It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded, not by 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, prosperity, and freedom of worship here.


—Patrick Henry

September 24, 2009

Fatima: The True Story / Part 1a

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 13:05 5 comments
For those who believe, no explanation is necessary.
For those who do not believe, no explanation is possible.
—Author Unknown

***

As our country decays second by second, I find myself wanting to retreat to a quieter place away from the mayhem.

What is happening to our great America?

Perhaps, for me, ‘the icing on the cake’ was the ‘speech’ given by President Obama at the UN this week…

he’s clearly sold out the greatest nation on the earth….

Although I firmly believe in standing up for truth,
the time has come for America to embrace something even more ‘radical’ than that of this administration…

we, as a whole, need to seek God in true humility and obedience.

And so instead of posting numerous news events and opinions regarding these upside down days,

I’ve decided to return to my ‘roots’ and record the true story of what happened in the very small village of Fatima in 1916.

As I post these excerpts, I ask that the Holy Spirit touches the hearts of any readers and deliver its true message therefore eliminating any pre-judged prejudices regarding Catholicism – this, in my opinion, isn’t about ‘religion’ but, rather, the message.

***
The following excerpts from the book, The True Story of Fatima, are true accounts taken directly from Lucia’s memoirs and checked by her in person.

***

l. The Angel

Fatima is a village in the very center of Portugal, about 70 miles north of Lisbon. It consists of numerous little hamlets hidden away in the elevation known as Serra de Aire. One such hamlet is known as Aljustrel; and it is here, and more especially in the surrounding rocky pasturelands, that our story is centered.

On a day unnamed in any of the records, in the year 1915, four little girls had been playing in the fields. Lucia de Jesus dos Santos, a child of eight, was among them. When the sun told them that it was mid-day, they sat down to their lunch, and having finished, began the Rosary as was their custom even at that tender age. During the recitation all of them noticed the sudden appearance of a cloud in a form like that of a man, hovering above the foliage of the village.

“Like a cloud, whiter than snow, slightly transparent, with a human outline,” was Lucia’s description…..

…A year passed, Lucia as usual was out in the fields with the sheep. This time, her little cousins, Jacinta and Francisco, were her companions and playmates.

“We had gone with the sheep to the section of my father’s land that lies at the foot of the Cabeco,” Lucia recalled, giving us from memory the exact details. “It is called the Casa Velha. About mid-morning, a drizzle began to fall. Seeking shelter, we climbed the slope, followed by our sheep. It was then that we first entered the Cave that was to become so sacred. It lies in the middle of one of my godfather’s olive orchards and from it can be seen the little village where I was born, my father’s house and the hamlets of Casa Velhas and Eira da Pedra. The olive orchards extend for long distances, until they seem to become one with these small hamlets.

“The rain stopped,” Lucia went on, “and the sun shone brightly, but we spent the day in the cave. We had our lunch and after the Rosary we started to play jacks.

“We played only a short while, when a strong wind shook the trees, and made us raise our eyes to see what was happening, for the day was serene. There above the trees toward the East, we began to see a light, whiter than snow. It was the form of a young man, transparent, more brilliant thatn a crystal pierced by the rays of the sun…” Lucia tried to describe each detail of his appearance. “As he approached, we began to distinguish his features. We were so surprised and half absorbed, and we could not utter one word. He came near us and said:
“Fear not! I am the Angel of Peace. Pray with me!”

The Angel knelt on the ground and bowed very low. By some inspiration, they imitated him and repeated the words they heard him pronounce:
“My God, I believe, I adore, I hope, and I love Thee. I ask pardon for all those who do not believe in Thee, do not adore Thee, do not hope in Thee, do not love Thee.”
We repeated these words three times.

Then he arose and said:

“Pray this way. The Hearts of Jesus and Mary are attentive to the voice of your supplications.”
The Angel disappeared and the awareness of the supernatural was so intense that for a long space of time they remained there in the same position in which he left them, unaware of their very existence, repeating that same payer over and over again.

“We felt the presence of God so intensely, so intimately, that we dared not speak even to each other. The next day we felt ourselves still enveloped by that atmosphere. Only very gradually did its intensity diminish within us. None of us thought of speaking of this apparition or of recommending that it be kept a secret. It imposed secrecy of itself. It was so intimate that it was not easy to utter even a single word about it. Perhaps it made a deeper impression upon us because it was the Angel’s first clear manifestation.”

***
Part 1b to follow.

September 13, 2009

Swine Flu: Nature? Accident? or...

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 12:50 2 comments
Biological warfare? You decide. The following videos courtesy of You Tube.



***



###

September 11, 2009

The Day The World Stood Still

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 16:03 0 comments
September 11, 2001... For all the lives lost that day, may we never forget... And, for today, May God help us.

September 10, 2009

In Response To Obama’s Health Care Speech

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 10:39 1 comments
"You cannot legislate the poor into prosperity by legislating the wealthy out of prosperity. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is the beginning of the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

—Adrian Rogers, 1931

***

As our current president forges ahead with his healthcare,

‘We the people’ are forging ahead to Washington

to end the corruption in DC.

As true patriots, ‘We the people’ believe

that if our founding father, George Washington, were alive,

he’d be leading us.



God speed, fellow patriots, and may our current president and all others on Capital Hill learn that they work for us and that we the people are what America is.



###

September 9, 2009

Cass Sunstein: Another Obama Kook

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 12:21 1 comments

... that has got to go!

SEND YOUR PETITIONS AGAINST SUNSTEIN TODAY!

Why? Well for starters, there's Sunstein’s [kooky] beliefs on animal rights, hunting and agriculture.
Professor Sunstein has repeatedly stated that animals should have the right to sue in court.

In the 2004 book, Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions, he wrote, "Animals should be permitted to bring suit, with human beings as their representatives, to prevent violations of current law.”


Okay… well, there’s more, folks – he further rants: “Any animals that are entitled to bring suit would be represented by counsel, who would owe guardian like obligations and make decisions, subject to those obligations, on their clients’ behalf.”


Mmmm… don’t you kind of feel as though we’re living in the “Twilight Zone”? Has our government gone mad? Let’s face it, with Sunstein, there would practically be an end to animal use anywhere in the United States.

Following are few more of Sunstein’s unforgettable quotes:

On the Second Amendment
:
Consider the view that the Second Amendment confers an individual right to own guns. The view is respectable, but it may be wrong, and prominent specialists reject it on various grounds. As late as 1980, it would have been preposterous to argue that the Second Amendment creates an individual right to own guns, and no federal court invalidated a gun control restriction on Second Amendment grounds until 2007. Yet countless Americans politicians, in recent years, have acknowledged that they respect the individual right to bear arms, at least in general terms. Their views are a product of the energetic efforts of meaning entrepreneurs – some from the National Rifle Association, who have press a particular view of the Second Amendment.
—Cass R. Sunstein, A Constitution of Many Minds,
Princeton University Press, 2009, p. 172-173
The National Association of Broadcasters and others with similar economic interests typically use the First Amendment in precisely the same way the National Rifle Association uses the Second Amendment. We should think of the two camps as jurisprudential twins. The National Association of Broadcasters is prepared to make self- serving and outlandish claims about the First Amendment before the public and before the courts, and to pay lawyers and publicists a lot of money to help establish those claims. (Perhaps they will ultimately succeed.) The National Rifle Association does the same thing with the Second Amendment. In both cases, those whose social and economic interests are at stake are prepared to use the Constitution, however implausibly invoked, in order to give a veneer of principle and respectability to arguments that would otherwise seem hopelessly partisan and self-interested.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Republic 2.0,
Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 173
“[A]lmost all gun control legislation is constitutionally fine. And if the Court is right, then fundamentalism does not justify the view that the Second Amendment protects an individual right to bear arms. ”
—Cass Sunstein, writing in his book, “Radicals in Robes”
...[T]he Second Amendment seems to specify its own purpose, which is to protect the "well regulated Militia." If that is the purpose of the Second Amendment (as Burger believed), then we might speculate that it safeguards not individual rights but federalism
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Most Mysterious Right,”
National Review, November 12, 2007
...[T]he Supreme Court is now being asked to decide whether the Second Amendment creates an individual right to own guns. There is a decent chance that the Court will say that it does. Whatever the Court says, we have seen an amazingly rapid change in constitutional understandings--even a revolution--as an apparently fraudulent interpretation pushed by "special interest groups" (read: the National Rifle Association) has become mainstream.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Most Mysterious Right,”
National Review, November 12, 2007
Even if the Second Amendment does confer an individual right, and therefore imposes limits on national gun-control legislation, a further question remains. Does the Second Amendment apply to the states? By its plain terms, the original Bill of Rights applies only to the national government. To be sure, most (but not all) of the listed rights are now understood to have been "incorporated" in the Fourteenth Amendment and made applicable to the states through that route. But is the Second Amendment incorporated as well?
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Most Mysterious Right,”
National Review, November 12, 2007
How did the individual rights position, so marginal and even laughable among judges and lawyers for so long, come to be treated as a respectable view--and even to be described as the standard model by 2007? It is certainly relevant that the National Rifle Association, and other like-minded groups and individuals, have sponsored and funded an endless stream of supportive papers and research. The Second Amendment revolution has been influenced by an intensely committed social movement with political and legal arms. But it is also true that for many decades lawyers and law professors paid hardly any attention to the Second Amendment.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Most Mysterious Right,”
National Review, November 12, 2007
But whatever the founding generation may have thought, the Second Amendment has become a shorthand, or a rallying cry, for a deeply felt commitment on the part of tens of millions of Americans. There would be not merely prudence, but also a kind of charity and respect, in judicial decisions that uphold reasonable restrictions without rejecting that commitment, and without purporting to untangle the deepest mysteries about the meaning of the Constitution's most mysterious provision.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Most Mysterious Right,”
National Review, November 12, 2007
On Hunting & Animal Rights:
"We ought to ban hunting"
—Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
“[Humans’] willingness to subject animals to unjustified suffering will be seen ... as a form of unconscionable barbarity... morally akin to slavery and the mass extermination of human beings.”
—Cass Sunstein, in a 2007 speech at Harvard University
But I think that we should go further. We should focus attention not only on the “enforcement gap,” but on the areas where current law offers little or no protection. In short, the law should impose further regulation on hunting, scientific experiments, entertainment, and (above all) farming to ensure against unnecessary animal suffering. It is easy to imagine a set of initiatives that would do a great deal here, and indeed European nations have moved in just this direction. There are many possibilities.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
If we understand "rights" to be legal protection against harm, then many animals already do have rights, and the idea of animal rights is not terribly controversial... Almost everyone agrees that people should not be able to torture animals or to engage in acts of cruelty against them. And indeed, state law includes a wide range of protections against cruelty and neglect. We can build on state law to define a simple, minimalist position in favor of animal rights: The law should prevent acts of cruelty to animals.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum.
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions.
(Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). Introduction
“We could even grant animals a right to bring suit without insisting that animals are persons, or that they are not property. A state could certainly confer rights on a pristine area, or a painting, and allow people to bring suit on its behalf, without therefore saying that that area and that painting may not be owned. It might, in these circumstances, seem puzzling that so many people are focusing on the question of whether animals are property. We could retain the idea of property but also give animals far more protection against injury or neglect of their interests.”
—Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum.
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 11
Do animals have standing? To many people, the very idea seems odd. But several cases suggest that the answer might be yes. In a remarkably large number of cases in the federal courts, animals appear as named plaintiffs. ...Indeed, I have not been able to find any federal statute that allows animals to sue in their own names. As a rule, the answer is therefore quite clear: Animals lack standing as such, simply because no relevant statute confers a cause of action on animals. It seems possible, however, that before long, Congress will grant standing to animals to protect their own rights and interests. Congress might do this in the belief that in some contexts, it will be hard to find any person with an injury in fact to bring suit in his own name. And even if statutes protecting animal welfare are enforceable by human beings, Congress might grant standing to animals in their own right, particularly to make a public statement about whose interests are most directly at stake, partly to increase the number of private monitors of illegality, and partly to bypass complex inquiries into whether prospective human plaintiffs have injuries in fact. Indeed, I believe that in some circumstances, Congress should do just that, to provide a supplement to limited public enforcement efforts.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum.
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 259-260
In the future, legislative decisions on such questions will have considerable symbolic importance. But they will not only be symbolic, for they will help define the real-world meaning of legal texts that attempt to protect animal welfare – statutes that now promise a great deal but deliver far too little.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Martha C. Nussbaum.
Animal Rights: Current Debates and New Directions. (Oxford University Press, USA, 2004). P. 261
Do animals have rights? Almost everyone believes in animal rights, at least in some minimal sense; the real question is what that phrase actually means. By exploring that question, it is possible to give a clear sense of the lay of the land—to show the range of possible positions, and to explore what issues, of theory or fact, separate reasonable people. On reflection, the spotlight should be placed squarely on the issue of suffering and well-being. This position requires rejection of some of the most radical claims by animal rights advocates, especially those that stress the “autonomy” of animals, or that object to any human control and use of animals. But this position has radical implications of its own. It strongly suggests, for example, that there should be extensive regulation of the use of animals in entertainment, in scientific experiments, and in agriculture. It also suggests that there is a strong argument, in principle, for bans on many current uses of animals.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
...[R]epresentatives of animals should be able to bring private suits to ensure that anticruelty and related laws are actually enforced. If, for example, a farm is treating horses cruelly and in violation of legal requirements, a suit could be brought, on behalf of those animals, to bring about compliance with the law.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
Now turn to some quite radical suggestions. Suppose that we continue to believe that animal suffering is the problem that should concern us, and that we want to use the law to promote animal welfare. We might conclude that certain practices cannot be defended and should not be allowed to continue, if, in practice, mere regulation will inevitably be insufficient—and if, in practice, mere regulation will ensure that the level of animal suffering will remain very high. To make such an argument convincing, it would be helpful, whether or not necessary, to argue not only that the harms to animals are serious, but also that the benefits, to human beings, of the relevant practices are simply too small to justify the continuation of those practices. Many people who urge radical steps—who think, for example, that people should not eat meat—do so because they believe that without such steps, the level of animal suffering will be unacceptably severe.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
Of course the largest issue involves eating meat. I believe that that meat-eating would be acceptable if decent treatment is given to the animals used for food. Killing animals, whether or not troublesome, is far less troublesome than suffering. But if, as a practical matter, animals used for food are almost inevitably going to endure terrible suffering, then there is a good argument that people should not eat meat to the extent that a refusal to eat meat will reduce that suffering. Of course a legal ban on meat-eating would be extremely radical, and like prohibition, it would undoubtedly create black markets and have a set of bad, and huge, side-effects. But the principle seems clear: People should be much less inclined to eat meat if their refusal to do so would prevent significant suffering.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
We should increase the likelihood that animals will have good lives—we should not try to ensure that there are as many animals as possible.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago

Every reasonable person believes in animal rights. Even the sharpest critics of animal
rights support the anticruelty laws. I have suggested that the simple moral judgment behind these laws is that animal suffering matters, and that this judgment supports a significant amount of reform. Most modestly, private suits should be permitted to prevent illegal cruelty and neglect.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
Less modestly, anticruelty laws should be extended to areas that are now exempt from them, including scientific experiments and farming. There is no good reason to permit the level of suffering that is now being experienced by millions, even billions of living creatures.
—Cass R. Sunstein, “The Rights of Animals: A Very Short Primer,”
John M. Olin Law & Economics Working Paper No. 157,
The Law School, The University of Chicago
On Free Speech:
...[M]any discussion groups and websites, less and often more extreme, that can be found on the Internet. Discussion groups and websites of this kind have been around for a number of years... On the National Rifle Association’s ‘Bullet N’ Board,’ a place for discussion of matters of mutual interest, someone calling himself “Warmaster” explained how to make bombs out of ordinary household materials. Warmaster explained, “These simple, powerful bombs are not very well known even though all the materials can be easily obtained by anyone (including minors).”
—Cass R. Sunstein, Republic 2.0,
Princeton University Press, 2007, p. 47
To the extent that they weaken the power of the general interest intermediaries and increase people’s ability to wall themselves off from topics and opinions that they would prefer to avoid, emerging technologies, including the Internet, create serious dangers. I don’t want government regulation of the blogosphere in the form of mandated links or mandated civility or, you know, if you’re doing liberal ideas on your site you have to have conservative ideas too. I don’t want any of that stuff... But I do have some ideas and they’re about private voluntary solutions. One is that blog providers, either writers or those who operate them should, if they are involved in opinion – at least most of the time, work hard to obey norms of, let’s call them, civility and diversity. So not complete diversity. You’re entitled to have a point of view. But to think that some of the time if people are reading you its good to catch their eye with something that might irritate them a bit.
—Bloggingheads.tv, Cass R. Sunstein, University of Chicago Law School and Eugene Volokh, The Volokh Conspiracy, UCLA Law School video debate, recorded May 27, 2008 and posted June 2, 2008

A legislative effort to regulate broadcasting in the interest of democratic principles should
not be seen as an abridgment of the free speech guarantee.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech,
The Free Press, 1995, p. 92

I have argued in favor of a reformulation of First Amendment law. The overriding goal of
the reformulation is to reinvigorate processes of democratic deliberation, by ensuring greater attention to public issues and greater diversity of views. The First Amendment should not stand as an obstacle to democratic efforts to accomplish these goals. A New Deal for speech would draw on Justice Brandeis’ insistence on the role of free speech in promoting political deliberation and citizenship. It would reject Justice Holmes’ “marketplace” conception of free speech, a conception that disserves the aspirations of those who wrote America’s founding document.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech,
The Free Press, 1995, p. 119

Consider the “fairness doctrine,” now largely abandoned but once requiring radio and
television broadcasters: ...[I]n light of astonishing economic and technological changes, we must doubt whether, as interpreted, the constitutional guarantee of free speech is adequately serving democratic goals. It is past time for a large-scale reassessment of the appropriate role of the First Amendment in the democratic process.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Democracy and the Problem of Free Speech,
The Free Press, 1995, p. xi

A system of limitless individual choices, with respect to communications, is not
necessarily in the interest of citizenship and self-government.
—Cass Sunstein, arguing for a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet in his book, Republic.com 2.0 (Princeton University Press, 2007), p.137

[M]any people all over the world have become even more concerned about the risks of a
situation in which like-minded people speak or listen mostly to one another...Democracy does best with what James Madison called a ‘yielding and accommodating spirit,’ and that spirit is at risk whenever people sort themselves into enclaves in which their own views and commitments are constantly reaffirmed... [S]uch sorting should not be identified with freedom, and much less with democratic self-government.
—Cass Sunstein, arguing for a Fairness Doctrine for the Internet in his book, Republic.com 2.0 (Princeton University Press, 2007), p. xii

On Civil Liberties:
[C]ourts should ordinarily require restrictions on civil liberties to be authorized by the legislature, not simply by the executive.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Fear & Liberty,
working paper, December 12, 2004

The availability heuristic and probability neglect often lead people to treat risks as much
greater than they in fact are, and hence to accept risk-reduction strategies that do considerable harm and little good. Civil liberties may be jeopardized for precisely this reason. And when the burdens of government restrictions are faced by an identifiable minority rather by the majority, the risk of unjustified action is significantly increased.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Fear & Liberty,
working paper, December 12, 2004
On Taxes:
Sunstein scolds readers like small-minded, selfish children for opposing the size, scope, expansion and skyrocketing expense of government: “In what sense in the money in our pockets and bank accounts fully ‘ours’? Did we earn it by our own autonomous efforts? Could we have inherited it without the assistance of probate courts? Do we save it without the support of bank regulators? Could we spend it if there were no public officials to coordinate the efforts and pool the resources of the community in which we live?... Without taxes there would be no liberty. Without taxes there would be no property. Without taxes, few of us would have any assets worth defending. [It is] a dim fiction that some people enjoy and exercise their rights without placing any burden whatsoever on the public fisc. ... There is no liberty without dependency. That is why we should celebrate tax day ...”
—Cass R. Sunstein, “Why We Should Celebrate Paying Taxes,”
The Chicago Tribune, April 14, 1999
On the Second Bill of Rights:
My major aim in this book is to uncover an important but neglected part of America’s heritage: the idea of a second bill of rights. In brief, the second bill attempts to protect both opportunity and security, by creating rights to employment, adequate food and clothing, decent shelter, education, recreation, and medical care.
—Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004, p. 1

Much of the time, the United States seems to have embraced a confused and pernicious
form of individualism. This approach endorses rights of private property and freedom of contract, and respects political liberty, but claims to distrust “government intervention” and insists that people must fend for themselves. This form of so-called individualism is incoherent, a tangle of confusions.
—Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004, p. 3

Those of us who have plenty of money and opportunities owe a great deal to an active
government that is willing and able to protect what we have.
—Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004, p. 4

In a nutshell, the New Deal helped vindicate a simple idea: No one really opposes
government intervention. Even the people who most loudly denounce government interference depend on it every day.
—Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and
Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004

For better or worse, the Constitution’s framers gave no thought to including social and
economic guarantees in the bill of rights.
—Cass R. Sunstein, The Second Bill of Rights: FDR’s Unfinished Revolution and Why We Need it More Than Ever, Basic Books, New York, 2004, p. 115
On the Judiciary:
[I]t is reasonable to suggest that the meaning of federal statutory law should not be based on whether a litigant has drawn a panel of judges appointed by a president from a particular party—or on whether the Supreme Court is dominated by judges of any particular ideological stripe.
—Thomas J. Miles & Cass R. Sunstein, Do Judges Make Regulatory Policy? An Empirical Investigation of Chevron, AEI-Brookings Joint Center for Regulatory Studies, Working Paper 06-15, May 2006


On Government Regulation:
No institution in the executive branch, moreover, is currently responsible for long-range research and thinking about regulatory problems. It would be highly desirable to create such an office under the President, particularly for exploring problems whose solutions require extensive planning, most notably the environment. Nor is there an office charged with acting as an initiator of as well as a brake on regulation. Some entity within the executive branch, building on the ombudsman device, should be entrusted with the job of guarding against failure to implement regulatory programs. Such an entity would be especially desirable in overcoming the collective action and related problems that tend to
defeat enforcement.
—Cass R. Sunstein, After the Rights Revolution:
Reconceiving the Regulatory
State, Harvard University Press, 1990, p. 108

The Office of Information and Regulatory Affairs (OIRA) has been entrusted with the power to coordinate regulatory policy and to ensure reasonable priority-setting. In the Clinton Administration, OIRA appears to have become an advisory body, more limited in its power than it was in the Bush and Reagan administrations. In view of the absence of good priority-setting, and the enormous room for savings costs and increasing regulatory benefits, this is highly unfortunate.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Free Markets & Social Justice,
Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 315

OIRA should see, as one of its central assignments, the task of overcoming governmental myopia and tunnel vision, by ensuring aggregate risks are reduced and that agency focus on particular risks does not mean that ancillary risks are ignored or increased.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Free Markets & Social Justice,
Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 315

Congress should add to existing legislation a general requirement that agencies consider a range of risks to life and health, including substitute risks, to the extent that this is feasible. Finally, OIRA should undertake the process of scrutinizing risk regulations to show that agency action does not suffer from the kind of tunnel vision exemplified by so much of modern risk regulation. Problems of selective attention, interest-group power, and myopia have created a range of irrationalities and injustices in modern government.
—Cass R. Sunstein, Free Markets & Social Justice,
Oxford University Press, 1997, p. 316
***
Could it be that Sunstein’s appointment to a politically powerful position is pay-back for animal rights groups supporting the Obama during the campaign? Presently the National Rifle Association and hunting groups such as Safari Club International are already aligning to prevent this man’s appointment not to mention all the agriculture lobbying groups.
The bottom line is this: Sunstein is a kook and is not a man
to be placed in any sector of government -

September 8, 2009

Obama and The Car Salesman

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 09:42 2 comments


Two days before the ‘Cash For Clunkers’ program was to expire, my daughter and I drove into a Chrysler dealership to do a little ‘window shopping’

and, in my rear view window,

I notice a car salesman running after me.

Panting, he finally catches up to me and, in a friendly tone, comments that he’d be more than happy to hand me over a check for my car.

Tempted, I quickly scan my 2000 Crown Victoria and ask him how the clunker program is going?

Confident he 'had a sale', he boasts of its success and promises me it will be around to stay

except
there’s one problem

that the salesman doesn’t realize I know…

the ‘clunker program’ is about to expire in less than 48 hours

and the government is behind in sending out checks to most dealerships.

As I drive away from the desperate man

I am reminded of another man

who could easily be compared to that car salesman

and is desperate ‘to make the sale’

except the man I am thinking about

isn’t selling cars

he’s supposed to be our country’s president

yet he’s no different than that desperate saleman

desperate to make a sale

while knowing all along

the sale is based on lies…


***

And as I think about all the desperate acts of our president, an e-mail is delivered to me via Jay Gibbons, a wonderful patriot.

Embedded within the email is an editorial piece written by singer, Pat Boone, which ran on World Net Daily on June 6, 2009.

As our President ‘makes some marks’ speaking with the school kids today, perhaps this piece is worth revisiting and remembering…


The President Without A Country
By Pat Boone

"We're no longer a Christian nation."
—President Barack Obama, June 2007
 


"America has been arrogant."
—President Barack Obama
 


"After 9/11, America didn't always live up to her ideals."
—President Barack Obama
 


"You might say that America is a Muslim nation."
—President Barack Obama,Egypt, 2009
 


Thinking about these and other statements made by the man who wears the title of president. I keep wondering what country he believes he's president of.


In one of my very favorite stories, Edward Everett Hale's "The Man without a Country," a young Army lieutenant named Philip Nolan stands condemned for treason during the Revolutionary War, having come under the influence of Aaron Burr. When the judge asks him if he wishes to say anything before sentence is passed, young Nolan defiantly exclaims, "Damn the United States! I wish I might never hear of the United States again!"
 


The stunned silence in the courtroom is palpable, pulsing. After a long pause, the judge soberly says to the angry lieutenant:
"You have just pronounced your own sentence. You will never hear of the United States again. I sentence you to spend the rest of your life at sea, on one or another of this country's naval vessels - under strict orders that no one will ever speak to you again about the country you have just cursed."

And so it was. Philip Nolan was taken away and spent the next 40 years at sea, never hearing anything but an occasional slip of the tongue about America. The last few pages of the story, recounting Nolan's dying hours in his small stateroom - now turned into a shrine to the country he fore swore - never fail to bring me to tears. And I find my own love for this dream, this miracle called America, refreshed and renewed. I know how blessed and unique we are. 


But reading and hearing the audacious, shocking statements of the man who was recently elected our president - a young black man living the impossible dream of millions of young Americans, past and present, black and white - I want to ask him, "Just what country do you think you're president of?"


You surely can't be referring to the United States of America, can you? America is emphatically a Christian nation, and has been from its inception! Seventy percent of her citizens identify themselves as Christian. The Declaration of Independence and our Constitution were framed, written and ratified by Christians. It's because this was, and is, a nation built on and guided by Judeo-Christian biblical principles that you, sir, have had the inestimable privilege of being elected her president. 


You studied law at Harvard, didn't you, sir? You taught constitutional law in Chicago? Did you not ever read the statement of John Jay, the first Chief Justice of the Supreme Court and an author of the landmark "Federalist Papers": "Providence has given to our people the choice of their rulers - and it is the duty, as well as the privilege and interest of our Christian nation - to select and prefer Christians for their rulers"? 


In your studies, you surely must have read the decision of the Supreme Court in 1892: "Our lives and our institutions must necessarily be based upon and embody the teachings of the Redeemer of mankind. It is impossible that it should be otherwise; and in this sense and to this extent our civilization and our institutions are emphatically Christian."
 


Did your professors have you skip over all the high-court decisions right up till the mid 1900s that echoed and reinforced these views and intentions? Did you pick up the history of American jurisprudence only in 1947, when for the first time a phrase coined by Thomas Jefferson about a "wall of separation between church and state" was used to deny some specific religious expression - contrary to Jefferson 's intent with that statement?

Or, wait a minute. were your ideas about America 's Christianity formed during the 20 years you were a member of the Trinity United Church of Christ under your pastor, Jeremiah Wright? Is that where you got the idea that " America is no longer a Christian nation"? Is this where you, even as you came to call yourself a Christian, formed the belief that "America has been arrogant"?


Even if that's the understandable explanation of your damning of your country and accusing the whole nation (not just a few military officials trying their best to keep more Americans from being murdered by Jihadists) of "not always living up to her ideals," how did you come up with the ridiculous, alarming notion that we might be "considered a Muslim nation"? 


Is it because there are some 2 million or more Muslims living here, trying to be good Americans? Out of a current population of over 300 million, 70 percent of whom are Christians? Does that make us, by any rational definition, a "Muslim nation"?
 


Why are we not, then, a "Chinese nation"? A "Korean nation"? Even a "Vietnamese nation"? There are even more of these distinct groups in America than Muslims. And if the distinction you're trying to make is a religious one, why is America not "a Jewish nation"? There's actually a case to be made for the latter, because our Constitution - and the success of our Revolution and founding - owe a deep debt to our Jewish brothers. 


Have you stopped to think what an actual Muslim America would be like? Have you ever really spent much time in Iran? Even in Egypt ? You, having been instructed in Islam as a kid at a Muslim school in Indonesia and saying you still love the call to evening prayers, can surely picture our nation founded on the Quran, not the Judeo-Christian Bible, and living under Shariah law. Can't you? You do recall Muhammad's directives [Surah 9:5,73] to "break the cross" and "kill the infidel"?


It seems increasingly and painfully obvious that you are more influenced by your upbringing and questionable education than most suspected. If you consider yourself the president of a people who are "no longer Christian," who have "failed to live up to our ideals," who "have been arrogant," and might even be "considered Muslim" - you are president of a country most Americans don't recognize.


Could it be you, sir, are a president without a country?

***

And so, upon being refreshed by reading Mr. Boone’s piece, I am reminded why I do not want my child to listen to this president’s talk today… enough said.

###

September 3, 2009

Obama And Student's Across America

Posted by Judi Lynn Lake at 23:48 1 comments

Next Tuesday, on September 8, 2009, President Obama is planning to speak to student's all across America.

Exciting, eh?

No, not really. All this is, in my opinion, is a marketing strategy aimed towards winning over our children and,

as a concerned and loving parent,

I am planning to keep my fifth grader home that day.


Afterall,

there is nothing within this administration that will help or inspire any child,

and,

me thinks there are hidden agendas going on...


For those interested, the President's agenda is posted on the US Department of Education's website.

As for myself? I'd much rather listen to how Stuart Shepard, from Citizenlink.com, encourages young people to engage in critical thinking and to participate in this historical event.





And, that folks, is how it is this day on September 3, 2009 but,

in the meantime,

may God help us.

###

Update on how our President determines his priorities:
According to The Baltimore Sun - During September (25th to be exact) - The Muslim Athan will be chanted on Capitol Hill. September is the Celebration of Ramadan - A Muslim Celebration. Click here to listen to chant and see ad.

Now, let me be clear on this. Although I am a Catholic/Christian, I have no problem with ecunemism but...

our present President would not acknowledge The National Day of Prayer yet he honored the Muslims recently by having a dinner at the White House.

This is not a leader I want my child - or any child - influenced by. The following video, What Islam is Not, posted on Live Leak, should raise concerns within every American citizen who values their freedom and liberty.




 

Life As It Happens Copyright 2009 Judi Lynn Lake. All Rights Reserved Worldwide. Image by Tadpole's Notez