IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.
The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,
When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.
We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.— That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.
News/Current Events (News/Activism)
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TOKYO • (AFP)A senior Palestinian minister said yesterday that he was pinning his hopes on US presidential candidate Barack Obama, believing he would seal an elusive deal on creating a Palestinian state. The Palestinian Authority's planning minister Samir Abdullah told reporters on a visit to Tokyo he expected Obama to win the election in November and “look at the Palestinian question and try to do something about it.” “He promised that he will not wait until the end of his term to launch negotiations and he will make it happen from day one. I hope that he will fulfil his...
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WASHINGTON - Investigators are seeing more signs that the salmonella outbreak blamed on tomatoes might have been caused by tainted jalapeno peppers and have begun collecting samples from restaurants and from the homes of those who have been sickened, according to health officials involved in the probe. New interviews with those who became infected found that many had eaten jalapeno peppers, often in salsa served with Mexican food, according to two state health officials. So far, none of the jalapenos taken from restaurants and from the homes of those who became ill have tested positive for Salmonella saintpaul. Echoing federal...
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T. LOUIS - Barack Obama celebrated "active faith" as an obligation of religious Americans and a chief agent of societal change while speaking Saturday to a nearly all-black roomful of churchgoers, but hoping to reach far beyond them. Making a less than two-hour stop in this battleground state, the Democratic presidential nominee implored the thousands attending a national meeting of the African Methodist Episcopal Church, one of the nation's largest and most politically and civicly active black denominations, to help fix national and local ills. He preached individual responsibility, saying he knew he risked criticism for "blaming the victim" by...
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(Editor's note: This is the first in a series of ten articles written by a noted legal scholar to explain America's government. Watch for others in the series, which will appear periodically in this space.) When you buy a car, a blender, a hair dryer, etc., you also get an owner's manual. Many of us start using the device without reading about it, get ourselves into trouble, and fall back on the last alternative in computer programming. "When all else fails, RTFM," translated loosely as "Read the pea-pickin’ manual." Many Americans for many reasons, have concluded that our government is...
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Worry Over Current U.S. 'Mess' Overshadows Holiday Americans Concerned About Nation's Economic, Political Future CBS News Interactive: America By The Numbers NEW YORK (AP) ― Even folks in the Optimist Club are having a tough time toeing an upbeat line these days. Eighteen members of the volunteer organization's Gilbert, Ariz., chapter have gathered, a few days before this nation's 232nd birthday, to focus on the positive: Their book drive for schoolchildren and an Independence Day project to place American flags along the streets of one neighborhood. They beam through the Pledge of Allegiance, applaud each other's good news -- a...
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WHO/WHAT: On July 9, Vets for Freedom will hold a press conference—featuring over a dozen Iraq war veterans—to launch a national “Four Months, For Victory” media and grassroots campaign. The effort will culminate on Veterans Day (November 11) and is intended to inform the American public and key lawmakers about the phenomenal success that our troops have achieved as a result of the surge and the importance of ensuring victory in Iraq, Afghanistan and the overall Global war on Terrorism. The launch includes a multi-million dollar television-advertising buy in target markets and on national cable that will air next week...
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Lawyers might be going off the clock Saturday, July 5, 2008 3:00 AM By Braden Lammers THE COLUMBUS DISPATCH With money tight, we all want to know exactly what we are paying for. That applies to professional services as well as grocery-store staples. As a result, there is a change brewing in the legal arena on the best way to charge clients. One Columbus law firm has abandoned the long-established standard, the billable hour. Waite, Schneider, Bayless & Chesley moved to a fixed rate, or an alternative fee as it is called, in January. "Lawyers call it alternative billing because...
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Tablet Ignites Debate on Messiah and Resurrection By ETHAN BRONNER JERUSALEM — A three-foot-tall tablet with 87 lines of Hebrew that scholars believe dates from the decades just before the birth of Jesus is causing a quiet stir in biblical and archaeological circles, especially because it may speak of a messiah who will rise from the dead after three days. If such a messianic description really is there, it will contribute to a developing re-evaluation of both popular and scholarly views of Jesus...“This is the sign of the son of Joseph. This is the conscious view of Jesus himself. This...
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Mummy's little Lolita: The 11-year-old girl whose beauty treatments cost £300 a month to make her look like Barbie By Jenny Johnston Last updated at 5:31 PM on 05th July 2008 She wore her first set of false eyelashes at eight, and her beauty treatments cost £300 a month. A sick abuse of an 11-year-old? 'No', insists Sasha's mother, 'I just want her to be famous...' At 11, Sasha Bennington is too young to remember the days when Jordan was just a country and being branded 'fake' was something to be ashamed of. But maybe the youngster's biggest tragedy is...
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Howard Kaloogian is a lawyer and a former member of the California State Assembly. GITMO AND GUNS are getting all the press. But energy mavens are talking about another recent far-reaching — but little noted — U.S. Supreme Court decision on the California energy crisis: It took them seven years but they finally figured it out. The revisionist part of the story is well known: Big bad oil traders like Enron gamed the market and drove up energy costs fifteen-fold. The blackouts, insolvent utilities and economic chaos are remembered as the worst energy crisis in American history. But the Supreme...
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BERLIN (AFP) - Sports car manufacturer Ferrari intends to cut its vehicles' greenhouse gas emissions by nearly half and is working on developing hybrid vehicles, the company president said Saturday. < > But he insisted that any future hybrid Ferrari would still be "fundamentally a Ferrari." < >
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When Jeff and Shirley Bare of Kennewick sit down to watch the AT&T National this week they may catch a glimpse of somebody they haven't seen for a while -- their son, Air Force Technical Sergeant Britt Bare, who is stationed on Bagram Air Field in Afghanistan as part of the 455th Expeditionary Civil Engineer Squadron.Sgt. Bare, a 1993 Kennewick High graduate, was one of six U.S. military members selected from around the world to take the ceremonial first swing at a ball which will be put into play by a PGA pro during the tournament -- a shot which...
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Pentagon chiefs fear that Israeli plans for an attack on Iran's nuclear programme will fail to destroy the facilities because neither the CIA nor Mossad knows where every base is located
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<p>The criminal case has been dropped against the owner of Lewis, a cat whose possible death sentence turned the scratch-happy Fairfield feline into a national "claws celebre."</p>
<p>A judge dismissed a reckless endangerment charge against Ruth Cisero on Thursday, concluding she had met terms of the special probation she was granted two years ago under a program for first-time offenders.</p>
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On the first of June, two men and a rabbit set sail from the port of Long Beach, bound for Hawaii, on a raft made of junk. Their cabin is the cockpit of a Cessna 310, white with a blue racing stripe, salvaged from the desert. It floats on a system of handmade pontoons -- 15,000 plastic bottles held together with recycled nets -- propelled by currents and wind. If it sounds dangerous and makeshift, that's the point. The pilots of Junk, as the vessel is called, want to get your attention. They are Dr. Marcus Eriksen, director of research...
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Obama says he is 'puzzled' by Iraq comment frenzy 05 Jul 2008 19:49:28 GMT Source: Reuters By John Whitesides, Political Correspondent ST. LOUIS, July 5 (Reuters) - Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama said on Saturday his plan to end the Iraq war was unchanged and he was puzzled by the sharp reaction to his statement this week that he might "refine" his timetable for withdrawing U.S. combat troops. "For me to say that I'm going to refine my policies I don't think in any way is inconsistent with prior statements and doesn't change my strategic view that this war has...
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Add Monica Conyers's name to that list of Dems run afoul of the law whose party affiliation the MSM fails to mention. The Detroit City Council President Pro Tem, a Democrat and an Obama supporter, has made unwelcome headlines before, from getting into an argument with an eight-grader to allegedly threatening to shoot an aide to the Detroit mayor. Now things have taken a turn for the worse. According to the Detroit News in an article today entitled Bribe probe ensnarls Conyers: "Federal investigators have electronic surveillance evidence that allegedly links Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers with...
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AKC Selects Short List of "Canine Candidates" and Enlists America's Help to Choose the Right Dog Breed for the Obama Family @ www.presidentialpup.com New York, NY – Vice President isn't the only high-level position that Barack Obama is currently trying to fill. It's been widely reported that – win or lose – the Obamas have promised their two daughters a dog after the presidential election. With 158 breeds registered by the American Kennel Club® (AKC®) – each with its own unique temperament, coat type, size, energy level and appearance – the search for a canine cabinet member is on. "Deciding...
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We have always been a moral and religious people — and evidently we are becoming more so, according to a January 2006 poll conducted by the Barna Research Group. The percentage of the United States that can be classified by their beliefs as “born again” (not self-identifying by that phrase) has risen in the last two decades from 31 percent to 45 percent. As one of the primary contributors to our founding documents and our second U.S. president, John Adams, cautioned, our government is wholly inadequate for a people who are not moral and religious. America was a new and...
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How did the U.S. financial crisis happen? A review of the road to ruin reveals a course littered with more villains than heroes. No, it’s not the Great Depression, but the United States is facing a nasty economy-wide retrenchment following the excesses of the 2000s, with no easy way to dance through it. Think 1979 to 1982, when then U.S. Federal Reserve Chairman Paul Volcker exorcised consumer price inflation from the economy. The difference today is that the inflationary explosion has been absorbed by prices of assets—houses, stocks and bonds, office buildings—rather than by the prices of things you buy...
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A year ago, Justin revealed his fear of heights and told us about Kent Couch who has a thing for tying helium balloons to a lawn chair so he can float across the sky. Last year, he made it 193 miles before landing in sagebrush in eastern Oregon. Couch will be at it again tomorrow. This time he wants to fly from Oregon to Boise, Idaho. That's 300 miles. To do this feat, he's attaching 150 latex party balloons to his new lawn chair. This feat is not easy on lawn chairs, so both times Couch has done this, he's...
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After two years of hunting the oilsands for acquisitions, India plans to pull the trigger on a multibillion-dollar deal this year, government officials told the World Petroleum Congress on Thursday. "Indeed, we are going to get more actively engaged in the Canadian tar sands in the next six months, we are looking at opportunities," said M. S. Srinivasan, India's Petroleum Secretary. He said India would prefer to acquire assets over producing companies on a magnitude of at least $2 billion to $2.5 billion. "Size does matter," he continued. "We would like to be going for an economically viable size; too...
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"Sens. Barack Obama and John McCain might not burn up the campaign trail around Western New York this election year, but the University at Buffalo may have scheduled the next best thing. GOP strategist Karl Rove and former Democratic vice presidential candidate John Edwards will debate the issues of the presidential campaign Sept. 26 as part of the university’s Distinguished Speakers Series, The Buffalo News has learned. As surrogates for the parties’ standard bearers, the two also could square off more than once at other locations around the nation. “We’re working on something like that for our Distinguished Speakers Series,”...
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For all Senator Barack Obama’s success raising money and generating excitement among voters, he faces a daunting challenge as he prepares to claim the nomination in August: a Democratic convention effort marred by costly setbacks and embarrassing delays. With the Denver convention less than two months away, problems range from the serious — upwardly spiraling costs on key contracts still being negotiated — to the more mundane, like the reluctance of local caterers to participate because of stringent rules on what delegates will be eating,down to the color of the food. At last count, plans to renovate the inside of...
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1 shot to death, 1 injured in South Side drive-by Tribune staff report 7:54 AM CDT, July 5, 2008 A second man shot as he sat in a vehicle on Chicago's South Side late Thursday has died. Martin Hoard, 29, of the 6000 block of South Indiana Ave., died at Stroger Hospital following the shooting. He was parked in the 6700 block of South State Street when a car pulled up about 10:50 p.m. and fired shots into their vehicle, said Officer Amina Greer, a police spokeswoman. John Duncan, 22, of the 8000 block of South Paulina Street, was pronounced...
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For the first time, the presidential campaign of Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) is about to get a substantial hand from advertisements by an outside group. Conservative and Republican groups have been largely quiet, leaving McCain heavily outmatched by Sen. Barack Obama's campaign fundraising juggernaut. Next week, Vets for Freedom — a 20,000-member, nonpartisan organization established by combat veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan — plans to begin spending more than $1 million on a TV campaign that will include Ohio, Virginia and New Mexico. The group plans to spend millions more and to add other states to the...
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In 1828, President John Quincy Adams's reelection campaign reportedly traded on innuendoes that Rachel Jackson had been imperfectly divorced from her first husband. Since her second husband, Andrew Jackson, once killed a man in a duel for the same insult to his wife's honor, Adams was perhaps lucky to lose no more than the presidency to Old Hickory. So, while there are abundant signs that Republicans this year are itching to take the practice to new lows, let's not forget that attacks on first ladies, actual or putative, go back a long way. And for all of the fear in...
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...It has been rumored that in one year [CNN] spent about 27 million dollars in advertising of Anderson Cooper...the President of CNN told me that Anderson Cooper has a staff of nearly 60. We beat them with our staff…of about 12.
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Libertarian voters make up 4% of the nation’s likely voters and they favor Barack Obama over John McCain by a 53% to 38% margin. Three percent (3%) would vote for some other candidate and 5% are not sure.
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I don't know whether to laugh or cry at the reaction of the liberal Left to the epidemic of stabbed teenage boys that is not merely bereaving family upon family, but is also disfiguring society. They argue it is society's fault. The state, they say, is spending too little on giving the murderers pleasant places to live, and is failing to supply them with recreational facilities or "mentors". Inevitably, therefore, they feel the need to go out and kill: as one does. That this is self-serving, ignorant nonsense should not be in dispute. How to win the argument with these...
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How does the pro-terrorist group Code Pink infiltrate closed events where the U.S. Secret Service is in charge of security? One way is with fake press credentials made by a diarist at the Daily Kos.Code Pink has made a habit of infiltrating events and getting close to officials under the protection of the U.S. Secret Service.Yesterday Code Pink member Desiree Farooz rushed the stage and came dangerously close to President Bush at Monticello. The weekend before she rushed John McCain. Last fall she got close enough to Condoleeza Rice to place her hands around the Secrtary of State's head.At the...
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... Lord Phillips was speaking at the London Muslim Centre, which is part of the East London Mosque. Dr Mohammed Abdul Bari, the head of the Muslim Council of Britain, introduced him. Dr Bari said that British judges must be "sensitive to our divine laws on personal relationships and family matters". How sensitive? Up to four wives at once allowed? He also quoted from the Koran to show the importance of justice in Islam. I looked up the two quotations. The first appears in a chapter called "Women", which says things like: "The male shall inherit twice as much as...
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The D.C. police department is expanding its ShotSpotter network throughout the city in an effort to react faster to gunfire and has plans to link the technology to surveillance cameras in hopes of catching gun-toting criminals in the act. Police said the ShotSpotter technology, which detects and locates gunfire, has aided homicide investigations and improved emergency response in Southeast Washington, where it has been used since August 2006.
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THE HAGUE (AFP) — The Netherlands will ban Iranian students from studying nuclear technology, a source of tension between Iran and world powers, at its universities, the government said Friday. "It is forbidden... to grant Iranian nationals access to special training or teaching that could contribute to nuclear proliferation activities in Iran and the development of systems for transmitting nuclear arms," the foreign ministry said in a statement. Some powers including the United States suspect Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear bomb. Iran insists its nuclear program is aimed at producing energy to serve a growing population. Friday's measure...
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Denmark: Church pays protection money to Muslims to prevent attacks on church-goers With 300,000 inhabitants, Aarhus is the second largest city of in Denmark. In Gellerup, a multicultural suburb of Arhus, the multicultural problems can be seen openly. There are many Muslims and many Kalaallit (the natives of Greenland, which belongs to Denmark). The Muslim citizens of Gellerup tyrannize the indigenous population of Greenland in the sourrounding areas of Arhus (as well as in Greenland) since the summer of 2007 so much that they no longer dare venture out of their homes. Muslims see the Kalaallit as second-class people who...
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Jesse Helms, the North Carolina Republican senator whose uncompromising conservatism made him one of America's leading crusaders against communism, liberalism, tax increases, abortion, homosexuality, affirmative action and court-ordered busing to integrate schools, died yesterday at Mayview Convalescent Center in Raleigh, N.C. He was 86. snip "Next to Ronald Reagan," Fred Barnes wrote in the Weekly Standard in 1997, "Jesse Helms is the most important conservative of the last 25 years."
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MOSCOW (AFP)--A major earthquake with a magnitude of 7.5 hit the region of the Sea of Okhotsk early Saturday, the U.S. Geological Survey said, but no casualties were reported. The epicenter of the quake, at a depth of 605 kilometers, was said to be 384 kilometers west-northwest of the Russian far eastern city of Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy. It occurred at 0212 GMT, the USGS said. No casualties, damage or threat of tsunami was reported, Russian emergency situations ministry officials in Kamchatka said, according to the RIA Novosti news agency. However, tremors were felt in Petropavlovsk-Kamchatskiy, forcing people to briefly leave their homes.
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You've probably heard the relativist line that goes something like this: "'Gay marriage' won't hurt anyone. Live and let live, already!" Well, don't buy it for a minute. With its recent 4-3 opinion - which arrogantly presumed to redefine the millennia-old definition of legitimate marriage - the California Supreme Court daftly divined that the framers of the California Constitution intended - all along, I guess - that Patrick Henry really had a constitutional right to "marry" Henry Patrick. In so doing, four black-robed Dr. Frankensteins have loosed that paradoxical abomination tagged same-sex "marriage" on the countryside. "Abomination," you say?...
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Our reporting partners at the Detroit News are reporting that the FBI has electronic surveillance that links Detroit City Council President Pro Tem Monica Conyers to the Synagro scandal. The evidence reportedly proves that Conyers received either a payment or payments in connection with the city-approved sludge contract.
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Saturday, July 05, 2008 By LOU BRANCACCIO, Columbian editor “It is not necessary to change. Survival is not mandatory.” William Edwards Deming, the guy largely credited with improving production during World War II, had this somewhat sarcastic comment about change. Hey, it’s no big deal if you don’t want to change. Dead isn’t a bad alternative. Well, wait just one second. Most of us aren’t all that enamored with this dead option. So we change. In the 1940s, it was critical to produce war materiel in a much more efficient way. The changes Deming suggested were very important to the...
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Two of Britain's most popular baby buggy brands have joined the front line in the growing global battle between retailers and eBay, the internet auction site. Maclaren and Bugaboo, which together supply just over a third of the pushchairs sold in the UK, are trying to stop new pushchairs being sold through eBay shops for a fixed price. They will be followed by Mamas & Papas, which accounts for another third of the market. It will introduce a strict internet sales policy from September making it almost impossible for independent retailers to sell its products on eBay. The moves come...
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There’s a distracting occupational quirk among New York Times writers who file stories on Iraq. See if you can spot it in these examples pulled from the past year or so. The parade was a response to one held last year in Ramadi by the Mujahedeen Shura Council, an insurgent group linked to Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence officials say has foreign leadership. –October 24, 2007 . . . in search of 200 insurgents with Al Qaeda in Mesopotamia, the largely homegrown Sunni insurgent group that American intelligence says is foreign led and...
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SOURCE Video, charts, audio, and text at the site.
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In a report on Monday’s "The Situation Room" purporting to clarify how Barack Obama "really voted on abortion" (as the graphic on-screen at right stated), CNN correspondent Carol Costello misconstrued the Democrat’s stance on legislation during his time in the Illinois state senate that would have protected infants that survived abortions.Besides the two votes specifically mentioned by Costello in the report, Obama also voted against it at the committee level, and when he was committee chair, denied a simple up or down vote on the legislation. The CNN correspondent also misrepresented the apparent pro-life stance of pro-abortion senators like...
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In an Apr. 10 interview with The Advocate magazine, Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) said "homophobic" messages are coming from the pulpits of black churches because "most African-American churches are still fairly traditional in their interpretations of Scripture." In the same interview, Obama praised the controversial Rev. Jeremiah Wright, his former pastor and long-time spiritual adviser, for being on the right side of the homosexual debate. ... Obama volunteered that his former pastor, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright, was "very good on gay and lesbian issues." ... Black leaders and clregy reacted to Obama's remarks to The Advocate, saying they contradict the...
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Petraeus: “You and your comrades here have been described as America’s new greatest generation, and, in my view, you have more than earned that description. It is the greatest of honors to soldier here with you.”
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True Liberty and Justice for All Ages On July 4th, we are stirred to contemplate our rights. Neither McCain or Obama has planks with the fundamental rights to life, liberty, and pursuit of happiness. Friday, July 04, 2008 James L. Sherley This Independence Day, we find ourselves anticipating a presidential election that stirs up thoughts on the meaning of our rights and the rights of our children. Thus, it is crucial to consider the true meaning of liberty set forth by the founders who forged these words in the Declaration of Independence: "We hold these Truths to be self-evident, that...
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Re: "swiftboating" From StreetInsider.com, July 3, 2008: "The 'Swiftboating' slogan is used by leftist politicians and members of the old media to smear the Swift Vets and other anti-Kerry veterans as liars. The truth is that they were effective because they supported their charges with evidence. A second goal of this tactic is to preempt any criticism of Sen. Obama and the other Democrats they are trying to elect - however accurate and relevant such criticism may be," said Scott Swett, the primary author of To Set the Record Straight. Source: Authors of New Book on Swift Boat Veterans for...
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Exclusive: Islamism and the So-called ‘Muslim Voting Bloc’: Shades of Theocracy M. Zuhdi Jasser July 4, 2008 The modus operandi for the political empowerment of Islamists in America is in full public display during every election cycle. The sad part is few realize how central "Islamic politics" is to the driving force of transnational Islamism and its threat to American security. The incessant attempts by American Islamist groups (like the MAS, CAIR, MPAC, ISNA, ICNA to name a few) to collectivize Muslims in the body politic - from voter registrations to their ideological grievance mill - point to their goals....
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