Wednesday, October 03, 2012

Senate Report Says National Intelligence Fusion Centers Have Been Useless


Huge sums spent to watch flat-screen televisions and report on suspicious bass fishing in Mexico.

BY R. JEFFREY SMITH AT THE CENTER FOR PUBLIC INTEGRITY | OCTOBER 3, 2012


An alarming report published by the Department of Homeland Security in March 2010 called attention to the theft of dozens of pounds of dangerous explosives from an airport storage bunker in Washington state.

Like many such warnings, it drew on information gathered by one of the department's so-called "fusion centers" created to exchange data among state, local and federal officials, all at a cost to the federal government of hundreds of millions of dollars.

There was just one problem with that report, and many others like it: the theft had occurred seven months earlier, and it had been highlighted within five days in a press release by the Justice Department's Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives, which was seeking citizen assistance in tracking down the culprits.

The DHS report's tardiness and its duplication of work by others has been a commonplace failing of work performed by fusion centers nationwide, according to a new investigation of the DHS-funded centers by the Senate Permanent Subcommittee on Investigations.

The centers were created with great fanfare over the past decade by Washington with the aim of redressing gaps in intelligence-sharing among local, state, and federal officials -- gaps documented by probes of the period before the Sept. 2001 attacks, when some of the attackers were stopped by police for traffic violations or other reasons, and then released.

In July 2009, DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano called the fusion centers "a critical part of our nation's homeland security capabilities." About 70 of the centers now exist, located in major cities and nearly all states.

But in its blistering, bipartisan staff report released late Tuesday evening, the panel asserts that the centers -- which were financed by federal taxpayers with the express aim of helping the counter-terror effort -- frequently produced "shoddy, rarely timely" reports that in some cases violated civil liberties or privacy and often had little to do with terrorism.

"Most [relevant reports] were published months after they were received" from fusion centers in Washington, the subcommittee's 107-page account said. And only a fraction of all the reports dealt with terrorism, because no one in Washington forced the centers to stay focused on that topic. The fusion center in southern Nevada -- formally called a Counterterrorism Center -- mostly tracks school violence, according to the report.

"Despite reviewing 13 months' worth of reporting originating from fusion centers from April 1, 2009 to April 30, 2010, the Subcommittee investigation could identify no reporting which uncovered a terrorist threat, nor could it identify a contribution such fusion center reporting made to disrupt an active terrorist plot," the document states. "DHS's involvement with fusion centers appeared not to have yielded timely, useful, terrorism-related intelligence for the federal intelligence community."

Matthew Chandler, a DHS spokesman, condemned the subcommittee's report in a prepared statement, calling it "out of date, inaccurate, and misleading." He also accused the investigators of refusing to review "relevant data," in an apparent reference to their decision not to read fusion centers' reports in classified form.

Chandler further asserted that the subcommittee, which closely scrutinized work produced by the centers in 2009 and 2010 and examined Bush and Obama administration policies through August of this year, had failed to understand that a key role for the centers is to "receive" intelligence information provided by the federal government, not just to produce it. Another Obama administration official, who declined to be identified, said the report "fails to reflect the totality of work done by fusion centers that directly supports our counter-terrorism efforts."

But their comments did not address the report's detailed findings, including its claim that the department cannot estimate how much money it has spent on the centers, and that it has never established any benchmarks for their success or measures of merit for those DHS employees assigned to write, edit, or disseminate their reports.

The subcommittee report, released by chairman Sen. Carl Levin (D-Mich.) and ranking member Tom Coburn (R-Okla.), said the department's estimates of its expenditures on fusion centers ranged from $289 million to $1.4 billion. It also said that DHS has never tried to track or seriously audit how its funds were spent, with the result that tens of thousands of dollars were spent by state or local officials on vehicles, televisions, laptops, and other electronic gear that have yet to be used in counter-terror work.

In San Diego, for example, law enforcement officials used nearly $75,000 to buy 55 flat-screen televisions for "open-source monitoring," a term they said essentially meant watching the news. In Arizona, officials spent $64,000 on televisions and monitors for a "surveillance monitoring room," even though that task was not part of their federal writ and they had no system for analyzing the data they might collect.

Specially-made, rugged laptops purchased by Ohio officials with federal funds wound up in a county medical examiner's office. Millions of dollars in grants were given to a fusion center that DHS publicly claimed to have established in Philadelphia but which the subcommittee discovered did not -- as of August this year -- actually exist.

By operating what is essentially an open-ended grants program, with few rules and no oversight, DHS "is unable to identify what value, if any, it has received from its outlays," the subcommittee report said.

Officials are, for example, supposed to file reports on "suspicious activity" that appears to be related to potential "terrorism or other criminal activity." But the warnings sent to Washington included such humdingers as a notation that a car's fold-down rear seats could be used to hide human trafficking; a claim that two men acted suspiciously in a bass fishing boat near the U.S.-Mexican border; and details of a day-long motivational talk and "lecture on positive parenting" provided by a Muslim organization.

A false report in November 2011 by the fusion center in Illinois could have sparked an international incident, the subcommittee staff wrote. It said the computer system of a municipal water system had been hacked from Russia and that a pump had been deliberately disabled. "Apparently aware of how important such an event could have been had it been real, DHS intelligence officials included the false allegations -- stated as fact -- in a daily intelligence briefing that went to Congress and the intelligence community."

But the reality was almost comically different: local officials had misread an internet contact with the system made five months earlier by a local repair technician on vacation in Russia, according to a subsequent FBI investigation. "The only fact that they got right was that a water pump in a small Illinois water district had burned out." But DHS' intelligence office never corrected its initial alert.

Those who wrote the reports were poorly trained, according to the subcommittee, and reviews were frequently conducted by contract employees that supervisors described in interviews as substandard. Partly as a result, thirty percent of the fusion center reports produced in the 13-month period scrutinized by the subcommittee were killed inside the department because they had violated legal guidelines or they lacked useful information, the investigators determined after multiple interviews with current and former DHS officials.

The information contained in the banished drafts was kept by DHS, however, even when it appeared to violate guidelines, the subcommittee said.

On the relatively few occasions that officials shared information directly relevant to counter-terror efforts, such as reports of contacts between local law enforcement officials and persons named on a federal terrorist list, DHS passed the information to the National Counter Terrorism Center in Washington "several weeks or months" later, according to the subcommittee. The NCTC meanwhile would typically have gotten the same information on the same day as the contact through a competing FBI channel, the report said.

The investigators said many of their criticisms appeared in two internal reports that DHS officials were reluctant to share. One completed in 2010 said that a third of the established centers had no set procedures for sharing information and that most had no stated ambition to prevent a terrorist attack. Another less ambitious review completed in 2011 also found many shortcomings.

"Unfortunately, DHS has resisted oversight of these centers. The Department opted not to inform Congress or the public of serious problems plaguing its fusion center and broader intelligence efforts. When this Subcommittee requested documents that would help it identify these issues, the Department initially resisted turning them over, arguing that they were protected by privilege, too sensitive to share, were protected by confidentiality agreements, or did not exist at all. The American people deserve better. I hope this report will help generate the reforms that will help keep our country safe," Sen. Coburn said.



TIMOTHY A. CLARY/AFP/Getty Images


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Worship With a Bedlam of Noise


Uploaded by t31523 on Dec 5, 2008
Unity Adventist Worship Center choir under the direction Of Clarissa Rougely


~+~


It is impossible to estimate too largely the work that the Lord will accomplish through His proposed vessels in carrying out His mind and purpose. The things you have described as taking place in Indiana, the Lord has shown me would take place just before the close of probation. Every uncouth thing will be demonstrated. There will be shouting, with drums, music, and dancing. The senses of rational beings will become so confused that they cannot be trusted to make right decisions. And this is called the moving of the Holy Spirit.

The Holy Spirit never reveals itself in such methods, in such a bedlam of noise. This is an invention of Satan to cover up his ingenious methods for making of none effect the pure, sincere, elevating, ennobling, sanctifying truth for this time. Better never have the worship of God blended with music than to use musical instruments to do the work which last January was represented to me would be brought into our camp meetings. The truth for this time needs nothing of this kind in its work of converting souls. A bedlam of noise shocks the senses and perverts that which if conducted aright might be a blessing. The powers of satanic agencies blend with the din and noise, to have a carnival, and this is termed the Holy Spirit’s working. 

Selected Messages Book 2, p.36.

~+~



Uploaded by skuzme on Apr 9, 2011
praise team @ AWC

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Tuesday, October 02, 2012

Martin Luther : Men Should Not Speculate About the Nature of God


The Apostle adds to the salutation the words, “and from our Lord Jesus Christ.” Was it not enough to say, “from God the Father”?

It is a principle of the Bible that we are not to inquire curiously into the nature of God. “There shall no man see me, and live,” Exodus 33:20. All who trust in their own merits to save them disregard this principle and lose sight of the Mediator, Jesus Christ.

True Christian theology does not inquire into the nature of God, but into God’s purpose and will in Christ, whom God incorporated in our flesh to live and to die for our sins. There is nothing more dangerous than to speculate about the incomprehensible power, wisdom, and majesty of God when the conscience is in turmoil over sin. To do so is to lose God altogether because God becomes intolerable when we seek to measure and to comprehend His infinite majesty.

We are to seek God as Paul tells us in I Corinthians 1:23, 24: “We preach Christ crucified, unto the Jews a stumbling block, and unto the Greeks foolishness; but unto them which are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God, and the wisdom of God.” Begin with Christ. He came down to earth, lived among men, suffered, was crucified, and then He died, standing clearly before us, so that our hearts and eyes may fasten upon Him. Thus we shall be kept from climbing into heaven in a curious and futile search after the nature of God.

If you ask how God may be found, who justifies sinners, know that there is no other God besides this man Christ Jesus. Embrace Him, and forget about the nature of God. But these fanatics who exclude our Mediator in their dealings with God, do not believe me. Did not Christ Himself say: “I am the way, and the truth, and the life: no man cometh unto the Father, but by me”? Without Christ there is no access to the Father, but futile rambling; no truth, but hypocrisy; no life, but eternal death.

When you argue about the nature of God apart from the question of justification, you may be as profound as you like. But when you deal with conscience and with righteousness over against the law, sin, death, and the devil, you must close your mind to all inquiries into the nature of God, and concentrate upon Jesus Christ, who says, “Come unto me, all ye that labor and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.” Doing this, you will recognize the power, and majesty condescending to your condition according to Paul’s statement to the Colossians, “In Christ are hid all the treasures of wisdom and knowledge,” and, “In him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily.” Paul in wishing grace and peace not alone from God the Father, but also from Jesus Christ, wants to warn us against the curious incursions into the nature of God. We are to hear Christ, who has been appointed by the Father as our divine Teacher.

Source.


Hugo Chavez Supports Obama


Monday October 1, 2012 Posted 1 day, 2 hours ago by Seth Mela

Hugo Chavez: ‘If I Were American, I‘d Vote for Obama’

-TheBlaze.com
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez has offered his endorsement of President Barack Obama’s re-election.
And not just that, he think Obama would vote for him too.
“If I were American, I’d vote for Obama,” Chavez said in a televised interview that aired Sunday, according to the Associated Press.
Chavez is seeking another six-year term in an election next weekend. According to Reuters, he’s confident that if it were possible, he‘d have Obama’s support.
“Obama is a good guy … I think that if Obama was from Barlovento or some Caracas neighborhood, he’d vote for Chavez,” he said.
It’s a kinder assessment than the one Chavez gave last year, when he reportedly called Obama “a clown” and “an embarrassment.” Chavez famously referred to then-President George W. Bush as “the devil” in 2006.
According to the AP, Chavez also said he’d like to have “normal” relations with the U.S. Obama was criticized in July after he said Chavez has not been a “serious” national security threat in recent years.

What bothers me is WHY would a man like Chavez want to support Obama?  What is it about the character of both men are similar?  Why does Chaves support the political agenda of Obama?  These are serious issues to consider...  what do you think?

A punch captured on video scars a Philadelphia police officer's career

Posted: Tue, Oct. 2, 2012, 6:55 AM
By Allison Steele, Aubrey Whelan and Mike Newall

Inquirer Staff Writers




A still taken from video during Sunday's Puerto Rican Day celebration shows Lt. Jonathan Josey striking Aida Guzman, 39, of Chester.

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In his 19-year career as a Philadelphia police officer, Lt. Jonathan Josey has shot and killed an armed robber, endured a stabbing that put him out of work for months, and written newspaper columns on criminal justice. Josey, 39, has also acted in independent films, tried his hand at comedy, and was named a Philadelphia Daily News "Sexy Single" in 2006.

But on Monday, Josey gained national notoriety in the worst way - as the villain in a real-life YouTube video of him punching a woman in the face during Sunday's Puerto Rican Day celebration.

Josey, who is assigned to the highway patrol unit, has been placed on desk duty. The department's Internal Affairs bureau is investigating the incident, which took place in North Philadelphia in the midst of a throng of revelers.

Deputy Police Commissioner Richard Ross called the footage "disturbing."

"I'm not going to sit here and tell you I didn't have a reaction to it," Ross said. "It's of grave concern."

Rochelle Bilal, president of the Guardian Civic League, which represents the city's black police officers, said Josey would not comment pending the outcome of the investigation. Bilal, who knows Josey well, said she did not know what preceded the video, but she said she would not have thought such actions were in keeping with Josey's character.

"What I've seen is not what I would like any police officer to do to anyone," Bilal said. "I don't know what the investigation is going to reveal. . . . But to me, that behavior is deplorable."

The 35-second video, shot on a cellphone and uploaded to YouTube, quickly spread to national websites Monday morning. It was shot near Fifth Street and Lehigh Avenue on Sunday during a street party that traditionally takes place after the city's annual Puerto Rican Day parade, which was dedicated this year to "The Puerto Rican Woman."

The video captured Josey striking Aida Guzman, 39, of Chester, and Guzman falling to the ground and then being hauled off in handcuffs, her face bloodied.

Seconds before the punch, Guzman can be seen walking and talking near a group of officers clustered around a car. Someone in the crowd (not Guzman) is seen throwing liquid into the air, and Guzman jumps up and down behind the group, holding what appears to be a can or a bottle.

Police said they believed that Guzman threw water or beer at the officers and that as Guzman turned and walked away from the group, Josey walked toward her and knocked her to the ground with a blow to the face.

Standing outside her house in Chester on Monday, Guzman that she threw nothing that that she did not see Josey moving toward her until he punched her. With her 19-year-old daughter, Kay, translating her Spanish, Guzman said she felt sick about what happened.

Guzman showed reporters her split lip and scraped elbows and knuckles. After hitting her, Guzman said, the 6-foot-3, 215-pound Josey handed her a summons for disorderly conduct for throwing a water bottle at police.

"If she did it or if she didn't, he had no right to hit her like that," Kay Guzman said. "The video says everything. We are angry."

Aida Guzman, who has five children and works three housekeeping jobs, took her two young children to the parade Sunday and typically goes every year, she said.

Guzman has not decided whether she will pursue the matter, saying she wants to discuss it with her husband first. She said she did not wish Josey harm but did want him punished.

Police are asking that witnesses call the Internal Affairs unit at 215-685-5056.

Tasha Jamerson, a spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office, said the office cannot act until Internal Affairs has investigated thoroughly.

City Councilwoman Maria Quiñones Sánchez, who helped organize the parade, said that she spoke with Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey Monday and that Ramsey was particularly upset because the incident involved a commanding officer.

Josey has worked in the 18th Police District and the Narcotics Field Unit and has served as the vice president of the Guardian Civic League. He is well regarded by many in the department, Ross said.

"He is known for being in the right place at the right time, as far as staving off criminal activity," Ross said. "Nobody's ever going to question the fact that he's a very active officer."

Since joining the force in 1993, he has amassed 13 citizen complaints, most of which were filed by people who claimed Josey verbally or physically abused them. The allegations were deemed unfounded or unable to be substantiated, records show.

In 2007 the city paid $7,500 to settle a lawsuit that alleged Josey threw a man against a wall in West Oak Lane, then kicked and punched him while looking for a fellow officer's stolen gun.

In March 2010, when Josey was off-duty, he walked into a 7-Eleven in Bala Cynwyd and interrupted an armed robbery by Kenneth DeShields. When DeShields fled, Josey pursued him and fired when DeShields reached for a gun in his waistband. Josey was cited for bravery by the Citizens Crime Commission and cleared in the shooting.

Three months later, early July 4, Josey was off duty and outside a West Philadelphia bar with another officer when he saw two women arguing with an off-duty female officer. When he intervened, one of the women swung her purse at him, then went to her car, returning with a knife that she plunged three inches into Josey's lower back.

After a Common Pleas Court jury found the woman guilty of aggravated assault, she was sentenced to nine to 20 years in prison. In a letter Josey submitted at the sentencing, he recounted sitting on the sidewalk, bleeding profusely, wondering if he would survive.

Josey was hospitalized for two days, he said, and spent two months recovering. In asking the judge to impose a stiff sentence, he wrote of "the emotional and psychological scars that this incident left me with that I still battle."

Outside work, Josey has acted in several independent movies, according to IMDb.com, and he runs a production company called Brothers in Blue with a friend who is a paramedic.

In 2006, Josey was profiled as one of the Daily News' "Sexy Singles." In the feature, Josey said his "secret wish" was to run for mayor.

Josey also published several editorials in the Philadelphia Daily News. In one, published after the fatal shooting of an armed man in Germantown, Josey blasted critics of the Police Department.

"It never fails that any time a Philadelphia police officer uses deadly force during the course of his duties, along come the cries of outrage from the neighborhood," Josey wrote. "When an officer shoots someone, witnesses come out of the woodwork, but when reckless hoodlums lay siege to these same streets, nobody sees a thing."



Contact Allison Steele at 215-854-2641 or asteele@phillynews.com.

Staff writer Jonathan Lai contributed to this article.



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2 US Border agents shot, 1 killed, near major drug corridor in Arizona


DEVELOPING: Two U.S. Border Patrol agents were shot, one fatally, Tuesday morning in an area in south Arizona known as a major drug-smuggling corridor, authorities said.

The identities of the agents were not immediately released, but the shooting occurred at the Brian Terry Station near Naco, Ariz., which is just south of Tucson. The station was named after an agent who was killed in the line of duty in December 2010. The area is considered a remote part of the state and sources tell Fox News that the shooting occurred about 8 miles from the border.

The injured agent was airlifted to a hospital with nonlife-threatening injuries.

The search for the killer is being led by the Federal Bureau of Investigation and the Cochise County Sheriff's Office.

Two weeks ago, the station was named after Brian Terry, who died in a shootout in December 2010 not far from Tuesday's shooting.

In Terry's shooting, two guns found at the scene were bought by a member of a gun-smuggling ring that was being monitored in the Fast and Furious investigation. Critics have knocked U.S. federal authorities for allowing informants to walk away from Phoenix-area gun shops with weapons, rather than immediately arresting suspects.

Source: http://www.foxnews.com/us/2012/10/02/2-us-border-agents-shot-1-killed-near-major-drug-cooridor-in-arizona/#ixzz289AcJqFW

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Churches using 'souls to polls' to rally vote

BY CURT ANDERSON
Associated Press


Pablo Martinez Monsivais
President Barack Obama makes phone calls to supporters during a visit to a local campaign office, Monday, Oct. 1, 2012 in Henderson, Nev.

http://twitter.com/Miamicurt



MIAMI -- It's not just the collection plate that's getting passed around this fall at hundreds of mainly African-American and Latino churches in presidential battleground states and across the nation.

Exhorting congregations to register to vote, church leaders are distributing registration cards in the middle of services, and many are pledging caravans of "souls to the polls" to deliver the vote.

The stepped-up effort in many states is a response by activists worried that new election rules, from tougher photo identification requirements to fewer days of early voting, are unfairly targeting minority voters - specifically, African-Americans who tend to vote heavily for Democrats. Some leaders compare their registration and get-out-the-vote efforts to the racial struggle that led to the 1965 Voting Rights Act.

"In light of all this, we are saying just let our people vote," said the Rev. Dawn Riley Duval, social justice minister at the Shorter Community A.M.E. Church in Denver. "The people are being oppressed by these measures. It has ignited a sense of urgency and collective power that we can take by engaging in the process."

In key swing states such as Florida and Ohio, proponents of the new election rules deny they are aimed at suppressing the minority vote in hopes of helping Republicans win more races. Reasons for their enactment vary between rooting out fraud and purging ineligible voters to streamlining the voting process.

But to some African-American leaders like the Rev. F.E. Perry, a Cleveland-based bishop in Ohio's Church of God in Christ, it's as if the 1960s barriers to black civil rights have returned all over again.

"We've come too far to sit idly by and watch that happen," Perry said. "We want to get souls to the polls. Whatever it takes to get them there, that's what we're going to do."

With national public opinion surveys showing a close race between President Barack Obama and Republican nominee Mitt Romney, even a few votes either way in a state such as Florida - a mere 537 votes decided the 2000 contest between Republican George W. Bush and Democrat Al Gore - could prove decisive. In 2008, Obama won 95 percent of black voters and is likely to get an overwhelming majority again. He also won among Latinos, a rapidly growing constituency that also tilts heavily toward the Democrat in polls this year.

But any loss of votes would sting.

To be sure, not all clergy are encouraging their flocks to turn out on Election Day: Some black pastors are telling their congregations to stay home, seeing no good presidential choice between a Mormon candidate and one who supports gay marriage. The pastors say their congregants are asking how a true Christian could back same-sex marriage, as Obama did in May. As for Romney, the first Mormon nominee from a major party, some congregants are questioning the theology of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and its former ban on men of African descent in the priesthood.

Those pastors, however, are in the minority.

Many Democrats see a pattern of partisanship in many of the new election laws, which they contend are intended to hinder minority turnout and boost the prospects of GOP candidates.

"I pray it's not politics, but I don't know. It doesn't look like anything other than politics," said the Rev. Richard Dunn, pastor at Faith Community Baptist Church in Miami.

One organization, the faith-based PICO National Network, staged a "Let My People Vote Sunday" in September in which about 300 churches around the country held voter registration drives during services and recruited churchgoers to go out and register even more people. The goal was to sign up around 75,000 people, PICO policy director Gordon Whitman said.

"People are stopping in the middle of worship to have people pull out the registration forms and fill them out. It's about the church saying, 'We are going to participate in this process,'" Whitman said.

In many states with early voting, the Sunday before Election Day in 2008 was a church-based political event in which minority congregations went en masse to polling places and cast their ballots. That year in Florida, 33.2 percent of all African-American voters and 23.6 percent of Latino voters cast ballots on that final Sunday, according to the Brennan Center for Justice at New York University.

In Ohio in 2008, Whitman said about 100,000 people voted during the last weekend before the election. A new Ohio law would have cut off early voting on the Friday before the election, but a federal judge declared it unconstitutional because some groups such as military personnel were exempted. The state is appealing that ruling.

This year in Florida, a new election law eliminated early voting on that last Sunday, although there is a Sunday for early voting about a week and a half earlier. Dunn, the Miami pastor, said he expects most churches will shift to that earlier day, which falls on Oct. 28 this year.

"Sunday in the African-American tradition is one of the biggest days historically in our community," he said. "You have large numbers of people who go to church. Pastors aren't saying who to vote for, but they are saying, 'This is souls to the polls day.'"

Florida's law was also challenged in federal court, but a judge ruled in September there wasn't enough proof that the change would harm African-Americans' right to vote. The judge also noted that, unlike the previous law, the new rules required at least one Sunday for early voting.

Meanwhile, from the pulpit, some churches are even using a litany that calls upon congregations to remember the fight to obtain the vote as well as other civil rights. One such script distributed by PICO (it stands for People Improving Communities by Organizing) mentions the Rev. Martin Luther King, the bloody march in Selma, Ala., and many other civil rights milestones.

"We remember thousands of little towns where countless, unnamed ancestors stood in their dignity to cast a ballot," the script says. "In 2012 we will not be silent or denied the right to vote. For we have come too far by faith."


Follow Curt Anderson on Twitter: http://twitter.com/Miamicurt

Posted on Tue, Oct. 02, 2012 02:16 AM



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Monday, October 01, 2012

Shocking moment cop sucker punch woman during parade



VIDEO: Watch the moment a Philly cop cold clocks a reveler





http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2211276/Puerto-Rican-Day-Parade-Cop-floored-woman-single-punch-thought-threw-water-him.html

Ryan won’t call for Rice’s resignation



By Justin Sink 10/01/12 02:03 PM ET
GOP vice presidential candidate Paul Ryan said Monday that he would "let other people speak on" whether U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice should resign, after some of his Republican colleagues in the House called for her to step down.
"We're making these judgments after we have all the facts," Ryan said of the Romney campaign during an interview on the Laura Ingraham Show. "We don't have all of the facts surrounding this particular person, but we do know the administration has been extremely inconsistent, we do know that was a pre-planned terrorist attack, and the point I'm trying to make is we need to get all the facts to prevent it from happening again."
House Homeland Security Committee Chairman Pete King (R-N.Y.) told CNN on Friday that he believed Rice should resign after the ambassador said that an amateur anti-Islam video posted to YouTube had sparked deadly attacks on U.S. installations throughout the Middle East. 
GOP lawmakers questioned that explanation and called on the administration last week to provide more details about the violence at the U.S. Consulate in Benghazi, Libya, that left four American foreign service officers dead. On Friday, the administration said that new information suggested that the assault was a "deliberate and organized terrorist attack."
In his interview with CNN, King said Rice's explanation was "a failure of foreign policy message and leadership" and "a misstatement of facts."
Ryan also blasted Rice's initial explanation in the interview, but repeatedly stopped short of calling for the ambassador's resignation.
"Hey look, I mean, we've seen a confused, slow, inconsistent response to what is now very clearly known as a terrorist attack. To simply conclude right away it was a spontaneous mob is in the face of the facts," Ryan said. "The key is that we get the full story so we can make sure something like this never happens again."
And the Wisconsin lawmaker said Rice's case differed from that of Attorney General Eric Holder, whom he has previously called on to resign. Ryan said that unlike the Justice Department's botched "Fast and Furious" gun-tracking program, the administration response to the violent protests in the Middle East had not been thoroughly investigated.

Democrats have defended Rice from Republican calls for her resignation.

“I’m deeply disturbed by efforts to find the politics instead of finding the facts in this debate,” Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) said in a written statement. “I’m particularly troubled by calls for Ambassador Rice’s resignation. She is a remarkable public servant for whom the liberation of the Libyan people has been a personal issue and a public mission. She’s an enormously capable person who has represented us at the United Nations with strength and character.”

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Highlights From Univision’s Bombshell Fast & Furious Report



October 1, 2012 | | Posted by Doug Johnson

Here’s a summary of some of the new information unearthed in Univision’s Fast & Furious investigation that aired on Aqui y Ahora (Here and Now) last night. Information provided by ABC/Univision:
1. Fast and Furious Guns Used in Infamous Massacre
Mexican military reports show that at least three guns from Fast and Furious were used in the Salvarcar massacre in 2010. A total of 15 people died in that incident, most of them teens. They were gunned down by the Juarez cartel, which mistook the group for rival Sinaloa cartel members. According to one document, the weapons entered Mexico illegally through a border point near Columbus, New Mexico.
2. 57 Previously Unidentified Weapons Surface
Univision cross-referenced the serial numbers off guns used in Fast and Furious against guns seized in Mexico. Nearly 100 of those weapons were used in crimes, and 57 of them were not mentioned in an investigation carried out by the U.S. Congress.
3. Mexico Knew About Fast and Furious
Andrew Selee, vice president for programs at the Woodrow Wilson Center in Washington D.C. says the Mexican government was aware of the gun-walking, in spite of releasing a statement saying they were not. William Newell, the special agent in charge of ATF’s Phoenix field division and one of the supervisors of Fast and Furious, told Univision, via his attorney, that the Procuraduria General De La Republica (PGR) in Mexico was certainly aware of the operation.
4. U.S. Gun-Walking Operations Extended to Other Countries
Fast and Furious was not the only ATF operation of its kind that went awry. In Operation Castaway, Hugh Crumpler, a former ATF informant, told Univision News the ATF deliberately allowed guns to pass into Honduras, Puerto Rico and Colombia. Several of those weapons have already been found at crime scenes and in the hands of local cartels. In an email message, the ATF claims that they “found out about the weapons when they had already been shipped.”
5. U.S. Agents Were Attacked with U.S. Weapons
Victor Avila and Jaime Zapata, two U.S. Federal Agents assigned to the U.S. Embassy in Mexico, were in the process of transporting surveillance equipment when their vehicle was surrounded by cartel members and shot more than 90 times. Zapata died and Avila was seriously wounded.
Prior to traveling into the region, Avila reached out to a supervisor expressing concerns over security that were backed by a U.S. State Department document which forbade U.S. Embassy employees from traveling in that area. The reason: It was heavily controlled by the Zetas cartel. According to an exclusive interview with Avila, the supervisor did not share his concerns. Three of the guns used in this shootout were also from a gun-walking operation, but not Fast and Furious.
You can see a 9 minute segment of the report below.
There’s a lot more to the report that isn’t yet available. Since ABC and Univision have a news partnership one would suspect that ABC will eventually air some or all of the report. It’s time to take to Twitter to ask every ABC News anchor and correspondent when they will be airing the piece.

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And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour



Revelation 17

King James Version (KJV)


1 And there came one of the seven angels which had the seven vials, and talked with me, saying unto me, Come hither; I will shew unto thee the judgment of the great whore that sitteth upon many waters:

2 With whom the kings of the earth have committed fornication, and the inhabitants of the earth have been made drunk with the wine of her fornication.

3 So he carried me away in the spirit into the wilderness: and I saw a woman sit upon a scarlet coloured beast, full of names of blasphemy, having seven heads and ten horns.

4 And the woman was arrayed in purple and scarlet colour, and decked with gold and precious stones and pearls, having a golden cup in her hand full of abominations and filthiness of her fornication:

5 And upon her forehead was a name written, Mystery, Babylon The Great, The Mother Of Harlots And Abominations Of The Earth.

6 And I saw the woman drunken with the blood of the saints, and with the blood of the martyrs of Jesus: and when I saw her, I wondered with great admiration.

7 And the angel said unto me, Wherefore didst thou marvel? I will tell thee the mystery of the woman, and of the beast that carrieth her, which hath the seven heads and ten horns.

8 The beast that thou sawest was, and is not; and shall ascend out of the bottomless pit, and go into perdition: and they that dwell on the earth shall wonder, whose names were not written in the book of life from the foundation of the world, when they behold the beast that was, and is not, and yet is.

9 And here is the mind which hath wisdom. The seven heads are seven mountains, on which the woman sitteth.

10 And there are seven kings: five are fallen, and one is, and the other is not yet come; and when he cometh, he must continue a short space.

11 And the beast that was, and is not, even he is the eighth, and is of the seven, and goeth into perdition.

12 And the ten horns which thou sawest are ten kings, which have received no kingdom as yet; but receive power as kings one hour with the beast.

13 These have one mind, and shall give their power and strength unto the beast.

14 These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

15 And he saith unto me, The waters which thou sawest, where the whore sitteth, are peoples, and multitudes, and nations, and tongues.

16 And the ten horns which thou sawest upon the beast, these shall hate the whore, and shall make her desolate and naked, and shall eat her flesh, and burn her with fire.

17 For God hath put in their hearts to fulfil his will, and to agree, and give their kingdom unto the beast, until the words of God shall be fulfilled.

18 And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth.

Supreme Court Justices attend annual Red Mass

Sep. 30, 2012 1:00 PM ET

By STACY A. ANDERSON, Associated Press  

Cardinal Archbishop of Washington Donald Wuerl, bottom center, speaks with U.S. Supreme Court Justice Anthony Kennedy, left, as Justices Elena Kagan, center right, and Stephen Breyer, top right, all talk on the steps of the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle after the 60th annual Red Mass at in Washington on Sunday Sept. 30, 2012. The Red Mass is held traditionally in Washington the day before the Supreme Court’s new term opens. (AP Photo/Jose Luis Magana)



 (AP) — An American archbishop has reminded a congregation that included six Supreme Court justices Sunday to be open to the spirit of God, beg for his blessings and "strive to be instruments of a new evangelization."

The Archdiocese of Washington says Justices John Roberts, Antonin Scalia, Elena Kagan, Anthony Kennedy, Clarence Thomas and Stephen Breyer were at the Cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle for Red Mass, celebrated the Sunday before the Supreme Court begins its new term.

The Most Rev. Timothy Broglio, archbishop for the military services, said the Mass was also "a moment to pause and pray for those who serve our country and foster justice for all."

The John Carroll Society, a group of Roman Catholic Washington professionals, has organized the Red Mass at the cathedral since 1953.

Source

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Sunday, September 30, 2012

The Little Time of Trouble


LandMarks Magazine 

Who will be blamed for all the trouble?

By Lawrence Nelson

For thus saith the Lord; We have heard a voice of trembling, of fear, and not of peace. Ask ye now, and see whether a man doth travail with child? Wherefore do I see every man with his hands on his loins, as a woman in travail and all faces are turned into paleness? Alas, for that day is great, so that none is like it: it is even the time of Jacob’s trouble; but he shall be saved out of it." Jeremiah 30:5–7.

God has not left us to wonder about the meaning of this Scripture, for the Spirit of Prophecy opens up the magnitude of this crisis. "The ‘time of trouble such as never was,’ is soon to open upon us; and we shall need an experience which we do not now possess and which many are too indolent to obtain. It is often the case that trouble is greater in anticipation than in reality; but this is not true of the crisis before us. The most vivid presentation cannot reach the magnitude of the ordeal." The Great Controversy, 622.

The little time of trouble occurs prior to the close of probation and will be experienced by all the living saints. When they receive the latter rain, they give the loud cry with divine power, warning all the inhabitants of the earth that they must make a final decision for or against God. Then probation will close and immediately the great time of trouble will commence. "And at the commencement of the time of trouble, we were filled with the Holy Ghost as we went forth and proclaimed the Sabbath more fully."Early Writings, 33.

There is no question. When the little time of trouble begins, the latter rain falls, the saints are sealed and the loud cry is given. This is made positively clear in the following quotation. "‘The commencement of that time of trouble,’ here mentioned, [on page 33] does not refer to the time when the plagues shall begin to be poured out, but to a short period just before they are poured out, while Christ is in the sanctuary. At that time, while the work of salvation is closing, trouble will be coming on the earth, and the nations will be angry, yet held in check so as not to prevent the work of the third angel." Early Writings, 85.

When the national Sunday law is adopted by the United States of America, the papal power will be so in control of the New World Order that it will force all nations to immediately follow the Sunday law in America, making it a universal law. It will be accepted by all nations and falsely believed to be the beginning of the great millenium of peace that will lead the entire world to be converted to God.

"Papists, Protestants, and the worldlings will alike accept the form of godliness without the power, and they will see in this union a great movement for the conversion of the world and the ushering in of the long-expected millenium." The Great Controversy, 588.

We know what the true results will be. "When the reasoning of philosophy has banished the fears of God’s judgments; when religious teachers are pointing forward to long ages of peace and prosperity, and the world are absorbed in their rounds of business and pleasure, planting and building, feasting and merrymaking, rejecting God’s warnings and mocking His messengers —then it is that sudden destruction cometh upon them, and they shall not escape. 1 Thessalonians 5:3." Patriarchs and Prophets, 104.

The people of the world believe that the New World Order program will bring a millenium of peace in which everyone will be saved, but God will permit calamities to awaken the honest in heart to see the need to obey God or perish. "Calamities will come—calamities most awful, most unexpected; and these destructions will follow one after another. If there will be a heeding of the warning that God has given, and if churches will repent, returning to their allegiance, then other cities may be spared for a time. But if men who have been deceived continue in the same way in which they have been walking, disregarding the law of God and presenting falsehoods before the people, God allows them to suffer calamity, that their senses may be awakened." Evangelism, 27.

Here again we see a picture of a loving God, who, as a loving Father, is not willing that any of His children should perish. This is why these disasters gradually get worse, giving time for the Third Angel’s Message to do its work.

"Angels are now restraining the winds of strife, until the world shall be warned of its coming doom; but a storm is gathering, ready to burst upon the earth, and when God shall bid His angels loose the winds, there will be such a scene of strife as no pen can picture . . ."A moment of respite has been graciously given us of God. Every power lent us of heaven is to be used in doing the work assigned us by the Lord for those who are perishing in ignorance." Evangelism, 704.

It is during this little time of trouble that God gives a last chance to the world to accept His law. "Soon strife among the nations will break out with an intensity that we do not now anticipate. The present is a time of overwhelming interest to all living. Rulers and statesmen, men who occupy positions of trust and authority, thinking men and women of all classes, have their attention fixed upon the events taking place about us. They are watching the strained, restless relations that exist among the nations. They observe the intensity that is taking possession of every earthly element. And they realize that something great and decisive is about to take place, that the world is on the verge of a stupendous crisis." Maranatha,174.

This is why we will finish the work under the most dire circumstances during this little time of trouble. "While the work of salvation is closing, trouble will be coming on the earth, and the nations will be angry, yet held in check so as not to prevent the work of the third angel. At that time the ‘latter rain,’ or refreshing from the presence of the Lord, will come, to give power to the loud voice of the third angel, and prepare the saints to stand in the period when the seven last plagues will be poured out." Early Writings, 85.

God has foreseen what is coming and has made the necessary preparations for us to be refreshed by the latter rain and with the power of the mighty angel to give the loud cry. Oh, it will not be long until the climax is reached and Jesus will come!

"Satan works through the elements also to garner his harvest of unprepared souls. He has studied the secrets of the laboratories of nature and he uses all his power to control the elements as far as God allows. While appearing to the children of men as a great physician who can heal all their maladies, he will bring disease and disaster until populous cities are reduced to ruin and desolation. Even now he is at work. In accidents and calamities by sea and by land; in great conflagrations, in fierce tornadoes and terrific hailstorms, in tempests, floods, cyclones, tidal waves, and earthquakes, in every place and in a thousand forms, Satan is exercising his power. He sweeps away the ripening harvest, and famine and distress follow. He imparts to the air a deadly taint, and thousands perish by the pestilence. These visitations are to become more and more frequent and disastrous. Destruction will be upon both man and beast." The Great Controversy (1888 edition), 589.

Satan’s purpose in such destruction will be to blame God’s faithful for these terrible judgments. "As men depart further and further from God, Satan is permitted to have power over the children of disobedience. He hurls destruction among men. There is calamity by land and sea. Property and life are destroyed by fire and flood. Satan resolves to charge this upon those who refuse to bow to the idol which he has set up. His agents point to Seventh-day Adventists as the cause of the trouble. ‘These people stand out in defiance of law,’ they say. ‘They desecrate Sunday. Were they compelled to obey the law for Sunday observance, there would be a cessation of these terrible judgments.’ " Maranatha, 176.

Finally the Sunday violators will be declared to be the cause of all that is taking place in this little time of trouble. "Satan puts his interpretation upon events, and they [leading men] think, as he would have them, that the calamities which fill the land are a result of Sunday-breaking. Thinking to appease the wrath of God, these influential men make laws enforcing Sunday observance. They think that by exalting this false rest-day higher, and still higher, compelling obedience to the Sunday law, the spurious sabbath, they are doing God service. Those who honor God by observing the true Sabbath are looked upon as disloyal to God, when it is really those who thus regard them who are themselves disloyal, because they are trampling under foot the Sabbath originated in Eden." Maranatha, 176.

Thus the entire world under the papal power will turn against God’s people. Sabbath-keepers will be hated and plans will be made to utterly destroy them. "The whole world is to be stirred with enmity against Seventh-day Adventists, because they will not yield homage to the papacy, by honoring Sunday, the institution of this antichristian power. It is the purpose of Satan to cause them to be blotted from the earth, in order that his supremacy of the world may not be disputed." Testimonies to Ministers,37.

Such wicked plans will draw the attention of the honest in heart, to the belief and teaching of God’s remnant church in such a way as is now thought impossible. In fact, the attention of the entire world will be riveted on our beliefs. "Every position of truth taken by our people will bear the criticism of the greatest minds; the highest of the world’s great men will be brought in contact with truth and therefore every position we take should be critically examined and tested by the Scriptures." Evangelism, 69.

Study and Prepare

Now we seem to be unnoticed, but this will not always be. Movements are at work to bring us to the front, and if our theories of truth can be picked to pieces by historians or the world’s greatest men, it will be done. We must know for ourselves what the truth is and be prepared to give a reason for the hope that we have with meekness and fear. (See 1 Peter 3:15.)

We are nearing the time when we shall stand alone to answer for our beliefs. But the strength of God’s remnant will be found in their obedience and knowledge of His word. "The powers of darkness will open their batteries upon us; and all who are indifferent and careless, who have set their affections on their earthly treasure, and who have not cared to understand God’s dealings with His people, will be ready victims. No power but a knowledge of the truth as it is in Jesus, will ever make us steadfast; but with this, one may chase a thousand, and two put ten thousand to flight." Maranatha, 217.

This is why we have been urged to study and prepare for what is sure to come. We will have to bear our testimony before courts and councils. "You know not where you may be called upon to give your witness of truth. Many will have to stand in the legislative courts; some will have to stand before kings and before the learned of the earth, to answer for their faith. Those who have only a superficial understanding of truth will not be able clearly to expound the Scriptures, and give definite reasons for their faith. They will become confused, and will not be workmen that need not be ashamed. Let no one imagine that he has no need to study, because he is not to preach in the sacred desk. You know not what God may require of you." Fundamentals of Christian Education, 217.

"The time is not far off when the people of God will be called upon to give their testimony before the rulers of the earth. Not one in twenty has a realization of what rapid strides we are making toward the great crisis in our history. There is no time for vanity, for trifling, for engaging the mind in unimportant matters." Maranatha, 253.

"The Lord Jesus will give the disciples a tongue and wisdom that their adversaries can neither gainsay nor resist. Those who could not by reasoning overcome satanic delusions, will bear an affirmative testimony that will baffle supposedly learned men. Words will come from the lips of the unlearned with such convincing power and wisdom that conversions will be made to the truth. Thousands will be converted under their testimony.

"Why should the illiterate man have this power, which the learned man has not? The illiterate one, through faith in Christ, has come into the atmosphere of pure, clear truth, while the learned man has turned away from the truth. The poor man is Christ’s witness. He cannot appeal to the histories or so-called high science, but he gathers from the Word of God powerful evidence. The truth that he speaks under the inspiration of the Spirit, is so pure and remarkable and carries with it a power so indisputable, that his testimony cannot be gainsaid." Maranatha, 252.

Persecution

God’s people will be persecuted during this time of trouble. This will take place during the loud cry before probation closes. But thank God such persecutions will be limited. "Persecution in its varied forms is the development of the principle which will exist as long as Satan exists and Christianity has vital power . . . But so long as Jesus remains man’s intercessor in the sanctuary above, the restraining influence of the Holy Spirit is felt by rulers and people. It still controls to some extent the laws of the land. Were it not for these laws, the conditions of the world would be much worse than it now is. While many of our rulers are active agents of Satan, God also has His agents among the leading men of the nations. The enemy moves upon his servants to propose measures that would greatly impede the work of God; but statesmen who fear the Lord are influenced by holy angels to oppose such propositions with unanswerable arguments. Thus a few men will hold in check a powerful current of evil. The opposition of the enemies of truth will be restrained that the Third Angel’s Message may do its work. When the final warning shall be given, it will arrest the attention of these leading men through whom the Lord is now working, and some of them will accept it, and will stand with the people of God through the time of trouble." The Great Controversy, 610, 611.

"As Christ was hated without cause, so will His people be hated because they are obedient to the commandments of God. If He who was pure, holy, and undefiled, who did good and only good in our world, was treated as a base criminal and condemned to death, His disciples must expect but similar treatment, however faultless may be their life and blameless their character.

"Human enactments, laws manufactured by satanic agencies under a plea of goodness and restriction of evil, will be exalted, while God’s holy commandments are despised and trampled under foot. And all who prove their loyalty by obedience to the law of Jehovah must be prepared to be arrested, to be brought before councils that have not for their standard the high and holy law of God." Seventh-day Adventist Bible Commentary, Volume 7, 977.

This is not a very pretty picture. In the end time, corrupt judges will pledge themselves to uphold and honor the New World Order. "Those who live during the last days of this earth’s history will know what it means to be persecuted for the truth’s sake. In the courts injustice will prevail. The judges will refuse to listen to the reasons of those who are loyal to the commandments of God, because they know that arguments in favor of the fourth commandment are unanswerable. They will say, ‘We have a law, and by our law he ought to die.’ God’s law is nothing to them. ‘Our law’ with them is supreme. Those who respect this human law will be favored, But those who will not bow to the idol sabbath will have no favors shown them." Maranatha, 195.

"Before the warfare shall be ended and the victory won, we as a people are to experience trials similar to those of Paul. We shall encounter the same hardness of heart, the same cruel determination, the same unyielding hatred . . . Persecutions will again be kindled against those who are true to God; their motives will be impugned, their best efforts misinterpreted, their names cast out as evil . . .God would have His people prepared for the soon-coming crisis. Prepared or unprepared, we must all meet it."Sketches from the Life of Paul, 251, 252.

"There will come a time when, because of our advocacy of Bible truth, we shall be treated as traitors."Testimonies, vol. 6, 394.

"Wealth, genius, education, will combine to cover them with contempt. Persecuting rulers, ministers, and church members will conspire against them. With voice and pen, by boasts, threats, and ridicule, they will seek to overthrow their faith." Testimonies, vol. 5, 450.

"As the defenders of truth refuse to honor the Sunday-sabbath, some of them will be thrust into prison, some will be exiled, some will be treated as slaves. To human wisdom all this now seems impossible; but as the restraining Spirit of God shall be withdrawn from men, and they shall be under the control of Satan, who hates the divine precepts, there will be strange developments. The heart can be very cruel when God’s fear and love are removed." The Great Controversy, 608.

"Throughout the land the papacy is piling up her lofty and massive structures, in the secret recesses of which her former persecutions are to be repeated." Testimonies for the Church, volume 5, 449, 450.

"The papal church will never relinquish her claim to infallibility. All that she has done in her persecution of those who reject her dogmas she holds to be right; and would she not repeat the same acts, should the opportunity be presented? Let the restraints now imposed by secular governments be removed and Rome be reinstated in her former power, and there would speedily be a revival of her tyranny and persecution." The Great Controversy, 564.

Furthermore, Protestants will also persecute the faithful. "The church appeals to the strong arm of civil power, and in this work, papists and Protestants unite." The Great Controversy, 607.

Satan has planned every detail. Listen in as God tells us of Satan’s devices as he instructs his angels and his evil men. "We [Satan and his angels] led the Romish church to inflict imprisonment, torture, and death upon those who refused to yield to her decrees; and now that we are bringing the Protestant churches and the world into harmony with this right arm of our strength, we will finally have a law to exterminate all who will not submit to our authority." Testimonies to Ministers, 473.

Former Seventh-day Adventists will join in the persecution of God’s saints. "Men of talent and pleasing address, who once rejoiced in the truth, employ their powers to deceive and mislead souls. They become the most bitter enemies of their former brethren. When Sabbath-keepers are brought before the courts to answer for their faith, these apostates are the most efficient agents of Satan to misrepresent and accuse them, and by false reports and insinuations to stir up the rulers against them." The Great Controversy, 608.

Finally, this New World Order will determine to utterly destroy God’s faithful, just as Satan attempted in earlier centuries. "The decree which is to go forth against the people of God will be very similar to that issued by Ahasuerus against the Jews in the time of Esther . . . Satan instigated the scheme in order to rid the earth of those who preserve the knowledge of the true God. But his plots were defeated by a counterpower that reigns among the children of men . . . The Protestant world today see in the little company keeping the Sabbath a Mordecai in the gate. His character and conduct, expressing reverence for the law of God, are a constant rebuke to those who have cast off the fear of the Lord and are trampling upon His Sabbath; the unwelcome intruder must by some means be put out of the way.

"The same masterful mind that plotted against the faithful in ages past is still seeking to rid the earth of those who fear God and obey His law. Satan will excite indignation against the humble minority who conscientiously refuse to accept popular customs and traditions. Men of position and reputation will join with the lawless and the vile to take counsel against the people of God . . . By false representations and angry appeals they will stir up the passions of the people. Not having a ‘Thus saith the Scriptures’ to bring against the advocates of the Bible Sabbath, they will resort to oppressive enactments to supply the lack. To secure popularity and patronage, legislators will yield to the demand for a Sunday law. Those who fear God cannot accept an institution that violates a precept of the Decalogue. On this battlefield comes the last great conflict of the controversy between truth and error. And we are not left in doubt as to the issue. Now, as in the days of Mordecai, the Lord will vindicate His truth and His people."Testimonies, vol.5, 450, 451.

"When this grand work is to take place in the battle, prior to the last closing conflict, many will be imprisoned, many will flee for their lives from cities and towns, and many will be martyrs for Christ’s sake in standing in defense of the truth." Maranatha, 199.

"As he [Satan] influenced the heathen nations to destroy Israel, so in the near future he will stir up the wicked powers of the earth to destroy the people of God. Men will be required to render obedience to human edicts in violation of the divine law. "Those who are true to God will be menaced, denounced, and proscribed. They will be ‘betrayed both by parents, and brethren, and kinsfolk, and friends,’ even unto death." Prophets and Kings, 587.

Such persecutions, during this little time of trouble, will bring the close of probation upon the earth. I praise God for the encouragement He has given for this soon-coming little time of trouble. "And if we are called to suffer for Christ’s sake, we shall be able to go to prison trusting in Him as a little child trusts in his parents. Now is the time to cultivate faith in God." Our High Calling, 357.

We do not need the courage and fortitude of the martyrs of old until brought into the position that they were in. "Should there be a return of persecution there would be grace given to arouse every energy of the soul to show a true heroism." Our High Calling, 125.

"The disciples were not endowed with the courage and fortitude of the martyrs until such grace was needed." The Desire of Ages, 354. "When for the truth’s sake the believer stands at the bar of the unrighteous tribunals, Christ stands by his side . . . When one is incarcerated in prison walls, Christ ravishes the heart with His love. When one suffers death for His sake, Christ says, ‘I am He that liveth and was dead; and, behold, I am alive forevermore . . . and have the keys of hell and of death.’ Revelation 1:18. The life that is sacrificed for Me is preserved unto eternal glory." The Desire of Ages,669.