An interesting article from http://www.ucg.org/ about Labor Day and the Sabbath. This follows this post about China's military and trade. This follows this post about the Lost 10 Tribes.  This follows this post about Zika. For a free magazine subscription or to get the books recommended for free click HERE! or call 1-888-886- 8632.

"In It You Shall Do No Work"

A Labor Day Look at God's Sabbath

 by Kevin Greer Listen Estimated reading time: 3 minutes

MP3 Audio (4.97 MB)

Labor Day was instituted to honor those who work. At the very beginning of creation God set apart a special day to honor His rest. Learn why the Sabbath command can be a blessing in your life.

Jordan McQueen/Unsplash

You can reap the benefits of God's Sabbath every week!

According to the United States Department of Labor , Labor Day was created to honor the contributions that workers have made to the social and economic well-being of America. President Grover Cleveland first made it a federal holiday in 1894. Labor Day is the first Monday in September, falling on Sept. 5 this year. As an American college student myself, it makes a nice transition from working full-time to going back to classes for the year, giving summer one last hurrah.

God’s “work week” is a marvelous schedule that works. He pushes us to work hard at our jobs and various other responsibilities throughout the week, and then gives us the seventh day off to both relax and focus on Him.

Here’s an odd question: Have you ever stopped to consider God’s perspective on labor, or, as we might say today, “work”? It’s interesting to think and read about. God actually expects us to work for most of the week. In Exodus 20:9 we read God’s command that for “six [out of seven] days you shall labor and do all your work.” He also encourages us to work with passion and diligence: “Whatever your hand finds to do, do it with your might” (Ecclesiastes 9:10). Work is important and allows us to do many honorable things in life, such as provide for our families, grant help to those in need, and leave an inheritance for our children.
Are we then to work and slave away at all times? Certainly not! God understands that we aren’t tireless robots who can run all seven days of the week. He tells us—commands us even—to take the seventh day off!
Let’s return to Exodus 20 to get the rest of God’s important directive: “Six days you shall labor and do all your work, but the seventh day is the Sabbath of the LORD your God . In it you shall do no work” (Exodus 20:9-10; emphasis added). God wants us to take the seventh day off so bad that He makes it the fourth requirement in the most well-known section of His law: the Ten Commandments!
But there’s still more to the story besides not working! What are we supposed to do with these 24 hours of seemingly free time? The core of God’s Fourth Commandment is this: “Remember the Sabbath day, to keep it holy .” (Exodus 20:8; emphasis added).
One important way that we keep this day holy is by resting instead of working, as we already mentioned. Another significant way we honor the Sabbath is by attending church services, which are a holy convocation appointed by God Himself (Leviticus 23:3). Going to church allows us to converse with and encourage others who believe as we do and to worship and learn more about God and His truth. Please click here to find the congregation closest to you.
God’s “work week” is a marvelous schedule that works. He pushes us to work hard at our jobs and various other responsibilities throughout the week, and then gives us the seventh day off to both relax and focus on Him. This “recharge day” doesn’t come around just once a year; you can reap the benefits of God’s Sabbath every week! As you prepare for fall and for the upcoming holiday weekend, remember to always put God first and keep His Sabbaths holy. Have a blessed and restful Sabbath and Labor Day weekend.
For a more in-depth look at God’s instruction to keep the Sabbath, how to keep it, and its plethora of benefits, please reflect on the following writings:
Sunset to Sunset: God’s Sabbath Rest — our extensive booklet investigating the seventh-day Sabbath as it is mentioned throughout the Bible, from beginning to end.
“The Fourth Commandment: Key to a Relationship With Our Creator” — a look at the Sabbath as a command from God, demonstrating its deep importance to you individually.
“The Benefits of the Sabbath” — this article examines just a handful of the many benefits that you can experience right now by keeping God’s Sabbath.

Sabbath Ten Commandments

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  Kevin Greer

  Kevin Greer attends the United Church of God with the Kalamazoo, MI congregation. Some of his favorite hobbies include music and spending time with family and friends.
  

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Look On The Bright Side—Electoral College Gives GOP A (Small) Window To Act

A very interesting post from www.Vdare,com about the electoral college for future Presidential elections. This follows this post about things you can do if you don't like the way politics is going.   This follows this post about a race hoax at U.T. Austin.  This follows this post about Emmit Till. In the meantime, you can read a very interesting book HERE.

Look On The Bright Side—Electoral College Gives GOP A (Small) Window To Act




http://www.vdare.com/articles/look-on-the-bright-side-electoral-college-gives-gop-a-small-window-to-act

By Washington Watcher
The Main Stream Media and its sockpuppet Republican strategists drone on about the GOP’s dire need to appeal to Hispanics and VDARE.com writers respond, as I did myself in my last VDARE.com piece, that it is essentially impossible for the Republican Party to win a higher proportion of the Hispanic vote. But while the importance of the Hispanic vote in this election was overhyped, this does not change the reality that the size of the Hispanic electorate will continue to increase. [An Awakened Giant: The Hispanic Electorate is Likely to Double by 2030, Pew Hispanic Center, November 14, 2012]

Many on the real Right have interpreted these two facts to mean that the GOP is now forever doomed not to win the presidency. Thus Patrick J. Buchanan has written:



When the country looks like California demographically, it will look like California politically. Republicans are not whistling past the graveyard. They are right at the entrance.



My response: I do agree that, absent some serious changes to our immigration policy, the GOP is indeed eventually doomed. But I think it’s important to note that the Electoral College system will keep Republicans competitive for a few cycles more than the raw demographic data suggests.

This might seem counterintuitive after this election. Obama ended up winning the popular vote narrowly, 50-48%, but he racked up an impressive 332-206 victory in the Electoral College (62%-38%). New York Times quant blogger Nate Silver has calculated that Romney would have had to win the popular vote by 3% (assuming his gains were shifted evenly across all the states) in order to have won the presidency in 2012.

But there are two factors that can lead to a candidate doing better in the Electoral College than in the popular vote:



First, electoral votes are determined by the total number of Senators and Congressmen in each state.

Thus winning states with small populations gives you a disproportionate number of electoral votes.



Secondly, the Electoral College is winner-take-all in each state.

A candidate who wins the swing states by a small margin, but gets blown out in the states that were never in play to begin with, can still win the election.

It is this latter factor that could make the Republicans still competitive—even as the racial demographics of the country shift yet further in favor of the Democrats. The Hispanic electorate is overwhelmingly concentrated in non-swing states. And most swing states are whiter than the rest the country.

Although much is made out of the fact that Hispanics made up 10% of the electorate (there’s some dispute about this, but let’s accept it, arguendo), much of the Hispanic vote was in states that were never in contention. At least 42% of Hispanic votes were cast in the states of California, Texas, Arizona, New York, or New Mexico, which represent a combined 138 electoral votes or less than 26% of the total electoral votes. Each of these states went for Romney or Obama by at least 10%. It is reasonably fair to assume that the gradual increase in Hispanic voters in Texas and Arizona will not likely be enough to swing those states to the Democrats in 2016 or 2020.

There are three swing states with large Hispanic electorate: Florida, Colorado, and Nevada. Perhaps they may be competitive for the GOP for another Presidential election cycle or maybe even two, but not much longer. Combined with the aforementioned non-swing states, these states make up 182 or 34% of all electoral votes. Approximately 58% of all Hispanics voted in these 8 states.

(Note: I calculated these numbers from the CNN exit polls, by dividing the Hispanic Share of the electorate by the state share of the electorate. When I calculated these numbers, the results were not completely in at either the state or national level—CNN had reported 118 million voters at the time, while pollsters estimate approximately 126 million people voted in the election. Also, CNN did not conduct exit polls in Texas, so I simply used the 2008 share of the Hispanic votes. Assuming the Hispanic vote increased as it did in the rest of the country, this would mean that I actually undercounted the total Hispanic vote in non-swing states. You can see the figures I used to compute the data here.)

Thus the rest of the country, including most swing states, will have a much lower proportion of Hispanic voters than the 10% national figure that is being repeated by the talking heads. Hispanics made up 2% of the electorate in Iowa, 3% in New Hampshire, Michigan, and Ohio, 4% in North Carolina and Wisconsin, 5% in Virginia, and 6% in Indiana and Pennsylvania. Correspondingly, with the exception of North Carolina and Virginia, all of these states had a higher percentage of white voters than the national electorate.

Similarly the black population is heavily concentrated in the South. Whites vote en bloc in these states, making them solidly Republican, with the exception of North Carolina and Virginia—and even here whites still vote in higher percentages for the GOP than do whites nationwide. This dilutes the importance of the black vote in the Electoral College.(The New York Times recently editorialized against the very existence of the Electoral College: The Tarnish of the Electoral College, November 15, 2012)

Thus, Republicans could conceivably lose the heavily Hispanic swing states of Florida, Nevada, and Colorado and still win by sweeping the South (save Florida) and winning most of the white Rust bowl and Midwestern states.

Of course, this is easier said than done. While the GOP successfully turned Indiana back red in 2012, they lost Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, Pennsylvania, and Iowa. Republicans would have to win all but one of these states if they cannot win any of the heavily Hispanic swing states. And some, such as Pennsylvania, Michigan, and Wisconsin, have not gone for the GOP since 1988.

Still, Republicans performed well in all of these states in 2010. The problem is that they then used their victory to pursue anti-union, free trade, and anti-Medicare policies; while refusing to do anything about popular issues like immigration. As Pat Buchanan wrote,



Tuesday, these ex-Reagan Democrats came out to vote against some guy from Bain Capital they had been told in ads all summer was a big-time outsourcer who wrote in 2008, "Let Detroit Go Bankrupt!"



As much as I personally object to him, Rick Santorum would have probably done very well among these voters, though he would have likely scared off more Independent voters in swing states like Virginia, Florida, and Colorado with his views on social issues. I am confident that someone like Santorum, without the social baggage, who would also be solid on immigration, could be competitive for at least a couple more election cycles.

That person, by the way would not be Marco Rubio or Paul Ryan. However, if someone like Kris Kobach or Lou Barletta manages to get elected as Senator or Governor, they could easily appeal to these voters.

When immigration tips Texas and Arizona to the Democrats, the GOP is indeed finished.

But the party has a small window where it can still get elected to national office and halt and even reverse the demographic trends that will otherwise render it (and the historic American nation) irrelevant.

"Washington Watcher" [email him] is an anonymous source Inside The Beltway.

A very interesting post from http://www.dickmorris.com/ about Kasich’s reform legislation. This follows this post about the current state of the economy. This follows this previous article about it to encourage American energy independence. This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read a very interesting book  HERE!

URGENT! THE OHIO SHOWDOWN

On Tuesday, November 8th, the public employee unions in Ohio are hoping to pass a ballot measure repealing the labor reforms Governor John Kasich has passed this year. They want to kill reforms to teacher tenure, stop merit pay for teachers, eliminate school choice, stop union members from paying more for pensions and health insurance, and keep mandatory collection of union dues.




Conservatives – everyone – needs to give money to stop the unions from winning this fight. If they repeal Senate Bill 5 – Kasich’s reform legislation – it will reassert union power and block reforms all over the nation.





The unions tried to kill similar reforms in Wisconsin by recalling state legislators. But they were turned back by a special outpouring of national conservative activism. Now they are trying outright repeal in Ohio.



The Wisconsin reforms are changing the face of public education. Giving teachers the right to pay their own union dues has triggered a 50% cut in teacher union funding. Particularly important is control of health insurance for teachers. The union uses this power to make profits of 30% which fund its political action operations. The Wisconsin and Ohio laws put an end to this ripoff.



If we sustain Senate Bill 5 in Ohio, we will doom the political power of the public employee unions. They will not have the muscle to dominate legislative elections anymore and the teachers union will no longer run our public schools. (And, if they do, we will have school choice and can send our children to good private or church schools or home schooling).



The stakes couldn’t be higher. The early polls in Ohio have shown the union winning by twenty points. Now the margin is down to less than ten. With a determined effort we can pull off the same kind of magnificent victory we had in Wisconsin.



But, PLEASE send us your donations! –  Go Here Now.



Thank you,



Dick Morris



But, PLEASE send us your donations! – Go Here Now.



Paid for by Citizens United (http://www.citizensunited.org/ ) and not affiliated with any Issue 2 Campaign or Committee. David N. Bossie, President, 1006 Pennsylvania Ave. SE, Washington, DC 20003.

TAKE ACTION: America’s Job Creators Are About To Be Sucker Punched & You Have Until Wednesday To Comment

A very interesting post from www.redstate.com about Unions being forced upon all workers. This follows this post about the damage that Obamanomics is doing to the United States.  This follows this post about the House GOP's communication problem and this article about  the recent news about ending the ban on offshore drilling which would encourage American energy independence This is a key issue to prevent money from going to hostile countries such as Iran  and Venezuela. For more that you can do to get involved click HERE and you can read the very interesting book that is shown HERE!

TAKE ACTION: America’s Job Creators Are About To Be Sucker Punched & You Have Until Wednesday To Comment




Posted by LaborUnionReport (Profile)






 You need to act before Wednesday. At a time when the Obama Administration is clamoring to save or create jobs, his Department of Labor is about to sucker punch America’s job creators with an unprecedented regulatory overreach—all to curry more favor with union bosses.







On Wednesday, the public comment period will be closing on a Department of Labor proposal that the majority of America knows nothing about and even fewer understand.



If enacted as drafted, the union cronies within the Department of Labor will require every private-sector employer and service provider (whether or not they ever talk directly to employees) to file financial statements with the Obama Labor Department if the service provider’s services indirectly affect employees’ choice to unionize or not.



Unless you act by commenting here, this rule change will likely take affect. [See link to and sample comment below.]

Once the financial information—which includes the service provider’s entire company (or firm’s) receipts (even from other clients)—are submitted, it will become public information. It will then be published on the Department of Labor’s website and available to union bosses. What’s more, willful failure to file the financial information is a criminal violation, punishable by either imprisonment, a fine, or both.



In June, when the Department of Labor, at the behest of union bosses, issued a 160-page proposal to expand the interpretation of “advice” under a little-known law called the Labor-Management Reporting & Disclosure Act, few understood just how deeply the DOL’s proposed rule change could affect employers and consultants of all stripes–not just those involved in labor relations. Most still don’t understand it.



In addition to companies who hire attorneys to assist them with union issues, the Department of Labor’s broad expansion into areas that most would not consider remotely connected to unions, but because it could indirectly affect [read deter] employees’ choice to unionize, the Department of Labor will likely call this “persuader activity.”



Here are the types of vendors (and the employers that hire them or purchase goods from them) who will likely be caught up in the DOL’s new proposed rules:



•Writers (or authors) who may write a website, publication, sell a book, or other material that may promote a positive employee relations culture, thereby dissuading employees from unionizing

•Website designers who may be contracted to design and build a website to be used for internal communications with employees

•Consultants who coach management on how to structure and effectively manage employee teams

•Employee engagement consultants who help companies and employees with positive employee relations

•Productivity consultants who design and implement quality, or any other type of teams that may give employees a voice in the success of their companies’ products

•Safety consultants who help establish safety committees that give employees the ability to voice safety concerns to their employer to resolve safety issues

•Human resources consultants that design, write, or implement employee handbooks or policies

•Compensation and benefit consultants who design and administer any type of benefit, pay or incentive plans for companies

•Consultants who conduct surveys to determine employee satisfaction at their jobs

Since the Department of Labor’s phraseology is: “…activities that have as a direct or indirect object to, explicitly or implicitly, influence the decisions of employees with respect to forming, joining or assisting a union, collective bargaining, or any protected concerted activity (such as a strike) in the workplace,” the type of activity that an employer and consultant may be required to report to the Department of Labor is almost endless.





Again, the public comment period closes on Wednesday, September 21, 2011. All comments must be received on or before Wednesday.



If you do not act by submitting a comment, it is likely this rule change will go into effect causing many job creators, instead of focusing on job creation, to spend more time and resources on more paperwork, or risk going to jail. Moreover, it will cause many unsuspecting service providers who currently do not know they will fall into the Department of Labor’s trap to either violate the law, or open their personal, company or firm earnings to the Department of Labor, the public and union bosses.



Below is a sample comment provided, courtesy of the Labor Relations Institute. It is suggested that you download, individualize or personalize it before sending to the Department of Labor, then submit your comments to the Department of Labor here.



LRI Sample Comment for DOL Persuader Rule Change
http://www.redstate.com/laborunionreport/2011/09/19/take-action-americas-job-creators-are-about-to-be-sucker-punched-you-have-until-wednesday-to-comment/

The choice is yours: You can act by submitting a comment, or you can give union bosses what they want–the ability to target more employers.



________________



“I bring reason to your ears, and, in language as plain as ABC, hold up truth to your eyes.” Thomas Paine, December 23, 1776