%20(1)%20(4)%20(1).jpg)
Hmmmm-Its appointed SCOTUS Nut Cases effectively loading ammunition and arming misfits who believe retaliation is the only way to be seen, heard and recognized mistreating others the way they believe they’ve been mistreated.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
I was sent this by a dear friend and fellow memo reader. I questioned it's accuracy but thought the message so worthy I chose to post it anyway. You decide.
+++
John Swinton, former Chief of the most powerful and prestigious newspaper on earth, The New York Times, when asked to give a toast to the "free press" at the New York Press Club said the following:
"There is no such thing, at this date of the world's history, in America, as an independent press. You know it and I know it. There is not one of you who dares to write your honest opinions, and if you did, you know beforehand that it would never appear in print. I am paid weekly for keeping my honest opinion out of the paper I am connected with.
Others of you are paid similar salaries for similar things, and any of you who would be so foolish as to write honest opinions would be out on the streets looking for another job. If I allowed my honest opinions to appear in one issue of my paper, before twenty-four hours my occupation would be gone.
The business of the journalists is to destroy the truth; to lie outright; to pervert; to vilify; to fawn at the feet of mammon, and to sell his country and his race for his daily bread. You know it and I know it and what folly is this toasting an independent press? We are the tools and vassals of rich men behind the scenes. We are the jumping jacks, they pull the strings and we dance. Our talents, our possibilities and our lives are all the property of other men.
"We are intellectual prostitutes.”
+++++++++++++++++++++++
Belated posting:
+++
Have you ever wondered what happened to the 56 men
who signed the Declaration of Independence ?
Five signers were captured by the British as traitors,
and tortured before they died.
Twelve had their homes ransacked and burned.
Two lost their sons serving in the Revolutionary Army;
another had two sons captured.
Nine of the 56 fought and died from wounds or
hardships of the Revolutionary War. They signed and they pledged their lives, their fortunes, and their sacred honor.
What kind of men were they?
Twenty-four were lawyers and jurists. Eleven were merchants, nine were farmers and large plantation owners; men of means, well educated, but they signed the Declaration of Independence knowing full well that the penalty would be death if they were captured.
Carter Braxton of Virginia, a wealthy planter and
trader, saw his ships swept from the seas by the
British Navy. He sold his home and properties to
pay his debts, and died in rags.
Thomas McKeam was so hounded by the British
that he was forced to move his family almost constantly.
He served in the Congress without pay, and his family
was kept in hiding. His possessions were taken from him,
and poverty was his reward.
Vandals or soldiers looted the properties of Dillery, Hall, Clymer,Walton, Gwinnett, Heyward, Ruttledge, and Middleton.
At the battle of Yorktown , Thomas Nelson, Jr., noted that
the British General Cornwallis had taken over the Nelson
home for his headquarters. He quietly urged General
George Washington to open fire. The home was destroyed,
and Nelson died bankrupt.
Francis Lewis had his home and properties destroyed.
The enemy jailed his wife, and she died within a few months.
John Hart was driven from his wife's bedside as she was dying.
Their 13 children fled for their lives. His fields and his gristmill
were laid to waste. For more than a year he lived in forests
and caves, returning home to find his wife dead and his
children vanished.
So, take a few minutes while enjoying your 4th of July holiday and silently thank these patriots. It's not much to ask for the price they paid.
Remember: freedom is never free!
It's time we get the word out that patriotism
is NOT a sin, and the Fourth of July has more to it than beer,
picnics, and baseball games.
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Biden missteps:
+++
BLAME, AND WHERE IT TAKES US
By: Marvin L. Covault, Lt Gen US Army retired,
One thing President Biden is finding very difficult to do is to get through a prepared speech or an answer to a reporter’s question without blaming someone or something other than himself or his administration. I recall the Clintons doing it in the 1990s; they called it “spin” and they took it to a new level. Call it what you want, it is disgusting, distasteful, and an egregious failure of leadership. It is inevitably a failing leader’s last resort; blame, blame, blame.
He has blamed the Afghanistan debacle on, “the generals”, blamed tangled supply chains on “inflation”, blamed the overall economic nose-dive on “COVID and Putin” blamed surging lawlessness on “COVID and guns”, blamed out-of-control fuel prices on “Putin and the Ukraine invasion”, blamed gas prices on “fuel company CEOs”, Blamed increasing meat prices on “CEOs” and on and on and on.
TRUTH: Truth just doesn’t seem to matter to President Biden; he will say whatever it takes to get past the moment. “The border is not open.” The truth: Every statistic associated with illegal immigration tells us just the opposite. Biden June 2022: “We have the fastest-growing economy in the world.” The truth: More than 50 countries are growing faster. Biden: “People have record savings.” The truth: Wealth losses in the U.S. have exceeded $10 trillion so far in 2022, the most significant catastrophic vaporizations of wealth and savings in U.S. history. Biden’s spokesperson recently explained that “The economy is in a better place than it has been historically.” The truth: During the Trump presidency, before COVID-19, median household income rose by $6,446, the largest three-year gains in income for middle-class families in history. Under Biden, median income lost $5-6,000 in average wages and salaries when adjusted for inflation over the last year. Biden: “America is in a position to tackle a worldwide problem (inflation) that’s worse everywhere but here.” The truth: U.S. inflation is higher than in Japan, France, Germany, Britain, Italy, and Canada.
Why is he doing this? Here is one theory.
Politicians have a reputation for conveniently playing loose with the truth, yet they keep getting reelected. I’m no psychologist but it seems to me that if that behavior (routinely lying) is repeatedly rewarded (reelected) they just may begin to believe lying doesn’t matter; it’s not a big deal.
Our president spent his entire adult life as a professional politician. Until 2021 he had never led an organization, built anything, met a payroll, balanced an organization’s budget, been responsible for a dozen or so “senior executives” or had a staff of hundreds or thousands of subordinates.
Does congressional experience provide an individual with the building blocks to be president of the United States? Well, here is what we-the-people have been saying about that. For about 50 years Gallop has been conducting an annual poll to gather findings on a couple of pertinent questions.
The first has to do with confidence in a long list of American institutions. The 2021 poll tells us that Congress as an institution is very near the bottom of the list with 12% saying they have “a great deal” or “quite a lot” of confidence in the U.S Congress. By contrast, the U.S. Military has consistently been at or near the top with (in 2021) military at 69%.
A similar Gallop poll deals with Honesty and Ethics: In that poll, 2021, Members of Congress were rated “high/very high” by only 9% of the public and “low/very low” by 62%. By contrast Members of the Military were rated 81% high/very high and 1% low/very low.
One obvious conclusion from these two Gallop poles is that if the members of an organization are getting an “F” in honesty and ethics, the overall organization will get an “F” in confidence from We The People.
ACCOUNTABILITY: There is another very serious issue associated with blame and lying. It is his abrogation of one of the foundational elements of leadership, accountability. He talks to us about “the buck stops with me” but his level of hypocrisy on the issue of accountability is palpable. Saying and doing are two very different actions.
This is not a “blame game”, it is much too serious to be referred to as anything as trite as a game. This is about having a leader who is lying about two of the most important issues in this country that are negatively impacting every single person every day; inflation and gas prices. There is no factual data to back up his assertions and everyone knows it. For example, in 2020 the national average gas price dropped below $2.00 per gallon. It was $2.25 when Biden took office, $3.32 one year later and a month BEFORE Putin invaded Ukraine. Today, the national average gas price is $4.90 per gallon. Americans can rightly conclude if he will look at us through his teleprompter and lie about the big issues, he will likely lie about anything else to cover his tracks.
We all know what blame means, an attempt to deflect responsibility from one’s self. Another way to look at it is to define the exact opposite of blame which is accountability
The seriousness of the absence of accountability goes further. Very high up on the line-up of desirable leader character traits are trust and respect. Without accountability, neither trust nor respect will become part of the leadership equation. We cannot trust someone who lacks the moral courage to tell us the truth about the most important issues facing America. Without trust and accountability, how are we going to respect that person as our leader? The president’s pathetic pole numbers prove this point.
If you are looking for a single word that sums up the attributes of accountability, trust and respect it would be integrity. A person of integrity will consistently display moral commitment, selflessness, and confidence to speak out and act out with honesty and honor. A mid-1900s radio personality, Edward R. Murrow summed it up accurately with this, “To be persuasive you must be believable; to be believable you must be credible; to be credible you must be truthful.” Amen.
CULTUrE: Having discussed the president’s character, or lack thereof, we also must consider the larger issue; it is about the organization, i.e., the collective U.S.A.
Culture is a powerful and pervasive force in every organization and every organization, no matter how large or small, has a culture. Culture is an organization’s personality; caring, hateful, fast, honest, energetic, visionary, risk-taking, and vengeful. Culture will change over time for better or worse. Too many times senior leaders pay little or no attention to the culture of their organization until they wake up one day and figure out that it is a disaster and is dragging the entire organization down. The point is, that culture needs attention all the time. A leader does not build an organizational culture by sending out an email or memo. The leader defines what the culture currently is, decides what he/she wants it to be, and then sets in motion all the initiatives necessary to institutionalize it. It’s a lot of work; a leader must get every subordinate leader on board, make them actively participate and sell it, and talk about it openly and frequently. Everyone in the organization should be able to define the culture and its impact on the environment in which they work.
Here is the key question facing us on the subject of culture; what is happening right now, today at the leader level (the president), at the headquarters level (i.e., the entire Executive Branch), and the organization as a whole (the U.S.A)? There is no reason to rehash what the president is doing; he is consistently using blame as a leadership tool and it is a disaster.
Blame is spreading. It has become obvious that the secretaries of the departments, State, Defense, Transportation, Energy, Homeland Security, etc. have, by choice or otherwise, adopted blame as a leadership mechanism. A perfect example is Homeland Security Secretary Mayorkas during a recent congressional hearing on the disaster on the southern border singing directly from the Biden sheet of music about no such thing as an “open border, we are doing everything we can to contain illegal immigration.” Or to listen to Energy Secretary Granholm explaining that energy CEOs are the problem and if we-the-people would all buy an electric vehicle our energy problems would go away.
Finally, throughout the organization, the political left picks up on the blame culture, it spreads, and it is deemed an acceptable course of action by our liberal media and liberal institutions of higher learning. We become capable of creating a next generation of leaders who believe that blame is an acceptable leadership tool.
But others in the organization see culture for what it is - corrosive behavior that eats away at the foundation of leadership and the organization. Morale suffers and pride in workmanship declines among those who realize they are supporting a lie.
With two schools of thought on a culture of blame, ultimately the nation becomes more divided. Our president, the “great unifier” is failing the American people and the foundation of the republic.
CONCLUSIONS:
Why are great leaders great? Some people will refer to a successful leader as a, “born leader.” No such thing. First is desire. If a leader does not want to lead or is uncomfortable in the seat, they will likely fail. Secondly, is preparation. Great leaders have years of experience at the first-line leader level, the operational level, and finally at the strategic level. They are good at what they do as a result of a combination of formal leader development training, self-initiated study, having been properly mentored, and having experienced many successes and failures along the way.
I believe we can all agree that being president of the United States may be the most difficult, the most demanding leadership position in the world. A best-case scenario would be for the president to have experienced at least years if not hopefully decades of leader development at tactical through strategic levels, experienced near-term and long-range planning successes and failures, learned how and when to deal with direct-report subordinates as well as dozens, then hundreds or perhaps thousands of worker-bees at the lower levels, experienced how to deemphasize self-interests by always seeking the greater good for the organization as a whole and keeping that thought in the forefront of every action and reaction.
President Biden has none of this training and he is, therefore, failing the American people on so many fronts. His natural reaction is to turn to what 50 years of politics taught him; play loose with the truth and resort to blame, blame, and more blame.
Almost nothing damages the reputation of a leader faster than attempting to dodge an issue rather than deal with it. Blame is a dodge. Nothing positive will ever come of it.
BOTTOM LINE:
Our lives are defined by how we deal with adversity. When failure manifests its ugly head, the last course of action should be to abandon accountability because doing so ensures there also will be no trust or respect going forward.
A thought from an unknown author, “The only thing that happens when you throw dirt is that you lose ground.” Blame doesn’t inspire, it breeds malcontent, discord, disarray, frustration, and ultimately failure for we-the-people.
All leaders are held accountable for the welfare of their people, some leaders are additionally held accountable for the welfare of the organization.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
Merkel was the personification of a pig headed German and now Germany is paying the price while enhancing Putin's thirst for restoring the former USSR:
++++
Deem It Green
By Noah Rothman
Europe is staring down the barrel of a destabilizing energy crisis. The Continent’s efforts to thread an extremely fine needle—opposing Russia’s war of choice in Ukraine and refusing to fund it while preserving modern living standards—are failing. European Commission President warned this week that further reductions in Russian exports could fuel a winter of discontent in Europe, limiting the public’s tolerance for the pro[1]Ukrainian mission or even destabilizing governments. The situation is grim.
Of course, Europe’s energy woes are of its own making. The Continent devoted its energies to developing a green economy, but progress toward that objective was illusory. Russian fossil fuels grubstaked this project, and the Kremlin maintains a veto over it. And yet, so much of what Europe committed itself to was essentially a paradigm. It simply deemed various aspects of the energy mix environmentally
unsound, even if that designation was perfectly debatable. So, what has Europe done in response to its travails? It has rechristened formerly dangerous and dirty fuels “green.”
A European Parliament meeting this week produced a vote in favor of labeling natural gas and nuclear power “green” so as to comport with European Union environmental standards, which opens producers up to receive state subsidies and secure low-interest loans. Environmental activists are in a twist over what they call “greenwashing,” and they’re not wrong. The E.U. is, indeed, engaged in hypocrisy. It’s just the sort of hypocrisy that it had previously engaged in to appease environmental activists. Now, however, European parliamentarians must worry about appeasing everyone else.
This cut of prestidigitation, the forecasts, might be a sign of things to come beyond Europe’s borders. Climate activists mourn the maneuver’s potential to convince other developed and developing nations to slow their transition from reliable sources of power generation to less reliable renewables like wind and solar. If they’re right, it’s not just because fossil fuels and nuclear fission work when you need them to, but because designating natural gas and steam power environmentally unsound made little sense.
This act of prestidigitation, the New York Times forecasts, might be a sign of things to come beyond Europe’s borders. Climate activists mourn the maneuver’s potential to convince other developed and developing nations to slow their transition from reliable sources of power generation to less reliable renewables like wind and solar. If they’re right, it’s not just because fossil fuels and nuclear fission work when you need them to, but because designating natural gas and steam power environmentally unsound made little sense.
Natural gas has long been described as a “bridge fuel,” because it has the potential to reduce dependence on or displace entirely conventional fossil fuels that produce far more greenhouse gas emissions. This one-time waste product that was routinely burned off has become a staple of the global energy diet as a result of new extraction technologies. The environmental results of this revolution are measurable. “Since 2010, coal-to-gas switching has saved around 500 million tons of CO2,” the International Energy Agency confirms, “an effect equivalent to putting an extra 200 million EVs running on zero-carbon electricity on the road over the same period.”
The fact that natural gas produces fewer emissions and can therefore serve as a “bridge” to a greener future frustrates green activists to no end. We might attribute this hostility to zeal for the cause of environmental preservation if they weren’t just as gung-ho in their efforts to anathematize turbine-generated power produced by steam heat resulting from a controlled fission reaction. The activist class’s failure to make prudent and empirical distinctions between these two energy sources allowed the E.U. to lump them together—first, as unclean fuels and, now, as sources of “green” energy.
The Times indicates that this development was promoted by the stand European nations have taken against Russian aggression, which is partly true. But proposals along these lines circulated long before Russian forces poured over the Ukrainian border. In early January, for instance, an effort to deem natural gas and nuclear energy “transitional” green-energy sources for the purpose of generating investment in them gained significant traction. The plan stalled due to opposition from some anti-nuclear member states—Germany, most notably—and green-energy activists. If such a plan were to go into effect, Dutch lawmaker Bas Eickhout observed, “the entire climate leadership of the European Union [would be] down the drain.”
Well, bon voyage, European Union climate leadership. The discovery that we can simply deem transition fuels “green” for the sake of convenience exposes the political, not scientific, nature of this project, to say nothing of its impracticality. The fragile construct that allowed the Continent to pretend it wasn’t dependent on fossil fuels melted away upon first contact with the Hobbesian reality of geopolitics. If only Europe had the luxury of deeming the Russian menace out of existence. Unfortunately, reality doesn’t work that way.
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
+++
Corrupt Family in Chief Under FBI Investigation!
The Biden government’s reticence to discharge certain details, according to one prominent House Republican, suggests an effort to protect the Biden family from scrutiny.
The representative is requesting that Economic Advisor Janet Yellen release documents on Hunter Biden’s international business activities.
The Details
Rep. James Comer, the leading Republican on the House Committee on Accountability and Reform, requested information from Yellen in a letter dated July 6.
This was regarding what he believed to be “suspicious activity” on the part of the younger Biden, his acquaintances, and other Biden relatives. President Biden’s son, Hunter, is subject to an ongoing FBI probe into possible tax evasion.
Particularly during the time Biden served as vice president in the Obama administration, criticism has been building over his international business ties in nations including Ukraine, Russia, and China
In order to assist U.S. government authorities in preventing money laundering, U.S. banks are required by the Bank Secrecy Act to automatically generate suspicious behavior reports or SARs.
They also have to identify cash transactions of over $10,000 per day. In a prior letter to Yellen in late May, Comer asked for the SAR findings of Hunter Biden, but got no response.
He cited a recent Treasury Department rule that permits congressional personnel to peruse such information in a Treasury reading room when accusing the Biden administration of limiting Congress’s access to SARs.
They are not permitted to make copies of the paperwork.
Refusing to Let Go
Comer stated in the letter that “Treasury is failing to share SARs linked with Hunter Biden or his family and affiliates the president,” despite Treasury’s claims that it “provides SARs to the Senate in a manner that allows vigorous scrutiny.”
He mentioned that Treasury officials informed conservative staff “they will not give SARs to committee conservatives unless Democrats join the demand.”
That was in stark contrast to the Treasury Department’s declaration made soon after Comer’s original request.
In order to give the impression of transparency, the Biden government is willing to give the media a false tale, according to Comer, who added the administration is still resisting congressional oversight.
“The activities of the Treasury Department warrant examination. They raise further concerns regarding the extent to which Biden is using the federal government to provide protection for the Biden clan and its friends.”
The American people should have a right to know if the president’s ties to his son’s business dealings were done at the expense of American interests and whether they pose a risk to national security.
A dozen institutions, such as the Bank of China, Cathay Bank, and JP Morgan Chase, were contacted by Comer in May, but none of them responded.
The banks informed Comer’s office and Epoch Times they could not deliver the requested documents without a warrant.
++++++++
Bill Engvall Explains Why He'll Never Take His Wife Deer Hunting Again!
+++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++
No comments:
Post a Comment