Portions of this story were taken from The Huffington Post, Newsmax.com, AP, CNN, MSNBC and FoxNews

Patrick Denker (CC)

I’m not speaking simply from observation, but from personal experience. According to the COEXIST Foundation, they are a non-profit organization creating understanding across divides. Does “understanding” mean forced acceptance? According to most who say they believe in the COEXIST movement this seems to be the case.

For me coexist means that you are allowed to worship your god and I am allowed to worship my God. Neither has to hide in a closet or behind closed doors. It means that you may not understand my beliefs but you allow me to believe them and practice them as my faith requires me to.

COEXISTers will picket and protest and ask that certain religious groups (Christians) refrain from calling abortion murder. Why? It’s what the Bible teaches us. Shouldn’t we be allowed to speak what God teaches? Wouldn’t that be COEXISTing?

COEXISTers will picket and protest and ask that certain religious groups (Christians) refrain from calling the gay or lesbian lifestyle sin even though that’s what the Bible teaches us.

COEXISTers will picket and protest and ask that certain religious groups (Christians) refrain from teaching our kids to abstain from sex before marriage even though it’s what the Bible teaches us.

So, basically, the COEXISTers want us to COEXIST with them but without our “Owner’s Manual”.

As Christians, the Bible is our “Owner’s Manual” with instructions on how we are to live our lives.

The COEXIST Foundation website asks…

“What is it that makes Coexist distinctive among others working to promote better understanding between faiths?”

The problem with this question is that it sounds good, but it doesn’t reflect what’s happening. There were major “rifts” between the COEXIST people and the mainstream Christian and Mormon churches over California’s Prop 8. However, if the goal is to understand then why would they not simply accept that these two groups understood the Bible to say that the sacrament of marriage is between a man and a woman as stated by God?

When the COEXIST people verbally ridicule others for what they believe doesn’t that go against their basic tenants? Are they really trying to understand, I think NOT!

The website goes on to state, “while we recognize and celebrate the many connections between the Abrahamic faiths, we also acknowledge their differences and distinctiveness. We believe we learn more about ourselves and our own traditions by looking respectfully at others’. So Coexist is not just about good relations: it is also about exploring our own convictions and beliefs.”

WOW! Another great statement. But it doesn’t match. Their actions show they are not willing to allow us to live out what we believe. Many who ascribe to the COEXIST philosophy have written nasty things about those of us who live by and adhere to our Biblical principles. If I speak out (not in hate, always in love) about things against God’s word that they may not agree with, they will call me a hater.

Take gay marriage for example. The mainstream Episcopalian church believes in same sex marriage. Mainstream Christian churches believe that God has called us to marry, have children, and repopulate the earth. It’s hard to do this from a same sex position. Yet instead of tolerating that viewpoint, they call us ignorant haters. This does not sound like a group that wants to coexist.

My biggest issue with many on the COEXIST side is that they are quick to let those of us who want to hold strong to our Christian beliefs just how wrong we are. They actively seek us out to picket and write opinion pieces about how they are for equality for all.

But that isn’t really the truth either. Have they ever fought for the Christian kids to have a right to include the name of Jesus in a campus speech? Have they ever fought for the Christian kids to be able to promote their faith on campus through clubs and activities? Do they fight for the any kids to support the rights of the unborn on campus? The answer is “no” to all of the above. But wouldn’t that be “equality for all”?

From what I’ve observed, COEXIST is exclusively for them, but it’s NO-EXIST for us.

If you want equality it goes both ways and applies to everyone.

romana klee (CC)

DISCLAMER! Read carefully before proceeding.
Not ALL teachers are doing this. Not all school districts are not doing this. Not all administrators are doing this. But, there are enough of them doing it that it should bother you.

When it comes to K-12, I believe our education system needs to get back to reading, writing, and arithmetic. That’s their job. Not social issues and not revisionist history.  On the social side we’re teaching topics such as, “How to put on a condom”, “What type of sexual situations are acceptable?”, “Religion: Myth or Truth”, “Do sports like dodge ball teach bullying?”

We are 47th in the world when it comes to math and science and we are worried that a child will not know how to use a condom. A side note here, a recent study showed teenage pregnancy and abortion rates are down, but it’s because of abstinence not condom usage. Go find that tidbit in the mainstream media. Sadly, abstinence is not usually taught in schools. It’s taught in churches, places of worship, and homes.
Your children are being taught that it’s normal to have sex at 12, 13, 14, and so on, as long as you have protection. Do you really think this is a lesson to be taught at school? Your children are being taught that all forms, types, and styles of sex are permissible as long as you are properly instructed in technique and safety. Do you think this is a lesson that should be taught in school?

Your daughter can be taken to Planned Parenthood for an abortion, off school property, without your knowledge. But if she has a headache, she has to suffer through because they can’t administer drugs (aspirin, ibuprofen, etc.) to her without your written permission. And if you send someone like grandma or grandpa to pick your child up from school and they are not on “the list” your child can’t go home with them. Hello? There is something wrong here.

Even one district that I’m aware of to-date teaches about “bestiality” because children may experiment with it and we need to make sure they know how to be safe in it. I wish I were kidding! And guess what parents? You can’t opt out!

When it comes to history we are in worse shape, from Columbus being nothing more than a mass murderer because of all the Native Americans he slaughtered, to the Pilgrims who were the first Mafia organization in America, to the Founding Fathers who were nothing more than old, white slave owners. Let’s reflect on that last one. When you tell young children that the Founding Fathers of this nation had money and were mostly white, religious fanatics who owned slaves, what impression do you think that makes on a young, impressionable mind?
Then you go on to teach things like how America, the bully, needlessly killed millions of Japanese, restarting WWII by dropping bombs on them just when the ware was coming to an end. Yes, that’s actually a chapter in a history book. In what time warp did that happen? Even today’s Japanese historians admit that the U.S. dropping those bombs saved millions of lives all over the world. But those in education that hate America in its current state won’t allow the facts to prevail. They know, like Hitler did, that if you indoctrinate the youth you can eventually change the country.

America is a great nation. America has stepped in to help many a nation on humanitarian causes; food, healthcare, disaster relief. Americans give more money to nations after a national disaster than all others combined.

We are told by many political experts that we should be looking for the good in nations and peoples. How about they start right here at home? America is the greatest nation on this planet. Yes, we have our flaws, but we are continually working to fix them. I can’t image being a citizen of any other country.

These are just a few examples. It can seem disheartening, but there is good news. It’s a common thread, when a parent got involved, things change. They checked their child’s backpack and regularly asked what they learned in school that day. Then they followed up with the school when something didn’t look or sound right.

The important thing, parents, is to stay engaged and involved in your child’s life more than just asking whether they did their homework or not. If you don’t like what you hear, call the school. If you don’t get the proper answer there, call the district office, go to a school board meeting, and like our Founding Fathers, never give up, never stop the fight. Our children are our future. You can and will make a difference.

They hunt out and plan to hurt innocent people and children. They do it in a sneaky way, in the shadows, with no courage and no spine.

It takes cold hard courage to look the person in the eyes that you are about to kill or blow up. You’d have to look at them, their humanity, their emotion, their fear and then kill them. Cowards can’t do that.

But what does it take to do what they do, to plant bombs where no one will notice? They’re not placed to protect anything or keep someone out of where they shouldn’t be. They are placed to simply cause as much human suffering as possible, by cowards. I keep saying that because you shouldn’t think of them as freedom fighters or religious zealots or anything else but simply a coward!

While perusing Facebook and other blog-type sites most of the posts talk about what a great job the police and authorities are doing. There were also comments about the cowards being “freedom fighters”, that they felt oppressed, or that they were “set up”. PLEASE! Don’t even go there!

There are evil people in this world, period. Hitler, Stalin, and so on are prime examples. People who will kill you because they can’t take responsibility for their own actions, their own failures, their own inability to make a life for themselves.

The coward killers that committed the Boston bombings were just out to do evil. You will be told that it’s because of a religious jihad or because they are radical Islamists. In this case, I submit, they were just evil people.
People don’t become evil because they “join” a religion or because they join a movement. It starts long before then. Many people leave a religion or group because they feel it’s going in the wrong direction or the principles change. Those people have character and truly want to do the right thing. But evil people seek out evil and justification for their anger to back up their hateful actions.

It’s a warped way of thinking when hateful people think they have been wronged by the big, bad devil known as the United States. The good life and the freedom we have make them mad because they don’t agree with it or they think they can never achieve it or worse, have tried and failed and need someone else to blame.

So the cowards kill and destroy because they think they are justified. They think they have divine guidance, but all they have is hate and evil.

Don’t feel bad for bombers, as misguided as they may be. These cowards knew what they were doing… and they didn’t care.

Pray for the families that lost loved ones and those who have family members recovering from injuries. If you don’t pray, then send good thoughts or feelings their way. They need all the help we can send.

Joe Messina is the Host of The Real Side Radio Show heard daily around the country. www.TheRealSide.com

According to the AP and other news sources, an LGBTQ group (for the uniformed that stands for “Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender, Queer”) has asked that a priest be removed from George Washington University. They want Father Greg Shaffer removed from campus over his anti-gay and anti-abortion views.

Damian Legacy and Blake Bergen want the university’s Office for Diversity and Inclusion to investigate the priest and are calling for the student government association to de-fund the Newman Center on campus.

News reports indicate they were particularly offended by a blog post the priest wrote calling gay relationships “unnatural and immoral.”

Interesting. This doesn’t sound like they really care to have someone with a diverse thought process to be included. In fact, it doesn’t sound at all like they want to understand why he believes what he does. Isn’t that intolerance? And does the priest not have a right to express what the Catholic Church teaches? The church that he works for and pledged an oath to is dedicated to upholding the truth according to God’s word (as laid out in the Bible), and it’s what he believes.

Did they not know what the Catholic Churches believe and teach? Did they not know what 99.9 percent of Catholic priests believe? A testimony to how deeply the left does its homework.

This is one of the few cases where the school has shown some spine. School officials have said it protects the right of religious freedom and is defending the rights of all religious beliefs to express themselves.

Newman Center, the building in which the priest was teaching, is a Catholic-based center. The have Catholic mass in there and teach the principles of the Catholic faith. No one is forced to go and participate. So what’s wrong here? I’ll tell you. It’s all about hate. Period.

The people who complained about a Catholic priest teaching Catholic principles in a Catholic hall are just hateful.

This shows the real hypocrisy of the left. If I say I don’t believe in gay marriage and I don’t believe same-sex couples should be allowed to be married, then I am, or will be, labeled a “homophobe” and “gay hater.” They say we should be silenced and not allowed to teach in our churches what the Bible clearly states about marriage, abortion and so on. They say it’s hate speech.

When they speak against Christians, it’s considered freedom of speech. But when Christians speak against LGBTQ lifestyles, it’s hate speech. Really. How disingenuous can one be?

Then, there is the kid who asked the teacher for a Bible. No way, you say? Yes. Another news source posts, “The teacher’s trouble started last October when he was standing by a door waiting on middle school students to enter the building. One student trailed behind the rest.”

“Just remember, son,” he told the tardy student, “The first shall be last but the last shall be first.” A few days later the student asked about the origins of the quote. The teacher “told him it was in the Bible.”

There’s that nasty word, and being uttered in a school, oh my. Doesn’t sound like the teacher was pushing his views, but let’s continue.

“On Oct. 12, the teacher was eating lunch in the cafeteria when the student approached and brought up the Bible verse. So the teacher took out his Bible and showed the student the verse.

“At some point the student mentioned that he did not have a Bible. The teacher, who also serves in Gideons International, happened to have a spare book.

“The teacher basically said, ‘would you like mine?’ said a friend of the teacher and a fellow Gideon. The student said yes, and so the teacher gave him his personal New Testament.”

Still doesn’t sound to me like pushing his religious beliefs. So what happens next? He is fired. What did he do wrong? They hand out all kinds of fliers and books on sex and how to and where to and with how many to the kids who didn’t ask for them, but a teacher, who is asked specifically about a book the student is curious about, is forbidden from sharing? Just outrageous.

There are so many examples of these kinds of incidents happening more and more in our schools. Only a dishonest person would say there is no attack on religious liberties in this country.

Joe Messina is host of The Real Side radio show, a nationally syndicated talk show. www.TheRealSide.com

The most-watched TV shows are reality shows. Don’t you want to watch shows where people are worse off and nastier than you? And let’s not forget “The Walking Dead,” a show about zombies, which some would say is also a reality show. What redeeming values. And then there are shows like “Greys Anatomy” where doctors and nurses are getting it on like rabbits before Easter.

Aren’t these shows what people want? Apparently not. Reality, zombie and vampire shows are popular among our youth. “The Bible” series pulled in more than 13.1 viewers, of which 5.6 million were between 18 and 45. Wow! Who would have thought 18-year-olds were interested in Bible stories?

These numbers are considered an enormous audience by normal TV broadcast standards. What happened? Those liberal fruitcakes in Hollywood think good, wholesome programming with solid family and moral values won’t sell. Obviously they’re wrong.

Tyler Perry has repeatedly proven them wrong, as well. His “Madea” series has made hundreds of millions of dollars, and he has written directed and produced many other feel-good, wholesome, God-centered movies that have also gone on to make hundreds of millions of dollars. Go figure.

So why wouldn’t Hollywood want to cash in on this viewership? Because they are so sold out to their godless, moral-less agenda that they are willing to make less money. Instead we are bombarded with shows like “The Simpsons,” “Family Man” and “South Park” – shows that force the notion on our young people that parents, fathers in particular, are so inept that they are not to be listened to or obeyed. The family unit, religion, moral values and just good clean TV are not what we should subscribe to.

What, then, should we be watching? Vampire and zombie movies that show a romantic side to death, right? That dark side is kind of sexy and fun. We are so turned around as a society. They even tried to shove a show like “GCB” (Good Christian Bitches) down our throats because they loath what Christianity stands for and want to discredit it. What cowards. Were they also going to produce “Good Islamic Bitches” or “Good Buddhist Bitches”? Doubtful.

“The Bible” series, the Tyler Perry movies, “The Cosby Show,” “Touched by an Angel” and “Fairly Odd Parents” are but a few of many, good wholesome shows that make, and made, money, and keep making money in syndication. They have good characters with good parents in them with wholesome story lines and a useful lesson to every show.

The cable channel “ME-TV” is doing fantastic, making money, and has a rapidly growing audience. Why? Listen up, Hollywood! Because people want some good, clean, wholesome programming. But instead, the industry keeps pushing broken families, sexual perversion and down-trodden, no-way-out garbage on us, and you, the general viewer, allow it.

If you want good programming, fight back. Don’t support the shows and stations that don’t promote your values, and let them know you’re doing it.

As those Hollywood executives are sitting around trying to figure out how and why this happened, show them you care. Show them they must stop treating you like a bunch of mindless, careless idiots. Take time to see what your kids are watching, and don’t support those that sponsor these moral-less shows.

Joe Messina is the host of a Nationally Syndicated radio show
The Real Side w/Joe Messina

www.TheRealSide.com

Rep. Maxine Waters said 170 million Americans would lose their jobs. (I hope you guys are smarter than this; there aren’t that many jobs in the U.S.) I think I even heard the Earth could possibly move in the opposite direction. Well, maybe not, but close.

Democrats are good at spinning fairy tales.

Why do Democrats think we are such idiots? Well, maybe we are. They need to cut $82 billion from a $4 trillion budget. That’s 2 percent of the budget. It’s negligible. Budget? There is no budget. So why is it so difficult to cut 2 percent from something that doesn’t exist?

We do have $4 trillion in expenses, but certainly we could cut 2 cents on every dollar, considering the federal government overpays as much as $50 billion for goods and services every year (according to Sen. Tom Coburn).

Mr. President, stop playing games and act like a leader. I have been saying on my radio show that he needed to stop campaigning and get back to Washington, lock himself in a room with House and Senate leaders and – taking the lead from Sheriff Joe Arpaio – feed them bologna sandwiches, give them pink underwear, and don’t let them out until they have a plan. The American people deserve that.

Apparently the president heard my show, flew back to D.C. on Friday, went into a room with only Republican leaders and tried to browbeat them into dropping the cuts and giving him more revenue (read: tax increases). When they refused, he walked out. Great negotiating skills.

After that, he went to his pre-arranged press conference and miraculously had a 20-minute speech prepared (because he can’t just “talk” to the public), in which he proceeded to blame Republicans for everything.

The president got his tax increase in the first round of negotiations back in January. He was downright deceitful because, as he said in his speeches, after those meetings he would meet with “the other side” to lay out meaningful cuts and take a balanced approach moving forward.

Republicans should have learned from the days of President Reagan. At the time, Democrats agreed to give Reagan the funds to secure the border, both physically and with human resources, in exchange for amnesty. What did the Democrats do in Congress?They reneged on the deal. Amnesty came, but nothing else did. And we, the American people, got screwed. Now we have eight times the number of illegals in a relatively short period of time.

Once again, Democrats are hiding the facts. Why exactly does money have to be taken from first responders? Is that really the only place we can cut? I guess if you’re looking to bamboozle the American public, it might be a good idea.

There’s more than $32 billion in grants for green and alternative energy research and development. Why can’t we start there instead of public safety? We don’t need green energy to keep our homes from burning down, or crime out of the streets, or our emergency rooms open. Friday, another green energy company that received a government grant closed its doors. Why doesn’t the president just flush the money? It wouldn’t be as painful.

According to Sen. Coburn, there are a few other areas we can make cuts without impacting vital services for public safety:

* Nearly $700,000 went from the National Science Foundation to a New York-based theater company so it could develop a musical about climate change and biodiversity.

* Close loopholes in the food stamp system to reduce widespread abuse such as the exotic dancer who earned more than $85,000 a year in tips, but also collected nearly $1,000 a month in food stamps while spending $9,000 during that time period on “cosmetic enhancements.”

* Although NASA has no plans or budget for any manned spaceflights to Mars, the agency spends about $1 million each year on developing “the Mars menu.” It’s an effort to come up with a variety of food that humans could eat one day on Mars.

* A $325,000 grant was awarded for the development of “Robosquirrel,” a robotic rodent designed to test the interaction between rattlesnakes and squirrels.

* An estimated $70 million is lost on the production of pennies. According to the Waste Book, “The cost to produce a penny in 2012 is more than two times its actual value.” After billions of one-cent coins are manufactured and sold at face value every year, taxpayers are left to cover the loss.

* Billions of dollars of government-owned real estate sits empty while we rent or lease billions of dollars in office space.

And these guys want to manage health care? Buy your plot while there is still room.

These guys couldn’t manage growing grass.

Let’s start with the pope announcing his resignation due to health issues. The news was a big deal both inside and outside of the Catholic community. Many Catholics were saddened to hear of his early departure. Many non-Catholics and non-religious people said there were other reasons, possibly more sinister reasons. Some said there were more issues that were going to come out against the church and they (whoever “they” are) wanted him out of the way.

How about this for an explanation? He is old. He is sick and feeble and feels that he needs to get out of the way to best serve the institution that he loves. Imagine that.

Have we become so cynical as a society that we couldn’t possibly believe anyone does anything for honorable reasons?

There are still many people who believe their God and their church are worth sacrificing and dedicating their life to. It’s not a club or a group or a committee. It’s a core belief, the foundation of a person’s life.

Some are now saying, those mostly on the left, that this is a great opportunity for the Catholic church to “upgrade itself” to usher in women priests, a female pope, gay marriage, abortion and more.

To a Catholic (and Christian), God’s word is just that. It’s His word. He’s the only one who gets to change it, not us. Scripture is clear on this matter, and with the exception of a few “progressive” scholars, almost all Christians can agree on what God’s word says about these things. These are God’s laws for us to live by, and there are consequences for ignoring them.

Maybe there is a direct correlation between our disregard for religion and our disregard for the Constitution and its laws. Is anyone “sold out” to anything anymore?

Let’s make it simple. I am “sold out” to my wife. I believe in her. I love her. I trust her. I trust her words and her actions, especially as it pertains to us. I believe in her so much that I don’t try to change her. She may have some minor things that I don’t care for, but they aren’t important enough to take up brain space. I joined with her for who she is.

When someone joins a church and believes in its core values, those values are unchangeable. Asking someone to go against scripture is like asking or encouraging a child to disobey his parents.

Progressives don’t seem to grasp that there are foundations that make religions and this country great. They think that if something in those foundations makes one person in the group uncomfortable, then we should change them.

Progressives don’t seem to have boundaries or rules that are cemented in facts, and proof doesn’t seem to be important in making decisions.

You cannot ask religious people to go against their Creator or their Creator’s words. It simply won’t work. It’s called being dedicated to what you believe in.

Progressives keep asking religious people and institutions to give up their individuality and violate their belief systems to come in line with the rest of society, “get with the program” and accept what they believe society should accept.

First the Constitution came under attack, now religion, and next comes socialism. Check your history books, people. History is on the road to repeating. Don’t let it happen to US.

Yes, February was always the month that “The Wizard of Oz” played on TV – in the days before VCRs, DVDs and NetFlix. It was a big event that I looked forward to and scheduled around. I couldn’t wait for it.

Those days are gone. “The Wizard of Oz” can be ordered up on demand and is no longer an annual event.

Speaking of fiction and looking forward to annual events, let’s discuss the president’s speech last week. If I were his speech writer, I would have started with: “Once upon a time in a land known as the United States,” and ended with, “They all lived in a government-induced welfare coma ever after.”

I recorded the president’s speech so I could go back and forth over the statements he made so I wouldn’t feel like I missed anything while I was caught up in the excitement of it all.

It sounded nothing like a State of the Union address, but more like a speech he would give to the press club.

Unfortunately, there was little truth in the speech. Statistics were flying around like feathers in a rooster fight. Let’s start with the easy stuff…

Border crossings: The president said there has been a record low number of border crossings under his watch this past year.

The truth: Border agents are suing the government because they have been told not to capture and return aliens crossing the border. So did he tell the truth, yes. Of course there’s a record low number of RECORDED crossings; they aren’t arresting anyone to record. Did he really tell the truth? No. And he’s not doing the will of the people.

Affecting the budget: The president made many statements about the budget that were quite confusing – comments like, “This won’t add one dime to the budget;” “This will decrease the budget by;” and “This will not affect the budget in any way.”

I ask, what budget?? Harry Reid and his crew of senatorial misfits (who are controlled by the Democrats) refuse to – not that they can’t, but they won’t – bring a budget to the floor for a vote. So, many spending extensions have been given by Congress – you know, that legislative body controlled by the Republicans (the “party of no”). Why? Because the Democratically controlled Senate won’t pass the budget that the president said won’t be affected by any of his plans.

The truth: The president did tell the truth. His policies won’t affect the budget because there is nothing to affect.

Jobs: President Obama said, “After shedding jobs for more than 10 years, our manufacturers have added about 500,000 jobs over the past three.”

The truth: If he started his presidency in 2010 he would be close – as close as the East is to the West.

The federal Bureau of Labor Statistics reports that the U.S. economy has added 489,000 manufacturing jobs since January 2010, so President Obama was pretty close on that one. However, that’s only from 2010. Was he not in charge in 2009? Picking 2010 as his starting point instead of the beginning of his term a year earlier allows the president to do what he does so well: spin the numbers.

When you look at his full four years and not just three, there is a big difference. President Obama took office in January 2009 and there were 604,000 more manufacturing jobs than there are now. More than 2 million manufacturing jobs were lost between June 2008 and January 2010.

But Obama wants us to understand that everything is getting better, and the economy is on its way back. “We are more than halfway towards the goal of $4 trillion in deficit reduction that economists say we need to stabilize our finances.”

This is an old tactic by his favorite economists, many of whom are now running away from the president’s decisions in the belief that his his plan, or lack thereof, is too weak and won’t help anyway.

Deficit reduction: President Obama says $2.5 trillion in deficit reductions have already happened, and another $1.5 trillion would be enough for now. But wait.

The truth: People who have an economic clue, including former Clinton budget director Alice Rivlin, ex-Clinton National Economic Council Director Laura Tyson and former Fed Chairman Paul Volcker say Congress and the White House need to find another $2.4 trillion in savings to make sure deficits actually decline.

To add insult to injury, that was before we decided to fund the Hurricane Sandy relief bill, which wiped out all of the cuts set aside for this year. Yes, all of them. This was a $50-billion-plus bill and, sadly, $23 billion of it does nothing to help Sandy victims – much like most of the lines in the presidential speech will do nothing to help change the fate of this county for the better.

There were many more fictional fairy tales in the speech, but I’ve already exceeded my space allotment, and you get the idea.

We are still in for a world of hurt. Batten down the hatches.

That was the early 1970s. I lived in the city streets of Boston, before it was cool to live in a city like that, by the waterfront, before there were such things as condos. I joined the Cub Scouts probably because my mom (a single mom) thought it would be good for me to get into the woods see what real trees and grass looked like, and so I would have strong male role models.

When we moved to live close to my cousins, my new Cub Scout den leader also happened to be my aunt. Eww! A girl was leading the boys. How could that be?

It was very different. I was a little boy who needed guidance, and I needed a man to teach me how to be a man. A plumber can’t teach you how to be a jeweler any more than a woman can teach a boy to be a man or a man can teach a little girl to be a woman.

The Boy Scouts of America recently decided, after years of pressure, to allow gays to be Scout leaders. The decision was based largely on corporate pressure applied by pro-gay companies that threatened to pull funding (which they have every right to do). As a result, the Boy Scouts are “re-thinking” their rules.

The BSA decided not to force local chapters to accept gays (which they also have every right to do). Good for them, for now. It’s only a matter of time.

Religious groups that have always supported the Boy Scouts in a big way are now re-thinking their involvement with the group as a result of this change.

President Obama recently said he thinks the Boy Scouts should allow gays at every level in the organization. Once again, the president thinks, then speaks, and the damage begins.

Is anything sacred? Is any group allowed to have its own set of rules and way of doing things?

Now, don’t get radical on me, I’m not talking the KKK; the last I heard, the Boy Scouts aren’t burning crosses on lawns.

Maybe we should disband the Girl Scouts, Boys Scouts, Eagle Scouts, Brownies, Cubs Scouts, Weebelos and just make one big “Gender Neutral Scouts” or just “Scouts.” Do you see how ridiculous this gets?

Leave the Boy Scouts alone. Leave the Girl Scouts alone. If you want to show strength and diversity the American way, start the LGBT Scouts or any other kind of “Scouting” you want. Because they are different – as different as boys are different from girls, and as men are different from women.

We should continue to have the freedom to allow clubs, groups and churches the ability to serve specific subsets of people with common interests and beliefs without government intervention.

Just because the president thinks the Boy Scouts should allow gays at all levels, that doesn’t mean it’s the way things should be. This is a private organization. The government should be concerned with jobs and the economy, not interfering with the mission and goals of an organization it “feels” is not being fair to all human beings.

What’s next? Do Asian-American clubs now have to grant membership to those with Italian, Greek or whatever heritage? Will Hooters be forced to have male waitresses? I could fill up one of those T-shirts, but there wouldn’t be any people at my tables.

The government has no business getting involved in every aspect of our lives, every club, every organization or business. And the president doesn’t have all of the answers. Otherwise, we wouldn’t continue to be sinking deeper into the mess we’re in as a nation.

Joe Messina is host of The Real Side (TheRealSide.com),
a nationally syndicated talk show

They simply pushed the debt down the road. This country is deficit spending at a rate that we can NEVER repay no matter how much money we steal from the rich.

Let’s put in terms we can all understand. Say you make $50,000 a year, and let’s say your expenses are almost $68,000 a year. You can cut back on expenditures or you can do what the government does when they aren’t making enough money… take a second, third, and forth mortgage out on your house. Then, use the borrowed money to pay your deficit while you continue to spend more than you’re making.

In ten years you are still in the hole. $180,000 in the hole. Even if you get a 2% raise each year, you will still be in the hole. This ratio is roughly equivalent to how our government is currently operating.

Our Federal government takes in almost $2.4 trillion a year in tax revenues. They spend over $3.6 trillion a year. We are spending a TRILLION more than we take in! President Obama and our Representatives have committed us to spending an additional $4 trillion over the next 10 years, leaving one big mess of a legacy for someone else to figure out because many of them won’t be around.

The Fiscal Cliff compromise didn’t really deal with any cuts or spending reforms. Remember, Mr. Obama said “no more bailouts for banks and big corporations”?? Well, NASCAR, the green industry, farming, and many others got BIG TAX breaks. And Obama’s beloved middle class got the BIG SHAFT!

The average American will lose $30.00 each week from their paychecks. That’s a ½ tank of gas, 1.5 bags of groceries, the water bill, or the phone bill.

The average American will lose $120 to $150 each month.  That’s ½ a car payment, a full insurance payment, or an electric bill in a small apartment. DOES ANYONE ON THAT HILL REALLY GIVE A ^%@$ about the American worker? NO!

As a small business owner, I spend a lot of time working through the company budget, what we are spending, what we need to spend and so on. As a husband, father, and homeowner I also have to take time to look at our current income, our expected future income, the safeguards on our investments, and “Plan B” in case everything blows up. It takes time and input from experts.

The Fools on the Hill took 3 minutes to evaluate this compromise before they voted on it! I wish I were joking. Let that sink in. Most of our U.S. Senators received a copy of this 154 page bill 3 minutes before they voted on it, maybe 10 minutes total.

I don’t know about you, but I can’t read 154 pages, take it in, and understand the details in less than 10 minutes. But these guys to this ALL THE TIME!

They have all got to go!

Democrats need to wake. Fifteen of the best 21 run states are controlled by Republicans. Eleven states that currently have more people on public assistance than those not on public assistance are run by Democrats. Detroit, the poster child for the way the Democrats want to do business, is in the toilet and has been for a long time. The schools are a mess, government is a mess, the city is a mess, the streets are a mess. Shall I go on?

Both sides need to look at the hard numbers and see what works and what doesn’t and just do what works! PERIOD!

How does an elected official looking at their failing city, look at successfully running city and decide they can’t do what the other city is doing because its run by the “other side” . That’s un-American, un-patriotic, and just plain stupid.

Hey America! Grow up and get a clue. Let’s replace these “Fools on the Hill” before they destroy us all.

Joe Messina

So far, it’s mostly been a failure, yet we keep throwing money at it. Your money and my money.

If we have a viable way to use alternative energy I’m all for it. But I don’t want to keep throwing money at technology that’s not working.

Many major inventions were discovered with private money by great people. When you are using your own money and time you work harder, waste less, and work with more attention to detail. WHY? Because you don’t have an open checkbook and can’t afford to work on it (whatever IT is) forever. When the government backs you, there are few restrictions especially when it comes to green technology.

President Obama is so sure of green that he promised to put 1 million electric cars on the road by 2015.  He has invested over $5 billion in taxpayer money and offered $7,500 per vehicle in rebates. All of this WITH YOUR MONEY! With less than 2 years to go we are a whopping 5% of the way there!

In the REAL business world with limited capital we would “Stop the Insanity” and re-check our plan. This plan is in such bad health we should consider applying Obamacare to it, that would kill it for certain.

A few auto companies have jumped on the green gravy train including Nissan and Tesla.

We loaned a Taiwanese company $160 million to build Volt batteries in Ohio. The money was supposed to help build the plant, hire American workers, and lend support to the electric car industry. AS in all American Government takeovers, it didn’t work out that way. The owner of the manufacturing plant was a foreign company, most workers and management were foreign nationals, and NOT ONE BATTERY was manufactured and used in an electric car. The plant shut down last month and now Volt batteries are made oversees.  Thank you Obama administration!

Nissan received $1.4 billion in TAXPAYER money (your and my money). It is at least putting together electric cards in Tennessee, but it needs to build a bigger storage lot for all the cars it is producing and not moving.

There are over 250 million passenger cars in America. 2012 saw only 34,000 electric cars sold. This is from 5 car manufacturers. SERIOUSLY?! Chevy had expected to sell 45,000 Volts in 2012. Yes, Chevy alone! This was with bailout money intended to help the Green cause. The Green growing is the moss in those cars being stored by the river because they are not selling! They are in storage and the Volt plant shut down for a few months to slow production.

What a blessing that was to the America taxpayer because it’s estimated that it costs the American taxpayer almost $50,000 a Volt in subsidies to produce the vehicle. Yep, you’re paying for a car you get no use or benefit from.Tesla, failed technology

In 2012 Nissan sold 9800 EV’s, Volt sold 23,000, Toyota 12,700 (average 20 mile range), Tesla 3,200, Ford Focus sold 650 EV’s, and Mitsubishi sold 92 in 2012 (600 since inception!) If these vehicles are such a wonderful thing and in such demand, why have so few been sold? Especially with a $7,500 rebate!?

How long do we hold on for a failed technology? How long do we keep wasting your money? My money? This is wrong! The government needs to get out of the bailout business, the green business, and the healthcare business and get back to the business of the people. PERIOD!

Joe Messina

I have been hearing for weeks now guns this, guns that. Those nasty guns! And who needs more than 10
bullets to hit a deer? Then “the left” starts with the automatic weapons. Who needs an automatic weapon?
Why do we need guns?

Well, let’s apply some common sense here. Let’s stop the hysteria and get to real facts.
First, the loss of any life including those precious young kids is unacceptable. My heart goes out to those families. BUT STOP BLAMING THE GUNS!
I have yet to hear any stories where a gun, sitting in a drawer or on a table, went off and killed someone as they walked by.    Never!    However, I have heard MANY stories about how someone with a mental disorder used the gun of a law-abiding citizen and killed someone. I have also heard of car-jacked vehicles killing someone. And I have also heard of people being beat with a tire iron or baseball bat.

You say, “Joe, you’re being ridiculous. You can kill and maim so many more with a gun. Really?!
So, when the 77 year-old drove his car through the Third Street Promenade killing 12 and hurting
many others, did we pull licenses from all 77 year-olds?

Why haven’t we raised the driving age or banned ALL teenagers from having phones with text capabilities.
It’s the number one killer of teens.

When gun bans were put in place during the Clinton administration violent gun crimes didn’t stop or drop at all!
Over the last 30 years guns sales are up over 40%. Crime, however, is down overall. HELLO! Numbers count. You have to take the emotion out of it.
In Los Angeles County alone 4 million guns have been sold over the last 10 years. Crime? It’s dropped.
Why aren’t gun related deaths and violence up exponentially with all these additional guns?

Because guns are NOT The problem!

In Florida, Texas, and other places where gun permits are easier to obtain crime drops. Take out the emotion look at the numbers.   HELLO! Criminals don’t follow the law. That’s why they are called criminals and why they do time.

California dealers sold 600,000 guns in 2011, only 350,000 in 2002, according to records of sales tallied by the California attorney general’s office.
The number of hospitalizations in California due to gun injuries DROPPED roughly 28 percent, from about 4,000 in 2002 to 2,900 in 2011, according to records newly collected by the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.  Gun-related deaths in California fell 13 percent over the same period, from 3,200 to about 2,800, according to the California Department of Public Health.  According to Mark Kleiman, a UCLA public policy professor who has written on guns and crime, the most likely group to be killed or hurt by guns are young men.
Imagine a whole community of old women who all owned guns for protection. How many violent gun incidents do you think we would have? How many silver-on-silver-haired violence incidents would we have?
I personally believe there would be NONE!
There are over 211 million guns owned in the United States. There are almost 350 million people living in the United States. If we use the logic and numbers thrown out by “the left”, we should have a major incident with multiple deaths nearly every 13 minutes!
Many crimes are committed using stolen guns. 40% of the guns used in crimes are stolen or purchased on the street illegally according to the U.S. Bureau of Justice Statistics.
So for those of you who think that banning any kind of gun, hand gun or assault rifle is going to help. Just check out what’s happening in Chicago and Washington DC. Crime is up.
The numbers don’t lie. Tougher gun laws equal more violence and deadly crime. Reasonable gun laws that allow law-abiding citizens to protect themselves equal less crime.
The gun issue is just another distraction from the real problem… our Legislators!!!

Joe Messina
National syndicated host of
The Real Side Radio Show
www.TheRealSide.com

This will print the day before the most holy day in the lives of all football freaks and parade aficionados alike. NEW YEARS! You know, the ROSE BOWL and the ROSE Parade usher in a new year of, well, wait, let’s finish 2012. I don’t want to get ahead of myself.

By the end of 2012, I will have completed almost 250 shows, written more or less 100 columns or blog posts, and wolfed down about 80 hot dogs from Wienerschnitzel.

I will have seen our economy flat lined at under 2%(GDP) and our REAL unemployment rate hanging in at 14.6% (BLS u6 stats). This doesn’t account for the countless Americans who are taking jobs earning considerably less than they were making, NOT to mention MILLIONS of Americans who just gave up.

One out of every 4 houses in major metropolitan areas in foreclosure. The U.S. credit rating has dropped for the first time in FOREVER! Our deficient has tripled in 4 short years. Millions of Americans are living on food stamps and almost 46 million more are living under the poverty level. Americans are giving up… something is not right.

The person who does not work and who receives government assistance often makes more money than a median income person. How is this possible that a person who is receiving public assistance still gets services in amounting to over $40,000 a year? When you add up what they receive in food stamps, Medicaid services, and cash assistance, it adds up to over $40,000 to $50,000 a year!! Is anyone wondering why so many don’t want to work? A person who makes $33,000 to $40,000 a year only really sees $19,000 to $24,000 dollars a year after taxes. However when you go for services you are told that you “make too much”. You don’t make enough money to survive, but you make too much to receive services. You can barely make ends meet. Why bother getting up every day to go to a job that pays so little when you can make more with government assistance?
So to beat poverty you simply need to go on government aid. How do we move forward when things are this backward?! Wouldn’t it be better for government to encourage people to take on ANY job and assist them a little bit if needed to bridge the gap?

Thousands of businesses are closing down. Between the economy, taxes, health care mandates, and out of control regulation, it’s just too hard to be a business owner and survive, let alone succeed.

We can’t drill for oil. Manufacturing plants can’t open because we can’t import needed metals because of regulations. We are living in a global economy and are regulating ourselves out of business. Case in point: It’s cheaper and easier to build the Volt battery in Taiwan than in America (where our President says we need to be more green friendly). So he loaned GM money to build the Volt to save the car industry and further green energy, essentially putting many of GM’s workers out of a job (in the middle of a recession), bankrupting many GM re-investors and sending the green battery manufacturing services to Taiwan. Yup, makes sense to me! NOT!

The President said earlier this year, “Small business is doing well.” REALLY? Which small businesses was he speaking of? Look at the local strip malls and commercial industrial areas. So many are EMPTY! Bankruptcy is up with small business owners. Yup, it must be backwards YEAR!

And the cliff is in sight no matter what they agree on. But 2013 can’t get any worse… REALLY? Many economists say that there is another recession coming in 2013, maybe even a depression!

Current GDP is at a level that can’t even sustain the recession we are in now. (Yes, we ARE still in a recession.) We are extremely dependent on Europe’s economy. As of November, Greece alone has over 11 million people and ONLY 4.7 million are working. They need to borrow $30+ billion to pay their bills (retired people) for the next few months until a permanent plan can be worked out. Sounds like they are taking lesson from our legislators. Oh, and Japan, who we rely on heavily, has government debt that is 230% of its GDP!

Here at home, the foreclosure problem has only just begun. Banks have been holding back, just you wait!

Rising health care costs, stronger regulations, more stringent oil drilling regulations, more foreclosures looming, and a severe shortage of jobs … Happy New Year?

Recently, students at Butler University were told to disregard their American-ness, male-ness, white-ness, heterosexual-ness, middle-class status when writing or speaking in a classroom. (This is where you would hear that confused Scoobie-Doo sound.)

The small liberal farts, I mean, liberal arts college thinks students should use language that is inclusive because, and I quote, “inclusive language is a fundamental issue of social justice.”

According to the syllabus, “Language that is truly inclusive affirms sexuality, racial and ethnic backgrounds, stages of maturity, and degrees of limiting conditions,” referencing a definition created by the United Church of Christ. This is a VERY liberal church. They support same sex marriage which is NOT accepted by most mainstream churches.

I never went to college and after some of the things I am reading about what goes on there, THANK GOD! Look, educational organizations should do just that. Teach! Reading, writing, math, REAL history, and so on. I am not interested in what you, Ms. Professor, believe is American-ness, male-ness, white-ness, heterosexual-ness, or any other “ness”. This kind of thing goes on on many campuses across the country.

Math professors teaching their students that conservatives are out of touch with mainstream America. Really! Is there an algebraic equation for that? No! Then SHUT UP and teach math.

A history professor decided the Boston Tea Party was a terrorist attack! PLEASE! Stick to the facts. Those colonists that dressed up as indians set out to kill who? Those nasty little tea bags? Oh, the humanity!

Get real people. Political correctness is running amok. Institutes of higher learning need to teach FACT and only FACT. They need to stir up thought with our young minds not plant seeds of misinformation to move them to their liberal left bent.

They need to simply teach not indoctrinate.

To continue, the particular class that was called into question is being taught by a black, female professor. Here is an educated black person who took advantage of all America has to offer its citizens and has been entrusted with helping our young people succeed and she has decided to teach RACISM. If this was a conservative professor telling students to embrace their American-ness, male-ness, white-ness, heterosexual-ness or any other “ness” there would be an outcry on ABC, NBC, CBS, 60 Minutes, the Ed Show, and Chris Mathews would be on a plane out here to start a picket line! Jessie Jackson and Al Sharpton would lock arms and call for the removal of the professor. But, alas, it was a liberal professor, who happens to be black, telling white students to disregard their white-ness, so there will be nothing done because they are teaching the only truth.

WHAT A BUNCH OF HYPOCRITS! What gives them the right to think that my American-ness, male-ness, white-ness, heterosexual-ness or any other “ness” including my middle-class-ness is an impediment to me doing the right thing for people, for this country, and in my life? What gives them the right to decide that all those “ness”es are proof that I’m not inclusive of all people?

Once again, the left is not being honest. This policy presumes that people who are white, male, American, middle-class heterosexuals are just bad for society.

Ms. Professor you are wrong!

It’s actually my American-ness, male-ness, white-ness, heterosexual-ness or any other “ness” including my middle-class-ness that makes me more sensitive to those who are different from me.

My American-ness is what helps me understand how precious freedom is and what was given for that freedom. It also makes me want to see people oppressed in other nations have access to the same rights and freedoms we have.

My male, white, heterosexual-ness is what I am. I can’t change that any more than that black, female professor can change her color or sex. For me to think any other way or to try is against nature itself.

As a white, male heterosexual I am aware of some of the open doors I have had that some minorities have not had, SO I try to make sure I don’t wrong minorities and others who have had much to overcome in this great AMERICAN nation.  But what’s great about his nation is that they can overcome. Anything is possible if you are willing to work hard and follow the rules, though I don’t know for how much longer.

So drop all the excuses and get out there and succeed!

Joe Messina host of the nationally syndicated
The Real Side radio show