The SS - Not related to Social Security

I am going to post this without comment. I think this family recanting their experience with our government offers us a view of both the present and the future for all of us.

Search for Pressure Cooker Leads to Knock on Door From Terrorism Police

It was a confluence of magnificent proportions that led six agents from the joint terrorism task force to knock on my door Wednesday morning. Little did we know our seemingly innocent, if curious to a fault, Googling of certain things was creating a perfect storm of terrorism profiling. Because somewhere out there, someone was watching. Someone whose job it is to piece together the things people do on the internet raised the red flag when they saw our search history.

Most of it was innocent enough. I had researched pressure cookers. My husband was looking for a backpack. And maybe in another time those two things together would have seemed innocuous, but we are in “these times” now. 

I was at work when it happened. My husband called me as soon as it was over, almost laughing about it but I wasn't joining in the laughter. His call left me shaken and anxious.

What happened was this: At about 9:00 am, my husband, who happened to be home yesterday, was sitting in the living room with our two dogs when he heard a couple of cars pull up outside. He looked out the window and saw three black SUVs in front of our house; two at the curb in front and one pulled up behind my husband’s Jeep in the driveway, as if to block him from leaving.

Six gentleman in casual clothes emerged from the vehicles and spread out as they walked toward the house, two toward the backyard on one side, two on the other side, two toward the front door.

They walked around the living room, studied the books on the shelf (nope, no bomb making books, no Anarchist Cookbook), looked at all our pictures, glanced into our bedroom, pet our dogs. They asked if they could go in my son’s bedroom but when my husband said my son was sleeping in there, they let it be.

They asked about me, where was I, where do I work, where do my parents live. Do you have any bombs, they asked. Do you own a pressure cooker? My husband said no, but we have a rice cooker. Can you make a bomb with that? My husband said no, my wife uses it to make quinoa. What the hell is quinoa, they asked.

Have you ever looked up how to make a pressure cooker bomb? My husband, ever the oppositional kind, asked them if they themselves weren’t curious as to how a pressure cooker bomb works, if they ever looked it up. Two of them admitted they did.

45 minutes later, they shook my husband’s hand and left. That’s when he called me and relayed the story. That’s when I felt a sense of creeping dread take over. What else had I looked up? What kind of searches did I do that alone seemed innocent enough but put together could make someone suspicious? 

They mentioned that they do this about 100 times a week.

Mostly I felt a great sense of anxiety. This is where we are at. Where you have no expectation of privacy. Where trying to learn how to cook some lentils could possibly land you on a watch list. Where you have to watch every little thing you do because someone else is watching every little thing you do.

All I know is if I’m going to buy a pressure cooker in the near future, I’m not doing it online.

I’m scared. And not of the right things.

CLARIFICATION AND UPDATE

We found out through the Suffolk Police Department that the searches involved also things my husband looked up at his old job. We were not made aware of this at the time of questioning and were led to believe it was solely from searches from within our house.

Via reference from ZeroHedge, please consider pressure cookers, backpacks and quinoa, oh my! 

Question? How can we encourage Senator  Cochran not to run for office again. IF reelected he would be eighty -  two before his next term in office would be over.  Mississippi has a history of reelecting Senators until they die or can't get back and forth to the senate building. I think we should begin to break this cycle.

Many of us in Oxford grew up on small farms around the  County. So we know poor and we know need. We are generous compassionate people who given a choice would not deny medical services to anyone. However, given the growing number of immigrants we must find other solutions because we are rapidly running out of checks in our check book.

(Read the numbers and some of the links are not working on my browser.)

1. $11 Billion to $22 Billion

is spent on welfare to illegal aliens

each year by state governments.

Verify at: http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year

is spent on food assistance programs

such as food stamps, WIC, and free

school lunches for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year

is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.HTML

4. $12 Billion dollars a year

is spent on primary and secondary

school education for children

here illegally and they cannot

speak a word of English!

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt..0.HTML

5. $17 Billion dollars a year

is spent for education for

the American-born children of illegal aliens,

known as anchor babies.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY

is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/%20TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison

inmates are illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.CNN.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year

is spent on illegal aliens for

Welfare & social services

by the American taxpayers.

Verify at: http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.HTML

9. $200 Billion dollars a year

in suppressed American wages

are caused by the illegal aliens.

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSC%20RI%20PTS/0604/01/ldt.01.HTML

10. The illegal aliens in the United States

have a crime rate that's two and a half times

that of aliens that are here legally.

In particular, their children are going

to make a huge additional crime

problem in the  US .

Verify at: http://transcripts.cnn..com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt..01..HTML

11. During the year of 2005,

there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens

that crossed our southern border.

Additionally, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens

crossed from Terrorist Countries.

Millions of pounds of drugs... cocaine,

meth, heroin and marijuana crossed into

the U  from the southern border.

Verify at Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National policy Institute estimated

that the total cost of mass deportation

would be between $206 and $230 billion

or an average cost of between $41 and

$46 billion annually over a five-year period..

Verify at: http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/PDF/deportation.PDF

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION

in remittances to their countries of origin.

Verify at: http://www.rense.com/general75/niht..htm

456 days, 19 hours, 20 minutes till the polls open. Seems like a lot of time but it isn't…

Ron

Docnick37@gmail.com

http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/

There are no WHIPPED dogs here

Now is not the time for ease and comfort but time to dare and endure…

W. Churchill

Not such a long time ago, in the shining city on the hill, there lived a group of men that strode into the darkest corners of the earth. Little about them was known. Few that met them understood them, but they became the leaders wherever they walked on the earth. The important thing that was known was they were men you just didn't want to mess with. They had a big stick. They walked softly. If you crossed them you put your life on the line.  

Some of these men believed one thing and others believed something else.  It didn't seem to matter who believed what and what each believed they believed with passion. Each stood on those beliefs. Each walked with those beliefs. They  bumped into each other, they yelled and argued over the things they believed.

Each day as the sun set, there was something that pulled all back together around the dinner table to share bread and to thank God for their brothers.

There was a knowing and understanding and acceptance that was a bond that existed well beyond differences. Differences sometimes were seen as enriching and everyone added what they could to the dinner pot. To cross one was to cross all. To short change one was to short change all. These soft walking men got their stick and as one came after you. 

In that long ago time, their government took care of government matters and these men took care of the Country. Like good stewards, they tended, protected and shaped both the land, their families, and their communities. There was no equivocation. There was no half-heartedness. Things were done with discipline, correctness, and a passion that reflected love and responsibility. Most of the men are gone but there are a few still with us. The few left, with weak voices, telling the stories of how things were and how they can be. With their stories discounted they are discounted, like the rubble of torn down buildings in our intercity. So scattered that no one can imagine the service they provided or to their reach into the sky. Somewhere in the rubble the building's placard is buried so no one can recall the builders, or its time, or its contribution, or its purpose much like these older men with their told tales of past glories and triumphs.

Every society throughout history has its own evolving history, its stories of the forefathers with their values and beliefs and the society they shaped  and passed on. Ours is a young society. Still arrogant, still undisciplined, still impulsive, and as destructive as adolescent boys.

Much like young boys, this Congress and President are arrogant,  undisciplined, impulsive, and destructive. Tearing down our laws, discounting our beliefs, reshaping our nation by pitting one group against another, dividing a country of brothers. Being reelected through scheming, conniving, lying, manipulating are tools in this high stake poker game. These tools have worked well for them in our past. Few can remember when Harry and Nancy first came to Congress. If listed, the list would be long with both Dems and Republican incumbents who have WON reelections more than three terms and many six or more terms. To our shame, many applaud and say at each reelection "At-A-Boy".

The corrupting effect of power has been know and written about since the early days of Greece. Once acquired, power is hard not to abuse. What makes this abuse so insidious is because it's always denied. The abuser plays his part, the liberal press plays their part, and we play ours. Our part is to trust, reelect, and feel disappointment. This current group has simply gone farther than previous congresses and their arrogance is so arrogant that it can't be denied or "spun" or hidden. Is their behavior so egregious, this time, that  we will actually change our role in this play before it become a tragedy? This country is at a tipping point. This President/Congress wants us to change ourselves as free Americans to fit what their imagined political/social/economic America should be. The Health Bill is where they drew the line. So it will be "They" win and we lose. Or "We" win and they lose. Come November we will  take up our big stick and march into the voting booth.

 All the mighty nations throughout history have fallen through political suicide. Their suicidal demise always began through government's corruption of national and religious values. This destruction always begins by the discounting of a nation's history. The national history says to each new generation who we are, who they are, and how we got to where we are. This President in so many ways and in his short time in office has traveled the world discounting who we are by apologizing for America. Armed with a liberal congress this President began discounting each of us, the American people, directly by creating laws that limits our rights and freedoms. 

We have not forgotten our heritage. We have not forgotten our values, nor have we forgotten the men and women who built this Nation.

We cannot stop change..... Change is the hart beat of time and life... What is possible is that we have a voice in what and how change takes place... Our goals and purpose must be clear and easily understood by all... This is the element that has been missing during our last few election cycles... We have left the liberal media to define our goals and purposes... They will do it again IF we let them... 

Senator Wicker is beginning to find his name on the list of Senator who need to be re-vetted before that next primaries. During the past century Mississippi senators have been known to sell their votes for a handful of 'pork bones.' Can it be that Wicker is joining this august body? One can only hope not. 

Regardless of what we do or say between now and the next election there is a problem that we must think about and consider with empathy. The growing number of people who, for a whole variety of reasons, cannot find work that they can do.  The low skill jobs are simply gone.... (Again for a variety of reasons.)... This group along with the growing group of people who are here illegally are a burden on all the working families. Whatever else our purposes  are as a group we must include and offer hope and some level of solutions to this group of citizens. Through reduction in regulations on business and changing tax laws business would be willing to bring back a lot of their low skilled work back to this country. 

When businesses  price their good or services they price in the federal and state tax. In doing so they become a tax collector for government. Putting this burden on our businesses inhibits their growth and their ability to complete at the international levels. 

We need business to reach our goals as a group. We need a strong economy and they are the only ones that make this happen.  

As our group begins to fashion our goals for 2014 the elimination on all taxes on businesses and a flat tax on individuals and families.... This would be a simple goal that can easily be understood.  

Ron

http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/

Doubt and Other Trivial Things

It seem and feels like I have awakened in some science fiction future… I assume much like characters in Orwell's book 1984…. In our lifetime I can't believe any of us expected to see a President, his administration, and government departments behave in ways that say so clearly that they govern without regards to the will or interest of the people or the nation and the constitution and will punish whoever opposes them…. At the very least from of this debacle I have a better sense of what the children of Israel felt when God finally decided to punish them for their misdeeds. I suspect they, like us,  got to that point slowly by cutting corners, losing sight of goals, and mission as well as their moral compasses.

 Is this not where we are?  We the children of America…

For sure we have lost our way. Not in some "bang" moment but over generations and many congresses and presidents. With each new law and regulation we have lost a bit here and there thinking that what we are doing is the right thing to do….. Trying to solve real and imagined problems.

Long before Obama became president the people, on the whole, had lost faith in their elected federal government as well as many in their state governments. Nixon at his swearing in ceremony said that government is too big to manage. Could it be that is the core of our problems? Reagan said government was the problem. Are our government departments to big and too complicated to manage? Is the population too big to manage?

As more laws, rules, and regulations are passed it takes more people to enforce them.  As more people join the social programs it takes more people to manage them. Government grows and will continue to grow so long as there is growth in the population. The idea of cutting the growth of government so long as these conditions are in place is simply a pipe dream. It doesn't matter who we send to Washington…. It doesn't matter what they say as candidates. They can only slow the train down.  (Maybe not even that.)

In our lifetime has there ever been an election where most candidates didn't promise to cut taxes? Change the tax codes… Even when the elected got one tax cut  they added another somewhere else… Like an old shell game..

Federal government has lost its way… This IRS scandal is nothing more than a reminder…

The good guys in Syria that Obama is wanting to help out are bad guys. We can't tell, in the Mideast, who are the good guys are any longer.  If we ever could. Maybe there aren't any…The question is when do we acknowledge and realize this part of the world has been killing each other since - forever. .. Over many years many administrations have tried to buy their friendship and they can't be bought.

In different ways this country is also divided. Obama and his group of appointees along with the liberal media have defined the American good guys and the American bad guys. This is not new. We have always been divided in some ways such as rich and poor, producers and takers, farmers and city folks but there was core elements back then we could all rally around… Our beliefs, our values, our government, and our country…. We are now a fragmented bunch organized around mostly silly self-interest. Fear grows and in this fragmentation government flourishes. It grows and garners more power to rule… More and more this government  power lies outside congress. Its members also live in fear of their positions and personal power. How they vote on legislation alters how voters vote for them.

The Tea Party offers some hope. Some rallying place where the conservative voice can be spoken. Where the notion of a government for and by the people is an old but valued mission. 

Given where the country is today you would have to have forty fingers to point to who, what, where, and why this has happened… This is a wonderful trick that keeps everyone dazed and confused…. However it's not the rich folks nor the poor folks on the myriad of social programs…. The linkage to all of these problems finds their way back to government and the elected. No matter what we are told or how well the White House staff and the news media edits and interprets reality, it is government that is the wellspring.

TJ say:

The evils of this deluge of paper money are not to be removed until our citizens are generally and radically instructed in their cause and consequences, and silence by their authority the interested clamors and sophistry of speculating, shaving, and banking institutions. Till then we must be content to return, quo ad hoc, to the savage state, to recur to barter in the exchange of our property, for want of a stable, common measure of value, that now in use being less fixed than the beads and wampum of the Indian, and to deliver up our citizens, their property and their labor, passive victims to the swindling tricks of bankers and mountebanks. –Thomas Jefferson, in a letter to John Adams, 21 March  1819.

Can anyone imagine the majority of our elected go to lunch and discuss these same problems that Jefferson and Adams were discussing almost two hundred years ago. What can be imagined is that they gathered and discussed what he or she said on last night's news or this morning's news article, or scores of the football, baseball, or basketball scores. Or some scheme to be used in some way by their political party or themselves for some imagined political gain. To try and label some good and some bad is simply a waste of time. They are who they are and they are a reflection of the times we find ourselves in….

We must replace them. Particularly the older, been around a long time, good old boys… So long as they are in place they will make sure the system of government they have had a hand in crafting will continue. This secures their power. The growth of their personal wealth is directly linked to the number of days they have been in elected office as well as the number of people indebted to them who will contribute to their next political campaign. Period.

Know that the values, beliefs, and principles that are held by Tea Party members are viewed by many as dangerous…The President and the media say we are dangerous. Certainly our values run counter to theirs. We are their political enemies. The current administration and the various federal departments such as the IRS are being brought to bear on any and all groups such as ours. It is the core of Chicago politics to not just  beat the opponents but to destroy them at a personal level so they can never challenge again.

Certainly the Tea Party is in the sights of the Obama's administration. This will not stop.

Another Trivial Thing:

Department of Homeland Security (DHS)

The DHS appears to have finally found a use for all those bullets it’s been buying. At a Tea Party protest outside an IRS building in St. Louis yesterday there were no regular police – only armed Homeland Security guards

In 2011, the DHS asserted that it had every right to spy on peaceful protest groups and had been using Federal Protective Service (FPS) agents to do so since at least 2006.

In March, Arkansas State Fusion Center Director Richard Davis admitted  that the federal agency spies on Americans deemed to be “anti-government,” noting that the DHS concentrates on, “domestic terrorism and certain groups that are anti-government. We want to kind of take a look at that and receive that information,” so-called threats which included people, “putting political stickers in public bathrooms or participating in movements against the death penalty.”

A 2012 Senate subcommittee investigation of DHS data fusion centers found that millions of dollars had been spent not on gathering important anti-terrorism information but on collating “a bunch of crap,” which was “unrelated to terrorism” and in fact targeted Americans peacefully exercising their First Amendment rights.

In its promotional material for the ‘See Something, Say Something’ snitch program, the DHS has routinely portrayed white, middle class Americans as the most likely terrorists. Mock news reports and security drills run by the DHS have also depicted gun owners and homeschoolers as violent terrorists.

It’s no surprise that the DHS is now deploying its agents to defend the IRS against the ire of the American people given that both federal agencies have gone to extreme lengths to target law-abiding, conservative, or God forbid “anti-government” Americans as domestic extremists and even terrorists. (www. Infowars.com)

In closing let me suggest to all the Tea members in Mississippi and all other Tea folks around the country  to look at the Democratic party activities in you town. Monthly meeting and training in all of them. They are well funded and organized. We may have right on our side but come the 2014 elections that is not what turns voters out.  If the DEMS get control of the House back, the last two years with Obama will be like no other in our history. He will, in those two years, write a socialist legacy for himself that will be difficult if not impossible to change.

Last go around the rumor spread that most or the people who voted for Obama would not vote for him and he could be beaten by a wimpy white rich guy who made it through one term as governor and managed to create the failed health program in the state he governed. Clearly that rumor was started by the elite political  group that runs the GOP. What will they concoct next election cycle? The national GOP believes that we have to go along no matter who they decide on.

Or do we?

Another trivial thing:

Today's Polls: New Rasmussen Reports national telephone survey shows that 44% of Likely U.S. Voters now have a favorable opinion of the Tea Party. That's up 14 points from January but still down from April 2009's high of 51% when the Tea Party protests against President Obama’s spending policies first erupted.

Another NOT so trivial thing:

2000 of the students graduating last week from Mississippi High Schools could not pass the reading test.

(I guess we can be grateful they didn't publish the results of the math test.)

532 days - 6 hours - 32 minutes till the next round of voting…..

Ron

http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

.

The River

At this stage in life I have a better  sense of flows and ebbs than I did when I was younger. When I was a teenager I was in a town on the Mississippi river. I saw the river often and the bridge that connected the two states on each side. There were markers on the bridge pilings that measured the depth of the water at any given time. The measurements  were more important than I realized.  Memphis was a town built on cotton trade and when the river's water level was to low the cotton couldn't get up the river  to the market. If the water level was high the river was flowing so quickly the barges had problems getting  up river. As a teenager this had little interest to me simply because there wasn't any way I could connect the river stages to my life, my family's life, or the financial life of the city.

Just south of Memphis the Mississippi delta begins which at the time was one of the most productive farming land anywhere is the world. Although not wide it stretches  a hundred miles and I didn't have any problem connecting the river levels with the lives of the people who lived there. My grandmother had relatives in the delta. Every few years, when there was a  rainy spring, the river would flood and the relatives would pack their belongings in the wagon along with their three children and two dogs. After a few days on the road they would show up on grandmother's front porch. They would stay until the flood subsided, pack their  belongings and back they would go not knowing if their house was still intact or if it would be dry enough to get the cotton planted in time  to make a crop. For them the river levels measured on the bridge pilings was more than a number. As a teenager I couldn't relate the river levels to my family or the city's finances but could link the river numbers to people in the Delta who I knew.

Numbers in and by themselves aren't important but what the numbers represent has impact indirectly and often directly on each of our lives. Such as these massive deficits that will also impact our the children and grandchildren's lives, as well as the  financial life of towns, states, our country and the countries that do business with us.

Today we are bombarded with numbers from our government that represent every aspect of our lives. More often than not what the numbers represent simply are not understood. We hear them so often they become meaningless sound bites.  How many people hear 7.8 unemployment numbers and know what they mean in a real sense to them at a personal level? If you count the people on the Food Stamp program along with the myriad of other government social services and include all the people who manage these program within the government they are growing to as many people who have productive jobs.  

These numbers, like the river level numbers on the bridge pilings, are warnings.

There is a small percentage of people in our country who know and understand what all of the government reported numbers mean and because of this knowledge they are safe and can profit no matter if the river rises or falls. While we or our wives go to the local grocer after stopping to top off our gas tank and wonder what just happened. Spent more - got less. Later in the evening watching the less offensive anchorman/woman inform us that our government spent more money today than it had and our debt per household is greater than  the amount of money most of us make in two years and we wonder how did this happen. 

So long as we continue to wonder "how did this happen" it will continue to happen. So long as we don't know what numbers represent and how government works it will never stop. The Tea Party hopes the answer is to get rid of the 'good-old-boys-and girls and elect a new group of good-old-boys-and girls. We have shuffled the deck before and it has helped…. Helped in the sense of  slowing but not solving the problems in any long term way. Most of our 'NEWLY" elected boys and girls have been invited into the cloak room in the House and Senate and are quickly seduced to the dark side. In these dark places they have been assured that their lust for power and wealth is good and that the fraternity will protect and help them achieve their real goals.

Ignorance, popular socialist  leaders, and the liberal media are the dangers to our way or life and wellbeing.  The leaders prey  on the ignorant. The liberal press guides the ignorant. This ignorance has nothing to do with color, education levels, or financial status. Within this group there is a need to be taken care of… a reliance on government to protect them and their families from real and perceived dangers. No matter how many examples they are confronted with each day they still believe that government is their protector, their friend, and their ally. Abandon all hope for no amount of education, cajoling, or personal experience will sway them. This is a character disorder of magnitude and unlike personality disorders, which are responsive to learning and change, the character disorders are not.

The country is divided along many different fronts. What was once the political conservative party is divided. Alvin Toffler wrote over twenty years ago predicting these divisions within the nation and explaining how these divisions would come about, saying the outcome would be that all power would be taken from the citizens and centered in government.

The Rubicon is crossed. All of the shortcomings that lie within a democracy have happened. The voters through our leaders have voted to take from the productive and transfer to the unproductive. All of the promises made to the good-old-new-boys and girls in the cloak rooms will come to pass.

This government has already run out of 'other people's money' and has been borrowing money to keep the show on the road. Europe is showing us the cost of this way of governing. We see the numbers, we hear the outcries, but like the numbers on the river pilings we don't link them to our lives.

All of our cities where government has been most proactive are dangerous, decaying, bankrupted cites, such as Detroit, Memphis, New Orleans, along with the bankrupted cities in California where citizens live in poverty and fear. Where city fathers did their cloak room deal, expanding their wealth and power, while the children kill children, where children kill adults, and where adults assault and kill children. Moral and financial decay. Memphis has accepted that it cannot educate their children and gave up their school charter to the state which turned the problem to the county school system which has no real means of managing the Memphis school system. Now the county school system, which was doing a good educational job, will now be lowered if not brought down by the financial burden.

Stories like this one come into our homes every day and we think that is a problem in Memphis, Detroit, or Stockton. Mississippi has been at the bottom of the State's education ladder. It is as if that position is ours to protect. Recently Mississippi Senate passed a bill allowing  chartered schools and the House rejected the bill.  (Cloak room guidance warns against meaningful changes.)

For any reader who has gotten this far into this article I want to assure you that this is simply my view and I am hopeful. Change happens over time. Buildings see a useful life span and so do people along with ideas and values. The best we can hope for is to have some say in the change that is inevitable.

Every democracy in history has failed. They all failed for the same reason and more or less and in the same way through lust for power on the part of the good-old-boys and debt. Our democracy has lasted longer than most.

Our President, some in Congress, and the media tell us we are not in a financial crisis. We are not. We will not be in a crisis until there is no more money to transfer and the national debt comes due. Then we will be in a crisis and only then will the electorate say, "Oh, that’s what all those number meant." 

America, its government, business, and citizens have a history of doing things in a big way. No nation has had so many trillions of dollars of debt. I assume this is a true milestone. Never have we had such a small percentage of the work force paying most of  the taxes.. That for sure in a milestone. Never have we had so many people living off  government support programs. As the various countries in Europe, through social government managing their economies, wake up in crisis they are surprised even though for years they have been warned there would be a consequence to the massive wealth transfer. These governments could no longer prop up their economy and their debt came due. Crash and burn….The warning numbers were there for all to see.

To redirect the finger pointing, the numbers are here for all our citizens to see but our social express has left the station. As we lost any and all sense of responsibility things changed. In the European countries the non-producers checks are in the mail. The wealthy are moving their money to other countries and the working middle class buys less because the money is worth less. In our country our working middle class is able to buy less because their dollars are worth less and many of the businesses they work for are closing their doors while  they are beginning to pay more hidden taxes.

If our economy crashed and burned who would be hurt? What would happen? The social program group's checks would still be in the mail but would buy less. Government employee jobs would be safe and their money would buy less. In the chaos government would step in and take more power over business and people. More money will be printed leading to a greater devaluation of the buying power of the dollar.

Younger voters have never lived though a real economic down turn. Middle age voter have lived through a couple but for the most part they were too young at the time to appreciate what was happening. Older voters have lived through many and each time the middle class working person was forced to pay for government mistakes. Contrary to what government and the liberal media says, all businesses price their goods and services with the estimated tax build into the price of their goods and services. At some point after the sale the business transfer the  tax collected from the consumer to the government. All the economic blunders came about through government's social engineering. Reality is often difficult to recognize but simply put the more we govern, citizens life through entitlement, taxes, and regulations rather than allowing freedom, choice, and personal responsibility. The outcomes are the same and undesirable here, around the world, and throughout the history of fallen nations.

Pessimism is a word that leads to and is the cause of  non-action. Pessimism grows like an untreated cancer. Seems like the low older conservative turn-out in the last election was a direct result of pessimism and the loss of the election. The battle in the nation is about beliefs, values, and principles. These are taught in most families but it take time and life experiences for them to be full understood, appreciated, and incorporated into people's lives. Government social programs over generations prevents this maturing process to take place. In history 'good' serfs got to live in the shadow of the castles but not inside that walls. Inside was the administrative people, supporters of the realm, along with the leader's guards. This is where we find ourselves.

"If there is anything that links the human to the divine, it is the courage to stand by a principle when everybody else rejects it." -- Abraham Lincoln… I love this quote and at the time it was made Abe could safely assume that all men had principles to stand by. The word itself is never used by politicians nor uttered on the national media. In this current narcissistic fragmented society principles are hard to find and people who hold them are few.     

We have been able to find electable conservative leaders in the last two elections. Not nearly enough. In 583 days we will go to the voting booth again. Finding more electable conservative leaders is a difficult process as we have seen. The candidates we find will not be the choice of the national GOP and once again we will be fighting two battles. For us to have a voice in the national GOP we must be part of the state and local GOP. Simple idea but difficult to do but it is a 'must do' in each state and voting district. There will be no welcome mats. 

We are living in a unique time that none of us have ever seen… Government and society is no longer making changes here and there or taking from and adding to this or that law or program which has been the direction since the mid sixties. All of the small changes, over many congresses, has finally summed to the transformation of America as we have known it. The Rubicon has been crossed.

The nation is fragmented.    

 

The river is rising, all the warning signals are blinking red, time is not on our side.

We know how to win this battle and we can win.

Click Here... Year of your birth   (See a little of your history)

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

  http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

The Washington Post

Washing Post

I never would have imagined that I would forward an article from the Washington Post to any place other than the trash basket. This will the third article published in the liberal media that has questioned Obama and his leadership in recent weeks.

 Is this a sign of some change taking place? Or is this simply a bump in the long love affair the liberal media has had with our President? Obama is wooing some of the GOP members at the moment and I suspect he will turn his attention back the his soul-mates in the press soon.

A brilliant commentary out of none other than the Washington Post. 18 Jan 2013

By Matt Patterson (columnist - Washington Post, New York Post, San Francisco Examiner)

Years from now, historians may regard the 2008 election of Barack Obama as an inscrutable and disturbing phenomenon, the result of a baffling breed of mass hysteria akin perhaps to the witch craze of the Middle Ages. How, they will wonder, did a man so devoid of professional accomplishment beguile so many into thinking he could manage the world's largest economy, direct the world's most powerful military, execute the world's most consequential job? Imagine a future historian examining Obama's pre-presidential life: ushered into and through the Ivy League despite unremarkable grades and test scores along the way; a cushy non-job as a "community organizer"; a brief career as a state legislator devoid of legislative achievement (and in fact nearly devoid of his attention, so often did he vote "present"); and finally an unaccomplished single term in the United States Senate, the entirety of which was devoted to his presidential ambitions.

He left no academic legacy in academia, authored no signature legislation as a legislator. And then there is the matter of his troubling associations: the white-hating, America-loathing preacher who for decades served as Obama's "spiritual mentor"; a real-life, actual terrorist who served as Obama's colleague and political sponsor. It is easy to imagine a future historian looking at it all and asking: how on Earth was such a man elected president?

Not content to wait for history, the incomparable Norman Podhoretz addressed the question recently in the Wall Street Journal: To be sure, no white candidate who had close associations with an outspoken hater of America like Jeremiah Wright and an unrepentant terrorist like Bill Ayers, would have lasted a single day. But because Mr. Obama was black, and therefore entitled in the eyes of liberal Dom to have hung out with protesters against various American injustices, even if they were a bit extreme, he was given a pass. Let that sink in: Obama was given a pass - held to a lower standard - because of the color of his skin.

Podhoretz continues: And in any case, what did such ancient history matter when he was also so articulate and elegant and (as he himself had said) "non-threatening," all of which gave him a fighting chance to become the first black president and thereby to lay the curse of racism to rest?

Podhoretz puts his finger, I think, on the animating pulse of the Obama phenomenon - affirmative action. Not in the legal sense, of course. But certainly in the motivating sentiment behind all affirmative action laws and regulations, which are designed primarily to make white people, and especially white liberals, feel good about themselves.

Unfortunately, minorities often suffer so that whites can pat themselves on the back. Liberals routinely admit minorities to schools for which they are not qualified, yet take no responsibility for the inevitable poor performance and high drop-out rates which follow. Liberals don't care if these minority students fail; liberals aren't around to witness the emotional devastation and deflated self-esteem resulting from the racist policy that is affirmative action. Yes, racist. Holding someone to a separate standard merely because of the color of his skin - that's affirmative action in a nutshell, and if that isn't racism, then nothing is.

And that is what America did to Obama. True, Obama himself was never troubled by his lack of achievements, but why would he be? As many have noted, Obama was told he was good enough for Columbia despite undistinguished grades at Occidental; he was told he was good enough for the US Senate despite a mediocre record in Illinois ; he was told he was good enough to be president despite no record at all in the Senate. All his life, every step of the way, Obama was told he was good enough for the next step, in spite of ample evidence to the contrary.

What could this breed if not the sort of empty narcissism on display every time Obama speaks? In 2008, many who agreed that he lacked executive qualifications nonetheless raved about Obama's oratory skills, intellect, and cool character. Those people - conservatives included - ought now to be deeply embarrassed.

The man thinks and speaks in the hoariest of cliché and that's when he has his Teleprompters in front of him; when the prompter is absent he can barely think or speak at all. Not one original idea has ever issued from his mouth - it's all warmed-over Marxism of the kind that has failed over and over again for 100 years.

And what about his character? Obama is constantly blaming anything and everything else for his troubles. Bush did it; it was bad luck; I inherited this mess. It is embarrassing to see a president so willing to advertise his own powerlessness, so comfortable with his own incompetence. But really, what were we to expect? The man has never been responsible for anything, so how do we expect him to act responsibly?

In short: our president is a small and small-minded man, with neither the temperament nor the intellect to handle his job. When you understand that, and only when you understand that, will the current erosion of liberty and prosperity make sense. It could not have gone otherwise with such a man in the Oval Office.

Thanks Matt Patterson..

There  are 603 days and 4 hours till the polls open in November 2014. That seems like a lot of time but it isn't really… What are we to do between now and then? We might consider having a state Tea Party rally………

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com/a

News Flash: Cruz made it onto the NY Times hit list

Each time I vote I wonder IF I am voting for the right candidate. Part of what causes this confusion is the fact that usually I feel I'm simply voting for the one candidate that is/was not as bad as the other. The one candidate that I thought  was not as bad as the other candidate often lost the election and that was the end of it….. BUT on a few scattered elections I felt I has some choices. If the candidate I voted for won I thought I made the right choice and felt I had done a good thing. On those rare occasions where I voted for the person who got elected they went to Washington and cast votes against every belief I hold. Not all the time, not on every bill, but often.

There have been occasions, like this last election, where I supported a candidate I really knew little about other than hearing some of his campaign speeches. His name is Ted Cruz…. (I'm sure everyone got tired of me talking about him in The Oxford Tea Party articles…) He won. Went to Washington and haven't heard much about him since he has been there. It often takes the first six months for the newly elected to find the cafeteria, rest room , and their offices. So I really don't expect much from them early own.

However, as it turns out Mr. Cruz is doing 'something' and has been since day one. The metrics that I use as a measuring rod is the New York Times. (Confession: I get RSS feed daily from NY Times.) When the Times writes about and attacks a newly elected person it means they are truly conservative. He/she is walking, talking, and voting conservative values. Acting like a conservative human being in a sea of liberal go-along-to-get-along good old boys and girls.

Gosh, NY Times says Cruz is confrontational like the Tea Party. Not only that but he was one of thirty four members to vote against raising the debt limit. One of nineteen who voted against selling military arms to Egypt and to top it off voted against John Kerry for secretary of state. Last noted by the Times he filibustered against Chuck Hagel for secretary of defense. Given the tone of the Times' article Cruz is one bad dude….. (I'm sure Hagel, who has been a part of this august body,  will be confirmed even without Cruz's vote.)

All of us who supported Ted should pat ourselves on the back. Drop him a note, send him an e-mail, and call his office and say, "Thanks." The pressure on these newly elected by their own party is relentless. (i.e. Mitch McConnell)

Most GOPs in the House are not  conservative GOPs. They are not the Tea Party GOP. (Many, I am sure, are Dems in disguise.…. Well, maybe not.)

Here is a short list of guys we need to write and call giving them our support:

Rand Paul, (Kentucky) Macro Rubio,(Florida) Pat Toomey, (Pennsylvania) Jeff Flake, (Arizona) Mike Lee, (Utah) Tim Scott (South Carolina) and Ted Cruz.(Texas) Stick these names on the bathroom mirror. These men are conservative in word and deed. All seem to be men of principles. This is a core conservative group that we need to help grow. The next election is only sixteen months away.

We must find a way to send as many support messages as we can to these newly elected. It the right thing for us to do and if do it consistently he/she will not forget for a moment who sent them there and why. Also, they may end up paying more attention when we send our 'don't vote for this or that bill' message. (What do you think.?) 

Here  is a copy of e-mail I sent to NY Times: Just a quick note on the article you wrote concerning Ted Cruz and his voting record…. What is most important for you to note is he works for me and a goodly number of people I know and many others I don't know. We hired him and we pay him to do what he is doing.  Get it? He is our employee…..At no time did we consult with you or any of the staff at the NY Times concerning this job or the best person to fill this position.

The editorial staff at the NY Times seems to have a biased view of America as well as Orwellian view of how government should be. In an effort to save you time and effort we want you to know we will not buy into your writers' notions and evolve into  a "Robin Hood thievery nation." Our forefathers didn't, our parents didn't, and we won't either.

By espousing this socialist agenda your group of writers has destroyed one of the greatest newspapers the world has ever seen.

Ron

(I don't think this e-mail has been read by any of the Times staff writers. I really don't care. Also, I don't think I have fully confessed that when I was twenty years old, I lived in New York, was a liberal democrat, and read the New York Times everyday. Just like a liberal democrat should.)

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

Dr. Carson - National Prayer Meeting

Below is a link to a speech that Dr. Carson gave at the national prayer meeting a few days ago. I suspect many of you did not see him speak. also, I assume many do not know him nor what he has done and is doing. 

This speech is over twenty minutes so set aside time to watch. 

I seldom, if ever, send out a link like this.

I think you will need to copy this in your browser. This will become a google search and at the top of the search you will see the link to Dr. carson speech at the national prayer meeting. 

http://www.examiner.com/video/dr-carson-s-amazing-speech-at-the-national-prayer-breakfast

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http;/theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com

Unthinkable Violence

Unthinkable Violence

With eyes closed tightly we think we see. We act on what we think we see and are sure we know the right of it all - imagination replaces reality - and some hope and comfort is found in contorted information spewed from every electronic device our money can buy.  Chanting that things are not so bad, things are better than they were, assuring us that tomorrow will be a step forward to a newer and better world where government takes care of all our needs and helps us in managing our daily lives.

Do American's believe when they see and hear the political speak of our president? Count the votes…. And the answer is most voters/citizens do believe.

There has been a Tea battle cry, "Take our country back." It's not our country. The country belongs to all of us.  It is only 'our' country in the broader sense of we. So many of us in the Tea Party are making this effort because of children and grandchildren. If this American mess we are in just impacted me I would say a few explicit words, shrug it off and not give it another thought. 

Many of us in the Tea Party were part of a group, way back when, that was saying "never trust anyone over thirty." Does anyone remember that time? I don't have a clear memory of why we finally woke up and realized the older group were not to be trusted. Most of the current problems started way back then and we were right - they shouldn't have been trusted…. The problem is we kept electing them over and over. Each reelecting assured them they were doing just fine and had  our support. They did have our support and so few were really paying attention to what they were doing We (or enough of us) didn't realize they weren't doing fine. However, this reelecting did something even more damming.  It gave the elected a sense of omnipotence. They became an upper political class separated off from the people who they promised and were elected to serve.

(Old Beatles tune, "Money can't buy you love." Maybe not love but votes for sure and often times just the promise of  money in the form of caretaking will get the voting done just right.)

We grow up being taken care of.  In the process of growing up we were taught certain rules of conduct. As young adults we left the nest and moved into the broader American way of life without too many bumps. Jobs were provided and if we performed to reasonable expectations we were incorporated into the economic system with homes and families being the rewards. The operative part of this system that most of us grew up under had to do with the belief that we had to perform. That was our part in the American way of life. We performed - we got something. We performed really well - we got more. This seemed like an even deal to most. But not all…..

Even in this simple equation many people were left out. Many who were not left out noticed the 'left-outs' and for sure the left-outs realized they were left out.   But many didn't see. More often than not the 'left-outs' were blamed for being 'left out.' At some point during the sixties there were so many left-outs government as well as many other people decided something had to be done. The 'old deal' no longer seemed to work. The New Deal offered promise with some hope thrown in for good measure. Social support programs were created which at their core were in some ways replacing the family raising and caring for their children. which in the early stages seemed like a right and good thing to do. In this altruistic effort important consequences were not anticipated.  Buried in this social effort was a promise that the people on these support programs never had to leave home or perform for their food, clothing, or shelter. This buried promise forever separated the left-outs from the rest of the people who had to perform.

Violence, the word itself has a ring to it that is unique. There isn't another word quite like it. We watch movies where the 'good guys' kill off the 'bad guys' violently. We think it's OK… so long as the bad guy is clearly identified as bad. But there is a  violence that mostly goes unnoticed and unmentioned, certainly in the national media and it is the legal force of our government against the people.  It is so incorporated into our way of life that it goes unnoticed by the people at large. We hear about it only in the extreme when this power get directed towards one person.

The 'cliff' vote in the Senate was an example of this violence. (At the core of the bill was 41 dollars in tax hikes and 1 dollar in spending cuts.) What our president is doing to the minority groups by his relentless efforts in affirming  beliefs that they are downtrodden because of white Americans and that they should not have to perform  for their livelihood is  a violence that will continue for generations.  For the nation it is debt, deficits, and demography that escapes understanding and hides a violence that is at work moment to moment and day to day against a way of  life we have known. Unrelenting destructive violence.

California has 876 new laws that go into effect today. We have readers in a majority of the states and I wonder if you know how many new laws and regulations go into effect in your state today. It is this behavior in state government that is the core of destructive violence and has the greatest impact on the people. Over all across the states the number was 29000 new laws with possibly even more new regulations.

That is a sad note to the end of 2012 and the beginning of 2013.

As most reader know I am a fan of Newt Gingrich. When going gets tough I will often pull up one of Newt's videos and re-watch it for the umpteenth time. Below is a link to a recent speech he gave at the Reagan library. Watch it… It will lift your spirits and helps to refocus on the election twenty two months from now.

http://uneditedpolitics.com/newt-gingrich-speech-at-reagan-forum-112812/

This fight is not over. The country is still intact. We have not lost our vision…. Our neighbors are not the enemy. It is our government that is a threat to our liberty and our freedoms. We must replace them all.

Our wish is that all of us and every other citizen in America will have a Happy New Year.

Ron

docnick37@gmail.com

Http://theoxfordteaparty.blogspot.com