I have a little sympathy for the Washington, D.C. Republicans even though they irritate me more than gravel in my oatmeal. Are Republicans Dancing with the devil?
Visit “All the Presidents Men 2011” to understand who is really responsible for our current policies. Connect the dots for yourself.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/dJxEShqHJfo[/youtube]
Steve McDonald is a constituent of Congressman Ted Yoho who represents Florida’s District 3. Rep. Yoho was elected because he took a strong stand, verbally, against the policies in Washington, D.C. During his campaign he stated that “Obamacare is racist against white people“. Yoho was a darling of Florida conservatives. However, when McDonald received a District 3 postcard asking for his support of Rep. Yoho he sent an email with some questions for the Congressman. The following is the full text of McDonald’s email to Yoho:
Dear Ted:
As I have repeatedly stated in the past (for which I recognize that I am no longer on your contact list), you are not exhibiting the leadership expected by your representing our district in Congress.
First, your campaign promise made at the Gathering Restaurant in Branford, Florida, before many attendees, before you were elected to FILE impeachment against Obama has not been fulfilled.
I have carefully followed your voting record. Your votes are mostly conservative until major issues are up for a vote. In these major issues, you have almost consistently, not voted conservatively, but voted with the establishment.
Today I read your postcard mailing which stated, “This is why I co-sponsored or introduced the following legislation.” I did some investigating and discovered that you introduced NONE of your listed legislation!
Legislation Introduced by:
HRes 442 Tom Rice SC
HR 3973 Ron DeSantis FL
HRes 411 Pete Olson TX
HR 2507 Thomas Massie KY
HR 75 Dr. Paul Broun GA
HR 73 Dr. Paul Broun
HR 3855 Cynthia Lummus WY
HR 3076 Ron DeSantis FL
HR 3361 James Sensenbrunner WI
HR 2399 John Conyers DEMOCRAT MI
HR 1852 Kevin Yoder KS
HR 637 Ted Poe TX
What’s the truth Ted? It increasingly appears to me that you are warming a seat and exhibiting ZERO leadership.
Talk is cheap.
-You and I have discussed Boehner yet nothing gets accomplished. – We have talked impeachment of Obama, yet nothing is done.
-I have mentioned to you that impeaching Holder is the WRONG way to handle this. Federal criminal prosecution for the criminal acts of lying to Congress and perjury is the correct avenue, not more worthless rhetoric about impeachment.
-This Congress continues to dither about Benghazi. The guilty need to be punished.
-Nothing is accomplished about IRS abuses.
-TOTAL repeal of the Affordable Care Act is not accomplished. Government should not be involved in health care PERIOD.
-Audit of Federal Reserve has never been accomplished. (Yes I realize that this issue is a death warrant for the author of such legislation).
-Reigning in the EPA not accomplished.
-Reigning in the TSA/DHS not accomplished.
-Reigning OSHA is not accomplished.
-Get the Federal Government out of Education (a Reagan Campaign promise unfulfilled). Education is a 100% local matter
-Building the Keystone Pipeline still blocked.
-What is being done to stop the Administration efforts to close coal as a source fuel for power.
-Amnesty continues to rear its ugly head, while little to nothing is done to close the southern border and expel the illegal criminals.
-I have maybe 50 more objections to the lack-of accomplishments for which this Congress is guilty.
In the time you have been in Congress, others like DeSantis, Bridenstine, Cruz, & Flake have served the same length of time. They are each now nationally recognized figures for publicly standing for what is right (against more government encroachment).
I must not be the Lone Ranger in my criticism because I have been contacted by a lawyer in Gainesville to investigate his challenging you for the seat. My long time belief is that I would oppose any lawyer being in the Congress, but he talks the talk you did 2 years ago. Problem you have is that you have not walked the walk that you talked about.
McDonald made attempts to talk with Rep. Yoho but to no avail. McDonald did speak with a staffer for Rep. Yoho. This is how McDonald characterized that discussion:
I regret that a Yoho Washington staffer telephoned with specific talking points laid out for her yesterday afternoon (4/14/14. When I challenged her on her talking points, she had NO clue what she was talking about. I am VERY offended to now be down to a third level staffer (which she denied being) who didn’t have the intelligence or background to handle her conversation with me.
There is a growing feeling that members of the Florida Congressional delegation are not doing their jobs by representing the interest of Floridians. That feeling may turn into a backlash in November 2014 when all House members are up for re-election.
By Wallace S. Bruschweiler and Alan Kornman
The period 1938 to1945 should have been a lesson for all future generations. The European Jews sitting back and accepting to be marched to Nazi slaughter-houses is absolutely not to be repeated in today’s day and age.
Abubakar Shekau, leader of the Islamic supremacist group Boko Haram declared war on the Christians in this shocking video.
How will we justify our inaction(s) to the next generations – what and how will the future history books describe the Christian massacres in Syria, Sudan, Pakistan, Indonesia, Iraq and Nigeria. What kind of justifications will we have to invent, to answer in the future, the questions asked by our children?
Here we are – when Hillary Clinton served as President Obama’s Secretary of State, she vigorously opposed for over two years placing the al-Qaida affiliated terrorist group Boko Haram on the State Department’s official list of Foreign Terrorist Organizations, John Kerry to his credit did it in November 2013.
The Response
Andrew McCarthy writes in the National Review, “Mrs Clinton and President Obama have convinced themselves that they know more about Islam than Muslim terrorists do, and that the peaceful, pliable, progressive Islam they have concocted somehow renders the jihadists’ Islam false.” Unfortunately, there are over 300 Nigerian girls and young women who would beg to differ!
Boko Haram’s Islamic justified barbaric actions speak for themselves. Yet Christians around the world remain militarily passive to the existential threats posed by Islamic Jihad. This reminds me of the disgusting repeated ‘non decisions’ to bomb the railways tracks leading to Dachau, Auschwitz, etc. during World War II.
Nigeria, as many other nations in Africa and the Middle East, is an artificial political entity (remember Biafra). A large number of these African and Middle East countries are formed by a significant number of tribes with completely different ‘standards’ and kept together by corruption and terror.
Kidnapping, slavery, forced marriages, rape, forced conversions, mass murder, and torture no longer move people of conscience into military action. Instead our leaders, on the world stage, give us nice words of righteous indignation that sooth’s the souls of the unaffected and washes the guilt of responsibility off our collective shoulders.
Ronald Reagan described, “America is a shining city upon a hill whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere.” This beacon of light has dimmed and is flickering close to complete darkness.
“For we must consider that we shall be as a city upon a hill, the eyes of all people are upon us; so that if we shall deal falsely with our God in this work we have undertaken, and so cause Him to withdraw His present help from us, we shall shame the faces of many of God’s worthy servants, and cause their prayers to be turned into curses . . .”— John Winthrop, aboard the Arbella, 1630
What Happened On The Ground In Nigeria
April 14, 2014
The New York Post reports, “The girls in the school dorm could hear the sound of gunshots from a nearby town. So when armed men in uniforms burst in and promised to rescue them, at first they were relieved.
“Don’t worry, we’re soldiers,” one 16-year-old girl recalls them saying. “Nothing is going to happen to you.”
The gunmen commanded the hundreds of students at the Chibok Government Girls Secondary School to gather outside. The men went into a storeroom and removed all the food. Then they set fire to the room.
“They … started shouting, ‘Allahu Akhbar’ (‘Allah Is Greatest’),” the 16-year-old student said. “And we knew.”
What they knew was chilling: The men were not government soldiers at all. They were members of the ruthless Islamic extremist group called Boko Haram. They kidnapped the entire group of girls and drove them away in pickup trucks into the dense forest.
Three weeks later, 276 girls are still missing. At least two have died of snakebite, and about 20 others are ill, according to an intermediary who is in touch with their captors.”
What’s not in this May 6 story is the girls were Christians. Many were sold to their Boko Haram captors for $12.75 US, forced to convert to Islam, and threatened with a sure death if they did not comply. Others have been taken across borders to Cameroon and Chad, they said. Their accounts could not be verified, but forced child marriage is common in northern Nigeria, where it is allowed under Islamic law but not the country’s Western-style constitution.
May 7, 2014
As many as 300 people died in a Nigerian border in what officials described as a large and vicious attack by the Islamic terrorists of Boko Haram.
Nigeria’s Daily Post, citing Nigerian Senator Ahmed Zannah, said that the attack lasted for over 12 hours. Islamic terrorists believed to be part of Boko Haram, drove into the town on trucks and opened fire on crowds of people. Then, they razed the town itself. Zannah said that “The attackers stormed the communities in the night when residents were still sleeping, setting ablaze houses and shooting residents who tried to escape from the fire.”
This Nigerian town was attacked by Boko Haram because it was a staging area for security forces looking for the 300 kidnapped Christian girls from April 14, 2014.
May 6, 2014 – President Obama Reacts 23 Days After The Mass Kidnappings
The Los Angeles Times, Christi Parsons, reports, “The Obama administration will send military, intelligence and law enforcement advisors to Nigeria to help the beleaguered government find and rescue more than 270 teenage girls who were abducted by the Boko Haram terrorist group last month, the White House said Tuesday.
The team will share U.S. intelligence and provide investigative help, not military force, in the search for the students, who were kidnapped April 14 from a rural high school in Nigeria’s Muslim-dominated northeast.
The deployment will mark the first public American assistance in a case that has sparked international outrage. The U.S. announcement came after the leader of Boko Haram vowed in a video to sell the girls as slaves, and after gunmen reportedly took at least eight more girls from another village overnight.
President Obama spoke out on the abductions for the first time Tuesday, calling them “heartbreaking” and “outrageous.” For 23 days the President of the United States of America was silent MIA. American Muslim civil rights groups were virtually silent for at least 20 days after the Nigerian Christians girls were abducted. Only until the non-Muslim world began to take notice did these, so called Muslim civil rights groups speak out and engage in damage control.
Muslim Brotherhood supporter Ahmed Bedier, made the outrageous claim, “Islam did not fail the people of Nigeria…Islam is not the problem…Islam did not fail here, Islam is not the problem…Islam is not the problem the government of Nigeria is the problem.” Boko Haram’s official Arabic name, Jamā’at ahl as-sunnah li-d-da’wa wa-l-jihād (جماعة أهل السنة للدعوة والجهاد) translates The Congregation of the People of Tradition Proselytism and Jihad says otherwise. If this is not political Islam Mr. Bedier, then it is up to the followers of Islam to take responsibility and clean up Dar al Islam (House of Islam) and stop blaming others.
Amnesty International Reports
Amnesty International claims Nigeria’s military may have had prior warning about the attack on the school, but failed to act. Amnesty said it had verified reports from several credible sources who said that security forces knew about the raid four hours before it took place. It said, “An inability to muster troops – due to poor resources and a reported fear of engaging with the often better-equipped armed group – meant that reinforcements were not deployed.”
In a statement the Foreign and Commonwealth Office said Britain’s aim was not only to help find the girls, but to eradicate Boko Haram, whose five-year insurgency has left at least 1,500 people dead in 2014 alone.
The Nigerian military still appear to have no idea exactly where the abducted girls are.
President Goodluck Jonathan has said that Boko Haram has “infiltrated… the armed forces and police”, sometimes giving the militants a head start.”
“The Nigerian military is a shadow of what it’s reputed to have once been.” said James Hall, a retired colonel and former British military attache to Nigeria. “They’ve fallen apart.”
Conclusion
History is repeating itself as lessons that should have been learned in 1938 go unheeded at this present time.
Christians of all denominations have been put on notice. In Nigeria 300 Christian girls were kidnapped, sold into slavery, forced marriages, and conversions to Islam, or face death.
In February of this year Boko Haram burned alive 58 Christian boys.
The atrocities targeting Christians from Islamic Jihadists are numerous and well documented.
The only solution is for the Christian Church in total to protect their own fellow Christians wherever they are being persecuted, murdered, and forced to convert from their faith at gun point.
Ms. Ayaan Hirsi Ali’s powerful words below should be read and reread by the Vatican and the Christian community at large the world over.
“I am often told that the average Muslim wholeheartedly rejects the use of violence and terror, does not share the radicals’ belief that a degenerate and corrupt Western culture needs to be replaced with an Islamic one, and abhors the denigration of women’s most basic rights. Well, it is time for those peace-loving Muslims to do more, much more, to resist those in their midst who engage in this type of proselytizing before they proceed to the phase of holy war.
It is also time for Western liberals to wake up. If they choose to regard Boko Haram as an aberration, they do so at their peril. The kidnapping of these schoolgirls is not an isolated tragedy; their fate reflects a new wave of jihadism that extends far beyond Nigeria and poses a mortal threat to the rights of women and girls. If my pointing this out offends some people more than the odious acts of Boko Haram, then so be it.”
RELATED STORIES:
Al-Qaeda’s American Spokesman Adam Gadahn: ‘It Is Essential To Fight America’
Kyle Shideler at Free Fire Blog: CAIR Spokesman Whitewashes Islamic terrorism, Compares Boko Haram to Mere Criminals
Deceptive Islamist Support for Nigerian Girls
Nigeria kidnapped girls ‘shown’ in new Boko Haram video – BBC
Nigeria: Jihadists screaming “Allahu akbar” stormed church, started shooting everyone
Does Hollywood and America Finally Get It About Sharia?
Islamic leader: Muslims should humiliate Christians so they’ll convert to Islam
World Wide Christian Leaders Abandon Their Own in Nigeria
CAIR and Lawfare: An Interview with Brooke Goldstein
EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is courtesy of SCUPE.
For over a year I’ve been trying to get an opportunity to talk with the Governor about Common Core concerns to no avail. We have been diverted to staff and flatly refused an audience after dozens of requests, letters and calls. My curiosity has been growing for some time why such a good family man would possibly embrace what we know are the many dangers to our children and our society as a whole in Nationalizing Education under Common Core.
Being a logical and intelligent business leader, how could he swallow the line presented by those who stand to gain power and money from Common Core without logical proof of results? In fact, we have mountains of evidence of the damages that children are now experiencing in the classroom. How could he violate the Constitution of the United States as well as Florida’s Constitution by implementing FED ED and removing parental control?
At our protest against Common Core at his fundraiser in Fort Myers yesterday, he graciously got out of his car and came over to talk with our orderly crowd of about 40 people waving Stop Common Core signs. He looked certain that if we only knew what steps he had taken, we would realize there is no more danger. Here is the exchange:
[youtube]http://youtu.be/SSKX9Meo7fo[/youtube]
Here is the summary of the point, counterpoint. I have added some comments to his points we were unable to make then.
He started by repeating numerous statistics showing how great Florida’s children are doing on tests. He didn’t say which year these statistics reflect, but it must be 2-3 years ago.
We retorted, “Those figures are from past years, before Common Core was implemented.” If we were doing so well, why is there a need give up parental control, local control and state control over education and pay Billions of dollars implementing a new program copyrighted by unaccountable Washington Bureaucrats?
He repeated more figures about minorities doing so well in Florida’s results. We now say that Common Core’s effects will be impacting minorities the worst, as parents won’t be as available to guide them and tutor them through the hurdles. One in our audience was autistic and talked earlier about the heavy impact on special needs students who cannot work within a “one size fits all” education formula.
Governor Scott changed the topic again, saying how he had held town hall meetings all over the state. Not so fast, Governor…the group responded that there were only three meetings held in the entire state after a great deal of public pressure, and the cries to stop Common Core were ignored. Experts were brought in from all over the country and met with Commissioner Stewart who also ignored their grave concerns about Florida’s adoption of Common Core’s standards which are lower than previous Florida standards and deeply flawed. Less than 1% change was made to the standards and then they changed the name and claimed the standards are our own.
Governor Scott then started talking about the bills passed this legislative session that would prevent data mining and sharing of data. This is another subterfuge which does not pass the smell test. The Federal Law, FERPA, which used to protect privacy, has been changed by the Obama administration to allow sharing of data without parental permission with a much wider group, including the education materials providers such as Microsoft and Pearson PLC, as well as data collection and testing companies.
This is an excerpt from the enrolled language of SB188:
(2) RIGHTS OF STUDENTS AND PARENTS.—The rights of students and their parents with respect to education records created, maintained, or used by public educational institutions and agencies shall be protected in accordance with the FamilyEducational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. s. 1232g, the implementing regulations issued pursuant thereto, and this section. In order to maintain the eligibility of public educational institutions and agencies to receive federal funds and participate in federal programs, the State Board of Education shall comply with the FERPA after the board has evaluated and determined that the FERPA is consistent with the following principles…
KEY POINT: The section does not provide how and when the “board” evaluates and determines FERPA is consistent with the principles outlined, and how they would possibly object to the data sharing required under the law. In fact, FERPA has been watered down by the Obama administration and is not consistent with those principles so this bill is not functional on its face.
Here is a statement in the Ed Code defining privacy rights and providing that Federal FERPA law trumps Florida Law. This means data will be sent to the Federal Government where FERPA laws apply and data WILL be distributed as planned and without parental consent in order to keep federal money flowing.
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| 1002.221 K-12 education records.—(1) Education records, as defined in the Family Educational Rights and Privacy Act (FERPA), 20 U.S.C. s. 1232g, and the federal regulations issued pursuant thereto, are confidential and exempt from s. 119.07(1) and s. 24(a), Art. I of the State Constitution.(2)(a) An agency, as defined in s. 1002.22(1)(a), or a public school, center, institution, or other entity that is part of Florida’s education system under s. 1000.04(1), (3), or (4), may not release a student’s education records without the written consent of the student or parent to any individual, agency, or organization, except in accordance with and as permitted by the FERPA. Education records released by an agency, as defined in s. 1002.22(1)(a), or by a public school, center, institution, or other entity that is part of Florida’s education system under s. 1000.04 |
Then the Governor brought up how he restored local control over textbook adoption with SB 864, which is subterfuge once again. All textbooks and materials must be Common Core aligned and schools, teachers and students will be tested only on Common Core Standards. With high stakes testing, there is no choice. We can only choose which Common Core aligned education providers will poison our children’s brains the least.
These carefully planned “end around” bills do nothing to eliminate Common Core, and serve only to obfuscate this governor’s shameful effort to sell our children down the river for his political ally, Jeb Bush. Meanwhile, HB 25 by Debby Mayfield, which actually would have stopped Common Core, died without a single committee hearing.
It seems either that Governor Scott has not read or understood the entire argument about Common Core, and is so insulated by his bubble in the Capitol that he actually believes his talking points, or he is complicit in a large scheme to obfuscate the realities of Common Core and sell our children down the river for political gain. Perhaps it’s a little of both.
No matter which is true, the opposition to Common Core is growing and will continue to raise their voices to oppose Common Core and those who are force feeding this poison to our children. There is a political consequence for their actions as was seen in the recent race for Congressional District 19 in Southwest Florida where the political outsider, Curt Clawson, handily won over the well -funded State Senate Majority Leader, Lizbeth Benaquisto, by 12 points. She had sponsored the bill implementing Common Core in 2013 and the voters did not forget. It is not just an issue to us. It’s our children and our future.
RELATED STORY: Dad Arrested for Protesting Soft Core Porn in Common Core Curriculum
I suppose that throughout history men and women have asked themselves if they were living through either the worst or best of times. The times between wars are most surely the best of times and the times leading up to and during a war qualify as the worst. They are, however, rather quickly forgotten. It only takes about two generations—sometimes less—to move on from such events.
May 8, is “VE Day” celebrating the U.S. victory in Europe in World War Two. I suspect that most of our younger generations, including some of the Boomers, have no idea what the “VE” stands for.
World War Two ended seven decades ago, but not only have most Americans moved on from the horror of September 11, 2001, but it would appear that even the killing of an American ambassador and three security personnel in Benghazi, Libya on September 11, 2012 doesn’t arouse much anger even as we learn of a White House cover-up that utterly debases their sacrifice and loss. “Dude, that was two years ago,” said one White House staff member; as crass and crude a dismissal as one can imagine.
From a perspective of more than seventy and a half years, my mind flashes back to the Watergate scandal that began in June 1972 and concluded with President Nixon’s resignation in August 1974. That was a long two years as the attending events unfolded.
Forty-three people in the Nixon administration went to jail for their participation in the cover-up. The current Attorney General received a Contempt of Congress citation for his failure to provide information about one of the administration’s many scandals and during a recent speech to the National Action Network, a group founded by Rev. Al Sharpton, asked “What Attorney General has ever had to deal with that kind of treatment?” Does the name John Mitchell ring a bell? He was Nixon’s Attorney General.
Holder apparently believes that the charges hurled at him and President Obama are mostly based on the color of their skin. We live in a nation that has a black President, a black Attorney General, and a black member of the Supreme Court, to name just a few Afro-Americans who have made it to the topmost circles of power. There are 43 black members of the House and one in the Senate. I grew up in a nation where blacks could not eat in certain restaurants, get a room at a hotel, and even had separate drinking fountains. I witnessed the Civil Rights era and these, for black Americans, are the best of times in the long history of our nation.
For nearly all Americans, however, these are far from the best of times. In 1981 President Reagan pulled the nation out of a recession and set it on a path of prosperity that lasted well in the Clinton years. A financial crisis occurred in the last year of President Bush’s second term. If President Obama didn’t want to “inherit” that, he should not have run for office, but he spent his entire first term blaming the economy and everything else on Bush to the point where he made himself look foolish. And then he was reelected!
We are now two years into Obama’s second term and failed economic and national security policies that include the shrinking of our military power to the levels of pre-World War Two years. Domestic policies are having their effect on failed foreign policies. There are some 90 million Americans out of work or who ceased to look for it.
Peace, some say, is the period between wars and there is great truth in that. Most of my life was spent in the last century, starting in the latter years of the 1930s. There were thirty-two wars, large and small, somewhere in the world during the last century, including a Cold War from 1945 to 1991 between the U.S. and the then-Soviet Union.
So far as the U.S. was concerned, our military saw action in World War One (1914-1918), World War Two (begun in 1939, we entered in 1941-1945), the Korean War (1950-1953), the Vietnam War (begun in 1959 with initial U.S. participation in 1961. We would abandon the conflict in 1973). In 1990 the U.S. led the Persian Gulf War to drive Iraq’s Saddam Hussein out of Kuwait. We would invade Iraq in 2003 to depose Hussein. In the wake of the 9/11/2001 attack, our forces were dispatched to Afghanistan and are in the process of withdrawing.
War is the way nations tend to settle their differences. Despite the creation of the United Nations after World War Two ended, the U.S. has been engaged in wars and their deterrence. The rest of the world during the last century pursued wars in places that included Mexico, Russia, China, Spain and the rest of Europe, the French Indochina War, the French-Algerian War, the Soviet-Afghan War, the Iran-Iraq War, the third Balkan War, the Rwandan genocide, and the wars that Israel has endured over the more than sixty years of its existence.
This is why many are inclined to think, not only in terms of the U.S. economy, but in response to events beyond our borders—once again in Europe—that the conflict in the Ukraine may metastasize into World War Three if NATO is forced to confront a Russia behaving like it did before its former government collapsed.
I would, however, suggest that the greatest threat of war is staring the entire world in the face and that is an Iran with nuclear weapons.
We have a President who has displayed virtually no knowledge, nor understanding of the history briefly detailed here. Instead, he has pursued a deal with an Iran that has hated the U.S. (and Israel) as the heart of its foreign policy since 1979, As one former senior intelligence official was recently quoted as saying, “The fear is that the Iranians are going to pretend to give up their nuclear weapons program—and we are going to pretend to believe them.”
The only outcome of that would be an attack on Iran’s nuclear facilities by Israel for whom a nuclear Iran would be a second Holocaust. Israel destroyed a nuclear reactor in Iraq in 1981 and in Syria in 2007.
In a broader context, we and the rest of the world are living in an era in which Islam is challenging Western, modern civilization with precepts that embrace beheading, amputation, stoning to death, and other forms of violence, often against women, that must be confronted and defeated.
So, if these are best of times, they could rapidly turn into the worst of times…again.
© Alan Caruba, 2014
As the international homosexual movement pushes “gay marriage” around the world, pro-family citizens in several countries are turning to MassResistance for help fighting back.
| VIDEO: posted by Hong Kong pro-family activists — MassResistance video on marriage with audio in Cantonese! |
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Last September – originally at the request of activists in Australia — we created our comprehensive 28-minute video, What “gay marriage” did to Massachusetts. It documents in chilling detail how “gay marriage” really changes society in less than a decade over a wide range of areas including schools, courts, businesses, churches, and more. The video is an expansion of our 2012 booklet, What same-sex “marriage” has done to Massachusetts. Thousands of copies of that booklet have poured across America — from Hawaii to Maine — and several foreign countries.
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Brand new — MassResistance stickers. Show your solidarity! (See below for how to get them.) |
Here are some of the latest battles:
Hong Kong
At the beginning of the year the well-funded international homosexual lobby begantheir lobbying push in Hong Kong to legalize “gay marriage.” Pro-family activists there began working with MassResistance in February.
They have just released a version of the MassResistance video with the audio in Cantonese (see above) . It is now being widely shown in Hong Kong. They told us that they are very pleased that now people can watch the video and it will “help them to understand” what they are really facing.
Last week the activists emailed us:
[This video] will definitely benefit more people to understand the seriousness of the issue involved. Without your kind support, we really cannot make this happen! Many thanks indeed!
Now they can see what may be on the horizon. On Monday, we received the following message from one of the Hong Kong activists:
The issue on Gender Recognition is creeping in as there is a recent court ruling to recognise the reassigned gender after sex reassignment surgery. I saw that Transgenderism is also forcing its way to school education at your side. The battle is getting increasingly tough…
We’ll be working hard for them as things develop.
Finland
The Finnish Parliament is about to begin debating a “gay marriage” bill. Back in February the homosexual movement submitted thousands of petitions to force the issue into Parliament.
In March a group of Finnish religious leaders contacted MassResistance. They began using our materials to educate their people. A few days ago they posted a version ofour MassResistance video with Finnish sub-titles and began promoting it across the country.
| VIDEO Posted by Finnish religious leaders — MassResistance video on marriage with Finnish sub-titles. |
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They have also distributed our materials to Parliament. This week religious leaders will be meeting with Members of Parliament on the issue.
Here’s what the Finnish religious leaders wrote us on Monday:
Your materials have helped us very much indeed. Finnish Parliament Law Committee have asked some church leaders to come in there on Wednesday the 7th of May for the interview concerning the same sex marriage legislation.
We have forwarded your materials all over the land and to all members of Parliament.
We have sent your video all over the country and people are surprised
to see it — many have woken up to understand serious consequences of that foolish legislation.I am going to encourage the church leaders to stand firm on that issue.
Media is one of the worst enemies propagating solely the same sex marriage.I will let you know what happens here. May God bless you and all of us who uphold traditional life values. Yours in common cause!
Here is one of their sites with information on the “gay marriage” fight.
They also informed us on Monday that one of the Finnish national televisionstations has agreed to broadcast the MassResistance video nationwide!
Sweden and Estonia
We have also just been informed that Swedish and Estonian language versions of the MassResistance video are being prepared for broadcast on national TV in those countries.
We’ll post those links when they become available.
Back in the USA: Virginia
Back here in the US, pro-family citizens in Virginia are reeling from an outrageous federal court ruling in February where an activist federal judge struck down the state’s “gay marriage” ban voted by the people in 2006. One of the reasons the judge gave was that it conflicts with the phrase “all men are created equal” in the state’s constitution!
And Virginia’s Democrat Attorney General, Mark Herring, has refused to defend it in court, claiming that it violates the U.S. Constitution. Nevertheless, the ruling is being appealed by pro-family lawyers. The Federal Appeals Court in Richmond will hear oral arguments May 13.
In the meantime, pro-family activists are not letting up. Marriage activists contacted MassResistance in February and we’ve sent materials.
| VIDEO by Virginia marriage activists.A powerful lesson on “gay marriage” using some MassResistance material. One of the best. |
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On April 24, Virginia activists released a powerful video on marriage to call together Virginians to a rally at the May 13 court hearing, and also a marriage rally in Washington, DC. Their video uses some of our MassResistance material, and is really worth watching. This is one of the best general “gay marriage” videos we’ve seen yet.
And many other battles over the last several months
For many across the country and around the world, MassResistance is the go-to place for pro-family activism and information. In addition to the above, in just the last several months we’ve worked with pro-family activists in Australia, Croatia, Jamaica, England, France, Ghana, Uganda, and Canada. And here in the U.S. we’ve worked with activists in Hawaii, Minnesota, Illinois, Utah, Idaho, Louisiana. We get more calls every week.
In addition, of course, we’re on the ground here in Massachusetts!
What we’re also fighting: Big money and generated fear
The homosexual movement is able to push “gay marriage” and its other agendas on a large scale because it receives millions of dollars from major US corporations, wealthy liberals, and in many places, your tax dollars.
Unfortunately, the front-line pro-family movement fighting back gets virtually no funding from corporations, conservative donors (who’ve chickened out on this issue – don’t get us started on that), and certainly not government. Even on good days we’re probably outspent by 500-1 (or worse).
Much of this is because the homosexual movement is constantly working to create a climate of fear. They are trying to make everyone afraid to even speak up, much less get involved. We’ve all seen that over and over.
Show your solidarity and help MassResistance keep fighting back
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The big psychological weapon we have
Because our opponents thrive on our fear, one of the biggest psychological weapons the pro-family movement can use is to show that we’re not afraid of them — or of telling the truth. In our experience, that seemingly small thing is astonishingly effective. It makes them uncomfortable and disoriented. It’s been a powerful tool against any totalitarian movement. In fact, Pope John Paul II attributed the ultimate fall of the Soviet empire to people’s acting without fear!
Is it possible that we can straighten out poorly performing politicians? I say absolutely!
Has John Boehner suddenly been trained to stand for justice for Benghazi? Or is he just blowing smoke because election day is coming?
[youtube]http://youtu.be/Gj52ToRLr_4[/youtube]
It tells you everything you need to know about the utter contempt those in the White House and the circles of power that the announcement of 0.01% economic growth thus far this year was blamed on—wait for it—the weather! Specifically, a cold winter.
If you have been paying any attention of late, the weather and the climate have become the reason foreverything in general and for tornadoes, floods and forest fires, in particular. The fact that these natural events have always been subject to whatever the weather is or the larger climate trends seems to have escaped the notice of too many people. If winter automatically drives down the economy to a point of invisibility, that is news to me.
I’m surprised some economist hasn’t blamed winter for the major decline in home ownership. It has hit its lowest level since the mid-1990s according to the Census Bureau. As the Wall Street Journal reported, “despite two years of recovery in the housing market there are still fewer homeowners than there were before the recession.” Oh? The recession is over? You could have fooled me.
It is no surprise, however, that China is poised to pass the United States as the world’s leading economic power this year. The U.S. has been the global leader since 1872 when it replaced the United Kingdom and now “most economists previously thought China would pull ahead in 2019 according to the Financial Times.
Bear in mind that the U.S. has survived financial crises in the past, but the 2008 meltdown has persisted since around January 20, 2009 when a new President was sworn into office. It didn’t take him long to receive a Nobel Peace Prize that year and to preside over the first reduction in the nation’s top ranked credit rating in 2011.
Could the economic decline have something to do with the insane increase of federal government regulation? As John Merline asked in Investor’s Business Daily, “After years of rapid growth during the Obama administration, the cost of federal regulations is now bigger than the entire economics of all but nine countries in the world.” He was reporting on the annual report. “Ten Thousands Commandments”, issued by the Competitive Enterprise Institute. Compiled by Clyde Wayne Crews, this year’s report found that the “regulation tax” imposed on the economy now tops $1.86 trillion. “By comparison, Canada’s entire GDP is $1.82 trillion and India’s is $1.84 trillion.”
“The problem, Crews notes, is that the combined cost of this ‘tax’ never shows up anywhere in the federal budget—or any other official report—even though it is now bigger than individual and corporate income taxes combined.” The CEI report noted that federal regulatory costs average $14,974 per household “which is more than the typical household spends on just about anything else.”
So you don’t have to have an economics degree to figure out what is wrong. “Last year,” Merline reported, “regulators issued 3,659 rules. That’s equal to one new rule every 2 l/2 hours of every day7 or nearly two federal rules issued every business hour.” Why is this happening? Because the 2013 Federal Registered contains 79,311 pages, the fourth highest ever and the top two all-time totals were both under President Obama. Big government? No, TOO BIG Big Government.
A new poll surveying young Americans’ political attitudes was released at the end of April by Harvard University’s Institute of Politics. As indoctrinated as those 18 to 29 have been in our public schools, they are not brain-dead. The survey found that the millennials have less trust in government than ever before in the President, Congress, the Supreme Court, the military, and federal government as a whole. There is a comparable lack of confidence in Wall Street and the United Nations. Unfortunately, less than one-in-four (25%) of Americans under 30 said they would definitely vote in the forthcoming midterm elections, a decrease since last autumn, though more Republican millennials will vote than Democrats.
It’s not just the youth who are unhappy. A Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll taken in late April revealed “a marked change from past decades” as “nearly half of those surveyed wanted the U.S. to be less active on the global state, with fewer than one-fifth call for more active engagement—and anti-interventionist current that sweeps across party lines.”
This is hardly a surprise as one looks back on the years since 9/11 in which engagement in Afghanistan and Iraq turned out to be failures. In this regard Obama has his finger on the pulse of Americans who are weary of military interventions, but it is equally true he has used this to impose vast reductions on the U.S. military. If they are needed, there will be far less of them and the arsenal they will need.
The poll showed that approval of Obama’s handling of foreign policy has sunk to the lowest level of his presidency with 38% approval. His overall job performance now pulls in 47% or so. Both are below half the population of likely voters. The poll also demonstrated how disenchanted they are with the economy “that many believe is stacked against them.” The views expressed correlated with income and education, rather than party affiliation.
The state of the economy reflects the factors noted; too much regulation, Obamacare’s attack on one sixth of the economy, replete with dozens of taxes within it, as well as the serious disruption of the healthcare system. What it has also done is cause many businesses to put a cap on how many they employ, a dagger in the heart of those coming out of college with few real prospects, those seeking employment after having been laid off due to Obamacare and other factors—some 90 million still.
If the nation does survive Obama, historians will express wonder that he was reelected and that his approval ratings weren’t considerably lower. He is still being defended by the mainstream media, so that might account for the latter, but recent revelations about the Benghazi cover-up may have an impact.
The people I talk with are “hanging on”, struggling to get by on what money comes in. They are not happy and I suspect they reflect a general unhappiness from the millennials to the senior set.
They are observing the nation and the world from the bottom of the barrel.
We’re Americans. We don’t like being number two.
© Alan Caruba, 2014
EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo is by Angie Schwendemann. This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 2.0 Generic license.
Crash!
The April 16 decision by the Florida 2nd District Court of Appeals excusing Pinellas County from enforcing its voter-approved 8-year county commission term limits law collided head on with a 2011 decision from the 4th DCA which required that they be enforced. Indeed, after the Florida Supreme Court unanimously affirmed the 4th DCA decision, every county in Florida is enforcing their county term limits except Pinellas.
Why is Pinellas so special? In its April 16 decision, the 2nd DCA did not answer that question. In fact, its only response was: “Affirmed.” No explanation was given at all!
That won’t do. It is pretty clear this case must be settled in the Florida Supreme Court as the conflict between the two decisions are so stark. Must counties enforce their voter-approved charter amendments or not?
It is an important question that affects all 20 of Florida’s charter — or ‘home rule’ — counties, not just the 12 whose voters have opted to impose term limits on their county politicians.
On this basis, the Pinellas citizens who have been defending the Pinellas term limits law in court have filed for a rehearing, requesting the court revisit its decision or at least provide an explanation that they can bring to the Supreme Court.
It is difficult to see what the defense the county politicians have. The case set out in the good guys’ Motion for Clarification appears incontrovertible:
Due to the conflict between the DCAs, appellants Maria Scruggs and H. Patrick Wheeler argue the 2nd DCA owes the public — and the Supremes — an explanation. If we get one, it will be due to the hard work and personal sacrifice of these two individuals.
While some environmental groups applauded the latest delay of the Keystone XL pipeline, unions whose members would be building it ripped the administration. Sean McGarvey, President of North America’s Building Trades Unions, AFL-CIO, called it “a cold, hard slap in the face for hard working Americans who are literally waiting for President Obama’s approval and the tens of thousands of jobs it will generate.”
Laborers’ International Union of North America (LIUNA) general president Terry O’Sullivan was more colorful, saying, “It’s clear the administration needs to grow a set of antlers, or perhaps take a lesson from Popeye and eat some spinach.”
The Keystone XL pipeline isn’t the only energy issue dividing anti-energy environmental groups and unions who want jobs for their members. Over the weekend, the Associated Press reported that development of shale energy using hydraulic fracturing had strong union support in Pennsylvania:
“The shale became a lifesaver and a lifeline for a lot of working families,” said Dennis Martire, the mid-Atlantic regional manager for the Laborers’ International Union, or LIUNA, which represents workers in numerous construction trades.
Martire said that as huge quantities of natural gas were extracted from the vast shale reserves over the last five years, union work on large pipeline jobs in Pennsylvania and West Virginia has increased significantly. In 2008, LIUNA members worked about 400,000 hours on such jobs; by 2012, that had risen to 5.7 million hours.
In contrast, environmental groups like the Natural Resource Defense Council who patted the administration on the back for the Keystone XL delay, strongly oppose hydraulic fracturing.
In his Keystone XL statement, McGarvey head of the building trades union asked a good question:
Why does President Obama continue to side with radicals instead of the middle class that, twice, put him office, and supports this project by a significant majority?
Out of work American union members would like to know.
[H/T Lachlan Markay at the Washington Free Beacon.]
EDITORS NOTE: The featured photo of a rig drilling for natural gas at a hydraulic fracturing site in Pennsylvania is courtesy of photographer Ty Wright/Bloomberg.
The April 2, 2014 edition of National Review Online contains a blockbuster story detailing the results of a widespread vote fraud investigation conducted by the North Carolina State Board of Elections. In their review of the 2012 General Election, the board searched some 101,000,000 voter records in databases of 27 other states, using the same names, dates of birth, and Social Security numbers of individuals who voted in the North Carolina General Election.
What they found provides convincing proof that Democrats were not going to take any chances in 2012; they were not going to allow Mitt Romney to ruin Barack Obama’s chances for a second term. What the study of the 2012 election shows is that 35,570 North Carolina voters shared the same first names, last names, and dates of birth with individuals registered to vote in other states. Another 765 North Carolina voters had the same first names, last names, birthdays, and final four digits of a Social Security number as those who voted in other states, stretching credulity to its absolute limits. Barack Obama carried North Carolina in 2012 by a margin of just 14,177 votes (0.33%). To what extent were those voters residents of North Carolina who also voted in 27 other states, or were many of them residents of 27 other states who also voted in North Carolina?
In another recent study by the State of Virginia, it was found that some 44,000 Virginia voters are also registered to vote in Maryland. Of course, fraudulent voting by Democrats is not unique to North Carolina, Virginia, and Maryland. For Democrats, vote fraud is a way of life… standard operating procedure. And if the Republican Party had any leaders fit to be called leaders, they would see to it that the voting statistics of every state in the nation are evaluated in exactly the same way as the North Carolina voting age population.
For starters, the North Carolina attorney general should hold a press conference, extending an invitation to the 765 North Carolinians with the same first names, last names, birth dates, and Social Security numbers as individuals who were found to have voted in other states to come forward and identify themselves. Those individuals should be allowed to plead guilty to felony vote fraud, pay a hefty fine, and lose their voting rights for a period as prescribed by law.
Of course, not all those who engage in vote fraud could be expected to self-identify themselves. In such cases, the North Carolina attorney general should conduct forensic examinations of absentee ballots held in North Carolina and other states, lifting latent fingerprints from absentee ballots and subjecting signatures to expert handwriting analysis. Those who fail to self-identify, but whose latent fingerprints are later found on absentee ballots should be indicted, tried, subject to a heavy fine, and sentenced to prison. Upon being sentenced for felony vote fraud they should also lose voting rights as prescribed by law.
Federal law requires that all state election boards retain absentee ballots for at least twenty-two months following an election. Many states require ballots to be retained for twenty-four months, or longer. So it is essential that investigators conduct studies of double voting within two years following an election or much of the evidence of vote fraud will be destroyed.
In a recent speech before Al Sharpton’s National Action Network, Barack Obama attempted to rally his base by charging that Republicans are attempting to suppress the black vote in the coming 2014 General Election. Demonstrating once again that he is the dimmest bulb on the porch, he said, “The principle of one person-one vote is the single greatest tool we have to redress an unjust status quo. You would think there would not be an argument about this anymore. But the stark, simple truth is this: The right to vote is threatened today in a way that it has not been since the Voting Rights Act became law nearly five decades ago.”
Of course, as is the case with almost everything Obama says, he was not speaking the truth; he was only saying what he thought would appeal to his low-information base. The fact is, except for Democrat-sponsored fraud, the right to vote has not been threatened at all in recent decades, compared to the years between the Civil War and the mid-1950s. In those years Democrats used the KKK to intimidate and/or murder thousands of blacks for no other reason than that they insisted on the right to vote. Yes, the one person-one vote principle is a critical concept in our system, but that means one person-one vote, not one Republican-one vote and one Democrat-two votes or three votes, as most Democrats see as their birthright.
He went on to say, “Across the country, Republicans have led efforts to pass laws making it harder, not easier, for people to vote…” So if that is a true statement, it must also be correct to say that Republicans have led efforts to make it impossible to board an airplane, to cash a check, to make purchases with credit cards, to enter public buildings, to sign up for food stamps, to sign up for unemployment benefits, and to purchase beer, wine, liquor, and cigarettes. But we all know that’s not the case, so once again Obama is caught telling untruths to people who are either too dumb or too gullible to know that they’re being propagandized by a four-Pinocchio liar.
The truth is, since the vast majority of those behind prison bars are registered Democrats… those who’ve either attempted to disrupt the social order or who’ve attempted to enrich themselves at the expense of others… it is only fair to say that it is Democrats who are directly responsible for most of these impositions on our time and integrity.
He said, “Now, I want to be clear! I am not against reasonable attempts to secure the ballot. We understand that there has (sic) to be rules in place. But I am against requiring an ID that millions of Americans don’t have. That shouldn’t suddenly prevent you from exercising your right to vote. So, yes, we’re right to be on guard against voter fraud. Voter fraud would impinge on our democracy, as well. We don’t want folks voting that shouldn’t be voting. We all agree on that. Let’s stipulate to that, as the lawyers say.”
Unfortunately, with an attorney general like Eric Holder, Obama can stipulate all he wants to. It means about as much as a doctor stipulating that a patient suffers from a terminal, but curable, disease, but then prescribes no course of treatment. Eric Holder has been handed irrefutable evidence of vote fraud crimes by Democrats, all of which have been filed in the “round file.”
Then, suggesting to his gullible listeners that vote fraud is not a problem, he offered a few statistics. He said, “One recent study found only 10 cases of alleged voter impersonation in 12 years… 10 cases. Another analysis found that, out of 197 million votes cast for federal elections between 2002 and 2005, only 40 voters… out of 197 million… were indicted for fraud…”
Since a great many Democratic precincts regularly produce far more than ten cases of in-person voter impersonations, the people who put words on Obama’s teleprompter must have searched long and hard to find a source that would attest to only 10 cases in the entire United States in a 12 year period. Since Obama failed to cite the source for his statistics, one might suspect that they came either from Eric Holder or from the PR office at the Democrat National Committee.
It apparently escaped Obama’s attention that, in 2012, in precincts all across the country, in major cities with heavy Democratic majorities and powerful Democratic machines, Mitt Romney was completely “skunked,” receiving not a single vote out of hundreds of thousands of votes cast. This, of course, is not only a statistical improbability, it is a statistical impossibility, but it went completely unchallenged by Romney and the Republican National Committee.
Giving a tip-of-the-hat to a former racist Democrat president, Obama told his nearly all-black audience that, at the time Lyndon Johnson signed the Civil Rights Act, some of his advisors were recommending caution, saying, “Well, all right, just wait. You’ve done a big thing now; let’s let the dust settle, don’t stir folks up.” But Obama quotes Johnson as replying, “No, no, I can’t wait. We’ve got to press forward and pass the Voting Rights Act. About this there can and should be no argument. Every American citizen must have an equal right to vote.”
Of course, that represents only Obama’s sanitized version of what Johnson may have said at the time. According to two Democratic governors who flew with him on Air Force One, what LBJ actually said was, “I’ll have those n_ _ _ ers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.”
The point is, African-Americans are rarely told the truth about where white Democrats actually stand on the issue of race. If the Republican Party had leaders worthy of the title, they would begin to tell them the truth, treating them as if they are grownups.
To the best of my knowledge, only one fraudulent voter in the entire state of Ohio went to jail for vote fraud in 2013. According to a story in the Cincinnati Enquirer, Melowese Richardson was convicted of voting 5 times for Barack Obama in 2012. She was released on March 11, 2014, after serving only eight months of a five year sentence on the grounds that she is mentally ill… a condition not uncommon among Obama voters.
It’s long past time that Republicans moved forward with a national voter registration database, tying every registered voter to a name, address, birth date, and Social Security number. It’s also long past time that we began making a lot more Melowese Richardsons, whether Democrats or Republicans. And if we don’t have Republican leaders with the stomach for the task, then it’s time to get new Republican leadership. We don’t have to jail all Democrats who commit fraud… we could never build enough jail cells… we only have to jail enough of them to make the rest wonder if perhaps they’ll be the next to hear a knock on their door.
RELATED STORY: Judges and Voter ID If the state provides free IDs, is there really an “unjustified burden” on poor voters?
A CIA expert has damning evidence of impeachable crimes by Obama, Clinton and others that are expected to precipitate a man-made calamity and martial law to maintain control warning of impending loss if we aren’t ready for a crisis and chaos in America. The CIA expert interview on TruNews.com is linked below.
Christ’s 7-fold warning of sudden events that come as a thief appear to fit what could be reality, reminding us also of “sudden destruction” coming as a thief in 1 Thessalonians 5:3. Christ even said He would come as a thief if we don’t watch. Rev 3:3.
This is an invisible coming in judgment as clued by His seven examples prior to His visible return in Matthew 25:31. The cost of being prepared is not large; failure on these points could mean huge loss.
Each of the above examples fit with the execution of judgment on a deserving nation or persons, but we forget the biblical time to execute judgment was Passover, Exodus 12:12. Several of the clues point to 2nd Passover, a provision in the biblical law for Passover in May, Numbers 9:10,11.
Examples 6 and 7 above are punctuated by Christ’s saying again, “Watch…for the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country.” Matt 25:14. After winter, Israelites traveled in the spring, but if they couldn’t get back for Passover, the law [in effect till heaven and earth passes Matt 5:18] specified Passover the 2nd spring month (May) as a time.
Passover was a time when animal sacrifices were fulfilled by Christ, proclaimed as “the Lamb of God” by a Jewish prophet, John 1:29. But while Passover is no longer a time for animal sacrifices that prefigure judgment, it is still a time to “watch and pray” that God will pass over us in judgment.
Watch is translated from the Greek word, gregoreo, meaning to be awake. We can’t be awake every night, but Passover was the only time it was commanded of all, Exodus 12:10, Matt 26:38-41.
Wednesday evening, May 14/15 is the night that most churches have a prayer meeting. It would be wonderful if churches world-wide would understand the issues, to watch (be awake) and pray that God will pass over them as they seek biblical answers to what is impending.
I believe readers should hear the interview by TruNews’ Chuck Wiles of the CIA expert to understand that America as we’ve known it, is gone, and civil war may be impending.
On Tuesday, November 4th Floridians will go to the polls to select their governor. Currently there are thirty-two active candidates running. The gubernatorial race is the only statewide race in Florida. So what will make one of these candidates standout from the crowded field? If a recent election is any indicator, the defining issue will be – education – specifically Common Core State Standards (CCSS). People are rising up in Florida and across the country to stop Common Core. As George Will wrote, “Viewed from Washington, opposition to the Common Core State Standards Initiative still seems as small as the biblical cloud that ariseth out of the sea, no larger than a man’s hand. Soon, however, this education policy will fill a significant portion of the political sky.”
Chris Quackenbush in her column Common Core: The Chain of Betrayal notes, “Political battles are now being won and lost on the education issue as in the Florida Congressional District 19, where an ‘outsider’ Curt Clawson, beat sitting State Senate Majority Leader Lizbeth Benaquisto by 12 points largely because of her duplicity on Common Core. Her conservative base was not fooled by her superficial conversion after sponsoring a bill in 2013 to implement Common Core as she is allied with Jeb Bush. His tentacles reach far in Florida where he is a major donor and supporter of many State Legislators including Governor Scott.”
Quackenbush states, “Common Core is the final nail in the coffin of American Exceptionalism.” That’s how heated the debate has become in Florida.
Associated Press reporter Thomas Beaumont wrote, “Raising U.S. educational expectations through national goals was a priority for Republican President George W. Bush. But many of his would-be successors in the GOP are calling for just the opposite of government-set rules, and it’s splitting the party as the GOP class of 2016 presidential hopefuls takes shape.” Common Core is splitting the party between those who support Jeb Bush and those who support parents, teachers, administrators, academics and citizens who favor keeping local control of education.
While Florida Democrats want to focus on income equality, the minimum wage, legalizing marijuana and abortion rights, and the Republican Party of Florida focused on the economy, jobs and tax reform, the defining issue remains public education.
Will the Florida race for governor in 2014 be a harbinger for the 2016 race for president? Those interested in a winning formula will, by all indications, be keeping a close eye on Florida on November 4th.
| Candidate | Status | Primary | General |
|---|---|---|---|
| Gibson, Kyle Chaderwick (NPA) | Active | ||
| Adeshina, Yinka Abosede (REP) | Active | ||
| Allen, Joe (NPA) | Active | ||
| Anderson, Rubin Lewis (NPA) | Active | ||
| Angiolillo, Vincent Dominic (REP) | Active | ||
| Crist, Charlie (DEM) | Active | ||
| Cuevas-Neunder, Elizabeth (REP) | Active | ||
| Devine, Timothy Michael (REP) | Active | ||
| Fraleigh, James Edward (INT) | Active | ||
| Gazetas, Vassilia (NPA) | Active | ||
| Giger, Herman Lee (NPA) | Active | ||
| Griffis, Mark D. (NPA) | Active | ||
| Horwath, Jefferson L. (NPA) | Active | ||
| Khavari, Farid A (NPA) | Active | ||
| Lee, Monroe (DEM) | Active | ||
| Lipner, Ryan Adam (DEM) | Active | ||
| Martelly, Marcelle (DEM) | Active | ||
| McCoy, Roland (DEM) | Active | ||
| Murray, Paul (WRI) | Active | ||
| Reed, C. C. (NPA) | Active | ||
| Rich, Nan H. (DEM) | Active | ||
| Rolle, Leonard (NPA) | Active | ||
| Samuel, Berthram B. (REP) | Active | ||
| Scott, Richard L. (REP) *Incumbent | Active | ||
| Smith, Dr. Joe (REP) | Active | ||
| Smith, John Wayne (LPF) | Active | ||
| Stewart, Jessica Lana (DEM) | Active | ||
| Tolbert, Charles Frederick (NPA) | Active | ||
| Trujillo, Lesther (NPA) | Active | ||
| Wyllie, Adrian (LPF) | Active | ||
| Yarrow, Atlee David (SPF) | Active | ||
| Zapata, Randy (DEM) | Active |
Active candidate list courtesy of the Sarasota Supervisor of Elections.
RELATED STORIES:
The Dying of the Light: How Common Core Damages Poetry – by Esolen, Highfill, Stotsky
AP: Common Core a Defining Issue for GOP 2016 Hopefuls
Revolt: Common Core gets gored
The LA chapter of the NAACP is refunding Donald Sterling’s contributions, for now at least. In a public statement Monday afternoon Chapter President Leon Jenkins said he was open to the idea of talking with Mr. Sterling, to negotiate a price for Racist Offsets no doubt.
“God teaches us to forgive, and the way I look at it, after a sustained period of proof to the African American community that those words don’t reflect his heart, I think there’s room for forgiveness. I wouldn’t be a Christian if I said there wasn’t.”
Most glorious compassion indeed. Mr. Jenkins continued…
“We are negotiating with him about giving more moneys to African American students at UCLA, and so we are in preliminary discussions.”
You read it right, comrades… “negotiations”. Mr. Sterling, with an undoubtedly generous “Racist Offsets” donation will be forgiven for his misdeeds. Let no racist rant go unfunded, comrades.
“Mr. Sterling has given out a tremendous amount of scholarships, he has invited numerous African American kids to summer camps, and his donations are bigger than other sports franchises… “
As long as the Racist Offsets continue to roll in, Mr. Sterling’s rants will be forgiven by the NAACP. As they should be.
[youtube]http://youtu.be/47WR-FrNYew[/youtube]
With the growing story coming out of Ukraine, the ongoing search for the missing Malaysian jet, the intensifying Nevada cattle battle, and the new announcement about the additional Keystone pipeline delay, little attention is being paid to the Production Tax Credit (PTC) for wind energy—or any of the other 50 lapsed tax breaks the Senate Finance Committee approved earlier this month. But, despite the low news profile, the gears of government continue to grind up taxpayer dollars.
The Expiring Provisions Improvement Reform and Efficiency Act (EXPIRE) did not originally include the PT; however, prior to the committee markup hearing on April 3, Senators Charles Grassley (R-IA), Michael Bennet (D-CO), and Maria Cantwell (D-WA) pushed for an amendment to add a 2-year PTC extension. The tax extender package passed out of committee and has been sent to the Senate floor for debate. There, its future is uncertain.
“If the bill becomes law,” reports the Energy Collective, “it will allow wind energy developers to qualify for tax credits if they begin construction by the end of 2015.” The American Wind Energy Association’s (AWEA) website calls on Congress to: “act quickly to retroactively extend the PTC.”
The PTC is often the deciding factor in determining whether or not to build a wind farm. According to Bloomberg, wind power advocates fear: “Without the restoration of the subsidies, worth $23 per megawatt hour to turbine owners, the industry might not recover, and the U.S. may lose ground in its race to reduce dependence on fossil fuels driving global warming.” \
The National Renewable Energy Laboratory released a report earlier this month affirming the importance of the subsidies to the wind industry. It showed that the PTC has been critical to the development of the U.S. wind power industry. The report also found: PTC “extension options that would ramp down by the end of 2022 appear to be insufficient to support recent levels of deployment.… Extending the production tax credit at its historical level could provide the best opportunity to sustain strong U.S. wind energy installation and domestic manufacturing.”
The PTC was originally part of the Energy Policy Act of 1992. It has expired many times— most recently at the close of 2013. The last-minute 2012 extension, as a part of the American Tax Relief Act, included an eligibility criteria adjustment that allows projects that began construction in 2013, and maintain construction through as long as 2016, to qualify for the 10-year tax credit designed to establish a production incentive. Previously, projects would have had to be producing electricity at the time the PTC expired to qualify.
Thomas Pyle, president of the American Energy Alliance, which represents the interests of oil, coal, and natural gas companies, called the 2013 expiration of the wind PTC “a victory for taxpayers.” He explained: “The notion that the wind industry is an infant that needs the PTC to get on its feet is simply not true. The PTC has overstayed its welcome and any attempt to extend it would do a great disservice to the American people.”
As recently as 2006-2007, “the wind PTC had no natural enemies,” states a new report on the PTC’s future. “The Declining Appetite for the Wind PTC” report points to the assumption that “all extenders are extended eventually, and that enacting the extension is purely a matter of routine, in which gridlock on unrelated topics is the only source of uncertainty and delay.” The report then concludes: “That has been a correct view in past years.”
The report predicts that the PTC will follow “the same political trajectory as the ethanol mandate and the ethanol blenders’ tax credit before it.” The mandate remains—albeit in a slightly weakened state—and the tax credit is gone: “Ethanol no longer needed the blenders’ tax credit because it had the strong support of a mandate (an implicit subsidy) behind it.”
The PTC once enjoyed support from some in the utility industry that needed it to bolster wind power development to meet the mandates. Today, utilities have met their state mandates—or come close enough, the report points out: “their state utility commissioners will not allow them to build more.” It is important to realize that the commissioners are appointed or elected to protect the ratepayers and insure that the rates charged by the utilities are fair and as low as possible. Because of the increased cost of wind energy over conventional sources, commissioners won’t allow any more than is necessary to meet the mandates passed by the legislatures.
The abundance of natural gas and subsequent low price has also hurt wind energy’s predicted price parity. South Dakota Gov. Dennis Daugaard (R), in Bloomberg, said: “If gas prices weren’t so cheap, then wind might be able to compete on its own.” David Crane, chief executive officer of NRG Energy Inc.—which builds both gas and renewable power plants—agrees: “Cheap gas has definitely made it harder to compete.” With the subsidy, companies were able to propose wind projects “below the price of gas.” Without the PTC, Stephen Munro, an analyst at New Energy Finance, confirms: “we don’t expect wind to be at cost parity with gas.”
The changing conditions combined with “wide agreement that the majority of extenders are special interest handouts, the pet political projects of a few influential members of Congress,” mean that “the wind PTC is not a sure bet for extension.” Bloomberg declares: “Wind power in the U.S. is on a respirator.” Mike Krancer, who previously served as secretary of the Pennsylvania Department of Environmental Protection, in an article in Roll Call, states: “Washington’s usual handout to keep the turbines spinning may be harder to win this time around.”
Despite the claim of “Loud support for the PTC” from North American Windpower (NAW), the report predicts “political resistance.” NAW points to letters from 144 members of Congress urging colleagues to “act quickly to revive the incentives.” Twenty-six Senate members signed the letter to Senate Finance Committee Chairman Ron Wyden (D-OR), and 118 House members signed a similar letter to Speaker John Boehner (R-OH). However, of the 118, only six were Republicans—which, even if the PTC extension makes it out of the Senate, points to the difficulty of getting it extended in the Republican-controlled House.
Bloomberg cites AWEA as saying: “the Republican-led House of Representatives may not support efforts to extend the tax credits before the November 
election.” This supports the view stated in the report. House Ways & Means Committee Chairman David Camp (R-MI) held his first hearing on tax extenders on April 8. He only wants two of the 55 tax breaks continued: small business depreciation and the R & D tax credit. The report states: “Camp says that he will probably hold hearings on which extenders should be permanent through the spring and into the summer. He hasn’t said when he would do an extenders proposal himself, but our guess is that he will wait until after the fall elections. …We think the PTC is most endangered if Republicans win a Senate majority in the fall.”
So, even if the PTC survives the current Senate’s floor debate (Senator Pat Toomey [R-PA] offered an amendment that would have entirely done away with the PTC), it is only the “first step in a long journey” and, according to David Burton, a partner at law firm Akin Gump Hauer and Feld, is “unlikely on its own to create enough confidence to spur investment in the development of new projects.” Plus, the House will likely hold up its resurrection.
Not to mention the growing opposition to wind energy due to the slaughter of birds and bats—including the protected bald and golden eagles. Or, growing fears about health impacts, maintenance costs, and abandoned turbines.
All of these factors have likely led Jeffrey Immelt, chief executive officer of General Electric Co.—the biggest U.S. turbine supplier—to recently state: “We’re planning for a world that’s unsubsidized. Renewables have to find a way to get to the grid unsubsidized.”
Perhaps this time, the PTC is really dead, leaving smaller manufacturers desperately seeking subsidies.
The author of Energy Freedom, Marita Noon serves as the executive director for Energy Makes America Great Inc. and the companion educational organization, the Citizens’ Alliance for Responsible Energy (CARE). Together they work to educate the public and influence policy makers regarding energy, its role in freedom, and the American way of life. Combining energy, news, politics, and, the environment through public events, speaking engagements, and media, the organizations’ combined efforts serve as America’s voice for energy.
