A federal appeals court has upheld a decision saying that Jesus cannot be invoked in public prayers. As one judge says in dissent:

“Thus … the majority has dared to step in and regulate the language of prayer—the sacred dialogue between humankind and God. Such a decision treats prayer agnostically; reduces it to a civil nicety; … Most frightfully, it will require secular [authorities] to evaluate and parse particular religious prayers…”

I have a solution: let people pray however they want. If you don’t like it, you can choose to see it as protected speech and choose not to be offended.

Listening to the news these days is like spending too much time around Jim Carrey at the beginning of the movie “Liar, Liar.” Mucho mendacity.

How are we being deceived (by both political parties and by just about everybody in Washington)? Oh, let me count the ways.

1)We will default on Aug. 2 unless Congress raises the debt ceiling, and such a move would be unprecedented.

A)Not to make you cynical or anything, but the Treasury magically found another week’s worth of money, and the default date is now Aug. 10.

B)The U.S. government takes in anywhere between $170 billion and $210 billion, depending on the month. The debt interest payments are about $20 billion. $20 billion is less than $170 billion. We could pay off our creditors and not default. Default should never have been mentioned by anybody. The issue is: the U.S. government does not have enough money to pay all of its current obligations unless the debt ceiling is raised. But most people already knew that.

Continue reading →

Law School Prof. Butler Shaffer makes an interesting distinction between freedom and liberty. Liberty, he says, is what the state (meaning overweaning government) decides to grant you in terms of personal freedom. Freedom, he says, is your individual ability to do what you want with your time, believe what you want, think what you want. Freedom is in your core being and cannot be taken away, even by most totalitarian governments, although they may try.

In other words, freedom is your free agency, given to you by the very act of being born. Liberty is a governmental structure that hopefully allows you freedom of life, liberty and property (but almost never does).
Continue reading →

Huh? Again, would this be relevant if Mitt were Jewish or Catholic? What a complete crock. If there is any doubt that Herman Cain shouldn’t be taken seriously as a candidate, well, we now have confirmation.

Here is Herman Cain on why Mitt can’t be elected.

…without a deal to cut short and long-term spending. Here is the deal that I would favor:

1)A major cut in the 2012 budget (in the range of at least $500 billion out of a $3.8 trillion budget if not more).
2)A cap on future spending.
3)A balanced budget amendment that limits future spending except in times of extreme emergency (a declared war, for example).

For more details, you can read about the cut, cap and balance pledge here.

Interestingly, LDS congressmen are leading the charge on this issue. I count two senators (Utah’s Orrin Hatch and Mike Lee) and three members of the House who have signed the pledge (Jason Chaffetz (UT), Raul Labrador (ID) and Jeff Flake (AZ)). Continue reading →