Foreign Threats to Your Religious Liberty
For years, the ACLU and its allies have been pressuring U.S. courts to adopt radical foreign law and court decisions – as part of their dream to re-shape America. Alarmingly, five of the nine U.S. Supreme Court justices currently serving favor the use of foreign law to interpret America’s law and Constitution. If our courts continue to follow the ACLU’s wishes, serious threats to Christians abroad could become our reality, too.

Sebelius Admits Double Counting Obamacare Budget
During a hearing on Capitol Hill Thursday, the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) admitted to double-counting in the Obamacare budget.

PBS President Makes $632,000 per year
PBS President Paula Kerger even recorded a personal television appeal that told viewers exactly how to contact members of Congress in order to “let your representative know how you feel about the elimination of funding for public broadcasting.” Kerger makes $632,233 in annual compensation.

Obama Official Says Mosques Remind Him of Catholic Parishes
The administration has tried to strike a balance on the thorny issue, working to go after homegrown Islamic extremists without appearing to be at war with the Muslim world. There has been an effort to build stronger relationships with Muslims - internationally and in the United States. During his remarks Sunday, McDonough called the mosque a "typically American place" and said it reminded him of his Catholic parish where he grew up in Minnesota.

Thomas Sowell: Union Myths
The biggest myth about labor unions is that unions are for the workers. Unions are for unions, just as corporations are for corporations and politicians are for politicians.

When Winston Churchill Warned America
It was 65 years ago, March 5, 1946, when Winston Churchill delivered his “Iron Curtain” speech in Fulton, Missouri. It was a speech that rocked the world and changed history.

Dem Senator: Obama has failed to lead
West Virginia Sen. Joe Manchin ripped President Barack Obama on his budget proposals in a Senate floor speech Tuesday, a rare rebuke from a freshman Democrat who clearly is worried about the politics of deficit spending as he faces a tough reelection in 2012.

Muslim Lobby Forced Firing of Popular Radio Host
Washington, D.C. radio station WMAL is once again being accused of firing a popular talk show host because of his criticism of radical Muslims. The station, a major source of news and information for the nation’s capital, claims that popular morning host Fred Grandy resigned on his own, but Grandy tells AIM that he was essentially forced to leave after his wife, who is also outspoken about radical Islam, was cut from the program. The growing controversy over Grandy’s departure has resulted in some Grandy supporters charging the station with being “Sharia-compliant,” a reference to Islamic law, and with bending under pressure from the Council on American Islamic-Relations (CAIR), a Muslim lobbying organization that combats what it calls “Islamophobia” in the media. Grandy, a former actor and Republican member of Congress, told AIM, “My wife and I have used our program over the last several months to warn about the spread of radical Islam at home and abroad.

Murdered Agent Just Had Bean Bag Rounds
Agent Brian Terry was shot in the back and killed during a shoot-out on the Arizona border in December. He and his team confronted a group of immigrants packing AK-47s. Agent Terry was armed only with a non-lethal bean-bag gun.

Heritage Releases “Family Facts” Website
Heritage release new “Family Facts” website. The site is dedicated to Marriage and Family, Health, Education, Religious Freedom, Community Involvement and Crime.

Fake Pregnant Mom Stashes 34,000 Ecstacy Pills
A Georgia woman is facing a federal drug rap for allegedly trying to smuggle a large stash of Ecstasy into the country over a bridge connecting Canada to Buffalo. During a pat down search, investigators discovered that Corley was “wearing a body suit with a modified stomach area,” according to a U.S. District Court complaint. The seized narcotics weighed 21.63 pounds, and border agents extrapolated that the bags contained a total of 34,230 Ecstasy pills.

NPR exec: tea party is ‘scary,’ ‘racist’
James O’Keefe, master of the video sting, targets NPR this time, in a pretty damaging interview with Ron Schiller, NPR’s senior vice president for development, and Betsy Liley, senior director of institutional giving. O’Keefe’s compatriots, Shaughn Adeleye and Simon Templar, posed as members of a Muslim group with ties to the Muslim Brotherhood that wants to give NPR $5 million in light of the recent Republican threats to defund public broadcasting.

Catholic League: Defund NPR
According to NPR, Schiller announced last week that he was leaving the organization to join the Aspen Institute, a seminar and think-tank closer to his Colorado home. That did not mollify Catholic League president Bill Donohue, who blasted Schiller’s remarks Tuesday and urged that all taxpayer funding of NPR be eliminated. “This guy, he not only tolerates Jew-baiting, he expresses animus against Christians, he sides with the Muslim Brotherhood… He’s very proud that Juan Williams has been fired, yet at the end of the day, he considers liberals to be better educated and fairer than conservatives. That says it all in my mind,” Donohue told Newsmax.

NPR officer: There are questions about Obama's birth story
A top officer for National Public Radio has confirmed that many Americans still question whether Barack Obama's is eligible to be president, but the tax-supported organization just isn't reporting on it. It was Betsy Liley, NPR's senior director of institutional giving, who was meeting with another NPR executive, senior Vice President Ron Schiller, when an undercover recorder was running.

America For Sale?
Like so many homeowners, the U.S. government is deep in debt, to the tune off $14 trillion and growing. Unlike most Americans, the U.S. government is sitting on huge tracts of land: Uncle Sam owns over 25% of the land in this country, valued at around $2.5 trillion. Officials say they hope to sell more than 1400 federal buildings, saving taxpayers up to $15 billion in the first three years of the program.

Pig Farmer Strikes Back
Pig Farmer in Texas answers Muslim Association regarding moving his hog farm.

Why We Must Fast During Lent
Of the three practices: prayer, fasting and almsgiving, the fast is the foundation for the other practices during Lent. For it is the fast which most characterizes the season of Lent. Most importantly, we must fast because Jesus himself fasted. If he became hungry out of love for us, shall we not become hungry for love of him? Christ goes before us, and he beckons us to join him in his Lenten Fast. Luke 13:3, “No, I say to you: but unless you shall do penance, you shall all likewise perish.”

Israel Blesses Chilean Miners With a Pilgrimage
Faith guided these Chilean miners through a most stressful ordeal. What better way to celebrate that renewed faith than to come to the Holy Land where God's presence is uniquely felt? The Israel government is sensitive enough to recognize that the pilgrimage experience is a most important blessing for these men.

Each Day You Are Alive is a Special Day
The basketball teammates hoisted their star, 16-year-old Wes Leonard, on their shoulders. The screaming crowd charged the court to hug him. It was the biggest moment in memory for the tiny Michigan town of Fennville. And then it all turned to black. Silence fell under the harsh glare of the florescent lights. Leonard lay still on the court, pale in his school colors. His family and coaches surrounded him. He wasn’t breathing. His heart had stopped cold. It’s a stunning reminder of ultimately what is most important, and in the end…and in a heartbeat…what is not.

Woman Who Survived an Abortion Speaks Out
Melissa Ohden's biological mother tried to abort her, but she survived. Now, Ohden tells her story and speaks out against abortion.

Why Are Puppies Valued More Than Unborn Babies?
If we see hope and beauty in the life of a dog that was saved from termination, how much more so would we see it in a fellow human being in the same circumstance? How can a group of people have so much compassion for an animal, and yet so little compassion for the thousands of unborn children who face worse deaths every day than that puppy?

Study Shows an Increase In Abstinence Among Teens and College-Age Adults
The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released its seventh round of the National Survey of Family Growth. Among 15-to-24-year-olds, 29 percent of females and 27 percent of males reported no sexual contact with another person ever—up from the 22 percent of both sexes when the survey was last conducted in 2002. Research shows that youth who remain abstinent do better academically, are more likely to attend and graduate from college, have better emotional health, are less likely to contract sexually transmitted diseases, and are also protected from becoming a single parent: a factor linked with a significantly increased rate of poverty.

Over 20,000 Flock to Mourn Shahbaz Bhatti
More than 20,000 Christians from all over Pakistan flocked to the remote village of Kushpur in the Faisalabad Diocese for the funeral of Shahbaz Bhatti. Shahbaz was a 42 year old Catholic and Pakistani’s only Christian official, the minister for minorities. Shahbaz Bhatti was a critic of blasphemy law and was assassinated by unidentified gunmen who pumped bullets into his car from automatic weapons as he was being driven to his office in Islamabad last week.

New ABC Pilot, “Good Christian B-----s”
An ABC pilot called “Good Christian B-----s” has religious and women’s groups up in arms over what they describe as an extremely offensive and distasteful show title. What if the word Christian was changed to the word Muslim? Would ABC still get away with this?

Facebook to Give Out Your Phone Number and Address
Facebook has decided it will give third party companies access to your phone number and home address. Um… what? Most people who even list that kind of information on their profiles make it private to just their friends, or even a select group of people they have pre-selected. Before any of this craziness begins, go into your account and delete your number and address.

Hip Hop Mogul Rallies Muslims at Times Square
Some 300 people gathered in Times Square on Sunday to speak out against a planned congressional hearing on Muslim terrorism, criticizing it as xenophobic and saying that singling out Muslims, rather than extremists, is unfair. Hip-hop mogul Russell Simmons and the imam who had led an effort to build an Islamic center near the World Trade Center site were among those who addressed the crowd.

Tb 2:9-14

On the night of Pentecost, after I had buried the dead, I, Tobit, went into my courtyard to sleep next to the courtyard wall. My face was uncovered because of the heat. I did not know there were birds perched on the wall above me, till their warm droppings settled in my eyes, causing cataracts. I went to see some doctors for a cure?but the more they anointed my eyes with various salves, the worse the cataracts became, until I could see no more. For four years I was deprived of eyesight, and all my kinsmen were grieved at my condition. Ahiqar, however, took care of me for two years, until he left for Elymais.

At that time, my wife Anna worked for hire at weaving cloth, the kind of work women do. When she sent back the goods to their owners, they would pay her. Late in winter on the seventh of Dystrus, she finished the cloth and sent it back to the owners. They paid her the full salary?and also gave her a young goat for the table. On entering my house the goat began to bleat.

I called to my wife and said: “Where did this goat come from? Perhaps it was stolen! Give it back to its owners; we have no right to eat stolen food!” She said to me, “It was given to me as a bonus over and above my wages.” Yet I would not believe her, and told her to give it back to its owners. I became very angry with her over this. So she retorted: “Where are your charitable deeds now? Where are your virtuous acts? See! Your true character is finally showing itself!”

Wichita trial lawyers may soon feel like they're not in Kansas anymore. Late last week, the Kansas state House of Representatives passed a law that would change the way the state selects its appeals court judges, scaling back a system that has given disproportionate power to lawyers and pushed state courts to the left.

Since 1958, Kansas has been among the so-called "Missouri Plan" states, where slates of judges are hand-picked by a supposedly nonpartisan judicial nominating commission and handed to the Governor for a final selection. In reality, the process has become highly politicized, holding the judiciary in thrall of lawyers and bar association leaders who dominate selections.

Under the reform supported by Kansas Governor Sam Brownback, appeals court judges would instead be selected under the federal government model, whereby a governor nominates judges subject to legislative confirmation. The framers of the U.S. Constitution designed such a system to make judicial selection politically accountable.

For evidence of the trouble that commissions cause, look no further than the political friction in neighboring Iowa. In November, Iowa voters recalled all three state Supreme Court Justices who were up in retention elections. Furious about a court decision that overturned a state law defining marriage as between a man and a woman, voters expressed their displeasure with judges who were elevated by the liberal state bar.

New Republican Governor Terry Branstad had no choice but to fill the three vacancies recently from another list of nine names tendered by the same nominating commission. Of the nine, two were recipients of the Iowa Trial Lawyers Association Judicial Achievement Award and a third was a liberal law professor who was not a member of the bar until the day she was nominated.

Mr. Branstad chose the three best options, but his tepid statements about the nominations suggest he might have chosen none of them if he'd had the choice. He has said he'd support a constitutional amendment to bring the state over to the federal model of judicial selection, akin to the changes underway in Kansas.

These state battles have been taking place without much national media attention, even as groups like the George Soros-funded Justice at Stake funnel big money into campaigns to sell the lawyer-dominated process to voters. But disillusionment is increasing. Last year Tennessee reduced the influence of bar associations on judicial selection, and Missouri legislators are moving to adopt the federal model as early as this year.

Kansas is the only state that gives the members of its bar a majority on the judicial nominating commission. That commission also handles the nominations for state Supreme Court justices, and changing that would require a state constitutional amendment. The Sunflower State is nonetheless off to a good start at making judicial appointments more than a preserve of the lawyers guild.