You might recall him from last week’s outrage of the week — he is the outgoing Senator from Kentucky who fiercely filibustered a bill to extend unemployment benefits to the jobless because it would add to the deficit. This from the man who voted fund two wars on the back of the Bush tax cuts for the super-rich. His message to the hundreds of thousands that would lose benefits? Too fuckin’ bad, freeloaders! He will be signing autographs at the Philadelphia Sports Card & Memorabilia Show. We urge anyone currently collecting to go to the show and get him to sign your unemployment check.

WASHINGTON POST: In his 17 years pitching in the big leagues, Jim Bunning was known for his graceful curveball, his rising slider and his sidearm fastball. Now 78 years old and about to retire from the Senate, the Republican of Kentucky is apparently down to only one pitch: the screwball. For four days, he has been on a one-man campaign to cut off unemployment benefits, kick the unemployed off of health insurance, cut Medicare payments to doctors, deny satellite TV to rural Americans, shut down federal flood insurance and highway projects, and furlough thousands of federal workers. Democrats can hardly believe the gift Bunning has given them by single-handedly shutting down these popular programs. Bunning’s fellow Republicans are aghast. If this were baseball, the Hall of Famer would be on his way down to triple-A. But this is the Senate, where any one of the 100 members has the ability to bring proceedings to a halt, and Bunning continues to hurl his wild pitches. The ornery Kentuckian said he was merely insisting that Congress find a way to pay for the $10 billion, 30-day extension, but that was difficult to square with his recent votes against attempts to rein in debt and spending. This left people puzzling over Bunning’s motives. Was he taking revenge on his senior colleague from Kentucky, Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell, who helped to push Bunning into retirement? Or was he just being, well, crazy? This second possibility cannot be dismissed out of hand. With the Phillies and the Tigers, he had enviable accuracy, boasting one of the best strikeout-to-walk ratios. But since his reelection campaign, in 2004, Bunning has had some serious control problems. He said his opponent looked like one of Saddam Hussein’s sons. He suggested that he and his wife had been roughed up by “little green doctors” at a political picnic. He refused to debate in person, instead doing so by teleconference from Republican National Committee offices in Washington, where he used a teleprompter. Just over a year ago, Bunning resumed his erratic form when he predicted in public that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg would probably be dead from pancreatic cancer within nine months. MORE

LEXINGTON HERALD-LEADER: As long as Republicans were in charge, Sen. Jim Bunning was OK with trading a surplus for a deficit. He voted to put two wars, tax cuts and a Medicare drug benefit on the nation’s credit card. Now that Republicans are no longer in charge, Bunning is drawing the line on deficit spending. He’s doing it in a way that shows callous contempt for the more than one in 10 working Kentuckians whose jobs disappeared in the economic meltdown. We’ve become accustomed to bizarre, egocentric behavior from Bunning. So it wasn’t all that surprising when he single-handedly blocked an unemployment benefits extension for a million people, including 119,230 in Kentucky, whose benefits run out this year. About 14,000 Kentuckians will exhaust their benefits in two weeks without the extension. Bunning’s filibuster also denies newly laid-off workers help paying for health insurance. It halts road and bridge projects around the country by furloughing 2,000 federal transportation employees, stops reimbursements to state highway programs and cuts Medicare payments to doctors. To those who know him, it’s not surprising that Bunning answered a Democratic colleague’s complaint with a crude profanity. Or that he joked about missing a basketball game while pushing some unemployed Kentuckians into homelessness or bankruptcy. MORE

[Illustration by JAY BEVENOUR]

EXAMINER: A New Jersey man from Buena Borough is accused of joining Yemen’s al Qaeda terrorists. Sharif Mobley is in custody in Yemen after an escape attempt in a deadly hospital rampage that left one guard dead. Yemeni officials charge that the 26 year-old Mobley was planning a terror attack. Mobley was apprehended and hospitalized last week.  In a thwarted escape attempt, Mobley killed a policeman on Sunday as he attempted to shoot his way out of the hospital reports say. His friends and family expressed shock. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: WMGM-TV in Atlantic City quoted “federal sources” as saying Mobley is the man accused of shooting two guards over the weekend in a Yemeni hospital where he was being held prisoner. One of the guards died, and the suspect was caught after a chase. As his father, Charles Mobley, and his wife pulled out of their driveway on their way to see a lawyer Friday, he said: “I can tell you this: He’s no terrorist.” He was originally arrested as part of an earlier sweep against al-Qaida, according to other security officials, and was in prison on charges of membership of the group. He complained of being ill and was admitted to the hospital, where was held under heavy guard while he was treated for around a week until his escape attempt, said a member of the security forces. MORE

BY DAVE ALLEN Like time, news waits for no man. Keeping up with the funny papers has always been an all-day job, even in the pre-Internets era. These days, however, it’s a two-man job. That’s right, these days you need someone to do your reading for you, or risk falling hopelessly behind and, as a result, increasing your chances of dying lonely and somewhat bitter. That’s why every week PAPERBOY does your alt-weekly reading for you. We pore over those time-consuming cover stories and give you the takeaway, suss out the cover art, warn you off the ink-wasters and steer you towards the gooey center. Why? Because we love you!

ON THE COVER

PW: Stick a fork in it: it’s the Pork Issue. Never mind that the cover says the Food and Drink issue, this week’s PW is, without question, swine-centric. TimMcGinnis and Adam Erace break down the venerable barnyard critter section by section, showing the places in the city that cook each respective part best. They even learn something along the way:

Truth be told, we had no idea what guanciale was—or its proper pronunciation (gwan-che-ah-lay)—until very recently. It’s jaw bacon, people, and it’s awesome, especially when it’s tossed in an herby pecorino cheese sauce with peas, a poached egg and fusilli pasta at yet another Jose Garces home run.

The jaw, the head, the foot, the ears — it’s all edible and, in the words of Vincent Vega in Pulp Fiction, it tastes gooooood. Remember also: pork butt doesn’t come from anywhere near the rear end. Hey, I learned something, too!

CP: Awww, look out! Helter Specter! A smart, hard-assed look at the (very) senior senator’s career, voting record and outlook for this fall’s election. Now, I know there are CP writers who are up to this kind of task, but I’m still glad they brought in Dan Hirschhorn for this one. Gaining the deep background and the knowledge of the electoral minefield that Specter is treading would have taken another gifted writer (Isaiah Thompson, for instance) away from Philly-centric issues and into the soul-killing state of Washington politics. He doesn’t deserve that kind of shabby treatment. Hirschhorn captures the irony and public discomfort with Arlen-the-Democrat in a no-nonsense fashion:

So today, Specter is courting Democratic voters and liberal constituencies more proactively, more earnestly and more publicly than he’s ever had to before. He woos progressive bloggers on conference calls. He traverses the state talking to Democratic party leaders. He appears at gatherings of liberal activists. He goes on television to defend Obama, the same man he campaigned against just 18 short months ago.

All the while, he leverages relationships he’s built with Democrats over the last half-century, relationships that were always rooted in his willingness to break with GOP orthodoxy on certain issues, and relationships that only strengthen as Specter moves further and further to the left. Still, his seeming willingness to change his allegiances and positions on a dime leaves some in his new party wondering, bluntly:

How the hell can we trust this guy?

“People ask me a lot of pointed questions,” Specter says. “I’m willing to face the music.”

As with their post-strike interview with Willie Brown, CP has crafted a piece of indispensable reading. You might emerge slightly diminished or discouraged — see earlier comment about the current climate of Washington and its corrosive effect on your soul — but you’ll be better educated and, unlike Specter at times, you’ll have a good sense of where you stand on a bitterly divisive issue.
INSIDE THE BOOK

PW: Micks vs. The Mob: the South Philly Paesano’s. And the ban played on: Good-bye pit bulls? Notify the Geto Boys: it no longer feels good to be a gangsta. A cappella: still a joke.

CP: Indie rock meets orchestra: Yes please. Chartreuse: More than a Gayborhood store. After reading this, I feel just slightly closer to a master’s in political science. Fantasy baseball: less of a joke than it should be.

WINNER: Warning: pirate joke ahead. Did you hear about the movie about the senator who changed parties and faced a bitter reaction fight? It was ratedArrrrrrrr-len. Sorry. Anyway, because of their tough, thoughtful cover story, CP takes it.

INQUIRER: She married young and badly. She bounced checks at Pizza Hut and the grocery. She hit the bottle to excess sometimes, talked to her cats, and once attempted suicide. And, as “JihadJane,” she spewed violent-sounding vitriol online for all the world - including law enforcement - to see. From what’s known about her so far, Colleen Renee LaRose is not coming off as the sharpest jihadist in the suburbs. The life of the Pennsburg woman who is due in federal court a week from today on terrorism charges is sounding ever more sad than scary. “She’s had a hard life, so tough that her life story is like a country music song,” said a person close to the investigation. MORE

DAILY NEWS: LaRose was arrested on a charge of public drunkenness in Upper Salford Township on Sept. 22, 2002, at which time she gave state police an address of Ferris, Texas, records show. She also was charged at that time with other offenses, including disorderly conduct. LaRose was stopped in Ferris for public intoxication in 2001 and in 2002. Court records showed that LaRose was arrested twice in 1997 in the San Antonio area, in one case on a DWI charge and the other for passing a bad check. MORE

JAWA REPORT: When she finally made an account which she actively solicited funds for the Pakistan Mujaheddin, which at this point I knew she had acquired the contacts for, I knew she had become a real threat for our safety and had officially violated U.S. Federal Law. It was time to report her. This being in July 2009 I formally called the FBI in Philadelphia to report her. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Lars Vilks [pictured, right] — the target of an alleged murder plot involving a U.S. woman who dubbed herself “Jihad Jane” — said he has no regrets about the drawing, which is considered deeply offensive by Muslims. “I’m actually not interested in offending the prophet. The point is actually to show that you can,” Vilks said in Stockholm. “There is nothing so holy you can’t offend it.” The 63-year-old artist said he has now built his own defense system, including a “homemade” safe room and a barbed-wire sculpture that could electrocute potential intruders. He also has an ax “to chop down” anyone trying to climb through the windows of his home. He said he had learned from U.S. media reports that Colleen R. LaRose, who called herself Jihad Jane, had visited the area where he lives, but he didn’t know whether that was correct. “I’m glad she didn’t kill me,” Vilks said, with a half-smile. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: A federal judge who found it unconstitutional that Congress tried to cut funding to the activist group ACORN has rejected a government request to change her mind and has ordered government agencies to make it clear the funding isn’t blocked. In a written ruling Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Nina Gershon made permanent her conclusion last year that the cutoff of funding was unconstitutional. She ordered all federal agencies to put the word out about it. The Brooklyn judge said ACORN was punished by Congress without the enactment of administrative processes to decide if money had been handled inappropriately. She said the harm to ACORN’s reputation continues because the government never rescinded its advice to withhold funding after it was distributed to “hundreds, if not thousands, of recipients.” The judge wrote that it was “unmistakable that Congress determined ACORN’s guilt before defunding it.” She said Congress is entitled to investigate ACORN but cannot “rely on the negative results of a congressional or executive report as a rationale to impose a broad, punitive funding ban on a specific, named organization.” She said the Code of Federal Regulations establishes a formal process for deciding when federal contractors can be suspended or debarred. She added that “the existence of these regulations militates against the need for draconian, emergency action by Congress.” MORE

PREVIOUSLY: Why The Right Hates ACORN, How They Took Them Down, And Why Philly Didn’t Take The Bait

PREVIOUSLY: The Nutcracker Strikes Back!

PREVIOUSLY: WHAT HE SAID: Cracking The Nutcracker

PREVIOUSLY: Q&A: With ACORN Founder Wade Rathke

PREVIOUSLY: BRAVE NEW FILMS: How Fox News Slimed ACORN

PREVIOUSLY: Harshbarger Report Clears ACORN Of Illegality In ‘Pimp & Hooker’ Gotcha Videos

PREVIOUSLY: ‘Pimp’ From ACORN Sting Videos Arrested By FBI For Wiretapping Senator’s Phone

PREVIOUSLY: Brooklyn DA Clears ACORN

Dr. Dog is offering a free download of their first single, STRANGER, from their upcoming album, SHAME, SHAME, set for release April 6th on Anti. The Dog will perform on the Jimmy Fallon show that night. Tour dates after the jump.

DOWNLOAD: Stranger [mp3]

PREVIOUSLY: LET ME COUNT THE WAYS: Why Pitchfork’s Review Of The New Dr. Dog Album Has Its Head Up Its Ass

Read the rest of this entry »

DAILY NEWS: Pennsylvania State Police have staged another beer raid, confiscating about a dozen cases from a leading distributor in Northeast Philadelphia and ordering it to stop selling several well-known imports, including Duvel, a popular Belgian beer sold throughout the Philadelphia region. Agents from the State Police Department’s Bureau of Liquor Code Enforcement (BLCE) descended Monday night on Origlio’s Beverage, a wholesale distributor in the Far Northeast whose primary brands include Coors and Yuengling. The police seized about a dozen cases from a small California beermaker, Russian River Brewing Co., and ordered Origlio’s to stop selling Duvel and other beers, including Hacker-Pschorr, Paulaner and Monk’s Cafe Ale, developed in Belgium for the Philadelphia bar at 16th and Spruce streets. As in armed raids conducted last week against three Philadelphia taprooms, the State Police alleged that the targeted beers were not properly registered with the state Liquor Control Board for sale in Pennsylvania - a process involving limited paperwork and a $75 fee. The sketchy evidence available suggests that several of the beers in fact had been properly registered, and related liquor taxes had been paid. But apparent miscommunication between the Liquor Control Board and the State Police has left the state’s investigators with only a foggy notion of what’s registered and what isn’t. The State Police proceeded with the latest raid in spite of the confusion. MORE

TIMES ONLINE: Sex abuse scandals in the Roman Catholic Church are proof that that “the Devil is at work inside the Vatican”, according to the Holy See’s chief exorcist. Father Gabriele Amorth, 85, who has been the Vatican’s chief exorcist for 25 years and says he has dealt with 70,000 cases of demonic possession, said that the consequences of satanic infiltration included power struggles at the Vatican as well as “cardinals who do not believe in Jesus, and bishops who are linked to the Demon”. He added: “When one speaks of ‘the smoke of Satan’ [a phrase coined by Pope Paul VI in 1972] in the holy rooms, it is all true – including these latest stories of violence and paedophilia.” MORE

RELATED: Father Amorth told La Repubblica that the devil was “pure spirit, invisible. But he manifests himself with blasphemies and afflictions in the person he possesses. He can remain hidden, or speak in different languages, transform himself or appear to be agreeable. At times he makes fun of me.” He said it sometimes took six or seven of his assistants to to hold down a possessed person. Those possessed often yelled and screamed and spat out nails or pieces of glass, which he kept in a bag. “Anything can come out of their mouths – finger-length pieces of iron, but also rose petals.” He said that hoped every diocese would eventually have a resident exorcist. Under Church Canon Law any priest can perform exorcisms, but in practice they are carried out by a chosen few trained in the rites. Father Amorth was ordained in 1954 and became an official exorcist in 1986. In the past he has suggested that Adolf Hitler and Joseph Stalin were possessed by the Devil. He was among Vatican officials who warned that J. K. Rowling’s Harry Potter novels made a “false distinction between black and white magic”. He approves, however, of the 1973 film The Exorcist, which although “exaggerated” offered a “substantially exact” picture of possession. MORE

MTV: The news that actor Corey Haim, 38, was found dead on Wednesday morning (March 10) of an apparent drug overdose has left the late Hollywood icon’s family, friends and fans in mourning. Although Haim’s career had been relatively quiet in recent years, the actor was a steady presence on the big screen throughout the 1980s, starring alongside talents such as Kiefer Sutherland, Charlie Sheen and longtime friend and collaborator Corey Feldman. In memory of the late actor, MTV News has compiled a timeline of Corey Haim’s career in Hollywood from his first roles in “Firstborn” and “Silver Bullet” to his final years as a reality television star alongside Feldman. MORE

ENTERTAINMENT WEEKLY: I got the impression that Haim was competitive with Feldman (who noted that Haim had only recently been able to appreciate the work Feldman had done without him), but that he also felt the most comfortable whenever he was around. Haim told me he’d bought Feldman and himself matching Tiffany rings “for Hanukkah, for Christmas, for our show, for life, for everything.” Feldman pointed out that Haim had already lost his, but when Haim asked if Feldman was still wearing his ring, he was. ”We’ll be best brothers forever and ever, and past the grave,” Haim said. MORE

NEW YORK TIMES: Two drivers of Toyota Priuses reported that their cars had sped out of control, one of them ending in a crash. Toyota already has said it was recalling the popular hybrid car for the 2004 to 2009 model years, but only to fix a problem in which the carmaker says a floor mat could trap the accelerator pedal. In a separate recall, Toyota is modifying accelerator pedals it says could stick in 4.5 million vehicles. But a man whose 2008 Prius raced along 30 miles of Interstate in California at up to 94 miles an hour before the police helped him stop it has insisted that the floor mat was not interfering. Also, the police who responded to a crash Tuesday morning of a 2005 Prius into a stone wall in Harrison, N.Y., said the floor mat had been tied to the seat frame, presumably by a dealer. “We can rule out the mats,” Harrison’s acting police chief, Anthony Marraccini, said. “She probably traveled, accelerating, for over 100 feet, maybe even more than that. The collision hurled a couple of large boulders at least 10 feet away from the scene.” MORE

LOS ANGELES TIMES: James Sikes bought his Toyota Prius in 2008, and 53,000 miles later the car was driving fine. But on Monday afternoon, when he accelerated to pass another vehicle on Interstate 8 east of San Diego, the car kept going. “The gas pedal stuck open all the way,” said Sikes, 61, a real estate agent from San Diego. For 30 miles, Sikes said, he swerved in and out of traffic, narrowly missing a big rig and trying desperately to slow the vehicle down, at one point reaching down with his hand to pull back on the gas pedal. The brakes were useless. MORE

SAN FRANCISCO CHRONICLE: Police and driving experts interviewed Tuesday said the best hope for the driver of a runaway car is to brake firmly, use the emergency brake and shift into a lower gear or neutral - although they cautioned that, depending on the circumstances and the model, there’s no guarantee doing all that will work. One expert, John Schembra of Concord, who teaches emergency driving to police around the state, said that if braking doesn’t slow down the car, turning off the ignition might be the safest tactic - so long as you’re traveling on a straight road and the car hasn’t yet hit high speeds. MORE

ABC NEWS: A suburban Pennsylvania woman known by the alias “Jihad Jane” has been arrested and charged with trying to recruit Islamic fighters and for plotting to assassinate a Swedish cartoonist who made fun of the Prophet Mohammed, according to a federal indictment unsealed today. Colleen R. LaRose, 46, of Montgomery, Pa., described by neighbors as an average “housewife,” is better known to federal authorities as “Fatima Rose” or “Jihad Jane.” The indictment, obtained by ABC News, charges LaRose with conspiracy to provide material support to terrorists and conspiracy to kill in a foreign country. She is also accused of making false statements to a government official and of attempted identity theft, a passport she allegedly stole with the intention of giving to an Islamic fighter. The court papers claim that LaRose reached out through the Internet to jihadist groups saying she was “desperate to do something to help” suffering Muslim people, and that she desired to become a martyr. She stated in her e-mails “that her physical appearance would allow her to ‘blend in with many people’ which ‘may be a way to achieve what is in my heart,’” the indictment states.   MORE

JUSTICE DEPARTMENT: The indictment further charges that LaRose and her unindicted co-conspirators used the Internet to establish relationships with one another and to communicate regarding their plans, which included martyring themselves, soliciting funds for terrorists, soliciting passports and avoiding travel restrictions (through the collection of passports and through marriage) in order to wage violent jihad. The indictment further charges that LaRose stole another individual’s U.S. passport and transferred or attempted to transfer it in an effort to facilitate an act of international terrorism. In addition, according to the indictment, LaRose received a direct order to kill a citizen and resident of Sweden, and to do so in a way that would frighten “the whole Kufar [non-believer] world.” The indictment further charges that LaRose agreed to carry out her murder assignment, and that she and her co-conspirators discussed that her appearance and American citizenship would help her blend in while carrying out her plans. If convicted of the charges against her, LaRose faces a potential sentence of life in prison and a $1 million fine. MORE

JAWA REPORT: Since [LaRose] metamorphosed into the perfect recruit, her previous internet activity was easy to track which she listed her real name, birth date, location, and even online pictures of herself. She was the perfect recruit for extremist; lonely, isolated, blaming others for her problems, in the middle of a midlife crisis, and upset that she had to care for her elderly mother. She lashed out and converted to Islam then used this as an excuse to lash out further at society for being at fault for her problems and citing her elderly mother she had to care for who did not approve of her conversion.  Colleen went from being angry at the U.S. as a sociopath blaming them for all her problems in life to actually contacting real terrorist plotting terroristic threats against the U.S. Although Youtube Smackdown was responsible for removing most of her terrorist accounts, she remained determined to create more accounts on youtube promoting terrorism against the U.S. and grew more of a following of real terrorist as time went on, joining online terrorist websites and promoting them on her youtube channels. When she finally made an account which she actively solicited funds for the Pakistan Mujaheddin, which at this point I knew she had acquired the contacts for, I knew she had become a real threat for our safety and had officially violated U.S. Federal Law. It was time to report her. This being in July 2009 I formally called the FBI in Philadelphia to report her. MORE

RELATED: Jihad Jane’s Many, Many YouTube Accounts

ASSOCIATED PRESS: Her boyfriend of five years said LaRose had never hinted at Muslim leanings or attended religious services of any kind. Kurt Gorman, 47, of Pennsburg, said that he met LaRose in Texas and that nothing seemed amiss until she moved out of their apartment without warning in August. “I came home and she was gone. It doesn’t make any sense,” he said Wednesday outside his small business in nearby Quakertown. “She was a good-hearted person.” She moved to Europe in August with Gorman’s stolen passport and intended to give it to one of her “brothers,” the indictment said. She hoped to “live and train with jihadists and to find and kill” the targeted artist, it said. MORE

CNN: Irish police arrested seven people Tuesday suspected of plotting to commit a murder abroad, they announced. Irish media reports said the target was Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who drew a cartoon of the Muslim prophet Mohammed with the body of a dog in 2007, prompting al Qaeda to offer $100,000 to anyone who killed him — plus an extra $50,000 if the killer slits his throat. MORE

THE GUARDIAN: Lars Vilks, the Swedish artist at the centre of an alleged assassination attempt, was put under police protection in 2007 when al-Qaida offered a reward for his “slaughter”. Vilks’s depiction of the prophet Muhammad with the body of a dog in a series of drawings prompted the terrorist group to put a $100,000 bounty on his head. The sketches had sparked a furious reaction from Muslim groups and countries including Pakistan and Iran. Some Islamic traditions consider it blasphemous to make or show an image of the prophet, and Vilks’s drawings were regarded as especially derogatory as dogs are a symbol of filth for many Muslims. MORE

ASSOCIATED PRESS: The alleged target of the murder conspiracy, Swedish artist Lars Vilks, told The Associated Press he believed that the Irish arrests are linked to two telephone death threats he received in January over one of his drawings published in a Swedish newspaper in August 2007. Vilks said in a telephone interview he received those threats shortly after Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard — who also faced extremist Muslim death threats for his 2005 depictions of Muhammad — was threatened when a Somali man wielding an ax broke into his home in Denmark on Jan. 1. Westergaard locked himself in a room and called police, who shot and wounded the attacker. MORE

WIKIPEDIA: The Lars Vilks Muhammad drawings controversy began in July 2007 with a series of drawings by Swedish artist Lars Vilks which depicted the Islamic prophet Muhammad as a roundabout dog (a form of street installation in Sweden). Several art galleries in Sweden declined to show the drawings, citing security concerns and fear of violence. The controversy gained international attention after the Örebro-based regional newspaper Nerikes Allehanda published one of the drawings on 18 August to illustrate an editorial on self-censorship and freedom of religion.^[1] While several other leading Swedish newspapers had published the drawings already, this particular publication led to protests from Muslims in Sweden as well as official condemnations from several foreign governments including Iran,^[2] Pakistan,^[3] Afghanistan,^[4] Egypt,^[5] and Jordan,^[6] as well as by the inter-governmental Organization of the Islamic Conference (OIC).^[7] The controversy occurred about a year and a half after the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy in Denmark in early 2006. MORE

POLITICS DAILY: On his daily radio and television shows last week, Fox News personality Glenn Beck set out to convince his audience that “social justice,” the term many Christian churches use to describe their efforts to address poverty and human rights, is a “code word” for communism and Nazism. Beck urged Christians to discuss the term with their priests and to leave their churches if leaders would not reconsider their emphasis on social justice. MORE

GLENN BECK: I’m begging you, your right to religion and freedom to exercise religion and read all of the passages of the Bible as you want to read them and as your church wants to preach them . . . are going to come under the ropes in the next year. If it lasts that long it will be the next year. I beg you, look for the words ’social justice’ or ‘economic justice’ on your church Web site. If you find it, run as fast as you can. Social justice and economic justice, they are code words. Now, am I advising people to leave their church? Yes.

REVEREND JAMES MARTIN: Social justice is an essential part of Catholic teaching. It’s part of being a Catholic. So Glenn Beck is, in essence, saying “Leave the Catholic church.” But Glenn Beck is saying something else: “Leave Christianity.” Again and again in the Gospels, Jesus mentions our responsibility to care for the poor, to work on their behalf, to stand with them. In fact, when asked how his followers would be judged he doesn’t say that it will be based on where you worship, or how you pray, or how often you go to church, or even what political party you believe in. He says something quite different: It depends on how you treat the poor. In the Gospel of Matthew (25) he tells his surprised disciples, that when you are meeting the poor, you are meeting him. They protest. “Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.” But our responsibility to care for “the least of these” does not end with simple charity. Giving someone a handout is an important part of the Christian message. But so is advocating for them. It is not enough simply to help the poor, one must address the structures that keep them that way. Standing up for the rights of the poor is not being a Nazi, it’s being Christian. And Communist, as Mr. Beck suggests? It’s hard not to think of the retort of the great apostle of social justice, Dom Helder Camara, archbishop of Recife, “When I give food to the poor, they call me a saint. When I ask why the poor have no food, they call me a communist.” The attack on social justice is the tack of those who wish to ignore the concerns the poor and ignore the social structures that foster poverty. MORE