Will You Be Sealed?

Galatians 5:22-26 “22 But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, longsuffering, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, 23 gentleness, self-control. Against such there is no law. 24 And those who are Christ’s have crucified the flesh with its passions and desires. 25 If we live in the Spirit, let us also walk in the Spirit. 26 Let us not become conceited, provoking one another, envying one another.”

Between the two covers of the Bible are descriptive scriptures that tell us very clearly the life that God wants us to live. Many of these writings came from men who walked alongside Jesus Christ or from those who witnessed His teachings and good deeds. It must have been an awesome life to live in the time of Jesus and bear witness to His Greatness. Yet, we see even the apostles that sat at His table were proven to be fallible. As we make our passage through our life with the Bible as our road map, we are constantly reminded that there will be many challenges along the way. The enemy uses all forms of deceit to try to run us off the road to everlasting life. The Bible spells out adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lewdness, idolatry, sorcery, hatred, contentions, jealousies, outbursts of wrath, selfish ambitions, dissensions, heresies, envy, murders, drunkenness, but we know there are many more.

Let us not become conceited; know that the enemy is lurking, whispering, and touting us to ignore the map to salvation. Remember that God gave us freewill to choose right from wrong.

Pray: Thank you Lord for giving me a free will to choose Your way above all others. Let me smile each time I foil the enemy’s attempt to make me fail. Bless me, that I may be sealed on the Day of Redemption.

Amen

Las Vegas Mayor Sends Message to Obama

By Patricia Murphy, Columnist, The Capitolist

Oscar Goodman, the mayor of Las Vegas, has a message for President Obama: Stop using us as a punch line — and don’t let the door hit you on your way out.

The president took an inadvertent swipe at Sin City on Tuesday at his town-hall meeting in Nashua, N.H., where he described a new imperative for fiscal responsibility. Just as Washington cannot keep up its deficit spending, he said, “responsible families” can’t keep spending frivolously either.

“You don’t blow a bunch of cash in Vegas when you’re trying to save for college,” Obama said. His prepared remarks noted that he should wait for the crowd to applaud after this line.

That crack landed with a thud for Goodman, who called a City Hall press conference within hours to respond.

“This president is a real slow learner,” he said, according to the Las Vegas Review-Journal. “An apology won’t be acceptable this time. . . . I want to assure you when he comes I will do everything I can to give him the boot back to Washington and to visit his failures back there.”

Goodman, an Independent who left the Democratic Party, was similarly steamed a year ago when Obama said in a speech that Wall Street bankers receiving bailout money should not take trips to Las Vegas “on the taxpayers’ dime.”

The mayor was not the only Nevada official to fire away at the president yesterday. Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and the entire congressional delegation sent word to the White House that tourism is the struggling city’s lifeblood, and rebukes from the commander-in-chief won’t help bring the local economy back from the recession.

Obama promptly apologized with a letter to Reid, saying he only that meant families should use vacation dollars, not tuition dollars, to have fun, adding, “There is no place better to have fun than Vegas, one of our country’s great destinations.”

As luck would have it, the president will get to test that theory for himself. He’s scheduled to visit Vegas in two weeks.

Be Happy You’re A Capitalist Pig

Fifty-two percent of the voters asked for change, well here it is. Although the change may be new for us, the citizens of the United States, this particular “change” has been around for well over one hundred years. In fact, our forefathers have been fighting successfully against Obama’s “change” for over 200 years.

Looking back into history, the countries that chose this form of “change”, whether you call it communism, socialism, or any other form of government run or regulated economies, are now either defunct or unsustainable on their own. They were destined for failure. In every facet of life we see those that have the ability to escape these systems doing so. Whether it’s a boat filled with Cubans or the star athletes that emigrate to the United States under the guise of political asylum, many people see the U.S. capitalistic system as a winning lottery ticket.

What benefit would redistribution of wealth be, flashback to “Joe the Plumber”, if we all just settled for mediocrity and let the government take from those who have acheived success and gave to those that didn’t? Before long, when there would be no incentive or reward for excellence, our economy would fail, just the way all the preceeding economies implementing these systems have.

What’s really ironic is that after Obama was nominated and won the Nobel Peace Prize just weeks after his inaugaration, Fidel Castro congratulated Obama, saying “it was a positive step”. In his recent writings, although Castro praised Obama’s policies in recent months, he criticising Obama for not lifting the US trade embargo on Cuba. Sorry, Mr. Castro, you can’t have it both ways. First you call us “capitalist pigs” then you want our help to bail out your failing Socialist System. In retrospect, the average monthly wage in Cuba is less than $20.00 per month, sounds like a successful system, although they do have universal health care. Maybe we should lift the trade embargo just long enough to ship Pelosi and her crew to Cuba.

To Torture or Not. A Profound Epiphany.

It’s amazing how some things come around full circle. A few years ago, I was having a nonchalant conversation about the Patriot Act with Mr. Christopher Pyle, a Professor who teaches constitutional law at Mount Holyoke College. Pyle and his wife were guests in our home along with his son, Jonathan and Jonathan’s girlfriend.  Trying not to be adversarial, I listened intently while Pyle explained his disapproval of the Patriot Act, an acronym for Uniting and Strengthening America by Providing Appropriate Tools Required to Intercept and Obstruct Terrorism Act, signed into law by George W. Bush in 2001.   The Act gave U.S Government agencies and the military almost free reign when dealing with suspected terrorists and enemy combatants. My mind wandered to the events of September 11, 2001 and thought that intense interrogation procedures were a necessary part of warfare and that maybe torturing one enemy combatant was worth saving thousands of innocent American lives. 

Pyle had such an ordinary demeanor, so much that if you were unfamiliar with his background you would have no way of knowing his lifetime accomplishments. Being a former Army Intelligence Officer dating back to the 1960’s and a member of Senator Sam Ervin’s Watergate Investigation Team, Pyle is considered an expert on spy tactics, and has written extensively on the merits of revamping the long-standing domestic policies of spying and interrogation procedures. After hearing his opinion on the merits of eliminating the Patriot Act, I thought Pyle just didn’t get it and wondered how he survived in the military for so long.

Jonathan Pyle was even more reserved and soft-spoken than his father, although a very polite and respectful young man. If you were to judge the younger Pyle strictly upon his appearance, you would classify him as a 1960’s leftover hippie, with his  long ponytail and vegan diet. It turned out that Jonathan was an attorney, performing work for Amnesty International, the international organization founded to prevent and end abuses of human rights.  What was even more interesting is that he had recently returned from a visit to Amman, Jordan, a trip made to interview his clients, almost two hundred Iraqi citizens involved in a class action lawsuit brought against the United States and several private contractors hired to perform interrogation techniques on detainees at Abu Ghraib Prison in Baghdad, Iraq.  Again I thought, what kind of American would represent the “enemy”? These Iraqi citizens were the ones responsible for the grave acts of  9/11,  weren’t they? Again, trying not to be controversial, I kept my opinion to myself. Clearly, the three of us were passionate about our beliefs and I felt it would have turned into an uncomfortable debate with neither wavering from their position.

After their departure I decided to seek more information about the events that occurred that propelled Jonathan Pyle to defend “the enemy.”  My lifelong interpretation of torture was a scene from the movie Marathon Man; that of Lawrence Olivier performing novocaine-less dentistry on Dustin Hoffman while repeatedly asking “Is it safe?” What I discovered led to a profound epiphany. What I found was that these Iraqi citizens, many of them not even war criminals, were subjected to acts so appalling, I had difficulty understanding what would compel a person to commit such acts of atrocity upon another. Firsthand and eyewitness accounts and in many cases, photographic evidence, documented prisoners and their family members being tortured and beaten. There were countless stories of abuse beyond what I had ever envisioned of interrogation. Men, women, and children were raped repeatedly, and forced to perform deviant sex acts while being photographed with their perpetrators smiling for the camera. Some of these perpetrators even posted their images of torture on the internet. There were many more documented cases of mental and physical abuses and excessive punishment that occurred during the early 2000’s. 

After the investigations were conducted, the perpetrators were tried, many found guilty, some dishonorable discharged and many are now deservedly serving jail time. While they must live with the consequences of their actions, their victims must cope with their own issues, memories of the brutality they suffered under the guise of patriotism. My hope is that this is not what George Bush had in mind when signing the Patriot Act into law.

The life lesson that I learned is that one should never judge a book by its cover, instead, you should take the time to open the book and delve deeper before developing an opinion or deciding its fate. Sometimes, the results will surprise you.

Let’s Focus On The Real Issue

I’ve been receiving a lot of criticism for posting the article about the one-gun-every-thirty day’s legislation recently passed in New Jersey. My point for posting the article is not so much about this specific piece of legislation, but the overall concept that while our political leaders are taking away our freedoms, they are at the same time ignoring the real issues that matter the most to the citizens of New Jersey. It’s not that I advocate that anyone go out and buy mass quantities of firearms, but if you want to buy some guns, New Jersey already has some of the toughest gun purchase laws in the nation, already in place.
Legislation, like this one, is being passed while there is a mass exodus of residents to other States, while claiming they can longer afford to live here. Maybe Chris Christie will keep his campaign promises and trim the fat and waste from New Jersey government, a move that may help to restore some fiscal sanity and affordability to the State. Hopefully, he will start at the top and work his way down through every department and refrain from folding to the special interest groups the way his predecessor did.

More Legislation That Will Not Prevent Crime

One-gun-a-month bill passes in N.J. Legislature

By Adrienne Lu and Jonathan Tamari

TRENTON – The New Jersey Legislature tackled more than 100 bills Thursday along with the state budget, in advance of lawmakers’ summer recess.

Gun-control advocates won a victory by the passage of a bill that could make New Jersey the fourth state with a one-handgun-per-month buying limit.

Proponents say the bill will fight “straw” buyers who purchase guns legally and pass them on to criminals.

The measure was approved in the Senate with the bare- minimum 21 votes after Sen. Fred Madden (D., Gloucester) dropped his opposition to the idea.

Madden was one of three South Jersey Democrats who previously voted against the plan, joining all 17 Senate Republicans to block it.

But the former state police superintendent changed his vote after Gov. Corzine agreed to form a task force that will examine the law’s impact and draw up recommendations that could lead to exemptions for gun collectors and competitive and recreational shooters.

Republicans argued that the law will do little to stop criminals. New Jersey has some of the toughest gun laws in the nation, and most guns used in crimes come from other states. The limits, Republicans said, will only impinge on law-abiding citizens. Criminals, they argued, will keep obtaining guns illegally.

“You are taking away the most fundamental right that we as Americans have,” said Sen. Kevin O’Toole (R., Essex). “Do you really think this is going to do one iota to stop and curb some of the horrific gang violence that we have?”

Under the bill, buyers would be restricted to one handgun purchase every 30 days – up to 13 a year because of timing quirks.

A Reminder To Every American: We Have The Power.

The Preamble of the Constitution states:

“We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defense, promote the general Welfare,  and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

I have to admit it’s been a while since history class, so for you non-history buffs, the Constitution was signed on September 12, 1787 in Philadelphia.  This year will mark the 222nd Anniversary of the Historical Event.  In only six months, Barack Hussein Obama has managed to unravel what his predecessors have worked to maintained for the last 200 plus years. Obama surely promised change and 52 percent of the people bought into it. I wonder if this is this what those voters thought they were signing up for.  It might just be the circles I travel in, but I can’t find anyone that will admit they they voted for Obama.  So, where did they 52 percent come from?

Looking at the Preamble and Obama’s 6 month record, are we “forming a more perfect Union” with his out of control spending? Many leading economists say his plan is destined for failure. But Obama’s not listening, after all, he knows best, he served as a … community organizer? Even if it’s possible for the country to spend its’ way out of a recession today, the debt will become due at some point. We are just posponing the inevitable and saddling future generations with our fiscal problems of yesterday and today. But hey, change is good, right?

Obama is surely “establishing  Justice” with his nomination of Sonia Sotomayor to the U.S. Supreme Court. Could he find someone more liberal, her record clearly says no. Again, another liberal that believes the Constitution is just a document that needs to be rewritten. She even went so far as to say that “the Supreme Court is where policy is made.”  Sotomayor believes it is the function of the Supreme Court to make the laws instead of interpretating and inforcing them. In other words, we’ll make the rules up as we go along. Had enough change yet? We’ll talk about how Obama is insuring domestic Tranquility and providing for the common defense next time.