Wednesday, November 10, 2010
Sunday, November 7, 2010
Ohio Homeless Shelters Already Full Before Winter Sets In
click to read full story from Dayton Daily News
COLUMBUS, Ohio — Temperatures are dropping down into the 30s in Ohio. But for the homeless population in Columbus, that's not cold enough to guarantee people shelter.
The Columbus Dispatch reports the staff at Faith Mission had to turn away 41 men and women on Wednesday because all 514 beds were taken.
The weather forecast that night was 39 degrees and rainy. All people seeking shelter are guaranteed a place to stay when temperatures dip below 25 degrees.
The homeless shelter system in Columbus has been praised for its success in getting homeless people off the streets and into apartments.
It hasn't spent money on additional shelter beds in years. Michelle Heritage Ward, executive director of the Community Shelter Board, says the nonprofit group doesn't plan to change that this winter, but it will probably have to rent additional space for temporary beds and mats.
"My great hope is that we're starting to see an economic recovery," Ward said.
Don Strasser, director of the Columbus Coalition for the Homeless, says he supports the shelter system's focus on housing, but says it might be time to be flexible with the weather policy.
"But we've never seen it like it is now," he said. "To have to tell people that there is no bed for them because it's not yet 25 degrees is a pretty terrible feeling."
At another shelter last week, 24-year-old Nicole Moberly crawled into bed. She's almost nine months pregnant and works at a fast food restaurant. She says she's one of the lucky ones.
"I see others sleeping outside," Moberly said. "There's not enough room for everyone."
People have helped her line up an apartment and she's due to move in soon after her baby is born.
"I am blessed," she said. "It's really bad out there. I saw a girl as far along as I am sleeping out in the rain."
Persecution Of Christians In Iraq
Since 2003, there has been a mass exodus of Christians from Iraq. Many of those who stayed behind have been kidnapped. Amidst the chaos, many churches succumbed to threats and closed their doors. On April 26, 2009, three Christians were killed and two others wounded in Kirkuk, Iraq. The attackers slit the throats of a Christian woman and her daughter-in-law, killing them both. Meanwhile, in a nearby neighborhood, gunmen attacked another Christian family, shooting the father and his three sons. One of the sons died instantly, and the others were wounded. In October 2008, more than seven Christians were killed and more than 200 families displaced.
Christians 'On Verge of Extinction' in Iraq, Muslim Leader Warns
A Muslim leader is calling on the Iraqi government and US-led forces to step up their efforts to protect the Christian minority in Iraq from extinction.
Navaid Hamid, Secretary of the South Asian Council for Minorities (SACM) and a Muslim, said the deadly attack last weekend on a church in Baghdad was a heinous crime that should be strongly condemned by the international community.
“With the murderous attack, the safety of Iraq’s Christian minority has become critical and it is the prime responsibility not only of the regime in Baghdad but also that of the allied forces led by [the] US to restore confidence and provide safety because never in the history of Iraq, minorities were so vulnerable [sic],” he said.
Around 58 people are believed to have died when al-Qaida linked militants stormed the Our Lady of Salvation Church in Baghdad and opened fire on the congregation.
Hamid said Christians in Iraq were “paying a high price” for their faith and living in fear because of the “unprecedented” levels of violence against them.
“It is a fact that they are on the verge of extinction in Iraq,” he said.
An estimated 400,000 Christians have left Iraq and sought asylum in the US and Europe because of the persecution they face in Iraq.
The biggest victims of the US-led invasion of Iraq, Hamid said, were its minorities.
“[They] have become easy target [sic] for terrorist attacks in their own country,” he said.
Earlier this week, Christian and Muslim leaders issued a joint statement condemning the attack on the church in Baghdad. Signatories of the letter included Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal of Jordan and representatives of the World Council of Churches.
They said the attack was an “inhumane” act that “contradicts all religious teachings and Middle Eastern culture that enabled people to coexist for many centuries”.
They called on the UN Security Council and Iraqi officials to put an end to terrorist attacks “aimed at degrading Iraqi people … and defiling Christian and Islamic sacred places.”
The Islamic State of Iraq, the group which claimed responsibility for the attack, has threatened to continue targeting Christians. It says it attacked the church in retaliation for the supposed detention of two women converts to Islam by the Coptic Church in Egypt.
According to the Associated Press, the Coptic Church’s head, Pope Shenouda III, said God had turned the attack to good by creating sympathy for his church.
Christians who turned up to St Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo for Wednesday’s service were made to pass through metal detectors before being allowed in.
Addressing the congregation, Shenouda said: “God either prevents evil or turns it to good. Affirming that everything turns to good, the message that reached us brought sympathy for us from the Noble Al-Azhar [a revered institution of higher learning in Egypt] and from many writers and journalists and the interior ministry and police.”
In Iraq, armed security guards have been placed outside some churches after last Sunday's attack.
Brian Hutt
Christian Today Reporter
Copyright © 2010 Christianpost.com. All rights reserved.
Obama Speaking In India
Obama: huminah huminah....... "Islam is one of the world's great religions. "Peace, justice, fairness, tolerance. This great religion, in the hands of a few extremists"
Friday, November 5, 2010
Zach Howell Chairman, College Republican National Committee Thanks Jeremy Caverley Vice President of Ohio University-Chillicothe College Republicans
Dear Jeremy,
What a week to be a Conservative! On Tuesday, we made history. We elected the largest Republican majority in the House in 70 years, and cut deeply into the Democrat majority in the Senate. We've elected strong leaders who will restore fiscal responsibility, and begin to push back on the damaging policies put in place by the liberal majority over the past four years. I'm proud to say that together, we have played a major part in this historic victory.
College Republicans nationally accounted for 65,000 volunteer hours on behalf of Republican candidates. More than 30,000 new College Republican volunteers were recruited in the two months leading up to Election Day, and in total, these volunteers made more than two million voter contacts. College Republicans were the ground troops that made this victory possible, and we couldn't have done it without your generous assistance. You have been a vital part of our team.
With Election Day behind us, we at the College Republican National Committee are turning our attention to the battles ahead. Liberal professors will still be working to brainwash another generation of American college students, and we will be working just as hard to restore intellectual balance on campus. President Obama will still be pursuing failed tax and spend policies, and we will be working to educate young Americans on the perils they face as a result of this unsustainable fiscal policy. The Democratic Party will begin its efforts to recreate the army of young people that helped propel the President to power, and we will continue to mobilize the students who delivered the President a humbling defeat on November 2nd. Our work goes on, and I want you to know how vital your continued support will be to our efforts.
Thank you again for all you have done for the College Republican National Committee and our country.
With Gratitude,
Zach Howell
Chairman, College Republican National Committee
Tuesday, November 2, 2010
Man Dressed As Jesus Kicked Out Of Church
He dresses up like Jesus every week, going to a new church every week, he says, to spread his Christian message.
"He said 'Take up your cross, your breastplate, and your staff and follow in Jesus Christ's footsteps and wear a white robe to show your sincerity,'" he said. "That's my job, to spread the word."
He says he is questioned most weeks, but then welcomed. But when he tried to enter St. Paul's Lutheran Church in Des Peres, he was not allowed in.
"One of the deacons saw me," he said, "and when I went in the church he met me and he said, 'Can I help you? What do you want?' I said, 'I want to go to church here today.' And he said, 'What do you believe in? Are you Christian? What religion are you?' I said, 'I'm a Christian.'"
Thompson said he was not allowed in the sanctuary. Church members told him he'd have to sit in the hallway.
"And I said, 'Well this ain't right, you guys ain't treating me right.' He said, 'We're gonna call the police.' I said, 'Well call them, I don't care. Call them.' So I sat down and the next thing I know four or five police showed up."
The church secretary referred us to Des Peres police, who did not even write a report. They say Thompson wasn't causing a scene, but they asked him to leave and he did, peacefully.
"Oh I forgive them, I forgive them," said Thompson.
He said this was only the second time he's been kicked out of a church in the last 22 years.
Washington Times Calling For Impeachment Of President Obama
President Obama has engaged in numerous high crimes and misdemeanors. The Democratic majority in Congress is in peril as Americans reject his agenda. Yet more must be done: Mr. Obama should be impeached.
He is slowly - piece by painful piece - erecting a socialist dictatorship. We are not there - yet. But he is putting America on that dangerous path. He is undermining our constitutional system of checks and balances; subverting democratic procedures and the rule of law; presiding over a corrupt, gangster regime; and assaulting the very pillars of traditional capitalism. Like Venezuela's leftist strongman, Hugo Chavez, Mr. Obama is bent on imposing a revolution from above - one that is polarizing America along racial, political and ideological lines. Mr. Obama is the most divisive president since Richard Nixon. His policies are Balkanizing the country. It's time for him to go.
He has abused his office and violated his oath to uphold the Constitution. His health care overhaul was rammed through Congress. It was - and remains - opposed by a majority of the people. It could only be passed through bribery and political intimidation. The Louisiana Purchase, the Cornhusker Kickback, the $5 billion Medicaid set-aside for Florida Sen. Bill Nelson - taxpayer money was used as a virtual slush fund to buy swing votes. Moreover, the law is blatantly unconstitutional: The federal government does not have the right to coerce every citizen to purchase a good or service. This is not in the Constitution, and it represents an unprecedented expansion of power.
Yet Obamacare's most pernicious aspect is its federal funding of abortion. Pro-lifers are now compelled to have their tax dollars used to subsidize insurance plans that allow for the murder of unborn children. This is more than state-sanctioned infanticide. It violates the conscience rights of religious citizens. Traditionalists - evangelicals, Catholics, Baptists, Muslims, Orthodox Jews - have been made complicit in an abomination that goes against their deepest religious values. As the law is implemented (as in Pennsylvania) the consequences of the abortion provisions will become increasingly apparent. The result will be a cultural civil war. Pro-lifers will become deeply alienated from society; among many, a secession of the heart is taking place.
Mr. Obama is waging a frontal assault on property rights. The BP oil spill is a case in point. BP clearly is responsible for the spill and its massive economic and environmental damage to the Gulf. There is a legal process for claims to be adjudicated, but Mr. Obama has behaved more like Mr. Chavez or Russia's Vladimir Putin: He has bullied BP into setting up a $20 billion compensation fund administered by an Obama appointee. In other words, the assets of a private company are to be raided to serve a political agenda. Billions will be dispensed arbitrarily in compensation to oil-spill victims - much of it to Democratic constituents. This is cronyism and creeping authoritarianism.
Mr. Obama's multicultural socialism seeks to eradicate traditional America. He has created a command-and-control health care system. He has essentially nationalized the big banks, the financial sector, the automakers and the student loan industry. He next wants to pass "cap-and-trade," which would bring industry and manufacturing under the heel of big government. The state is intervening in every aspect of American life - beyond its constitutionally delegated bounds. Under Mr. Obama, the Constitution has become a meaningless scrap of paper.
To provide the shock troops for his socialist takeover, Mr. Obama calls for "comprehensive immigration reform" - granting amnesty to 12 million to 20 million illegal aliens. This would forge a permanent Democratic electoral majority. It would sound the death knell for our national sovereignty. Amnesty rewards lawlessness and criminal behavior; it signifies the surrender of our porous southern border to a massive illegal invasion. It means the death of American nationhood. We will no longer be a country, but the colony of a global socialist empire.
Rather than defending our homeland, Mr. Obama's Justice Department has sued Arizona for its immigration law. He is siding with criminals against his fellow Americans. His actions desecrate his constitutional oath to protect U.S. citizens from enemies foreign and domestic. He is thus encouraging more illegal immigration as Washington refuses to protect our borders. Mr. Obama's decision on this case is treasonous.
As president, he is supposed to respect the rule of law. Instead, his administration has dropped charges of voter intimidation against members of the New Black Panther Party. This was done even though their menacing behavior was caught on tape: men in military garb brandishing clubs and threatening whites at a polling site. A Justice Department lawyer intimately involved in the case, J. Christian Adams, resigned in protest. Mr. Adams says that under Mr. Obama, there is a new policy: Cases involving black defendants and white victims - no matter how much they cry for justice - are not to be prosecuted. This is more than institutionalized racism. It is an abrogation of civil rights laws. The Justice Department's behavior is illegal. It poses a direct threat to the integrity of our democracy and the sanctity of our electoral process.
Corruption in the administration is rampant. Washington no longer has a government; rather, it has a gangster regime. The Chicago way has become the Washington way. Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel is a political hit man. He is an amoral, ruthless operator. It was Mr. Emanuel who reached out to Rep. Joe Sestak, Pennsylvania Democrat, offering a high-ranking job in the hopes of persuading Mr. Sestak to pull out of the primary against Sen. Arlen Specter. It was Mr. Emanuel who offered another government position to Andrew Romanoff to do the same in the Colorado Democratic Senate primary. And it was Mr. Emanuel - as the trial of former Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich has revealed - who acted as the go-between to try to have Valerie Jarrett parachuted into Mr. Obama's former Senate seat. The only question was: What did Mr. Blagojevich want in exchange?