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.