One faith-based leader who met with President Barack Obama and Governor Rick Perry in Dallas Wednesday says the 10-person private meeting among local officials and faith leaders was productive in homing in on solutions that will meet the state's most immediate needs in dealing with the border crisis.

Despite appeals from members of his own party to accept Texas Gov. Rick Perry's invitation to tour the U.S,-Mexico border where the humanitarian and national security crisis is unfolding, Obama declined, opting instead to meet in Dallas before attending one of three Democratic fundraisers in the state.

"The purpose of the meeting was to find solutions in dealing with the border crisis in Texas," Chris Liebrum, director of disaster recovery for the Texas Baptist Convention told The Christian Post Wednesday night. more >>

Texas Republican Gov. Rick Perry told members of the U.S. Homeland Security Committee Thursday afternoon that the illegal immigrants who've flooded the border since October must be sent back home.

Perry told committee members who toured a facility in McAllen and other centers in the state, where immigrants are being housed temporarily, that returning the children and adults who are entering the U.S. illegally will send a message to others to not embark on the dangerous and possibly deadly journey.

"Some may think that allowing them to stay here is the more humane option; I assure you it's not," Perry asserted. "Nobody is doing any of these children the slightest favor by delaying a rapid return to their countries of origin." more >>

As Iraq burns, and the hard-won gains of American arms are thrown away in a bloodbath of severed heads and mass executions, more than 1,500 miles away from Baghdad a smaller, but also heartbreaking drama is playing out before the eyes of a watching world.

And just as in Iraq, the United States is humiliated, with lives hanging in the balance.

On Monday, there was a rare burst of good news from the jihadist reaches of the Muslim world, as a Sudanese court overturned the death sentence imposed on Meriam Ibrahim, a Sudanese Christian convicted of "apostasy" - of converting from Islam to Christianity. Married to an American, Meriam was imprisoned with her two young American children, sentenced to be flogged and then hung. She was free to leave Sudan, and it appeared our State Department was even working diligently to bring Meriam and her American family home, to free soil. more >>

For five hundred years Ancient Rome was the world's only major superpower. Although the Empire showed signs of weakening as early as the fourth century that Rome could ever fall was inconceivable to Romans and their enemies alike. Yet by A.D. 500, Roman power was only a memory, and Germanic barbarians had taken the "Eternal City" for their own.

Scholars have offered countless theories for why Rome fell, but one unquestionable factor-and perhaps the only one that mattered in the end-was the slow and eventually irreversible erosion of its military readiness. Today, many Americans are deeply concerned that our own military is headed down a similar path.

Every sensible person wants to live in a peaceful country, but there are two fundamentally different views of how to best achieve this. The first holds that war is an inevitable part of the human experience and that the best way to achieve peace is to make one's country an unattractive target for would-be attackers. The second view sees war as an anomaly that must have a specific and treatable cause. Eliminate the "cause," and you can have world peace. The first view is often associated with constantly strengthening one's defense capabilities, while the latter may be associated with greater reliance on efforts to appease one's enemies. more >>

Once again, Barack Obama is showing his lack of serious concern for the military.

Instead of court martialing Bowe Bergdahl, who presumably went AWOL in Afghanistan, Obama traded five high-level Taliban terrorists from Guantanamo Bay, for his release.

The President used military pay and pensions as a political football during recent budget debates. Thanks to Obama's opposition to reform, the Veterans Administration is overwhelmed with an endless backup of paperwork to process --while veterans die on secret waiting lists at government run hospitals. more >>

The CIA once considered a plan of developing Osama Bin Laden dolls that turned into a demon when exposed to heat in an attempt to counter Bin Laden's influence on children in Afghanistan.

The agency produced three prototypes of the doll with the help of Donald Levine, the former head executive of the Hasbro toy company. The final prototype of the toy, although it was never released to the public, included an Osama Bin Laden face that, when exposed to heat, melted off to reveal a demonic expression with red and black designs and piercing green eyes. The toy was designed so the evil face would be exposed when heat from a child's hands touched the doll.

The purpose of the toys was to counter Osama Bin Laden's powerful influence on Afghani children and their parents. The 12-inch doll came wearing traditional Afghani clothing and was sold in a cheap box wrapped in plastic. The body of the doll had already been in production in China when Levine partnered with the CIA to superimpose the Bin Laden face. more >>