The following was reportedly written by Ben Stein and recited by him on CBS Sunday Morning Commentary.

My  confession:
I don't like getting pushed around for  being a  Jew, and I don't think Christians like  getting pushed around for  being  Christians.  I think people who believe in God  are  sick and tired of getting pushed around,  period. I have no idea where the concept came from,  that America is an explicitly  atheist country. I  can't find it in the Constitution and I don't like it  being shoved down my throat.
 
Or maybe I   can put it another way: where did the idea come from  that we  should worship celebrities and we aren't  allowed to worship God  as we understand  Him?  I guess that's a sign that I'm   getting old, too. But there are a lot of us who  are  wondering where these celebrities came from  and where the America we knew went to.
 
In  light of the many  jokes we  send to one  another for a laugh, this is a little  different:  This is not intended to be a joke; it's not   funny, it's intended to get you  thinking.
   
In  light of recent events--terrorists attacks, school  shootings, etc. I think it started when Madeleine  Murray O'Hare (she  was murdered, her body found  a few years ago) complained she didn't want prayer in  our schools, and we said OK. Then someone said you  better not read the Bible in school.
       
The  Bible says thou shalt not kill; thou shalt not steal,  and love your neighbor as yourself.  And we  said  OK.
 
Then Dr. Benjamin Spock said we  shouldn't spank our  children when they  misbehave, because their little personalities   would be warped and we might damage their self-esteem  (Dr.  Spock's son committed suicide).  We  said an expert should  know what he's talking  about.  And we said  okay.
     
Now  we're asking ourselves why our children have no  conscience, why they don't know right from wrong, and  why it  doesn't bother them to kill strangers,  their classmates, and themselves.
 
Probably, if  we think about it long and hard  enough, we can  figure it out. I think it has a great deal to do with,  'WE REAP WHAT WE SOW.'
 
Funny how simple it  is  for people to trash God and then wonder why  the world's going to  hell. Funny how we believe  what the newspapers say, but  question what the  Bible says.  Funny how you can send  'jokes'  through e-mail and they spread like wildfire, but  when  you start sending messages regarding the  Lord, people think  twice about sharing.   Funny how lewd, crude, vulgar and obscene articles  pass freely through cyberspace, but public discussion  of God is suppressed in the school and  workplace. 
 
Are you laughing yet? 
 
Funny how when you forward  this message,  you will not send it to many on your address list  because you're not sure what they believe, or what  they will  think of you for sending it. 
 
Funny how we can be more  worried about  what other people think of us than what God  thinks  of us.
 
Pass it on if you think it  has merit.
  
If not, then just  discard it. No one will know you did. But, if you  discard this thought process, don't sit  back and  complain about what bad shape the world is  in.  
 
My Best Regards, Honestly and  Respectfully,
 
Ben  Stein

"The Lord said to Moses:
"Speak to Aaron and his sons and tell them:
This is how you shall bless the Israelites. Say to them:
   The  Lord bless you and keep you!
   The Lord let His face shine upon you, and be
    gracious to you!
    The Lord look upon you kindly and give you peace!
So shall they invoke my name upon the Israelites, and
I will bless them."
The word of the Lord.
Numbers 6:22-27.

Obama’s ugly bid to snub voters and tie Trump’s hands
By Post Editorial Board
December 29, 2016 | 7:52pm

In his waning days in the White House, President Obama is desperately trying to make his policies as permanent as possible by tying the hands of his successor — and far more than other presidents have done on their way out.

From his dramatic and disastrous change of US policy on Israel to his executive order restricting 1.65 million acres of land from development despite local objections, Obama is trying to make it impossible for Donald Trump and a GOP-controlled Congress to govern.

Even Thursday’s announcement of wide-ranging sanctions against Russia presents Trump with a foreign-policy crisis immediately upon taking office.

By contrast, many of Obama’s predecessors have stood back in their final days in office and refrained from any dramatic shifts, in deference to the agenda of the man voters sent to succeed them.
But Obama won’t accept the election results. As he suggested the other day, Trump’s election was a fluke — and he himself would have easily been re-elected if allowed to stand for a third term.
He believes this not just because he’s an effective campaigner, but because he thinks his “vision” and policies continue to be backed by “a majority of the American people.”

But Obama, like many Democrats, fails to understand what happened in the election: Voters were calling for real change from the status quo — from his policies. Indeed, before the vote, he himself said it was a referendum on him and his policies.

Memo to the president: You lost.

Whether it was the lackluster economy, Obama Care, trade, the sweeping failure of his foreign policy or illegal immigration, voters sought something very different.
Trump, on the other hand, did more than just energize his base: He flipped six states that voted for Obama in 2012.

The results, as many have since come to realize, is that the Democratic Party now caters to a hard-left, elite core located on the two coasts — and has abandoned the working-class Americans in the heartland it so loudly claims to champion.

Which is why Democrats have also been losing seats, especially at the state level. Voters are fed up with Democratic failures — to the point where they were willing to take a chance on an untested novice like Trump.

Obama’s failure to follow tradition and respect voters is par for the course. He spent much of his tenure pushing the bounds and overstepping his constitutional authority — through regulatory edicts and executive actions. So, his latest power grab should come as no surprise.

But it’s one thing for Obama to have delusions about the popularity of his agenda. It’s quite another to try to preserve a discredited legacy by handcuffing America’s next democratically elected president.

In  Nashville, Tennessee, during the first week of January, 1996, more than 4,000 baseball coaches descended upon the Opryland Hotel for the 52nd annual ABCA's   convention.
While I waited in line to register with the hotel staff, I heard other more veteran coaches rumbling about the lineup of speakers scheduled to present during the weekend. One name, in particular, kept resurfacing, always with the same sentiment — “John Scolinos is here? Oh, man, worth every penny of my airfare.”
 
Who is John Scolinos, I wondered.  No matter; I was just happy to be there.
In 1996, Coach Scolinos was 78 years old and five years retired from a college coaching career that began in 1948. He shuffled to the stage to an impressive standing ovation, wearing dark polyester pants, a light blue shirt, and a string around his neck from which home plate hung — a full-sized, stark-white home plate.
Seriously, I wondered, who is this guy?
 
After speaking for twenty-five minutes, not once mentioning the prop hanging around his neck, Coach Scolinos appeared to notice the snickering among some of the coaches. Even those who knew Coach Scolinos had to wonder exactly where he was going with this, or if he had simply forgotten about home plate since he’d gotten on stage.
 
Then, finally . . . “You’re probably all wondering why I’m wearing home plate around my neck,” he said, his voice growing irascible. I laughed along with the others, acknowledging the possibility.  “I may be old, but I’m not crazy. The reason I stand before you today is to share with you baseball people what I’ve learned in my life, what I’ve learned about home plate in my 78 years.” Several hands went up when Scolinos asked how many Little League coaches were in the room. “Do you know how wide home plate is in Little League?”
 
After a pause, someone offered, “Seventeen inches?”, more of a question than answer.
 
“That’s right,” he said. “How about in Babe Ruth’s day? Any Babe Ruth coaches in the house?”Another long pause.
 
“Seventeen inches?” a guess from another reluctant coach.
 
“That’s right,” said Scolinos. “Now, how many high school coaches do we have in the room?” Hundreds of hands shot up, as the pattern began to appear. “How wide is home plate in high school baseball?”
 
“Seventeen inches,” they said, sounding more confident.
 
“You’re right!” Scolinos barked. “And you college coaches, how wide is home plate in college?”
“Seventeen inches!” we said, in unison.
 
“Any Minor League coaches here? How wide is home plate in pro ball?” . . . “Seventeen inches!”
 
“RIGHT! And in the Major Leagues, how wide home plate is in the Major Leagues?” . . . “Seventeen inches!”
 
“SEV-EN-TEEN INCHES!” he confirmed, his voice bellowing off the walls. “And what do they do with a Big League pitcher who can’t throw the ball over seventeen inches?” Pause. “They send him to Pocatello !” he hollered, drawing raucous laughter. “What they don’t do is this: they don’t say, ‘Ah, that’s okay, Jimmy. You can’t hit a seventeen-inch target? We’ll make it eighteen inches or nineteen inches.  We’ll make it twenty inches so you have a better chance of hitting it. If you can’t hit that, let us know so we can make it wider still, say twenty-five inches.'” Pause. “Coaches . . .” pause, " . . . what do we do when our best player shows up late to practice? When our team rules forbid facial hair and a guy shows up unshaven? What if he gets caught drinking? Do we hold him accountable? Or do we change the rules to fit him? Do we widen home plate? The chuckles gradually faded as four thousand coaches grew quiet, the fog lifting as the old coach’s message began to unfold. He turned the plate toward himself and, using a Sharpie, began to draw something. When he turned it toward the crowd, point up, a house was revealed, complete with a freshly drawn door and two windows. “This is the problem in our homes today. With our marriages, with the way we parent our kids. With our discipline. We don’t teach accountability to our kids, and there is no consequence for failing to meet standards. We widen the plate!”
 
Pause. Then, to the point at the top of the house he added a small American flag. “This is the problem in our schools today. The quality of our education is going downhill fast and teachers have been stripped of the tools they need to be successful, and to educate and discipline our young people. We are allowing others to widen home plate! Where is that getting us?”
 
Silence. He replaced the flag with a Cross. “And this is the problem in the Church, where powerful people in positions of authority have taken advantage of young children, only to have such an atrocity swept under the rug for years. Our church leaders are widening home plate for themselves!  And we allow it.”
 
“And the same is true with our government. Our so-called representatives make rules for us that don’t apply to themselves.  They take bribes from lobbyists and foreign countries. They no longer serve us. And we allow them to widen home plate and we see our country falling into a dark abyss while we watch.”
 
I was amazed. At a baseball convention where I expected to learn something about curveballs and bunting and how to run better practices, I had learned something far more valuable. From an old man with home plate strung around his neck, I had learned something about life, about myself, about my own weaknesses and about my responsibilities as a leader. I had to hold myself and others accountable to that which I knew to be right, lest our families, our faith, and our society continue down an undesirable path.
 
“If I am lucky,” Coach Scolinos concluded, “you will remember one thing from this old coach today. It is this: if we fail to hold ourselves to a higher standard, a standard of what we know to be right; if we fail to hold our spouses and our children to the same standards, if we are unwilling or unable to provide a consequence when they do not meet the standard; and if our schools and churches and our government fail to hold themselves accountable to those they serve, there is but one thing to look forward to . . .”  With that, he held home plate in front of his chest, turned it around, and revealed its dark black backside, “ . . . dark days ahead!”
 
Coach Scolinos died in 2009 at the age of 91, but not before touching the lives of hundreds of players and coaches, including mine. Meeting him at my first ABCA convention kept me returning year after year, looking for similar wisdom and inspiration from other coaches. He is the best clinic speaker the ABCA has ever known because he was so much more than a baseball coach. His message was clear: “Coaches, keep your players—no matter how good they are—your own children, your churches, your government, and most of all, keep yourself at seventeen inches."
 
And this my friends is what our country has become and what is wrong with it today
. . . and how to fix it!!
 
"Don't widen the plate!"  An absolutely great speech!!

Obama Sides With Trump - 1776Coalition.Com

THE STATE OF OUR HEALTH CARE SYSTEM
By George A. Sprecace., M.D., J.D.
A Recent Interview with Adam Sprecace, PE,
On the Lee Elci Radio Show, December 13, 2016
Q&A


Note:  You can also hear the segment broadcast on December 30, 2015...

Quality: excellent at the top; modest on average, and decreasing.
Access: sporadic.
Cost: excessive and wasteful.
IN GREAT NEED OF EFFECTIVE REFORM.

(eg. patient workload, reimbursement rates and dependability, electronic record-keeping, etc.)
Workload increasing; compensation decreasing; EMR’s poor for the private practicing physician and patient, necessary for hospitals but generating increasing cost and workload and decreasing quality as measured by productive provider – patient interaction.

Much more stress and strain, with less physician and patient satisfaction.
Physician burn-out and declining physician health.
Pressure to practice UNETHICALLY: eg. ACO’s, BUNDLING, etc., which for first time would force the physician’s self-interest to work at variance with that of his or her patient, with whom he has a Fiduciary Responsibility.

Increased premiums, reduced coverage….
Obamacare was and is a Christmas Tree of Wants, with no attention given to needed Health Care Reforms. The Goals are reduced costs at any cost, and increased Regulations by many who have no knowledge of what they are doing. Example: THE 30 DAY READMSSION RULE, which substantially  penalizes hospitals for readmitting an inpatient within 30 days of discharge…EVEN FOR AN UNRELATED READMISSION DIAGNOSIS! 

20 million subject to penalty. 8 million paid penalty. 12 million exempt. Thus, more subject to penalty than were covered.

Endless Litigation, including the USSC. Coercion: loss of Freedom of Religion, reduced quality and availability due to intimidation and decisions in a System (ie. Catholic Hospitals) that is nearly the largest in the nation.

Repeal and Replace, with a two year transition period. a) increase insurance policy competition across State lines; b) reduce and rationalize Regulations; c) make all patients financially at stake at every encounter (HSA’a, co-pays, defined contribution instead of defined benefit plans, etc; d) retain coverage for pre-existing conditions while imposing penalties for continued bad life-styles, which account for about 50% of all health care costs; e) as “Defensive Medicine” accounts for 20-30% of health care orders – costs, REFORM MEDICAL MALPRACTICE LAW – eg. Health Law Courts; f) promote and enforce End Of Life Decisions – 50% of Medecare costs occur in the last 6 months of a recipients life!;g) make electronic medical records OPTIONAL for private physicians; h) re-think and revise EMTALA LAW – currently a poor and wasteful use of ER’s; i) prohibit UNETHICAL medical practice and payment programs; j) pay physicians fairly – they are now bearing the brunt of this Christmas Tree. ETC.

Most physicians, yes.  Hospitals are ambivalent: gaming the system where they can; merging and selling out; trying to “go along” so as to “be at the table” when government decisions are made – not working; acting like trained businessmen when dealing with professionals: “win-lose” instead of “win-win”, treating professionals like widgets…. A bad plan.

Short-Term, GUARDED. Much damage has been done.  Long-Term, FAIR, now that competents have retaken the ASYLUM.

A Nice bit of History

Frank Sinatra considered Kate Smith the best singer of her time, and said that when he and a million other guys first heard her sing "God Bless America" on the radio, they all pretended to have dust in their eyes as they wiped away a tear or two. 
  
Here are the facts... The link at the bottom will take you to a video showing the very first public singing of "GOD BLESS AMERICA". But before you watch it, you should also know the story behind the first public showing of  
the song.  
  
The time was 1940. America was still in a terrible economic depression. Hitler was taking over Europe and Americans were afraid we'd have to go to war. It was a time of hardship and worry for most Americans. 
 
This was the era just before TV, when radio shows were  HUGE, and American families sat around their radios in the evenings, listening to their favorite entertainers, and no entertainer of that era was bigger than Kate Smith. 
   
Kate was also large; plus size, as we now say, and the popular phrase still used today is in deference to her, "It ain't over till the fat lady sings".  
 
Kate Smith might not have made it big in the age of TV, but with her voice coming over the radio, she was the biggest star of her time. 
   
Kate was also patriotic. It hurt her to see Americans so depressed and afraid of what the next day would bring. She had hope for America, and faith in her fellow Americans. She wanted to do something to cheer them up, so she  went to the famous American song-writer, Irving Berlin (who also wrote "White  Christmas") and asked him to write a song that would  make Americans feel good again about their country. When she described what she was looking for, he said he had just the song for her. He went to his files and found a song that he had written, but never published, 22 years before - way back in 1917. He gave it to her and she worked on it with her studio orchestra. She and Irving Berlin were not sure how the song would be received by the public, but both agreed they would not take any profits from God Bless America. Any profits would go to the Boy Scouts of America. Over the years, the Boy Scouts have received millions of dollars in royalties from this song.  
  
This video starts out with Kate Smith coming into the radio studio with the orchestra and an audience. She introduces the new song for the very first time, and starts singing. After the first couple verses, with her voice in the background still singing, scenes are shown from the 1940 movie, "You're In the Army Now." At the 4:20 mark of the video you see a young actor in the movie, sitting in an office, reading a paper; it's Ronald Reagan. 
 
To this day, God Bless America stirs our patriotic feelings and pride in our country.  Back in 1940, when Kate Smith went looking for a song to raise the spirits of her fellow Americans, I doubt whether she realized just how successful the results would be for her fellow Americans during those years of hardship and worry..... And for many generations of Americans to follow.  
   
Now that you know the story of the song, I hope you'll enjoy it. 
Many people don't know there's a lead in to the song since it usually starts with” God Bless America....." So here's the entire song as originally sung.....  ENJOY!

Election Therapy From My Basket of Deplorables

The election was a complete repudiation of Barack Obama: his fantasy
world of political correctness, the politicization of the Justice
Department and the I.R.S., an out-of-control E.P.A., his neutering of
the military, his nonsupport of the police and his fixation on things
like transgender bathrooms. Since he became president, his party has
lost 63 House seats, 10 Senate seats and 14 governorships.
The country had signaled strongly in the last two midterms that they
were not happy. The Dems’ answer was to give them more of the same
from a person they did not like or trust.

Preaching — and pandering — with a message of inclusion, the Democrats
have instead become a party where incivility and bad manners are taken
for granted, rudeness is routine, religion is mocked and there is
absolutely no respect for a differing opinion. This did not go down
well in the Midwest, where Trump flipped three blue states and 44
electoral votes.

The rudeness reached its peak when Vice President-elect Mike Pence was
booed by attendees of “Hamilton” and then pompously lectured by the
cast. This may play well with the New York theater crowd but is
considered boorish and unacceptable by those of us taught to respect
the office of the president and vice president, if not the occupants.
Here is a short primer for the young protesters. If your preferred
candidate loses, there is no need for mass hysteria, canceled
midterms, safe spaces, crying rooms or group primal screams. You might
understand this better if you had not received participation trophies,
undeserved grades to protect your feelings or even if you had a proper
understanding of civics. The Democrats are now crying that Hillary had
more popular votes. That can be her participation trophy.

If any of my sons had told me they were too distraught over a national
election to take an exam, I would have brought them home the next day,
fearful of the instruction they were receiving. Not one of the top 50
colleges mandate one semester of Western Civilization. Maybe they
should rethink that.

Mr. Trump received over 62 million votes, not all of them cast by
homophobes, Islamaphobes, racists, sexists, misogynists or any other
“ists.” I would caution Trump deniers that all of the crying and
whining is not good preparation for the coming storm. The liberal
media, both print and electronic, has lost all credibility. I am
reasonably sure that none of the mainstream print media had stories
prepared for a Trump victory. I watched the networks and cable
stations in their midnight meltdown — embodied by Rachel Maddow
explaining to viewers that they were not having a “terrible, terrible
dream” and that they had not died and “gone to hell.”
The media’s criticism of Trump’s high-level picks as “not diverse
enough” or “too white and male” — a day before he named two women and
offered a cabinet position to an African-American — magnified this
fact.

Here is a final word to my Democratic friends. The election is over.
There will not be a do-over. So let me bid farewell to Al Sharpton,
Ben Rhodes and the Clintons. Note to Cher, Barbra, Amy Schumer and
Lena Dunham: Your plane is waiting. And to Jon Stewart, who talked
about moving to another planet: Your spaceship is waiting. To Bruce
Springsteen, Jay Z, Beyoncé and Katy Perry, thanks for the free
concerts. And finally, to all the foreign countries that contributed
to the Clinton Foundation, there will not be a payoff or a rebate.
As Eddie Murphy so eloquently stated in the movie “48 Hrs.”: “There’s
a new sheriff in town.” And he is going to be here for 1,461 days.

Merry Christmas.

Shot my first turkey yesterday!
Scared the shit outta everyone in the frozen food section.
It was awesome!
Gettin' old is so much fun...

Remember: Don't make old People mad.
We don't like being old in the first place, so it doesn't take much to piss us off.

I'll try to answer your questions keeping in mind I'm not a politician and may be somewhat biased in favor of Law Enforcement especially in light of the 121 murdered policemen this year.  Speak only from my experience with the NYC Police Dept...  I have no knowledge of other Departments training procedures.

First, regarding marksmanship. We have man hours of firearms training during basic training and once or twice annually each year thereafter. We are trained to shoot at the largest target; sadly that is the torso. We all have seen western movies where the good guys, wearing white hats, can shoot the gun out of the hand of the bad guy or
shoot the heel off the shoe of an escaping perp. There are not many Wyatt Earps in the police Dept. Also, pressure on the police officer is a factor.
More to come.

Then there is the taser. Only last week or so, a police officer tasered a man and he died of a heart attack.  It appears you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't.  I believe the NYPD has instituted a psychological examination as part of their investigation into the applicants background. Yet, some individuals change once they put on a uniform and gun.  I'm reminded of some investigations during my time in the Internal Affairs Unit.  I interviewed some wives of police officers and they would tell me that their husbands were such nice men; but once they put on the uniform they changed.

Re: the use of the baton or billy, that was used by foot patrolmen. I don't know why it is not used any longer.  Even when it was carried there were complaints of brutality.  Most police are in autos for rapid response.  Many of the situations reported occur when the person who is brandishing a weapon are defiant and refuse to drop their weapon and approach the officer.  Sadly the results are often tragic.  As for the situation on Staten Island, again the individual defied the officers commands. A physical encounter ensued with tragic results.

Many of the inner city neighborhoods are hotbeds of crime and the residents, especially the elderly, want the police there.  Because of the power the police have they are held to a higher standard.  Rightly so.  However' keep in mind that police officers suffer the same anxieties and fears as the general public and have a very stressful job.

I hope I addressed all of your questions.  A side  note: I personally have felt one of the more dangerous situations was responding to family disputes.  While attempting to escort the husband out to allow time for the disputants to cool off, the wife would assault the police. So much for community relations.

All we see and hear is "Police shot and KILLED..." someone.
Perhaps a naive question: don't the police get training in marksmanship? Why must the shot (s) always kill?
And why must the semi-automatic (not automatic) pistol always get off 4 or more shots at a time, as it seems to be?
I am entirely supportive of the police everywhere, with two conditions: 1) they must be properly screened and then properly trained; 2) forget the "Blue Line" when that is interpreted to mean protecting a nogoodnik who has broken the law.
This is especially needed when a definite part of our population no longer has respect to the badge - and is often armed - and when another part of our sick population is looking for "suicide by police".
In my uninformed state, I would prefer greater use of the billy-club, more liberal and prompt police display of their gun in hand, and the ability to hit a knee or a shoulder or the balls. Bottom line: police must always have the right to defend themselves from imminent attack - in the view of the policemen in the moment. And that determination should be on a subjective basis, not on an after-the-fact "objective" basis.
Am I making any sense here?
"Sock it to me".
Thanks.

GS

Lord's Prayer

By a 15-year-old school kid who got an A+ for this entry
(TOTALLY AWESOME)!  
The Lord's Prayer is not allowed in most  
U.S. Public schools any more.  
A kid in MINNESOTA, wrote the following

NEW School Prayer:-
 
Now I sit me down in school 
Where praying is against the rule  
For this great nation under God  
Finds mention of Him very odd.  
 
If scripture now the class recites,  
It violates the Bill of Rights.  
And anytime my head I bow  
Becomes a Federal matter now.  

Our hair can be purple, orange or green,  
That's no offense; it's a freedom scene..  
The law is specific, the law is precise.  
Prayers spoken aloud are a serious vice.  
 
For praying in a public hall  
Might offend someone with no faith at all..  
In silence alone we must meditate,  
God's name is prohibited by the State..

We're allowed to cuss and dress like freaks, 
And pierce our noses, tongues and cheeks...  
They've outlawed guns, but FIRST the Bible.  
To quote the Good Book makes me liable.
 
We can elect a pregnant Senior Queen,  
And the 'unwed daddy,' our Senior King.  
It's 'inappropriate' to teach right from wrong,  
We're taught that such 'judgments' do not belong..  

We can get our condoms and birth controls,  
Study witchcraft, vampires and totem poles...  
But the Ten Commandments are not allowed,  
No word of God must reach this crowd.  

It's scary here I must confess,  
When chaos reigns the school's a mess.  
So, Lord, this silent plea I make:  
Should I be shot; My soul please take!
                                                   Amen