Flint Michigan and Its Water Problem 2015-2016

A great quote from National Review magazine sums it up nicely:

"The City of Flint, Michigan, was for generations ruled by an incompetent and often corrupt Democrat party machine.  When the city went into an extended financial crisis, a democrat emergency manager was appointed to reform its finances.  The city's democrat leadership  decided to build an expensive new water system as an economy-stimulating infrastructure project, which annoyed the democrats in nearby Detroit, who had been earning a nice income providing Flint with Detroit's finest tap water.  The Detroit democrats retaliated against the Flint democrats by ending their aqueous relationship earlier than planned, and the Flint democrats turned to an alternative source of water, the Flint River, as a temporary measure.  The democrats who run Flint's government consulted with the democrat union men who run its city agencies and came up with a water-treatment process for that Flint River water, which turned out to be ineffective.  The residents of Flint, including its vulnerable children, were exposed to high levels of lead in the water as a result.  The democrats who run Barak Obama's EPA learned of this, and did nothing.  This sent the democrats running for that party's presidential nomination into a tizzy of moral intoxication, during which they called for the resignation of......the Republican governor of Michigan."

The fault is obviously not that of the recently elected governor of Michigan.

Venezuela Socialism and The American Democrat Party

A piece from National Review in December 31, 2015.  More empirical evidence that leftist (neo-liberal, democrat) quasi-socialist to socialist policies do not work.

"Venezuelans, having noticed that the cupboard is bare, have turned against Chavismo, delivering the national assembly to the opposition parties in the recent elections.  Venezuela, which has pursued the sort of economic policies that Bernie Sanders dreams of, have faced shortages of everything from food staples to toilet paper.  The opposition has promised a degree of economic liberalization and the release of political prisoners, opposition figure Leopoldo Lopez prominent among them.  Between the opposition and its aims stands President Nicolas Maduro, a protege of Hugo Chavez who has done much to immiserate (make poor) his people.

Maduro already is working to stop reform: he has declared that he simply will refuse to comply with any law that releases political prisoners and is seeking a "labor stabilization" law that would forbid firms from firing any employees so long as Maduro is president.  (What is spanish for "I have a pen and a phone" ?) [i.e. Barak Obama].  Venezuela once was the world's 4th wealthiest country, and it enjoys vast natural resources, particularly oil and gas.  Its penury is an entirely man-made disaster.  The United States of America should do what it can for Venezuela's reformers (center-right political party), but we should also remember how popular Chavez and his [leftist] ideas were among our own Democrats, such as Chaka Fattah and Jimmy Carter, and among so-called liberals such as Sean Penn, Michael Moore, and Oliver Stone.  Chavez and Maduro build the world they dream of, and it is a hungry prison camp.

Like the USA, the different political interest groups form two blocks of political power.  There is the communist and socialist left: United Socialist Party of Venezuela (PSUV).  And there is the Movement for Democratic Unity [democratic as in democracy, not leftist USA democrat party] or "MUD" which is the conservative block party in 2015.   3 seats in the Assembly went to indigenous people representatives with no party affiliation among the main two blocks.  So you have the right-wing (MUD) and the left-wing (PSUV) notably but loosely similar to the USA (democrat left vs republican right).

Quote of the day: 

"I hate him !  said Farida Lazareva, 57, of New York City, in 2016 speaking of Bernie Sanders....."If you lived under socialists, you'd hate them too.  They make everyone poor. [...] If it will be Sanders, we will have the same here [in the USA].  Everybody who comes from a communist country, Russians, Eastern Europeans, even Latinos from Cuba, feel this way.  When you know what will happen, when you see it, you [become] Republican."

Buster Douglas

Hopefully this link lasts forever.  A good  pick-me-up for when you are feeling overwhelmed, Buster Douglas not quitting in fight against Mike Tyson...

Do you know your why? 

14th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution: Babies of illegals are not citizens of the USA

The 14th Amendment of the core laws of our country:

Section 1. All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside. No State shall make or enforce any law which shall abridge the privileges or immunities of citizens of the United States; nor shall any State deprive any person of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law; nor deny to any person within its jurisdiction the equal protection of the laws.

Section 2. Representatives shall be apportioned among the several States according to their respective numbers, counting the whole number of persons in each State, excluding Indians not taxed. But when the right to vote at any election for the choice of electors for President and Vice President of the United States, Representatives in Congress, the Executive and Judicial officers of a State, or the members of the Legislature thereof, is denied to any of the male inhabitants of such State, being twenty-one years of age, and citizens of the United States, or in any way abridged, except for participation in rebellion, or other crime, the basis of representation therein shall be reduced in the proportion which the number of such male citizens shall bear to the whole number of male citizens twenty-one years of age in such State.

Section 3. No person shall be a Senator or Representative in Congress, or elector of President and Vice President, or hold any office, civil or military, under the United States, or under any State, who, having previously taken an oath, as a member of Congress, or as an officer of the United States, or as a member of any State legislature, or as an executive or judicial officer of any State, to support the Constitution of the United States, shall have engaged in insurrection or rebellion against the same, or given aid or comfort to the enemies thereof. But Congress may, by a vote of two-thirds of each House, remove such disability.

Section 4. The validity of the public debt of the United States, authorized by law, including debts incurred for payment of pensions and bounties for services in suppressing insurrection or rebellion, shall not be questioned. But neither the United States nor any State shall assume or pay any debt or obligation incurred in aid of insurrection or rebellion against the United States, or any claim for the loss or emancipation of any slave; but all such debts, obligations and claims shall be held illegal and void.

Section 5. The Congress shall have power to enforce, by appropriate legislation, the provisions of this article.

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Section 1 states persons born in the United States must be subject to the jurisdiction thereof in order to be citizens.  This means that the parents must have a political allegiance to the United States of America.  An illegal alien from China or Guatemala or Australia does not have an allegiance to the USA, they are under the jurisdiction (citizenship) of their home country as any international traveler or diplomat would be.

The Civil Rights Act of 1866, which President Johnson (a Democrat) vetoed but was overridden, declared that:

"all persons born in the United States and not subject to any foreign power [...] are hereby declared to be citizens [...]."

The 14th amendment was authored by congressional Republicans who, after passing the 13th Amendment and the Civil Rights Act, wanted to protect the Civil Rights Act from being declared unconstitutional.

An author of the 14th Amendment, Rep. John A Bingham (Ohio) stated: "I find no fault with the introductory clause, which is simply declaratory of what is written in the Constitution, that every human being born within the jurisdiction of the United States of parents not owing allegiance to any foreign sovereignty is, in the language of your Constitution itself, a natural born citizen."

In 1866, Senator Jacob Howard (another author of the 14th Amendment) clearly spelled out the intent of the 14^th Amendment by writing:

"Every person born within the limits of the United States, and subject to their jurisdiction, is by virtue of natural law and national law a citizen of the United States. This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers accredited to the Government of the United States, but will include every other class of persons. It settles the great question of citizenship and removes all doubt as to what persons are or are not citizens of the United States. This has long been a great desideratum in the jurisprudence and legislation of this country."

The phrase "subject to the jurisdiction thereof" was intended to exclude American-born persons from automatic citizenship whose allegiance to the United States was not complete (i.e. some native indians). With illegal aliens who are unlawfully in the United States, their native country has a claim of allegiance on the child. Thus, the completeness of their allegiance to the United States is impaired, which therefore precludes automatic citizenship.

The correct interpretation of the 14^th Amendment is that an illegal alien mother is subject to the jurisdiction of her native country, as is her baby.

Over a century ago, the Supreme Court correctly confirmed this restricted interpretation of citizenship in the so-called 'Slaughter-House cases' [83 US 36 (1873)] and in [112 US 94 (1884)]. In Elk v.Wilkins, the phrase 'subject to its jurisdiction' excluded from its operation 'children of ministers, consuls, and citizens of foreign states born within the United States.' In Elk, the American Indian claimant was considered not an American citizen because the law required him to be 'not merely subject in some respect or degree to the jurisdiction of the United States, but completely subject to their political jurisdiction and owing them direct and immediate allegiance.'
The U.S. Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 4 states that Congress shall have the power to establish a uniform rule of naturalization (not the Executive or Judicial branches of the federal government).

Why did the authors use the term "subject to the jurisdiction"?  It was to prevent confusion over a native indian's allegiance (allegiance to the tribal land or to the USA, had to pick one) and not give blanket citizenship to all native indians.

The U.S. Supreme Court justices have never ruled that children of illegal aliens are US Citizens.  Hospitals in every state should not be issuing birth certificates to non-citizen parents' newborns.

Quote of the Day: Islam is not beyond criticism

From Theordore Dalrymple of National Review, February 2015....

"But surveillance will never be enough: criticism of Islam itself must be free and unconstrained and relentless.  For example, in the very small town in France near which I live some of the time, there was a demonstration against terrorism in the wake of the attack on Charlie Hebdo.  The small and generally well-integrated population of Maghrebis there was conspicuous by its absence from the demonstration.  Of course citizens are free to demonstrate or not demonstrate as they wish; but it is at least possible that some of the young Maghrebis did not demonstrate  because of fear of denunciation, of accusations of apostasy.  Muslims live in fear of one another more than in fear of others, at least in the modern world, and this is because of a fundamental incompatibility of Islam with the modern world."

"The accusation of apostasy in Islam is a serious one, potentially fatal to the accused.  I hardly need prove this since it is admitted on all hands, Muslim and non-Muslim alike.  So long as this is so, so long as muslims fear to adopt another religion or publicly proclaim their athiesm or detestation of Mohammed and Islam, intellectually justified or not, the religion is incompatible with our notions of what our polity should be, even if our polity sometimes betrays its own principles and ideals - as all principles and ideals are sometimes betrayed, man being an imperfect creature."

"In other words, the ideological gloves should come off.  There should be no insincere (and cowardly) homage to Islam as a religion of peace and tolerance.  No religion that makes apostasy a punishable crime is tolerant."

"On the contrary, it more resembles a criminal conspiracy, at least when the punishment is severe.  And this is so no matter what proportion of Muslims are decent people (the people of Egypt, for example, have often struck me as among the most charming and hospitable in the world, as did the Syrians in the good old days of uncontested secular dictatorship), or how troubling or hurtful they find the thought.  What is so is so."

Why MLK was a republican

Why Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican

By Frances Rice

"It should come as no surprise that Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. was a Republican. In that era, almost all black Americans were Republicans. Why? From its founding in 1854 as the anti-slavery party until today, the Republican Party has championed freedom and civil rights for blacks. And as one pundit so succinctly stated, the Democrat Party is as it always has been, the party of the four S's: Slavery, Secession, Segregation and now Socialism.

It was the Democrats who fought to keep blacks in slavery and passed the discriminatory Black Codes and Jim Crow laws. The Democrats started the Ku Klux Klan to lynch and terrorize blacks. The Democrats fought to prevent the passage of every civil rights law beginning with the civil rights laws of the 1860's, and continuing with the civil rights laws of the 1950's and 1960's.

During the civil rights era of the 1960's, Dr. King was fighting the Democrats who stood in the school house doors, turned skin-burning fire hoses on blacks and let loose vicious dogs. It was Republican President Dwight Eisenhower who pushed to pass the Civil Rights Act of 1957 and sent troops to Arkansas to desegregate schools. President Eisenhower also appointed Chief Justice Earl Warren to the U.S. Supreme Court which resulted in the 1954 Brown vs. Board of Education decision ending school segregation. Much is made of Democrat President Harry Truman's issuing an Executive Order in 1948 to desegregate the military. Not mentioned is the fact that it was President Eisenhower who actually took action to effectively end segregation in the military.

Democrat President John F. Kennedy is lauded as a proponent of civil rights. However, Kennedy voted against the 1957 Civil rights Act while he was a senator, as did Democrat Senator Al Gore, Sr. And after he became president, John F. Kennedy was opposed to the 1963 March on Washington by Dr. King that was organized by A. Phillip Randolph who was a black Republican. President Kennedy, through his brother Attorney General Robert Kennedy, had Dr. King wiretapped and investigated by the FBI on suspicion of being a Communist in order to undermine Dr. King.

In March of 1968, while referring to Dr. King's leaving Memphis, Tennessee after riots broke out where a teenager was killed, Democrat Senator Robert Byrd, a former member of the Ku Klux Klan, called Dr. King a "trouble-maker" who starts trouble, but runs like a coward after trouble is ignited. A few weeks later, Dr. King returned to Memphis and was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

Given the circumstances of that era, it is understandable why Dr. King was a Republican. It was the Republicans who fought to free blacks from slavery and amended the Constitution to grant blacks freedom (13th Amendment), citizenship (14th Amendment) and the right to vote (15th Amendment). Republicans passed the civil rights laws of the 1860's, including the Civil Rights Act of 1866 and the Reconstruction Act of 1867 that was designed to establish a new government system in the Democrat-controlled South, one that was fair to blacks. Republicans also started the NAACP and affirmative action with Republican President Richard Nixon‘s 1969 Philadelphia Plan (crafted by black Republican Art Fletcher) that set the nation‘s first goals and timetables. Although affirmative action now has been turned by the Democrats into an unfair quota system, affirmative action was begun by Nixon to counter the harm caused to blacks when Democrat President Woodrow Wilson in 1912 kicked all of the blacks out of federal government jobs.

Few black Americans know that it was Republicans who founded the Historically Black Colleges and Universities. Unknown also is the fact that Republican Senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois was key to the passage of civil rights legislation in 1957, 1960, 1964 and 1965. Not mentioned in recent media stories about extension of the 1965 Voting Rights Act is the fact that Dirksen wrote the language for the bill. Dirksen also crafted the language for the Civil Rights Act of 1968 which prohibited discrimination in housing. President Lyndon Johnson could not have achieved passage of civil rights legislation without the support of Republicans.

Critics of Republican Senator Barry Goldwater who ran for president against Democrat President Lyndon Johnson in 1964, ignore the fact that Goldwater wanted to force the Democrats in the South to stop passing discriminatory laws and thus end the need to continuously enact federal civil rights legislation.

Those who wrongly criticize Goldwater, also ignore the fact that President Johnson, in his 4,500 State of the Union Address delivered on January 4, 1965, mentioned scores of topics for federal action, but only thirty five words were devoted to civil rights. He did not mention one word about voting rights. Then in 1967, showing his anger with Dr. King's protest against the Viet Nam War, President Johnson referred to Dr. King as "that Nigger preacher."

Contrary to the false assertions by Democrats, the racist "Dixiecrats" did not all migrate to the Republican Party. "Dixiecrats" declared that they would rather vote for a "yellow dog" than vote for a Republican because the Republican Party was known as the party for blacks. Today, some of those "Dixiecrats" continue their political careers as Democrats, including Democrat Senator Robert Byrd who is well known for having been a "Keagle" in the Ku Klux Klan.

Another former "Dixiecrat" is Democrat Senator Ernest Hollings who put up the Confederate flag over the state capitol when he was the governor of South Carolina. There was no public outcry when Democrat Senator Christopher Dodd praised Senator Byrd as someone who would have been "a great senator for any moment," including the Civil War. Democrats denounced Senator Trent Lott for his remarks about Senator Strom Thurmond. Senator Thurmond was never in the Ku Klux Klan and defended blacks against lynching and the discriminatory poll taxes imposed on blacks by Democrats. If Senator Byrd and Senator Thurmond were alive during the Civil War, and Byrd had his way, Thurmond would have been lynched.

The thirty-year odyssey of the South switching to the Republican Party began in the 1970's with President Richard Nixon's "Southern Strategy" which was an effort on the Part of Nixon to get Christians in the South to stop voting for Democrats who did not share their values and were still discriminating against their fellow Christians who happened to be black. Georgia did not switch until 2002, and some Southern states, including Louisiana, are still controlled by Democrats.

Today, Democrats, in pursuit of their socialist agenda, are fighting to keep blacks poor, angry and voting for Democrats. Examples of how egregiously Democrats act to keep blacks in poverty are numerous.

After wrongly convincing black Americans that a minimum wage increase was a good thing, the Democrats on August 3rd kept their promise and killed the minimum wage bill passed by House Republicans on July 29th. The blockage of the minimum wage bill was the second time in as many years that Democrats stuck a legislative finger in the eye of black Americans. Senate Democrats on April 1, 2004 blocked passage of a bill to renew the 1996 welfare reform law that was pushed by Republicans and vetoed twice by President Bill Clinton before he finally signed it. Since the welfare reform law expired in September 2002, Congress had passed six extensions, and the latest expired on June 30, 2004. Opposed by the Democrats are school choice opportunity scholarships that would help black children get out of failing schools and Social Security reform, even though blacks on average lose $10,000 in the current system because of a shorter life expectancy than whites (72.2 years for blacks vs. 77.5 years for whites).

Democrats have been running our inner-cities for the past 30-40 years, and blacks are still complaining about the same problems. Over $7 trillion dollars have been spent on poverty programs since President Lyndon Johnson's War on Poverty with little, if any, impact on poverty. Diabolically, every election cycle, Democrats blame Republicans for the deplorable conditions in the inner-cities, then incite blacks to cast a protest vote against Republicans.

In order to break the Democrats' stranglehold on the black vote and free black Americans from the Democrat Party's economic plantation, we must shed the light of truth on the Democrats. We must demonstrate that the Democrat Party policies of socialism and dependency on government handouts offer the pathway to poverty, while Republican Party principles of hard work, personal responsibility, getting a good education and ownership of homes and small businesses offer the pathway to prosperity."

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Remember, supporting civil rights reform was not a radical turn-around for congressional Republicans in 1964, but it was a radical turn-around for President Johnson (Democrat) and Democrats in congress.  The 1964 Republican Party platform indeed called for: "full implementation and faithful execution of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and all other civil rights statutes, to assure equal rights and opportunities guaranteed by the Constitution to every citizen."  

While Democrat Party attitudes were represented in a quote of President Johnson at the time: "These Negroes, they're getting pretty uppity these days, and that's a problem for us, since they've got something now they never had before: the political pull to back up their uppityness.  Now we've got to do something about this, we've got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference."

California, more examples of failed Democrat policies

From National Review June 2014:

"When Toyota stunned Torrance, California, by announcing that it is moving its North American headquarters to the Dallas [Texas] suburbs, [Democrat] Governor Jerry Brown retreated into denial: "We've got a few problems," he said.  "We have lots of little burdens and regulations and taxes, but smart people figure out how to make it."  The people at Toyota are, by most estimates, pretty smart, and they've figured out that the burdens in [democrat controlled] California are not small ones: They include the highest taxes in the country, a regulatory environment that chokes off enterprises large and small, and a state government that is, if all of its liabilities are properly accounted for, probably insolvent.  Toyota does not manufacture automobiles in California, which apparently is not much interested in businesses based on atoms rater than bits.  It does manufacture in Texas, Kentucky, Mississippi, and Alabama, and moving its headquarters closer to its operations makes sense.  Outside of Silicon Valley, California's economy remains in free fall - in March, the state had the nation's 4th highest unemployment rate.  One Torrance resident said that the Toyota move would "tear this place apart".  Honda moves its headquarters out of California in 2013, Nissan left in 2006.  California has enourmous advantages: talent, climate, ports, and more.  Its greatest gifts are natural; its economic disaster is entirely man-made [by democrat leadership]."

Healthcare Solutions By Republicans

There is general fatigue among United States citizens associated with hearing leftist (democrat) media personalities (journalism is supposed to be objective, and unfortunately there is no longer such a thing as objective journalists) claim "Republicans have no solutions for healthcare" policy.  This is false.  Solutions have been discussed by republican congressmen and policy pundits for decades.  One brief summary as stated by Jeffrey Anderson of National Review in 2014:

(1) Reduce runaway malpractice lawsuits.
(2) Allow citizens to buy insurance across state lines.
(3) Allow private insurers to offer lower premiums to consumers with healthy lifestyles.
(4) Provide a tax break incentive to the self-insured (those of us who have our own policies and not through an employer) and to the uninsured (those who voluntarily do not wish to spend money on a monthly premium for insurance coverage).
(5) Increase federal support for state-run high-risk pools to help those with pre-existing conditions.

The World Needs Heroes (#1)

From NY Daily News and CNN...January 11, 2014.

"A 14-year-old Pakistani boy is being hailed as a hero after he sacrificed himself to stop a suicide bomber from storming his school [a government boys' school]. Ninth-grader Aitazaz Hassan Bangash was walking to school Monday in the Hangu district of northern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province when he and his cousin became suspicious of a man, dressed in a student uniform, asked where the school was.

 "The other students backed off, but Aitazaz challenged the bomber and tried to catch him. During the scuffle, the bomber panicked and detonated his bomb," the cousin, Musadiq Ali Bangash, told the reporter.

Aitazaz tried to grab the bomber at the entrance to the school with around 1,000 students — and that’s when the blast went off.  Aitazaz and the bomber, who was not identified in reports, died at the scene. Two bystanders were injured, according to witnesses speaking to CNN.

 "It was a great sacrifice to save the lives of hundreds of both Shia and Sunni students, who were in morning assembly," Musadiq told the network.

Aitazaz’s father, Mujahid Ali Bangash, 55, told Agensse Presse his son died a hero.  "Aitazaz has made us proud by valiantly intercepting the bomber and saving the lives of hundreds of his fellow students," he said."I am happy that my son has become a martyr by sacrificing his life for a noble cause." The tragedy, Bangash said, was cause for celebration. "Many people are coming to see me but if they try to express sympathy, I tell them to congratulate me instead on becoming the father of a martyr," he told AFP.

"I will be even more than happy if my second son also sacrifices his life for the country."

Quote of the Day: Pope Francis

"We are all sinners [...], the problem is not being a sinner.  The problem is not repenting of our sins, not being ashamed of what we have done."   --- Pope Francis, May 17, 2013

Great Quotes on Economic Policy

"The politicians who negotiate wage deals with public-sector unions are often funded by the same unions [i.e. campaign contributions and ads].  This is one reason why America's municipal finances are a mess."   
- The Economist magazine, Nov. 24, 2012


"The government should not provide any services that are already advertised in the Yellow Pages."    -Jeb Bush


"Some argue that spending cuts are "austerity" and that the sequester has hurt the economy.  Wrong.  The economy and jobs have picked up steam as the government has shrunk.  Through it's still a flimsy recovery, economic growth and government spending have been shown to move in opposite directions in recent years, refuting the Keynesian gospel of the Left.  This has been the pattern for the last 50 years at least.  Milton Friedman had it exactly right: Less government spending means more private-sector growth; there is no magical "multiplier effect" of government spending."

- Stephen Moore for National Review, discussing cause and effect of sequester from 2012 to early 2015.


"I have no problem with people making money, even lots and lots of it.  That is what a free country is all about.  Freedom is the opportunity to work hard and change your economic circumstances by providing great benefits to others.  That is how true capitalists become wealthy.  They provide society with billions in products and get billions of dollars in return.  Everybody wins.  That is not how socialism works.  In a socialist system, the ruling class extracts everything everyone else produces and offers [very little] in return.  It is what i call trickle-up poverty."

(i.e. leftist policy makes everyone equally poor unless you are a member of the elite or oligarchy).

- Michael Savage (radio talk show host and author of Government Zero, 2015)

Great Quotes on Ideology and Philosophy and Government

"[...] the whole purpose of a written constitution is to fix limits on government power.  When judges ignore the textual limitations on government power, this is not judicial "restraint" so much as judicial abdication. [...] If changing conditions suggest that constitutional constraints should be altered, it is not for judges to make these alterations but for the people to act through the amendment process.  Until that point, judges are obligated to enforce the Constitution by its terms, even if it means rejecting the work of democratic majorities and elected representatives.  [...] Judges must force government officers to supply reasons for restrictions on individual liberty and, where such are lacking, be willing to strike laws down."

--- Jonathan H. Adler, writing for National Review magazine, 2016.


"For more than 100 years, progressives have sought to "transform" America, to make the political, economic, cultural, and legal foundation of our constitutional republic (our "regime" in the Aristotelian-Tocquevillian sense) more statist, more centralized, more regulatory, more "European", more secular, and less capitalist, less entrepreneurial, less "provincial", less religious, less exceptional."

---- John Fonte for National Review magazine, in a review of the book Taming Globalization by Yoo and Ku about the concerns of international law conflicting with United States sovereignty.



"You cannot go from a $2,000-a-night suite at La Mirage to a penitentiary and really understand it and come out a liberal."


--- Actor Robert Downey Jr. explaining his transformation to a more conservative thinker after dealing with a difficult time during his life.








"I feel the greatest destroyer of peace today is abortion, because it is a direct war, a direct killing - direct murder by the mother herself."

---Mother Teresa, after winning the Nobel Peace Prize in 1979.





"Psychology has served up one excuse after another for bad behavior - our terrible childhoods, our genes, our neurotransmitters, our addictions.  In each case, and often with extremely unscientific reasoning, we are offered absolution.  The whole psychological enterprise [...] has had the effect of excusing poor choices and bad character.  'Virtue is [no longer] manifested in one's behavior, always so difficult and tedious to control, but in one's attitude to victims'."

---Mona Charen, for National Review, in a book review of T. Dalrymple's "Admirable Evasions: How Psychology Undermines Morality"



"You just have to get that word 'average' out of your vocabulary.  And you have to tell yourself that you are great.  And you have to believe it.  [...] So just go out there and work hard."

--Donald Trump, successful business and real-estate tycoon and US presidential nominee in 2016.






"My parents' priority  was building character, not maintaining my happiness.  They wanted to raise a child who would love God and live by the Golden Rule.  So I had to learn that i was not the center of the universe.  I had to learn that i was often wrong.  And i had to learn the daily courage necessary to confront and overcome problems on my own, without constantly appealing to a higher earthly authority [government] for aid and comfort."

--David French, in writing for National Review Magazine



"Che Guevara was a murderer.  He wasn't a hero.  Also, Raul and Fidel are murderers, not legitimate authorities, not legitimate heads of state.  They are there by force, not by the will of the people."

--Danilo "El Sexto" Maldaonado, Cuban citizen, artist, and young rebellious leader in Cuba, fighting for freedom from leftist oppression.



"The most fundamental fact about the ideas of the political left [democrats] is that they do not work.  Therefore we should not be surprised to find the left concentrated in institutions where ideas do not have to work in order to survive." (i.e. universities; government departments)

--Thomas Sowell



"The fate of the world depends on the United States, the fate of the United States depends on the conservative movement, and the fate of the conservative movement depends on the health and success of the Republican party."

-- Harry Jaffa (author)


"Emerson, Thoreau, and Whitman were ultimately provincial, repetitive, narcissistic nihilists who could tell us nothing about how to live together and who had "emancipated" themselves from the religious, rational, and ethical traditions of the past that animated the best human behavior: their solipsistic "secular incarnation involves a denial of history and an extreme anti-nomianism."

--Laura Dassow Walls (author) and M.D. Aeschliman (Nationial Review)

Quote of the day: Redevelopment Authorities (city planning)

"...RDAs [redevelopment authorities] operate in the most expensive way possible.  It is a fact that government, as an entity, is the least efficient way to do anything.  Witness the high-speed rail conflagration in California and the recent collapse of cities [bankruptcies] throughout the US.  For an RDA to use tax money to provide for development that should and could be privately accomplished with efficient and effective leadership simply inhibits growth.  Californians are now paying more than 65% of their income in [combined] taxes.  How can someone earning less than 7 figures survive on a disposable income that is 35% of gross?  The affordable housing crisis is a result.  Simply put, there is no private money left to invest.  It all goes into taxes, which are used to pay for unnecessary government programs, wages, and benefits.  The situation will get worse as the tax base declines when people decide they can no longer manage to live in California."                  - Joseph E. Herbert

Misuse of Qu'ran quote by islam apologists

Use of Qu'ran (5:32) verse 32 of Surah 5 very well explained....

http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=-SoXs-0_rHY&bpctr=1369788197

5:33 is the verse that needs to be repeated to those who use 5:32 to defend islamic teaching.

Quote of the Day (May 6, 2013)

From National Review's John D. Davidson for a book review:

"...there's no dismissing the Lone Star State, no matter what one thinks of it.  Five years on from the Great Recession, Texas's low-tax, pro-business [republican] policies have largely shielded its residents and businesses form the economic downturn suffered by the rest of the country.  Between 2009 and 2011, whe unemployment was hovering between 9 and 10 percent nationwide, Texas alone created 40 percent of America's new jobs.  Last year, it accounted for nearly 9 percent of the country's economy.  Millions of people have moved there over the past decade, drawn by the promise of work.

The plain facts of the Texas economy confound liberals [democrats], who have a hard time believing in this so-called Texas Miracle, despite mounting evidence that it is real and durable, taht something fundamental about Texas's approach to economic growth is distinguishing it from, say [democrat controlled] California."

Ode to the Welfare State

For another example of how human nature and politics do not change over time, here is a 1949 example of sarcasm used to vilify the unsustainable democrat economic policy of central government welfare programs....

Unfortunately, democrats misinterpret the Constitution as usual, "promoting" the general welfare (which is what our founding fathers wrote) is not the same thing as "providing" for the general welfare.  It is not the role of the central government to provide charity, it is their role to promote conditions that encourage hard work, reward, opportunity to succeed for all citizens.  Charity is for us as individuals and communities to provide.

Quote of the day: Lamenting the election of Mr. Obama

James Lileks sarcastically lamenting the loss on election day, where 50.6% of the voters voted for Obama (2012):

"Half the country apparently believes national greatness is defined by the number of people who get signed up for food stamps while having an abortion on a light-rail train.  To them, President Obama is (great) because he has organized a bucket brigade from the free money geyser that makes sure teachers have free phones and birth control.  [...] No election will change your mind.  No recovery that follows from an application of fiscal restraint will penetrate your adamantine brainpan.  These are the people who scoff at Romney's desire to put people back to work.  Work?  For what?  The same stuff we get now for free?  What kind of deal is that?"

Tolerating Intolerance by Islam

This is an informative piece from The Economist magazine.....

"May was a cruel month for Indonesians trying to do nothing more than worship God.  During an Ascension Day service on May 17th and May 20th, about 100 Protestant [Christians] were attacked by a muslim mob at their church in Bekasi on the outskirts of the capital, Jakarta.  The mob hurled stones, bags of urine and death threats at the congregation.  The church was stil only half-built when it was attacked; the pastor has been waiting for more than 5 years for permission from the local district administration to complete it.  Since May 2nd local government officials in the [...] Muslim province of Aceh, in northern Sumatra, have closed at least 16 Christian churches, citing lack of permits."

"Such intimidation, and the ongoing rows over permits, are now so commonplace that they are barely reported.  On May 26th, however, the issue of religious intolerance in this Muslim-majority nation made international headlines when Islamic hardliners forced the cancellation of a sold-out concert by Lady Gaga, an American pop-star.  The Islamic Defenders Front (known by its initials in Indonesian, FPI) had threatened to provoke chaos if she entered the country.  Her promoters said that they could not guarantee her, or her fans', safety.  They were probably right."

"Critics argue that these are only the latest incidents in a remorseless rise of religious intolerance, and often violence.  Human Rights Watch, a New York based lobby group, reports that incidents of sectarian violence became 'more deadly and more frequent' last year.  Islamic hardliners not only attacked Christian churches but also [minority] Muslim  sects such as the Ahmadiyah that they believe to be heretical.  [...]"

"The government of president Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono has been accused of doing too little to stop such attacks, or to express enough concern about violent Islamic groups." [...]  Certainly, cabinet ministers from the Islamic parties have been less than helpful in promoting Indonesia as the moderate, pluralistic country it claims to be.  The religious affairs minister [...] has blamed the Ahmadiyah itself for inviting deadly attacks, saying it has strayed from mainstream islam.  In March he suggested banning women from wearing skirts that were above the knee, calling them 'pornographic'. [...]

"[islamic groups] now feel that they can act with impunity.  Sometimes the police are in cahoots with the hardliners.  The situation continues to worsen."


The Economist, June 2012

Democrat Stimulus Failures: Green Energy

In 2009-2012, the democrat administration has subsidized at least 10 "green" companies that have wasted taxpayer dollars and declared bankruptcy, guaranteeing a net loss (arguably theft) of taxpayer funds.  Solar panel maker Solyndra was the infamous company that received $535,000,000 in loan guarantee funds before filing for bankruptcy in August 2011.  Here are some other failures the democrat controlled media does not discuss:

• Raser Technologies of Utah (geothermal).  $33,000,000 taxpayer funds received, declared bankruptcy in April 2011.
• Abound Solar, panel manufacturer, took $70,000,000 of its loan guarantees from the DOE before filing for Chapter 7 in July 2012.
• Energy Conservation Devices, received $13,300,000 in taxpayer funds before filing bankruptcy in February 2012.
• Solar Trust, financials uncertain but declared bankruptcy in April 2012.
• Enerl (electric car batteries), received $118,500,000 in taxpayer grant money from the DOE (stimulus) in 2009 and filed for bankruptcy in January 2012.

Nationally syndicated columnist Deroy Murdock quipped: "President Obama should beg taxpayers' forgiveness for pouring their hard-earned cash down at least 10 green rat holes."  He points out these 10 failures and calculated a loss of $3,400,000,000 in taxpayer dollars and commitments combined.  This is yet another example of government interference proving again it does not work as efficiently and effectively as a free market environment.  $3.4 billion in reduced regulatory costs and reduced taxes (instead of this reckless spending and debt accumulation for our younger generation) could instead have achieved benefits in the private sector (i.e. growth and jobs).

Nigeria: Another location where violence instigated on behalf of Islam

The Economist in its July 14, 2012 issue had an informative article on the current situation in Nigeria.  Here is an excerpt:

"Increasingly deadly attacks on churches by Boko Haram [...] Islamist group, are straining fragile relations between Christians and Muslims.  Attacking churches is not new for Boko Haram but it has turned its attention to targets in Nigeria's 'middle belt' where the two populations mix, often stoking ferocious retaliation.  Christian leaders have been warning that the patience of their flocks 'will wear out'."

Although sectarian violence has been going on for a long time, the current muslim-based "insurgency" started in 2009.  Suicide-homicide bombings, sniper shootings, brazen assassination shootings, kidnappings, are all activities of the Boko Haram.  The national government makes some attempt to address the situation (i.e. the president, who is Christian, hired a muslim to be his national security advisor) but has not succeeded in preventing the activist muslim group from carving out a muslim state for itself, particularly in the NE area of the country, although the entire northern half of the country is predominantly muslim (see map).  Sharia law has been implemented in 9 of the northern states (Sharia law is still alien to Americans who have not had to live under its rules, influence, punishments, and laws).  Although social issues other than religion play a role as usual in political conflicts (standard of living concerns, ethinic and tribal issues, legal issues, poor law enforcement, corruption), religion and their respective cultural differences are becoming the primary influences promoted in the conflict.  International joint Christian-Muslim committees/delegations are trying to address the issue, so we can only wait and see if peaceful coexistance is possible without separation (i.e. Sudan).