In This Issue• The Daily Brief
• The Middle East in Focus
• Lord Monckton's Video
• The Post-Partisan Power Play
• A $639 Million Mistake
• Congress Passes Hate Crimes Law
• The Daily Jot
• RECOMMENDED READING
Greetings!
Capitol Hill Prayer Partners
P.O. Box 5152
Herndon, VA 20172-1970
chpp@patriot.net
The Daily Brief - Friday, October 23, 2009
"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you." (2 Chronicles 20:12)
The Daily Brief
1. Democrats Ease Up on Public Option - Wall Street Journal
House leaders are shifting their focus from a strong public health insurance option to alternatives preferred by moderate Democratic lawmakers.
- Praise You that some lawmakers seem to be listening to the voice of the people. May there be an outcry among the citizenry that would cause Congress to be accountable for their decisions.
- "As a result, we are no longer to be children, tossed here and there by waves and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the trickery of men, by craftiness in deceitful scheming;" (Ephesians 4:14)
2. White House: Policy 'czars' won't testify - Washington Times
The White House has told Congress it will reject calls for many of President Obama's policy czars to testify before Congress - a decision senators said goes against the president's promises of transparency and openness and treads on Congress' constitutional mandate to investigate the administration's actions. Sen. Susan Collins, Maine Republican, said White House counsel Greg Craig told her in a meeting Wednesday that they will not make available any of the czars who work in the White House and don't have to go through Senate confirmation.
- May Congress be aggressive in their oversight of the administration and of officials who have not been subjected to questioning. We know that You will bring all evil deeds into the light and we pray for the security and peace of any person who seeks to ask hard questions of these officials.
- "Therefore do not fear them, for there is nothing concealed that will not be revealed, or hidden that will not be known." (Matthew 10:26)
3. Poll: US Belief in Global Warming Is Cooling - AP
Americans seem to be cooling toward global warming. Just 57 percent think there is solid evidence the world is getting warmer, down 20 points in just three years, a new poll says. And the share of people who believe pollution caused by humans is causing temperatures to rise has also taken a dip, even as the U.S. and world forums gear up for possible action against climate change. In a poll of 1,500 adults by the Pew Research Center for the People & the Press, released Thursday, the number of people saying there is strong scientific evidence that the Earth has gotten warmer over the past few decades is down from 71 percent in April of last year and from 77 percent when Pew started asking the question in 2006. The number of people who see the situation as a serious problem also has declined. Only about a third, or 36 percent of the respondents, feel that human activities - such as pollution from power plants, factories and automobiles - are behind a temperature increase. That's down from 47 percent from 2006 through last year's poll.
- We know that You are the creator and controller of all that is created. We praise You that You have given us everything around us, from the air we breathe to our bodies themselves. You are a great and powerful God who holds the universe in Your hands and have blessed us with Your provisions.
- "While the earth remains, Seedtime and harvest, And cold and heat, And summer and winter, And day and night Shall not cease." (Genesis 8:22)
4. Administration Loses Bid to Exclude Fox News From Pay Czar Interview - Fox News
The Obama administration on Thursday failed in its attempt to exclude Fox News from participating in an interview of an administration official, as Republicans on Capitol Hill stepped up their criticism of the hardball tactics employed by the White House. The Treasury Department on Thursday tried to make "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available for interviews to every member of the network pool except Fox News. The pool is the five-network rotation that for decades has shared the costs and duties of daily coverage of the presidency and other Washington institutions. But the Washington bureau chiefs of the five TV networks consulted and decided that none of their reporters would interview Feinberg unless Fox News was included. The pool informed Treasury that Fox News, as a member of the network pool, could not be excluded from such interviews under the rules of the pool.
- We thank You that all the media organizations came together to support the independent voice of the press. We pray this administration will be thoughtful in their relations with the media and supportive of First Amendment rights.
- "For they do not speak peace, But they devise deceitful words against those who are quiet in the land." (Psalm 35:12)
5. Judge Orders Christian Convert Runaway to Return to Ohio - Fox News
An Orlando judge has ordered the Florida Department of Children and Families to transfer custody of Ohio teen runaway Fathima Rifqa Bary to Ohio authorities.
- As this girl is sent back to Ohio, we call to You for her protection and for the protection of all who are seeking to help her.
- "Those who seek my life lay snares for me; And those who seek to injure me have threatened destruction, And they devise treachery all day long." (Psalm 38:12)
6. Burmese Official: US Official to Visit Burma - VOA
A Burmese official says a U.S. official will visit Burma next week, but has given no other details of the trip. The acknowledgement comes a day after a U.S. official said Washington would soon send a mission to Burma as part of the Obama administration's new approach of pragmatic engagement with the country. Assistant Secretary of State Kurt Campbell told U.S. lawmakers the mission will speak to Burmese military officials, representatives of ethnic nationalities, and the democratic opposition, including detained leader Aung San Suu Kyi. Campbell also said the mission would address concerns the United States has about ties between Burma and North Korea.
- We pray for wisdom for the administration to be wise in its relations and agreements with nations who are abusing their people and allying themselves with other evil governments.
- "They speak falsehood to one another; With flattering lips and with a double heart they speak."(Psalm 12:2)
7. Hugo Chavez: No Singing in the Shower Amid Water Concerns - Fox News
Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez told citizens Wednesday to limit their showers to three minutes because the country is having problems supplying water and electricity. "Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour," he said during a televised cabinet meeting. "No kids, three minutes is more than enough. I've counted, three minutes, and I don't stink." He called on state-run organizations to immediately cut energy consumption by 20 percent and mentioned using airplanes to force rain from clouds. The leader also said the government would publish a decree forbidding imports of low-efficiency electrical appliances.
- Lord, when we are faced by dictators who seek to control every aspect of the lives of their people, may we be prayerful for the citizens who are being controlled. May we also be alert to any moves in our own nation that resemble this unnecessary intrusion in everyday life.
- "For My people have committed two evils: They have forsaken Me, The fountain of living waters, To hew for themselves cisterns, Broken cisterns That can hold no water." (Jeremiah 2:13)
The Middle East in Focus
This week, for all the headlines cited below, please join us in proclaiming THIS DECREE:
"For I will gather all the nations to battle against Jerusalem." (Zech. 14:2a)
1. Mitchell: Effort to renew Mideast negotiations not a failure - Jerusalem Post
President Obama's Mideast envoy George Mitchell said Thursday it's too soon to brand his efforts to resume peace talks between Israeli and Palestinian leaders a failure.
2. Obama wants answers by mid October - Ynet News
US President Barack Obama has given Israel and the Palestinians only three weeks to provide answers which would enable the relaunch of peace negotiations. Israeli officials estimated that the discussion on the settlement construction freeze issue would eventually be resumed.
3. IDF planes strike Gaza in response to Qassam attack - Ha'aretz
Israel Air Force warplanes attacked an arms manufacturing facility and two smuggling tunnels in the Gaza Strip late Wednesday, in retaliation for Palestinian rocket fire into Israel.
4. Assad: Israel must choose between occupation, peace - Ynet News
"Israel must choose between occupation and peace," Syrian President Bashar Assad said Thursday, adding that the two concepts "do not go hand in hand".
5. Report: Israel has lost Turkey as a strategic ally - World Tribune
Turkey was said to have suspended up to $1 billion in proposed Israeli defense projects after canceling a major air exercise with Israel.
Lord Monckton's Video
The Copenhagen Treaty
Obama to Cede U.S. Sovereignty in Copenhagen in December
Please consider this seriously in prayer and be open and seeking God on how to respond.
Below is a link to the YouTube video of the speech by Lord Christopher Monckton followed by a transcript of the speech.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PMe5dOgbu40&feature=player_embedded
"At Copenhagen, this December, weeks away, a treaty will be signed - Your president will sign it. Most of the third-world countries will sign it because they think they're going to get money out of it. Most of the left- wing regimes around the world, like the European Union, will rubber-stamp it. Virtually nobody won't sign it.
"I have read that treaty and what it says is this: 'That a world government is going to be created. The word, government, actually appears as the first of three purposes of the new entity.
"The second purpose is the transfer of wealth from the countries of the West to third-world countries in satisfaction of what is called, coyly, a 'climate debt,' because we've been burning CO2 and they haven't and we've been screwing up the climate. We haven't been screwing up the climate, but that's the line.
"And the third purpose of this new entity, this government, is enforcement.
"How many of you think that the word election or democracy or vote or ballot occurs anywhere in the 200 pages of that treaty? Quite right. It doesn't appear once.
"So, at last, the communists who piled out of the Berlin Wall and into the environmental movement and took over Greenpeace so that my friends who founded it left within a year because they'd captured it. Now the apotheosis is at hand.
"They are about to impose a communist world government on the world. You have a president who has very strong sympathies with that point of view. He's going to sign. He'll sign anything. He's a Nobel Peace Laureate. Of course, he'll sign it.
"And the trouble is this: If that treaty is signed, your Constitution says that it takes precedence over your Constitution. And you can't resile from that treaty unless you get the agreement from all the other states, parties. And because you'll be the biggest paying country, they're not going to let you out."
"So thank you America. You were the beacon of freedom to the world. It is a privilege merely to stand on this soil of freedom while it is still free. But, in the next few weeks, unless you stop it, your president will sign your freedom, your democracy and your prosperity away forever and neither you nor any subsequent government you may elect will have any power whatsoever to take it back again.
"That is how serious it is. I have read the treaty. I have seen the stuff about government and climate debt and enforcement. They are going to do this to you whether you like it or no.
"But I think it is here, here in your great nation which I so love and I so admire. It is here that, perhaps - at this 11th hour, at the 59th minute and 59th second - you will rise up and you will stop your president from signing that dreadful treaty. That purposeless treaty for there is no trouble with the climate - and even if there were, economically speaking, there's nothing we can do about it."
"So I end by saying to you the words that Winston Churchill addressed to your president in the darkest hour before the dawn of freedom in the Second World War. He quoted from your great poet, Longfellow: 'Sail on, oh Ship of State. Sail on, oh Union, strong and great. Humanity, with all it's fears, with all the hopes of future years, is hanging, breathless, on thy fate. Thank you."
- Cry out to Almighty God for MERCY, asking Him to deliver us from the global agenda of man -- his global government -- into the government of the Kingdom. PRAY!
"We do not know what to do, but our eyes are upon you." (2 Chronicles 20:12)
The Post-Partisan Power Play
Who would have thought that the candidate who promised to transcend partisanship, who promised to unite the nation under the banner of "hope and change" and who rode into Washington with a herd of new donkeys would bear such a striking resemblance to Richard Nixon? We did. We warned readers last year that very little good comes out of the Chicago political machine or the mouth of Reverend Jeremiah Wright. In recent weeks, the White House has decided to fire back against its critics and opponents. To a degree, that's normal and expected. Politics is a contact sport, after all. But this White House and its allies - with some personnel taking inspiration from communist dictators - have gone way beyond what is normal or expected.
Calling critics "un-American," threatening businesses with regulatory retribution and punitive taxation, literally locking committee doors and locking out the press is way beyond normal. It is, as House Republican Leader John Boehner said, "flat-out despicable." I'm pleased to report that in the past few days, there have been some positive developments.
Earlier this week, Tennessee's soft-spoken senator, Lamar Alexander, went to the Senate floor and blasted the White House for compiling, as Nixon did, an "enemies list."
This week, the White House made "pay czar" Kenneth Feinberg available to the Washington press pool for interviews regarding his plan for salary caps at bailed out banks and companies. But Fox News was locked out. The other network news chiefs were stunned. To their credit, they told the White House to let Fox in or none of them would show up. The White House backed down.
Freedom of the press and freedom of speech are essential to the survival of liberty. If every media outlet spouts the same "party line," how is that any different than what the Soviets did with Pravda? But that seems to be exactly what this White House wants - to control the media as White House Communications Director Anita Dunn said. We're getting dangerously close to going down the slippery-slope toward a state-run media, the subject of my weekly Human Events column, which you can read here. (Gary Bauer; End-of-Day; Oct. 23, 2009)
A $639 Million Mistake
Can "O's" Administration Do Anything Right?
Compared to other proposals the administration has thrown at the American people this past year, the home buyer tax credit was not bad. Unfortunately, the government could not even effectively run this program.
New home buyers would receive up to $8,000 in tax credits under the plan. The money was supposed to be available for first-time buyers who bought a primary residence after April 9, 2008, and only individuals making less than $75,000 or couples making less than $150,000 would be eligible. However, during a Ways and Means oversight subcommittee hearing yesterday, House members were informed that thousands of fraudulent claims were made.
The Treasury Department said that at least 19,000 filers who had not bought homes claimed $139 million in tax credits and were in turn reimbursed. An additional 74,000 tax-credit claims, totaling $500 million, could become invalid because of previous home ownership. Even more surprising, 500 people under the age of 18, including a 4-year-old child, had their names on applications for the credit, which has no minimum-age requirement according to federal officials. Evidently some adults used a child's name as the purchaser of the home because they were ineligible to receive the credit due to their incomes.
Many of these fraudulent claims occurred before the IRS had updated their computer programs. If they had done this correctly, the program would have automatically checked the claims to ensure that they were valid based on the information submitted.
When added up, the total potential waste of your tax money from fraudulent home-credits could be upwards of $639 million. This is the same government that wants to take over our entire healthcare system! We have seen the government's ineptitude in recent months with cash-for-clunkers, a behind schedule H1N1 flu vaccination and now this. When will liberals in Washington learn that government isn't the solution to every problem? As my former boss Ronald Reagan correctly said, "Government is the problem." (Gary Bauer; End-of-Day, Oct. 23, 2009)
Congress Passes Hate Crimes Law
Senate Crime Scene
The Human Rights Campaign will have to come up with a new fundraising pitch, since they can no longer claim that this Congress has done nothing to advance their agenda. Yesterday, the U.S. Senate gave away the store by passing "hate crimes" (68-29) as part of the Defense Authorization bill, effectively opening the floodgates to sweeping social change. From the floor, Senators like John McCain (R-Ariz.), Saxby Chambliss (R-Ga.) and Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) showed their disgust that our troops were being used as political pawns by the leadership to pass a proposal that couldn't stand on its own.
Democrats like Sen. Michael Bennet (Colo.) fired back, arguing that "we've seen a marked increase in hate crimes." But the data doesn't support his claim. The FBI's statistics on hate crimes actually show a decrease in the number of hate crimes being reported. In the most recent year for which statistics are available, 2007, the FBI found that 7,624 hate crime incidents were reported. Racially motivated incidents were 50.8% of the total, followed by religiously motivated incidents at 18.4%, then ones motivated by "sexual orientation" bias at 16.6%.
In 2007, there were 90,427 forcible rapes and 16,929 murders reported. Less than one-tenth of one percent of the national crime total for those offenses consisted of "hate crimes." This does not constitute a serious national problem or warrant federal interference. Bear in mind that the Hate Crimes Reporting Act of 1990 required that the FBI interpret hate crimes more broadly to include acts of intimidation. Of the hate crime offenses reported, 28.5% of them were intimidation related, and when it came to crimes against persons, 47.4% of them were intimidation related. To use these statistics and claim that there's a hate crimes crisis is misleading. (Family Research Council)
Note: Please specifically pray over one impact of this new law, "But [the law] does broaden the narrow range of actions - such as attending school or voting - that can trigger federal involvement and allows the federal government to step in if the Justice Department certifies that a state is unwilling or unable to follow through on an alleged hate crime." (Source: AP)
The Daily Jot
White House Attacks Business, Citizens Who Oppose Its Unconstitutional Policies
The minority website for the House Committee on Ways and Means reports that the White House projection of jobs to be created by the near-trillion dollar economic stimulus legislation was supposed to be 3.5 million. In actuality, after pushing the federal deficit to $1.4 trillion and financially strapping Americans for generations to come, the nation has lost 2.7 million jobs, a total swing of a negative 6.2 million jobs. Now those job losses fall on unemployment roles, further indenturing Americans to the government and to the servicing of its debt. But wait, the unconstitutional acts of this White House and its purposeful destruction of America's free enterprise system are going even deeper.
Now the White House plans to cut the pay of executives in companies the government currently owns. The White House is planning to cut by 90 % the salaries of the highest paid executives at Bank of America, AIG, Citigroup, General Motors, GMAC, Chrysler and Chrysler Financial. But wait, there's more. The Federal Reserve, which has the full support of the White House, has filed notice in the New York US Court of Appeals that it will appeal a judges decision that the bank has to make public the companies that benefited from its emergency loans. The Fed says that public disclosure would cause a "loss of public confidence in the institution."
The White House also tried to prevent Humana, an insurance company that caters to senior citizens, from sending letters to their customers warning that the White House health reform would result in a loss of benefits. At the same time, Iowa Republican Senator Charles Grassley has warned the White House that its healthcare website is campaigning for socialized medicine. The White House website uses taxpayer money to garner citizen support for the White House budget while requiring a name, address, and phone number. Grassley says this attempt to propagandize healthcare at taxpayers' expense "must be investigated." The White House has also attacked Fox News, claiming that it is not really a news network.
The man who occupies the Oval Office himself attacked the US Chamber of Commerce for its opposition to the Administration's new Consumer Financial Protection Agency, a bureaucracy small businesses believe will have unchecked and unprecedented power over the conduct of small business. Now Tennessee Republican Senator Lamar Alexander is warning the White House against compiling an enemies list. Is it not obvious that this administration seeks to destroy free enterprise and replace it with an overreaching unconstitutional socialist government? Jesus said in Matthew 24:4, "Take heed that no man deceive you." These people are conducting an ungodly, socialist war against your rights.
Bill Wilson
Word of Life Ministry
www.dailyjot.com
RECOMMENDED READING
"On Watch In Washington" by Intercessors for America
Every week on Wednesday, Intercessors for America (IFA) publishes "On Watch in Washington" with indepth analyses of news we need to know. Their weekly bulletin helps all of us to "pray in the Spirit and with understanding," according to I Corinthians 14:15.
We commend this past week's edition of IFA's alert to you, in particular, by sharing the following comments by ANOTHER prayer leader: Bill Lewis, President, Sons of Issachar. To quote Bill:
I don't often forward prayer newsletters in their entirety; however, I'm making an exception. Please read the following update from Intercessors for America. Pay particular attention to the articles about the climate change treaty Pres. Obama is about to sign and two articles about what's really included in the current health care proposals. This is frightening. We are in deep trouble as a nation, and the rate of our sprint toward the cliff is swiftly accelerating. Please pray and contact your senators about the treaty and your senators/congressman about the healthcare bill. You can reach them through the Capitol Switchboard (202) 224-3121.
Bill: We agree.
IFA's alert can be viewed by going here.
http://archive.constantcontact.com/fs004/1101115513079/archive/1102778004030.html
A final note to our readers; You can also sign up to receive these email alerts each week by visiting IFA's website at: http://www.ifapray.org
Thank you, IFA!!!
