Alliance Defense Fund
Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been pursuing a master’s degree in school counseling at Augusta State University since last year, but school officials have informed her that she’ll be dismissed from the program unless she alters her “central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct,” according to a civil complaint filed last week.

A graduate student in Georgia is suing her university after she was told she must undergo a remediation program due to her beliefs on homosexuality and transgendered persons.

The student, Jennifer Keeton, 24, has been pursuing a master’s degree in school counseling at Augusta State University since 2009, but school officials have informed her that she’ll be dismissed from the program unless she alters her “central religious beliefs on human nature and conduct,” according to a civil complaint filed last week.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words.

“And likewise also the men, leaving the natural use of the woman, burned in their lust one toward another; men with men working that which is unseemly•Strongs 808: aschemosune, as-kay-mos-oo´-nay; from 809; an indecency; by implication, the pudenda:—shame, that which is unseemly., and receiving in themselves that recompence of their error which was meet.”
—Romans 1:27

“We lie down in our shame, and our confusion•Strongs 3639: klimmah, kel-im-maw´; from 3637; disgrace:—confusion, dishonour, reproach, shame. covereth us: for we have sinned against the LORD our God, we and our fathers, from our youth even unto this day, and have not obeyed the voice of the LORD our God.
—Jeremiah 3:25

“But from the beginning of the creation God made them male and female.”
—Mark 10:6

“Woe unto them that call evil good, and good evil; that put darkness for light, and light for darkness; that put bitter for sweet, and sweet for bitter!”
—Isaiah 5:20

“[Augusta State University] faculty have promised to expel Miss Keeton from the graduate Counselor Education Program not because of poor academic showing or demonstrated deficiencies in clinical performance, but simply because she has communicated both inside and outside the classroom that she holds to Christian ethical convictions on matters of human sexuality and gender identity,” the 43-page lawsuit reads.

Keeton, according to the lawsuit, was informed by school officials in late May that she would be asked to take part in a remediation plan due to faculty concerns regarding her beliefs pertaining to gay, lesbian, bisexual and transgender issues.

“The faculty identifies Miss Keeton’s views as indicative of her improper professional disposition to persons of such populations,” the lawsuit reads.

In a statement to FoxNews.com, Augusta State University officials declined to comment specifically on the litigation, but said the university does not discriminate on the basis of students’ moral, religious, political or personal views or beliefs.

“The Counselor Education Program is grounded in the core principles of the American Counseling Association and the American School Counselor Association, which defines the roles and responsibilities of professional counselors in its code of ethics,” the statement read. “The code is included in the curriculum of the counseling education program, which states that counselors in training have the same responsibility as professional counselors to understand and follow the ACA Code of Ethics.”

The Code of Ethics prohibits counselors from discriminating based on a number of factors, including gender identity and sexual orientation. “Counselors do not discriminate against clients, students, employees, supervisees, or research participants in a manner that has a negative impact on these persons,” the code says.

Keeton’s lawsuit alleges that the university’s remediation plan noted Keeton’s “disagreement in several class discussions and in written assignments with the gay and lesbian ‘lifestyle,’” as well as Keeton’s belief that those “lifestyles” are cases of identity confusion.

If Keeton fails to complete the plan, including additional reading and the writing of papers describing the impact on her beliefs, she will be expelled from the Counselor Education Program, the lawsuit claims.

Keeton has stated that she believes sexual behavior is the “result of accountable personal choice rather than an inevitability deriving from deterministic forces,” according to the suit.

“She also has affirmed binary male-female gender, with one or the other being fixed in each person at their creation, and not a social construct or individual choice subject to alteration by the person so created,” the lawsuit reads. “Further, she has expressed her view that homosexuality is a ‘lifestyle,’ not a ‘state of being.’”

David French, senior counsel at the Alliance Defense Fund, which filed the lawsuit against Augusta State University on Keeton’s behalf, said no university has the right to force a citizen to change their beliefs on any topic.

“The university has told Jennifer Keeton that if she doesn’t change her beliefs, she can’t stay in the program,” he told FoxNews.com. “She won’t even have a chance to counsel any students; she won’t have a chance to get a counseling degree; she’ll be expelled.”

Keeton, who is not available for interviews according to French, believes that people have “moral choices” regarding their sexuality, he said.

“A student has a right to express their point of view in and out of class without fear or censorship or expulsion,” French said.

Print Email Share

TEHRAN (Reuters) – Iran expects the United States to launch a military strike on “at least two countries” in the Middle East in the next three months, Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad told state-run Press TV.

“Proclaim ye this among the Gentiles; Prepare war, wake up the mighty men, let all the men of war draw near; let them come up: Beat your plowshares into swords, and your pruninghooks into spears: let the weak say, I am strong. Assemble yourselves, and come, all ye heathen, and gather yourselves together round about: thither cause thy mighty ones to come down, O LORD. Let the heathen be wakened, and come up to the valley of Jehoshaphat: for there will I sit to judge all the heathen round about.”
—Joel 3:9-12

In an interview recorded on Monday, Ahmadinejad did not specify whether he thought Iran itself would be attacked nor did he say what intelligence led him to expect such a move.
The United States and Israel have refused to rule out military action against Iran’s nuclear program which they fear could lead to it making a bomb, something Iran denies.
“They have decided to attack at least two countries in the region in the next three months,” Ahmadinejad said in excerpts broadcast on the rolling news channel on Tuesday.
Israel, which refuses to confirm or deny the existence of its own nuclear arsenal, has a history of pre-emptive strikes against suspected nuclear targets. In 1981 it destroyed Iraq’s only nuclear reactor and in 2007 bombed a suspect site in Syria.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called the prospect of a nuclear armed Iran “the ultimate terrorist threat.” His deputy, Moshe Yaalon, has said Israel had improved military capability which could be used against foes in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria or Iran.
Ahmadinejad said Iran had “very precise information that the Americans have hatched a plot, according to which they to wage a psychological war against Iran.”
He also criticized the U.S.-led drive for international sanctions to pressure Tehran over the nuclear issue.
The European Union agreed a new round of economic sanctions on Monday, including a block on oil and gas investment [ID:nLDE66P10R], following a similar move by Washington and a fourth round of U.N. sanctions.
“The logic that they can persuade us to negotiate through sanctions is just a failure,” Ahmadinejad said.
(Editing by Jon Hemming)

A small but intriguing news nugget emerged from the world of international shipping this week, one saying something much larger about the effort to economically isolate Iran because of its nuclear program.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:5

Editors note about the word Persia•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe Persia is the area of present day Iran.

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

The owner of a large tanker, which was to carry gasoline from a Turkish refinery to Iran, stopped the ship from sailing as scheduled. The uncertainties of doing business with Iran these days, and the potential penalties under international sanctions for firms that do so, apparently created too much doubt about the wisdom of completing the transaction.

Just one deal in an ocean of global commerce, to be sure, but also a sign of how sanctions imposed on Iran in a United Nations Security Council resolution six weeks ago appear to have some real bite.

Given the spotty (to be generous) record of economic sanctions, the latest ones were passed amid general skepticism that they could have much impact. Iran itself was dismissive of them. But there is evidence that the sanctions—followed as they were by additional measures the Obama administration imposed on its own, as well as a new U.S. law aimed at penalizing international investment in Iran’s energy businesses—may be causing some meaningful problems.

The sanctions’ bite figures to get a bit deeper Monday, when the European Union announces its own set of additional sanctions, aimed in particular at cutting off financing and trade with Iran’s transportation and energy sectors.

Most intriguing, the economic strictures may be feeding broader economic headaches that have prompted a strike and expressions of general discontent by Iran’s politically powerful bazaar merchants. Unrest among the bazaaris—set off by a giant tax increase proposed by President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad—opens a new front of protest beyond the one that emerged after last summer’s disputed presidential election.

It’s still hard to know how much difference sanctions can make in the long run. The range of potential effects is exceptionally broad, from simply annoying the regime, to creating real costs and difficulties in keeping Iran’s economy running, to creating enough pain to spark domestic unrest, to the ideal goal of prompting Tehran to alter its nuclear program. The U.S. and its allies contend that the Iranians aim to develop weapons, while Tehran insists its program is purely for civilian purposes.

Right now the impact lies on the annoyance/real cost end of the spectrum, and nowhere near the goal of forcing a change in nuclear strategy. There is also no guarantee the pressure will be maintained. For instance, Russia, while honoring the letter of the sanctions resolution, has signaled in recent days that it will continue some arms and fuel sales to Iran, effectively lowering the pressure.

Still, the sanctions may at least be illustrating that there is an economic penalty for Iran’s continued enrichment of uranium. More important, they have the potential to directly slow Iran’s nuclear program by shutting off the flow of international financing and technology needed to keep elements of it moving ahead.

If nothing else, that prospect seems to have eased—just a little—Israel’s fears that it needs to resort to a military strike to really crimp Iran’s ambitions.

“What we’re trying to do is make it clear to the Iranians that there’s a cost to continuing down this road,” said one Obama administration aide deeply involved in the sanctions effort. “It sharpens the choice for these guys. One way to relieve the pressure is to make a different [nuclear] policy choice.”

The sanctions are designed so that their real impact doesn’t lie in anything American or European governments can do directly to Iran. Rather, officials say, their effect rests more on how the provisions threatening fines or denial of lucrative Western government contracts for doing business with Iran can prompt firms to cut ties on their own.

And indeed, in recent days BP PLC has cut some sales of jet fuel to Iran’s national airline, and Lloyd’s of London has declined to insure shipments of petroleum products to Iran. In addition, the engineering arm of Iran’s Revolutionary Guard Corps, one specific target of the new U.N. sanctions, announced that it was withdrawing from projects in a big Iranian natural-gas field.

In addition, as the Journal reported this week, German officials have begun investigating an Iranian-owned bank in Hamburg for allegedly supporting Tehran’s nuclear program.

Inside Iran, the effects of this squeeze will prove most profound if they have a ripple effect extending into the political sphere. Mr. Ahmadinejad, spiritual leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei and their Revolutionary Guard allies already face discontent from young and intellectual Iranians disillusioned by last year’s election, and from a traditional clerical establishment that considers the president an unfit upstart.

If economic discomfort creates a third front of opposition among the nation’s merchants, the pain of sanctions would spread well beyond the regime’s checkbook.

Turkey could emerge as a new safety net for Iranian business as the government insists that it will abide by UN sanctions but not the more sweeping restrictions imposed on Tehran by the US and the European Union.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.”
—Ezekiel 38:6

Editors note about the word Togarmah•Many Bible teachers believe Togarmah includes the area of present day Turkey, Armenia & Georgia.

Mehmet Simsek, the finance minister, told the Financial Times that Turkey would not shy away from promoting closer trade links with Iran.

“We will fully implement UN resolutions but when it comes to individual countries’ demands for extra sanctions we do not have to,” said Mr Simsek.

EU foreign ministers were due to meet on Monday to agree new economic sanctions on Iran, going well beyond the measures approved by a UN resolution last month.

“The facilitation of trade that is not prohibited under UN resolution should and will continue.” If a trade deal needs to be financed, added Mr Simsek, “we will have to find a way to pay for it”.

His comments came as the International Energy Agency confirmed that a state-owned Turkish refiner, Tupras, had stepped in to supply Iran after several international companies stopped selling the country refined petroleum.

Meanwhile Turkey’s foreign economic relations board said the country’s ports, notably Mersin and Trabzon, would try to handle some of the trade with Iran that has been going through Dubai. The Gulf emirate is steadily restricting its economic ties with Tehran.

Samet Inanir, a strategy counsellor at the economic relations board, said Istanbul could also offer an alternative to Dubai for Iranian investors in real estate. He noted that more than 120 Iranian companies based in Dubai had recently applied to their country’s embassy for information about doing business in Turkey.

The US Congress passed legislation last month shutting any banks with ties to Iran – or any companies selling petroleum products to the country – out of the American market.

These measures are set to be followed by unilateral European Union sanctions on Monday, including possible restrictions on investment in Iran’s oil and gas sector.

But Turkey has been following a more assertive and independent foreign policy. Eager to promote trade with its neighbours, the government has been going its own way when it comes to Iran, much to the frustration of Washington.

Ankara was one of only two UN Security Council members to oppose Resolution 1929 which tightened sanctions on Iran last month.

People close to the Turkish government suggest that Ankara will watch the behaviour of Russia and China to gauge the extent to which it can afford to ignore unilateral US sanctions. Chinese companies have also been supplying Iran with petroleum.

For Turkish banks, however, the value of trade with Iran does not justify the risks: exports of some $2bn a year – including iron, steel, furniture, wood and machinery – are only a fraction of Turkey’s total. But Iran is the second biggest supplier of gas to Turkey, and Tehran announced last week a $1.3bn pipeline deal to take gas to its neighbour.

“Iranian banks are coming and going to Turkey to talk about trade facilitation, but because of sanctions, Turkish banks are looking at it rather negatively,” said a senior banker.

The difficulties of financing trade, however, are not deterring Turkish exporters. Mr Inanir said even major conglomerates now went to gold dealers around Istanbul’s Grand Bazaar to transfer money to Iran through the trust-based, Islamic hawala system. Under hawala, funds are received in local currency in one country and a correspondent is instructed to pay an equivalent amount in another.

One such company is MLS Holding, which exports lubricants, cars and spare parts for construction equipment, with annual sales to Iran of just under $2m. Most are re-exports for foreign companies that do not want direct dealings with Tehran.

“We are expecting more companies from abroad to get in touch with us,” said Ozan Ziylan, the general manager of MLS, adding that he used the hawala system for a significant proportion of sales. “It’s not as safe as the banking system but you get used to it.”

Mr Inanir said there were problems other than sanctions. The biggest obstacle for Turkish companies remains Iran’s high tariff barriers – reaching more than 50 per cent on some products – and a generally difficult investment climate.

Additional reporting by Javier Blas in London

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2010. You may share using our article tools. Please don’t cut articles from FT.com and redistribute by email or post to the web.

WASHINGTON — A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:2-5

Editors note about the words and Gog•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe that Gog is the leader of the Russia alliance in the latter days., Magog•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe that Magog, the descendant of Japheth, is identified as the Russian coalition in the latter days. and Persia•FYI: Persia in concert with Adolf Hitler, changed its name to Iran (Aryan Land) in May of 1935.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was “way down the list” of options. But he tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that such action now “seems inexorable.”

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it’s just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.

U.S. officials have said military action remains an option if sanctions fail to deter Iran.

Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as power generation.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP’s earlier story is below.

WASHINGTON (AP) – A former CIA director says military action against Iran now seems more likely because no matter what the U.S. does diplomatically, Tehran keeps pushing ahead with its suspected nuclear program.

Michael Hayden, a CIA chief under President George W. Bush, says that during his tenure a strike was “way down the list” of options. But he tells CNN’s “State of the Union” that such action now “seems inexorable.”

He predicts Iran will build its program to the point where it’s just below having an actual weapon. Hayden says that would be as destabilizing to the region as the real thing.

U.S. officials have said military action remains an option if sanctions fail to deter Iran.

Iran says its nuclear work is for peaceful purposes such as power generation.

Kevin Moloney for The New York Times
A cabin at the Homestead National Monument of America near Beatrice, Neb.

BEATRICE, Neb. — Give away land to make money?

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

“But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom•Strongs 932: basileia, bas-il-i´-ah; from 935; properly, royalty, i.e. (abstractly) rule, or (concretely) a realm (literally or figuratively): — kingdom, + reign. divided•Strongs 1266: diamerizo, dee-am-er-id´-zo; from 1223 and 3307; to partition thoroughly (literally in distribution, figuratively in dissension): — cloven, divide, part. against itself is brought to desolation•Strongs 2049: eremoo, er-ay-mo´-o; from 2048; to lay waste (literally or figuratively): — (bring to, make) desolate(-ion), come to nought.; and a house divided against a house falleth.”
—Luke11:17

“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”
—Isaiah 1:4

It hardly sounds like a prudent scheme. But in a bit of déjà vu, that is exactly what this small Nebraska city aims to do.

Beatrice was a starting point for the Homestead Act of 1862, the federal law that handed land to pioneering farmers. Back then, the goal was to settle the West. The goal of Beatrice’s “Homestead Act of 2010,” is, in part, to replenish city coffers.

The calculus is simple, if counterintuitive: hand out city land now to ensure property tax revenues in the future.

“There are only so many ball fields a place can build,” Tobias J. Tempelmeyer, the city attorney, said the other day as he stared out at grassy lots, planted with lonely mailboxes, that the city is working to get rid of. “It really hurts having all this stuff off the tax rolls.”

Around the nation, cities and towns facing grim budget circumstances are grasping at unlikely — some would say desperate — means to bolster their shrunken tax bases. Like Beatrice, places like Dayton, Ohio, and Grafton, Ill., are giving away land for nominal fees or for nothing in the hope that it will boost the tax rolls and cut the lawn-mowing bills.

In Boca Raton, Fla., which faces a budget gap of more than $7 million, leaders are thinking about expanding the city’s size and annexing neighborhoods as an antidote. Sure, more residents would cost more in services, but officials hope the added tax revenues will more than make up for it.

And leaders in Manchester, N.H., and Concord, Mass., are taking an approach that might have once seemed politically unthinkable. They are re-examining whether their communities’ nonprofit organizations really deserve to be tax-free.

“The stress of the past couple years is causing us to look absolutely everywhere,” said Anthony Logalbo, the finance director in Concord, where officials realized that 15 percent of the town’s property value had become tax exempt and sent letters to nonprofit groups asking whether they would consider paying something to the town.

“Private schools and nonprofit museums and community organizations benefit the town in lots of ways,” Mr. Logalbo said, “except that they don’t contribute to the cost of running the town.”

Analysts say that this year and next, city budgets will reach their most dismal points of the recession, largely because of lag time inherent in the way taxes are collected and distributed.

Despite signs of a recovery, if a slow one, in other elements of the economy, it may be years away for many municipalities. Between now and 2012, America’s cities are likely to experience shortfalls totaling $55 billion to $85 billion, according to a survey by the National League of Cities, because of slumping revenues from property taxes and sales taxes and reduced support from state governments.

And even in places like Concord and Beatrice, where officials say budget strains are not severe enough to lead to layoffs or major cuts, a slow chafing has still taken a toll.

Beatrice (pronounced bee-AT-russ), which sits about 40 miles south of Lincoln down a highway called the Homestead Expressway, is recognized as home to the first Homestead Act application nearly 150 years ago. That law ultimately granted 270 million acres of land in 30 states to nearly anyone who could survive on it and pay a minimal fee.

Daniel Freeman, who came from Ohio, is said to have filed his claim for 160 acres near Beatrice just after midnight on Jan. 1, 1863, the day the law took effect. There were others who filed claims in other places on the same day (some say they were actually first), but Mr. Freeman captured a place in history. The government paid to take back his Nebraska homestead decades later to turn it into a national monument that honors the Homestead Act and how it transformed the nation’s population.

Beatrice’s new Homestead Act is not the first to revive the land giveaway. Some tiny towns, particularly in the Great Plains, have made such offers before, mainly as a way to increase dwindling populations. But disappearing is not the fear in Beatrice, which is home to several lawn-mowing equipment manufacturers and where the population has held steady at around 12,000 for decades.

Instead, city officials are hoping to return some of the many lots the city has accumulated, because of unpaid taxes or flooding risks from the Big Blue River, and return them to the tax rolls. The city has not suffered gaping budget shortfalls or the property tax declines seen in some larger cities, but some large purchases and road reconstruction have been delayed, waiting for a return to flusher times.

If the city were to give away just a few lots — and if people were to, as required by the law, build homes on them and stay for at least three years — Beatrice would secure annual real estate taxes on them, collect money for water, electric and sewer use, and no longer pay to mow the lawns.

The arrival of new, improved homes might also have an infectious effect on existing neighborhoods, said Neal Neidfeldt, the city administrator. The plan has its critics; at least one candidate for mayor here wonders what right the city has to give out public land to any non-taxpaying outsider who asks.

Officials acknowledge that the benefits sound modest, in the thousands of dollars annually, but say the revenue is needed.

“What is the value of a lot to us if it’s empty?” said Tom Thompson, the mayor of Grafton, where an offer of 32 city-owned lots, promoted with a television advertising campaign, has quickly led to eight takers so far. “This is strictly financial — a way to go upstream from the trend.”

In Dayton, officials are offering thousands of vacant, foreclosed or abandoned properties under certain conditions for nominal fees — $500, in many cases, to cover the cost of recording fees or $1,200 if the city must initiate tax foreclosure proceedings. The prospect of city savings on mowing fees alone is enormous: each year, Dayton spends $2 million to cut grass on the properties.

Back in Beatrice, though, the effort is only creeping along. Since the Homestead Act took effect in May, many people have called with inquiries, but no one has moved onto the lots along a gravel-covered road called Grace. Two families filled out an application — which seeks only a name, address and telephone number — but both have since put off plans.

One applicant, William Hendrix, 47, said the city’s law requiring him to secure permits for a new home on the property within six months, then build within a year after that, was too daunting. What if he could not get loans? What if he could not pay for the construction? What if he built a home but could never sell it?

“Right now, giving away the land isn’t going to be doing anybody favors,” Mr. Hendrix said. “I realized that Beatrice will get the taxes they want, but it won’t do me any good in this market.”

For their part, people in Beatrice sound patient. The peak of homesteading acres claimed under the federal act, they point out, came in 1913, some 50 years after the act’s passage.

Two non-hawks say Obama might bomb Iran

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:5

Editors note about the word Persia•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe Persia is the area of present day Iran.

.Many years ago, I was privileged to attend a dinner with James Rowe, one of the passion-for-anonymity young aides to Franklin Roosevelt, original author of the winning strategy for Harry Truman’s 1948 campaign, and close confidant of Lyndon Johnson.

Rowe described how Johnson tested insider opinion. He would call an ideologically wide range of acquaintances and ask their views on an issue of the day. Most responded as he expected. But when one or two said something he hadn’t expected, he would take notice. Maybe things weren’t going as he thought.

That memory returned as I read three recent articles saying there’s an increasing chance that the United States — or Israel — might bomb Iran’s nuclear facilities. One was by Time’s Joe Klein, who has been a harsh critic of George W. Bush’s military policies and a skeptic about action against Iran. Another was by self-described centrist Walter Russell Mead in his fascinating American Interest blog.

Former CIA agent Reuel Marc Gerecht argues cogently in The Weekly Standard that an Israeli strike on Iran’s nuclear facilities would not lead to all the negative consequences widely feared and could shatter Iran’s theocratic regime. This is not out of line with his views over the years.

Gerecht assumes that the United States will not launch an attack. Klein, contrary to his past views, disagrees. He cites American diplomats who feel that Iran’s spurning of a reasonable deal justifies military action and American military officers who say they know more about potential targets than they did two years ago. Also, he says the Gulf-Arab states favor a strike, as evidenced by the United Arab Emirates ambassador’s statement on July 6, saying that one would be preferable to a nuclear Iran.

Klein thinks Barack Obama is still dead-set against bombing Iran. Mead is not so sure. He thinks Obama is motivated by a Wilsonian desire for “the construction of a liberal and orderly world.” Or “the European Union built up to a global scale.” A successful Iranian nuclear-weapons program, in Mead’s view, would be “the complete, utter and historic destruction” of Obama’s long-term goals of a non-nuclear world and a cooperative international order.

This may sound far-fetched. But recall that Woodrow Wilson was reelected in 1916 on the slogan “He kept us out of war.” Then, in 1917, he went to war and quickly built the most stringent wartime state — with private businesses nationalized and political dissenters jailed — in modern American history. A Wilsonian desire for international order is not inconsistent with aggressive military action. Sometimes the two are compatible.

It would be ironic if the professorial Barack Obama launches a military attack when his supposedly cowboy predecessor declined to do so. I remember attending meetings of conservative columnists with Bush in which his words and body language convinced me he would not order the bombing of Iran.

Others were not so sure. The December 2007 National Intelligence Estimate was clearly a bureaucratic attempt to prevent Bush from attacking in his last 13 months in office. It declared on its first page that “in fall 2003 Tehran halted its nuclear weapons program,” while conceding in a footnote that “uranium conversion and enrichment,” the most difficult part of a nuclear bomb project, was continuing.

The fact is that Iran has been at war with the United States since 1979, when it seized and held our diplomats for 444 days — an act of war under settled principles of international law. Few in the United States then wanted to regard it as such (though Sen. Pat Moynihan said we should “bring fire and brimstone to the gates of Tehran”).

Later, Iran’s theocratic regime sponsored the 1983 attack on our Marine Corps barracks in Lebanon and recent attacks on our soldiers in Iraq — more acts of war. Six presidents have chosen not to retaliate for reasons of prudence that have much to commend them. War with Iran would be a terrible thing. But one can also believe, as the UAE ambassador incautiously said, that a nuclear-armed Iran would be even worse.

Joe Klein may be right that “this low-level saber-rattling” he describes may be “simply a message that the U.S. is trying to send the Iranians: It’s time to deal.” Walter Russell Mead may be right in saying “there’s a possibility that [Obama] will flinch.” But I take it seriously when these two non-hawks say Obama might bomb Iran. LBJ would have taken it seriously, too.

— Michael Barone is senior political analyst for the Washington Examiner. © 2010 The Washington Examiner.

Initiative launched in England, Germany aims to encourage members of gay and lesbian community to vacation in Israeli city

How could Israel forget the God that took them out of Egypt and gave them the land in the first place. How can they forget the one who gathered them out of the nations and put them back on that same land?
— ITD Editor -

“And the LORD spake unto Moses, saying, Speak unto the children of Israel, and say unto them, I am the LORD your God. After the doings of the land of Egypt, wherein ye dwelt, shall ye not do: and after the doings of the land of Canaan, whither I bring you, shall ye not do: neither shall ye walk in their ordinances. Ye shall do my judgments, and keep mine ordinances, to walk therein: I am the LORD your God. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes, and my judgments: which if a man do, he shall live in them: I am the LORD.

None of you shall approach to any that is near of kin to him, to uncover their nakedness: I am the LORD. The nakedness of thy father, or the nakedness of thy mother, shalt thou not uncover: she is thy mother; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. The nakedness of thy father’s wife shalt thou not uncover: it is thy father’s nakedness. The nakedness of thy sister, the daughter of thy father, or daughter of thy mother, whether she be born at home, or born abroad, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover. The nakedness of thy son’s daughter, or of thy daughter’s daughter, even their nakedness thou shalt not uncover: for theirs is thine own nakedness. The nakedness of thy father’s wife’s daughter, begotten of thy father, she is thy sister, thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s sister: she is thy father’s near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy mother’s sister: for she is thy mother’s near kinswoman. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy father’s brother, thou shalt not approach to his wife: she is thine aunt. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy daughter in law: she is thy son’s wife; thou shalt not uncover her nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of thy brother’s wife: it is thy brother’s nakedness. Thou shalt not uncover the nakedness of a woman and her daughter, neither shalt thou take her son’s daughter, or her daughter’s daughter, to uncover her nakedness; for they are her near kinswomen: it is wickedness. Neither shalt thou take a wife to her sister, to vex her, to uncover her nakedness, beside the other in her life time.

Also thou shalt not approach unto a woman to uncover her nakedness, as long as she is put apart for her uncleanness. Moreover thou shalt not lie carnally with thy neighbour’s wife, to defile thyself with her. And thou shalt not let any of thy seed pass through the fire to Molech, neither shalt thou profane the name of thy God: I am the LORD. Thou shalt not lie with mankind, as with womankind: it is abomination. Neither shalt thou lie with any beast to defile thyself therewith: neither shall any woman stand before a beast to lie down thereto: it is confusion. Defile not ye yourselves in any of these things: for in all these the nations are defiled which I cast out before you: And the land is defiled: therefore I do visit the iniquity thereof upon it, and the land itself vomiteth out her inhabitants. Ye shall therefore keep my statutes and my judgments, and shall not commit any of these abominations; neither any of your own nation, nor any stranger that sojourneth among you: (For all these abominations have the men of the land done, which were before you, and the land is defiled;) That the land spue not you out also, when ye defile it, as it spued out the nations that were before you.”

—Leviticus 18:1-28

With an investment of NIS 340 million (about $88.1 million), an international marketing campaign is being launched to brand Tel Aviv as an international gay vacation destination. The campaign will be run in England and Germany, two locations with considerable gay and lesbian communities.

The campaign will include ads on gay community websites and magazines and will display everything the city has to offer by way of gay tourism.

Designated Facebook and Twitter pages will be created to support the effort and promote Tel Aviv as a new gay capital.

A new website has also been built, Gay Tel Aviv. It starts off like with a sentence encapsulating the very essence of the campaign: ”Rising from the golden shores of the Mediterranean, stands one of the most intriguing and exciting new gay capitals of the world.”

The decision to brand Tel Aviv as an international gay destination was supported by an international study conducted by Outnow, a leading company for consulting, branding, and marketing to the gay community. The company was responsible for branding Berlin as the gay capital of Europe, a move that significantly increased tourism to the city.

Etti Gargir, director of the VisitTLV organization, said that the Tourism Ministry and Tel Aviv Municipality invested NIS 170 million (about $44 million) each in the project.

“The increased discount flight capacity from England and Germany increases the capability of Tel Aviv to compete with other cities in Europe. This is in addition to the Outnow study that found Tel Aviv to be an attractive city to those who like culture, restaurants, nightlife, and shopping.

“The study also showed that the city is good for any budget. In other words, there is a range of entertainment and accommodation options at prices that anyone can afford,” said Gargir.

About a month ago, Tel Aviv Municipality submitted an official application to host the International Gay Pride Parade in 2012.

The Tourism Ministry reported that it supports targeted marketing campaigns likely to increase tourism to Israel.

The city of Oakland, California on Tuesday legalized large-scale marijuana cultivation for medical use and will issue up to four permits for “industrial” cultivation starting next year.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue scripture words

“Neither repented they of their murders, nor of their sorceries•Strongs 5331: pharmakeia, far-mak-i´-ah; from 5332; medication (“pharmacy”), i.e. (by extension) magic (literally or figuratively): — sorcery, witchcraft., nor of their fornication, nor of their thefts.”
—Revelation 9:21

The move by the San Francisco Bay Area city aims to bring medical marijuana cultivation into the open and allow the city to profit by taxing those who grow it.

The resolution passed the city council easily after a nearly four-hour debate that pitted small-scale “garden” growers against advocates of a bigger, industrial system that would become a “Silicon Valley” of pot.

“This is going to grow as an industry. And someone is going to have a high-tech producer,” Council Member Jean Quan said during the debate.

Oakland already taxes sales of medical marijuana, but cultivation has existed in a legal gray area. Council members plan later action to levy new taxes on growers.

The city’s decision is separate from a statewide ballot initiative to legalize marijuana for adult recreational use which Californians will vote on in November.

Polls put support for the November state legalization measure at about 50 percent of voters, and if it passed, the state would be the first to broadly legalize its use. Many jurisdictions tolerate some personal use and small sales, but none allow major-scale growing, sales and recreational use.

U.S. Federal law bans marijuana use of any sort but law enforcement authorities have turned a virtual blind eye to medical marijuana.

Large-scale cultivation in California so far has been dominated by criminals who grow marijuana in national forests or complexes of grow houses, law enforcement officers say.

The toughest opposition at the Tuesday city council meeting in Oakland came from the small-scale marijuana growers who feel they will be squeezed out of the market by the new ‘agribusiness’. Outright opponents to marijuana use were silent.

(Editing by Alan Elsner)

President Barack Obama’s campaign of wooing Israel reflects a fundamental about-face in U.S. policy in the Middle East. U.S. priorities have changed: At the top are the intensifying problem of Iran and concerns about the change of leadership in Egypt and Saudi Arabia.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I shall bring you into the land of Israel, into the country for the which I lifted up mine hand to give it to your fathers. And there shall ye remember your ways, and all your doings, wherein ye have been defiled; and ye shall lothe yourselves in your own sight for all your evils that ye have committed. And ye shall know that I am the LORD, when I have wrought with you for my name’s sake, not according to your wicked ways, nor according to your corrupt doings, O ye house of Israel, saith the Lord GOD.”
—Ezekiel 20:42-44

“And he shall set up an ensign •Strongs 5251: nace; from 5264; a flag; also a sail; by implication, a flagstaff; generally a signal; figuratively, a token:—banner, pole, sail, (en-)sign, standard.
•Strongs 5264: naw-sas´; a primitive root; to gleam from afar, i.e. to be conspicuous as a signal; or rather perhaps a denominative from 5251 (and identical with 5263, through the idea of a flag as fluttering in the wind); to raise a beacon:—lift up as an ensign. for the nations, and shall assemble the outcasts of Israel, and gather together the dispersed of Judah from the four corners of the earth.”
—Isaiah 11:12

President Barack Obama’s campaign of wooing Israel reflects a fundamental about-face in U.S. policy in the Middle East. U.S. priorities have changed: At the top are the intensifying problem of Iran and concerns about the change of leadership in Egypt and Saudi Arabia. Under such circumstances, Israel is perceived as a “vital ally,” in the words of U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Andrew Shapiro, and not an obstacle to warmer ties between the United States and the Muslim world, as was the view at the start of Obama’s tenure.

The Americans have a supreme interest in the Middle East; it’s an available and inexpensive supply of oil that powers the economies of the United States and its allies. Protecting it depends on preserving “stability,” which relies on totalitarian regimes whose survival depends on the United States. In turn, defending these regimes provides important markets for the U.S. defense industry.

Since taking responsibility for the defense of the Middle East from Britain, and with the announcement of the Eisenhower Doctrine in 1957 following the Suez Crisis, the United States has fought off every element that sought to undermine regional order and threatened the oil supply – from Gamal Abdel Nasser and his Soviet patrons to Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden.

Israel has played a varying role in American strategy. Sometimes it was seen as an asset, other times as a burden. During the best of times the Americans highlighted the “special relationship” and the “shared values.” In bad times they picked on Israel over its Dimona nuclear reactor, and later over the settlements. This approach is commonplace for them: When the Americans needed China against the Soviet Union, they ignored both Mao’s human rights violations and Taiwan. When China was perceived as an economic threat, the United States announced that it was selling arms to Taiwan, officially hosted the Dalai Lama, and acknowledged that there was censorship in Beijing and opponents of the regime were being persecuted.

In relations with Israel, the settlements play the role that Taiwan and Tibet play in relations with China – a permanent problem that is emphasized or ignored depending on need. Are they angry with the prime minister? They remember Sheikh Jarrah and Yitzhar. Do they need Israel, or do they want to caress it because of yet another bit of pseudo-progress in the peace process? They back off the Judea and Samaria planning committee.

When Obama came into office he assessed that the United States had been weakened in the Middle East and hoped to reach an agreement on sharing influence with the regional power, Iran. So he cooled toward Israel and pulled out of the closet the well-worn club called settlements. But that didn’t work. The Iranians waved off Obama’s goodwill gesture, and the Arab states ignored the Palestinian issue and made it clear that blocking Iran was more important. As the United Arab Emirates ambassador to Washington said at a conference last week: “A military attack on Iran by whomever would be a disaster, but Iran with a nuclear weapon would be a bigger disaster.”

This is the reason for the turnabout in Obama’s approach. Instead of “beat on Israel and gain the applause of the Muslims,” the stance on Iran is toughening. Sanctions on Tehran have become tougher, and the rhetoric has become more blunt. Israel has moved from being a burden to a welcome partner, perhaps because there is no choice in view of the expected instability in Cairo and Riyadh with the changes at the top.

Cooperation with the Israel Defense Forces has become closer and the Americans have opted to emphasize it, unlike their tendency in the past of playing it down. Israel has become a hit in Washington to the point where Shapiro, who praised the defense relationship, went as far as to mention two presidents, John Adams and his son John Quincy Adams, for supporting a Jewish homeland decades before Herzl. Zionism was born at the White House, and we had no idea.

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has scored a diplomatic achievement. During his first meeting with Obama he tried to convince him that the Iranian threat was paramount, and Obama demanded that he not build in East Jerusalem. Now the president declares that Iran’s nuclear program “has been my number one foreign policy priority over the course of the last 18 months,” and made no mention of the settlements as he sat next to Netanyahu.

This did not happen for nothing: Netanyahu promised in return that within a year he will have a permanent settlement, and is signaling that the weight of the blow on Iran will be reflected in the extent of the concessions Israel makes. And if this belated love also helps Obama and his party in the upcoming congressional elections, the deal will be worthwhile in his view.

Pastor Huck Kusner painting for the Lord

We have been in Wilsey Kansas for the past 5 days. Actually, 2.5 days traveling and 2 days here with about 12 non-denominationsal type church’s and some of their youth. About 150+ people doing community service work. Six senior pastors spend time with their youth along with many youth pastors.

We will be doing work through Saturday morning. That morning, we will be going to the Grassland National Monument and in the afternoon we will be at Council Grove Lake for swimming and ice cream.

All the time the brethren, young and old, are worshiping the Lord Jesus through the leading of the Holy Spirit and His Word.

Pray that all the youth will come into a true Biblical view of this world.

As readers of this site you are well aware of our Biblical viewpoint and our hope in these days proceeding the return of Jesus.

So much is pointing to His return. While the world about looks at the events in the news as progress, we look at many of these events as Biblically relevant news that has been foretold by the Lord and His prophets.

Keep looking up.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“And when these things begin to come to pass, then look up, and lift up your heads; for your redemption•Strongs 629: apolutrosis, ap-ol-oo´-tro-sis; from a compound of 575 and 3083; (the act) ransom in full, i.e. (figuratively) riddance, or (specially) Christian salvation: — deliverance, redemption.
•Strongs 575: apo, apo´; a primary particle; “off,” i.e. away (from something near), in various senses (of place, time, or relation; literal or figurative): — (x here-)after, ago, at, because of, before, by (the space of), for(-th), from, in, (out) of, off, (up-)on(-ce), since, with. In composition (as a prefix) it usually denotes separation, departure, cessation, completion, reversal, etc.
•Strongs 3083: lutron, loo´-tron; from 3089; something to loosen with, i.e. a redemption price (figuratively, atonement): — ransom. draweth nigh.”
—Luke 21:28

“Then they that feared the LORD spake often one to another: and the LORD hearkened, and heard it, and a book of remembrance was written before him for them that feared the LORD, and that thought upon his name.”
—Malachi 3:16

Jean-Louis Bruguière, who fights global terror groups and those who finance them, says the IHH is a terrorist group, not a charity.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.”
—Ezekiel 38:6

Editors note about the word Togarmah•Many Bible teachers believe Togarmah includes the area of present day Turkey, Armenia & Georgia.

Jean-Louis Bruguière’s official title is a bit convoluted: He was appointed by the European Union to overlook the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program at the U.S. Department of Treasury, but behind that dry and bureaucratic title hides one of the most important roles in the global fight against terror. The investigative magistrate’s job is to “dry out” the financial sources that feed the world’s terror organizations, specifically the al-Qaida-inspired global Jihad network.

While Bruguière visited Israel this week as the guest of the Foreign Ministry, and while that visit was classified “private,” every one of the most important intelligence and Foreign Ministry officials dealing with terror funding rushed to meet him and learn from his rich experience in the field. Bruguière is a well known and well respected figure in France, where he served as an investigating magistrate in charge of counter-terrorism affairs until being appointed to his present role in 2008. Anyone seeking proof of his popularity could have seen how many of those present at the July 14 Bastille Day celebrations at the French ambassador’s house this week knew him, with many rushing to greet him.

The main tool employed by Bruguière and his colleagues in the EU and in U.S. to track and intercept the transfer of funds used to finance terror groups is known as SWIFT [Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunication]. It’s an international association of more than 8,500 banks and financial institutions in Europe, the United States, Russia, China, far eastern and Middle Eastern countries, including Israel. After initial growing pains, – many of which were conducted in covert negotiations during the administration of former U.S. president George W. Bush – SWIFT finally agreed, within the restrictions of the law, to aid the intelligence community and the various law enforcement agencies to track the terror organizations’ couriers and “finance ministers.”

Bruguière is especially proud of France, where the administration has a zero-tolerance policy to any attempt to transfer funds to terror groups. French law forbids cash payments of more than 5,000 Euros, and sums greater than that require the bank or institution to report the transfer to authorities. At the same time, Bruguière laments the fact that Germany is less firm, in his opinion, regarding such transfers, or he suspects that the government there is more interested in protecting citizens’ privacy and human rights.

‘I’m not needed in Israel’

This week’s visit marked Bruguière’s first in Israel and he has mixed feelings about it: On one hand he troubled that he has not visited here until now, and on the other hand he is relieved that he hasn’t had to. “I haven’t had professional reasons to visit Israel,” he stresses. “Most of my activity in recent years has focused on the financing of al-Qaida and its offshoots, and in this respect Israel can be pleased. Thus far, I have not found any operational or financial ties between Hamas an al-Qaida.”

Despite this, a possible indirect link between the two organizations has been discovered recently via the Turkish group IHH, the organizers of the flotilla of aid ships that sailed to Gaza in late May, which resulted in an Israeli naval raid that left nine Turks dead. IHH has past ties to al-Qaida affiliates, and Bruguière says he is proud of the fact that – already in 1996 – he came to the conclusion that IHH “is a terror organization and not a charity group,” he says. Bruguière was asked to investigate the Turkish group after French intelligence discovered that Canadian couriers were sending forged Moroccan passports to France for use by Islamic militants intent on carrying out attacks in France and other European countries.

“My investigation revealed a broad and global terror network that reached Bosnia and Afghanistan, whose center was at the Turkish IHH quarters,” says Bruguière. “We had recordings of telephone conversations and documents from people who explicitly testified that this is a terror group. Turkish authorities raided the group’s headquarters for good reason and discovered weapons, explosive materials and forged documents.”

Bruguière does not rule out the possibility that the group continues its terror activities or aiding terror groups today. “I don’t have updated information,” he says, “but it is hard to believe they changed. In my opinion, they are continuing on the same track we uncovered a decade and a half ago.”

Life under threat

Jean-Louis Bruguière is a clear product of the French administration and government, and he developed within France’s complex legal system. He recalls how his first case as an investigating magistrate was to probe a 1982 terror attack at the Paris restaurant Goldenberg – a symbol of Jewish life in the Marais – which was carried out by Palestinian militants tied to Abu Nidal and which left six people dead. Since then, Bruguière has focused on investigating terror attacks and exposing terror organizations. He has been the target of death threats on more than one occasion and in 1997 police found and detonated a bomb near his house. The banned French revolutionary group Action Directe was apparently behind the attempted attack.

Bruguière also investigated Palestinian terror groups who plotted attacks on Jewish and Israeli targets in France. One of his most prominent investigations was into the 1982 murder of Israeli diplomat Ya’akov Barsimantov in a Paris parking lot. Barsimantov, an apparent Mossad agent responsible for security at Jewish institutions and an agency responsible for helping Jews from Arab and Muslim countries immigrate, was killed by a Lebanese woman recruited by a small terror group.

Bruguière’s introduction to the Middle East continued with another case: His probe of arch-terrorist Ilich Ramírez Sánchez, a.k.a. Carlos the Jackal, who was extradited in 1994 from Sudan to France and who is currently serving a life sentence for the murder of two French counter-intelligence agents. In 2007, Bruguière ordered a new trial for Sánchez on charges relating to attacks in France in 1982 and 1983 that killed 11 and injured more than 100 people. Those attacks, on a Paris train, Marseille train station and the offices of two Arab newspapers, were meant to pressure authorities to release Sánchez’s wife, also serving time on terror charges, from prison.

Bruguière could not speak in detail about the Sánchez case, but according to him, Sánchez is a classic mercenary who worked for the PLO, Libyan intelligence, Syria and Iraq. He was also sponsored by intelligence agencies in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and the former eastern Germany.

“He is a very complicated and intelligent man,” Bruguière says of Sánchez. “However, he also tends to be a megalomaniac and spoke to me at length about how he is convinced of his important role in history. His problem is that he doesn’t understand the world has changed since the fall of communism and the end of the Cold War.”

A group of Christian students was allegedly ordered to stop praying outside the U.S. Supreme Court building on May 5 because a court police officer told them it was against the law.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

“But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom•Strongs 932: basileia, bas-il-i´-ah; from 935; properly, royalty, i.e. (abstractly) rule, or (concretely) a realm (literally or figuratively): — kingdom, + reign. divided•Strongs 1266: diamerizo, dee-am-er-id´-zo; from 1223 and 3307; to partition thoroughly (literally in distribution, figuratively in dissension): — cloven, divide, part. against itself is brought to desolation•Strongs 2049: eremoo, er-ay-mo´-o; from 2048; to lay waste (literally or figuratively): — (bring to, make) desolate(-ion), come to nought.; and a house divided against a house falleth.”
—Luke11:17

“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”
—Isaiah 1:4

The students were part of a junior high school American History class at Wickenburg Christian Academy in Arizona. After taking pictures on the steps of the Supreme Court building, their teacher gathered them to a side location where they formed a circle and began to pray.

According to Nate Kellum, senior counsel with the Alliance Defense Fund, a police officer “abruptly” interrupted the prayer and ordered the group to cease and desist.

“They were told to stop praying because they were violating the law and they had to take their prayer elsewhere,” Kellum told FOX News Radio.

A spokesperson for the Court said the Marshal of the Court will look into the events alleged by the ADF.

“The Court does not have a policy prohibiting prayer,” said public information officer Kathy Arberg in an email to FOX News Radio.

So the group of 15 students and seven adults left the Supreme Court and relocated to a sidewalk – where Rigo said the children stood in a gutter – and continued their prayer.

The global economy is at risk of folding in on itself unless policy makers face up to the threats of inflation inflexibility and exchange-rate inflexibility, according to Arun Motianey, director of fixed income strategy at Roubini Global Economics.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

A Japan-like outcome is a big risk for the developed world with deflation a big danger, he said.

Recent figures show that the recovery is sputtering in the US while China’s booming growth has slowed down slightly, as Beijing unwinds stimulus measures.

The Bank of Japan revised upwards is economic forecast but reiterated it will maintain its easy money policy.

In his new book “SuperCycles” Motianey says the world has managed to recover from a number of shocks since the Latin American debt crisis, but getting over the financial crisis will be much harder.

“The global rebalancing mechanism through flexible exchange rates is not working as well as it should,” Motianey said.

“Many emerging markets are resisting changes in nominal exchange rates. Higher inflation is causing some correction in real terms but it is too little and may turn out to be too late,” he added.

China is the key to correcting this problem, according to Motianey. He warned that the challenges facing the developed world look even more problematic.

“Financial markets have become intolerant about governments acting as a source of final demand in the developed market,” he said. “We are seeing this most dramatically in the European sovereign debt crisis that is now mutating into a European bank crisis.”

With both these factors hitting growth, the threat of the world economy folding in on itself is now ever-present, Motianey said.

“If we slide into deflation – the likely fate of the developed market – a Japan-style outcome will become inevitable,” he said.

“In Japan, the BoJ has lost the ability to create inflation and is condemned to deflation. Central banks may now need to talk about the necessity of inflation…before it is too late.”

Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits the Natanz nuclear enrichment facility
Ho New / Reuters

In late 2006, George W. Bush met with the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the Pentagon and asked if military action against Iran’s nuclear program was feasible. The unanimous answer was no. Air strikes could take out some of Iran’s nuclear facilities, but there was no way to eliminate all of them. Some of the nuclear labs were located in heavily populated areas; others were deep underground. And Iran’s ability to strike back by unconventional means, especially through its Hizballah terrorist network, was formidable. The military option was never officially taken off the table. At least, that’s what U.S. officials always said. But the emphasis was on the implausibility of a military strike. “Another war in the Middle East is the last thing we need,” Secretary of Defense Robert Gates wrote in 2008. It would be “disastrous on a number of levels.” (See pictures of President Bush in the Middle East.)

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

“And ye shall hear of wars and rumours of wars: see that ye be not troubled: for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.”
Mathewt 24:6

Gates is sounding more belligerent these days. “I don’t think we’re prepared to even talk about containing a nuclear Iran,” he told Fox News on June 20. “We do not accept the idea of Iran having nuclear weapons.” In fact, Gates was reflecting a new reality in the military and intelligence communities. Diplomacy and economic pressure remain the preferred means to force Iran to negotiate a nuclear deal, but there isn’t much hope that’s going to happen. “Will [sanctions] deter them from their ambitions with regards to nuclear capability?” CIA Director Leon Panetta told ABC News on June 27. “Probably not.” So the military option is very much back on the table.

What has changed? “I started to rethink this last November,” a recently retired U.S. official with extensive knowledge of the issue told me. “We offered the Iranians a really generous deal, which their negotiators accepted,” he went on, referring to the offer to exchange Iran’s 1.2 tons of low-enriched uranium (3.5% pure) for higher-enriched (20%) uranium for medical research and use. “When the leadership shot that down, I began to think, Well, we made the good-faith effort to engage. What do we do now?” (See pictures of terror in Tehran.)

Other intelligence sources say that the U.S. Army’s Central Command, which is in charge of organizing military operations in the Middle East, has made some real progress in planning targeted air strikes — aided, in large part, by the vastly improved human-intelligence operations in the region. “There really wasn’t a military option a year ago,” an Israeli military source told me. “But they’ve gotten serious about the planning, and the option is real now.” Israel has been brought into the planning process, I’m told, because U.S. officials are frightened by the possibility that the right-wing Netanyahu government might go rogue and try to whack the Iranians on its own. (Comment on this story.)

One other factor has brought the military option to a low boil: Iran’s Sunni neighbors really want the U.S. to do it. When United Arab Emirates Ambassador Yousef al-Otaiba said on July 6 that he favored a military strike against Iran despite the economic and military consequences to his country, he was reflecting an increasingly adamant attitude in the region. Senior American officials who travel to the Gulf frequently say the Saudis, in particular, raise the issue with surprising ardor. Everyone from the Turks to the Egyptians to the Jordanians are threatening to go nuclear if Iran does. That is seen as a real problem in the most volatile region in the world: What happens, for example, if Saudi Arabia gets a bomb, and the deathless monarchy there is overthrown by Islamist radicals?

For the moment, the White House remains as skeptical as ever about a military strike. Most senior military leaders also believe Gates got it right the first time — even a targeted attack on Iran would be “disastrous on a number of levels.” It would unify the Iranian people against the latest in a long series of foreign interventions. It would also unify much of the world — including countries like Russia and China that we’ve worked hard to cultivate — against a recowboyfied U.S. There would certainly be an Iranian reaction — in Iraq, in Afghanistan, by Lebanese Hizballah against Israel and by the Hizballah network against the U.S. and Saudi homelands. A catastrophic regional war is not impossible. (See who’s who in Barack Obama’s White House.)

Of course, it is also possible that this low-key saber-rattling is simply a message the U.S. is trying to send the Iranians: it’s time to deal. There have been rumblings from Tehran about resuming negotiations, although the regime has very little credibility right now. The assumption — shared even by some of Iran’s former friends, like the Russians — is that any Iranian offer to talk is really an offer to stall. A specific, plausible Iranian concession may be needed to get the process back on track. But it is also possible that the saber-rattling is not a bluff, that the U.S. really won’t tolerate a nuclear Iran and is prepared to do something awful to stop it.

ISTANBUL — The Turkish charity that led the flotilla involved in a deadly Israeli raid has extensive connections with Turkey’s political elite, and the group’s efforts to challenge Israel’s blockade of Gaza received support at the top levels of the governing party, Turkish diplomats and government officials said.

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Gomer, and all his bands; the house of Togarmah of the north quarters, and all his bands: and many people with thee.”
—Ezekiel 38:6

Editors note about the word Togarmah•Many Bible teachers believe Togarmah includes the area of present day Turkey, Armenia & Georgia.

The charity, the Humanitarian Relief Foundation, often called I.H.H., has come under attack in Israel and the West for offering financial support to groups accused of terrorism. But in Turkey the group has helped Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan shore up support from conservative Muslims ahead of critical elections next year and improve Turkey’s standing and influence in the Arab world.

According to a senior Turkish official close to the government, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the political delicacy of the issue, as many as 10 Parliament members from Mr. Erdogan’s governing Justice and Development Party were considering boarding the Mavi Marmara, the ship where the deadly raid occurred, but were warned off at the last minute by senior Foreign Ministry officials concerned that their presence might escalate tensions too much.

When leaders of the charity returned home after nine Turks died in the Israeli raid, they were warmly embraced by top Turkish officials, said Huseyin Oruc, deputy director of the charity, who was aboard the flotilla.

“When we flew back to Turkey, I was afraid we would be in trouble for what happened, but the first thing we saw when the plane’s door opened in Istanbul was Bulent Arinc, the deputy prime minister, in tears,” he said in an interview. “We have good coordination with Mr. Erdogan,” he added. “But I am not sure he is happy with us now.”

The raid has caused a rupture between Turkey and Israel, and heightened alarm in the United States and Europe that Turkey, a large Muslim country and a major NATO member, is shifting allegiance toward the Arab world. Turkey has warned that its cooperative ties to Israel could be irreparably damaged unless the Israelis apologize and accept an international investigation, steps Israel has so far refused to take.

The charity’s mission, political analysts said, has advanced Mr. Erdogan’s aim of shifting Turkey’s focus to the Muslim east when its prospects for joining the European Union are dim.

The government “could have stopped the ship if it wanted to, but the mission to Gaza served both the I.H.H. and the government by making both heroes at home and in the Arab world,” said Ercan Citlioglu, a terrorism expert at Bahcesehir University in Istanbul.

Turkish officials said that the charity operated independently and that its leadership had refused to drop plans to break Israel’s naval blockade of Hamas-controlled Gaza, despite requests from the government. The officials said they had no legal authority to stop the work of a private charity.

Egemen Bagis, Turkey’s minister for European affairs, said in an interview that the charity and the Justice and Development Party, called the AK Party, had no substantive ties, even if people in politics often became involved in charitable groups. “The I.H.H. has nothing to do with the AK Party, and we have no hidden agenda,” Mr. Bagis said.

But critics say such statements belie the close connections between the party and the charity, as well as the extent to which Turkish officials were closely attuned to the details of the flotilla’s mission before its departure.

“How can such a large country as Turkey, with interests in four continents, and with an export- and investment-driven economy requiring extra caution all around the globe, be dragged to the brink of war by a nongovernmental organization?” asked Semih Idiz, a columnist for the Hurriyet Daily News in Turkey, in a June 7 editorial. The answer, he added, is that the charity is a “GNGO” — a “governmental-nongovernmental-organization.”

Many of the 21 people listed on the charity’s board have or had close links to the AK Party. In January, Murat Mercan, chairman of Parliament’s foreign affairs committee and a senior party official, joined an overland aid convoy to Gaza organized by the charity that tried to force its way through the Rafah crossing from Egypt to Gaza.

A trustee of the charity, Ali Yandir, is a senior manager at the Istanbul City Municipality Transportation Corporation. The corporation controls Istanbul Fast Ferries, which sold the Mavi Marmara, with a capacity for 1,090 passengers, to the charity for about $1.8 million. In 2004, Mr. Yandir was an AK Party candidate for the mayor’s office in Istanbul’s Esenler District.

The charity’s board includes Zeyid Aslan, an AK Party member of Parliament and the acting head of the Turkey-Palestine Interparliamentary Friendship Group; Ahmet Faruk Unsal, an AK Party member of Parliament from 2002 to 2007; and Mehmet Emin Sen, a former AK Party mayor in the central Anatolian township of Mihalgazi.

Those ties partly reflect the common agenda of the party and the charity. Both are involved in relief work among the poor and are bound by a common Islamic ideology. Many of the 60,000 people the charity claims as members come from the religious merchant class that helped Mr. Erdogan sweep to power.

The Humanitarian Relief Foundation was founded in the early 1990s, first as a charity for the poor in Istanbul, and later for Bosnian war victims. It works in more than 100 countries and sent 33 tons of aid to Haiti after its January earthquake. The charity has one branch in the West Bank and another in Gaza, where Turkish families help pay for the care and education of 9,000 orphans.

On Monday, Germany banned the charity’s offices, citing its support for Hamas, which Germany considers a terrorist organization. Interior Minister Thomas de Maizière said the charity abused donors’ good intentions “to support a terrorist organization with money supposedly donated for charitable purposes.” The newspaper Süddeutsche Zeitung said that from 2007 the charity collected $8.5 million and transferred money to six smaller organizations, two belonging directly to Hamas and four with close ties to it.

The charity called the ban a “disgrace” and “misanthropic” and said it would challenge it in court.

A June 21 letter signed by 87 United States senators urged the White House to investigate whether the charity should be designated a foreign terrorist organization. Israel has accused the charity of bolstering Hamas. It also says the group has links to Al Qaeda and has bought weapons, accusations the charity denies.

A senior Turkish government official, speaking on the condition of anonymity, called such allegations false and said they would not persuade politicians who supported the group’s causes to shun it.

“We are not trying to disengage ourselves from I.H.H. because of the current allegations on their terror links — we are simply not related with them,” the official said. “We consider Israeli efforts to link I.H.H. with terror in light of fake intelligence reports and hence hold AK Party government responsible for the killing of nine innocent people as extremely cheap and improper tactics.”

Banks repossessed a record number of U.S. homes in the second quarter, but slowed new foreclosure notices to manage distressed properties on the market, real estate data company RealtyTrac said on Thursday.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“…upon the earth distress•Strongs 4928: sunoche, soon-okh-ay´; from 4912; restraint, i.e. (figuratively) anxiety: — anguish, distress. of nations, with perplexity•Strongs 640: aporia, ap-or-ee´-a; from the same as 639; a (state of) quandary:—perplexity.
•Strongs 639: aporeo, ap-or-eh´-o; from a compound of 1 (as a negative particle) and the base of 4198; to have no way out, i.e. be at a loss (mentally):— (stand in) doubt, be perplexed….”
—Luke 21:25

“But he, knowing their thoughts, said unto them, Every kingdom•Strongs 932: basileia, bas-il-i´-ah; from 935; properly, royalty, i.e. (abstractly) rule, or (concretely) a realm (literally or figuratively): — kingdom, + reign. divided•Strongs 1266: diamerizo, dee-am-er-id´-zo; from 1223 and 3307; to partition thoroughly (literally in distribution, figuratively in dissension): — cloven, divide, part. against itself is brought to desolation•Strongs 2049: eremoo, er-ay-mo´-o; from 2048; to lay waste (literally or figuratively): — (bring to, make) desolate(-ion), come to nought.; and a house divided against a house falleth.”
—Luke11:17

“Ah sinful nation, a people laden with iniquity, a seed of evildoers, children that are corrupters: they have forsaken the LORD, they have provoked the Holy One of Israel unto anger, they are gone away backward.”
—Isaiah 1:4

The root problems of job losses and wage cuts persist, making a sustained U.S. housing recovery elusive.

Banks took control of 269,962 properties in the second quarter, up 5 percent from the prior quarter and a 38 percent spike from the second quarter of last year, RealtyTrac said in its midyear 2010 foreclosure report.

Repossessions will likely top 1 million this year.

“The underlying conditions haven’t improved,” RealtyTrac senior vice president Rick Sharga said in an interview.

The housing market still grapples with “unemployment, economic displacement in general, and still sits on over 5 million seriously delinquent loans that in all likelihood will at some point go into foreclosure,” he said.

In 2005, the last “normal” year in housing, Sharga said, about 530,000 households got a foreclosure notice and banks took over a comparatively minuscule 100,000 houses.

This year more than 3 million households are likely to get at least one foreclosure filing, which includes notice of default, scheduled auction and repossession, Irvine, California-based RealtyTrac forecasts.

In the first half of the year, foreclosure filings were made on 1.65 million properties. That was down 5 percent from the last half of 2009 but up 8 percent from the first half of last year.

One in every 78 households got at least one foreclosure filing in the first six months of this year.

Former Revolutionary Guard member who relayed its secret operations to CIA for 10 years says Iran will commit ‘most horrendous suicide bombing in human history’ if not stopped

To view popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“Son of man, set thy face against Gog, the land of Magog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal, and prophesy against him, And say, Thus saith the Lord GOD; Behold, I am against thee, O Gog, the chief prince of Meshech and Tubal: And I will turn thee back, and put hooks into thy jaws, and I will bring thee forth, and all thine army, horses and horsemen, all of them clothed with all sorts of armour, even a great company with bucklers and shields, all of them handling swords: Persia, Ethiopia, and Libya with them; all of them with shield and helmet:”
—Ezekiel 38:2-5

Editors note about the words and Gog•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe that Gog is the leader of the Russia alliance in the latter days., Magog•FYI: Many Bible teachers believe that Magog, the descendant of Japheth, is identified as the Russian coalition in the latter days. and Persia•FYI: Persia in concert with Adolf Hitler, changed its name to Iran (Aryan Land) in May of 1935.

A former fighter in Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) turned US spy offered a rare glance into one of the most complex countries in the Middle East.

During a conference held at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy on Friday, Reza Kahlili (pseudonym) estimated that Iran will eventually attack Israel, Europe and the Persian Gulf states. He called for a preemptive strike on the regime in Tehran, but not on the Iranian people or the country’s infrastructure.

Kahlili accused the Obama Administration of being naïve. According to him, the American overtures are viewed by the Iranian regime as a sign of weakness, while the Iranian people consider the efforts to engage the regime an act of betrayal against their struggle for freedom.

Click here to listen to Kahlili speak at conference

“This is a messianic regime. There should be no doubt – they are going to commit the most horrendous suicide bombing in human history. They will attack Israel, European capitals, and (the) Persian Gulf region at the same time,” said Kahlili in one of his first public appearances to promote his new book “A Time To Betray: The Astonishing Double Life of a CIA Agent inside the Revolutionary Guards of Iran”.

Kahlili said he joined the Revolutionary Guard following the Islamic revolution of 1979, but volunteered to work for the CIA when he became disillusioned with the Khomeini regime after witnessing acts of rape, torture and murder.

Kahlili, arrived at the conference wearing a surgical mask, sunglasses and a baseball cap to conceal his identity. Out of concern for his safety, as well as that of his family inside Iran, his voice was also disguised.

For 10 years, under the code name “Wally,” he relayed the secret operations of the IRGC back to American intelligence, eventually fleeing to the United States. In the aftermath of 9/11, Kahlili reestablished contact with his sources in Iran and began once again providing information to the CIA, according to the Washington Institute.

Demonstrators rallied in favor of gay marriage this week in Buenos Aires ahead of Thursday’s vote.

Approval Marks Victory for President Over Catholic Opponents and Is First Nationwide Law of its Kind in Latin America

Days of both with scriptures from both

“And as it was in the days of Noe, so shall it be also in the days of the Son of man. They did eat, they drank, they married wives, they were given in marriage, until the day that Noe entered into the ark, and the flood came, and destroyed them all. Likewise also as it was in the days of Lot; they did eat, they drank, they bought, they sold, they planted, they builded. But the same day that Lot went out of Sodom it rained fire and brimstone from heaven, and destroyed them all. Even thus shall it be in the day when the Son of man is revealed. ”
—Luk 17:26-30

“The earth also was corrupt before God, and the earth was filled with violence.”
—Gen 6:11

“Even as Sodom and Gomorrha, and the cities about them in like manner, giving themselves over to fornication, and going after strange flesh, are set forth for an example, suffering the vengeance of eternal fire.”
—Jude 1:7

BUENOS AIRES—In the early hours of Thursday morning, Argentina’s Senate narrowly approved a bill making Argentina the first country in Latin America to legalize same-sex marriage.

The 33-27 vote, with three abstentions, marks a victory for President Cristina Kirchner and her husband and predecessor, Nestor Kirchner, over one of their chief antagonists, the Roman Catholic Church.

Mexico City’s legislature recently passed a law permitting gay marriage, though such a measure hasn’t been approved at a national level. Same-sex civil unions are allowed in Uruguay and in some Latin American cities, such as Buenos Aires. But by approving the national law guaranteeing full marriage rights to same-sex couples, Argentina becomes a pioneer in the region and one of a handful of countries in the world that have taken that step. The bill also allows same-sex couples to adopt children,

Buenos Aires has in recent years gained international fame for being a city that is friendly to gays. The capital has attracted increasing numbers of gay-themed cruise ships whose passengers explore the city’s growing offering of gay bars and hotels.

Mariel Fornoni, a pollster for the Management & Fit consultancy, said the conflict in Congress over the marriage measure was a test of strength for the Kirchners in the run-up to the October 2011 presidential election. She said it should help the Kirchners shore up their leftist base, as Mr. Kirchner prepares the groundwork for a second presidential bid. And the people who opposed the measure were unlikely to vote for a Kirchner anyway, analysts said. The lower house had passed the bill in May by a 125-109 vote.

Polls indicate that this overwhelmingly Catholic country is divided over equal rights for gay couples, with about half of the population favoring gay marriage, while a majority opposes adoption by gay couples.

The issue has divided political parties, which freed their members to vote according to their personal ethical or religious predilections instead of along traditional party lines.

Prior to the Congressional vote, Catholic and evangelical groups held street protests against the bill under the slogan: “We Want Mother and Father.” In a public letter to Catholics, Buenos Aires Archbishop Jorge Mario Bergoglio wrote: “This isn’t a mere legislative project, but a move by the Father of the Lie that seeks to confuse and fool the children of God.”

Ms. Kirchner rebutted Archbishop Bergoglio, saying, “It’s worrisome to hear phrases such as ‘war of God’ and ‘projects of the devil,’ which are things that send us back to medieval times and the Inquisition.”

In a display of how the Argentine debate has captured attention throughout the region, Puerto Rican singer Ricky Martin, who came out of the closet in March, on Wednesday put out a message of support for the bill on his Twitter account. “Let’s go Argentina,” he wrote.

Tucked into forested hills in southwest Caracas, a red-brick housing complex for the poor is a testing ground for Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez’s latest step to build socialism in the Latin American oil producer.

To view dictionary popup window put your cursor on the blue words

“This know also, that in the last days perilous•Strongs 5467: chalepos, khal-ep-os´; perhaps from 5465 through the idea of reducing the strength; difficult, i.e. dangerous, or (by implication) furious:—fierce, perilous. times shall come.”
—2 Timothy 3:1-2a

Editors note about the word perilous•FYI: The Greek word (chalepos) (perilous) is only used one other time in the New Testament, Matthew 8:28. There it is translated as (fierce) when describing the nature of the devils that possess Legion and his cohort.

“For we wrestle not against flesh and blood, but against principalities•Strongs 746: arche, ar-khay´; from 756; (properly abstract) a commencement, or (concretely) chief (in various applications of order, time, place, or rank): — beginning, corner, (at the, the) first (estate), magistrate, power, principality, principle, rule., against powers•Strongs 1849: exousia, ex-oo-see´-ah; from 1832 (in the sense of ability); privilege, i.e. (subjectively) force, capacity, competency, freedom, or (objectively) mastery (concretely, magistrate, superhuman, potentate, token of control), delegated influence: — authority, jurisdiction, liberty, power, right, strength., against the rulers•Strongs 2888: kosmokrator, kos-mok-fat´-ore; from 2889 and 2902; a world-ruler, an epithet of Satan: — ruler. of the darkness•Strongs 4655: skotos, skot´-os; from the base of 4639; shadiness, i.e. obscurity (literally or figuratively): — darkness. of this world, against spiritual•Strongs 4152: pneumatikos, pnyoo-mat-ik-os´; from 4151; non-carnal, i.e. (humanly) ethereal (as opposed to gross), or (daemoniacally) a spirit (concretely), or (divinely) supernatural, regenerate, religious: — spiritual. Compare 5591. wickedness•Strongs 4189: poneria, pon-ay-ree´-ah; from 4190; depravity, i.e. (specially), malice; plural (concretely) plots, sins: — iniquity, wickedness. in high•Strongs 2032: epouranios, ep-oo-ran´-ee-os; from 1909 and 3772; above the sky: — celestial, (in) heaven(-ly), high. places.”
—Ephesians 6:12

The phalanx of simple five-storey apartment blocks, some still being built, anchors the “Cacique Tiuna Commune”. This is one of a network of “socialist communes” that Chavez and his supporters want to extend across the nation in a political and legislative offensive to dismantle “bourgeois” capitalism.

Not surprisingly in a country whose politics is as flammable as gasoline, the project enshrined in a package of “power to the people” laws is stoking a political firestorm.

Fueling the political debate is the proximity of legislative elections on September 26.

The government says the communes will help end poverty. But furious opponents, who already denounce Chavez as a repressive autocrat, say the initiative heralds outright communism in Venezuela and so violates its pluralist constitution.

“A barrier is being crossed … we’re passing from Chavez’s tropical socialism to open and glaring communism,” says Emilio Grateron, mayor of Chacao, an opposition stronghold entrenched in a more wealthy eastern neighborhood of Caracas.

Displaying colorful murals of Venezuela’s 19th century independence hero Simon Bolivar, and one of Argentine guerrilla legend Ernesto “Che” Guevara, the 2,220-inhabitant Cacique Tiuna Commune is conceived as a showcase “socialist” community among the dirt-poor hilltop slums that hem in the capital.

Chavez and the laws’ promoters deny the communes project is a bid to railroad the country into Soviet- or Cuban-style Marxism. They say the legislation is compatible with the 1999 Constitution and follows socialist goals of ending decades of inequality in Venezuela and giving more say to the poor in the running of their own lives and that of the country.

“We’re headed for socialism here, I haven’t deceived anyone,” the combative Venezuelan leader told his ruling PSUV party in a meeting this week. He blasted local Roman Catholic bishops who have criticized the communes program, calling them “troglodytes” and “fascists”.

Chavez says the bishops and business “oligarchs”, media tycoons and foreign “imperialists” who populate his full pantheon of ideological foes are misrepresenting the communes project as a pretext to destabilize his government.

The former soldier survived a brief coup in 2002. Opponents say he is conjuring up fake threats to throw a smokescreen over his failure to turn around the deteriorating economy and put a brake on rampant violent crime.

In the upcoming elections, opponents are expected to dent the National Assembly majority of Chavez’s PSUV, which has been shaken by a scandal over the discovery of thousands of tonnes of rotten government-managed foodstuffs and polls showing weak public backing for more socialism and expropriations.

Chavez is still popular in his 11th year of rule, but his support is under strain as the economy slumps. It contracted 5.8 percent in the first quarter of this year and inflation is persistently high at an annualized rate of 31 percent in June.

FRESH ASSAULT ON PRIVATE PROPERTY?

Chavez’s searing leftist rhetoric and his investor-scalding track record of strategic oil, industry and mining nationalizations have made him an anti-capitalist and anti-U.S. standard bearer in Latin America and the world.

The largely pro-Chavez National Assembly has initially approved the communes bill and some related laws. A second final approval is pending, and supporters say they hope this can happen before the elections.

“We’re talking about government by the people,” said Ulises Daal, a pro-Chavez parliament deputy and one of the main promoters of the project. He says the legislative plan to set up self-sustaining, self-governing “socialist communes” builds on the existence of some 36,000 Chavez-inspired “communal councils” that already dot the country.

Daal said 214 communes were already “under construction”. Some have introduced barter markets and their own currencies.

Grateron and other opposition mayors have launched a noisy counter-offensive. They say Chavez is trying to force through by law a shift to all-out socialism he failed to introduce in a 2007 constitutional referendum that he narrowly lost, the only nationwide ballot he has not won.

Opponents single out the Communes Law’s repeated references to “social” and “collective” ownership.

“It’s a clear orientation toward the reduction and disappearance of private property,” said Noel Alvarez, president of the Fedecamaras private business group.

However, the Communes Law text does say Venezuelans can “possess, use and enjoy individual and family property and patrimony”, and Daal insisted that private property remained unaffected by the legislation and was guaranteed.

IDEOLOGY, OR APATHY

Neither ideological nor productive fervor were much visible at the Cacique Tiuna Commune, which boasts a plastics plant, a vegetable garden, a “socialist” carpentry shop and a plant nursery.

During a visit last week, the plastics plant was idled, the irrigated garden was awaiting “refinancing” to start and at the carpentry shop only a handful of laborers worked under the stern gaze of a mural depicting the historic Indian chief Tiuna after which the commune is named.

“The Comandante (Chavez) wants this to be a showcase community,” said Yamilet Ramirez, the Commune’s spokesperson. “The idea is that it should be self-supporting.”

But the Cacique Tiuna commune seemed some way off its intended goal as a self-sustaining, self-governing community.

“People don’t seem enthusiastic, they don’t want to participate, I don’t know why, since it’s for them,” said the head of the carpentry shop, Alexis Valdiviezo.

He himself did not have an apartment in the commune but was brought in six months ago by the Basic Industry Ministry to oversee the creation of a “socialist” carpentry network.

“I’m living in a hotel,” said Valdiviezo, who said he had been promised an apartment in the commune by Chavez.

But for many of the commune inhabitants, the apartments, built with a primary school, a state MERCAL grocery and a soon-to-be opened high school, represent a huge improvement on their previous slum accommodation in hilltop shanties.

“We like it, of course … this benefits all the people,” said Ines Herrera, who works as a cleaner at the primary school. “There is a bit of apathy, but that’s normal”.

“No one here is shouting about Marx or Lenin,” said Ramirez.

“FRONTIER OF CHAOS”

In the same way that Venezuela’s oil income has bankrolled Chavez’s socio-political projects over the last few years, a host of government ministries and their budgets are clearly heavily engaged in supporting the emerging communes.

A clause of the Communes Law stipulates that existing state governorships and municipal mayorships should make funds available to finance projects for the communes. This has led to worries by opposition mayors that the new structures will monopolize funds, accompanied by political discrimination.

The Commune Ministry’s own information sheet on the Cacique Tiuna community notes among its weaknesses: “There were commune members who hold an ideology opposed to the government”.

The legislation foresees each commune having its own parliament, elected in open assemblies, and a five-member council to ensure the execution of decisions taken. A Communal Bank, and communal justice system will also be created.

Critics say the creation of these parallel systems alongside existing state and local structures will generate confusion. “It’s the frontier of chaos,” Grateron said.

(Additional reporting by Patricia Rondon; Editing by Kieran Murray)