News Release Homer CCSD 33C
Goodings Grove Luther J. Schilling William E. Young William J.Butler
Hadley Middle Homer Jr. High
Contact: Charla Brautigam, Communications/Public Relations Manager cbrautigam@homerschools.org | 708-226-7628
Among those joining the Homer 33C teaching staff this year are two Homer Junior High School graduates — Taylor Ketelaar (Class of 2007) and Allison McCann (Class of 2008). Both will teach at Young School starting this fall.
For Immediate Release:
Aug. 8, 2015
New hires gather for orientation program
On Monday (Aug. 8), Homer School District 33C welcomed 13 new teachers to the district, including two who graduated from Homer Junior High.
“It feels like I went full circle,” said Taylor Ketelaar who graduated from Homer Junior High in 2007 and is returning nine years later to teach fourth grade at Young School.
Joining her is schoolmate Allison McCann (Homer Class of 2008) who will teach third grade at Young School.
Together, they attended a New Staff Orientation program on Aug. 8 with 11 other educators who are new to Homer 33C: Jordana Fink, Kate Sisto, Kristen Rekruciak, Cathy Cruz, Sarah Brusokas, Theresa Fisch, Janet Peters, Jennifer Kohler, Chris Janssen, Erin Sagon and Kelly Kardas.
Homer 33C Superintendent Kara Coglianese welcomes a group of new teachers to the district Aug. 8 during a New Staff Orientation program.
“We are excited to welcome our new teachers to the Homer family,” said Kathleen Robinson, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction. “Exemplary teachers are critical to student success in schools.”
Kathleen Robinson, Assistant Superintendent for Instruction, reviews policies, procedures and expectations with teachers during a New Staff Orientation program on Aug. 8.
During the day-long orientation program, teachers were given an overview of the district, including its history, policies, procedures and expectations.
They also reviewed First Year Teacher Tips with a team of Homer 33C teachers and reflected on what makes a great teacher.
“Make sure you show interest and enthusiasm,” advised Robinson. “The tone you set that first day is going to carry you through to the end of the school year.”
Many of the new hires replace educators who retired at the end of the 2015-16 school year. Some are first-year teachers straight out of college; others are seasoned educators who taught in other districts.
No matter how many years they’ve been teaching, each new employee will be paired with a veteran teacher who will serve as their mentor.
“Research shows that teachers who have strong mentors have longer, more fulfilled careers and an easier time their first few years,” said Robinson.
The mentors and mentees will meet at least once a week and discuss what’s going on in their classrooms. They’ll also meet monthly for building meetings and come together as a large group three times a year for district meetings.
Rebuilding the Middle Class One Good Job at a Time
August 4, 2016
Newt Gingrich
This year’s presidential campaign has revealed much about the state of the union in 2016, but surely one of the most important revelations has been the existence of a stagnant economy with declining real wages and a great hollowing out of the Middle Class as millions of Americans are dropping out of the labor force.
As Jim Clifton of Gallup wrote last year, we need a “minimum of 10 million new, good jobs to replenish America’s middle class”.
At the heart of the problem is a real gap between the skills many Americans have and the skills they need to get a good job. According to the Department of Labor, there are nearly 6 million job openings in the U.S. Frequently, these positions are unfilled because businesses cannot find employees with the skills they need.
Bridging the skills gap is both a cultural and training challenge. The cultural challenge is that there have to be enough people willing to do the type of work required for the jobs that are available. The training challenge is that we have to have systems of education available to provide the skills these jobs require.
While graduates of top universities may have little trouble finding the highest-paying jobs, millions of other students are getting a far more questionable bargain from our current system of higher education. As Mike Rowe, host of Dirty Jobs, has described the challenge, “we are lending money that ostensibly we don’t have to kids who really have no hope of paying it back in order to train them for jobs that clearly don’t exist.”
Americans who are past the typical age of an undergraduate student are in an even worse position. Traditional universities and community colleges focus intensely on academics over practical knowledge, which often makes them a poor choice for people who need to learn new skills at middle age.
Our political leaders are finally catching on to this reality.
The Republican Party platform called for “new systems of learning to compete with traditional four-year schools,” including “technical institutions, online universities, lifelong learning, and work-based learning in the private sector.” Public policy, the platform said, “should recognize that a four-year degree from a brick-and-mortar institution is not the only path toward a prosperous and fulfilling career.”
Hillary Clinton echoed the sentiment in her acceptance speech at the Democratic National Convention last month, acknowledging “something we don’t say often enough: College is crucial, but a four-year degree should not be the only path to a good job.” We need, she said, “to help more people learn a skill or practice a trade and make a good living doing it.”
Those are excellent words from the Democratic nominee for president. Unfortunately, her party’s platform explicitly attacks the programs and businesses that are necessary to make her words a reality.
The Democratic Party platform calls for special regulations targeting private sector colleges, universities and career education programs–and many of these appear designed to put the career-focused schools out of business. For instance, the Democratic platform lauds the Obama administration’s Gainful Employment Rule, which requires only private-sector programs to prove that graduates, on average, earn enough money so that their loan payments are less than 8 percent of their monthly incomes.
They don’t define programs by academic quality, simply by the debt-to-earnings ratio in year 3 of one’s chosen career. What does that mean? If you are poor, and pursue an occupation with lower starting wages, your program soon will not exist!
The administration now supports a newly proposed “defense-to-repayment” regulation, which would require all schools to set aside funds to forgive student loan debts for those students who can claim that their schools made misrepresentations to them even if no harm resulted and even if no intent to defraud could be proven. The proposed regulation would be a dramatic expansion of the legal arguments trial lawyers could wield on behalf of their student clients to not pay back their student loans.
We all support students who are academically defrauded being able to seek appropriate loan forgiveness. But a regulation that imposes penalties before conviction and encourages class action law suits by trial lawyers would eliminate the good schools providing good programs.
Even the Washington Post editorial board has labeled this proposed regulation an “overreach.”
The regulation would also impose a significant cost on taxpayers. By its own estimate, the Department of Education believes the implementation of the proposed regulation could cost the taxpayer $43 billion over the next ten years in the form of student debt that would go uncollected and be left to the taxpayer to foot the bill.
Both Republicans and Democrats should be for accountability in higher education and reasonable regulations, including even some version of the gainful employment and defense-to-repayment rules. At the same time, accountability standards must apply to everybody equally–public and nonprofit universities, community colleges, and private-sector schools alike.
Any unequal application of federal rules in higher education should be taken as a clear sign that the regulations are not principled consumer protection measures. Instead, unequal application of accountability rules is a sure sign that one sector of higher education is being punished, and another benefited, strictly on ideological grounds. This double standard in enforcement of the law is inherently unfair and should face bipartisan rejection by Congress.
The Obama administration should realize that when they punish good, law abiding institutions that focus on skills training and career education, they are really punishing the forgotten middle class–the very people that the career schools are serving and that traditional schools aren’t serving. They are also punishing the very people who are in the best position to close the skills gap and help rebuild the Middle Class in this country one good job at a time.
In light of the historic gap between our comfortable elites and the rest of the country, we urgently need a renewed, bipartisan commitment to improving opportunity for all Americans. That will require new thinking about how we train people for careers that are available now, how we accredit the institutions that are helping students learn the skills they need, and how we hold schools equally accountable for producing results.
With her fine words about skills education in her acceptance speech last week, Hillary Clinton has the opportunity to lead her party in a new direction and away from an ideologically driven assault on career education.
Donald Trump and the Republican majorities in Congress have already signaled their clear commitment to career education in the Republican party platform. Congress has a rare bipartisan opportunity before it to help rebuild the Middle Class by closing the skills gap. It only has to make sure that new costly and punitive regulations out of the Department of Education are revised so that they don’t destroy the very schools that will help make this happen.
If not, the real losers are those students, often adults, with only one road to the middle class – through a career program providing real skills leading to real jobs, real income and real place in America’s middle class.
While it sent the political establishment atwitter and caused the media hacks – even the so-called “right wing media” — to experience tingles up their legs, such a display surely offended right-thinking Americans who don’t appreciate lectures from the parasite class. And make no mistake, Khan is a member of the parasite class.
That it has become a dominate media theme that Donald Trump offended a poor “Gold Star” family who “sacrificed” their son, rather than a focus on who Khan is and what are his — and Hillary Clinton’s — ties to Muslim Wahhabi terror groups like the Muslim Brotherhood and as a lobbyist for Saudi Arabia shows how far removed the establishment is from middle America. Khizr M. Khan’s own writings demonstrate he supports killing and mutilating those who violate Islamic laws and support the right of men to beat their wives who act “unseemly.” He’s also written that “The invariable and basic rules of Islamic law are only those prescribed in the Shari’ah. All other juridical works… must always be subordinated to the Shari’ah.”
As investigative journalist Wayne Madsen writes:
Khan co-founded the Journal of Contemporary Issues in Muslim Law, an academic periodical that seeks to defend the arcane Sharia law to a legal system based on Western jurisprudence. Of course, Sharia law justifies the execution of gays, prostitutes, blasphemers, and Muslim “apostates” who convert to other religions.
So much for reading and valuing the Constitution he waved about.
The Khans can’t get an automatic pass from scrutiny or criticism just because their son was sacrificed for the neocon war machine, of which the Witch from Chappaqua is a part, and Americans should not be cowed by the manufactured media frenzy. He wasn’t “honoring” his son with that political broadside, he was protecting his self-interests.
Khan makes his living facilitating Muslim immigration, and likely provides a “legal” safety net for Muslims who have overstayed their visas. He fired that broadside at Trump – and by extension, all Americans who want better immigration controls — because Trump has vowed to cut off illegal immigration and reduce the number of immigrants coming into the country. And because Khan is simply a Clinton surrogate.
Khan, the political elites and the Clinton media networks represent just one aspect of the crime cabal destroying liberty and America as a country and pushing for elimination of borders and One World Government.
And by the way, Mr. (Con) Khan: Please show article and section where the Constitution requires application of domestic “equal protection” to people in other countries seeking entry to the U.S. I’ll not hold my breath while you read the Constitution for (likely) the first time. H/T:Breitbart.com
Last month the Board of Trustees for Social Security wrote in itsannual report on the program that the major parts of the greatest Ponzi scheme in the history of the world have run out of money and the rest of Social Security will be completely broke in a few years.
The state propaganda ministry dutifully reported these findings, withCNNMoney claiming that, “If lawmakers don’t act, Social Security’s trust fund will be tapped out in about 18 years.”
That doesn’t mean retirees will get nothing by 2034, the writer tells us. It just means that at that point the program will only have enough revenue coming in to pay 79 percent of the promised benefits. So if you are expecting to receive $2,000 per month from Social Security, you will only receive $1,580.
But not to worry, Congress, in all its benevolence, has a solution already in mind. Rep. Joseph Crowley (D-NY), introduced a bill July 12 to create a new mandatory savings program funded by employers with more than 10 employees. The law would require those employers to begin making a contribution into a retirement savings account in the amount of 50 cents for every hour the employee works. It would also allow the employee to contribute, through the employer, 3 percent of their pay into the account.
Of course, the employer already pays 6.2 percent of each employee’s wages into Social Security. On top of that, each employer pays 1.45 percent of each employee’s pay into Medicare for the Medicare tax. Neither of these obligations will be reduced by the new law so it will have the effect of further driving down wages, eliminating jobs or turning more jobs into contract labor jobs, just as Obamacare has done.
So what we have going on here, in typical government fashion and in order to cover for a failed government program, government is creating another government program based on the same model as the failed program, and it has given it a new, highfalutin name: Secure, Accessible, Valuable, Efficient Universal Pension Accounts, or SAVE UP. The bill promises that the account will return 5 percent, except when it doesn’t.
The SAVE UP program is just another government scam program like Social Security, President Barack Obama’s MyRA program, Individual Retirement Accounts and 401(k)s, and part of the ongoing, gradualist move toward government confiscation of all pension and retirement funds.
I am going to tell you what nobody else has told you or will tell you. Social security is not going broke. Any stories you have heard or may hear about Social Security going broke or benefits not going out is a political myth. They love to whip retired people to death with horror stories about Social Security. They scare the workers into bigger deductions from their paychecks. My friends, this is all nonsense.
Once again, Social Security is a credit system just as is everything else in America. Since the government and Federal Reserve money monopoly creates unlimited credit, somebody tell me how it can go broke. Anybody who understands modern money (bank credit) knows this to be true. Your money may go broke, but Social Security won’t. You will get your check but what you can buy with it in future years is the question.
To be sure, there is a huge problem with Social Security, but it has nothing to do with funding it. The population is aging. More and more people are drawing Social Security.
There are three sides to Social Security. They are: the government, those who pay in, and those who receive payments. All three have a different perspective.
First, let’s start with the government. Social security is not funded, it has no trust fund, and it will never be funded. Government payments to Social Security recipients are no different from government payments for anything else. The government simply writes you a check. Further stated, what the government does is just send computer symbols to your checking account. You then spend the numbers by writing them on check paper and passing them to somebody else. You don’t have any money, only imaginary numbers called money.
The only possible way for Social Security, or anything else, to go broke is to have substance as money, such as silver and gold, and spend it all with no way to get any more. We just agreed that money is only numbers which represent absolutely nothing. How can the government run out of numbers? They can create numbers until the end of time.
So what is the serious problem that government has with Social Security? Government is concerned with the exponential growth of the retirement population. Our economic system will collapse if our population gets too top heavy with nonproducing consumers.
In Keynesian economic theory, there has to be a limited number of consumers. This is mathematically obvious under any economic system. But it is an absolute under a credit system such as we have now.
Take my word for it, only so much consumption can be allowed by nonproducing, consuming retired people. Modern governments are very sensitive about consumption. The reason and the logic behind this is simple. Government is the biggest consumer of all.
Here’s what I mean: Government, through the Federal Reserve, issues (creates) credit which is really just abstract numbers. With this credit, government consumes and, with time, government owns everything. Government literally steals the wealth of the country.
In some poverty-stricken third world countries, governments have already consumed all the national wealth and so there is no one left to produce and no one to buy if anything is produced (see Venezuela). The bottom line is that government will not, under any circumstance, let the Social Security system out-consume the government and the productive capacity of the country. Production must balance consumption. Since only so much can be produced then it follows that only so much can be consumed. Consumption must be regulated, and this is the problem.
What will the government do? The government has already taxed Social Security. What does taxing do? Well, the American people believe that their taxes support the government. This is absolutely not true. Taxes of any kind have nothing to do with supporting modern governments. Modern governments create money through their central banks… remember the numbers we discussed above. But taxing is very important; it is the process of taking some of the numbers back.
Taxes control consumption. When the government taxes your income or Social Security, it is cutting your consumption. The more that is taxed, the more that consumption is reduced. The more the government consumes, the less it will allow the people to consume. So government consumption goes up and your taxes go up to cut more of your consumption. Remember, there cannot be more consumption than production, and the government is certainly not going to cut its consumption. So you can expect that the government will tax more and create ever new taxes, like the SAVE UP account.
You may hear more political rumblings about taking Social Security away from people “who can afford to do without it.” You will likely hear more rumblings from Congress about raising the age at which people can begin receiving Social Security benefits. (The goal here is to raise it to where most people die before receiving any benefits, as was the case when it was established.)
But eventually, consumption by the retired population will be cut and cut massively one way or the other. The government will do what it has always done. It will engage in class warfare. It will play the “have-nots” against the “haves,” those who have worked hard and saved. If you understand the philosophy of government and if you understand the economic system, what we have just said is easy to predict. You can count on it. The cuts will come outright, or through some fabricated national emergency and in other devious ways. But they will come as the monstrous government consumes the national wealth.
So the Social Security crisis has absolutely nothing to do with funding. From the government and the politician’s viewpoint, the problem is how to reverse consumption from the fast-growing, nonproducing consuming people who get Social Security.
As stated above, the government has already started taxing Social Security, there is a limit one can earn while receiving Social Security before a benefit reduction ensues, and there has for years been calls to “means test” those who can receive it. Again, this is class warfare as only those who earn extra income are taxed. This discrimination will be expanded. Next those “more fortunate” who have made the extra effort in life will be taxed even more.
Also, the welfare medical system is now consuming far more than will be allowed in the future. The propaganda mills will grind about waste and inefficiency in the medical facilities, and laws will be passed to cut Medicare. Older people will be denied coverage through the Obamacare death panels.
The people who pay Social Security, Medicare and all the taxes are who we call the producing consumers. It is easy to see that the government and its politicians have transferred consumption from the producers to the nonproducers as Social Security paycheck deductions have gone from 2 percent in 1937 to 12.4 percent today.
It follows that either higher and higher Social Security payments will be cut out of paychecks, or new pretenses for taxes and confiscation will be created (SAVE UP). Here again is a classic example of class warfare; the producers against the nonproducers.
Very few people are aware that it is all a process of reversing consumption from the people to the government. All other stated reasons are propaganda. Any time the government and the politicians “regulate” your consumption with new income taxes or Social Security taxes or pension savings taxes, their purpose is to increase government consumption. It does not matter which politicians are in power. This is the philosophy and the plan of modern governments who create money through central banks.
The one thing you have to give the left credit for is their ability to implement their agenda… you know, by violating the Constitution and breaking a bunch of laws. This president and the cabal of anti-American, gun-hating sycophants he surrounds himself with are doing everything they can to subvert the Constitution and the will of John Q. Public when it comes to the right to keep and bear arms. Not only are they nonplused about violating the Constitution and breaking laws, they’re also more than willing to sacrifice small business owners when it furthers their objective. The most recent Obama blow to the Second Amendment comes in an attack against gunsmiths.
The Directorate of Defense Trade Controls, or DDTC, has issued new guidelines that will require most gunsmiths to register with International Traffic in Arms Regulations. ITAR is designed to prevent firearms and firearm technology from being exported out of the country. Okay, fair enough, but what does that have to do with your local gunsmith, a breed that is vanishing to begin with? The changes, I would point out, were implemented without warning or input from John Q or the industry.
So truth be told, ITAR has nothing to do with the average gunsmith, and that’s not the point. The point is it will require gunsmiths to pay an annual fee of $2250. How many gunsmiths do you know that are exporting anything? In fact how many gunsmiths do you know at all? For Obama, putting them all out of business is his most recent anti-gun crusade. Clearly the real reason behind the new guidelines is to simply make the cost of being a gunsmith far higher than the average gunsmith can hope to recoup in a given year.
What criterion requires a gunsmith to register and pay the tax? ITAR requires that “Anybody who engages in the business of ‘manufacturing’ a defense article” register with DDTC and pay the registration fee. And here’s the catch: the requirements apply even if the business has not in the past, does not now and does not intend to export any defense article. The changes to the rules now include pretty much everything a gunsmith would do with the exception of drop-in parts.
If a gunsmith does any work that requires cutting, fitting or “special tools,” BINGO – it’s considered manufacturing, including: modifications to a firearm that change round capacity; the production of firearm parts including, but not limited to, barrels, stocks, cylinders, breech mechanisms, triggers, silencers, or suppressors; the systemized production of ammunition including the automated loading or reloading of ammunition; and the machining or cutting of firearms such as the threading of muzzles or muzzle brake installation requiring machining and more.
So what are the chances that gunsmithing will go underground? Well, I’m sure it will, but here’s something to ponder. The penalties for violating ITAR-which are retroactive, I would point out-can result in a $1,000,000 fine and 20 years imprisonment per occurrence. And as anti-gun as Barack Obama is, Hillary Clinton makes Obama look like an NRA life member. Don’t expect anything less from President Hildabeast, so tell me again why it is you’re not going to vote for Donald Trump?
US election shocker: is this how the vote will be rigged?
Votes are being counted as fractions instead of as whole numbers
by Jon Rappoport
August 1, 2016
As we know, there are a number of ways to rig an election. Bev Harris, atblackboxvoting.org, is exploring a specific “cheat sheet” that has vast implications for the Trump vs. Hillary contest.
It’s a vote-counting system called GEMS.
I urge you to dive into her multi-part series, Fraction Magic (Part-1 here). Here are key Harris quotes. They’re all shockers:
“Our testing [of GEMS] shows that one vote can be counted 25 times, another only one one-thousandth of a time, effectively converting some votes to zero.” “This report summarizes the results of our review of the GEMS election management system, which counts approximately 25 percent of all votes in the United States. The results of this study demonstrate that a fractional vote feature is embedded in each GEMS application which can be used to invisibly, yet radically, alter election outcomes by pre-setting desired vote percentages to redistribute votes. This tampering is not visible to election observers, even if they are standing in the room and watching the computer. Use of the decimalized vote feature is unlikely to be detected by auditing or canvass procedures, and can be applied across large jurisdictions in less than 60 seconds.”
“GEMS vote-counting systems are and have been operated under five trade names: Global Election Systems, Diebold Election Systems, Premier Election Systems, Dominion Voting Systems, and Election Systems & Software, in addition to a number of private regional subcontractors. At the time of this writing, this system is used statewide in Alaska, Connecticut, Georgia, Mississippi, New Hampshire, Utah and Vermont, and for counties in Arizona, California, Colorado, Florida, Illinois, Indiana, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, Massachusetts, Michigan, Missouri, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Tennessee, Texas, Virginia, Washington, Wisconsin and Wyoming. It is also used in Canada.”
“Instead of ‘1’ the vote is allowed to be 1/2, or 1+7/8, or any other value that is not a whole number.”
“Weighting a race [through the use of GEMS] removes the principle of ‘one person-one vote’ to allow some votes to be counted as less than one or more than one. Regardless of what the real votes are, candidates can receive a set percentage of votes. Results can be controlled. For example, Candidate A can be assigned 44% of the votes, Candidate B 51%, and Candidate C the rest.”
“All evidence that [rigged] fractional values ever existed [in the GEMS system] can be removed instantly even from the underlying database using a setting in the GEMS data tables, in which case even instructing GEMS to show the [rigged] decimals will fail to reveal they were used.”
“Source code: Instructions to treat votes as decimal values instead of whole numbers [i.e., rigging] are inserted multiple times in the GEMS source code itself; thus, this feature cannot have been created by accident.”
A contact who, so far, apparently wishes to remain anonymous states the following about the history of the GEMS system:
“The Fractional vote [rigging] portion traces directly to Jeffrey W. Dean, whose wife was primary stockholder of the company that developed GEMS. He ran the company but was prohibited from handling money or checks due to a criminal conviction for computer fraud, for which he spent 4 years in prison. Almost immediately after being released from prison he was granted intimate access to elections data and large government contracts for ballot printing and ballot processing.”
I see no effort on the part of the federal government, state governments, or the mainstream press to investigate the GEMS system or respond to Bev Harris’ extensive analysis.
It’s not as if media outlets are unaware of her. From shesource.org, here is an excerpt from her bio:
“Harris has been referred to as ‘the godmother’ of the election reform movement. (Boston Globe). Vanity Fair magazine credits her with founding the movement to reform electronic voting. Time Magazine calls her book, Black Box Voting, ‘the bible’ of electronic voting… Harris’s investigations have led some to call her the ‘Erin Brockovich of elections.’ (Salon.com)… Harris has supervised five ‘hack demonstrations’ in the field, using real voting machines. These have been covered by the Associated Press, the Washington Post, and in formal reports by the United States General Accounting Office…”
So far, her analysis of GEMS seems to be labeled “too hot to handle.” Press outlets prefer to report the slinging of mud from both Presidential candidates’ camps. Meanwhile, the actual results of the coming elections—including Congressional races—appear to be up for grabs, depending on who controls GEMS.
Jon Rappoport
For more information http://www.ejfi.org/Voting/Voting-37.htm
MY BATTLE WITH CHRISTIAN MEDIA ABOUT TRUMP
Exclusive: James C. Dobson on 1-sentence remark regarding nominee’s ‘conversion’ 8/3/2016
author-image JAMES DOBSON About | Email | Archive
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This is the first opportunity I’ve had to tell you about my consequential trip to New York City on June 21. I went there to meet with GOP presidential candidate (and now nominee) Donald Trump. There were 1,000 Christian leaders at the New York Marriott Marquis Hotel that day, where most of us stayed. Our purpose was not to endorse Mr. Trump, but to have a candid “conversation” with him. We wanted to ask the candidate specific questions about his personal views and policies, and to ascertain how he will govern if given the opportunity.
The day began early that Tuesday morning at the Trump Tower on Fifth Avenue. About 40 well-known Christian leaders met with the candidate in his conference room on the 25th floor. I joined many evangelical leaders who care deeply about our country’s future. About 25 of us from that gathering were asked to serve as the anchor of Trump’s Evangelical Executive Advisory Board. It will continue in the White House if he is successful in November. (See the names of these members at the end of this column.)
The initial meeting at the Trump Tower opened with him speaking briefly, followed by introductory remarks from Jerry Falwell Jr. and a prayer by Franklin Graham. I was then given the opportunity to pose the first question, as follows:
I said, “Mr. Trump, I’m sure you know that the Pilgrims came to our shores in 1620, seeking freedom to worship as their consciences dictated. Their passion for Jesus Christ became ingrained in the American soul, and greatly influenced our Founding Fathers as they formed a new government in the 18th century. These men wrote and passed the historic U.S. Constitution, and added to it a Bill of Rights shortly thereafter. It consisted of 10 Amendments guaranteeing specific liberties for the American people. There has never been anything like it in the history of the world. The first of the 10 Amendments secured religious liberties for all citizens and provided the foundation for the other nine.”
I continued, “In recent years, however, there has been a growing assault on these rights, notably religious liberty. Our Supreme Court has struck down Bible reading in schools and even prohibited prayer to an unidentified God. Then, they banned the posting of the Ten Commandments on bulletin boards. From there, the limitation on religious liberties has become even more egregious.
“Most recently, President Obama and Hillary Clinton have been referring to ‘freedom of worship,’ rather than ‘freedom of religion.’ Do you understand their motive? They are suggesting that Americans are free to worship in their churches and synagogues, but not in the public square.”
With that background, I asked Mr. Trump the following question, both in the smaller meeting and again in the larger assembly:
I said, “Sir, if you are elected president, how will you protect our religious liberties? Will we have to fight another revolutionary war to secure those rights to worship, think and speak?”
Donald Trump was very sympathetic to the concerns I expressed, although I can’t remember his precise words. I do recall he said it was an outrage that Christians have been deprived of their rights to speak openly on behalf of the values and principles in which they believe. He was especially exercised by a 1954 tax-code amendment by then Sen. Lyndon Johnson. Jerry Falwell Jr. said Johnson had rammed this amendment through Congress without public scrutiny. It seriously limited freedom of religion, especially religious speech, by leaders of churches and non-profit organizations. The Johnson amendment contained language that prohibited the faith community from expressing their opinions about political parties and those seeking power. That law plagues us to this day. Trump rightly condemned the legislation, which muzzled those of us who would otherwise use our influence to support our beliefs. He called that provision “unfair,” and promised to overturn it if he is elected. That would have a great impact on Washington because it would unleash Christian activists to fight for their beliefs.
Other participants within the huge crowd were then handed microphones and allowed to ask Mr. Trump to clarify his perspectives on various topics. It was a fascinating day.
Then, something happened that would get reported, mostly inaccurately, in perhaps 1,000 newspapers, blogs and media outlets. Because I was recognized by a large number of participants, I began greeting people who approached me. I talked that day to what seemed like 500 people in a 15-hour period ending at 11:30 p.m. One of those well-wishers was carrying a recording device, and he suddenly appeared before me and held a microphone in my face. He asked for my impressions from the day.
I spoke candidly for about 20 seconds, as I recall. Then he disappeared. By the next morning, millions of people were talking about my saying I had heard during the day that a minister had led Donald Trump to a relationship with Christ. I didn’t elaborate because I said all I knew. Reporters and op ed writers began criticizing me for that one-sentence remark. The Christian media were especially vicious!
One particularly harsh blogger wrote this about me. His headline read, “Dobson changes his mind about Donald Trump’s conversion.” Then he wrote:
“Is this the way we as believers should be discussed by the world? Should we be wavering like this, supporting candidates at all costs, even when it destroys our witness and credibility? Aren’t we supposed to be upstanding and able to reach the lost instead of confusing the lost? There are thieves in the temple, people!”
From my 20-second comment, I have become a “thief in the temple.” Let me explain just how off-the-wall this man’s criticism was. I responded to a Christian blogger and minister, David Jeffers, who wrote me a couple days after my comments became public. He asked me to tell him more about the event. This is my reply:
Dear David,
Only the Lord knows the condition of a person’s heart. I can only tell you what I’ve heard. First, Trump appears to be tender to things of the Spirit. I also hear that Paula White has known him for years and that she personally led him to Christ. Do I know that for sure? No. Do I know the details of that alleged conversion? I can’t say that I do. But there are many Christian leaders who are serving on a faith advisory committee for Trump now and in the future. I am among them. How will that play out if Trump becomes president? I don’t know. It is a good start, I would think.
If anything, he appears to be a baby Christian who doesn’t have a clue about how believers think, talk and act. All I can tell you is that we have only two choices, Hillary or Donald. This much is self-evident: we can’t afford to sit out this election, and we must be in prayer for our nation at this time of crisis.
Hope this helps.
Well, that is the backstory behind my mid-summer excursion. The beat goes on. A Christian man walked up to me yesterday and said with a grin on his face, “I see that you had to backtrack on your assertion about Donald Trump.” He said it with some glee, as though he had caught me in a lie.
I said, “Not really. I didn’t waffle on anything.”
I still don’t think he understood. Life is filled with inconsequential little challenges, isn’t it?
God’s blessings to you.
Note: Here are the Trump Evangelical Executive Advisory Board members who attended the June meeting:
Michele Bachmann -Former Congresswoman
A.R. Bernard – Senior Pastor and CEO, Christian Cultural Center
Mark Burns – Pastor, Harvest Praise and Worship Center
Tim Clinton – President, American Association of Christian Counselors
James Dobson – Author, Psychologist and Host, My Family Talk
Jerry Falwell, Jr. – President, Liberty University
Ronnie Floyd – Senior Pastor, Cross Church
Jentezen Franklin – Senior Pastor, Free Chapel
Jack Graham – Senior Pastor, Prestonwood Baptist Church
Harry Jackson – Senior Pastor, Hope Christian Church
Robert Jeffress – Senior Pastor, First Baptist Church of Dallas
David Jeremiah – Senior Pastor, Shadow Mountain Community Church
James MacDonald –Founder and Senior Pastor, Harvest Bible Chapel
Johnnie Moore – Author, President of The KAIROS Company
Robert Morris – Senior Pastor, Gateway Church
Tom Mullins –Senior Pastor, Christ Fellowship
Ralph Reed – Founder,Faith and Freedom Coalition
James Robison – Founder, Life OUTREACH International
Tony Suarez – Executive Vice President, National Hispanic Christian Leadership Conference
Jay Strack – President, Student Leadership University
Paula White – Senior Pastor, New Destiny Christian Center
Tom Winters – Attorney, Winters and King, Inc.
Sealy Yates – Attorney, Yates and Yates
Read more at http://www.wnd.com/2016/08/my-battle-with-christian-media-about-trump/#ly9h0ergb8IAHoBg.99
Our Will County Clerk, Nancy Schultz Voots, is seeking individuals to apply to be an Election Judge for the upcoming election on November 8, 2016. Election Judges play an important role in the voting process. There will be a 2 hour training class prior to the election and you will be compensated $150.00 for working the election. The hours to work the Election are 5:00 AM to 7:00 PM. All applicants must be a registered voter in Will County.
To apply, visit their website at www.the willcountyclerk.com and click on the icon Elections, and next Become an Election Judge in order to submit an application. For further inquiries, contact Mary Kay Campbell or Christine Randall at the County Clerk’s office at 815-740-4Sincerely,
WILL COUNTY CLERK’S OFFICE
302 N. Chicago
Joliet, IL 60432 PHONE (815) 740-4617 FAX (815) 740-4699
You and I knew Illinois’s political system was broken. But I have to admit it’s even worse than I thought – and that’s saying something because I thought it was pretty bad.
You supported me because I said I was willing to stand up to the status quo and do what’s right to fix Illinois. That’s exactly what I’ve tried to do for the past year and a half, and I’m going to keep on doing it.
I’m standing with the taxpayers, job creators and concerned parents across the state who are sick and tired of the failed status quo.
While a tremendous amount of work remains, we’ve taken significant steps toward reform over the past year, including:
• Streamlined and modernized government operations, saving taxpayers more than $800 million in annual costs.
• Initiated transformation of the way Medicaid and other health and human services are provided in Illinois, making them more efficient and effective for our most vulnerable families.
• Increased state support for early childhood and K-12 education to record levels.
• Negotiated innovative new contracts with 18 government labor unions, eliminating costly work rules and automatic pay raises while implementing merit pay and bonuses based upon taxpayer saving.
• Defeated AFSCME’s legislative attempt to kick us out of contract negotiations, saving taxpayers $3 billion over the next four years.
• Defeated Madigan’s attempt to pass a $7 billion-deficit budget that would have caused spending to rise beyond even our current court-mandated level.
• Created strong incentives in the stopgap spending plan for the legislature to pass comprehensive pension reform by next January.
There is much work to be done, but we are proud of what our team has accomplished in the first 18 months. As I travel the state each week, people everywhere say to me, “Governor, stay strong, don’t give in, don’t back down. You are on the right track.”
Illinoisans understand that we need to repair our broken political system in order to fix what ails our state.
That’s why we’re launching a long-term movement to fix Illinois, starting with term limits. Nearly 80 percent of Illinoisans support term limits for elected officials. It’s time Springfield heard taxpayer voices. FixIllinois.com will be the online home base for this movement.
We have a long road ahead of us, but I’m all in. Will look forward to keeping you updated as our work progresses.
Last month the Board of Trustees for Social Security wrote in its
8/3/2016
