Interview: Paul Crawford -- Myths about the Crusades

Were the Crusades really about Christians using religion as an excuse to plunder and kill peaceful Muslims? A historian will explain why myths about the Crusades are so dangerous.

Four Myths about the Crusades


Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 7-30-11

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First ladies of politics weigh in on debt ceiling issue

St. Louis (KSDK) - In St. Louis Saturday, conservatives gathered at the Smart Girl Conservative Women's Conference.

Among them, the woman many believe is the first lady of American Conservatism, Eagle Forum Founder Phyllis Schlafly.  Schlafly agreed these are unique times we are living in.

"Indeed they are," she said.  "Of course we know Obama went into office telling Joe the Plumber he wanted to spread the wealth.  And so 'spread the wealth' is tax people more and transfer it to people who are not paying taxes.  I think the grass roots are fed up with that, and they really want major cuts in spending."
Schlafly addressed the debt ceiling issue specifically.

"I think we ought to stick with the Constitution," said Schlafly, "which says all revenue bills should originate in the House."

Read more at KSDK.com

Phyllis addresses "Smart Girls" at conservative women's conference

ST. LOUIS • Lt. Gov. Peter Kinder welcomed dozens of conservative woman to town with a heavy dose of criticism aimed at the federal government.

Kinder was the first candidate to address this weekend's meeting of the Smart Girl Politics Action, a non-profit dedicated to "engaging, educating and empowering conservative women."

Though Kinder is running for governor in 2012, his remarks were loaded with salvos aimed at political leaders in Washington.

The federal government, Kinder said, is trying to subvert the will of the states through "absolute despotism."

"Which we take orders from the federal government in Washington from people who are certain they know how to plan our lives better than we can," Kinder said.

Americans, he told the mostly-female audience of about 250, "were never intended to be serfs to a federal master."

Kinder was followed on stage by a fellow No. 2 — Wisconsin Lt. Gov. Rebecca Kleefisch —who also shares

Kinder's media background. (Kleefisch was a TV reporter; Kinder was associate publisher at the Southeast Missourian.)

The "Smart Girls Summit" is in downtown St. Louis through Saturday. Other speakers on the weekend's agenda include Missouri Republicans Ann Wagner and Sarah Steelman; conservative web hero Andrew Breitbart; and presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

The afternoon's closing speaker is — who else? — Republican doyenne Phyllis Schlafly, who Kinder called the "First Lady of American Conservatism."

Source: http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/govt-and-politics/political-fix/article_b9811a2e-ba17-11e0-9579-0019bb30f31a.html#ixzz1TX4BlP5d

Time to Make Professors Teach

The escalating price of going to college is a national scandal. The price of college has risen much more than inflation. Is college worth its cost? Economics Professor Richard Vedder has just reported on a new study made by the Center for College Affordability and Productivity at the University of Texas at Austin. It concluded that the University of Texas could cut its tuition by as much as half simply by asking the 80% of faculty with the lowest teaching loads to teach about half as much as the 20% of faculty with the highest loads. This change would require most of the faculty to teach, on average, about 150 to 160 students a year. For example, a professor might teach one undergraduate survey class for 100 students, two classes for advanced undergraduate students or beginning graduate students with 20-25 students and an advanced graduate seminar for 10 students. That would require the professor to be in the classroom for only 200 hours a year, and that's hardly a tough assignment.

Governor Christie Expands Charter Schools

The only real competition that the public school monopoly ever sees is from charter schools, which can operate without the suffocating teachers unions and without many senseless regulations. In New Jersey, charter schools are limited to by having to use teachers who have been trained and certified by the education establishment, but a little competition is still better than none. Earlier this year Governor Chris Christie’s administration granted applications for 23 new charter schools, fulfilling a campaign promise he made to expand this method of giving parents an alternative to the traditional public school system. In contrast, only 6 applications for charter schools were approved a year earlier in his state.

Evolution Controversy and Living Fossils

As a young medical student, Carl Werner was convinced the theory of evolution was true. But a fellow classmate suggested that certain biochemical formulas and laws of physics contradict evolution. The classmate bet Werner that he could not prove the theory of evolution. That set Werner on a quest that lasted three decades. After reading hundreds of books on evolution, the young Dr. Werner designed a practical experiment. The theory of evolution suggests that plants and animals have changed dramatically over time. Dr. Werner decided to examine the fossil record during the dinosaur period to see what other fossils were found in the same rock layers. If modern plants and animals were found along with dinosaur remains, it would suggest little change in life forms over time, and that evolution is wrong.

Don't Spend Tuition Dollars on 'Meathead' Majors

Harvey Mansfield is one conservative professor at Harvard University, and he recently wrote an article in the Wall Street Journal that is worth bringing to your attention, especially if you have a college student in your family. He points out that at colleges today, course choice is IN and requirements are OUT. Only the military academies, certain Great-Books colleges, and some engineering schools tell students what they must study and what courses they must take. Most colleges offer a tremendous array of choices, and most of the choices are bad or useless. The bad and useless choices are more attractive because they are easy.

Interview: Dr. David Walsh — Raising Smart Kids

Well-intentioned parents spent millions on Baby Einstein videos, only to find they don't make kids smarter. We'll talk with an expert on brain research about what does help kids thrive.

Book: Smart Parenting, Smarter Kids: The One Brain Book You Need to Help Your Child Grow Brighter, Healthier, and Happier

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 7-23-11

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Schlafly -- a leading voice for “traditional values” for decades

“The social and fiscal issues are locked in a tight political embrace,” said Phyllis Schlafly, who has been invited to the Meese meetings in the past. “You can’t talk about spending money without talking about the social issues. I mean, what are we spending the money on?”

Read entire article at RollCall.com

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You Can't Judge a Course by Its Title

More students than ever are earning credits for advanced classes, according to a Department of Education study released in April. The Department's National Center for Education Statistics examined 38,000 high school transcripts and found that the proportion of graduates completing rigorous coursework rose from 5% in 1990 to 13% in 2009. Is that good news on the education front? Not so fast. Despite taking courses with challenging-sounding titles, 17-year-olds aren't scoring any higher on federal standardized tests than they did in 1973. SAT scores are flat since 2000, offering further evidence that kids aren't learning any more today.

Evolutionists Fail to Repeal Science Law

The first state law passed to protect public school teachers who teach students to think critically about controversial scientific topics survived its first challenge last month in Louisiana. The Senate Education Committee voted 5-1 to kill a bill intended to repeal the (2008) Louisiana Science Education Act, which permits teachers to use supplemental materials in addition to state-approved textbooks for topics such as evolution, global warming and cloning.

National Curriculum is Bad for America

More than 200 distinguished educators have issued a critical response to the U.S. Department of Education's plan to develop and impose a national curriculum and assessments based on national standards. Here are some direct quotes from their public statement:

"We ... oppose the call for a nationalized curriculum. ... We also oppose the ongoing effort by the U.S. Department of Education to have ... national curriculum guidelines, national curriculum models, national instructional materials, and national assessments. ...

'Common Core' Sparks 'Standards' Debate

The people who want to impose national standards on all public schools are pushing a curriculum called Common Core Standards. It calls for the development of standards and a "shared curriculum" for nearly every subject, including English, math, history, geography, the sciences, arts, and health. 42 states have already adopted use of the Common Core Standards.

But a lot of important people don't want national standards. Their opposition is presented in a statement signed by more than 200 leaders in education, business and public policy. These leaders argue against national assessments and shared curriculum. They call their statement a "counter-manifesto"; it's a rebuttal of the "Call for Common Content," which was released last March.

Schools Ask Students Nosy Questions

Memorial Middle School in Fitchburg, Massachusetts featured a type of classroom atrocity that parents have been fighting for many years. The school required pupils to answer nosy questions that are not only intrusive but are designed to lead the kids into unacceptable behaviors.

Here is an example of a very leading question: "During your life, how many times have you used methamphetamines (also called speed, crystal, crank, or ice)?" And here's another example of a leading question: "During the past 30 days, how many times did you sniff glue, breathe the contents of aerosol spray cans, or inhale any paints or sprays to get high?"

Interview: Frank Miniter — Saving the Bill Of Rights

Liberals pretend to defend civil liberties, even while they chip away at the Constitutional protections guaranteed to Americans. Our guest will expose their campaign to destroy the Bill of Rights.

Book: Saving the Bill of Rights: Exposing the Left's Campaign to Destroy American Exceptionalism



Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 7-16-11



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Colleges Choose Liberal Commencement Speakers

Young America's Foundation keeps track of the commencement speakers at the nation's top 100 universities, and reports that every year colleges use their commencement ceremonies as platforms to showcase leftwing personalities. This year, 13 of the 100 leading colleges and universities had commencement speakers who are conservatives or business executives. That was a slight increase from last year w hen there were only three. The colleges selected quite a number of Obama's White House officials, including Secretary of Homeland Security Janet Napolitano, Secretary of Health and Human Services Kathleen Sebelius, Secretary of Transportation Ray LaHood, Secretary of the Navy Ray Mabus, Obama's Chief of Staff Bill Daley, Secretary of Defense Robert Gates, and U.S. Surgeon General Regina Benjamin. Former President Bill Clinton was on the list, but former President George W. Bush was not. Media personalities are big as commencement speakers. This year's speakers included Brian Williams and Tom Brokaw of NBC, Katie Couric of CBS, Stephen Colbert of the Colbert Report on Comedy Central, Conan O'Brien of TBS, and Wolf Blitzer and Larry King of CNN. Somehow the top colleges didn't choose best selling authors Ann Coulter or Michelle Malkin, or Fox News hosts Bret Baier or Sean Hannity.

Cathie Adams to Address Flower Mound Republicans

Cathie Adams, International Issues Chairman and board member for Eagle Forum will be the guest speaker at the next meeting of Flower Mound Area Republican Club on Tuesday evening, July 19 at Salerno’s Restaurant. She will provide in depth information on the United Nations Agenda 21 project, considered by many a threat to national sovereignty and property rights. Mrs. Adams is a former president of Texas Eagle Forum and past chairman of the Texas Republican Party.

Most recently, Cathie has been observing the United Nations design a Green Climate Fund. As an observer of major UN conferences since 1995, Cathie enjoys telling about her experiences. She attended the Women’s Conference in Beijing, China; the Housing Summit in Istanbul, Turkey; the Food Summit in Rome, Italy; and a number of Climate Change meetings in Kyoto, Japan, Buenos Aires, Argentina, Bonn, Germany, The Hague, Netherlands, Poznan, Poland and Cancun, Mexico. When the International Criminal Court was created in Rome in 1998, Cathie attended the proceedings. She also attended the 2000 Millennium Summit in New York City, the Global Taxing Summit in Monterrey, Mexico, and the World Summit on Sustainable Development in Johannesburg, South Africa. She traveled to Hong Kong for a Ministerial Meeting of the World Trade Organization and to Paris, France for a UNESCO meeting.

The meeting and program start at 7:00. Meet and greet starts at 6:00, with optional $10 buffet dinner. Salerno’s is located at 3407 Long Prairie Road (FM 2499). Please phone Renee Stoltenberg at 972-539-1285 to RSVP.

Salerno's, 3407 Long Prairie Road. Flower Mound, Texas United States 75028

Source: thenewsconnection.com

Senate panel is urged to renew domestic violence law

Clinical psychologist Phil McGraw, known popularly as “Dr. Phil,” urged a Senate committee Wednesday not to be “penny-wise and pound-foolish” in its renewing of the Violence Against Women Act (VAWA).

The law funds safe places for women and children to go to so they don’t end up on the street or lose their children to foster care, the daytime talk-show host told the Senate Judiciary Committee.

It also funds essential services, such as counseling, financial guidance and hotlines, said Mr. McGraw, who said his TV show receives thousands of calls related to violence in the home. “We need this act,” he said.

His remarks were sparked, in part, by those of Sen. Chuck Grassley, Iowa Republican. Reviews of VAWA grantees have uncovered vast problems with record-keeping and unallowable expenditures, said Mr. Grassley. “Simply put, in today’s economic environment, we cannot tolerate this level of malfeasance in federal grant programs.”

Read entire article at WashingtonTimes.com

Further reading: VAWA

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Watch "A Nation at Risk"

Orlean Koehle, State President of Eagle Forum of California, and author of BY STEALTH AND DECEPTION, was asked to the host for a public access television show entitled "A Nation at Risk."  It was filmed in San Jose June 6, 2011, by CreaTV..

Orlean had as her guests two authors: Kirk MacKenzie, the author of a book called Money, and Dr. Stan Monteith, the author of Brotherhood of Darkness and the talk show host of Radio Liberty.

The Biggest Spending Ever!

Only ten years ago, at the start of this 21st century, the U.S. government had a budget surplus of $127 billion, and economists were predicting that we would continue to have billions of dollars in surpluses. When Barack Obama was elected President, our economy went sharply into reverse. He pushed through a $787 billion package of wasteful spending that he called a "Stimulus." It was advertised that it would lead our economy into recovery, but instead it dug us deeper into debt.

Gathering Nosy Information on Students

Public schools already collect a lot of data that have nothing to do with students' academic achievement, including Social Security numbers, family income, medical exams, and criminal and administrative penalties. Now the bureaucrats' plan is to gather and put on government databases additional information about children's preschool experience, pre-natal care, daycare, early childhood education, and after-school activities.

Perpetuating Federal Spending on Schools

Tremendous federal spending on public schools has emerged as the discretionary item in the federal budget most available for cutting in order to start the process of balancing the budget. A bill has been introduced by Rep. Duncan Hunter that lists 43 education programs that can be cut. We've spent $2 trillion on education since federal aid began back in 1965. The specified goals were to improve student achievement, eliminate or narrow the gap between upper-income and low-income students, and increase graduation rates from high school and college. The awful fact is that we have little or nothing to show for the taxpayers' generosity. Even Education Secretary Arne Duncan admitted that 82% of public schools should be ranked as failing.

Making Crimes Out of Milk Sales

Federal agents watched a certain home in a small town in Pennsylvania for a year, gathering evidence. Then, in a pre-dawn raid, armed members from three agencies swooped in. No, this is not the news of a commando attack in Pakistan or Afghanistan. This was a raid this year by U.S. marshals, a state police trooper, and inspectors from the Food and Drug Administration to arrest an Amish farmer named Dan Allgyer. And what was his crime? It was selling unpasteurized dairy milk to eager consumers in the Washington area.

Krugman tries mindreading

NY Times columnist Paul Krugman said:

A liberal can talk coherently about what the conservative view is because people like me actually do listen. We don’t think it’s right, but we pay enough attention to see what the other person is trying to get at. The reverse is not true.

He shows off this supposed ability in a column a week later with this:

Bear in mind that GOP leaders don't actually care about the level of debt. Instead, they're using the threat of a debt crisis to impose an ideological agenda.

No, he cannot talk coherently about what the conservative view is. The GOP leaders do care about the debt.

The Turks Operate U.S. Charter Schools

I really was stunned last month when I read a front-page article in the New York Times, carried over to two pages on the inside of the newspaper, about the many charter schools run by people from Turkey. Charter schools operate with taxpayers' money.

The secret of this operation is the meteoric rise and financial clout of the Cosmos Foundation, a charter school operator founded a decade ago by a group of businessmen from Turkey. Operating under the name Harmony Schools, Cosmos has become the largest charter school operator in Texas, and now has 33 schools, educating more than 16,000 children, and receiving more than $100 million a year in taxpayer funds. Nearly all the 33 principals are Turkish men.

Interview: Dr. Carl Werner — Do Living Fossils Disprove Evolutionary Theory?

Evolutionists claim that all living things evolved from a single cell over billions of years. A doctor will tell us about his quest to test evolution by determining whether modern animals existed alongside dinosaurs.

DVD:  Evolution: The Grand Experiment: Vol. 2 - Living Fossils

Evolution: The Grand Experiment DVD

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 7-09-11




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The Poverty Cost of Absent Fathers

The United States has millions of children living below the poverty line, and the principal reason they are poor is that their parents are not married to each other. Poverty is massively greater for children living with a single, divorced, or cohabiting parent than with parents who are married to each other. The poverty rate for single parents with children is 37%, but it's only 6% for married couples with children. Marriage breakdown is a double-edged sword. At the same time that it forces government to become the financial provider for millions of children and their caregivers, it also reduces the government's receipt of taxes to pay for the generous handouts.

The Cost to Taxpayers of Missing Fathers

It's time that the American people face up to the sad plight of the 20 million American children who are growing up without their fathers in the home. Back in 1993, Charles Murray identified "illegitimacy as the single most important social problem of our time ... because it drives everything else." But Murray was whistling in the wind. Last year, the U.S. illegitimacy rate had grown to 41%, and among whites it was 29%. Prior to Lyndon Johnson's so-called War on Poverty, husbands and fathers provided for their families. The out-of-wedlock babies born last year and their unmarried moms now look to Big Brother as their financial provider. The liberals are content to let this problem persist because 70% of unmarried women voted for Barack Obama for president.

Alabama's New Law About Illegal Aliens

Alabama just passed a new law to deal with some of the problems caused by illegal aliens. Yesterday, I told you about its requirement that employers use the program called E-Verify to check whether or not an employee is legally in the United States. Here are some more provisions.

More knowledge makes climate skeptics

A research study shows:

The conventional explanation for controversy over climate change emphasizes impediments to public understanding: limited popular knowledge of science, the inability of ordinary citizens to assess technical information, and the resulting widespread use of unreliable cognitive heuristics to assess risk. A large survey of U.S. adults (N = 1540) found little support for this account. On the whole, the most scientifically literate and numerate subjects were slightly less likely, not more, to see climate change as a serious threat than the least scientifically literate and numerate ones.

National Popular Vote Plan Would Hurt Most States

Most states would lose power in U.S. presidential elections under the proposed National Popular Vote (NPV) plan now being considered by many state legislatures.

In support of the National Popular Vote State Compact, some states have already passed laws awarding all their electoral votes to the U.S. presidential candidate who wins a national plurality of the popular vote.  This bad idea would be constitutional because Article II, Section 1, of the U.S. Constitution gives the respective state legislatures the right to appoint presidential electors.  Congressional approval isn’t required.  The Compact would take effect if states with a majority of the electoral votes pass it.

Proponents of the NPV plan are now making a push to persuade state legislators to enact it, arguing that polls show Americans favor electing our presidents by popular votes rather than electoral votes determined by each state. What proponents don’t mention is that 31 states would lose power in presidential elections under this plan.  Nineteen states would lose more than 20% of their power, and ten states would lose more than 40% of their power.

Read entire article

Further reading: Electoral College

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Rathgeber steps down from New Mexico Eagle Forum

Maude Rathgeber

Maude Oliver Rathgeber, who has served as chairman of the New Mexico Eagle Forum in Alamogordo since 1977, has stepped down from the popular conservative group because of "health and personal" reasons.

Rathgeber lost her husband Jack, a World War II Navy fighter pilot and retired Ryan Aeronautical Co. executive, in January. She underwent heart surgery several years ago and while her heart doctor gave her a thumbs-up after two recent checkups, "I'm still feeling major problems," she said. "Additionally, my eyesight continues to diminish."

The Alamogordo icon, now in her golden years, said she is meeting with local leaders to seek a successor to handle the Forum's monthly open, nonpartisan luncheons and the annual Legislative Prayer Breakfast the group stages prior to the opening of the state Legislature.

Interview: Mike McCormick — Debtors' Prisons Have Returned to the U.S.

Did you know that a family court can order a man to pay support for a child that isn't his? And, if he doesn't pay, he may go to prison. Our guest will expose an injustice that the media ignores.

American Coalition for Fathers and Children website

Listen to Eagle Forum Live Radio Program aired on 7-02-11




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Further reading: Fathers

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Alabama Deals with Immigration Problems

Alabama has suddenly become the leader in comprehensive immigration reform, passing up Arizona whose laws have had so much news coverage. Passed by large margins in the Alabama State Legislature, this new law covers most areas of abuses by illegal aliens. Like the Arizona law recently upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court, Alabama's law requires employers to verify the legal status of their employees by using the federal government's E-Verify program. That Arizona law was signed by then-Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano, a Democrat, who is now director of the Department of Homeland Security.

Today is America's Birthday

It seems like schools today are obsessed with teaching tolerance, diversity and multiculturalism. It is really much more important that young American citizens have an understanding of our nation's founding documents, such as the Declaration of Independence and the United States Constitution, as well as the character and thinking of the men who wrote those great documents that have stood the test of time for two centuries. It is important that young people respect our Judeo-Christian origins in order to be able to be able to defend our country, our schools, and our institutions against attacks by those who are trying to transform us into a completely secular society. Those who attended public schools probably missed out on this part of American history. Indeed, the prevailing dogma of Political Correctness decrees that the entire Judeo-Christian heritage be excluded from the teaching of history. Young people need to know the history and the literature of the western tradition if we are to preserve our freedom, because freedom only flourishes in Judeo-Christian countries.

Obnoxious Classroom Curricula

Elementary school curriculum isn't just about the three R's any more. Reading, 'Riting and 'Rithmetic now have to make time for lessons in gender diversity. Students in all grades at Oakland, California's Redwood Heights Elementary School were given two days of "gender neutrality" lessons designed to teach them that gender is not confined to just two options, and that no distinctions between male and female should be legally allowed. These lessons were taught by an anti-bullying group called Gender Spectrum and paid for by a grant from the California Teachers Union.