Freedom's Phoenix Editorials

SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News, May 26, 2013 Edition

Fri, 24 May 2013 23:44:32 GMT

Read more on this subject: Humor
Opinion Column by John Semmens
Pelosi Absolves President in Spate of Scandals House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif) sought to absolve President Obama from any blame in the burgeoning plume of scandals surrounding his Administration by forcefully asserting that "he doesn't necessarily know anything about any agency of the federal government." The Congresswoman brushed off reports that IRS Commissioner Doug Shulman visited the Obama White House 118 times over a two year period during which conservative groups were targeted as indicative of anything. "The White House is a big place," Pelosi said. "Just because Mr. Shulman and President Obama were in the building doesn't necessarily mean that they met. And even if they had, it doesn't prove that they discussed tax matters. I understand Shulman says he was there for the Easter Egg roll." Pelosi also dismissed the idea that a chief executive has to take responsibility for the actions of his appointed minions, calling former President Truman's fa
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Obama's Scandals Rival His Predecessors

Fri, 24 May 2013 13:15:58 GMT

Read more on this subject: Obama Administration
Opinion Column by Chuck Baldwin
One would be hard-pressed to select the most corrupt Presidential administration in US history. Over time, both Democrat and Republican administrations have a track record littered with all kinds of corruption, scandal, malfeasance, dishonesty, and unconstitutional conduct. Out of all of them, only two Presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton, both Democrats. Neither of them were convicted of the charges and removed from office. A third President, Republican Richard Nixon, would almost certainly have been impeached had he not resigned first. Andrew Johnson's impeachment was doubtless the most politically-motivated impeachment of a President in US history. He was impeached by radical Republicans who were angry at Johnson's mild and temperate approach to reconstruction after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln and surrender of Southern forces. Specifically, Johnson was impeached for violating the Tenure of Office Act in 1867, which forbade the Pre
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The Case for Monsanto and GMO's

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:26:43 GMT

Read more on this subject: Food
Opinion Column by Mike Renzulli
Environmentalist Mark Lynas recently gave a public mea culpa after years of activism in opposition to Genetically Modified Organisms (aka GMOs or biotech foods). Lynas was one of the major figures in the anti-GMO movement that started in the mid-1990's. As a result of his efforts, numerous Third World countries were denied supplies of genetically modified foods in which imports of them were halted and research on them was held up. I commend him for his intellectual honesty and his willingness to publicly admit his mistakes while exposing the lies told about GMO products. Biotech foods have been made a topic controversy for sometime and it has mainly been due to the efforts of environmentalists. Opponents mainly claim that GMO's are unsafe, won't solve the need for food in poor countries and/or don't increase the overall food supply. Back in 2002 Europe went so far as to ban the import of biotech foods based on many of these assertions which were based on fabrications if not outrigh
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Part 6: Series on overpopulation in America�we need to think like a life-giving planet

Fri, 24 May 2013 11:20:49 GMT

Read more on this subject: Environment
Opinion Column by Frosty Wooldridge
Part 6: Quotes that make impact on America and around the world, environmental trends that threaten civilization on Earth Lester Brown, author of Plan B 4.0 Saving Civilization said, "The world has set in motion environmental trends that are threatening civilization itself. We are crossing environmental thresholds and violating deadlines set by nature. Nature is the timekeeper, but we cannot see the clock." www.EarthPolicy.org We human beings prove to be the most aberrant species ever evolved on planet Earth. Within 100 years, we transformed this green, ecologically balanced and thriving globe into an environmental nightmare. We created the "Six Extinction Session" whereby 80 to 100 species suffer extinction every single day of the year. We pump our fossil fuel carbon exhaust into the biosphere at such a rate of speed that our pollution acidifies the soils and oceans of the world. Our poisoning of the bios
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So many of my friends coming down with cancer

Wed, 22 May 2013 12:55:55 GMT

Read more on this subject: Health and Physical Fitness
Opinion Column by Frosty Wooldridge
Part 1: When you contract cancer, what you can do In the past 10 months, nine of my friends contracted cancer in many of its various forms: kidney, stomach, breast, prostate, colorectal, bladder, Hodgkin's, liver, ovarian and skin cancers. All of them struggle for their lives as you read this column. Last year, my long time friend Mike discovered his kidney cancer in November and died in February. Twenty years ago, my sister suffered from melanoma cancer, which doctors cut from her body. Eighteen years ago, doctors cut a cancerous growth out of me. My sister and I enjoy our lives every single day. I don't mind telling you that cancer scared the living hell out of me and it sobered me to the daunting enormity of its presence within our society. The American Cancer Society estimates the numbers of new cancer cases and deaths expected in the United States in the current year and compiles the most recent data on ca
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IRS Abuses Have Been Going on For Many Years

Mon, 20 May 2013 00:23:29 GMT

Read more on this subject: Religion: Believers
Opinion Column by Greg J. Dixon
The present IRS scandal didn't start with the Obama administration. Nixon had his "Enemies list," and it was the IRS that brought Al Capone to heel, not the FBI. Following is an excerpt from Chapter 8 of my book, The Trail of Blood Revisited that gives the details of how the Internal Revenue Service removed the tax-exempt status of the Indianapolis Baptist Temple, in Indianapolis, Indiana in May of 1995 and published it in their May IRS IRS Quarterly. They did it in order to punish us, thinking that it would destroy the church financially. It actually had the opposite effect, in fact the giving increased which showed that the members were not giving for the tax benefits but unto the Lord. The church had actually given up it's exempt status voluntarily in 1984 but the IRS doesn't recognize this status on the part of a church or an individual, only if the IRS does it unilaterally. The following articles were from the July 8, 1995 Indianapolis
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Immigration-linguistic equation to Amnesty bill S744

Sun, 19 May 2013 23:06:42 GMT

Read more on this subject: Immigration
Opinion Column by Frosty Wooldridge
How do you kill a country? Answer: kill its language for starters. The great philosopher Emanuel Kant said, "The two great dividers are: language and religion." Over the past 237 years, America struggled with its most burdensome problem: race relations. Black versus White. Not a week goes by where "racism" rears its ugly head somewhere in America. In 2013, we see tremendous disparity among whites, blacks and Latinas. Wherever one ethnic group dominates an area, racism invariably becomes a contentious factor. While white racism dominated this country for the past 237 years since the birth of this Constitutional Republic, today European-Americans barely hold parity with Hispanics. By 2042, Caucasian America will become the new minority while Latinos will become the new majority. Middle Easterners with Arabic languages, Asians with multiple dialects, Indians, Africans of many countries and a hundred other langua
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Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies

Sun, 19 May 2013 07:17:26 GMT

Read more on this subject: Economy - International
Opinion Column by Stephen Lendman
Disconnect: Soaring Markets/Troubled Economies by Stephen Lendman Forget everything you learned about markets, economics and finance. Perhaps Newton, Galileo, Copernicus, Darwin, Freud, Einstein, and other noted figures were wrong. Central banks run today's world. Major ones matter most. Money printing madness controls everything. Love doesn't make the world go round. Liquidity-driven markets reflect the power of bankers to do it. They're more powerful than standing armies. They can levitate markets. They can enrich themselves at the same time. They can do it while economies crater. The power of massive liquidity infusions combined with market manipulation generates huge profits. What can't go on forever, won't. What's going on now defies reason. Disconnect barely explains it. US equity markets hit record highs. So did Germany's DAX. Japan's Nikkei reached a five and a half year high. One recent headline read "Central banks pop champagne corks as stock markets soar." Another said "Wh
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"There Is A Conspiracy"

Sat, 18 May 2013 02:14:07 GMT

Read more on this subject: Religion: Believers
Opinion Column by Chuck Baldwin
The title of today's column, "There Is A Conspiracy," is a direct quote from Ezekiel 22:25. In this passage, God instructed Ezekiel to blow the whistle on the conspiracy of Israel's prophets to deny people truth, to devour people's souls, to defraud people's substance, and to destroy people's lives. I dare say this conspiracy is still alive and well today. Many pastors and religious leaders in 2013 America are as guilty of Ezekiel's charges as were Israel's ancient prophets. However, use the word "conspiracy" today and even most Christians will roll their eyes in disbelief. And, of course, the mainstream media is so paranoid of the word conspiracy that one has to speculate that the reason for this aversion to objectively dealing with the subject is simply due to the fact that they are among the co-conspirators. But once in awhile, someone in the media has the guts to broach the subject of conspiracy. My friends at TruthAlliance.net recently covered a report written by
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SEMI-NEWS: A Satire of Recent News, May 19, 2013 Edition

Fri, 17 May 2013 23:06:34 GMT

Read more on this subject: Humor
Opinion Column by John Semmens
Attempt to Morph "Bad Luck" into Scandals "Unfair," Says Carney President Obama's Press Secretary Jay Carney bristled at the suggestion the Administration is embroiled in three major scandals. "What scandals?" Carney demanded to know. "The President has been giving his utmost to this country and now people are trying to package a run of bad luck into a series of scandals? It's unfair." The "run of bad luck," as Carney sees it, is "a media that is paying undue attention to relatively minor screw-ups by low level employees. Rather than being lauded for his efforts to employ a broader range of the 'differently- abled,' the President is now pilloried for the missteps of a few unworthy servants. It's the greatest miscarriage of justice I've ever had the displeasure of seeing." To bolster his case, Carney pointed to outgoing IRS Commissioner Steve Miller assessment that the targeting of conservative groups "were foolish mistakes by well-meaning staffers who independently
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Pastor Faust and Marroquin arrested; Texas favors sodomites

Fri, 17 May 2013 02:09:51 GMT

Read more on this subject: Religion: Believers
Opinion Column by Greg J. Dixon
Pastor Joey Faust and Ramon Marroquin were represented by attorney Shelby Sharpe (May 14, 2013), in Tarrant Country Criminal Court (Fort Worth, Texas), in affiliation with the Rutherford Institute. He is known for the landmark Texas case affirming the right to homeschool. Faust and Marroquin were charged with interfering with police duties for crossing a police "scrimmage" line at a 2012, Fort Worth Gay Pride parade. (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VuxOaOdipcI&feature=youtu.be). (http://christiannews.net/2012/10/31/texas-pastor-jailed-for-preaching-at-pride-event-awaits-court-date/) The police were permitting other citizens to cross the street, but members of Kingdom Baptist were prohibited from continuing down the sidewalk. Faust and Marroquin disobeyed police orders and crossed the street because they did not believe the police had the Constitutional right to prohibit them, while allowing other Christians, etc., to cross. During
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Government Ineptness Earns a Slow Clap

Thu, 16 May 2013 17:50:21 GMT

Read more on this subject: Corruption
Opinion Column by Meghan Kellison
You know how many people make the claim that government is inefficient, ineffective, immoral, and sometimes just plain insane? Then, while espousing these opinions claim we need another revolution? Now, I am all about some revolution in due time, but this week has probably been the best week ever for political dissidents. Gosh, where do I even start? The proverbial shit is is hitting the fan for the Obama administration in just about every way possible, and while Eric Holder and the president (et. al.) are in damage control overload right about now, I am highly amused. See full article (with pictures!)
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The Growing Threat of Smart Meters

Wed, 15 May 2013 00:37:11 GMT

Read more on this subject: Government
Opinion Column by Tom Deweese
Sustainable Development is code for a policy designed to transform human society, essentially eliminating individual life decisions and replacing them with top � down, one-size-fits-all government control. In steady fashion, the agenda for this new policy, designed at the international level, is put into place piece by piece with a new government council here, and new regulation there, each designed to appear as a "local" development program. Like the proverbial frog in the slowly boiling pot, many Americans fail to notice the rise in government heat. The main course of action to impose the new agenda is through the pretense of environmental protection; "Sorry about your rights, but if we don't save the planet, then we will all perish!" And so with the devastation of a thousand pin pricks, America and its form or government is being changed through the creation of non-elected boards, councils and regional governments, designed to enforce the new regulations and "assu
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Immigration and Environmentalism

Tue, 14 May 2013 15:31:51 GMT

Read more on this subject: Immigration
Opinion Column by Mike Renzulli
Fortunately, it is looking like efforts to liberalize or change U.S. immigration policy may become a reality. There is a bill being crafted in the U.S. Senate that seems to have a good chance of passing and House Speaker John Boehner has already talked to the House Republican caucus about the necessity of passing a bill to do just that. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce is already actively trying to pitch the idea by engaging opponents as well. The U.S.'s immigration system is so bureaucratic it actually contributes to the very problems seen today at the U.S. border. Yet it is important to know what the driving force has been behind the opposition to immigration reform to begin with. A short time ago, Competitive Enterprise Institute (CEI) scholar David Beir exposed the true intent of the Federation for American Immigration Reform (FAIR). Beir observed that FAIR's charge that fewer immigrants means more prosperity is nonsense pointing out that if fewer workers means more prosperity then
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The Deepening Shame of Guantanamo

Tue, 14 May 2013 04:33:43 GMT

Read more on this subject: Guantanamo Bay
Opinion Column by Ray McGovern
By Ray McGovern There have been nine congressional hearings on the Benghazi controversy � with more to come � but almost no one in Congress dares put the spotlight on the unfolding scandal surrounding the Guantanamo Bay prison where most of the remaining 166 inmates have opted to "escape" from indefinite detention via the only way open to them � starving themselves to death. One exception to the congressional cowardice is Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, who sponsored a highly instructive panel discussion on the prison at Guantanamo last Friday. Why simply a "briefing," rather than a formal House hearing? Simple. Not one of the majority Republicans who currently chair committees in the House and have the power to call hearings wants Americans to hear the details of this blight on the nation's conscience. Rep. Jim Moran, D-Virginia, who held a public briefing on the Guantanamo crisis. To be completely fair, the reigning reluctance seems, actually, to be a bipartisan aff
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