Amnesty Will Turn Texas Electoral Votes Over to Democrats

Pasting of links from the web browser is still not working.  

The following comes from The Blaze and is dated June, 13, 2104. Previous Hot Gates posts are at bottom.

"The Left’s Desire for Amnesty Explained in One Graphic"

"In the most recent issue of TheBlaze Magazine, our own Mike Opelka delves into the progressives’ fight to flip Texas from red to blue, and he explains how they’re making inroads and how it can be thwarted.

One of the items he exposes is the real truth behind the push for amnesty for illegal aliens. It’s much more about political gains than about the well-being of those people “hiding in the shadows.”

What’s amazing to many on the right is that pro-amnesty Republicans are trying to convince their conservative base to support the push for amnesty because Hispanic voters are a “natural Republican constituency.” According to research, Hispanics are and support Democrats. That’s it. Nothing complicated. Nothing horribly deep. Just observable facts.

And the progressive left is taking advantage of Hispanics’ preference for the Democratic Party by not only pushing for amnesty for illegals but also with increased voter registration among Hispanics in America legally. Which makes sense, since, according to Pew Research, nearly 10 million Hispanics live in Texas, and that translates to 38 percent of the state’s population. Additionally, 50 percent of the Hispanic population is under 18. If one party can capture the hearts—and votes—of the younger Hispanics, it would conceivably have a self-sustaining base for decades.

So, how much of a lead do Democrats have over Republicans among Hispanics? Take a look at this graphic from TheBlaze Magazine based on Gallup polling research:

As Opelka explains:


The independent Gallup polling agency has monitored political leanings among various groups, and their data has long confirmed the perceived reality that Hispanics support Democrats in great numbers.

A November 2013 national study from Gallup reveals that U.S. Hispanic adults are more than twice as likely to identify as or lean Democratic than Republican.

According to the Gallup report, 50 percent of Hispanics identified as or leaned Democratic, just over a fifth (22 percent) identified with or leaned toward the GOP, and 21 percent were wholly independent with no preferences for either party.................................

Party preference surveys among registered Hispanic voters also show a loyalty that should cause real concern among Republicans. The same Gallup survey shows that, among Hispanic voters, Democrats hold a 32-point advantage (58-26) over Republicans...........................

Conservatives should know, though, there actually are members of Congress willing to stand up and explain clearly exactly what the push for amnesty–especially in Texas–is all about. Texas GOP Rep. Louie Gohmert told TheBlaze:

“Their goal has been to turn Texas blue through a massive amnesty while continuing the efforts to bring untold numbers more into the country illegally. Through no fault of their own, people who do not go through the process of learning about our American form of government do not understand what it takes to preserve freedom and liberty and how critical fair enforcement of the rule of law is. It is imperative that we first secure the border before even discussing repair to our legal immigration system. Giving blanket amnesty to millions here illegally would be disastrous for our state and nation.”

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Revised: Texas Schools - More Anti-US Propaganda

Revised 4/3/13- This article paints a grim but accurate picture of how the Left is working to get Texas under their control:

http://www.discoverthenetworks.org/groupProfile.asp?grpid=7787

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http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/21/texas-mom-outraged-after-finding-stunning-question-about-911-terrorism-on-her-sons-test/

This is only a follow-up to a post from a few weeks ago. When I saw the above article, I wanted to put it with the earlier one, but decided that it would not be seen if I merely did. a revision.

"A Texas mom is furious after discovering that her son’s school is teaching students that the United States is partly to blame for the 9/11 terrorist attacks that claimed the lives of nearly 3,000 people.

Kara Sands, of Corpus Christi, Texas, took to her Facebook and posted photos of the test administered by Flour Bluff Intermediate School. The test reportedly covered content in a video fifth-grade students watched in class.

Of all the questions about the 9/11 attacks, Sands was most disturbed by question three:

“Why might the United States be a target for terrorism?” The answer? “Decisions we made in the United States have had negative effects on people elsewhere.' "

Many conservatives pin their hopes on Texas remaining as a strongly conservative state. The Left has no intention of allowing this to happen. They are working feverishly on the curricula of public schools to promote anti-US and Western attitudes and to excise any lingering pro-US feeling that the kids may have received from their reactionary and anti-progressive parents.

When the topic if secession is broached by its proponents, Texas is sort of put on a pedestal as a model state and lynch-pin or core state of a restored republic. A probable secession scenario has all the Pacific states and all or almost all of the Atlantic states going with the Leftist/Progressive side. (I treated the notion of  two-part and non-contiguous states in previous posts which are linked at the bottom.) For a hypothetical Gulf state for a restored republic, Texas is the most promising, but -

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/13/the-texas-demographics-chart-that-will-excite-democrats-scare-republicans/

Couple the demographic trends above with a generations of brainwashed students, many of whom will vote in 4-8 years, and Texas may very well fall.

Without Texas, even in an intact US, a national election is less than a charade; its electoral votes are too many and too crucial to lose. For a restored republic, losing Texas could easily leave the hypothetical new state landlocked. With no access to deep water ports, the new republic will be strangled at birth.

Texans have to fight hard and to start doing so now. As far as I am concerned, Texas is our Athens*. As Herodotus noted in The Histories, if Athens had submitted to the Persians or remained neutral, the enemy would have picked off the free Greek states one by one. Even if Sparta never yielded, she would have eventually have been overrun once all of her allies were out of the fight. The Athenian navy was the lynch-pin of a free Greece. For a free US, Texas is a must-win state. Without her electoral votes, we lose every national election. Without her ports, a restored republic free of Leftist handcuffs will wither on the vine.

* I later thought about the chorus of jeers that would make fun of Texans for not being 'cultured'. My point was that Texas, like Athens was, is terribly crucial in the scheme of protecting our nation as a free country. As for being cultured goes, I would rather be associated with good-hearted people with common sense and bit of fear of God than a cosmopolitan jerk who plays the iconoclast against everything that is good.

-This is the original post on the present situation on the ground in Texas schools:

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http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2013/03/texas-schools-besieged-by-left.html

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/28/texas-teen-suing-school-district-after-she-was-punished-for-not-reciting-mexican-national-anthem-in-class/

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/25/facebook-photo-of-female-students-dressed-in-burqas-for-lesson-on-islam-prompts-state-investigation/

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/02/04/texas-lesson-plan-instructs-6th-graders-to-design-flags-for-a-new-socialist-nation/

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When Rick Perry scoffed at the claim that Texas will soon become "purple" then a "blue" state, I wondered if he was denying the obvious or if he was really that dense.

The Left desperately wants the electoral votes* of the Lone Star State, and they are working at a feverish pace to get the job done.

*Leftists decry the assignment of the electoral votes as it was designed to offset the natural electoral power of the most populous states. Today the highly-urbanized states are almost in a position to carry a national election by themselves. While Leftists hate the fact that the electoral college exists, they are fully aware of how it works, and they have every intention of getting Texas under their control. Once they are successful they will surely change their tune and extol the virtues of the electoral college.

As I have noted in previous posts, the Left wants a classless society of people who have no knowledge or interest of their heritage. Only by creating such a society can they move to eliminate national sovereignty and begin a full-blown despotism of socialist committees.

One method is to dilute the electorate by importing so many people from markedly different cultures that assimilation or integration into the culture of the host nation is impossible.

Working in parallel with the former is the just as effective but far more insidious technique of excising all understanding of a people's or nation's sense of identity. Primary school textbooks are doctored to contain Leftist views of history, admirable people and events from a nation's past are left out, and the students grow up knowing next to nothing about how their society and nation came to be. Products of this Leftist kulturkampf leave high schools in a sponge-like state, ready for the heavy doses of anti-western propaganda's of college.

It is working. High school seniors are already telling their parents that they would get rid of imperialist/colonialist holidays such as Thanksgiving if they could. Not only have I read numerous accounts of similar incidents, but I personally know of this occurring in New Jersey. These young people are or will soon be of voting age, and they will likely be no friends of American society and virtue. Having been fed a steady diet of anti-western/American lessons, they will utter no peep of protest when their children are subjected to the same brainwashing.

The top links are recent reports of events in Texas schools. The first concerns a Spanish class in which the teacher apparently felt that Spanish literature offered nothing of value, so the students were required to recite the Mexican national anthem and pledge of allegiance. Cervantes and others can be conveniently ignored.

The second reports on students that were given a more interesting assignment:.

"Parents are demanding answers after a Texas teacher reportedly invited female students to dress up in Islamic garb and told the class to refer to Muslim terrorists as freedom fighters.

Texas state Sen. Dan Patrick, chairman of the Senate Education Committee, has launched an investigation into the incident. He told Fox News he was disturbed after seeing a photograph of female students wearing burqas and learning that students were reportedly taught that the cause for Egypt’s turmoil is democracy, not the Muslim Brotherhood, based on an article by the Washington Post."

The third is the blaster:

"A curriculum system used across the state of Texas reportedly includes a lesson plan for 6th graders instructing students to create a flag for a “new socialist nation” using “symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism.”

The following was taken from the CSCOPE curriculum lesson plan: “Notice socialist/communist nations use symbolism on their flags representing various aspects of their economic system. Imagine a new socialist nation is creating a flag and you have been put in charge of creating a flag. Use symbolism to represent aspects of socialism/communism on your flag. What kind of symbolism/colors would you use?' "

Today, we have yet another report of the goings-on in Texas, and it is a comprehensive and voluntary self-indictment of those who are making all of this happen:


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2013/03/07/cscope-exposing-the-nations-most-controversial-public-school-curriculum-system/


-Excerpts from the link above:
Bolding is added.

"In February, Texas announced that the state, along with the Texas Education Service Center Curriculum (TESCCC,) would enact major changes to the controversial curriculum management system dubbed CSCOPE. The system received a litany of complaints from faculty members and parents alike concerning its lack of transparency(parents were allegedly not permitted to review lesson-plans), lack of oversight from the State Board of Education, and for allegedly imposing oppressive working conditions for faculty members.....


To note just how off-color some of the CSCOPE curriculum is, consider that the Texas CSCOPE Review, an independent watchdog group, uncovered an out-of-date, optionalCSCOPE lesson-plan on terrorism — “World History Unit 12 Lesson 07″ — which allegedly likens the Boston Tea Party to “an act of terrorism.”

Using a chart, Barton documented and mapped out core CSCOPE material, which eliminates national values, Americanism or rather, American exceptionalism, the study of federalism and majority rule (the core of our constitution) along with patriotic symbols like the Liberty Bell. Christopher Columbus, Rosh Hashanah and Christmas are all relegated to the dustbin along with American military history. Equality and a belief in justice is replaced by “fairness” and instruction on American propaganda and imperialism.

Disturbingly, Beck and Barton noted that the worst is yet to come. Showcasing a lesson plan for grades 1-3, Barton revealed CSCOPE’s list of “heroes,” which comprises a dozen secular progressives and only three conservatives or political moderates."
It gets worse:

"According to a previous report from TheBlaze, teachers complained that they were expected to deliver the curriculum verbatim and only on days allotted by the CSCOPE lesson plan. Even if students were unable to absorb the lesson, teachers were allegedly directed to progress to the next lesson regardless. TheBlaze also reported that teachers were “asked to sign a contract that would prevent them from revealing what was in the CSCOPE lessons or face civil and criminal penalties.' ".................

In The Spirit of Laws, by Charles de Secondat, Baron de Montesquieu*, the author repeatedly stresses that the primary means by which a republic can survive is if the people have a love of their country. Without this, the republic will fail. 

*Along with Locke, Montesquieu was a source of political though on whom the Founders greatly relied. His work had tremendous influence in the drafting of our Constitution, especially with the actual separation of powers of our government, an attribute that has sadly become ineffective.


No system of government lasts forever. We currently live under the longest-lasting Constitution in the world. That is a major achievement and a credit to those who crafted it and later defended it when our nation was threatened with collapse. We cannot, however, continue to cling to it if it is no longer what it was intended to be. I would rather lay it to rest honorably than live with it as a facade of a government animated by Leftist thought. 


We still, barely, have the power to create a restored American republic comprised of the states that are not already lost. Our children deserve to learn about our history in a manner than makes them proud of our nation.

Monday, February 10, 2014

Rand Paul Gives My Warning for Texas

Of course there is no chance that Sen. Paul has read any post read this blog, but I couldn't resist as I made this prediction and assessment of the consequences of an electrical shift in the Lone Star State  several times previously (some links at bottom).


http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/02/10/rand-pauls-dire-warning-for-texas/

"Conservative Texans must remain vigilant and learn to adapt or they will lose their state to Democratic politicians, Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) reportedly told a group of Republicans over the weekend.

Texas will be “a Democratic state within 10 years” if Republicans fail to reach out to more voters, the Kentucky senator told the group in Houston, according to reports of the event.

The senator, who has expressed similarsentiments before, said party leaders in the state need to learn to adapt with the times and to be the party of inclusion.

“That means we evolve. It doesn’t mean we give up on what we believe in, but it means we have to be a welcoming party,” Paul said Saturday at an event hosted by the Harris County Republican Party. “We have to welcome people of all races. We need to welcome people of all classes — business class, working class.”

He said the Republican Party needs to focus outreach efforts on traditionally ignored voting blocs........."

As I have noted that Republicans will be rewarded for "immigration reform" with a solid Democratic national  voting bloc, I was disappointed that Senator Paul stated that making illegals into new voters, but the main point is still clear - Texas is poised to swing to the Left. If that happens, those electoral votes alone will make presidential elections a mere formality. 

Milwaukee Catholic Schools Go With Common Core

Pasting of links is still a problem with the computer. This article came from Fox News and is dated  June 9, 2014.

As the acceptance of the Common Core (Type "Common Core" in search bar on right of this page for previous posts) has been mostly restricted to public schools his may be a surprise to many, but for those who are familiar with the Diocese of Milwaukee, Wisconsin Diocese, this comes as no surprise.

This is the diocese that was run by the infamous and simply horrid Archbishop Rembert Weakland. This individual was reported to have paid out almost a half a million dollars to his gay lover to prevent a lawsuit and certainly allowed radical feminists to disrupt ordinations of new priests. His attempts to destroy the Church did not stop there; in the book Ugly As Sin - Why They Changed Our Churches from Sacred Places to Meeting Spaces-And How We Can Change Them Back Again, the author details the vast sums spent on tearing out the beautiful and costly features of the cathedral ( which was largely paid for by working-class Catholics) to transform the place of worship into a barren, formless, and willfully un-Catholic building. His justification for the destruction was that the features (I read the book years ago so I provide the best quote that I can now) "had no appreciable religious nor historical purpose".

The culture of this diocese  is as Catholic as that of the most hyper-Liberal of Mainline Protestant or Evangelical bodies. 

From Fox News-

"Milwaukee Catholic school parents blast Archdiocese's blessing of Common Core"

"A group of Milwaukee-area Catholic school parents are fuming over the Archdiocese's
decision to implement Common Core at its 110 parochial schools, and some are turning to home-schooling their children.

More than 1,000 parents have banded together and launched a campaign and online petition calling for the Archdiocese of Milwaukee to reverse Archbishop Jerome Listecki’s move at the beginning of the year to implement the controversial, Washington-backed educational standards. Some told FoxNews.com that they send their children to private schools precisely to avoid a secular curriculum they believe is infused with politics and dubiously researched lessons.

“If I wanted my children to have a public school curriculum I would have sent them to a public school,” Heather Schweitzer, of Kenosha, who recently pulled her daughters Mia, 9, and Chloe, 7, out of All Saints Catholic School and is now teaching them at home, told FoxNews.com. “A Catholic school’s priority is to prepare children for Heaven, not for college.”......


Of the five parishes in the state of Wisconsin, the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is the only one to adopt Common Core. The unusual move has led to speculation from some. Listecki insists that standards at the schools he oversees will not be changed by participating in Common Core.

“Our approach in the Archdiocese of Milwaukee is no different than the approach of other bishops in the State of Wisconsin, namely, that each of us has a strong commitment to Catholic identity, and that commitment shines through boldly in our Catholic schools,” the Archbishop said in a statement provided to FoxNews.com. “Common Core standards are a reference, not a replacement for Catholic school standards. [Here comes some seriously Orwellian Newspeak]  We are not “adopting” Common Core, but rather utilizing those standards, along with our own Catholic school standards, as a way of measuring the success of our students.”.........

The parents, who have formed a loose coalition called “Milwaukee Catholic Parents Against Common Core,” and put together a petition that has garnered more than 1,000 signatures, according to education blog EAG news.

The coalition claims Common Core standards represent "untested, experimental standards that are threatening the independence of Catholic schools,” according to a statement. The group points out that the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops has said Common Core was developed for a public school audience and is "of its nature incomplete as it pertains to Catholic schools.”.........."

Retired US Colonel " We Could have ...Gotten Them Easily" In Benghazi

Again, no pasting of links as the computer is giving me all sorts of problems

I have noted on previous posts that I was as certain as one who was not involved with the actual investigations could be that the official reports that all military assets were too far away for a timely response to the Benghazi attack were outright lies.

The following confirms my stance - at least regarding the chance of a rescue. Now, the enemy has no choice but to admit either that Col. Stahl is correct, claim that he is grossly mistaken, or accuse him of being a liar.

The text comes from an article in FoxNews and is dated June, 11, 2014.

"US spy agencies heard Benghazi attackers using State Dept. cell phones to call terrorist leaders"

"The terrorists who attacked the U.S. consulate and CIA annex in Benghazi on September 11, 2012 used cell phones, seized from State Department personnel during the attacks, and U.S. spy agencies overheard them contacting more senior terrorist leaders to report on the success of the operation, multiple sources confirmed to Fox News.

The disclosure is important because it adds to the body of evidence establishing that senior U.S. officials in the Obama administration knew early on that Benghazi was a terrorist attack, and not a spontaneous protest over an anti-Islam video that had gone awry, as the administration claimed for several weeks after the attacks.

Eric Stahl, who recently retired as a major in the U.S. Air Force, served as commander and pilot of the C-17 aircraft that was used to transport the corpses of the four casualties from the Benghazi attacks – then-U.S. Ambassador to Libya Chris Stevens, information officer Sean Smith, and former Navy SEALs Glen Doherty and Tyrone Woods – as well as the assault’s survivors from Tripoli to the safety of an American military base in Ramstein, Germany.............

A separate U.S. official, one with intimate details of the bloody events of that night, confirmed the major’s assertion. The second source, who requested anonymity to discuss classified data, told Fox News he had personally read the intelligence reports at the time that contained references to calls by terrorists – using State Department cell phones captured at the consulate during the battle – to their terrorist leaders. The second source also confirmed that the security teams on the ground received this intelligence in real time.

Major Stahl was never interviewed by the Accountability Review Board, the investigative panel convened, pursuant to statute, by then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, as the official body reviewing all the circumstances surrounding the attacks and their aftermath. Many lawmakers and independent experts have criticized the thoroughness of the ARB, which also never interviewed Clinton......

Stahl also contended that given his crew’s alert status and location, they could have reached Benghazi in time to have played a role in rescuing the victims of the assault, and ferrying them to safety in Germany, had they been asked to do so. “We were on a 45-day deployment to Ramstein air base,” he told Fox News. “And we were there basically to pick up priority missions, last-minute missions that needed to be accomplished.”

“You would've thought that we would have had a little bit more of an alert posture on 9/11,” Stahl added. “A hurried-up timeline probably would take us [an] hour-and-a-half to get off the ground and three hours and fifteen minutes to get down there. So we could've gone down there and gotten them easily.”

"Culture of Fear" in UK Schools With Majority Muslim Student Bodies

The computer is again giving me trouble, so I can't paste any links.

This came from FoxNews and is dated June 10, 2014.

"Culture of fear' exists at several Muslim-majority schools, British regulator says"

"Inspectors in Britain investigating allegations of a plot to run several schools according to strict Islamic rules said Monday that there is evidence of an “organized campaign” to target certain schools and a “culture of fear and intimidation” exists on multiple campuses.

The Office for Standards in Education, or OFSTED, said five of 21 schools it inspected in the central English city of Birmingham failed to protect students from Islamic extremism. The Wall Street Journal reports the schools in question are state schools and have a Muslim majority.......

Chief schools inspector Michael Wilshaw said there was evidence of an "organized campaign to target certain schools" by some members of their boards of governors.

Inspectors said governors tried inappropriately to influence the curriculum at some schools, promoting a "narrow faith-based ideology" and in one case attempting to ban mixed-sex swimming lessons.

"Staff and some head teachers variously described feeling 'intimidated', 'undermined' or 'bullied' by governors, and sometimes by senior staff, into making changes they did not support," Wilshaw said........"

[Of course this is denied with no consideration for any further discussion by the British Left. The routine tactic is to respond with blatantly false accusations against anyone who dares to expose the ongoing Islamization of the UK]

"...Park View Educational Trust, which runs three of the criticized schools, rejected the inspectors' verdict. Vice chairman David Hughes said the inspectors "came to our schools looking for extremism, looking for segregation, looking for proof that our children have religion forced upon them as part of an Islamic plot."

"The OFSTED reports find absolutely no evidence of this because this is categorically not what is happening at our schools," he said."

Suppressing Dissent by Blaming Dissenters for Criminal Acts of Others

This is becoming a routine tactic of the Left - attempting to shut down any dissent by blaming writers and anyone else who expose the lies and threats posed by the Left.

When Anders Breivik slaughtered students and adults at the Utoya Socialist indoctrination camp in Norway, writers and Bloggers such as Fjordman and Gates of Vienna were not only blamed by the Leftist media, nut Fjordman himself was the subject of an investigation by police.

When Representative Gabby Giffords and others were shot by another crazed individual in 2011, those who had spoken out and written about the dangers of the direction in which the US was being taken were also immediately described as being virtual accessories (if not outright instigators of) the crime - this while the gunman himself clearly had no agenda that was even remotely associated with those who were blamed.

The attack on the US consulate in Benghazi was also originality attributed to a video that did not paint a rosy picture of Mohammed.

The intention of these acts is not hard to figure out; the Left wants people to be fearful of speaking out against their agenda lest they wind up being blamed for instigating criminal acts.

Now, Alex Jones of InfoWars is the target - and this is not his first time either:

http://www.infowars.com/raw-story-connects-las-vegas-shooters-to-alex-jones/

"The emerging narrative in the Las Vegas shooting now includes Alex Jones.

Raw Story, a liberal news blog, has placed Jones at the center of the controversy. “Jerad Miller outlined his political views, which were largely based on conspiracy theories promoted by Fox News and Alex Jones, in his social media postings, and he posted frequently about firearms and violent revolution,” writes Travis Gettys.
Jones and the liberty movement will now be implicated in the murder of police officers by way of insinuation. This is a repeated pattern.

In 2009, following the shooting death of three officers in Pittsburgh by Richard Poplawski, the corporate media attempted to affix blame on Jones.

“Believing most media were covering up important events, Mr. Poplawski turned to a far-right conspiracy Web site run by Alex Jones, a self-described documentarian (sic) with roots going back to the extremist militia movement of the early 1990s,” Dennis R. Roddy wrote for Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

Muriel Kane, writing for Raw Story, and Eric Boehlert’s blog on the Media Matters website referenced the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette story in an effort to connect Alex Jones to the shooting.........."

"Jews" Critical of Israel Cry Foul for Cancelled Speaking Engagements

One of the most-used implements in the Leftist toolbox is the supposed member of a particular group that does little other than voice positions contrary to those of the nation, organization, or group that they affect to represent.

'"American Patriots" who hold no position even remotely consistent with any that has ever been associated with American-style thought, "Catholics" for Free Choice, "Catholics" for Woman's Ordination (Also known as "We Are Church), "Evangelical Christians" is support of gay marriage, "Jewish" professors who fabricate stories to undermine actual Hebrew/Jewish history,  and "Israeli Jew" political activists who seek to undermine Israel all have two thing in common:

-They use the label of a nation, group, or other body to falsely represent who they are and what they seek to do; which is to bring public opinion squarely against that which they purport to support.

-When people catch on to their strategy and take appropriate action, they claim that they are being suppressed and that dialogue and free thought are being prohibited.

The maniacal push for the ordination of women priests in the Catholic Church is a case in point. Groups (with the support of many Fifth Column priests) that demanded that the Church begin ordaining females and priests would brook no dissent whatsoever - anyone who spoke out in support of the Church was subjected to abuse and ridicule. They insisted that the Church must do what they wanted as if they were speaking about a democratic process  - this even though they did not even approach a simply majority of Church membership.

The Bible (which means nothing to a false Christian), examples of Jesus ( who clearly was not averse to radical changes in thought and practice), or Christian history were not to be allowed to be submitted as evidence - all that mattered were their demands.

The Church, being by imagery from numerous sources the Bride of Christ, had Jesus Christ as her bridegroom, and the Bishop (with priests as his agents) function in the brotherly and paternal role of Christ (Now we see what the problem actually is!). What the women's ordination crowd wanted was an image of a lesbian wedding even before Western nations and their people caved in to the notion.

When John Paul II, weary of the incessant demands of something contrary to the very nature of Christianity, finally made it clear that the Church simply does not posses the authority to ordain women, the response was immediate - a blatant lie:

-The Vatican is saying that we are not allowed to talk about it. 

This was first instance in which I noted the strategy of the Left. Make demands and take positions contrary to the well-being and order of a body, then promptly claim oppression and make false accusations.

http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/06/08/israel-once-cause-that-united-american-jews-is-now-dividing-them-along/ 

"......Jewish organizations are withdrawing invitations to Jewish speakers or performers considered too critical of Israel, in what opponents have denounced as an ideological litmus test meant to squelch debate. Some Jewish activists have formed watchdog groups, such as Citizens Opposed to Propaganda Masquerading as Art, or COPMA, and JCC Watch, to monitor programming for perceived anti-Israel bias. They argue Jewish groups that take donations for strengthening the community shouldn't be giving a platform to Israel's critics.

American campuses have become ideological battle zones over Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories, with national Jewish groups sometimes caught up on opposing sides of the internal debate among Jewish students. The "Open Hillel" movement of Jewish students is challenging speaker guidelines developed by Hillel, the major Jewish campus group, which bars speakers who "delegitimize" or "demonize" Israel. Open Hillel is planning its first national conference in October.

And in a vote testing the parameters of Jewish debate over Israel, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, a national coalition that for decades has represented the American Jewish community, denied membership in April to J Street, the 6-year-old lobby group that describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace and has sometimes criticized the Israeli government. Opponents of J Street have been showing a documentary called "The J Street Challenge," in synagogues and at Jewish gatherings around the country, characterizing the group as a threat from within.

"I believe this has reached a level of absurdity now," said Rabbi Sharon Brous, founder of the IKAR-LA Jewish community in California, which is considered a national model for reinvigorating religious life. "Even where people are acting from a place of love and deep commitment that Israel remains a vital and vibrant state, they are considered outside the realm. It's seen as incredibly threatening and not aligned with the script the American Jewish community expects."...........

Internal American Jewish conflict has worsened as many Israel advocates have come to feel under siege in the U.S. The international boycott movement against Israel over its treatment of the Palestinians has gained some momentum in the U.S., and critics increasingly draw analogies between Israeli policies and South African apartheid.

The clashes among American Jews are partly colored by the sharp tone of overall left-right debate within the U.S. Earlier this year, the Brandeis chapter of J Street and one of its most vocal antagonists on campus, Daniel Mael, accused each other of harassment and made complaints to campus police. Mael, a 21-year-old Orthodox Jew, wrote a series of posts for the conservative site truthrevolt.org accusing J Street of bringing "Israel bashers" on campus.

J Street has said its opponents often distort the group's statements. The liberal lobby created a "Myths & Facts" page on its website challenging the claims.

Many leaders of the older, more-established organizations say the divisions are not as broad or deep as some claim. Defenders of the presidents' conference argue their 50-member association includes liberal organizations with similar views to J Street, and they blame the lobby group for whipping up a backlash to the vote.

The presidents' conference was formed in the 1950s in response to what was considered a failure of U.S. Jewish leaders during World War II to speak to American policy makers with one voice. Members were expected to keep internal discussion and voting private.

Among the 17 conference members who voted for J Street in April were the Anti-Defamation League, the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, and the Conservative and Reform Jewish movements. Twenty-two conference members voted no and three others abstained. The remaining member groups did not send a representative to vote.

Farley Weiss, president of the National Council of Young Israel, an association for Orthodox synagogues, dismissed J Street's members as students with a skewed understanding of Mideast history because of the "one-sided, left view" on U.S. college campuses. Weiss was among the few members of the Conference of Presidents who campaigned publicly to block J Street's admission to the group.

"Their views are not part of what I consider the mainstream of the Jewish community," Weiss said.

"I wouldn't characterize them as enemies of Israel," Weiss said. "I would characterize it that their self-avowed statement that they are pro-Israel is not accurate."

The split among U.S. Jews has its roots in the Jewish settlement building in the occupied territories after the 1967 Six Day War, which sparked debate in the U.S. and in Israel over whether the settlements helped or hurt Israeli security.

At the same time, American Judaism was splintering. The strictly traditional Orthodox population grew, but so did the number of Jews who left organized religious life. Jews were marrying outside the faith at a high rate, and their families were generally less involved in the Jewish community and less tied to Israel.

"We now have more people who care deeply about Israel and more people who care very little about Israel," said Steven M. Cohen, a professor at Hebrew Union College-Jewish Institute on Religion who specializes in research on the American Jewish community......."

Heroism for the Moment Versus Virtue That Engenders Heroism

The last two nights were a blur. My youngest graduated from high school, and last night and the previous one kept us busy and out late with celebrations.

On the way to the graduation ceremony, he and I were discussing our conversation when, at the end of his eight grade year, I explained to him that the following four years were going to pass by before he realize what had happened. A few days before, he had told me that he was going to graduation practice, and I asked if he felt any excitement about that. His reply was one that I had not expected from the once-emotional child who had turned stoic as a young adult - he said that "It's more bittersweet than anything else". He then uttered the same statement that most of us have said or felt at one time or another.

It would be nice if we had one more year.  

Back to the trip to the school - I noted to my son that he should think about the possibility that he would accomplish things that would merit a plaque in his name for the hall of notable alumni at his school. Being a young man who is determined to become a Marine Officer (In English Marine Corps rather than the navy), he asked if I meant something along the lines of winning the Congressional Medal of Honor for bravery in combat. My reply was that anyone - even the laziest person imaginable, can perform heroic and selfless things when they chance upon an event that gives him the opportunity to act, but it is the man or woman of virtue, focus, and determination that will accomplish the most over time. The former can be a flash-in-the-pan, but the latter will be the one that others will strive to emulate.

After the graduation ceremony, one of my son's teachers walked up to me while the graduate was taking photos with his friends and made a very nice comment:

He is going to accomplish great things. 

That was a great thing to hear. It also confirmed what I told him while we were driving to the school - that great things are achieved by those who never cease to strive while living a life of virtue. 

I responded to the teacher with my thanks and added that, when Frederick the Great of Prussia was asked what type of general he favored, he replied:

-The lucky ones.

I hold that what Fredrick meant was that, by constantly working to better his troops, his officers, and himself while always looking for the opportunity to do well, the best leaders will make their own luck.

My son will be attending a prestigious and very old senior military college. This was his choice and his anticipation to begin training and classes there in August  is more than sufficient to - at least somewhat, offset the pain of parting with his first and only girlfriend until Thanksgiving break in November. 

Time will tell if my son brings the confident prediction of his highs school teacher to fruition, so I will have to trust in God and do my best to refrain from giving him cause to lose faith in his faith, cultural inheritance, and his upbringing.  

EPA Head Assails "Climate Inaction"

We have gone from Global Warming to Anthropogenic Climate Change to Climate Inaction.

No matter the label, Westerners will foot the bill for the reduced ability to produce domestic energy and their domestic-made durable goods will become ever-less competitive if we stand by and allow ourselves to be enslaved with carbon credits and direct carbon taxes.

Carbon Dioxide is not a pollutant, and nature periodically blows off tons of it from forest fire and other natural phenomena. It's also good for plants that need it for respiration.

http://www.theblaze.com/stories/2014/06/02/epa-chief-seas-will-rise-temperatures-will-soar-without-government-action-on-climate-change/


"The chief of the Environmental Protection Agency on Monday justified the EPA’s sweeping new regulation on power plant emissions as a necessary step to prevent catastrophic increases in both the Earth’s temperature and sea levels.

“If we do nothing, in our grandkids’ lifetimes, temperatures could rise 10 degrees and seas could rise by 4 feet,” EPA Administrator Gina McCarthy said in a Washington press conference announcing the new rule.

McCarthy also blamed climate change on rising medical bills, higher insurance costs, and an increased frequency in devastating storms.

“Climate inaction is costing us more money, in more places, more often,” she said. “2012 was the second most expensive year in U.S. history for natural disasters.”

Skeptics of the theory of man-made global warming have argued that individual storms can’t be seen as evidence that the theory is correct. Some have also pointed to the very cold winter as an indication that warming may not be as bad as some believe. But McCarthy dismissed those skeptics, and said climate change is the cause of extreme weather that can lead to unreliable power supplies.

“I’m tired of people pointing to the polar vortex as a reason not to act on climate,” she said. “It’s exactly the opposite. Climate change heightens risks from extreme cold that freezes power grids, superstorms that drown power plants, and heat waves that stress power supplies.”

On Monday morning, the EPA released its regulatory plan, which seeks to cut carbon emissions from power plants by 30 percent in 2030, compared to 2005 levels. Early assessments of that plan indicate that many power plants are nearly halfway to that mark, since the baseline of 2005 was before the recession hit.........

“Today’s announcement is a dagger in the heart of the American middle class, and to representative democracy itself,” he said. “Already reeling from the painful effects of Obamacare, the American people are now being told they have to shoulder the burdens of the president’s latest ‘solution’ in the form of higher costs, fewer jobs, and a less reliable energy grid.

“The fact that the president plans to do all this through an end-run around Congress only highlights his contempt for the wishes of the public and a system of government that was devised precisely to restrain an action like today’s.”

McCarthy blasted critics who are claiming “the sky is falling,” and who she said will “deliberately ignore the risks, overestimate the costs, and undervalue the benefits.”

But while she initially rejected McConnell’s claim that energy prices would rise under the regulation, she then acknowledged that prices could rise somewhat.

“Critics claim your energy bills will skyrocket. [Well Obama said the very word "skyrocket"* himself and he is not a critic) They’re wrong,”[So the EPA chief says that Obama is wrong]  she said. “Any small, short-term change in electricity prices would be within normal fluctuations the power sector already deals with. And any small price increase — think about the price of a gallon of milk a month— is dwarfed by huge benefits.”

*http://www.politifact.com/truth-o-meter/statements/2009/jun/11/mike-pence/pence-claims-obama-said-energy-costs-will-skyrocke/

"Under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket," Obama told the Chronicle . "Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

*https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HlTxGHn4sH4
 

Syrian Orthodox Nun Details Crimes Against Christians

Hat tip to Gates of Vienna.

Out of all religions and political systems that have ever existed in history, Islam (being both) is the one that holds lives of the unbeliever the least dear, creates a climate in which rape (especially that of of non-Muslims) is almost a routine matter, and leaves the non-Muslim at the mercy of their Islamic overlords who often enough could not care less about their well-being.

In Western Europe, there is no such thing as free speech. Anything deemed offensive by Muslims in the nations that have imported hordes of those who seek to overturn the social order of the West will cause the offender to be fined or worse. These same nations make almost no effort to help Christians leave the regions in which they are persecuted because they would not be as helpful in destroying the electorate of a Western nation.

The link has a video clip in which Sister Hatune Dogan notes the plight of Christians in the Middle and Near East. The accounts of rape of young girls are the most gut-wrenching bay far.  

http://gatesofvienna.net/2014/06/only-the-truth-can-save-you/

"Sister Hatune Dogan is a Syrian Orthodox nun. She was born in Turkey, but her family fled to Germany to escape persecution. She now works in the field to help persecuted Christians all over the world, especially in the Middle East.......

'One of my friends in Sweden, Michael Hess the other day in court,
was fined a penalty of 5.000 euros for writing on a website these words:
”When will you journalists understand that rape is rooted in Islamic culture
and is used against women who refuse to follow Islam”..............

I have experienced with just Iraqi Christian girls and ladies, 218 that were kidnapped raped and misused.
They had to pay ransom and some of them they [mutilated].
I went to Egypt around the same time and interviewed 132 girls.
Young girls between the ages of 11 and 15. Around this age maximum.
And out of them only 2 had not been touched, misused, abused or circumcised or something like that.
If I count all together there are more than 500 girls that I personally know and saw, that had been raped.....................

The Swedish people they open their door for everybody. That’s wrong!
They should only open the door for persecuted ones.
Not for those that like to go there, later to become THEIR terror.
They have to check, “Who is this person?”
That is important, and not only in Sweden, in all countries.
The European countries or any country abroad if they see that these people
are moving away from the law of that country, if they violate the rights of human beings and are not obeying,
they have to send them directly back to their own country. They have nothing to search here.
Because they come here with the mission to plant the Islamic religion here,
through the Koran schools, through the ideology and later – not necessarily with guns -
but because each Muslim man can have maybe ten ladies and 60 children
and the Swedish people or German people they have 1 or 0 or 2 children maximum.
Automatically they will rule here with their womb, just as Erdogan has said.
- Like Ghaddafi once said.

You among other things said, that “The persecutors are given refuge [In western countries] , while the persecuted have to stay.”
Could you talk a bit more about that, because that sounds very interesting?

Yes, in the Middle East you can bribe the people with a little bit of money and get what you like.
And the UN workers, they are mostly covered Muslim ladies or gents, mostly ladies.

So, when one persecuted Christian person with his family or his wife go there,
bringing their stories of persecution. The ladies who are listening to them, they are Muslim.
They’ll say “yes, yes, of course we will do that” and the person feels,
”OK, soon I’ll go from here and save my life and children”. He believes that.
But “No”. After he is out the door they will throw all his papers in the garbage, because he is a Christian.
And because he is telling what the Muslims did to him, and they don’t want that published.

Secondly, they will make a recommendation, to get a visa from abroad.
And if he gets the possibility then this worker, they use the possibility of the paperwork to make money by selling it.
So, that one Muslim or Muslim family can come. So instead a persecutor can come out of the country with this possibility.
And the persecuted one, he will still remain there.

- According to official numbers the Swedish state pays around 200.000 euros a year
for one young Syrian refugee that comes into Sweden. And he has himself paid about 10.000 euros to get there.
If that money, 200.000 euros, were given to the *Hatune Foundation , how many people could you help out in a year?
Oh, thousands! Thousands of people I could help."

*http://www.geocities.ws/sisterhatune/

Former VA Executive Explains Part of Problem Leading to Treatment Scandal

The good news is that a former executive from the Veterans Administration is being honest about the lack of production among health care professionals whose job is to treat our veterans. The bad news is that very few people are addressing the fact that single-payer systems - a euphemism for government-operated health care, are microcosms for what happens in nations that have socialized medicine.

If you have a problem that, for example, only occurs intermittently and never in a manner in which you can predict the onset of symptoms, you will have a lot of trouble if your only option is a government-run system. Unless what you are experiencing has all the marks of a life threatening condition, you will not receive the tests that you would hope to get. I have experienced this dilemma firsthand, and I have yet to find a case in which the results were different. Despite the fact that all of the employees and equipment is all - as the they say, "paid for", these still entail monetary costs. Any procedure, appointment, or test will be reviewed those staff whose responsibility it is to ensure that costs are kept as low as possible, and deviations from standard procedure will not be allowed.

This can also occur in the private sector, but here the patient has it a bit easier. My youngest had what was found to be a temporary strain of his neck muscles that was a result of a car accident in which we were hit from behind while stopped. Due to the fact that the injury was the result of a motor vehicle accident, the auto insurer had to approve any appointments, tests, etc. He was prohibited from wrestling for his school team until he could be medically cleared, but we eventually found that the neurologist who was initially consulted to check my son had no intention of making a decision or whether or not he could wrestle- even after the X-rays and  MRI yielded negative results. Note that we had made in clear from the beginning that the only reason that we were seeking his opinion was to ascertain of he would be able to participate in the school wrestling program.

With the auto insurer (since they are not in the business of helping people participate in youth sports)  not willing to approve another doctor, we were stuck.

That is, until I decided to find another specialist and pay for the appointment myself.

We brought copies of the test results to the second neurologist, who approved and medically cleared him in one visit. I paid for the visit myself, and later submitted a claim to my own medical insurer, who agreed to pay part of the costs.

In a single-payer system that option wouldn't available, and only those with the best connections at the top would have been able to pull strings to get some "favors"  approved.

Link-pasting is still not working. This came from The Blaze and is dated June 1, 2014:

"Many factors have contributed to the Veterans Affairs waiting lists debacle, but the number of returning soldiers from Iraq and Afghanistan was hardly a major factor, said a former top VA official who believes the real problem is bad management that goes beyond the bureaucratic mess of the past.

Low productivity – such as some specialists seeing only two patients per day – and the decision to increase the number of non-service-related medical conditions treated also have significantly contributed to the problem, said Darin Selnick, the former special assistant to VA Secretary Anthony Principi from 2001 to 2004.

“The VA has all the funds it needs and all the staff it needs,” Selnick, a retired Air Force captain, told TheBlaze. “It’s just bad management.”

The VA estimates there are 2.1 million veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan. Of that number,616,487 had VA health care in 2013, according to the department. The VA estimates 689,974 will be treated in 2014. The percentage of post-9/11 veterans more than doubles the percentage of the 1991 Gulf War, but that doesn’t mean it’s insurmountable for VA’s resources.

“It’s smoke and mirrors. There has always been a continued rate of increase. You didn’t have two million dumped on the VA,” Selnick added. “About 11 percent of the veterans [enrolled for VA care] are post-9/11. That’s not going to overwhelm the system.”...........

Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki resigned Friday over the waiting lists scandal two days after a scathing report from the VA’s inspector general said the problem was national in scope. The IG report stated 1,700 veterans were waiting for appointments at the Phoenix medical facility but were not on the official waiting list. It also found that some veterans had to wait for 115 days to get appointments. The report did not address reports of whether 40 veterans have died while waiting for care.

Selnick, now a senior VA advisor for Concerned Veterans for America, blamed Shinseki and political employees in the VA for allowing a culture of poor accountability and said a good secretary could have prevented some of these problems.

“There has always been a customer service problem and a problem with bureaucracy,” Selnick said. “It doesn’t take much for an already shaky system to melt down.”......

The department has faced some genuine problems, said Joe Davis, director of public affairs for Veterans of Foreign Wars and a former Air Force sergeant.

Asked whether the VA is facing an insurmountable case load or if the agency is just performing worse than before, Davis answered, “all of the above.”..........

That said, The Daily Beast recently reported that some VA doctors apparently aren’t working that hard.

There are eight cardiologists at the VA facility in Albuquerque, Virginia; but some are seeing two patients each day, or about 36 patients per week. For perspective, the Daily Beast cites a 2013 survey of medical professionals that found 60 percent of private-practice cardiologists see 50 to 124 patients per week, more than the entire practice at the Virginia clinic in question sees in a week.

Selnick believes this is indicative of a larger problem of poor productivity by the department. He said the VA has 33 specialties, but there is no staffing plan for 31 of those specialities to determine how to address the anticipated patient load.

“It’s not (that) there are not enough doctors, it’s just that they are underutilized,” Selnick said. “It’s not the amount of doctors; it’s the amount of productivity.”

-Previous post. Again, no link can be pasted. 

Wednesday, April 23, 2014

US Military Cited as Proof That Socialism Can be a Paradise

Added 6/1/14 - I corrected "regimental" to "regimented" in the opening statement. I need to slow down on my spell check choices.
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This article should leave no one in doubt; the Left seeks to create a regimented structure for each and every one of us - right down to the most basic of details.

When one chooses or is conscripted into the military, he must surrender a whole lot of what he once took for granted. In the vast majority of cases (with the ultimate decisions always being those of his superiors) the following will now be decided for him:

-Where he lives (both in location and type of housing)
-The instruction that he will receive 
-the choice of coworkers and roommates
-The job that he will be assigned
-When and how he will exercise
-When and what he will eat
-What personal articles he may posses (including reading material in some cases )
-The degree of his freedom of association (a crucial aspect of a free society is the Liberty to join or be associated with virtually any organization)
-The degree to which he is free to exercise both his freedom of conscience and religion 
-When (and for how long) and where he is allowed to go on his own
-When and for how long he can sleep
-When he will be subjected to searches of his person or quarters
-The type and amount of medical treatment that he will receive
-If and when he will be allowed the privilege of having a personal vehicle
-When and if he may attend even family funerals (those in training schools will often be denied leave for the death of a grandparent unless that individual was the legal guardian of the member) 
-There of course is more 

All of this is of course for a purpose; the military must by its very nature be organized and managed in a certain manner.It also is by its nature only applicable to a small subset of a society.  Now see this world being held up as an example of how Socialism can create a paradise - presumably for all of us.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/04/21/troops-of-the-uniform-unite-the-military-is-a-socialist-paradise.html

"It may come as an unwelcome surprise to conservatives, but America’s military has one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare the country has ever known.

Every day before dawn, brave men and women of different races and backgrounds rise as one, united by a common cause. They march together in formation, kept in step by their voices joined in song. These workers leave their communal housing arrangements and go toil together “in the field.” While they are out doing their day’s labor, their young are cared for in subsidized childcare programs. If they hurt themselves on the job, they can count on universal health care. Right under your nose, on the fenced-in bases you drive past on your way to work or see on the TV news, a successful experiment in collectivization has been going on for years.....................

The U.S. military is a socialist paradise. Imagine a testing ground where every signature liberal program of the past century has been applied, from racial integration to single-payer health care—then add personal honor, strict hierarchy, and more guns. Like all socialist paradises, the military has been responsible for its share of bloodshed, but it has developed one of the only working models of collective living and social welfare that this country has ever known.........

So what’s life like for those in uniform living in the socialist paradise?

The military is an enormous jobs program. [Which uses rather than creates wealth]  There are more than 2 million active duty and reserve members of the armed forces spread out between bases in more than 150 countries. As with any employer of that size, you’ll get a range of answers about working conditions depending on who you ask and how much they got screwed by the bureaucracy, let down by their leaders, or punished by circumstance.

................... It’s the commonness of the life, actually, that makes it unique. From Fort Bragg to Camp Pendleton, there is a shared experience on a scale that exists almost nowhere else in America.

Millions of people on military bases live in communal arrangements. They participate in centrally run programs that govern the most basic and fundamental aspects of their lives, from their housing and children’s educations to where and how they shop for food.

Service members and their families live for free on base. People living off base are given a stipend to cover their housing costs. They shop in commissaries and post exchanges where prices for food and basic goods are considerably lower than at civilian stores. Troops and their families count on high-quality education and responsive universal health care. They expect to be safe at home, as bases, on average, have less violencethan American cities of comparable size. And residents enjoy a wide range of amenities—not just restaurants and movie theaters but fishing ponds, camp sites, and golf courses built for their use............

On social issues, the military has consistently been ahead of the country at large. President Truman ordered the armed forces desegregated in 1948, shamefully late but two decades before the Civil Rights Act of 1964. And since the repeal of Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell in 2010, gay service members have been getting married and collecting the same benefits as their straight peers, while the issue still works its way through the states......................."

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-Previous related posts:

http://thehotgates480bc.blogspot.com/2014/04/left-conflates-freight-and-passenger.html