James K. Caudill, Republican Committeeman representing Pierce Township passed away November 28.

He was a man of character who supported the party and was always on call when needed. He will be missed.

 

More Than A Confession

 A Commentary delivered by Ben Stein on a recent CBS Sunday Morning

 

Here are a few confessions from my beating heart: I have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. I see them on the cover of People and Us magazines when I am buying my dog biscuits and kitty litter. I often ask the checkers at the grocer stores. They never know who Nick and Jessica are either. Who are they? Will it change my life if I know who they are and why they have broken up? Why are they so important?

 

I don’t know who Lindsay Lohan is either. And I don’t care about Tom Cruise’s wife. Am I going to be called before a Senate committee and asked if I am subversive? Maybe, but I have no clue who Nick and Jessica are. If this is what it means to be no longer young; it’s not so bad.

 

Next confession:  I am a Jew and every single one of my ancestors was Jewish. And it does not bother me even a little bit when people call those beautiful lit up, bejeweled trees Christmas trees. I don’t feel threatened. I don’t feel discriminated against. That’s what they are: Christmas trees.

 

It doesn’t bother me one bit when people say, “Merry Christmas” to me. I don’t think they are slighting me or getting ready to put me in a ghetto. In fact, I kind of like it. It shows that we are all brothers and sisters celebrating this happy time of the year. It doesn’t bother me at all that there is a manger scene on display at a key intersection near my beach house in Malibu. If people want a crèche, it’s just fine with me, as is the Menorah a few hundred yards away.

 

I don’t like being pushed around for being a Jew, and I don’t think Christians like getting pushed around for being Christians. I think people who believe in God are sick and tired of getting pushed around, period. I have no idea where the concept came from that America is an explicitly atheist country. I can’t find it in the Constitution, and I don’t like it being shoved down my throat.

 

Or maybe I can put it another way: where did the idea come from that we should worship Nick and Jessica and we aren’t allowed to worship God as we understand Him?  I guess that is a sign of getting old, too.

 

But there are a lot of us who are wondering where Nick and Jessica came from and where the America we knew went to. In light of the many jokes we send to one another for a laugh, this is a little different. This is not intended to be a joke; it’s not funny, it’s intended to get you thinking.

 

Billy Graham’s daughter was interviewed on the Early Show and Jane Clayson asked her “How could God let something like this happen?” (referring to Hurricane Katrina).

 

Anne Graham gave an extremely profound and insightful response. She said, “I believe God is deeply saddened by this, just as we are, but for years we’ve been telling God to get out of our schools, to get out of our government and get out of our lives.

 

And being the gentleman He is, I believe he calmly backed out. How can we expect God to give us His blessing and His protection if we demand He leave us alone?” (She said the same thing when interviewed after 9-11).

 

In light of recent events…terrorist attacks, school shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine Murray O’Hare complained she didn’t want prayer in our schools and we said OK. (She was murdered and her body was found recently.)

 

Civilizations die from suicide, not murder

 

More Than A Confession (Continued ...)

 

Then someone said you better not read the Bible in school. The Bible says thou shall not kill, thou shall not steal and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we said OK.

 

Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we shouldn’t spank our children when they misbehave because their little personalities would be warped and we might dampen their self-esteem. We said an expert should know what he’s talking about. And we said OK (Dr. Spock’s grandson committed suicide) 

 

Now we are asking ourselves why our children have no conscience, why they don’t know right from wrong, and why it doesn’t bother them to kill strangers, their classmates and themselves.

 

Probably, if we think about it long and hard enough, we can figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with “WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.”

 

Funny how simple it is for people to trash God and then wonder why the world’s going to hell.

 

Funny how we believe what the newspapers say, but question what the Bible says.

 

Funny how you can send ‘jokes’ through e-mail and they spread like wildfire. But when you start sending messages regarding the Lord, people think twice about sharing.

 

Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion of God is suppressed in the school and workplace.

 

Are you laughing?

 

Funny how when you forward this message, you will not send it to many on your address list because you are not sure what they believe, or what they will think of you for sending it.

 

Funny how we can be more worried about what other people think of us than what God thinks of us.

 

Pass it on if you think it has merit. If not discard it….no one will know you did. But, if you discard this kind of thinking, don’t sit back and complain about the bad shape the world is in.

 

My best regards, honestly and respectfully,

 

Ben Stein

 

Thanks to Dawn Smith for contributing this article

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“Those Who Think the Government should do more for poor people are the ones who give the least to charity.” And “Those who go to church regularly are those who give the greatest share of their income.” These are comments from Arthur Brooks, author of a new book Who Really Cares?

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 Why do we have standards? Can we rely of the wisdom of man?

Watch Your Wallet

An article from The Wall Street Journal by Pete DuPont, former Governor of Delaware

 

Sixty-one percent of Americans think President Bush is not doing a satisfactory job. And more than 70 percent think the Republican Congress has failed to perform satisfactorily.

 

The continuing war on terror is one reason, but so are congressional spending, earmark excesses, and the corruption of House Republicans Delay, Ney, Cunningham and Foley. In the six years of this administration overall spending has risen by 49 percent, and non-defense discretionary spending has increased by an average of 7.7 percent a year. The number of congressional spending earmarks totaled 10,656 in fiscal 2004 (costing $23 billion), 13,997 in 2005 ($27 billion) and just under 10,000 this past fiscal year ($29 billion). The Republican Party has become the party of big government.

 

But, political supporters will only take so much. So in the November election, disgusted Republican voters allowed… even helped, both houses of the Congress to be taken over by the Democrat Party.

 

QUESTION: Will the Democratic Congress be any better than the Republican Congress was? A look at a half dozen likely policy proposals makes clear the answer will probably be no:

 

TAX INCREASES: From the liberal perspective the good news is that the major Bush tax cuts will expire in 2010. So the Democrats simply do nothing, the tax rates on lower-income individuals will rise to 15% from 10 % and on higher incomes to 39.6% from 35 %. Clinton Treasury Secretary Robert Rubin says tax increases are the only way to solve the nation’s fiscal problems…. so that will become Democratic strategy.

 

SPENDING INCREASES: The incoming House leadership says it will hold spending flat for the remainder of the current fiscal year. Perhaps, but for liberal democrats spending increases are no-brainers: appropriate more and expand the government to make the country better: and the deficit grows. They will say that is because of the Bush tax cuts, NOT because of the democratic spending increases. Historically Democratic Congresses have outspent Republican ones and it will surely happen again.

 

ALTERNATIVE MINIMUM TAX: A 1969 tax increase was enacted to soak the rich is suddenly going to seriously soak the middle class. Some 3.5 million tax payers paid the AMT this year. But, unlike the regular tax, the AMT is not indexed to inflation, which means the number of taxpayers the AMT hits is expected to balloon….by some estimates to as many as 23 million in 2007. Less than 5 percent of families with incomes between $100,000 and $200,000 are now paying the AMT, but a mere 80 percent may pay it by 2008. Almost no families with incomes of $50,000 to $100,000 pay the AMT today, but as many as 35 percent will by 2008.

 

To eliminate the AMT increases would cost about $750 billion over the next 10 years. What taxes will the new Congress raise to solve this dilemma is unclear, but either AMT or other taxes will have to rise.

 

PROTECTIONISM: Almost as passionate a liberal idea as spending more money is abandoning free trade and returning to protectionism. The AFL-CIO wants to limit lower priced goods from being imported into America even though it gives people a wider variety of products to choose from.

 

The truth is that the export of goods and services from America accounted for 10.4 percent of our gross domestic product in 2005 and created more than five million jobs over the previous ten years. Imports have been increasing American trade deficits over the last quarter century, but U.S. employment simultaneously rose from 99 million to 145 million people. So trade has not cost us jobs; in fact it brings jobs into America, foreign manufacturers building cars here being the best example. Nevertheless, the Democrats will start by refusing to renew the president’s trade authority, which expires next.year.  

 

When you put equality before freedom, you get neither. (Unk)

 

Watch Your Wallet  (Continued)

 

ENERGY:  One of the last acts of the current Republican Congress was to pass legislation permitting more oil and gas exploration in the Gulf of Mexico. It will lead to the production of about 1.3 billion barrels of oil and 5.8 trillion cubic feet of natural gas, two things America needs badly.

 

But that will be the end of progress, for the Democrats have a very different set of energy goals. First, no more off-shore drilling, even though there are 420 trillion cubic feet of natural gas on the Outer Continental Shelf….a 19 year supply at today’s rate of usage….and 102 billion barrels of oil in the OCS and Alaska. Next, Hillary Clinton’s repeal of oil drilling tax deductions and another windfall profits tax on oil companies, just like Jimmy Carter’s, which reduced domestic oil production between 3 and 6 percent and increased oil imports by about 10 percent.

 

No more nuclear power plants will be allowed either. We have 104 operating successfully….our cleanest source of energy. But liberals believe they need more regulations and are too risky.

 

SOCIAL SECURITY:  Just 10 years from now Social Security benefits paid out will exceed taxes paid in, so something will have to be done to fix the system. Individually owned Social Security accounts would help by allowing workers to enjoy bigger returns. But, Democrats are dead opposed to the idea of turning millions of Americans into owners of stocks and bonds, which will lead to the liberal solution of raising Social Security taxes and reducing benefits. The forthcoming plan will likely raise the cap on earnings subject to Social Security taxes ($97,500 in 2007). That would raise taxes on everyone earning more than that amount, especially the most productive wage earners. If the cap went to $150,000, for example, it would mean a tax increase of $6,510 on a worker earning that amount.

 

With a closely divided Senate and a president with a veto pen, the 2007-08 Congress will be more about defining the principles of their party and winning the 2008 presidential election than making significant policy changes. But all of the above public policy ideas will be put forward in some form or another in order to energize the Democrats’ liberal base and win the 2008 presidential election.

 

Mr. DuPont is Chairman of the Dallas-based National Center for Policy Analysis.

 

Gingrich Sees Hope for Conservative Agenda Former House Speaker Newt Gingrich said that the November elections were a defeat for Republicans, but not for Conservatives. He believes there is still hope to advance a conservative agenda if House Republicans can find allies among conservative Democrats. And “the balance of power in the House is now 50 blue-dog (conservative) Democrats,” Gingrich told The Washington Times. (Source: NewsMax.com)

 

Gingrich also said: “The very nature of the Democratic victory makes it possible to re-establish the conservative Democrat and House Republican coalition which gave Reagan legislative victories in 1981-82. Tip O’Neill was the liberal Democrat Speaker of the House when Reagan became president, but he did not have a liberal majority in the House. Despite a 242-192 majority they lost control on the floor on the most important bill of Reagan’s first term. His tax cuts initially passed 238-195 with 48 Democrats splitting from the leadership and siding with Reagan and the GOP. If President Bush decides to govern as President Reagan did, he will work to unify the Blue Dog Democrats with the Republicans to win a handful of very large victories while accepting a barrage of unhappiness from the liberal leadership. On the other hand, if he decides a strategy of cooperating with liberal leadership, he will guarantee splitting his own party and will see his legacy drifting further and further to the left as the Pelosi-Reid wing of their party demands more and more concessions.” (Source:OpinionJournal.com)

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Would You Believe…??

A major research institution has recently announced the discovery of the heaviest element yet known to science. This element has been tentatively named “Governmentium.”

 

Governmentium has I neutron, 12 assistant neutrons, 75 deputy neutrons, and 111 assistant deputy neutrons, giving it an atomic mass of 312.

 

These 312 particles are held together by forces called morons, which are surrounded by vast quantities of lepton-like particles called peons.

 

Governmentium has no electrons as it is inert. However, it can be detected as it impedes every reaction with which it comes in contact. A minute amount of Governmentium causes one reaction to take over 4 days to complete when it would normally take one second.

 

Governmentium has a normal half-life of 3 years; if it does not decay it undergoes a reorganization in which a portion of the assistant neutrons and deputy neurons exchange places.

 

In fact, Governmentium mass will actually increase over time, since each reorganization causes some morons to become neutrons, forming isodopes. This characteristic of moron-promotion leads some scientists to speculate that Governmentium is formed whenever morons reach a certain quantity in concentrations. This hypothetical quantity is referred to as “Critical morass.” You will know it when you see it.