Ronald Wilson Reagan (Part 82) (1981 Orsini McArthur murder case Part 6)

Picture of Nancy and Ronald Reagan at the Stork Club in New York City.
(Picture from the Ronald Reagan Library)

Ronald Reagan and Nancy Reagan at the “Stork Club” in New York City. (Early 1950s)

From Oct. 28, 1980, here is part 2 of the Carter-Reagan Presidential Debate, as taped from CBS. Amazing how things have changed…and yet stayed the same…in almost 30 years!!!
 
I never imagined that I would be posting Ronald Wilson Reagan part 82 today when I first started it around Feb 6 which was Reagan’s 100th birthday, but the response has been so overwhelming that I must keep this series going. Just today I saw a clip called “The Reagan Revolution” which is a cartoon that teaches kids about our past history. Jason Tolbert reported that Mike Huckabee is involved in putting this series together and I like the idea a lot.
 
Oct 21, 1984 Presidential Debate President Reagan v. Walter Mondale

Eastern Europe

MR. KALB: A related question, Mr. Mondale, on Eastern Europe. Do you accept the conventional diplomatic wisdom that Eastern Europe is a Soviet sphere of influence? And if you do, what could a Mondale administration realistically do to help the people of Eastern Europe achieve the human rights that were guaranteed to them as a result of the Helsinki accords?

MR. MONDALE: I think the essential strategy of the United States ought not accept any Soviet control over Eastern Europe. We ought to deal with each of these countries separately. We ought to pursue strategies with each of them, economic and the rest, that help them pull away from their dependence upon the Soviet Union.

Where the Soviet Union has acted irresponsibly, as they have in many of those countries, especially, recently, in Poland, I believe we ought to insist that Western credits extended to the Soviet Union bear the market rate. Make the Soviets pay for their irresponsibility. That is a very important objective — to make certain that we continue to look forward to progress toward greater independence by these nations and work with each of them separately.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. President, your rebuttal.

THE PRESIDENT: Yes. I’m not going to continue trying to respond to these repetitions of the falsehoods that have already been stated here. But with regard to whether Mr. Mondale would be strong, as he said he would be, I know that he has a commercial out where he’s appearing on the deck of the Nimitz and watching the F – 14’s take off. And that’s an image of strength — except that if he had had his way when the Nimitz was being planned, he would have been deep in the water out there because there wouldn’t have been any Nimitz to stand on — he was against it. [Laughter]

He was against the F – 14 fighter, he was against the M – 1 tank, he was against the B – 1 bomber, he wanted to cut the salary of all of the military, he wanted to bring home half of the American forces in Europe. And he has a record of weakness with regard to our national defense that is second to none.

AUDIENCE MEMBER: Hear, hear!

THE PRESIDENT: Indeed, he was on that side virtually throughout all his years in the Senate. And he opposed even President Carter, when toward the end of his term President Carter wanted to increase the defense budget.

MR. NEWMAN: Mr. Mondale, your rebuttal.

MR. MONDALE: Mr. President, I accept your commitment to peace, but I want you to accept my commitment to a strong national defense. [Applause] I propose a budget — I have proposed a budget which would increase our nation’s strength, in real terms, by double that of the Soviet Union.

I’ll tell you where we disagree. It is true over 10 years ago I voted to delay production of the F – 14, and I’ll tell you why. The plane wasn’t flying the way it was supposed to be; it was a waste of money.

Your definition of national strength is to throw money at the Defense Department. My definition of national strength is to make certain that a dollar spent buys us a dollar’s worth of defense. There’s a big difference between the two of us. A President must manage that budget. I will keep us strong, but you’ll not do that unless you command that budget and make certain we get the strength that we need. You pay $500 for a $5 hammer, you’re not buying strength.

MR. NEWMAN: I would ask the audience not to applaud. All it does is take up time that we would like to devote to the debate.

Mr. Kondracke, your question to Mr. Mondale.
Use of Military Force

MR. KONDRACKE: Mr. Mondale, in an address earlier this year you said that before this country resorts to military force, and I’m quoting, “American interests should be sharply defined, publicly supported, congressionally sanctioned, militarily feasible, internationally defensible, open to independent scrutiny, and alert to regional history.” Now, aren’t you setting up such a gauntlet of tests here that adversaries could easily suspect that as President you would never use force to protect American interests?

MR. MONDALE: No. As a matter of fact, I believe every one of those standards is essential to the exercise of power by this country. And we can see that in both Lebanon and in Central America.

In Lebanon, this President exercised American power, all right, but the management of it was such that our marines were killed, we had to leave in humiliation, the Soviet Union became stronger, terrorists became emboldened. And it was because they did not think through how power should be exercised, did not have the American public with them on a plan that worked, that we ended up the way we did.

Similarly, in Central America: What we’re doing in Nicaragua with this covert war — which the Congress, including many Republicans, have tried to stop — is finally end up with a public definition of American power that hurts us, where we get associated with political assassins and the rest. We have to decline, for the first time in modern history, jurisdiction in the World Court because they’ll find us guilty of illegal actions. And our enemies are strengthened from all of this.

We need to be strong, we need to be prepared to use that strength, but we must understand that we are a democracy. We are a government by the people, and when we move, it should be for very severe and extreme reasons that serve our national interests and end up with a stronger country behind us. It is only in that way that we can persevere.

It has been 150 years since the beginning of the Civil War that started in April of 1861 at Ft Sumter.

Siege of Petersburg

1865

Soldiers in the trenches before battle, Petersburg, Va., 1865.

Photograph Courtesy of the National Archives & Records

__________________________________

 

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Mary Lee Orsini

 
On July 2, 1982, in the late afternoon, the victim was found shot to death in her western Little Rock home. That afternoon at about 4:20 p.m., a neighbor saw a car with no license plate and with a homemade delivery sign in the window pull into the victim’s driveway. She observed a black man, carrying flowers, emerge from the car and hand the flowers to the victim. The black man was Larry McClendon, one of the accomplices. She then saw the driver of the car, a white male, get out of the car and walk toward the door. The white male was Eugene “Yankee” Hall, the other accomplice. Later she saw the two men drive away. At trial she identified McClendon’s car as the one she had seen. Shortly thereafter the victim’s husband arrived home and, being unable to locate his wife, called the police. During a search of the house, the victim’s body was found in an upstairs closet. At the victim’s feet was a flower arrangement. The crime scene investigation [***9] revealed three bullet holes; one in the hallway, one in the closet where the body was found, and one in the body of the victim. The principal witness for the State was Eugene “Yankee” Hall. His testimony about his and appellant’s participation in the murder was corroborated by the testimony of various witnesses and physical evidence found at the scene of the bombing and the scene of the shooting. Hall testified that he had met appellant in the Spring of 1982 and had spent several nights at her house. During the following weeks the [**249] two of them conspired to kill Alice McArthur. In May of 1982 he and appellant purchased an explosive contained in a shampoo bottle, made a bomb, and placed it in the victim’s car where it exploded without seriously injuring her. Parts of a shampoo bottle containing the high explosive Torvex were recovered from the bomb scene at the McArthur home. Two witneses identified appellant as the woman who accompanied Hall when he [*353] bought the explosive. They identified appellant’s automobile as the vehicle in which the pair was traveling. Evidence introduced at trial reflected that a telephone call made to the seller of the explosive [***10] from a bait shop on the day of the purchase was billed to appellant’s telephone number. Another witness testified that appellant had told her several days before the bombing incident that a bombing would occur.Hall stated that, after the bombing failed to kill Mrs. McArthur, he agreed with appellant to a contract murder of the victim for $ 25,000 to be paid by the victim’s husband, the trigger to be pulled by Larry McClendon. Appellant gave him $ 325 for expenses. Hall testified that appellant agreed to obtain the murder weapon. Circumstantial evidence corroborated Hall’s testimony that the murder weapon was obtained by appellant. A ballistics expert testified that the three bullets were fired from a short barreled revolver and were a unique Federal type bullet manufactured between 1956 and 1975. Dr. Wulz, a witness for appellant, stated that he and appellant had been engaged in a continuing romantic relationship for several years and that he had owned an eleven or twelve year old .38 caliber revolver. He further testified that he discovered the pistol was missing about a week prior to the murder. The ballistics expert testified that the three bullets retrieved from the crime [***11] scene were the same type as those in a box of shells which Wulz had kept at home and had delivered to the prosecutor Hall further testified that appellant had devised the scheme for him and Larry McClendon to pose as a florist delivery service and that appellant had made the florist delivery sign. Hall testified that on the day of the murder he and McClendon went to Phillips Wrecker Service in North Little Rock to get the florist delivery sign out of a car that he had been driving. An employee of the wrecker service corroborated this fact. Hall testified that on the day of the murder he purchased a flower arrangement and removed the license plate from McClendon’s car before putting the floral delivery sign in the car window. An employee of Leroy’s Florist at Cantrell and Kavanaugh in Little Rock testified that she prepared the flower arrangement found at the [*354] murder scene. Before Hall picked up the flower arrangement, he telephoned appellant, and appellant telephoned the victim’s residence to make sure she was home. Evidence was introduced to corroborate Hall’s testimony that appellant telephoned the victim the afternoon of the murder. The record reflects that a [***12] tracing device, or trap, along with a microcassette tape recorder, had been placed on the McArthur telephone. A transcription of the telephone tape recovered from the home the day of the murder established that a telephone call made to the victim at 1:59 p.m. had been made from appellant’s residence. The caller asked for “Mama.” Two witnesses identified the voice of the caller as the voice of appellant. This corroborated Hall’s testimony that appellant telephoned the victim the afternoon of the murder to determine if she was home. Soon after the telephone call to appellant’s home, appellant drove by Hall and McClendon on her way to a pre-arranged appointment with her attorney, Bill McArthur, the victim’s husband. Two witnesses from the McArthur law firm testified appellant had made an appointment for 4:00 that afternoon. As she passed Hall and McClendon, she got a go ahead sign from Hall. After the murder, Hall threw the gun and florist sign in the Arkansas River. He then telephoned appellant who told him she had been unable to get the payoff money that day. Within a few days after the murder, appellant told Larry Burge, an acquaintance, that she had received an anonymous [***13] telephone [**250] tip that Larry McClendon had killed Alice McArthur. At appellant’s request, Burge relayed this information anonymously to the sheriff, who verified receiving it. The next day appellant again contacted Burge, telling him she had received more information about the murder and had made notes on this information. The notes were written down on yellow pieces of paper. At appellant’s request Burge agreed to pose as an anonymous caller and relate to her the information she had written down. Burge made the call, naming McClendon as the man who fired the gun and stating that McClendon had been seen with a white man earlier in the day. Appellant tape recorded this message and, on the pretext of having received the call from an anonymous source, took the tape to the sheriff. At trial [*355] Burge identified the yellow pages as the notes written in appellant’s handwriting and given to him by her for the purpose of making his call. These three yellow pages were removed from appellant’s person the night she was arrested. Since the staged anonymous call, based on notes prepared by appellant, was information only a person involved in the murder would know, this [***14] evidence corroborated Hall’s testimony that appellant conspired with him to commit murder.

 

May 11, 2011 – 10:38 am Categories: Ronald Reagan | Post a comment

2007 Interview with Jane Felix-Browne concerning her husband Omar bin Laden (pictures included)

 

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance
 
 
Jane Felix-Browne
 
A British divorcee said Wednesday she has married Omar bin Laden, the al-Qaida leader’s fourth son, after they met in Egypt last fall.Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother from Moulton, Cheshire, in northwestern England, told British media she met bin Laden, 27, while riding a horse near Egypt’s Great Pyramid and they married in April. The Times and Sun newspapers, which initially reported the story, said she was in Egypt for medical treatment for multiple sclerosis at the time.

The couple has held Islamic marriage ceremonies in both Egypt and Saudi Arabia, Felix-Browne said. She said she is his second wife

_______________________________________
In a July 11, 2007 interview with The Times, “Briton marries bin Laden’s son,” David Brown reported:
 
A British woman has married a son of Osama bin Laden after a holiday romance and is to apply for a visa so that he can visit Britain, The Times has learnt.

Jane Felix-Browne, a 51-year-old grandmother and parish councillor from Cheshire, has until now kept her marriage to Omar Ossama bin Laden, 27, secret from everyone apart from her immediate family and close friends. But she has now agreed to speak about her relationship with bin Laden’s fourth eldest son.

“It would be nice if, like any other married woman, I could stand up and say this is my husband and this is his name, but I have to be realistic about things,” she told The Times. “I hope people don’t judge me too harshly. I married the son, not the father.” 

Mrs Felix-Browne says she is aware that some people will be hostile to her marriage. Among the numerous terrorist plots linked to her new father-in-law are the London suicide bombings on July 7, 2005, the July 21 plot, and the recent attempted attacks in London and Glasgow. “I just married the man I met and fell in love with – to me he is just Omar,” she said. “I hope that people will take a step back and think what it was like when they fell in love. He is the most beautiful person I have ever met. His heart is pure, he is pious, quiet, a true gentleman, and he is my best friend.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September while undergoing treatment for multiple sclerosis. She says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid. They were married in Islamic ceremonies in Egypt and Saudi Arabia and are awaiting permission from the authorities in Riyadh to make their marriage official.

Mrs Felix-Browne is still coming to terms with the practical difficulties of being the daughter-in-law of a man with a $25 million (£12.5 million) bounty on his head. “Omar is wary of everyone. He is constantly watching people who he feels might be following him. Not without reason he is fearful of cameras. He is the son of Osama,” she said. “But when we are together he forgets his life.”

Mrs Felix-Browne already knew some members of the bin Laden family through her Islamic marriage to a Saudi man in London when she was 16. She believes that she actually met Osama bin Laden at a party in London in the 1970s.

Omar bin Laden left Saudi Arabia as a child when his father was expelled for his extremist beliefs, his wife said. Living in exile in Sudan and then Afghanistan, he saw at first hand the creation of al-Qaeda and its techniques. Mrs Felix-Browne said: “I never had any problem with his past. Omar did not do anything wrong. He was a child when he was in Afghanistan.”

She said that her husband left Afghanistan before the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001. However, some reports claim that he split from his father only after the attack on New York and an argument about tactics.

Mrs Felix-Browne insisted: “He last saw his father in 2000 when they were both in Afghanistan. He left his father because he did not feel it was right to fight or to be in an army. Omar was training to be a soldier and he was only 19.

“He told me he has had no contact with his father since the day he left him. He misses his father. Omar doesn’t know if it was his father who was responsible for the 9/11 attacks. I don’t think we will ever know.”

Apart from their religion the couple appear to have little in common. She has three sons and five grandchildren and is a respected parish councillor in the village of Moulton. She has had various jobs, including restoring houses and aircraft, and is a keen rider and scuba diver.

He works as a scrap metal dealer in Jedda and is one of at least 17 children fathered by bin Laden. His father’s reputation means that he has been ostracised by the wealthy and powerful bin Laden family and is under surveillance by the security services in Saudi Arabia.

Mrs Felix-Browne, who now uses the Islamic name Zaina Mohamad, says that she speaks to her husband for several hours every day over the internet or by telephone. During their conversations she refers to him repeatedly as “Habibi”, the Arabic for “my love”. She said: “I find it very difficult to live without him and I know he does too. But really we have the most normal life possible.”

She was aware before her marriage that her husband already had another wife and a two-year-old child. “I haven’t seen her but I have spoken to her for about an hour on the telephone,” she said. “She is fine about it.”

Mrs Felix-Browne was initially reluctant to discuss her new husband but news of their relationship inevitably began to leak out in Britain and the Middle East. “I don’t want any of my family distressed or upset by my actions,” she said. “I know that for everybody who likes me there will probably be a million enemies.”

Now she hopes that Mr bin Laden will come to Britain. “He would like to spend quite a bit of time here,” she said. “There is no reason why he should not come to live, but I don’t think he would like the weather.”

Mrs Felix-Browne said that the couple hoped to use their position to help to heal the wounds caused by her father-in-law. “All we want is peace in this world and I will do all I can to promote it.”

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Omar Ossama bin Laden in Egypt in September 2006

Mrs Felix-Browne, who has been married five times previously, met Omar Ossama bin Laden in Egypt in September 2006

 
 
Mrs Felix-Browne met Mr bin Laden in Egypt in September
 
Jane Felix-Browne says that their fairytale romance began when her future husband saw her riding a horse near the Great Pyramid
May 11, 2011 – 8:18 am Categories: President Obama | Comments (1)

Hamza bin Laden wants to keep his father’s family business of terror going

Osama's youngest son, Hamza, is believed to have escaped the compound where his terror fiend dad was killed by SEALs.

AP
Osama’s youngest son, Hamza, is believed to have escaped the compound where his terror fiend dad was killed by SEALs.

Osama bin Laden’s youngest known son — a budding teen terrorist groomed since childhood to wage jihad — likely escaped from the Pakistani compound where his father was killed by Navy SEALs.

Pakistani authorities say Hamza bin Laden, 19, has been unaccounted for since the May 1 raid in which his father, an older brother and two trusted family friends were killed.

Word of Hamza’s disappearance came as one of the older of bin Laden’s 20 or so children, Omar, yesterday blasted the United States for a “criminal mission” that “obliterated an entire defenseless family.” Omar threatened to sue while demanding proof that his father died.

Hamza’s mother, a Saudi named Khairiah Sabar, is one of three bin Laden wives who had been living in the Abbottabad compound. She, along with the other survivors, are in Pakistani custody.

Sabar told Pakistani authorities she hadn’t seen her son since the assault, London’s Daily Telegraph newspaper reported.

After the successful assault, the White House initially reported Hamza had been killed, but later said it was another son, Khalid, 24, who died.

Pakistani authorities confirmed that one household member is missing.

Hamza was implicated in the 2007 assassination of Pakistani Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who had written that the young bin Laden was organizing one of “four suicide bomber squads” targeting her.

While Hamza’s whereabouts were being questioned, bin Laden’s son Omar, in a statement posted on jihadi Web sites, accused the United States of having the “goal of killing and not arresting” his father.

The terror scion, 30, who in 2007 married a 54-year-old Briton, blasted “those forces [that] carried out their criminal mission and obliterated an entire defenseless family,” according to the Washington-based Middle East Media Research Institute.

Omar said the burial at sea of his father was “unacceptable humanely and religiously,” and the son threatened “to follow that crime through the American and international justice [systems] in order to determine the true fate of our vanished father.”

And in a separate statement to The New York Times, Omar wrote: “I Omar Ossama Binladin and my brothers the lawful children and heirs of the Ossama Binladin (OBL) have noted wide coverage of the news of the death of our father, but we are not convinced on the available evidence in the absence of dead body, photographs and video evidence that our natural father is dead.”

Omar also wrote the Times, “If he has been summarily executed, then we question the propriety of such assassination.”

Omar added, “As he [President Obama] condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.”

Meanwhile, the FBI and Homeland Security said there could be terror strikes by “lone wolves” to avenge Osama’s death.

Also, federal prosecutors said Rageh Ahmed Mohammed Al Murisi, a Yemeni who tried to barge into the cockpit of a Chicago-to-San Francisco flight Sunday night, was trying to bring the plane down.

An undated Al Jazeera television picture purportedly shows Hamza bin Osama bin Laden.

Reuters
CROWN PRINCE OF TERROR?: An undated Al Jazeera television picture purportedly shows Hamza bin Laden, one of the sons of Osama bin Laden, displaying what the Taliban claimed is wreckage from a US helicopter near Ghazni.
President Obama said no Americans were harmed in the operation. Three adult males were also killed in the raid, including one of bin Laden’s sons, whom officials did not name. One of bin Laden’s sons, Hamza, is a senior member of al-Qaida. U.S. officials also said one woman was killed when she was used as a shield by a male combatant, and two other women were injured.
May 11, 2011 – 7:59 am Categories: President Obama | Comments (1)

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 46)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 7:34am CST.

Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:

Here are some of his specific suggestions:

Justice


Agency/Program Funding Level Savings % Decrease
Justice $22.867 B $9.057 B 28%


In recent decades, the Department of Justice has expanded far beyond its traditional role, pushing aside many of the law enforcement activities that were originally designated to state and local governments. In addition, the department
has become an avenue to channel politically popular law enforcement funding and grants to states, many of which  are consistently highlighted by government auditors such as GAO for their incessant amount of waste, fraud, and abuse. The proposal reduces the department back to FY2008 levels, and completely eliminates the Office of Justice Programs.


Office of Justice Programs: Eliminated


The Office of Justice Programs does not directly carry out law enforcement or justice activities, rather OJP performs studies on the pressing crime-related challenges that confront the justice system and provides grants to try and help cities and counties reduce their crime rates. In effect, OJP has evolved into a multi-billion dollar subsidy to the budgets of local governments.

Since 1996, GAO has had strong concerns over OJP’s ability to monitor the use of grants given to cities and counties and if they have been used properly. Some programs, like “neighborhood watch” have little to no impact on crime
rates. In addition, GAO has also determined their evaluation process on the effectiveness of the programs needs to be reformed. The value of these programs is hard to prove because of the difficulty in showing the programs were the direct cause of any decrease in crime.
Each state, county, and city communities and police departments are forced to address many different forms of crime. The federal government can set guidelines on how to address criminal issues, but only the states and local communities can determine what the best way to counter and deter violence and crime.

May 11, 2011 – 7:35 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Kate Middleton and Prince William: Marriage made in Heaven? (Part 20)

 

The Royal Wedding Ceremony of William and Kate Live part 3/4

photo

Prince Harry and The Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor

Prince Harry and The Lady Louise Mountbatten-Windsor – the daughter of The Earl and Countess of Wessex – travel in the carriage procession to Buckingham Palace from Westminster Abbey following the wedding service of Prince William and Catherine Middleton, 29 April 2011.

I really do wish Kate and William success in their marriage. I hope they truly are committed to each other, and if they are then the result will be a marriage that lasts their whole lifetime. Nevertheless, I do not think it is best to live together before marriage like they did, and I am writing this series to help couples see how best to prepare for marriage.
 
Tiffany Stuart wrote a great article, “Six-Month Security:Living together was a farce, a halfhearted commitment with a huge ‘Exit’ sign looming over it,” Focus on the Family. I will be dividing the article into four parts. Here is the third part:  

A Suffering Relationship

Not only did my relationship with Derek suffer because of my fears, my relationship with my mom suffered too. I was afraid I’d hear, “I told you so,” if I was honest about my insecurity. I hid behind an “everything’s fine” facade. I was determined to make living together work — even if it was a mistake.

My mom’s words haunted me. “You can’t try it on before you buy it; it’s not a dress.” Although I wasn’t walking with God at the time, I knew enough Scripture to feel guilty and ashamed. But I justified it because I wanted to make sure the two of us were compatible before we said “I do.” After all, I knew that more than half of all marriages end in divorce. I didn’t want the “D” tattoo if our relationship didn’t work out.

A month into our lease, Derek and I bought an Alaskan Eskimo puppy. A way to keep Derek, I thought. But weeks later, the shy puppy we picked out was still acting skittish. He started biting. So, we gave him away.

So much for “our” dog — and my security.

Even though I wanted a commitment from Derek, my commitment was conditional and temporary. I gave my body and my resources, but withheld my heart.

I longed for intimacy and relationship, but living together didn’t satisfy. It’s like planning a vacation to Hawaii, envisioning sunny, white beaches and then arriving to trash-lined shores and overcast skies. One is a dream. The other is a disappointing reality.

Despite our struggles, Derek and I eloped around the time our lease expired. Fifteen years and two children later, we’re still together.

Nevertheless, Derek and I still regret living together. We missed out on the honeymoon experience. We regret sharing our meals, our households, and our bodies prior to being emotionally and spiritually committed as husband and wife. We started our marriage with a past. It took me years of marriage to trust Derek’s real and lifelong commitment.

Someday I plan on sharing this with our children. It won’t be easy. However, I believe they deserve the truth. I hope they will understand why we regret our decision and why God’s design for a man and a woman is marriage.

 

Weekend to Remember Story – Dennis Rainey

Tim Hawkins – “Some Songs Should Be One Verse”

Revelation (Biblical Numbers 4 of 4)-Dr Adrian Rogers

May 11, 2011 – 7:26 am Categories: Adrian Rogers | Post a comment

Senator Pryor asks for Spending Cut Suggestions! Here are a few!(Part 45)

Senator Mark Pryor wants our ideas on how to cut federal spending. Take a look at this video clip below:

Senator Pryor has asked us to send our ideas to him at cutspending@pryor.senate.gov and I have done so in the past and will continue to do so in the future. Here are a few more I just emailed to him myself at 10pm CST.

Senator Rand Paul on Feb 7, 2011 wrote the article “A Modest $500 Billion Proposal: My spending cuts would keep 85% of government funding and not touch Social Security,” Wall Street Journal and he observed:

Here are some of his specific suggestions:

Interior
Agency/Program Funding Level Savings % Decrease
Interior $3.111 B $10.934 B 78%
The Department of Interior is responsible for managing millions of acres of land, forests and parks, as well as building
dams. The department has consistently been given poor management ratings by the White House’s Office of
Management and Budget, and provides many functions that could be reduced or privatized. This proposal includes
taking many programs back to FY2008 levels, and includes additional cuts or elimination of certain programs,
including the Land and Mineral Management, Bureau of Reclamation, U.S. Geological Survey, the National Park
Service, and Bureau of Indian Affairs.

Land and Mineral Management: Reduce 50 percent
The management of public lands and resources is best left up to the states. States have firsthand knowledge about
what is good for them and the best ways to use their lands for energy, recreation, and natural beauty.

Bureau of Reclamation: Eliminate
Established in 1902, the Bureau of Reclamation has held a majority of the dams, hydroelectric power plants, and
canals in the western most 17 states. They are the largest wholesaler of water in the country and provide water for
farmers in those states.

Owning a majority block of energy and water resources is not the business of the federal government. Water rights
should be controlled by the states and agreements can be made between the states to ensure water supply to all.

U.S. Geological Survey: Reduce 29 percent
The U.S. Geological Survey is the largest water, earth, and biological science civilian mapping agency in the United
States. Though these are important activities, they can be given to state researchers at our colleges and universities,
without having large numbers of regional executives and multiple offices.

National Park Service: Reduce 42 percent
In 2009, repairs were performed on the Vietnam Memorial and those repairs were done without the use of taxpayer
funds. The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund took over the duties of preserving the memorial because the National
Park Service did not have the resources from the federal government.
Every year the amount of appropriations increase to the National Park Service, yet both the GAO and the
Congressional Research Services have stated that NPS’s backlog on projects and maintenance would cost several
billion dollars to the American taxpayer. National Parks have seen a decrease in visitors and campers each year due
to trash, lack of facilities, or even safety. Returning these public lands back to the states and or the private sector
would allow an increase in quality, safety and a reduction in government spending each year.
Bureau of Indian Affairs: Eliminate
For far too long, the Bureau of Indian Affairs has swindled and mismanaged billions of dollars in Indian trust funds.
Former Special Trustee Thomas Slonaker in 2004 testified that they Department of the Interior and the BIA were
incapable of reform and were unwilling to hold people accountable for their actions. In addition, Paul Homan also has
testified before Congress saying that a “vast majority of upper and middle management at the BIA were incompetent.
Instead of wasting taxpayer funds throwing money into a bureau of corruption and incompetency, eliminate them and
allow the tribes to manage their own trust funds independently without government intervention.

May 10, 2011 – 9:52 pm Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment

Osama bin Laden’s sons think U.S. broke international law

 

Omar bin Laden, son of Osama bin Laden, in his apartment in Al-Rahad city near Cairo in 2008

The New York Times reported today:

The adult sons of Osama bin Laden have lashed out at President Obama over their father’s death, accusing the United States of violating its basic legal principles by killing an unarmed man, shooting his family members and disposing of his body in the sea.

The statement said the family was asking why the leader of Al Qaeda “was not arrested and tried in a court of law so that truth is revealed to the people of the world.” Citing the trials of Saddam Hussein and Slobodan Milosevic, the statement questioned “the propriety of such assassination where not only international law has been blatantly violated,” but the principles of presumption of innocence and the right to a fair trial were ignored.

“We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems,” the statement said, adding that “justice must be seen to be done.”

The statement, prepared at the direction of Omar bin Laden, a son who had publicly denounced his father’s terrorism, was provided to The New York Times by Jean Sasson, an American author who helped the younger Bin Laden write a 2009 memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” A shorter, slightly different statement was posted on a jihadist Web site Tuesday.

Omar bin Laden, 30, lived with his father in Afghanistan until 1999, when he left with his mother, Najwa bin Laden, who co-wrote the memoir. In the book and other public statements, the younger bin Laden denounced violence of all kinds, a stance he repeated in the sons’ statement to The Times. None of Osama bin Laden’s sons other than Omar was named in the statement, so it was unclear exactly who else had approved the message.

“We want to remind the world that Omar bin Laden, the fourth-born son of our father, always disagreed with our father regarding any violence and always sent messages to our father, that he must change his ways and that no civilians should be attacked under any circumstances,” the statement said. “Despite the difficulty of publicly disagreeing with our father, he never hesitated to condemn any violent attacks made by anyone, and expressed sorrow for the victims of any and all attacks.”

Condemning the shooting of one of the Qaeda leader’s wives during the assault on May 2 in Abbottabad, Pakistan, the statement added: “As he condemned our father, we now condemn the president of the United States for ordering the execution of unarmed men and women.”

The sons’ statement called on the government of Pakistan to hand over to family members the three wives and several children of the terrorist now believed to be in Pakistani custody and asked for a United Nations investigation of the circumstances of their father’s death.

In addition to the statement, Ms. Sasson shared with The Times notes on what Omar bin Laden, who declined to be interviewed directly, has told her by phone in recent days. The notes describe Mr. bin Laden’s struggle, as he came of age, to understand and eventually reject his father’s embrace of religious violence.

Mr. bin Laden told Ms. Sasson the death of his father “has affected this family in much the same way as many other families in the past in the loss of a family member.”

Osama bin Laden
 

Broadcast
As the U.S. fought wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, bin Laden periodically released audio and video recordings (like this one, from 2007) calling for the destruction of America and its allies.

Osama bin Laden
Naseer Ahmed / Reuters

The End
On May 1, 2011, President Obama announced that bin Laden had been tracked to a house in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he was killed by a team of Navy Seals. Here, men in Quetta, Pakistan, watch Obama deliver to the world the news of the terrorist leader’s death.

Read more:
President Obama Monitors the bin Laden Mission
Pete Souza / The White House
May 10, 2011 – 4:13 pm Categories: President Obama | Post a comment

Will Huckabee step down from Fox and run for Presidential nomimation? Brummett and Brawner say no, Brantley and Tolbert say it sounds like he will (Part 2)

John Brummett in his article “Huckabee might run to stay on tv,” May 10, 2011, Arkansas News Bureau, noted:

As a Fox News television talent alone, Mike Huckabee is not as compelling as Sean Hannity or as commanding as Bill O’Reilly or even as good-looking as Greta van Susteren…

I remain on record predicting that Huckabee, in the end, will opt not to run for president.

That’s because his ultimate calculation will be that his over-arching career goal, that of ongoing media/show biz personality, can best be pursued by sticking with that career as it exists, even without renewal of the political brand, rather than by risking having to take off four whole years, which would be all the American people could possibly survive, to function as best he might as president of the United States.

He does not want to be president. He did not even want to be governor. He wants to gab; he wants to get paid by the word; he wants his own microphone and camera; he wants an adapted Falwell-Robertson kind of appeal; he wants to put out pamphlets and call them books; he wants stuff.

Might I be wrong in my prediction? Might he run?

His challenge will be finding someone in this Republican field to whom he can be certain of running second.

The best bet seems to be Romney, who, as it happens, is the one rival Huckabee cannot stand. That serves only to compound the ironic predicament.

In his article “Huckabee isn’t running,” April 24, 2011, Arkansas News Bureau, Steve Brawner observed:

Huckabee’s record as governor won’t play as well in 2012, when he would start the race as a contender, as it did in 2008, when he never really threatened to win it. In Arkansas, he raised taxes, created a big government-run health care program called ARKids First, and helped release a lot of convicts from prison, including two really bad guys, Wayne Dumond and Maurice Clemmons, who went on to kill people.

That’s not exactly a record that will win the support of the TEA Party – or of big business types who will back candidates like Romney…

Huckabee isn’t lying when he says that he won’t decide until this summer. There is still a part of him that hasn’t shut the door. But he’s leaning strongly enough against the idea that he is comfortable with building this big house.

Jason Tolbert reported:

KATV’s Scott Inman sat down for an extended segment with Gov. Huckabee today on which aired tonight in central Arkansas.  In it, he sounds like he is inching closer to a decision to run.

Max Brantley in March noted:

I think Mike Huckabee is going to run for president, but I think he’s going to finesse the decision as long as possible to hang onto the money he makes as a non-candidate with his radio show (now on 560 stations) and his show on Fox News, which recently booted two commentators who’ve made not much more presidential noise than Huckabee.

Where do I stand on this? I think Huckabee will probably not run. I earlier thought that he would run and I knew that he could always come back to Fox later and get his job back.However, I heard John Fund of the Wall Street Journal speak the other day and he commented that when people like the liberal President Obama are in control, it makes his job so much more easy. The subjects for the articles are handed to him on a platter by Obama everyday. I think the same is true for Huckabee and his show. I think that Brummett and Brawner are right. In other words, Huckabee is having too good of a time making fun of Obama and he knows he is serving the conservative cause by getting the truth out there on the air every week. Ronald Reagan said that liberalism has always failed whenever it is tried, and Huckabee has an abundance of Obama’s mistakes to make fun of everyday on his show. The comedy material is just too much to say no to!!!!

May 10, 2011 – 9:43 am Categories: Jason Tolbert, Mike Huckabee | Post a comment

Arnold Schwarzenegger is fond of quoting Milton Friedman but he rejected fiscal conservative idea to cut spending

Photos and Pictures - Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver with family at a day with
 
Photo of Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver and their family at the Los Angeles Premiere of “The Benchwarmers,” presented by Columbia Pictures.

Arnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver and their family photoArnold Schwarzenegger, Maria Shriver and their family

Transcript from the opening introduction to the film series “Free to Choose” by Milton Friedman, but did Arnold abandon the principles of Friedman?

Hi, I am Arnold Schwarzenegger. I would like a moment of your time because I wanted you to know something. I wanted you to know about Dr. Milton Friedman’s TV series, Free to Choose. I truly believe that the series has changed my life. When you have such a powerful experience as that, I think you shouldn’t keep it to yourself, I wanted to share it with you.

Being free to choose for me means being free to make your own decisions; free to live your own life; pursue your own goals; chase your own rainbow; without the government breathing down on your neck or standing on your shoes. For me that meant coming here to America. Because I came from a socialistic country in which the government controls the economy. It is a place where you can hear 18 year old kids already talking about their pension. But me __ I wanted more. I wanted to be the best __ individualism like that is incompatible with socialism. So I felt I had to come to America. I had no money in my pocket, but here I had the freedom to get it. I have been able to parlay my big muscles into big business and a big movie career. Along the way I was able to save and invest and I watched America change and I noticed this __ that the more the government interfered and intervened and inserted itself into the free market, the worse the country did. But when the government stepped back and let the free enterprise system do its work, then the better we did, the more robust our economy grew, the better I did, and the better my business grew, and the more I was able to hire and help others.

Okay. So there I was in Palm Springs, waiting for Maria to get ready so we could go out for a game of mixed doubles. I started flipping through the television dial and I caught a glimpse of Nobel Prize winner, Economist Dr. Milton Friedman. I recognized him from the studying of my own degree of economics in business, but I didn’t know I was watching Free to Choose __ it knocked me out. Dr. Friedman expressed, validated and explained everything I ever thought or experienced or observed about the way the economy works. I guess I was really ready to hear it. He said, the economic race should not be arranged so that everyone ends at the finish line at the same time, but so that everyone starts at the starting line at the same time. Wow! I would like to write that one home to Austria. He said, that society that puts equality before freedom winds up with neither, but that society puts freedom before equality, we will end up with a great measure of both. Boy, if I would have come up with that one myself, I maybe wouldn’t have had to get into body building.

When I did beef up my body building, at business school, of course it started with what Thomas Jefferson believed and what Adam Smith thought, even what Milton Friedman had to say __ I would be free to choose __ it all came together. Their economic thought with my own personal experience, and in a way I felt that I had come home. I sought out Dr. Friedman and had great pleasure and privilege of meeting him and his economist wife, Rose, and we have all become friends, and now I call him Milton. Then I became a big pain in the neck about Free to Choose.

All my friends and acquaintances got the tapes and the books for Christmas after Christmas, all the way through the Reagan years when I was able to tell them all __ you see, Milton is right. And I think it’s crucial that we all keep moving in the same direction, away from socialism and to its greater freedom and opportunity. That is why I am so excited that Milton Friedman is updating Free to Choose, bringing it into the 90’s by discussing how to deal with the drug disaster, the chabain phenomenon, and of course, the miserable failure of communism. By the way, there are plans now to translate Free to Choose into the languages of the Soviet Union and Eastern Europe. And you know, they really need it to guide them through it __ to take the first walk toward freedom. But we need it too.

I commend to you the new television series Free to Choose and encourage you to walk into the 21st century in freedom, in opportunity and in success, with Dr. Milton Friedman.

Thanks for listening.

_________________________________

[Milton Friedman]
Milton Friedman, prior to his retirement from the University.

 

________________________________________________

Below is a portion of an article from Reason Magazine:

Schwarzenegger’s Failure

If the California governor is the face of “moderate” Republicanism, the party is even more doomed than the 2008 elections suggest.

from the February 2009 issue

The promise of coastal Republicans in Name Only like Schwarzenegger, at least for the limited-government proponents (including me) who have invested hope in him over the years, was supposed to be that the descriptor socially liberal would be followed by another very important phrase: fiscally conservative. And that’s where the Milton Friedman–quoting governor has been an unalloyed disaster.

Schwarzenegger blew into office decrying California’s bloated budget, vowing to “blow up the boxes” of Sacramento’s bureaucracy, and promising to never again let the Golden State go near Gray Davis’ record-setting $38 billion deficit. Five years into the Schwarzenegger era, the budget has ballooned from $100 billion to $145 billion, and the state’s legislative analyst announced in November that California was facing a deficit of $28 billion. Bond market ratings assess the state as a bigger lending risk than Slovakia. And those bureaucratic boxes have remained largely intact.

How does Schwarzenegger defend this sorry record? In part, by blaming Republicans. “I think the important thing for the Republican Party is now to also look at other issues that are very important for this country and not to get stuck in ideology,” he said on CNN five days after the election. “Let’s go and talk about health care reform. Let’s go and…fund programs if they’re necessary programs and not get stuck just on the fiscal responsibility.”

What are some of these “necessary programs”? How about a $9.9 billion bond for a long-dreamed-of high-speed rail project between Los Angeles and San Francisco that is expected to cost at least $45 billion, which even supporters such as the Los Angeles Times editorial board think will require “many billions more” in subsidies? Then there’s the $3 billion bond from 2004 to put California bureaucrats in the stem cell research business, mostly as a poke in the eye of George W. Bush.

How to pay for all this during what the governor has declared a “financial emergency”? Partly by rattling the tin cup outside the White House. Schwarzenegger was one of the first governors to hit up Washington for some of that fat bailout money gushing from the Oval Office.

But the spending splurge also requires new taxes, according to the governor: a “temporary” 1.5-percentage-point increase in the 7.25 percent sales tax, an increase in the number of services covered by the sales tax, higher taxes for alcohol and oil production, and so on. Many analysts believe that the governor who quickly fulfilled his recall-campaign promise to cut the state’s vehicle license fees will soon resort to restoring those charges to at least Gray Davis levels.

Even on social issues, where Schwarzenegger’s more libertarian approach was supposed to avoid the Republican trap of freedom constricting politics, the governor instead has embraced the freedom-constricting policies of the left. To cite one particularly ironic example, in 2004 he signed a law requiring every California employer with more than 50 workers to force upon its managers state-approved sexual harassment training.

Republicans in 2009 are in a mess of their own making. If they interpret the Democrats’ sweeping victory as a clarion call to foray further into religiously inspired, Terry Schiavo–style politics that uses government as a lever to manipulate and control other people’s lives, then they will deserve their exile from power.

But it will take more than just eschewing cultural conservatism and adopting the Democrats’ interventionist economic approach to refresh the Republican brand. There is room right now for an opposition party that emphasizes what the governing party does not: freedom, as both the ultimate goal and the means to achieve it.

Back when he was taping testimonials for Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose, Arnold Schwarzenegger looked like the kind of person who would indeed choose freedom if given a chance to govern. Instead, he punted on the radical, government-reducing reforms offered to him by his own box-exploding California Performance Review and learned to love—or at least perpetuate—the very bureaucracy he was elected to confront. That’s not a blueprint for 21st-century Republicanism. It’s just George W. Bush’s big-government conservatism with a Hollywood face.

Matt Welch is editor in chief of reason.

Katherine Schwarzenegger Governor Schwarzenegger goes to cast his vote on election day with his wife Maria Shriver and their daughters Christina and Katherine (her first time voting), at the Kenter Canyon elementary school in Brentwood.
The Schwarzenegger Family Voting

Governor Schwarzenegger goes to cast his vote on election day with his wife Maria Shriver and their daughters Christina and Katherine (her first time voting), at the Kenter Canyon elementary school in Brentwood.

(November 4, 2008- Photo by FlynetPictures.com)

I have written many times about Arnold Schwarzenegger before. Here are just a few of the times:

1. President Reagan having a photo taken with Arnold Schwarzenegger at the Republican National Convention in Dallas, Texas. 8/23/84.

2.Here is a video clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger using an Airlight
Broom as a prop for “cleaning house” in the California Recall
Election as seen on CNN, ABC, CBS, NBC, ect in 2003. The
Airlight Broom is manufactured by Little Rock Broom Works.

3. I heard John Fund of the Wall Street Journal speak in Little Rock on April 27, 2011 and in his speech he mentioned the struggle that Arnold Schwarzenegger had with the envirnomentalists in California. I took time to repeat a lot of the facts about that in my blog post that day.

4. At that same luncheon on April 27th that I mentioned earlier, one subject that John Fund brought up was the red tape that Arnold Schwarzenegger had to deal with in California. I wrote about that too.

5. St. James Palace has confirmed  that Kate Middleton and Prince William – or, more officially, the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge – will be visiting California from July 8-10 this summer. Former Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger is expected to greet the Royals as they touch down.

6. Which is better for setting up a business: California or Texas? Arnold Schwarzenegger is mentioned in this post too.

7. Arnold Schwarzenegger is fond of quoting Milton Friedman but he rejected fiscal conservative idea to cut spending.

8. Pictures of Arnold Schwarzenegger and Maria Shriver through the years. Video clip of them at Ronald Reagan’s funeral.

9. I wrote a post on American Exceptionalism and put in a video clip of Arnold Schwarzenegger doing the introduction to an episode of “Free to Choose.”

10. Will Maria Shriver’s marriage survive Arnold Schwarzenegger’s admission of  infidelity? I hope so (Part 1).

May 10, 2011 – 8:53 am Categories: Milton Friedman | Post a comment

Candidate #7, former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.: Republican Presidential Hopefuls (Part 1)Did he win first debate in Greenville, SC May 5, 2011?

First GOP Presidential Debate Part 1

The first GOP presidential debate for 2012 was held in South Carolina the evening of May 5, 2011. Participants were Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX), Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, businessman Herman Cain, former Pennsylvania Senator Rick Santorum, and former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson.

Slade Shomer in his article, “The Man Who Could Beat Obama (But Won’t Get the Chance)” noted:

If the Republican Party and its Tea Party influencers are serious about reducing the size and scope of government, relieving our unsustainable debt burden and balancing the budget, then the man who should be its 2012 nominee officially entered the lackluster field on Thursday morning.

Of course, in order to get the small government credibility and civil liberty protections that come with former New Mexico Governor Gary Johnson, Republicans will have to put up with a candidate who not only believes in the legalization of marijuana, but someone who admits to smoking it extensively; a candidate who not only believes in a sensible, enforcement-last immigration policy, but someone who doesn’t approve of the right’s rhetoric; and a candidate who openly admires GOP black sheep Ron Paul.

May 10, 2011 – 7:43 am Categories: Uncategorized | Post a comment