US PRESIDENTS IN UNIFORM.......

Pledge Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda

Two weeks ago, President Obama's State Department insisted that he would put his signature ratification on the UN Gun Ban "in the very near future." Soon after he does that, gun owners could be steaming full speed ahead to a showdown battle over final passage in the U.S. Senate!  That's why NAGR is looking for One Million American Patriots to Pledge Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda when the UN Gun Ban arrives at the White House tomorrow, June 3.  Please click on the image below to Pledge Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda IMMEDIATELY! When you do, you'll be automatically entered to win the Nighthawk T3 Stainless Pistol (valued at $3,400!) shown below. Thanks -- in advance -- for taking action. -- Christine H From: Dudley Brown [dudley.brown@nationalgunrights.org] To: Christine [christineh@nationalgunrights.org]  Sent: Friday, May 31, 2013 2:23 PM Subject: It's here Dear Joseph , With the UN Gun Ban landing on President Obama's desk on Monday, June 3, D-Day for gun owners has arrived. Once President Obama puts his signature ratification on this INTERNATIONAL anti-gun scheme . . .  . . . very soon after it will be on to the U.S. Senate for final passage where Harry Reid may try and ram it through with little or no debate or hearings. And there's little reason to believe Obama won't sign the UN Gun Ban. Two weeks ago, Assistant Secretary of State Thomas Countryman insisted that Obama would do so "in the very near future." This is the most critical period for our gun rights you and I have seen in decades. That's why I need your IMMEDIATE help today. NAGR members and supporters have led the fight against the “Small Arms Treaty” for nearly a decade now. But with a showdown battle over the UN Gun Ban looming in the U.S. Senate, I'm looking for One Million American Patriots to Pledge Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda IMMEDIATELY.  You see, within a matter of weeks, you and I are steaming full speed ahead to a showdown in the U.S. Senate!  The U.N.’s “Small Arms Treaty” has been at the top of the gun-grabbers priority list from day one of the Obama presidency.  In fact, Secretary of State John Kerry recently stated, “The United States is steadfast in its commitment to achieve a strong and effective Arms Trade Treaty . . .”  And reading through the treaty, it’s easy to see why this INTERNATIONAL gun control scheme is the gun-grabbers’ crown jewel.  Marketed as a treaty to stop piracy, international crime syndicates, terrorism and state-sponsored murder, the reality is FAR different.  Article V of the newly-drafted Treaty mandates an INTERNATIONAL gun registry imposing new regulations on everything from rifles to handguns to even ammunition!  Article 12 states the registry must include “the quantity, value, model/type, authorized international transfers of conventional arms” and the identity of the “end user.”  And it’s not just our federal government that would get a copy.  International bureaucrats at the United Nations and foreign governments would have access to the registry as well!  You and I both know registration is the first step toward outright CONFISCATION.  That’s why I must be able to count on your IMMEDIATE support to stop ratification of the U.N.’s “Small Arms Treaty” -- especially at this most critical time.  Here’s what you can do to help: *** Click here to Pledge Your Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda IMMEDIATELY; *** Make a generous emergency contribution to help the National Association for Gun Rights turn up the heat on the U.S. Senate to DEFEAT this outrageous anti-gun scheme. Whatever you can afford will help with all the fights the National Association for Gun Rights is taking on.  So please sign your petition and contribute as generously as you can.  Thank you so much for your support.  For Freedom, Dudley Brown Executive Vice President P.S. Soon after Barack Obama puts his signature ratification on the UN Gun Ban, you and I could be headed to a Senate ratification showdown in just a matter of weeks. The provisions in the newly-drafted treaty are little more than an INTERNATIONAL gun registry imposing new regulations on everything from rifles to handguns to even ammunition! So please Pledge Your Opposition to Obama's Global Agenda along with a chip in contribution of at least $5 or $10 TODAY.  The National Association for Gun Rights is a nonprofit, nonpartisan, single-purpose citizens' organization dedicated to preserving and protecting the Constitutionally protected right-to-keep-and-bear-arms through an aggressive program designed to mobilize public opposition to anti-gun legislation. The National Association for Gun Rights' mailing address is P.O. Box 7002, Fredericksburg, VA 22404. They can be contacted toll-free at 1-877-405-4570. Its web address is www.NationalGunRights.org/  Not produced or e-mailed at taxpayer expense. To help the National Association for Gun Rights grow, please forward this to a friend. To view this email as a web page, please click this link: view online. Help fight gun control. Donate to the National Association for Gun Rights!

Next steps on key jobs bills JUNE 2, 2013 | VIEW ONLINE While investigating the Obama administration’s IRS scandal, the Benghazi terrorist attack, and more, Speaker John Boehner said, “This House is going to continue to be focused on the issue of jobs.” Here’s a look at some of the challenges we’re addressing through our jobs plan and the next steps to making our solutions a reality… Clearing the way for the Keystone XL pipeline – part of an “all of the above” strategy for energy independence: THE PROBLEM: Energy prices are up and our economy is stagnant.  And yet the Obama administration has needlessly delayed the Keystone XL project which will create more than 20,000 direct jobs and 100,000 indirect jobs; help lower gas prices; and is supported by workers and employers, labor unions, a bipartisan coalition in Congress, editorial boards, and a majority of the American people. THE SOLUTION: On May 22, 2013, the House passed the Northern Route Approval Act (H.R. 3), which removes the bureaucratic and legal roadblocks that have delayed the Keystone pipeline for years. “Energy is the foundation of our economy,” says Speaker Boehner. NEXT STEPS: The Democratic-controlled Senate has yet to take action. The House will consider additional bills in the weeks ahead to expand production, create jobs, and lower energy prices. Taking the politics out of student loans to help make life work & expand education opportunities: THE PROBLEM: Interest rates on student loans will double in less than a month – the result of a broken process that allows politicians to set interest rates and make paying for college even harder for students and families. THE SOLUTION: On May 23, 2013, the House passed the Smarter Solutions for Students Act (H.R. 1911) to stop student loan interest rates from doubling by tying them to a market-based rate. This bipartisan approach fixes the student loan process long-term, takes politicians out of the business of setting interest rates, and “echoes a plan [President] Obama offered in April.” NEXT STEPS: The Democratic-controlled Senate has yet to take action. Click here for a timeline of activity on student loans. Repealing the president’s health care law to help lower health care costs: THE PROBLEM: A study by a Democratic research group discovered that premiums are going up – way up – under ObamaCare. The nation’s largest insurers told Congress the same thing, as seen in the recent “rate shock” report. The president’s health care law is a train wreck for part-time and low-income workers, small businesses, unions, people who want to keep their current health care plan – pretty much everyone except the IRS. THE SOLUTION: On May 16, 2013, the House voted to fully repeal and defund the president’s health care law. Republicans have also successfully repealed and defunded several parts of the law since 2011. NEXT STEPS: The Democratic-controlled Senate has yet to take action.  The House will continue working on legislation that helps bring down the costs that strain families and make it harder for small businesses to hire. The Republican-led House has also voted to balance the budget, strengthen important programs like Medicare, and replace the president’s sequester with smarter spending cuts and reforms. And there’s more to come. Learn more about the Republican jobs plan at gop.gov/jobs.

Speaker Boehner’s Press Office | H-232 The Capitol | 202-225-0600

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Noah David Simon

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Michigan: Muslims halal legal jihad against McDonald’s results in…removal of all halal food Posted: 01 Jun 2013 08:48 PM PDT creeping  Biting the hand that feeds them halal (see links below).  via The Arab American News – Local McDonald’s stops serving halal meat. DEARBORN — Just one month after the McDonald’s Corporation and the Finley Management Company settled a non-halal class action lawsuit for $700,000, the owners of the Dearborn McDonald’s, located at 13158 Ford Road, have decided to no longer include halal items on their menu. “McDonald’s is a system comprised of independent small business owners, who look to connect with and serve their local communities.There were two restaurants in Dearborn Michigan that served two Halal menu items for the past several years, and those items have now been discontinued, as a result of our continued efforts to focus on our national core menu. Our franchisees continue to be proud supporters of the Dearborn community,” McDonald’s Corp. told The Arab American News.

Al-Qaeda Members Arrested With Chemical WMD’s in Iraq for Attacks on America and Europe Posted: 01 Jun 2013 07:44 PM PDT From BBC: The authorities in Iraq say they have uncovered an al-Qaeda plot to use chemical weapons, as well as to smuggle them to Europe and North America. Defence ministry spokesman Mohammed al-Askari said five men had been arrested after military intelligence monitored their activities for three months. Three workshops for manufacturing the chemical agents, including sarin and mustard gas, were uncovered, he added. Remote-controlled toy planes were also seized at the workshops. Mr Askari said they were to have been used to release the chemical agents over the target from a “safe” distance of 1.5km (0.9 miles), reports the BBC’s Rami Ruhayem in Baghdad. All of the arrested men had confessed to the plot, and said they had received instruction from another al-Qaeda offshoot, he added. As the defence ministry spokesman spoke on Iraqi TV, footage was shown of four men with black hoods on their heads, our correspondent adds. Three of them were wearing bright yellow jumpsuits and a fourth was in a brown jumpsuit. Soldiers wearing gas masks hold bottles containing chemicals.

Florida Native Plant Society Blog

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Ponce De Leon, Celebrating La Florida, Jim Draper and the Feast of Flowers Posted: 02 Jun 2013 08:14 AM PDT By Laurie Sheldon Ponce De Leon, the Executive Summary Image from Ponce De Leon by Wyatt Blasingame Ponce De Leon did not return to Spain after sailing on Christopher Columbus' second expedition to the Americas (1493). He chose to stay in what is now called the Dominican Republic, where he first heard that a neighboring island (present-day Puerto Rico) had a good bit of gold. He took the island using brute force against the natives, claimed it as Spain's, and became its governor. He was just getting warmed up. In 1513 he sailed northwest with a 200-man, 3-galleon crew from Puerto Rico, hoping to find and conquer Bimini, a Bahamian island purported to contain riches and a legendary spring that gave people eternal life and health. After stopping in Grand Turk and San Salvador, the men caught sight of a low, flat stretch of land. It was Easter, April 2nd, "Pascua Florida," a Spanish reference to the holiday as a combination of both religious and natural significance (the resurrection of Christ and the beginning of spring/the season of flowering). In English, this translates as the "Feast of Flowers".  Ponce claimed the land for Spain and named it "La Florida". It is reported that, when they went ashore, they knew they had not reached Bimini, which was rumored to be inhabited by Indians, because they found no indications of village life. Ponce's men meet the Calusa, from Dan Harmon's Juan Ponce De Leon and the Search for the Fountain of Youth Less than week later, the men shipped off and encountered the powerful current known as the Gulf Stream near Cape Canaveral (translated as the "cape of currents"). They sailed around the tip of the peninsula and up the west coast a touch, where they got into a riff with the native Calusa tribe. The men left shortly thereafter, and eventually made their way back to Puerto Rico. Still determined to find Bimini and the treasure it contained, Ponce went back to Spain and got financial backing from the king to settle and govern the "islands" of Florida and Bimini. King Ferdinand gave it the thumbs up and even knighted Ponce, which reinforced the conquistador's lust for land and power. Then Ferdinand keeled over. This delayed Ponce's return to the Caribbean for several years, and made him antsy because he knew that other people had their eyes on these "islands" and would jump his claim if the territory remained unsettled. In 1521, Ponce lead a group of 200-men, along with horses livestock and tools to work the land, back up the west coast of Florida. The Calusa had not softened over the years, and fired a barrage of arrows at the would-be settlers when they went inland for fresh water. Many of the men were hit, including Ponce, who took an arrow in his thigh. The mission (apparently a bad idea) was quickly aborted. The men jumped/limped/crawled back on board and headed for Cuba, where Ponce eventually died as a result of his wound.  Note the carefully selected words on the promotional poster I designed early in the conference planning process. Celebrating La Florida Fast forward 500 years from that fated Easter day when Ponce set foot on the peninsula we now call home. For the benefit of the mathematically challenged, I should point out that would be approximately two months ago. All year long, there have been activities across the state of Florida that call attention to this "anniversary" of sorts. And let's face it - for a country that didn't get the democratic ball rolling until 237 years ago, 500 years sounds like a very big deal. So, keeping that in mind, my chapter (Ixia) had the honor of hosting this year's conference amid all of the "500 year" hoopla, and, not unlike any well-planned bar-mitzvah, we chose a theme: Celebrating La Florida. I thought it was vague enough to escape criticism while remaining topical and historically relevant, but, for the first time ever, I was wrong. Despite my insistence that by "Celebrating La Florida" we are honoring all that this state contained when it was named (i.e. prior to European footfall) I was personally accused of patting murderers on the back and praising Ponce De Leon for what should be considered to be "shameful moments in history." Nothing could be farther from my intentions (or the intentions of my chapter and the organization as a whole). So, once more, for the record books, our conference was in no way, shape, or form, a grand salute to the entourage responsible for decimating native populations. It was about looking back, trying to learn from, avoid repeating, and, whenever possible, correcting the mistakes of those who were here before us. Further, it was about recognizing that, after 500 years, natives - endemics in particular - are what continue to make Florida so special. Jim Draper and the Feast of Flowers The conference opened with a presentation by Jim Draper, who eloquently reiterated that message both with words and on canvas. He began by defining himself in terms of the environments that critically shaped his relationship with the natural world. Born in Kosciusko, Mississippi, the rural town with a population of 6,000, Draper's childhood was spent outdoors, working or eating in/from his family's gardens, or learning about timber management and dogwood trees from his aunt. Blessed with artistic skills, he went on to study art while working part-time in the landscape industry. He continued to do landscape work after graduating, but became increasingly uneasy with the institutional, exotic landscapes he was charged with installing. Eventually, he opened his own company and designed with specimens which seemed to thrive without assistance. He looked to cemeteries and natural areas for guidance with plant selection, and wanted to communicate through the landscape. Ultimately, he realized that his message would be more effective as expressed with a paintbrush instead of a shovel, so he moved to Jacksonville and turned to a career as an artist.  Not unlike the theme of our conference, Draper’s most recent project recognizes the naming of Florida 500 years ago. His paintings celebrate the state’s native flora, fauna, and the natural systems in which they exist. They are scaled to be imposing on the loftiest of viewers, and so life-like that they practically breathe. But beyond their “eye candy” is a narrative that is equally impressive. Through the project’s title, Feast of Flowers, Draper links the notorious Spanish land-grab with present-day issues of consumption/consumerism and the western idea of eating everything one can get their hands on. Ponce de Leon’s role is that of the anti-hero - a metaphor for man’s subconscious need to possess. Despite the dark undertone of this concept, he presented his paintings sans finger-shaking and direct accusations. To the contrary, Draper’s message, shared in vibrant, rich hues, was for each of us to consider nature - both our own and that of our surroundings - and to understand the relationship of one to the other.  I had seen Jim’s paintings on several occasions but it was not until I heard him speak that I recognized the spiritual element to his work. The first of his slides showed a triptych: the left canvas, entitled Small Passion,  appeared draped inPassiflora incarnata, the center canvas, entitled Nana, featured the tallest dune in Florida, and the right canvas, entitled Muscadine, was crisscrossed in the heart-shaped leaves of Vitis rotundifolia. He began by describing the passionvine as a host, giving its own life to give life to others. From there, I saw the dune as both altar and protector, the grapes as wine - a symbol of the Christian Eucharist, the Jewish Kiddush, and in Greek and Roman mythology. Suddenly these were much more than paintings. He flipped to a painting entitled Tree Snail of Liguus fasciatus, a species limited to southernmost Florida which he’d seen in a hardwood hammock in the Everglades. 1.5 million acres, and he’s focused on a creature that rarely measures more than 2.5” long. Draper’s was scaled to 6’ tall. I seemed slight in comparison. “You have to get into the ditches,” he insisted, “look up, down, and all around you” to truly experience Florida. “All creatures, large and small,” I thought to myself, and Draper continued. It's probably no coincidence that Draper chose to paint a native vine whose mystique is connected to a spiritual icon. Legend links the 10 petals of this flower to the Apostles, its halo of filaments as Christ's crown of thorns, 3 secondary bracts as the holy trinity and 3 stigmas as Christ and 2 thieves on Calvary. This image was used as our conference logo. A few slides later: Buttonbush, a native that grows where the damp ground sinks beneath one’s feet, painted with its luminescent other-worldly orb of a flower plotted dead center on the 4’x4’ canvas. Contrasted against the deep greens of its foliage in its favored low-light setting, it looked like an earth-bound star. And he went on. Slide after slide, I saw through his eyes… turkey vultures, wading in Silver Glen Springs, where the sand boils and the clear water sparkles (the painting’s title:Fountain of Youth).  Suwannee River: its leaning cypress trees like human silhouettes. Gulf Sturgeon: leaping, once pushed to the brink of extinction. While conceding that we cannot return to the past, Draper emphasized the importance of respecting the identity of the landscape and its indigenous species. He pushed beyond the binomial nomenclature that so many of us seem fixed on, and showcased the divine in Florida’s native plants, animals and wild places. He is to Florida what Thoreau was to Walden, and Muir to California’s redwoods, and, thankfully, I will never look at La Florida the same way again.

Vinegar cancer test saves lives, India study finds - Yahoo! News
http://news.yahoo.com/vinegar-cancer-test-saves-lives-india-study-finds-113800022.html

RIP ...  Jean Stapleton, Who Played Archie Bunker’s Better Angel, Dies at 90 - NYTimes.com
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/06/02/arts/television/jean-stapleton-who-played-archies-better-angel-dies-at-90.html?partner=MYWAY&ei=5065