PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Updates on The Joshua Fund tour are at www.joshuaf...

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Updates on The Joshua Fund tour are at www.joshuaf...: "By Joel C. Rosenberg (Jerusalem, Israel, May 18, 2011) -- Three major themes emerged from the messsages delivered at the 2011 Epicenter Con..."

Updates on The Joshua Fund tour are at www.joshuafund.net

By Joel C. Rosenberg
(Jerusalem, Israel, May 18, 2011) -- Three major themes emerged from the messsages delivered at the 2011 Epicenter Conference:

1."The Day of the Lord is coming; surely it is near" -- "Blow a trumpet in Zion, and sound and alarm on My holy mountain! Let all the inhabitants of the land tremble, for the Day of the Lord is coming; surely it is near." (Joel 2:1) As we studied the biblical Book of Joel from the Old Testament verse by verse, chapter by chapter, each of the keynote speakers noted that "the Day of the Lord" is a the major theme. The Hebrew Prophet Joel mentions the phrase five times and explains some of the details of the coming series of divine judgments that are coming and the gravity of the apocalpytic future that is rushing towards us. In my introduction to and overview of the Book of Joel (which is the first 15 minutes of the the on-line video on Joel chapter 1 with Anne Graham Lotz), I noted that the biblical phrase of the "last days" refers to the signs and wonders and events that lead up to throughou the Rapture and the seven-year Tribulation, also known frpm the Prophet Jeremiah as the "time Jacob's distress." The biblical term "Day of the Lord" refers to the culmination of the "last days." It is a time of judgment for those who reject the Lord and refuse to follow Him, and also the time of the actual, physical, literal return of Jesus Christ to the Earth when He will win the Battle of Armageddon, win the Battle of Jerusalem, His feet will touch down on the Mount of Olives (splitting the mountain in two), and Jesus will set up His literal 1,000 reign over all the Earth from the throne of David in Jerusalem during the Millennial Kingdom.

2."Return to Me," says the Lord -- "'Yet even now,' declares the Lord, 'return to Me with all your heart, and with fasting, weeping and mourning; and rend your heart and not your garments.' Now return to the Lord your God for He is gracious and compassionate, slow to anger and abounding in lovingkindness and relenting of evil." (Joel 2:12-13) Given that the Day of the Lord is coming soon, the Lord says through the Prophet Joel to anyone who will listen to repent and implore God for mercy and forgiveness of their sins before the judgments begin and the Lord comes back. Each of the conference speakers discuss the urgency of turning our hearts away from sin and back to the Lord and several spoke about the process of repentence in very personal terms.

3.Do not divide the Land of Israel -- In my message about the final chapter of the Book of Joel, I explained the warning to the nations that the Lord gives. I focused in particular on Joel 3:2 (which is 4:2 in the Hebrew Bible) in which the Lord says, "I will gather all the nations and bring them down to the valley of Jehoshaphat. Then I will enter into judgment with them there on behalf of My people and My inheritance, Israel, whom they have scattered among the nations; and they have divided up My land." The Bible is very clear: the Lord is going to judge all the nations for dividing up the Land of Israel. Let the United Nations and the United States and the European Union and the Palestinian Authority and the Israeli government itself be warned. What appears like wisdom to the world - carving up the State of Israel like a Thanksgiving turkey - is direct disobediance to the Word of God and will trigger the most severe divine judgment. This is a hard truth for many to hear and to hold, particularly for Palestinian Arabs and others in the epicenter. But we do Israel's Arab friends and enemies no favors by denying, obfuscating or trying to explain away the clear teaching of the Lord found in the Scriptures. We must teach the truth. We must do so gently and lovingly, but we must also be clear and firm.

On this last point, we had a special guest on Day 2 of the Epicenter Conference. I interviewed Israel's Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon and we discussed....

>> To read the rest of this column and/or to find the links mentioned in this column, please go to my blog at http://flashtrafficblog.wordpress.com/ -- or the Hebrew blog found at www.joelrosenberg.co.il. Thanks.

>> To watch the conference messages online, please go to www.epicenterconference.com.

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Rates of Ruin

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Rates of Ruin: " There is a dirty secret about state entitlements that liberals don't want you to know: The collection of a state pension increases the ch..."

Rates of Ruin

 

There is a dirty secret about state entitlements that liberals don't want you to know: The collection of a state pension increases the chances that a pensioner will live in poverty. That's because money put aside for state-guaranteed benefits cannot be safely invested at rates that provide for more than a modest retirement unless the state subsidizes retirement benefits through taxes or if retirement savings are invested in riskier, higher yielding investments. Since governments are loath to raise taxes to subsidize a risk-less retirement, benefits are eventually reduced. It works that way in London and Moscow as well as Madison and Sacramento.

In Moscow, public pensions and social programs helped bankrupt the Soviet Union in the 1980s while "transfer to pension status greatly increase[d] the likelihood of poverty," according to Mervyn Matthews' 1986 book "Poverty in the Soviet Union." In London, former Labour Minister John Hutton's Independent Public Services Pension Commission has recommended changes that would calculate pension benefits on lifetime earnings rather than current salary -- in line with recommendations for pension reform from the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). Trade unions in the United Kingdom say that such changes will lead to "increased pensioner poverty." In Madison, Wis., public retirement applications have risen 73 percent, according to the Wall Street Journal, as workers try to lock in higher retirement benefits that will likely shrink for those public employees retiring in the future.

Increasingly, state governments in the United States are facing budget shortfalls over entitlements paid to public servants and those on the public dole. And like the Social Security program, the shortfalls have been wholly predictable as government makes bigger and bigger promises to a select number of citizens who then take up a bigger share of the public pie.

As Rep. Paul Ryan, R-Wis., has been warning: Entitlements could bury this country if we don't address them soon.

In a powerful and harrowing piece -- "Rates of Ruin" -- for the May issue of Townhall Magazine, Finance Editor John Ransom explains the dire consequences of politicians' pension promises if they remain unchanged.

You can find this special report only in Townhall Magazine's May issue. Here's a small taste of Ransom's warning:

Behind the rhetoric and the rants about state entitlement programs is one simple question: Who wants to pay for expanded public retirement and health care entitlements?

It's a question that union organizers, doctors, teachers, state legislators and governors across the country grapple with as inflation takes a bigger bite of fixed incomes, market returns fizzle and the federal government cuts back on Medicaid payments after expanding welfare rolls through the stimulus and ObamaCare. And while liberals try to make the case that entitlements play little part in the current state budget battles, simple math says otherwise. Medicaid makes up the second-largest part of many state budgets, if not the largest. In fact, if governments used the same math that private pensions are mandated under the law to use to figure their liabilities, experts say the entitlement shortfalls in states' pension systems is two-to-three times larger than has been widely reported.

Federally mandated Medicaid spending that is busting this year's budgets in every state is the biggest story today. But fuzzy pension math is potentially the gravest budget killer. The Heritage Foundation points out that, while it cost less than $1 trillion to shore up the financial system in the bank crisis of 2008, "the IMF expects that, on net, present value basis -- that is, the deflated total of all future costs," the entitlement gap "will amount to about 34 percent of the U.S.'s GDP." That's equal to $5 trillion of today's GDP. Bill Gross, the manager of the world's largest mutual fund, recently sold all of his fund's holdings in U.S. government securities after estimating total U.S. government debt at $75 trillion, including off-the-book items such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid.

How did we fall into such a hole?

Take the average teacher who enters the work force at 25 years old and who retires at the age of 65. Even assuming Social Security will be there at retirement, the teacher's savings, accumulated at 10 percent of his salary for 40 years, must enjoy rates of return near 6 percent to ensure a retirement income equal to 70 percent of the salary he first enjoyed when he entered the workforce. From 1925-2004, the safest investments -- U.S. treasuries -- have returned only 3.7 percent. Corporate bonds have averaged 5.4 percent (see "Chart 1: Historic Rates of Return, 1925-2006").

The riskiest investments average near 10 percent but are not suitable for a state-managed pension program. Nor are they reliable. Dizzying rates of return in the 1990s, in part, have led to assumptions about market returns that are unsustainable. As a result, politicians have been able to use fuzzy math to hand out bigger benefits to public employees.

It would be nice if everyone could afford to open up a bed and breakfast with their retirement savings, as was depicted in retirement-planning commercials of the late 1990s. However, historic rates of return in markets don't allow for expansive retirement dreams. ...

In Florida, for example, the state currently assumes that its pension system will return 7.75 percent annually, according a report by Milliman, an actuarial consultancy located in Vienna, Va., that tracks pension obligations (see "Chart 2: Estimated Real vs. 'Official' Pension Gap in Florida").

But private pension plans currently can assume only a 5 to 6 percent rate of return -- approximately the same rate of return that corporate bonds get historicaly the lowest rate of return.

One of the complicating factors of the entitlement crisis is a willful blindness that has government conveniently overestimating tax revenues during recessions, in addition to overestimating rates of return at all other times.

"During the 1990-92 revenue crisis, 25 percent of all state forecasts fell short by 5 percent or more," finds the Rockeller Institute report "States' Revenue Estimating: Cracks in the Crystal Ball." "During the 2001-03 downturn, 45 percent of all state forecasts were off by 5 percent or more. In 2009, 70 percent of all forecasts overestimated revenues by 5 percent or more."

If Bernie Madoff had used such sloppy account methods in his Ponzi scheme as state governments do in estimating pension liabilities and revenues, no doubt his house of cards would have collapsed more quickly. If anything, government accounting methods are hurting those people liberals claim to care so much about -- low-income workers -- by creating huge entitlement deficits that require cuts in benefits that will impact those who will have the hardest time retiring. ...

Tinkering around the edges of our demographics won't help that much if politicians aren't willing to come clean as to the size of the problem that faces us in the future. Neither party has shown a real willingness to tackle entitlement reform yet, although some on the GOP side of the aisle have shown that they understand the scope of the problem and the potential difficulties.

"Is this a political weapon we are handing our adversaries? Of course it is," GOP House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, Wis., said in March. "I think everybody knows that we are walking into I guess what you would call a political trap that arguably we are setting for ourselves ... but we can't wait. This needs leadership."

How pension promises from reckless politicians have wrecked America's finances.

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PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Palin Could Be a Conservative Oprah

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Palin Could Be a Conservative Oprah: "Sarah Palin's wide appeal gives her a unique opportunity to step into Oprah Winfrey’s shoes and attract women to the political center-righ..."

Palin Could Be a Conservative Oprah

Sarah Palin's wide appeal gives her a unique opportunity to step into Oprah Winfrey’s shoes and attract women to the political center-right position, conservative Web entrepreneur Andrew Breitbart tells Newsmax.TV.

As such, Palin and her Reaganesque communication skills could do for conservatives what Winfrey has done for liberal views, Brietbart said.

“She has a huge pop cultural capability,” he said. “I think that, in our country, if she aspired to be Oprah Winfrey instead of Barack Obama, she would have a 10-, 20-year reign as a person who could influence people in the middle of the day, specifically women in the middle of the day, and pull them back towards a center-right perspective where Oprah Winfrey has spent the last 20, 25 years indoctrinating people slowly but surely in a liberal point of view.”

Breitbart was quick to note he is not against the former GOP vice-presidential candidate running for president. But the political provocateur stressed that the former Alaska governor's knack for drawing large crowds and her ability to speak around and over the media, a skill she shares with President Ronald Reagan.

Story continues below.
Breitbart, who got his start with the websites the Drudge Report and The Huffington Post, recently wrote the book “Righteous Indignation: Excuse Me While I Save the World.” The tome chronicles his work in creating websites and the power of new media as a counter to the mainstream media.

With the Internet, people can do what "60 Minutes" does for “pennies on the dollar,” he said.

“I was there from the beginning, since 1995, and now we’re at the most exciting point because we’re actually defeating the old media,” he said.

“We’ve given them every warning in the world to correct their business model. We’ve acted as a check and balance and said to Katie Couric, ‘You know, we noticed that you treated Barack Obama in your questioning of him to a different standard than you held Sarah Palin.’ If you’re not going to be fair while proclaiming that you’re an objective journalist, we’re going to become the media.”

It is important to regain control of the American narrative, Breitbart said, asserting that liberals always realized that the United States is a center-right country and that they are outnumbered by the people who believe in the Constitution and individual responsibility.

“In order for them to slowly move a center-right country to the left, they decided to take over and isolate the cultural institutions, Hollywood, the mainstream media, the mainline churches, academia, K-12,” he said.

“And what they’re able to do starting in kindergarten and all the way up as an accompaniment to your liberal education kids are getting reinforced with MTV, they’re getting reinforced with reality television; they’re getting reinforced with movies and music that affirm the liberal narrative in our culture.

“The only place a person like Andrew Breitbart could even find conservatism was stumbling upon the AM dial. If you listen to the AM dial, you are listening to the conservative narrative. But the rest of our culture, where most people have it as a massive firehose into their mouths, you’re only getting the liberal narrative.

"What the new media is is a check and balance against that, and it’s a way that we’re trying to drive the conservative narrative and make it so the mainstream media can’t be the only game in town.”

Read more on Newsmax.com:  Palin Could Be a Conservative Oprah
Important: Do You Support Pres. Obama's Re-Election? Vote Here Now!

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Obama’s fairy tale of economic recovery

PATRIOT OR TRAITOR: Obama’s fairy tale of economic recovery: "Dear Reader: “Welcome to the Recovery!” Remember when Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner trumpeted this condescending blast to Am..."

Obama’s fairy tale of economic recovery

Dear Reader:
“Welcome to the Recovery!”
Remember when Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner trumpeted this condescending blast to Americans in the New York Times last August?
I don’t know about you, but I found it simply infuriating.
Here’s what Geithner said:

The economic rescue package that President Obama put in place was essential to turning the economy around…
Actions since the fall of 2007 of the Federal Reserve, the White House and Congress helped save 8.5 million jobs and increased gross domestic product by 6.5 percent relative to what would have happened had we done nothing…
Government action delivered a powerful bang for the buck…
We have put the American economy on a firmer foundation for future growth….

We now know Geithner’s spin was only a stalking horse for Obama’s latest bid to convince Americans recovery is just around the corner.
But the fact is, recovery in NOT just around the corner. America’s economy is in deep, deep trouble.
Whistling past the grave yard, as wild government spending and liberal policies dig the grave deeper by the day, is no economic plan.
It’s a recipe for economic disaster!
What’s more, the national media will never tell the truth about Obama’s failed economic record.
In fact, they’re hell-bent determined to perpetuate Obama’s fairy tale of economic recovery, a massive fraud of the highest order.
They want Americans to believe the economy is on the up-and-up, new “green” jobs just around the corner, and the doubling of the price of gasoline only Big Oil’s fault.
And the national media gladly echo Obama’s latest tale: full recovery will “take us several years… we're moving in the right direction.” Stay the course.
But to stay the course would be national suicide. Here are the facts about Obama’s record on the economy:

• At Obama’s Inauguration, the price at the pump for gas was $1.83. It has more than DOUBLED since and now some say it could even TRIPLE to $5 or $6 a gallon!

• The official U.S. unemployment rate has jumped back up to 9%. But this pathetic number only puts a smiley face on the real misery. Unemployment spikes to a whopping 15.9% when one counts Americans who’ve grown so discouraged they’ve given up even looking for work or those who’ve settled for part-time work (Bureau of Labor Statistics).

• According to Zillow, home prices have plummeted “at their fastest rate since the Lehman collapse.” Now called “zombie homeowners” because they’re financially walking dead, an all-time record “16.3 million families are upside-down on their home loans.”

• A study by the New America Foundation finds “8.5 million people receiving unemployment checks and over 40 million receiving food stamps. At the current pace of job creation, the economy won't return to full employment until 2018.”

• Wal-Mart’s CEO says its customers are “running out of money” with purchases “dropping off by the end of the month even more than last year"

• The Wall Street Journal says “the dollar today is lower than at any time since major currencies began floating in 1973. It is 13% lower than it was 30 years ago and 28% below its 2002 recent peak.”

• Standard & Poor’s, the independent credit rating agency, downgraded the outlook for the United States to negative from stable, saying within two years there's at least a one-in-three chance it could lower its long-term rating.

The fact is, Obamanomics are a disaster – the meltdown after the earthquake.
That’s why it’s so important for you and the League of American Voters to tell every American the truth about Obama’s failed record on the economy.
This is the inconvenient truth Obama’s so desperate to hide. And the League is preparing to launch a national campaign effort to educate millions of Americans.
We believe every American deserves the honest truth about Obama’s REAL economic record, and how his liberal policies are digging the grave deeper by the day.
The League’s national campaign will expose the lies and reveal the truth about:

• How Obamacare raises taxes by half a trillion dollars, while devastating the highest quality healthcare the world has ever known.

• Why Obama’s failed stimulus plan was nothing but a political slush fund for bloated public employee unions.

• How many jobs Obama’s stimulus really “saved or created.”

• How Obama’s fantasy of “green” jobs and hatred of “Big Oil” are really to blame for $4 dollar gasoline.

• Why Obama’s dithering and refusal to FULLY extend the Bush tax cuts nearly sent America into an economic depression.

America must learn the truth about the REAL Obama economic record. The national media won’t tell them. So the League will.
But we need your help to do it!
By running powerful new radio and television ads, print advertisements, and with a massive internet campaign, the League will expose Obama’s REAL economic record.
Our message is simple: What recovery? Just the facts, Mr. President.
Help Us -- Donate Here Now
And the League is preparing an urgent national campaign to expose lies about Obama’s fairy tale “recovery.”