At the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington earlier this month, the faithful met to worship the Almighty and discuss the latest battles for religious liberty in an increasingly secular culture.

When the Knights of Columbus’ Supreme Knight Carl Anderson spoke, he made a startling observation about the capital’s new Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. monument: Even though Dr. King was a Baptist minister and his history-altering speeches about civil liberties are saturated with references to natural rights and profound theological constructs, none of the 14 quotes carefully etched into his stone monument contain references to God.

Mr. Anderson mocked those in authority who were given the difficult task of carefully combing through Rev. King’s archives to find a few secular quotations.

In Dr. King’s famous “Letter from Birmingham Jail,” which is full of religious references, he relied on the Catholic natural law tradition by citing Saint Augustine of Hippo, who said in “On Free Choice of the Will” that “an unjust law is no law at all.” King went on to proclaim he and his peaceful supporters were “in reality standing up for what is best in the American dream and for the most sacred values in our Judeo-Christian heritage, thereby bringing our nation back to those great wells of democracy which were dug deep by the founding fathers in their formulation of the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.”

There is no question about Rev. King’s adherence to scripture, and it was his fidelity to religious principles which lead him to a higher calling on this earth. Instead of excusing injustice, King fought oppression and inequality. And while he is no longer with us, his ability to look evil in the face and defend the inherent rights of all men is a model which all true Christians must follow.

Read More at The Daily Caller. By Ken Blackwell.

Photo Credit: afagen (Creative Commons)

The House’s solid bipartisan vote for a cybersecurity bill sends a message to the Senate: Now it’s your turn to act.

Ignoring a White House veto threat, the House approved the Cyber Intelligence Sharing and Protection Act, which would encourage companies and the federal government to share information collected on the Internet to help prevent electronic attacks from cybercriminals, foreign governments and terrorists.

The vote Thursday was 248-168, with 42 Democrats joining 206 Republicans in backing the measure.

Congressional leaders are determined to get a cybersecurity bill completed this election year but that may be difficult. The Obama administration and several leading Senate Democrats and Republicans want a bill that would give the Homeland Security Department the primary role in overseeing domestic cybersecurity and the authority to set security standards. The House bill would impose no new regulations on businesses, an imperative for Republicans.

In the coming weeks, the Senate will try to proceed on its bill by Sens. Joe Lieberman, I-Conn., and Susan Collins, R-Maine, who have said the House bill is inadequate in protecting against cyberattacks. Senior Senate Republicans, such as Sen. John McCain of Arizona, argue that Homeland Security is ill-equipped to determine how best to secure the nation’s essential infrastructure and has introduced his own bill.

Read More at OfficialWire. By Donna Cassata, AP.

And as was the case with the SCOTUS hearing on Obamacare, some liberals are shocked – shocked I tell you, – that the Supremes just might uphold the Arizona immigration law – a law they call “racist.”

The Hill:

The Supreme Court on Wednesday appeared highly skeptical of the Obama administration’s objections to a controversial immigration law in Arizona.

In a case steeped in election-year politics, conservative and liberal justices alike expressed doubts about the government’s argument that the Arizona law was an unconstitutional intrusion on the federal government’s power to enforce immigration law.

You can see it’s not selling very well,” Justice Sonia Sotomayor, the first Hispanic woman to be seated on the bench, said to Solicitor General Donald Verrilli Jr.

The Obama administration sued Arizona over the controversial measure its Legislature passed in 2010. The law set off a political firestorm and has since been copied by other states.

Read More at American Thinker. By Rick Moran.

Photo Credit: laura padgett (Creative Commons)

House Republicans are pushing ahead with legislation to protect the nation’s critical infrastructure and corporations from electronic attacks despite Obama administration objections that the legislation fails to protect Americans’ civil liberties.

The House begins work Thursday on the bill designed to address the cybersecurity threat by getting the private sector and government to share information to thwart attacks from foreign governments, terrorists and cybercriminals. Although the information sharing is voluntary, civil liberty groups fear the measure could lead to government spying on Americans.

The administration objections run deeper.

“The sharing of information must be conducted in a manner that preserves Americans’ privacy, data confidentiality and civil liberties and recognizes the civilian nature of cyberspace,” the administration said in a statement Wednesday. “Cybersecurity and privacy are not mutually exclusive.”

The administration also complained that the bill’s liability protection for companies that share information is too broad and argued that the Homeland Security Department should have a primary role in domestic cybersecurity. In its current form, the administration said, the president’s advisers would recommend a veto.

Read More at OfficialWire. By Donna Cassata.