Other Political News

[Soldier4Christ]

'Misinformation' Key to Kansas Conservatives' Ouster, Says ID Proponent


(AgapePress) - Public school biology curricula in Kansas will likely change again now that conservatives have lost control of the State Board of Education to evolution proponents. An advocate of intelligent design attributes the conservatives' ouster to a "misinformation" campaign.

Last November, the conservative-led Board amended the state's science standards to require students to learn about criticisms of Darwinian evolution. But as a result of last week's school board primary election, the conservatives now find themselves in a 6-4 minority.

John Calvert, who heads the Intelligent Design Network of Kansas, claims Darwinists fooled voters into believing the revised science standards remove any mention of evolution and mandated the teaching of intelligent design theory. "There [was] systematic misinformation [distributed] about the science standards," claims Calvert. "It was promoted by science institutions and then it was just repeated, for the most part, by the print media."

According to Calvert, newspapers repeated the idea that the new science standards would drive business out of the state, and that students would not be able to enroll in Kansas colleges because they went to Kansas high schools. Those reports and others, he says, tipped the scale against those seeking that the entire truth about evolution be taught.

"That propaganda, which is just completely false, was developed six years ago by the organization that was leading the opposition," he insists. "And it's just false propaganda that is put into the minds of people who don't know the difference."

Calvert says in the eyes of Darwinists, the standard paradigm for teaching evolution is to teach it so ambiguously that there is no way one can tell whether it is wrong or not.

[Soldier4Christ]

The Psy-Kos-is of the Left — The Terror Plot was all about Ned Lamont?


So predictable, ridiculous and outrageous are the conspiracy squeals from the Left about today’s great news that thousands of deaths may have been prevented that it’s hardly worth analysis…but doesn’t it say everything you need to know about the Left?

If they seriously believe that a renewed focus on terrorism is a PR boost for Bush, that the administration would “orchestrate” the entire plot and its release to the media because of its benefit to Bush, isn’t that an admission of several things:

1) That the Left knows the American people will always trust the GOP more than the Democrats in matters of national security and war-fighting when those issues are front-and-center.

2) That the Left is conceding their impotence and lack of ANY ideas about how to confront the most important issue of this era of history, despite their screams that they are the real “security party.”

3) That they fear being exposed as the Flaccid Sallies they are when the American people are confronted with a choice in a time when strong leadership is required.

Why else would they fear how they will be seen by the American people in the wake of what looks like a very close call? How else could they conclude that this “conspiracy” was carried out in connection with uber-Leftist’s Ned Lamont’s defeat of ultra-Leftist, but sane Joe Lieberman unless they KNOW that no answer they can give America will be a good one now that they’ve purged a loyal Party man for the mild apostasy of actually taking seriously the threat of IslamoNAZI terror WHEREVER it exists?

ANYWAY, if a terror plot would have benefitted Bush and by extension Lieberman, wouldn’t they have orchestrated this conspiracy prior to the primary in order to push Lieberman over the top if this was all part of the conspiracy?
Nonetheless, a sampling of the dementia:

From the Koshevics

    The terror alert level is red today, and I smell a PR blitz. Ned Lamont won a big one for the peace movement on Tuesday, and by Thursday cable TV watching Americans find themselves in dire fear of toothpaste tubes. Suspicious minds might discern a connection.

BuzzFlash: U.K. Terror Plot Foiled Just a Day after Lieberman’s Defeat. Coincidence?

    And now today, a few men in England were arrested for a plan to blow up planes flying to America, just a day after Connecticut voters flatly rejected Joe Lieberman and the war in Iraq.

    We certainly can’t deny that there may have indeed been plans to commit these acts. But the timings of the arrest announcements are awfully suspicious.

HuffPo: On Heels of Joe’s Defeat, Terror Plot’s Revealed: Is There a Connection?

    This news comes less than a day after an interview in which Veep Cheney said that Joe Lieberman’s defeat in Connecticut is likely to give comfort to the same Al-Qaeda by showing we- or at least the Democratic portion of “we,” are soft on terrorism.

    Do you see a message coming out? Iraq is part of the war on terror, and those mouse-y pacifists in the Democratic party revealed their true colors by nominating a (gasp) anti-Iraq War dove instead of a pro-Iraq War hawk.

    So in other words, the Dems - who are now rallying around that appeasing peacenik Ned Lamont- just make Osama jump for joy in whatever Wazeristan abode he happens to be in at the moment.

America Blog: Lieberman loses, CODE RED, CODE RED, CODE RED

    And isn’t it queer that the emergency is declared within a day of Republican party leader Ken Mehlman launching an all-out offensive against Democrats following Joe Lieberman’s loss in Connecticut, an offensive in which Mehlman, the White House and Republican operatives are claiming that Democrats no longer care about national security or the war on terror.

If Mehlman is in fact doing this, the Left has proved him right. After all, what has the reaction been — relief that thousands of innocent people were spared or has it been an all-out attack on our country’s leadership? What else can one conclude based on the hysteria in the Left-os-fear?

If they are actually convinced that they are “the real party of security” and that President Bush is an incompetent chimp, how do they reconcile all this with their trembling fear at the opportunity to appeal to America with their superior political, diplomatic and national security prowess?

Today is proof positive that the Bush Administration doesn’t even need a PR offensive to bury the Left, they can just sit back and watch the Surrender Party implode all on its own.

[Shammu]

Racial bigotry is racial bigotry no matter who it is coming from or directed at.

AMEN!!

[Shammu]

I couldn't figure out where to put this so...............................
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Defected Chinese Pilot Seeks Political Asylum in U.S.
Aug 10 2:24 PM US/Eastern
News Advisory:

WHEN: Friday, August 11, 2006 at 10 a.m.

WHERE: National Press Club (Zenger Room), 529 14th Street, NW, Washington, DC

Sheng Yuan, 39, a veteran co-pilot of Flight MU 583 with Chinese Eastern Airline, decided on Wednesday to leave the crew, after their arrival in Los Angeles. He is now seeking asylum in the US.

Just before his flight took off in Shanghai, the airport police questioned him and wanted to take him away, because he told another airport worker about the fact that more than 12 million Chinese had quit the communist party and the affiliated communist organizations, as well as the persecution of Falun Gong. The latter reported him to the police.

Yuan himself is also a practitioner of Falun Gong and was once thrown into a brainwashing class in China for his peaceful practice.

The police finally allowed the flight to take off after one hour’s delay, due to the fact that all the passengers were boarded and they could not find a replacement for Yuan. But the police chief told him they would like to "talk with him again" after he came back and took down his address and phone number and all the return flight information.

Yuan considered his situation ominous. He knew someone that was sentenced to four years in prison just because he possessed a copy of “Nine Commentaries on the Communist Party”, a book that triggered the massive resignation from the communist party and the affiliated communist organizations in China since 2004.

Yuan, after a sleepless night, decided to stay in the US after his arrival in Los Angeles. He said he still did not know how to tell his parents or daughter in China about this yet. His wife in Shanghai could only sweep on the phone after learning this news, as they both knew the phone conversation could be monitored.

The Airbus left Los Angeles for the return flight hours ago. It is scheduled to land in Shanghai at 6 a.m. on Friday August 11 (New York Time). Yuan hopes the Chinese Authority will not persecute his family and colleagues for his own decision.

Defected Chinese Pilot Seeks Political Asylum in U.S.

[Soldier4Christ]

Judge dismisses lawsuit over budget bill

A federal judge Friday threw out a private group's effort to block a $39 billion deficit-reduction bill that was passed in different versions by the House and Senate.

The lawsuit by Public Citizen argued that because the two chambers passed slightly different bills, the version signed by
President Bush on Feb. 8 was unconstitutional.

U.S. District Judge John D. Bates disagreed, citing an 1892 Supreme Court ruling that says the signatures of Senate and House leaders are enough to affirm a bill's legitimacy.

The lawsuit was one of four filed across the country challenging the law over a clerical error that listed different rental periods for medical equipment that would be covered by Medicare.

The Senate voted to authorize 13 months but a clerk erroneously wrote 36 months into the bill before sending it to the House, where it was passed with the longer rental period.

By the time the bill arrived on Bush's desk, the number had been changed back to 13 months. Recognizing the problem, the Senate passed a resolution hours after Bush signed the bill stating that the final bill reflected "the true intention of Congress."

The White House considers the matter settled, but House Democrats have said there was a "fundamental constitutional problem" in the bill's passage.

Adina Rosenbaum, an attorney for Public Citizen, said the group still believes the bill was never actually enacted into law and plans to appeal the ruling.

Three other cases, including one filed by Rep. John Conyers (news, bio, voting record), D-Mich, are pending.

[Soldier4Christ]

Terry gets 'Clinton' to endorse opponent
Florida state Senate candidate has fun in battle for GOP District 8 nomination

How do you try to beat a good ol' boy politician in Florida? Get Bill Clinton to endorse him!

That's the approach being used by family-oriented conservative candidate Randall Terry, who is challenging incumbent Republican Jim King in the primary election Sept. 5 for the nomination for the state Senate seat in Florida's 8th District.

Terry has launched a telephone campaign to deliver 43,000 calls to Republicans in the district with messages that purport to be from Clinton.

There's nothing deceptive about it: One script says, "Hello friend, Bill Clinton here – not really!" and the other says "This is a celebrity impersonation."

Campaign officials for Terry, who founded the Operation Rescue anti-abortion group, say the first round of calls already has gone out, and the second round is pending.

Terry told WorldNetDaily that he's had Republicans tell him the ads are a "breath of fresh air."

The "endorsement" from "Clinton" talks about how King is a good ol' boy, and has served the Clintons well in the past. "Clinton" also condemns Terry as being one of those anti-abortion, pro-family conservatives.

The voice sounds – mostly – like the former president, and promises King will give illegal immigrants college tuition, let homosexuals adopt kids and is pro-choice.

"Don't vote for Randall Terry. He's for traditional marriage, right to life, fair tax, wants to protect our borders; and no amnesty for all those potential Democrat voters!" the script continues.

"We are already getting rave reviews – people are laughing out loud," said Terry. "We decided that the voters deserved to laugh a little bit, even while considering the serious issues of this campaign. We can show the stark differences between Senator King and me, and have fun doing it."

Terry is the author of six best-selling books and has lectured at Yale, Southern Methodist, the Vatican and at Jerry Falwell's Thomas Road Baptist Church.

He's appeared on Hannity and Colmes, 60 Minutes, Nightline and other shows, and has college degrees from State University of New York and Whitfield College.

Terry has spent time in jail for his peaceful civil disobedience operations while with Operation Rescue in the 1980s and 1990s. It was during that period when he received a letter from Mother Theresa advising him that Christ, too, suffered for the sins of others.

Terry said early voting in the election starts Aug. 21.

[Soldier4Christ]

Bush signs sweeping pension bill reform

WASHINGTON -
President Bush signed a broad overhaul of pension and savings rules Thursday, giving millions of people a better chance of getting the retirement benefits they have earned.

The law, passed with fanfare by Congress two weeks ago, gives companies seven years to shore up funding of their traditional pensions, also known as defined benefit plans. Special rules for seriously underfunded companies require them to catch up faster.

The 30,000 such plans run by employers are estimated to be underfunded by $450 billion.

"Americans who spent a lifetime working hard should be confident that their pensions will be there when they retire," Bush said.

He added a stern instruction to corporate America.

"You should keep the promises you make to your workers," the president said. "If you offer a private pension plan to your employees, you have a duty to set aside enough money now so your workers will get what they've been promised when they retire."

At the same time, the law recognizes the evolution in workers' benefits — a gradual disappearance of pensions in favor of savings accounts such as 401(k)s that require workers to amass their own retirement savings.

Those accounts, also known as defined contribution plans, got a boost in the new law. It is this step that many expect will do the most over time to help people working toward retirement.

The law lets employers automatically enroll workers in 401(k) plans. In addition, there is a mechanism to increase gradually the amount saved, and employers are encouraged to match some of the dollars that workers stash away.

A nonprofit research organization, the Retirement Security Project, estimated that the change, when fully in effect, could mean employees will save an additional $10 billion to $15 billion in 401(k) accounts each year.

"Those additional contributions will bolster retirement security for millions of workers," said Peter Orszag, director of the project, which works to improve retirement benefits for low- and middle-income workers.

Some changes were sparked by corporate scandals that saw workers, who had put much of their nest egg in company stock, lose their retirement savings. The new law requires companies to give their workers more investment options.

The law is not without its critics, some of whom say it does nothing to encourage employers to offer pension benefits and the reliable income they give retirees.

Rep. Charles Rangel (news, bio, voting record) of New York, the top Democrat on the House Ways and Means Committee, said lawmakers may look back at the law as the "Trojan horse that brought the end of the defined benefit pension system."

"Erosion of the defined benefit pension system represents a dangerous shift from a 'we' society to a 'me' society, where every worker is on his or her own," he said.

The ERISA Industry Committee, which represents the retirement, health and compensation plans of the nation's largest employers, said the number of defined benefit pension plans fell from 112,000 in 1985 to fewer than 30,000 in 2004.

Of those still in place, the group said, many are closed to new participants or frozen, preventing employees from earning new benefits.

"With each past reform — often based on government revenue needs — employers have exited the defined benefit system as a result of the governments changes, which often resulted in burdensome and costly regulations," said Mark Ugoretz, the committee's president.

Leaders hope these revisions will prevent a costly taxpayer bailout of the federal agency that insures the pension system, the Pension Benefit Guaranty Corp. Some fear taxpayers will pay if too many companies dump their plans at once.

"Every American has an interest in seeing this system fixed, whether you're a worker at a company with an underfunded pension or a taxpayer who might get stuck with the bill," Bush said.

The law also:

_gives airlines that are in bankruptcy proceedings and have frozen their pensions an extra 10 years, or 17 years total, to meet their funding obligations. Others with active plans get 10 years to meet their obligations.

_requires companies to give employees more information about their pensions.

_puts certain "hybrid" plans, which have been challenged as discriminating against older workers, on stronger legal footing.

_says companies with seriously underfunded plans cannot promise their workers bigger benefits.

_makes permanent the higher savings contribution limits that were set to expire in the next decade. People can now put more money in their IRA and 401(k) accounts in the coming years. That includes a new option made available this year known as Roth 401(k)s. Those accounts let workers pay tax on their earnings before saving, but the money then accumulates and can be spent in retirement tax-free.

The Human Rights Campaign praised the law for changes that the group said will help same-sex couples by expanding benefits once only allowed for spouses or dependents.

Bush praised the measure for enacting the most sweeping overhaul in more than 30 years. But he said the changes must be coupled with revisions to the two government programs that benefit retirees,
Social Security and Medicare.

"As more baby boomers stop contributing payroll taxes and start collecting benefits — people like me — it will create an enormous strain on our programs," said Bush, who turned 60 last month.

[Soldier4Christ]

Calif. Assembly to Vote on Revamped “Education” Bill


Senate Bill 1437, a bill introduced by California state Senator Sheila Kuehl, originally sought to require all textbooks used in California public schools to laud the “role and contributions of gay, lesbian, and trans-gendered people (GLBT), with particular emphasis on portraying the role of these groups in contemporary society.” Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger promised a veto, so Kuehl revamped the bill.

The new version is slated to be voted on today in the California Assembly. The bill is almost certain to pass in the assembly at which time it will then be sent back to the senate for reconciliation.

New Provisions

The new version says that California public schools may “neither teach nor sponsor any activity that reflects adversely on anyone because of their sexual orientation.” It also prohibits any textbook from portraying GLTB people negatively. In other words, critical thinking, foundational for true education, will be replaced by state-sponsored indoctrination – if Kuehl and others have their way.

Randy Thomasson, president of The Campaign for Children and Families, is calling on lawmakers not only to oppose the bill, but to speak out strongly against it.

“The flowery pro-homosexual language may have been removed, but the thorny substance remains – this is a bad bill and because of California’s influence over textbook publishers, kids across the nation will be caught in Kuehl’s web,” said Thomasson.

Why?

One may ask why such a bill has even been proposed. Is one’s sexuality at all relevant to the reporting of a non-sexual historical event?

According to Equality California it is. “SB 1437 will contribute to an ever more honest portrayal of our full American story,” says the group.

[Soldier4Christ]

 Man Protests at Home of Muslim Candidate

 A protester staked out the home of a Muslim candidate for the Maryland House of Delegates, holding a sign and wearing a T-shirt that mocked Islam.

Timothy Truett sat in a folding chair Saturday on the cul-de-sac outside Saqib Ali's home in Gaithersburg with a sign reading "Islam sucks," and a shirt with the slogan, "This mind is an Allah-free zone."

Montgomery County police sent a trespass notification form to Truett warning that he would be subject to arrest on trespassing charges if he steps onto Ali's property within the next year.

Truett called his protest "an experiment," explaining: "I had heard that Muslims were generally intolerant of views other than their own, and so I thought I would put it to the test."

Ali took several photographs of Truett but refused to speak to him, saying he did not get the impression that Truett wanted to start a constructive dialogue.

"We don't waste our time talking to people who hate us," Ali said Sunday.

Truett said he did not think the sign or the T-shirt expressed a message of hate.

"It's an opinion," he said. "I don't think there's anything intrinsically hateful about it."

Ali, a Democrat, would become the first Muslim member of the House of Delegates if elected, but has not made his religion a major tenet of his campaign.

He is considered a long-shot challenger to three incumbent Democrats, Charles Barkley, Nancy King and Joan Stern. The district has three seats, and the top three vote-getters in the primary move on to the general election.

[Soldier4Christ]

New Jersey has become the 12th U.S. state to adopt a law limiting protests at funeral services for soldiers killed in combat. The laws are a response to demonstrations staged around the country by members of a small Kansas church. The Westboro Baptist Church of Topeka contends that U.S. military deaths are God's vengeance for America's tolerance of homosexuality. The New Jersey law restricts protests within 500 feet of funerals, funeral processions, funeral homes and places of worship. President Bush recently signed a bill curbing pickets at national cemeteries.

[Soldier4Christ]

'Gag order' for judges challenged in court 
Family Council says voters deserve to know jurists' philosophies

Activists in Florida have launched a campaign to give voters information about the legal philosophies their judges hold with a lawsuit over an opinion from the state Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee warning judges to hold their tongues.

John Stemberger, head of the Florida Family Policy Council, told WorldNetDaily, that people are becoming "more and more aware of the third branch of government and realize it should not be covered with a shroud of secrecy and mystery."

The recent lawsuit in Federal Court for the Northern District of Florida makes Florida another in a growing list of states where similar issues have been addressed, because of the desire for voters to know the philosophies that dominate the judiciary.

"If a judge tells me Roe v. Wade was correctly decided and is good law, that tells me something about their judicial philosophy," Stemberger told WND, "because even the most liberal judges now realize Roe was horribly constructed legally."

The offending opinion came recently from the Judicial Ethics Advisory Committee, which told judges they have a right to express their judicial philosophy.

If they do, however, they are subject to being excused from certain cases, or to discipline if they don't excuse themselves, Stemberger told WND.

The issue is the same, although some circumstances are different, as other states where people also are clamoring for information about their judges. A few states where the issue already has become a hot button are Minnesota, Tennessee, Kansas, South Dakota, Alaska and Kentucky, observers said.

In Minnesota, a court concluded that an announcement clause in the state judicial rules was unconstitutional.

"We don't have an announcement clause," Stemberger said. "We have a pledges and promises clause."

And the ethics commission interpretation of that was: "It must be remembered that when considering motions for disqualification that the eye of the beholder is the primary focus.... The judicial candidate must not furnish answers that appear to bind the candidate if such issues arise once the candidate has assumed judicial office."

Stemberger said that means judges are not supposed to promise voters or other interests what they will do while in office. But he said stating a judicial philosophy is not the same as making promises.

Voters, said Stemberger, need to know "a judge is going to understand the proper role of a judge, the limited role as an intellectual academic arbiter of what the law is, not as a social change agent."

"We are not so much interest in their personal opinions. We want to know their opinions on decisions that have been decided.

"In our country, by and large, we elect circuit and county court judges by looking at the color of yard signs. That's pitiful for a robust democracy," he said.

The recent lawsuit seeks to have certain judicial rules declared unconstitutional as "chilling and prohibiting Plaintiffs' rights to speak and to receive and publish speech under the First and Fourteenth Amendments to the U.S. Constitution."

The Florida Family Policy Council said it issued its voter guides on judges this year, even though about half declined to respond and those who did mostly declined to answer questions because of the burden of the rules.

"Judicial candidates have the constitutional right to announce their views on legal and political issues," the lawsuit said. "While the recusal requirement applies in appropriate situations. …it also applies to protected speech when applied to the (judicial surveys). This canon deprives judicial candidates of their right to inform voters of their views on disputed legal and political issues and imposes an unconstitutional penalty on judicial candidates who exercise their constitutional right to announce their views on disputed political and legal issues."