Blake Allison — one of 10 relatives of victims to win a lottery for tickets to the arraignment of confessed 9/11 mastermind Khalid Sheik Mohammed and four of his evil accomplices — had told people he was making the trip because “I wanted to see the faces of the people accused of murdering my wife.’’

But while there, the 62-year-old wine-company executive held a clandestine meeting with the terrorists’ lawyers, in which he offered to testify against putting their clients to death.

Richard Goldberg doesn’t think so.

Goldberg, the father of 8-year old twin boys, was dismayed to learn his third-grade sons were asked to write an essay about a secret they had and why it was hard to keep.

The unusual question, which Goldberg called “entirely inappropriate” was on the standardized tests given to public school students in the third through eighth grade every spring.

Faced with a deficit of $16 billion – considerably higher than the $9.2 billion originally forecast – Brown is expected to suggest cuts in health and human services, employee compensation and other areas,  spokesman H.D. Palmer told NBCBayArea.com.

Palmer said the governor would propose adding three new tax brackets for the wealthiest Californians, which would raise their assessments by as much as 3%. Right now, Palmer said, the highest earners in the state pay 9.3% of their income in taxes. Brown’s new plan – which must be approved by voters – would create three new marginal tax rates: 10.3%, 11.3% and 12.3%.

Derek Valcourt explains the president’s comments have folks on both sides of the issue fired up.

Both sides hope the president’s position helps sway votes in their favor when the issue hits Maryland’s ballot this November.

Book of Mormon star Josh Gad and Modern Family director Jason Winer are also behind the show, titled 1600 Penn – after the presidential address.

Bill Pullman stars as the U.S. president in the comedy, with Dharma and Greg star Jenna Elfman as the first lady.

NBC has initially ordered 13 episodes of the show.

May 14, 2003: A single mom says she and her vomiting baby in need of medical attention were left stranded in the cold by a cab driver who feared his taxi might get soiled.

Catherine Soldan, 25, said she called a counselor at the hospital after her 6-month-old baby, Corbitt, threw up twice. The counselor told her the service would contact a cab and pay for them to be transported to the hospital.

The taxi picked them up, and during the trip the boy began vomiting again. That’s when, according to Soldan, the driver told the two to get out.

“He said, ‘Is he getting sick?’ And I said, ‘Yes.’ He said to get out. I said, ‘He’s a baby.’ He said, ‘I don’t care what he is,’” said Soldan.

Soldan said she yelled at the driver, and he then left them. She said she was stunned by the driver’s behavior.

“It’s not like this was somebody who’d been out drinking all night or something and was throwing up in his car,” Soldan said. “It was a little bit of baby spit.”

To see WND highlights from every calendar date, click here.

The new part is a study resource book about animal wildlife, produced through the York County Conservation District that organizes the annual Envirothon.

The 300-page book already has sold 500 copies, with all proceeds going back into Envirothon and educational services, said coordinator Kim Young.

And the familiar parts at this year’s Envirothon, which just wrapped up Tuesday?

A group of homeschool students won first place at the high school level for the fourth straight year.

Members of both parties usually relish the chance to bash China on everything from government subsidies to the yuan’s exchange rate. Yet Wednesday’s decision by the Federal Reserve to certify a Chinese bank acquisition for the first time was met by near-universal silence.

Scott Talbott, the head lobbyist for the Financial Services Roundtable, said that’s unsurprising. The U.S. wants China to open up its financial services market – foreign ownership of Chinese banks is limited to 25 percent – and allowing a Chinese presence in the U.S. is seen as a necessary trade-off.

Local and federal authorities discovered the bodies before dawn scattered in a pool of blood at the entrance to the town of San Juan, on a highway leading from the metropolis of Monterrey to the border city of Reynosa. A white stone arch welcoming visitors was spray-painted with black letters: “100% Zeta.”

Nuevo Leon state security spokesman Jorge Domene said at a news conference that the 43 men and six women would be hard to identify because of the lack of heads, hands and feet. The bodies were being taken to a Monterrey auditorium for DNA tests.

Isaiah 26:3

The cover comes in the wake of Obama’s newly declared support for homosexual marriage in America.

The edition, which hits newsstands Monday, features a column by Andrew Sullivan, an openly homosexual self-titled conservative political pundit.

“When you step back a little and assess the record of Obama on gay rights, you see, in fact, that this was not an aberration. It was an inevitable culmination of three years of work,” Sullivan said in a statement about his article.

“He had to discover his black identity and then reconcile it with his white family, just as gays discover their homosexual identity and then have to reconcile it with their heterosexual family,” he wrote, discussing similarities between the president and the homosexual community.

Obama’s declaration that he’s now backing same-sex marriages is the first time a sitting president has expressed such an opinion.

“It’s easy to write off President Obama’s announcement of his support for gay marriage as a political ploy during an election year. But don’t believe the cynics,” representatives from Newsweek told Politico.

Obama’s announcement came just days after Vice President Joe Biden indicated he was “absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and men and women marrying are entitled to the same exact rights, all the civil rights, all the civil liberties.”

Newsweek has a history of controversial covers.

On Dec. 15, 2008, it featured a Holy Bible with a rainbow-colored bookmark, with an associated article titled, “The Religious Case for Gay Marriage.”

This week’s cover is prompting a lot of reaction online already.

“This is the best,” said Wilder Napalm of Louisville, Ky. “The left wing media is doing everything in their power to portray this as a good thing for Obama when in fact this is a disaster. He never had any intention of openly supporting gay marriage, if he did he would have done it long ago. But good old Joe stepped in it again. He left Obama no choice but to support gay unions or risk losing the support of the gay community. I’ll bet Obama could kill Biden about now.”

“I am surprised,” says John Wolf of St. Louis. “Newsweek has six subscribers? I dropped them when they made up stuff for Obama during the election.

And Larry in California noted: “Clinton was our first black president, according to author Toni Morrison. And Chris Matthews says we can’t vote Obama out because he’s our first black president. I’m confused. Is Obama our first black president, or our first gay president, or our first affirmative-action president?”

Editor’s note: Do you need something to smile about? Every day, WND selects the best joke offered up by readers and contributors to its Laughlines forum and brings it to you as the WND Joke of the Day. Here is today’s offering:

Little Nancy was in the garden filling in a hole when her neighbor peered over the fence. Interested in what the little girl was up to, he politely asked, “What are you up to there, Nancy?”

“My goldfish died,” replied Nancy tearfully, without looking up, “and I’ve just buried him.”

The neighbor was concerned, “That’s an awfully big hole for a goldfish, isn’t it?”

Nancy patted down the last heap of earth and then replied, “That’s because he’s inside your stupid cat.”

Got a great joke you want to share with the world? Write it up in the WND
Laughlines forum. Who knows? It might be selected as the WND Joke of
the Day – and your wildest dreams will come true.

//

The complaint was filed by the Alliance Defense Fund on behalf of Gregory Owen.

While handing out tracts to willing recipients on a public street during a public festival, Owen was approached by a police officer who declined to identify himself but told him that the Buffalo Police Department is “the law” and he should stop handing out tracts.

According to the lawsuit: “Subsequently, another police officer, Officer Slomka, arrived on the scene. She quickly informed Owen that they could not hand out tracts in the festival and explained that the prohibition was ‘by our orders.’ Owen asked for her name, and she replied: ‘Slomka, write it down.’ Owen advised that he believed the tracts to be free speech; nonplussed, Officer Slomka reiterated that they couldn’t hand out tracts there and had to go outside of the festival area to continue with their expressive activity.”

Then, “Owen inquired as to whether they would be arrested if they continued to hand out tracts in the festival area, to which, Officer Slomka replied: ‘Yes.’”

Nate Kellum, one of more than 2,100 attorneys in the ADF alliance, said people of faith “shouldn’t be threatened with arrest for peacefully expressing their beliefs.”

“The Constitution and court precedent in these types of cases is clear: Officials cannot toss someone out of a public event simply because they don’t like the views he’s expressing,” he said.

“This is a classic example of free speech that the First Amendment protects,” he said.

City officials declined to respond to a WND request for comment.

The dispute developed as Owen, together with a friend and members of his family, walked up and down Hertel Avenue during the Buffalo Italian Heritage Festival and handed out Christian literature.

The lawsuit explains he was on a public street in a section of town known as “Little Italy.”

Officers eventually claimed that his speech violated a permit granted by the city to festival organizers.

However, ADF reported: “In truth, the city issued a non-exclusive use permit to festival organizers that does not prohibit members of the public from exercising their free speech rights protected by the First Amendment. The event was free and open to the public, and the street remained at all times a public thoroughfare.”

ADF Litigation Staff Counsel Jonathan Scruggs argued “exercising your constitutionally protected free speech rights is not a crime.”

“Threatening to arrest Christians simply because they choose to exercise those rights in a public place is a clear violation of the First Amendment,” he said.

The filing also notes that while officers were detaining the Christians, they witnessed another group of people handing out literature, unmolested by police. Owen “pointed out the differing treatment and suggested that they (his group and the other two gentlemen) were being singled out because they are Christian.”

He then tried to hand out tracts again.

“But Officer Slomka physically prevented Owen from distributing tracts, snatching the tracts out of Owen’s hand. She warned Owen, ‘I’m not playing, if you hand out one more tract, you’re going to jail,’” according to the complaint.

Ultimately, the complaint said, a Capt. Blosat ordered Owen and the others to leave the public street.

The case alleges violations of freedom of speech and due process and seeks a judgment that the Buffalo police were in violation of Owen’s constitutional rights.

“The ban on Owen’s literature distribution continues to chill and deter Owen’s religious expression,” the complaint states, especially, since Owen “observed that these decisions appear to turn on the message.”

The dispute is just the latest in a number of cases in which municipalities have infringed on the free-speech rights of Christians. Cases have included bans on Christian speech at city festivals and the confinement of Christian street preachers to designated “zones.”

A recent case arose in Dearborn, Mich., where authorities sought to prevent a minister from speaking in public. City officials, who recently had been ordered to pay $100,000 for violating the rights of Christians, demanded the pastor sign a “Hold Harmless” agreement that essentially required the minister to “surrender all of his legal rights” in order to speak on public property.

That dispute was argued by the Thomas More Law Center on behalf of a pastor who preaches on radical Islam, Shariah, same-sex “marriage” and other hot-button topics.

Starbucks President and CEO Howard Schultz fielded questions from shareholders over whether taking a stance on the controversial issue would dilute the company’s bottom line, particularly in nations where the company is expanding but homosexuality is widely considered immoral.

“I would say, candidly, since we made that decision, there has not been any dilution whatsoever in our business, and as you can see, shareholder value has increased significantly,” Schultz replied. “Performance in many ways should be one of the metrics to decide whether or not this decision in any way has been dilutive, and it hasn’t.”

But now, the National Organization for Marriage has determined to put a dent in that boast, launching the Dump Starbucks campaign, urging supporters of traditional marriage to sign a pledge to boycott the popular coffee seller.

In fact, it was Jonathan Baker, both a Starbucks shareholder and head of NOM’s Corporate Fairness Project, who initially posed the question at the investors meeting.

Schultz answered that the decision to back same-sex marriage was deemed at Starbucks’ highest levels to be in line with “the heritage and tradition of the company” – even if that decision is “inconsistent with one group’s view of the world.”

Dissatisfied with Schultz’s answer, Baker is now spearheading the boycott effort.

“Here’s our goal: If Howard Schultz and his insular Seattle liberals hear from enough of us, management will move to a more genuinely inclusive attitude toward its customers’ and partners’ diverse views on marriage,” Baker states on the NOM website. “People should be able to drink or serve a great cup of coffee without betraying their own core values on marriage.”

Already, over 36,000 people have signed the Dump Starbucks pledge, which states, “I am deeply offended by your corporate position to support same-sex marriage and your decision to wage a culture war against the moral views of half your U.S. customers and the vast majority of your international consumers. Starbucks is using its resources to invalidate traditional marriage in the U.S. and redefine the institution of marriage, despite the strongly held views of so many of its customers, including me. Therefore, I will no longer purchase anything from Starbucks until you change your corporate values to be more reflective of my own.”

“In our first week, we gained 25,000 pledge signers in the U.S. alone;” NOM President Brian Brown said in an announcement posted last month, “today we go international, expanding DumpStarbucks.com campaigns into Mandarin, Arabic, Turkish, Spanish, and Bahala (one of the chief languages of Indonesia). DumpStarbucks.com online ads will also start running in Egypt, Beijing, Hong Kong, the Yunnan region of China, United Arab Emirates, Bahrain, Oman and Kuwait.”

“The support [for same-sex marriage] is not just the personal endorsement of a senior executive, but is the official corporate position of the company,” Baker told the Christian Post. “Obviously this position does not reflect the views of all customers and employees, and the NOM protest and DumpStarbucks.com [are] designed to enable these customers and employees to have a voice.”

The controversy began earlier this year, when Kalen Holmes, Starbucks’ executive vice president of partner resources, released a memo to the company’s U.S. partners backing legislative efforts in Washington state to legalize same-sex marriage.

“Starbucks is proud to join other leading Northwest employers in support of Washington state legislation recognizing marriage equality for same-sex couples,” Holmes wrote. “It is core to who we are and what we value as a company. We are proud of our Pride Alliance Partner Network group, which is one of the largest Employer Resource Groups for Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees in the U.S., helping to raise awareness about issues in the communities where we live and work.”

The memo also boasted that Starbucks has been at the forefront of the issue, offering domestic partner benefits, such as health and dental plans, for the last 20 years.

The video of Schultz’s answers to Baker and other concerned shareholders can be seen below:

These are core principles for me, so I found them challenged last week when voters in France and Greece acted in a way that seemed to clearly demonstrate otherwise. With much of Europe facing massive debt crises, and having agreed to abide by strict debt limits under terms of the European Union fiscal pact, French and Greek voters elected new governments that vowed to defy planned spending cuts and reject the debt limits.

This is especially egregious in Greece, which is supposed to be adhering to terms of an EU-sponsored bailout but cannot get its spending policies under control to save its life – and let there be no doubt, that’s what’s at stake here. Greece has built up so much debt bankrolling its welfare state, and has caused so much government dependence, it endured riots when it reached the inevitable point when the government had to admit it could no longer continue its reckless spending.

France is not in as much trouble, but in some ways the French election result is even more troubling because French President Nicolas Sarkozy was one of the authors of the EU pact imposing the strict debt limits. The election of socialist Francois Hollande represents a rejection of the very idea of fiscal responsibility and leaves Germany in the precarious position of championing spending restraint and limits on debt while sentiment throughout the Eurozone seems to be moving entirely in the opposite direction.

What is going on here? Is my faith in people misplaced? And have I been wrong to express as much faith in the people of the United States – when we too face huge fiscal challenges and there seems to be little support for reform of the spending and entitlement programs that are driving the crisis?

I do not believe my faith in We the People is misplaced, but I do believe it’s important to remember the whole equation. The people will make good decisions when they have all the information and understand the situation. To the extent that people rely on politicians and the mainstream media to get their information – Houston, we have a problem.

Quite simply, it seems to be the modus operandi of the political class just about everywhere (and I include the mainstream media when I talk about the political class) to downplay the fiscal problems brought on by excessive government spending. To them, there is no problem that more government outlays cannot solve, and if there is not enough money on hand, it’s just because the people are too resistant to higher taxes.

As a case in point, the Associated Press reported on May 13 about the serious crisis facing the state of California, which finds itself $16 billion in debt. AP reporter Judy Lin offered a classic mainstream media take on the matter, saying the situation “will force severe cuts to schools and public safety if voters fail to approve tax increases in November, Gov. Jerry Brown said Saturday.” (Emphasis mine.)

According to the AP, voter refusal to accept even higher taxes will mean the public, not the free-spending politicians, has failed. The real failure, of course, rests in the hands of public officials who not only refuse to limit their own spending, but also refuse to be honest with the public about the situation.

Let me give you a perfect example that’s been in the news in recent weeks. You may have heard that interest rates on student loans are scheduled to double automatically unless Congress acts to rescind the increase. Democrats are screaming bloody murder and demanding that Republicans support a measure to keep the interest rates where they are. What they don’t tell you is that Democrats put the scheduled increase in place five years ago, and the reason they did so was so they could claim the original lowering of the rate would not explode the deficit over the long term. They do the same thing with physician reimbursements for Medicare. The long-term plan always calls for a huge cut in the reimbursements, and they use this to claim that deficits in the “out years” will go down. But when the time comes for the spending cuts to happen, or for the interest rates to double, they always stop it from occurring.

That’s how politicians put projections in front of the public that make the situation look less dire than it really is. The worst example comes from Obamacare – big surprise, right? – in which Democrats counted $500 billion as a “spending cut,” then counted the same $500 billion as money to fund the program. The mainstream media were well aware of this deception, but did not call Obamacare supporters out on it.

It’s hard to blame to voters for the decisions they make when politicians hide the truth from them, and the media – which are supposed to hold politicians accountable for what they say and what they do – instead act as their propaganda ministry, assisting in the deception by ignoring the worst of their dishonesty.

Having said that, voters have to look harder and more critically at the information they’re being given. It has to be the responsibility of the public to be better informed and less willing to accept the party line of the political class and its media enablers. I still believe that the people will make the right decisions if they have all the information and understand the situation. In France and Greece, that did not happen this week because the people obviously don’t understand the stakes.

The people of the United States can and will do better. I refuse to believe otherwise.

These two contrasting realities are the result of the heart-wrenching drowning death of a 19-year-old man and what God did with that seemingly horrible event.

On the afternoon of May 5, 2012, my wife, younger daughter and six other friends embarked on an easy one-hour hike to a spot on the Rogue River in southern Oregon called Rainie Falls. It was a picture-perfect spring day for a trek down the mighty Rogue.

Upon reaching the falls, which this time of year is more of a giant riffle in the river, we sat on some large boulders near the edge to enjoy the power of 5,700-cubic-feet-per-second of rushing water.

My friend Joshua Eddy, a vibrant, passionate, live-each-day-for-Christ kind of young man, asked another in our party if he could borrow her camera. Josh was a gifted photographer who hadn’t brought his camera that day for fear of damaging it.

“Don’t worry; I’ll take good care of it,” I heard Josh tell the camera’s owner.

Borrowed camera in hand, Josh began to strike whatever poses were needed on those rocks to get some breathtaking photos of this natural wonder.

A couple with a dog soon appeared nearby. The woman, a middle-age Hispanic tourist, suddenly screamed out. Josh was gone. He fell into waist-deep water initially, holding the camera aloft to protect it, but then slipped and was pulled under the raging cauldron of the falls.

Panic. Desperation. Pleading prayer.

I shouted Josh’s name into the whirling white water, knowing he couldn’t hear me. After several seconds, the Hispanic woman’s male companion shouted as he pointed downstream. Josh’s head appeared, eyes closed, as he floated quickly downstream. Then he was gone again.

Two young men from our party sped downstream on the trail-less bank hoping to help Josh if he were to re-emerge. The rest of us followed, with one woman hiking back to the cars and then driving several minutes before cell service could enable a 9-1-1 call.

Despite our searching, and subsequent searches by county search and rescue and private planes, no trace of Josh has been found. A young man with so much life and potential who had impacted so many people was gone – and yet, he was about to impact many, many more.

The next day Josh’s mom and dad, homeschooling parents of nine, created a Facebook page on which to post memories of their son.

Between the Facebook page and Josh’s blog, “The Bright and Hopeful Unknown,” thousands of people across the nation have heard of this extraordinary teenager and his passion for Jesus Christ.

His April 6 blog post, providentially titled “To Die Well,” was referenced and read by innumerably more people than if God had not claimed Josh that beautiful afternoon.

Joshua Eddy

 

Joshua Eddy was not perfect. He had an impetuousness that irked me on more than one occasion. Yet his sold-out commitment to his Savior that simply jumps off the pages of his writings has challenged and blessed countless people – both Christians and unbelievers – since his death.

My older daughter is engaged to Josh’s older brother. In a recent journal entry, she explains what a sovereign God was doing by promoting Josh a few days ago. It was written from God’s perspective, as if speaking before May 5, yet with the recognition that the Lord is outside of time:

“I have planned exactly where and at what time he will come home. Joshua has tied up all of his loose ends. He has surrendered his life to me, and even his death to me, to use as I will. I have a special plan for him. I have picked a wonderful spring day in Grants Pass, Ore.: May 5, 2012. He will be with some of his best friends, hiking to a beautiful falls. I will deck out the forest that day with my glory, and the water with a brilliance that will not cease to fascinate him. I have given him the gift of photography, and he will want to take a picture. … He will get himself up on a mossy rock, to get the perfect shot. And while he is capturing beauty, he will slip and be swept away.

“I will call him – ‘Josh! Josh, it’s time to come home.’ He’ll pray fervently to me to save him. He will be hoping that none of his friends jumped in after him. He will fight hard to free himself of the water’s grasp, but it is not my will that he succeed. He will think of his family, his parents, his best friends. Then he will think of me. Josh, I am going to bring you home. He will come peacefully, not quarreling. He will commit to me his spirit, and then the angels will carry him to be with me. It is for God to number a man’s days, and Joshua knows that. He has run his race well. He has endured to the end. He is my child, and it is time for him to come home.”

Josh did die well – and he encourages us to live well, to live a life of self-sacrifice, in his recent blog post, just 29 days before his death:

“What would you consider the greatest thing you could die for? You faith? Your wife and kids? If you say that you’re willing to give the ultimate sacrifice for your Savior – your life – are you not willing to give up anything less important? Your thoughts, your dreams, your anxiety? Your time?

“If you say that you’re willing to surrender your life for your family’s sake, are you not willing to surrender your pride, your rights and your comfort for their benefit also?

“You show me a man who can lay down his pride for his faith and family, and I’ll show you a man who will not hesitate to lay down his life, also.”

If every 19-year-old American man had that perspective and foundation, what a different nation this would be. Thankfully, through Josh’s death, he is challenging countless others to live for Christ, to live for others, to live well.

We miss you, Josh … but we’ll see you later.

But you don’t need to be in the Big Apple to hear him.

Just click here and choose Aaron Klein’s name to listen.

Iranian outlets have been claiming recently the United States has been forced to bow before Iran on its nuclear program, demonstrating the West’s abandonment of Israel and paving the way for the Islamic regime to annihilate the Jewish state.

While restating that Iran will demand ever more in the upcoming second round of talks with the 5+1 nations to be held this month in Baghdad, the Iranian media are now boasting that Israel has been abandoned by its allies and is in a dire bind.

One such editorial, published last week by Iran’s Keyhan newspaper, which is directly under the supervision of Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, stated, “It can be said that within the last 60 years, this is the first time that the Zionist regime, since its illegal inception, has had to endure rejection by the West over its vision and interest in the region.”

The editorial, written by Sadollah Zarei, a columnist for the hard-line paper, said that within the last three months, Israeli officials, after reports that America is on the verge of accepting the Iranian nuclear program, have made several trips to Washington, where on one trip they met for 10 days with U.S. officials to try to change President Obama’s decision to accept Iran’s nuclear program. They were unsuccessful.

“The ramifications of [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin] Netanyahu’s defeat in the face of Obama’s policies have been a breakdown in Israel’s usurper regime, where now many within its own government have spoken against its own prime minister, claiming Iran is a rational regime and not after the bomb,” Zarei wrote.

While Israel’s government is in disarray internally, the editorial said, the West is forced to watch Iran’s victory in nuclear negotiations.

“The West, which in the first (5+1) Istanbul talks would not recognize Iran’s nuclear program even if the 20 percent enriched material was sent out of the country, now before stepping into the Baghdad meeting has accepted Iran’s nuclear program without even getting an assurance on the 20 percent enrichment process,” Zarei said. “All of this is taking place in front of the horrified eyes of the Zionist regime.”

The 5+1 nations, which are the five permanent Security Council nations plus Germany, have broached the subject of allowing Iran to enrich uranium to the 5 percent level for peaceful purposes. Enriching to the 20 percent level is an important step to nuclear weaponization, which Iran is pushing for as part of its stated goal of obliterating Israel.

The question now is why the West has changed its policies toward Iran, the editorial said. It could have continued with the same old policies of confrontation.

The answer, the editorial said, is that “in the last year, two important events have taken place. One has been the Islamic Awakening (the Arab Spring) in the region, which is based on the ideology of the Islamic Republic of Iran and has the West quite worried and concerned; the other is the events in Egypt, which, despite all the analysis by the West, have turned into an Islamic movement with Sharia laws. These two events have forced the West to rethink its approach toward Iran.”

As a result, Israel is backed into a corner, alone without its allies, the editorial said.

Zarei concluded that Israel has been weakened drastically with what is happening in Egypt, which has collapsed part of Israel’s regional security.

“With diminishing support for Israel and with the (upcoming) collapse of the monarchy in Saudi Arabia,” Zarei claims, “there won’t be any obstacles left facing Iran with its policy of annihilation of Israel.”

Ayatollah Mesbah Yazdi, one of the most influential clerics in the Islamic regime and possibly the next supreme leader, has stated that it is the duty of Muslims to destroy the “Zionist regime and its arrogant supporters.”

Yazdi had decreed in 2006 that in case of war between Muslims and “infidels,” Muslims can take the “infidels” as slaves until they become Muslims and then send them back to their countries.

In a new decree, Yazdi said, “When protecting Islam and the Muslim (community), martyrdom operation not only is allowed, but it even is an obligation.”

In any attack on Israel, only Israeli civilians who have opposed Israel’s “vicious crimes” should be spared, but the rest can be slaughtered, he said.

As WND has reported, the Iranian government, through a website proxy, has laid out the legal and religious justification for the destruction of Israel and the slaughter of its people.

The doctrine includes wiping out Israeli assets and Jewish people worldwide.

Calling Israel a danger to Islam, the conservative website Alef, with ties to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, said the opportunity must not be lost to remove “this corrupting material. It is a ‘jurisprudential justification’ to kill all the Jews and annihilate Israel, and in that, the Islamic government of Iran must take the helm.”

Watch the following Iranian video describing the timing of the destruction of Israel:

Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for a former CIA operative in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards and the author of the award-winning book, A Time to Betray. He is a senior Fellow with EMPact America, a member of the Task Force on National and Homeland Security and teaches at the U.S. Department of Defense’s Joint Counterintelligence Training Academy (JCITA).

In a video interview, whistleblower John Cruz, a former vice president and relationship manager for HSBC in New York, detailed how he turned over his information on the bank to authorities. He named Frank J. DiGregorio, a detective sergeant in the office of the Queens County District Attorney, and Graham R. Klein, special agent at the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

Cruz has delivered to WND about 1,000 pages of customer-account records documenting hundreds of millions of dollars in suspicious transactions he pulled from the HSBC computer system. He says he was fired by HSBC after senior management showed no interest in investigating his claims.

“Back in 2010, my attorney turned over information regarding HSBC to DiGregorio,” Cruz affirmed. “Then, on Feb 7, 2012, Homeland Security said my attorneys never spoke to them, that they didn’t know who I am.”

Cruz said he was shocked.

“DiGregorio called me, he was belittling me,” Cruz recounted. “DiGregorio said I was a disgruntled employee, that I was just here for the money. They said, ‘Why did it take you two years to come forward?’”

After presenting DHS with documentation his lawyers had presented to the agency two years earlier, Cruz challenged DiGregorio and Klein: “Why did it take you two years to get back to me?”

“I told them they had this information two years ago, and the only reason they were getting back to me now was because of the article WND published about HSBC money laundering,” Cruz said.

He explained that DHS on Feb. 7 promised it would get back to him in two weeks, yet he is still waiting to hear back.

Di Gregorio acknowledged to WND that Cruz has turned over his documentary information to DHS.

“This is an on-going investigation,” DiGregorio said. “Cruz made very serious allegations, and it takes time for us to do our work. But we have not forgotten about Cruz, and we will get back to him just as soon as we can.”

DiGregorio explained that as a detective sergeant in the Queens County District Attorney’s Office, he is currently assigned to Homeland Security Investigations, where he supervises Special Agent Klein.

As such, DiGregorio indicated he was speaking on the record on behalf of Klein as well.

WND has met separately with DiGregorio and Klein and turned over to DHS, with Cruz’s permission, all materials in its possession relating to allegations Cruz has made against HSBC.

Cruz contacts IRS

Cruz said he has also contacted the Internal Revenue Service, where he spoke with Special Agent David Wagner and Kevin B. Sophia, supervisory special agent. Both are with the U.S. Department of Treasury, IRS, Criminal Investigation Division.

Cruz said he met with the agents at the IRS office in Denver April 12 and gave them a computer disc with all of the HSBC documents.

According to Cruz, Sophia asked, “What would make us believe HSBC employees would acknowledge illegal activity?”

Cruz said: “I told them I recorded everything.”

Cruz also handed over to the IRS two discs with approximately 19 to 20 hours he had recorded of his discussions with HSBC employees concerning his allegations.

Cruz told WND the IRS agents were overwhelmed with the volume and detail of the information he handed over.

“The IRS agents said, ‘This is mind-boggling,’” Cruz recounted.

“They told me that if the information on the computer disk and in the audio files was as I represented, the IRS agents were talking about arresting HSBC bank employees.”

Cruz noted the IRS agents were stunned at the dollar magnitude of the suspicious bank transactions he had documented, noting that billions of dollars in tax revenue was being lost, with bank employees transferring money into and out of bogus accounts set up for illegal gain.

The IRS explained to Cruz that the individuals whose identities may have been stolen to set up the apparently fraudulent accounts would also have to be investigated, to see if they were part of the suspicious activity or mere victims.

Either way, the Social Security numbers associated with the suspicious HSBC accounts turned out to be authentic numbers identified in many cases with present or former customers of the bank. The billions of dollars following through the accounts had never been reported for income tax purposes.

Cruz wiretaps DHS and IRS

Cruz handed over to WND audio recordings of his meetings with DHS and IRS officials that he made without disclosing he was secretly taping the conversations.

Cruz explained that he no longer trusts even federal law enforcement to do their job investigating and prosecuting HSBC employees who may be involved in illegal bank transactions, as he alleges.

“It’s a circle,” Cruz explained. “I turn over the information to law enforcement, and law enforcement turns around and gives the information right back to the bank for the bank to conduct their own internal investigation.”

Cruz maintained he was fired by HSBC for bringing forth his charges.

“This is how the bank and employees in the bank make money,” he argued, explaining why he was fired instead of being given awards for meritorious service disclosing the suspicious activities. “It’s a lot easier to make money off fraudulent transactions than it is to make money off legal transactions.”

He indicated he was not concerned HSBC or its employees might sue him for libel or defamation.

“Sue me,” he said defiantly, “sue me all you want. Then bring out the proof. I will ask for every document. I will ask for a lot of documents. I will show that I am right, and I will give every tape recording to the public on air, so they can listen to these individuals talking.”

Cruz explained he taped the conversations with federal law enforcement authorities “to cover myself.”

“You never know what’s going to happen,” he explained. “Somebody could say, ‘Oh, you’re involved.’ I need to explain that I’m not involved, but that I reported it. Then, if they deny I reported it, I have the tapes to prove I reported it.”

WND pointed out to Cruz that he was accusing by name federal officials in DHS and IRS, as well as officials in the district attorneys offices in Suffolk County and Queens County, New York, of not taking steps to stop immediately what he alleges is money laundering on a massive scale involving billions of dollars in the United States around the world.

Cruz affirmed that this was correct, noting that his contact with the IRS was relatively recent and he has reason to believe the IRS has opened an investigation.

IRS agents Wagner and Sophia did not return WND calls for comment.

Cruz handed over to WND audio copies of the recordings he made in his meetings with DHS and the IRS special agents.

Concerned about his safety, Cruz also requested WND turn over to an independent law enforcement agency of WND’s choosing the 1,000 pages of documents and the various audio copies of meetings he held with federal officials as well as HSBC bank management and security personnel.

With Cruz’s consent, WND turned over the relevant information to the Cold Case Posse in the Arizona Maricopa County Sheriff’s Office of Sheriff Joe Arpaio.

Even though Cruz’s information does not necessarily fall within the jurisdiction of the MCSO, Arpaio’s team agreed to accept Cruz’s information into evidence for safekeeping.

HSBC ‘a criminal organization’

Cruz began working at HSBC on Jan. 14, 2008, and was terminated for “poor job performance” on Feb. 17, 2010.

In his position as a vice president and a senior account relationship manager in New York, Cruz worked in a region that accounts for approximately 50 percent of HSBC’s North American revenue. He was assigned to work with several branch managers to identify accounts where HSBC might introduce additional banking services.

Cruz told WND he recorded hundreds of hours of meetings he conducted with HSBC management and bank security personnel during which he charged various bank managers were engaging in criminal acts.

“I have hours of hours of recordings, ranging from bank tellers, to business representatives, to branch managers, to executives,” he said. “The whole system is designed to be a culture of fraud to make it look like it’s a legal system. But it’s not.”

Cruz explained that after many repeated efforts, he gave up on the idea that HSBC senior management or bank security would pursue his allegations to investigate and stop the wrongdoing.

“My conclusion was that HSBC was not going to do anything about this account because HSBC management from the branch level, to senior bank security, to executive senior management was involved in the illegal activity I found,” he said.

Yet, despite repeated attempts to bring the information to the attention of law enforcement officers, Cruz hit a brick wall until WND examined his documentation and determined his allegations, although shocking, were sufficiently substantiated to merit publication.

“HSBC is a criminal organization,” he stressed. “It is a culture of crime.”

Cruz made his charges public in a book published last year titled “World Banking World Fraud: Using Your Identity.”

Previous stories:

Banking giant HSBC ‘a criminal enterprise’

Whistleblower explains ABCs of money laundering

Look who ‘has stolen IDs, fake tax returns’

Investment firm fires WND reporter for exposing scandal

Big bank retaliates against WND for exposé

PayPal, American Express implicated in bank fraud

See big bank money-laundering evidence

Banking giant accused of laundering billions

Here’s to the crazy ones. The misfits. The rebels. The troublemakers. The round pegs in the square holes.

The ones who see things differently. They’re not fond of rules. And they have no respect for the status quo. You can quote them, disagree with them, glorify or vilify them.

About the only thing you can’t do is ignore them. Because they change things. … They push the human race forward. …

While some see them as the crazy ones, we see genius. Because the people who are crazy enough to think they can change the world, are the ones who do.

– Apple

Have a wonderful and happy Mother’s Day!

Frank Azzurro

Rebecca F.

However, your negativity toward Romney’s election prospects, I think, is excessively negative! It i too discouraging and can hurt us Republicans by giving us negative vibes!

The fact is: Romney was overall the strongest candidate of those running, since he can pull more votes out of the Northeast and Midwest/Great Lakes than Rick Santorum, who lost his own re-election bid for the Senate. Romney’s regional deficits can be made up by his vice-presidential candidate, who I hope is Sen. Rand Paul, son of Rep. Ron Paul.

Your news website is the best overall in reporting stories the conventional media ignore all too much. I’m not being negative toward your news site by any stretch of the imagination.

David J. Purdy

I, for one, may be the only one who will write his name in on the ballot. I wish I could talk to him about how important it is for him to run. Just look at what is going to happen if this guy gets in.

I am really tired of the other two parties, and I think it is time for an independent to be in office. I would like for it to be Mitch Daniels.

R. Brooks

“We had a major breakthrough, and thank God, the Aliya [immigration to Israel] is set to resume this summer, and we hope and pray to bring the first batch of 50 families, or about 250-300 Bnei Menashe immigrants, to Israel by the end of August,” said Michael Freund, chairman of Shavei Israel, which is behind the initiative.

Shavei, based in Jerusalem, hopes to bring to the Jewish state the remaining 7,000 Indian citizens who believe they are the Bnei Menashe, the descendants of Manasseh, one of biblical patriarch Joseph’s two sons and a grandson of Jacob.

Already Freund’s group helped facilitate the immigration of over 1,700 Bnei Menashe, with successive Israeli governments allowing and then halting the process. In 2007, Prime Minister Ehud Olmert’s administration put the kibosh on the process, which is now being reopened.

Shavei plans to bring 50 Bnei Menashe families to Israel this summer with hopes of transplanting the remaining tribe members from India to Israel in the next few years.

The original batches of Bnei Menashe to arrive here came as tourists in an agreement with Israel’s Interior Ministry. Once in Israel, the Bnei Menashe converted officially to Judaism and became citizens.

But diplomatic wrangling halted the immigration process in 2003, with officials from some Israeli ministries refusing to grant the rest of the group still in India permission to travel here.

To smooth the process, Freund at the time enlisted the help of Israel’s chief rabbinate, who flew to India in 2005 to convert members of the Bnei Menashe, a process stopped last year by India.

Freund then coordinated with the Israeli government the arrival of batches of a few hundred Bnei Menashe as tourists who would later convert, but that process was halted in July 2007.

Tribe members live in the two Indian states of Mizoram and Manipur, to which they say they were exiled from Israel more than 2,700 years ago by the Assyrian empire.

According to Bnei Menashe oral tradition, the tribe was exiled from Israel and pushed to the east, eventually settling in the border regions of China and India, where most remain today. Most kept customs similar to Jewish tradition, including observing Shabbat, keeping the laws of Kosher, practicing circumcision on the eighth day of a baby boy’s life and observing laws of family purity.

In the 1950s, several thousand Bnei Menashe say they set out on foot to Israel but were quickly halted by Indian authorities. Undeterred, many began practicing Orthodox Judaism and pledged to make it to Israel. They now attend community centers in India established by Shavei Israel to teach the Bnei Menashe Jewish tradition and modern Hebrew.

Freund sees the Bnei Menashe immigration as biblical, quoting from Isaiah 43:5, which states, “Do not be afraid, for I am with you; I will bring your children from the east and gather you from the west.”

“Those words,” Freund says, “are coming to life before our eyes.”

“I think this is a very historic project,” he added. “It is the closing of an historical circle. It is the return of a lost tribe of Israel after 27 centuries of exile, and it is a fulfillment of biblical prophecy.”

Audio of Freund’s interview on WABC’s “Aaron Klein Investigative Radio” can be heard below:

“All I am or ever hope to be I owe to my angel mother, God bless her.”

– Abraham Lincoln

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to confirm that most of America’s presidents were “mama’s boys.”

It must make Sigmund Freud smile for one of his most enduring discoveries was how the perceived favorite child of a mother is empowered for life. Consider the overwhelming evidence that mothers play a key role. Many recent presidents were literally named after their mothers but none of their many siblings.

Ronald Wilson Reagan was named after his mother Nelle Wilson.

Richard Milhous Nixon named after his mother Hannah Nixon.

Lyndon Baines Johnson named after his mother Rebecca Baines.

John Fitzgerald Kennedy named after his mother Rose Fitzgerald.

Franklin Delano Roosevelt named after his mother Sarah Delano.

Woodrow Wilson named after his mother Janet Woodrow.

And on and on it goes back into history. Rutherford Birchard Hayes named after his mother Sophia Birchard. Of course, it is not a perfect formula or Marvin Pierce Bush would have been elected president, not his older brother, George W. Bush, but it is common enough to defy any odds.

“You are a Delano,” FDR’s mother, Sarah Delano used to tell him, “not a Roosevelt.”

“I was a mama’s boy,” said Woodrow Wilson, “no question about it, but the best of womanhood came to me through those apron strings.”

“God bless my mother,” Abraham Lincoln supposedly said to his law partner William Herndon, “all I am or ever hope to be I owe to my angel mother.”

Keep in mind, the above famous quote, attributed to Lincoln’s law partner, may never have really been uttered. Yes, it is featured prominently in almost every biography of Lincoln and appears in the first pages of Pulitzer Prize-winning books, but recent research shows that the time and place named by Herndon just couldn’t have happened and so, now even the quote is suspect. But there is no denying that Lincoln loved his mother and perhaps, even more, his stepmother, who gave him the gift of books.

When I wrote “The Raising of a President,” I blind copied some of the above information to five psychologists, asking them to each give me their opinion. I was especially intrigued why so many of the children who were namesakes of their mother went on to become presidents.

All five answered with the same conclusion. When the mother took that infant to her breast, she felt a special bond with the child who would bare her name for life and the infant could feel it.

I am only a layman who doesn’t pretend to understand such things but if it is true, if a baby can “feel” favoritism then just imagine the power and the impact for good or bad a mother, or a father’s words, have on their children. I was reminded of the experiments conducted by the Royal Horticultural Society. If the human voice can empower a plant, then it must surely cause powerful reactions for good or bad on a human being.

There is a very predictable family formula for strong leaders, good and bad. They have an attachment to the mother and an absent father. Hitler, Stalin, Mao Zedung all fit the pattern as neatly as Washington and Jefferson.

Andrew Jackson’s father died before the future president was even born. His mother died when he was 14 years old. Even when alive, she was often gone. As a nurse she tended the wounded during the Revolutionary War.

When Andrew Jackson died as an old man, many years later, his body was full of bullets, including one lodged near his heart and too dangerous to remove. They were the result of a life of action, including duels and wars. It was as if he wanted to be worthy, the equal of those Revolutionary War soldiers who took his mother away from him as a boy.

In a sense, Andrew Jackson’s life was one long journey back into the arms of his mother.

Doug Wead is a presidential historian and New York Times best-selling author.  He has been an adviser to two American presidents and served in the White House as special assistant to the president under George H.W. Bush.  In 2012, he took a sabbatical from writing history to serve as a senior adviser for the Ron Paul presidential campaign.

A Fort Collins seventh-grader having sexually explicit video chats with a man nearly twice her age.

A 10-year-old having phone sex with a Loveland man who thought she was a 13-year-old.

The cases highlight the dangers kids face when they go online: They don’t actually know who they’re talking to, and they don’t know where the pictures they send may end up. Parents across Larimer County are struggling to keep up with their kids as they use and sometimes abuse Facebook, mobile phones, video chats and the Internet, in some cases with lifelong repercussions.

As part of an exclusive news investigation, WND’s Chelsea Schilling located dozens of child-porn images posted by pedophiles and predators who trade thousands of pornographic photos on Facebook. The four-part series included: 1) “Kids raped, sodomized on Facebook Pages,” 2) “Can Facebook’s child porn explosion be stopped?,” 3) “Investing in Facebook? You don’t have clean hands” and 4) “Facebook kid porn: Reaction hot and heavy.”

I was rereading a famous quote written by Dr. Robert Jastrow in his book, “God and the Astronomers.”

“For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”

Somehow, thinking about this and aspects of liberation theology activists sent my mind spinning in two directions that I think end up supporting similar principles.

Get an autographed copy of Dr. Karl Payne’s “Spiritual Warfare: Christians, Demonization and Deliverance.”

Einstein’s theory of General Relativity proves that the universe had a beginning. Time, space and matter are interdependent, which means you cannot have one without the others. They came into existence simultaneously, not independently or separately. If the universe had a beginning, the Law of Causality demands it must have had a beginner. Ultimately, this beginner must have either been the universe itself or something outside the universe.

Since the universe had a beginning, it is not eternal and could therefore not be the beginner. In addition, the Second Law of Thermodynamics clearly proves that the amount of energy available for useful work is constantly decreasing – again effectively demonstrating that the universe could not be eternal and therefore must have had a beginning. Since the universe is not eternal, that beginner must be someone or something outside the universe. Many theists refer to this someone or something as God.

Jastrow, a self-proclaimed agnostic, is both a joy and frustration, depending upon who is reading his materials. He’s a joy to theists, who appreciate his honesty and willingness to challenge the notions that scientific evidence has proven empirically that the universe is eternal or that nothing is an adequate cause for everything. He is a frustration to many of his agnostic, atheistic or ideologically driven colleagues, who continue to insist that materialism, empiricism and neo-Darwinian gradualism provide adequate explanations for the origin of the universe without invoking some form of theoretical metaphysics or scientific voodoo. Fortunately for theists, or unfortunately for atheists, again depending upon one’s perspective, Dr. Jastrow is too respected through academic achievement and reputation to simply dismiss as ignorant or his ideas as irrelevant.

Once metaphysics, wishful thinking or unexplainable, non-testable, counter intuitive, one-time events are assumed or invoked into play, I think Jastrow’s point is that thoughtful theologians have just as much right to theologize as scientists have to speculate about the subject of origins. Neither was present to observe or record the event, and it has not been repeated. The naturalists’ current censoring and ridicule of theists’ makes naturalists not only look hypocritical, it makes them look insecure, arrogant and bigoted. When it is all said and done, “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth,” still represents an explanation for origins that is just as reasonable, to a reasonable person, as the notion that science can empirically demonstrate that nothing is the ultimate cause for everything.

What does this have to do with aspects of liberation theology?

I was taught the Hegelian Dialectic in college many decades ago as a supporting proof for materialistic naturalism and philosophical progressivism. Everything evolves by natural law from simple to complex physiologically and philosophically. When a thesis and antithesis collide, the result is a synthesis, producing a new thesis that one day will become a key component for the ongoing cyclical evolution and expansion of this ongoing process.

Marx incorporated this dialectic as support for his economic and class warfare theory, which he believed predicted and proved that the state would evolve, by natural law, through inevitable stages from feudalism to capitalism to socialism. As an atheist looking for explanations to questions about life, death, values, origins, the nature of man, heaven, hell, economics, social justice and injustice, and the existence of God, he wanted and needed answers to these questions looking outside of the Bible and theism. I understand an atheist looking for an explanation outside of biblical theism. It was clear to him that he existed, and he rejected the existence or intrusion of God. It all had to happen somehow, so here is an alternative explanation.

But what I do not understand is why some professing Christians feel so compelled to wed basic tenants of Marxism or some form of socialism and a theoretical materialistic dialectic with Christianity. Marx’s atheistic assault on capitalism would have never gained the momentum it has outside or independent of Darwin’s corresponding assault on theism. This was a wedding made in hell.

The irony is that Darwin’s evolutionary theory and Hegel’s dialectical theory, both of which Marx assumed to be true, are just that, theory. Neither has been proven empirically, and both represent agnostic or atheistic alternatives to theism in general and Christianity specifically. What a tragedy that we find professing Christians bowing down to the shrine of both, thinking they are part of a godly, revolution promoting God, tolerance and justice. The actual results of Marxist theory are written in murder, mayhem and the shedding of innocent blood, which pale any other secular or religious ideology as an ocean swallows a lake. And Christians still want to incorporate and emulate this philosophy, attempting to improve the human cause, by wedding this failed nonsense to the Lord Jesus Christ. Why?

I am wondering if at some point in the not so distant future, after all of the deconstructing, contriving, contorting and distorting of Scripture, many of these young religious revolutionary activists are going to look back with regret and dismay – useful idiots, naively manipulated by atheistic architects, in support of a Christ less cause and culture.

Will they too, one day find themselves wishing they had taken their stand on the rock of God rather than the sand of man? “In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth” still sounds reasonable to me.

Dr. Karl I. Payne is a pastor, teacher, discipleship trainer, apologist and author of “Spiritual Warfare,” a guidebook on the subject of spiritual warfare that is clear, biblical and transferable.

I have learned new things too, things about being a mom. Below is some of what I have learned.

1) It is on their time not yours. Ker has taught me that I may be ready for something, but he isn’t. Older people must have amnesia about timing. A teenage boy might be angry with someone, and adults may be able to say, “It is fine,” you need to forgive and let go. But they are not ready to do so. It takes a much longer time for a teen boy to work something out than an older adult who has the experience to put things in context.

2) Hormones many be tiny, but they pack a significant punch. We think only American boys think about sex a lot. No, no, this is a world-wide problem. They want to have girlfriends, and they want to touch them and charm them. They will do that at the expense of many other things. There is no stopping the thought process that goes along with hormones – none, zip, zero. Boys in the storm of hormones can’t be reasoned with. I have new respect for that biological process.

3) Kids care about clothes a lot. I might have thought that a former slave who had nothing wouldn’t care, but looking like other teenagers is very important. Of course, this could all be in the service of hormones. However, styles and being a part of the group is very important.

4) Music is a huge influencer. It was in our day, too, but our music was a bit more tame. Heavy metal and words we would never have set to song are right out there. The best we could muster was The Beatles’ “Norwegian Wood,” which we always thought meant, “knowing she would,” although it was denied by The Beatles. Now the music very far out there and the word choice have been shown to be a terrible influence on teenage behavior.

5) Small things can set off teens in a big way. We all know they would like to tell their parents to get lost. This is nothing new; all generations have had the same reaction to their parents. Knowing your teen is learning what kinds of words or actions can make them go off. Again, it is context. Saying something in front of someone else, or at the wrong time, can make teens very upset.

6) They like money, a lot. Teens don’t like to be dependent. They want their own money. They don’t really want it tied to actions like chores, but they want to work. They also do not have the foggiest idea that they can’t be self-sufficient and make their own decisions.

7) The ups are great, and the downs are terrible. I get such joy from small things like seeing him running track. But the downs when he is upset or angry are worse than I ever thought could be. He has only been in my life for less than two years. I have only been his mom for less than a year, but he knows when and where to push for life’s joys and sorrows. Of course, like most moms, I react on cue.

8) Being a mom is very hard work. Of course, I knew that on some level. I had worked in mental health for years. However, seeing someone else doing the hard work is different than living it. I have a new respect for motherhood. As a friend of mine said, “I bet you have vindicated your mom for the adolescent years.” I sure have, and I hope years from now I am vindicated, too!

House Minority Leader and outspoken Catholic Nancy Pelosi supports abortion rights, the feds requiring Catholic institutions to provide birth control and abortion access to students and employees. And she approves of gay marriage.

As she explained at her weekly news conference: “My religion has, compels me, and I love it for it, to be against discrimination of any kind in our country, and I consider this (opposition to gay marriage) a form of discrimination.”

Vice President Joe Biden, another self-described “devout Catholic,” expresses his support of gay marriage. He told “Meet the Press” that marriage is about loyalty, and “I am absolutely comfortable with the fact that men marrying men, women marrying women and heterosexual men and women marrying … are entitled to the same exact rights. …”

Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius, also on the devout Catholic bandwagon in Washington, is behind the advancement of the HHS mandate requiring Catholic organizations to act against their faith and provide birth control and abortion to students and employees.

That controversy emanated from the Georgetown University campus and now, despite that, the school invited her to speak at a graduation awards event.

This is the same woman who, while governor of Kansas, was an outspoken supporter of abortion, including late-term abortion and of the late-term abortionist, Dr. George Tiller.

Her in-your-face opposition to religious teaching while claiming to be faithful, led to the Kansas City Archbishop Joseph Naumann saying she should not receive communion until she renounced her position.

She never did.

And these are just the Catholics in the news last week!

Don’t you wish you were a fly on the wall of the confessional when “good” Catholics like Biden, Sibelius, Pelosi and other high-profile politicians are there confessing their sins?

I know, it’s private, but I’d love to hear their litany of transgressions – assuming, of course, they ever bother to go to confession.

But assuming they do, wouldn’t you love to hear what they did that bothers their conscience enough to get them in the confessional, to receive absolution so they can receive communion with what might loosely be called a clear conscience?

I would, but then again, given what they do and say in public about Catholic issues, perhaps they have nothing to confess.

With the things the way they are in the church these days, a lot of Catholics decide for themselves what constitutes sin. Since liberal Catholics hate to admit wrongdoing, the confessional is a lonely place these days for priests.

One thing I’d almost bet the ranch on is, if and when Nancy or Joe or Kathleen show up for confession, they don’t discuss their daily decisions as to what they consider sinful.

The priest isn’t a mind reader. He trusts that the person confessing is being honest about what they did or didn’t do and how it might be considered sinful.

Therein lies the core of the problem for Catholics, especially those in political life.

What happens when what they do and say politically is in direct contradiction to Catholic teaching, yet they do it and all along claim to be good Catholics. They flaunt that and often go to communion to show the public what good Catholics they are.

It also helps when reporters and cameras are present.

God has become a chit in the game of politics.

Traditionally, it was considered sinful for Catholics to “give scandal” to the church. That’s what those politicians are doing. But since Vatican Two, that’s gone out the window along with a lot of what was once considered sinful and/or appropriate for Catholics.

Apparently, many priests and bishops go along with that mentality and encourage that line of thinking among the young people growing up in the church and those converting.

Vatican Two was supposed to simplify and clarify and, to put it in the vernacular, make Catholicism more “user-friendly.”

Well it did – so “user-friendly” in fact, that it resulted in generations of so-called cafeteria Catholics, people who decide for themselves which rules to follow and which not, what is sinful or isn’t, how to regard their religion and how not.

Catholic dogma hasn’t changed, but the attitude of priests, bishops and archbishops has, as younger men, products of post Vatican Two, came into authority. This is especially true in the United States and is complicated by the intrusion of the federal government.

It’s amazing how people, even those of the cloth, will compromise when close to political power and glitz.

It’s hard to say why other prelates don’t speak out about such politicians – there are others, among them the Kennedys, Giuliani, Kerry, Cuomo, Davis.

Some concern may have been expressed, but there’s been a lack of moral courage to speak out strongly supporting the teachings of the very church they represent.

It hasn’t been a moment of pride for the church, and the latest actions of Georgetown only exacerbate the problem.

A Jesuit institution. How sad.

It’s the very place that caved into the demands of Barack Obama that the university remove all Christian symbols when he gave a speech there. He didn’t want anything religious to show on camera.

It illustrates Georgetown’s attitude. It will do anything to keep the politicians close – whether it’s accommodating Obama or ignoring Sebelius and her extreme abortion support.

I’m waiting for Georgetown, and schools like it, to drop the Catholic affiliation and be open an above board as to what they are.

I’m also waiting for Pelosi, Biden, Sebelius and all the other faux Catholics to drop the façade and be the open libs they really are.

They give good Catholics a bad name.

I’m waiting – but I’m not holding my breath.

While practically every college and university will cite various studies purporting to prove that a college education is worth hundreds of thousands of dollars to those who possess them, the studies are so badly flawed as to be nearly as fraudulent as the degrees the academic institutions are selling. Consider the following factors:

1) The so-called “return on investment” studies do not compare similar populations. The American education system is highly meritocratic, and wide-scale, pre-college testing means that even poor, lower-class, minority individuals are identified and provided subsidized university educations. Since the vast majority of the cognitive elite attend college, whereas relatively few of the cognitively disadvantaged do, comparing college graduates to high-school graduates is not meaningful without first correcting for the average difference in intelligence between the two groups. In other words, it is possible that most of the income gap between the college-educated and the non-college educated is determined by who goes to college rather than by the college degree or the education it purports to represent.

2) The studies rely upon income data from individuals who graduated as far back as 1981. Given how much the national economy, demographics and college-attending population has changed in the last 30 years, it is simply absurd to think that their historical income patterns have any bearing on those of college students who are graduating this spring, much less matriculating this fall.

3) Few of the studies factor in either actual time-to-graduation or graduation rates. It is deceptive to calculate a return-on-investment assuming four years to graduation and a 100 percent graduation rate when it takes the average college graduate more than four years to graduate, and 40 percent of those who matriculate and “invest” in their educations never graduate and receive neither a degree nor any return on their monetary expenditure.

4) Even the one study that did include actual time-to-graduation and graduation rates, the 2011 Payscale study published by Bloomberg Businessweek, based its average incomes on “about 1,000 … alumni who are full-time, U.S.-based employees.” The problem here should be obvious, as the study systematically discounts all of the unemployed and part-time alumni. This has the effect of significantly exaggerating the average income of college graduates, since it has been recently reported that 53.6 percent of college graduates under the age of 25 are either unemployed or underemployed.

The Payscale study concluded that the average 30-year ROI was $387,501; however, the study did not take into account that the average 2010 college graduate owed $25,250 in college loans upon graduation. And since this debt figure does not include the 40 percent of non-graduating students and the rate of defaults on student loans has risen to 8.8 percent, it should be readily apparent that the interest owed on that seemingly small amount of debt will tend to considerably reduce average ROI from the estimated $387,000. Note that at the current Plus Loan interest rate of 7.9 percent, the 30-year value of that $25,250 in debt is $247,118.

However, the main reason one cannot consider the cost of a college degree to be an investment is because a degree is not transferable and holds no intrinsic value. Unlike stocks, bonds, housing or even art, the owner of a degree cannot sell it. It is no more an investment than an airplane ticket or a bus token. There are, to be sure, many jobs in government and corporate America that require college degrees, but it makes no sense to argue for the intrinsic value of college degrees on the basis of artificial requirements that only have the potential to limit one’s future income.

None of this should be taken to mean that college educations are totally worthless or that it makes no sense for anyone to pursue a college degree. What it does mean, however, is that no prospective college student or parent can blithely accept the results of the return-on-investment studies and expect them to have any meaningful application to any individual situation. Every college decision must stand or fall on its own unique financial merits, and, in many cases, a careful review will demonstrate that taking out a student loan and paying large sums of money in return for a 60 percent chance of obtaining college degree does not make financial sense.

Suburban whites, African-Americans in the ‘hood (despite opposition from the NAACP and President Obama), Democrats, Republicans, Baptists, Catholics and nondenominational people in North Carolina all turned out to vote Tuesday in what one news paper reported as “the largest turnout for a primary in decades.” The Charlotte Observer said the issue “stormed to approval.”

Nothing since the civil rights movement in the ’60s has produced such a united front. More than 60 percent of the citizens from across the state showed up and made their voices heard. Peacefully and legally, but forcefully, they said “No!” Americans from practically every segment of society turned out and essentially declared: In America, as long as it does not harm someone else, you can engage in any type of immoral behavior you choose and by and large we Americans will not object. Whatever you choose to do in private is essentially your business, but we reserve the right to disagree with any public manifestation of behaviors to which we object.

The truth of the matter is, as a general rule, Americans are fair minded and tolerant. That is one of the reasons for the incredibly diverse array of lifestyles and opinions extending from clothing to restaurants to automobiles to sexual behavior. Americans, in an effort to be compassionate, have gone as far as removing the death penalty (in certain states) for even such barbaric behavior as kidnapping, rape and cold-blooded murder.

We have more charitable organizations than any other country and have sent incredible numbers of young people and professionals off in humanitarian efforts like the Peace Corps, surgical teams, dental teams, farming and food assistance teams, not to mention the thousands of young men and women who have been wounded, or died, fighting for freedom for others.

This fair-mindedness is essentially the issue seized upon by the practitioners of homosexuality in America today. Yes, despite the fact that “gay” has been substituted for “homosexual,” many (probably most over 50) Americans think homosexuality is wrong, unnatural or a “sin.” However, the overall attitude is basically “to each his own – I don’t like it, agree with it or participate in it, but that’s your business.”

The problem arises when the proponents of this “closet behavior” insist this behavior should not only be “out of the closet” but singled out and accorded all the rights and legal standing of “normal” activities. More than that, they not only should be awarded these rights but accorded special privileges. Certain public schools now permit “boys,” who on certain days “feel like girls,” to use the facilities formerly reserved for females. (Remember those old-fashioned terms male and female?) Homosexuals, not content to be known simply as “a person sexually attracted to people of one’s own sex,” have enlisted wordsmiths and pseudo-scientific elites to add to our lexicon new terminologies: gay, lesbian, transgender, gender identity, gender reassignment, gender expression, intersex, transsexual, bisexual, etc., etc.

The basis for the current success of this out-of-the-mainstream movement is the fact that, as earlier stated, the vast majority of Americans believe in fair play and equality, thus the attempts by these groups to tie homosexual rights to civil rights: “You are doing to us what you did to blacks and native Americans!”

Fair-minded Americans are almost universally aware of, and deeply regret and oppose, discrimination based on race, creed or national origin. This is why America has a long list of folks waiting to get in and no line of people waiting to get out.

“So… whatup wid dese peeps in No’CareLina?” In a word … liberty.

Let me say, as a Texan now living in Virginia, what you do in your bedroom is your business. Let’s keep it that way. What I don’t know won’t hurt me, and I cannot be offended by what I don’t know you do. If the two (or three or four) of you all agree with what you are doing, just keep it to yourself. Don’t tell me I have to be in agreement with it, and don’t try forcing me to legitimize it. As a black Texan (who lived through real discrimination), I don’t want to hear that what you do privately under the covers or in front of a mirror (or wherever else you do whatever you do) deserves the same legal status as my right to ride a public conveyance, eat in a public restaurant, attend a public school and vote my conscience. Apparently, quite a few Americans, including more than 60 percent of those in North Carolina, agree: They, too, think you should keep your private affairs private. Thirty-one of our 50 states in the union also agree.

Obviously, no one person (including the president) can speak for all the people all the time, but I think it is safe to hazard a guess that I speak for the majority of Americans when I say this has nothing to do with your civil rights and everything to do with your lifestyle. If you were suddenly overcome with a burning desire to strip naked and jump into a bed of cactus, I am sure that while most Americans would not agree with your decision, they would most assuredly agree it was your right to do so – just don’t try to make us legalize it.

Before, during and after the Civil War, blacks took full advantage of every opportunity to flee to the North, where freedom awaited. As you know, today any American citizen can, at any time, surrender their passport and freely emigrate to (almost) any country they choose. Just FYI: The Netherlands, Norway, Spain and Sweden have all legalized same-sex marriages. I am sure that any citizens who are fed up with our tired, old, outmoded, God-inspired American virtues, values and standards of right and wrong would be most welcome there.

Let me be among the first to wish you bon voyage.

After a national decry by American farmers (and all of us who support them), the Obama administration has just shelved its plan to severely restrict family members under the age of 16 from working on family farms. But mark my words, as the feds often do, they’re merely regrouping to march again on those great American homesteads.

The very words of the Department of Labor, or DOL, “withdrawal” statement read: “…the Department of Labor is announcing today the withdrawal of the proposed rule dealing with children under the age of 16 who work in agricultural vocations. … To be clear, this regulation will not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration.”

“… not be pursued for the duration of the Obama administration”?

So, until November 2012, right?

Kudos to the bipartisan group of 98 senators and members of the House who sent letters protesting to Labor Secretary Hilda Solis about this rule that would have severely limited teenagers and younger children from learning the family trade, not to mention undermine the very business fabric of rural America. It might sound legislatively crazy if it weren’t coming from one of the most overextended federal governments in the history of the U.S.

According to the Raleigh Telegram, “The rule would have prevented children younger than 16 from doing ‘agricultural work with animals and in pesticide handling, timber operations, manure pits and storage bins’ while also forbidding them from using ‘power-driven equipment’ and working in the ‘cultivation, harvesting and curing of tobacco.’”

Can you imagine? What’s next? The feds’ crackdown making it illegal to wash dishes because a knife might cut them? No grinding up food because the garbage disposal might malfunction and start suddenly while their hand is in it? No more cooking or ironing because their hands might get burned? No more house cleaning because the EPA has designated the mixture of certain cleaning chemicals as hazardous to touch or inhale?

Let’s get real, folks! How far do the feds have to mingle in our manure before we say enough is enough? How far do we have to slide down the slippery slope of socialism before the descent becomes irreversible? Before we say, “Welcome to Greece!”

As my mom, Wilma Norris Knight, told me on Mother’s Day, “The federal government should keep their noses out of our business! Raising kids is the responsibility of parents, not the government. My papa and mama would have marched from Oklahoma all the way to Washington, D.C., if they tried to tell us what to do on our farm.”

This past Mother’s Day weekend, many of you probably saw my mom being interviewed by our friend and former governor, Mike Huckabee, on his FOX News show, “Huckabee.” During their interview about her new autobiography, “Acts of Kindness: My Story” (available only at ChuckNorris.com), she said it best: Kids need lots of love from their own parents and the influence of their church and Sunday School teachers. Our children are on loan to us from God, and He nowhere alludes to parental responsibility, training and oversight, including the nurturing influence of the feds!

What’s really at the heart of the DOL’s farm action is the continued implementation of Agenda 21, a United Nations program launched in 1992 for the nebulous purpose of reaching global “sustainable development,” but which actually promotes a European socialist system that will undermine and chip away our freedoms, liberties and rights.

At the heart of that global and social change agenda is the use of non-governmental organizations, civil resistant movements and class warfare protests, just like we’ve seen with Occupy’s movement vow to shut down businesses and even Wall Street. One major Occupy website even embraces Agenda 21 as the agenda for its movement!

Of course, don’t look for the term Agenda 21 to show up in President Obama’s re-election speeches. To the public, he will continue to pitch as he did last week, saying that he is the real small-government president, even more so than President Reagan! (I had no idea BO was running for comedian in chief.)

But what about actions like the DOL’s farm act? Of course, that’s not creating bigger government; it’s just the passionate concern of the federal government to swoop down like a super hero and “protect” your children.

Just what we need during this post-Mother’s Day week, right? The federal government playing some further maternal or paternal roles to our children?

Its actions prompt me to recall the wisdom of Ronald Reagan, who said: “The nine most terrifying words in the English language are: ‘I’m from the government, and I’m here to help.’”

I can see the criticisms in the “comments” section below now: “Lighten up, man. It’s just a movie.”

And that illustrates exactly the point I intend to make.

A movie is a mere trifling, a toying with ideas and images depicted on screen for entertainment – but how do you suppose God would advise us on toying and trifling with Satan?

If you believe, as the Bible clearly teaches, there really is a prince of darkness who works in the shadows “looking for someone to devour” (1 Peter 5:8) – a master deceiver who would tempt all people toward their own decay and destruction without ever tipping his hand to reveal his face – then reducing his presence to a mere joke would seem to play right into his plan, would it not?

And for the actors themselves, laughing about him as though he were a toy, readily invoking him with no thought of the consequence but to dismiss him as an archaic myth, seems a foolish thing to do, does it not, if the devil really is the diabolical demon the Scriptures make him out to be?

In short, unless you think the Bible a farce, how can you make a farce like “Dark Shadows”?

Not only is the movie not funny – seriously, it’s one of the worst major films of the year so far – but its subject matter is equally no laughing matter.

The film begins somewhat promising, telling the story of a 1700s New England fishing tycoon (played by Johnny Depp) who spurns a witch’s love and is cursed by her to become a vampire. The witch then locks him in a box, where he remains until awakened in 1972.

For a few moments, the film promises to be amusing, with Depp’s formal, erudite character confronting the hippy world of 1972, nearly 200 years out of his native time. Depp plays the character brilliantly and begins a fish-out-of-time tale rife with comedic promise.

Unfortunately, the promise is left woefully unfulfilled, as the story too quickly swerves off the rails to reintroduce the long-lived witch as a modern-day corporate shark determined to seduce her old flame. Gone is the witty comedy, replaced by a sleazy soap opera, which then switches gears again and becomes a supernatural showdown.

In the resultant, unholy mess, the movie’s conflict falls flat, the side characters are left undeveloped and the “villain” is stripped of any real depth, leaving Depp without any meaningful foil to draw out his protagonist’s fiber.

The net effect is a film that tries in vain to be too many things, succeeding at none.

And it’s too bad the film was so determined to be vapid and soulless, for there were opportunities to explore some intriguing themes, including the vampire’s admission of being “a sinner,” an allusion to “purifying” the blood, talk of forgiveness and justice and even an acknowledgement that “there are things in the is world we don’t understand, like magic, death and destiny.”

But these brief moments when the script could have shown some life quickly faded into the dead flatness that was most of the movie.

Even if it was a good film, however, we’re left with director Tim Burton’s morbid fascination with the occult, which borders, frankly, on necrophilia (see “Corpse Bride” or the final scene of this movie).

Depp’s character, for example, beyond being a vampire, studies black magic, invokes “Satan’s true name” (according to the film) Mephistopheles, calls the witch “a whore of Beelzebub … succubus of Satan … harlot of the devil” and most significantly, shouts the lines, “Show yourself to me, Satan!” and, “Have at me Lucifer; my soul is prepared!”

Acting or not, I sincerely hope for Depp’s sake Lucifer doesn’t take him up on the invitation.

According to Christian doctrine, this “devil” character gleefully tears apart marriages to divorce, lures pedophiles to abuse children, inflames rapists to act, fills megalomaniacs like Adolf Hitler with schemes of mass murder and has the power to possess men’s souls to self-destruction and everlasting torment in hell.

And we’re going to make a joke of it? Johnny Depp is going to call out for the beast’s presence in his soul?

I don’t suggest we go looking for devils under every rock, but I do suggest the American culture show a little more respect when handling the most potent evil force in the universe.

Content advisory:

• “Dark Shadows,” rated PG-13, contains roughly 20 obscenities and profanities.
• The film’s violence is present, but scaled back, with much of the vampire’s killing done off screen. There are, however, a few scenes of the vampire biting his victims. Most of the more graphic violence is present in two scenes – the first of which is played for laughs as the vampire and witch trash an apartment in a supernaturally-charged, rough sex scene, the second a climactic battle scene between the vampire’s family and the witch, including gunfire, choking, crashing, biting, slashing and magical hijinks.
• The movie’s sexuality, outside of some kisses, innuendos, a couple of lewd jokes and an implied oral sex scene, focuses on the modern-day witch. She dresses provocatively, shows off a lot of cleavage and leg and actively works to seduce the vampire. In one over-the-top scene that was supposed to be funny, the pair engage in a supernaturally-charged, rough sex scene. Though there’s no nudity, the pair roll around the walls, floor, furniture and ceiling of an apartment, breaking and smashing everything in their path. She licks him (again for laughs, I suppose) with a long, serpentine tongue, and there’s plenty of grunting and moaning, but all done for comedic effect. Some audiences will find it funny; others, frankly, will find it juvenile and even disgusting.
• The film contains little religious content, but is dripping with occult references. In addition to what is detailed in the review above, there are spoken spells, ghosts, a werewolf, talk of curses and some references to damnation.

Barack Obama has added blasphemy to his many egregious offenses by suggesting he has changed his mind for the third time in his life on the completely sinful concept of same-sex marriage after studying the teachings of Jesus.

Last week he decided he was for it after being against it since 2004 when he ran for president. But in 1996 he was for it. Yet, he had to be against it sometime before that because the concept of same-sex marriage wasn’t even on the radar screens of radicals like Obama much before the mid-’90s.

That makes four different positions on same-sex marriage in a span of 17 years.

That’s some serious flip-flopping – all of which coincided with political races he was running.

But we’re to believe he’s come to this fourth position after studying the teachings of Jesus.

This is a difficult concept because Jesus taught the opposite – that marriage was intended as a lifelong institution for one man and one woman. And, unlike Obama, Jesus never changed His mind.

In Matthew 19: 4-6, Jesus said, ” … Have ye not read, that he which made them at the beginning made them male and female, And said, For this cause shall a man leave father and mother, and shall cleave to his wife: and they twain shall be one flesh? Wherefore they are no more twain, but one flesh. What therefore God hath joined together, let not man put asunder.”

Not only has man put asunder individual marriages, but Obama now seeks openly – in the name of Jesus – to put asunder the entire concept of marriage.

“I have to tell you that over the course of several years as I have talked to friends and family and neighbors when I think about members of my own staff who are in incredibly committed monogamous relationships, same-sex relationships, who are raising kids together, when I think about those soldiers or airmen or marines or sailors who are out there fighting on my behalf and yet feel constrained, even now that Don’t Ask Don’t Tell is gone, because they are not able to commit themselves in a marriage, at a certain point I’ve just concluded that for me personally it is important for me to go ahead and affirm that I think same sex couples should be able to get married,” Obama said in an interview on ABC’s “Good Morning America.”

You mean our military personnel are fighting on his behalf – not the nation’s? This is the kind of arrogance we’ve all become familiar with during the Obama era. It’s all about him.

Now let’s examine Obama’s biblical rational for his flip-flopping:

“This is something that, you know, we’ve talked [He and Michelle] about over the years and she, you know, she feels the same way, she feels the same way that I do. And that is that, in the end the values that I care most deeply about and she cares most deeply about is how we treat other people and, you know, I, you know, we are both practicing Christians and obviously this position may be considered to put us at odds with the views of others but, you know, when we think about our faith, the thing at root that we think about is, not only Christ sacrificing himself on our behalf, but it’s also the Golden Rule, you know, treat others the way you would want to be treated. And I think that’s what we try to impart to our kids and that’s what motivates me as president and I figure the most consistent I can be in being true to those precepts, the better I’ll be as a as a dad and a husband and hopefully the better I’ll be as president.”

Christ sacrificed Himself on the cross for humanity’s sins – which include homosexuality, according unambiguously to both the Old Testament and the New Testament. So what exactly does the atonement have to do with Obama’s shifting views on what the Bible deems an “abomination”?

Mind you, just the practice of homosexuality is an abomination, according to Leviticus 18:22 and Leviticus 23:13. Romans 1:26-27 show this view did not change after Jesus’ death and resurrection. But what Obama is advocating is something more than just the practice of an “abomination” and a “vile practice.” He’s also promoting the profaning of marriage, an institution Jesus said was created by God in the Garden of Eden.

As for the Golden Rule, Jesus never suggested or hinted that we should condone sin in others because we would want them to condone it in us. That’s what I would characterize as a complete distortion of the Golden Rule. The Golden Rule was meant to bring people closer to God, not make them feel comfortable in their sin. The most loving thing any believer can do for a homosexual or other sinner is to confront them on their sin – to make them feel uncomfortable.

But what do you expect from biblical exegesis from Barack Obama? He sat at the feet of one Jeremiah Wright for more than 20 years – a raving psychopath in clerical garb.

Jesus doesn’t change his mind, but Obama surely does – over and over and over again.

“Man, the media ate me alive,” Wright told me when we met in his office at Chicago’s Kwame Nkrumah Academy. “After the media went ballistic on me, I received an e-mail offering me money not to preach at all until the November presidential election.”

“Who sent the e-mail?” I asked Wright.

“It was from one of Barack’s closest friends.”

“I think (Barack Obama) is a nice guy …” – Mitt Romney

“I’ll keep my own scorecard, thanks,” says Barack Obama as he prepares to tee off for 18 holes at the exclusive One Percenter Golf, Tennis and Yacht Club in Virginia Beach.

“Uh … OK, Mr. President,” says his host, Incredulous Jones, the birdseed magnate. “Let me introduce you to the rest of our foursome, my cousin, Mr. Invidious Johnson, of Goldman Sachs, and Dr. Harmless Donough, of Sloan-Kettering.”

They shake hands all around, and Jones says graciously, “Of course, you have the honor, Mr. President.”

“Thank you,” says Obama, “but call me Barry – during the round. Say, do you want to make things interesting? Let’s all pledge $50, and low medalist will take the pot.”

All agree. Obama takes his $400 TaylorMade R11 driver, tees up a Nike “Barack Obama” autograph golf ball and slices his shot into the trees on the left of the fairway.

“Golly! Gee!” says the president. “Better hit a provisional.”

His second tee ball lands in the fairway, but his next shot finds a greenside bunker.

“Phooey!” says the president. Two swings in the sand get him on the green, whence he holes out with three putts.

“I couldn’t help but notice you already have 17 clubs in your bag,” says Johnson.

The president gives him a hard look. “So?” he says.

“Well … well … uh,” Johnson stammers, “the rules of golf say we only get 14 clubs.”

This draws an icy smile and the reply, “This is just a friendly game, right?”

“Sure, sure,” says Johnson.

After 18 holes, Johnson declares himself the winner with a total of 85 strokes. As he is accepting congratulations, the president says, “Hold on, guys. I had an 84.”

“An 84?” says Johnson. “Mind if I see your score card?”

“You don’t need to see my score card,” says Obama. “I’ve added it twice.”

“Well then,” says Jones, “what did you score on No. 1?”

“I had a bogey five,” answers the president..

“A five!?” says Johnson as Donough and Jones blanch. “Look, I already contributed the maximum $5,000 to your campaign, and strong-armed my subordinates into doing the same. I’ll be darned if I’m going to cough up another 50 bucks.”

“We really want to see that card,” says Donough, and as he leans across the table to reach for the document, Secret Service agents emerge from the background, advancing protectively. Donough sits back.

“I worked hard to achieve that score,” says the president coldly. “The American people know how hard I work. I think you should pay up like good sports.”

The Secret Service agents take another step forward, and Jones, Johnson and Donough quietly extract $50 each from their wallets and hand the bills over.

Obama brightens. “Look,” he says, placing the edge of his card pensively to his lips, “just to eliminate any doubt, when I get back to the White House, I’ll have somebody from my staff put a photo copy of this card up on the Internet. That should ease your minds. And here’s an autographed golf ball for each of you!”

The other three grumble assent, and the president departs.

“Nice guy?” says Jones.

“Depends on what you ask him,” responds Donough, “and how hard you press him.”

Let’s all say, “Awww:” Former Iran hostage Shane Bauer has entered another kind of bondage, marrying his fellow hostage, Sarah Shourd, this month. California news media had no photos of the wedding, so they ran one of the pair taken shortly before the ceremony, participating in an Occupy Oakland event.

Their Occupy activity should come as no surprise. You’ll recall that Bauer took a shot at his homeland – which worked to arrange the $500,000 bail allegedly paid by Oman – after his release from Iran, saying he hoped “for the freedom of other political prisoners and other unjustly imprisoned people in America and Iran.”

The happy couple’s gratitude knows no bounds.

Since then, Basic Rights Oregon had been eying the 2004 amendment for possible repeal. Should the organization hit the go button to bring the issue to the voters again in 2012?

For now, that looks like a risky move—BRO’s internal poll numbers predict a evenly split electorate. The organization didn’t want to risk putting the amendment up only to see if fail, and they just weren’t quite confident enough that the state had shifted enough since 2004. “Who would ever choose to go into a ballot measure at 50-50?” says Jeana Frazzini, the group’s executive director. “We need a solid cushion of support to ensure that you can get your voters to the polls and see an outcome that is in line with public opinion.”

Born in New Eagle and raised in Charleroi in Pennsylvania’s Monongahela Valley, Guy comes from a long line of Democrats. “My grandfather worked at Corning Glass, my father worked in the mines, the steel mill and finally at Corning,” he recalled. “The family always had union ties, and that usually meant a tie to the Democratic Party.”

That’s no longer true for him, however: “As my life started to improve financially, I realized that unions seemed to be damaging the economy and Democrat legislation always seemed to impact my wallet.”

The report, drawn up by the UN’s special rapporteur on counter-terrorism and human rights, Ben Emmerson, a leading British lawyer, will be welcomed by the UK government at a time when the international legal system faces criticism for doing too much to protect the rights of alleged supporters of terrorism, such as the radical cleric Abu Qatada.

Emmerson’s report, details of which have been obtained by the Observer, is to be presented to the UN human rights council in Geneva on 20 June and the general assembly in New York on 28 June. It is understood to have support in the Foreign Office and other UK departments, including the Home Office. The report is also thought to have backing among Council of Europe members, including Spain, which has led the international campaign to highlight the rights of victims of terrorism.

The 90-year-old “Golden Girls” actress “very, very much favors” the commander in chief for a second term, she told the Associated Press on Friday.

Though White said she generally stays away from politics to avoid alienating any of her fans, she likes what Obama has done and “how he represents us.”

Speaking to the Nation in Mombasa, Council of Imams and Preachers Organising Secretary Sheikh Mohammed Khalifa accused President Obama of playing god by legalizing what “God Himself objects”.

May 13, 2000: A Binghamton, N.Y., church found itself on the wrong side of the line dividing what belongs to God and what belongs to Caesar, a federal appeals court ruled.

On Oct. 30, 1992, just four days before the presidential election, the Landmark Church placed full-page ads in USA Today and the Washington Times warning Christians that Clinton’s positions concerning abortion, homosexuality and the distribution of condoms to teen-agers in schools violate biblical principals.

A notice at the bottom of the ad appealed for “tax-exempt donations” to pay for placing the ad.

Bad move, said the IRS, Americans United for Separation of Church and State and finally, the court.