I'm calling this an open thread because, as the day goes on, I'll be adding various thoughts to this post.

Hillary Clinton...
Isn't it interesting that Hillary Clinton has conveniently come down with recent illnesses just when she was scheduled to testify to Congress about the murder of our ambassador in Libya? Maybe you aren't even aware of that story. I was shocked to learn over the holidays that some of my relatives have never even heard about the murder and its cover up. They went into the polls and cast their ballots in November without this critical information to help them make their decision so they were duped again. First, they were duped into believing that Obama could be a good president and heal the partisan wounds that were taking place. Second, they were duped into believing that Obama deserved a second term. It saddens me that the propaganda peddlers in the media have been so successful at lying to the American people and keeping critical facts from them.

My wife Tonette and I would like to take a moment to wish you and your loved ones peace and happiness this holiday season. As we get ready to celebrate Christmas with our sons, Matt and Alex, we pray for a new year filled with faith, hope, and prosperity.

This joyful season can be a time to remember as well as a time to hope for the future. It is also a time to be grateful for the past year and for our loved ones.

We hope that in the midst of the hustle and bustle, and in light of the recent tragedy, everyone will take the opportunity to cherish the family around them. We would like to thank all of our service members who are away from their families this Christmas season. We hope that in the next year, you will be home with your families.

I wanted to take a moment to wish you a Merry Christmas!  Also, a big thank you to all the Coulee Conservatives who helped ring the bells for the Salvation Army on Saturday. Our efforts were a tremendous success as you can see from the Tribune article partially copied below.

Special thanks to Glen and Pam who challenged us to participate and helped organize the shifts.

Salvation Army bell-ringers shatter one-day record

Salvation Army bell-ringers set a one-day record of $53,940.17 — nearly double the previous mark — in La Crosse and Onalaska on Saturday, when an anonymous local business promised to match the tally up to $50,000.

Read the whole story here.

It really bothers me how so many individuals are so easily seduced into giving up their individuality. The movement to seperate our society between the 1% and the 99% income earners is the latest 'fad' that happens to have my attention lately. This is simply the latest effort to divide Americans into disparate groups so that others may take advantage of us (divide and conquer if you will). It is nothing new and this latest effort happens to have its roots in Marxist philosophy. For those of you in La Crosse that means (as Karl Marx famously articulated) that the wage earners are being encouraged to punish the wage payers. As Marx put it, the only way to true economic equality is for the mass of workers to rise up and seize the means of production from the owners (ie, factory workers kicking the owners out and taking control of their own production). I totally disagree with his beliefs and his followers today. Economic equality is impossible.