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Newt Gingrich said the country is under attack by a the "secular left," Mitt Romney is concerned about President Obama's "secular agenda" and Rick Santorum has said repeatedly that the idea of an absolute separation of church and state makes him want to "throw up."

As the Republican presidential campaign drags on, the idea of a secular government is increasingly under fire. And Obama is personally under fire from Republican candidates, particularly Santorum,  who recently said the president's theology, especially where it comes to environmental laws, is " phony."

Obama's former press secretary said that comment "crossed the line."

But Americans by more than a 2-1 margin, 66 percent to 29 percent, say political leaders should not rely on their religious beliefs in making policy decisions," according to an ABC News-Washington Post poll from September of 2011.

This includes very narrow majorities of Republicans and conservatives, and much larger majorities of others.

Santorum apparently believes the most strongly about blurring the separation between church and state. He passionately defended his position in an interview with George Stephanopoulos Sunday, repeating that John F. Kennedy's famous 1960 speech pledging he would not bring his religion to the office of president "makes me throw up."

"To say that people of faith have no role in the public square?  You bet that makes you throw up.  What kind of country do we live that says only people of non-faith can come into the public square and make their case?" Santorum said.

He called the president someone "who is now trying to tell people of faith that you will do what the government says, we are going to impose our values on you, not that you can't come to the public square and argue against it, but now we're going to turn around and say we're going to impose our values from the government on people of faith, which of course is the next logical step when people of faith, at least according to John Kennedy, have no role in the public square."

Kennedy was the first and only Catholic president. He talked about his religion in 1960 in an address to protestant ministers.

"So it is apparently necessary for me to state once again not what kind of church I believe in - for that should be important only to me - but what kind of America I believe in. I believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute, where no Catholic prelate would tell the president (should he be Catholic) how to act, and no Protestant minister would tell his parishioners for whom to vote; where no church or church school is granted any public funds or political preference; and where no man is denied public office merely because his religion differs from the president who might appoint him or the people who might elect him. "

NPR has posted audio Kennedy's 1960 speech.

Fifty-two years later, Obama has come under attack for trying to tell churches what to do. The issue most at hand is a requirement by the Health and Human Services Department  that groups affiliated with churches - charities and hospitals, but not the churches themselves - must offer access to birth control in health insurance plans. The White House sought to soften the mandate by saying it is the insurance company that pays for the birth control coverage, but the criticism on the right that the administration declared a "war on religion" has persisted, particularly on the campaign trail.

Freedom of religion is a basic tenet of the United States. It states plainly in the First Amendment - the first changes the framers of the Constitution made to the document - "Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof…".

That clause has been the subject of argument and interpretation ever since, whether it is prayer in schools or the 10 commandments displayed at a state capitol. Is it meant that religion should not be a part of government or that government must simply respect religion. If government is not free of religion - 80 percent of Americans call themselves Christian - would it essentially become a religious state?

Obama has showcased his own faith recently, suggesting at a recent prayer breakfast that an adherence to the teachings of Jesus might lead Republicans to support a tax increase for the wealthy.

One year earlier at the 2011 prayer breakfast, he spoke in depth about his own faith and his relationship with God.

But the president is much less popular among Americans who go to church at least once a week, according to a February poll by the Pew Forum on Religion and  Public Life. He wins handily among Americans who seldom or never go to church.

"I don't believe in an America where the separation of church and state is absolute," Santorum said Sunday. "The idea that the church can have no influence or no involvement in the operation of the state is absolutely antithetical to the objectives and vision of our country.

"This is the First Amendment.  The First Amendment says the free exercise of religion.  That means bringing everybody, people of faith and no faith, into the public square."

Santorum, a devout Catholic, is the most outspoken Republican on the issue, but his point has been echoed by two of his rivals.

Gingrich, who converted to Catholicism when he married his third wife, has also lashed out against what he perceives as a war on religion by "the secular left."

"The forces of the secular left believe passionately and deeply, and with frankly a religious fervor, in their world view and they will regard what I am saying as a horrifying assault on what they think is the truth," Gingrich said. "Because their version of the truth is to have a totally neutral government that has no meaning," said Gingrich in Georgia.

Mitt Romney, who is Mormon, has accused Obama of having a "secular agenda."

"You expect the president of the United States to be sensitive to that freedom and protect it and, unfortunately, perhaps because of the people the president hangs around with, and their agenda, their secular agenda, they have fought against religion," Romney said, responding to a question at a town hall recently about religious freedoms, in particular the Obama administration's recent controversial attempt to require all institutions, including hospitals and colleges with religious affiliations, to offer free birth control and other contraceptives.

Ron Paul wants a separated church and state, but he wants to return to a charitable system of churches and community groups to help the poor and the sick.

For Santorum, whose political brand is steeped in social conservatism, a desire to bring God into the oval office and policy is not unexpected. Although hearing him say a famous and much-cited John F. Kennedy speech makes him nauseous is jarring.

Santorum's view has not always been so clear cut. In 2006, during an ultimately unsuccessful bid for re-election as a senator from Pennsylvania, Santorum said he would support contr
aception and  public funding for contraception programs even though he was, as a devout Catholic, personally opposed to them, and thought contraception itself was "harmful to women."

Romney gave a speech in 2007 during his first run for the White House in which he sought to assuage a perceived concern among some Republican primary voters about his Mormonism.

"If I am fortunate to become your president, I will serve no one religion, no one group, no one cause and no one interest. A president must serve only the common cause of the people of the United States," Romney said in December off 2007 at the George H.W. Bush Library at Texas A&M University.

Obama's religion has long been the subject of speculation by conspiracy theorists and even some influential leaders who question it.

Rev. Franklin Graham, for instance, recently said he can't say for sure that Obama is a Christian, but he is sure that Rick Santorum is.

Also Read

Read this article:
Separating Church and State: Vomit-Inducing or Necessary for Freedom of Religion?

If you’ve been persecuted or harassed by the FBI in the past, you have good reason to celebrate. The FBI can no longer utilize GPS tracking technology to monitor movement without a warrant to do so. The Supreme Court has ruled that no GPS tracking can take place in an investigation without a proper warrant being secured first. This prompted the FBI to turn off about 3000 devices that were currently in use.

Apparently, this is a game changing ruling for the U.S. Justice Department who has been employing this tactic for quite some time. Most typically, the GPS units are affixed to the underbody of vehicles to keep tabs on a suspects movements.

FBI General Counsel, Andrew Weissmann reports that retrieving the devices has not been easy since the order was handed down to deactivate them. In many cases, a warrant must be issued to have them turned back on so they may be located and recovered.

According to Weissmann, the case of the United States VS. Jones (The litigation which yielded the ruling), is going to have Justice officials scrambling to adhere to the new finding. If it is trespassing to place tracking devices on a vehicle, there could be further implications based on current practices.

Weissmann explains:

“From a law enforcement perspective, even though its not technically holding, we have to anticipate how it’s going to go down the road,”

I guess it isn’t really a big deal to the general population, but I feel that if the government wants to track the movements of an individual, they should have probable cause. If that’s the case, obtaining a warrant shouldn’t be too difficult.

In my opinion, the general public has been letting people in powerful positions abuse our resources for far too long. We pay every public employee’s salary with our tax dollars, and the people should reserve the right to call them out on abusive and costly practices.

Last week, I reported on the disgraceful insider trading that is going on with our lawmakers, and this ‘GPS tracking without warrants’ is another case of government waste and hypocrisy. Stop using our tax dollars to violate the laws you helped create Uncle Sam. Thank you Supreme Court.

Excerpt from:
Freedom From FBI Tracking Devices Is Here

By Mike Nester For The Prairie Advocate News

MOUNT CARROLL – The Carroll County Board of Review denied two requests on Monday, Feb. 20, made by the Eastland School District regarding the recent tax assessments in Freedom Township.

The Review Board ruled against a written protest and appeal regarding the tax assessment increase and also refused a motion requesting recusal of board member Lou Schloderbach.

In the Protest and Appeal of the tax assessment in Freedom Township, the Eastland School Board was seeking an eight percent decrease in real estate assessments instead of the nearly 20 percent that the state formula had determined.

At its January meeting, the Eastland Board voted 5-2 to protest the assessments

“No one refuted the fact that property values had declined,” Eastland Supt. of Schools Mark Hansen said. “The concern was that the re-assessments as published not only corrected for real declines in value, but were improperly lowered below that level in a non-quadrennial year.”

“This is particularly concerning as Eastland depends primarily on property taxes for its funding, and given the fact that state funding is being reduced,” added the Eastland School leader. “If the appeal is not successful, District revenues will be reduced by approximately $275,000 above and beyond what is already being lost as a result of declining EAV and reductions in state funding.”

Too much, too soon

In their protest, Eastland argued the property in question shouldn’t have been reassessed prior to the four-year statute and it should have only been reduced by eight percent, instead of the 18.27 percent.

The Review Board, comprised of Judy Dampman and Richard Delaney, examined all 17 points of the Eastland complaint, but disagreed with the school district’s view of how the property taxes were derived; going strictly by numbers determined by state statutes.

Carroll County Chief Assessor Annette Gruhn presented the Board of Review with state statutes that showed her legal obligation to reassess Freedom Township.

Gruhn said after receiving the states numbers on the 58 sales of property in Freedom Township in 2010, plus sales for the past two years, the sales ratio was 58.48, way over the 33.3 percent range. She stated this was the reason for the reassessment and added it was the highest level they ever had.

Carroll County’s assessor explained that housing sales weren’t off much but the lots, especially those at Lake Carroll, were way over-assessed. She said many of the lots lost 3/4 their value.

Gruhn held a telephone conference call with members of the Illinois Dept. of Revenue about the reassessment of Freedom Township and discussed the Sales Ratio Study of 58.48. She also spoke with IDOR officials regarding the early reassessment and presented two state statutes verifying the early assessment and the action.

Gruhn said Carroll County followed the same procedure in 2003 when property values were on the rise and increased the assessed value by 14.3 percent.

The Board of Review felt the Eastland School District didn’t provide any evidence to dispute the state’s numbers, similar to when citizens protest their personal real estate taxes. Both Dampman and Delaney said they needed to see some numbers to help prove the property was under assessed.

Supt. Hansen told the Prairie Advocate it’s important to understand that whether or not the District is successful in its appeal, it will be generating less revenues next year than this year. 

“Because everyone agrees that property values have declined, the only question is how much less,” said Hansen.

According to Hansen, if property is under-assessed it:

- further reduces the revenue the District can access to operate its programs;

- increases the burden on property owners whose property is accurately assessed;

- creates a “false bottom” from which future equalizations may be applied;

- and does undue harm at a time when the State is not meeting its constitutional obligation to fund public education.

He said these were some of the considerations that individual Eastland Board members weighed in deciding whether to appeal the assessments.

In 2010 the equalized assessed value of the Eastland District was $195,525,469. It is now estimated to be $171,075,140.

Recusal request denied

The Eastland School District also filed a motion with the Board of Review requesting recusal of board member Lou Schloderbach because in part they felt he couldn’t “fairly and impartially review” and give a “fair and impartial assessment of all property” while ruling on the Freedom Township issue. Schloderbach resides in Freedom Township.

In the motion, the Eastland Board said Schloderbach addressed the school board at its Jan. 18 meeting and according to the motion, “expressed concern about any attempt by the Board of Education to protest tax assessment within Freedom Township, the legal costs of such protests, and asked questions that reasonably indicate that he believed such effort was unwarranted.”

The Eastland Board felt Schloderbach had publicly and irrevocably demonstrated that he cannot fairly and impartially consider the matter.

The Board of Review denied the motion citing that Schloderbach was acting as a taxpayer in the Eastland School District and not as a member of the Carroll County Board of Review. They were presented with a legal ruling from State’s Attorney Scott Brinkmeier who said he felt the law stated that Schloderbach was not in any violation of “fair and impartial” review.

The Board of Review had also requested a recording of what Schloderbach had said at the meeting and were told that no such copy existed.

Both Dampman and Delaney said Schloderbach could abstain if he felt there was an issue. Schloderbach did not attend the Feb. 20 hearing.

The Eastland School District now has the option of having a hearing on the tax assessment issue with the Board of Review. According to Gruhn, a hearing has yet to be scheduled.

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Board of Review Denies Eastland on Both Counts

Published: 2/25/2012 11:25 PM | Last update: 2/26/2012 4:47 PM The world has always been plagued with liars. The bigger the whopper, the more people are apt to believe it. The biggest lie of election year 2010: The Affordable Care Act is a "government takeover" of private healthcare. (Remember Palin's lie about "death panels?") The biggest lie of election year 2012: The Affordable Care Act is a "declaration of war" against religious freedom.

House substitute for SB 177, moved out of the House Taxation Committee and is now up for debate on the House floor. This bill will phase out income tax and income tax deductions/credits plus take hundreds of millions of dollars out of the state highway plan to make ends meet. This will put counties and cities into the position of raising property taxes to fill the loss in state revenue for education and all the programs that help our children and the disadvantaged in our state.

----------advertisement----------- "This proposal has the potential for thousands of Kansas children to slip into poverty should this tax package become law" Shannon Cotsoradis, President and CEO of the nonprofit Kansas Action for Children.

Kansans should support a tax policy that contains a balance of income, property, and sales taxes. This maintains fairness among income groups and provides stability for education, infrastructure, social services, and public safety, which are the things that matter most to the people and businesses of Kansas.

The governor stated his plan would create business expansion and economic prosperity but the truth is quite different according to an article published in Lawrence Journal-World and written by Carl Davis from the Institute on Taxation and Economic Policy, who looked at the research of Arthur Laffer, who is the supporting research for a no-tax concept.

Laffer is tied to California's Proposition 13, which devastated that state. One of Laffer's oversights was no attention to the tremendous natural resources some no-tax states have at their disposal. Two are Alaska and Wyoming which are the two states most dependent on mining/oil and their growth cannot be tied to no-income tax. The nine no-tax states are lagging behind the nine states with the highest income tax rates in economic growth. Most no-tax states are actually doing worse than the national average. Concerning unemployment rate, no-tax states and high tax rate states are basically even. No-tax states aren't experiencing economic growth and lawmakers are cautioned to not expect economies to improve if they join the no-tax or low-tax states.

The economic factors that matter most to families are income levels and finding employment. The states with the highest income tax rates are, in most cases, doing better than the no-tax states. If the economy is really lawmakers' concerns, they can put the income tax issues at rest. The research does not support it.

SHELLEY DUNHAM

LOUISE SMITH

Hesston

The rest is here:
No-tax not better

Santorum trades his sweater vest for an apron at Michigan fish fry (Eric Gay/AP)WALLED LAKE, Mich. -- At this gathering of the multitudes, they brought more than just five loaves and two fish.

"I love the smell of fish on a Friday night!" a jubilant Rick Santorum exclaimed when he stepped into the packed gymnasium of a Catholic school here, where the scent of fried cod, shrimp and salmon was, as the former senator pointed out, indeed potent.

The Republican presidential candidate dropped in on a time-honored Catholic tradition of fishy fellowship to celebrate the first Friday of Lent fasting. For less than ten dollars, you could wolf down a full plate of fish, potatoes and bread, and  meet a man who could one day be president. Walking into the auditorium, Santorum removed his suit coat--did he give up his sweater vests for Lent?--and replaced it with a white apron emblazoned with the sign of the cross. As he stopped to sample the cuisine, reporters with cameras and notebooks swarmed him, only to be immediately scolded by a child who shouted, "Let the poor guy eat!"

Santorum made only brief remarks when he first entered the room, and then walked slowly around the tables, where he signed autographs on kids' arms and greeted the faithful before driving across town to deliver a meatier address on his new policy agenda later that night.

At the Knights of Columbus Hall in Lincoln Park, a blue-collar town south of Detroit, a smaller and more subdued audience awaited him. The room was set up with chairs only around the walls, which members of the press filled quickly, leaving most of his supporters standing in front of a stage, including a group of excited nuns from Ann Arbor. In his address--which lasted nearly an hour--Santorum waded methodically through a 10-point plan of economic proposals he vowed to set in motion in the first 100 days of his presidency. (Perhaps making people stand when you're giving an hour-long policy address is unkind, but it was far from the worst political optics of the day. That honor belonged to Mitt Romney, who delivered an economic address of his own to a nearly empty Ford Field.)

Most of the proposals were ideas Santorum has discussed in the past, including lifting regulations on business, eliminating the corporate tax on manufacturing, repealing the federal health care law and balancing the federal budget, but this was the first speech in which all of the ideas were packaged as a concrete agenda.

Speaking over the noise of two kids who had wandered to the back of the room to play a game that required them to scream for several minutes, Santorum spent most of the address discussing his manufacturing plan, highlighting his emphasis on blue-collar workers and the poor. Santorum's focus on manufacturing is a winner in Michigan, a state still reeling from a massive reduction in industry-related jobs in a place where the economy used to thrive because of them.

"I care about the very poor," he said, a jab at Mitt Romney, who was hammered last month for a statement that, out of context, suggested he didn't. "I'm a 100 percenter when it comes to a president. Not a 99 versus one."

Santorum also spelled out his plan to slash $5 trillion from the federal budget in five years, limit federal spending to 18 percent of the gross domestic product, cut the corporate tax rate for non-manufacturers in half and approve construction of the Keystone Pipeline.

Before he departed for the night, the candidate stepped down from the stage and shook hands with supporters. The group of nuns from Ann Arbor who watched the speech together in the center of the room shuffled toward him. Santorum, a devout Catholic, smiled and waved back, which made them giggle.

Rick Santorum poses with the Dominican Sisters of Mary Mother of the Eucharistin Lincoln Park, Mich. (Paul San …

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Rick Santorum talks faith, freedom and fish in Michigan