by Jeffrey Martin

From: Politics Gather

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In our society, many people compromise their values, beliefs, and morals for wealth, social status, a mate, notoriety, or promotion. I have also seen Christians fall into the trap of situation ethics by compromising their faith, convictions, and even the Word of God in an attempt to fit in. They believe that as long as they don’t commit what they perceive as “major” sins such as murder, adultery, and so on, God will overlook the “little” things such as gossiping, complaining, unforgiveness, or compromising the truth.

Believers must not compromise, even in the midst of changing norms and values. Too many Christians are looking the other way instead of taking a stand against sin. It is our responsibility to uphold God’s Word as the final authority in the earth in these last days and be an example of truth, light, and love to the world. We cannot do that if we are blending in rather than being set apart.

Remember, it’s the “little” foxes that spoil the vine. Therefore, don’t allow your desire to “fit in” or to be popular to cause you to compromise your faith or moral convictions. And don’t manipulate scripture to justify your actions, by trying to make the Bible fit your desires rather than allowing it to transform and renew your mind to its truths. I encourage you to identify the areas in your life where you may be tempted to compromise. Then make a decision to exemplify godly character by doing what’s right because it’s right.

Your feedback and comments are valuable to us and we would love to hear from you. Please e-mail us at CHANGE@worldchangers.org or send your thoughts to:

CHANGE Magazine
Creflo Dollar Ministries
2500 Burdett Road
College Park, GA 30349

Taffi and I love you and pray for you daily. Remember, Jesus is Lord, and “in all your getting, get understanding.”

Christians United for Israel has been a leading supporter of this legislation.  Through our visits to Capitol Hill and our e-mail action alerts, we have made it clear to Congress that America’s Christians support tough economic sanctions against Iran. And Congress has listened.

Congratulations to all of you who have supported CUFI in this effort.  This is an important victory, and you helped;to make it happen!

Nehemiah told those helping him rebuild the walls of Jerusalem that “the work is extensive and spread out, and we are widely separated from each other along the wall. Whenever you hear the sound of the trumpet, join us there. We heard the sound of the trumpet, and we came together in action. Our efforts have been blessed.

Of course, our work is far from over. The bill moves next to the Senate. We will be watching this legislation closely and will let you know when we need your help to ensure that it passes the Senate by the widest possible margin. And we will continue to provide you with other opportunities to speak out against Iran’s threats and aggression, such as our petition to indict Iran’s President Ahmadinejad for incitement to genocide.

Thank you for your support of CUFI and Israel.  Together, we are making a difference.

Blessings to you and those you love.

Pastor John Hagee                              David Brog
National Chairman                               Executive Director
Christians United for Israel              Christians United for Israel

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As the war in Afghanistan escalates some have suggested increasing taxes, which I think is a bad idea especially at a time when many Americans are still struggling with the economy. We need to get our fiscal house in order, and be honest about the costs of operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. Unfortunately, for the time being that means that the wars will continue to contribute to the federal deficit. I have proposed a patriotic and cost-effective way to finance the wars and reduce our dependence on foreign creditors.

War Bonds

The US War Bonds Act of 2009 finds a precedent in World War II savings bonds. From May 1, 1941 through December 1945, the War Finance Division and its predecessors were responsible for the sale of nearly $186 billion worth of government securities. Of this, more than $54 billion was in the form of War Savings bonds. Although the times and economic circumstances are significantly different than what we faced in the 1940’s, America’s commitment to protecting freedom and our way of life has not waned.

The commitment to protecting our national security is costly and so far has been a burden shouldered by the men and women in our military and their families. I believe that many Americans if given the opportunity to directly support the effort to protect our national security interest would do so, which is why I have introduced the United States War Bonds Act of 2009.

The Act would authorize the Treasury to issue War Bonds to aid in funding our operations in Iraq and Afghanistan. My hope is that we can tap into the same spirit of patriotism and create a sense of participation in the war effort akin to that shown by the greatest generation.

The National Debt

As we know all too well, America is deeply in debt. The debt held by the public is more than $7.6 trillion dollars. An equally unsettling fact is that nearly $3.5 trillion – 46 percent – is held by foreign investors. We must get our debt under control, but as we pursue that goal we should also seek a better balance of domestic and foreign creditors.

I don’t believe our first instinct should always be a rush to tax. The government has gone to great lengths to address the economic downturn and adding new taxes right now could undermine those efforts. My bill recognizes that now is not the time for additional taxes that can be avoided; but if we’re going to owe a debt to someone, it should be to ourselves.

My legislation will authorize the Treasury to issue and market War Bonds to the American people. Savings bonds are a cost-effective way to reduce our dependence on foreign creditors and create an outlet for Americans to express their patriotism and support for our servicemembers and America’s mission.

###

Search: Afghanistan, Defense, Taxes, National Security, Troops and Veterans, Speeches, Op-Eds,

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By Chairman Rob Gleason

President Obama and Democratic Congressional leaders continue to sell health care as fiscally responsible and fiscally sound, but the facts don’t support their talking points. Americans are wise to the Democrat’s sleight of hand. The last thing Americans want to wake up to on Christmas morning is a stocking filled with government run, taxpayer-funded health care that comes with a trillion dollar price tag still attached (Sorry, no returns or refunds). The White House may believe that poll numbers are paramount to ‘six year olds with crayons,’ however, it is becoming clear to Congressional Democrats: Support of this legislation means they will be ignoring their constituents and blindly following their leaders pursuit of a far left agenda. Even some in their own party are starting to recognize the shortcomings in the proposal, as some Democrats have even announced they would not support this crippling legislation.

The Democrats have all of the votes that they need to pass their health care legislation without any Republican support. Yet, they cannot muster the necessary votes. The reason is simple, the legislation is exorbitantly flawed. The health care legislation that the Democratic leadership is trying to push through is full of wasteful spending, new bureaucracies and higher taxes. This legislation has become so convoluted that no one understands what destructive impact it will have on the health care system or the economy in general.

At a time of great economic turmoil, Pennsylvanians are in need of great leadership. The Republican Party is aggressively recruiting outstanding candidates to oust the irresponsible law makers who refuse to do what is best for the citizens of the Commonwealth. Those candidates will fight to reestablish the necessary principles to put our country back on track to economic prosperity, such principles as lower taxes implemented by a smaller, more efficient government. Donate today and help us elect Republican candidates in 2010 who will fight against big government solutions and higher taxes.

Let your voice be heard:

Join our PA GOP Truth Brigade and help us spread the word about the Democrats efforts to advance their big government agenda. Email Deputy Communications Director Meagan Sweeney at msweeney@pagop.org to receive weekly talking points and themes for the news Pennsylvania Republicans are talking about. We have a responsibility to spread the word about the Democrats efforts. Join us today!

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Hi, my name is Richard Clough, running for County Judge to serve the people of Tarrant County.

How can this campaign earn your vote? Trust! Trust commands results and results command rest. When there is an absence of trust, the result is unrest and discontentment. Could this be what we have going on with some of our elected leaders in Tarrant County?

The people need to regain their trust in Tarrant County government. I will work for the taxpayer to regain trust in county government by being a County Judge who is a listener, a servant and a voice for people from ALL walks of lives, cultures, classes and colors. Your vote for me will bring people together to make Tarrant County a better place to live and work. With your help, we will regain the trust of the people in Tarrant County.

Transparency

I am a man of integrity and honesty. There will be no hidden agenda or secret meeting.

Reduce Taxes

According to Forbes, Tarrant County has the 13th highest property taxes in the nation

Toll Roads

NO Toll Roads
820 North,183/121, I35W can be improved without raising your taxes or tolls!

Trans-Texas Corridor

No Trans Texas Corridor

Energy Independence

To help give America and its citizen’s energy, economic, environmental and national security.

Local Elections

All local elections should be held in November, except primaries.

Faith & Community

Improving relations with Faith based organizations will improve the quality of life in Tarrant County.

Healthcare

Better relationship and guidelines for JPS.

Eminent Domain

No taking of personal property for private investment

Celebrate Marriage

One Man and One Women

Barack Obama and Africa How different is his policy?

From The Economist:
Barack Obama said all the right things about Africa—and left a few ticklish ones unsaid. The tone may shift a bit but the policy will be similar to George Bush’s

Illustration by Peter Schrank

“DEVELOPMENT depends on good governance.” Said by a white Texan dynast in Ghana, an African country once ravaged by the slave trade, that unexceptionable insight might sound a shade patronising. Said by a son of Africa whose election to the world’s most powerful post thrilled the continent, it was taken at its respectable face value. “We must start from the simple premise that Africa’s future is up to Africans.” In other words, throwing aid at bad governments—and Barack Obama made plain that there were still far too many of them—will not work. The president’s candour was well received.

In truth, Mr Obama’s Africa policy is unlikely to differ much from his predecessor’s, which was viewed favourably by Africans in general and by most pundits of African development. There was little in the speech that could not have been said by George Bush, who poured a cascade of cash—far more than any of his forerunners—into such projects as the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR) and into his Millennium Challenge Accounts, whose largesse was partly meant to reward good governance.

Mr Obama acknowledged Mr Bush’s “strong efforts”. But he puzzled analysts by declaring that his own administration had “committed $63 billion to meet these challenges”. It was unclear whether that sum included projects under way or was new money and, either way, what it was for and over what period it would be spent.

In several passages he stressed that bad governments, especially corrupt or repressive ones, could not expect his help. “I have directed my administration to give greater attention to corruption in our human-rights reports,” he said. He also assailed tribalism, which had, he said, “for a long stretch derailed” his own Kenyan father’s career. And he singled out several miscreants for blaming their self-inflicted woes on others. “The West is not responsible for the destruction of the Zimbabwean economy over the last decade,” he declared.

The choice of Ghana for his first African visit as president was pointed. Citing its recent success both in economics and democracy, he praised “strong parliaments; honest police forces; independent judges [applause]; an independent press; a vibrant private sector; a civil society.” And he lauded “leaders who accept defeat graciously”, as they did recently in Ghana, a rare event in Africa. “Africa doesn’t need strong men; it needs strong institutions.”

Mr Obama’s speech was equally notable for what it omitted. Some delicate but pressing issues were mentioned only cursorily. In keeping with his pronouncements elsewhere in the world, he avoided the phrase “war on terror” and skated over America’s growing need for African oil: about a quarter of what America requires will soon come from Africa, mainly Nigeria and Angola. He did not mention Nigeria’s crisis of security and production in its oil-rich Delta region; this week, rebels for the first time attacked Nigeria’s commercial capital, Lagos, killing eight guards and setting oil facilities ablaze.

In fact, though Mr Obama did not wish to dwell on security, his biggest headaches in Africa, as for Mr Bush, do still relate to armed conflict. His worst problem is Somalia, where his closest advisers upbraided Mr Bush for worsening matters by arming Somali warlords who claimed to be fighting militant Islam. More recently, however, Mr Obama won a waiver from the UN to send arms to Somalia’s beleaguered government, which is threatened by jihadists (“terrorists”, he bluntly called them) with links to al-Qaeda. He is unlikely to let his warships or aircraft bomb jihadist strongholds in Somalia for fear of enraging the civilian population. But equally he is plainly loth to let that failed state slide further into the domain of al-Qaeda.

Rather vaguely, he welcomed “steps being taken by organisations like the Africa Union…to better resolve conflicts.” The AU, he preferred not to say, is patently failing to bolster Somalia’s government. Several of Mr Obama’s closest advisers on Africa are known to be disgusted by the AU’s refusal to isolate—let alone encourage the arrest of—Omar al-Bashir, Sudan’s leader, who has been indicted on charges of war criminality. “When there’s a genocide in Darfur,” said Mr Obama, “these aren’t simply African problems.” “We will stand behind efforts to hold war criminals accountable,” he said, without naming names. He failed to deplore the AU’s reluctance to co-operate with the International Criminal Court at The Hague, where Mr Obama hopes Mr Bashir will be sent.

Mr Obama’s administration may not yet have determined its policy towards Sudan. Several of his team, notably Susan Rice, his ambassador to the UN, and Samantha Power at the National Security Council, have in the past urged more robust action to deter Mr Bashir over Darfur. But Mr Obama’s new envoy to the conflict zone, Scott Gration, is seeking diplomatic engagement. It was under Mr Bush’s watch that a separate peace accord was hatched between the Sudanese government and a rebel movement in the south that may be offered the option of secession following a referendum promised for 2011. Mr Obama may well be called on to help sort out that mess if conflict breaks out again, as many fear, within the next year or so.

Another awkward area for him is Kenya, the land of his own forebears. Along with the Nigerians and the South Africans, who may get a visit by Mr Obama during next year’s football World Cup, the Kenyans were sad to have been passed over. (His secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, is due to visit next month for a big trade meeting.) Mr Obama barely mentioned Kenya in a favourable light. For sure, he is aware that the current president, Mwai Kibaki, is widely thought to have stolen the presidential election a year-and-a-half ago from Raila Odinga, now prime minister in a floundering power-sharing government, who happens to hail from the same ethnic group as Mr Obama’s father. Yet the country has long been an American ally in security matters in the region. Mr Obama’s moment to try sorting out Kenya’s many problems may come. But not yet.

The deeper truth is that Africa is not high on the American president’s agenda. His Ghana speech was sensible and stirring. But in the end his message was that African-American relations would see no grand change.

Source: The Economist

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CUFI EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR
DAVID BROG’S WEEKLY MESSAGE:

As we enjoyed our long Thanksgiving weekend, we received troubling news from the Middle East. On two fronts, good faith efforts were made to diffuse threats to Israel and the United States through negotiation and diplomacy. And in each case, these efforts were flatly rejected. In Israel’s long search for peace and security, such rejection is hardly new. Last week two more “no’s” were added to the large number of rebuffs that have rained down on Israel like so many enemy missiles.

On Wednesday, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu made a significant gesture aimed at luring the Palestinians back to the negotiating table: he unilaterally declared a 10-month moratorium on building new homes in the West Bank. Despite Netanyahu’s reputation as a hawk, this was in fact an unprecedented concession. As Defense Minister Ehud Barak, himself a former prime minister, noted: “This step was not carried out in the Olmert government or in the Sharon government, not in my government and not in Yitzhak Rabin’s government either. For the first time, we are suspending all new construction for an extended period and therefore giving peace negotiations a chance.”

In response to this gesture, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas issued a prompt and clear “no.” Speaking from Venezuela, where he was visiting the virulently anti-American Hugo Chavez, Abbas stated that the construction freeze “didn’t bring anything new because the occupation is going to continue in the West Bank and in Jerusalem. The Israeli prime minister had to choose between peace and occupation. Lamentably, he chose occupation.”

In other words, Abbas is refusing to resume negotiations because Israel had not given him what he ultimately seeks in advance of negotiations. Yet the only reason why Israel still controls the West Bank is because the Palestinians have failed to meet their obligation to stop terrorism against Israel. Yes, Abbas’ American-trained security forces have for the first time begun to engage Palestinian militants and defeat them. But they have hardly ended the terrorist threat. According to Israeli sources, the Israeli army typically carries out between 10 and 20 raids into West Bank towns every night to prevent attacks against Israel.

Abbas’ “no” was followed by an even more ominous rejection. On Friday, the International Atomic Energy Agency board of governors voted 25 to 3 to censure Iran for hiding the existence of a uranium enrichment facility near Qom in violation of international law. Thanks to prodding from the Obama Administration and our European allies, even Russia and China joined us in voting to censure Iran.

In the face of this international resolve, Iran could have said yes to disclosures and negotiations. Instead, it did the exact opposite: Iran issued an immediate “no” to the IAEA and the international community. On Sunday, the Iranian Cabinet responded to the criticism over one illegal uranium enrichment plant by ordering the construction of ten new uranium enrichment plants.

These two “no’s” must serve as a reminder to all of us who support Israel in her struggle for survival. So many in the world and in the media want to believe that Israeli intransigence is the source of all of Israel’s problems – and ours – in the Middle East. This is a lovely dream. If reasonable and civilized Israel is the source of our troubles, then all can be well in the world. But the truth is more troubling. The conflict in the Middle East is fueled largely by the failure of so many in the region to reconcile themselves to Israel’s existence and international law. We may not like this reality. But hiding from it will not change it.

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Anti-Israel, pro-Iran university professors are being funded by a shadowy multimillion-dollar Islamic charity that the feds charge is an illegal front for the repressive Iranian regime. The Alavi Foundation has given away hundreds of thousands of dollars to Columbia University and Rutgers University for Middle Eastern and Persian studies programs that employ professors sympathetic to the Iranian dictatorship. “We found evidence that the government of Iran really controlled everything about the foundation,” said Adam Kaufmann, investigations chief at the Manhattan District Attorney’s Office. Federal law-enforcement authorities are in the midst of seizing up to $650 million in assets from the Alavi Foundation, which they charge funnels money to Iran-supported Islamic schools in the U.S. and to a syndicate of Iranian spies based in Europe. The foundation donated $100,000 to Columbia University after the school agreed to host Iranian leader and Holocaust denier Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, according to the foundation’s 2007 tax filings.  (Isabel Vincent, New York Post, November 22, 2009) Click here to read the entire article

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