Why is Palin raising McCain?

This is from Alan Keyes' blog.


Some people have an extraordinary ability to resist both facts and the lessons of hard experience. What else could explain their stubborn insistence that Sarah Palin can simply be trusted to lead and speak for the grassroots uprising against socialism. This weekend she is in Arizona trying to use her supposed “rock-star” conservative status to rescue John McCain from the wrath of people he has consistently betrayed. On border security, illegal immigration, amnesty for illegals, bankrupt bank bailouts, unfair trade agreements, conservative judicial appointments, the defense of marriage and the unalienable right to life McCain is clearly positioning himself to be the Arlen Specter of the West. He’s also the author of campaign finance regulations clearly aimed at freeing incumbents of every stripe from the threat of effective grassroots challenges to their tenure. When he’s up for re-election he mouths conservative lyrics. But once that ritual is over with, he marches to the beat of a different and decidedly self-serving drum.

Read the whole article here: Why is Palin raising McCain?

Who is rewriting history?

From OneNewsNow.com


Who is rewriting history?

Peter Heck - Guest Columnist - 3/29/2010 7:30:00 AM




As both a history teacher and a conservative, I have to admit to being quite amused by the foaming-at-the-mouth reaction liberals have had recently to the Texas Board of Education. It seems that the board has approved changes to the history curriculum adopted for use in the Texas public school system.


The New York Times, ever the beacon of objectivity and fairness, described the changes as, "put[ting] a conservative stamp on history and economics textbooks."


The reason I find this situation amusing is because when you look at the actual changes approved for the curriculum, they demonstrate an effort to undo the revisionist, multicultural, politically correct garbage that has overrun American and world history texts for a generation. In other words, the left isn't worried about history being rewritten; they're worried about seeing the history they've already rewritten being restored.

Take, for example, the curriculum surrounding World War II. In history texts today, the liberal narrative is dominant: that the United States interned Japanese citizens because of fear, prejudice and inherent discrimination against a foreign race. The Texas Board of Education has now required that narrative to include the reality that in addition to Japanese, both Germans and Italians living in the United States during World War II were also interned.


Or consider the treatment of "McCarthyism." Liberal academics have long used high school and college history texts to portray this era as the lowest example of anti-communist paranoia run amuck. But the Texas Board has now passed an amendment requiring that any retelling of McCarthyism include "how the later release of the Venona papers [PDF] confirmed suspicions of communist infiltration in U.S. government."


Are these examples of "putting a conservative stamp on history?" No. They're simply telling the truth.


Though it may be inconvenient for the left in trying to carry forth their self-loathing, Americans-as-imperial-racists agenda, we did intern Germans and Italians (the same race) as well as Japanese.


And though it may be inconvenient for the left in trying to portray all conservatives as paranoid freaks who see communists under their beds, the Venona documents of declassified information did reveal that there were indeed multiple examples of Soviet operatives in high-ranking positions of American government.

Other examples abound. The left may prefer that free-market giants Milton Friedman and Friedrich von Hayek be excluded from school curriculum in deference to John Maynard Keynes and Karl Marx, but the reality is that the Texas Board is right to include them in American economics courses.


The left may find that teaching the violence inherent in the Black Panther movement hampers their lopsided retelling of the Civil Rights era, but the reality is that the Texas Board is right to tell students the full story.


And not just the full story, but the true story. In what I think was the most illuminating example of what's happening in textbooks today, Mavis B. Knight, a liberal Democrat from Dallas, proposed that the Texas curriculum require students to study why "the founding fathers...barred the government from promoting or disfavoring any particular religion above all others."


The problem with Ms. Knight's proposal is that it's simply not true. As the Judiciary Committee of the House of Representatives pointed out in 1854 while studying this very subject, "At the time of the adoption of the Constitution and the amendments, the universal sentiment was that Christianity should be encouraged, [just] not any one [denomination].... The object was not to substitute Judaism or Mohammedanism, or infidelity, but to prevent rivalry among [Christian denominations] to the exclusion of others....There is a great and very prevalent error on this subject in the opinion that those who organized this Government did not legislate on religion."


An error indeed. An error fabricated and perpetuated by the modern left whose allegiance to telling the truth about our past extends only to those phrases, figures, events or occurrences that fit their own ideological agenda.


Ms. Knight is indicative of what the left has been doing to the history textbooks for a generation. They see the events of the past as mere objects to be manipulated, changed, and rewritten so as to provide a catalyst for the social change they desperately desire.


But don't take my word for it. Their current opposition to the inclusion of factual history that they simply don't like, coupled with their continued insistence on trying to include blatantly false propaganda, reveals all you need to know about who is attempting to "rewrite" the pages of our history.



Peter Heck (peter@peterheck.com) hosts a two-hour, daily call-in radio program on WIOU (1350 AM) in Kokomo, Indiana. "The Peter Heck Show" comments on social and political issues -- and doesn't shy away from recognizing how faith influences politics. This column is printed with permission.

The American Form of Government

An awesome video concerning the fact that we are a republic not a democracy.

15 Facts about China that will Blow your Mind

From 15 Facts about China on Mercola.com.  Some of these are really scary.



1.  By 2025, China will build TEN New York-sized cities.

2.  By 2030, China will add more new city-dwellers than the entire U.S. population.
 3.  China already consumes twice as much steel as the U.S., Europe and Japan combined.

 4.  If the Chinese, one day, use as much oil per person as Americans, then the world will need seven more Saudi Arabias to meet their demand.

 5.  There are already more Christians in China than Italy, and China is on track to become the largest center of Christianity in the world.

 6.  Chinese are far more likely to believe in evolution than Americans.

 7.  Chinese internet users are five times as likely to have blogs as Americans.

 8.  China has 150 percent more soldiers than America does -- plus a high tech 'Kill Weapon' the U.S. can't deal with.

 9.  China still hasn't rid itself of Europe's medieval plague.

 10. Forty percent of Chinese small businesses went bust or almost went bust during the world financial crisis.

 11. China executes three times as many people as the rest of the world COMBINED -- and uses mobile execution vans for efficiency.

 12. China averages 274 protests PER DAY.

 13. When you buy Chinese stocks, you are basically financing the Chinese government. Eight of Shanghai's top ten stocks are state-controlled arms of the government.

 14. Fifty percent of counterfeit goods come from China.

 15. The majority of Chinese drink polluted water.


Sources:
 Business Insider February 23, 2010

Thoughts on the Current Health Care Debacle

eHomebody.com: Thoughts on the Current Health Care Debacle

Hell No You Can't--John Boehner

I don't know how much of this is sincere or how much is paid for by insurance, but the words are spot on!

Covetous

This little thought was recommended by Above Rubies from a blog God My Treasure


Was reading Eph. 5:5 this morning, and it says "...no... covetous man, who is an IDOLATER, hath any inheritance in the kingdom of Christ and of God."



I just wonder how many Americans are going to be surprised when they don't make it to heaven when they THOUGHT they were Christians? I Cor. 5 talks about the covetous man also...as one who needs to have "church discipline". How do we make that judgment? What exactly IS a covetous person?


The definition includes "desiring more"..... I think we as Americans ALL need to meditate on this one. :)

All Black

Students hope to reinstate abstinence ed budget (OneNewsNow.com)

Students hope to reinstate abstinence ed budget (OneNewsNow.com)

Buy Buy American Pie

Obama Budget Cuts Visualization

This is an awesome example!

Who's the boss, The States or the Federal Government?

This article is from http://www.worldviewweekend.com/ 's email letter.  I will add my 2-cents here.  One thing I've been thinking a lot about is the Civil War.  I will never deny the benefit of the Civil War in bringing slavery to an end.  BUT one of the disservices I think it did was to strengthen the federal government.  Besides slavery, one of the reasons the South fought was for states' rights.  In a way then, the Civil War was not only about slavery but about this same issue of State vs Federal.  If you think about the states he mentions later in the article, one of the differences was when they were added as a state.  Those added after the Civil War were those with more Federal involvement.  OK, now on to the article.....


Who's the boss, The States or the Federal Government?

By Henry Lamb

Is the federal government sovereign, with authority over state governments? Or, are individual state governments sovereign, with authority over the federal government? It's a simple question; it's the answer that's a problem.

The federal government exists because representatives of the states created it. This fact should provide a clue. The federal government was designed by representatives from the states in a document called the Constitution of the United States. The federal government became a reality when the Constitution was ratified by the 9th state, New Hampshire, on June 21, 1788. This infant government, created by the states, began operation March 4, 1789. From that day until this, people have been arguing over whether the federal government or the states possess the supreme authority.

It is quite clear that the people who designed the federal government intended it to be limited in its power. Article 1, Section 8 sets forth 17 enumerated powers of the federal government. The first clause empowers the new government to "lay and collect taxes," to provide for the "defense and general welfare" of the United States. Here's where the argument gets nasty.

One group of people argues that the phrase "general welfare" means whatever Congress wants it to mean with no limitations. Another group of people argues that if this is what the designers intended, why on earth would they have bothered to enumerate the remaining 16 specific powers? It's a reasonable question that the first group prefers to ignore rather than answer.

To be sure that the federal government's authority stayed limited, the primary architect of the Constitution, James Madison, introduced the Bill of Rights in the very first Congress in 1789. These first ten Amendments further clarify the authority and limitations of the federal government. The 10th Amendment in particular, limits the federal government to those powers enumerated in the Constitution and explicitly reserves all other powers to the states and to the people.

Among the powers granted to the federal government is what is known as the "Enclave Clause," which happens to be the 17th enumerated power. This clause provides authority for the federal government to exercise supreme authority over an area "ten miles square" ceded by the states to be the Capitol of the new government, and over any lands purchased from the states with the approval of the state legislature for "…the erection of forts, magazines, arsenals, dock-yards, and other needful buildings."

This is where it really gets sticky. Clearly, the designers intended for the federal government to purchase "with the approval of the legislature" any land to be owned by the federal government within any state. The Constitution empowers the federal government, however, to exercise sovereign authority over its territories, and the authority to add states which are carved out of the territories.

It is reasonable to conclude that when a state is carved out of a territory, it becomes a state subject to the powers and limitations of all the other states within the jurisdiction of the Constitution, and no longer subject to the federal authority suffered by the people when the land area was a territory.

This is pretty much the way it went when Texas was admitted to the Union in 1845. What was called "public land" was shifted to the state of Texas. Today, only 1.9 percent of Texas is owned by the federal government.

In Utah, however, the federal government required, as a condition of statehood, to "disclaim all right to title" of public land, and the feds retained nearly 60 percent of all the land in the state. In Nevada, the feds retained 85 percent of the land.

How can it be legal for the federal government to own land in a state that it did not purchase with the consent of the state legislature? How can it be legal for the federal government to exercise sovereignty over land within a sovereign state? Why were the eleven Western states and Alaska treated differently upon admission to the Union than were the other 26 states that joined the Union – when all states were supposed to be admitted on an "equal footing"?

There is only one logical conclusion: the federal government should not own the land it now claims within any state unless it is purchased with the approval of the state legislature for the purposes set forth in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 17.

There is a growing effort in Western states to force the federal government to honor its Constitutional limitation on land ownership and return to the states that which is rightfully theirs.

Conservative Chick: March is Womens' History month--who is your favorite woman from history?

Conservative Chick: March is Womens' History month--who is your favorite woman from history?

Robin Hood must die...

An old, highschool friend wrote this interesting article.  You can find his blog at Capitalism is the Solution.

I'm after a man whom I want to destroy.


He died many centuries ago, but until the last trace of him is wiped out of men's minds, we will not have a decent world to live in.

What man? Robin Hood.

This is the horror which Robin Hood immortalized as an ideal of righteousness: it is said that he fough agains the looting rulers, and returned the loot to those who had been robbed. But that is not the meaning of the legend which has survived.

He is remembered, not as a champion of property, but as a champion of need; not as a defender of the robbed, but as a provider of the poor.

He is held to be the first man who assumed a halo of virtue by practicing charity with wealth which he did not own, by giving away goods which he had not produced, by making others pay for luxury of his pity. He is the man who became the symbol of the idea that need, not achievement, is the source of rights; that we don't have to produce, only to want; that the earned does not belong to us, but the unearned does.

Until men learn that of all human symbols, Robin Hood is the most immoral and the most contemptible, there will be no justice on earth and no way for mankind to survive.

Now ask yourself: has the forcible taking from the productive and giving to the non-productive become the defining characteristic of politicians? Has Robin Hood come to Washington?

Homeschooling German Family Gets Political Asylum in U.S.

Read the article yourself at Time Magazine article.

By TRISTANA MOORE
Tristana Moore – Tue Mar 2, 3:35 pm ET
Update Appended: March 1, 2010

The Romeikes are not your typical asylum seekers. They did not come to the U.S. to flee war or despotism in their native land. No, these music teachers left Germany because they didn't like what their children were learning in public school - and because homeschooling is illegal there.

"It's our fundamental right to decide how we want to teach our children," says Uwe Romeike, an Evangelical Christian and a concert pianist who sold his treasured Steinway to help pay for the move.

Romeike decided to uproot his family in 2008 after he and his wife had accrued about $10,000 in fines for homeschooling their three oldest children and police had turned up at their doorstep and escorted them to school. "My kids were crying, but nobody seemed to care," Romeike says of the incident.

So why did he seek asylum in the U.S. rather than relocate to nearby Austria or another European country that allows homeschooling? Romeike's wife Hannelore tells TIME the family was contacted by the Virginia-based Home School Legal Defense Association (HSLDA), which suggested they go to the U.S. and settle in Morristown, Tenn. The nonprofit organization, which defends the rights of the U.S. homeschooling community - with its estimated 2 million children, or about 4% of the total school-age population - is expanding its overseas outreach. And on Jan. 26, the HSLDA helped the Romeikes become the first people granted asylum in the U.S. because they were persecuted for homeschooling.

The ruling is tricky politically for Washington and its allies in Europe, where several countries - including Spain and the Netherlands - allow homeschooling only under exceptional circumstances, such as when a child is extremely ill. That helps explain why in late February, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement formally appealed the Romeike ruling, which was issued by an immigration judge in Memphis, Tenn. His unprecedented decision has raised concerns that the already heavily backlogged immigration courts will be flooded with asylum petitions from homeschoolers in countries typically regarded as having nonrepressive governments.

"It's very unusual for people from Western countries to be granted asylum in the U.S.," says David Piver, an immigration attorney with offices in a Philadelphia suburb and Flagstaff, Ariz. In 2008, the most recent year for which data are available, only five Germans received asylum in the U.S. (The Justice Department declined to comment on specific cases.) Piver, who is not involved in the Romeike case, predicted the U.S. government would appeal the decision "so as not to offend a close ally."

Successful asylum petitions typically involve applicants whose situations are more dire, such as women who were forced to undergo abortions or genital mutilation and men whose lives were threatened because they are homosexuals or political dissidents. But Piver believes the Memphis judge was right to grant the Romeikes asylum, since the law covers social groups with "a well-founded fear of persecution" in their home country.

In Germany, mandatory school attendance dates back to 1717, when it was introduced in Prussia, and the policy has traditionally been viewed as a social good. "This law protects children," says Josef Kraus, president of the German Teachers' Association. The European Court of Human Rights agrees with him. In 2006, the court threw out a homeschooling family's case when it deemed Germany's compulsory-schooling law as compatible with the European Convention on Human Rights, an international treaty drafted in 1950. Given this backdrop, it's little wonder the Romeikes came up against a wall of opposition when they tried to talk to their school principal about the merits of homeschooling.

One of the Romeikes' concerns was about their kids getting bullied. But their main objection involved what was being taught in the classroom. "The curriculum goes against our Christian values," Uwe says. "German schools use textbooks that force inappropriate subject matter onto young children and tell stories with characters that promote profanity and disrespect."

While there are no official figures, it's estimated that up to 1,000 German families are homeschooling their children. Elisabeth Kuhnle, a spokeswoman for a German advocacy group called the Network for the Freedom of Education, says a recent homeschooling meeting attracted about 50 families in the state of Baden-Württemberg, where the Romeikes used to live. She also reckons many German homeschooling families have relocated to countries like France and Britain, where homeschooling is allowed. (See the top 10 religion stories of 2009.)

In 2007, Germany's Federal Supreme Court issued a ruling - which did not specifically involve the Romeikes - that parents could lose custody of their children if they continued to homeschool them. "We were under constant pressure, and we were scared the German authorities would take our children away," Romeike says. "So we decided to leave and go to the U.S."

German officials, for their part, note that the Romeikes had other options. "If parents don't want to send their children to a public school, they can send them to alternative private schools," says Thomas Hilsenbeck, a spokesman for the Baden-Württemberg education ministry. Homeschooling advocates counter that there are few private schools in Germany, and they tend to be expensive. But beyond that, many religious parents have problems with sex education and other curricular requirements. "Whether it's a state school or a private school, there's still a curriculum that is forced onto children," says Kuhnle.

And then there are the social aspects of going to school. Homeschooling parents tend to want to shield their children from negative influences. But this quest often runs counter to the idea that schools represent society and help promote tolerance. "No parental couple can offer a breadth of education [that can] replace experienced teachers," says Kraus, of the German Teachers' Association. "Kids also lose contact with their peers."

Concerns that homeschooling could lead to insularity - or worse, as Kraus puts it, "could help foster the development of a sect" - are shaping policy debates in European countries. In Britain, for example, Parliament is considering legislation that would create a new monitoring system to ensure that homeschooled kids get a suitable education.

In Sweden, where parents have to apply for permission to teach their children at home, the government is planning to impose even tougher restrictions on homeschoolers. And in Spain, parents are not allowed to educate their children at home. Period. If a child has special needs that prevent him from attending school, a teacher will be sent to his home.

By contrast, homeschooling is legal in all 50 U.S. states, some of which don't require families to notify authorities of their intent to teach their children at home. Tennessee is among the states that require some form of notice as well as periodic assessment tests.

When Uwe and Hannelore heard that the judge had ruled in their favor, they celebrated by taking their five children - who range in age from 4 to 12 - to Baskin-Robbins for ice cream. But the next day, they were back to their regular schedule. Lessons start at 9 a.m. and end at around 4 p.m. The school-age kids are learning all the usual subjects - math, science, etc. - with the help of textbooks and other teaching materials, in compliance with state law. The family has also joined a local group that organizes activities and field trips once a week for homeschooled children.

Meanwhile, the HSLDA says it is working to defend a homeschooling family in Sweden and is investigating cases in Brazil, where homeschooling is banned - all good fodder for a comparative-government class, whether it's taught in school or at home.

The original version of this article has been updated to reflect the fact that U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has submitted an appeal requesting to overturn the judge’s decision to grant the Romeikes asylum.