The Imperial presidency

Allen West (R-FL) says the last time we had this was King George III.  Nai Nai agrees—“I do feel disrespected and disregarded. Permanent legal status isn't cheap and my parents paid for themselves and their four children. I can't get my citizenship because the cost of it goes up every year and I just can't afford it. I've paid my taxes every year since I became old enough to get a job and my parents paid their taxes every year that they've been in this country. This is a slap in the face to those of us that did things the right way. It also sends the message to others that want to come to this country that they don't have to go thru the legal channels to get here. That they may as well save their money 'cause the current president will just hand them legal status and citizenship as long as they are illegal. Whereas those that are legal have to pay the ever-increasing costs of for naturalization, which includes the costs associated with the "free" service for illegals. So it's paid for no matter how you look at it. As if my tax dollars supporting them to live off of the system weren't enough, now I have to pay for their legal statuses/citizenships as well. I'm a little more than just angry right now. “

http://www.mrctv.org/videos/allen-west-obama-last-time-we-had-was-king-george-iii

The amnesty pandering for votes

Obama's trying to change to the subject to immigration (to get votes he violates the constitution), but if he's smart, Romney won't let him.  I hope he stays focused on Obama’s many weaknesses.

A better plan for Mexico’s citizens would be to pressure that government to correct its flaws so Mexico's poor can share in the vast riches of that country. Roughly 10% of Mexico's population of about 107 million is now living in the United States, estimates show. About 15% of Mexico's labor force is working in the United States. One in every seven Mexican workers migrates to the United States. 

“These are challenging times in America. And because of (Obama’s) failed record, his campaign is having a hard time deciding what to talk about,” Romney told the Janesville crowd. “They’d like to talk about the economy and his record, but they know the last time his campaign slogan was ‘hope and change.’

“This time they’re going with ‘we hope to change the subject.’ But we’re not going to let him do that. We’re going to talk about the economy and jobs and getting Americans back to work,” Romney said, garnering laughter and applause, the crowd apparently pleased with a political line the GOP challenger has pushed on his campaign trip.

Romney spent most of his speech ripping into Obama’s economic policies and highlighting some reforms he’d make.

http://www.wisconsinreporter.com/romney-turns-up-heat-on-obama-during-wi-stop

Obama’s lies about the Bush years

"Obama's depiction of the Bush years is wrong in just about every possible way. First, Bush was hardly a deregulator. In fact, the nation's regulatory budget nearly doubled in his eight years, and regulatory staffing climbed 42%, according to an annual report on the federal regulatory state by George Mason University's Mercatus Center. Nor did Bush's tax cuts devastate the budget. In fact, revenues as a share of gross domestic product hit 18.5% in 2007, which is above the post-World War II average. And deficits fell three years in a row to a low of $160 billion.

Unemployment, meanwhile, dropped to 4.4% just before the recession hit. And as we've pointed out on countless occasions, the financial crisis that caused the recession was not the result of too little government, but of far too much government intervention in the banking industry.

Then again, Obama can't even keep his own complaints straight. Moments after lambasting Bush's tax-cutting, deregulating ways, he was bragging about how he's imposed fewer regulations than Bush, cut taxes more than a dozen times and how he's not a big spender. (None of that is true.)

The real question before voters isn't whether they want to return to some dark, mythical past of Obama's imagination, but whether they want four more years of a dismal present characterized by stagnant growth, chronic unemployment, massive deficits and a president who is utterly clueless about how to fix any of it."

--Investor's Business Daily

Does this church also bless the unborn?

National City Christian Church (Disciples of Christ) in Washington, D.C.

I don’t care if they bless their pets.  I wonder about the unborn.   The vice moderator is Rev. Steven Baines, assistant field agent for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State.

Monday Memories—Father’s Day 2012

Sitting on the deck he helped build in September 2010 for our 50th wedding anniversary celebration at our daughter’s home.

The colander that brought fresh banana peppers from our son’s garden which were added to the salad.

A wonderful meal of baked salmon with teriyaki sauce, green beans and tossed salad prepared by our daughter.

Sinclair Community College and Cops stomp on religious freedom at religious freedom rally

In Ohio, home of the Northwest Ordinance, where it states that, “Religion, morality, and knowledge being necessary to good government and the happiness of mankind, schools and the means of education shall be forever encouraged and established in the Northwest Territory,” a religious gathering at Sinclair Community College in Dayton were told they'd have to put their signs on the ground. This group, "Stand up for Religious Freedom", had all the proper permits, there is no prohibition on signs or posters or banners, but apparently the tax supported school has a right to decide what is freedom of speech AND freedom of religion.

http://www.wnd.com/2012/06/put-your-sign-on-the-ground-and-step-away/

Bryan Kemper, Priests for Life youth outreach director, told WND police officers with the Sinclair Community College Public Safety Department in Dayton, Ohio, informed the organizers of the local Stand Up For Religious Freedom event that no signs of any kind could be held by individual members of the public attending the Sinclair campus rally, which was just getting under way.

All signs were ordered by police to be laid down on the ground.

“As the rally was starting, the campus police informed us that all the signs and banners people were holding must be put on the ground after a complaint from a homosexual advocacy group leader,” Kemper told WND. “The police walked around the crowd telling people to put their signs down, that they could not hold them in their hands.”

According to organizers of the rally, police offered the Sinclair Community College Campus Access Policy as the reason no signs could be held in the hands of citizens, yet the policy can be found online and says nothing about signs.

This morning’s sermon was based on Daniel 3

3 King Nebuchadnezzar made an image of gold, sixty cubits high and six cubits wide,^[a] and set it up on the plain of Dura in the province of Babylon. ² He then summoned the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials to come to the dedication of the image he had set up. ³ So the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials assembled for the dedication of the image that King Nebuchadnezzar had set up, and they stood before it.

⁴ Then the herald loudly proclaimed, “Nations and peoples of every language, this is what you are commanded to do: ⁵ As soon as you hear the sound of the horn, flute, zither, lyre, harp, pipe and all kinds of music, you must fall down and worship the image of gold that King Nebuchadnezzar has set up. ⁶ Whoever does not fall down and worship will immediately be thrown into a blazing furnace.”

I thought it interesting that a ruler first has to get the satraps, prefects, governors, advisers, treasurers, judges, magistrates and all the other provincial officials in place before he makes changes in religion.

Mark Steyn on Obama’s Cleveland speech

I wonder if people will ever stop talking about how bad the Cleveland speech was.  I didn’t hear it—who could possibly sit through 54 minutes of that nonsense unless it was your job?  Have only seen snippets and heard sound bites, but whew! it was really awful, even by my low standards for his speeches.

Obama: “That’s how we built this country — together. We constructed railroads and highways, the Hoover Dam and the Golden Gate Bridge. We did those things together,”

Steyn:  he said, in a passage that was presumably meant to be inspirational but was delivered with the faintly petulant air of a great man resentful at having to point out the obvious, yet again.

Obama: “Together, we touched the surface of the moon, unlocked the mystery of the atom, connected the world through our own science and imagination. We haven’t done these things as Democrats or Republicans. We’ve done them as Americans.”

Steyn:  Beyond the cheap dissembling, there was a bleak, tragic quality to this paragraph. Does anyone really believe a second-term Obama administration is going to build anything? Yes, you, madam, the gullible sap at the back in the faded hope’n’change T-shirt. You seriously think your guy is going to put up another Hoover Dam? Let me quote one Deanna Archuleta, Obama’s deputy assistant secretary of the interior, in a speech to Democrat environmentalists in Nevada:

“You will never see another federal dam.”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/303015/ground-control-president-obama-mark-steyn

Federal red tape strangles small businesses

Deroy Murdock reports at NRO that federal red tape has squelched at least 779,203 potential jobs. If these positions were filled, today’s unemployment rate would fall from 8.2 percent to 7.7.  Federal employment boomed under George W. Bush, but regulatory employees soared under Obama. . .  291,676 of them regulate, up 17 percent under Obama.

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/301802/over-regulation-pricey-deroy-murdock#

Will Christians be able to unite behind Romney?

Meeting today to plan strategy.  Romney spoke to the group via video because he’s campaigning. 

Marco Rubio speaking at the conference.  What we have is worth preserving he says. In your every day life is where you will make the biggest difference.  Christianity spread because of the way they lived and treated people, not because of preaching, and the source of this was Christ.

Meet King Obama the First

“President Barack Obama is supposed to be a constitutional scholar of some sort. On the subject of his decision yesterday to unilaterally enact sweeping changes to U.S. immigration policy on nothing but his own say-so, we would like to introduce Barack Obama to Barack Obama, who during a Univision interview just last year affirmed: “America is a nation of laws, which means I, as the president, am obligated to enforce the law. . . . There are enough laws on the books by Congress that are very clear in terms of how we have to enforce our immigration system that for me to simply through executive order ignore those congressional mandates would not conform with my appropriate role as president.” A little softness in the polls and one executive order later, the president has reversed himself.”

Continue the NRO article here.

Amnesty, Bush vs. Obama

Obama did learn one thing from Bush. Don't let the people decide about amnesty, either from representative government or input directly to the President. Just go ahead, be a dictator/statist and declare that adults who entered/crossed the border as children are on the path to citizenship. No problema. But even young immigrants should realize that this is just one step closer to the bad government and economy their parents fled. The one with no opportunity; no middle-class; no religious freedoms as we have come to define them; no brown or black people on TV; the one with strict racial and ethnic laws for immigration and citizenship.

http://www.lasvegassun.com/news/2012/jun/16/its-not-dream-act-obamas-immigration-order-buoys-l/

The last Spring Commencement at OSU

“Spring Commencement 2012 wasn’t a typical graduation ceremony. For starters, it was Ohio State’s 400th commencement. The June 10th event was also Ohio State’s last spring quarter commencement, marking the end of a tradition that began in 1923. Another milestone? There were 10,642 Buckeyes in the Class of 2012--the largest spring quarter class ever for the fourth consecutive year.”

http://www.osu.edu/connect/#one  June 2012

With the university’s change to semesters, OSU faculty, staff and students can now borrow items from the Libraries for longer periods of time.

The loan period for faculty, staff and graduate students increased to 120 days (from the previous 70 days); the loan period for undergraduate students is 42 days (up from 21 days). All items will be available for unlimited renewals, provided another patron does not place a hold on the item, and the patron remains in good standing. From News Notes, June 13, 2012

Friday family photo—Tech Reunion June 8

While Obama dined with Sarah Jessica Parker

and told lies in Cleveland,

http://www.extratv.com/2012/06/15/barack-in-the-city-his-2-million-dinner-with-sarah-jessica-parker/

http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2012/06/15/at-opposite-ends.html

Mitt Romney is on the road talking about the economy as a businessman.

"I've been talking to small employers and big employers. And I hear day in and day out they feel this administration sees them as their enemy. They feel that the Obama policies have made it harder for them to put people back to work. Almost everything the president has done has made it harder for entrepreneurs to start a business, has made it less likely for businesses like this to be able to hire more people.  So as you look at the president's record, it is long on words and short on action that created jobs. ...

[T]alk is cheap. Action speaks loudly. Look what's happened across this country. If you think things are going swimmingly, if you think the president's right when he said the private sector is doing fine, well then he's the guy to vote for. ...

"I happen to be convinced, having been able to go all across the country, that we're poised to see a resurgence of American economic vitality with companies growing, with jobs growing, with employers bringing jobs back to America, as opposed to sending them elsewhere. That won't happen under this president. That'll happen if we change the course of this country. I spent my life in private enterprise, 25 years. I know how businesses work. I know what causes them to leave and what will bring them back.

Advent Lutheran Tag Sale

                                 

Love this annual sale!  Spent $6.50 at the Advent Lutheran Church Tag sale. I got "The chocolate Deck" for $.50, not sure what I'll do with it but if I'm ever hungry for Grilled chocolate-stuffed bananas, I'm all set.  Also got 4 CDs, 2 were Phil Dirt and the Dozers, a very popular 50s-60s group in Ohio—when they play at Lakeside, they really pack the house and give a stunning performance. 

TRACK LISTING: Vol. 1
1) Phil Dirt Theme 2) Denise 3) 16 Candles 4) Why Do Fools Fall In Love 5) Silhouettes 6) California Girls 7) Morse Code of Love 8) Ten Commandments of Love 9) Walk Like a Man 10) Papa Oom Mow Mow 11) My Girlfriend 12) Leader of the Pack 13) Dance, Dance, Dance 14) Gloria 15) Only You (skip version) 16) The Lion Sleeps Tonight 17) Hey There Lonely Girl 18) Don't Worry Baby 19) When You Dance 20) God Only Knows 21) No Particular Place 22) Baby Workout 23) Only the Only

TRACK LISTING: Vol. 2
1) What's Your Name 2) Pretty Little Angel Eyes 3) Duke of Earl 4) Little Darlin' 5) Help Me Rhonda 6) Runaround Sue 7) Hurt 8) I Get Around 9) I Knew You When 10) And Your Dreams Come True 11) Mr. Bassman 12) Unchained Melody (Vito & the Salutations version) 13) Teddy Bear 14) Get A Job 15) Smoke Gets In Your Eyes 16) Higher & Higher 17) Twilight Time 18) The Way You Look Tonight 19) Unchained Melody (Righteous Brothers version) 20) Rag Doll 21) Summer of the Century 22) Sh-Boom 23) Marlena

An extra computer mouse for 50 cents,  because you never know. . . And a small table for $3.00 with heart shaped shelves that appears to be hand made--maybe a shop class project. One of the volunteers told me she has one just like it made by her father-in-law, and her husband is 80. We have a small, cheap plastic table at the lake house collapsing from all the books I've put on it, so this will replace it. Mine is stained, but not varnished, but found a sample and a template to make it on the internet.

                                     

Ohio Right to Life endorses state and federal candidates

Ohio Right to Life PAC is confident these candidates “will represent the pro-life movement in our state and federal government. Ohio experienced never before seen growth in its defense of the unborn after electing every statewide candidate that Ohio Right to Life endorsed in 2010. With these victories, Ohio Right to Life worked with legislators to pass seven pro-life legislative measures, a feat unprecedented by any other General Assembly.”

Notable endorsed candidates include:

• Mitt Romney - President
• Republican Josh Mandel - U.S. Senate
• Justice Robert Cupp - Ohio Supreme Court
• Republican Jim Renacci - Ohio Congressional District 16
• Republican Sam Wurzelbacher - Ohio Congressional District 9
• Republican Randy Gardner with honor roll status - Ohio Senate District 2
• Republican Peggy Lehner with honor roll status - Ohio Senate District 6
• Democrat Mike Curtin - Ohio House District 17
• Republican Kristina Roegner with honor roll status - Ohio House District 37
• Democrat Matt Lundy - Ohio House District 55
• Republican Nick Skeriotis - Ohio House District 75

Obama and the high tech billionaires

Isn’t it too bad that Obama has so little faith in capitalism.  Woot! What a joke. He needs capitalists on his side to win, and he needs to create division among ordinary Americans who will think they are the bad guys, the evil Wall Street guys.

In January 2012 Jim Messina, former White House Deputy Chief of Staff began a new job as “Barack Obama’s campaign manager, and being a diligent student with access to some very smart people, he arranged a rolling series of personal seminars with the CEOs and senior executives of companies that included Apple (AAPL), Facebook (FB), Zynga (ZNGA), Google (GOOG), Microsoft (MSFT), Salesforce (CRM), and DreamWorks (DWA). “I went around the country for literally a month of my life interviewing these companies and just talking about organizational growth, emerging technologies, marketing,” he says at Obama’s campaign headquarters in Chicago. . .

“This time, you have to program content to a much wider variety of channels—Facebook, Tumblr, Twitter, YouTube (GOOG), Google—because people are segmented in a very different way than they were four years ago.”  When Obama declared for president, the iPhone hadn’t been released. Now,  [Steve] Jobs told him, mobile technology had to be central to the campaign’s effort. “

http://www.businessweek.com/printer/articles/30696-obamas-ceo-jim-messina-has-a-president-to-sell

Not a one of these got could have gotten where they are today without investors and venture capital, but Steven Spielberg according to this article designed the Bain attacks against Romney.

And also.  How much fancy technology will it take to convince people he’s doing a good job if after almost 4 years he can get back to the economy Bush had for 7 years, or keep them from noticing he’s expanded the wars, and that he not only has suspicious friends like Bill Ayers, but shady appointees like Eric Holder, his Attorney General?  How long will even the most loyal Democrat swallow this nonsense?

Word Play

How is this not a federal body? "The Task Force is an independent, nonfederal, uncompensated body of public health and prevention experts, whose members are appointed by the Director of CDC." All appointees are members of the academy which gets both its funding and marching orders from the federal government.

http://www.thecommunityguide.org/about/task-force-members.html

According to this Community Guide task force report, "Health equity is achieved when every person has the opportunity to attain his or her full health potential and no one is disadvantaged from achieving this potential because of social position or other socially determined circumstances."

My good health is first of all, 1) genetic--my parents and their parents, etc., then 2) personal life style choices by my parents and myself about alcohol, cigarettes and food, and of course, 3) being born in the 20th century with the advantages of vaccines, antibiotics, and safe water, most of which was not available to my parents and grandparents. Many of these government health reports are simply advocating for government policy makers to move money from group A to group B while syphoning off a generous amount for their salaries as social workers, academicians and researchers. http://www.thecommunityguide.org/healthequity/index.html

1,2,3: Obama and the Supremes

“First, Obama unleashed a broadside against the justices during his 2010 State of the Union address for their ruling on a campaign finance case known as Citizens United. With the justices seated directly in front of him, Obama publicly scolded the court for its decision-making. It was an unusual step for a lawyer-president to take the high court to the legal woodshed during a State of the Union address.

Second, still desirous of blurring the lines of constitutional demarcation between the executive and judicial branches of government, in April, Obama once again took aim at the Supreme Court. In an encore performance at a press conference, Obama said it would be an "unprecedented, extraordinary" step for the Court to rule against his health care law. The former law professor must have forgotten his first day of law school, when Marbury v. Madison and the concept of judicial review were discussed. He must have also forgotten that in 2008, the Supreme Court invalidated an act that suspended habeas for Guantanamo detainees. Obama favored the court's outcome in that case, applauding the court's "unprecedented" overruling of a federal statute at that time.

Third, Obama has directed his administration to file papers claiming that if the Supreme Court were to rule against his health care plan, it would risk the "extraordinary disruption" of Medicare — never mind that Medicare has been chugging along for its entire existence without the benefit of the Affordable Health Care Act.”

From The Detroit News: http://www.detroitnews.com/article/20120612/OPINION01/206120324#ixzz1xhX6yRLf

The author is a Republican.  Obviously. No Democrat can speak the truth about blurring the lines of responsibility and authority.

The Obama Gulf Spill timeline

Oil Spill Timeline from RightChange on Vimeo.

Holder stonewalling

“Attorney General Eric Holder has refused to provide written testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee in response to "questions for the record" submitted to him by Sen. Jeff Sessions (R.-Ala.) that focus on Supreme Court Justice Elena Kagan's involvement in the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act--AKA Obamacare--while she was President Barack Obama's solicitor general.”

http://cnsnews.com/news/article/holder-refuses-provide-testimony-kagan-s-involvement-obamacare

“So far it appears that only Republicans and conservatives want Kagan to recuse herself from hearing the case, while liberals and Democrats take the opposing view. I have been a liberal constitutional law professor for more than 20 years, and a loyal Democrat. I believe the Affordable Care Act is constitutional and that it would be truly unfortunate for the country (and the party) if the court strikes it down. I also recognize that there is a much greater chance of the court erroneously striking down the PPACA if Kagan recuses herself. That said, I believe that as a matter of both principle and law, Kagan should not hear the case.” Eric Segall  http://www.slate.com/articles/news_and_politics/jurisprudence/2011/12/obamacare_and_the_supreme_court_should_elena_kagan_recuse_herself_.html

Access for the underserved (aka poor, minority) to better medical care

I've been looking through the MEDTAPP grant of about $10 million (1.5  years) for seven Ohio medical schools for "underserved" populations.  It reportedly comes from  The Ohio Department of Job and Family Services (ODJFS) which I assume got it from the federal government.  That sounds like a lot of money--except the universities skim about 55-60% for overhead (or did when I worked at OSU).  But imagine how big the amount was before the federal and state governments took their cuts!  Then it is split 7 ways and the money goes first to set up and administer those programs which are primarily for curriculum bloat, training experiences, coordination, outreach, etc. in everything from mental health to pediatrics to gerontology to expansion of faculty. It's no wonder the medical practices and hospitals have low reimbursement for treating the low income sick and elderly.

I couldn’t find within the several websites I checked whether the 1,000 students and trainees who go through these programs have any obligation to actually work with the “underserved.”

Government programs provide a very fine living for “public servants.”  No one in this pass through of funding is poor, underserved, mentally ill, elderly, or low income. Let’s hope something at the end of the line helps the needy (aka underserved).

• The University of Akron – College of Nursing
• Case Western Reserve University – School of Dental Medicine and Departments of Family
• Medicine/MetroHealth System, Pediatrics and Psychiatry
• Kent State University – College of Nursing
• The Ohio State University – Colleges of Dentistry and Nursing, Moms2Be Program, Interdisciplinary Behavioral Health Education Program, Interdisciplinary Curriculum Development Program, and Medicaid Practice Placement and Learning Experiences Partnership Program
• University of Toledo – Department of Psychiatry
• Wright State University – Division of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and the Community Psychiatry Collaborative (involving the Departments of Psychiatry, Geriatrics, Community Health and Family Medicine).

https://ckm.osu.edu/sitetool/sites/grc2public/documents/11MEDTAPPHAIOVERVIEW.pdf

http://grc.osu.edu/medicaidpartnerships/healthcareaccess/

http://nursing.osu.edu/news/news-headline-articles/Ohio-Medicaid-to-Fund-Statewide-Projects-to-Train-More-Than-1000-Health-Professionals.html

Republican teachers forced to support Obama in Ohio

"Barack Obama: a leader we can count on to stand up for education, for children and for our rights." OEA (union) "Ohio Schools," June 2012, p. 18. Republicans must join this union if they want to teach in Ohio, but their dues will always support Democrat candidates and issues.

The June issue of Ohio Schools (OEA union publication) declares that Ohio teachers must "take back our voice and vote." Hmm. You can't be a teacher in Ohio without joining the union, and it only supports Obama, despite that fact that many members of this forced membership are Republicans, Libertarians, or no political affiliation at all. So which teachers don't have a voice or vote? This is one step from Jim Crow—which was also a Democrat party plan.  A "member" told me that they are taking $22 from his monthly check to fight the "right to vote" in Ohio, something he believes in!

Stimulus Jr. as campaign fodder

“The president was out there, once again, promoting the American Jobs Act. This bill is basically a huge payoff to Democratic constituent groups – notably organized labor, which would benefit enormously from federal grants to states to keep government workers on the payroll, as well as construction projects to be completed by union job crews.

This bill has no chance of passing through the United States Congress. The Republican party is never going to vote to hike taxes to pay off Democratic client groups. It never has, and it never will. What’s more, the politics of this bill do not play very well with the middle of the country – as Republicans can always point out (correctly), the American Jobs Act is a watered-down version of the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act (i.e., the stimulus that the country thinks was a failure).”

http://www.weeklystandard.com/blogs/morning-jay-obama-s-problem-his-base_646967.html?nopager=1

What to do with degrees like these?

“In 2010, the New York Times reported on Cortney Munna, then 26, a New York University graduate with almost $100,000 in debt. If her repayments were not then being deferred because she was enrolled in night school, she would have been paying $700 monthly from her $2,300 monthly after-tax income as a photographer’s assistant. She says she is toiling “to pay for an education I got for four years and would happily give back.” Her degree is in religious and women’s studies.”

http://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/george-will-subprime-college-educations/2012/06/08/gJQA4fGiOV_story.html

But what are all those tuition and fee increases going for?  In part, narcissism.  Bloat. Says George Will.  And I’ve blogged about it when I see it at Ohio State which has an Office of Diversity and Inclusion; Faculty of Color Caucus of the Department of History; the Race, Ethnicity, and Nation Constellation of the Department of History; and DISCO, Diversity and Identity Studies Collective . Courses like “Gender and race in contemporary architecture.”

UCSD found money to create a vice chancellorship for equity, diversity and inclusion. UC Davis has a Diversity Trainers Institute under an administrator of diversity education, who presumably coordinates with the Cross-Cultural Center. It also has: a Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender Resource Center; a Sexual Harassment Education Program; a diversity program coordinator; an early resolution discrimination coordinator; a Diversity Education Series that awards Understanding Diversity Certificates in “Unpacking Oppression”; and Cross-Cultural Competency Certificates in “Understanding Diversity and Social Justice.” California’s budget crisis has not prevented UC San Francisco from creating a new vice chancellor for diversity and outreach to supplement its Office of Affirmative Action, Equal Opportunity and Diversity, and the Diversity Learning Center (which teaches how to become “a Diversity Change Agent”), and the Center for LGBT Health and Equity, and the Office of Sexual Harassment Prevention & Resolution, and the Chancellor’s Advisory Committees on Diversity, and on Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual and Transgender Issues, and on the Status of Women.

Why does Dept. of Homeland Security want noncitizens on the voter rolls?

You only need one guess.  Because they’ll vote for Democrats or for what they are told.

“MIAMI -- Gov. Rick Scott and the Obama administration traded legal barbs and counter-accusations Monday as each side announced it would sue the other over Florida’s controversial non-citizen voter purge.

Scott’s chief elections official sued first, filing a federal lawsuit in Washington that accused the U.S. Department of Homeland Security of unlawfully refusing Florida access to a federal database that could help the state spot and remove noncitizens from the voter rolls. . . “

I fail to see how this will endanger lawful voters.  You’re either a citizen or you’re not.  The database should show that.

“Moments after the state filed suit, Assistant U.S. Attorney General Thomas E. Perez roared back in a sharply worded five-page letter from the U.S. Department of Justice, which ordered the state two weeks ago to stop the purge because it could violate two federal voting laws.

The state’s program is too “faulty” ” and comes too close to election time to not endanger the voting rights of thousands of lawful U.S. citizens, Perez wrote. He said Florida has repeatedly ignored Homeland Security’s warning that the department’s database, known as SAVE, isn’t designed for the noncitizen hunt on which Florida embarked.”

http://www.kansascity.com/2012/06/12/3653743/floridas-voter-purge-sparks-lawsuits.html#storylink=cpy

http://www.newsmax.com/Newsfront/florida-purge-illegal-voters/2012/06/11/id/441946?s=al&promo_code=F274-1

News on the War on Women

Live Action released undercover footage June 6 showing two National Abortion Federation (NAF) clinics in Arizona agreeing to break state law and perform an illegal sex-selective abortion. The video is the third release in Live Action’s “Gendercide” project, documenting Planned Parenthood and NAF’s support for sex-selective abortion in America. But you probably haven't heard the President speak out on this particular War against Women, or even seen it on ABC, CBS, NBC or the cable networks, who feel they need to protect the President, and Planned Parenthood which has endorsed him. The same Planned Parenthood that slapped down and cowed the Susan G. Komen Foundation into submission when it dared to step out of line.

http://liveaction.org/blog/az-abortion-clinics-break-law-to-abort-baby-girls-in-new-undercover-video/

The "right to free contraception" which was invented from thin air in 2012, is now more important to Obama supporters than all our First Amendment Rights, the roots of which are in the Bible and many centuries of Western thought and philosophy. Obama (a lapsed UCC-an whose former pastor says he didn’t attend church much) and Pelosi (a cafeteria Catholic who supports abortion and gay marriage) support this new creation, but not our guarantee of religious freedom found in our Bill of Rights.

http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2012/03/lib-hero-sandra-fluke-free-birth-control-is-a-natural-human-right-i-wont-be-silenced/

Our freedoms are God given

A graduate of James Madison University, Dr. Forbes speaks out on behalf of religious liberty.  “If we remove the foundation of religious freedom, the rest of the republic will fall!”

The HHS Mandate is about religious liberty

Rabbi Cary Kozberg at the Columbus Stand Up for  Religious  Freedom Rally, June 8, 2012

Obama meets with historians. . .

I don’t know if this happened.  Ed Klein says it did.  Doris Kearns Goodwin, Michael Beschloss, Robert Caro, Robert Dallek, Douglas Brinkley, H.W. “Billam” Brands, David Kennedy, Kenneth Mack, and Garry Wills met with Obama and staffers.  He wanted to know his place in history. It sounds like the Obama we’ve come to know through the news media—the ones that support him with unflinching loyalty.

“When one of the historians brought up the difficulties that Lyndon Johnson, another wartime president, faced trying to wage a foreign military venture while implementing an ambitious domestic agenda, Mr. Obama grew testy. He implied that he was different, because he could prevail by the force of his personality.

He could solve the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression, put millions of people back to work, redistribute wealth, withdraw from Iraq, and reconcile the United States to a less dominant role in the world.

It was, by any measure, a breathtaking display of grandiosity by a man whose entire political curriculum vitae consisted of seven undistinguished years in the Illinois senate and two mostly absent years in the United States Senate.

That evening he revealed the characteristics — arrogance, conceit, egotism, vanity, hubris and, above all, rank amateurism — that would mark his presidency and doom it to frustration and failure.”
 Obama Will Be Presidential Failure Like Carter, Historian Says

Supplements for pregnant women

In the United States medical researchers probably can’t put poor black or brown women into three groups, give them different pre-natal supplements (MMS, multiple micronutrient supplementation vs iron-folic acid using  either 60-mg or 30-mg iron formulations), and then wait to see what would happen to the babies in a few years.  But it can still be done in Bangladesh.

I was given pre-natal vitamins (huge horse pills) as soon as I knew I was pregnant in 1961.  I knew without being told just from my upbringing that I needed to eat healthy; I stopped drinking coffee (made me sick).  I went back to drinking milk every day.  I gained very little weight.   However, in poor countries it is harder to eat better.

The surprising thing about “Effects of prenatal micronutrient and early food supplementation” research published in the May 16, 2012 JAMA is that although by age 5, the children in one group of the multiple micronutrient study were healthier, fewer of them actually made it to term. The special supplements (of any of the 3 types) had few or no benefits on birth length, weight or reducing still birth.

Mortality rates for offspring were highest among the women randomized to MMS combined with the usual invitation to food supplementation, mainly caused by asphyxia. Furthermore, this treatment group had significantly higher incidence of spontaneous abortions. The late pregnancy losses were lower in the usual invitation with MMS group, resulting in no difference in RR of total fetal loss across treatment groups.

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1157489

http://jama.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=1157470

Monday Memories—Our First Apartment 1960

        

We were in Indianapolis over the week-end to attend an Arsenal Technical High School class reunion at the Riverwalk Restaurant in Broad Ripple, and all class gathering on the campus (70+ acres).  On our way to the Tech campus we drove by our first home at 1311 North Rural (apt. 2).  My.  The neighborhood has certainly changed.  This was a very tidy 4-unit, probably originally built to be a duplex, then the upstairs 3 bedrooms were changed to a 1 bedroom, kitchen and living room apartment with a side entrance (not visible here).  It’s hard to say, but it may be back to a duplex.  We couldn’t see the side entrance. 

We were about 3 houses from a lovely park, and 3 blocks from 10th avenue which had a number of small stores.  I still have a few kitchen items I bought from a hardware store on 10th.  We can’t remember where we parked our car—there was an alley and garage behind the house, and the stairs to the street were extremely steep.  Every day I drove to my job at General Mold and Engineering, and Bob caught the bus to work downtown at Ayrshire Collieries on South Meridian (11th largest coal company controlled by Pierre Goodrich at that time). 

When we lived on Rural it was a working class white neighborhood, now it is mostly black with some Hispanic.  The condition of the homes is really awful, with many boarded up.  And as you can see, a couch on the porch is not a good sign in any neighborhood, even on college campuses studies show this is a serious indication of decay and trouble.

We never thought to take any photos when we lived there, but I’m pretty sure it was painted white and the owners, who lived down stairs, were careful with the property.

Our first Christmas in that apartment

                                

A few months later, my college graduation photo from 1961, University of Illinois, Champaign-Urbana

Who will own and control your genome information?

It cost roughly a billion dollars to generate the first reference human genome in 2003; last year a company would charge $10,000 for this service.  This year it costs a few thousand dollars. And in a few years we should be able to get our genomes sequenced for a few hundred dollars.  Then what? To whom does the information belong? 

http://healthaffairs.org/blog/2012/06/08/your-genome-belongs-to-you/

The Commonwealth Fund

One of the big supporters of Obamacare (aka ACA) is the Commonwealth Fund.  If not directly, then through sponsored research and the preaching and writing and advising of Dr. David Blumenthal, the  Chairman of  The Commonwealth Fund Commission on a High Performance Health System, and other employees.  David Blumenthal, M.D., M.P.P.,  is the Samuel O. Their Professor of Medicine and Professor of Health Care Policy at Massachusetts General Hospital/Partners HealthCare System and Harvard Medical School. In opinion and editorial pieces in medical journals supporting ACA, you’ll see his name, or the Commonwealth Fund research cited.

The Commonwealth Fund is behind those studies that end up in sound bites on the news that says we’re at the bottom in the industrialized world for health care (despite the money we spend) and that people are going bankrupt trying to pay medical bills.

Like most foundations, Commonwealth Fund is the outcome of a hard working, savvy capitalist—or in this case, his second wife.  According to Wikipedia, Anna M. Richardson (25 October 1837-27 March 1926)  married Stephen Vanderburgh Harkness, a harnessmaker who had lived in Bellevue and Monroeville, Ohio, of Cleveland, in 1851, who invested with  John D. Rockefeller and became the second-largest shareholder in Standard Oil.

Stephen Harkness died in 1888. In 1917 Anna M. Harkness gave $3 million to Yale University for the construction of Memorial Quadrangle in memory of her son Charles, who had died in 1916.  Anna Harkness donated another $3 million to Yale in 1920 to increase faculty salaries.

In 1918 Anna Harkness established the Commonwealth Fund with an initial gift of $10 million, and made her son Edward Harkness  its president.  His home, The Harkness House, is now the home of the Commonwealth Fund.  From this fund the Harkness Fellowships were established, and St. Salvator's Hall at the University of St Andrews, the Butler Library at Columbia University and many of the undergraduate dorms at Harvard University and Yale University were built.  Other charities and funds were established through Edward Harkness who died in 1940.

In any case, it was Standard Oil money through the widow and her descendants to fund all these “good works,” some antithetical to capitalism.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Blog/2012/Jan/Affordable-Care-Act-Safety-Net.aspx

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/Newsletters/Washington-Health-Policy-in-Review/2012/Jun/June-4-2012.aspx

Today’s lecture tools

When I went to college in the 1950s and 1960s, and even later when I returned to make up a math class I didn’t have as an undergrad, or a refresher in reference titles so I could ease back into my career in the 1970s, we had face to face interaction with the instructors/professors.  Even in very large lectures, there was a human being.  Overwhelming, most of my classes were small, both in foreign languages (my undergrad major), and in library science (my master’s degree).

Today I saw an advertisement at OSUToday for LectureTools:

“LectureTools student iPad app allows students to relay feedback to their instructor in real-time during lecture. With larger screens than smartphones and smaller footprints than laptops, many students are beginning to tote iPads to class and many institutions are experimenting with iPad initiatives.”

Don’t even need raise your hand.  If you’re shy or autistic, no problem.  Be as silent as you want.

The Walker Recall—Important or not?

Three lessons from the Wisconsin recall

“There are three important lessons from the Wisconsin collective bargaining battles over the past eighteen months:

1. The power of the government-sector unions and their impact on elections is greatly overestimated. With a victory for Gov. Walker, Wisconsin Government employee union will have suffered their fifth major defeat since March 2011.

2. When given a choice, government employees will quit their union in large numbers.

3. Government employees' salaries and benefits, particularly pensions, are financially unsustainable in most states and collective bargaining reform is needed.”

Read more: http://www.statebudgetsolutions.org/publications/detail/why-government-employee-collective-bargaining-laws-must-be-reformed-now#ixzz1x9ezwKiI

Voter fraud hurts all of us

Whether it’s in Ohio, Wisconsin or Florida, fraud hurts us all because these people make it to Washington.

I wrote to the Governor of Florida

The state of Florida is under attack by the U.S. Department of Justice because it is trying to clean up the voter rolls and limit voting to citizens who are legal residents of Florida.  Oh. The. Horror!  It’s a Democrat’s nightmare, and our Attorney General Eric Holder is on top of it fast and furiously.  I just wrote a few encouraging sentences, because we’re fighting voter fraud here in Ohio, too, and I’ve signed on to help stop it.  Like Madison, Wisconsin, we have more people voting in some counties than there are adults. 

Here’s what I received from Chris Cate, Communications Director, Florida Department of State, which now that I have a paper/digital trail, the media can’t bamboozle me:

· A letter from Florida Secretary of State Ken Detzner to the U.S. Department of Justice regarding Florida’s continuing commitment to protecting citizen’s voting rights.

· An excerpt from a U.S. Department of Homeland Security (DHS) publication documenting the legal basis for accessing the Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database. The document can be found online at http://www.dhs.gov/xlibrary/assets/privacy/privacy_pia_uscis_save.pdf

· An email chain, dating back to September 2011, between the Florida Department of State (DOS) and DHS regarding access DHS information on non-citizens.

· Frequently asked questions about Florida’s continuing commitment to protecting citizen’s voting rights.

· Secretary of State Ken Detzner’s letter sent on May 31, 2012, to DHS Secretary Janet Napolitano regarding access to the citizenship information in DHS’s SAVE database.

· Florida Congressman Jeff Miller’s letter sent on May 9, 2012, to U.S. Department of Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano regarding access to the citizenship information in DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.

· Florida Congressman Gus Bilirakis’ letter sent on June 5, 2012, to U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Director Alejandro Mayorkas regarding access to the citizenship information in DHS’s Systematic Alien Verification for Entitlements (SAVE) database.

· Florida Congressman Tom Rooney’s letter sent on June 6, 2012, to U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder Florida’s efforts to remove non-citizens from the voter rolls.

Interesting marriages

I've been enjoying "Martin Luther had a wife," and "Harriet Beecher Stowe had a husband," a two in one special by William J. Petersen, Tyndale House Publishers, 1983 (Christian Herald Family Bookshelf edition). Petersen, former editor of Eternity Magazine, is an excellent writer, and each marriage is presented in an entertaining and interesting style. The fifth selection in the first book is about William and Catherine Booth, founders of the Salvation Army.

Catherine Booth, who wrote many of her busy husband's sermons, was criticized by a male preacher for speaking from the pulpit. (1858) She responded with a 32 page rebuttal.

History of the Booths here.

I see from browsing Google that Petersen also wrote a 2-fer on C.S. Lewis and his wife and Catherine Marshall and her husband plus one on Johann Sebastian Bach and his wife, which includes John and Polly Newton, Johann Sebastian and Magdalena Bach, George and Mary Muller, Hannah Whitall and Robert Pearsall Smith, and Francis and Edith Schaeffer. Petersen's stories are a wonderful way to learn history and to build faith, because all these people had numerous challenges. Especially John Wesley who must have had the worst marriage on record. Checking the used book sites I see offers for these titles. Well worth the price, although mine came from the free box.

Obama and the “New Party” (aka Socialist)

While the Demedia focus on what Bain Capital did after Romney left, flitting right over the companies he helped succeed with venture capital, like Staples, it could have looked into Obama’s roots in the New Party, which he denied during the last campaign.  Through his parents, grandparents, mentors and associates, Obama is a trained and managed socialist/statist.

“On the evening of January 11, 1996, while Mitt Romney was in the final years of his run as the head of Bain Capital, Barack Obama formally joined the New Party, which was deeply hostile to the mainstream of the Democratic party and even to American capitalism. In 2008, candidate Obama deceived the American public about his potentially damaging tie to this third party. The issue remains as fresh as today’s headlines, as Romney argues that Obama is trying to move the United States toward European-style social democracy, which was precisely the New Party’s goal. . .

New Party co-founder and leader Joel Rogers told Smith, “We didn’t really have members.” But a line in the New Party’s official newsletter explicitly identified Obama as a party member. Rogers dismissed that as mere reference to “the fact that the party had endorsed him.” . . .

the meeting at which Obama joined the party opened with the announcement of a forthcoming event featuring the prominent socialist activist Frances Fox Piven [American Communist]. The Chicago New Party sponsored a luncheon with Michael Moore that same year. ”

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/302031/obamas-third-party-history-stanley-kurtz

From the Jan. 11, 1996 minutes of ACORN

“Barack Obama, candidate for State Senate in the 13th Legislative District, gave a statement to the membership and answered questions. He signed the New Party  “Candidate Contract” and requested an endorsement from the New Party. He also joined the New Party.”

Calling all hip families and wanna-bees

J.C. Penneys is apparently featuring a 2 dad family in an ad for Father's Day.  This has given traditionalists a chance to be upset, and liberals a chance to puff up and point fingers at people who don't agree with them.  Given that gay men are only about 1.5% of the population,  most of whom are not in committed relationships with young children, and they are the wealthiest demographic who are not shopping at Penneys, let's look at Penneys' motivation.

They need a more "with it" image and want to appeal to the younger crowd.  So if the merchandise or traditional ad campaigns don't bring them in, how about offending the families who have been shopping there for years.  They are older and probably won't spend as much as the 20-something and teeny bopper demographic, so who cares about them? 

Millions of children have grown up with 2, 3, or more dads in our society, and it's called divorce and remarriage, or maybe just a baby-daddy who may or may not pay support and drop by occasionally. But that's probably a little more difficult to show in the Father's Day ad.

Eugenics of 1912 is Planned Parenthood and Friends of 2012

“Eugenics is the infamous idea that governments should decide which kinds of citizens ought to be considered desirable (the 1912 consensus was that these tended to be white, athletic, intelligent, and wealthy) and which kinds of citizens ought to be considered undesirable (these tended to be black, Jewish, disabled, or poor) and employ the power of the state to encourage increases of desirable citizens (positive eugenics) and encourage decreases of undesirable citizens (negative eugenics). The founder of eugenics, Sir Francis Galton, a half-cousin of Charles Darwin, formulated the idea that the protection afforded by civil society had prevented the kind of natural selection occurring in Darwin's Origin of Species from happening in humans, thus perpetuating the existence of weak and feeble-minded people who would have been unable to survive in the state of nature.”

And today we have a president endorsed by Planned Parenthood which condemns 40% of unborn minorities to death before birth. Now Bill and Melinda Gates are on board to help.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/06/melinda_gates_talks_eugenics.html#ixzz1x2GGPZJW

Barack Obama’s worst nightmare

I am a thinking, educated, intelligent, independent voter.

I am fanatical in my support for the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence.

I believe that there is only one phrase that might be slightly more important than "We the People of the United States ...". That phrase would be "In the Beginning the Lord said 'Let there be light'..."

But the most significant thing that makes Barack Obama view me as his worst nightmare is simply this: I tell the truth about him. I don't need to lie. I don't need to "create" a narrative. What he has done all by himself is so appalling that any need for embellishment is stillborn.

Read more: http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2012/06/i_am_barack_obamas_worst_nightmare.html#ixzz1x2IGEFoQ

About transformation—usually a positive term

Dismal May jobs report.  Market falls.  Anticipation of Walker win, Dow up.  Walker wins, Dow up even more looking ahead to an Obama loss.  When Obama won the nomination in 2008, the economy sunk 6 months before the election in anticipation of his "transformative" presidency.

In Europe they're talking about green energy suicide. In the USA, about murdering the coal industry. That's what you get with a "transformational" president. Extends the war, expands the deficit, and shrinks the jobs.  Ohio, West Virginia, Pennsylvania and other coal states:  I hope your unions remember what he’s done to your jobs.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304203604577398541135969380.html?mod=googlenews_wsj

Andrew Klavan poignantly notes: “consider…that we were born into the freest, strongest, and wealthiest nation that mankind has ever known – and elected as our president a man who promised to ‘fundamentally transform’ it.” City Journal

Why do so many Christians not vote?

The figures vary--I've heard 30%, I've seen 50%. In any case, many, many Christians are not registered to vote. Churches do not lose their 501c3 status by having a voter registration drive. Churches afraid to do this are probably more afraid of the collection plate than the government. Nothing prevents a pastor or church member from supporting a candidate or an issue (abortion, education, taxes) ...as long as they do it in their own name, and in some cases, the church can support or not, specific legislation. Eric Holder has met with black pastors about voting rights. Why not other pastors of other ethnicities or styles of worship or other issues?

 http://www.theblaze.com/stories/heart-broken-black-pastors-plea-for-obama-to-meet-with-them-change-his-mind-on-gay-marriage/

Not sure if you’re registered?  Wall Builders has a special site for you to check. http://www.wallbuilders.com/vote/

Don’t let your vote be stolen by a non-registered voter, or a “dead” voter, or someone from another state.  Check with True the Vote to see what you can do in your own state to stop fraud.  They will put you in touch with your state’s organization. http://truethevote.org/

The right not to join a union

Scott Walker's reforms in Wisconsin--limiting bargaining to cost-of-living salary increases; increasing workers’ contributions to their pension and health-care plans; eliminating unions’ ability to automatically collect dues from all members; and requiring unions to re-certify each year--have saved the state a ton of money.   People who contribute to Social Security are probably scratching their heads about what they are so unhappy about.  It’s still a better deal with a better pay out at retirement. Wisconsin now has a surplus instead of a debt. What about the RIGHT NOT TO JOIN a union? When given a choice, workers leave in droves, and this is why unions are shipping people in to vote in Wisconsin today. http://thespeechatimeforchoosing.wordpress.com/2012/06/05/breaking-union-thugs-allegedly-busing-in-voters-from-michigan-to-vote-in-wisconsin-recall/

http://quincyjournal.com/union-membership-dwindles-in-wisconsin,-u.s.1328195259.html

http://nation.foxnews.com/scott-walker/2012/06/04/scott-walker-reforms-create-budget-surplus

Robert Bellarmine in our Declaration of Independence

Last night I watched a half hour program called “Saints Alive” which featured the story of St. Robert Bellarmine (1542-1621) and here’s a brief clip of his discussion of the influence (obviously an actor) of his writings on the Declaration of Independence. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wC55G37QzO4

I think this solidifies even more strongly the Christian origins of our basic documents and thought. In the story, (and on the web) it says that Thomas Jefferson actually had in his library an anti-Bellarmine book which explained his ideas, and that he made many notes in the margins, therefore was quite familiar with his work, which Bellarmine in turn built on Thomas Aquinas (1225-1274). For additional information: http://www.catholicculture.org/culture/library/view.cfm?id=6607&CFID=140469406&CFTOKEN=74664362

“He who lives well will die well.”  Community audio of Bellarmine’s book, The Art of Dying Well.  (Takes about 5 hours, but reader’s voice is pleasant.) http://archive.org/details/ArtDyingBell

Obama’s AJ and DOJ out of control

The Department of Justice has ORDERED Florida NOT to remove non-citizens from the state's voter rolls. Yes, you read that right - and you can read more sordid details here and here.

First, Obama’s Department of Homeland Security stonewalled the state’s noncitizen voter hunt for almost nine months by refusing Florida access to an immigration database. Then, on Thursday, Obama’s Justice Department ordered the purge to halt, in part because time had run out.

Ironically, DOJ’s order cited the so-called “Motor Voter” law, which actually calls on states to purge ineligible voters. One former DOJ lawyer and critic, conservative J. Christian Adams, blogged that the former Obama appointee in charge of the voting section announced early on that it would ignore Motor Voter’s purge obligation.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/06/03/2830794/how-obama-aided-and-abetted-scotts.html#storylink=cpy

From the CBO Director’s Blog–Bad News

This morning [June 5, 2012] CBO released the latest in its series of reports on the long-term budget outlook. CBO also published an infographic that highlights the key points of the report. . . tomorrow key findings of the report before the House Budget Committee.

By the end of this year, CBO projects, federal debt will reach roughly 70 percent of gross domestic product (GDP), the highest percentage since shortly after World War II. Whether that debt will continue to grow in coming decades will be affected not only by long-term demographic trends—particularly the aging of the population—and economic developments but also by policymakers’ decisions about taxes and spending. The aging of the baby-boom generation portends a significant and sustained increase in the share of the population receiving benefits from Social Security and Medicare, as well as long-term care services financed by Medicaid. Moreover, per capita spending for health care is likely to continue rising faster than spending per person on other goods and services for many years (although the magnitude of that gap is uncertain).

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43295  Director’s blog

http://www.cbo.gov/publication/43288  The report

Obama is never investigated by the press no matter how juicy the story

“The allegation [that Obama’s friend Eric Whitaker tried to bribe Wright into silence]  is contained in The Amateur, a new book by conservative journalist Ed Klein. While Klein may or may not be reliable – some conservatives have distanced themselves from him – it appears Wright did make the allegation.

The only mainstream White House reporter to do some follow through on this, Jake Tapper of ABC, reported that he listened to one of Klein’s tapes of his conversations with Wright in which the reverend didn’t deny suggestions that it was Wright who bribed him.

Whitaker denies he did it which, guilty or innocent, is what you’d expect. Wright refuses to answer questions from Tapper, which is not quite what you’d expect.

And no one in the press is doing much investigating that we know of – which is exactly what we’d expect.

http://www.whitehousedossier.com/2012/06/04/investigation/

I be so cool, man

“The dispassionate man from Chicago is proving every day what rare stuff he's made of. The president sees how the Iranians mock him - and does nothing. He sees radical Islam approaching the nuclear brink - and does not budge. With amazing courage Barack Obama watches the tsunami rolling toward America's shores - and smiles. . . “

“President Obama is a thrifty president. America isn't what it used to be, but it still has vast strategic, economic and military resources. The United States can stop the Iranian nuclear program by using a small part of these resources.

But the extremely thrifty commander-in-chief is not prepared to pay any price for stopping the 8,000 Shi'ite centrifuges. That's why Obama didn't stand by the Iranian Spring of 2009 as he stood by the Arab Spring of 2011. That's why Obama didn't act firmly against the underground facility near Qom, which was discovered three years ago. That's why Obama has not touched, to this day, Iran's central bank, nor has he stopped the flow of oil distillates to the country's ports.

The cautious president sees not the catastrophic price the West will pay for Iran's nuclearization, but the political price he will pay if oil prices rise. Never in its history has the United States had such a thrifty leader as its 44th president.”

http://www.haaretz.com/misc/article-print-page/the-world-should-focus-on-obama-not-netanyahu.premium-1.432287?trailingPath=2.169%2C2.225%2C2.227%2C

How divorce affects the children

She’s an adult. Capable.  Stable. Talented artist and writer. A strong Christian. And her father has been unfaithful and left her mother.  The other woman has left her husband and children. The unfaithful couple flaunt their infidelity in front of family and friends.   Thirteen people in the immediate families including grandchildren mentally and emotionally destroyed by infidelity.  “Divorce is a death without a funeral,” she writes, where there are no calls, meals brought in, or offers to help.  And nearly 70 readers write back about their deepest hurts—some after 30 years, or even after never having known their parents as a “couple.”

 http://jeanneoliverdesigns.com/blog/2012/05/27/sometimes-in-the-pain-you-find-your-most-tender-heart/

A viral divorce agreement

DIVORCE AGREEMENT (political humor)

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al:

We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.

Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.

Here is a model separation agreement:
--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.

--We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.
--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.

--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.
--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.
--You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.

--We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.
--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.
--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.
--We'll keep the Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood.

--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.
--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.

--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.
--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.

--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt and Leaf you can find.
--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.
--We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.

--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."
--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".

--We'll practice trickle-down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.

--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.

Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you answer which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.

Sincerely,
John J. Wall
Law Student and an American

P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & ( Hanoi ) Jane Fonda with you

Obama’s over his head; voters are over their depth

Another dismal job growth and unemployment report with the highest tax increase in history looming. Obama’s response? More of the same.  If Romney let’s this slip by him, maybe we’ve got what we deserve.

“On Friday, the same architects who designed this economy built to stall were calling for one more rescue by the Fed. And gold jumped more than $60 an ounce, suggesting that markets believe that Chairman Ben Bernanke will oblige with some version of QE III. But the lesson of the last four years is that easier money can provide at most a temporary reprieve from otherwise rotten policies. Markets rally for a time, but then they fade when the money-fix is withdrawn.

Far more constructive would be a bipartisan attempt to remove the tax cliff that the economy is rolling toward in January 2013. One of the biggest fears among investors and businesses is that tax rates on capital gains, dividends and personal income are all scheduled to go way up at the same time.

This is an entirely artificial crisis created by the mantra of "temporary, targeted" tax cuts, combined with Mr. Obama's campaign strategy to run against high-income earners with his Buffett rule and attacks on bankers and Bain Capital. If Mr. Obama wants a better chance at re-election, and especially with troubles in Europe and China, he'll call off the class war and call for no change in taxes for at least another two years until there is a larger tax reform. He'd find he'd get little resistance from Republicans.

As for Mitt Romney, the latest slowdown in jobs and growth gives him an enormous opening to offer the American people a better way. Criticizing the results of the last four years and saying that Mr. Obama is in over his head are not enough. “

An economy built to stall

The post turtle

While suturing a cut on the hand of a 75 year old rancher, whose hand was caught in the gate while working cattle, the doctor struck up a conversation with the old man.  Eventually the topic got around to Obama and his role as our President.

The old rancher said, 'Well, ya know, Obama is a “Post Turtle''.
Not being familiar with the term, the doctor asked what a “post
turtle” was.

The old rancher said, “When you're driving down a country road and you come across a fence post with a turtle balanced on top, that's a ‘post turtle’”.

The old rancher saw the puzzled look on the doctor's face so he continued to explain.  "You know he didn't get up there by himself, he doesn't belong up there, he doesn't know what to do while he's up there, he's elevated beyond his ability to function, and you just wonder what kind of dumb ass put him up there to begin with."

Seen at Two Sisters from the Right facebook page.

George W. Bush on steroids—Barack Obama

Personally, Obama isn’t worthy to tie Bush’s combat boots or zip his flight jacket, not after he did all he could to throw a monkey wrench into the war efforts in Iraq and Afghanistan while he was a senator, and then did a flip flip to become Mr. War Hero using all the advantages gained by the very methods he voted against.

Indeed, newspaper revelations last week about the "kill list" showed the Obama administration defines a militant as any military-age male in the strike zone when its drone attacks. That has raised the hackles of many who saw Obama as somehow more sophisticated on terrorism issues than his predecessor, George W Bush. But Guiora does not view it that way. He sees Obama as the same as Bush, just much more enthusiastic when it comes to waging drone war. "If Bush did what Obama has been doing, then journalists would have been all over it," he said.

But the "kill list" and rapidly expanded drone programme are just two of many aspects of Obama's national security policy that seem at odds with the expectations of many supporters in 2008. Having come to office on a powerful message of breaking with Bush, Obama has in fact built on his predecessor's national security tactics.

Obama has presided over a massive expansion of secret surveillance of American citizens by the National Security Agency. He has launched a ferocious and unprecedented crackdown on whistleblowers. He has made more government documents classified than any previous president. He has broken his promise to close down the controversial Guantánamo Bay prison and pressed on with prosecutions via secretive military tribunals, rather than civilian courts. He has preserved CIA renditions. He has tried to grab broad new powers on what defines a terrorist or a terrorist supporter and what can be done with them, often without recourse to legal process.

The sheer scope and breadth of Obama's national security policy has stunned even fervent Bush supporters and members of the Washington DC establishment. In last week's New York Times article that detailed the "kill list", Bush's last CIA director, Michael Hayden, said Obama should open the process to   more  public  scrutiny.  "Democracies do not make war on the basis of legal memos locked in a [Department of Justice] safe," he told the newspaper.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2012/jun/02/drone-wars-secrecy-barack-obama?CMP=twt_gu

Friday family photo—The Memorial Tournament 2012

Our son got tickets for the 2012 Memorial Tournament, May 31, in Dublin, Ohio, north and west of where we live.  The weather was gorgeous, the greens fast, and the spot we chose to put our folding chairs was very close to the second hole right on the water, near a grove of trees for shade to flee to when we needed it, close to the restroom, and close to a food tent, was fabulous.  We left after we saw Phil Mickelson play in a group with Rickie Fowler and Bubba Watson, a favorite of my guys, and were home by about 2:30.  It was my first experience of any length with golf, other than walking through the living room saying, “Isn’t there anything interesting on TV?”