The Mystery Deepens

The world is searching for the missing Malaysia Airlines flight MH370. The Diplomat posted an interesting story yesterday about the flight. There were at least two passengers on the plane with stolen passports.

The article notes:

“The counterfeiting of all sorts of identifications is very widespread, particularly out of Thailand,” Steve Vickers, a Hong Kong-based risk consultant, told The Wall Street Journal. “It’s pretty easy to pick up a stolen or a counterfeit passport.”

…“Any flight of that size in Asia would be carrying a couple of people with false passports,” said Clive Williams, a counter-terrorism expert at Macquarie University in Australia. “When you think about the number of passports that have been stolen or gone missing around the world, it could be related, but it is probably not.”

This morning, Malaysia’s Transport Minister Hishamuddin Hussein said that a total of four passengers are being investigated: the two impersonating Kozel and Marald, as well as two other travelers with European passports described as “possibly Ukrainian.”

There are a lot of theories as to what has happened to the plane. One commenter on the article in The Diplomat explained how an empty fuel tank could have exploded. While that explanation is as feasible as any other, it doesn’t explain why the plane would have changed direction and dropped below the radar. I would also wonder if there are any old World War II airfields in the area that could be used without raising suspicion. But what would be the purpose of stealing an airplane? Why has no one demanded ransom or claimed credit?

It is also somewhat odd that we have not heard stories from anyone who is relieved that by some chain of events that they missed the plane. Usually after a plane crash, at least one person comes forward explaining that they got caught in traffic and missed the plane. I personally know a soldier who was coming home from Iraq and had to change planes in an American airport and missed at least three flights because kind, patriotic Americans kept on buying him drinks!

Like everyone else, I really have no clue as to what has happened.

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A Very Interesting Afternoon

Yesterday afternoon I was privileged to attend a meeting between North Carolina Department of Public Instruction State Superintendent, Dr. June Atkinson, Karyn Dickerson, the North Carolina Teacher of the Year, Jen Currin, the North Carolina Virtual Teacher of the Year, and some of the leadership of the Coastal Carolina Taxpayers Association (CCTA). The purpose of the meeting was to discuss concerns about the Common Core standards for education that are coming to North Carolina. The meeting was very cordial, and both sides of the discussion were genuinely interested in providing the best possible education for children and young adults in the North Carolina schools.

There was, however, some very basic disagreement on the value of the Common Core standards and curriculum. One example of inaccurate teaching of history was found in Prentice Hall’s The American Experience, a textbook which has been aligned to the Common Core.

Townhall.com posted a story about this textbook, citing the chapter in the book about World War II:

There is no reading in this chapter ostensibly devoted to World War II that tells why America entered the war. There is no document on Pearl Harbor or the Rape of Nanking or the atrocities committed against the Jews or the bombing of Britain. The book contains no speech of Winston Churchill or F.D.R. even though the reading of high-caliber “informational texts” is the new priority set by the Common Core, and great rhetoric has always been the province of an English class. There is not a single account of a battle or of American losses or of the liberation of Europe.

As the daughter of an Army veteran who landed on Utah Beach on D-Day, I am offended by this. As an American, I am offended by this.

I admire Dr. Atkinson’s desire to bring quality education to the children of North Carolina. I just feel that she has not examined the Common Core curriculum closely enough to realize that the Common Core curriculum will not give her the quality education for the students in North Carolina that she desires.

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Misplaced Prorities

During a period of danger and unrest around the world, the Obama Administration is attempting to balance the budget on the backs of our military. Hopefully Congress has more sense than that.

Yesterday The Hill posted an article detailing some of the proposed cuts to our military. I have no doubt that there are places in our military that can be cut, but I believe that reducing the army to pre World War II levels is not wise. I also believe that reducing benefits to soldiers who have been at war for almost thirteen years is also wrong–not to mention the veterans of previous wars whose benefits will be cut.

The Hill reports:

Lawmakers, as well as groups that represent veterans and the military, accused the Pentagon of balancing its pocketbook on the backs of soldiers and their families.

“We know the Defense Department must make difficult budget decisions, but these cuts would hit service members, making it harder for them and their families to make ends meet,” said Paul Rieckhoff, the founder and CEO of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America (IAVA).

Coupled with a 1 percent ceiling on pay hikes and assuming a 5 percent annual increase in housing costs, the Military Officers Association of America estimated an Army sergeant with a family of four would see an annual loss of $1,400. An Army captain would lose $2,100, it said.

The group said those figures doesn’t account for other costs that would affect military families, such as increased prices at military commissaries because of another budget proposal and an increase in healthcare fees for military family members. 

Meanwhile, on August 29, 2013, the New York Times reported:

Paul Krugman and others attribute essentially all of the SNAP spending growth to the depressed economy. They have the general direction right – a more depressed economy will cause unemployment and antipoverty programs to spend more – but have missed the single largest factor increasing program budgets: program rules that are more generous now than they were in 2007.

Veterans benefits, Supplemental Security Income, Medicaid and Temporary Assistance for Needy Families all experienced a depressed economy, too, but they somehow managed through it without doubling their spending. Veterans benefits increased the most among these – 49 percent beyond inflation and population growth – compared with 110 percent for SNAP. (These data, which exclude administrative costs, can be found in the Bureau of Economic Analysis’ National Accounts Table 3.12.) Even state unemployment benefit spending, which is directly linked to layoffs in the economy, increased “only” 24 percent beyond inflation and population growth. (The italics are mine)

We are taking money away from people who have earned it and giving it to people who have not. Admittedly, we have to take care of the poor, but we have created a system that encourages poverty–not discourages it.

In May 2013, this chart appeared at The Blaze:

Guess How Many More Americans Are on Food Stamps Now as Compared to 10 Years Ago

As usual, the Obama Administration is punishing the producers and encouraging non-producers to continue not producing. Cuts should be made to both the administration of our food stamp and welfare programs and those receiving aid, and these programs should be redone to encourage work–not poverty. President Obama has undone the welfare reforms that President Clinton put in place during his administration. Those reforms resulted in a decrease in the welfare rolls. We need to bring those reforms back and examine those programs before we begin cutting military benefits.

Just a note. I don’t appreciate it when the President and members of Congress refer to Social Security and Medicare as entitlement programs. The government set up those programs and has been willing to take money from people who work to support them for many years. If they are entitlement programs, then the people who work should not be required to pay into them. As long as the government is taking money from working people with the promise of eventually giving it back to them, these are not entitlement programs.

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An Historic Passing

WCVB.com in Boston is reporting that Maria von Trapp, the last surviving member of the von Trapp family who fled Nazi-occupied of Austria in 1938, has died at age 99. The play and movie “The Sound of Music” were loosely based on a book written by Maria von Trapp’s stepmother, also Maria von Trapp.  After they escaped from Austria, the musical family performed concerts in Europe and America. In the early 1940’s the family settled in Vermont and opened a ski lodge in Stowe.

The death of Maria von Trapp is another reminder that the generation that fought and was impacted by World War II is rapidly disappearing. We need to remember their courage and hold on to the principles they stood for.  Maria’s father, Georg von Trapp, was a captain in the Austrian Navy. He had the wisdom to see where the country was going under the Nazis and the courage to get his family out of there.

 

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The State Of The Union

Today’s Independent Journal Review posted a list of seven of the lies President Obama told during his State of the Union address. There were more than seven, and I am sure anyone who has been paying attention was able to spot many of the lies in the speech.

The article lists seven:

1) Income inequality is the worst it’s ever been! The article points out that income inequality is the same as it was in 1987.

 

2) Raising minimum wage will help families. The article reminds us that it’s not hard to believe that Obama, who has never run a business, doesn’t understand that artificially forcing a business to pay someone more than their wage is worth will put more people out of the labor market. Making job creation more expensive leads to fewer jobs.

 

3) His minimum wage hike for federal workers brings immediate relief. The article points out that most employees of federal contractors earn more than the minimum wage, so this will apply to only about 10% of those, or 200,000 employees. Finally, this wage hike won’t apply until 2015 at the earliest, and even then, only for new contracts, not old ones.

 

4) How many Americans have gained insurance under Obamacare? In fact, five million Americans have lost insurance, meaning that this number is not a net gain. In other words, the vast majority already had insurance before Obamacare. As few as 11% might be new enrollments to Obamacare. Finally, the payment system for the federal Obamacare website isn’t completed; who knows how many of these will experience more “glitches.”

 

5) Obama will cut red tape that’s holding up construction jobs!  The article reminds us “The reason most of these projects are delayed is they don’t have enough money. So it’s great that you are expediting the review process, but the review process isn’t the problem. The problem is we don’t have enough money to invest in our infrastructure in the first place.”

 

6) Your medicare premium went up? You’re making that up! The article points out that on paper, the program’s giant trust fund for inpatient care gained more than a decade of solvency because of cuts to service providers required under the health law. But in practice those savings cannot simultaneously be used to expand coverage for the uninsured and shore up Medicare.

 

7. Obama’s created 8 million new jobs in the last four years. The article reminds us that this figure leaves out a lot of lost jobs early in Obama’s presidency and glosses over that this recovery has been the weakest since World War II. According to the Bureau of Labor Statistics, only a net gain of 2.4 million job have been added on Obama’s watch (this doesn’t account for population growth, leading to the lowest labor participation rate since 1978).

 

Generally speaking, there were a lot of lies in the speech. After listening to the speech, a person could easily assume that ObamaCare was working fabulously, the economy was in great shape, and the President could do anything he wanted to without the approval of Congress. Obviously, none of the above is true. I understand that politicians tend to stretch or spin the truth, but any resemblance to truth in last night’s State of the Union speech was purely coincidental.

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Is This The Right Time?

I am asking the above question because I really don’t know the answer. The article that follows is for your consideration.

The U.K. Independent is reporting today that a previously unseen Alfred Hitchcock documentary about the Holocaust is about to be released.

The article reports:

In 1945, Hitchcock had been enlisted by his friend and patron Sidney Bernstein to help with a documentary on German wartime atrocities, based on the footage of the camps shot by British and Soviet film units. In the event, that documentary was never seen.

“It was suppressed because of the changing political situation, particularly for the British,” suggests Dr Toby Haggith, Senior Curator at the Department of Research, Imperial War Museum. “Once they discovered the camps, the Americans and British were keen to release a film very quickly that would show the camps and get the German people to accept their responsibility for the atrocities that were there.”

The film took far longer to make than had originally been envisaged. By late 1945, the need for it began to wane. The Allied military government decided that rubbing the Germans’ noses in their own guilt wouldn’t help with postwar reconstruction.

Five of the film’s six reels were eventually deposited in the Imperial War Museum and the project was quietly forgotten.

In the 1980’s the film was found, restored, and the missing sixth reel reconstructed. The film and a new documentary, Night Will Fall, are scheduled to be shown on British TV in 2015 to mark the 70th anniversary of the “liberation” of Europe.

Showing the film would remind the world of what happened in Germany and it would take some of the wind out of the sails of those who deny the Holocaust. Releasing the film would illustrate how cruel man can be to his fellow men, but will it actually accomplish anything?

The thing to remember is that there are people who walk among us who still are anti-Semitic. Releasing the film (or not releasing the film) is not going to impact that fact at all.

I am in favor of releasing the film because it represents a real part of the history of the world. It shouldn’t be glossed over as if it didn’t happen. The Holocaust happened to real people with real children and real parents. In some cases entire families were wiped out. It is a shameful event in world history, and if reminding the world of that event will prevent it from happening again, we need to remind the world of that event every day.

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From A Friend On Facebook

This story is from a website called truthseekerdaily.com. It is what happened when the children Sir Nicholas Winton had saved from the Nazi death camps in Czechoslovakia had a chance many years later to pay tribute to Sir Winton. Sir Nicholas Winton rescued approximately 669 children.

This is the YouTube video:

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This About Sums Up Where We Are

On Wednesday, Investor’s Business Daily posted an article giving their impression of how President Obama is dealing with the government shutdown. It’s not a pretty picture.

The article reports:

So the administration decided instead to put barricades around various other popular open-air Mall monuments to score political points in the budget shutdown standoff. That required, in turn, posting freshly printed signs explaining why they’re off limits, and a police presence to guard the barricades.

“The Obama administration is going out of its way to erect barricades and have people manning them in order to keep people out,” said Rep. Doc Hastings, R-Wash. In other words, Obama is expending more resources to close these monuments than they require to stay open.

Incredibly, this includes the Mall’s World War II memorial, which prompted a group of WWII veterans to force their way past the barricades — risking arrest — to pay homage to the fallen heroes of that war.

In case there’s any doubt as to who’s to blame for this outrage, a spokesman for National Park Service said the White House Office of Management and Budget ordered up the blockades.

Do you suppose they will try to stop people from driving on the streets of Washington, D.C.?

These are the actions of a petulant bully. He will be in office for the next three years, but as Americans we can make him less effective by electing people to Congress who refuse to be bullied. Let’s do it!

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Looking For A Way To Earn Some Easy Money?

Yesterday PJMedia posted a story about the protesters who showed up at the World War II Memorial.

The article reports:

After about an hour, about 20 protesters arrived on the scene chanting “Boehner, get us back to work” and claiming they were federal employees furloughed because of the shutdown.

As usual in Washington, things were not what they appeared to be.

The article further reports:

Then, remarkably, a guy carrying a sign passed by wearing a McDonald’s employee shirt, which I noted. I then began asking them how much they had been paid to protest, at which point the guy wearing the McDonald’s shirt came back and admitted he had been paid $15.

Huffington Post reporter Arthur Delaney states that the protest was organized by a group called “Good Jobs Nation,” not SEIU as I previously reported, and that, remarkably, the protesters weren’t even federal employees at all but individuals who WORK in federal buildings affected by the shutdown.

This is the video:

Whatever happened to real protest?

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Exactly What Is Hate Speech?

The beginning of this story is about a month old, but there are some recent events related to the story, so I am posting it now. Admittedly, I missed it when it happened.

On July 24, Breitbart.com posted an article about Lt. Col. Kenneth Reyes, a U.S. Air Force Christian chaplain currently serving at Joint Base Elmendorf-Richardson in Alaska. Col. Reyes has a page on the base’s website called “Chaplain’s Corner.”

The article reports:

Reyes recently wrote an essay entitled, “No Atheists in Foxholes: Chaplains Gave All in World War II.” This common saying is attributed to a Catholic priest in World War II, made famous when President Dwight D. Eisenhower said during a 1954 speech: “I am delighted that our veterans are sponsoring a movement to increase our awareness of God in our daily lives. In battle, they learned a great truth that there are no atheists in the foxholes.”

As reported by Fox News’s Todd Starnes, when Reyes referenced this famous line in his essay, the Military Religious Freedom Foundation (MRFF) contacted the base commander, Col. Brian Duffy, demanding he take action on Reyes’s “anti-secular diatribe.”

MRFF’s letter says that by Reyes’s “use of the bigoted, religious supremacist phrase, ‘no atheists in foxholes,’ he defiles the dignity of service members.” They accuse him of violating military regulations.

The essay was removed from the website and Col. Duffy apologized to the MRFF. However, the MRFF wanted more. They stated, “Faith based hate, is hate all the same,” and, “Lt. Col. Reyes must be appropriately punished.” (Emphasis added).

The article quotes the response of Retired Lt. Gen. Jerry Boykin of the Family Research Council, “A chaplain has been censored for expressing his beliefs about the role of faith in the lives of service members… Why do we have chaplains if they aren’t allowed to fulfill that purpose?”

Thanks to the actions of the American Family Association, the essay has been put back up on the website. Base commander Colonel Brian Duffy was influenced by over 70,000 emails and scores of posts on the base’s Facebook page by AFA supporters.

So what is the lesson we can learn from this episode? Anyone can call anything they want hate speech. If you are someone that supports the rights of military chaplains to speak of their faith, you need to be ready to respond when something like this happens. The response of everyday people like us makes a difference–even the military will respond to public opinion. If you hear of an incident like this one, speak up, be heard. If this is important to you, get involved with an organization such as the American Family Association or the Family Research Council. If we do not speak up when something like this happens, we may lose the right to speak at all.

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The Jobs Numbers In Perspective

Mort Zuckerman posted an article at the Wall Street Journal yesterday analyzing the latest jobs report. Mort Zuckerman is chairman and editor in chief of U.S. News & World Report. In the article Mr. Zuckerman points out that the longest and worst recession since the end of World War II has been followed by the weakest recovery from a recession in that period.

The article points out that the jobless rate is actually increasing–not decreasing:

The jobless nature of the recovery is particularly unsettling. In June, the government’s Household Survey reported that since the start of the year, the number of people with jobs increased by 753,000—but there are jobs and then there are “jobs.” No fewer than 557,000 of these positions were only part-time. The survey also reported that in June full-time jobs declined by 240,000, while part-time jobs soared by 360,000 and have now reached an all-time high of 28,059,000—three million more part-time positions than when the recession began at the end of 2007.

That’s just for starters. The survey includes part-time workers who want full-time work but can’t get it, as well as those who want to work but have stopped looking. That puts the real unemployment rate for June at 14.3%, up from 13.8% in May.

That is not a recovery.

The article also points out:

That brings us to a stunning fact about the jobless recovery: The measure of those adults who can work and have jobs, known as the civilian workforce-participation rate, is currently 63.5%—a drop of 2.2% since the recession ended. Such a decline amid a supposedly expanding economy has never happened after previous recessions. Another statistic that underscores why this is such a dysfunctional labor market is that the number of people leaving the workforce during this economic recovery has actually outpaced the number of people finding a new job by a factor of nearly three.

We need a serious change of economic policy to turn this around. ObamaCare is a major part of the problem, but over regulation and over taxation also play a part in this problem. Unemployment numbers of above 7 percent should not be allowed to become the norm.

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About The Rather Modest Recovery We Are Experiencing

Recently I have heard some Democrats blame spending cuts for the fact that we are in the weakest economic recovery since recoveries began. Investor’s Business Daily has a different perspective. They posted an article today with the following chart:

The article explains:

Instead, the researchers found, “the excess fiscal drag on the horizon comes almost entirely from raising taxes.”

Taxes as a share of GDP are on track to rise well above historic averages and well above rates at comparable periods in previous recoveries.

And what explains this “super-cyclical” rise in taxes?

Well, let’s see. Obama forced through a $600 billion tax hike on upper-income families at the start of this year in the name of “fairness.”

Before that, he and his fellow Democrats imposed $1 trillion of new taxes for ObamaCare, taxes that are just now hitting the economy.

As a result, federal tax revenues as a share of GDP will hit 19.3% of GDP by 2015, a level reached just six times since World War II and well above the 17.9% average over the previous 40 years.

We’d only add that Obama’s other economic policies — an out-of-control regulatory state, the looming disaster known as ObamaCare, various attempts at industrial policy among them — have also weakened what should have been a robust recovery.

Increased taxes have taken spending money out of the pockets of all Americans. Even those people fortunate enough to get raises or bonuses this year found themselves with smaller paychecks because of the increases in taxes. The combination of less spending money for the average American and the confusion many companies are dealing with regarding ObamaCare has stalled our economy. Because many of the regulations in ObamaCare only apply to companies with fifty or more employees, we are going to see many companies stop hiring at forty-nine employees until they are certain of the impact of all these regulations. We are essentially in an economic holding pattern as we wait for the current paradigm of higher taxes and more regulation to settle in. Unfortunately, if that paradigm does permanently settle in, low growth and economic stagnation will be the new normal.

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Found On Facebook

Patriot Graves

Of all the dangers facing our country, perhaps the greatest danger of all is the one that still doesn’t make many headlines — our collective national amnesia. Our history textbooks are sanitized to be politically correct and give our children little sense of the greatness of the nation they live in. The Founders are seldom mentioned unless it is part of a controversy about slavery or some other scandal.

I am often struck by how often decent American kids have nothing good to say about their own country. Their knowledge of the sacrifices made to establish and preserve their freedom is virtually non-existent. They are the recipients of the greatest freedom and opportunity that any society has ever produced, yet they are unaware of the price in flesh and blood that was paid for it.

At my father’s table, I learned love of country in a way that only a Marine could teach it. Dad taught me that patriotism wasn’t a theory — it was flesh and blood, real sacrifice and pain. You are your children’s most important teacher. They are listening.

This weekend, as we celebrate Memorial Day, tell your children about the sacrifices that had to be made to stop the march of fascism and the cancer of communism. Tell them about the beaches of Normandy and the Bataan Death March. Tell them about why there was a Berlin Wall and how free men brought it down.

Remind them about 9/11, what happened at the Pentagon and over the fields of Shanksville, Pennsylvania. Take just a minute in the next three days to teach them to love the things we love and honor the things we honor.

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United Jerusalem Day Celebration

Today I had the privilege of attending a United Jerusalem Day Celebration at the Victory Assembly of God in Sharon, Massachusetts. The event was sponsored by Rabbis and Ministers for Israel; Pastor Joe Green; Victory Assembly of God; Pastor Dick Ingram; Christians and Jews United for Israel; Rev. Fumio Taku; Friends of the IDF; Lior Zommer; Russian Jewish Community Foundation; Alex Koifman; The Irwin M. and H. Ethel Hausman Memorial Speakers Series; Rabbi Jonathan H. Hausman.

The featured speakers were Shai Bazak, Consul General of Israel to New England, Cathy Lanyard, Executive Director, American Friends of ALYN Hospital in Jerusalem, Col. Amnon Meir, I.D.F. Liaison Offer to TRADOC, and Dr. Pat Robertson of CBN.

The day was a celebration of Israel and its eternal capital, Jerusalem. Rabbi Hausman spoke of the need for Christians and Jews who support Israel to travel to Israel to see the country for themselves. He pointed out that less than one quarter of American Jews have ever visited Israel. The Rabbi reminded us that Israel is the only country in the Middle East where Christians live freely.

Cathy Lanyard spoke of the work being done at ALYN Hospital in Jerusalem, Israel’s pediatric and adolescent rehabilitation facility. ALYN treats children with a wide range of congenital and acquired conditions including cerebral palsy, neuromuscular diseases, spinal cord injuries, brain injuries, burns, terror and motor vehicle accident victims. The goal of the hospital is the equip children to go home and lie with their families.  Ms. Lanyard spoke about a Guardian Angel program to help Americans support this hospital and the work that they do.

Shai Bazak, the Consul General of Israel to New England, spoke of growing up in Israel and learning the history of the country and of the Jewish people. His father fought in the 1948 war for the liberation of Israel. In listening to him speak, I began to understand the role of the Western Wall in the life of an Israeli Jew. He described the Wall as a place for prayer and thanksgiving.

Pat Robertson spoke of God’s blessing on the Jewish people and the need for Christians to support Israel. Dr. Robertson spoke of the recent terrorist bombing in Boston. He reminded us that Islam divides the world into two categories–dar al-Harb, the house of war, and dar al-Islam, the house of Islam. There is no in-between. He pointed out that Islam is a political system with a goal of world domination. Dr. Robertson pointed out that in World War II we knew our enemy–we knew it was the Nazis–not all of the Germans–and we fought that enemy and won. He stated that we have to do that with Islam. He reminded us that David purchased Mount Moriah in order to make a sacrifice to God after he disobeyed God by taking a census. Solomon built his temple in Jerusalem.  As both Christians and Jews, we need to recognize Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.

The final speaker was Col. Amnon Meir, I.D.F. Liaison Officer to TRADOC. He stated that he was born in Israel and that his parents were born in Israel. He spoke of a visit to the concentration camps of the Holocaust. In speaking with a survivor of a camp in Austria, he said that the man said that the three most important moments of his life were–the day the U.S. army freed his concentration camp, the day the state of Israel was established, and the day that Jerusalem was unified. He reminded us that Israel is a peaceful nation that desires peace, but Israel lives in a rough neighborhood and needs to hold a big stick (a strong army).

It was an amazing day. Listening to the speakers who were raised in Israel talk about the Western Wall and what it was like to grow up in the midst of such incredible history was awesome. It was a celebration of Israel and Jerusalem. It was also a celebration of the unity that can exist between Jews who love Israel and Christians who love Israel.

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The Senate Has Finally Produced A Budget

The Senate has finally produced a budget. John Hinderaker at Power Line posted an article today explaining what was in that budget.

The article states:

The process has proved revealing: the Democrats’ budget never balances, increases spending by 62% over ten years, and adds $7 trillion to the national debt despite raising taxes by $1.5 trillion. So Senate Democrats must agree with President Obama that the nation does not face a debt crisis.

The article quotes a statement President Obama made yesterday on ABC:

[W]e don’t have an immediate crisis in terms of debt. In fact, for the next ten years, it’s gonna be in a sustainable place….

There’s not–-in any way–-an immediate crisis with respect to our finances. …

Heritage.org posted an article yesterday explaining some of the details.

The article at Heritage.org states:

…Murray’s budget includes a massive tax increase. She raises taxes by almost $1 trillion ($975 billion to be exact) over the next 10 years by “closing loopholes.” Closing loopholes is Washington-speak for eliminating deductions, exemptions, and credits.

Which loopholes to close Murray leaves up to the Senate Finance Committee. But she is pursuing this tax increase unnecessarily. The Congressional Budget Office says that revenues will be 19 percent of GDP at the end of the current 10-year budget window. That is uncomfortably above the 18.5 percent of GDP that tax revenues have averaged in times of economic growth since the end of World War II. Murray’s budget would push revenues close to 20 percent of GDP by 2023, well above average—yet still not enough to catch up with her budget’s excessive spending.

Until Congress limits spending to 18 percent of the GDP (which is what we generally collect in tax revenue) we can expect deficits to grow. It is time to cut the spending in order to prevent the growth of deficits. Otherwise, we are simply creating a debt our children and grandchildren will never be able to repay.Enhanced by Zemanta

It Was A Great Story Even If Some Of It Wasn’t True

Argo was one of my favorite movies this year. I loved seeing the story of how a fake movie had such an impact on world events. However, evidently there was some serious poetic license taken with the story.

Saturday’s U. K. Mail told the story of the seizing of the American Embassy and the taking of hostages from another perspective. Martin Williams wrote the article. He was a  First Secretary at the British Embassy in Iran when militants invaded the US Embassy in November 1979. In the movie, the British were portrayed as refusing the help the Americans who had evaded capture during the storming of the embassy. Mr. Williams tells another story.

The article relates the role Mr. Williams played that day in 1979:

We continued to get regular anonymous threats, for while the Iranians considered America to be enemy No 1, or the Great Satan, Britain was the Little Satan.

So it was not entirely surprising when a mob stormed the American Embassy on November 4. We didn’t know then how long it would last.

But we had no hesitation in helping when, at about 5pm the following day, I was told that several people had evaded capture and I should go and find them. I set off in my dusty orange Austin Maxi, which Sue and I had driven all the way from England in late 1977. It was pretty distinct and the only one in Iran; it also had a prominent GB sticker on the back.

Please follow the link above to read the entire story in the U. K. Mail. It is an amazing story of people helping people in a very difficult time.

Mr. Williams concludes:

So what prompted Ben Affleck and his people, including producer George Clooney, to portray the Brits in such a derogatory way, I don’t know. If the film had portrayed what we did, it might have added even more dramatic tension.

Let me say that, although I was disappointed by the inaccuracies,  I thought Argo was a great piece of entertainment. I can see why it won the Oscar for Best Film, but it is a semi-fictional account only.

Not that I’m surprised by its narrow viewpoint, which was geared to show the CIA as the hero.

It is not the first time that Hollywood has chosen to depict a successful world event as entirely a result of their intervention.

As a boy I can remember one of my schoolmasters commenting on the fact that most war films  gave the impression that the Americans had won the Second World War single-handed.

But this time it’s personal. I was there and I took part, as did others.  So I am concerned that Argo could become accepted as the definitive historical account.

The truth is very different, and I think it only right to get the correct information out to the public.

Now we know the truth.

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It Is Possible To Balance The Budget Without Raising Taxes

On Saturday the Washington Examiner posted an editorial about balancing the American budget. The editorial reminds us that everyone–rich or poor–will pay more in taxes after January 1.

The editorial states:

Liberal columnists love to point out that the top marginal rate on personal income was 91 percent in the 1950s and in the early 1960s. But the tax code back then was also chock-full of loopholes and benefits that let top earners escape such stifling tax burdens. As high as top marginal rates were, taxes as a percentage of GDP never rose above 19 percent, and in fact fell as low as 14.5 percent.

In fact, since World War II, federal taxes as a percentage of GDP have never risen above 20.6 percent and have averaged just under 18 percent. This has been consistent, regardless of changes to tax rates.

This fact is also confirmed in the Laffer Curve. There is a point at which tax increases actually result in less revenue. We need to keep this fact in mind as we discuss what to do about the ‘fiscal cliff.’

There are two think tanks that represent the two ways of thinking about solutions to the ‘fiscal cliff’:

Obama’s favorite think tank, the Center for American Progress, submitted a plan that calls for the federal government to eat up more than 20 percent of the American economy through taxation every year, in perpetuity. Being the liberals that they are, CAP calls for even higher levels of spending — above 22 percent of GDP by 2022 alone.

Contrast CAP’s plan with that of the Heritage Foundation. It returns taxation to just above the historical U.S. average at 18.5 percent of GDP. By cutting spending to pre-Great Society levels, the Heritage plan not only balances the budget but actually begins to lower our cumulative national debt.

Taking money from people who earn it and giving it to people who don’t earn it is not a solution to anything. Until Washington stops using American taxpayers as vehicles to get re-elected, nothing will be accomplished.

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Pulling The Plug On An Unacceptable Idea

The Daily Caller posted an article today stating that the House Appropriations Subcommittee on the Interior, Environment and Related Agencies has not included any money in its 2013 fiscal year appropriations bill to fund the Dwight D. Eisenhower Memorial Commission (EMC).

The article reports:

Opposition to the memorial has been spearheaded by the National Civic Art Society (NCAS) — a nonprofit devoted to upholding and promoting Western ideals of classical beauty in art and architecture. NCAS has criticized the “secretive, elitist, and undemocratic” memorial design competition, pointing out that the competition considered 44 entries whereas the National World War II Memorial considered 407.

NCAS has also criticized the memorial’s proposed design, which the society called an “impious, soulless design … [that] suggests nothing noble or heroic” and “represents a fundamental cleavage with the tradition of national presidential memorials.”

The planned memorial focused on President Eisenhower’s boyhood in Kansas. There was no recognition of the accomplishments of the man as a General and as a President. I was born after World War II, so my appreciation of General Eisenhower came mainly from history books.  But it also came from being the daughter of one of the men under his command on June 6, 1944. My father was not a career military man–he graduated from Clemson in 1942 and went into the army as a second lieutenant. He resigned his commission after the war. He was one of the men who landed in France on D-Day. Even though his generation said very little about their war experiences, it was always clear that he had a tremendous amount of respect for General Eisenhower. The General deserves a memorial that reflects the respect that the men who followed him into battle and the Americans who supported him as President had for him.

I am glad to see the memorial as it is presently planned defunded.

 
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Snoopy and D-Day

June 6, 1944, was D-Day. It was the day the allied forces stormed the beaches of France to bring freedom to Europe. Every year since 1993, Charles M. Schultz observed the anniversary of D-Day in his comic strip PEANUTS. Why? Below is a picture from one of the comic strips.

 

A few years ago, when I visited the Charles M. Schultz Museum in Santa Rosa, California, I found out the answer. Charles Schultz was in the army during World War II and was one of the soldiers training for the D-Day landing. Because of an illness at home, he was sent home before his unit shipped overseas. He was later attached to another unit. The unit he was originally with landed on the beaches of France and took heavy losses. That is why Snoopy is with General Eisenhower every year on June 6.

My father was one of the men who landed on the beaches of France on that day. I can’t imagine the things that he saw or had to do. I will always be grateful for the courage of all of our military and their willingness to do the things that keep us free.

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Economic Woes Affect Population Movement

Michael Barone posted an article at Townhall.com today explaining how the current economic recession is affecting population trends in America. One example cited is the migration to California which began during World War II and ended during the 1980’s. Since 1990, Americans have been leaving California. The only thing that has kept the state’s population growing at the national average has been Mexican and Asian immigration.

Mr. Barone reports in the article:

My prediction is that we won’t ever again see the heavy Latin immigration we saw between 1983 and 2007, which averaged 300,000 legal immigrants and perhaps as many illegals annually.

Mexican and other Latin birthrates fell more than two decades ago. And Mexico, source of 60 percent of Latin immigrants, is now a majority-middle-class country.

Asian immigration may continue, primarily from China and India, especially if we have the good sense to change our laws to let in more high-skill immigrants.

But the next big immigration source, I think, will be sub-Saharan Africa. We may end up with prominent politicians who actually were born in Kenya.

The state that is currently growing is Texas. One in twelve Americans now live in Texas. Texas has taken steps to attract businesses and people–it has enacted tax and tort policies to make the state business friendly. If the state governments are the laboratories for the federal government, we can learn a lot from Texas.

 

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It’s All A Matter Of Perspective

Yesterday’s Washington Examiner posted a short article about the reaction of the military to the amount of information that has been released about the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

The article reports:

When they published their revealing book last August about the nation’s fight against terrorism, the authors, two New York Times national security reporters, immediately felt heat from the Pentagon for dishing too much operational info about the killing of Osama bin Laden.

“I was stopped by a very senior officer in the special operations community who basically wanted to rip my lungs out,” said Thom Shanker, who co-authored “Counterstrike: The Untold Story of America’s Secret Campaign Against Al Qaeda,” with Eric Schmitt.

I totally understand the senior officer’s feelings. Details of a military operation or campaign should not come out until the campaign or operation is over. Last time I checked, we were still fighting the war on terror. Unfortunately, the information in the book was released by the White House–it wasn’t even leaked–it was simply released.

The article further states:

 

Shanker, an acclaimed Pentagon reporter and author, said he had a little advice for the unidentified officer: If you make general, “this is part of your new world.”

Somewhere along the line we have misplaced our priorities. I can’t imagine the above statement being made during World War II. Mr. Schmitt, co-author of the book, points out that the New York Times has a ‘pretty good’ record of holding stories when asked to. I’m sorry; I totally disagree with that statement. The New York Times broke the story on how we were tracking terrorist money and took that weapon away from those who are fighting the war on terror. They have broken other stories which had impeded our efforts to find and deal with terrorists. Sometimes, the press gets a little over-impressed with what itself and does not consider the consequences of its actions.

 

 


 

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