Back to Basics

What part should schools play in the personal development of our children? Most parents naturally expect teachers and administrative staff to assist their children in learning important skills like reading, writing, and arithmetic, but we now know a child’s development goes far beyond the basics at school. Upon closer inspection, most parents recognize that schools often teach children additional skills, such as how to interact with others, follow rules, think critically, and in many cases, develop career aspirations for what their Mom’s and Dad’s hope will be a bright and happy future. All this instruction is positive and benefits our children. However, there is more still that students will learn.

If we pull out the microscope of reality and aim it at the classrooms of America, we will see that teachers and school staff are now modeling and teaching ethical and moral values to our children as well. Teachers model ethical values they support and then hold them up as important, as well as the social issues they talk about and those they withhold from classroom discussion. So while parents should hold the dominant role and have the right and responsibility for their children’s upbringing, when students are in school, they are greatly influenced by what happens in the classroom and all other aspects of daily school life.

With the amount of influence that teachers and school staff have on today’s children, is the school setting the proper place for exposing kids to the modern liberal’s pro-homosexual agenda? Should sex, sexual orientation, gender identity, and all their expressions be placed front and center and included within the learning scheme of anti-discrimination discussions?

Well, liberals within the Topeka, Kansas Unified School District 501 have decided that sexual practices, including those considered deviant by the overwhelming majority of Americans should be part of each Kansas student’s educational experience. The Topeka School Board’s 6-1 vote to add sexual orientation, gender identity and its expression to its anti-discrimination policy does much more than simply make an attempt to dissuade bullying. It validates the activities. Their policy change makes a public statement that homosexuality and transgender activity is part of the same immutable qualities as those that define a person as being short or having black skin. I, for one, believe homosexuality and gender identity are life choices. The Judeo-Christian foundational belief system was for much of America’s history a common standard within academia.

From the lips of these Topeka School Board members, it is clear that they actually believe that introducing deviant sexual behavior to their list of actions protected by school policy is an act of compassion instead an act of academic debauchery. In the Topeka-Capital Journal District Attorney Cindy Kelly says recommendations for this policy change came from information obtained from the Board of Education that stated that bullying due to sexual orientation and gender identity are on the rise. Kelly supplies no statistics or percentages to quantify her statements of this specific “rise” in bullying.

Barack Obama has clearly earned his day of reckoning with the American people. That should happen at the polls on Election Day 2012. Yet one important question appears, will the American people actually show up to send this President packing? The growing dissent over the President’s initiatives and programs are now reflected in most American opinion polls. For example, the September 2011 CBS/New York opinion poll showed Obama’s public approval rating at 43%, the lowest of his Presidency. However, opinion poll percentages by themselves won’t fill voting booths nationwide, so the fundamental question remains. Has such unpopular disapproval of Obama’s grand sweeping vision of America’s future created the voting numbers needed for his removal?

Rambunctious and ready conservatives, like me, who are anxious to see this President become a one-termer, need to swallow hard and taste the bitter pill of reality. The voting numbers needed to do this task are not yet attained, so we cannot be sure yet that Obama will absolutely positively be defeated in 2012.

Realistically, what assets are in the President’s corner? There are several that are important, despite his being the worst President in modern times. The Obama campaign coffers will likely fill to the tune of $1billon. The liberal media will continue to support Obama to the point of senseless overt water carrying of his destructive programs. The President also has the bully pulpit of the White House, which he has used with reckless abandon with little likelihood there will be any decrease in his pronouncements as election time nears. Hollywood will continue to be Hollywood, and too many actors will continue to kneel at the ideological feet of the progressive liberalism Obama espouses. When we get right down to it, the only unflinching factor that will derail another four years of destructive liberalism being implemented across this country is the power of the conservative majority in America. Enter the Tea Party.

Despite being demonized by the Democrat Party and minimized by liberal media, the Tea Party movement has not declined since its inception. It has instead increased in numbers. Over the last year, I have visited more than 50 cities in the state of Kansas. As unemployment numbers have increased, so has interest in the Tea Party. With each edict issued from Obama’s White House perch, a new group of Tea Partiers has formed in heartland communities. The recent liberal Occupy groups of course tried to emulate the grass roots appearance and focus of the Tea Party with a contrasting anti-American, anti-capitalistic flare, but this group has done nothing but make Tea Partiers even more appealing to mainstream America. Despite being framed as radical events run by angry racists, the Tea Party’s orderly patriotic weekend gatherings are now seen as benign in comparison to the rapes and thefts happening within the stench-filled tent cities of the Occupy movement. The line between conservatives and liberals is becoming clearer and clearer to more and more people.

What is also becoming clearer is that the once feared Tea Party is now seen by the voting public for who they truly are — the American middle class. In visiting a large part of the state of Kansas one town at a time, I’ve seen that the Tea Party numbers are growing for two important reasons.

In recent days there have been a number of groups popping up across the nation going by the moniker “Occupy.” Whether it is Occupy Wall Street or Occupy Kansas City in Kansas, these protest groups claim that they represent the majority of U.S. citizens. They are worthy of examination and analysis for their motives.

At a cursory first glance, many of the Occupy groups present nominal Tea Party-like characteristics, such as having members who reject the Federal Reserve, speak about the value of the Constitution, and present a general citizen’s concern for the future of the country. However, that is about the extent of any observable similarities. The differences are many. While a majority of the Tea Party organization tends to come from the working class, and seniors, the Occupy groups are mostly comprised of younger, often college age individuals.

Even more drastic differences between these two groups can be seen in the ideological viewpoints that motivate their activism and the physical ways in which they voice their concerns. The Tea Party groups in America meet in private or public areas and strictly follow the ordinances of city and state. The Occupy groups as defined by their very title of “Occupy” invade “spaces” whether those spaces are city parks or other locales and hold these spaces “hostage” for extended periods of time until their differing demands are met. What demands do these “Occupiers” have? They differ from Occupy invasion point to invasion point but, commonly their demands reflect a disdain for corporate America and the free market, environmental concerns, and a general desire for more of their version of tolerance and compassion on the planet.

The Tea Party events are void of such a hostage standoff element; however, Tea Party attendees of course have their demands as well. They wish for limited government, personal freedom, controlled spending, and an adherence to the Constitution. The Occupy groups are getting noticed as much for their bodily stink as their demands. They refuse to stop occupying public areas of towns across the country until their need for revenge against rich Americans can be satiated. Tea Party events, on the other hand, end within a few hours, and the attendees then try to make their changes at the ballot box. Theirs is a much more peaceful and certainly a less stinky approach to protest and activism.

Tea Party events are ideologically conservative, and their attendees place an emphasis on American patriotism and the individual’s right to freedom. These citizens place strong emphasis on personal responsibility to make government accountable. The Occupy groups want government to increase entitlements and of course curb greedy corporate Americans to give them what they want. President Barack Obama’s campaign to make rich Americans “pay their fair share” in taxes is ideologically very much in step with the Occupy groups. Indeed, many would say, a little too closely in step.

There is little doubt that if the Occupy groups can build momentum, their mantra about the dangers of free market greed is one that will eventually divert the country’s attention away from its economic woes being considered a product of government intervention. In other words, the Occupy groups with their quasi-violent- space-seizing-no-shower-necessary protest activities are potentially a big help to Obama.

In the current GOP 2012 presidential debates, all the Republican candidates have voiced the need to drastically re-structure the Environmental Protection Agency (EPA). Under the current EPA director, Lisa Jackson, the Obama administration is unleashing on the country the most comprehensive and far-reaching environmental regulations ever seen.

Framed around the need to fulfill job growth in conjunction with cleaning up America’s portion of the planet, Jackson disseminated $ 6.2 million for Brownfield clean up jobs in July this year. This benign sounding program was advertised as an environmentally “friendly” job plan that would clean up old gas stations, smelter plants, and industrial properties. Of course what is not mentioned during the high-blown rhetoric about saving Mother Earth by uniting government and environmentalism is that businesses that find themselves in ideological conflict with the ever growing list of “Green initiatives” will face a monstrous State apparatus that is all too eager to unleash “green justice” on all violators. Herein lies the economic quandary for Kansas.

Unfortunately for Kansas, its cattle industry, oil and gas development, and even the growing of crops are directly in the stomping path of the EPA. Through increased regulations and government manipulation, oil drillers are finding it harder to drill oil in Kansas, and even drill for natural gas, a highly abundant energy opportunity in the state. Building coal burning power plants that have the potential to create hundreds if not thousands of new Kansas jobs is like pulling teeth. The environmental regulations and the misguided Green mentality that the current Obama administration embraces and allows to flourish has become an EPA monster with Lisa Jackson in full charge going full throttle.

The EPA monster was recently spotted in Western Kansas where is was battling the rural cooperative, Sunflower Electric, now at risk of having to charge higher rates to customers or not supply services at all to rural areas of the state due to a new thrashing “sea of regulations.” I had a chance to interview on my radio program, Conscience of Kansas, Congressman Tim Huelskamp, a native to the First District of Kansas. He is attempting to combat EPA aggression against free market initiatives within the state. Huelskamp is the co-sponsor of the TRAIN-Act, Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts on the Nation. The Act would require an impact analysis to determine the cumulative effect that EPA regulations are having on the economy.

In my interview, Huelskamp made clear his concern. It is a concern that is on the minds of many Americans, namely, that the EPA is overregulating business and industry in the country. In Kansas alone, Huelskamp said that the EPA treats farm “spilt milk as if it is an oil spill.” The Congressman is also aware of new EPA regulations that make the common practice of transporting fuel, over 119 gallons, a violation of Federal law without a hazardous materials permit. Obviously the bureaucrats that are crafting EPA regulations have never worked on a farm. But, is it simply ignorance that brings about such terrible regulations or is there another agenda still?

In reality, the EPA monster is motivated by a mentality that opposes the capitalistic free market foundations of traditional America.

Need a job? How about a job that pays the bills? These questions no longer apply to isolated parts of the country that have faced natural disasters or workers displaced by ENRON-type white collar criminal activity. In America, finding substantive work and keeping it has now become a national question of importance to everyone. For a growing number of people, the answer from the business world to the question of employment has been, “We are not hiring at this time.”

As reported by Chris Stirewalt on Fox News, the argument for saying America is not in a recession because we have stopped having three sequential quarters of negative growth becomes moot when every quarter’s growth is so small that it cannot improve the economy. The truth is that America’s economy, and its subsequent lack of job growth, is like a heavy anchor dragging the bottom of the deepest ocean. Now imagine the American worker strapped to that anchor, and the mental image is complete.

As Shaila Dewan writes in The New York Times, we see that the most recent reports show the unemployment rate at 9.1 percent. These numbers are scary enough, but they fail to show just how bad unemployment really is. Given America’s current economic dilemma, the percentages of the unemployed whom people read about in newspapers and hear discussed on the television should be more accurately described as “nice scenario” numbers, because “true unemployment” numbers are much, much higher. In reality, unemployment figures for Americans are at least double of those reported: more and more people continue to run out of Obama’s extended unemployment benefits and no longer qualify to stay on the rolls; others are tired of looking for jobs that don’t exist and simply abandon the job hunt and go home to stare at their sofa cushions. People who have fallen off the official count of the unemployed are not the only means by which the current employment numbers in America are being obscured; there are also the Obama “fantasy employment numbers.”

The Obama “fantasy employment numbers” are undoubtedly a fiction originally created to combat the administration’s inability to make good on the president’s pledge to the American people to stop unemployment numbers from reaching 8 percent if given a historic “good faith” loan of $787 billion. After the president’s social programing and “shovel ready” New Deal approach failed, the administration started counting unemployment from a new perspective; that is, new jobs would be counted from people who still had jobs. If this sounds a little weird, that’s because it is.

As if pulling a clip from an episode of the Twilight Zone, the Obama administration said America’s new reality on unemployment would now be evaluated from the perspective of people who didn’t lose their jobs due to the president’s actions. As reported by William McGurn in The Wall Street Journal as early as 2009, this method of gauging how Obama’s economic stimulus plan is affecting American jobs was full of phony bologna number crunching. There is no way to quantify jobs saved by the stimulus package; this is a projection of pure fantasy born of desperation. At least in a real Twilight Zone episode, Rod Serling would have taken viewers to the side and told them they were now leaving the real world.

Opportunities to do good are lost every day. Either through apathy, stupidity, or unfortunately sometimes, bad intentions, situations where good can be done are not only lost, but are replaced with something that is detrimental to society. The Martin Luther King, Jr., Monument in Washington’s National Mall is just such an example. The series of events that brought “this version” of the depiction of the famous civil rights activist to “this location” shows the world just how out of line the culture of our country has now become.

First, the King monument is placed in the National Mall, a location specifically designated for U.S. Presidents and fallen soldiers. There is a strong argument to be made that the sculpture of the civil rights icon would be better placed in a different location. However, this argument pales in comparison to the residual implications derived from who actually created the monument and how King is portrayed in stone.

As reported by John Hayward in Human Events, in oddly bizarre fashion, the King monument was not commissioned for creation by Americans, but was rather given to the fifty-seven year old Chinese Communist, Lei Yixin. Yixin is known among other things for his stone depictions of the Communist Chairman Mao Tse-tung. He thus created a depiction of King that some would say runs counter to a true reflection of the man and what he stood for. Martin Luther King Jr. looks decidedly Asian. The civil rights leader, who was known for both kindness and compassion, is reflected in stone by Yixin having a stern look on his face and with arms folded as if he is in opposition to those who view him. In the stone statue King also grips an unknown document with force, and one can only guess if the artist meant the document to be one with biblical scripture, the constitution, or one of Mao’s many versions of the “Little Red Book.”

Some have asserted that the carving of this statue should have been commissioned to a black artisan; however, I think that King would have preferred to look at quality of character, and artistic ability, over color of skin. With that observation in mind, it is still hard to fathom that King would have wished that his memorial depiction to be created to exhibit a Communist mentality, certainly void of the Christian values he championed. The “angry Asian, the Communist Martin Luther King, Jr.” monument also includes inscriptions of many of King’s famous quotes, but minus his famous “I have a dream,” apparently, purposely omitted. This lack is almost fitting as little of King’s true Christian nature is on display.

The final note, in what has become a sad story, is that it appears that the King monument was never intended to be designed for posterity, but rather for family profit. As reported in the New York Post, the Martin Luther King, Jr., family charged to the foundation that built the monument $800,000 to use King’s words and image. This King family money scheme further removes the appropriateness of the Martin Luther King Jr. memorial being placed alongside distinguished U.S. Presidents and fallen soldiers whose families never asked, nor received any residuals for the honor of being memorialized.

From a land use, economic, environmental or raw materials perspective, wind is unsustainable…

President Obama and a chorus of environmentalists, politicians, corporate executives and bureaucrats are perennially bullish on wind power as the bellwether of our “clean energy economy of the future.”

In reality, wind energy may well be the least sustainable and least eco-friendly of all electricity options. Its shortcomings are legion, but the biggest ones can be grouped into eight categories.

Land.

As American humorist and philosopher Will Rogers observed, “They ain’t making any more of it.” Wind turbine installations impact vast amounts of land, far more than traditional power plants.

Arizona’s Palo Verde nuclear plant generates 3,750 megwatts of electricity from a 4,000-acre site. The 600-MW John Turk ultra-supercritical coal-fired power plant in Arkansas covers part of 2,900 acres; two 600-MW coal-fired units in India use just 600 acres. Gas-fired units like Calpine’s 560-MW Fox Energy Center in Wisconsin require several hundred acres. All generate reliable power 90-95% of the year.

By contrast, the 600-MW Fowler Ridge wind installation (355 turbines) spans 50,000 acres of farm country along Indiana’s I-65 corridor. The 782-MW Roscoe project in Texas (627 turbines) sprawls across 100,000 acres. Oregon’s Shepherds Flat project (338 gigantic 2.5 MW turbines) covers nearly 80,000 wildlife and scenic acres along the Columbia River Gorge, for a “rated capacity” of 845 MW.

The Chokecherry-Sierra Madre project will blanket some 320,000 acres of sage grouse habitat and BLM land in Wyoming with 1,000 monstrous 3-MW turbines, to generate zero to 3,000 MW of intermittent power. That’s eight times the size of Washington, DC, to get an average annual output one-fourth of what Palo Verde generates 90% of the time. But C-SM has already received preliminary approval from BLM.

To replace just 20% of the United States’ 995,000 MW of total installed generating capacity, we would need to blanket an area the size of Kansas with wind turbines, and then add nearly a thousand 600-MW gas-fired backup generators … and thousands of miles of new high voltage transmission lines.

Raw materials.

Wind turbine installations require vast amounts of steel, copper, rare earth metals, fiberglass, concrete, rebar and other materials for the turbines, towers and bases.

A single 1.7 MW wind turbine, like 315 of the Fowler Ridge units, involves some 365 tons of materials for the turbine assembly and tower, plus nearly 1100 tons of concrete and rebar for the foundation. Bigger units require substantially more materials. Grand total for the entire Fowler wind installation: some 515,000 tons; for Roscoe, 752,000 tons; for Shepherds Flat, 575,000 tons; for Chokecherry, perhaps 2,000,000 tons. Offshore installations need far more raw materials.

To all that must be added millions of tons of steel, copper, concrete and rebar for thousands of miles of transmission lines – and still more for mostly gas-fired generators to back up every megawatt of wind power and generate electricity the 17 hours of each average day that the wind doesn’t blow.

Money.

Taxpayers and consumers must provide perpetual subsidies to prop up wind projects, which cannot survive without steady infusions of cash via feed-in tariffs, tax breaks and direct payments.

Transmission lines cost $1.0 million to $2.5 million per mile.

Low-brow activity, dirty deeds done by daylight, these can only be the beginnings of the words needed to describe the strong-arm tactics of homosexual activists here in the state of Kansas. The gay advocacy group Flint Hills Human Rights Project, which has been on the losing end of a push to gay-ify the heartland, has decided to protest Christianity in a very direct fashion. As reported by Brad Dornes in the Manhattan Mercury, members of the organization recently staged a protest at the Manhattan Christian College on enrollment day. Students attempting to enroll in classes at the Christian college had to wade through gay activists carrying homosexual advocacy signs and others from the organization offering students informational paraphernalia on the lesbian, gay, bi-sexual and transgender lifestyles.

Ted Morgan, the co-chair for the Flint Hills Human Rights Project, said that the protest was simply to “raise awareness” for the LGBT community. This kind of hypocrisy is troublesome and depicts the true nature of the homosexual push here in Kansas and across the nation. If we wish to bring some honesty to the discussion, the entire city of Manhattan as well as the state of Kansas are well aware of the homosexual agenda, as the recent city election of conservative Tea Party candidates brought about the repeal of an anti-discrimination ordinance alteration that created one of the most liberal ordinances in the country. The ordinance alteration, with its arbitrary and capricious impact on traditional Kansans, was a product of the strong-arm tactics of homosexual advocacy groups here in the state. The gay community worked diligently to bypass citizens of Manhattan, Kansas, from having a voice in an ordinance alteration that would have an economic, social and cultural impact on the entire state.

In my interview on March 8, 2011, on the Conscience of Kansas radio program with Flint Hills Human Rights Project media representative Josh McGinn, I voiced my concern at his determination that Kansans outside the gay community should be left out of the decision-making process on how people should live in their own state. I made a prediction in that interview, which was proven true, that the bill alteration would be revoked. The basis for that prediction was based on my belief in two factors that encompass the overwhelming majority of the people of Kansas. First is that many of the people of the state, while very diverse, share a common belief in Judeo-Christian values. The anti-discrimination bill alteration was a personal affront to these values. Second is the simple fact that Kansans don’t like to be strong-armed, knocked about or pushed around. This is what the gay community was doing then and as recent facts show, this is what they are doing now.

Despite the “light and cheerful” spin given by organizational leaders, the protest at Manhattan Christian College was meant first and foremost as a strong-arm tactic against President Kevin Ingram and others within the college’s administration who stood with the majority of the community in championing Christian values on this issue.

As Republican presidential candidates file in and out of contention and Americans wait to see the final line-up of GOP contenders for 2012, Barack Obama stands in the left’s corner alone. The question is: just how alone is the Democratic Party’s golden politician from 2008, the man Oprah Winfrey called “The One.” Traditional wisdom in the politics game is that anything can happen and that a year’s worth of happenings can transpire in a week in the wacky world of Washington. While this is true, there is also a time-tested wisdom that some losers are just so obvious that even their loving mothers quietly bet on the other side. Barack Obama will be such a loser; in fact, Obama’s defeat will be so widely one-sided as to make John McCain’s loss in 2008 seem like a squeaker.

The typical mindset in the political game is to maximize voter output by projecting to the public that all races will be close ones, that every vote is required to win, and that the opposition is just as close to victory as those on the side of the angels. There are strategic reasons for this method of thinking that I would not obstruct, but I would also say that there are even more practical reasons to say that Barack Obama and his reign over America do not fall within the normal parameters of American history. In short, the president has created an environment in which his removal from office is now a requirement for the survival of the country.

The destructive deeds of Obama’s presidency have become almost mythical and without some chronicling there is little way to see the bigger picture of the president’s own personal political destruction. The term “historic,” which was used to propel Obama the candidate forward in the 2008 presidential primary, now serves as the dreary reminder of Obama’s legacy. Out of the political gate Obama was historic in his affinity to the Muslim nations of the world and his indifference to long-time allies such as Israel. Similar historic oddities were the president’s aversion to placing his hand over his heart for the Pledge of Allegiance as well as Obama’s customized emblem representing a historic regime change.

Historic again was Obama’s totalitarian aggression toward Americans who questioned his administration’s master plans after his taking office, plans that over time appeared clearly socialistic. As a candidate, Obama hinted at the notion of his hatred of rural America when he called the people of Pennsylvania “gun toters and Bible clingers” and described the racist connotations he attached to those that would question his message of “hope and change.” As president, Obama would throw civility out the door and become a historic American dictator. When it came to his forced healthcare package, the administration urged Americans to turn in their neighbors and friends, forwarding what the White House called “fishy e-mails” to flag@whitehouse.gov. In 2009, the Department of Homeland Security would release to law enforcement agencies a document entitled “Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment.” Who did the administration under the historic President Barack Obama see as today’s radical domestic terrorist?

If you have ever watched a “super hero” movie you will hear at some point the cautionary warning that, “With great power comes great responsibility.” Those are wise words indeed but what if an individual doesn’t know that he or she has a unique power worthy of being considered “super,” let alone the responsibility that goes along with it? Thus enter the people of the state of Kansas.

The conservative majority in what I call the beautiful flatlands of Kansas continually do what is right in the face of liberal opposition. Day in and day out there are examples of regular people stepping forward and not just fighting for the values of God, family and country, but also winning the day; yes, winning the day and returning to the regular work of daily life with little fanfare or celebration. This appears to be the routine of the unsung hero and after observing Kansas heroism for my entire lifetime, I don’t believe most Kansans require nor look for a pat on the back for doing what is right. However, because of our state’s significant influence on the national stage as a whole, and the monumental challenges facing all Americans today, it is time to give an account of some of the instances when Kansans have stepped forward against liberal opposition and were heroes.

In 2005, in the heat of the Defense of Marriage Act debate, liberals within Kansas and across the nation attempted to push conservatives within the state into bypassing an initiative to vote on whether or not marriage should only be between a man and a woman. Liberal politicians in Topeka appeared ready to stand firm on refusing an amendment vote, while hundreds of conservatives across the state went to the state capital and discussed, lobbied, and prayed that our government would let the people vote on the issue. During this period, liberals attempted the very same demonization that is now heaped upon the Tea Parties of this state, by saying that Kansans who believed in traditional values were “hate mongers, intolerant, prejudiced,” and the list goes on. After a lengthy battle, the people of Kansas were allowed to vote on the issue and 70 percent of state voters stated their desire for marriage to be only between a man and a woman. Following this hard-fought victory in Kansas, states such as Wisconsin, Virginia, Tennessee, South Dakota, South Carolina, Idaho, Colorado, Arizona, Florida and even California would vote for traditional marriage. What one state can do, so can another.

It’s not that Kansas is always a conservative bastion of perfection. We lose our way from time to time. What makes us unique, or might I say heroic, as a state is that our moral compass is directed by people who will acknowledge their mistakes and will make the often-painful course corrections when necessary. A salient example, and one mentioned far less than it should be, was the massive conservative victory against the country’s most liberal homosexual bill created and passed in Manhattan, Kansas. On February 8, 2011, a liberal majority within Manhattan’s city government with support from a homosexual advocacy group, Lesbian, Gay, Bi-sexual, and Transgender (LGBT) pushed through an anti-discrimination ordinance alteration that created arbitrary punishments for traditional Kansans, and ran counter to the values of Christians.