A Thomas Sowell column titled "Big Lies in Politics" and appearing in The American Spectator begins like this:

It was either Adolf Hitler or his propaganda minister, Joseph Goebbels, who said that the people will believe any lie, if it is big enough and told often enough, loud enough. Although the Nazis were defeated in World War II, this part of their philosophy survives triumphantly to this day among politicians, and nowhere more so than during election years.

What follows is the usual superb commentary by Sowell. What interests me here, however, is a comment I saw on Facebook, in response to Sowell's opening paragraph.

A woman wrote, "This is important counter-information for Americans to consider, but how many will never hear it because they'll stop reading after the Hitler comparison?"

Let me therefore address the question of the Big Lie and Hitler comparisons.

The Nazis were experts in the practice of the Big Lie and its application to manipulate the masses.

And it is no secret that politicians today now routinely lie in their campaigns and in their governance, resting in the assurance that pointing out their discontinuities with reality will be met with social disapproval -- after all, truth-telling is just not polite in that genteel bloodsport AKA American politics.

To cast this in Schaefferian terms, secularized politicians today practice their art comfortably ensconced in the "upper story," basking in the assurance of their transcendent infallibility because political propositions function apart from reason, evidence, and discrete facts and therefore can never really be proven wrong.

Thus a press that protects the ruling class, and press officers who deliver the truth of the moment. And what you call "facts" raised in opposition are really just expressions of race, class, oppression, and structual bad faith.

You might call this phenomenon "faith" and those who drink and live by this Kool-aid "believers."

"Spin," perhaps, is the favored term of art to reconcile society to this enfeeblement of modern political discourse and decision-making.

However, we also hear about "Never again!" and about the terribleness of not learning the lessons of history, lest we repeat the bloody failures of the past, with special reference to 1930s and 1940s Germany, the Holocaust, and so on.

And yet, one might think that if a free and fearless people are to avoid the re-establishment of those dark days again, there surely must be a place for exposing current deceptions for what they are, including their ignoble geneology reaching back to the thunderous, awe-inspiring gods of National Socialism.

The technique of the Big Lie lives for at least two reasons: 1) it works and 2) it is well defended. These guys are too saavy to show up wearing jack-boots again.

Note: A similar version of these remarks first appeared on Facebook.

CBS Chicago reports: 

A Logan Square neighborhood pastor used the controversy over a proposal to build a new Chick-Fil-A restaurant in Chicago as part of his sermon Sunday, asking those opposed to the new franchise to reverse course.

As WBBM Newsradio’s John Waelti reports, the Rev. Charles Lyons of the Armitage Baptist Church, 2451 N. Kedzie Blvd. was animated as he read a letter to his diverse congregation that he intends to send to Mayor Rahm Emanuel.

"Their money, their business, their taxes are not wanted? Not needed?" he said.

As to Mayor Rahm Emanuel's comments that "Chick-Fil-A’s values are not Chicago values," Lyons said,  "This could easily be seen as anti-religious, agenda-driven bullying."

According to the CBS affiliate, "Lyons calls Chick-Fil-A a poster child for practicing respect for its employees and customers, and spoke of the day when what he calls the 'thought police' would come to his own church."

Says Lyons: "We will meet them at the door, respectfully, unflinchingly holding a copy of the sacred Scriptures in one hand and a copy of the U.S. Constitution in the other."

Related
Hate and Marriage: Bakery Hit With 1,000 Angry Messages 
Regarding Chick-Fil-A Appreciation Day

Masterpiece Cake Shop in Lakewood, Colorado, says yes to marriage and therefore no to the counterfeit version that mobs of radical homosexuals are trying to impose upon Americans.

This is no more about discrimination against homosexuals than flagging a $3 bill is about discrimination against legitimate tender.

And if there is any discrimination occuring, it's the counterfeiters discriminating against the real thing.

Counterfeiters live and die by their attempts to fool others into thinking their fakes are equal to the real thing.

That's right: They'd like to order a three-layer cake of "equality." And if you know what's good for you, you'll play along.

Or we'll show up at your door and tolerate you to death. Kisses of death on the house.

But "equality" is marketing bait for the masses. Ask art forgers, passport forgers, and money forgers. They know the difference is real and foundational, and they try to hide it.

And so do the mobs of "marriage" forgers. Not surprisingly, these counterfeiters really hate it when their racket is exposed for the fraud it is.

All too often, even their "love" is hate, as you can tell when you maintain a humane critical distance and thereby resist submitting to their private "value system."

By the way, even if you get an extremist in the White House to agree with you, a fake is a fake, and the real is still the real. 

Here's a local CBS story about uncivil extremism masquerading as "civil rights" in Lakewood, Colorado.

Hat tip: Drudge

If this story from CNN is correct, shame on this "church" (First Baptist Church of Crystal Springs, MS) that calls itself a house of God and yet would not allow a black couple to be married within its, ahem, hallowed walls.

How did that Sunday School hymn go? "Red and Yellow, Black and White, all are precious in His sight." Precious enough to get married in "your" church? Yep.

Fortunately, there may be more to the story. A report from WLBT.com indicates that not every church member agrees that the black couple should have been excluded and that, in fact, "members say it was a small group that expressed those [racist] views."

Diversity of skin color is good. It is a wonder of the Creator's bounty, and any person not defined by idols of black or white or red or yellow or brown (and their attendant so-called "value systems") is thereby liberated to enjoy and, yes, revel in this good gift of God.

It's time to wise up, people. There is right and wrong, but there is no such thing as a "White value system" or "Black value system," etc., etc. Unless you are a racist or entangled in racist thoughtforms, that is.

Love and humanness transcend skin and color. Character takes us back to who the Creator is and to who we are as human beings created in his image as signficant beings of infinite worth.

May the recently married couple, Charles and Te'Andrea Wilson, enjoy a lifetime of love and growth together. 

And may that group of people in Crystal Springs undergo corporate repentance. And then follow Jesus. He wasn't White, but he loves you anyway.

This is from a press statement released today by the Alliance Defending Freedom:

A federal court issued an order Friday that halts enforcement of the Obama administration’s abortion pill mandate against a Colorado family-owned business while an Alliance Defending Freedom lawsuit challenging the mandate continues in court. The mandate forces employers, regardless of their religious or moral convictions, to provide insurance coverage for abortion-inducing drugs, sterilization, and contraception under threat of heavy penalties.

Alliance Defending Freedom attorneys obtained the first-ever order against the mandate on behalf of Hercules Industries and the Catholic family that owns it. The administration opposed the order, arguing, contrary to the U.S. Constitution, that people of faith forfeit their religious liberty once they engage in business. The mandate could subject the Newlands to millions of dollars in fines per year if they don’t abide by its requirements.

“Every American, including family business owners, should be free to live and do business according to their faith. For the time being, Hercules Industries will be able to do just that,” said Legal Counsel Matt Bowman. “The cost of freedom for this family could be millions of dollars per year in fines that will cripple their business if the Obama administration ultimately has its way. This lawsuit seeks to ensure that Washington bureaucrats cannot force families to abandon their faith just to earn a living. Americans don’t want politicians and bureaucrats deciding what faith is, who the faithful are, and where and how that faith may be lived out.”

"The sign-up has already surpassed 209,000 people," Peter Baklinski reports at LifeSiteNews.com.

And that's despite a mysteriously disappearing and reappearing (12 hours later) Facebook signup page.

Update: More than 287,000 fans have signed up to support Chick-fil-A on Wednesday, Aug. 1, 2012. This was updated at 1 pm, July 27.

Matt Pitchford reports at The Daily Caller:

Boston Mayor Thomas Menino has stepped back from his threat to block Chick-Fil-A from opening a new store in the city. . . .

According to the Boston Herald, Menino said, "I can’t do that. That would be interference to his rights to go there," referring to company president Dan Cathy, who drew the mayor’s wrath by going public with his views against same-sex marriage.

The mayor added: "I make mistakes."

Henry J. Reske reports at Newsmax:

The Rev. Billy Graham has thrown his support behind embattled Chick-fil-A President Dan Cathy and announced plans to stop by the fast food restaurant next Wednesday as part of Mike Huckabee’s “Eat Mor Chikin” promotion.

Says Graham: “As the son of a dairy farmer who milked many a cow, I plan to 'Eat Mor Chikin' and show my support by visiting Chick-fil-A next Wednesday."

Charl van Wyk argues: "Those who do not support the individuals’ right and responsibility to self-defense . . . are neglecting the theology of the Bible."

Paul Joseph Watson writes at Infowars:

President Barack Obama has caved to pressure from his supporters and finally exploited last week’s Aurora massacre to begin the push for gun control, erroneously claiming during a speech last night that the second amendment is about hunting and target practice.

“We recognise the traditions of gun ownership that passed on from generation to generation, that hunting and shooting are part of a cherished national heritage,” said Obama during remarks made at a National Urban League Conference in New Orleans.

"In reality," Watson counters, "the founders put the second amendment in the bill of rights not to ensure Americans could enjoy hunting or target practice, but as a protection against government tyranny."

Steve Watson writes at Infowars:

Units of hundreds of military police officers trained to investigate crimes have been created by the Marine Corps and will “assist local authorities” in securing crime scenes and building cases, reports the Associated Press.

The report notes that “the battalions will be capable of helping control civil disturbances, handling detainees, carrying out forensic work, and using biometrics to identify suspects.”

While the units, each comprising 500 military police officers and dozens of dogs, will “deploy worldwide,” recent forays by the military into domestic policing in the United States may have some Americans wondering if the newly created “law enforcement battalions” will be used at home.

The further the Washington, D.C., establishment moves away from Constitutional governance rooted in Declaration principles -- that is, "unalienable rights" under God instead of under the state, nature, skin color, or last Tuesday's poll from San Franciso -- the more that establishment will have to rely on raw power (financial, social, police, military, etc.) to impose its private values upon the rest of America.

A radicalized U.S. military torn asunder from its duty to protect and defend Declaration freedoms and Constitutional government could be one of several tools available to a political elite to impose control and demand obedience.

That such a scenario is thinkable may startle some. But, in large measure, imposed unfreedom has been the history of the world. Until America showed up. May she show up once again.

And not just for Americans, but for any people and any nation that would actualize what the Creator has already endowed upon all humanity. God, not geography, is destiny.

The statement below in support of Chick-fil-A -- which has been viciously and unfairly attacked by extremists for its support of genuine marriage -- appears on the Facebook page of Mike Huckabee (I have included a few comments in the body of Huckabee statement, as indicated by brackets and italics):

I have been incensed [This is good and appropriate; outrage at social injustice and evil, marketed and masquerading as liberation, is both humane and Biblical
-- "Love thy neighbor"] at the vitriolic assaults on the Chick Fil-A company because the CEO, Dan Cathy, made comments recently in which he affirmed his view that the Biblical view of marriage should be upheld.

[Note that the "Biblical view" is not to be reduced to a merely "religious" view that privatizes "faith" inside an airtight closet divorced from the space and time and public life. For what is affirmed here represents verifiable information given by a knowable, rational Creator. Marriage so described upon this basis reflects not a private taste or subjective group preference but instead the form of the world and the humanity of the human being, both in our individuality and in our social unity and diversity.]

The Cathy family, led by Chick Fil-A founder Truett Cathy, are a wonderful Christian family who are committed to operating the company with Biblical principles and whose story is the true American success story. [The so-called liberal worldview operates according to philosophic presuppositions that aggressively war against the center of the American experiment, which, as the Declaration of Independence makes clear, is rooted in the Creator and not in the state, nature, class, envy, group, diversity, gender, skin color, or some monodimensional concept of naturalistic "equality." Thus, liberalism per se rejects and, yes, despises, any concept of America or American success or American exceptionalism that recognizes its liberating starting point in the uniqueness and wonder of a Creator who is the basis for unalienable human rights. An exceptional Creator gives rise to exceptional nations.]  

Starting at age 46 Truett Cathy built Chick Fil-A into a $4 billion a year enterprise with over 1600 stores. At 91, he is still active in the company, but his son Dan runs it day to day as CEO. It's a great American story that is being smeared by vicious hate speech and intolerant bigotry from the left. [The Left has become a uniform act of bigotry and discrimination against any who question its basic presuppositions and who claim the God-given right to practice a critical distance vis-a-vis the truth-claims of liberalism. As such, the Left functions in its argumentation and in its application across society more like a totalistic religious cult than as a force for genuine and humane liberation of the human spirit.]
 
The Chick Fil-A company refuses to open on Sundays so that their employees can go to church if they wish. Despite the pressure from malls, airports, and the business world to open on Sundays, they still don't. They treat customers and employees with respect and dignity. [Excellent on all counts]
 
I ask you to join me in speaking out on Wednesday, August 1 "Chick Fil-A Appreciation Day.” No one is being asked to make signs, speeches, or openly demonstrate. The goal is simple: Let's affirm a business that operates on Christian principles and whose executives are willing to take a stand for the Godly values [Note: What is affirmed are not merely "values," as if these were privatized matters of taste. Rather what is affirmed is a wholistic way of life rooted in truth and rooted in objective, rational moral norms that foster liberation and human flourishing] we espouse by simply showing up and eating at Chick Fil-A on Wednesday, August 1. 

Too often, those on the left make corporate statements to show support for same sex marriage, abortion, or profanity, but if Christians affirm traditional values [Note: What is embraced are not merely "traditional values," but rather, objective moral truths. After all, if a social practice is not truly rooted in the wonder of humanity as created in the image of God, which is asserted as a knowable and verifiable proposition, then such a practice may be "traditional" even while it may also properly be open to challenge. Some traditions are bad and should be jettisoned], we're considered homophobic, fundamentalists, hate-mongers, and intolerant.  [These words are just politically correct curse words designed to get you to shut up; a free and dignified people rejects them for the fascist style of social oppression and attempted manipulation for which they stand. Humanity created in the image of God rages against the machine.]

This effort is not being launched by the Chick Fil-A company and no one from the company or family is involved in proposing or promoting it.

There's no need for anyone to be angry or engage in a verbal battle. [There are many legitimate ways to express one's outrage against inhumanity; voting with one's pocket book is certainly one of them. Engagement in the battle of ideas is appropriate as well.] Simply affirm appreciation for a company run by Christian principles by showing up on Wednesday, August 1 or by participating online -- tweeting your support or sending a message on Facebook.

The Pearcey family is marking Aug. 1, 2012, as a day of resistance. Meanwhile, some may find my article How the New Resistance Can Win the Culture War to be of interest.  

Michelle Malkin writes:

When it comes to soldiers, breast-feeding moms, toddlers and grannies, the Transportation Security Administration is not just hands-on, it's hands-all-over.

But when it comes to illegal alien pilot trainees, our homeland security bureaucracy's policy is still stuck in
pre-9/11 mode: Hands off, blinders on.

There's a rather strange photo on Barack Obama's Facebook campaign page, leading Jerome Corsi to ask at WND:

Does a family photograph of a young Barack Obama posted on the president’s Facebook campaign page offer a clue to the identity of his real father?

Corsi reports that a "professional graphic artist who examined the 1973 photo believes the image of Obama’s mother, Ann Dunham, was airbrushed into the scene to cover up an African-American man who was standing next to Obama at the Honolulu airport."

According to Corsi, "filmmaker Joel Gilbert, who commissioned the analysis, told WND there’s substantial evidence that the man in the original photograph was Frank Marshall Davis, the Communist Party member, pro-Soviet propagandist and pornographer who played a fatherly role in Obama’s teen years."

At FoxNation:

Mitt Romney's campaign kept up the drumbeat of criticism Thursday over President Obama's "you didn't build that" gaffe, releasing a scathing web ad in which a New Hampshire business owner says: "President Obama, you're killing us out here."

Alex Pappas writes at The Daily Caller:

President Barack Obama‘s re-election campaign has been on a mission to vilify Bain Capital, the venture capital firm co-founded by Mitt Romney.

But before Romney was the Republican nominee for president, first lady Michelle Obama praised a child care company Bain Capital helped get off the ground.

In 2011, the first lady said she was “excited” about the role of Bright Horizons, a corporate day care company founded in the 1980s backed by Bain Capital, in her “Let’s Move! Child Care” campaign, according to a video viewed by The Daily Caller.

Performing artist Wendy Paschalidis listened to our own and Houston Baptist U's Nancy Pearcey on KKLA's Frank Pastore radio show yesterday, and here is the conclusion of her comments in a thoughtful blog post titled "I Serve Jesus. I'm a Dancer" (I encourage you to read the entire post):  

This is from the text of a speech by Ingrid Carlqvist, founder of Sweden's Free Press Society. She was speaking July 9, 2012, at the International Conference for Free Speech and Human Rights in Brussels. 

Ladies and gentlemen, My name is Ingrid Carlqvist and I was born in Sweden in 1960, when the Social Democrats were gonna rule forever and ever and our country was the nicest and safest and most progressed in the world.

Now I live in Absurdistan -- a country that has the highest figure of reported rapes in the world, hundreds of so called “exclusion areas” where people live outside the Swedish society and with newspapers that hide all these horrible facts to the people.

Hat tip: Frontpagemag.com

Join Pearcey Report Editor at Large and recently appointed Prof. Nancy Peacey (Houston Baptist University) today on KKLA radio with talk show host Frank Pastore.

The Los Angeles area broadcast airs at 7 pm eastern time (6 pm central, 4 pm Pacific).

To listen online, go here. To check out Houston Baptist University, go here.

The Pearcey Report is pleased to announce that we have added The National Black Pro-Life Union to our list of information resources under "Groups" on the main page.

Tiffany Gabbay writes at The Blaze:

Last Friday, The Blaze provided you with a first look into Paul Kengor’s soon-to-be released, provocative book published by Mercury Ink, entitled, The Communist, which closely examines the life of President Obama’s longtime mentor, Frank Marshall Davis.

. . . . Kengor goes on to explain how this devout Marxist actually began his political path as a Republican, often stumping for GOP presidential contenders on their respective campaign trails. Of course, especially at the time, the GOP represented the party of Lincoln while Democrats comprised the Southern racists so reviled by black Americans.

Oddly, Davis took a turn for the hard-left after being duped into believing that the racism he experienced as a black youth growing up in Kansas, and, later on into adulthood, was the product of a diseased Capitalist system, and that only the Soviet Union had managed to crack the code of equality, thus creating a racism-free utopia for all.

CNSNews.com reports:

Former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, who reportedly is on Republican presidential candidate Mitt Romney's short list for a running mate, said in a December 2010 interview with Christianity Today that while she believes marriage is designed for a man and a woman "perhaps we will decide that there needs to be some way for people to express their desire to live together through civil union."

From Conservative HQ:

It appears presumptive Republican presidential nominee Mitt Romney just doesn’t get it -- conservatives, and many independents, are not going to vote for the third term of George W. Bush.

Yet that seems to be exactly where Romney is headed by floating the name of former Secretary of State and Bush national security advisor Condoleeza Rice as topping the short list of his choices for Vice President.

Or maybe Condoleeza Rice is just a stalking horse to make some other establishment Republican, like Ohio Senator Rob Portman or New Jersey Governor Chris Christie, look better to conservatives.

Richard Viguerie Action Point: "Floating these names is a wake-up call to conservatives, who should pick-up the phone and call Governor Romney at 857-288-3500 to let him know that we demand he choose a real conservative as his running mate."

CNSNews.com reports:

Rep. Michelle Bachmann (R-Minn.) said that Chief Justice John Roberts’ opinion that Obamacare’s individual mandate is constitutional under the taxing power of Congress is “completely and utterly wrong” and the “weakest of all the arguments that were made” in trying to defend the mandate.

Kurt Nimmo writes at Infowars:

Officialdom in Miami-Dade is working with the U.S. Air Force to spray mosquitos.

“This newest round of mosquito control involves a large C-130 cargo plane based in Ohio to spray Homestead ARB and communities of Doral, West Sweetwater, Kendall, Homestead, Florida City and areas east of U.S. 1, where heavy concentrations of mosquitos have been reported,” CBS Miami reports.

My dad was a career man in the U.S. Army, entering the service as a Private in World War II and retiring 20-plus years later while stationed at Fort Gordon, near Augusta, Ga., with the rank of Lieutenant Colonel.

I have always embraced and felt comfortable with military culture, after all, I grew up inside of it.

But what we see happening today is not about the military. And it is not about the military, including the National Guard, partnering with civilians to perform various kinds of community service, to the delight of control-and-command power-brokers occupying Washington, D.C.

Nimmo explains that, "since September 11, 2001, the government has devised an elaborate plan to merge civilian and military operations, most notably under the aegis of a coordinated response to terror attacks and natural disasters and other emergencies.

"Military troops," Nimmo continues, "have appeared on the street in response to a murderer at large and as security personnel at the Kentucky Derby. The Pentagon now routinely cooperates with the Department of Homeland Security and state and local law enforcement and has worked locally to oversee and man traffic checkpoints and even arrest civilians."

None of this is coincidental, says Nimmo. "The federal government has a keen interest in merging military and local government operations in direct violation of the Tenth Amendment. If the founders were alive today, they would recognize this for what it is -- the very essence of tyranny."

It is important to keep our eyes on the ball. What is at issue is not the problem of mosquitos in Florida. What is at issue is the problem of liberty in America.

A freedom-loving people no more needs the U.S. military to protect them from mosquitos than do shop owers need the mob to protect them from street violence. 

One might regret the parallel between the military and the mob, but it is one suggested by the practice of the current unconstitutional federal establishment "watching over us" from the swamps of Washington, D.C.

They spray mosquitoes, but human freedom is being stung.

Florida congressman "Allen West is on the top 10 target list for Democrats this year," writes William A. Jacobson of Cornell University.

And now a Soros-backed "SuperPAC has been formed specifically to get rid of West, as reported by The Shark Tank."

To donate to West, go here.

Hat tip: Drudge

Peter Ferrara writes at American Spectator:

With a second term for Obama, the world-leading America we have known and hoped to leave to our children will be gone.

Last Friday's jobs report confirms that Obama is well on his way to transforming America into a third world country, with declining living standards and perpetual economic stagnation.

Argentina enjoyed the world's fourth highest per capita GDP in 1929, on par with America at the time.

But then the nation lost its way in embracing a leftist, union allied government, which took control of the economy and imposed wildly irresponsible taxes, spending, deficits, and debt.

After World War II, the hugely popular Juan Peron came to power and institutionalized the madness. It has been all downhill for Argentina ever since. Do you recognize the pattern?

Jack Minor reports at WND:

Jane Pitt, mother of actor Brad Pitt, has been scared into silence by the hate-filled, vulgar and even violent reaction to her public assertion that Barack Obama is “a liberal who supports the killing of unborn babies and same-sex marriage.”

Richard Rahn writes at the Washington Times:

The Constitution gives Congress the exclusive right to tax Americans at the federal level. Yet Congress continues to give away this most fundamental responsibility to international organizations, the most dangerous of which is the Paris-based Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD).

Most Americans probably would not approve of their tax dollars being used to support an international organization that undermines their fundamental liberties and promotes giving their hard-earned money to other governments, often run by corrupt or dictatorial regimes. This is precisely what the OECD is doing, with the blessing of the majority members of Congress.

From Conservative HQ:

It says a lot about the caliber of advice Mitt Romney is getting that in the midst of the worst economy since the Great Depression of the 1930s, he can do no better than tie President Barack Obama in most national polls.

The same goes for Republican congressional candidates -- especially those for the Senate -- which under the leadership of Democrat Harry Reid hasn’t passed a budget in over three years.

A big part of the problem is, in a word, consultants. Especially the small coterie of Washington, DC based insiders that have come to dominate Republican political strategy and ad making over the past decade.

Conclusion: "The establishment Republican Party has not so much sold its soul as had its soul stolen by this small group of Washington consultants. Until Republicans throw-off the influence of these self-serving insiders -- and actually run as principled small government constitutional conservatives -- they risk suffering the same fate they suffered in 1976, 1992, 1996 and 2008, while making millions of dollars for the architects of their defeat in the process."

WND's Joseph Farah writes:

What does it mean to be a follower of Jesus?

That’s the question I would like answered by Carrie Underwood, other Christian celebrities, and, quite honestly, most non-celebrity Christians and their pastors.

Last month Underwood, a country-music superstar, suggested in an interview with the U.K. Independent that she has no problem with same-sex relationships and marriage.

It’s not unusual, of course, for entertainers to take such positions -- in fact, it’s expected. But what made the interview newsworthy all over the world is the fact that Underwood claims to be a Christian.

Jane Pitt's pro-family, pro-marriage letter is here.

The Hollywood Reporter story, which expresses the typical slavish
anti-marriage and anti-family presuppositions of the formerly mainstream media, is here.

Mytheos Holt writes at The Blaze:

When readers have finished with this story, we would be very surprised if they didn’t end up with a highly pessimistic query: Is there anything MSNBC can cover without spoiling it?

Why is HBU among the top 10? Because it's a "School with Vision and Intellectual Horsepower," according to thebestschools.org. Here's more:

Previously unknown beyond Texas, Houston Baptist University has vaulted onto the map with its “10 Pillars” initiative, which includes such homeschool-friendly goals as Build on the Classics, Bring Athens and Jerusalem Together [integrate philosophy and Christianity], Increase Cultural Impact, Expand on the Creative Arts, Create a Strong Global Focus, and more.

To fill out this goal, HBU has had a major hiring surge, taking on acclaimed Christian scholars John Mark Reynolds, Michael Licona, Nancy Pearcey, Bruce Gordon, Richard Martinez, Louis Markos, Mary Joe Sharp, and Holly Ordway. Also added is the department of apologetics, to work in tandem with the philosophy department.

The ambitious 10 Pillars program is the brainchild of its president Robert Sloan. Formerly the president of Baylor University, Sloan attempted a similar 10 Pillars program years earlier at Baylor, only to find that when he began shaking things up, the establishment was too far removed from its Baptist roots, too entrenched in evolutionary science, and too intolerant of the various applications of apologetics to endure the Christian vision.

Says West: Obama "does not want you to have the self-esteem of getting up and earning, and having that title of American. He'd rather you be his slave."

The robeless one would be high court chief justice John Roberts, about whom Daniel Flynn writes at Frontpage.com:

The chief justice may have changed his mind. The Constitution didn’t change its meaning.

Citizens should obey the law. They shouldn’t obey the lawyers.

If John Roberts is free to disagree with John Roberts about whether the individual mandate constitutes a tax, then Americans are certainly free to disagree with John Roberts, too.

Herman Cain at WND:

I was as disappointed as anyone else by the Obamacare ruling, and I remain deeply troubled by Chief Justice Roberts’ assertion that the federal government has the power to do virtually anything, so long as it calls it a tax.

But this is the hand we’ve been dealt, and the question now is how well can we play it? When you get over the punch in the gut and the feeling of betrayal, you should recognize that it’s a hand we could play all the way to a pretty big win.