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Dr. Robert Sumner passed away in December 2016. The Biblical Evangelist newspaper is no longer being published and the ministry of Biblical Evangelism has ceased operation. The remaining inventory of his books and gospel tracts was transferred to The Baptist Tabernacle of Los Angeles and may be ordered here. Off the Cuff - Part 5 We have often referred to California as the land of fruits and nuts, but we are willing to add others as occasions arise. For example, Steve Lawler, a part-time rector at St. Stephen’s Episcopal at Ferguson (MO) who, last Spring, decided to “give up” for Lent his Christian identify and “practice the Muslim faith” for 40 days. His superior, Bishop George Wayne Smith, didn’t think much of the idea and threatened to defrock him, correctly noting, “He can't be both a Christian and a Muslim." Oh, did we mention Lawlor was born and raised a Roman Catholic, but quit it because it was “too conservative”?… By the way, Lawlor then launched his “Giving up church for Lent” series of public discussions at St. Stephen’s which featured “a Muslim, an atheist, a spiritual-but-not-religious person and someone who ‘lives a full, moral life but has no spiritual or religious foundation at all’.” Obviously, another winner… A 15-year-old boy got tired of being bullied by a 16-year-old (the latter kept slugging him in the face) and picked the bully up and gave him what could best be described as a body slam. Glenn Beck offered a look-see on his web, but when I went to it, it had been removed because its content “violated You-Tube’s terms of service.” I guess so!... Can someone explain insurance to me? The brand C commercials tell me someone who switched from brand A to its brand C saved $(big, big bucks), but the brand A commercials tell me someone who switched to them from brand C saved $(even bigger bucks). And multiply this by all the brands out there. Somebody is lying big time or they are juggling figures between apples and oranges. As for me, I haven’t switched… Both President Obama and Vice President Biden, as senators, threatened action if George W. Bush authorized military action against Iran (the kind that Obama has taken against Libya), Biden boasting he would lead the charge for impeachment. Strange, isn’t it?... Obama’s defense for his action was that the United Nations Security Council and the Arab League authorized it. Where in the Constitution is any such authority given to any outside body like the U.N. or the A.L.? Since Obama acted "unilaterally" (without congressional approval) it is a clear violation of the Constitution which he ignores when it gets in the way of what he wants to do... Columnist Timothy P. Carney said Obama's action was “… troubling on at least five counts. First is the legal and constitutional question. Second is the manner of Obama's announcement. Third is the complete disregard for public opinion and lack of debate. Fourth is the unclear role the United States will play in this coalition. Fifth is the lack of a clear endgame. Compounding all these problems is the lack of trust created by Obama's record of deception”… The Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA) that Obama and leading Democrats are so opposed to must have been “snuck in” by the dirty opposition when it became law, right? Not Exactly! It was passed overwhelmingly 15 years ago (Senate, 84-15), House (342-67), then signed into law by none other than William Jefferson Clinton. For Obama to say the Justice Department will no longer defend the law, ignoring the other two branches of government (judicial and legislative), is paramount to Obama making himself Dictator-in Chief… Isn’t the above an impeachable offense? If not, why not?... Speaker of the House John Boehner immediately declared he was launching a legal defense of DOMA… Casey M. "Buddy" Smith, Jr., Executive Vice-President of American Family Network sent out a memo to pastors warning about ABC’s proposed new show, “Good Christian B-tches,” which he called a Christian-bashing version of the networks “Desperate Housewives.” Here is one significant sentence: “Disney-owned ABC has no reservations about creating hate speech against Christians, but you can be sure they would never consider a show called ‘Good Muslim B-tches’ or ‘Good Jewish B-tches’”… War is deadly. Yet one city south of our border, Ciudad Juárez, saw more civilians killed last year (3,111) than in all Afghanistan (2,421). Incredible, isn’t it? Especially since Afghanistan has 29.1 million folks and Juárez only 1.3 million... The thought police are at it again, this time demanding a school in Ohio discontinue its nickname, “Orientals.” It is now considered offensive (though once very popular)… Busing kids to Sunday School, so popular in the mid-to-late-20th century, left a lot of idle buses when "it went out of style." One church removed the seats and made an empty bus on its lot as an extra room for ministering. Baptist Press said "Vacation Bible Schools, revivals and mission trips are among the other events that have used the bus." We assume as an office... This will surprise most of you, but AARP is a nonprofit organization! (Huh?) Maybe not for long, though, as the IRS is looking into it. AARP stands to earn one billion or so over the next 10 years, thanks to ObamaCare (which it promoted big-time) and cleaning up through its “endorsed-Medicare insurance products”… We have long felt video games for young kids were harmful, and watching them wasted time by the hours. Now studies show they are also harmful to the learning process, with kids involved not doing as well in school… New Pennsylvania Governor Tom Corbett said after taking office abortion clinics in his bailiwick would receive "greater scrutiny under regulatory controls." And seven employees in the state's Departments of Health and State have been fired or have resigned since the West Philadelphia scandal we wrote about. (Owner/doctor Kermit Gosnell was charged with eight counts of murder and Gosnell's wife and eight other employees were indicted on murder and/or other charges.) Comment: it's about time! Oh, yes, "fines of as much as $1,000 a day will be levied in Pennsylvania when abortion clinics fail to report a 'serious event,' which encompasses injury and death," Corbett promised... The Detroit-area transportation authority, SMART (dumb in this case), refused to accept an ad saying, in part, “Leaving Islam? Got questions? Get answers!” yet it had no problem running ads saying, “Don’t believe in God? You’re not alone.” The Thomas More Law Center went to work and freedom of speech is back in Detroit… The headline in a West Coast newspaper screamed: Lottery scam promises riches, delivers deception. While it was talking about a local scam, the same could be said of any lottery. They all promise big and produce little. They are not a sudden road to financial success. Consider its heartbroken trail of ruined winners… Here is another “fruit” of Obama’s messing in the Gulf. Seahawk Drilling, which owns 20 shallow-water offshore rigs, had to file for Chapter 11 bankruptcy and is selling its rigs to a competing company. It put nearly 500 workers out of a job. Out of 20 Seahawk rigs, only seven were in use – all the others were idled in part by the Obama moratorium on offshore drilling after the BP spill last year… Mr. Obama has repeatedly defied the law, ignoring the judge’s ruling and even being cited for contempt of court. Perhaps the president should reread the section in the Constitution about presidential powers and their limitations… It is good to have a president willing to take a stand, hang the consequences, right? According to columnist Michael Barone when Obama was an Illinois state senator, he voted “present” 129 times! Incredible! Now that he’s president, he has been merely voting “present” on the Middle East crisis, the budget, the national debt, and about everything else… Who said Senator Majority Leader Harry Reid and his fellow Democrats aren’t serious about cutting the deficit? Reid boldly offered a plan to reduce spending this fiscal year by $4.7 billion! Impressed? That is .004 percent of the proposed deficit! Ex-Senator Fred Thompson, now a pitchman for reverse mortgages: “Springfield (IL) is still trying to get Obama to pay $55,457 he owes the city for security costs that his campaign ran up in 2008. Amazing. We've finally found something Obama doesn't want to spend money on"… Indiana State Representative Dave Cheatham, who with other cowardly Indiana Democrats fled to Illinois to avoid having to vote on the spending cuts necessary for the state budget, compared his action to a soldier getting sent to Afghanistan. What an equation: a brave soldier on the one hand doing his duty and a cowardly politician on the other hand shirking his duty. Equal? You be the judge… Planned Parenthood is battling fiercely to keep Uncle’s ‘sugar’ flowing to its well-oiled killing machine. PP’s CEO Cecile Richards, on The Joy Behar Show cried, “If this bill ever becomes law, millions of women in this country are gonna lose their healthcare access … to basic family planning, mammograms.” As you wipe your eyes to keep the mascara from running and the print from blurring, let me note PP has no mammogram service!… Here we go again! Another school district fired its entire staff of teachers – a whopping 1,926 of them this time – in Providence (RI). The Providence School Board superintendent, Tom Brady, sent the ‘pink slips’ by e-mail, giving new meaning to ‘the Brady bunch.’ He said the district’s $40 million deficit forced it, but he assured the victims not all would lose their jobs. The head of the teachers’ union called it “beyond insane”; but the educational problems couldn’t be caused by the union, could they?… Did you know that President Obama has a “personal trainer,” Cornell McClellan, who is flown back and forth from Chicago every week – at your expense, of course? I guess all his golfing and backyard basketball aren’t doing the job… Did you ever wonder what happened to David Hartley, the man from Colorado living in McAllen (TX) who was gunned down while water skiing on Falcon Lake that borders Texas and Mexico? So does his wife, Tiffany; his mother Pam Hartley; and other relatives. Mexican authorities called off the search in October and have done nothing since… Indiana has started the process of passing a constitutional marriage amendment. Its House, on a 70-26 vote, passed it and sent it on to the Senate. However, it is a long process and 2014 is the earliest it could go into effect. Twenty-nine states already have such an amendment. At least seven other states are expected to start such a process later this year... Another victory for Sodomites (in the Bible belt, no less). The Nashville (TN) Metro Council voted to extend workplace protections for perverts (homosexuals and transsexuals) employed by city contractors. In short, any firm doing business with the city will be forced to sign affidavits saying it won't discriminate on "sexual orientation" or "gender identity." The vote was 21-16 with three 'chickens' abstaining... One member in the above action, Jim Hodge was quoted as lamenting, "Jesus said love your neighbor. He didn't say endorse their lifestyle. I cannot as a businessman with 16 employees conduct my business the way I want to – the way I desire to based on my faith ... We don't have any reason to interfere in a private contractual relationship between an employer and an employee." Amen!... Remember the stink in Alaska when write-in candidate Murkowski (already defeated in the primaries by Miller) won the senate seat over Miller? Floyd & Mary Beth Brown, who were there for the recount described it: “One of the most surreal experiences of our lives was watching an unelected bureaucrat pick and choose what ballots she wanted to count in the closely contested election featuring pseudo-Republican Lisa Murkowski and Tea Party Favorite Republican Joe Miller in Alaska. We've spent decades watching ballots be counted in hundreds of elections, and never once have we seen a situation with such outrageous manipulation of the vote… “Camel No. 9, smooth & luscious,” featuring a shocking pink logo, is the R. J. Reynolds tobacco company’s latest entry into the “get the girls at a tender age” promotion. And this is the company that agreed to stop targeting kids! Meanwhile, lung cancer among women continues to rise… Ann Coulter offered a history lesson: “It used to be widely understood that collective bargaining has no place in government employment. In 1937, the American president beloved by liberals, FDR, warned that collective bargaining ‘cannot be transplanted into the public service.’ George Meany, head of the AFL-CIO for a quarter century, said unions were not appropriate for civil servants. As recently as 1978, the vast majority of states prohibited unionization of government employees… The population center of the United States is now Texas County, Missouri… Ann Coulter again: “In 2010, three of the five top campaign contributors to the Democrats were public sector unions. Service Employees International was No. 2 at $11.6 million in campaign contributions to Democrats, the National Education Association was No. 3 at $8 million, and the American Federation of Teachers was No. 5 at $7 million. (To put that in perspective, that's even more than the $1 million given to Obama in 2008 by his second-largest contributor, Goldman Sachs!)” Over 26 times as much, in fact!… If you can’t lick ’em, slander ’em. Remember the China tainted milk scare? It is now known a manager of a rival dairy company started false rumors, thinking it would help boost his own sales… Bernard Nathanson performed 75,000 abortions and was head of "the largest abortion clinic in the Western world," but ended up one of the strongest pro-life advocates in the country. Seeing the light in the late 1970s, he is probably best known for producing "The Silent Scream" video in 1984, a marvelous tool for convincing mothers not to abort. He died in February at age 84 of cancer... Confessions of an abortionist: Dr. Nathanson admitted in his 1979 book Aborting America that he and his colleagues "invented statistics about the number of illegal abortions and of women's deaths from these procedures" to help their cause for legalizing it... Youth rioting in the streets in Egypt are harbingers of democracy, right? Not necessarily. As columnist Burt Prelutsky noted, “Comparing most revolutions to our own is sheer insanity. The French Revolution led to Robespierre and the Reign of Terror. The Russian Revolution led to Stalin and the gulags. China's Revolution brought us Mao and the slaughter of millions, Cuba's Revolution brought us Castro and the Iranian Revolution brought forth the Ayatollah Khomeini”… Prelutsky said again, “Those good-hearted chumps who insist that democracy is the end-all and be-all are sadly misguided. Hitler won a popular election, as did Hamas in Gaza, as did Barack Obama, Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi in America. Just because folks are allowed to vote is no guarantee that they can always be trusted to do the right thing”… Some have called Obama’s tenure a learning experience in governing something larger than a community organizing group. Perhaps so. His latest learning lesson caused him to call his vote as a senator against raising the debt ceiling “a mistake.” Caught between the proverbial rock and a hard place, he had to say something… An article in Epic Times that featured “lies told in China,” revealed a Chinese textbook article, “How Edison Saved His Mother.” The tale was that young Tom’s mother needed an appendectomy and the only light the surgeon had was a candle. The youth held up a mirror to reflect light until the surgery was successfully completed. Tom was born in 1847, but the first appendix operation was not until 1887… Good and bad news from WorldNetDaily. “Half of the over 5,000 teens surveyed concluded that sex before marriage was ‘never’ morally acceptable; over 70 percent rejected the practice of ‘living together’ before marriage.” The bad news: 65 percent also said they believe truth is relative… Sisters acting like sisters? Sisters fight a lot, don’t they? Well, rival groups of nuns in Washington – the Missionary Sisters of the Holy Ghost and the Sisters of Mary Immaculate Queen – have been battling. One group charged the other with stealing items from safes and a business office and called police. Then there are allegations of “buying sex books, forging documents and calumny.” It’s a mess… Believe it or not, a couple in Victoria, Australia, aborted twin boys because they wanted a girl. In vitro fertilization was not working for them and the wife admits having a daughter is an obsession. So why doesn’t she adopt one? Isn’t that a no brainer?... Jim Parrett, a field representative of Council 24 of the Wisconsin State Employees Union sent threatening letters to businesses in the area “asking” them to put up signs in their windows saying “This Business Supports Workers Rights.” Old Jim told ’em failure to comply would leave the union no choice but to call a public boycott of their business, also noting trying to be “neutral” meant “no” to the union... We salute the State of Arizona. It became the first state to ban abortions on the basis of the sex or race of an unborn child. Any doctor cheating could lose his medical license and just maybe spend seven years in the slammer. May other states go and do likewise... The new Congress, working on the current budget Obama belatedly sent to them, have been trying, in the name of fiscal sanity, to pare billions out of it. Congressman Steve Scalise of Louisiana offered an amendment (#204) that would prevent any Continuing Resolution funds going to pay Obama’s czars who have not been confirmed. It passed the House 249-179. I guess if any in the nine offices wanted to work without pay, provide their own offices, and underwrite the salaries of their workers they could do so… Another good amendment (#262) was offered by Bob Latta of Ohio. It would cancel $440 million in ‘Family Planning’ funding for the State Department to hand over to other countries “for international population control, family planning, and reproductive health.” Instead that money would go to the Spending Reduction Account… Preaching is a dangerous business! Darrell Franklin, a vocational pastor at the Trinity Baptist Church in Madisonville (TN) was shot and killed by an employee, who then killed himself. In Texas, the pastor of Arlington's North Pointe Baptist Church, Clint Dobson, was killed and an assistant was critically injured during an apparent robbery... Are ‘First Ladies’ exempt from the law? California’s Maria Shriver was photographed driving down the highway with a cell phone held next to her ear, a violation of the law signed by hubby, Gov. Schwarzenegger… California legislators are considering the “Fair, Accountable, Inclusive and Respectful Education Act” (FAIR). Is it really fair? You decide. If passed it will compel all “school boards, teachers, and textbooks to teach all public school children in grades K-12, to regard Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) Americans as positive role models!” SB 48 is sponsored by openly Sodomite Senator Mark Leno. If I were a California citizen I would scream where they would hear me from San Diego to Crescent City – with a special echo chamber when it passed over Sacramento… Are Roman Catholics in Mexico this hard up? A chapel in Pachuca was financed by cartel drug funds. In fact, a bronze plaque is on the front honoring the commander of the Zetas crime syndicate, the fellow known as "the Executioner." Some Catholic bishops have condemned the government’s militaristic efforts to stop the cartels (and also condemned the cartels). So said The New York Times... Obama's Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) has issued new regulations wiping out many of the protections "for workers and entities who object on moral or religious grounds to providing, for instance, abortion-causing drugs or birth control, although it maintained long-standing, congressional safeguards for those who object to participating directly in the performance of abortions and sterilizations." Obama says, in effect, "You got religious convictions against this; I order you to do it anyway"... Being a prominent governor in Pakistan doesn’t help if you are a Christian in a Muslim world. Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan's minister for minorities, who spoke out against that nation’s blasphemy law even though he knew it probably meant death, was murdered the other day when bullets riddled his car on his way to work. A radical Islamic group claimed credit… Late last year Apple pulled the Manhattan Declaration from its iPhone app store and in March it yanked the Exodus International app. Why? In both cases the decisions were based on pressure from Sodomites. Makes you wonder who’s “running the store” at Apple, doesn’t it?... Believe it or not, the National Religious Broadcasters convention hosted a debate on sodomy between Joe Dallas, an ex-Sodomite/founder of Genesis Counseling, and Cindi Love, executive director of Soulforce, Mel White's silly sodomy group known mostly for disruption on evangelical campuses. From what I read, Joe cleaned Cindi's plow (now if someone could clean her heart), but I admit to a bias. I've read the Bible... One joke in that sodomy debate was when Cindi was trying to prove that biblical views of folks have evolved over the years. She spoke of when her brother was suspended at a Campbellite university for wearing purple pants. All of you are familiar with where the Bible says, “Boys shall not wear purple pants,” aren’t you? Aren’t you glad we’ve “evolved” past that?... Evaluating unions by a man dead half a decade: "The unions might be good for the people who are in the unions but it doesn't do a thing for the people who are unemployed. Because the union keeps down the number of jobs, it doesn't do a thing for them" (Economist Milton Friedman, 1912-2006)… In a recent interview, Bruce Thornton, classics and humanities professor at California State University (Fresno) and author of the new book, The Wages of Appeasement: Ancient Athens, Munich, and Obama’s America, warned about Obama’s appeasement policies. He said historical examples – emphasizing “Neville Chamberlain’s appeasement of Hitler and the mishandling of the Vietnam War” – show that appeasement is “the eternal temptation of all people.” He said Obama is the latest victim to this temptation “in dealing with America’s enemies in the Middle East”… The pro-family folks in Hawaii, after some significant battle victories, lost the war when newly elected Democrat governor Neil Abercrombie signed into law a bill legalizing same-sex unions. Hawaii thus becomes the 12th state to legalize Sodomite marriage, so-called civil unions, or something like them... Comedian Argus Hamilton on Chicago’s mayoralty race: "White House former chief of staff Rahm Emanuel was elected mayor of Chicago by a huge margin. It was the usual coalition. Emanuel carried sixty percent of the black vote, sixty-five percent of the women's vote and one hundred percent of the deceased vote"… Texas Congressman Pete Olson noted: “GAO determined that during a period of seven years, almost one billion U.S. tax dollars were spent by groups that promote or perform abortions.” In short, you financed the murder of the little ones to that extent... Speaking of abortion, since 1969 our Centers for Disease Control and Prevention collected and provided to the public data on legal abortions in the United States. The current administration has stopped that practice, apparently permanently. Now we can only “guess” the extent of the killing… MAY QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "A nation can survive its fools, and even the ambitious. But it cannot survive treason from within. An enemy at the gates is less formidable, for he is known and carries his banner openly. But the traitor moves amongst those within the gate freely, his sly whispers rustling through all the alleys, heard in the very halls of government itself. For the traitor appears not a traitor; he speaks in accents familiar to his victims, and he wears their face and their arguments, he appeals to the baseness that lies deep in the hearts of all men. He rots the soul of a nation, he works secretly and unknown in the night to undermine the pillars of the city, he infects the body politic so that it can no longer resist. A murderer is less to fear. The traitor is the plague.” – Marcus Tullius Cicero (106 BC- 13 BC), Lawyer, Statesman, Orator JUNE QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "When right, I shall often be thought wrong by those whose positions will not command a view of the whole ground." – Thomas Jefferson JULY QUOTE OF THE MONTH: "You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong. You cannot lift the wage-earner by pulling down the wage-payer. You cannot help the poor man by destroying the rich. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred. You cannot establish security on borrowed money. You cannot build character and courage by taking away men's initiative and independence. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they could and should do for themselves." – William Boetcker (1873-1962) Presbyterian clergyman |
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