Be Sustainable Comrade

If Mr. Rogers were still on television each afternoon, taking his Cardigan sweater out of the closet, putting on his slippers and greeting all the little children; one of the words he’d highlight for an entire episode would be, Sustainability.  Mr. Rogers has already gone to great lengths to share a message about re-cycling so that empty soda cans don’t end up in the trash, cautioned kids to be friendly to Mother Earth and the importance of being mindful of others. 

But the word Sustainability is the new order of the day. 

(On a side note, looking at the book cover, my first thought was to a frightening novel, Lord of the Flies; images of young boys running wild through the jungle as they sought the Conch Shell of power; killing, if necessary, anyone who got in the way.)

There was an Earth Day promotion waiting for me as I went through my email, a reminder from Turner Publishing that everyone needs to do their part.  I’m so glad to know that a company owned and operated by Jane “Traitor and Communist Sympathizer ” Fonda’s husband Ted wants to enlist everyone’s help in pushing forward a new world order as outlined in the United Nation’s Agenda 21.

“Celebrating Earth Day has put all of us at Turner Publishing in the “environmentally-friendly” mood. How have you been “green” this year? We recently started recycling in our office after evaluating how much paper we were throwing away each week! Maybe we should all start this week by picking one thing we will change in our routine that leads to a greener environment? Maybe... 

·  Recycle all of the paper in your office or home

·  Choose paper over plastic at the grocery store

·  Eliminate air pollution by carpooling more often or riding your bike instead of driving

·  Stop buying plastic Keurig coffee cups and use a reusable cartridge!  

You can be the one person to make a simple change and inspire others to do the same! Be the change and be green”

Reading between the lines, a favorite past time, were the words, “Be Sustainable, Comrade, or Else!”  Some folks can’t see the warning; but I can assure you, it’s there.

Take for example the newly discovered powers of the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) which now cover how long a shower you can take.  The University of Tulsa has been given a grant to develop a device which can be fitted easily to any hotel shower head to monitor how much water is used.

“EPA deputy press secretary Laura Allen issued a statement to the Free Beacon clarifying that “EPA is not monitoring how much time hotel guests spend in the shower" and said that the marketplace “will decide if there is a demand for this type of technology. It’s ultimately up to hotels to use technology like the monitors being developed at the University of Tulsa.”’

If that’s true, and finding any part of the Obama administration capable of speaking the truth might be more difficult than finding the Holy Grail…but if that’s true, then why mention a target limit of 7 minutes per shower in the title of the article? 

We’ve seen a pattern of deceitfulness from the Obama administration.  “If you like your health insurance plan you can keep it”,  “If you like your primary care doctor you can keep your primary care doctor” and one of my favorites, “The Benghazi attack on our embassy was caused by a rogue video that enraged Muslims”.  

The EPA recently mandated (more than a mild suggestion), mandated ruther restrictions on wood burning stoves regarding “the level of fine airborne particulate emissions that wood-burning stoves can emit, from 15 micrograms per cubic meter to a maximum of 12 micrograms.”

“The EPA restrictions would ban the production and sale of the kinds of wood-burning stoves that compose 80 percent of those currently in use in the United States, Forbes reported.”

You might recall one of Obama’s campaign objectives during his run for the Oval Office back in 2008, “If somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can, it’s just that it will bankrupt them.”  (Originally that was to have read, Obama’s campaign promises; but word check won’t let me put Obama and Promise in the same sentence)

“In 2012, the Obama EPA issued its “new source performance standard” that effectively made it impossible to build new coal-fired power plants, because no technology exists that would enable utilities to meet the new standards. At the time, the head of EPA’s air office, Gina McCarthy, assured the public that existing plants would not have to meet the new standard and that EPA was not promoting fuel-switching. Less than a year after McCarthy’s solemn promise, however, the following sentence appears on page 19 of Obama’s Climate Action Plan: “Going forward, we will promote fuel-switching from coal to gas for electricity production and encourage the development for a global market for gas.”’

When I read that the EPA is studying how to monitor how much water is wasted while someone takes a shower, flushes a toilet, turns on a CFL light bulb because incandescent bulbs have been outlawed, heats their house above 72 degrees or cools it below 78 degrees…let’s just say I’m skeptical when they say they have no intention of mandating that function.

On to victory as we celebrate Earth Day.  Remember, Comrade, Be Sustainable – or else!

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.

Injury In the Line of Duty…or not?

When an individual puts on a uniform in the service of his community or country, either as a fireman, police officer or military serviceman we recognize the uniform perhaps more than the individual.  If they get injured while in our service it’s our moral duty to take care of them.

An article at the Fox News website by Catherine Herridge, Fort Hood shooting victim denied benefits, despite Purple Heart decision pointed out that a military board has denied benefits to a soldier who was shot during the Ft. Hood terrorist attack.

You may recall the Obama administration pressured the military into calling the shooting “work place violence” rather than classifying the shooting as a terrorist event “even though the evidence showed Hasan was emailing the Al Qaeda cleric Anwar al-Awlaki prior to the attack”.

But that’s not all…the administrators of our military, those charged with looking after our servicemen who put the uniform on each day in defense of our nation took it a step further.

“MAJ Hasan has been charged with criminal activity, but has not been adjudicated a terrorist. Therefore, the clear preponderance of evidence does not support that the injuries sustained were the direct result of armed conflict,” the letter said.

I wonder what planet these administrators are from; really!  Getting shot six times isn’t the result of armed conflict?  Must have been one heck of a game of Tidily Winks those soldiers at Fort Hood were playing.

Putting aside whether or not the injuries were the result of an attack carried out during war time, on foreign soil or our own should not matter…  shouldn’t a member of our military be taken care of if he/she fell off a loading dock while pealing potatoes assigned KP duty?   (I know, soldiers no longer are required to perform KP; pick some similar mundane chore like slipping down on a wet floor while cleaning the head)

There you go, soldier; we don’t have to pay for your injuries because you can’t prove they happened as an act of war.  Chew on that for a while …

Of course there are two sides to every coin; taking into account the numerous attempts to feign injury in order to collect a fat Workman’s Compensation package.  Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn’t. 

A friend of mine worked for the U.S. Postal Service as a criminal inspector.  One of his jobs was investigating individuals who were collecting disability from the government, folks suspected of being less than honest about their injuries.  He told me about folks who claimed they were too injured to work collecting full benefits that showed up each month in their mail box.   The only problem was these folks were fit as a fiddle and off working ‘cash jobs’ that went as unreported income when they were supposed to be at home in their sick bed.  

I wish there were more inspectors catching free loaders; but that goes against current policy under the Obama administration.  Truth be known, I think there are bonuses set aside for the more creative free loaders. 

Talk about free loaders and spending taxpayer money, what about this?   

“The director of the Philadelphia VA regional benefits office was paid $288,000 in “relocation payments” to move the 140 miles from Washington, D.C. to her new home last year”.

{…}

“Federal regulations allow for the reimbursement of relocation expenses including the “costs of house-hunting, moving, terminating leases, and a per-diem rate for meals and temporary housing for an employee and his or her family,” the spokesman said.”

I’m so happy to know the VA administrators are able to take care of themselves; but isn’t their job to take care of military personnel who need medical treatment? (Sounds like they have their priorities messed up)

Moving right along…

I remember one police officer who fell out of his chair at the station and collected full disability benefits for about a year; that’s full pay with benefits, tax free because it was carried as Injury on Duty.  (not making this up folks; this actually happened)

Back in the 70s an off duty uniformed Houston Police Officer was injured while working traffic at the Astrodome, an extra-job where his salary was furnished by the Astrodome.  Long story short; he was seriously injured by a vehicle while working traffic; but the City denied his request for Injury on Duty status.

The City of Houston claimed that at the time of his injuries his actual employer was the Astrodome and refused to pay while he was out of work.  Eventually the courts convinced the City of their responsibility because the officer was directing traffic and wearing a uniform which represented his authority, authority which could only be given by the City of Houston. 

More recently another Houston Police Officer, Jason Roy, survived a roll over accident during a chase.  His promised benefits have been denied after being disabled with a broken neck, making him unable to perform as a police officer.

‘“The City of Houston is cooperating fully and is not contesting Officer Roy’s medical condition.  The case is moving through the process dictated by the state. The next scheduled hearing will occur in mid-November. The decision as to whether benefits are granted is made by the Worker’s Compensation Division of the Texas Department of Insurance, not the city,” city of Houston Director of Human Resources Omar Reid.”

This means there’s a bureaucrat stationed somewhere along the chain of command to deny benefits; either at the City, State or Federal level of government.  Somebody is employed in a position of authority to ignore benefits promised, ignore right from wrong and to limit final responsibility in favor of saving the taxpayers money. 

I would hope our military service men and women would be treated better; but our government is run by folks who have lost their compass as to what’s right and wrong.  Injury on Duty means nothing to administrators and bureaucrats whose sole purpose in life is to screw over those who’ve earned these benefits.

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.

Obama’s “Potemkin Village”

Historians would recognize the term “Potemkin village” as it’s used to describe “any attempt to make others believe we are better than we really are”.   I first heard the unusual sounding combination of words this past Saturday evening as used by Dieter F. Uchtdorf in his General Conference talk, On Being Genuine, when he addressed the Priesthood Session.

He intended to emphasize the importance of actually being who you claim to be publicly as he explained the origins of this interesting terminology. 

“In the late 18th century, Catherine the Great of Russia announced she would tour the southern part of her empire, accompanied by several foreign ambassadors. The governor of the area, Grigory Potemkin, desperately wanted to impress these visitors. And so he went to remarkable lengths to showcase the country’s accomplishments.

For part of the journey, Catherine floated down the Dnieper River, proudly pointing out to the ambassadors the thriving hamlets along the shore, filled with industrious and happy townspeople. There was only one problem: it was all for show. It is said that Potemkin had assembled pasteboard facades of shops and homes. He had even positioned busy-looking peasants to create the impression of a prosperous economy.”

As I listened my first thoughts turned immediately to Barrack Obama and his administration; lie after lie covered by smoke and mirrors, deception and stone walling to keep the public in the dark until such time as the truth didn’t matter anymore. 

The health and safety of our nation has taken a back seat to how Obama and his administration appear in public; but I fear it is much worse than Grigory Potemkin’s slight of hand trick to make himself look good, Obama’s implementation of Marxist communism seems to be the driving force behind all this fakery.

An example of Obama’s questionable use of the presidency, and I’m being far too kind in calling it questionable; some might prefer treasonous…would be his entering into nuclear treaty talks with Iran.

Thomas Sowell wrote an article for the National Review,  Obama’s Iran ‘Agreement’ Is a Charade, in which he outlines the incredulity of forming any alliance with Iran and believing this band of terrorists might keep their word.  (I suppose the folks in Iran are saying the same thing about Obama and his administration; none are men of integrity.)

“By abandoning virtually all its demands for serious restrictions on Iran’s nuclear-bomb program, the Obama administration has apparently achieved the semblance of a preliminary introduction to the beginning of a tentative framework for a possible hope of an eventual agreement with Iran.

{…}

Why then all these negotiations? Because these charades protect Barack Obama politically, no matter how much danger they create for America and the world. The latest public-opinion polls show Obama’s approval rating rising. In political terms — the only terms that matter to him — his foreign policy has been a success.”

Sowell goes on to give a history lesson on Neville Chamberlain’s handling of a treaty made with NAZI Germany in an attempt to stave off war.  At no time did it appear that Chamberlain intended to set Great Britain up for the nasty ramifications of such poor judgment; but at the same time his actions did “throw a small country to the Nazi wolves in order to get a worthless agreement with Hitler”.

On the other hand, as Sowell points out, Obama’s worthless treaty giving Iran the ability to expand its nuclear program may well be throwing Israel to the wolves “for the sake of another worthless agreement”.

“If anyone examines the hard, cold facts about the Obama administration’s actions and inactions in the Middle East from the beginning, it is far more difficult to reconcile those actions and inactions with a belief that Obama was trying to stop Iran from getting nuclear weapons than it is to reconcile those facts with his trying to stop Israel from stopping Iran from getting nuclear weapons.” 

If you consider the folks Obama has for his inner circle then his intentions become more troubling.  

His senior advisor, Valerie Jarrett, has ties to the Muslim Brotherhood and openly stated she looks forward to using America’s ignorance and tolerance of all religions via the First Amendment to further advance Islam into our society in order to bring about an eventual Transformation to Islam here.

Obama has been steadily weakening our military while at the same time placing ‘questionable’ individuals who happen to be Muslim, not only Muslim... but individuals who have ties to radical jihadist groups in key positions of government. 

“In 2002 Mohamed Elibiary founded the Freedom and Justice Foundation in Plano, Texas. Freedom and Justice is the political party of the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt. He was appointed a member of the Homeland Security advisory council which meant Elibiary had access to security documents. In October of 2011, it was reported he took sensitive reports from the Texas Department of Public Safety.”

I almost wish I wasn’t aware of the loose ends, the shady deals, the outright lies and deception Obama and his administration have foisted off on the public, all the while claiming to be working for a better America.  It would seem the America Obama wants our constitutional republic Transformed into is under the flag of Islam.

America's economic recovery... It’s all for show and major media outlets refuse to report the truth, instead they prefer building up Obama’s image as America’s first and greatest Black president. 

I haven’t brought up job reports, unemployment or the disturbing fact that 63 million potential members of the workforce don’t have a job, some of them having quit looking long ago so they aren’t considered unemployed.  How’s that for another of Obama’s Potemkin Villages?

This article has been cross posted to The Moral Liberal, a publication whose banner reads, “Defending The Judeo-Christian Ethic, Limited Government, & The American Constitution”.