Vote after vote, other countries work against us no matter what and this includes surprisingly, France and Germany at times as well. Like when they voted "No," to invade Iraq. We found out later that both France and Germany were illegally selling Iraq weapons and supplies. Did they get in trouble for this? No. Apparently, government accountability is an oxymoron.
The United Nations has just decreed that Hamas is not a terrorist organization. A great example of why Trump didn't trust the U.N. We do not benefit at this juncture being a member of the United Nations. Probably can't get out of it but very important knowing where we stand, or don't stand, with them.
Vote after vote, other countries work against us no matter what and this includes surprisingly, France and Germany at times as well. Like when they voted "No," to invade Iraq. We found out later that both France and Germany were illegally selling Iraq weapons and supplies. Did they get in trouble for this? No. Apparently, government accountability is an oxymoron. Turning around a failing business that is bleeding money is never an easy task. You have to place a tourniquet on it as quickly as possible and only then can you tackle the rest. The task is grueling. CNN’s new CEO Mark Thompson (turnaround specialist) is familiar. Huge salaries are expected to be shed, and in some cases, the actual people along with them.
Thompson can no longer justify the expenses. Paying prime-time anchor Anderson Cooper $20 million when viewership of his show can’t even crack a million hardly makes sense. “Anderson Cooper 360” is the most successful show CNN broadcasts, yet it only averages 717,000 viewers. Combine Cooper’s salary with Wolf Blitzer’s reported salary of $15 million, Jake Tapper’s $8.5 million, and Chris Wallace’s cool $8 million per year — that’s a ton of cash to shell out when they average just 668,000 viewers in prime time. The network has been in a nosedive for some time now, while Fox News continues to eat up market share and ratings. If that isn’t embarrassing enough, the INSP cable network, founded by televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker, sits ahead of CNN as well. When the Bakkers are leading Tapper, you know you’ve got problems. CNN is scrambling. They were trying to make modest changes and that wasn't cutting it thus why Thompson was brought in. He's not a network guy, he's a making money type guy. I for one hope he can pull it off as I'd like to have more viable sources for information. We need another news organization not a propaganda organization as CNN has become. Many liberals are blaming climate change for the increase in illegal migration. This is from a recent Los Angeles Times article:
"Those conditions, as well as natural disasters, or inequality worsened by the pandemic, are driving people north." What do they mean by inequality? They still haven't met a lie they didn't like. Sickening! No one I grew up with in my small town had what liberals call: "White privilege." I just finished a great book about the culture in Appalachia called Hillbilly Elegy, and nowhere in it did I see where white privilege existed; instead, there were so many similarities to the culture in their poor communities compared to the projects in big cities like lack of jobs, lack of family structure, babies out of wedlock, low graduation rates, low college participation rates. Their skin color isn't getting them out of poverty, but good choices could.
If an African American woman and a white woman both are born in poverty and the black woman makes good yet simple life choices (i.e. graduate high school, don't have a baby out of wedlock, remain employed, etc.), then she'll make it out of poverty whereas if the white woman doesn't make these good choices, she'll end up in poverty. Her white skin won't save her from bad choices. Saying that I became successful because of the color of my skin is insulting to all those who have helped get me here. I've learned many lessons throughout my life including from people who didn't know they were helping me become a better person; I just sat back, watched, and learned from them. White privilege is just another way of playing victim. It's much easier for some people to blame someone else for where they are in life. Democrats tend to provide a safe space for these people. Instead of helping African Americans accept personal accountability and making changes in their lives which could truly help their economic mobility, they throw fuel on the fire to get them riled up. It's all about politics and not solutions. If it were about solutions, then Democrat controlled cities wouldn't be in the terrible shape they're in. The story of what happened in Amityville is a true story according to a family who lived there. What they experienced is questioned by some people but it’s hard to say based on the fact the family only lasted 28 days in the house and then took off leaving everything but their clothes and a few other items.
Regardless of whether it’s true the family sure seemed scared. In December 1975, George and Kathy Lutz and their three children moved into a large Dutch Colonial house in Amityville, New York. Around 18 months earlier a father shot and killed six family members (his wife and children), stating they were demons. By the way the real estate agent did provide clear disclosure of the murders that occurred there but because of the extraordinary deal the couple bought it anyway for $80,000. The Lutz family said they saw the family that previously lived there in the state they were found after being murdered. For example, their six-year-old daughter became friends with the little girl who had died there, and the girl had a hole in her forehead. Her parents first thought the apparition (Jodie), was an imaginary friend because they hadn’t seen her. In the early morning hours of Christmas Day 1975, George looked up at the house after checking on the boathouse and saw the girl standing behind his daughter at her bedroom window. When he ran up to her room, he found his daughter fast asleep. No one else in the family saw the little girl but they all had visions of other family members including the wife who had died with half her head blown off (sorry for the visual). At one point they found out the teddy bear their daughter found was buried with the little girl. Detractors said it was a coincidence. The doors and windows in the house were constantly opening on their own along with the boathouse door which the father had padlocked because he didn’t want the kids going in there. The lock wasn’t cut and the father was the only one with the key. The wife was a Catholic and she kept finding the crucifix in her living room turned upside down. Many other things happened but you get the picture. I don’t know if their story is true but it’s strange that the family ran out of a beautiful Victorian home with six bedrooms they had purchased so inexpensively. With the stories about the house getting even worse the next owners bought the house for $55,000…they didn’t have the same experiences as the Lutz family so even more questions were asked about the validity of the story. Whether it’s true or not it sure has made for some good books and movies. As for me and my house, we’re ghost free (well except for the ghost that keeps hiding our keys). 😉 Side note: The movie had a small budget of just $4.7 million and ended up yielding close to $85 million in the box office. I get so sick of hearing about income and wealth inequality from liberals. See if you can get one to tell you just how much in taxes the rich should pay to make it fair. I've not had one come up with a figure especially considering a small percentage of people are actually paying to run our country so an argument could be made that they are paying more than their fair share. I hope this scenario helps you negate any crazy talk by Democrats:
Let's say for ease of calculations, that 100 people had income equality because they all had $10. Now let's say that one person out of the group came up with a great idea for a cell phone (like Steve Jobs did), and half the group was willing to spend $3 on it and the rest decided to save their money and not buy the fancy new phone. Think about what just happened. Now 49 people have $10, 50 people now have $7 (plus a new phone), and the entrepreneur who came up with the idea of a new cell phone now has $160 (the 50 who bought his phone plus his original $10). Enter what Democrats call income and wealth inequality. Should the entrepreneur be punished for being rich? He didn't force the people to buy his product. Should the people who decided the product wasn't worth them giving up $3 be punished for being more frugal? Being responsible with your money will end up being a bad strategic move which means capitalism, the very thing that made our country successful, will go away. The bottom line is liberals want to decide what's fair and exactly how will they determine the "have's" and the "have nots?" If you have a household income of $50,000 then you're a "have" to millions of people down the economic spectrum. Their arguments regarding income disparity not only doesn't make common sense but it is at its core, immoral. It's so easy giving away other peoples' money. It's easy to get more votes when you promise to take money from the minority who don't have the votes to protect themselves. The top ten highest grossing films are:
1) Avatar 2) Avengers: End Game 3) Avatar: The Way of Water 4) Titanic 5) Star Wars: The Force Awakens 6) Avengers: Infinity War 7) Spider Man: No Way Home 8) Jurassic World 9) Lion King and 10) The Avengers As you can imagine there’s a lot to their story including their involvement in the Great Christian Crusades but I’m going to keep this fairly brief and give you the extraordinary highlights.
Around the year 1120 nine knights who were also monks set out on a mission of protecting Christians who were traveling to the Holy Land; many of these Christians were being killed by Muslim raids. The Knights had a code that they’d never retreat no matter how many they had to fight. Word spread they were taking on large groups of attackers and winning. The combination of Monk and Knight made for a motivated fighter because they thought God was on their side. The Knights continued to hone their military skills in the equipment they used and their strategies and tactics. Even their horses were heavily armed which helped them charge into enemy lines and not have to worry about their horses getting cut down. The Muslims had a much feared and respected military commander by the name of Saladin. His army of 26,000 was marching to fight a Christian force that only had 420 soldiers although he didn’t know it at the time. On the way his scout saw around 80 men traveling through the desert but Saladin upon hearing this decided they weren’t worth his time so he kept his troops marching. The Knights of the Templar had grown to 80 fighters and if Saladin would’ve known who they were he would’ve attacked them because this group had been destroying his soldiers. Figuring out what Saladin was doing they rushed to the Christian force and told them what they saw. Many of the soldiers wanted to flee because they were at a 5 to 1 disadvantage but when they found out the Templars were going to fight with them, they were willing to fight. Think about how great the Knights’ reputations must have been for these soldiers to think that 80 of them would make up for 26,000 warriors. Saladin was very pleased when he finally saw the opposing army and decided to only send his infantry in to wipe the Christian army out. As the Muslim army got closer to the Christians they saw the Knights of the Templar out front with silver armor glistening in the sun. Their reputation by far preceded them so even though the Muslims knew they had the numbers fear settled in. Then the Crusaders took their horses to a sprint and when they reached the enemy line they went single file and rushed straight into the soldiers. When they did this the Muslim soldiers jumped out of the way while the Crusaders were killing them easily as they galloped through the ranks. Fear really started setting in when they found themselves with the Knights behind them and the Christian army in front of them. Whoops. The attack began and Saladin’s infantry fell. This time he wasn’t going to make the same mistake and sent his huge army in to destroy the small Christian army. At the end of the fight the Muslim army was destroyed. Only 2,600 were alive out of the 26,000, but Saladin escaped and ended up capturing the Holy Land years later. One of the major reasons the Christian army pulled off this miracle is faith. The Christian army had faith that God was with them, and they had faith in the miraculous Knights Templar to lead them to victory. The Knights of the Templar were around for approximately 200 years and were very instrumental in the Christian Crusades. As usual their decline was due to political reasons. They had their own small army by then and they had sworn no loyalties to England or France but instead to God. If either kingdom was causing harm to their people the Knights would jump in to save those being hurt. The King of France went after them while the Knights were spread out across various countries and began killing and capturing some of them. He trumped up charges that they had done terrible things against the church and dismantled their order. Just goes to show that for thousands of years if you don’t pick sides, you’re eventually an enemy of both sides. The Templars dealt with a lot of atrocities and questioning at times was all of this killing really God’s will or the will of someone else’s desire for more power and money. I think the real story here is how amazing they were as Knights. Their ability to fight and never retreat mindset was phenomenal. Charging into 26,000 warriors and winning the battle is one of the most extraordinary feats ever accomplished. There are so many songs that move me; these are just a few not in any particular order: 1) He Stopped Loving Her Today - George Jones 2) The Dance - Garth Brooks 3) Drunken Angel - Lucinda Williams 4) The House That Built Me - Miranda Lambert 5) Live Like You Were Dying - Tim McGraw 6) I Hope You Dance - Leann Womack 7) Cats In The Cradle - Harry Chapin 8) Billy Don't Be a Hero - Paper Lace 9) Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald - Gordon Lightfoot 10) Tears in Heaven - Eric Clapton
I spent years thinking the awesome song by Gordon Lightfoot (Wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald) wasn't a true story, but I was wrong.
The SS Edmund Fitzgerald was an American Great Lakes freighter that sank in Lake Superior during a storm on November 10, 1975, with the loss of the entire crew of 29 men. She was the largest ship on North America's Great Lakes and remains the largest to have sunk there. She was located in deep water on November 14, 1975, by a U.S. Navy aircraft detecting magnetic anomalies and found soon afterwards to be in two large pieces. Although they still haven't figured out what led to the sinking of the ship, they do know that the waves from an intense storm kept crashing over the deck. The captain wired in that the ship and crew were in trouble and that was the last they heard from the vessel. "Later that night when the lights went out of sight, came the wreck of the Edmund Fitzgerald." Gordon Lightfoot was awesome! Some stats from the ship: 1) It was 730 feet long (over two football fields in length. 2) Shipping weight capacity was 29,100 tons. They could fill up 1,450 tractor trailers with each shipment. Amazing! 3) It was over three stories tall and had a width of 75 feet. |
Author: John Mann |