An Open Letter to U.S. House and Senate Republicans

   An Open Letter to U.S. House and Senate Republicans From Conservative Leaders
The Honorable Morton C. Blackwell, www.leadershipinstitute.org, has agreed to be contacted directly for interviews at cell phone 703-346-1338.
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November 30, 2012
An Open Letter to U.S. House and Senate Republicans
Dear Republican U.S. Representatives and Senators:

You are entering into a period of testing.

In the House, the nation elected in 2012 one of the largest Republican majorities in the past 100 years.  You have a mandate to fight for conservative principles that is arguably much broader than the one that narrowly reelected President Barack Obama claims to have for his leftist agenda.

Of course, House Republicans alone cannot pass a law, but united you can stop any bill which violates the principles you publicly committed to support.
In the Senate, you have more than enough Republicans to prevent the passage of anything truly harmful to our country.

Nevertheless, you are already being pressured to abandon the principles voters elected you to uphold. 

The major news media, Democrat politicians, liberal interest groups, and even some weak-kneed Republicans are demanding that you not use the powers given to you by the electorate to stop the power-grab agendas of President Obama, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, and House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi.

The Democrat leadership does want to "fundamentally change" America.
They want to increase federal power, federal spending, federal taxes, federal deficits, and federal debt.  They want to give more advantages to their liberal allies and put more federal money into the pockets of their political cronies. 

They want to undermine further traditional values and to surrender more of our national sovereignty to international bodies.

They want to weaken our country militarily and move America more rapidly in the direction of European socialism.

Their entire leftist agenda opposes the principles on which you ran and the principles of the millions of people who elected Republicans to Congress.
And now we count on you to stop them.  Nobody else can stop them but you.  You have the power, if you will use it.

The whole leftist apparatus is gearing up to panic you and to force you to cave in.  Don't do it.
All of them, the liberal Democrats, the labor unions, the leftist ideologues in the so-called "progressive" movement, and their allies in the print, broadcast, and online media will try to convince you that your political careers will be over if you don't cave in.

Let us remind you that these same people have always tried to defeat you -- yet you won election.

Whether your resistance to their current power grabs collapses or not, they will work just as hard to defeat you next time.  But if you are seen to cave in now, next time they will be stronger.
And if Republicans cave in now, when it really counts, next time you will be weaker, because your conservative base will be outraged.  Many who worked hard to elect you in the past will never lift a finger for you again.

There are two ways President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid could get what they want out of the Congress now.

First, just enough Republicans could vote with the Democrats and against most other Republicans to pass what Obama, Pelosi, and Reid want passed.

Second, the Republican leadership could negotiate a "deal" with the Democrats and take most Republican Representatives and Senators with them.

Either of those two courses would be a disaster for conservative principles because they would result in permanent advances for the "fundamental changes" the left wants to impose on our country.

Let us also remind you that a great many potent conservative organizations and millions of conservative and liberty-loving voters do not believe in the divine right of incumbents to be re-nominated.  Conservatives know how to recruit and support candidates.

In recent election cycles the left has virtually eliminated "moderate" Democrats from the Congress.  And you have no conservative Democrat colleagues at all.

At the same time, those election cycles have resulted in the nomination and election of fewer and fewer Republicans who play footsie with liberal Democrats. 

In the Republican Party, conservatives dominate the primaries more and more, a process almost certain to continue. 

Not only do you now have one of the biggest House Republican majorities in the past century, in the Senate, you have 45 Republicans, more than enough to stop many bad decisions there.
Suppose just enough Republicans cross the aisle to provide Democrats a majority in vitally important legislative battles now upon us.  They will find themselves, come election time, the targets of both liberal Democrats and conservative Republicans, which isn't likely to be healthy for their political careers.

Suppose, on the other hand, that the congressional Republican leadership negotiates a "deal," a "compromise," with Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.

The historic record of such deals shows that the Democrats usually clean the Republicans' clocks.

You will remember that, with all good will, President Reagan and then the first President Bush made deals to support some tax increases in return for Democrat promises to cut spending even more.  In both cases, the new taxes were quite real, but far from cuts in spending, spending increases followed.

Right now it is generally but incorrectly believed that Republicans aren't able to negotiate from a position of strength.

Of course, this time every element of the left will be in full-throated roar, yelling that the country will collapse if Republicans don't give in to their demands. 

There is some danger that the congressional Republican leaders will decide to accept whatever deals they can get, which might mean that Democrats get real gains and Republicans again get empty promises.  Or Democrats would get permanent changes and Republicans would get changes easily reversed by a future Congress.

If such deals are made, conservative organizations and conservative and liberty-loving voters would see that the current leadership is not an acceptable alternative to the left.  Conservatives would then likely repeat what they did in the 1970s, when they systematically and successfully undertook a multi-year effort to replace Republican congressional leadership.

With President Obama in office for another four years and his leftist appointees working tirelessly to implement the left's agenda, there is a virtual certainty that the economy will not have a significant recovery.  More likely the country will suffer a continuation of Obama's permanent recession.

Yes, this is a time of testing for you. 

If Republicans provide a consistent, conservative alternative, the time will come, probably sooner than later, when most Americans will become fed up with the left's failed agenda and be ready for a change to "throw the bums out" and restore limited, Constitutional government. 

So it's in the interest of the country and in your personal interest for you to use the power you unquestionably have now to stand firm and not surrender your conservative principles, no matter how loud the clamor of people whose central interest is to advance the left's agenda.

Sincerely,

(Affiliations for identification only)

Morton Blackwell, Chairman, The Weyrich Lunch
Colin Hanna, President, Let Freedom Ring
Ed Meese, Conservative Action Project
Jim Martin, Chairman, 60 Plus Association
Phyllis Schlafly, President, Eagle Forum
T. Kenneth Cribb, Jr., National Conservative Campaign Fund
Brent Bozell, President, ForAmerica
Tom McClusky, Sr. Vice President, Family Research Council Action
Hon. James S. Gilmore, III, President, Free Congress Action
Gary Bauer, President, American Values
Michael Farris, Chairman, Home School Legal Defense Association
Preston Noell, III, President, Tradition, Family, Property, Inc.
Penny Nance, CEO and President, Concerned Women for America
Shari Rendall, Director of Legislation & Public Policy, Concerned Women for America
Richard Viguerie, Chairman, ConservativeHQ.com
Al Cardenas, Chairman, American Conservative Union
Erick Erickson, Editor, RedState
Ken Blackwell, Chairman, Ohio Faith and Freedom Coalition
Foster Friess (WY)
Tim LeFever, Chairman of the Board, Capitol Resource Institute
David N. Bossie, President, Citizens United
Frank Cannon, President, American Principles Project
Susan Carleson, President, American Civil Rights Union, President, Carleson Center for Public Policy
Lori Roman, Regular Folks United/Rosies Project
Amy Ridenour, President, National Center for Public Policy Research
Mark Fitzgibbons, American Target Advertising
Seton Motely, President, Less Government
Ginni Thomas, Liberty Consulting
Phil Kerpen, President, American Commitment
Cindy Chafian, President, The Mommy Lobby
Bob Reccord, Executive Director, Council for National Policy
Jim Backlin, Christian Coalition of America
Amb. Hank Cooper, Former SDI Director
Rick Scarborough, President, Vision America
Reverend Lou Sheldon, Founder and Chairman, Traditional Values Coalition
Andrea Lafferty, President, Traditional Values Coalition
Nina May, Chairman, Renaissance Women, Renaissance Foundation
Joseph Farah, Editor and Chief Executive Officer, WND.com and WNB Books
Dr. Jim Garlow, Chairman, Renewing American Leadership Action
Janice Shaw Crouse, Ph.D, Beverly LaHaye Institute
Mathew Staver, Chairman, Liberty Counsel
Deryl Edwards, President, Liberty Counsel Action
Mandi Campbell, Legal Director, Liberty Center for Law and Policy
Rod D. Martin, Chairman, The Vanguard Project
Kay R. Daly, President, Coalition for a Fair Judiciary
Tim Echols, Chairman, Georgia Public Service Commission
Jeff Gayner, Chairman, Americans for Sovereignty
Ron Pearson, Council for America
Elaine Donnelly, President, Center for Military Readiness
Michael Centanni, Chairman, Freedom’s Defense Fund
Ted Baehr, Movieguide
Kristan Hawkins, President, Students for Life of America
Larry Cirignano, Faithful Catholic Citizens
Stu Epperson, Salem Communications Corporation
Dr. Day Gardner, President, National Black Pro-Life Union
Kevin L. Kearns, US Business and Industry Council
Rich Bott, President, Bott Radio Network
Dick Bott, Chairman, Bott Radio Network
Gary Aldrich, President, Patrick Henry Center for Individual Liberty, Chairman of the Board, Council National Policy
Gary A. Marx, Executive Director, Faith & Freedom Coalition
Tim Macy, Vice Chairman, Gun Owners of America
Bradley Mattes, Executive Director, Life Issues Institute
Floyd Brown, President, Western Center for Journalism
Cullen Davis, Ken W. Davis Foundation
Ken Timmerman (MD-08), Republican Candidate for Congress 2012
Richard W.C. Falknor, Chairman, Maryland Center-Right Coalition
John Kwapisz, Washington Liaison, American Council for Immigration Reform
Wes Vernon, RenewAmerica.com
Dianne Edmondson, Executive Director, Republican National Coalition for Life
Keith Mason, President, Personhood USA (CO)
Richard Ford, Heritage Alliance
Jason Jones, President, Movie to Movement
Melissa Ortiz, Ms. Wheelchair NY 2005, Founder & Principal, Able Americans
Jim Simpson, Freelance Investigative Journalist
Terri L. Burl, Forest County Republican Party Media, Social Media Director, Common Sense Campaign (AL)
Liz Reiten, Chair of the Florence County Republican Party,
Christ Martinson, Secretary, Wolf River Area Patriots (WI)
Penna Dexter, Co-Host, Point of View Radio Show
Todd Dexter, President, Todd Dexter & Associates
Donald Gaines, Founder & Local Coordinator, Covington County Tea Party Patriots (AL)
Mike Diggs, Tea Party Patriots of North Alabama
Seth Cowan, President, Wolf Area Patriots (WI)
Karen Schroeder, President (WI), Advocates for Academic Freedom, TeaPartyPerpective.com, Wisconsin
Troy Newman, President, Pro-Life Nation
Somers H. White, President, Somers White Co., Inc.
Roy Stringfellow, M.D., Advanced Gynecology, LLC
Penna Dexter, Radio Host
Bob Ellis, American Clarion (SD)
Judson Phillips, Founder, Tea Party Nation
Kelly G. Berry, President, The Madison Institute Association
Mark D. West, President, Chattanooga Tea Party (TN)
Dave Kramer, Dubuque County Tea Party (IA)
Cathie Adams, President, Texas Eagle Forum
Tammy Kobza, Iowa State Director, Iowa Eagle Forum
Jim Treat, Chairman, BV Tea Party Patriots
Becky Gerritson, President, Wetumpka TEA Party of Alabama
Robert K. Fischer, President, Fischer Furniture, Inc.
Tina J. Benkiser, Attorney & Counselor at Law, Fr. Republican Party of Texas Chairman
Kirk Elliott, Ph.D., TodaysAmerica.com
Dee Park, Chair, Moore TEA Citizens (NC)
Suzanne (Zan) Green, Founder, Rainy Day Patriots
J. Keet Lewis, Texans for Conservative Principles PAC
Joshua Charles, Rediscovery Project, William Jessup University
David Y. Denholm, President, Public Service Research Council
Harold Sorensen, Americans Must Investigate Public Servants
Lisa Becker, President, Liber8Congress
Jodi McDade, Member Alabama Republican Party Executive Committee
Lee A. Beaman, Entrepreneur, Nashville, Tennessee
Joseph Schwartz, North Woods Patriots (WI)
Kim Simac, President, North Woods Patriots (WI)
Kirsten Lombard, Organizer, The Wisconsin 9/12 Project
Seth Morgan, Former State Representative (OH),, Board Member of Citizens for Community Values,, Conservative Coalition Leader
Sidney E. Johnson, M.D., Member Wood County Republican Party, Member Central Wisconsin Tea Party
Ron Hei, Common Sense Tea Party Patriots of Covington County, AL
David Cook, DCC, Inc.
Tricia Erickson, President of Angel Pictures & Publicity and Crisis Management Incorporated
Dale Beach, Montgomery Tea Party Patriots (AL)
Sharon Glass, President, Santa Rosa TEA Party
Jerry A. Johnson, President, Criswell College
Bobbie Patray, President, Tennessee Eagle Forum
Daniel J. Stafford, Representative, Walton County Patriots, Florida
Ken Settle (WI), Northwoods Patriots of Eagle River
Dr. Terry B. Batton, Founder and President, Barbour County, Alabama Tax Enough Already Party
Kirk Hays, North American Jet
Tearlach F. Sinclair, Menominee County ACE, Americans for Constitutional Enforcement
Jeffery Horn, Prairie Patriots (WI)
Sidney E. Johnson, M.D., Member, Wood County Republican Party, Member, Central Wisconsin Tea Party
Becky Hall, President, Northern Liberty Alliance (Northern Minnesota/Wisconsin)
Donna Hearne
Peggy Dau
Peter Weyrich (VA)
Mr. Jeffrey L. Kirschmann
Dan Curan
Jim Coursolle (WI)
Ellen Grigsby
Dr. William Greene, President, RightMarch.com
Dr. Shelli Jones Manuel, CEO: Harvest Projects International Inc., CEO: Resurrect America Show, EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR: Sing It America
Bud LaCoy, Americans for Constitutional Enforcement, Marinette County                                   

Religious Pathology!

So, you think the Ku Klux Klan and the Spanish Inquisition are bad? So do we, but...  Put the Numbers in Perspective
More people are killed by Islamists eachyear than in all 350 years of the Spanish Inquisition combined. (source)	Islamic terrorists murder more people every day than the Ku Klux Klan has in the last 50 years. (source)
More civilians were killed by Muslim extremists in two hours on September 11th than in the 36 years of sectarian conflict in Northern Ireland. (source)	19 Muslim hijackers killed more innocents in two hours on September 11th than the number of American criminals executed in the last 65 years. (source)

Shut Up, Grandpa - the next stage is tyranny.

Shut Up, Grandpa

By Daren Jonescu

November 26, 2012

 http://www.americanthinker.com/2012/11/shut_up_grandpa.html

Collectivists of the Washington establishment, representing both major parties, have analyzed the 2012 election results and come to a lovely conclusion: old white men are the problem. The only difference of opinion between the two factions regards how one ought to handle it.

Democrat experts declare that laughable old coots are the natural core of the Republican Party, so one need only join the cool leftist majority and leave Grandpa in his kitchen chair to mutter to himself until death shuts him up for good. Republican experts, as the reluctant stewards of these cantankerous fogies, are more circumspect: they merely want to leave Grandpa ranting in the corner with his talk radio shows, while they attend to the urgent business of selling off his prized possessions (e.g. property rights, national sovereignty).

On one side we have the Debbie Wasserman-Schultz and Paul Krugman types haughtily declaring that the Democrats are the party of women and minorities, and the Republicans the party of old white men. See how colorful, female, and young we look? See how monotonously white and graying they look?

On the other side we have campaign strategist Steve Schmidt, ACU chairman Al Cardenas, and others declaring that "Rush Limbaugh's audience" should be ignored as a bunch of old white men who (apparently for that very reason) no longer represent America. Since when is "representing America" a matter of head counts and demographics, rather than of principles? Such thinking seems reasonable only to men who have lost the forest of encroaching leftist authoritarianism for the trees of electoral victory. (See how well their Constitution Fire Sale method has worked out so far!)

This mocking, bitter dismissal of the mature white male is a nearly poetic symbol -- as if we needed another one -- of the degraded state of civilization. Old men -- whether white, black, olive, yellow, or red -- have traditionally been regarded as the sage voices in their communities with regard to matters of public policy and private virtue. Having seen more, learned from mistakes, and grown weary of youth's careless chasing after the chimerical "new," they have commonly been appreciated as a steady source of common sense and moral rectitude. Age may not necessarily bring genuine wisdom, but it has traditionally served an invaluable function in humanity's natural system of checks and balances: it casts a skeptical eye upon youth's grand designs, thus raining on the often misguided parade of "progress."

Before anyone else raises it, let me state up front that I know, and actually agree with, the counterargument to the effect that today's "seniors" include the very gang that delivered the world into its current catastrophe. What I disagree with is the generic follow-up to this, namely, "So why should we listen to them?"

The answer is that we should listen to those among them who, during their lifetimes, watched friends and family succumb to the dark side, but had the courage and intelligence to resist, as well as to those who once embraced the "forward"-looking project of social progress, but have since come to a reckoning about the true nature of their youthful fantasies. The first group teaches us steadfastness; the second teaches us the indispensable lessons of one who has traveled to the underworld and lived to tell about it.

A few words, then, in defense of old white men.

I have had the good fortune of making the acquaintance of many of my American readers. Most of them are in a state of disillusionment, anger, and confusion about the current state of their country, and how to proceed from here.

The most poignant cases, however, are usually found among my older friends. Many of them are men who had not necessarily conceived of themselves as freedom fighters or guardians of any flame, but who have simply come to a realization in recent years that watching their society disintegrate is not a satisfying option. Some of them openly fear for the future of their children and grandchildren. Some are disgusted that freedom's history of bloody sacrifice -- of friends, fathers, and fellow citizens -- is now being so cavalierly negated by an America eagerly welcoming the very chains that ordinary men gave their lives to break just a short time ago.

Two of these friends of mine, both grandfathers, have started up a talk radio program in Minnesota. They pay for the airtime out of their own pockets and solicit public support to stay on the air. And yet their program is as engaging and informative as any of the big name syndicated shows, and their guest list reads like a who's who of serious conservative commentary: Roger Kimball, Bill Whittle, David Horowitz, Andrew McCarthy, and on and on, including even a bunch of American Thinker regulars, yours truly among them.

Then there is another man who, in his sixties, decided he had had enough of the establishment media elite selecting which news is fit to be buried. He started up his own news aggregator, highlighting conservative (not Republican) news and views. Disappointments and frustrations have forced him to rethink the content and focus of his website, but he remains determined to make a difference within the context of the new media.

One of my regular readers is a man in his late seventies who insists on addressing me as "Doctor" out of genuine, even excessive, respect for the spirit of higher education, and who has become a dear friend by engaging me in some of the most thoughtful commentaries/discussions I could ever have hoped for. He is continually recommending books for me to read, suggesting topics for me to look into, and generally enriching my thought processes with his historical perspective, stoicism, and good humor in the face of disaster.

Here is the point: all of these men, like so many thousands of others, have watched in incremental horror as, over the course of their lives, the ground has opened up and swallowed their country. They know they cannot stop it from happening, that they are each of them a whispering voice against a screaming mob. Or if any of them did not know this, they learned it once and for all on November 6, when America held its first direct referendum on freedom vs. despotism, and freedom lost.

And yet they fight on. They understand that the task may be Sisyphean, but they feel bereft of alternatives. After their lives of productive work, building and rebuilding dreams, saving for the future, and hoping to reap the benefits of responsible self-reliance and good citizenship, they now see that they must spend the rest of their days either lamenting the loss of all they had loved and depended on in their nation, or rearming themselves once more for battle, like Nestor, Agamemnon's venerable advisor.

To a man, they know that the America of which they were proud citizens is no more. All men, as they reach the final third of life's marathon, gradually learn how to be resilient against the repeated blows of disappointment and loss. No one, however, having once lived semi-free, or at least in a country founded on principles of freedom, should have to face the ultimate loss in his final decades: the loss of the dignity of a life lived in liberty.

Yet now, that contingent of mature men who in the face of exactly such an indignity are responding with courageous engagement, resisting civilization's decline and fighting for a future they will not inherit, are being spoken of with supreme mockery by the very villains who have robbed them of their country, and with dismissiveness by those behind whom they had reluctantly thrown their support.

This is the final stage of democracy unmoored from principle and historical perspective, as predicted by all the great critics, from Plato to Tocqueville. Mindless reverence for the young, the new, the emergent, the progressive, though selling itself as a doctrine of hope and optimism, is in truth a dogma of hatred and moral indecency. Its essential message of killing the past, eschewing all tradition, and dissolving all norms -- "Forward!" -- betokens a barely veiled disdain for reason, restraint, and mutual respect. It is the public unleashing of feeling and whim, which in theory and in historical practice always means the same thing: tyranny, coercion, and the denial of genuine practical equality, as the tyrant (or tyrannical majority) perceives other people as mere means to the satisfaction of his (or their) desires.

The moral indecency of "progressivism" reveals its self-delusions within its euphemistic vocabulary. "Equality" means the subjugation of some to the will of others; "freedom" means license to force others to conform to your wishes; "change" means forsaking time-tested truths and hard-won victories; and "empowering minorities" means mob rule -- Wasserman Schultz's "pretty amazing" dream of a "majority minority and female" ruling class.

In policy wonk terms, this indecency expresses itself in robbing insolvent Medicare to pay for ObamaCare with its death panel -- in effect moving 700 billion dollars of debt from the "treat Grandpa's illness fund" to the "morphine and lights out fund." It expresses itself in efforts to "reach out to growing demographic groups," thus leaving old white men to fend for themselves. It is here that one can see most clearly that "old white men" is "code," if you will, for people who are sticklers for the Constitution, those who are "reverent of individual liberty" and "suspicious of centralized federal authority" (to borrow the language of the Department of Homeland Security's new domestic terror watch list) -- i.e., Americans in the strictest sense of the term.

Scene from a modern family holiday gathering: the children ignore their grandfather, mock his lack of familiarity with the latest drug slang, or with cool new songs like Young Jeezy's "How It Feel (To Be A Real N***a)" -- my favorite couplet: "Woke up this mornin' on the 26th flo'/Parlez-vous francais to my French ho" -- and laugh at his hopelessly old-fashioned views on junior high school orgies. Their parents, desperate not to "alienate" their already hyper-alienated sons, or to "lose the affection" of daughters who have been borrowing money from mom to pay for birth control since they were thirteen, laugh embarrassedly along with the children. They have long since given up urging them to spend five minutes twice a year chatting with Grandpa about his interests. ("Humoring him," they used to call it.) Besides, they actually kind of like listening to some of that hip-hop stuff in the car, and Jane's new "boyfriend" doesn't seem half as bad as that last one who was always making "weed" jokes.

This is the current climate in microcosm. Old white men -- which is code for conservatives -- are being deliberately marginalized and trivialized by all sides of the political and cultural establishment. Even if you are a woman, a young person, or a "visible minority," you are, in today's political parlance, an "old white man" if you believe in natural rights, private property, and individual liberty. The rhetorical effort here is to dissuade anyone from siding with conservatism, which, according to this vernacular, is the politics of the past -- antiquated, embarrassing, a little laughable.

I am only 45 years old, but I have known at least since I was 25 that progressivism, from its practical policies to its underlying assumptions about history and culture, is, to use the objective, scholarly language of the theoretical realm, a crock. That is to say, I have been an old white man since I was a young white man. A quick perusal of today's conservative scene reveals that a few of the oldest, whitest men are in fact old black men (e.g., Clarence Thomas, Thomas Sowell, Walter Williams). Many old white men these days are women, of course, and many of them are not even old.

But even accepting the Washington establishment's new, post-modern definition of the term, it is undeniable that we old white men are in the minority worldwide. Having so marginalized us at last, the young, female, minority majority is eager to mock and ridicule us, to break our will, to push us into giving up. If they get their way, we old white men will die alone and cold, in a house stripped of all its valuables, as they divvy up the loot, conscience-free, hardly realizing or caring what a waste they have made of good men's legacies.

But history and reason will not be denied. Ridicule, loot, and euthanize the "old white men" at your peril. The progressive path blazed by the leading lights of today's youthful, female, minority majority -- George Soros, Andy Stern, Bill Ayers, Al Gore, Harry Reid -- not to mention the fresh young minority girls who made it all possible -- Marx, Lenin, Dewey, Marcuse, et al -- will indeed lead America to fundamental transformation. America, when all is said and done (that is, very soon), will have been transformed, by design, from a grand old family home with portraits of its forefathers hung reverently in the stairwell, into that cold, cobwebbed, dilapidated fixer-upper that no one in his right mind would buy -- except for the land.

There will be plenty of bargain hunters vying for the land. The "land of the free" is being transformed into "Land -- almost free!" The heirs to this transformed future may not like the new landlords very much. For as Plato and Tocqueville taught, the next stage is tyranny.

Sam’s Saturday Stag Seminar

Sam’s Saturday Stag Seminar

The first event will be December 29^th at 2 PM

Sam Sewell’s home in Naples at 10202 Vanderbilt Drive

(Northeast Corner of Vanderbilt Drive at 102^nd)

This event is open to all men and MENSA membership is not required.

Naples FL) MENSA member Sam Sewell is sponsoring a stag gathering for men who like to think and talk.  Mensa is derived from a Latin word meaning table, symbolizing the original conception of the MENSA society, a round table where no one has precedence. 

“I wanted to provide a forum for intelligent and curious men,” said Sewell.  “I had in mind the high level conversations that we might imagine being conducted by our founding fathers or perhaps the mythical Knights of the Round Table.” 

“Sometimes we will have “talking points.”  Other times we will have videos or presentations by participants.  Our subject matter is not restricted, and we will explore and discuss any topic that holds the interest of the participants,” said Sewell

There is no fee to attend but contributions to the MENSA scholarship fund for gifted youth are encouraged. 

 RSVP is required as there is limited seating. 

Refreshments and snacks are not provided but participants are encouraged to bring enough to share.

Give Sam a call at 239-591-4565 or send an email to:

sams@bestselfusa.com

If Conservatives Said What They Believe - Bill Whittle Makes Me Feel Better About Everything

Ford Dealer's Report - Does any of this sound familiar????

Editor's Note:  Since this article originated as an email some people saw it as suspect.  No one has been able to provide evidence that it is inaccurate and even Snoops, with its history of liberal bias, lists it as "undetermined".   If you would like to do your own investigation to determine if such a scenario could be true start here Disability Benefits.  I gave personally checked it out and it is possible for such facts to be true whether a Ford Dealer was involved or not.  If anyone can provide evidence that this did not come from Latham Ford please advise.

ALSO: Why a single mom is better off with a $29,000 job and welfare than taking a $69,000 job

http://thesteadydrip.blogspot.com/2012/12/why-single-mom-is-better-off-with-29000.html

Ford Dealer's Report

Does any of this sound familiar????

This is exactly why Mitt Romney said that 40 some % of the people are too dependent on the government.  They have learned to work the system.

A Ford Dealer's Report - From Tom Selkis' (Latham Ford) Facebook - True story yesterday at the dealership.
"I'll try to make this as short and to the point as I can.

One of my salesmen here had a woman in his office yesterday wanting to lease a brand new Focus.
As he was reviewing her credit application with her he noticed she was on social security disability.
He said to her you don't look like you're disabled and unable to work.

She said well I'm really not.  I could work if I wanted to, but I make more now than I did when I was working and got hurt (non-disabling injury).

She said the gov't sends her $1500.00 a month in 1 check.  And she gets $700.00 a month on an EBT card (food stamps), and $800.00 a month for rent.

Oh yeah, and 250 minutes free on her phone.
That is just south of $3500.00 a month.
When she was working, she was taking home about $330.00 per week.

Do the math and then ask yourself why the hell should she go back to work.

If you multiply that by millions of people, you start to realize the scope of the problem we face as a country.
Once the socialists have 51% of the population in that same scenario, we are finished.
The question is when do we cross that threshold if we haven't already, and there are not enough people working to pay enough taxes to support the non-working people?  Riots??  Be prepared to protect your homes.
She didn't lease the Focus here because the dealer down the road beat our deal by $10.00/month.
Glad to know she is so frugal with her hard earned money."

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If you doubt this email, just do a web search for "Tom Selkis' Latham Ford" and choose from the results.  I used google and got many to look at.

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A government which robs Peter to pay Paul can always depend on the support of Paul.

- George Bernard Shaw

"Humble Pie" for Thanksgiving

My Nov 21 post (E-Mail to FL Gov Rick Scott) included the following statement: “I am very ANGRY about Stolen Election 2012, especially in St. Lucie County, where reportedly there were 175,574 registered eligible voters but 247,713 votes cast. That's a 141% turnout. Furthermore, the Golden Gate Precinct #93, a mobile home park on the border with St. Lucie and Martin counties, reportedly had at least 900 votes cast but had only SEVEN people registered to vote!”

On Nov 22, Thanksgiving Day, I ate a sliver of “Humble Pie.” It seems that I failed to do something that I regularly preached to my graduate students (master’s and doctoral) when I taught academic writing classes in Taiwan: “Cite your sources!”

OK, here are my sources for the above-quoted statement concerning election results in St. Lucie County, Florida: an article by SUZANNE EOVALDI posted at http://www.westernjournalism.com/stalin-would-be-proud-of-the-crooks-who-stole-allen-wests-congressional-seat/ and http://www.exposeobama.com/2012/11/20/stalin-would-be-proud-of-the-crooks-who-stole-allen-wests-congressional-seat/, also citing http://american3rdposition.com/?p=8416. It should be noted that Ms. Eovaldi had boots-on-the- ground during the partial recount in St. Lucie County.  

Before shooting off an email to Gov Scott’s office, I SHOULD have viewed at least a portion of this 170-page PDF: http://www.slcelections.com/Pdf%20Docs/2012%20General/rescan/GEMS%20SOVC%20REPORT.pdf, “Statement of Votes Cast, ST. LUCIE COUNTY, 2012  General Election, November 6, 2012, SOVC For Jurisdiction Wide, All Counters, All Races, UNOFFICIAL RESULTS WITH PROVISIONALS.” In this document the data from each precinct is reported in three columns, headed “Reg. Voters, Cards Cast, % Turnout,” respectively. The oddest feature of the third column is that all percentages exceed 100%.

My initial thoughts in response to viewing the first two pages of that PDF were twofold: (1) that I would like to wait and see how the Governor’s Office responds to my email; (2) that the tabulating software SHOULD have listed the number of “Ballots Cast,” which should agree with the number of voters who actually voted, instead of the number of “Cards Cast.” Admittedly, I suspect that the misleading language might have been intentional, but of course this suspicion would be difficult or impossible to prove.

My pre-email research SHOULD have also included the Watchdog Wire–Florida website.

That site, noting that recent comments had questioned the meaning of “cards” and “ballots,” stated in a Nov 11, 2012 update:

According to Sarasota County Supervisor of Elections Kathy Dent, “Cards are pages, ballots are the full ballot consisting of both pages.”

The 2012 Presidential Ballot in Florida consisted of two pages. Both pages were two sided giving voters the opportunity to vote for candidates for public office on page 1 and 11 Constitutional ballot initiatives on page 2. The issue being correctly discussed is: Does each ballot consist of two cards? If yes, then there would be two times the number of cards as votes cast or in the case of St. Lucie County 175,554 times 2 there would be an expected 351,108 cards (two page ballots) cast.

However, according to the SOE there were 247,713 or 141.10% of cards cast. A valid question is what happened to the other 58.9% of cards cast? The SOE will be recounting ballots on November 13th and is required to submit her certification of the election on November 15th. We will update this post then with the final results.

http://watchdogwire.com/florida/2012/11/10/update-massive-voter-fraud-in-st-lucie-county-florida-called-into-question-141-turnout/

Finally (Do I dare use such a word?) it should be noted that, in my Nov 21 post, I used the word “reportedly” twice, but without citing the source(s). That qualifier is a journalistic word for implying tentativeness, an important term in “hedging” jargon—or in more informal terms—“keeping one’s derrière covered.”

Cheryl J. Rutledge, Ph.D.

Musician, Educator, Editor

www.AcademicEnglishEditing-DrRutledge.com

Myths and Facts about Global Warming

Myths and Facts about Global Warming

From Friends of Science. Be sure to visit their page and bookmark it.

COMMON MISCONCEPTIONS ABOUT GLOBAL WARMING

MYTH 1:  Global temperatures are rising at a rapid, unprecedented rate.

FACT:  The HadCRUT3 surface temperature index shows warming to 1878, cooling to 1911, warming to 1941, cooling to 1964, warming to 1998 and cooling through 2011. The warming rate from 1964 to 1998 was the same as the previous warming from 1911 to 1941. Satellites, weather balloons and ground stations all show cooling since 2001. The mild warming of 0.6 to 0.8 C over the 20th century is well within the natural variations recorded in the last millennium. The ground station network suffers from an uneven distribution across the globe; the stations are preferentially located in growing urban and industrial areas (“heat islands”), which show substantially higher readings than adjacent rural areas (“land use effects”). Two science teams have shown that correcting the surface temperature record for the effects of urban development would reduce the warming trend over land from 1980 by half.

There has been no catastrophic warming recorded.

MYTH 2:  The “hockey stick” graph proves that the earth has experienced a steady, very gradual temperature decrease for 1000 years, then recently began a sudden increase.

FACT:  Significant changes in climate have continually occurred throughout geologic time. For instance, the Medieval Warm Period, from around 1000 to1200 AD (when the Vikings farmed on Greenland) was followed by a period known as the Little Ice Age. Since the end of the 17^th Century the “average global temperature” has been rising at the low steady rate mentioned above; although from 1940 – 1970 temperatures actually dropped, leading to a Global Cooling scare.

The “hockey stick”, a poster boy of both the UN’s IPCC and Canada’s Environment Department, ignores historical recorded climatic swings, and has now also been proven to be flawed and statistically unreliable as well. It is a computer construct and a faulty one at that.

MYTH 3:  Human produced carbon dioxide has increased over the last 100 years, adding to the Greenhouse effect, thus warming the earth.

FACT:  Carbon dioxide levels have indeed changed for various reasons, human and otherwise, just as they have throughout geologic time. Since the beginning of the industrial revolution, the CO₂ content of the atmosphere has increased. The RATE of growth during this period has also increased from about 0.2% per year to the present rate of about 0.4% per year,which growth rate has now been constant for the past 25 years. However, there is no proof that CO₂ is the main driver of global warming. As measured in ice cores dated over many thousands of years, CO₂ levels move up and down AFTER the temperature has done so, and thus are the RESULT OF, NOT THE CAUSE of warming. Geological field work in recent sediments confirms this causal relationship. There is solid evidence that, as temperatures move up and down naturally and cyclically through solar radiation, orbital and galactic influences, the warming surface layers of the earth’s oceans expel more CO₂ as a result.

MYTH 4:  CO2 is the most common greenhouse gas.

FACT:  Greenhouse gases form about 3% of the atmosphere by volume. They consist of varying amounts, (about 97%) of water vapour and clouds, with the remainder being gases like CO₂, CH₄, Ozone and N₂O, of which carbon dioxide is the largest amount. Hence, CO₂constitutes about 0.039% of the atmosphere. While the minor gases are more effective as “greenhouse agents” than water vapour and clouds, the latter are overwhelming the effect by their sheer volume and – in the end – are thought to be responsible for 75% of the “Greenhouse effect”. (See here) At current concentrations, a 3% change of water vapour in the atmosphere would have the same effect as a 100% change in CO2.

Those attributing climate change to CO₂ rarely mention these important facts.
MYTH 5:  Computer models verify that CO2 increases will cause significant global warming.

FACT:  The computer models assume that CO2 is the primary climate driver, and that the Sun has an insignificant effect on climate. You cannot use the output of a model to verify or prove its initial assumption – that is circular reasoning and is illogical. Computer models can be made to roughly match the 20th century temperature rise by adjusting many input parameters and using strong positive feedbacks. They do not “prove” anything. Also, computer models predicting global warming are incapable of properly including the effects of the sun, cosmic rays and the clouds. The sun is a major cause of temperature variation on the earth surface as its received radiation changes all the time, This happens largely in cyclical fashion. The number and the lengths in time of sunspots can be correlated very closely with average temperatures on earth, e.g. the Little Ice Age and the Medieval Warm Period. Varying intensity of solar heat radiation affects the surface temperature of the oceans and the currents. Warmer ocean water expels gases, some of which are CO2. Solar radiation interferes with the cosmic ray flux, thus influencing the amount ionized nuclei which control cloud cover.

MYTH 6:  The UN proved that man–made CO2 causes global warming.

FACT:  In a 1996 report by the UN on global warming, two statements were deleted from the final draft. Here they are:
1)     “None of the studies cited above has shown clear evidence that we can attribute  the observed climate changes to increases in greenhouse gases.”
2)     “No study to date has positively attributed all or part of the climate change to man–made causes”

To the present day there is still no scientific proof that man-made CO2 causes significant global warming.
MYTH 7:  CO2 is a pollutant.

FACT:  This is absolutely not true. Nitrogen forms 80% of our atmosphere. We could not live in 100% nitrogen either. Carbon dioxide is no more a pollutant than nitrogen is.  CO2 is essential to life on earth. It is necessary for plant growth since increased CO2 intake as a result of increased atmospheric concentration causes many trees and other plants to grow more vigorously. Unfortunately, the Canadian Government has included  CO2 with a number of truly toxic and noxious substances listed by the Environmental Protection Act, only as their means to politically control it.
MYTH 8: Global warming will cause more storms and other weather extremes.

FACT:   There is no scientific or statistical evidence whatsoever that supports such claims on a global scale.  Regional variations may occur. Growing insurance and infrastructure repair costs, particularly in coastal areas, are sometimes claimed to be the result of increasing frequency and severity of storms, whereas in reality they are a function of increasing population density, escalating development value, and ever more media reporting.

MYTH 9:  Receding glaciers and the calving of ice shelves are proof of global warming.

FACT:  Glaciers have been  receding and growing cyclically for hundreds of years. Recent glacier melting is a consequence of coming out of the very cool period of the Little Ice Age. Ice shelves have been breaking off for centuries. Scientists know of at least 33 periods of glaciers growing and then retreating. It’s normal. Besides, glacier’s health is dependent as much on precipitation as on temperature.

MYTH 10:  The earth’s poles are warming; polar ice caps are breaking up and melting and the sea level rising.

FACT:  The earth is variable. The western Arctic may be getting somewhat warmer, due to cyclic events in the Pacific Ocean, but the Eastern Arctic and Greenland are getting colder. The small Palmer Peninsula of Antarctica is getting warmer, while the main Antarctic continent is actually cooling. Ice thicknesses are increasing both on Greenland and in Antarctica.

Sea level monitoring in the Pacific (Tuvalu) and Indian Oceans (Maldives) has shown no sign of any sea level rise.

More FACTS and MYTHS?  See what Professor deFreitas has to say. Click here.