Vote third party this year - Vote Chuck Baldwin!

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OK, for some of my new pre-believing friends :) Allow me to indulge in some beautiful faith and the power of that faith in Jesus to heal.

Today was my birthday. Thank you :)

Almost 2 years ago I was "sold a bill of goods", and for all intents and purposes, left standing at the altar by a girl that had set off so many red flags, those closest to me had warned me not to ‘go there’. I didn't listen, and I paid a heart-breaking price.

At the time it happened, a rock group I liked, Newsboys, had released a new single called Something Beautiful. The lyrics which I’ll paste below ripped me apart and made me a limp mess every time I heard them on the radio or on my iPod as I had just bought their latest CD. You can see why:


NEWSBOYS - Something Beautiful

I wanna start it over
I wanna start again
I wanna new beginning
One without an end

I feel it inside
Calling out to me

It's a voice that whispers my name
It's a kiss without any shame
Something beautiful
Like a song that stirs in my head
Singing love will take us where
Something's beautiful

I've heard it in the silence
Seen it on a face
I've felt it in a long hour
Like a sweet embrace
I know this is true
It's calling out to me

It's a voice that whispers my name
It's a kiss without any shame
Something beautiful
Like a song that stirs in my head
Singing love will take us where
Something's beautiful

It's the child on her wedding day
It's the daddy that gives her away
Something beautiful
When we laugh so hard we cry
all the love between you and I
Something beautiful

It's a voice that whispers my name
It's a kiss without any shame
Something beautiful
Like a song that stirs in my head
Singing love will take us where
Something's beautiful

It's the child on her wedding day
It's the daddy that gives her away
Something beautiful
When we laugh so hard we cry
It's the love between you and I
Something beautiful

Something beautiful


Today while listening to iTunes on random play, it played. This time I had a different reaction. I turned it up. Loud. Really loud. AND THEN I PLAYED IT AGAIN. It's playing right now.

There’s a passage in the Bible that talks about God turning around what our enemies meant for evil, and making something beautiful of it. I can say 21 months later, God HAS made something beautiful out of something just plain bad. I get this weird compliment/insult fairly often. Someone will ask, Israel, how can someone so smart believe in a loving God? Today the Lord gave me a birthday present I never asked for, but so badly needed. And that is why, I believe in a real and loving God. He’s something beautiful.

Preview or buy the song on iTunes here.

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress’ throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! “This is welfare for the rich,” he said. “This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters.”

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we’re being told it’s unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences - predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics - are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are “designated as financial agents of the Government.” This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there’s this: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.“ Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this “sadly necessary.” Sad, yes. Necessary? Don’t make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind - another example of the big choice we’re supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they’re not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we’ll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul

Thank You, Dr. Ron Paul - by Chuck Baldwin

Yesterday, September 22, Congressman Ron Paul publicly gave me his endorsement for the office of President of the United States. In his blog at the Campaign for Liberty web site, he said, "I'm supporting Chuck Baldwin, the Constitution Party candidate." See the complete statement here.

Obviously, I could not be more delighted and honored to have Dr. Paul's endorsement. I called him last evening and thanked him personally. And now I want to thank him publicly.

I am fully aware that Dr. Paul was under considerable pressure from various groups that were actively soliciting his support. I can honestly say that I never lobbied Dr. Paul for his endorsement. He knew I would be thrilled to have it, but I have too much respect for Ron Paul to be so presumptuous as to expect him to endorse me. I completely understood his neutrality. He has strong ties to both the Libertarian and Constitution parties--not to mention the obvious fact that he is a ten-term Republican Congressman with much support from the Republican Party in his home district.

I was happy to support Ron Paul during the Republican primaries, because I believe in the same principles. I personally campaigned for him in several states and in this column. And I asked (or expected) nothing in return. In fact, I have stated this publicly, time and again: if Ron Paul had won the Republican nomination for President, I would not be running. I would still be supporting Ron Paul.

I am running for President because the Republican Party rejected Ron's Paul's message of constitutional government, fiscal responsibility, and non-interventionism. Therefore, someone had to pick up the mantle and carry this message into the general election. The Constitution Party asked me to be their standard-bearer in order to bring this message to the American people in November. So, here I am. And now, Ron Paul's endorsement is further substantiation that the message of constitutional government will not die in 2008. The American people still have a real choice instead of the big-government, globalist, interventionist, "big box" party candidates, John McCain and Barack Obama.

Ron Paul's message is my message; Ron Paul's fight is my fight.

I want to return America to constitutional government. "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." (Amendment X) I believe that, and will govern the Executive branch of the federal government accordingly.

My sworn oath to the Tenth Amendment means I would dismantle the Patriot Act and restore law enforcement to the states and local governments, where it rightly belongs. Yes, this includes the so-called "war on drugs" and the so-called "war on terror." No more warrantless searches and seizures. No more eavesdropping on Americans' phone calls, or collecting Americans' emails, or spying on American citizens without court order and oversight. No more stripping Americans of their constitutional rights in the name of "national security." In addition, I would use every power and authority vested to my office to preserve and protect the right of the people to keep and bear arms. And, yes, I will immediately restore Posse Comitatus. As President, I want to protect America from Washington, D.C., as much I want to protect it from foreign powers.

I will also take the words of the Declaration of Independence seriously, where it states, "That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States." This means the day I am sworn in as President of the United States, the New World Order comes crashing down! The NAFTA superhighway is dead. The North American Union is dead. I will work to eliminate NAFTA, CAFTA, GATT, and the WTO. The FTAA is DOA. I will not expend tax dollars for the support of the United Nations.

Furthermore, I will take my oath to the Constitution seriously, when it states that one of the express purposes of the federal government is to "repel Invasions." This means we will secure America's borders, because the illegal immigration crisis is more than mere immigration: it is an invasion, and I will stop it! Even if I have to send the U.S. Army to the borders, we will put a stop to this invasion of illegal aliens. I will also aggressively prosecute those employers who knowingly hire illegals. And did I mention that my first day in office is Border Patrol Agents Ramos and Compean's last day in prison? I will personally open the prison doors and restore to these men their freedom. I will also give them their jobs back (with pay), if they want them. And one more item on this point: my first day of office is also U.S. Attorney Johnny Sutton's last day on the job.

I also share Ron Paul's concerns for the way the two major parties have allowed the United States to become a meddlesome, interventionist, nation-building empire for the sake of satisfying the greedy machinations of international bankers and power-hungry politicians. I will not only bring our troops home from Iraq and Afghanistan, but also from most of the other 130 nations that currently house U.S. forces. I will end foreign aid. I will get the U.S. out of NATO. It is past time for the European states to defend themselves. It is time for us to stop sticking our nose in every other nation's business and start taking care of the United States. The Warfare State will kill us. Global empires are not sustainable. I repeat: global empires are not sustainable. If history teaches anything, it teaches that.

Furthermore, the Bush doctrine of pre-emptive war is over, when I become President. Because I will take my oath to the Constitution seriously, I would never send troops to invade and occupy a foreign country without a Declaration of War by Congress. In dealing with rogue terrorist organizations such as al Qaeda, I will seek letters of Marque and Reprisal from Congress, which would give me the authority to use whatever special and/or private forces are necessary to seek out and destroy those who desire our hurt.

And even though I am a born again Christian (as is Ron Paul), I would take my responsibility to protect the religious liberty of every American seriously. People have the right to worship God (or not worship God) according to the dictates of their own conscience. Whether one is Baptist, Catholic, Mormon, or agnostic, people have the right to practice their faith as they see fit. I am absolutely dedicated to preserving religious liberty. Religious tyranny is as evil as political or social tyranny. And, as I will be no man's slave, neither will I be any man's master.

I also share Ron Paul's commitment to the sanctity of life. When I become President, I will use the bully pulpit of the White House to press Congress to pass Dr. Paul's Sanctity of Life Act, which would overturn Roe v. Wade and end abortion-on-demand. On this topic, the GOP is especially hypocritical. The Republican Party controlled the entire federal government for six years and did nothing to save the life of a single unborn child. Saving unborn babies from the abortionists' scalpel is more than rhetoric with me, however.

Another area of agreement with Ron Paul is my philosophy of economics. Dr. Paul has been predicting the current financial meltdown in this country for years. And when all is done, the current bailout being proposed will do more harm than good. The problem is, America's leaders have rejected sound money policies for years, and the chickens are coming home to roost.

As President, I would seek to overturn the 16th Amendment, eliminate the Internal Revenue Service, and disband the Federal Reserve. I would lead the charge to return America to sound money principles. I would seek to reduce federal spending to constitutional levels by eliminating those same federal departments that Newt Gingrich promised to eliminate in his Contract with America back in 1994 (and then failed to do). I would seek to eliminate the Departments of Education, Commerce, Energy, etc. I would demand that Congress pass a balanced budget and that we stop deficit spending.

Neither John McCain nor Barack Obama will do any of the above. If he were President, Dr. Paul would do it, however, and so would I.

Needless to say, I am both humbled and honored that Ron Paul would place enough faith in me that he would endorse me for President. I can think of no higher compliment to my candidacy. I here and now publicly thank him for this vote of confidence. I know my Vice Presidential running mate, Darrell Castle (a former Marine Corps officer and Vietnam veteran), joins me in inviting all of Dr. Paul's supporters to help us take the message of constitutional government into the general election on November 4. Thank you.

*If you appreciate this column and want to help me distribute these editorial opinions to an ever-growing audience, donations may now be made by credit card, check, or Money Order. Use this link:

http://www.chuckbaldwinlive.com/donate.php

*Disclaimer: I am currently a candidate for President of the United States on the Constitution Party ticket. My official campaign web site is located at: http://www.baldwin08.com/

Today's Christians: no hope in God's way
By Chuck Baldwin

I ask the indulgence of my non-churched readers, as this column is specifically designed to challenge the hearts and minds of professing believers.

The Old Testament prophet Jeremiah faced a generation that is very similar to the one we face today, I am afraid. Political and corporate leaders had given themselves over to corruption and duplicity. The fundamental underpinnings that founded and supported the nation were being dismantled. And the spiritual leaders seemed to be powerless to do anything about it.

Accordingly, Jehovah God told Jeremiah to give this message to the people of Israel:

"At what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to pluck up, and to pull down, and to destroy it;
"If that nation, against whom I have pronounced, turn from their evil, I will repent of the evil that I thought to do unto them.
"And at what instant I shall speak concerning a nation, and concerning a kingdom, to build and to plant it;
"If it do evil in my sight, that it obey not my voice, then I will repent of the good, wherewith I said I would benefit them.
"Now therefore go to, speak to the men of Judah, and to the inhabitants of Jerusalem, saying, Thus saith the LORD; Behold, I frame evil against you, and devise a device against you: return ye now every one from his evil way, and make your ways and your doings good.
"And they said, There is no hope: but we will walk after our own devices, and we will every one do the imagination of his evil heart." (Jeremiah 18:7-12 KJV)

When these Hebrews said, "There is no hope," they were not saying, "It's all over. We are all doomed. It is helpless." No, they were not saying that at all. What they were saying was, "Doing it God's way offers no hope. We will do it our way. We will rely upon our own devices, wisdom, and strength. We can get ourselves out of this mess." That is the spirit these people possessed.

Ladies and Gentlemen, I submit that this is exactly the same spirit that many professing Christians display today.

Most everyone, including Christian people, realize that our country is in a mess. They readily agree that a divine healing is needed. They even use the great stories and examples of the Bible to teach our boys and girls how to obey and trust God. They extol the examples of Daniel, the three Hebrew children, Simon Peter and the Apostles, etc. They use these stories to illustrate the importance of putting obedience to God and God's principles above the machinations and demands of men.

When it comes to voting for and supporting candidates who have proven themselves to be unfaithful to the fundamental principles of liberty and good government, however, these same Christians suddenly become enamored with "the lesser of two evils," and pragmatism. Doing right gives way to being "practical," and standing for principle gives way to "not throwing my vote away."

Had Daniel been "practical," he would have stopped praying for a few weeks and stayed out of the lions' den. Had the three Hebrew children been "pragmatic," they would have given a symbolic bow to the statue of Nebuchadnezzar. And I can just hear Christians living in the First Century talking about how they would vote for Nero over Caligula, as he would be "the lesser of two evils."

And from our own history, had America's Founding Fathers heeded the advice of the "experts" and pundits, they would never have signed the Declaration of Independence and fought a war for independence. Absolutely no one gave those brave patriots any chance — any chance — of victory.

Yet, both secular and sacred history are replete with the examples of brave men and women who were willing to defy the conventional wisdom and understanding of their times to stand boldly and courageously for the principles of truth and freedom. In fact, people who dared to defy the accepted wisdom of their age almost always accomplished the truly great exploits of history. Christians, among all people, should know this best.

How has it happened, then, that Christians cannot find the courage and resolve to support principle above political partisanship? How is it that we have come to embrace "the lesser of two evils" as a legitimate philosophy of voting? How is it that our spiritual leaders seem to be more concerned about being politically correct than they are about being Biblically correct?

I believe that God is waiting for His people in America to do what He told Jeremiah's generation to do: live and act according to His principles and trust Him with the result. Instead, many of us seem to be doing exactly what Jeremiah's generation did: we want to be pragmatic and wise in our own eyes and do it our way.

Think what God might do in our land today if every Christian, every God-fearing man and woman in America, would simply vote their principles every time they walked into a voting booth, even if the candidate had "no chance" of winning and whether he or she was told they would be "wasting" their vote or not. I wonder what God might do? (Besides, when we vote for evil, what exactly have we "won," even if they are victorious?)

I am reminded of one of my all-time favorite quotes spoken by John Quincy Adams. He said, "Duty is ours; results are God's."

When people — especially Christian people — start doing their duty and standing for truth and principle, whether it is considered politically incorrect, or unpopular, or "naïve," or anything else; then, and only then, will God give us the results that will bring healing and restoration of our land.

So, how many of us will determine to do our duty? Or, how many of us will say, "There is no hope in doing it God's way; I will rely upon men's devices and do it their way"? The way we answer that question will largely determine America's future — for good or for bad.

© Chuck Baldwin

So lately I have been playing with my food. A lot. Drying things, preserving them, inventing marinades that will prolong shelf life, all sorts of things. As an ex-chef, it's ironic that I am learning more about food now that ever before. God gave me this weird gift; to be able to mix and pre-taste flavors in my head without actually doing it. So, when I think of 3 flavors, I can taste in my mouth how it will taste. It's weird, but very useful.

Lately I have been experimenting with a pressure cooker. Never used one before. It's a fairly bland way to cook, so I am working on making amazing tasting food from one. They use very little energy, and it's a very clean way to cook. Winter is fast approaching, not thanks to Global Warming. Pfff... And winter means thick heavy hot meals. My soups, again, made from scratch, are killer.

Yes, I am different to most guys :) After 15 years in high technology, I am discovering the finer things in life. I am on a mission to radically simplify my life. I still have my travel bug, and there's so many places I want to go, but funding such travel becomes a problem. Simplifying my life saves money, and enables me to travel more. It also enables me to actually SEE the world. If that makes sense? I mean, when there's so much on your radar, it's hard to see the really important things in life. That's why I am getting more and more involved in politics. Because there's this group of people that want to control our lives, and if let them, they will. And my younger friends could not care less about politics, and think I need to just get on about Kingdom work. But that's thing thing. I am. Politics is really important, because it touches everybody.

MYTH 1: Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.
FACT: Accurate satellite, balloon and mountain top observations made over the last three decades have not shown any significant change in the long term rate of increase in global temperatures. Average ground station readings do show a mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8C over the last 100 years, which is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas ("heat islands"), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas ("land use effects").
There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.


MYTH 2: The "hockey stick" graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.
FACT: Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17th Century the "average global temperature" has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.
The "hockey stick", a poster boy of both the UN's IPCC and Canada's Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3: Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.
FACT: Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO2 content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO2 is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO2 levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth's oceans expel more CO2 as a result.

MYTH 4: CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.
FACT: Greenhouse gases form about 3 % of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO2, CH4, Ozone and N2O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO2 constitutes about 0.037% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as "greenhouse agents" than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 60% of the "Greenhouse effect".
Those attributing climate change to CO2 rarely mention this important fact.

MYTH 5: Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.
FACT: The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption - that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do not "prove" anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6: The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.
FACT: In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1) “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2) “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”
To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.

MYTH 7: CO2 is a pollutant.
FACT: This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is. CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.

MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.
FACT: There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale. Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.

MYTH 9: Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.
FACT: Glaciers have been receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier's health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.

MYTH 10: The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.
FACT: The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to unrelated cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.
Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.


More FACTS and MYTHS? See what Professor deFreitas has to say.

Source.