Recap of June 8 Prager Group meeting

(DM: My apologies, Prager People, for losing Sonny's recap of last week's meeting; he had to send it to me again for posting.)

The Pragerites once again got together for what may have been the most exciting Eastside meeting to date. 13 ventured to Panera Bread in Mayfield on Sunday, June 8 and partook in the over two hour talk-a-thon.

Those present were: Dianne Mueller, Marjorie Henderson, Jane Curran, Ann Najjar, Connie Fleming, Maryann Tegowski, Angie & Danny Hall, Harvey Finkelstein, Michael Sauka, Rodger Weiner, Ayad Rahim, and yours truly.

Early on in the meeting it was brought to my attention that Danny was wearing a red T-shirt displaying the words: Ice Cold Conservative in white letters. We all thought it pretty neat. Personally, I’ve never seen anything quite like it before.

The question: "Should topics other than politics be discussed at the Pragerite meetings" came up. Everyone agreed that, although politics are extremely important, there are several issues that ought to come to the table when Dennis’ fans get together. This meeting surely demonstrated that.

Of course, the major news was that, officially, it will be Sen. John "Wayne" McCain versus Sen. Barack "Hussein" Obama battling for the Presidency of the United States from now until Election Day in November. Sen. Hillary "I had it and lost it" Clinton completed the equivalent of a "Big Brown Collapse." After all, months ago she was the odds on favorite to win the Democratic nomination (like Big Brown was prematurely anointed to win the Triple Crown in horse racing). Her failure to do so will go down in history as one of the biggest political upsets in American lore.

So it’s McCain against Obama and Dianne made the very witty and honest statement that: "Obama’s not the kind of change I want!" If one really looks closely at what Obama plans to do, they’d find that the "changes" he keeps talking about are not going to be good ones for America. The changes he wants implemented will not cost taxpayers "loose change," but billions of dollars instead. Free healthcare & college are just some of the things he’s promising to those that vote for him.

Speaking of cost, Harvey brought up the soaring gas prices. He pointed out that one of the reasons for these skyrocketing amounts is that the environmentalists are stopping the oil companies from looking for more oil right here in the US. As a matter of fact, only a few weeks ago an oil company representative told Congresswoman Maxine Waters that the prices will continue to rise if they can’t get permission to drill elsewhere. Waters stumbled and mumbled before flat-out answering back that they (Congress) would simply take over the oil companies (can you say communist?).

Ted Kennedy’s name popped up. He’s not a friend of the Right by anyone’s standards. But perhaps his recent cancer diagnosis is God’s way of warning him to make amends for much of the evil he’s been involved with (Mary Jo Kopechne in 1969). The senator is also an avid Democrat and vile enemy of the unborn baby in the womb. He’s pro-abortion (pro-death) to no end, much to the regret of 50 to 100 million precious little kids who’ve been exterminated in the name of "Women’s Rights."

Keeping on politics, Rodger chimed in and pointed out that the Republican Party has, over the years, acted like wimps who just don’t stand up to the "Left" like they should. The Republican Party has failed its supporters by not acting like the "conservatives" they were voted in to be. They’re wimps like Rodger said and that’s why the Party’s in such a mess. Message to the Republican Party: be totally pro-life, totally pro-marriage (one man for one woman), and stand up for God at all costs. These are values that the Democratic Party abhors. These values, among other things, should be the major differences between the two Party’s. To date, it’s not perfectly clear that they are.

Tammy Bruce, Monica Crowley, and Jed Babbin, conservatives who filled in for national radio talk show host Laura Ingraham last week, were mentioned. Rodger stated that Crowley has a lot more insight than Laura does. In fact, as of Tuesday (11th), Ingraham still isn’t back on the air and rumor has it that she’s involved in a contract dispute.

By the way, it was pointed out that Dr. Laura Schlessinger, another syndicated radio talk show host, was knocked off the TV airways in March of 2001 by the radical and very powerful homosexual movement. Dr. Laura, for some unknown reason, was even removed from the Cleveland radio airwaves shortly after 911.

Rodger asked a very interesting question. He wanted to know where we all stood concerning the "Right" or "Conservative" position? So, one by one, each of us proclaimed whether we were just right/left of center, religiously/secularly right or far right. There was a pretty good variety of answers, but everyone was a right winger in some way, which is basically what brings us all together in the first place.

Concerning religion, Maryann said that she’s not completely sold on the idea of "organized religion." There’s no doubt about it. Organized religion, at times, has led to serious problems for some societies. Prager once pointed out that without organized religions such as Christianity and Judaism, the moral values of those religions would die out, which would lead to societal chaos. So, simply put, organized religion is good if the religion being organized is good.

Dianne made the statement that she believes in Heaven. Harvey then asked if she believed in Hell too? She does. In the New Testament Jesus talked twice as much about Hell as He did about Heaven, which is something a lot of people aren’t aware of. Yeah, Hell’s real. You can bet your eternity on it.

Michael said that a particular Catholic theologian promotes the theory of human evolution, as does the Church itself. But the Genesis creation account clearly states that everything was created by God in 6-24 days and, although it cannot be proven scientifically to be an actual fact of history, neither can apes to man evolution be proven to ever have occurred. Long ago the Catholic Church chose to side with the evolutionists because, in the Church’s view, the evolutionists somehow proved evolution was a scientific fact. However, billions of people, including thousands of scientists around the world, reject evolutionary theories based on the current scientific evidence.

Dianne pointed out that the young people of today don’t know what Marxism is. Prager often throws out the statement that: "Your average college student couldn’t recognize a picture of Joseph Stalin." Young folks really don’t know what Marxism, Communism, or evil are. They owe this lack of knowledge to our wonderful public school system that spends more time informing the students about the make-believe horrors of global warming. Is it any wonder the home schooling population is growing every day?

The issue of Health Care came up. Rodger reminded us that, in Canada, a seriously ill public official chose to come to America for treatment instead of simply using her country's socialized health care program. Canada’s health care system is basically what Barack Obama wants to implement here in the states if, God forbid, he wins in November. It was mentioned that the Democrats are constantly telling the public that "millions of Americans don’t have health coverage." Of course, Dennis Prager always points out this lie. Uninsured people are, in the vast majority of cases, not turned away from hospitals. Rodger even told us of an uninsured friend of his that’s being treated at nearby Metro Health Hospital.

Dianne informed us that the doctors in Canada are paid only nine months out of the year. If they work beyond that they get no money. And Michael said that, in France, 1/2 of the health care is socialized while the other half is private. This is something that most people don’t know. See, these meetings are educational. So come on down and learn, learn, learn.

One of the newer Pragerites was Marjorie Henderson. Being in her early 80s, she was clearly the elder states lady of our group. Think about it. She was in high school during WWII. Marjorie certainly saw a different America than what the rest of us have witnessed. She stated: "The America today is not the country I knew 50 years ago." Boy, she hit the nail on the head with that one.

Finally, Dianne gave us a web page (rufusputnam.com) that displays her grandmother’s (Florence B. Taylor) interesting columns that appeared in The Saltsburg Press back in the 30s, 40s & 50s. The site is dedicated to her ancestors, one of which was General Rufus Putnam who served in the American Revolutionary War. Do yourself a favor and take a look at this most interesting site.

The next meeting of the Pragerites will be July 13 at Panera Bread, Great Northern Mall, North Olmsted. As you can tell by this report, if you miss it, you’ll miss a lot.

God Bless

Sonino John Paul Scardelletti - A Christian