrs. Bachmann is not afraid to shake things up in her own Republican Party. What she lacks in physical stature, she makes up for in -- to borrow one of the mainstream media's favorite terms -- gravitas. If it takes a step stool to kick a moderate Republican in name only's tail into line, the counterestablishment lawmaker will climb it and kick it.
True, a House member hasn't been elected president since James Garfield, and a woman never has. But as Barack Obama, our first black president, might tell you: We live in an age of firsts.
And speaking of Mr. Obama: In the unlikely event that you could untether him from his tele-prompter binky long enough to debate Mrs. Bachmann, I'd bet my share of the stimulus money that she'd mop the floor with him.
Will she run? Could she win? It remains to be seen. But one thing's for sure: The fireworks leading up to the 2012 presidential election will be something to behold. Based on her penchant for telling it like it is, her existing widespread Tea Party support and her fast-growing national popularity, if this intelligent, principled, bomb-dropping bombshell were to run, I suspect her campaign might just catch fire.
J. Matt Barber is director of cultural affairs with Liberty Counsel and also serves as associate dean with Liberty University School of Law.
"The words mother and father will be removed from U.S. passport applications and replaced with gender neutral terminology, the State Department says," according to Foxnews.com. "'Gay' rights groups are applauding the decision."
There is, of course, nothing neutral in this change. It reflects an extremist attempt to impose upon American society, upon the lives of American individuals, a narrow and aggressively non-neutral pro-homosexual concept of the family that contradicts basic biology, contradicts the wonder of male-female and mother-father diversity, and discriminates against the Creator's norms for family life.
Other than continuing to sever the United States from the founding worldview (see the Declaration and U.S. Constitution) and the only known adequate basis for human freedom and dignity, this move by Barack Obama's State Department is of little concern.
According to Fox, this Washington-centric tyranny against the "laws of nature and of nature's God" is supposed to hit the streets come February.
Upshot? The barbarians are in the State Department and someone should get them out. Whoever agreed to this radical attack on American families should be fired, and the new passport rules conceived in darkness should never see the light of day.
Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch, writes:
Bruce Walker writes at American Thinker:
If we leave the shallow pond of now for a moment, and if we travel back and see the battle of ideas fought seven decades ago, it is clear that the Left is immune to truth and, probably, indifferent to truth as well.
When we hope that somehow logic, facts or wisdom will suddenly grab Leftists and make them sane and decent people, then we ignore -- at our peril -- the obvious: Leftism is a soul-disease. The first step to curing this malady is understanding that the ones who are sick must want to be cured.
"U.S. Rep. Michele Bachmann of Minnesota is the keynote speaker at a GOP event in the early presidential caucus state of Iowa later this month, and a spokesman said Wednesday that the tea party favorite has 'not ruled out' a bid for president," reports AP.
Don't videosexuals have rights too? Are they not equal? And how dare we, especially during a time of war, discriminate against a warrior willing to serve and defend our nation!?
Wait until the LGBTV (Lesbian, Gay, Bi, Trans, and Video) community gets wind of this rank oppression. This denial of basic equality.
Come on, Obama, step up! Help the "least of these"! Halt the victimization of videosexuals! Don't let the Navy throw them overboard! Stand up for equality! End videosexeophobia!
Kinsey must be rolling over in his grave.
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"Faggot" Easy to Defend: Surprising Help From Secular America
"Noted author Paul Kengor has unearthed declassified letters and other documents in the Soviet Comintern archives linking early leaders of the ACLU with the Communist Party," writes John Rossomando at The Daily Caller.
"On Martin Luther King Day 2011, a special kind of civil rights movement will be birthed in Mississippi," reports OneNewsNow.
"Through the sponsorship of Pro-Life Mississippi, a group of black pastors is planning a Festival for Life for 'Civil Rights Day' January 17, which will take place at Wesley Biblical Seminary in Jackson, Mississippi."
According to OneNewsNow, "Several pro-life films will be shown at the festival. Life Dynamics' documentary, Maafa 21, which proves the abortion industry's genocide of black babies, will be among them."
