Theodore's World

Not guilty”
The use of this phrase isn’t the only thing Barack Obama and Antoin Rezko have in common.
Obama insists he’s just gullible but we ought to give the Democratic presidential nominee more credit than that. But where’s the ‘change’? We’ve always had lying and corrupted politicians!
Additional note:
Obama has released his tax returns for 2006 ONLY and this was just the form; no attachments were released. He didn’t release the 2007 one. His tax return forms from all his time in the Senate are not available to the public either.
When Obama spokesperson, Bill Burton is asked about any pre-2006 or 2007 returns, he says he “will keep you posted.”
Some info about MIchelle’s 2005 tax return: Her salary as an administrator at the “not-for-profit University of Chicago Hospitals” nearly tripled to $316,962, from $121,910 in 2005.

Wild Thing’s comment………
Obama just keeps demonstrating to the nation poor judgment. His choice in a preacher ( which I will always believe he and Michelle agreed with 100%) and his choice in others in his life like Rezko and Ayers and who knows who else that will show up in the furture.

““>

Wild Thing’s comment……..
NO B. Hussein Obama they are much more then just words, it is hate mongering.

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Controversial minister leaves Obama campaign
Presidential candidate condemns words but not ministry of former pastor
msnbc
Sen. Barack Obama, D-Ill., condemned racially charged sermons by his former pastor Friday and urged Americans not to reject his presidential campaign because of “guilt by association.”
Obama’s campaign announced that the minister, the Rev. Jeremiah Wright Jr., had left its spiritual advisory committee after videotapes of his sermons again ignited fierce debate in news accounts and political blogs.
Obama did not clarify whether Wright volunteered to leave his African American Religious Leadership Committee, a loose group of supporters associated with the campaign, or whether the campaign asked him to leave.

“I think there was recognition that he’s obviously on the verge of retirement, [that] he’s taking a sabbatatical and that it was important for him to step out of the spotlight in this situation,” Obama said.

Wright was the latest in a series of advisers to Obama and Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton, D-N.Y., who have stepped aside as supporters of both candidates trade racially charged accusations.
Obama rejects comments

Obama spoke warmly of Wright, who retired last month as pastor of Trinity United Church of Christ in Chicago. Wright is a man “I’ve known for 17 years, who helped bring me to Jesus, helped bring me to church,” he said.

“I strongly condemn” Wright’s statements, but “I would not repudiate the man,” Obama said. “He’s been preaching for 30 years. He’s a man who was a former Marine, a biblical scholar, someone who’s spoken at theological schools all over the country.

“That’s the man I know,” Obama said. “That’s the man who was the pastor of this church.”

But Obama acknowledged that “there’s no doubt this is going to be used as political fodder, as it has been in the past.”

“What I hope is that what the American people will trust is what I believe,” he said, that “my values, my ideas, what I’ve spoke about in terms of bringing the country together will override a guilt by association.”

But the sermons, at least one of which was delivered long before Wright retired last month, revived uncomfortable questions about Obama’s ties to the minister, whom conservative critics have accused of advocating black separatism.
A videotape of one sermon captures Wright using a harsh racial epithet to argue that Clinton could not understand the struggles of African Americans.

“Barack knows what it means, living in a country and a culture that is controlled by rich white people,” Wright said on Christmas Day of last year. “Hillary can never know that. Hillary ain’t never been called a [N-word]!”

In another sermon, delivered five days after the 9/11 attacks, Wright seems to imply that the United States had brought the terrorist violence on itself.

“We bombed Hiroshima, we bombed Nagasaki, and we nuked far more than the thousands in New York, and we never batted an eye,” Wright says. “We have supported state terrorism against the Palestinians and black South Africans, and now we are indignant because the stuff we have done overseas is brought right back in our own front yards.”

In a later sermon, Wright revisits the theme, declaring: “No, no, no, not God bless America — God damn America!”

Wild Thing’s comment……..
B.Hussein Obama was questioned last night on various news channels about his hate monger rascist preacher and church.
Too little , too late. Obama has known this guy is a racist America-hater for 20 years. Obama wrote that Wright was his mentor. And this church is also probably part of what has fed Obama’s wife, Michelle, the hate she abounds with and speaks about.
They went because they agreed with what was said in the church simple as that. And this is lilke getting caught with your hand in the cookie jar. The Obama’s relationship with Wright and this Church has a long history, and is completely voluntary on his part. He joined this Church, and if he attended it even infrequently he must have heard at least some of those sermons.

Obama: Rezko Raised Up to $250K
AP for complete article ( some of this article I am not including in this post I have already posted about in the last few weeks, but this part is new information)
CHICAGO
Presidential candidate Barack Obama said Friday that he got more political money from indicted Chicago businessman Antoin “Tony” Rezko than he has previously acknowledged.
Rezko helped raise up to $250,000 for his various political races, Obama’s campaign said. The campaign had previously put the figure at $150,000 but now says that amount was only for his 2004 Senate race.
And in interviews with two Chicago newspapers, the Democrat again said it was a mistake to involve Rezko in his purchase of a new home — not just because Rezko was under federal investigation but because he was a contributor and political activist.
Still, Obama said he did nothing unethical.

“He never once asked me for any favors, or ever did any favors for me,” the Illinois senator said in an interview with the Chicago Sun-Times. “He never gave me any gifts or gave me any indication he was setting me up to ask for any favors in the future.”

Obama met Friday with the editorial boards of the Chicago Tribune and Sun-Times in an effort to resolve nagging questions about his relationship with Rezko, a Chicago businessman and major fundraiser in Illinois politics.
Rezko is on trial on charges including mail fraud and attempted extortion. Federal prosecutors say he tried to use his connections to Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich to demand kickbacks from companies wanting to do business with state government.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
That’s some SERIOUS “CHANGE”!!! CHANGE WE CAN BELIEVE IN!!!….LOL sorory I could not help myself. haha
I have a question about Senator Barack Hussein Obama. Obama was born in 1961, and was therefore required to register for Selective Service (”the Draft”) under the law. Does anyone know if he registered?
“He never once asked me for any favors”
Um hey Obama I have news for you. When you do any kind of business with low lifes such as criminals or let’s say Mafia types you are not always asked for a favor on the spot, it might take months or years when your FAVOR is due. And when it is you better sure as heck be available to return whatever the favor you are asked to do.

Mukasey: Execution, Though Appropriate, Would Make Martyrs of 9/11 Plotters
Fox News
LONDON
U.S. Attorney General Michael Mukasey said Friday he hopes the men charged with participating in the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks aren’t executed if found guilty in order to avoid creating any martyrs.
Mukasey said many terrorists want to be martyrs and that by sentencing them to death, U.S. authorities risk granting that wish. He made the comments while answering a question after a talk at the London School of Economics.
Mukasey said, however, that the punishment would be fitting if the accused are executed.

“One of them at least is proud enough of it to have written to his wife that he thinks he is innocent because it was only 3,000 (people who died in the attacks),” he said. “If those are not poster children for the death penalty I don’t know who is.”

Still, Mukasey said he leans against the death penalty in this case “many of them want to be martyrs.”
The attorney general said his view was a personal opinion. The Justice Department will participate in the trial, he said, but the Defense Department will be in charge.
The U.S. military is moving ahead with plans to try six men at Guantanamo Bay in connection with the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks but only one military defense lawyer has been assigned to the case. None of the defendants has seen a defense lawyer yet.
Prosecutors filed charges Feb. 11 against the six high-profile detainees, who include Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, the alleged architect of the Sept. 11 attacks, and Mohammed al-Qahtani, who allegedly would have been one of the hijackers if immigration officers had not prevented him from entering the United States.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
So what, let them be martyr’s. Any Muslim who wants to be a martyr should be martyred. Quickly, efficiently, and brutally. I think it’s better if these people are killed, so that we don’t have to feed and provide medical care for them.
We have to show our friends that we have the strength of our convictions and are not constantly bedeviled by self doubt. The contempt that Osama bin Laden and friends hold us in is based largely on our perceived lack of moral courage and commitment.

Vietnam Campaigners Hope for Senate Action
CNS News
Campaigners for democracy in Vietnam are hopeful that long-delayed legislation to promote human rights improvements in communist-ruled Vietnam may move forward on Capitol Hill, following a Senate hearing this week.
The House of Representatives passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act by an overwhelming vote last September, and the legislation is now before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. Previous versions, passed by the House, made no headway in the Senate.
The legislation provides funding to promote human rights and democratic change in Vietnam and links future increases in non-humanitarian aid to verifiable improvements in its human rights record.
Critics of the one-party government in Hanoi say the political situation in the country has deteriorated, even as its bilateral relations with the U.S. have improved.
The State Department’s annual report on human rights around the world, released this week, cited a “crackdown on dissent” in Vietnam, including the arrest of activists and disruption of nascent opposition organizations.
Christopher Hill, assistant secretary of state for East Asian and Pacific affairs, told a Senate Foreign Relations Committee subcommittee hearing Wednesday that although “social freedoms” had increased in Vietnam, “serious deficiencies remain in political and civil liberties.”
Hill, who visited Vietnam earlier this month, said he had urged officials to release dissidents, and would continue to do so.
The best known of these, Catholic priest and democracy campaigner Nguyen Van Ly, was sentenced a year ago to eight years’ imprisonment for distributing anti-government material and communicating with pro-democracy activists abroad.
Another imprisoned campaigner, Nguyen Quoc Quan, is an American citizen who was arrested in Vietnam last November. Hanoi said the American, who is a member of an unauthorized group called Viet Tan — which Vietnam considers a terrorist organization — was trying to overthrow the government.
The 26-year-old Viet Tan (or Vietnam Reform Party) says it promotes change through “grassroots, peaceful means,” including an underground newspaper, the Internet and radio broadcasts to spread its message. It says Nguyen Quoc Quan was merely preparing to distribute pro-democracy flyers in Ho Chi Minh City when arrested.

Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.), who chaired the hearing, said the arrest of pro-democracy campaigners was “not the type of news that we want to hear out of a country that is one of the largest recipients of U.S. aid in East Asia.”

The two arrests — and others — came during a year which began with Vietnam being granted permanent normal trade relations with the U.S. and entry into the World Trade Organization.
Later in the year, the State Department removed Vietnam from a blacklist of religious freedom violators, despite protestations from some experts that the step was premature in the light of ongoing restrictions affecting Christians and Buddhists who want to organize free from government control.
Viet Tan chairman Do Hoang Diem told the senators the country’s democracy movement was growing rapidly since 2006, comparing it to similar groups in communist Poland and Czechoslovakia during the Cold War.

“After more than 50 years in power, for the first time, the Vietnamese Communist Party is facing numerous and unprecedented challenges to its rule,” he said. “The desire for real changes in Vietnam is stronger now than ever before. In response, the regime is using terror tactics to silence opposition.”

The choice for the U.S. is not whether to isolate or engage Vietnam, but how to pursue the relationship in the most constructive way, Do said. He urged the Senate to pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act, speak out on abuses and support democracy.
On Thursday, Do said he thought the hearing had gone “very well,” and noted that Boxer had expressed support for the Vietnam Human Rights Act.

“That is very encouraging,” he said. “We are confident that we will continue to enjoy more and more support as we move forward.”

In a letter to Boxer on Thursday, Vo Van Ai, the Paris-based international spokesman for the banned Unified Buddhist Church of Vietnam, whose leaders are under house arrest, urged the Senate to pass the Vietnam Human Rights Act, saying that economic development alone would not bring democracy to Vietnam.

“By supporting human rights as well as enhanced trade, you will positively impact the lives of 84 million people in Vietnam,” he said.

The House passed the Vietnam Human Rights Act last September by a 414-3 vote. It was introduced by Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.), whose earlier attempts to get similar bills through the legislative process died in the Senate.
Opponents have included Arizona Sen. John McCain, now the Republican presidential nominee, and Democratic Sen. John Kerry of Massachusetts.
The two senators, both Vietnam War veterans, were instrumental in the normalization of bilateral relations in 1995.
Do said Thursday his organization has not yet had any clear indication of the three presidential candidates’ positions on the latest legislation.

Wild Thing’s comment……….
Interesting that both McCain and Kerry once again in agreement about Vietnam.

…..Thank you Jack for sending this to me. Jack’s blog is Conservative Insurgent.

Obama’s Church: Cauldron of Division
newmax archives
August 9th, 2007
Presidential candidate Barack Obama preaches on the campaign trail that America needs a new consensus based on faith and bipartisanship, yet he continues to attend a controversial Chicago church whose pastor routinely refers to “white arrogance” and “the United States of White America.”
The connection between the two goes back to Obama’s days as a young community organizer in Chicago’s South Side when he first met the charismatic Wright. Obama credited Wright with converting him, then a religious skeptic, to Christianity.
“It was … at Trinity United Church of Christ on the South Side of Chicago that I met Rev. Jeremiah A. Wright Jr., who took me on another journey and introduced me to a man named Jesus Christ. It was the best education I ever had,” Obama described his spiritual pilgrimage to a group of church ministers this past June.
Since the 1980s, Obama has not only remained a regular attendee at Wright’s services in his inner city mega church, Trinity United Church of Christ, along with its other 8,500 members, he’s been a close disciple and personal friend of Wright.
Wright conducted Obama’s marriage to his wife Michelle, baptized his two daughters, and blessed Obama’s Chicago home. Obama’s best-selling book, “The Audacity of Hope,” takes its title from one of Wright’s sermons.
Several prior remarks by Obama’s pastor have caught the media’s attention:
* Wright on 9/11: “White America got their wake-up call after 9/11. White America and the Western world came to realize people of color had not gone away, faded in the woodwork, or just disappeared as the Great White West kept on its merry way of ignoring black concerns.” On the Sunday after the attacks, Dr. Wright blamed America.
* Wright on the disappearance of Natalee Holloway: “Black women are being raped daily in Africa. One white girl from Alabama gets drunk at a graduation trip to Aruba, goes off and gives it up while in a foreign country and that stays in the news for months.”
* Wright on Israel: “The Israelis have illegally occupied Palestinian territories for over 40 years now. Divestment has now hit the table again as a strategy to wake the business community and wake up Americans concerning the injustice and the racism under which the Palestinians have lived because of Zionism.”
* Wright on America: He has used the term “middleclassness” in a derogatory manner; frequently mentions “white arrogance” and the “oppression” of African-Americans today; and has referred to “this racist United States of America.”
Wright’s strong sentiments were echoed in the Sunday morning service attended by NewsMax.
Wright laced into America’s establishment, blaming the “white arrogance” of America’s Caucasian majority for the woes of the world, especially the oppression suffered by blacks.
To underscore the point he refers to the country as the “United States of White America.” Many in the congregation, including Obama, nodded in apparent agreement as these statements were made.
The sermon also addressed the Iraq war, a frequent area of Wright’s fulminations.

“Young African-American men,” Wright thundered, were “dying for nothing.” The “illegal war,” he shouted, was “based on Bush’s lies” and is being “fought for oil money.”

In a sermon filled with profanity, Wright also blamed the war on “Bush administration bulls–t.”
Wright first came to national attention in 1984, when he visited Castro’s Cuba and Col. Muammar Gaddafi’s Libya.
Wright’s Libyan visit came three years after a pair of Libyan fighter jets fired on American aircraft over international waters in the Mediterranean Sea, and four years before the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland — which resulted in the deaths of 259 passengers and crew. The U.S. implicated Gaddafi and his intelligence services in the bombing.
In recent years, Wright has focused his diatribe on America’s war on terror and the U.S. occupation of Iraq.
Obama attributed Wright’s controversial views to Wright being “a child of the ’60s” who Obama said “expresses himself in that language of concern with institutional racism, and the struggles the African-American community has gone through.”

“It is hard to imagine, though, how Mr. Obama can truly distance himself from Mr. Wright,” writes Jodi Kantor of The New York Times. On the day Sen. Obama announced his presidential quest in February of this year, Wright was set to give the invocation at the Springfield, Ill. rally. At the last moment, Obama’s campaign yanked the invite to Wright.

Wright’s camp was apparently upset by the slight, and Obama’s campaign quickly issued a statement “Senator Obama is proud of his pastor and his church.”
Since that spat, there is little evidence, indeed, that Sen. Obama has sought to distance himself from the angry Church leader. In June, when Obama appeared before a conference of ministers from his religious denomination, Wright appeared in a videotaped introduction.
One of Obama’s campaign themes has been his claim that conservative evangelicals have “hijacked” Christianity, ignoring issues like poverty, AIDS, and racism.
This past June, in an effort to build a new consensus between his new politics and faith, Obama’s campaign launched a new Web page, www.faith.barackobama.com.
On the day the page appeared on his campaign site, it offered testimonials from Wright and two other ministers supporting Obama. The inclusion of Wright drew a sharp rebuke from the Catholic League. Noting that Obama had rescinded Wright’s invitation to speak at his announcement ceremony, Catholic League President Bill Donohue declared that Obama “knew that his spiritual adviser was so divisive that he would cloud the ceremonies.”
He noted that Wright “has a record of giving racially inflammatory sermons and has even said that Zionism has an element of ‘white racism.’ He also blamed the attacks of 9/11 on American foreign policy.”
Donohue acknowledged that Obama may have different views than Wright and the other ministers on his Web site, but “he is responsible for giving them the opportunity to prominently display their testimonials on his religious outreach Web site.”
Political pundits have suggested that Obama’s problems with Wright are not ones based on faith, but pure politics. The upstart presidential candidate needs to pull most of the black vote to have any chance of snagging the Democratic nomination. Obama’s ties to Wright and the activist African American church helps in that effort.
But the same experts same those same ties may come to haunt him if he were to win the nomination and face a Republican in the general election.
The worry is not lost on Wright.

“If Barack gets past the primary, he might have to publicly distance himself from me,” Wright told The New York Times with a shrug. “I said it to Barack personally, and he said ‘yeah, that might have to happen.'”

Wild Thing’s comment…….
This preacher is not preaching the gospel, he is simply preaching hate. I don’t get why if someone hates America so much why they stay here. There are other countries they can move to.
Krauthammer said (about Wright) “ This is not a problem, this is a cancer”.

The US Capitol dome is seen in the early morning in Washington, DC. The US House of Representatives on Thursday agreed to hold a rare secret session, the first for a quarter century, on a wiretapping anti-terror bill, as a standoff with the White House deepened

WASHINGTON
House Democratic leaders agreed Thursday to a rare closed-door session — the first in 25 years — to debate surveillance legislation.
Republicans requested privacy for what they termed “an honest debate” on the new Democratic eavesdropping bill that is opposed by the White House and most Republicans in Congress.
The closed-door debate was scheduled for late Thursday night, after the House chamber could be cleared and swept by security personnel to make sure there are no listening devices.
The last private session in the House was in 1983 on U.S. support for paramilitary operations in Nicaragua. Only five closed sessions have taken place in the House since 1825.
President Bush vowed to veto the House Democrats’ version of the terrorist surveillance bill, saying it would undermine the nation’s security.
House leaders said they would vote on the bill Friday, just before taking a two-week recess. The bill would then have to be approved by the Senate.
Bush opposes it in part because it doesn’t provide full, retroactive legal protection to telecommunications companies that helped the government eavesdrop on their customers without court permission after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
About 40 lawsuits have been filed against telecommunications companies by people and organizations alleging they violated wiretapping and privacy laws. The lawsuits have been combined and are pending before a single federal judge in California.
The Democrats’ measure would encourage the judge to review in private the secret government documents underpinning the program in order to decide whether the companies acted lawfully. If they did, the lawsuits would be dismissed.
The administration has prevented those documents from being revealed, even to a judge, by invoking the state secrets privilege. That puts the companies in a bind because it puts off limits evidence they might use to defend themselves.
It wasn’t clear what information would be presented in the closed session. Just a fraction of Congress has been allowed to read secret documents underpinning the surveillance program, and those who have arrived at varying conclusions.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, after seeing classified material, said the companies acted on the good-faith belief that the wiretaps they allowed were lawful. Democrats on the House Judiciary and Intelligence Committees were unconvinced after being presented with the same material.
Rhode Island Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse sits on both the Senate Intelligence and Judiciary committees. He said the documents lay out the Bush administration’s rationale for why it was legal to sidestep a special secret court that normally authorizes wiretaps. Congress created the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court in 1978 to prevent government abuse of wiretapping.
Whitehouse said the documents assert that the president has the power to determine what his constitutional powers are, particularly in a time of war.
The surveillance law is intended to help in the pursuit of suspected terrorists by making it easier to eavesdrop on foreign phone calls and e-mails that pass through the United States. A temporary law expired Feb. 16 before Congress was able to produce a replacement bill. Bush opposed an extension of the temporary law as a tactic to pressure Congress into accepting the Senate version of the surveillance legislation. The Senate’s bill provides retroactive legal immunity for the telecommunications companies.
Bush said lawsuits against telecom companies would lead to the disclosure of state secrets. Further, he said lawsuits would undermine the willingness of the private sector to cooperate with the government in trying to track down terrorists.
Michigan Rep. Peter Hoekstra, the top Republican on the House Intelligence Committee, said intelligence is already being lost.

“Each and every day our capabilities are eroding,” he said.

Directing his message at the House, Bush said, “They should not leave for their Easter recess without getting the Senate bill to my desk.”

Bush predicted the Senate would not pass the House version of the bill, and said even if it did, he would veto it.
At least one Senate Republican said the lawsuits should go forward to determine whether the wiretapping program was illegal. But Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter wants to substitute the government for the phone companies as the defendant in the court cases.

“The president can’t have a blank check,” Specter said in an interview. “If you close down the courts, there’s no check and balance.”

He added: “Wiretaps are important for national security. There’s no doubt about that. Al-Qaida and terrorism continue to be a major threat to this country. It is my hope that the president will not find it necessary to veto the bill, that we’ll be able to work it out.”

House Majority Leader Steny Hoyer said Bush is misrepresenting the House bill, and suggested the fight is less about surveillance powers than it is that House Democrats are refusing to bend to Bush’s wishes.

“Congress owes the American people more than blind obeisance to the executive branch,” said Hoyer, D-Md.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
It’s a secret so I will whisper…..shhhhhh
LOL Wait a second. They had the place swept so no one could eavesdrop on their discussion of eavesdropping? Too funny. The word ironic comes to mind.

I am so excited. I have been using this mousepad I got at a blog called Clarity and Resolve. It no longer exists, but I have been using this mousepad since I started my blog in Sept. of 2005. LOL

Well it finally died on me. It was getting to be a mess, rolled edges you name it. hahaha
Last month Nick and I had our wedding anniversary, it is on February 14th , yes Valentines day. He asked me if there was anything I would especially like to have. So I told him I would l love a new mousepad. LOL He laughed and said that’s it? I said yep and I know the exact one I would really like.
I love it and never knew they had so many different kinds to pick from. So consider this a fun post of me just sharing something new. heh heh

It just arrived and here it is………. cool huh! And it has my favorite form of transportation on it….. the helo! Tah dah!
The funny thing is I want it to last so I am fighting putting the old one back on my desk and just having this one to look at. hahaha That would but nuts but I actually did think that for a second.

Rev. Hashmel Turner

Appeal seeks to overturn decision eliminating ‘Jesus’
wnd
A court hearing is coming in which the 4th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals will be asked to restore to Christians the rights that political correctness in the United States today grants other religions, including the right to pray to their God.
The case involves Rev. Hashmel Turner and the city of Fredericksburg, Va., and is being handled by the constitutional experts at The Rutherford Institute.
Turner, a member of the city council in Fredericksburg, was part of a rotation of council members who would take turns bringing a prayer at the council meetings, and he ended his prayers “in Jesus name.”
That offended a listener, who promptly brought several heavyweight activist groups into the picture with their threat of a lawsuit if the elected Christian council member wasn’t censored, so the city adopted a policy requiring “nondenominational” prayers, effectively eliminating any reference to “Jesus.”
John Whitehead, the founder and chief of The Rutherford Institute, told WND it’s an issue of freedom of speech and freedom of religion, burdened with the politically correct atmosphere in the United States that appears to endorse or at least allow any sort of religious acknowledgement, such as the University of Michigan building footbaths for Muslims, but allows no similar acknowledgement of Christianity.
He said the Fredericksburg case is one of the first to be battled through the courts, and is being watched closely by city councils and state legislatures across the country.
WND has reported several times on various religious leaders, including one high-profile Hindu from Arizona, who have been asked to say prayers at various state legislatures and in the U.S. Senate. Meanwhile, leaders in the Senate specifically rejected permission for a Christian leader, former Navy Chaplain Gordon Klingenschmitt, permission to do the same.

The arguments in the Turner case will be March 19, and will focus on the circumstances that led the city to tell Turner, “You can’t refer to your God,” said Whitehead.

“The city passed this regulation telling people how to pray!” he said. The penalty for violating would be a citation for “disorderly conduct.”

A lower court dismissed the First Amendment complaint, despite arguments that the restriction “violates Turner’s constitutional rights to free speech, to freely exercise his religious beliefs and to equal protection of the law.”

“The essential question in this case is whether the government can provide an opportunity to pray to a select group of individuals, all the while dictating the content of the prayers and excluding anyone who refuses to go along with their dictates,” Whitehead said.

“The answer, as the Supreme Court has ruled in the past, is in the negative – the government simply cannot prescribe or proscribe the content of any ‘official’ prayer without violating the Establishment Clause, and it cannot discriminate against any person based on his or her religious viewpoint without violating that person’s rights to free speech and free religious expression,” he said.

Turner joined the council in 2002, but since the 1950s the council called on members on a rotating basis to open in prayer. He prayed both for himself individually that he might have wisdom and guidance in carrying out his duties and likewise for the council, officials said, ending “in Jesus name.”
The result was a threat of a lawsuit from the ACLU, which later was joined by other similarly situated advocacy organizations.
The council buckled, adopting a policy of “nondenominational” prayers only. The district court opined that the councilman’s prayers were “government speech,” an argument Whitehead challenged.

“Government cannot itself pray, thus prayer cannot be government speech,” the appeal noted. Moreover, the standing definition of “government speech” generally has applied when the government controls the content, not during an individual council member’s prayer.

Whitehead, in an opinion column on the case, which already has been in the courts for two years, said the people of Fredericksburg “should be grateful for a representative who knows how to stand his ground and fight for the things that matter.”

“There are some things in life that cannot be compromised,” he continued. “For Hashmel Turner, his faith, his integrity and his civil liberties are three things worth fighting for.”

He noted Turner was the oldest of 10 children and served in the Army in Southeast Asia from 1969-1972, then returned to help each of his nine younger siblings get a start in life.
He and his wife Alice have been married more than three decades. He’s served as an interim pastor and works as a motor vehicle operator and safety training instructor.

“In the state where Thomas Jefferson penned the Virginia Statute for Religious Freedom to protect the likes of three Baptist preachers jailed for uttering unlicensed prayers, it may seem strange that ending a prayer with three small words could ignite a legal brushfire,” Whitehead said. “Yet it has.

“Other members of the city council are able to pray in the manner they choose and describe God in their own words. Apart from three small words, the other council members’ prayers are not much different from Turner’s,” he said.

Whitehead told WND the case is just a symptom of the total secularization of America intended by groups like the ACLU and one of the newer organizations to join in trying to censor Turner, People for the American Way.
He cited another case his firm has handled: A student in Las Vegas who wanted to “mention” Jesus during her valedictory speech at graduation. School officials told her no, and when she did, turned off her microphone during her speech.

“There’s a political correctness,” he said. “Here’s what I’m seeing nationwide. People don’t want to offend anybody, so if one person is disturbed by the name ‘Jesus” they want to eliminate it.”

Yet at the same time the public is making accommodation for Muslim prayer rooms, footbaths and other special provisions for members of that faith.

“There seems to be very much of a tolerance for other religions, but not for Christianity,” he said.

Wild Thing’s comment……..
Our country has been making exceptions for the Muslim needs, their prayer rooms and foot baths etc. When we give in to Muslims and say NO to Christianity and the Jewish faith it must be causing our Founding fathers to spin in their graves.
If a person is offended by the name Jesus they ban it? And yet if a person is offended by caving in to Islam it is OK? Something is terribly wrong and God help us all. Islam the so called religion that teaches hate for the people of the book which are the Christians and Jews. That alone if we knew nothing else about this cult of Islam should be enough for us to have sirens going off of danger to our country.

….Thank you Mark for this article.