State of the Union

            Tonight President Donald Trump gave a powerful report on the State of the Union. He spoke of all the “winning” that has been happening this year – the huge tax cuts that put money back into the pockets of Americans, the soaring stock market that keeps money growing in retirement and education accounts, the record low numbers of unemployed people, particularly African Americans and Hispanics. He spoke of the everyday heroes who stood up when they saw a need, such as the Cajun Navy in Houston and firefighters in California. After speaking of all the good things that are happening in the United States, President Trump said the following.

This is our new American moment. There has never been a better time to start living the American Dream.

So to every citizen watching at home tonight – no matter where you have been, or where you come from, this is your time. If you work hard, if you believe in yourself, if you believe in America, then you can dream anything, you can be anything, and together, we can achieve anything.

Tonight, I want to talk about what kind of future we are going to have, and what kind of Nation we are going to be. All of us, together, as one team, one people, and one American family.

We all share the same home, the same heart, the same destiny, and the same great American flag.

Together, we are rediscovering the American way.

In America, we know that faith and family, not government and bureaucracy, are the center of the American life. Our motto is “in God we trust.”

And we celebrate our police, our military, and our amazing veterans as heroes who deserve our total and unwavering support.

Here tonight is Preston Sharp, a 12-year-old boy from Redding, California, who noticed that veterans’ graves were not marked with flags on Veterans Day. He decided to change that, and started a movement that has now placed 40,000 flags at the graves of our great heroes. Preston: a job well done.

Young patriots like Preston teach all of us about our civic duty as Americans. Preston’s reverence for those who have served our Nation reminds us why we salute our flag, why we put our hands on our hearts for the pledge of allegiance, and why we proudly stand for the national anthem.

Americans love their country. And they deserve a Government that shows them the same love and loyalty in return.

            President Trump continued his talk by telling us how he wants the government to work in order to bless the lives of all Americans. He ended his talk with a plea for God to bless America. I echo that plea with an addition: May God bless our leaders and first responders who are working so hard to preserve and protect our American way of life. You can access the entire transcript of his talk at this site. 

State of the Union Address

                Did you watch or listen to the State of the Union address tonight?  I did not because I cannot stand to watch Barack Obama’s arrogance and I refuse to spend my time listening to a liar.  I do not respect the man who sits in the Oval Office at the present time.  Even though Mr. Obama “won” the last two presidential elections – as he so often reminds Americans – he lost the confidence of the majority of us long ago.

                Tonight Mr. Obama delivered his sixth State of the Union address.  He spent much of his speech calling on Americans to show more civility in politics; then he taunted Republicans because he won his last two elections.  He gave two separate veto threats in his speech with one of them “covering everything from immigration to tweaking Obamacare to revamping the Dodd-Frank Wall Street reforms.”  He stated that the economy is improving and unemployment is falling.  He said it was time to “turn the page” on years of war and economic weakness and turn to investments.  He did not mention the radical Islamic terrorism that is sweeping the earth or his illegal amnesty program.  His talk was much the same as previous ones that called for higher taxes on the rich, more unfunded programs, and more debt.  He may not have said it in these words, but Mr. Obama basically said that he does not care about the message sent by voters in November and that he intends to continue doing exactly what he wants to do.

                Senator Joni Ernst (R-Iowa), one of our brand new senators, gave the GOP response to the State of the Union.  She reminded Americans of the “failed policies” of Mr. Obama and said that the new Republican-controlled Congress “will focus on people’s concerns about jobs and health care.”  She called for bipartisan cooperation and for Mr. Obama to “cooperate with Republicans to simplify the tax code by lowering rates and eliminating unspecified loopholes….”

                Other Republicans gave responses to Mr. Obama’s State of the Union address.  I found some very interesting responses here. I listened carefully to the responses given by Representative Curt Clawson (R-Florida), Senator Ted Cruz (R-Texas), Representative Louis Gohmert (R-Texas), and Senator Rand Paul (R-Kentucky).  From the various speeches I heard wonderful ideas:  (1) We should restore our nation to greatness by returning to personal liberty, free enterprise, and the opportunity to live the American dream.  (2) We need a strong America in order to strengthen the nations of the world.  (3) We should return to the rule of law.  (4) We should base our policies on economic liberty and equal opportunity for all, not equal outcomes.  (5) We should respect and listen to each other even when we do not agree with the other’s ideas.  (6) We need to become a team and work together by respecting, trusting, relying on, and caring for each other.  We are the same!  (7) We need to secure the borders before any amnesty program will work.  (8) We should change our tax to a flat tax where everyone pays a certain percentage:  those who make a lot of money would pay a lot of taxes and those who make little money would pay little taxes.  (9) We should stop the policies that reward the rich and hurt the poor.  (10) We should have term limits for Senators and Representatives just as we do for Presidents because we need new people going to Washington with new ideas and new ways of doing business.  (11) We need government to get out of the way and let Americans grow and develop.  (12) We need to stop the governmental gifts to Americans and destroy poverty instead of growing it.  (13) We need to amend the Constitution to have a Balanced Budget Amendment.  (14) We need to have the stronger military in the world – a lean, mean fighting machine.  (15) We need to audit the Pentagon to make sure the money is going to the military and not being wasted.  (16) We need to allow Americans to exercise compassion without forcing it.  (17) We need to return to our Founding Principles.

                Katrina Trinko of The Heritage Foundation put together a great political commentary by various Heritage experts on “What Obama Got Right and Wrong in the State of the Union.” The experts zeroed in on the following topics:  economy, energy, education, legal, health care, life and marriage, and foreign policy and national security.  She stated what he got right and then explained what he got wrong on each of them.  Her article includes charts, numbers and other facts.  The collection of statements with the following paragraphs by Helle Dale.

                “President Obama tonight displayed an almost touching faith in the power of quiet diplomacy to solve problems in a dangerous, complex world.  If only it were so well.  The president’s speech contained several references to diplomacy.  He described America as leading `with consistent and strong resolve.’  For most observers of Obama’s U.S. foreign policy, that description is almost unrecognizable.

                “Obama talked about smarter U.S. leadership and strong diplomacy, about not talking rash decisions, about war as the choice of last resort.  Rejecting the idea of sending troops into war zones like Iraq and Syria, he said he intends to `stand on that wisdom’ of not putting boots on the ground.  The president also said he considered climate change to be the greatest challenge and national security threat for future generations.  For those who follow the news from the Middle East and the unraveling of terrorist cells in Europe, climate change is an almost quaint choice.  The speech spent all of two paragraphs on terrorism and did not mention al-Qaeda.

                “If you believed Obama, ISIS is being pushed back, Russia is reeling, and Iran is being disarmed – all because of American leadership, coalition building and diplomacy.  Unfortunately, reality is almost the exact opposite.  The Obama administration insists on running U.S. foreign policy from the White House.  As a consequence, politics take primacy, rather than statecraft and national interest.  That was the case again in the president’s speech tonight.”

                Once again Barack Obama addressed the citizens of the United States of America.  He lied and withheld critical information – and generally said nothing of importance.  We have two more years of this fraud!  I hope America is still around when he leaves office!

Seek Truth

                A friend named Keith spoke in a recent sacrament meeting and made some interesting points that I have been pondering for a few days.  Here are some of his thoughts:  Knowledge is a combination of things we are taught and what we observe, but knowledge is not always truth.  [Did you get that?  We gain knowledge by observing and being taught, but the knowledge we gain may not be the truth!]  The media controls much of the knowledge we get, and they do it to gain money, power, and prestige.  Truthful knowledge is very lucid and hard to find.  Truth can be found in the scriptures and in the teachings of Prophets and Apostles.  The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints encourages us to seek truth, and God desires us to seek knowledge of Him and His mysteries.

An example of knowledge without truth could be found in the State of the Union address delivered by Barack Obama last week.  He taught us many things, but we have no idea how much of it is truth.  There are numerous evaluations of the President’s speech, including the official Republican response by Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) and the official Tea Party response by Senator Rand Paul (R-KY).  A good side by side comparison of the three speeches can be found here.  

Jim Rogers, noted investor, free market advocate and author, shared some of his thoughts during an interview with Glen Beck the following day.  Rogers said that Tuesday’s State of the Union address makes you wonder whether President Barack Obama is “delusional” or just a good liar.  

Beck asked Rogers whether or not our nation has reached the point of no return, and Rogers answered that our “debt is physically impossible to pay off.  We are the largest debtor nation in the history of the world.”   Rogers said, “If everybody paid 100 percent of their earnings as taxes, we still couldn’t pay it off.”  He then turned his attention to the President’s statement in his speech about our economy getting stronger, “Mr. Obama said last night that everything is great.”  He then added: “He said that everything is great and that the middle class is on the way back and everything is fine now…. I mean, the man is delusional.  I was really afraid when I saw that…. It’s delusional.  It was frightening. I don’t know if he believed it or if he was just lying.”

After listening to Rogers, Beck said, “I don’t really care at this point.  He’s either the best liar or he is completely delusional.  I don’t know which it is, but it doesn’t matter.”

Beck conducted “a blistering fact check” of Obama’s speech.  “He went almost point-by-point and rebutted many of the proposals and statements put forth by the commander in chief.  Beck was shocked to hear Obama say his administration had `cleared away the rubble of crisis’ and the `state of our union is stronger.’  Beck remarked, “Stronger than what, Venezuela?  We are not stronger.  We are not strong.  We have had four straight annual deficits of over $1 trillion, a ballooning national debt that’s over now 200 percent of our annual output.” 

Beck’s fact check is interesting, but it is not the only one.  The Associated Press (AP)  wrote that the “President Barack Obama did some cherry-picking Tuesday night in defense of his record on jobs and laid out a conditional path to citizenship for illegal immigrants that may be less onerous than he made it sound.”  The article then looked at some of the President’s claims in his State of the Union speech and the counterargument of the Republicans to see how they “fit with the facts.”

The experts at Heritage Foundation, a conservative but non-partisan think tank, analyzed the claims, plans and promises that Obama laid out in his ambitious agenda during his State of the Union address. They shared thoughts on how our nation should respond to the Newtown massacre, the “voting experience” in America, “comprehensive” immigration reform, the renewed threat of terrorism, national education standards, Afghanistan, foreign policy, infrastructure “investments,” climate, finding balance in “Obamaspeak,” Obama’s tendency to blame Republicans for everything that is wrong about our nation, and the way America is hurting our workers.  This article is well worth the time to read.  

Rush Limbaugh made an interesting statement that is worth considering.  He explained that he had recently come to the realization of why Obama is constantly campaigning rather than governing.  Rush said that he is only realizing most of the tyrants and dictators – such as Hitler and Stalin – were never blamed by the common people for the messes they made in their countries.  The people believed that their leaders were “revolutionaries” who were trying to make things better for the people and that other “evil people – like the Republicans - were causing the problems.  Obama “campaigns” non-stop against the “evils” that are trying to destroy the people and nation, always making it appear that he is not part of the machine that is doing the actual destruction.  He cannot “govern” because he would then be part of the machine.  [An obvious example of this is during the terrorist attack in Benghazi when Obama went AWOL and told others “to do what you need to do.”]

Knowledge is power if it is also the truth.  Our lame stream media supports Obama’s lies rather than calling him out on them, and the “low information voters” of our nation believe the lies.  Then these same “low information voters” elect and re-elect people like Obama who continue to lie to all of us.  I have reached the point that I do not believe anything that Obama and other politicians say.  I have come to the conclusion that if their lips are moving, they are lying!  I did not watch or listen to the President’s speech for this very reason.  I will rely on the one Source where I know I will hear the truth.  That Source is our loving Heavenly Father who watches over us and who is the only One in control of what is happening.  I know that the knowledge I gain from God is the truth and that only the truth will set us free.