Thursday, June 19, 2014

March for Marriage 2014 - The Gala


THE GALA

Join us the evening of June 19th — following the March for Marriage and Marriage Lobby Day — for the First Annual National Organization for Marriage Gala, featuring keynote speaker Dr. Benjamin Carson!



Dr. Benjamin Carson
Biography


Brian S. Brown


Robert P. George
Biography

A gathering of pro-family leaders and advocates from around the nation, the NOM Gala reception and gala will be a celebration of the cherished institution that served as the very bedrock of our civilization: the family founded on the union of husband and wife. We hope you will join us as we hear from leaders in the fight to protect marriage and honor champions in the movement. Cocktail attire is requested.

6:30 PM — Reception and Cocktails

7:30 PM — Dinner and Program

The Willard Intercontinental Hotel
1401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20004

A discounted room block is available at the Willard for our out-of-town guests. Call 202.628.9100 to make a reservation, and mention the NOM. Reservations must be made by May 19, 2014.

THE NOM GALA IS SOLD OUT FOR THIS YEAR! THANKS FOR YOUR INTEREST!


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S.F. archbishop leads thousands against gay marriage



Carolyn Lochhead
Updated 2:51 pm, Thursday, June 19, 2014




Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is seen at the Archdiocese of San Francisco on Thursday, June 6, 2013 in San Francisco, Calif. Photo: Lea Suzuki, The Chronicle









(06-19) 14:41 PDT WASHINGTON -- Kneeling on the sidewalk across from the U.S. Supreme Court, San Francisco's Roman Catholic archbishop led several thousand protesters Thursday in prayer against same-sex marriage.

Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone was the star attraction of a rally in Washington organized by National Organization for Marriage President Brian Brown, the nation's leading opponent of same-sex marriage. Brown tapped Cordileone as the first speaker at the event and had him lead the group in prayer after a march from the west front of the U.S. Capitol to the Supreme Court steps.

The archbishop's attendance was controversial in San Francisco, where officials including House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, Mayor Ed Lee and Lt. Gov. Gavin Newsom signed letters urging Cordileone not to participate.

Cordileone told the crowd at Thursday's March for Marriage that he has "the support of Pope Francis for what we are doing today," citing approval by the Apostolic Nunciature of the Holy See to the United States, the Vatican's diplomatic mission in Washington. Cordileone chairs the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops subcommittee for the promotion and defense of marriage.

The rally drew predominantly Latino and African American protesters from New York, New Jersey, Virginia and other nearby states, numbering in the low thousands at its peak. Throngs of couples and children spent several hours in sweltering heat listening to speakers, many of them pastors, declare that marriage should be limited to unions of one man and one woman for the sake of children.

Former Republican presidential candidates Rick Santorum and Mike Huckabee also addressed the protesters. Santorum argued that traditional marriage is good for the economy because "every marriage is a little business."

Cordileone told demonstrators that "every child comes from a mother and a father, and to deliberately deprive a child of knowing and being loved" by them is "outright injustice."

"This is our very nature; no law can change it," he said.

He compared the fight over same-sex marriage, where opponents appear to be losing ground daily, to abortion in the 1970s, when the procedure appeared to be gaining widespread acceptance.

But because "a small band of believers held the line on the sanctity of life in the womb," Cordileone said, opposition to abortion grew. Now, he declared, there exists "the most pro-life generation since Roe vs. Wade," the 1973 Supreme Court decision that legalized abortion.

Cordileone predicted that public opinion on same-sex marriage would follow a similar trajectory so that eventually "people will figure out that a child comes from a father and mother."

Cordileone's security detail blocked a reporter from interviewing the prelate during the walk to the court as the crowd was led in a chant of, "One man, one woman."

Joel Feliz, a protester from New York, said he came to the event "praying to God to see if he can do a miracle" and reverse the movement in states and federal courts to legalize same-sex marriage.

Barry Wood, 62, of Richmond, Va., said that once marriage is redefined to be "just about love, then you can make marriage anything you want: three men, four women, anything."

He said he was not surprised by the decline in what he called Judeo-Christian ethics, linking same-sex marriage with abortion and the removal of prayer from schools.

"It's all part of the sad walk into post-Christian society," Wood said. "We're trying to hang on to it."

Carolyn Lochhead is the San Francisco Chronicle's Washington correspondent. E-mail:clochhead@sfchronicle.com. Twitter:@carolynlochhead


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Stromae, Global Star In The Making, Set To Touch Down In The U.S.




by ELEANOR BEARDSLEY
June 19, 2014 3:00 AM ET




6 min 45 sec
Playlist




Paul Van Haver, better known as Stromae, has already captured the European music market. Now, he's setting his sights on the U.S.Dati Bendo/Courtesy of the artist


Paul Van Haver meets me in the public cafe of a Brussels arts center. Though he's one of the hottest young pop artists in Europe, he arrives with just his manager, not an entourage. Van Haver is soft-spoken and neatly dressed, with smooth, caramel-colored skin and pale green eyes. Young people inside the cafe stare agog before approaching him for an autograph. They know him by his stage name, Stromae — "maestro" in backwards French slang.

Stromae's latest hit, "Papaoutai," swept the French music awards this year and went to the top of the iTunes singles charts in more than a dozen countries. The video has been viewed more than 150 million times. Not bad for a little song about a boy's emptiness growing up without his father, whose title translates as, "Papa, where are you?"

Stromae's father was a Rwandan architect who wasn't around much; he died in that country's genocide in 1994. The singer was raised, along with four siblings, by their Belgian mother in a working-class Brussels neighborhood.

"I didn't know him very well," he says. "My suffering is to know that I will never know who he was. It was difficult to know he was dead. But when my mother told me, I said, 'What's a father?' 'Cause I don't really know what a father is."

Stromae says he grew up listening to French and American rappers, and was inspired by the Americans' rhythm and flow, but not their vision of life.

"I didn't understand this kind of fake dream," he says. "As if life is about swimming pools, limousines, naked girls and stuff. No, my mother told me that happiness is not that, you know?"

His mother sent him to a Jesuit school at 16, after he failed out of the public system. It was a turning point for the artist: He decided to get serious about his life and his music, which he describes as a mix of Congolese rumba, rap, French ballad and electro-pop. The songs are about the world he grew up in.

"I prefer to talk about our problems, to be proud of them, in place of trying to hide them. Because you can't. And I prefer to dance, to smile on it, to laugh on it," he says.

Stromae's first hit, "Alors On Danse" ("So We Dance"), took Belgium by storm in late 2009, followed by all of Europe a few months later. It may be about unemployment, divorce and debt, but it makes you want to dance.

"I decided to tell a story about the reason why we dance," the singer says. "Because I was in clubs and I love clubs, but there is so much melancholy there."

In the video for "Formidable," a bitter breakup ballad and his second big hit, he emerges from a Brussels subway station in morning rush hour. He staggers through the streets as if drunk. Some help, others ignore him; he calls it a reflection of "our true humanity." The song was inspired by a homeless man who once yelled at the singer and his girlfriend, "So you think you're beautiful!"

"I never forgot this sentence, and I put it in my song, actually: Tu te crois beau," Stromae says. "He was so right, even if this guy was drunk or marginal or aggressive. He is just alone, and he needs someone to listen to him."


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Wednesday, June 18, 2014

Nancy Pelosi attempts to shut up San Fran archbishop; warns him not attend ‘March for Marriage’



June 16, 2014 by Joe Saunders
Even for Nancy Pelosi, this is galling.

The San Francisco liberal who claims to be Catholic now has the arrogance to warn the archbishop of San Francisco he should stay away from the March for Marriage scheduled for Thursday in the nation’s capital, according to SFGate.com.



The march is aimed at rallying support for traditional marriage against the current relentless assault by gay marriage advocates in the courts of law and court of public opinion.

San Francisco Archbishop Salvatore Cordileone is a national spokesman for protecting traditional marriage. In 2008, while still auxiliary bishop of San Diego, he was one of the leaders of the fight to pass Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage until a Democrat governor and state attorney general betrayed their own voters by failing to defend the law.

He is also a featured speaker at the “March for Marriage,” so when the House minority leader sends a written letter advising him to stay away from the event, Pelosi is literally trying to shut him up in the public square.

Citing a report in the San Franciso Chronicle (subscription required), SFGate reported Pelosi called the march “venom masquerading as virtue” and quoted the words of Pope Francis on the subject of homosexuality when the pontiff said, “If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him?”

Well, Nancy, as they say, even the devil can quote scripture. And there’s a considerable difference between not condemning an individual’s behavior and actually celebrating it all the way to including it in a sacrament of the church. (As a married Catholic, Pelosi presumably knows the church considers marriage a sacrament as sacred and binding as the ordination of a priest. In other words, it’s not really something she should be trying to advise a bishop about.)

The letter is a textbook reason for the First Amendment’s religious clause, which liberals are usually so fond of quoting, though they never seem to get past the first part.

When powerful politicians presume to preach their version of morality to religious leaders, they violate both the amendment’s injunction against the “establishment of religion” and its guarantee of free exercise.

By putting their arrogant ignorance on such public display, they also make asses out of themselves.

The letter is also a textbook example of another lesson Pelosi and her Democrat friends — especially the Democrat in the White House — should try to remember from time to time

“Render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God.”

The Twitter outrage was deafening.

Source
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The Nations in Conflict


Four mighty angels hold back the powers of this earth till the servants of God are sealed in their foreheads. The nations of the world are eager for conflict, but they are held in check by the angels. When this restraining power is removed there will come a time of trouble and anguish. Deadly instruments of warfare will be invented. Vessels with their living cargo will be entombed in the great deep. All who have not the spirit of truth will unite under the leadership of Satanic agencies, but they are to be kept under control till the time shall come for the great battle of Armageddon.—The S.D.A. Bible Commentary 7:967 (1900).
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Last Day Events, p. 238,239.
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Tuesday, June 17, 2014

It Won't Be All Cheers For Obama At LGBT Fundraiser As Immigrants Plan Protest


Elise Foley Become a fanelise@huffingtonpost.com




Posted: 06/17/2014 5:45 pm EDT Updated: 9 minutes ago






WASHINGTON -- President Barack Obama will be met outside a Tuesday evening fundraiser focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights by activists who say his deportation policies are failing one part of the LGBT community: Undocumented immigrants.

From 50 to 80 immigrant and LGBT rights advocates with the groups GetEQUAL, United We Dream's Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project, Make the Road NY, and Immigration Equality plan to rally outside a gala fundraiser for the Democratic National Committee in New York during Obama's appearance there. Six people may risk arrest by stopping traffic, according to organizers. Their goal is to highlight Obama's detention and deportation policies that they argue are damaging the LGBT community in particular because LGBT immigrants may be abused in detention centers and in their home countries.

Obama "has evolved on marriage and he has evolved now on work discrimination, now we want him to evolve on the inhumane process of deportation," said Carlos Padilla, a coordinator for the Queer Undocumented Immigrant Project who traveled from Washington to New York for the protest.

News broke on Monday that Obama had directed his staff to draft an executive order that would ban workplace discrimination against LGBT employees of federal contractors. The move came after the House failed to act on the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, which would ban employers from firing or harassing employees based on sexual orientation or gender identity.

While immigration groups applauded the move, activists also asked why the president doesn't act to help them. Immigrants, too, are faced with a House of Representatives that isn't moving on reform, but Obama has declined, for now, to make new executive actions. The president delayed a review that could have led to new policies to reduce deportations, and advocates are increasingly frustrated with the inaction.

"We are glad Obama is using his pen and phone more often to provide relief to communities across the county in the absence of a working Congress," Erika Andiola, co-director of the advocacy group Dream Action Coalition, said in a statement Monday after the LGBT announcement. "Just like the LGBT community, we undocumented immigrants across the country need his bold action immediately."

There are at least 267,000 undocumented immigrants in the U.S. who identify as LGBT, according to a 2013 report from The Williams Institute, a think tank at UCLA Law School devoted to law and public policy issues related to gender identity and sexual orientation.

Padilla, who identifies as queer, said that for many undocumented immigrants, deportation could lead to abuse or even death in their native countries. He came to to the U.S. from Mexico when he was 2 years old. Now, at 22, he can stay in the U.S. under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals policy, which allows young undocumented immigrants who came to the U.S. as children to apply to stay and work legally for two years, with the ability for renewal.

Padilla said the activists want to urge Obama to stop deporting LGBT undocumented immigrants and provide more protections for them in detention centers.

"For many of these folks, when they are deported they're persecuted," Padilla said. "Many of them face the price of death because of their identity and gender expression. So for us, deportation is a very serious threat."


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Роль Ватикана в новом мировом порядке Билл Хьюз Bill Hughes) [The Vatican's Role In The New World Order - Bill Hughes]




Христос Грядет

Published on Jul 21, 2013


Пастор и автор книги "Тайна террористов» и «Враг разоблачен" приоткрывает занавес, чтобы разоблачить роль Ватикана в наступающем Новом Мировом Порядке. В дополнение к плейлисту иезуиты,для полной картины советую просмотреть фильм: Новый мировой порядок.Революции,тираны,войны.https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rz5Tq...



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


Michael Nicholas

Published on Sep 8, 2013

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Beijin is in love with EndrTimes



这个网站是从下据说从北京一个未知的实体持续监控。永远不要因为山景,加利福尼亚州和理事会虚张声势,爱达荷州被争夺海誓山盟为“最常客”标题有这样的事情发生。

现在,据称由国泰航空(中国)的竞争者不断全天参观Endrtimes。我们小费我们的帽子,对他们撑起我们的“小红书”,以表彰他们的成就。

Zhège wǎngzhàn shì cóng xià jùshuō cóng běijīng yīgè wèizhī de shítǐ chíxù jiānkòng. Yǒngyuǎn bùyào yīnwèi shān jǐng, jiālìfúníyǎ zhōu hé lǐshì huì xūzhāngshēngshì, ài dá hé zhōu bèi zhēngduó hǎishìshānméng wèi “zuì chángkè” biāotí yǒu zhèyàng de shìqíng fāshēng.

Xiànzài, jù chēng yóu guótài hángkōng (zhōngguó) de jìngzhēng zhě bùduàn quán tiān cānguān Endrtimes. Wǒmen xiǎofèi wǒmen de màozi, duì tāmen chēng qǐ wǒmen de “xiǎo hóng shū”, yǐ biǎozhāng tāmen de chéngjiù.

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President Obama seeks political boost from LGBT executive order





This will be a week of the administration trumpeting its gay rights record. | GettyClose

By EDWARD-ISAAC DOVERE and JENNIFER EPSTEIN | 6/16/14 12:19 PM EDT Updated: 6/17/14 3:18 PM EDT


President Barack Obama’s 2014: “pen and phone” — and politics.

Monday, the White House announced Obama will sign an executive order that would prohibit federal contractors from discriminating on the basis of sexual orientation or gender identity.

This will be a week of the administration trumpeting its gay rights record, with Obama appearing Tuesday night at the Democratic National Committee’s annual LGBT Gala in New York. Thursday, the Justice Department is set to release a report detailing all the ways it has broadly interpreted the Supreme Court’s United States v. Windsor decision which struck down the Defense of Marriage Act last year.

(PHOTOS: 26 gay-rights milestones)

The White House will host a meeting Thursday afternoon about the executive order and the report, which will identify Social Security and veterans affairs benefits as the two areas where the federal government has not been able to apply the Windsor decision, according to sources briefed on the plans.

That will come as the anti-gay marriage National Organization for Marriage on Thursday holds its own march from the Capitol to the Supreme Court, followed by a gala dinner at the Willard Hotel.

For LGBT advocates, the executive order is so important that they call it the third leg of the stool of Obama’s revolutionary record on gay rights, along with repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and backing same sex marriage. For Obama and Democrats, it’s a fresh way to try to energize the LGBT community and liberals heading into the midterms.

(Also on POLITICO: Hobby Lobby aims for Christian nation)

The White House made the unusual move Monday of announcing that Obama had asked for the order to be drafted, though activists say Obama senior adviser Valerie Jarrett told them the Justice and Labor departments had vetted a version of the order two years ago. A White House official said the advance notice was due to the “intense interest” in the topic.

“The action would build upon existing protections, which generally prohibit federal contractors and subcontractors from discriminating in employment decisions on the basis of race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” the official said. “This is consistent with the president’s views that all Americans, LGBT or not, should be treated with dignity and respect.”

The order would cover 28 million workers overall, and what advocates estimate is one in five LGBT employees nationally.

“This is a signal to the ‘rising electorate’ needed to turn out in midterms (LGBT, African American, Latinos and young people) that there’s a reason to come out and vote,” Winnie Stachelberg, an executive vice president for the Center for American Progress said in an email, “so it’s helpful for sure.”

(Also on POLITICO: Obama's Bush hangover)

The delay over the final text is seen by some who’ve been watching developments closely as due to the upcoming Supreme Court’s decision on the Hobby Lobby case, on the religious exemption for businesses to claim leeway from Obamacare’s contraception mandate. If the court were to issue a broad exemption, LGBT advocates worry it could have implications for their community as well, by potentially enabling employers to justify discrimination by saying their religion does not approve of LGBT people.

Activists expect that the White House will wait to issue the executive order until after that decision arrives — expected by the end of the month — and that sexual orientation and gender identity will be written into the existing executive order language about workplace discrimination in a way that addresses the decision.

The White House did not comment on what role Hobby Lobby is playing in officials’ thinking.

Signing the order would fulfill a promise that dates back to Obama’s days as a candidate, but that lingered through the first term and has been tabled since Jarrett told advocates in a 2012 meeting that they’d have to keep waiting until after the re-election campaign.

They’ve kept waiting since then, watching with a what-about-us frustration as the president announced in his State of the Union in January that he’d lead by example and raise the minimum wage for government workers, then in April that he’d lead by example and sign an executive order on pay equity for government contractors — all while repeatedly calling for Congress to pass the Employee Non-Discrimination Act, which would cover much of the same legal ground.

That bill has passed the Senate but been stalled in the House, though advocates hope that the executive order will now increase political pressure on Speaker John Boehner (R-Ohio) and his conference to hold a vote.

“While the specifics of this executive order are not yet clear, I believe it must include the same religious protections that are included in the bipartisan Employment Non-Discrimination Act that passed the Senate,” said Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah). “ENDA strikes a good balance to ensure that discrimination based on sexual orientation will not be tolerated, but also that one of our nation’s fundamental freedoms — religious freedom — is still upheld.”

Stachelberg, who’s spoken often with the White House about these issues, praised the administration’s “careful consideration of this issue and its strong commitment to widening the circle of opportunity,” saying that brings, “the goal of true workplace fairness for all Americans is closer than ever before.”

But for all the breadth of that record, Obama managed to get overshadowed on endorsing same sex marriage by Vice President Joe Biden, whom many in the LGBT community credit with having accelerated the president’s own timing by unexpectedly voicing his own support two years ago in a “Meet the Press” interview. Even last week, during a screening of a new movie about the court battle to repeal California’s Proposition 8, a clip of that Biden interview drew heavy applause from the audience, while a clip of Obama endorsing gay marriage was greeted mostly with silence.

The executive order should help Obama reclaim some of the attention for being the one whose administration has racked up so many victories for the LGBT community that many were wary even criticizing the delay. Beyond repealing Don’t Ask Don’t Tell and the gay marriage endorsement, advocates have widely praised how the Justice Department has continued to respond to Windsor.

All that will matter to the LGBT community, advocates say. But it will also matter to the voters Obama is trying to turn out in the midterms.

“There’s absolutely no doubt that this president has fulfilled 99.9 percent of his promises to the LGBT community, and this is yet another important example of that,” said Fred Sainz, the vice president for communications at the Human Rights Campaign. “I wouldn’t simply apply this to LGBT people. I think it sends a message to progressives overall, much like you saw his support for marriage excite them.”

Jarrett celebrated the imminent action with a post on Twitter. “Executive action to ban fed contractors from discriminating against #LGBT workers is good for America & for business #WorkplaceEquality,” she wrote.

Sen. Jeff Merkley (D-Ore.), the lead sponsor in the Senate of the Employment Non-Discrimination Act, welcomed the White House’s plans and called on Boehner to hold a vote on ENDA — which passed in the Senate late last year — so that discrimination protection would apply to Americans in all workplaces.

“Most Americans don’t know that it’s still legal in many states to fire someone for their sexual orientation or gender identity,” Merkley said. “That’s because it not only defies common sense, it goes wholly against who we are as a nation. No more excuses. It’s way past time for Speaker Boehner to allow ENDA to have a vote in the House. No one should be fired because of who they are or whom they love.”



Source: http://www.politico.com/story/2014/06/obama-lgbt-nondiscrimination-executive-order-107900_Page2.html#ixzz34vX4zdvC
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Monday, June 16, 2014

IRS Loses Lois Lerner Emails---What Tea Party Targeting?



 

Robert W. Wood Contributor

6/13/2014 @ 11:50PM


Lois Lerner’s emails are missing, says the IRS. Remember Lois Lerner? The IRS probably would like to forget her, and no doubt her emails too. She was the former Director of Tax Exempt Organizations at the IRS. That makes her the IRS official at the center of the targeting scandal.

She is retired now on a government pension, but conceivably could still face prosecution. Lerner allegedly flagged tax-exemption applications of conservative organizations, including Crossroads GPS. She allegedly also turned a blind eye to liberal groups like Priorities USA. But when the whole mess came to light, she refused to testify on multiple occasions.

She was held in contempt of Congress for refusing to testify. After making a statement in which she said she had done nothing wrong, Lerner refused to answer questions, invoking her constitutional right against self-incrimination. But some Republicans say her statement amounted to a waiver. Her case was turned over to the U.S. Attorney for the District of Columbia.



The Gadsden flag (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

If prosecuted and convicted–which seems unlikely–the raft of charges could conceivably add up to 11 years. Given the stakes, her silence should not be surprising. And despite a 14-page letter to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder lambasting her conduct, she may just slip quietly away. But the latest development involves her emails.

The IRS has admitted to Congressional investigators that many of Lois Lerner’s emails prior to 2011 are missing. Oops. Her computer crashed. The IRS came up with 24,000 Lerner emails from 2009 to 2011. The IRS did this by getting emails from 83 other IRS employees that had cc’s of Lerner emails. But no one knows how many of Ms. Lerner’s emails are gone.

According to Representative Dave Camp (R-Mich), the missing emails were mainly to and from people outside the IRS. Oh, that means emails from Ms. Lerner to the White House, Treasury, Department of Justice, FEC, or Democrat offices. Mr. Camp sounds fit to be tied: ”The fact that I am just learning about this, over a year into the investigation, is completely unacceptable and now calls into question the credibility of the IRS’s response to congressional inquiries,” he said.

He has called for a Department of Justice investigation. One key issue is just who outside the IRS was involved in handling tea party applications. That is why emails between Ms. Lerner and others in the administration could be so very valuable. The IRS says it went to great lengths and spent nearly $10 million to produce more than 750,000 documents. (Those are $10 million of our tax dollars, correct?)

Overall, the IRS said it is producing 67,000 emails to and from Lerner, covering 2009 to 2013. And as the investigation trundles on, it may begin to sound to some people as if the grassy knoll of the key emails may remain shrouded. That is one more black eye for the IRS, an important agency that has had too many.

No matter how genuine the loss of the emails, no matter how innocent those at the IRS may be who are trying to comply with law, this doesn’ t look good. At least a few taxpayers may feel a little more secure when they show up for their tax audit proclaiming that they lost key records. Perhaps the IRS will be a little more forgiving now when a taxpayer doesn’t have receipts?

And another question worth asking is Dear Mr. President: Is There A ‘Smidgen Of Corruption?’ In IRS ‘Lost’ Lerner Emails?


Source
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Engineered to fail: Why war, drugs, prisons, health care, debt and education are all theatrical scams designed to fail





Sunday, June 15, 2014




by Mike Adams, the Health Ranger




(NaturalNews) More and more people are wondering today why systems of American government and corporate enterprise don't seem to be working. The education system fails to educate, the health care system fails to create good health, and the border patrol isn't even allowed to protect the border. Why are these systems failing the American people over and over again?

The answer -- which may surprise you -- is that many systems are designed to fail from the very start.

The health care system, for example, would collapse if the American people really got healthy and started taking vitamin D, eating healthier foods, exercising regularly and taking care of their own health. So the health care system encourages "maintenance" of disease rather than preventing or curing disease. Disease "maintenance" is profitable, while disease prevention is not. That's why the health care system is designed to fail at its primary stated purpose: creating good health. If it actually succeeded, it would put itself out of business.


Systems that depend on the continuation of the very thing they claim to oppose

There are all sorts of systems in America today that depend on the continuation of the very thing they oppose in order to continue to exist. Here, I list the more obvious ones, but there are many more worthy of attention.

Each of these systems works much like a cancer tumor, incessantly seeking to expand its size by redirecting support resources to itself. In cancer, this process is called angiogenesis. In government, it's called a "budget increase," and every agency, department and group within government always seeks to grow larger and command a more lucrative budget.

To accomplish this, it must stay relevant to some enormous problem in society. If the National Cancer Institute, for example, discovered a cure for cancer and shared it with the public, the entire organization would suddenly become irrelevant and see its operating budgets collapse. It is the ongoing search for cancer -- not its cure -- that keeps the NCI in business. That's why no cure for cancer will ever be publicized... it runs counter to the very existence of the cancer industry!

The following list reveals some of the top systems in America which are designed to fail so that they can continue to remain well-funded and profitable.

As you read this list, keep in mind that the individual people working in these systems are often well-meaning, ethical individuals who are trying to do their best. They usually have little awareness, however, that the system in which they are functioning was never designed to achieve success in the first place.


#1) The Health Care System is designed to fail

As already mentioned, the health care system would collapse overnight if it actually taught people how to stay healthy and prevent disease. For every major disease now ravaging America -- cancer, heart disease, diabetes -- there already exist a multitude of natural cures and highly effective prevention strategies that are affordable, safe and effective. Yet none of these are shared with the public, and in nearly all U.S. states, doctors who even attempt to share such knowledge can be arrested, charged with crimes and have their medical licensed revoked.

Instead of teaching prevention and cures, the health care system prefers to keep people trapped in a system of never-ending medical dependence. "Health" is never the goal. The real goal is to profit as much as possible from the ongoing suffering and sickness of the population at large.

After all, the sicker the population gets, the more high-profit drugs they'll be prescribed by the very same doctors who are routinely bribed by the drug companies.


#2) The Food Production System is designed to fail to nourish the population

If American people are eating so much food, you might wonder why they are so malnourished in terms of the natural vitamins and minerals that are supposed to be present in real food.

The answer is that the U.S. food production system is intentionally designed to cause nutritional deficiencies that lead to runaway food cravings and widespread food addictions.

Processed food companies intentionally remove nearly all the important nutrients from food during manufacturing: healthy oils, minerals, vitamins, phytonutrients, fiber and more. What's left is a delicious but nutritionally worthless mass of heavily refined food ingredients (HFCS, sugar, white flour, etc.) which promote food addictions and ongoing hunger (i.e. repeat business).

The human body will always signal "hunger" when it is deficient in essential minerals -- the very same minerals which are intentionally removed from processed foods. That never-ending hunger leads to addictive eating habits that enrich the processed food companies. They actually depend on obese, desperate food addicts in much the same way that crack dealers depend on crack addicts for repeat business.

If the U.S. food supply were designed to nourish the population, it would consist largely of whole, nutritionally-intact foods that deliver the building blocks of good health and disease prevention.

Instead, we get Wonder Bread, Froot Loops and Skittles -- three glaring examples of a disastrously failed food supply engineered to keep people in a state of perpetual nutritional starvation even while they're eating themselves into obesity and cancer.


#3) The Prison System is designed to fail

Have you ever wondered what the purpose of the prison system really might be? It's sold to us as a "reform" system that accepts criminals and somehow magically turns them into law-abiding citizens upon their release.

Yet as Adam Kokesh rightly points out in his new book FREEDOM!, this entire idea is based on the ridiculous assumption that throwing a prisoner into an environment where he is surrounded by other criminals and gang members will make him less criminal-minded, not more.

The institution of prison, as structured today, is actually a training ground for hardened criminals. People often enter the system as small-time crooks and leave as violent, aggressive criminals with expanded skills and knowledge of how the criminal world operates.

The prison system needs this, it turns out. Many prisons are now run by for-profit corporations which use prisoners as a socially-sanctioned form of modern-day slave labor to produce products and services for profit. Every corporate-run prison must achieve a certain occupancy rate in order to remain profitable. After all, a half-empty prison isn't profitable to run, so the prisons need more criminals to stay in business.

The easiest way to ensure a high occupancy rate is to make sure that the prison itself functions as a training ground for criminals, guaranteeing "repeat business" that puts released prisoners on a return trajectory.


#4) The Education System is designed to fail


The very last thing a dictatorial society wants is a well-educated population that might achieve a high enough grasp on mathematics, history and sociology to recognize all the scams taking place around them.

If the U.S. education system taught children mathematics, no one would buy into all the rampant debt spending taking place in Washington (nor the money creation schemes of the Fed).

If the U.S. education system taught children history, no one would allow executive tyrants in Washington to destroy the Constitution and concentrate power into the hands of the few.

If the U.S. education system taught children how to think for themselves, they might begin to question the corruption and criminality of government itself, and they might vote the crooks out of office (or even stage a revolt).

As comedian George Carlin famously noted, the U.S. education system is really designed to produce only one thing: obedient workers... people who are just smart enough to run the machines and push the buttons as fast food cashiers, but who aren't bright enough to realize how they're being royally exploited, screwed and enslaved by the system.


#5) Conventional Agriculture is will inevitably lead to mass starvation

The conventional agriculture system of mass mono-cropping based on chemical pesticides and insecticides is engineered from the start to lead to widespread crop failures and mass starvation.

The system, by its very nature, destroys top soils and kills soil microbes, making sustainable food production impossible in the long term. The use of fossil water supplies is mathematically unsustainable and will lead to Dust Bowl conditions across much of Texas, Oklahoma and the entire U.S. breadbasket.

The clear-cutting of trees along coastal areas to make way for ranching and food production causes a loss of "transpiration" of water, resulting in inland droughts and crop failures that only worsen topsoil erosion.

The very practice of monoculture -- planting the same crop in row after row with zero crop diversity -- is steeped in practices of mass poisoning with glyphosate, pesticides, herbicides and chemical soil amendments. All of these techniques are unsustainable in the long term and are effectively little more than an "open pit mining operating" of agricultural lands which will eventually produce no food at all.

On top of all this, the entire system of conventional agriculture is based on the massive use of petrochemical inputs in the form of machinery fuels, transportation fuels and chemically-derived fertilizers. Once the global supply of oil begins to dwindle, conventional agriculture as practiced today will inevitably collapse.

What's a better alternative? Permaculture. Decentralized, non-chemical food production. Click here to learn about permaculture from Geoff Lawton.


#6) The Tax System is designed to fail

The fool believes that the federal income tax is needed to raise money to fund government. This is a proven myth, as the government can simply create trillions of dollars instantly, any time it wants to bail out wealthy banks. The entire income tax could be eliminated overnight and replaced with a once-a-year money creation effort that funds the entire government.

The real purpose of the federal tax code is to control and suppress the population, making sure that middle class people never have the ability to rise up and challenge the ultra-wealthy. That's why income tax exceptions are always granted to the ultra-wealthy and the companies they own. You did know that Apple, Google, Microsoft and other corporate giants pay virtually zero taxes, didn't you?

Taxes are designed to make sure the middle class gets punished with paying 20% - 50% taxes while the ultra-wealthy -- by using legal offshore tax loopholes and complex maneuvers -- often pay just 3% or so.

It's much easier to maintain your position at the top of the money pyramid if you can enforce a punitive tax policy against the not-so-wealthy. Always remember that taxes are structured by design to punish the working poor and the middle class while protecting the money positions of the ultra-wealthy.


#7) Border Security system is designed to fail

Right now, 35,000 illegal immigrants are flooding into Texas each month. This is not a failure, this is a "success" according to Washington's real aims.

There really are people in command in Washington D.C. who wish to see America collapse into a runaway welfare state, where the vast majority of the masses are wholly dependant on government for their food, housing, unemployment checks and medical care. Once the masses are trapped in this cycle of government-dictated poverty, it is a simple matter to get all those people to vote for whichever politician offers the most handouts.

A runaway welfare state is a utopian dream for power-hungry statists who despise human freedom and dignity. And they will exploit the suffering of any number of undocumented immigrants in order to achieve their goals. That's why the borders are intentionally weakened to encourage this influx. Border Security as practiced today is intentionally designed to fail. (This is not to say, by the way, that the men and women of the Border Patrol want it this way. More than anyone, they desperately seek the funding and political support to do their jobs, but they are being stonewalled at every turn by a government which has an ulterior motive.)


#8) The Department of Defense is designed to fail at keeping the peace

There's a funny thing about "defending" America that keeps happening: The more we "defend" America by bombing other countries with drone strikes, the more they seem to hate us for some reason. When they hate us, they fight back and attack the positions that we once held (like what's happening in Iraq right now), causing yet more need for us to dispatch even more weapons to win back the land that isn't really ours but that we held at gunpoint for a very long time.

Every time a missile is launched, a bomb is dropped or a soldier is dispatched to any war zone, some corporation that manufactures missiles, bombs or Humvees earn another profit. The sound of bombs dropping on Iraq is really the ka-ching! sound of money being dumped into the bank accounts of certain U.S. weapons manufacturers.

War is big business, and war is highly profitable. At one level, I'm darned happy that the U.S. has a strong defensive military capability, because if we didn't, no doubt some foreign enemy would have already tried to overrun us by now. But at the same time, the industry of war needs constant revenues to stay in business. So the government stirs up conflict every few years or so in order to keep the weapons manufacturers raking in record profits.

The Department of Defense, in other words, isn't really interested in world peace. It's interested in ongoing conflict. That's what keeps the DoD relevant while also keeping profits flowing into the hands of weapons manufacturers and private contract companies.

At the same time, the DoD battles other war-mongering leaders of other nations where the same scam keeps them in power, too. War has a way of causing citizens to all-too-easily throw their support behind the very militant political leaders who caused the war in the first place. So global war is an ongoing, repeated scam that keeps the war mongers in power all across the globe.

Do I support a strong national defense? You bet I do. It's a necessity in a world full of truly evil regimes like North Korea. But I also recognize that war is a racket and much of the conflict we see is entirely contrived for financial or political gain.


#9) The U.S. Treasury is designed to fail


Those of you who are "in the know" are fully aware that all the money created by the Federal Reserve -- a private, non-governmental banking institution -- is borrowed by the U.S. Treasury before being given to the wealthy banks as part of so-called "quantitative easing."

Every billion dollars created and redirected in this way is one more billion dollars in debt that the U.S. population ultimately owes the private Federal Reserve.

In other words, the money supply isn't owned by the People, nor by the government which was created by the People. Nope, the money supply is owned and controlled by a private banking cartel, and every dollar created for the U.S. Treasury is a dollar in debt which will be extracted from the productivity of the American people in the future.

Now here's the really shocking part: The U.S. Treasury borrows money to make interest payments on U.S. debt. So not only does the Treasury owe trillions of dollars to debtors; it actually borrows more money from the Fed just to meet the minimum interest payments on the debt it already owes.

Because interest rates cause debts to be paid back using more money than was originally borrowed -- i.e. if you borrow $100 at a 5% interest rate, you have to pay back $105 in a year -- it is mathematically impossible for the U.S. Treasury to ever pay back its debt to the Federal Reserve.

The Treasury debt, in other words, is intentionally designed to fail and collapse, after which the private banking accounts of U.S. citizens will simply be seized as "collateral" to pay back to "debt owed" by the U.S. government. (A similar scenario already took place in Cyprus, by the way...)


#10) The War on Drugs is designed to fail 

The War on Drugs has a very important purpose, but it has nothing to do with halting the trafficking of drugs. It has everything to do with empowering the DEA, enriching "on the take" corrupt law enforcement officials, and filling the for-profit prisons with cheap slave labor (as described above).

Legalizing and regulating marijuana nationwide would largely collapse the drug underground economy, de-fund drug gangs and suppress much of the drug war violence we see taking place today. But legalizing drugs would also collapse the DEA and deny all the corrupt law enforcement co-conspirators their "take" of drug profits. Just as alcohol prohibition caused alcohol distribution to be hugely profitable nearly a century ago, drug prohibition today causes drug distribution to be hugely profitable right now -- especially for those who can position themselves to be "enforcers" who control what really takes place on the street.

The ongoing War on Drugs, much like the war on cancer, is designed to be a perpetual failure so that those who claim to fight the war can always request higher "enforcement budgets." No budget is ever large enough, of course, and no expansion of secret surveillance and spying on U.S. citizens is ever sufficient, we're told. The War on Drugs gives the DEA and law enforcement a blank check to justify almost any action against innocent people, including armed raids on their homes, surveillance of their private phone calls and the monitoring of all their financial transactions.

For the record, I am strenuously opposed to abuse of recreational drugs, and I am convinced that meth in particular is destroying the very fabric of rural America. There are a great many dedicated, honest law enforcement officials who nobly fight against the scourge of such drugs every single day (and I salute them for their efforts). But how long must this continue before we realize the current approach of drug criminalization isn't working?

For us to make any real progress on the War on Drugs, drug addiction needs to be treated as a medical condition, not a criminal intent. Marijuana in particular needs to be legalized and highly regulated so that drug enforcement efforts can focus on the far more dangerous street substances like meth and heroin.


Conclusion: Don't be suckered into thinking policy failures are accidents


As you observe what's happening in the world around you, it's important to understand why the failure rate on so many institutions and policies is so high: it's because they are designed to fail from the start.

There is no real effort to cure cancer, end disease, nourish the population, reform violent criminals, educate children or pay off the national debt. All of these are designed to remain ongoing failures for political or economic purposes. Their activities are often just pure theater to maintain the illusion that they are doing something useful for society while they maintain positions of power and profit.

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Sunday, June 15, 2014

Catholicism in Decline Among Latino Population



By Rodrigo Ugarte (staff@latinpost.com)
First Posted: Jun 14, 2014 02:12 PM EDT



Less Latinos identified as Catholics in 2013 than four years ago. (Photo : Twitter/Champion News)



Catholicism has always been an identifier of Latinos. In supermarkets throughout the United States religious candles decorated with the images saints line the shelves of the Latino food sections along with Goya products and Milo chocolate powder. However, Latinos continue to desert the Catholic faith in exchange of Protestantism or no faith at all.

A recent survey conducted by the Pew Research Center reveals that the popularity of Catholicism among Latinos has been in decline despite the fact that Latinos are a growing number of Catholics.

Catholicism arrived in Latin America alongside the Spanish conquistadors who brought priests to the New World to instruct the native peoples and convert them to the Church of Rome. For three centuries Catholicism was the dominant religious dogma from California to the Patagonia and until recently ithad not faltered in the competition for Latinos' souls.

With the increase of Latino immigration to the United States, the racial and ethnic make up of the country continues to evolve; however, in exchange the U.S. has been affecting the faith of Latinos. According to a report by the Pew Research Center, 55 percent of Latinos identify as Catholic, a 12-point drop in the last four years. Yet, the number of Latinos who identify as Protestant or to no religion continues to rise.

The survey, as the report states, also separated religious affiliation by nationality. Those who were of Mexican or Dominican descent were more likely to identify as Catholic whereas those who were Salvadorian were more likely to call themselves evangelical.

The Pew Research Center survey was conducted between May 24 and July 28, 2013 and interviewed 5,103 Hispanic adultsranging from the ages of 18 and up. The authors of the survey point out that they found marginal changes in those older than 50 years of age. However, those within the 18 to 29 year old cohort saw a departure from Catholicism to no religious affiliation. Those between the ages of 30 and 49 were more likely to leave Catholicism for Protestantism.

According to the Pew Research Center, the trend of younger Latinos leaving religion altogether follows a larger trend within the nation. The greatest shift has been found between those raised Catholic and whether they continue to identify as such. Seventy-seven percent of Latinos interviewed were raised Catholic but only 55 percent identified as such, 22-point change.

Meanwhile Protestant affiliation has risen by 8 points to 22 percent from 14 and no affiliation has risen from 6 percent to 18. The survey revealed that of those Latinos who migrated to the U.S. and were raised Catholics half changed their faith after arriving in the country while the other half had changed it before. However, there is a greater discrepancy among those born in the United States, with Catholics garnering the greatest losses.

Though Catholicism seems to be on the decline among Latinos, they still make up a third of Catholics in the nation, a number that continues to rise adds the Pew Research Center. They state the reason is because of the growing number of Latinos in the nation offsets the losses of Catholics.

It is still too soon to tell whether supermarkets around the country will begin dropping the votive candles from the Latino food aisles; nonetheless, it is evident that faith is changing among Latinos much like the rest of the country. For more details and information look through the survey here.

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Cleaning Up the Vatican



By PAUL VALLELYJUNE 13, 2014




Credit
Angelo Carconi/Associated Press


LONDON — It looked extremely dramatic when Pope Francis fired the entire board of the Vatican’s financial watchdog last week. But that was only the half of it. The seismic changes that are underway behind the scenes in Rome are even more radical than public appearances suggest. And they offer illuminating insights into the steely character of the man who likes to present himself to the world as a model of smiling humility.

The body known as Rome’s Financial Information Authority (F.I.A.) supervises everything from the Vatican Bank to the real estate of the Holy See, its staff salaries and even the Vatican pharmacy. Its five Italian members were due to serve until 2016 when Francis asked them to resign early — to be replaced by an international team of financial experts that includes Joseph Yuvaraj Pillay, the man who turned around the Singapore economy, and Juan Zarate, a former financial security adviser to President George W. Bush.

The drastic move came after months of infighting between the old guard and the F.I.A.’s director, René Brülhart, a Swiss anti-money-laundering expert, charged with cleaning up one of the world’s most secretive banks, which has assets worth more than $8 billion. A former head of Liechtenstein’s financial intelligence unit, he found his reforms continually frustrated by an old-boy network. He complained to the pope, who swept aside the obstacle in a single move.

But there was more to it than that, as anyone would have suspected who knew the modus operandi of Jorge Mario Bergoglio when he was archbishop of Buenos Aires before he became pope. There, too, he had faced a banking scandal in which his predecessor, Cardinal Antonio Quarracino, had become embroiled in underwriting a multimillion dollar insurance deal for a family of prominent bankers who turned out to be paying all his credit card bills. When the bank went insolvent, bankers were jailed, and the Catholic Church was asked to repay huge sums it did not have, Cardinal Bergoglio called in the international accountants Arthur Andersen, closed the church bank and transferred its assets to commercial banks.

He acted swiftly, decisively and transparently — on several levels at once. And that is what he has been doing for the past year with the opaque finances of the Vatican and its scandal-mired bank.

He certainly needs to do so. The bank has had a highly dubious history since the 1980s when it was implicated in the collapse of Italy’s largest private bank, the Banco Ambrosiano, whose chairman, Roberto Calvi, was found hanging from Blackfriars Bridge in London, an incident that was widely seen as a murder disguised as suicide. A warrant was issued for the arrest of the president of the Vatican Bank, Archbishop Paul Marcinkus, alleging he was an accessory to fraudulent bankruptcy, but he was never put on trial.

The bank’s checkered history has continued until recent times. In a 2012 report, the Council of Europe’s monetary authority failed the Vatican Bank on seven of its 16 core anti-money-laundering regulations. Other banks distanced themselves from it to such an extent that in 2013 Deutsche Bank closed down the Vatican’s 80 cash machines and credit card payment services. Impropriety clung to the institution like a bad smell.

Quite rightly Pope Francis made reform of the Vatican Bank one of his first priorities. Within days of becoming pope he stripped the bank’s five supervisory cardinals of their $42,000 annual stipend. In a sermon at a Mass for bank staff he pointedly described their organization as “necessary up to a certain point.” He demanded tighter accounting, better reporting practices and enhanced internal controls. Ten months later, unhappy with progress, he dismissed all but one of the five cardinals in January. He also replaced the F.I.A.’s president with an archbishop with a track record of reform within the Vatican bureaucracy.

Shrewdly, as before, he has brought in outsiders. The U.S. regulatory and compliance consultants of Promontory Financial Group are combing through the bank’s 19,000 accounts. They have found poor cash-flow checks, inadequate documentation, ignorance on due diligence and a system of proxies that clouds who really controls many accounts. When the clerics in charge were asked how they answered to the regulator, they replied: “We answer to God.” Now they answer to Mr. Brülhart. Some 1,600 accounts have been closed so far.

He has hired other external advisers. Ernst & Young is scrutinizing Vatican property holdings. KPMG is bringing its accountancy systems up to international standards. McKinsey is reforming its media operations, which include TV, radio and a newspaper. Deloitte is advising on management.

But Francis wanted to address the issue at a deeper level too. Does the Catholic Church need its own bank at all? He set up a committee, which included the Harvard law professor Mary Ann Glendon, to ask more fundamental questions. It was given powers, in a letter of authority handwritten by Francis, to summon any documents and data it deemed necessary and told to report directly to the pope, bypassing the Curia, the Vatican bureaucracy.

That committee issued its report last month — and explains the timing of the F.I.A. house-cleaning. And that was not all. Two of the bank’s most longstanding senior officials were eased into early retirement. And a new business manager from Australia, Danny Casey, was brought in to force fiscal transparency and discipline across all Vatican departments. He will be the right-hand man of Cardinal George Pell, former archbishop of Sydney, a traditionalist but also a vocal critic of the dysfunction of the Curia under the last papacy. Cardinal Pell is head of the new Secretariat of the Economy created by Francis in February to bring financial discipline to the Vatican, where each department has been acting as an individual center of power.

At one point Francis seemed set on closing the Vatican Bank, which was founded more than 70 years ago. In the 1970s, the Vatican used it to finance covert anti-Communist missions in central America. In the 1980s, Pope John Paul II used it to channel money to the Polish Solidarity movement. Now, Francis appears to have been convinced that the bank is still needed because so many bishops, priests and religious orders work in countries without secure banking systems.
But the pope is adamant it must become transparent and accountable. He is considering setting up a Vatican central bank to more closely control transfers of money abroad. That would remove the possibility that the $3 billion the bank transfers each year could be used for money-laundering — though other measures will be needed to combat the abuse of accounts for Italian tax evasion.

The scandal clinging to Vatican finances taints an institution that Francis famously said he wants, above all, to be “a poor church, for the poor.” There are many in the Vatican, wedded to a more elitist view of the church, who are unhappy at this. So far they have been unsure how to resist a pope who operates outside the old Curia channels and acts with admirable unpredictability.

What helps Francis, oddly enough, is that the scandal is far from over. One of the Vatican’s most senior accountants, Msgr. Nunzio Scarano, who worked for 22 years in the Administration of the Patrimony of the Apostolic See, the department in charge of paying Vatican salaries and managing its property and financial portfolios, is currently under arrest, awaiting trial on corruption and money laundering charges.

Nicknamed “Monsignor Cinquecento” after the 500-euro bills he routinely flashed in public, Monsignor Scarano owned luxury properties and expensive works of art. He has been accused by Italian magistrates of having transferred millions out of the Vatican Bank and smuggling it to Switzerland to help rich friends avoid taxes. The director of the Vatican Bank and his deputy, who were named in Italian court documents, have resigned. The court case will undoubtedly bring more explosive and embarrassing revelations.

On it goes. Even the previous pope’s right-hand man, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, is under investigation for using his influence to steer almost $20 million in Vatican Bank loans — money that was eventually lost — to a film company run by a friend. “It’s something that’s under study,” Pope Francis has told reporters. “It’s not clear. Maybe it could be true, but at this time nothing is definitive.”

One thing, however, is definite. Pope Francis knows that he has to get a grip on the Vatican’s chaotic finances. He has only just begun.

Paul Vallely is a visiting professor in public ethics at the University of Chester and the author of “Pope Francis: Untying the Knots.”


A version of this op-ed appears in print on June 14, 2014, in The International New York Times

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The Priest and his Cathedral of Football


Duration: 29 minutes
First broadcast: Saturday 14 June 2014

Padre (Father) Alberto Gauci is a passionate and unconventional priest who has spent over 40 years in rural Honduras. Football is a passion in the country and Honduras have qualified for this summer’s World Cup in Brazil.

Driven by his faith and his devotion to St Francis, Padre Gauci has gone to extraordinary lengths to improve the lives of the people he lives amongst in one of the poorest and most violent countries in Latin America. He has come up with an astonishingly ambitious project - a 20,000 seater football stadium - built from nothing in the heart of the jungle.

On his wall is a poster of the Bishop Oscar Romero, the figurehead of the Liberation Theology movement of the 1970s and for Heart and Soul, Will Grant explores with Padre Gauci how his work has been inspired and is consciously carrying on the tradition of Liberation Theology movement.

As the Honduran national team prepare to begin their World Cup campaign in Brazil, Will tells the story of his stadium, the Estadio Juan Ramon Breve Vargas and hears the tale of one man’s belief, sheer stubbornness and unwavering faith in God, St Francis and in the ability of the people around him to shape their own futures.

Will visits the stadium, as well as the prison that Padre Alberto has inspired in the town, and hears about his other projects such as the nutritional centre and the Aids facility. It is a vivid successful, vibrant example of the church filling the areas where government fails to help. At the centre of this is the dynamic Padre Alberto, driven by his love of God, and his love of football.

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Saturday, June 14, 2014

Flee The Cities - Sunday Law News Report



Sunday Law News Report - Flee the Cities 


Published on Feb 24, 2014
http://AdventBible.com - Inside this edition of the Sunday Law News Report, we'll see why we should leave the cities and flee to the country. When is it time to leave the cities? This question is on the lips of many of God's people, and it is an important one to consider and pray about.

Is it time to leave for the countryside now? Or can we just wait and see what happens?
The Spirit of Prophecy counsels us:

"As God's commandment keeping people, we must leave the cities. As did Enoch, we must work in the cities but not dwell in them." Evangelism, pp. 78, 79. (1899) {CL 30.4}

Should we just wait until the Sunday law is enforced in America to leave the cities? No, we are told by inspiration that the cities should be reached from OUTSIDE them, not by God's people living IN them.

The followers of Christ inside Jerusalem looked for a sign to leave the city, but they could not leave due to the Roman army siege. Then one day, for no apparent reason, the Roman armies retreated, giving the Christians an opportunity to leave, which they did. But this withdrawal gave the Jews a false sense of security and an atmosphere of "peace and safety."

Sadly, the Jews suffered from a false sense of security. Today, we're doing exactly the same thing. We look around us and see apparent safety and prosperity, and figure everything is going to be alright.

"The time is not far distant, when, like the early disciples, we shall be forced to seek a refuge in desolate and solitary places. As the siege of Jerusalem by the Roman armies was the signal for flight to the Judean Christians, so the assumption of power on the
part of our nation in the decree enforcing the papal sabbath will be a warning to us. It will then be time to leave the large cities, preparatory to leaving the smaller ones for retired homes in secluded places among the mountains." 5T 464-465

Flee The Cities - Part 2 


Published on May 4, 2014
http://AdventMessage.com - Today's Advent message features direct quotes from the Book Country Living, by E.G White.

During a vision of the night, I stood on an eminence, from which I could see houses shaken like a reed in the wind. Buildings, great and small, were falling to the ground.

Pleasure resorts, theaters, hotels, and the homes of the wealthy were shaken and shattered. Many lives were blotted out of existence, and the air was filled with the shrieks of the injured and the terrified.

The destroying angels of God were at work. One touch, and buildings so thoroughly constructed that men regarded them as secure against every danger, quickly became heaps of rubbish.

The time is near when the large cities will be visited by the judgments of God. In a little while, these cities will be terribly shaken. No matter how large or how strong their buildings, no matter how many safeguards against fire may have been provided, let God touch these buildings, and in a few minutes or a few hours they are in ruins.

I see the necessity of making haste to get all things ready for the crisis. "Out of the cities; out of the cities!''--this is the message the Lord has been giving me.

We must make wise plans to warn the cities, and at the same time live where we can shield our children and ourselves from the contaminating and demoralizing influences so prevalent in these places.


House Subcommittee Holds Hearing on State of Religious Liberty in the U.S.


Jun 11, 2014 | Blog |


Written by Don Byrd

Yesterday, a subcommittee of the House Judiciary Committee held a hearing on the “State of Religious Liberty in the United States.” At the website of the hearing, you can read the prepared remarks of the panelists and watch video of the hearing. But you don’t really have time for that now do you? And even if you did, what use would I be?

So here are snapshot quotes from each of the 4 speakers to give you an idea of the hearing’s focal points.

Mat Staver -Dean, Liberty University School of Law
The threat to religious freedom has reached unprecedented levels. These threats are more significant and severe than at any time in recent history. My testimony will focus on two areas where this threat has reached a critical point. These involve conflicts between religious freedom and (1) the sanctity of human life, and (2) human sexuality and natural marriage.

Kim Colby -Senior Counsel, Christian Legal Society

A leading religious liberty scholar, Professor Douglas Laycock of the University of Virginia, recently warned: “For the first time in nearly 300 years, important forces in American society are questioning the free exercise of religion in principle–suggesting that free exercise of religion may be a bad idea, or at least, a right to be minimized.” Other respected scholars share the assessment that the future of religious liberty in America is endangered.

Rev. Barry Lynn – Executive Director, Americans United for the Separation of Church and State

The good news is that the United States is one of the most religiously diverse countries in the world and our constitution grants us some of the strongest religious liberty protections in the world. Nonetheless, we still face threats to religious liberty in our country every day.

The largest threats as I see them today can be placed into two broad categories: threats to religious minorities and non-­believers, and efforts to radically redefine religious liberty. Threats to the Christian majority are few, far between, and sometimes, frankly, untrue.

Mr. Gregory Baylor – Senior Counsel from the Alliance Defending Freedom

[T]he current Administration has all too often taken what can only be characterized as extreme positions designed to dramatically decrease religious freedom. My testimony will focus on three examples: (1) the promulgation and legal defense of the HHS contraceptive mandate; (2) the unsuccessful attempt to eliminate the Religion Clauses’ ministerial exception; and (3) the NLRB’s ongoing effort to intrude into the internal affairs of our nation’s religious colleges and universities.

So there you have it. Three votes for the Affordable Care Act’s contraception mandate and one vote for the threats to religious minorities and non-believers as being the biggest current threats to religious liberty today. Guess which one of the four had his own personal religious beliefs challenged by the Chairman of the committee?


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House Judiciary Comittee hearing on Religious Liberty (2014)


House Committee on the Judiciary

USHR02 Committee on the Judiciary

« Back to Live Stream


Broadcast live streaming video on Ustream

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The Great Controversy: Chapter (19) Light Through Darkness. (also in TAMIL)




Ellen White