Health Care = Impeachment

People (aka Democrats) say Trump is using fear of an alien invasion to rally his base, but Democrats are using health care to try to impeach Trump. Grab the House and drop the issue of health. When Obama took over a fifth of the U.S. economy, health care was barely an issue. Something like 15% didn't have health insurance, many because they didn't want to make a co-pay, preferred not to carry it, or hadn't applied for one of the 4 government plans available. It was a made up issue to grab more power. But once the government "gives" people something, it's difficult to take it back.

Gosnell and Searcy

Nick Searcy who both directed and acted in the Gosnell movie writes,

"I realize, looking back, that I was quite naïve about how this film would be received. I truly believed that if we did it the right way, even the so-called Hollywood Left would appreciate our fairness in telling the story, see its value, and, furthermore, share our goals in getting this important story before the public.

Sadly, I was wrong. As I said, this town runs on fear — the fear not only of failure but, more insidiously, of being shunned because of your political opinions. I was gratified by the talented people in this industry, many of them who differed with me politically, who did believe in our script and were willing to come on board. But many people, some of them good friends of mine, declined to work on this film, not because of its quality but because of the fear of reprisal or even ostracism by the groupthink herd in Hollywood. More than once, I was asked questions like “Are you crazy?” or “Are you sure you want to do this?”"

I had read and reviewed the book, “Gosnell, The Untold Story of America’s Most Prolific Serial Killer” by Ann McElhinney and Phelim McAleer. I have volunteered in a pregnancy crisis center for 5 years and on the prayer call list for 15—so I was not as shocked as others by this movie.  I contributed money to have this film made. I was very reluctant to see it, but I did, and it is an excellent film. A first class story with excellent production values. You won't be sorry if you see it.

We like to say we have free speech in this country, guaranteed by the First Amendment.  And to an extent, that’s true.  But we don’t have the right to a job, career, family or friends after we exercise the right. And Searcy’s disappointment in his friends is so true.

All Saints and Reformation Sundays

We had such a fabulous music selection on Reformation Sunday—choir, organ, brass.  I don’t know how these things are planned, if there is a worship committee or it’s the choir director Brian and organist Allan or the pastors, but it all worked together.  The prelude was a smashing organ-Trumpet piece called  Chorale with Interludes by Charles Callahan. https://www.morningstarmusic.com/composers/c/callahan 

Our musicians sit behind the congregation in the balcony, so I always have to turn around if I want to see them.  Anyway, as the prelude came to a glorious end, and the trumpet stopped, one pipe on the organ wouldn’t—a very low register with a rumble you could hear a few blocks away.  It must be every performer’s nightmare.  Dave Mann was the pastor who was leading the service (senior pastor Steve Turnbull gave the sermon), and he is also an organist, so he stood there and smiled and waited, but it got louder and louder and you could hear someone rustling around trying to shut down the organ.  So he decided to just go ahead with the Confession and Forgiveness, which had to be shouted. Soon the organ noise quieted down as it was shut off (?).  But an elaborate Call to Worship was planned, and we were not only reading scripture, but were supposed to sing all 4 verses of “A Mighty Fortress” interspersed with scripture, and the organ was needed for that.  So after each verse, the loud malfunctioning pipe would continue, and the lead pastor had to shout over it. Finally, at the end of that section, we heard the maverick pipe sort of quietly slink away.

During coffee time after the service in the narthex I asked one of the choir members how it was fixed and she said someone got a ladder and went up inside the pipes, and stuck in something to stop it.  I’m sure a repairman will be called.  The organ had a huge refurbishment in 2005, thousands and thousands of dollars which I think a donor paid for because it was about 30 years old, and I’m sure general maintenance is  expensive.  http://churchacronym.blogspot.com/2005/05/pentecost-concert-our-choir-presented.html

Today November 1 is All Saints Day, from which we get the festive contraction Halloween, for All Hallow’s Eve. So this coming Sunday is All Saints Sunday.  It too is a lovely service, but more sober.  The names of the congregants who have died since last October 31 are read from the pulpit. Since we are gone in the summer, sometimes I’m not aware of the death.  Then during communion the names of our own remembered friends and relatives are read from cards we had filled out.  "Therefore, since we are surrounded by such a great cloud of witnesses, let us throw off everything that hinders and the sin that so easily entangles. And let us run with perseverance the race marked out for us, fixing our eyes on Jesus . . ." Hebrews 12:1

"Most Lutheran churches use the first Sunday in November to remember all the saints in the Church of Christ Jesus, especially those members and friends of the local congregation who have been called to Heaven in the previous year.

The custom of commemorating all the martyrs of the Church on a single day goes back at least to the third century. All Saints' Day celebrates not only the martyrs and saints, but all the people of God, living and dead, who together form the mystical body of Christ.

In Europe, All Saints' Day is also called All Hallow's Day ('hallowed' means 'sanctified' or 'holy'). October 31st, the evening before All Saint's Day is named All Hallow's Eve, which was contracted to Halloween." (Emmanuel Lutheran Church, Ypsilanti, MI)

Would you fight back?

"The liberal media in America complain because President Donald Trump often calls them "fake news" and "the enemy of the people." They also charge that Trump's criticism fuels an uncivil atmosphere that sparks violence, e.g., they are now blaming Trump's rhetoric for the mail bomber and the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting.

But the liberal media do not view their own extremist, hyperbolic "news reporting" and commentary for contributing to America's political incivility, even though their diction is far more militant, repulsive, and noxious than anything Trump has said about the press."
This is how the media describe our president of the United States, and indirectly his supporters, like me. . .

sociopath,
a disturbed person,
a traitor,
white nationalist,
white supremacist,
white bigot,
racist,
sinister,
destructive virus,
treasonous,
straight out of Munich 1928,
Mussolini,
Joseph Stalin,
Nazi,
evil,
mentally unfit,
dictatorship,
Hitler,
unfit to be human,
domestic terrorist,
psychologically troubled,
hate monger,
imperial wizard,
neo-Nazi,
Axis Power,
unfit,
a national security threat,
piece of sh*t,
killer,
out of control,
domestic terror group,
a menace,
nuts,
dictator,
mentally unstable,
Putin's c**k holster,
madman,
giant a**hole,
bigot-in-chief, and
racist-in-residence.

Now be honest, wouldn't you fight back too?
https://www.cnsnews.com/blog/michael-w-chapman/what-liberal-media-actually-say-about-trump-aka-hitler-mussolini-white?

The murder of Whitey Bulger

Whackers Get Whacked by Dan Flynn, American Spectator Winter Hill Gang leader James “Whitey” Bulger, who once “won” a multimillion-dollar prize from the Massachusetts lottery, ran out of luck in West Virginia Tuesday. The 89-year-old died in prison, violently, shortly after his transfer to the United States Penitentiary, Hazelton. The same federal government that empowered Bulger to murder enabled his murder through massive incompetence. Bulger’s brother, Billy, serving as the most powerful politician in the Bay State and an FBI agent on Whitey’s payroll enabled him commit crimes for decades in Boston with impunity. Much like some police, he shook down drug dealers, bookies, and other racketeers for profit. The former Alcatraz inmate’s criminal instincts and street smarts helped him elude capture while on the lam from late 1994 until 2011, when a tip from Miss Iceland, 1974, led to the feds capturing him in Santa Monica, California, a place a long way from South Boston. Many believe, and still believe, the FBI never really wanted to catch a guy who embarrassed them in such a major way. They knew he did wrong. But he knew they did wrong, too. A trial found Bulger complicit in 11 murders. His story inspired characters played on the silver screen by Jack Nicholson and Johnny Depp. But his reluctance to use phones and his ability to elude photographers made him a mysterious, mythic figure in his native South Boston. There, many cast the villain as a hero. “He kept the drugs out of Southie” was a familiar, and false, refrain. But as in the local pedophile-priest scandal, belated media coverage of Bulger’s misdeeds eroded any folk-hero status he once enjoyed. The few reporters who covered him accurately faced threats. Boston Herald columnist Howie Carr, for instance, became the subject of a Bulger assassination scheme. Strangely, knowledge that Bulger became a “rat” for the government, and not any of his murders, did the most to harm his image in South Boston. This, along with gentrification, erased any notion of Bulger as a rogue worthy of admiration. This work as an informant ultimately led to his undoing. Michele McPhee, a tied-in crime reporter who I frequently filled-in for during my flirtation with talk radio in Boston a decade ago, reports that the perpetrator attempted to gouge the wheelchair-bound Bulger’s eyes out. Whoever did the deed apparently knew where the security cameras looked. McPhee cryptically notes about a former Bulger associate: “Cadillac Frank Salemme's recently convicted codefendant Paul Weadick is a Hazelden inmate.” Various reports indicate involvement by mafia-affiliated inmates. “You live by the sword, you die by the sword” seems too neat a conclusion here. Bulger worked the system for decades. The system, which strangely put him in general population, allowed men like him to work him over for a few minutes. Bulger’s life showed that fine lines sometimes differentiate cops and criminals. His death shows that, too.

Ancestry.com and Cesar Sayoc

Cesar Sayoc, the accused pipe non-bomb threat and Trump lover, claims to be Seminole Indian (and a lot of other things), but they won't claim him. Sort of like the Cherokee won't claim Elizabeth Warren. But what puzzles me about this article is the role of Ancestry.com. Are "roots" companies supposed to be revealing personal biographical and biological information to newspapers about people who have used their services? Didn't the Germans use genealogies to track down people with a drop of Jewish blood?

https://www.miamiherald.com/latest-news/article220680590.html

What’s going on with the 14th Amendment?

Yesterday I read an article on the birthright 14^th amendment (which I truly believe Trump is using to get his base in high gear for the election and to keep the CNN opinion/new readers and watchers riled up and jumping off a cliff) which gave some fascinating background. I think it was from 2010—or at least a number of years ago since this pops up from time to time. It was by Ann Coulter, someone I rarely read since she also likes to get people riled up (during the 2016 campaign I think she supported Trump, but then turned against him; don’t recall the details). Anyway it provided historical background that was fascinating. I didn’t know any of it. In 2015 she did a scathing piece on the stupidity of Fox News on the topic of the 14th amendment, but in 2010, her piece was much more reasoned (if she can be called that) and detailed on anchor babies and it involved a footnote. http://www.anncoulter.com/columns/2010-08-04.html

“The 14th Amendment was added after the Civil War in order to delegitimize the Supreme Court's Dred Scott decision, which held that black slaves were not citizens of the United States. The precise purpose of the amendment was to stop sleazy Southern states [i.e. the Democrat party] from denying citizenship rights to newly freed slaves -- many of whom had roots in this country longer than a lot of white people.
The amendment guaranteed that freed slaves would have all the privileges of citizenship by providing: "All persons born or naturalized in the United States, and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."
The drafters of the 14th amendment had no intention of conferring citizenship on the children of aliens who happened to be born in the U.S. (For my younger readers, back in those days, people cleaned their own houses and raised their own kids.)
Inasmuch as America was not yet a massive welfare state, attracting malingerers, frauds and cheats, it would be amazing if the drafters even considered the amendment's effect on the children of aliens.
But they did.
The very author of the citizenship clause, Sen. Jacob Howard of Michigan, expressly said: "This will not, of course, include persons born in the United States who are foreigners, aliens, who belong to the families of ambassadors or foreign ministers."

Coulter continues in the 2010 article:

“And then, out of the blue in 1982, Justice Brennan slipped a footnote into his 5-4 opinion in Plyler v. Doe, asserting that "no plausible distinction with respect to Fourteenth Amendment 'jurisdiction' can be drawn between resident aliens whose entry into the United States was lawful, and resident aliens whose entry was unlawful." (Other than the part about one being lawful and the other not.)
Brennan's authority for this lunatic statement was that it appeared in a 1912 book written by Clement L. Bouve. (Yes, the Clement L. Bouve.) Bouve was not a senator, not an elected official, certainly not a judge -- just some guy who wrote a book.

So on one hand we have the history, the objective, the author's intent and 100 years of history of the 14th Amendment, which says that the 14th Amendment does not confer citizenship on children of illegal immigrants.  

On the other hand, we have a random outburst by some guy named Clement -- who, I'm guessing, was too cheap to hire an American housekeeper. Any half-wit, including Clement L. Bouve, could conjure up a raft of such "plausible distinction(s)" before breakfast. Among them: Legal immigrants have been checked for subversive ties, contagious diseases, and have some qualification to be here other than "lives within walking distance."

Truth

Socialist running the south

From the Secretary of Homeland Security

“There is an appropriate way to express your solutions, to express your ideas. I welcome them at all times, but these calls to violence, these calls to disruptions, are not effective, not productive and frankly they just contribute to additional deconstruction of our ability to work together,” the secretary Kirstjen Nielsen said."

That's a very nice, reasonable, political way to talk, but it doesn't hide the fact that the calls for violence, disruption and resistance from the Left are not intended to be productive or contribute to harmony. They are intended to bring down the Trump administration. If you think things are bad now, wait until November 7. If Republicans keep the House and Senate, there will be more rioting, burning, and screaming at the moon.  If Republicans lose Congress, Democrats will immediately begin plans to destabilize the government and stall the economy.  They will see to it that Trump can succeed at nothing that benefits the country.

https://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/melanie-arter/dhs-secretary-there-was-time-when-i-had-review-daily-death-threats

Social Justice

Antisemitism in the Democrat Party

Michael Smith writes: "Antisemitism lives and thrives on the left:

- Louis Farrakhan openly spews hate and is embraced by Democrats like Keith Ellison.

- Linda Sarsour allies herself with feminist groups and the pussy hat wearing Women's March.

- Former President Obama, VP Biden and Secretary of State John Kerry cozy up to Iran.

- Obama and the DNC support sending strategists to Israel to help opposition candidates defeat Netanyahu.

- Anti-Israel BDS and pro-Palestinian movements are aligned with campus leftist movements.

In America today, you can be fired from a 25 million a year media job for merely suggesting that blackface as part of a Halloween costume is OK and celebrated for opposing Israel and supporting people who are blood enemies of the Jewish people."

Karen Mayhew, guest blogger—a good read

She writes on Facebook:  “I am so excited to see so many stories of walking away that I feel compelled to share my own. Caution long:

Born to into a very split household, Dad was a devout Catholic Republican and Mom a bed wetting liberal Jew. I know you're all thinking, "say what?" Anyway, while politics were rarely discussed as a family, politics were an event. Election night the phone got unplugged and pizza got ordered in. I grew up on ABC News Election Nights with Brinkley and Hugh Downs. I remember my Dad taking me to a Reagan rally at the Portland Airport Holiday Inn. It was a good growing up.

As I got older (high school) some of my Mom's liberal politics crept into my arguments. Hey, I was a teenager. I remember actually defending abortion at one point in of all places in Sunday School. This was the early 90's Portland, Oregon before Portland went full on insane.

1996 was my first election and I voted for Dole. Where did I switch from defending abortion in 1992 to voting for Dole 4 years later? I didn't go to college, I went to work out of high school and nothing moves teenage idealism to conservatism than seeing taxes taken from your paycheck.

But that was only the very beginning.

In 1998 I moved to San Francisco because I could and because I hated boring Portland. San Francisco's liberalism was so repulsive in every sense. Bums, drugs, corruption, anti-Israel, racism cloaked as diversity, if you name it and hated it, SF had it in spades. I lasted 4 years in SF before squirreling back to Portland. SF was terrible in 2002 and I saw the writing on the wall. That writing is what we read about everyday now. Poop maps anyone?

Back in Portland, married, a new homeowner and decidedly conservative, I found myself a plaintiff against my employer and the SEIU when my job was hijacked and this my career threatened. I successfully sued the union OUT of my job and an activist was born.

I became a national face for the Right to Work when Bush was President, testifying to Congress in 2007 against card check, something the democrats sarcastically and deceptively called the employee free choice act (ECFA). My story and many others like mine made certain EFCA never made it to Bush's desk. To this day I will never be able to repay those Constitutional, Federalist Society, attorneys whose brilliant legal minds came to my rescue pro-bono. A legal activist was born.

Then came the nightmare. His name was Obama. Obama kissed the asses of the union I had just defeated. He promised if elected EFCA would be the law of the land. And he won. I was more determined and more conservative every day that he promised he had a pen and a phone. He rammed through Obamacare, lost Congress, won re-election in 2012, and then lost the Senate in 2014. And yet he still terrorized freedom through executive fiat while he stacked the courts. He was wildly unpopular if the losses his party suffered yet he laid the groundwork that his stains would linger a long time. Maybe forever.

In 2013 I escaped for good insane Portland to North Carolina. For the first time in my life I lived where I could be an out, loud and proud conservative. And I was one in real life and on social media. And boy did those Portland, Oregon Facebook friends unfriend me at an impressive clip. A conservative??? Oh noes! Well ... Bye! I attended my first CPAC in 2014, I met fellow activists from all over the nation, I honed my skills in activist boot camps, landed at Heritage Action and in 2015 went to work for Ted Cruz's Presidential campaign. Ahhhh, life was good until it was Trump v Clinton.

I hated both of them and voted for neither. While I celebrated Inauguration Day, it was a celebration for me of Obama being gone. I had massive reservations about Trump until January 31st 2017, the night Trump nominated Gorsuch to the Supreme Court. One of the last events I participated in (before moving to my current location, Wisconsin) was the effort to lobby for Gorsuch. He was such a longshot but judicial activists like myself knew he was the next Scalia. And Trump delivered him.

Last June the SCOTUS (with Gorsuch) delivered the Janus decision that gives public sector union members the right to work. The decision was a Hosanna for a right to work advocate like me. The next day, Kennedy announced his retirement from the court.

On July 9th, Trump nominated a milquetoast Court of Appeals judge named Brett Kavanaugh. Kavanaugh was nothing to be excited about. But the increasingly unhinged left had other plans. Especially a crazy lady from Palo Alto and a Senator named Feinstein.

At the time of Kavanaugh's hearings, the left for over a year and a half had thrown everything they had at Trump to no avail. He was winning, America was winning, McConnell was winning. And the left was incredulous. And since they couldn't get Trump they were going to get somebody. Anybody. Judge Brett Kavanaugh was the unlucky victim.

What happened to Kavanaugh turned me into the biggest activist yet. The Democrats went so vile that a once a milquetoast judge was now someone I was willing to put my life on hold for to fly to DC, twice, to lobby Senators to confirm. Again, a judicial activist. A lover of the Constitution and the rule of law could not be stopped.

What happened to Kavanaugh was the Democrats doing in full view what created this walk away campaign, though I know its birth goes back to 2016. The assaults by the media, the invective by candidates (a basket of deplorables) and the like. From Wisconsin, I welcome all of you to the side of righteousness and fairness. To the Constitution, to the right to life, to liberty, to the pursuit of happiness; I walk with you to #MAGA.”

Karen gave me permission to repost this from the Walkaway Facebook page.  Wow.  She’s on fire.

Tucker on open borders

Historically, Democrats supported strong borders because they knew American workers could never compete with illegal immigrants. Now, they regularly support “open borders.” So why the drastic change? They know it hurts American workers. Why don't Democrats care anymore? Watch them flip on immigration issues in this video, even since 2006.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qUU2iWxrH2M

Thinking about organized crime and Khashoggi

When the news came out about the death, torture and mutilation of Jamal Khashoggi, the NYT Muslim reporter killed by his own countrymen, our media were horrified because he was one of their own. The story was even used to club Trump--but then everything is. Obviously, he'd done something to offend his "tribe" or "family."

I was reading "Ohio's Black Hand Syndicate; the Birth of Organized Crime in America" by David Meyers and his daughter Elise Meyers Walker at the time. (It happened in Ohio.) The Appendix contains the By-laws of the organization. Article 1: "The person who tries to reveal the secrets of this society will be punished with death." The articles go on to describe what other offences will be covered by Article 1 and includes offending someone, or harming another branch of the group or family. And the articles include using a knife to mark the offender, and stabbing. In fact, having one's body marked with a knife or being stabbed is also the punishment if a member has received an insult but didn't report it! And a member can be marked with a knife, stabbed, or branded if he fails to use the knife on someone else when ordered (perhaps the Saudis had the same rule?).

This crime syndicate was born in a fruit store in Marion, Ohio, and terrorized immigrant communities. All this was late 19th and early 20th century organized.  Evil is global and not confined to one ethnic, religious or national group.

Glenn Beck interviews Michael Rectenwald of NYU

Michael Rectenwald is a former Communist professor at NYU and is now a libertarian. What really changed his views was having his friends and colleagues attack him because he didn’t like the PC atmosphere on campus and wrote about it. Was attacked as just another Cis-gender white male supremacist. He was an outstanding professor, loved by his students, did all the committee and membership stuff you have to do to get P & T at a university. Published many articles and books defending Marxism. But as I’ve mentioned before eventually the Left eats its own, and it went after him.

Glenn Beck is probably the best interviewer on radio/TV—actually lets his guest speak. Although we don’t watch him regularly like we did 5 years ago, he’s outstanding in this capacity. This is an excellent story about Prof. Rectenwald’s transition, not from male to female, but from left to liberal/libertarian. He explains what is happening in our culture: Communism is like blowing up a building with bombs; post-modernism is like placing a few strategic termites and waiting for the building to fall. He dates this to 1968. And it begins with language. There is nothing but language, and to subvert the culture, you begin with the language. https://www.glennbeck.com/glenn-beck-podcast/michael-rectenwald-episode-3

Oh, and by taking a stand and not submitting to “a mental health leave” for his political views, he did get his job back.

Having THE TALK with children in the 21st century

Forty five years ago I was probably considering how to talk to my children about “where do babies come from.”  And as they got a little older I even asked my church for help as they neared those scary adolescent years (btw, got zip nada zilch).  It’s a little tougher today.

• Sex Outside of Marriage
• Same-Sex "Marriage"
• Divorce
• Contraception
• Abortion
• Reproductive Technologies
• Modesty
• Pornography
• Transgenderism
• Homosexuality

I can be fairly certain we talked about divorce.  That was all around them. Playmates. Cousins. TV and movie themes.  Even children’s books were addressing that trauma for children. And yes, modesty.  I’m sure they saw my disapproval at some of the 70s fashion when we went shopping or watched TV together.  But transgenderism?  Never.  In fact, until the Supreme Court decided to undo thousands of years of tradition for pagans and religious people alike, there was little said about that, but certain well funded groups needed a new challenge.  Same sex “marriage” in the 1970s was not an option—in fact, until the election of 2012, no responsible candidate for president would have even suggested it.

But there’s help today that wasn’t available then (in part there was no need for this title in the 70s).  Leila Miller and Trent Horn have co-authored, “Made This Way, How to Prepare Kids to Face Today's Tough Moral Issues.”  Some churches are buying it in bulk ($5) and giving it to parents.

The authors are Catholic (I heard about the book on the podcast of Catholic Answers), but don’t let that deter you if you don’t share their faith.  Catholics are really the only Christians who have a well thought out, systematic teaching on sexuality.

The authors’ approach “begins not with the Bible or Church teaching but with the natural law. In kid-friendly ways, Miller and Horn help you communicate how the right way to live is rooted in the way we're made. God's design for human nature is a blueprint or owner's manual for moral living that any child can grasp through reason and apply to modern controversies over sex, marriage, life and the quest for human fulfillment.”

Leila Miller and Trent Horn.  Made this way, How to Prepare Kids to Face Today’s Tough Moral Issues. Catholic Answers Press, 2018

Sample chapter

NYU Professor Michael Rectenwald—Springtime for Snowflakes

If you are employed in academe and are a conservative, stay off Twitter and Facebook. https://vimeo.com/284319829?fbclid=IwAR1eDZIB1ESYP5_yXl_Vp-yBSmqleCDDprPhhtgzxLO6vJh1eaEssHFipYE

HR's threatened "voluntary" leave of absence for mental health (his political views were a "cry for help") reminds me of the USSR or China. A former leftist, he's fighting back. What happens in academe has metastasized to the general culture.

Rhetorical question

19 months of constant resistance

 

The media are just egging the unstable on.  Hoping it will get Trump killed.

“When was the last time an actor assassinated a president?” asked Johnny Depp at a film festival recently.

"Yes, I'm angry. Yes, I am outraged. Yes, I have thought an awful lot about blowing up the White House," Madonna said.

“Impose martial law until we know the Russians weren’t involved in the election . . . I want to send the military to the White House. . .” Rosie O’Donnell