Tea Party Response to Obama's SOTU given by Senator Mike Lee

Senator Mike Lee gave the Tea Party response to Barack Obama's State of the Union Last night. It was a brilliant speech, striking the right tone on every note, much unlike the SOTU.

Senator Lee said, “Today, Americans know in their hearts that something is wrong. Much of what is wrong relates to the sense that the ‘American Dream’ is falling out of reach for far too many of us. We are facing an inequality crisis — one to which the President has paid lip-service, but seems uninterested in truly confronting or correcting.” 

 Here is the entirety of the speech.

Lee made an excellent point, “But where does this new inequality come from? From government — every time it takes rights and opportunities away from the American people and gives them instead to politicians, bureaucrats, and special interests.” Senator Mike Lee

All inequality in America comes from the abuses by our federal government through overburdening regulation: i.e., the 2,700 page Obamacare law has 27,000 pages of accompanying regulations. This is only one example. If you look at everything else the American people are being crushed by our government, you'll find the burden to be astonishing. Nearly 60% of every paycheck goes to some sort of state or federal taxes when you add in the "fees" that are "not taxes".

Without question it is time for Senators Mike Lee, Ted Cruz, and Tim Scott to lead us out of this unholy mess we've gotten ourselves into. There are a number of good candidates, who will join Mike Lee, running for federal office around the nation, ones that I support strongly. 

They are:

California: Tim Donnelly for Governor
Connecticut: Carl Higbie for U.S. Congress
Georgia: Jack Kingston for U.S. Senate
Kentucky: Matt Bevin for U.S. Senate
Maryland: Dan Bongino for U.S. Congress (Text BONGINO to 33733)
Montana: Ryan Zinke for U.S. Congress
Nebraska: Ben Sasse for U.S. Senate
Nevada: Niger Innis for Congress
South Carolina: Bill Connor for U.S. Senate
South Carlina: Tim Scott for U.S. Senate
Utah: Craig Bowden for U.S. Congress (Text BOWDEN to 33733)
Utah: Chris Stewart for U.S. Congress (Text STEWART14 to 33733)

State Races

Utah: Bill Both for House District 22 (Text BOTH to 33733)
Utah: John Stevens for House District 57 (Text STEVENS to 33733)
Utah: Sione Tavake for House District 51 (Text SIONE to 33733)

When you opt-in to the campaigns of these candidates, you are then able to make donations with your phone, participate in polls, receive instant communication from them, and participate in contests. There is no cost to you to participate if you have a texting plan on your phone. You will receive no more than 4 to 5 messages a month, generally speaking.

I will continue seeking out good candidates from across the nation and post them here and in the sidebar of this blog. If you find statesmen running in your area of the country, please let me know who they are. I'll speak to them and help them if I also find them to be a statesman.

In the meantime, kudos to Senator Lee. A job well done, sir.

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Copyright 2013. All rights reserved by Candace E. Salima.

Movie Corner: Lone Survivor

Last week Alvin and I finally had the chance to see Marcus Luttrell's Lone Survivor. First, may I say that this is a movie that every single American should see. The price the men and women of our military pay is it exorbitant. We should be an extremely grateful nation dedicated to taking care of the needs of these men and women. And second, thank you to Mark Wahlberg for doing such a stellar job in portraying this stark event in America's military history.

The movie takes us through the events that took place on an Afghanistan mountain in 2005. Marcus Luttrell's SEAL Team 10 was tasked with gathering intelligence on a particularly brutal Taliban leader, Ahmad Shah, who was rumored to be close to Osama bin Laden. This was known as Operation Redwing. (Learn more about that here.)

Four US Navy SEALS departed one clear night in early July 2005 for the mountainous Afghanistan-Pakistan border for a reconnaissance mission. Their task was to document the activity of an al Qaeda leader rumored to be very close to Bin Laden with a small army in a Taliban stronghold. Five days later, only one of those Navy SEALS made it out alive.

This is the story of the only survivor of Operation Redwing, SEAL fire team leader Marcus Luttrell, and the extraordinary firefight that led to the largest loss of life in American Navy SEAL history. His squadmates fought valiantly beside him until he was the only one left alive, blasted by an RPG into a place where his pursuers could not find him. Over the next four days, terribly injured and presumed dead, Luttrell crawled for miles through the mountains and was taken in by sympathetic villagers who risked their lives to keep him safe from surrounding Taliban warriors.

A born and raised Texan, Marcus Luttrell takes us from the rigors of SEAL training, where he and his fellow SEALs discovered what it took to join the most elite of the American special forces, to a fight in the desolate hills of Afghanistan for which they never could have been prepared. His account of his squadmates' heroism and mutual support renders an experience that is both heartrending and life-affirming. In this rich chronicle of courage and sacrifice, honor and patriotism, Marcus Luttrell delivers a powerful narrative of modern war.

The movie takes us through the events on that mountain, as one by one the SEALs fall. These men are heroes and watching the decisions they made, how hard they fought, and not giving up until they expelled their last breath, was extremely difficult to watch. I'm not ashamed to say I wept. Although it was actors on a screen, each represented a real man who gave their last full measure of devotion to their nation.

The film is brilliantly made and it is heart wrenching to watch. I've read liberal reviewers who attempted to destroy the film, but you have to a be a particular kind of heartless bastard to watch this movie and know that the true events being played out cost the lives of three exceptionally good men and heroes. 

Some are finding it fun to second guess the decisions these men made on that mountain. Others sit in their warm little homes and ridicule them. I would never presume to be so foolish or arrogant as to second guess Luttrell's team. I am not a Navy SEAL. I have not been through Navy SEAL training (BUDS). I have not fought in war, not have I had to deal with the godforsaken Taliban who are little more than animals. Actually, that's an offense to animals, so let me rephrase. The Taliban have wholly embraced evil and more likely have a resemblance to demons than animals. 

Nonetheless, Marcus Luttrell has made it clear that the decisions made were good decisions, specifically stating that "knowing and proving" are two different things. The goatherds that compromised the mission, in hindsight, should have been killed on the spot, but again, knowing and proving are two different things.

When a CNN anchor called what happened on that far away mountain, senseless, Marcus said to Jake Tapper, “I don’t know what part of the film you were watching, but hopelessness really never came into it,” he said, shifting in his seat. “I mean, where did you see that? Because there was never a point where we just felt like we were hopelessly lost or anything like that. We never gave up. We never felt like we were losing until we were actually dead.”

If viewers of this movie can come to understand the extraordinary nature of the men of this SEAL team, then you will come to understand the nature of true heroism and courage.

Thank you, Marcus. Thank you to your men for...for, everything. God bless you and God bless America. And to Mark Wahlberg, thank you for the extraordinary job you did in telling their story.



I give Lone Survivor a solid 5 out of 5 Stars and if I could give more, I would. This is a must-see movie for every single American over the age of fourteen. The language is rough, the story is brutal, but it is the reality of what our men face when they stand for America. These are real men, real heroes, and they had families that love them dearly. It is critical for America to understand the price that is paid so they can sleep at night.

Sponsored by:

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Copyright 2013. All rights reserved by Candace E. Salima.

Freedom, A Precious Gift

I have had much to ponder as of late. I have been studying the scriptures and have come to realize how very unique America is and has always been. So many nations throughout history were never able to allow the mantle of freedom to rest comfortably on their shoulders. Before long, they would cry for a king. Thus they succumbed themselves to the whims of wicked men and cried unto the Lord when things went wrong. For millennia this cycle repeated itself, nations conquering nations and the people always paying the price. 

At the founding of our nation, many had come from all the corners of the earth. Some stayed. Some died. Some left. But of those who stayed, a great nation sprang forth. By 1776 those who craved freedom and liberty served notice to the United Kingdom, and the Revolutionary War commenced. Untold miracles were wrought on behalf of the Americans and we embraced freedom and liberty, accepting the responsibilities of protecting it.

For two centuries America continued to flourish, even during our down times we fought our way out and continued to be free. Presidents came and went, some preserved the Republic, and some chipped away at it. Some used a chisel and some a sledge hammer (Franklin Delano Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, Jimmy Carter, and Bill Clinton). But we flourished and continued to grow. Occasionally, the tree of liberty was watered with the blood of patriots, and America grew in strength and power. We stood as that beacon of liberty to the world and we were pleased to do so.

During my lifetime, and I am fifty now, I have watched freedom and liberty dwindle in America with great rapidity. The people handed it to their leaders while others fought within the paths the founding generation gave us in the Declaration of Independence, U.S. Constitution and the Bill of Rights, to restore the greatness and uniqueness of the American experiment.

God always intended us to be free. The rights of free speech, freedom of religion, and the right to peaceably assemble are gifts from God, not from man. The Second Amendment was given to us by the Founding Fathers to protect those God-given gifts.

And here we are today with fifty million Americans on welfare, fifty-four millon on government assistance, with an economy struggling from a gross burden of over regulation and the overreach of government. Millions of Americans are unemployed, as businesses struggle to stay open under the ever growing behemoth of Obamacare. An astonishingly large number of Americans look to Barack Obama, a man steeped in the wickedness of communism, as their "savior". But the only Savior the world has is Jesus Christ, and Obama is dismantling America at great speed.

America literally stands at a crossroads: should we live up to the responsibilities we've been given and uphold and strengthen the Republic, or should we succumb to the weak and destructive European socialism? In November of 2014 we have the opportunity, and responsibility, to go to the polls and elect good and wise men and women. But will we? Will we seek out the statesmen among us and work to get them elected. 

Ezra Taft Benson said, 

"unlike the political opportunist, the true statesman values principle above popularity, and works to create popularity for those political principles which are wise and just."

For me, I attempt to stand for truth and righteousness in all times, things and places. That, of course, causes unpopularity to be levied toward me. But my Heavenly Father and Savior are very real to me. As I have mentioned before, I will not shuffle off this mortal coil and face them, the Founding Fathers and my ancestors with the report that I "just didn't want to do my part to protect our freedom and liberty because it was too hard."

Popularity is fleeting and corrosive. What should last is a sound mind, steadfast heart and dedication to eternal principles. What should last is our devotion to God. What should last is our dedication to preserving freedom, for it is an eternal and precious gift fought for by the American people and handed down generation to generation. But it requires each generation to renew the dedication and fight to keep the flame of freedom burning brightly in America, and I fear this last generation is throwing it away.

Ronald Reagan said, 

"Freedom is never more than one generation away from extinction. We didn't pass it to our children in the bloodstream. It must be fought for, protect, and handed down for them to do the same."

2014 will be the year where we ultimately decided whether to continue down this path with certain destruction at the end (seriously, we are $17 plus trillion in national debt, and $100 trillion in unfunded debt), or we shake ourselves off, pick the tools of freedom again and restore America to that place where the American Dream is alive and well.

God bless America, and God bless each of my fellow citizens. We've got a monumental decision ahead of us, what will we ultimately decide? As for me and my house, we have chosen to serve God and preserve liberty.

I have been actively researching and seeking out candidates across the nation. As I have done so, I have come to find men who I believe will hold the line in Congress and in their state races.

What do I mean by that? These are men of courage, honor, integrity, and a clear understanding of the proper role of government. And sadly, there is a sore dearth of that in our nation. We need these men to win across America.

Bill Both, UT
Bill Connor, SC
Dan Bongino, MD
Carl Higbie, CT
Craig Bowden, UT
Jack Kingston, GA
John Stevens, UT
Matt Bevin, KY
Rob Maness, LA
Ryan Zinke, MT
Shane Osborn, NE
Tim Donnelly, CA

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Copyright 2014. All rights reserved by Candace E. Salima.