CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY
A free service of Jesus Christ is Lord Ministries
News selected and edited by Ray Mossholder
Monday, January 13, 2014
PRESIDENT OBAMA VERSUS REPUBLICANS AT SUPREME COURT TODAY
The United States Supreme Court refereed a politically charged dispute this morning between President Barack Obama and Senate Republicans over the president’s power to temporarily fill high-level positions.
The case argued at the high court is the first in the nation’s history to consider the meaning of the provision of the Constitution that allows the president to make temporary appointments to positions that otherwise require Senate confirmation, but only when the Senate is in recess.
The court battle is an outgrowth of increasing partisanship and the political stalemate that’s been a hallmark of Washington for years, and especially since President Obama took office in 2009.
Senate Republicans’ refusal to allow votes for nominees to the National Labor Relations Board and the new Consumer Financial Protection Bureau led Obama to make the temporary, or recess, appointments in January 2012. Three federal appeals courts have said Obama overstepped his authority because the Senate was not in recess when he acted.
The Supreme Court case involves a dispute between a Washington state bottling company and a local Teamsters union in which the NLRB sided with the union. The U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia Circuit overturned the board’s ruling. Hundreds more NLRB rulings could be voided if the Supreme Court upholds the appeals court decision.
More broadly, if the justices ratify the lower court ruling, it would make it nearly impossible for a president to use the recess power. Under such a ruling, presidential nominees could be blocked indefinitely when the president’s party does not control the Senate.
Three federal appeals courts have upheld recess appointments in previous administrations. But three federal appeals courts have said Obama overstepped his authority because the Senate was not in recess when he acted.
Now the two sides wait for a final decision.
TO SANCTION OR NOT TO SANCTION, THAT IS THE QUESTION
President Obama announced yesterday that Iran “has agreed to specific actions that halt progress on its nuclear program and roll back key parts of the program.” The agreement restricts Iran’s nuclear activities and imposes more intrusive inspections. In return, Iran will benefit from sanctions relief, which the U.S. values at $6 billion to $7 billion over six months.
Iran and the so-called P5+1 countries – China, France, Russia, the U.K. and the U.S., plus Germany, reached an understanding on how to implement a deal first posed last November.
It appears that bipartisan members of congress will almost immediately interfere with this agreement. They don’t want the sanctions lifted but intensified. Iran has threatened to abandon talks if Congress does that. President Obama repeated yesterday his vow to veto additional sanctions. However, there appears to be enough strength in Congress to override his veto.
59 senators have signed on in support of sanctions legislation in a bill entered by New Jersey Democrat Robert Menendez of New Jersey and Illinois Republican Mark Kirk. House Majority Leader Eric Cantor, a Virginia Republican, said the deal made by the nations “only furthers a deeply flawed agreement. Even close allies of the president like Chuck Schumer are ready to defy it. They believe that it was only because of the sanctions that Iran agreed to come to the conference table because it was in so much pain. These congresspeople argue there is no reason to stop holding Iran’s feet to the fire until they fully abandon their nuclear program. Israel too remains completely against any peace agreement with Iran.
Iran’s oil exports, the country’s largest foreign-currency earner, plunged last year as U.S. and European Union sanctions meant that banks and insurers couldn’t handle Iranian sales of the fuel.
SOME WEST VIRGINIANS CAN ACTUALLY BATHE TODAY
Today marks Day 5 of a tap water ban in a large area of West Virginia. About 300,000 residents in nine counties have been urged to not use tap water because it’s contaminated with a chemical that leaked from a storage tank last week. More than 150 people were sickened. But there’s “light at the end of the tunnel,” the governor says. This morning, officials announced certain zones where residents can use the water again. By lifting the ban zone by zone, officials hope to keep the water system from being overwhelmed.
SHARKS SMELL BLOOD AND MOVE IN ON CHRIS CHRISTIE
There’s new trouble potentially brewing for Chris Christie, and this has nothing to do with Bridgegate. Feds are investigating whether the New Jersey governor improperly used Superstorm Sandy funds to produce tourism ads featuring him and his family. This couldn’t come at a worse time for the man thought to be a front-runner in next year’s presidential race. His top aides are accused of targeting a local mayor with a scheme to tie up traffic as punishment for not supporting Christie in his re-election. Christie continues to say he knew nothing about it.
HAITI’S FLAG AT HALF MAST
Haiti’s flag is at half mast again today as Haitians remember the devastating 7.0 earthquake that all but destroyed their country four years ago yesterday.
A Haitian mayor said, “It’s truly improving but it was never easy in Haiti. the scandal is that it’s about an hour and a half from Miami yet it’s one of the poorest places in the world.”
The government of President Michel Martelly issued a decree declaring yesterday a day of remembrance and reflection. Businesses including restaurants, theaters and clubs stayed closed. Haiti’s radio and television stations scheduled programs and played somber music in honor of the victims.
Officials say more than 300,000 died, but no one knows for certain how many people lost their lives.
The quake left 1.5 million people living in tent camps. That number has fallen to 146,000.
-With a file from The Associated Press
IRAQ FORCING CHRISTIANS TO CONVERT TO ISLAM OR DIE
Arabic language websites reported earlier this week that the al-Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant – which, throughout the course of the war against the Syrian Bashar al-Assad government has committed any number of atrocities, from decapitating “infidels” to burning churches – has successfully “forced” two Armenian Christian families to convert to Islam.
A video accompanies some of these reports. In it, what appears to be an elderly Armenian man standing alongside an Islamic cleric who announces the Christian man’s conversion to Islam – to thunderous cries of “Allahu Akbar!” In his exultation, the cleric makes exuberant statements like “You see, we have no honor without Islam without proclaiming aloud that ‘There is no god but Allah and Muhammad is his prophet!’” The cleric then adds that, because the man is the head of his household, his Christian wife and children are all now Muslim as well—“all praise to Allah!” If they rejected their new Islamic identity they become “apostates,” a crime punishable by death.
LIBYA TO BE RULED BY SHARIAH LAW
Libya’s recent edict that its coming constitution will be based on Shariah law has sent a chill through the North African nation’s small Christian community.
Libya’s Coptic Christians, who number about 300,000, or 5 percent of the population, were allowed to practice their faith under dictator Muammar Qaddafi. But since the strongman was ousted from power, and ultimately killed, Muslim fundamentalists have increasingly filled the power void. Last month, the national assembly voted in favor of making Shariah law the basis of all legislative decisions, meaning Islam will shape all future banking, criminal and financial cases.
“Islamic law is the source of legislation in Libya,” stated the General National Congress in a statement released shortly after the vote was held. “All state institutions need to comply with this.”
A special committee has begun reviewing existing laws to ensure that they comply with Shariah. The emerging political and legal system’s orientation, combined with the rise of militants in the oil-rich nation, has left Christians feeling like the promise of democracy that America had promised in the wake of Qaddafi’s fall has been broken.
“NATO went to war in Libya on the basis of a full democracy,” Patrick Sookhdeo, international director for human rights group The Barnabus Fund, told FoxNews.com. “But what we have ended up with is a fractured government in which religious extremism of the worst kind has now taken over. This conflict has produced the exact opposite of a democratic government.”
“They [Christians and women] will not have full citizenship.” Christian workers, including Copts who came from Egypt in search of work, have been targeted since Qaddafi’s ouster in October 2011. Earlier this year, Libyan authorities reportedly released four Egyptian missionaries who had been arrested for proselytizing. A fifth Egyptian Christian, Ezzat Atallah, died while in prison.
The danger for Christians and other non-Muslims in Libya was underscored again last month when an American teacher was murdered. Ronnie Smith, 33, of Texas, who was teaching chemistry at Benghazi’s International School, was shot to death on December 5 while jogging. The killing highlighted persistently tenuous security in the eastern Libyan city where U.S. ambassador Chris Stevens was killed during an attack on the embassy Sept. 11, 2012. Many have speculated that Smith may have been killed because of his Christian faith and how he freely spoke about it with Muslims and his students in Libya.
Sookhdeo said that the recent legislation could have a severe effect not only within Libya, but beyond its borders as well. He noted that In March 2012, Jeremiah Small, a resident of Washington state who was working as a teacher in Iraq, was shot by one of his students. The pupil had threatened to kill him for his religious views a day earlier after a heated discussion broke out in the class. Just a few days later an another American teacher was killed in Yemen after being shot eight times by Islamic militants for a similar reason.
Sookhdeo is urging all Christians to pray for the Christians in Libya and all surrounding countries.
POPE FRANCIS APPOINTS CARDINALS TO HELP THE POOR
(Reuters) – Pope Francis put his first stamp on the group at the top of the Roman Catholic hierarchy on Sunday, naming 19 new cardinals from around the world and emphasizing his concern for poor countries.
Sixteen of them are “cardinal electors” under 80 and thus eligible to enter a conclave to elect a pope. They come from Italy, Germany, Britain, Nicaragua, Canada, the Ivory Coast, Brazil, Argentina, South Korea, Chile, Burkina Faso, the Philippines and Haiti.
Half of them are non-Europeans, indicating the importance Francis attaches to the developing world. Francis is the first Latin American pope and the first non-European pontiff in 1,300 years.
Cardinals are the pope’s closest advisers in the Vatican and around the world. Apart from being church leaders in their home countries, those who are not based in the Vatican are members of key committees in Rome that decide policies that can affect the lives of 1.2 billion Roman Catholics.
The new cardinal electors are aged from 55 to 74. From Latin America are Archbishop Aurelio Poli, 66, Francis’s successor in the Argentine capital, and the archbishops of Managua in Nicaragua, Rio de Janeiro in Brazil and Santiago in Chile.
Two are from Africa – the archbishops of Ouagadougou in Burkina Faso and Abidjan in the Ivory Coast. From Asia are the archbishops of Seoul in South Korea and Cotabato in the Philippines.
Archbishop Chibly Langlois, 55, is the first cardinal from Haiti, the poorest country in the Western Hemisphere, where according to the World Bank some 80 percent of the rural population lives in abject poverty.
The pope, who made the announcement to tens of thousands of people in St. Peter’s Square for his Sunday blessing, has often said since his election on March 13 he wants a church that “is poor and for the poor”.
“The disproportionate representation of wealthy nations in the College of Cardinals is something that Francis is trying to rectify,” said Candida Moss, professor of New Testament and early Christianity at Notre Dame University in the United States. “The movement of cardinals to the south was just as predictable as the migration of birds in the winter.”
Only four of the cardinal electors are Vatican officials, chief among them Italian Archbishop Pietro Parolin, 58, Francis’s new secretary of state, and Archbishop Gerhard Mueller, 66, the German head of the Vatican’s doctrinal congregation.
The most prominent European elector from outside Italy is Archbishop Vincent Nichols, 68, the Archbishop of Westminster in London and the main link between Catholicism and the Anglican Church.
The three who are 80 or over will assume the title cardinal emeritus as a sign of gratitude for their work for the Catholic Church and will not be able to enter a conclave. They come from Spain, Italy and the Caribbean island nation of Saint Lucia.
GAYS AND THE ANTICHRIST
The Reverend Robert Jeffress of First Baptist Church in Dallas, Texas, will release a new book this month that is sure to spark theological and political debate, particularly because of its mention of President Barack Obama’s support of gay marriage — and the Christian belief in the coming of the Antichrist.
In his new book, Perfect Ending, Jeffress makes it clear that he doesn’t believe President Barack Obama is the Antichrist, a key figure in End Times theology, though he makes an important distinction about Obama’s endorsement of same-sex marriage, according to excerpts published by Religion News Service.
“For the first time in history a president of our country has openly proposed altering one of society’s (not to mention God’s) most fundamental laws: that marriage should be between a man and a woman,” the author writes in Perfect Ending. “While I am not suggesting that President Obama is the Antichrist, the fact that he was able to propose such a sweeping change in God’s law and still win reelection by a comfortable margin illustrates how a future world leader will be able to oppose God’s laws without any repercussions.”
So while he’s by no means directly comparing Obama to the Antichrist, Jeffress believes that the dearth of protest following the president’s decision not to defend traditional marriage shows how easy it will plausibly be for the Antichrist to openly reject God’s laws and still gain acceptance.
Jeffress told Religion News Service that he’s particularly worried about Americans losing their rights for what is being dubbed “a greater good.”
“How it can be that this leader is able to usurp freedom of speech with little or no opposition?” the pastor said of Obama. “People will be conditioned to surrender personal rights for the so-called greater good.”
This isn’t the first time Jeffress has linked Obama’s rise to the Antichrist. Just before the 2012 election, he preached that if President Barack Obama were to win re-election (the reality of which came just two days later), America would be set on a dangerous path toward Armageddon.
“I want you to hear me tonight, I am not saying that President Obama is the Antichrist, I am not saying that at all,”he preached. “But what I am saying is this: the course he is choosing to lead our nation is paving the way for the future reign of the Antichrist.”
“Perfect Ending” will be released on Jan. 21.
by Catherine Weber ,Christian Post reporter
ERIC HOLDER: FEDERAL LAW TRUMPS STATE LAW
The Department of Justice announced Friday that it will recognize the same-sex marriages that were legalized in Utah since the Dec. 20 ruling that overturned the state’s ban on same-sex marriage. The National Organization for Marriage has called the federal government’s decision “outrageous,” saying it signals the Obama administration has no regard “for the Constitution and the rule of law.”
“It is outrageous that the Justice Department would move so brazenly and publicly to undermine Utah’s standing constitutional provision regulating marriage as the union of one man and one woman,” said Brian Brown, NOM’s president.
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder said in a videotaped message released Friday that the same-sex marriages will be recognized for federal purposes. “These families should not be asked to endure uncertainty regarding their status as the litigation unfolds,” Holder said.
“In the days ahead, we will continue to coordinate across the federal government to ensure the timely provision of every federal benefit to which Utah couples and couples throughout the country are entitled – regardless of whether they in same-sex or opposite-sex marriages,” he added. The Department of State’s decision is in accordance with the June Supreme Court ruling that struck down part of the Defense of Marriage Act, thus awarding federal benefits to same-sex couples.
Holder clarified that the federal government will recognize the Utah marriages while the state continues with the appeals process in the Denver-based 10th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals. “In the meantime, I am confirming today that, for purposes of federal law, these marriages will be recognized as lawful and considered eligible for all relevant federal benefits on the same terms as other same-sex marriages.”
Utah was thrown into a frenzy of litigation on Dec. 20 when, in a surprise ruling, District Judge Robert J. Shelby determined that the state’s 2004 ban against same-sex marriage was unconstitutional.
Immediately following his ruling, hundreds of same-sex couples in the state flocked to their local county clerk to receive marriage licenses. Meanwhile, the state frantically requested a hold on same-sex marriage while it appeals Shelby’s ruling. Ultimately, on Monday, the U.S. Supreme Court granted Utah a hold on distributing same-sex marriage licenses while the state’s appeals process makes its way through courts.
The fate of the 1,300 same-sex couples who did marry from Dec. 20 to Jan. 6 remained in limbo following Monday’s Supreme Court order.
On Wednesday, Utah Governor Gary Herbert’s office announced that the state would not recognize the same-sex marriages that had been legalized in the past few weeks.
“… state recognition of same-sex marital status is on hold until further notice,” Derek Miller, the governor’s chief of staff, wrote in a statement.
“Please understand this position is not intended to comment on the legal status of those same-sex marriages – that is for the courts to decide,” he continued. “The intent of this communication is to direct state agency compliance with current laws that prohibit the state from recognizing same-sex marriages.”
Gov. Herbert’s announcement prompted the Human Rights Campaign, the nation’s largest gay rights group, to request the federal government to recognize the state’s same-sex marriages. “… there is simply no reason for the United States government not to extend federal recognition to these more than 1,300 couples,” Human Rights Campaign President Chad Griffin said in a letter to Attorney General Holder.
The group wrote a separate letter addressed to the attorneys general of the 17 states where same-sex unions are legal to also recognize Utah’s same-sex marriages.
Following Holder’s announcement, the HRC released a statement thanking him for complying with their request. “Attorney General Eric Holder has once again shown the kind of leadership that earns you a spot in the history books. This is only the beginning of this fight, and this work continues until marriage equality returns to Utah for good, and full equality reaches every American in all 50 states.”
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Those who believe it is permissible to tell white lies
soon grow colorblind.
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Monday, January 13, 2014