CHRISTIAN NEWS FROM RAY
A free service of Jesus Christ is Lord Ministries
News selected and edited by Ray Mossholder
Tuesday, January 14, 2014
SUPREME COURT STAYS DEAF TO ABORTION
WASHINGTON — The Supreme Court’s refusal Monday to revive an Arizona law that largely banned abortions after 20 weeks put off for at least another year a clear constitutional ruling on whether conservative states may adopt new restrictions on women seeking to end their pregnancies.
The decision, marking the third time this term that justices have declined to take up an abortion case, suggested the closely split court is not anxious to jump into the divide between red states and blue states over abortion rights.
Arizona’s law was the court’s first opportunity to comment on the string of state laws that have passed since 2010 limiting abortions to a window less than the 24 weeks commonly accepted under Roe vs. Wade. The U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals struck down the Arizona law as unconstitutional last year, and Monday’s action allowed that ruling to stand.
Abortion foes saw Monday’s decision as a major setback. John Eastman, the Orange County attorney who appealed the matter to the high court, predicted it would be at least two to three years before another appellate court issued a conflicting decision.
States with a 20-week abortion restriction similar to Arizona’s are Alabama, Arkansas, Georgia, Idaho, Indiana, Kansas, Louisiana, Nebraska, Oklahoma, North Carolina, North Dakota and Texas. None of them are under the jurisdiction of the ninth Court of Appeal.
And the court cannot avoid the abortion issue entirely. On Wednesday, they will hear a free-speech challenge to a Massachusetts law that sets a 35-foot buffer zone around the entrance to abortion clinics. Antiabortion activists who wish to counsel pregnant women against entering clinics say the law violates their 1st Amendment rights.
POPE FRANCIS CRIES THE WORLD DOESN’T CARE
LONDON –Pope Francis decried abortion Monday as a sign of a wasteful modern culture that treats goods and people, including unborn children, as easily discarded commodities.
In the annual papal “state of the world” speech delivered to diplomats from 180 countries, Francis said the denial of human dignity was a threat to world peace, and cited the problems of hunger among the have-nots and food waste among the haves.
“Unfortunately, what is thrown away is not only food and dispensable objects, but often human beings themselves, who are discarded as ‘unnecessary.’ It is frightful even to think there are children, victims of abortion, who will never see the light of day.”
The Pope also spoke of children as soldiers and human trafficking to the list of crimes committed against the world’s young.
“Sadly, there is a general indifference in the face of these tragedies, which is a dramatic sign of the loss of that sense of responsibility for our brothers and sisters on which every civil society is based.”
JUDGE SAYS MERCY KILLING IS FINE FOR NEW MEXICO
(CNN) – A New Mexico judge has ruled that terminally ill, mentally competent patients have the right to get a doctor to end their lives. The landmark decision Monday by New Mexico Second Judicial District Judge Nan Nash came after a two-day trial and could make New Mexico the fifth state to allow doctors to prescribe fatal prescriptions to terminal patients – Oregon, Washington, Montana and Vermont being the other four.
The ACLU and Compassion & Choices, an end-of-life choice advocacy group, filed the lawsuit on behalf of two New Mexico doctors and cancer patient Aja Riggs.
The judge was asked to consider whether the doctors should be allowed to write prescriptions for a terminally ill cancer patient who wanted to use drugs to end her life.
“This Court cannot envision a right more fundamental, more private or more integral to the liberty, safety and happiness of a New Mexican than the right of a competent, terminally ill patient to choose aid in dying,” the judge wrote. “If decisions made in the shadow of one’s imminent death regarding how they and their loved ones will face that death are not fundamental and at the core of these constitutional guarantees, than what decisions are?”
New Mexico’s Attorney General’s office said it was analyzing the decision to see if it would file an appeal.
MILLIONAIRES PROPOSE SPENDING MORE THAN A TRILLION
Congressional negotiators unveiled a bipartisan, $1.1 trillion spending bill Monday night that will reverse a 1 percent cut to cost-of-living increases for disabled veterans and provide $1.525 billion in aid to Egypt, among other provisions.
The measure was released by House Appropriations Committee Chairman Harold Rogers, R-Ky., and Senate counterpart Barbara Mikulski, D-Md., who have worked to try to ensure that the measure doesn’t topple of its own weight.
“The Omnibus will fulfill the basic duty of Congress; it provides funding for every aspect of the federal government, from our national defense, to our transportation systems, to the education of our kids,” Rogers said in a statement Monday.
The GOP-led House is slated to vote on the measure Wednesday. Today the House is slated to approve a short-term funding bill to extend the Senate’s deadline to finish the overall spending bill until midnight on Saturday. The current short-term spending bill expires at midnight Wednesday evening.
In spite of the hefty price tag, the trillion dollar bill cuts the daily agency operations by $79 billion, or 7 percent, from the high-water mark established by Democrats in 2010. That cut increases to $165 billion, or 13 percent, when cuts in war funding and disaster spending are accounted for.
Liberals are more likely to climb aboard, but only after voting to give Obama about $6 billion more in Pentagon war funding than the $79 billion he requested. The additional war money is helping the Pentagon deal with a cash crunch in troop readiness accounts. Including foreign aid related to overseas security operations, total war funding reaches $92 billion, a slight cut from last year.
The alternative, however, is to allow automatic spending cuts to strike for a second year and even risk another government shutdown if Congress deadlocks.
At the same time, the bill is laced with sweeteners, including the provision exempting disabled veterans from a pension cut enacted last month to help pay for the budget relief in the spending bill. It contains increases for veterans’ medical care backed by both sides and fully funds food aid for low-income pregnant women and their children.
Though the bill provides the billions in aid to Egypt, it also places conditions on the aid and leaves it up to the Obama administration to determine if Egypt qualifies. The bill requires Egypt to pursue democracy, seeks to enforce the rule of law, honor human rights and adhere to agreements with Israel. If not, it’s possible the US could pull the aid. Aid to Israel is also included in the bill.
ARIZONA REPUBLICANS CENSOR JOHN McCAIN
The Maricopa County Republican Party in Arizona formally censured Senator John McCain (R-AZ) Saturday evening by an overwhelming 1150-351 vote, Breitbart News has learned.
Maricopa County is Arizona’s most populous county and includes Phoenix within its borders. The official GOP body’s rebuke undermines McCain’s reelection chances should he decide to run for the Senate again in 2016.
“As leaders in the Republican Party, we are obligated to fully support our Party, platform, and its candidates,” the formal censure resolution reads. “Only in times of great crisis or betrayal is it necessary to publicly censure our leaders. Today we are faced with both. For too long we have waited, hoping Senator McCain would return to our Party’s values on his own. That has not happened.”
The resolution continues by stating, with “sadness and humility,” the Republicans in the county “rise and declare” that McCain “has amassed a long and terrible record of drafting, co- sponsoring and voting for legislation best associated with liberal Democrats, such as Amnesty, funding for ObamaCare, the debt ceiling, assaults on the Constitution and 2nd amendment, and has continued to support liberal nominees.” That voting record from McCain, they say, “has been disastrous and harmful to Arizona and the United States.”
McCain was elected, the Republicans say in the censure resolution, by campaigning “as a conservative” and making promises during his various reelection campaigns “such as the needed and welcomed promise to secure our borders and finish the border fence, only to quickly flip-flop on those promises.”
The Republicans say that McCain “has abandoned our core values and has been eerily silent against Liberals, yet publicly reprimands Conservatives in his own Party.” Therefore, the Maricopa County GOP leadership “censures Senator McCain for his continued disservice to our State and Nation.”
The censure states that formally, “until he consistently champions our Party’s Platform and values, we, the Republican leadership in Arizona will no longer support, campaign for or endorse John McCain as our U.S. Senator.”
Maricopa County joins Apache County and Mohave County in voting to formally censure McCain via similar resolutions. There are 15 counties total in Arizona, which means that at this point, 20 percent of Arizona’s county GOP bodies have officially censured McCain – three years out from his potential reelection campaign for the U.S. Senate in 2016.
McCain has not made a final decision yet on whether or not he will run for re-election.
REPRESENTATIVE FOR FOUR DECADES RETIRING
WASHINGTON– Representative George Miller, a San Francisco Bay area liberal and dean of the California congressional delegation, announced Monday that he will retire when his term ends, closing a 40-year career on Capitol Hill.
The veteran Democrat’s departure will leave just one lawmaker, Representative Henry Waxman (D-Los Angeles), in the House who was elected in the Watergate class of 1974 to serve continuously in the chamber since then. Also, Miller’s retirement will further shake up the state’s 53-member delegation that underwent a large turnover in 2012 due to a spate of retirements and defeats.
The 68-year-old Miller, a confidant of House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-San Francisco), has been a leading Democratic voice on education and labor issues. and is the chamber’s fifth most senior member.
Senator Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), who lives with Miller and Senator Dick Durbin (D-Ill.) in a Capitol Hill group house, tweeted, “Seeking roommate. 20 terms in the House & unmatched legislative record preferred. Lover of cold cereal a must.”
EGYPT VOTING ON A NEW CONSTITUTION TODAY
CAIRO — Egyptian voters are at the polls today to have their say over a proposed new draft of the nation’s constitution that may usher in fresh elections by the summer.
The referendum marks the first time Egyptian voters have cast their ballots since a summer coup that ousted the country’s first freely elected president and is seen as a test of legitimacy for Egypt’s post-coup leaders.
Ahead of the vote, many expected violence in a country where political divisions run deep and the Muslim Brotherhood, which controlled the country last year, is now outlawed as a terrorist organization. True to expectations, a bomb blast went off near one of the polling stations as the voting began.
Some major changes are that the role of religion has been significantly reduced and that it “superficially provides more rights to people” and more clarity about what those rights are, he said. But the constitution does almost nothing to ensure those rights will be protected. “The problem has always been that the rights that do exist are not being enforced… and there’s nothing in this text that is going to change that,” he said.
“The most powerful argument of the Muslim Brotherhood was that this regime is illegal, unconstitutional and does not enjoy popular support,” Al Sayyid said. “A massive approval of the constitution would be seen as an important indicator of the legitimacy and popularity of this regime, and therefore the position of the Muslim Brothers — opposing the regime — would be seen as unfounded.”
“The constitution will almost certainly pass because those who are against it will boycott or do acts of violence rather than show up and vote ‘no.’”
IRAQI SUNNIS WONDER WHERE AMERICA WENT
Baghdad, Iraq (CNN) – On a bitterly cold December morning in 2011, Iraqis watched as the last U.S. troops crossed the border into Kuwait, ending America’s war inIraq. More than 100 vehicles were in that convoy, snaking its way across the desert and through the floodlit border crossing, leaving behind empty bases and memories of nearly 4,500 American lives that had been lost there.
Americans breathed a sigh of relief. Many Iraqis held their breath. War, they feared, was far from over for them, and time has borne out their fears. The death and violence never stopped — it’s just that the bombs and bullets faded from American minds and television screens once the pull-out was complete. Body bags stopped coming to hometowns from Iraq along with the terribly injured. But what really was accomplished by America fighting in Iraq with all the the casualties and money spent there? That’s what the Iraqis are asking today.
More than 8,000 people were killed in Iraq in 2013, according to the U.N. estimates — most of them innocent civilians caught up in the tempest of violence that grips their country.
The groundwork for today’s problems began almost as soon as that last American convoy left. Sunni lawmakers protested the rounding up of many of their aides and security guards, and the country’s vice president — top Sunni leader Tariq al-Hashimi — faced arrest and later fled the country.
The government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki was supposed to usher in a political era of inclusion and reconciliation. His critics say those first days after the American departure were a signal of opposite intentions that have constantly continued.
The Sunni minority that had ruled Iraq via the iron fist of Saddam Hussein was at the political and social mercy of al-Maliki’s Shia-dominated government. So were all Christians there. “Inclusiveness” never materialized. Under Hussein Christians could worship as they chose and churches were plenty. But since America left, Sunnis and Christians have been marginalized and resentment has festered in a divide-and-conquer political climate. As one local put it, “It’s like if you’re against us, you’re a terrorist and we’ll arrest you.”
This resentment, aided by the violent government shutdown of Sunni protest camps, provided an opening for the al Qaeda-linked Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) to move into the Sunni heartland of Anbar Province in force. Al Qaeda is a beast that feasts on discontent and in Anbar there is smorgasbord full of plenty enough to feed their hate. This includes a raging anger against America (“the Great Satan”) that has a history of starting wars they never finish – an America that leaves those who did everything to help them including fight and then walks out, leaving them to die at the hands of their enemies for the help they gave.
A previous version of ISIS, the Islamic State of Iraq, comprised the core insurgents the Americans fought in Iraq during the war. They have regrouped and strengthened across the border in Syria during that country’s bloody conflict — and extended their fight for a home for their brand of hard-line Islamism into Iraq.
The results have been deadly — not just in Ramadi and Fallujah of course, but across the country, where, just like the “bad old days” of 2005-2009, bombings and killings have become pretty much daily events.
In 2006 the Americans convinced — and paid — Sunni tribal and religious leaders to fight the hardliners with great success. But Sunni grievances never went away and some in Anbar see ISIS as comrades-in-arms against an al-Maliki government viewed as an oppressor of Sunnis. Other Sunnis see al-Maliki as the lesser of two evils — they don’t like how they’re treated, but like even less the ISIS brand of hard-line, brutal “governance”.
Al-Maliki has more than once termed the various fights and stand-offs in Ramadi and Fallujah as a fight against “al Qaeda”, but it’s not that simple. The Sunni sense of being under the heel of a sectarian government, of being cut out of the running of their country, failing to share in growing oil revenues, has nothing to do with al Qaeda and won’t evaporate once ISIS is forced from Ramadi and Fallujah.
The Americans aren’t coming back to help out with boots on the ground, but they offering drones, missiles, aircraft and other assistance. Yet this war will not be won militarily. It will take government leadership that once again reaches out to the Sunnis who ruled until America vanished. Al-Maliki promised “inclusiveness” but has shut them out entirely.
DID RABBI YITZHAK KADURI MEET JESUS CHRIST OR…….?
During Yom Kippur (the Day of Atonement) several months before his death in January, 2006, one of Israel’s most respected rabbis, Yitzhak Kaduri, gave a message in his synagogue. There was nothing particularly unusual about him speaking on Yom Kippur. What was unusual, however, was the contents of this particular message.
During the message, he announced that he had met the Messiah. He went on to describe to his listeners how they would recognize the Messiah and that he had revealed the Messiah’s identity in a note that was to remain sealed for one year after his death.
There was one other interesting thing that Rabbi Kaduri revealed during his Yom Kippur message, but we’ll get to that in a moment.
On January 28, 2006, Rabbi Kaduri passed away. One year later his sealed note was opened – and its contents sent shock waves through Judaism. Rabbi Kaduri’s sealed note contained in bold italics the abbreviation of the name of the Messiah:
Yarim Ha’Am Veyokhiakh Shedvaro Vetorato Omdim
In Hebrew, it reads: ירים העם ויוכיח שדברו ותורתו עומדים
The initials spell the Hebrew name “Yehoshua.”
In English, we know that name as “Jesus.”
With one of the most respected Rabbis in Israel revealing that he had met the Messiah, and that His name is Jesus, it’s no wonder he wanted to wait for a year after his death to reveal what he had written!
The note received only modest coverage in Israel, and some tried to explain it away as a hoax or a forgery. Even Rabbi Kaduri’s son, Rabbi David Kaduri, tried to deny its authenticity. However, Rabbi Kaduri’s own website, www.kaduri.net, recorded the sealed note and its scheduled opening on the one-year anniversary of the Rabbi’s death. When David Kaduri was shown this information, he explained that in his last year his father had talked and dreamed almost exclusively about the Messiah and about the Messiah’s soon coming. “My father met the Messiah in a vision,” he said, his grandfather spoke often during his last year about the Messiah, His soon coming, and redemption through the Messiah.
In an interview with Israel Today two of Kaduri’s followers admitted that the note was genuine, but that they were confused by its content. “We have no idea how the Rabbi got to this name of the Messiah,” one of them said.
Why would any Jewish rabbi, let alone one of such high standing as Rabbi Kaduri, claim that Jesus was the Messiah?
There was one more thing that Rabbi Kaduri revealed regarding the coming of the Messiah, and this one more additional detail is particularly relevant right now.
He revealed that the Messiah would not come until Ariel Sharon, former Prime Minister of Israel, had passed away. Ariel Sharon suffered a massive stroke on January 4, 2006, and was in a coma ever since. Why is that so important right now? Because Ariel Sharon died just three days ago.
So what do you think?
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THOUGHT FOR THE DAY
Don’t despise small blessings.
A lamp can do what the sun can never do – shine at night.
Tuesday, January 14, 2014