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By now it's likely you've heard about the intense drama going down at the Navy Nuclear Nuclear Power Training Center involving Lt. Commander (Chaplain) Wesley Modder and his Commanding Officer, Navy Captain Jon Fahs. A quick summary is that Chaplain Modder has been accused of making inappropriate comments and of being intolerant, to wit: telling students that homosexuality is wrong; shaming and berating female students for having unmarried sex and becoming pregnant out of wedlock; asking a female staff member about her sexual activities; and discriminating against students of different faiths and backgrounds than his own. He is facing potentially career-ending administrative action from the United States Navy. The Navy has also issued a "No Contact Order," preventing Chaplain Modder from officiating at the funeral of a recently deceased sailor from a prior unit where the chaplain had served.
Chaplain Modder claims that it is he who is the REAL victim in this scenario, and that he has been, among other things, apparently set up by a junior officer who happens to be gay.
Oh, Chaplain Modder, I hardly find YOU to be the aggrieved party here, sir.
The usual extreme right-wing fundamentalist Christian organizations like the Family "Research" Council (ever wonder what exactly it is that they ever "research"?) and the "Liberty" Institute (whose "liberty" you might fairly ask?) have made Chaplain Modder the current poster child of faux, pernicious Christian persecution in "Obama's military," and are fast closing in on 100,000 signatures on an e-petition of their religiously intolerant faithful to convince the Navy to back off of poor picked-on Chaplain Modder. Fortunately, it matters little if they eventually get even 100 MILLION signatures. As Former Supreme Court Justice Sandra Day O'Connor once so sagaciously opined, "In America, we don't count heads before enforcing the First Amendment."
I have received many, many press inquiries about this matter. I even gave an interview to Voice of America the other day about it and they told me that the interview would be translated into Chinese and broadcast via shortwave radio all over Asia. Clearly, there is great interest in this "Matter of Modder."
So, what's the real bottom line here? Let me please lay it out as simply and briefly as possible.
Essentially, Modder and his rapacious, fundamentalist Christian allies are basking in the selfishly manufactured glow of completely and deliberately imagined "persecution." He (and they) disingenuously claim that Modder is being unjustly barbecued by the Navy because he has sincerely held religious beliefs about LGB folks, and women, and premarital sex, etc., which are also integrally part and parcel of the required dictates of his Chaplain endorsing agency, the Pentecostal Assemblies of God, and are therefore sacrosanct and fully protected under Federal law. They claim he was merely calling on those beliefs whilst privately counseling needy subordinate sailors. He's thus not being properly "accommodated" for his beliefs and is universally blameless, and the Navy is crucifying him (pun intended) for no reason other than his personal Christian beliefs about gay and women folk, etc.
And of course the Navy has a long and well-documented history of persecuting Christians, don't ya know? Umm, actually, we DON'T know that at all.
Here's why Modder and his swelling gang of Christian supremacist supporters are WRONG: it's quite fine for Navy Chaplain Modder and any other member of the United States military to "believe" that no one is "born gay," or that being gay is a "choice," and a sinful choice, at that; it's likewise fine for military members to "believe" that Jews, Hispanics and African American people are inferior, and that women have no place in the military. Indeed, "belief" is one thing, but "behavior" spawned from that belief is quite another. While prejudice is internal to its believer, bigotry is the BEHAVIOR of actually ACTING upon that internal prejudice, and it is THAT which is simply NOT allowed under Federal law. Modder is NOT being singled out or persecuted for his disgustingly homophobic and chauvinistic BELIEFS at all! He's being justly punished by the Navy for ACTING on those Federally outlawed beliefs. The Navy is not required to, nor WILL it, "accommodate" such opprobrious and unlawful behavior from ANY of its personnel.
Now listen carefully to me please; Chaplain Modder has EVERY right under American law to hold those prejudiced beliefs, but he has ZERO rights to expect the American taxpayer to PAY him for exhibiting those bigoted behaviors which often go hand-in-hand with such horrid hatred, which all-too-frequently cannot be constrained and thus openly springs from those prejudiced beliefs.
Irrespective of the unbridled squeals and screams of bloody protest from the fundamentalist, religious-extremist, para-church syndicates mentioned above – and their millions of dull-minded Dominionist Christian followers, roadies and donors – the Navy is not, repeat NOT, coming down on Modder for his bare BELIEFS, but because of his ACTIONS concomitant with those beliefs. Do you see this difference, and do you understand how it matters enormously?
Modder and his supporters claim (and are desperate for the world to believe) that he is being denied his Constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech and freedom of religion under the First Amendment. After all, EVERYone who is an American citizen gets those precious rights, no?
"NO," in direct point of fact, IS the correct answer here, folks. Look, when you put on the uniform of a Sailor, Soldier, Marine or Airman and join the armed forces of the United States of America you are, 1) doing an incredibly sacrificial and honorable deed and, 2) just as importantly, voluntarily giving up MANY of the Constitutional rights of your civilian peers. What? Come again? Why is that the case?
The United States military is an almost indescribably specialized world within a world. As our Federal courts have long opined, the American military is hyper-tribal, adversarial, communal and ritualistic. It has its own criminal justice system, known as the Uniform Code of Military Justice (UCMJ). It even has its own list of felonies under that special UCMJ code. For instance, adultery – that's right, ADULTERY – can be (and often is) considered tantamount to a felony-level offense under the UCMJ. So are a literal plethora of other offenses that would never even get a wrist slap in the civilian world. Why is that? The answer is simple and logical. Our military members willingly forfeit many of their Constitutional rights to enable the maximization of that which it needs and craves most to optimally protect the full panoply of Constitutional rights for the rest of us and the national security interests of the United States; namely, mission readiness, unit cohesion, good order, morale and discipline.
Our Federal laws proclaim – and our U.S. Supreme Court has consistently so construed – those laws to hold that America's "compelling governmental interest" in how the military manages itself is ALL about one thing: the provision of the highest magnitude of the aforementioned good order, morale and discipline. Forty-one years ago, way back in 1974, noted über-conservative Supreme Court Chief Justice William Rehnquist penned the majority opinion (6 to 2) in the ONE case SO on-point in the "Modder Matter" that you will NEVER see him, or his despotically fundamentalist Christian lunatic backers, EVER be able to refute it: Parker vs. Levy (417 U.S. 733). Just take a quick look at what Rehnquist said in his ruling, which is still the unchallenged law of the land on these matters to this very day:
"This Court has long recognized that the military is, by necessity, a specialized society separate from civilian society. We have also recognized that the military has, again by necessity, developed laws and traditions of its own during its long history. The differences between the military and civilian communities result from the fact that 'it is the primary business of armies and navies to fight or be ready to fight wars should the occasion arise.' ... An army is not a deliberative body. It is the executive arm. Its law is that of obedience. No question can be left open as to the right to command in the officer or the duty of obedience in the soldier. ... While the members of the military are not excluded from the protection granted by the First Amendment, the different character of the military community and of the military mission requires a different application of those protections. The fundamental necessity for obedience, and the consequent necessity for imposition of discipline, may render permissible within the military that which would be constitutionally impermissible outside it. ... In the armed forces, some restrictions exist for reasons that have no counterpart in the civilian community. Disrespectful and contemptuous speech, even advocacy of violent change, is tolerable in the civilian community, for it does not directly affect the capacity of the Government to discharge its responsibilities unless it both is directed to inciting imminent lawless action and is likely to produce such action. In military life, however, other considerations must be weighed. The armed forces depend on a command structure that, at times must commit men to combat, not only hazarding their lives but also ultimately involving the security of the Nation itself. Speech that is protected in the civil population may nonetheless undermine the effectiveness of response to command. If it does, it is constitutionally unprotected."
Thus, what does all of this have to do with Modder? Well, it means he sucks. He's a destroyer of the very bones, blood, sinew and muscle that the Navy needs to effectively function. The United States Navy has officially investigated and determined that he is nothing more than a common bigot and that his bigoted BEHAVIOR is clearly deleterious to the most basic and essential military necessity of ensuring optimal unit cohesion, good order, morale, discipline and mission readiness. Thus, Navy Chaplain Modder's ACTIONS of hatred, and NOT his mere internal and otherwise Constitutionally-protected prejudiced "beliefs" of same, provide the pristine justification for the punishment meted out to him by the United States Navy.
Modder's commander, Capt. Jon Fahs, has shown all-too-rare courage and integrity in carrying out this disgraceful officer's behavioral sanctions. In fact, I believe Capt. Fahs has displayed formidable restraint in not yet forcing Modder to defend himself against criminal charges in a well-deserved General Court-Martial.
So, then, in the end, what IS the "Matter With Modder?"
The answer is, "nothing."
Nothing the United States Navy can't handle by providing visible and public punishment to a hate-spewing bigot who has intentionally savaged the cherished unit cohesion, good order, morale and discipline of his fellow sailors.
Good riddance, Chaplain Hater.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra" Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side" (2006, St. Martin's Press) and "No Snowflake in an Avalanche" (2012, Vireo).
It's difficult to decide who's happier with the latest The U.S. Air Force decision endorsing the "Have a Blessed Day" greeting by armed Air Force sentries at its gates at Robins AFB, Georgia. The Dominionist Christians are giggling at their Wednesday evening bible studies thinking that they've finally nosed their camel under the tent and can use their Christian code to bless and evangelize the unwitting and the subordinate. The Air Force leadership is basking in what they see as a procedurally defensible "victory" over me and the MRFF and our 13 USAF officer, NCO and civilian clients at Robins (9 of whom are fully practicing Christians). They are happily noting that there's no Air Force Instruction VIOLATED by the use of the phrase—so "WE WIN", gleefully squeals the Air Force and its fundamentalist Christian puppeteers!
However, the smoking lamp (or is it, the "BS lamp") has been lit on this stinking travesty and you don't need to be a Constitutional scholar (or rocket scientist) to see the Mach 3 hypocrisy here. The Air Force is busy citing their "AFI" for not specifically forbidding the greeting. (Note: AFI stands for Air Force Instruction—we don't call them 'regulations' any more in this kinder, gentler, more developmental time). What they don't mention is that the AFI also doesn't specifically prohibit sentries from saying "Namaste", "Hail Satan", "Have a godless day" or "Allahu-Akbar" either. The AFI simply is not an ultimately dispositive or controlling authority to quote in opposition to armed, uniformed, USAF sentries offering "Have a blessed day" or any other non-mission-oriented statement. There still exists, however, remarkably compelling arguments that lead any reasonable and rational supporter and defender of the Constitution to wonder why the Air Force would allow, much less promulgate, the belief that such willful stupidity is the right thing to do. Let's look at the situation more closely.
Parker vs. Levy: Military Entry Gates are Not Free Speech Zones
For purposes of the following telling argument ONLY, let's momentarily stipulate that the First Amendment neither forbids (as violating freedom of religion) nor protects (as freedom of speech or religious expression) USAF gate sentries from saying, "Have a blessed day," to those requesting entry onto the installation. But, and this is a solar system-sized BUT, such high security entry gates at a U.S. military installation are NOT free speech zones where armed security forces may engage in unconstrained freedom of speech. Everyone who has ever worn a uniform understands that commanders (at the Wing, Base, Group, Squadron, and even lower levels) are fully entitled to restrict speech by sentries and others, provided these directions are required to satisfy a legitimate military purpose.
The seminal 1974 U.S. Supreme Court case of Parker vs. Levy is absolutely, unequivocally on point here. Justice William Rehnquist, noted uber-conservative, penned the majority opinion there to boot! Indeed, the compelling governmental interest for all matters of First Amendment and other Constitutional rights afforded to military members is NOT to ensure that their Constitutional rights are identical to their civilian counterparts. Quite on the contrary, the compelling governmental interest here is ONLY to maximize unit cohesion, military readiness, mission accomplishment, good order, moral and discipline. In other words, U.S. armed forces members will have MANY of their Constitutional rights severely curtailed due to the immediate foregoing need to further the military mission.
So, what is the military purpose for placing USAF Security Forces at installation gates? Do they serve solely as sentries safeguarding base personnel and equipment? No. They also verify that those entering the base have a valid ID card and that the person(s) and vehicle do not represent a threat to the security of the installation. After all, they're called USAF "Security Forces" for a reason. Their MILITARY mission is not to provide a pseudo, one-size-fits-all", faith blessing" to persons requesting to enter the base. They return the ID card with a salute (for officers) or a thank you (for enlisted, civilians, contractors, and dependents) – both acts sufficient to satisfy their military duty. After that, their SOLE attention should return to professionally surveilling for threats to the installation.
Adding more to the entry process only detracts from the sentry's attention to their exclusive and solitary duty to watch for threats, but also suggests that the sentry's discipline is NOT singularly dedicated to the mission—he or she is instead distracted by the additional commission of providing "blessings". Therefore, and this is the REALLY important part that should be obvious to commanders and sentries who offer the salutation, "Have a blessed day," conveys that they are NOT fully engaged performing their military duty. They lack the individual, squadron, group and wing military discipline their solemn duty requires of them and, thus, put all at terrible risk. How should a top military commander handle this situation? Simple. They should simply forbid any salutations or greetings beyond what objectively advances their critical mission of security enforcement. If someone entering the base feels like they need a "blessing" to get through their day—and it MUST be delivered by a paid, ranked and uniformed member of the United States military, then they should go to the chaplains' offices.
USAF is Not a Retail Merchant
Remember, the U.S. Air Force is NOT Wal-Mart. Sure, they both wear mostly blue. But, if Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A may find it acceptable or beneficial for their employees to wish departing customers, "A blessed day," let's recall that Wal-Mart, Hobby Lobby or Chic-Fil-A cashiers have NOT sworn an oath to the U.S. Constitution and are not equipped with lethal side arms, military uniforms and automatic weapons (in most States, that is). They are not in the business of training combat ready forces and defending America's national security both domestically and abroad. However, the Air Force IS dedicated to that mission, as are the Army, Navy, and the Marine Corps.
Gate sentries and other combatants, as a matter of military doctrine state, "We train as we fight." Sentries in combat theaters such as Afghanistan (e,g., Bagram Air Base) or at nuclear launch and/or storage areas do not offer "Have a blessed day" to persons entering the installation or the weapons storage area. Neither should they do so at any other installations in the United States unless they are addressing commanders that ordered them to use such greetings. I'm certain—based upon my extensive experience and that of dozens of senior, active duty officers who have contacted me on this very same subject—that sentries do not greet commanders and other senior officers with "Have a blessed day" as they enter the base because they know that the commander would question the propriety and focus of the sentry doing so. Therefore why should the same sentries be authorized, encouraged, and NOT forbidden from offering the very same "faith blessing" to lesser ranked military members and civilians?
The contrary argument is where this issue really becomes illuminating—and where the AFIs (specifically AFI 1-1) become applicable. Dominionist Christians claim that it is unlawful to restrict a sentry's right to say "Have a Blessed Day" on the basis of this being a protected religious freedom. They really can't have it both ways, though. If it's religious speech, then they've stepped over the line and violated the AFI, inserting religious fervor and its inherent bias and propensity for division into their role as assurers for base security. Presuming that not ALL that enter a military base are necessarily Christians who feel the need to be blessed or evangelized by a uniformed someone with a loaded weapon asking for two forms of ID, they have just created the sense of exclusiveness that the Secretary of the Air Force, The Honorable Deborah Lee James, has stated she's furiously battling—just in the last two weeks issuing edicts and introducing programs aimed at increasing Air Force diversity and inclusion.
The Unconstitutional Influence of Fundamentalist Christian Extremists
I can't emphasize this point enough. We live in a hyper-dangerous world where there are daily threats to the security of our military personnel, our bases and posts, our people, and our nation. Air Force leadership, as well as Congress (including the fundamentalist Christian Congressional Prayer Caucus, too) should be solely concerned about the military sentry's primary duty and should insist that her or his speech supports military necessity and absolutely NOTHING more. Anything "more" detracts from the mission. Period! Likewise, Air Force leadership should not be concerned about who (including Congress) might criticize their commanders for insisting on military discipline—those complaints ring hollow. Let's not surrender the Air Force's prime directive to political and religious correctness in order to please (1) the religious extremists who pollute the Congressional Prayer Caucus; (2) outside non-military, fundamentalist Christian, parachurch organizations attempting to boost their influence within the military; or (3) misguided local and lower level commanders who illegally and irresponsibly and DANGEROUSLY place supposed obligation to their sectarian Christian church above their SWORN obligation to the Constitution.
When it comes down to what military sentries should be saying to those attempting entry to armed forces installations, the optimization of the security mission is ALL that matters and, truly, less said is more impactful to achieve that very mission.
Is this lesson so hard to understand?
It sure wasn't to the Robins AFB Security Forces Squadron Commander who agreed in about 3 minutes with the demands I made directly to him on behalf of MRFF's 13 Air Force clients to have his gate guards cease and desist from saying "Have a blessed day".
The cognizant USAF COMMANDER knew precisely what to do. His decision ought to be lauded and not denigrated by the forces of fundamentalist Christian tyranny both within and outside of the Department of Defense.The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra" Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side" (2006, St. Martin's Press) and "No Snowflake in an Avalanche" (2012, Vireo).
In Occupy Wall Street and in the Black Lives Matter as well, there was a steady presence of ministers and rabbis — and I remember a Lakota wisdom leader at Zuccotti Park — even though clearly most of the movement-makers are secular. But we welcomed the aura of Dr.King and the Dalai Lama and Chief Joseph and Gandhi and Bishop Tutu and the movements that they represent. They both comforted and emboldened us, as we marched off to lock arms inthe doorway of Goldman Sachs or die dramatically across the floor of GrandCentral Station.
The dismissal of religion by Marxists is discredited by present day radicals, but so are belief systems with patriarchal gods. And yet, religion never leaves. Leaders of change sometimes seem like saints, if theyare more humble in demeanor, like Joan Baez or Aung San Suu Kyi, or Yeb Sano,the Filipino climate diplomat. If they are brassier, like Vandana Shiva, or Jose Bove or Edward Snowden, then they are called messianic.
I'm in the business of manipulating the memes of right-wing apocalyptic Christianity, with the Stop Shopping Choir. We study the presence of intolerant religion within Consumerism and Militarism; in banks that finance C02 emitting industries, like Chase andHSBC and UBS, and manufacturers of toxins like Monsanto and Bayer. We believe that the marketing departments of these industries are the new fundamentalist churches, with crusaders in the form of sexualized automobiles and product placement on celebrities' bodies.
Of course we rarely get anywhere near a financial or fossil fuel policy-maker. They surround us with police, who are kept in a state of angry fear. And time and time again our protests are like a clash of fundamentalist religions, the activism of two churches claiming the same God. In the conflict with banksand police, things are always very muscular, lots of finger-pointing, refusals,threats, stand-offs. We're dealing with mutual, simultaneous damnation. You are my infidel.
I was recently hand-cuffed while speaking in New York's Grand Central Station with the group "We Will Not Be Silent." Surrounded by placards featuring the names of those killed by deadly police force, and wearing my usual white polyester and priests collar, I was cuffed in mid-sentence. The metal went into the verb. So much for the 1st Amendment. The next day the policetold the Murdoch papers that I attacked a cop.
Of course, I felt out-maneuvered by the flamboyant right wingers. But did I misguess the event? Did my analysis of power against power, protesters against institutions — pre-empt any connection with the possibly sympathetic people within Grand Central Station? Anything internal in those folks, anything deeper than theiranger, was unrevealed in the activist event. The cops feel like 9/11 is still happening. And I'm taking their Christian preacher and shouting about their blunders. We all get angry together.
I find myself desperately wanting to talk to the employees of Grand Central Station about what happened. But these big structures, the courts, the press — all of that gets in the way. A quiet human conversation is no longer possible. A good pastor can engage in loving conversation in the middle of horror, like Bishop Tutu looking the apartheid leaders in the eye. Could I have somehow done that? I did return after I got out of jail to try to talk to the cop who man-handled me, but he wouldn't shake my hand.
Birth, and life, and death — no one knows what life is. Life is unexplained. Science doesn't know and religion doesn't either. Fundamentalists rush in with hard answers, to assuage our fear of death. Usually, the doctrine is encased in bigotry. Fundamentalist holy men arrange for us to fear the Other. And yet, again, religion cuts both ways. A "person of the cloth" carries the burden of these deeper questions, and so they can have the effect of slowing down violence. I remember clerics inserting themselves between the front lines in the Balkans.
More of our activism needs a spiritual basis, and that doesn't only mean the absence of mindless confrontation. Spirit is laughter, shape-shifting and music. We felt the impact of Erica Warner dying-in on the Staten Island sidewalk where her father was murdered, a mysterious and beautiful act. And we remember Wangari Maathi planting trees in the Nairobi park, in the face of the brutal dictator, and Chelsea Manning opening the door of secrets.
I should go back to Grand Central Station and talk to those people. At least I should be able to talk to mothers, because they have the endless questions of children ringing inside them, even if those moms are cops. That is the antidote to fundamentalism. All those questions. If I talked with a hundred mothers, wouldn't that be a better kind of activism than shouting in the echoey station and getting hauled off? Here's the question I want to ask: "How do we end this violence?"
Watch Reverend Billy's Freakstorm: Radical Forgiveness in Grand Slander Station.
At first glance, one can be forgiven for thinking that a floral arrangement for a gay wedding doesn't carry much significance for the essential national security of the United States of America. With perilously increasing military tensions spanning the Middle East, Asia, North Africa, and Eastern Europe, one can be absolved for making such an assumption. However, the military implications of this week's historic decision in Washington State by Benton County Superior Court Judge Ekstrom simply canNOT be understated.
Ekstrom's watershed decision came about when a case was brought before the Benton County Superior Court when the ownership of a small flower shop, Arlene's Flowers, refused to provide services on the professed basis of their Southern Baptist, Christian fundamentalist zeal to a frequent customer who sought arrangements for his same-sex wedding ceremony. Judge Ekstrom struck down this reprehensibly unlawful and unconstitutional behavior when he stated, "While religious beliefs are protected by the First Amendment, actions based on those beliefs aren't necessarily protected." Indeed, the First Amendment to the United States Constitution is NOT a license for private business owners to sanctimoniously bully, marginalize, and violate civil rights as they see fit because of their alleged "relationship with Jesus Christ" (or Allah, Jehovah, Yaweh, Odin, Shiva, Spiderman etc.). Indeed, just as it isn't a license for anyone else to engage in whatever extremist, unlawful practice they might imagine their chosen deity to prefer.
For those of us who have been leading the civil rights fight of the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), the only organization devoted solely to fighting the scourge of extremist Christianity within the U.S. Armed Forces, the story is a common one. Since the repeal of Don't Ask, Don't Tell (DADT), we saw that various Dominionist bigots within the military were pathetically prostituting the flimsy gauze of "free speech" as a means towards turning back this historic victory for sex & gender minorities (and by implication, all Americans) within the U.S. armed forces. Squealing like stuck pigs, disingenuously, that DADT's repeal represented a grave offense against their so-called "religious liberty", these reprehensibly homophobic Christian extremist predators created a virtual media cyclone of misinformation, disinformation, and bald-faced lies. As they say, "haters gonna hate."
However, when the Religious Right echo chambers are filled with hot air, fire, and brimstone concerning some fictitious and utterly specious "War on Christianity," monsters tend to proliferate, and sometimes we even find them in the hallowed halls of Congress. The Constitutionally-derelict Congressman John Fleming (R-LA) is one especially odious fundamentalist Christian monstrosity. Fleming, and other members of Congressman Randy Forbes' (R-VA) "Congressional Prayer Caucus", have repeatedly attempted to warp the meaning of "freedom to worship" via their grossly misnamed "Religious Liberty Amendments" to the recent years' drafts of the National Defense Authorization Act (NDAA) commonly referred to as "The Pentagon Funding Bill." Fleming & Co.'s "Religious Bigotry Amendments" would have torn asunder the unit cohesion, military readiness, morale, good order, and discipline of U.S. servicemembers, adding ANY type of "actions and speech" (including anti-gay, theologically racist, or sectarian hate speech) to the roster of protected religious freedoms of American service members. Further still, it would offer essentially an invulnerable shield of protection for anyone who seeks to use such actions or speech to "actually harm" (i.e. grievously injure) the aforementioned compelling governmental interest of insuring maximum military unit cohesion, good order and discipline et al. At this very same time, we at MRFF stated that if these amendments were allowed to go forward, they would result in a "thoroughly dreadful nightmare of civil rights desecration wrought by a tsunami of unabated fundamentalist Christian supremacy, exceptionalism, and tyranny."
Thankfully, the law remains the law (oh, and take a good look at the confirming, 1974 Supreme Court case of Parker vs. Levy) and the Fleming thugs' Amendments failed, just like the attempts in court by Arlene's Flowers to justify their hideously bigoted treatment of LGBTQ customers. Individuals' religious beliefs may be protected by the First Amendment; however, those same individual's ACTIONS, based upon those very same religious beliefs, are not necessarily likewise protected. Discerning Americans can see clearly that the actual goal of these fundamentalist Christian jackals isn't at ALL the protection of their twisted "right to worship". Quite on the contrary, their real intention is to furiously cast stones upon the "apostates", the "disbelievers", and those "aberrant" elements who diverge from the "flock" being shepherded by such vile "Good News Gospel" scoundrels as the Rev. Pat Robertson, Rev. Franklin Graham, Lt. Gen. (ret.) Boykin, Tony Perkins, and the rest of the Dominionist rogues' gallery.
The allowance of such limitless religious oppression and villainy inside the U.S. military would be a national security threat of unparalleled dimension and magnitude.
However, the courageous decision by Washington state Judge Ekstrom was a decisive deathblow to the dastardly designs and craven mendacity of the embittered Religious Right. Perhaps it would be appropriate to send a floral arrangement to these barbaric wretches as a gesture of our sincerest condolences?
Hey, I like it: Perhaps a dozen black roses to celebrate the demise of their dreams of fundamentalist religious domination of our United States Constitution?
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra" Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side" (2006, St. Martin's Press) and "No Snowflake in an Avalanche" (2012, Vireo).
"It takes a great deal of bravery to stand up to our enemies, but just as much to stand up to our friends."
- J.K. Rowling
In what's become an increasingly mundane and predictable ritual as of late, the fundamentalist Christian Religious Right is up in arms over the latest "outrage" emanating from the White House. President Obama's 'sin'? A salient commentary delivered at the annual Presidential National Prayer Breakfast on the nature of religious wars. I have not always applauded the actions of our President but I believe I DO know courage when I see it, and our President exhibited unadulterated courage a few days ago when he bravely swung a verbal two-by-four upside the head of Christian supremacists at their annual "Jesus-Fest Tribute" in our nation's capitol. His comments were made in light of the current campaign against ISIS, and they were absolutely right on the money. However, our fellow American citizens on the theocratic right have never been known to let facts get in the way of a damn good tantrum. Indeed, the hysteria and downright perfidy of the indecorous response to the president's speech just shows the pathetic depths to which reasonable and rational political discourse in the United States has plummeted.
However, my friends, one such response towered above others in its grotesque hideousness: the response from Adjutant Rich Sestili of Disabled American Veterans Chapter 6 in Marrieta, Georgia. Sestili's message was specifically designed to incite irrational rage and fury against our president: "Never in the history of the United States has any other president ever made a negative comment about Christ."
Huh? When did President Obama, a lifelong Christian, ever make a negative comment about Jesus Christ? All things considered, the president's "criticism" was pretty tepid, as well as most justified and germane, to the proceedings of this National Prayer Breakfast. This event is almost always an unapologetic and garish spectacle of exclusivist American Christian supremacy and primacy no matter HOW hard those who produce it try to disingenuously include token and minute, atomic particles of secularism, respect and acceptance for those who are not "the right type of Christian." Obama's courageous comments were clearly aimed at those who cynically manipulate and pervert religion for the purpose of harming others. And apparently he struck a nerve.
This is what the president actually said:
"Humanity has been grappling with these questions throughout human history. Lest we get on our high horse and think this is unique to some other place, remember that during the Crusades and the Inquisition, people committed terrible deeds in the name of Christ. In our home country, slavery and Jim Crow all too often was justified in the name of Christ."
Simple enough, yet in the leaden-eyed views of the ignorant, these comments are an indicator that our president "is a one-man sleeper cell" who seeks to "advance in America what Islam is advancing worldwide." Obama even received criticism from his supporters on the liberal left for his supposedly "patronizing tone."
However, what the president dutifully noted was simply the tip of the iceberg – let's not forget the even more recent history of unbridled violence committed in the name of Christianity.
Take the post-9/11 era. Have Americans already forgotten the fact that our last president "christened" the struggle against al-Qaeda and similar groups as "this crusade, this war on terrorism"? Our Islamist foes certainly haven't forgotten this gaffe-cum-Presidential fatwa.
Take "Jesus Rifles", for instance – rifle scopes engraved with various New Testament biblical inscriptions which were deployed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Likewise, we'd be remiss in failing to mention the official "Jesus Loves Nukes" instructional unit that was a part of the U.S. Air Force's mandatory 'ethics' training for its nuclear missile launch officers. And then there are the incidents of forced attendance of Christian rock concerts, "Spiritual Fitness Tests," violent hazing on religious grounds, as well as the shattered careers of hundreds if not thousands of enlistees, officers, and civilian personnel who've challenged the fundamentalist evangelical Christian domination of the U.S. Armed Forces. In fact, just last month the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF, the civil rights organization that I head) discovered a bit of "Christian Jihadi" training being carried out near the Sonoran Desert in Phoenix, AZ, where Army recruiters saw fit to recruit folks interested in going "On A Mission For Both God And Country."
Even the most casual observer can see that the Muslim world hardly has a monopoly on religious violence, but don't tell this to bona-fide Christofascist Chaplain Robert Doll of the Disabled Veterans of America. According to Doll, "the only known instance of Christians murdering unbelievers was Spanish conquistadors murdering natives in the New World" (emphasis added), a practice Doll shockingly muses – with all too obvious racist bigotry – that the Spaniards perhaps learned from the Muslim caliphs who previously ruled Spain.
Wait! What the HELL did that Islamophobic idiot just assert? Well, "Chaplain" Doll conveniently attempts to airbrush from history the entire centuries-old experience of American slavery, that "institution of God", punctuated with the burning crosses of the Ku Klux Klan as well as the dozens of Native American tribes who were mercilessly annihilated during the "Manifest Destiny" expansion of the United States, to cite a couple of the most obvious examples. Likewise, let's not forget the thousands of pogroms committed against the Jews of Eastern Europe, the murderous campaigns undertaken by ultra-Christian fascists throughout the Twentieth Century, the ethnic cleansings carried out by the Maronite Phalange in Lebanon, the Orthodox Chetniks of Serbia, and the Christian militias of the Central African Republic, or the terrorist attacks by such "lone-wolf" crusaders as Timothy McVeigh and Anders Bering Breivik. In many cases, murderous religious hatred was mixed with ethnic nationalism, racism, and simple greed, so sure – one can convincingly argue that the perpetrators of these crimes weren't necessarily "true Christians." However, if you're willing to make that concession then why cast any aspersions on the nuances of Obama's powerful and wholly truthful remarks? Similarly, if those who have killed and continue to kill in the name of Christ aren't truly Christian, then why should we ignore the anguished pleas from a Muslim world numbering 1.6 billion people who continuously state that the atrocities carried out by ISIS jihadis in the name of Islam, including anti-Christian pogroms, are contrary to basic Islamic standards?
The answers to these questions are quite simple. What we have on our hands, from Marietta to Mosul, are filthy, cowardly bigots who are utterly crazed and have surpassed all established boundaries when it comes to utter hypocrisy, mendacity, irrationality, unspeakable violence and unscrupulousness. Some are Muslims, some are Christians, yet all are driven by hatred and all are bringing shame and infamy to their respective religious faiths. As Americans of all religious preferences (or none whatsoever), we gain nothing and rush pell-mell to bloody extinction by refusing to learn from the barbarous and savage history of sectarian religious violence practiced by Muslim, Christian, Jew, Buddhist, and Hindu alike.
No one sect has a monopoly on murderous misanthropy. As this article goes to press, horrifying details are emerging of the tragic mass-murder of young Muslim-American students in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. Indeed, initial reports about the shooter indicate that even atheists, of course, are capable of the foulest sorts of bigotry and hatred. When we acquiesce to or normalize a situation where entire populations are subject to wholescale denigration, distortion, and demonization, then one can be assured that rivers and rivers of blood will spill.
Education is the quintessential key. I've quoted H.G. Wells before, I'll quote him again right now and I'll keep on quoting him forever; to wit, "Civilization is a race between education and catastrophe."
At this sorry historical moment of rampant fundamentalist religiosity, racialized xenophobia, and purely irrational bigotry, catastrophe is on a precipitously dangerous winning streak.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra" Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side" (2006, St. Martin's Press) and "No Snowflake in an Avalanche" (2012, Vireo).
Certain religious groups and political leaders would like women to think that their disrespect and disdain for the choices women make is because those pretty little things just don't understand the awesome power they were imbued with by their creator.
Didn't "The Almighty" mess that one up?
Letting those dunderheaded women hold the keys to reproduction even though their ditzy decision-making capabilities – or incapabilities, rather – would lead them and all of humankind to disaster.
Forgive me if you're one of those people who prefers to use mankind as a noun to describe our species – not too surprisingly – we're not much alike on politically correct terminology. Yeah, I'm the kind of person who wishes folks a happy holiday as well.
Anyway, think about it: the creators loaded women with the offspring bearing payload mechanisms and then allowed them to think for themselves. God was clearly off his rocker when he thought up that scheme. Ever since creation, the men that the Lord created have been trying to think for the women he or she created as well. Could God really have been that stupid? Seems as though man's deity and man himself have a communication breakdown.
Well, this past week, during the latest episode in staged congressional politics, certain republican members of congress really stepped in it by trying to limit a woman's right to choose. And by choose, I don't mean choose what she orders for dinner, I mean choose what she does with the baby chamber the heavenly father entrusted to her care.
Yeah turns out the "Pain-Capable Unborn Child Protection Act" couldn't get the support of – you guessed it – republican women. And why should it. The bill essentially says that women will knowingly terminate babies as a form of sadistic murder. Wow, certainly not something the creator would have had in mind. In the Old Testament men inflict painful death well after the baby's born. Read the book people, God knows how this is done.
Anyway, I'm not talking about all that. I'm not talking about some man-created higher power giving women a uterus all the while completely forgetting to give her the wisdom to know what is her best decision when it comes to that uterus. No, I'm talking about a completely different female body part.
I'm talking about her head.
Yesterday, a friend of mine asked me what I thought about Mrs. Obama's recent trip to Saudi Arabia. Rose Marie wanted to know what I thought about the fact that the United States' First Lady didn't cover her head.
Like a fool, I blurted out my first reaction. I said, "Well, it's her head, isn't it?"
Rose Marie agreed. But it seems many others, many men, do not.
Are you kidding me? The people having a problem here are the exact same people who were angry at the President for bowing when he met Japanese dignitaries. But that sort of hypocrisy means nothing to me.
What does mean something to me is the fact that Michelle Obama – arguably the most powerful woman in the world – doesn't have the right to say what she does with her own head.
The message here for ordinary powerless women, you ain't got a prayer of governing your own uterus.
"STOP! READ! LOOK AT SHOCKING PHOTO! You Will Just NOT Believe This Military Stupidity: U.S. Army Special Forces Officially Recruit for 'Mission For God'
"That the impious presumption of legislators and rulers, civil as well as ecclesiastical, who, being themselves but fallible and uninspired men have assumed dominion over the faith of others, setting up their own opinions and modes of thinking as the only true and infallible, and as such endeavouring to impose them on others, hath established and maintained false religions over the greatest part of the world and through all time."
(2nd paragraph, Virginia Statute of Religious Freedom, composed by Thomas Jefferson in 1777, enacted into Virginia law on January 16, 1786)
All Rights Reserved
"Get this U.S. Army and get it well: The United States armed forces may surely fight and kill "for Country" and our legitimate national security interests. But our troops do NOT fight and kill for ANYONE'S "God" or related supernatural deity. In the preparation of this Op Ed, I exposed a number of senior active duty U.S. military leaders to the photo of this poster, including several active duty chaplains. To a man and woman, they were collectively ALL aghast that it was actually real and being used to lure young Americans into the Army's special forces."
C'mon, seriously? That freaking picture just says it ALL.
What an abysmal affront to "National Religious Freedom Day" which is to be celebrated tomorrow, January 16, 2015.
Having headed the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) for nearly a decade, we've been exposed to all sorts of unholy, unconstitutional cocktails inextricably mixing the intoxicating aroma of fundamentalist religion (almost always a wretched thing called "Dominion Christianity") with the dense and deep-pocketed foundations of the State. However, even WE at MRFF were hardly prepared for the stunning, unconstitutional disgrace we confirmed from client reports as recently as yesterday.
There it was; an in-your-face, proselytizing, U.S. Army officially-approved (goarmy.com) recruiting poster on prominent display at an Armed Forces Career Center in Phoenix, Arizona. That outrageously ghastly graphic encapsulates precisely that which we've been ceaselessly calling the attention of the American people to for all this time. The poster astoundingly displays the shoulder tabs of the U.S. Special Forces (i.e. Green Berets), Rangers and Airborne troopers accompanied by the seethingly sectarian slogan "ON A MISSION FOR BOTH GOD AND COUNTRY."
(Wait a damn minute. Phoenix? Arizona? Army Special Forces? "Mission For…...God"? My first thoughts were of Pat Tillman.)
Excuse me? "GOD and country?" Ahem, well, just WHOSE "god" might that be, U.S. Army?
Let me fairly go out on a limb here and gamble that it is neither the god of Islam nor the god(s) of Hinduism? No way it's Buddhist, Sikh, Shinto, Native American Spiritualist or The Flying Spaghetti Monster. I believe it's a very safe bet to presume that the Army is pretending to refer to the "Judeo-Christian" god, and by THAT worn out and duplicitously deceptive label, of course, I really mean what the Army REALLY means; only the "Christian" god, Jesus. Unfortunately, as the experts will tell you, there are literally multiple tens of thousands of distinctly separate denominations of Christianity in existence. So, once again, the question is begged as to exactly WHICH "God" the U.S. Army Special Forces are boldly, publicly and eagerly recruiting for?
The military chaplaincy's motto is "Pro Deo et Patria" (Latin, meaning "For God and Country") but, hey, that's for noncombatant chaplains. THIS revolting Army recruiting poster is VERY specifically designed for the elite Special Forces universe of Green Berets, Rangers, Delta Force, Airborne etc. These recruiting targets populate the far, far end of the Army universe, indeed light years away, from the recruitment of non-weapons carrying chaplains.
It has consistently been MRFF's experience through the many years that there is always a greater population of Constitution-breaching, fundamentalist/Dominionist Christians in the special forces of the DoD; Navy SEALs, Air Force PJs, USMC Force Recon and the Army's designated recruiting targets of this very poster. (Remember the international controversy about those VERY same words being spoken by the Navy SEAL who shot Bin Laden in conjunction with "Geronimo, Geronimo"?)
Even the Pope himself has decried on multiple occasions the reprehensible, medieval idea that one can kill in God's name – even going so far as to say that the concept, "simply, is blasphemy". Yet here we have the most lethal killing machine devised in the history of humankind proudly extolling the virtue of what can only be described as "Holy Wars."
This unconstitutional catastrophe comes at a time, no less, when world leaders as diverse as Mahmoud Abbas and Benjamin Netanyahu are marching together, arm in arm, in Paris and uniting behind the values of secular respect, religious tolerance, freedom of the press and all related basic civil rights. However, this incomprehensibly STUPID, and brazenly sectarian poster of American religious dominance at Marine Corps Recruiting Substation Paradise Valley universally destroys any credibility that the United States government is wholly devoted to these very basic democratic and human values.
Get this U.S. Army and get it well: The United States armed forces may surely fight and kill "for Country" and our legitimate national security interests. But our troops do NOT fight and kill for ANYONE'S "God" or related supernatural deity. In the preparation of this Op Ed, I exposed a number of senior active duty U.S. military leaders to the photo of this poster, including several active duty chaplains. To a man and woman, they were collectively ALL aghast that it was actually real and being used to lure young Americans into the Army's special forces.
In fact, this Poster of Shame lends incredible and irrefutable credence to what MRFF has been insisting from our very inception, which is that there exists a brutal, sectarian, Christian fundamentalist reign exercised within the United States Armed Forces, constituting a de facto Dominionist fifth column. In fact, it's often so brazen that it's not even very "fifth columny" anymore. Facts have borne out this assertion, in absolute spades. For example, we've seen the distribution of millenarian Left Behind video games to active-duty troops serving in Iraq. We've heard the anguished cries of servicemembers forced to attend hokey "Christian Rock" concerts on pain of "lockdown" and other forms of military retribution. We've seen the so-called "Jesus Rifles" which MRFF blew the whistle on, where Trijicon riflescopes were inscribed with specific New Testament Bible references engraved into the metal casings on nearly a million high-powered rifle sights. Oh, and if "Jesus Rifles" isn't enough of a bafflingly bizarre and contemptible example, there was the "Jesus Loves Nukes" mandatory indoctrination course that was used to train USAF nuclear missile launch officers at Vandenberg Air Force Base in California. Time and time again, we've been forced to go toe-to-toe with the United States Air Force Academy administration over its practically countless, savage offenses against the United States Constitution. Likewise, a recurring battle of ours has been one waged against the persistent usage of "Crusader" symbolism, evoking the brutal Western Christian colonization and merciless subjugation of Muslim nations during the Middle Ages. Our foundation submitted a very comprehensive accompanying document when I testified before the House Armed Services Committee in the United States Congress this past November. Our MRFF testimony unequivocally shows that all of the unconstitutional wickedness above is just a mere taste, indeed only the nuanced tip of a very large and exceedingly precarious iceberg of colossal, national security dangers.
Does our aggressive fight against fundamentalist Christian extremism, triumphalism and supremacy in our nation's armed forces, as so vividly displayed in this official Army recruiting poster, infuriate those who promote such bloody rancor and discord? Always and of course. Comes with the territory. You can decide whether it's worth it because we at MRFF already have decided that it most assuredly IS.
Yet here we find ourselves, ignominiously once again, faced with a disgracefully sectarian message of religious exceptionalism bearing the official U.S. Army stamp of approval. This painfully pathetic poster will no doubt serve, generally, as a red flag of limitless propaganda and, more specifically, as a recruiting bonanza of unbridled proportions for precisely those villains whom the world has united against in Paris, i.e. the Salafi-Jihadists such as Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, Islamic State, and myriad other backwards fundamentalists. As if immeasurably emboldening our Islamic enemies wasn't bad enough, this deplorable poster will enrage our Islamic allies and eviscerate our own service members' unit cohesion, good order, morale, discipline and military readiness.
Long story short, the poster at the Phoenix armed forces recruitment hub is an absolutely abominable slap in the face of everyone who's ever taken the time to digest, understand, and swear the servicemembers' sacred oath to protect and defend the United States Constitution, let alone those who made the ultimate sacrifice for the values, rights, and protections contained therein.
And speaking of "ultimate sacrifice," I wonder what Pat Tillman would have said about that stinking poster of unconstitutional malfeasance in his beloved city and state of Phoenix, Arizona? Somehow, I don't think he'd agree that he was on a "Mission For God" when he courageously gave his life for his country in combat as a proud member of the U.S. Army's Special Forces.
Unfortunately, on the other hand, what might another Arizonan do about this; Senator John McCain, the brand new Chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee? Don't hold your breath for him to lift a finger of even tepid protest against this recruiting poster. If anything, he'd likely applaud.
The world trembles in shock over the horrific crimes of murderous, fundamentalist, Islamic religiosity in one part of the globe. What of our own House here in America? Here in the States, we should spare no effort to aggressively investigate and ferociously uproot the vast legions of fundamentalist (Dominionist), Christian extremists who seek to smother our OWN secular, constitutional, American republic in the blood-drenched, theocratic "Crusader" memes of a once dark and distant era.
Sadly today, given our enormous arsenal of WMDs, even darker. And not so "distant" anymore.
The Military Religious Freedom Foundation is up against well-funded extremist religious organizations. Your donations allow us to continue our fight in the courts and in the media to fight for separation of church and state in the U.S. military. Please make a fully tax-deductible donation today at helpbuildthewall.org.
Michael L. "Mikey" Weinstein, Esq. is founder and president of the 7-time Nobel Peace Prize-nominated Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF), an honor graduate of the Air Force Academy, and a former J.A.G. in the U.S. Air Force. He served as a White House counsel in the Reagan Administration and as the Committee Management Officer of the "Iran-Contra" Investigation. He is also the former General Counsel to H. Ross Perot and Perot Systems Corporation. His two sons, daughter-in-law, son-in law, and brother-in-law are also graduates of USAFA. In December 2012, Defense News named Mikey one of the 100 Most Influential People in U.S. Defense. He is the author of "With God On Our Side" (2006, St. Martin's Press) and "No Snowflake in an Avalanche" (2012, Vireo).
The fire chief of Atlanta, GA, Kelvin Cochran, was just dismissed because of a self-published book he wrote which was viewed as homophobic. According to Think Progress:
Atlanta Mayor Kasim Reed (D) announced Tuesday that he has fired Fire Chief Kelvin Cochran, who had previously been suspended for publishing and distributing a book condemning homosexuality..
. . . Since Cochran's suspension last month, he has become a bit of a martyr for conservatives, who believe he has been persecuted for his religious beliefs. J. Edgar White, executive director of the Georgia Baptist Convention, suggested that Cochran was among those "who are punished or marginalized for their faith" and called on Christians to purchase his book and support him.
Reed was adamant during Tuesday's press conference that Cochran's religious beliefs were not the reason he was fired. His book, Who Told You That You Were Naked?, was published in violation of Atlanta's Standards of Conduct, which requires approval from the Ethics Officer and the Board of Ethics. According to Reed, Cochran's "actions and decision-making undermine his ability to manage our fire department" because employees need to feel that they are "a valued member of the team and that fairness and respect guide employment.
That's the story before conservatives and the religious right will attempt to make Cochran the newest martyr of the concept of 'religious liberty.' 'Religious liberty' is a phrase these individuals have coined to claim that those who practice their version Christian faith in America are supposedly being persecuted because of their objections to homosexuality and marriage equality. To them, "persecution" is a wide and loaded term which includes being forced to serve gay customers or, as we see with the above situation with Cochran, not being allowed to "voice objections" to homosexuality in places where such objections aren't exactly conducive or appropriate to the environment.
It is a concept which is gaining speed now that marriage equality is becoming more accepted and swiftly the law throughout the country. 'Religious liberty' has gained support from the "fire and brimestone" sect, who see persecution behind every bush, to the concern trolls who clamor that since gays are gaining the right to marry, we should "be nice and respectful" to those who oppose our general equality.
In other words, "religious liberty" is a load of nonsense. It's equivalent to a good paint job a bad car salesman puts on an busted up clunker in a sad attempt to cover that it's stinker.
First of all gays were not given the right to marry. It was a right which should have been ours from the start and one which we earned by slowly slogging through the trenches and terrain of this ridiculous so-called culture war.
Then there is the second point. At what point are rights given in "tit-for-tat" compromises? Just where is it said that since gays are winning the right to marry, we have to forfeit our dignity, respect, and rights as taxpayers? Since when is there a right for businesses treat gays like second-class citizens even though our tax dollars help to keep these businesses safe? Since when is there a right to minimize our lives to a concept or a "lifestyle" so one can pretend that he or she is not denigrating human beings, even if that denigration is done on the job and, in the case of Cochran, by our bosses?
And why do gays have to deal with such treatment under the guise of "religious liberty" when no other group of Americans have to? Cochran's book also denigrated women and people of the Jewish faith. If there were no words about gays in his book, would there be any controversy regarding "religious liberty" with regards to his firing?
You can call it "religious liberty" all you want. I call it homophobia and it's worst kind, too. It's practiced by folks who are too self-righteous to step down from that nonexistent stairway to Heaven they think they are building for themselves.
America just celebrated the season of giving with Hanukkah and Christmas presents, year-end charity donations and soup kitchen volunteering. It is a time when Americans demonstrate the generosity, caring and kindness that define them as a people.
Now, however, Americans may suffer the season of GOP taking. Republicans already insisted on taking away a key protection in the Dodd-Frank Wall Street Reform and Consumer Protection Act. Now they're intent on taking health insurance from millions of Americans who got it under the Affordable Care Act.
The Affordable Care Act (ACA) is a manifestation of Americans' concern for each other's welfare. Americans felt it was intolerable for so many of their friends, neighbors and relatives to be uninsured in the richest country in the world, to be bankrupted by medical bills, to die for lack of medical care. So they found a way to do something about it. That is the ACA. Among other benefits, it extends Medicaid and provides subsidies enabling the working poor to afford insurance. But the GOP is all against it. Republicans tried to repeal the law, appealed to courts to overturn it and refused its expansion of Medicaid. As they become the majority party in both houses of Congress this month, Republicans will intensify their campaign to take health insurance from millions who got it through the ACA.
Just as the employer mandate requiring large businesses to offer health insurance finally goes into effect, Republicans will try to eliminate insurance for those newly-covered workers.
They've promised to vote to repeal the Affordable Care Act – again. None of their previous 50 votes to do that succeeded. Failure is likely again, too, since they won't get 60 ayes in the Senate and President Obama won't sign a repeal. So they've said they'll next try killing the law piece by piece.
Unlike their congressional votes, Republicans have been tragically successful with lawsuits in denying Americans health insurance. The first of those suits that went to the U.S. Supreme Court didn't kill the law outright but empowered Republican governors to prevent poor constituents from getting health insurance through the law's Medicaid expansion. Millions are suffering as a result.
New statistics show that if the Supreme Court had not made expansion of Medicaid optional, more than 3 million people would have gained health insurance in the 24 states where Republicans refused the program. These 3 million are working Americans struggling on the financial edge, people whose income is less than $16,105 a year.
A new Republican-pushed lawsuit could take insurance from 5 million more. These are residents of states that decided to use the federal health insurance exchange instead of creating marketplaces of their own. People who now buy insurance on an exchange, state or federal, may receive subsidies to help them afford it if their income is up to four times the federal poverty level.
In the lawsuit, King v. Burwell, Republicans argue that language in the Affordable Care Act means that only people who buy their insurance on a state-run exchange qualify for the subsidies. The GOP wants to discriminate against people who get their insurance through the federal marketplace. They want to deny the ACA's financial help to the working poor in 36 states without their own exchanges.
New federal information shows that 87 percent of those who buy their insurance on the exchanges receive subsidies. And a review by the private consulting firm Avalere Health showed that, on average, the subsidies paid for three-quarters of the purchaser's insurance premium.
If the Supreme Court hands Republicans a win in this case, millions will lose their insurance because they can no longer afford it. These are people who got insured with the help of the ACA, and who will lose it on the demand of the GOP.
In another lawsuit, 36 Republicans in Arizona are trying to take Medicaid away from poor residents who got coverage in the expansion pushed through by Gov. Jan Brewer – yes, a Republican. Like several other Republican governors who accepted the expansion, Brewer was swayed by doctors and hospitals that prefer to treat insured patients rather than deny care or provide it for free.
But the three dozen Arizona Republicans, represented by the conservative Goldwater Institute, contend the expansion is illegal because it will be partially paid for by a levy on hospitals. Last week, the state Supreme Court said the case could proceed. If the GOP wins, it will take insurance from a quarter million Arizonians.
Maine is just the opposite. There, low income people never benefitted from Medicaid expansion because Republican Gov. Paul LePage vetoed it. Five times.
The most recent Congressional session was the second least productive in the modern era—exceeding the previous poor record by one piece of legislation. Now, however, with Republicans in control of both houses of Congress, a new low is promised.
Instead of passing positive or helpful or useful legislation, the GOP has pledged to take from the American people. It vows to take away a basic necessity – health care, to ensure the uninsured suffer.
That's a promise that Americans must ensure is broken. For their own health. For their neighbors' well-being. And for preservation of Americans' self-image as caring and kind people.
1. We will stop referring to ourselves as a "civil rights" organization that defends "human rights." It is a sacrilege to people actually killed or harmed by civil and human rights abuses.
2. We will stop pointing at Chicago and saying gun laws don't work. We will admit the majority of Chicago crime guns are trafficked from states and counties with loose laws.
3. We will stop saying "the government is going to take your guns" to block federal laws. The confiscation we announced 7 years ago never happened.
4. We will stop blaming "mental health" problems for U.S. gun violence. We admit every country in the world has mental health problems but they don't have Newtowns and Virginia Techs.
5. We admit fighting universal background checks arms criminals and that armed criminals sells more guns to "good guys." Ka-ching.
6. We acknowledge that "outlaws" don't have guns in the 28 EU countries, Canada, New Zealand, Australia, Japan and other countries with strict gun regulations. We also admit, grudgingly, they are not "tyrannies."
7. We will stop our insulting comparison of guns to knives, hammers, cars and swimming pools--none of which kill when used as directed. On the same day as the Sandy Hook massacre, 20 Chinese school children were attacked with a knife and none died.
8. We accept responsibility for the armed vigilante movement popularized by George Zimmerman and Michael Dunn. We admit "concealed carry" laws are the biggest revenue infusion since "Obama is going to take your guns."
9. We will stop defending sales to civilians of non-defensive weapons like TrackingPoint's "can't miss" sniper rifle. We admit they are ready-made for insurrectionists, terrorists and hate groups.
9. We regret our work to help suspected domestic abusers keep their guns while under orders of protection. We admit this costs many women's lives and that our sleazy sales pitch to tell women to arm themselves too just makes things worse.
HYPERLINK "http://gunvictimsaction.org/"
National Gun Victims Actions Council is the U.S.' largest gun victims groups. Join our HYPERLINK "http://www.operationsideline.org/"effort to get corporate America to take a stand against gun violence. When corporations want sane gun laws, we will have sane gun laws. @GunVictimsAct


text:
Put muffin mix in a large bowl.
In another bowl,, combine egg, water and melted butter.
Add all at once to muffin mixture and stir just until moistened.
Spoon batter into prepared muffin tin, filling cups two-thirds full.
Bake in preheated oven for 20 to 25 minutes.
Cheese Muffins: Add a small piece of Cheddar cheese in the center of each muffin before baking.
Jelly Muffins: Fill cups only half full with batter.
Put 1 tsp (5 mL) of your favorite jelly in center of each muffin and top with remaining batter.
Bake as directed.

subset: commoncrawl


text:
Homebuyers' Walkthrough: When To Sell And Buy A Move-Up Home
Even after a buyer has found the perfect starter home, it may eventually no longer meet the buyer's needs and wants. Homeowners may consider moving to a move-up, or step-up, home. Reasons to sell and buy a move-up home include:
- An additional income-earner has joined the household
- A growing family and the need for more space
- The kids have moved away and it's time for a smaller, more refined house
- A promotion that comes with a better salary and benefits package
- The current home's value has significantly increased
Many first-time home buyers are not in a financial position to making buying decisions based on future needs. A young couple, for example, may want to eventually start a family, but the home they can afford now would be too small for the kids. When homeowners are in the financial position to move-up, they may be able to take both current and futures needs into consideration.
It is important to remember that just because a buyer can afford (on paper) to purchase within a certain price range, that less expensive homes can still be on the radar. Just because a person can spend more money doesn't mean he or she has to.
Financing a Move-Up Home
Homeowners will have to consider the financing options when purchasing a move-up home. If the existing home has not sold yet, buyers can choose a home equity loan or a bridge loan to make the down payment on the new home.
Equity Loans
A home equity loan allows homeowners to borrow against the equity in the home. The loan is based on the difference between the homeowner's equity and home's current market value. Home equity loans are usually less expensive than other loans.
Bridge Loans
A bridge loan is a short-term loan that is used until the homeowner secures permanent financing. These loans "bridge the gap" between financing sources, such as while the owner is waiting for the existing home to sell. Since these loans are short-term, they may have relatively high interest rates. Homebuyers' Walkthrough: Homes For Retirement
Total Annual Loan Cost (TALC)The projected total cost that a reverse mortgage holder should ...
Commercial Real Estate Loandefinition of a commercial real estate loan
Realtor Property Resource (RPR)A National Association of Realtors member benefit providing realtors ...
Housing Choice Voucher ProgramThe Housing Choice Voucher Program helps families with very low ...
ForbearanceA temporary postponement of mortgage payments.
Mortgage ModificationA permanent change in a homeowner's home loan terms that makes ...
What are the implications of a low Federal Funds Rate?Find out what a low federal funds rate means for the economy. Discover the effects of monetary policy and how it can impact ...
Does the bank set up an escrow account for the buyer and seller in a home sale?Learn about the process of escrow and who is responsible for setting up escrow accounts for the buyer and seller in the purchase ...
How does the bank profit off of escrow accounts?Discover the truth behind escrow accounts and the bank's profits. Are these accounts worthwhile or just another way for the ...
Who manages an escrow account?Managing an escrow account is a job for a trusted and experienced service provider. Discover the best personal finance solutions ...


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Anthony Joshua: 'My motto is to stay hungry'
Heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua realizes that the secret to success in boxing is to stay hungry and keep out of the celebrity limelight. He faces Denis Bakhtov on Saturday.
Heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua realizes that the secret to success in boxing is to stay hungry and keep out of the celebrity limelight. He faces Denis Bakhtov on Saturday.
Having been in recovery for a torn biceps muscle, RING heavyweight champion Wladimir Klitschko has been cleared for training and is scheduled to face Kubrat Pulev on Nov. 15.
In Lem Satterfield's latest notebook, we get the official weights for tonight's middleweight title eliminator between Hassan N'Dam N'Jikam and Curtis Stevens an much more.
Fans share their displeasure with the official scorecards of Arthur Abraham's unanimous decision over Paul Smith, their excitement for Artur Beterbiev, plus their questions about Keith Thurman, Deontay Wilder, the Klitschko-Pulev fight and much more in this week's Monday mailbag.
British 122-pound star Scott Quigg blasted his way through late replacement Stephane Jamoye, posting a third-round TKO to retain his regular WBA junior featherweight title in Manchester, England, on Saturday.
For a young hopeful like heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua, training with a world champion is everything. When Joshua trained with RING champion Wladimir Klitschko, it inspired him like nothing else.
Heavyweight Anthony Joshua already caused a buzz in the division in just seven fights and plans on keeping the momentum going as he will fight twice in less than a month by mid-October.
In Lem Satterfield's latest notebook, we learn the date and details of former IBF light heavyweight titlist Tavoris Cloud's return to the ring.
Junior featherweight contender Scott Quigg will return to action against Stephane Jamoye on September 13 in Manchester, England.
Heavyweight hopeful Anthony Joshua looks optimistically – and excitedly – at his upcoming fight, now scheduled for September 13 and hosted in Manchester, England.
Originally scheduled to fight Jorge Sebastien Heiland, Matthew Macklin's August 30 return has been postponed due to an injury suffered by his trainer, Jamie Moore.
British cruiserweights Tony Bellew and Nathan Cleverly are headed for a sequel to their memorable 175-pound encounter, won by Cleverly three years ago, after posting convincing victories over Julio Cesar Dos Santos and Alejandro Valori, respectively, in Liverpool on Saturday night. Full undercard report included.
Looking to make his way back into middleweight title contention, Matthew Macklin will continue his comeback on August 30 in Ireland.
In Lem Satterfield's latest notebook, we find out who's next on IBF junior middleweight titlist Carlos Molina's hit list, should he successfully defend his strap against Cornelius Bundrage.
Former light heavyweights Nathan Cleverly and Tony Bellew, now cruiserweights, move toward a possible rematch as they co-headline a big card in Liverpool on July 12.
Lem Satterfield's latest notebook brings us news on heavyweight prospect Anthony Joshua, the undercard of the Carl Froch-George Groves rematch and much more.
Lem Satterfield's latest notebook features news on the return of lightweight contender Kevin Mitchell and former two-division titlist Randall Bailey.
Lem Satterfield's latest notebook brings us news on promising youngsters supporting Showtime's April 19 tripleheader and much more.
Unbeaten American Terence Crawford lived up to the hype by wrenching the WBO lightweight title from Ricky Burns' grasp in Glasgow on Saturday, firmly announcing his arrival on the world stage with a unanimous decision. The official scores were 116-112 twice and 117-110.
Lee Selby made a triumphant return to Wales, stopping Rendall Munroe in the sixth round to win the vacant European featherweight crown in front of a raucous home crowd. The fight of the night, however, was Gary Buckland's split decision over Gavin Rees.


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…Le Seigneur de la Tour. Published on 17th April 2015. Thanks to everyone at Bragelonne for making this happen.
…Le Seigneur de la Tour. Published on 17th April 2015. Thanks to everyone at Bragelonne for making this happen.
Although I love all my foreign editions equally… that cover. Wow. Thanks to my Taiwanese publisher Fantasy Foundation for making this happen. This version will be available worldwide excluding mainland China.
Many thanks to Eric Fomley at The Grimdark Review for inviting me to do an interview, which you can read here: https://thegrimdarkreview.wordpress.com/2015/02/12/interview-anthony-ryan/
Queen of Fire (Raven's Shadow Book 3) will be released in the UK on 2nd July and the US on 7th July. You can now pre-order from the following sellers:
No word on the audiobook yet, but watch this space.
The UK cover for Queen of Fire is now here – UK release date 2nd July, you can pre-order the hardback now at amazon.co.uk (no Kindle pre-order yet, but stay tuned). Thanks to Orbit UK for all their hard work in making it happen.
The US cover for Queen of Fire seems to be percolating out through various places today so I thought I'd go ahead and share it. Heartfelt thanks to everyone at Ace for their hard work on this. Blurb on the Amazon pre-order page.
Thanks to TJ Redig for inviting me onto the Scrivener Soapbox podcast to talk about Blood Song, Tower Lord, Slab City Blues and advice for new writers… and beer. Check it out here: http://www.tjredig.com/scrivenersoapbox/2014/8/17/2014-09-03-20-anthony-ryan
Also on iTunes.


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Robert Cooke (politician)
Robert Gordon Cooke (29 May 1930 – 6 January 1987)[1] was a British Conservative Party politician.
Early life[edit]
Cooke was born in Cardiff to Walter R. Cooke and Maud Cowie.[2]
Cooke was educated at The Downs School in Wraxall, Somerset, Harrow School and Christ Church, Oxford.
He served as a councillor on Bristol City Council 1954-57 and was a teacher of English at a Bristol public school.[3]
While a councillor and teacher, Cooke contested Bristol South East in 1955. He was Member of Parliament for Bristol West from a 1957 by-election until 1979. He introduced the Fatal Accidents Act 1959, the direct forerunner to the Fatal Accidents Act 1976 which provides for investigation and compensation in cases of work-related deaths. Cooke died in 1987 at the age of 56.[3]
Film location owner[edit]
He was the owner of Athelhampton House in Dorset, location of the 1972 film Sleuth, starring Michael Caine and Laurence Olivier, as well as the 1976 Doctor Who serial The Seeds of Doom.
- ^ Leigh Rayment's Historical List of MPs [self-published source][better source needed]
- ^ General Register Office — Births in April, May and June 1930 Vol: 11a 570
- ^ a b Times Guide to the House of Commons, 1955, 1966 & October 1974
External links[edit]
- Hansard 1803–2005: contributions in Parliament by Robert Cooke
|Parliament of the United Kingdom
|Preceded by
Walter Monckton
|Member of Parliament for Bristol West
|Succeeded by
William Waldegrave
|Preceded by
Marcus Kimball
|Baby of the House
|Succeeded by
Basil de Ferranti
|This article about a Conservative Member of the Parliament of the United Kingdom born in the 1930s is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it.
- 1930 births
- 1987 deaths
- Conservative Party (UK) MPs
- Members of the Parliament of the United Kingdom for English constituencies
- Councillors in South West England
- People educated at Harrow School
- Alumni of Christ Church, Oxford
- UK MPs 1955–59
- UK MPs 1959–64
- UK MPs 1964–66
- UK MPs 1966–70
- UK MPs 1970–74
- UK MPs 1974
- UK MPs 1974–79
- Conservative MP (UK), 1930s birth stubs


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Maintaining Disk Capacity and Looking Ahead to the Next Five Years to Support Expansion of Gas Appliance Leasing at Reduced Cost Using Entry-Level Storage "ETERNUS DX60"
Free registration required
Executive Summary
Natural gas has become a focus as a clean energy that helps achieve a low-carbon society. Natural gas wanted to maintain disk capacity looking ahead to the next five years, while reducing costs. Thus, quickly overcome this situation and at limited cost, Tokyo Gas Lease introduced Fujitsu's entry-level disk storage system "ETERNUS DX60". Since installation, the ETERNUS DX60 has supported the expansion of leasing by providing sufficient disk capacity for the next five years as well as improved data transfer speeds.
- Format: HTML
- Size: 0 KB


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You can now invite anyone to meet at your favorite Starbucks.
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40 year old woman | Decatur, GA, USA | Seeking men 35-40 within 100 miles
Active within 3 days
Life is like a box of chocolates: you never know what you're going to get.
I am an optimistic, hard-working, and curious person. I have been restless for most of my life but recently have been thinking of settling down and sharing my life with someone who can enrich it. I would like to meet somebody who can see beauty in everyday life but dreams big. I am not going to hide:I am looking for a committed relationship with someone who knows what they want; I definitely know what I want. I like people who have goals and think about where they are going to be in 5 years. Plans change, of course, but the sense of direction is important to me. I am not looking for somebody who is just coasting through life. I like people who constantly grow in some kind of way and are not afraid of difficulties. Relationships are not just hugs and kisses. There are bad days too, and I want to know that my partner will not walk away because he cannot handle our differences. I am not looking for perfection as I am not perfect myself. I like to have fun although I am probably not into clubbing anymore; I partied a lot for years and I feel that I got enough of it. But don't get me wrong: once in a while that party girl wakes up with the right crowd. I went to a liberal art college and I truly enjoy art. I go to almost every exhibit at the High. I photograph. I read. I do a lot of outdoor activities. In the summer I am never home.
Cooking , Dining out , Movies/Videos , Museums and art , Wine tasting
Running, Skiing, Walking / Hiking, Yoga
I exercise 1-2 times per week.
I like Birds, Dogs
Georgia State University, Atlanta, GA
Z{{Cta}} {{#if HasMoreInfo}} ?{{CtaSecondary}} {{/if}}
|What she is looking for
|5'6" (167cms)
|6'0" (182cms) to 6'2" (187cms)
|Body type:
|About average
|No preference
|No preference
|No Way
|No Way
|Social Drinker
|Education / Teacher / Professor
|No preference
|I'll tell you later
|$35,001 to $50,000, $75,001 to $100,000
|Never Married
|No preference
|Have kids:
|Yes, and they sometimes live at home, No, Yes, and they live away from home, Yes, and they live at home
|Wants kids:
|White / Caucasian
|White / Caucasian
|Christian / Catholic
|Christian / Catholic
|English, Other
|Graduate degree
|Bachelors degree


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Outdoor cutting station failing
Is anyone else having issues with getting cuttings to take during these warmer months? For a while I was having great luck with getting most of my cuttings to root and grow, but lately I have had cuttings form roots, good healthy roots, but not transplant well into their waiting pots. I'm just speculating, but I'm thinking the daily rains and high temps might have something to do with it.
Mine are in a somewhat controlled environment as well, they're inside the lanai against the western wall. Sometimes the rain comes hard enough from the west to blow through the screen and onto the pots, but usually it doesn't. It's just the ambient humidity out there that make pots stay moist far longer than they used to. I have terracotta herb pots that are away from that wall so I can better control their moisture levels and even those are taking longer to dry out.
Glancing up at my remote thermometer, it is currently reading 79% humidity in my lanai.
Now here's a good thread to post some Mistbed Designs
This post was edited by fawnridge on Mon, Jul 1, 13 at 13:39
I had the same problem with my confederate rose cuttings, I started some more, but used more perlite, did not use plastic for increased humidity and stuck them under a banana tree. So far so good. More shade, less moisture....??? The heat is taking a toll on my established plants, it must be very stressful for a cutting.
I am currently experimenting with cuttings in one of my large water containers. It is almost full of soil and clay kitty litter (so kinda like a muck) and the rest is water. It is currently full of /bog and pond plants and in full sun.
Some pink jasmine (jasminum polyanthum) vines wandered into it and rooted themselves all over the place. I pulled them out and cut them apart and put them into pots where they are doing well.
So that gave me the idea to take some cuttings from some other vines around the yard and put them in there to see if they would root. They look great so far....


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Where we are:
- Armenia - Yerevan,
- Azerbaijan - Baku,
- Belarus in exile - Vilnius,
- Bosnia and Herzegovina - Sarajevo,
- Croatia - Zagreb,
- Georgia - Tbilisi,
- Norway - Bergen,
- Norway - Oslo,
- Poland - Warsaw,
- Russian Federation - Moscow,
- Russian Federation - Voronezh,
- Serbia - Belgrade,
- Uganda - Kampala,
- Ukraine-Chernigov,
- Ukraine - Kiev,
- United Kingdom - London
Trends by region:
We focus on the rights to:
Human rights trends
Human Rights Council: mixed success
The 28th session of the United Nations Human Rights Council ended on Friday, 27 March 2015. It left civil society with mixed feelings; the Council did not address worrying human rights situations. However, they managed to establish new standards, in particular on the protection of privacy. 30 Mar 2015 »
Systematic human rights violations in Crimea
At the occasion of the presentation by the United Nations Special Rapporteur on minority issues of her report on Ukraine, the Human Rights Council discussed the situation of minorities in Ukraine, especially in regard to the developments in Crimea since February 2014. 18 Mar 2015 »
Letters of concern
Statement of Civil Society Organizations about Oppression from Government
February 2015 »
OSGF open letter on human rights defenders in Georgia
January 2015 »
Azerbaijan: Azerbaijan must stop its suppression of civil society
November 2014 »
Azerbaijan: Wave of repression in joint letter to the Secretary General of the Council of Europe
August 2014 »
Azerbaijan: Call for the immediate and unconditional release of Leyla Yunus, Arif Yunus and Rasul Jafarov
August 2014 »


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New Hampshire officials say they're stepping up enforcement on a variety of traffic-safety laws after seeing four highway deaths in the past 2 1/2 weeks, capping a two-year rise in fatal car crashes. "Today, we are declaring war on drivers impaired by alcohol and ... drugs, as well as those who fail to obey the posted speed limits and obey the rules of the road," said Highway Safety Agency coordinator Peter M. Thomson.
View Full Article in:Union Leader (Manchester, N.H.), The
Published in Brief:


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Rygar: The Battle of Argus
A brand-new Rygar built from the ground up to take advantage of the Wii's motion sensing controller, Rygar: The Battle of Argus eatures new characters and settings. Developed by High Energy Production and published by Tecmo.
Latest Updates
2011-05-29 08:25:44.0
2009-02-11 20:28:00.0
2009-02-11 13:21:12.0
2009-02-11 12:47:28.0
2008-09-03 20:32:33.0
Latest Updates
2008-09-03 20:32:33.0
2000-01-01 00:00:00.0
Latest Updates
2011-05-29 08:25:44.0
2009-02-11 20:28:00.0
2009-02-11 13:21:12.0
2009-02-11 12:47:28.0
2007-05-11 14:41:17.0
Rygar Videos
Rygar: The Battle of Argus 'Remake' trailer
PS2 Rygar title is reworked for the Wii.2008-10-27 13:27:38.0
Rygar Blogs
Call of Decency: How Treyarch can redeem itselfby Matt Jabour 2011-12-04 18:41:57.0 3 8
Game Blabber Check it out for Frequent Updates on all new and upcoming gamesby Ricki Grieve 2011-05-29 08:25:44.0 0 0
Rygar: The Legendary Adventure ReviewClassical Mythology Goes to Japan
by Scott Davis 2010-04-12 14:44:13.0 0 0
User Reviews> Write a Review of This Game
Crap Port
Score: D+
by Stephen Williams
This a crappy remake of the ps2 version. It plays and looks bad. This game should have been released last year. It is taking up space for the new good games coming to the...
Read more
2009-02-11 20:28:00.0 0 0
I hope people who havent played it before...
Score: B
by David Montgomery
give it a try. It was a GREAT game back on the PS2, doing the great-graphics-chain-combo-action-mythology thing before God of War came around. Although a bit simple and not as...
Read more
2009-02-11 13:21:12.0 0 0
Didnt play much but....
Score: B+
by Wil Casiano
I must say, for the 15 minutes i did play this game I was ready to lay down some cash for it. My Wii doesnt get much use because there aren't really many action games that...
Read more
2009-02-11 12:47:28.0 0 0
Latest News for Rygar
Three New Games Under Development By Team Ninja
New titles set to be revealed at Tokyo Game Show.2008-09-03 20:32:33.0 2 23
Live from Japan: Tecmo's Media Day
Plenty of Ninja Gaiden to go around, plus new announcements.2007-05-11 14:41:17.0 21 63
Latest Previews for Rygar
Rygar: The Battle of Argus Preview
We take a look at Tecmo's new Wii action game.2008-09-29 15:11:36.0 0 30
Rygar: The Battle of Argus Preview
Impressions and interview about Rygar for Wii.2007-09-21 11:04:04.0 0 42
More Action Games
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance
- Diablo III
- Assassin's Creed III
- Grand Theft Auto V
- Batman: Arkham City
- God of War 3
- The Legend of Zelda Skyward Sword
- (Wii)
- Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots
- Grand Theft Auto 4
- (360)
- Castlevania: Lords of Shadow -- Mirror of Fate
- (Nintendo 3DS)


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The town known for its roundabouts and Global Foundries
The 2nd Annual KidsGiving charity event will be taking place at the TreePaad in Malta on Friday, November 4th from 6pm-8pm.
Fellow Malta residents, the 2nd Annual KidsGiving charity event will be taking place at the TreePaad in Malta on Friday, November 4th from 6pm to 8pm. Here are the details: Event: 2nd annual KidsGiving Location: TreePaad in Malta Date & Time: Friday, November 4th from 6pm-8pm. KidsGiving is an amazing event for a number of reasons. 1. It's […] [Read More]
Malta Business and Professional Association Business Development Workshop on November 8th, 2011
Event: Business Development Workshop HVCC TEC-SMART Date: November 8th, 2011 Time: 5:30 PM November 8th, 5:30pm at the HVCC TEC-SMART center for a facilitated workshop where you will have an opportunity to seriously think about the future of your business within the context of the changing economic environment. The event will be facilitated in a way […] [Read More]
Date Changes to Town Board Meetings
For those readers who are interested in the Town Board meetings, which are held the first and last Monday of the every month, the following date changes for the month of November have been announced on the Town of Malta website: Due to Halloween and Election Day the agendaMtg & the regular Mtg have been […] [Read More]
Malta Parks & Recreation WINTER Activities Guide
The Malta Parks & Recreation Winter Activities Guide is available now. Registration begins November 1st. For more information, please click here. [Read More]
MBPA Event: Networking Mixer, October 19th, 2011 at 5:30 pm
The Malta Business & Professional Association is holding a networking mixer at Mangino's on Wednesday, October 19th, 2011 at 5:30 pm. Enjoy a nice buffet with other MBPA members. To register please make sure to input your user name and password at www.maltabpa.com More information and online registration: Networking Mixer firstname.lastname@example.com [Read More]
What would you do with $650M?
Imagine, waking up one morning and discovering you would be given $650 million dollars, without explanation, what would you do next? After I read The Buzz in the Sunday edition of the Times Union, I began to wonder what I would do if I were given that sum of money. I began to generate a […] [Read More]
Long-term water contract wanted
Authority okays supply contract, but 2 members want a long-term deal. Leigh Hornbeck, staff writer for the Times Union, reports two members of the Saratoga County Water Authority voted against the latest renewal of a water contract with GlobalFoundries, citing frustration the two sides have yet to enter into a long term agreement. The water authority has been renewing […] [Read More]
More musical chairs at GlobalFoundries
Robin Copper, Reporter for The Business Review, wrote an article on Friday stating GlobalFoundries has named Eric Choh as the new vice president and interim general manager of the $4.6 billion chip plant being constructed in Malta, Saratoga County. Choh, who was vice president of operations and the second-ranking local executive for GlobalFoundries, was promoted to replace Norm […] [Read More]


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This hilly course features tree-lined fairways. Water hazards (a lake and a small pond) come into play on four holes. The signature hole is #3 because it requires a shot over water to an undulating...
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Dr. Michele Germain, DO
Obstetrics & Gynecology
- 8615 Queens Blvd
Elmhurst, NY 11373
- 2 Locations
- (718) 899-6600
Dr. Michele Germain graduated from the New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology in 2003. She works in Elmhurst, NY and 1 other location and specializes in Obstetrics & Gynecology. Dr. Germain is affiliated with Forest Hills Hospital, Long Island Jewish Medical Center, North Shore University Hospital and Queens Hospital Center. She speaks English and Spanish.View More
Gender: Female
Languages Spoken: English, Spanish
Obstetrics & Gynecology
Medical School: New York College of Osteopathic Medicine of New York Institute of Technology; Graduated 2003
*This physician has multiple office locations. See Office Information for details.