The Plain Truth

Israel: First Jesus-era house found in Nazareth

Days before Christmas, archaeologists on Monday unveiled what they said were the remains of the first dwelling in Nazareth that can be dated back to the time of Jesus — a find that could shed new light on what the hamlet was like during the period the New Testament says Jesus lived there as a boy.

The dwelling and older discoveries of nearby tombs in burial caves suggest that Nazareth was an out-of-the-way hamlet of around 50 houses on a patch of about four acres (1.6 hectares). It was evidently populated by Jews of modest means who kept camouflaged grottos to hide from Roman invaders, said archaeologist Yardena Alexandre, excavations director at the Israel Antiquities Authority,

Based on clay and chalk shards found at the site, the dwelling appeared to house a "simple Jewish family," Alexandre added, as workers at the site carefully chipped away at mud with small pickaxes to reveal stone walls.   MORE>>>>>>>>>

Obama sued for secret abortion meetings

A legal firebrand whose work fighting corruption left both Bill Clinton and Dick Cheney on the defensive today took on Barack Obama, suing the president for secret meetings with Planned Parenthood and other lobbyists on his plans to nationalize health care.

Larry Klayman

Larry Klayman, founder of Judicial Watch and, more recently, Freedom Watch USA, filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court in Washington, D.C., under the Federal Advisory Committee Act. The law requires disclosure of records of meetings between the executive branch and outside industry lobbyists. It also requires access to meetings.

Klayman raised the same issues during the early years of the Clinton administration, contributing to the demise of the health care proposal championed by Hillary Clinton.

The lawsuit charges that in Obama's "haste to socialize medicine in the United States, and increase government control generally," he has "violated his commitment to transparency."   MORE>>>>>>>>>>

Poll: Most Say Obama Decisions 'Bad for America'

A majority of Americans believe an increased government role in healthcare would lead to more government corruption, while a plurality of Americans think that scientific data supporting man-made global warming is “mostly falsified.” That is what a new poll by Survey USA reveals.

The poll also shows that 58 percent of Americans believe that decisions by the Obama administration have been “bad for America,” as opposed to 37 percent who think Obama’s decisions have been “good for America.”  MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>

When Jesse Helms stood up to Reagan and the great Senate Christmas debacle!

By Bob Barney

In 1982, while facing budget shortfalls, high unemployment and interest rates through the roof, American poor and working people had a friend in Washington that like Jimmy Stewart in "Mr. Smith Goes to Washington," stood out against his President, his party and the media! He refused to bend to the pressure (something that today's Democratic Senators have never learned) and stood like an old oak tree: His name: Jesse Helms.... Here are excerpts from:

Palace Coup: President Ronald Reagan and the Surface Transportation Assistance Act of 1982

The Federal Hwy Dept Records

As the bill moved to the Senate, new problems arose. Aside from the issues that had threatened the bill in the House, some Senators wanted to add a public works jobs bill to the measure, despite presidential opposition, while others wanted to replace the gas tax hike with increased income taxes on the well-to-do. The Senate also faced the threat of a filibuster from conservatives led by Senator Gordon J. Humphrey (R-NH) with support from Senators Don Nickles (R-Ok.), Jesse Helms (R-NC), and John East (R-NC). Humphrey, a first term Senator who would vote against every budget during his two terms (1979-1990) because they included deficits, said of the House action, "Last night the lame-duck Congress laid its first rotten egg." He called the bill "New Deal nonsense" and "Keynesian claptrap." He also accused Congress of panicking and succumbing to the temptation to "do something even if it's the wrong thing."

After the Senate Finance Committee and the Committee on Environment and Public Works approved their portions of the bill, debate began on the Senate floor on December 10. Senator Humphrey launched his filibuster. Under Senate rules, a filibuster can be ended by a "cloture" vote of 60 Senators. Cloture was achieved on December 13 by a vote of 75 to 13. Technically, the vote limited debate on a parliamentary motion relating to the bill. A filibuster on the bill itself, according to opponents, was likely. On December 14, the Senate resumed debate on the bill on a round-the-clock basis, in hope of adjourning on Friday, December 17. However, the four conservatives opened a new filibuster. They had added leverage because their actions were delaying approval of a must-pass omnibus stopgap bill containing 6 of the 13 regular appropriations bills funding eight Cabinet Departments, the others having been approved earlier. Unless the omnibus bill was approved, the President had threatened to shut down a large part of the government and furlough about 350,000 employees when spending authority expired after midnight on Friday.

According to The New York Times, Republican leaders in the Senate were enraged and frustrated by the success of the four conservatives in blocking a bill that the President, the House, and the overwhelming number of Senators supported. When the 54 Republicans met to "discuss strategy and berate the filibusterers in voices loud enough to be heard in an adjacent corridor," one lawmaker could be heard asking, "Are the egos in this place bigger than the institution of the U.S. Senate?" The article quoted Senator William S. Cohen (R-Me.) as saying:

I have never seen the kind of anger that is being expressed behind closed doors. People are perceived as having abused the procedures and failing to support the leadership. Normally, there is great deference around here toward people who seek to use the rules, but today tempers are very short. [Tolchin, Martin, "How to Stall Gas Tax Rise," The New York Times, December 18, 1982]

In pulling the bill, Republican leaders had said unanimous consent would be required to bring the measure back to the floor—an unlikely occurrence given the continued opposition of the four conservatives. On December 18, reported The New York Times, the leaders indicated they "had discovered the bill would return automatically for floor consideration." In addition, "there were parliamentary devices that could expedite the matter." Nevertheless, "the fate of the bill was in the hands of those conducting the filibuster because members of Congress are eager to adjourn for a Christmas vacation and a new Congress will convene in two weeks." [Tolchin, Martin, "Gasoline Tax Measure May Die, Leaders Concede," The New York Times, December 19, 1982]

On December 19, the Senate voted to end the filibuster of the surface transportation bill, 89 to 5, with the lopsided margin reflecting widespread frustration over the delay. Secretary Lewis, watching from the VIP gallery, gave a double thumbs-up signal when the vote reached 60. (The fifth vote against cloture was cast by Senator William Proxmire (D-Wi.), who opposed the surface transportation bill.)

Columnists Rowland Evans and Robert Novak illustrated the ill feelings by reporting on an incident that occurred in the Senate Republican cloakroom during East's filibuster and Jesse Helms, for one, was not intimidated: "Sen. Jesse Helms took the floor in a caucus, asking Baker how it was that he used such pressure to shut down conservative filibusters against higher taxes but not liberal filibusters against Helms's school prayer and anti-abortion measures." [Evans, Rowland, and Novak, Robert, "Season of Ill Will for Senate Republicans," The Washington Post, December 22, 1982]

The House approved the revised bill on December 21 by a vote of 180 to 87, with many Representatives having departed for the holiday. Following the vote, the House adjourned for the year.

When the bill reached the Senate, Senators Helms and East began another filibuster. The increasingly bitter session reached a turning point shortly before midnight on December 21 when Helms vowed to keep the Senate in session over Christmas if necessary. In response, the Democrats, all angry, some opposed to the bill, held a caucus in which they agreed to stay for one final vote to end the filibuster. Senator Byrd said, "We ought to have a showdown or we ought to go home."

Seeing that the Democrats would stay for one last try, Senator Baker said, "That allowed us to show Sen. Helms we would take him to the nth degree, just as he had done to us." Baker filed a cloture petition. Senator Baker gave President Reagan a list of Senators to call, not including Helms, to lobby for the bill. The President had called Senator Helms the previous week without success, as Helms recalled:

I reminded the president that he once said it would take a palace coup for him to support a tax bill like this. "Mr. President," I said, "when did the palace coup occur?" Then I went down the provisions in the bill with him. "Do you like this?" I asked. And he said, "No." Do you like that?" I asked. And he said, "No."

He was not apologetic about delaying the Senators' Christmas holiday:

I really should not be the one making the apologies. The president should apologize, the people who pushed this measure on us during a lame-duck session should make the apologies . . . . This is a bad bill coming at a bad time." [Maraniss, David, "Sen. Helms: An Outcast in Senate," The Washington Post, December 23, 1982]

The Washington Post explained the extraordinary steps taken by Republican leaders to secure a vote:

President Reagan telephoned senators yesterday [December 22], offering Air Force transportation to some in an effort to keep them here long enough to win approval of his nickel-a-gallon gasoline tax increase, while the heavy-truck lobby fought to kill the package because of the high fees it would impose on 18-wheelers . . . . [Senator] Baker's office, the White House and the Department of Transportation were checking yesterday to see which senators have not left Washington and to make sure they will get votes considered "soft."

. . . The question facing the Senate "has become much larger than the gasoline tax," an administration official said in referring to Helms' filibuster. "It goes to the ability of the leadership to control the Senate and of the administration to pass legislation."

That realization, the source said, led to a substantially increased White House effort on behalf of the bill after Transportation Secretary Drew Lewis had carried much of the load in the early days of the lame-duck session before the measure passed the House.

Baker went to the White House yesterday with other congressional leaders and staff members to give Reagan a list of senators to be called by Reagan. "We're not going through a charade," a Baker aide said. "It will be a close vote, and there are enough uncertainties floating around out there to compel us to take it seriously."

The article also described efforts by the trucking interests to block the bill:

Bennett C. Whitlock, Jr., president of the American Trucking Associations, spent the day in meetings on strategy, counting votes and making phone calls. "We've talked to quite a few senators," he said. "We're asking them to vote against the conference report and to start over again in the next session of Congress in establishing new truck-use fees.

In a news release, Whitlock said the trucking industry "is appalled" at the increases in fees under the bill. The ATA figures that a typical 18-wheeler will pay an increase in total highway taxes on fuel, use and tires of $2,203 in the second year. [Feaver, Douglas B., and Maraniss, David, "Reagan Lobbies for Senate Votes on Gasoline Tax, The Washington Post, December 23, 1982]

The following day, December 23, the vote on cloture was overwhelming, 81 to 5. Senators Helms, East, and Nickles were joined by Senators Proxmire and James Exon (D-Ne.) in voting to continue the filibuster. Senator Humphrey, a member of the Armed Services Committee, was on a troop-inspection tour of South Korea and could not return for the vote.

Five Senators had been flown back to Washington on government planes for the vote. One of them, Senator Goldwater, had been recovering at home during the lame-duck session from triple-bypass surgery. Voting to end the filibuster, he said, "When you know you're whipped, you should quit." The airlift prompted Senator Helms to say, "The sky was dark with Air Force planes. Nobody knows what that will cost. It's another case where the poor taxpayer is required to finance his own misery."

In the final moments, many Senators had unkind words for Senator Helms. Senator Wendell H. Ford (D-Ky.) said that the tactics employed by the two Senators from North Carolina had placed all future bills involving tobacco in "the greatest jeopardy." Senator Dennis DeConcini (D-Az.) said the Senate had been "tyrannized and immobilized by a handful of men." Senator Edward M. Kennedy (D-Ma.) said:

We are not debating war and peace, or a new world order, or whether all people are created equal. We are talking about the width and weight of trucks, the potholes in our country roads, and the failing subways in our ailing cities. That is the poor stuff of which this ridiculous debate is made, and we deserve all the ridicule we are receiving, because all our wounds are self-inflicted . . . . We have too easily permitted this historic chamber to become the laughing stock of the nation.

Senator Helms replied to the liberal Senator, long a target of conservatives, saying he appreciated Kennedy's words. "His statement may have increased my popularity in North Carolina by 10 to 12 points."

Senator George J. Mitchell (D-Me.) delivered the final speech before the cloture vote, quoting Oliver Cromwell's words to the British Parliament in 1653:

You have sat too long for any good you have done. Depart, I say, and let us be done with you. In the name of God—go!" [Maraniss, David, "Senate Stops Debate, Votes Gas-Tax Bill," The Washington Post, December 24, 1982]

President Reagan met briefly with reporters after the Senate approved the bill, 54 to 33. United Press International reported:

Smiling and at ease, Reagan, who suffered some major setbacks during the post-election season, said Congress "dealt with some very difficult issues and put in some very long hours."

He declined to criticize the Senators who had delayed action on the bill. "They have their own rules, they abide by them and I respect the separation of powers," he said. Passage of the bill was "a credit to leaders of both parties and congressmen and senators on both sides of the aisle."

The President also indicated he was not frustrated by the lack of change in the unemployment rate, voicing confidence that his policies would lead to a broad recovery. "I am convinced that this coming year, 1983, is going to see a definite upturn." ["Reagan, Happy With Gas-Tax Bill, Predicts Upturn," The Philadelphia Inquirer, December 24, 1982]

Writing in The Washington Times, Thomas D. Brandt described the arc of the 1982 STAA. Although congressional committees had been considering the legislation for nearly 2 years, it "came to life" in the aftermath of the November 2 election "when the nation's 10.4 percent unemployment rate (now 10.8) was a major issue and most candidates had pledged to go back to Washington to do something about it." The bill, with its promise of 320,000 jobs and vitally needed road improvements, "was never more popular than the day it was introduced."

In the end, Helms lost-- driving (NOT FLYING) back to his North Carolina home, he became so tired that he decided to stop at a Hardee's in South Hill Virginia.  It was Christmas Eve and a trucker was shocked to notice Jesse Helms. He yelled out, "That's Jesse Helms," in astonishment. Helms was shocked when the entire crowd of travelers, most truckers who would have been hurt very badly by the tax, stood up and gave him a standing ovations!  Regular Americans had a friend, and Jesse Helms was his name!

"It's the first time," Helms would later say, "that I got a standing ovation----------------- at Hardee's!"

Could we use some patriots like this today!

There'll be nowhere to run from the new world government

There is scope for debate – and innumerable newspaper quizzes – about who was the most influential public figure of the year, or which the most significant event. But there can be little doubt which word won the prize for most important adjective. 2009 was the year in which "global" swept the rest of the political lexicon into obscurity. There were "global crises" and "global challenges", the only possible resolution to which lay in "global solutions" necessitating "global agreements". Gordon Brown actually suggested something called a "global alliance" in response to climate change. (Would this be an alliance against the Axis of Extra-Terrestrials?)

Some of this was sheer hokum: when uttered by Gordon Brown, the word "global", as in "global economic crisis", meant: "It's not my fault". To the extent that the word had intelligible meaning, it also had political ramifications that were scarcely examined by those who bandied it about with such ponderous self-importance. The mere utterance of it was assumed to sweep away any consideration of what was once assumed to be the most basic principle of modern democracy: that elected national governments are responsible to their own people – that the right to govern derives from the consent of the electorate.

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Palestinian prof admits Arab denial of Temples is baloney

Before Israel founded, 'Muslims would not have disputed connection Jews have'

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Posted: December 20, 2009
6:41 pm Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

Prof. Sari Nusseibeh

JERUSALEM – A prestigious Palestinian professor told WND that the Muslim denial of a Jewish connection to the Temple Mount is political and that historically Muslims did not dispute Jewish ties to the site.

"If you went back a couple of hundred years, before the advent of the political form of Zionism, I think you will find that many Muslims would not have disputed the connection that Jews have toward [the Mount]," said Sari Nusseibeh, president of Al-Quds University in eastern Jerusalem.

"The problem began arising with the advent of Zionism, when people started connecting a kind of feeling that Jews have toward the area with the political project of Zionism," Nusseibeh stated.

Zionism refers to the political movement that supports the reestablishment of the Jewish state in the land of Israel.

According to sources inside the Palestinian Authority, Nusseibeh has come under some PA pressure for writing in a recent study that Jews historically revered the Temple Mount before the time of Muhammad and Islam.

The PA sources denied any security threats against Nusseibeh but conceded that PA President Mahmoud Abbas' office had asked the professor to issue a clarification acknowledging the Palestinian line denying Jewish ties to the Mount.

The sources indicated that if Nusseibeh did not issue a clarification his position as Al-Quds' president could be in jeopardy.

Nusseibeh, however, denied that he has received any threats over the matter.

"I am surprised that people are surprised by what I wrote. There is nothing in Islam that denies the fact that Judaism is one of the religions of the book," he said.  MORE>>>>>>>>>>>>>

Book: Prosecutors were prepared to indict Clintons

 Prosecutors investigating Bill and Hillary Rodham Clinton were prepared to seek indictments of them for their roles in the Whitewater and Monica Lewinsky affairs, an explosive new book about the former president's scandals charges.

In "The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs. Starr," due out in February, author Ken Gormley also says that Lewinsky believed Bill Clinton lied about their affair during grand jury testimony about his relationship with the White House intern.

The Associated Press on Friday obtained a copy of the book by Gormley, a Duquesne University law professor, about the scandals that enveloped the final years of the former president's second term. Excerpts from the book were first reported Thursday on the Politico news Web site.

Calls seeking comment from now-Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton and the former president's foundation weren't immediately returned Friday.

Gormley didn't return AP calls seeking comment; his publicist, Penny Simon, said Friday Gormley wouldn't speak about the book until its Feb. 16 release.   MORE>>>>>>>>>>>

The Road to Hitler Was Paved With Abortions

By Anne Barbeau Gardiner

Anne Barbeau Gardiner, a Contributing Editor of the NOR, is Professor Emerita of English at John Jay College of the City University of New York. She has published on Dryden, Milton, and Swift, as well as on Catholics of the 17th century.

Cultures of Abortion in Weimar Germany.  By Cornelie Usborne. Berghahn Books. 284 pages. $90.

In her research for Cultures of Abortion, Cornelie Usborne examined literary works, movies, trial documents, medical records, social workers' notes, police interviews, and newspapers from the years of the Weimar Republic, 1918-1933. She consulted archives both in Protestant Prussia and Saxony and in Catholic Bavaria and the Prussian Rhineland. Although she is pro-abortion and thinks reality is "socially constructed," her research is valuable because it shows how the groundwork for Adolf Hitler's eugenic-abortion policies was laid.

But even before abortion was an issue, contraception was "big business" in Germany prior to World War I, due to "Neomalthusian propaganda." In 1913 Max Marcuse interviewed 100 women in Berlin and found that all but three used contraceptives — forty of them also admitted to having had "one or several abortions." In 1914 Oskar Polano interviewed 500 women in Würzburg and found that 81 percent of the wives of civil servants and 72 percent of the wives of workers used contraceptives. No surprise then that in 1927 the law was changed to allow contraceptives to be advertised, though some of these, like the uterine coil, were also abortifacient.

A steep decline in the population was inevitable: those who married before 1905 averaged 4.7 children per family; those who married in 1925-1929, only two. The top civil servants who married before 1905 averaged 3.5 children; those who married in 1925-1929, only 1.6. In Protestant Ohren in 1910, 389 villagers had 86 children in school; in 1925, 382 villagers had only 36. Two million men had died in the trenches in World War I, yet in 1919 a feminist hailed the decline in the birthrate as "the greatest, non-violent revolution" achieved by women, one that gave them "control of life." No wonder the Weimar Republic was distinguished by "the lowest birth rate in the Western world." With this fall in birthrate came "a new hedonism in women's sexuality."

Contraception, of course, was not foolproof, so abortions multiplied and "official disapproval" of them faltered. In 1917 new guidelines set forth by the Reich Health Council allowed abortions "on the strictest health grounds," only if approved by two doctors. In 1926 the law on abortions was mollified, and in 1927 the Supreme Court allowed doctors to perform "therapeutic" abortions. German law on abortion became "one of the most liberal in the world" because doctors could easily convince officials that any abortion was necessary for "health" reasons.

Men find it hard to look evil in the eye and call it by its true name. It was no different in early 20th-century Germany, where women spoke of the need to "curb coercive procreation" by legalizing abortion. Coercive here meant having to bear to term a child who was already in the womb. In 1908 the "bourgeois" Federation of German Women's Organizations demanded repeal of the abortion clause, §218, so that every woman might be Herrin ihres Körpers, or master of her body. In this specious slogan the child in the womb was reduced to part of the mother's body. Before World War I only elite women used this new­speak, but after the war ordinary women chimed in, as in a 1931 rally in which "many thousands of women were mobilized under the communist slogan Dein Körper gehört Dir! (Your body belongs to you!)." The year 1931 also saw the birth of the Committee of Self-Incrimination Against §218, which encouraged celebrities to come out and admit to having had, or having aided in, an abortion. Among those who came out was Albert Einstein.

Just as the pro-abortion camp today uses the deceptive word "choice" rather than "abortion," so the Weimar culture of death had its own euphemisms to disguise the ugly, violent deed. "Lay abortionists" inundated the local press with ads about how they could help if a "period was disturbed." Some presented themselves as "nature therapists" who gave "medicinal massages" and "herbal baths" for "blocked menses." Women themselves spoke in police interviews of "unblocking the monthly flow," of "a matter" that needed to be "removed," and of "tipping out (ich kippe)," a phrase that evoked "cleansing the body of waste material." In trial records, they claimed they had expelled not an unborn child, but merely a large "blood clot" the size of an "egg." The midwife who performed abortions was often called Weise Frau, or wise woman, by her clients, while newspapers called her Engelmacherin, "a woman who produced angels." Usborne complains of the anachronism of the latter term, since it was used "at a time when a human fœtus was scientifically defined and had long since ceased to be a creature of God." Since she imagines that reality is "socially constructed," she doesn't see that the truth — i.e., that each child is created by God — is the same for all ages.   MORE>>>>>>>>>

China: World Can't keep buying US debt

IT is getting harder for governments to buy United States Treasuries because the US's shrinking current-account gap is reducing supply of dollars overseas, a Chinese central bank official said yesterday.

The comments by Zhu Min, deputy governor of the People's Bank of China, referred to the overall situation globally, not specifically to China, the biggest foreign holder of US government bonds.

Chinese officials generally are very careful about commenting on the dollar and Treasuries, given that so much of its US$2.3 trillion reserves are tied to their value, and markets always watch any such comments closely for signs of any shift in how it manages its assets.

China's State Administration of Foreign Exchange reaffirmed this month that the dollar stands secure as the anchor of the currency reserves it manages, even as the country seeks to diversify its investments.

In a discussion on the global role of the dollar, Zhu told an academic audience that it was inevitable that the dollar would continue to fall in value because Washington continued to issue more Treasuries to finance its deficit spending.

He then addressed where demand for that debt would come from.

"The United States cannot force foreign governments to increase their holdings of Treasuries," Zhu said, according to an audio recording of his remarks. "Double the holdings? It is definitely impossible."

"The US current account deficit is falling as residents' savings increase, so its trade turnover is falling, which means the US is supplying fewer dollars to the rest of the world," he added. "The world does not have so much money to buy more US Treasuries."

China continues to see its foreign exchange reserves grow, albeit at a slower pace than in past years, due to a large trade surplus and inflows of foreign investment. They stood at US$2.3 trillion at the end of September.

http://www.shanghaidaily.com/article/print.asp?id=423054

U.S. Army major: Lose evangelical Christian beliefs

'American strategists incorrectly rely on generalizations cast as good, evil'

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Posted: December 19, 2009
12:45 am Eastern

By Bob Unruh
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A research paper written by a U.S. Army major for the School of Advanced Military Studies in Fort Leavenworth, Kan., calls for Americans to lose the evangelical Christian belief of pre-millennialism because of the damage it does to the nation's foreign interests.

"As a result of millennarian influences on our culture, most Americans think as absolutists," Maj. Brian L. Stuckert wrote in his 2008 course requirement at the school for military officers.

"A proclivity for clear differentiations between good, evil, right, and wrong do not always serve us well in foreign relations or security policy," he said. "Policy makers must strive to honestly confront their own cognitive filters and the prejudices associated with various international organizations and actors vis-à-vis pre-millennialism.

"We must come to more fully understand the background of our thinking about the U.N., the E.U., the World Trade Organization, Russia, China and Israel. We must ask similar questions about natural events such as earthquakes or disease."

He warns against the Christian beliefs espoused by many that the end times will involve Israel as God's chosen nation, a final 1,000-year conflict between good and evil and an ultimate victory for God.

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Is Obama's $789 billion buying votes instead of jobs?

Studies show 'stimulus' spent on Democrats, not unemployment

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Posted: December 19, 2009
12:45 am Eastern

By Drew Zahn
© 2009 WorldNetDaily

A pair of studies analyzing U.S. jobs and the effects of President Obama's American Reinvestment and Recovery Act suggest the so-called "stimulus" bill has boosted partisan interests far more than employment figures.

White House projections in February claimed the $789 billion in spending would "create or save 3.5 million jobs over the next two years" and that over 90 percent of those jobs would be in the private sector.

One year into the two-year projections, however, the studies show that not only has the money failed thus far to deliver on either of those promises, but it also has been doled out disproportionately to districts with Democrat representation.

The first study, conducted by the Republicans of the House Ways and Means Committee, compares the White House's projections to actual U.S. Department of Labor statistics on a state-by-state basis.

The numbers show that 49 of the 50 states have actually lost jobs since the stimulus was passed in February, and that the only state to gain jobs, North Dakota, still has more than halfway to go to meet White House projections.

And while calculating how many jobs the stimulus package has "saved" is highly contentious (the administration estimates it has created 640,000 jobs), the Republicans compare the promised 3.5 million jobs the stimulus package was supposed to boost to the net 2.6 million jobs the U.S. has lost since the ARRA was passed.

Global Warming Report for the Weekend!

EPIC!

INTER STORM BLAST EAST...

RADAR...

WATCHES/WARNINGS...

NYC Expecting Up to 10 Inches of Snow...

Up to 20-inches in DC...

SNOW IN SOUTH OF FRANCE?

The last Traitor: Ben Nelson sells out America

Sen. Ben Nelson to announce support for health-care bill-- It comes as no surprise.... Looks like he was just holding out for more bribe $$$$$$

Sen. Ben Nelson (Neb.), the final Democratic holdout on health care, was prepared to announce to his caucus Saturday morning that he would support the Senate reform bill, clearing the way for final passage by Christmas.

"We're there," said Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), as he headed into a special meeting to announce the deal.

Democratic leaders spent days trying to hammer out a deal with Nelson, and worked late Friday night with Nelson on abortion coverage language that had proved the major stumbling block. But Nelson also secured other favors for his home state.

Asked if he was prepared to support the bill, Nelson said, "Yeah."

Mark Steyn: It's settled; climate circus was a fairy tale

The best summation of the UN climate circus in Denmark comes from Andrew Bolt of Australia's Herald Sun: "Nothing is real in Copenhagen – not the temperature record, not the predictions, not the agenda, not the 'solution'."

Just so. Reuters, for example, carried a moving account of the speech by Ian Fry, lead negotiator for Tuvalu, the beleaguered Pacific island nation soon to be under water because of a planet-devastating combination of your SUV and unsustainable bovine flatulence from Vermont farms. "The fate of my country rests in your hands," Fry told the meeting. "I make this as a strong and impassioned plea ... I woke this morning and I was crying and that was not easy for a grown man to admit," he continued, "his voice choking with emotion," in the Reuters reporter's words. Who could fail to be moved?

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Inga Haag: conspirator of the 1944 plot to murder Adolf Hitler

On July 20, 1944, Inga Haag, an employee of the German Foreign Ministry, invited two Gestapo officers for a meal. She had previously worked for the Abwehr, the German military intelligence service, under its enigmatic head Admiral Wilhelm Canaris, and had been drawn into a group that opposed much of what Hitler was doing and began plotting to kill him. Haag knew that “something was planned” for that day. Her invitation to the Gestapo was part of maintaining her cover.

Then, during the meal, there came a phone call, bringing the news that the Führer had survived the explosion of a bomb left by an army officer, Claus Schenk von Stauffenberg, in a briefcase at his field headquarters at Rastenburg in East Prussia. Haag recalled how she had to “feign a sigh of relief”, exclaiming, “Thank God” in front of the officers. “I thought maybe there will be a next time.” But Hitler was to survive until the end of the war, and she reflected later that “it would have saved many, many people if Hitler had been killed”.

As it was, while Haag escaped suspicion, she had to observe in subsequent weeks the arrest and execution of many associates, including her cousin Adam von Trott zu Solz, as the Gestapo exacted Hitler’s revenge on the plotters. She was one of the few linked to the plot who survived, and her death ends one of the last personal links with an event and a group that has taken on a kind of mythological status in German history.  MORE>>>>>>>>>>>

Gold coins to bear the UN logo

The United Nations (UN) has licensed the minting of gold bullion coins bearing its logo to provide a "public option" world savings currency.

According to the Vancouver Examiner, Oro gold coins are hoped to contribute to making the UN better funded by 2015, with revenue rising by ten to 15 per cent.

The coins are set to be produced in Europe and then distributed globally, with any licensee able to produce such bullion under contract.

Armand Dufour of the European Bank says that he welcomes the introduction of the gold coins.

However, he goes on to add that there is a danger that if the US dollar weakens, there will be a strong move towards the Oro.

In turn this could potentially drive the value of the coin up to a level where international governments will not allow it to be circulated.

UN coins were previously made purely for commemoration in the 1970s, but they hold no monetary value.

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Gary Johnson emerges as the next Ron Paul

Former New Mexico Republican Gov. Gary Johnson is a teetotaling triathlete who looks the part of the laid-back Mountain West politician.

But don’t let the jeans and black mock turtleneck he's sporting on his new website fool you: Johnson is starting to sound like a mad-as-hell populist with an eye cast on 2012 and the building fury aimed at Washington.

“I’m finding myself really angry over spending and the deficit,” he said in an interview with POLITICO this week. “I’m finding myself really angry over what’s happening in the Middle East, the decision to stay in Afghanistan indefinitely. I’m angry about cap and trade. And I’ve been on record for a long time on the failed war on drugs.”

Is that enough to design a presidential campaign around? It might be, at a time of tea parties, rage at bailouts, job loss and general voter discontent. And there is plainly an opportunity for some politician to harness the anti-establishment, populist grass-roots fervor that is right leaning but untethered to any party at the moment.

It’s what Ron Paul tried to do in last year’s   MORE>>>>>>>>>>

CNBC's Santelli: High Tea Party Polling Data Good for U.S. Dollar

Blizzard Dumps Snow on Copenhagen as Leaders Battle Warming

Dec. 17 (Bloomberg) -- World leaders flying into Copenhagen today to discuss a solution to global warming will first face freezing weather as a blizzard dumped 10 centimeters (4 inches) of snow on the Danish capital overnight.

“Temperatures will stay low at least the next three days,” Henning Gisseloe, an official at Denmark’s Meteorological Institute, said today by telephone, forecasting more snow in coming days. “There’s a good chance of a white Christmas.”

Delegates from 193 countries have been in Copenhagen since Dec. 7 to discuss how to fund global greenhouse gas emission cuts. U.S. President Barack Obama will arrive before the summit is scheduled to end tomorrow.

Denmark has a maritime climate and milder winters than its Scandinavian neighbors. It hasn’t had a white Christmas for 14 years, under the DMI’s definition, and only had seven last century. Temperatures today fell as low as minus 4 Celsius (25 Fahrenheit).

DMI defines a white Christmas as 90 percent of the country being covered by at least 2 centimeters of snow on the afternoon of Dec. 24.

Atlantis Discovered? Archaeologists Reveal Images of Caribbean Civilization

Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Today's headlines for Dec 17th 2009

FAITH UNDER FIRE
WorldNetDaily
Teacher orders 3rd-grader: Put Bible away! 
'This was injustice. No other child has to go through this again'
--WND

NBCNEWSWSJ POLL: Americans Souring on Democrats...

Blago atty: Obama as a witness IF trial...    and now a  Showdown...

Climate talks deadlocked as clashes erupt outside...

Summit veering towards 'farce'...

FLORIDA FREE FALL: RUBIO CATCHES CRIST

REPORT: Dem Sen. Schumer Calls Flight Attendent 'Bitch'...

FLASHBACK: Schumer Pushed For Passengers 'Bill Of Rights'...

Did White Threaten to close base in potential Obamacare scandal?????

"I work at a call center, and I make $10 an hour,"

owes more than $125,000 for his degrees in theater!!

'I Feel Like a Loser'

Like most students, Kris Alfred was repeatedly told in high school that everyone goes to college.

Alfred said he owes more than $125,000 for his degrees in theater when he's not even working in that field.

Some experts say students might be better off getting a job after high school, rather than getting a college degree.

(Courtesy Walter Rowland, Rachele Percell and Kris Alfred)

"I work at a call center, and I make $10 an hour," he said. "It's surreal. I feel like a loser."

Walter Rowland got a degree in meteorology and now owes $77,000 in student loans.

"College was a rip-off and nothing against, you know, my college or my professors, but I was misinformed," he said.

"You're led down this path of needing to go to college," he continued. "The college diploma is the new high school diploma."

Personal finance guru Suze Orman says college is a no-brainer for kids who can be lawyers and doctors. But she says that in this economy, many others should reassess the value of a generic bachelor's degree. She believes it ultimately might not be worth it.

Orman said it's often smarter to acquire specific marketable skills at a community college, a technical school or by working as an apprentice for a business, making yourself more employable without piling up a mountain of debt.

"I would rather see a child go to a community college, knowing that they can go out there, get a job and not be crushed under the burden of a prestigious degree," she said. MORE>>>>>>>>>>

Today's Video News for Dec 16, 2009

Nicole Kidman Dodges BBC Host’s Question About Scientology

December 15, 2009 at 7:34 pm - BBC
Dateline: London, England

"A lot of people would say it is a bullying cult.”

Child’s Crucifix Christmas Artwork Deemed ‘Violent’

December 15, 2009 at 3:20 pm - WBZ
Dateline: Taunton, MA

WBZ: An 8-year-old boy was sent home from school and ordered to undergo a psychological evaluation after he was asked to make a Christmas drawing and came up with what appeared to be a stick figure of Jesus on a cross, the child's father said Tuesday. Chester Johnson told WBZ-TV that his son made the drawing on Dec. 2 after his second-grade teacher asked children to sketch something that reminded them of the holiday.

Obama’s Jokes at Home Depot Fall Kinda Flat

December 15, 2009 at 12:36 pm - Fox News
Dateline: Arlington, VA

"C'mon guys."

White House Slams Financial Sector While Government Salaries Explode

December 15, 2009 at 10:20 am - Fox News
Dateline: Washington DC

"I think at the end of the day you're looking at an administration that has a fundamentally flawed view of free markets, free enterprise," RNC head Michael Steele said.

Boeing’s Dreamliner is Finally Ready to Fly

December 15, 2009 at 9:41 am - MSNBC
Dateline: Everett, WA

After major delays, the much anticipated high efficiency long range Boeing 787 is ready for the almost 900 orders from airlines around the world.

Pope sides with the looney left on Global Warming

Industrialized nations must recognize their responsibility for the environmental crisis, shed their consumerism and embrace more sober lifestyles, Pope Benedict said on Tuesday.

The pope's call for more environmental commitments came in his message for the Roman Catholic Church's annual World Day of Peace, to be marked on Jan 1 and whose theme is "If You Want to Cultivate Peace, Protect Creation."

The message is traditionally sent to heads of state, government and international organizations and its importance this year is more significant because its release coincided with the U.N. climate conference in Copenhagen.   MORE>>>>>>>>>>>

Evangelist Oral Roberts dies in Calif. at age 91

Evangelist Oral Roberts, who rose from tent revivals to found a multimillion-dollar organization and an Oklahoma university bearing his name, has died. He was 91.

His spokesman A. Larry Ross said by phone from Carrollton, Texas, that Roberts died Tuesday of complications from pneumonia in Newport Beach, Calif. Roberts was hospitalized after a fall on Saturday. He had survived two heart attacks in the 1990s and a broken hip in 2006.

Roberts overcame tuberculosis at age 17, and credited that triumph with leading him to become one of the country's most famous ministers.

By the 1960s and '70s, the Oklahoma-born Roberts was reaching millions around the world through broadcasting, publications and personal appearances. Oral Roberts University, chartered in 1963, became a Tulsa landmark.

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