Report: ISIS camp just a stone's throw from U.S. border

From One News Now.com (April 16):

A public-interest group is very concerned about what's going on at a terrorist camp just inside Mexico, not far from a major U.S. Army installation. 

High-level sources in Mexico have confirmed to Judicial Watch that ISIS is operating a camp about eight miles from El Paso, Texas, which sits on the U.S.-Mexico border. The camp is located in an area (known as "Anapra") dominated by a drug cartel, making it an extremely dangerous and hostile operating environment for the Mexican Army and Federal Police operations.

Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch, tells OneNewsNow this ISIS cell represents a clear threat to the United States.

"We're very much concerned obviously about what's going on," he shares. "Our understanding also is the 'coyotes' – those engaged in human smuggling – have helped move ISIS terrorists through the desert and across the border in New Mexico." [read more]

It’s bad enough America has drug gangs wanted to cross the border now it looks like terrorists are threatening America’s border. The border really needs to be secured.

The Progressive Income Tax

Since today being tax day, I would like to share a Prager University video about the Progressive Income Tax:

Dick Morris did a video about how prohibition caused the income tax.

President Lincoln created the first progressive income tax during the Civil War. The Revenue Act of 1862 was created to fund the war. The two-tier system highest tax rate was 5% (which the Left now days calls too low). If you made less than $600 you were exempted from the tax. According to Wikipedia, the tax didn’t fulfill its purpose. Most progressive taxes don’t.

It’s kind of a shame Lincoln had to create such a tax system because the progressive tax system (especially a heavy progressive tax system) is a Marxist idea. Although, he wasn’t the first person to reference it. The early Romans had progressive income tax. The tax rate under normal circumstances was 1% of property value, and could sometimes climb as high as 3% in situations such as war.

If America had a flat tax rate with no income exemptions then Congress would be less likely to raise it and keep the tax rate low otherwise they would be sticking it to the poor and not just the rich. Then again that would make the poor keep more of their own money (as well as every other tax payer). This would mean that the poor could someday become independent from the progressive politicians and not keep them in power. We can’t have that can we?

Talking about low tax rates here an interesting and informative video about the Laffer Curve.

How America’s Next President Can Lead on Foreign Policy

From Daily Signal.com (April 5):

Talent matters. That holds true in foreign policy, as well as in sports. So there should be no surprise when a mediocre national-security squad suffers a string of foreign-policy setbacks. Top-rank talent may not guarantee any administration an unbroken winning streak in foreign policy, but it sure improves the odds.

So what should the nation’s next president be looking for when assembling his or her national-security team?

Start with Talent, Not Programs

Managing complicated foreign-policy conundrums requires talented people with insight and wisdom. They need to be skilled decision makers and effective leaders. Such people can be found in government. Unfortunately, government rarely empowers the right people at the right time.

If a president seeks to improve foreign-policy outcomes, simply rearranging the rusty chains that bind our national-security apparatus together does little to help. Jimmy Carter was one president who learned this lesson the hard way.

One of Carter’s campaign promises was that he would exercise better oversight of our foreign-policy machinery. In “Jimmy Carter: In Search of the Great White House“ (1980), Betty Glad documents Carter’s belief that the National Security Council Staff was out of control—an all-powerful cabal undercutting leadership from the top, but at the same time bureaucratic, burdensome and slow moving. Once in the Oval Office, he scrapped existing NSC processes, reorganized and downsized.

For all the rearranging, the Carter “system” didn’t produce better policy outcomes. A string of foreign-affairs debacles, like the botched decision to withdraw U.S. forces from South Korea, raised questions about the soundness of the president and his national-security team.

To manage mayhem, the first and most critical task for a new president is to pick the right people for his team.

The qualifications for any job are a mix of skills, knowledge and attributes. Being an effective strategic leader requires three core characteristics: character, competence and critical thinking. [read more]

So, true. Too bad Obama doesn’t have any of the core characteristics. Interesting essay.

How Self-Driving Cars Could Make You Sick

From The Blaze.com (April 10):

As self-driving cars become a more tangible reality for the future of road travel, their ability to let riders do something other than pay attention to the road is one of the main draws. But one detail might have been slightly overlooked on this front and that’s the factor of motion sickness, a new study says.

Anyone who has been a passenger on a road trip and has tried to read while riding has probably experienced some level of queasiness.

Researchers at the University of Michigan’s Transportation Research Institute surveyed more than 3,200 adults from six countries, including the U.S., about the types of activities they would do instead of driving in an autonomous car. More than a third said they would do things like read, text, watch movies, play games and work, a news release about the study stated. [read more]

Basically when cars drive themselves the driver becomes a passenger which allow him to look around and site see and not pay attention to the road. I am not sure it is a good idea to have the car totally autonomous though. Since self-driving cars are made by people and people are imperfect then self-driving cars will be too. A human should still be able to take control of the car if the cars goes out of control. What about ice, snow or even a downpour of rain? The car could hydroplane. I suppose a builder can put in sensors to handle that.  And what about driving around mountain roads? Can an owner trust a self-driving car to do that safely?

Then there is the issue of some malicious computer person hacking into the car’s program.  And then there are viruses and worms. The car owner would definitely want to keep your car’s software up to date.  If the car is going to use some sort of speech-to-text software to tell it its destination it better be really accurate or have someway for the user to input the destination.

Finally, Glenn Beck on his radio show brought up an interesting point. If self-driving cars become the norm will driver’s ed still be taught? And will the gov’t outlaw non-self-driving cars because they think self-driving cars are safer on the road? Surely race cars and demolition derby cars won’t be self-driving because that would be really boring.

Miscellaneous Thoughts Part 35

• America went off the gold standard. Hope we don’t go off the God standard.
• Obama said “No religion is responsible for violence and terrorism.” I beg to differ. The Aztecs, Satanists, and other pagan religions offer human sacrifices to their gods. He should have said peaceful religions don’t commit violence.
• A movie that should never be made: Indiana Jones and the Lost Golden Accordion.
• Someone should invent a computer mouse that goes to sleep when the computer turns off. That way the battery in the mouse is conserved.
• Dr. Kelly McGonigal’s three powers of willpower (I will, I won't, and I want) sound like Freud’s three parts of the psyche (ego, super-ego, and id).
• You can be a rich sob. You can be a poor sob. It doesn’t matter what your financial situation is—you’re still a sob. The only thing that matter in the end is your character and how you treat your fellow man. In the end that’s what really matters to God.
• Instead of chanting “no justice, no peace” maybe Al Sharpton and his henchmen should be chanting “no truth, no justice.” After all isn’t that why witnesses take an oath to tell truth during a trial? Then again the truth doesn’t matter to the far Left.
• If minorities according to the Left are always tolerant then what does that say about a Muslim baker not making a wedding cake for a gay couple getting married? Both are minorities. That actually happened. The lame-stream press yawned.
• The real reason why the Left didn’t trust the Tea-Party getting together was because it was spontaneous. It wasn’t planned by a community organizer. They don’t trust anything that isn’t planned.
• A prediction: Bill O’Reilly’s next book will be called Killing MLK or Killing King.

20 Reasons Why Hillary Would Wipe Her Server Clean

From The Hillary Daily.com:

Hillary is a hoarder. So is Bill. So if she actually removed everything from her server, she had to be convinced that it would be more dangerous to keep the emails than to ride through a scandal, no matter how rough.

This scandal isn’t about Hillary’s privacy, it’s about her self-preservation. So here’s what would make her do it:

1. The emails contained damaging information about Benghazi that conflicted with her testimony and statements.

2. The emails — and those of her closest aides — showed her improper use of her position to benefit the Clinton Foundation, Clinton Global Initiative, Teneo, and herself.

3. If she gave the Benghazi Committee electronic access to the emails, they could easily determine whether any had been edited or altered. It would have been extremely difficult to delete just some of the information in the emails. If she tried to doctor them, the system would likely show when it was last edited. Any edits after she left the State Department would be highly suspicious and the earlier versions could probably be retrieved anyway. So, it would be much easier to give out only hard copies, which can be easily doctored without detection and which would be difficult to search electronically.

4. The emails would show the improper coordination with the Clinton Global Initiative and U.S. corporations. Huma Abedin worked for the State Department as Clinton’s right hand person, Teneo, and the Clinton Global Initiative all at once. She used one of Hillary’s private email accounts on Hillary’s server. Were her emails deleted too? [read more]

Can you imagine Richard Nixon erasing all of his tapes? What are you hiding Hillary? God help this country if she ever gets elected president. I guess she is just following Obama’s lead by not being transparent.

Life in the USSR

The officials were still rounding up people on Saturday and Sunday to perform “friendly labor” in order to help out our “new government,” which by now was beginning to take over all the businesses and factories—it was to become the “power” to all the poor. It was also a time when new rules were being issued against all religions and all believers. Most of the young people were being watched, and the children in school were being taught that there is no God. Most of the churches were closed, except for two or three of the big Orthodox churches, which remained open. But only a few of the older people attended the services. The schoolchildren were instructed to tell on their parents if they practiced religion at home. The people were watched closely, especially at Christmas and at Easter time. I remember Mama and Papa hiding our small Christmas tree in the pantry, and on Easter the colored eggs were not displayed but were kept hidden from the neighbors. It was also a time when many people of intellect and affluence were being picked up and would never be seen again by their families.

It was a time when we children were taught to be silent and not to tell—outside of our home—about our family background or anything that we knew about our families. We were instructed to never talk about anything that happened or was said in our own home. I remember so well that Mama and Papa would tell us that the “walls have ears” and that we should whisper and never talk loudly. I didn’t understand what they meant. I would imagine that our walls could hear us and that there was something very strange about our home and its walls. When I would want to talk, I would look at the walls and ask Mama if I should whisper or if I could speak out.

Source: The Secret Holocaust Diaries: The Untold Story of Nonna Bannister (2011) by Nonna Bannister.

It should be mentioned Nonna (the author) was describing her experience when Joseph Stalin was the leader. According to Henry Kissinger in his World Order book  Stalin “eliminated all of the other original revolutionary leaders in a decade of purges, and deployed a largely conscripted labor force to build up Russia’s industrial capacity.” A real nice guy. He did this to consolidate “socialism in one country.”

Also, according to Kissinger, Stalin also thought that the capitalist system inevitably produced wars; hence the end of World War II would at best be an armistice.

Franklin Roosevelt felt the USSR was ‘good guy’ who will respond properly and decently if you treat him right. Does that sound familiar? Apply that thinking to radical Islam. Then again most people back then thought this way about the USSR. After all they were America’s allies during WWII. Only a few like General George Patton didn’t trust the Soviet Union. He was proved right in the end.

Islam and Treaties

In the early Islamic system, nonaggression treaties with non-Muslim societies were permissible. According to traditional jurisprudence, these were pragmatic arrangements of limited duration, allowing the Islamic party to secure itself from threats while gathering strength and cohesion. Based on a precedent set by the early Islamic state in entering truces with foes it eventually vanquished, they were limited to terms of specific duration, up to ten years, that could be renewed as needed: in this spirit, in the early centuries of Muslim history, “Islamic legal rulings stipulate that a treaty cannot be forever, since it must be immediately void should the Muslims become capable of fighting them.”

What these treaties did not imply was a permanent system in which the Islamic state would interact on equal terms with sovereign non-Muslim states: “The communities of the dar al-harb were regarded as being in a ‘state of nature,’ for they lacked legal competence to enter into intercourse with Islam on the basis of equality and reciprocity because they failed to conform to its ethical and legal standards.” Because in this view the domestic principles of an Islamic state were divinely ordained, non-Muslim political entities were illegitimate; they could never be accepted by Muslim states as truly equal counterparts.

Source: World Order (2014) by Henry Kissinger.

If you haven’t figured it out yet, America, Israel and the western world are the dar al-harb. I wonder if the current leaders of Iran hold these views.

Well, this is what the Supreme Leader said about America in May 2014:

"The reason for the emphasis placed on the continuation of combat, is not because of the war-mongering of the Islamic establishment. It is only rational that for crossing a region filled with pirates, one should fully equip themselves and be motivated and capable of defending themselves.

"Under such circumstances, we have no option but to continue combat and allow the idea of combat to rule all domestic and foreign affairs of the country.

"Those who seek to promote concession-making and surrendering to bullies and accuse the Islamic establishment of warmongering are indeed committing treason.

"All the officials in the country in the field of economy, science, culture, policy-making, lawmaking and foreign negotiations should be aware that they are fighting and are continuing the combat for the establishment and survival of the Islamic system….jihad is never-ending because the Satan and the satanic front will exist eternally."

Hmm. Looks like the answer is yes.  ISIS surely does still hold these views. As well as the other Islamists.

By the way, Dar al-harb in Arabic means “house of war.”

Our Poop Could Be a Literal Goldmine Worth Millions

From The Blaze.com (Mar. 23):

It might not smell like roses, but sewage could be a goldmine, according to scientists who say that solid waste has a wealth of metals that could be worth millions if they were harvested.

Dr. Kathleen Smith with the U.S. Geological Survey revealed gold, silver and rare elements like palladium can be extracted from treated waste.

“There are metals everywhere — in your hair care products, detergents, even nanoparticles that are put in socks to prevent bad odors,” Smith said in a statement.

Smith, a presenter at the 249th National Meeting & Exposition of the American Chemical Society, explained that wastewater treatment yields treated water and biosolids. With more than 7 million tons of biosolids produced in the U.S. each year, the purpose of Smith’s research is twofold.  [read more]

Well, at least we can get some rare earth elements out of poop since China now, according to a 60 minutes story, basically cornered the market on rare earth elements. America was the leading source of rare earth elements in the beginning but a main plant shut down for a while because of environmental reasons and China took advantage of the situation. Rare earth elements are used a lot in electronics like cell phones.

What is Social Justice? video

Source: What is Social Justice? from Prager University.com.

Just like global warming no-one really knows what social justice means. The same with economic justice and any other term with the word “justice” at the end.  Justice is about righting an individual wrong. The key word here is “individual.” I don’t know how a person can right a wrong done to a group of people. It doesn’t make sense. Your are dealing with abstract concepts. Each person in that group may feel he was done wrong in different ways and different degrees and wants different justice done. The only way to make the concept work is if you ignore individual difference in the group. In other words, you stereotype the members. And that’s not fair to the group.

Informative and interesting video.

Israel only nation condemned in UN for women's right violations

From Ynetnews.com (Mar. 21):

Out of nine official documents produced from the UN's annual Commission on the Status of Women report, only one of the UN's 193 members were mentioned in regards to ongoing infringement of women's rights – Israel – in what Jerusalem says in another case of UN bias.

The document, titled the "Situation of and assistance to Palestinian women", slams Israel for the ongoing occupation of the West Bank, a situation which it says has led to "(h)igh levels of unemployment and poverty" among Palestinians, especially women.

"Palestinian women and girls still face significant obstacles in accessing basic services, health care, psychosocial support, water and sanitation, justice institutions and economic opportunities," the report noted.

It is worth noting that according to a 2014 World Economic Forum report, Israel ranked 57th out 137 for female political empowerment; the US ranked 54th and Saudi Arabia ranked 117th. Some 27 of Israel's 120 Knesset members are women.  [read more]

This report is pure B. S. The UN is a joke. Zell Miller is right UN is a useless nuisance.

Just so you know, Yemen, according to the World Economic Forum (WEF), is ranked last with the score of 0.515 (1 is the highest) for gender equality. So, if the UN is going to condemn a country maybe Yemen would be a better choice. I don’t what Palestine's ranking is. The WEF didn’t rank it.

EPA wants to monitor how long hotel guests spend in the shower

From Freebeacon.com (Mar. 17):

The Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) wants hotels to monitor how much time its guests spend in the shower.

The agency is spending $15,000 to create a wireless system that will track how much water a hotel guest uses to get them to “modify their behavior.”

“Hotels consume a significant amount of water in the U.S. and around the world,” an EPA grant to the University of Tulsa reads. “Most hotels do not monitor individual guest water usage and as a result, millions of gallons of potable water are wasted every year by hotel guests.”

“The proposed work aims to develop a novel low cost wireless device for monitoring water use from hotel guest room showers,” it said. “This device will be designed to fit most new and existing hotel shower fixtures and will wirelessly transmit hotel guest water usage data to a central hotel accounting system.” [read more]

Why stop there? Why not monitor showers in apartments and homes? Why not monitor all water usage like watering the grass and flushing toilets? Or washing clothes and dishes in homes?

This is a waste of tax payers money. This is pure fascism. If this was mandatory in homes, the elites’ homes would of course be exempted. After all they are special and they wouldn’t waste water (because they are enlightened and so intelligent). Then again since the masses are not so wise they would be wasteful. 

The ATF’s Ammo Ban Is Back…in the Form of a New Bill From Democrats

From The Blaze.com (Mar. 16):

Four House Democrats have taken the Obama administration’s idea of a regulation to ban a widely used kind of ammunition — one it had to pull back because it was so unpopular — and turned it into legislation.

Rep. Eliot Engel (D-N.Y.) introduced the Armor Piercing Bullets Act, which he said would ban the sale of “.223-dervied, 5.56x45mm NATO ‘green tip’ rounds” that are commonly used on the AR-15 rifle. That’s the same ban that the ATF proposed in February, through the adoption of a “framework” that would justify a ban on all bullets that can pierce police body armor.

The ATF’s framework prompted the submission of almost 90,000 comments, most of which opposed the plan as one that would ban a popular round used in a popular rifle. For years, these green tip rounds have enjoyed an exception from a ban on armor-piercing bullets, because they are generally used for sporting purposes.

But even when announcing that this framework would be indefinitely delayed, the ATF indicated it would continue to work on the issue and see if there’s a way to implement its framework. At a hearing last week, ATF Director B. Todd Jones said his agency was “figuring out how we do this rationally.”

Engel was more direct, and said the ATF had it right, and that it’s framework should now be implemented via legislation.

“As the ATF rightly pointed out, these rounds can easily be loaded into concealed pistols and other short guns, making them particularly dangerous to police officers,” Engel noted. “The well-being of the men and women who protect us should not, and need not, be a partisan issue. I encourage all of my colleagues in Congress to support this obvious measure that will, if enacted, save lives.”  [read more]

I doubt it would save lives. How can you prove that anyway? The criminals would still find a way to get the bullets anyway and they are the ones who would use them especially the gangs. The Fraternal Order of Police isn’t worried about this type of bullet so why should these Dems be worried?

You got to give it to the Dems though. They don’t give up. Their war on the 2nd amendment continues.

Myths, Lies and Capitalism video

Source: Myths, Lies and Capitalism from Prager University.com.

Interesting video that dispels the myths (actually lies) that the Left spreads about the free-market system. Most of these myths are based on emotion specifically envy.

Pakistan: Can Sharia and Freedom Coexist? video

Watch and find out.

Source: “Pakistan: Can Sharia and Freedom Coexist?” from Prager University.com. 

The Nazis wanted to pure the races, the Communists wanted to pure the classes, and the Islamists want to pure the belief systems. If Islam wants to join in the civilized world it has to reform like Christianity did. But if the moderates, modern, or even the traditionalists in the religion don’t speak out it will never be able to.

Freedom House.org currently rates Pakistan partly free. The country does not have freedom of the press or internet freedom.

Economically speaking its freedom score is 55.6. It’s property rights score is 30. It’s fiscal freedom is 77.0. According to the Heritage.org’s line graph its economic freedom slightly improves. Let’s hope that improvement continues. Now, only if its civil liberties would get better.

Christianity versus Islam

Novelist Brad Thor on his Facebook page had an interesting observation about the spread Christianity and the spread of Islam. He said: “In Christianity's first four centuries, it spreads peacefully and converts the Roman Empire. In Islam's first four centuries, it spreads violently and triggers the Crusades.”

Make sense to me. If you force, bully, or coerce someone to belief your way, then that person will resent you and even be angry at you.  He might not even keep your belief system. There is even a better chance he will rebel against your belief system. The Crusades is a good example of this rebellion.

On the other hand, if you honestly persuade someone to your belief system then that person will make it part of his belief system. He will more than likely keep it and be at peace with it. Yes, persuasion takes longer and requires patient than forcing someone, but if your goal is to convert someone and have that conversion take hold for a long time then persuasion is your best bet. Keep in mind before the Roman Empire was converted they were pagans. The Empire persecuted Christians until Constantine was converted.

10 Principles for Replacing ObamaCare

From FreedomWorks.org (Feb. 24):

1. Health care decisions should be made  between patients and doctors—the  government should never have a say.
2. Increasing access to health care is about  letting markets provide lower costs for  higher quality of care—not just having an insurance policy.
3. Tax policy should not favor individuals or companies with regard to purchasing health insurance.
4. Regulation of private health insurance should be done by the states.
5. Medicare should allow all seniors a choice of plans in a competitive market and the option to opt out altogether if they choose.
6. Medicaid should move towards a state-controlled model—one in which states have flexibility to innovate and find ways to deliver better quality care with their Medicaid dollars.
7. Patients should be incentivized to save and spend their own money (tax free) on health care through health savings accounts.
8. The abuses of the medical malpractice system must be addressed by the states.
9. Individuals with pre-existing conditions should be accommodated at the state level.
10. ObamaCare must be dismantled entirely.

[read more]

A great plan. Basically let the states handle the healthcare. For those Leftists who say republicans and conservatives don’t have a plan—here is one.

The problem with the healthcare system is prices. No-one knows what the prices of services and equipment are. If consumers know they are purchasing, prices would come down naturally.  Also, we should be able to buy health insurance across state lines like we do with other insurances. It’s stupid we can’t do that.

Father’s Devastating Testimony on Illegal Immigration: ‘Do Black Lives Really Matter?’

From The Blaze.com (Feb. 25):

Jamiel Shaw, whose son was murdered by an illegal immigrant in 2008, blasted the Obama administration’s immigration policies during a House Oversight and Government Reform subcommittee hearing on Wednesday.

“My son, Jamiel Andre Shaw II, was murdered by a DREAMer, a DACA recipient, a child brought to this country by no fault of his own,” Shaw began. “My family’s peace and freedom was stolen by an illegal alien from Mexico. He was brought here by his illegal alien parents and allowed to grow up as a wild animal.”

He continued: “Some people believe that if you are brought over by no fault of your own that it makes you a good person. They want you to believe that DREAM Act kids don’t murder. I am here to debunk that myth.”

Though Shaw’s son was murdered in 2008, before Obama’s Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program was implemented, he said his son’s killer would likely be qualified under DACA.

Shaw then delivered a gut-wrenching account of how his son was murdered by an illegal immigrant with a criminal record.

“My son, Jamiel Shaw II, was murdered while walking on his own street, three houses down from his home. An illegal alien on his first gun charge was visiting a neighbor when my son was coming home,” he said. “He shot my son in the stomach and then in the head, killing him.”

“Do black lives really matter? Or does it matter only if you are shot by a white person or a white policeman?” Shaw asked.  [read more]

Evidently the illegal alien didn’t know “black lives matter.”

Not every illegal (sorry, I meant to say “American-in-waiting”. Geez, another stupid useless term from the regime) is law abiding. They break America’s laws by coming over hear illegally in the first place. I believe it is called trespassing.  Anyway, if they had any respect for America they wouldn’t be doing that in the first place. Then again who knows what Mexican schools teach about America.

FCC Approves Net Neutrality in Straight Party-Line Vote

From The Blaze.com (Feb. 26):

In what one Republican called a “monumental shift toward government control of the Internet,” the Federal Communications Commission on Thursday approved a proposal granting the federal government the authority to regulate Internet broadband providers under the same law as public utilities.

The five commissioners voted 3-2 along party lines in favor of the proposal known as net neutrality. The 317-page plan, which has not yet been publicly released, bans broadband providers from blocking, throttling or prioritizing certain Internet pages over others. The FCC has said the proposal will not seek to impose any new taxes or fees.

The three Democrats voiced their support of the measure while the two Republicans dissented. Democrats say they have the authority to impose the new regulations under under Title II of the Federal Communications Act of 1934.

In his remarks, Republican Commissioner Ajit Pai called the plan a “monumental shift toward government control of the Internet” and a “rapid departure” from market-oriented approaches.

Wheeler said the new regulations will make America “more competitive,” not hinder its ability to compete when asked by a reporter after the meeting to respond to such claims. [read more]

File this plan under “if you like your internet you can keep it.” And like Obamacare no-one knows what’s in the plan—I guess you have to pass it to know what is in it. Internet it was good to know you. Goodbye conservative blogs, goodbye Rush Limbaugh.com, Fox News.com, Hannity.com, The Drudge Report.com, etc. Basically, any website that doesn’t tow the line for the regime or doesn’t contribute money to the Dems. Am I being over-reactive?  We’ll see, but if the plan is great then why was it kept secret before it was enacted? Also, expect to see slower download speeds and buffering.

You can read Freedomworks.org article on what Net Neutrality does.

The internet bothers the Left just like cars bother the left. They both represent liberty.

One other thing. Net Neutrality hurts poor minorities.

Obama to ban bullets by executive action, threatens top-selling AR-15 rifle

From Washington Examiner.com (Feb. 27):

It's starting.

As promised, President Obama is using executive actions to impose gun control on the nation, targeting the top-selling rifle in the country, the AR-15 style semi-automatic, with a ban on one of the most-used AR bullets by sportsmen and target shooters.

The Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives this month revealed that it is proposing to put the ban on 5.56 mm ammo on a fast track, immediately driving up the price of the bullets and prompting retailers, including the huge outdoors company Cabela's, to urge sportsmen to urge Congress to stop the president. [read more]

This is a roundabout way of banning guns. Definitely a war on the 2nd Amendment. The Left think if people don’t have guns then crime will go away or be diminished. I don’t think so. Tell that to Britain and France. Especially that cop that got mowed down by an militant Muslim. The police officer didn’t have a gun to protect himself.

Hitler and Environmentalism

Nazism was another type of socialism practiced by the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (aka the Nazi Party), led by Adolf Hitler in the 1930s. Hitler’s Nazis held many key tenets in common with the philosophy articulated by Marx. They believed in a government-regulated, planned economy. More important, though Hitler was agreeable to the limited private ownership of property, he was against capitalism and those who sought undo personal profit. During his reign of terror, a popular government slogan was “Fixing of profits, not their suppression.”

Hitler also believed capitalism was created by the Jews and once told Italian Fascist dictator Mussolini, “Capitalism has run its course.”

So determined was Hitler to eliminate excessive profit that execution or imprisonment in a concentration camp was the punishment exacted for any business owner who pursued his own self-interest, instead of the interests of the state. This official decree was stamped into the rim of the silver reichsmark coins issued during the Nazi reign: “Gemeinnutz geht vor Eigennutz,” or “The common good before self-interest.”

Additionally, like Marx, Hitler saw nature, not humankind, as supreme. He also insisted that the environment be protected from commercial development, stating, “Man must not fall into the error of thinking that he was ever meant to become lord and master of Nature.”

Like his communist cousins, Hitler perceived pollution as the direct result of capitalism and, as a fellow materialist who spurned belief in the supernatural (despite occasional vague rhetoric about “Providence”), he was completely opposed to the harvesting or mining of natural resources, stating, “The German countryside must be preserved under all circumstances, for it is and has forever been the source of strength and greatness of our people.”

Following Marx, Lenin, and Hitler, a new generation would go forth to further unfurl socialism’s green flag, and they would achieve great success with their devious agenda...even in America.

Source: Eco-Tyranny. How the Left’s Green Agenda Will Dismantle America (2012) by Brian Sussman.

So, Hitler wasn’t a socialist huh? In his book Mr. Sussman also gives a 12-point plan on how to dismantle the eco-tyrannists plans. Like, for instance, abolish the Environmental Protection Agency, repeal the Federal Land Policy and Management Act of 1976, abolish the Department of Interior, repeal the Endangered Species Act (he says this can be handled by the states) etc. Those acts by themselves will give the environmental extremists a stroke for sure.

Feds: America Should Adopt ‘Plant-Based’ Diet

From Freebeacon.com (Feb. 20):

The federal committee responsible for nutrition guidelines is calling for the adoption of “plant-based” diets, taxes on dessert, trained obesity “interventionists” at worksites, and electronic monitoring of how long Americans sit in front of the television.

The Dietary Guidelines Advisory Committee (DGAC) released its far-reaching 571-page report of recommendations to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) and the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) Thursday, which detailed its plans to “transform the food system.”

The report is open for public comment for 45 days, and will be used as the basis by the government agencies to develop the 2015 Dietary Guidelines for Americans. The guidelines are used as the basis for government food assistance programs, nutrition education efforts, and for making “decisions about national health objectives.”

DGAC proposed a variety of solutions to address obesity, and its promotion of what it calls the “culture of health.”

“The persistent high levels of overweight and obesity require urgent population- and individual-level strategies across multiple settings, including health care, communities, schools, worksites, and families,” they said.

In response, DGAC called for diet and weight management interventions by “trained interventionists” in healthcare settings, community locations, and worksites. [read more]

What will be next? Make mandatory aerobic exercise? When you let gov’t take over the healthcare system you let them take over your health—ie your body. And the Left is worried about gov’t banning abortion. This is far worse.

Well, at least the militant vegetarians are happy.

Congress Is About to Impose Another Unfunded Mandate on Doctors

From The Daily Signal.com (Feb. 19):

Doctors in their day-to-day practice already face a mound of federal regulations.

Now, starting Oct. 1, doctors will face a new unfunded mandate as they will be required to transition to a costly and complicated coding system for payment.

While the International Classification of Diseases (ICD) system was originally designed specifically for disease classification, since the 1980s, public and private payers alike have required that health care providers use the ICD-9 system when they file reimbursement claims. If, for instance, you go to the doctor’s for treatment for the flu, the doctor’s office will use the ICD code for flu when billing your insurance.

But unless Congress acts, the current ICD code will be replaced Oct. 1 by the vastly more complex ICD-10.  [read more]

Another example of the gov’t making life more complicated than necessary.

Frederick Douglass

This being Black History Month I would like to talk about Frederick Douglass.

Here are the Frederick Douglass’ twelve principles to leadership and success:

1. The Proper Use of Power Is To Promote the Common Good.
2. Give Up Something You Want In Order To Help Someone Else.
3. Overcome Doubt and Fear.
4. Understand Why and How To Control the Human Ego.
5. Do What Is Right and Proper Even If No One Is Looking.
6. Use Knowledge and Understanding Wisely.
7. Overcome Indecisiveness.
8. Make Gratitude a Part of Every Thought And Action.
9. Practice the Skill of Listening Carefully Before Making Judgments.
10. Remain True To Your Word.
11. Hold a Vision For the Desired Future.
12. Recognize That Your Success Is As Much a Motivation To Others As To You.

Pretty good principles to live by. It sounds like he might be a conservative.

Here are some quotes of his:

People are asking me about the race problem.... I know of no race problem. The great problem that confronts the American people to-day is a national problem -- whether this great nation of ours is great enough to live up to its own convictions, carry out its own declaration of independence, and execute the provisions of its own constitution.

It's easier to build strong children than to repair broken men.

The life of the nation is secure only while the nation is honest, truthful, and virtuous.

People might not get all they work for in this world, but they must certainly work for all they get.

I recognize the Republican party as the sheet anchor of the colored man's political hopes and the ark of his safety.

I am a Republican, a black, dyed in the wool Republican, and I never intend to belong to any other party than the party of freedom and progress.

I prefer to be true to myself, even at the hazard of incurring the ridicule of others, rather than to be false, and to incur my own abhorrence.

Find out just what people will submit to, and you have found out the exact amount of injustice and wrong which will be imposed upon them; and these will continue until they are resisted with either words or blows, or both. The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppress.

….The American people have always been anxious to know what they shall do with us….I have had but one answer from the beginning. Do nothing with us! Your doing with us has already played mischief with us. Do nothing with us….And if the negro cannot stand on his own legs, let him fall also. All I ask is, give him a chance to stand on his own legs! Let him alone! ….[Y]our interference is doing him positive injury.

Yea, this guy was definitely a conservative. A better role model for blacks than Jessie Jackson or Al Sharpton will ever be.

CIA Bought Hundreds of Iraqi Weapons of Mass Destruction in ‘Operation Avarice’

From The Blaze.com (Feb. 16):

A mysterious seller.

Internationally condemned chemical weapons.

Until recently, the whole thing was a secret — and even now the Pentagon is cagey about its involvement.

Working with the U.S. military, the CIA purchased some 400 Borak rockets from an Iraqi seller between 2005 and 2006, uncovering and destroying reserves of sarin nerve agent, the New York Times reported.

The name of the program: Operation Avarice.

According to the Times’ report, Operation Avarice revolved around a single Iraqi who sold the weapons to the Americans in batches.

Run by the CIA office in Baghdad and the Army’s 203rd Military Intelligence Battalion, the program destroyed most of the rockets it recovered — along with thousands of other chemical weapons recovered throughout the American occupation of Iraq — though some rockets were tested in rudimentary ways that may have exposed soldiers to dangerous chemicals.

One source said operatives would place warheads in “an old cast-iron bathtub” and drill through the metal exteriors to extract the liquid sarin nerve agent within.

Manufactured by Saddam Hussein’s regime in the 1980s, the Borak rockets were found to contain surprisingly pure sarin despite their age, the Times reported.

Sarin gas is a lethal chemical used by Iraq in the Iran-Iraq War of the 1980s — with occasional CIA guidance — and more recently in fighting in Syria.  [read more]

The Modern Little Red Hen

A modern fairy tale by Ronald Reagan told Nov. 16, 1976:

Once upon a time, there was a little red hen who scratched about the barnyard until she uncovered some grains of wheat. She called here neighbors and said, "If we plant this wheat, we shall have bread to eat. Who will help me plant it?"

"Not I," said the cow.
"Not I," said the duck.
"Not I," said the pig.
"Not I," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. And she did. The wheat grew tall and ripened into golden grain. "Who will help me reap my wheat?" asked the little red hen.

"Not I," said the duck.
"Out of my classification," said the pig.
"I'd lose my unemployment compensation," said the goose.
"Then I will," said the little red hen, and she did.

At last it came time to bake the bread. "Who will help me bake the bread?" asked the little red hen.

"That would be overtime for me," said the cow.
"I'd lose my welfare benefits," said the duck.
"I'm a dropout and never learned how," said the pig.
"If I'm to be the only helper, that's discrimination," said the goose.

"Then I will," said the little red hen. She baked five loaves and held them up for her neighbors to see.

They wanted some and, in fact, demanded a share. But the little red hen said, "No, I can eat the five loaves."

"Excess profits!" cried the cow.
"Capitalist leech!" screamed the duck.

"I demand equal rights!" yelled the goose.
And the pig just grunted. And they painted "unfair" picket signs and marched round and round the little red hen, shouting obscenities.

When the government agent came, he said to the little red hen, "You must not be greedy."

"But I earned the bread," said the little red hen.

"Exactly,” said the agent, "that is the wonderful free enterprise system. Anyone in the barnyard can earn as much as he wants. But under our modern government regulations, the productive workers must divide their product with the idle."

And the lived happily ever after, including the little red hen, who smiled and clucked, "I am grateful. I am grateful."

But her neighbors wondered why she never again baked any more bread.

Source: Reagan In His Own Hand.

Free Enterprise

Another speech by Ronald Reagan about free enterprise April 16, 1979:

Our free market system is usually termed capitalism and by that definition capitalism has hardly been around long enough to deserve all the evil for which it is being held responsible.

Most of us aren’t really conscious of how recently the capitalist system came into being. Possibly we look back and think of the extravagant luxury of kings and emperors and see that as capitalism. We have a modern counterpart today in the rulers of Marxist nations.  Maybe our trouble is caused by the term capitalist itself. Actually all systems are capitalist. It’s just a matter of who owns and controls the capital--ancient king, dictator or private individual. We should properly be looking at the contrast between a free market system where individuals have the right to live like kings if they have the ability to earn that right and government control of the market system such as we find today in socialist nations.

We have a very visible example of the contrast between the free market and government ownership in a household necessity we take for granted. The invention of Alexander Graham Bell--the telephone offers us irrefutable proof of the superiority of the free market.

As recently as 1880 there were only 34,000 miles of telephone wires on the whole North American Continent. There were dozens and dozens of small telephone companies using several different kinds of equipment and there was no inter-connection between these different companies. The same situation prevailed in all the other so called advanced nations.

If someone had openly advanced a plan to put a phone in every home, on every farm, in every hamlet and city and hook them all together I’m sure someone would have said, “only government has the resources to do that.” Now strangely enough in most other countries government did take over the telephone system and to this very day the telephones in a great many countries are part of the postal system. In America the government wasn’t bulldozing it’s way into the free market place as it is today. For that we can be grateful. The scattered, competing phone companies were left to the magic of the market place. And that magic worked as it always does.

We take the phone so much for granted it’s hard to realize things weren’t always this way. We can dial directly to any point in the country and to a great many outside the country.

With no intention of insulting anyone I have to say it only takes a few days trip in many of those other countries to where the telephone is a government service to realize there is a difference. A long distance call there can be quite an adventure--so can getting a phone installed.

But here we have them in our cars if we like, in private or corporation owned executive planes and on boats. We bounce long distance calls off privately owned satellites and use telephone lines for network radio and remote broadcasts of sporting and special events.

And all of this came about because private individuals wanting to make a profit for themselves kept thinking of better services to offer, confident that we’d want that better service.

Source: Reagan In His Own Hand.

The Hope of Mankind

Here is another speech Ronald Reagan did Sept. 21, 1976:

Every once in a while all of us native born Americans should make it a
point to have a conversation with one who is an American by choice. They
can do a lot to firm up our resolve to be free for another 200 years.

In a dinner at Mt. Vernon back in revolutionary times, Lafayette  turned to his host and said “General Washington you Americans even in war and desperate times have a superb spirit. You are happy and you are confident. Why is it?” Washington answered “There is freedom, there is space for a man to be alone and think and there are friends who owe each other nothing but affection.” So simple an answer and so true.

Now 200 years later our self respect as a nation has undergone a strain. At times it has seemed as if the symbol of American power has become our departing ambassador, flag under his arm boarding a rescue helicopter.

But there is an awful lot of that other America still around. Like beauty it may be in the eye of the beholder. A few years back a woman who had fled from Poland wrote a letter and said, “Among some of our American born friends it is not fashionable to be enthusiastic about America. There is V.N. drugs, urban and racial conflict, poverty and pollution. Undoubtedly this country faces urgent and serious problems. But we newcomers see not only the problems but also solutions being sought and applied.

I love America because people accept me for what I am. They don’t question my ancestry, my faith, my political beliefs. When I want to move from one place to another I don’t have to ask permission. When I need a needle I go to the nearest store and get one. I don’t have to stand in line for hours to buy a piece of tough, fat meat. Even with inflation I don’t have to pay a days earnings for a small chicken.

I love America because America trusts me. I don’t have to show an identity card to buy a pair of shoes. My mail isn’t censored and my conversation with friends isn’t reported to the secret police.”

More recently On July 5” the “London Daily Mail” filled it’s editorial page with an article by Ferdinand Mount in which he sharply criticized his fellow Britons and other Europeans who delight in lambasting the U.S. He said: “What the world needs now is more Americans. The U.S. is the 1st nation on earth deliberately dedicated to letting people choose what they want and giving them a chance to get it. For all it’s terrible faults, in one sense America still is the last, best hope of mankind, because it spells out so vividly the kind of happiness which most people actually want, regardless of what they are told they ought to want.  We  criticize,” he said, “copy, patronize, idolize, insult but we never doubt that the U.S. has a unique position in the history of human hopes. For it is the only nation founded solely on a moral dream. A part of our own future is tied up in it and the greatest of all the gifts the Americans have given us is hope.”

Source: Reagan In His Own Hand.

Sadly, Obama and people like him don’t think America is the “best hope of mankind.” And because of that belief they want to remake America in their own twisted image.

More Excerpts from Ronald Reagan’s Speeches

America’s Strength. Dec. 22, 1976:

Our productivity is phenomenal. We raise 37% more wheat per acre than the national average. We are 6% of the worlds population on only 7% of the worlds lands but we produce almost half the worlds corn, 2/3 of the soy beans, 1/3 or more of the world’s paper, electrical power, college graduates and almost 1/3 of the farm machinery. Just to round it off we make more than 2/3 of the computers and 80% of all the passenger aircraft.

We lead the world in advanced technology; in telecommunications, drilling and mining equipment, medical science and agri-science.

All of this is because our system freed the individual genius of man. Released him to fly as high and as far as his own talent and energy would take him. We allocate resources not by government decisions but by the millions of decisions customers make when they go into the market place to buy. If something seems too high priced we buy something else. Thus resources are steered toward those things the people want most at the price they are willing to pay. It may not be a perfect system but it’s better than any other that’s ever been tried.

No Pay, No Vote.  April 3, 1978

It goes without saying that the US has proven again and again it’s generosity. Other nations owe us tens of billions of dollars but they aren’t asked to pay up. We are first on the scene to bring aid when natural disaster strikes and our Marshal plan and subsequent foreign aid program are unique in all the history of mans relation to man. We helped allies and erstwhile enemies alike with need the only criteria. All of which qualifies us now to make a long overdue move in the United Nations.

Source: Reagan In His Own Hand.

It’s too bad Obama can’t say these things and mean it. I am not saying he should completely emulate President Reagan. No one can do that. A president should be himself. All I am saying is that it’s too bad he can’t love his country faults in all. Even Woodrow Wilson and FDR loved their country in their own big gov’t progressive way.

Ronald Reagan on Peace

This is from a speech he did in April 1975:

It has been revealed that for twelve years, a behavioral scientist at the University of Hawaii has headed up a team of distinguished colleagues in a Federally-Funded, computerized study of International behavior. Summed up in one sentence they have learned that “to abdicate power is to abdicate the right to maintain peace.”

The study focused mainly upon Red China, Russia and the US. Every bit of data from trade to tourism—from threats to treaties—was fed into the computers. The findings prove conclusively that what Laurence Beilenson wrote in his book “The Treaty Trap” is true. “Nations that place their faith in treaties and fail to keep their hardware up don’t stick around long enough to write many pages in history.”

According to the report “It is not equality in power,” “that reduces hostility and conflict. Rather it is power dominance or submission.”---Peace is purchased by making yourself stronger than your adversary—or by dismantling power and submitting to one’s enemies.”

Power is not only sufficient military strength but a sound economy, a reliable energy supply and credibility—the belief by any potential enemy that you will not choose surrender as the way to maintain peace. Thomas Jefferson said “The American people won’t make a mistake if they are given all the facts.”

Source: Reagan In His Own Hand. The Writings of Ronald Reagan that Reveal His Revolutionary Vision for America (2001) by Ronald Reagan.

So true now as it was back then. Sadly, Obama and the Left will never get this fact—that evil exists in the world.

Dems Are Proposing a Perk That Only Federal Workers Would Get

From The Blaze.com (Jan. 27):

Twenty-one House Democrats have proposed legislation that would give federal workers — and only federal workers — six weeks of paid leave so they can give birth, adopt a child or deal with the placement of a foster child.

The Federal Employees Paid Parental Leave Act is an attempt to build off of President Barack Obama’s State of the Union address, in which he called for legislation giving everyone paid time off if they’re sick or having a child.

“Today, we are the only advanced country on Earth that doesn’t guarantee paid sick leave or paid maternity leave to our workers,” Obama said.

The Democratic bill would be a step in that direction, but it would start by giving only federal workers six weeks of paid leave for parental reasons.

“You can count on one hand the number of countries that don’t provide paid leave for the birth of a child, and the United States is part of the club,” said Rep. Carolyn Maloney (D-N.Y.), the sponsor of the bill.

“This is not only wrong; it’s bad for our economy,” she said. “Smart paid leave policies improve employee retention, boost productivity and more.”

But while she highlighted these benefits, she and other sponsors are not proposing to give them to private sector workers, and instead are hoping those benefits would “make a difference in the lives of millions of federal employees.”   [read more]

Not only is this a bad idea for gov’t workers but also the private sector. If a business can afford to give a worker three weeks off for giving birth then that’s between them and their employee. When a worker is gone he/she is missed. Productivity goes down. The person has to be temporarily replaced.  Not sure how that boosts productivity or improves employee retention.

The question is why isn’t the private sector included in the bill. Could it be because the dems don’t care about business workers? Or could it be the dems know this is a bad idea but they think it won’t effect gov’t productivity because gov’t doesn’t have that much productivity to begin with? You choose.

The Parallels Between Islam and Communism

“A state of this sort [i.e., an Islamic state] cannot evidently restrict the scope of its activities. Its approach is universal and all-embracing. Its sphere of activity is coextensive with the whole of human life. It seeks to mould every aspect of life and activity in consonance with its moral norms and programme of social reform. In such a state no one can regard any field of his affairs as personal and private. Considered from this aspect the Islamic state bears a kind of resemblance to the Fascist and Communist states.”

-- Leading Islamic theologian Sayyid Abul A’la Maududi in The Islamic Law and Constitution

“I turn now from the accidental to the essential factors, to those deriving from the very nature of Islamic society, tradition, and thought. The first of these is the authoritarianism, perhaps we may even say the totalitarianism, of the Islamic political tradition… [T]he political history of Islam is one of almost unrelieved autocracy…[I]t was authoritarian, often arbitrary, sometimes tyrannical…[N]othing but the sovereign power, to which the subject owed complete and unwavering obedience as a religious duty imposed by the Holy Law [Sharia] Both groups offer to their members and followers the agreeable sensation of belonging to a community of believers, who are always right, as against an outer world of unbelievers, who are always wrong. Both offer an exhilarating feeling of mission, of purpose, of being engaged in a collective adventure to accelerate the historically inevitable victory of the true faith over the infidel evil-doers. The traditional Islamic division of the world into the House of Islam and the House of War, two necessarily opposed groups, of which the first has the collective obligation of perpetual struggle against the second, also has obvious parallels in the Communist view of world affairs. There again, the content of belief is utterly different, but the aggressive fanaticism of the believer is the same. The humorist who summed up the Communist creed as “There is no God and Karl Marx is his Prophet” was laying his finger on a real affinity. The call to a Communist Jihad, a Holy War for the faith — a new faith, but against the self-same Western Christian enemy”

--- Bernard Lewis in his 1954 essay “Communism and Islam”

“Bolshevism combines the characteristics of the French Revolution with those of the rise of Islam…Those who accept Bolshevism become impervious to scientific evidence, and commit intellectual suicide. Even if all the doctrines of Bolshevism were true, this would still be the case, since no unbiased examination of them is tolerated…Among religions, Bolshevism is to be reckoned with Mohammedanism [Islam] rather than with Christianity and Buddhism. Christianity and Buddhism are primarily personal religions, with mystical doctrines and a love of contemplation. Mohammedanism and Bolshevism are practical, social, unspiritual, concerned to win the empire of this world.”

--- Bertrand Russell in The Practice and Theory of Bolshevism

Source: “5 prominent authors on the parallels between Islam and Communism” The Blaze.com.

The Problem with Central Planning

Centralized planning is a logical consequence of the application of Industrial Age principles and the state of the art of communications and computing in the Industrial Age. But centralized planning does not work well when faced with very dynamic and complex situations. Centralized planning does not work well in a coalition environment where the participants have overlapping objectives but different priorities, perspectives, and constraints.

Centralized planning is a manifestation of a belief in the ability to optimize. For centralized planning to work, it must be possible for a relatively small group of people to do all of the following: make sense of the situation, maintain this understanding in the face of a dynamic environment, predict the future, develop an appropriate response strategy, decompose the response into a coherent set of executable tasks, allocate resources, task subordinates, monitor execution, and make adjustments as required, all in a timely manner. In fact, despite a belief in the power of reductionism and a strong desire to optimize, centralized planning has evolved into a set of processes that often prevent optimization. Ironically, centralized planning processes are designed to deconflict tasks and elements of the force so that they will not get in each other’s way or do harm to one another. They prize deconfliction over synergy. This prevents simultaneity and the synergies necessary to perform anywhere near optimality. Centralized planning is antithetical to agility because it (1) is relatively slow to recognize and respond to changes in the situation, (2) results in ill-informed participants, and (3) places many constraints on behavior.

Source: Power to the Edge: Command and Control in the Information Age (Information Age Transformation Series) (2003) by David S. Alberts and Richard E. Hayes.

This is why communism failed and why socialism in all manifestations will always fail. Central planning is the antithesis of ingenuity and spontaneity.

The 10 Ways Ted Cruz Thinks He Can Make Your Life Better

From The Daily Signal.com (Jan. 13):

Ted Cruz is ready to bring big change to Washington—one bill at a time.

Speaking yesterday at Heritage Action’s 2015 Conservative Policy Summit in Washington, D.C., the Texas senator outlined his 10 policy goals for the new Republican-controlled Congress.

In doing so, Cruz stressed the importance of the GOP fulfilling the promises it made last election cycle.

“These are extraordinary times,” he said.

“Just last week, walking down the hallway at the capitol, I ran into a janitor carrying a screw driver coming to change the sign on Harry Reid’s door.”

The jab against the former Democrat majority leader brought the room to laughter.

With Republicans now in charge, Cruz said it’s time to embrace a “big, bold positive agenda that says to the American people, you had a referendum and you rejected the Obama agenda.”

Here are the 10 points mapped out in that conservative agenda, which Cruz says he aims to achieve through “piece-by-piece legislation.”

1. Embrace a big pro-jobs growth agenda.
2. Pursue all means possible to repeal Obamacare.
3. Secure the border and stop illegal amnesty.
4. Hold government accountable and rein in judicial activism.
5. Stop the culture of corruption.
6. Pass fundamental tax reform, making taxes flatter, simpler, and fairer.
7. Audit the federal reserve.
8. Pass a strong balanced budget amendment.
9. Champion school choice and repeal common core.
10. Deal seriously with the twin threats of ISIL and a nuclear Iran.

[read more]

That’s a great agenda for Congress. I hope they are able to pass most of those ideas.

If Ted Cruz runs for president he’s got my vote in the primary. He would make a really good president. Bill Clinton advisor James Carville said on ABC's This Week,  Ted Cruz  “is the most talented and fearless politician I’ve seen in the last 30 years.” If the Left fear him then I definitely want him on the ticket. If the republicans put another moderate on the ticket then whoever is the democrat candidate (more than likely Hillary Clinton—we’ll see) will probably win. That’s my prediction. Even Ted Cruz himself agrees with me.

Here are Ted Cruz’s ratings by the way:

American Conservative Union (2013): 100%

Freedom Works (2014): 97%

National Taxpayers Union (2013): A

Citizens Against Government Waste (2013): 98% (Hero)

Numbers USA (2013-2015): A+  Numbers USA is against amnesty and is for securing the border.

You can’t get much better than that. Well, I think you get the point.

Incredible Technology Lets You Feel Objects Without Touching

From The Blaze.com (Jan. 14):

The problem with the virtual world, perhaps, is the lack of touch.

But researchers at the University of Bristol in the United Kingdom have discovered a way to allow you to feel virtual objects similar to how you would feel an animate item. The technology was most recently showcased at the International Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas.

By using a tray of tiny ultrasound speakers, Ultrahaptics cofounder and University of Bristol graduate student Tom Carter said the innovative technology can control the timing between each one of the speakers so that the sound from each one arrive at the same point on your fingertips at the same time.

“We can target each different fingertip individually and we can create a different texture on each different fingertip,” Carter added. He also predicted the technology will eventually take off and allow consumers to control their devices with invisible buttons, from music players to home appliances and even the dashboard of your car.  [read more]

Interesting technology. It is better than wearing datagloves.

33 Policies Obama Should Talk About in State of the Union 2015

From Daily Signal.com (Jan. 15):

President Obama will give his annual State of the Union address on Jan. 20. Heritage experts identified 33 policies in areas ranging from the economy to religious liberty that the president should consider for his 2015 address.

• Economy
• Energy
• Foreign Policy and National Security
• Marriage and Religious Liberty
• Spending and Entitlements
• Unions

Economy

1. Advance economic freedom and opportunity for all.

2. Promote trade and prosperity.

3. Improve small and start-up businesses’ access to the capital needed to grow and create jobs.

5. Make business tax reform an explicit priority.

Energy

10. Open access to domestic and foreign markets.

11. Eliminate using taxpayer money to pick winners and losers in the energy marketplace.

12. Pull back on expensive, onerous regulations that provide little to no environmental benefit.

13. Allow all energy projects to form master limited partnerships.

Foreign Policy and National Security

16. Combat Islamist extremism and terrorism.

17. Address Russia’s imperialist ambitions.

18. Send the IMF “Reform Package” back to the IMF—not to Congress.

19. Recognize the need to fully fund America’s defenses.

Spending and Entitlements

20. Recognize that Obamacare is a policy failure.

22. Resist a gas tax increase, live within the Highway Trust Fund’s means.

23. Scrap plans for a National Infrastructure Bank.

25. Measure inflation more accurately.

Marriage and Religious Liberty

27. Address the marriage crisis.

28. Protect unborn children and women from late-term abortion.

29. End taxpayer subsidies to Obamacare plans covering elective abortion.

30. Protect religious liberty in the marriage debate.

Unions

32. Lift the union “seniority ceiling.

33. End discrimination against non-union members.

[read more]

Excellent polices to talk about. These are just a sample from the column.

Will Obama talk about any of these policies tomorrow? Probably not. He will definitely stay away from the energy and unions areas. Don’t want to talk about the national security and marriage and religious liberty. And will never say that Obamacare is a policy failure—that’s his baby.

Venture for America’s Credo

• My career is a choice that indicates my values.
• There is no courage without risk.
• I believe that actions are the proper measure of one’s accomplishments.
• I will create value for myself and others.
• I will act with integrity in all things.

Source: Smart People Should Build Things. How to Restore Our Culture of Achievement, Build a Path for Entrepreneurs, and Create New Jobs in America (2014) by Andrew Lang Founder, Venture for America.

From the Venture for America website:

We are a fellowship program for recent college graduates to launch their careers as entrepreneurs. Our Fellows spend two years in the trenches of a startup in an emerging city, where they learn how to build a business while making an impact. VFA [Venture for America] trains Fellows to become highly productive startup employees who can help their companies grow, then provides the mentorship, network, and resources they need to become successful entrepreneurs.

The 7 Things Obama Isn’t Telling You When He Brags About Reducing the Budget Deficit

From The Blaze.com (Jan. 9):

President Barack Obama said Thursday that his administration has reduced the budget deficit significantly over the past few years — a boast that conveniently leaves out several key details about how the deficit rose so quickly under Obama, and how it really fell.

“We’ve done all this while cutting our federal deficit by about two-thirds,” Obama said Thursday in Arizona. “And I’m going to repeat that, because they did a poll the other day and like 70 percent of the people think the deficit is going up.”

“The deficit has gone down by two-thirds since I was President of the United States,” he said. “So we’re doing all this in a fiscally responsible way.”

The White House repeated that boast in a tweet showing that “the deficit has gone down by two-thirds”:

Here are seven key facts the White House is leaving out when it talks about the deficit:

1) The Annual Budget Deficit is Falling, but It’s Still Big, and It’s Still Adding to the Total National Debt.

2) Obama’s Lowest Budget Deficit is Still Higher Than George W. Bush’s Biggest Deficit.

3) Real Credit for the End of $1 Trillion-plus Budget Deficits Belongs to the End of the Great Recession, and Renewed Republican Pressure to Keep Spending Down.

4) Obama Was Opposing Those Spending Reductions Year After Year.

5) Obama Has Rejected GOP Proposals to Eliminate the Deficit and Start Paying Down the Debt.

6) Other Analysts Say the Deficit is About to Get Worse.

7) Total National Debt Will Nearly Double Under Obama.

[read more]

Astronomical Explanation for the Star of Bethlehem

From The Blaze.com (Jan. 6):

Adults and children in Latin America and Spain, among other locations, are celebrating Three Kings’ Day Tuesday, a joyous religious holiday that is held each year on the 12th day after Christmas.

The event marks the moment the wise men, also known as the Magi, followed a “star” in the sky and met Jesus Christ sometime after his birth, as recounted in the Bible.

Consider that Dr. Grant J. Mathews, a professor of theoretical astrophysics and cosmology at the University of Notre Dame and the director of the school’s Center for Astrophysics, is among the experts who has investigated “unusual events in the sky” near the time of Christ’s birth.

While traditional Christmas stories generally refer to the phenomenon in the sky that led the wise men to Christ as a “star,” Matthews said that the actual event likely wasn’t a star at all.

“It’s probably not a ‘star’ somehow hovering over a manger and pointing a beam of light as we traditionally view it. Any new star or comet in the sky was usually taken as a harbinger of disaster at that time,” he said, noting in past interviews and appearances that the Magi wouldn’t have followed a star due to perceived negative events to come. “It was most likely an unusual planetary alignment.”

Matthews said that he believes three planetary alignments could have created the bright light in the sky that the Magi followed, though there’s one pattern that he — among other researchers — believes is more plausible than the others.

“In my opinion the most [probable] was the occurrence of the Sun, Moon, Jupiter, and Saturn in Aries, with Venus in the next-door constellation Pisces along with Mercury and Mars on the other side in the next constellation Taurus,” he said. “Michael Molnar put this hypothesis forward in the book ‘The Star of Bethlehem’. It is corroborated by the writings of the famous ancient astronomer C. Ptolemy who noted that Aries (the ram) was the constellation associated with Judea.” [read more]

An interesting explanation. So, it wasn’t like in the 1985 Twilight Zone episode of “The Star” where future space explorers find out the Star of Bethlehem was a supernova that destroyed an ancient civilization. The Star episode was based on a short story by Arthur C. Clarke.

24 Brave Republicans Who Voted Against John Boehner

From Daily Signal.com (Jan. 6):

Rep. Justin Amash, Mich.
Rep. Rod Blum, Iowa
Rep. Dave Brat, Va.
Rep. Jim Bridenstine, Okla.
Rep. Curt Clawson, Fla.
Rep. Scott DesJarlais, Tenn.
Rep. Jeff Duncan, S.C.
Rep. Scott Garrett, N.J.
Rep. Chris Gibson, N.Y.
Rep. Louie Gohmert, Texas
Rep. Paul Gosar, Ariz.
Rep. Tim Huelskamp, Kan.
Rep. Walter Jones, N.C.
Rep. Steve King, Iowa
Rep. Thomas Massie, Ky.
Rep. Mark Meadows, N.C.
Rep. Rich Nugent, Fla.
Rep. Gary Palmer, Ala.
Rep. Bill Posey, Fla.
Rep. Scott Rigell, Va.
Rep. Marlin Stutzman, Ind.
Rep. Randy Weber, Texas
Rep. Daniel Webster, Fla.
Rep. Ted Yoho, Fla.

[read more]

My representative Tim. Huelskamp was one of the brave souls who didn’t vote for Boehner. We need more people like these guys in power. Not to bring gender into the discussion but where are the women representatives on this list?

I call these guys brave because Boehner will strip Florida Reps. Daniel Webster and Richard Nugent of their prestigious spots on the House Rules Committee. These are the other guys who ran against Boehner. I guess Boehner doesn’t like competition. Instead of uniting the party Boehner does this. A real class act. Another example of power corrupting.

One other thing. Representative Brian Babin from Texas voted present. Coward. Couldn’t even vote for or against.  That’s exactly what Obama did when he was in Congress.

The Mind of Stalin

A single death is a tragedy, a million deaths is a statistic.

Death solves all problems - no person, no problem.

Education is a weapon whose effect depends on who holds it in their hands and at whom it is aimed.

Ideas are far more powerful than guns. We don't allow our enemies to have guns. Why should we allow them to have ideas?

I trust no one, not even myself.

The easiest way to gain control of the population is to carry out acts of terror. The public will clamor for strict laws if they believe that their personal security is threatened.

The greatest delight is to identify one's enemy, prepare everything, avenge oneself thoroughly and then go to sleep.

The world must be divided into regional groups as a transitional stage to world government. Populations will more readily abandon their national loyalty to a vague regional loyalty than they will for a world authority. Later the regions can be brought together into a single world dictatorship.

Those who cast the votes decide nothing. Those who count the votes decide everything.

The modern banking system manufactures money out of nothing. The process is perhaps the most astounding piece of sleight of hand that was ever invented. Banking was conceived in iniquity and born in sin. Bankers own the Earth. Take it away from them but leave them the power to create money and with the flick of a pen they will create enough money to buy it back again. Take this great power away from them and all great fortunes like mine will disappear, and they ought to disappear for then this would be a better and happier world to live in. However, if you want to continue to be slaves of the banks and pay the cost of your own slavery, let bankers continue to create money and control credit.

-------------------------------

Just think during WW II this guy was called Uncle Stalin. He starved most of the population of Russia. I wonder how many of his ideas the far Left follows. The education quote the Left follows. The terror quote almost sounds like what Van Jones (Obama’s ex-advisor) would say—top down, inside out, bottom up.

Al Qaeda Terrorist Wanted by FBI Crossed Back and Forth Into U.S. From Mexico

From Judicial Watch.org (Dec. 8):

An Al Qaeda terrorist on the FBI’s most wanted list for years crossed back and forth into the United States from Mexico to meet fellow militant Islamists in Texas and piloted an aircraft into the Cielo Dorado airfield in Anthony, New Mexico, law enforcement sources tell Judicial Watch.

The same Al Qaeda operative helped plan the 2009 bombing of talk-show superstar Oprah Winfrey’s Chicago studios and the iconic Sears Tower (renamed Willis Tower), a story that Judicial Watch broke just last week. His name is Adnan G. El Shukrijumah (also known as “Javier Robles”) and over the weekend he was killed in Pakistan, according to military officials in the Islamic republic.

In 2010 Shukrijumah was indicted in the Eastern District of New York for his role in a terrorist plot to attack targets in the United States—including New York City’s subway system—and the United Kingdom, according the FBI. The plot against New York City’s subway system was directed by senior Al Qaeda leadership in Pakistan, the FBI says, and was also directly related to a scheme by Al Qaeda plotters in Pakistan to use Western operatives to attack a target in the United States.

A year earlier Shukrijumah helped plan a terrorist truck-bomb plot targeting Winfrey’s Harpo Studios and the Sears Tower. Two of his fellow conspirators—Emad Karakrah and Hector Pedroza Huerta—were recently arrested for unrelated state crimes in different parts of the country. Karakrah is in Cook County, Illinois Jail on charges of making a false car bomb threat after leading police on a high-speed chase through Chicago with an ISIS flag waving from his car in August. Huerta, an illegal alien twice convicted for driving intoxicated, is in the El Paso County Jail and is scheduled to be sentenced later this month. [read more]

If this Jihadist can slip back and forth across the border so easily then so can other terrorists. He could have just as well committed terroristic acts (like planting a bomb) when he was over in America. Good news is he has been killed before he could cause any mayhem.

All I can say is secure the border! The US can start by enforcing the laws it already has on the books.

Government tells Americans to stop eating cookie dough

From The Blaze.com (Dec. 8):

The U.S. Department of Agriculture has issued an order that millions of Americans will likely find impossible to carry out: stop eating raw cookie dough.

“Avoid raw or partially cooked eggs or foods containing raw eggs, such as cookie dough,” USDA advised in an email over the weekend.

Carrying out that simple 15-word recommendation would radically change millions of lives, from families who routinely bake cookies and invite the kids to scoop batter out of the bowl, to people who scarf down pre-packaged cookie dough, to everyone who eats cookie dough found in ice cream.

Simply put, it’s not immediately clear that America is ready to take on USDA’s mission. But it’s also unclear if it’s necessary — there is something of a debate over whether it’s safe to eat cookie dough, or whether the risk of getting salmonella from raw eggs is too high. [read more]

And while you’re at it stopping eating raw hamburger meat. Understand? And be sure you look both ways before crossing the street. And for God’s sake don’t run with knives! Finally, don’t talk with your mouth full of food.

This stupid PSA is like when they had instructions on TV a while back on how to use a microwave oven. I couldn’t believe it. How long has the personal microwave oven been around? Since the 1960’s? And now the gov’t decides do a info ad about how to properly use a microwave oven?

To paraphrase Herman Cain’s book—the gov’t thinks the public is stupid.

20 Signs You Are Living in a Progressive Utopia

From The Blaze.com (Dec. 4):

It can be said that progressivism at its core seeks to turn the world upside down.

It is an ideology and a tactic of modern-day Sophists who seek to replace facts with narrative, justice with injustice, morality with immorality and virtue with vice — but it does so with a smile on its face.

Consequently, in order to identify whether one is in fact living in a progressive Utopia, one merely needs to identify instances in one’s society, economy and political system, themselves a natural outgrowth of the culture (itself an outgrowth of the ideas that a people has imbibed), in which facts, logic and history have been shoved aside in favor of the whims of the wise collective.

Here are 20 signs that you might be living in such a blissful place:

1) When the executive branch has effectively become the legislative branch

2) When the notions of secure borders and national sovereignty are considered thinly-veiled euphemisms for racial hatred

3) When justice means determining a person is guilty before seeing any evidence, then rioting, looting and destroying property when said person does not even make it to trial

4) When those who riot, loot and destroy property are considered freedom-fighters, and those who peacefully assemble are considered radical extremists

5) When criminals advise law enforcement on how to do its job

6) When those who see every issue through the prism of race, sex and class are considered paragons of tolerance, and those who see people as individuals are racist, sexist bigots

7) When illegal immigrants are granted equal if not greater ”rights” and benefits than law abiding citizens

8) When instead of targeting the jihadists responsible for committing the murders of thousands of innocents, the government targets the counter-jihadists

9) When the leaders of your Republic defend to the death those who wish to destroy her, while deriding those who wish to save her

10) When countries like Egypt and the United Arab Emirates designate the Muslim Brotherhood as a terrorist organization, but yours does not [read more]

More like a progressive dystopia. Then again the Left has a distorted almost insane view of utopia.