CHARLIE DANIELS UNLOADS 'DAG-BLAMED TRUTH' ON OBAMA

by DREW ZAHN

Feisty music legend worries after November, 'America will never be America again'

“There’s a move afoot to change life in America into a totally European – I’ve heard that so much I’m getting sick of it: ‘European’ – socialist thing,” says country-music legend Charlie Daniels, “but it’s the dag-blamed truth [sic], and it don’t work, it never has worked, and if America goes that way, America will never be America again.”

Daniels told WND in an exclusive interview that he expects 2012, with the nation’s very identity on the line, will be “the biggest election we have ever had.”

“In my 75 years on Earth, it’s never been as clear-cut as it is now,” Daniels said. “We’re either going to go into socialism, where part of the people work and the rest of them don’t, and the ones that do will be taxed to death, or – I got the point where I don’t trust politicians anymore, but hopefully – the other side represents, ‘Let’s put America back to work; let’s re-instill the work ethic back in people.’”

Since the 1950s Daniels has been a country singer and famed fiddler, perhaps best known for his hit song “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry in 2008.

But he also writes frequently on culture and politics, no stranger to bold statements in defense of God and country, and maintains a “soapbox” blog on his website, CharlieDaniels.com.

For Daniels, the word “socialism” – synonymous in his mind with the big-spending, tax-the-rich, government-welfare, spread-the-wealth policies of President Obama and his fellow “progressives” – is a system not only destined for failure, but also inherently tyrannical.

“You cannot enforce socialism without some force,” Daniels told WND. “It’s a very top-heavy society, and every society that’s ever tried it has fallen, because you finally get to where there’s so many people, you cut out the work ethic, you make people think they have to be dependent on government for everything. It’s a mindset.”

Daniels brought up the recent controversy about Chick-fil-A restaurants – in which the Democrat mayors of Chicago and Boston threatened to ban the chicken sandwich makers from their respective cities because the owner is an outspoken opponent of same-sex marriage – as an example.

“To me that tips off where these guys are coming from: ‘If you don’t agree with us, we don’t want you in our town, we don’t want you in our country, we don’t want you in our political system,’” Daniels said. “Is it not downright un-American for an elected official to stand up and try to destroy a business? As bad as we need jobs in this country?

“This is not about ‘gay’ marriage; this is about America being America, about people being able to stick by their deeply held religious beliefs and not to have these people trying to put them out of business,” Daniels said. “That’s what this boils down to: Are these people going to try to shut up everybody who doesn’t agree with them?”

Daniels told WND there have been a few people who have tried to silence him, too, to tell him to stick to his music and leave politics alone.

“People say, ‘Shut up and sing.’ Somebody said that,” Daniels said. “But shut up for what? Why don’t you shut up? What do you do? You do something else. You’re a private citizen. Do you think you should shut up? I’m speaking as a private citizen, so I think I have a perfect right to do that.”

And what about the owner of Chick-fil-A Dan Cathy and other Christians like him who are told to leave their religious beliefs out of the public and political sphere?

“That’s a bunch of junk,” Daniels said. “They need to stand up for what they believe in.”

Daniels’ fierce defense of free speech goes hand in hand with what he sees as the solution to America’s economic woes: not some new “socialist” program from Congress that leaves people looking to Washington, D.C. for answers, but a grassroots solution of small businesses, work ethic and a capitalist revival of the American dream.

“You’re talking to a guy who travels coast to coast and border to border every year,” Daniels told WND. “There are bad things going on in this country. Too many empty storefronts, too many closed down businesses – the ‘economic recovery’ Obama has been spinning is not happening. The only answer [socialists] seem to have for it is to try over and over again. Look at the results. Look at the results of throwing money down a black hole in Washington.

“We change the nation by putting people back to work again,” Daniels proffered. “I’m a Christian; I believe in helping people who can’t help themselves. I do not believe in helping people who can help themselves. Instead of putting them on the dole, put them on the payroll.

“I heard a while ago that more people file for disability than file to get a job. Where in the heck is that at?” Daniels asked. “Is that America? Is that what made America great?

“We need to get people back, to employ them,” Daniels concluded, “and it’s never going to be done in Washington. It’s going to have to be done in the private sector.”

Rush Limbaugh Celebrates 24 Years of Broadcasting

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Is President Obama simply using gay marriage for political gain?

FROM CNN's Jack Cafferty:

Today's definition of political opportunism? Gay marriage.

President Obama has been in office for 3 1/2 years and has artfully dodged the question of whether same-sex couples should be allowed to marry.

Suddenly his vice president, Joe Biden, comes out publicly and says he doesn't see anything wrong with gay marriage.

And right away people want to know where the president stands.

Then the voters of North Carolina go to the polls and overwhelmingly pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex marriage.

Again the questions: Where does the president stand?

Suddenly at 3 o'clock this afternoon, after 3 1/2 years of not answering the question, Mr. Obama decides to take a position.

All of a sudden he thinks same-sex marriage is a good idea.

He's locked in what promises to be a close race against Mitt Romney.

So picking this moment to pander to the gay and lesbian community on the issue of same-sex marriage suits his political purpose, which is to be re-elected.

One of the major broadcast networks interrupts programming to breathlessly report that the president has decided that it's OK for same-sex couples to marry.

Pardon me if I don't hyperventilate over all of this. We have real issues in this country for which President Obama has been glaringly short on answers.

We have more than $15 trillion of debt, an unemployment rate that's an embarrassment for the largest free-market system in the world, a Congress that refuses to agree on whether it's daylight outside or not, and the country is supposed to come to a screeching halt because President Obama was pressured into taking a position on a wedge issue. I'll pass.

Oh, and at the end of the day, it's still up to the states.

Here’s my question to you: Is President Obama simply using gay marriage for political gain?

Michael Phelps wakes up to life as a former athlete

By Barry Svrluga

LONDON — The first day of the rest of Michael Phelps’s life broke Sunday morning after maybe four hours of sleep, even though there was no pool to go to, no practice to endure. He took a car from his hotel — a former athlete in every sense of the phrase, he has moved out of the Olympic Village — and saw, for the first time since he arrived here, Big Ben, Parliament, London’s skyline.

The blinders are off. Now what?

“This is sort of my first day,” Phelps said. “I don’t know what to do.”

At this, the end of his fourth and final Olympics, Phelps has wrung every last superlative from the washcloth. What more, after 22 medals, 18 of them gold, is there to ask? What more can he say?

Yet when he hosted a news conference Sunday, an event staged by Visa at an ornate convention center steps from Westminster Abby, he faced a wall of 30 cameras behind a packed room of journalists. He took questions from Brazil and Colombia, from Australia and Nigeria, from China and Turkey. But in a way, the most compelling items Phelps had to offer were the questions he spat back.

“Who knows what’s going to happen?” he asked.

This is a man who has thought of little other than swimming for 20 years — save for a few touch-and-go-moments in the past four years, when his coach wondered if he would focus enough to end up in London. Yet now, after winning more Olympic medals than any athlete in history, he says he is done with his sport. He is 27. He said Sunday he intended to take a vacation, to travel the world.

“Who knows where I go?” he said.

These seem to be genuine questions from an athlete, a person, who is clearly undergoing a metamorphosis at age 27. As he overcame an ominous start to his meet here, his first Olympic race without a medal since his first Olympics in 2000, teammates frequently spoke of a more open, more giving compatriot. In 2008 — when he won a record eight gold medals, changed his sport and began shaping his own legacy — he seemed programmed, mechanical. The task was so daunting, there was perhaps no other way to undertake it. Here, though, he was human, first in defeat, and then in winning six more medals, the final four gold.

“You’re going to make me tear up,” said five-time London medallist Allison Schmitt, who trained with Phelps at the North Baltimore Aquatic Center for the year leading up to these Games, when she was asked earlier in the week about Phelps. Saturday morning, Phelps and Schmitt held hands as they plunged into the pool for the final practice of Phelps’s career.

“I’m speechless,” Schmitt said. “Being able to see him after the race, I feel like I want to jump him and give him a hug every time. He makes me tear up every time I see him. I couldn’t be happier to be his teammate and his friend.”

Those who are with him the most saw the changes. Peter Carlisle of Octagon became Phelps’s agent when he was just 17. More than anyone, he knows that Phelps’s responses to public queries over the past decade could be rote, mundane. The Phelps who spent this past week in London felt different.

Charitable Giving and volunteering, by the numbers

WRLTHD commentary
by Arthur C. Brooks
HOW DO RELIGIOUS and secular people vary in their charitable behavior? To answer this, I turn to data collected expressly to explore patterns in American civic life. The Social Capital Community Benchmark Survey (SCCBS) was undertaken in 2000 by researchers at universities throughout the United States and the Roper Center for Public Opinion Research. The data consist of nearly 30,000 observations drawn from 50 communities across the United States and ask individuals about their “civic behavior,” including their giving and volunteering during the year preceding the survey.

From these data, I have constructed two measures of religious participation. First, the group I refer to as “religious” are the respondents that report attending religious services every week or more often. This is 33 percent of the sample. Second, the group I call “secular” report attending religious services less than a few times per year or explicitly say they have no religion. These people are 26 percent of the sample (implying that those who practice their religion occasionally make up 41 percent of the sample). The SCCBS asked respondents whether and how much they gave and volunteered to “religious causes” or “non-religious charities” over the previous 12 months. Across the whole population, 81 percent gave, while 57 percent volunteered.

The differences in charity between secular and religious people are dramatic. Religious people are 25 percentage points more likely than secularists to donate money (91 percent to 66 percent) and 23 points more likely to volunteer time (67 percent to 44 percent). And, consistent with the findings of other writers, these data show that practicing a religion is more important than the actual religion itself in predicting charitable behavior. For example, among those who attend worship services regularly, 92 percent of Protestants give charitably, compared with 91 percent of Catholics, 91 percent of Jews, and 89 percent from other religions.

Socioeconomically, the religious and secular groups are similar in some ways and different in others. For example, there is little difference between the groups in income (both have average household incomes around $49,000) or education level (20 percent of each group holds a college degree). On the other hand, the secular group is disproportionately male (49 percent to 32 percent), unmarried (58 percent to 40 percent), and young (42 to 49 years old, on average). In addition, the SCCBS data show that religion and secularism break down on ideological lines: Religious people are 38 percentage points more likely to say they are conservative than to say they are liberal (57 percent to 19 percent). In contrast, secular people are 13 points more likely to say they are liberal than to say they are conservative (42 percent to 29 percent).

GARTH BROOKS ADDED TO TEACHERS ROCK TRIBUTE CONCERT

WRLTHD Music News

photo's by Ray Tharaldson

all rights reserved 2012

-CBS has just announced that Garth Brooks has been added to the lineup of performers appearing on “Teachers Rock,” a special tribute concert celebrating teachers and education.
Brooks isn’t the only country music superstar included in the lineup, which will feature some of the biggest names in music, film and sports. As we previously reported, Carrie Underwood andDierks Bentley will also perform along with pop group Fun. and two-time GRAMMY Award nominee Josh Groban.
The special, which will benefit several nonprofit organizations, will be broadcast from Nokia Theatre L.A. LIVE on Friday, August 17 (8:00-9:00 PM, ET/PT).

“Teachers Rock” honors America’s educators with personal recollections from pop, rock and urban musical stars Dave Grohl (of the Foo Fighters), six-time GRAMMY Award winner Usher, Adam Levine and James Valentine (of Maroon 5) and from actors including three-time Academy Award winner Meryl Streep, Academy Award nominee Viola Davis, Academy Award nominee Maggie Gyllenhaal, Pauley Perrette (NCIS), Jennifer Garner, Academy Award winner Morgan Freeman, Matthew Morrison and Miranda Cosgrove, among others.

The “Teachers Rock” benefit concert will feature scenes from Walden Media’s upcoming motion picture “Won’t Back Down,” starring Academy Award nominees Viola Davis and Maggie Gyllenhaal as two determined mothers, one a teacher, who will stop at nothing to transform their children’s failing inner-city school. Facing a powerful and entrenched bureaucracy, they risk everything to make a difference in the education and future of their children.

Tickets for the charity event are now on sale at all Ticketmaster outlets, Ticketmaster.com, plus via Charge-By-Phone ( 800-745-3000).
Proceeds will benefit three nonprofit organizations: DonorsChoose.org, Feeding America and Teach for America.

House lawmakers invite Chick-fil-A to roost in their districts

FoxNews.com

A letter drafted by Mississippi Republican Rep. Alan Nunnelee praises the Atlanta-based fast food restaurant as an American success story and decries attacks mounted against it after company President Dan Cathy spoke out against same-sex marriage. Nunnelee's letter garnered 16 signatures from colleagues in the House of Representatives.

For all those politicians who were piling on Chick-fil-A last week, there are a bunch more rolling out the red carpet for the chicken chain.

"Demanding ideological conformity in order to be allowed to run your business is a dangerous precedent. It is like something that would happen in Soviet Russia."

- Mississippi Rep. Alan Nunnelee

"We write today to show support for the manner in which you have defended your values and reputation in the face of unfair and malicious criticism," the letter to Cathy begins.

The letter from Nunnelee and fellow Republicans states that they are "bewildered" that local politicians in Boston, Chicago, New York and San Francisco have said the company was unwelcome in their communities because of Cathy's stance.

"We are bewildered by those who would take offense at your values and would block the expansion of your business into their communities," it states. "We welcome Chick-fil-A's investment in our districts."

Nunnelee said he was moved to pen the letter after what he called a "vicious smear campaign" against the restaurant.

“The criticism they have received has been appalling," Nunnelee said. "Elected officials that are now threatening to block new Chick-fil-A restaurants in their cities are acting in a manner that is un-American. Demanding ideological conformity in order to be allowed to run your business is a dangerous precedent. It is like something that would happen in Soviet Russia."

After Cathy told the Baptist Press he supported the "biblical" definition of marriage, same-sex marriage advocates called for boycotts of the restaurant. In Chicago, an alderman vowed to keep the restaurant from opening a second restaurant in his district and Mayor Rahm Emanual announced that "Chick-fil-A's values are not Chicago's values." Boston Mayor Thomas Menino said the restaurant would not be welcome there, but he later acknowledged it is not his right to stop Cathy from doing business there.

New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg, who supports same-sex marriage, said its nobody's business what a company exec thinks, but City Council Speaker Christine Quinn, who is openly gay and has mayoral aspirations, urged New York University not to renew a contract with Chick-fil-A.