SOAR Blogs

I was excited to attend the 2012 Oakland County Republican Party’s Lincoln Day Dinner.  I looked forward to sharing rubber chicken with friends and likeminded Patriots, Tea Partier’s, Conservatives and Republicans while enjoying the atmosphere.

Upon entering I was struck by the sheer magnitude of the event.  This wasn’t your Daddy’ Lincoln Day Dinner.  It wasn’t even reminiscent of recent Lincoln Day Dinners which have averaged around 500 people per year.  Fourteen hundred were expected tonight.  Tonight would deliver that and more.

I walked into an exhibit hall that was dressed for a party.  I was greeted by a sea of tables; imagine well over one hundred of tables dressed for a wedding.  Dozens of candidates, groups and issue tables lined the room; some of them barking like carnival operators at a street fair.  I was confronted with a herd of enthusiastic and youthful sticker bearers looking for their next walking billboard. Let’s not forget the hundreds of well-dressed and enthusiastic patrons.

As I waded through the tide of tables I was a bit taken aback by the magnitude of the event.  The volume of activity in any direction at any given time was bewildering.  This was clearly a well-organized and orchestrated event.

When we arrived at our table we were greeted with a delicious salad and some republican swag; Coffee cups, a Precinct Delegate Manual (A great piece of info…more on this later), a Lincoln Day Program, and great conversation.

Carol Cain

As the evening progressed we were greeted by a quickly filling room, announcements by Oakland County Chair, Jim Thienel, Lena Koretzky, emcee and host of Michigan Matters Carol Cain, Secretary of State Ruth Johnson, and the Cornerstone school choir’s breathtaking rendition of America the Beautiful. 

Greetings by current Michigan GOP Chair Robert Schostak and former Chair Ron Weiser led to a video message from County Exec. L. Brooks Patterson.  Carol Cain, as promised during her introduction, kept the night moving at a good clip and kept the event on schedule.

By now I am sure you are saying “Get on with it already!”

We certainly were not disappointed by the continuing tradition of the rubber chicken dinner (particularly rubbery this evening), but were politely surprised with the cheesecake that followed.  However, the biggest surprise was yet to come.

Later that evening the show stopping speech of the night was delivered.  But it did not come from who you might expect.  With Ann Romney and Rick Santorum as keynote speakers it may surprise you to know the real treat of the night was Reverend C. L. Bryant.

Rev.C. L. Bryant

Rev. Bryant is a native of Shreveport, LA.  He has a Master’s degree in Theology and has been an ordained Baptist minister and pastor of 32 years.  This former president of the NAACP’s Garland, Texas Chapter, self-professed “Democratic Radical” now believes the values that he once vehemently upheld has led the Black community into a state of bondage to the US government.  He recently filmed and is releasing a movie entitled, “Runaway Slave”, which is due to premiere in Michigan in March (and S.O.A.R. will be involved with that effort).

The rousing speech struck right to the heart of our nation’s problems and led to nearly a dozen standing ovations and inspired many conservatives into action once again; igniting their passion to honor their forefathers by protecting and preserving their legacy.  We were left with a feeling of electric passion to get to work.

Stacy Swimp, of the Frederick Douglass Foundation gave a fiery short speech to introduce Rev. Bryant, and should not be overlooked either.  He is also known in Metro Detroit as a frequent guest of Huel Perkins on Fox 2′s “Let It Rip”.

While Rick Santorum’s speech was genuine and heartfelt; appealing to America and Detroit to return to family roots and respect and honor our family’s heritage and sacrifice, it was clear to many in attendance that Reverend C.L. Bryant had stolen the night away.

Lena Epstein Koretzky

This event was a real testament to Lincoln Dinner Chair Lena Koretzky’s organizing ability and the sheer will of Jim Thienel and Dennis Pittman; primarily whose efforts made this event the spectacle that it was, as well as their tireless labor in building the party financially and educationally, while integrating many groups and different personalities into one cohesive force in Oakland County. 

Editor Note: While I do not agree with every viewpoint of Mr. Freeman’s, I do respect the man’s work and intelligence….especially here. -SH

The Postal Services created a stamp with a picture of President Obama on it.  The Postal Service noticed that the stamp was not sticking to envelopes.  This enraged the President, who had demanded a full investigation.

After a month of testing and $1.73 million in congressional spending, a special Presidential commission presented the following findings:

1.The stamp is in perfect order.
2. There is nothing wrong with the glue.
3. People are spitting on the wrong side

Popular action-drama Buffy the Vampire Slayer may have left the airwaves in 2003, but the adventure continues in a comic book series produced by original series creator Joss Whedon. This week, the comic caught the attention of USA Today for an upcoming story in which protagonist Buffy Summers finds herself single, jobless, and pregnant after a drunken party she barely remembers. Unwilling to simultaneously deal with both parenthood and monster fighting, she plans to have an abortion.

Whedon explains:

“Buffy was always about the arc of a life, and it wasn’t ever going to be one of those shows where they were perpetually in high school and never asked why,” Whedon says. “It was about change. So there’s never a time when Buffy’s life isn’t relevant.” […]

“It offends me that people who purport to be discussing a decision that is as crucial and painful as any a young woman has to make won’t even say something that they think is going to make some people angry.”

Right off the bat, the story’s premise seems highly suspect: after seven seasons’ worth of fighting evil and having the weight of the world on her shoulders, Buffy still lets her guard down so fully that she can get unknowingly impregnated by strangers? I understand the value of flawed characters who learn through mistakes, but come on. You’d think the life of a superhero would drill a certain sense of responsibility into someone. Even setting aside the morality, aren’t drunken blackouts a prime opportunity for bad guys to attack? If they really wanted to tell a story about unplanned pregnancy, how hard would it have been to, say, give Buffy a genuine romantic interest who bails at the prospect of fatherhood?

Despite Buffy’s definite sounding “I’m going to have an abortion” declaration, there are signs that the story could go either way. On the one hand, Whedon’s talk of abortion being a “painful” decision for young women may be true as far as it goes, but such rhetoric is often code for pro-choicers who really mean it’s too painful a decision for any of us judgmental anti-choice yahoos to intrude on. And while I never watched Buffy myself, I did watch Whedon’s short-lived sci-fi series Firefly, a couple episodes of which indicate Whedon has a rather lax view of sexual mores.

On the other hand, Buffy’s baby isn’t dead yet, and if Comics Alliance’s preview is any indication, our heroine might still change her mind—Buffy is shown having a conversation with Robin Wood (I think; thanks, Wikipedia!), the son of an unwed mother:

BUFFY: I guess it’s obvious what I should do.

ROBIN: I don’t think it is.

BUFFY: What do you mean? You grew up resenting what Nikki did to you. I can’t put a kid through that.

ROBIN: I know. But I’m here because Nikki decided to have me. I think you should consider having the baby.

Lastly, one of Comics Alliance’s commenters points out that the internal rules of the supernatural Buffy universe have preemptively answered the central question of the abortion debate, by establishing that souls and the afterlife do exist. While writers bent on a predetermined outcome can do whatever they want to get there, it’ll be interesting to see whether ideology trumps the foundations of their own story. Will a heroine dedicated to battling the undead end up affirming the value of life, or surrendering to the culture of death?

Dear Reader;

Persons buying a home have two important documents regarding the indebtedness, first is the mortgage and second is the note. Most all of the attention has been focused on the mortgage document and little on the note. The note is a legal instrument of debt and can be sold for cash in the commercial marketplace. For homes that are guaranteed by FHA, once a foreclosure occurs, the taxpayer is on the hook to make good on that note.

Can there be any doubt why so few HAMP modifications can be completed? It is far more profitable for banks to sell the notes for cash, foreclose and purchase derivatives betting against the homeowners as in the recent article you publish. Might the banks bundle these notes much like MBS (mortgage backed securities) and sell them to ‘investors’? This is an ongoing crime that has been ignored and swept under the carpet.

Bottom line is that the banks make about ten times what your mortgage amount is when they take possession after foreclosure. and the law firms allegedly share in the profits. I am suing the banks for this practice under my fair housing act suit in HUD in region ten in Seattle. as discriminatory under fair housing act of 1964 u.s.c 49 c.f.r. 150-200.
They make more money on the foreclosure than to keep you in your home. This was all figured out by the banks before you even got your loan. In other words you were setup to fail allegedly. All of this is illegal but no one is complaining to their state and federal reps and senators. No one knows about this. So if your mortgage is $100,000 dollars they make $1,000,000 on foreclosing from the derivatives and synthetic derivatives and they hedge bets against you when you are foreclosed on. On top of that they probably have your mortgage payments in the past or present going into their pockets under the veil of loss mitigation and paying their attorney fees out of your mortgage payments. This ongoing crime ought to be investigated and prosecuted by the State AG’s.

It’s a slow day in the small town of Pumphandle and the streets are deserted. Times are tough, everybody is in debt, and everybody is living on credit. A tourist visiting the area drives through town, stops at the motel, and lays a $100 bill on the desk saying he wants to inspect the rooms upstairs to pick one for the night.

As soon as he walks upstairs, the motel owner grabs the bill and runs next door to pay his debt to the butcher. The butcher takes the $100 and runs down the street to retire his debt to the pig farmer. The pig farmer takes the $100 and heads off to pay his bill to his supplier, the Co-op. The guy at the Co-op takes the $100 and runs to pay his debt to the local prostitute. The hooker rushes to the hotel and pays off her room bill with the hotel Owner. The hotel proprietor then places the $100 back on the counter so the traveler will not suspect anything.

Finally, the traveler comes down the stairs, states that the rooms are not satisfactory, picks up the $100 bill and leaves. No one produced anything. No one earned anything. However, the whole town now thinks they are out of debt and there is a false atmosphere of optimism and glee. And that, my friends, is how a “stimulus package” works!

EDITOR’S COMMENT:
Can you see the flaw in this story? Every townsperson that handled the money had an asset in the form of a receivable debt equal to their liability in the form of a payable debt. As far as we can tell from the story, none of them truly were in debt in terms of a balance between assets and liabilities. Their net position was zero. The only need was to clear their balance sheets by moving money from one to the other. The traveler merely provided the cash to get that process started.

However, in the case of so-called stimulus programs from the government, the money is loaned to recipients who owe much more than is owed to them, and their liabilities greatly exceed their assets. Technically, they are bankrupt, and the loan merely prolongs recognition of that fact. Because of this extreme imbalance, it is unlikely that the loans ever will be paid back to the taxpayers from which they came. They just lead to more grants and loans as time goes by.

So, unlike the story in which the whole town appears to get out of debt, in the real world, only politically favored groups get out of debt while everyone else gets further into debt through an increase in the national deficit and resulting price inflation for everything they purchase. In the story, the process seems humorous, and no one gets hurt. In real life, there is nothing funny about it because it constitutes legalized plunder.

Dear South Oakland Area Republicans,

Are your State Representative and State Senator representing you? Are they doing all the things they said they would do? Are they as “conservative” as they advertised themselves to be? Are they following Constitutional Principles?
 
It’s hard to get answers to these questions because the media does not report on all the issues that matter or how they vote on those issues when they come up. Only occasionally, do you hear about your elected representatives’ votes on specific issues.
 
What you need is someone to compile a “report card” on their votes. And not a report on every vote. Frankly, 90% of the issues they vote on are inconsequential. Most bills pass with 100 votes in the House and 35 in the Senate, almost complete unanimity.
 
But, then there are the other 10%. These are the bills that affect your everyday life in a variety of ways. It may be an education bill, or a new regulation or permit scheme for your business. These are the issues you need to know about.
 
But, how do sort out the key bills from all the noise? Fortunately, you don’t have to. The Independence Tea Party Patriots have done the work for you. They have produced a comprehensive scorecard that reveals how legislators have voted on the key, limited government issues you care about most. The report is easy to navigate and tells you everything you need to know about your elected officials’ votes.
 
To get the details and see the report card, click here.
 
Regards,
Jack Hoogendyk

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago…And our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt. We had the largest middle class in the world.

NOW WE HAVE

(This isn’t a comprehensive list…just the ones we thought of):

1. Building Permit Tax
2. C.D.L. License Tax (Commercial Drivers)
   
3. Cigarette Tax
4. City Tax
5. Corporate Income Tax
6. Dog License Tax
7. Estate Tax
8. Federal Income Tax
9. Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
10. Fishing License Tax
11. Food License Tax
12. Fuel Permit Tax
13. Gasoline Tax
14. Hunting License Tax
15. Inheritance Tax
16. Inventory Tax
17. IRS Interest Charges (tax on a tax)
18. IRS Penalties (tax on a tax)
19. Liquor Tax
20. Luxury Tax
21. Marriage License Tax
22. Medicare Tax
23. Property Tax
24. Real Estate Tax
25. Service charge Tax
26. Social Security Tax
27. Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
28. Sales Tax
29. Recreational Vehicle Tax
30. School Tax
31. State Income Tax
32. State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
33. Telephone Federal Excise Tax
34. Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
35. Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
36. Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
37. Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
38. Telephone State and Local Tax
39. Telephone Usage Charge Tax
40. Utility Tax
41. Vehicle License Registration Tax
42. Vehicle Sales Tax
43. Watercraft Registration Tax
44. Well Permit Tax
45. Workers Compensation Tax.

And to think, Americans left British Rule to avoid so many taxes?

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, “This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received.”

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.

Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section.

The angel then said to me, “This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them.” I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth.

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. “This is the Acknowledgment Section,” my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed.

“How is it that there is no work going on here?” I asked.

“So sad,” the angel sighed. “After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back acknowledgments.”

“How does one acknowledge God’s blessings? “I asked.

“Simple,” the angel answered. Just say, “Thank you, Lord.”

“What blessings should they acknowledge?” I asked.

“If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world’s wealthy, and if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity.”

“If you woke up this morning with more health than illness.. You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day.”

“If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation… You are ahead of 700 million people in the world.”

“If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world.”

“If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you’re unique to all those in doubt and despair…….”

“Ok,” I said. “What now? How can I start?”

The Angel said, “If you can read this message, you just received a double blessing in that someone was thinking of you as very special and you are more blessed than over two billion people in the world who cannot read at all.”

Have a good day, count your blessings, and if you care to, pass this along to remind everyone else how blessed we all are……….

ATTN: Acknowledge Dept.
“Thank you Lord, for giving me the ability to share this message and for giving me so many wonderful people with whom to share it.”

If you have read this far, and are thankful for all that you have been blessed with, how can you not send it on?   I thank God for everything, especially all my family and friends.