EVANGELICALS’ PRAYER FOR THE NEXT POPE

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Evangelical Protestants pray that the next pope will be in their biblical corner.

First, they pray he will be the defender of womb babies. In being that defender, he will forcefully speak out against those who murder infants in females’ bodies. And he will state such forthrightly, in no uncertain terms, just as Pope John Paul II held such convictions.

Second, evangelicals pray that the next pope will defend the culture of life by opposing euthanasia. That oft soft-pedaled issue cannot afford to be sidelined by both evangelical Protestants and the Vatican; therefore, it is prayed that the next Roman Catholic spiritual leader will put that matter front and center, especially with the secular world becoming more enamored with euthanasia.

Third, biblical Protestants pray that he will hold the biblical line regarding practicing homosexuality. While mainline denominations such as the Episcopal Church of America, United Church of Christ (Congregational) and Evangelical Lutheran Church of America ("evangelical" in that title having lost its biblical definition) have gone apostate in baptizing practicing homosexual lifestyles as blessed by the divine, evangelicals continue to hold to the scriptural truth. They need a companion voice in the next pope.

Fourth, evangelicals are seeking fellowship with a pope who disciplines the theologically liberal professors and writers within the Roman Catholic Church. Too many have sided with theologically liberal authors and professors within Protestantism, considering it posh to quote many of these writers as if doing same is ecumenical. Theological liberalism has torn apart the Christian witness within Protestantism. It has ruined seminaries and seminary students. It has slain the Christian testimony in one pulpit after another.

Fifth, biblical believers pray that the next pope will define New Age for what it is — anathema to Christian truth. There are scores of Catholics — both laity and clergy — who have traded in the biblical postulates for a feel-good New Age philosophy. That heresy discounts the biblical warnings concerning sin, Satan, hell and accountability at the Judgment Seat of Christ. Evangelicals still hold to these basics. They pray that the next pope likewise will give support to the fundamentals while exposing the lie of New Age religion.

Sixth, evangelicals pray that the next pope will regard the evangelical witness within Protestantism as friend and not foe. At times Pope John Paul II referred to "evangelicals" as if they were the enemy. They really are not the enemy in working together with devout Roman Catholics. Instead, they are fellowship friends to devout Roman Catholics, especially at the grassroots level. Therefore, it is hoped that the next pope will build more bridges to evangelical Protestantism.

Seventh, evangelicals understand the stark, real threat of Islam. They have studied its tenets. They know its basic dogmas related to the Koran and Allah. They are not naïve to the Muslim practices and teachings. In fact, they are hard at work in educating their congregations concerning the bald truths of Islam. Therefore, evangelicals need a partner in the next pope in exposing the horrific teachings and practices of zealot Muslims, such as "honor killing," slaying all infidels (that is, non-Muslims), hatred toward Jews who are referred to as "Jew-pigs" by Muslim global murderers, and so forth.

The evangelicals are most attuned to the present deliberations of cardinals in Rome. They are not ignorant as to what is going on and as to the consequences of the next pope’s presence. Therefore, they pray for the next pope to be friend to evangelicals’ biblical allegiance.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

MUSLIMS: MORE HONOR KILLING

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Who killed her? Her brother is accused of slaying her.

Why did he kill her? If it is proven that he did in fact kill her, it would be to see through the Muslim custom of doing away with a female who has brought dishonor to the household. It’s known as "honor killing."

Males do away with females who defame the family. They shoot them. They slice their throats. One way or another, the offending female must be put out.

And all this happened where? In Amsterdam.

It happens elsewhere around the globe wherever there are those who follow Allah’s dictate to get rid of women who are considered less worthy than house pets. These males who look down on their women consider them females under a demonic curse from conception.

The males actually believe that these women are ten exposures of the genitals. When and if the female marries, her husband expunges one of the curses. But nine still remain.

Therefore, obviously the female hardly stands a chance for surviving an entire normal expectant lifetime.

Somewhere along the years she is bound to defame the family, even though she is covered with fabric from head to toe. Nevertheless, if she does not in fact offend, a male may have an illusion that she offends. Whatever — she is done away with.

Sometimes when this occurs, the male then may cling to the slain female for he has been torn between murdering her and still loving her as sister or niece or whomever. It’s all insane and yet it goes on according to Islamic custom. Most of the time in Muslim cultures it does not make the press. It’s a murder hidden, even from neighbors, that is, unless Muslim neighbors agree that the woman deserved the killing.

Some Muslims oppose such reporting as this for they claim that it does not exist. These Muslims who claim that honor killing does not exist are sheltered Muslims. There are those who are sheltered from the horrific truth of their own religion. Nevertheless, sheltered or not, honor killing has existed. Honor killing still exists. Sometimes it is reported in the Muslim media; other times it is not reported. Reported or not, it goes on.

In Amsterdam, "An Iraqi-Kurdish man, 21, is suspected of murdering his sister, 18, to protect the honour of the family, a court in Arnhem heard on Friday.

"During a pre-trial hearing, the presiding judge indicated the court wanted to question the victim's foster mother and aunt to establish if the killing was ordered by her family in Iraq."

Now another female is in fear. That is the foster mother. She has gone into hiding for fear that her clan in Iraq may seek her death. The crazy situation spreads. This is not the only case in which the spread has occurred.

"The foster mother is in hiding because she fears the family in Iraq wants to punish her for giving the victim too much freedom.

"The victim was a non-practicing Muslim and had a child in 2004 by her non-Muslim boyfriend. She was killed 15 days after the birth of the baby.

"Her brother had allegedly regularly threatened the victim, and she had made a complaint to police in November 2004, shortly before her death," according to Expatica News.

McCAIN EGO OUT OF JOINT: ANTI-REPUBLICAN, PRO-FILIBUSTER

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

I wonder sometimes if Senator John McCain is salivating for presidential power just a bit too much. It’s shown before; it’s showing again.

Then again, when McCain gets out of the press limelight for a short time, he hankers for media center stage once more. Therefore, he goes off half-bent. It’s that time for bend-out time this week for the Arizona Senator.

Filibuster.

That’s the latest issue in the Senate. It’s hot time in the Congressional house tonight. Therefore, McCain sees his chance to stir the pot a bit. So he’s angering Republicans by saying he’s just not going to support anti-filibuster Republicans. And with that, Dems are running to McCain’s Amen corner.

Come on, McCain. America just doesn’t need your confusing mode. In fact, America really doesn’t need you, particularly with all the preening you’ve got in recent times for prospectus Presidential candidate come 2008.

According to The Washington Times’ Charles Hurt, “McCain irks Republicans over anti-filibuster option.

“Sen. John McCain has once again enraged Republicans by publicly opposing Majority Leader Bill Frist's plan to employ the so-called nuclear option for ending the filibusters against President Bush's judicial nominees.

“Conservatives responded yesterday by coordinating a three-pronged attack on the Arizona Republican aiming to either flip him or kill any hope he may have of running for president again in 2008.”

Good.

Let the Arizona fellow know that he can’t push the entire Republican Party around and get by with it. He’s as accountable for his egocentric antics as anyone else. Give it to him, loyal Republicans. And never let him forget it. In other words, it’s time to humble McCain and make it stick.

"’He will have no presidential hopes if he pursues this course,’ said Manuel Miranda, a former Frist staffer who now chairs the National Coalition to End Judicial Filibusters. ‘This very well may be the first primary campaign between Bill Frist and John McCain.’"

I for one vote for that!

"’If Senator McCain refuses to stand up for fairness, it will damage his carefully crafted image and whatever aspirations he might have,’ said Marshall Manson with the Center for Individual Freedom, one of the groups in Mr. Miranda's coalition. ‘The people who care about this issue are watching carefully, and they have long memories.’"

Stay tuned.

HOMO EPISCOPAL BISHOP GROWS SEVERAL EVIL HEADS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Did not Jesus say that when the house was vacated, if the Holy Spirit did not enter, the demons would return to take over the dwelling many times over?

Yes, it’s true. Now that the New Hampshire Episcopal Bishop V. Gene Robinson has let the world know of his apostasy, he proceeds to grow more demonic heads. They will continue growing until he repents according to Scripture, refuses his practicing homosexual lifestyle and adopts celibacy in a broken heart before the cross of Christ.

Until then, Robinson will proceed to spread evil. It’s the way the demons work when set loose in an empty cavernous soul given over to the powers of darkness. Therefore, it is not surprising to read according to The Washington Time’s Jon Ward that Robinson now champions killing womb babies via Planned Parenthood.

Killing off biblical morality was Robinson’s chief agenda in slaying churchly truth. Now he’s taken up the bloody banner of killing off infants inside female bodies. Killing breeds killing. It’s all there within the pharisaical pronouncements of the New Testament record. Nothing has changed according to the demonic agenda, regardless of the era.

"Planned Parenthood should target ‘people of faith’ to promote abortion rights and comprehensive sex education, the Episcopal Church's first openly homosexual bishop told a gathering in the District yesterday.

"’In this last election we see what the ultimate result of divorce from communities of faith will do to us,’ New Hampshire Bishop V. Gene Robinson said during Planned Parenthood's fifth annual prayer breakfast.

"’Our defense against religious people has to be a religious defense. ... We must use people of faith to counter the faith-based arguments against us,’ he said."

The New Testament prophesied that in the End Times there would be those who speak the voice of the dragon while sprouting the horns of the lamb. In other words, they would appear lamb-like in following the Good Shepherd but when they open their mouths they speak the doctrines of the demonic. These are the false prophets of our time.

"’We have allowed the Bible to be taken hostage, and it is being wielded by folks who would use it to hit us over the head. We have to take back those Scriptures,’ he said. ‘You know, those stories are our stories. I tell this to lesbian folk all the time: The story of freedom in Exodus is our story. ... That's my story, and they can't have it.

"’This current administration notwithstanding, the world is not black and white. We need to teach people about nuance, about holding things in tension, that this can be true and that can be true, and somewhere between is the right answer. It's a very adult way of living, you know.

"’What an unimaginative God it would be if God only put one meaning in any verse of Scripture,’ he said."

With that, Robinson continues to damn his soul by blaspheming, particularly quoting Scripture misused, twisted, and maligned in order to spread evil.

Those who are genuinely Christians must pray in intercession for Robinson and his ilk for Jesus has commissioned us to pray for our enemies, particularly our spiritual foes. They have souls.

We are dwelling in the Light of Truth, according to Jesus; therefore, though these enemies are distasteful to our moral senses, we are to intercede for them.

However, if they have become reprobate, a state known only to the Holy Spirit, then they have no chance of knowing saving grace. Nevertheless, because genuine Christians know not whether they have moved into that state, they are to be prayed for.

Robinson, in his arrogance and stubbornness of spirit, continues to give forth the ungospel. Therefore, he will answer at the Judgment Seat of Christ as well as all those who applaud him. These are vile days in which the demons are rampant throughout the global church — all three segments: Roman Catholicism, Protestantism and Orthodoxy. No branch is without sin. All then must be brought before heaven’s court in order to seek the reviving, cleansing Spirit of God.

Those who are true to the Word must remain true in the faith, never compromising. To see the likes of Robinson should strike fear in every believer lest we too lose our footing.

Paul wrote that every Christian must be vigilant lest that believer lose out as well. Therefore, we must take stock of our loyalty to Christ to make certain that we are perfectly surrendered to the way of the cross as set forth in the Word.

"Mr. Robinson left his wife and two young daughters in 1986 and moved in with another man. He was elected bishop by state and clergy delegates in June 2003 and affirmed by the national convention two months later.

"Abortion, he said yesterday, is ‘not just a matter between a woman and her body. This is not like removing a mole. On the other hand, no one should interfere with a woman's right to choose.’"

Evil, when getting big headed, then grows several heads. It’s the way of the demons.

TRIBULATION PRESSES CHINESE CHRISTIANS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

According to New York Times’ Nicholas D. Kristof, Christians worship freely in some places in China. In other places they are terribly persecuted.

Reporting from Zhongxiang, Kristof gives a real-life account: "She never broke when she was tortured with beatings and electrical shocks, and even when she was close to death she refused to disclose the names of members of her congregation or sign a statement renouncing her Christian faith.

"But now, months later, Ma Yuqin abruptly chokes and her eyes well with tears as she recounts her worst memory: As she was being battered in one room, her son was tortured in the next so that each could hear the other's screams, as encouragement to betray their church.

"’They wanted me to hear his cries,’ she said, sobbing. ‘It broke my heart.’

"Ms. Ma, a steel-willed woman of 54, was brave enough to tell her story of the persecution that Christians sometimes still face in China. Dozens of members of her church are still imprisoned, and those free are under tight scrutiny, but several church members dared to meet me for a tense interview after we all sneaked one by one into an unwatched farmhouse near Zhongxiang, a city in central China, 650 miles south of Beijing."

Note that this data is from The New York Times and not an evangelical publication.

Granted: there is the modern China. But there is also the "police state China." The latter is out to hurt and extinguish Christians from the country. The happy face China image of Bibles sold in the marketplace is one scene. But the damaged and crippled bodies of believers elsewhere is just as much a part of present-day China.

It was to that segment that US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice spoke on her recent Asian tour. I am sure that as Secretary of State of this powerful nation, America, she is privy to specifics that the usual citizen cannot lay eyes on. I then would trust her judgment concerning freedom in China or lack of freedom in China, particularly freedom to worship.

The New York Times reports continues: "Secret Communist Party documents say approvingly that 60,000 Chinese were killed, either executed or shot by police while fleeing, between 1998 and 2001. That amounts to 15,000 a year, which suggests that 97 percent of the world's executions take place in China. And it's well documented that scores of Christians . . . have died in police custody."

In other words, China is not as open to Christian worship as some have been led to believe.

According to the International Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Church
(http://www.religioustolerance.org/chr_pers.htm), China has "the two state-sanctioned churches (Catholic Patriotic Assoc., Protestant Three-Self Patriotic Movement) (which) are tightly controlled by the Religious Affairs Bureau of the Chinese government. Members of unregistered house churches are being prosecuted. Hundreds of Chinese Christians are in ‘re-education through labor’ camps."

Of course, a "regular citizen" would not be privy to the "re-education labor camps."

Therefore, it would be easy for him to conclude that there are none. And surely the government is not going to advertise that they exist. The ordinary citizen may not know that they exist; but if he or she does, that person would not likely make that a topic of conversation. So it is that the persecuted Christians continue to be harmed and slain while life appears to continue "per usual" in many parts of China, thus the deception regarding freedom of religion in that country.

For further detail, I recommend anyone checking out this web site: http://directory.google.com/Top/Society/Religion_and_Spirituality/Christianity/Issues/Persecution/.

In other words, to find documentation regarding ongoing present-tense persecution against Christians in China, all one has to do is go to the Internet to discover volumes supporting the reality that widespread torture, maiming and killing of Christians is taking place as I type.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

SO AMERICA’S FOUNDERS WEREN’T CHRISTIAN, EH?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

President George Washington wrote a prayer addressed to "O most glorious God, in Jesus Christ" and ended it with this: "Let me live according to those holy rules which thou hast this day prescribed in Thy Holy Word. Direct me to the true object, Jesus Christ, the Way, the Truth and the Life. Bless O Lord all the people of this land."

President Thomas Jefferson: "God who gave us life gave us liberty. And can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis — a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are of the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with His wrath? Indeed, I tremble for my country when I reflect that God is just, that His justice cannot sleep forever."

President James Madison: "Religion is the basis and foundation of government. We have staked the whole future of American civilization not upon the power of government, far from it. We have staked the future of all of our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government; upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God."

President Andrew Jackson: "I nightly offer up my prayers to the throne of grace for the health and safety of you all, and that we ought all to rely with confidence on the promise of our dear Redeemer, and give Him our hearts. This is all He requires and all that we can do, and if we sincerely do this, we are sure of salvation through His atonement."

Patrick Henry: "It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ. For this very reason peoples of other faiths have been afforded asylum, property, and freedom of worship here."

President Abraham Lincoln: "The ways of God are mysterious and profound beyond all comprehension. ‘Who by searching can find Him out?’ God only knows the issue of this business. He has destroyed nations from the map of history for their sins. Nevertheless, my hopes prevail generally above my fears for our Republic. The times are dark, the spirits of ruin are abroad in all their power, and the mercy of God alone can save us."

President Grover Cleveland: "All must admit that the reception of the teachings of Christ results in the purist patriotism, in the most scrupulous fidelity to public trust, and in the best type of citizenship."

President Woodrow Wilson: "America was born a Christian nation. America was born to exemplify that devotion to the elements of righteousness which are derived from the revelations of the Holy Scriptures."

President Dwight Eisenhower: "Without God, there could be no American form of government, nor an American way of life. Recognition of the Supreme Begin is the first — the most basic — expression of Americanism. Thus, the founding fathers of America saw it, and thus With God’s help, it will continue to be."

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

A CHRISTIAN WITNESS AT ABORTION CLINICS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Olympic bomber Eric Rudolph is calling for more violence against abortion clinics. It's time then for Christians to understand what truly is the believers' tack on such baby killing facilities.

There are those claiming to be Christian who put bullets into doctors working at abortion clinics.

There are those who claim to be followers of Jesus who burn down clinics.

There are those who carry the banner of the Cross and scream at women going into abortion centers.

None of this is Christian. This is not the example that Jesus set.

The only time that Jesus "got physical" occurred in the house of His own religion. He turned over the money tables and sent doves flying because the place of prayer had been turned into a place of cheating.

Yet when Jesus left the sanctuary for the marketplace, He refused to knock into anything with fist or raised arm.

Even when His cousin, John the Baptist, was beheaded for scolding Herod for sleeping with a woman not his wife, Jesus did not stage a revolution of armed might. Instead He went into the next village to heal the sick.

Why did Jesus act this way? Because He would never have underwritten violence as a mode for building His kingdom. His weaponry was truth in love. Period.

Jesus knew that judgment would come from heaven upon those doing evil. In the meantime, He would leave the vengeance with heaven while continuing His mission of compassion.

This is the approach on mission stations globally. Missionaries would never think of burning down another religion's temple or putting a bullet into the devotees of another teaching.

Christian missionaries, working against awesome odds, go forth with truth in love. They win converts to Christianity by godly example and compassion.

How can those who represent Christ in America do anything other than what their counterparts are doing around the world? It is the same gospel, the same Cross, the same message.

Some within the pro-life movement are condoning violence. They work up the emotions to take vengeance into their own hands. They encourage one another to let loose with more hurt and maiming.

Of course, they conclude that this is right, since killing is going on in the abortion clinics. Yet two wrongs do not make a right. Jesus never confronted violence with more violence. He confronted violence--even His own death on the Cross-with truth in love.

Other pro-lifers conclude that truth in love is not combative enough, strong enough, forceful enough. In so thinking, they are playing the part of God.

Let God be God! Let Him bring the condemnation. Let Him see through his eternal vengeance. His way is far superior to any human, carnal battling. All that Christians are called to do is love our enemies, do good to those who would malign us, and pray for those who despitefully use us (see Matthew 5:44).

Wimpy? Try it! It takes all the strength you can muster. It is far more courageous than simply walloping the foe in the teeth.

How can antiabortionists express their opinions outside abortion clinics?

They can stand in prayer. They can sing forth the songs of deliverance. They can hold signs of light, life and love.

They can invite dialog with those entering the clinics.They can distribute literature.

Is this all? This is enough. Let the power of God settle upon such a witness. Let God carry the heavier weight of the cause. Let eternity honor your efforts.

When Christians act like Christ, then they can truthfully label themselves "Christians." However, when people who call themselves "Christians" act in any un-Christlike manner, they forfeit the title.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

MASS CIRCUMCISIONS: WILL THE WORLD GROW UP?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

It’s true.

Thousands of Moroccans were circumcised all at one time. Why? To show their allegiance to the two-year old prince who likewise was circumcised.

So it goes with rituals here and there. Here it’s in Morocco, according to AP reports from Rabat.

King Mohammed VI’s son was circumcised yesterday. Therefore, thousands of males throughout the nation also "went through the procedure in a massive show of solidarity for the prince."

Moulay Hassan, the king’s offspring, was circumcised, such marking "the start of three days of nationwide celebrations across the north African kingdom to honor the event."

With that, more than 5,000 boys went through the same in Morocco’s metropolis, Casablanca. Outlying cities and villages witnessed even more boys undergoing the procedure.

It used to be seen through by barbers. Today, so the reports go, there are doctors overseeing the circumcisions.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

UKRAINE CREATING ‘A NEW SOCIAL MORALITY, A NEW ETHIC’ : NEW ECONOMICS MINISTER

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"When we came to office, we discovered that all public life in Ukraine had been corrupted. The very first thing we felt we had to do was change the country's mentality," said Sergey Teryokhin, Ukraine's new economics minister, according to The Washington Times’ David R. Sands.

"We now have a new social morality, a new ethic, a new attitude toward the way business policy should be conducted," he continued.

Ukraine’s citizens henceforth will be living under a democracy in the making. It will take time. It will take patience. However, its leadership is intent on throwing off Russian ties in favor of a more American imprint. The Ukraine is even applying for membership in NATO.

Pro-Western President Viktor Yushchenko met recently with United States President George W. Bush, the two welding more securely their relationships for freedom’s sake. The new Ukrainian President is most enthusiastic about his country’s future. The people there have not experienced the kind of liberties that the new President envisions. Mr. Bush helped put in perspective for him the fundamentals of a free government.

Ukrainians now have hopes that are "soaring" for future generations, according to The Washington Times report.

The challenge is for the new President to see through changes within his officialdom. Many of those still in office were under the old politic. Therefore, they must be trained in new thinking — democracy thinking. They must be coached in freedom building. It is hoped that upcoming elections in April 2006 will substitute the old guard with truly dedicated civil servants favoring a democracy realized.

"Corruption was so entrenched under former President Leonid Kuchma," Mr. Teryokhin said, that even basic economic data and statistics compiled by his department were changed for political purposes.

"It was absolutely stupid," he said.

Hopefully, the grassroots will get hold of the same vision as the newly elected President. With that kind of alliance, the Ukrainians can in time come to sense the new politic in their favor. It will take educating the public as well as electing persons in league with the President’s democracy program.

Mr. Bush has already provided "economic ties to Ukraine and is backing its bid to join the World Trade Organization" by the close of 2005. It is expected that the US Commerce Department will pronounce the Ukraine as a "full-fledged market economy, easing trade and investment restrictions.

"Ukraine also hopes to apply for funding from the new Millennium Challenge Corp., set up by Mr. Bush to reward developing countries that institute pro-market, anti-corruption policies."

The Ukraine is now experiencing a face-lift in the process of establishing a democracy. They were once put in the same category as China and Russia. No more.

It is President Bush who has been mentoring such governments in search of genuine democracy. Mr. Bush, in both his first and second terms, has as his top priority the dualism of protecting America from killers international while planting liberties in nations that heretofore had no chance for that kind of lifestyle.

Though the American Democratic Party has given no encouragement to the President, themselves thwarting the very freedoms they enjoy daily, the President continues to continue. Though certain democracies in Europe have worked tirelessly to do little or nothing to evangelize other nations with democracy, Mr. Bush has stayed true to his vision.

Last November’s Red States provided Mr. Bush with the mandate to remain convinced of his convictions for political change in nations heretofore governed by dictators. This is especially unusual in that powerful nations in the past have used their might to subdue other nations. Instead, America uses its power to liberate other nations.

Though the liberal press gives scant attention to this revolutionary perspective, the grassroots in America gets hold of the Bush administration’s integrity and supports it with sacrifice and patience. In the future, numerous nations once held in the grip of dictators will give thanks to America and Mr. Bush in particular for staying true to the liberty cause.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

CAIR FOUNDER CHARGED FOR SUPPORTING HAMAS KILLERS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Ghassan Elashi, founder of Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in Texas, along with six others, has been charged with “supporting the militant Palestinian group Hamas and with money laundering and conspiracy,” reports Reuters News.

Main news feeds have hardly given this item notice. Further, all major feeds, including Reuters, have deleted any mention of Ghassan Elashi being the CAIR Texas founder. I wonder why.

Is it because media runs scared of CAIR’s influence in the United States? Or because of threats from CAIR?

“’A federal grand jury in Dallas returned the 42 charges against the Holy Land Foundation for Relief and Development and the seven men in an indictment unsealed.’” That was announced by the US Attorney General.

"’A U.S.-based charity that claims to do good works is charged with funding the works of evil. The indictment alleges that the Holy Land Foundation was created for the purpose of providing financial and material support to Hamas.

“'It is alleged that over the years, the Holy Land Foundation provided significant financial resources to Hamas, known Hamas leaders and key strategists.’”

The accused are to be sentenced on August 1. Penalties carry a maximum 10-year prison sentence.

Why does the mainstream press cover up this news item’s full detail? Why is it not stated that one of the accused is founder of the Texas CAIR?

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ and http://mensnewsdaily.com/blog/swank/

Email: joseph_swank@yahoo.com

SECULARISTS FIGHT AMERICA’S JUDEO-CHRISTIAN HERITAGE

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"The weekend before President Bush's second inauguration, 60 humanists, atheists and ethical culturalists gathered at a hotel just off Dupont Circle for an ‘emergency meeting’ organized by the American Humanist Association.

"’The situation is now as bad as we'll ever see it,’ Roy Speckhardt, the group's deputy director, said afterward." So reports Julia Duin of The Washington Times.

The atheist-secularists work night and day to undermine America’s religious heritage. They are as evangelistic in their zeal and methods as any Christian crusade. They are committed to spread their "ungospel." And they work enthusiastically through judges who are immoral and unethical according to the Judeo-Christian definition. Sometimes, however, they win out by simply threatening with a few words.

"’There is complete scorn on the part of the current administration as to the separation of church and state,’ emphasizes Freedom from Religion Foundation founder Anne Nicol Gaylor.

"Gaylor says in an interview: ‘There has never been any less respect in Washington for church-state separation, even though church-state separation is one of the things that made our country possible in the first place.’"

Interestingly enough, Gaylor, like her colleagues, has no appreciation for the true definition of "separation of church and state." Further, when they do go after religion in public life, it is never the Muslim religion or Buddhism or Hinduism or Shintoism or New Ageism or any other religion but Judeo-Christianity. Not fair. Nevertheless, that’s their way of combating "religion." It’s Judeo-Christian faith that they are determined to eradicate from the Judeo-Christian American heritage.

Julaine Appling, executive director of the Family Research Institute in Madison, Wisconsin states that most of secularists’ energy is spent challenging Christians. "’When they go after religion, they go after Christianity aggressively,’ she says. ‘I don't see them going after other religions.’"

This is all in the name of "separation of church and state." Yet these enthusiasts for no-belief don’t have a clue as to the historic understanding of that phrase.

Liberals have run off with this phrase, prostituting it per usual.

The matter is simple. It’s this: America does not want a state church. England has a state church — the Anglican Church. America does not want one denomination considered The Nation’s Church.

On the other hand, America has a religious heritage. It’s not Muslim. It’s not Hindu. It’s not Shinto. It’s not animism. It’s not New Age. It’s not Paganism. It’s not Voodoo. It’s Judeo-Christian.

America, while not desiring a state church, does desire religion in life. That includes religious expression in everyday exchange. Because Judeo-Christian is America’s heritage, most citizens honor that heritage expressed and honored. Its expression then should not be thwarted. It should not be belittled. It should not be erased in the name of "separation of church and state."

Unhampered religious expression is promised in the First Amendment.

Further, America, having a Judeo-Christian heritage and the right to present-tense expression, permits freedom of religious expression to other religions. Therefore, there are those of other religious persuasions who practice without fear their religions in America.

What the liberals want to do is redefine the phrase "separation of church and state" to exclude Judeo-Christian religious expression in America. They want not only "separation of church and state" defined on their terms but the exclusion of the Judeo-Christian religion and anything coming close to that particular religious expression—period.

Liberals believe that if they continue harping on the "separation of church and state" phrase, brainwashing the public with their prostituted definition, especially indoctrinating the next generation with their prostituted definition, then they will have won secularism for America’s future.

They, in other words, want not only separation but exclusion of religion — completely so. Note however that the chief religion they want excluded is Judeo-Christian.

They will even tolerate other religions, as they are presently doing with the Muslim infiltration, but it is Judeo-Christian that they want cleansed from America. In other words, it’s a religious cleansing they desire for this nation — the extinguishing specifically of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Therefore, if tolerating another religion such as Islam helps wipe out Judeo-Christianity, then so be it. Islam is far better a tolerance than the American heritage of Judeo-Christian.

Therefore, there are school districts hiring Muslims to speak to teachers on how to give Muslim students honor and space. No such invitation, of course, has been extended to Judeo-Christian specialists speaking to public school educators on how to give Judeo-Christian adherents honor and space.

In a nearby high school, a prayer room was set aside for Muslim students. No such prayer room or any other respect has been presented those of the Judeo-Christian heritage.

Liberals, in other words, will do whatever it takes to obliterate America of its rightful Judeo-Christian heritage. This is accented every year particularly during the Christmas season. Any other so-called "religious expression" can come to the fore but the Christian particulars must be silenced at all costs. So we hear throughout the Christmas season, not Christian hymn carols, but "separation of church and state."

Once again, liberals have taken language to serve their own twisted purposes. They took "homosexual" and made it "gay." They took "pro-choice" and made it "protecting females." They take "separation of church and state" and make it "wiping out America’s Judeo-Christian heritage."

What those of the Judeo-Christian heritage must do — and far more concertedly than they have ever done in the past — is to make clear to the public what "separation of church and state" really means. This must be put in print in magazines and journals. It must be preached from pulpits. It must be taught in religion classes. It must be spelled out in letters to the editor.

Unfortunately, this simply has not been done. The church in particular has permitted the liberals to carry on with their prostitution of the phrase. I have been appalled over the years to note that the church specifically has not risen to expose the liberals’ misuse of that phrase.

Therefore, the young have taken quickly to the liberals’ definition while the church has sat, in the main, silent, allowing the enemy to win out.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

FRIST JOINS CHRISTIANS TO BLOCK DEMS' FILIBUSTER THREAT

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

It’s April 24, "Justice Sunday."

Worshipers have met at a Kentucky megachurch. They are there to expose Dems as the enemy to faith. "The filibuster was once abused to protect racial bias, and it is now being used against people of faith." That’s the message going out.

Senate majority leader Bill Frist is part of all this, according to New York Times’ David D. Kirkpatrick.

In other words, Christians plus friends are fed up with Dem obstruction of Congressional business by filibustering. Much of that business deals with moral issues. The moral base of America is saying enough is enough. Frist is joining in on the call.

"As the Senate heads toward a showdown over the rules governing judicial confirmations, Senator Bill Frist, the majority leader, has agreed to join. . .prominent Christian conservatives in a telecast portraying Democrats as ‘against people of faith’ for blocking President Bush's nominees.

"Organizers say they hope to reach more than a million people by distributing the telecast to churches around the country, over the Internet and over Christian television and radio networks and stations."

Dems and Republicans are headed for blows. Dems threaten to block President George W. Bush’s 10 judicial nominees. They’ll use the infantile, childish, day care center mode of filibustering. Frist has said it’s time to change the rules that would make a majority vote on nominees win out. If Frist gets his way, Dems double the threat by informing America that Dems will shut down Congress.

Christians claim that the judiciary has been enemy to numerous moral issues; therefore, it’s time to put morally based judges in the courts. Enough of the secularist, amoral judges who threaten to change America’s heritage and thus remake the nation’s ethics for generations to come.

Christians claim judges are not only deciding for amorality but immorality. They are not only deciding on other than Judeo-Christian ethics for an issue’s base but have given in to baldly unethical postulates.

"’As the liberal, anti-Christian dogma of the left has been repudiated in almost every recent election, the courts have become the last great bastion for liberalism,’ Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council and organizer of the telecast, wrote in a message on the group's Web site.

"‘For years activist courts, aided by liberal interest groups like the A.C.L.U., have been quietly working under the veil of the judiciary, like thieves in the night, to rob us of our Christian heritage and our religious freedoms.’"

That’s the nub of it all. And with that as their crusade message, Christians are marching to war on immoral judges and their unethical decisions.

More power to them.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

RUMSFELD OFFERS FREEDOM’S THANKS TO KYRGYZSTAN FORCES

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"’The good Lord willing, those two countries … will be on a path of freedom, a path where people have the right and privilege of helping to guide and direct their country, and the economic opportunities that come from free economic systems,’ US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld said. ‘And you’ll be able to look back and know in your hearts you were a part of that.’"

Rumsfeld was speaking to US troops in Kyrgyzstan. In his tour of the Middle East and Central Asia, Rumsfeld accented his appreciation to servicemembers for their "’significant role in the war on terrorism and in improving the lives of the Afghan and Iraqi people,’" reports Kathleen T. Rhem of American Forces Press Service.

Rumsfeld saw it as his prime time duty of thanking those who have sacrificed for the freedom spread in other countries. In truth, he was the representative of United States President George W. Bush who initiated liberties elsewhere with Operation Iraqi Freedom a little over two years ago.

Speaking at Manas Air Base, Rumsfeld lauded the efforts of both civilians and military personnel in combating killers international. The base to which he spoke is known informally as Ganci Air Base, tagged that after Peter Banci, a senior New York fireman brought down on September 11, 2001.

While Democrats in America are still remembered for their hate speech syndrome during the last presidential campaign as well as their unpatriotic resistance to anything the President offered in the way of freedom spread, servicemembers continue to continue.

While European heads of state balked at the President’s push for liberties elsewhere, starting with toppling Saddam Hussein, US troops joined with other free nations’ forces to wage the three-week-win war that initiated democracy planting in the New Iraq.

It was to those persons who remained true to patriotism at its best that Rumsfeld spoke. Those in Kyrgyzstan are support forces to militia in Iraq and Afghanistan. They are very much needed daily to ward off murderers global.

"A cold rain was beating on the tent’s roof and the roar of jets could be heard overhead as Rumsfeld looked out into a sea of tan uniforms and told the 400-plus troops assembled that their mission supporting efforts in Afghanistan and Iraq is vital.

"’It’s not an easy thing to move from despotism to a democracy,’ Rumsfeld said, referring to Iraq’s efforts to build its first freely elected government. ‘But they’re making good headway.’"

It’s that kind of patience-in-time that reminds the US-Coalition that eventually the future will thank the present for diligence. There are those who want perfection yesterday. Those locked into reality know that whatever is worthwhile calls for sacrifice over time.

"The secretary met with the country’s acting president, Prime Minister Kurmanbek Bakiyev, who assumed the presidency March 28 after former President Askar Akayev fled the country to Moscow after a bloodless coup March 24. Rumsfeld also met with the acting ministers of defense and state. National elections are scheduled for July.

"At a joint news conference after the meetings, Bakiyev said the United States will continue to have use of Manas Air Base. Through a translator, he said he assured Rumsfeld that ‘the Kyrgyz Republic will comply with all the international agreements we have signed.’"

"Rumsfeld thanked Kyrgyzstan for continued support in the war on terror and said he told the country’s interim leadership ‘that the United States is wishing them well in the important work that they’re engaged in in building a stable and modern and prosperous democracy.’"

So it is that America continues its moral high road for setting free humans who have been held in bondage by despots who cared for nothing more than their own selfish ends. Rumsfeld was there on site to support those who commit to holding fast the freedom spread.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

DEMS BULLY BOLTON

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

How ironic that Dems are accusing UN Ambassador nominee John R. Bolton of being a bully.

Do not the Dems realize that by delaying the vote on Bolton they are in fact bullying Bolton? And the whole world witnesses this drag?

Obviously Dems have a difficult time cosmetizing their image so as to be more attractive. Yet these very Dems are the ones constantly reminding the Bush administration of what the world will think.

What will the world think of Mr. Bush taking on Saddam? What will the world think of Mr. Bush continuing freedom spread in Afghanistan by toppling the Taliban? What will the world think of Mr. Bush by his determination to wage war against killers international?

Instead of Mr. Bush handing over the US to the UN like John F. Kerry encouraged, Mr. Bush keeps the course for liberty’s sake. By keeping the course Mr. Bush has made enemies of despots and lagging European heads of state. My, what will the world think?

With that question forever at the forefront of Dem litany, do they not care this week what the world thinks of Dem obstruction to governmental progress regarding the Bolton vote?

Dems bully Bolton. Yet they claim Bolton is a bully.

What the Dems really fear is that Bolton is too much like Mr. Bush. Mr. Bush and Mr. Bolton both know a fake when they see one. They both live by principles admired by the moral base. They both have convictions sterling for freedom’s banner. They both refuse to waffle and compromise and bow down to power plays of the liberal quotient.

That’s it.

The Dems are scared to political death that a Bush clone could make it into a United Nations seat of voice power. Therefore, the Dems, shadowing the waffling Kerry politic style, wage war against common sense, decency in governmental doings and the right thing to do with this Bolton opportunity.

The Dems think they can wear down the Rhode Island Senator on the Dem side? I don’t think so. And if it does happen, then RI had better go to the shame closet.

Yet the bottom line in all this delay is that Dems fear a Bush clone in the UN. Therefore, there will not only be a Mr. Bush in the White House; there will be his echo in the United Nations.

Go, Bolton!

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

ECUADORIANS DEMAND DEMOCRACY

J. Grant Swank, Jr

Quito, Ecuador. Closed.

Schools: closed. Public transportation: closed. Museums: closed. Government institutions: closed.

"The erosion of democracy." That’s the way that the UPI reporter Eliza Barclay wrote of the people’s anxiety over their government. "The erosion of democracy."

President Luis Gutierrez is not coming forth with liberties actual — grassroots style. The people are fed up with it. So schools, public transpiration, government institutions are closed and the streets are eerily quiet. Closed. It’s a clear message from the populace that they want freedom actual, not just freedom promised.

"Tensions initially erupted when a congressional majority allied with Gutierrez voted in December to dismiss 27 out of 31 judges on the Supreme Court. Gutierrez said the decision was reasonable because the Social Christian Party, an opposition party that led a failed attempt to impeach Gutierrez, had an unfair influence and advantage in the court.

"Since December's judicial turnover, critics have accused Gutierrez and allied politicians of tampering with the country's legal foundations and pitching the country into a highly volatile state."

Now the people demand new leadership. They don’t trust what’s going on with the present-tense powers-that-be. So exit. Make way for another in-charge.

"Student protestors and intellectuals unleashed a torrent of criticism directed at Gutierrez and the government, some calling he president's actions ‘dictatorial.’"

Increasingly dictators are being confronted by human beings who want liberties actualized. We see it in Iran where the streets were clogged with protestors last weekend. They demanded release from the Iranian theocratic press that squashes real democracy. They want set free.

Ukrainians put aside the dictatorial mode for democracy’s plant. New Iraq is in the glad process of topping killers international in order to assure a free future for its people. Afghanistan continues its freedom march against murderers global. Nepal’s king promised his people increased democracy quotients according to this morning’s UPI headlines.

Democracy. The people demand it. They have the right. They are closing the schools, museums, government institutions in Ecuador’s capital in order to write in the earth their demands. And, after all, they have the right to do just that. More power to democracy — wherever, whenever. More power to democracy.

"On Wednesday morning, Quito Mayor Paco Moncayo and the prefect of the Pinchincha province that includes Quito, Ramiro González, kicked off the marches by reading sections of the country´s constitution. The two leaders also demanded that the federal government uphold the country´s democratic principles."

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ <http://conservativeposts.us/>

NEPAL UPS DEMOCRACY SPREAD

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

This morning's headlines read: "Nepal king pledges civic elections in 2006."

Thank you, United States President George W. Bush.

There’s hardly any other conclusion that one can reach these days when nation after nation is promising democracy to the people. What’s going on here? Obviously, Operation Iraqi Freedom’s three-week-win war, toppling blood-letting despot Saddam Hussein, has ignited freedom fires here and there. Patience in time. That's it. Patience in time.

As New Iraq rejoices in its historic January 30 Victory Vote followed by its democratically formed National Assembly, expectant of a constitution forthcoming soon, others reach out for the liberty banner.

Therefore, according to UPI, "Nepal's King Gyanendra has announced that municipal elections will by held by April 2006 to activate the ‘democratic process,’ the BBC reported Thursday."

This is another major move for people — the so-called "little people" — having their chance at governing themselves. That’s in place of a despotic heel pressing down daily upon their heads and hearts.

Ukraine’s head of state declares that the country is no more in league with Russia’s style of government but instead favors the American imprint. Therefore, they are working diligently to put in place freedoms local. They have even applied for membership in NATO.

Afghanistan continues to revel in its newfound freedoms, obstacles withstanding. After all, we live in a world where patience and time work wonders. Those, such as America’s Democratic Party, who seek perfection yesterday are the illusionists left in history’s dust.

Egypt’s government has promised its populace real, actual ballots for voting this autumn.

Iranians over the weekend clamored loud and clear for the Iranian theocratic dictatorship to open freedom’s windows to let in the liberty breezes. They will continue to demand a release from despotic potentates who have held humans in horrific check.

"In a message marking the Nepali new year, the king said the security situation in the country had improved in the 10 weeks since the imposition of the state of emergency. As a result, he said that he had directed the Election Commission to conduct elections in over 50 municipalities."

That is reason itself to look to America’s Bush administration for leadership excellent! Would that the liberal media would give praise to such accomplishments. However, they seem mired in reporting the latest slip up in New Iraq or some program lag in Afghanistan.

How interesting. The liberal press does not seem to get the bottom line message that the more freedoms spread the more their freedom of the press has a chance for maintaining itself. The less the liberties move along, the chances are that killers international will over take democracies for squashing freedom of press.

Nevertheless, intelligent grassroots news collectors no longer heed the liberal media; they have alternative sources for the latest and they are going for those sources.

Faced with killers international digging into his politic, the Nepal king had to curtail certain liberties. However, concluding that he’s on top of the matter now, he’s opening the liberty windows so as to assure the public that he’s on the freedom side.

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STONE PHILLIPS’ ‘SECRETS OF THE CODE’ SPREADS ‘THE DA VINCI CODE’ MYTH AGAIN

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

This evening’s TV Primetime once again brings to the fore the bogus THE DA VINCI CODE authored by Dan Brown. Why? Is it because of the recent death and burial of Pope John Paul II whereby New York Times Maureen Dowd slammed the Vatican for slamming Brown’s make-believe telling related to Jesus and Mary Magdalene? Could be. Whatever, there’s no need to visit Brown’s mythology for another go-round. None at all.

To watch Primetime’s "Secrets of the Code" this evening is to be totally frustrated as a biblical believer. The Bible provides data totally contrary to Brown’s manufactured treatise. And any extra-biblical material Primetime presents is just that — extra biblical and prone to myths as were various bogus writings following the earthly sojourn of Jesus.

There was a flurry of books that made up things about Jesus following His ascension. Sometimes the authors used personages’ names recorded in the New Testament in order to hope for a good read (and trust) from the public, those biblical names not being the true writers of the books. Just as those bogus penmanships gave forth with their legends, so Brown does the same.

The truth about Jesus and Mary Magdalene is given in the Bible alone.

But let’s begin to discount Brown and the detail given this evening on Primtime: First, Dan Brown's DA VINCI CODE presents Jesus as merely human, not divine.

One of the chief characters in the novel states that third century Roman Emperor Constantine concocted the divinity of Jesus. This is not historically true. He also states there is nothing in the Bible supporting the divinity of Jesus. This is not historically true.

This article sets forth the biblical passages accenting the divinity of Jesus Christ. Realizing that Brown has written a novel and not an historical book nor a theological account, such authors can get by with just about anything.

However, there are some readers of that novel who think of it in terms of historical and biblical accuracy. It is not when it comes to the person of Jesus. It is not when it comes to the person of Mary Magdalene. There are other points on which the author is historically incorrect; however, I point out these two prime matters.

Now to the biblical passages underlining the fact that Jesus is God:

Jesus calls Himself God

Matthew 12:8
For the Son of man is Lord even of the Sabbath day.

Matthew 28:19
Go ye therefore, and teach all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost.

Mark 2:5-12
When Jesus saw their faith, he said unto the sick of the palsy, "Son, thy sins be forgiven thee." But there was certain of the scribes sitting there, and reasoning in their hearts, "Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? who can forgive sins but God only?"

And immediately when Jesus perceived in his spirit that they so reasoned within themselves, he said unto them, "Why reason ye these things in your hearts? Whether is it easier to say to the sick of the palsy, 'Thy sins be forgiven thee'; or to say, 'Arise, and take up thy bed, and walk?'

But that ye may know that the Son of man hath power on earth to forgive sins," (he saith to the sick of the palsy,) "I say unto thee, 'Arise, and take up thy bed, and go thy way into thine house.'"

And immediately he arose, took up the bed, and went forth before them all; insomuch that they were all amazed, and glorified God, saying, 'We never saw it on this fashion.'

John 5:17-18
But Jesus answered them, "My Father worketh hitherto, and I work." Therefore the Jews sought the more to kill him because he not only had broken the Sabbath, but said also that God was his Father, making himself equal with God.

John 8:58
Jesus said unto them, "Verily, verily I say unto you, 'Before Abraham was, I am'." [compare with Exodus 3:14 - And God said unto Moses, "I AM THAT I AM," and he said, "Thus shalt thou say unto the children of Israel, 'I AM hath sent me unto you.'"]

John 10:30-33; 36-39
[Jesus said,] "I and my Father are one." Then the Jews took up stones again to stone him. Jesus answered them,

"Many good works have I shewed you from my Father; for which of those works do ye stone me?"

The Jews answered him, saying, "For a good work we stone thee not; but for blasphemy; and because that thou, being a man, makest thyself God." [Jesus said,] "Say ye of him, whom the Father hath sanctified, and sent into the world, 'Thou blasphemest'; because I said, 'I am the Son of God?'

If I do not the works of my Father, believe me not. But if I do, though ye believe not me, believe the works: that ye may know, and believe, that the Father is in me, and I in him." Therefore they sought again to take him: but he escaped out of their hand...

John 13:13-14
You call Me Teacher and Lord, and you say well, for so I am. If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet.

Revelation 1:8
"I am Alpha and Omega, the beginning and the ending," saith the Lord, "which is, and which was, and which is to come, the Almighty."

Jesus is called God by others or by the Bible

Isaiah 9:6
For unto us a child is born, unto us a son is given: and the government shall be upon his shoulder: and his name shall be called Wonderful, Counselor, the Mighty God, the Everlasting Father, the Prince of Peace.

Matthew 1:23
Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, "God with us."

John 1:1
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God.

John 20:26-29
And after eight days again his disciples were within, and Thomas with them: then came Jesus, the doors being shut, and stood in the midst, and said, "Peace be unto you."

Then saith he to Thomas, "Reach hither thy finger, and behold my hands; and reach hither thy hand, and thrust it into my side: and be not faithless, but believing."

And Thomas answered and said unto him, "My Lord and my God." Jesus saith unto him, "Thomas, because thou hast seen me, thou hast believed: blessed are they that have not seen, and yet have believed."

John 21:17
[Peter said to Jesus], "Lord, thou knowest all things."

Acts 20:28
Take heed therefore unto yourselves, and to all the flock, over the which the Holy Ghost hath made you overseers, to feed the church of God, which he hath purchased with his own blood.

Romans 9:5
Of [the Israelites] as concerning the flesh Christ came, who is over all, God blessed for ever.

Revelation 17:14
These shall make war with the Lamb, and the Lamb shall overcome them: for he is Lord of lords, and King of kings: and they that are with him are called, and chosen, and faithful.

Colossians 2:9
For in him dwelleth all the fullness of the Godhead bodily.
All things created through Jesus (and thus He existed before everything).

John 1:1-5,9-14
In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. The same was in the beginning with God. All things were made by him; and without him was not any thing made that was made. In him was life; and the life was the light of men.

And the light shineth in darkness; and the darkness comprehended it not. That was the true Light, which lighteth every man that cometh into the world. He was in the world, and the world was made by him, and the world knew him not.

He came unto his own, and his own received him not. But as many as received him, to them gave he power to become the sons of God, even to them that believe on his name: which were born, not of blood, nor of the will of the flesh, nor of the will of man, but of God.

And the Word was made flesh, and dwelt among us, (and we beheld his glory, the glory as of the only begotten of the Father,) full of grace and truth.

Colossians 1:12-20
Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light: who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son: in whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist.

And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence.

For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven.

Hebrews 1:1-8
God, who at sundry times and in divers manners spake in time past unto the fathers by the prophets, hath in these last days spoken unto us by his Son, whom he hath appointed heir of all things, by whom also he made the worlds; who being the brightness of his glory, and the express image of his person, and upholding all things by the word of his power, when he had by himself purged our sins, sat down on the right hand of the Majesty on high: being made so much better than the angels, as he hath by inheritance obtained a more excellent name than they.

For unto which of the angels said he at any time, 'Thou art my Son, this day have I begotten thee?' And again, 'I will be to him a Father, and he shall be to me a Son?'

And again, when he bringeth in the firstbegotten into the world, he saith, 'And let all the angels of God worship him.'

And of the angels he saith, 'Who maketh his angels spirits, and his ministers a flame of fire.'

But unto the Son he saith, 'Thy throne, O God, is for ever and ever: a sceptre of righteousness is the sceptre of thy kingdom.'

Further, author Dan Brown offers Mary Magdalene as Jesus’ wife. The two have a child. And so it goes. The Bible does not present Mary Magdalene as the wife of Jesus. The Bible has few references to Mary Magdalene.

Mary Magdalene is offered by Brown, and of course other writers, as a prostitute. The Bible states nowhere that she was a prostitute.

She is pictured by Brown’s characters as the spouse to Jesus. Naturally, the Bible concludes no such fantasy. Brown insists that a Jew of Jesus’ age would never have entertained remaining a bachelor; therefore it is only logical to conclude that he married, hence Mary Magdalene being his wife.

So go the weavings of a novelist’s meandering through the netherlands of the brain. Again, a novelist can get by with anything, not being an historian nor theologian.

But what I want to underline is what the Bible says about Mary Magdalene. I do this because I know Christians themselves are confused as to what Scripture states in comparison to what they’ve seen in movies and read in novels and heard in discussions. The other day I was speaking with a fellow believer who was quite surprised to realize that there is scant material in the Bible concerning the woman.

That’s the nub of it. There is little detail. Therefore, down through centuries, persons have added to her character in order to come up with one legend after another.

The same has happened with other sections of the Bible, for instance, there being three wise men, one of them black. There is no detail in the Bible stating the number of wise men. They could have been two or two hundred. And there is nothing in Scripture concerning one of them being black. Yet the nativity scenes beneath our trees record for us more than what we have taken the time to research in the Bible.

Let me state for you the Bible references concerning Mary Magdalene so that perchance you will do your own study on the subject. I would strongly recommend that you don’t take any prime material but what you yourself read from the Book: Matthew 27:56; Mark 16:9; 15:40; Luke 8:2-3; 23:49, John 19:25. These are few references. It would be helpful to read them.

In the Bible, there’s nothing about Mary Magdalene being a prostitute nor marrying Jesus nor having a child to Jesus. There’s nothing even stating that it was she who washed Jesus’ feet with her tears! And that’s one shocker to many, even believers.

We have been told in film and book that it was this female who was so thankful for Jesus’ forgiveness of her prostituting ways that she washed His feet with her tears.

Yes, there was a woman who did wash His feet with tears. In fact, there could have been two women who did that for such is mentioned in two separate passages. But Mary Magdalene is not mentioned by name in those sections.

(Traditionally, Roman Catholics have tended to identify Mary Magdalene as the woman washing Jesus’ feet. Protestants have tended to separate Mary Magdalene from the woman who washed Jesus’ feet.)

Therefore, back to the pure biblical detail residue: Mary Magdalene was one of the women who accompanied Jesus in His ministry. She was there at the base of the cross and witnessed Him laid in a borrowed tomb. She was honored to be the first seen by Jesus after His resurrection. And Jesus cast seven devils out of her. That’s it.

What was the nature of the seven devils? We don’t know. What was Mary Magdalene’s previous history? We don’t know. Where did she come from? Magdala. What did she do in years after the resurrection? We don’t know. Did she wash Jesus’ feet with her tears? We are not told in the Bible that she washed Jesus’ feet.

Who then washed Jesus’ feet with her tears?

Mary of Bethany, sister to Martha and Lazarus, washed His feet on one occasion. Then an anonymous female, mentioned simply as "a sinner," washed His feet.

Could the two references have been to the same woman? Perhaps. But perhaps not. Nevertheless, Mary Magdalene is not mentioned in either reference. Not at all. It’s been conjectured that she was in those scenes. However, the Bible does not locate her in those scenes.

I think, after hearing some people talk about reading Brown’s book, that these individuals know very little about the Bible detail regarding both Jesus and Mary Magdalene. I hear them give forth with their opinions of Brown’s novel as if he had penned an historical account — that is, historically accurate on all levels. I know that the author does state that references to "artwork, architecture, documents and secret rituals" as well as certain organizations stated in his book actually exist; but as to Jesus and Mary Magdalene, for instance, Brown through his characters weaves his own notions.

Sometimes he is just plain incorrect. For instance, when he states through one of the characters that nowhere in the Bible does it confirm Jesus’ divinity, he (the novel’s character) is all wrong. A ream of passages — chapters and verses — could be provided pointing to Jesus’ divinity.

However, to further his plot, Brown goes on his way with warping through characters’ statements the biblical detail, negating it, suppressing it, or whatever he finds convenient to do with it in order to further his thesis that Jesus was mere mortal husband married to Mary Magdalene.

Truth from the historical record: Jesus is God. Jesus and Mary Magdalene never married. Jesus never married anyone but the believers, His Bride eternal.

For more: http://conservativeposts.us/ and http://mensnewsdaily.com/blog/swank/

Email: joseph_swank@yahoo.com

NEW IRAQ TRANSITION: BUSH COMMENDS LEADERSHIP AND COALITION

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

United States President George W. Bush continues to encourage both the US-led Coalition and Iraqi leadership in the transition period.

In speaking to soldiers at Fort Hood, Texas, Mr. Bush underlined the sacrifice provided by servicemembers since Operation Iraqi Freedom’s three-week-win war just a little over two years ago. That was superintended by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld.

Both the President the Defense Secretary have kept the patience in freedom spreads not only in Iraq but also Afghanistan. This has led to citizens clamoring for liberties at grassroots in other countries ruled by despots. The Ukraine democracy base is present-tense example extraordinary. Now citizens in Iran continue the demand for their own liberties realized. Egypt promises a democratic election forthcoming.

Mr. Bush stated that the New Iraq leadership is presently "entering a new phase." That includes Iraqi security and newly elected officials taking more responsibilities while the US-led Coalition expects eventually to phase out its overarching presence, according to the Associated Press.

"’America and its coalition partners are increasingly playing more of a supporting role,’ Bush said. ‘Like free people everywhere, Iraqis want to be defended and led by their own countrymen. We will help them achieve that objective so Iraqis can secure their own nation. And then our troops will come home with the honor they have earned.’"

The anti-Bush cry coming from those liberals in America as well as pro-killers international in New Iraq call for the Coalition to fold up rank and leave yesterday. Of course, that makes no sense whatsoever. It’s a matter of keeping the patience and the timing, something the President has maintained in both his first and second terms.

To leave New Iraq prematurely would spell doom for democracy planting. A country previously ruled by a bloody dictator cannot move overnight into freedoms realized at grassroots. Therefore, much credit is due those in many areas who have mentored Iraqis in military, economics, politics and commerce. Their number is legion. They work day and night, mostly without fanfare.

Surely the liberal mainline press does little in providing these committed laborers with coverage let alone encouragement. The least setback of course receives immediate liberal media focus; but the ongoing progress receives scant attention. Such is the appreciative heart of the freedom of the press in America!

Why is it that those enjoying their well-paying jobs in the American press don’t realize that if the freedom spread does not continue, killers international will rob the United States of its freedom of the press. Those now collecting their well-heeled salary checks will then be begging at the murderers’ trough.

Mr. Bush continued to accent that which needs underlining in this unbelievable freedom-launching journey throughout the planet. He lauded the brave men and women who have given their lives for the cause. He thanked the cooperating free nations who have done their part in establishing freedoms elsewhere.

He then centered in on the toppling of a horrific despot — Saddam Hussein. In his speech to the soldiers, the President likened the fall of Hussein’s statue in Baghdad to the fall of the Berlin Wall. He referred to it as "one of the great moments in the history of liberty.’

So it was. Does the free world so quickly forget? Or will the free world come upon the wisdom of remembering that which has been accomplished under the banner of liberty?

Thank you, Mr. President.

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KILLERS’ ‘PATIENCE’ : NY FINANCIAL CENTERS COULD HAVE BEEN BLOWN TO BITS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"The alleged conspiracy ‘highlights the nature of the enemy we face, and that is an enemy that is patient, that is spread throughout the world and is bent on killing Americans in a spectacular way,’ U.S. deputy attorney-general James Comey told a news conference in Washington," according to GlobeAndMail.com’s Shawn McCarthy.

Patience. That’s the word that caught my attention. Patience. The killers international are willing to bide their time, plot and scheme, lay low until the right moment. It’s the discipline of patience and time passing in order to get the job done.

"U.S. officials have charged three British nationals with conspiring to blow up financial targets in New York, New Jersey and Washington using weapons of mass destruction, an alleged plot that sparked heightened security last summer in cities still unnerved by the 9/11 attacks. Mr. Comey said the three men were in custody in Britain and have been charged with three counts of conspiracy and one count of providing material support to terrorists."

It was back in 1998 that these three murderers started their scheme. They came to the US in 2000. In the next twelve months they checked out numerous financial edifices and researching terrorist methods.

So they have the patience, do they? You bet.

And it’s just that discipline that the Western nations have in slim supply. Particularly Americans want everything done perfectly yesterday.

This is evidenced particularly throughout the Democratic Party. During the presidential campaign last year, Mr. Bush did not do this or that soon enough. And of course he might have made an error here or there. One of his team might not have been up to heaven’s perfection; therefore, oust the President in favor of Dem Darling John F. Kerry.

Yet, it’s this President — George W. Bush — who has kept the PATIENCE. It’s the patience, "staying the course" is what his friends have called it, that has led to such freedom spreads.

Patience wrought Operation Iraqi Freedom’s three-week-war overseen by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Patience brought about the toppling of Saddam Hussein and the historic January 30 Victory Vote. Patience has seen through the New Iraq with its National Assembly and approaching constitution.

Patience brought about freedoms planted in Afghanistan. Patience engendered the Ukrainian politic to champion democracy over despotism. Patience has inspired freedom enthusiasts in Iran to continue their clamoring against an Islamic theocratic dictatorship. Patience has yielded an Egyptian head of state to proclaim that this autumn will witness free elections there.

Patience.

So as the killers international continue their course of patience, waiting it out, counting on the right moment, putting up with a few obstacles here and there, never yielding to discouragement, keeping their sites on the goal of slaying as many freedom loving humans as possible, there are too many liberty breathing people who still demand perfection yesterday.

In order for the President’s vision of freedom spread to continue, the democracies of the planet have to be up and doing, waiting out the hindrances, counting on the democracy prize at the end of the journey, and keep thereby the patience.

There are rewards aplenty for those who are patient enough to come upon them. Patience and time. Add to that labor precisioned with the best a person can muster.

While murderers global keep their watch — patiently — may the free world keep its patience in overcoming those seeking to kill us all off. It’s patience and timing. The President has exampled that for us. Do we get the clear, basic message?

Patience.

"Federal officials broadcast an alert last summer that terrorists were targeting financial buildings, including the New York Stock Exchange and Citigroup Corp. headquarters in Manhattan, Prudential Corporate Plaza in Newark, and the World Bank and International Monetary Fund in Washington.

"The scare prompted heightened security around the buildings, which were patrolled by police armed with machine guns.

"At the time, Homeland Security officials raised the alert level to orange and left the heightened status in effect until November. That move sparked criticism that the administration was over-reacting to old information as part of a re-election campaign that stressed President George W. Bush's war on terrorism.

"Yesterday, Mr. Comey insisted that officials had reacted strictly on the basis of security concerns, saying he had participated in the decision to trigger the orange alert. ‘Politics had nothing to do with it,’ he said. ‘That, you have my word on.’"

Thank you, Mr. Comey.

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SUPREMES: 10 COMMANDMENTS UP FOR GRABS

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"’State support of a religion leads to corruption within both government and religion,’ Ellen Birch, a member of American Atheists says, adding that Jefferson himself said, ‘The wall of separation between church and state was absolutely essential in a free society.’

"’A favorite claim of fundamentalists,’ she told anyone listening, is that America is ‘indebted to the Bible and Christianity for our laws.’ Not so, Miss Birch says," according to The Washington Times’ Julia Duin.

We’re back to the Big Ten. And the Supreme Court is hearing oral arguments. Can the Big Ten be shown on government property?

The Supreme Court chamber is surrounded by engraved images of the Ten Commandments. There are the carved Commandments on the grounds of the Texas Capitol in Austin.

"An Associated Press survey in February found that 76 percent of the 1,000 people polled approved of displaying them on government property."

We’re not only back to the Big Ten. We’re back to this misunderstanding of the "separation of church and state." Liberals have run off with this phrase, prostituting it per usual.

The matter is simple. It’s this: America does not want a state church. England has a state church — the Anglican Church. America does not want one denomination considered The Nation’s Church.

On the other hand, America has a religious heritage. It’s not Muslim. It’s not Hindu. It’s not Shinto. It’s not animism. It’s not New Age. It’s not Paganism. It’s not Voodoo. It’s Judeo-Christian.

America, while not desiring a state church, does desire religion in life. That includes religious expression in everyday exchange. Because Judeo-Christian is America’s heritage, most citizens honor that heritage expressed and honored. Its expression then should not be thwarted. It should not be belittled. It should not be erased in the name of "separation of church and state."

Unhampered religious expression is promised in the First Amendment.

Further, America, having a Judeo-Christian heritage and the right to present-tense expression, permits freedom of religious expression to other religions. Therefore, there are those of other religious persuasions who practice without fear their religions in America.

What the liberals want to do is redefine the phrase "separation of church and state" to exclude Judeo-Christian religious expression in America. They want not only "separation of church and state" defined on their terms but the exclusion of the Judeo-Christian religion and anything coming close to that particular religious expression—period.

Liberals believe that if they continue harping on the "separation of church and state" phrase, brainwashing the public with their prostituted definition, especially indoctrinating the next generation with their prostituted definition, then they will have won secularism for America’s future.

They, in other words, want not only separation but exclusion of religion — completely so. Note however that the chief religion they want excluded is Judeo-Christian.

They will even tolerate other religions, as they are presently doing with the Muslim infiltration, but it is Judeo-Christian that they want cleansed from America. In other words, it’s a religious cleansing they desire for this nation — the extinguishing specifically of the Judeo-Christian faith.

Therefore, if tolerating another religion such as Islam helps wipe out Judeo-Christianity, then so be it. Islam is far better a tolerance than the American heritage of Judeo-Christian.

Therefore, there are school districts hiring Muslims to speak to teachers on how to give Muslim students honor and space. No such invitation, of course, has been extended to Judeo-Christian specialists speaking to public school educators on how to give Judeo-Christian adherents honor and space.

In a nearby high school, a prayer room was set aside for Muslim students. No such prayer room or any other respect has been presented those of the Judeo-Christian heritage.

Liberals, in other words, will do whatever it takes to obliterate America of its rightful Judeo-Christian heritage. This is accented every year particularly during the Christmas season. Any other so-called "religious expression" can come to the fore but the Christian particulars must be silenced at all costs. So we hear throughout the Christmas season, not Christian hymn carols, but "separation of church and state."

Once again, liberals have taken language to serve their own twisted purposes. They took "homosexual" and made it "gay." They took "pro-choice" and made it "protecting females." They take "separation of church and state" and make it "wiping out America’s Judeo-Christian heritage."

What those of the Judeo-Christian heritage must do — and far more concertedly than they have ever done in the past — is to make clear to the public what "separation of church and state" really means. This must be put in print in magazines and journals. It must be preached from pulpits. It must be taught in religion classes. It must be spelled out in letters to the editor.

Unfortunately, this simply has not been done. The church in particular has permitted the liberals to carry on with their prostitution of the phrase. I have been appalled over the years to note that the church specifically has not risen to expose the liberals’ misuse of that phrase. Therefore, the young have taken quickly to the liberals’ definition while the church has sat, in the main, silent, allowing the enemy to win out.

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FREEDOM DEMANDS IN IRAN CONTINUE: VIOLENCE, DEATH, INJURED

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

The freedom spread has not missed Iran.

Iranians knowledgeable of the New Iraq progress are now demanding that Iran become a democracy. They want freedoms like unto those in a democratic politic. They are deluging Iranian cities with clamor and protests, informing officialdom that it’s time for a dramatic change.

The result has been "violent clashes," according to SMCCDI Information Service. Throughout recent hours these clashes have increased in western Iranian metropolitan areas in particular. These include , Mahabad, Baneh and Piranshahr.

The streets have been clogged with protesters screaming out for a "democratic change in Iran." Islamic dictatorial forces have upped their presence in opposition to the mob gatherings.

In Mahabad especially there has been reported a death as well as numerous citizens injured due to the conflict between those calling for a political change and Iranian security forces. When additional militia were ordered into Marivan, they were not able to control the masses. Accesses to thoroughfares are being blocked by "enflamed tires."

When United States President George W. Bush began his call for liberties throughout the world, citizens in dictatorially controlled nations got hold of the challenge and are now letting their angst known to the powers-that-be. Mr. Bush continues his litany of liberties for all.

Those who are worn down by despots are echoing his beliefs within their own borders. It is a yearning of every human being to breathe free air. America has been blessed by its liberty milieu; others want that same opportunity.There is now New Iraq planting its democracy. Afghanistan bravely continues with its liberties established. Ukraine has come forth as no longer tied to Russia but more in league with the United States lifestyle, even to registering to become a member of NATO. Egypt has promised free elections forthcoming.

Therefore, there are those in Iran who conclude they are due like chances for democracy in their time.

"Violent clashes continued, yesterday and this evening, in several western Iranian cities, such as, Mahabad, Baneh and Piranshahr. Hundreds of protesters came, again, into streets in order to call for a democratic change in Iran, despite the heavy presence of Islamic regime's forces.

"Slogans against the Islamic regime and its leadership are consistently shouted by protesters in chase and run actions. Several security agents have been also injured in the clashes by armed masked individuals.

"Several official buildings and banks have been heavily damaged by fire. Protesters have been energized, since Wednesday, by the events in Iraq and its electoral process having lead to the election of the new Iraqi executive."

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SADDAM ESCAPE EXECUTION? A DEAL IN NEW IRAQ?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

It could be.

There are those saying that a deal is being worked out by which Saddam Hussein could escape execution.

He could get life, but not be put to death. That would mean that by allowing Hussein to live, the Sunnis would be placated. Sunnis held the power under Hussein’s despotic rule. To allow their former dictator to keep on breathing in a jail cell till he died a natural death could bring some of the Sunnis more integrally into the New Iraq politic.

Not so, say others who believe that there is no other answer for the Hussein atrocities but putting him to death.

They consider it logical and just. If it is not seen through, then there could be open rebellion within the politic and out into the grassroots.

What’s going on then in New Iraq concerning the eventual take on Hussein?

According to The Daily Telegraph as reported today by Aljazeera News, "Saddam Hussein could avoid execution under a secret proposal by rebel leaders that Iraq's new administration is ‘seriously considering’, a senior government source said."

Who’s making these deals? It’s reported that Sunni nationalists and those who once were a part of Hussein’s Ba’ath party are having talks with newly formed government officials. If such a deal were sealed, then Sunnis would be more comfortable with what’s going on in New Iraq, it’s reported.

"’We are trying to reach out to the (rebels),’ the source said. ‘We don't expect them to stop fighting unconditionally. Sending Saddam to prison for the rest of his life is not a huge price for us to pay, but it will save them a lot of face.’"

However, the question arises as to whether or not those Sunnis in on the talks are really the ones influencing the larger Sunni population. Could a deal be made to keep Hussein alive for life and yet not appease the Sunni larger population? Could be. In other words, a deal could still not accomplish what it is intended to accomplish. But once a deal is sealed, presumably it’s sealed forever and the New Iraq will have to live with it.

It is reported that "Jalal Talabani, Iraq's new president, has already begun to prepare his people for a possible reprieve."

Asharq al-Awsat, the Kurdish president, has informed media that he is against dealing out a death sentence. In other words, he has a philosophical opposition to handing out death sentences to anyone.

In fact, he told a pan-Arab newsfeed: "’I am among the lawyers who signed an international petition against the death penalty around the world and it would be a problem for me if Iraqi courts issued death sentences.’"

Tell that to Nawzad Othman, a greengrocer. His brother was slain in 1988. He was one of the 5,000 Kurds put to death in Halabja under the Hussein blood letting. Othman states emphatically: "Anything but death for Saddam would be a travesty of justice...(he) cannot be allowed to live.’" The Kurds agree with that position, almost to a man.

Stay tuned.

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DEMS ASK PRES THE IMPOSSIBLE RE FILIBUSTER BUST

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Dems are at it again: illogic to the nth degree. Figures.

This time they are demanding of the United States President George W. Bush that he bow low to their demands, as if Mr. Bush has no feel for the dirty games maneuvers of the Dems. Come on, Dems. You want to play fair, you broadcast; then let’s get with the program.

"Senate Democratic leader Harry Reid of Nevada and top Judiciary Committee Democrat Patrick Leahy of Vermont called on Bush on Monday to oppose attempts to ban judicial filibusters.

"’We urge you to make clear to Senate Republican leaders that you do not favor the so-called "nuclear option," which would remove an important check on executive power,’ they said in a letter to the White House. ‘Instead, let us work together to identify consensus judicial candidates,’" according to the AP.

"’Let us work together. . .’" Oh yeah. Since when?

Just because the Senate Monday confirmed Mr. Bush’s first judicial nominee, 95-0, does not a cordial Dem pack make. No way. Yet the Dems are using that display case vote as their usual hospitality toward Mr. Bush’s nominees. As if the President wore blinders, right?

The Republicans have threatened they will shut down the needless, day care center mode of filibuster if Dems stop progress on the President’s judicial nominees. The Dems have threatened to counter by shutting down all Congressional action until the Republicans wise up and scrape before the Dem company of fools.

"Senators on a 95-0 vote confirmed Paul Crotty as a U.S. District judge for New York state. With Crotty's confirmation, Bush has put 205 trial and appellate judges on the federal court since becoming president.

"’It is my hope that we will be able to move other nominees to the Senate floor for confirmation,’ said Senate Judiciary Committee chairman Arlen Specter (R-Pa.)."

Hope again, Senator.

You and the world know that the Dems put on a nice party show for Crotty. But they are salivating to get their fangs into the real Ten put in the trash can the last time Mr. Bush put them up for judicial seats. That trash can mode will surface again and the whole world knows it.

"Democrats have blocked 10 of Bush's 52 appeals court nominations through filibuster threats, while allowing Republicans to confirm 34 others. They have said they plan to keep blocking those 10 if they are brought up for confirmation again.

"In return, the GOP has threatened to change the Senate rules to ban filibusters of judicial nominees."
Bottom line: no one can convert the Dems to civility. No one.

Stay tuned.

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BOLTON SHOULD GO TO UN—WITHOUT DOUBT

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

John R. Bolton should be sent to the United Nations as the United States Ambassador — without doubt.

The Dems are using Bolton as a political football and they know it. The Republicans have expected it and are ready for the battle line.

Using a name such as Bolton simply for a political football is debasing to a political party; then again, what could be debasing to the Dems after the displays of hate speech and derangement in illogic put forth for the world to view during the presidential election last year?

Dems bring out that Bolton has criticized the UN in speeches. Good.

The UN needs a lot of criticism; therefore, it’s time that a state-of-the-art critic should go the UN to voice there as America’s ambassador. Surely there is needed a US appointed gadfly at the UN. If not, the US cannot expect much change in the quagmired UN in need of housecleaning and much repair.

According to Los Angeles Times’ reporter Sonni Efron, "Democratic senators today (stated) that he (Bolton) sought to have two intelligence analysts removed from their jobs for refusing to alter their assessments (of the UN). Bolton testified that he did speak to the superiors of both analysts to say that he had lost confidence in the analysts and thought they should be reassigned."

So what’s incorrect professionally about what Bolton did? Seemingly nothing at all. It happens all the time in organizational life. Why should it not happen in Bolton’s professional history?"

In a long, bruising hearing, Senate Democrats painted Bolton as ideologically hostile to the United Nations, undiplomatic, and too compromised byhis handling of intelligence to be entrusted with America's top U.N. job.

"’The U.N. needs reform — lots of it,’ said Sen. Joseph R. Biden Jr. (D-Del.). ‘But we don't need a voice people are not inclined to listen to.’"

Question: Who says that the Bolton "voice" won’t be admired by the American public? Does Biden have the final analysis on the grassroots? Not.

More in line with American assessment reality is that from Senator George Allen, Republican of Virginia, when he stated that Bolton was "’the absolute perfect person for the job’" because "’you'll advance our principles and you are not going to be seduced’" by the "’pontificating bureaucrats’" at the United Nations.

Yes.

Remember when John F. Kerry, the Dem darling, advocated the US be turned over to the world powers, namely, the UN, thugs of the planet? The Dems therefore are simply taking that doctrine another deplorable step
further.

Not good. Won’t work. Therefore, send Bolton to the UN — ASAP.

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CIVIL WAR? : ISRAEL

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

It could happen. Israel’s Prime Minister Ariel Sharon and United States President George W. Bush meet face-to-face in Texas considering the situation. Sharon is frank. He informs the President that it could be civil war.

Why? Not only because of tensions between Palestinian Authority and Israeli government. But also because of stress between Jew and Jew.

On July 20 Jewish houses in the Gaza community are to be vacated by inhabitants. Jews ousted will be put in motels and hotels. Their furniture will be warehoused in locations not known.

Jewish guard police will drag Jews from their homes then. It’s called Disengagement. But all’s not in a name, that’s for sure. There’s much angst attached to that rather ambiguous title given to putting people out of their houses, out of their neighborhoods, out of their communities for places foreign.

No wonder it could yield civil war as well as Arab-Israeli conflict continuing and enhanced. All the while the United States has encouraged the Disengagement. It’s seen as part of the Roadmap to Peace. In other words, in order to appease the PA, Israeli officialdom has to do its part. Part of "its part" is unloading Gaza of Jews so that Arabs can move in.

It’s all quite complicated, considering that the 1967 Six Day War ended up with Jews taking hold of the Gaza Strip as well as Golan Heights, West Bank, all of Jerusalem and Egypt Sinai. Now it’s time for Jews to leave what they gained in 1967? There are those ardent, educated, professional leader Jews in Israel as well as America who say absolutely NO.

That now puts American Bush administration and Israeli politic in a tight squeeze they have made for themselves and perhaps for the outbreak of civil war.

According to the Christian Science Monitor’s "Monitor’s View" dated April 11, 2005: "A smooth withdrawal from Gaza - as long as it's not a quid pro quo for Israeli entrenchment in the West Bank - is in everybody's best interest. President George Bush, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon (who meets with Mr. Bush in Texas Monday), and Palestinian leader Mahmoud Abbas must do all they can to ensure it's a success."

Sharon has stated that he will not squash the Gaza Jewish homes vacated; but that of course does not seem to be much comfort to those who now dwell therein. In other words, big deal! A person without a home is still a person without a home — squash or no squash. In other words, it’s enough to make some go to war — civil war.

Stay tuned.

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WHY GOD FORMED ISRAEL AS A NATION: PROPHET EZEKIEL

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Read Ezekiel, chapter 36 through 39.

There you will read why Jehovah promised that "in the latter days" Jews would come from every nation into their own country.

That occurred on May 14, 1948, by an act of the United Nations. Since that day till now, Arabs have sought to destroy every Jew on Earth, beginning in Israel, pushing Jews into the Mediterranean. The next generation of Arab youth are taught to hate "Jew-pigs," as they are called for Arabs consider Jews descendants of monkeys and pigs.

In other words, the formation of Israel as a legitimate nation did not bring peace to the Jewish inhabitants. Instead, it has brought untold tension, including the present stress due to continued fighting between the descendants of Isaac and Ishmael.

It was Isaac who was the legitimate son of Abraham and wife Sarah. It was Ishmael who was the illegitimate son of Abraham and servant girl Hagar, the latter being Arab. The two boys grew up knowing one another — and tussling against one another. The prophecy was that they would continue the tension for future generations. We witness it played out ongoingly today and into the future.

The formation of Israel as a nation was forecast by prophet Ezekiel, particularly in chapters 36 through 39. There God speaks of taking His people from every nation into their own nation. There they would set up their agricultural centers, Jehovah referring to such as "mountains, valleys, and ravines." There too they would set up their urban centers. The countryside would be populated with the descendants of father-of-the-faithful Hebrews, Abraham.

As stated above, that happened on the historic date of May 14, 1948. But why? Why did Jehovah promise His disobedient children a place called "home"?

After all, the Hebrews had been informed as to how God expected them to live in holiness, abiding by His commandments, keeping His laws. However, one generation after another went wayward until finally God gave them up to pagan nations. First to the Assyrians and then to the Babylonians. Israel in the north and Judah in the south fell to heathen rulers who enslaved God’s chosen.

When this backslidden state occurred, God’s name was besmirched. He was made to appear the lesser deity in that His own offspring would not keep to His expectations. Therefore, how could God be God?

Consequently, Ezekiel prophesies that when God brings His own, that is, Hebrews henceforth referred to as "Jews," into their own country, it was not because they deserved it. Not at all. God accents that repeatedly. It was to vindicate His holy name. That is, it was to bring into favor before the peoples of the globe that the God of the Old Testament is the true and only God. God is God, none other is God.

Furthermore, God stated through prophet Ezekiel that the return of Jews to Israel, once known as Canaan Land, the land "flowing with milk and honey," was to lift high God’s call to holiness. His holy name was not only to be put aright; holiness as a lifestyle was to be reestablished by a fresh discipleship.

The latter years of the Old Testament witnessed a sad loss of holiness. Hebrews went "awhoring," to use the Old Testament term coming from the mouth of Jehovah. They went after other loves and left their First Love, God. They spiritually then divorced their allegiance to God in favor of courting heathen idols. Idol worship became rampant. Evil became daily fare. The Old Testament clergy prostituted themselves physically and doctrinally.
Therefore, their leadership proved to be more devilment than holy.

God said in the midst of all that that one day, "in the latter times," there would come the era when Jews would return to Israel, establishing their own country. However, once again, it would not be because they deserved it. It would be to broadcast worldwide that God is truly God, the Lord is the Lord, and Holiness is His name and nature.

To this day, Jews languish in much societal pain because of Ishmael’s descendants still threatening the demise of the Jews. Present-day Jews enjoy their Israel but they don’t. They can’t because of the daily stress put upon them. They are happy to have their own country, having wandered as gypsies of the planet for centuries, yet they are not safe at home.

It is all because prophecy has come to pass in "these latter times."

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HOMOSEXUALS INFILTRATE MENNONITES

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

When visiting Mennonite friends in central Pennsylvania, they informed us of their grave concern. Because they are born again Christians, life-long Mennonites, they are alarmed at the enemy taking over the Mennonite congregations.

The theological enemy equals homosexuals — practicing homosexuals and those endorsing their lifestyle as God blessed.

So while having breakfast with our friends, Paul showed me a magazine published by the Mennonites. There were numerous letters to the editor exclaiming over the infiltration of homosexuals.

I wondered how this could be. Homosexuals have taken over the Episcopal Church of America so that now the bishop states to media that biblical Episcopalians are "of the devil." The whole apostasy has spread so far as to influence the worldwide Anglican communion.

The African Anglicans have been particularly vocal about the American Episcopal mad move. African communions have informed the Archbishop of Canterbury that he had better exercise his spiritual authority as lead pastor in warning the American congregations of their spiritually backslidden condition.

Thus far, the Archbishop has shown little gusto in doing that. In fact, he has become an irritant to the worldwide believing Anglican worshipers in not doing enough for the biblical cause.

So when I read the letters to the editor of a Mennonite magazine, I immediately thought of the homosexual plan. It’s a plot from hell. It is to infiltrate heretofore biblical gatherings with their diabolical dogma as well as sinful lifestyle. Therefore, they have now come upon not only the aesthetically prone Episcopalians but also the plain living Mennonites.

But the Mennonites? How the Mennonites? And why?

The bottom line is that Mennonites are known for being a "peace church" like unto the Plymouth Brethren and the Society of Friends (Quakers). Numerous homosexuals agree to be non-military and therefore fit right in with the peace accent of these so-called "peace churches," hence the gravitation of homosexuals to the Mennonites communities.

The "homosexual Mennonites" then champion pacifism while spreading homosexual lifestyle as God ordained alongside heterosexual lifestyle.

What is particularly alarming is that the editorial leadership, that is, especially in Mennonite printed material such as denominational magazines, have taken the side of the homosexuals. In other words, homosexual enthusiasts have infiltrated the printed word, the reading material going out into Mennonite homes and church sanctuaries.

I don’t think the rest of Christendom is as much aware of the homosexual infiltration of the Mennonites as it is aware of the Episcopal diabolical, for example. However, it would be wise to take stock of the infiltration in many locales religious, including not only the Episcopal Church in America but also the United Church of Christ (Congregational), Presbyterian Church of Ameirca and the Evangelical Lutheran Church of America (the term "evenaglical" no longer having its biblical meaning in the title of that denomination).

In short, the homosexual religious actors have continued their inroads in what appears to those concerned about End Times theology as a takeover of the Christian Church.

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CHINA AND INDIA FORGE UNION FOR TRADE INCREASE

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

In an attempt to offset America’s hold on planetary power, other nations are coming together to form their own alliances. It means increased power politically and economically in other locales than North America. It means a threat to the United States’ hold on the mightiest nation in the world.

Therefore, when India and China make a recent pact, it should be of crucial concern to democracies, particularly of concern to America’s officialdom.

Bloomberg reports that "China and India agree to end border row, spur trade."

This equals a closer tie between two countries that could wage war on freedom based countries — not only militarily but also in the pocketbook.

Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh saw through the pronouncements. They "signed an accord aimed at ending their decades-old border dispute and agreed to explore the possibility of creating the world’s biggest free trade zone."

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PRAYER . . . GOD TALKING TO HIMSELF

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

The highest form of prayer is God talking to Himself through you.

You have an Intercessor in heaven. His name is Jesus. He is seated at the right hand of the Father.

You have an Intercessor on earth. His name is the Holy Spirit. One of His missions is to make Jesus more clear to you. Jesus said of the Spirit: "He will teach you of Me."

Therefore, when you come to the Trinity in prayer, all persons of the Triune Godhead are at work in your prayer.

The Spirit on earth picks up your communication, delivering it to the Son in heaven. The Son then presents your prayer to the Father for His perfect will to be set loose.

How absolutely crucial then is your prayer to Almighty God. All three persons of the Holy Trinity are interested enough in your communication to participate integrally.

Consequently, even the most feeble prayer, the most crippled petition, is noted with special care by Almighty God.

The highest form of prayer then is you sensing that you no longer form your thoughts in prayer but that the Spirit has taken over your thought patterns to think through you. This is spiritual ecstasy!

The mortal is in touch with the divine. Eden walk-and-talk is restored within your very spirit. Eternity has crossed earthly.

Paul writes about this in Romans 8. He states that the Spirit ends our sentences which we find difficult to close. He finishes our stuttering. He refines our crudeness in language. He lifts up to heaven our weak efforts.

How unstrained then is the highest form of prayer. How uncomplicated. How simple, as a child naively approaching a loving parent.

Yet often we have made prayer to be so utterly contrived that we have formed it into a brittle exercise. We have sapped the sweet innocence right out of it.

Those who are rigidly liturgical sing-song their recitals with barely a thought. Those who are sloppily informal with deity pride themselves on reciting cliche wordings that go no further than the ceiling. Both have practically nullified prayer.

In this, Satan would have us then view prayer as practically impossible--something "to get over with". It becomes a religious act to put on, see through, show off, race by, or flip into the air with scarcely a real concern.

Therefore, we privately postpone genuine prayer until we conclude we are "better at it." Or until we have a time for in-depth retreat. Or until we can really settle down and locate God with some spiritual guru.

God instead invites us to wed with Him any time, anywhere. When we then come to our spiritual senses to acknowledge Him in us in the moment, the Spirit marries Himself to our thoughts, showing us the paths of prayer.

Then we sense that we are on a journey that is not of our own making. We know within for certain that we are being accompanied by an Unseen Friend who knows better than we where we are headed.

Such peace. Yet such exhilaration. Such quietness. Yet such bursting of melody.

It is then that the God in heaven talks to Himself in you. For you, prayer turns into a listening post. You are no longer chattering away about your selfish wants, your pet peeves, your connivings to get your way in the name of Jesus. Instead, you are listening in to One speaking to Himself.

When this occurs, you truly have the mind of Christ. Imagine! The Creator of all things deigns to indwell your head. He would house within your clay pot. He would speak through your dusty frame. How He truly loves you and me! It is beyond us yet within us.

The next time you force yourself to have daily devotions, ask yourself why you bother with the bother. Can this toil go on for many more years until you finally give up on the practice? Is it really worth the strain--the empty habitual shell--the rote?

Many have given up on the strain--secretly. They simply put on in public the religious mask of being in touch with God. They parrot the phrases, the demeanor, the show. Yet inside His fire went out a long time ago.

If this has happened to you, start over with a new concept of prayer. Sit yourself down with the Spirit of God and ask Him to start to think through you. You will discover that He is more willing to do just that than you are to welcome Him into your person.

This God-consciousness can continue through all waking moments. In that you will find Jesus in heaven to come to earth in you. This is the Kingdom of God personalized within your spirit. And this is what Jesus prayed for when He asked the Father for the holy regime to come to earth as it is in heaven.

Prayer for you then will become such an exhilarating venture--waiting on tip-toe--that you will hardly be able to wait for the next listening in--hearing God talking to Himself through you.

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PA’S ABBAS WEAK. ROADMAP IN SHAKES. SHARON AND BUSH MEET IN TEXAS.

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Once again, it’s all a mess in the Middle East. Daily angst.

Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon makes his way to visit United States President George W. Bush at the Texas ranch. As the introduction to such a twosome, PA leader Mahmud Abbas seems unable to quell killers international. The latest is that the Muslim slayers hoisted rockets — 70 of them—against Israeli communities as well as Israeli troops positioned within the Gaza Strip.

However, to add to the confusion, it was Israeli police who shot at and killed three Palestinian young people. The rocket attacks were in retaliation to three Arab youths lying dead due to Jewish gunfire.

No matter.

Sharon will present to the President that Abbas simply can’t keep his children in line. Therefore, the Roadmap to Peace is shredded one more time.

One crucial passage in that Roadmap stipulation is that the PA corral in all murderers so that they lay down their arms — permanently; otherwise, nothing really is to expected from the Israeli officialdom. A real live peace in real time with real people is first and foremost with the Roadmap of Peace guidelines. Sharon knows that. Abbas knows that. The President knows that.

According to Charly Wegman of The Australian in Jerusalem, "While no one was injured by the barrage, the Israeli Government is furious Mr Abbas and his security services appeared to have done nothing to stop the attacks.

"Mr Sharon was likely to use his meeting with Mr Bush to argue that Mr Abbas was failing to honor commitments to rein in the militants, a point his Defense Minister Shaul Mofaz made in person to the Palestinian leader in a late-night phone call.

"’This can't continue,’ Mr Mofaz was quoted as telling Mr Abbas. ‘You aren't doing what needs to be done, and Israel won't accept this. If you don't act quickly, who knows how badly this will deteriorate?’"

So the bloody ping pong goes back and forth over the Israeli and Palestinian turf, warning Jews to increase their fear quotients and teaching Arab youths how to hate more than ever every Jew on Earth.

Of course, nothing is simple in the Middle East. There is not only the Gaza community and Jewish dwellers threatened on July 20 to be ousted from their homes — put out by Jewish police guards, none the less. There is also the West Bank debacle.

"Palestinian Prime Minister Ahmed Qorei called on Mr Bush to use his meeting with Mr Sharon to pressure him to stop expanding settlements and construction of a separation barrier in the West Bank.

"’We are appealing to President Bush to insist during his meeting with Mr Sharon on the necessity of putting an end to Israeli violations (of the roadmap), in particular the expansion of the settlements, the attempts to annex (east) Jerusalem and to build the wall,’ Mr Qorei said after meeting the EU's envoy for the region, Marc Otte."

Welcome to Mayhem Middle East Maximum continuance.

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AFGHAN WOMAN GETS FIRST DRIVER’S LICENSE BUT AFRAID TO USE IT

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Liberties come very slowly to women in some parts of Afghanistan. As freedom spread continues in various parts of the globe, primarily because of the championing of liberties for citizens initiated by United States President George W. Bush, resistance persists in certain locales.

One of them was an Afghan province overseen by Ismail Kahn, governor. He repressed women’s rights constantly. He treated females similarly to the Taliban. However, he no longer is in power. Nevertheless, the fear remains. Can women dare apply for jobs in the marketplace? Can they put off the repressive head-to-toe fabric that hides their identity? Can they take a driver’s test, and then passing it, even drive a vehicle through the village streets?

These real life questions loom in Afghanistan as it gets used to a democracy planting. It takes time. It takes patience, both of which have been lived out by Mr. Bush in example to new leadership elsewhere.

As reported by The Washington Post’s N. C. Aizenman, "New Drivers Still Face Cultural Roadblocks." That focus on the driver’s license is just one of numerous "roadblocks" confronted especially by females introduced to practical freedoms at the local level.

"Sima Kazemi smiled proudly as she considered whether she would pass the first driver's license exam to be offered to women in this western city. There was, she said, no doubt. But the confidence drained from the 20-year-old college student's voice as she acknowledged the harassment that she would probably face as a female driver in Afghanistan.

"’Actually, I've decided to wait at least one year before driving,’ she said with a resigned sigh. ‘Maybe by then things will be better. But the atmosphere is just not ready right now.’ A new plan in Herat to teach women to drive and give them licenses is at once a symbol of the official rights women continue to win in Afghanistan and a reminder of the difficulties they still confront in exercising those freedoms. "

The question is this: How will society react to those women who step forward to put in practice the new liberties? There is such entrenchment over years and years of living under the Muslim repression of women. Women in Islamic cultures are often treated with less regard that house pets.

Women are believed to have a demonic curse from conception. They are answerable to the males in charge. If they displease a male, he can have the woman beaten or worse — murdered. It is called "honor killing" when a family male kills a female who has been concluded to disobey in one area or another, many times the disobedience being imagined by the male. In order to keep the household honor, the woman’s life must be extinguished.

Consequently, with certain females now reaching out to take hold of fresh liberties, there is trepidation as well as rejoicing over the new-found democracy. Will there be foes hidden in the societal woodwork who will taunt or cripple those seeking to live out those freedoms?

One issue is the head-to-toe fabric covering the Muslim female. But to drive a vehicle, she has to remove that covering at least from her face so that she can see to drive. That’s a problem for some. The face-screened burqa prohibits full vision.

When a venturous female removes the face-screen covering, sometimes the family does not like that. Neighbors talk. Therefore, there is that day-to-day resistance from those closest who may prohibit certain women from venturing forth with the freedoms available, such including even the basic driver’s license.

"Shaghe Karimi, 29, a law student, said she had driven by herself for the first time a few weeks ago after begging her brother-in-law to lend her his car on a family picnic. ‘You feel like you're not dependent on anyone,’ she said enthusiastically. ‘Like you can go anywhere!’"

What women in non-Muslim countries experience every day — their personal freedoms to come and go — these women are just experiencing for the first time. Yet this exhilaration that should be celebrated is still that which could bring down the woman within her clan if the males decide she has gone too far.

All the more, Islam has proven itself to be a male-dominated religion that has cruelty as its base. Hardly can the Koran and Allah be considered holy when they foster such hostility.

Note what happened to Shaghe Karimi: "But her elation was cut short on a second, similar outing, she said, when she ventured out of her family's sight and passed a group of men washing their car by a stream.

"’When did you get your license?’ they jeered, she said, and started to give chase.

"Burning with humiliation, she raced back to her family and rejoined the picnic without a word about what had happened."

It could have been worse.

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UNITY GROWS IN NEW IRAQ GOVERNMENT

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Unity measures continue to reveal themselves within the New Iraq government establishment, according to Aljazeera News.

The latest is outgoing Prime Minister Iyad Allawi informing media that his party will join in with the nation’s newly formed officialdom lead by Ibrahim Jaafari.

"Spokesman Thaer al-Naqib said that ‘Iyad Allawi decided that his bloc will take part in the new government because he believes in making the political and democratic process in Iraqi successful.’"

Once again, that envisioned by United States President George W. Bush is coming to fruition. It was Mr. Bush who stated to worldwide media that he believed strongly in the new nation having the ability to formulate its own freedom base. Since Operation Iraqi Freedom began a little over two years ago, Mr. Bush has held to that vision, though attacked viciously by Democrats in the United States and various obstinate governments throughout Europe.

"’Yes this is our final decision. The Iraqi list will participate seriously and actively in the next government,’ Hani Idriss, a confidante of Allawi and senior member of his Iraqi National Accord party, said. ‘Allawi will just be a member of the Parliament, but he will not preside over a ministry because he was nominated to be Prime Minister.’"

In the historic January 30 elections, it was Allawi’s bloc which came in third, winning 40 seats in the 275-seat Parliament. Prior it was his bloc that told the press that it would "boycott the new government, preferring to act as opposition in Parliament."

However, that has all changed with the most recent announcement of providing further unity with the new government. It is expected that increased unity will be forthcoming as the nation looks forward to setting in place its own constitution by mid-August.

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US SIGNALS PHILIPPINES = ‘NEW AFGHANISTAN’ ON THE VERGE

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

If matters are not brought to the test, the Philippines could be overrun with murderers global like unto the Afghanistan recent condition. So the United States has warned officialdom, according to AFP dispatched from Manila.

Too many Muslim killers international are invading the country. Joseph Mussomeli, official, US embassy in Manila, warns that the nation could become the "new ‘Mecca’ for terrorism."

"’Personally, I'm worried that we're not worried enough. I think the real danger here, and the danger that has been here since the mid-90s, is that we're not focused enough on the threat here,’ Charge d'affaires Mussomeli said in an interview with Australia's SBS television.

"’The threat is more long-term: that Mindanao is such a lawless -- certain portions of Mindanao -- are so lawless, so porous the borders that you run the risk of it becoming like an Afghanistan situation.’"

Subtly but with diligence the Muslim extremists are out to kill. They are trained specifically in bomb making. Authorities have seemingly lost the cutting edge in combating the foe potential. If something is not seen through with precision to counter the forces out to slay, there could eventuate much chaos in government and at grassroots.

"Manila officials concede militant factions within the 12,000-member the Moro Islamic Liberation Front (MILF) are giving sanctuary and even training facilities to the Jemaah Islamiyah (JI), the alleged Southeast Asian proxy of the Al-Qaeda militant Islamic network, as well as the Mindanao-based Abu Sayyaf group (ASG)."

Instead of diminishing, the threat is growing daily. The government is wrestling with a horrific fiscal crisis. All the while, the enemy is gathering strength. Instead of the powers-that-be recognizing that and combating it, there appears to be a sidelining of the issue.

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IRAQIS RUN THEIR OWN GOVERNMENT: FREEDOM’S CHOICE

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

New Iraq now has its own President, Vice President, Speaker and Prime Minister. Instead of Saddam Hussein’s horrific rule of mutilating his own citizens as well as mentoring his sons in how to do worse, Iraq now blossoms its own democracy. That is much to the chagrin of killers international who were determined to doom any hope of freedoms established in the former dictatorship.

According to Jim Garamone of American Forces Press Service, "The coalition is also making progress in training Iraqi security forces, with the number of those forces ‘trained and equipped’ topping 150,000."

Therefore, Prime Minister Ibrahim al-Jaafari, a Shiia Muslim, duly elected by the Transitional National Assembly, can have hope for his nation’s future. The newly named Prime Minister informed media that he will have his cabinet in place within the next two weeks.

President Jalal Talabani, a Kurdish leader, as well as Adel Abdel Mahdi and Ghazi al-Yawar, Deputy Presidents, promised to work in union with the Prime Minister to see through the liberties expected for all Iraqi citizens. Hachim al-Hasani, a Sunni, is on board as well as Speaker of the Assembly.

These are qualified persons who are sensitive to unifying the nation for the good of the people. They understand that factions must never be developed so as to hamper the progress already begun.

Next comes the writing of the permanent Iraqi constitution which is expected to be in place by mid-August. With the way efficiency has been forthcoming on other major fronts, there is little doubt that this promise will be fulfilled.

In mid-October there then will follow the referendum. If that passes, elections for a permanent government are set for December 15. Those closest to the governing sources express confidence that all will proceed according to plans announced.

In addition, "trained and equipped Iraqi security forces number 152,617, divided between the ministries of interior and defense, according to U.S. State Department April 6 statistics. The 66,895 soldiers in the Iraqi army, 186 in the air force and 521 in the Iraqi navy come under the purview of the Ministry of Defense.

"Iraqi military forces have taken over many duties formerly performed by coalition forces. This includes the Iraqi 40th Brigade patrolling some of Baghdad’s hotspots. Iraqi brigades also have responsibility in portions of Fallujah, Mosul and Tikrit, officials in Baghdad said.

"The Ministry of Interior now has 55,862 police and highway patrolmen trained and equipped, officials said. There are also 29,153 civil intervention forces, border police, police commandos and the like. Each week, between 1,500 and 3,000 new members of the security forces go on active duty."

This is most commendable considering the threats from murderers global in the latter’s attempt to unravel civility in the New Iraq. With threats forthcoming, local Iraqis have stepped up to the challenge, even if it meant the risk of death. They have displayed exceptional courage in being determined to forge ahead in making certain a democracy is secured throughout the nation.

This all began a little over two years ago with the Operation Iraqi Freedom’s three-week-win war. US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld oversaw the victory in toppling Hussein. Initiating the freedom spread through New Iraq was of course United States President George W. Bush.

Though Democrats fought hard and long, even resorting to hate speech, in seeking to undo any effort of Mr. Bush to secure freedoms in Iraq, Mr. Bush stayed the course. Though European leaders led with their lethargy, even to the extent of ignoring pleas from Iraqis to support the US-led Coalition, Mr. Bush and cooperating nations for liberty continued to continue.

The result is the present New Iraq with its historic January 30 Victory Vote, the newly formed National Assembly and elected officialdom. Though killers international still attempt to collapse the successes brought to fruition, Iraqis in particular are refusing to return to the despotic rule. They are enjoying the new freedom breezes and will commit to insuring their continuance.

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I LIKE THE KIDS’ SIMPLE BIRTHDAY PARTIES

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

Carl turned 12 last week. Good.

So last evening we were invited to celebrate with his family at a dinner in their home. Good.

Two boy pals from school were part of the celebration. That’s it. Good.

I then thought back to the earlier birthday parties. Carl and a whole village of friends would gather. Well, it wasn’t a whole village, as in "it takes a village to raise a child." But it seemed like it, particularly when it came to his mother paying for the extravaganza.

Was it one year that there was a raft of kids showing up all at the community swimming pool? So many dollars per head plus eats cost and so on and son?

Was it one year that there was a horde of kids showing up at the community skating rink? So many dollars per head plus eats cost in the sideroom, clown and balloons not included.

Was it one year that there was a battalion of kids showing up at Mickey D’s for The Birthday Room: overseer setting decorated tables and so forth and so forth? Then kids scampering through the inside play area with its baubles and other enticements. So many dollars per head plus eats cost in the facility, clown not included.

Yikes.

I thought I’d never want to be a young parent these days. It would blow my wallet to the sea. I could never afford the outlandish birthday festivities when it appeared as if the whole neighborhood showed up for fun and games.

When I grew up Mom had a birthday party in the house. There was the cake with candles. There was the beverage. That was it for eats. There were games that we kids were used to — mostly in the back yard by the grape vines and alongside the garage. Then the kids went home — all happy and full. Cost: not much, that’s for sure. But did anyone ever complain? Not on your life.

When I was invited to a neighborhood pal’s house for his or her birthday, it was the same. But it seemed forever new and happy.

Down through the years however America has gone nuts over celebrations: wedding dinners, prenuptial parties, birthday get-togethers, even funeral afterwards this-and-that. It’s outrageous. To me, it’s stupid and bordering on the unethical for a Christian.

How can a thinking-through-things-material Christian come up with these worldly displays? I know that some out there will consider me to be wedged in time; but really is it all that moral to put out such funds for a simple birthday wonder or a wedding or a funeral?

Does the good Lord expect us to be in debt for several years to come just because daughter is getting married in June? I don’t think so. At least I can’t find support for this show-off stuff in the Word.

So back to Carl’s 12th birthday this past week. There were now two boys at his dinner. They each brought simple but nifty gifts. His stepdad was there. His mother was there. My wife, his grandmother, and I, his grandfather, were there — 7 of us at the table. Count us: 7! We laughed. We joked. We ate pizza and soda.

Then the kids went outside to wrestle on the ground.

Wrestling on the ground and kicking around an old soccer ball was in place of swimming in the community pool, skating in the community rink or renting out the burger palace birthday room with canned, artificial decorations and paper mache tasting eats.

I thought the downsizing this year for Carl was quite Christian and appropriate, especially in the wallet department. And not one of our souls lost any gladness in the new take on a more sane celebration this year.

May it continue for years plus and may the neighbors take note.

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IS THE RAPTURE CLOSE AT HAND?

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

This Sunday morning's religious broadcasting showed a group of believers jumping up and down, rejoicing as they were getting in practice for the rapture! The "rapture jump" is now "in"? If so, this is horrifying foolishness!

Mark it down as biblical truth: There is no pre-tribulation rapture.

However, untold thousands believe in the "secret rapture of the church" prior to the tribulation period. This is because untold thousands don't want to have to think of suffering through a tribulation time frame. The late Corrie ten Boom called this pre-trib rapture teaching the "American doctrine." Go figure.

The belief in a secret rapture of believers before the tribulation is also because of a best-seller, "The Late, Great Planet Earth," by Hal Lindsey which was set loose in the l960s. It has been a paperback aggressively pushed by practically every evangelical / fundamentalist engine going.

Theologians, videos, films and preachers bolster up this myth with their earnest preachings and teachings.

Yet this is nothing but a myth, accented as much by certain theologically conservative Protestant segments similar unto the Roman Catholic underlining of the immaculate conception of Mary. Nevertheless, if there is no biblical support for such a Mariology teaching, it is bogus. Likewise, the pre-tribulation rapture teaching is bogus.

The pre-trib rapture concept was manufactured in the 1800s in an 18 year old Plymouth Brethren girl's dream, told to her Pastor, John Darby, and then relayed to C. I. Scofield who bought into the dream as revealed truth. Scofield placed this pre-tribulation rapture notion as a footnote in his popular Bible, hence the spread of the myth.

However, just the opposite is biblical truth. In Matthew 24:29-3l, for instance, the rapture ("gathering together") is placed in the same time frame as the open second coming of Jesus Christ. And all of this is "after the tribulation" (verse 29). That is it in a nutshell!

Yet pre-tribulation rapturists sidestep this clear passage for more oblique passages. The latter are twisted and turned in order to fit into the "American doctrine." Yet such twisting is not sound exegesis. And for biblically-riveted evangelicals and fundamentalists to commit this drastic error is bordering on the horrific.

All other passages in Scripture relating to the "gathering together unto Him" must refer back to the literal time line provided by Jesus in Matthew 24.

One must not use a symbolic passage in the Book of Revelation or any other symbolically-based section of the Bible by which to draw a pre-tribulation rapture doctrine.

Further, one must not take words of the apostle Paul so as to insert them opportunistically into a conjured pre-tribulation string of Scripture references. Yet this has been done ad infinitum.

Instead, Jesus' literalism of Matthew 24 must be used as the benchmark for all other "gathering together" themes of Scripture.

One starts with literalism and moves into symbolism when seeking to understand Scripture; it is not the other way around.

During the 1970s and 1980s there was much written and preached about a pre-tribulation rapture. This has wound down some in the last decade or so. Why?

Today, with the world situation being what it is, there is not that much risk-taking in preaching dogmatically the pre-tribulation rapture. Why?

Is it because there are many who are beginning to question its validity? Is it because the world state is so uncertain that to go out on a limb with a false hope may ricochet?

One wonders, with world events progressively becoming more and more anti-Christian, why the pre-tribulation rapture persons are not celebrating each dawn as the day when Jesus may return to earth.

Such is not the phenomenon on a large scale. Furthermore, it may be because the next generation has not bought into this notion.

In any case, it is a myth, a legend of conservative Protestantism's own conjuring and has no base in the Holy Scriptures.

Yet these very Protestants are the ones who ardently point out the myths of Catholicism while holding to some of their own myths. Both segments of Christendom need to do some serious housecleaning of manufactured legends in order to return to the simple Bible truths; otherwise, the church suffers from severe lack of knowledge.

What is so frightening about holding to a pre-tribulation rapture? It is more than mere academic quibbling. Holding to such a notion is drastically weakening the church worldwide.

The church should be preparing for spiritual battle against the most evil forces arrayed by hell.

Instead, the church is languishing with a false hope. This is all orchestrated by the demonic powers in order to eventuate in a limp army of believers. And to see that through in this age of laxity in religion does not take much on the part of the dark powers. In addition, the apostate segment of religion is doing its fair share of blackening truth.

Does it take much intelligence to realize that there are awesomely wretched days yet ahead for the righteous remnant?

Those who are not strong will drop--fall away, as biblically predicted. They will be too numerous to contemplate.

But for those who are truly into carrying the daily cross there will be nothing able to thwart their zeal for Christ.
Already the remnant is being strengthened by the Spirit of light. He is gathering His own together in the power of the resurrection and the might of the revealed Word. There numbers are few; but their ardor before the Father is lovingly honored.

Set your vision upon the difficulties yet to be. They are but the trials permitted by the coming Christ.

At the close of the tribulation period, then there will be the gathering together of the believers from the four corners of the earth. They will greet Jesus in the clouds as He descends through space, having left the right hand of the Father in heaven.

The gathering together ("rapture") and the second advent then will be realized as one and the same event occurring at the end of the tribulation time frame. Jesus' declaration in Matthew 24:29-3l states it clearly.

BUSH SAYS KHALILZAD IS US AMBASSADOR TO IRAQ

J. Grant Swank, Jr.

"In all that lies ahead in Iraq, the Iraqi people can know that they will have a strong and committed partner in the United States of America.

"We have been inspired by their courage, and we will stand with the people of Iraq because a free Iraq serves as a beacon of hope and inspiration to the world," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice informed media, according to John D. Banusiewicz of American Forces Press Service.

In standing alongside Iraqis to plant their democracy, Zalmay Khalilzad will be the new United States Ambassador to the New Iraq. He is the prime choice of President George W. Bush.

If the Congress confirms him, Khalilzad will succeed Ambassador John D. Negroponte who is planning on being the director of US national intelligence.

Khalilzad has been the US ambassador and special presidential envoy to Afghanistan.

With this latest move, America continues to underline its presence in New Iraq for the purpose of finally removing the US-led Coalition in order that Iraqis may govern and protect their own nation.

While killers international and their enthusiasts staged a protest against the Coalition this weekend, the United States continued to reiterate that it will most gladly remove its troops and those of cooperating nations as soon as Iraqis can defend their own freedoms. Until then, the Coalition will remain in New Iraq.

It has been two years since Saddam Hussein’s horrific regime was toppled by Operation Iraqi Freedom’s three-week-win war overseen by US Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld. Killers international still have not given up their waging war against the new liberties set in place.

However, the Iraqi grassroots have cast their historic January 30 Victory Vote in favor of democracy. The citizens defied the murderers global by going to the polls and exercising their new right to determine their country’s future. Further, they have established their own Parliament and elected officials. Providing a constitution is in the offing, hopefully in mid-August.

Concerning Khalilzad as new ambassador, Rice said: "Zal helped lead America’s efforts to help millions of Afghan refugees return to their country and rebuild their lives in freedom. He worked tirelessly to secure the rights of Afghan women who were brutalized and oppressed under the Taliban.

"And Zal helped lead our government’s efforts to support the Afghan government as they managed their first free and open elections in their entire history. Zal has certainly been effective, and now he will turn to the unique situation in Iraq.

"Zal will also work with all institutions of our government and those of other nations to continue our efforts to help Iraq build the institutions of freedom from training Iraqi security forces to training Iraqi teachers, from improving power plants to improving schools, from increasing access to health care to increasing the efficiency of Iraq’s food delivery systems."

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