Exposing Media Matters’ Take-down Scheme

Is there anyone out there who still thinks the rage against Rush earlier this month was a spontaneous grass-roots uprising? Jeffery Lord’s piece at the American Spectator, “The Plot to Get Rush,” efficiently dispels that naive assumption.
 
Truth is, the whole episode was orchestrated by Angelo Carusone and his minions at Media Matters for America.
 
In a scheme that Hitler’s propaganda minister Joseph Goebbels would have admired, Carusone (Media Matters’ Director of Online Strategy) deployed his take-down-conservative-voices strategy the second the word “slut” crossed Limbaugh’s lips.
 
ATTACK – ATTACK – ATTACK
 
It was inevitable. As Rush frequently reminds his listeners, the Left can’t win honestly in the marketplace of ideas, so they have to resort to fear and intimidation. History is a tragic witness to the effectiveness of this deplorable tactic. As Lord explains, the same destructive force was behind such horrors as;
 
• France’s Reign of Terror;
• the KKK;
• Communism’s murderous transformation of Russia;
• the Nazi Holocaust; and,
• Mao’s “Cultural Revolution”

 

Fear. Intimidation. Bullying. Racism. Hatred of the “other.” Without these tactics, the left is naked in the war of ideas.

 
In his article, Lord details the various components of Carusone’s strategy to silence conservative voices:
 
1) Make the sponsors nervous enough to jump ship. (One targeted Rush Show advertiser referred to this despicable ploy as “internal American terrorism.”)
2) Advance propaganda through willing accomplices in the mainstream media.
3) Keep the pressure on. Maintain highly visible lists of targeted sponsors – both those who surrender and those still holding out. Misrepresent as necessary to achieve desired effect.
4) Weaponize social media. Enlist the drone army.
 

I found the most nefarious aspect of this plot to be the White House connection. The war on Rush – and other conservatives – has been a deliberate campaign to silence the opposition, fully coordinated with the Obama Administration:

A group with the ability to shape news coverage is of incalculable value to the politicians it supports, so it’s no surprise that Media Matters has been in regular contact with political operatives in the Obama administration. According to visitor logs, on June 16, 2010, (David) Brock (current head of MM) and then-Media Matters president Eric Burns traveled to the White House for a meeting with Valerie Jarrett, arguably the president’s closest adviser.
~~~~~~~~
Anita Dunn, now departed from the Obama White House, returns for meetings with the Obama White House staff and Media Matters, and is a “regular presence” at the offices of Media Matters. And — shocker — it is Anita Dunn who now represents Sandra Fluke. Who is being used by Commissar Carusone and his Media Matters comrades as the reason to launch yet another attack on free speech. Not theirs, of course. Heaven forbid. Just those who are, shall we say, considered to be “enemies of the people” and all of that.

[Additional information and details reported in the Daily Caller’s ongoing exposé.]

 
Scary stuff.
The radical Left counts on the fact that most Americans are too busy or disinclined to pay any but the most peripheral attention to the news on a regular basis. So if they just repeat themselves loud enough and long enough the public will eventually buy their dishonest narrative.
 
It used to work.
 
But fortunately, in today’s internet age, the alternative media is wise to their tricks. The StopRush campaign has fizzled and other conservative voices are spreading the message:
 

 
We are fighting back.
Yes Media Matters [#mmfa] ~
We’re wise to your lies – and we’re not going away!
~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
 
Defend Small Business ~ website run by the Small Business Authority; fighting back against Media Matters’ anti-Limbaugh campaign.
“Inside Media Matters for America @ the Daily Caller ~ regularly up-dated exposure of the progressive group’s war on Truth.
Rush’s ratings up 10-60% (depending on the station) since Fluke controversy~ Audio
 

Posted in Good vs.Evil, MSM Malpractice, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Here come those “skyrocketing” energy prices

Don’t know about your community, but here in southeast Michigan the average price of gas just jumped 10-15¢ a gallon since yesterday – to a new all-time high of $4.15.
 

 
Well buckle up baby because electricity prices about getting ready to take off too. The Obama administration has essentially back-doored cap and trade by issuing a new EPA regulation on CO2 emissions from power plants. The net effect will be to ban any new coal-fueled power facilities. As Heritage reports on their Foundry blog;

This stands in stark contrast with the President’s supposed “all of the above energy approach” and sends a strong signal that coal is not part of the President’s energy vision for America. In combination with other EPA regulations that contribute to the premature shutdown of existing coal plants, the EPA’s actions represent one of the greatest threats to the electric sector and America’s energy supply.

 
And don’t think we can make up the difference with natural gas. As further evidence that “all of the above” is a fabrication, Hot Air offers the following;

The response might be, “Well, okay, Obama’s bankrupting the coal industry, but we can still use natural gas.” That’s only true if we can get the natural gas. The EPA has also begun blocking the use of hydraulic fracturing, better known as fracking, which allows for massive improvement in extraction and access to vast amounts of natural gas. Note well that Obama included natural gas among those sources to which his policies would be hostile, and so far he’s proving it.

 

Exactly. Can’t say he didn’t warn us. We all remember then-candidate Obama’s famous proclamation in January ’08 – altogether now:
“Under my plan of a cap and trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket.”
 
For once the prevaricator-in-chief was telling the truth.
 

Posted in Fruits of Their Labors, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

God’s Word Comes to the Kimyal People

It’s been a rough week in our little corner of the world… so I was glad to find some welcome inspiration in this wonderful story ~

In May of 2010 the Kimyal people (of West Papua, Indonesia ) had a massive celebration in honor of the reception of their first native language New Testament. The arrival of this day would not have been possible if it weren’t for the church acting in unison as the singular body of Christ. From the missionaries who went, to the supporters who donated their finances and who prayed, to the Kimyal themselves who worked tirelessly to make the translation happen.

 

 
If only we Christians in the west were this enthusiastic
and grateful for the Word of God – wow!
 

Video from World Team.

 

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The Long and Winding River to the Truth

Is Barack Obama eligible to hold the office of President of the United States?

 
It’s such a simple question.
Millions of us want a definite answer.
The entire nation deserves to know.
So why, in what is supposed to be a free and open society, is the truth so elusive?
 
One thing is certain; this issue is not going away until it’s resolved. Like a river that flows relentlessly to the sea despite any and all obstacles, eventually we’ll arrive at the ultimate truth.
 
Here are the latest developments in the pursuit of that goal:
 

Injustice in the Courts

Liberty Legal Foundation has been supporting class actions in Georgia and Tennessee, as well as at the federal level, to force the Democratic Party to verify the constitutional eligibility of their presidential candidate. At the onset, the Georgia case looked promising.
 
The primary allegation was that Barack Obama doesn’t qualify as a natural-born citizen because his father wasn’t a U.S. citizen.
Initially Judge Michael Malihi, of Georgia’s Office of State Administrative Hearings, relied on statutory law in his prosecution of the case. Acknowledging the validity of the case, he refused the defendant’s motion to dismiss. However, despite the fact that Obama and his defense team failed to respectfully respond to the hearing and appear in court, Malihi inexplicably ruled in their favor, citing precedent in a similar case in Indiana.
 
Cindy Simpson at American Thinker comments on the implications of this unconscionable decision:

… the fact that Judge Malihi took note of and relied upon on the established rule of statutory construction in his earlier order, but then made assertions contrary to that principle in his final decision, should not go unnoticed by those versed in constitutional law.
 
Opponents of the controversial birthright citizenship practice should also take note, since Judge Malihi’s opinion further entrenches the notion that every baby born on U.S. soil, regardless of the citizenship or domicile of its parents (presumably even an “anchor baby” or “birth tourist” baby) is a “natural born” citizen. So would have been Anwar al-Awlaki.

 

Despite this set-back, the pursuit of justice continues. See Liberty Legal Foundation’s website for additional information on this and other litigation. Also: Obama State Ballot Challenge 2012.
 

The Marxists & the Mailman

Now here’s an interesting tale… from the (Bill) Ayers family mailman, some 20+ years ago:
 

 

“One day, Mary came to the door when I came up to the house with the mail,” he remembers. “After a greeting, she started enthusiastically talking to me about this young black student they were helping out, and she referred to him as a foreign student.”
 
Hulton assumed that by “helping” the student, Mary Ayers meant she and her husband were financially supporting the black foreign-exchange student with his education.
 
He says that Mary Ayers told him the student’s name, but that it was a “strange name” that he could not remember, even though at the time it sounded African to him.

 
Remember though, Bill Ayers was just a “guy who lives in my neighborhood.” Right.
 
Full story/interview with postal worker Alan Hulton: HERE
 
Related: What the Mailman Knows about Ayers and Obama

 

The Sheriff’s Search for Answers

Last September Sheriff Joe Arpaio of Maricopa County, Arizona appointed a “cold case posse” to determine whether President Barack Obama was actually born in the United States. From the Daily Caller on Sept. 20, 1011:

Members of the Surprise, Arizona Tea Party wrote to Arpaio in late August to request that he use his authority “as the Sheriff for the third largest Sheriffs Office in the nation” to “investigate Barack Obama II’s birth certificate to determine if the document released by the White House on April 27, 2011, is a forgery.”

 
On March 1st Sheriff Arpaio held a press conference to release preliminary findings from the ongoing investigation.
 

 
The Cold Case Posse’s progress thus far ~
 
• The long form birth certificate released last year definitely appears to be a computer-generated forgery;
 
• In a (3-21-12) letter to Director Lawrence Romo, Arpaio asked Selective Service to produce original documentation of Obama’s Selective Service registration within 30 days; and,
 
• After months of searching, investigators found Immigration and Naturalization Service travel records for foreign flights into Hawaii in 1961, only to discover that records for the week of Obama’s birth were missing.
 

BirtherReport.com is tracking this whole issue closely. The site includes a list of all the president’s records that haven’t been made public yet:

Passport records, Obama kindergarten records, Punahou School records, Occidental College records, Columbia University records, Columbia thesis, Harvard Law School records, Harvard Law Review articles, University of Chicago scholarly articles, Illinois State Bar Association records, Illinois State Senate records/schedules(said to be lost), Medical records, Obama/Dunham marriage license, Obama/Dunham divorce documents, Soetoro/Dunham marriage license, Adoption records and of course the (real) long-form Certificate of Live Birth.

 

Muzzling the Media

Perhaps the most disturbing element of this whole story is the mainstream media blackout. Don’t you wonder why the network news is totally ignoring the findings of Sheriff Arpaio? If they mention him at all it’s only in an effort to discredit him. And yet, the Cold Case Posse aren’t a bunch of rubes;

The Arpaio team is an impressive group of investigators with many years of experience. It includes lawyers and respected law enforcement personnel. They discovered that the document is likely fraudulent, and a massive deception has been perpetrated on the American people.

[Source: Media ignores Obama birth certificate fraud at the St. Tammany News, LA]

 
Consider though that this curious lack of reporting becomes entirely plausible if allegations by Cold Case Posse lead investigator Mike Zullo are true: Media threatened with federal investigations if Obama birth certificate story reported.
 
I believe that CNN anchor Lou Dobbs was an early victim of this laser-like intimidation by the radical Left. Regularly a magnet for controversy, when Dobbs suggested last summer that Obama produce his long-form birth certificate to put to rest the doubts of millions of Americans, the Left and their msm minions went into full Alinsky mode: Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it, and polarize it.
Although the birth certificate wasn’t the only issue that outraged Dobb’s detractors – and precipitated angry demands that CNN fire him – he did resign from the cable network in November.
 
Posse investigator Zullo has reported that;

“During our investigation, we actually were told [that media] had been threatened with FTC investigations. Commentators [had been] threatened with their jobs.”

 
Pretty chilling. I think most conservative voices, who would otherwise speak out, are self-censoring on the eligibility controversy simply for the purposes of career preservation.
 
Related:
Media ignores Obama birth certificate fraud.
Forgerygate: Ignoring Arpaio’s report is a scandal in itself.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

 
The Progressive Left -aka- the Liberal Fascists, can’t suppress the facts forever. Thanks mostly to the ungovernable nature of the internet – and a few courageous individuals willing to speak out despite the ridicule – eventually we will learn for certain whether or not Barack Obama is actually eligible to hold the office of president. It’s inevitable. You can dam a river, but you can’t make the water disappear; it will break free.
 
What remains to be seen however, is whether or not the truth will come out in time to reverse course on the path to self-destruction that America is now headed down.

 

Posted in Mendacity, MSM Malpractice, Unvarnished | 1 Comment

Saturday Shorts – 3-24-12

Random links of interest, concern or curiosity from the past week or so, that deserve at least a SHORT mention:

 
Worse Than a Powder KegOur troops should be out of Afghanistan. Yesterday. ~ At the risk of repeating myself, this article by Andrew C. McCarthy is excellent and well worth a read.
 
Texas Atheist ‘Flabbergasted’ by Outpouring of Christian Charity ~ Amazing story – helping the blind to “see.”
 
The Left’s Long-Time War on Women ~ They feign outrage over Rush, but Lefties are old-hands at trashing women. Remember how they treated Slick Willie’s accusers?
 
The Power of Truth – A San Francisco Showing of “The Undefeated” ~ A very creative way to convince the Left of what’s Right.
 
Open Doors’ Congressional Scorecard ~ Is your representative making international religious freedom a priority? Find out with this handy guide – includes all Senate and House members, listed by state.
 


It seems that Obama cares only about those who look like him ~ But one has to presume that (a) white boy in Kansas City did not look enough like Barack Obama for the President to weigh in on that atrocity.
 

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Founding Wisdom [Flouted by the Foolish]

“Of those men who have overturned the liberties of republics, the greatest number have begun their career by paying an obsequious court to the people, commencing demagogues and ending tyrants.”
 
~ Alexander Hamilton, Federalist No. 1 ~
 

Posted in Timeless Principles, Unvarnished | Leave a comment

Debbie’s Truth Decay

Maybe it’s a sign that Democrats are really getting nervous about the November election because DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman-Schultz is playing faster and looser than ever with the facts these days. Maybe that “D” stands for “Deceitful” – or maybe she just can’t help herself.
 
Just this week, Front Page Mag reported that the day after they published a story about how Wasserman-Schultz was to be the featured speaker at an April 21st radical islamist (EMERGE USA – a charming group with a nefarious agenda of placing Islamists into positions of American power and influence.) fundraiser;
 
…Her office claimed that she had never agreed to do the event in the first place, but a newly released statement from the Islamist group’s leader proves that that was not true.
Hmmm… here’s the real scoop: DNC Debbie’s Islamist Lie.
 
Last month DWS was deceptively taking Romney’s comment about liking “to fire people” totally out of context to advance the Leftists’ narrative about heartless Republicans.
 
Last year she was telling whoppers about Paul Ryan’s plan to reform Medicare, falsely claiming;

that seniors with preexisting medical conditions would be denied Medicare coverage under the GOP’s plan. And that future beneficiaries — those who are now younger than 55 — would be left on their own to buy insurance in the private market.

 

I saved the best for last. Here’s old Deb caught red-handed – lying on tape just yesterday:
 

 
I kind of feel sorry for her. I think she’s starting to believe her own lies.
 

Every violation of truth is not only a sort of suicide in the liar, but is a stab at the health of human society.
~ Ralph Waldo Emerson ~

 

Posted in Mendacity | Leave a comment

Gaga or God?

“What do you most deeply believe today… the Word of God, or the words of Gaga? They cannot both be true…”
 

Pastor Colin Smith of Unlocking the Bible and the Orchard ~ Evangelical Free Church (IL) does a wonderful job of correcting Lady Gaga’s lyrics to “Born this way” ~
 

 

You have to make a choice and that choice will determine the direction of your life. If nothing in you is broken, there’s nothing to redeem. As long as you believe that, you will never embrace Christ, and you will die in your sins.
 
But if you see that you’re a sinner by nature and by practice, then there is a Redeemer to whom you can come—Jesus Christ the Righteous One. He is ready to receive you and walk with you. He has power by His Holy Spirit to help you and change you. There’s hope for you in Him today.

 

Posted in Comfort & Joy, Cultural Erosion, Unvarnished | 1 Comment

Higher Mis-Education – and alternatives

Getting ready to send junior off to college in the fall? Or maybe still researching all the options? Before you or your kid commit to several years – and lots of $$ – you should read Dennis Prager’s recent re-cap of the post-modern pabulum that most colleges are preaching today;

…most American parents and/or their child are going into debt in order to support an institution that for four years, during the most impressionable years of a person’s life, instills values that are the opposite of those of their parents’.

 
For example:
 
• The United States is no better than any other country, and in many areas worse than many. On the world stage, America is an imperialist country, and domestically it mistreats its minorities and neglects its poor, while discriminating against non-whites.
 
• God is at best a non-issue, and at worst, a foolish and dangerous belief.
 
• Big government is the only humane way to govern a country.
 
• Human beings are animals. They differ from “other animals” primarily in having better brains.
 
• There is no objective meaning to a text. Every text only means what the reader perceives it to mean.
😯
 
[That last one kind of makes college a moot point doesn’t it?!]
 
This is what passes for “higher learning” at most universities across the country these days. It’s a trend that started 100 years ago ~

As Woodrow Wilson, progressive president of Princeton University before becoming president of the United States, said in a speech in 1914, “I have often said that the use of a university is to make young gentlemen as unlike their fathers as possible.”

 
So (with the exception of a career in the hard sciences) if you’re hoping for a classical education in the western tradition, you might want to avoid most major universities. That really narrows your choices down. But thankfully, there are still a few good options.
 
Young America’s Foundation, has a list of the country’s top 10 conservative colleges – updated annually – HERE. Most of these have a Christian foundation (no surprise). Enrollment ranges from a few hundred students to Liberty University’s(VA) 60,000 (includes distance learning). All sound like great alternatives to most government-funded schools which peddle revisionist history and empty philosophies.
 
Another post-high school alternative for many young people is trade schools.
 
Last month Rick Santorum was castigated by the media and political elite for having the audacity to suggest that a typical 4-year university “education” might not be the best choice for everyone;

Not all folks are gifted in the same way. Some people have incredible gifts with their hands. Some people have incredible gifts and use and want to work out there making things. President Obama once said he wants everybody in America to go to college. What a snob. There are good decent men and women who go out and work hard every day and put their skills to the test that aren’t taught by some liberal college professor trying to indoctrinate them. Oh, I understand why he wants you to go to college. He wants to remake you in his image. I want to create jobs so people can remake their children into their image, not his.

 
Well, whaddya know.. a recent article at CNN Money seems to support Santorum’s position that not everyone is best-served by a four-year liberal arts degree: Nine months in trade school. Job guaranteed.
 
For a lot less time (1-2 years) and financial investment, these training programs offer focused instruction in high-tech machining and manufacturing. Demand for skilled workers in these areas is growing, and in some cases the pay isn’t too shabby: $100K manufacturing jobs.
 
There’s also an old-fashioned, yet now radical, option available to today’s high school graduates: get a job. Any job. Not only will a year or two of full-time work afford real-world experience and enable young people to mature, they’ll gain a better sense of what they want to be when they grow up.
[Think I’ll start a new campaign: “Don’t be a snob – get a job!”]
~~~~~~~~~~~~
According to an analysis by the American Institutes for Research (AIR), more than 40 percent of each year’s new crop college freshmen will not graduate within six years – costing billions of dollars in lost earnings for the students and millions of dollars in lost tax revenue.
 
That’s an awful lot of wasted time, effort and dollars.
 
So before you proudly ship the kids off to the nearest state college, find out which values/philosophies will be foisted on them when they get there. And give some consideration to all the other options – or you just might be paying for your kid’s indoctrination into a bankrupt worldview.
~~~~~~~~~~~~
Related:
Rick Santorum, Higher Education, and the Jacksonian Politics of Liberty and Respect
 

Posted in Comfort & Joy, Cultural Erosion, Timeless Principles | 2 Comments

“One Nation Under Socialism”

The latest painting by John McNaughton is creating quite a stir ~
 

 

Naturally the Left – and the pompous art critics who prefer crucifixes in urine – are not amused. It’s fine to mock Christ, but not “The One.”
Story from CBS DC:

Whether stale or arresting, the painting turned McNaughton’s Facebook page into a battleground, where comments are flying from both political adversaries.
 
Although President Obama is the focal point of the painting and he is the one holding the Constitution, McNaughton insists that he does not “presume to suggest that he was the lone culprit responsible.”
 
But despite the bickering, McNaughton hopes that he will get the “public talking about what the painting represents. Is Obama pushing a Socialist agenda on the American people?”
 
He hopes his art will get people to answer such questions. “People need to start talking, and the conversation is about to get heated…
 
This is my pledge. I pledge allegiance to the United States of America and not to an ideology that could never stand: one nation — under socialism — divisive with no liberty or justice for anyone.”

 

Posted in Comfort & Joy, Unvarnished | 1 Comment

“If I were the Devil”

If you’ve been around a couple decades you probably remember the famous radio voice of Paul Harvey. I think there were several different versions of this broadcast but the original one probably dates back to the 60’s.
What was prescient then has become today’s reality…
 

 
“In other words, if I were the Devil, I’d just keep doing what he’s doing.” 😈
 
It’s worked out quite well hasn’t it?
 
“Good day.”
 

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Shining His Light in Dark Places

Let your light so shine before men, that they may see your good works and glorify your Father in heaven. ~ Matt 5:16 ~

~~~~~~~~~~~

Even in Hollywood, that wasteland of warped worldviews, the Holy Spirit finds a way to shine the light of God’s truth. All is not lost: Hollywood has Christians, and they’re not giving up on the film industry.
 
This article by Angela Lu at WorldMag.com reports on the small but determined group of Christians defending their faith in the belly of the beast.

Covell, a documentary producer, described the movie industry’s makeup: “Only 2 percent of people go to church, many have never read a Bible, and are not at all aware of what faith in Christ is. … [Hollywood] does not relate to the rest of America. It has its own culture, gods, language; we are ministering to a tribe of people who are not the same.”

 
Considering most of the crap the “tribe” churns out, “not the same” is putting it mildly.

And yet there are a few trying to counter the cultural erosion rather than give up on the film industry altogether. Like the Hollywood Prayer Network – which anyone can join. (Just think what a positive influence we could have if every Christian in America did join!) Last month;

As actors and filmmakers waltzed down the red carpet for the Academy Awards show on Feb. 26, few knew that Christina Lee Storm and 30 others from the Hollywood Prayer Network had walked around the Kodak theater three evenings before to pray over the event.
 
Karen Covell, the Network’s founder, said the annual walk, now a decade old, helps Christians look at the show differently: Instead of fixating on a small gold idol, they grasp the brokenness in the lives of seemingly successful actors and directors.

 

Several other groups have been formed to help Hollywood Christians stay connected and support one another ~
 
Shun Lee, an actor, writer, and producer from Omaha, founded “Greenhouse” which meets once a month;

… to cultivate an attitude of collaboration and service between creative professionals. He also leads “Hollywood Connect,” which helps newcomers to Hollywood get adjusted and plugged in.
 
Other Hollywood Christian groups include “Actors Co-op,” an award-winning theater company completely made up of Christian actors; “Act One,” which trains Christian screenwriters and studio executives for working in mainstream media; and “Premise,” a Christian fellowship for professionals in film and television.

 
Another effort to help transform Tinseltown, The 168 Hour Film Project, was founded several years ago encourage filmmakers to honestly portray God-inspired tales. Each year the Project sponsors a competition where producers have 168 hours (1 week) to film and edit an 11-minute movie based on a theme and a Bible verse. All films are created during production week and premiere at the 168 Film Festival.

~~~~~~~~~~~

“Stories to tell” is a companion piece to Lu’s story by John R. Erickson, who emphasizes the importance of maintaining a Christian presence in Hollywood ~

Christians often regard entertainment as a second-rate profession, inferior to preaching or missionary work, but storytelling satisfies a deep human need, and we should feel comfortable in the story business. The Old Testament is a collection of stories, and Jesus used parables to reach people of all ages and levels of sophistication.
 
In the history of our church, storytelling came first. Theology, doctrine, and scholarship came later. Ours is an age of electronic parables. Every movie and TV show presents a worldview, a set of beliefs that tell us who we are, where we came from, and how we’re supposed to behave in this life.
 
If Christians don’t present our own version of reality—with a high level of professionalism, and in the media of the times—who will do it?

~~~~~~~~~~~

The Hollywood Christians are a small group. But so were Jesus’ early followers 2000 years ago. And yet Christianity transformed the Roman Empire – and formed the basis for the whole of western civilization. With God all things are possible.
 

Posted in Comfort & Joy, Fruits of Their Labors | Leave a comment