Bill would limit consumers' credit rights

Bill would limit consumers' credit rights
Updated 6/15/2006 4:00 PM ET
By Byron Acohido, USA TODAY
SEATTLE — Congress is considering pre-empting laws in 17 states that allow anyone to freeze their own credit and instead restricting the privilege to ID theft victims.
The proposed Financial Data Protection Act of 2006, expected to be voted on by the House as soon as next week, comes on the heels of the recent theft of sensitive data for 26 million veterans and active duty military personnel. If it becomes law, vets and military personnel who live in states that permit unrestricted credit freezes would lose that option.

A credit freeze cuts off access to your credit history. Since most banks and merchants insist on seeing a credit report before issuing credit, identity thieves can't open bogus accounts using ill-gotten data. Under the bill, backed by the financial services industry, simply having your data lost or stolen isn't enough. You must file a police report describing a specific instance of it being used to commit a crime.

"It's like telling someone you can't put a deadbolt on your front door until after you've been burglarized," says Washington state Attorney General Rob McKenna.

Rep. Steven LaTourette, R.-Ohio, the bill's co-author, says credit freezes must be held in check to keep the financial system from unraveling. "Even the simplest process of buying groceries with your credit or debit card will break down if we allow a patchwork of competing and conflicting state laws," he says. Evan Hendricks, editor of Privacy Times, and other critics counter that the bill abolishes the rights of citizens who live in states that permit anyone to request a credit freeze. "It's a nightmare bill for consumers," Hendricks says.

The bill also would pre-empt laws in 29 states requiring companies, institutions and agencies to notify individuals about security breaches compromising their data. It sets national criteria for data protection and breach disclosures, and puts banking and Treasury officials in charge of compliance.

Proponents say fewer breaches will result. "If we can protect the data better on the front end, it will diminish the need for law enforcement to chase down the bad guys," says Andrew Barbour, vice president of government affairs for the Financial Services Roundtable, a banking lobbying group.

But critics say the bill tramples states' rights and undermines the consumer-protection role of state attorneys general. "If you have a strong federal standard, that's one thing," says Susanna Montezemolo, policy analyst at the Consumers Union. "But this is a very weak federal standard."

Rep. Barney Frank, D-Mass., says banking and Treasury regulators lack the "ability and the inclination" to expand consumer-protection duties. "It's just not what they do," he says. "They're busy worrying about the financial stability of the world."

Top court upholds no-knock police search

Top court upholds no-knock police search
By GINA HOLLAND, Associated Press Writer
Thu Jun 15, 7:05 PM ET

The Supreme Court made it easier Thursday for police to barge into homes and seize evidence without knocking or waiting, a sign of the court's new conservatism with Samuel Alito on board.

The court, on a 5-4 vote, said judges cannot throw out evidence collected by police who have search warrants but do not properly announce their arrival.

It was a significant rollback of earlier rulings protective of homeowners, even unsympathetic homeowners like Booker Hudson, who had a loaded gun next to him and cocaine rocks in his pocket when Detroit police entered his unlocked home in 1998 without knocking.

The court's five-member conservative majority, anchored by new Chief Justice John Roberts and Alito, said that police blunders should not result in "a get-out-of-jail-free card" for defendants.

Dissenting justices predicted that police will now feel free to ignore previous court rulings requiring officers with search warrants to knock and announce themselves to avoid running afoul of the Constitution's Fourth Amendment ban on unreasonable searches.

"The knock-and-announce rule is dead in the United States," said David Moran, a Wayne State University professor who represented Hudson. "There are going to be a lot more doors knocked down. There are going to be a lot more people terrified and humiliated."

Supporters said the ruling will help police do their jobs.

"People who are caught red-handed with evidence of guilt have one less weapon to get off," said Kent Scheidegger, legal director of the Criminal Justice Legal Foundation.

The case provides the clearest sign yet of the court without Justice Sandra Day O'Connor.

Hudson had lost his case in a Michigan appeals court. Justices agreed to hear his appeal last June, four days before O'Connor's surprise announcement that she was retiring.

O'Connor was still on the bench in January when his case was first argued, and she seemed ready to vote with Hudson. "Is there no policy of protecting the home owner a little bit and the sanctity of the home from this immediate entry?" she asked.

She retired before the case was decided, and a new argument was held this spring so that Alito could participate, apparently to break a 4-4 tie.

Four justices, including Alito and Roberts, would have given prosecutors a more sweeping victory but did not have the vote of Justice Anthony M. Kennedy, a moderate conservative.

Ronald Allen, a Northwestern University Law professor, said the ruling "suggests those four would be happy to consider overturning" a 1961 Supreme Court opinion that said evidence collected in violation of the Fourth Amendment cannot be used in trials. "It would be a significant change," he said.

Kennedy joined in most of the ruling but wrote to explain that he did not support ending the knock requirement. "It bears repeating that it is a serious matter if law enforcement officers violate the sanctity of the home by ignoring the requisites of lawful entry," he said.

Kennedy said that legislatures can intervene if police officers do not "act competently and lawfully." He also said that people whose homes are wrongly searched can file a civil rights lawsuit.

Justice Antonin Scalia, writing for the majority, said that there are public-interest law firms and attorneys who specialize in civil rights grievances.

Detroit police acknowledge violating the knock-and-announce rule when they called out their presence at Hudson's door, failed to knock, then went inside three seconds to five seconds later. The court has endorsed longer waits, of 15 seconds to 20 seconds. Hudson was convicted of drug possession.

"Whether that preliminary misstep had occurred or not, the police would have executed the warrant they had obtained, and would have discovered the gun and drugs inside the house," Scalia wrote.

Four justices complained in the dissent that the decision erases more than 90 years of Supreme Court precedent.

"It weakens, perhaps destroys, much of the practical value of the Constitution's knock-and-announce protection," Justice Stephen Breyer wrote for himself and Justices John Paul Stevens, David H. Souter and Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Breyer said that while police departments can be sued, there is no evidence of anyone collecting much money in such cases.

The case is Hudson v. Michigan, 04-1360.

On the Net:

Supreme Court decisions: http://www.supremecourtus.gov/opinions/05slipopinion.html

CRACKS IN THE WALL OF INDEPENDENCE

The author below advocates the Constitution Party. I could not support them and I read an article that they changed their stand on abortion and are for it now.

CRACKS IN THE WALL OF INDEPENDENCE

By Pastor Chuck Baldwin

June 16, 2006

NewsWithViews.com

As I said in a recent column "The Religious Right Has Fled The Battlefield," the surrender of America's independence and national sovereignty is the most serious threat we face today. Virtually every issue that patriotic citizens feel is important is significantly impacted by this single concern.

The loss of our independence will mean the loss of virtually every liberty enumerated in our Declaration of Independence and protected by our Constitution and Bill of Rights. There will be no right to life, no right to privacy, and no religious liberty when America loses this fundamental vanguard of national autonomy.

Therefore, the protection of our nation's independence should be a top priority of all true Americans, especially those who call themselves Christians! However, it seems that many of us are asleep at the wheel when it comes to this issue.

Many pro-lifers, pro-family groups, and outspoken conservative Christians are blind, mute, and dumb regarding the loss of our nation's independence and the merger of our country into a global New World Order (George Herbert Walker Bush's term)! Why is this? Are they really that naïve, or do they deliberately choose to look the other way?

I personally believe that many of our conservative Christian leaders have become so entangled in GOP politics that they are willingly ignorant of anything that might put them at odds with the Republican establishment. They turn a blind eye for personal benefit.

Regardless of the motive, America is quickly losing its independence, because not enough conservative and Christian leaders are making an effort to stop it! And make no mistake about it, Republicans are every bit as culpable as Democrats in surrendering our national sovereignty!

Accordingly, let me list the issues that directly relate to America's loss of nationhood with the hope that each of us will recognize them to be as important as they truly are.

President Bush's Current Attempt to Merge the U.S., Canada, and Mexico.

Jerome Corsi is doing yeoman's work in his attempts to alert the American people to this travesty. If only our national Christian leaders would do the same! (See his latest column on this subject at [Read] and [Read]

As noted in the above-mentioned column, President Bush has already secretly committed the United States to a trilateral regional government with Mexico and Canada. This is being accomplished with the aid and encouragement of the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR).

I have in my possession a copy of a document that was produced in May 2005 by the CFR entitled, "Building a North American Community." See it at: [Read]. This document lays out the goals and objectives of globalists for creating a North American Union (NAU). These goals include the virtual erasure of our national border and the creation of a "perimeter" around the three countries, the free and unrestricted flow of people and goods between the three countries, and a mutual police and military security fence protecting the three countries. In other words, the merger of the U.S., Mexico, and Canada into one governmental body!

The seed for the NAU was planted by President Bush, Mexican President Vicente Fox, and (then) Canadian Prime Minister Paul Martin back in March 2005 when they created a trilateral commitment to regional government by signing a document known as the "Security and Prosperity Partnership of North America" (SPP). (View it online at: http://spp.gov) Remember that this was done without any oversight, or even knowledge, of any legislative body of our government.

Illegal Immigration

President Bush's demand for a "guest worker" (translated: amnesty) program stems from his commitment to the SPP agreement referenced above. If America is to be merged into a regional government, it must lose its cultural, economic, religious, and yes, even racial distinctiveness. Massive Mexican immigration to the United States accomplishes all of this and more.

Please know, too, that my web site contains what is arguably one of the most complete compilations of illegal immigration information on the Internet. Check it out at [Read]

The Patriot Act

There are not enough words to describe the dangers and problems associated with this Draconian piece of legislation! In a nutshell, the USA Patriot Act eviscerates many, if not most, of the guaranteed liberties codified in the Bill of Rights. It is no hyperbole to say that the Patriot Act could have been written by leaders of Germany's Third Reich. In fact, many of the elements of the Patriot Act are eerily similar to the old German regime. Obviously, freedom and independence cannot survive a police state, and that is exactly what the USA Patriot Act paves the way for!

Again, my web site contains copious information regarding the Patriot Act, including my attorney-son's legal thesis of the Act [Read] and my radio interview with former congressman Bob Barr [Read].

We have also compiled a "ton" of insightful articles and compelling data explaining the dangers of the USA Patriot Act. See it at [Read]

Gun Control

America is the last major power in the world that holds to the doctrine of private ownership and possession of firearms. Without a doubt, the private possession of firearms is the main reason (humanly speaking) that America has been able to maintain a semblance of freedom for these two hundred-plus years! Any attempt to restrict the right of the citizenry to keep and bear arms must be viewed as tyrannical and vehemently resisted! Nothing serves the interests of globalism and harms the interests of independence more than gun control!

While I appreciate the efforts of the National Rifle Association (NRA) and am, myself, an Annual Member, the organization that is doing the best job defending our Second Amendment freedoms is Gun Owners of America (GOA). Under the able leadership of Larry Pratt, GOA is the most consistent and courageous defender of the right to keep and bear arms that I know of. I am proud to be a Life Member and urge all my readers to also join this fine organization. (See them on the web at www.gunowners.org)

Encroachment Upon Private Property Rights

Private ownership of property by the common man is a bane for globalists! If individuals are to be herded into regional communities, private ownership must be severely restricted. America's historic "castle" doctrine is another formidable obstacle to the dream of national interdependence. Attempts to reduce and even abolish private property have been ongoing for years. Therefore, Americans should vigorously oppose any and all attempts by governmental or even international entities to trample private property rights!

The leading organization for private property rights is the American Policy Center (APC), which is led by Tom DeWeese. (See them online at www.americanpolicy.org)

Adulterating The English Language

At no time in America's history did immigrants not understand that part of their assimilation into American society was the obligation to learn the English language-until now, that is. That Americans are now expected to underwrite the usage of foreign languages inside our own country and that foreigners have come to expect and even demand that America accommodate their languages is not only insulting to our people and heritage, it portends a serious threat to the national well being of our posterity!

Mandatory Multiculturalism

America has its roots in Protestant Christianity! That fact is indisputable! That is not to so say that all of America's founders were born-again believers. Some were not. However, all of them, even Thomas Jefferson and Benjamin Franklin, held the Christian faith to be superior to all other faith systems and understood that America was a distinctively Christian nation. In fact, Biblical law and principle form the cornerstone of our entire system of law and government! America can never lose its liberty and independence as long as it maintains an allegiance to Christian ideology. One does not have to be a practicing Christian to appreciate the primacy and importance of America's deeply rooted Christian heritage.

The current preoccupation with multiculturalism is anathema to America's future independence. While it is true that people of all faiths are afforded freedom and asylum here, America cannot lose its distinctively Christian faith system without sacrificing its very existence!

As stated earlier, both major parties are equally to blame for the erosion of our national sovereignty. With only few exceptions, Republicans and Democrats alike are facilitating America's demise.

Thankfully, the American people do have alternatives. There will be several independent candidates running for state and federal offices this year. I urge my readers to examine these candidates and support those that will stand for constitutional government and independence.

Leading the charge is the Constitution Party (CP). They will field scores, if not hundreds, of candidates this fall, and I predict that 2006 will be a banner year for them. I expect CP candidates to do very well in November.

The Constitution Party is the one national party that boasts a platform that is absolutely committed to the preservation of constitutional government and to national sovereignty. Please take a close look at the party and see if they will have any candidates in your state or community this fall. They are located online at www.constitutionparty.com/

Independence and national sovereignty form the brick and mortar in the wall that (under God) protects the liberties and future of the American people. The abovementioned issues form the cracks, which, if allowed to grow, will most certainly collapse the great wall of independence that keeps America free. We cannot allow this to happen!

© 2006 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

Chuck Baldwin is Founder-Pastor of Crossroads Baptist Church in Pensacola, Florida. In 1985 the church was recognized by President Ronald Reagan for its unusual growth and influence.

Dr. Baldwin is the host of a lively, hard-hitting syndicated radio talk show on the Genesis Communications Network called, "Chuck Baldwin Live" This is a daily, one hour long call-in show in which Dr. Baldwin addresses current event topics from a conservative Christian point of view. Pastor Baldwin writes weekly articles on the internet http://www.ChuckBaldwinLive.com and newspapers.

IT IS TIME FOR AN INTERVENTION!

IT IS TIME FOR AN INTERVENTION!
By Dr. Laurie Roth Ph.D.
June 16, 2006
NewsWithViews.com
Too many far lefters and liberals are getting offended! It just ain’t right! There are too many areas for them to relapse on and feel disrespected with……like all the memorial crosses standing here and there for the last 50 to 90 years. Can you imagine the horror of driving to work and way up the hill is a cross showing respect and honor to the fallen war heroes. Its an obvious separation of church and state breach!

If only someone would have put a 200 foot high condom to honor our troops. What were they thinking putting up a cross? Even worse, after all his glorious effort, a federal judge just rejected Michael Newdow’s effort in court to make “In God We Trust” go away! Can you believe it? We could have had an end to the constant reference to God when we all know it is the sexually confused Goddess that controls the universe! Now, another liberal is crushed. Who cares about what the creator of it all thinks? Lets just send him another dress!

At least a former SS officer in Wisconsin is getting to put up a Hitler memorial because as we know the Holocaust never happened and he has to honor his hero publicly. We wouldn’t dream of taking away his rights at expression! Just because Hitler was in a grumpy mood one day and slaughtered millions of people….he was just expressing himself and as the President of Iran constantly shares, the Jews brought it on themselves and even his key adviser Mohammad Ali Ramin said recently “Throughout History, the Jews has Inflicted the Most Damage on the Human Race.”

Then there is the constant offense of our violent troops killing in Iraq. Did Al Zarqawi even get mouth to mouth or life saving help while he was barely hanging on after being shot up? I bet you no one even handed him a Koran! Where is Oprah when you need her? Then of course there are the rumors of Iraqi civilians getting killed here and there such as with Haditha. According to the Washington times article by Jennifer Harper, the major TV networks aired 99 stories, many hours of negative news coverage on the ongoing investigation on US Marines regarding the Haditha scandal.
She also pointed out that from 2001-2006 there were only 52 minutes of positive war stories even mentioning the massive amounts of heroic accounts by our troops. Just one being U.S. Army Sgt. 1st Class Paul Ray Smith who was killed while protecting 100 fellow soldiers during the battle for the Baghdad airport back in 2003. He earned the Medal of Honor……………oh but who is looking? Why even acknowledge him or other countless heroes that are so common when we can honor the FEELINGS of the gossip and smear merchants?

After all…..making up news, outlawing God and memorial crosses, restricting manger scenes is progress. How is the confused Goddess going to be heard if perverts and the lying anti war crowd can’t be heard more? Its time for an intervention. Our Government should hand out free medication to all and offer a free week of treatment at Mayo’s clinic for those who still must still put up with honest references about God, country and troops. Sorry Goddess supporters…..sorry Hitler supporters…..sorry media liars…..sorry troop haters…..sorry memorial cross meddlers. I just have one very empathetic and heart warming thing to say to you all….stand in line and kiss my ever loving grits! Then…walk to a plane, get on it and fly home to Iran!

© 2006 Dr. Laurie Roth - All Rights Reserved
Laurie Roth has a Ph.D. in Counseling and held a small private practice for many years. She earned a black belt in Tae Kwon Do. She is the proverbial "pastor's daughter" when it comes to her sense of adventure and her independent thinking. Laurie is a singer/songwriter with five CD albums to her credit, one track, which landed her in Billboard's top 40 ranks and on the cover of Cash Box Magazine. She plays the piano, keyboard, and violin and has a voice that can penetrate your very soul.

IS HATE A BAD THING?

IS HATE A BAD THING?

Coach Dave Daubenmire
June 15, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

I can honestly and unequivocally say that there isn’t a person on this planet that I hate. Many rub me the wrong way, but I usually write them off as misdirected or uninformed!

I suppose there are a few folks that hate me. I get emails every time I write a commentary. Many call me hateful. But I really can’t control the emotions of another person. As teenagers like to say--it’s on them.

While running the risk of being “Coultered,” I have to be faithful to what I know to be true. So I have to ask, is it wrong to be a hatemonger?

In our ongoing struggle with the PC crowd we usually find ourselves behind the eight ball because we continually allow them to frame the agenda. They have redefined the English language, and as a result, most mainstream Americans no longer know what is acceptable to say. Hate speech, hate crimes, and hatemonger are terms that have been created to silence the Truth. The enemies of God are trying to make hate obsolete.

You may think I’m nuts, that I am playing right into their hands, but I have to ask, is hate a bad thing?

Hate---the emotion of hate; a feeling of dislike so strong that it demands action.

You see it is OK--even necessary--to hate THINGS……but not PEOPLE. I wish more people hated some things.

What would America be like if more people were spurred into action because they hated:

Porn

Divorce

Lies

Dishonesty

Adultery

Broken homes

Child abuse

Lawbreaking

Injustice

Abortion

Evil

Thievery
Instead, we are taught to tolerate it, to accept it, and to even codify into law things that we should hate.

Perhaps I’m still not clear.

I hate what homosexuality does to people. Not homosexuals.

I hate what adultery does to families. Not the adulterer.

I hate the fact porn destroys lives. Not those who look at it.

I hate the lie that gays are born gay. Not those who believe the lie.

I hate abortion for the destruction it brings. Not the woman who is victimized.

I hate evolution-only education. Not those who teach it.

I hate laws that keep people poor. Not poor people.

I hate racism. Not those who practice it.

I hate lies. Not those who tell/teach them.

I hate suicide bombing. Not the bombers.

I hate evil. Not those who practice it.
I wonder, does America need more hate?

I saw a t-shirt the other day that read: Truth Is Hate To Those Who Hate Truth! "Have I now become your enemy by telling the truth?" Galatians 4:16

That’s it, isn’t it? Truth. No one wants to hear the Truth. Truth brings conviction. Conviction brings guilt. Guilt brings shame. Shame brings remorse, remorse brings repentance. Truth is hate, to those who hate Truth.

I know it is hard to believe, but the God who IS love, also hates. That’s right. God hates. In fact He goes further. He calls some things an abomination, which is a much more powerful type of hate. According to the dictionary abomination means “hate coupled with disgust,” and abomination occurs 174 times in the Bible.

I know you want to argue. But the proof is in the pudding. Check it out for yourself. Here is a list of 43 things God hates.

So where does that leave us? If hate is so wrong, why does God tell us that “there is a time for hate" (Ecclesiastes 3:8). “Hate what is evil, cling to what is good” (Romans 12:9)

Yes, folks, God hates. And His hatred forced Him into action. He hated sin so much that He willingly sacrificed His beloved Son to eliminate it. If God hated sin, shouldn’t we?

Someone was once asked when all of the suicide bombing would stop in the Middle East. The response was chilling. “The bombing will stop when Muslims love their children more than they hate the Jews.”

Is hate really the problem in America? Could the problem be what we hate….and what we love?

So, let’s ask ourselves a few hard questions.

Do you love the pornographer more than you hate pornography? • Do you love the woman getting the abortion more than you hate the abortion?

Do you love the adulterer more than you hate adultery?

Do you love the homosexual more than you hate homosexuality?

Do you love the pedophile more than you hate pedophilia?

Do you love the sinner more than you hate the sin?
Misapplied and misappropriated love is destroying America. "Have I now become your enemy by telling the truth?" Galatians 4:16

If we are ever to recover our moral equilibrium in America, then we are going to have to make the decision to love the things that God loves and hate the things that God hates. Because of the ongoing confusion in the Church, America loves the things that God hates.

I have a window sticker on the back of my car. “For God so loved the world, He did something!”

He hated sin….it spurred Him to action…..He gave his Son. I’m so glad He did.

John Lennon changed America with the mantra, “All you need is love.” He didn't know God, therefore, he didn’t understand. Many in America love the wrong things.

So, which is worse, loving the wrong things, or hating the right things?

Is hate a bad thing?

© 2006 Dave Daubenmire - All Rights Reserved
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Coach Dave Daubenmire, founder and President of Pass The Salt Ministries www.ptsalt.com and Minutemen United www.minutemenunited.org, is host of the high octane Pass The Salt radio show heard in Columbus, Ohio.

In 1999 Coach Daubenmire was sued by the ACLU for praying with his teams while coaching high school in Ohio. He now spends his energy fighting for Christian principles in the public domain.

ICE Arrests About 2,000 Illegal Immigrants

ICE Arrests About 2,000 Illegal Immigrants
Jun 14 1:57 PM US/Eastern

By ANDREW RYAN
Associated Press Writer

A swarm of federal immigration agents sped silently, headlights off, down a Boston side street early Wednesday and surrounded an apartment house.

"Police! Policia! Police!" yelled Daniel Monico, a deportation officer, holding his badge to a window where someone had pulled back the curtain. "Open the door!"

Moments later, agents led a dazed-looking Jose Ferreira Da Silva, 35, out in handcuffs. The Brazilian had been arrested in 2002 and deported, but had slipped back into the country. He now faces up to 20 years in prison.

In a blitz that began May 26, U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement has arrested nearly 2,100 illegal immigrants across the country. Officials said the raids are aimed at child molesters, gang members and other violent criminals, as well as people like Da Silva who sneaked back into the country after a judge threw them out.

The crackdown is called Operation Return to Sender.

"This sends a message," said Monico, standing outside the gray Victorian apartment where Da Silva had been hiding. "When we deport you, we're serious."

An Associated Press reporter and photographer accompanied a fugitive task force as it made Operation Return to Sender raids Tuesday night and early Wednesday.

The operation has caught more than 140 immigrants with convictions for sexual offenses against children; 367 known gang members, including street soldiers in the deadly Mara Salvatrucha, or MS-13; and about 640 people who had already been deported once, immigration officials said. The numbers include more than 720 arrests in California alone.

More than 800 people arrested already have been deported.

"This is a massive operation," said Marc Raimondi, a spokesman for immigration enforcement or ICE, which is part of the Department of Homeland Security. "We are watching the country's borders from the inside."

In New England, officials said the sweeps have caught more than 150, including 75 who had come back after being deported.

ICE has a network of 35 fugitive teams across the country. The 2006 budget increased that number to 52, and the Bush administration is pushing for 70 by 2007.

The challenge, agents said, is staggering.

There are more than 500,000 "fugitive aliens" who have been deported by judges and either slipped back into the country or never left. There is often a disconnect between local and state prisons and the federal government that allows illegal immigrants to serve time and be released without being transferred to federal officials for deportation.

The work that led to the series of arrests over the past 20 days began last winter. Agents in Boston, for example, began scouting targets four months ago, conducting street surveillance and following up leads from confidential informants.

"It's a lot of preparation, and it's a lot of patience," said Jim Martin, deputy director for ICE's New England field office. "All for a couple minutes of adrenaline."

During the raid late Tuesday, the federal squad, which includes a Boston police sergeant detective, wore bulging bulletproof vests and stiff Kevlar gloves to protect their hands from needles, knives and rusty fences.

Badges dangled on chains around their necks as they passed around wanted posters and shined flashlights on the face of a 24-year-old Latvian man who had served prison time for assaulting a police officer.

The team moved in the dark, climbing fences and hiding behind parked cars to encircle a three-story house in Boston's Allston-Brighton neighborhood. All at once they emerged from the shadows. A half-dozen agents filled the front porch, their knocks on the door echoing down the block. The target had moved, the agents learned, and a team split off and caught him in Weymouth, about 15 miles south of the city.

Another man caught in the recent blitz was a Salvadoran gang member who was convicted in a stabbing that left a 13-year-old boy paralyzed. Agents caught him working at Budget Rental Car at Boston's Logan Airport.

"The problems with immigration aren't going to be solved overnight," Raimondi said as the team sped toward another raid. "You start chipping away at it ... The more teams we get up and running, the more dangerous people we are going to get off the streets."

Who Will Define Marriage?

Who Will Define Marriage?
—Albert Mohler

The U.S. Senate finally brought the much-needed Marriage Protection Amendment for a vote, and again it fell short. The stakes could not be higher: Marriage is the most basic institution of human life--the molecular structure of society itself.

The very week that the Senate failed to stand up for marriage, the citizens of Alabama overwhelmingly approved a measure that would define marriage in that state as the union of a man and a woman--period. Every time the people of a state have been given the opportunity to vote, they have supported marriage by a landslide. So why does the Senate not get it?

Some still claim that the issue should be left to the states. That argument would make sense, but for the fact that courts are ready to take this issue away from the states. Just look at what happened on the abortion issue. The point remains simple--the people will define marriage for the judges, or they will define marriage for us.

American Minute

Welcome to the American Minute newsletter with Bill Federer, a free newsletter from Crosswalk.com, the world's largest Christian website. We honor your privacy and time. If this newsletter no longer meets your needs, please use the unsubscribe link at the bottom of this newsletter and you will be removed immediately.

Thirteen Stars and Thirteen Stripes. It was on this day, June 14, 1777, that the Second Continental Congress selected the Flag of the United States. In 1916, President Woodrow Wilson signed a Proclamation making this day "National Flag Day." On this day in 1954, President Dwight Eisenhower signed the Joint Resolution of Congress (Public Law 396) adding the phrase "One Nation Under God" to the Pledge of Allegiance. Eisenhower stated: "From this day forward, the millions of our school children will daily proclaim in every city and town, every village and rural school house, the dedication of our nation and our people to the Almighty. To anyone who truly loves America, nothing could be more inspiring than to contemplate this rededication of our youth, on each school morning, to our country's true meaning... In this way we are reaffirming the transcendence of religious faith in America's heritage and future; in this way we shall constantly strengthen those spiritual weapons which forever will be our country's most powerful resource, in peace or in war."

Waiting for the Master

Waiting for the Master
Greg Laurie
Remember the New Testament story in which Jesus sent His disciples across the Sea of Galilee? The Bible says that He waited on the shore and was up on a mountain praying. As the disciples were making their way across, a great storm began to rage, and they thought they were going to die. They rowed hard to try to get back to land, but without success. Then we read that at the fourth watch of the night, Jesus came to them, walking on the water. The fourth watch would be the time just before the dawn. This means that Jesus came to them after they had been at sea for nine hours. Then He came and rescued them.

Some of us may feel like the disciples did. We might be saying, “Lord, we have been battling away in this world. When are you going to come again? Are you paying attention to what is going on?” Of course He is. God is aware of everything that is happening. And know this: God is not late; He is always on time. The Bible says, “The Lord is not slack concerning His promise, as some count slackness, but is longsuffering toward us, not willing that any should perish but that all should come to repentance” (2 Peter 3:9 NKJV). The only reason the Lord has not already come is because He wants more people to come into His kingdom.

We have never been closer to the return of Jesus Christ than we are now. Even if He comes in the “fourth watch,” we are to be ready. We don't want to be like the foolish servant in another New Testament story who thought, “ ‘My master is delaying his coming' ” (Luke 12:45 NKJV). With this in mind, we need to be about our Master's business. So what are we to do, specifically?

First, we should be watching for Him. We should be paying attention and taking note of what is going on in the world right now. In the Book of Daniel, foolish King Belshazzar faced judgment because he did not respond to the writing on the wall (see Daniel 5). All around us are signs of the times, reminders that Jesus is coming back. Watch for Him.

Second, we should be ready to go. If I am going to travel somewhere by plane, I pack my bags the night before. Most of my flights are early in the morning. With all of the increased security now, I need to get to the airport well in advance. I get ready ahead of time so I am prepared to go on the trip. In the same way, we need to be ready and prepared to meet the Lord when He returns. It is wise thing to periodically ask yourself, “Am I living in such a way that I would be doing something I would be ashamed of if the Lord were to come back?” Living in the reality of Christ's return should make a difference in our behavior.

Third, we should be anxiously awaiting His return. My dog sleeps outside of my room at night. Sometimes he leans against the door to be as close to it as possible. When morning comes and I open the door, he is so excited that he runs around in circles. Then he picks up his bone, brings it to me, and waits until I take it. He anxiously waits for me. That is how we should be. We should be anxiously awaiting the Lord's return.

Fourth, we should be working. Luke 12:43 says, “Blessed is that servant whom his master will find so doing when he comes” (NKJV). If watching is the evidence of faith, then working is the evidence of faith in action. Watching for the Lord's return will help us prepare our own lives. Working will ensure that we bring others with us. That is the plan.

Jesus said, “ ‘Surely I am coming quickly.' ” The answer of the true Christian will always be, along with the apostle John, “Even so, come, Lord Jesus!” (Revelation 22:20 NKJV). Anything that would prevent us from that answer or make it difficult to say reveals something that is out of place in our lives. Therefore, we must periodically examine all of our ambitions, pursuits, hopes, dreams, and plans by this truth of the Lord's imminent return.

Jesus is coming back again. It might be sooner than some of us may think. Let's be ready.

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway

Bush Administration Quietly Plans NAFTA Super Highway
by Jerome R. Corsi
Posted Jun 12, 2006

Quietly but systematically, the Bush Administration is advancing the plan to build a huge NAFTA Super Highway, four football-fields-wide, through the heart of the U.S. along Interstate 35, from the Mexican border at Laredo, Tex., to the Canadian border north of Duluth, Minn.

Once complete, the new road will allow containers from the Far East to enter the United States through the Mexican port of Lazaro Cardenas, bypassing the Longshoreman’s Union in the process. The Mexican trucks, without the involvement of the Teamsters Union, will drive on what will be the nation’s most modern highway straight into the heart of America. The Mexican trucks will cross border in FAST lanes, checked only electronically by the new “SENTRI” system. The first customs stop will be a Mexican customs office in Kansas City, their new Smart Port complex, a facility being built for Mexico at a cost of $3 million to the U.S. taxpayers in Kansas City.

As incredible as this plan may seem to some readers, the first Trans-Texas Corridor segment of the NAFTA Super Highway is ready to begin construction next year. Various U.S. government agencies, dozens of state agencies, and scores of private NGOs (non-governmental organizations) have been working behind the scenes to create the NAFTA Super Highway, despite the lack of comment on the plan by President Bush. The American public is largely asleep to this key piece of the coming “North American Union” that government planners in the new trilateral region of United States, Canada and Mexico are about to drive into reality.

Just examine the following websites to get a feel for the magnitude of NAFTA Super Highway planning that has been going on without any new congressional legislation directly authorizing the construction of the planned international corridor through the center of the country.

NASCO, the North America SuperCorridor Coalition Inc., is a “non-profit organization dedicated to developing the world’s first international, integrated and secure, multi-modal transportation system along the International Mid-Continent Trade and Transportation Corridor to improve both the trade competitiveness and quality of life in North America.” Where does that sentence say anything about the USA? Still, NASCO has received $2.5 million in earmarks from the U.S. Department of Transportation to plan the NAFTA Super Highway as a 10-lane limited-access road (five lanes in each direction) plus passenger and freight rail lines running alongside pipelines laid for oil and natural gas. One glance at the map of the NAFTA Super Highway on the front page of the NASCO website will make clear that the design is to connect Mexico, Canada, and the U.S. into one transportation system.

Kansas City SmartPort Inc. is an “investor based organization supported by the public and private sector” to create the key hub on the NAFTA Super Highway. At the Kansas City SmartPort, the containers from the Far East can be transferred to trucks going east and west, dramatically reducing the ground transportation time dropping the containers off in Los Angeles or Long Beach involves for most of the country. A brochure on the SmartPort website describes the plan in glowing terms: “For those who live in Kansas City, the idea of receiving containers nonstop from the Far East by way of Mexico may sound unlikely, but later this month that seemingly far-fetched notion will become a reality.”

The U.S. government has housed within the Department of Commerce (DOC) an “SPP office” that is dedicated to organizing the many working groups laboring within the executive branches of the U.S., Mexico and Canada to create the regulatory reality for the Security and Prosperity Partnership. The SPP agreement was signed by Bush, President Vicente Fox, and then-Prime Minister Paul Martin in Waco, Tex., on March 23, 2005. According to the DOC website, a U.S.-Mexico Joint Working Committee on Transportation Planning has finalized a plan such that “(m)ethods for detecting bottlenecks on the U.S.-Mexico border will be developed and low cost/high impact projects identified in bottleneck studies will be constructed or implemented.” The report notes that new SENTRI travel lanes on the Mexican border will be constructed this year. The border at Laredo should be reduced to an electronic speed bump for the Mexican trucks containing goods from the Far East to enter the U.S. on their way to the Kansas City SmartPort.

The Texas Department of Transportation (TxDOT) is overseeing the Trans-Texas Corridor (TTC) as the first leg of the NAFTA Super Highway. A 4,000-page environmental impact statement has already been completed and public hearings are scheduled for five weeks, beginning next month, in July 2006. The billions involved will be provided by a foreign company, Cintra Concessions de Infraestructuras de Transporte, S.A. of Spain. As a consequence, the TTC will be privately operated, leased to the Cintra consortium to be operated as a toll-road.
The details of the NAFTA Super Highway are hidden in plan view. Still, Bush has not given speeches to bring the NAFTA Super Highway plans to the full attention of the American public. Missing in the move toward creating a North American Union is the robust public debate that preceded the decision to form the European Union. All this may be for calculated political reasons on the part of the Bush Administration.

A good reason Bush does not want to secure the border with Mexico may be that the administration is trying to create express lanes for Mexican trucks to bring containers with cheap Far East goods into the heart of the U.S., all without the involvement of any U.S. union workers on the docks or in the trucks.
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Copyright © 2006 HUMAN EVENTS. All Rights Reserved.

BRAINWASHING THE CHILDREN: A GLOBAL EFFORT

BRAINWASHING THE CHILDREN: A GLOBAL EFFORT
PART 2

By Jill Cohen Walker, J.D.

June 14, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

What’s happening to our young people down to the smallest member of a nursery school class is part of the most diabolical plan ever created by the ruling elites. Our children are not just part of a systematic plan to destroy their minds; they’re part of a plan to steal their souls for eternity.

Go back to “Educating for the Anti-Christ,” which is only one statement of the evils perpetrated on children. The writer discussed a 14-year-old boy who was learning about Buddhism—complete with 10-minute, daily meditation assignments. This was a favorite of Lucis Trust founder, Alice Bailey (more on her later in this piece). Anything that denies God must be employed when educating the children.

When the boy was asked by his mother what he was supposed to meditate about, “he said just on nice things and himself.” When that task was complete, he worked on his other assignment: making up his own ten commandments because the ones handed down by God don’t let evil, like the ACLU, and evil behavior flourish.

This leaves parents with the daunting task of deprogramming their children, but it can only happen if the children tell them what’s taking place. The evidence, however, indicates that school personnel demand secrecy. As the writer stated, “I praise God that they [the children] make me aware of what things they are actually being taught otherwise I would not know, because children are told not to discuss these lessons with their parents. Other parents I have alerted have been telling me the same sort of things.”

The UK hasn’t just abandoned its Christian roots; it’s totally immersed in witchcraft, occultism, and hedonism. It’s the home of “Harry Potter,” books that brainwash American children, compliments of Scholastic Publishing. This is not harmless reading for children. It is out-and-out witchcraft and mucking around in the occult.

Here’s how it works. In the UK, a nine-year-old boy went on a four-day school trip to an “outdoor activity center.” The first activity was a visit to what was called a witch’s tree. In his diary he wrote: “We formed a circle around it to keep away evil spirits, then we went up to it and felt it. It felt rough in some places and smooth in others. Then we tasted it, it tasted like dirt. We could also hear it breathing.”

Apparently, no one told those children they were actually inviting demons in by forming that circle. Personally, I find it incredible that they can hear a tree breathe but refuse to recognize the heartbeat of a living baby inside the womb even when that heartbeat is scientifically documented. It must be the woodsy environment that gives the tree more prominence and the right to live, or perhaps the worship of trees goes hand-in-hand with sacrificing the unborn to the rulers of “this present darkness.”

It gets worse. An A Level Performing Arts student was doing well until she lost interest in the program. During parents’ night, her mother was told she was failing because she “was offended by the material she was supposed to be studying and refused to participate.” The offensive material: A video, which the mother watched for herself, that contained a “blasphemous, sexually depraved presentation involving a bare breasted woman hanging on a cross, weird demonic music and dance, and a couple having sex in a dingy room.”

Material from the “One World Trust” was found circulating in a school in Liverpool, England. Their plan is “the emergence of a completely new kind of world civilization, based on dramatic scientific advances and ideas of human rights (somehow they forgot to include mine as a Christian); the beginning of a world community attempting to deal with its problems through the application of reason.” Also a study “which illustrates the ways in which the protection of civil liberties requires a global authority capable of enforcing civilized behavior on national governments.” I guess God didn’t do the job well enough for them.

As early as December 1997, the (London) Daily Telegraph reported that schools celebrated Diwali, a Hindu festival, but won’t celebrate Christmas with the same gusto because it might promote Christianity as the foundation of British culture and offend others. When asked about the abandonment of their Christian roots and culture, the headmistress of one school said: “British culture is only equally important with other cultures. What we’re doing here is to create citizens of the world. All cultures have to be equal.”

So, why do all cultures have to be viewed as equal when the truth is they’re not? I discussed the issue with my co-author, Jack, (as I usually do) and he said, “Let’s be real here! Those groups that advocate a world authority are only in it for a raw power grab of a magnitude that humbles the totalitarians of the last century.”

He added that if the UN has taught us anything, it’s this: “the amount of bureaucratic ineptitude increases logarithmically as the institution increases in size.” If we, as conservatives, cannot trust our own (fairly small) government, how will we fare when that government grows to mammoth proportions? Worse yet, this new society will have a bevy of thought crimes to ensure it will continue. That’s a frightening prospect.

“As it stands, our nation has been fairly resistant to passing laws against dissent, although our not-so-noble leaders have tried their best to do so. A number of blue states have ‘hate crimes’ (a.k.a. 'thought crimes’) on the books,” he said. “Our neighbors to the north have criminalized any philosophy, e.g. Christianity, that opposes the left-wing notion of tolerance (which is rather intolerant of them, I’d say), and unfortunately they’re not unique among Western civilizations.”

What we must force ourselves to realize is that not all civilizations or cultures have something to offer the twenty first century. I’m not advocating eliminating the people groups that practice what most of us would consider backward notions or whose cultures seem locked in some bygone era, but must we subsidize them? I mean . . . if they want to stay centuries behind, who are we to tell them they’re wrong (as long as they don’t force us to do the same)?

Moral equivalence is at the heart of these latest outrages, and moral equivalence is a dangerous and all-to-prevalent enemy of real morality. We must understand and accept that some cultures are inherently inferior. The heart of our constitution allows ideas to be dissected so the unworkable can be discarded. To insist that all cultures are equally good flies in the face of our common sense, our republic and, quite frankly, our faith. It brings to mind Douglas Adams’ assertion that true intelligence is the ability to reconcile opposites. This works in humor, but it doesn’t work in real life.

Why would anyone try to reconcile the truth and a lie, notwithstanding that Satan will give us enough truth to try to get us to swallow a lie? Well, here’s a little Intolerance Alert: Compromise with evil does not enhance good. It only serves to deaden a society’s ability and willingness to discern the difference between the two.

Now, look at the foundation of the New World Order and realize why everything it stands for is the polar opposite of God’s Word and Judeo-Christianity. I don’t care how you bang the truth into your head as long as you get it there. And the truth is: like the material educators are pouring into our children’s minds, like the immoral agenda of leftists, like the intolerance of those who demand tolerance from us, it’s based on a lie.

That lie has been around for a long time and it became most useful through the cunning work of Helena Petrovna Blavatsky who Hal Lindsey referred to as “the spiritual godmother” of the New Age Movement (See Planet Earth—2000 A.D, 1994).

In 1875, Blavatsky founded the Theosophical Society, a new age organization, in New York. Lindsey noted one of their earliest pronouncements regarding Christianity was: “To oppose . . . every form of dogmatic theology, especially the Christian, which the Chiefs of the Society regard as particularly pernicious . . . to counteract, as far as possible, the effects of missionaries to delude the so-called ‘Heathen’ and ‘Pagans’ as to the real dogmas of Christianity and the effects of the latter on public and private character in so-called Christian countries.”

I feel as if I just read a headline from a current newspaper. Perhaps that’s because nothing’s changed. They’re still at it.

In truth, Blavatsky and her followers hated God, Jesus, and Christianity and their successors still do. As Lindsey noted, “she went so far to suggest that Satan ‘was an innocent victim of God’s capricious and intemperate wrath.’” She also held that the name “Sa’tan, in Hebrew Satan, and Adversary . . . belongs by right to the first and cruelest Adversary of all other Gods—Jehovah; not the serpent which spoke only words of sympathy and wisdom.” Uh, he did? Maybe I missed something . . .

Blavatsky’s followers were in love with Satan and with their successors they started the Lucifer Publishing Company in the late 1890s. Their prime publication was titled Lucifer. They changed their name to the Lucis Publishing Company due to public sentiment and, in 1922, disciple Alice Bailey, established the Lucis Trust. That organization had its headquarters at the UN until the early 1990s.

Dare we trust the UN and its minions to create godly rights for children? I think not. But we can rest assured they will find every nasty and evil way possible to indoctrinate them with anything anti-God and anti-Christianity. Remember what the serpent told Adam and Eve. Updated for today, he basically said, “God just doesn’t want you to have any power or fun! Don’t listen to Him! Eat that fruit and YOU can run things your way and have all the fun you want!” Don’t bet on it. The last thing those elite globalists want you to have is even a scintilla of power.

Well, it’s only for a season that the NWO will have its way, and then God’s going to “show up and show out” . . . and some mighty interesting folks are going to be scrambling before the King of kings to explain away their actions. And this time, it won’t work. For part 1 click below.
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Jill Cohen Walker earned a BA from Goddard College in 1977, a JD from Franklin Pierce Law Center in 1980, and an MS in journalism at the University of Tennessee, Knoxville in 1999. A freelance writer for fifteen years, she has written numerous articles for tech magazines and newspapers, and co-authored a book on hiring practices in the printing industry.

She taught Social Studies for one year in a northern middle school, and medical-legal and bio-medical courses in the Allied Health division of a local community college for four years. A student of legal history and the US Constitution, she began to study current events and Bible prophecies in March 1985. Her deep interest in and awareness of American politics started during the 2000 elections when she realized the prophetic time clock was ticking fast. She is the co-author of the novel "The Call to Prayer". (www.thecalltoprayer.net).

THERE IS A DARK CLOUD OVER AMERICA

THERE IS A DARK CLOUD OVER AMERICA

Dorothy A. Seese
June 14, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Some of us, observers of times, trends and events, have been waiting for the American housing boom to go bust, and that day is apparently on the horizon now. But this would cause no ordinary recession.

The world economic situation isn't stable, it has been destabilized by international monetary interests that stand to gain from the emergence, publicly, of the New World Order that has been in the making in the U.S. since the war between the North and South, with the Northern union of centralized federal control winning the conflict. Two engineered world wars, the Great Depression that brought about cries for socialistic government "reforms" and the obliteration of a free market society have steadily pinched America into a place of incalculable debt, loss of personal freedom, a service-oriented economy for most workers, and a false sense of confidence in our ability to bounce back from short periods of recession. "Made in America" doesn't mean much when the company making goods or services is owned by foreign companies. They can pull back to their own homeland and leave ours devastated.

Most Americans own a lot more debt than anything else, so they're totally vulnerable to a major crash. Even illegal aliens can flee home (after all, there was no law to keep them at home and no law saying they cannot return). The American people, filled now with frustration over inflation and the separation of their own government from the citizenry, fill huge cities where they depend on their livelihood from jobs rather than from land ownership and self-sufficiency that rides out hard times. With world violence increasing exponentially, and American violence making life both edgy and dangerous, the relatively quiet Great Depression could never happen again in the United States. A major depression would bring about unthinkable violence and then martial law with United Nations intervention, doubtless at the request of the US government leadership in power at the time of the crash and backlash.

When I moved into a small condo unit in an Arizona retirement city in 1998, gasoline was selling for a dollar a gallon, food cost about half of what it does now, and housing was about 40% of its present cost. Signs asking for people to fill jobs and touting hiring bonuses were plastered on billboards and newspaper ads. Outsourcing was a very small percentage of what it is today. Times appeared good. But it was a house of cards built on a dot-com revolution that pushed technological changes, competition, and speculative investment over the top of the charts.

The homebuilding industry survived and became America's big non-service industry. While construction companies and their subcontractors hired a considerable number of undocumented workers (illegal aliens to be politically incorrect) they also required more skilled labor, American citizens of various ethnic backgrounds. Raw land around major metropolitan areas has grown scarce, so there have been many cities that took their neglected slum areas and renovated them or razed and rebuilt on the land around "downtown" while others created new developments in outlying areas for commuters (thus increasing the need for more roads and expressways).

There is hardly any business that is not affected, directly or indirectly, by the housing industry.

Worse yet, no one owns their home as their property, free and clear. The mortgage may be paid off, but property taxes, assessments for roads and other government fees and taxes turn into a form of rental to remain in one's own home or lose it to the taxing authority! And then there's the new twist to eminent domain that says your property can be taken (for the taker's idea of a fair value) for some good reason, "good" being defined by the takers.

Still, the housing industry not only produced huge new levels of debt for American homebuying families, but jobs that made a buffer for an overly outsourced American economy that produces little in the way of goods. Forty years ago, the automobile industry was largely American. Now, foreign automakers put assembly plants on US soil and save the cost of shipping while the profits go back to the country of origin, or to international financiers who move investments around like chess pieces on the world's coordinates.

When the housing industry goes bust, Americans will wonder what happened and why. Exactly how bad things will become depends on the agenda that the globalists want to put into effect. If it's total obliteration of America as we have known it, only a facade of which still exists anyway, there will be an enormous crash and enormous losses among small investors, businesses, and workers.

If the "agenda" calls for a more staged takeover of the United States to meld it into the North American Region, then the crash will be more buffered, with American workers taking the largest hit. Only the insiders know for sure -- unless something goes wrong and creates more panic than anticipated.

Whatever else, the crash of the housing industry means one thing for all Americans: the roof will cave in on American life as we know it even today. And we think today is bad enough.

It's a sad fact that the American people generally take action only when they get hit in the wallet. The question for the era of global depression will be, "will Americans take back their country?" Of course, Americans wouldn't be in this fix if they had taken it back forty or so years ago. With enough distraction and panic, they won't be able to take back this nation, and the globalists manipulating the world's economies are counting heavily on that for ultimate success, their One World Order.

© 2006 Dorothy A. Seese - All Rights Reserved

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Dorothy Anne Seese has been working since she was three and a half years old, but not as a journalist.

Her career began as a child actress in the 1939-1942 "Five Little Peppers" film series produced by Columbia that mercifully ended with the nation's involvement in World War II, although she did do small parts in a few films until 1953. By that time, she was a student at U.C.L.A. where she received her liberal arts degree in Political Science.

SPYCHIPS CO-AUTHOR ADDS HER VOICE TO "NO NATIONAL ID" MOVEMENT

SPYCHIPS CO-AUTHOR ADDS HER VOICE TO "NO NATIONAL ID" MOVEMENT
By Liz McIntyre & Katherine Albrecht

June 14, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

Consumer privacy expert Dr. Katherine Albrecht will be a featured speaker at the No National ID rally in Dallas, Texas this weekend. The event, hosted by Endtime Ministries, is expected to draw 5,000 to 8,000 attendees.

The rally is being organized in response to the REAL ID Act, federal legislation that mandates standardized driver's licenses for all Americans by 2008. Under the plan, a REAL ID compliant driver's license will be needed to board a plane, open a bank account, or enter a federal building. Critics have called it a de facto national ID card.

The plan has drawn widespread criticism from civil libertarians, citizens groups, and religious leaders across the political spectrum. In addition to Endtime Ministries, other opposition voices include the ACLU, the conservative CATO Institute, the Presbyterian Church, the Jewish Labor Committee, and the American Friends Service Committee (Quakers), to name just a few.

Endtime Ministries is encouraging Americans to take the No National ID pledge on its website, http://www.NoNationalID.com. Concerned citizens who have taken the "No National ID Pledge" vow they will not knowingly vote for any politician who does not commit to the repeal of the Real ID Act.

The original goal for the pledge was 10,000 commitments. "Already, that goal has been vastly exceeded," says Endtime's Craig Treadwell, director of the campaign. "We have received over 20,000 pledges so far, and more continue to pour in each day. This is truly a hot button issue for the Christian community."

Albrecht cautions that a de facto national ID card will not only lay the foundations for a police state, but the consolidation of sensitive data will put citizens at risk of identity theft, create a bureacratic nightmare, and cost a fortune.

"America has always been a free country," says Albrecht. "This is not a totalitarian regime where authorities can demand 'Your papers, please' of its citizens. We have to put a stop to the encroaching police state while we still can."

The No National ID rally will take place at the Garland Special Events Center this Saturday, June 17, 2006 at 6:00 pm. The event is free to the public.

Albrecht will speak on privacy issues related to identification technologies and will hold a book signing after the event.

For more information call: 972-530-0100 or visit: www.EndtimeDallasConference.com

© 2006 - Liz McIntyre & Katherine Albrecht - All Rights Reserved
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Liz McIntyre is a consumer privacy expert and author of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID. In this explosive book, McIntyre and co-author Katherine Albrecht reveal how organizations like Procter & Gamble, Gillette, Wal-Mart, and even the U.S. Postal Service plan to use tiny computer chips smaller than a grain of sand to track everyday objects-and even people-keeping tabs on everything you own and everywhere you go.

Katherine Albrecht is a privacy advocate and co-author of Spychips: How Major Corporations and Government Plan to Track your Every Move with RFID. Albrecht has testified on RFID technology before the Federal Trade Commission, the California state legislature, the European Commission, and the Federal Reserve Bank, and she has given over a thousand television, radio and print interviews to news outlets all over the world. Her efforts have been featured on CNN, NPR, the CBS Evening News, Business Week, and the London Times, to name just a few.

Web Sites: SpyChips.com and NoCards.org

Al Aqsa official: Jewish temples existed

Al Aqsa official: Jewish temples existed
Says proof passed down over the centuries by mosque custodians
June 14, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

By Aaron Klein
© 2006 WorldNetDaily.com

JERUSALEM – Contradicting most of his colleagues, a former senior leader of the Waqf, the Islamic custodians of the Temple Mount, told WorldNetDaily in an exclusive interview he has come to believe the first and second Jewish Temples existed and stood at the current location of the Al Aqsa Mosque.

The leader, who was dismissed from his Waqf position after he quietly made his beliefs known, said Al Aqsa custodians passed down stories for centuries from generation to generation indicating the mosque was built at the site of the former Jewish Temples.

He said the Muslim world's widespread denial of the existence of the Jewish temples is political in nature and is not rooted in facts.

"Prophet Solomon built his famous Temple at the same place that later the Al Aqsa Mosque was built. It cannot be a coincidence that these different holy sites were built at the same place. The Jewish Temple Mount existed," said the former senior Waqf leader, speaking to WorldNetDaily from an apartment in an obscure alley in Jerusalem's Old City.

The former leader, who is well known to Al Aqsa scholars and Waqf officials, spoke on condition his name be withheld, claiming an on-the-record interview would endanger his life.

While the Islamic leader's statements may seem elementary to many in the West, especially in light of overwhelming archaeological evidence documenting the history of the Jewish temples and description of services there in the Torah, his words break with mainstream thinking in much of the Muslim world, which believes the Jewish temples never existed.

"I am mentioning historical facts," said the former leader. "I know that the traditional denial about the temple existing at the same place as Al Aqsa is more a political denial. Unfortunately our religious and political leaders chose the option of denial to fight the Jewish position and demands regarding Al Aqsa and taking back the Temple Mount compound. In my opinion we should admit the truth and abandon our traditional position."

The leader said his conclusion that the Jewish temples existed does not forfeit what he calls "Islamic rights" to the Temple Mount and Al Aqsa Mosque.

"Yes, the temple existed. But now it is the place of the mosque of the religious who came to complete the divine religion [that started with Judaism] and to improve humanity," said the leader.

"We believe that Islam is the third and last religion. It came to complete the monotheistic message. The mosque is here at the place of the temple to serve for the same purpose, for the work Allah"

Al Aqsa Mosque built by angels?

The First Temple was built by King Solomon in the 10th century B.C. It was destroyed by the Babylonians in 586 B.C. The Second Temple was rebuilt in 515 B.C. after Jerusalem was freed from Babylonian captivity. That temple was destroyed by the Roman Empire in A.D. 70. Each temple stood for a period of about four centuries.

The Jewish Temple, mentioned hundreds of times in the Torah, was the center of religious Jewish worship. It housed the Holy of Holies, which contained the Ark of the Covenant and was said to be the area upon which God's "presence" dwelt.

The temple served as the primary location for the offering of sacrifices and was the main gathering place in Israel during Jewish holidays.

The Temple Mount compound has remained a focal point for Jewish services over the millennia. Prayers for a return to Jerusalem have been uttered by Jews since the Second Temple was destroyed, according to Jewish tradition. Jews worldwide pray facing toward the Western Wall, a portion of an outer courtyard of the Temple left in tact.

The Al Aqsa Mosque was constructed in about 709 to serve as a shrine near another nearby shrine, the Dome of the Rock, which was built by an Islamic caliph. Al Aqsa was meant to mark what Muslims came to believe may have been the place at which Muhammad, the founder of Islam, ascended to heaven during a dream to receive revelations from Allah.

Jerusalem is not mentioned in the Quran. Islamic tradition states Mohammed took a journey in a single night from "a sacred mosque" – believed to in Mecca in southern Saudi Arabia – to "the farthest mosque" and from a rock there ascended to heaven. The farthest mosque later became associated with Jerusalem.

Muslims worldwide deny the Jewish temples ever existed in spite of what many call overwhelming archaeological evidence, including the discovery of Temple-era artifacts linked to worship, tunnels that snake under the Temple Mount and over 100 ritual immersion pools believed to have been used by Jewish priests to cleanse themselves before services. The cleansing process is detailed in the Torah.

According to the website of the Palestinian Authority's Office for Religious Affairs, the Temple Mount is Muslim property. The site claims the Western Wall, which it refers to as the Al-Boraq Wall, previously was a docking station for horses. It states Muhammed tied his horse, named Boraq, to the wall before ascending to heaven.

In a previous interview with WorldNetDaily, Kamal Hatib, vice-chairman of the Islamic Movement, claimed the Al-Aqsa Mosque was built by angels and that a Jewish Temple may have existed but not in Jerusalem. The Movement, which works closely with the Waqf, is the Muslim group in Israel most identified with the Temple Mount.

"When the First Temple was built by Solomon – God bless him – Al Aqsa was already built. We don't believe that a prophet like Solomon would have built the Temple at a place where a mosque existed," said Hatib.

"And all the historical and archaeological facts deny any relation between the temples and the location of Al Aqsa. We must know that Jerusalem was occupied and that people left many things, coins and other things everywhere. This does not mean in any way that there is a link between the people who left these things and the place where these things were left," Hatib said.

'True' Islamic tradition affirms temples

But the former senior Wafq leader told WND "true" Islamic tradition relates the Jewish temples once stood at the site of the Al Asa Mosque. He said Al Aqsa custodians passed down history over the centuries indicating the mosque was built at the site of the former Jewish temples.

"[The existence of the Jewish Temple at the site is obvious] according to studies, researches and archaeological signs that we were also exposed to. But especially according to the history that passed from one generation to another – we believe Al Aqsa was built on the same place were the Temple of the Jews – the first monotheistic religion – existed."

He cited samples of some stories he said were related orally by Islamic leaders:

"We learned that the Christians, especially those who believed that Jesus was crucified by the Jews, used to throw their garbage at the Temple Mount site. They used to throw the pieces of cotton and other material Christian women used in cleaning the blood of their monthly cycle. Doing so they believed that they were humiliating, insulting and harming the Jews at their holiest site. This way they are hurting them like Jews hurt Christians when crucifying Jesus.

"It is known also that most of the first guards of Al Aqsa when it was built were Jews. The Muslims knew at that time that they could not find any more loyal and faithful than the Jews to guard the mosque and its compound. They knew that the Jews have a special relation with this place."

Temple Mount: No-prayer zone

Currently, even though the Jewish state controls Jerusalem, the Waqf serve as the custodians of the Temple Mount under a deal made with the Israeli government that restricts non-Muslim prayer at the site.

The Temple Mount was opened to the general public until September 2000, when the Palestinians started their intifada by throwing stones at Jewish worshipers after then-candidate for prime minister Ariel Sharon visited the area.

Following the onset of violence, the new Sharon government closed the Mount to non-Muslims, using checkpoints to control all pedestrian traffic for fear of further clashes with the Palestinians.

The Temple Mount was reopened to non-Muslims in August 2003. It still is open but only Sundays through Thursdays, 7:30 a.m. to 10 a.m. and 12:30 p.m. to 1:30 p.m., and not on any Christian, Jewish or Muslim holidays or other days considered "sensitive" by the Waqf.

During "open" days, Jews and Christian are allowed to ascend the Mount, usually through organized tours and only if they conform first to a strict set of guidelines, which includes demands that they not pray or bring any "holy objects" to the site. Visitors are banned from entering any of the mosques without direct Waqf permission. Rules are enforced by Waqf agents, who watch tours closely and alert nearby Israeli police to any breaking of their guidelines.

The former senior Waqf leader said the Jewish temples have lost their purpose:

"As we are the religion who are here to correct everything that was before us there is no need for the Temple. Allah chose Islam as its final and favorite religion."

U.S. troops in shackles

U.S. troops in shackles

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Posted: June 14, 2006
1:00 a.m. Eastern

© 2006 Creators Syndicate Inc.

Did you know there are seven young Marines and a Navy corpsman sitting in a military brig right now in leg and wrist shackles – despite the fact that they've not been charged with any crime?

The men are in solitary confinement, locked in 8-by-8 feet cells at San Diego's Camp Pendleton, as investigators probe an April 26 incident involving the 3rd Battalion, 5th Regiment, 1st Marine Division. They are behind bars 23 hours a day; family members can only see them through inch-thick Plexiglas. Military blabbermouths have told the press that the service members are suspected of kidnapping and shooting a man in the Iraqi town of Hamdaniya. The Iraqi man's family reportedly came forward seeking payment for his death as media hysteria set in over the separate alleged atrocity in Haditha.

These men – our men – may be innocent. They may be guilty. Charges may or may not be filed this week. But this much is certain: The media leaks and the Murtha-fication of the case are already taking a heavy toll on the troops and their families. The headlines have already convicted them: "Iraqi's Slaying Planned By Marines, Official Says." "Marines Planned to Kill Iraqi Civilian, Then Planted Evidence."

The national media ignored a protest by supporters outside Camp Pendleton over the weekend. "I want the Marines to know that they are not forgotten, that people are out here thinking of them," said one attendee. The father of one of the men in custody, Pfc. John J. Jodka, worried: "It appears to me that this is the reaction of some senior people to show 'We're in charge; we're cleaning up our act.'"

Not a peep heard yet from the American Civil Liberties Union. The website of the self-anointed crusaders for individual rights contains hundreds of articles on the rights of al-Qaida suspects and an indignant press release on the suicides of Guantanamo Bay detainees. But no mention of the Camp Pendleton Eight. For their part, human rights groups were too busy shedding tears for the Gitmo terrorist suicide squad and lionizing them as "heroes" in the words of William Goodman of the Center for Constitutional Rights. Editorial cartoonists have been preoccupied desecrating the Marine Corps logo and tarring troops as baby-killers.

A clarion voice stepped into the fray this week to push back against the global rush to judgment against our troops. Ilario Pantano, a Desert Storm vet-turned-Wall Street banker and New Media entrepreneur-turned-re-enlisted Marine from Hell's Kitchen, launched his gripping book "Warlord: No Better Friend, No Worse Enemy" this week, which recounts his harrowing ordeal as a Marine smeared and cleared. Last spring, he faced the death penalty for defending himself and his men in the heat of battle and killing two Iraqi insurgents. He was accused then, as Marines are being accused now, of wantonly executing Iraqis to send a message. His family and friends' defense of Pantano was met, as those of Marines are being met now, with incredulity or apathy.

There were no pleas to withhold judgment against Pantano from the New York Times then. No Oprah sit-downs now with the wives and children of accused troops.

As an agitated, condescending Ann Curry of NBC's "Today Show" tried to paint Pantano Monday as a callous thug, he replied with quiet dignity: "I don't think it's helpful to national security to have this kind of self-flagellation before the facts are actually disclosed."

Innocent until proven guilty? Justice for all? Benefit of the doubt? These are apparently foreign concepts when it comes to Americans in uniform being held on American soil. Perhaps if our troops proclaimed themselves "conscientious objectors" and converted to Islam, they might start getting some sympathy.

Who said Israel should exist anyway?

Who said Israel should exist anyway?
Posted: Wednesday, June 14, 2006
- written by jerry golden
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The Jews and Israel exist because God said they did. And when God speaks something or someone into existence, it is, because I AM said so. The Devil has tried to destroy Israel and the Jews because he knows his demise is in end time Prophecy and centered in Israel with the Jewish people. He has tried to use the Romans, Greeks Syrians, Turks, Germans, in the Holocaust the Spaniards and Portuguese in the Catholic Inquisition, and even the Catholic Christian Crusaders, to destroy the Jewish people and the nation of Israel. But by God’s Word we are still here and will continue to be here until or if God decides differently but there is one thing about God that most of us know, He isn’t going to change His mind when it comes to Israel and the Jews.

Today we have the so-called Palestinians along with the President of Iran who want to wipe us off the map. If you want to see clearly who is working for the Devil either knowingly or unknowingly all you have to do is look at those who want to destroy Israel and the Jewish people. You can also see those European Nations who have surrendered over to Islam, and are no longer Christian Nations.

And it’s not unusual for me to get letters and emails from some who call themselves “Christians” who has read the lies and fictions in the book “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion”. This book of lies and fiction is the best seller in the Arab world, and that should tell us all we need to know. It is however my belief that a truly born again Believer in Yeshua HaMashiach (Jesus the Messiah) will in the Spirit love Israel and support it, he or she would under no circumstances say or do anything against God’s chosen. That is not to say however they would accept sin or disobedience by the Jews or anyone. To expose sin is the right thing to do, but we are to love the sinner and hate the sin. In the Spirit we can see beyond today’s confusion brought on by the hand of the Devil, we see God’s purposes and the fulfillment of His Word. And we know that the re-gathering of Jews after being scattered into all the nations and even the restoration of the Hebrew language could have only been done by a miracle of God. It was in fact the budding of the fig tree. One thing you can be sure of, Israel is not going away and neither the Jews, in fact you can count on One very important Jew to return soon.

For Israel to now have a Prime Minister who wants to divide the land while even under attack from the enemy is unbelievable, for him to not even consider that what happened to Ariel Sharon was brought on by the hand of God means he is blinded to many things. But this new Prime Minister has now openly stated that he will divide Jerusalem, and this will in the end bring him down. For any man who comes against Jerusalem in the last days comes directly against God. And God’s Word is very clear on this subject.

So like the email I sent out early today, we don’t need Hamas or any other Palestinian or Arab Country to give us their blessing and permission to exist, we exist because God said we do.

We not only exist but God is about ready to bring a lot more Jews home to the land He promised them. I’ve never been more sure of anything in my 38+ years of walking with God, he has called us to prepare to go after many Jews in the coming days, I only pray we will be ready in time. I am asking each of you once again to pray about your part in this ministry, you’re needed now.

Tomorrow is the 15th the day we usually take care of the families God has led us to with enough money for food for the month. This is also possible because you cared enough.

Pray for the peace of Jerusalem. For our son Joel and all the IDF soldiers. Pray for this Ministry and your part in it. Shalom, jerry golden

The Government Controls the Church

The Government Controls the Church
There is no Separation
Between the Church and the State
It's a Myth, It's Judicial Tyranny

1. God and his Church are forbidden to marry couples without government permission.
2. The Church minister is not allowed to marry couples without permission from government. Churches do not allow their ministers to marry people without permission from government. The minister must obtain a 'permit document' from government first.
3. Anyone the government designates and approves can 'marry' couples.
4. In addition to letters, signatures and other proof, in Virginia the church minister must swear an oath in front of government representative before he can obtain a 'permit' to perform a marriage in a Church.
5. Couples must obtain a 'marriage license' before the minister or anyone else is allowed to marry them. In Virginia the license costs $33.00, cash only. The celebrants are required by government to furnish and prove social security numbers, for government tracking before the government approved license is issued.
6. Under government law, the church minister becomes a 'special agent of government' when he is granted by government a permit to marry people and when he signs the marriage document for the married couple he signs as a representative of government. Immediately the married couples tax status changes. If he were only performing as a church minister their tax status wouldn't change. He does not perform the first ceremony acting as a church minister, he performs the ceremony as agent of government. If he is a minister agent of church, and a minister acting as an agent of government, where is the "separation?"

The Church Minister, employed by the Church is indeed a single active human representative of a trinity, the Church, God and Government, all three in one human. Clearly, all three agencies are represented combined, three entities become one, not separated.

7. If it were not so, the tax status of the married couple would not change as a result of his marriage ceremony and signature of the minister - but it does. Both Federal and State Tax status is changed when the minister / agent of government signs the marriage document.
8. When the minister recites the verbal commitments and the couple agree to them during the ceremony, that becomes part of the legal contract but is never recorded as a document, probably because no one thought to do it.
9. No one knows the legal terms of the marriage contract before the fact, but we know the marriage contract is with the judicial government, not necessarily between the two people. Without the government marriage license the judge and court would have no jurisdiction over the people or their property.
10. We see the vehicle document that transforms the minister into an agent of government but we do not see a document that removes that obligation from the minister. He surely continues to be an agent of government under the law.
11. The Tax status of the Church property is determined by the government.
12. The Tax status of the Church money is determined by the government. The Government can shut the Church down by changing its Tax status. In some states speaking against the government is forbidden.
13. Labor of Church employees is taxed by government.
14. The occupancy of the Church building is government controlled and regulated.
15. Church pays a government tax on utilities.
16. Many Churches have two ceremonies - a civil government ceremony and a church ceremony. But clearly, all Churches are required to have the civil government ceremony first.
17. Most States have forms of laws called 'Doctrine of Necessaries.' These laws allow hospitals to confiscate spousal property through the marriage contract even though the other spouse never owned the property. Thousands of houses are confiscated from people every year as a result of the government marriage contract document. Hospitals place liens on property at court houses and let the interest run for years - then they take the property. People are always surprised. The risk and odds get greater the older people become.
18. All States are generally the same legally with some variations. Until recently in Virginia churches were not companies, churches were not corporations, and after five years of research we are not able in many cases to answer the question, "What is a church under the law in Virginia." We queried churches, the governor's office, Virginia Department of Taxation, State Corporation Commission, the Virginia Attorney General's Office, the Virginia Senate and other state and federal agencies. They all said, "We don't know." The best answer came from the legal department of the Virginia State Corporation Commission, "It's always been a nebulous thing."

For years churches in Virginia were forbidden by law from being corporations. Recently, Jerry Falwell Ministries sued the State of Virginia and won. Now churches are allowed to structure and register as corporations with a non-profit tax status. They are under the government corporation umbrella. Most churches in the United States are now corporations controlled by government.

19. After six years of research into this matter, I know, there is no separation between church and government, they are almost one. The Government controls every aspect of the Church and people completely.

Food Shortages and Higher Food Prices Coming?

Food Shortages and Higher Food Prices Coming?
Compiled By Howard Harris

(AONewswire)- Things are not looking so good for world's most significant food crop, #2 Hard Red Winter Wheat. This particular wheat product is THE wheat product used to make bread. America's plains states from Texas through Oklahoma, Kansas, Nebraska and the Dakotas are considered America's Breadbasket because #2 Hard red winter wheat is primarily the crop grown in the region. This year severe weather including drought has severely affected the crop. A new USDA forecast reveals that winter wheat production is in far worse shape than had been expected. This is particularly true in Kansas where the crop is the most dominant crop planted in that state. Kansas agriculture officials are reporting that the crop continues to deteriorate day by day for a variety of reasons including crop disease, insects and weather. At the moment, the crop is expected to come in at about 25% less harvest than in 2005. It is expected to be the worst harvest since 2002. Keep in mind that worldwide demand is growing for the product.


How bad is the Kansas harvest? Right now is the peak of harvest season for Kansas #2 Hard, red winter wheat. Normally, farmers are scrambling for help in getting their wheat cut but wheat combines are not all that busy because a normal 50 bushels an acre field is yielding maybe 15 bushels and it doesn't take nearly as long to cut 15 bushels in an acre as it does to cut 50 bushels in an acre. Kansas officials noted that yesterday alone there was a large surplus of wheat combines and vehicles sitting idle for lack of crops to cut. As much as 20% of the acres of wheat planted yielded nothing.

Nationally, the #2 hard, red winter wheat crop will be off by at least 16% from last year and many experts believe that number to be very optimistic as many forecasters expect the national harvest to mirror that of Kansas. Regarding the quality of the crop harvest, 50% is reported to be in very poor to poor condition, 30% in fair conditoin and 18% as good with only 2% reported as excellent.

Such news may well be a forerunner of things to come. The Biblical prophecies predict famine during the Tribulation period. Weather patterns and crop disease patterns and trends suggest the world is moving rapidly towards that direction in the not too distant future. More on this from Businessweek, here.

Drought Affecting Crops and Livestock

As drought affects the grain crops used for livestock feed, cattlemen across the Midwest are finding themselves forced to liquidate herds as they are unable to afford to feed their animals as crop prices skyrocket on grain harvest shortfalls. Cattle ranchers note that grass for feed is gone under extremely hot and dry conditions that have persisted. More details here.

Japan Warned of Food Shortages

Japan is facing a potential food shortage that could reduce the average daily diet to the meager levels of the post-WW2 era. This warning comes from a Japanese research institute which notes that Japan must now compete with rising demand from China for food. The report indicates that the typical Japanese daily diet could be savagely curtailed within the next 10 years. Japan is forced to import most of its meat from around the world including Australia and the United States plus Arentina and Brazil.

GLOBAL INTEGRATION

GLOBAL INTEGRATION
By Dennis L. Cuddy, Ph.D.
June 12, 2006
NewsWithViews.com

At the end of Part 31 of my series on "Mental Health, Education and Social Control," I referred to the goal of global "integration" on the part of the Bush administration. This was also the goal of the Clinton administration and of the power elite in general. Their plan has been globally to integrate regional economic arrangements and then advocate their management by a World Socialist Government. Currently there is an effort to integrate the U.S., Canada and Mexico, and that is why American politicians have no real desire to control our borders despite their posturing to the contrary. Why else do you think there are only about 11,000 border patrol agents when even New York City alone has 37,000 police officers? To show how the integration of two entities---the U.S. and Europe---have already been occuring on a practical level, I wrote the following article which was printed in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD on July 14, 1998 :

"The New Transatlantic Agenda"

While the implications of School-to-Work (STW) at the state and national levels have been widely debated, not much has been written about the international connections. On May 18, 1998, the White House released a statement at the conclusion of the U.S.-European Summit in London, indicating that "through the New Transatlantic Agenda(NTA), created in 1995, the United States and the European Union have focused on addressing the challenges and opportunities of global integration."

One part of this "global integration" in 1995 was the agreement between the U.S. and the European Community establishing a cooperation program in higher education and vocational education and training. The agreement, signed December 21 of that year, called for "improving the quality of human resource development...Transatlantic student mobility...and thus portability of academic credits." In this regard, a Joint Committee would reach decisions by consensus.

As part of the NTA, the U.S. and European Union then convened a major conference, "Bridging the Atlantic: People-to-People Links," on May 5-6,1997 calling for "thematic networks for curriculum development," and further stating that in an information-based global economy, "governments too are obliged to adapt their economic, training and social welfare programs." The conference final report noted that in the U.S., ACHIEVE has been one of the organizations at the forefront of defining key issues in this regard and developing strategies to address them. ACHIEVE has been measuring and reporting each state's annual progress in establishing internationally competitive standards, and business leaders involved have indicated their commitment to consider the quality of each state's standards when making business location or expansion decisions.

The "Partners in a Global Economy Working Group" of the conference discussed "what redesigning of curricula is required...(i.e., what career skills are needed),...portability of skill certificates...and institutionalizing cross-national learning/training activities."

Most people debating STW in the U.S. are familiar with the role of Marc Tucker, president of the National Center on Education and the Economy. He's also on the National Skill Standards Board (NSSB), and on its website under international links, one finds "Smartcards Project Forum," under which one reads: "The Tavistock Institute and the European Commission are working on a feasibility study to research the affect of using Smartcards in competence accreditation. The study will be carried out in the USA and parts of Europe." The project involves assessing and validating students' skills, with information placed on personal skills Smartcards, which "become real passports to employment."

If without a passport one cannot enter a country, does this mean that without a skills passport one may not be able to get a job in the future?

In October 1997, the Tavistock Institute (and Manchester University) completed the final report for the European Commission, and described in a report summary were the relevancy of Goals 2000, SCANS (U.S. Department of Labor "Secretary's Commission on Achieving Necessary Skills") typology with its "profound implications for the curriculum and training changes that this will require," valid skills standards and portable credentials "benchmarked to international standards such as those promulgated by the International Standards Organization (ISO)."

The report summary went on to say that "there is increasing attention being focused on developing global skill standards and accreditation agreements," and there will be "partnerships between government, industry, and representatives of worker organizations...(and) a high degree of integration...embedding skills within the broader context of economic and social activity, and specifically within the areas of secondary education, work-based learning and local and regional economic development....The NSSB, Goals 2000, STW Program are all combining to act as a catalyst to promote the formation of partnerships to develop skills standards. In this regard, a system like O*Net can be seen as the 'glue' that holds everything together."

O*Net is a new occupational database system sponsored by the U.S. Department of Labor's Employment and Training Administration, and is being piloted in Texas, South Carolina, California, New York and Minnesota. It includes information such as "Worker Characteristics" (abilities, interests and work styles) and "Worker Requirements" (e.g., basic skills, knowledge and education).

© 2006 Dennis Cuddy - All Rights Reserved

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Dennis Laurence Cuddy, historian and political analyst, received a Ph.D. from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill (major in American History, minor in political science). Dr. Cuddy has taught at the university level, has been a political and economic risk analyst for an international consulting firm, and has been a Senior Associate with the U.S. Department of Education.

Cuddy has also testified before members of Congress on behalf of the U.S. Department of Justice. Dr. Cuddy has authored or edited twenty books and booklets, and has written hundreds of articles appearing in newspapers around the nation, including The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and USA Today. He has been a guest on numerous radio talk shows in various parts of the country, such as ABC Radio in New York City, and he has also been a guest on the national television programs USA Today and CBS's Nightwatch.