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MUSIC MONDAY Rolling Stones New Album Part 5 Rolling Stones – Everybody Knows About My Good Thing Review: The Rolling Stones make blues magic on ‘Blue & Lonesome’ Maeve McDermott , USATODAY6:07 p.m. EST November 30, 2016 (Photo: Frazer Harrison, Getty Images) Before the Rolling Stones were rock icons, before its members turned into sex […]
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_____________ Carpenters Close To You Karen Carpenter’s tragic story Karen Carpenter’s velvet voice charmed millions in the 70s… but behind the wholesome image she was in turmoil. Desperate to look slim on stage – and above all desperate to please the domineering mother who preferred her brother – she became the first celebrity victim of […]
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If someone writes and talks about poverty, I generally assume that they care about poor people. They may have good ideas for helping the poor, or they may have bad ideas. But I usually don’t doubt their sincerity.
But when someone writes and talks about inequality, I worry that they don’t really care about the less fortunate and that they’re instead motivated by envy, resentment, and jealousy of rich people.
And this concern probably applies to a couple of law professors, Michael Heller of Columbia and James Salzman of UCLA. They recently wrote a column for the Washington Post on how the government should grab more money from the private sector when rich people die.
They seem particularly agitated that states such as South Dakota have strong asset-protection laws that limit the reach of the death tax.
Income inequality has widened. One…way to tackle the problem. Instead of focusing only on taxing wealth accumulation, we can address the hidden flip side — wealth transmission. …The place to start is South Dakota… The state has created…wealth-sheltering tools including the aptly named “dynasty trust.” …Congress can…plug holes in our leaky estate tax system. One step would be to tax trusts at the passage of each generation and limit generation-skipping tax-exempt trusts. A bigger step would be to ensure that appreciated stocks…are taxed… Better still, let’s start anew. Ditch the existing estate tax and replace it with an inheritance tax
There’s nothing remarkable in their proposals. Just a typical collection of tax-the-rich schemes one might expect from a couple of academics.
But I can’t resist commenting on their article because of two inadvertent admissions.
First, we have a passage that reveals a twisted sense of morality. They apparently think it’s a “heist” if people keep their own money.
America’s ultra-wealthy have pulled off a brilliantly designed heist, with a string of South Dakota governors as accomplices.
For all intents and purposes, the law professors are making an amazing claim that it’s stealing if you don’t meekly surrender your money to politicians.
Second, the law professors make the mistake of trying to be economists. They want readers to think the national economy suffers if money stays in the private sector.
Nearly no one in South Dakota complains, because the harm falls on the national economy… We all suffer high and hidden costs…getting less in government services. …South Dakota locks away resources that could spark entrepreneurial innovation.
According to their analysis, a nation such as Singapore must be very poor while a country such as Greece must be very rich.
Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose – Ep.4 (1/7) – From Cradle to Grave
January 21, 2021
President Biden c/o The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20500
Dear Mr. President,
With the national debt increasing faster than ever we must make the hard decisions to balance the budget now. If we wait another decade to balance the budget then we will surely risk our economic collapse.
The first step is to remove all welfare programs and replace them with the negative income tax program that Milton Friedman first suggested.
Milton Friedman points out that though many government welfare programs are well intentioned, they tend to have pernicious side effects. In Dr. Friedman’s view, perhaps the most serious shortcoming of governmental welfare activities is their tendency to strip away individual independence and dignity. This is because bureaucrats in welfare agencies are placed in positions of tremendous power over welfare recipients, exercising great influence over their lives. In addition, welfare programs tend to be self-perpetuating because they destroy work incentives. Dr. Friedman suggests a negative income tax as a way of helping the poor. The government would pay money to people falling below a certain income level. As they obtained jobs and earned money, they would continue to receive some payments from the government until their outside income reached a certain ceiling. This system would make people better off who sought work and earned income.
Here is a transcript of a portion of the “Free to Choose” program called “From Cradle to Grave” (program #4 in the 10 part series):
Friedman: After the 2nd World War, New York City authorities retained rent control supposedly to help their poorer citizens. The intentions were good. This in the Bronx was one result.
By the 50′s the same authorities were taxing their citizens. Including those who lived in the Bronx and other devastated areas beyond the East River to subsidize public housing. Another idea with good intentions yet poor people are paying for this, subsidized apartments for the well-to-do. When government at city or federal level spends our money to help us, strange things happen.
The idea that government had to protect us came to be accepted during the terrible years of the Depression. Capitalism was said to have failed. And politicians were looking for a new approach.
Franklin Delano Roosevelt was a candidate for the presidency. He was governor of New York State. At the governor’s mansion in Albany, he met repeatedly with friends and colleagues to try to find some way out of the Depression. The problems of the day were to be solved by government action and government spending. The measures that FDR and his associates discussed here derived from a long line of past experience. Some of the roots of these measures go back to Bismark’s Germany at the end of the 19th Century. The first modern state to institute old age pensions and other similar measures on the part of government. In the early 20th Century Great Britain followed suit under Lloyd George and Churchill. It too instituted old age pensions and similar plans.
These precursors of the modern welfare state had little effect on practice in the United States. But they did have a very great effect on the intellectuals on the campus like those who gathered here with FDR. The people who met here had little personal experience of the horrors of the Depression but they were confident that they had the solution. In their long discussions as they sat around this fireplace trying to design programs to meet the problems raised by the worst Depression in the history of the United States, they quite naturally drew upon the ideas that were prevalent at the time. The intellectual climate had become one in which it was taken for granted that government had to play a major role in solving the problems in providing what came later to be called Security from Cradle to Grave.
Roosevelt’s first priority after his election was to deal with massive unemployment. A Public Works program was started. The government financed projects to build highways, bridges and dams. The National Recovery Administration was set up to revitalize industry. Roosevelt wanted to see America move into a new era. The Social Security Act was passed and other measures followed. Unemployment benefits, welfare payments, distribution of surplus food. With these measures, of course, came rules, regulations and red tape as familiar today as they were novel then. The government bureaucracy began to grow and it’s been growing ever since.
This is just a small part of the Social Security empire today. Their headquarters in Baltimore has 16 rooms this size. All these people are dispensing our money with the best possible intentions. But at what cost?
In the 50 years since the Albany meetings, we have given government more and more control over our lives and our income. In New York State alone, these government buildings house 11,000 bureaucrats. Administering government programs that cost New York taxpayers 22 billion dollars. At the federal level, the Department of Health, Education and Welfare alone has a budget larger than any government in the world except only Russia and the United States.
Yet these government measures often do not help the people they are supposed to. Richard Brown’s daughter, Helema, needs constant medical attention. She has a throat defect and has to be connected to a breathing machine so that she’ll survive the nights. It’s expensive treatment and you might expect the family to qualify for a Medicaid grant.
Richard Brown: No, I don’t get it, cause I’m not eligible for it. I make a few dollars too much and the salary that I make I can’t afford to really live and to save anything is out of the question. And I mean, I live, we live from payday to payday. I mean literally from payday to payday.
Friedman: His struggle isn’t made any easier by the fact that Mr. Brown knows that if he gave up his job as an orderly at the Harlem Hospital, he would qualify for a government handout. And he’d be better off financially.
Hospital Worker: Mr. Brown, do me a favor please? There is a section patient.
Friedman: It’s a terrible pressure on him. But he is proud of the work that he does here and he’s strong enough to resist the pressure.
Richard Brown: I’m Mr. Brown. Your fully dilated and I’m here to take you to the delivery. Try not to push, please. We want to have a nice sterile delivery.
Friedman: Mr. Brown has found out the hard way that welfare programs destroy an individual’s independence.
Richard Brown: We’ve considered welfare. We went to see, to apply for welfare but, we were told that we were only eligible for $5.00 a month. And, to receive this $5.00 we would have to cash in our son’s savings bonds. And that’s not even worth it. I don’t believe in something for nothing anyway.
Mrs. Brown: I think a lot of people are capable of working and are willing to work, but it’s just the way it is set up. It, the mother and the children are better off if the husband isn’t working or if the husband isn’t there. And this breaks up so many poor families.
Friedman: One of the saddest things is that many of the children whose parents are on welfare will in their turn end up in the welfare trap when they grow up. In this public housing project in the Bronx, New York, 3/4′s of the families are now receiving welfare payments.
Well Mr. Brown wanted to keep away from this kind of thing for a very good reason. The people who get on welfare lose their human independence and feeling of dignity. They become subject to the dictates and whims of their welfare supervisor who can tell them whether they can live here or there, whether they may put in a telephone, what they may do with their lives. They are treated like children, not like responsible adults and they are trapped in the system. Maybe a job comes up which looks better than welfare but they are afraid to take it because if they lose it after a few months it maybe six months or nine months before they can get back onto welfare. And as a result, this becomes a self-perpetuating cycle rather than simply a temporary state of affairs.
Things have gone even further elsewhere. This is a huge mistake. A public housing project in Manchester, England.
Well we’re 3,000 miles away from the Bronx here but you’d never know it just by looking around. It looks as if we are at the same place. It’s the same kind of flats, the same kind of massive housing units, decrepit even though they were only built 7 or 8 years ago. Vandalism, graffiti, the same feeling about the place. Of people who don’t have a great deal of drive and energy because somebody else is taking care of their day to day needs because the state has deprived them of an incentive to find jobs to become responsible people to be the real support for themselves and their families.
_______________
Thank you so much for your time. I know how valuable it is. I also appreciate the fine family that you have and your commitment as a father and a husband.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733
Washington is lecturing us about eating too much when they are spending addicts!!!! Let’s Fix the Real Obesity Problem in Washington May 11, 2013 by Dan Mitchell Whenever someone proposes that we need more intervention from the federal government, I always go to the Constitution and check Article I, Section VIII. This is because I’m old fashioned and […]
You want a suggestion on how to cut the government then start at HUD. I would prefer to eliminate all of it. Here are Dan Mitchell’s thoughts below: Sequestration’s Impact on HUD: Just 358 More Days and Mission Accomplished March 12, 2013 by Dan Mitchell As part of my “Question of the Week” series, I had […]
Coldplay Max Masters – Part 7 of 7 Chris Martin revealed in his interview with Howard Stern that he was rasied an evangelical Christian but he has left the church. I believe that many words that he puts in his songs today are generated from the deep seated Christian beliefs from his childhood that find […]
Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC Published on Mar 18, 2012 by vclubscenedotcom Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients __________ President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I […]
Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients in NYC Published on Mar 18, 2012 by vclubscenedotcom Real Time with Bill Maher March 16 2012 – Alexandra Pelosi Interviews Welfare Recipients __________ Liberals like the idea of the welfare state while conservatives suggest charity through private organizations serve the […]
Washington Could Learn a Lot from a Drug Addict What kind of intervention does Congress need to get it to spend with its spending addiction? Back in 1982 Reagan was promised $3 in cuts for every $1 in tax increases but the cuts never came. In 1990 Bush was promised 2 for 1 but they […]
Republican Presidential Debate In New Hampshire pt.4 Rep. Ron Paul, R-Texas gestures as he answers a question as former Massachusetts Gov. Mitt Romney, left, and former Minnesota Gov. Tim Pawlenty, listen during the first New Hampshire Republican presidential debate at St. Anselm College in Manchester, N.H., Monday, June 13, 2011. (AP Photo/Jim Cole) KING: Welcome […]
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 (at 4:04 pm CST on April 7th, 2011, and will continue to do so in the […]
I found this article very interesting. The Kennedy-Reagan Truth vs. the Obama Delusion by Jim Denney In his book The New Reagan Revolution, Michael Reagan examined six great economic crossroads of the 20th and 21st centuries. These six critical junctures in the history of the United States serve as economic laboratories to test two contrasting economic […]
HALT:HaltingArkansasLiberalswithTruth.com This video clip gives 6 reasons why the Capital Gains Tax should be abolished Ernest Dumas in his article “Tax work not wealth,” (Arkansas Times, Nov 25, 2010) asserts, “The (capital gains) tax rate was raised in 1976 under President Gerald Ford and economic growth accelerated. President Jimmy Carter cut the top rate from 39 […]
I listened online to a sermon on Armageddon by Brandon Barnard at Fellowship Bible at Little Rock today and I loved the sermon and the song the service finished with which was “The Lion and The Lamb” (Lyrics) Big Daddy Weave
Adrian Rogers: The Signposts on the Road to Armageddon (2363)
The great historian Kenneth Scott Latourette said this—listen to this quote: “Jesus has had more effect on the history of mankind than any other of His race who ever existed.” That’s not a Baptist preacher speaking that. To explain Jesus Christ is impossible; to ignore Jesus Christ is disastrous; to reject Him is fatal. Understand who Jesus Christ is: To know Him is to love Him; to love Him is to trust Him; to trust Him is to be radically, dramatically, and eternally changed, to be transformed. I’m talking about who is Jesus. Human speech is too limited to describe Him. The human mind— too small to comprehend Him; and, the human heart can never really, completely, totally absorb who Jesus Christ is.
Let’s read Colossians 1, and I want to begin reading. We’re going to have to break in; let’s break into verse 12: “Giving thanks unto the Father, which hath made us meet”—or “fitting”—“to be partakers of the inheritance of the saints in light:”—now, folks, that’s talking about you. He’s talking about your inheritance. If somebody wealthy left you a legacy, would you not be interested? Then pay attention—“who hath delivered us from the power of darkness, and hath translated us into the kingdom of his dear Son” (Colossians 1:12–13). Larry King, there’s your answer. God does have a Son, and God said, “He is my dear Son.” And, He has a Kingdom.
Now, let’s talk about the inheritance that we have: “In whom we have redemption through his blood, even the forgiveness of sins: who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature: for by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead;”—and, here’s the key to it all—“that in all things he”—Jesus—“might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him”—that is, in His Son—“should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him”—by Jesus—“to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometime alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet now hath he reconciled” (Colossians 1:14–21).
We’re going to talk a little bit now about the Lord Jesus Christ, that in all things He might have pre-eminence. He doesn’t want a place in your life. He doesn’t wish for prominence in your life. He deserves and demands pre-eminence. Three reasons I want to give—they’re right here before us:
I. Jesus Reveals the Father
Reason number one: Jesus reveals the Father—Jesus reveals the Father. Look, in verse 15: Jesus is “the image of the invisible God” (Colossians 1:15). God is Spirit— invisible, unfathomable, unapproachable. How are we going to know God? Jesus is “the image of the invisible God.” The visible Jesus makes the invisible God known. The word image is the word eikon. We’re going to talk about that, in a moment. How are you going to know God? Not by reason. How are you going to know God? Not by religion. How are you going to know God? Not by ritual. You’re going to know God only by revelation, and Jesus Christ has come to reveal God to you. You can never fully know God the Father apart from God the Son.
Now, look again at verse 15—look at it: “Who is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn of every creature” (Colossians 1:15). Put those two words down; lock your mind on those two words: image and firstborn—Colossians 1:15—image and firstborn. The word image is the Greek word eikon. If you have a computer, you have icons on your computer. It means a “a representation.” Now, Jesus is the icon of God. The Greek word means “the exact representation.” Jesus is the express image of the invisible God. He is the eikon of God. And, go to Colossians chapter 2 and verse 9. See how Paul sums it up there: “For in him dwelleth all the fulness of the Godhead bodily” (Colossians 2:9). All of God was in Bethlehem’s stable. He is the eikon—the express image—of God.
You want to know God? Friend, Jesus Christ has cornered the market. He has a monopoly on revealing the Father. That’s the only way you’re going to know God. Let me give you a verse—put it in your margin: Matthew chapter 11 and verse 27. Here’s what Jesus Christ Himself said: “All things are delivered unto me of my Father: and no man knoweth the Son, but the Father; neither knoweth any man the Father, save the Son, and he to whomsoever the Son will reveal him” (Matthew 11:27).
Now, either that’s true, or it’s not true. I believe it’s true. He says, “Nobody knows My Father but Myself, and you can’t know Him unless I introduce Him to you.” That’s a big statement. Why? Because, Jesus is the express image of God. You’re never going to figure God out. How can the finite understand the infinite? Not by reason, but by revelation. Any other god that you worship is the god of your guesses, and that’s a form of idolatry. You don’t conjure up some god to worship him. Jesus came to reveal the Father.
You say, “Well, Pastor Rogers, that’s narrow-minded.” Well, you could be so broad-minded that your mind gets thin in the middle, be so open-minded that your brains may fall out.
I want my doctor to be narrow-minded. I don’t want him to say, “Well, you’re sick. Here are 10 bottles of medicine. Let’s just take one of them and see what happens.” I want my airplane pilot to be narrow-minded, and not try to land with the landing gear up. I want my banker to be narrow-minded. But, in the thing that matters the most, my eternal destiny, I think I’m not ignorant to want a little certitude, a certainty.
Yes, you can’t know the Father apart from Jesus Christ. Jesus didn’t say, “I’m a way”; He said, “I am the way.” He didn’t say, “I am a light”; He said, “I am the light. I am the way, the truth, and the life” (John 14:6). You see, God was manifest in the flesh.
My pastor friend, Jerry Vines, imagines Jesus Christ going into the temple and having a conversation with the teachers, when he was a 12-year-old boy. And, one of the learned doctors there strokes his beard, and says, “Son, how old are You?” “Well,” He says, “On My mother’s side, I’m 12-years-old, but on My Father’s side, I’m older than My mother and as old as My Father.” You see, He was both God and man. Now, on His mother’s side, He got thirsty; on His Father’s side, He said, “I am the water of life.” On His mother’s side, He got hungry; on His Father’s side, He took a little lad’s lunch and fed 5,000. On His mother’s side, He was homeless, and didn’t have a place to lay His head; on His Father’s side, He owned the cattle on a thousand hills. On His mother’s side, He wept at the grave of Lazarus; on His Father’s side, He said, “Lazarus, come forth,” and raised him from the dead. He was God in human flesh. That’s the word image.
Look at the word firstborn there, in verse 15. Now, don’t get the idea that firstborn implies a beginning. Jesus never had a beginning. There never was a time when Jesus was not. Jesus said, over there, in the Gospel of John, “Before Abraham was, I am” (John 8:58). Not, “I was”—“I am.” He is the great “I AM.” He never had a beginning. He has always existed in a state, never a start. He didn’t have His beginning at Bethlehem.
What does the word firstborn mean? Now, the Jehovah’s Witnesses tell us that there was a time when Jesus was not, that He was created; and, this is one of the verses that they try to use, but they mishandle the word firstborn altogether. The word firstborn speaks of honor and privilege, as God said of David, in Psalm 89, verse 27: “Also I will make him my firstborn, higher than the kings of the earth” (Psalm 89:27). Firstborn speaks of His exalted position. Look, in verse 17: “And he”—Jesus—“is before all things” (Colossians 1:17). He could not be created. Why? Because, all things were created by Him. It is obvious that whether there are things in Heaven, things on Earth— everything was made by Jesus, and for Jesus.
And so, you want to know God the Father? Would you like to know what the great, invisible God is like—who He is? Would you like to know His heart? Friend, Jesus reveals the Father. Thank God for that. Second point: Not only does Jesus reveal the Father; He is the image of the invisible God, the firstborn, the highest of all creation and above all creation.
II. Jesus Rules the Future
But secondly, Jesus rules the future—Jesus rules the future. Begin now, in verse 16:
“For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him, and for him: and he is before all things, and by him all things consist. And he is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulness dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him”—now, watch this—“to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven” (Colossians 1:16–20).
Now, what is this taking about? It’s talking about One who rules the universes, One who not only has this whole world in His hands, but He has the past, the present, the future in His hands. People ask, “What is the world coming to?” Answer: “It’s coming to Jesus—it is coming to Jesus.” All things were created by Him, and for Him, and it will all climax in the Lord Jesus Christ.
A. Jesus is the Power of Creation
Now, let me point this out just a little bit. First of all, he says, Jesus is the power of creation. Look, if you will, in verse 16. Jesus is the power of creation. “For by him were all things created; (Colossians 1:16). He is the power of creation. The little baby in Matthew 1 is the mighty God of Genesis 1. There was nothing made without Him. John tells us, “All things were made by him” (John 1:3).
“Adrian, don’t you believe in evolution?” Not for a skinny minute. No, I don’t believe in evolution. After I studied it, I wouldn’t believe in evolution, even if I weren’t a Christian. It’s the next best guess of those who do not know the Word of God.
Now, if evolution is true, you have problems with the Scripture. If the Bible can’t tell me from whence I have come, how can it tell me where I’m headed? You have trouble with salvation. If there’s no creation, no Adam and Eve, no Garden of Eden, there was no fall into sin. And, if there’s no fall into sin, there’s no need for a new birth. Man is just progressing onward and upward. But, Jesus said, in John 3: “Ye must be born again” (John 3:7). If Genesis 3 is a myth, John 3 is a farce. You have a problem with salvation. I’ll tell you something else: If you believe in evolution, you’re going to have problems in society, and that’s why we have so many. As we’ve often said, you teach the boys and girls they come from animals—it ought not to surprise us that they begin to act like animals. Listen. It was all made by Jesus.
Do you think all of this just happened? Do you think it’s just by some random chance—it all came out of some sort of primordial ooze that came out of lifeless matter? In your own body, there are 300 trillion cells in the human body—all of them incredibly complex.
There’s a book out you need to read called Darwin’s Black Box. You know, all scientists, and inventors, and pseudo-scientists selling snake oil or whatever—they have a little black box, and they say, “Well, you can’t look in there. That’s my trade secret.” Well, Michael Behe just kind of pried open Darwin’s black box, and I don’t want to get too complicated, but he talks about irreducible complexity. You take life and just reduce it back until you can’t reduce it any simpler. And, when you look at the simplest part, it is so complex that there’s no way possible that just one cell could have come about by evolution, because all of the components of that one cell are interdependent. It takes one for the other to be there. One could not have come out of the other.
I want to say again that you have in your human body 300 trillion cells. Now, in that one cell, you have rods known as chromosomes. And, in these chromosomes, you have genes, or your genetic makeup. And, that’s determined by something today that we call DNA. And, they look now at the DNA, and they say, “There’s a mind there. There’s intelligence there. There’s design there. There’s not randomness there.
” In the DNA, in one cell—one cell, there is enough information printed in books, it would take 600,000 books to write down the code of the DNA that is in one of the trillions of cells in your body that determines your intellect, the color of your hair, your personality—all of those things, encoded right in there. Who did all of that? Jesus. “All things were made by him” (John 1:3). He, friend, is the power of creation.
B. Jesus is the Preserver of Creation
I’ll tell you something else: He is the preserver of creation. Look, in verse 17 of this same chapter: “He is before all things, and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:17). Do you know what the word consist means? They stick together. Jesus Christ is the glue of the galaxies. What is it that keeps it all from falling apart or coming apart? Jesus.
Jesus is the One who feeds the sun with its fuel. Jesus is the One who guides the planets in their orbit around the sun. Jesus is the One who has set out all of the stars. Talk about natural law—there’s no natural law. They’re the laws of Jesus that nature obeys. It is by Jesus that all things consist (Colossians 1:17).
I was looking recently at Isaiah chapter 40 and verse 26. Listen to it—a great verse: “Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things…”—sometime, take time on a dark night to go out, and look up. That’s what he says—“Lift up your eyes on high, and behold who hath created these things,”—do you think that everything came out of nothing? You say, “I can’t believe in an eternal God.” You believe in eternal, inanimate matter? Now, listen to this—“[he] bringeth out their host by number:”—he’s talking about the stars—“he calleth them all by names” (Isaiah 40:26).
I was listening to radio the other day, and they said, “You want to give a Christmas present? We’ll name a star after you. You choose somebody, and we will name a star for that person, and we’ll put it in a book.” Friend, too late! Too late. Every one of the billions, and billions, and billions, and billions, and billions, and billions, and billions, and billions—and I could go on until the service ends—Jesus has named every one of them. He is the preserver of creation. He guides it all.
Light travels at 186,282 miles per second. How fast is that? All right, let’s hijack a light beam and travel around the earth—been around the earth 7 1/2 times right there, around the circumference. You want to go to the sun? The sun’s 93 million miles away. You can get there in 8 1/2 minutes, traveling on a light beam. You want to go to the nearest star? It would take you 4 1/2 years, traveling at 186,282 miles per second, to get to the nearest star. Friend, that’s 27 trillion miles away. And, that’s the closest one! There are more than 100 billion stars in our galaxy. To go from side to side, rim to rim, in our galaxy, would take you 100,000 light years, traveling at 186,282 miles per second. Who did that? His name is Jesus—His name is Jesus. He’s the One by whom all things consist. He is the power of creation. And, friend, He is the preserver of creation.
C. Jesus is the Purpose of Creation
And, He is the purpose of creation. Look, if you will now, in verse 16—look at it: “For by him were all things created, that are in heaven, and that are in earth, visible and invisible, whether they be thrones, or dominions, or principalities, or powers: all things were created by him,”—now, watch it—“and for him” (Colossians 1:16). Why all of this? Did you think it was for you? No, it’s for the Lord Jesus Christ.
For is a preposition that speaks of direction. It’s the Greek word eis—“moving in the direction.” Now, we, in America, have been invaded by Eastern religions. Eastern religions are circular. Everything goes ’round, and ’round, and ’round, and ’round. That’s the reason they believe in reincarnation. I’ve always thought reincarnation was putting the milk back in the can. You’ll get that later. They believe in reincarnation. That is, everything is circular. And so, you have to live with good karma. And, if your karma is not good, then, in your next life, you may come back as a roach. But, if you’ve been good, you might come back as a cow. That’s the reason they don’t eat meat. You might be eating your grandmother.
Now, they believe that it’s all circular; but it’s not circular, it is all headed in a direction. The Bible is linear. We’re moving to the time when the kingdoms of this world will become the Kingdom of our Lord and His Christ. That’s the reason He taught us to pray, “Thy Kingdom come, Thy will be done on Earth, even as it is in Heaven” (Matthew 6:10). I can hardly wait!
And, by the way, think of what’s going on today in history. Let me give you a verse my wife pointed out to me yesterday; I’ve been living on it—Isaiah chapter 33, verse 22: “For the LORD is our judge, the LORD is our lawgiver, the LORD is our king;”—got it? Judge, lawgiver, and king. What are the three parts of our government? The judiciary— the judge; the legislative—the lawgiver; and the executive—the king. Did you know Jesus is all three? You talk about a balance of power—He doesn’t need any balance of power. He is the power! The Lord—He is the judge; He is the lawgiver; He is the king. And then, it says—and this is Isaiah 33, verse 22—“he will save us” (Isaiah 33:22).
Friend, it is all headed to Jesus. It was all—it is all—for Him, for the Lord Jesus Christ. He is the key to the mystery of history.
I’m told that a young man was taking a philosophy course. He’d studied, and studied, and studied, and he came to the final exam, and the philosophy professor had a little bit of a sense of humor. He wanted to see how much philosophy these young people knew, how well they could think. The final examination was one word: “Why?” A student thought for a while, wrote one word down, and walked out: “Because!” I would add two more words: “because of Jesus—because of Jesus, because of Jesus.”
He is the mystery of history. Why is it all me? “All things were created by him, and for him…and by him all things consist” (Colossians 1:16–17). And, history has a date with Deity.
III. Jesus Reconciles the Fallen
Last thing of these three things I want to lay on your heart: Not only does Jesus reveal the Father, not only does Jesus rule the future, but Jesus, thank God, reconciles the fallen. That’s why He came. Look, in verse 18 now—look at it: “And he”—Jesus—“is the head of the body, the church: who is the beginning, the firstborn from the dead; that in all things he might have the preeminence. For it pleased the Father that in him should all fulless dwell; and, having made peace through the blood of his cross, by him to reconcile all things unto himself; by him, I say, whether they be things in earth, or things in heaven. And you, that were sometimes alienated and enemies in your mind by wicked works, yet hath he reconciled” (Colossians 1:18–21). That’s so wonderful! This Jesus, who declared the Father; this Jesus, who dominates the future; this is Jesus, who delivers the fallen, reconciles God and man.
You see, Christians are not just nicer people. They’re not just people who give intellectual assent to certain doctrinal things. But, you have to see the contrast. I mean, what is Paul saying? Paul is saying, “Look, He is the One who made everything. He made it all; it all belongs to Him. And yet, He hung naked on a cross.”
Think of it. God, the mighty Maker, died for man, the creature’s, Sin. You have to get it in its context. You have to understand what he’s talking about. He’s set you up. He’s telling you how great, how awesome, how mighty is Jesus. And then, he speaks of the blood of His cross. He died on a cross.
The One who made every seed, every limb, every tree—He dies on a tree. The One who made the oceans, and the fountains, and the rivers, and the streams, said, “I thirst.” The One who flung that sun out into space is the One who’s blistered by the noonday sun. He is dying. His death and His deity are put together. Other people have died; but friend, it’s His deity that makes His death meaningful. And, it is His death that makes His deity knowable. The two are together.
When Jesus created the universe, He did it with His Word. He said, “Let it be,” and it was; and, universes sprang from His fingertip. But, when He saved us, it took every drop of His blood. He didn’t have to do that. Larry King, He does have a Son. He died for you. Peter Jennings, He’s not the Jesus of some finger-thumping philosopher; He’s the Son of God, revealed in the pages of His Holy Word. He’s the One that took my sin—your sin, our sin—to the cross; and, there, made peace with the blood of His cross. And, on His cross, He took sinful man with one hand, holy God with the other hand, and reconciled God and man.
A woman was dying. They didn’t know who she was. She was in a hospital, apart from friends and family. They said, “Get a minister.” The minister came in, bent down, and whispered in her ear, “They say you’re dying. Have you made peace with God?” She shook her head. They huddled a while and came back. And the minister, wanting to press the point, said, “Dear lady, you’re dying. Don’t you think you need to make peace with God?” She shook her head again in the negative. The third time, they said, “You need to make peace with God.” She said, “No, I don’t. I am resting in the peace that Jesus has already made. I cannot make peace with God. Jesus made peace with the blood of His cross.” And, what we need to do is to enter into that peace by faith and trust the Lord Jesus.
Conclusion
Now, I’ve come to the end of the message. What is the bottom line? Listen to it—don’t miss it: “that in all things he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). Question to you: Does He have pre-eminence in your life?
Ellis A. Fuller was one of our great preachers of yesterday. Ellis Fuller had a girl that he loved very much and wanted to marry her. Let me tell you how he proposed to her: He said to her, “Would you be willing to take second place in my life?” Jesus is, and always will be, number one. Joyce knows she’s not number one in my life. She knows she’s number two; and, she’d much rather have it that way, because she knows that I can love her in a way that I never could love her, if she were number one.
Does Jesus Christ have the pre-eminence in your life? If not, what right do you have to call yourself a Christian? “That in all things”—everything—“he might have the preeminence” (Colossians 1:18). Who is Jesus? Friend, He is the Jesus of this Book.
Would you bow your heads in prayer? How many of you can say, “Pastor Rogers, I know that I know if I died today, I know on the authority of the Word of God—because I have repented of my sin, trusted Christ, and God’s Spirit bears witness with my spirit that I’m a child of God—I know that, if I died today, I’d go straight to Heaven”? Would you just lift your hand up, and hold it up, for a moment? Thank you. Take it down.
Now, I asked you to do that, because I wanted you to consider it. If you could not lift your hand, I want to guide you in a prayer. And, in this prayer today, if you will sincerely pray it, and mean it, Jesus Christ will save you: “Dear God. I’m a sinner, and I’m lost; and, I need to be saved. I need to be reconciled by the blood of Jesus to You. I open my heart. By faith, I embrace Jesus as my Lord and Savior. Come into my heart. Forgive my sin. Save me, Jesus.”
Did you ask Him? Thank Him: “Thank You for saving me, Jesus. I receive it by faith. And now, I will not be ashamed of You. I will make it public, if You will give me the strength, and I know You will. In Your name I pray. Amen.”
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]
Prophecy–The Biblical Prophesy About Tyre.mp4 Uploaded by TruthIsLife7 on Dec 5, 2010 A short summary of the prophecy about Tyre and it’s precise fulfillment. Go to this link and watch the whole series for the amazing fulfillment from secular sources. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qvt4mDZUefo ________________ John MacArthur on the amazing fulfilled prophecy on Tyre and how it was fulfilled […]
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]
John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 1) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]
Adrian Rogers – How you can be certain the Bible is the word of God Great article by Adrian Rogers. What evidence is there that the Bible is in fact God’s Word? I want to give you five reasons to affirm the Bible is the Word of God. First, I believe the Bible is the […]
Is there any evidence the Bible is true? Articles By PleaseConvinceMe Apologetics Radio The Old Testament is Filled with Fulfilled Prophecy Jim Wallace A Simple Litmus Test There are many ways to verify the reliability of scripture from both internal evidences of transmission and agreement, to external confirmation through archeology and science. But perhaps the […]
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is […]
Here is some very convincing evidence that points to the view that the Bible is historically accurate. Archaeological and External Evidence for the Bible Archeology consistently confirms the Bible! Archaeology and the Old Testament Ebla tablets—discovered in 1970s in Northern Syria. Documents written on clay tablets from around 2300 B.C. demonstrate that personal and place […]
The John Lennon and the Beatles really were on a long search for meaning and fulfillment in their lives just like King Solomon did in the Book of Ecclesiastes. Solomon looked into learning (1:12-18, 2:12-17), laughter, ladies, luxuries, and liquor (2:1-2, 8, 10, 11), and labor (2:4-6, 18-20). He fount that without God in the picture all […]
______________ George Harrison Swears & Insults Paul and Yoko Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds- The Beatles The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking […]
The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA Uploaded on Nov 29, 2010 The Beatles in a press conference after their Return from the USA. The Beatles: I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis […]
__________________ Beatles 1966 Last interview I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about them and their impact on the culture of the 1960’s. In this […]
_______________ The Beatles documentary || A Long and Winding Road || Episode 5 (This video discusses Stg. Pepper’s creation I have dedicated several posts to this series on the Beatles and I don’t know when this series will end because Francis Schaeffer spent a lot of time listening to the Beatles and talking and writing about […]
_______________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: _____________________ I have included the 27 minute episode THE AGE OF NONREASON by Francis Schaeffer. In that video Schaeffer noted, ” Sergeant Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band…for a time it became the rallying cry for young people throughout the world. It expressed the essence of their lives, thoughts and their feelings.” How Should […]
Crimes and Misdemeanors: A Discussion: Part 1 ___________________________________ Today I will answer the simple question: IS IT POSSIBLE TO BE AN OPTIMISTIC SECULAR HUMANIST THAT DOES NOT BELIEVE IN GOD OR AN AFTERLIFE? This question has been around for a long time and you can go back to the 19th century and read this same […]
____________________________________ Francis Schaeffer pictured below: __________ Francis Schaeffer has written extensively on art and culture spanning the last 2000years and here are some posts I have done on this subject before : Francis Schaeffer’s “How should we then live?” Video and outline of episode 10 “Final Choices” , episode 9 “The Age of Personal Peace and Affluence”, episode 8 […]
As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
Jeff Zeleny and John Biemer, Tribune staff reporters. Jeff Zeleny reported from Washington and John Biemer from ChicagoCHICAGO TRIBUNE
Tammy Duckworth, the Democratic hopeful in Illinois’ west suburban 6th Congressional District, was extolled here Thursday by one of the nation’s most influential abortion-rights groups as the candidate to replace retiring Republican Rep. Henry Hyde, whom the organization depicted as the “leading anti-choice zealot” in Congress.
“Wouldn’t you just love to put this brave, courageous woman in the seat of Henry Hyde?” said Ellen Malcom, president of EMILY’s List, a grass-roots network that gives political and financial backing to Democratic women candidates who support abortion rights.
Senator I wanted to tell you about an opportunity I had back in 1995 and it dealt with corresponding with Carl Sagan about the issue of abortion. I know this is an issue that you care deeply about.
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
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End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, ArkansasMy wife was born in main hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Archaeologists discovered the scrolls in the Judean Desert. They also found the world’s oldest fully intact basket, a 6,000-year-old mummified child and a cache of rare coins.
Israel Antiquities Authority · JERUSALEM · 19 MARCH 2021 · 13:15 CET
The fragments are written in Greek, except for the name of God, which appears in Hebrew, and contain verses from the books of Zechariah and Nahum. / IAACC
Israel Antiquities Authority’s (IAA) archaeologists have reported the discovery of dozens of Dead Sea Scroll fragments in the Judean Desert, south of Jerusalem, during an operation to prevent caves in the area being looted.
It is the first such discovery since the Dead Sea Scrolls, a collection of Jewish texts date from the third century B.C. to the first century A.D., which included the earliest known copies of biblical texts, were found in 1947 and the early fifties in desert caves in the West Bank.
The over 80 new pieces are believed to belong to a set of parchment fragments found in a site in southern Israel known as the “Cave of Horror” for the 40 human skeletons found there during excavations in the 1960s.
Along with the scroll, the archaeologists found a 6,000-year-old mummifiedskeleton of a child, a cache of rare coins from the period of the Jewish revolt, and what they think it might be theworld’s oldest fully intact basket, dating back about 10,500 years.
“The aim of this national initiative is to rescue these rare and important heritage assets from the robbers’ clutches”, said IAA Director Israel Hasson in a press release.
An expert opening a scroll section in the Israel Antiquities Authority’s conservation laboratory. / IAA.
Fragments of the books of Zechariah and Nahum
The fragments are written in Greek, except for the name of God, which appears in Hebrew, and contain verses from the books of Zechariah and Nahum. IAA researchers believe they were probably brought to the cave in A.D. 135 at the end of a Jewish revolt against Rome.
“This manuscript was over a century old at that time. It was probably some sort of family heirloom and a rather valuable scroll”, said Oren Ableman, researcher at the Dead Sea Scrolls unit of the IAA in a press release.
The archaeologists discovered that the Bible verse on the fragments that matches Zechariah 8:15 features a different translation: it ends with “and justice in your streets”, instead of “and justice in your gates”.
“These differences can tell us quite a bit regarding the transmission of the biblical text up until the days of the Bar Kochba Revolt, documenting the changes that occurred over time until reaching us in the current version”, explained the IAA.
According to Beatriz Riestra of the IAA Dead Sea scrolls unit, “in this manuscript, we can see the effort of the translators to remain closer to the original Hebrew compared to what happened with the Septuagint”.
World’s oldest fully intact basket
The basket also found in the operation is woven in a unique style from plant material and it has a capacity of about 100 litres. It was discovered empty, so that “only future research of a small amount of soil remaining inside it will help us discover what it was used for and what was placed in it”, pointed out the archaeologists.
“As far as we know, this basket, currently unparalleled worldwide, is the oldest in the world that has been found completely intact and its importance is therefore immense”, stressed the IAA.
Archaeologists also found what they think it might be the world’s oldest fully intact basket, dating back about 10,500 years. / IAA.
6,000-year-old mummified child
The 6,000-year-old mummified child was found in “a shallow pit intentionally dug beneath two flat stones, containing a skeleton of a child placed in a foetal position”, said IAA prehistorian Ronit Lupu in the press release.
“It was obvious that whoever buried the child had wrapped him up and pushed the edges of the cloth beneath him, just as a parent covers his child in a blanket”, added Lupu.
The cloth and other organic materials, including hair and even skin and tendons have been very well preserved, due to the dry climate of the Judean Desert.
Judea coins
The cache of coins was found overstruck with Jewish rebels’ symbols such as a harp and a date palm, an array of arrowheads and spearheads, pieces of woven fabric, sandals and lice combs, probably left there by Jewish rebels during the revolt, according to the experts.
The bronze coins feature a vine leaf and a palm tree, which “at the time had become the quintessential symbol of Judea. The Romans themselves put the symbol also on their Judea Capta coins”, explained Donald T. Ariel, head of the IAA Coin department.
The coins found feature a vine leaf and a palm tree. / IAA.
“Historically important operation”
IAA Director Israel Hasson warned that “the newly discovered scroll fragments are a wake-up call to the state. Resources must be allocated for the completion of this historically important operation. We must ensure that we recover all the data that has not yet been discovered in the caves. Some things are beyond value”.
“The desert team showed exceptional courage, dedication and devotion to purpose, rappelling down to caves located between heaven and earth, digging and sifting through them, enduring thick and suffocating dust, and returning with gifts of immeasurable worth for mankind”, concluded Hasson.
Published in: Evangelical Focus – culture – New Dead Sea scrolls with verses of the books of Zechariah and Nahum found
This post wraps up our Top Ten Biblical Discoveries in Archaeology series. To see the complete series please click here.
Old Testament Scribes
How accurate is the Old Testament we hold in our hands? It’s popular today to attack the accuracy of the Bible on the grounds of its lack of effective transmission. Popular authors claim the Bible we have today has simply been copied too many times, with too many textual errors, to be believed as the very words of God handed down to us over the millennia.
Every single copy of the Old Testament was hand copied up until the printing press came along in the 15th century AD. Imagine that, some of the books of the Old Testament were copied over and over for more than 3,000 years (traditional view of dating). Can a document copied so many times by hand truly be accurate today?
Tradition tells us the Hebrew people were meticulous copyists of Scripture. Scribes were so aware of their task they would go to great lengths to make sure their hand-written copy of Scripture was free from error. Hebrew scribes were bound to the following rules:
They could only use clean animal skins, both to write on, and even to bind manuscripts.
Each column of writing could have no less than forty-eight, and no more than sixty lines.
The ink must be black, and of a special recipe.
They must verbalize each word aloud while they were writing.
They must wipe the pen and wash their entire bodies every time before writing God’s name.
There must be a review within thirty days, and if as many as three pages required corrections, the entire manuscript had to be redone.
The letters, words, and paragraphs had to be counted, and the document became invalid if two letters touched each other. The middle paragraph, word and letter must correspond to those of the original document.
The documents could be stored only in sacred places (synagogues, etc.).
Silver Amulet Scroll and Nash Papyrus
With all the careful scribal work a shockingly few number of Old Testament ancient manuscripts exist until today. The silver amulet scroll is by far the oldest. The scroll was mentioned as #4 in this top ten series. The amulet scroll dates way back to 600 BC. This is fantastic but it is only a couple verses of the entire Bible. So we can get a feel for the accuracy of those couple verses but not be able to get a good representative sample for the entirety of Scripture.
The Nash Papyrus dates to around 200 BC. It’s also a wonderful discovery but similar to the amulet scroll it only contains a hand-full of verses. Gratefully those verses are the Ten Commandments, but nonetheless our only 2 manuscripts of the Old Testament from the BC era are a very small representation of the entire Old Testament canon.
Codex Aleppo
Codex Aleppo is the oldest entire Old Testament possessed by humanity. The manuscript dates to around 900AD. The priceless manuscript is indeed magnificent. When analyzing the more than 2.7 million writing details that make up the Old Testament, the manuscript appears to be very precise in its creation. Although we have such a beautiful manuscript, the elephant in the room is that this manuscript dates from 900AD. Many New Testament manuscripts are older than our oldest Old Testament manuscript. Most of the Old Testament was written over 1500 years before Codex Aleppo.
1946-47
The greatest biblically relevant archaeological discovery, made in the winter of 1946-47, would shake up the biblical and archaeological world. John C. Trever has done a good job reconstructing the story of the scrolls from several interviews with the Bedouin people.
Muhammed edh-Dhib, a 15 year old Bedouin living in Bethlehem, was with his cousin in the region of the Dead Sea. Jum’a Muhammad, the cousin of edh-Dhib, noticed some possible cave openings while out shepherding some goats. Edh-Dhib made it into a cave and discovered something that had been untouched for more than 2,200 years. He reached into a pot and retrieved some scrolls and showed them to Jum’a.
The impact of these scrolls were not readily apparent. The scrolls were taken back to the Bedouin camp to show the rest of the family. The Bedouin kept the scrolls hanging on a tent pole while they figured out what to do with them, periodically taking them out to show people.
The scrolls were first taken to a dealer named Ibrahim ‘ljha in Bethlehem. In one of those famous dumb moments of history ‘ljha returned them saying they were worthless. Undaunted, thankfully, the Bedouin went to a nearby market, where a Syrian Christian offered to buy them. A sheikh joined their conversation and suggested they take the scrolls to a part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin left one scroll with the dealer and then sold three scrolls to another for the ridiculous sum of $29!
George Isha’ya, a member of the Syrian Orthodox Church, heard about the scrolls and contacted St. Mark’s Monastery in the hope of getting an appraisal, news of the find then reached Metropolitan bishop Athanasius Yeshue Samuel, better known as Mar Samuel.
After examining the scrolls and suspecting their astronomical worth, he expressed interest in purchasing them. Four scrolls found their way into his hands. More scrolls continued to arrive on the scene. By the end of 1948, nearly two years after their first discovery, scholars had yet to locate the source of the manuscripts.
What was all the fuss about? After careful analysis and scientific analysis at the University of California, Davis it was determined that a new era of Old Testament biblical manuscripts had arrived. We were witnessing what appeared to be the discovery of an entire library of Old Testament and ancient Jewish writings. How old were these books? Remember our oldest complete Old Testament had been 900AD. An entire scroll of Isaiah was found and dated to around 200BC! Can you believe that, in one discovery 1100 years of biblical hand-written copies were spanned.
Magnitude of the Discovery
Archaeologists were able to track down the origin of the first scrolls and together with the Bedouins ended up finding a total of 972 manuscripts from 11 different caves. All 11 caves are in the southeastern Dead Sea area of Israel. The area receives almost no rainfall making it a perfect climate for ancient manuscripts to last thousands of years without decomposing.
The scrolls contain verses from every Old Testament book except for one. Only about 1/3rd of the scrolls are biblical writings. 2/3rds of the manuscripts are not biblical but pertain to Jewish life at the time. Think of it as stumbling across the 1,000 volume library of a Christian with many books of the Bible but then all sorts of books about 21st century Christian life and thought. This is the equivalent of the Dead Sea Scroll discovery. Many of the non-biblical books discovered were not known to even exist!
The scrolls, for some insane reason, were put up for sale in the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954. They were purchased for $250,000 and brought to Jerusalem where they eventually became housed in a museum called the Shrine of the Book where they reside today when not circulating in museums around the world. The scrolls today are considered priceless. Just to purchase a replica facsimile copy of 3 of the scrolls currently will run you $60,000 (a donation of replica scrolls to Parchment & Pen will not be turned down).
Significance of the Discovery
The scrolls are still, after decades, a discovery still being digested. The 972 manuscripts have shed great light on the accuracy and complexity of the Old Testament. The Isaiah Scroll, in comparison to Codex Aleppo and other manuscripts, show that the message of the Old Testament has not been changed over millennia. More articles and books have been written about the Dead Sea Scrolls than any other archaeological discovery with biblical significance. The scrolls are shedding a great deal of light on the Jewish religious world of roughly 200BC-90AD. The scrolls are generally showing the modern-day Old Testament to be an extremely accurate representation of the original writers.
Work in Progress
Google has announced a new deal with the Israeli Antiquities Authority to photograph all of the scrolls in order to make high-resolution photos available to anyone online for free. The scrolls continue to amaze and delight us; where we once had only a couple fragments of the ancient Old Testament we now enjoy an abundant library.
Please join the discussion by posting your thoughts in the comments section below.
___________
The Bible and Archaeology – Is the Bible from God? (Kyle Butt 42 min)
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I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]
I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry King’s Show. One of two most popular posts I […]
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John MacArthur on the Bible and Science (Part 2) I have posted many of the sermons by John MacArthur. He is a great bible teacher and this sermon below is another great message. His series on the Book of Proverbs was outstanding too. I also have posted several of the visits MacArthur made to Larry […]
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As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
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I read this about you and your Democratic friends several years ago in the Senate:
The Democratic-controlled Senate voted Friday to block a Republican measure that would force Congress to pass a stringent balanced budget amendment and cap spending before increasing the debt ceiling.
The legislation, a conservative priority, never had a chance of passing, but the strictly party-line 51-46 vote to table the “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill highlighted the partisan divide in Washington over how to tackle spending and raise the nation’s $14.3 trillion debt limit.
REPUBLICANS WANT TO SLOW SPENDING NOW AND I ADMIT THAT WASN’T ALWAYS THE CASE!!!
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
But with that came a corollary lesson: an awareness of what we risked when our actions failed to live up to our image and our ideals, the anger and resentment this could breed, the damage that was done. When I heard Indonesians talk about the hundreds of thousands slaughtered in a coup—widely believed to have CIA backing—that had brought a military dictatorship to power in 1967, or listened to Latin American environmental activists detailing how U.S. companies were befouling their countryside, or commiserated with Indian American or Pakistani American friends as they chronicled the countless times that they’d been pulled aside for “random” searches at airports since 9/11, I felt America’s defenses weakening, saw chinks in the armor that I was sure over time made our country less safe. That dual vision, as much as my skin color, distinguished me from previous presidents. For my supporters, it was a defining foreign policy strength, enabling me to amplify America’s influence around the world and anticipate problems that might arise from ill-considered policies. For my detractors, it was evidence of weakness, raising the possibility that I might hesitate to advance American interests because of a lack of conviction, or even divided loyalties. For some of my fellow citizens, it was far worse than that. Having the son of a black African with a Muslim name and socialist ideas ensconced in the White House with the full force of the U.S. government under his command was precisely the thing they wanted to be defended against.
—
Wayne Allyn Root rightly noted: I responded to host Bill Maher on the show that I’m not a fan of apologies, or in this case the appearance of an apology — especially if you’re apologizing for responding to something terrible the other guy did. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. They started the war, we merely ended it. They committed terrible atrocities against our soldiers and American POW’s throughout the war.
July 15, 2015: President Obama answers questions about the Iran nuclear deal during a news conference in the East Room of the White House in Washington. (AP Photo/Susan Walsh)
I was honored to be invited to appear as a guest on HBO’s “Real Time with Bill Maher” last Friday. On the show I was asked about Obama’s “apology tour” visit to Japan. I was asked if he should have visited Hiroshima- the site of the first U.S. nuclear attack that led to Japan’s surrender during World War II. I was asked, “Was it appropriate?”
I responded to host Bill Maher on the show that I’m not a fan of apologies, or in this case the appearance of an apology — especially if you’re apologizing for responding to something terrible the other guy did. Japan bombed Pearl Harbor. They started the war, we merely ended it. They committed terrible atrocities against our soldiers and American POW’s throughout the war.
My father David Root served in the South Pacific. He fought at Okinawa — the bloodiest battle of World War II. He saw firsthand the atrocities of the Japanese.
Our nuclear bombs didn’t just take lives. They saved many American (and ironically, Japanese) lives. Experts estimated the invasion of Japan would have cost at least 1,000,000 lives. Those atomic bombs actually saved far more lives than they cost. One of them might have been my father.
So my answer to Bill Maher was that I’m not a fan of even the appearance of apologizing for those atomic bombs, unless of course Japan’s prime minister is willing to come to Hawaii to apologize to the American victims of Pearl Harbor. I pointed out that is a negotiation that President Donald Trump could win.
But I found the response from Bill Maher’s liberal viewers interesting. I received many death threats…and people wishing me “a long slow painful death.” Some lectured me on all the apologies we owe to Japanese survivors, American Indians, and of course, African-American slaves.
I suddenly realized it’s time for Obama’s victims — middle class Americans — to speak up. Here is my answer to liberals across the country.
You’re 100 percent right…apologies are sometimes necessary.
Obama and his socialist cabal should apologize to every middle class American for the harm they’ve done to the U.S. economy; upward mobility; middle class jobs (there are none) and the American Dream (it’s dead).
They’ve created an unimaginable DISASTER. They’ve destroyed the greatest nation…the greatest economy…the greatest economic system (capitalism)…and greatest middle class in world history.
We are living in an Obama Great Depression.
Read my book “THE MURDER OF THE MIDDLE CLASS” to see hundreds of facts proving the middle class has been savaged.
Obama should also apologize for adding well over $10 trillion to the national debt (by the time he leaves office), which could lead to a severe debt crisis and the eventual collapse of the U.S. economy, but at a minimum will certainly cripple the quality of life of our children and grandchildren.
Obama should also apologize for the lies and fraud of ObamaCare. He lied when he said “If you like your insurance, you can keep your insurance.” Really? I lost mine. So did millions of other Americans. We are owed an apology.
But the architects of ObamaCare are owed a prison sentence for fraud — because apologies alone are not enough.
Obama should also apologize for the disastrous effects of ObamaCare — which has doubled and tripled premiums, co-pays, deductibles and prescription costs, killed quality high wage middle class jobs, as well as made it almost impossible to start or run a successful small business.
Obama should apologize for the vicious IRS attacks – for trying to persecute people for their political and religious beliefs. Or didn’t you know the IRS was ordered to go after conservative, Tea Party, Christian and pro-Israel groups? I was one of the victims. Where’s my apology?
Obama should apologize for cutting $2.5 billion for veterans, while adding over $4 billion to the budget for the importing of Syrian migrants into the USA. Every veteran in America is owed an apology.
Obama should apologize for demanding Congress allocate almost $18,000 for every illegal alien child or teen that enters America. That’s $3000 more than a American-born senior citizen gets for Social Security- even though they paid into the system. Every American-born senior citizen is owed an apology.
Obama should also apologize for the disastrous economy he has created with his radical leftist agenda…
Obama should apologize for the new report out that finds two thirds of Americans could not scrape together $500 in an emergency.
Obama should apologize for more young adults living at their parents’ home than at any time in history.
Obama should apologize for 46 million Americans on food stamps.
And Obama should apologize to 94 million working-age Americans NOT working.
Obama should apologize for a nation where more people collect government welfare checks than work in the private sector.
Obama should apologize for being the first president in history to preside over 7 straight years of GDP under 3 percent. And we are virtually assured of an eighth straight year. Neither Herbert Hoover nor FDR produced results that terrible, even in the depths of the Great Depression.
Obama should apologize for the fact that under his leadership, more businesses are closing each day than opening — for the first time in America’s history
Obama should apologize for demoralizing every business owner in America by saying “You didn’t build that.”
And Hillary should apologize for saying “Businesses don’t create jobs, government does.”
As soon as Obama, Hillary, their socialist cabal and every guilt-ridden white liberal apologizes for all that…
Then and only then should we worry about things done 70 and 100 and 200 years ago.
But Obama, Hillary, and their liberal friends should apologize for what they just did to the great American middle class.
And they should apologize to every small businessman and woman in America. Every business I personally own — and every friend I have that owns a small business — is in trouble, struggling to overcome the burdens of business under Obama- dramatically increased taxes, regulations, energy costs (because of the fraud of “green energy”), health care costs, legal bills and IRS attacks. The liberal policies of this administration have damaged and demoralized every small business owner and job creator in this country.
Where is our apology?
Obama, Hillary, Bernie and their socialist cabal are trying to ruin a great thing called America. I’ve had a great life — until recently. They want to make it less great. They won’t rest until America isn’t exceptional and we all live a crappy life of equality (i.e. misery).
So yes, liberals are right. It is time for an apology.
Obama owes an apology to the American people.Wayne Allyn Root is a CEO, entrepreneur, TV producer and host and best-selling conservative author. He is host of the nationally-syndicated “WAR Now: The Wayne Allyn Root Show” at www.USAradio.com. For more, visit his website: www.ROOTforAmerica.com. Follow him on Twitter@WayneRoot.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
As progressives push hard for Democrats to eliminate the legislative filibuster after gaining control of the Senate, House and the presidency, many Democratic senators are distancing themselves from a letter they signed in 2017 backing the procedure.
Sens. Susan Collins, R-Maine, and Chris Coons, D-Del., led a letter in 2017 that asked Republican Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., and Democratic Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., to preserve the legislative filibuster. As it’s existed for decades, the filibuster requires 60 votes in order to end debate on a bill and proceed to a final vote.
“We are writing to urge you to support our efforts to preserve existing rules, practices, and traditions” on the filibuster, the letter said.
Besides Collins and Coons, 59 other senators joined on the letter. Of that group, 27 Democratic signatories still hold federal elected office. Twenty-six still hold their Senate seats, and Vice President Harris assumed her new job on Jan. 20, vacating her former California Senate seat.
Sen. Chris Coons, D-Del., speaks as the Senate Judiciary Committee hears from legal experts on the final day of the confirmation hearing for Supreme Court nominee Amy Coney Barrett, on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Oct. 15, 2020. Coons has softened his support for the legislative filibuster in recent years after leading an effort to protect it in 2017. (AP Photo/J. Scott Applewhite)
But now, the momentum among Senate Democrats is for either full abolition of the filibuster or significantly weakening it. President Biden endorsed the latter idea Tuesday, announcing his support for a “talking filibuster.”
“I don’t think that you have to eliminate the filibuster, you have to do it what it used to be when I first got to the Senate back in the old days,” Biden told ABC. “You had to stand up and command the floor, you had to keep talking.”
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
The legislative filibuster has been a 60-vote threshold for what is called a “cloture vote” — or a vote to end debate on a bill — meaning that any 41 senators could prevent a bill from getting to a final vote. If there are not 60 votes, the bill cannot proceed.
The “talking filibuster” — as it was most recently seriously articulated by Sen. Jeff Merkley, D-Ore., in 2012 — would allow 41 senators to prevent a final vote by talking incessantly, around-the-clock, on the Senate floor. But once those senators stop talking, the threshold for a cloture vote is lowered to 51.
Harris’ office confirmed to Fox News Wednesday that she is now aligned with Biden on the filibuster issue. She’d previously taken an even more hostile position to the filibuster, saying she would fully “get rid” of it “to pass a Green New Deal” at a CNN town hall in 2019.
Coons, who led the 2017 letter along with Collins, has also distanced himself from his previous stance.
Vice President Kamala Harris attends a ceremonial swearing-in for Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., as President Pro Tempore of the Senate on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Feb. 4, 2021. Harris has changed her stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a letter in 2017 backing it. (Michael Reynolds/Pool via AP) (AP)
“I’m going to try my hardest, first, to work across the aisle,” he said in September when asked about ending the filibuster. “Then, if, tragically, Republicans don’t change the tune or their behavior at all, I would.”
Fox News reached out to all of the other 26 Democratic signatories of the 2017 letter, and they all either distanced themselves from that position or did not respond to Fox News’ inquiry.
“Less than four years ago, when Donald Trump was President and Mitch McConnell was the Majority Leader, 61 Senators, including more than 25 Democrats, signed their names in opposition to any efforts that would curtail the filibuster,” a GOP aide told Fox News. “Other than the occupant of the White House, and the balance of power in the Senate, what’s changed?”
“I’m interested in getting results for the American people, and I hope we will find common ground to advance key priorities,” Sen. Tim Kaine. D-Va., said in a statement. “If Republicans try to use arcane rules to block us from getting results for the American people, then we’ll have a conversation at that time.”
Added Sen. Mark Warner, D-Va: “I am still hopeful that the Senate can work together in a bipartisan way to address the enormous challenges facing the country. But when it comes to fundamental issues like protecting Americans from draconian efforts attacking their constitutional right to vote, it would be a mistake to take any option off the table.”
“Senator Stabenow understands the urgency of passing important legislation, including voting rights, and thinks it warrants a discussion about the filibuster if Republicans refuse to work across the aisle,” Robyn Bryan, a spokesperson for Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., said.
FILE – In this Oct. 26, 2018, file photo, Sen.Bob Casey, D-Pa., speaks to reporters in the studio of KDKA-TV in Pittsburgh. Casey has reversed his stance on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter in support of it. (AP Photo/Gene J. Puskar, File)
Representatives for Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa., pointed to recent comments he made on MSNBC.
“Yes, absolutely,” Casey said when asked if he would support a “talking filibuster” or something similar. “Major changes to the filibuster for someone like me would not have been on the agenda even a few years ago. But the Senate does not work like it used to.”
“I hope any Democratic senator who’s not currently in support of changing the rules or altering them substantially, I hope they would change their minds,” Casey added.
Representatives for Sen. Angus King, I-Vt., who caucuses with Democrats, meanwhile, references a Bangor Daily News editorial that said King was completely against the filibuster in 2012 but now believes it’s helpful in stopping bad legislation. It said, however, that King is open to “modifications” similar to a talking filibuster.
The senators who did not respond to questions on their 2017 support of the filibuster were Sens. Joe Manchin. D-W.Va.; Patrick Leahy, D-Vt.; Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn.; Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H.; Michael Bennet, D-Colo.; Martin Heinrich, D-N.M.; Sherrod Brown, D-Ohio; Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif.; Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y.; Brian Schatz, D-Hawaii; Cory Booker, D-N.J.; Maria Cantwell, D-Wash.; Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii; John Tester, D-Mont.; Tom Carper, D-Del.; Maggie Hassan, D-N.H.; Tammy Duckworth, D-Ill.; Jack Reed, D-R-I.; Ed Markey, D-Mass.; Sheldon Whitehouse, D-R.I.; and Bob Menendez, D-N.J.
Some of these senators, however, have addressed the filibuster in other recent comments.
Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., on Wednesday was asked if she supported changing the filibuster threshold by CNN and said she is still opposed to the idea. “Not at this time,” Feinstein said.
Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, speaks to reporters on Capitol Hill in Washington, Thursday, Jan. 30, 2020, during the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress. Hirono has changed her opinion on the legislative filibuster since signing a 2017 letter supporting it. (AP Photo/Julio Cortez)
Sen. Maize Hirono, D-Hawaii, meanwhile said last week she is already for getting rid of the current 60-vote threshold and thinks other Democrats will sign on soon.
“If Mitch McConnell continues to be totally an obstructionist, and he wants to use the 60 votes to stymie everything that President Biden wants to do and that we Democrats want to do that will actually help people,” Hirono said, “then I think the recognition will be among the Democrats that we’re gonna need to.”
The most recent talk about either removing or significantly weakening the filibuster was spurred by comments from Manchin that appeared to indicate he would be open to a talking filibuster. He said filibustering a bill should be more “painful” for a minority.
Manchin appeared to walk back any talk of a talking filibuster on Wednesday, however.
“You know where my position is,” he said. “There’s no little bit of this and a little bit — there’s no little bit here. You either protect the Senate, you protect the institution and you protect democracy or you don’t.”
Manchin and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema, D-Ariz., both committed to supporting the current form of the filibuster earlier this year. Sinema was not in the Senate in 2017.
Senate Minority Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said their comments gave him the reassurance he needed to drop a demand that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., put filibuster protections into the Senate’s organizing resolution.
But with Manchin seeming to flake at least in the eyes of some, other Democrats are beginning to push harder for filibuster changes.
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I read something you said back during the campaign:
“In the first 100 days I will remove Trump’s ‘gag rules’, which I can do with no need of congressional involvement,” she said. “I will reverse funding decisions right away, and make sure that we only nominate judges for confirmation who are consistent with the law” of Roe v Wade.
Senator I wanted to tell you about an opportunity I had back in 1995 and it dealt with corresponding with Carl Sagan about the issue of abortion. I know this is an issue that you care deeply about.
Thanks for your recent letter about evolution and abortion. The correlation is hardly one to one; there are evolutionists who are anti-abortion and anti-evolutionists who are pro-abortion.You argue that God exists because otherwise we could not understand the world in our consciousness. But if you think God is necessary to understand the world, then why do you not ask the next question of where God came from? And if you say “God was always here,” why not say that the universe was always here? On abortion, my views are contained in the enclosed article (Sagan, Carl and Ann Druyan {1990}, “The Question of Abortion,” Parade Magazine, April 22.)
I was blessed with the opportunity to correspond with Dr. Sagan, and in his December 5, 1995 letter Dr. Sagan went on to tell me that he was enclosing his article “The Question of Abortion: A Search for Answers”by Carl Sagan and Ann Druyan. I am going to respond to several points made in that article. Here is a portion of Sagan’s article (here is a link to the whole article):
(both Adrian Rogers and Francis Schaeffer mentioned Carl Sagan in their books and that prompted me to write Sagan and expose him to their views.
For the complete text, including illustrations, introductory quote, footnotes, and commentary on the reaction to the originally published article see Billions and Billions.
The issue had been decided years ago. The court had chosen the middle ground. You’d think the fight was over. Instead, there are mass rallies, bombings and intimidation, murders of workers at abortion clinics, arrests, intense lobbying, legislative drama, Congressional hearings, Supreme Court decisions, major political parties almost defining themselves on the issue, and clerics threatening politicians with perdition. Partisans fling accusations of hypocrisy and murder. The intent of the Constitution and the will of God are equally invoked. Doubtful arguments are trotted out as certitudes. The contending factions call on science to bolster their positions. Families are divided, husbands and wives agree not to discuss it, old friends are no longer speaking. Politicians check the latest polls to discover the dictates of their consciences. Amid all the shouting, it is hard for the adversaries to hear one another. Opinions are polarized. Minds are closed.
Is it wrong to abort a pregnancy? Always? Sometimes? Never? How do we decide? We wrote this article to understand better what the contending views are and to see if we ourselves could find a position that would satisfy us both. Is there no middle ground? We had to weigh the arguments of both sides for consistency and to pose test cases, some of which are purely hypothetical. If in some of these tests we seem to go too far, we ask the reader to be patient with us–we’re trying to stress the various positions to the breaking point to see their weaknesses and where they fail.
In contemplative moments, nearly everyone recognizes that the issue is not wholly one-sided. Many partisans of differing views, we find, feel some disquiet, some unease when confronting what’s behind the opposing arguments. (This is partly why such confrontations are avoided.) And the issue surely touches on deep questions: What are our responses to one another? Should we permit the state to intrude into the most intimate and personal aspects of our lives? Where are the boundaries of freedom? What does it mean to be human?
Of the many actual points of view, it is widely held–especially in the media, which rarely have the time or the inclination to make fine distinctions–that there are only two: “pro-choice” and “pro-life.” This is what the two principal warring camps like to call themselves, and that’s what we’ll call them here. In the simplest characterization, a pro-choicer would hold that the decision to abort a pregnancy is to be made only by the woman; the state has no right to interfere. And a pro-lifer would hold that, from the moment of conception, the embryo or fetus is alive; that this life imposes on us a moral obligation to preserve it; and that abortion is tantamount to murder. Both names–pro-choice and pro-life–were picked with an eye toward influencing those whose minds are not yet made up: Few people wish to be counted either as being against freedom of choice or as opposed to life. Indeed, freedom and life are two of our most cherished values, and here they seem to be in fundamental conflict.
Let’s consider these two absolutist positions in turn. A newborn baby is surely the same being it was just before birth. There ‘s good evidence that a late-term fetus responds to sound–including music, but especially its mother’s voice. It can suck its thumb or do a somersault. Occasionally, it generates adult brain-wave patterns. Some people claim to remember being born, or even the uterine environment. Perhaps there is thought in the womb. It’s hard to maintain that a transformation to full personhood happens abruptly at the moment of birth. Why, then, should it be murder to kill an infant the day after it was born but not the day before?
As a practical matter, this isn’t very important: Less than 1 percent of all tabulated abortions in the United States are listed in the last three months of pregnancy (and, on closer investigation, most such reports turn out to be due to miscarriage or miscalculation). But third-trimester abortions provide a test of the limits of the pro-choice point of view. Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?
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End of Sagan Excerpt
When I was in high school the book and film series named WHATEVER HAPPENED TO THE HUMAN RACE? came out and it featured Doctor C. Everett Koop and Francis Schaeffer and they looked at the issues of abortion, infanticide, and youth euthanasia and they looked at comments from such scholars as Peter Singer and James D. Watson.
C. Everett Koop pictured above and Peter Singer below
Peter Singer, an endowed chair at Princeton’s Center for Human Values, said, “Killing a disabled infant is not morally equivalent to killing a person. Very often it is not wrong at all.”
James D.Watson
In May 1973, James D. Watson, the Nobel Prize laureate who discovered the double helix of DNA, granted an interview to Prism magazine, then a publication of the American Medical Association. Time later reported the interview to the general public, quoting Watson as having said, “If a child were not declared alive until three days after birth, then all parents could be allowed the choice only a few are given under the present system. The doctor could allow the child to die if the parents so choose and save a lot of misery and suffering. I believe this view is the only rational, compassionate attitude to have.”
Carl Sagan
On August 30, 1995 I mailed a letter to Carl Sagan that probably prompted this discussion on abortion and it enclosed a lengthy story from Adrian Rogers about an abortion case in Pine Bluff, Arkansas that almost became an infanticide case:
An excerpt from the Sunday morning message (11-6-83) by Adrian Rogers in Memphis, TN.
I want to tell you that secular humanism and so-called abortion rights are inseparably linked together. We have been taught that our bodies and our children are the products of the evolutionary process, and so therefore human life may not be all that valuable to begin with. We have come today to where it is legal and even considered to be a good thing to put little babies to death…15 million little babies put to death since 1973 because of this philosophy of Secular Humanism.
How did the court make that type of decision? You would think it would be so obvious. You can’t do that! You can’t kill little babies! Why? Because the Bible says! Friend, they don’t give a hoot what the Bible says! There used to be a time when they talked about what the Bible says because there was a time that we as a nation had a constitution that was based in the Judeo-Christian ethic, but today if we say “The Bible says” or “God says “Separation of Church and State. Don’t tell us what the Bible says or what God says. We will tell you what we think!” Therefore, they look at the situation and they decide if it is right or wrong purely on the humanistic philosophy that right and wrong are relative and the situation says what is right or what is wrong.
This little girl just 19 years old went into the doctor’s office and he examined her. He said, “We can take take of you.” He gave her an injection in her arm that was to cause her to go into labor and to get rid of that protoplasm, that feud, that little mass that was in her, but she wasn’t prepared for the sound she was about to hear. It was a little baby crying. That little baby weighed 13 ounces. His hand the size of my thumbnail. You know what the doctor did. The doctor put that little baby in a grocery sack and gave it to Maria’s two friends who were with her in that doctor office and Said, “It will stop making those noises after a while.”
(Adrian Rogers pictured above)
Pine Bluff, ArkansasMy wife was born in main hospital in Pine Bluff, Arkansas
They took that grocery sack and Maria home and one hour passed and two hours passed and that baby was still crying and panting for his life in that grocery sack. They took that little baby down to the hospital there in Pine Bluff, Arkansas, and they called an obstetrician and he called a pediatrician and they called nurses and they began to work on that little baby. Today that baby is alive and well and healthy, that little mass of protoplasm. That little thing that wasn’t a human being is alive and well. I want to tell you they spent $150,000 to save the life of that baby. NOW CAN YOU EXPLAIN TO ME HOW THEY CAN SPEND $150,000 TO SAVE THE LIFE OF SOMETHING THAT SOMEBODY WAS PAYING ANOTHER DOCTOR TO TAKE THE LIFE OF? The same life!!! Are you going to tell me that is not a baby? Are you going to tell me that if that baby had been put to death it would not have been murder? You will never convince me of that. What has happened to us in America? We have been sold a bill of goods by the Secular Humanists!
Carl Sagan was elected the HUMANIST OF THE YEAR in 1982 by the AMERICAN HUMANIST ASSOCIATION
Carl Sagan asked, “Does a woman’s “innate right to control her own body” encompass the right to kill a near-term fetus who is, for all intents and purposes, identical to a newborn child?”
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12.) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
(Emailed to White House on 12-21-12) President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, Ronald Reagan, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
The federal government has a spending problem and Milton Friedman came up with the negative income tax to help poor people get out of the welfare trap. It seems that the government screws up about everything. Then why is President Obama wanting more taxes? _______________ Milton Friedman – The Negative Income Tax Published on […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in President Obama, spending out of control, Taxes | Edit | Comments (0)
I was sad to read that the Speaker John Boehner has been involved in punishing tea party republicans. Actually I have written letters to several of these same tea party heroes telling them that I have emailed Boehner encouraging him to listen to them. Rep. David Schweikert (R-AZ),Justin Amash (R-MI), and Tim Huelskamp (R-KS). have been contacted […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Speaker of the House John Boehner, spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 to 2012, it rose faster than inflation and population growth combined. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
Some of the heroes are Mo Brooks, Martha Roby, Jeff Flake, Trent Franks, Duncan Hunter, Tom Mcclintock, Devin Nunes, Scott Tipton, Bill Posey, Steve Southerland and those others below in the following posts. THEY VOTED AGAINST THE DEBT CEILING INCREASE IN 2011 AND WE NEED THAT TYPE OF LEADERSHIP NOW SINCE PRESIDENT OBAMA HAS BEEN […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
I hated to see that Allen West may be on the way out. ABC News reported: Nov 7, 2012 7:20am What Happened to the Tea Party (and the Blue Dogs?) Some of the Republican Party‘s most controversial House members are clinging to narrow leads in races where only a few votes are left to count. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events | Edit | Comments (0)
Rep Himes and Rep Schweikert Discuss the Debt and Budget Deal Michael Tanner of the Cato Institute in his article, “Hitting the Ceiling,” National Review Online, March 7, 2012 noted: After all, despite all the sturm und drang about spending cuts as part of last year’s debt-ceiling deal, federal spending not only increased from 2011 […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control, Taxes| Edit | Comments (0)
A group of 21 Republican state attorneys general has accused President Joe Biden of overstepping his constitutional authority when he revoked the Keystone XL pipeline’s federal permit. Pictured: Biden delivers remarks in the State Dining Room of the White House March 15, 2021, in Washington, D.C. (Photo: Drew Angerer/Getty Images)
A group of 21 Republican state attorneys general filed a federal lawsuit Wednesday against President Joe Biden’s administration over its decision to nix the Keystone XL pipeline.
The states, led by Montana and Texas, accused Biden of overstepping his constitutional authority when he revoked the Keystone XL pipeline’s federal permit on Jan. 20 hours after entering office, in the lawsuit filed Wednesday afternoon in the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Texas.
“The power to regulate foreign and interstate commerce belongs to Congress—not the President,” Montana Attorney General Austin Knudsen said in a statement Wednesday. “This is another example of Joe Biden overstepping his constitutional role to the detriment of Montanans.”
“There is not even a perceived environmental benefit to his actions—his attempt to cancel the Keystone XL Pipeline is an empty virtue signal to his wealthy coastal elite donors,” Knudsen said. “It shows Biden’s contempt for rural communities in Montana and other states along the pipeline’s path that would benefit from and support the project.”
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Congress never granted the president the authority to revoke the pipeline’s permit, which is a regulation of interstate and international commerce, according to the lawsuit. The U.S. Constitution gives Congress the sole power to regulate interstate and international commerce.
Further, Biden violated the rules previously set by Congress on what actions the executive branch may take regarding the Keystone pipeline, the lawsuit said.
Biden had stated that keeping the pipeline’s permit would not be consistent with his “economic and climate imperatives,” which include solving the world’s climate crisis. The complaint Wednesday argued that he couldn’t alter U.S. domestic policy with the intention of conducting foreign policy.
“The President has certain prerogatives to act on behalf of the United States in foreign affairs,” the lawsuit said. “But as far as domestic law is concerned, the President must work with and abide by the limits set by Congress—whether he likes them or not.”
“This Administration has sought to leverage its power regarding U.S. foreign policy to unilaterally contradict Congress’s stated domestic policy regarding one of the most significant energy projects in a generation: the Keystone XL Pipeline,” the lawsuit said.
Former President Donald Trump’s March 2019 executive order approving the pipeline permit was constitutional because it fell in line with the “repeatedly expressed preferences” of Congress, according to Wednesday’s complaint.
The lawsuit also noted the damages incurred by Biden’s decision to nix the pipeline’s permit. The project was estimated to generate $55.6 million in property taxes across 27 counties in just three states and to create more than 42,000 jobs.
The project is an extension of an existing TC Energy pipeline that already transports crude oil from Canada to the U.S., according to The Wall Street Journal. The extension would carry crude directly from Alberta, Canada, to Steele City, Nebraska, where it would connect to existing pipeline that stretches to the Gulf of Mexico.
The part of the pipeline extension that crosses the U.S.-Canada border is mostly completed, the lawsuit said.
Montana, Texas, Alabama, Arizona, Arkansas, Georgia, Indiana, Kansas, Kentucky, Louisiana, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, North Dakota, Ohio, Oklahoma, South Carolina, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, and Wyoming were listed as plaintiffs on the suit.
Biden, Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Attorney General Merrick Garland, and Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas were all listed as defendants.
On Feb. 10, 14 attorneys general, including many listed in Wednesday’s lawsuit, sent a letter “with alarm” to the Biden administration, urging the president to reconsider his decision to effectively kill the pipeline. The letter warned that the states had been reviewing all available legal options to protect their residents.
“Your decision will result in devastating damage to many of our states and local communities,” the attorneys general wrote in the letter to Biden. “Even those states outside the path of the Keystone XL pipeline—indeed all Americans—will suffer serious, detrimental consequences.”
Knudsen, the Montana attorney general, led the coalition, which included the top legal officers from Georgia, Missouri, South Carolina, South Dakota and Texas. Montana’s portion of the proposed pipeline would have been 285 miles long and was expected to generate more than 4,000 jobs.
John Kerry, the White House climate czar, recently said workers who lose their jobs due to the administration’s climate policies can find jobs making solar panels. The letter said the Biden administration’s insistence that laid off pipeline workers would be given green jobs in the future was a “cold promise.”
Several prominent trade unions, which endorsed Biden’s 2020 presidential campaign, strongly condemned the executive order. The unions ignored requests for comment from The Daily Caller News Foundation asking why they supported Biden despite his campaign promise to nix the job-creating pipeline.
“Well, I wish he hadn’t done that on the first day,” Richard Trumka, the president of the powerful AFL-CIO, told Axios. “Because the Laborer’s International was right, it did and will cost us jobs in the process.”
The Teamsters, the Laborers’ International Union of North America, the International Union of Operating Engineers, and the United Association of Union Plumbers and Pipefitters signed the Keystone pipeline’s labor agreement in August. The agreement promised the creation of 42,000 “family-sustaining jobs” in the U.S. and $2 billion in total earnings for the all-union workforce.
The Laborers’ International Union of North America estimated that Biden’s executive action would kill thousands of union jobs. LIUNA General President Terry O’Sullivan called the action “insulting and disappointing.”
Meanwhile, 12 states sued the Biden administration over its climate policies on March 8. One day later, two states sued the administration over its immigration policies.
A group of Republican attorneys general threatened additional legal action against the Biden administration in a letter to Department of Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen Tuesday. The 21 attorneys general demanded clarity on Biden’s position regarding state tax policy.
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Joe Biden today signed the so-called COVID relief bill that is the greatest expansion of abortion in a decade. Although he claims to be a “devout Catholic,” Biden just signed a bill that forces Americans to fund abortions and the Planned Parenthood abortion business. It is the largest expansion of abortion funding since 2010, when Democrats passed Obamacare.
The COVID relief bill that spends all but 9% on COVID relief and will spend tens of millions, perhaps over $100 million on funding abortions and the Planned Parenthood abortion corporation.
In the Senate, Democrats defeated a pro-life amendment that would have stopped the COVID relief bill from using tens of millions and perhaps hundreds of millions of dollars to fund killing babies in abortions. Democrat Senators Joe Manchin and Bob Casey, who both claim to be pro-life, voted for the abortion-funding legislation after the amendment was defeated.
The Senate voted 52-47 to defeat the pro-life amendment offered by Senator James Lankford of Oklahoma to apply the Hyde Amendment to the COVID bill. Every Republican voted for the amendment along with Democrat senators Bob Casey of Pennsylvania, Tim Kaine of Virginia, and Joe Manchin of West Virginia. Senator Sullivan of Alaska did not vote. despite voting for the amendemnt to stop abortion funding, Casey and Manchin eventually voted for the abortion-funding bill.
The amendment failed because it did not reach the 60-vote threshold needed to waive budget rules associated with the legislation. Without the 3/5 majority necessary, the amendment fails and the COVID bill will fund abortions.
Yesterday, the nation’s Catholic bishops slammed Democrats for passing the bill without any protections against abortion funding.
It is “unconscionable” that Congress passed the bill “without critical protections needed to ensure that billions of taxpayer dollars are used for life-affirming health care and not for abortion,” wrote the bishops in a statement.
“Unlike previous COVID [coronavirus] relief bills, sponsors of the American Rescue Plan Act refused to include the longstanding, bi-partisan consensus policy to prohibit taxpayer dollars from funding abortions domestically and internationally,” the bishops declared.
The policy was needed, they continued, “because this bill includes many general references to healthcare that, absent the express exclusion of abortion, have consistently been interpreted by federal courts not only to allow, but to compel, the provision of abortion without meaningful limit.”
“The many important, life-saving provisions in the American Rescue Plan Act have been undermined because it facilitates and funds the destruction of life, which is antithetical to its aim of protecting the most vulnerable Americans in a time of crisis,” they state.
The $350 billion state bailout funds are particularly problematic as the bill doesn’t prevent states and localities from using taxpayer funds to pay for abortions. Under the current guidelines, liberal states like New York and California, which are likely going to receive the lion’s share of the bailout, can funnel millions to abortion giants like Planned Parenthood if they choose.
Please follow LifeNews.com on Gabfor the latest pro-life news and info, free from social media censorship.
The Family Research Council released a lengthy analysis of the funds in the bill that could be used to pay for abortions:
The American Rescue Plan Act lacks key abortion funding restrictions on over $459 billion, breaking decades of congressional precedent on restricting federal funding for abortion.
1. Funds that Can Directly Pay for Abortions (Up To $386.7 Billion):
$350 billion in funding for state and local governments with little to no guardrails against funding abortions. The funding formula is tilted towards blue states like California and New York who are more likely to abuse this money to fund abortions directly and bail out Planned Parenthood the abortion industry.
$8.5 billion for the Provider Relief Fund, which could be used to directly finance abortions as well as to bail out abortion businesses like Planned Parenthood
$7.66 billion for public health workers
$7.6 billion for community health centers
$800 million for National Health Service Corps
$750 million for global health activities under the Center for Disease Control
$500 million for rural health clinics
$330 million for Teaching Health Centers that operate Graduate Medical Education
$200 million for medical reserve corps
$200 million for the nurse corps
$200 million for programs related to sexual assault and domestic violence
Amounts of $10 billion for COVID medical supplies that remain after September 2022 are allowed to be spent on other public health-related activities which can include abortion.
2. Funds that Can Subsidize Abortion ($704 Million) and Abortion Lobbying ($10 Billion) Overseas:
$10 billion in foreign assistance funds not subject to the Siljander Amendment, allowing these funds to be used for international abortion lobbying.
Of these funds, $500 million in humanitarian response activities for migrants and refugees by the United Nations also lack Helms Amendment protections to prevent the UN from using these funds to pay for abortions.
Of these funds, $204 million for State Department Activities also lack Helms Amendment protections, allowing these funds to be used for abortions abroad.
Of these funds $8.7 billioncan be spent on contraception and sterilization procedures overseas and are likely to go to the major abortion business like International Planned Parenthood and MSI Reproductive Choices that provide these services.
3. Major Subsidies for Health Plans that Cover Abortion ($81.7 Billion):
For 2021 and 2022, vastly expands Obamacare’s premium tax credits and cost sharing reduction payments, which subsidizes plans that cover abortion. The Joint Committee on Taxation (JCT) estimatesthese subsidies to cost $45.624 billion.
Those under 150% of federal poverty level (FPL) would receive a 100% taxpayer subsidy to enroll in silver plans.
Those unemployed of any income level (for 2021) would receive a 100% taxpayer subsidy to enroll in a silver plan, and enhanced cost-sharing reduction payments.
Those between 150% and 400% FPL would receive a much more generous subsidy than current law.
Middle class taxpayers above 400% FPL, ineligible under current law, would become newly eligible for a significant subsidy so that the benchmark silver premium doesn’t exceed 8.5% of household income.
For six months, subsidizes 100% of the cost of COBRA continuation coverage. This subsidy covers the cost of health care premiums for the newly unemployed to remain on their employer sponsored health plans, which includes many plans that cover abortion. JCT estimates these subsidies to cost $35.095 billion.
4. Bailout for Abortion Businesses ($50 Million)
$50 million for the Title X family planning program – The Biden administration will likely direct these funds to Planned Parenthood and other abortion businesses that withdrew from Title X over pro-life changes that were made by the Trump administration. Longstanding requirements on political lobbying, encouraging parental involvement, and reporting sexual abuse are not included.
The pro-life group SBA List wrote to senators ahead of the Senate vote urging them to adopt pro-life amendments to curb abortion funding.
“While prior bipartisan COVID relief packages have included Hyde protections on funding streams that fall outside of existing limits on abortion funding, this bill departs from the status quo by leaving funds open to use for abortion. COVID relief money should be used for life-affirming purposes… we strongly support and will score in favor of amendments to mitigate the funding of abortion, abortion coverage, or abortion providers,” it wrote.
SBA List President Marjorie Dannenfelser added: “Pro-abortion forces emboldened by Joe Biden and Kamala Harris are shamelessly exploiting the COVID-19 crisis to expand abortion on demand, paid for by taxpayers. By failing to include Hyde Amendment protections and forcing taxpayers to bail out the abortion industry, their so-called ‘rescue plan’ abandons some of the most vulnerable Americans – unborn children and their mothers. Their agenda will divide, rather than unite our nation as this administration promised.”
Tom McClusky, president of March for Life Action also told LifeNews that the pro-life group opposes the bill without pro-life amendments to stop abortion funding.
“The current COVID-19 relief package has the potential to be the largest expansion of abortion funding since Obamacare. Less than 10% of the ‘relief’ actually goes towards combatting the pandemic. Instead, pro-abortion politicians are using this bill to open the floodgates to abortion funding, with billions of dollars unprotected from being used for the life-ending practice both here in the U.S. and abroad. This is radically out of step with the majority of Americans who oppose their tax dollars funding it. Americans who have been suffering from the effects of the pandemic deserve authentic relief, not this pro-abortion bonanza,” he said.
That is despite the fact that the rules and regulations associated with the program specifically prohibited affiliates of larger organizations with more than 500 employees from applying. That covers Planned Parenthood as Planned Parenthood Federation of America (PFFA) alone has had more than 600 employees.
Shockingly, only 9% of the bill’s funding will go to public health issues, and almost half of the funding, not including the proposed stimulus checks, won’t be distributed until 2022 at the earliest.
Recent Marist polling, though, shows Americans overwhelmingly oppose taxpayer funding of abortion overseas. The survey reveals 77 percent of Americans reject the idea of taxpayer dollars funding abortion abroad while a majority of Democrats—55 percent—also oppose taxpayer funding of abortion abroad.
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The 1973 Roe v. Wade decision focused further attention on Court appointments with every nomination from that point on triggering a pitched battle between pro-choice and anti-abortion forces.
—
I know that you are a professing Christian but I wonder how you the view the Bible? Do you believe like evangelicals that the Bible is the inerrant word of God and is historically accurate? Tony Dungy is an evangelical and like me he is pro-life. Take a look at this article below:
Former NFL coach Tony Dungy is a man who takes his Christian faith very seriously, and when it comes to Rev. Raphael Warnock, who is running for U.S. Senate in Georgia, he wasn’t so sure about him.
Warnock, a Democrat and pastor at Ebenezer Baptist Church, is in the middle of a runoff election against Sen. Kelly Loeffler, R-Ga.
Warnock tweeted Tuesday he was a “pro-choice pastor,” which inherently goes against the pro-life views of most Christians.
When a Twitter user pointed out on Wednesday that “pro-choice pastors” do exist, the Super Bowl champion head coach appeared skeptical.
“Rev Warner may be a pastor. My question would be ‘Is he a Christian?’ That is, does he follow the teachings of Jesus and does he believe that the Bible is the absolute word of God?” tweeted, who is a football commentaror for NBC.
He added: “I would think it would be difficult for someone who believes that God sees us when we are in the womb (Psalm 139:13-16) to think that it is OK to choose not to bring that life to fruition.”
On Thursday, another Twitter user said being pro-choice didn’t mean that a person was pro-abortion. Dungy replied, “Please read Psalm 139:13-16. Then tell me if you think God puts babies in the womb or man does? If you believe they randomly get there then I have no argument. But if you believe God puts them there, then how does anyone have a right to ‘choose’ which ones survive?”
“What if I was advocating for the right to kill someone who was already born? Would that be morally OK? Of course not. The only question in this debate is what we think of the unborn baby? Is it a life or is it not?”
Dungy is not one to shy away from his faith. In 2006, it was noted that Dungy nearly put his football career on pause to join the prison ministry. And over the course of his career he worked in community service organizations and was a public speaker for the Fellowship of Christian Athletes.
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
After the welfare state was created, poverty and dependency stopped declining.
Now let’s add a fifth item.
The United States adopted welfare reform in the mid-1990s.
Today’s column examines whether this was a bad development or good development.
We’ll start with a harsh critic.
In his column for the New York Times, Charles Blow wants Democrats to repeal Clinton’s welfare reform.
Clinton’s record, particularly with respect to Black and brown Americans and the poor, was marked by catastrophic miscalculation. …the welfare reform bill, …Clinton promised would “end welfare as we know it.” One of its central provisionswas block-grant assistance to the states. …the Center for Budget and Policy Priorities pointed out in 2020, the block grant to states “has been set at $16.5 billion each year since 1996; as a result, its real value has fallen by almost 40 percent due to inflation.” …With the passage of the “American Rescue Plan,” the Democrats, alone, took another major step away from the mistakes of the Clinton legacy by increasing aid to families with children and to workers.
Reading the column, it seems like blacks must have suffered immensely because of the 40 percent reduction in the block grant.
But now let’s consider whether welfare reform was a good thing.
According to the data, the answer is yes. This chart, based on the Census Bureau’s data (specifically Table B-5), shows that the poverty rate for African Americans has declined since welfare reform was enacted.
To be sure, one could argue that the post-welfare reform decline was simply a continuation of a positive trend. But that doesn’t change the fact that there’s certainly no evidence that the 1996 legislation led to bad results.
Moreover, research from the Brookings Institution makes a persuasive case that welfare reform deserves credit for some of the post-1996 progress.
Why? Because it sent a message – both practically and rhetorically – that permanent dependence on Uncle Sam was a bad thing. As a result, more people entered the workforce and poverty dropped.
That seems like a result that should be celebrated.
The only silver lining to that dark cloud is that the handouts are only for 2021.
But the pro-redistribution crowd already is clamoring to make that provision a permanent giveaway. To paraphrase Bill Clinton, they want to “restore welfare as we knew it.”
P.S. Based on what I’ve read in his columns, Charles Blow is a hard-core leftist on economic issues. But he’s semi-reasonable on gun rights, so that’s one point in his favor.
P.P.S. Welfare reform is just one example of the good policiesthat were enacted during the Clinton years.
P.P.P.S. We can learn lessons about welfare and dependency by looking at data from Europe and Canada.
President Clinton Signing the Balanced Budget Bill (1997)
Newt Gingich Explains How He Balanced the Budget as Speaker of the House
Ronald Reagan Talks About Balancing the Budget on Johnny Carson’s Tonigh…
President Reagan’s Remarks on Balanced Budget Amendment on July 12, 1982
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February 22, 2021
Office of Barack and Michelle Obama P.O. Box 91000 Washington, DC 20066
Dear President Obama,
I wrote you over 700 letters while you were President and I mailed them to the White House and also published them on my blog http://www.thedailyhatch.org .I received several letters back from your staff and I wanted to thank you for those letters.
I have been reading your autobiography A PROMISED LAND and I have been enjoying it.
Let me make a few comments on it, and here is the first quote of yours I want to comment on:
The realignment Johnson foresaw ended up taking longer than he had expected. But steadily, year by year—through Vietnam, riots… and Nixon’s southern strategy; through busing, Roe v. Wade, urban crime, and white flight; through affirmative action, the Moral Majority, union busting, and Robert Bork; through assault weapons bans and the rise of NEWT GINGRICH …and the Clinton impeachment—America’s voters and their representatives became more and more polarized.
There are two main things that Newt Gingrich and Bill Clinton teamed up on and accomplished and they were a balanced budget and welfare reform!
I have posted articles on my blog (www.thedailyhatch.org) about the balanced budget efforts of very prudent people like Milton Friedman and Ronald Reagan.
The main reason we need a Balanced Budget Amendment is to control spending. Milton Friedman was right about that. Notice below that Ron Paul quotes Friedman on this issue.
Congressman Ron Paul (R-Texas) says merely scaling back to 2008 spending levels is nowhere near enough to fix the massive government debt problems.
“As Milton Friedman famously argued, what we really need is a constitutional amendment to limit taxes and spending, not simply to balance the budget,” Paul said in a speech to the House of Representatives made prior to the vote on the “Cut, Cap and Balance” bill. The bill is expected to pass the House tonight, but President Barack Obama has said he will veto it if it clears the Senate and reaches his desk.
What is needed is a dramatically smaller federal government, says Paul. “If we achieve this, a balanced budget will take care of itself,” he says. “We need to cut back at least to where spending was a decade ago.”
Sincerely,
Everette Hatcher III, 13900 Cottontail Lane, Alexander, AR 72002, ph 501-920-5733 everettehatcher@gmail.com
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President Reagan’s Remarks on a Constitutional Amendment for a Balanced …
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PAY IT BACKWARDS: The Federal Budget Surplus with Milton Friedman
How to Reduce Debt and Grow the Economy: Milton Friedman on Budget Recon… ——
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 48) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 47) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, but […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Sixty Six who resisted “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal (Part 46) This post today is a part of a series I am doing on the 66 Republican Tea Party favorites that resisted eating the “Sugar-coated Satan Sandwich” Debt Deal. Actually that name did not originate from a representative who agrees with the Tea Party, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in spending out of control | Edit | Comments (0)
Ronald Reagan with Milton Friedman Milton Friedman The Power of the Market 2-5
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. TEMIN: We don’t think the big capital arose before the government did? VON HOFFMAN: Listen, what are we doing here? I mean __ defending big government is like defending death and taxes. […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen worked pretty well for a whole generation. Now anything that works well for a whole generation isn’t entirely bad. From the fact __ from that fact, and the undeniable fact that things […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 5 of 7 MCKENZIE: Ah, well, that’s not on our agenda actually. (Laughter) VOICE OFF SCREEN: Why not? MCKENZIE: I boldly repeat the question, though, the expectation having been __ having […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 4 of 7 The massive growth of central government that started after the depression has continued ever since. If anything, it has even speeded up in recent years. Each year there […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. PART 3 OF 7 Worse still, America’s depression was to become worldwide because of what lies behind these doors. This is the vault of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Inside […]
I am currently going through his film series “Free to Choose” which is one the most powerful film series I have ever seen. For the past 7 years Maureen Ramsey has had to buy food and clothes for her family out of a government handout. For the whole of that time, her husband, Steve, hasn’t […]By Everette Hatcher III | Edit | Comments (0)
Friedman Friday:(“Free to Choose” episode 4 – From Cradle to Grave, Part 1 of 7) Volume 4 – From Cradle to Grave Abstract: Since the Depression years of the 1930s, there has been almost continuous expansion of governmental efforts to provide for people’s welfare. First, there was a tremendous expansion of public works. The Social Security Act […]
Michael Harrington: If you don’t have the expertise, the knowledge technology today, you’re out of the debate. And I think that we have to democratize information and government as well as the economy and society. FRIEDMAN: I am sorry to say Michael Harrington’s solution is not a solution to it. He wants minority rule, I […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
PETERSON: Well, let me ask you how you would cope with this problem, Dr. Friedman. The people decided that they wanted cool air, and there was tremendous need, and so we built a huge industry, the air conditioning industry, hundreds of thousands of jobs, tremendous earnings opportunities and nearly all of us now have air […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Part 5 Milton Friedman: I do not believe it’s proper to put the situation in terms of industrialist versus government. On the contrary, one of the reasons why I am in favor of less government is because when you have more government industrialists take it over, and the two together form a coalition against the ordinary […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
The fundamental principal of the free society is voluntary cooperation. The economic market, buying and selling, is one example. But it’s only one example. Voluntary cooperation is far broader than that. To take an example that at first sight seems about as far away as you can get __ the language we speak; the words […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
_________________________ Pt3 Nowadays there’s a considerable amount of traffic at this border. People cross a little more freely than they use to. Many people from Hong Kong trade in China and the market has helped bring the two countries closer together, but the barriers between them are still very real. On this side […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Aside from its harbor, the only other important resource of Hong Kong is people __ over 4_ million of them. Like America a century ago, Hong Kong in the past few decades has been a haven for people who sought the freedom to make the most of their own abilities. Many of them are […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Current Events, Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
“FREE TO CHOOSE” 1: The Power of the Market (Milton Friedman) Free to Choose ^ | 1980 | Milton Friedman Posted on Monday, July 17, 2006 4:20:46 PM by Choose Ye This Day FREE TO CHOOSE: The Power of the Market Friedman: Once all of this was a swamp, covered with forest. The Canarce Indians […]
If you would like to see the first three episodes on inflation in Milton Friedman’s film series “Free to Choose” then go to a previous post I did. Ep. 9 – How to Cure Inflation [4/7]. Milton Friedman’s Free to Choose (1980) Uploaded by investbligurucom on Jun 16, 2010 While many people have a fairly […]
Charlie Rose interview of Milton Friedman My favorite economist: Milton Friedman : A Great Champion of Liberty by V. Sundaram Milton Friedman, the Nobel Prize-winning economist who advocated an unfettered free market and had the ear of three US Presidents – Nixon, Ford and Reagan – died last Thursday (16 November, 2006 ) in San Francisco […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Stearns Speaks on House Floor in Support of Balanced Budget Amendment Uploaded by RepCliffStearns on Nov 18, 2011 Speaking on House floor in support of Balanced Budget Resolution, 11/18/2011 ___________ Below are some of the main proposals of Milton Friedman. I highly respected his work. David J. Theroux said this about Milton Friedman’s view concerning […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman | Edit | Comments (0)
Milton Friedman: Free To Choose – The Failure Of Socialism With Ronald Reagan (Full) Published on Mar 19, 2012 by NoNationalityNeeded Milton Friedman’s writings affected me greatly when I first discovered them and I wanted to share with you. We must not head down the path of socialism like Greece has done. Abstract: Ronald Reagan […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Milton Friedman, President Obama | Edit | Comments (1)
What a great defense of Milton Friedman!!!! Defaming Milton Friedman by Johan Norberg This article appeared in Reason Online on September 26, 2008 PRINT PAGE CITE THIS Sans Serif Serif Share with your friends: ShareThis In the future, if you tell a student or a journalist that you favor free markets and limited government, there is […]
President Obama c/o The White House 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue NW Washington, DC 20500 Dear Mr. President, I know that you receive 20,000 letters a day and that you actually read 10 of them every day. I really do respect you for trying to get a pulse on what is going on out here. There have […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit |Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at war with religion in our public life. Lillian Kwon quoted somebody […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
President Obama Speaks at The Ohio State University Commencement Ceremony Published on May 5, 2013 President Obama delivers the commencement address at The Ohio State University. May 5, 2013. You can learn a lot about what President Obama thinks the founding fathers were all about from his recent speech at Ohio State. May 7, 2013, […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, President Obama | Edit | Comments (0)
Dr. C. Everett Koop with Bill Graham. Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (1)
America’s Founding Fathers Deist or Christian? – David Barton 4/6 There have been many articles written by evangelicals like me who fear that our founding fathers would not recognize our country today because secular humanism has rid our nation of spiritual roots. I am deeply troubled by the secular agenda of those who are at […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Tagged governor of connecticut, john witherspoon, jonathan trumbull | Edit | Comments (1)
3 Of 5 / The Bible’s Influence In America / American Heritage Series / David Barton There were 55 gentlemen who put together the constitution and their church affliation is of public record. Greg Koukl notes: Members of the Constitutional Convention, the most influential group of men shaping the political foundations of our nation, were […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I do not think that John Quincy Adams was a founding father in the same sense that his father was. However, I do think he was involved in the early days of our government working with many of the founding fathers. Michele Bachmann got into another history-related tussle on ABC’s “Good Morning America” today, standing […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in David Barton, Founding Fathers | Edit | Comments (0)
I have gone back and forth and back and forth with many liberals on the Arkansas Times Blog on many issues such as abortion, human rights, welfare, poverty, gun control and issues dealing with popular culture. Here is another exchange I had with them a while back. My username at the Ark Times Blog is Saline […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Arkansas Times, Francis Schaeffer, Prolife | Edit |Comments (0)
I truly believe that many of the problems we have today in the USA are due to the advancement of humanism in the last few decades in our society. Ronald Reagan appointed the evangelical Dr. C. Everett Koop to the position of Surgeon General in his administration. He partnered with Dr. Francis Schaeffer in making the […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Adrian Rogers, Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
Francis Schaeffer: “Whatever Happened to the Human Race” (Episode 4) THE BASIS FOR HUMAN DIGNITY Published on Oct 7, 2012 by AdamMetropolis ____________ The 45 minute video above is from the film series created from Francis Schaeffer’s book “Whatever Happened to the Human Race?” with Dr. C. Everett Koop. This book really helped develop my political […]By Everette Hatcher III | Posted in Francis Schaeffer | Edit | Comments (0)
How accurate is the Old Testament we hold in our hands? It’s popular today to attack the accuracy of the Bible on the grounds of its lack of effective transmission. Popular authors claim the Bible we have today has simply been copied too many times, with too many textual errors, to be believed as the very words of God handed down to us over the millennia.
With all the careful scribal work a shockingly few number of Old Testament ancient manuscripts exist until today. The silver amulet scroll is by far the oldest. The scroll was mentioned as #4 in this top ten series. The amulet scroll dates way back to 600 BC. This is fantastic but it is only a couple verses of the entire Bible. So we can get a feel for the accuracy of those couple verses but not be able to get a good representative sample for the entirety of Scripture.
Codex Aleppo is the oldest entire Old Testament possessed by humanity. The manuscript dates to around 900AD. The priceless manuscript is indeed magnificent. When analyzing the more than 2.7 million writing details that make up the Old Testament, the manuscript appears to be very precise in its creation. Although we have such a beautiful manuscript, the elephant in the room is that this manuscript dates from 900AD. Many New Testament manuscripts are older than our oldest Old Testament manuscript. Most of the Old Testament was written over 1500 years before Codex Aleppo.
The greatest biblically relevant archaeological discovery, made in the winter of 1946-47, would shake up the biblical and archaeological world. John C. Trever has done a good job reconstructing the story of the scrolls from several interviews with the Bedouin people.
The scrolls were first taken to a dealer named Ibrahim ‘ljha in Bethlehem. In one of those famous dumb moments of history ‘ljha returned them saying they were worthless. Undaunted, thankfully, the Bedouin went to a nearby market, where a Syrian Christian offered to buy them. A sheikh joined their conversation and suggested they take the scrolls to a part-time antiques dealer. The Bedouin left one scroll with the dealer and then sold three scrolls to another for the ridiculous sum of $29!
After examining the scrolls and suspecting their astronomical worth, he expressed interest in purchasing them. Four scrolls found their way into his hands. More scrolls continued to arrive on the scene. By the end of 1948, nearly two years after their first discovery, scholars had yet to locate the source of the manuscripts.
Archaeologists were able to track down the origin of the first scrolls and together with the Bedouins ended up finding a total of 972 manuscripts from 11 different caves. All 11 caves are in the southeastern Dead Sea area of Israel. The area receives almost no rainfall making it a perfect climate for ancient manuscripts to last thousands of years without decomposing.
The scrolls, for some insane reason, were put up for sale in the Wall Street Journal on June 1, 1954. They were purchased for $250,000 and brought to Jerusalem where they eventually became housed in a museum called the Shrine of the Book where they reside today when not circulating in museums around the world. The scrolls today are considered priceless. Just to purchase a replica facsimile copy of 3 of the scrolls currently will run you $60,000 (a donation of replica scrolls to Parchment & Pen will not be turned down).
The scrolls are still, after decades, a discovery still being digested. The 972 manuscripts have shed great light on the accuracy and complexity of the Old Testament. The Isaiah Scroll, in comparison to Codex Aleppo and other manuscripts, show that the message of the Old Testament has not been changed over millennia. More articles and books have been written about the Dead Sea Scrolls than any other archaeological discovery with biblical significance. The scrolls are shedding a great deal of light on the Jewish religious world of roughly 200BC-90AD. The scrolls are generally showing the modern-day Old Testament to be an extremely accurate representation of the original writers.
Google has announced a new deal with the Israeli Antiquities Authority to photograph all of the scrolls in order to make high-resolution photos available to anyone online for free. The scrolls continue to amaze and delight us; where we once had only a couple fragments of the ancient Old Testament we now enjoy an abundant library.
The Daily Hatch 