Gives You Confidence in Our President, Doesn't It?

A Blessing for Every Occasion by Lois Tverberg

The Scripture says we are to bless the Lord at all times, but how many of us do that?  Or even attempt to do it?  Or know how to do it?  Or remember that we are supposed to?

This interesting article is from Lois Tverberg's website Our Rabbi Jesus.  She mentions many verses  Jewish people used to bless the Lord.  I think it would be a great tradition to revive.  We have forgotten God.  We let thoughts of the world intrude in everything we do.  How much more pleasant it would be to remember God is in control of everything and therefore to bless Him in every circumstance!

A Blessing for Every Occasion

OCTOBER 15, 2013

If you’ve read my article, “Learning from Jesus’ Jewish Prayer Life,” you know the richness of the Jewish pattern of prayer that encourages a person to “bless the Lord” at all times.

Below I’ve put a list of some of the many blessings that are traditionally said on all sorts of occasions. (You can also find this list at the back of Sitting at the Feet of Rabbi Jesus.) A blessing (berakhah – bear-a-KHAH or BRAH-khah) is a brief “prayerlet” that reminds you to stop and praise God for every good thing.

I don’t think a person needs to worry about the exact words, but I like knowing what they are. The creativity behind them inspires me to invent some of my own.

Since about 400 AD, prayers of blessing have always started with the words, “Blessed are you, Lord our God, king of the universe…” In the first century they were much shorter, simply beginning with the words “Blessed is he…” The first book of the Mishnah,Berakhot, lists dozens of blessings and when they were used. Below are some of them in the form they would have had in the first century. Many of them quote from Psalms or other scriptures.

.

When you first open your eyes in the morning you say,

Blessed is he who gives sight to the blind.

When getting out of bed you say,

Blessed is he who sets the captives free.

When putting on clothes you say,

Blessed is he who clothes the naked.

When putting on your shoes you say,

Blessed is he who provides for all my needs.

When you eat a meal where bread is at the table, you hold up the bread and say,

Blessed is he who brings forth bread from the earth.

When you eat a festive meal where wine is served, you say,

Blessed is he, creator of the fruit of the vine.

When you eat other types of food you say,

Blessed is he through whose word all things come to exist.

(There are several other specific blessings for various kinds of food.)

When you see the first budding tree in springtime you say,

Blessed is he who did not omit anything from the world, and created within it good creations and good trees for people to enjoy!

When you see lightning, falling stars, lofty mountains, great deserts, or the sky in all its beauty you say,

Blessed is he who has made the creation.

When you hear thunder or feel an earthquake, you say,

Blessed is he whose strength and power fill the world.

When you see a beautiful person, animal or tree, you say,

Blessed is he who has such as these in the world.

When you see a friend after a year’s separation, you say,

            Blessed is he who revives the dead.

When it rains (or something else good happens) you say,

Blessed is he who is good and gives good things!

When something terrible happens you say,

Blessed is he who is the true judge.

When you are saved from an accident or serious illness, you say,

Blessed is he who does good to the undeserving and has rendered every kindness to me!

When you encounter a place where God has done a miracle, you say,

Blessed is he who has done miracles in this place.

When you’ve reached some long awaited joyous occasion, you say,

Blessed is he who has given us life,
and preserved us, and brought us to this season.

Socialist-Capitalist Differentiation

Beware: It's Easy to Fake Christianity by Francis Frangipane

Beware: It Is Easy to Fake Christianity Our experience of Christianity must go beyond just being another interpretation of the Bible; it must expand until our faith in Jesus and our love for Him become a lightning rod for His presence. The Power in Holiness "This know also, that in the last days perilous times shall come. For men shall be . . . having a form of godliness, but denying the power thereof" (2 Tim. 3:1-5 KJV). Holiness is powerful. Have you ever met a truly holy man or woman?There is a power in their godliness. If, however, one has never known a Christlike soul, it becomes very easy to fake Christianity.  Remember this always: being false is natural to the human heart; it is with much effort that we become true. Unless we are reaching for spiritual maturity, our immaturity shapes our perceptions of God. We point to the Almighty and say, "He stopped requiring godliness," when in reality, we have compromised the standards of His kingdom. Know for certain that the moment we stop obeying God, we start faking Christianity. We must understand that the "knowledge of the Lord" is not a ten-week course to be passed; it is an unfolding experience with Jesus Christ. It starts with rebirth and faith in Jesus, but it continues on into Christ's own holiness, power and perfection. And as we mature, we begin to realize that the Spirit of Christ is actually within us. The cross emerges off the printed page; it stands upright before us, confronting us with our own Gethsemanes, our own Golgothas -- but also our own resurrections through which we ascend spiritually into the true presence of the Lord. With Paul we say, "I have been crucified with Christ; and it is no longer I who live, but Christ lives in me; and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by faith in the Son of God, who loved me and delivered Himself up for me" (Gal. 2:20). Do not let yourself be misled! Place upon your theology the demand that it work -- your eternal salvation depends upon it! If Christ is within us, we should be living holy, powerful lives. No excuses. If we are not holy or if there is not the power of godliness in our lives, let us not blame God. As it is written, "Let God be found true, though every man be found a liar" (Rom. 3:4). Let us persevere in seeking God until we find Him, until we discover "what [are we] still lacking" (Matt. 19:20). Let us press on until we "lay hold of that for which also [we were] laid hold of by Christ Jesus" (Phil. 3:12). How long should we continue to seek Him? If we spent all our lives and all our energies for three minutes of genuine Christlikeness, we would have spent our lives well. We will say like Simeon of old, "Now Lord, You are releasing Your bond-servant to depart in peace, according to Your word; for my eyes have seen Your salvation" (Luke 2:29-30). We do not want to just give mental assent to Christian doctrine; we want to see, have contact with, and live in the experienced reality of Christ's actual presence. The moment we settle for anything less, our Christianity starts becoming false.

MARTINSVILLE

60 Minutes on Benghazi

NATIONAL SECURITY

'60 Minutes' on Benghazi

Hillary deflects blame

In Sunday night's episode of "60 Minutes," CBS correspondent Lara Logan reported even more damning information regarding the Sept. 11, 2012, assault on the U.S. consulate in Benghazi that left four Americans, including Ambassador Chris Stevens, dead. It's now firmly established that al-Qaida was responsible for the well-planned attack and that the Obama administration lied about its being a spontaneous protest about a YouTube video, all in order to preserve its "al-Qaida is decimated" narrative in the lead-up to the 2012 presidential election. But Logan did have some interesting revelations.

Logan reported, "Sufian bin Qumu, a former Guantanamo Bay detainee and long-time al-Qaeda operative, was one of the lead planners." Bin Qumu was sent to Gitmo in 2002, but was transferred by the Bush administration in 2007 to Libya, where he was eventually released.

Logan also interviewed a former British soldier and security officer at the installation with the assumed name Morgan Jones. He told of the advance flags and warning signs he saw from the moment he arrived five months before the attack. First, there were the al-Qaida flags flying openly. Then there was the absence of any security forces when he arrived at the U.S. compound. He said, "They were all inside drinking tea, laughing and joking." Morgan says he spent the next five months warning about lax security to no avail. It's shocking that the warning signs were so clear, and yet nothing was done.

Greg Hicks, Ambassador Stevens' deputy based in Tripoli, spoke with Logan about the horror of learning during the attack that no help was on the way. "For a moment, I just felt lost," Hicks recounted. "I just couldn't believe the answer. And then I made the call to the Annex chief, and I told him, 'Listen, you've gotta tell those guys there may not be any help coming.' ... For the people that go out onto the edge, to represent our country, we believe that if we get in trouble, they're coming to get us. That our back is covered. To hear that it's not, it's a terrible, terrible experience." It's tragic that four Americans needlessly lost their lives, only to have their story lied about for political gain.

Worse, then-Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, who was ultimately responsible for all embassy security, will run for president in 2016 based on her resumé.

Mona Charen on Marriage

Columnist Mona Charen: "If what 'matters' is that adults treat one another with respect, etc., what is the principled case against polyamory once same-sex marriage has become legally enshrined? What is the principled basis for objection? ... Personal happiness and fulfillment are frequent benefits of marriage, but they are not its purpose. Marriage is the institution that provides social stability because it attempts to ensure, insofar as possible, that the mother and father who create a new life commit to caring for that child until adulthood. No other adult arrangement has ever been shown to benefit children as much. To enshrine gay marriage is to say that two mothers, or two fathers are just as good for children as a mother and a father. And if sexual complementarity is dispensable, by what logic are the other aspects of traditional marriage -- exclusivity and permanence -- to be maintained? It's indisputable that traditional marriage was in crisis before the gay marriage movement began. The behavior of heterosexuals accomplished that. But ... the gay marriage movement had done a different kind of damage by undermining our understanding of what marriage is."

Bill Yount: Americal Must Be Saved!

AMERICA MUST BE SAVED!

Posted: 26 Oct 2013 01:25 PM PDT

    Repentance is the most beautiful of words. Repentance should not scare us. It is a gift from God. If we really understood it we would make it a way of life. It is turning from our sins to a Father who longs to forgive us. Last night I repented of some things. This morning I learned His grace, as well as His mercy, is new every morning. It is when I least deserve both that I have to ask: "Why me Lord? What have I ever done to deserve even one of the pleasures I've known? Tell me Lord, What did I ever do that was worth loving you for the kindness you've shown?" ( lyrics by Kris Kristofferson ) As grace poured over me, the Lord said: "When America least deserves it, I will show her My grace. I am releasing My gift of repentance. It will flood the altars of churches again. It will flood the streets. It will flood the righteous who think they are more righteous than others. Watch for My flood of repentance!"

 

    Many years ago I ministered in Africa. A rural song there that became a spiritual national anthem for believers was, "Africa Must Be Saved! The words are: "If you believe and I believe and we together pray, the Holy Spirit must come down and Africa must be saved!" Since 1987 God's fire has swept an estimated 75 million Africans into the Kingdom. I wonder what God could do if we changed our tune and began singing over our nation: "America Must Be Saved!"

Blessings, 

Bill Yount
www.billyount.com

Excerpt from (and thoughts on) today's meditation in "The Word For Today"

...The landscape along Florida's Everglades is dotted with wiry, primitive-looking trees known as Caribbean Pines.  They thrive in a rugged environment, can withstand prolonged periods of drought and fire, and hold their own against the fiercest hurricanse.  In fact, if you plant them in a cultivated setting they usually shrivel and die.

Joni Eareckson Tada says, "Like Caribbean Pines, our souls usually don't thrive during good times.  Our hearts grow complacent, our need of God becomes less urgent, our hope of heaven dims, and our prayer life dries up...in a beautiful setting with our needs met and every resource at our fingertips...our soul shrivels...We need an occasional blast of storm or fiery trial if our faith is to mature."

Could this be why James says to "count it all joy when you fall into various trials..."?  James 1:2
Or why Paul says, "And not only that, but we also glory in tribulations, knowing that tribulation produces perseverance;  and perseverance, character; and character, hope," in Romans 5:3-4 

The spiritual life parallels the natural life.  Obviously, if we don't exercise, our bodies become weak.  If we do not exercise our faith it, too, becomes weak.  Relying on God and trusting Him to bring good through the trials in our lives strengthens our faith and causes us to be witnesses to those who don't know Him.  If we didn't have trials, how could we be overcomers?  The word overcomer suggests there is something to overcome, doesn't it?  The scripture has much to say about overcoming and overcomers.  See Rev. 2:7: "To him who overcomes, I will grant to eat of the tree of life which is in the Paradise of God."  (Also see: Rev. 2:11; Rev. 2:17; Rev. 2:26; Rev. 3:5)

Maybe we should be embracing the trials that come our way instead of trying to find ways to avoid them.  What do you think?

Why ObamaCare is a Fantastic Success by Wayne Allen Root

Why ObamaCare is a fantastic success

By Wayne Allyn Root

Published October 21, 2013

FoxNews.com

• 

There are two major political parties in America. I’m a member of the naïve, stupid, and cowardly one. I’m a Republican. 

How stupid is the GOP? They still don’t get it. 

I told them 5 years ago, 2 books ago, a national bestseller ago ("The Ultimate Obama Survival Guide"), and in hundreds of articles and commentaries, that ObamaCare was never meant to help America, or heal the sick, or lower healthcare costs, or lower the debt, or expand the economy.

The GOP needs to stop calling ObamaCare a “trainwreck.” That means it’s a mistake, or accident. That means it’s a gigantic flop, or failure. It’s NOT. 

Message to the GOP: This isn’t a game. This isn’t tiddly-winks. This is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America and destroy capitalism. 

This is a brilliant, cynical, and purposeful attempt to damage the U.S. economy, kill jobs, and bring down capitalism. 

It’s not a failure, it’s Obama’s grand success. 

It’s not a “trainwreck,” ObamaCare is a suicide attack. He wants to hurt us, to bring us to our knees, to capitulate- so we agree under duress to accept big government.

Obama’s hero and mentor was Saul Alinsky -- a radical Marxist intent on destroying capitalism. Alinksky’s stated advice was to call the other guy “a terrorist” to hide your own intentions. 

To scream that the other guy is “ruining America,” while you are the one actually plotting the destruction of America. To claim again and again…in every sentence of every speech…that you are “saving the middle class,” while you are busy wiping out the middle class.

The GOP is so stupid they can’t see it. There are no mistakes here. This is a planned purposeful attack. 

The tell-tale sign isn’t the disastrous start to ObamaCare. Or the devastating effect the new taxes are having on the economy. Or the death of full-time jobs. Or the overwhelming debt. Or the dramatic increases in health insurance rates. Or the 70% of doctors now thinking of retiring- bringing on a healthcare crisis of unimaginable proportions. Forget all that. 

The real sign that this is a purposeful attack upon capitalism is how many Obama administration members and Democratic Congressmen are openly calling Tea Party Republicans and anyone who wants to stop ObamaCare “terrorists.” 

There’s the clue. Even the clueless GOP should be able to see that. 

They are calling the reasonable people…the patriots…the people who believe in the Constitution ... the people who believe exactly what the Founding Fathers believed…the people who want to take power away from corrupt politicians who have put America $17 trillion in debt…terrorists? 

That’s because they are Saul Alinsky-ing the GOP. The people trying to purposely hurt America, capitalism and the middle class…are calling the patriots by a terrible name to fool, confuse and distract the public. 

ObamaCare is a raving, rollicking, fantastic success. Stop calling it a failure. Here is what it was created to do. It is succeeding on all counts:

1. ObamaCare was intended to bring about the Marxist dream -- redistribution of wealth.
Rich people, small business owners, and the middle class are being robbed, so that the money can be redistributed to poor people (who vote for Democrats). 

Think about it. If you’re rich or middle class, you now have to pay for your own health care costs (at much higher rates) AND 40 million other people’s costs too (through massive tax increases). 

So you’re stuck paying for both bills. You are left broke. Brilliant.

2. ObamaCare was intended to wipe out the middle class and make them dependent on government.Think about it. Even Obama’s IRS predicts that health insurance for a typical American family by 2016 will be $20,000 per year. But how would middle class Americans pay that bill and have anything left for food or housing or living? People that make $40K, or $50K, or $60K can’t possibly hope to spend $20K on health insurance without becoming homeless. 

Bingo. That’s how you make middle class people dependent on government. That’s how you make everyone addicted to government checks. Brilliant.

3. As a bonus, ObamaCare is intended to kill every decent paying job in the economy, creating only crummy, crappy part-time jobs.Why? Just to make sure the middle class is trapped, with no way out. Just to make sure no one has the $20,000 per year to pay for health insurance, thereby guaranteeing they become wards of the state. Brilliant.

4. ObamaCare is intended to bankrupt small business, and therefore starve donations to the GOP.Think about it. Do you know a small business owner? I know hundreds of them. Their rates are being doubled, tripled and quadrupled by ObamaCare. 

Guess who writes 75% of the checks to Republican candidates and conservative causes? Small Business.

Even if a small business owner manages to survive, he or she certainly can’t write a big check to the GOP anymore. Money is the “mother’s milk” of politics. Without donations, a political party ceases to exist. Bingo. 

That’s the point of ObamaCare. Obama is bankrupting his political opposition and drying up donations to the GOP. Brilliant.

5. ObamaCare is intended to make the IRS all-powerful.It adds thousands of new IRS agents. It puts the IRS in charge of overseeing 15% of the U.S. economy. The IRS has the right because of ObamaCare to snoop into every aspect of your life, to go into your bank accounts, to fine you, to frighten you, to intimidate you. And Obama and his socialist cabal have access to your deepest medical secrets. 

By law your doctor has to ask your sexual history. That information is now in the hands of Obama and the IRS to blackmail GOP candidates into either not running, or supporting bigger government, or leaking the info and ruining your campaign. 

Or have you forgotten the IRS harassed, intimidated and persecuted critics of Obama and conservative groups? 

Now Obama hands the IRS even more power. Big Brother rules our lives. Brilliant.

6. ObamaCare is intended to unionize 15 million healthcare workers.That produces $15 billion in new union dues. That money goes to fund Democratic candidates and socialist causes -- thereby guaranteeing Obama’s friends never lose another election, and Obama’s policies keep ruining capitalism and bankrupting business owners long after he’s out of office.

Message to the GOP: This isn’t a game. This isn’t tiddly-winks. This is a serious, purposeful attempt to highjack America and destroy capitalism. 

This isn’t a trainwreck. It's purposeful suicide. 

It's not failing, it's working exactly according to plan. Obama knows what he’s doing. Stop apologizing and start fighting.

Oh and one more thing…Conservatives aren’t “terrorists.” We are patriots and saviors. We represent the Constitution and the Founding Fathers. We are the heroes and good guys. Unless you get all this through your thick skulls, America is lost…forever.

To read the article online click here.

Two Exciting Days

The past two days have been very busy and exciting for me!!

      Yesterday we had the groundbreaking ceremony for the new Linn Park Amphitheater.  (See article in the JG-TC news here.)  We have waited a long time for this! Reporters from the Casey, Marshall and Charleston newspapers were there so check their websites to read all about it.  Many people turned out to help us celebrate on a beautiful crisp fall day.  We are hoping to begin construction in the next couple of weeks.  It all depends on when the architectural drawings will be completed.  We have been waiting for months for them!  As soon as we get the completed set along with the topography drawings we can begin.
      Here is the groundbreaking crew, including several members from the Festivals & Events committee and representatives from other organizations in the City:

       Today was a really fun day.  Something special happened (and I got to watch) related to our World's Largest Horseshoe.  This has been in the works for a few weeks and has had to be kept secret.  Be sure to check out the Fruit of the Loom website on November 5th to see what it was. 

Paul Ellis on Brenning Manning

Excerpts from Escape to Reality (Paul Ellis' blog) post on "Abba's Child" by Brenning Manning.

...People sometimes ask me, Where do legalists come from? Why are there so many who are obsessed with dead religious works? I can think of no better answer than the one Manning provides:

Suppose a child has never experienced any love from her parents. One day she meets another little girl whose parents shower her with affection. The first says to herself: “I want to be loved like that, too. I have never experienced it, but I’m going to earn the love of my father and mother by my good behavior.” So to gain the affection of her parents, she brushes her teeth, makes her bed, smiles, minds her p’s and q’s, never pouts or cries, never expresses a need, and conceals negative feelings. This is the way of pharisees. They follow the law impeccably in order to induce God’s love. Their image of God necessarily locks them into a theology of works. (p.83)

When you see it this way you realize that Pharisees aren’t evil people. They are just those who have not received the love of God and hence are trying to earn it. The child of grace is free to love and enjoy life but the pharisee edits his feelings and represses his emotions. The child is uninhibited but the pharisee is guarded, always watching his words and monitoring himself for “right” behavior. What a miserable existence.

To deny the pharisee within is lethal. It is imperative that we befriend him, dialogue with him, inquire why he must look to sources outside the kingdom for peace and happiness. (p.86)

Brennan Manning passed away recently but his legacy of promoting honesty to ourselves and affirming God’s love for the broken and hurting is one that will endure. It is a legacy that is brilliantly portrayed inThe Ragamuffin Gospel and this, his other classic, Abba’s Child."

We Are Not Coming Back by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky

I still have hope that a moral revival will sweep this land.  There are millions of Christians praying and the Bible says God hears our prayers, so I believe all is not lost.  Nevertheless, this sobering article makes some very good points.

We Are Not Coming Back

This article, by Rabbi Steven Pruzansky, appeared in The Israel National News, after the election, and is directed to Jewish readership. 70% of American Jews vote as Democrats. 

“The most charitable way of explaining the election results of 2012 is that Americans voted for the status quo – for the incumbent President and for a divided Congress. They must enjoy gridlock, partisanship, incompetence, Economic stagnation and avoidance of responsibility.

And fewer people voted.

But as we awake from the nightmare, it is important to eschew the facile explanations for the Romney defeat that will prevail among the chattering classes. Romney did not lose because of the effects of Hurricane Sandy that devastated this area, nor did he lose because he ran a poor campaign, nor did he lose because the Republicans could have chosen better candidates, nor did he lose because Obama benefited from a slight uptick in the economy due to the business cycle.

Romney lost because he didn’t get enough votes to win.

That might seem obvious, but not for the obvious reasons. Romney lost because the conservative virtues – the traditional American virtues – of liberty, hard work, free enterprise, private initiative and aspirations to moral greatness – no longer inspire or animate a majority of the electorate.

The simplest reason why Romney lost was because it is impossible to compete against free stuff.

Every businessman knows this; that is why the “loss leader” or the giveaway is such a powerful marketing tool. Obama’s America is one in which free stuff is given away: the adults among the 47,000,000 on food stamps clearly recognized for whom they should vote, and so they did, by the tens of millions; those who – courtesy of Obama – receive two full years of unemployment benefits (which, of course, both disincentivizes looking for work and also motivates people to work off the books while collecting their windfall) surely know for whom to vote. The lure of free stuff is irresistible.

The defining moment of the whole campaign was the revelation of the secretly-recorded video in which Romney acknowledged the difficulty of winning an election in which “47% of the people” start off against him because they pay no taxes and just receive money – “free stuff” – from the government.

Almost half of the population has no skin in the game – they don’t care about high taxes, promoting business, or creating jobs, nor do they care that the money for their free stuff is being borrowed from their children and from the Chinese.

They just want the free stuff that comes their way at someone else’s expense. In the end, that 47% leaves very little margin for error for any Republican, and does not bode well for the future.

It is impossible to imagine a conservative candidate winning against such overwhelming odds. People do vote their pocketbooks. In essence, the people vote for a Congress who will not raise their taxes, and for a President who will give them free stuff, never mind who has to pay for it.

That engenders the second reason why Romney lost: the inescapable conclusion that the electorate is ignorant and uninformed. Indeed, it does not pay to be an informed voter, because most other voters – the clear majority – are unintelligent and easily swayed by emotion and raw populism.

That is the indelicate way of saying that too many people vote with their hearts and not their heads. That is why Obama did not have to produce a second term agenda, or even defend his first-term record. He needed only to portray Mitt Romney as a rapacious capitalist who throws elderly women over a cliff, when he is not just snatching away their cancer medication, while starving the poor and cutting taxes for the rich.

During his 1956 presidential campaign, a woman called out to Adlai Stevenson: “Senator, you have the vote of every thinking person!”

Stevenson called back: “That’s not enough, madam, we need a majority!”

Truer words were never spoken.

Obama could get away with saying that “Romney wants the rich to play by a different set of rules” – without ever defining what those different rules were; with saying that the “rich should pay their fair share” – without ever defining what a “fair share” is; with saying that Romney wants the poor, elderly and sick to “fend for themselves” – without even acknowledging that all these government programs are going bankrupt, their current insolvency only papered over by deficit spending.

Similarly, Obama (or his surrogates) could hint to blacks that a Romney victory would lead them back into chains and proclaim to women that their abortions and birth control would be taken away. He could appeal to Hispanics that Romney would have them all arrested and shipped to Mexico and unabashedly state that he will not enforce the current immigration laws.

He could espouse the furtherance of the incestuous relationship between governments and unions – in which politicians ply the unions with public money, in exchange for which the unions provide the politicians with votes, in exchange for which the politicians provide more money and the unions provide more votes, etc., even though the money is gone.

Obama also knows that the electorate has changed – that whites will soon be a minority in America (they’re already a minority in California) and that the new immigrants to the US are primarily from the Third World and do not share the traditional American values that attracted immigrants in the 19th and 20th centuries. It is a different world, and a different America. Obama is part of that different America, knows it, and knows how to tap into it. That is why he won.

Obama also proved again that negative advertising works, invective sells, and harsh personal attacks succeed. That Romney never engaged in such diatribes points to his essential goodness as a person; his “negative ads” were simple facts, never personal abuse – facts about high unemployment, lower take-home pay, a loss of American power and prestige abroad, a lack of leadership, etc.  As a politician, though, Romney failed because he did not embrace the devil’s bargain of making unsustainable promises.

It turned out that it was not possible for Romney and Ryan – people of substance, depth and ideas – to compete with the shallow populism and platitudes of their opponents. Obama mastered the politics of envy – of class warfare – never reaching out to Americans as such but to individual groups, and cobbling together a winning majority from these minority groups.

If an Obama could not be defeated – with his record and his vision of America, in which free stuff seduces voters – it is hard to envision any change in the future.

The road to Hillary Clinton in 2016 and to a European-socialist economy – those very economies that are collapsing today in Europe – is paved.

For Jews, mostly assimilated anyway and staunch Democrats, the results demonstrate again that liberalism is their Torah. Almost 70% voted for a president widely perceived by Israelis and most committed Jews as hostile to Israel. They voted to secure Obama’s future at America’s expense and at Israel’s expense – in effect, preferring Obama to Netanyahu by a wide margin.

A dangerous time is ahead. Under present circumstances, it is inconceivable that the US will take any aggressive action against Iran and will more likely thwart any Israeli initiative. The US will preach the importance of negotiations up until the production of the first Iranian nuclear weapon – and then state that the world must learn to live with this new reality.

But this election should be a wake-up call to Jews. There is no permanent empire, nor is there is an enduring haven for Jews anywhere in the exile. The American empire began to decline in 2007, and the deterioration has been exacerbated in the last five years. This election only hastens that decline.

Society is permeated with sloth, greed, envy and materialistic excess. It has lost its moorings and its moral foundations. The takers outnumber the givers, and that will only increase in years to come.

The “Occupy” riots across this country in the last two years were mere dress rehearsals for what lies ahead – years of unrest sparked by the increasing discontent of the unsuccessful who want to seize the fruits and the bounty of the successful, and do not appreciate the slow pace of redistribution.

If this election proves one thing, it is that the Old America is gone. And, sad for the world, it is not coming back.”

Rabbi Steven Pruzansky is the spiritual leader of Congregation Bnai Yeshurun in Teaneck, New Jersey.

The Problems We Face Today Are There Because The People Who Work For A Living Are Outnumbered By Those Who Vote For A Living.

A Touching Old Poem

This has been around a long time, but it is a great reminder to "look closer...   and see the real person."  I want to always remember to do that, don't you?


When an old man died in the geriatric ward of a nursing home in an Australian country town, it was believed that he had nothing left of any value.
Later, when the nurses were going through his meager possessions, They found this poem. Its quality and content so impressed the staff that copies were made and distributed to every nurse in the hospital.

One nurse took her copy to Melbourne. The old man's sole bequest to posterity has since appeared in the Christmas editions of magazines around the country and appearing in mags for Mental Health. A slide presentation has also been made based on his simple, but eloquent, poem.

And this old man, with nothing left to give to the world, is now the author of this 'anonymous' poem winging across the Internet.

Remember this poem when you next meet an older person who you might brush aside without looking at the young soul within. We will all, one day, be there, too!

Cranky Old Man

What do you see nurses? . . . . . .What do you see?
What are you thinking .. . when you're looking at me?
A cranky old man, . . . . . .not very wise,
Uncertain of habit .. . . . . . . . . with faraway eyes?
Who dribbles his food . . . . . . . . and makes no reply.
When you say in a loud voice . .'I do wish you'd try!'
Who seems not to notice . . .the things that you do.
And forever is losing . . . . . . . . . A sock or shoe?
Who, resisting or not . . . . . . lets you do as you will,
With bathing and feeding . . . .The long day to fill?
Is that what you're thinking?. . .Is that what you see?
Then open your eyes, nurse. ..you're not looking at me.
I'll tell you who I am . . . . . . As I sit here so still,
As I do at your bidding, . . . . . as I eat at your will.
I'm a small child of Ten . .with a father and mother,
Brothers and sisters .. . . . . . who love one another
A young boy of Sixteen . . . . . with wings on his feet
Dreaming that soon now . . . . . . a lover he'll meet.
A groom soon at Twenty . . . . .my heart gives a leap.
Remembering, the vows . . . . .that I promised to keep.
At Twenty-Five, now . . . . .I have young of my own.
Who need me to guide . . . And a secure happy home.
A man of Thirty . .. . . . . My young now grown fast,
Bound to each other . . . . With ties that should last.
At Forty, my young sons .. .have grown and are gone,
But my woman is beside me . . to see I don't mourn.
At Fifty, once more, .. ...Babies play 'round my knee,
Again, we know children . . . . My loved one and me.
Dark days are upon me . . . . My wife is now dead.
I look at the future ... . . . . I shudder with dread.
For my young are all rearing . . . . young of their own.
And I think of the years . . . And the love that I've known.
I'm now an old man . . . . . . . . and nature is cruel.
It's jest to make old age . . . . . . . look like a fool.
The body, it crumbles .. .. . grace and vigour, depart.
There is now a stone . . . where I once had a heart.
But inside this old carcass . . . A young man still dwells,
And now and again . . . . . my battered heart swells
I remember the joys . . . . . . . I remember the pain.
And I'm loving and living . . . . . . . life over again.
I think of the years, all too few . . . . gone too fast.
And accept the stark fact . . . that nothing can last.
So open your eyes, people . . . . . . . . open and see.
Not a cranky old man . . . .
Look closer . . . . see . . . . . . . . . ME!!

What do you think?

I received this email from a friend.  It certainly made me think.  I actually had not given this any thought before.  But how could all those signs appear and barricades be provided so quickly in a government that has so many regulations?  We have been had--as usual!

 From a Friend who Worked in the White House and Knows the Truth

I have worked in the government on and off for 40 years.  During that time I became quite familiar with requisitions, bidding, awarding contracts etc.  It is a time consuming process with bean-counters and pencil-necked bureaucrats every step of the way.  The simplest request takes months not days or hours.

In less than 8 hours of the shutdown, miraculously, professionally printed 3X4 foot signs appeared all over the country in the tens of thousands saying-“this [park, facility, etc. with custom logos] closed due to government shutdown.  There has not been a government shutdown in 17 years. 

These signs were designed, specifications were determined, signs were then requisitioned, bids were posted and vetted, government contracts were awarded. 

The materials were then ordered and the signs manufactured then distributed by U.S. Mail or freight companies.

This shutdown was orchestrated and planned well in advance at least 6-8 month ago.  Millions of tax dollars were appropriated and spent in this process.  There is a paper trail a mile long leading directly to the White House.

Thomas Jefferson Quote

"Can the liberties of a nation be thought secure when we have removed their only firm basis, a conviction in the minds of the people that these liberties are the gift of God? That they are not to be violated but with his wrath?" --Thomas Jefferson (1781)

Ronald Reagan wisdom

Are we teaching our children this?

"The character that takes command in moments of crucial choices has already been determined by a thousand other choices made earlier in seemingly unimportant moments. It has been determined by all the 'little' choices of years past -- by all those times when the voice of conscience was at war with the voice of temptation, [which was] whispering the lie that 'it really doesn't matter.' It has been determined by all the day-to-day decisions made when life seemed easy and crises seemed far away -- the decision that, piece by piece, bit by bit, developed habits of discipline or of laziness; habits of self-sacrifice or self-indulgence; habits of duty and honor and integrity -- or dishonor and shame."

Have you read this article by Mark Steyn?

     Mark Steyn does an admirable job of describing the ludicracy of the present government shutdown of National Parks & Monuments.  Why is this allowed to happen?

“In an insane world, the sane man must appear insane”  -  Kurt Vonnegut

 

http://www.ocregister.com/articles/park-530734-government-national.html

 

OCTOBER 11, 2013 8:00 PM

Mark Steyn: 'Land of the free' excludes national parks

The government has King John’s idea of public lands.

By  Mark Steyn

If a government shuts down in the forest and nobody hears it, that’s the sound of liberty dying. The so-called shutdown is, as noted last week, mostly baloney: Eighty-three percent of the supposedly defunded government is carrying on as usual, impervious to whatever restraints the people’s representatives might wish to impose, and the 800,000 “non-essential” workers have been assured that, as soon as the government is once again lawfully funded, they will be paid in full for all the days they’ve had at home. 

But the one place where a full-scale shutdown is being enforced is in America’s alleged “National Park Service,” a term of art that covers everything from canyons and glaciers to war memorials and historic taverns. The NPS has spent the last two weeks behaving as the paramilitary wing of the DNC, expending more resources in trying to close down open-air, unfenced areas than it would normally do in keeping them open. It began with the war memorials on the National Mall — that’s to say, stone monuments on pieces of grass under blue sky. It’s the equivalent of my New Hampshire town government shutting down and deciding therefore to ring the Civil War statue on the village common with yellow police tape and barricades. 

Still, the NPS could at least argue that these monuments were within their jurisdiction — although they shouldn’t be. Not content with that, the NPS shock troops then moved on to insisting that privately run sites such as the Claude Moore Colonial Farm and privately owned sites such as Mount Vernon were also required to shut. When the Pisgah Inn on the Blue Ridge Parkway declined to comply with the government’s order to close (an entirely illegal order, by the way), the “shut down” Park Service sent armed agents and vehicles to blockade the hotel’s driveway. 

Even then, the problem with a lot of America’s scenic wonders is that, although they sit on National Park Service land, they’re visible from some distance. So, in South Dakota, having closed Mount Rushmore the NPS storm troopers additionally attempted to close the view of Mount Rushmore — that’s to say a stretch of the highway, where the shoulder widens and you can pull over and admire the stony visages of America’s presidents. Maybe it’s time to blow up Washington, Jefferson & Co. and replace them with a giant, granite sign rising into the heavens bearing the chiseled inscription “DON’T EVEN THINK OF PARKING DOWN THERE.” 

But perhaps the most extraordinary story to emerge from the NPS is that of the tour group of foreign seniors whose bus was trapped in Yellowstone Park on the day the shutdown began. They were pulled over photographing a herd of bison when an armed ranger informed them, with the insouciant ad-hoc unilateral lawmaking to which the armed bureaucrat is distressingly prone, that taking photographs counts as illegal “recreation.” “Sir, you are recreating,” the ranger informed the tour guide. And we can’t have that, can we? They were ordered back to the Old Faithful Inn, next to the geyser of the same name, but forbidden to leave said inn to look at said geyser. Armed rangers were posted at the doors, and, just in case one of the wily Japanese or Aussies managed to outwit his captors by escaping through one of the inn’s air ducts and down to the geyser, a fleet of NPS SUVs showed up every hour and a half throughout the day, ten minutes before Old Faithful was due to blow, to surround the geyser and additionally ensure that any of America’s foreign visitors trying to photograph the impressive natural phenomenon from a second-floor hotel window would still wind up with a picture full of government officials. The following morning the bus made the two-and-a-half-hour journey to the park boundary but was prevented from using any of the bathrooms en route, including at a private dude ranch whose owner was threatened with the loss of his license if he allowed any tourist to use the facilities.

At the same time as the National Park Service was holding legal foreign visitors under house arrest, it was also allowing illegal immigrants to hold a rally on the supposedly closed National Mall. At this bipartisan amnesty bash, the Democrat House minority leader Nancy Pelosi said she wanted to “thank the president for enabling us to gather here” and Republican congressman Mario Diaz-Balart also expressed his gratitude to the administration for “allowing us to be here.” 

Is this for real? It’s not King Barack’s land; it’s supposed to be the people’s land, and his most groveling and unworthy subjects shouldn’t require a dispensation by His Benign Majesty to set foot on it. It is disturbing how easily large numbers of Americans lapse into a neo-monarchical prostration that few subjects of actual monarchies would be comfortable with these days. But then in actual monarchies the king takes a more generous view of “public lands.” Two years after Magna Carta, in 1217, King Henry III signed the Charter of the Forest, which despite various amendments and replacement statutes remained in force in Britain for some three-quarters of a millennium, until the early Seventies. If Magna Carta is a landmark in its concept of individual rights, the Forest Charter played an equivalent role in advancing the concept of the commons, the public space. Repealing various restrictions by his predecessors, Henry III opened the royal forests to the freemen of England, granted extensive grazing and hunting rights, and eliminated the somewhat severe penalty of death for taking the king’s venison. The NPS have not yet fried anyone for taking King Barack’s deer, but it is somewhat sobering to reflect that an English peasant enjoyed more freedom on the sovereign’s land in the 13th century than a freeborn American does on “the people’s land” in the 21st century. 

And we’re talking about a lot more acreage: Forty percent of the state of California is supposedly federal land, and thus officially closed to the people of the state. The geyser stasi of the National Park Service have in effect repealed the Charter of the Forest. President Obama and his enforcers have the same concept of the royal forest that King John did. The government does not own this land; the Park Service are merely the janitorial staff of “we the people” (to revive an obsolescent concept). No harm will befall the rocks and rivers by posting a sign at the entrance saying “No park ranger on duty during government shutdown. Proceed beyond this point at your own risk.” And, at the urban monuments, you don’t even need that: It is disturbing that minor state officials even presume to have the right to prevent the citizenry walking past the Vietnam Wall. 

I wonder what those Japanese and Australian tourists prevented from photographing bison or admiring a geyser make of U.S. claims to be “the land of the free.” When a government shutdown falls in the forest, Americans should listen very carefully. The government is telling you something profound and important about how it understands the power relationship between them and you. 

The National Park Service should be out of the business of urban landmarks, and the vast majority of our “national” parks should be returned to the states. After the usurpation of the people’s sovereignty this month, the next president might usefully propose a new Charter of the Forest.