Merry Christmas

Merry Christmas to all and to all a good night,
and may your New Year be blessed
with the warmth of His light!

Missed Opportunities?

Since the disastrous rollout of Obamacare that began on October 1 I haven't been impressed with the reactions of Barak Obama and his fellow Democrats.  However, I've been even less impressed with the reaction of  Republicans and conservatives. 

The embarrassingly trouble plagued beginnings of Obamacare afforded the GOP and conservatives a golden opportunity to stop Obamacare in its tracks...if they really wanted to do that.  For nearly three months now Americans' attention has been glued not only to Obamacare and its problems but to the broader issue of health care, health insurance, and how best to help those who have neither.  The American people have never been more primed for alternatives to Obamacare, but the GOP and conservatives have offered them nothing.

Republicans and conservatives could and should have spent the last two+ months hammering home their health care solutions to an eager-to-listen public.  Instead, the American people have been treated to a barrage of childish schadenfreude.

"Nah, nah, nah, boo boo!  Your website don't work!"

That's essentially what Republicans and conservatives have been saying since the botched rollout of Obamacare's website healthcare.gov.  CHILDISH!!!!!  As I listened to these rants I kept asking myself what Republicans and conservatives were going to do once the website started working better, as it appears to be doing.  What were they going to say then?  Didn't the 2012 presidential elections teach the GOP and conservatives that they can't win just by carping on liberals' failures?  Apparently not.

Conservatives, Republicans, you have to offer people something.  You have to give them solutions, a vision, hope.  That, not juvenile rants, is what the American public is hungering for.  If you can't deliver then you'll lose in 2014, 2016, and beyond.  And you'll deserve to.

Gratitude

I'm grateful for my family.

I'm grateful for my mother, who always has my back even when I don't deserve it.

I'm grateful for my sister who's my best friend.

I'm grateful for my brother who always makes me laugh.

I'm grateful for my uncle who knows how to encourage me and strengthen my faith just when I need it.

I'm grateful for my niece who reminds me life is beautiful.

I'm grateful for my nephew who inspires me to write.

I'm grateful for my great-niece who keeps me young and whose innocence inspires me to fight for the preservation of our culture's time-honored values.

I'm grateful for my friends who are true lights in the darkness.

I'm grateful I live in a country where, for now, at least, I can speak my mind, practice my faith, and live my life as I choose with little fear of persecution, imprisonment, or death.

And finally, as a cancer survivor, I'm just grateful to be here, to see another holiday, to be alive. 

God is good!

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!

Indeed!

The best description of Obamacare I've seen.  Short, sweet, and SPOT ON!!!!

Happy Veteran's Day!

I know this is a day late--late hours at work then Bible study kept me from getting online yesterday--but here's my sincerest shout out to all the veterans of this greatest nation on God's green earth:  THANK YOU ALL FOR YOUR SERVICE!  We are the land of the free because of the brave:  YOU!  God bless you all!  HOOAH!!!!

Outrage In Colorado

While the nation's attention has been riveted to the government shutdown and fight over Obamacare for the last couple of weeks, other things are happening across the USA that should anger Americans even more than the smarmy goings on of Washington politics.  One of those things was an outrageous incident that happened in Sterling, CO about two weeks ago.

The grieving family of Linda Baker, wife of Baptist pastor Mark Baker, were denied their request to have the ichthys--an early fish symbol of Christianity--with "Jesus" written inside it, placed on Mrs. Baker's headstone.  Shawn Rewoldt, manager of the public cemetery where Mrs. Baker was buried, refused the family's request on the grounds that the name "Jesus" might offend someone. Stunned, the family protested only to have Rewoldt compare the Jesus-in-the-ichthys symbol to the hooked cross of Nazi Germany.  "What if somebody wanted to put a swastika [on a headstone]?" Rewoldt reportedly told the Bakers to defend his decision.  Next, the family appealed to the city council for help but the council supported Rewoldt.  Only after being pressured by a Facebook campaign launched by the Bakers did Sterling city manager Joe Kiolbasa overrule Rewoldt.  Linda Baker will get to have the symbol she wanted put on her headstone after all, but her wish should never have been denied in the first place.

Yes, I know the cemetery in question was a public, city-owned cemetery, but the manager didn't use the separation of church and state ruse to block the Baker family's religious freedom.  Oh no.  He tried to stop Jesus's name from being seen on the grounds that its "Christian connotation" might offend.  If the Bakers had asked for the name "Allah" or "Mohammed" for their loved one's headstone you can bet your proverbial bottom dollar that neither of them would've been deemed potentially offensive.

This entire incident was despicable and outrageous!  Yet, as outrageous as it was I would've expected it in the big liberal cities on the east and left coasts.  Shockingly, this attack on Christianity occurred in the heartland in a town with less than 20,000 people.  The poison of political correctness and Christophobia is seeping into and corroding every nook and cranny of America.   All the budget and policy battles in Washington will be for nothing if we don't stop the march of the Left's cultural rot through America.  To paraphrase Jesus, what does it profit a nation to gain fiscal order yet lose its soul?

Try banning that, Sterling, Colorado.

Maximum Meaness

The Obama regime is despicable.

I'm sitting here watching Megyn Kelly's new show "The Kelly Files" on Fox News and I'm in a state of shock.  I've learned that the families of five of our warriors killed in Afghanistan will be denied death benefits.  Basically what that means is that the government won't pay for the warriors' funerals nor for flying the families to Dover Air Force Base to retrieve their fallen loved ones' bodies.  And this is being blamed on the government shut down.  Outrage doesn't begin to described my feelings on this.  This is the Obama regime's policy of maximum pain in action.  What is the policy of maximum pain?

Maximum pain is the Obama regime's strategy to rout the GOP by using the shutdown to cause as much hurt to Americans as possible and then blaming Republicans.  It's pure political warfare being waged on the backs of the American people.  Private businesses have been closed by the Parks Service.  Park rangers have been told to make things as difficult for the public as possible.  And now this outrage of denying death benefits to the families of our fallen heroes.  Corrupt!  Corrupt!  Maximum pain is corrupt.  The Obama regime is corrupt, headed by a Dear Leader wannabe utterly contemptuous of the limits on his power.

Obama must be made to know that he's no Dear Leader.  He's the president of a free, representative republic with a loyal opposition legally and morally entitled to block policies they don't like.  That's how America works.  If Obama and his Democrats don't like that then they need a BIG dose of their own medicine.  Maximum pain for Obama, Pelosi, and Reid.  YEAH!!!!

He's the Man!

Go Ted Cruz!

Ted Cruz, freshman senator from Texas is, as I write, conducting a filibuster on the Senate floor to stop Obamacare in the Senate as Republicans in the House voted to do this past Friday.  I'm proud to say I voted for Ted Cruz and the more he conducts himself as a senator, boldly and fearlessly standing up for conservative principles, the happier I am that I cast my ballot for him. 

Yes, I've complained about conservatives relying too much on politics to solve problems and defeat the left.  However, there are times when political action is needed, and when those times come we on the right need a leader like Ted Cruz is emerging to be.  In order to stand up for what he believes is right, Senator Cruz is having to stand against many in his own party--shame on them!--as well as those on the left, and he has the cojones to do it.

This is just what I wanted and needed to see.  When politics is called for conservatives have had a pronounced tendency to cower, hem and haw, and eventually cave in to the left.  Not tonight.  Tonight, one conservative is standing Texas strong for the principles he believes in, principles he promised voters he'd stand for.  That conservative is Ted Cruz, a total breath of bold and fearless fresh air.  Ted Cruz, my senator.  He's the man!!!!

Twelve Years Ago Today

9-11-2001

REMEMBER.

My Revolutionary Act

A couple of weeks ago I did a revolutionary act.

What did I do?

I planted veggies!

That's right.  I planted five vegetable seeds--two lettuce, two bell pepper, and one tomato--in recycled toilet paper roll "pots", an idea I got from Pinterest.  Aside from the tomato, this was my first time starting vegetables from seeds.  So far, one of the lettuce seeds has germinated and two little precious green leaves are now poking through the potting soil.  The other lettuce seed was trying to grow but I accidently uprooted it when I moved a hunk of potting soil that was laying on it.  The tomato and bell pepper seeds turned out to be duds.  I planted new lettuce, bell pepper, and tomato seeds this past Saturday.  Hopefully, these will take; and when all five seedlings come of age, so to speak, I'll transplant them into containers.  Yes, I'm a container vegetable gardener.

This is actually my third attempt at container veggie gardening.  In 2009 and 2011 I grew bell peppers and cherry tomatoes--not from seeds--in flower pots on my front porch.  They turned out pretty well.  My mother enjoyed the tomatoes in her salads (I grew them for her; I can't stand tomatoes).  The bell peppers were about half the size of the ones in stores and the flavor was a bit too mild for my taste, but it was downright awesome cooking with my own homegrown vegetables.  Oh, the feeling of achievement and independence!  Sweet!

Achievement.  Independence.

That is what makes planting those seeds 15 days ago a revolutionary act.  It was an act of self-reliance.  It was, however small, a declaration of independence from and resistance to the increasingly entrenched and poisonous entitlement mentality that twice put Obama into power.  And we need more of this bottom up resistance; much, much more!

Leftism, currently personified in Barack Obama, won't be defeated from the top down, as so many conservatives foolishly believe.  Rather, it will be defeated from the bottom up by a lifestyle revolution in which people reject the statist behemoth, reclaim personal responsibility and liberty, and provide as much for themselves as they can.  And it doesn't have to be done in one fell swoop.  Individuals can start this revolution by taking one or two small steps, mastering them, and then moving on into greater and greater self-reliance.

My revolutionary act was planting five seeds.  If I can do that, you can too.

Time to start the revolution.

"This is the year of MY arm!"

No, this has nothing to do with politics or anything related.  It's just one of the cutest commercials I've seen in a long time.  So, as the label says, I had to take time out for cute.  YOU GO KAITLYN JONES!!!!

Scary Stats

Earlier today while channel surfing I came across the Fox News show America Live with Megyn Kelly just as the show was highlighting some results from a survey on Americans' knowledge of and attitudes toward our 1st Amendment rights.  The results were downright scary.

According to the survey, 46% of Americans named freedom of speech as the most important 1st Amendment right.  However, a whopping 36% couldn't name even one freedom listed in the 1st Amendment and 34% of Americans thought the 1st Amendment went too far in guaranteeing our rights.  Too far?  What's wrong with those people?!

Those stats help explain why so many Americans continue to support Obama despite his disdain for the Constitution.  They also help explain why so many Americans buy the Democrats' mantra that such things as health insurance and free birth control are rights.  They believe such nonsense because it sounds good, it's something they want, and they have no other reference point by which to know what our rights and freedoms really are.  Thank you, public education.

Instead of endlessly complaining about leftists' assault on our constitutional rights, we rightists should be aggressively educating Americans on why we have the 1st Amendment and the rest of the Bill of Rights and just how precious and vital they are.  Then and only then can we begin to really defeat the left.  Many 2nd Amendment supporters say that an armed citizenry is vital to a free republic.  The scary stats quoted above show that an informed citizenry is, too.

What's In A Name?

Time can change things.

I recently changed the name of this blog from "Sinistra's Bane" to "Heart of the Wise".  I made the change to reflect a shift in some of my ideological views.  My basic outlook hasn't changed but certain things have.  Consequently, I feel I need to change what I call myself, something more important than what to call a blog that hardly anyone reads.  *ss*

For nearly 20 years I've proudly called myself a conservative but now that label doesn't suit me anymore.  Why not?  It seems too...limiting, too..."small".  It doesn't encompass the whole of what I now believe.

I know that conservatives and conservatism have long been divided into 3 main "denominations":  social conservatives, who favor traditional, Bible-base morality and values; foreign policy conservatives, who favor a strong defense and an America active on the world stage; and fiscal/tea party conservatives, who're committed to lower taxes, balanced budgets, and limited, constitutional government.  I've always considered myself to be all of the above but it was social issues, especially abortion, that helped me to define myself as "conservative".  While fiscal and foreign policy are very important to me, social issues top my list of concerns.  And that's why I have a problem with continuing to call myself a conservative.

For that last decade or so, and especially since Obama was first elected in 2008, the conservative movement has, in my view, distanced itself from social issues and become focused on fiscal issues.  This shift was especially apparent in the 2010 midterm and 2012 presidential elections, with seemingly all major strategists on the right calling for conservative/Republican candidates to ignore social issues and focus on the economy.  That strategy failed in 2012 and many conservatives seemed to conclude that traditionalist positions on social issues, especially the hot button issue of gay marriage, is what did Mitt Romney in.

Now we have more and more conservatives supporting gay marriage and worse, expressing the same disdain for traditionalists that liberals do.  It's like they can't get to a microphone or tv camera fast enough to reveal their new found "enlightenment" and "tolerance".  Such caving to the left is disgusting to me.  I always thought that the conservative movement would be a place where traditionalists would be accepted, respected, understood, and heard.  I was wrong.

The left has convinced a huge swath of Americans, particularly the young, that opposition to gay marriage is diabolical bigotry and "extremism".  Rather than resist this lie too many conservatives have taken the easy way out and have caved.  But it's all to win elections, I've heard.  Younger voters, so the argument goes, won't give conservative/Republican candidates a chance so long as they're seen as "intolerant".  They must moderate or censor their social views so they can win and stop Obama from imposing his nanny state and bankrupting the country, the only cause that really matters.  Yeah, right.  That logic is just an excuse for cowardice in the face of leftism.

If liberals managed to convince enough Americans that advocating smaller government and lower taxes was "extremism" and hate, would conservatives change their stand on those issues, too?  Would they suddenly discover a "conservative" case for big government and sky high taxes as they've found a "conservative" case for gay marriage?  Methinks they would.

That's why I can no longer and will no longer call myself a conservative.

This is hard for me.  I feel adrift.  As I said at the beginning of this post, I've been calling myself a conservative for nearly 20 years.  Now, I don't know what to call myself.  There doesn't seem to be a single term that encompasses the whole of my socio-political belief system.  Maybe I'll have to cobble together a new, multiple word term for my worldview.  Or maybe I'll have to resurrect some long forgotten label from history.  Or maybe you, my readers, have some good ideas.  All I'm certain of right now is that "conservative" is out.  I'm still on the right, though, the side of the wise.  That, my friends, will never change.  Of that you can be sure.

New Name, New Direction

Welcome to "Heart Of The Wise!"

Hello blogging friends!  As you can see I've changed the name of my blog (and will most likely be changing the url soon, too.)  No longer will my humble spot on the world wide web be known as Sinistra's Bane.  Now, my blog will be called, "Heart Of The Wise".

Why the change?

As you learned from my previous post I'm in a blogging malaise.  I feel a strong need to take my blog in a new direction to reflect the philosophical shifts taking place within myself.  Don't worry; I'm NOT switching sides; if anything, I'm becoming more conservative.  The changes occurring in me are less about what I believe and more about how to advance those beliefs in society, how to best defeat the Left.  I'm increasingly beginning to believe that the conservative movement in general and the Republican party in particular are actually proponents of what I call liberalism lite.  They want to take America to the same destination as the Left, just at a slower pace.  You can see it when conservatives discuss the nation's problems.  Despite their constant call for smaller government they are, for the most part, devoid of solutions that don't involve government and/or politics.  That's not me anymore, and I don't want that to be my blog anymore.  Hence, the name change.

Sinistra's Bane, like its predecessor, PoorGrrl Zone, served me well but it's time to move on.  I need a new name for a "new" blog that will, I hope, help take conservatives from whiners to winners.  That can be done but it's going to take a tremendous effort, a movement wide mobilization equal to the military mobilization of WWII.  My hope is that "Heart Of The Wise" be a part of that and maybe even help to create it.

Our country has MANY problems.  The solutions bandied about by (most) conservatives/Republicans aren't working anymore, if they ever did.  We need new ideas, fresh takes on old ones, and the wisdom to know the difference.  My fervent hope is that my little place on the worldwide web will contribute to such a change on the right side, the side of the wise.

Blogging Blues

I'm in a blogging malaise.

I haven't written a post in two months, and even when I was posting "regularly" I was doing only one or two posts a month.  It's been that way for a long time and it's not just my posting that's slowed to a crawl.  I'm not reading blogs like I used to, either.  I've been on Blogger for nine years now--maybe that's part of the problem?--and I remember when I rarely missed a day of reading my favorite blogs.  Now I can scarcely recall what my favorite blogs were.  What's wrong?

Part of the problem is my illness.  I was diagnosed with breast cancer in April 2010--gosh, has it been three years already?--and for the next seven months I was focused on fighting the disease and getting well.  I won the battle, thank God, but after I did I didn't reconnect with blogging.  I took chemotherapy to fight the cancer and now I suffer from post-chemotherapy cognitive impairement, also known as "chemo brain".  Chemo brain makes it difficult to think, remember, focus, and concentrate.  I don't have a severe form of the ailment.  It doesn't affect my ability to function in every day life, thankfully.  It does, however, make it harder, sometimes a lot harder, to put words together.  I have words in my head but when I try to put them down on paper they get jumbled, and making a coherent sentence, let alone paragraph, can get so difficult I just quit.  When it comes to writing I hate quitting.  I get very mad at myself when I do, but the frustration of not being able to get the words out is overwhelming, so I give up.  So that's part of the reason for my blogging malaise.

Another reason is aethestics.  I just don't like the way my blog looks.  I've tried several different templates and layouts over the years but none of them ever really worked.  They just weren't me.  I've seen other blogs that look great but when I try to duplicate their look on my blog it just doesn't work.  That's almost as frustrating as dealing with the chemo brain induced writer's block.  I feel that if my blog had the right look, a look that was really ME, I'd be more interested in it, more motivated to push through the chemo brain and write.  But it doesn't have that look and, for now, I'm tired of trying to find or create it.  Therefore, my blog doesn't "call" me, and I don't miss it when I don't pull it up for weeks at a time.   That's the second reason for my blogging blues.  There's a final reason, though, one that, I think, will be the hardest to fix.  What is it?  I no longer know where my blog is going.

When I first started blogging I wrote mainly personal things.  Then I started commenting on politics, issues, and current events.  Slowly, the opinion pieces overshadowed the personal stuff and PoorGrrl Zone, as this blog was originally called, became a political blog.  I posted my thoughts on what was happening in America, mostly things I heard on the news, and that was great for a few years.  But then I started getting bored with that.  I didn't want my blog to be just a reaction to all the liberal craziness.  I still don't want it to be that.  In my opinion conservatives do too much of that; whining and complaining about liberal outrages but doing nohing about them.  Despite all the we-want-smaller-government rhetoric, conservatives don't seem interested in any solutions that don't involve politics and government.  That's not me anymore, and I don't want it to be my blog anymore.  I want Sinistra's Bane to stand for something, not just against something.  I want to offer non-political, non-governmental solutions to the problems that conservatives are so good at repeatedly diagnosing.  I'm not sure what type of solutions there might be but I can't keep on futilely railing against the darkness.  That's been a total failure for conservatism.  Instead, I want to light some candles.  I want a new mission for my blog.  I'm just not sure what form that mission will or should take.  Until I figure it that out I'll still be stuck in my blogging malaise.

Welcome to my world.

Happy 4th!

Hello friends!  Just want to wish all of you a marvelous 4th of July however you celebrate it.  Remember the real reason for the holiday while you're enjoying parades and barbecue.  God bless America!

Caught!

It happened last night.

Dzhokar Tsarnaev, the second suspect in Monday's Boston Marathon bombing, was apprehended  after a Watertown resident spied him hiding in a boat in his, the resident's, own backyard and alerted authorities.  Law enforcement surrounded the house and, after a  few hours and an exchange of gunfire, took Tsarnaev alive.  Tsarnaev had wounds he'd received in an earlier gun battle with police and was taken to an area hospital where he was listed in serious condition.  He remains in serious condition today.

I'm thrilled that this suspect was caught pretty quickly and ALIVE, unlike his older brother/accomplice, Tamerlan Tsarnaev, who was killed in the shootout with law enforcement that wounded Dzhokar.  Since suspect #2 is alive hopefully we'll get all the answers to not only how but why the brothers carried out the April 15th attacks.  Actually, we really already know why they did it.

According to news reports, the brothers, especially Tamerlan, had become radical Muslims after being largely moderate, Americanized Muslims before.  Radical Muslims hate the "decadent" West, believe all infidels must be killed, converted, or subjugated, and regard America as the Great Satan, the obstacle to the global triumph of Islam.  Dzhokar and Tamerlan Tsarnaev appear to have been sold out to such a belief system.  That's why they bombed the Boston Marathon.  We know this, despite Obama's plea for Americans not to jump to conclusions about the brothers' motives (wonder if Obama would've made such a plea if the brothers were Christians). 

The real questions we need answered now pertain to logistics, not motives.  Did the brothers act alone?  If not, who and where are their accomplices?  Are they part of a large or small group?  Did they receive training in explosives here or overseas?  Is attacking soft targets like the Boston Marathon now going to be Muslim terrorists' new m.o. in America?  This is what we need to know now, and I have complete confidence that law enforcement will get the answers.

Note to Muslim terrorists:  whatever plans you had, your new plan should be to get the hell out of dodge.  Americans aren't going to take your crap.  We'll take you alive if we need information, otherwise, kill us, especially our children, and you DIE.  As dead as Osama ben Laden.  As dead as Tamerlan Tsarnaev.  And as dead as Dzhokar Tsarnaev will one day be.

God bless America!  USA!  USA!  USA!

Wake Up, Conservatives!

Yes, MSNBC's weekend anchor, Melissa Harris-Perry, is a socialist nut.  That truth was on full display in her outrageous statement that Americans need to abandon their "private notion that children belong to their parents" and embrace the enlightened "recognition that kids belong to whole communities".  Yes, this is liberal-left craziness, but why are so many conservatives acting like this is a new revelation?

The belief that children belong to the state, euphemistically referred to as "communities" by Ms. Harris-Perry, is a fundamental principle of the left.  In 1996 then First Lady Hillary Clinton wrote a best-selling book, It Takes A Village, promoting the theme.  From suppporting state-funded day care to demanding no-say-from-parents abortions for minors, liberals have been putting their collectivist vision of childrearing into practice for decades.  It is nothing new.  Yet conservatives are acting like some new, horrible radicalism was expressed by Harris-Perry in her April 8 promo for her Sunday morning show. 

Maybe it was the sheer bluntness of her statement that really shocked conservatives.  Liberals speak in so much code and play so many Orwellian word games that hearing Harris-Perry unequivocally advocate collective childrearing was unusually disturbing.  Whatever it was, conservatives need to pull themselves together and realize that this has been the belief of the enemy all along.

That conservatives are so shocked about something that's been painfully obvious for decades is what I find disturbing.  If this is how firm their grasp on reality is then no wonder they're losing both politically and in the culture.  Conservatives have to abandon their will to disbelieve and see liberalism for what it really is.  The first step to victory is to face reality, no matter how uncomfortable, painful, or shocking it may be.  If conservatives can't do that then they should get out of the way and give the fight to more determined rightists.  America deserves that, don't you think?

An Omen for America

Blaer.

It means "light breeze" in Icelandic, and it's what a mother in Iceland has been calling her daughter for the past fifteen years.  The problem?  The government of Iceland didn't approve the name so, for her entire life, young Blaer has been identified as stulka or "girl" on all official documents.  Now she's suing the Icelandic government for the right to legally use her name.  What does this have to do with America?  Why is this an omen?  Here's why.

In the article on this story I was struck by a sentence which described Icelanders as being "comfortable with a firm state role" (emphasis added) in their lives and therefore not inclined to question the government's right to control what they can name their children.  That is exactly the kind of submissive populace that Obama and the secular progressives want to create in America.  They want and need a people "comfortable with a firm state role" because they believe state control is fundamental to realizing their version of a compassionate and just society.

Americans need to become comfortable with the government telling them what guns they can own, what light bulbs they can use, what kind of cars they can drive, even what size soda they can buy in a restaurant.  Such comfort will make it easier for secular progressives and their president to concentrate more and more power in government,  especially the federal  government.  As Americans become more submissive to and dependent upon the state, looking to it for their sustenance, they will give their votes to the party doling out the goodies, ensuring it permanent political power.  And that's the end game; creating permanent power for the Democratic party and making America a one party dictatorship.  All for the common good, of course.

But now there's little Blaer, daring to oppose the statist do-gooders in her tiny country.  She's "prepared to take her case all the way to [Iceland's] Supreme Court" to protect her "basic human right" to have the name her mother, not the state, chose for her.  A name she likes as much as she likes freedom.  Her court case is an omen for America but also an inspiration.  If a teenage girl can fight to keep the state at bay, so can we.  So can anyone.  Thank you, Blaer.

Are you listening, America?

The Year of No Fear

It's here.  2013.

Today, Tuesday, January 1st begins a new year for the world and, for us Americans, the start of the second term for the Obama regime, and a regime it is.

In the final days of 2012 the Obama Supreme Court ruled against the religious freedom of the Green family, owners of the crafts store Hobby Lobby (and the office supply store Mardel's).  The Greens, devout, pro-life Christians, sought a religious exemption to Obamacare's HHS mandate which requires businesses to pay for contraception, including abortion-inducing drugs, in their employee insurance packages.  They also sought an injunction against the enforcement of the mandate pending their court fight.  Obama Supreme Court judge Sotomayor refused, meaning Hobby Lobby has to comply with the mandate or face millions of dollars in fines.  The Greens are standing their ground even though it could put them out of business.  They are committed to their faith.  I greatly admire the Green family but they are only the beginning of the Obama regime's assault on our constitutional freedoms.  Gun owners are next.

In the wake of the horrific massacre at Sandy Hook Elementary school Obama and his leftist cohorts are gearing up to go after our Second Amendment rights.  Of course, they're claiming they just want "common sense" gun control to "protect the children", but we know what that really means.  Obama's victory in the presidential election last November has emboldened him and we can expect him to start revealing just how far left he really is.  We conservatives have to man up and stop him.

For far too long we conservatives have been afraid, yes, afraid to stand up for our values and beliefs to the fullest.  We have lived in abject terror of being branded racist, sexist, extremist, bigoted, intolerant, homophobic, xenophobic, Islamophobic, etc. by the left.  Those words have been their most potent weapons against us, wielded from their pulpits in academia, media, and entertainment.  The result has been that we conservatives have too often censored ourselves, modified our beliefs, hemmed and hawed, or did nothing when the times screamed for our action.  NO MORE!!!!

We are in a new year, 2013.  It will be the year of no fear.  There is too much at stake for us to be controlled by fear.  Yes, leftists will continue to war against us with all the ferocity that they always have, counting on our fear to paralyze us at crucial moments.  That must not happen.  The Obama regime is poised to transform our beloved nation into a government dominated, socialist, welfare state.  That will be the death of America.  We cannot let that happen!  Courage must now be the blood that flows through our veins.  Courage and cunning and absolute faith that we are RIGHT.  Nothing else, nothing less will save our great Republic.  Lock and load, conservatives; it's time to fight!

Happy New Year.  NO FEAR!!!!