You could make a case for chaos

Let’s  return to 1775 when Edmund Burke pointed out a month before Lexington and Concord, that “the (American) people (in Colonial America) are Protestants, and of that kind which is almost adverse to all implicit submission of mind and opinion. ... Religion in “our Northern colonies is a refinement on the principle of resistance.”

No doubt, as a Christian nation, America once championed freedom and free trade. But let’s fast forward to today.  Resistance ( especially from patriots like the Tea Party) seems futile in the face of the imperial, Obama, progressive, repressive Presidency.  You could  make a case for chaos.   As our culture sheds its Christian moorings, drunkenness, drugs, rapes, assaults, murders, tatoos, body piercings, obscene language, even blissful ignorance clothe us anew.  Can’t you make a case for little voices whispering to too many Americans: ‘I don’t want to ponder why; I don’t want to know stuff.’

What do pictures of mass protests in Egypt mean?

Tyranny Unmasked

Tyranny Unmasked, by John Taylor (of Virginia’s Caroline County).  In the Preface to the first edition, Taylor – a careful student of history – warned that “the folly of letting in some tyranny to avoid more, has in all ages been fatal to liberty.”*

. “‘Progressives’ take pleasure in thinking they can redesign society and improve upon laissez-faire. They’re almost always mistaken, and certainly so when it comes to shuffling students around to different colleges.”
GEORGE LEEF:

OBAMACARE WOULD NEVER ALLOW THIS - ER, MAYBE

OBAMACARE WOULD NEVER ALLOW THIS - ER, MAYBE
GOVERNMENT HEALTH CARE: Nearly 1,200 people have starved to death in NHS hospitals because ‘nurses are too busy to feed patients.’

Welcome to Obamerica, where only state-sponsored dissent is protected.

HOW’S THAT “SMART DIPLOMACY” WORKIN’ FOR YA? (CONT’D): Ecuador to US: Take your trade and shove it.

Think NSA Spying Is Bad? Here Comes The ObamaCare Hub

INVESTOR’S BUSINESS DAILY: Think NSA Spying Is Bad? Here Comes The ObamaCare Hub.
Not to worry, says the Obama administration. “The hub will not store consumer information, but will securely transmit data between state and federal systems to verify consumer application information,” it claimed in an online fact sheet .

But a regulatory notice filed by the administration in February tells a different story.

That filing describes a new “system of records” that will store names, birth dates, Social Security numbers, taxpayer status, gender, ethnicity, email addresses, telephone numbers on the millions of people expected to apply for coverage at the ObamaCare exchanges, as well as “tax return information from the IRS, income information from the Social Security Administration, and financial information from other third-party sources.”

They will also store data from businesses buying coverage through an exchange, including a “list of qualified employees and their tax ID numbers,” and keep it all on file for 10 years.

In addition, the filing says the federal government can disclose this information “without the consent of the individual” to a wide range of people, including “agency contractors, consultants, or grantees” who “need to have access to the records” to help run ObamaCare, as well as law enforcement officials to “investigate potential fraud.”

And it absolutely, positively will be abused politically.

Posted at 8:51 am by Glenn Reynolds

LIBERALS ARE EITHER FOOLS OR CHARLATANS

Tea Party as Nation’s Top Terror Threat
Of Course: 26% of Obama Supporters View Tea Party as Nation’s Top Terror Threat
Posted by Jammie on Jun 27, 2013 at 8:46 am
Democrats have spent the better part of four years calling tea partiers terrorists, so why is this any surprise.
A new Rasmussen Reports:
Half of all voters consider radical Muslims the bigger terrorist threat facing the nation, but supporters of President Obama consider the Tea Party to be as big a danger.
LIBERALS ARE EITHER FOOLS OR CHARLATANS

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT IN OBAMACARE IN ENGLISH AND NOW GOVT. WILL EXPLAIN IT IN 150 LANGUAGES!

NO ONE KNOWS WHAT'S IN OBAMACARE IN ENGLISH AND NOW GOVT. WILL EXPLAIN IT IN 150 LANGUAGES!
Original Message-----
From: Julie Rodriguez, The White House
To:
Sent: Mon, Jun 24, 2013 1:38 pm
Subject: Latino Newsletter: HealthCare & Cuidado de Salud Updates
Monday, June 24, 2013
 
Latino Newsletter: HealthCare & Cuidado de Salud Updates

Buenas Tardes,
TODAY, Senior Officials from Health and Human Services will hold a conference call to kick-off the Health Insurance Marketplace education effort with a new, consumer-focused HealthCare.gov and www.cuidadodesalud.gov websites as well as a 24-hours-a-day consumer call center, available in 150 languages, to help Americans prepare for open enrollment and ultimately sign up for private health insurance. TOMORROW, Officials from Health and Human Services will hold a webinar to walk through ¡Prepárese para el nuevo CuidadoDeSalud.gov! efforts. With nearly a third of Latinos uninsured, more than any other group, it is important that all of us do our part to help Americans understand their choices and select the coverage that best suits their needs when open enrollment in the new Health Insurance Marketplace begins October 1.  For additional information on today’s call and tomorrow’s webinar please see the Get Involved section of the newsletter below.

WHO NEEDS A CONGRESS, OR JUDICIARY? Obama Orders EPA to Regulate Power Plants in Wide-Ranging Climate Plan.

 Tyranny Unmasked:
“National defense is the usual pretext for the policy of fleecing the people.”
From: John Taylor‘s 1822 tract, [Note they knew it in 1822]

If Only Our Foreign Enemies Were Republicans

If Only Our Foreign Enemies Were Republicans
by Victor Davis Hanson
June 25th, 2013 - 12:00 am
I cannot recall, in the last five years, Barack Obama ever identifying the Iranians, Hezbollah, or the late Hugo Chavez as among our “enemies,” in the fashion that he once urged Latino leaders to punish conservatives at the polls: “We’re gonna punish our enemies and we’re gonna reward our friends who stand with us on issues that are important to us.” If only the president would treat those who don’t like the United States in the same manner that he does those who do, he might bring great clarity to his now listless foreign policy. Indeed, why waste his rich vocabulary of teleprompted invective on fellow Americans, when there is an entire world out there that wishes the United States ill?

The State:

The State:
There is something threatening and basically “unfair” in the very notion of the sovereign state competing with its subjects for the use of their resources – “unfair” in the simple, everyday sense of an almost obscene disproportion of size and force.
Anthony de Jasay’s 1998 “The State”

 Mike Munger summarizes perfectly the situation involving NSA snooping.  I paste below in full:
Apparently….
(1) what YOU don’t know can’t hurt YOU,
(2) what THEY don’t know can hurt YOU,
(3) THEY need to know what YOU know,
(4) but YOU need not know that THEY need to know,
(5) And YOU certainly do not need to know what THEY know,
(6) moreover, if YOU know THEY need to know, then the big WE can get hurt, so THEY can hide that, out of concern for YOU.
(7) And mostly, we should all care more about the big WE than anything else. Especially, the big WE is more important than YOU, or YOU, or…
Or so THEY say…
Nod to WH

And True The Vote founder Catherine Engelbrecht was targeted by not only the IRS, but also the FBI, the ATF, and OSHA. (More on that here.) It’s like they don’t want anyone looking into voter fraud. Why might that be?

never give up

When in a struggle, advice is welcome from any source, either a privateer/corsair, Sir Francis Drake or a Prime Minister, Winston Churchill.  The former said:  “There must be a beginning of any great matter, but the continuing unto the end until it be thoroughly finished yields the true glory.” The latter repeated: “Never give up, never, never, never give up.”

America has bifurcated into a struggle for her very soul. Us vs. Them. Conservative reason vs. liberal insanity. We must never give up; only success renders true glory.  

Nothing new under the sun

      Nothing new under the sun

This passage recounts a defeat of the Scots by the English under the reign of Elizabeth I.
“The result was a bloodbath.  The ‘constable’ of the castle (Rathlin in Scotland, 1575), his family, and a prisoner being held by the Scots... were secured, but the English soldiery ... murdered every other Scott they could find on the island, men, women, children, the aged, the feeble and the helpless, without distinction. ... However, after butchering two hundred of  the prisoners on the surrender of the castle, they roamed about the island for several days, rooting out several hundred more from their refuges in caves and among the cliffs, and chopping them down on the spot.  In addition, the soldiers seized 300 cows, 3,000 sheep and 100 horses, and they confiscated a large quantity of corn, sufficient, ... to have kept 200 men for a year.”

Slaughter of innocents, enslavement of captives, mayhem within the troops - all sanctioned by a  cause ( justice be damned).  So what’s new today?

Alien Conflicts

Alien Conflicts

Let’s return to yesteryear, 1562, when the Western world was divided between Protestant and Catholic.  Never the twain would meet.   “In many countries,” sighed a Venetian, “obedience to the Pope has almost ceased, and matters are becoming so critical that if God does not interfere they will soon be desperate.”  Today’s war between liberals and conservatives mimics those terrible times. But why is it that God’s intervention again seems to be the only solution?  

IRS COMMISSIONER TOP POLITICAL AIDE VISITS WHITE HOUSE 319 TIMES

IRS COMMISSIONER TOP POLITICAL AIDE VISITS WHITE HOUSE 319 TIMES
(But has no expertise on tax law or ObamaCare, only politics)
I WONDER IF HE IS EXPERT ON HANDLING ‘TEA’ ISSUES?

Top Shulman aide frequent White House visitor
BY: SUSAN FERRECHIO JUNE 21, 2013 | 5:00 AM
TOPICS: WHITE HOUSE BELTWAY CONFIDENTIAL

White House visitor logs show Shulman's chief of staff, Jonathan M. Davis, appears to have...
While congressional lawmakers are questioning why former Internal Revenue Service Commissioner Douglas Shulman paid dozens of visits to the White House  during his tenure, Shulman’s top political aide seems to have spent even more time working side-by-side with members of the Obama administration.

“The involvement of the service in a major domestic initiative like the Affordable Care Act does create the risk that the independence of the IRS can be eroded, and that is of concern,” Everson said.

Davis described his position at the IRS on the business social networking site LinkedIn as “strategy lead and adviser to IRS Commissioner” between 2008 until 2012, with a focus on modernizing the agency’s technology and implementing “significant new economic programs.”

“the intellectual equivalent of drunk driving.”

The Foundation for Economic Education’s Sheldon Richman once said that advocating policies when you don’t understand their unintended consequences is “the intellectual equivalent of drunk driving.”   If you’re advocating price controls and don’t understand what the laws of supply and demand have to say about your proposal, you aren’t courageous or compassionate.  You’re dangerous.

Sheeple Now

Sheeple Now

Thoughts from America after Pres. Obama spoke at the Brandenburg Gate.  A typical American once had a  “defiant and restive regard for social authority... only when he cannot do without it.”

Alexis de Tocqueville, that observant French pipsqueak, thus described us 200 years ago. He also warned us against the government becoming “an immense tutelary power... absolute, detailed, regular...covering (society’s) surface with a network of small, complicated, painstaking, uniform rules through which the most original minds and the most vigorous souls cannot clear a way.”

A regulatory state could suffocate the spirit of free enterprising Americans. Toqueville wrote that: “it (government)  rarely forces one to act, but constantly opposes itself to one’s acting; it does not destroy, it prevents things from being born; it does not tyrannize, it hinders, compromises, enervates, extinguishes, dazes, and finally reduces (the) nation to being nothing more than an herd of timid and industrious animals of which the government is the shepherd.”

Have we become sheeple?  Does government hear our collective ‘ba,ba,ba?’  

Gun Background Check

Senator Ted Cruz (? @SenTedCruz)

Anyone know if President Obama intends to perform background checks on the Syrian rebels before providing them weapons?

2.2 BILLION FOR OBAMPHONES IN 2012

2.2 BILLION FOR OBAMPHONES IN 2012
SHOCKER: Hidden camera catches wireless company employees passing out ‘Obama phones’ to people who say they’ll SELL them for drugs, shoes, handbags and spending cash. “The ‘Lifeline’ free-cell-phone scheme cost $2.2 Billion last year alone, all of it from fees added to the phone bills of paying customers. The biggest beneficiary other than low-income consumers is billionaire Carlos Slim Helu, whose TracFone has collected $1.5 Billion to date.”


When James O'Keefe, whose Project Veritas is a perennial thorn in the side of progressive policymakers, sent an undercover actor into a Stand Up Wireless location in Philadelphia, the man's stated purpose was to buy drugs.
"Once you guys give me this phone, it's my phone?" he asked an employee inside a Philadelphia brick-and-mortal [sic] Stand Up Wireless location. "I can, like, sell it and stuff?"
:Whatever you want to do with it," the worker replied.
"So I'm [going to] get some money for heroin," he offered.
The employee coolly responded, "Hey, I don't judge."

Related: If the FBI is investigating IRS misconduct, why hasn’t it talked to any Tea Partiers?

One month later, the facts don't seem to have taken Mr. Holder or his employees to any of the nationwide victims of IRS targeting. The American Center for Law and Justice represents 25 organizations suing the IRS for its illegal targeting. A spokesman for the center says that as of Friday not a single one of its clients in this case had been contacted by Justice's Federal Bureau of Investigation. Cleta Mitchell, an attorney who represents nine organizations subjected to IRS targeting, says that neither she nor her clients have heard "a word" from federal law enforcers.

Tariffs are indeed a way of protecting American workers – from other American workers.

INSTITUTIONALIZED CHILD ABUSE: Suspension won’t be removed for five-year-old grilled over cap gun who then peed his pants. “School officials in Calvert County, Maryland have denied a request to expunge the suspension of the kindergartener who brought a plastic cap gun on a school bus last month and then wet his pants during a subsequent interrogation.”

Tar. Feathers.

80/20 Rule

Steady for the past 9 years, the smoking rate in the U.S. 19%.  YEP! Now the news!

No matter have much anti-smoking money spent, how many citizens harassed, how high taxes soar go, how deep shame reaches, how completely freedom and God-given rights suffer, how often young mush brains fill up with propaganda  - the rate of smoking in the U.S. drops only 1%, to 18%  . YEP!

God blesses human nature with laws beyond the government’s control.  YEP!

80/20 Rule

80/20 Rule

Steady for the past 9 years, the smoking rate in the U.S. 19%.  YEP! Now the news!

No matter have much anti-smoking money spent, how many citizens harassed, how high taxes soar go, how deep shame reaches, how completely freedom and God-given rights suffer, how often young mush brains fill up with propaganda  - the rate of smoking in the U.S. drops only 1%, to 18%  . YEP!

God blesses human nature with laws beyond the government’s control.  YEP!

yet we fall for the same seductive con every time

“The demagogue is one who preaches doctrines he knows to be untrue to men he knows to be idiots”
-- H. L . Mencken

Leonard Pitts’s Miami Herald column on the common oversimplification of the trade-off between security and freedom calls to mind an important point frequently made lately in the Cafe’s comments section by Yevdokiya Zagumenova; it is not to be missed.  (HT Walter Grinder)  Here’s Pitts’s closing (but, please, do read the whole essay):
We should know this, yet we fall for the same seductive con every time: We are afraid, but the state says it can make us safe. And all it will take is the surrender of a few small freedoms.
It makes you want to holler in frustration, especially since the promise is so false. Yes, the state can interdict a given terrorist plot, but even if it took every last freedom we have, it could not guarantee complete security. That is a plain truth with which we must make peace.
We will never be “safe.” But we just might, if we have the courage, be free.
Here’s an example of George Will at his best.  His closing:
Today, Congress exercises police powers never granted by the Constitution. Conservatives who favor federal “wars” on drugs, gambling and other behaviors should understand the damage they have done to the constitutional underpinnings of limited government.

For Fathers’ Day

For Fathers’ Day

Slave and then ex-slave John S. Jacobs begins “some account of my early life” in 1861 this way:

“To be a man, and not to be a man - a father without authority - a husband and no protector - is the darkest of fates. “ Belatedly, his message still rings true for fathers on Father’s Day.  Is it too late to heed the warning?

A man is not a man if an absent man, absent from his role in his children’s upbringing, without authority to lead and guide a shared life with his wife and no protector of his family’s human God-given right to travel a free life up or down a road open to opportunity.  A man is not a man who chooses to not be man to his wife and children.

YEP!  It’s too late for many men now.  No men. Marriage, wife, husband, children - how many of these do not go together?  

“Decent People Helping Tyrants”

“Decent People Helping Tyrants”
Walter Williams’s 1999 collection, More Liberty Means Less Government; specifically, it’s from Walter’s July 1997 essay “Decent People Helping Tyrants”:
In pursuit of what’s deemed as worthy objectives, decent people often pave the way for tyranny.
The process usually begins by the piecemeal destruction of the foundations of liberty: private property, rule of law, voluntary exchange, and limited government.  Those basic rights often stand in the way of do-gooders’ objectives.
Once those foundations have become seriously eroded, it’s an easy matter for egoists and tyrants to take over and produce an agenda quite different from do-gooder intentions.

JUSTIN KATZ: “It’s difficult not to have a surreal feeling watching the world go by in the shadow of the growing monolith of Obama Administration scandals. Some of the government actions that have come to light would have been universally understood as signs of encroaching tyranny just a few years ago.”

Conflating statism with modernity and progress

from Jonah Goldberg:
It’s a little bizarre how the Left has always conflated statism with modernity and progress. The idea that rulers — be they chieftains, kings, priests, politburos, or wonkish bureaucrats — are enlightened or smart enough to tell others how to live is older than the written word. And the idea that someone stronger, with better weapons, has the right to take what is yours predates man’s discovery of fire by millennia. And yet, we’re always told that the latest rationalization for increased state power is the “wave of the future.”

Government is not, by its nature, a trustworthy agency

Government is not, by its nature, a trustworthy agency.  On which fact, here’s the great George Will.  (And here’s the concluding paragraph of his most-recent column):
Government requires trust. Government by progressives, however, demands such inordinate amounts of trust that the demand itself should provoke distrust. Progressivism can be distilled into two words: “Trust us.” The antecedent of the pronoun is: The wise, disinterested experts through whom the vast powers of the regulatory state’s executive branch will deliver progress for our own good, as the executive branch understands this, whether we understand it or not. Lois Lerner is the scowling face of this state, which has earned Americans’ distrust.

POLL: Most Americans Think IRS Targeting An Intentional Act To Punish Political Opponents. “Two-thirds of American voters (66 percent) think the Internal Revenue Service targeted conservative groups as part of a high-level operation to punish political opponents. Far fewer — 23 percent — think it was a mistake by a handful of lower-level IRS employees. Even Democrats, by a seven percentage-point margin, are more likely to think the targeting was a punitive measure ordered by higher-ups.”

Related: Obama “joked” about auditing enemies back in 2009.


HEY, TEA PARTIERS WERE THE PRIORITY: Obama’s Snooping Excludes Mosques, Missed Boston Bombers. “Since October 2011, mosques have been off-limits to FBI agents. No more surveillance or undercover string operations without high-level approval from a special oversight body at the Justice Department dubbed the Sensitive Operations Review Committee. . . . The FBI never canvassed Boston mosques until four days after the April 15 attacks, and it did not check out the radical Boston mosque where the Muslim bombers worshipped.”

Repeat after me: Government is power

The great Glenn Greenwald riffs on the many lies about government transparency.  (HT Warren Smith)  Here’s my favorite paragraph (original emphasis):
The way things are supposed to work is that we’re supposed to know virtually everything about what they do: that’s why they’re called public servants. They’re supposed to know virtually nothing about what we do: that’s why we’re called private individuals.

If the politicians’ only response to revelations that they’re violating our privacy is to ask for trust, then we already have problems.

Repeat after me: Government is power.  Government is not to be trusted.  Ever.  Even if you believe that some government is and will always be necessary, that ‘necessary’ piece of government should always be regarded as a prudent lion tamer regards the big carnivorous cats that are ‘necessary’ for him to make a living.  To imagine that seemingly subdued purring lions can be trusted to be dealt with in any ways that do not include the use of strong cages, leashes, ceaseless and deep suspicion, and escape hatches is the height of romantic absurdity – wishful thinking of the most extreme and inexcusable sort.  Government is by its very nature a dangerous, untrustworthy, dishonest, arrogant, slippery entity – characteristics that are by no means reduced anywhere near to insignificance by a wide franchise, regular elections, and sturdy ink-on-parchment documents called “constitutions.”
Unless you are a high-ranking government official, government - no government – is ever “Us.”  It is always “Them.”  And They are not to be trusted.  Ever.

WELL, HE PROMISED CHANGE: FBI requests for records under Patriot Act have increased 1,000% in just four years.

God through basketball

Should we teach God through basketball?  Does basketball camp inculcate the Ten Commandments?  Evangelism’s apparently OK as long as it related to sports. Can we build  character through dribbling and hoop play?  ( Oh Lord, let’s not use Barack Obama as the poster child). Basketball camps for kids as young as THREE pop up now but how much good can they do when D.A.R.E. later, for example, fails miserably. Do preachers not know that the strength of testosterone and estrogen far exceeds the power of God in adolescence?  Ignorance underscores virtually every program or project or philanthropy in our culture.  Words have become doublespeak.  I was informed this morning that I am experiencing “life in later years”; thus “memory care” is critical.  Oh well, as long as I remember that ignorance and misinformation do not equate with truth, I’ll be OK.  I hope, secure that I have never, every experienced a second of first-hand or second-hand basketball.            

HHHH?

HHHH?

Obama ‘headed’ out for golf with the ‘hood’ he ‘hung’ with in ‘Hawaii’ just a few hours after his summit with the Chinese Xi Jinping ended.  Again, Obama’s role as President is such a distraction from sports that hold compelling attractions to our narcissistic psychopath in the White House. Of course, the White House repels Obama too - out onto the campaign trail to deliver speeches  ghost written by a TOTUS. America is out of her depth.  

Chutzpah + Psychopath = Obama |

Chutzpah + Psychopath = Obama |
 [Define Chutzpah at Dictionary.com: noun Slang. 1. unmitigated effrontery or impudence; gall. 2. audacity; nerve. Also, chutzpah, . Origin: 1890–95; Yiddish khutspa Aramaic ..]

OBAMA SPEECH on June 7, 2013
Obama: "I welcome this debate and I think it's healthy for our democracy. I think it's a sign of maturity..."
"... because probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate. And I think it's interesting that there are some folks on the left but also some folks on the right who are now worried about it, who weren't very worried about it when it was a Republican
 president."

Bender parses and annotates speech:  I can't tell when/whether he's lying:

I welcome
Lie - he believes he can do what he wants without question

this debate
Lie - there is no "debate" - he will do whatever he wants regardless of what others say

I think it's healthy
Lie - he thinks that having to talk about this hurts him

our democracy
Lie - as someone who has consistently utilized dictates to do whatever he wants, he does not believe in democracy

I think it's a sign of maturity
Lie - he thinks he is the only adult in the room and that everyone else is childish to question him

probably five years ago, six years ago we might not have been having this debate
Lie - we did in fact discuss these matter back then, with Obama himself shooting his mouth off every chance he could

I think it's interesting
Lie - he doesn't think it interesting, he thinks it beneath contempt

some folks on the right who are now worried about it, who weren't very worried about it when it was a Republican president
Lie - a typical factual and intellectual dishonest deflection and projection of his own malfeasance onto his enemies

We wallow in ease and political correctness

We wallow in  ease and political correctness

World Elder Abuse Awareness Day looms.  How far have we come in tributes and awareness? As far from toughness as a private in WWII telling Americans at home that war is “tough as hell.  Tell ‘em it’s rough. Tell ‘em it’s tough, serious business. That’s all. That’s all.”

A GI assigned to monitor corpses from the battlefield tells us:   “Everywhere we searched we found bodies, floating in the rivers, trampled on the roads, boated in the ditches, rotting in the bunkers, pretzeled into foxholes, burned in the tanks, buried in the snow, sprawled in doorways, splattered in gutters, dismembered in minefields, and even literally blown up into tree.”

Yes, abuse hath no name other than war; we war not here at home in America.  We wallow in  ease and political correctness.  Even our President is a narcissist. 

Is it any different in peacetime?

War is that merciless revealer of character. When things get tough, those with tough characters get going.  But there’s a problem. What direction does tough character take?  That depends upon the definition of character. The Civil War’s absence of law in some areas resuted in lawlessness marked by theft and murder, inspired the bloody feud between the Hatfields and the McCoys.  World War II’s butchery and suffering inspired great leadership in General Eisenhower,  President F.D.R. and  Saint Maximillian Kolbe. What has resulted from the war on wolves?  The predator was eventually protected as an endangered species and re-introduced into its native habitats.  But now that wolves have exceeded 8000, politicians want to take away their status.  War reveals the character of both men and animals. Nobility unveiled; smallness uncovered. Good vs. bad character. Is it any different in peacetime?  Us vs. them?        

56% Of Carmakers Who Asked For Government 'Green' Loans Are Dead

56% Of Carmakers Who Asked For Government 'Green' Loans Are Dead
What do Carbon Motors' BMW-powered police car, Aptera Motors' electric three wheeler, and Fisker's luxury sedan have in common? Two things: they asked the government for loans, and they're dead, as are more than half of the car companies who sought loans, according to documents obtained via a Freedom of Information Act request by Jalopnik.P

Of the 18 existing or would-be carmakers we identified as having applied for loans under the U.S. Department of Energy's Advanced Technology Vehicle Manufacturing program, 10 have since faded into bankruptcy or ceased operations.
PATRICK GEORGE
Monday 12:33pm

Lt. Gen. George S. Patton addressing the Third Army.

D-Day June 6th 1944
Lt. Gen. George S. Patton addressing the Third Army.
THIS IS ACTUAL SPEECH - NOT MOVIE VERSION
The most famous and well known of the speeches occurred on 5 June 1944, the day before D-Day:

No bastard ever won a war by dying for his country. You won it by making the other poor dumb bastard die for his country.

Be seated.

Men, all this stuff you hear about America not wanting to fight, wanting to stay out of the war, is a lot of bullshit. Americans love to fight. All real Americans love the sting and clash of battle. When you were kids, you all admired the champion marble shooter, the fastest runner, the big-league ball players and the toughest boxers. Americans love a winner and will not tolerate a loser. Americans play to win all the time. That's why Americans have never lost and will never lose a war. The very thought of losing is hateful to Americans. Battle is the most significant competitions in which a man can indulge. It brings out all that is best and it removes all that is base.

You are not all going to die. Only two percent of you right here today would be killed in a major battle. Every man is scared in his first action. If he says he's not, he's a goddamn liar. But the real hero is the man who fights even though he's scared. Some men will get over their fright in a minute under fire, some take an hour, and for some it takes days. But the real man never lets his fear of death overpower his honor, his sense of duty to his country, and his innate manhood.

All through your army career you men have bitched about what you call 'this chicken-shit drilling.' That is all for a purpose—to ensure instant obedience to orders and to create constant alertness. This must be bred into every soldier. I don't give a fuck for a man who is not always on his toes. But the drilling has made veterans of all you men. You are ready! A man has to be alert all the time if he expects to keep on breathing. If not, some German son-of-a-bitch will sneak up behind him and beat him to death with a sock full of shit. There are four hundred neatly marked graves in Sicily, all because one man went to sleep on the job—but they are German graves, because we caught the bastard asleep before his officer did.

An army is a team. It lives, eats, sleeps, and fights as a team. This individual hero stuff is bullshit. The bilious bastards who write that stuff for the Saturday Evening Post don't know any more about real battle than they do about fucking. And we have the best team—we have the finest food and equipment, the best spirit and the best men in the world. Why, by God, I actually pity these poor bastards we're going up against.

All the real heroes are not storybook combat fighters. Every single man in the army plays a vital role. So don't ever let up. Don't ever think that your job is unimportant. What if every truck driver decided that he didn't like the whine of the shells and turned yellow and jumped headlong into a ditch? That cowardly bastard could say to himself, 'Hell, they won't miss me, just one man in thousands.' What if every man said that? Where in the hell would we be then? No, thank God, Americans don't say that. Every man does his job. Every man is important. The ordnance men are needed to supply the guns, the quartermaster is needed to bring up the food and clothes for us because where we are going there isn't a hell of a lot to steal. Every last damn man in the mess hall, even the one who boils the water to keep us from getting the GI shits, has a job to do.

Each man must think not only of himself, but think of his buddy fighting alongside him. We don't want yellow cowards in the army. They should be killed off like flies. If not, they will go back home after the war, goddamn cowards, and breed more cowards. The brave men will breed more brave men. Kill off the goddamn cowards and we'll have a nation of brave men.

One of the bravest men I saw in the African campaign was on a telegraph pole in the midst of furious fire while we were moving toward Tunis. I stopped and asked him what the hell he was doing up there. He answered, 'Fixing the wire, sir.' 'Isn't it a little unhealthy up there right now?' I asked. 'Yes sir, but this goddamn wire has got to be fixed.' I asked, 'Don't those planes strafing the road bother you?' And he answered, 'No sir, but you sure as hell do.' Now, there was a real soldier. A real man. A man who devoted all he had to his duty, no matter how great the odds, no matter how seemingly insignificant his duty appeared at the time.

And you should have seen the trucks on the road to Gabès. Those drivers were magnificent. All day and all night they crawled along those son-of-a-bitch roads, never stopping, never deviating from their course with shells bursting all around them. Many of the men drove over 40 consecutive hours. We got through on good old American guts. These were not combat men. But they were soldiers with a job to do. They were part of a team. Without them the fight would have been lost.

Sure, we all want to go home. We want to get this war over with. But you can't win a war lying down. The quickest way to get it over with is to get the bastards who started it. We want to get the hell over there and clean the goddamn thing up, and then get at those purple-pissing Japs. The quicker they are whipped, the quicker we go home. The shortest way home is through Berlin and Tokyo. So keep moving. And when we get to Berlin, I am personally going to shoot that paper-hanging son-of-a-bitch Hitler.

When a man is lying in a shell hole, if he just stays there all day, a Boche will get him eventually. The hell with that. My men don't dig foxholes. Foxholes only slow up an offensive. Keep moving. We'll win this war, but we'll win it only by fighting and showing the Germans that we've got more guts than they have or ever will have. We're not just going to shoot the bastards, we're going to rip out their living goddamned guts and use them to grease the treads of our tanks. We're going to murder those lousy Hun cocksuckers by the bushel-fucking-basket.

Some of you men are wondering whether or not you'll chicken out under fire. Don't worry about it. I can assure you that you'll all do your duty. War is a bloody business, a killing business. The Nazis are the enemy. Wade into them, spill their blood or they will spill yours. Shoot them in the guts. Rip open their belly. When shells are hitting all around you and you wipe the dirt from your face and you realize that it's not dirt, it's the blood and gut of what was once your best friend, you'll know what to do.

I don't want any messages saying 'I'm holding my position.' We're not holding a goddamned thing. We're advancing constantly and we're not interested in holding anything except the enemy's balls. We're going to hold him by his balls and we're going to kick him in the ass; twist his balls and kick the living shit out of him all the time. Our plan of operation is to advance and keep on advancing. We're going to go through the enemy like shit through a tinhorn.

There will be some complaints that we're pushing our people too hard. I don't give a damn about such complaints. I believe that an ounce of sweat will save a gallon of blood. The harder we push, the more Germans we kill. The more Germans we kill, the fewer of our men will be killed. Pushing harder means fewer casualties. I want you all to remember that. My men don't surrender. I don't want to hear of any soldier under my command being captured unless he is hit. Even if you are hit, you can still fight. That's not just bullshit either. I want men like the lieutenant in Libya who, with a Luger against his chest, swept aside the gun with his hand, jerked his helmet off with the other and busted the hell out of the Boche with the helmet. Then he picked up the gun and he killed another German. All this time the man had a bullet through his lung. That's a man for you!

Don't forget, you don't know I'm here at all. No word of that fact is to be mentioned in any letters. The world is not supposed to know what the hell they did with me. I'm not supposed to be commanding this army. I'm not even supposed to be in England. Let the first bastards to find out be the goddamned Germans. Some day, I want them to rise up on their piss-soaked hind legs and howl 'Ach! It's the goddamned Third Army and that son-of-a-bitch Patton again!'

Then there's one thing you men will be able to say when this war is over and you get back home. Thirty years from now when you're sitting by your fireside with your grandson on your knee and he asks, 'What did you do in the great World War Two?' You won't have to cough and say, 'Well, your granddaddy shoveled shit in Louisiana.' No sir, you can look him straight in the eye and say 'Son, your granddaddy rode with the great Third Army and a son-of-a-goddamned-bitch named George Patton!

All right, you sons of bitches. You know how I feel. I'll be proud to lead you wonderful guys in battle any time, anywhere. That's all.[23]

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE UPDATE

WORKPLACE VIOLENCE UPDATE: Christian Science Monitor: With Nidal Hasan bombshell, time to call Fort Hood shooting a terror attack? “Maj. Nidal Hasan, the Army major facing court-martial for a mass shooting at Fort Hood in 2009, plans to argue that he acted in defense of the Taliban in Afghanistan. So much for the official US line that the shootings were an act of workplace violence, critics say.”

The admission by Army Maj. Nidal Hasan on Tuesday that he attacked Fort Hood in 2009 in defense of “the leadership of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, the Taliban” has suddenly undermined the Obama administration’s previous contention that the murders of 13 soldiers at the Texas base constituted an act of “workplace violence.”

Hasan’s legal argument, which is being considered by the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, may reignite the political furor over how the Obama administration has classified the shootings, as well as arguments about whether the mass shootings constituted the first major Islamic jihadist attack on the US after 9/11. As recently as May 23, President Obama said no "large-scale" terrorism attacks on the homeland have occurred on his watch.

Officials at the US Department of Defense have said there isn't enough evidence to put Hasan on trial for an act of terrorism, and they have worried that such a claim could undermine the Army major's right to a fair trial.

JANITORS WITH DEGREES

The value of a Degree: JANITORS WITH DEGREES
The ramp-up in loans to students has not only driven up costs but has undermined the value of a college degree. Some 30 percent of people ages 25 to 29 are college graduates today, up from 12 percent in the 1970s. That is a notable achievement, unless the degrees awarded do not satisfy the needs of the job market. Richard Vedder, economics professor at Ohio University, has written that we have one million retail sales clerks and 115,000 janitors with college diplomas. At the same time, one fifth of the country’s managers say they can’t find skilled workers to fill job openings. Something is not right.

ADD FOR U.S. ‘AND BURDENED WITH STUDENT LOANS’
“HORRIFYING” YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE. Plus this: “Europe’s youth unemployment is strange, because we’ve never seen a generation *this educated* also be this unemployed.”

JANITORS WITH DEGREES

The value of a Degree: JANITORS WITH DEGREES
The ramp-up in loans to students has not only driven up costs but has undermined the value of a college degree. Some 30 percent of people ages 25 to 29 are college graduates today, up from 12 percent in the 1970s. That is a notable achievement, unless the degrees awarded do not satisfy the needs of the job market. Richard Vedder, economics professor at Ohio University, has written that we have one million retail sales clerks and 115,000 janitors with college diplomas. At the same time, one fifth of the country’s managers say they can’t find skilled workers to fill job openings. Something is not right.

ADD FOR U.S. ‘AND BURDENED WITH STUDENT LOANS’
“HORRIFYING” YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE. Plus this: “Europe’s youth unemployment is strange, because we’ve never seen a generation *this educated* also be this unemployed.”

JANITORS WITH DEGREES

The value of a Degree: JANITORS WITH DEGREES
The ramp-up in loans to students has not only driven up costs but has undermined the value of a college degree. Some 30 percent of people ages 25 to 29 are college graduates today, up from 12 percent in the 1970s. That is a notable achievement, unless the degrees awarded do not satisfy the needs of the job market. Richard Vedder, economics professor at Ohio University, has written that we have one million retail sales clerks and 115,000 janitors with college diplomas. At the same time, one fifth of the country’s managers say they can’t find skilled workers to fill job openings. Something is not right.

ADD FOR U.S. ‘AND BURDENED WITH STUDENT LOANS’
“HORRIFYING” YOUTH UNEMPLOYMENT IN EUROPE. Plus this: “Europe’s youth unemployment is strange, because we’ve never seen a generation *this educated* also be this unemployed.”

D-Day again

D-Day again

“Dawn, that pitiless revealer of exigencies,” on D-Day, June 6th, 1944, unleashed death and destruction. Situations that must be addressed, urgencies that could not be ignored - dawn of D-day revealed them both, unraveled them both with death, destruction and yes, deification of duty.
Though we would like to say never again, reality whispers a different reality. Remember D-Day, the 6th of June, 1944 and weep. What else? Do your duty as children of an inscrutable God.

I’m a born free American woman

 I’m a born free American woman
Today, Wetumpka Tea Party leader Becky Gerritson delivered a thumping to the Internal Revenue Service and to politicians in Washington. Gerritson explained how she came to be an activist, then told members of the House Ways and Means Committee that her group of Americans had come together because “our representative government had failed us.” The IRS abuse of her group provided proof, if more was needed.

“I am not here as a serf or vassal. I am not begging my lords for mercy. I’m a born free American woman, wife, mother and citizen. And I’m telling my government that you’ve forgotten your place. It’s not your responsibility to look out for my well-being, and to monitor my speech. It’s not your right to assert an agenda. Your post, the post that you occupy, exists to preserve American liberty. You’ve sworn to perform that duty. And you have faltered.”

until every item on board is itemized in alphabetical order

THE COUNTRY’S IN THE VERY BEST OF HANDS: Canadian relief for Moore tornado victims denied at border. “A Canadian shipment of relief goods bound for storm-ravaged Oklahoma has been stopped at the Canada-U.S. border in Windsor, Ont. American officials will not allow the 20,000 kilograms of food, blankets and diapers into the country until every item on board is itemized in alphabetical order and has the country of origin of every product noted.”

HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

Given the Department of Justice’s current track record – the IRS Scandal, Fast and Furious, subpoenaing the press, and other law bending activities – it is not surprising that it would reach inside its own organization and blatantly overstep the First Amendment rights of employees.

One of the DOJ’s latest directives tells managers how they need to handle Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees.

“Silence will be interpreted as disapproval,” according to the DOJ Pride office. “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers,” was manifested by the DOJ Pride, Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and Their Allies.

According to the “Inclusion” document, the government can limit your freedom of speech, expression and your thoughts.

Here are some pieces:

Make the Right Assumptions & Avoid Making the Wrong Ones:

Do assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you are saying and will read what you are writing and make sure the language you use is inclusive and respectful. Don’t assume all employees are heterosexual.

2. Use Inclusive Language: Do use inclusive words like “partner,” “significant other” or “spouse” rather than gender specific terms like “husband” and “wife.”

3. Speak Up When Appropriate:

Do communicate a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate jokes and comments, including those pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

4. Acknowledge and Engage With LGBT Employees

5. Come Out:

Do let your employees know they’ll be treated with fairness and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, by “coming out” or as a “straight ally. For example: Attend LGBT events sponsored by DOJ Pride and/or the Department, and invite (but don’t require) others to join you.

6. Ensure that Advancement, Development & Mentoring Opportunities are Fair and Effective:

Don’t let your discomfort with an employee’s failure to conform to gender stereotypes affect whether he or she gets a particular assignment.

7. How to Respond If an Employee Comes Out to You:

Don’t judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.

At the end of the document there is a claim that these habits “boost the performance and productivity of LGBT and non-LGBT employees alike. It also allows LGBT employees to build the kinds of open and trusting relationships with coworkers and managers that are necessary for professional success.”

How does anyone build a healthy relationship with a bully?

If the DOJ could start by allowing employees and citizens their First Amendment rights and follow the laws they enforce, maybe productive relationships might begin.

It is ironic that the DOJ considers itself an expert in developing “trusting relationships.” Continue reading via Infowars...
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HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

Given the Department of Justice’s current track record – the IRS Scandal, Fast and Furious, subpoenaing the press, and other law bending activities – it is not surprising that it would reach inside its own organization and blatantly overstep the First Amendment rights of employees.

One of the DOJ’s latest directives tells managers how they need to handle Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees.

“Silence will be interpreted as disapproval,” according to the DOJ Pride office. “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers,” was manifested by the DOJ Pride, Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and Their Allies.

According to the “Inclusion” document, the government can limit your freedom of speech, expression and your thoughts.

Here are some pieces:

Make the Right Assumptions & Avoid Making the Wrong Ones:

Do assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you are saying and will read what you are writing and make sure the language you use is inclusive and respectful. Don’t assume all employees are heterosexual.

2. Use Inclusive Language: Do use inclusive words like “partner,” “significant other” or “spouse” rather than gender specific terms like “husband” and “wife.”

3. Speak Up When Appropriate:

Do communicate a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate jokes and comments, including those pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

4. Acknowledge and Engage With LGBT Employees

5. Come Out:

Do let your employees know they’ll be treated with fairness and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, by “coming out” or as a “straight ally. For example: Attend LGBT events sponsored by DOJ Pride and/or the Department, and invite (but don’t require) others to join you.

6. Ensure that Advancement, Development & Mentoring Opportunities are Fair and Effective:

Don’t let your discomfort with an employee’s failure to conform to gender stereotypes affect whether he or she gets a particular assignment.

7. How to Respond If an Employee Comes Out to You:

Don’t judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.

At the end of the document there is a claim that these habits “boost the performance and productivity of LGBT and non-LGBT employees alike. It also allows LGBT employees to build the kinds of open and trusting relationships with coworkers and managers that are necessary for professional success.”

How does anyone build a healthy relationship with a bully?

If the DOJ could start by allowing employees and citizens their First Amendment rights and follow the laws they enforce, maybe productive relationships might begin.

It is ironic that the DOJ considers itself an expert in developing “trusting relationships.” Continue reading via Infowars...
"
#
Share

HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

HUSBAND & WIFE = HATE SPEECH DEPT. OF JUSTICE

Given the Department of Justice’s current track record – the IRS Scandal, Fast and Furious, subpoenaing the press, and other law bending activities – it is not surprising that it would reach inside its own organization and blatantly overstep the First Amendment rights of employees.

One of the DOJ’s latest directives tells managers how they need to handle Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender (LGBT) employees.

“Silence will be interpreted as disapproval,” according to the DOJ Pride office. “LGBT Inclusion at Work: The 7 Habits of Highly Effective Managers,” was manifested by the DOJ Pride, Association of Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual and Transgender Employees of the U.S. Department of Justice and Their Allies.

According to the “Inclusion” document, the government can limit your freedom of speech, expression and your thoughts.

Here are some pieces:

Make the Right Assumptions & Avoid Making the Wrong Ones:

Do assume that LGBT employees and their allies are listening to what you are saying and will read what you are writing and make sure the language you use is inclusive and respectful. Don’t assume all employees are heterosexual.

2. Use Inclusive Language: Do use inclusive words like “partner,” “significant other” or “spouse” rather than gender specific terms like “husband” and “wife.”

3. Speak Up When Appropriate:

Do communicate a zero-tolerance policy for inappropriate jokes and comments, including those pertaining to a person’s sexual orientation and gender identity or expression.

4. Acknowledge and Engage With LGBT Employees

5. Come Out:

Do let your employees know they’ll be treated with fairness and respect, regardless of their sexual orientation or gender identity, by “coming out” or as a “straight ally. For example: Attend LGBT events sponsored by DOJ Pride and/or the Department, and invite (but don’t require) others to join you.

6. Ensure that Advancement, Development & Mentoring Opportunities are Fair and Effective:

Don’t let your discomfort with an employee’s failure to conform to gender stereotypes affect whether he or she gets a particular assignment.

7. How to Respond If an Employee Comes Out to You:

Don’t judge or remain silent. Silence will be interpreted as disapproval.

At the end of the document there is a claim that these habits “boost the performance and productivity of LGBT and non-LGBT employees alike. It also allows LGBT employees to build the kinds of open and trusting relationships with coworkers and managers that are necessary for professional success.”

How does anyone build a healthy relationship with a bully?

If the DOJ could start by allowing employees and citizens their First Amendment rights and follow the laws they enforce, maybe productive relationships might begin.

It is ironic that the DOJ considers itself an expert in developing “trusting relationships.” Continue reading via Infowars...
"
#
Share