POMEGRANATE JUICE & PROSTATE CANCER

According to the American Cancer Society, an estimated 186,000 men will be diagnosed with prostate cancer in the United States in 2008, while nearly 30,000 will die of the disease over the same period.  Prostate cancer is, therefore, the most common cancer that affects men, and the second most common cause of cancer-associated death (after lung cancer) in men.  Over the past decade, the long-term survival rate for prostate cancer has increased markedly, with more than 90% of patients surviving 10 years or more after diagnosis.  The development of a blood test for prostate cancer, the PSA (prostate specific antigen) test, has significantly improved our ability to detect prostate cancer at an early stage, which means that, increasingly, this disease is being diagnosed when it is still amenable to cure.

Biologically active compounds in pomegranate juice, known as ellagitannins, are known to have powerful antioxidant and anti-inflammatory effects.  These  powerful dietary antioxidants are related, chemically, to the antioxidants also found in green tea, which is another area of intense focus in cancer prevention research (please review my archived columns for reviews of important and recently published research on the potential health effects of green tea).

Previous research studies, looking at human prostate cancer cells growing in cell cultures, and implanted in mice as well, have suggested potential cancer prevention and cancer treatment roles for pomegranate juice extracts.  In a recently published clinical study, pomegranate juice supplements were found to slow down the progression of recurrent prostate cancer in patients who had previously undergone treatment with surgery or radiation therapy.  Moreover, when the serum of these patients was added to cell cultures containing human prostate cancer cells, the serum collected after patients consumed pomegranate juice both slowed down the growth of the prostate cancer cells and increased the death rate of these same cells.

A new research study, just published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics by scientists at UCLA, adds important new information about the possible role of pomegranate juice in the prevention and treatment of prostate cancer.  

Nuclear Factor Kappa-B, or NF-κB, consists of a group of proteins referred to, collectively, as transcription factors.  Transcription factors act by activating multiple genes in both normal cells and cancer.  Activation of the NF-κB signaling pathway turns on a variety of genes that appear to play an important role in the development and progression of many cancers, including prostate cancer.  NF-κB has also been implicated in the effects of chronic inflammation on the development of several cancers, including prostate cancer.  Moreover, activation of NF-κB also appears to enable cancer cells to resist the effects of chemotherapy and other cancer treatments, and appears to be linked with more aggressive tumor biology, and a resulting increase in the risk of cancer recurrence. 

While almost all prostate cancer cells are initially sensitive to hormonal therapies that block the male sex hormones (androgens), patients with advanced prostate cancer who are treated with androgen blocking agents will eventually develop prostate cancer cells that are resistant (or androgen-independent) to such therapies.  When metastatic prostate cancer tumors become androgen-independent, these tumors then become unresponsive to most clinical therapies.

In this study, pomegranate extract was added to androgen-independent human prostate cancer cells in the laboratory, resulting in an inhibition of NF-κB that was proportional to the amount of pomegranate extract that was added.  This inhibition of the NF-κB pathway, which was induced by pomegranate extract, also resulted in a decreased rate of growth of the androgen-independent prostate cancer cells, as well as an increased death rate among these cells.

When androgen-sensitive human prostate cancer tumors are transplanted into mice, they gradually become androgen-independent following castration of the mice.  In this research study, the authors also implanted androgen-sensitive human prostate cancer cells into laboratory mice.  Some mice were given pomegranate extract or pomegranate juice, while other mice were not given any pomegranate supplements.  Subsequently, as the transplanted prostate cancer cells began to grow into tumors, all mice were then castrated to induce androgen insensitivity in their implanted tumors.  The authors subsequently found that the mice that had received pomegranate supplements developed significantly smaller tumors when compared to the mice that had not received pomegranate extract.  Moreover, the development of androgen insensitive tumors was significantly delayed in the mice that had received the pomegranate supplement, suggesting that pomegranate extract may not only be able to shrink prostate cancer tumors, but may also be able to maintain prostate cancer cells in the more favorable androgen-sensitive state.  PSA levels in the blood of the mice that received the pomegranate extract were also significantly lower than what was observed in the control animals that did not receive the extract in their diets.  All of these favorable effects that were observed in the mice that had received pomegranate extract appeared to be linked directly to an inhibition of the NF-κB signaling pathway.

The results of this study are highly intriguing, as they suggest that, at least in mice, pomegranate extracts may be able to slow prostate cancer cell growth, as well as significantly delaying the transition of prostate tumors from the more favorable androgen-sensitive state to the treatment-resistant androgen-insensitive state.  Because rising levels of NF-κB activity have previously been linked to the development of prostate cancer, as well as to the increased biological aggressiveness of prostate cancer cells, the inhibition of NF-κB with pomegranate extracts could conceivably reduce the risk of developing prostate cancer and might also reduce the growth rate and aggressiveness of already established prostate cancer.  Additionally, and importantly, the results of this study suggest that NF-κB, itself, probably plays a dominant role in the development of androgen independence in prostate cancer tumors, and, therefore, that blocking NF-κB with pomegranate extract may maintain metastatic prostate cancer tumors in the more treatable androgen-sensitive state.

But, before you go to your local grocery store and buy all of the pomegranates that they have in stock, there are a couple of important caveats that must be mentioned.  First, as I always note with laboratory studies that involve cells growing in a Petrie dish, or tumor cells implanted into laboratory animals, there is absolutely no guarantee that human patients will respond in the same ways as were observed in the laboratory.  A second caveat is that the mice utilized in this research study were fed the daily equivalent of 10 times as much pomegranate extract and juice as an ordinary human is likely to take in a day.  Whether or not smaller and more reasonable amounts of pomegranate supplementation will produce the same beneficial effects (in either mice or humans!) remains to be seen. 

Finally, this study was supported with funding from the dominant producer of pomegranates and pomegranate juice in the United States.  As I have previously mentioned, one always has to be cautious when interpreting research studies that were conducted with the financial support of companies that have a commercial stake in the outcomes of such studies.  In this case, the authors of this study presented an exceptional degree of scientific data to support their conclusions, including significant molecular biology experiments supporting their claims that NF-κB activity was directly involved in the biological aggressiveness of prostate cancer cells, and that pomegranate extract supplementation appeared to directly inhibit the NF-κB pathway.

Although the results of this study cannot tell us if pomegranate juice is able to either prevent prostate cancer in humans or decrease its aggressiveness once it has already developed, there have been very few reports of any apparent serious ill affects associated with pomegranate juice consumption.  And so, for most people, a swig or two of pomegranate juice a day shouldn’t be a problem.  However, you should still check with your physician before consuming significant quantities of pomegranate juice, as there have been some reports of adverse reactions involving heart and cholesterol-lowering medications (pomegranate juice appears to increase the blood levels of certain medications, which may lead to significant adverse health reactions).   

Dr. Wascher is an oncologic surgeon, professor of surgery, a widely published author, and the Director of the Division of Surgical Oncology at Newark Beth Israel Medical Center:

http://www.sbhcs.com/hospitals/newark_beth_israel/mservices/oncology/surgical.html

Send your feedback to Dr. Wascher at:  rwascher@doctorwascher.net

 To read more of Dr. Wascher’s Health Report columns, please visit his

website at:  http://www.doctorwascher.com

All rights reserved.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt last week announced two new actions in the department’s ongoing activities to bolster the nation’s preparedness for a potential outdoor anthrax attack. In development since March of this year, the steps being implemented today build upon more than a decade of preparedness efforts across HHS and other agencies of the federal government.
The first of the announced actions focuses on United States Postal Service letter carriers who volunteer to deliver medicines directly to residences in their communities during an emergency.

Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff and HHS Secretary Leavitt have invoked their authority under section 564 of the Federal Food, Drug, and Cosmetic Act to make the determination and declaration of emergency required by law in order for HHS’ Food and Drug Administration (FDA) to consider issuing an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) allowing eligible letter carriers to receive kits containing small quantities of antibiotics for future use by them and other members of their households during an anthrax emergency. The Biomedical Advanced Research and Development Authority within HHS requested that FDA issue a EUA for this purpose.

These antibiotics would help protect volunteers against contracting anthrax if, following an outdoor anthrax attack, the Postal Service was called upon to deliver the same life-saving antibiotics directly to homes across their community where people may have been exposed to the bacterium that causes anthrax. Although no imminent threat currently exists, these legal actions would enable FDA to issue a EUA.

“In an anthrax attack, time is of the essence in preventing illness and death by getting antibiotics to those who may have been exposed,” Secretary Leavitt said. “By providing advance protection to letter carriers who volunteer to deliver antibiotics in an affected community, we can gain the benefits of the unique capabilities of the Postal Service to get much needed medicines to those who need it quickly. This is one part of our strategy to encourage preparedness at all levels of government to enable our nation to respond effectively in the event of an anthrax emergency.”

Over the past several years, under the Cities Readiness Initiative (CRI), HHS and the Postal Service have successfully developed and tested in three U.S. cities — Seattle, Philadelphia and Boston –the ability of letter carriers to quickly deliver door-to-door quantities of antibiotics from the Strategic National Stockpile to residential addresses. This quick-strike capability is intended to buy time for local and State public health authorities to set up points of dispensing for further provision of antibiotics across the community.

“The letter carrier has long been a reliable presence in America’s neighborhoods. This important and potentially life saving undertaking is a natural extension of what the carriers see as a service to their community,” Postmaster General John E. Potter said.

Begun in 2004, CRI is a federally funded effort to prepare 72 major U.S. cities and metropolitan areas to effectively respond to a large scale bioterrorist event by dispensing antibiotics to their entire identified population within 48 hours of the decision to do so. With today’s actions, CRI cities will now have another distribution tool at their disposal when crafting their plans to protect their populations. Such innovations have been encouraged by the National Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Medicine, which earlier this year conducted an evaluation of medical countermeasure distribution capabilities.

In a related action, Secretary Leavitt issued a declaration under the Public Readiness and Emergency Preparedness Act (PREP Act) that provides liability protection for activities related to developing, manufacturing, distributing, prescribing, dispensing, administering and using anthrax countermeasures in preparation for, and in response to, a potential anthrax attack. This includes entities, such as large “big-box” retail stores, retail pharmacies, and other private sector businesses, that help to deliver and distribute medicines. Providing liability protection to all involved in such efforts will help ensure their full participation and bolster response efforts.

“Preparedness is a shared responsibility that must involve all sectors of society, including the private sector, community groups, families and individuals,” Secretary Leavitt said. “We are using the authorities available to us to do all we can to support preparedness at all levels.”

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he’s the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund’s weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us

“While I still am a staunch supporter of the Ku Klux Klan, and plan to cast my vote for David Duke, I want all you black folks to know that I have sympathy for your plight and I am in your corner pulling for you.”

Well?  What do you think?

Stupid?

Lame?

Dumb as a sack of hammers?

Something stronger?

This is why I stand in stupified amazement whenever I hear some ‘tard mention about what a Good and Loyal and True and Faithful member of the men’s movement - or sympathizer thereof - they are, and then profess their intention to vote for a ticket with “VAWA Joe” Biden on it.

Seriously?  I don’t have words.  Flabberghasted springs to mind.  Refer to the above inflammatory quotation.  Jumpin’ Jaysuz in a Motorized Wheelchair, it’s the same bloody thing. There’s only one person on either of the major tickets who voted against both VAWA and Son of VAWA, and his name isn’t Barack Hussein Obama.  And Biden sponsored the abortions.  And Sarah Palin wasn’t in the Senate to vote one way or the other.

That leaves Senator McCain.

And people in the Men’s Movement still profess their intent to vote for Teleprompter Jesus.  No joke?  Tell me, El Stupido, when you finish emptying that clip into your foot, you gonna reload?

No, I don’t want to hear excuses from morons.  It’s as dumb as a damn box of hair, and you know it.  Abject, drooling, mouth-breathing, knuckle-dragging stupidity like this is one of the reasons a woman in this country can shoot her husband in the back while he sleeps, rip the phone out of the wall so he can’t call for help, run off across state lines with the kids while leaving him to die, and still wind up serving - what? 90 days? - in jail for it, and regain custody of the children whose father she murdered in cold blood.  No wonder this movement can’t hardly get any traction, it’s inhabited by cretinous poster children for retroactive abortion.

And the reasons they give. Holy … “We have a woman on the ticket!”  Really?  Lessee - stayed married to her husband for 20+ years, gushes over him in public like a teenager still, bore four of his kids, raised them… Except for not remaining barefoot and in the Christianist Hajib, everything we supposedly crave in a woman.

That hussy.  Off with her Head!  Uppity beeyotch.

Oh, and here’s a good one, too.  Even though the Democrats would get lower than an F-minus were we allowed to give out such grades, “Well, the Republicans don’t score an A+!”

Well, yeah, I’d give them a C- on a good day, but talk about letting the perfect become the enemy of the good - or at least of the “Doesn’t suck 24-7.”  I swear to God.  Like a bunch of old biddy hens clucking.  I’d say it’s almost like they wanted to remain in a victim mentality because without something to whine about they wouldn’t know what to do with themselves - but that probably hits the bullseye.

So here’s your exercise for the day.  Grab hold of one ear.

Grab hold of the other.

Now pull your head out of your arse.

Well, what is chivalry? Here’s six definitions: 1. the sum of the ideal qualifications of a knight, including courtesy, generosity, valor, and dexterity in arms, 2. the rules and customs of medieval knighthood, 3. The medieval system or institution of knighthood, 4. a group of knights, 5. gallant warriors or gentlemen, 6. a chivalrous act or gallant deed.

On its face, how much of it applies to the present day? Apart from number six. Wikipedia describes chivalry as a term related to the medieval institution of knighthood. It is usually associated with ideals of knightly virtues, honour and courtly love. Today, the terms chivalry and chivalrous are used to describe courteous behavior, especially that of men towards women.

Now that’s the crux of it in a nice tight male chastity belt. The idea is that man is Deferential to woman. He defers, he lauds, he makes way, he privileges which is the entire reason why men in western societies suffer in 2008. For the last forty years all we have heard is equality, equality, equality which is a fine and noble concept but one intrinsically incompatible with chivalry.

And chivalry continues to pulsate. Oh, it isn’t about merely opening doors for women. It’s about male judges letting female criminals off the hook and male prosecutors refusing to bring up charges against female defendants while grosses of male politicians back anti-male legislation like VAWA and the gigantic travesty of sexual harassment law.

For decades men have been asking women an emphatic question: “Are you equal or are you special?” To which they have replied…“YES.” And yes is no answer at all. It is essential for us to operationize a solution to this quandary if we are ever going to forge a just society. Women cannot have it both ways. They’re either equal or they’re special…but never both.

I’ll add to this analysis either today or tomorrow.

On Friday, the Republican National Committee (RNC) launched a new Web Site, ObamaAcornTree.com. The Web site highlights Barack Obama’s connection to ACORN, the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, a so-called nonpartisan group that is being investigated in widespread voter-registration fraud in states throughout the country.

Obama’s ties to the group include training ACORN employees, providing legal representation to the group, receiving their endorsement for his presidential bid, and compensating a known subsidiary. One story being investigated by some reporters is the $800,000.00 donation to ACORN by the Obama campaign. Obama spokespersons have told reporters that the donation was a bookkeeping error.

According to a Pittsburgh reporter, the campaign originally “misrepresented” the group’s work to the FEC.

“U.S. Sen. Barack Obama’s presidential campaign paid more than $800,000 to an offshoot of the liberal Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now for services the Democrat’s campaign says it mistakenly misrepresented in federal reports.

An Obama spokesman said Federal Election Commission reports would be amended to show Citizens Services Inc. — a subsidiary of ACORN — worked in ‘get-out-the-vote’ projects, instead of activities such as polling, advance work and staging major events as stated in FEC finance reports filed during the primary.” (David M. Brown, “Obama To Amend Report On $800,000 In Spending,” Pittsburgh Tribune Review, 8/22/08)

As Obama once said said, “The acorn doesn’t fall far from the tree,” and in this case, he’s exactly right.

Obama’s spokespersons also claims he had a limited relationship with ACORN. However, the record shows that “[Obama] says he is drawn to politics, despite its superficialities, as a means to advance his real passion and calling: community organization. … In 1992 Obama took time off to direct Project Vote, the most successful grass-roots voter-registration campaign in recent city history.”

“Credited with helping elect Carol Moseley-Braun to the U.S. Senate, the registration drive, aimed primarily at African-Americans, added an estimated 125,000 voters to the voter rolls–even more than were registered during Harold Washington’s mayoral campaigns. ‘It’s a power thing,’ said the brochures and radio commercials. … Obama continues his organizing work largely through classes for future leaders identified by ACORN and the Centers for New Horizons on the south side.” (Hank De Zutter, Op-Ed, “What Makes Obama Run?” Chicago Reader, 12/8/95).”

This week alone, ACORN officials admitted to submitting fraudulent voter registration forms in Ohio and press reports confirmed that ACORN submitted hundreds of fraudulent voter registration forms in Kansas City, Mo., forcing local officials to wade through fraudulent voter registrations, potentially disenfranchising legitimate voters.

To view the RNC’s new Web site, click here: http://www.gop.com/obamaacorntree/.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he’s the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund’s weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us

I trust that everything happens for a reason, even when we are not wise enough to see it. - Oprah Winfrey

October is Domestic Violence Awareness month. Male related domestic violence deaths seem to be something that most domestic violence organizations, public policy makers, researchers and the media are not aware of or concerned about.

A recent report by the CDC “Surveillance for Violent Deaths — National Violent Death Reporting System, 16 States, 2005 (SVD), documents that approximately 30% of suicides are precipitated by problems between intimate partners that lead to fatalities.

The SVD documents a domestic violence tragedy that remains largely unexplored. The SVD notes, that of the 16 reporting states, problems between intimate partners precipitated 2,301 of the male suicides and 439 of the female suicides.

Twice as many females as males attempt suicide but the rate of completed suicides in the SVD report was nearly 4 times greater for males than females. The SVD and many other fatality review studies suggest that most people who commit suicide are clinically depressed, have other mental health issues, face criminal or civil justice interventions, suffer from financial problems or are confronted with other life altering stressors that seem to be created by one or both partners.

In the 1990’s approximately 30,000 people each year took their own lives. The extrapolation of that SVD data seems to suggest that it is possible that each year there may be approximately 6,750 male and 2,250 female suicides that are precipitated by problems between intimate partners. These suicidal deaths are domestic violence related deaths and their numbers far exceed the number of domestic violence homicides.

The National Institute of Justice (NIJ) report, “Reviewing Domestic Violence Deaths” (RDVD), appears in the November 2003 issue of the NIJ Journal. This NIJ report notes that fatality reviews might lead to changes that could deter some domestic violence related deaths.

The author of the RDVD notes that a significant number of women may commit suicide because of domestic violence. However, the RDVD did not once mention a single male domestic violence related death either by homicide or suicide. Also, the author suggests proactive interventions only for females and simply ignores the domestic violence related deaths of men.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence operates as the “official voice” for domestic violence organizations. The NCADV mission statement publicly proclaims that it is only concerned with the abuse of women and children, not men. Interveners, public policy makers and researchers seem little concerned about male related domestic violence deaths, but the data indicates that they should be.

Approximately one of every three domestic violence suicides includes an intimate partner related homicide and the majority of those victims (3 of every 4) are female. Hence, positive education and resources for all potential offenders may save lives regardless of gender.

The fatality review data documents that more males than females are homicide offenders (9 out of 10). However, interveners and public policy makers need to recognize that if they provide resources and screening for the risk factors of suicide in intimate partner relationships for both males and females, some of these homicide/suicides might be deterred and more insight gained.

Researchers and social scientists must be willing to explore multiple hypotheses and theories rather than being confined to contemporary “one-solutions-fits-all” Duluth styled interventions.. Further, interveners should recognize that there is no empirical evidence-based data that documents a “bright line” that separates child, sibling, spousal, intimate partner, and elder abuse from violence against adult heterosexual women. Domestic violence interventions and programs must begin at the beginning, not the end.

Worldwide, nations have a history of setting the rights of one group of people against the rights of another group. Contemporarily, as their websites document, most domestic violence organizations continue to minimize, marginalize or ignore male domestic violence related deaths.

The vast majority of domestic violence interveners understand that far more males need to become involved in education and prevention programs. Perhaps when interveners, public policy makers and researchers acknowledge that more men than women suffer from domestic violence related deaths, more males will become involved.

Domestic violence interveners, public policy makers and researchers need to understand that “my group is more important than your group” interventional efforts are Mephistophelian in nature. They were wrong during the 17^th, 18th, 19^th, and 20^th centuries and remain so in this 21^st century.

Richard L. Davis

President, www.Familynonviolence.org

At a rally in Estero, Florida for GOP vice presidential candidate Sarah Palin, the highly decorated law enforcement executive was the pre-rally speaker for the Palin’s appearance. As with most political rallies, the job of pre-rally speakers is to warmup the audience.

According to GOPUSA’s <gopusa.com) editor Bobby Eberle whether the audience is cheering wildly or booing loudly, the pre-rally speakers are there to wake them up and get them going. So Sheriff Scott stepped to the podium and said, “On November 4, let’s leave Barack Hussein Obama wondering what happened.”

Apparently, saying “Hussein Obama” in public might just get you a visit from the FBI. Just ask Sheriff Mike Scott who is under investigation for referring to Obama at a campaign rally by his full name.

Oh, the shock of it all! Speaking someone’s full legal name in public! When asked about the “incident,” Sheriff Scott responded by saying:

“I absolutely, unequivocally don’t regret saying it,” Scott told the News-Press on Monday. “In order to be a speaker at this event, I had to give my full name — Michael Joseph Scott — to the Secret Service, even though I’m the sheriff of Lee County. So why would I apologize? Is there some kind of double standard here where I have to give my full name, but I can’t use his?”

“Unless he changed his name, my position hasn’t changed,” said Scott of Obama. “It seems very clear to me that people have one of three stances on this thing: There are those who dislike it, there are those who like it, and there are those who think it’s a whole big deal about nothing, which is where I stand.”

“We have seen many changes in this great nation which have been brought about by left wing activists. As kids, we used to say the Pledge of Allegiance. Now, it’s being attacked in the courts. We used to say a prayer in the morning before school or at football games. Socialists in America have deemed that “offensive” and the practice has all but disappeared. Christmas displays honoring the birth of Christ trigger convulsions by the Left, who say that we shouldn’t make people feel “uncomfortable” with our manger scenes,” said GOPUSA’s Eberle.

“[S]heriff Scott also has a right to say what he wants to say without fear of reprisal by the government. However, according to a local Florida NBC affiliate, Sheriff Scott’s remark has now earned him an investigation by the federal government,” added Eberle.

The NBC station reports that officials with the U.S. Office of Special Counsel have started an investigation of the Sheriff under the question of “did he use his position as sheriff to influence an election? If so, he could be in violation of a federal election law called the Hatch Act.” The basis the Feds are using is whether Scott was campaigning while on duty and in uniform.

Sheriff Scott responded to the NBC story with the following statement:

“I am on duty 24/7 and 365 whether in or out of uniform. Like every other elected official, I am aware of from President to Governor to State Representatives, etc. We engage in political activities whether for ourselves as candidates or for others. As of this writing, I am unaware of having done anything to generate all this attention other than using the senator’s full name.”

“The question is this… If Sheriff Scott had not said ‘Barack Hussein Obama,’ do you really think he would now be under investigation? If you answered “no,” then that should send a shiver down your spine, because it means that the government is imposing pressure and creating a public example of Scott for simply saying someone’s name,” says Eberle.

“Whether the investigation leads to charges or legal action is not the point. The point is that government intimidation is being brought to bear for someone exercising his first amendment right to free speech. This is wrong, regardless of whether you think his usage of Barack Hussein Obama was appropriate or not. This is still America, isn’t it?” he added.

Jim Kouri, CPP is currently fifth vice-president of the National Association of Chiefs of Police and he’s a staff writer for the New Media Alliance (thenma.org). In addition, he’s the new editor for the House Conservatives Fund’s weblog. Kouri also serves as political advisor for Emmy and Golden Globe winning actor Michael Moriarty.

He’s former chief at a New York City housing project in Washington Heights nicknamed “Crack City” by reporters covering the drug war in the 1980s. In addition, he served as director of public safety at a New Jersey university and director of security for several major organizations. He’s also served on the National Drug Task Force and trained police and security officers throughout the country. Kouri writes for many police and security magazines including Chief of Police, Police Times, The Narc Officer and others. He’s a news writer for TheConservativeVoice.Com and PHXnews.com. He’s also a columnist for AmericanDaily.Com, MensNewsDaily.Com, MichNews.Com, and he’s syndicated by AXcessNews.Com. He’s appeared as on-air commentator for over 100 TV and radio news and talk shows including Oprah, McLaughlin Report, CNN Headline News, MTV, Fox News, etc. His book Assume The Position is available at Amazon.Com. Kouri’s own website is located at http://jimkouri.us

For the last few days various groups like MoveOn.org, and the folks at Huffington Post, DailyKos and DemocraticUnderground have been beating the drum of a new theme to attempt to undermine the McCain campaign among the media. The newest claim from the extreme left is that McCain’s focus on the Obama/Ayers connection is responsible for fostering “threats” and “violence” to be ginned up among Republicans at McCain rallies. The left is pushing the idea that McCain is inciting riots and “hate” among GOP voters and they are pushing this theme in an email campaign to the main Old Media outlets.

On October 9, for instance, I got no less than 25 emails “alerting” me to a particular Huffington Post jeremiad that is amusing in its replication of the same behavior it pretends to condemn. In this childish bloviation the HuffPo writer uses as much name calling, guilt by association, and bald faced lies as he claims to be refuting from McCain. But, the germ of the argument is that McCain is inciting violence.

Senator McCain and his cowardly running mate have been accusing Senator Obama of associating with terrorists and consequently inciting violent partisans to blurt out death threats about the Democratic nominee.

So, the point the left is trying to push here is that McCain should not be allowed to raise the issues of the character of the sort of anti-Americans that Barack Obama has surrounded himself with throughout his life time. This is because, they argue, if McCain points out that Obama has surrounded himself with racists, unrepentant domestic terrorists, socialists, communists, and foreign dictators, why these facts are nothing but “racism”, inciting to violence and illegitimate. Therefore, they want the media to stop covering it.

Naturally this is an obfuscation. In none of these emails or Internet screeds is the truth that William Ayers and his wife are unrepentant domestic terrorists discussed. They simply ignore the point as if it doesn’t exist to focus solely on McCain’s using the issue.

Dutifully following the extremists of the left’s programing, the AFP published their version of the argument that McCain is “inflaming” his audiences.

WAUKESHA, Wisconsin (AFP) — Shouts of “terrorist” and “treason” aimed at Barack Obama have echoed around Republican rallies, whipping up into alarming, hate-filled frenzies against the Democratic White House hopeful.

Naturally, they try to blame it on Governor Sarah Palin.

Now when she mentions Obama, some of the crowds’ responses have escalated beyond boos and hisses, and there are fears among some observers that the attacks are going too far.

Once again, AFP did not discuss that flat out fact that William Ayers and his wife are terrorists and that NEITHER have ever denounced their own past actions. No, they want to lead everyone to believe that this issue of what sort of people Obama pals around with is just guilt by association and meaningless.

The Washington Post is also flogging the notion that all of McCain’s voters are “angry” with its own October 10 story. Expect to see more of this from the Old Media.

But, just look at but a few of Obama’s associates, “mentors,” friends, and organizations:

When Obama was a young man he was mentored by an avowed communist named Frank Marshall Davis.

When Obama first came to Chicago to take up his career of “community organizer” he became an important member of ACORN ( the Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now), a group currently under investigation and indictment in multiple States for vote fraud. ACORN is also intimately linked with several unions in shady financial dealings that have netted the group millions upon millions of dollars. Also, the brother of the founder of ACORN embezzled one million dollars of the organization’s funds to his personal account and ACORN covered up the crime.

Obama also found a “spiritual mentor” in the racist Reverend Jeremiah Wright famous for wanting God to “damn America,” and for saying that the U.S. created AIDS to kill blacks. Wright also pushes a black centric, anti-white version of Liberation Theology warped to fit his racist agenda.

When Obama sought to launch his political career he was befriended by William Ayers and his wife Bernadine Dohrn, both of whom had been on the run from the FBI for decades for murder and domestic terrorism. Neither have ever denounced their past evil actions yet Obama launched his campaign for the Senate with a fundraising party in Ayers and Dohrn’s living room in Hyde Park, Illinois.

In the 1990s, Obama sought and received the endorsement of a socialist organization called The New Party in Chicago.

In August of 2007, at the expense of the American treasury, Barack Obama went to Kenya and campaigned for Kenyan dictator Raila Odinga, a communist dictator responsible for murdering political opponents.

And this is but a short list of the sort of people working for Obama. People like long-time labor activist and avowed socialist Bill Fletcher, Jr. is working for the Obama campaign. Tom Hayden and the activist actor Danny Glover are as well. There are so many anti-Americans on this campaign that they cannot all be listed effectively.

The central question the American people have to answer for themselves when they head to their polling places is if they can vote for Obama even though at key moments throughout his life he has surrounded himself with, and accepted as close advisers, enemies to the very country he intends to lead? Can Americans vote into the highest office a man whose closest friends and advisers are enemies to the country?

But, MoveOn, HuffingtonPost, DailyKos and the like want to shut the debate down. They want Americans to remain ignorant of the dangerous people that Barack Obama counts as his closest allies and advisers. They want Americans to go to the polls utterly ignorant of the sort of man they are electing to the White House.

Let’s all make sure the MoveOn and Huffington types lose this battle.

It also failed to highlight that we are now weeks away from the start of the rains and there is very little land preparation, virtually no seed and fertilizer. It is too late to import supplies in any quantity and even if we did we would have to distribute by air, as local transport capacity is almost non-existent. They also did not tell the world that the funds they had paid to the NGO’s doing food distribution had been taken by the Reserve Bank and the organisations could not pay their transporters for transport services or buy fuel.

The gold producers have sold gold to the Reserve Bank over the past 9 months and have not been paid – they are now unable to operate and are closing their mines down allowing them to flood and in some cases they will not be able to reopen them. It is not only the NGO’s who have had their FCA’s looted – virtually every business that I know has had their FCA cleaned out and they have been unable to access them to pay suppliers.

These funds – legally property of the account holders, have been taken by the Bank and then sold to Zanu PF leaders at the “official” exchange rate – this is technically legal but is clearly theft. The official rate is a small fraction of one cent per US dollar. In fact it is 0,000000003 local dollars per US dollar. This means that US$10 000 would cost a Zanu PF heavy
Z$0,003 – not even one cent in the new local currency.

The physical evidence of this theft of resources is everywhere. Reports of people arriving at homes for sale and paying cash in foreign exchange – without trying to negotiate the price. New cars without number plates (we have run out of number plate materials) are all over Harare. The reports of the Governor handing out expensive vehicles as if they were his own – one report that the Pastor who buried the governor’s younger brother being given a new twin cab as a thank you for a few hours work and kind words.

I would hazard a guess that in the past few months no less than US$500 million has been pilfered from the State and private coffers in this way.
That is enough money to feed the entire population for 7 months. No wonder they do not want to wrap up this agreement and swear in a new government.
They must be terrified of anyone getting into the vaults and records at the Reserve Bank.

While they fiddle and prevaricate, the country burns. Lawlessness is rampant; gangs of thugs are seizing private property on farms with no fear of intervention by the Police. This seems to be being even encouraged by rouge elements in Zanu PF who want the negotiated deal to fail and at the same time are lashing out at the defenseless in an orgy of thuggery and theft.

Since our priority is to feed people the needs of our animals are being put on the back burner. I get reports of dairy cows dying of starvation. The largest pig producer in the country is about to slaughter their entire commercial breeding stock – 33 000 pigs. Poultry producers have cut back their activities to the minimum. Once this is carried out reestablishing this productive capacity will be a long process.

Yesterday the President of the MDC and now the new Prime Minister, held a press conference in Harare. In that meeting he stated that no progress had been made in the past 24 days since the SADC agreement was signed in September. He went on to say that he was suspending any further contact with Zanu PF until the regional mediation team was present to arbitrate those discussions.

In addition to this he made the extraordinary disclosure that the agreement signed and subsequently published, did not include the full details that had been negotiated and signed during the process. He requested that the mediators remedy this by publishing a new version of the agreement in full.

He also said that Zanu PF – in complete violation of the agreement, was refusing to review the appointment of 10 Governors to the Provinces and to then reallocate these posts on the basis of the majority representation in each Province. The Governors play an important role in local politics and the administration and Zanu is insisting that the 10 people appointed – in clear violation of the SADC process, should remain. If the reallocation of Governors based on the Party majorities in each Province were carried out MDC (T) would get 5, Zanu PF 4 and MDC (M) 1.

Clearly the SADC process can only proceed if this impasse in the allocation of powerful political posts is resolved. Zanu PF is reluctant to let go because of the consequences to themselves and the loss of privilege and protection. But that is of little concern to the region and should not be a factor. They never sought or obtained an amnesty for what they have done in the past and must face the consequences of their actions.

The delay in the consummation of this deal is now having very critical consequences. Every day lost is a serious matter. Inflation at 1,4 trillion percent in September is destroying all forms of economic activity. The collapse in the economy and in all social services is driving tens of thousands of Zimbabweans, skilled and unskilled out of the country. We are now into new territory in this saga – one from where it will be very tough to claw ourselves back.

The new President of South Africa said yesterday that he would back Mr. Mbeki’s mediation with the resources and the influence that was needed. If the SADC mediation team does not engage very shortly, they will put the country and the region into jeopardy.

Eddie Cross
Bulawayo, 10th October 2008

The election of Senator Obama to the presidency will usher in a Federal government in which both the legislative and executive branches will be controlled by leaders who worship at the altar of socialism, a secular religion. Nearly half of the Supreme Court Justices and a large percentage of other Federal judges are socialists.

The questions to confront are:

First, is Senator Obama a socialist? The answer emphatically is yes.

Publicly he asserts that he is a Christian. That, however, is preposterous (see Is Senator Obama a Christian or a Secular Socialist? and Truth).

Second, why is worshipping socialism a bad thing? What adverse effects on the nation will result from an Obama presidency coupled with a socialist-dominated Congress?

Start with the unremitting campaign of liberal-progressive-socialists to use public education unconstitutionally to proselytize young students for the socialist religion (see Socialism: Our Unconstitutionally Established National Religion). See also the National Review Online post regarding the education policy thrust of socialism imparted by Senator Obama’s radical colleagues.

A quote from Bill Ayers, a founding leader of the Weatherman terrorist underground of the 1960s-70s and one of Senator Obama’s close friends and colleagues from his days on foundation boards in Chicago:

“That’s one of the things that’s actually annoyed me for about 40 years of being a progressive educator: the separation of the concept of progressive education from the concept of politics and political change. You can’t separate them…and this is a contradiction, incidentally, that goes all the way back to the beginning of progressive education and really the beginning of the conversations about the relationship between school and society. But John Dewey was one of the brilliant, brilliant writers about what democratic education would look like and was himself an independent socialist. But he never resolved a central contradiction in our work, the contradiction between trying to change the school and being embedded in society that has the exact opposite values culturally and politically and socially from the values you’re trying to build in a classroom. This contradiction is something progressive educators should address, not dodge.”

With regard to the effect of Senator Obama’s connection with radicals like Bill Ayers, see More on Senator Obama’s Friends.

See also The Corruption of Public Education: How It Happened.

In the field of foreign policy, liberal-progressive-socialism is particularly dangerous in today’s resurgent struggle for influence in the Middle East and Far East. As I wrote in The “Logic” of Liberal-Socialist Foreign Policy:

A confluence of events in recent days [March, 2004] brings into sharp focus the fundamental differences between liberal-socialist political theory and the realistic understanding of human nature and political governance that guided our forebears in writing the Constitution in 1787…

The socialist religion, called liberalism in the United States, is based on the myth that humans are wholly good and kind, when they have not been corrupted by the institution of private property.  Socialism therefore fights to overturn governments based on the natural-law, inalienable, and individual rights of life, liberty, and property.

For the liberal-socialist, there can be no freedom as long as some people have more wealth than others, because that prevents equal access by everyone to all of society’s goods and services, regardless of whether he deserves it or whether he works to earn it.  Earthly paradise is therefore an egalitarian society in which no one may have more than anyone else.  Unfortunately for the socialist religion, history repeatedly has demonstrated that such a political state can exist only under despotic rule by an intellectual elite administering a gigantic and rigid bureaucracy.  France and Germany, sinking under the weight of their socialist welfare-state systems , are the most prominent current-day examples.  The Soviet Union, Mao’s China, and Castro’s Cuba are prototypes for socialist “liberty.”

These socialist religious beliefs explain the current attacks on the Bush administration’s foreign policy.  Al Queda and related terrorist organizations are not bad people.  They are the victims of Western society, in particular the United States, which has unjustly taken more than its share of the world’s goods and services.  If we just deal diplomatically with terrorists, we can work out an equitable solution to give them a fair share of wealth, and their fundamentally benevolent natures will be reasserted.  Magically peace and tranquility will be restored to the world.  This is the mythology embodied in the UN and the fictions of “international law” and “the community of nations.”

One of the most puzzling aspects of liberal-socialist denunciations of American foreign policy and Israel’s counter-attacks against Palestinian suicide bombings is liberals’ refusal to condemn terrorism as evil.  Indeed, liberals ridicule and scathingly denounce President Bush’s characterization of terrorist nations as part of an Axis of Evil.  They despise his references to spiritual religion.  What accounts for that?

Again the answer is found in socialist religious mythology.  Socialism, beginning in the French Revolution of 1789, aims always to wipe out spiritual religion’s concepts of morality and personal responsibility.  Classifying actions as good or bad is said to be unscientific value judgment.  French socialists held that the only morality was social justice, essentially equal distribution of wealth, which was to be imposed by ruling councils of intellectuals.  In England of the 1850s and 1860s, Charles Darwin’s great propaganda champion Thomas Huxley declared that there was no such thing as sin or morality.  Society was merely the struggle for survival, a process of evolutionary natural selection.  Marxian contemporaries of Darwin enthusiastically adopted evolutionary theory to justify Marx’s prediction of the inevitable triumph of socialism.

In the United States during the early decades of the 20th century, John Dewey donned the mitre of socialist priesthood and taught his philosophy of Pragmatism that dismissed morality and ideas of good or bad.  There were, said Dewey, only actions that worked for an individual or failed to work.  The end justifies the means, which in his case meant that any action by liberal-socialists to corrode the moral foundations of the nation would be pragmatically acceptable, if the result were the imposition of socialism as the official national church.

In more recent years, students in this country have far too often been taught by our schools that the only virtue is “tolerance,” which means that there can be no standards of right or wrong.  Students are told that they must see everything from the other guy’s viewpoint.  Even the Holocaust cannot be condemned, because Hitler had his reasons…

These are the products of liberal-socialism, a religion teaching that people are good if not corrupted by private ownership of property, that liberty is equal access to goods and services, whether you work for it or not, and that earthly salvation lies in collectivized government, planned and managed by intellectuals.

Thomas E. Brewton is a staff writer for the New Media Alliance, Inc. The New Media Alliance is a non-profit (501c3) national coalition of writers, journalists and grass-roots media outlets.

His weblog is THE VIEW FROM 1776
http://www.thomasbrewton.com/

Email comments to viewfrom1776@thomasbrewton.com

Whether it’s clothes, cars, dinners or homes we all buy things we regret. With the possibility of recession and even depression looming large, impulsive spending can be more than just annoying. It can be downright fatal to our financial health. So why do we do it and what can we do to prevent it?

Impulsive spending starts with the pumping of an excitable brain chemical called dopamine. Dopamine can be a lot of fun. It’s what makes you feel giddy when you see something you want like a pair of shoes, a promotion, or an attractive mate. It pours into your brain’s frontal lobe–the part you use for rational thinking–and focuses all your thoughts and emotions on obtaining that thing.

But when the object of your desire plays hard to get, dopamine doesn’t throw in the towel. It kicks into overdrive. Dopamine’s dark side can inspire you–against friendly advice and your own better judgment–to dial up your ex-mate a few too many times or buy something you wish you hadn’t. When your rational brain should tell you to save your money or to put the phone down, it is silently drowning in a sea of dopamine. That’s when impulse overpowers reason.

Here are a few tips to harness your impulses:

1. Dream a Good Dream - Dopamine can be a gift. It keeps you striving to obtain what you want until you get it. It’s only hazardous when you focus on obtaining the wrong things. Instead of imagining how exciting it would be to have those new shoes, imagine the excitement of finally being debt-free. And really imagine it. Literally, day-dream about sleeping peacefully without the worries of debt burdening you. Imagine quitting that job you hate, or getting your kids into that great class that’s just a little beyond your reach. The clearer that dream becomes in your head, the more it will edge out your impulse to buy shoes, clothes, or furniture that you don’t really need.

2. Steer Clear of Test Drives - Have you ever thought about why car dealers want you to test-drive? Customer test drives take up more of the sales person’s time. They add miles to the car. They burn gas that dealers will then have to replace on their own dime. They risk damaging a car that would otherwise be safe sitting empty in the lot. Still, dealers would love for you to take the car for a spin. If you are cruising down the road in that car, adjusting the temperature, switching on your favorite radio station and yelling at illusory kids in the backseat, you are going to have a much clearer vision of what it will be like to really own that car. And guess what that means?

Suddenly, your dream of being debt-free is curbed by the very real dream of driving home that new car. Now, a surge of dopamine is on the job to help you make the new car dream come true. The same holds true for trying on a new pair of shoes, free mini-makeovers at the mall, or food samples at the grocery store. Despite your best intentions only to take a quick jaunt around the store, dopamine has other ideas the moment you slip those beauties on your feet. And you don’t want to challenge dopamine to a battle of wills. It can and will disarm your rational thought processes.

3. Covet Your Own Goods - When it comes to impulsive spending, idle desires are truly the devil’s workshop. Well-intending commandments that tell us what not to covet fail to address what to covet. That’s dangerous because you can’t simply turn off desire. Since we are all suckers for new things our desires will naturally wander toward something new and visible like thy neighbor’s car, clothes or house. Once you start coveting, dopamine returns to the scene until you get what you desire–often despite your best interests.

But with practice, you can guide your desire. I’ll bet that you sort of like your family. You probably already own a favorite outfit, and your health is not too shabby. In other words, you already possess a lot of goods worth coveting. Remind yourself daily what they are. Every morning, scribble down a few covetable possessions on a piece of scratch paper and read it a few times throughout the day. Do this every day. Eventually, focusing on the goods you have will become a steady habit slowly eroding the impulse to spend.

Be confident in the well-documented fact that the one desire even more enduring than our common want for new things is our universal drive not to lose what we already have.

About the author:

Nick Tasler is the director of research and development for think tank and consultancy TalentSmart®. His new book, “The Impulse Factor: Why Some of Us Play It Safe and Others Risk It All,” reveals how a newly discovered gene mutation affects our individual levels of impulsivity and discusses the advantages and pitfalls of impulsive, risky behavior. “The Impulse Factor” is published by Simon & Schuster.

Their audacious effort was backed up by General George Washington, that most resolute of “bitter clingers,” whose own reliance on God, guns, and the valor of his fellow patriots in rags finally birthed this nation, shedding their blood on such hallowed lands as Yorktown and Valley Forge. Those great Americans and their modern counterparts have clearly been steeped in a philosophical and spiritual doctrine that is starkly different from anything Barack Obama can comprehend. So it is no wonder that he would malign them.

Over the last few weeks, Republican vice-presidential nominee Sarah Palin has demonstrated, on several fronts, that her own background and abilities thoroughly qualify her to be second in command at the White House. More importantly however, with each passing day, she proves that her political worldview is far more reflective of the founders and the people of the heartland than anything offered by Obama or his minions on the left.

If her track record as Governor of Alaska, her convention speech, and her ability to remain unruffled by the disgraceful conduct of the liberal media towards her was not sufficient to make this case, Palin’s performance last week at the vice-presidential debate certainly was. It is important to remember that, at once, she had to contend with an overtly unsympathetic debate “moderator” while displaying the skills and proficiency necessary to assume the nation’s helm at a moment’s notice.

Of even greater significance was that she had to prove these abilities while successfully navigating the gauntlet of her running mate’s often-varied stances on the issues. Anything less would have opened floodgates of media skepticism about the compatibility of the two candidates. Nevertheless, she rose to the occasion and surpassed all expectations. Clearly, she is a person who is not intimidated by the erudite banalities of the “Ivy League.” And such a quality is needed inside the Beltway now, more than ever before.

Real America is grimly aware that something major is very wrong in Washington. But Sarah Palin has already found herself in similar situations as Governor of Alaska, and has consistently risen above them. In contrast, a serious examination of Barack Obama’s record (an admitted rarity among the sycophants of the liberal media) reveals his plans for “change” to be little more than alterations in packaging and rhetoric, but not policy. And with fundamental policies remaining unchanged, it is ludicrous to expect any change in results.

The aftershocks of the misnamed “bailout” reveal nothing less. Though angry and vehement in their opposition as the contrived drama unfolded, Americans are just now beginning to grasp the enormity of this boondoggle. With barely a few days to consider the full ramifications of their actions, the Congress and President have committed the nation to spending nearly one trillion dollars.

Meanwhile, they steadfastly refused to assign culpability to the likes of Representative Barney Frank (D.-MA), Senator Chris Dodd (D.-CN), or any of the principals at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac who precipitated the disaster while funneling money into their own bank accounts and Democrat coffers.

This is “business as usual” within the politically incestuous circles of the Nation’s Capitol, but on a far grander scale than ever before. And since absolutely nobody has been held accountable for the incomprehensively expensive non-solution, barring a major house cleaning the nation can only reasonably expect more of the same. Under an Obama administration the only likely “change” may be that Americans eventually lose their ability to object to the similar outrages that are certain to come.

In light of this, it is worthwhile to consider whose past record portends any possibility of a truly effective “change” in the appalling condition of the federal government.

Few Americans are either so uninformed or willfully blind as to pretend that the Chicago/Illinois political machine is actually open and virtuous in its conduct. Yet Barack Obama not only survived within that system, he thrived there. It is virtually impossible to avoid the conclusion that, by refusing to confront the system, he was eventually absorbed into it. In contrast, Sarah Palin saw problems within the Alaskan government and proceeded to fix them.

In Sarah Palin’s world, “bipartisanship” means that she pursues corrupt Republicans as fervently as she pursues corrupt Democrats, a severe departure from the D.C. mindset. In a similarly atypical fashion, her most noted “flip flop” was to eventually refuse funding of the “bridge to nowhere” after having initially voicing approval of it. Refusing “pork” is a cardinal sin according to the prevailing thinking in Washington. So of course it is this situation, and not Obama’s schizophrenic and conflicting foreign policy pronouncements regarding Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad or his acceptance of exorbitant “donations” from Fannie Mae, that gravely concerns the liberal media.

Barack Obama is not a Muslim, but is very close to its most noted American advocates such as “Nation of Islam” founder Louis Farrakan. He is not a terrorist, but each passing day reveals deeper ties between himself and the likes of Bill Ayers. He is not a mass embezzler, but retains former Fannie Mae CEO Franklin Raines on his campaign staff. And he is not a traitor, but is wholly sympathetic to the likes of Ahmadinejad, while being unrestrained in his criticism of America.

John McCain, and not Sarah Palin, is at the top of the Republican Presidential ticket. Nevertheless, as vice-president she would bring an element of honesty and proven integrity to the nation’s highest office, which it sorely needs. Clearly, Barack Obama represents a pillar of the liberal/elitist establishment in Washington. The notion of “change” under his leadership amounts to wishful thinking, with absolutely no supporting evidence, and plenty of reason to expect the opposite.

The more pertinent question for the candidates is, “What will you do if and when Israel carries out a preemptive attack on Iranian nuclear facilities?” At that point both deterrence and appeasement will have failed.

On March 7, 1936, Adolph Hitler ordered his newly revived German army into the Rhineland, that strip of land between Germany and France that had been demilitarized by clauses in the Versailles Treaty, stipulating the area must be kept free of military garrisons and installations. On paper, the French and British army and air forces were so vastly superior to those of Germany that the German general staff planned a coup d’ etat to remove Hitler from power if the allies acted. France and England demurred. An emboldened Hitler accelerated German rearmament. War became inevitable.

Hitler did not believe western leaders would react because he felt they were distracted by a global depression, because French political leadership was in disarray and weak, and because other than belatedly voting economic sanctions against Italy for invading Ethiopia the previous year, the League of Nations did nothing.

Leap to 2008. Last month, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad delivered a vile, anti-Semitic/anti-United States diatribe before the U.N. General Assembly, attributing the world’s economic woes to Zionist manipulation of the global economy. He declared Israel, that “rotting stinking corpse,” to be in the throes of its last days, and predicted the impending end to the United States as a world power.

Intelligence services generally agree that Iran is six months to two years away from becoming a nuclear power. Ahmadinejad has vowed to use that power against Israel and the United States. Like Hitler, Ahmadinejad adheres to a millenarian apocalyptic worldview, and like the Fuhrer of the Thousand Year Reich, he would be just as willing to culminate his twisted vision in a horrific, possibly civilization-ending spasm of violence.

As surely as Hitler sensed Western weakness in 1936, Ahmadinejad senses it today. Following his address to the United Nations, quislings of the National Council of Churches, Mennonites and Quakers honored Ahmadinejad with a banquet. Left-leaning Christians from other denominations attended, including a trio representing the Presbyterian Church, USA, one of the leading liberal Protestant groups. Additionally, it seems Ahmadinejad follows the current American presidential race. If so, he knows that half the American electorate appears poised to vote for a candidate who opposed removing Saddam Hussein from power, opposed providing additional troops needed to implement the surge strategy and only belatedly conceded its efficacy, and also advocated unconditional talks with Tehran. Perhaps most encouragingly (to Ahmadinejad), that candidate evidently maintains a relationship with the unrepentant founder of the ultra-violent Weather Underground, University of Illinois at Chicago professor William Ayers; a man who according to a recent New York Times article, excuses bombings perpetrated by the Weather Underground based on a contrived moral equivalency between terrorism and U.S. military attacks on communist forces in Indochina. If appeasement prevails in the upcoming election, the gateway to war will swing wide in late 2008, as wide as in 1936. Another September 1939 may become inevitable.

Israel will not allow another September 1939. If the Iranians continue undeterred towards acquiring nuclear weapons, the Israelis are likely to strike; and from their perspective sooner rather than later. The vaunted Israeli Air Force (IAF) can carry out a substantial raid to degrade Iran’s nuclear infrastructure. The IAF cannot, however, reduce Iranian military capabilities enough to forestall substantial Iranian retaliation.

Iranian retaliation will attempt to further undermine the world economy by attacking shipping in the Persian Gulf along with oil fields in Saudi Arabia and the Gulf States. Shi-ite elements in Iraq and Afghanistan, possibly joined by Iranian forces, will try to overwhelm outnumbered American forces. Hezbollah, stronger in southern Lebanon today than it was in 2006 when it last attacked Israel, will strike again; this time joined by a dangerous Hamas militia in Gaza. Syria, sensing opportunity, may attack from the north. An overwhelmed Israel may resort to its nuclear option.

If Israel attacks Iran, the only way to prevent a regional catastrophe from mushrooming into a global one will be for U.S. forces to join in, to significantly degrade Iranian retaliatory capabilities. Only American air and sea power can accomplish what the IAF acting alone cannot. But it will take decisive leadership in Washington to opt for “full-commitment.” Israel likely will wait for the results flowing from the first Tuesday in November before acting. If those results portend weakness and vacillation, Israel likely will strike before January 20, 2009.

Hitler’s re-militarization of the Rhineland decisively weakened France’s strategic position. France’s much-advertised and recently completed Maginot Line defenses running from the Swiss Alps to the Ardennes Forest became largely irrelevant once German troops were poised along the Rhine. Its allies in Eastern Europe grew wary of French credibility. Political leaders in Paris and London, seemingly feeling their political stature reduced, wallowed in indecisiveness. Defeatism in 1936 blossomed into appeasement at Munich in 1938 and then wilted into military collapse on the battlefields of western France in June 1940. Europe entered what Winston Churchill called, “a new Dark Age.”

Regardless of who wins the presidential election in 2008, a fragile economic situation looms on the horizon, underscoring our precarious position. Ultimately, swords—not plowshares—stand between civilization and barbarism.

Dr. Earl Tilford, a fellow with the Center of Vision & Values at Grove City College, is currently working on a history of the University of Alabama in the 1960s. A former Air Force intelligence officer and former Director of Research for the U.S. Army’s Strategic Studies Institute, Dr. Tilford earned his PhD in American and European military history at George Washington University.

From comments made on Fox and Friends mentioned in an Associated Press article titled “Biden says Palin family is off limits to critics”, voters learn that, to the Delaware Senator, government and politics are the ultimate and perhaps only source of values, truth, and hope.

In analyzing Palin’s acceptance speech, Biden remarked, “I didn’t hear the phrase ‘middle class’  mentioned.  I didn’t hear a word about healthcare.  I didn’t hear a word about what we’re going to do about the housing crisis, college education, and all the things that the middle class is being burdened by now.”

Maybe these things were not mentioned because for the most part they are not much of the government’s business.  If anything, government involvement for the most part tends to exacerbate the problems in these perplexing areas.

For example, why is it the government’s responsibility (and thus ultimately the taxpayer’s)  to bail you out of bad real estate investments?  By subsidizing education to such an extent where it is available to just about everyone whether they really want it or not, its value has been undermined to the point where a bachelor’s degree may actually signify less actual learning than a high school diploma from previous generations.

Traditionally each social sphere oversaw the affairs in its own domain and exercised caution when venturing into the waters overseen by the neighboring spheres (especially if the one doing the intruding was the government).  However, to liberals such as Biden, now as the government reaches into additional corners of our lives in the name of supposedly making our lives better, ultimately government and politics will be the only sphere that remains or be the sphere that ends up controlling all the others even it terms of the attitudes that these institutions will be permitted to express.

If the Obama campaign wants to refrain from commenting on the propriety of the daughter of a Vice Presidential candidate being expectant with child outside the bounds of marriage, that is the prerogative of the Obama campaign.  After all, there are platoons of the far more deviant in the Democratic Party such as Chelsea Clinton who has been shacked up for years living in what used to be called “sin”.

However, though Obama might think he hands down stone tablets from on high with Biden taking them to the people as some kind of 21st century Moses, to say what the press and the people can and cannot discuss hints at a theoretical usurpation of the First Amendment even more offensive than an out of wedlock pregnancy or a recalcitrant segment of the public that does not sweep under the rug the moral values they have been taught simply because they have become an inconvenience to the elites that have set themselves up on a level above the rest of us.

The American people, through opinion-forming institutions such as the media, churches and now the blogosphere, must be the ones to decide for themselves this weighty ethical concern.  For while the only right decision is to keep the baby, there are some so progressive in their outlook that they would ship to a Khmer Rouge-style reeducation camp anyone that does not reflexively embrace these new reproductive fads where the baby shower comes before the bridal one.  To some of us, to takes a while to debate the consequences for any potential parental shortcomings when minors become parents before they properly ought.

There is indeed forgiveness and restoration in Christ.  However, most of the time those stepping into these challenges are not up for consideration for one of the nation’s most solemn offices.

by Frederick Meekins

I was wrong. Not about the pusillanimous Obama, but about the Cubs folding in September. They made it all the way to October this year before folding like a cheap and, as in Barry’s case, empty suit.

In spring training, pitcher Ryan Dempster predicted the Cubs would win the World Series this year. That sounded familiar. A year earlier, pitcher Carlos Zambrano ventured the same prophecy. That was about the time manager Lou Piniella spoke of instilling a “Cubbie swagger” in the team. Bet he’d love to have that line back.

Sweet Lou is no dummy. He’s bound to realize that adding a little swagger, or a little arrogance, or a little bluster isn’t going to make much difference. Not with the Cubs’ unparalleled record of collapses.

For lots of fans, it was 1969 that stuck in the craw. The Cubs were in first place for more than five months. In mid-August, they held a 9½ game lead. Then disaster struck.

They lost 18 of their last 25 games. The New York Mets won 23 of their final 29 games and won the division going away. The Mets were, as advertised, amazin’, particularly when you consider that in the franchise’s entire history (before divisional play) the team ended up in tenth place for five years and ninth for two.

Cub fans had to wonder if the laughing stock of the league could have so handily dispatched any team other than Chicago. Some conjectured the Cubbies crumpled because of the notorious goat curse of 1945.

That was the last World Series the Cubs played in. The late Mike Royko wrote that in the last year of World War II anyone who could limp fast was in the military. At any rate, the Cubs were matched against Detroit.

Purchasing two tickets, one for his goat Sonovia, was Billy Goat bar owner Billy Sianis. Their enjoyment of the game was curtailed when other spectators complained the animal smelled worse than the Cubs. Sonovia and companion were ejected from the game.

Angry, Mr. Sianis placed a curse on the team. He pledged the Cubs would never again win it all. Though Sianis removed his hex in 1969, even writing a letter to owner P.K. Wrigley advising him of the joyful news, there’s long been a suspicion the goat curse was to blame. Other loyalists trace the club’s ‘69 disintegration to a black cat who took a leisurely stroll through the Cubbies’ dugout during a game in New York that season.

The goat jinx was reimposed four years later when a Sianis nephew tried taking his goat to a Cubs game. Must be a family thing. By 1981, general manager Dallas Green and board chairman Andrew McKenna were begging for the goat to pay another visit to Wrigley Field to assuage past disappointments and let bygones be bygones.

Opening Day 1984 saw a Sianis goat again invited to see the Cubs. They managed to win their division that year and played the San Diego Padres for the National League championship. Leading by two games in the best-of-five series, the Cubs needed just one victory in the next three games. It wasn’t to be.

More recently, the Cubs endured the ignominy of 2003. Five outs away from punching their ticket for the World Series, things developed as per usual. Something or someone had to be blamed. So many Cub aficionados made another fan the scapegoat, as though he were responsible for six unearned runs.

The team piously prepared for this year’s playoffs. The Cubs’ chairman arranged for a Greek Orthodox priest to sprinkle holy water on their dugout before the first game. A suburban rabbi said she’d been praying for the North Siders’ success. A Muslim fan made plans to gather 100 of his coreligionists outside Wrigley Field to ask for Allah’s intervention on behalf of their favorite team. A Catholic nun known for her winning football picks predicted the Cubs would fare better in the playoffs than the White Sox.

All the petitions for divine intercession proved futile. The hex that hangs over the Chicago Cubs comes from a much darker, much more potent agency than a spurned goat or a black cat or a fundamental penchant for choking. That may explain some of the failures, but not a hundred years’ worth.

It’s time to face it. The Chicago Cubs are possessed by the devil. Yes, that devil. Satan. Lucifer. Scratch. Beelzebub. What power other than the prince of darkness could or would have tormented millions of Cub fans for a full century and with such adeptness? It must be demonic possession of the highest order.

Only a full-blown exorcism can provide a reprieve. Exorcism remains a rite of the Church, one that was revised and upheld less than a decade ago. It may be the single act that can turn things around for the bedeviled Cubs. The team should take up a collection from its multimillionaire loafers and use it to find an exorcist willing to confront the devil that has had his wicked way for so many years at Wrigley Field.

Come to think of it, the Cubs might need more than one exorcist to take on the job. The forces of evil on the North Side are that strong.

This Mike Bates column appeared in the October 9, 2008 Reporter Newspapers.

The only political choice on offer is a more complete transformation to international socialism. The established drivers, including extremism in entitlements for women along with the destruction of marriage and family, environmentalism and energy control, and financial control are moving along unchecked, without the benefit of fact and reason, without any real account of cost verses benefit or damage verses good. The domestic agenda has been decided, internally by the party factions, away from where it might be effected by popular votes. Democracy is dead in America – murdered.

As an older guy, I should do something to provide younger readers with an orientation. There is a rumor that schools no longer do a sufficient job of acquainting students with the American system of government and its liberal roots. What I’ve seen quite regularly in Internet discussions bears this out; as so many seem to have no clue what the word “liberal” means. It does not describe what candidates are currently offering.

The Constitution of the United States was formulated on liberal political principles. A basic premise for these principles is that power corrupts. Absolute power corrupts absolutely. The premise is not speculative. Thousands of years of history and a rather thorough review of governmental systems throughout the world at the time the Constitution was formulated, provided its authors with the fundamental understanding that unchecked power produces tyranny. It is as good as any mathematical formula in physics and engineering. It is an established fact.

The Constitutional authors created a structured system of checks and balances against government power, a framework for democracy, and guaranteed individual rights - freedom from arbitrary government intrusion and control. It is much more important than may be immediately apparent that the powers of the federal government were quite limited, with the whole of the remainder of authority left to the states and to the people. State power is – in theory – Constitutionally limited for the protection of individual rights. These individual rights, both explicit and derived, are also known as fundamental rights and have traditionally for good logical reason also been referred to as civil rights.

There are no trivial applications of civil rights, but those having the greatest impact on change within my lifetime have involved forcing government institutions from behaving arbitrarily through enforcement of individual rights. In accordance with Constitutional structure, the federal government, especially including federal courts, played a strong role in enforcement of these rights. State courts were overruled when they acted with unreasonable prejudice. Schools were pushed to provide a more equal education, independent of race. Higher educational institutions were forced to accept students on academic merit. The process of awarding government contracts became color-blind.

A careful balance is required to maintain a free and democratic nation. If we celebrate the power of government too little, we are cheated from its virtues. If we celebrate too much, we are cheated from our freedom. Over the past half century, there have as well been insidious elements in the process. They celebrate the power of government too much. They distort the past so that the power of limits on government are no longer seen as important to the benefits received.

It is more than simple transformation of rhetoric. There are at least two factors that must be understood in order to clearly see the very dangerous precipice upon which we now stand. Our system of individual rights has shifted from Constitutional guarantee to political whim and we do not have a sufficiently democratic system with which to steer political power.

The mechanism for diminishing individual rights has been found in the classification of laws. Taxes, entitlements, and certain business regulations are classified as social or economic policy. They are under political control and therefore classic issues in election campaigns. In matters of social and economic policy, you have very limited individual rights. Examples include equal treatment, and at least traditionally freedom from incarceration for not doing what you cannot do however strongly you are ordered to do it. Your “rights” in these matters are derived primarily through the ballot box and the conviction of politicians to carry out the will of the people.

Over the past two decades, federal courts have relinquished their role in defending Constitutional rule. Congress has chosen to intrude in both governmental and personal affairs without regard to limits imposed by the Constitution. They have in effect purchased greater power with billions upon billions of dollars from the federal purse. Federal courts have accepted by reclassifying laws arbitrarily as social and economic policy; in effect, decommissioning the Bill of Rights. (See for example, P.O.P.S. v Gardner, 998 F.2d 764 (9th Cir. 1993) w.r.t. marriage and family.)

Those of you who consider the rise of socialism in America based on other examples in the world, which in some cases may seem admirable in some ways, need consider the strong compensation given for lesser Constitutional individual rights. European democracy is based on the parliamentary system accompanied by heavy grass roots political action. The myriad of parties present and debate a myriad of issues in a myriad of ways, keeping the largest parties honest in a way by providing broader representation. The people themselves, representing their own “special interests,” often through formation of special interest political groups are an integral and necessary part of their system of checks and balances. Politicians battling against special interest groups would be deemed fundamentally undemocratic.

Newsweek’s Jon Meacham thinks that Governor Sarah Palin is too much a commoner and too stupid to be allowed to become vice president of the United States of America and apparently his employer agrees with him. The October 13 cover of Newsweek features a close up photo of the Governor with the headline “She’s One of the Folks (And that’s the problem),” and Meacham writes the accompanying cover story. Be clear about what this means: This is a direct attack on Mr. and Mrs. America. We are all too stupid to be president in the elite opinion of Jon Meacham and Newsweek magazine.

Meacham finds Palin to be incurious, unprepared, and even finds it “dangerous” if she were to become our vice president but he offers us nothing but his opinion to judge by. And it’s all because she doesn’t measure up to his personal standards. Sadly for Meacham’s elitism, however, Palin easily satisfies the standards that the Founding Fathers set as criteria for stepping into the highest office in the land. Curiously, Meacham does not once mention the actual Constitutional requirements to run for office in his entire sarcastic attack on Sarah Palin. Like most of his ilk, the Constitution seems meaningless minutia to him.

To be sure, there is an argument raging among the iliterati concerning who should be allowed to be president or vice president and it all centers on the experience issue. Whether a long resume of government positions makes one “qualified” for president or not has taken center stage, especially since Governor Sarah Palin was chosen for his VP candidate by Jon McCain. Hypocritically, this “experience” issue didn’t bother these same members of the chattering classes when Barack Obama announced his quest for the White House with his less than 200 days in federal service now behind him. But now these same worriers find themselves suddenly concerned.

Before we begin, we need to find out the true qualifications for president of the United States as we see in the U.S. Constitution, Article 2, Section 1:

No person except a natural born Citizen, or a Citizen of the United States, at the time of the Adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the Office of President; neither shall any Person be eligible to that Office who shall not have attained to the Age of thirty-five Years, and been fourteen Years a Resident within the United States.

That’s it. The Founders wanted no test, no requirements but these so as not to restrict the people in their choice. They, unlike someone like Jon Meacham it turns out, trusted the American people.

Early in the piece, Meacham sets up the argument in favor of Palin, yet even as he does he attacks.

A key argument for Palin, in essence, is this: Washington and Wall Street are serving their own interests rather than those of the broad whole of the country, and the moment requires a vice president who will, Cincinnatus-like, help a new president come to the rescue. The problem with the argument is that Cincinnatus knew things. Palin sometimes seems an odd combination of Chauncey Gardiner from “Being There” and Marge from “Fargo.”

This is but one of the many slams that elitist Meacham engages in here. Not to belittle the selfless life of Cincinnatus, but to merely assume that he “knew things” and that this assumption somehow speaks against Palin hardly passes the smell test. In fact, the figure of a Cincinnatus does, indeed, seem to elicit a comparison with Sarah Palin. But Meacham does not elaborate on the “things” Cincinnatus “knew” and why it is that Palin doesn’t measure up. He assumes that a mere dropping of an ancient Roman name will be enough to convince that he’s on to something.

To elaborate for the uninitiated, Cincinnatus is known as the Roman dictator that left his small farm to lead Rome to victory in a short war and then, in a perfect example of public virtue, resigned his dictatorship and returned to his plow. He is known for simplicity of life, virtue in duty, and fairness in leadership. He is not, however, known as some great philosopher King. He was just a dutiful, humble citizen that knew how best to get the job done. Why is Cincinnatus so much different than a Sarah Palin? In any case, Meacham doesn