Ted Cruz, Charlie Daniels, and Making DC Listen

Thank you, Ted Cruz.

An Article by The American Refugee

Conservatives have been frustrated over the lack of leadership coming from Washington.  Now Ted Cruz has given us a leader to believe in and caused a grass roots tsunami by stepping up to the plate.  For 21 hours from Tuesday till Wednesday, Ted Cruz stood on floor of the US Senate and gave a voice to millions of Americans.  We patriots have often felt abandoned by the Republican leadership as Obama and his minions run rough shod over the constitution. Now we say, no more.  Millions of patriots stayed up with Cruz and Made DC Listen this week. We tweeted, we e-mailed, and we blew up the Senate switchboard.  Rand Paul, David Vitter, Jeff Sessions, and especially Mike Lee stepped up huge to stand with Ted.  Twitter was lit up like I have never seen.  At one point Ted Cruz, DontFundIt, ObamaCare, DefundObamaCare, and MakeDCListen were all trending world wide, simultaneously.

Now the national media is trying to tell us that Cruz failed.  He did not.  19 Senators ended up standing with Ted and voting no on Harry Reid’s Cloture motion.  Also, think about this.  The House actually sent over a CR that defunded ObamaCare and while the Senate has gutted it and sent it back to the House, the House is not just lying down and passing the Senate CR. There will likely be a brief shutdown and we will extract a price.  None of this would be happening without all of the work and leadership of Ted Cruz, Mike Lee, and Rand Paul. Multiple Democrats have grown week kneed and have begun to talk about compromises that they are willing to make.

A one year delay in the individual mandate could probably pass the Senate now, but inspired by conservatives, the House has decided to go even bolder. Republican congressmen have been bucked up.  Now the House is passing a full one year delay of ObamaCare.  This would not be happening without the Cruz filibuster or millions of patriots contacting congressmen.  There will be serious pressure on the Senate to pass this CR.  Not only will the Dems be shutting down the government in they don’t, but they are only being asked to delay ObamaCare for a year.  Considering that Obama already delayed the employer mandate for a year and has delayed the small business exchanges because they aren’t ready, how can they argue with a straight face that it is the right thing to do to shut down the government rather than delay the rest of ObamaCare for just one year?  We haven’t defunded ObamaCare yet, but we have made progress. We are on the move and ObamaCare is in retreat. The Conservative movement is alive and has a beating heart.

Finally, I want to promote a new, spontaneous, grass roots movement that is springing up. Many patriots are asking @CharlieDaniels to write a pro-America anti-ObamaCare song song to serve as our anthem as we #MakeDCListen. Perhaps Charlie would even write something that would shout out our leader, Ted Cruz.  I could imagine a great song to the tune of Devil Went Down To Georgia, of the Devil (Obama) trying to steel the soul of America through Obama-Care and Johnnie, “Teddie” standing up to him and saving the day. You can tweet to Charlie right HERE!

 

 

ABOSLUTELY INSPIRATIONAL

By The American Refugee

 

 

 

There are no official estimates of the DC police the number of motorcyclist patriots that rode in DC yesterday, but street cops are putting the number at just over 1 million.  The main stream media is choosing to ignore this. It doesn’t matter because 1 million rode, millions more saw them, and the new media, us, patriot journalists are telling the story.

For many, the only cause was to remember the victims of 9/11/2002 and say, “We will never forget”.  Many others made it clear that they want answers and justice for the Benghazi 4. They wanted to let the administration know that this is not forgotten.  Others were offended when they heard about the planned Muslim March in DC on 9/11.  That event fizzled into almost nothing for many reasons, not the least of which was the Muslims being afraid to face the bikers. Many felt the rush of being a part of a band of great American brothers, brothers who believe in freedom, liberty, and love of country.

Whoever you are and why ever you rode, you did America a great service yesterday. You gave us hope. You inspired us. You put boots on the ground and tires on the pavements and did something.

This is the great challenge for patriots coast to coast.  Come out of your meetings.  Get off of your sofas.  Put boot boots on the ground.  Head into the streets and do something.  Do anything.  Show that America will not fade quietly into the dark night of statism and oppression.

Everybody can do something.  If you can juggle for America, then juggle.  If you can sing and dance, sing and dance.  If you are a fat middle aged man, like me, you can still squeeze into a super hero suit and head out to the streets and hand out constitutions.  I have now given out over 12,000 in the last 10 months.  People have given us, we are The American Refugees, the donations to cover my costs and keep me alive.  There is no excuse.  Get out there and do your thing for America.

What Running a Popular and Influential Twitter Account Can Teach You About Real Life.

By Roger D'Aquin, The American Refugee

Today, I put on my social media trainer hat to do some teaching.  What gives me the right to teach?  I’d say 29,000 Twitter followers and a 72 Klout score in just 10 months gives me that right.  What gives me the desire to teach?  I love my tweeps.  That sounds corny but it's true.  I want to see more people both having a positive influence on the world through social media, and learning to live more successful lives through social media.

The Following tweet, by a great Tweep and business and life coach, Gary Loper, has served as the inspiration for this article: What’s the one thing you’ve learned on Twitter that impacted your life in a positive way? #GaryLoperTwitterParty

As I tried to answer the question I realized that Twitter has taught me so many lessons, and backed up so many others, that I couldn’t narrow it down to just one.  While I have always wanted to have fun and be social on Twitter, I have had a goal and a separate agenda from day one.  I want to help resurrect constitutional government in America.  I want to build a movement. That’s a big goal.  It means I need to influence people and have an affect on their behavior.  Can that really be done 140 characters at a time?  Yes.  I am doing it and I am learning lessons and having others reinforced that are making me a better person.

Lesson 1 in tweet: Plant seeds. Give people a reason to remember you and want to hear your message.

Give people just a taste, a nugget.  When people have shown an interest and come to you for more, you now have their attention and can hit them with the full force of your arguments.  You shouldn’t bombard people with information before they have expressed an interest in what you are saying.

Here is an example Example Tweet: Are there ever new natural rights? Is the constitution a living document? Click this link #WAAR

Were this a real tweet, “Click this link” would be an actually link to an article I had already written.  #WAAR is a hashtag I have branded that is recognized by thousands on Twitter.  I haven’t even used 140 characters.  I haven’t offended anybody.  Anyone who is interested in reading what I have to say on this topic, will click the link.

Lesson 2 in tweet:  Most words are just window dressing.  Keep messaging simple, direct, to the point, and quotable. #WAAR

Notice something about each of my first two tweets? These tweets are very retweetable.  I’ve even left enough room for people to add their own hasthtag or one or two word comment.  We learn the art on Twitter of getting things down to the essentials.  We think we have come up with the perfect statement, only to discover, to our horror, that it is 160 characters in length.  And what about our all imporant hashtag?  Will we leave it off or make room for it?  Thus begins the painstaking effort to wordsmith that tweet down to 140 characters.  Or will we substitute "&" for "and" eliminate that comma and the apostrophe.  There are days when the tweets just flow and other times that we are convinced that every character of our perfect tweet is needed and we agonize over every change.  We must relax and remember to keep it simple.

 Lesson 3 in tweet: Tweet unto others as you would like to be tweeted yourself.

There are many aspects to this lesson.  Be social.  Communicate with people.  Treat people with dignity and respect.  ReTweet other people.  Spend more time promoting others than you do promoting yourself.  Send out those #FF tweets.  Respond when people tweet to you.

Lesson 4 in tweet: Be yourself.  Nobody likes a phony.

If you are a geek, it’s ok, be a geek.  Be whoever and whatever you actually are.  People can smell a phony.  Do not lie about your accomplishments.  When you promote others, do it honestly, not just for the sake of promoting someone.  Whatever you say about them needs to be true.  Your reputation is on the line.  Make sure they are funny before you say they are.  Promote Tweeps you actually like and promote what is best about them.  Do not purchase fake followers.  People figure it out and it makes you seem fake to them.

Lesson 5 in tweet: If you Tweet any "I’m gonna’s", you better follow through. People respect actions, not words.

I can’t tell you number of e-mails and DM’s I have received where people have essentially said some version of the following:

“I’m sorry I under estimated you.  I didn’t think you would really ever get the website going or start the radio show.  I didn’t think you could really write a blog. Please call me; I’d like to work with you.”

Thank God I meant what I said and I followed through.  Otherwise, I would have been a laughing stock or simply unknown.  Still, I am imperfect and in a couple of instances I have failed to do things I said I would do.  I’ve had to eat my words.  We are always better off when we do our thing first, and then talk about it.  Or even better, let others talk about it.  If you need help doing something, instead of talking about what you are going to do and striking some as a blowhard, as I did, tell people what you would like to do and ask for their help and input.  Point out to them the things you have done in the past as a means of instilling confidence in them.  Inspire them with your vision and show genuine interest in their input and ideas.

Lesson 6 in tweet: Remember, "If upon meeting a child you have something to teach him, teach. If you have something to learn from him, learn."

I opened this article justifying my right to teach. Let me assure you, I also need to learn.  Many of the people who teach me lessons on social media are newbie’s with very few followers.  This is just as children, my dogs, and mentally handicapped people teach me lessons in real life.  Another way of stating rule six is: Never take yourself too seriously.  You have a lot to learn. You will learn some of it from some very surprising sources.  Still, even if you are conversing with a guru, never be afraid to share your truth and teach.

Lesson 7 in tweet: Hard work yields results. Smart work yields more results. Laziness yields failure.

You want to be followed by people and influence them?  You are going to have to do some work.  The more people you follow, the more will follow you back.  The more people you engage, the more you will be engaged.  Building a brand and an online reputation takes time and work.  A good blog must be written, a good website built and managed.  There are no magic bullets.  That being said, if you work smart, you won't have to work as hard and will get better results than if you work stupid.  Use tools.  Tweepi is a great tool with a great free version and an even better pay version.  Mark Prasek, creator of Patriot Journalist, has created some unbelievable free tools that you can use from his web site.  Learn how to follow the right people.  Network and build relationships.  Listen to my Twitter Follow Friday Radio Show every week.  If you want to network with me, our website is the hub.  You can access all of my social media accounts, radio show, YouTube channel, blog, and e-mail me from there.

Each of these lessons are tweetable and retweetable.  They all aply to Twitter and to life in general.

 

What Kind of Catholic am I?

I'M A MOTHER ANGELICA CATHOLIC

BY THE AMERICAN REFUGEE

I don’t often talk on Twitter about my Catholic faith. This is because my message is largely a political one. I make the Christian part of my message available to all Christians, regardless of denomination. I make the constitutionalist part of my message inclusive to all constitutionalists, be they Republicans, independents, Constitution Party members, Libertarians, Ayn Rand objectivists, whatever. I am trying to inspire a large number of Americans to take their country back and reestablish constitutional republican government.

The fact of the matter is, however, I wouldn’t be who I am if it were not for my Catholic faith. It informs everything that I do. Somebody asked me recently what type of Catholic I am. This was a person familiar with the diversity and even divisions within the Catholic faith. They wanted to know if I was a traditionalist, or a reformer, or a charismatic, or what. My answer surprised them. I said, “I’m a Mother Angelica Catholic”.

The Catholic Network, EWTN, has been a vehicle God has used to reach me throughout my life, starting when I was in a teenager. It was extremely important to me during my years in college and there are many lessons I simply would not if learned, if not for EWTN.  It is really funny how life works.  I already had it in my mind to do this article and as soon as I start to do a little research, up pops this article published today. here  Since my article has now been informed by this piece, I wanted to make sure I linked to it and gave credit, lest I accidentally plagiarize.

Rita Antoinette Rizzo was born into difficult circumstances in 1923. Her mother struggled with severe depression and her father abandoned the family when she was very young. She did not have a good relationship with either parent. At 21 she entered cloistered life becoming a Poor Clare novice. She was received into the community on November 8, 1945 and given the name Sister Mary Angelica of the Annunciation, and she professed her lifelong vows on January 3, 1953. She had a serious accident in the monastery later that year that left her partially crippled and with lifelong back and leg pain, but she never let that slow her down.

She was inspired by the civil rights movement and believed God was leading her to create a cloistered community for black women. While she had no money to do so, she showed her fund raising talents. She and her sisters raised in excess of $10,000 from fishing lures that they made themselves and sold. In 1962 Mother Angelica and four sisters established Our Lady of the Angels Monastery in Irondale Alabama.

Her sisters were impressed with her teaching and knowledge of scripture and encouraged her to do something cloistered nuns generally don’t, teach those outside the monastery. In 1971 she received special permission to do just that. She began hosting two hour “Parlor Talks” to discuss scripture with women from the outside world. The talks were mainly for Catholics but others showed up as well.

Mother Angelica reported being amazed at how little these women knew and how they were struggling. The non Catholics knew the scriptures, but they didn’t know how to live an interior spiritual life and live like Jesus did. The Catholics knew the sacraments, but they didn’t know the scriptures and they hadn’t internalized the sacraments into their hearts. “Giving this class, I realized how little people knew,” she said, according to an account in Raymond Arroyo’s 2005 biography of her. This is discussed in detail in Raymond Arroyo’s biography of her. He quotes her as saying she felt called “to help the laity ‘live the Gospel’ and develop an interior life.”

Out of her “Parlor Talks” grew the making and distributing of books and tapes. In 1978 she was in Chicago giving workshops to Catholics who distributed her books and tapes. She visited a Baptist television station when she was there and felt inspired to start her own TV station. She never concerned herself with problems about not having the money to start a project. If she believed God wanted her to start something, she would start it. If God wanted her to continue he would show her how to get the money. Her first television pilot was aired by Pat Robertson on CBN, in 1978. 2 years later Mother Angelica not only had a studio, but had founded EWTN. In the beginning they would share a channel and broadcast 4 hours a day and were available to about 300,000 homes. Things took off from there and the rest is history.

How am I inspired by Mother Angelica? Well, although my focus is mainly on constitutionalism, I quite frankly feel called by God. I have never know how the money would be there to do what I do. I have no idea how to even do the things I am doing. I just kind of fumble my way through it all. Mother Angelica remained a conservative, traditional, Catholic, but she reached out to all believers. Heck, Pat Robertson aired her first show. Every Monday, I hook up with a Baptist who disagrees with me about civil disobedience on ObamaCare. But the point is that he agrees ObamaCare is unconstitutional, he is a conservative, and we work together and support one another. Patriot Journalist and American Refugees are very different animals, but Mark Prasek and I have enough in common at the core that we support one another.

Mother Angelica, who by the way, is a living suffering saint, bed ridden and unable to speak, was never one to bow to political correctness, inside or outside the Church. I will never forget her outrage over a Youth Day event in Colorado, in which a woman portrayed Christ in the way of the cross.

“I’m tired. I’m tired of being pushed in corners. I’m tired of your inclusive language that refuses to admit that the Son of God is a man! I’m tired of your tricks. I’m tired of your deceit. I’m tired of you making a crack, and the first thing you know there’s a hole, and all of us fall in…. I’m so tired of you, liberal Church of America.” As she continued, she recited a litany of outrages, including disrespect for the Eucharist, centering prayer, and mandatory sex education in the schools, Mother Angelica finally came to an explosive rage, “You’re sick… You have nothing to offer. You do nothing but destroy. You don’t have any vocations and you don’t even care – your whole purpose is to destroy.”

Now that is a woman I can relate to! Mother Angelica always remained obedient to her Christ, her vows, and Church authority, but that didn’t keep her from speaking her mind and even calling out a Bishop, if he she felt he had done the wrong thing.

If Christ’s apostles made mistakes and had failings while He was with them, how much harder is it now when we walk by faith and not sight? Remember that even in the time of Christ, 1/12 of the Apostles were completely corrupt, another 1/12 denied Him 3 times, another 1/12 wouldn’t believe the resurrection until he saw and touched, and only 1/12 had the guts to be at the foot of the cross with His mother. Mother Angelica would have given the Apostles what for.

I hope that I have half the courage to speak truth to power as Mother Angelica. I hope that my faith and love will grow and that I will develop an ever deeper relationship with Jesus. I hope that I will have the faith and courage to run the AmericanRefugees the way Mother Angelica ran EWTN. I hope that I will always listen to the voice of God, and ask Him if I am doing the right thing.  In the spirit of Mother Angelica, I have no qualms about asking for money to keep us going.  Please keep us between your gas and electric bill.  Donate Here

 

Don't Empower Any of Our Enemies in Syria

An open letter to every Republican in the House and the Senate

This used to be an open letter to Speaker Boehner.  I've changed it up a bit since he made his disapointing and weak statement.  I am not only disapointed in his decision to support attacking Syria, but very disapointed in the weak statements he made about the president. He taked about appreciating the president coming to congress for support.  This is not about support, but authorization.  I will swallow hard and accept it of congress grants the president the authority to attack Syria.  But if this president is denied such authority and attacks anyway, he should be impeached.

If congress approves action in Syria, I will oppose it but prepare myself for the inevitable and be 100% supportive of any American troops involved in any action.  If congress doesn’t authorize action, and Obama acts anyway, the time for impeachment has arrived.  While I will forgive any congressman who votes his conscious and disagrees with me over the policy of attacking Syria, there will be no such forgiveness over any who lack the guts to impeach Obama if he goes it alone, in violation of our constitution.  Without congressional approval, Obama has no authority to strike Syria.  Syria has not struck us and is not an immediate threat to our national security.  Only congress can give Obama the constitutional authority he seeks to attack Syria.

It is my strong hope that Congress will refuse to give the president the authority he is asking for.  There is a very bad situation going on in Syria and it is one we can’t do much about.  I pray for the innocents and the women and children of Syria.  But for the most part, this is a war between to very evil groups of people.  The Ba’athists in Syria, such as Assad, are every bit as evil and dangerous as Adolf Hitler.  The Islamists are ever bit as evil and dangerous as Osama Bin Laden.  American treasure should not be spent, nor American blood risked or lost, in a civil war between those too.  The gassing of civilians was evil.  If the Islamists win, the torture and killing of Christians that will take place will be just as horrific, if not worse.  We are involved in our own struggle against tyranny at home and cannot be distracted by a foreign war, in which we will do no good.

We stand on the verge of our own revolution at home because of the attacks against liberty committed by this administration.  Our war, the war of patriots, is against the agents of tyranny at home, not abroad.  Now is not the time to become distracted by the actions of a foreign tyrant.  Now is the time to be refusing to fund ObamaCare and reestablishing constitutionalism at home.  Now is the time to investigate Benghazi and the IRS scandal.  We have to get our own house in order.

Sincerely yours,

Roger C. D’Aquin

The American Refugee

Education and a living wage are connected

Homeschooling is the way

An Article By Sasha Mercer

Charlotte Mason is a woman revered by many home schoolers and, if they were knew her story, would be reviled by politicians and the teachers’ unions. Born in England in 1842 and orphaned at 16 she became a teacher in a time when, not much different than now, children were taught according to their social class.

The poor children, mostly the children of coal miners, were taught a trade while the upper class were given what use to be a well respected education known as “liberal education” which meant it encompassed all aspects; writing, reading, history, fine arts and foreign language. Unfortunately that term has been dumbed down to mean a hodgepodge of a whole lot of worthless women’s studies classes that won’t get you a job to pay off the $50,000 in student loans that you took out.

Miss Mason quickly discovered that despite what all of society thought at that time, all children, regardless of what class of family they came from, had the ability to think and learn and develop brilliant minds. She said it started at home and gave many parent lectures and wrote a series of books. She simply taught what God told us in the beginning; we are all created in His image and we all have the ability to bear fruit in wisdom, grow in understanding and soak in knowledge.

Politicians, community activists, drug companies, psychologists, special education teachers and our national education association wants us not to believe this. They want us to reject God’s creation and have us believe that we cannot succeed unless we are born in the right zip code, with the proper skin color, or with a certain last name. When a certain school system has a majority of their minority students unable to pass the basic reading, writing and math portions of a standardized test, they shrug their shoulders and say these kids are unable to think because of where they come from. It’s not their fault, it’s not the teachers’ fault, it’s rather like teaching a fish to read, it just can’t be done. The schools don’t have the money that the wealthier schools do, if we just had more money maybe we could get these kids prepared for McDonald’s level jobs after 12 years, then when that doesn’t work, the teachers tell us they could teach these kids if they were in school at a younger age, six isn’t early enough. Eventually we will be dropping our babies off on our way home from the hospital. Teachers and politicians will have us convinced that our children won’t make it unless they are in a properly certified, structured environment, housed with properly certified young twenty somethings that know better than the parents. After all, they were taught herd management, how to read a lesson plan, and never to refer to a beige crayon as “skin color.” Yes, this is what our children need to succeed, but eighteen years later, when they can’t do long division, or read beyond a fifth grade level, or tell Jay Leno’s man on the street who the current vice president is, we will strike in the streets and demand that McDonald’s pays them $17 an hour, because after all, they can’t do any better.

This is why politicians and the teacher’s unions hate home schoolers. No, I am not using the word “hate” too loosely. Homeschoolers prove all these groups wrong; the special educators, the psychologists, the drug companies, the politicians. A regular, every day parent, can take their child through all the grade levels, without having spent four years at a university to become certified in how to teach a child everything they themselves learned before the age of eighteen, and the child will out-test, outshine, and do circles around their public school counterparts, all without that parent paying one union due, not asking a doctor to prescribe one psychotropic drug, and without requiring the employment of a whole team of school administrators over twelve years. Not hard to see how home schoolers may be the enemy to a lot of people that need their pockets lined.

An older gentleman came up to my family in a fast food restaurant one day. He struck up a conversation with us about our boys and their good manners and then asked about where they went to school. When speaking with the older generation about home schooling I often get a mixed response. Some have a hard time understanding that the local school system in no way shape or form resembles what they went to fifty years ago.

With this in mind I took a deep breath and said we home schooled. He smiled sincerely and said, let me tell you a story. When he was twenty one, he walked into the teacher’s lounge as a new teacher. He sat amongst the veteran teachers and listened as they complained about the class sizes they were forced to teach. Too many students, they complained, for them to teach efficiently. As the years went by, he sat amongst the veteran teachers as he listened to them complain about the new home schooling movement which was taking children out of their classrooms and keeping them at home. Wait a minute, he said to these teachers, I thought you wanted smaller class sizes? He told me they just looked at him and then it all clicked. I smiled and nodded in understanding. “It’s all about the money,” I told him, to which he nodded. “Exactly. Keep up the good work with your kids,” and he left the restaurant.

These groups in our society would like us to believe that we aren’t created in the image of God, that we have evolved from the lowest form of feces throwing apes and that unfortunately, some of us have evolved further than others. This group of elites sit in power over us, whether in the school system, the doctor’s office, or the white house with its band of cohorts in congress and they tell us we can’t be like them, we aren’t in the right stage of the evolutionary process. We were born in the wrong neighborhood, with the wrong skin color, and we are doomed to be mediocre. We can’t get out score any better on that test, or get out of that fast food job, so we better demand that test scores don’t matter and that minimum wage job better pay a “living wage,” which simply means enough to keep you content so you won’t try to better yourself to compete with the rest of the elite. They want your votes, they don’t want competition, after all.

The Romans in power knew that before voting time came around, they better hand out bread and salt to keep the people happy with their status quo so they could remain in power. You don’t want your constituents too poor to be unhappy with their situation but you certainly didn’t want them wealthy enough to compete with you. Like an abusive husband that beats into their wife that they are nothing without them, a huge portion of our country thinks they are nothing without their prescription drug, union, or political party. As Apostle Paul said in Galatians 4:17 “They are enthusiastic about you, but not for any good. Instead they want to isolate you so that you will be enthusiastic about them.” Emphasis mine.

Reject the voices that tell you that you aren’t good enough to teach your own children, or good enough to get yourself out of a fast food job. You don’t need a higher wage at McDonald’s, you need to get out there and make the world a better place and tell the Kennedys, the Rockefellers, the Clintons and the Bushes that you don’t need a last name to succeed in the United States, God gave you something better than that. He created us in His image, there are no limits to what we can be and learn.

Sasha Mercer is the Homeschooling Blogger for The American Refugees.

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