What happened to global warming?

Much of the United States has been under a dome of hot air for the past few weeks. While that is about the same time frame as the debt ceiling debate, the hot air from Washington may not be the actual cause for the high temperatures across the U.S. Interestingly, there has not been much discussion on the weather websites about the cause of this hot air dome.

What has been more interesting, and even surprising, is the lack of commentary from global warming alarmists about this prolonged heat, which is breaking records in many areas. According to one weather site, temperatures are averaging about 11 degrees above normal. You would have expected the hue and cry of global warming environmentalists to be heard everywhere. However, hardly a whimper.

There is a reason why that is so. The reason is that the supposed "consensus" among scientists about the proof of global warming is evaporating in the glare of evidence. While the scientists who prepared the global warming computer models used their best information and made their best guesses to predict the behavior of the earth's climate system, their guesses were not correct. According to a study released last week, NASA satellite measurements taken from 2000 to the present indicate that the planet sheds excess heat at a much higher rate than was predicted. It also shows that manmade carbon dioxide is not a major factor in the global climate. Furthermore, this new evidence is apparently supported by data drawn from NASA and NOAA which has been collected from various sources over several decades.

What it boils down to is that the earth really isn't getting warmer as the climate change people predicted, and the data is proving it. The computer models that predicted global warming were wrong, and that is why the science community has suddenly become quiet about it.

Anders Breivik the Christian? Says who?

Before addressing anything else regarding Breivik, it is both necessary and appropriate to express condolences to all those who lost loved ones and to all those who are suffering as a result of Breivik's attacks in Norway.

In some of the media descriptions of Breivik, we are hearing him defined as a "Christian" and "Christian terrorist." It raises an important issue- is he a Christian or not?

The question really turns on how a Christian is defined- or who defines a Christian. The secular or non-Christian world defines a Christian as somebody who had Christian parents, or goes to church, or has been baptized.

That is how Breivik defined himself in his online manifesto, titled 2083: A European Declaration of Independence: "At the age of 15 I chose to be baptised and confirmed in the Norwegian State Church. I consider myself to be 100% Christian."

Jesus, on the other hand, defines a Christian as someone who does the will of the Father. In order to do that, you must be born again, which means that you must be regenerated by the Holy Spirit- you must have a personal relationship with Jesus Christ. Christ gives the two greatest commandments as loving God with all your might, and loving your neighbor as you love yourself. While there are religions that apparently emphasize killing, that was not what Jesus said to do, and while He was zealous in His faith, He never killed anyone.

What did Breivik say about himself? Again quoting his lengthy manifesto, at Section 3.139, in which he discusses the difference between cultural Christians and religious Christians, he says:

"It is not required that you have a personal relationship with God or Jesus in order to fight for our Christian cultural heritage and the European way. In many ways, our modern societies and European secularism is a result of European Christendom and the enlightenment. It is therefore essential to understand the difference between a “Christian fundamentalist theocracy” (everything we do not want) and a secular European society based on our Christian cultural heritage (what we do want). (emphasis in original)
So no, you don’t need to have a personal relationship with God or Jesus to fight for our Christian cultural heritage. It is enough that you are a Christian-agnostic or a Christian-atheist (an atheist who wants to preserve at least the basics of the European Christian cultural legacy (Christian holidays, Christmas and Easter))."

There are those who will call Breivik a Christian. He has been baptized and confirmed in a church, so he meets the world's definition of a "Christian." For his part, he is only interested in the cultural legacy of Christianity in Europe, and has nothing to do with any personal relationship with God. At this point, he does not meet Jesus' definition of a Christian, and he certainly did not act in a Christian manner. Now, no one knows whether this man can or will repent and turn to God before he dies, but right now, he does not meet the Christian definition of Christian.

Obama supports science education

Obama came out in April of 2009 and talked about his strong support for math and science education. He talked about increasing funding for math and science education, new programs and new grants. It seems that with all things Obama, what he says is the opposite of what he does or intends.

My household has three college students heading back to school soon, and we are looking at the bill from the university. The university has been involved in substantial improvements in its sports facilities, so it is no surprise that it has significantly increased every part of its fees and tuition.

What also unpleasantly surprised us, however, is the disappearance of the SMART grants for third and fourth year students in the field of science or math, and of the Academic Competitiveness Grant for first and second year students. These two grant programs were aimed directly at aiding students working to get higher level technical degrees of the type Obama says he wants to support. Both of these programs quietly disappeared from the Department of Education.

Now, it may be that since the Democrats spent trillions without bothering to make a budget last year, the DOE didn't think it had authorization to fund these grants- that's the easy answer. However, it is more likely that the Democrats didn't fund these programs because in spite of what they say, they don't support this type of education and would prefer to have this type of work done overseas. Whatever the reason, getting your family's college students through science and math programs just got a lot more expensive for American families.

Right to Bear Arms?- Watch your back!

As with all things Obama, watch your back- it's what the media isn't talking about that you need to pay attention to. Right now, the Nobel Prize winning world citizen and constitutional scholar, and his minions, are working hard behind the scenes to gut the Second Amendment.

The arms control folks at the United Nations have been working on a new treaty called the Arms Trade Treaty, and they are trying hard to get it ready to present in 2012. That puts it in front of the Senate in an election year, when the liberal leaders of the Senate may be anxious to prove to their constituency that they are acting on the concerns of their base. The liberal base does not boast a great number of gun enthusiasts.

You may also hear this referred to as the Small Arms Treaty, but its scope really goes beyond that, as it regulates the sale and transfer of all conventional weapons and ammunition. "Conventional" means any non-nuclear weapon, from aircraft carriers all the way down to little .22 caliber pistols one might use to plink cans with. In its implementation, this treaty could become the excuse the UN is seeking to control the arms of any compliant military. China and Russia now seem to be onboard with this treaty, so one wonders what they will interpret "compliant" to mean.

Proponents of the treaty claim that they intend to set international standards for the weapons trade, and they only want to control illegal weapons trade. However, this treaty may well allow the UN to define what is legal, and the left-leaning globalists at the UN may not care much about some supposed "right" to keep and bear arms under the U.S. Constitution. Besides that, there is also a question of whether the illegal trade can be controlled if the legal trade is not also.

No treaty like this should be acceptable to any American; should it come before the Senate, it should be rejected. Even if you are an ardent supporter of gun control, you should not be in favor of end-running the Constitutional rights of Americans. If a treaty can be used to gut the Second Amendment, another treaty can be used to gut other rights as well. All American's rights are jeopardized and weakened if treaties can bypass our Constitution.

Dear Mr. Navarette

In your July 21, 2011, commentary on CNN (Immigrants, don't boo U.S. teams), it looked like you got it. But in the end, you missed it.

Like you, I am the child of immigrants. I am not "native American," a term which refers to tribes of peoples who emigrated to North America in an earlier era, and probably dispossessed those who had emigrated still earlier.

Unlike you, I am not Mexican-American, or American-Mexican. I am also not German-American, Scottish-American, Swiss-American, or African-American. I am AMERICAN; I am not hypenated, and neither should you be. Obviously, that's not to say you should forget your family heritage, but that ridiculous hyphen implies that you have grounds for divided loyalty to your country or that those who don't share your particular heritage are second-class citizens.

Now, you often suggest that the conservative cultural right holds an anti-immmigrant bias and is bigoted against Mexicans. After all, it seems to be a cornerstone of liberal belief that you hate people you disagree with, because they hate you if they disagree with you. And it is true that there are bigots. Yes, in both parties and in every political quadrant, but bigotry is not a cornerstone of conservativism. I don't hate you, even if I hate your ideas, and I do most certainly hope to change your mind.

Conservatives are bigoted, if that is the correct word, against "illegal." I recently saw an article stating that many are coming illegally from India. I have met people from India, one of whom was my instructor in college, a bright and able man, and I don't hate them, but I want that illegal inflow stopped. I also do know illegal aliens from Mexico. Some hardworking and loyal to the U.S. The others, well, not so much, I think. They remain loyal to Mexico. Oh, yes, they love the things they get here; thousands of dollars per year in government aid for most families (over $19,000 according to Kansas's Mr. Kobach) and tax-free income (file taxes? if they do, they forfeit all that free aid, and if they don't, the IRS can't find them and wouldn't waste money prosecuting for deportation if they could.) And they can easily get jobs. Their background can hardly be checked, and they can buddy up to split jobs and keep the effective wage well below the minimum wage employers must pay legal employees.

The problem is that you are not supporting Mexicans, and you are not supporting America. You support illegal. That is what falls flat to the law-abiding, tax-paying, hard-working American. We are all for immigration; virtually all Americans are immigrants, and we recognize the value of immigration. But you support illegal. That rankles against the "law-abiding" part of conservative values. It's not that we are all perfect, but we intend to obey the law, whereas illegal aliens by definition are illegal. I do realize that many of the illegal aliens come from countries where poverty is endemic and rights are suppressed, but if their heart is truly in their country, they owe it to their country to fix their country.

You see, you are not quite correct in saying that the Mexican immigrants of today are different. Immigrants from Mexico, like any other immigrants, followed the rules and worked to come here legally because they sought to be Americans. Illegal aliens, from whatever country, did not. Pasting the label immigrant on illegal aliens does not make it so. As you have now seen, many have come to grab whatever money and benefits they can get; they are not here to be Americans.

Republican position on debt ceiling a bust?

According to a Quinnipiac University poll quoted on CNN Money, Americans are just dying for higher taxes and more spending and borrowing. It seems odd how unbiased polls by these liberal university folks always come out in the nick of time to support the pet positions of their liberals in office.

If you want to know what other polls have found, you might be interested also in two Gallup polls, one in May, and one taken July 12, which found that about 20 percent, give or take a percent or two, of Americans support any debt ceiling increase of any kind.

Decide for yourself whether you can afford to pay back the trillions the debt ceiling represents. How much money should your children owe?

No Social Security Benefits, Mr. Obama?

President Obama has warned the public that Social Security benefits may not be paid in August if he doesn't get the trillion dollar tax increase he is asking for in the debt ceiling negotiations. That isn't quite how he said it, but that is what he means. His deficit reduction plan calls for a trillion dollar revenue enhancement and increased government spending. Democrats have also talked about borrowing for a possible new and larger government stimulus program to enhance the economy and improve the jobless rate. Their last stimulus, they say, might not have been large enough, since the jobless rate went up instead of down.

The Social Security Administration isn't really supposed to be part of the general Treasury fund of the United States. Under the Social Security Act of 1935, the Treasury was required in Section 201(a) to set up a separate fund called the "Old-Age Reserve Account" and that account was separately managed by a Social Security Board (Section 701). The funds are managed like a trust, and the law requires that those funds be used to pay benefits first and then invested. As I understand it, excess receipts of social security taxes have traditionally been "invested" into general revenue funds of the federal government. Most administrations, with the apparent exception of the Clinton administration, have recognized that the funds borrowed from Social Security count as part of the outstanding debt owed by the federal government.

In other words, it is illegal for the President to interfere with social security benefits. By law, they must be paid out of the social security fund. It is illegal for the President to directly access or control social security funds. By law, that fund is not part of the general treasury funds included in the federal budget.

The real question is whether that great constitutional lawyer Obama is utilizing this "threat" as a scare tactic, or whether he will proceed illegally as he has done in other matters and fraudulently order the payments withheld.

It's a real concern, because there would be little chance of recourse for defrauded social security beneficiaries in any federal court. Most judges are graduates of our liberal law schools and won't allow actions against the government when liberal causes are at stake, and even if a judge does rule against the administration, the Obama administration has shown a notable contempt for court orders it disagrees with.

Do the Lord's Work, Mr. Rangel?

Rep. Rangel recently held a press conference in which he highlighted the entitlement programs for the poor and vulnerable members of society. Mr. Rangel opined that the question of raising the debt ceiling is a moral issue, and he suggested that the Congress should "do the Lord's Work." He also asks pastors and leaders from all faiths to consider "What would Jesus do?, or Moses, or Allah, or anyone else?" From a diehard liberal member of the party bent on importing the Socialist maxim of Separation of Church and State, that is a curious if not totally hypocritical position. Especially from a Congressman who wants to increase debt and taxes, but cheats on taxes himself.

As an aside, I must say that I am aware of Jefferson's letter to the Danbury Baptist Church. The U.S. Supreme Court decision which inverted the language of that letter to mean not that the church was protected from the state, but that the state was protected from the church came centuries after that letter was written. No early court ever considered Jefferson's letter to mean protection for the state from the church; that interpretation comes from the Soviet Constitution.

So is Mr. Rangel correct? In a religion such as Islam, where the government is clearly subject to and controlled by the religious leaders, then yes.

America, however, is historically not Muslim, but Christian. Of course, it is the obligation of the government to make fair and moral laws, but If Mr. Rangel is referring to the care of the poor and vulnerable, the answer of both the Christian and the traditional American is clearly no, this is not the job of the government. Liberals and unbelievers will loudly proclaim that this shows a hypocritical and uncaring attitude, but that is, I suggest, a deliberate lie. The Bible teaches that it has always been the obligation of believers to care for the poor and vulnerable through the church; it is not a government function.

Mr. Rangel and his liberal ilk cannot recognize the legitimate functions of American government, and that explains why our "fearless leaders" (public servants) have so much trouble making laws which are fair and moral rather than power-grabbing and self-enriching. Remember, Mr. Rangel, in the words of our Second President, John Adams, "Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other."

As for the debt, Mr. Rangel would be well advised to remember his Hamlet: "Neither a borrower nor a lender be."

Misrepresented American History

A good example of how American history is, I believe, being misrepresented to the American Public may be found in an article by Kenneth C. Davis on CNN. Mr. Davis joins those commentators, and, I suspect, public school textbook authors, who work hard to promote the idea that the United States is not and never was a Christian nation.

If the United States is not now a Christian nation, it certainly was when founded. In support of that conclusion, I will direct you to no less an authority than the United States Supreme Court. Church of the Holy Trinity v. United States, 143 U.S. 457 et. seq. (1892), "Our laws 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." (emphasis added) The Court also noted that, "[w]hile because of a general recognition of this truth that question has seldom been presented to the courts, yet we find that in Updegraph vs. the Commonwealth, it was decided that, Christianity, general Christianity, is, and always has been, a part of the common law...." Please note that the common law is that body of law which consists of the decisions of the Courts.

Mr. Davis gives three examples which ostensibly prove his point. First, a letter from President Washington. Well, what about the 1790 letter of Washington? It is important to avoid grafting 2011 meanings onto 1790 words. No doubt President Washington believed in tolerance; he would have abhorred the idea of the censorship of free speech that is styled "hate speech." As for liberty of conscience, he no doubt firmly held that no one could be forced to accept any religion. In the same vein, he would never have accepted or even entertained the idea that those ostensibly "offended" by the prevailing religious beliefs could go to Court to have those beliefs excluded from the public arena. Washington's first official act was to call for a day of prayer, "It would be peculiarly improper to omit, in this first official act, my fervent supplication to that Almighty Being who rules over the universe....", while his farewell speech pointed out that, "[o]f all the dispositions and habits which lead to political prosperity, religion and morality are indispensible supports. In vain would that man claim the tribute of patriotism who should labour to subvert these great pillars of human happiness...."

Then, of course, there is the liberal staple, the January, 1802, letter of Mr. Jefferson to the Danbury Baptists, which Mr. Davis suggests, "adds" the concept of separation of church and state. Unfortunately for Mr. Davis' case, he correctly quotes the letter. The letter is not a legal document, nor does it in any way suggest that the state is protected from the church. On the contrary, the letter is addressed to the church, and highlights the fact that the language of the First Amendment protects the church from the state, and not vice versa. It was only by a tortured construction of the letter that a later U.S. Supreme Court was able to infer that the letter proved an intent to protect the state from the church, especially since other documents from the period fly in the face of that claim as attested by earlier Supreme Court decisions.

This leaves only the powerful and overriding language of Article 11 of the well-known 1797 Treaty of Tripoli to expose the secular roots of the United States. This Treaty was made with Muslims who had been committing acts of piracy against ships of the United States. Muslim nations operating under Shari'a Law hardly identify with the concept of church and state as separate entities, so it is entirely conceivable that the qualification that the government was not founded on Christianity was included as little more than clarification of the existence of separate entities. After all, while much is made of the fact that John Adams signed the document, President John Adams also said, "The general principles on which the fathers achieved independence were. . . . the general principles of Christianity. . . . I will avow that I then believed, and now believe, that those general principles of Christianity are as eternal and immutable as the existence and attributes of God; and that those principles of liberty are as unalterable as human nature." Hardly a resounding repudiation of America's Christian roots. Likewise, it is also possible that the functionary that included the language simply did so for political accomodation with the Muslims.

So far, a reasonable and factual examination of the roots of America shows pretty clearly that the "Sunday School" version is the accurate version, as opposed to the story of history invented by those with an agenda. The agenda version of history seems to be just about as accurate as Mr. Gore's "inconvenient truths." However, the agenda version is what your children are probably being taught in school.

One final word from the United States Supreme Court, again from the Holy Trinity decision. The Court, after noting specific examples out of the thousands of pages examined by the Court, went on to say, "These, and many other matters which might be noticed, add a volume of unofficial declarations to the mass of organic (official) utterances that this is a Christian nation...." If you have been taught otherwise, you have been the victim of misrepresented American history. In other words, you have been lied to.

A Bogus Argument on Public Debt

Mr. Garrett Epps, writing for the Atlantic, has proposed the idea that the Republican's failure to raise the U.S. public debt ceiling is a violation of the 14th Amendment to the Constitution. He argues that the failure would cause the creditworthiness of the U.S., and thus, its debt, to be questioned, violating Section 4 of the Amendment, which says, "[t]he validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned."

Mr. Epps notes that he is not an economist, but is a Constitutional lawyer. As such, he is, in my opinion, a suitable representative of that group of individuals who have twisted and misused the Constitution and the Courts to bring the U.S. down to the condition we find it in today- the Courts, for example, threw out of the public arena the Bible on which the principles underlying our government were based, for fear, they said, that people would follow those principles (don't kill, don't steal, no sex outside the marriage of a man and woman, and so forth). As a result, we see flash mobs killing and stealing, abortuaries killing children, and immoral lifestyles being promoted as choices. Good for legal business, I suppose, but not for the nation.

The entire public debt dispute is an issue precisely because the Republicans in fact do not question the validity of the public debt; they assume it will actually have to be repaid. The Democrats have borrowed and spent money in the last budget year without even bothering to prepare a budget to support that borrowing.

That said, the debt limit dispute is not about the validity of the debt. It's about the acquisition of debt, on which the Constitution says nothing, except that public debt must be authorized by law. Thus, this is a bogus argument. Congress has passed a law which states how much debt is authorized. The question is whether Congress will authorize more debt, or whether the government's spending can be reined in.