The Christmas carol, “Silent Night”, was first performed on Christmas Day, 1814. The song became very popular around the world, and by 1914, a hundred years later, it had been translated into many languages. On Christmas Eve of that year, the First World War was raging in France. English and French soldiers in their trenches faced their German enemies across a “No Man’s Land” filled with barbed wire and flying bullets.
No one knows who started it, but some of the soldiers began singing “Silent Night”, and their enemies, also young, lonely and miserable, joined in, each in his own language. Before long, soldiers all along the front were singing this simple Christmas carol together. They threw down their guns, and joined each other, sharing comradeship, and even their precious goodies from home, with men they had recently been trying to kill. The whole war came to a halt for hundreds of miles.
The “Christmas Truce” of 1914 was unplanned and unofficial, but it really happened, and it lasted several days, the only time in history when a song stopped a World War. Common soldiers, responding to the spirit of Christmas, defied their officers’ orders and risked their lives for a song. Can’t our elected officials defy their party leaders and risk the next election, to work “across the aisle” for the good of their constituents?
We call on all elected officials to respond to the spirit of Christmas. Quit your fighting and come together for the good of all! If you won’t, our response must be, to
Send No One Back!
Saturday, December 23, 2017
Wednesday, December 6, 2017
The longest-serving senator
In 1977, while running for U.S. Senator from Utah, Orin Hatch, in his first Senatorial campaign, said to incumbent Frank Moss, “Senator, you have served the people of Utah for 18 years; it's time to retire.” Orin Hatch has now been serving the people of Utah in that same office for forty years, more than twice as long as Moss, and is seriously considering running for an eighth term. To put this in perspective, Orin Hatch has been a senator longer than half the people in the United States have been alive.
Senator, it's time to retire! Send No One Back.
Senator, it's time to retire! Send No One Back.
Saturday, December 2, 2017
A trillion dollars!
The Joint Committee on Taxation, an independent, bi-partisan organization, says the new tax bill will add ONE TRILLION DOLLARS to the national debt every year. Just how much money is that?
One Trillion Dollars = (one million x one million) dollars.
There are about 323 million people in the United States.
Dividing $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) by 323,000,000 (three hundred twenty-three million) people, you get
$3,095.98 MORE DEBT for every man, woman, and child in the country. EVERY YEAR.
That's in addition to the $20.2 trillion we already owe. It's also in addition to all the other deficit spending they were already doing.
Put it this way:
Congress has already saddled us and our children and grand children with a debt amounting to $62.000 EACH.
For a typical family of four, that means a current debt of $248,000, the price of a new home in most of the country.
And they just voted to add to that debt $12,000 MORE, EVERY YEAR.
Would you vote to take a twelve thousand dollar pay cut every year?
That's what your senators and representatives just did to you. SEND NO ONE BACK!
One Trillion Dollars = (one million x one million) dollars.
There are about 323 million people in the United States.
Dividing $1,000,000,000,000 (one trillion dollars) by 323,000,000 (three hundred twenty-three million) people, you get
$3,095.98 MORE DEBT for every man, woman, and child in the country. EVERY YEAR.
That's in addition to the $20.2 trillion we already owe. It's also in addition to all the other deficit spending they were already doing.
Put it this way:
Congress has already saddled us and our children and grand children with a debt amounting to $62.000 EACH.
For a typical family of four, that means a current debt of $248,000, the price of a new home in most of the country.
And they just voted to add to that debt $12,000 MORE, EVERY YEAR.
Would you vote to take a twelve thousand dollar pay cut every year?
That's what your senators and representatives just did to you. SEND NO ONE BACK!
From the news...
Today in the news I learned of a terrible accident. A box truck driven by Daniel Berk slammed into a line of vehicles waiting at a toll booth in Oakland, California, injuring seven other people and killing the toll booth attendant. He was arrested for DUI and vehicular manslaughter. The maximum felony sentence for vehicular manslaughter with gross negligence in California is six years in prison. If someone is killed or injured as the result of driving under the influence of alcohol, the driver can be found guilty of a felony and could go to prison for over a year, and up to five years, with prior convictions.
So, Daniel Berk faces a sentence of from one year to eleven years if convicted of both charges.
In the same news feed I saw the following:
When Sarah Sims' daughter complained she was being bullied in elementary school, the Virginia mother reached out to administrators at Ocean View Elementary School, but getting no response, she sent her daughter to school with a digital audio recorder in her backpack. Norfolk police charged Sims with a felony -- intercepting wire, electronic or oral communications -- and with a misdemeanor -- contributing to the delinquency of a minor. For Class 6 felonies like this, a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years is mandated. Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor is a CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR, punishable by up to 12 months in jail. So, Sarah Sims faces a sentence of one to six years if convicted of both charges.
So, getting drunk and killing someone with a car in California is almost as bad as trying to document school bullying in Virginia. Is it any wonder that people are getting fed up with the way our country is governed?
So, Daniel Berk faces a sentence of from one year to eleven years if convicted of both charges.
In the same news feed I saw the following:
When Sarah Sims' daughter complained she was being bullied in elementary school, the Virginia mother reached out to administrators at Ocean View Elementary School, but getting no response, she sent her daughter to school with a digital audio recorder in her backpack. Norfolk police charged Sims with a felony -- intercepting wire, electronic or oral communications -- and with a misdemeanor -- contributing to the delinquency of a minor. For Class 6 felonies like this, a term of imprisonment of not less than one year nor more than five years is mandated. Contributing to the Delinquency of a Minor is a CLASS 1 MISDEMEANOR, punishable by up to 12 months in jail. So, Sarah Sims faces a sentence of one to six years if convicted of both charges.
So, getting drunk and killing someone with a car in California is almost as bad as trying to document school bullying in Virginia. Is it any wonder that people are getting fed up with the way our country is governed?
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