Baxter looked like he was all Australian Sheepdog, except he got some great color from a Brittany in his lineage.

In his prime, he could leap with the deer and brought down more than a few. But in recent years, Baxter was in retirement. He watched the deer graze in his yard knowing he could never catch them. He spent most of his time lying next to me in my home office, often struggling to breathe because of a paralysis he developed in his larynx. It inhibited his barking, which really frustrated him. Imagine not being able to chase dear or even bark at them.

It’s rare when dogs his size live to be 14, so I’m grateful for his longevity.

But it’s still tough to lose such a loyal friend – someone always happy to see you.

Baxter was really smart, too. He didn’t like to play ball like my German Shepherd or my late Labrador. Games did not interest him. He was a keen observer of his domain, though.

I’ll never forget one example of intelligence and deductiveness.

We live on a large lot adjacent to a golf course. Baxter’s day would be spent watching golfers come and go. He was such a familiar sight on his front lawn that many golfers would stop and pet him on their way home. Baxter loved people.

But he also had a keen sense of who belonged and who didn’t.

One weekend day, I was outside with him and he began barking at some people who were locking the gate to the golf course. Baxter knew it was too early for the golf course to be closed, so he ran over to see what was going on. It turned out some kids were playing a practical joke on the golfers inside the course by locking them in.

Baxter was not amused.

He didn’t like his routine being disturbed. Plus, he considered that his golf course.

Walking Baxter was always an adventure, especially when he was young and strong. He was nearly blind in one eye, so it was not unusual for him to bump into you when he was walking or running.

When his old friend Bosco, the chocolate Lab, died, we buried him in our yard. They had been constant companions for years, ever since Baxter was a puppy. Baxter sat at his unmarked grave site for days, apparently waiting for his resurrection – or maybe just wanting to be near his old friend.

He was really a special friend. He got along with our cats. He got a long with the new German Shepherd we brought home. But he especially got along with the people in his life.

Baxter did not like thunder and lightning. For all 14 of his years, he would try to get as close to his people friends and as far away from the noise and flashing lights as he possibly could. He could sense a storm coming hours before.

One day, a few years ago, he was acting like a storm was coming.

He went up to our master bedroom, which was normally off-limits to him.

We just figured he knew something the weather forecasters didn’t know.

He did.

A few hours later, an earthquake struck Virginia and shook the East Coast from Washington to New York. It cracked the foundation of the Washington Monument. It sent government workers scurrying out of their buildings in the capital. In New York, skyscrapers were swaying.

Nobody expected it. It was a shock. But not for Baxter.

We’ll all miss him immensely in the Farah family, especially my 12-year-old daughter who knew him all her life.

Some insight into the stonewalling came during the Sunday news show:

On “Fox News Sunday,” White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer was asked by Chris Wallace where in the White House President Obama was during the Sept. 11, 2012, terrorist attack in Benghazi that killed four Americans.

Wallace: “Question, what did the president do the rest of that night to pursue Benghazi?”

Pfeiffer: “Look, the president was kept up to date on this as it was happening the entire night, from the moment it started until the very end. … I recognize that there’s a series of conspiracy theories Republicans have been spinning about it since the time it happened. The question here is not what happened that night. What we do is we want to go out and speak to the problems as they happen. And what’s important here is that when problems happen, the president takes responsibility for them and tries to fix them. That’s what we’re talking about in Benghazi. It’s an absolute tragedy what happened. The question isn’t, ‘Who edited what talking points?’ That’s largely irrelevant.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words: Don’t ask, don’t tell.

The facts are “irrelevant.”

But there’s more.

Wallace: “With due respect, you didn’t answer my question: What did the president do that night?”

Pfeiffer said that Obama was in touch with his national security team, but as Wallace pointed out, he didn’t talk to the secretary of state except for one time after the attack was over, didn’t talk to the secretary of defense, didn’t talk with the joint chiefs of staff as it developed.

Wallace then asked if Obama was in the Situation Room.

Pfeiffer: “I don’t remember what room the president was in on that night, and that’s a largely irrelevant fact.” (Emphasis added.)

In other words: Obama was asleep at the switch.

The facts, once again, are “irrelevant.”

Here’s Pfeiffer, the designated stonewaller, on CBS’ “Face the Nation”:

Pfeiffer once again reiterated that it was “largely irrelevant” who edited the talking points the Obama administration offered up in the aftermath of the terrorist attack.

Bob Schieffer asked: “That was just a PR plan, to send out somebody who didn’t know anything about what had happened. Why did you do that? Why didn’t the secretary of state come and tell us what they knew, and if they knew nothing, say ‘We don’t know yet’? … Why are you here today? Why isn’t the White House chief of staff here to tell us what happened?”

Pfeiffer said it was “offensive” (emphasis added) for anyone to question whether the White House could have done more to save the lives of Ambassador Christopher Stevens and other Americans killed in the attack. He also characterized any suggestion that Obama failed to act appropriately as “conspiracy theories.” (Emphasis added.)

So questioning Obama about Benghazi is now “offensive,” and any suggestions he might have fallen short that night amount to “conspiracy theories.”

Pfeiffer made the rounds Sunday morning and talked to George Stephanopoulos on ABC News’ “This Week” about the burgeoning IRS scandal.

Pfeiffer said the targeting of conservative groups was “inexcusable,” but then resorted to the script by making this incredible statement: “I can’t speak to the law here,” he said. “The law is irrelevant.” (Emphasis added.) “The activity was outrageous and inexcusable, and it was stopped and it needs to be fixed so we ensure it never happens again.”

In other words: The Obama administration doesn’t know if it’s illegal to use the IRS to target political enemies. In other words, there’s no plan to prosecute anyone for this patently illegal activity.

In fact, the whole question is “irrelevant.”

Get the picture?

This is what Obama thinks of questions about the scandals plaguing his administration: They’re “irrelevant,” “offensive” and born of “conspiracy theories.”

That should dash any hope of Obama coming clean of his own free will.

Congress, take note.

After all, this is 2013, and, as we all know, we live in an information society. In fact, we live in a surveillance society.

For once, is it possible our surveillance society can actually be used to rein in out-of-control government and get the people the answers they need to judge their officials in Washington?

Let’s first look at Benghazi-gate and the crucial questions that need to be answered:

• What classified materials were captured by the attackers?

• What code encryption software was compromised?
• What up/down link satellite communication equipment was captured?
• What regular video surveillance data at the consulate and annex were captured?
• What do the autopsies show? Are they available?

Government has all the answers to these questions – and I don’t just mean the White House and the State Department. We have an outfit in this country known as the National Security Agency. It monitors all phone calls and emails, among other forms of communication including satellites.

Why is Congress bothering to ask questions of politicians who are in full cover-up mode? Why do they continue to play the game of he said/she said? Why not just subpoena the information investigators need from the NSA and CIA? Everything Congress needs to know can be found there.

Let’s move to IRS-gate:

It will take years before the Treasury Department and the White House come clean if we rely on traditional investigative procedures of the 20th century. We now live in the 21st century. The truth is out there. Neither the NSA nor CIA were likely directly involved in this mess, but the NSA monitors all communication – both domestically and internationally. If there are smoking guns to be found, the NSA can find them – and must be compelled to do so by Congress.

Again, for once our surveillance society can be turned against the government instead of against the people. Wouldn’t this be a triumph for freedom and the rule of law?

Now let’s move to the other scandal – Reporter-gate:

We’re to believe that the Justice Department was searching for the source of leaks of highly classified intelligence information and vital national security secrets.

First let me ask a rhetorical question: If you believed someone in your house were leaking family secrets, would you try to tap the phones of the unknown parties leaked information was suspected of going to? Or would you tap your own phones?

It would seem obvious and self-evident that it would be easier and faster to record all conversations taking place on your own phones.

Guess what?

Someone is already doing this – all the time. They do it at the NSA.

So, first you have to ask yourself why the Justice Department would be interested in the phone logs of Associated Press reporters rather than the phone logs and actual recordings of the leakers within government.

This is information that is easily retrievable by the NSA.

All of this raises some interesting questions:

Why have congressional investigators never demanded the NSA’s help in these investigations?

Doesn’t Congress have full oversight authority of the NSA?

Why should the Congress, which, under the Constitution, clearly has more power than the presidency, fool around waiting for answers it will never get from the IRS, White House, Justice Department and State Department when they have the ultimate resource to turn to – the NSA’s surveillance machine?

Wouldn’t it be wonderful if, for once, that machine were used to prosecute criminals within government rather than simply being the biggest repository of Big Brother files on the American people ever conceived?

Nobody likes to eavesdrop and spy more than the government.

Nobody keeps records on everything more than the government.

Nobody comes closer to God in being the all-knowing “seeing eye” of all that takes place in Washington and around the world than the U.S. government.

This is the perfect opportunity for the most powerful branch of government – the one that is supposed to represent the people – to get the answers it needs to get to the bottom of these scandals tout suite.

When he was out on the campaign trail in 2012, it was always: “My administration did this” or “My administration did that.”

But suddenly when his administration is caught red-handed conducting unarguably evil deeds, he starts finger-pointing at others. It’s no longer “his” administration.

It’s true of Benghazi. It’s true of the IRS scandal. It’s true of the despicable act of collecting the phone records of the largest news-gathering organization in the world.

He didn’t know.

It’s some other guy who’s responsible.

He’s above it all.

It wasn’t him. It was the Justice Department – which happens to be presided over by one of his closest buddies.

It wasn’t him. It was that nasty acting IRS commissioner. He serves his head up on a silver platter.

It wasn’t him. It was Hillary. Time for her to go. It wasn’t him, it was a YouTube video.

What did Harry Truman say?

The buck stops here.

That’s what Democratic presidents used to be like.

Whatever happened to Democrats with integrity and principle?

Bill Clinton was the same way.

In fact, he’s still the same way.

Jimmy Carter was the same way.

He’s still the same way.

But Obama is almost in a class by himself.

He truly is a narcissist.

He will never admit that he set the tone for all the wrongdoing that has suddenly become apparent in his administration.

No longer is it his administration.

What happened? Did he take a leave of absence? Was he away on a golf outing? Was he on vacation when all this happened? Did someone else appoint those people? Were those responsible Republican plants determined to undermine his administration?

Was he asleep?

Well, in the case of Benghazi, he really was asleep.

He left the little matter of saving the life of a member of his administration to others in his administration.

That didn’t work out so well. And that’s why the stonewalling continues on Benghazi and is unlikely to ever end.

But this raises another important question.

Why do we have to wait for Obama to answer questions and produce documents?

Doesn’t the Congress of the United States have subpoena power to get any information, cables, recordings of phone conversations, video recordings, etc., in conducting national security investigations?

And isn’t it true that the government keeps tabs on everything and everybody?

Isn’t that just what the National Security Agency does? Don’t they know everything? Aren’t they listening in to everything we do and say? Don’t they keep tabs on emails even more efficiently than Google?

So let me ask an obvious question: Why do congressional investigators have to ask Obama for anything? Why don’t they just get it from the source?

This is one time government snooping could actually be a good thing – or, at least, shed some light and bring instant accountability to the people.

Obama is not going to incriminate himself. He’s not going to offer himself up for impeachment. He’s not going to resign gracefully and move on with his life. He’s going to do what criminals with power always do – stonewall.

But because of the massive databases controlled by the U.S. government and the super-sophisticated eavesdropping machine it uses to watch over the people, the answers are all there for the asking for a Congress willing to use, not abuse, its power.

Isn’t it time the machine was turned against one of its masters?

Memo to Congress: The truth is out there. Stop asking Obama and his minions. Go get the facts from the machine you oversee – and fund.

The buck doesn’t stop with Obama, it stops with the Congress of the United States.

That question may seem loaded and over the top.

But I would like to point out some simple facts.

Kermit Gosnell was sentenced last Wednesday to life in prison without parole for the murder of a baby born alive in a botched abortion, who prosecutors said would have survived if the doctor had not “snipped” its neck with scissors. He was also sentenced to a total of 30 to 60 superfluous years on two charges of conspiring to kill two other babies. He got off relatively easy on some other charges that included involuntary manslaughter in the death of a woman who died after being given too much anesthesia in his clinic.

I’m not going to dignify Gosnell, as many news organizations did, by bestowing upon him the honorific title “doctor.” Gosnell is an abortionist. He never cured people. He killed them.

He was only spared the death penalty because of a plea agreement after his convictions.

So what does all this have to do with Obama being an accessory to murder?

You’ll first notice that Obama has refused to comment on the case from the beginning. Here’s a guy, Obama, who can’t keep his mouth shut on any topic. He loves to hear himself talk. But, when it comes to Gosnell, he’s mute. At first he said he couldn’t comment on it because it was an active trial. What’s stopping him now? Cat got your tongue?

Why can’t Obama talk about it?

Because Obama is on record as supporting the kind of thing Gosnell did.

I know Obama is faced with many scandals, and the opportunities to ask questions of him are, shall we say, somewhat limited.

But wouldn’t it be nice if some enterprising reporter with access asked: “Now that the Gosnell trial is over, do you still oppose laws that protect babies that survive abortions?”

As an Illinois state senator, Obama twice voted against bills that would have “defined any aborted fetus that showed signs of life as a ‘born alive infant’ and entitled to legal protection.” He said he viewed the bills as backdoor attempts to deny women the right to abortion.

So, in other words, if Obama had his way, Gosnell would still be practicing – still free to kill more babies.

And can’t we take it a step further by suggesting that Gosnell, and others like him across the nation who haven’t yet been brought to justice, was encouraged to do just what he did?

The sitting president of the United States twice openly took the position in the short time he served as a legislator that babies born alive following abortions had no right to live. This was legislation he was actively opposing even while abortionists were murdering babies born alive in cold blood in his own state. That’s why the legislation was put forward in Illinois, largely because of heroines like Jill Stanek, a nurse who witnessed such acts of barbarism and brought it to the attention of Obama and the Illinois Legislature.

So maybe that’s why Obama is less than loquacious on the subject of Gosnell.

What can he say?

Has he changed his mind about the very laws that put Gosnell away for life?

Or does he still believe that those laws would merely serve as backdoor attempts to deny women their right to take the life of their baby – born or not?

My guess is he would still take that extreme abortion position if he answered honestly.

I think it would be a tougher question for Obama to answer right now than those he’s facing on Benghazi, the IRS and the Associated Press scandals – now that the country has seen the kind of barbarism abortionists practice.

I also have some experience with the tea-party movement.

I wrote the “Tea Party Manifesto,”which I am making available for a limited time for 99 cents because it is more relevant than ever. I was a headline speaker, along with Sarah Palin, at the first national tea-party convention, and you can see what I said there that I knew – and predicted – would lead to politically motivated audits of my tax returns.

I predicted this would happen in a column in March 2010.

I wrote about it when it came to pass in November 2011.

I don’t claim the gift of prophecy.

I just know the nature of people like Barack Obama and those he places in positions of authority. I know this because I was just like him. I even had some of the same friends and acquaintances as a misguided youth – people like Bill Ayers and Bernardine Dohrn.

But my experience with politically motivated tax audits goes back long before the Obama administration.

I was a prominent target of Bill Clinton’s reign of Internal Revenue Service hell on individuals and tax-exempt organizations. And I was the guy who broke the story about it – long before there was a WND. Back then, I had to get the help of the Wall Street Journal, which, to its credit, gave me commentary space to lay out the whole story and turned the sordid tale into an 11-part series of editorials.

But in this day of historical forgetfulness, no one in the media seems to remember how Bill Clinton used the IRS to terrorize Paula Jones and many other women who had the misfortune of crossing his path along with a virtual who’s who of those who made his “enemies list” like me.

In my case, we finally got the evidence from the Treasury Department years later that showed it wasn’t some “rogue agent” who instigated the audit. It was Bill Clinton personally who dispatched a letter to the head of the IRS tax-exempt division.

Bill Clinton was allowed to skate for that kind of abuse.

And that’s why I knew, beyond any shadow of a doubt, that it would happen again under the watch of Barack Obama.

It’s been three years now that Obama has gotten away with targeting his enemies using the IRS. I’ve heard the horror stories from many friends – most of whom don’t want the limelight. Tax-exempt organizations hate to admit they are being audited because it tends to dry up donations. That was the problem telling the story in the 1990s, and it’s a problem now.

You will hear many horror stories about politically motivated audits now because people and organizations are starting to see it as a badge of honor to be audited by Obama – now that the story has legs.

Some will be tempted to discount these stories. Don’t make that mistake. They’re true. The abuse is far more than anyone can imagine. That’s why Obama publicly dispatched a sacrificial lamb, his IRS commissioner, so quickly. He thinks he may be able to cut his losses by finding a scapegoat.

Whether he’s right remains an open question.

Sadly, it depends primarily on two institutions that have a less-than-stellar track record in holding him accountable – the Republican Party and the media establishment.

I’m not holding my breath.

But I can say this without any equivocation: If Obama serves out his second term by merely blaming others beneath him, this will not be the last administration that uses the IRS to target its enemies. It will become a matter of course for leaders without scruples and integrity to continue the harassment and abuse Obama ensured would happen.

I’m not suggesting we will find any written authorization from Obama to do this – as we did with Clinton. As Rush Limbaugh so aptly pointed out, Obama didn’t need to do that. In politics and government, personnel is policy.

He hired people who would do his bidding. They didn’t need to be told by Obama to do it. All they needed to do was listen to what he said publicly about his enemies in the tea-party movement, the patriot movement and all those who crossed him.

Lastly, let me say this: Not only does Obama have to be chased from the Oval Office to ensure the IRS doesn’t victimize others in the future, but the IRS also has to go. It has proven once again to be the U.S. version of the Gestapo – there for future would-be fuehrers to abuse.

You might want to watch it again, following Barack Obama’s performance Wednesday night to see his inspiration for pleading surprise and ignorance to the way his Internal Revenue Service targeted people and organizations for their political leanings.

You remember the scene. Police Capt. Louis Renault, played by Claude Raines, raids a casino operation in the Rick Blaine’s (played by Humphrey Bogart) nightclub.

Asked why he’s closing down the club, Renault responds: “I’m shocked, shocked to find that gambling is going on in here!” The croupier hands Renault a pile of money and offers, “Your winnings, sir.”

That’s Obama.

For at least three years now, Obama has been gambling that he would get away with using the IRS as an attack dog against his political enemies. Now that he’s caught red-handed he feigns horror: “Americans are right to be angry about it, and I’m angry about it.” He insists he “will not tolerate this kind of behavior in any agency, but especially in the IRS, given the power that it has and the reach that it has.”

I know there are some candid true believers out there like Julian Bond of the NAACP who actually publicly applaud what Obama and the IRS did. But is there a single American who today honestly believes he didn’t, at the very least, wink at what was happening at the IRS if not inspire it by those he placed in charge of the agency and by his harsh rhetoric against his political adversaries ever since he began running for the presidency?

I know there are a lot of low-information voters out there, or we wouldn’t have Obama in the White House. But it’s hard for me to believe that this scandal is not completely transparent to even most of them – whether or not they care about the rule of law, justice, equal protection, personal liberties, free speech and all of those American principles.

You can’t say I didn’t warn America beginning in 2008.

Now, maybe, Americans are beginning to understand what this man is capable of – which is scary for those of us on the receiving end.

Think about it.

Is there anything a president who would abuse the IRS to target his enemies wouldn’t do to get his way and “fundamentally transform America,” as he promised?

Need I remind you that some of us have been attempting to blow the whistle on this scandal for more than two years? There have been lawsuits. There have been Freedom of Information requests filed. There have been news stories. There have been press conferences by groups victimized. There have been dozens of individuals, like me, who have told their own horror stories about political audits. (In my case, I predicted it with great specificity in advance and wrote about it when it inevitably came to pass!)

There’s just one difference between Renault and Obama.

In the end of the movie, Renault turns out to be a good guy. Even though he is playing ball with the Nazis and doing their bidding in “Casablanca,” that’s not where his heart is. I don’t hold out much hope that Obama is going to turn himself in for his high crimes and misdemeanors. Nor do I hold out much hope he is going to reform and become a defender of the Constitution and those previously mentioned American principles.

He’s made it clear to those of us who are awake that he despises the American way.

He hates pretty much everything it stands for.

So isn’t it time for all good, decent, patriotic, God-fearing Americans to demand he leave office at once or be impeached?

Trust me. If he serves out his complete term, the America we once knew will never be the same.

Do you believe the IRS has come clean about all of its actions as a political attack dog against adversaries of the Obama administration?

Do you believe a half-hearted and half-truthful apology by the IRS should excuse the Obama administration of any legal culpability or restitution?

Do you believe the Obama administration just became aware of this abuse last week and quickly cleared the air publicly last Friday afternoon?

Do you believe the Obama administration has taken decisive action to ensure that all political abuse of and by the IRS has ceased?

If you believe any of that, I’ve got a bridge in Brooklyn I’d like to sell you.

Here’s the truth:

• The tea party targeting has been going on for years – and may have been a significant contributing factor to the decline of the grass-roots movement. Last year, in a congressional hearing on just such accusations, then-IRS Commissioner Douglas Shulman declared in sworn testimony, “There’s absolutely no targeting. This is the kind of back and forth that happens to people.” The IRS insists officially today that none of the abuse of tea party and “patriot” groups was “due to any political or partisan rationale.” It took press exposés, lawsuits and congressional hearings to force this admission – and still it was done on a Friday afternoon when the administration knew most Americans would not be paying attention.

• There is strong evidence already emerging that political harassment of 501(c)3 groups that promote educational programs at odds with Barack Obama’s worldview is still going on today. IRS officials told at least one new pro-life nonprofit group that it would need to promote “both sides” of the life issue to obtain a tax-exemption. Cherish Life Ministries was created to be a nonprofit so that churches would feel comfortable working together for pro-life causes. Peter Shinn was also told he would have to prove the group was not involved in political activity. This is akin to demanding that Greenpeace not only promote saving whales but killing whales, too.
• From December 2012 to January 2013, the IRS released pending applications for tax exemptions for six organizations. The release of such information is a felony punishable by a fine of up to $5,000 and imprisonment for up to five years. No one was prosecuted or fired as a result of the leaks.
• In 2010, Austan Goolsbee, then chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers, divulged in a conference call confidential IRS information on how Koch Industries, which supports libertarian causes, was organized. In a background call with reporters, a “senior administration official” used Koch Industries as an example of how large corporations used corporate structures to avoid taxes.
• On the eve of the 2010 elections, conservative donors to nonprofits were told that past donations could be taxed as gifts. After not levying a gift tax for decades, the IRS investigated five donors to political advocacy nonprofits. Among those to receive letters threatening additional levies and taxes was conservative philanthropist Foster Friess. The move was protested by congressional investigators.
• Mitt Romney supporter Frank VanderSloot was attacked by name by the Obama campaign. A few months later, VanderSloot and his wife were told by the IRS they were being audited for the first time.
• The IRS claimed just last month that it can read your emails without a warrant.
• Once Obamacare is fully implemented in 2014, the IRS will enforce 47 new tax provisions along with distributing subsidies to 18 million people and tax credits to small businesses. The Treasury Department expects the cost of enforcement from 2010 to 2013 to total $881 million. Shulman informed Congress last year the agency would need an additional $13.1 billion in 2014 for this purpose.

I wrote a column in 2010 predicting that Obama’s IRS would audit me for my criticism of him. A year later, my prediction came true. I had not been audited since Bill Clinton launched a similar campaign of political audits against organizations and individuals – his “enemies list,” if you will. I remember because not only was I a target, I also exposed the systematic effort by the last Democratic president with the help of an 11-part series in the Wall Street Journal. (There was no WND back then.)

This is serious stuff.

This cannot be swept under the rug.

When one president gets away with this kind of abuse, it becomes a precedent for the future. If that happens, we cease to live in a free society under the rule of law.

The stakes are high.

Every American, regardless of their political leanings, should recognize it is not in the interest of liberty to permit such abuse by politicians against anyone.

By that I mean the reigning ethos of the day is despair.

I understand it.

Government is broken.

Politics is broken.

The culture is broken.

All of the manmade institutions on which we count to pull us out of despair and improve our lives are broken.

And, sad to say, that includes the church in America.

The church is an institution of all believers. But most people who call themselves believers are not acting like believers. They are not in obedience to God’s word. When they fall short, they are not in repentance. They are not striving for holiness. Most seem to think they will be welcome in God’s kingdom if they simply say some magic words at some point in their life and ask Jesus into their hearts.

They are not salt and light in the world. They do not evangelize non-believers. They do not humble themselves before the Creator of the universe. They do not fervently seek His face.

And this is why everything is broken. This is why we’re in despair. The Bible is replete with stories about how this same condition affected ancient Israel. Those stories are in the Bible for a reason – to serve as lessons for us.

Why aren’t the sheep following the right path? Because, in too many pulpits in America, they are not being fed with the Word of God.

Believers and shepherds need to recognize the signs of the times.

This is not a time to condone sin or to make compromise with it. It’s a time for believers and pastors to clean themselves up, putting on the full armor of God through the Holy Spirit and the Word.

If believers in America follow the simple prescription of 2 Chronicles 7:14, miracles will happen.

I believe that with every fiber of my being and soul. Why? Because it’s a promise from God.

There’s a lot of prayer going on in America today. Of that I have no doubt. But it’s not the right kind of prayer. It’s not the kind God hears. It’s not offered in total humility. It’s not done with sufficient fervency, intensity and frequency. And, most of all, it’s not done in the spirit of total repentance for the sin that abounds not just in the world but in the lives of all believers.

I include myself in this condemnation, so do not take it personally.

But I am making a pledge – a promise to myself and God – that that’s going to change, starting today.

This is a message that needs to be preached from every pulpit every week – leading right up to 9-11-13, the National Day of Prayer and Repentance.

Do you want to get closer to God? Do you want to strive for holiness? Do you want to be counted among the righteous? Do you want to save not only your own eternal soul but America, too?

That’s what is at stake.

It’s all we have. It’s the missing ingredient. It’s why our nation is falling into judgment.

There is no other way.

I’m not telling anyone to ignore the problems government is creating. But those are just symptoms of our own illness.

I’m not telling anyone to stop engagement in politics. But politics without this component will continue to fail us.

I’m not telling anyone not to do good deeds, to feed the hungry and shelter the homeless and comfort the widows and orphans. I’m just saying that it will never be enough unless believers clean up their own act and get right with God.

I’m not expecting 350 million Americans to follow this prescription. But I am counting on a remnant of believers to do so – and God promises that’s all it takes to save a nation.

Will you consider these words prayerfully, humbly, seriously and with a spirit of repentance of all your wickedness?

That’s what it will take. Nothing short of that will save America from destruction.

The hour is late.

Time is short.

I urge you to take this message seriously.

Pastors: I urge you in love to lead the way.

“I think the notion of a quote, cover-up, has all the elements of Pulitzer Prize fiction attached to it,” Pickering said on MSNBC.

He rebutted claims his review board tried to protect former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton in the way it conducted its investigation.

“I saw no evidence of it,” he said. “She did publicly take responsibility for what happened below her and indeed one of the things the Congress did in preparing the legislation that established the Accountability Review Board was to say we don’t want a situation where heads of agencies take responsibility and then nobody who made the decision in the chain has to suffer any consequences for failure for performance. I believe in fact the Accountability Review Board did its work well.”

But wait just a minute.

Only a few days later, on Sunday, on “Meet the Press,” even Pickering was scampering for the tall grass, saying his review only looked at what led up to the Benghazi attack with an eye toward security concerns. He said the review board did not examine the spin that followed the attack. In other words, all the changing talking points, after the fact, were not part of his review.

So how could he have said a few days ago there was no cover-up, which, by definition, is what occurs after an attack, if his investigation didn’t look at that?

What’s particularly distressing about Pickering’s role in the Benghazi scandal is his own personal history.

Lt. Col. Oliver North recalls a time when he served as with the National Security Council in the Reagan administration that Pickering was in a pickle very similar to Ambassador Christopher Stevens. Pickering was the target of assassination threats while serving as ambassador to El Salvador. He was, in all likelihood, saved from such an attack because of decisive action taken on his behalf.

It’s tragic that someone who lived through that experience would have such a cavalier attitude today about a fellow ambassador who was abandoned by another administration.

Pickering went on from that experience to become ambassador to Israel, where he became one of the first U.S. diplomats to distance U.S. support for Israel’s national security. It’s hardly surprising that he would find himself defending the indefensible in Benghazi.

In any case, Pickering has discredited his earlier remarks claiming there was no evidence of a cover-up in the Benghazi scandal.

By admitting his investigation was not even authorized to look into the matter, his earlier statements should be regarded as no more than an opinion – of no more value that anyone else’s opinion. He is no more qualified to determine whether a cover-up took place in the burgeoning Benghazi scandal than any other casual observer.

I doubt he is the first or last member of the Obama administration who recognize this scandal is unraveling fast. No one will want to be part of the mess. The rats are beginning to abandon the ship, just as they abandoned Ambassador Chris Stevens and other Americans who died while Hillary Clinton and other members of the administration watched – and while Obama slept.

What a difference a week makes!

Even members of the press, who showed so little concern about Benghazi before the election, are beginning to cover their rear ends in what promises to become of the most embarrassing and tragic national security scandals in American history.