Tea with Lee

This was such a fun event. Sharon's talk about what we do in Utah, lovely. 5.28.2014 

Election 2012

These are some comments that I made on November 7th. I want to keep them for posterity. You are welcome to read them or ignore them.

You know what makes me feel saddest of all... we're not special anymore. The United States is just another European socialist state. We didn't know the Constitution like we should have and therefore it can't protect us. It can't keep us free. It was our shield and we have abused and neglected it. It was a gift from God.
The great history of the world is one of tyranny and slavery, but for this one shining document that can change everything. Our Constitution was not just a blessing to Americans, but to the whole world.
We have lost so many freedoms that I don't know how we will ever regain them, I don't know how we will pass them to our children.
I feel like it was our turn to carry the torch and we dropped it.

It is presicely gratitude and a sense of duty to what is an incredible gift and resonsibility that makes me feel the way I do. It's not fear either. But, it is a deep sense of sadness and regret. Do we have it so good here because of our geography? It is our Constitution that has given us such great ease, such wonderful opportunity and relative peace and to the extent that we have been righteous, we have in times past been able to export those ideas to many other nations.
Instead of remembering what a sacred trust that is, we have copied something that is less, something that has failed many times, something that was invented by man and not inspired by God.
It's not about Mitt Romney either. Personality politics have little to do with it. It is the rejection of personal responsibility, the "Obamaphone" voter, the rejection of morality and the embrace of "free birth control" and "free abortion" over the larger and more foundational issue of religious liberty. It is the idea that we cannot be our brothers keeper, but that we should continue to shirk that responsibility to a government that has done nothing but increase dependence and poverty. It is the embrace of a party who fears mother nature more than it loves God.
God is in charge, but he will not interfere with our free agency. We have made this choice as a nation and elections have consequences. We will have to be responsible for our choices.

Obama's America 2016

I went to this movie and I think it was very well done. It was interesting to me to see the different places that are connected to this story. It was fascinating to me how Dinesh D'Souza parallels his own life with that of President Obama's. I loved brother meeting brother George.

But, I learned very little about President Obama's life that I didn't know before the 2008 election. Very little. The big story of this film is that the media has sold out, not news either I know, but nothing shows it more starkly than public reaction to this film.

This film is a good test of media consumption habits. Less than 10 Corporations own 90% of the media consumed by Americans. Did you know that? Have you ever noticed how similarly stories are reported, or how local papers will just post the AP (Associated Press) story? Getting a little diversity into your media diet is not that easy, but it's important. How to do that? Hmmm. That is a question.

Below, I'm going to post 10 some things that I think are important to know about President Obama. Look through them and see how many of them have received coverage in the media you consume:

1.  Rev. Jeremiah Wright Obama's Pastor for over 20 years. Have you seen these comments?
2. The History of Agenda 21 How anti-colonialist views are expressed in the Obama Presidency a. Obama on Coal, Obama on food, Obama on high gas prices, Agenda 21 & Obama's Rural Council
3. Fast & Furious, Eric Holder on guns, UN Gun Treaty
4. Obama Administration sues Arizona over Illegal Immigration
5. Obama Administration sues to take over New Mexico's water supply
6. Executive Orders of Presidents. This would make a great research project for someone. Some feel that the last few presidents have used extra-Constitutional powers in their issuing of these orders. Here is a list of all presidents. Here is a list of 137 of (I am aware of 138) Obama's Executive Orders with links to PDF.. you can also find them on the White House web site. These Executive Orders are usually not long documents, a couple of paragraphs. Read through some of them and see if you agree with where Obama is leading the country.
7. Where is the stimulus money? Did it really go to fixing crumbling infrastructure? HERE
8. Common Core Implementation. If you look at the above site again, you can browse by recipient HERE. To look at this you would suspect that teachers in your state got a fantastic raise. NO!?! No. The money  didn't go to save teacher jobs or increase their pay, it went to implement a federal take over of education called Common Core. Read what you won't hear about it on the news HERE.
9. Green Energy Failures: Abound Solar is the latest, but the money wasted on "Green Technologies" is astounding. HERE is a pretty good list, it's missing some major players like Sun Power (which received a 1.2 BILLION Federal Loan Guarantee and will therefore be a bigger fiscal catastrophe than Solyndra WHEN it goes down) HERE
10. Obama's Convention beautiful convention speech spoke of fair play in the market place and yet his record more than any other president is one of picking winners and losers based on political donations and cronyism. This is not new in and American government that has granted subsidies and foreign aid and grant money to some and not others for years, but we now no longer have a free market in the United States.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. It is just the first 10 concerns off the top of my head. There is so much more, but the public is plagued by political personalities the likes of Sandra Fluke, whose mission to provide every woman with free birth control really does not affect the lives of that many people and yet for how long did that story dominate the news? It's no wonder so many Americans think politics is a trite and a pointless waste of time. But, there are grave issues being decided behind the spotlight of media frenzy that beg for the thoughtful concern of an informed and active citizenry.

Elder Maxwell: The Prohibitive Costs of a Value Free Society

"Decrease the belief in God, and you increase the numbers of those who wish to play at being God by being “society’s supervisors.” Such “supervisors” deny the existence of divine standards, but are very serious about imposing their own standards on society.

It is no accident that the lessening, or loss, of belief in certain absolute truths, such as the existence of God and the reality of immortality has occurred at the same time there has been a sharp gain in the size and power of governments in many portions of the world." Elder Neal A. Maxwell

It was difficult to choose a small portion to share here. The whole talk is truth and full of things it would be wise of us to consider this election season. Read the rest HERE...

The Profits of Doom by Kyle Smith

Paul Erhlich, reminds me of the scripture verse...
Moses 7:33
33 And unto thy brethren have I said, and also given commandment, that they should love one another, and that they should choose me, their Father; but behold, they are without affection, and they hate their own blood;
Paul Erhlich is the person who made a fortune for himself by telling everyone else that they shouldn't have children. The planet couldn't handle it. The population movement is the father of the current environmental movement notably because Mr. Erhlich was wrong about everything. Not that being wrong has hurt his career any. Why? His verbiage is popular with the progressive elite of both major political parties.
In Sunday's New York Post, Kyle Smith makes a little fun at the doomsdayers who use scare tactics to gain fame, fortune from public monies and to further destroy freedom. The article is well worth a gander.

Madame Defarge is Knitting Again...

This week in politics from Utah Homemakers for America Weekly Newsletter... Which will appear HERE... very soon.
Madame Defarge is Knitting Again..
Do you remember Madame Defarge, one of Dickens’ most frightening villains? She was a tricoteuse, one of the old women who would sit around the guillotine knitting during the reign of terror. Her knitting was not a pair of Christmas socks for a nephew, but instead a denunciation that meant death for the accused. There was no court, no judge, no trial, no jury. The denounced were condemned by their accusers and by a desperate and blood thirsty public.
In our day amazing judgments have been made in the court of public opinion using more emotional than rational and logical thought. Both political parties have been guilty of feeding the frenzy.
Many of us depend everyday on prescription drugs. ("The vast majority of drug development takes place within the private sector and not, as some claim, in government-funded laboratories..." http://www.nysun.com/new-york/capitalism-said-key-to-finding-new-drugs/80569/) Yet, as much good as they do for many people, the entire pharmaceutical industry has been denounced and become a target of crippling regulation.
The oil industry makes so many things possible in our society. It warms our homes, provides us with transportation, brings our food, clothing and medicines to us and yet oil companies have been denounced and drilling stopped or not allowed in many places.
The coal industry brings us the electricity to light, cool and heat our homes and cook our food, but coal has been denounced. "So if somebody wants to build a coal-powered plant, they can; it's just that it will bankrupt them because they're going to be charged a huge sum for all that green house gas that's being emitted." (Barack Obama January 17, 2008 San Francisco Chronicle)
Small business has been denounced for its lack of ability to pay health coverage for employees.
Big banks are being denounced. "President Barack Obama told banks Thursday they should pay a new tax to recoup the cost of bailing out foundering firms at the height of the financial crisis. "We want our money back," he said. And, those banks "... would have to pay up even though many did not accept any taxpayer assistance and most that did have repaid the infusions."
Of course there is dishonesty, corruption and deceit in every industry, but we have laws and we have courts to punish those whose actions are illegal. I believe it is wrong, harmful and un-American to denounce and condemn an entire industry with out court, judge, trial or jury.
Now in Utah, ethics reform is being considered, Utah Ethics Commission Initiative,
where a 3 member panel (a lifetime appointment) would be able to anonymously point a finger of denouncement at any elected representative. http://files.meetup.com/1403508/Government%20Ethics%20Reform%20Initiative.pdf
Who is going to run for public office under this kind of pressure? The proposal is not going through normal legislative processes, but rather through ballot initiative. It will get on the ballot because someone will be at the local mall and they will ask if you are interested in ethics reform in government. Rather than read the twenty one pages of legalese, many will just sign the petition to get this on the ballot and many will vote for it with out ever reading it simply because our public servants have been denounced.
This is mob rule, this is ignorant and blood thirsty. This is not republican government. Before we denounce our entire economy and our republic into the dark ages, we need to send the ideologies of Madame Defarge to the guillotine.

Please view the following video .. and share it with your children... HERE..

Free knocks on the head...

When I was first married, I worked at a local retailer where I became more acquainted with quality items. I learned that it's OK to purchase lesser quality when buying something that will be a short lived trend.. Your leg warmers and parachute pants don't require the attention to detail and grade of excellence that your navy blazer with brass buttons does.
In visiting with a co-worker with many years of retail experience, I was taught about the points of excellence. He showed me the details that made a piece of clothing beautiful and classic. He would rather have worn the same suit every day as long as that suit was a fine piece of tailoring. He often regretted aloud that my generation seemed more interested in what was cheap and free than in what was excellent and lasting. He never purchased any parachute pants.
I started to take more notice of this trend toward getting something for nothing. I remember one morning at 5AM getting ready for work as I listened to talk radio banter.. with over-caffeinated morning enthusiasm DJs repeatedly announced that there would be free mammograms at a gas station far on the west side of town.. the first 50 women there would "win".
Several thoughts went through my mind.. Surely they are not giving mammograms AT the gas station.. right?!? Surely they are giving out some kind of pass to a medical clinic of some kind. The details were never mentioned.
I have kept these things in mind as I paint. It takes time to make something that is both lovely and lasting. I take care in the materials I select; brushes, paints, glitter, finishes, wax and wood all must have certain qualities in order to make something that will last.
On the other hand, my children love to choose a toy from the dollar store. Easily procured, easily broken. I am often concerned about the materials.. Does the paint on this car have lead in it? We don't know. These toys are made so far away. They are made as quickly as possible with as little cost as possible. There is no attention to detail and the product is not made to last. It is often broken and ruined that very day.
I'm afraid that this trend has run into government. The people scream that something must be done and that "change" must happen. Our health care system, which is the envy of the world (when you look beyond fallacious/misleading WHO statistics) is about to be completely tossed out. Not tweaked, not reformed... junked. The word is that the House of Representatives vote is Saturday.
There are so many problems with this bill, I don't know where to begin. But, it has the worst qualities of government programs and managed care on steroids. No one really knows what it will cost but, it's government and so we know it will cost more and net less. It will hurt the very people it claims to help. It will stifle and strangle innovation and advances in medicine. It will discourage the best and the brightest from entering medical practice. It will cause shortages of doctors and hospitals and then procedures and medicines.
In an age when Americans, who love to be different and individual, can make so many different choices in phone and computer plans and in options and applications, clothing, work, transportation and almost everything you can think of.. in this kind of age... we are being shoved and forced into a highly ruled and overly regulated one-size-fits-all model full of "no" and "don't".
My husband has often said there are some people who would stand in line for free knocks on the head. With health care, this is exactly what we are doing.
This bill is now over 2,000 pages. It is doubtful that all those who will be expected to vote on Saturday have even had a chance to read the entire thing let alone study it. It is supposed to provide something "free", but we know that nothing in life worth having is really free. It always costs and this time, the cost is not just money.. it is something more valuable... This bill is going to cost a great deal in liberty.
This is so important. It is 1/6 of our nation's economy and yet it has been boiled down to nightly news sound bites and Daily Show sarcasm. But, this issue is worth doing some digging. This is worth some study from a reputable source. THIS is a good place to begin.
Please contact your congressman and ask them to vote "NO!" on Saturday.

A Guest Worker Program...

Today, Utah State Representative Julie Fisher sent around a 2008 Legislative Survey. The ideas that she has listed as solutions to Illegal Immigration are very distressing to me unless we have a Guest Worker Program in place first. If you live in the same legislative district and recieved this...Please write in Guest Worker Program under the #1 "Your suggestion" and the #9 "suggestions". This is a nation of immigrants, lets find a way to treat all the members of our society in a humane way.

Michael Griffin Nasa Adminstator

NASA Chief Questions Urgency of Global Warming... article here.

Religion & Politics...

In 2004, when I went to NYC for the Riot Relief Luncheon, James Lane Buckley was the key note speaker. His brilliant speech covered the subject of rising secularism in America. Mr. Buckley's speech cited many quotations by our founding fathers with a theme of faith and concern that the people of this nation would continue to be a people who loved God and a people who would try to discover, learn and then do God's will. Our founders knew this to be a recipe for success and when that recipe has been followed, our nation has accomplished its greatest triumphs.

In 1863, President Abraham Lincoln, a man of deep faith, called the nation to repentance in his Thanksgiving address. He said, "But we have forgotten God. We have forgotten the gracious hand which preserved us in peace and multiplied and enriched and strengthened us, and we have vainly imagined, in the deceitfulness of our hearts, that all these blessings were produced by some superior wisdom and virtue of our own. Intoxicated with unbroken success we have become too self-sufficient to feel the necessity of redeeming and preserving grace, too proud to pray to the God that made us."

I think it would be interesting to see what the papers would say if President Bush said something like that. Still, I feel that Lincoln's words are true today. For example, if your only opinion of America was to be gleaned from watching network television, it would be possible to assume that ours is a nation of godless reprobates.

This morning my dad sent me an article that appeared in The Boston Globe yesterday, which quoted a statement made by former Prime Minister Tony Blair in a recent interview, ""It's difficult to talk about religious faith in our political system," Blair said. "If you are in the American political system . . . you can talk about religious faith and people say, 'Yes, that's fair enough,' and it is something they respond to quite naturally. You talk about it in our system and, frankly, people do think you're a nutter.""

I was very interested in Mr. Blair's statement because from my perspective I think it's getting difficult for American politicians to express any real religious sentiment for the same reason. Politics has been so divisive recently in America that we don't talk about political views in polite company, something I find very sad, and we mention religious faith in hushed tones so as not to be offensive to anyone. And, there is a reason that our culture is going that way. Here in Utah, several years ago there was a lawsuit, which made national headlines, to stop a local High School choir from singing religious music at Christmastime. The federal lawsuit was not successful and the U.S Supreme Court refused to hear an appeal, but people don't like to get sued.

It is true that in just the most recent history of our nation, Americans seem to want their politicians to distance themselves from God, "rising secularism" as Mr. Buckley put it. But with scandal and corruption in the halls of power in the news on a daily basis, that idea is not working out for us very well.

Americans are protective of their rights and they don't want religious belief to be any thing that is thrust upon them in any way. As I have read books over the past year about the oppression of regimes like the Taliban, I can understand some of that sentiment, but we must be careful not to take that too far, and I think we have.

George Washington said, "Let us with caution indulge the supposition that morality can be maintained without religion. Reason and experience both forbid us to expect that national morality can prevail in exclusion of religious principle." If we don't look to God for our moral compass, our compass may fail us.

When I choose a candidate for public office, but especially for the highest office. I want to know that I have chosen one who is humble enough to pray. I hope our future leaders will be humble enough to be on their knees before God and ask that they might know in their hearts and in their minds the right course. Our nation needs leaders whose faith informs their actions and whose actions are a testament to their faith.

More on Climate Change...

"A member of the United Nations' Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change says he and many other scientists do not see global warming as a developing catastrophe and there is no smoking gun proving that human activity is to blame for the warming that does occur.
John Christy is the director of the Earth System Science Center at the University of Alabama at Huntsville. He and thousands of others on the U.N. panel share half the Nobel Prize also awarded to Al Gore. But he says he cringes when he hears 100-year weather forecasts when it is incredibly difficult to accurately predict the weather five days from now.
He writes in The Wall Street Journal, "Mother Nature simply operates at a level of complexity that is, at this point, beyond the mastery of mere mortals (such as scientists) and the tools available to us."
He points out that a recent CNN report on climate change made much of the shrinking Arctic sea ice cover, but did not mention that winter sea ice around Antarctica set a record maximum last month." The link to this article.

Personally I think there is no question that we ought to stop polluting our planet. I believe strongly in recycling and conservation where possible. I do not believe in the panic over global warming. Become energy independent as a nation is something that I believe is more crucial to our economic well being and security as a nation. Predicting weather patterns is far from an exact science and I don't think we don't know enough about it. I do believe global warming is becoming quite an expensive theory. Good decisions are rarely made in this type of anxiety. Just thirty years ago, scientists were predicting another Ice Age and that really was mostly because were had a few cold winters in a row, which I think we probably will again.

Something that bothers me even more is the kind of reporting mentioned in the article above. News organizations profit by being sensationalist and alarmist as do many others. That is enough to warrant caution.

Vietnam...

I absolutely believe this to be true. Another reason why careful study of our own history is so important. (Thanks C for passing this on.. you should have your own blog. You'd be great! Love you anyway though!) Bill Kristol nails it again.