WorldNetDaily
“Whatever we once were, we’re no longer a Christian nation. At least not just. We are also a Jewish nation, a Muslim nation, and a Buddhist nation, and a Hindu nation, and a nation of nonbelievers,” Obama said during a June 2007 speech available on YouTube.
At the speech, Obama also seemingly blasted the “Christian Right” for hijacking religion and using it to divide the nation:
“Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and started being used to drive us apart. It got hijacked. Part of it’s because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, who’ve been all too eager to exploit what divides us,” he said.
Asked last year to clarify his remarks, Obama repeated them to the Christian Broadcast Network:
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(AP)
After decades of denials, the Chinese have acknowledged burying an American prisoner of war in China, telling the U.S. that a teenage soldier captured in the Korean War died a week after he “became mentally ill,” according to documents provided to The Associated Press.
China had long insisted that all POW questions were answered at the conclusion of the war in 1953 and that no Americans were moved to Chinese territory from North Korea. The little-known case of Army Sgt. Richard G. Desautels opens another chapter in this story and raises the possibility that new details concerning the fate of other POWs may eventually surface.
Chinese authorities gave Pentagon officials intriguing new details about Desautels in a March 2003 meeting in Beijing, saying they had found “a complete record of 9-10 pages” in classified archives.
Until now, this new information had been kept quiet; a Pentagon spokesman said it was intended only for Desautels family members. The details were provided to Desautels’ brother, Rolland, who passed them to a POW-MIA advocacy group, the National Alliance of Families, which gave them to AP…
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NEW YORK (AP) -
Raging Midwest floodwaters that swallowed crops and sent corn and soybean prices soaring are about to give consumers more grief at the grocery store.
In the latest bout of food inflation, beef, pork, poultry and even eggs, cheese and milk are expected to get more expensive as livestock owners go out of business or are forced to slaughter more cattle, hogs, turkeys and chickens to cope with rocketing costs for corn-based animal feed.
The floods engulfed an estimated 2 million or more acres of corn and soybean fields in Iowa, Indiana, Illinois and other key growing states, sending world grain prices skyward on fears of a substantially smaller corn crop. The government will give a partial idea of how many corn acres were lost before the end of the month, but experts say the trickle-down effect could be more dramatic later this year, affecting everything from Thanksgiving turkeys to Christmas hams.
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LOS ANGELES (Reuters) -
Firefighters worked to contain some 400 wildfires burning across Northern California on Sunday as the state baked under a fourth day of an early summer heat wave that has strained the power grid and left residents wilted.
One structure was destroyed and 150 homes were evacuated near Fairfield, 40 miles southwest of Sacramento, in the path of the worst of the fires, which blackened more than 3,500 acres in wine-producing Napa County.
“The weather is, of course, very hot and dry here, and this fire quickly rolled up into some extremely steep terrain and became inaccessible. We’re having trouble establishing control lines,” said Battalion Chief David Shew of the California Department of Forestry and Fire Protection…
…Most of the hundreds of fires scattered across Northern California were started by dry lightning strikes during thunder storms that moved across the state on Friday….
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New York Times
WASHINGTON — Record prices for gasoline and jet fuel should be good news for Amtrak, as travelers look for alternatives to cut the cost of driving and flying.
And they are good news, up to a point.
Amtrak set records in May, both for the number of passengers it carried and for ticket revenues — all the more remarkable because May is not usually a strong travel month.
But the railroad, and its suppliers, have shrunk so much, largely because of financial constraints, that they would have difficulty growing quickly to meet the demand.
Many of the long-distance trains are already sold out for some days this summer. Want to take Amtrak’s daily Crescent train from New York to New Orleans? It is sold out on July 5, 6, 7 and 8. Seattle to Vancouver, British Columbia, on July 5? The train is sold out, but Amtrak will sell you a bus ticket…
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CBN
Millions of Americans are drowning in credit card debt. High interest rates and low minimum payments are just some of the reasons why it is hard for consumers to escape from the debt trap.
The television commercials for credit cards make paying with plastic seem painless. Like the line from a recent MasterCard commercial — “going out to dinner: $50, ordering dessert $16, staying for coffee $8. Giving your kitchen the night off: priceless.”
But they leave out the time it takes to pay it all off and for many people — it’s a lifetime…
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WorldNetDaily
Video of the faceoff has been posted online
With a custom-made glove, Venditte switched hands each time Henriquez switched sides of the plate, seeking an edge based on the conventional baseball wisdom that left-handed batters fare better against right-handed pitchers and vice versa…
Video of the faceoff has been posted online
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WorldNetDaily
The case immediately sparked nationwide outrage, up to the White House and Congress, which approved a resolution calling for a rehearing, and the court panel’s judges eventually scheduled new arguments in the dispute, effectively overturning their own earlier ruling.
Kevin Snider, chief counsel for the Pacific Justice Institute, is to argue the legality of homeschooling under both state law and constitutional law as a representative of the private Christian school that provided the overarching program in which the family participated…
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Bible citation costs couple jobs, home - Apartment managers evicted, fired for being ‘too religious’
WorldNetDaily
The artwork that got the Dixons fired
Mathew D. Staver, founder of Liberty Counsel, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing religious freedom that is representing the Dixons, told WND that neither before nor after the incident were the Dixons charged with any wrongdoing other than protesting the removal of the artwork and loss of their jobs.
“They were suddenly terminated as a result of the religious bigotry of one supervisor,” Staver said in a press release. “The Dixons lost their jobs and were booted out on the street, solely because artwork in their office made reference to the Bible.”…
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WorldNetDaily
The report presented to the board today charged Freshwater used a high-frequency generator – a Tesla coil – to make a cross on the arms of students, taught the theory of intelligent design and refused to remove all religious articles from his classroom…
…Daubenmire insisted to WND that the “cross branding” was nothing of the sort. He characterized it as a science experiment Freshwater had been doing for 21 years in which he made X marks, not crosses, on the students’ skin with a Tesa Coil to demonstrate electrical current.
“They tried to make it out to be a cross, because it made him look like some kind of idiot,” Daubenmire said of the parents…
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Catholic charity helps illegal immigrant get abortion? Workers transported teen, signed consent form
Associated Press
Authorities are investigating whether a Catholic charity violated state and federal law by helping a 16-year-old illegal immigrant who was in the organization’s care get an abortion.
Workers with Commonwealth Catholic Charities helped the girl travel to and from the procedure in January and signed a consent form for the abortion, Joanne Nattrass, the charity’s executive director, said in a statement Thursday. She declined further comment.
Four of the Richmond-based charity’s workers were fired, according to a letter by David Siegel, head of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services’ refugee resettlement program…
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Detroit News
If this popular tourist mecca 80 miles north of Detroit wears Germany on one of its sleeves, the other contains Martin Luther.
Founded by Lutheran missionaries who vowed to retain their old ways, the community of 4,800 has one of the highest concentrations of Lutherans in the Midwest. The city seal contains a Luther rose, the symbol for Lutheranism.
So when local atheist Lloyd Clarke wanted to remove a cross from the seal, along with ones in a city park and on a state bridge, residents rose nearly as one against him.
Children taunted the 66-year-old Clarke. A letter writer accused him of trying to reduce Frankenmuth to “Satan’s pit.” Another said crosses were as much a part of the town as its renowned chicken dinners.
“People who like to cite the Constitution to justify their hatred and bigotry should take the time to read it,” resident Judi King wrote to the local paper.
The Ann-Arbor-based Thomas More Law Center announced earlier this month it has been retained by the city to defend the crosses on the city seal and city park…
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King James Version
Wherefore by their fruits ye shall know them. Not every one that saith unto me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven; but he that doeth the will of my Father which is in heaven.
New International Version
Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them. Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord,’ will enter the kingdom of heaven,
