Paying off insurance companies will stop

Congress refused to fund Obamacare, so President Obama just went around them, illegally as the court decided, and gave the money to the insurance companies. Obama knows exactly how to do a left turn to get more power. 1) Get what you want with abusive executive orders, 2) give candy to a toddler realizing the next guy won't take it away because of the tantrums. Unless the next guy is Trump and knows how to deal and says, "I'll give away the executive power Obama stole and hand it back to Congress so you guys have to do your job."

Obama didn't like Congress' decision so he ordered the money from the Treasury, a violation of the ACA law itself. Only Congress has that power. It was found unconstitutional. Trump has put a stop to the illegal actions Obama created and put it back in Congress' lap.

Washington Post described Trump's reversing Obama's illegal stealing money from Treasury to pay insurance companies as "throwing a bomb into the insurance market places." And that, my friends, is how the left destroys our language--with bombs. He has returned the responsibility to Congress which Obama stole from them. When your legacy is executive actions because you overstep your bounds, you risk the next president undoing them.

Nancy Pelosi who actually is in Congress said she has no idea what's in the order, but it is sabotage. A repeat of her not knowing what was in the ACA to begin with but passed it anyway?
The power of the purse belongs to Congress, not President Obama. Trump is draining the swamp and handing Congress back its authority over the purse.

Conestoga trip to Cleveland

Today our Conestoga group toured the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, had a visit with the CEO Greg Harris, ate in the new lunch area, and saw the newly installed (July) Power of Rock film in the renovated I.M. Pei spectacular building. Harris is a charming story teller in his early 50s, obviously in love with his job, and told us about some of the exhibits, including the wedding invitation on which Doc Pomus wrote the words for "Save the Last Dance for Me." He had polio... as a child and couldn't walk, let alone dance, but at his wedding he watched his bride dance with others, and then wrote that song, covered by many, and known by just about everyone who came of age before the 90s. Probably not a dry eye in our group after that one. We had never been there (opened 22 years ago), but it's well worth the trip and brings millions of tourist dollars to Cleveland every year, offsetting the original and renovating costs many times over.

Then we boarded the bus for a short drive to tour the Christmas Story (film) house. The film about Ralphie and his family is based on the book of Jean Shepherd's semi-fictional anecdotes in his 1966 book In God We Trust: All Others Pay Cash. Years after the 1983 film, the house came up for sale on E-Bay and was purchased, then renovated and additional property was bought for a museum and gift house. It opened for visitors in 2006.  It's now quite a popular tourist spot, yet the neighborhood remains much the same.  The docent/employee guide told us that Cleveland was chosen for the set (Shepherd was from Hammond, IN) because Higbee's was the only department store willing to allow them to film the scenes of visiting Santa. That was a year Cleveland didn't have snow, so that is artificial in the Cleveland scenes--and the guide explained how that was done.  Other scenes were filmed in Canada, and there are a few inconsistencies based on the 2 locations, according to our guide.

When you gotta go. . .

There's construction going on by city workers on our property to repair a culvert. The porta potty is sitting on the sidewalk because there is a steep drop off there and no place for it to sit level. My husband was taking a walk yesterday when a woman jogger flew past him. When she got to the potty, she stopped, opened the door, and used it.

Update:  Yesterday (Oct. 14) I went for a walk and at the drive way met a neighborhood (St. Tim's) woman (named Kathryn) pushing a double wide stroller with her grandchildren.  We stopped to chat because she was catching her breath after the uphill walk.  So I began to help her push the stroller and we walked about a mile until she turned east.  We had a wonderful time.  Later my husband went out for a walk and met the same woman who was then returning the children to their home a mile or so the other direction.  He talked to her a few minutes, and then saw her approach the porta potty and stop.  One of the children needed to go.

Another perspective on guns, guest blogger from Arizona

I live in Arizona halfway between Phoenix and Tucson at the intersection of I8 coming from San Diego and I10 connecting Phoenix and Tucson. I am about 2 hours north of the Mexican border. An Indian reservation stretches from the border all the way to Interstate 8. It is a major drug and human trafficking corridor with about 60% of the drugs coming into the U.S. coming across the Arizona border. I am surrounded by desert and small mountain ranges similar to what you see around Phoenix with Camelback and South Mountain if you’ve ever been there. The population in our area is around 60% Hispanic from many Central American countries with very low income levels, poor English skills and a high number of illegals. We have gangs in the area including MS-13. We have 5 prisons in the area mostly private serving the states of California and Hawaii and an ICE prison. We have an active Border Patrol station here part of the Tucson Sector. People that live here do so because they like the outdoors, nature, climate and of course the scenery including beautiful sunsets and night skies. People love to hike in the desert and mountain climb. Rattlesnakes, wildcats, mountain lions and the cartel members can be encountered on those hikes. It may be hard to believe but most rural roads are still dirt roads.

Having said all that, it is a good place to live. The cost of living is relatively low and access to the cities of Phoenix and Tucson is less than an hour away as is Phoenix Airport. Crime is actually quite low, less than in the larger cities. The biggest issues are robbery and drug related. But, most of the people I know have guns. They carry them while hiking or when traveling in less secure places. They are business owners who are small mom and pop operations. They are ex-military and now gun collectors. They are retired police. They are sheriff auxiliary on patrol with deputies. They are game hunters. They are farm operators with hundreds of acres of open land. They are ordinary people who feel more secure with a gun in the house. There are shooting ranges in the area that are heavily used. People think twice about breaking into a home or starting a confrontation with someone because you never know who has a gun. So in that case it is a deterrent. Most shootings here involve domestic disputes usually around drugs, mental illness or estranged spouses.

Everyone always looks at the mass shooting or violence in the bigger cities but what do you say to my neighbors who have and use guns correctly, for protection or for hunting. How do you structure laws to allow my neighbors to have guns but control mass shootings or inner city killings. I’ve always been taught to look at root causes. In this case is the gun the root cause or is it the laws on the books that are not being enforced or followed? Is it training on the proper use?  Just look at TV and movies and how guns are promoted. Should we start with outlawing video games, or limiting TV violence? It seems to have worked for drinking and smoking on TV shows and commercials.
Truthfully, I’m more frightened about being hit by a drunk driver or impaired driver than by being shot. We have laws against driving impaired, but yet it still happens and people die. What do we do, have laws outlawing cars to prevent drunk people driving them? We seem to be dancing around what to do with driving under drug influences. It’s an emotional issue for those who have been around and used guns all their lives. It reminds me of how traumatic is for someone to have to give up a driver’s license because of age after driving all their lives. A part of your life is being taken away. I also think the discussion is driven by the large number of deaths in any one instance. It’s like one large plane crash where hundreds die being heavily investigated trying to establish fault yet many more smaller plane crashes where one or two people are killed go unnoticed even though the total deaths is more in the single plane crashes.

The wrong questions about immigration; why do we aid Mexico?

We're asking the wrong questions about immigration. Why is Mexico exporting its poor and brown citizens north when it is a wealthy country?

Actually, we know why. Immigrants, legal and illegal, send money home. For Mexico, it's $24.8 billion, higher than oil revenues--and Mexico has a lot of oil. https://data.worldbank.org/indicator/BX.TRF.PWKR.DT.GD.ZS Stop that. It's cheaper than a wall, and more humane.

Have you ever seen a person of color or any ethnic diversity on Telemundo or Univision (both American companies immune from all diversity rules)? Is Mexico working to get rid of its population that is not European heritage? The Mexican government seems to be working with sanctuary cities to make sure they don't get their citizens back, especially the criminal element.

For U.S. businesses, Mexican immigrants are concentrated in service and construction industries and are good workers. For U.S. higher education institutions, Mexican immigrants are a ready source for ambitious students, eligible for aid. About 90% of DACA applicants and renewals are for Mexicans not born in the U.S. 

 

For the Democrat party, Mexican immigrants are seen as voters to be held close through special favors.

What are the NFL protests about?

 I have some suggestions.

•  If some players say this is about police, give each man a copy of the FBI Uniform Crime Reports.
•  If some players say this is about the election, give each man a copy of the constitution and underline the part about the electoral college.
•  If some players say this is about oppression, give each man a history of the civil rights movement since thousands shed blood in the 1860s, beginning with the formation of the KKK and Jim Crow laws (Democrat party), moving on to the desegregation of the schools and military, on to modern socio-economic statistics, and underscore poverty stats and single moms.
• If some players say it's about voting rights, show them the black voter turn out in 2008 and 2012 with higher voting rates for blacks than whites.
• If some think it's about income inequality, hand them a copy of their latest multi-million dollar contract to compare with their high school friends who didn't work as hard or get the scholarships to play in college.

Twitter blocks Rep. Marsha Blackburn

According to Politico and AP, Twitter is barring a top Republican Senate candidate Rep. Marsha Blackburn from advertising her campaign launch video on the service because a line about her efforts to investigate Planned Parenthood was deemed "inflammatory." Really? It's inflammatory to investigate use of fetal tissue, but not to threaten to assassinate the president? https://apnews.com/0d8828bd7d204b40af61172628d0a7f6

Monday Memories--our trip to Illinois and Indiana

We left early Thursday October 5 to make a quick trip to visit the siblings. Due to various frailties, we did a lot of eating out--2 restaurants in Mt. Morris, one in Byron, and one in Indianapolis--which I'll probably notice the next time I step on the scale. 

Brother Stan and me at the new condo in Byron

Stan and Casey with the beautiful view from the deck of their new home

Sister Jeanie and the new puppy, Diva

Getting acquainted with Diva

Niece Joan showing off her new look (lost 86 lbs)

Time lapse at sea

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AHrCI9eSJGQ

30 days of time lapse photography,  about 80,000 photos combined. 1500GB of Project files.  This has been viewed over 2,800,000 times, and I'm sure everyone enjoyed the experience.  Sri Lanka, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc. See how the cargo is loaded, unloaded. You'll feel very, very small.

Social justice warriors are off the leftist cliff

Attacks by the SJW and cultural Marxists are on the rise and going over the edge of reason. Social media assist them in these attacks on other citizens.

“For instance, on July 26, 2017, we [website Intellectual Takeout] published the article “I Was Once Transgender. Why I Think Trump Made the Right Decision for the Military”. The original article was published with a picture of a soldier greeting President Trump, which was acquired through a public domain, military images service. The soldier had nothing to do with the issue, it was just a good photo.

Nonetheless, a mob of people searched for the image online and finally tracked down the name of the soldier. They never checked to see if the name of the soldier in the picture matched the soldier's name who wrote the article. Having found the name, they then went after any public contact information they could find and began an e-mail and phone campaign against the soldier (who had no idea what was going on) to try and get the man removed from the service. The social justice warriors emailed him, his relatives, and both his commanding officers and fellow soldiers, they messaged him, his wife, his friends and relatives through Facebook, they called his military base, his home, and anyone else they could get a hold of, saying all manner of nasty things and attempting to destroy his professional career and social circles. How do we know? He and his wife both called our office and emailed to share the details, bewildered by the hate that they were receiving and begging us to pull the photo, which we did.

Again, that is not an isolated incident.“

 http://www.intellectualtakeout.org/article/we-had-pull-article-indoctrination

Are you still blogging?

Have blogs (a diary kept on the internet—web log) died?  Interesting to discover a research article that finds some merit in what I’ve been doing for 14 years. At one time I had 9 blogs, or was it 11? There was my general, catch-all that became increasingly political.  I had a sewing blog, art blog, retirement blog, immigration blog, church blog, health blog, a book blog, a first issue blog.  Many people dropped blogging for the micro-blog of Facebook, Twitter, Pinterest, etc. Everyone is in a hurry, no time to write or to read.   I do both—sometimes Facebook my blog, or the other way around, but those short twits are too confining.

I still read a lot of blogs—political or craft or religious, usually. I love the quilting how-to blogs and the theology blogs.  As more and more became corporate or sponsored or cluttered with ads, they became less interesting.  But I’m still going—with no ads. That would be like work, and I’m retired.

http://firstmonday.org/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/8065/6539

That so-called white privilege

Millions of Americans are designated white by the U.S. Census Bureau that perhaps you, especially on the academic left, have not recognized, such as Asian Indians, Lebanese, Syrians, Armenians, Jordanians, Iraqi, Kurds, Turkish, Egyptians, not just Irish and German ethnicity. Remember this the next time a college instructor hoping to get attention and tenure maligns or tries to "gaslight" white Americans of west or north European ancestry.

And interestingly, many of these "also white" ethnicities have higher incomes than European Americans. The highest is Indian Americans, like our current UN ambassador Nikki Haley, former governor of South Carolina and daughter of immigrants--their household income is over $107,000, (real U.S. median household income was $59,039 in 2016) whereas my poor Irish Americans are #48 at $64,525. Most of the Indian Americans are very entrepreneurial and focused on education, and most households are married couples. Work, education and marriage--it's a formula that can't be beat. Even Nigerian Americans are above Irish Americans, with a household income of $76,172 and 72.2% of the households are married couples. Census.gov
https://factfinder.census.gov/faces/tableservices/jsf/pages/productview.xhtml?src=bkmk

 Married couples with children under 18 years of age, according to the Census Bureau's Current Population Survey (Table HINC-04), made an average household income of $107,054 in 2013 and a median household income of $85,087. Married couples with NO children under 18 had an average household income of $91,870 in 2013 and a median household income of $70,995. Unmarried couples with children under 18 had an average household income of $65,337 and a median of $50,031. Call me crazy, but I think marriage and children have a positive effect on income and well being. Why do married couples with children do better financially than all others? "Perhaps it is because they are not primarily driven by greed but something quite the opposite: a willingness to make sacrifices so their children may live better lives."

https://www.cnsnews.com/commentary/terence-p-jeffrey/income-inequality-married-couples-kids-make-average-107054
 

Roe v. Wade

"We had an unplanned and unexpected pregnancy in the 70’s when abortion was rampant. And we gave serious thought to going that direction. We were young and active, just out of college and just getting started. We wanted children, but not right then. We decided against termination. Please indulge my “what if” for a moment:

“What If”‘ we had chosen abortion? There would be 4 grandsons I would not know, one of which I watched as a junior in high school pitch in his team’s first district baseball game of the season last Saturday. I would not be able to watch he and his next youngest brother play together on their high school football team that will be looking for their 15th State Championship in the Fall. (They won their 14th State High School championship last year) I would not know their 11 year old brother who is already becoming an accomplished pianist and song writer. Nor would I know their “little” brother, who at 8 years old is the most active, most outgoing and happy young man I’ve ever known, and is already a phenomenal athlete.

I would have not known their Mom who is one of the most amazing women alive today. She is brilliant, focused, hard working, hopelessly devoted to her family, and is the loving glue that holds our extended family together, plans every function and is an organizational and artistic genius. One other “what if” is probably the most sobering: we would be buried in the guilt of knowing we missed all of these people that would have been our descendants because we chose abortion. My “what ifs” are a bit scary. Think for a moment about yours." https://dnewman.org/roe-v-wade/

I want to be like Betty when I grow up

We went to Scotland for a week in June and our friends Howard and Betty, 82, who are in our couples group at church went to England, Wales and Scotland the last two weeks of August so they could see Tattoo, which we missed since it only performs in late summer.

"How was the vacation?"  "Oh it was wonderful!"  Except. . .

Howard had his wallet stolen with their credit cards and cash early in the trip. People on the tour offered them money to tide them over, but they watched every penny, bought no souvenirs, and made do with the cash Betty had.  His wallet was in a zippered leg pocket with a Velcro strip and he never felt the hand that took it until dinner.

Returning to the USA from Heathrow they boarded the plane to fly home, via Houston, and no one mentioned the Hurricane. They were told it was raining.

Theirs was the last plane in and then the airport was closed, and they had to find a hotel in a strange city because none of them would take the vouchers United provided.

Betty is being treated for a serious illness and had no more medicine left by the time they got to the US, and what she did have needed to be refrigerated.

When they finally found one by using Howard's I-pad to make a reservation and using the United van, it was a suite, with a refrigerator, but there were no cooking utensils or dishes. And there was no way to get food anyway, since they couldn't leave the hotel, and even if they could, everything was closed. The hotel experienced some leaking, but not in their room  and it was on the second floor which was good because the elevator was no longer working. The hotel was still serving breakfast, which got smaller each day since no supplies were coming in.

Howard became extremely ill while they were in the hotel, and they had to go to the ER, in a strange city, with almost everything closed. Before the trip he had photocopied all their medical cards, credit cards, passport, etc.

Betty told the clerk at the desk, who had only been working a day or two their dilemma, and she knew of a hospital open in her neighborhood and offered to drive them there after her shift. (There are angels out there). Because he had the photocopies, he was able to get through the paper work even with having had his wallet stolen.

Howard was treated in the ER, and given a prescription for an antibiotic, but the city was on lock down after 8 p.m. to prevent looting and they couldn't get it filled.

Meanwhile their daughter got them reservations on the first flight out of Houston to Chicago when the rain and storm let up and they were able to get out of town 3 days sooner than what they thought.

Neither one is quite well yet, but for 82, that isn't bad.

But it was a wonderful trip, with enough stories to last a lifetime.

Hello October

Meritocracy, the latest target

I caught the tail end of a Fox story on "meritocracy is a white myth" by yet another professor with pink out of control hair offering a class/workshop on how terrible American culture is. The idea that hard work merits advancement is just so much doggy poo. But then if you google it, you see this has been building at least for 10 years in the media elite like Atlantic and NYT. After all, Jenna Bush and Chelsea Clinton or even George Stephanopolous, a political operative of the Clinton years, didn't get their cushy TV jobs through merit--it was family, influence or money, or maybe all three. What goes around comes around, and soon the journalists who were writing about it 5 years ago, will become the latest victims of the Leftist smears, tossed aside after they are no longer useful, because they didn't deserve their jobs or graduating from Columbia or Berkeley.

https://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2012/06/the-cult-of-smartness-how-meritocracy-is-failing-america/258492/

http://brandywine.psu.edu/person/angela-putman

Thinking about Western Civilization

I listen to a Catholic call-in radio talk show, and in August I heard a question that sounded like the man had been to one of those “gaslighting” workshops where the audience is led to believe that western civilization, especially “white” people, has ruined the world (instead of being the gift it is in architecture, music, literature, economics, etc.). How it works: The presenter will move from broad strokes with snippets of truth buried in mountains of lies to the individuals in the room who have probably been forced to attend. They are then brainwashed about white privilege and micro aggression and made to feel responsible for the KKK, Jim Crow and police killing black criminals.

The gist was:  “Why are all the disciples’ names in the Bible, “white” when they all lived in the middle east? “ Yes, the  caller identified certain names, “white.”  I almost giggled when I heard it, except I know he probably didn’t come up with that on his own.  Dr. Anders, the host, was very kind and explained (and I paraphrase), “In the English translation, all the names are anglicized, translated from the Latin and Greek, which were Hellenized from the Aramaic or Hebrew, the original language Jesus and his disciples spoke.  Peter is Pedro in Spanish, and Pierre in French, but it was Kephas or Cephas (stone, rock) in Aramaic, and Petros (rock, stone) in Greek and Petra in Latin (stone, rock).”  

However, the mistake the caller made is one many make when they read or hear a name and make assumptions about race, religion or sex, so I won’t fault him for being misled—if that is what happened.

 

If you click on that show, you'll find my question at about minute 11:12. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ubz1YHTVrPY

Revisionist sociology

Interesting that Ben Carson, who grew up poor, in the projects with a single mom who couldn’t read, is now called “not a typical black man,” but Colin Kaepernick, who has 3 white parents, a white girlfriend, private schools and scholarships, and wealth in the millions,  is supposed to have the scoop on what it means to be a minority male.

Friday Family Photo--Fall Cleanup

Neighbors buttoned up for Fall

A few sprinkles

Cleaning up the east side of cottage

 

Congress is the first word of the First Amendment