More on H.R. 235

A new alert from Concerned Women for America:

Protect America's Churches!

Can you imagine sitting in church and your pastor preaches on the sanctity of life and the importance of maintaining marriage as one woman and one man and the following week your church is contacted by the IRS and told that it will lose its tax-exempt status and has to close its doors? Unfortunately, this is a possibility and without your help could become a reality for America's churches.

H.R. 235 is legislation sponsored by Representative Walter Jones (R-North Carolina) to end this assault on religious freedom and free speech. His bill would restore free speech to America's churches by clarifying an area of tax law that is currently used to bully churches into silence on political issues. Section 501(c)(3) of the Internal Revenue Code states that churches can not participate in political speech or else their tax-exempt status may be revoked. This law violates our Constitutional right to freedom of speech and freedom of worship. This law gives the IRS an easy lever with which to bully churches that try to put their faith into practice.

The alert includes links and sample messages for the relevant elected officials, plus a link to a sample letter pastors can send to their Representatives.

The Blood-Chilling Facts

I have a lot of admiration for the work of Graham Allison, author of the new book Nuclear Terrorism: The Ultimate Preventable Catastrophe, so I was pained to learn he has become an advisor to John Kerry, whose record betrays a consistent aversion to the use of force to protect the US.

Nevertheless, the book contains some crucial facts Americans must begin to face, and in his most recent column, George Will gives them a showcase:

The next four years will be the most dangerous in the nation's history because the 9/11 attacks were pinpricks compared to a clear and almost present menace. This year's pre-eminent question, beside which all others pale, is: Which candidate can best cope with the threat of nuclear terror?

. . .

The only serious impediment to creating a nuclear weapon is acquisition of fissionable material - - highly enriched uranium (HEU) or plutonium. In 1993, U.S. officials used ordinary bolt cutters to snip off the padlock that was the only security at an abandoned Soviet-era facility containing enough HEU for 20 nuclear weapons. In 2002, enough fissile material for three weapons was recovered from a laboratory in a Belgrade suburb. Often an underpaid guard and a chain-link fence are the only security at the more than 130 nuclear reactors and other facilities using HEU in 40 countries.

Allison says that at least four times between 1992 and 1999 weapons-useable materials were stolen from Russian research institutes but recovered. How many thefts have not been reported? The U.S. Cold War arsenal included Special Atomic Demolition Munitions that could be carried in a backpack. The Soviet arsenal often mimicked America's. Russia denies that ``suitcase" nuclear weapons exist, so it denies reports that at least 80 are missing. Soviet military forces deployed 22,000 tactical nuclear warheads -- without individual identification numbers. Who thinks all have been accounted for? Russia probably has 2 million pounds of weapons-useable material -- enough for 80,000 weapons.

In December 1994, Czech police seized more than eight pounds of HEU in a parked car on a side street. A senior al Qaeda aide's proclaimed goal of killing 4 million Americans would require 1,400 9/11s, or one 10-kiloton nuclear explosion -- from a softball-sized lump of fissionable material -- in four large American cities.

Of the 7 million seaborne cargo containers that arrive at U.S. ports each year, fewer than 5 percent are inspected. Fewer than 10 percent of arriving noncommercial private vessels are inspected. Given that 21,000 pounds of cocaine and marijuana are smuggled into the country each day, how hard would it be to smuggle a softball-sized lump of HEU on one of the 30,000 trucks, 6,500 rail cars or 50,000 cargo containers that arrive every day?

Intelligent people can differ about all that Allison says. But campaign time is becoming scarce for intelligent differing about how to prevent some American Ground Zero from becoming so poisoned by radiation that no one will be able to come within four miles of it.

Suicide by Stupidity: Visas for Terrorists Still Available

Informed Americans have long wondered as to whose side the State Department is on in the war on Islamic terror. In a recent column, Joel Mowbray keeps us guessing:

Loophole exploited by the 9/11 hijackers remains open

If al Qaeda wants to strike on U.S. soil before the elections, it still has available to it a gaping loophole it exploited pre-9/11: Saudis' easy access to U.S. visas.

Despite supposed reforms implemented by the U.S. State Department, current statistics—obtained exclusively by this columnist—reveal that nearly 90% of all Saudi visa applicants get approved. To put this in perspective, applicants in most other Arab nations—the ones that didn't send us 15 of 19 9/11 hijackers—are refused visas three to five times more often than Saudis. (State refused multiple requests for comment.)

. . .

State has made some progress, such as doubling the number of names on the watchlist and breathing more life into pre-9/11 programs to identify non-watchlisted individuals who should be barred from the U.S.

What State has neglected to do, however, is enforce the law in Saudi Arabia.

Because of a provision in the law known as 214(b), all applicants are presumed ineligible for a visa until they establish their eligibility. This is supposed to be a high bar to clear, and in most countries, it is. Just not for Saudis. That's why nearly 90% who apply still get approved.

Eight of KSM's 27 handpicked operatives were prevented from entering the United States because of 214(b). Yet the same law that kept out almost one-third of the original 9/11 cell was not applied in Saudi Arabia—and it still isn't today.

If State wanted to get tough on Saudi visa applicants, they would have unfettered discretion to do so. Denials made by a consular officer are not appealable, which means a visa could be denied simply because a Saudi is young, single, and unemployed—the profile of the person least likely to qualify under 214(b) and the most likely to be a terrorist.

State, however, has shown no willingness to put security first. It vehemently opposed Congressional attempts to tighten Saudis' access to visas, and it only closed Visa Express under duress. Late last year—as originally reported here this January—the U.S. Embassy in Riyadh sent a cable to Washington advocating a re-loosening of restrictions on Saudi visas.

With 15 of the 19 hijackers and continued al Qaeda bombings and beheadings, the question must be asked: what additional evidence does State need before deciding to enforce the law?

The question I would ask is: Given this series of transgressions, and the general culture of appeasement and diplomatic naivete at Foggy Bottom, why has Congress not already stripped the State Department of its power to issue visas?

If you would like to ask that question of your Senators and Representatives, and ask them to make visa issuance a law enforcement matter, not one of diplomacy and customer service to foreign tyrannies, feel free to use our Basic Contact Links.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Middle East History

For anyone who wants a good understanding of the Middle East and why Israel is an important front in the war on Islamic terror, here are links to two concise and articulate analyses by Empower America and David Horowitz.

Twenty Facts About Israel and the Middle East

The world's attention has been focused on the Middle East. We are confronted daily with scenes of carnage and destruction. Can we understand such violence? Yes, but only if we come to the situation with a solid grounding in the facts of the matter-facts that too often are forgotten, if ever they were learned.

...In sum, a fair and balanced portrayal of the Middle East will reveal that one nation stands far above the others in its commitment to human rights and democracy as well as in its commitment to peace and mutual security. That nation is Israel.

A Middle East History Primer

What is the crime of the Jews that they should not have been welcomed into this unpromising desert -- a tiny sliver of the Turkish Empire -- from the very beginning? What is the crime of the Jews that their infant state should have been attacked by five Arab armies on the day of its creation? What is the crime of the Jews that these Arab states should have continued their war for fifty years without a peace in sight? What is the crime of the Jews that these Arabs should make Jewish women and children the targets of their suicide bombers, and that their leader should call for millions of "martyrs" to plow into the heart of the Jewish sliver to blow up its inhabitants once and for all?

Their crime is that they are Jews....

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

The Next FMA Battleground

An alert from Focus on The Family's CitizenLink:

Ask House Members to Support the FMA

Round 2 in the battle to preserve traditional marriage is set for next month.

The House of Representatives is expected to vote soon — possibly during the week of Sept. 20 — on the Federal Marriage Amendment. The bill, H.J. Res. 56, is nearly identical to the legislation that was voted down in the Senate earlier this summer.

Success in the House is more likely, but still will require the efforts of family advocates like you. That's why we've identified some representatives whose votes would help the bill pass; we urge you to contact them, if you live in their state, and ask them to support the Federal Marriage Amendment.

Each week for the next several weeks, we will publish a new list of 25 names from different states. If no one from your state is listed today, we encourage you to check back.

The alert includes this week's list of 25, complete with easy-to-use e-mail forms for contacting each Rep.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

"A thrice-cursed fascist tyrant and man-killer"

North Korea may be no source of comity, but it is a source of comedy. Apparently the NoKo officials have been perusing the MoveOn.org Official English Phrase Book. World Mag Blog reports:

More lip from North Korea

North Korea continued its tirade against President Bush, in what some U.S. officials think is a ploy to scuttle nuclear talks and deny him a political success before the November election. As quoted in today's Washington Post:

"Bush is, in fact, a thrice-cursed fascist tyrant and man-killer as he revived the fascist war doctrine which had been judged by humankind long ago and is now bringing dark clouds of a new Cold War to hang over our planet and indiscriminately massacring innocent civilians after igniting the Afghan and Iraqi wars," the statement said. It added: "It is the greatest tragedy for the U.S. that Bush, a political idiot and human trash, still remains in the presidential office of the world's only 'superpower,' styling himself"an emperor of the world.'"

Apparently they've given up on the idea of annihilating us with nuclear weapons and are instead hoping to make us laugh ourselves to death.

Pull The Plug on Taxpayer-Funded Bias

On the November 8, 2002 edition of PBS's "Now," Bill Moyers gave the following commentary:

The entire federal government — the Congress, the executive, the courts — is united behind a right-wing agenda for which George W. Bush believes he now has a mandate. That agenda includes the power of the state to force pregnant women to surrender control over their own lives. It includes using the taxing power to transfer wealth from working people to the rich. It includes giving corporations a free hand to eviscerate the environment and control the regulatory agencies meant to hold them accountable. And it includes secrecy on a scale you cannot imagine.

Above all, it means judges with a political agenda appointed for life. If you like the Supreme Court that put George W. Bush in the White House, you will swoon over what's coming. And if you like God in government, get ready for the Rapture...

So it's a heady time in Washington, a heady time for piety, profits and military power, all joined at the hip by ideology and money. Don't forget the money... Republicans out-raised Democrats by $184 million and they came up with the big prize: monopoly control of the American government and the power of the state to turn their radical ideology into the law of the land. Quite a bargain at any price.

Did you enjoy that tirade? I hope so. You paid for it.

The Corporation for Public Broadcasting, which funds PBS and NPR, in 2003 received a $363 million federal appropriation, representing a whopping 45% increase in federal funding in just four years. In return for this largess, taxpayers have received, among other choice moments: obnoxious and biased screeds like the one from Moyers, a TV special that even the ultra-liberal New York Times called an "Islamic infomercial," NPR's blacklisting of premier Islamic terror expert Steven Emerson, and reporter Nina Totenberg's expressed wish that Jesse Helms' grandchildren would get AIDS.

Recently Andrei Codrescu, on NPR's "All Things Considered," mocked Evangelicals' belief in the rapture of the saints, offering that "[t]he evaporation of 4 million [Evangelicals] who believe in this [Christian] crap would leave this world a better place."

Even if CPB's outlets had no bias, it would be superfluous. A National Taxpayers Union article puts it well:

When CPB was created in 1967 -- before the Internet, before satellite television, before VCRs or DVDs, before cable TV with hundreds of channels -- a stronger case could be made that there was a public benefit to subsidize other voices and programming. Now, with the media explosion of the past quarter century, there is little justification left for public subsidies.

Why continue to underwrite Julia Child and Emeril Lagasse when viewers can watch the Food Network (where the latter often appears)? Why subsidize history programming on PBS when viewers have the History Channel or can rent history documentaries at their local video store? Along with all the stations on free radio, listeners can tune in over the Internet to hundreds of stations all over the world. And for less than $10 a month, listeners can receive the 100 channels of XM Radio in their cars and homes.

It's time to stop feeding this left-wing dinosaur. Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to ask your representatives to remove all taxpayer funding from CPB and let it prove itself in the free marketplace of ideas, where dinosaurs tend to become quickly extinct.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Redefining Poverty

Here are some excerpts from the executive summary of a revealing report on American poverty by the Heritage Foundation:

The average "poor" person, as defined by the government, has a living standard far higher than the public imagines. The following are facts about persons defined as "poor" by the Census Bureau, taken from various government reports:

Forty-six percent of all poor households actually own their own homes. The average home owned by persons classified as poor by the Census Bureau is a three-bedroom house with one-and-a-half baths, a garage, and a porch or patio.

Seventy-six percent of poor households have air conditioning. By contrast, 30 years ago, only 36 percent of the entire U.S. population enjoyed air conditioning.

Only 6 percent of poor households are overcrowded. More than two-thirds have more than two rooms per person.

The typical poor American has more living space than the average individual living in Paris, London, Vienna, Athens, and other cities throughout Europe. (These comparisons are to the average citizens in foreign countries, not to those classified as poor.)

Nearly three-quarters of poor households own a car; 30 percent own two or more cars.

Ninety-seven percent of poor households have a color television; over half own two or more color televisions.

Seventy-eight percent have a VCR or DVD player; 62 percent have cable or satellite TV reception.

Seventy-three percent own microwave ovens, more than half have a stereo, and a third have an automatic dishwasher.

[So someone like me who owns no DVD player or working dishwasher is what, sub-poor? — Ed.]

Overall, the typical American defined as poor by the government has a car, air conditioning, a refrigerator, a stove, a clothes washer and dryer, and a microwave. He has two color televisions, cable or satellite TV reception, a VCR or DVD player, and a stereo. He is able to obtain medical care. His home is in good repair and is not overcrowded. By his own report, his family is not hungry, and he had sufficient funds in the past year to meet his family's essential needs. While this individual's life is not opulent, it is equally far from the popular images of dire poverty conveyed by the press, liberal activists, and politicians.

. . .The good news is that the poverty that does exist in the United States can readily be reduced, particularly among children. There are two main reasons that American children are poor: Their parents don't work much, and their fathers are absent from the home.

One point the executive summary does not mention is what an insult such a redefinition of the term "poverty" is to those who are truly poor around the world. We in the pampered West have real problems understanding concepts like "poverty" and "evil," but those who have actually lived with them, like the New Europe nations formerly under Soviet domination, know what these terms mean, in a way that we, without the same experience, cannot.

The summary concludes:

Yet, although work and marriage are reliable ladders out of poverty, the welfare system perversely remains hostile to both. Major programs such as food stamps, public housing, and Medicaid continue to reward idleness and penalize marriage. If welfare could be turned around to encourage work and marriage, the nation's remaining poverty would quickly be reduced.

Takin' a Break

Your humble editor will be on vacation for most of next week. If you'd like to continue your ten-minute lobbying sessions during this period, check out the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog.

And for excellent coverage of numerous issues each day, see Stacy Harp's E-Involved site and E-Involved Blog. Stacy's sites should be on everyone's "must visit daily" list. Be sure to sign up for her newsletter, to receive alerts and info throughout the day.

"Kerry on Iraq" - Pass it On

The Republican National Committee has been doing a little documentary film making. They are out of contention for the Oscar, though, since their film is not leftist, and comprises actual facts.

Here's the alert from GOPTeamLeader.com:

Watch and Forward the Kerry Iraq Documentary

John Kerry's inconsistencies and contradictions on the central front in the War on Terror are the focus of a new 12-minute documentary -- and the Senator's own words completely refute the notion that he is a strong and decisive leader.

After you watch the video, email the link to the video to your family, your friends (even if they are Democrats) and encourage them to watch the documentary and send it to their lists. Lets make THIS the most watched documentary of 2004.

Visit KerryOnIraq.com to view and forward the video.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

An American Hiroshima

I hate to serve as the Prophet of Nuclear Doom again this week, but a Nicholas Kristof piece in today's New York Times brings up some crucial issues:

If a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon, a midget even smaller than the one that destroyed Hiroshima, exploded in Times Square, the fireball would reach tens of millions of degrees Fahrenheit.

It would vaporize or destroy the theater district, Madison Square Garden, the Empire State Building, Grand Central Terminal and Carnegie Hall (along with me and my building). The blast would partly destroy a much larger area, including the United Nations. On a weekday some 500,000 people would be killed.

Could this happen?

Unfortunately, it could - and many experts believe that such an attack, somewhere, is likely. The Aspen Strategy Group, a bipartisan assortment of policy mavens, focused on nuclear risks at its annual meeting here last week, and the consensus was twofold: the danger of nuclear terrorism is much greater than the public believes, and our government hasn't done nearly enough to reduce it.

Graham Allison, a Harvard professor whose terrifying new book, "Nuclear Terrorism," offers the example cited above, notes that he did not pluck it from thin air. He writes that on Oct. 11, 2001, exactly a month after 9/11, aides told President Bush that a C.I.A. source code-named Dragonfire had reported that Al Qaeda had obtained a 10-kiloton nuclear weapon and smuggled it into New York City.

The C.I.A. found the report plausible. The weapon had supposedly been stolen from Russia, which indeed has many 10-kiloton weapons. Russia is reported to have lost some of its nuclear materials, and Al Qaeda has mounted a determined effort to get or make such a weapon. [Soon they'll have no problem getting one from Iran — Ed.] And the C.I.A. had picked up Al Qaeda chatter about an "American Hiroshima."

President Bush dispatched nuclear experts to New York to search for the weapon and sent Dick Cheney and other officials out of town to ensure the continuity of government in case a weapon exploded in Washington instead. But to avoid panic, the White House told no one in New York City, not even Mayor Rudy Giuliani.

Dragonfire's report was wrong, but similar reports - that Al Qaeda has its hands on a nuclear weapon from the former Soviet Union - have regularly surfaced in the intelligence community, even though such a report has never been confirmed. We do know several troubling things: Al Qaeda negotiated for a $1.5 million purchase of uranium (apparently of South African origin) from a retired Sudanese cabinet minister; its envoys traveled repeatedly to Central Asia to buy weapons-grade nuclear materials; and Osama bin Laden's top deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, boasted, "We sent our people to Moscow, to Tashkent, to other Central Asian states, and they negotiated, and we purchased some suitcase [nuclear] bombs."

Professor Allison offers a standing bet at 51-to-49 odds that, barring radical new antiproliferation steps, a terrorist nuclear strike will occur somewhere in the world in the next 10 years. So I took his bet. If there is no such nuclear attack by August 2014, he owes me $5.10. If there is an attack, I owe him $4.90.

I took the bet because I don't think the odds of nuclear terror are quite as great as he does. If I were guessing wildly, I would say a 20 percent risk over 10 years. In any case, if I lose the bet, then I'll probably be vaporized and won't have much use for money.

Unfortunately, plenty of smart people think I've made a bad bet. William Perry, the former secretary of defense, says there is an even chance of a nuclear terror strike within this decade - that is, in the next six years.

"We're racing toward unprecedented catastrophe," Mr. Perry warns. "This is preventable, but we're not doing the things that could prevent it."

In his closing paragraph, Kristof drags out the tired "Iraq is a distraction" argument and blames the Bush administration for ignoring the nuclear proliferation threat. The accusation is unfair. The nature of nuclear threats is such that we would not necessarily know of all steps taken to thwart them. It is obvious more should be done, but it is Democrat leaders who are preventing that.

Imagine the political hay Democrat strategists would make over a pre-election preemptive strike against Iran's nuclear installations. President Bush probably is aware he should mount such a strike now, but he knows it is too politically dangerous. His actions could leave the country in the hands of a President Kerry, who would spend his days in sackcloth and ashes apologizing to Iran, France, Germany and the rest of the "international community" for this dreadful US "war crime." And the nuclear terror attack would come.

Nevertheless, Kristof's threat assessment quotes and data are correct. In fact, he understates the threat by focusing on an American Hiroshima, involving a weapon of only 10 kilotons. During the Cold War, the Soviets fabricated 20,000 nuclear warheads, many in the multi-megaton class, capable of destroying entire regions of the US. Do we know where all of those are?

We conservatives would do well to keep up our ten minute lobbying against the threat of barbarians with nuclear weapons. And hope that God still has some use for our country.

For more information, see "Nuclear Terrorism" under "Entries by Topic" at at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Suicide by Stupidity: Mid Eastern Illegals Routinely Released

Human Events Online reports on the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement's shocking policy of releasing captured Middle Eastern illegal aliens into the US population. The policy is outrageous, but what is more outrageous is that ICE officials vigorously defend it:

No Extra Scrutiny for Middle Eastern Illegals at Mexico Border

by Joseph A. D'Agostino
Posted Aug 9, 2004

U.S. government policy requires that young Middle Eastern men who are caught crossing illegally into the United States from Mexico be treated the same as illegal aliens from elsewhere in the world--meaning that if they don't have criminal records, don't appear on government watch lists and are not deemed to be suspicious by the federal law enforcement officers who interview them, they most likely will be released into the U.S. population.

All 19 of the Sept. 11, 2001, hijackers were young men from Saudi Arabia and Egypt. None of them had criminal records, not all were on watch lists, and few apparently raised significant suspicions among American border or visa authorities.

"The law does not differentiate based on nationality. So enforcement does not differ based on nationality," says Reed Little, Detention and Enforcement Officer for the Bureau of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE). He added that ICE officials must justify their actions before immigration judges.

Asked if a 25-year-old man from Saudi Arabia would be treated at all differently from other illegal aliens coming across the Mexican border, ICE spokesman Manny Van Pelt said, "No."

Van Pelt said the government's general practice is to release apprehended aliens into the United States without requiring bond pending their deportation hearing, unless they have criminal records, are flagged in a government database as a potential threat, or their interviews with agents reveal a potential threat. "It's just a matter of interviewing them and running their names through the database. . . ," he said. "If everything is clean, he will be issued a Notice to Appear." That requires the illegal alien to appear in court at a later date, he said. Illegal aliens deemed to be a threat or who have criminal records are detained until their hearings.

Van Pelt and Little said there is no justification for singling out people from the Middle East and cited Richard Reid, an Englishman who tried to detonate his shoe on an airliner, as an example of a terrorist threat from another part of the world. "There have been people suspected and accused of being Irish terrorists," Van Pelt noted. Also, said Little, immigration agents have to justify their actions with evidence before judges. "We have to be able to inform the immigration judge why we are holding a person," he said. [How ‘bout because he broke the law by entering the country illegally?! — Ed.] "'He's a young man from a Middle Eastern country' doesn't sound very good."

In just the McAllen, Tex., sector of the Southern border, 19,460 nationals other than Mexicans (OTMs) were apprehended between Oct. 1, 2003, and July 28, 2004, according to a local Border Patrol spokesman. One of those was Farida Ahmed, a Muslim woman with a South African passport on her way to New York. She was detained at McAllen International Airport by astute Border Patrol agents on July 19. She is charged with entering the country illegally, possessing an altered passport, and lying to investigators.

ICE does not keep central statistics on OTMs apprehended crossing the Southern border. . . .

One wonders whether these immigration bureaucrats would enforce ethnic profiling, even if it were codified into the law. A serious housecleaning at the Bureau would probably have to follow the law's passage. Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to send this Human Events piece to your elected officials, and demand a sane policy of ethnic and religious profiling be integrated into border enforcement laws.

For what its worth, you can also contact Homeland Security Secretary Tom Ridge here, and let him know your opinion of his officials' belief that there is "no justification" for holding Mid Eastern illegals.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Protect Religious Freedom of Speech With H.R. 235

With the advent of leftist spies in our church pews, and with so few legislative days left for the 108th Congress, the time to pass HR 235, The Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, is at hand. Here is the Family Research Council's analysis of the bill:

Policy Goal:

To provide the full range of protection intended by the First Amendment to houses of worship by eliminating government entanglement in micromanaging the political speech of houses of worship.

Purpose:

The Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act, introduced in the House of Representatives, would permit houses of worship to engage in the full range of political speech to the same extent that is currently permitted them for issue advocacy and lobbying without compromising the organization's tax exempt status.

Analysis:

The First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution says, "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

When Congress was debating the Revenue Act of 1954, then-Senator Lyndon Johnson sponsored a floor amendment that banned Section 501(c)(3) organizations from engaging in political activities. This became law and is the reason 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely banned from engaging in political campaigning or endorsing candidates, including speaking out on the moral qualifications of a particular candidate for office.

Johnson apparently proposed this amendment to counteract a nonprofit organization that opposed his candidacy for senator. The law swept up houses of worship with other nonprofits. Neither Johnson, the IRS, nor the Supreme Court has ever asserted that the prohibition is required by the Establishment Clause, nor is there any legal precedent that does so. It is FRC's position that this law is in direct violation of the First Amendment.

The Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act would remove government entanglement in reviewing churches' political speech and reduce the burden on the free exercise and free speech rights of houses of worship. It will give back to churches what was unjustly taken from them 50 years ago: the freedom to speak however they feel led to speak, whether the issue is construed as political or not.

Today, religious leaders do not have the freedom to educate their congregations on the issues, and empower them to make a informed decisions. If The Houses of Worship Free Speech Restoration Act is passed, religious leaders' First Amendment rights would be restored. They would then be able to engage in lobbying, including issue advocacy, influence legislation, speak out on moral and political issues, take part in political campaigns and endorse candidates, so long as these activities do not constitute a "substantial part" of the organization's activities.

You can read Paul M. Weyrich's informative op-ed on this bill here.

Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to ask your congressional Representative to co-sponsor and fight for passage of this important legislation.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Mineta Must Go

In today's column for the New York Post, Michelle Malkin summarizes the case for firing our dangerous transportation secretary:

August 9, 2004 -- FEW government officials have invited more scorn than Transportation Secretary Norm Mineta. It's long past time for the Bush administration to send him out to pasture.

And it is time for America to purge itself of the addled, anti-profiling mindset of Mineta. He has turned his personal World War II experience into an excuse to do nothing to fight our enemies today.

After 19 Islamist foreign hijackers murdered 3,000 people on American soil, Mineta quickly declared that any profiling taking into account race, ethnicity, religion or nationality would be forbidden in airport security. When 60 Minutes correspondent Steve Croft asked Mineta whether he could envision any circumstance where it would make sense to use racial and ethnic profiling, he responded, "Absolutely not."

Croft followed up: "If you saw three young Arab men sitting, kneeling, praying, before they boarded a flight, getting on, talking to each other in Arabic, getting on the plane, no reason to stop and ask them any questions?" Mineta remained obstinate: No.

Since that interview, Mineta has shaken down airlines for engaging in profiling and continues to lean on the industry to prevent cautious flight crews from applying heightened scrutiny to any and all Arab/Muslim passengers. United Airlines, American Airlines and Continental Airlines have all been forced to settle discrimination cases with the Department of Transportation for a combined $3.5 million. . . .

We cannot win the war on Muslim terrorists as long as we keep learning the wrong lessons of World War II. Mineta is the wrong man at the wrong time in the wrong place. He seeks penance for the past by handcuffing the nation's defenders of the present. To defeat the Islamists, America needs dry-eyed leaders who refuse to be sorry for putting homeland security over hurt feelings.

Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to ask President Bush to remove Mineta, before another 9-11 makes it obvious that he should have done so.

And for more on transportation security lunacy, read Heather Mac Donald's August 5th piece for the Wall Street Journal Our Own Worst Enemy.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" section at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog.

North Korea: Preemption or Destruction?

U.S.: North Korea Works on New Missiles

Thursday August 5, 2004 11:46 PM

WASHINGTON (AP) - The United States has determined that North Korea is working on new ballistic missile systems designed to deliver nuclear warheads and that it is testing the technology by proxy in Iran, a Bush administration official said Thursday.

Having agreed to a self-imposed test ban, North Korea is sharing technology information with Iran, which carries out missile tests on North Korea's behalf, the administration official said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The missile program is based on Russian technology and has been conducted with help from Russian scientists - help the United States thinks may be continuing, the official said.

A leading military publication, Jane's Defense Week, reported recently that North Korea was developing two new ballistic missile systems that ``appreciably expand the ballistic-missile threat.''

A version of the missile capable of being launched from a submarine or a ship is potentially the most threatening, the weekly said.

Victor Davis Hanson has noted that in war a nation is generally faced with a choice between a bad option and a worse option. North Korea is the paradigm for this aphorism.

In a brilliant October 2003 essay, Gabriel Schoenfeld observed that "If Pakistan is a stick of dynamite, North Korea is a stick of dynamite with a lit fuse."

Today the instant question is: does the US have the political will to extinguish that fuse?

The CIA estimates Kim Jong Il now has enough plutonium for one or two nuclear weapons. If his nuclear ambitions remain unchecked, North Korea will soon produce dozens of nukes annually. It currently boasts a missile capable of hitting the US West Coast and is developing missiles capable of reaching any US city. Yet, even if its psychopath dictator in fear of massive retaliation refrains from attacking the US, he likely will open a clandestine Nukes "R" Us outlet and sell to any rogue state or terrorist group.

Attempts at diplomacy and appeasement (most notably the Jimmy Carter-brokered Yongbyon Agreed Framework) have proved predictably disastrous. In October Schoenfeld observed that it would be "something of a miracle" if the six-nation negotiations succeeded, and recent developments confirm his prescience.

So, what to do? It is clear preemption, or at a minimum pervasive inspections under the credible threat of preemption, are the only reasonable strategies. Yet a preemptive strike against North Korean nuclear facilities would not be pretty.

In 1981 the Israelis destroyed Iraq's Osirak reactor before it "went critical," killing only one person and creating no radioactive contamination. North Korean facilities, however, contain radioactive elements that would create some level of contamination when attacked. Moreover, some facilities are concealed deep inside mountains, making them difficult to destroy from the air with conventional munitions. And any attack would of course encompass only known facilities.

The US would certainly prevail in any resulting hostilities, but the price of extinguishing the "lit fuse" on North Korea would be extremely high. The price of allowing the fuse to burn to detonation would, however, be inestimably higher. As President Bush noted in a June 2002 address at West Point, the US

. . . can no longer solely rely on a reactive posture as we have in the past. The inability to deter a potential attacker, the immediacy of today's threats, and the magnitude of the potential harm that could be caused by our adversaries' choice of weapons, do not permit that option. We cannot let our enemies strike first.

In Romans 14, the Apostle Paul reminds Christians that we will one day "give an account" of our lives before God's judgment seat. I expect believers alive today will be asked the following question:

In the early 21st Century, when communists and Islamists joined forces in a [successful?] attempt to destroy Western civilization with nuclear weapons, what did you do to stop them?

Personally, I'd like to be able to give a good answer.

Our leaders will take bold action only if they are sure the electorate supports it. Use the Ten Minute Lobbyist's Basic Contact Links to inform President Bush, your Representative and Senators of your support for a preemptive strike against North Korean nuclear facilities, should the regime continue to reject demands for complete, verifiable and irreversible dismantling of its nuclear weapons programs.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" list at the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog.

Political Correctness Trumps Passenger Safety

Today the Washington Times editorializes on Department of Transportation political correctness placing the traveling public — not to mention citizens in targeted buildings — in jeopardy:

There does not appear to be a formal quota system in place for screening passengers. But a considerable body of evidence suggests that, beginning in the Clinton years and continuing after September 11, something no less troubling has taken hold: a mindset and series of practices that discourage the use of common sense in deciding who should be permitted to board a plane.

Much of this is outlined in the remarkable testimony delivered June 24 before the Senate Appropriations Committee by Michael Smerconish, an attorney and radio talk show host from Philadelphia. Mr. Smerconish recounted a discussion he had with Herb Kelleher, founder and chairman of Southwest Airlines, in which Mr. Kelleher said that random screening (the silliness which often subjects small children and elderly passengers to added security scrutiny, known as secondary screening) was instituted by the Clinton Justice Department, which was concerned about equality of treatment.

DOT stated earlier this year that "secondary screening of passengers is random or behavior based. It is not now, nor has it ever been based on ethnicity, religion or appearance." This raises an interesting question for Mr. Mineta: Given the reality that the September 11 hijackers had ethnicity, religion and appearance in common, does it make sense to ban any consideration of these factors in deciding who may board a plane?

Regarding the existence of an arbitrary limit on the number of passengers subject to extra screening, Edmond Soliday, United Airlines' former vice president for security, told the September 11 commission that one Justice Department official informed him that "if I had more than three people of the same ethnic origin in line for additional screening, our system would be shut down as discriminatory." Was Mr. Soliday making this up?

In his Senate testimony, Mr. Smerconish raised legitimate questions about DOT's decision to levy a $1.5 fine against American Airlines -- which lost 17 of its personnel on September 11 -- for refusing to allow an American of Arab background to board a flight to Los Angeles at Logan Airport in Boston on Nov. 3, 2001. (The man was acting suspiciously, and his name was similar to one on a terrorism watch list, among other things.)

The editorial closes with an invitation to Mineta to respond to Smerconish's legitimate questions, and explain "why he apparently takes such a dogmatic position against a limited, common-sense use of ethnic profiling at the airport -- now very much a part of the modern battlefield."

You can extend that invitation to Mineta yourself, at the DOT's contact page, and use the PoliticalDevotions.com Take Action Page to copy your Representative, Senators, and President Bush.

For more links, see AIRPORT INSECURITY at Michelle Malkin's weblog.

For more alerts, news and commentary, visit the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

A 370 Billion Dollar Scandal

A recent Wall Street Journal editorial offered some damning stats on the state of public education:

What Money Can't Buy
Education spending goes up, performance doesn't.

Friday, July 30, 2004 12:01 a.m.

Reg Weaver, President of the National Education Association, took to the podium in Boston this week to say that John Kerry was his man. And why not? Nearly one in 10 of the delegates to this week's Democratic convention belongs to a teachers union.

Mr. Kerry had canceled his appearance at the NEA's own convention at the last minute earlier this month, only to scramble and address it by satellite the next day after Mr. Weaver protested. The little scheduling snafu notwithstanding, if you're a teachers union leader, what's not to like in a candidate who has called for "fully funding education, no questions asked?"

We would have thought that calling for the feds to throw tax dollars at a problem with "no questions asked" was a little much, even for a Senator from Massachusetts. But the call for more spending looks all the more unthinking in the light of a study just-released by the Nelson A. Rockefeller Institute of Government.

Though it zeroes in on local rather than state spending, the most obvious point underscored by "K-12 Education: Still Growing Strongly" is that whatever the problem with education, it's not caused by any unwillingness to throw more money at it. Between 1997 and 2002, state and local governments increased K-12 spending by 39%. Even after adjusting for inflation and growth in pupil enrollment, real spending was up nearly 17%. And it went up in every state, even those with strict tax and spending limits.

So what did we get in return? The Rockefeller study didn't say, so we decided to look at test scores for reading because there's probably no skill more fundamental to life-long learning. When we cross-referenced spending increases with the National Assessment of Educational Progress reading scores, we found virtually no link between spending and performance.

The table here tells the story. The states are ranked in order of their real, K-12 education spending increases from 1997-2002. Next to each state we list whether performance on the NAEP reading tests rose, fell or remained largely the same from 1998-2003--the period when the spending benefits should have kicked in. It's not as if the states were starting from a high base, either: According to these same tests, fewer than a third of fourth- graders are proficient in reading, math, science or American history.

The results are a direct refutation of the We Need More Spending chorus. . . .

The real problem is that, notwithstanding the $370 billion the states spend each year on K-12 public education, it remains a rare American monopoly. This election year we are going to hear candidates calling for all manner of new education spending. The question so few of them--Republicans included--are addressing is this: Is there any other part of American life that would receive tens of billions of more dollars if it kept showing no improvement in performance?

Use this link to find your state's home page, where you can contact your governor and legislators to lobby for school privatization, vouchers and homeschool-friendly laws. And be sure to visit GetTheKidsOut.org for information on alternatives to the government school gulag.

For more alerts, news and commentary, see the "Entries by Topic" list on the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

FCC Wants to Hear From You

Focus on the Family's CitizenLink reports:

FCC Seeks Violence Comments

Government regulators want to know what you think about violent television programs. They claim your answer could influence policy.

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC), the government agency charged with regulating the broadcast airwaves, wants to hear what you have to say about the impact of violent television on your kids.

Your comments may influence decision-making and government action.

Specifically, the FCC is calling for comments from parents across America concerned about the impact of excessively violent broadcast television programming on children — parents like Natalie Mead, who says her house has strict TV rules.

"I don't want my kids to be thinking violent thoughts, or to be . . . seeing those images in their heads and so I don't want them to watch violence," Mead said.

The FCC action came only after a directive from members of Congress, according to Steve Isaac, online editor of Plugged In magazine.

"Here we have an opportunity, an extended invitation, from the FCC: 'We want to know what you think about violence on TV,' " he said. "So, we have to take advantage of that."

Popular shows such as Fox's "24" and CBS' "CSI" push the envelope of violent programming, while the FCC looks the other way, Isaac added.

Lara Mahaney, a spokeswoman for the Parents Television Council, said the call represents "the first time they've really started to take a look at" TV violence.

"They ask the questions: 'Is it harmful to kids?' 'What's its effect?' Well, there've been over a thousand studies that said that there's a causal connection," she said.

She said public outcry is exactly what it will take to rein in excessive violence on broadcast TV.

The generic pronouncement against "violence" by pro-family groups is facile. There is, of course, righteous Lone-Ranger-vanquishes-the-bad-guys type violence that is actually healthy for children to see. But this gesture from the FCC does present a good opportunity, one conservatives should seize.

The article includes links to the FCC "Notice of Inquiry" and a CapWiz form you can use to send with one click the same message to all the FCC commissioners.

For more alerts, news and commentary, visit the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog

Barbarians With Nuclear Weapons

The Mad Mullahs' Manhattan project marches on. There were two pieces of not-so-great news this weekend. From Friday:

Iran Said Insisting on Enriching Uranium

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Iran, intensifying a standoff over its nuclear programs, has told European officials it will not back down on its right to proceed with uranium enrichment, a senior U.S. official said on Friday.

"The British and the French tell us Iran insists it will not back down on its right to proceed with enrichment," the official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters.

During a meeting in Paris on Thursday that included Germany, the three European delegations responded that halting uranium enrichment was fundamental to a deal negotiated with Tehran last October, the U.S. official said.

The Europeans added that "nothing else was coming if Iran didn't get back on the road to suspension, leading to cessation of enrichment and reprocessing," the American said.

And from Saturday:

Iran Says it Resumes Building Nuclear Centrifuges

TEHRAN (Reuters) - Iran said Saturday it had resumed building nuclear centrifuges, which Washington says are intended to enrich uranium to weapons-grade for use in bombs.

Iran's decision backtracks from a pledge in October to the European Union's "big three" members -- Britain, France and Germany -- to suspend all uranium enrichment-related activities.

"We have started building centrifuges," Foreign Minister Kamal Kharrazi told a news conference.

However he insisted Iran had not resumed enriching uranium, the key part of the process which can either produce fuel for power stations or bomb material.

Iran had previously said it would restart making centrifuges to retaliate against a resolution from the U.N. nuclear watchdog last month deploring Tehran's failure to co-operate fully with inspectors from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA).

Diplomats say Iran has also restarted work at a uranium conversion facility near the central city of Isfahan. The plant turns processed ore, or yellowcake, into uranium hexafluoride gas which is pumped into centrifuges to form enriched uranium.

On Sunday Islamist murderbots attacked churches in Iraq and killed 11 Christians. They would like to kill 111 million Christians in the US, of course. They just lack the means to do so. For now.

And what would John Kerry do about this? Well, according to his convention speech: "Any attack will be met with a swift and certain response." After we're nuked, he will certainly do . . . uh . . . something.

As concerned citizens, our two major short-term objectives should be as follows: 1) George W. Bush's re-election. 2) Assuring President Bush that there is popular support for an attack on Iran's nuclear installations, by either the US or Israel, even prior to the election if necessary.

How do we create this popular support? By publicizing the danger, and the solution. On July 12th prominent Evangelicals staged "Marriage Protection Sunday." This was an important effort, but let's get our priorities straight. What we really need is a "Protection From Iranian Nuclear Attack Sunday," lest our same-sex marriages occur amongst the nuclear rubble of a dozen US cities.

Once again: Anyone, including a rogue state or a terrorist network, can win a war if they possess nuclear weapons and are willing to strike first. If we fail in our efforts to prevent such a strike, there will be no second chance.

Certainly such a grave threat warrants at least one communication to your elected officials each week. You can express your support for the attack to president Bush at the White House Contact Page, and use the PoliticalDevotions.com Take Action Page to copy your Representative and Senators.

For more alerts, news and commentary, visit the PoliticalDevotions.com Weblog