Obama Executive Order: All Americans Must Get Tested For HIV/AIDS

Yes another executive order. This just keeps rolling out. Not sure if I am for this or against it... You tell me..

EXECUTIVE ORDER- – - – - – -ACCELERATING IMPROVEMENTS IN HIV PREVENTION AND CARE IN THE UNITED STATES THROUGH THE HIV CARE CONTINUUM INITIATIVEBy the authority vested in me as President by the Constitution and the laws of the United States of America, and in order to further strengthen the capacity of the Federal Government to effectively respond to the ongoing domestic HIV epidemic, it is hereby ordered as follows:

Section 1. Policy. Addressing the domestic HIV epidemic is a priority of my Administration. In 2010, the White House released the first comprehensive National HIV/AIDS Strategy (Strategy), setting quantitative goals for reducing new HIV infections, improving health outcomes for people living with HIV, and reducing HIV-related health disparities. The Strategy will continue to serve as the blueprint for our national response to the domestic epidemic. It has increased coordination, collaboration, and accountability across executive departments and agencies (agencies) with regard to addressing the epidemic. It has also focused our Nation’s collective efforts on increasing the use of evidence-based approaches to prevention and care among populations and in regions where HIV is most concentrated.

Since the release of the Strategy, additional scientific discoveries have greatly enhanced our understanding of how to prevent and treat HIV. Accordingly, further Federal action is appropriate in response to these new developments. For example, a breakthrough research trial supported by the National Institutes of Health showed that initiating HIV treatment when the immune system was relatively healthy reduced HIV transmission by 96 percent. In addition, evidence suggests that early treatment may reduce HIV-related complications. These findings highlight the importance of prompt HIV diagnosis, and because of recent advances in HIV testing technology, HIV can be detected sooner and more rapidly than ever before.Based on these and other data, recommendations for HIV testing and treatment have changed. The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force now recommends that clinicians screen all individuals ages 15 to 65 years for HIV, and the Department of Health and Human Services Guidelines for Use of Antiretroviral Agents now recommends offering treatment to all adolescents and adults diagnosed with HIV.

Furthermore, ongoing implementation of the Affordable Care Act provides a historic opportunity for Americans to access affordable, quality health care. The Act is expanding access to recommended preventive services with no out-of-pocket costs, including HIV testing, and, beginning in 2014, insurancecompanies will not be able to deny coverage based on pre-existing conditions, including HIV. Starting October 1, 2013, Americans can select the coverage that best suits them through the new Health Insurance Marketplace, and coverage will begin January 1, 2014.

Despite progress in combating HIV, important work remains. Since the publication of the Strategy, data released by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that there are significant gaps along the HIV care continuum — the sequential stages of care from being diagnosed to receiving optimal treatment. Nearly one-fifth of the estimated 1.1 million people living with HIV in the United States are undiagnosed; one-third are not linked to medical care; nearly two-thirds are not engaged in ongoing care; and only one-quarter have the virus effectively controlled, which is necessary to maintain long-term health and reduce risk of transmission to others.

In light of these data, we must further clarify and focus our national efforts to prevent and treat HIV infection. It is the policy of my Administration that agencies implementing the Strategy prioritize addressing the continuum of HIV care, including by accelerating efforts to increase HIV testing, services, and treatment along the continuum. This acceleration will enable us to meet the goals of the Strategy and move closer to an AIDS-free generation.

Sec. 2. Establishment of the HIV Care Continuum Initiative. There is established the HIV Care Continuum Initiative (Initiative), to be overseen by the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy. The Initiative will mobilize and coordinate Federal efforts in response to recent advances regarding how to prevent and treat HIV infection. The Initiative will support further integration of HIV prevention and care efforts; promote expansion of successful HIV testing and service delivery models; encourage innovative approaches to addressing barriers to accessing testing and treatment; and ensure that Federal resources are appropriately focused on implementing evidence-based interventions that improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum.

Sec. 3. Establishment of the HIV Care Continuum Working Group. There is established the HIV Care Continuum Working Group (Working Group) to support the Initiative. The Working Group shall coordinate Federal efforts to improve outcomes nationally across the HIV care continuum.

(a) Membership. The Working Group shall be co-chaired by the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy and the Secretary of Health and Human Services or designee (Co-Chairs). In addition to the Co-Chairs, the Working Group shall consist of representatives from:

(i) the Department of Justice;(ii) the Department of Labor;(iii) the Department of Health and Human Services;(iv) the Department of Housing and Urban Development;(v) the Department of Veterans Affairs;(vi) the Office of Management and Budget; and(vii) other agencies and offices, as designated by the Co-Chairs.

(b) Consultation. The Working Group shall consult with the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, as appropriate.

(c) Functions. As part of the Initiative, the Working Group shall:(i) request and review information from agencies describing efforts to improve testing, care, and treatment outcomes, and determine if there is appropriate emphasis on addressing the HIV care continuum in relation to other work concerning the domestic epidemic;(ii) review research on improving outcomes along the HIV care continuum;(iii) obtain input from Federal grantees, affected communities, and other stakeholders to inform strategies to improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum;(iv) identify potential impediments to improving outcomes along the HIV care continuum, including for populations at greatest risk for HIV infection, based on the efforts undertaken pursuant to paragraphs (i), (ii), and (iii) of this subsection;(v) identify opportunities to address issues identified pursuant to paragraph (iv) of this subsection, and thereby improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum;(vi) recommend ways to integrate efforts to improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum with other evidence-based strategies to combat HIV; and(vii) specify how to better align and coordinate Federal efforts, both within and across agencies, to improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum.

(d) Reporting.(i) Within 180 days of the date of this order, the Working Group shall provide recommendations to the President on actions that agencies can take to improve outcomes along the HIV care continuum.(ii) Thereafter, the Director of the Office of National AIDS Policy shall include, as part of the annual report to the President pursuant to section 1(b) of my memorandum of July 13, 2010 (Implementation of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy), a report prepared by the Working Group onGovernment-wide progress in implementing this order. This report shall include a quantification of progress made in improving outcomes along the HIV care continuum.

Sec. 4. General Provisions. (a) Nothing in this order shall be construed to impair or otherwise affect:(i) the authority granted by law to an executive department, agency, or the head thereof; or(ii) the functions of the Director of the Office of Management and Budget relating to budgetary, administrative, or legislative proposals.

(b) This order shall be implemented consistent with applicable law and subject to the availability of appropriations.

(c) This order is not intended to, and does not, create any right or benefit, substantive or procedural, enforceable at law or in equity by any party against the United States, its departments, agencies, or entities, its officers, employees, or agents, or any other person.

BARACK OBAMA

Source: http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2013/07/15/executive-order-hiv-care-continuum-initiative

I am evil...

Yes I am that ass that is going 60 to 70 miles an hour making you speed all the way with me and when you catch up with me I stop doing 70 in a 60 why cause I can and I am evil today..

Sorry that's how i is.
Sent via goggle voice...

Sources: NSA sucks in data from 50 companies

Yep the FEDS ae at it agian and up to their same old tricks. When are "WE THE PEOPLE" gonna wake up..

Analysts at the National Security Agency can now secretly access real-time user data provided by as many as 50 American companies, ranging from credit rating agencies to internet service providers, two government officials familiar with the arrangements said.

Several of the companies have provided records continuously since 2006, while others have given the agency sporadic access, these officials said. These officials disclosed the number of participating companies in order to provide context for a series of disclosures about the NSA's domestic collection policies. The officials, contacted independently, repeatedly said that "domestic collection" does not mean that the target is based in the U.S. or is a U.S. citizen; rather, it refers only to the origin of the data.

The Wall Street Journal reported today that U.S. credit card companies had also provided customer information. The officials would not disclose the names of the companies because, they said, doing so would provide U.S. enemies with a list of companies to avoid. They declined to confirm the list of participants in an internet monitoring program revealed by the Washington Post and the Guardian, but both confirmed that the program existed.

"The idea is to create a mosaic. We get a tip. We vet it. Then we mine the data for intelligence," one of the officials said.

In a statement, Director of National Intelligence James Clapper said that programs collect communications "pursuant to section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, " and "cannot be used to intentionally target any U.S. citizen, any other U.S person, or anyone within the United States."

He called the leaks "reprehensible" and said the program "is among the most important" sources of "valuable" intelligence information the government takes in.

One of the officials who spoke to me said that because data types are not standardized, the NSA needs several different collection tools, of which PRISM, disclosed today by the Guardian and the Washington Post, is one. PRISM works well because it is able to handle several different types of data streams using different basic encryption methods, the person said. It is a "front end" system, or software, that allows an NSA analyst to search through the data and pull out items of significance, which are then stored in any number of databases. PRISM works with another NSA program to encrypt and remove from the analysts' screen data that a computer or the analyst deems to be from a U.S. person who is not the subject of the investigation, the person said. A FISA order is required to continue monitoring and analyzing these datasets, although the monitoring can start before an application package is submitted to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

From the different types of data, including their credit card purchases, the locations they sign in to the internet from, and even local police arrest logs, the NSA can track people it considers terrorism or espionage suspects in near-real time. An internet geo-location cell is on constant standby to help analysts determine where a subject logs in from. Most of the collection takes place on subjects outside the U.S, but a large chunk of the world's relevant communication passes through American companies with servers on American soil. So the NSA taps in locally to get at targets globally.

It is not clear how the NSA interfaces with the companies. It cannot use standard law enforcement transmission channels to do, since most use data protocols that are not compatible with that hardware. Several of the companies mentioned in the Post report deny granting access to the NSA, although it is possible that they are lying, or that the NSA's arrangements with the company are kept so tightly compartmentalized that very few people know about it. Those who do probably have security clearances and are bound by law not to reveal the arrangement.

This arrangement allows the U.S. companies to "stay out of the intelligence business," one of the officials said. That is, the government bears the responsibility for determining what's relevant, and the company can plausibly deny that it subjected any particular customer to unlawful government surveillance. Previously, Congressional authors of the FAA said that such a "get out of jail free" card was insisted by corporations after a wave of lawsuits revealed the extent of their cooperation with the government.

It is possible, but not likely, that the NSA clandestinely burrows into servers on American soil, without the knowledge of the company in question, although that would be illegal.

The 2008 FISA Amendments Act allow the NSA to analyze, with court orders, domestic communications of all types for counter-terrorism, counter-espionage, counter-narcotics and counter-proliferation purposes. If the agency believes that both ends of the communication, or the circle of those communicating, are wholly within the U.S., the FBI takes over. If one end of the conversation is outside the U.S., the NSA keeps control of the monitoring. An administration official said that such monitoring is subject to "extensive procedures," but as the Washington Post reported, however, it is often very difficult to segregate U.S. citizens and residents from incidental contact.

One official likened the NSA's collection authority to a van full of sealed boxes that are delivered to the agency. A court order, similar to the one revealed by the Guardian, permits the transfer of custody of the "boxes." But the NSA needs something else, a specific purpose or investigation, in order to open a particular box. The chairman of the Senate intelligence committee, Sen. Dianne Feinstein, said the standard was "a reasonable, articulatable" suspicion, but did not go into details.

Legally, the government can ask companies for some of these records under a provision of the PATRIOT Act called the "business records provision." Initially, it did so without court cognizance. Now, the FISC signs off on every request.

Armed with what amounts to a rubber stamp court order, however, the NSA can collect and store trillions of bytes of electromagnetic detritus shaken off by American citizens. In the government's eyes, the data is simply moving from one place to another. It does not become, in the government's eyes, relevant or protected in any way unless and until it is subject to analysis. Analysis requires that second order.

And the government insists that the rules allowing the NSA or the FBI to analyze anything relating to U.S. persons or corporations are strict, bright-line, and are regularly scrutinized to ensure that innocents don't get caught up in the mix. The specifics, however, remain classified, as do the oversight mechanisms in place.

The wave of disclosures about the NSA programs have significantly unsettled the intelligence community.

The documents obtained by the two newspapers are marked ORCON, or originator controlled, which generally means that the agency keeps a record of every person who accesses them online and knows exactly who might have printed out or saved or accessed a copy. The NSA in particular has a good record of protecting its documents.

The scope of the least suggest to one former senior intelligence official who now works for a corporation that provides data to the NSA that several people with top-level security clearances had to be involved.

The motive, I suspect, is to punch through the brittle legal and moral foundation that modern domestic surveillance is based upon. Someone, at a very high level, or several people, may have simply found that the agency's zeal to collect information blinded it to the real-world consequences of such a large and unending program. The minimization procedures might also be well below the threshold that most Americans would expect.

Clapper said in his statement that the disclosures about the program "risk important protections for the security of Americans."


As always feel free to comment.

Is the NSA Making a Gun Registry?

A bipartisan group of Senators who aren’t satisfied with the National Security Agency’s (NSA) answers on a whole host of questions, recently sent a letter to the agency trying to get some more definite answers. The Senators, led by Ron Wyden (D-OR), asked whether or not the NSA was collecting (or had collected) data that went beyond simple phone records. Data like gun purchases.

The Senators were troubled that the actions of the NSA could have allowed them to collect bulk data that the government should not be privy to.

“It can be used to collect information on credit card purchases, pharmacy records, library records, firearm sales records, financial information, and a range of other sensitive subjects. And the bulk collection authority could potentially be used to supersede bans on maintaining gun owner databases, or laws protecting the privacy of medical records, financial records, and records of book and movie purchases.”

The Senators are worried that the NSA’s understanding of their legal limits and boundaries may be quite different than that of the American people. The problem is that much of the guidelines that our more clandestine agencies are using have been developed in secret and do not have any oversight until someone uncovers malfeasance.

Operating in this manner, many agencies may indeed be breaking the law simply because they understand the law to give them certain freedoms that they do not actually have.

In other words, because of the Patriot Act and other similar legislation that our government is using to fight the war on terror, certain government agencies may actually be breaking the law and diminishing the Constitution simply because they interpret the law wrong deciding that it gives them more power than it really does.

We have already seen that the NSA has completely disregarded our rights under the 4thAmendment; if they thought it could keep a terrorist attack from happening why wouldn’t they violate our 1st or 2nd Amendment too? This could be exactly what is happening now. The letter drafted by the Senators is broader than this, but the information the NSA has been consuming may allow them to build a partial (but very large) national gun registry, allowing the government to know which law abiding citizens have firearms, and what type of firearms they have.

A spokesman for Senator Mike Lee, who signed on to the letter as well, said it best:

“In this country, the government can’t just monitor your constitutionally protected activities—like gun ownership—just because it wants to “The justification that, ‘if you’re not doing anything wrong, you don’t have to worry about it,’ turns us into a police state very quickly. That’s why Congress is right to seek broad oversight of the NSA’s data collection programs.”

Obama Signs Executive Order to Allow Shut Down of All US Communications!

US President Barack Obama quietly signed his name to an Executive Order on Friday, allowing the White House to control all private communications in the country in the name of national security.

President Obama released his latest Executive Order on Friday, July 6, a 2,205-word statement offered as the “Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions.” And although the president chose not to commemorate the signing with much fanfare, the powers he provides to himself and the federal government under the latest order are among the most far-reaching yet of any of his executive decisions.

“The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions,” the president begins the order. “Survivable, resilient, enduring and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; State, local, territorial and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies and other nations.”

President Obama adds that it is necessary for the government to be able to reach anyone in the country during situations it considers critical, writing, “Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies and improve national resilience.”Later the president explains that such could be done by establishing a “joint industry-Government center that is capable of assisting in the initiation, coordination, restoration and reconstitution of NS/EP [national security and emergency preparedness] communications services or facilities under all conditions of emerging threats, crisis or emergency.”

“The views of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the public must inform the development of NS/EP communications policies, programs and capabilities,” he adds.

On the government’s official website for the National Communications Systems, the government explains that that “infrastructure includes wireline, wireless, satellite, cable, and broadcasting, and provides the transport networks that support the Internet and other key information systems,” suggesting that the president has indeed effectively just allowed himself to control the country’s Internet access.

In order to allow the White House to reach anyone within the US, the president has put forth a plan to establish a high-level committee calling from agents with the Department of Homeland Security, Pentagon, Federal Communications Commission and other government divisions to ensure that his new executive order can be implemented.

In explaining the order, the Electronic Privacy Information Center (EPIC) writes that the president has authorized the DHS "the authority to seize private facilities when necessary, effectively shutting down or limiting civilian communications."

In Section 5 of his order, President Obama outlines the specific department and agency responsibilities that will see through his demands. In a few paragraphs, President Obama explains that Executive Committee that will oversee his order must be supplied with “the technical support necessary to develop and maintain plans adequate to provide for the security and protection of NS/EP communications,” and that that same body will be in tasked with dispatching that communiqué “to the Federal Government and State, local, territorial and trial governments,” by means of “commercial, Government and privately owned communications resources.”

Later, the president announces that the Department of Homeland Security will be tasked with drafting a plan during the next 60 days to explain how the DHS will command the government’s Emergency Telecommunications Service, as well as other telecom conduits. In order to be able to spread the White House’s message across the country, President Obama also asks for the purchasing of equipment and services that will enable such.

The fact that our nation needs so much "national security" is puzzling, given the fact that President Obama has declared himself leader of the front that has ended terrorism in the U.S. It seems like now, more than ever, our nation is in peril according to the State Department; but many U.S. citizens are asking themselves, "From what?", or better yet, "From who?"

According to Obama, the items of confiscation, or shut down can include: wireline, wireless, satellite, cable, broadcasting, internet, and other key information systems. Never in United States' history has a president given himself the authority to shut down the entire nation and immobilize the citizenry.

The public has been alerted recently that the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) has been buying an excessive amount of weaponry and ammunition; inclusive of hallow point bullets. DHS has also been given authority to "supervise" some protests throughout the nation. Tea Party groups have had several organized and peaceful protests circled by Department of Homeland Security officers, leading many to believe that DHS has been given the authority to intimidate as well.

If you combine bullets with nationwide immobilizing of all communications, the power given unto the government, is a power our founding fathers never foresaw, nor wished.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) recently announced that they had already used drones on Americans for surveillance.

This is just one step closer to American's journey towards a police state. As always please feel free to leave your comments.

Religion..... Catholic's, Baptist's, Rabbi's

 A Catholic Priest, a Baptist Preacher and a Rabbi all served as Chaplains to the students of Northern Michigan University at Marquette in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan. They would get together two or three times a week for coffee and to talk shop. One day, someone made the comment that preaching to people isn't really all that hard, a real challenge would be to preach to a bear. One thing led to another, and they decided to do an experiment. They would all go out into the woods, find a bear, preach to it, and attempt to convert it to their religion.

Seven days later, they all came together to discuss their experiences.

Father Flannery, who had his arm in a sling, was on crutches, and had various bandages on his body and limbs, went first.

'Well,' he said, 'I went into the woods to find me a bear. And when I found him, I began to read to him from the Catechism.

Well, that bear wanted nothing to do with me and began to slap me around. So I quickly grabbed my holy water, sprinkled him and, Holy Mary Mother of God, he became as gentle as a lamb. The Bishop is coming out next week to give him first communion and confirmation.

'Reverend Billy Bob spoke next. He was in a wheelchair, had one arm and both legs in casts, and had an IV drip. In his best fire-and-brimstone oratory, he exclaimed, 'WELL, brothers, you KNOW that we Baptists don't sprinkle! I went out and I FOUND me a bear. And then I began to read to my bear from God's HOLY WORD! But that bear wanted nothing to do with me. So I took HOLD of him and we began to wrestle. We wrestled down one hill, UP another and DOWN another until we came to a creek.

So I quickly DUNKED him and BAPTIZED his hairy soul. And just like you said, he became as gentle as a lamb. We spent the rest of the day praising Jesus. Hallelujah!

The Priest and the Reverend both looked down at the Rabbi, who was lying in a hospital bed. He was in a body cast and traction with IVs and monitors running in and out of him. He was in really bad shape. The Rabbi looked up and said: "Looking back on it, ...circumcision may not have been the best way to start.....

Sorry Couldn't help myself.

DHS Guards IRS Offices as Americans Call For Impeachment, IRS Officials Pleading 5th

Over at the National Journal, pundit Charlie Cook has written that Republicans should just stop harping on scandals about Benghazi, IRS, and Associated Press (and Fox and CBS) — because the public doesn’t care. Is that true? Do you really not care that scandals are currently oozing out of the administration like body fluids out of a salted slug?

We here at Mr. Conservative believe that you care deeply. You care about the Benghazi scandal because four brave men died in the service of their country. You care because their deaths came about through a combination of denial (“Al Qaeda?! No, there’s no Al Qaeda here”) and negligence (“I’m Hillary Clinton and this Stevens guy is boring me with his requests for extra security.”). You care because, on the night they died, Obama issued stand-down orders and vanished from the scene, presumably to catch a good night’s rest before campaigning in Vegas.  And you care because, after the attack, the administration lied to you repeatedly, not for national security reasons, but to cover its own failures.

You care about the fact that Obama’s Justice Department has been spying on reporters – including reporters who routinely carried water for his policies and peccadillos – because you believe in the First Amendment. The Founders understood that a government remains honest only if it knows it’s being watched. Obama’s administration understands that reality too, which is why it tried to stop anyone from watching iAnd lastly, you care about the burgeoning IRS scandal because you understand that this a scandal like no other: instead of the ordinary cover-ups or insider political attacks that have characterized political scandals since at least the American Civil War, this scandal reached outside of Washington, D.C. and aimed itself directly at you. It doesn’t matter whether the IRS acted under direction from above or if the employees, who are almost exclusively Democrats, decided on their own to engage in a little political jihad against conservatives. What matters is that Washington, D.C., from Democrat top to Democrat bottom, believes Washington that the federal government is untouchable, and can therefore use its power to stifle political speech and dissent.

You bet you care. This is serious stuff.

It’s also very confusing stuff, because an overwhelming cascade of stories has spilled out regarding IRS wrongdoing. This kind of data load can overwhelm people’s circuits and cause them to shut down – allowing National Journal pundits to sneer that ordinary Americans couldn’t care less that the current administration is a toxic combination of corruption and ineptitude. To make it a little easier for you, here’s a chronological run-down of what’s been going on, starting with the day that Lois Lerner broke the news:

May 10, 2013: Lois Lerner, the head of the IRS’s Tax Exempt division, speaks at an ABA conference. Out of the blue, in response to a seemingly innocent question from someone in the crowd, she admits that (and we’re paraphrasing here) “Oh, yes, by the way, we think that, maybe, you might want to know that the IRS has been targeting Tea Party and small government groups.” She then spins a series of lies — about the number of groups targeted, about the fact that the targeting was intentional, about the non-regional nature of the IRS’s attack on conservatives, and about the length of time the IRS and the administration knew what was going on.

May 15, 2013: A mere five days after Lerner first admitted to just a little, itty-bit of IRS wrongdoing, more and more stories bubble up about what had actually happened. Lerner’s lies were quickly exposed:

(1) The 75 targeted groups Lerner claimed were targeted was closer to 500;

(2) Beginning in 2011, no conservative groups got approved for tax-exempt status;

(3) The IRS was auditing individual conservatives (an act of malfeasance separate from harassing non-profit groups);

(4) The IRS was harassing pro-Life groups by demanding that they provide pro-abortion information;

(5) The IRS was leaking to hard-Left groups confidential financial information about conservative groups and individuals;

(6) The IRS was interfering with legitimate education activities; and

(7) The IRS was stealing millions of medical records, including the records for all California judges.

May 15-16, 2013: Steven Miller, the acting Commissioner of the IRS, announces that he is resigning. Whew! At last, someone is taking the fall. But it was not to be. It turns out that Miller was an interim head and was heading out the door anyway on June 1. His “resignation” simply saw him leave a little sooner.

May 17, 2013: Right on the heels of learning that the IRS was stealing medical records comes what seems like related news: the IRS official who directly oversaw the tax-exempt division is now in charge of all IRS ObamaCare enforcement. The IRS has already announced that it will spend billions of dollars and hire thousands of employees to make sure that you pay for free medical care one way or another. Perhaps the IRS was getting a little head-start on the project….

Also, is it even news that, on the same day, Barack Obama taps into his inner Sergeant Schultz (from Hogan’s Heroes) and announces that he knew nothing about anything?

On the same day, Rep. Mike Kelly, disgusted by Steven Miller’s pathetic attempts to defend what the IRS had done (along with his constant memory failures), launches into an epic, and completely enjoyable, tirade about the IRS’s tyrannical conduct. Even ABC, one of the administration’s water carriers, was moved to remark that Obama probably knew before the election that the IRS was stifling conservative dissent.

May 18, 2013: Christian Voices for Life of Fort Bend County, Texas, reveals that the IRS investigated it so aggressively that it demanded that it demanded them to detail and explain all of their prayers. The IRS did exactly the same to the Coalition of Life in Iowa.

Also on May 18, 2013, Jack Lew, whom Obama appointed as the Treasury Secretary for his second term, despite dodging and weaving, concedes that the scandal was becoming common knowledge in the Fall of 2012, and implies that this was known before the election.

Other newly revealed IRS wrongdoing comes out on May 18: The IRS was laundering money from veterans’ disability checks and it had targeted a prominent Romney donor with three audits, with a bonus audit coming from the Department of Labor. The audits revealed only that the government owed the Romney supporter money (which it still has not paid).

May 19, 2013: Senator Ted Cruz points out the obvious: the IRS is either irredeemably corrupt and incompetent, or structurally too flawed to function. No matter the problem, the best way to deal with the situation is to abolish the IRS and then to enact a simple tax code without loopholes and without the need for a potentially tyrannical government agency to peer into every aspect of people’s lives.

May 20, 2013: The call goes out that a Tea Party group is organizing protests on May 21, at IRS offices across the nation. The need for those protests becomes even more obvious when an IRS employee, tired of being scapegoated as one of the “rogue” low-level employees Lois Lerner had blamed, says that the orders for the IRS abuse from the top.

May 21, 2013: Tea Partiers gather at IRS offices around the nation, peacefully protesting IRS abuses. They do so despite stories about the IRS trying to intimidate reporters and employees by using armed guards as “escorts” when reporters tried to interview employees about the scandal.

Those people who attend the protests report that the Department of Homeland Security appears at many of these protests, including at protests in Missouri, Florida, Illinois, and Indiana. The federal government fails to explain why local police could not handle these protests or why a federal organization that’s institutionally hostile to conservatives is the enforcement agency of choice. Certainly, if past protest history is anything to go by, Tea Party protests have invariably been peaceful, and the Tea Partiers have cleaned up after themselves once the protest was over.



Photo: Gateway Pundit



Photo: BizPacReview

In Los Angeles, the DHS puts choppers in the air and blocks protesters from federal property. One California protester says that a woman claiming to be with U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement (“ICE”) tried to drive her away. ICE, incidentally, is charged with policing America’s borders. However, it has received orders from high-up in the administration to leave illegal immigrants alone. Apparently it didn’t get the same message about respecting American citizens exercising their constitutional right to free speech, assembly, and peaceful protest.

While the media ignores the protests, it can’t ignore the fact that Lois Lerner has announced that, when she appears before Congress, she will plead the Fifth. (Although the Los Angeles Times, which first breaks the story, does try damage control by burying it so deeply on its website that it practically takes a bloodhound to find it.) The implication is obvious: although she cannot be forced to incriminate herself, Lerner has effectively conceded that illegal conduct occurred on her watch.

Perhaps the most important information that comes out on May 21 is also the least noticed. It’s a quiet little tweet from Joseph Curl, a Drudge editor:

CIA source says Fox News scandal the “4th Shoe”; says it goes much deeper; says WH also sitting on “something” that has top aides terrified.

The mind boggles.

May 22, 2013: Which brings us to today’s events.

Lois Lerner made a statement on her own behalf that she was innocent – and then she pleaded the Fifth. Questions are already being raised about whether, having made a substantive statement, Lerner can then shut down questioning. Many legal scholars believe that her statement opened the door to cross-examination.

Is the National Journal correct? Do you think ordinary Americans can never be made to care about the toxic sludge oozing out of this scandal-ridden administration?

Guys Demerit System

All men (married or not) will attest to some real wisdom in this email...

...In the world of romance, one single rule applies:

MAKE THE WOMAN HAPPY!
Do something she likes, and you get points.
Do something she dislikes, and points are subtracted.
You don't get any points for doing something she expects.
Sorry, that's the way the game is played.
Here is a non-exhaustive guide to the point system:

SIMPLE DUTIES
You make the bed. (+1)
You make the bed, but forget the decorative pillows. (-10)
You throw the bedspread over rumpled sheets. (-3)
You go out to buy her what she wants (+5) in the rain (+8)
But return with Jack Daniels. (-5)

PROTECTIVE DUTIES
You check out a suspicious noise at night. (+1)
You check out a suspicious noise, and it is nothing. (0)
You check out a suspicious noise, and it is something. (+5)
You pummel it with an iron rod. (+10)
It's her pet Schnauzer. (-20)

SOCIAL ENGAGEMENTS
You stay by her side for the entire party. (+1)
You stay by her side for a while, then leave to chat with an old school friend. (-2)
Named Tina (-10)
Tina is a dancer. (-10)
Tina has breast implants. (-40)

HER BIRTHDAY
You take her out to dinner. (+2)
You take her out to dinner, and it's not a sports bar. (+3)
Okay, it's a sports bar. (-2)
And its all-you-can-eat night. (-3)
It's a sports bar, it's all-you-can-eat night, and your face is painted the colors of your favorite team. (-10)

A NIGHT OUT
You take her to a movie. (+1)
You take her to a movie she likes. (+5)
You take her to a movie you hate. (+6)
You take her to a movie you like. (-2)
It's called 'Death Cop.' (-3)
You lied and said it was a foreign film about orphans. (-15)

YOUR PHYSIQUE
You develop a noticeable potbelly. (-15)
You develop a noticeable potbelly and exercise to get rid of it. (+10)
You develop a noticeable potbelly and resort to baggy jeans and baggy Hawaiian shirts. (-30)
You say, "It doesn't matter, you have one too." (-80)

THE BIG QUESTION
She asks, "Do I look fat?" (-5)
You hesitate in responding. (-10)
You reply, "Where?" (-35)
You give any other response. (-20) 

(Yes, you lose points no matter what)

COMMUNICATION
When she wants to talk about a problem, you listen, displaying what looks like a concerned expression. (+2)
You listen, for over 30 minutes (+50)
You listen for more than 30 minutes without looking at the TV. (+500)
She realizes this is because you have fallen asleep. (-4000)

Yes guys its really a Catch 22 and there is no way to win ever with a woman.

Ten Reasons Why Being In A Relationship Sucks

Ten Reasons Why Being In A Relationship Sucks      

1. You have to be super sensitive to someone else’s needs all the time. “Babe, are you ok? Babe, I feel really distant from you right now. What’s going on?!” You’re slightly paranoid all of the time. Their highs are your highs. Their lows are your lows. It can just get…super exhausting.
2. Someone has power over you. They have the ability to make you sublimely happy and they can also make you feel super depressed. You lose slight control over your moods. When you enter a relationship, it’s as if you sign a contract that says, “I give you 70% of my feelings. I acknowledge that you can play with them, make them feel good, and I also acknowledge that you can fucking destroy them.”
3. You worry you might lose yourself in the relationship. You could simply become a +1 and just start to have no other identity than “I’m someone’s boyfriend/girlfriend.” It will go on your tombstone: “Sarah Taylor (Tom Smith’s girlfriend. The one with the blonde hair)” and that will be that. Because you’re so afraid of that happening, you’ll have to designate certain evenings as “girls night” or “boys night” and you’ll constantly be worrying about your friends being mad at you and feeling deserted.  You’ll feel sad that you even have to do this, that you can’t  just see them without labeling it as “This is the time I see my friends.” Maybe you can, maybe you can’t. It all depends on the person and the relationship.
4. The fights that never seem to go anywhere or get resolved. One minute you’re laughing together and the next you’re threatening to break up. Once these fights become recurring, you know the relationship is living on borrowed time.
5. Realizing how crazy you can be. Becoming consumed with jealousy, hacking into emails, questioning your lover’s whereabouts. You take a step back and think to yourself, “Um, who is this person? Why is love making me act like a psycho nightmare?” Relationships can make you become someone you aren’t—someone who is slightly terrifying and needs to know everything all the time. “BABE, WHERE R U? HELLO? BABE!”
6. You have to like their friends even if they’re terrible. Their best friend might even hate you and you might just hate them, but you still have to put time in and hang out together. You realize you might be chained to this best friend forever. If you get married to your significant other, this person  will be showing up to your fiftieth birthday party with a smirk on their face. And you’re just thinking to yourself, “I didn’t even want to know you for one day, let alone 2o years.”
7. The fear that the sex will become routine and mechanical. There was a time when you couldn’t keep your hands off of each other. Their body was brand new and you couldn’t wait to discover every nook. Now it’s become like a treasure map with frayed edges and smudged markings. You’ve seen all of it. You’ve done everything you can to it and now it just sits there looking old and familiar.
8. The cold harsh reality of cheating. Wondering if you could ever hurt the person you love the most if you had one too many cocktails one night. Four margaritas + one person you’re attracted to = one irrevocable mistake.
9. You’re worried that one day your lover will break your heart. They’ll spend years nurturing it and letting it grow. Then one day they’ll destroy everything in a moment. You won’t recognize the person who broke your heart. You’ll question whether or not you ever truly knew them. One day they have a face that you know and love, and the next they look and feel like a stranger. This is something that everyone experiences at some point but when it happens to you, it will be the most bizarre foreign experience of your life.
10. You’re worried that one day you’ll break their heart. You’ll just wake up one morning and decide you’re over it. Or maybe it will happen more gradually like a sickness that’s building in your stomach. Their jokes will stop being appealing and their body will look sallow. And you almost wish they could be the one to dump you. Because if someone falls out of love with you, there’s someone to blame. But if you’re the one who ruins them, you have no one to blame but yourself . 

As always feel free to comment.

Americans 'snapping' by the millions.

Americans 'snapping' by the millions.

Terrorism. Chaos. Fear of the future. In the age of Obama, America is undergoing a “fundamental transformation” – that much everyone knows.

But what few seem to realize about this transformation is that the sheer stress of living in today’s America is driving tens of millions to the point of illness, depression and self-destruction. Consider the following trends:

•Suicide has surpassed car crashes as the leading cause of injury death for Americans. Even more disturbing, in the world’s greatest military, more U.S. soldiers died last year by suicide than in combat;
•Fully one-third of the nation’s employees suffer chronic debilitating stress, and more than half of all “millennials” (18 to 33 year olds) experience a level of stress that keeps them awake at night, including large numbers diagnosed with depression or anxiety disorder.
•Shocking new research from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention shows that one in five of all high-school-aged children in the United States has been diagnosed with ADHD, and likewise a large new study of New York City residents shows, sadly, that one in five preteens – children aged six to 12 – have been medically diagnosed with either ADHD, anxiety, depression or bipolar disorder;
•New research concludes that stress renders people susceptible to serious illness, and a growing number of studies now confirm that chronic stress plays a major role in the progression of cancer, the nation’s second-biggest killer. The biggest killer of all, heart disease, which causes one in four deaths in the U.S., is also known to have a huge stress component;
•Incredibly, 11 percent of all Americans aged 12 and older are currently taking SSRI antidepressants – those highly controversial, mood-altering psychiatric drugs with the FDA’s “suicidality” warning label and alarming correlation with school shooters. Women are especially prone to depression, with a stunning 23 percent of all American women in their 40s and 50s – almost one in four – now taking antidepressants, according to a major study by the CDC;
•Add to that the tens of millions of users of all other types of psychiatric drugs, including (just to pick one) the 6.4 million American children between 4 and 17 diagnosed with ADHD and prescribed Ritalin or similar psycho-stimulants. Throw in the 28 percent of American adults with a drinking problem, that’s more than 60 million, plus the 22 million using illegal drugs like marijuana, cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens and inhalants, and pretty soon a picture emerges of a nation of drug-takers, with hundreds of millions dependent on one toxic substance or another – legal or illegal – to “help” them deal with the stresses and problems of life.

By the way, things are no better over the pond – and may be worse, according to one major study that concluded almost 40 percent of Europeans are plagued by mental illness.

Note: This report is is excerpted from the April 2013 issue of WND’s acclaimed Whistleblower magazine, “STRESSED AND DEPRESSED: The unreported health crisis of the Obama era.”

What on earth is going on? Why isn’t medical science – and for that matter all of our incredible scientific and technological innovations in every area of life – reducing our stress and lightening our load? Why doesn’t the almost-magical availability of the world’s accumulated knowledge, thanks to the Internet, make us more enlightened and happy? Why is it that, instead, more and more of us are so stressed out as to be on a collision course with illness, misery, tragedy and death?

Most important, what can we do to reverse course? Fortunately, amazingly effective help is available – but more on that later.

‘He wants people to snap’

“Life is difficult,” wrote psychiatrist M. Scott Peck at the outset of his international best-seller, “The Road Less Traveled.” Stress, difficulties, disappointments, accidents, disease, misfortune, cruelty, betrayal – they’re unavoidable in this life.

Yet, during eras when society and families are stable, unified and fundamentally decent and moral – as, say, America during the 1950s – the stress level for each person is minimized, or at least not compounded by a perverse society. Conversely, when – as is the case today – we have widespread family breakdown, a depraved culture that mocks traditional moral values, a chaotic economy and disintegrating monetary system and a power-mad government dominated by demagogues and sociopaths, the normal stresses of life are greatly multiplied.

Thus it has come to pass that America, long the hope of the world, has grown increasingly dispirited and angry, which in turn breeds anxiety, fear, confusion, hopelessness and depression.

After all, let’s face the hard facts: We just re-elected perhaps the worst president in history, someone manifestly obsessed with dismantling traditional, free-market capitalist America and transforming it into a socialist nanny state. That in itself is highly stressful – at least for the roughly half the population that still understands socialism always leads to a profound loss of freedom and prosperity.

Then there’s today’s relentless economic pressures: high unemployment (the actual rate is at least double that of the “official” government rate), foreclosures and bankruptcies, a stagnant growth rate, 11,000 new people signing up for food stamps every single day, rising taxes for the entire middle class whose net worth is simultaneously shrinking, ever-higher prices for food, gas and other essentials – and overshadowing it all, a galactic national debt burden, courtesy of a wildly out-of-control government unrestrained by either the Constitution or common sense.

That, too, is very stressful. Top it all off with an administration continually abusing the public for the sake of enlarging and consolidating its political power – for instance, by purposely making the “sequester” cuts hurt Americans, even our active-duty soldiers, as much as possible.

Make no mistake: This sort of stress on Americans is not only intentional on the part of Team Obama – it is strategic. Remember, these people are revolutionaries (that is, engaged in “bringing about a major or fundamental change,” as Merriam-Webster puts it) and utterly committed to replacing one societal structure – America’s constitutional, limited-government, free-enterprise system – with another – a socialist, wealth-redistributionist system run by an all-powerful government.

Such a radical change cannot be accomplished while Americans are calm, happy, content and grateful for their blessings. Citizens must be unhappy and stressed out. Indeed, widespread popular discontent has always been the required fuel for leftist transformation.

Just reading a few pages into Saul Alinsky’s notorious “Rules for Radicals,” one encounters repeated confirmation that the very key to radical “change” is keeping the populace angry, encouraging their grievances, stoking their resentments and making sure they are continually upset. That is the primary psychological dynamic of “community organizing” – and America today is led by community-organizer-in-chief Barack Obama, a long-time master practitioner and instructor in Alinsky’s neo-Marxist agitation methods.

Top radio talker Rush Limbaugh recently picked up on this normally unspoken aspect of Obama’s modus operandi: “I think he wants people to snap,” opined Rush. “I think Obama is challenging everybody’s sanity. Obama [is] literally pushing people to snap, attacking the very sanity of the country.”

Commenting on Obama’s sudden obsession with employing every means possible to deny law-abiding Americans their constitutionally guaranteed right to keep and bear arms, Limbaugh exclaimed: “All of this is so in our face. Everything that people hold dear is under assault. Deliberately making people upset! This is not what presidents do.”

It’s not what presidents do – unless they happen to be leftist revolutionaries, in which case “deliberately making people upset” is precisely what they do to accomplish their intended “fundamental transformation.”

We need to realize that Americans could not have twice elected a leader as transcendentally unworthy of the presidency as Barack Obama without first having had their minds and hearts captured. Through constant leftist indoctrination, emotional manipulation, ruthless intimidation – and then being rewarded once they have “converted” – perhaps half of the American electorate has been programmed over the course of decades by a subversive school system and equally perverse “news” establishment. Truth be told, both institutions have become full-blown abominations, occupying as they do near-sacred stations of public trust in American civilization.

Of course, at the nuclear core of the myriad assaults on traditional America is the rejection (at least by society’s elites) of God and repudiation of the Judeo-Christian values that underpin Western civilization. This in turn has led to pervasive societal disintegration and a Pandora’s Box of almost unimaginable problems.

Unfortunately, despite our nation’s growing number of seriously troubled people, psychiatry provides little help. It has evolved in our secular, mechanistic culture to see virtually all mental, emotional and spiritual problems as genetic or physiological in origin. No longer is there any such thing as sin. Nothing is moral or spiritual. Good character, introspection, understanding, repentance and forgiveness, so vital to genuine healing, are now irrelevant. Just write a prescription.

Since the current research fad is to conclude (as the National Institute of Mental Health puts it) that “depressive illnesses are disorders of the brain,” psychiatry has come to rely heavily on altering our brain chemistry by (in the case of depression) tricking it into producing higher levels of neurotransmitters like serotonin and norepinephrine. But this forces us to ask an obvious question: What are you talking about? Do you really believe that the 23 percent of American women ages 40 through 59 currently on antidepressants ALL have defective or diseased brains?

Or, is it just possible that, rather than tens of millions of inexplicably damaged brains, much of today’s epidemic of “depression” and other “disorders” has a lot more to do with the prevalence of stress, pressure, confusion, cruelty, anger, injustice, temptation and corruption all around us – and our inability to deal with it without being infected and hurt by it?

Finding the way out

There are, of course, proven commonsense steps each individual can take to minimize the effects of stress. Chuck Norris’ personal list of “12 ways to avoid depression” is as good as any available online, and encompasses everything from diet and exercise to meditation and gratitude to God.

But boiling the matter down to core essentials, there are really three time-tested elements required for staying healthy physically, mentally, emotionally and spiritually. They are:

1) A genuinely healthful diet: Newsflash – eating the wrong foods (or eating too much) causes huge problems. Obesity is not only stressful, but has myriad adverse health effects, including depression. Likewise, eating foods that are heavily processed, high-sugar, adulterated, chemicalized, processed, artificially flavored, colored, sweetened and preserved stresses both body and mind. As WND columnist and orthopedic surgeon Lee Hieb, M.D., puts it, “If my great-grandmother would not have recognized something as food … I don’t eat it.”

Mountains of research and dietary wisdom can be boiled down to this: Eat a variety of fresh, natural foods, especially vegetables and fruits and particularly lots of enzyme-rich raw foods. Fish and chicken are fine, so is red meat in moderation, same with dairy (eggs, milk and butter – not margarine), but buy natural/organic whenever possible.

2) Regular exercise: A good exercise regimen not only helps keep our heart (and the rest of us) healthy, it confers untold benefits, tangible and intangible – plus it is, all by itself, a major de-stressor! Again, WND columnist Chuck Norris, who as a six-time undefeated world karate champion (and reputedly the world’s toughest man) knows a little about exercise, says this: “Exercise is a cure for so many ills; depression is one of many. Exercise is so powerful on our mind that Men’s Health calls it the drug-free depression cure.” Enough said. Just do it.

3) Personal quiet time for prayer and reflection, allowing us the opportunity to seek the Creator’s will while letting go of accumulated anger, frustration and resentment toward others. (In other words, renewing our love for God and our neighbor.) Anger in all its forms has long been shown to be at the very root of many serious problems and illnesses, both physical and mental.

Pause button. One all-important point needs to be made here: It is not the stress itself that harms us, but rather, the way we overreact emotionally to it. And primarily, that reaction is one of resentment, either overt or subtle.

Grasping this often-overlooked fact leads directly to the bottom-line principle for successfully coping with stress, whether it’s related to money, work, health, relationships or trauma: Learn to calmly endure the stress (or as the Bible expresses it, “trials and tribulations”) with genuine patience and faith instead of anger and frustration, and an amazing thing happens: The stress, rather than making us sick and debilitated, actually serves to make us stronger, more at peace and more whole.

Help with this all-important facet of stress management comes, ironically, from the occupation Forbes calls the “most stressful job” in America – namely, the U.S. military.

Despite the tremendous ravages of war stress – 22 suicides per day among U.S. military veterans (on average) and an epidemic of post-traumatic stress disorder and other war-trauma conditions streaming out of Iraq and Afghanistan – a quiet revolution in overcoming stress is nevertheless unfolding within the military.

Like the constantly inculcated attribute of “resilience,” the military has also found the practice of “mindfulness” to be extremely helpful in overcoming stress. And the gold standard in this growing field is “Be Still and Know,” a simple and time-tested awareness exercise that been used in all five armed service branches for many years.

Currently relied on by tens of thousands of soldiers and veterans, “Be Still and Know” is the key ingredient included in a compact disc titled “Coping Strategies.” In essence, the 30-minute exercise helps users discover genuine patience, mental clarity and (a word the Founding Fathers used a lot) equanimity. It has been highly endorsed by both the U.S. Army’s chief of chaplains, Maj. Gen. Douglas L. Carter, who calls it a “great resource for our Soldiers,” and Col. John Bradley, M.D., long the chief of psychiatry at Walter Reed Army Medical Center.

“Coping Strategies’” distributing organization, the nonprofit Patriot Outreach founded by U.S. Army Col. Antonio P. Monaco, offers the CD (or Internet download) free to all U.S. military personnel, veterans and family members upon request. It is also readily available to civilians, at a nominal charge to support the free grants to the military. Patriot Outreach’s program has been publicly praised by Iowa Gov. Terry Branstad as well as former GOP presidential candidate Sen. Rick Santorum.

Having written about “Coping Strategies” and the “Be Still and Know” exercise a couple of years ago, I recently checked in with a member of the Patriot Outreach team, Navy Vietnam veteran Lee Booton, for an update.

Booton, after experiencing a lot of combat, came home from Vietnam with a nice big fat case of post-traumatic stress disorder. (“In the middle of the night I was pounding on my wife, thinking I was still fighting the North Vietnamese,” he told me. “I felt horrible.”) Yet years later, when he was introduced to “Be Still and Know,” Booton knew it provided the answer he and other stressed-out soldiers were desperately seeking. Over the past five years, volunteering with Patriot Outreach, Booton has “met face to face with returning troops” and personally “handed out between 5,000 and 6,000″ of the “Coping Strategies” CDs to vets and encouraged others to download the exercises for free. (There are actually four exercises included in “Coping Strategies” – the main one, “Be Still and Know,” plus three others that focus specifically on “Overcoming Pain,” “Overcoming Fear” and “Overcoming Stress.”)

Does he ever hear back from the soldiers he helps? “Yes!” says Booton enthusiastically. “Sometimes they give me a big hug and say, ‘Boy, does that work,’ or ‘You helped save my life – this made it so much easier for me to deal day-to-day with all of my issues.’”

‘Cure stress’

“Be Still and Know” was developed by Roy Masters, who at 85 is the patriarch of stress experts, having taught this method since 1960 to millions, his fans including everyone from movie star John Wayne to Internet journalist Matt Drudge. He also hosts talk radio’s longest-running counseling show, “Advice Line,” on Talk Radio Network. The author of 18 books, Masters was featured on the Sean Hannity Show to discuss his newest book, “Hypnotic States of Americans.

Recently, all four of the audio exercises on the “Coping Strategies” CD have been released in a new civilian version on a dedicated MP3 player called, “The Cure Stress Device.”

“In today’s high-tech, wireless world,” said Masters, “a little, self-contained audio device the size of a credit card seemed like the best delivery system possib

In a recent message he tweeted, Masters summed up more than 60 years of work in just 140 characters: “Learn to endure cruelty and injustice without resentment and after the stress has passed you will find the fulfillment you have been seeking.”

“Most stress,” explains Masters, “is simply cruelty, in one form or another, directed at us by other stressed-out human beings, who themselves have been victimized by cruelty and stress in their own pasts.

“Imagine, however, that someone said or did something cruel to you, but that you did not react in any way whatsoever – you did not become upset, resentful or even ruffled. You simply observed that this person was saying or doing something cruel, as though you were calmly observing the scene in a movie. You simply would not be stressed by what would appear to others to be a highly stressful encounter. Stress and cruelty affect us as profoundly as they do only because we react to them resentfully.”

The exercise works so well, he adds, because “it enables you to become objective, a little bit separate, detached and disentangled from all your troublesome thoughts, emotions, heartaches, fears and traumatic memories – and that, all by itself, is extremely helpful, and actually healing.”

‘You just be cool and calm’

“Stress” – our modern name for all the trials and tribulations the Good Lord in His wisdom deems necessary for us to grow in character and faith – is not the enemy. It is, however, the difficult but necessary part of life that tests us, proves us, and ultimately makes us better – or kills us.

Fortunately, in the loving sacrifice of his Son, not only did God make provision for the forgiveness of mankind’s sins, but He also gave us another priceless gift – the perfect example of how to deal with stress. Even while hanging on the cross in agony, Jesus did not resent his tormentors and even asked God to forgive them. That’s the essence of what we need to find.

In one sense, our task is simple: Since our past sins have been forgiven, and since the future is in God’s care alone, we just need to focus on discovering how to live right now, in this present moment, with faith, patient endurance and perfect integrity.

Now more than ever, it is essential that Americans get a handle on stress. The pressures of modern life are being greatly multiplied by the ever-present threat of terrorism and a socialist government that thrives on promoting everything dark, perverse and angry (and therefore stress-producing) in human nature. Remember, Winston Churchill called socialism “the gospel of envy.”

After Rush Limbaugh warned his listeners that Obama wants good Americans “to snap,” he added, good-naturedly: “You just be cool and calm. Everything’s going to be fine. I’ll tell you when it’s not.”

Indeed, to prevent Obama and company from completing their “fundamental transformation” of America, we are going to have to learn to stay cool, calm and collected – and not just on the surface, but deep down in our souls.

Know this: If you are upset at Obama and the maniacal left – if you’re angry, full of rage, feeling hopeless, frustrated, wanting to drop out, or wanting to lash out and act violently – believe me, that’s precisely what your adversary wants. Not only that, that’s how he wins, because when you’re upset and angry and overreacting – pardon me for putting it this way – you become stupid. That’s what’s wrong with the Republican Party. Its principles are magnificent (read the 2012 platform), but most of its leaders are intimidated by the ruthless Obama administration and the blatantly biased and abusive “mainstream media.” Thus, in their reactive, intimidated state of mind, they become ineffective, cowardly and contemptible (with a few notable exceptions, for which we are very grateful).

This is true not just of politicians, but all of us: No matter how smart, moral and right-thinking we might otherwise be, when we’re angry and upset we do not possess God’s grace, wisdom, courage and creative genius guiding our steps, and thus we are no match for the evil rising in America.

But if Americans would discover grace under pressure – hey, Ronald Reagan had it, why can’t we? – if enough of us found strength and resolve that were rooted, not in rage, but in righteousness and love of God and our neighbor, then nothing, and I do mean nothing, could stop us. Having regained our lost innocence, we would likewise see our beloved country restored to the noble land it once was.