Conservative Senator Lashes Out: ‘This Place is a Joke’

PJ Tatler

Bridget Johnson

Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) lashed out at the upper chamber today as a symbol of government’s runaway power in Americans’ lives.

“It’s an alternate universe. No, this — this place is a joke. I mean, bottom line, this is an absurd process,” Johnson said on CNBC. “It certainly proves the genius of our founding fathers that government should be limited. I mean, the fact that we have this place having such an enormous effect on our economy, on people’s livelihood, is wrong. It’s simply wrong.”

“So, I’m the manufacturer. I’m always looking for the cause of problems. The cause of the problem is that government is far too large. It’s far too intrusive into our lives. It exerts way too much control over our economy, but that’s where we’re at. And, you know, I have no — I don’t know too many people that really think government’s effective or efficient. Why would they think the governing body of that government would be particularly effective or efficient as well?” he continued. “This is a mere symptom of the overall problem in a system of government that has become too large and too intrusive in our lives.”

Johnson also slammed the reign of Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-Nev.) as “a one-man dictatorship.”

“And under his leadership, the Senate has been a charade while I’ve been here for two years. I serve on the Budget Committee. You know how many times we’ve voted on a budget in the Budget Committee? Zero. We haven’t even marked one up,” he said.

The senator also decried the shady negotiations. “We’re here at the end of the year, a couple of elected officials with their unelected staffs, are doing these deals behind closed doors,” he said. “I don’t know what’s happening behind there. Am I all of a sudden going to get a product sometime in the middle of the day and say, ‘you’ve got to vote on it right away’? I mean, that is an absurd process.”

“We’ve turned the Senate from a legislating body into a deal-making body, and that’s just wrong.”

Breitbart, roundup of other sources

Ken Klukowski

“We must obey God rather than men!”—Acts 5:29

Now that Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor has denied Hobby Lobby’s application for an emergency injunction protecting them from Obamacare’s HHS Mandate on abortion and birth control, Hobby Lobby has decided to defy the federal government to remain true to their religious beliefs, at enormous risk and financial cost.

Hobby Lobby is wholly owned and controlled by the Green family, who are evangelical Christians. The Greens are committed to running their business in accordance with their Christian faith, believing that God wants them to conduct their professional business in accordance with the family’s understanding of the Bible. Hobby Lobby’s mission statement includes, “Honoring the Lord in all we do by operating the company … consistent with Biblical principles.”

The HHS Mandate goes into effect for Hobby Lobby on Jan. 1, 2013. The Greens correctly understand that some of the drugs the HHS Mandate requires them to cover at no cost in their healthcare plans cause abortions.

Today Hobby Lobby announced that they will not comply with this mandate to become complicit in abortion, which the Greens believe ends an innocent human life. Given Hobby Lobby’s size (it has 572 stores employing more than 13,000 people), by violating the HHS Mandate, it will be subject to over $1.3 million in fines per day. That means over $40 million in fines in January alone. If their case takes another ten months to get before the Supreme Court—which would be the earliest it could get there under the normal order of business—the company would incur almost a half-billion dollars in fines. And then of course the Supreme Court would have to write an opinion in what would likely be a split decision with dissenters, which could easily take four or six months and include hundreds of millions of dollars in additional penalties.

This is civil disobedience, consistent with America’s highest traditions when moral issues are at stake. The Greens are a law-abiding family. They have no desire to defy their own government. But as the Founders launched the American Revolution because they believed the British government was violating their rights, the Greens believe that President Barack Obama and Secretary Kathleen Sebelius are commanding the Greens to sin against God, and that no government has the lawful authority to do so.

The Christian tradition of defying government commands to do something wrong goes back to the very birth of Christianity. When the apostles were ordered not to share the gospel of Jesus Christ with anyone, the Book of Acts records: “Peter and the other apostles replied: ‘We must obey God rather than men! The God of our fathers raised Jesus from the dead—whom you had killed by hanging him on a tree.’”

Eleven of the twelve apostles—including Peter—would lose their lives for the sake of spreading the gospel of Jesus Christ; only the apostle John died of old age. They were determined to obey God’s will at all costs.

This issue of civil disobedience is never to be undertaken lightly. The Bible teaches Christians to submit to all legitimate governmental authority (e.g., Romans 13:1), and so a person can only disobey the government when there is no other way to obey God.

But here in America, the Constitution is the Supreme Law of the Land, and in its First Amendment it protects against a government establishment of an official religion and separately protects the free exercise of religion. On top of that, Congress passed the Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993 (RFRA) to specifically add an additional layer of protection against government actions that violate a person’s religious beliefs.

The HHS Mandate is a gross violation of the religious beliefs of the Green family. The issue before the courts here is whether the Greens religious-liberty rights include running their secular, for-profit business consistent with their religious beliefs. In other words, is religious liberty just what you do in church on a Sunday morning, or does it include what you do during the week at your job?

The Greens are now putting their fortunes on the line to do what they believe is right. The courts should side with them, affirming a broad scope of religious liberty under the Constitution and RFRA. And the Supreme Court should resolve this matter with dispatch in their favor.

Millions of Christians across the country feel exactly the same way as the Greens. The Obama administration has issued a statist command that is a declaration of war on people of faith who object to abortion, and civil disobedience could break out all over the country unless the courts set this matter right—and quickly.

CNS 

Michael W. Chapman 

America is largely a Christian nation with 77 percent of adults identifying themselves as Christian, according to a Gallup survey, while only 0.6 percent identified as Muslim. The survey also found that Mormons were the most religious in practicing their faith. … 

When asked, “Is religion important in your daily life?” Mormons ranked highest with 87 percent saying “yes.” Protestants followed with 79 percent saying “yes,” and then Muslims, 78 percent “yes,” and Catholics, 70 percent “yes.” Only 41 percent of Jews said that religion was important in their daily life. …

Read this story at cnsnews.com ...

Equal Protection for Posterity

Sarah Cleveland:

Thinking about the people I met this morning while on the sidewalk. It was so bitterly cold... Dozens of parents and grandparents went inside today. It was so busy.. There were several of us counseling and praying outside of the mill today and as always, we spoke to as many people as we could going in, reaching out equally to the people standing on the steps having a cigarette, the workers, and the people walking out of the building.

I spoke with Renee, a mother of two. A child, age 5 at home, and another, age 4 months, in utero. She was dropped off earlier in the morning, went in the building, and eventually came out, slowly looking around. I approached her and asked her if she was okay. She told me she had scheduled an abortion for today, but she wasn’t feeling well, that she needed to come out for air.

She didn't understand the development of her baby at 4 months nor did she understand how an abortion was performed at this stage. I told her my experience with this and gave her the information she needed. As we talked about it, she looked to the ground. She said her boyfriend had dropped her off and is insisting she aborts the baby. We talked a while longer until she said she was going to walk to OSU Medical Center to make sure things were okay.

It was so cold and windy and a very long walk to the hospital. “Would you like a ride?” I offered. “You’d do that?” she said, surprised. “Of course! Let’s head over and make sure you and the baby are both alright.” And so, instead of Renee going through with the abortion, my friend, Mark, and I, took her to a nearby hospital for help. I gave her my name and number, local CPC info, and offered to personally help her with anything she’d need. She repeatedly thanked us for being out on the sidewalk and for being there for her. My prayer tonight is for Renee and her baby.

A//A

News Channel 5

NASHVILLE, Tenn. - After the tragic events at Sandy Hook Elementary School, one local father and former Marine is standing guard at his children's school and parents said he's a welcome addition to the school.

Jordan Pritchard, a former Staff Sergeant in the U.S. Marine Corps, pulled down his old Marine Corps uniform from the attic Sunday night and decided to make a difference in his community. When he was in the military his job was to keep our country safe and for the next week he planned bring that safety home by standing guard outside the front door of Gower Elementary School.

He said it's his responsibility.

"I'm doing this because we need hope man. We need hope," explained Pritchard.

He's a volunteer. He's not getting paid. He's not even armed, but parent said they feel a whole lot better about leaving their children at school while he's been at the front door.

The shooting massacre in Newtown, Connecticut was a thousand miles away, but what happened there hits too close to home.

Pritchard said it's his duty, and parents are appreciative.

"If you are able and capable of doing something you have the responsibility to act," he said.

Sarah Knies has 2nd and 3rd graders who attend Gower Elementary School. She said she was comforted knowing Pritchard was there.

"He made me feel good. Just to know that he stood up and did something to make us all feel better today," she explained.

Many parents, staff and students stopped by to thank Pritchard.

"When parents come up to me and they're crying and thanking me for being out here," Pritchard said. "There's no job in the world that can pay me enough money to not do things for the kids and the parents."

Pritchard also has children who attend Gower Elementary School: a daughter, Valerie, in second grade and a son, Colby, in first grade. He insists his actions have not just been about them. He said he feels is about something much bigger.

"We have to live this life for other people. That's the only way that happiness and true peace and hope will come back to our nation is when we all come back together and love each other," he said.

Sergeant Pritchard plans to stand guard at the school until Wednesday, when Metro Schools finish for the year.

From Guy Stevenson:

"No worldly mind would ever have suspected that He Who could make the sun warm the earth would one day have need of an ox and an ass to warm Him with their breath; that He Who, in the language of Scriptures, could stop the turning about of Arcturus would have His birthplace dictated by an imperial census; that He, Who clothed the fields with grass, would Himself be naked; that He, from Whose hands came planets and worlds, would one day have tiny arms that were not long enough to touch the huge heads of the cattle; that the feet which trod the everlasting hills would one day be too weak to walk; that the Eternal Word would be dumb; that Omnipotence would be wrapped in swaddling clothes; that Salvation would lie in a manger; that the bird which built the nest would be hatched therein -- no one would ever have suspected that God coming to this earth would ever be so helpless. And that is precisely why so many miss Him. Divinity is always where one least expects to find it."

~ Fulton Sheen, Life of Christ

The Second Amendment IS pro-life.

"Among the natural rights of the Colonists are these: First, a right to life; Secondly, to liberty; Thirdly, to property; together with the right to support and defend them in the best manner they can. These are evident branches of, rather than deductions from, the duty of self-preservation, commonly called the first law of nature...In short, it is the greatest absurdity to suppose it in the power of one, or any number of men, at the entering into society, to renounce their essential natural rights, or the means of preserving those rights; when the grand end of civil government, from the very nature of its institution, is for the support, protection, and defence of those very rights; the principal of which, as is before observed, are Life, Liberty, and Property. If men, through fear, fraud, or mistake, should in terms renounce or give up any essential natural right, the eternal law of reason and the grand end of society would absolutely vacate such renunciation. The right to freedom being the gift of God Almighty, it is not in the power of man to alienate this gift and voluntarily become a slave."

-- Samuel Adams, The Rights of the Colonists

Big win for gun-rights groups: Federal appeals court tosses state ban on carrying concealed weapons 

Chicago Sun-Times

SPRINGFIELD-In a huge win for gun-rights groups, a federal appeals court in Chicago Tuesday tossed the state's ban on carrying concealed weapons and gave Illinois' Legislature 180 days to craft a law legalizing concealed carry.

"The debate is over. We won. And there will be a statewide carry law in 2013," said Todd Vandermyde, a lobbyist for the National Rifle Association.

In a split opinion (see below), the 7th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed a lower court ruling in two cases downstate that upheld the state's longstanding prohibition against carrying concealed weapons.

Illinois is the only state with an outright prohibition on concealed carry.

Read more at Illinois Sun-Times ...