Archive for the ‘Government’ Category

It’s certainly easy to become frustrated, angered, even enraged at national and global events. Terrorists are summarily released from Guantanamo to inevitably return to their pursuit of our destruction; original IRS files under investigation, allegedly lacking any archived copies, suddenly disappear and the hard drive that housed them is destroyed; literally thousands of illegal immigrants pour across our southern border daily while the Federal government, charged with our protection, stands by idle and silent; the most radical of radical Islamic terrorists murderously and savagely tear their way through Iraq seizing cities and imposing Sharia Law as they go, negating the efforts we made and the lives we sacrificed to bring that nation a chance for freedom; food and energy prices soar upward while we are told there is no inflation and one hundred million, one third of our population, are unemployed.

Yes, it is definitely easy to be overwhelmed and enraged…easy and terribly wrong.

Overwhelmed people feel victimized and are susceptible to manipulation by anyone promising an end to their frustrations. Enraged people are reactive, fail to reason and consequently, think before they act. Neither false prophets nor indiscriminate actions can serve us now.

What’s needed is very simple, if not necessarily easy:

1. Pull back to your most basic and immediate needs and environment.

2. Ask yourself, “How will gratuitous anger serve me?

3. Ask yourself,” What can I do to simplify my life and reduce stress?”

4. Reach out to neighbors, friends or colleagues to establish a community of support for one another.

5. Commit to not allowing yourself to be seduced into blame, violence or hatred of others.

6. Identify and stand firm in your core beliefs regardless of their political correctness…so long as those beliefs are not at the expense of another.

7. Hold fast to faith in humankind’s awakening to the realization that united we stand and divided we fall as All are One.

8. Allow truth to emerge from within you rather than allow an agenda to be imposed upon you.

Every historical period has its challenges. This one is no exception. What causes pain and suffering is not change. It’s our resistance to change. The world is changing in rapid and profound ways. Old patterns of behavior and correction will not work. When we switched from horse and buggy to the combustion engine, you could not fuel that engine with oats…although those oats worked just fine under the old system.

Rather than judge who did what and how we got here, let’s use our intellects, our hearts, and our individual uniqueness to co-create solutions. The dawn of a new day brings the opportunity to either repeat yesterday or live today anew.

Free Will. You get to choose.

 

I vividly remember why I did not vote for Barack Obama in 2008. I had been browsing the stacks at a Barnes and Noble and came across a small book written by a former New York Times writer, an African-American who laid out the case that Barack Obama was in search of an identity based upon his bi-racial upbringing combined with early childhood exposure to policies and agendas both foreign and domestic. The author, himself a product of mixed racial parentage, suggested Obama was wrong for the job and even implied that combined with the Senator’s professional and political inexperience…perhaps even a hazard.

The book never made much of an impact. It was an opportunity lost. We now know, through hindsight and with certainty, the author knew what he was talking about.

It’s hard to know where to begin in cataloging this President’s errors, failures, missteps and lies. From Obama’s multiple unilaterally decreed amendments to Obamacare; broken assurances that Obamacare would not only reduce premiums $2500 per year but also allow people to keep their doctors; faulty judgment in supporting Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt; security failures in Benghazi; a Department of Justice that has covered up the Fast & Furious scandal; selective targeting of conservative groups by the IRS; a systematic process for obscuring the truth about medical care for our Veterans and, most recently, freeing five deadly Islamic extremist terrorists in exchange for one alleged deserter.

So here we are with two years left to a Presidency few people trust and for good reason. President Obama has misled, and at more times than I’d like to think, lied to the very people who put their trust in him. While I was not one of them I none-the-less expected more of him than what we got.

In addition to that book at Barnes and Noble, I recall an astrological chart that had been done on the President at the time of his election. It was on the Internet and compiled by a well-known Vedic (Indian) astrologer. In the last paragraph it said this President would enter the office as one of the most beloved leaders and exit it one of the most despised. This, I believe, will occur.

Whether it was the book or the chart, we would have been better off following one or the other rather than a man who promised “Hope and Change” but has delivered, above all, deception and corruption.

Many scoffed at members of the “spiritual communities” that began warning at least 5-7 years ago that we were going through a “paradigm shift.” The forewarning was that systems which had been in place for hundreds, if not thousands, of years would be breaking down. The breakdown in the integrity and effectiveness of the Federal government and its administrative agencies has been increasingly evident over that same time period but nothing can compare to the VA scandal… and for very good reason.

It was inevitable that without awakening and addressing the negligence and corruption of government, we were destined to come face to face with the undeniable. For it is only the undeniable that has historically, too often, been the only catalyst for our awareness and action. The VA scandal, the total disregard for the well-being of honorable men and women who served this country upon a belief and a promise that they would be cared for and supported both in battle and upon their return is the undeniable proof of the incompetence, impotence and corruption endemic within our government.

Just as it isn’t change that causes stress but rather resistance to change that is its cause, so too is it not our system of governance that is corrupt and broken but rather the deliberate misuse of that system by its leaders for personal aggrandizement, financial gain and control.

Within and during the worst of times there is always a purpose and a higher perspective. Sadly, we humans too often fail to see either until adverse circumstances reach critical mass. The VA scandal is such a moment of critical mass. It is also, therefore, a moment of profound enlightenment and transcendence for those with eyes to see and the courage to act.

We are awake and able to discern deception in any disguise. We are awake and feel insincerity wherever it resides. We are awake and throw off the bonds of an enslaved consciousness. We are awake and know fear and separation for the tools of manipulation that they are. We are awake and as loving expressions of Creator we own our role in Divine Being. We are awake and we will never be returned to ignorance, slumber, and denial.

Knowing plus action is the key. Let those currently in service, as well as our Veterans, now be served.

In every other aspect of our lives, let Truth be spoken, let Love unite and above all let darkness be enveloped and transformed by Light.

 

 

If you cannot imagine how or why the Veterans Administration has been so shamefully negligent and criminally deceptive in its treatment and record keeping look no further than what Veterans Affairs Secretary Eric Shinseki said on March 12, 2009. At that time, he stated that the Obama Administration had a proposal which would require U.S. military personnel to pay for their own medical treatment for injuries sustained while in the line of duty. A proposal the Administration refused to take off the table when petitioned to do so by Veterans’ groups. Yes, you read that correctly. U.S. soldiers to pay for injuries sustained while fighting or defending, for or on behalf of this country, with private medical insurance paid for by those same  soldiers out-of-pocket.

Fast forward 5 years and what do we discover? The same Administration and the same players, President Obama and Secretary Shinseki, have allowed or created a system of medical care for Vets so negligent, so duplicitous and so deadly that it just might either 1) cause soldiers to actually seek private medical insurance or 2) convince the public that the VA can no longer  afford to effectively and efficiently manage the system…thereby recommending some private form of self-insurance.

Do you really believe that people who think our soldiers should pay for their own healthcare for injuries sustained in the line of battle are going to efficiently, and with integrity, administer VA hospitals in a way that encourages Vets to seek treatment?  President Obama is “madder than hell?” You believe he cares! Why in the world would you?

The ends justifies the means. The motto of an Obama Presidency and Progressives generally.

Whether its leaving behind 4 Americans in Benghazi, turning a blind eye for 52 days to a Vet chained to pirson walls in Mexico for having made a wrong turn on the freeway at the U.S.-Mexico border, or failing to provide the most basic medical care to courageous men and women who answered this Nation’s call to service, this Administration is a disgrace and so too will be a Nation that allows itself to continue to be duped and manipulated by these same people and a complicitous media.

Stupid is as stupid does. The problem isn’t them. Its us.

Do you realize we have just had 139 primary races across this country in advance of the November mid-term elections and NOT ONE incumbent was outvoted by their challenger. We just voted to keep the same crooks, incompetents, and professional political class in office in which we have a 20% trust factor.

I know you’re busy and dancing as fast as you can to keep up with your life. But that’s the plan. Overwhelm you so you’re just too tired and feel too helpless to affect anything. Exhaust you so you’re a good little sheep and go your merry way…never realizing the whole herd is being driven right off a cliff.

Stop feeling dis-empowered. Its the wrong attitude and leads to a disastrous outcome. Until we find a better shepherd for this flock let’s stop following the one we’ve got and start thinking for ourselves.

Have we not lost our way when a U.S. Veteran having served in Iraq and Afghanistan languishes chained in a Mexican prison because he accidentally drove over the border with his weapons in his vehicle while our President and Congress are doing everything they can to fast track illegal aliens (many criminal) to becoming U.S. Citizens?

Have we not lost our way when President Obama personally takes time to call Georgetown University law student Sandra Flock to congratulate her for seeking taxpayer money to fund her choice of contraception while the same President does not take the time to fire the head of the Veteran’s Administration for a cover-up and total failure to provide medical care for our Veterans?

Have we not lost our way when a federally mandated academic curriculum called “Common Core” is designed to stifle creative and independent thinking while using public education to promote a political agenda while gathering intrusive personal data on both students and parents alike?

Have we not lost our way when you need a photo ID to obtain a driver’s license, obtain any hospital out-patient or in-patient procedure, purchase over-the-counter sinus medication, donate blood, carry out bank transactions (even deposits now!), cash A check or pay for purchases by check, purchase a gun, obtain Social Security benefits, be booked for arrest, visit a school if you’re a non-student, adopt a child, pick up packages at the post office, produce at a routine traffic stop…but not to VOTE?

Have we not lost our way when we march and protest over cruelty to animals but are indifferent to 50,000,000+ U.S. abortions (many of them late term) in the last 30 years?

Have we not lost our way when schools teach, as early as third grade, the intimacies and technicalities of sexual acts but teachers, administrators and politicians rebel at the mention of God in those same classrooms?

Have we not lost our way when a parent is arrested at a school board meeting for objecting to prurient and pornographic subject matter in his child’s textbook and every other parent, present with the same objection, sits by silently in fear without standing up for the father?

Have we not lost our way when we make believe that some politician will reverse the social and economic nightmare we are living rather than take responsibility ourselves for what needs to be done?

Have we not lost our way?

The next time Secretary of State John Kerry chooses to describe Israel as heading towards an apartheid state he would do well to closely examine the reaction of world Jewry to L.A. Clippers owner Donald Sterling’s bigoted remarks about African Americans. There is probably no other People on earth, living in or out of Israel, more sensitive to bigotry, bias, religious persecution and hate speech than Jews.

Sadly, the Secretary’s comment was founded in either 1) ignorance of historical fact or 2) his own apparent bias about Israel, its people and its government. I hope it is the former, although in a position of such gravitas requiring heightened diplomatic skills neither is acceptable nor excusable.

Arab Israeli’s make up approximately 20% of the population. Historically, Arabs living within Israel since 1949 have enjoyed more freedoms than Arabs living in any Arab speaking country. Since 1949, Israel has seen 70 Arab Israeli’s elected to the Knesset (with 13 serving currently). Arabs serve in the Supreme Court, the Cabinet, the Israeli Defense Forces, the Israeli police, as emergency medical service providers, doctors, businessmen, entertainers, television personalities and in a multitude of positions within every aspect of civil society.  In 2004, Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon ordered that every public company have at least one Arab Israeli on its Board of Directors.

Does this seriously lead anyone other than Secretary Kerry (or Arab extremists seeking the annihilation of the State of Israel) to conclude that an apartheid Israeli nation is a foregone conclusion? I think not.

Personally, I stand with former United States Ambassador to the United Nations, John Bolton, who today said that “children are running our foreign policy” and with Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) who yesterday called for the resignation of Secretary Kerry.

Ignorance is only bliss when it does no harm.

“Divide and conquer” is a strategy as old as time for a reason. It works. The more you can disperse an opponents forces the weaker you make him. Of course, the converse is equally true…”united we stand.” So it should come as no surprise that entrenched power, wherever it is found, seeks to turn any opposition against itself with the intention being to distract and disperse.

Enter the Cliven Bundy story.

Initially Bundy, the Nevada rancher standing up to the Bureau of Land Management and thereby the Federal Government, was viewed as a modern day David against a modern day Goliath. Others saw him as a Patriot and rushed to his side to stand with him. However, as it became known that Mr. Bundy had violated the law on his way to taking a legitimate stand on States’ rights (by not paying his grazing fees) and further that he seemed to speak with bigotry about African Americans, the tide quickly turned against him. His less than stellar behavior quickly eclipsed the larger legitimate issue of Federal Government overreach via land grabbing.

The mainstream, not-so-mainstream media and the population in general have been quick to be seduced by getting lost in the “he’s a good guy” no “he’s a bad guy” debate. Divide and conquer at work.

Our Federal Government is out of control and is incompetent and/or frighteningly ill intentioned as evidenced by its mismanagement of the economy, its overreach of federal powers, its foreign policy, and its redistribution of wealth efforts through Obamacare. However, if we allow ourselves to focus on the all to human Cliven Bundy, who has his strengths as well as his failings (as well all do) then we will be distracted from the larger issue… which is exactly where the powers that be want us.

United we stand or divided we fall. Each of us must choose. Focusing on common ground rather than our differences  serves us better now and is certainly true about what we will be able to accomplish in the future.

The “greenest” faction of the Nazi war machine was the SS.  Heinrich Himmler who headed the unit was an animal lover, a vegetarian and organic farming enthusiast. In fact, at Treblinka, the SS had beautiful picnic grounds and a zoo, while the last sight the Jews saw before entering the gas chambers was an exquisite flower garden. The SS advocated an ideology of “blood and soil” that rolled into one policy evolutionary racism, peasant agrarianism and environmentalism.

So, it is possible to be politically correct while simultaneously being inhumanely insane. Which brings me to Cliven Bundy and the Obama Administration.

Mr. Bundy is a fourth generation rancher in Nevada. He has been grazing his 500 cattle on Clark County, Nevada public lands as did his father and grandfather before him. He has paid his grazing fees to the County and the State. He has not, however, paid fees demanded by the federal government as it is his position, supported by the Governor of Nevada, that the U.S. Government and Bureau of Land Management have no authority to collect them.

The response to his refusal to pay those fees is now the theft of his private property by the Federal Government (200 cattle thus far captured and removed), armed marshals surrounding the remainder as well as he and his family, his son tasered and a dangerously escalating situation. Memories of Waco and the Branch Davidian Sect standoff come to mind. The prospects for this ending poorly increase exponentially by the day.

The regulation and legal basis by which the Federal Government is asserting its authority and claim was enacted 20 years ago protecting the desert tortoise of the region from extinction.

As an animal lover I would never want to see any animal harmed, let alone extinct. But when we reach the point where the survival of the tortoise is grounds for abrogating the U.S. Constitution and basic human rights, we are dangerously close to…if not over…the same line the SS crossed. That story ended poorly as well.

We need to understand our connectedness to one another,to all living things, and to the environment within a well-thought through balanced approach. No one aspect of that triad should prevail at the expense of the others. Every American should be appalled and vocal about what is taking place in Nevada. As German Lutheran Pastor and vocal Nazi opponent Erik Dietrich Bonhoeffer said, “Not to speak is to speak. Not to stand is to stand.”

In the book African Genesis the author puts forth the concept of “Blessed Anger.” Blessed Anger is what an animal in the wild exhibits when the minimal amount of space it needs to survive is encroached upon.  Animals have an instinct to “stake out” conceptually where that line of safety is in relation to their location. If another animal approaches, there will be no action taken unless the approaching animal crosses that invisible line. Should that occur, the resting animal will go on offense and attack the incoming foe.

I think its reasonable to assume that such Blessed Anger would be exhibited, and justifiable, by any parent in regard to their child. Anyone who has ever had a child knows the instinctive, protective feeling of rising to meet any person or force that poses a threat to your child’s safety and well being. With that in mind, meet Joe Pelletier.

Joe Pelletier has today been charged with Contempt of Court for violating a gag Order imposed by a judge in Massachusetts. Mr. Pelletier is, in fact, in violation of that Order. He knowingly and willfully chose to speak out publicly about the kidnapping and medical malpractice that his teenage daughter, Justina, is now the victim of as perpetuated by the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, Boston Children’s Hospital and the Massachusetts Department of Children and Families.

Mr. Pelletier’s decision to violate that Order was made in an effort to save his daughter’s life. Justina suffers from mitochondrial disease, a medical condition diagnosed by Tufts Hospital in Connecticut and for which treating physicians there performed abdominal surgery, where, among other procedures, an elimination tube was inserted in her torso. Yet subsequently and without basis, Boston Children’s Hospital has found that Justina has no medical conditions but rather a psychiatric condition whereby she imagines all of her symptoms, one of  which is continual pain. Therefore, the hospital has denied her ALL medical treatment and forces her to attend psychiatric sessions. Further, with Justina now in a wheelchair as her physical condition deteriorates, Boston Children’s Hospital has transferred her to a facility that houses only non-medical, short-term recovering psychiatric and drug rehab patients.

As a former lawyer who practiced Family Law for 13 years and had my share of custody cases involving the state and agenicies such as DCF, I can assure you that the abuses perpetrated by both the Courts and state child protective service agencies can far exceed the conditions from which the child has been removed under the legal standard of “in the best interest of the child.”

Justina Pelletier is my child and your child. She is everyone’s child. And this is every parent’s nightmare. Justina is running out of time. The Pelletier family is mentally, physically and emotionally devastated. They have been financially ruined.

We are the reserves and the reinforcements. Each person reading this must choose one of the below listed methods to be heard and immediately do something about it. Every minute you hesitate is another minute you now know the Pelletier family is suffering. Ever minute you hesitate Justina Pelletier is deteriorating and denied medical attention.

You now have knowing. You now have personal responsibility. We are all connected. You have the right to Blessed Anger.

Allow it to move you.

 

Governor Duval Patrick
Phone: 617.725.4005 (out of state)
888.870.7770 (in state)
email page
Fax: 617.727.9725

Olga Roche, DCF Commissioner / email: dcfcommissioner@state.ma.us

Martha Coakley, Massachusetts Attorney General
Phone: (617) 727-2200

Boston Children’s Hospital
(617) 355-6000

Free Justina facebook page

Twitter

 

 

 

I’m not often compelled to write a post that leaves my readers feeling anything but optimistic or at least hopeful.  Its not that I shy away from difficult stories.  Its just that my style is to always seek the high ground, and so, when writing about the most negative or fear-based events I seek, and generally find, the inspirational take-away.

Hopefully, this post will stay true to that intention; although as I write I am momentarily at a loss to see how.

We have a President who has serially lied to the Nation and who disregards the rule of law. He’s lied so many times that I am astonished at his hubris, given the existence of video recording. His repeated contradictions and outright untruths are both stunning and deeply disturbing to anyone with an understanding of how the U.S. Constitution has kept this great experiment in governance from going the way of so many failed efforts that came before it that tried to create a free society.

The President has gone so far in overstepping the Constitutional bounds of his office, and done so without any opposition from Congress or clamor for accountability by the populace, that he now feels safe in saying such things as “I’ve got a pen and a phone…and I can use that pen to sign Executive Orders (referring to Congress’ reluctance to support his agenda) and “The good thing about being President is that I can do whatever I want” (while touring, of all places, Jefferson’s Monticello).

I have witten before on this blog about the imperial nature of this First Couple and I am not alone. Others have expressed similar observations…just not enough others. So now I feel compelled to say that if you, reading this post, stand by while this bastion of liberty is highjacked by an arrogant, self-annointed, dictatorial President who YOU elected, then there will be nowhere to go and no one to see when all of his actions converge to reach critical mass and result in the economic and societal collapse of this Nation. Its show time, folks. Use your voice or lose your voice for a very, long, dark period of time to come.

Yet it pains me to end on other than hope. So here it is.

If you refuse to be silent or complicit or in denial any longer, and there are enough of you, then you will yet be able to tell your grandchildren that in a critical hour of American history, when much of what this country was founded upon to abolish was in jeopardy of being destroyed. you found your voice… and stood… to speak truth to power.