Wednesday, November 20, 2013

Retired Police Officer arrested for sharing Christian Gospel in New Jersey Mall



America : Ret Police Officer arrested for sharing Christian Gospel in New Jersey Mall (Nov 14, 2013)



SignsofThyComing

Published on Nov 14, 2013 SOURCE: http://www.foxnews.com\
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The U.S. Secret State and the Internet: “Dirty Secrets” and “Crypto Wars” from “Clipper Chip” and ECHELON to PRISM



By Tom Burghardt
Global Research, November 10, 2013





Back in the 1990s, security researchers and privacy watchdogs were alarmed by government demands that hardware and software firms build “backdoors” into their products, the millions of personal computers and cell phones propelling communication flows along the now-quaint “information superhighway.”

Never mind that the same factory-installed kit that allowed secret state agencies to troll through private communications also served as a discrete portal for criminal gangs to loot your bank account or steal your identity.

To make matters worse, instead of the accountability promised the American people by Congress in the wake of the Watergate scandal, successive US administrations have worked assiduously to erect an impenetrable secrecy regime backstopped by secret laws overseen by secret courts which operate on the basis of secret administrative subpoenas, latter day lettres de cachet.

But now that all their dirty secrets are popping out of Edward Snowden’s “bottomless briefcase,” we also know the “Crypto Wars” of the 1990s never ended.

Documents published by The Guardian and The New York Times revealed that the National Security Agency “actively engages the US and IT industries” and has “broadly compromised the guarantees that internet companies have given consumers to reassure them that their communications, online banking and medical records would be indecipherable to criminals or governments.”


“Those methods include covert measures to ensure NSA control over setting of international encryption standards,” The Guardian disclosed, along with “the use of supercomputers to break encryption with ‘brute force’, and–the most closely guarded secret of all–collaboration with technology companies and internet service providers themselves.”

According to The New York Times, NSA “had found ways inside some of the encryption chips that scramble information for businesses and governments, either by working with chipmakers to insert back doors or by surreptitiously exploiting existing security flaws, according to the documents.”

In fact, “vulnerabilities” inserted “into commercial encryption systems” would be known to NSA alone. Everyone else, including commercial customers, are referred to in the documents as “adversaries.”

The cover name for this program is Project BULLRUN. An agency classification guide asserts that “Project BULLRUN deals with NSA’s abilities to defeat the encryption used in specific network communication technologies. BULLRUN involves multiple sources, all of which are extremely sensitive. They include CNE [computer network exploitation], interdiction, industry relationships, collaboration with other IC entities, and advanced mathematical techniques.”

In furtherance of those goals, the agency created a “Commercial Solutions Center (NCSC) to leverage sensitive, cooperative relationships with industry partners” that will “further NSA/CSS capabilities against encryption used in network communications technologies,” and already “has some capabilities against the encryption used in TLS/SSL. HTTPS, SSH, VPNs, VoIP, WEBMAIL, and other network communications technologies.”

Time and again, beginning in the 1970s with the publication of perhaps the earliest NSA exposé by Ramparts Magazine, we learned that when agency schemes came to light, if they couldn’t convince they resorted to threats, bribery or the outright subversion of the standard setting process itself, which destroyed trust and rendered all our electronic interactions far less safe.

Tunneling underground, NSA, telcos and corporate tech giants worked hand-in-glove to sabotage what could have been a free and open system of global communications, creating instead the Frankenstein monster which AT&T whistleblower Mark Klein denounced as a “Big Brother machine.”

The Secret State and the Internet

Five years after British engineer Tim Berners-Lee, Belgian computer scientist Robert Cailliau and their team at CERN developed a system for assembling, and sharing, hypertext documents via the internet, which they dubbed the World Wide Web, in 1994 the Clinton administration announced it would compel software and hardware developers to install what came to known as the “Clipper Chip” into their products.

The veritable explosion of networked communication systems spawned by the mass marketing of easy-to-use personal computers equipped with newly-invented internet browsers, set off a panic amongst political elites.

How to control these seemingly anarchic information flows operating outside “normal” channels?

In theory at least, those doing the communicating–academics, dissidents, journalists, economic rivals, even other spies, hackers or “terrorists” (a fungible term generally meaning outsider groups not on board with America’s imperial goals)–were the least amenable users of the new technology and would not look kindly on state efforts to corral them.

As new communication systems spread like wildfire, especially among the great unwashed mass of “little people,” so too came a stream of dire pronouncements that the internet was now a “critical national asset” which required close attention and guidance.

President Clinton’s Commission on Critical Infrastructure Protection released a report that called for a vast increase in funding to protect US infrastructure along with one of the first of many “cyberwar” tropes that would come to dominate the media landscape.

“In the cyber dimension,” the report breathlessly averred, “there are no boundaries. Our infrastructures are exposed to new vulnerabilities–cyber vulnerabilities–and new threats–cyber threats. And perhaps most difficult of all, the defenses that served us so well in the past offer little protection from the cyber threat. Our infrastructures can now be struck directly by a variety of malicious tools.”

And when a commercial market for cheap, accessible encryption software was added to the mix, security mandarins at Ft. Meade and Cheltenham realized the genie would soon be out of the bottle.

After all they reasoned, NSA and GCHQ were the undisputed masters of military-grade cryptography who had cracked secret Soviet codes which helped “win” the Cold War. Were they to be out maneuvered by some geeks in a garage who did not share or were perhaps even hostile to the “post-communist” triumphalism which had decreed America was now the world’s “indispensable nation”?

Technological advances were leveling the playing field, creating new democratic space in the realm of knowledge creation accessible to everyone; a new mode for communicating which threatened to bypass entrenched power centers, especially in government and media circles accustomed to a monopoly over the Official Story.

US spies faced a dilemma. The same technology which created a new business model worth hundreds of billions of dollars for US tech corporations also offered the public and pesky political outliers across the political spectrum, the means to do the same.

How to stay ahead of the curve? Why not control the tempo of product development by crafting regulations, along with steep penalties for noncompliance, that all communications be accessible to our guardians, strictly for “law enforcement” purposes mind you, by including backdoors into commercially available encryption products.

Total Information Awareness 1.0

Who to turn to? Certainly such hush-hush work needed to be in safe hands.

The Clinton administration, in keeping with their goal to “reinvent government” by privatizing everything, turned to Mykotronx, Inc., a California-based company founded in 1983 by former NSA engineers, Robert E. Gottfried and Kikuo Ogawa, mining gold in the emerging information security market.

Indeed, one of the firm’s top players was Ralph O’Connell, was described in a 1993 document published by Computer Professionals for Social Responsibility (CPSR) as “the father of COMSEC” and the “Principle NSA Technical Contact” on Clipper and related cryptography projects.

A 1993 Business Wire release quoted the firm’s president, Leonard J. Baker, as saying that Clipper was “a good example of the transfer of military technology to the commercial and general government fields with handsome cost benefits. This technology should now pay big dividends to US taxpayers.”

It would certainly pay “big dividends” to Mykotronx’s owners.

Acquired by Rainbow Technologies in 1995, and eventually by Military-Industrial-Surveillance Complex powerhouse Raytheon in 2012, at the time the Los Angeles Times reported that “Mykotronx had been privately held, and its owners will receive 1.82 million shares of Rainbow stock–making the deal worth $37.9 million.”

The Clipper chip was touted by the administration as a simple device that would protect the private communications of users while also allowing government agents to obtain the keys that unlocked those communications, an early manifestation of what has since become know as law enforcement’s alleged “going dark” problem.

Under color of a vague “legal authorization” that flew in the face of the 1987 Computer Security Act (CSA), which sought to limit the role of the National Security Agency in developing standards for civilian communications systems, the administration tried an end-run around the law through an export ban on Clipper-free encryption devices overseen by the Commerce Department.

This wasn’t the first time that NSA was mired in controversy over the watering down of encryption standards. During the development of the Data Encryption Standard (DES) by IBM in the 1970s, the agency was accused of forcing developers to implement changes in the design of its basic cipher. There were strong suspicions these changes had weakened the algorithm to such a degree that one critical component, the S-box, had been altered and that a backdoor was inserted by NSA.

Early on, the agency grasped CSA’s significance and sought to limit damage to global surveillance and economic espionage programs such as ECHELON, exposed by British and New Zealand investigative journalists Duncan Campbell and Nicky Hager.

Before the 1987 law was passed however, Clinton Brooks, a Special Assistant to NSA Director Lieutenant General William Odom, wrote a Top Secret Memorandum which stated: “In 1984 NSA engineered a National Security Decision Directive, NSDD-145, through the Reagan Administration that gave responsibility for the security of all US information systems to the Director of NSA, removing NBS [National Bureau of Standards] from this.”

Conceived as a follow-on to the Reagan administration’s infamous 1981 Executive Order 12333, which trashed anemic congressional efforts to rein-in America’s out-of-control spy agencies, NSDD-145 handed power back to the National Security Agency and did so to the detriment of civilian communication networks.

Scarcely a decade after Senator Frank Church warned during post-Watergate hearings into government surveillance abuses, that NSA’s “capability at any time could be turned around on the American people, and no American would have any privacy left, such is the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversations, telegrams, it doesn’t matter . . . there would be no place to hide,” the agency was at it with a vengeance.

“This [NSDD-145] also stated,” Brooks wrote, “that we would assist the private sector. This was viewed as Big Brother stepping in and generated an adverse reaction” in Congress that helped facilitate passage of the Act.

Engineered by future Iran-Contra felon, Admiral John Poindexter, President Reagan’s National Security Adviser who would later serve as President George W. Bush’s Director of DARPA’s Information Awareness Office, the Pentagon satrapy that brought us the Total Information Awareness program, NSDD-145 stated that the “Director, National Security Agency is designated the National Manager for Telecommunications and Automated Information Systems Security.”

NSA’s new mandate meant that the agency would “act as the government focal point for cryptography, telecommunications systems security, and automated information systems security.”

Additionally, NSA would “conduct, approve, or endorse research and development of techniques and equipment for telecommunications and automated information systems security for national security information.”

But it also authorized the agency to do more than that, granting it exclusive authority to “review and approve all standards, techniques, systems and equipments for telecommunications and automated information systems security.” As well, NSA was directed to “enter into agreements for the procurement of technical security material and other equipment, and their provision to government agencies, where appropriate, to private organizations, including government contractors, and foreign governments.”

In other words, NSA was the final arbiter when it came to setting standards for all government and private information systems; quite a coup for the agency responsible for standing-up Project MINARET, the Cold War-era program that spied on thousands of antiwar protesters, civil rights leaders, journalists and members of Congress, as recently declassified documents published by the National Security Archive disclosed.

NSA Games the System

Although the Computer Security Act passed unanimously by voice vote in both Houses of Congress, NSA immediately set-out to undercut the law and did so by suborning the National Bureau of Standards, now the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST).

The battle over the Clipper Chip would be the template for future incursions by the agency for the control, through covert infiltration, of regulatory bodies overseeing civilian communications.

According to the Clinton White House, Clipper “would provide Americans with secure telecommunications without compromising the ability of law enforcement agencies to carry out legally authorized wiretaps.”

Neither safe nor secure, Clipper instead would have handed government security agencies the means to monitor all communications while giving criminal networks a leg up to do the same.

In fact, as the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) discovered in documents unearthed through the Freedom of Information Act, the underlying algorithm deployed in Clipper, Skipjack, had been developed by NSA.

Cryptography expert Matt Blaze wrote a now famous 1994 paper on the subject before the algorithm was declassified, Protocol Failure in the Escrowed Encryption Standard: “The EES cipher algorithm, called ‘Skipjack’, is itself classified, and implementations of the cipher are available to the private sector only within tamper-resistant modules supplied by government-approved vendors. Software implementations of the cipher will not be possible. Although Skipjack, which was designed by the US National Security Agency (NSA), was reviewed by a small panel of civilian experts who were granted access to the algorithm, the cipher cannot be subjected to the degree of civilian scrutiny ordinarily given to new encryption systems.”

This was precisely as NSA and the Clinton administration intended.

A partially declassified 1993 NSA memo noted that “there will be vocal public doubts expressed about having a classified algorithm in the device we propose for the US law enforcement problem, the CLIPPER chip, we recommend the following to address this.” We don’t know what those agency recommendations were, however; more than 20 years after the memo was written they remain secret.

The memo continued: “If such people agree to this clearance and non disclosure process, we could go over the algorithm with them to let them develop confidence in its security, and we could also let them examine the detail design of the CLIPPER chip made for the US law enforcement problem to assure themselves that there were no trapdoors or other techniques built in. This would likely require crypto-mathematicians for the algorithm examination and microelectronics chip design engineers for the chip examination.”

But the extreme secrecy surrounding Skipjack’s proposed deployment in commercial products was the problem. Even if researchers learned that Clipper was indeed the government-mandated backdoor they feared, non-disclosure of these facts, backed-up by the threat of steep fines or imprisonment would hardly assure anyone of the integrity of this so-called review process.

“By far, the most controversial aspect of the EES system,” Blaze wrote, “is key escrow.”


“As part of the crypto-synchronization process,” Blaze noted, “EES devices generate and exchange a ‘Law Enforcement Access Field’ (LEAF). This field contains a copy of the current session key and is intended to enable a government eavesdropper to recover the cleartext.”

“The LEAF copy of the session key is encrypted with a device-unique key called the ‘unit key,’ assigned at the time the EES device is manufactured. Copies of the unit keys for all EES devices are to be held in ‘escrow’ jointly by two federal agencies that will be charged with releasing the keys to law enforcement under certain conditions.”

What those conditions were however, was far from clear. In fact, as we’ve since learned from Snowden’s cache of secret documents, even when the government seeks surveillance authorization from the FISA court, the court must rely on government assurances that dragnet spying is critical to the nation’s security. Such assurances, FISA court judge Reggie B. Walton noted, were systematically “misrepresented” by secret state agencies.

That’s rather rich considering that Walton presided over the farcical “trial” that upheld Bush administration demands to silence FBI whistleblower Sibel Edmonds under the state secrets privilege. Edmonds, a former contract linguist with the Bureau charged that top FBI officials had systematically covered-up wrongdoing at its language division and had obstructed agents’ attempts to roll-up terrorist networks before and after the 9/11 provocation, facts attested to by FBI whistleblower Coleen Rowley in her 2002 Memo to then-FBI Director Robert Mueller.

In 2009, Walton wrote that “The minimization procedures proposed by the government in each successive application and approved and adopted as binding by the orders of the FISC have been so frequently and systemically violated that it can fairly be said that this critical element of the overall BR regime has never functioned effectively.”

“The Court,” Walton averred, “must have every confidence that the government is doing its utmost to ensure that those responsible for implementation fully comply with the Court’s orders. The Court no longer has such confidence.”

Predating those critical remarks, a heavily-redacted 1993 Memo to then-Special Assistant to the President and future CIA chief, George Tenet, from FBI Director William Sessions noted that NSA “has developed a new encryption methodology and computer chip which affords encryption strength vastly superior to DES [Digital Encryption Standard], yet which allows for real time decryption by law enforcement, acting pursuant to legal process. It is referred to as ‘Clipper’.”

[Two redacted paragraphs] “if the devices are modified to include the ‘Clipper’ chip, they would be of great value to the Federal, state and local law enforcement community, especially in the area of counter narcotics, investigations, where there is a requirement to routinely communicate in a secure fashion.”

But even at the time Sessions’ memo was written, we now know that AT&T provided the Drug Enforcement Administration “routine access” to “an enormous AT&T database that contains the records of decades of Americans’ phone calls,” The New York Times reported, and had done so since 1987 under the auspices of DEA’s Hemisphere Project.

Furthermore, in the wake of Snowden revelations we also learned that listening in on the conversations of drug capos is low on NSA’s list of priorities. However, programs like X-KEYSCORE and TEMPORA, which copies all data flowing along fiber optic cables, encrypted and unencrypted alike, at petabyte scales, is supremely useful when it comes to building profiles of internet users by intelligence agencies.

This was an implicit goal of Clinton administration maneuvers to compel developers to insert Clipper into their product designs.

According to Sessions, “the ‘Clipper’ methodology envisions the participation of three distinct types of parties.” [Redacted] It is proposed that the second party, the two custodians of the ‘split’ key infostructure [sic], be comprised of two disinterested and trustworthy non law enforcement Government agencies or entities. Although, such decision and selection are left for the Administration, a list of reccommended [sic] agencies and entities has been prepared (and included in the text), [redacted]. This party would administer and oversee all facets of the ‘Clipper’ program and methodology.”

Based on NSDD-145′s mandate, one can assume “this party” would be NSA, the agency that designed the underlying algorithm that powered Clipper.

The Sessions memo averred: “The Clipper chip provides law enforcement access by using a special chip key, unique to each device. In the AT&T TSD 3600, a unique session key is generated, external to the Clipper chip for each call.”


“This session key,” the memo explained, “is given to the chip to control the encryption algorithm. A device unique ‘chip key’ is programmed into each Clipper at the time of manufacture. When two TSD 3600s go to secure operation, the device gives out its identification (ID) number and the session key encrypted in its chip key.”

Underlining a key problem with Clipper technology Sessions noted, “Anyone with access to the chip key for that identified device will be able to recover the session key and listen to the transmission simultaneously with the intended receiver. This design means that the list of chip keys associated with the chip ID number provides access to all Clipper secured devices, and thus the list must be carefully generated and protected. Loss of the list would preclude legitmate [sic] access to the encrypted information and compromise of the list could allow unauthorized access.”

In fact, that “anyone” could include fabulously wealthy drug gangs or bent corporations with the wherewithal to buy chip keys from suborned government key escrow agents!

Its ubiquity would be a key selling-point for universal deployment. The memo explained, “the NSA developed chip based ‘Clipper’ solution works with hardware encryption applications, such as those which might be used with regard to certain telecommunications and computers devices,” which of course would allow unlimited spying by “law enforcement.”

Such vulnerabilities built into EES chip keys by design not only enabled widespread government monitoring of internet and voice traffic, but with a few tweaks by encryption-savvy “rogues” could be exploited by criminal organizations.

In his 1994 paper Blaze wrote that “a rogue system can be constructed with little more than a software modification to a legal system. Furthermore, while some expertise may be required to install and operate a rogue version of an existing system, it is likely that little or no special skill would be required to install and operate the modified software.”

“In particular,” Blaze noted, “one can imagine ‘patches’ to defeat key escrow in EES-based systems being distributed over networks such as the Internet in much the same way that other software is distributed today.”

In the intervening years since Blaze observed how easy it would be to compromise key escrow systems by various bad actors, governments or criminals take your pick, the proliferation of malware powered botnets that infect hundreds of thousands of computers and smart phones every day–for blanket surveillance, fraud, or both–is a fact of life.

It didn’t help matters when it emerged that “escrow agents” empowered to unlock encrypted communications would be drawn from the National Institute of Standards and Technology and the Automated Services Division of the Treasury Department, government outposts riddled with “No Such Agency” moles.

As EPIC pointed out, “Since the enactment of the Computer Security Act, the NSA has sought to undercut NIST’s authority. In 1989, NSA signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) which purported to transfer back to NSA the authority given to NIST.”

The MOU required that NIST request NSA’s “assistance” on all matters related to civilian cryptography. In fact, were NIST and NSA representatives on the Technical Working Group to disagree on standards, the ultimate authority for resolving disputes would rest solely with the Executive Branch acting through the President, the Secretary of Defense and the National Security Council, thus undercutting the clear intent of Congress when they passed the 1987 Computer Security Act.

EPIC noted:


“The memorandum effectively returned to NSA many of the powers rejected by the Computer Security Act. The MOU contained several key goals that were to NSA’s benefit, including: NSA providing NIST with ‘technical security guidelines in trusted technology, telecommunications security, and personal identification that may be used in cost-effective systems for protecting sensitive computer data;’ NSA ‘initiating research and development programs in trusted technology, telecommunications security, cryptographic techniques and personal identification methods’; and NSA being responsive to NIST ‘in all matters related to cryptographic algorithms and cryptographic techniques including but not limited to research, development, evaluation, or endorsement’.”

A critique of the Memorandum in 1989 congressional testimony by the General Accounting Office (GAO) emphasized: “At issue is the degree to which responsibilities vested in NIST under the act are being subverted by the role assigned to NSA under the memorandum. The Congress, as a fundamental purpose in passing the act, sought to clearly place responsibility for the computer security of sensitive, unclassified information in a civil agency rather than in the Department of Defense. As we read the MOU, it would appear that NIST has granted NSA more than the consultative role envisioned in the act.”

Five years after the GAO’s critical appraisal, NSA’s coup was complete.

“In 1994,” EPIC noted,


“President Clinton issued Presidential Decision Directive (PDD-29). This directive created the Security Policy Board, which has recommended that all computer security functions for the government be merged under NSA control.”

Since PDD-29 was issued matters have only gotten worse. In fact, NIST is the same outfit exposed in Snowden documents published by The Guardian and The New York Times that allowed NSA to water down encryption and build backdoors into the Dual EC DRBG standard adopted by the Institute in 2006.

“Eventually, NSA became the sole editor.”

Besieged by widespread opposition, the Clinton administration was out maneuvered in the court of public opinion and by 1996 had abandoned Clipper. However, this proved to be a pyrrhic victory for security-minded researchers and civil libertarians as we have since learned from Edward Snowden’s revelations.

Befitting a military-intelligence agency, the dark core of America’s deep state, NSA was fighting a long war–and they were playing for keeps.


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The Limitations of Freethinking


Thoughts have their ethics as well as deeds. A man has a right to his opinion; but not always. He has a right to his opinion if his opinion is right. Perhaps that opinion is born of ignorance ; if so, to say that he has a right to the opinion is to assert that he has a right to the ignorance. That opinion may be the result of prejudice, and he has no more right to hold the one than to entertain the other. A man has a right to hold a right opinion, and the further right to be righteously disabused of a wrong opinion. Human laws, in regulating the external actions of men, but formulate the civilization that enacts them. But they only regulate the conduct of men toward each other. "With acts that begin and end with the individual, and which nowise affect the rights of others, human laws have nothing to do. Laws are expedients. What instinct does for the lower animals, in securing for them peace and plenty, that human laws do for men. The most perfect laws the world has known or can know but guarantee to man what instinct secures to the brute creation. Not only the bees and the ants live in a perfect society, but the bears and the vultures enjoy the luxury of good government. In the vast wilderness, where the foot of man has never trodden, the savage beast enjoys a law which its instinct, could it think, would formulate into our " Salus populi suprema lex esto." But there are fountains of law far beyond the reach of the human lawgiver, fountains of freshness and purity from which only the conscience can drink. Beyond our high and grand civilization there is a higher and grander still — the civilization of the cult- ured soul. The ages of the world most renowned for their material civilization were oftentimes eras of exceptional brutality. The most polished nation in the world is the French ; yet a French duelist will withdraw his rapier from out the heart of his antagonist, executing a bow the while that would make a society actor turn yellow with envy. The Antonines sought solace from the cares of state by witnessing a butchery in the amphitheater, and in the days of cultured Greece cripples and idiots were outside the protection of the laws.

- D. S. Phelan

The Limitations of Freethinking
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Obama wants to rebrand, remarket ObamaCare


By S.A. Miller

November 20, 2013 | 6:29am






Photo: Drew Angerer-Pool/Getty Images







WASHINGTON — Maybe they should get a license from Apple and call it iCare.

President Obama promised Tuesday that after fixing ObamaCare, he would “rebrand” it for resale to a skeptical American public.

“We’re obviously going to have to remarket and rebrand, and that will be challenging in this political environment,” Obama told a conference of CEOs in Washington hosted by The Wall Street Journal.

But as Obama talked about marketing strategy, more problems emerged with the glitch-plagued HealthCare.gov Web site.

A top cyber-security expert warned Congress that the site is full of holes that likely have already put Americans’ sensitive personal information at risk.

“Hackers are definitely after it,” David Kennedy, CEO of the Web-security firm TrustedSec told a House panel.

“There are just fundamental security principles that are not being followed . . . That could compromise the entire site itself and everything around it,” he said, noting it linked to the IRS, Homeland Security and the credit-reporting agency Experian.

What’s more, a top administration IT official told another House committee that about 30 percent of the Web site is still under construction.

“We still need to build the payments system to make the payments [to insurance companies] in January,” revealed Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which runs the Web site.


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White House braces for doctor dump




By Chris Stirewalt

Published November 20, 2013
FoxNews.com




The White House in Washington, November 19, 2013.(Reuters)


Buzz Cut:
• White House braces for doctor dump
• Perk-packed version of ObamaCare for Congress
• Feds try roadside blood tests
• Sliding faster than Obama’s approval ratings

WHITE HOUSE BRACES FOR DOCTOR DUMP - The president’s “if you like it” bait-and-switch on insurance is not the only pledge that will be broken under ObamaCare. Press Secretary Jay Carney appeared to step back from the second part of President Obama’s oft-repeated campaign promise: that Americans could keep their doctors if they like them. Carney hinted consumers could lose their doctors too saying, “So, if you are looking for, if you want coverage from your doctor, a doctor that you've seen in the past, and want that, you can look and see if there's a plan in which that doctor participates in.”

[Asked at a WSJ forum what he might have done better in implementing ObamaCare, the president blamed Republicans for failing to help him in “fixing glitches and fine-tuning the law.” Washington Examiner has more.]

He doesn’t like it, he won’t keep it - President Obama meets today with state insurance commissioners, whom he charged last week with undoing his order to crack down on individual insurance policies. After working for three years to impose regulations required by ObamaCare that have led to the cancellation of millions of policies, the commissioners learned Thursday that the president was upending the rules. Facing withering anger from voters after being forced to admit that he misled them about the law, the White House said in talking points that cancelled policies would no longer be the fault of the law but rather insurance companies and state insurance commissioners.

Poll: 7 percent say ObamaCare working well - A new CBS News poll shows President Obama’s job approval rating dropped to 37 percent, the lowest of his presidency – a 9-point drop since October. The poll also found Americans’ approval of ObamaCare has dropped to 31 percent, the lowest rating ever in the poll. Just 7 percent of respondents said the president’s health law is working well.

Perk-packed version of ObamaCare for Congress - Members of Congress may have to enroll in ObamaCare, but that doesn’t mean that it’s the same smashed system ordinary Americans are facing. NYT details the perk-puffed version of ObamaCare for Congress: “…access to ‘in-person support sessions’ …a special Blue Cross and Blue Shield website for members of Congress and…. a ‘dedicated congressional health insurance plan assistance line’…Lawmakers can select from 112 options offered in the ‘gold tier’ of the District of Columbia exchange, far more than are available to most of their constituents.”

GOP governors huddle on ObamaCare - The Republican Governors Association gathers this week in Arizona, one of the issues they will tackle is how to minimize the damage of ObamaCare at the state level. Of the nation’s governors, 30 out of 50 are Republicans. ­–Watch Fox: Campaign Carl Cameron is following the gathering from Scottsdale, Ariz.

OBAMACARE SITE ONLY 60 PERCENT FINISHED - Henry Chao, deputy chief information officer at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, told a House committee that the crash-prone ObamaCare Web site is not yet finished. Chao said Tuesday that up to 40 percent of the technical systems supporting the federal health insurance marketplaces have not yet been built, including a system to issue payments to insurance companies. Chao said the site will be “greatly improved” by the end of the month -- not fixed. Read more from Fox News.

No magic - Health Secretary Kathleen Sebelius does not consider the previously announced Nov. 30 deadline to fix problems with ObamaCares’s online home “a magic go, no go date.” She told the AP she sees the project as “a work of constant improvement.”

ObamaCare’s security scares - David Kennedy, a cyber security expert who testified before a House committee Tuesday, told Greta Van Susteren he believes there is so little monitoring done on healthcare.gov, Health and Human Services officials “probably don't even know if they're getting hacked right now.” Watch the interview from “On the Record with Greta Van Susteren.”

[“Given the distressing testimony we heard at the Science Committee’s hearing about Healthcare.gov, there is only one reasonable course of action. Mr. President, take down this website.”—Rep. Lamar Smith, R-Texas, head of the House Science the Science, Space, and Technology Committee, in a Breitbart OpEd.”]



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Tuesday, November 19, 2013

Double bombing kills at least 23, including diplomat, near Iranian Embassy in Beirut




View Photo Gallery — Double bombing kills at least 23, including diplomat, near Iranian Embassy in Beirut: Twin explosions are reported near facility in residential neighborhood. At least one diplomat is reported killed, 147 are wounded, in act that is escalation of sectarian violence spilling over from civil war in Syria.




By Loveday Morris and Ahmed Ramadan, Updated: Tuesday, November 19, 12:31 PM


BEIRUT —Twin explosions near the Iranian Embassy in Beirut on Tuesday killed 23 people, including Iran’s cultural attaché, Lebanese and Iranian officials said. The blasts appeared to be the latest in a string of sectarian bombings linked to the war in neighboring Syria.

The first explosion in the Bir Hasan area of the Lebanese capital detonated outside the residence of Iranian Ambassador Ghazanfar Roknabadi, Iran’s state news agency said. The news agency, citing information from Roknabadi, said cultural attaché Ibrahim Ansari was killed.

Witnesses said the initial blast brought many residents out onto the street or to their balconies, leaving them vulnerable to the much more powerful explosion which detonated about two minutes later.

Images from the scene showed bodies lying in the street, and the twisted burning wreckage of cars, while medics rushed some of the injured away on stretchers. Lebanon’s Health Ministry said a total of 147 people were wounded.

The Abdullah Azzam Brigade, an Islamist group with links to al-Qaeda, claimed responsibility in a message on the social media site Twitter.

“The attack on the Iranian Embassy in Beirut was a twin martyrdom operation by two heroes of the Sunni in Lebanon,” said Sheikh Sirajeddine Zuraiqat, a cleric affiliated with the group. He said the group would continue such attacks until prisoners being held in Lebanon are released and forces from the Lebanese Shiite group Hezbollah are withdrawn from Syria, where they have joined forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad to try to quell a largely Sunni uprising.

The long-running Syrian civil war has inflamed sectarian tensions in Lebanon and throughout the region, with Assad also receiving support from Shiite Iran. Tit-for-tat bombings have targeted both Shiite and Sunni neighborhoods in Lebanon this year, as Syria’s fragile neighbor struggles to insulate itself from the violence.

The Azzam Brigade has repeatedly demanded that Hezbollah, which is financed and backed by Iran, remove its forces from Syria. Majid bin Muhammad al-Majid, the brigade’s leader, called in August for Sunnis in Lebanon and Syria to unite in fighting Hezbollah, which he described as the “party of Iran.”

Outside the embassy on Tuesday, a large crater was visible in the road beyond the cordons erected by security officials. Forensic teams in white overalls picked through the evidence. Smoldering cars lined the glass-strewn streets, while black-shirted armed gunmen affiliated with the Amal political party, an ally of Hezbollah, patrolled the largely Shiite neighborhood.

A security official who spoke on condition of anonymity said the first bomber was on a motorcycle and tried to ram a checkpoint outside the embassy, while the second bomber followed in a car. Ansari was killed as he was entering the building, the official said. Other reports said the first bomber, wearing a suicide vest, was on foot.

A 23-year-old student who lives less than 100 yards from the blast site said she was in the kitchen when she heard the first, smaller explosion at around 10 a.m. The student, who wanted to be identified only by her first name, Hiba, said she ran to her balcony to see what had happened but was called back in by her maid. The second blast blew in her windows, but she escaped injury.

Others were not so lucky. Five people who work at the furniture store where Rabieh Istanbuli is a manager were injured, Istanbuli said. The store’s front steps were spattered with blood.

“The glass just surrounded me,” Istanbuli said of the moment when the second blast detonated. “I saw some people falling down from their balconies. . . . There were a lot of dead people, black from the fire.”

About the size of Delaware, Lebanon has been flooded with an influx of more than 816,000 refugees from Syria, making up one-fifth of the population of the country. As the war has raged next door, violence has periodically spilled over the border as well.

More than two dozen people were killed in coordinated car bombings outside two Sunni mosques in the port city of Tripoli in August, eight days after a car bomb killed at least 21 people in a Shiite suburb of Beirut.

The violence is being closely monitored by Israel, Lebanon’s southern neighbor, which considers both Hezbollah and Iran to be significant threats. In August, Israel bombed a base run by the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine - General Command in Lebanon, in response to the launching of four rockets across Israel’s northern border hours earlier. It was Israel’s first airstrike inside Lebanon since its 2006 war with Hezbollah.

The Popular Front denied any connection to the rockets, and the Abdullah Azzam Brigade — the same group that said it was behind Tuesday’s bombing — eventually claimed responsibility.

Despite the brigade’s claim on Tuesday, Iran’s Foreign Ministry blamed Israel for the attack that killed its diplomat.

“The terrorist bombing in front of the Iranian Embassy in Beirut is an inhuman and vicious act perpetrated by Israel and its terror agents,” ministry spokeswoman Marzieh Afkham told the state-run Islamic Republic News Agency.

But a close adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said Israel played no role.

“Israeli security gains nothing from bloodshed,” said Tzachi Hanegbi, a parliamentarian and former intelligence minister. “I think it is a result of the tension in Lebanon, following the decision by Hezbollah — or Iran forcing Hezbollah — to participate in Assad’s efforts to survive in Syria.”


Lebanese politicians condemned Tuesday’s attack. “There is division in the country and tension, which is not helping in reducing the impact of the Syrian war on us. It’s causing problems both socially and politically,” parliamentarian Alan Aoun told the television station MTV. “It’s not the first explosion; we hope it’s the last one.”

At a snack shop and supermarket near the site of the bombing, sales assistants wept as they went about serving customers.

“This is too much; it’s devastating,” said Hanadi Nahhas, a 30-year-old employee. “The second bomb was so loud we thought it was an Israeli airstrike. Our delivery boy, Mohammed, was killed — he is just 16.”



William Booth in Jerusalem contributed to this report.


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The Gettysburg Address

Gateway of Cemetery. Gettysburg, Pennsylvania. July 186
Photo (Courtesy)

One Hundred and Fifty years ago today, President Abraham Lincoln, the greatest president the United States has ever had, gave a  memorable speech at Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, on the site of the deadliest battle of the Civil War.  The words he uttered on that momentous occasion are remembered and felt today on its anniversary. 
-   


 November 19, 1863
Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent a new nation, conceived in liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.
Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battlefield of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that this nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.
But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate, we can not consecrate, we can not hallow this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us—that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion—that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain—that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom—and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.
Bliss copy

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Monday, November 18, 2013

Preacher's Wife Meagan Good Suffers Wardrobe Malfunction in See-Through Outfit



By Toyin Owoseje : Subscribe to Toyin's RSS feed | November 15, 2013 11:10 AM GMT



Megan Good gave the press an eyeful at the GQ Man of the Year Awards.

Meagan Good left little to the imagination when she suffered a wardrobe malfunction at the GQ Men of the Year annual bash.

The 29-year-old Hollywood actress, who married DeVon Franklin, a TV/movie executive and Seventh Day Adventist preacher in 2012, accidently flashed too much flesh while she posed on the red carpet.

Photographers got more than an eyeful when flashbulbs revealed that her sleek black mini dress was far from conservative and that she had gone braless to the glitzy event.

Images of Think Like A Man star's wardrobe malfunction posted online quickly provoked a major discussion within the Christian community with some claiming Good was dressed inappropriately as a preacher's wife.

"When the mentors are dressing like this?What should the Mentee wear....or probably go naked." One unimpressed viewer said.

"She's young. Let her be. She's growing, she will live and learn as everyone else does. Remember God does not judge the outward appearance it is what is in the heart that matters. Remember the parable of the cup."

Earlier this year Good face criticised for wearing a nipple-revealing, skin-tight, long-sleeved gown which hugged her curves and also featured a thigh-length slit for the 2013 BET Awards.

She defended controversial choice of outfit choice of outfit and claimed that Christians are often too quick to judge others saying: "It just makes me sad that us as Christians can't see beyond our initial reaction and don't seek God before the attack other brothers and sisters [sic].

"I merely picked a dress I saw and loved... God knows my heart and that I didn't do anything wrong."



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Amazing Discoveries Youtube Copyright © Notice


AD Notice


 MrTaelti

Published on Sep 27, 2013


Hello Friends,

As you can see the notice has been served. The videos will be on the provided page and hence it will not be necessary to have them here.

Therefore, not wishing to oppose Amazing Discoveries unnecessarily, I will be removing the videos on 2 October, 2013.

Thank you.

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The Vatican's Role In The New World Order! Bill Hughes





MrPioneerlight2011

Published on Mar 23, 2013

Pastor and Author of the groundbreaking books "The Secret Terrorists" and "The Enemy Unmasked" pulls the curtain back to expose the real power behind the coming New World Order! Have the Jesuits (The Society of Jesus) been the real Assassins behind the murder of Abraham Lincoln and J.F.K.? Is the Black Pope the REAL power behind the Vatican throne? Please see our website for more Information:
www.Exposingdeceptions.org
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Christians for a new world vision

 
 
The first day of the assembly of the World Council of Churches in Busan



Busan, 31.

Leaving space for stories, experiences, hopes, prayers but above all a vision for the world. This is one of the main themes of the Assembly of the World Council of Churches (WCC), in course in Busan, South Korea until 8 November. Yesterday Pope Francis' message to the Assembly was read by Cardinal Kurt Koch, President of the Pontifical Council for the Promoting Christian Unity, present at the meeting. The Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew I also sent his best wishes to the assembly with a video message, calling Christians “to pray for the peace of the whole world and for the unity of all”. He added that “we cannot remain idle spectators in a world pervaded by social injustice and plagued by suffering and oppression”.

The Patriarch also addressed the search for unity. “May your encounter in Busan”, he said, “be the source of renewal for our churches and our ‘life together in faith, hope and love’.” He added that the Patriarchate is also dedicated to this goal within the WCC.

November 1, 2013
 
 
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The true battle is for life

At the General Audience Pope Francis calls the faithful to pray for victims in Damascus and the Philippines

The true battle is for life

Continuing his catechesis on the Creed he describes Baptism as the Christian's identity card


Baptism is the "identity card of the Christian, his birth certificate". The Pope said this during his catechesis at the General Audience on Wednesday, 13 November, in St Peter's Square. He also made an appeal to pray for the victims of mortar attacks in Damascus and for those suffering in the Philippines from the typhoon that devastated the country. He called people to pray for victims and join forces with those working to save lives in the aftermath: "These are the true battles to fight. For life! Never for death!". The following is a translation of the Pope's catechesis, which was delivered in Italian.

Dear Brothers and Sisters, Good morning!

In the Creed, through which we make our Profession of Faith every Sunday, we state: "I confess one Baptism for the forgiveness of sins". It is the only explicit reference to a Sacrament contained in the Creed. Indeed, Baptism is the "door" of faith and of Christian life. The Risen Jesus left the Apostles with this charge: "Go into all the world and preach the Gospel to the whole of creation. He who believes and is baptized will be saved" (Mk 16:15-16). The Church's mission is to evangelize and remit sins through the Sacrament of Baptism. But let us return to the words of the Creed. The expression can be divided into three points: "I confess"; "one Baptism"; "for the remission of sins".

1. "I profess". What does this mean? It is a solemn term that indicates the great importance of the object, that is, of Baptism. In fact, by pronouncing these words we affirm our true identity as children of God. Baptism is in a certain sense the identity card of the Christian, his birth certificate, and the act of his birth into the Church. All of you know the day on which you were born and you celebrate it as your birthday, don't you? We all celebrate our birthday. I ask you a question, that I have already asked several times, but I'll ask it again: who among you remembers the date of your Baptism? Raise your hands: they are few (and I am not asking the Bishops so as not to embarrass them...). Let's do something: today, when you go home, find out what day you were baptized, look for it, because this is your second birthday. The first birthday is the day you came into life and the second birthday is the one on which you came into the Church. Will you do this? This is your homework: find out the day on which you were born to the Church, and give thanks to the Lord, because at Baptism he has opened the door of his Church to us. At the same time, Baptism is tied to our faith in the remission of sins. The Sacrament of Penance or Confession is, in fact, like a "second baptism" that refers back always to the first to strengthen and renew it. In this sense, the day of our Baptism is the point of departure for this most beautiful journey, a journey towards God that lasts a lifetime, a journey of conversion that is continually sustained by the Sacrament of Penance. Think about this: when we go to confess our weaknesses, our sins, we go to ask the pardon of Jesus, but we also go to renew our Baptism through his forgiveness. And this is beautiful, it is like celebrating the day of Baptism in every Confession. Therefore, Confession is not a matter of sitting down in a torture chamber, rather it is a celebration. Confession is for the baptized! To keep clean the white garment of our Christian dignity!

2. The second element: "one Baptism". This expression refers that of St Paul: "one Lord, one faith, one Baptism" (Eph 4:5). The word "Baptism" literally means "immersion", and in fact this Sacrament constitutes a true spiritual immersion in the death of Christ, from which one rises with Him like a new creation (cf. Rom 6:4). It is the washing of regeneration and of illumination. Regeneration because it actuates that birth by water and the Spirit without which no one may enter the Kingdom of Heaven (cf. Jn 3:5). Illumination because through Baptism the human person becomes filled with the grace of Christ, "the true light that enlightens every man" (Jn 1:9) and dispels the shadows of sin. That is why in the ceremony of Baptism the parents are given a lit candle, to signify this illumination; Baptism illuminates us from within with the light of Jesus. In virtue of this gift the baptized are called to become themselves "light" - the light of the faith they have received - for their brothers, especially for those who are in darkness and see no glimmer of light on the horizon of their lives.
We can ask ourselves: is Baptism, for me, a fact of the past, relegated to a date, that date which you are going to go look for today, or is it a living reality, that pertains to my present, to every moment? Do you feel strong, with the strength that Christ gave you by his death and his Resurrection? Or do you feel low, without strength? Baptism gives strength and it gives light. Do you feel enlightened, with that light that comes from Christ? Are you a man or woman of light? Or are you a dark person, without the light of Jesus? We need to take the grace of Baptism, which is a gift, and become a light for all people!

3. Lastly, a brief mention of the third element: "for the remission of sins". In the Sacrament of Baptism all sins are remitted, original sin and all of our personal sins, as well as the suffering of sin. With Baptism the door to an effectively new life is opened, one which is not burdened by the weight of a negative past, but rather already feels the beauty and the goodness of the Kingdom of Heaven. It is the powerful intervention of God's mercy in our lives, to save us. This saving intervention does not take away our human nature and its weakness - we are all weak and we are all sinners - and it does not take from us our responsibility to ask for forgiveness every time we err! I cannot be baptized many times, but I can go to Confession and by doing so renew the grace of Baptism. It is as though I were being baptized for a second time. The Lord Jesus is very very good and never tires of forgiving us. Even when the door that Baptism opens to us in order to enter the Church is a little closed, due to our weaknesses and our sins. Confession reopens it, precisely because it is a second Baptism that forgives us of everything and illuminates us to go forward with the light of the Lord. Let us go forward in this way, joyfully, because life should be lived with the joy of Jesus Christ; and this is a grace of the Lord.

SPECIAL GROUPS I offer an affectionate greeting to all the English-speaking pilgrims and visitors present at today's Audience, including those from England, Scotland, Denmark, Australia, Japan, Taiwan and the United States. May Jesus Christ confirm you in faith and make you witnesses of his love and mercy to all people. God bless you all!

The Pope made the following appeal:


Dear Brothers and Sisters, I learned with great sorrow that two days ago in Damascus mortars rounds killed several children returning home from school as well as the school bus driver. Other children were left wounded. Please, these tragedies must never happen, ever! Let us pray intensely! In these days we are praying and joining forces to help our brothers and sisters in the Philippines, struck by a typhoon. These are the true battles to fight. For life! Never for death!

(©L'Osservatore Romano - 15 November 2013)


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Find Ricky Martin's first kids' book 'Among the Stars'



Lindsay Deutsch, USA TODAY 9:28 p.m. EST November 11, 2013

The Latin superstar says his 5-year-old twins, Matteo and Valentino, are his inspiration, for the first of five planned children's books.



(Photo: Omar Cruz)


Story Highlights
'Santiago the Dreamer in "Land Among the Stars"' is the first in a five-book series
"It's not just the book," Martin says %u2014 the project also includes cartoons and music
Besides writing, the singer will be singing the World Cup single and is working on a new album


Ricky Martin is a Grammy-winning singer — and the father of 5-year-old twin boys, Matteo and Valentino. Martin, who wrote the best-selling memoir Me, makes his children's book debut with Santiago the Dreamer in 'Land Among the Stars' (Celebra, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, for ages 5-9). It's about a young performer who learns to overcome rejection and follow his dreams. Martin, 41, spoke with USA TODAY's Lindsay Deutsch about his inspiration, the writing process and how fatherhood is a whole new vida loca.

Q: How are you like the book's star, Santiago?

A: To be quite honest, when I was 12 years old, I did my first audition to become a member of this music band, and I was not accepted. I had my father next to me the entire time saying, "If this is what you really want, you just have to believe it in your heart and start getting ready." He helped me a lot emotionally and spiritually, and I eventually got the part. So this is a little bit inspired by my personal life, with fantasy added to it. Now that I have my kids, I want to be constantly feeding them love and security so they can be themselves.

Q: Have you read the book to your sons?

A: They tend to be very jealous. I keep talking about Santiago, and it's funny because today, my son asked me, "So where does Santiago live? What city?" And I said Santiago lives in our hearts and he's always with us. So yes, I've read it to them, and they love it, and now I'm doing the music for Santiago, so he's really becoming a celebrity in our house. They are a very big part of his whole project, obviously.

Q: Music? What do you have planned for Santiago?

A: First, let me tell you that this is the first of a five-book series. This is the first story, and it's the introduction. Hopefully we'll be releasing one book every year for the next five years.




'Santiago the Dreamer in Land Among The Stars' by Ricky Martin, illustrated by Patricia Castelao, is for kids ages 5-9. Martin's twins are 5.(Photo: Celebra)


Q: It sounds like the books will be growing up with your kids.

A: Yes, that's the point. Santiago's best friends are going to be very important in the next couple of stories, and obviously Santiago's father — I'm creating a whole little world of Santiago. It's fascinating. And I am doing cartoons, I'm doing really interesting things — it's just not the book.

Q: What's it like to jump into the children's book genre after being so established singing and performing?

A: Music will always be my priority. I love being onstage, I love performing, I love walking into a studio and creating and surrounding myself with amazing producers and musicians. I don't see myself away from the stage at all. But when I come back home and disconnect from the madness of celebrity, I have my family (he lives with his partner, Carlos González Abella).My priority right now is to nurture make the foundation of my family very solid. (That) is the most important thing for this chapter of my life. They are everything.

Q: The book is coming out simultaneously in both Spanish and English. Can you talk about that?

A: The first book that I wrote, Me, which I'm very proud of, was translated into nine languages. I'm from Puerto Rico and we live in the U.S., so there's that duality, and we speak Spanish in the house, so my kids are bilingual — well, trilingual because they go to a French school — so the way I see it is that the message needs to be out there in the world. It's a message of self-esteem and security, and thank God for music, because I've been able to travel literally around the world, and this book will also hopefully translated into many other languages.

Q: What was it like when you saw the finished book come together?

A: You know, it's the same feeling as when you hold the CD cover in front of you, the same thing when you see a video. It's the same thing when you sit down and open the book and see the whole year's work go by. How can I explain it? I feel empowered. It's like it's a new beginning. The children's world is very powerful.

Q: Were there any books you read to your kids or other places where you got inspiration?

A: A lot of cartoons, because obviously, for the first five years of your kids' lives, you don't get to watch TV anymore because they own the television.

Q: As for your other projects, you're singing the official World Cup song and recording another album. What are you excited about?

A: Right now, Sony is creating a compilation of songs for the World Cup, and I'll be singing the single, which we have a competition out to be written by my fans. The writer could be from anywhere — the U.S. or maybe Japan or Indonesia. I will produce it and will co-write the song, and we're giving a great opportunity for a star to be born! Then I am taking the songwriter to Brazil for the World Cup. I'm also in the studio working on the album, and I'm working on some acting stuff, too, but that's another conversation for another day.

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Polls just days away, but for candidates in Mizoram, Sunday is still a day of rest


  Photo (Courtesy) http://www.mizoram.gov.in/



Rahul Karmakar, Hindustan Times AIZAWL, November 17, 2013

First Published: 23:27 IST(17/11/2013) | Last Updated: 23:29 IST(17/11/2013)



Sunday is for God in Mizoram. Everything else can wait, even campaigning for once-in-five-years assembly elections.

Campaigning for the November 25 polls in Mizoram has entered a crucial phase. But for the people, nothing is more important than sticking to the Sunday routine of going to church. Every other public place too is in shutdown mode.

Almost 87% of Mizoram’s 1.09 million people are Christians. A majority of them are Presbyterians, followed by the Baptists, Catholics and other denominations.

So what do the 138 candidates seeking a berth in the 40-seat assembly do? Go to church, of course, to connect with the electorate spiritually if not to canvass subtly. Some like former chief minister Zoramthanga teaches the ‘Book of Psalms’ at Bible classes every Sunday during church services at Ramhlun, his home locality in Aizawl.

Zoramthanga is president of the Mizo National Front, which has formed the Mizoram Democratic Alliance with two other regional parties. “As true Christians, we cannot ignore our responsibilities toward God,” Zoramthanga said.

Lalduhawma, president of the regional Zoram Nationalist Party, has a similar Sunday assignment in his Cawlhhmun locality, though not regularly.

Mizoram Congress president and chief minister Lal Thanhawla is not a regular Sunday school teacher but he attends church in his Zarkawt neighbourhood whenever he is in town.

Mizos invariably avoid non-church activities on Sundays.
This was evident from their protest when the Election Commission scheduled the date of counting of votes on December 8, a Sunday. The counting for Mizoram will now be held on December 9.


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Catholics In Philippines Turn To Church To Cope With Typhoon


by Jason Beaubien


November 18, 2013 3:31 AM

Listen to the story
3 min 40 sec




A Filipino woman wipes tears from her eyes while praying at the morning Mass at Santo Nino church, which was damaged by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines on Sunday. Churches in the area have been serving double duty even after being severely damaged not only for daily masses but serving as refugee centers.
David Gilkey/NPR

Across the ravaged center of the Philippines on Sunday, people flocked to mass, often in churches that had been severely damaged or destroyed by Typhoon Haiyan.

In many villages in Leyte Province, the only structure that survived the storm was the church. Spires and statues of angels look out over fields of smashed houses and twisted typhoon debris.

In Tacloban, the typhoon ripped the roof off the once-stately Santo Nino Catholic Church. There's still mud in amongst the pews and one of the large stained glass windows hangs precariously from its frame above the congregation. Sparrows flit in and out of the broken the windows.



A Filipino man wipes the tears from his eyes next to a statue of Jesus on Sunday before morning Mass at Santo Nino church, which was damaged by Typhoon Haiyan in Tacloban, Philippines.
David Gilkey/NPR


There's no electricity throughout this region and the energy minister says it might take a year to get power restored in the province. The priest used a battery powered loudspeaker to lead the mass.

Parishioners say in the days after one of the world's most powerful storms crashed into Tacloban, this church has been a focal point for the community, a place to be together and to mourn.

"I came here right after the typhoon and everyone was crying seeing the church this way. It's really hard," says Nancy Callega. She says despite the damage to the church, her faith as a Catholic has helped her let go, to cope and face the destruction that surrounds everyone here.

"I really trust in God," she says. "We cannot rely on our concrete houses and our powers, it's nothing compared to God's help through prayers."

The Philippines is a predominantly Catholic country, and it is one of the largest Catholic populations in the world. Only in Brazil and Mexico does the church have more followers.

The priest on Sunday told the suffering here to take strength from the suffering of Jesus. This is a place where many people have not only lost all their worldly goods, many have also watched family members get crushed or washed out to sea.

Terasita Mazeda, who works for the local municipal government, says she came to church on this morning to thank God that she survived the typhoon.

"We just go to church and say prayer for Thanksgiving that we were still alive," Mazeda says. "Without our material things it's not important. Most important is we are still alive."

That's also an idea echoed by Wenny Valdesco. She's part of the Catholic Women's League and does the collection during mass each Sunday. She says at a time like this the church is a symbol of what's important, and that material things are secondary.

"And it is reminding us that when we are in our death bed, everything is abandoned," Valdesco says. "And in devastation we have to save ourselves if it is God's will that we have to survive."

Amidst the wreckage and the mud and the emotional pain, these women say the church remains for them something positive and something beautiful and a place to come together as a community.


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GAMALIEL FOUNDATION (GF)

www.DiscoverTheNetwork.org
Date: 11/16/2013 3:31:37 PM

GAMALIEL FOUNDATION (GF)
221 North LaSalle - Suite 1320
Chicago IL
60601

Phone :(312) 357-2639
Fax :(312) 300-4722
Email :info@gamaliel.org
URL :http://www.gamaliel.org

  • Network of grassroots organizations working to bring about social change
  • Models its tactics after those of the radical Sixties activist Saul Alinsky


The Gamaliel Foundation (GF) was established in 1968 to support the Contract Buyers League, an African-American organization that advocated on behalf of black Chicago homeowners who had been discriminated against by lending institutions. GF derived its name from a Pharisee who, according to the New Testament, chastised the Jewish Sanhedrin (rabbinical court) for seeking to execute Jesus's apostles.

When former Jesuit priest Gregory Galluzzo became the foundation's executive director in 1986, Gamaliel was restructured as a community-organizing leadership institute that focused on training activists “to build and maintain powerful organizations in low-income communities.” GF has since grown into a network of faith-based community-organizing affiliates with branches in 18 U.S. states, South Africa, and the United Kingdom.[1]

Like the Gamaliel Foundation itself, GF's affiliates carefully select non-threatening names that form biblical acronyms. Michigan, for instance, has the Interfaith Strategy for Advocacy & Action in the Community (ISAAC); a Wisconsin affiliate is called Joining Our Neighbors, Advancing Hope (JONAH); and a New York affiliate is named Niagara Organizing Alliance for Hope (NOAH).

In the mid-1980s, Galluzzo served as a mentor for a young Barack Obama during the latter's organizing days in Chicago. The Developing Communities Project, where Obama first worked as an organizer, was (and still is) part of the Gamaliel network. By early 1988, Obama had become a consultant for, and a trainer of, GF community organizers; he would maintain his ties to Gamaliel throughout his years in the U.S. Senate. As Galluzzo said shortly after Obama was elected President in 2008: “Barack has acknowledged publicly that he had been the director of a Gamaliel affiliate. He has supported Gamaliel throughout the years by conducting training [and attending] our public meetings.”

In 2001, Dennis Jacobsen, director of Gamaliel's National Clergy Caucus, published Doing Justice: Congregations and Community Organizing, a handbook/ideological guide for GF's religious organizers. Depicting the U.S. as a “sick society” in need of radical transformation, this text derides America's free-market system for allegedly harming the poor. The author affirms that GF's goal is to foment public anger and “shake the foundations of this society.” Though he never mentions socialism explicitly, Jacobsen praises the communal property arrangements of the early Christians and the “radical sharing” practiced by various African groups. A self-described “radical Christian,” Jacobsen acknowledges that he has “deep prejudices ... against wealthy people.” He contends that Christians who view America as a just society are plagued by “false consciousness” -- a Marxist construct.

Gamaliel today offers more than 100 training events per year, teaching “techniques and methodologies that have worked in rural, urban, suburban, white, Black, Hispanic and working-class communities.” The foundation's seven-day residential training events use the “Socratic” method to promote an “agitational” approach to community organizing, modeled on the tactics of the late Saul Alinsky. GF has also developed training programs geared specifically toward clergy and women.

According to Rutgers political scientist Heidi Swarts, who has studied GF extensively, Gamaliel's organizers engage freely in ideological talk when speaking privately among themselves, but they carefully avoid such talk during their trainings so as not to alienate working-class people. In those settings, the organizers present their ideas as pragmatic, “commonsense solutions” for “working families.”

GF and its affiliates focus their training and activist efforts on the following major issues[2]:
  • Civil Rights of Immigrants: Lamenting the inequities of America's “broken immigration system” that “has separated [i.e., split apart] countless families and compromised the dignity of millions of decent people,” GF calls for expanded rights and ultimately a path to citizenship for all illegals currently residing in the United States. In January 2010, GF launched a "National Prayer Vigil Campaign to win Comprehensive Immigration Reform," an initiative where activists held weekly public prayer vigils in front of the offices of members of Congress.

  • Health Care: Citing Jesus's call for his apostles “to cure diseases” and “to heal” the sick, GF contends that government-financed “health care Is a God-given right” that “should be guaranteed to everyone living in the United States.” “Economic and racial disparities in access to health care,” adds GF, are a particular affront to “the will of God.”

  • Transportation Equity Network: Asserting that “inequities in transportation create barriers to opportunity, access, and full participation in the life of the community,” GF has launched a project called the Transportation Equity Network consisting of more than 350 community organizations in 41 states. This initiative lobbies for “increased [government] funding for mass transit” and the creation of “more transportation-related jobs for disadvantaged people” in “underserved, low-income communities.”

  • Jobs and Economic Development: GF and the Transportation Equity Network created the JOBS NOW campaign, which “aims [to] get thousands of high-paying jobs” for “low-income people, minorities, women, and ex-offenders through workforce development agreements and policies.”

  • Opportunity Housing: Challenging “the entrenched system of separatism and segregation of the poor in America,” GF promotes “fair share housing,” whereby “all communities within a metropolitan area should include their fair share of the region’s low income housing and affordable housing.”
GF's modus operandi is to bring local, inner-city churches into its fold, and then to pressure political and corporate leaders to support Gamaliel's goals vis à vis the foregoing issues.

Former GF community organizer Rey Lopez-Calderon reports that Gamaliel's “culture” is exceedingly “strange and warped.”  “[Gregory] Galluzzo,” says Calderon, “told me that he wanted organizers to be tough bastards who could build power like the Conquistadors.” Calderon further reveals that Galluzzo, in seminars, would teach trainees to be “ruthless” in actualizing the premise that “the ends justify the means.”

GF receives much of its funding from the Catholic Campaign for Human Development. Yet according to the Roman Catholic Faithful website, the foundation's “goals and philosophies are at fundamental odds with Church teaching.” In March 2010, David Ricken -- the Roman Catholic bishop of Green Bay, Wisconsin -- said that certain “principles of the Gamaliel Foundation are inconsistent with the tenets of our Catholic Social Teaching.” Vicar general and chancellor Father John Doerfler of Northeast Wisconsin specified one particularly problematic GF doctrine: “The end,” he said, “does not justify the means.”


GF has also received much financial support from the Annie E. Casey Foundation, the Arca Foundation, the Bauman Family Foundation, the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the Charles Stewart Mott Foundation, the Ford Foundation, the Glaser Progress Foundation, George Soros's Open Society Institute, the Public Welfare Foundation, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Rockefeller Foundation, the Tides Foundation, the Wieboldt Foundation, the W.K. Kellogg Foundation, and the Woods Fund of Chicago.[3]
For a list of additional funders of GF, click here.

In January 2011, veteran community organizer Ana Garcia-Ashley became GF's new executive director, replacing Gregory Galluzzo, who had held the position for 24 years.

For additional infotmation on the Gamaliel Foundation, click here.


NOTES:
[1] This was as of February 2011.
[2] These were GF's programs as of February 2011.
[3] Sources: the Foundation Center; the Capital Research Center; Stanley Kurtz, Radical-in-Chief (2010)


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