PRESIDENT AT JERICHO - President Bush celebrated the seventh anniversary of his Faith-Based and Community Initiative by touring the Jericho prisoner reentry program in Baltimore. Jericho is a grantee of the Prisoner Re-entry Initiative that Bush set up in 2004. The program is run by Episcopal Community Services of Maryland and serves non-violent adult male offenders. The program prepares former inmates for employment with training and job placement while providing recovery counseling services.

The war in Iraq has unfortunately taken public attention away from some of the President's greatest accomplishments in his two terms in office. The recognition by his Administration that faith based programs do a better job helping those in need than government programs, is one of those accomplishments. The President should be commended for setting up programs in government that recognize and assist programs such as Jericho.

PRESIDENTIAL VOTER GUIDE - Please vote on Super Tuesday, if your state participates. Wall-Builders has just released a really good guide to the presidential candidates that is short and concise. Unlike some published by major evangelical organizations, it is not biased toward Gov. Mitt Romney. Click here to view the WallBuilders voter guide in PDF format.

ALL NEW CHAIRMAN'S REPORT - The January 4, 2008 issue of the Chairman's Report is now available online. This new issue contains details of "under God" petition deliveries to the Senate and first hand accounts of the huge Right to Life march in Washington. Read about adding a pro-life amendment to Indian Health Services. Information on the church bombings in Iraq. Click here to read in PDF format

THE HUCK HATERS - Why may the GOP wind up with McCain as their presidential nominee? If the entire Washington, DC establishment, including the Club for Growth, had not pounded so hard on Huckabee in South Carolina, John McCain would have lost. Huckabee and Romney would have emerged from Florida as the leaders. But the Huck haters in Washington, including well known evangelical leaders spent the last three months ignoring McCain and beating up on Mike Huckabee. Even after he lost in South Carolina, the Washington Times had to run a slanted front page attack against him that included a ten year old photo. Somehow I don't think the Club for Growth and the rest of the GOP Washington insiders are now happy with the results of their work.

Thanks to all the Huck haters who ignored McCain, it looks like they wind up with a 72 year old man who can't raise money as their front runner, against a young and vigorous Democrat who can get honey out of a rock. Sounds like a Dole/Clinton match up.

DEATH FOR INTERNET ARTICLE? - Last week I reported on an Afghan student, Sayed Parwiz Kambakhsh, who had been sentenced to death for copying a paper from the Internet that the courts there deemed "blasphemous" to Islam. I approached two different officials in the Bush Administration and one in the State Department to find our what could be done to save the young man's life. I was told it was best to "resolve the situation quietly." We cannot establish religious freedom in Afghanistan or Iraq "quietly." We are now in the situation where only high profile cases such as this one are dealt with. How many are stoned to death without our knowledge because we failed in create a true atmosphere of religious freedom in the nations we are occupying?