Frank Pastore Show Run Sheets: May 2009

Thursday, May 28, 2009

400-408 – Dinesh D'Souza, best-selling author and lecturer, whose best-seller What's So Great About Christianity continues to enrich the lives of many people (dineshdsouza.com), on the Supreme Court and Sonia Sotomayor.

His books include: Illiberal Education (1991), The End of Racism (1995), Ronald Reagan: How an Ordinary Man Became an Extraordinary Leader (1997), The Virtue of Prosperity: Finding Values in an Age of Techno Affluence (2000), What's So Great About America (2002), Letters to a Young Conservative (2003), The Enemy at Home (2006), and What's So Great About Christianity (2008). He's now working on a book about Life After Death: The Evidence that is due out in late 2009 early 2010.

• FRC (5/28/09) Invasion of the Bible Snatchers.

Where two or more are gathered in Christ's name, there San Diego County officials will be also. For a suburban California family, this was the shocking reality during last month's Good Friday holiday. A local pastor and his wife invited a dozen or so people to their house for a Bible study, only to be interrupted by a San Diego employee who threatened to fine the couple for breaking an obscure County land code.

People at Pastor Jones's church are stunned by San Diego's actions, particularly its investigation of the group's activities. According to the family's attorney, Dean Broyles of the Western Center for Law & Policy, the officials asked pointed questions such as, "Do you have a regular meeting in your home?" "Yes." "Do you say amen?" "Yes." "Do you pray?" "Yes." "Do you say, 'Praise the Lord?'" "Yes."

What business is it of the county's how the Joneses' worship? This is not communist China. The Joneses aren't operating an underground church in violation of state law. This is their home! And like every other American, they enjoy the freedoms of religion, assembly, and speech guaranteed by the U.S. Constitution. Broyles told reporters, "If the county thinks they can shut down groups of 10 or 15 Christians meeting in a home, what about people who meet regularly... for poker night? What about... Tupperware parties?"

Every citizen in the nation should take this attack seriously. It matters little whether they agree with the Joneses' beliefs. If we allow the government to take their rights away, ours are next. Meanwhile, county officials have not budged on their insistence that a home Bible study of 15 people is a "religious assembly" that requires a "major use permit," which can cost upward of $10,000. Obviously, California is so desperate for income that it's willing to persecute men and women of faith to get a few pieces of silver.

As Christians from other states have learned, the government can use inconsequential rules on parking or zoning to regulate religion. In this instance, the application of those rules is, as Broyles says, "misplaced." Apparently, the size of government has grown so much that bureaucrats, like those in San Diego, are struggling to justify their existence. They have to invent controversies like this one just to keep busy. With California facing a budget shortfall, I know just where officials can start cutting unnecessary spending.

• Fox News (5/28/09) Couple Ordered to Stop Holding Bible Study at Home Without Permit.

• 10 News (5/28/09) Couple: County Trying To Stop Home Bible Studies.

413-423 – Dinesh D'Souza

428-437 – Steve Barr, was the co-founder of Rock The Vote in 1990 and the Motor Voter Bill in 1994, was involved in the founding of Americorp with President Clinton, and he's been involved with several presidential campaign teams and has even been the finance chair of the Democratic Party. But in 1999, he founded Green Dot Public Schools (greendot.org), which transforms large public schools that are failing into smaller cluster schools with amazing graduation rates. Green Dot operates 18 charter schools, and as of Fall 2008, also Alain Leroy Locke High School in Watts. Five Green Dot schools have had graduating classes to date, 80% of entering ninth graders graduate within four years, 76% of graduating seniors are admitted to four-year universities, and almost all the rest have gone on to two-year colleges. LAUSD has a graduation rate of 47%. To make a change, sign up for The Parent Revolution at parentrevolution.org.

• LA Times (5/6/09) L.A. Unified pays teachers not to teach. About 160 instructors and others get salaries for doing nothing while their job fitness is reviewed. They collect roughly $10 million a year, even as layoffs are considered because of a budget gap.

• LA Times (5/11/09) Parents are urged to demand more from L.A. schools. Green Dot charter operator Steve Barr wants to organize grass-roots power to improve public education.

Barr calls it "the Parent Revolution," and he wants to form Parents Unions that will force LAUSD to improve schools, or face losing their campuses to charter schools. Barr promises he can turn a failing school into an excellent school in three years – "a proper school is one that is safe, orderly and small, where the principal can personally and rapidly fire ineffective teachers, where nearly all dollars get to the classroom and where every child is progressing toward college." Green Dot Public Schools operates 10 charter schools and Locke High. Marco Petruzzi is Barr's Chief Executive, and attorney Ben Austin oversees the Parents Union.

Risk-taking charter school operator Steve Barr is launching an effort through which parents would wrest political control of the L.A. school system from unions, school bureaucrats and other entrenched interests.

The plan is for parents to form chapters all over town and improve schools, one by one, using the growing leverage of the charter school movement. The goal is to unite a city of overworked and isolated parents with a brash promise:

If more than half of the parents at a school sign up, Barr's organizers say they will guarantee an excellent campus within three years. They call it the Parent Revolution.

With parents, they predict, they'll have the clout to pressure the Los Angeles Unified School District to improve schools. They'll also have petitions, which Barr and his allies will keep at the ready, to start charter schools. If the district doesn't deliver, targeted neighborhoods could be flooded with charters, which aren't run by the school district. L.A. Unified would lose enrollment, and the funding would go to the charters instead of to the district.

Based on past performance, the school district would be challenged to meet parents' heightened expectations, Barr said. "We're not trying to prove the district is doing things wrong. But our kids are at stake."

• MSNBC (5/11/09) Obama wants to see 5,000 failing schools close–Administration wants to focus on 'dropout factories'.

He's got $5 billion to spend on turning around "dropout factories," that's $1 million per campus. The school districts and the states have the authority to fire the entire staff of a school, or just one or two people, to make the improvement. Or, they may decide to turn the whole school over to a charter school operator. So, teachers, is this the way to fix your school? Why won't the teacher's unions allow bad teachers to lose their jobs?

• LA Times (3/21/09) A Year at Locke – The Advance Path Academy: learning that clicks. An innovative program using computers and self-motivation offers a second chance to potential dropouts.

• The New Yorker Magazine (5/11/09) The Instigator: A crusader's plan to remake failing schools.

443-452 – Steve Barr

458-508 – Alan Jacobs, a professor of English at Wheaton College in Illinois and author of Original Sin: A Cultural History. His previous book, The Narnian, was a biography of C. S. Lewis. Does belief or disbelief in original result in different types of people, communities, and cultures?

512-523 – Alan Jacobs

TH 524 – [2:00] Don Rohde (818) 262-2092. For the past 37 years, Don has been a sales manager at Galpin, the #1 volume Ford dealer in the world for the past 19 consecutive years. Galpin has been family-owned and operated for the past 59 years, and 90% of their business is repeat or referral. Galpin offers Ford, Lincoln-Mercury, Honda, Mazda, Saturn, Volvo, Jaguar, and Aston Martin. Located in the heart of the San Fernando Valley at Roscoe and the 405.

528-538 – Vishal Mangalwadi, is an international lecturer, social reformer, political columnist, and author of thirteen books including his latest Truth And Transformation: A Manifesto For Ailing Nations (vishalmangalwadi.com).

539 – [1:30] Robert Micone/Bill O'Connor aka "The Money Guys" at Applied Financial with 5 offices around the southland, 866-SEEK-COUNSEL, and online at appliedfinancialplanning.com.

544-554 – Vishal Mangalwadi.

558-608 – Robert Epstein, (drepstein.com) [ph. "ep-stine"] teaches at the University of California San Diego (ucsd.edu), former editor-in-chief of Psychology Today, and author 14 books including The Case Against Adolescence: Rediscovering the Adult in Every Teen (thecaseagainstadolescence.com).

Go to howadultareyou.com to take his free Epstein-Dumas Test of Adultness (EDTA) that determines how adult you are. From the homepage, "Being an adult in modern society requires a wide variety of skills and knowledge. No matter what your age, this test will show you how adult you are in 14 important areas of functioning. Designed by Dr. Robert Epstein, one of America's most distinguished psychologists, the test contains 140 yes/no questions and should take you between 10 and 15 minutes to complete. The test has been empirically validated with a sample of roughly 30,000 people between ages 10 and 83."

"Adolescence was invented in the 19th century to enable middle-class families to keep their children out of sweatshops. But it has degenerated into a process of enforced boredom and age segregation that has produced one of the most destructive social arrangements in human history, consigning 13-year-old males to learning from 15-year-old males. It's a social experiment that failed. Dr. Epstein's book traces the history of the problem, demonstrates with unrelenting perseverance that much of the turmoil of our teens is a creation of our culture, and offers a specific and detailed proposal for getting our young people back on track. If you are concerned about America's young -- and about America's future -- this is a must-read." – Newt Gingrich, former Speaker of the United States House of Representatives.

Three components played a primary role: 1) compulsory education not based upon competency, 2) child labor laws that prevented competent workers from remaining on the job, and 3) the development of the juvenile justice system that intended to "mother" the kids in institutions, and ended up training criminals.

Brett Harris and his twin brother Alex are the authors of Do Hard Things: A Teenage Rebellion Against Low Expectations, at 16 they launched therebelution.com

with over 20 million so far, an online community where young people encourage one another to do "hard things." The Do Hard Things Tour will be at Calvary Church Santa Ana on Saturday, July 25^th. Register at dohardthings.com

612-623 – Robert Epstein

628-638 – What was the last selfless or heroic thing you saw? I saw a couple guys get out of their cars to help a CHP on the 10 freeway clear some wood out of lanes after he had stopped traffic. They just hopped out of their cars and helped clean up the debris. What was the last thing you've seen like this? Maybe you're the one that got out of the car, or helped the little old lady across the street, or protected the kids from the bad guys? What happened? Why'd you do it? What's your Good Samaritan story?

644-652 – Calls

657-700 – Calls

• Fox Business (5/28/09) GM Makes New Bondholder Offer Ahead of Bankruptcy. The offer? Bondholders 10%, Government 72.5%, and UAW 17.5%. Plus, the government will supply another $50 billion in loans on top of $20 billion we've already paid.

• Thomas Sowell (5/27/09) 'Empathy' in Action: A poisonous doctrine for any judge, much less a justice of the Supreme Court.

• Karl Rove (5/28/09) 'Empathy' Is Code for Judicial Activism: What damage did Democrats suffer when they attacked Miguel Estrada?

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Wednesday, May 27, 2009

400-408 – Tony Perkins, president of the Family Research Council (frc.org), and co-author of Personal Faith: Public Policy with Bishop Harry Jackson.

• SF Gate (5/26/09) Lawsuit seeks federal ruling on gay marriage.

My Summary: Theodore B. Olson and David Boies, long identified as opposing forces for conservative and liberal groups, filed a lawsuit in federal court on behalf of two gay men and two gay women, arguing that a California constitutional amendment eliminating the right of gay couples to marry violates the U.S. constitutional guarantees of equal protection and due process.

Olson said, "This is a federal question. This is about the rights of individuals to be treated equally and not be stigmatized… We wanted to be a symbol of the fact that this not a conservative or a liberal issue. We want to send a signal that this is an important constitutional issue involving equal rights for all Americans…We believe this is the kind of matter where Americans must come together and recognize the rights of all citizens."

The lawsuit was filed in U.S. District Court in San Francisco on Friday, before the California Supreme Court issued a ruling Tuesday upholding the state's voter-approved Proposition 8, which banned gay marriage. The lawsuit argues that Proposition 8 creates a category of "second-class citizens" in violation of the U.S. Constitution. The lawyers said that by relegating same-sex unions to "the separate-but-unequal institution of domestic partnership," California is violating the 14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, which guarantees equal protection for all.

It seeks a preliminary injunction against imposition of the amendment until the lawsuit is resolved, immediately reinstating marriage rights to same-sex couples.

• Gallup (5/27/09) Majority of Americans Continue to Oppose Gay Marriage: No change in support from last year.

57% oppose same-sex marriage while just 40% support it – nor has support for it ever been higher than 46% in 2007. 75% of liberals support it, as do 50% of moderates, while just 19% of conservatives do. 55% of Democrats support it, as do 45% of independents, while just 20% of Republicans do. By age group: 18-29 (59% for, 37% against), 30-49 (40% for, 57% against), 50-64 (37% for, 61% against), and 65+ (32% for, 66% against).

Support for gay rights – 67% support health insurance and employee benefits, 73% support inheritance rights, 67% support hate-crimes legislation, 69% believe they should be allowed to teach in elementary schools, and 54% support full adoption rights.

413-423 – Tony Perkins, talks about the Call2Fall prayer event coming up on July 5 (call2fall.com).

• Tony Perkins' Washington Update (5/27/09) For Marriage, the Supreme Test.

• Google News (5/27/09) Gay groups call federal marriage suit premature.

A coalition of gay rights groups said Wednesday that a federal same-sex marriage lawsuit brought by two high-profile lawyers is premature and they'd rather work through state legislatures and voters to win wedding rights. A day after the California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on gay marriage, the American Civil Liberties Union, Lambda Legal and other national organizations issued a statement saying they think the U.S. Supreme Court is not ready to rule in their favor on the issue.

"In our view, the best way to win marriage equality nationally is to continue working state by state, not to bring premature federal challenges that pose a very high risk of setting a negative U.S. Supreme Court precedent," said Shannon Minter, legal director of National Center for Lesbian Rights.

"There will be many people who will think this is not the time to go to federal," Olson said Wednesday at a news conference in Los Angeles. "Both David and I have studied the court for more years than probably either one of us would like to admit. We think we know what we are doing."

Boies agreed: "Reasonable minds can differ, but when you have people being denied civil rights today, I think it is impossible as lawyers and as an American to say 'No, you have to wait, now is not the right time.' I think if we had done that in prior civil rights battles, we would not be where we are."

Chad Griffin, (Board President of the American Foundation for Equal Rights, equalrightsfoundation.org) a gay political consultant and former aide to President Bill Clinton, said he approached Olson about taking on the case several months ago while the California Supreme Court was considering several legal challenges to Proposition 8.

428-437 – Brigitte Gabriel, is the founder of the ActForAmerica.org, and author of the best-seller They Must Be Stopped: Why We Must Defeat Radical Islam and How We Can Do It. Brigitte grew up as a Christian little girl from a well to do family in Lebanon, who endured Muslim persecution that began in 1975, when she was 10. Her family lost everything. She grew up to become a news anchor in Israel, and now heads up an organization warning the world about the threat of radical Islam – a threat she saw realized in her own life, family, and country.

443-452 – Brigitte Gabriel

458-508 – Clarke Forsythe, is a leading policy strategist in bioethical issues and senior counsel for Americans United for Life (aul.org), a national pro-life public policy organization. He has published more than fifteen law review articles and book chapters on bioethics and the law. His latest is Politics For The Greatest Good: The Case For Prudence In The Public Square.

Prudence is practical wisdom, and involves making good decisions and implementing them well. Prudence requires discernment, deliberation, decision, and execution. As applied to politics, prudence asks four questions of political leaders, activists, and citizens: 1) Are we pursuing good goals? 2) Are we exercising wise judgment as to what's possible? 3) Do we successfully apply means to ends? And 4) Do we preserve the possibility of future progress when the ideal cannot be immediately achieved?

Prudence is necessary to have more realistice expectations of politics, to improve the prospects for political change and to succeed with political reform. This book attempts to resolve the historic debate between the "purists" and the "incrementalists" with a return to the cardinal virtue of prudence. The prudential approach to public policy strives for the greatest good possible when the ideal cannot be reached. Rather than the "all-or-nothing" approach, prudence calls for "all-or-something." The aim of politics is not the perfect good, but the greatest good possible. Both William Wilberforce and Abraham Lincoln were successful because of their prudential strategies.

512-523 – Clarke Forsythe

528-538 – • MSNBC (5/22/09) Toddler buys earthmover in online auction: Mother had made bids on toys and assumed she had bought a toy digger.

544-554 – • MSNBC (5/27/09) Here, here! 13 years of perfect attendance: Get-up-and-go Maryland teen hits 2,340 straight days of school.

558-608 – Calls. What's your perfect attendance story?

612-623 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?

628-638 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?

644-652 – Calls. What's your favorite ditch-school story?

657-700 – • MSNBC (5/27/09) Dog that saved owner from fire is euthanized: Bulldog whose barking awakened owner had been diagnosed with cancer.

• Neomi Rao (5/27/09) Questions for Sotomayor: The confirmation process shouldn't be a rubber stamp. Ms. Rao, an assistant professor at George Mason School of Law, was associate counsel and special assistant to President George W. Bush and nominations counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee.

• Jonah Goldberg (5/27/09) Empathy vs. Impartiality: When they conflict, the Supreme Court must choose the latter.

• George Will (5/27/09) Identity Justice.

• Rich Lowry (5/27/09) A Bad Day for Impartiality: Obama uses empathy as a code word for judicial liberalism.

• Andrew C. McCarthy (5/27/09) Rule of Law, or Rule of Lawyers? Sotomayor claims an unlimited license for judicial activism.

• WSJ (5/27/09) The 'Empathy' Nominee: Is Sonia Sotomayor judically superior to 'a white male'?

• Robert Barnes, WaPo (5/26/09) More Than One Way to Diversify the Supreme Court: Beyond Race and Gender, Today's Justices are Homogenous. [great for calls]

• Ken Timmerman (5/27/09) Republican Donors Hit by Chrysler Closings.

• Thomas F. Cooley (5/27/09) The Need For Failure. Cooley is the Paganelli-Bull professor of economics and Richard R. West dean of the NYU Stern School of Business, and a contributor to a new book on the financial crisis entitled Restoring Financial Stability (Wiley, 2009).

• Dennis Buchholtz (5/27/09) GM Bondholders Are People Like You and Me: The government is punishing one group of workers to reward another. Mr. Buchholtz is a retired trade worker from Warren, Mich.

• Fox News (5/27/09) Tenth Amendment Movement Aims to Give Power Back to the States. Fed up with Washington's involvement in everything from land use to gun control to education spending, states across the country are fighting back against what they say is the federal government's growing intrusion on their rights.

• Tenth Amendment Center, Tenth Amendment Talking Points.

• Telegraph (5/27/09) Obama's green guru calls for white roofs: President Obama's energy adviser has suggested all the world's roofs should be painted white as part of efforts to slow global warming. Professor Steven Chu, the US Energy Secretary, said the unusual proposal would mean homes in hot countries would save energy and money on air conditioning by deflecting the sun's rays. He also thinks roads in rural environments should be lighter.

"If you look at all the buildings and if you make the roofs white and if you make the pavement more of a concrete type of colour rather than a black type of colour and if you do that uniformally, that would be the equivalent of... reducing the carbon emissions due to all the cars in the world by 11 years – just taking them off the road for 11 years," he said.

The Frank Pastore Show

701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550

Glendale, CA 91203

Office (818) 956-5552

Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com

Get Podcasts here

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

400-408 – Ron Prentice, Executive Director of the California Family Council (californiafamily.org) on today's 6-1 California Supreme Court ruling allowing Prop 8 to stand and the 18,000 gay couples who married to remain wed.

• Breitbart (5/26/09) California high court upholds gay marriage ban.

The California Supreme Court upheld a voter-approved ban on same-sex marriage Tuesday, but it also decided that the estimated 18,000 gay couples who tied the knot before the law took effect will stay wed…The 6-1 decision written by Chief Justice Ron George rejected an argument by gay rights activists that the ban revised the California Constitution's equal protection clause to such a dramatic degree that it first needed the Legislature's approval.

The court said the Californians have a right, through the ballot box, to change their constitution. "In a sense, petitioners' and the attorney general's complaint is that it is just too easy to amend the California Constitution through the initiative process. But it is not a proper function of this court to curtail that process; we are constitutionally bound to uphold it," the ruling said. The justices said the 136-page majority ruling does not speak to whether they agree with Proposition 8 or "believe it should be a part of the California Constitution." They said they were "limited to interpreting and applying the principles and rules embodied in the California Constitution, setting aside our own personal beliefs and values."

The state Supreme Court had ruled last May that it was unconstitutional to deny gay couples the right to wed. Many same-sex couples had rushed to get married before the November vote on Proposition 8, fearing it could be passed. When it was, gay rights activists went back to the court arguing that the ban was improperly put to voters and amounted to a revision—which required legislative approval—not an amendment. That was the issue justices decided Tuesday. "After comparing this initiative measure to the many other constitutional changes that have been reviewed and evaluated in numerous prior decisions of this court, we conclude Proposition 8 constitutes a constitutional amendment rather than a constitutional revision," the ruling said.

• FRC (5/26/09) CA Supreme Court Upholds the People's Right to Amend Constitution.

Family Research Council President Tony Perkins today praised the California Supreme Court's decision to uphold democracy and reject efforts to strip the right of the people to amend the state's Constitution to define marriage as the union of a man and a woman.

"Over one million Californians signed petitions to place Proposition 8 on the ballot and over seven million voters approved the measure on Election Day. California's Constitution gives its citizens the right of self-governance and we are pleased that the court resisted demands to strip the right of the people to amend the state constitution. Even this widely-recognized liberal court understands that overturning Proposition 8 would represent a repudiation of the state Constitution it is sworn to uphold.

"Unfortunately, the Court chose to ignore the plain meaning of Proposition 8 and will force state recognition of same-sex 'marriage' licenses issued last year. The Court's recognition of these 'marriages' clearly seeds the ground for a possible legal battle before the U.S. Supreme Court. At every opportunity, the people of California have voted to protect marriage because they recognize the far reaching consequences that redefining marriage will have for children, the family, religious liberties, businesses and every facet of American society. Today's decision should encourage pro-family activists not only in California but across the country. Marriage redefinition is not inevitable unless advocates of the family stand aside and allow it to happen."

• Protect Marriage (5/26/09) Yes on 8 Campaign Applauds CA Supreme Court for Upholding Proposition 8 and Respecting the Will of the Voters.

California voters won a major victory today as the California Supreme Court announced its decision to uphold Proposition 8 and leave the definition of traditional marriage in California's constitution as decided by voters in the November, 2008 election.

Andrew Pugno, General Counsel of ProtectMarriage.com -- the official proponents of Prop. 8 -- said the Court's ruling is a great victory for the people of California and for the millions of supporters of traditional marriage. "We commend the California Supreme Court for upholding the right of the people to define marriage in our constitution," said Pugno. "The Court recognized that the power to amend the constitution ultimately belongs to the people. We are very grateful to the Court for agreeing with the arguments we presented in our briefs and in oral argument last March. For the second time now, the people have decided that marriage is reserved for a man and a woman and the Court has appropriately respected their decision."

Over 7 million people voted in favor of Proposition 8 last November. It won by a margin of 600,000 votes and achieved roughly the same percentage of support as President Barack Obama did nationally. Post election surveys show that Californians continue to support traditional marriage. If anything, support for gay marriage has declined while support for traditional marriage has increased.

Today's ruling closes the door on the latest challenges to the state's election process in an ongoing effort to legalize same-sex marriage in California. If gay activists wish to legalize same-sex marriage now, they will have to go to the people and seek their permission -- something they have never done. Pugno promised that any future efforts to repeal Prop. 8 will be vigorously contested. ProtectMarriage.com will also vigorously oppose any further efforts in the state and federal courts to invalidate or weaken Prop 8.

According to Ron Prentice, Chairman of the ProtectMarriage.com Executive Committee, the Committee will now shift its focus on the long-term goal of continuing to protect marriage and strengthen family values. "We will now turn our attention to public education and outreach so that citizens come to better understand and appreciate the many benefits that traditional marriage provides for society and our families," said Prentice. "The institution of marriage as we have always understood it has served California and our broader society since the nation was founded. We look forward to working with young people, churches, ethnic communities and all of California with an ongoing discussion about the benefits of traditional marriage."

413-423 – Jack Hibbs, senior pastor at Calvary Chapel Chino Hills (calvarycch.org), on today's 6-1 California Supreme Court ruling allowing Prop 8 to stand and the 18,000 gay couples who married to remain wed.

428-437 – Jim Garlow, pastor of Skyline Church in San Diego (skylinechurch.org), and one of the key leaders of the Yes on 8 campaign (protectmarriage.com), on today's 6-1 California Supreme Court ruling allowing Prop 8 to stand and the 18,000 gay couples who married to remain wed.

443-452 – • Fox News (5/26/09) Sotomayor nominated to high court, first Hispanic.

• NYT (5/14/09) A Judge's View of Judging Is on the Record.

• Ed Morrissey (5/26/09) Sonia Sotomayor's greatest hits.

"I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn't lived that life." — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001.

• Verum Serum (5/3/09) Leading Obama Supreme Court Candidate: Courts Make Policy (Video). YouTube.

(:35) Sonia Sotomayor at Duke in 2005, "Um, all of the legal defense funds out there, um, they're looking for people with court of appeals experience, because court of appeals is where policy is made. And I know, I know this is on tape and I should never say that because we don't make law, I know. Um, um — [laughter] — I know. I'm not promoting it, I'm not advocating it, and, I'm … you know. [laughter]."

• Jeffrey Rosen, TNR (5/8/09) More Sotomayor: Rosen responds to his critics.

458-508 – Wesley J. Smith, (wesleyjsmith.com) bioethicist and senior fellow at the Discovery Institute (discovery.org), and author of The Consumer's Guide to a Brave New World, on the new Al Pacino movie for HBO about Jack Kevorkian entitled "You Don't Know Jack," and a strange illness called Body Integrity Identity Disorder that afflicts people to want to become amputees.

512-523 – Wesley J. Smith.

528-538 – Jerry Bowyer, economist, nationally-syndicated columnist, and CNBC contributor (jerrybowyer.com), on the news of the day.

• Holman Jenkins, WSJ's Political Diary (5/26/09) Government of the UAW, by the UAW, for the UAW.

When a company is in bankruptcy, laid-off workers can usually consider themselves lucky if their last paychecks clear. Forget any special severance benefits. Here's one more sign that a Detroit auto bankruptcy is something astonishing and new under the sun.

Chrysler may have shut down all its plants and ceased producing cars and is about to be broken up and sold to Fiat. But layoffs are still strictly voluntary for UAW members. On the contrary, the inducements have only gotten richer under bankruptcy. Before Chrysler got terminally ill and the taxpayer had to take over, the going price was $75,000 for a worker to surrender his job. With federal bailout money in play, Chrysler has upped the buyout price to $110,000 plus a $25,000 voucher for a new car.

•• This is a marvelous precedent in bankruptcy, likely never seen before. Chrysler's dealers, bondholders, white-collar workers and white-collar retirees have all found to their abiding injury that, for them, bankruptcy is still bankruptcy. Not for the UAW, one group for which the landing just keeps getting softer and softer. Bankruptcy courts once existed as a fundamental underpinning of our system of property rights, making sure claimants to a failed company got their due. In the case of the Detroit autos, bankruptcy has become a political venue for infusing auto makers with taxpayer money for the benefit of the administration's UAW allies, who spent $55 million in the last election cycle supporting Mr. Obama and his party.

Mr. Obama today picked someone else, but an inspired notion from Michigan voters was a new Detroit News poll in which a majority backed Gov. Jennifer Granholm for the Supreme Court. Ms. Granholm has been a tireless supporter of Operation Bail-Out-the-UAW, which Mr. Obama may well have to defend all the way to the highest court. He may yet wish he had stacked the court with Ms. Granholm.

• Hot Air (4/28/09) UAW to get 39% of GM, Obama administration 50%

My Summary: Under Obama's plan for the new Government Motors, the total stake by all three owners will be $64 billion, broken down this way. Bondholders will have paid $27.2 billion (42% of the total) and get merely a 10% ownership stake. The UAW will contribute $10 billion (15.6% of the total) and get a 39% ownership stake. The Federal Government will contribute $27 billion (42% of the total) and get a 51% ownership stake.

How can the bondholders contribute 42% and get just 10% ownership?

How can the UAW contribute 16% and get 39%?

How can Obama contribute 42% and get 51%?

The answer? Obama is giving – not selling – GM to the UAW. Obama and the UAW will own 90% of the new Government Motors. This is nationalization of a major industry. Get ready, more is coming.

544-554 – Jerry Bowyer, economist, nationally-syndicated columnist, and CNBC contributor (jerrybowyer.com).

558-608 – Francis Chan, pastor of Cornerstone Church in Simi Valley (cornerstonesimi.com), author of Crazy Love: Overwhelmed by a Relentless God (crazylovebook.com). Francis lays out their plan to start house churches this summer.

612-623 – Francis Chan

628-638 – Frank Turek, founder of crossexamined.org (that has tons of great resources and videos), and author of Correct, Not Politically Correct: How Same-Sex Marriage Hurts Everyone and I Don't Have Enough Faith To Be An Atheist.

• NRO Editors (5/26/09) Born Unequal.

My Summary: The out-of-wedlock birth rate is 40% overall, but 72% for blacks, 51% for Hispanics, and 28% for non-Hispanic whites. However, Charles Murray at AEI has broken down the non-Hispanic white rate of 28% further, and found the out-of-wedlock birth rate for poor whites is 70%, for working-class whites 40%, for middle-class whites 20%, and for upper-class whites 5%.

They conclude, "During the Bush years, liberals often attributed rising inequality to Republican economic measures. In fact, the growth of inequality since the early 1980s can be explained by structural changes in both the U.S. economy and American society. The most important social shift has been the deterioration of middle- and lower-income families. Over the long term, strengthening those families is the best way to reduce inequality."

• Verum Serum (5/3/09) Leading Obama Supreme Court Candidate: Courts Make Policy (Video). YouTube.

644-652 – Frank Turek

657-700 – I share a little of my testimony as a former atheist challenged to disprove Christianity.

The Frank Pastore Show

701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550

Glendale, CA 91203

Office (818) 956-5552

Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com

Get Podcasts here

The Frank Pastore Show

701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550

Glendale, CA 91203

Office (818) 956-5552

Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com

Get Podcasts here

Friday, May 22, 2009

Today we're at the Mortgage Modification & Debt Settlement Workshop brought to you by the Christian Lawyers of America (christianlawyersofamerica.com, 888-811-9955) at the Double Tree Hotel, 100 The City Drive, in Orange. The seminar starts at 7:30pm… Registration and parking are free… C'mon down!

400-408 – • Dick Morris (5/22/09) Obama's Credit Card Reform Is A Fraud.

Until 1979, states could use usury laws against credit card companies, but that year the Supreme Court ruled that it was the state of the lender, and not the state of the borrower, who held the sole power to legislate interest rates. South Dakota seized the opportunity and eliminated all usury laws, attracting all the credit card companies to relocate there. So companies can continue to charge a basic rate of 18%, and up to 30% for minor offenses like being a few days late in making payments. Morris suggests a real solution would be to limit the basic rate to 5 points over prime, and punitive rates no higher than 10 points over prime. The average credit card debt is $13,000, and if they're paying 30%, that comes to $300 a month in interest alone.

• WTHI (5/21/09) Credit card changes could be on the way. Will go into effect in February 2010.

Americans pay around $15 billion in penalty fees each year, the White House said. Nearly 80 percent of American families have a credit card, and 44 percent of families carry a balance. Americans held $946B in credit card debt at the end of March.

Credit card companies will have to inform cardholders forty-five days before they raise interest rates or change other important terms. The new act will also bar companies from raising rates on existing debts unless payment is at least sixty days late.

Starting next year, credit card bills may look a little different. For example, if there's a balance of a $1,000 and the minimum payment was only $35. First, the law requires the credit card company to give a 21 day notice of when it is due. Second, it would point out just how long it would take to pay off that bill, making minimum payments. Third, it would show just how much money consumers would be shelling out to the credit card company if they only made minimum payments. And, the legislation would make card companies apply payments to balances with the highest interest rates first.

• MSNBC (5/22/09) Credit card law a consumer benefit with bugs 'There will be some fallout, and it might be a short-term negative'.

My Summary: The big claim is "Interest rates no longer will be allowed to be raised retroactively if you pay your bills. Terms will be clearer, over-the-limit fees curtailed and rates fairer." But, here's the reality when the changes go into effect. Introductory and APR rates will rise. There will be no cap on the interest rate that can be charged. There will be no restrictions on fees for balance transfer, cash advance or late payment. Companies can raise rates at any time for any reason, although that won't apply to existing balances unless a customer is 60 days overdue with a payment. If you don't pay interest because you pay off your balance each month, expect your "free ride" to end, you'll likely soon pay an annual fee between $50 to $100 a year. Companies may eliminate the grace period and start charging you interest from the date of purchase. If you do carry a balance for longer than 60 days, expect your rate to rise much higher than 35%. Those with low credit scores won't be able to get credit cards, and will likely used payday lenders and pawn shops.

413-423 – Phil Cooke is a Hollywood producer with a Ph.D. in Theology. His e-mail newsletter, Ideas for the Change Revolution, is a bi-monthly journal filled with media research, creative concepts, and production resources and his blog at philcooke.com is considered one of the most insightful resources on issues of faith, culture, and media. Through Cooke Pictures (cookepictures.com) in Burbank, Phil advises many of the largest and most effective non-profit and faith-based media organizations in the world, and speaks at workshops, seminars, and conferences all over the world. He's lectured at Yale, Berkeley, and UCLA, and is an adjunct professor at both the King's College & Seminary, and Biola. His latest book is The Last TV Evangelist: Why The Next Generation Couldn't Care Less About Religious Media… And Why It Matters.

• Today we talk about "creativity," how to be more innovative, how to be more of an original thinker. Recent research has really given us some interesting insight into how to be an innovator. And as believers - if we're going to engage today's culture, we have to be more original and unique. Jesus lived beyond everyone's expectations, and we should too. Iconoclast.

428-437 – Tom Krannawitter, Associate Professor of Political Science at Hillsdale College (hillsdale.edu), and author of Vindicating Lincoln: Defending the Politics of Our Greatest President. Tom earned his Ph.D. in Political Science at Claremont Graduate University, and is a Senior Fellow at the Claremont Institute (claremont.org), and he's taught at both Claremont McKenna College and Azusa Pacific University.

• Thomas Krannawitter (5/21/09) A Time For Choosing Again?

443-452 – Tom Krannawitter

458-508 – Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (aifdemocracy.org), an organization "committed to demonstrating the synergy of American democracy and its founding principles with the religion of Islam," is a former Navy Lieutenant Commander in the Medical Corps, former president of the Arizona Medical Association now an Internist in private practice in Phoenix. The documentary he narrates, The Third Jihad (thethirdjihad.com) is excellent!

• WSJ (5/22/09) The Other Interrogation Memos: The ones that show results.

• American Muslim Leader Warns: "Terror On Us Soil An Imminent Threat"

Phoenix - May 22, 2009 - Dr. Zuhdi Jasser, President and founder of the American Islamic Forum for Democracy (AIFD), today warned that the foiled bomb plot in New York City is a "clear and calculated warning that well-coordinated extremists are on the move within the U.S." Four individuals were arrested Thursday in New York City on charges that they planned to detonate explosives at a Jewish synagogue and community center and shoot down U.S. military aircraft with surface-to-air missiles.

"The arrest of four individuals - three of whom appear to be U.S. citizens - confirms that homegrown Islamist-inspired terrorism is a clear and present danger," said Dr. Jasser. "Today's arrests should be a wake-up call to America and especially to American Muslims that we are long overdue in countering the well-coordinated and well-funded Islamist programs which exist within the United States."

"The 80-page 2007 NYPD Radicalization Report is accurate - radicalization in U.S. prisons is an immediate threat. This recent terrorist attempt on Jewish synagogues shows the NYPD Report was right. The Council for American Islamic Relations (CAIR) opposed that report because as usual they were in denial about the radicalization in U.S. prisons," said Dr. Jasser. "It's now acknowledged that at least some of the alleged bombers were radicalized in U.S. prisons -Many Islamist imams are aggressively recruiting inmates in our prisons with ideologies that fuel 'home-grown' terror."

"It's significant that this terrorist plot was targeted against synagogues, underscoring the dangerous hatred promoted by radical imams in American prisons," said Dr. Jasser.

"The solution begins with government rejection of Islamist apologist groups like CAIR, who are not representatives of the Muslims in America. The FBI has recently rejected them and we support that decision. We must engage the majority non-Islamist American Muslim community to reject political Islam and its fuel for radicalized Islam," said Dr. Jasser.

Dr. Jasser, a devout Muslim and son of Muslim-Syrian immigrants, is a former U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander, physician and past president of the Arizona Medical Association. Jasser is widely known as a moderate, anti-Islamist Muslim leader featured in the PBS film, Islam v Islamists produced by ABG Films, Inc. in 2007 and narrator of the recently released (thethirdjihad.com) The Third Jihad produced by Clarion Fund, Inc. which focuses on the threat of radical Islam to America. Jasser appears regularly in print and on national TV and radio programs.

512-523 – Dr. Zuhdi Jasser

528-538 – • LAT (5/22/09) California Supreme Court to rule on Proposition 8 Tuesday at 10am.

• Fox News (5/22/09) Gay Curriculum Proposal Riles Elementary School Parents.

• Allah Pundit (5/22/09) Liberty University un-recognizes College Democrats.

• Lynchburg News Advance (5/22/09) UPDATE: McAuliffe, LU Democrats hold call on club ban.

544-554 – Calls

558-608 – Calls

612-623 – Matt McCormick, CEO of the Christian Lawyers of America (christianlawyersofamerica.com, 888-811-9955),

Key Points: The lenders make more money foreclosing than modifying. It takes months, certainly weeks, not days. You pay the upfront retainer fee, but you get to stay in your house at a lower monthly payment and a lower interest rate. Matt is personally involved in each case.

628-638 – Matt McCormick, CEO of the Christian Lawyers of America (christianlawyersofamerica.com, 888-811-9955)

644-652 – Matt McCormick,

• Peggy Noonan (5/22/09) Those Who Make Us Say 'Oh!': A tribute to America's war heroes, past and present.

• S. E. Cupp (5/22/09) Really Talented Performer Wins American Idol; Liberals Blame Christians.

• Charles Krauthammer (5/22/09) Obama in Bush Clothing: America Fights On.

• Newt Gingrich (5/22/09) A Rising Anti-Government Tide.

• ADF (5/21/09) The National Press Club Johnson Amendment debate: Free Speech in the Pulpit.

The Frank Pastore Show

701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550

Glendale, CA 91203

Office (818) 956-5552

Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com

Get Podcasts here

Thursday, May 21, 2009

400-408 – Jeff Pries (& John Ward), the two creatives behind the awesome Liquid DVD series (experienceliquid.com) – simply the best Christian media I have ever seen! Jeff is the Small Groups Pastor and on the Speaking Team at Mariners Church (marinerschurch.org), a father of 4, and the former 1st pick of the New York Yankees out of UCLA in 1984. John is the president of Bay Ridge Films, and at just 25 was accepted into the Director's Guild of America for his great work, including the film Enchanted. John wrote, produced, and directed the Liquid series. And they just finished The 10 which you can purchase at experienceliquid.com.

413-423 – Jeff Pries (& John Ward)

428-437 – Jay Richards, is a visiting fellow at the Heritage foundation (heritage.org) who has held leadership positions at both the Discovery Institute and the Acton Institute for the Study of Religion and Liberty, and he's been the executive producer of two documentaries, The Call of the Entrepreneur and The Birth of Freedom (due out this year). His latest is Money, Greed, And God: Why Capitalism Is The Solution And Not The Problem (browse). Jay sent me an advance copy, I read it–twice–while taking tons of notes, and it's now at the very top of my must-read books. It is exactly what every American ought to read, and what every Christian needs to read right now as so many are embracing bigger and bigger government as the answer to all our problems.

443-452 – Jay Richards

458-508 – Dr. John Townsend, (drtownsend.com), clinical psychologist, leadership consultant, speaker, and author or co-author of 20 books, selling 5 million copies, including the 2 million copy bestseller Boundaries – and co-host of the nationally-syndicated radio program New Life Live (newlife.com) heard weekdays here on KKLA at 2:00pm. His latest book is Leadership Beyond Reason: How Great Leaders Succeed by Harnessing The Power of Their Values, Feelings, and Intuition. And, his leadership coaching program is under way in Newport Beach, for details go to drtownsend.com.

512-523 – Calls with John Townsend

528-538 – Calls with John Townsend

539 – [1:30] Robert Micone/Bill O'Connor aka "The Money Guys" at Applied Financial with 5 offices around the southland, 866-SEEK-COUNSEL, and online at appliedfinancialplanning.com.

544-554 – Calls with John Townsend

558-608 – • LAT (5/21/09) California braces for brutal budget cuts. Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger sees a voter mandate for his plan to slash billions, and Democratic leaders say they won't hesitate to make deep cuts that could antagonize their allies.

• But the Republican governor delivered at least a bit of good news: Obama administration officials had backed off their threat to rescind $6.8 billion in federal stimulus money. The hacking of government began quickly, by the hand of a little-known state panel that sets elected state officials' pay. Citing a need for shared sacrifice, the group decided to reduce those salaries by 18% starting next year.

•• "People are going to have to figure out: Do they want schools, do they want roads, do they want public safety, or do they want to take care of the less fortunate?" said John Burton, a former state Senate leader who is now chairman of the California Democratic Party. "At some point, that's going to happen."

• Matt Towery (5/21/09) California, Here We Come. Are we going to bail out "minority-owned broadcasting companies and big-city newspapers" too? Is California "too big to fail" too?

• The true whopper of a proposal is the administration's effort to tax "evil companies" that sell their products in other nations, but which, for whatever reason, avoid taxation of those sales in the United States…But here's the problem. Many of these corporations earn much of their income in countries with much fairer corporate tax structures. If they are penalized for their success overseas, guess what? They will move their complete operations out of the United States. Think I'm kidding? Just ask them. There go tens of thousands of jobs and more lost revenue.

•• George Will (5/21/09) The Coming California Bailout.

• "So California may become the next target for the Obama administration, whose dependency agenda involves seizing every opportunity to break things -- banks, insurance and automobile companies, etc. -- to the saddle of its supervision."

• "Now California's mostly Democratic political class will petition Washington for a bailout to nourish the public sector that is suffocating the state's dwindling -- and departing -- private sector. The Obama administration, which rewarded the United Auto Workers by giving it considerable control over two companies it helped reduce to commercial rubble, will serve the interests of California's unionized public employees and others largely responsible for reducing the state to mendicancy."

• These factions will flourish if the state becomes a federal poodle on a short leash held by the president. He might make aid conditional on the state doing things that California Democrats and their union allies would love to be "compelled" to do: eliminate the requirements of two-thirds majorities of both houses of the legislature to raise taxes and pass budgets, and repeal Proposition 13, which voters passed in 1978 to limit property taxes. These changes would enable the legislature (job approval rating: 14 percent) to siphon away an ever-larger share of taxpayers' wealth and transfer it to public employees. Such as prison guards, whose potent union is one reason California's cost-per-inmate (about $49,000) is twice the national average.

• California's voters are complicit in their state's collapse. They elect and reelect the legislators off whom public employees unions batten. Also, voters have promiscuously used their state's plebiscitary devices to control and fatten the budget. In November, as the dark fiscal clouds lowered, they authorized $9.95 billion more in debt as a down payment on a perhaps $75 billion high-speed-rail project linking San Francisco and Los Angeles -- a delight California cannot afford.

• But Californians should now pay a real price, in realism about ways and means, for Schwarzenegger's wasted years. His governance-by-attention-deficit-disorder has involved flitting from one trendy irrelevance (e.g., stem-cell research) to another (e.g., cooling the planet) while the state has sagged. Fittingly, he was in Washington as his shambolic legacy was being defined by Tuesday's defeat.

• WSJ (5/21/09) Golden (State) Opportunity. California voters send a message about runaway government.

• Mr. Schwarzenegger, legislators and public-worker unions are now conspiring to roll out plan B: a federal bailout. The Governor was in Washington on Tuesday and, sounding like a Detroit auto executive, declared: "We need assistance." As a starter he wants a federal guarantee on California's next $6 billion bond offering.

• But a federal bailout is an injustice to the residents of other states, especially those that run their governments responsibly. Why should taxpayers in Colorado, Virginia or Ohio pay for California's incompetence? Worse, one price of a bailout could be an Obama Administration demand that California remove its requirement for a two-thirds legislative majority to pass a tax increase. Another possible political target is repeal of the Proposition 13 property tax limitation. Yet these are the only remaining restraints on the appetites of the political class.

• The next step is to fix California's steeply progressive and antigrowth tax code. California's 10.55% income tax and 9% sales tax are driving businesses and high income taxpayers out of the state, depleting the tax base month after month. They also lead to overspending during the good times as revenues boom, but to budget crises when those revenues fall precipitously during the busts. A 5% to 6% tax rate on sales and income without deductions would halt the flight to low-tax neighboring states and invite newcomers who could start buying houses again.

• The state's public-employee pensions also need to be overhauled. According to the California Foundation for Fiscal Responsibility, the state pension funds are more than $200 billion underfunded. Public employees can retire after 30 years on the job in their early 50s, with lifetime retirement benefits at 90% of their final salary. Some retirees receive $200,000 a year or more in pensions. The solution is to follow Florida's lead and require new workers to accept defined contribution pensions like the 401(k) plans now dominant in the private work force. Without such a reform, many California cities will go bust and the state's tax burden will grow inexorably.

• Despite the panic from Sacramento, Tuesday's vote was the best fiscal news out of California in 30 years. It showed that the voters are paying attention to the games their elected leaders have been playing, and they have finally blown the whistle. We hope the sound was heard as far away as another out-of-control government, the one in Washington, D.C.

612-623 – •• "People are going to have to figure out: Do they want schools, do they want roads, do they want public safety, do they want to take care of the less fortunate?" said John Burton, a former state Senate leader who is now chairman of the California Democratic Party. "At some point, that's going to happen."

• Rep. Tom McClintock (5/21/09) Warnings from the Left Coast.

• Washington Times (5/21/09) Schwarzenegger knocks California voters. Will 19,000 illegal immigrants be moved to state custody and 23,000 non-violent offenders be moved to local jails? Will 2010 be another 1994 when the country threw out the tax and spend Democrats?

628-638 – Our American Idol is Kris Allen!

644-652 – David Rosales, pastor of my home church for the past 18 years (1991), the 10,000-member Calvary Chapel of the Chino Valley (calvaryccv.org). They invite you out to their FREE "Night of Worship" next Friday, May 29th at 7pm. The Katinas perform. And also the Calvary Chapel 13th Annual Inland Empire Men's Conference next Saturday May 30th at 8am (Breakfast at 7am.) Guests in include Chuck Smith, Raul Ries, Pedro Garcia, Ken Graves, Victor Marx, LTG (Ret) William "Jerry" Boykin (Wed 5:30). The Katinas will perform too. Conference is free and open to all men in the Inland Empire. Plenty of free parking. For more information, go to calvaryccv.org. Monday nights for Young Adults 18-35.

657-700 – • MSNBC (5/21/09) Couple flees with cash after bank error: New Zealand institution mistakenly deposited $6.1 million into account.

• ABC News (5/21/09) Four Charged in Alleged Synagogue Bomb Plot to Appear in Court. Men Allegedly Bought Stinger Missile, C-4 Explosives Through FBI Informant.

• Ann Coulter (5/20/09) Notre Dame Holds First Alan Keyes Fundraiser.

• NRO Editors (5/21/09) Californians Draw a Line.

• Victor Davis Hanson (5/21/09) Is America Premodern or Postmodern? A highly complex society, staffed by the inept, can be terrifying.

• Bjorn Lomborg (5/21/09) The Climate-Industrial Complex. Some businesses see nothing but profits in the green movement.

The Frank Pastore Show

701 North Brand Boulevard, Suite 550

Glendale, CA 91203

Office (818) 956-5552

Frank's Assistant Nate Hanson nate@kkla.com

Get Podcasts here