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Have you remembered to pay heed to Barack Obama worship services at his inauguration this Tuesday? If you are a Verizon customer you just might be getting an urgent reminder of this sacred duty in the form of a robocall as related by Brian Maloney of the Radio Equalizer: Yesterday, I was all set to write a smug, self-congratulatory post regarding my tremendous wisdom in finally dumping Comcast a few weeks ago for the complete Verizon Fios package, including cable. With Comcrap now establishing an all-Obama channel, isn’t it finally time to make the switch? Sadly, however, Verizon did something...

Although the number of uninsured and the cost of coverage in the United States have ballooned under his watch, President George W. Bush leaves office with a health care legacy in bricks and mortar: He has doubled U.S. financing for community health centers, enabling the creation or expansion of 1,297 clinics in medically underserved areas. For those in poor urban neighborhoods and isolated rural areas, including Indian reservations, the clinics are often the only dependable providers of basic services like prenatal care, childhood immunizations, asthma treatments, cancer screenings and tests for sexually transmitted diseases. As a crucial component of the...

WASHINGTON, Dec. 24, 2008 – Afghanistan’s government is preparing a pilot program in community policing that’s expected to debut in the near future, a senior Defense Department official said here today. Afghan authorities are starting to take a look at a community engagement type of program on a small scale, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters. The program is designed to facilitate information sharing and build trust between Afghan citizens and their local, provincial and central governments, Whitman said. “This is an Afghan initiative that is supported by the military forces that are there [and] by the U.S. government,” Whitman...

I am so tired of hearing that conservatism is dead. Many of us want to get organized to influence the 2010 elections and beyond. We need to start now. I had never attended a Republican party meeting before, but went to the local meeting after the elections. I was disappointed in the agenda and the direction of the party. The turn out (about 30) was low, but evidently more than they usually had. We volunteered to help with the data analysis of the elections and generated some interesting abnomalities. I sent in the results that we had and asked for...

KABUL, Afghanistan, Dec. 3, 2008 – Afghan and coalition forces celebrated with local villagers Dec. 1 at a ribbon-cutting for a new low-water bridge near Kandahar city. The Commando Bridge will provide easier access to areas around the city, including a bazaar, a school under construction and a nearby highway. A rainstorm several months ago flooded the creek that the new bridge spans, making travel through the area difficult, and Afghan army officials approached coalition forces about the need for a bridge. The project was funded through the Commanders’ Emergency Response Program, which allows leaders to fund projects that meet...

Iraqi national policemen from the 2nd Battalion, 7th Brigade, 2nd NP Division, Civil Affairs Team, gather with Iraqi children from an elementary school in the Doura community of southern Baghdad Nov. 20. The NPs are part of a freshly formed CA Team created by Soldiers from Company D, 404th Civil Affairs Battalion, attached to the 1st Special Troops Battalion, 1st Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, Multi-National Division – Baghdad. U.S. Army photo. FORWARD OPERATING BASE FALCON — The Iraqi National Police, dedicated to enforcing Baghdad’s rule of law, introduced civil capacity and municipality improvement to their skills set working...

BAGHDAD — With security conditions in Baghdad improving as the year draws to a close, U.S. Soldiers stationed at Joint Security Station Washash are finding creative ways to continue their offensive against the enemies of Iraq. Although there are fewer doors to kick down and attacks to counter, leaders like 1st Lt. Chris Ustler, a platoon leader with Troop B, 4th Squadron, 10th Cavalry Regiment, 3rd Brigade Combat Team, 4th Infantry Division, have not allowed the lull in violent activity to equate to a lull in operations. His Soldiers now find themselves walking the streets of Baghdad, handing out fliers...

AL-QAYARRAH — The 16th Sustainment Brigade took a major step in its effort to get water to the drought-prone Ninawa province in northern Iraq Nov. 5, 2008. Soldiers and contractors from contingency operating base Q-West began installation of a second high-capacity, multi-stage centrifugal water-pump at the Al-Qayyarah pump house at the Tigris River. The pump house, which provides water to many communities in the province as well as Q-West, has been shut down since September. By Keith Anderson 16th Sustainment Brigade AL-QAYARRAH — The 16th Sustainment Brigade took a major step in its effort to get water to the drought-prone...

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6, 2008 – More than 1,000 students, teachers and parents crowded into a Fort Mitchell, Ky., school auditorium Oct. 24 to thank Army paratroopers and their families from Fort Bragg, N.C., for their service. Army Spc. Mike Gaither enjoys a handmade card from a Beechwood Elementary School student. Photo courtesy of Beechwood Support Our Troops  (Click photo for screen-resolution image);high-resolution image available. The Fort Mitchell community “adopted” the 82nd Airborne Division’s Company B, 2nd Battalion, 504th Parachute Infantry Regiment, 1st Brigade Combat Team, several years ago after learning about America Supporting Americans, a group that connects communities with...

In recent years, as Wall Street boomed, Americans often dismissed Europe as a place for languorous meals and vacations, not economic innovation. London remained a financial hub, of course, but it was often treated dismissively — as a flashy aberration pumped up by petrodollars from Russia and the Gulf, an exception to the otherwise somnolent Continent.

Much has been made of Senator Obama's post-collegiate experience as a "Community Organizer" in Black (Negro) areas of the vast Chicago Southside. At the Republican Convention, the mere concept obtained some 'mileage' as a source for humor. The idea of an Ivy League College boy coming, full of the Leftwing theories & notions so popular in certain Colleges and Universities in post McKinley America, to tell those living in a large ethnic community how to organize that community is, admittedly, inherently funny. It is not humor in any way peculiar to the racial makeup of south Chicago; indeed, no different...

The Clinton administration has turned the Community Reinvestment Act, a once-obscure and lightly enforced banking regulation law, into one of the most powerful mandates shaping American cities—and, as Senate Banking Committee chairman Phil Gramm memorably put it, a vast extortion scheme against the nation's banks. Under its provisions, U.S. banks have committed nearly $1 trillion for inner-city and low-income mortgages and real estate development projects, most of it funneled through a nationwide network of left-wing community groups, intent, in some cases, on teaching their low-income clients that the financial system is their enemy and, implicitly, that government, rather than their...

If you haven't heard the audio of the particularly disgraceful Democrat talking point comparing Obama to Jesus Christ and Governor Palin to the man who sentenced Him to death by crucifixion, check out this video. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zDA_sMqs564We really need anyone still riding the fence about how to vote, especially Christians in this case, to understand just how low the Obamaites have stooped and the blatant contempt they have for the things many of us hold dear.

Governors and Community Organizers I have seen of late the proposition that Jesus Christ was a "community organizer", and that Pontius Pilate was a "governor". The obvious connection that is implied is that Barack Obama is like Jesus Christ, and Sarah Palin is like Pontius Pilate. I guess one could possibly draw those conclusions I would agree that Barack Obama is more "community organizer" than "governor. However, it would be quite a stretch to take a Michael Moore connect the dots approach to comparing Community Organizer Barack Obama to Community Organizer Jesus Christ. Since this is all just silliness, let’s...

The radical left-wing 'community organizer' group ACORN is doing all it can to steal the presidential election in Michigan. According to the Detroit Free Press:Several municipal clerks across the state are reporting fraudulent and duplicate voter registration applications, most of them from a nationwide community activist group working to help low- and moderate-income families.The majority of the problem applications are coming from the group ACORN, Association of Community Organizations for Reform Now, which has a large voter registration program among its many social service programs. ACORN's Michigan branch, based in Detroit, has enrolled 200,000 voters statewide in recent months, mostly...

A New Model for Catholic Community by Eric Pavlat 9/12/08 To some, the phrase "Catholic Community" conjures up images of exclusive ghettos -- areas of faith-filled Catholics who live close together and are so different from the world outside that they fail to engage it in any meaningful way. At the other extreme is contemporary Catholic life, where churchgoers attend the parish of their choice (which may or may not be their neighborhood parish), rarely see their fellow Catholics outside of the Mass, and do not so much influence the culture as merge into it. Enter Chris Currie, who seems...

The predominantly frustrated battle-hatchets on "The View," ABC's Charles Gibson, and a host of other Barrack Obama rump swabs and lap dogs have been taking ill-aimed and demonstrably disingenuous potshots at Governor Palin lately, and it's time the two most glaring inconsistencies in their screed were addressed and put to bed. A typical liberal tactic is to change the topic of their losing argument by re-framing it with perjorative innuendo which implies your opponent has emplyed an unfair smear. This takes the focus off the fact that the Liberal is wrong, and often puts the opponent on the defensive, at...

But Obama was also worried about something else. He told Kellman that he feared community organizing would never allow him "to make major changes in poverty or discrimination." To do that, he said, "you either had to be an elected official or be influential with elected officials." In other words, Obama believed that his chosen profession was getting him nowhere, or at least not far enough. Personally, he might end up like his father; politically, he would fail to improve the lot of those he was trying to help. And so, Obama told Kellman, he had decided to leave community...

Ken Williams, left, and partner Allen Carrel helped make a South Side neighborhood a little bit nicer with a park "for all people." I don't have enough room to list everyone who helped transform a vacant lot into the beating heart of a neighborhood. That's good. It's good that the changes in Ganthers Place on Columbus' South Side -- and its new pocket park -- are the products of a multitude. It makes them feel stronger, more permanent and sure. When the city and Keep Columbus Beautiful dedicate the Ganthers Park for All People today, they doubtless will enumerate...

Really, am I the only one who thinks that being a "Community Organizer" is disqualifying? The only current day "community organizers" I can think of would be Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton. Both of these I see as shakedown artists. Maybe I could add Calypso Louis? Who else? ML/NJ