Tomorrow on Family Talk with Dr. James Dobson, they'll be airing my testimony, you can catch it at 10am.
400-408 – (6X) Ten-year-old Cliff Forrest Jr, on Sportscenter with his dad, talking about why he bought William "The Refrigerator" Perry Superbowl ring for $8500 in order to return to him.
• Fox News (4/5/2011) Boy Buys Super Bowl Ring Back for William 'The Refrigerator' Perry.
• NBC Sports (4/5/2011) Wake Up Call: So shines a good deed in a weary world.
If this story doesn't make you feel good nothing will. Cliff Forrest Jr. wasn't even alive when William Refrigerator Perry won a Super Bowl ring for the Chicago Bears in 1986, but when he saw it for sale, he had to have it. And because dad was out of town, the 10-year-old got permission from mom to use part of his college savings to buy it. But the $8,500 purchase didn't stay in his possession for long.
In researching Perry, Cliff discovered that the former player had Guillain-Barre syndrome and had to sell the ring to help pay for medical expenses. So he decided that he wanted to give the ring back to its original owner. And on Saturday in Chicago, that's what he did.
Cliff was able to add to his collection on Saturday. Although he wasn't looking for anything in return, Cliff received two autographed Bears jerseys and some cards from an appreciative Perry, who was conducting an autograph-signing session.
"It was exciting," Cliff Jr. said. "He looked really happy. He said, 'Thanks.'
"It's what I wanted to do. When I Googled Mr. Perry after I got the ring, I saw he had the disease and went through rough times. And I thought he needed it more than I did."
One of the best things about this story is that Cliff isn't even a Bears fan … he lives in Pittsburgh. That's good karma on you, Steelers Nation.
• YouTube (4/4/2011) William Perry Gets Super Bowl Ring Back.
413-423 – Calls – Did the mom do the right thing in letting her 10-year-old son buy Perry's Superbowl ring for $8,500 knowing he was going to give the ring back to The Fridge? What if one of your kids wanted to use some of their savings to donate to a ministry, would you let them? Have you let them? Up to how much? Have you ever bought anything with the purpose of giving it away, maybe back to the original owner? What's been the most generous thing you've ever been given? What did mom let you buy that dad would have said no to? Aren't moms the more lenient of the two?
428-437 – Calls –
443-452 – Calls –
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," refers to himself as a "Jeffersonian Muslim," he is a former Navy Lieutenant Commander in the Medical Corps, former president of the Arizona Medical Association, and today is an Internist in private practice in Phoenix. Check out the excellent documentary he narrates, The Third Jihad (thethirdjihad.com). AIFD just launched "The Muslim Liberty Project" last month with the purpose of inoculating youth against radicalization, and helping families deal with their children perhaps becoming radicalized. And, as a result of the recent hearings in Washington, Zuhdi is no longer the lone voice talking about modernization. Now, there's this coalition, americanislamicleadership.org.
(:39) Ghosh: Koran v. Bible (Hardball guest host Chuck Todd has Bobby Ghosh, Time Magazine world editor, as a guest on MSNBC on the show 4/1/2011. Video and article link is here.)
512-523 – Dr. Zuhdi Jasser,
528-539 – • NRO Editors (4/5/2011) A Conflict of Budget Visions.
Paul Ryan's budget proposal for next year is the most ambitious conservative initiative since — well, actually, since ever. It includes more than $6 trillion in budget cuts over the next decade, as compared with Pres. Barack Obama's budgets. If implemented, the plan would rapidly stabilize the national debt and then pay it down. Ryan proposes to repeal Obamacare, take on the massive health-care entitlements, privatize Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, pare back agriculture subsidies, build on the success of welfare reform, and overhaul the tax code.
Not even a small fraction of this agenda can be achieved while President Obama and Senate majority leader Harry Reid retain their positions. The purpose of Ryan's plan is to raise a standard to which Republicans can aspire in 2012. In the best-case scenario, their presidential candidate runs on most of these ideas, the party wins a mandate in the next election, and the work of making the government leaner and more sober can begin in earnest in 2013.
// If the political risks are big, though, so are the potential rewards for the country. We have reservations about the Ryan budget, as is only to be expected in such a far-ranging document. The parameters of Ryan's tax reform, for example, will make it hard to avoid a tax increase on millions of middle-class families. But on the whole, the Ryan plan puts the Republican party on record for a government that is more modest in its goals, more able to match means to ends, and more respectful of the initiative of the citizens it serves. The last two years have been a forced march toward European social democracy. Ryan is pointing the way back toward a republic, and we are pleased to join his advance.
•• IBD Editorial (4/4/2011) Editorial: $4 Trillion In Cuts Is Just A Start.
Budget: Republicans are set to unveil common-sense changes to entitlements that cut spending $4 trillion over the next decade and start to restore our fiscal health. Predictably, do-nothing Democrats call them "extremist."
But who's the real extremist here? The one who recognizes that $10 trillion-plus in expected deficits over the next 10 years is a serious problem? Or those who insist there's no budget problem so bad that more spending and a massive tax hike on all Americans can't fix it?
Truth is, our long-term fiscal problem is so severe that, absent immediate corrective action, our country's political and economic future is imperiled.
By the Social Security and Medicare Trustees' own estimates, we are running headlong into a fiscal tsunami. All told, the government's entitlement accountants say, we have roughly $107 trillion in unfunded liabilities — $340,836 and change for every American alive today.
Even if you're generous and reduce that by the amount of assets the government has, the future red ink at the end of the 2010 fiscal year was still about $57 trillion — $7 trillion for federal pensions, $17 trillion for Social Security, $22 trillion for Medicare, and about $11 trillion or so in debt. That's $481,000 for every U.S. household.
For Democrats to refuse to cut spending in the face of such numbers is the definition of "extremist."
The fiscal cancer is growing fast. As the chart shows, based on estimates from the Government Accountability Office, spending on entitlements and interest on our debts will soar from just 11% of GDP this year to over half of our economy by 2065.
That means that, in that year, children born today will see 50 cents of every dollar they earn turned over to the government to pay for retirees' benefits. As intolerable as that is, today's Democrats have chosen to ignore it, screaming instead about "Wall Street" bailouts and "taxing the rich."
Unfortunately, the Democrats' panacea of higher taxes will sink the economy. Just to pay for Social Security and Medicare would require a near tripling of the current tax rate of 15.3% by the middle of the century.
Americans would be slowly bankrupted by such policies — and so would the government.
In that context, House Budget Committee chief Paul Ryan proposes $4 trillion in cuts. Extreme? Even if he cut $6 trillion, our national debt would still rise. Faced with $10 trillion in deficits, $4 trillion is just a modest start. Now we'll see who the real extremists are.
• Paul Ryan (4/5/2011) The GOP Path to Prosperity. Our budget cuts $6.2 trillion in spending from the president's budget over the next 10 years and puts the nation on track to pay off our national debt. Mr. Ryan, a Republican, represents Wisconsin's first congressional district and serves as chairman of the House Budget Committee.
544-554 – • Dennis Prager (4/5/2011) Why God Isn't Doing Well: The universities are fighting an undeclared war on faith.
558-608 – Reza Kahlili,
• Reza Kahlili (Pajamas Media, 4/5/2011) Iran's Supreme Leader: 'We Have Won on the Nuclear Front'. Reza Kahlili is a pseudonym for an ex-CIA spy who requires anonymity for safety reasons. A Time to Betray, his book about his double life as a CIA agent in Iran's Revolutionary Guards, was published by Simon & Schuster on April 6.
• Reza Kahlili (atimetobetray.com, 3/28/2011) Iran Leaders: The Coming is Upon Us – Israel Shall be Destroyed! (Watch the Video).
612-623 – Reza Kahlili,
628-639 – Reza Kahlili,
644-656 – Reza Kahlili,
• Fox News (4/5/2011) IRS Targets Wealthy With More Audits.
• William McGurn (WSJ, 4/5/2011) After the Welfare State: The moral price of dependence on government is even higher than the financial cost.
