Is Islamic Extremism a Problem of Poor Hermeneutics?

WSJ – 16 March 2009 – Letters

It is very uplifting and encouraging to hear a bright, progressive Muslim like Tawfik Hamid speak out against the cruelty and unfairness of Islamic extremists (“Islam Should Prove It’s a Religion of Peace,” op-ed, March 9).

As a Jew who wants my children to be able to coexist in peace with all religious peoples of the world, I feel very hopeful knowing there are Muslims who do not hate my people because of our religion.

I welcome the day when we can all live in harmony, in our own unique ways. Mr. Hamid’s statement that better Quranic scholarship would prove that Islam is a religion of peace is very welcome.

God bless his ecumenical plea to his religious community.

Steven Levy
Seabrook, Texas

Kudos to Tawfik Hamid for standing up to the wimps of the world. And congratulations to the Journal for publishing Mr. Hamid’s calling the British government to account for the travesty of justice in denying entry to the United Kingdom of Geert Wilders, a member of the Dutch parliament and creator of the film, “Fitna.” The British government is blaming the messenger, Mr. Wilders, instead of the message, Muslim radicalism.

Only by repeatedly exposing the barbaric practices of Islamic radicalism to the world, such as the stoning of women, will the world stop tolerating such criminal behavior.

By suppressing free speech by banning “Fitna” from being shown in the House of the Lords, the British government unwittingly is condoning and encouraging the Muslim radicals in pursuing their atrocities.

Paul O’Neill
Kansas City, Mo.

Mr. Hamid is certainly correct in exculpating Dutch Parliamentarian Geert Wilders. However, he both tries to say that “everyone did it” and that “better scholarship” would demonstrate Islam to be a religion of peace.

The only basis for Islamic scholarship to interpret the Quran, in addition to the text, is to look to the practices of Mohammed and the first three generations of Muslims. It’s going to be hard to find a basis for more liberal interpretation there. The issue is whether Islam can prove it’s a religion of peace. Mr. Hamid is not calling for better scholarship; he is calling for “different” scholarship: indeed, something beyond even a Reformation.

To date, the most authoritative religious scholar to assert the peacefulness of Islam is George W. Bush.

Stuart L. Meyer
Evanston, Ill.

O’s tax cheat roster grows

Word today that yet another Barack Obama appointee has a little problem with taxes — a $10,000 problem.

Ron Kirk, the former mayor of Dallas who would be the White House chief trade representative if confirmed, didn’t pay taxes on some speaking fees he donated to his alma mater and he tried to write off the full $17,000 costs of his Dallas Mavericks season tickets.

Not sure if we have room here to list every other would-be Obama appointee who turns out to have some tax problems. There was Timothy Geithner, who’s now Treasury Secretary in charge of the IRS.

But being as articulate as he is and so well-versed in handling other people’s money, he was deemed essential to the fight against the economic downturn and that’s worked out real well. Just look at the markets.

There was Tom Daschle, who was deemed essential to the effort to completely reform the nation’s health care system.

He owed something like $140G’s with interest and penalties because he got a free car and driver and some other stuff from a rich guy who paid him $1 million a year for advice (hopefully not tax advice) and Daschle forgot to mention it for a few years.

But the former Democratic Senate Majority Leader could tell that those pesky outnumbered Republicans would try to make an issue — or worse, a “distraction” — out of Washington elites not following the rules that they clearly wrote for others. So he pulled out.

And there was Nancy Killefer, whose performance as would-be chief performance officer was also self-terminated when she turned out to have had a past tax problem. And Bill Richardson pulled out of Commerce not because of taxes but because of a federal pay-to-play probe.

And Rep. Hilda Solis, whose husband had some tax liens going back 16 years until the day before her committee vote as Labor secretary. But who in their right mind would hold a wife responsible for her husband’s financial problems, even if they did start the same year she was elected to the state legislature?

(BTW, has anyone checked the tax returns of the Obama vetters who are supposed to be checking the tax returns?)

Sen. Max Baucus, who’s a loyal Democrat in years that he’s not running for reelection in conservative Montana, is chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. Thank goodness for his committee staff, who found much of these back taxes. If we can just keep getting enough new Obama appointees, maybe we can make a real dent in these impressive upcoming deficits.

Anyway, Max has somehow magically determined that Kirk is “the right person for this job.” Baucus intends to push the Kirk nomination through quickly.

And, after all, now that he’s caught, Kirk has agreed to pay his back taxes. So what’s the problem?

Remember that line next month in case you get caught.

– Andrew Malcolm

Tea Bag

What a wonderful idea, I just wish it had been mine.  I have a feeling that USPS is going to have a heck of a lot of tea to contend with, after all it only costs 42 cents to send a message, hopefully heard round the world!!!

So please mark your Calendars

There’s a storm a brewin’. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us. We don’t work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO’s over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes. I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budget and I don’t ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No one listened. They voted for it, pork and all.

O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won’t make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the reckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and “stimulate” without accountability and responsibility then we need to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens. What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall.

So, here’s the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington , D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, “New American Tea Party”, several sites will come up. If you aren’t the ‘protester’ type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes.

This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the ‘New American Tea Party’ and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will. Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington , D.C. 20500 ..

Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the web sites for more information about the ‘New American Tea Party’. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can’t guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.

What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent. We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY. Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late.

Cartoon: Obama Qualifies

Cartoon: Where’s the Bottom

Cartoon: Obama on Leno

An Olive Branch For A Terrorist State

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 23 March 2009

War On Terror: Is there some grand strategy behind President Obama’s “Happy Persian New Year” video message to Iran? Or is America embracing the naive notion that we can get the Islamofascists to like us?

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Read More: Global War On Terror | Iran

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As Mark Finkelstein’s “FinkelBlog” noted, there were no American flags visible in the background to ruffle the mullahs’ turbans in Obama’s Friday midnight video message. A wide shot featured on the White House Web site has the president sitting before Old Glory, but it turns out there is more than one edition of the video.

The version with Farsi subtitles — presumably the one pegged for Iranian consumption — was closely cropped, with no sign of the U.S. flag (although you can see the tiniest edge of the red and white stripes for a time during the second half of the message). Even the president’s lapel pin of the flag is cropped out during much of the address.

While bereft of anything to offend Iranians who make a practice of burning the stars and stripes, the video’s “tough diplomacy” consisted mainly of palavering the Islamic nation.

Extending his “very best wishes to all who are celebrating Nowruz around the world,” the president called the occasion “both an ancient ritual and a moment of renewal” and “just one part of your great and celebrated culture.“

The president told Iran how “over many centuries your art, your music, literature and innovation have made the world a better and more beautiful place,” adding that “here in the United States, our own communities have been enhanced by the contributions of Iranian Americans.”

“We know,” he said, “that you are a great civilization, and your accomplishments have earned the respect of the United States and the world.”

He also made a point of referring to the country by what became its official name after the Ayatollah Khomeini’s Carter-era revolution turned it into an anti-American theocratic state — “the Islamic Republic of Iran.”

In closing, Obama recited a verse from the medieval Dervish poet Saadi, which is prominently featured within the United Nations building in New York City:

“The children of Adam are limbs to each other, having been created of one essence.”

Lovely sentiments all around. But who really thinks Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad and the other leaders of revolutionary Islamist Iran see all the children of Adam — particularly those living in Tel Aviv and the world’s free industrialized nations — as equal in the eyes of God? Whoever does is too naive to be involved in U.S. foreign policy.

Ahmadinejad spokesman Ali Akbar Javanfekr immediately responded to Obama’s message by calling on the U.S. to end its support for Israel and apologize for: siding with Iraq during the Iran-Iraq war in the 1980s; accidentally shooting down an Iranian airliner in 1988 (for which the U.S. has already paid Iran $132 million); and the CIA’s role in the shah’s 1953 coup.

The Tehran regime has been in a de facto state of war with the U.S. for 30 years. It has provided bombs that have killed our soldiers in neighboring Iraq and Afghanistan. It spends millions supplying and training Lebanon’s Hezbollah terrorists, and funds Hamas’ rocket and suicide attacks against Israel.

Under the autocratic rule of this Islamic “republic,” Iran has hosted pseudo-scholars to compare notes on denying the Nazi genocide of the Jews. Its leaders have referred to the state of Israel as a disease, calling for the Jewish state’s destruction by force. They believe the 12th imam will return to lead an apocalyptic jihad against Jews and other purported enemies of Islam.

And, most importantly, these dangerous fanatics are spending a billion dollars a year — 2% of its annual oil revenues — in pursuit of nuclear weapons. Clearly, the regime has already produced enough fuel for one atomic bomb, and last month Iran’s nuclear chief said its 6,000 operating uranium enrichment centrifuges at Natanz would be expanded to 50,000 over the next five years.

Franklin Roosevelt’s strategy against Hitler was not to send a Christmas card noting the artistic achievements of Goethe and Wagner. Does this Democratic president, like his great 20th century predecessors, recognize evil when he sees it?

Cartoon: White House, Red Fountain

Our New Terror Policy: Safety Last?

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 19 March 2009

Homeland Security: Are you safer now than you were two months ago? From the handling of captured terrorists to airborne security, the U.S. government has quietly relaxed post-9/11 protections.

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Read More: Global War On Terror

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For years, liberal Democratic politicians and the establishment media have worked to paint a picture of former Vice President Dick Cheney as a demon with godlike powers. The Washington Post, in a Pulitzer-winning series of articles, called him “the most influential and powerful man ever to hold the office of vice president.”

During President George W. Bush’s first term, Cheney was depicted as the real power and brains in the White House, scheming to manipulate the commander in chief to assert bold new executive authorities as a new era of terrorism unfolded.

After Bush’s re-election, however, the running mate as puppet-master mantra lost much of its plausibility, and the press focused more on Cheney’s hunting mishaps and low poll ratings.

So how surprising to find so much media attention paid to the first post-Bush administration interview of someone they were waving good riddance to less than two months ago.

The explanation may not be the media’s usual sensationalist tendencies, but the simple fact that the former vice president knows intimately how and why America has stayed safe for nearly 7 1/2 years after September 11, 2001.

Cheney told CNN that the reversal by the Obama administration of the use of some of the tough interrogation practices approved by the president’s predecessor has placed Americans at risk within the homeland. President Obama, he said, is “making some choices that in my mind will raise the risk to the American people of another attack.”

He called enhanced interrogation of terrorist detainees “absolutely essential to the success we enjoy, of being able to collect the intelligence that let us defeat all further attempts to launch attacks against the United States since 9/11.”

Cheney added: “I think it’s a great success story. It was done legally, it was done in accordance with our constitutional practices and principles,” he maintained.

It is worth remembering that Cheney’s immediate, and apparently instinctive, reaction to 9/11 was that just these kind of powerful tools would be needed in this new kind of war.

Less than a week after the attacks, the vice president was telling NBC that for America to defend itself, the U.S. government would have to “work . . . sort of the dark side, if you will. . . . A lot of what needs to be done here will have to be done quietly, without any discussion, using sources and methods that are available to our intelligence agencies, if we’re going to be successful.”

The very next day, President Bush gave written authorization for the CIA to establish a “hidden global internment network” to interrogate terrorist prisoners.

The successors of Bush-Cheney seem in some respects to be just as instinctively opposed to such powerful tools. This week, CIA Director Leon Panetta announced that he has tapped former New Hampshire liberal Republican Sen. Warren Rudman to serve as his “special adviser” to help the administration and the Senate Intelligence Committee dredge up details of the Bush interrogation and detention program in what is expected to be a year-long probe.

One of President Obama’s first acts was an executive order shutting down the remainder of the CIA terrorist prisons abroad, closing the Guantanamo Bay naval base’s detention camp in Cuba — sure to lead to the release of some of the 245 enemy combatants being held there. Even that term — “enemy combatant” — has been renounced by the new administration.

On top of that, as reported by the Washington Times, the president is without fanfare applying gun-control ideology to homeland security by scrapping the federal firearms program, which allows some 12,000 airline pilots to carry guns with them in their cockpit during flight. Pilots say that already the approval process for authorizing pilots to carry guns has slowed considerably.

It is said that in our modern age of dazzling gadgetry and CGI-enhanced movie and TV entertainment, Americans’ attention span and collective memory are shorter than ever. Have we, in less than eight years, already forgotten that eternal vigilance is the price of liberty — as well as being the price of safety from Islamist terror for ourselves and our families?

545 PEOPLE

545 PEOPLE

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred Senators, 435 Congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices , 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash.. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits… The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes.

Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it unfair.
If the budget is in the red, it’s because they want it in the red .
If the Army & Marines are in IRAQ , it’s because they want them in IRAQ .
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it’s because they want it that way..

There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like “the economy,” “inflation,” or “politics” that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it is up to you, though you have several choices:

1. You can send this to everyone in your address book and hope “they” do something about it.
2. You can agree to “vote against” everyone that is currently in office, knowing that the process will take several years.
3. You can decide to “run for office” yourself and agree to do the job properly.
4. Lastly, you can sit back and do nothing or re-elect the current bunch.

Barack Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor

Barack Obama’s Newest Spiritual Advisor

By DiscoverTheNetworks.org
FrontPageMagazine.com | 3/17/2009

Now that he no longer draws spiritual succor from Jeremiah Wright—the America-hating, racist demagogue who served as his pastor and spiritual mentor for twenty years—Barack Obama has turned elsewhere for guidance in the task of carrying out his political duties while remaining true to his religious values.

The most notable of his spiritual advisors today is his friend of many years, Rev. Jim Wallis, founder of the Sojourners organization. Says Wallis, “We’ve [he and Obama] been talking faith and politics for a long time.”

Who is Jim Wallis? According to The New York Times, Wallis “leans left on some issues” but overall is a “centrist, social justice” kind of guy. But a closer look at Wallis’s background reveals him to be nearly as radical, if better at disguising the fact, as Jeremiah Wright.

As a teenager in the 1960s, Wallis joined the civil rights movement and the anti-Vietnam War movement. His participation in peace protests nearly resulted in his expulsion from the Trinity Evangelical Divinity School in Illinois, a Christian seminary where he was then enrolled. While at Trinity, Wallis founded an anti-capitalism magazine called the Post-American, which identified wealth redistribution and government-managed economies as the keys to achieving “social justice”—a term that, as educator/journalist Barry Loberfeld has pointed out, is essentially “code for communism.”

In 1971, the 23-year-old Wallis and his Post-American colleagues changed the name of their publication to Sojourners, and in the mid-1970s they moved their base of operation from Chicago to Washington, DC, where Wallis has served as Sojourners’ editor (and leader of the eponymous organization) ever since.

Advocating America’s transformation into a socialist nation, Sojourners’ “statement of faith” exhorted people to “refuse to accept [capitalist] structures and assumptions that normalize poverty and segregate the world by class.” According to Sojourners, “gospel faith transforms our economics, gives us the power to share our bread and resources, welcomes all to the table of God’s provision, and provides a vision for social revolution.”

As one of its first acts, Sojourners formed a commune in the Washington, DC neighborhood of Southern Columbia Heights, where members shared their finances and participated in various activist campaigns that centered on attacking U.S. foreign policy, denouncing American “imperialism,” and extolling Marxist revolutionary movements in the Third World.

Giving voice to Sojourners’ intense anti-Americanism, Jim Wallis called the U.S. “the great power, the great seducer, the great captor and destroyer of human life, the great master of humanity and history in its totalitarian claims and designs.”

In parallel with his magazine’s stridently antiwar position during the Seventies, Wallis championed the cause of communism. Forgiving communism’s brutal standard-bearers in Vietnam and Cambodia the most abominable of atrocities, Wallis was, by contrast, unsparing in his execration of American military efforts. He demanded greater levels of “social justice” in the allegedly oppressive U.S., but was silent on the subject of the murderous rampages of Pol Pot’s Khmer Rouge in Cambodia. In fact, several Sojourners editorials attempted to exculpate the Khmer Rouge of the charges of genocide, instead shifting blame squarely onto the United States.

Following the 1979 refugee crisis in Vietnam, Wallis lashed out at the desperate masses fleeing North Vietnam’s Communist forces by boat. These refugees, as Wallis saw it, had been “inoculated” by capitalist influences during the war and were absconding “to support their consumer habit in other lands.” Wallis then admonished critics against pointing to the boat people to “discredit” the righteousness of Vietnam’s newly victorious Communist regime.

Wallis blamed America alone for the political tensions of the Cold War era. “At each step in the Cold War,” he wrote in November 1982, “the U.S. was presented with a choice between very different but equally plausible interpretations of Soviet intentions, each of which would have led to very different responses. At every turn, U.S. policy-makers have chosen to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”

Actively embracing liberation theology, Wallis and Sojourners in the 1980s rallied to the cause of Communist regimes that had seized power in Latin America with the promise of bringing about the revolutionary restructuring of society. Particularly attractive for the ministry’s religious activists was the Communist Sandinista dictatorship that took power in Nicaragua in 1979. Wallis embarked on an editorial crusade in Sojourners to undercut public support for a confrontational U.S. foreign policy toward the spread of Communism there and elsewhere in the Western Hemisphere. Moreover, he invited the Committee in Solidarity with the People of El Salvador (CISPES) —the public relations arm of the El Salvadoran terrorist group the FMLN—to take part in a number of initiatives with Sojourners.

Steadfast advocates of the nuclear freeze movement of the 1980s, Sojourners activists maintained that a U.S. nuclear buildup was “an intolerable evil” irreconcilably at odds with Christian teaching, and that “[t]he Reagan Administration remains the chief obstacle to the first step in stopping the arms race.” While assailing Reagan’s defense buildup, Sojourners downplayed the threat posed by the Soviet Union, chastising U.S. policy-makers for their tendency “to assume the very worst about their Soviet counterparts.”

In 1995 Wallis founded Call to Renewal, a coalition of religious groups united in the purpose of advocating, in religious terms, for leftist economic agendas such as tax hikes and wealth redistribution to promote “social justice.”

To this day, Wallis remains fiercely opposed to capitalism and the free-market system. “Our systems have failed the poor and they have failed the earth,” Wallis has said. “They have failed the creation.”

Wallis continues to lament “all the bad stuff in America—the poverty, the racism, the human rights violations, and always the wars … the arrogance, self-righteousness, materialism, and ignorance [about] the rest of the world, the habitual ignoring of the ones that God says we can’t [ignore], the ones Jesus calls the least of these.”

More than a mere religious leader, Wallis, a registered Democrat, is also an adroit political operative, publicly portraying himself as a politically neutral religious figure whose overriding allegiance is to God. Always with the disclaimer that neither major political party can claim authoritatively to represent the values of religious faith, Wallis nevertheless contends that Republican policies tend to be immoral and godless. For example, he and his ministry reviled welfare reform as a “mean-spirited Republican agenda” characterized by “hatred toward the poor.”

At the same time, Wallis actively works to promote Democratic causes. According to a March 10, 2007 Los Angeles Times report, Wallis has recently sought to re-brand traditional slogans of the religious right, like “pro-life,” to refer to such leftist agendas as working with AIDS victims in Africa or helping illegal immigrants in America achieve legal status so they can continue to live with their U.S.-born children.

But Wallis’s most passionate advocacy concerns Barack Obama. Wallis likens the new president to the Old Testament prophet Nehemiah, someone who “carefully surveyed the broken walls of the temple, called the people together to start the rebuilding and to ‘commit themselves to the common good.’” The activist preacher further gushes that the Bush administration’s allegedly unenlightened national-security strategy will “now be replaced by the wisdom of the prophet Micah—that our security depends upon other people’s security,” thereby setting the stage for America’s “new relationship to the world.”

Immediately after Obama’s January 20^th inauguration, a rejoicing Wallis told The Washington Times: “My prayers for decades have been answered in this minute.” Subsequently echoing Michelle Obama’s infamous 2008 declaration, Wallis reported that Obama’s electoral victory had enabled him to feel “proud of my country for the first time in a very long time.” The country, meanwhile, may be properly concerned that the president has sought spiritual counsel from a figure as removed from the political mainstream as Jim Wallis.

Geert Wilders Raise Funds

We must help raise funds for Geert Wilders speech tour in South Florida.

OVERVIEW: On Monday, March 16, the FSC meet to review two primary ACTION items, Muslim Day – Tallahassee and the Geert Wilders – Freedom of Speech Tour. Please review this information and contribute any ideas or ways in which you and/or your organization can participate to accomplish these actions items.

MUSLIM ADVOCACY DAY :

1. CATEGORICAL SUCCESS – POLITICAL, TACTICAL, RELATIONAL

2. MUST INITIATE EDUCATIONAL PLAN IN TALLAHASSEE – THIRD JIHAD

3. DEVELOP A PLAN TO “FOLLOW BEDIER” AND TAMPA MAYOR, IORIO.

GEERT WILDERS – FREE SPEECH TOUR.

Cartoon: Barney Frank Pig

Bush’s Big Victory

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 17 March 2009

Mideast: In most ways, the news from Iraq couldn’t be better. People there feel more secure, and are more committed to democracy, than ever. Is it possible that President Bush was right after all?

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Read More: Iraq

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A poll of average Iraqis conducted by ABC News, the BBC and Japan’s NHK shows significant progress on virtually all fronts. Yet, we’ve heard nary a peep about it from anyone.

Some 85% of respondents said their neighborhood security was “good,” vs. 62% a year ago and just 43% in August of 2007. And 52% said security had gotten better in the last year — during the Bush-Petraeus “surge,” which was widely ridiculed at the time as an unnecessary escalation of the Iraq War.

Support for democracy jumped to 64%, a 21-percentage-point gain since 2007, according to a report on CNSNews.com. As for how Iraqis felt about the general state of affairs in Iraq, 58% called it “very good” or “quite good,” up significantly from 43% last year and 22% in 2007.

When asked what their concerns are today, Iraqis sound a lot like Americans: Jobs and prices are at the top of their list — not war, not security, not terrorism.

In short, it sounds like we not only won the war, but the peace as well. And for those who cast a skeptical eye on the idea that any Islamic country could ever be democratized, it turns out the former President Bush is winning that debate too.

With President Obama in the middle of withdrawing troops from Iraq on a schedule that looks suspiciously identical to the one that Bush had in place, it’s safe to say that Obama increasingly sees the wisdom of what his predecessor tried to do in Iraq.

Maybe the rest of us should as well.

It’s become de rigueur to deride Bush’s “failed” policies in Iraq. No one speaks well of them — except, maybe, Iraqis.

But here are the facts, stark as they are: During his vicious 20-year reign, Saddam Hussein — remember him? — killed an estimated 5% of Iraq’s population. That works out to about 5,000 people a month slaughtered by the regime.

You might disagree that Bush was right to depose this murderous thug. But in doing so, you would then have to defend the deaths of thousands of innocents.

For those who say Bush went to war in Iraq under false pretenses — you know, “Bush lied, people died” — there’s this: He made a lengthy, nuanced defense of his decision to get rid of Saddam. It was reflected in Congress’ own resolution in late 2002, which cited 23 reasons for removing Saddam from power.

The ideas that it was all about oil or that Congress was bamboozled on WMD are both false.

Bush, Congress and our foreign allies all saw the same intelligence, and all came to the same conclusion: Saddam had a nuclear weapons program, and intended to build one as soon as he was able. That was, and remained, true.

After being bashed relentlessly in the media and on the campaign trail, President Bush left the White House with his approval ratings low and little, except his dignity, intact.

If he is to have a Truman-like reprieve in the public eye, it will surely come as we all start to realize that on Iraq, contrary to popular and elite opinion, Bush got it right. Mission accomplished.

Cartoon: Being Like Pelosi

Mecca is Toast

People in a Beirut, Lebanon, suburb listen to Hezbollah leader Sheik Hassan Nasrallah, who appears on a giant screen. Speaking from a secret location, Nasrallah marked the Islamic prophet Muhammed’s birthday Friday by telling Hezbollah supporters that “we, our children and our offspring will never be able to recognize Israel. We are capable of defeating this entity and can make it disappear.”

Maybe Israel should say: Try it and Mecca is Toast

Night Launch – Shuttle Discovery

North Korea Tees Up A Test For SDI

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | Posted Friday, March 13, 2009 4:20 PM PT

Missile Defense: Japan says it may shoot down North Korea’s upcoming “satellite” launch if it gets too close, and a key U.S. commander says he’s prepared to do the same should President Obama give the order. Will he?

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Read More: East Asia & Pacific | Military & Defense

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It has become the mantra of this administration that a good crisis is a terrible thing to waste. It was first spoken by White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel and echoed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. North Korea’s imminent launch of a “satellite” may be just such a crisis.

We put “satellite” in quotes because we sincerely doubt Pyongyang is interested in the peaceful exploration of space. Why does a nation that starves millions of its citizens need a communications satellite in a land without cell phones?

A map provided by North Korea and showing “danger areas” for rocket launches was displayed Friday at the Foreign Ministry office in Seoul.

Yes, it could be a symbol of prestige. But more importantly, as with Iran’s first indigenous satellite, Omid (Hope), it’s a sign of the ability to deliver a nuclear warhead anywhere on this planet. North Korea is a nuclear power. Iran soon will be.

Japan has been keenly aware of the North Korean missile threat at least since North Korea test-fired a Taepodong ICBM, which flew over the Japanese home islands in 1998. Without any warning. In July 2006, North Korea launched a volley of seven North Korean Scuds and Nodongs into the Sea of Japan.

Japan has since been an active partner in our development of missile defenses and has a number of Aegis destroyers equipped with the U.S.-designed Standard Missile-3 antimissile system like the one that recently — and successfully — shot down a dying spy satellite as it fell to earth.

Japan jointly produces the Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) antimissile missiles and has deployed them at bases around Tokyo. One of our early-warning phased array radar sites is located at a Japanese Self Defense Force base in the northern Japanese city of Tsugaru to warn of North Korean missile launches.

On Friday, Japan announced that it reserved the right to destroy any threatening missile in midflight, including the North Korean launch scheduled between April 4 and April 8. The missile boosters are expected to fall an uncomfortable 75 miles from Japan’s northwest coast.

“Under our law, we can intercept any object if it is falling towards Japan, including any attacks on Japan, for our security,” Takeo Kawamura, the chief cabinet secretary, told reporters.

Thanks to the vision of President Reagan, who launched the Strategic Defense Initiative in 1983, and the follow-through of President George W. Bush, who withdrew us from the nonsensical ABM treaty, President Obama has the option to shoot down any such launch.

Gen. Trey Obering III, former Missile Defense Agency chief, has said that after dozens of successful missile intercepts, “Our testing has shown not only can we hit a bullet with a bullet, we can hit a spot on a bullet with a bullet.”

“If a missile leaves the launch pad, we’ll be prepared to respond upon the direction of the president,” Adm. Timothy Keating, head of the U.S. Pacific Commands, told ABC News on Feb. 26. “It’s a fairly stern test early of President Obama and his administration,” he also noted.

President Obama has said he would not invest more money in “unproven” missile defense. He has also expressed a willingness to trade away missile defense sites in Poland and the Czech Republic aimed at Iranian Shahab and Safir missiles.

This would be a perfect time to put our missile defenses to the ultimate test and at the same time send a message to nuclear-armed thugs that if they shoot, we’ll shoot back. After all, a crisis is a terrible thing to waste.

Harassing A Lawman

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 16 March 2009

Immigration: At a time when our border is becoming a war zone, something’s a bit suspect about the Justice Department suddenly harassing a border-state sheriff who zealously enforces the law.

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Read More: Latin America & Caribbean

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Last Tuesday, the Justice Department notified Joe Arpaio, the top lawman in Maricopa County, Ariz., including Phoenix, that his department is under investigation for “patterns” of discriminatory police practices and unconstitutional searches and seizures. The letter offered zero specifics.

But we’d guess those specifics closely match the radical agenda of community organizers like La Raza, ACORN and other government-funded immigration lobbyists, all of whom launched a coordinated campaign “message” at about the same time.

Arpaio: Least of our worries?

Congress, meanwhile, has a witch hunt of its own going against Arpaio that popped up about the same time. This too is strange, because Arpaio has been at it since 1993 and hasn’t changed a bit.

Sure, like Rush Limbaugh, Arpaio’s an easy target. He’s bombastic and carries out his duties with gusto. That’s why he’s popular with Arizona voters and a target of open-border activists.

We trust that Sheriff Arpaio is more than able to defend himself against these vague allegations. But to go after him at a time like this also strikes us as being an egregiously misplaced priority.

As everyone knows, there’s a war coming up from Mexico that is fast spilling over into the United States. Arpaio’s Phoenix now has the second-highest kidnapping rate in the world. It’s a war all right, linked to the very smuggling crimes that Arpaio is fighting.

Going after him now sends a disturbing message about U.S. priorities to Mexico’s organized criminals. They’ll profit from an enfeebled law enforcement effort in that state, which is what this Justice bid would do.

Arpaio’s department is the largest participant in the 287(g) federal program that lets local police departments help enforce federal immigration laws. His deputies cooperate with federal agencies, such as Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), that break up smuggling rings. Since 2006, Arpaio has handed over 22,616 illegal immigrants to Immigration for deportation.

Maricopa deputies have also cracked down on those who ship illegal immigrants to sweatshops and other slave settings — scooping up 1,250 of them. The deputies enforce federal law as well by turning in illegal immigrants who commit other crimes — about 1,582 in all.

While Arpaio annoys the illegal immigration lobby, he frightens Mexico’s smugglers and cuts into their business. The reality is that by going after him with lawsuits, smugglers get a very big obstacle to their U.S. operations removed.

Make no mistake: The violent criminal enterprises Mexico is fighting are the same ones smuggling meth, cocaine and illegal immigrants.

At best, whoever wants Joe in jail over civil rights violations doesn’t think the laws Arpaio struggles to enforce are as important as satisfying special interest groups.

It amounts to politics at the expense of national security. And wittingly or not, it does the cartels’ bidding. Using the fig leaf of “human rights violations” to defang the cops is something Medellin cartel cocaine kingpin Pablo Escobar pioneered at the height of his power in the early 1990s. It ought to be seen for the ruse that it is.

Wealth Connection

By INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY | 16 March 2009

Economy: The Federal Reserve last week announced that Americans’ net worth took an $11.2 trillion hit in 2008 — the biggest on record. Some might say, “Why care? It’s ancient history.” But we should care. A lot.

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Read More: Economy

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The recent economic and budget news has included so many gargantuan numbers — many in the trillions — that we’re in danger of becoming a bit jaded by them. In such company, the wealth shrinkage might seem benign by comparison. It isn’t.

Net worth — basically, the value of everything you own minus the debt you took on to buy it — plunged 9% from 2007’s $64.4 trillion to $51.5 trillion last year. In the fourth quarter alone, Americans lost $5.1 trillion in wealth. Both are records.

This is more than just a paper reduction in wealth. Such a big shift affects our behavior, making us less prone to take risks, less able to borrow, less able to spend and more anxious about the economy.

This is known as the “wealth effect.” When wealth rises, we spend more; when it falls, we spend less. For each $1 change in wealth, spending changes by 5 cents or so, economists say.

Across the economy, such impacts can be enormous. An $11.2 trillion drop in national wealth, for instance, translates into a $560 billion drop in spending — about $1,963 for every American.

This is why economists worry about net worth. If we don’t do something about stemming the decline in wealth and encouraging wealth accumulation, our economy will continue to struggle.

They may be on to this at the White House, where there’s been a decided shift in tone away from the expressions of doom and gloom common in the initial weeks of Barack Obama’s presidency.

On Friday, for instance, President Obama told Americans the economy is “not as bad as we think,” and that he was “highly optimistic” about things in the long run. Compare that with his statement of early February, when he called the economic crisis “as deep and dire as any since the days of the Great Depression.”

His Treasury secretary, Lawrence Summers, who isn’t exactly known as Mr. Sunshine, had this to say last week: “Before, we had too much greed and too little fear. Now, we have too much fear and too little greed.” And, for the record, he said he already sees “modestly encouraging” signs of success.

Maybe it’s dawned on them that fear and worry are two of the biggest enemies of wealth. People will only invest, and push up prices of assets such as stocks, bonds and real estate, when they feel comfortable about the future and its prospects. It’s called optimism.

We’ve heard this before, of course. FDR said, “The only thing we have to fear is fear itself.” The problem is, people do have many things to fear — especially bad policies that will drag stock and home prices down even more, further eroding wealth.

We’re glad to see a change in the administration’s tone. But wealth will start to grow again only when policies change to include lower taxes on income and capital, much less government spending and far fewer regulations.

This would make all assets in America more profitable and therefore more valuable — the essence of wealth.

Cartoon: Double talk BHO

Coral Ridge Selects New Pastor

The members of Coral Ridge voted overwhelmingly to call Rev. William Graham Tullian Tchividjian to serve as senior minister. They also agreed to merge New City Presbyterian Church into our congregation and elected its officers to serve us.

http://www.crpc.org

OFFICIAL PRESS RELEASE:

Dear Friends,

Below is the official press release regarding the merger. Jane Rohman and Associates (who have been hired by my publisher to do PR for my forthcoming book) was kind enough to draft this statement. To those who may have questions, point them here. This statement is both official and authorized.

Tullian

Monday, March 16, 2009, Ft. Lauderdale, Florida─After an exhaustive due diligence process and with the overwhelming support of church members and governing boards, Tullian Tchividjian, 36, has accepted the call to serve as senior pastor at South Florida’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church. In doing so, the church of 650 people which Tchividjian founded 5 ½ years ago just outside of Ft. Lauderdale, Florida will merge with the 2,200-member Coral Ridge church founded in 1960. Tchividjian is only the second pastor in Coral Ridge’s history. Its founder Rev. D. James Kennedy pastored for 47 years and died in September of 2007 at the age of 76.

Yesterday Tchividjian preached to a full house at a combined worship service at Coral Ridge. Following the worship service, the members of Coral Ridge gathered for a congregational meeting and voted with 91% of the congregants accepting their Pulpit Nominating Committee’s invitation for Tchividjian to serve.

“I am honored and deeply humbled by the support and prayers we have received from all over the world as well as this vote and the unanimous vote of over 30 elders from both churches last week. I look forward to our future together,” says Tchividjian. He adds, “I consider it a great and high honor to follow such a giant in the faith. As different as some may think Dr. Kennedy and I are, our theological commitments are the same and our hearts beat with the same driving passion. Indeed, what he came to do in the 1950s—reach the people of south Florida with the Gospel and transform the world—is exactly what I have been seeking to do ever since I moved back home to start New City in 2003.”

For Tchividjian, it’s “a moment filled with irony and God’s unmistakable hand.” Growing up in South Florida and attending Coral Ridge with his family, Tchividjian was just under two years old when his grandfather Billy Graham preached the dedication sermon for the church sanctuary in 1974. He also attended and dropped out of the church’s school, Westminster Academy, at age 16, leaving school and home for the pleasure saturated streets of South Florida. After God saved him at age 21, Tchividjian graduated from college and seminary with honors. After a short two-year stint at a large Presbyterian church in Tennessee, Tchividjian moved back home to launch New City Presbyterian Church, only 12 miles away. Over the years, however, he has maintained a good relationship with Coral Ridge, hosting a weekly show on the church’s radio station, WAFG-FM 90.3, and speaking at both the church from time to time and his former alma mater, Westminster Academy.

And what does his grandfather think about the news? “He’s always been a huge supporter of whatever I’ve done, but this was especially exciting to him given the relationship he had with Dr. Kennedy over the years and his firm belief that Coral Ridge remains a beacon of light for the Gospel in South Florida and beyond. He couldn’t be more excited.”

In the coming months, Tchividjian’s focus will be on getting to know new people and working on making the transition as smooth as possible for everyone. “As we continue to move in this direction, I am exhorting members of both churches to ask God even now to be preparing you for one another. As elders, we all talked about the coming together of these two churches as being a marriage. One is not acquiring the other. And one of the elders from Coral Ridge said (and it was very well received) that the unity candle in a marriage ceremony is a great picture of what God seems to be doing here. No more us and them; them and us. Rather, two becoming one.”

The merged churches will operate under Coral Ridge’s existing name and in its current church facility at 5555 N. Federal Hwy, Ft. Lauderdale. “We’re planning for Easter Sunday to be the first Sunday that the one new church is worshipping together,” says Tchividjian. For now, details will be posted on both the Coral Ridge and New City websites. (www.newcityfl.org and www.crpc.org).

The merger will also result in a change of denomination. New City Church, which was a part of the Evangelical Presbyterian Church (EPC), will now become part of Presbyterian Church of America (PCA). “The denominations are both theologically conservative and have maintained a good working relationship over the years,” according to Tchividjian.

Tchividjian has degrees in philosophy from Columbia International University in South Carolina, and in divinity at Reformed Theological Seminary in Orlando.

He has written two books published by Multnomah Books in Colorado Springs, a division of Random House: Do I Know God? Finding Certainty in Life’s Most Important Relationship, and Unfashionable: Making a Difference in the World by Being Different, due out April 21.

He and his wife, Kim, have three children—Gabe, Nate, and Genna.

Jane Rohman, 413-848-1407, jr@janerohman.com

PS- Here’s a well written story on the whole thing.

MORE NEWS:

illy Graham grandson to lead famed megachurch

By MATT SEDENSKY

Associated Press Writer

A widely-known megachurch founded by an architect of the religious right
and seen as a national political force selected a grandson of Billy
Graham on Sunday as its new leader.

The overwhelming vote by congregants at Coral Ridge Presbyterian in Fort
Lauderdale to appoint the Rev. Tullian Tchividjian could represent a
softening of the message spread by the Rev. D. James Kennedy, who was
pastor at the church until his death in September 2007.

Kennedy’s preaching against homosexuality and abortion made him one of
evangelical Christianity’s most divisive figures, and he worked to
inject his faith in all aspects of public life and the political
process, like allies the Rev. Pat Robertson and the Rev. Jerry Falwell.

Tchividjian insists he holds the same theological positions of Kennedy,
but he cuts a far different image.

His hair is spiky, his beard sometimes scruffy, his skin tan. He offers
a classic prodigal son story of youthful forays into drugs and sex, then
his return to the fold. He has said he wants people to know what
Christians are for as much as what they are against, and has rejected
the idea that politics is the most important way to change the country.

“I think that politics is one strategic area of cultural engagement,” he
said Sunday. “But I also think that the sphere of art and the sphere of
education and the sphere of media and technology are also strategic.”

Tchividjian, 36, is the middle of seven children born to Stephan
Tchividjian and Graham’s eldest daughter, Gigi. He attended Coral Ridge
- where Graham delivered the dedication ceremony – and its adjacent
school as a young man, but at 16 he dropped out, spending the next five
years partying on South Beach, seeking the company of women and getting
high.

He says he eventually bottomed out, recommitting to Christ and then
joining the seminary and becoming a minister. He started a church of his
own, New City Presbyterian, which will merge with Coral Ridge under his
appointment. Tchividjian expects the two churches to formally come
together on Easter Sunday.

Coral Ridge claims thousands of members and its founding in 1959 marked
the creation of what would become one of the country’s first
megachurches. Based in a liberal, Democratic city, it is known as a
fiercely conservative voice on divisive social issues.

Its radio and TV outreach arm, Coral Ridge Ministries, has beamed
Kennedy’s message around the world, though Tchividjian says he will not
oversee that operation.

Tchividjian says he is honored to follow a “giant in the faith” at Coral
Ridge, but acknowledges he might look different.

“I think that at first glance it would seem that he and I were very
different people. But what I’ve discovered in this process is that we
have more similarities than differences,” he said. “He was a man of his
time and I’m a man of mine.”

Fort Lauderdale church voters give nod to evangelist’s grandson

Members of Fort Lauderdale’s Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church voted for
William Graham Tullian Tchividjian, the 36-year-old grandson of
evangelist Billy Graham, to become their new pastor by a 91 percent
margin on Sunday afternoon.

The move is expected to usher in a new era at the conservative
megachurch started by D. James Kennedy, the notable Moral Majority
member who influenced politics from the pulpit and died in September 2007.

Church leaders had vetted more than 150 candidates in a 1 ½-year search
and announced in January that they had formally asked Tchividjian,
founder of Margate’s New City Church, to become pastor.

On Sunday, he received a standing ovation as he gave a sermon about his
new role and gave a nod toward his predecessor.

”I consider it a great and high honor to follow such a giant in the
faith. As different as some may think Dr. Kennedy and I are, our
theological commitments are the same and our hearts beat with the same
driving passion,” Tchividjian said in a statement.

Members of Tchividjian’s 650-person church will begin attending services
at Coral Ridge in the coming months as the two churches merge –
boosting Coral Ridge’s membership close to 3,000.

Tchividjian will give his first sermon as pastor on Easter Sunday.

WATER PROJECTS LIKELY TO BEGIN

They’re ready to go, governor says

During a visit to Ypsilanti on Tuesday, Gov. Jennifer Granholm discusses the ways federal stim money could be used to fund drinking water projects around the state, including two projects proposed by the Ypsilanti Community Utilities Authority.  (YCUA)

REMEMBER THAT MICHIGAN IS SURROUNDED BY FRESH WATER LAKES –> not in the middle of a desert.

Commission Urges Taxing Drivers More

By Christopher Conkey

WASHINGTON — The government should make it a lot more expensive for Americans to drive and should install devices in cars that levy a fee for every mile traveled, according to a report being released Thursday by a congressionally chartered commission.

The report lands in the middle of debate over how to pay for roads and other transportation projects and recommends an array of potentially controversial increases in the cost of driving.

Among the proposals: raising the 18.4 cents-a-gallon federal gasoline tax by 10 cents, or 54%, and then indexing future increases to inflation. The study estimates that would cost American households about $9 more a month. The plan also calls for adding 15 cents a gallon to the 24.4 cents-a-gallon tax on diesel fuel.

Longer term, the study calls for shifting away by 2020 from a fuel-tax system to a technology-enabled system that levies taxes based on how many miles people drive.

The Obama administration has expressed opposition to increasing gasoline taxes and to the idea of taxing motorists per mile driven.

The recently passed stimulus bill devotes more than $45 billion to transportation projects, but officials say significant cuts in other transportation funding are in store. Last year, Congress temporarily patched an $8 billion shortfall caused by a slump in fuel-tax revenue after Americans cut back on driving as the economy slowed and fuel prices surged.

The Obama administration has said the current gas-tax structure is becoming obsolete but it hasn’t put forward any fix, saying it will consult with Congress this year before taking action.

“The situation we’re faced with on surface transportation…is complex, difficult and important. … We’re looking at every option,” said Bill Adams a spokesman for Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood. “We’re not going to be ready overnight.”

The bipartisan National Surface Transportation Infrastructure Financing Commission began studying the transportation-funding problem two years ago at the behest of Congressional leaders. Congress often uses such commissions to generate ideas for solving politically touchy problems.

The commission’s report says if current policies aren’t changed, the gas tax and other federal revenue streams will generate about $32 billion annually in the years ahead, far below the $100 billion required to address the nation’s transportation needs.

In addition, the commission says the government should make it easier for states to put tolls on all sorts of roads, including those that are currently free. It also says private interests should be encouraged to invest more in transportation projects.

Private investors are pushing Congress to give businesses a greater role in funding transportation projects, as Australia, Canada and many other countries have. In his confirmation hearing last month, Mr. LaHood signaled interest in allowing private firms to construct or manage more of the nation’s highways and other infrastructure. His spokesman declined to comment directly on the issue Wednesday.

“There’s an awful lot of private-sector money that’s waiting to go into infrastructure,” said Christopher Lee, founder and managing partner of Highstar Capital, a New York-based private-equity firm. Highstar says it has invested $6 billion in ports and other infrastructure over the last two years, including its acquisition of U.S. properties previously owned by Dubai Ports World. “The U.S. could do a better job of accessing that capital.”

Standing In The School House Door

IBD – 5 March 2009

Education: In their rush to spend, the Democratic Congress and White House are funding everything from mice to miscreants. Yet they refuse to fund the futures of underprivileged kids in the capital.

Is this a political payoff to the teachers unions, the groups most threatened by vouchers? How else can the Democrats justify shutting off funds to the only federal school voucher program?

For five years, the D.C. Opportunity Scholarship program has helped low-income students attend the schools of their choice rather than the poorly run, low-performing public schools in the District of Columbia. The program expires in June and will be defunded after the 2009-10 school year if the $410 billion spending package already passed by the House is approved by the Senate and signed by President Obama.

It’s too soon to declare the program an academic success, as it has been in effect for only a short time and no more than 1,900 students have received vouchers in any given school year.

But parents who have used the vouchers — their average income: roughly $22,000 a year — have said they’re happy with it. And taxpayers should be, as well. Somehow the same students that the district school system has been spending more than $24,000 a year on each to educate can get along on vouchers of no more than $7,500.

Trouble is, Democrats, despite their rhetoric, are rarely interested in saving taxpayers money. Indeed, the $789 billion stimulus bill and the $410 billion spending package now in Congress are evidence they rather like spending other people’s money.

They also enjoy spending campaign cash handed out by the teachers unions, which spent more than $5 million on the 2008 election cycle on Democrats, but just $263,000 on Republicans.

Teachers are not the enemy of public schooling. But teachers unions, rarely if ever found in private schools, are.

Parents — as well as the public, which has a strong interest in a well-educated nation — want teachers to be skilled professionals who put out a consistent effort. But unions don’t want their members to be held accountable. They protect poor, lazy and incompetent teachers, and oppose the reforms and innovations that improve education. The unions are hostile to choice (vouchers), charter schools and merit pay for top-performing teachers.

There are union teachers, many of them, who are capable educators that put students first. There’s no arguing, though, that as the influence of teachers unions has increased, the quality of public education has fallen. When membership in the teachers unions began to explode in the early 1960s, student achievement fell into a decline and has not fully recovered. Composite SAT scores, to cite one example, slipped nearly 10% from 1963 to 1981.