The IRS Scandal, Harlan at his best, economics, and other interesting matters in a mixed mail bag.

Mail 775 Monday, May 20, 2013

Harlan Ellison at his best

Dr Pournelle

In a 1994 interview <http://www.sfsignal.com/archives/2013/05/video-tom-snyders-1994-interview-with-harlan-ellison/> , Tom Snyder shocked Harlan Ellison into silence. Hard to believe but true.

Live long and prosper

h lynn keith

That is definitely Harlan at his best. Done back when Genie was still in existence. And as one might suspect, Harlan is like that off stage as well as on. He hand delivered his contribution to my 2020 Vision anthology in 1974. I have known Harlan for a very long time, and we remain friends. And this interview is worth watching.

IRS & 2012 Turnout

Jerry,

So, the number of conservative groups harassed and obstructed by the IRS

2010-2012 is at 500 and still rising.

http://townhall.com/tipsheet/guybenson/2013/05/15/reports-irs-spared-liberal-groups-as-tea-party-languished-more-conservative-orgs-targeted-than-first-thought-n1596864

Many of these groups say they would have worked on turning out conservative votes last fall, if they hadn’t been all tied up fighting the IRS with their fundraising crippled, or outright discouraged from organizing at all.

And Obama won last November essentially because liberal turnout broke records while conservative turnout was down several points from historical trends. Hmm. I am shocked – shocked I say – that the side perpetually howling about "voter suppression" turns out to have won by flagrantly using the power of the IRS to do wholesale voter suppression.

Meanwhile, today a reporter asked Obama if anyone in the White House had known what the IRS was up to – and Obama ducked the question. What, a forthright "no" seemed inadvisable? I wonder why?.. I predict that we’ll be a long painful time getting to the truth on that point.

It doesn’t decrease my respect for this administration, because I haven’t had any for a long time now. It sure does confirm my decision to remain, for purposes of public political discussion,

Porkypine

IRS WH Link?

Jerry,

Now this is interesting. The head of the IRS employees union (active in supporting Obama’s election) met with the President at the White House in spring 2010 – one day before the IRS first started officially targeting the Tea Party.

Who was at that meeting and what do they remember is one angle to investigate. It’ll most likely produce a lot of "I don’t recall"s, of course.

But emails and phone calls over the next 24 hours between the union head and the IRS managers involved could be worth a look.

The President has benefited from the assumption that he couldn’t have been directly involved from a lot of people writing about this. Many, I expect, who don’t necessarily believe it, but who assume he’d never be so clumsy as to be caught. That may not turn out to be the case.

http://spectator.org/archives/2013/05/20/obama-and-the-irs-the-smoking/

Porkypine

Non-Profit Double Standard

Jerry,

One developing line of counter-attack by Administration supporters on the IRS scandal seems to be that 501c non-profits are not SUPPOSED to do politics, therefore proctological scrutiny for the wave of Tea Party 501c applications was entirely justified.

What this misses is that lefty 501c’s have been flagrantly ignoring the politicking limits for decades and getting away with it. The precedent had been set, the 501c politicking limits were largely a dead letter – as long as your group had "Progress" or "Social Justice" in its name.

"Constitution" or "Tea Party", apparently not so much. When conservatives came along and started making use of the mechanisms the left had developed, suddenly the letter of the law was to be be applied again? (Over-applied; much of the data the IRS was collecting makes sense – name your donors, and associates, and oh by the way, interns too

– mainly in the context of building a political enemies database.)

Now, if the IRS BOLO criteria had also included "progress" and "justice"

as keywords, they might have a point. But the lefty political-group 501c apps continued to skate through the process.

It won’t fly. At least, it had better not fly – this is effectively a formal declaration of anathema against half the country. If what’s left of our traditional governing mechanisms can’t correct this, then they’ll have been conclusively proven broken. At which point, things will get far too interesting in ways I won’t even try to predict.

I like a quiet life myself. Which perversely means I’m going to have to get off my butt and get involved in local electoral politics for 2014.

Oh well, life in the early 21st century – one heaping serving of cognitive dissonance after another.

Porkypine

I do note that the plea that they needed a quick way to separate the “legitimate” social responsibility organizations from the political ones did not stop them from approving dozens to hundreds of organizations for “social responsibility” and favoring “progressive solutions to social problems” without much if any scrutiny, while those who used the word Patriotic in their statement of purpose got special screening.

As to how high this went, I know that campaign managers will sometimes hear stories they don’t want the candidate to know. The problem is that if the candidate is in political office – particularly if he is the President – and the activity is illegal, then it’s your duty to tell him. Those who knew and didn’t say understand – or should understand – that while they were expected to be silent, the cost of that is that they have to go.

Subject: White House Advisor On Tea Party Targeting: Law Is "Irrelevant" <http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348729/white-house-advisor-tea-party-targeting-law-irrelevant>

This shouldn’t surprise us from an administration who considers themselves above the law:

http://www.nationalreview.com/corner/348729/white-house-advisor-tea-party-targeting-law-irrelevant

Tracy

501(c)(4)s

When I was on the board of a 501(c)(3) an Oregon based association for Non Profits held seminars every January, which I attended with great attention to details offered.

The Oregon Department of Justice sent a speaker and the IRS always flew in Joe IForgetHisLastName, a high ranking manager from their San Francisco mot-for-profit branch office to give their POV on things.

Good thing because in the last 4 years, the IRS has been making pretty big changes for non profits.

A 501(c) application used to be pretty simple and inexpensive. It’s now over 30 pages and the filing fee is north of $700.

Once you could file a low volume non-profit’s tax return on a post card. That’s going away. The 990 annual tax form has gone from about 8 pages to over 30. There are questions you don’t get to not answer, though for now, they don’t care what you answer. That will change.

Questions like "do you have a written anti-discrimination policy?" and "Do you publish your annual 990 form on your website?"

Some of the current scandal is odd to me. For instance, if you incorporate a new not-for-profit TODAY and plan to file for 501(c)(3) status, you can give donors receipts for donations and they can deduct these donations based only on your intent. You have 18 months to file the application for a 501(c)(3). If you file, your donors can continue to deduct donations till the final determination. If you fail to file, they must stop taking donations for donations made after your 18 months in biz anniversary but the earlier donations are still kosher. If you file and are turned down, it gets squishy, but if you appeal and win, your donors are fine. If you appeal and are again turned down, the donations between 18 months and final TD can be challenged at audit.

The Barack H. Obama Foundation was approved in 34 days. This is unequal treatment. Since 2008 it has been 6-9 months for new corporations. The one on whose board I served took 18 months but it had a history to sort out.

Scotch

 

 

 

 

Stung by the Hornet’s Nest: Hasse Sex-with-Insects Tale a Hoax

http://www.ibtimes.co.uk/articles/468132/20130516/man-sex-hornet-s-nest-fake-hoax.htm

Yes, I thought at the time the story seemed unlikely, but then that was obvious. Had it been true it it certainly was a credential for a well earned Darwin Award. Ah, well.

ISDC, navy woman

Hey Jerry –

1) I’ll be giving two Server Sky talks this year at ISDC. Summary: http://server-sky.com/ISDC2013 . Redefining SBSP small works as well as making rockets big. Will I see you there, or should I stop in LA sometime?

2) I toured an Arleigh Burke class missile frigate with the fire control officer, a young woman in charge of the 5 inch deck gun. She /loves/ that gun, can do the physics and patch the software, and can put a shell through a dinner plate at 10 mile range. Whoever she targets dies quick. There may be consternation about service integration in high places, but women like her are doing a great job protecting the Republic.

Keith Lofstrom

I was a guest on the commissioning cruise for the missile ship USS Grace Hopper (“Amazing Grace”), which was the first ship designed for mixed sex crews. No one questions the capability of women to perform military tasks, particularly things like naval operations. The question is at what cost do youy integrate the sexes in the armed services? That depends in large part on just what you intend your armed forces to do. One of the costs is that you pretty well deny yourself the service of a particular kind of man, who makes a very effective soldier, but who is also very likely to end up on charges of sexual harassment.

There are other costs.

If you do not let women perform certain tasks then the cost is the service of some very competent people. We had managed that situation fairly well until recently when it was decided that military service was a right and all military jobs ought to be open to all who want to try out for them. We have yet to see the cost of that decision. My guess is that it will be greater than we expected it to be.

Stephen Vincent Benét

Dr. Pournelle, you wrote:

I read this in the public library in Memphis about 1940. I have never forgotten it

I first read "Nightmare Number Three" when I was in 6th Grade at Carson Long Military Academy in Pennsylvania. It was actually part of the required reader for my class in that long-ago school year of 1969-1970. The poem made such a deep impression on me that I always keep a copy around.

The school also had certain requirements in education that I think would serve the public system well. They held a twice-yearly competition where you had to recite a poem from memory – mine would always be Longfellow’s "Paul Revere’s Ride" due to an actual family connection to one of the other riders. The other requirement was that on Lincoln’s Birthday (still celebrated as a separate holiday at the time) you had to be able to recite the Gettysburg Address from memory if you wanted the day off from school or school activities.

David Crowley

A Very Good Year

Was 2, 870,002,013 BC, according to British and Canadian geologists who have tasted it and other vintages encountered as isolated springs of water , out of contact with the atmosphere for several billion years, and flowing from the newly opened deep levels of the two mile deep Timmens copper mine in Ontario.

Saturated with hydrogen, its capacity to support life resembles the hydrothermal fluids emerging from ocaen rift and trench black smokers today.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uy-6Jo34z1Y

—

Russell Seitz

Fellow of the Department of Physics Harvard University

Star Wars convention brawl - 

http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/news/uk/article3765790.ece

Star Wars convention opts for the force of the fist

Norwich Star Wars fans clashed with rival sci-fi groups after claiming the town was not big enough for both conventions

Nico Hines <http://www.thetimes.co.uk/tto/public/profile/Nico-Hines>

Published at 3:56PM, May 15 2013

It was probably the first time Norfolk Constabulary officers have broken up a fight involving two doctors and a judge.

Rival science-fiction clubs had to be separated by the force last weekend as the Norwich Star Wars Convention descended into a daft brawl.

Aficionados of the George Lucas space series went head-to-head with Judge Dredd and two fully-grown men dressed as Doctor Who. It was the culmination of a long-running feud between two of Norwich’s most illustrious sci-fi organisations.

In a convention centre far, far away, just north of the A11’s Thickthorn Services, more than 1,000 people, many in fancy dress, gathered to catch up with friends and meet actors who had played minor roles in cult sci-fi films including The Empire Strikes Back and Blade II.

The unexpected melodrama unfolded when Jim Poole, treasurer of the Norwich Sci Fi Club, arrived at the event, which had been organised by the Norwich Star Wars Club. A dispute between the groups began when one of them claimed the town was not big enough for both of their conventions.

The Norwich Star Wars Club held its first annual fair in 2007, but stopped after three events because the organiser, Richard Walker, became seriously ill. According to Mr Walker, he gave his blessing for the Norwich Sci Fi Club to hold its own sci-fi convention in the city with stalls selling games and models, and guest appearances by actors in costume.

When Mr Walker had recovered from his cancer treatment, he announced his plans for the “4th Norwich Sci-Fi and Film Convention”, which went ahead last weekend. The chairman of the Norwich Sci Fi Club objected, however, demanding that the function should not be called a “convention” to ensure there was no confusion with his own event.

“It has been a long running saga,” said Mr Walker, who confronted the rival club’s treasurer on Sunday. “I saw him walking around with a digital camera videoing everything. I walked over and asked him what he was doing here and he told me he had paid his money to get in.

“I told him I wanted him to leave. I put my hand in my pocket and got out £10 and offered it to him, saying it was a refund on his £5 admission and another £5 to get a taxi.”

He admitted that he then laid his hands on Mr Poole and tried to escort him from the convention centre on University of East Anglia campus. “He refused to leave again and I told him I wanted him to go as he had caused enough trouble in the past,” he said.

Mr Poole, who claimed he was only at the event to improve his Doctor Who autograph collection, continued the argument with Mr Walker outside the venue. He was accompanied by three friends from his club. One was dressed as the Doctor Who played by David Tennant, another was impersonating Peter Davidson’s version in a cricket sweater; the third was wearing a Judge Dredd costume.

Police officers confirmed that they had been called to reports of a man being assaulted but made no arrests after studying CCTV footage. “The two rival groups were spoken to and advised to keep out of each other’s way,” a spokesman said.

The Norwich Sci Fi Club will go ahead with its own Nor-Con Norwich Sci Fi convention in September at the Norwich North Holiday Inn.

Sounds like an episode of The Big Bang Theory…

Jerry

APOD: 2013 May 14 – Galaxy Collisions: Simulation vs Observations:

http://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap130514.html

It is very cool.

Ed

I will have more on the problem of colliding galaxies for The Big Bang and Expanding Universe theory in n upcoming review about cosmology. But yeah, it’s cool. Thanks.

The Organleggers

Jerry,

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/crime/10055772/British-schoolgirl-murdered-for-her-organs-in-India-family-claim.html

Jim

Bug Jack Baron…

Unknown Mathematician Proves Elusive Property of Prime Numbers

Jerry

An unknown mathematician proves one of the oldest unsolved problems in mathematics — the twin primes conjecture, which proposes that there are infinitely many pairs of primes that differ by only 2:

http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2013/05/twin-primes/

“Rumors swept through the mathematics community that a great advance had been made by a researcher no one seemed to know — someone whose talents had been so overlooked after he earned his doctorate in 1992 that he had found it difficult to get an academic job, working for several years as an accountant and even in a Subway sandwich shop. “Basically, no one knows him,” said Andrew Granville, a number theorist at the Université de Montréal. “Now, suddenly, he has proved one of the great results in the history of number theory.”

“Mathematicians at Harvard University hastily arranged for Zhang to present his work to a packed audience there on May 13. As details of his work have emerged, it has become clear that Zhang achieved his result not via a radically new approach to the problem, but by applying existing methods with great perseverance. “The big experts in the field had already tried to make this approach work,” Granville said. “He’s not a known expert, but he succeeded where all the experts had failed.”

“Prime numbers are abundant at the beginning of the number line, but they grow much sparser among large numbers. Of the first 10 numbers, for example, 40 percent are prime — 2, 3, 5 and 7 — but among 10-digit numbers, only about 4 percent are prime. For over a century, mathematicians have understood how the primes taper off on average: Among large numbers, the expected gap between prime numbers is approximately 2.3 times the number of digits; so, for example, among 100-digit numbers, the expected gap between primes is about 230. But that’s just on average. Primes are often much closer together than the average predicts, or much further apart. In particular, “twin” primes often crop up — pairs such as 3 and 5, or 11 and 13, that differ by only 2. And while such pairs get rarer among larger numbers, twin primes never seem to disappear completely.”

The rest of the paper is about how he did it. But what drama! If someone wrote this as fiction, it would be dismissed as unrealistic. Heh.

Ed

I remember a six month fascination with number theory when I was in high school, and another as an undergraduate, but in both cases I found that the pretty theories required an awful lot of hard work if you wanted to master proofs; and I didn’t have the temperament for it.

Stocks and windows 8

Dear Dr. Pournelle,

Two things which I believe you will find of interest.

First , Microsoft has admitted defeat and is scaling back Windows 8. The ‘under the hood’ bits will remain, but Metro will be far less obtrusive. A good move on their part, I think. From what I’ve seen the same interface doesn’t work well on both tablets and PCs.

http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/330c8b8e-b66b-11e2-93ba-00144feabdc0.html#axzz2SgdQzjSe

Second, this article notes that although the US appears to be heading into recession stock markets index are higher than ever. Why is this?

http://www.cnbc.com/id/100718144

I suggest this explanation is accurate:

"It is precisely because growth continues to underperform that the Federal Reserve <http://www.cnbc.com/id/43752521> can and will keep interest rates at record lows and its supplemental bond-buying program in place.

And that guarantees two things: first, that investors—especially pension funds which need to hit annual return targets north of 5 percent—will continue to pile into riskier, higher-yielding assets; and second, that companies able to take advantage of these super-low borrowing costs will continue issuing debt to buy back shares of their own stock, supporting both their individual performance and that of the broader market.

No wonder investors describe it as a hold-your-nose-and-invest kind of environment. Voodoo shop? You bet, says Brian Reynolds of Rosenblatt Securities; but "we think this boom will go on for years to come because of those [pension] cash flows." A new acronym—FOBOR, or FOrced Buyers Of Risk—is making City rounds. Even the old Chuck Prince line ("As long as the music is playing, you’ve got to get up and dance") is becoming alarmingly common again."

Oh yes. Also, Ender’s Game has evidently been made into a movie.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vP0cUBi4hwE&feature=player_embedded

Respectfully,

Brian P.

CocaCola went back to The Real Thing after the New Coke fiasco. Now Microsoft…

I try to stay away from comments about investments, but it should be clear that very low borrowing rates is often a formula for producing a bubble.

Economic Recovery Still Lags

View online at: http://patriotpost.us/editions/18034

Monday Brief

Economic Recovery Still Lags

May 6, 2013 <http://patriotpost.us/editions/18034/print> <http://pdf.patriotpost.us/2013-05-06-brief-59d6b6ef.pdf>

The Foundation

"How prone all human institutions have been to decay." –James Monroe

Government

"US job growth in April beat economist expectations as nonfarm payrolls rose 165,000, and the jobless rate fell to a four-year low of 7.5%. But the report contained worrisome signs that President Obama’s health care reform law is hurting full-time, high-wage employment. While the American economy added 293,000 jobs last month, according to the separate household survey, the number of persons employed part time for economic reasons — ‘involuntary part-time workers’ as the Labor Department calls them — increased by almost as much, by 278,000 to 7.9 million. These folks were working part time because a) their hours had been cut back or b) they were unable to find a full-time job. At the same time, the U-6 unemployment rate — a broader measure of joblessness that includes discouraged workers and part-timers who want a full-time gig — rose from 13.8% to 13.9%. … The labor force participation rate was dead in the water. If it were back to January 2009 levels, the U-3 unemployment rate would be 10.9%. … Only 53.9% of private industries added jobs last month, the second lowest of the labor market recovery, according to JPM. … If the economy continues to add jobs at the 2013 pace of 196,000 a month, the labor market would return to pre-recession employment levels in seven years and ten months, according to the Hamilton Project’s ‘jobs gap’ calculator." –American Enterprise Institute’s James Pethokoukis <http://www.aei-ideas.org/2013/05/was-the-april-jobs-report-really-the-obamacare-jobs-report/>

Post Your Opinion <http://patriotpost.us/editions/18034#post-comment>

For the Record

"9.5 million Americans have left the workforce during the presidency of Barack Obama, according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. In April, the total number of Americans counted as ‘not in the labor force’ declined for the first time since December, but that number was still near a record high at 89,936,000. Those not in the labor force declined by 31,000, from a record high of 89,967,000 in March. That broke the recent record of 89,304,000 not in the labor force in February of this year. Since February 2009, the first full month of Obama’s presidency, 9,549,000 people have left the labor force. There were 80,387,000 Americans not working that month, compared with 89,936,000 not working or looking today, according to the latest economic release from BLS. … In the 50 months since Obama has been in office, the number of people counted as not in the labor force has declined 16 times." –CNSNews’ Elizabeth Harrington <http://cnsnews.com/news/article/95-million-people-have-left-workforce-under-obama>

Re: The Left

"Liberals deny that raising labor cost through minimum wages reduces incentives to hire. But if you asked a liberal for advice on how to stop rich people from shirking their tax obligations, they’d say raise the penalty. Ask low-information Harvard University doctors what should be done to stem gun violence and they answer that government should institute ‘a new, substantial national tax on all firearms and ammunition.’ Ask Illinois’ Cook County Board of Commissioners President Toni Preckwinkle how to reduce purchases of bullets and guns. She’d say levy a nickel tax on each bullet and a $25 tax on each gun. Liberals demonstrate they understand the law of demand — that raising the cost of something lessens the amount taken — but they deny that it applies to labor. That’s as ludicrous as suggesting that the law of gravity applies to everything in the universe except cute creatures, such as pandas and puppies." –economist Walter E. Williams <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17926>

Essential Liberty

"It used to be that Americans mostly agreed that in order to attain citizenship, immigrants had to not only come to this country legally but also demonstrate, after training and study in the American system, that they believed in the unique United States Constitution and embraced what it means to be an American. Though that still occurs in the naturalization process, we seem to have abandoned it altogether in connection with the immigration debate. What sense does it make that we seek to instill a love of America in those earnestly seeking to acquire legal citizenship through the proper procedures but ignore it altogether in our rush to legalize 11 million illegals? … Indeed, hard-leftists don’t just disagree with many of America’s founding ideals; they believe that it’s somehow backward even to have such ideals, because to them, it reflects a prejudice against other systems, cultures and values. So, you see, this is not really a debate over whether the American system and the ideas and values undergirding it produced the greatest nation in world history and thus should be preserved. It is a core disagreement about whether it’s even proper and desirable to endorse a unique set of founding ideals as being superior to any other." –columnist David Limbaugh <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17993>

Insight

"Consensus: The process of abandoning all beliefs, principles, values, and policies in search of something in which no one believes, but to which no one objects; the process of avoiding the very issues that have to be solved, merely because you cannot get agreement on the way ahead. What great cause would have been fought and won under the banner: ‘I stand for consensus?’" –British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher (1925-2013)

The Gipper

"The gun has been called the great equalizer, meaning that a small person with a gun is equal to a large person, but it is a great equalizer in another way, too. It insures that the people are the equal of their government whenever that government forgets that it is servant and not master of the governed." –Ronald Reagan <http://reagan2020.us/>

Political Futures

"[T]he institutions — the organs of the body politic — that are the most obsessed with eradicating bigotry (as liberals define it) tend to be the places that have to worry about it the least. The Democratic Party is consumed with institutionalized angst about prejudice, intolerance and bigotry in America. But the odds are that relatively few of these people (particularly those under the age of 50) have been exposed to much real racism or intolerance. The same goes for the mainstream media. In fact, many major media outlets have explicit policies dedicated to hiring and promoting minorities, women, gays, etc. Like the Democratic Party, some have very strict hiring quotas in this regard. The well-paid executives and managers of these institutions come from social backgrounds where the tolerance for anything smacking of overt bigotry is not just zero, but in the negative range; they bend over backwards to celebrate members of the officially recognized coalition of the oppressed." –columnist Jonah Goldberg <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17998>

Opinion in Brief

"If our educational institutions — from the schools to the universities — were as interested in a diversity of ideas as they are obsessed with racial diversity, students would at least gain experience in seeing the assumptions behind different visions and the role of logic and evidence in debating those differences. Instead, a student can go all the way from elementary school to a Ph.D. without encountering any fundamentally different vision of the world from that of the prevailing political correctness. Moreover, the moral perspective that goes with this prevailing ideological view is all too often that of people who see themselves as being on the side of the angels against the forces of evil — whether the particular issue at hand is gun control, environmentalism, race or whatever. … The failure of our educational system goes beyond what they fail to teach. It includes what they do teach, or rather indoctrinate, and the graduates they send out into the world, incapable of seriously weighing alternatives for themselves or for American society." –economist Thomas Sowell <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17925>

Culture

"Not long ago — OK, 50 years ago — Sports Illustrated put athletes on its covers because they did things only Mickey Mantle, Jimmy Brown, Bobby Orr or Wilt Chamberlain could do on the playing field, not in the sack. Now [NBA player] Jason Collins’s sexual affiliation is the biggest news in sports? Does anyone know, or care, how many points per game he scores or how many shots he blocks? No. Being gay and his being willing to announce it to the entire sports world is what’s important now. … I’m sure most of Collins’ family and teammates have known he was gay for years, but because they’re decent and good people who cared about his privacy, they kept the big sports ‘news’ to themselves. This isn’t about sports at all. It’s partly a case of identity politics. That’s why Obama was in such a rush to congratulate Collins on his courage to come out and say he was a proud member of the Democrat Party’s most loyal sex-based constituency. … Gays have been playing pro sports forever. Big deal. No one asked and no one told. Sports should be about winning and teamwork and accomplishment. Owners, coaches and fans don’t care what color their star players’ skin is, what their ethnicities are or who they sleep with — and neither should the rest of us. Wake me up when this embarrassing gay-pride parade is over, please." –columnist Michael Reagan <http://patriotpost.us/opinion/17978>

Post Your Opinion <http://patriotpost.us/editions/18034#post-comment>

Faith and Family

"If we believe America was founded on timeless principles that God wove into the fabric of human existence, then we must put our faith in them and believe they still ring true in good hearts. Secondly, we must employ the mechanism designed to be the most effective for passing them along, namely, small groups. The smallest living organism is the cell; as it divides it multiplies so that within a very short time a single cell has become a tissue, a tissue an organ, multiple organs with specific functions form a body, that is life. So then let us commit to forming these associations, first within our own families, our neighborhoods, our communities. Get a good study guide on the essentials of liberty to guide the discussion. Emphasize action. To ensure success keep Faith In God at the center; more specifically let Jesus Christ be the nucleus of the group to use each individual as His hands, eyes and mouthpiece to bring healing and hope. As you grow in wisdom, action and numbers divide the groups and continue to grow your influence. We didn’t get here overnight and we won’t get it back any faster. Difficult times are ahead; we will need each other and Him now more than ever." –Patriot Post Grassroots contributor Charlie Lyon <http://patriotpost.us/commentary/17962>

Reader Comments

"The reason Obama wants to purge Christians <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/17989/> serious about their faith from the U.S. military is to remove any who would oppose his statist and dictatorial designs. He wants in the military only those who will follow orders from above blindly and without regard to either the Constitution or unalienable rights. Christians in the military are an impediment to his totalitarian plans, which he has been implementing throughout the federal government since he took office." –Bob in Hattiesburg, Mississippi

"Well Court Martial me <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/17989/> then because I won’t stop believing in Christ and telling others the reason for my hope and faith." –Jim in New Haven

"Courts Martial for the Faithful is outrageous <http://patriotpost.us/alexander/17989/> ! The president of the United States is under Oath to ‘support and defend the Constitution against all enemies, foreign and domestic,’ and with this proclamation he becomes an enemy of our Constitution! I am retired USAF and I would’ve taken a court-martial before denying GOD!" –Harry in Belpre, Ohio

<https://patriotpostshop.com/categories/80>

The Last Word

"So Medicaid, which is going to cost a trillions, has shown in a new study to not improve the physical health of those who have it. Its trillions of dollars and does nothing. So it’s an easy choice to just cut this and save tons of money, right? Nope, the left are promoting how Medicaid improves ‘mental health.’ Trillions of dollars, and people feel better — which is probably just because people feel better thinking they’re covered even though the coverage actually does nothing. So we could just pretend to cover people — placebo coverage — and get the same effect for much cheaper. But the left will never go along with that. If a giant government program is a complete and utter failure, that just means it need to be made even gianter. If there was a government program that just put trillions of dollars in a hole and burned it, the left would go on and on about how much warmth for the poor that program created and how we need to burn even more money. We can’t ever get rid of government programs no matter how useless they are. And that’s why I think the only step is to start to train our kids to build a new, better government after this one collapses." –humorist Frank J. Fleming <http://www.imao.us/index.php/2013/05/medicaid-burning-trillions/>

Semper Vigilo, Fortis, Paratus et Fidelis!

Nate Jackson for The Patriot Post Editorial Team

*PUBLIUS*