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Private Foundations: Benefactors or Malefactors?
September 29, 2011
The “Super Committee” charged with deficit reduction should take notice of a tax policy that permits the wealthiest Americans to divert a third of their tax obligations away from the Treasury and to causes of their own choosing. The same system also subsidizes conversion of taxable investment income to tax-free income and removal of billions in investment assets from the reach of estate and gift taxes.
The system at work lies in the intricate body of tax law that subsidizes the creation and perpetuation of so-called “private foundations.” Briefly described, these are trusts or similar entities that control hundreds of billions of dollars in investment securities in the form of “endowments.” Although they are accorded the status of “charities” under section 501(c) of the Internal Revenue Code, they do not meet any accepted definition of a charity. They do not raise money from the general public, but are instead the creatures of wealthy families and their corporate affiliates. Nor do they actually perform charitable works. Rather, they make discretionary “grants” to actual “operating charities” selected by trustees, as and when they see fit.
As of 2008, private foundations controlled $650 billion, two-thirds of which was made up of investment securities that earned investment income of over $60 billion. No income taxes were paid on these revenues. Neither the assets nor the earnings are subject to death taxes.
Ending these tax benefits could solve a substantial part of the Super Committee’s ten-year goal. But a more important reason exists for reform: the tax code. It has established that most un-American of institutions: permanently entrenched wealth with the capacity and intent to influence the national agenda.
It goes without saying that private foundations are huge players in the world’s financial markets, as venture capitalists, real estate developers, futures traders, and investors in stocks and bonds. Although discouraged from lobbying, they do in fact lobby prodigiously at all levels of government. But their greatest influence on the national agenda is promoting and funding research, public opinion polls, academic studies, advocacy groups, and other intellectual fodder in support of their pet causes. These activities are designed to “leverage” tax dollars in furtherance of their agendas. The names MacArthur, Pew, Kaiser, Koch, and Ford are the most familiar, but these “persuaders” number in the scores if not hundreds.
The modern system, in summary, works like this. A rich family or corporation creates an endowment to further “charitable” causes selected by the founder, subject only to extremely loose standards of public good. By way of example, the charitable purposes of foundations established by the Buffett family promote abortion rights, education of poor children, nuclear non-proliferation, environmental protection, and human rights. The endowment is donated free of gift tax, and is also removed from the reach of otherwise applicable death taxes. Moreover, the founder receives an immediate deduction from his income taxes for the gift, in effect getting 35% or more of it back from the taxpayers.
The foundation invariably takes this money and invests it. Although foundations do have to pay taxes on so-called “unrelated business income” (UBI), investment earnings are not considered UBI and thus are free from income tax. If, as some politicians argue, lower taxes on capital gains, interest, and dividends constitute a subsidy for the rich, this tax-free universe for foundations is Valhalla itself.
In 1969 the Congress placed some limitation on the Topsy-like growth of private foundations by imposing an “excise tax” to the extent — and only to the extent — that the foundations do not “pay out” at least 5% of the endowment’s current value in any year. Because foundation investment earnings historically almost invariably exceeded that “distributable” amount, most have had excess earnings to add to the endowment each year.
Apologists for private foundations argue that these remarkable benefits are a well-tuned public policy to support charities. They equate their activities with those of schools, institutions for the performing and fine arts, hospitals, and other “operating charities.” The private foundations argue that, like conventional charities, they are being subsidized for doing work the government would otherwise have to perform. It is against this claim that their conduct should be measured.
The first consideration is that they do not support works that the people, acting through their governments, consider wholesome and helpful. They make grants only to those causes their founders and trustees have decided are more important than what government does. Notwithstanding the warm sentiments Bill Gates, Warren Buffett, and others have for higher taxes, their foundations’ very existence shows disapproval for what the government does and how it does it. If they felt otherwise, they would be more efficient in their largesse by foregoing foundations, paying income taxes on their investments, and dying with these assets in their taxable estates.
A more important consideration is that private foundations do not even support their own goals. The tax code has paradoxically encouraged giving for charity, but not spending on charity. The founder, as noted, receives an immediate tax deduction as if he had put money in the hands of the needy instead of an “endowment.” But the empirical evidence is that the “gift” stays in the foundation’s money bin forever and is never used to support foundation goals.
A 2007 IRS study — which has not been updated — tracked, over a ten-year period, the top 100 foundations by asset size. It calculated endowment growth and “distributions” as a percent of their respective endowments (the so-called “payout rate”).
It comes as no surprise that all endowments grew. That is a natural consequence of making investments on which no income tax is paid.
The eye-popping statistic is the payout rate of each. With the exception of a mere handful of outliers, every one of the 100 foundations on the list paid almost exactly 5% out for expenses and actual charitable use. To underline a crucial point: 5% is not the average or median distribution by all 100 foundations; it is the individual payout rate of each one of them over a decade — all while endowments were growing steadily and, presumably, the needs of their beneficiaries were increasing.
A sober observer can reach but one conclusion: over ten years, through hundreds of iterations of decisions made by one hundred boards of trustees, private foundations unerringly chose self-perpetuation over the needs of their intended beneficiaries.
As shameful as this performance is, private foundations respond with sophistry: we are good, therefore should be around for future generations; therefore we should not spend our money. This syllogism assumes, incorrectly, that it is public policy to perpetuate eternal memorials to the agendas of dead wealthy people. America’s tradition is quite the opposite: reduction of plutocracy and actual spending on charity.
What is required is a system that matches up the founder’s charitable deduction and the foundation’s tax benefits with public policy. As a start, the charitable deduction for endowment gifts to private foundations should be discounted to present value based on the express undertakings of the foundation to expend the gift or, if none are made, the historic rate of principal distributions from the foundation’s endowment gifts. (Present value calculations such as this are routinely performed in business and tax matters.) Existing foundations should be brought into conformity by increasing the “distributable amount” for excise tax purposes to 10% of endowment value, and by taxing investment income at the same rates as unrelated business income. Under such a regime, foundations may choose to persist in self-perpetuation, but they will have to adapt to a tax structure that demands their fair share.
Isaiah 32:9-20; Joyful Prospects; When there was so great corruption of manners, and so much provocation given to the Holy God, bad times might well be expected, and here is a warning given of such times coming; The Alarm is sounded to the WOMEN that were at ease and the careless daughters, to feed whose pride, vanity, and luxury, their husbands and fathers were tempted to starve the poor; Let them know that God was about to bring wasting desolating judgments upon the land in which they lived in pleasure and were wanton; In the foresight of this let them tremble and be troubled, strip themselves, and gird sackcloth upon their loins; That the best prevention of the trouble would be to repent and humble themselves for their sin, and lie in the dust before God in true remorse and godly sorrow, which would be the lengthening out of their tranquility. B.C. 726
| Joyful Prospects. | B. C. 726. |
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Isaiah 32:9-20
9 Rise up, ye women that are at ease; hear my voice, ye careless daughters; give ear unto my speech. 10 Many days and years shall ye be troubled, ye careless women: for the vintage shall fail, the gathering shall not come. 11 Tremble, ye women that are at ease; be troubled, ye careless ones: strip you, and make you bare, and gird sackcloth upon your loins. 12 They shall lament for the teats, for the pleasant fields, for the fruitful vine. 13 Upon the land of my people shall come up thorns and briers; yea, upon all the houses of joy in the joyous city: 14 Because the palaces shall be forsaken; the multitude of the city shall be left; the forts and towers shall be for dens for ever, a joy of wild asses, a pasture of flocks; 15 Until the spirit be poured upon us from on high, and the wilderness be a fruitful field, and the fruitful field be counted for a forest. 16 Then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness, and righteousness remain in the fruitful field. 17 And the work of righteousness shall be peace; and the effect of righteousness quietness and assurance for ever. 18 And my people shall dwell in a peaceable habitation, and in sure dwellings, and in quiet resting places; 19 When it shall hail, coming down on the forest; and the city shall be low in a low place. 20 Blessed are ye that sow beside all waters, that send forth thither the feet of the ox and the ass.
In these verses we have God rising up to judgment against the vile persons, to punish them for their villainy; but at length returning in mercy to the liberal, to reward them for their liberality.
I. When there was so great a corruption of manners, and so much provocation given to the holy God, bad times might well be expected, and here is a warning given of such times coming. The alarm is sounded to the women that were at ease (v. 9) and the careless daughters, to feed whose pride, vanity, and luxury, their husbands and fathers were tempted to starve the poor. Let them hear what the prophet has to say to them in God’s name: “Rise up, and hear with reverence and attention.”
1. Let them know that God was about to bring wasting desolating judgments upon the land in which they lived in pleasure and were wanton. This seems to refer primarily to the desolations made by Sennacherib’s army when he seized all the fenced cities of Judah: but then those words, many days and years, must be rendered (as the margin reads them) days above a year, that is, something above a year shall this havock be in the making: so long it was from the first entrance of that army into the land of Judah to the overthrow of it. But it is applicable to the wretched disappointment which those will certainly meet with, first or last, that set their hearts upon the world and place their happiness in it: You shall be troubled, you careless women. It will not secure us from trouble to cast away care when we are at ease; nay, to those who affect to live carelessly even little troubles will be great vexations and press hard upon them. They were careless and at ease because they had money enough and mirth enough; but the prophet here tells them,
(1.) That the country whence they had their tents and dainties should shortly be laid waste: “The vintage shall fail; and then what will you do for wine to make merry with? The gathering of fruit shall not come, for there shall be none to be gathered, and you will find the want of them, v. 10. You will want the teats, the good milk from the cows, the pleasant fields and their productions:” the useful fields that are serviceable to human life are the pleasant ones. “You will want the fruitful vine, and the grapes it used to yield you.” The abuse of plenty is justly punished with scarcity; and those deserve to be deprived of the supports of life who make them the food and fuel of lust and prepare them for Baal.
(2.) That the cities too, the cities of Judah, where they lived at ease, spent their rents, and made themselves merry with their dainties, should be laid waste (v. 13, 14): Briers and thorns, the fruits of sin and the curse, shall come up, not only upon the land of my people, which shall lie uncultivated, but upon all the houses of joy–the play-houses, the gaming-houses, the taverns–in the joyous cities. When a foreign army was ravaging the country the houses of joy, no doubt, became houses of mourning; then the palaces, or noblemen’s houses, were forsaken by their owners, who perhaps fled to Egypt for refuge; the multitude of the city were left by their leaders to shift for themselves. Then the stately houses shall be for dens for ever, which had been as forts and towers for strength and magnificence. They shall be abandoned; the owners shall never return to them; every body shall look upon them to be like Jericho, an anathema; so that, even when peace returns, they shall not be rebuilt, but shall be thrown to the waste: A joy of wild asses and a pasture of flocks. Thus is many a house brought to ruin by sin. Jam seges est ubi Troja fuit–Corn grows on the site of Troy.
2. In the foresight of this let them tremble and be troubled, strip themselves, and gird sackcloth upon their loins, v. 11. This intimates not only that when the calamity comes they shall thus be made to tremble and be forced to strip themselves, that then God’s judgments would strip them and make them bare, but,
(1.) That the best prevention of the trouble would be to repent and humble themselves for their sin, and lie in the dust before God in true remorse and godly sorrow, which would be the lengthening out of their tranquillity. This is meeting God in the way of his judgments, and saving a correction by correcting our own mistakes. Those only shall break that will not bend.
(2.) That the best preparation for the trouble would be to deny themselves and live a life of mortification, and to sit loose to all the delights of sense. Those that have already by a holy contempt of this world stripped themselves can easily bear to be stripped when trouble and death come.
II. While there was still a remnant that kept their integrity they had reason to hope for good times at length and such times the prophet here gives them a pleasant prospect of. Such times they saw in the latter end of the reign of Hezekiah; but the prophecy may well be supposed to look further, to the days of the Messiah, who is King of righteousness and King of peace, and to whom all the prophets bear witness. Now observe,
1. How those blessed times shall be introduced-by the pouring out of the Spirit from on high (v. 15), which speaks not only of the good-will of God towards us, but the good work of God in us; for then, and not till then, there will be good times, when God by his grace gives men good hearts; and therefore God’s giving his Holy Spirit to those that ask him is in effect his giving them all good things, as appears by comparing Luke 11:13 with Matt. 7:11. This is the great thing that God’s people comfort themselves with the hopes of, that the Spirit shall be poured out upon them, that there shall be a more plentiful effusion of the Spirit of grace than formerly, according as the necessity of the church, in its desolate estate, calls for. This comes from on high, and therefore they look up to their Father in heaven for it. When God designs favours for his church he pours out his Spirit, both to prepare his people to receive his favours and to qualify and give success to those whom he designs to employ as instruments of his favour; for their endeavours to repair the desolations of the church are all fruitless until the Spirit be poured out upon them and then the work is done suddenly. The kingdom of the Messiah was brought in, and set up, by the pouring out of the Spirit (Acts 2.), and so it is still kept up, and will be to the end.
2. What a wonderfully happy change shall then be made. That which was a wilderness, dry and barren, shall become a fruitful field, and that which we now reckon a fruitful field, in comparison with what it shall be then, shall be counted for a forest. Then shall the earth yield her increase. It is promised that in the days of the Messiah the fruit of the earth shall shake like Lebanon, Ps. 72:16. Some apply this to the admission of the Gentiles into the gospel church (which made the wilderness a fruitful field), and the rejection and exclusion of the Jews, which made that a forest which had been a fruitful field. On the Gentiles was poured out a spirit of life, but on the Jews a spirit of slumber. See what is the evidence and effect of the pouring out of the Spirit upon any soul; it is thereby made fruitful, and has its fruit unto holiness. Three things go to make these times happy:–
(1.) Judgment and righteousness, v. 16. When the Spirit is poured out upon a land, then judgment shall dwell in the wilderness and turn it into a fruitful field, and righteousness shall remain in the fruitful field and make it yet more fruitful. Ministers shall expound the law and magistrates execute it, and both so judiciously and faithfully that by both the bad shall be made good and the good made better. Among all sorts of people, the poor and low and unlearned, that are neglected as the wilderness, and the rich and great and learned, that are valued as the fruitful field, there shall be right thoughts of things, good principles commanding, and conscience made of good and evil, sin and duty. Or in all parts of the land, both champaign and enclosed, country and city, the ruder parts and those that are more cultivated and refined, justice shall be duly administered. The law of Christ introduces a judgment or rule by which we must be governed, and the gospel of Christ a righteousness by which we must be saved; and, wherever the Spirit is poured out, both these dwell and remain as an everlasting righteousness.
(2.) Peace and quietness, v. 17, 18. The peace here promised is of two kinds:–
[1.] Inward peace, v. 17. This follows upon the indwelling of righteousness, v. 16. Those in whom that work is wrought shall experience this blessed product of it. It is itself peace, and the effect of it is quietness and assurance for ever, that is, a holy serenity and security of mind, by which the soul enjoys itself and enjoys its God, and it is not in the power of this world to disturb it in those enjoyments. Note, Peace, and quietness, and everlasting assurance may be expected, and shall be found, in the way and work of righteousness. True satisfaction is to be had only in true religion, and there it is to be had without fail. Those are the quiet and peaceable lives that are spent in all godliness and honesty, 1 Tim. 2: 2.
First, Even the work of righteousness shall be peace. In the doing of our duty we shall find abundance of true pleasure, a present great reward of obedience in obedience. Though the work of righteousness may be toilsome and costly, and expose us to contempt, yet it is peace, such peace as is sufficient to bear our charges.
Secondly, The effect of righteousness shall be quietness and assurance, not only to the end of time, of our time, and in the end, but to the endless ages of eternity. Real holiness is real happiness now and shall be perfect happiness, that is, perfect holiness, for ever.
[2.] Outward peace, v. 18. It is a great mercy when those who by the grace of God have quiet and peaceable spirits are by the providence of God made to dwell in quiet and peaceable habitations, not disturbed in their houses or solemn assemblies. When the terror of Sennacherib’s invasion was over, the people, no doubt, were more sensible than ever of the mercy of a quiet habitation, not disturbed with the alarms of war. Let every family study to keep itself quiet from strifes and jars within, not two against three and three against two in the house, and then put itself under God’s protection to dwell safely, and to be quiet from the fear of evil without. Jerusalem shall be a peaceable habitation; compare ch. 33:20. Even when it shall hail, and there shall be a violent battering storm coming down on the forest that lies bleak, then shall Jerusalem be a quiet resting-place, for the city shall be low in a low place, under the wind, not exposed (as those cities are that stand high) to the fury of the storm, but sheltered by the mountains that are round about Jerusalem, Ps. 125:2. The high forts and towers are brought down (v. 14), but the city that lies low shall be a quiet resting-place. Those are most safe, and may dwell most at ease, that are humble, and are willing to dwell low, v. 19. Those that would dwell in a peaceable habitation must be willing to dwell low, and in a low place. Some think here is an allusion to the preservation of the land of Goshen from the plague of hail, which made great destruction in the land of Egypt.
(3.) Plenty and abundance. There shall be such good crops gathered in every where, and every year, that the husbandmen shall be commended, and though happy, who sow beside all water (v. 20), who sow all the grounds that are fit for seedness, who cast their bread, or bread-corn, upon the water, Eccl. 11:1. God will give the increase, but then the husbandman must be industrious, and mind his business, and sow beside all waters; and, if he do this, the corn shall come up so thick and rank that he shall turn in his cattle, even the ox and the ass, to eat the tops of it and keep it under. This is applicable,
[1.] To the preaching of the word. Some think it points at the ministry of the apostles, who, as husbandmen, went forth to sow their seed (Matt. 13:3); they sowed beside all waters; they preached the gospel wherever they came. Waters signify people, and they preached to multitudes. Wherever they found men’s hearts softened, and moistened, and disposed to receive the word, they cast in the good seed. And whereas, by the law of Moses, the Jews were forbidden to plough with an ox and an ass together (Deut. 22:10), which intimated that Jews and Gentiles should not intermix, now that distinction shall be taken away, and both the ox and the ass, both Jews and Gentiles, shall be employed in, and enjoy the benefit of, the gospel husbandry.
[2.] To works of charity. When God sends these happy times blessed are those that improve them in doing good with what they have, that sow beside all waters, that embrace all opportunities of relieving the necessitous; for in due season they shall reap.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Isaiah 32:1-8: The Reign of Justice; “BEHOLD, A KING shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgement; And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as a shadow of a great rock in a weary land”; That magistrates should do their duty in their places, and the powers answer the great ends for which they were ordained of God; They shall use their power according to law, and not against it; They shall be willing to be taught and to understand things aright; They shall lay aside their prejudices against their rulers and teachers, and submit to the light and power of truth. B.C. 726
I S A I A H.
CHAPTER 32
This chapter seems to be such a prophecy of the reign of Hezekiah as amounts to an abridgment of the history of it, and this with an eye to the kingdom of the Messiah, whose government was typified by the thrones of the house of David, for which reason he is so often called “the Son of David.” Here is, I. A prophecy of that good work of reformation with which he should begin his reign, and the happy influence it should have upon the people, who had been wretchedly corrupted and debauched in the reign of his predecessor, ver. 1-8. II. A prophecy of the great disturbance that would be given to the kingdom in the middle of his reign by the Assyrian invasion, ver. 9-14. III. A promise of better times afterwards, towards the latter end of his reign, in respect both of piety and peace (ver. 15-20), which promise may be supposed to look as far forward as the days of the Messiah.
| The Reign of Justice. | B. C. 726. |
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Isaiah 32:1-8
1 Behold, a king shall reign in righteousness, and princes shall rule in judgment. 2 And a man shall be as a hiding place from the wind, and a covert from the tempest; as rivers of water in a dry place, as the shadow of a great rock in a weary land. 3 And the eyes of them that see shall not be dim, and the ears of them that hear shall hearken. 4 The heart also of the rash shall understand knowledge, and the tongue of the stammerers shall be ready to speak plainly. 5 The vile person shall be no more called liberal, nor the churl said to be bountiful. 6 For the vile person will speak villany, and his heart will work iniquity, to practise hypocrisy, and to utter error against the LORD, to make empty the soul of the hungry, and he will cause the drink of the thirsty to fail. 7 The instruments also of the churl are evil: he deviseth wicked devices to destroy the poor with lying words, even when the needy speaketh right. 8 But the liberal deviseth liberal things; and by liberal things shall he stand.
We have here the description of a flourishing kingdom. “Blessed art thou, O land! when it is thus with thee, when kings, princes, and people, are in their places such as they should be.” It may be taken as a directory both to magistrates and subjects, what both ought to do, or as a panegyric to Hezekiah, who ruled well and saw something of the happy effects of his good government, and it was designed to make the people sensible how happy they were under his administration and how careful they should be to improve the advantages of it, and withal to direct them to look for the kingdom of Christ, and the times of reformation which that kingdom should introduce. It is here promised and prescribed, for the comfort of the church,
I. That magistrates should do their duty in their places, and the powers answer the great ends for which they were ordained of God, v. 1, 2.
1. There shall be a king and princes that shall reign and rule; for it cannot go well when there is no king in Israel. The princes must have a king, a monarch over them as supreme, in whom they may unite; and the king must have princes under him as officers, by whom he may act, 1 Pet. 2:13, 14. They both shall know their place and fill it up. The king shall reign, and yet, without any diminution to his just prerogative, the princes shall rule in a lower sphere, and all for the public good.
2. They shall use their power according to law, and not against it. They shall reign in righteousness and in judgment, with wisdom and equity, protecting the good and punishing the bad; and those kings and princes Christ owns as reigning by him who decree justice, Prov. 8:15. Such a King, such a Prince, Christ himself is; he reigns by rule, and in righteousness will he judge the world, ch. 9: 7; 11:4. 3. Thus they shall be great blessings to the people (v. 2): A man, that man, that king that reigns in righteousness, shall be as a hiding-place. When princes are as they should be people are as they would be.
(1.) They are sheltered and protected from many mischiefs. This good magistrate is a covert to the subject from the tempest of injury and violence; he defends the poor and fatherless, that they be not made a prey of by the mighty. Whither should oppressed innocency flee, when blasted by reproach or borne down by violence, but to the magistrate as its hiding-place? To him it appeals, and by him it is righted.
(2.) They are refreshed and comforted with many blessings. This good magistrate gives such countenance to those that are poor and in distress, and such encouragement to every thing that is praiseworthy, that he is as rivers of water in a dry place, cooling and cherishing the earth and making it fruitful, and as the shadow of a great rock, under which a poor traveller may shelter himself from the scorching heat of the sun in a weary land. It is a great reviving to a good man, who makes conscience of doing his duty, in the midst of contempt and contradiction, at length to be backed, and favoured, and smiled upon in it by a good magistrate. All this, and much more, the man Christ Jesus is to all the willing faithful subjects of his kingdom. When the greatest evils befal us, not only the wind, but the tempest, when storms of guilt and wrath beset us and beat upon us, they drive us to Christ, and in him we are not only safe, but satisfied that we are so; in him we find rivers of water for those that hunger and thirst after righteousness, all the refreshment and comfort that a needy soul can desire, and the shadow, not of a tree, which sun or rain may beat through, but of a rock, of a great rock, which reaches a great way for the shelter of the traveller. Some observe here that as the covert, and the hiding-place, and the rock, do themselves receive the battering of the wind and storm, to save those from it that take shelter in them, so Christ bore the storm himself to keep it off from us.
II. That subjects should do their duty in their places.
1. They shall be willing to be taught, and to understand things aright. They shall lay aside their prejudices against their rulers and teachers, and submit to the light and power of truth, v. 3. When this blessed work of reformation is set on foot, and men do their parts towards it, God will not be wanting to do his: Then the eyes of those that see, of the prophets, the seers, shall not be dim; but God will bless them with visions, to be by them communicated to the people; and those that read the word written shall no longer have a veil upon their hearts, but shall see things clearly. Then the ears of those that hear the word preached shall hearken diligently and readily receive what they hear, and not be so dull of hearing as they have been. This shall be done by the grace of God, especially gospel-grace; for the hearing ear, and the seeing eyes, the Lord has made, has new-made, even both of them.
2. There shall be a wonderful change wrought in them by that which is taught them, v. 4.
(1.) They shall have a clear head, and be able to discern things that differ, and distinguish concerning them. The heart of those that were hasty and rash, and could not take time to digest and consider things, shall now be cured of their precipitation, and shall understand knowledge; for the Spirit of God will open their understanding. This blessed work Christ wrought in his disciples after his resurrection (Luke 24:45), as a specimen of what he would do for all his people, in giving them an understanding, 1 John 5:20. The pious designs of good princes are likely to take effect when their subjects allow themselves liberty to consider, and to think, so freely as to take things right.
(2.) They shall have a ready utterance: The tongue of the stammerers, that used to blunder whenever they spoke of the things of God, shall now be ready to speak plainly, as those that understand what they speak of, that believe, and therefore speak. There shall be a great increase of such clear, distinct, and methodical knowledge in the things of God, that those from whom one would not have expected it shall speak intelligently of these things, very much to the honour of God and the edification of others. Their hearts being full of this good matter, their tongues shall be as the pen of a ready writer, Ps. 45:1.
3. The differences between good and evil, virtue and vice, shall be kept up, and no more confounded by those who put darkness for light and light for darkness (v. 5): The vile shall no more be called liberal.
(1.) Bad men shall no more be preferred by the prince. When a king reigns in justice he will not put those in places of honour and power that are ill-natured, and of base and sordid spirits, and care not what injury or mischief they do so they may but compass their own ends. Such as vile persons (as Antiochus is called, Dan. 11:21); when they are advanced they are called liberal and bountiful; they are called benefactors (Luke 22:25): but it shall not always be thus; when the world grows wiser men shall be preferred according to their merit, and honour (which was never thought seemly for a fool, Prov. 26:1) shall no longer be thrown away upon such.
(2.) Bad men shall be no more had in reputation among the people, nor vice disguised with the colours of virtue. It shall no more be said to Nabal, Thou art Nadib (so the words are); such a covetous muck-worm as Nabal was, a fool but for his money, shall not be complimented with the title of a gentleman or a prince; nor shall they call a churl, that minds none but himself, does no good with what he has, but is an unprofitable burden of the earth, My lord; or, rather, they shall not say of him, He is rich; for so the word signifies. Those only are to be reckoned rich that are rich in good works; not those that have abundance, but those that use it well. In short, it is well with a people when men are generally valued by their virtue, and usefulness, and beneficence to mankind, and not by their wealth or titles of honour. Whether this was fulfilled in the reign of Hezekiah, and how far it refers to the kingdom of Christ (in which we are sure men are judged of by what they are, not by what they have, nor is any man’s character mistaken), we will not say; but it prescribes an excellent rule both to prince and people, to respect men according to their personal merit. To enforce this rule, here is a description both of the vile person and of the liberal; and by it we shall see such a vast difference between them that we must quite forget ourselves if we pay that respect to the vile person and the churl which is due only to the liberal.
[1.] A vile person and a churl will do mischief, and the more if he be preferred and have power in his hand; his honours will make him worse and not better, v. 6, 7. See the character of these base ill-conditioned men.
First, They are always plotting some unjust thing or other, designing ill either to particular persons or to the public, and contriving how to bring it about; and so many silly piques they have to gratify, and mean revenges, that there appears not in them the least spark of generosity. Their hearts will be still working some iniquity or other. Observe, There is the work of the heart, as well as the work of the hands. As thoughts are words to God, so designs are works in his account. See what pains sinners take in sin. They labour at it; their hearts are intent upon it, and with a great deal of art and application they work iniquity. They devise wicked devices with all the subtlety of the old serpent and a great deal of deliberation, which makes the sin exceedingly sinful; and the more there is of plot and management in a sin the more there is of Satan in it.
Secondly, They carry on their plots by trick and dissimulation. When they are meditating iniquity, they practise hypocrisy, feign themselves just men, Luke 20: 20. The most abominable mischiefs shall be disguised with the most plausible pretences of devotion to God, regard to man, and concern for some common good. Those are the vilest of men that intend the worst mischiefs when they speak fair.
Thirdly, They speak villainy. When they are in a passion you will see what they are by the base ill language they give to those about them, which no way becomes men of rank and honour; or, in giving verdict or judgment, they villainously put false colours upon things, to pervert justice.
Fourthly, They affront God, who is a righteous God and loves righteousness: They utter error against the Lord, and therein they practise profaneness; for so the word which we translate hypocrisy signifies. They give an unjust sentence, and then profanely make use of the name of God for the ratification of it; as if, because the judgment is God’s (Deut. 1:17), therefore their false and unjust judgment was his. This is uttering error against the Lord, under pretence of uttering truth and justice for him; and nothing can be more impudently done against God than to use his name to patronise wickedness.
Fifthly, They abuse mankind, those particularly whom they are bound to protect and relieve.
1. Instead of supplying the wants of the poor, they impoverish them, they make empty the souls of the hungry; either taking away the food they have, or, which is almost equivalent, denying the supply which they want and which they have to give. And they cause the drink of the thirsty to fail; they cut off the relief they used to have, though they need it as much as ever. Those are vile persons indeed that rob the spital.
2. Instead of righting the poor, when they appeal to their judgment, they contrive to destroy the poor, to ruin them in their courts of judicature with lying words in favour of the rich, to whom they are plainly partial; yea, though the needy speak right, though the evidence be ever so full for them to make out the equity of their cause, it is the bribe that governs them, not the right.
Sixthly, These churls and vile persons have always had instruments about them, that are ready to serve their villainous purposes: All their servants are wicked. There is no design so palpably unjust but there may be found those that would be employed as tools to put it in execution. The instruments of the churl are evil, and one cannot expect otherwise; but this is our comfort, that they can do no more mischief than God permits them.
[2.] One that is truly liberal, and deserves the honour of being called so, makes it his business to do good to every body according as his sphere is, v. 8. Observe,
First, The care he takes, and the contrivances he has, to do good. He devises liberal things. As much as the churl or niggard projects how to save and lay up what he has for himself only, so much the good charitable man projects how to use and lay out what he has in the best manner for the good of others. Charity must be directed by wisdom, and liberal things done prudently and with device, that the good intention of them may be answered, that it may not be charity misplaced. The liberal man, when he has done all the liberal things that are in his own power, devises liberal things for others to do according to their power, and puts them upon doing them.
Secondly, the comfort he takes, and the advantage he has, in doing good: By liberal things he shall stand, or be established. The providence of God will reward him for his liberality with a settled prosperity and an established reputation. The grace of God will give him abundance of satisfaction and confirmed peace in his own bosom. What disquiets others shall not disturb him; his heart is fixed. This is the recompence of charity, Ps. 112:5, 6. Some read it, The prince, or honourable man, will take honourable courses; and by such honourable or ingenuous courses he shall stand or be established. It is well with a land when the honourable of it are indeed men of honour and scorn to do a base thing, when its king is thus the son of nobles.
- Matthew Henry Commentary
Is Gadaffi’s Yellowcake Going to Adolf?
September 29, 2011
By James Lewis
Like Aladdin’s Genie, Moammar Gaddafi has disappeared in a puff of smoke back in Libya, but he left a piece of yellowcake behind for the rest of us. No, not fattening cheesecake. Bigger than that.
It’s in the great Libyan desert, where there are warehouses full of leaking barrels of uranium ore, stuff you can make bombs from. The U.K. Telegraph speculates that this unguarded stockpile is being smuggled barrel by barrel to Ahmadinejad in Iran — a man I will simply call “Adolf” to make it hard even for liberals to get it wrong. Oh, yes, and Gaddafi left behind an estimated 20,000 portable anti-aircraft missiles. Don’t take your next Mediterranean cruise too soon.
If you believe the New York Times, you think that yellowcake is not a Weapon of Mass Destruction. But if some of those AK-47-toting “liberators” in Libya load up a plane with those leaking barrels, fly it over Manhattan, and aim it down over Times Square, they will set off World War III.
Even the Times will finally deign to take notice.
That’s close enough to WMDs for me.
Sure, a plane full of yellowcake makes a dirty bomb, a low-tech radiation bomb, not the big nuclear chain-reaction kind. But the 9/11 killers were not choosy. Think what bin Laden could have done with that warehouse in Libya.
The Hudson Institute just noted that the Saudis are teaching exactly the same hate propaganda they taught their kids before 9/11/01. If the Times forgot to tell you, those 19 jihadis on 9/11 had their heads filled with Saudi hate propaganda, which is why they did what they did. Apparently nobody is doing anything about Saudi killer propaganda under the innocent title of “teaching the Religion of Peace.”
And because for the Saudis nothing will do but the best, they’ve revived the identical Nazi and Tsarist Russian varieties of killing hate that worked so well before. If you are unaware of the MEMRI site that translates the mighty Mississippi of hate flowing from Arabic, Urdu, and Persian sources, check it out.
Maybe somebody will tell Mayor Bloomberg.
But now the Saudis have paid for many more mosques and imams around the world, including near Ground Zero, where they will keep teaching that stuff every single day.
There are brainwashed kids somewhere who would be happy to drive an airplane into that Libyan warehouse. The prevailing winds will float a radioactive cloud far from Libya to Italy, Egypt, Morocco, Egypt, the Med…
The Big Media destroyed George W. Bush because he thought there was a good chance of WMDs in Saddam’s Iraq. In fact, so did the CIA, the KGB, Israel’s Mossad, Britain’s MI5, Pakistan’s ISI, and every Frenchman in the world, because the French are not stupid. Cynical, yes. Stupid, no.
Saddam Hussein also happened to own a big warehouse full of yellowcake uranium, contrary to years of lies from the United Nations IAEA and the Europeans. The whole fabricated hate campaign by Girl Spy Valerie Plame against the Bush White House was based on a single visit by Valerie’s hubby to Niger, where they mine yellowcake ore. Val’s husband came back with ironclad assurances that Niger would never, ever, sell that stuff to Saddam. He even got a letter to prove it. No yellowcake to Saddam!
The Bush administration was run by adults who made sure not to leak the truth about Saddam’s warehouse until that stuff was safely in Canada for reprocessing. We now have Larry Summers’ word for it in the Washington Post that Obama doesn’t like to have adults around, so the world can find out about Gaddafi’s yellowcake even while it’s still sitting in the desert, waiting for the highest bidder. The desperadoes who have the guns around there might as well be advertising their wares around the world by way of the Washington Post.
Apparently the White House never thought about it. It’s not a WMDs, is it? What does this White House know? They still think global warming is going to pay off big. They still have high hopes for Solyndra. Michelle still thinks that planting Victory Gardens in America will finally solve our epidemic consumption of French fries.
Millions of brainwashed Americans continue to believe there was nothing to Saddam’s nuclear program. That yellowcake warehouse was all for show. So was Gaddafi’s. And Iran doesn’t mean what it has proclaimed roughly 11,000 times since 1979 — about nuking the two Satans. (It’s been 11,000 days since Khomeini took over Iran, and at least once a day they have another mass chant of “Death to Israel! Death to America!” But don’t worry, they don’t really mean it.)
But the Times of London just revealed that Adolf will have his first nuclear weapon to love and cherish in a mere six months. And Obama is going to do nothing, because he’s more interested in destabilizing the Arab world under the phony label of the “Arab Spring.” Some Spring. These people go into mass hysteria over hypothetical global warming a hundred years from now, and cover their eyes from Iranian nukes in six months.
The American left hung Bush and Cheney from the nearest tree with their phony Valerie Plame story. No wonder the left sneers at ordinary Americans. We are so easily lied to. Obama tells a different lie every single day with a straight face, and millions of American liberals still can’t hitch up their lower jaws when they see him on TV. Smartest man in America.
How many uranium atoms have to dance on the head of a pin to make a weapon of mass destruction?
The answer depends on who’s in the White House. If the New York Times can use a lie to destroy George W. Bush, then Saddam didn’t have any WMDs and Bush simply loved to see the bodies of American soldiers coming home for burial. Now that the ragtag Libyan “liberation army” has found warehouses full of uranium ore in the desert, ready to smuggle to the Somali pirates or maybe to al-Qaida in Yemen, everything’s okay, too. Because Obama’s in the White House. Even with American soldiers still coming home in caskets from Afghanistan, Iraq, Yemen, Libya, and Somalia.
When President Sarah Palin and Vice President Herman Cain get elected next year, the corrupt and mendacious media will be filled with scare stories, all pointing the finger of blame at Palin/Cain. The “peace movement” will surely come back to life. Mother Sheehan will return to moan at us on national TV. After all, it was LBJ who invented the nuclear smear story against Barry Goldwater.
Obama started a war against Libya without bothering to tell Congress. Had George Bush done that, and promised to be out of Libya in a week, and then gotten quagmired there for a year with barrels full of radioactivity leaking into the ground, you’d be seeing screaming headlines all over the front pages.
This is called “news judgment.” T he definition of weapons of mass destruction depends on your need to scare the American public.
Here’s an amazing example – from the WaPo and Bob Woodward by way of Bill Gertz of the Washington Times. It’s probably true, since it was published too late to stop the Democrats.
… a group of (CIA) agency analysts celebrated a policy victory of sorts several years ago by issuing a special coin after they had prevented President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney from ordering an attack on Syria’s secret desert nuclear facility.
“At the CIA afterward, the group of specialists who had worked for months on the Syrian reactor issue were pleased they had succeeded in avoiding the overreaching so evident in the Iraq WMD case,” Mr. Woodward wrote in The Washington Post.
So they issued a very limited-circulation memorial coin. One side showed a map of Syria with a star at the site of the former reactor. On the other side the coin said, “No core/No war.”
Those morons don’t realize that the only time to attack a nuclear plant is when it does not have a hot radioactive core. Is anybody going to attack Iran’s Bushehr plant now that it’s gone critical? What kind of idiots do we have at CIA?
I think we need to make this a permanent medal. It’s not a Medal for Valor…it’s certainly not the Medal of Freedom…
Let’s call it the Cover Your Ass Benedict Arnold Medal for misinforming the president at taxpayer expense. These people are using their disinformation skills against us.
“A former senior intelligence official said … ‘Whose side are these guys on?’”
Not on our side.
The CIA has been wrong in every single nuclear prediction since Stalin’s first nuclear weapons secrets were stolen from the Manhattan Project sixty years ago. That’s six decades of hair-raising failures, including India, Pakistan, North Korea, and yes, Iran tomorrow. They don’t care. They just don’t like to give us the bad news. That’s how they build big careers at CIA.
Which leaves us at greater risk for a nuclear 9/11 — whether it’s a dirty nuke or the exploding kind. We spend a half-trillion dollars on those clowns. We should turn Langley over to the Pentagon and spend their money on anti-missile defenses, to protect us when they fail again to warn about the newest maniacs with nukes.
As for answering foreign intelligence questions, you’re better off tossing a coin.
Hillary’s Turnabout on Jerusalem
September 28, 2011
Thomas Lifson
In a stunning reversal, Hillary Clinton has done a 180 on her position on Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, contradicting the position she took when she was New York’s junior senator, and needed Jewish votes. The great Rick Richman writes in the New York Sun:
Secretary of State Clinton, in a sharp departure from her stance when she was a senator, is warning that any American action, even symbolically, toward recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel must be avoided for the reason that it would jeopardize the peace process.
Her warnings were issued in a brief she has just filed with the Supreme Court – in which she is arguing that a law she voted for when she was Senator is unconstitutional because it could require the U.S. government to give to an American citizen born at Jerusalem papers showing the birthplace as Israel.
The law requiring the government to issue such documents on request passed the Senate unanimously at a time when Mrs. Clinton was a member. But Presidents Bush and Obama have taken the position that the law infringes on the president’s prerogatives in respect of foreign policy. Mrs. Clinton is being sued by an American youngster, Menachem Zivotofsky, who was born at Jerusalem in 2002 to American parents who want his birthplace to be listed on his passport as Israel.
I can only assume that speculation about Secretary Clinton running for president is now irrelevant. This is a bombshell as far as pro-Israel voters are concerned.
Hat tip: Clarice Feldman
Hezb’allah Cells Active Worldwide, Including in U.S.
September 29, 2011
By Reza Kahlili
The terrorist group Hezb’allah, based in Lebanon, is establishing “resistance cells” worldwide under the direction of Iran, according to Mohammad Hussein Babai, the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in the province of Golestan.
The cells are already infiltrating the United States with the help of Venezuela’s Hugo Chávez and drug cartels.
The Iranian Student News Agency, which is close to the Guards, reported last week that Babai, during a press conference, revealed that these jihadist cells began forming after the 2006 Lebanon war between Israel and Hezb’allah, and with the current Islamic Awakening, they have expanded their operations.
Their mission, Babai said, is to help create an Islam-dominated world.
This is the first time that a high-ranking Revolutionary Guard commander in the Islamic regime of Iran has revealed the presence of such jihadist cells in the world.
“Today we are a witness to our power and authority in the world,” Babai said, “and because of our Islamic Revolution [of 1979], now there is an Islamic Awakening that, with the leadership of the dear supreme leader, Ayatollah [Ali] Khamenei, will become stronger and more resilient.” The West refers to the Islamic Awakening as the Arab Spring.
Hassan Rahimpour Azghadi, who is a member of the Supreme Council of Cultural Revolution and an important theorist of the Islamic regime in Iran, said in a televised speech last Friday that “today we must get ready for a global operation, and our forces should expand their operation throughout the world.”
“Our fighters are present in all five continents of the world and will fight against imperialism everywhere,” Azghadi added. “We must not fear anyone, and an international jihad must take place to prepare for the Coming.” The “Coming” refers to Imam Mahdi, the Shiites’ 12th Imam, who, according to a Shiite hadith, will reappear and reap destruction on Israel and the West.
Azghadi said it is the duty of Iran, “the center of the religious fighters worldwide,” to export revolution. “As our Imam [the founder of the Islamic Revolution, Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini] declared, we must destroy Israel and free Jerusalem. We must take our fight into the heart of Europe, America, Africa, Asia … and just as we helped with the Islamic movement in Lebanon and Gaza, soon there will be an Islamic Republic in Egypt.”
He then reiterated that Iran must prepare itself for a global conflict.
The radicals ruling Iran, ever since the Islamic Revolution, have invested heavily to expand their field of operations in Europe and America. I witnessed their activities when, as a member of the Revolutionary Guards, I was also a CIA spy. Every Iranian embassy, Islamic cultural centers, mosques, offices of Iran Air, Iranian shipping lines, Iranian banks, and many front companies dealing with Iran are being used by the Iranian Quds Forces and intelligence agency for recruitment, transfer of arms and cash, and terrorist activities.
They have successfully placed many cells in Europe and, through ties with the Hugo Chávez government in Venezuela, have placed hundreds of Quds Force members along with Hezb’allah terrorists in front companies in Venezuela. Iran has set up an explosives lab in Venezuela for its cells with the knowledge of the Chávez government. In return, the Iranian regime has given hundreds of millions of dollars to Chávez.
These cells, through collaboration with drug cartels, have infiltrated Latin America and have even set up shop in Mexico, from where, in a coordinated effort, they are infiltrating the United States.
The radicals ruling Iran have become increasingly vocal in recent weeks that, because of the current upheaval in the Islamic world and the weakness and confusion of the leaders in America and Europe due to the global economy, the time is ripe to bring the West to its knees.
It is with this view that those radicals, despite four sets of U.N. sanctions, are pursuing ever so aggressively their nuclear bomb project.
Perhaps the jihadists in Iran are emboldened because they are close to having a nuclear bomb. Perhaps they have already armed their cells with dirty bombs. The last report by the International Atomic Energy Agency stated that Iran now has enough enriched uranium for six nuclear bombs. It certainly has the material and the knowledge, and now we must realize that it has the will to do what is unimaginable by the Western world: an all-out attack to create a new world order in which Islam will rule the world.
The hadith presaging the return of the 12th Imam says, “This is the time when the last Islamic Messiah will return to rid the world from Infidels and establish a worldwide Islamic caliphate: Chaos, famine, and havoc will engulf the Earth. Major wars with dark clouds [atomic wars] will burn the Earth. One-third of the Earth’s population will be killed, and the rest will suffer hunger and lawlessness.”
Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. He is a senior fellow with EMPact America and the author of A Time to Betray, a book about his double-life as a CIA agent in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards, published by Threshold Editions, Simon & Schuster, April 2010. A Time to Betray was the winner of the 2010 National Best Book Award and the 2011 International Best Book Award.
Do they see Jesus?
Col. 1:27
Christ in you, the hope of glory.
Col. 2:5
Beholding…..the steadfastness of your faith in Christ.
Dannecker, a celebrated sculptor, spent eight years making a statue of Jesus. After having spent two years on it he brought a little child into his studio and said, “My dear, who is that?”
The little girl looked up at the wonderful work and replied, “It is a great man.”
The sculptor was smitten with disappointment. He said to himself, “This will never do. The statue must be a truer likeness of Christ than this.”
And so he turned his chisel and his mallet for two or three years longer. He prayed in the vigils of the night, asking God to help him to reproduce the likeness of Christ upon the face of the marble.
Once more he brought a little child into his studio, and said “Who is that?”
The child looked at the masterpiece in silence, and bursting into tears exclaimed, “Suffer the little children to come unto Me.”
The sculptor said, “I have gained it! This is a work of inspiration.”
My friends, when little children look at you, whom do they see?
Has someone seen Christ in you to-day?
Christian, look to your heart, I pray;
The little things that you’ve done or said-
Did they accord with the way you prayed?
Have your thoughts been pure, your words been kind;
Have you sought to have the Saviour’s mind?
The world with a criticizing view
Has watched – but did it see Christ in you?
Has someone seen Christ in you to-day?
Oh, Christian, be careful, watch and pray.
Look up to Jesus in faith, and then
Lift up unto Him your fellow-men;
Upon your own strength you cannot rely;
There’s a fount of grace and strength on high,
Go to that fount and your strength renew
And the life of Christ will shine through you. –C.B. Hopkins.
- The Christian’s Daily Challenge: E.F. & L. Harvey.
Morning and Evening by Charles Spurgeon – 29th September 2011
-September 29
Morning
“Behold, if the leprosy have covered all his flesh, he shall pronounce him clean that hath the plague.”
Leviticus 13:13
Strange enough this regulation appears, yet there was wisdom in it, for the throwing out of the disease proved that the constitution was sound. This morning it may be well for us to see the typical teaching of so singular a rule. We, too, are lepers, and may read the law of the leper as applicable to ourselves. When a man sees himself to be altogether lost and ruined, covered all over with the defilement of sin, and no part free from pollution; when he disclaims all righteousness of his own, and pleads guilty before the Lord, then is he clean through the blood of Jesus, and the grace of God. Hidden, unfelt, unconfessed iniquity is the true leprosy, but when sin is seen and felt it has received its death blow, and the Lord looks with eyes of mercy upon the soul afflicted with it. Nothing is more deadly than self-righteousness, or more hopeful than contrition. We must confess that we are “nothing else but sin,” for no confession short of this will be the whole truth, and if the Holy Spirit be at work with us, convincing us of sin, there will be no difficulty about making such an acknowledgment–it will spring spontaneously from our lips. What comfort does the text afford to those under a deep sense of sin! Sin mourned and confessed, however black and foul, shall never shut a man out from the Lord Jesus. Whosoever cometh unto him, he will in no wise cast out. Though dishonest as the thief, though unchaste as the woman who was a sinner, though fierce as Saul of Tarsus, though cruel as Manasseh, though rebellious as the prodigal, the great heart of love will look upon the man who feels himself to have no soundness in him, and will pronounce him clean, when he trusts in Jesus crucified. Come to him, then, poor heavy-laden sinner,
Come needy, come guilty, come loathsome and bare;
You can’t come too filthy–come just as you are.
Evening
“I found him whom my soul loveth: I held him, and would not let him go.”
Song of Solomon 3:4
Does Christ receive us when we come to him, notwithstanding all our past sinfulness? Does he never chide us for having tried all other refuges first? And is there none on earth like him? Is he the best of all the good, the fairest of all the fair? Oh, then let us praise him! Daughters of Jerusalem, extol him with timbrel and harp! Down with your idols, up with the Lord Jesus. Now let the standards of pomp and pride be trampled under foot, but let the cross of Jesus, which the world frowns and scoffs at, be lifted on high. O for a throne of ivory for our King Solomon! Let him be set on high forever, and let my soul sit at his footstool, and kiss his feet, and wash them with my tears. Oh, how precious is Christ! How can it be that I have thought so little of him? How is it I can go abroad for joy or comfort when he is so full, so rich, so satisfying. Fellow believer, make a covenant with thine heart that thou wilt never depart from him, and ask thy Lord to ratify it. Bid him set thee as a signet upon his finger, and as a bracelet upon his arm. Ask him to bind thee about him, as the bride decketh herself with ornaments, and as the bridegroom putteth on his jewels. I would live in Christ’s heart; in the clefts of that rock my soul would eternally abide. The sparrow hath made a house, and the swallow a nest for herself where she may lay her young, even thine altars, O Lord of hosts, my King and my God; and so too would I make my nest, my home, in thee, and never from thee may the soul of thy turtle dove go forth again, but may I nestle close to thee, O Jesus, my true and only rest.
“When my precious Lord I find,
All my ardent passions glow;
Him with cords of love I bind,
Hold and will not let him go.”
- From Bible Gateway.Com
Men of the Bible: Ishbosheth
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Pajamas Media: News Index – 29th September 2011
Thursday September 29, 2011
Two Bad Presidential Election Ideas Require Rejection
by Tom Blumer
Nix the “national popular vote,” and keep states’ winner-take-all electoral voting.
Obama’s ‘Reset’ Legacy: A Return of the USSR
by Kim Zigfeld
Obama ignored truth for “smart diplomacy.” Now only Putin’s death can end his rule of Russia.
Amazon is on Fire, Baby
by Stephen Green
Imagine: A full-color 7-inch Android tablet for just $199. Has the iPad killer finally arrived? (And don’t miss Amanda Green’s first thoughts on the Kindle Fire.)
Poverty and Potential in Central America
by Jaime Daremblum
Better public institutions in Guatemala and Nicaragua would help those nations become richer. (Read this article in Spanish here.)
But I Love That Place: The 7 Most Overrated Fast Food Restaurants
by Brent Smith
Is that drive-thru really worth your time and money?
Totalitarian Temptations from Carter to Obama
by Michael Ledeen
Dictatorships and double standards, then and now.
Why Do We Allow Pakistan and Iran to Murder Americans?
by David P. Goldman
We shouldn’t put up with this sort of murderous betrayal from Islamabad.
MSM Sheep: Ignoring the Scandal of the Century
by Bob Owens
Journalists are supposed to live for a chance to break a Gunwalker.
