Taking back the years that Satan Stole from You

One of the most popular videos on youtube is a slice from the television show Newsroom.   It shows a televised panel of “experts” in front of college students where a liberal is on the left, a conservative is on the right and a news anchor is in the middle.

The moderator asks them “Is America the greatest country in the world?” Freedom and opportunity are then cited as reasons why we are the greatest nation on earth by both the left and the right to mild cheers from the audience.  The news anchor noticeably silent is pressed to offer his view.  He shouts, “We are not the greatest country in the world.  There is no evidence to support the statement that we are the greatest country in the world.”  The audience gasps.

He proceeds to spout statistics of how far we have fallen behind other nations. He ends his rant with “we didn’t use to scare so easily, we built amazing things, we had leaders that created laws based on morals.”  This scene is called the most honest 3 minutes on television.

The news anchor ends with these words says: “the first step to solving a problem is to recognize that there is a problem.”

The feeling that our best days are behind us is a national anxiety. A growing segment of our nation is binging on drugs to bury their fears. Our children feel that our government robbed their future.  Dreams are held in limbo and they live trapped in their parent’s basement in a holding pattern losing valuable time.

This is also widespread among Christians. Right now, a lot of people are looking back on their lives and feeling that many years were stolen from them.   They recount scenes of besetting sin, betrayal, calamity, sickness and just plain mistakes that had outsized impact on their years.

Again and again I have heard saints of God explain how unfair it seemed that huge chunks of their life were taken and they say, “I just want them back!”

That is when Joel 2:25 it hit me like a Mack truck”   “So I will restore to you the years that the swarming locust has eaten, the crawling locust, the consuming locust, and the chewing locust.”  Those are words that we can claim right now.’

America needs Christians who believe that God can restore stolen years.  The broken spirit of America is an amazing mission field for believers who shake off despair and dread and confess that enemy must pay back 7 times what he has taken from us.

Armed with this revelation I was able to exhort a great man of God.  He surveyed the wreckage of America and was lamenting past mistakes and feeling that he was out of time.  This Christian general sighed deeply and said “if only I were a younger man…”  I interrupted him and said “YOU ARE A YOUNGER MAN!  I didn’t have to say anything more the light of God hit his spirit and I could feel the clock starting to go backwards.

No long after that I was with an older woman who had received a great miracle of healing.  While she was grateful for her health she was also regretting the years that Satan had stolen from her.  I exclaimed to her that her healing was proof that God was mounting a fresh attack through her.

The Holy Spirit wants to give us back what Satan has stolen and them some!   Here is how:

1. BURN OUT THE BURN OUT!   Isaiah 40: 30,31 “Even the youths shall faint and be weary, And the young men shall utterly fall,31 But those who wait on the Lord Shall renew their strength; They shall mount up with wings like eagles, They shall run and not be weary, They shall walk and not faint.

Waiting on God will bring specific fire to burn out fatigue and regret.   It will rev up your engine to attempt things that you thought you were too old to do.  You will now say, “No, I am not too old.  No, I am not going to sit still.  No, it is not too late!”   You need to make some bold moves and big decisions.  Realize that it was not really your body that was tired but your spirit.   Go to war in prayer specially seizing God’s promise to fuel and direct those who wait on Him.  Do this before you really do get old!

2.Do not settle merely for restored energy, but a fresh exploit! When David lost everything at Ziglag God gave him this promise “Pursue, for you shall surely overtake them and without fail recover all.” -1 Samuel 30:8

Caleb believed that God rejuvenated him in old age for a new exploit:  Joshua 14:10,11 “And now, behold, the Lord has kept me alive, as He said, these forty-five years, ever since the Lord spoke this word to Moses while Israel wandered in the wilderness; and now, here I am this day, eighty-five years old. As yet I am as strong this day as on the day that Moses sent me; just as my strength was then, so now is my strength for war, both for going out and for coming in.”

Some of what you suffered in your past was because you were timid.   You went along with things and you did not make the demands on life that were just and right.  Now you must boldly enforce God’s Word and apply God’s grace.   You are being resurrected from weakness to for a whole new chapter of victory.

3. Believe that your life will not only be energized but extended. He wants to add years. The damage ate up years of crops.  What God promised in Joel “I will restore the years”  is that You shall be comforted according to the time that you have been afflicted, and shall have years of plenty to more than make up for the years of famine.

This is not just added time but added results that puts your life back in the plus column.  Haggai 2: 9 ‘The glory of this latter temple shall be greater than the former,’ says the Lord of hosts. ‘And in this place I will give peace,’ says the Lord of hosts.”

Note just added time but long life that satisfies: Psalm 91: 15 says, “He shall call upon Me, and I will answer him; I will be with him in trouble; I will deliver him and honor him. 16 With long life I will satisfy him, And show him My salvation.”

4:  Live to leave something for the next generation.  Psalm 71: 18 “18 Now also when I am old and gray headed, O God, do not forsake me, Until I declare Your strength to this generation, Your power to everyone who is to come.” I believe that great men and women have been kept alive by their passion to impart a legacy to the next generation.  So long as they stubbornly mentored, imparted and wrote great works of wisdom it kept them alive.

America needs Christians who are a blast furnace of encouragement and determination.  We rebuke that spirit that says America cannot be great.  She can be greater than ever if the army of God blasts forth to reclaim everything that Satan has stolen.

 

A Few words about the attack you are facing

A Few words about the attack you are facing 

By Mario Murillo

The attacks I am hearing about right now have hit me to my core. These are the most vicious attacks I have ever heard of!  And they are not just happening to weak Christians but to some battled tested leaders.  Many are locked in the battle of their life.

I asked God to help me see what these attacks were.  Three of them became really clear to me. The Bible calls Satan a serpent and he attacks like one.  Here are the 3 most blatant attacks right now.

1.The serpent’s bite. You feel poisoned and gradually losing control of your body and mind. Fearful images flood your mind. You reel under a cloud of confusion. You are exhausted. The least demand of your day can drain you.  You may find yourself crying and unable to explain your emotions.  You are gripped with paralyzing feelings of dread and sense disaster is just around the corner.

2. The serpent’s squeeze. This attack came out of nowhere and changed your life in an instant. You feel like you are suffocating. You want to scream but your voice is trapped within you. Everything that could go wrong has gone wrong.

The goal of this attack is panic.  The enemy wants you to do something rash.  The devil wants you to abandon your place in God.  He wants to do permanent damage.

 3.The serpent’s claws: This attack tears people apart. For silly reasons, people take offense. Disagreements easily escalate into name calling, abuse of power, and end in incurable breaches.  Marriages are breaking up over trivial matters.  Churches are splitting over stupid issues.  Children are turning on their parents without warning.  Lifelong friends turn into worst enemies bent on each other’s destruction.

Yes, these three shocking attacks are everywhere.  Not a day passes where I do not hear about all of them.

Now please listen to this strategy to neutralize your Satanic attack!

The word react kept coming back to me again and again.  The Holy Spirit kept saying, “Learn how to react to your attack.” Victory and defeat are not decided by what happens to me. I choose the result. It kept coming over and over…react, react, and react. Then it turned into REACT, REACT, and REACT!  Finally, it was R.E.A.C.T.   An acronym for: Remember Enforce Abandon Continue Train. Here is a 5 step strategy to stop these vicious new attacks and launch a withering counterattack!

Remember!  You must remember the amazing victories of your past and how you won those battles.  Psalm 20 “some trust in chariots but we will remember the Lord our God.”

You must remember your God.  Nehemiah 4:14 says “remember the awesomeness of God and fight…”

 You must remember past victories, who you are, and what your future is.  Romans 8:18 “the sufferings of this present time are not worthy to be compared to the glory that will be revealed in us!”   The thing you want to do most now is to get relief from the pain of raging storm.  The devil will leave you alone if you give up your destiny.

Enforce! Things are not what they seem.  Satan is the master of disguise.  Our enemy kills through special effects.  Bending reality is his stock and trade. The goal of his smoke and mirrors is to get you to accept disaster.  He cannot kill you but he can get you to harm yourself through a fatal panic attack.  It is up to you to impose reality on the evil one.

Abandon:  In every attack there is something you must abandon, something that you are holding onto that is actually holding onto you.  You may want something bad to happen to someone else.  You may be clinging to a destructive relationship. Forgive your enemy; cut of the parasites, lighten your load so that you can attack with speed and clarity.  There may be someone that is no longer supposed to be in your life. As T.D. Jakes said, “their part of the story is over, let them go.”

Continue: You were doing something that forced the devil to attack. Press on, it will show him that future attacks are futile.  The secret to your victory is to declare your intention to do more than you did before.  Look at Peter.  He was beaten for the healing of the man at the gate beautiful and ordered not to preach about Jesus.  What was his reaction? To pray for boldness to preach and for more miracles! Acts 4:29,30 Lord behold their threats and grant unto your servants that with all boldness we may preach Your word while You stretch out your hand to heal and let signs and wonders be done in the name of your holy servant Jesus.”

Train:  2 Corinthians 2: 11 “lest Satan should take advantage of us; for we are not ignorant of his devices.”  It’s time to learn from the attack and put in place a strategy for future attacks.  When General Patton said, “no amount of courage will avail against an educated bullet,” he was talking about the urgency of training.  We must become and educated bullet! Ask yourself, what did I learn from the attack?  What pitfalls am going to avoid next time?  What weakness in me does the enemy use to get in and disrupt my life? What will I do now to keep friendships strong, my body healthy, my children safe, my marriage loving and my money secure against future assaults?

 So here is the bottom-line.  You are not crazy.  Your attacks are vicious, intense, and completely unfair.  The essence of your crisis is supernatural. This is why your counterattack must be supernatural! These 5 steps are not human wisdom, or soothing psycho-goobly gook.  You can rest in the power of God and the Word of God for victory if you will REACT!!

P.S. I want to extend a personal invitation to all of our friends in the Northern California area to join us in Santa Rosa!

-Mario

 

The odd joys of government lunacy

By George F. Will

November 26, 2014 | 8:44pm

Modal Trigger

Photo: AFP/Getty Images

Before the tryptophan in the turkey induces somnolence, give thanks for living in such an entertaining country.

This year, for example, we learned that California’s legislature includes 93 persons who seem never to have had sex.

They enacted the “affirmative consent” law directing college administrators to tell students that sexual consent cannot be silence but must be “affirmative, conscious and voluntary agreement” and “ongoing throughout a sexual activity.”

Claremont McKenna College requires “all” — not “both,” which would discriminate against groups — participants in a sexual engagement to understand that withdrawal of consent can be any behavior conveying “that an individual is hesitant, confused, uncertain.”

A severely moral California high school principal prohibited the football booster club from raising money by selling donated Chick-fil-A meals because this company opposed same-sex marriage.

The school superintendent approved the ban because “we value inclusivity and diversity.” Up to a point.

At a Washington state community college, invitations to a “happy hour” celebrating diversity and combating racism said white people were not invited.

At Broward College near Miami, a conservative who was asking students if they agreed that “big government sucks” was told by a campus security guard that she must take her question to the campus “free-speech area.”

She got off lightly: The federal government has distributed to local police, including those of some colleges and school districts, more than 600 surplus MRAP (mine-resistant ambush-protected) armored vehicles designed for Iraq and Afghanistan.

The federal government, which has Tomahawk cruise missiles and Apache and Lakota helicopters, used the code name “Geronimo” in the attack that killed Osama bin Laden but objected to the name of the Washington Redskins.

The Department of Homeland Security, unsleepingly vigilant, raided a Kansas City shop to stop sales of panties emblazoned with unauthorized Royals logos.

A US Forest Service article on safe marshmallow-toasting did not neglect to nag us: It suggested fruit rather than chocolate in s’mores. The droll Orange County Register wondered, “Why not replace the marshmallow with a Brussels sprout?”

The federal government’s food police began cracking down on schools’ fundraising bake sales: Step away from those brownies and put your hands on a fruit cup.

Niagara County, NY, spent $700,000 of its Tobacco Master Settlement Money not on fighting smoking but on golf course equipment.

In Seattle, the Freedom Socialist Party, which favors a $20-an-hour minimum wage, advertised a job opening for a Web developer to be paid $13 an hour.

Joe Biden was off by 160,839 when citing the number of people killed in the 2011 Joplin, Mo., tornado. He said 161,000. But the former chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee expressed optimism about “the nation of Africa.”

Barack Obama explained the Keystone XL pipeline: “It is providing the ability of Canada to pump their oil, send it through our land, down to the Gulf, where it will be sold everywhere else.

“That doesn’t have an impact on US gas prices.” Someone very patient should try to explain to him that prices of petroleum are set by a global market.

Hamlet: “Do you see yonder cloud that’s almost in shape of a camel?”

Polonius: “By the mass, and ’tis like a camel, indeed.”

Hamlet: “Methinks it is like a weasel.”

Polonius: “It is backed like a weasel.”

Hamlet: “Or like a whale?”

Polonius: “Very like a whale.”

Fortunately, Polonius was not among the Colorado Springs second-graders invited to use their imaginations in seeing shapes in clouds. Kody Smith said one looked like a gun. So a behavior report was filed against the 8-year-old.

A South Carolina high school student was arrested and suspended after having written a story about killing a dinosaur with a gun.

“The Great Immensity,” a climate-change musical financed by $700,000 from the National Science Foundation, quickly closed.

Outgoing Defense Secretary Chuck Hagel, perhaps planning for wars with small carbon footprints, fretted that global warming “could threaten many of our training activities.”

Alarmed by reports that global warming will cause a 4-foot rise in sea levels, California Gov. Jerry Brown warned that “Los Angeles’ airport’s going to be underwater.” It is more than 120 feet above sea level.

Because everything confirms the theory of impending catastrophic global warming, in 2005 Hurricane Katrina was called a harbinger of increasingly violent weather caused by . . . well, you know.

Today, Louisianans are thankful that this was the ninth consecutive hurricane season without a major hurricane landfall.

What I am thankful for today

I have as much to be thankful for as any man that ever lived.  But today I am gripped, stunned and collapsing beneath a weight of gratitude.   I am thunderstruck with thankfulness over this one thing: God’s mercy on America.  Seven times in our history when we would have been destroyed, and by all accounts should have been destroyed, God intervened.  Read on.

Seven Miracles that Saved America

 “In the beginning of the contest with G. Britain, when we were sensible of danger, we had daily prayer in this room for the Divine protection — Our prayers, Sir, were heard, and they were graciously answered. … I have lived, Sir, a long time; and the longer I live, the more convincing proofs I see of this truth, that God governs the affairs of men!”

—Benjamin Franklin, 1787

“There is no overwhelming proof, but deep inside we know. And to those who believe, it also seems clear that these events took place with the direction and purpose. Despite our weaknesses, which are many, and our failings, which have existed since our inception, God has been willing to intervene so that this nation might survive.”

– Chris and Ted Stewart, 2009

The Founding Fathers regularly wrote that they considered themselves to be doing God’s work in establishing the United States. This habit was not just confined to the conspicuously devout, such as Patrick Henry and Samuel Adams but also to such secular saints as Jefferson and Franklin, the so-called Deists.  More to the point, they fervently believed — and often asserted — that God in his Providence actively intervened in events to make their efforts successful.

Today, we often dismiss such rhetoric as “just the way people talked back then” and explain how politicians of a certain era used it to rally an overwhelmingly religious populace behind them.

In their terrific new book, Seven Miracles that Saved America: Why they Matter, Why We Should Have Hope, former Air Force officer Chris Stewart and his brother, U.S. District Court Judge Ted Stewart, argue forcefully that the Founders not only meant what they said, but they were right.

The Stewarts look at seven instances in which overwhelming odds had to be beaten for the United States to exist in its current form. While some might argue over their meaning or the significance of some of their “miracles,” the unlikely circumstances that saved the day in several cases will have even a hardcore secularist taking a second look:

• The extraordinary unlikelihood that America was colonized due to the efforts of an ambitious navigator with humble beginnings  – rather than perhaps the greatest fleet ever assembled for just such a purpose– which “discovered” North America about 70 years before Columbus.
• The million-to-one odds that saved the English colonization of America as a fleet crossing the Atlantic arrives in Jamestown minutes before it was to be abandoned.
• The fortuitous fog that saved Washington’s army that was as well-timed — and accurate — as any artillery smokescreen.
• The discovery of the Japanese fleet heading toward Midway in the vastness of the Pacific during World War II by an American reconnaissance airplane extending its search well beyond its operational range.

While this book makes a theological and political point, the emphasis in Seven Miracles that Saved America is on storytelling. The Stewarts employ an unusual device — novelizing part of each chapter, much like the Shaaras or Alan Eckert — while sticking to known facts and actual quotes. This makes for an extremely engaging, if rather quirky, narrative.

The authors open with the fascinating — and not well known account — of how America should have been colonized by the Chinese, rather than by Western Europeans.  Even if the Chinese did not discover the American continents, though it seems likely they should have, with their massive fleet and more advanced technology.

However, the glorious fleet that was sent on a mission of discovery, returned to a China that had changed and become inward-focused and xenophobic. The records of the exploration were burned, and the fabled fleet was left to rot, along with China’s expansionist ambitions.  (For more on this, check out last year’s interesting, if flawed, book, 1421.)

The next chapter, The Miracle at Jamestown, continues the discussion of the religious and cultural nature of those who colonized America and why it was important. While the Stewarts propose the obvious, that those who followed Columbus were culturally very different than the navy of Zheng He, the authors assert it was also very important that a Protestant presence be established in America. They contend the competition among Christian sects led to the religious diversity and tolerance that formed the basis of the United States.

Their story of how close Jamestown came to failure and abandonment is gripping reading.  How it was saved is one of the more convincing cases for the word “miracle” in the book—along with the “mysterious fog” that saved Washington’s army in New York in the Revolutionary War, allowing him to pull off a Dunkirk-like evacuation and live to fight another day.

Many might put the circumstances of extraordinary events down to the American character that results from free men, for the first time in history, being allowed to operate on principles of liberty.  It’s not unusual, for instance, to hear the term “the miracle of the Constitution.”  It’s just unusual — today, at least — for it to be meant as literally as the Stewarts’ assert.

This is particularly true in the chapters in which the authors see the hand of God in the timing of Abraham Lincoln and Ronald Reagan assuming the presidency in times of crisis.

Easily the most controversial chapter — and the most likely to raise the ire of some country club Republicans, much less Democrats — is the chapter saying that Ronald Reagan not only won the Cold War but also saved America.

The Stewarts, however, point out that George H.W. Bush, while a good man, did call the Reagan economic agenda “voodoo economics” during the Republican primaries. Even if Bush 41 truly was aboard, he would not have had the political oomph to push it through a Democrat-controlled Congress.

More importantly, Bush was from the “realist” foreign policy tradition, which would have looked for “stability” and détente over real change. The most persuasive point the authors make here is to remind us that, after all of Reagan’s successes in putting the USSR on the ropes, Bush ordered a “reassessment” of U.S. relations with the Soviets upon taking office.

While the first Bush administration was “reassessing,” communism collapsed, and 41 was too surprised to even celebrate the Berlin Wall coming down, as Reagan had predicted.

Of course, such pivotal battles as Gettysburg and Midway had hundreds of little moments that one could argue “changed the course of history.” In the case of Midway, for example, the authors are persuasive in their argument that nearly every one of those moments miraculously went the Americans’ way.

In the case of Gettysburg, for instance, they could easily have titled the chapter, “The Miracle of Friendly Fire.”  Had Stonewall Jackson, the South’s best tactician and Lee’s greatest commander been with him at Gettysburg … who knows?  Jackson was easily the most important figure in American military history to be mistakenly shot by his own troops.

Those of a determinedly secular mindset may be apt to dismiss this book too quickly.  Even if you reject the premise out of hand and prefer to think of it as “Seven Statistically Wildly Improbable Coincidences that Saved America,”this book is worth your time.

In each case, the Stewarts do a masterful job of setting the stage of not only why the odds were stacked against the outcome we take for granted but also in reminding us of what was at stake.  Each chapter, it could be argued, is as good a one-chapter treatment of a momentous time as you are likely to find anywhere—particularly setting the stage for the Civil War, and demolishing the notion that slavery was a side issue.

Which brings us to the authors’ ultimate point. As bad as things seem now, America has been much closer to the precipice in its history. The Stewarts write that if God did not let the nation fail, or fall to its enemies then, there is no reason to suppose he is done with America yet.

The end may not be near after all.

P.S.  I am gripped by hope but equally sobered by the fact that today is unique in our history.  This is the first time that America has been led by God haters.  That hatred extends to every vestige of Christian influence on America.  Our leaders are, in fact, shaking their fists at God.

We are in desperate need of a new mercy, a mercy unlike any that we have ever known.  Today I am stunned by the fact that we will be shown mercy.  It will not be easy, it will be costly and we can certainly expect that God will even allow crisis that will, in the end, save the Republic.  It begins today with hearts full of gratitude for past mercy and a new passion to repent and pray.  Your prayers are powerful.  We must cease with lukewarm intercession and graduate into prevailing prayer for America.  MM

Absolute proof of God’s healing power today

Howard Kratzer was told that he would not live but a few more months.  That was 22 years ago.  Today he enjoys perfect health and refuses to slow down.  He is indeed living proof of the power of God.

Now it is time for you to receive!  Read this simple message by Mario Murillo

Your healing God’s way.

By Mario Murillo

God wants to heal you more than you want to be healed.

Romans 8:32 asks the wounded soul that wonders about God’s willingness to heal a burning question, “He that spared not his own Son, but delivered him up for us all, how shall he not with him also freely give us all things?”  This question echoes in eternity. Everything that you ever ask God must be asked from the foot of the Cross.  It is here and here alone that you can fully see your Father’s heart toward you.   The bar is set.  God gave His Son for you and He will not hold back anything good from you!

3. We have confused divine faith with human belief.

Human belief is the fool’s gold of miracles. It looks right, it feels right but it bitterly fails where it matters most.  A miracle begins and ends with God. He is in the very first step and every subsequent step.

There are two Greek words for faith that we must understand. Though they are very close in meaning and appearance, they are a universe apart! Pistis means firm conviction or persuasion and Pistos which means dependency on or trust in something or someone.

There is human faith which convinces itself that something is going to happen. This human belief works in the mind not in the heart.   Mental conviction is vital and has its place but not in the atmosphere of the supernatural.  I have seen many try to work up a miracle and think that within themselves they could move God to heal.  If they could remove doubt and repeat verses over and over again, they surmised, God would heal. When you try to use human belief in the arena of the miraculous it becomes a cold mental exercise.  The faith that causes miracles is a grace of the heart that God imparts right before He heals.

I talked with two different people one night before a miracle rally.  The first was a man who told me that God would heal him that night. He told me that he had them send his wheel chair away because he would not need it.  “God had to live up to His word,” he spouted.  This was classic pistis, powerful in daily life but not appropriate for this miracle moment.  My heart sank.

I met another person and her face glowed even in her wheel chair!  She said, “Today I have been with Jesus I can sense Him now, this is my night!”  Here was faith, faith that moves mountains.  Here was the force that created the universe imparted to this little lady’s heart.  I knew that she would walk and sure enough at the appointed time in the service she rose and darted across the front of the arena!

4. Jesus gives us Miracle Faith through the Holy Spirit.

Jesus gave the Holy Spirit everything that He earned on the Cross.  The Holy Spirit carries us in prayer to Christ to both gain true faith and healing.  If only we would grasp the power of humbling ourselves before God!  If only we would rest in the surpassing goodness of God!

Right now you can stop the madness that torments your mind.  Ask the Holy Spirit to carry you to Christ where you will receive Faith.  Do not over analyze, do not fret…rest!   Let Him do His work. Let Him carry you now.  In the face of a doctor’s fearful predictions, vicious pain and weakness… rest!  Do not choose the human faith that grits its teeth and wars in the natural for that which can only be won in the spirit and by the Spirit.

The Holy Spirit knows you better than you know yourself. He wants to take over your case and bear you up on wings that far surpass the wings of Angels.  Soon you will lose all fear and face Jesus Himself.

5. God wants to make it easy! Let us sum up the matter. It is time to do it God’s way. We are healed by Faith and no one described this faith better than Peter who said in Acts 3:16

“And his name through Faith in his name has made this man strong, whom you see and know: yes, the Faith which comes through him has given him this perfect soundness in the presence of you all.”  Here is the clear and undeniable picture of Christ as the giver of Faith, Faith that heals.  This is the Pistos that cannot help but heal and move mountains!  This Faith cannot be present without a miracle.  When you have it a strange, bold and beautiful feeling envelopes you and not only do you not doubt, you have lost the power to doubt! Perhaps this is God’s anesthesia, which He applies just before the miracle.  All I know is that when it is there time stands still and all power in heaven and earth cannot stop you from receiving your complete healing.

Obamacare offers firms $3,000 incentive to hire illegals over native-born workers

Uses Obamacare fee to advance amnesty plan

President Obama tries to quiet one of three hecklers as he addresses the crowd after meeting with community leaders about the executive actions he is taking to fix the immigration system Tuesday, Nov. 25, in Chicago. (Associated Press) more >

By Stephen Dinan – The Washington Times – Updated: 10:33 p.m. on Tuesday, November 25, 2014

Under the president’s new amnesty, businesses will have a $3,000-per-employee incentive to hire illegal immigrants over native-born workers because of a quirk of Obamacare.

President Obama’s temporary amnesty, which lasts three years, declares up to 5 million illegal immigrants to be lawfully in the country and eligible for work permits, but it still deems them ineligible for public benefits such as buying insurance on Obamacare’s health exchanges.

Under the Affordable Care Act, that means businesses who hire them won’t have to pay a penalty for not providing them health coverage — making them $3,000 more attractive than a similar native-born worker, whom the business by law would have to cover.

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The loophole was confirmed by congressional aides and drew condemnation from those who said it put illegal immigrants ahead of Americans in the job market.

“If it is true that the president’s actions give employers a $3,000 incentive to hire those who came here illegally, he has added insult to injury,” said Rep. Lamar Smith, Texas Republican. “The president’s actions would have just moved those who came here illegally to the front of the line, ahead of unemployed and underemployed Americans.”

A Department of Homeland Security official confirmed that the newly legalized immigrants won’t have access to Obamacare, which opens up the loophole for employers looking to avoid the penalty.

 The Health and Human Services Department, which oversees Obamacare, referred questions to the White House, which didn’t reply to a request for comment.

But Mr. Obama, traveling in Chicago Tuesday to defend his immigration plans, said his moves would boost the economy and vowed they wouldn’t hurt American workers’ wages.

“Immigrants are good for the economy. We keep on hearing that they’re bad, but a report by my Council of Economic Advisers put out last week shows how the actions we’re taking will grow our economy for everybody,” he said.

 

This isn’t the first time the Obamacare loophole has popped up on immigration. The overhaul bill that passed the Senate on a bipartisan vote last year created the same situation, granting illegal immigrants a long probationary period where they could legally work but weren’t eligible for public benefits such as Obamacare.

At the time, Arizona Sen. John McCain, one of the bill’s GOP authors, acknowledged the problem and vowed to change it before it became law. Despite passing the Senate, the bill has stalled, with Democratic leaders refusing to send it to the House for further action.

Brian Rogers, a spokesman for Mr. McCain, said Tuesday the solution to the loophole is to get rid of Obamacare’s employer mandate, “which would eliminate the incentive to hire people who are ineligible for Obamacare subsidies.” Mr. Rogers said the Republican majority that takes control of Congress next year should vote on that proposal.

Under Obamacare, businesses with 50 or more employees are supposed to provide insurance coverage to their full-time workers. If they refuse, they are assessed a penalty for every employee who receives subsidies to sign up for coverage on the health exchanges. But because the newly legalized illegal immigrants covered by Mr. Obama’s order can’t sign up for the exchanges or receive subsidies, employers aren’t penalized for hiring them.

Employers take notice

Some employers have already taken notice, and Dennis Michael Lynch, a documentary filmmaker, raised the issue on political strategist Dick Morris’s radio show in Philadelphia over the weekend.

“The dimensions of this problem are enormous. One wonders if any of Obama’s crew spotted it during the run-up to his executive order. It is hard to imagine former President Clinton failing to notice such a conflict between his two major programs,” Mr. Morris said in an op-ed Tuesday in The Hill, a Capitol Hill newspaper.

The Obama administration has delayed the employer mandate penalty for some businesses, but it is slated to take full effect in a year.

The public is split on Mr. Obama’s latest immigration move. A new Quinnipiac University Poll released Tuesday showed slightly more people opposed the president taking unilateral action than supported him.

 Just as striking, however, is that overall support for illegal immigrants in America is at an all-time low in the Quinnipiac survey, with 35 percent now saying they should all be pushed out of the country — up from 26 percent just a year ago.

Mr. Obama created the Obamacare loophole incentive in a 2012 Homeland Security decision.

Until August of that year, those granted “deferred action” — the power Mr. Obama also used in his new temporary amnesty — were eligible for public benefits, including Obamacare. But just two months earlier, Mr. Obama had announced a massive expansion of deferred action for hundreds of thousands of “dreamers,” or young illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children, and in order to prevent them from getting public benefits, Homeland Security officials issued a new policy giving the dreamers a new category of legal status that left them outside of Obamacare.

Immigrant rights groups protested the move at the time, arguing it left the newly legal dreamers without coverage. The National Immigration Law Center said excluding dreamers from Obamacare amounted to discrimination against tax-paying immigrants who are following the rules, and set up a new second-class status for some immigrants.

The NILC didn’t respond to a request for comment on Mr. Obama’s latest move.

 

A Nation that Lives off of Lies

A Nation that Lives off of Lies

By Mario Murillo

No young man should die at 18 years of age.  Michael Brown should be alive and his parents should not be suffering this unspeakable loss.  We all extend our heartfelt condolences to them at this time.

Last night we saw riots.  But here’s the thing, the looting, burning and shooting was based on a lie.  In fact, so much of what America has become is based on lies.

Police brutality is real, wrong and must be stopped. But it will not be eradicated by a lie.

With reason, compassion and grinding honesty the Grand Jury in this case fretted, grieved and separated fact from fiction.  The physical evidence showed that this was not about race but about a 6 foot 4 inch 296 pound man who an eye witness wrote “has his arms out with attitude,” while “The cop just stood there.” The witness added, “Dang if that kid didn’t start running right at the cop like a football player. Head down.” The witness told of hearing “3 bangs,” but “the big kid wouldn’t stop.”

America had a rare glimpse at honesty when St. Louis County Prosecuting Attorney Robert P. McCulloch (a Democrat) with great care, thoroughness and patience explained the verdict, and answered questions.   He told the truth.   It enraged some of the reporters because it did not feed the lie that sells their rags.  Michael Brown will be canonized as a civil rights hero but that too will be a lie.

The disease extends way beyond black leaders and media shills.  We as a nation are now almost wholly dependent on keeping lies alive for a living.

Look at the Benghazi terrorist attack. Hillary Clinton and Barrack Obama lied when they told you that the Benghazi terrorist attack was about a video. Why did they lie?   Obama had to lie to be reelected.  Hillary agreed to lie because of her presidential aspirations.  They are living off of a lie.

Our military says the Fort Hood terrorist attack was “workplace violence.”  Again this is a lie that saves some of the brass their jobs.

Jonathan Gruber was caught telling us that Obamacare was built on a lie and that we were too stupid to know that.  He made 3 million dollars promoting the lie.

The biggest lie we have heard yet is that amnesty for 5 million illegal immigrants is a good thing.  The Democratic Party is lying to stay in power with the Latino vote.

Illegals have also been told a lie.   We have no jobs for you!  The same party that let you in has created economic policies that killed jobs.   Obama has not created jobs for Americans, much less millions of the largely ill-educated and unskilled newcomers.

Republicans are also starting to live off of a lie.  With Obama’s executive order, Mitch McConnell and John Boehner just witnessed the greatest act of tyranny against the constitution ever and they will not confront it.  They said “we do not want to appear negative and we want to focus on jobs.”  Oh yeah?  Whose jobs are you trying to save?   Who will stand up for the Constitution?  A true patriot doesn’t live for the short term gain but for the legacy of liberty!  This was an outrage that went unanswered.

Living off of lies is trickles down to all parts of our culture now.  Kim Kardashian must sell that lie that to be a meaningful woman you must take off your clothes.  Eminem must keep the lie alive that dropping “F” bombs at an event honoring veterans is “artistic expression.”  Ben Affleck must suffocate reason in order to call Islam a religion of peace.  On and on it goes.

The American church is not exempt!  Pastors who build an empire on messages that deliberately leave out the Cross, personal repentance, sacrifice and discipleship and the power gifts of the Holy Spirit are also living off of a lie.  While it brought crowds it weakened them.  With all moral lines blurred by celebrity ministers the church is powerless to stop America’s free fall.

Jesus said, “But everyone who hears these sayings of Mine, and does not do them, will be like a foolish man who built his house on the sand: and the rain descended, the floods came, and the winds blew and beat on that house; and it fell. And great was its fall.” Matthew 7: 26, 27.

Every lie will be tested.  There is a storm coming that will expose it.  When lies collapse it is breathtaking.

Look at yourself.  I do not care what job you have or how famous you are…speaking truth, living truth and loving truth is your only safety.  If it hurts your career so be it!  If you lose friends let them go!

We are watching the last gasps of America’s greatness unless we must find people who want to live off of truth.

It is time to go back to what made us prosperous, great and safe.  We believed that our word was our bond.  We believed that convictions mattered more than connections.  We celebrated integrity instead of rewarding infamy.  We knew filth, vileness and treachery when we saw it.   We believed that honesty was its own reward and that God was the only one we needed to please.

You and I can still find treasure.  Tell the liars that you want the real riches that are reserved for those who shake off the lies.

Blessed is the man Who walks not in the counsel of the ungodly, Nor stands in the path of sinners,    Nor sits in the seat of the scornful; 2 But his delight is in the law of the Lord, And in His law he meditates day and night.  He shall be like a tree Planted by the rivers of water, That brings forth its fruit in its season, Whose leaf also shall not wither; And whatever he does shall prosper.  Psalm 1: 1-3

Here is the verdict and the story behind it

FERGUSON, Mo. — A white police officer will not face charges for fatally shooting an unarmed black teenager in a case that set off violent protests and racial unrest throughout the nation, an attorney close to the case said Monday night.

A St. Louis County grand jury declined to indict officer Darren Wilson, 28, for firing six shots in an August confrontation that killed 18-year-old Michael Brown, said Benjamin Crump, an attorney for the family. The decision had been long awaited and followed rioting that resembled war-zone news footage in this predominantly black suburb of St. Louis.

“The jury was not inclined to indict on any charges,” Crump said after being informed of the decision by authorities. Prosecutors scheduled an news conference to announce the decision.

Missouri Gov. Jay Nixon, a Democrat, called for calm after calling up National Guard troops to stand by in case of unrest. Speaking before the decision was announced, he urged that “regardless of the decision, people on all sides show tolerance, mutual respect and restraint.”

Crowds gathered around the Ferguson police headquarters in anticipation of the announcement at the courthouse in Clayton, Mo., another St. Louis suburb.

The 12-person grand jury had been considering whether probable cause existed to bring charges against Wilson, 28, the white officer who fatally shot Brown, an 18-year-old black man, after their Aug. 9 confrontation. The shooting inflamed tensions in a largely minority community that is patrolled by an overwhelmingly white police force.

Brown’s lifeless and bleeding body lay for more than four hours in a Ferguson residential street after the shooting, prompting dismay and anger as a crowd gathered. Protests turned into rioting and looting the following night, and police responded with armored vehicles and tear gas, triggering a nationwide debate over police tactics.

The 12-person grand jury, including nine whites and three African Americans, had been meeting in secret for months, hearing evidence and weighing whether Wilson’s should face charges that could have ranged from involuntary manslaughter to murder.

Brown’s family joined thousands of protesters to demand Wilson’s arrest. As anger at official inaction grew following Brown’s death, protesters clashed with police, who began patrolling the streets with military-grade weapons and armored vehicles.

Wilson has been on paid leave and largely invisible since the shooting.

While the grand jury met in secret to hear evidence in the case, two starkly different versions of the events leading to the shooting emerged in media accounts.

Police have said a scuffle broke out after Wilson asked Brown and a friend to move out of the street. Wilson told investigators he shot Brown only after the teenager reached for the officer’s gun. Some witnesses

said Brown had run away from Wilson, then turned and raised his hands in the air in a gesture of surrender before he was shot in the head and chest.

Obama sets off on scorched-earth rampage

By Joseph Curl – – Wednesday, November 19, 2014

ANALYSIS/OPINION:

“Some men just want to watch the world burn.” — Alfred talking about the Joker in “The Dark Knight”

President Obama, fresh off a shellacking in the 2014 midterm elections — in which he made himself a centerpiece, much to the chagrin of embattled Democrats — is about to embark on a scorched-earth rampage that will change the face of America forever.

Although the Harvard graduate and former professor often speaks of “teachable moments,” the president saw nothing worth learning in the outcome of the Nov. 4 elections, when voters gave Republicans their largest majority in the House since World War II and drummed the Democrats out of control of the Senate.

More, he doesn’t care that poll after poll shows a growing disillusionment with his signature policy as president, Obamacare, which now holds a record low approval rating of 37 percent. And his plan to use executive authority to grant amnesty to millions of illegal aliens rates just about the same — just 38 percent of Americans approve.

But Mr. Obama couldn’t care less. He doesn’t care that he has said at least 22 times in the past that he couldn’t simply create his own immigration law or ignore the statues already on the books. “Congress’s job is to pass legislation. The president can veto it or he can sign it. … I believe in the Constitution and I will obey the Constitution of the United States,” he said in 2008.

 And in 2010, he was more blunt: “I am president, I am not king. I can’t do these things just by myself.” That’s right, he can’t. The Founders, fearful of the power of a monarch, designed the American government so that the president is the least powerful of the triumvirate, giving far more power to the legislative branch and the judiciary.

All that talk was from before the drubbing the president took in the midterms. Now, Mr. Obama, with just two years left in office, has jettisoned his once-lofty rhetoric about the limits of presidential power.

After his party’s historic losses, he refused to even acknowledge the thrashing. Instead, he said the real lesson from that day was that Americans want everyone in Washington to “work together.”

Yet behind the scenes, the president was busy directing his team of lawyers to find real or perceived loopholes in the law — even the Constitution — in order to wave his royal scepter and instantaneously turn as many as 12 million illegal aliens into America citizens. Already he had quietly ordered the federal government to stop deporting aliens and unilaterally allowed some 60,000 “unaccompanied minors” to enter the U.S.

So he never had any intention of “working together” with Republicans, who in six weeks will control both chambers of Congress. Instead, he set off to circumvent Congress by granting amnesty to millions. Throughout, he knew that he would be, as GOP leaders said, “poisoning the well” and “waving a red flag in front of a bull.”

On Wednesday afternoon, the president announced — on Facebook — that he will be delivering a speech Thursday night detailing his intent to change U.S. law by executive fiat. The timing is deliberately designed to throw gasoline on an already blazing fire.

With just weeks to go before the end of the 113th Congress, and with funding for Ebola, a continuing resolution to keep the government open that expires Dec. 11, and a slew of others set to come up, the president has made unilateral action on immigration his top priority.

Despite his vow to work with Republicans, he will shove his executive order down their throats, intent on bringing conflict with the soon-to-be ruling party.

“That’s not the intent,” Obama spokesman Josh Earnest said Wednesday before blaming congressional Republicans for not passing a budget. “This is not an effort to provoke a standoff here in fact, the fact that Republicans have refused to act on immigration reform is why we are where we are anyway.”

He said this with a straight face. But like the Joker, the president is intent on bringing chaos to America. In that “Dark Knight” scene, Alfred explains the Joker’s true goal: “Because some men aren’t looking for anything logical, like money. They can’t be bought, bullied, reasoned, or negotiated with. Some men just want to watch the world burn.”

Mr. Obama will say otherwise in his address Thursday night, but this is who he really is. And like the Joker, he is to be truly feared.

 

 

 

Teacher at Catholic University to student: If you don’t support gay marriage, drop my class

Teacher to student: If you don’t support gay marriage, drop my class

By Todd Starnes

Published November 22, 2014

Students who oppose gay marriage are homophobic, according to an audio recording of a Marquette University instructor who went on to say that gay right issues cannot be discussed in class because it might offend homosexuals.

I reached out to the 20-year-old student at the center of this outrageous episode and the story he tells should serve as a warning to anyone who thinks religious schools are safe havens for open discourse.

The story was first reported on a blog run by a Marquette University professor and was picked up by the good folks over at The College Fix.

The young man, who asked not to be identified, explained what happened when his ethics instructor, Cheryl Abbate, led a conversation in “Theory of Ethics” class about applying philosophical theories to modern political controversies. There were a list of issues on the board – gay rights, gun rights, and the death penalty.

“We had a discussion on all of them – except gay rights,” the student told me. “She erased that line from the board and said, ‘We all agree on this.’”

Well, as it so happened – the student did not agree with instructor Abbate.

So after class he approached the instructor and told her he thought they should have discussed the issue of gay rights. He also recorded their conversation — without her permission.

“Are you saying if I don’t agree with gays not being allowed to get married that I’m homophobic?” the student asked.

“I’m saying it would come off as a homophobic comment in this class,” the teacher replied.

“Regardless of why I’m against gay marriage, it’s still wrong for the teacher of a class to completely discredit one person’s opinion when they may have different opinions,” the student said.

Abbate  disagreed.

“There are some opinions that are not appropriate – that are harmful – such as racist opinions, sexist opinions,” she said. “And quite honestly, do you know if anyone in the class is homosexual?”

The student said he did not know the answer to her question.

“Do you not think that would be offensive to them if you were to raise your hand and challenge this,” she asked.

At that point, the student told the instructor he had a right to challenge that – “that’s my right as an American citizen.”

“Actually,” the teacher replied, “You don’t have a right in this class especially [in an ethics class]  to make homophobic comments.”

The student retorted that the comments were not homophobic.

“This is about restricting rights and liberties of individuals,” he said. “Because they’re homosexual, I can’t have my opinions?”

And that’s when the teacher dropped the bombshell.

“You can have whatever opinions you want but I will tell you right now – in this class homophobic comments, racist comments, sexist comments will not be tolerated,” she said. ‘If you don’t like it, you are more than free to drop this class.”

So the student dropped the class.

“I understand that other people have very different views than I do and that’s understandable,” the student told me. “But when a student is not allowed to have an open discussion in a discussion-type class on a specific issue because it’s regarded as homophobic – that really irks me.”

Marquette Professor John McAdams, who runs the Marquette Warrior blog, accused Abbate of using a tactic “typical among liberals now.”

“Opinions with which they disagree are not merely wrong, and are not to be argued against on their merits, but are deemed ‘offensive’ and need to be shut up,” he wrote.

The student told me he filed a complaint – but he said university officials dismissed his concerns.

McAdams wrote that he was not surprised because the university officials held the same intolerant views as the instructor.

“Like the rest of academia, Marquette is less and less a real university,” he wrote. “And when gay marriage cannot be discussed, certainly not a Catholic university.”

A university spokesman told me they were viewing “both a concern raised by a student and a concern raised by a faculty member.”

“We are taking appropriate steps to make sure that everyone involved is heard and treated fairly,” the spokesman told me. “In compliance with state and federal privacy laws, we will not publicly share the results of the reviews.”

Abbate told the website Inside Higher Ed that the “class discussion was not meant to be an opportunity for students to express their personal beliefs about political issues.”

She said she hoped Marquette would “use this event as an opportunity to create and actively enforce a policy on cyberbullying and harassment.”

“It is astounding to me that the university has not created some sort of policy that would prohibit this behavior which undoubtedly leads to a toxic environment for both students and faculty,” she told Inside Higher Ed.

The only thing toxic at Marquette are teachers who oppose Catholic doctrine and try to silence dissenting opinions.

I would be remiss if I did not address the student’s behavior. A full review of the audio tape reveals the student was in fact disrespectful to the instructor. And when the instructor asked if she was being recorded, the student did not tell the truth.

I asked the young man about his behavior and he admitted to me that it was wrong. He told me that he “regretted” his actions.

Nevertheless, the student’s behavior does not excuse Marquette University’s successful attempt to silence the free exchange of ideas.

So let’s review — an instructor at a Catholic university taught material that is contrary to the teachings of the Catholic Church and when a Catholic student brought this information to the attention of Catholic administrators – the student was the one who got rebuked.

I’m not a Catholic – but it seems to me Marquette University is one of those CINO schools – Catholic in Name Only.

Todd Starnes is host of Fox News & Commentary, heard on hundreds of radio stations. Sign up for his American Dispatch newsletter, be sure to join hisFacebook page, and follow him on Twitter. His latest book is “God Less America.”