Ted Cruz simply does not know how to work and play well with others. We already have a President like that [Obama], so we don't need another.
I like a lot of things Cruz says and how he stands on various issues, but you get a feel that he's a nut-job with a genius standing in the shadows.
He likes to rub people the wrong way...too much.
Right now he's 9th on the list of possible GOP candidates, maybe just before Rick Perry.
Back in 2012 Romney didn't get his party's support either, until he seemed to be the best candidate in a field of lunatics, so who knows what will happen to Cruz once the Primary begins.
The legislature still doesn't know
squat about what to do about education. As long as legislators and business
people only are the ones deciding on what to do about public education, the
system will continue to fail.
School-Based Management (SBM) is
needed to ensure that each school in each district is providing a quality
education for the children in that district. A SBM Team at each school should
be comprised of no more than 12 members: teachers, parents, business people,
students, counselors, psychologist, principal should be at the table agreeing
what is in the best interests of their community school. And each school in
each district should do this. Then get rid of rigid, insignificant and archaic
State Exams.
A State Board of Education (SBOE)
sitting off in some ivory tower that determines education for the entire state
will continue to fail education.
Legislators simply do NOT get it.
They should NOT be the ones to determine educational outcomes and programs.
Individual communities are the solution.
Peter
Stern, former Teacher, Middle School Principal, University Professor,
Director of School Business Collaboratives and Director of Information Services
for government and private business, Disabled Vietnam
Veteran
Several years ago the Texas Legislature approved a bill to permit Texas Disabled Veterans to drive toll roads for free,
HOWEVER, they did not provide money from the General Fund to do so.
Therefore, the CTRMA as per the General Meeting of the Board of Directors, crafted Resolution NO. 10-106 and have tossed the bill back to the Legislature for funding to cover Disabled Veterans driving free on Texas toll roads.
I am asking that you consider presenting a bill before the House to fund the previous bill approved by the Legislature and now finance the bill from the General Fund so that Disabled Veterans may indeed drive tolls roads in Texas for free.
It is one thing to provide Disabled Veterans with the “lip service” of a free ride and quite another to actually fund the bill so it is a reality.
Thank you for your prompt attention to my request on behalf of all Disabled Veterans in the State of Texas.
However, I really believe that the US must be funding ISIS because there’s
no reason we can’t obliterate the group if we really wanted to and that includes
the financial ties to ISIS.
But ISIS seems to be a real force in the Middle East with methods of
obtaining money, goods and power that are too intelligently administered. There
is a lot more behind ISIS than we are aware of. It bothers me, but I think that
ISIS will be with us for a long time and I think it’s because too many
countries, maybe including the US, want it to.
It’s a catastrophe for the modern world that this is taking place and is
being funded by many world nations and many local wealthy Arabs and companies.
The US Government has been doing it for generations. It misleads the American people on many matters but perhaps the worst lies are that unemployment is at 5 percent and the Cost of Living Adjustment is at 1.5 percent.
Both of these government statements are outright lies!
Henry David Thoreau was correct when he stated that "Most men lead lives of quiet desperation."
Americans are hurting. Approximately 70 percent carry some debt and are living precariously from month to month.
Of course the government rate of unemployment is nonsense. The real number is up around 20 percent.
Most unemployed are not being calculated because they have been out of work for years. Many have given up trying to find work.
Furthermore many of the jobs being counted by the government are for less money and/or for part time employees. Many of those being counted have 2 or more part time jobs. Many are without benefits.
But this is nothing new. Government calculations have always been incorrect because they are based on faulty, antiquated and/or illogical formulas.
The same should be said regarding the formula for determining Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA) for the Disabled or Disabled Veterans on Social Security Disability and on Veterans Disability. Both of these categories are paid by the Department of the Treasury.
The formula for this year only raised the COLA 1.5 percent... and that amount is totally wrong.
In truth, the COLA has risen much more than that, but the antiquated and incorrect formula remains untouched by the President and Congress as it has been ignored for decades.
Consequently millions of Disabled receiving government disability are being short-changed. Many no longer can afford to live. Many have become homeless and many more soon will be.
It's time that Congress give the Disabled what they are entitled to for a real and accurate COLA.
It is also time the Congress redetermine an accurate account of the unemployed in our nation.
I read this today in Fox News. it hit me in the middle of my heart and
mind. So, just sharing with you... and you know why... but I always get chills
when I read about this time period in the World’s history.
It is almost with
disbelief that such a monsterous thing could happen on the World stage.
As the
article says, so many people no longer have any real knowledge of what happened
to millions obliterated from life by Hitler and the Nazis. When bad men ruled
the Earth... “Never forget!” is emblazoned in my mind... and I
wasn’t even there.
I recall visiting the Diaspora in Israel many years ago. I
can never forget. So, I would like all of you to remember also... and teach others
to “Never forget!” also... because if we forget, it can happen again....
Seventy years ago I
was in a Nazi concentration camp.
Since then, I’ve
seen tyrants and dictators enter and exit the global stage. Yet as the world
prepares to mark the 70th anniversary of the Auschwitz liberation, it
is perhaps well and right that we reflect on how the Holocaust shocked the moral
imagination on a scale the world could scarcely fathom.
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Why ponder such
things? Because for far too many, the Holocaust remains a
mystery.
A major poll
taken last year of 53,000 people found that just 54 percent had ever heard of the
Holocaust. Knowledge of Auschwitz is likely even more limited, particularly
among young people. Past surveys have shown that nearly half of Britons had never
heard of Auschwitz. Some schoolchildren even thought Auschwitz was a type of beer.
Here at home
in America a debate erupted last year when a teenager posted a smiling selfie at Auschwitz. Whatever your
opinion on the appropriateness of her actions, I was at least pleased to be
reminded that some young Americans still visit the Nazi concentration camp to
learn history up close.
In 1944, my family
and I stood in line before Dr. Joseph Mengele—the Nazi physician known as the
“Angel of Death”—as my mother, grandparents, two sisters, and baby brother were
all sent to the left to be burned in Hitler’s ovens. My father and I were sent
to the right.
I, too, visited
Auschwitz as a teenager. In 1944, my family and I stood in line before Dr.
Joseph Mengele—the Nazi physician known as the “Angel of Death”—as my mother,
grandparents, two sisters, and baby brother were all sent to the left to be
burned in Hitler’s ovens. My father and I were sent to the
right.
The first night
inside Auschwitz my father said we must separate because together we would
suffer double. “On your own, you will survive,” he told me. “You are young and
strong, and I know you will survive. If you survive by yourself, you must honor
us by living, by not feeling sorry for us. This is what you must do.” That was
the last time I ever saw my father.
I’m grateful for my
father’s words of grace and guidance. They echo in my heart even still. It’s a
cruel thing, feeling guilty for surviving. But my father erased any future guilt
and replaced it with purpose. It was a gift only a father’s wisdom could give.
It gave me a reason to go forward, a reason to be. It does
still.
Part of heeding my
father’s words involved replacing the horrors of my Holocaust past with a life
spent creating beauty in the form of hand-tailored suits for U.S. presidents,
Hollywood films, and the world’s most influential men. In fact, my first sewing
lesson took place in the Auschwitz concentration camp laundry when I accidently
ripped the collar of Nazi soldier shirt. A guard beat me before a kind older
inmate taught me how to sew a simple stitch to repair the torn shirt. It was
hardly the ideal tailoring apprenticeship, but it was my first lesson in a skill
that became my livelihood.
But at 86, another
part of honoring my father’s wishes requires being a voice for the voiceless.
Indeed, as parents, educators, and citizens, we must all do our part to help
ensure that “Never Forget” remains much more than a threadbare catchphrase that
gathers dust and loses meaning with each passing year.
For example,
many people are surprised to learn that Auschwitz was actually a complex
comprised of three main camps and dozens of satellites. The United States Holocaust Memorial
Museum’s statistics estimate that between 1940 and
1945, at least 1.1 million Jews and 200,000 of Hitler’s undesirables were sent
to the Auschwitz complex. Of those, 1.1 million were murdered. As I’ve notedelsewhere, that number would have been
far greater were it not for the courage of the American soldiers, sailors,
airmen, and Marines who traveled around the world to defeat a moral darkness
that consumed at least six million Jewish souls.
That’s a lesson
worthy of remembrance. The 70th anniversary of the liberation marks that
moment when freedom conquered barbarism through sureness of virtue and strength
of will. Sadly, as recent events reveal, that remains a lesson humanity must
learn and relearn from generation to generation.
The word Holocaust
means “sacrifice by fire.” May the memory of the millions who were engulfed in
the flames like my family never be forgotten.
Sharia Law is a
danger to everything we hold dear and sacred in the United States. There is a
huge mistaken belief that Islam is a peaceful culture and religion. Nothing is
further from the truth. Radical Muslims are trying to get Sharia Law approved in
various US states and other countries. Alabama
voters recently voted against it. Wise choice.
Once upon a time
these Islamic beliefs weren’t such a problem for the US because Islamic
countries were more primitive, backward and restricted to their Mid-Eastern
regions, but now they have the means, capability and fanatical desire to be more
global in their hostile actions.
In short, we are
targeted more by Islam and it will only get worse. They want to kill all
infidels and that is how they see Americans. We continue to be too politically correct with all immigrants entering the US and it is a big mistake.
The world has
become smaller and we must become more alert and ready to eliminate every and
any threat. There is no alternative.
Anyone who
doesn't see Islam as a huge threat to the US is extremely naive or lying to
themselves and to others. I include President Barack Obama in that
description.
“A big difference between Democrats and Republicans is
that the Democrats blatantly tax and spend and don't try to
hide it, while the Republicans tax and spend but they call it fees, penalties
and toll roads.”
Gov-elect Greg Abbott talks a good
game, but he is like so many Conservatives when it comes to picking and choosing
what rights they want to defend and when they want to defend them.
As soon as the oil companies are permitted
to and want to take our
lands for mineral and oil rights, or when a city, county
or the state
wants to take our land to build through a new toll road, Abbott and
legislators will work against Texas homeowners and their property
rights and/or
will not pay top dollar to take that property from us. I'm all for government staying out of our
lives, but right now Democrats AND Republicans at state, county and city levels
tell us what to do and they determine what rights we can keep and what rights
they will remove for their own gain. Confucius tells us to"Beware of the man who
blows hot and cold with one breath." Greg Abbott is such a
man.
This site was created as a public file to house my published political writings on various issues and to share them. Once in a while, I may toss in a special piece of writing.
