Glen's Gob

"I Like to Fire People" -- A non-controversy by the MSM

2012-01-09T08:58:00.001-08:00

As is usually the case, if the media can take a comment, cut it out of it's context and then regurgitate it as pablum to the masses who lean the same direction as the media outlet, they can definitely make it run.

The BostonHerald.com today reported the following. I will provide the text verbatim so that you can see what they claim the former Masschussetts governer said at a Nashua, Hew Hampshire meet and greet.

“GOP frontrunner Mitt Romney – who has based his campaign on his sometimes controversial record as a corporate czar – sparked a furor today with the remark that he likes 'being able to fire people.'

The former Bay State governor was discussing health insurance when he said that insurers give fairer prices if they know they will be held accountable.

'It also means that if you don't like what they do, you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me, ' Romney said.”

There was more in that article, about 600 words more... but nothing else from Mitt Romney's actual statement. With only that chunk of the statement, it would be pretty easy and quite reasonable to think that Mitt Romney is a ruthless man who enjoys firing people for no real reason other than he can.

Fortunately, we have YouTube.com and you can find the entire clip of what he actually said.

“It also means that if you don't like what they do you can fire them. I like being able to fire people who provide services to me. If, if, you know, if someone doesn't give me the good service I need, I want to say 'you know, that if... I'm gonna go get somebody else to provide that service to me.' And so that's one thing I'd change.”

See the difference? In the entire context, what Mitt Romney said is; if you can find somebody that provides a service and does a better job at it than your current provider, you should have the right to terminate the relationship with your current provider. Further, he says that you should be unapologetic about it.

In my opinion this is a contrived controversy. There is nothing radical or controversial about a successful businessman stating that in the course of his business dealings he would have no hesitation to fire a service provider if he can find somebody else to provide the same service for less cost, more service for the same cost, or more service for less cost.

What we really should be looking at in a free-market economy is at what point do we as consumers insist that providers continue to cut costs to the point that the labor to provide the service or good cannot live on the wages. But this isn't Mitt's problem, this is America's problem.

If 41 cents of every dollar you made was going on your credit card, would you keep doing it?

2010-12-03T13:19:00.000-08:00

According to the Department of the Treasury, 41 cents of every dollar spent by the federal government of the United States was borrowed.

Think about that. Think about that long and hard. Can you imagine that any sane person can possibly think that this kind of reckless spending can be sustained? This is the equivalent of a private person making about $25,500 spending $50,000 dollars every year. That means that they had to put $20,500 on the credit card in a single year to hit the same ridiculous deficit spending percentage our government has.

The Bi-partisan Debt Commission report has come out. It's harsh. It's going to ask Americans to accept deep cuts in many of the entitlements that we hold dear. It holds nothing back. Deep cuts are found in health and human services, Social Security, the Department of Defense, all of which been "untouchable" and "third rail issues" until now.

So its surprise to me that the commission itself was only able to get 11 of 17 to support the conclusions of the commission.

Two examples:
Max Baucus of Montana refused to support it because of the proposed gasoline tax hike that would damage the agriculture industry. That's nothing. If it were me I would end farm subsidies and let farmers grow whatever the heck they want in quantities they want.

Andy Stern, the president of Service Employees International Union (SEIU) also refused to support it, because it would have deep consequences for federal government employee union pension plans.

As long as people continue to think "Think not what I can do for my country, think what my country can do for me" we are going to head down the road of national insolvency. When will We, the People, wake up and realize that we've allowed our politicians to walk us down a path paved with the false glitter of lies and promises right to the very trapdoor of financial hell? When will we stop demanding that our government take money from some and give it to others, when in fact there just isn't any more money to take? Yeah, the rich are rich, but there aren't enough of them nor do they make enough that by themselves they could pull us out of this mess we are in. We have to reduce spending. All across the board.

Because unlike you or I who have our mortgage company or credit card company to send us into bankrupty, the federal government instead gets to answer to China and Qatar and the United Kingdom. And they aren't likely to be any more understanding than your local debt collector. What kind of a debt collector would China use, anyway? Do we really want to find out?

8 Stood in the Way

2010-11-30T09:35:00.000-08:00

Eight GOP senators voted against the 2-year earmark moratorium. They are:

James Inhofe (OK)
Bob Bennet (UT)
Susan Collins (ME)
Thad Cochran (MS)
Richard Shelby (AL)
Lisa Murkowski (AK)
George Voinovich (OH)
Dick Lugar (IN)

With their votes, the resolution failed 56-39.

I hate earmarks. I hate them because they are a backdoor currency to buy votes. And they are hard to find because they are not in the budget package. They can be attached to anything the house or senate passes. I note that only one of these senators is actually up for re-election next year. That's Mr. Lugar of Indiana.

There are also 7 Democratic senators that voted for the moratorium. They are:

Evan Bayh (IN)
Michael Bennet (WI)
Russ Feingold (WI)
Clair McCaskill (MO)
Bill Nelson (CO)
Mark Udall (CO)
Mark Warner (VA)

Which just goes to show that doing the right thing isn't necessarily being done by just the right wing.

Earmarks are a symptom of the problem.

2010-11-16T12:57:00.000-08:00

In 2005, the Congressional Research Service found that earmark projects accounted for 1.92% of all federal outlays (spending). Now... that doesn't sound like a lot of money. Well, OK, in the jaundiced and stratosphere-high world of federal spending, that doesn't sound like a lot of money. In fact, it would work out to about $47.7 billion dollars, which compared to the $1300 billion that we overspent in 2010, doesn't really seem like much.

However, earmarks are a symptom of a Washington problem that John McCain and a few others have been warning us against for years. Earmarks are used to buy votes in both houses of Congress. It's a form of political currency that is used to influence members of both the House and the Senate to vote in a manner that they might otherwise have done. Here's an example:

House Leader: This reform legislation is very important and we really need your vote in order to guarantee it's passage.
Representative: I realize that this is important to you, but you have to understand that my constituency isn't effected that much by the problem your legislation addresses. And they will object to its cost.
House Leader: Well, what is your constituency interested in?
Representative: We've been trying for years to build that new county library, but the economy has made it difficult to get it done.
House Leader: Well, what if we were to attach, let's say, $600,000 in earmarked funding for that library to the proposed legislation?
Representative. My constituency will be grateful. You have my support.

See the problem? So even though earmarks themselves only represent a small amount of the total federal funds spent, they contribute to a bloated federal budget by making it more palatable to some members of Congress by sending some funding back home where it will do some good.

In the above example, would a new public library be of benefit to the community? Almost assuredly so. But because it's earmarked legislation, it never gets debated as part of the budget. Therefore, this funding is hard to find and hard to track.

If you get rid of these "pork-barrel" projects and hidden earmarked funding riders, then bills tend to be voted on based only on their relative merit and not because votes have been bought and paid for. For example, without the sweetheart deals that were made to certain members of Congress in states like Kansas and Louisiana, the United States National Health Care legislation (aka "Obamacare") would probably never have gotten enough votes to pass.

And that's why the Tea Party wants earmarks eliminated.

Quantitative Easing and the 2010 G20 Summit.

2010-11-08T10:04:00.000-08:00

From the FT.com (Financial Times): In an article by Ralph Atkins while in Frankfurt, Germany, he wrote about the "collision" course that Germany has plotted with regards to the United States.

Our policy makers are whining about our trade imbalance. Wolfgang Schäuble accused the United States government of undermining its own policymaking credibility. "It is not consistent when the Americans accuse the Chinese of exchange rate manipulation and then steer the dollar exchange rate artificially lower with the help of their printing press." He went on to say that American's have lived for "too long" on credit, overblown their financial sector and neglected their industrial base. There are lots of reasons for the US problems -- German export surpluses are not part of them.

He further pointed out that we don't have a liquidity problem. There's a LOT of money in the system right now. What he didn't say, but was definitely implied, is that borrowing is low because banks have increased standards for borrowing and therefore far fewer borrowers are found to be credit worthy.

I've harped on this for years. Part of our problem is that in the noble but misguided effort to make home ownership attainable to more people, the federal government put great pressure on banks to ease lending requirements, with the result that potential borrowers were not required to provide much proof that they could pay back the money they were borrowing. This risky behavior resulted in the mortgage bust of 2008, although signs could be seen as early as 2005-6. Federal policy makers tried to exert pressure to roll back these practices but were soundly rebuffed by a Democrat-controlled Congress.

If our government continues to "monetize our debt", soon the Federal Bank will be the only organization that will be willing to buy our debt, and at that point the "Weimar moment" as Glenn Beck puts it, will happen.

Call your congressman, call your Senators and inform them that printing money is no solution to our problem. Demand that they reign in federal spending, but be aware that in so doing you will be asking the government to reduce services, some of which you or someone you love and know are depending on. How tight are you willing to pull your belt in order to gain federal fiscal responsibility? Because until you are willing to live with less entitlements from our government, our government will continue to spend its way into debtor's prison.

Maybe the GOP gets it. Day 2.

2010-11-04T11:20:00.000-07:00

Representative Eric Cantor (R-VA), who will likely become the House Majority Leader in January, distributed a document called "Delivering on Our Commitment" that will be given to new the new class of Representatives. In it, Mr. Cantor reveals some detail on his proposed congressional agenda.

1) He opposes a VAT.
2) Create a forum with the nation to seriously discuss entitlement changes necessary to maintain our obligation to retirees while still reducing overall entitlement expenditures. Outreach to the "minority" party is stressed.
3) Continue the GOP moratorium on earmarked appropriations and based on an outcome of the Organizational Conference, extend it to both parties. In short, no House legislation including earmarks will be allowed to the floor for discussion or balloting.
4) A systematic, piece by piece approach to repealing or defund the United States National Health Care act and replace it with "common sense" legislation. I have no ideal what "common sense" legislation means.
5) Implementation of rules for articulating clear standards for bringing legislation to the floor of the House. In summary, an argument must show that the legislation is not more appropriately a state or local government issue and that Congress is within Constitutional limits to pass such legislation. Further, the legislation must include a plan for paying for its implementation. Shrinking the size of the Federal Government is a primary goal of these rules.
6) Changes to the Legislative Schedule and House Calendar, with focus on committee hearings and oversight uninterrupted by floor activities such as House votes. Oversight committee reports can be brought to the floor for debate or even adoption.
7) Eliminate expressions of appreciation and recognition for individuals, groups, events and institutions in order to focus on the critical work ahead of us. Also, consider designations and namings of post offices or other federal buildngs only once day a month.
8) A renewed focus on standardized goals, objectives and formats of oversight reporting in connection with a greater emphasis on individual member oversight initiative.

I have only one relevant piece of advice for Mr. Cantor. Every single category of federal spending needs to be critically scrutinized and that there are no sacred cows. Defense, Health and Human Services, the Federal bureaus and agencies, and yes, even Social Security all need to be looked at with an eye towards the reduction of spending.

Grumpy Conservative, The 2010 Midterm Results Prove Nothing.

2010-11-03T17:02:00.000-07:00

As of 5:00 PM on November 3, 2010, I've heard a President admit he made mistakes and I've heard a resurgent GOP and their pundits talking about a "mandate".

Florida Senator-elect Marco Rubio said it best. This election result is not an embrace by the people of the GOP, it is a second chance to get it right.

I'm already betting they don't. Because in order for the GOP to get it right, they are going to have to finally convince the American people that we no longer can afford all the programs, services and entitlements that we have come to expect from our federal government. They are going to have to convince the American people that they are going to have to cut over $600 billion dollars from the 2011 federal budget. They are going to have to repeal parts of the health care reform. But that's only the start.

They are going to have to convince the people that every category of the budget will need to be cut. They are going to have cut over $150 billion from health and human services. They are going to have to cut over $150 billion from the federal defense budget. They are going to have to dramatically change the way social security payments will be made to people who retire five or more years from now. They are going to have to cut and I mean DRAMATICALLY cut the budgets of federal agencies like the Dept of Education, the Dept of Energy, the Dept of Agriculture, the National Endowment for the Arts, the FBI, CIA. Across board. Nothing is sacred.

Oh yeah, they are going to have to RAISE taxes too. On everybody. Even those who currently don't pay.

And if you the American people don't buy it, then the GOP and the Democratic party are both screwed and the United States defaults on it's debt in 2012.

But the American people won't buy it so why in the hell am I even bothering? I'll see you in the bread line.

Funny stuff. TOTUS comments.

2010-11-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

I follow a blogger site called Barack Obama's Teleprompter Blog. If you are a progressive, you'd be better off not following that link. Stay away. But if you are a little more on the conservative side, like I am, I find this guy to be pretty darned funny.

So here's a "tweet" from TOTUS (Teleprompter Of The United States).

Big Guy says he's been fighting for America for 2 years, unfortunately for him America has started fighting back.

OK. That's funny.

Quantitative Easing, Round Two.

2010-11-03T16:40:00.000-07:00

Read this CNNMoney article.

Back in March of 2009, the Federal Reserve Bank printed $2 trillion dollars ex nihilo, which means that this money was being added to the money supply but was backed by no additional value in our actual treasury. In April of 2009, every dollar owned by everyone everywhere was worth 17% less than it was just before they printed the money.

Why would they do such a thing? Well, as the article explains, they are doing this because the federal government is finding it harder and harder to get anybody to buy our deficits. You know... those deficits where our beloved federal government, at the behest of the American people is spending more money than they are willing to pay it for the services they demand their government provide. So, if China or Bahrain or Qatar or the UAE or the UK are no longer willing to buy our bonds, then the Federal Bank is willing to step in.

Yup, they are going to electronically credit the Federal Reserve with an addition $600 billion dollars in order to be able to purchase our own debt. This is also called "quantitative easing", a desperation move that is taken by a government when an economy is stalled but interest rates for lending are already close to zero. This is also known as "monetizing the debt", something that has been tried before. I document this in a previous blog posting you can read here.

The Weimar Republic, the German government after World War I did this in order to pay off the massive reparations that they were obligated to pay per the Versailles Treaty. Look it up. It was not a happy time to be a German.

If you are OK with your government reducing the value of every dollar that you have saved or invested, then don't do anything. But if I were you, and especially if you are a Republican, now is the time to fire up your word processor and write your Senators and Congressman and tell them to STOP THIS NOW!

Republicans have to sit in the back of the bus.

2010-10-26T11:17:00.000-07:00

As distasteful a tactic as it has been, the Republicans have finally gotten some cojones and have refused to participate in the current administration's reckless spending spree. Although this President promised to be post-partisan and post-racial, nearly every major GOP led initiative with regards to the health care, TARPII and cap and trade have been rejected out of hand by the dominant party.

So here's President Obama's most recent olive branch to the GOP going forward. He said Republicans had driven the economy into a ditch and then stood by and criticized while Democrats pulled it out. Now that progress has been made, he said, "we can't have special interests sitting shotgun. We gotta have middle class families up in front. We don't mind the Republicans joining us. They can come for the ride, but they gotta sit in back."

No, Mr. President. If the current batch of GOP-ers are going to be true to their campaign promises, then the GOP is going to continue to fight you if you continue to add to the crushing debt that is now threatening to destroy our entire way of life.

But thank you, Mr. President, for so eloquently sum up your feelings about the GOP in particular and conservatives in general. It helps to clarify our choices for the upcoming elections.

Amtrak Posts Record Ridership.

2010-10-19T10:01:00.000-07:00

USA Today, in a Mike Chalmers article, reported that Amtrak posted record ridership with 28.7 million riders, an increase of 5.7% from 2009. Ticket revenue increased by 9% to 1.7 billion.

However, Amtrak posted $3.5 billion in expenses for the fiscal year.
Let's see.... $1.7 billion from ticket sales against $3.5 billion in expenses. Yup, another year in the red for Amtrak.

Separation of Church and State and the Politicians that Don't Understand It

2010-10-19T09:53:00.000-07:00

Recent debate comments in Delaware serve to illustrate just how ignorant or disingenuous our current crop of politicians are with regards to the concept of "separation of church and state".

In a debate on Tuesday October 19th, Republican candidate Christine "the witch" O'Donnell criticized Democratic nominee Chris Coon's position that teaching creationism in public school would violate the First Amendment by promoting religious doctrine.

O'Donnell asked "Where in the Constitution is the separation of church and state?", and Coons replied that the First Amendment to the Constitution prevents Congress fro making laws respecting the establishment of religion, whereupon O'Donnell said "You're telling me that is in the First Amendment?"

The First Amendment to the Constitution of the United States says verbatim: "Congress shall make no laws respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people to peaceably assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances."

At play here is the fact that the concept of "separation of church and state" doesn't exist anywhere in our Constitution. Historically, this term first appears in a private letter written in 1802 from President Thomas Jefferson to the Danbury, Connecticut Baptist Association. He writes: "Believing with you that religion is a matter which lies solely between Man & his God, that he owes account to none other for his faith or his worship, that the legitimate powers of government reach actions only, & not opinions, I contemplate with sovereign reverence that act of the whole American people which declared that their legislature should "make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof", thus building a wall of separation between Church & State."

Interestingly enough, this letter was in response to a written concern by the Danbury Baptist Association that, at that time (prior to the establishment of the 14th Amendment), the Federal Government could force out a state's official church.

It is important to remember the context in which the States demanded the addition of the first ten amendments to the U.S. Constitution before they would ratify it. The First Amendment prevents the government from imposing its will upon the people with regards to religion. With their freedom only newly won, the memory of religious oppression and forced conversion by royal rulers was strong enough that they wanted this freedom specifically protected.

Does teaching the concept of creationism in public schools rise to the level of "establishment of religion"? I do not think so, although better minds than mine have spent much time debating this touchy subject. Although the United States was founded by men who were primarily Christian in their beliefs, the concept of the world having been created by a singular divine intelligence or pantheon of divine beings is common among nearly all religions. I would agree that any program that would teach the concept of creationism to students in public schools would need to present more than the history as expressed in the book of Genesis (which is a common belief of Jews, Christians and Muslims). But again, would even such a carefully designed program actually bring about the establishment of religion in our schools? I argue that it would not.

More importantly, the "separatists" are perfectly happy to quote the first segment of the first sentence of the First Amendment, but often fail to address the second segment of that same sentence: ... "or prohibiting the free exercise thereof". While I do not fall into the category of those who take a very literal interpretation of the creation of the universe and the earth from the book of Genesis, there those who do. If our public schools fail to teach about the alternative belief of creationism, would the government by proxy be guilty of prohibiting the free exercise thereof? Those students are being presented with a view of the creation of the earth (evolution) which is, in their interpretation, entirely invalid. In other words, those students are being forced to supress their belief in how the world came to be. I think that this is clearly a violation of the First Amendment of the Constitution.

So... to bring this back around to Chris Coons and Christine O'Donnell. Chris Coons clearly believes that teaching creationism is schools would be a violation of the principle of "separation of church and state". I would only agree with him if only the Genesis creation story would be presented. But in contrast, Christine O'Donnell should be aware of the fact that when President Jefferson first laid the words "wall of separation between Church & State", he specifically quoted the entire first clause of the First Amendment. Therefore, President Jefferson clearly intended those words to be associated with the protections provided by that Amendment.

The Unfinished Business of the Federal Government (or We have met the enemy and they is us)

2010-09-30T11:20:00.000-07:00

I'd be willing to bet that more than 70% of the American public is completely ignorant with regards to the responsibilities of the U.S. federal Congress. Article I Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution states: "All Bills for raising Revenue shall originate in the House of Representatives; but the Senate may propose or concur with Amendments as on other Bills."

But the partisanship being displayed by both the Republicans and Democrats have made the environment in Washington so toxic that Congress has utterly failed in this fundamental and Constitutionally mandated responsibility.

A federal income-tax hike in the midst of our weak economic recovery seems unfathomable. Such a hike will surely stifle consumer spending and either stall or dampen any recovery we might experience going into 2011. And yet, our Congress completely failed to come to any agreement on the extension of the "Bush tax cuts", which are scheduled to expire on December 31st of this year. Worse yet, here we are in late September of 2010 and we don't even know what the tax tables are going to look like for next year. How can our vaunted and esteemed Congress possibly budget when they don't even have a GUESS as to what revenues will be?

So we don't get a federal budget. Of course, the political junkies will tell you that Congress is not required to provide a federal budget. And they're mostly right. But how can you possibly control spending unless you create a budget and then try and stick to it? Or maybe it's that our "transparent Congress" doesn't want to pass a budget because then they might be expected to actually control spending. Hmmm...

That same "transparent" Congress (reference to Speaker Nancy Pelosi's infamous promise) has failed to adequately investigate misconduct charges leveled against Representatives Charlie Wrangle (D-NY) and Maxine Waters (D-CA).

But Congress CAN raid our empty treasury to authorize a $42 billion "small business stimulus" bill even though small business aren't likely to borrow money for expansion or hiring because the tax hike will discourage consumers from parting with what little discretionary spending they still have in their own household budgets. More "chicken in every pot" politics and Americans LOVE it.

Every taxpaying citizen I talk to (I don't talk to non-taxpaying citizens because they have no skin in the game so why in the hell do I care about THEIR opinion?) laments the fact that the government spending is completely out of control. And yet, when I start mentioning reduction of the budgets for the Dept. of Education, teachers scream. Or if I mention reduction in Medicare/Medicaid then seniors and the unfortunates of our society scream. Or if I mention reduction in military spending, then the hawks and those serving in the military scream.

Our elected leadership has utterly failed (for at least 60 years) to give it to us straight, to give us the plain, unvarnished truth. If you want to have a healthcare system like Sweden's, or Canada's, or the United Kingdom's, then you have to pay taxes like a Swede, a Canadian or an Englishman. Or, if you want lower taxes, then you must do more for yourself and your community and expect less from your government, especially with regards to entitlements and the redistribution of wealth. But our Congress and our President (again, for over 60 years), has told us we can lower taxes and still provide all the entitlements that you could ever ask for.

I do not lay the huge mess, the possibly unrecoverable mess, at the feet of Pelosi, Reid and the President. I lay it instead at the feet of every Congressman that ever asked for an earmark, every President that pushed social-engineering through government programs, every Senator that ever tacked on unrelated resolutions to authorizations (ala Harry Reied and the "DREAM" act for the current Defense Spending Authorization). Ultimately, I lay our huge mess on every American that still refuses to do with less of their piece of the entitlement pie and still expects our bloated federal government to reduce spending.

So Congress is going into recess. Well, during that period I guess the important and constitutionally mandated business of the people will have to wait. But by the same token, if they are in recess then they can't do any more harm to us. I guess that's the silver lining. But that sure isn't the American Exceptionalism I grew up with.

Glenn Beck cranks up the culture wars.

2010-08-30T16:16:00.000-07:00

Rich Benjamin, in an article on cnn.com (click here) made a series of arguments designed to support the position that Glenn Beck, the wildly popular conservative pseudo-religious radio and talk-show host, has "cranked up" the culture wars.

His first argument is based on the claim that despite Beck's assertions to the contrary, the August 28th rally in on the Washington Mall was a political rally. He points to the presence of a rally participant wearing a t-shirt with the message "If you can't love America, move back to Kenya." Even though Beck specifically directed the attendees to not bring signs of any kind. Even though not one speaker mentioned President Obama by name, or the Democratic party. It's reaching way down into the barrel to label this a patriotic rally based on a few t-shirt slogans.

With regards to the "tea-party" opinion that President Obama is a marxist/socialist, well, it does seem to be that way. The massive expansion of nationalized health care at the same time that 47% of American workers (the majority who are in the poor, lower income and lower middle income brackets) do not pay any income taxes at all is seen by most fiscal conservatives as redistribution of wealth, a fundamental tenet of socialism. He also rammed cash for clunkers down our throats, encouraging people to buy cars with taxpayer subsidies. Again, money moving from those who pay taxes to many who do not. This was followed by cash for toasters, encouraging people to buy new appliances with... you guessed it... taxpayer subsidies.

And for good measure let us not forget the first time homebuyer credit of $8,000 dollars (in 2009) and homebuyer assistance program of $6,500 dollars, again targeting those in the lower income brackets (most of whom pay no or little in income taxes) with money taken from the income tax payers.

There's lots more where that came from, but I think that the citations above are a clear indication of a political motivation on the part of the president and his party to move money from those who can afford to pay taxes to those who cannot. Is, or is that not socialism?

He further claims that the claims on the part of the conservative factions that President Obama is a communist or marxist or socialist is similar to admittedly similar claims against Reverend Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr in the 1960's The huge difference is that the attacks against Dr. King where clearly fueled by racist hatred, especially in the South. But in the case of President Obama, we only have to look at the record of legislation passed during his administration to see what is plainly written.

As an aside, Reverend Al Shaprton claimed that the push by the "tea party" to restore "state's rights" is a direct assault on the civil rights movement and is a conscious effort to rollback those hard won gains.In this case the US federal government through civil-rights legislation signed in the late 60's forced states to accept a federally mandated standard for guaranteeing the protection of the civil liberties and rights of minorities. There is no question that under the guise of state's rights, many states (again especially in the South) implemented legislation that unarguably were designed to deny or obstruct the rights of minorities, and particularly blacks, to vote, equal access to education and government services.

But today, the resurgence of state's rights advocacy is couched firmly in the US federal government's failure to uphold its end of the contract that binds the states of our union together. The federal government continues to spend more and more and yet services seem to decline or fail altogether. Immigration laws, especially with respect to the prosecution and deportation of aliens living here illegally, including border security is one aspect of the federal failure. Another is the inability of the government to respond quickly to natural disasters. The 2005 hurricane Katrina disaster clearly demonstrated the red-tape that obstructs swift response by the federal government as well as the complete and utter lack of coordination between federal, state and local emergency response agencies. Our national infrastructure is coming apart. Roads, bridges and dams are falling into disrepair before our very eyes, and yet there is no money to fix them! People who genuinely need government assistance can't get it while shysters and thieves who have studied the system collect "overpayments" from the government with impunity. The US Dept of Education consumes more tax revenue than ever and yet our nation continues its slide into mediocre scholastic performance among industrialized nations.

States are understandably outraged. They are being forced by federal mandate to spend more money on federal programs and yet they do not have the access to print more money when their budgets are bled dry. Not to mention that progressive legislation in states like Michigan, California, Arizona and Ohio have literally bankrupted them. States and local communities would very much like to have more say in the standards of education and welfare that they provide to their citizens, but are continually stymied by an outrageous and bloated bureaucracy that is reflected in the HUGE amount of regulatory law that those bureaucracies are expected to enforce.

I understand the need for regulations, but when the process for getting FDA approval to get a drug to market can cost multiple billions of dollars. And yet, after getting such approval, a drug company is completely unprotected against expensive lawsuits when unknown side-effects not discovered during the FDA approval process inevitably arise. Question: If the FDA won't stand behind its approval process by helping to defend the pharmaceuticals, why in the hell do we force them to seek FDA approval?

With regard to Mr. Benjamin's concern that a third of the nation thinks that President Obama is a muslim. Well, I don't get that either. And we further agree that birthers are idiots.

But I think that the charge of the current administration's movement of the nation to a more socialist government is completely founded and beyond debate.

Alan Simpson Calls It Like He Sees It on Social Security, a Giant Milk Cow

2010-08-26T13:50:00.000-07:00

Read the article here on CNNMoney.com

Things have gotten so bad here in the United States that I have just about given up blogging about it. Why bother? No matter what I say (or I do) it doesn't look like anything's going to change.

Republicans are going to win some seats in the House and Senate. So what? Who cares? Republicans spend money almost as fast as Democrats do and what's worse. Americans are learning their lesson. Consumer credit card debt has dropped to it's lowest level in 8 years, and that trend seems to continue. No kidding. I wish Congress and our state legislatures would go to town on that little lesson. When times are tough, you stop or slow spending and you sure as heck don't rack up even more crappy debt.

Speaking of trying to stop or slow spending... our country is in big trouble. We've added 3 trillion (with a "t" folks!) to the national debt in just two years and at the rate we are going, we will be unable to even pay the INTEREST on that debt. At that point, insolvency is just around the corner and then everything will become unhinged. Whether it's the military, the welfare state, or social and civil engineering, the fact is that the American people are about to face the biggest crisis of this nation's history, and that is that unless we accept some pain (quite a lot actually) RIGHT NOW, we will completely collapse before the end of the decade if not sooner.

Americans expect to receive their Medicare and Medicaid, and WIC, and Food Stamps, and Social Security payments, etc. And any time anybody talks about cutting them, the political discourse turns into a caterwaul of biblical proportion. Social welfare programs represent about 37% of our nation's total annual expenditure. The other big pole under the tent? The military, which accounts for about 32% of our total annual expenditure. When you include the money we spend annually to service the national debt, only about 20% of our annual budget (budget, ha ha, that's a good one, we aren't running on a budget right now and Pelosi & Co. have informed us that we won't get one this year) is "discretionary spending" on items like... regulation enforcement (FAA, SEC, SCC, HUD, Dept of Education, USDA, USFS, USPS, etc....) all the other services that we like to have. So... as I've previously stated on this blog. Not only must taxes go UP, but government spending in ALL areas of the budget has to go down. Which means a lot more people out of work... If you cut the military, then all those soldiers, sailors, airmen and Marines find themselves without work. You get the idea.

Finally, Americans themselves are addicted to entitlements. Former US Senator Alan Simpson (R-WY) is in hot water because in an email response directed to an executive of the Older Women's League called it right on the nose when he said in part:
"I've made some plenty smart cracks about people on Social Securityy who milk it to the last degree. You know 'em too. It's the same with any system in America. We've a point where it's like a milk cow with 310 million tits! Call when you get honest work!"

Yah, it's probably a bit more blunt than the email's recipient (a woman) probably can handle. But it's right on the nose. We've been getting dire warning and predictions from wizards of smart for more than two decades that the national debt and the entitlement system in this country were going to push us into national insolvency. And while the sky was falling we continued along as those everything was just fine.

Well, everything is not just fine. Standard and Poors, a premier financial ratings company, has warned the United States just today that it better do something about the ballooning debt right now or our AAA credit rating will be lost. Once that happens, you can kiss any chance of getting anybody to buy anymore of our debt goodbye. And when that happens, the Federal government will run out of money. Not just to help fund stimulus packages, but to pay out social security checks, pay for interstate highway maintenance, and send out federal inspectors to make sure our eggs don't have salmonella poisoning in them. Oh wait.... we're paying for that? Didn't work out so well, did it.

Have a nice day.

Capitalist Hogwash Concerning SB1070

2010-06-28T11:25:00.000-07:00

I've never heard of Alex Nowrasteh before today and I've only heard in passing of the Competitive Enterprise Institute. But the headline in his June 28th FoxNews.com opinion article, "Arizona Declares War on on Capitalism", certainly caught my eye.

A summary of his dissertation is as follows: Illegal immigrants don't commit a disproportionately high rate of crime and Arizona is simply punishing businesses. He then cites US Bureau of Justice Statistics to show that from 2006 to 2008 both violent and property crimes dropped significantly.

Mr. Nowrasteh doesn't bother to mention that in that time frame (specifically, 2007) Arizona passed the Legal Arizona Workers Act, which requires that all employers use the Federal e-Verify system (admittedly a flawed system) and that any employer that knowingly hires undocumented workers will face a 10-day suspension of their business license on the first offense and permanent suspension of their business license on any subsequent violations.

It is believed by many in Arizona that the drop in crime can be at least partially attributed to the enforcement of this act, which went into effect on January 1, 2008, because of a sudden migration of undocumented persons away from Arizona (to Texas, I am told. Sorry, Texas).

Mr. Nowrasteh then goes on to say that SB 1070 and the Legal Arizona Workers Act essentially turns every business and employer into an immigration agent of the state. Well... in a word, Yes. There is precedence for this. Every business that sells goods or services to consumers are expected to collect local, state and federal sales taxes. Every business that hires employees (as opposed to contract workers) must withhold federal taxes from employee paychecks and forward that money to the IRS. Every business must conform to OSHA, Dept. of Labor, or Dept. of Sanitation requirements. Every business must conform to equal employment opportunity regulations to prevent discrimination. Every business must pay a wage not less than the federally mandated minimum wage. So, Mr. Nowrasteh's point is somewhat muted by the fact that businesses are already conforming to a myriad of laws, rules and regulations being mandated from all levels of government.

What Mr. Nowrasteh does not point out is that any undocumented worker must provide some form of identification in order to be employed. That's what e-Verify is all about. So of course, any illegal immigrant that is using bogus identification is causing material harm to a legal U.S. citizen. That illegal immigrant can cause irreparable damage to credit ratings and worse, legal history.

Mr. Nowrasteh makes the claim that many of the people that illegally migrate to the United States do so because they have no chance of doing so legally. Really? It may be hard, yes. It may cost money, yes. But have "no chance of doing so legally"? Please, Mr. Nowrasteh, would you mind submitting any kind of example or proof to support this statement. What utter hogwash.

I believe that Mr. Nowrasteh's underlying motive for this article is exposed in this one sentence buried deep in the midst of this article: "Now, businesses are going to be further punished when they do what naturally comes to them: lowering costs and passing those savings onto consumers." Yup, if you run a business that is caught hiring illegal immigrants and paying them sub-minimum wage or worse, under the table in order to avoid federal tax withholding collection, then you are going to be punished. Mr. Nowrasteh's capitalist world of minimized costs at all costs is creating and perpetuating a permanent serf-class in this country. Is that really what America is all about in your world, Mr. Nowrasteh? Laborers who are viewed as two-legged mules, to be fed and watered occassionally, but who ought not to expect any joy in life?

If Americans want a high standard of living (high pay), then they have to expect that they will have to pay for that standard when buying goods and services from domestic businesses. I take pride in the fact that many of the companies that I do business with aren't the cheapest, but that every time I make a purchase, I'm helping their employees to live the "good" life.

Kevin Costner, Actor and Environmentalist Entrepreneur

2010-06-10T14:55:00.000-07:00

British Petroleum has been largely "stymied" for 52 days with a oil spill disaster of immense proportions. Some estimate that the amount of crude oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico may actually be 100,000 barrels, or five and one-half million gallons per day. I think this is a highly pessimistic value, but even one-tenth of that is far too much.

While BP has spent nearly two months either trying to stifle, plug or siphon the gusher results appear to be disappointing. On June 5 they claimed to capture 640,000 gallons and yet the "spill cam" looked like most of the oil was escaping into the ocean. BP is also employing clean-up crews to begin the labor-intensive process of cleaning decaying crude oil from the coast line of Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama, Arkansas and Florida. CNN reporters have caught video images of many of their workers spending most of their time sipping water under pop-up tents instead of actually cleaning, so this effort is questionaable.

It may not be too facetious to say that God is doing his part. So far, the weather has kept the oil slick away from the dreaded "loop" current that would whisk the oil out of the Gulf around the Florida peninsula and north along the U.S. eastern seaboard. But we can't count on that forever, especially with hurricane season's official start on June 1st.

It's hard to tell what the hell the federal government has been doing. There is no question that Vice-admiral "Thad" Allen of the U.S. Coast Guard has been working hard monitoring the situation and coordinating efforts. In fact, he officially retired in May but he's still the operational commander. Kudos to him.

Congress, on the other hand, wants to criminally investigate BP. Good timing. BP's stock prices plummeted on that news. That removes money from BP's liquid assets that are going to be needed to pay for the repairs to the wellhead, cleanup effort as well as the loss of income from tens of thousands of Gulf residents who directly make their living from the sea.

President Obama is looking for whose "ass" to kick. Good for him.

With all this... up steps Kevin Costner, the star of the much-maligned movie "Waterwold", a forgettable movie. In the wake of the Exxon Valdez oil spill of 1989 it occurred to his research scientist brother Dan Costner that there must be a way to separate oil and other fluids from water, as long as their specific gravity is different. What they developed was a high-speed high-capacity centrifuge. Since oil is lighter than water, when spun rapidly in a cylinder the water will pool around the outside off the cylinder while the oil will collect in the center of the fluid column. The oil is then pulled from the center while the water "spills" out of vents at the top of the center. Testing has shown that water heavily contaminated with Alaska crude was extracted with a better than 99% purity level.

He applied for a federal license from the U.S. Department of Energy in 1993 and the devices have been shown to work for nearly two-decades. Kevin Costner is a partner in the two companies that manufacture and sell these devices: Ocean Therapy Solutions (http://www.ots.org) and Costner Industries Nevada Corp (http://www.cincmfg.com). While these devices were designed with oil-spill cleanup in mind, they can be used for other purposes, such as water-contaminant removal. Considering the magnitude of the Prince William Sound contamination, you would have thought that these things would be purchased by the federal government and/or the oil companies by the dozens. Mr. Costner has to date sunk nearly $26 million of his own money into this idea, and was quoted by the London Mail in 2007 as having lost $40 million in all the technologies that his companies have invented. But for some reason, neither the U.S. federal government (especially MMS or DOE) or the oil industry seemed to be very interested in this technology.

Until now.

Mr. Costner is reported to have said that the ideal use would have been to immediately collect the oil/water from the gusher and process it. The largest unit that his company makes, a 2 1/2 ton stainless steel monster called the "V-20", can process 200 gallons per minute, or 12,000 gallons per hour. The other beautiful thing about his centrifuges is that they are chemical-free. That's right. No dispersants of any kind. Additionally, they are relatively mobile and easily installed on barges, sea platforms or ships. Ten of these devices theoretically can process 2.8 million gallons of fluid per day.

Why the hell aren't these devices on every drilling rig and oil platform? Why is there no stockpile of these devices?

Having reviewed the information from the literature on their websites, I'm comfortable in stating that had these devices been in place, the Gulf Coast would have seen little to no contamination.

If one assumes that these centrifuges work as advertised and the video shown on OTS.org is not doctored, then the fact that the MMS did not insist that there be a stockpile of these devices, purchased by the oil industry and stored by the federal government as a hedge against disasters such as this should be the real criminal investigation.

Mr. Costner and his companies are the proof of what people like Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh and other so-called "right-wing wackos" have been braying: Private entrepreneurs will always be the provider of solutions to our problems. Kevin Costner can apparently do what neither BP or the U.S. federal government cannot; turn oil back into water.

Boycotts work two ways.

2010-06-01T14:58:00.000-07:00

My beloved wife and I had planned on going to Anaheim this October and spend a fun weekend at Disneyland. I've been wanting to see the "Haunted House on Holiday" exhibition for the last couple of years and we finally seemed to able to arrange things so that we could go this fall.

Well, all of a sudden, California cities started making a fuss about Arizona's anti-illegal immigration enforcement laws, also known as "SB 1070", also known as "Arizona Safe Neighborhoods and Law Enforcement Act". Cities like Los Angeles, San Diego and Berkeley (OK, Berkeley isn't a surprise, really) have indicated that they will boycott contracts with Arizona.

Clearly, they've not actually read the law (even though the total number of changes to existing Arizona state statutory laws account for only about 16 pages or reading). Clearly, they've not yet seen that the law can only be enforced as part of a "contact by law enforcement officials" for other reasons and that questions can only be asked about immigration status if "reasonable suspicion" arises as part of that lawful contact. They've also clearly not read the even more strongly worded amendment that specifically prohibits the use of race in evaluating "reasonable suspicion".

OK, California. Have it your own way. But although your contracts with us are important to us, I know that tourism from out of state visitors is also important to you. So let me point out a few things:

Rasmussen polls:

53% in Pennsylvania favor passing legislation similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.
57% in Texas support passing legislation similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.
68% oppose boycotts of Arizona over SB1070.
55% nationally favor immigration law similar to AZ SB1070 in their state.

Pew Research Center

Broad approval for New Arizona Immigration Law

73% approve requiring people to produce documents verifying status. (86% of Republicans, 65% of Democrats, 75% of Independents)
67% approve allowing police to detain anyone unable to verify status.
59% approve the general provisions of SB1070.

Gallup Poll

Among those who have heard of the law, 51% favor and 39% oppose it.

MSNBC/Telemundo

61% favor AZ SB1070, although only 31% of Latinos favored it.

So... if you look at these results, it's pretty simple: Nearly 2/3 of the nation disagrees with the city council rulings for San Diego, Los Angeles and Berkely (amongst others). And just as California wants to flex it's financial muscle (oh... wait... what financial muscle? Isn't CA like 21 billion in the hole?), so can we who support AZ SB1070.

You remember that California vacation I alluded to earlier? Well, we're going to Jackson Hole, Wyoming instead.

Yes! The American Way! Sue Google Instead of Trusting Your Own Eyes!

2010-06-01T10:39:00.000-07:00

I was wandering around the internet on Tuesday after Memorial Day when I came upon this article. Once again, I felt my blood rising to a boil as yet another American citizen, probably spurred on by a money-seeking ambulance chaser lawyer, tries to turn an irresponsible tragedy into a trip to the great American lottery.

Lauren Rosenberg, a California visitor to Park City, Utah, was struck by a vehicle while walking along State Route 224, which is a rural highway with no sidewalks. I have found no details of the incident to determine if Ms. Rosenberg was on or off the roadway when she was struck.

She is suing for damages, which is expected. However, she is suing Google because when she used the Google walking paths mobile phone application, the route suggestion did not warn her that pedestrian right-of-ways or sidewalks might not be present during all stages of her route.

So, when she arrived at State Route 224 instead of turning around or trying to find a safer route, she continues on in reckless disregard for her own safety. Once again, a human being finds themselves victim to an unquestioning reliance upon technology, even when the manifest evidence before their eyes shows that such reliance is questionable at best and downright dangerous.

While drivers of motor vehicles have a responsibility to operate them in a safe manner, pedestrians are expected to stay out of the way of roadways which are not designed for foot traffic. Her own eyes and wisdom should have warned her that State Route 224 was unsafe, but she willingly placed her own safety in jeopardy. She rolled the dice, and she lost.

I do not know the specifics of this incident. Was Ms. Rosenberg on the roadway when she was struck? Did Mr. Harwood, the vehicle's driver, maintain control and a safe lookout while he was driving? Were there lapses in judgment or alertness on either or both parties? Mr. Harwood stands at significant legal peril, but Google should be held blameless in this matter. Users of Google maps, which is in my opinion an extraordinary tool of immense usefulness, should be expected to use discretion at all times. Should Google maps present a suggested route that physical examination proves to be unsafe then by all means other routes should be considered. That's what being an adult is all about.

Intended Consequences of SB 1070, and the Pain it Will Cause.

2010-05-25T13:21:00.000-07:00

Today, azcentral.com ran a story about one of the very predictable results of the new Arizona immigration law (SB 1070); illegal immigrants going even further underground than they currently do.

The article is here.

The first thing about this article that caught my eye was the headline: "Arizona immigrants move deeper into the shadows". The story is about a Mexican born naturalized US citizen, who is married to an illegal alien, also a Mexican and their US born daughter. In the context that the wife is an immigrant, I suppose the headline is technically correct, I still resent the title because only those who are here illegally or those who are aiding and abetting illegal aliens in their efforts to remain here illegally have to move deeper underground. Legal immigrants who are following the law have nothing to fear from SB 1070.

The summary of the story is that the wife fell in love with her husband to be and had already made plans to marry him when he revealed that he was in the US without permission. Since then, they have been carefully controlling their daily and weekly activities to keep a low profile. They keep a neat yard. They dress nice. He works hard. They obey all other laws. They immaculately maintain their vehicle in order to avoid traffic stops. In other words, they sound like nice people. People that I would like as neighbors.

But, he is still here in violation of the law, and she is aiding and abetting him. Their daughter is growing up believing that her family are all US citizens, a lie. One day, be it tomorrow or in ten years, he may be found out and when it happens, he will be deported with the inevitable result that their family will either be ripped apart or they will leave together to go to Mexico, where they will have far fewer opportunities.

This is the consequence breaking the law. He entered the country illegally, and she has supported and aided him ever since she found out that he was an illegal alien. Until proven otherwise, the US and Arizona are both governed by laws, and justice must be blind when upholding it. Either that, or we abandon the law. To do so would be, in my opinion, just as unjust if not more so to the millions of people that have become naturalized US citizens by following the law, or the hundreds of thousands more who continue to follow the law and are still patiently awaiting naturalized US citizen status.

The story is tragic. But it is not a tragedy of injustice. It is the tragedy of a nice little family that turned a blind eye with regards to immigration law and are both daily paying the price. And potentially to pay the highest penalty for breaking it.

CNN's Reuben Navarette: American Flag wearers were "Disobedient Brats".

2010-05-21T09:44:00.000-07:00

Reuben Navarette's article was in regards to the Live Oak High School incident where five students who wore American flag inspired clothing were ordered to reverse their t-shirts or be sent home for the day. The boys refused, recognizing that their clothing is an expression of political speech and therefore protected under the First Amendment.

The main point of Reuben's argument is that wearing the American flag at an American high school on May 5th is disruptive behavior. Cinco de Mayo is not even a US holiday, for crying out loud. How is wearing US national colors on any day of the year in school "disruptive"? These boys were making a political point. "Celebrate your Mexican national roots but don't forget that you are Americans." Or should be, who knows today with so many illegal aliens from Mexico and Central America in our nation?

He then cited three cases that came before the U.S. Supreme Court that upholds the right of school administration to restrict speech. However, his citations of case law is disingenuous and I'm disappointed.

In Bethel School District v Fraser (1986), the court upheld that schools have the right to uphold community standards and were right to stop a speech that was filled with sexual innuendo. This was not a political speech issue and therefore not protected to the same standard.

Hazelwood v Kuhlmeier (1988) documents a case where Hazelwood School District was determined to be innocent of violating student's First Amendment rights when an article about teenage pregnancy and use/non-use of birth control was edited from a high school paper, again because the subject matter was deemed inappropriate for the younger class members of the school. Not a political expression issue, and therefore not protected to the same standard.

Morse v Frederick (2007) was a school speech case in which the Supreme Court that First Amendment does not prevent educators from suppressing student speech, even at school supervised events, that can be reasonably viewed to promote illegal drug abuse.

Hey Reuben, how about citing some case law that actually deals with freedom of expression of POLITICAL views? Your argument is pathetic and I, a non lawyer, was able to rip it to shreds in fifteen minutes of Google searches.

To sum up, these boys were expressing their POLITICAL views by wearing those shirts on May 5th and as long as the display of the national colors is in good taste the wearing of such colors should never be deemed disruptive.

USCD panel of legal professors state that SB 1070 probably passes Constitutional muster.

2010-05-19T14:23:00.000-07:00

Leslie Berestein of the San Diego Tribune reported on May 14th that a panel of three law professors discussing Arizona law SB 1070 could well pass constitutional muster, although violations could occur during enforcement.

The article is here.

The primary points made by the professors were:
1) It does not appear to give law enforcement more authority, contrary to claims by opponents of the law.
2) The the law was carefully written by Russel Pearce with the help of Constitutional law professor Kris Kobach of the Univ. of Missouri. It mirrors federal immigration laws. Because immigration law is adjudicated by the federal government, the Arizona law could be pre-empted because federal law overrides state law. Arizona is essentially notifying the federal government that it will enforce the law until the federal government explicitly orders them to stop doing so. Since there is no conflict, the likelihood that the federal government will "pre-empt" the enforcement of this law is unlikely. Further, if SB 1070 is found fail constitutional muster, that means that federal law ALSO fails constitutional muster, an unsavory consequence for the federal government.

The Danger of Playing Economic War When you are DOWNSTREAM

2010-05-18T19:24:00.000-07:00

Interesting, considering the situation that exists between both Southern California and Arizona. They both are states that border Mexico. Their electorate are mutually groaning under tremendous budgetary shortfalls that are pushing our public programs to their very limit.

However, Arizona in recent years has become a virtual highway into the United States for migrants from Mexico. Specifically, Arizona is now dealing with rampant human trafficking, kidnapping, drug-related murder and other crimes, and vehicle theft. Phoenix is the kidnapping capital of the United States. Five of the last eight Arizona law enforcement officers that we have lost in the line of duty were killed by illegal immigrants. Two prominent ranchers have been killed and the evidence strongly indicates illegal drug activity associated with Mexicans in our state illegally.

For these reasons and others the state of Arizona, a state somewhat more 'red' than our neighbor to the west, has decided that if the federal government of the United States will not enforce existing laws with regards to immigration, then Arizona will. This was a bold step by Governor Jan Brewer and Arizona state senator Russel Pearce. Both of them have publicly lamented the need to do this. But citizens who have earned the right to live here because they have declared allegiance to this great country have an expectation to be protected by their government, and "Uncle Sugar" ain't making the grade.

Enter SB1070, or the (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act). Nearly everybody that has proclaimed (loudly) that this is racist legislation that will open the doors to the dreaded phrase "Papers, please!" has also now admitted that they have themselves not even read it yet. I have done an analysis of the law (which you can find on this blog), which clearly shows that police may only act on this law in the course of an already existing "contact" between themselves and a potential perpetrator. Since I did that analysis, the law has been even further modified to put further restrictions on what constitutes 'reasonable suspicion'.

Nonetheless, the liberal main-stream media, in cahoots with their progressive brethren and constituents in the Latino community, La Raza, the Reconquistas, and their fraternal friends in the civil rights movement have whipped up a completely false picture of how this law will be implemented. President Obama, US Attorney-General Holder, Dept. of Homeland Defense Napolitano have all rebuked Arizona over the law even though all of them now admit they haven't even read it.

Now several cities in Washington, Illinois and California have decided to boycott Arizona originated goods and services. With regards to California the Los Angeles City Council, strongly led by Mayor Villaraigosa, has decided to jump on the bandwagon.

However, there can be, from time time, found even in offices of politicians and bureaucrats individuals who have the strength of character to respond forcefully and yet without emotion or irrationality. Arizona Corporate Commissioner Gary Pierce has decided enough is enough and wrote a little missive to Mayor Villaraigosa, reminding him the Southern California buys a lot of our power. I think that the Commissioner's stand on their own:

May 18, 2010

VIA FACSIMILE & US MAIL

Mayor Antonio R. Villaraigosa
Office of the Mayor
200 North Spring St., Room 303
Los Angeles, CA 90012

Re: Los Angeles boycott of Arizona

Dear Mayor Villaraigosa:

I was dismayed to learn that the Los Angeles City Council voted to boycott Arizona and Arizona-based companies--a vote you strongly supported--to show opposition to SB 1070 (Support our Law Enforcement and Safe Neighborhoods Act).

You explained your support for the boycott as follows: "While we recognize that as neighbors, we share resources and ties with the State of Arizona that may be difficult to sever, our goal is not to hurt the local economy of Los Angeles, but to impact the economy of Arizona. Our intent is to use our dollars--or the witholding of our dollars--to send a message." (emphasis added)

I received your message; please receive mine. As a state-wide elected member of the Arizona Corporation Commission overseeing Arizona's electric and water utilities, I too am keenly aware of the "resources and ties" we share with the City of Los Angeles. In fact, approximately twenty-five percent of the electricity consumed in Los Angeles is generated by power plants in Arizona.

If an economic boycott is truly what you desire, I will be happy to encourage Arizona utilities to renegotiate your power agreements so Los Angeles no longer receives any power from Arizona-based generation. I am confident that Arizona utilities would be happy to take those electrons off of your hands. If, however, you find that the City Council lacks the strength of its convictions to turn off the lights in Los Angeles and boycott Arizona power, please reconsider the wisdom of attempting to harm Arizona's economy.

People of goodwill can disagree over the merits of SB 1070. A state-wide economic boycott of Arizona is not a message sent in goodwill.

Sincerely,

Commission Gary Pierce

The City of Los Angeles may regret that they didn't build more nuclear power plants in the 1970's, 80's and 90's.

If you want to see the actual facsimile copy of the letter, you can go here to the Arizona Corporate Commissioner's website.

Factoid of the day.

2010-05-17T10:13:00.000-07:00

I typed "miserable president" into Google search engine today (May 17th @ 10:11 AM MST), and here's what I got:

Well, for once I agree.

The Unbelievable Media Bias

2010-05-04T09:15:00.000-07:00

NewsBusters reports that when prompted by Katie Couric during an interview, New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg speculated that the person responsible for the failed car bomb in Times Square was "somebody with a political agenda who doesn't like the health care bill or something. It could be anything.” Yup, Mayor Michael thinks it might be one of those "tea party" people, you know, an angry WHITE guy. I can only imagine how disappointed President Obama was to find out that in fact, the guy is actually a naturalized American citizen of Pakistani decent. Sorry Mister President, you won't be able to blame this one on those angry gun-toting white males.

Of course, Arizona's new illegal immigration enforcement laws are whipping up angst all over the United States. The day of the bill's signing, pro-illegal-immigration supporters were throwing water bottles and other objects at Phoenix police. Looters have damaged stores in several cities during these protest marches during the May day weekend. Yet the press is characterizing them as "unfairly repressed", yet when tens of thousands of tea party people march on Washington DC and other U.S. cities, even though no crimes were reported, they are characterized as full of "hateful, racist and bigoted" people.

Speaking of Arizona's new law, I've read it in it's entirely and there is absolutely no provision for a police officer to lawfully stop somebody and ask them for their papers. Period. These new laws may only be acted upon in a situation where a person has already been legally detained for other reasons (traffic stop). The only possible cause for concern is that it makes the hiring of day laborers from the road side illegal, which in my opinion is good law.

Speaking of peaceful assemblies, several thousand American citizens had a rally in Arlington, Virginia where each and every one of them was wearing or carrying a firearm. I can't speak as to whether any of them actually had any bullets in them, although even an unloaded firearm can really smart when you use it to butt-stroke some idiot. But while the press was lamenting the implied threat of these citizens who were, in fact, doing nothing more than exercise their 2nd Amendment right, I note that nobody was shot or killed or even just injured by some kind of firearm discharge. What?! How can that be? Guns KILL people right? I guess this shows what the NRA people have been talking about for a long time. People kill people, and these people decided to be lawful citizens on that particular day.

So, just so I can call it right out where people can either praise or pillory me for it.

Large group of white people assemble to protest Obamacare, or lack of illegal-immigration law enforcement, or to lawfully assemble with their firearms, is a bunch of racist, bigoted, bible clinging members of hate groups just brimming with hate and ready to explode into seditious violence.

But large groups of non-white people who clearly support illegal-immigration, who break store windows and throw objects at the police, who threaten reporters, slap them and then tell the police that THEY have been assaulted (look it up on the net, it actually happened just this weekend), they're just "unfairly repressed" people.

And the main-stream media talking heads actually have the temerity to look me in the face and wonder why Fox News is kicking the living crap out of all the other news sources?

Arizona SB 1070: Here's what it actually says...

2010-04-30T12:11:00.000-07:00

If you want to see the actual bill as passed by the Arizona legislature and signed by the Governor, you can go here.

I have attempted to summarize it as much as possible below.

Changes are made to Sec 2. Title 11, Chapter 7 of Arizona Revised statutes, amended by adding article 8.
8.a) No official or agency of any Arizona juridiction may adopt policies that limit or restricts enforcement of federal immigrations laws.
8.b) When lawful contact made by Arizona law enforcement, where reasonable suspicion exists that the person may be an illegal alien, a reasonable attempt will be made to determine the person’s immigration status.
8.c) If it is determined that the person is an illegal alien and convicted of a violation of Arizona jurisdiction law, they shall be immediately transferred to ICE or the US Border Patrol.
8.d) Notwithstanding other law, law enforcement may securely transport an alien in their custody to a federal facility in Arizona or other point of transfer to federal custody outside law enforcement agency jurisdiction.
8.e) Law enforcement may without warrant arrest a person under probable cause to believe that person has committed a public offense that makes person eligible for removal from the U.S.
8.f) Except as restricted by Federal law, Arizona officials may not be prohibited or restricted from transmitting, requesting or storing immigration-related status information for the following purposes:
8.f.1) Determining eligibility for any public benefit provided by any political subdivision of Arizona or the Federal government.
8.f.2) Verification of claim of residence or domicile is required under Arizona law or judicial order pursuant to a civil or criminal proceeding in Arizona.
8.f.3) Confirming ID of any person who is detained.
8.f.4) If person confirmed to be an alien, determining whether the person is in compliance with the Federal Registration Laws prescribed by Title II, Chapter 7 of the Federal Immigration and National Act.
8.g) A person may bring an action to challenge any official or agency of an Arizona jurisdiction that adopts or implements a policy that restricts full enforcement of federal immigration law. If an official or agency has been found in violation, the court shall:
8.g.1) The person who brought the action recover court costs and attorney feeds
8.g.2) The entity will pay a civil penalty of not less than $1000 or more than $5000 for each day the limiting policy was in effect after the filing.
8.h) The court shall collect civil penalties from 8.g and remit them to the Dept. of Public Safety for the Gang and Immigration Intellgence Team Enforcement mission fund.
8.i) A law enforcement officer is indemnified for reasonable costs and expenses, incurred by any action so long as the officer is judged to have acted in good faith of enforcement of the law.
8.j) Guides implementation.

Sec. 3. Title 13, Chapter 15, Arizona Revised statutes modified as below:
15.a) In addition to any violation of federal law, a person is guilty of trespassing if the person is both:
15.a.1) Present on public of private land in Arizona.
15.a.2) In violation of 8 USC Sec 1304(e) or 1306(a).
15.b) In enforcement of this section final determination of an alien’s immigration status shall be determined by either:
15.b.1) A law enforcement officer who is authorized by the federal government to veiry or ascertain an alien’s immigration status.
15.b.2) A law enforcement officer or agent communicating with US ICE or US Border Patrol pursuant to 8 USC 1373(c).
15.c) A person sentenced pursuant to this section is not eligible for suspension or commutation of sentence until sentence is served.
15.d) In addition to any other penalty prescribed by law, the court shall order the reason to pay jail costs and an additional assessment in the following amounts:
15.d.1) At least $500 for first violation.
15.d.2) Twice the amount from 15.d.1 if person was previously subject to an assessment pursuant to this subsection.
15.e) The court will collect these assesements and distribute them to Dept. of Public Safety, subaccount for Gang and Immigration Intelligence Team Enforcement Mission appropriations.
15.f) This section does not apply to a person who maintains authorization from the federal government to remain in the United States.
15.g) Violation of this subsection is a class 1 misdemeanor unless
15.g.1) A class 3 felony is committed while in possession of
15.g.1.a) A dangerous drug as defined in 13-3401
15.g.1.b) Precursor chemicals used in manufacture of methamphetamines in violation of 13-3404.01.
15.g.1.c) Possesses a deadly weapon or dangerous instrument as defined in 13-105.
15.g.2) A class 4 felony is committed if the person
15.g.2.a) Is convicted of a second or subsequent violation of this section
15.g.2.b) Within 60 months prior to violation, has been deported from the US pursuant to 8 USC 1229a or has accepted a voluntary removal from the US to 8 USC 1229c.

Sec.4 Section 13-2319 AZ revised statutes amended:
Insert section E:
E) Notwithstanding any other law, a peace officer may lawfully stop any person who is operating a motor vehicle if the officer has reasonable suspicion to believe that the person is in violation of any civil traffic law.
Redesignate section E as section F.

Sec. 5 Title 13 Chapter 29 AZ Revised Statues amended by adding 13-2928 and 13-2929

Section 13-2928 makes it illegal to pick up anybody from a street, roadway or highway for the purpose of work at a different location if the vehicle impedes normal traffic. It also makes it illegal to enter a vehicle under the same circumstances. Finally, it makes it illegal for an illegal immigrant to seek work in a public place or perform work as an employee or independent contractor. 13-2928 will be a class 1 misdemeanor.

Section 13-2929 makes it illegal for anyone to attempt to, or actually perform any of the following if they know or recklessly disregard a person’s illegal immigration status: transport, move, harbor, conceal, shield, or encourage to reside in this state unlawfully.

Modification of Sec 23-212 to define entrapment of businesses by law enforcement agencies under certain circumstances such as law enforcement initiating idea to commit the offense, with or without inducement and it can be shown that employer was not predisposed to commit offense prior to contact with law enforcement agents.

Section 23-214 is modified to specify that employers shall participate in e-verify and maintain the record of verification of the employee’s employment or at least three years, whichever is longer.

Section 28-3511 modified to permit the removal, impoundment or immobilization of a vehicle if the person is in violation of a criminal offense and is transporting, moving, concealing, harboring or shielding or attempting to do so of an alien in a vehicle if the person knows or recklessly disregards the fact that the alien is residing in the U.S. unlawfully.

AZ SB1070: If it's making people this mad, it must be a good thing.

2010-04-30T11:18:00.000-07:00

“These are the times that try men’s souls.” – wrote Thomas Paine during the U.S. War of Independence at a time when Continental forces had not yet won a major battle. After the Christmas Eve assault on a vastly superior force of Hessians, mercenaries on King George’s payroll and possessed of a ferocious reputation, the Continentals got into the habit winning far more frequently than losing.

Today the people of the United States are now faced with a similar situation within the narrow context of illegal immigration. I will not go into why so many people from Mexico, Central and South America are trying to get into the U.S. other than to say that there are job opportunities here that don’t exist in their own countries.

In 1954, the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service executed Operation Wetback (what a HORRIBLE name), which focused on removing 1.2 million illegal immigrants from the southwest. It focused, unsurprisingly, on Mexicans in the nation illegally.
In 1965, the Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965 restricted, for the first time, the number of Mexicans immigrating to the U.S. It has failed to work.
In 1976, President Jimmy Carter and the U.S. Congress tried to grant amnesty to millions of undocumented workers. The proposed legislation was so unpopular that it failed to get out of committee.
In 1986, President Ronald Reagan signed the Immigration Reform and Control act of 1996, which granted amnesty to about 2.3 million undocumented workers but was also supposed to restrict business from knowingly hire them. It has failed to work.
In 1996, President Bill Clinton signed the Illegal Immigration Reform and Immigrant Responsibility Act of 1996. It increased Border Patrols, built a 20-mile long fence from the Pacific, changed rules for immigration detention. It has failed to work.
In 2005, President George Bush signed the REAL ID act, which further restricted political asylum, increased immigrant enforcement rules, and imposed federal restrictions on the practice of state driver’s licenses to immigrants.
In 2006, Congress tried to pass the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act of 2006 and 2007. Both were supported by President Bush. However, since a key component of these acts were to grant amnesty to an estimated 12 million to 21 million undocumented aliens, populist backlash was unprecedented and the legislation never made it to the President’s desk.

This lists only recent attempts by the federal government to control the influx of immigrants or to address the problem of illegal immigration, In fact, the Alien Contract Labor Law of 1885 prohibited the importation or migration of foreigners under contract to perform labor in the U.S. and its territories.

So, with regards to Mexican illegal immigration, the border states (Texas, New Mexico, Arizona and California) are now filled to the brim with Mexican illegals because it is supposedly “racist” for the United States to enforce its own sovereignty with regards to controlling who is permitted within our borders.

Since 1954, the illegal immigrants are 21 million to zero. Zero! Have you looked at Mexico’s own laws concerning illegal immigrants? That’s a topic for another blog, but suffice it to say that in Mexico, it’s a felony punishable by up to two years in prison. Illegal re-entry after deportation carries a ten year sentence. Mexico maintains a nation population registry that tracks all outside tourists. Citizens of Mexico must carry an identity card. Visitors not carrying appropriate documentation are subject to arrest. Finally, foreigners may be deported without due process.

President Obama, representing the U.S. federal government, laments Arizona’s attempt to get this problem under control as “misguided”. Yet, Arizona SB1070 is fully compliant with the 4th amendment to the U.S. Constitution. SB1070 does NOT permit Arizona law enforcements officers to stop anybody at anytime and request “papers”. SB1070 does not permit officers to stop people for the purpose of identifying undocumented workers. However, SB1070 does permit officers, under circumstances of reasonable suspicion, to investigate whether a person detained for other reasons might be an illegal alien. In this case, “reasonable suspicion” can be interpreted to mean that if an officer stops a person for violating a traffic law, for example, and upon routine request for driver’s license and registration information, the driver cannot provide the license, the officer might then be permitted to inquire further as to the detainee’s citizenship status.

Since the federal government has elected through its non action to enforce its own immigration laws, the several states of the Union are obligated to protect their lawful citizenry. If that means that we get a hodge podge of immigration laws and differing levels of enforcement, there is nobody that President Obama and Congress can blame but themselves.

SB1070 is now law. Let the lawsuits begin.

2010-04-23T13:57:00.000-07:00

Judge Napolitano of Fox News said it best. This is an embarrassment to Arizona.

It will cause Latinos, who are natural "social conservatives" to flee the GOP and seek sanctuary with the Democrats.

He predicted that it will be challenged constitutionally. He believes that either the Arizona Supreme Court, or possibly the U.S. Supreme Court will prevent this law from being enforced from the git go. In fact, he said that a challenge will probably happen "tomorrow".

Who lost? Pretty much everybody.

Who won? Even though the law will be shot down by judicial challenge, Governor Jan Brewer will win with her GOP constituency, which will help her dramatically in the primary. However, she gave her eventual Democratic opponent a huge gift.

My steadfast opposition to this bill doesn't change the fact that the federal government, by its very inaction, guaranteed that the several States are going to start trying to get this issue under control. Reagan, Bush 41, Clinton, Bush 43 are all directly to blame, along with all the Congresses that served along those Presidents. President Obama less so only because he's only served as President for just over a year.

My steadfast opposition to this bill does not change my opinion concerning illegal immigration. If you enter this nation without its expressed permission, you are a lawbreaker and you should seek forgiveness, because in so doing you disrespected the people and the laws of this nation.

Tragedy in Arizona. SB1070 will become Law today. And it didn't have to be...

2010-04-23T11:44:00.000-07:00

The story of SB1070 is a testimony of the complete and utter failure of the United States federal government to come up with a sane solution to the problem of illegal immigration.

Let's call a spade a spade right now. Illegal immigration is actually a symptom of the problem, not the problem itself. I have no hard facts or statistics to back up my next statement, but reason and prudence dictates that over 99.9999% of the people who have entered our country illegally are doing so out of desperation to find a job, any job that will put food on their family's dinner table and maybe put a decent roof over their heads. And it's American greed, on the part of private individuals and on the part of American business interests.

The homeowner that has an undocumented worker trim and maintain their yard or property because they can get the work done at a low cost is guilty for this problem.

The business that employs undocumented workers by sharing taxpayer SSN or EIN numbers, or pays them under the table for low wages is guilty for this problem.

The Latin-American community, and especially the Mexican-American community are guilty because they have done absolutely nothing to help stem the tide and in fact are actively involved in protecting them. What infuriates me is that they constantly paint this issue as evidence of racism by the government. State Senator Russel Pearce has stated frequently that "illegal immigrant" is not a race issue. It's a crime. Somehow, it seems that illegal immigrants have some kind of "right" to live here in the United States. Nothing is further from the truth. If you are not born a U.S. citizen, then you must earn the privilege. And that can't be done while living in the shadows.

The federal government is in a real rough place. Back in the 1980's, Pres. Reagan granted amnesty to roughly two million illegals, with the understanding that the gates to the country would then become more strongly guarded. Businesses and private citizens alike claim that they need the low labor costs that undocumented workers provide in order to stay competitive. And yet, the federal government has a Constitutional responsibility to be able to track the activities of every alien currently in our country.

So the federal government has done nothing for over twenty years. The number of illegal aliens in our nation has grown from an estimated two million in the 1980s to somewhere between twelve and twenty million today. The vast majority of these people are working in hotels, fast food restaurants and in the agricultural sector. But that doesn't change the fact the government has no visibility to what these people are doing in our country.

In Arizona, five of the last eight police officers who were killed in the line of duty were killed by illegal immigrants, most of whom were involved in illegal drugs or human trafficking. Additionally, in just the last couple of months the murders of several southern Arizona ranchers have been tied to drug runners who are Mexican nationals.

I want to make my position perfectly clear. SB1070 is bad legislation and bad law. I believe that it will be challenged as being in violation of Constitutional guaranteed rights to protection from illegal search/seizure. I believe that it will open the door to many instances of racial profiling. I should point out that racial profiling works, but that doesn't change the fact that it's a violation of basic civil rights.

But what is Arizona to do? Our officers and citizens are being killed by Mexican nationals who are in our state illegally. The federal government is doing very little to stem the flow across our border. It is also doing nearly nothing to help those who desparately want to work in the United States but who are also not U.S. citizens.

Catholic churches are strangely aligned with human traffickers and their drop-houses by providing sanctuary to illegal aliens. The Church is doing so for very human and compassionate reasons. The human traffickers have very different reasons. They are protecting valuable assets, nothing more than human "cattle" in their eyes.

To add insult to injury, the federal government in the form of President Obama calls SB1070 to be misguided. I disagree with that entirely. I believe that SB1070 is actually a sign of desperation, a sign of a state legislature and governor who has pleaded with the federal government for help. If the federal government would step up to the plate and actually perform it's constitutionally mandated duty to both enforce our border security as well as to provide a mechanism for people who want to work here to let them do so.

So, what would I do if I were King of America?

I would give American businesses until Jan 1, 2012 to verify that every single employee can be verified to either be a United States citizen or a foreign national that has a valid work-visa. After that date, any business found to employ undocumented foreign nationals will be fined daily at a rate of $100 per day per undocumented worker until the employees are terminated. Failure to solve the problem within 30 days will result in progressively higher fines and/or suspension/termination of business licenses.
I would provide an application process where a foreign national (but specifically Mexicans) could apply for a work visa from their own home. They would have to provide their respective national ID number. The U.S. government would have one month, upon receipt of the application, to determine if the applicant has a criminal history or pending criminal case. Upon approval, the applicant would be directed to a valid port of entry, whereupon after paying an application fee of $350.00, they would have full fingerprinting, a photograph taken. That information would then be immediately registered in a federal database. The applicant could then stay in the country for the duration of the visa provided that they checked in with ICE every 90-120 days.
Deportees would go into a federal database, along with their fingerprints. Once in this database, it would become part of the e-verify system, and being flagged as a deportee should be an automatic "do not hire" flag.
Once the applicant is an approved alien worker, they can immediately go on the list to become a United States citizen.

I'm sure there's more.... but that's a start.

Arizona Enforces What the U.S. Government Will Not

2010-04-21T09:25:00.001-07:00

The State of Arizona passed Senate bill 1070, a wide-ranging illegal immigrant measure sponsored by State Senator Russell Pearce. This bill is now sitting on the desk of Arizona Governor Jan Brewer, and you can be that this one is a nasty poser for her.

It makes it a state crime to be in the United States illegally and gives state and local law enforcement broad authority to determine an individual's legal status if there is a reasonable suspicion that the individual may be in the U.S. illegally.

Sadly, since our Federal government does not have the political will to enforce Federal law concerning border security and the problem of illegal immigration, Arizona has been forced to this difficult pass.

There have been three Arizona ranchers killed recently, and the evidence strongly points to Mexican nationals in the U.S. illegally, probably either part of the illegal drug trade or the human smuggling trade. Frustration is so high on the southern border of the state that a militant militia group is offering it's services to provide armed patrols along the border to interdict persons crossing the border. It would be laughable except that the ranchers are frustrated and scared.

Why is it that those advocates for leniency on illegal aliens steadfastly do these things?

First, they do nothing to discourage persons who contemplate coming to the U.S. illegally.

Second, once they are here, the advocates actually assist them in going underground, being paid under the table, and moving further into the heart of our country. You never hear them encouraging these good people who become law breakers by this action to turn themselves in or to return to their homeland. NEVER.

Third, they fail utterly to acknowledge that any sovereign nation has a right, and responsibility, and a duty to know the identity of any foreigner who desires admission.

Fourth, they fail to identify and condemn business and industries that employ these people.

In the face of such advocacy to promote this illegal behavior the State of Arizona has been forced to take action that it would otherwise not take.

I hate this bill, because the vast majority of illegal immigrants simply desire to find work. However, the safety and security of our people demand that we take this action, with all of it's police-state like apparatus.

God help us all.

Like it or not, the US is still a superpower. What?

2010-04-15T10:12:00.000-07:00

In a response to a question about how the recent U.S. led "nuclear summit" would affect Middle East peace efforts, part of his response was this:

"It is a vital national security interest of the United States to reduce these conflicts because whether we like it or not, we remain a dominant military superpower, and when conflicts break out, one way or another we get pulled into them, and that ends up costing us significantly in terms of both blood and treasure."

I was not aware, Mr. President, that being a military superpower was a burden. In fact, I feel that it's quite the other way around. Being a nation that generates such wealth that we can maintain such a powerful military is a privilege and blessing that allows us to share the principles of peace, equality and personal freedom throughout the world.

Of course, when the character of the government no longer represents equality and personal freedom, then maybe the fact that we are the sole superpower should be a matter of concern for all. At one time, the United States was considered a beacon, an example of a government established by the governed for the benefit of the governed, not a privileged ruling class. And the military might that backed that government was in opposition to tyranny. And that military might was only ever intended to protect our way of life, and to help other people to gain their freedom, if only by the living example that it COULD be done.

I think that Senator McCain, Obama's Republican opponent for president in the last election said it as well as can be said:

"That's one of the more incredible statements that I've ever heard a president of the United States make in modern times. We are the dominant superpower and we're the greatest force for good in the history of this country, and I thank God every day that we are a dominant superpower."

Amen, Brother McCain.

Right is Right, Whether You Are Left or Right.

2010-03-29T12:47:00.000-07:00

I saw this on CNN today. I can't really tell whether this woman is conservative or progressive, but it doesn't matter. Her message in this iReport is valid for all citizens of the United States who are fed up with non-representing Representatives and Senators.

Dig it? Learn it. Love it. Live it.

Paradise Valley DeMolay Chapter Regains it's Charter on March 27th

2010-03-25T12:10:00.000-07:00

After several years, DeMolay International will once again have a Chapter in Paradise Valley Lodge in Phoenix, Arizona.

DeMolay International is a young men's organization whose purpose is to create a safe environment in which to learn leadership and business skills that will benefit them in their future vocations. This is done through regular business meetings and the teachings of the seven cardinal virtues of a DeMolay: Filial Love (Love of family), Reverence for Sacred Things, Courtesy, Comradeship, Fidelity, Cleanness and Patriotism.

The public installation of officers will take place on March 27th, 2010 at 7:00 PM, to be held at the Paradise Valley Silver Trowel Lodge building.

The members of the chapter have decided that their new Chapter will be named "Paradise Valley Chapter", although the chapter ID will be different and they actually replace Albert Buhlen Chapter.

The initial officers to be installed:

Andy Kendig - Master Councilor (President)

Dakotah Crabtree - Senior Councilor (1st Vice President)

Billy McKean - Junior Councilor (2nd Vice President)

Jared Truettner - Senior Deacon

Sean Sigler - Junior Deacon

Timothy Dougherty - Chaplain

Matthew Kirshman, Jr - Marshal

Phelen Bennett - Junior Steward

Advisory Council to be installed:

Glen Van Steeter - Advisory Council Chairman

Gregory Weisman - Chapter Advisor

Mat Brassard - Ritual Advisor

Laura Van Steeter - Financial/Fundraising/Hospitality

Chris Hagenian - Athletics/Sports

Executive Officer Gary Garafola will be installing the chapter and will also present the charter to the Chapter.

Representative Government is Replaced with Absolutism.

2010-03-23T08:58:00.000-07:00

Today, the President of the United States and Congress celebrated the passage of "landmark" health care legislation. In a crowded White House East Room a beaming President Obama signed the United States National Health Care Reform Act into law while numerous senators and representatives looked on.

Although this is not the first time that the US federal government passed unpopular legislation into law, this is clearly the most egregious example from both a procedural and financial standpoint.

Thirteen US states Attorneys General have filed lawsuits against this legislation to challenge it's constitutionality. This is rapidly being seen as a "state's rights" issue. States, who are not able to print money like the federal government can, are wondering how they are going to pay their share of this huge expansion of government involvement in not only the regulation but also the financing of the US health care industry.

Even as he signed it the American people remain firmly opposed to this law as shown in this poll by Rasmussen on March 21st, 2010. 54% of Americans oppose it, while only only 41% are in favor with about 5% undecided.

The manner in which Congress passed it, using a procedural rule instead of a straight up and down vote, has incensed many Americans.

The American people have been left with a rancid taste in their mouth. Even many Democrats are unhappy with this bill, albeit for reasons other than my own. They are also disgusted by the manner in which this law made it through the legislative process. Many of those who voted for it were quite literally offered sweetheart deals for their districts or states in order to entice them to vote for it. In the real world, these are called "bribes".

We have been lied to. How can any reasonable person think that adding 31 million people to the health care system, many of them being persons already very ill, to a health care system with no provision for adding doctors, nurses or facilities to the same system will not result in increases in costs for all? Well, Obama, Pelosi, Reid and a host of other progressives have sold us that bill of goods. Now we'll see.

Why is it that progressives believe that for good "social" programs to work they only have to provide access to those who have little or none, without also working to improve the quality? And damn the consequences.

Why couldn't they also include some cost controls?

Whey couldn't they make the FDA drug approval process less expensive or less intrusive?

Why couldn't they put in some reasonable limits on malpractice lawsuits?

Why couldn't they put in some stronger consequences for filing frivolous lawsuits.

Why couldn't they put limits on how much of a class-action settlement lands in the attorney's bank account instead of the plaintiffs?

Why couldn't the government allow enhanced competition by allowing us to purchase insurance plans from across state lines?

Those are cost controls and none of it is in any of the 2000+ pages of this monstrous intrusion into the private lives of 80% of American taxpayers who are happy with our current insurance plans.

Today, I no longer feel like a citizen of the United States. I feel like a subject of King Barack I and his Parliamentary Lords Harry Reid and Nancy Pelosi. The federal government has become exactly what Thomas Jefferson and other founders feared it would be.

Thomas Jefferson said "A democracy is nothing more than mob rule, where fifty-one percent of the people may take away the rights of the other forty-nine. " There was never an intention by our Founders for our nation to be a democracy. Yet that is exactly what the Progressives want. He further said "A wise and frugal government, which shall leave men free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it has earned - this is the sum of good government." Well, this new legislation is certainly going to take more of my "bread". Count on it.

On a more local note, whereas Arizona had finally balanced their budget deficit, the moment that USNHCRA became law we were once again $400 million in the hole, because the law requires that we restore 310,000 people to Medicare/Medicaid. Where's the money coming from, Your Majesty? Should we stop ALL road construction? How about if we just close ASU or NAU? No? Let's fire some more state troopers, or eliminate more positions in the National Guard. No?

There is a scene from the Mel Gibson movie "The Patriot" where the South Carolina legislature is debating whether or not to join the rebellion against Great Britain. One of the representatives states: "Our rights are being trampled by a tyrant 3,000 miles away". Mel Gibson's character responds: "Tell me, Mr. Howard, what's the difference between one tyrant 3,000 miles away or 3,000 tyrants 1 mile away?"

Are we at that point? Is our federal Congress no longer working on behalf of their constituency? I argue that it may have been that way for some time and that we are now only waking up to that reality.

USNHCRA passes important milestone. Now what?

2010-03-22T12:23:00.000-07:00

On Sunday, the US House of Representatives passed the Senate version of the United States National Health Care Reform Act by a margin of 219 for and 212 against. Not one Republican voted for it and 34 Democrats joined them.

I have been saying for over a year that my primary problem with this "reform" is that it does nothing to contain or control costs while making health care much more easy to access to millions of high risk people who will place more strain on an already overstrained health-care system.

So, imagine my surprise when, while reading the Huffington Post, that a progressive author by the name Bob Samuels is saying the exact same thing.

Here's a couple of excerpts from his article:
"...it is essential that someone clarifies from the left why this bill is a very bad idea. The major problem with this reform is that it expands the number of people being insured without major cost reductions and containment. This not only means that in the near future, the cost of insurance plans will go up, but insurers and pharmaceutical corporations will continue to rake in huge profits."

"Not only does this bill attack the people who do have good employee-based health care plans by taxing them in the future, but also it undermines the efforts of unions that have often traded higher wages for better benefits."

"The simple fact is that if you do not bring down the cost for health care plans, businesses, individuals, and taxpayers will be left footing the bill to pay for increased insurance and pharmaceutical profits."

Well, that's pretty much what myself and about 50 million other conservative Americans have been screaming for over a year.

Bob, than you for your intellectual honesty. Huffington Post, than you for your intellectual honesty in allowing it to be posted on your website. Now that you have your lovely "reform", do you think that we can now take some time to figure out how to actually keep healthcare costs from spiraling out of reach of all but the rich? Please? Pretty Please?

How Will President Obama Respond?

2010-03-04T10:09:00.000-08:00

CNN.com reports that Iraqi President Nuri al-Maliki may request that the deadline to withdraw combat troops be extended if the security situation in Iraq is questionable.

The current US administration highly touted the deadlines as both a sign of progress in Iraq as well as one delivering on one of the campaign promises that President Obama made as a candidate for the US presidency.

This is a significant change of President al-Maliki's stand on this issue. He had frequently stated previously that he was inflexible on the U.S. withdrawal deadline. Many believed that this position was necessary to convince the Iraqi people that he was neither a puppet of the U.S. or that U.S. troops in Iraq were an occupying force.

Clearly, al-Maliki is concerned about the apparent inability the of Iraqi military and police forces to step up to the challenge of keeping the peace in a nation and region that has been historically plagued by sectarianism. Only the strong, repressive regime of Saddam Hussein had managed to quell it, through the use of swift and violent retribution against those trying to rebel against his regime or committing violent actions.

President Obama will be put into something of a bind should the Iraqi president make this request. If he refuses then he shows the Iraqi government that the U.S. will not stand by its allies over the long term. If he commits to keeping combat troops in Iraq longer then he will be seen as betraying many of the voters who helped elect him to the U.S. presidency because of his promise to get U.S. combat troops out of Iraq by the end of summer this year.

Well, It's Time to Fight.

2010-03-03T11:38:00.000-08:00

In a fifteen minute speech today in front of several lab-coat wearing health care professionals, President Obama called for the end game by rejecting GOP suggestions to "start over" on health care reform.

“The American people want to know if it’s still possible for Washington to look out for their interests and their future,” Mr. Obama said. “They are waiting for us to act. They are waiting for us to lead. And as long as I hold this office, I intend to provide that leadership. I don’t know how this plays politically, but I know it’s right. And so I ask Congress to finish its work, and I look forward to signing this reform into law.”

President Obama clearly believes that this health care legislation now has enough bipartisan elements to it that they can get the votes to pass it.

Even though it does not contain federal-level tort and frivolous lawsuit reform.

Even though it does not hold the FDA and HHS departments accountable for their internal spending or even allow them to be co-litigants when procedures and medicines approved by THEM through an incredibly expensive regulation process are then the targets of class-action lawsuits. Lawsuits that are equally expensive and therefore cost big pharma and health care providers with HUGE malpractice/errors and omissions policies. Cost that are passed to the end consumer.

Even though it does not address how the current health care system can possibly afford to insure pre-existing conditions without driving up costs. President Obama and his Democratic compadres apparently don't realize that only 5% of heavy users of the medical system consume 50% of the resources

Even though it does not accurately estimate how pre-existing conditions or no caps on benefits will effect all of us who use insurance.

Even though it does not address how to deal with the shortfall of medical services that will be available when the so-called "31 million" will flood the system. Doctors, nurses and technicians already work long weeks. How will they become less overworked by adding 1 new insured for every 6 already on the system.? How will costs be kept down when services will go into even greater demand with a proportionally smaller supply?

Even though the current bill steals from Medicare Advantage to pay for part of it's costs.

Even though the current bill gives the HHS secretary HUGE new powers to mandate oversights that, if wielded unjustly, can be used to cause companies to go bankrupt.

Even though the CBO does not agree with the Democrats that the current legislation will not add any further money to the federal debt.

Even though current polls show that over 2/3 of the American electorate do not want this bill to be passed into law. 87% of Americans are currently satisfied with their current coverage and costs, but they believe that if this bill passes then they will either have to accept reduced benefits or higher costs and more likely a combination of the two. Even though most Americans understand that our country cannot afford the deficits that this bill will bring, and that we are at the tipping point of no longer being able to pay back the debt we owe.

The Democrats paid only lip service to including the Republicans and their ideas in this bill. Concessions came too little and far far far too late. While there may be 'bipartisan' elements in it, it is primarily a Democratic boondoggle intended to take direct control of the $2.7 trillion health care industry in this nation.

I will now vote with my wallet as well as my phone. The GOP needs to stand firm. If even one Republican Senator votes for this farce and blatant anti-free market, and arguably unconstitutional bill then they will be electorally crucified in November.

I hate this partisan bullcrap but we simply can't afford this now.

News Flash: Capitalism Works (part II)

2010-03-03T11:13:00.001-08:00

See my previous blog posting on this subject here.

According to numerous news websites including www.businessweek.com, Ford reported a 43 percent increase in sales from the previous year. In fact, because of Toyota and now GM recall woes, Ford became the #1 US seller of cars. How long that will last is anybody's guess.

That represented 18.2 percent of all cars sold in the US, with GM turning in 18.1 percent. However, GM only posted a 12 percent increase, largely due to the fact that GM with all of it's brands has a much larger market space.

However, with Ford posting a 2.7 billion dollar profit fourth quarter 2009 shows something else. Quality and efficiency are up significantly, and Ford is effectively meeting the needs of the new consumer who, scared by high gas prices, are trading SUVs and trucks for efficient sedans and coupes.

In other words, Ford is continuing to provide the customer with a high quality product at a price the consumer is willing to pay. Ford is also hiring again, as is GM, although they are hiring newer workers that will work for less than the retirees that they are replacing. Both Ford and GM are rehiring laid off workers as well.

Capitalism works.

Harvard Researchers Say Fuel Taxes Must Rise

2010-03-03T10:03:00.000-08:00

Read the NY Times article here.

Most of my friends have heard about "Cap and Trade" legislation as well as "Carbon Tax". But many have no idea what a "Carbon Tax" does. It would be a legitimate question to ask. Here's another. How does a tax on carbon emissions reduce tax emissions? Well, after doing very little research, I found a reasonable answer to my question.

All fossil-based fuels such as petroleum (gasoline, diesel, kerosene and jet fuel), coal and natural gas release carbon dioxide (CO₂) when burnt. Science tells us (and this part is not disputed) that CO₂ traps solar radiation in the atmosphere. The more CO₂ that is present in the atmosphere, the more solar radiation remains as heat, thereby increasing temperature globally. The disputed part of the science is whether the amount of CO₂ being released into Earth's atmosphere by man's activities (factories, vehicles, power generation, etc.) is significant enough to accelerate a warming trend far beyond it's normal rate of progression.

A "Carbon Tax" would authorize the US federal government to charge companies that use fossil-based fuels based on the amount of CO₂ that they release into the atmosphere. This would provide real economic incentive for companies to stop using fossil fuels and instead use carbon free technologies, also known a "green" energy. The reason? No green energy technology has yet been able to produce one unit of energy (such as a BTU, or a joule, take your pick) as inexpensively as carbon-based fuels. The tax on carbon would then make green energy more competitive. This is similar to protectionist import tariffs on some goods (like Asian steel sold in the US) in order to keep American made steel competitive.

I told you all of that so that you can decide whether or not a recent Harvard research press release is worth it to you or not, because according to them: To meet the Obama administration's targets for cutting greenhouse gas emissions Americans may have to experience a sobering reality: gas at $7 a gallon."

Our entire economy is based on inexpensive energy. Here are some predictions if these fuel taxes were to be implemented at this level, which sounds like Harvard is advocating a three and one-half dollar tax on every gallon of fuel sold.

While it would force many commuters to park their cars and start taking the bus, the operating costs for those same public transportation companies would literally double overnight, and they would at the same time find that they could not handle the demand, which would require the purchase of yet more buses/light rail. This is a cost almost no major US city can currently afford.

Airlines would park a significant fraction of their fleets because fuel is near the top of costs. Air travel would once again become the province of only the wealthy.

Food costs would increase because of the doubling of the cost of fuel to not only run the farm equipment to produce the food, but the cost to transport it to market and the cost to package, process or preserve it.

Even railroads and merchant shipping, which move product at amazingly small amounts of fuel per ton, would find their profit margins shrink or even disappear.

In May of 2008, the US Dept. of Transportation reported that miles traveled dropped by 3.7% from the previous year (May, 2007). Further, May was the seventh straight month that miles driven for current were less than previous year. That was when fuel cost had increased from roughly three dollars a gallon in 2007 to over four dollars in 2008.

So try to imagine what would happen if gas were to increase from three dollars (where it currently is in March 2010) to seven.

Even if man-made global warming is a real problem, how can we solve it when the fix will bankrupt our nation? Let's get our financial house in order and then come back to this... PLEASE!

Taliban blown up by their own bombs

2010-02-26T09:43:00.000-08:00

According to "the Sun", Taliban are being blown up by their own IEDs.

You can read about it here.

Boo hoo

Tom Harkin D-Iowa Scores Huge Point on HealthCare Reform

2010-02-25T11:16:00.000-08:00

Those of you who read my blog consistently know that if a good idea is presented, regardless of the political affiliation of the person that presented the idea, I'm all for it. Those of you who don't read my blog consistently believe (falsely) that if a Democrat comes up with a good idea that I will discount it out of hand.

Tom Harkin, Representative (D-Iowa) made, what in my opinion, what is one of the best points of this whole conversation.

Currently, insurance companies can and frequently will move a person who starts making large or frequent claims against their policies into a "higher risk" pool. Those "high risk" pools cost a LOT more money.

Mr. Harkin essentially stated that pools is a form of insurance "segregation". He is right on the money on that. What prevents an insurance company from going upside down on the risk is when you have a pool of insured with a relatively low fraction of them making claims.

He is right. Pools should be illegal. I support that.

Democrats in 2005 were Against "Reconciliation"

2010-02-24T13:36:00.000-08:00

How times have changed. The world looks very different when you are the majority party. Here's how the Democrats felt about "reconciliation" in 2005.

Here's how the Democrats feel about "reconciliation" in 2010.

Democrat Candidate May be Trying to Steal "Tea Party" Label

2010-02-24T11:18:00.000-08:00

On the Rush Limbaugh show yesterday a caller stated that the State of Nevada had authorized a new political party, the "Tea Party", to participate in the 2010 Senatorial election.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid is fighting an uphill battle in his own state. President Obama has not been helping his Majority Leader by frequently stating that businesses shouldn't be blowing money on expensive conferences in "Sin City".

The national "Tea Party" movement, sparked by CNBC's Rick Santorelli's rant last year and then coalescing around Glenn Beck's 9/12 project, focuses on reducing federal government size, federal spending and the return of much of current federal functions to the states.

Interestingly, the secretary for the Nevada Tea Party is lawyer Barry Levinson, who is a registered Democrat. Their candidate for Senate is John Scott Ashjian. It has been noticed that he has only given e-mail interviews and barely returns phone calls. That does not sound like the response of an active campaigner fighting for an important Senate seat in a national election.

It is important to note that it is certainly possible that some fiscally conservative Democrats might find the Tea Party movement's mantra of responsible federal spending to be attractive to them. But I think it is very important that Nevada voters ask really hard questions about the legitimacy of Barry Levinson's Nevada "Tea Party" and the true intent of John Scott Ashjian.

Something else to consider is the effect a real third party candidate, especially a conservative candidate, could have on the election. If Harry Reid is in a standup fight against a the GOP candidate and a handful of other party candidates (Libertarian, Green, John-Birchers, etc.) then if the election were held today, he would lose by over 10 points. But you throw in a viable third party conservative, then you split the conservative vote and Harry Reid loses by only 1 point or possibly even wins it.

You Nevadans who oppose the progressive agenda, if you don't want 6 more years of Harry Reid then you better throw all of your electoral weight behind the GOP candidate or the "Tea Party" candidate (if he's proven to be a legit conservative), but not both.

Wake Up America! We are going to have to both cut spending AND raise taxes.

2010-02-19T09:27:00.000-08:00

America, we are in big trouble. We have allowed our political representatives, senators and even our President to hoodwink us in believing that we can have a chicken in every pot today without paying for it until tomorrow. This is not a new phenomena. Anybody that thinks that reckless spending without restraint has only happened under President Obama's administration is delusional. Only one President in the last 40 years got us even close to a reasonable budget and that was President Clinton, who was the beneficiary of the tremendous "peace dividend" bequeathed to him by President Reagan and to a lesser extent President Bush (41).

Republicans and Democrats alike have flimflammed us, the American people in believing that the government can improve all of our lives if we just give a little more. And when we the people aren't in the mood they take anyway by simply selling off some more debt to the Federal Reserve or to foreign investors and in the process they mortgage us and our progeny.

We are now at the point where our progeny will be paying for the arrogance and greed of the Boomers, The X'ers and Y'ers and who knows what we will call the current generation, for decades to come.

Congress just raised the debt ceiling to 14.6 trillion dollars. We had a budget deficit of 1.2 trillion in 2009 and 2010 is going to have a 1.6 trillion shortfall. Our national debt now represents nearly 85% of our Gross Domestic Product. I am told that when it exceeds 90%, "bad" things are going to happen. This rant however, isn't about what those bad things are. Instead it's a high level view of what it's going to take to start curbing the debt.

Take a look at this chart:

This image is referenced from Wikipedia.

From this graph it is clear that unless Congress is willing to trim back spending in some of the "sacred cows" of the Federal Budget we are going to go the way of Greece. Which is bankruptcy.

The progressives complain that we spend too much on Defense. They have a point. We do spend a lot. But when you look at that graph, you see that we spend more on each of the following: Treasury, which includes interest payments on debt, Health and Human Services and Social Security Administration.

The big four (Treasury, Defense, Health and Human Services and SSA) represent about 80% of the total money spent by the Federal government. Everything else represent only 20% of the budget. If we were to completely shut off spending for everything except the big four, we would roughly break even. That doesn't pay down the debt we owe. We simply wouldn't add any more to it.

We as the American people must be prepared to sacrifice some of our "sacred" entitlements. And some of that may take some time.

Examples:
Social Security was originally intended to be insurance against bad times for those who needed it. It was not an entitlement for all. Americans must once again plan for the future and start saving for their own retirements plans now. And the younger they start, the more likely they won't need to depend on the rest of us when they can no longer work. And in the immediate future, the SSA is going to have to freeze cost increases. Families are going to have to step in and help with their elderly parents and grandparents. 2009 funds spent: $720 billion.

Health and Human Services. Much of the activity under this branch of government isn't even mandated by the U.S. Constitution. Be that as it may, this branch is also going to have to be slashed. On their own website (http://www.hhs.gov/about/whatwedo.html) they state that "HHS represents almost a quarter of all federal outlays". Assuming that cuts CAN'T be made in Medicare and Medicaid (which I don't agree with but for the sake of argument) then we MUST cut the other functions, such as the FDA, Research grants, Head Start, and emergency preparedness. Those functions that can be handled by communities must be. 2009 funds spent: $790 billion.

Defense: Robert Gates did a bold thing when he canceled more purchases of the world's best air-superiority fighter, the F-22 Raptor. In the process, he made a lot of people very angry. Like the Air Force and the good folks who build it. But we need that kind of slashing at every level and in every sector of the defense industry and department. 2009 funds spent: $690 billion.

Since these three departments represent about 65% of the budget, if we were to look at the 2009 budget deficit of 1.2 trillion, that means that we would have had to cut the budgets in these three departments by a combined $780 billion dollars, or roughly $260 billion dollars each.

But don't forget, just slashing these budgets will make things worse. Because to slash these budgets to this level only balances the budget, meaning we aren't adding any more to the public debt. But we still have to REDUCE it. And in the process we would add another 10 million people to the unemployment lines.

So obviously we can't just cut spending. We must raise revenue. There are two ways to do this. We can grow the economy by making our corporate tax rates competitive with other industrialized nations, or we can pay it through income. It will actually be a combination of the two.

America, you must remember that our government is of the people, by the people and for the people. In the final analysis, we let the politicians sham us. But it's our government, and therefore it's our responsibility.

The question is: Do we have the guts to make the hard call? Do we have the guts to force our federal elected representatives and senators to cut the budget where they possibly can? Are we willing to sacrifice our entitlements? Are we willing to start paying on the enormous spending spree debt that we have accumulated over the last forty years? Democrats sure don't have it in them to do that. Republicans could, if they were true to their principles. Tea party people, with their feet on the necks of the Republicans, do they truly understand the level of sacrifice that must be given by every single American to right our financial ship of state? Because let me tell you how it's going to happen.

Congress will slash the federal budget by 900 billion dollars. Conversely, they must raise tax revenues by the same amount to balance the budget. If we make America friendly for manufacturing again... if we make America friendly for business and industry again... we might make it without each taxpayer having to pay an additional 3,500 in taxes EACH YEAR. But unless we can grow the economy while simultaneously tightening our belts we'll never get out of this death-spiral that we're in and the U.S. as we knew it will vanish into the mists of history.

The Obama Administration is Completely Out of Touch.

2010-02-18T10:08:00.000-08:00

Click for original story here.

Another indicator that the Obama administration is completely out of touch is that his administration (read: President Obama) is currently considering putting nearly a dozen nearly pristine landscapes, some larger than the state of Rhode Island, under protection as National Monuments.

With what money? How are we going to pay for this? China has been divesting itself of our bonds and treasuries to the point that Japan is now the biggest foreign holder of U.S. debt. When U.S. debt securities went on the selling block earlier this year, the FED ended up buying most of them. The fearsome specter of higher interest rates being placed on our debt to cover the risk of default is raising it's head over the horizon.

We can't even spend the Stimulus money properly! I just wrote another article today where the Energy Department project to improve energy-efficiency in homes has spent roughly 500 million dollars on 9100 homes. That's over 50,000 per HOUSE!

Our politicians need to dial in on the fact that we must get our Federal fiscal house in order. And that means that their precious social agenda has got to take a back seat to deficit spending reduction and real progress towards reducing the national debt.

Another Argument for Government Not Running Your Healthcare Program

2010-02-18T09:37:00.001-08:00

Original report can be found here.

LA Times bloggers Andrew Malcolm and Joanna Neuman reported today on that $5 billion in President Obama's stimulus money plan that was targeted to create 90,000 green-sector jobs and make 593,000 homes more energy efficient in the first year of implementation.

Well, it seems that like so many other government programs this one is falling a little short of it's goals. 98.5% short in fact. How about, only 9,000 homes so far?

Part of the problem is the rule of unintended consequences. The Pelosi-Reid stimulus plan includes an 80 year old legal provision requiring all federally funded programs to pay a prevailing wage to workers. The problem is...home weatherization under a "green-sector" industry niche hasn't really existed until now, so coming up with a "prevailing" wage for the over 3,000 counties in the U.S. has turned out to be a roadblock.

Free-market types would say: "Pay the workers what the market will bear." That's pretty easy, right? But apparently, the East Coast intellectual elite can't seem to accept that. There must be some "scientific" way to determine what the prevailing wage is.

Additionally, it looks like the National Trust for Historic Preservation must review most homes before contracts can be estimated or negotiated, with some states providing woefully adequate manpower for this task. Like Michigan, for example. With two, that's right, 2 people currently assigned to perform those reviews.

Finally, on the work done so far, $522 million has been spent on this program, improving 9100 homes. Let's do the math. Divide 9100 into 522,000,000, carry the one, and you get... $57,360 for every home fixed. Yup, that sounds like a government program to me.

Does any reasonable American tax-payer think that Obama, Pelosi and Reid can do a better job on managing national healthcare? My bet is ... not a chance.

Biden's Disingenuity on Iraq: "Great Accomplishment"?

2010-02-11T10:59:00.000-08:00

Vice President Joe Biden told CNN's Larry King on Wednesday night (Feb 10, 2010) that the Iraq pullout could be one of the "great achievements" of the Obama administration.

What? Let me quote it exactly and see if it comes out any different:

"I am very optimistic about -- about Iraq. I mean, this could be one of the great achievements of this administration. You're going to see 90,000 American troops come marching home by the end of the summer. You're going to see a stable government in Iraq that is actually moving towards a representative government. I spent -- I've been there seventeen times now. I go about every two months -- three months. I know every one of the major players in all the segments of that society. It's impressed me. I've been impressed how they have been deciding to use the political process rather than guns to settle their differences."

Both then-Senator Obama and then-Senator Biden were in strong and vocal opposition to the "surge" that President Bush put into effect in the summer of 2007. Nearly all experts agree that the surge was instrumental in convincing sectarian leaders like Al-Sadr to turn away from violence and return to the political process.

"I am not persuaded that 20,000 additional troops in Iraq is going to solve the sectarian violence there..." -- Senator Obama, (MSNBC)

"...I don't know any expert on the region or any military officer that I've spoken to privately that believes that it's going to make a substantial difference to the situation on the ground..." -- Senator Obama, Jan 14, 2007 (FOXNews)

"... this is a cylcle of self-sustaining sectarian violence that 20,000, 30,000, 50,000, 100,000 Americans will not be able to solve."
"What is the President and my friend from Arizona and others insisting on? What can never be. A central government that is a democracy that is going to be fair to the rest of it's citizens. It is not possible. Mark my words. -- Sen. Joe Biden, March 2007 (CSPAN)

Joe... you're words are marked. And you were wrong.

I remind the reader that the August 2010 deadline to begin the pullout was actually defined in the summer of 2008, several months prior to the U.S. Presidential election and six month's prior to President Obama being sworn in. I further remind the reader, that according to the timeline currently being implemented, all U.S. troops are scheduled to depart Iraq by the end of the summer in 2011. All that planning, and that timeline (which to this day I think that timelines based on anything other than the success or failure of the campaign is a horrid idea) were all determined during President Bush's administration.

I consider it to be absolutely brazen and without character to now have the Vice President of the United States tell a national TV audience via Larry King Live that the legacy of a stable government in Iraq and the return of troops from that theater is one of the "Obama Administration's Greatest Achievements". For crying out loud, can't the current Administration give even a moment of thankful praise to the previous administration for having the guts to finish the mess they had created?

John Murtha (D) 1932-2010

2010-02-08T13:30:00.000-08:00

John Murtha, the Democrat Representative from Pennsylvania, passed away today (Jan 8 2010) at the age of 77 from complications arising from a gall-bladder surgery.

He was a Marine officer who served in the Vietnam War. As a Democratic representative he often steered funds not only to his home state and home town. He was an advocate for a strong national defense. This often brought him into conflict with his own party, which at times during the Bush administration tried to stop all military spending in an effort to shut down the Iraq war.

He gained notoriety for vehemently opposing the war in Iraq. Considering his strong pro-military position, this caught many in the political establishment by surprise.

He also gained a reputation for having never met a Congressional budget earmark that he didn't like and was under Congressional Ethics Committee investigation at the time of his death for certain earmarks he'd won for Pennsylvania firms.

Murtha's 2008 political opponent, William Russell, made this statement today: "Regardless of your political position, you always knew Jack had an immense love and loyalty to his family and the residents of the 12th Congressional District,'' Mr. Russell said."

Backdoor taxes to hit middle-class.

2010-02-02T09:25:00.001-08:00

On the Rachel Maddow show on MSNBC she ran a piece about how Republicans don't support the President even when he is backing Republican issues like tax cuts for the middle class.

She then showed video of the President's State of the Union address where Pres. Obama declares that he has cut taxes for 95% of Americans. The left side of the aisle stands in thunderous applause and the right side of the aisle sits in stony and awkward silence. Pres. Obama then turns to the Republicans and says "I thought I would get some applause for that one."

Rachel Maddow than stated words to the effect that tax cuts will only be supported by Republicans when they are sponsored by Republicans.

What hogwash.

The Republicans didn't applause that portion of the State of the Union because it's not true.

To illustrate: The following day, Reuters publishes a story which is picked up by a number of news outlets: "Backdoor taxes to hit middle-class". The story is then almost immediately withdrawn. But the lovely thing about web-crawlers is that cached copies of these stories can often still be found.

Normally, I would link to this story but since it's disappearing as quickly as it appeared, I'm copying it in it's entirety here with apologies to its author.

Backdoor taxes to hit middle-class.

By Terri Cullen Terri Cullen – Mon Feb 1, 4:09 pm ET

NEW YORK (Reuters.com) --The Obama administration's plan to cut more than $1 trillion from the deficit over the next decade relies heavily on so-called backdoor tax increases that will result in a bigger tax bill for middle-class families.

In the 2010 budget tabled by President Barack Obama on Monday, the White House wants to let billions of dollars in tax breaks expire by the end of the year -- effectively a tax hike by stealth.

While the administration is focusing its proposal on eliminating tax breaks for individuals who earn $250,000 a year or more, middle-class families will face a slew of these backdoor increases.

The targeted tax provisions were enacted under the Bush administration's Economic Growth and Tax Relief Reconciliation Act of 2001. Among other things, the law lowered individual tax rates, slashed taxes on capital gains and dividends, and steadily scaled back the estate tax to zero in 2010.

If the provisions are allowed to expire on December 31, the top-tier personal income tax rate will rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. But lower-income families will pay more as well: the 25 percent tax bracket will revert back to 28 percent; the 28 percent bracket will increase to 31 percent; and the 33 percent bracket will increase to 36 percent. The special 10 percent bracket is eliminated.

Investors will pay more on their earnings next year as well, with the tax on dividends jumping to 39.6 percent from 15 percent and the capital-gains tax increasing to 20 percent from 15 percent. The estate tax is eliminated this year, but it will return in 2011 -- though there has been talk about reinstating the death tax sooner.

Millions of middle-class households already may be facing higher taxes in 2010 because Congress has failed to extend tax breaks that expired on January 1, most notably a "patch" that limited the impact of the alternative minimum tax. The AMT, initially designed to prevent the very rich from avoiding income taxes, was never indexed for inflation. Now the tax is affecting millions of middle-income households, but lawmakers have been reluctant to repeal it because it has become a key source of revenue.

Without annual legislation to renew the patch this year, the AMT could affect an estimated 25 million taxpayers with incomes as low as $33,750 (or $45,000 for joint filers). Even if the patch is extended to last year's levels, the tax will hit American families that can hardly be considered wealthy -- the AMT exemption for 2009 was $46,700 for singles and $70,950 for married couples filing jointly.

Middle-class families also will find fewer tax breaks available to them in 2010 if other popular tax provisions are allowed to expire. Among them:

* Taxpayers who itemize will lose the option to deduct state sales-tax payments instead of state and local income taxes;

* The $250 teacher tax credit for classroom supplies;

* The tax deduction for up to $4,000 of college tuition and expenses;

* Individuals who don't itemize will no longer be able to increase their standard deduction by up to $1,000 for property taxes paid;

* The first $2,400 of unemployment benefits are taxable, in 2009 that amount was tax-free.

So when President Obama states that he has lowered taxes, it's a falsehood. Under his administration, EVERY American's taxes will go up. My taxes will increase by at least 3% simply because the "Bush" tax cuts will be allowed to expire. Additionally, since Congress has failed to change the "AMT" to index against inflation, millions more Americans face being included in this tax provision originally intended to soak it to the rich. Now, upper middle-class Americans are affected and soon, middle-class will also be affected. Additionally, the so-called "death tax" will reappear in 2011.

Stimulus Was Wasted According CNN Poll.

2010-01-28T14:10:00.000-08:00

Findings of a CNN poll released on January 25th reported that an overwhelming majority of Americans think that at least half of the money spent in the Federal stimulus plan has been wasted.

http://www.cnn.com/2010/POLITICS/01/25/poll.stimulus.money/index.html?hpt=Sbin

"A CNN/Opinion Research Corporation survey released Monday morning also indicates that 63 percent of the public thinks that projects in the plan were included for purely political reasons and will have no economic benefit, with 36 percent saying those projects will benefit the economy."

Do you remember this?

I wrote a post on February 10th, 2009, the headline which was Real Stimulus. In it, I regaled you with the higher points of a report by the American Society of Civil Engineers that bespoke, in alarming detail, the continued decay of our national infrastructure. It identified nearly $1.6 trillion in repairs to U.S. bridges, roads, locks, the power grid, and water treatment systems. Fixing these would not only create many hundreds of thousands of jobs, it would create a legacy of a healthy national infrastructure for decades to come.

Nope. They would rather pay for wetlands studies on the coast of California, or improvements to the Las Vegas Strip.

Count me with the 63%.

News Flash -- Capitalism Works

2010-01-28T11:06:00.000-08:00

On January 27th, Ford Motor Company announced that had a profit of $2.7 billion in 2009. While this was no doubt achieved with the help of the misguided "Cash for Clunkers" program that ran in the fall of 2009, the stunning fact is this: Ford, the only US based auto manufacturer that did not accept any stimulus or "bailout" money from the US Federal government was the only US based auto manufacturer to report a profit.

It is clear to this writer that Ford is exhibiting a better level of fiscal discipline and program management than either Government Motors or Fiat's Chrysler division. Ford is providing a quality product at a competitive price and consumers are buying. And the same attributes that made it possible for Ford to avoid living on the government dole are now paying in newfound profitability.

Congratulations are in order for CEO Alan Mulally and his company. I only hope that other American companies and THEIR GOVERNMENT take notice.

Meanwhile, even though I've always been a Chrysler kind of guy (RAM truck, Crossfire Coupe), my next car will probably have to be a Ford.

MacroEconomic Theory Rap

2010-01-26T12:07:00.000-08:00

This is priceless.

Simply proof that anybody that is arrogant enough to think that we can design, much less control something as complex as macroeconomics shouldn't be working for the American people. The best we can do is bump the highs and try to shorten the duration or magnitude of the lows.

Italian Minister Slams U.S. Haiti Aid Effort.

2010-01-25T11:18:00.001-08:00

Reported on January 25th Mr. Guido Bertolaso, Italy’s top disaster relief official lambasted and impugned the so-called “U.S.-led” relief effort in Haiti as a “pathetic” failure.

The confirmed death toll for Haiti is now 150,000, which if true represents nearly 1.5% of Haiti’s total population. It is estimated that nearly three million Haitians are now homeless, which would be about 1 in 3 Haitians. Reports from Haiti indicate that the government is all but gone with little or no native police or military presence in ravaged neighborhoods and that mobs of looters have been ravaging the remains of both retail businesses and private residences alike. Further, vigilante mobs have been executing suspected looters without due process or trial. Haiti is on the verge of reverting to the “law of the jungle”. And yet, Mr. Bertolaso believes that the U.S. has confused “military intervention” with “emergency intervention”.

I would invite Mr. Bertolaso to identify just exactly what he would do if given unlimited opportunity. For myself, I have seen angry mobs in the U.S. and they will turn violent if not controlled. And never in the history of our nation have we had to deal with a crisis on the level with the situation the Haitians face. At the same time that the U.N., with assistance from numerous nations, tries to distribute food, water, clothing and medical supplies to desperate Haitians, it has to deal with the fact there is essentially no effective Haitian government that could assist in controlling the victims from violence.

Desperate people will perform desperate acts. We have seen over and over again where well-meaning missionaries or aid workers have been attacked, injured or even killed while trying to distribute supplies to victims of disasters. We have also seen over and over again where those same supplies tend to go to the strong instead of the weak and helpless unless armed men oversee such operations. Strength respects only greater strength, and 13,000 armed soldiers trained in the art of imposing its will on organized enemy resistance will likely find little opposition from bands of thugs trying to monopolize on the supplies being provided by the generous people of the world.

I further suspect that had the United States simply decided to take over coordination over the relief effort, that Mr. Bertolaso would then have lambasted the arrogance of the Americans in taking over what should be a U.N. operation. So the U.S. is damned either way. In such a case, I support the U.S., considering our overwhelming contribution to Haitian relief, to just go ahead and take over the relief operation.

Oh yeah, to date, the United States has delivered about $184 million in aid to Haiti. By the same date, Italy had contributed about $9 million. By my math, that means that the U.S. response to this tragedy is about twenty times the size of the Italian response. That apparently is a fact that Mr. Bertolaso did NOT get quoted on.

The Wisdom of Luis Rodriguez, Massachusetts voter.

2010-01-18T14:01:00.000-08:00

According to a FoxNews.com article concerning the strongly contested race between Republican Scott Brown and Democrat Martha Coakley for Ted Kennedy's vacated Senate seat, a voter by the name of "Luis Rodriguez" appears to speak for many across the nation:

The 46-year-old plastics factory supervisor, who emigrated to the U.S. in 1988 from Uruguay and became a citizen last year, said he's fed up with what he calls the lies told by Washington. It's enough for him that Coakley supports Obama, who Rodriguez says has failed to make good on his pledge for openness.

"We don't buy what we can't afford. We don't spend what we don't have," said Rodriguez, echoing the anger expressed by other voters who say Democrats are too eager to bail out bankers and people who bought homes they couldn't afford. "These people, what they're doing now, they're spending money they don't have so they can get elected again."

Assuming that the attribution is correct (you never know, after all, this was reported on Fox News, which according to President Obama's administration is not a "real news organization", then I would have to say that Mr. Rodriguez has completely and correctly stated my opinion concerning Democratic lead initiatives. They are a "chicken in every pot" in order to maintain control in a government that Democrats believe should be used to "take care" of it's citizens, whether they want it or not.

'nuff said.

MSNBC Ed Schult "I'd Cheat to Keep Brown From Winning".

2010-01-18T09:40:00.000-08:00

MSNBC's political talkers continue to prove that they are an entirely owned subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee.

As reported on January 16th by the Washington Times and then highlighted on the much vaunted (or reviled) DrudgeReport, MSNBC's Ed Schultz made the following statement:

"I tell you what, if I lived in Massachusetts I'd try to vote 10 times. I don't know if they'd let me or not, but I'd try to. Yeah, that's right. I'd cheat to keep these bastards out. I would. 'Cause that's exactly what they are."

Ed's comments were made in context of the surprisingly competitive Massachusetts Senatorial seat election between Democrat Martha Coakley and Rebuplican Scott Brown. And expectedly, he's supporting Coakley over Brown.

I'd not be surprised if you were to say "Ed who?". Ed Schultz is a MSNBC primetime opinion talker (6pm to 7pm Eastern). This puts him up against Brett Baier on Fox News, who is crushing him in the ratings.

Ed appears to be a little unclear on the whole "democracy" concept that is supposedly the basis for our government. You know, that part that says that each person gets a single vote, and when you tally up those votes, the candidate with the most of them win? (OK, the US Presidential Election doesn't quite work like that because of the Electoral College thingy that actually helps low-population states a little, which makes it possible to win the popular vote by a slim margin and still lose the electoral college vote by a fairly large margin.)

What Ed, a national (in theory) cable commentator is doing is encouraging voter fraud in the State of Massachusetts for the benefit of the Democratic Candidate.

Now say what you like about the right-wing talkers like Beck, Limbaugh, Hannity, and O'Reilley but you have not heard them encourage illegal voter behavior or insinuate that they'd do it themselves.

And what do you think the "main-stream" media pundits, talkers and bloggers would be doing right now had Hannity or Beck said the same thing in support of Scott Brown? So I'm completed fascinated by the defeaning silence from them concerning Ed's angry outburst. I attribute it to one of two possibilities: One) Nobody watches "The Ed Show" on MSNBC except for other political hacks, so they're the only ones noticing, or Two) most of media in this country is friendly to left of center commentators and are willing to give him a pass on his indiscreet commentary and thereby doing a huge disservice to the voting public by failing to equally illuminate outrageous commentary from either the left or right.

As I have said to my friends many times, you must consider the source from which the comment came and then discount it accordingly.

Not Kowtowing to Special Interests? Dems are Lying to Us.

2010-01-15T11:29:00.000-08:00

On Wednesday, after a fifteen hour closed-door session between key Democratic Senate and House leadership and Labor Union executives, it sounds like just like Senator Nelson's "Cornhusker Kickback", the special tax on "Cadillac" plans will be deferred until 2017 on labor union members.

What a crock of flup. Didn't Candidate Obama run on a platform that specifically said that they would not kowtow to special interests? In fact, doesn't he specifically say in a current political ad for Candidate Coakley, the Democrat running for Teddy Kennedy's vacant senate seat, that a vote for Coakley will help cement the progress being made against special interests in Washington?

This is how bizness is done in Washington, ladies and gentlemen. It's a process where people are bought and sold. The labor unions have managed to buy themselves 7 years of protection from Health Care Reform costs even though they will be permitted to participate in it immediately.

Just like the campaign lies of "transparency and openness" in the current administration, we are now seeing that special interest involvement in the writing of legislation is alive and well.

Candian Troops Show Their Heart To Belgian Boy

2010-01-13T14:36:00.000-08:00

The Story: "A lone young Belgian boy is waiting to salute the Canadian troops passing
by who had been attending a memorial service."

This does not indicate where this little scene occurred. "Eyes right!" is a command normally reserved to troops that are engaging in a "Pass in Review", and is issued just prior to troops coming on line with the reviewing stand where the dignitaries or military superiors usually are.

Clearly, the little lad's military uniform and very proper military bearing impressed the fellow commanding the contingent (The quality of the video makes it hard for me to determine if it's an officer or an NCO. My guess would be that he is an NCO.)

May there forever be a Canada!

Trent Lott and Harry Reid. There Is a Difference.

2010-01-12T12:35:00.001-08:00

While attending the 100th birthday celebration for Dixie-crat Senator Strom Thurmond in 2002 then Senate Majority Leader Trent Lott stated in essence that the United States would be "better off" had Strom Thurmond won the 1948 presidential election. Mr. Lott was pilloried not only by the Democrats but even by his own GOP, which ultimately resulted in Mr. Lott stepping down as Majority Leader.

Now, a new controversy has arisen concerning the current Senate Majority Leader, Mr. Harry Reid who is the senior Senator from Nevada and a Democrat. In a book titled "Game Change", Mr. Reid claimed that the reason that then-candidate Barack Obama had a good chance of becoming the first African-American U.S. President was because he was "light-skinned" and did not speak with a "Negro dialect" unless he chose to do so.

Republicans are now crying "racist!" while Democrats circle the wagons around the "inartfully articulating" Senator Reid. The Republicans are furious that when Sen. Lott made his "inartful" toast to Strom in 2002, they stood against his comments and were a major force in his resignation from the Senate Majority Leader position. By contrast, the Democrats, instead of declaring their abhorrence at Senator Reid's "racist" statements are in fact standing behind him.

I'm a member of the Heritage foundation and a reluctant supporter of the Republican party. But I think that in this case that the Republicans are trying to create a controversy that doesn't exist.

When Trent Lott made his famous statement, he essentially said that he supported Strom Thurmond's 1948 "pro-segregation" Dixiecrat platform. Equal but separate. How could any modern politician think that he could publicly articulate such an opinion and then not be held to account for it? Not to mention that segregation has been proven to be bad policy.

Senator Reid, by contrast, was stating a painful fact about American politics. White Americans in general are more comfortable with black politicians that speak Harvard English and whose appearance more closely correlates with their own. Senator Reid has been a strong supporter of civil rights legislation, especially as seen by the NAACP and the Black Congressional Caucus.

A far more appropriate subject for comparison would be Rush Limbaugh, who lost his NFL commentator position when he stated his opinion that the mainstream press was motivated to overstate Donovan McNabb's accomplishments in order to support the position that black quarterbacks can perform as well as whites, who at that time dominated the quarterback position. He later clarified that he felt that Donovan McNabb had the potential to be a great NFL quarterback but that at that time he did not deserve the praise that was being given him by the press.

In any case, I believe that the Republicans are making a case that is not supported by the facts or public opinion. Trying to equate Lott's comments that essentially said that a pro-segregationist president would have produced a better America with Harry Reid's analysis that Barack Obama, as a light skinned African-American who spoke very precise English are not even remotely the same class of comments.

In this situation, I think that the GOP needs to figure out that "this dog won't hunt".

Is Archie Bunker talking about 1974 or 2010?

2010-01-11T19:35:00.000-08:00

Faith, Hope and Charity -- Glenn Beck Talks About These Virtues

2010-01-11T13:10:00.000-08:00

Today on the Glenn Beck radio program at the beginning of his third hour, he talked about how he had spent the previous week closing the case on all the arguments that he had raised in 2009, but that he now wanted to look forward to 2010.

So imagine my surprise when he stated that going forward, he was going to be talking to America about "Faith, Hope and Charity". He specifically said during the second hour of his show "Faith, hope and charity is the direction we're going. Remember who you are and faith, hope and charity. And when you hear the way I define through the founders, how I define faith, hope and charity, everything's going to lock into place and you'll remember who we are and who you are and what you have to do."

I have no idea where Glenn Beck is going with this, but since he has obviously long studied the "Founders" of our government, I would not be surprised if he found these particular three words tied together through the Fraternity known as "Freemasonry" or that many of the "Founders" were proud members of the "Craft".

"Faith, Hope and Charity" are taught to every initiate who receives the 1st Degree of Freemasonry, also known as the "Entered Apprentice" Degree. They are considered by the Fraternity to be three of the most important virtues that a man can possess.

Faith gives us the ability to believe in the unseen. It is the basis of trust. Trust in our fellow man's word. More importantly, Faith is a necessary virtue for those who are obedient of God for without Faith it is impossible to believe in the Divine. And for those of us who are faithful we earnestly believe that the divine attributes of God beautifies man and gives us a worthy goal for good living by putting into execution those "divine" attributes.

Hope gives us the ability to believe that mankind can progress to a better condition than those that exist today. As a single class of people, Christians believe that God has restored to mankind the promise of eternal life through the sacrifice of his only begotten son. But notwithstanding, hope is what gives all men the ability to continue to try and be good even in the face of overwhelming evil and inequity in the world.

Charity, for Freemasons, is the greatest of the three. For charity is not more or less than the sacrifice by a man for the benefit of others. It is the embodiment of benevolence. The charitable man is the most like the divine because like the divine, he gives time, resources, or money to relieve the sorrowing or to benefit the disadvantaged. And charity will endure forever, unlike faith and hope. Faith ends when man is confronted with the truth of his belief. Hope ends when a man's goal is achieved. But charity uplifts mankind and the effects of charity and it's positive effect will outlive the charitable man.

President Obama Promises Openness, but Won't or Can't Deliver

2010-01-07T09:44:00.000-08:00

Whoo boy. The honeymoon is over. President Obama hasn't been in the White House quite one year and yet he's got some pretty influential reporters pretty steamed at him.

Of course everybody who keeps even a token watch of politics remembers how distinguished senior White House reporter Helen Thomas dressed Robert Gibbs down for President Obama's inaccessibility. That was quite a sight. In my opinion, Ms. Thomas is as much a shill for the DNC as any reporter I've seen in some time. That's quite all right, as long as we're up front about it. If anybody doesn't think that Fox's Major Garrett doesn't lean right, then I'd like to smoke whatever it is they've got.

Then there was the Saturday Night Live sketch on President Obama's accomplishments prior to receiving the Nobel peace prize: "I've done absolutely nothing". OK, it is SNL after all, so we can just laugh that one off.

But Jack Cafferty? CNN's Jack Cafferty? That Jack Cafferty? This reporter had no problem giving a negative opinion about pretty much every aspect of President Bush's administration. Jack has a nightly opinion segment on CNN. Here's what the acrimonious Mr. Cafferty had to say about the "transparency" that President Obama promised:

Ouch.

And then you have CNN's Gloria Berger with this article.

Ouch more.

When CNN starts really ripping on the Democrats and their leadership, you know that there are stormy waters ahead. While this is coming about due to the health care "reform" debate, the fact is that this administration and this Congress seem to be just as reclusive and hidden as any other, especially considering both Candidate Obama and Speaker Pelosi's insistence that we would find ourselves witnessing the "most open and transparent" government ever.

I think that President Obama's campaign promises were laudable. Unfortunately, I never believed them.

2009, Yup. Nothing even comes close.

2010-01-06T23:27:00.001-08:00

Try JibJab Sendables® eCards today!

An Open Letter to the President from Harold B. Estes

2010-01-04T16:05:00.000-08:00

This letter was written to President Obama from 95-year old Harold B. Estes, who served in the Navy for over two decades in the 1930's and 1940's and is now a retiree in Hawaii. This has been posted on numerous websites and blogs. According to www.snopes.com, this letter is authentic and correctly attributed to Mr. Estes. I agree with every sentiment expressed in this brave letter.

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
"We're no longer a Christian nation"
"America is arrogant" - (Your wife even announced to the world, "America is mean-spirited." Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you but I don't think you like America nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said, "America hasn't lived up to her ideals." Which ones did you mean?

1. Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British ?

2. Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War?

3. I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellahs I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around because we stand for freedom.

4. I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.
Take a little advice from a very old geezer,young man. Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue. You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president.

You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now. And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle.

Sincerely,

Harold B. Estes

Happy New Year!

2010-01-04T15:22:00.001-08:00

2008 sucked.
2009 sucked more.
2010 will probably suck less, because at least Wall Street is reviving from the great Recession of 2009, which means that my retirement portfolio is recovering. But the economy is still very shaky. Things that will, in my humble opinion, make 2010 suck more.

Nationalized Health Care Reform bill actually gets reconciled and passes. With that, my children will get health care (maybe) but they will also be in debt to the government their entire lives.

Whether Nationalized Health Care Reform passes or not, the government does not immediately begin to do something to restrain medical lawsuit abuse (called "tort" reform by some). Why should the lawyers and politicians miss out on the recession?

Timothy Geithner gets his wish and TARP money is instead used as an administration "slush fund". If they are not going to use it for Troubled Asset Relief, then they should put it back in the treasury. But instead it appears that the Chief Financial Wizards of Smart think that hard-earned American taxpayer money can be fraudulently used for any purpose they want once they manage to get it out of the treasury. Note to Congress: You want to spend TARP money on other funds to stimulate the economy? Cool. Put the TARP money back first, then have a stand-up debate in the Senate and House like you should, and if it passes, then GREAT.

The government printed $2 billion in March, 2009. This makes inflation an almost guaranteed bet to occur in 2010. To make 2010 suck less, take $1 billion of that out of circulation as a preventive measure. It would additionally make every dollar that would be left in circulation worth about 6% more, which would make everybody who invests or saves with dollars as opposed to, let's say, gold,(which is almost everybody) happy.

The government continues to advocate spending our way out of the recession (Cash for Clunkers, extension of the first-time homebuyer tax credit, the new proposed Cash for Old Appliances).

Christmas Carols in Native American

2009-12-24T11:28:00.000-08:00

http://www.janamashonee.com/

Man do I LOVE blogs! You get some of the neatest information! So I'm reading "Collecting My Thoughts" by Norma and she has a link to Jana Mashonee, a Lumbee Indian. She's recorded an album "An American Indian Christmas" with 10 traditional Christmas Carols, all sung in a different Native American tongue.

So... here's an example: Little Drummer Boy.

You can bet that I bought this album. It's absolutely beautiful! And as fantastic as her voice is, the Native American flutes playing some of the music is also wonderful. Very peaceful.

Merry Christmas!

2009 Christmas Thoughts

2009-12-24T10:35:00.000-08:00

As I write this, according to NORADSANTA.ORG, Santa Clause has distributed over a billion gifts to little boys and girls throughout the world and he is currently in the Maldive Islands.

For hundreds of millions of Christians the Christmas season has become perverted by rampant consumerism, boxes, wrapping paper and bows. We annually tally up thousands of dollars of consumer debt so that when our kids return to school after the holiday break they aren't left out of the "WhadidyagitferChristmas?" conversations. Simple games and clothes have given way to game consoles, cell phones and other electronic gadgets.

Our family decided this year that it was out of hand. So we threw names into a hat, and we each drew a name. The budget: Get as close to $100.00 as you can. That doesn't necessarily include stocking stuffers and the annual Christmas jammies. My own budget will probably come to about $200.00 because my mom, who now lives with us and hasn't participated in our Christmas traditions, hasn't quite caught on this year. So between the five of us, that's about $600.00 bucks. That's down considerably from the two-thousand we spent last year and the three-thousand the year before that.

And this year, I don't think one electronic doohickey was purchased. I know that my own Christmas list this year was for some nice shirts, some new socks and some really nice tobacco for my pipe.

And yet, the tree still has lots of presents under it.

But more importantly -- I will be spending Christmas with four of the seven most important people in my world right now: Laura (my wife), Mom, Heather (my daughter) and Mat (her husband). Chris is stationed in Norfolk Virginia and his girlfriend, Alex, is spending the holiday with her folks in Salt Lake City.

We will eat holiday ham and I will enjoy hot buttered rums and smoke my pipe while enjoying the company of my family while we sit in front of the fire and watch "A Christmas Story", "It's A Wonderful Life" and "The Greatest Story Ever Told".

But just as importantly, that's twelve-hundred less credit card debt than the previous year. Which means that we are that much closer to completely getting rid of all our credit card debt, which will take at least a couple more years.

Here's my Christmas wish list for the future.
1) That we all stay healthy.
2) That we all continue to keep our jobs.
3) That after we get rid of this credit card debt, that I can give Laura the following:
3.1) A decent kitchen.
3.2) A nicer living room.
3.3) Finish the front yard.
4) Be able to afford to contribute more money to charity that really counts:
4.1) Shriner's hospitals
4.2) Fraternal Order of Police
4.3) Modest Needs (a new charity that I really think is on the right track).
4.4) Order of DeMolay (a young man's organization).
And I'd like to start tithing. I just haven't figured out which church yet...

No new cars, no new computers, no new games. I'd like to fix the place I live in a little bit and then really ramp up the contributions to charities that I already support.

I don't need the Federal government to be charitable. They're not good at it anyway. They don't hold themselves nearly accountable enough. But every American who has some extra coin in their pocket should be asking themselves... "How can I help? How can I give back?"

Freemasons have been doing this for over four hundred years (and longer if you believe the "myth" of Freemasonry). I strongly suggest to anybody that reads this blog that you should become more active in your church charity programs. If you aren't currently active in a church, please, please, please consider joining a Fraternal Organization (like Freemasons, The Elks, The Eagles, The Moose, Knights of Columbus, Fraternal Order of Police, Volunteer Firefighters) or simply contribute to charities.

Christmas is not about wrapping paper and gifts under the tree, although the smile of a child on Christmas morning is hard to beat.

But consider this: How about the smile of a child in a burn ward who got the care she needed because men like Shriner's care? And how about the smile on a young man's face when he graduates from college because the Marine Corps-Law Enforcement fund paid for his education after his parent list his/her life on the streets of Chicago or in the fields of Afghanistan? Or the single mother of two who received enough money from Modest Needs to be able to put down the security deposit on an apartment so that she has a safe, warm place for her kids to live? Or how about the smile of your mother who is grateful that you have given her a place to live in your own home? I get that smile every morning.

Those smiles might be even better to see on a Christmas morning.

Christmas should be about caring for the people in our families and communities that are less fortunate than ourselves. It's about taking on their burdens, putting our shoulders to the wheel and making our communities a little better place because we care.

Isn't that what Jesus did?

Sen. Harkin, Healthcare is neither a right or a privilege.

2009-12-22T10:38:00.001-08:00

Senator Harkin stated on CBS News' "Early Show" that the healthcare debate can be framed as between two sides, which "one one side is health care a privilege, on the other side health care is a right."

Sir, health care is neither a privilege or a right. It is a service. Health insurance is neither a privilege or a right, it is also a service.

Clearly, your stunning intellect is not what achieved your lofty position. It must have been the favors you have courted and paid that got you where you are today.

The primary problem in this country is that people don't want to buy insurance until they need it. Once they need it, no insurance company wants to insure them because they refuse to accept the risk of a "sure thing". The best way to get insured in this country requires no fix to health care. It simply requires that all American citizens buy insurance while they are young and healthy.

Once you are sick, it's too LATE to buy insurance. Why can't you people get it?

It's the greed of the American population that thinks it's OK to transfer the risk and high cost of sickness to others only after they have gotten sick. And there it is, plain and simple.

I've been paying for health and life insurance my entire life. And while I've made a few small claims against that insurance, the fact that I have paid for health and life insurance all my life is why I have had a satisfying relationship with my insurers. I don't smoke, I don't drive fast, I don't drink to excess, I don't pursue risky or life threatening activities. For those reasons, my insurer continues to accept the risk of eventual high-cost claims.

But you people who don't have insurance, many of you don't because you didn't buy insurance simply because you didn't need it. You were healthy. You instead bought flat-screen TVs, or a new car or other material goods. And now that you are sick, you want somebody else to cover the cost. Sure, you'll buy insurance now that you need it. But guess what? We, who have been paying for insurance our entire lives, don't want accept the risk for a sure thing.

Well, my two cents worth is that you made your choice. You voluntarily chose to opt out while you were healthy. You gambled that you would stay healthy. But you didn't and now you want somebody else to cover the bill.

Thanks but no thanks.

Bad Bankers, Bad Bad Bankers.

2009-12-14T11:25:00.000-08:00

President Barack Obama appears to be a little irritated. First, it appears that the major lending institutions that took TARP money are paying it back faster than expected. Those institutions, such as Goldman Sachs, JP Morgan and Morgan Stanley now find themselves newly liberated from the onerous and vindictive eye of the Federal government, specifically the glaring spotlight from the U.S. "Pay Czar" Kenneth Feinberg.

This means that these same institutions that were literally saved by the American tax-payer can now get on with the business of paying effusive bonuses to their beleagured and misunderstood executives. Last report: $22 billion. Yes, that's a "b", not an "m".

Considering that over seven million American workers are out of work right now, the populist view is that these "fat cat" bonuses seem to be out of synch with the struggles of the American common laborer and that this money would be better directed towards programs that will funnel money towards the unwashed masses.

As offended as I am by these bonuses (have these people no shame?) I am equally offended by the tone of President Obama's current rhetoric with regards to our financial sector.

"I did not run for office to be helping out a bunch of fat cat bankers on Wall Street", said the Presdident in a CBS "60 Minutes" interview. Senior White House Advisor David Axelrod further stated "What the president is going to say to the bankers is, you guys were part of the problem, you helped create an economic crisis here that cost 7 million Americans their jobs and now you have to be part of the solution."

There is a growing resistance movement among the bankers, especially with regards to the creation of a government office called the "Consumer Financial Protection Agency". "He can say what he wants, but we're not going back to the kind of lending that put us in this mess" said a person who is helping to prepare the bankers for the meeting but who spoke anonymously because of lack of authority to discuss the plans.

We are told that executives at the highest levels of the mega corporations justify their enormous compensation because they "risk the most". But we've seen that they feel no pain in bad times. They keep making enormous salaries and receive extravagant even as they send pink slips to thousands of employees who watch as their pension funds shrink or disappear entirely.

But the US financial ship of state has been victimized in two ways. First, it was helmed by executives that were willing to pursue imprudent strategies because there was (is?) no perception of personal risk of loss if things went wrong. If you are looking for a poster-child for this kind of executive, look no further than Dick Fuld, the "Gorilla of Wall Street". Second, it foundered into a storm was of our government's own making. Many of those squalls and icebergs that disabled our hypothetical ship were the result of Federal politicians literally FORCING them to relax the very lending standards and practices that would have avoided much of the pain we have seen in the last four years.

The government insisted that banks lend to people that could not be reasonably expected to pay back the loans that they were taking out. The reasoning behind this was two-fold: First, loaning money to a poor family to buy a house so they can move out of a project not only feels good but also looks good on your political resume, especially on the first Tuesday in November. But good financial policy conflicts with touchy-feely politics. Secondly, by making loans available to a larger pool of borrowers, the residential housing manufacturing industry remained white-hot when much of the rest of the economy had cooled or even reversed. Even back in 2003-2004, many U.S. Senators and Representatives were beginning to discern the threat on the horizon and tried to get somebody, anybody, to take a real interest in the risk and IRRESPONSIBLE lending practices at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. But with the housing sector the only bright spot in a gloomy economy, nobody really wanted to look at it too closely.

And just like the Titanic, by the time anybody realized the danger, it was too late. Give President Bush credit, he tried to get Congress to look at it early in his administration. Then give him a whack on the head because he failed.

Now President Obama is insisting that the lending institutions, especially those that took taxpayer assistance TARP monies, needs to help by boosting lending to small businesses. The problem is that President Obama and his advisors seem to think that if they make money easily available to small businesses that they will just rush in to take advantage of it and begin creating new jobs.

Uh, did ANYBODY in the administration take Economics 101?

Manufacturing and services are always a waterfall economic indicator. Increases in production, which will spur increased employment, won't happen until AFTER there are clear signs that consumers will open their wallets again. News flash to Congress and the Administration, we have 10.2% unemployment (estimated by some organizations to be closer to 17% when you include those who are seriously underemployed). Further, for the first time in 40 years, the American consumer is starting to cut debt and save their earnings instead. In 1982 the average American had 60% of their annual income in some form of debt, much of it revolving. In 2007, the most recent reporting year) Americans were carrying 130% of their annual income in debt. So it will take TIME for us to get out of the hole we're in.

It seems that President Obama and staff seems to think that the US economy is going to swiftly return to the heady levels of 2004. Don't count on it. All indications are that down economy has handed the American consumer harsh lesson about high levels of personal debt. And regardless of all of the hippies that voted for "hope and change" in 2008, the traditional American wants to live a freer life. Debt is a shackle we put on ourselves.

If I'm right, American consumers will not start spending more soon. If true, then all of President Obama's ideas are barking up the wrong tree. He's focusing on getting more jobs by making it easier for small business to borrow. But no sane small business man is going to borrow money when he has no evidence that he can sell the increased capacity. Instead, he needs to keep more of the money that he currently makes now, so that he can invest it into his company or better yet, avoid becoming an additional statistic in the unemployment report.

CBS Airs "Dirty Frosty the Snowman" ads.

2009-12-07T14:21:00.001-08:00

I'm not going to link to anything. Look it up if you don't believe me. Simply put, CBS ad executives have aired a couple of voice-overs of snippets of the beloved Christmas classic cartoon "Frosty the Snowman" that are ads for their child-inappropriate comedies Two and A-half Men" and "How I Met Your Mother".

Millions of children will now have to be shielded from YouTube searches for "Frosty" that have him talking about his "Porn stash" and other inappropriate topics.

Thanks CBS. As much as I love "CSI", I'll catch it on reruns now. You won't see another minute of my viewer time.

HR-4191: Speaker Pelosi and Prime Minister Brown have Never Met a New Tax They Didn't Like.

2009-12-07T13:00:00.000-08:00

http://www.cnsnews.com/news/article/58099

Considering the number of reports indicating that "stimulus spending" is actually not very stimulating, the job creation is being reported in districts that don't exist, or that job creation can't be actually verified or in fact job creation is being reported when the money allocated for the jobs hasn't been actually received or spent yet. In other words, there is little or no accountability for the current stimulus spending and strong questions as to whether or not there has been any effect at all.

At every turn, as more and more Americans are yelling at their Federal Government to stop the spending their elected representatives and Senators continue to suffer electoral deafness.

In this legislative silence comes Rep. Pete DeFazio (D-OR) who has proposed HR-4191, which would levy a separate tax on all stock trades, futures contracts, swaps, credit default swaps and stock options. These revenues would be used to fund another stimulus spending program, even though we're not even sure that TARP and TARPII are working. At .025 percent, the potential revenues generated are estimated to be $150 billion every year.

"To restore Main Street America, a small securities tax on Wall Street should be invested in job creation on 'Main Street'. This transfer tax would be assessed on the sale and purchase of financial instruments such as stocks, options and futures."

It did not take long, however, for other Democratic representatives to raise opposition. Notably, Reps Michael McMahon (D-NY), Carolyn Maloney (D-NY) and Debbie Halvorsen (D-IL) circulated a "Dear Colleague" letter that stated, in part: "A $150 billion tax on financial transactions will fall on millions of hardworking Americans who are saving for their future through their 401k plans, mutual funds, pensions and others savings vehicles." They correctly note that mutual fund and money market fund transactions are also purchases and sales of securities and bonds. They further note that the American version of the proposal would not exempt middle-class Americans because while the tax would be paid by major stock brokers. The brokers would almost assuredly pass the cost down to the investors, be they individuals or pension and retirement fund managers.

And wait a minute... the American version? That's right! This is part of a coordinated plan to make sure that this tax is global. The genesis of this idea comes from the embattled British Prime Minister, Mr. Gordon Brown. As part of his proposal all major financial centers - Asia, the EU, the U.S. and the U.K. - would also have to pass similar transaction taxes to avoid "disadvantaging" any single country's stock exchange. Nancy Pelosi apparently thinks that this "idea" might be popular amongst a public eager to see "Wall Street" firms "pitching in" to help the government grow the economy. Ms. Pelosi, how in the hell would Wall Street be "pitching in" to "help" when these taxes are being forced upon them by the bayonet point of the various law enforcement agencies of "all major financial centers"? The courts have a word for actions like this: Extortion.

To summarize, there is now a movement in the Democratically controlled U.S. House of Representatives to now levy a tax on most of all financial instrument transactions in order to create a new pool of money that can be used for additional "stimulus spending", even though there are convincing arguments that neither TARP or stimulus are having an actual positive effect and in fact are drowning our people in unimaginable levels of debt?

A warning to most of you Generation X and Y people. If you think that your 401(k) contributions will be affected, you'd be RIGHT.

How's that HOPE and CHANGE working for ya? For myself, I think it SUCKS.

Here's one more tidbit of information for you: http://blogs.reuters.com/james-pethokoukis/2009/12/07/cost-benefit-analysis-of-jobs-stimulus/. Summary: Since the Obama administration says that about 640,000 jobs have been created with the $157 billion already spent, that works out to roughly a quarter million dollars annual salary per job created. Since the average payroll employee made roughly $57,000 last year, had the government just paid for the labor, they could have created over 2.7 million jobs. But they want to create another tax (HR-4191) so we can enjoy the similar benefits of our highly efficient, honest, transparent and honest government.

Wind Power and the Threat of Eminent Domain

2009-12-04T10:11:00.000-08:00

Wind Power and the Threat of Eminent Domain

No American citizen who turns on a TV, radio or reads the news can be unaware of the current push by the Obama Administration to fast track “green” energy projects. Further, in light of the questions raised by the possibility of man-caused global warming, it is prudent that we continue to develop these technologies. But a news item that I recently scanned causes me to be even more deeply concerned over the continued loss of individual freedom and abuse of government power for the “greater good”.

Most Americans are somewhat familiar with property rights. In rural areas, landowners not only own the surface of the land, but they also own the air above it and whatever is below it, all the way to the core of the earth (although for obvious practical reasons, nobody really enforces that ownership beyond man’s ability to reach downward into the earth’s crust). Simply put, if water, oil, natural gas are found under private land it belongs to the landowner and any company or city wanting to develop that resource must either buy the land or buy the rights to the resource from the landowner.

Similarly, if somebody were to build a structure near the property line that overhung private property, the landowner could force the owner of the structure to modify it so that it does not extend over his property.

Enter the city of New Ulm, Minnesota, which has proposed to construct a 237 acre, 8 megawatt wind farm. The city has already acquired the easements for the installation of the wind turbines. However, the State of Minnesota compels wind farm operators to obtain the “wind” rights from the landowners of a nearly equal amount of acreage in the direction of the prevailing winds. These landowners have so far refused to grant the easement, which has stalled the $16-18 million project.

The city of New Ulm has applied for a variance in order to proceed with the project without getting the easement from these recalcitrant landowners. If we were talking about water, this would be unthinkable. Instead, the developers of the project would be forced to buy the water rights from those that lived upstream to their project.

The New Ulm city attorney, Hugh Nierengarten, stated that “it will be necessary for the City of New Ulm to exercise its powers of eminent domain to secure such rights and move this vital project forward.”

The sticky wicket in this whole situation is the fact that the wind farm site isn’t located in the same county. This means that the objecting landowners have no way to hold the politicians and their legal representatives at bay. Jeff Franta, one of the farmers refusing to sign the easement and chief organizer of the opposition stated that it is within their right to refuse to grant easements to a project that could have a potential negative effect on the value of their property. He further stated “Wind rights are property rights like oil, water or a gravel pit. Wind is like oil in the sky so to speak. How can you use eminent domain to get something that can produce profit?”

The use of eminent domain is an important but volatile concept in American politics. Eminent domain gives a municipality the right to seize privately held land if the land will be used for "public use", and even then the landowner must be compensated fairly. This concept is based primarily on the following clause of the fifth amendment to the Constitution of the United States, which says: “…nor be deprived of life, liberty or property without the due process of law; nor shall private property be taken for public use, without just compensation.”

The most prominent recent case of eminent domain was Kelo vs. the City of New London, which was decided by the United State Supreme Court in June of 2005. The majority opinion, which decided in favor of the City of New London, chose to interpret the fifth amendment term “public use” to mean “public purpose”, citing the 1984 case of Hawaii Housing Authority v. Midkiff.

The dissenting opinion held that by using the “public purpose” interpretation this would enable a sort of reverse Robin Hood scheme whereby wealthy developers with political influence would be able to take property from the poor and middle-classes at below-market values. Further the distinction between private and public use of property would be so blurred as to effectively render inconsequential any protection provided by the fifth amendment with regards to usurpation by the government of private land rights.

To illustrate the difference, public use would imply the construction of a facility that would be run by the municipality that would be actually USED by the public. Examples include public schools and libraries, court buildings, city halls, and roadways. Public purpose has a much broader definition and implies any project that could benefit the public, usually financially. An example would be condemning a depressed urban area (homeowners) in order to develop an economic project (like a shopping mall or a factory) because it would bring increased tax revenues or provide new jobs, which would benefit the community (public purpose).

In conclusion, were the City of New Ulm to successfully either a) execute eminent domain on the farmers or b) get a waiver on the requirement to get the wind rights easement from the farmers, the City of New Ulm would then stand to profit from the new wind power farm while the farmers would derive no benefit as they do not live in the same county as the City of New Ulm.

Which leads me to ask two closing questions, the first of which is “Have you tried offering the farmers royalties or subsidies for the use of the wind that flows over their private property?” The second question would only need to be asked if the farmers lose their fight. “Will the Kennedy’s then be forced to accept the wind farm proposal on the Massachusetts coastline that they fought because it would ‘lower property values’?”

57% of American's Want Tort Reform for Medical Malpractice Suits

2009-12-03T14:00:00.000-08:00

Read the Rasmussen poll report here.

On August 12, August 18 and August 27 I bloviated expansively about the House version of the United States National Health Care act (USNHC). Specifically, I wondered how any act put before Congress that does not make any effort whatsoever to set limits on malpractice lawsuits, commonly called "tort" reform could actually claim to be a comprehensive plan to reduce the cost of health care to America's citizens.

Apparently I am now one of a clear majority of polled voters who feel the same way. According to a Rasmussen poll published on December 2nd, 2009 57% of voters favor limiting monetary rewards to medical lawsuit plaintiffs, with 29% disagreeing and 14% not sure. 47% of voter respondents to the poll believe that limiting monetary awards would "significantly reduce the cost of health care in the United States", with 28% disagreeing and 25% unsure.

Finally, 60% of the respondents believe USNHC will increase the Federal deficit and a larger number believe it will result in higher taxes on the middle-class.

As I've said many times before, I believe that dramatic changes need to be made in our health care system.

Here's some of my list of items that need to be addressed by USNHC. Note that I'm not saying that we should abandon USNHC, only that if we truly want to believe that it will be a comprehensive bill to control the cost of health care to the U.S. consumer, then I think these issues need to be considered and added:

Have you talked to a health-care professional recently? A surgical doctor? A registered nurse? An emergency room technician? Did you ask them about the hours they work? I know very few health-care professionals that work LESS than 50 hours a week, and I know some that work over 80 hours a week. The old market rule applies in this case. If demand is high and supply is low, cost increases. How does USNHC plan to add more people to the medical profession? And if you think those resources are scarce now imagine when we add the so-called 47 million (I say so-called because it's been proven that there are not that many people with no medical insurance at any one time) to the insurance rolls? Now that somebody else (you and I) will be helping to pay for their care, you can bet that they will flood the system with requests for care.

The FDA approval process for pharmaceuticals adds exorbitant costs to the process of bringing new drugs to market. By itself, I don't have a problem with that. I like the fact that my government is trying to ensure that only high quality medicines make it to the consumer. But if the FDA is going to justify the hoops, the red-tape and the cost associated, then how come drugs keep getting pulled from the shelf and we keep seeing class-action lawsuits against drug manufacturers for drugs that were approved by the FDA? It's gotta be either one way or the other. Either the FDA stands by their approval and accepts some of the risk for their stamp of approval, or they need to admit that there's no way to test for all possible factors associated with drug use, in which case lawsuits against manufacturers for claims against FDA approved drugs should not be admitted to court.

Tort reform. All levels of the health care profession pay a LOT of money to insurers to protect themselves against lawsuits. But with America being the most litigious society on Earth, and there being nearly non-existent controls on both the validity of lawsuits and the rewards being sought, insurance premiums have skyrocketed. Reduce the cost of lawsuits and you reduce the cost of insurance paid by providers, the savings which can be passed on to the consumer. This is not to say that lawsuits aren't necessary. But a plaintiff shouldn't expect to profit from a mistake made or even malfeasance made by a provider. However, neither should they bear the loss. Basic market principle here is that if costs associated with a service or product can be reduced in a competitive market, the provider will reduce the cost to the consumer in order to remain competitive.

Increase competition between insurance companies by allowing consumers (businesses and individuals) to purchase insurance plans from across state lines. Basic market principle. Increased competition reduces cost as competitors seek to gain advantages on price through reduced profitability or improved efficiencies in doing business.

Provide incentives for the formation of benefit cooperatives that can cater to people employed by small businesses that cannot afford to provide health care from traditional insurance companies. Kind of like a medical version of a credit union. These coops, if run well, could really give traditional insurance companies a run for their money, and in so doing create an environment that would force insurance companies to compete or go out of business. Have you noticed that very few credit unions have been caught up in the current financial crisis? This is because they are run for the benefit of their shareholders, not stock holders. There is little incentive for credit unions to engage in risky and speculative financial practices. The same should be true for health care benefit coops, since their primary focus is to provide health care benefits at the lowest possible cost to their shareholders. How many hundreds of thousands (millions?) of Americans would take advantage of health care coops if they existed?

So why don't progressives want to talk about these ideas? Because none of them give the government more control over your individual liberty.

Chris Matthews' Characterizes West Point Academy as "Enemy Camp" to President Obama.

2009-12-02T10:51:00.000-08:00

Follow the weblink to a video of the relevant excerpt of Chris Matthews' commentary after President Obama's Afghanistan strategy speech of December 1, 2009:

Now... I'm a former Marine. My son is currently serving in the U.S. Marine Corps. I have a fair number of friends who either are serving or who have served in the U.S. armed forces. And I don't think it's news that these people are generally not friends of members of the Democratic party or persons who lean towards liberal/progressive ideology.

However, I think it is safe to say that neither the regular military establishment, or the military academies such as West Point (Army), Annapolis (Navy) or Colorado Springs (Air Force) have ever taken any action that would make it fair to label them as "enemies" of any President of the Unite States.

Just as the rhetoric against George Bush during his administration was way over the top, we still continue to see extreme partisan invective from both sides in this administration. Chris Matthews' rhetoric will continue to reinforce in the minds of his devotees that the military is openly antagonistic of the President and his policies, which is patently untrue.

If we look at recent American history, we can see that the U.S. Military establishment has reasons for being suspicious of Democratic presidents. President Carter canceled more military programs than any U.S. President since Harry Truman. While President Lyndon Johnson increased our commitment of troops in Vietnam, he purposefully did not try to build public support for the conflict because of his fear that support for our Vietnam commitments would take support from his "Great Society" social programs. Because of this, service personnel returning from duty in Vietnam were literally spit upon by anti-war protesters that Johnson did very little to control (although when he did, such as at Kent State, the result was disastrous). President Clinton, exulting in the Reagan-caused collapse of the Soviet Union, tried to leverage the so-called "peace dividend". The Soviet invasion of Afghanistan, the fall of the Shah of Iran and rise of militant fundamentalist Islam in Iran and elsewhere, the 1993 bombing of the World Trade Center and the 1998 bombing of the U.S.S. Cole in Yemen all occurred during Democratic administrations. Many in the military believe that these relatively unpunished acts encouraged the greatest act of terrorism ever experienced, which were the September 11, 2001 assaults on the World Trade Center, Pentagon and possibly the Capitol building or the White House.

Only during the American Civil War did large elements of the regular military establishment openly defy the President of the United States. Otherwise, the U.S. military has been a devoted and faithful servant of the American people, directed by the legal orders of their President. To characterize West Point or any other military establishment as the camp of the enemy is absurd and an unwarranted accusation against the honorable men and women who learn the trade of war in order to preserve the peace and security of our people.

Tiger Woods Gives the Press the Finger (Metaphor). Good For Him.

2009-12-01T09:30:00.000-08:00

Unless you are living in a dark cave somewhere in Tennessee or Southern Utah, you probably are aware that golfing legend Tiger Woods, the most successful athlete in the history of modern sports, had a little one-car automobile accident last week in the wee early morning hours not far from his home.

According to Woods' agent, Mark Steinberg, Florida law requires the driver of a vehicle involved in an accident to provide the police his driver's license, the registration for his vehicle, and proof of insurance.

And Tiger has decided that that is all he is going to give the police and the press. This is probably the backlash from the revelation in the tabloids that Tiger has been seen in the presence of a New York party girl. It is noteworthy that the accident investigation has already determined that Tiger was travelling away from his house when the accident occurred, not far from his home.

Tiger has decided he is not going to give the police, and thereby, the press and paparazzi, any details that would further compromise his family situation. One can only guess why Tiger was driving from his home, apparently out of control, in the middle of the night, but not under the influence of alcohol or medications. And it's going to stay that way. Tiger has no intention of feeding the ravenous beast any salacious tidbits. And if he is interviewed by the police, we darn well know that six hours later that the information would be on the front page of every tabloid from LA to London.

Tiger will be cited, probably with something like "failure to maintain control of a motor vehicle" and pay his fine. He'll then call up GM and ask them to ship them another Cadillac CTS-V and he'll knock a few thousand off the fee for the next commercial he does for Buick.

America (and the world), get over it. Tiger's private life and foibles is none of your business, and his family problems (if there are any, that's only alleged) should be allowed to be worked out in private.

Post Thanksgiving Ramblings: Troop Surge, Anger at Federal Gov't, etc.

2009-11-30T10:46:00.000-08:00

First, I had a wonderful Thanksgiving. My brother Lee is working an honest job again for the first time since 1991. He's got a tough, rugged and uphill road to travel on but he's made some good first steps. I'm contributing in my own little way but this is about Lee, not me, so suffice it to say that I hope that Lee will continue to contact me to report "good news" and that he will also contact me when he needs support. My son Christopher, a Lance Corporal in the Marines, returned safely from his first overseas deployment and is currently spending time with us here in Phoenix. He looks great. He's about to be reassigned to a new infantry unit and the odds of that new unit going to Afghanistan is about 100%. His opinion concerning the news that President Obama has signed an order authorizing 30,000 additional troops for the Afghanistan theater of operations was typically Marine blunt: "About damn time. And we could use more guys." My wife is recovering from her throat surgery and is now doing fidgety projects about the house. Every time that happens, I end up spending more money. Oh well. It helps the economy, right? And my daughter Heather and her hubby Mat are settling in beautifully in their new home. I am also grateful that my Mother is now living with me and that we were also able to have my In-Laws in town for the holiday. That's right! I get along with my In-Laws! It doesn't get much better than that.

Second: President Obama today signed orders to send 30,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan. I think this is the right decision. Of course, the minute that President Obama starts acting like an actual Commander-in-Chief, the liberal base that helped elect him starts chewing on him. Representative David Obey (D-WI) stated that propping up a corrupt regime is "a fool's errand". Does he forget that Afghanistan is where our current conflict with militant Islamic jihad started? If we do not eliminate the Taliban then Afghanistan will once again be the favored location to train young Muslims in the ways of terror attacks to be used against the West. I believe that this new 30,000 is only the start. I also believe, as President Bush predicted, that the "War on Terror" will be a generational conflict fought out over decades, with the ultimate result the elimination of militant Islam fundamentalists or the adoption by all the world of sharia (sp). Who will win? I wonder.

Third: The chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change, Rajendra Pachauri, has stated that it's own peer-review policies would negate the attempts by a "small segment" ofpro-AGW (anthropogenic (man-caused) global warming) scientists to stifle dissenting opinion in scientific discussions and journals as well as to skew the data to make it look more dramatic. These efforts have come to light because of a hacker's successful intrusion into the University of East Anglia's email system and the dump of over 100 gigabytes (one billion characters per gigabyte) of emails onto the internet. In the center of this growing controversy is Professor Phil Jones, who is the head of UoEA's climate research department. In 2004, an email from him allegedly supported the rejection of at least two dissenting research papers because they were "'flawed" and yet he indicated in the same email that if necessary, he would support changing the peer-review process to facilitate prevention of the publication of dissenting opinions. The jury is still out on whether Prof. Jones was simply venting in a private email or that he was alluding to actual intentions or actions. To be fair, I think it is safe to say that we have all written things in personal correspondence that should not be taken literally (eg: "I'm gonna kill him!"). Contrarily, scientists have a responsibility to be detached and objective to their research and that such comments coming from such an influential member of the pro-AGW camp, especially in light of the fact that AGW is not a "settled" science, smacks of a scientific inquisition.

A far more worrisome issue is the confirmation by certain scientists at UoEA that they have destroyed much of the raw temperature data that was used to predict global warming. This means that other scientist cannot independently verify their assumptions. This revelation was obtained after a request for the raw data was made under the UK's Freedom of Information Act. The only data still available is the revised "quality assured and homogenized" data. The revisions were made for the stated purpose of adjusting the data to reflect variables in the way the data was collected. The raw data was not saved when the Climate Research Unit moved to a new facility.

How Business is Done in D.C.

2009-11-20T17:06:00.000-08:00

http://blogs.abcnews.com/thenote/2009/11/the-100-million-health-care-vote.html

Read the article first. Of course, over time weblinks will fail. So here's the synopsis.

Senator Mary Landrieu (D-LA), a moderate Democrat, has been playing "hard to get" on committing to an up vote for the Senate version of the US Health Care reform bill. Apparently, a whole section has been added to the bill that benefits one state and one state only; Louisiana. The section is 58 lines and contains 660 words. It can be found on page 432 of the Reid bill, and the section is titled: "SEC. 2006. SPECIAL ADJUSTMENT TO FMAP DETERMINATION FOR CERTAIN STATES RECOVERING FROM A MAJOR DISASTER."

In summary this section increases federal Medicaid subsidies for certain states recovering from a major disaster. There is only one state that meets the conditions set forth in this section: Louisiana.

Since Harry Reid needs all 60 of his Democrat Senators to bring this bill onto the Senate floor for debate, he needs Mary Landrieu's vote. And this is apparently how he will get it.

Oh, one other thing... The Congressional Budget Office estimates that this provision will cost U.S. taxpayers $100 million.

I'm sure that Majority Leader Reid, who is battling an uphill fight in his own state to be re-elected next November, expects Senator Landrieu to stay "bought".

And this, ladies and gentlemen, is how bizness is done in DC.

Kudos to ABC News' Jonathan Karl for bringing this to the harsh light of day.

Random Thoughts on November 19th.

2009-11-19T12:58:00.000-08:00

Thought #1: U of Calif students think they are guaranteed an edumacation.
Numerous news outlets are reporting that students in the University of California system are gathering in "near-riots" to protest a 32% hike in tuition. One young man who spoke on an ABC news radio clip indicated that "rich white men" were responsible for this. I'm going to go with "not so much". If this young skull full of mush would listen to something other than Air America or MSNBC, he might have heard that the State of California is looking at a 21 BILLION dollar short-fall in their state budget. Unlike the U.S. Federal government, California can't just crank up the printing presses to monitize their debt. Hey, California DUDE! You're state is BROKE, man! There isn't any more money in the TREASURY. My recommendation... get a job, like I did.

Thought #2: Apparently, conservative black men aren't black.
Ask Jesse Jackson, who apparently isn't very happy with Representative Artur Davis (D-Ala) who was the only member of the Congressional Black Caucus to vote against the current version of the bill. “We even have blacks voting against the healthcare bill,” Jackson said at a reception Wednesday night. “You can’t vote against healthcare and call yourself a black man.” More proof that if you are black and you have decided to try and live free of the government dole and further, you expect others to do so as well, then you are an "Uncle Tom". Quote was courtesy of www.thehill.com. The hypocrisy is as deafening as the reporting by the "mainstream media" is non-existent.

Thought #3: If you write a book and you are a conservative, you get "fact-checked" by the AP. But if you are a liberal candidate for president, you get a free ride.
The AP managed to get a hold of a "printer's proof" copy of former Alaskan Governor Sarah Palin's book Going Rogue. What did they do with it? They assigned 11 reporters "part-time" to fact-check it. Apparently, only Fox News feels this is newsworthy because neither President Obama's book Audacity of Hope or VP Biden's book Promises to Keep were given the same scrutiny. If you use the following search text: "obama's book fact checked", the links that came up were to articles about the fact that Sarah Palin's book was fact-checked but Pres. Obama's wasn't. More proof that liberals get a free pass from the "fourth estate" while conservatives are grilled.

Thought #4: Senate Marjority Leader Harry Reid is going to try and ram a 2,074 page version of the health-care reform bill through the Senate this weekend.
Republicans are trying to slow down the process by invoking a parliamentarian rule that requires the Senate Clerk to read, in total, the text of a bill before discussion begins. At a minute per page, which should be easily attained because the text is double-spaced and relatively large font, it will take somewhere between 34 and 45 hours to read it entirely.
Courtesy of John Boehner, one more reason that conservative will hate this bill: Section 1303(a)(2)(C) defines the process whereby the Health Benefits Commission will assess the monthly premiums that will be used to pay for elective abortions under the government-run health plan as well as those who are given "affordability credits" to buy such coverage that includes abortion through the Exchange. Minimum charge: $1 per month. You can read it for yourself at page 118.

Why Do the Dems Want to Bankrupt Us, both Morally and Fiscally?

2009-11-09T10:22:00.000-08:00

I've been silent recently on this blog, although only a few would take notice of it. I had a very busy weekend, spending a lot of time with the boys of my DeMolay chapter. When I woke up on Sunday I saw that Speaker Pelosi had managed to ram through the "health care reform" bill, all 2,000+ pages of it.

Right now, I'm thinking of two things about this bill.

First, the bill as currently written includes language provided by Representative Bart Stupak, specifically prohibits the usage of any government funds for human-fetus abortions. From www.thehill.com, the following synopsis is provided:
"Stupak’s language not only prohibits abortion coverage in the public insurance option included in the House bill. It would also prevent private plans from offering coverage for abortion services if they accept people who are receiving government subsidies.

Allowing the vote represented a major concession by Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) to Stupak and other pro-life Democrats who had threatened to oppose the bill. But it came at the cost of angering liberals in the Democratic conference.

Abortion-rights supporters called it a “de facto” abortion ban and mounted an intense but unsuccessful lobbying campaign against it."

This amendment to the bill was the primary reason why some moderate Republicans and "dozens" of centrist Democrats were able to reverse their position and vote for it.

Now that it has passed, there is already movement to remove this language. Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-Fla.), the Democrats’ chief deputy whip in the House, stated on MSNBC that she and other pro-abortion (often called "pro-choice") forces would work to remove this language from the bill while the bill was under reconciliation. She stated that she "was confident" that this prohibition will not be present in the final version of the bill.

So now that the liberals have largely succeeded in removing any kind of morality from government and our public schools, they now want those of us who consider abortion to be an immoral act to help fund abortions, regardless of the reason for performing that abortion.

Wasserman Shultz stated that the language essentially created a ban on abortion. Really? Really? No -- it simply states that Federal money (that would be taxpayer money) cannot be used to pay for abortions. Anybody that wants an abortion would have to pony up the money themselves, but there is no ban.

This might be an item that I make my stand on as far as my taxes are concerned. Meaning that if my tax monies might be used to pay for abortions that are performed for reasons other than rape, incest or danger to the mother's life then I will not pay my full share of taxes. How can my government make me subsidize an act I consider immoral?

Joseph Liebermen, independent Senator from Connecticut, stated on Fox News Sunday that any government option in the health care reform bill would cause the Federal debt to climb from twelve trillion dollars today to twenty trillion by 2020! It is unlikely that the U.S. government could ever recover from that much debt without printing literally multiple trillions of paper dollars to "monetize" that debt. In so doing, they would cause the value of the dollar to drop so low that no sane nation would continue to hold dollars as a "reserve" currency. This would cause a flood of dollars on the market as countries divest themselves of their dollar holdings. And just like anything else in a market, if you have a surplus of something with correspondingly low demand, the value drops like a stone in a gravity-well. This would cause the dollar to become literally worthless. You think cars are expensive today? Well, imagine how you are going to feel when you go to the grocery store and pay thirty-five thousand dollars for a loaf of bread or a half-gallon of milk.

You don't think that can happen? If you don't then you are not a student of history. Look at what happened to the German Deutschemark in the interwar period ("Weimar Republic") and then think again. It can and will if we allow our Federal government to sell us all into foreign servitude by spending money we do not have.

So, if representatives like Wasserman Schulze and Pelosi have their own way, we will not have only bankrupted our treasury but we will have also bankrupted our souls. And we will be paying for this unconscionable and profligate spending for generations to come.

I shudder to think what our grandchildren will say about this moment in American history. I don't think it will be kind.

Jon Kyl has a Point, but is Anybody Paying Attention?

2009-10-08T12:01:00.000-07:00

During a discussion of an amendment to the Baucus health care reform bill, Senator Debbie Stabenow (D-MI) stated that insurers should be required to provide basic maternity care. Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) responded: "“I don’t need maternity care, so requiring that on my insurance policy is something that I don’t need and will make the policy more expensive.”

Of course, this sounds like the typical kind of mean and hurtful and insensitive rhetoric that liberals expect to fall from the mouths of evil old conservative Republicans.

What Senator Kyl is trying to point out here, and nobody is bothering to listen, is that it makes no sense for a male insured to have basic maternity care covered on his policy as there is ZERO chance that any man will need to use it. What Senator Kyl is trying to say but nobody is listening is that the government should encourage that whatever comes out of the Baucus plan should be able to be tailored to each insured.

I'll bet if somebody were to ask Senator Jon Kyl if women should have an expectation to have basic maternity care covered in a general health care insurance plan, he'd probably be much more supportive.

Remember folks, insurance is supposed to transfer risk of disasters that you can't afford to a large group that can. We don't use health insurance that way.

In my opinion (and off-topic, by the way) health care insurance should be called something else, like health care benefits plan. It's NOT insurance.

Politicians Should Really Look at David Letterman Today.

2009-10-02T14:27:00.000-07:00

Last night (October 1, 2009), comedian/talk show host David Letterman admitted that he had a number of sexual relationships with female members of his production staff. He admitted this because of allegations that "48 Hours" producer Robert "Joe" Halderman last month gave a package to Letterman that contained threats that if he did not pony up $2 million dollars in "hush" money that Halderman would go public with that information. The prosecutor said that Mr. Halderman's package "contained clear, explicit and actual threats that indicate this defendant (wanted to) destroy the reputation of Mr. Letterman and to submit him and his family to humiliation and ridicule."

Mr. Letterman's admission on national TV last night created an end run around Mr. Halderman's alleged threat by making the information public before Mr. Halderman could. By executing his "pre-emptive first strike" Letterman also controlled the way in which the information was presented to the public in order to control the damage it would do.

Make no mistake that this episode is not over. Mr. Halderman will have to defend himself against an extortion charge. There will be inquiries as to whether Letterman used his position of authority on his production staff/crew to induce these women to submit to his sexual advances.

It should be noted that Letterman has only recently married and that he married one of the members of his production staff. It is reasonable to assume that these "incidents" occurred while he was still single so infidelity is not an issue. Of course, sex out of wedlock is still "adultery" but we don't really care about that anymore, do we?

Politicians take note!
Mr. Letterman ought not to be "sleeping" around with his staff. However, when it became clear that it was going to get into the public domain he diminished it's damage potential by admitting it and not hiding it from the public. Contrast this to the behavior of people like Larry Craig, John Edwards or Bill Clinton.

Good Liberal Argument Concerning the National Debt

2009-10-01T15:04:00.000-07:00

When you throw away the name-calling and other infantile behavior that currently plagues our legislatures at the Federal and State levels it becomes possible to listen to well-reasoned arguments from either side of the political spectrum and learn from it.

I was perusing a Progressive website (Centers for American Progress or CAP) and read an article written Michael Ettlinger and Michael Linden.

Michael Ettlinger is the VP for Economic Policy at CAP, principal developer of the ITEP Microsimulation Tax Model. He holds degrees from Cornell and American University.

Micheal Linden is the Assoc. Director for Tax and Budget Policy at the CAP. He has a master's degree in public policy from UC Berkeley. He is also a children's advocate, working at First Focus.

Both of these gentlemen lean heavily to the left. But, can we actually hear words of common ground from them? You bet...

In an article hosted on CAP's website that was posted on September 30, 2009 titled "Deal wit It. A Guide to the Federal Deficit and Debt".

While I disagree with their position that heavy deficit spending is necessary to prevent economic collapse during challenging times, I found several of the following quotes to be self-evident and very common sense.

"The real challenge is what we face after the recession: significant sustained deficits which, while not quite as eye catching, are equally historic, harder to solve, and pose a greater danger."

They also point out that sustained high levels of national debt can deter domestic investment, lower future incomes, raise interest rates and promote inflation, which causes further damage to people who see their wages fail to keep up with increasing inflation.

They provide a dire warning by stating that the CBO1 and the OMB2 both project high deficits through 2019, the latest year for which they offer their estimates.

The offer the following for consideration:
1) Revenue shortfalls are projected in personal income taxes, corporate income taxes and payroll taxes, especially compared with previous periods (they cite 1998, when the budget was actually generating a surplus of .8 of GDP3). This is especially pernicious in light of the fact that in the short term, stimulus spending (TARP4, ARRA5, TARPII, CARS6) is going to produce greater deficits in the short term, adding dramatically to the national debt burden and therefore also the amount of money the federal government pays monthly on that debt plus interest.
2) Government health care spending is expected to dramatically increase as the baby-boomers go from workers paying INTO social security to retirees taking FROM the system. Hence, the extreme urgency of reforming health care. Yes, health care reform is a national security issue. It's the WAY that we reform health care that is the source of so much angst and invective in our current political conversation.
3) Because of our involvement in Afghanistan, the ongoing campaign against jihadist threats and the likelihood that we will be facing a resurgent threat from an increasingly socialistic Russia and an emerging threat from socialist China, our military expenditures are projected to INCREASE.

These postulations are not in dispute by any reasonable person of either party.

They emphasize the difficult decisions that we are going to have to make and offer the following analysis.

"The [deficit] 6.3 percent of GDP swing is driven by both decreases in revenues and increases in spending." This is also common sense and incontestable. They make more assertions. Let's see if you agree with any of them.

1) Across the board spending cuts aren't likely. Some areas of the [federal] budge will be spared, which means other areas will have to face deeper cuts. Examples: We aren't going to default on our debt payments. We are also not going to cut Social Security, simply control the rate of growth. By taking these two items off of the table, the REST of the budget would have to be cut by 27% to achieve balance, or 14% to bring the deficit to below 2% of GDP.
2) Health care reform (assuming that the current version of USNHC were passed) is assumed to result in significant Medicare cost reductions, but most of these reductions will not become apparent for a decade or more. Assuming we can't cut Medicare, then the remainder of the budget must be cut by 35% to balance the budget or 18% to get the deficit below 3% of the GDP.
3) If we also exempt military spending from the cuts, which we would probably be obligated to do considering our current geopolitical obligations and future scenarios, that would mean that the rest of the budget would have to be cut by 51%.

So what gets cut by 51%? Funds to health clinics, federal retiree and veteran benefits, public schools, grants to higher education, the entire transportation infrastructure, regulatory agencies, the US Post office, etc. This is not a realistic solution.

The other side of the coin is to balance the budget by raising revenues (taxes and fees). It's also equally dismal. We would have to increase federal revenues by 22% in order to balance the budget by 2014. That's a 22% increase in everybody's income taxes, gas taxes, payroll taxes and federal charges. And don't forget that the 50 states are also raising or will be raising taxes and fees. To bring the deficit to 2% of GDP would still require a 12% across the board increase in revenues. However, the current administration has promised that they will not increase taxes on individuals who earn less than $250k annually. This means that family's earning more than $250k annually and corporations would have to pay a tax rate of nearly 70% in order to cut the budget deficit to only 2% of GDP by 2014. Note that this does NOT balance the budget.

They then ask some questions that I don't agree with. Example: "Can the U.S. afford to continue to spend so much more of it's national income than the rest of the world on defense?" As of 2003, the U.S. spent 3.7 of national income on military expenditures, which represented 49% of U.S. discretionary spending. While this does not include the last five years, 49% of the discretionary spending budget is nearly the lowest percentage spent in any given fiscal year since before World War II.

For over four decades our government has run budget deficits, with the natural result that our national debt has grown to a dangerous high. The conclusion: In order to slow our deficit spending and return to a balanced budget or even a budget surplus will require significant sacrifice on our part.

Here's the part my conservative friends isn't going to like. Our economy is a national security issue. We must stop spending money that we do not have. Quite the opposite, we must start to repay the money that we have already borrowed. The only way that we are going to be able to do that is to both reduce government spending (including military and health care) while at the same time, all American citizens are going to be called upon to pay more in fees and taxes while at the same time receiving less entitlements. It's going to hurt. Any conservative that tells me that we can solve this solution while not increasing taxes is not looking dispassionately at the facts of our situation. However, any liberal that thinks we can balance the budget and reduce the debt by increased taxation alone are also equally deluded. Programs of all kinds, including social programs (education, housing, health care, regulatory agencies) are going to have to be cut or dramatically reduced.

We've had our party. It's time to pay the bill.

(1) CBO: Congressional Budget Office, a non-partisan Federal organization that provides the Congress with financial impact analysis.
(2) Office of Management and Budget, a Federal organization that monitors existing Federal spending.
(3) GDP: Gross Domestic Product
(4) TARP: Troubled Asset Relief Program
(5) ARRA: American Reinvestment and Recovery Act
(5) CARS: Car Allowance Rebate System

Adulation of the MAN vs. the INSTITUTION (Follow up to previous posting)

2009-09-25T16:39:00.000-07:00

The American system of government is greater than any one man or even group of men. This why adulation for the MAN instead of the INSTITUTION is so scary to me and many who share my point of view.

Barack Obama's accomplishment of becoming the first American President "of color", especially considering our checkered history with the institution of slavery, specifically the slavery of Africans is momentous. But the accomplishment of Barack Obama pales when viewed in light of the greater context that our system permits any person regardless of creed, race, sex to achieve the highest levels of success and authority.

But are these children being taught to praise that system? I doubt it. I suspect that Dr. Denise King, the principal of the school where this song was recorded, would probably say that the American system is full of inequalities and injustices and that minorities are repressed. She is probably teaching children that capitalism is "evil" and "uncaring". She probably dwells on the mistakes of our nation's past, such as the nearly successful genocide of the Native American or the institution of African slavery.

I suspect she does NOT teach much about the indentured servitude (economic slavery) of Irish, Scots, Germans, Poles and Italians in the 1800's or the Chinese and other Asians in the late 1800's and early 1900's. I also bet she doesn't talk much about the current genocide taking place in both eastern and southern Africa, where Africans are enslaving or destroying whole other tribes of Africans solely on basis of clan affiliation. Or how about the sexual enslavement or mutilation of African women by African men? Hmmm? Or how about the current repression by China of Tibet and it's eastern Muslim population, or the destruction of millions of lives in Myanmar (formerly Burma)?

Then there's India with it's caste system. Does she spend much time talking about the purely social discrimination of the Bhangis ("untouchables") by the Brahmins, even though those people are genetically the same family? Or the "honor killings" practiced in much of the Islamic world? Or the outright racist attitudes of most Asians? To this day, Japanese print media depicts Africans with big lips and low foreheads and the book "Little Black Sambo" is a popular children's picture book. In fact, there is no redress for "hate crimes" in Japan because there is NO JAPANESE LAW protecting civil rights.

The American system of government and the society it has created is far from perfect. And by definition, a capitalistic economic system means that people will fail although that does not mean that those people are failures. People become failures only when they prove unable to overcome adversity. But in our society, which is now dominated by an arguably corrupt and non-representing representative system, the charged are still presumed innocent until proven guilty and people like Bernard Madoff or the CEOs of corrupt companies like TYCO, Enron or MCI Worldcom go to jail for destroying the financial future of others. While perfection eludes us what other nation on Earth presents as much opportunity as the United States? Even in decline with possibly our best days now behind us are still one of the freest, safest places on Earth to live.

So when I see children pouring out their adulation for only a MAN instead of the INSTITUTION, in my opinion I am justifiably concerned. If this is an innocent act then it's wrong. If it's purposeful then it can only be called one thing: INDOCTRINATION.

Showing Respect to the Office of President is Worshipping His Name.

2009-09-25T16:20:00.000-07:00

There is a video on You Tube titled “(No background music} School kids taught to praise Obama.” The tape shows a class of students, about thirty or so, singing this little catchy ditty. According to the notes with the video, it was filed at the B. Bernice Young Elementary School in Burlington, NJ and uploaded on June 19, 2009.

Here are the lyrics to that song:
Mm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that all must lend a hand
To make this country strong again
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said we must be fair today
Equal work means equal pay
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said that we must take a stand
To make sure everyone gets a chance
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

He said red, yellow, black or white
All are equal in his sight
Mmm, mmm, mm!
Barack Hussein Obama

Yes!
Mmm, mmm, mm
Barack Hussein Obama

I have stated before on my blog and elsewhere that any person that is elected to the Presidency of the United States is worthy of respect, even if you are opposed to many of the policies or political views of that person. In my own case, I won’t ever represent President Obama as a monkey or a witch-doctor, as some of the 9/12 protesters did. I do not use inflammatory names when referring to Mr. Obama. But I have no problem with disagreeing with him on any policy he presents that grows government or limits personal freedom. Further, I have no problemexpressing those views on my blog and in personal conversations.

Prior to the 1970s, it was not uncommon at all for photographic portraits of the current U.S. President to hang in classrooms all across America. But during my public school education journey from 1966 to 1979 I do not ever remember singing a song about the man that held that office. We had our ditties about George Washington and Abe Lincoln back when those President’s birthdays were actually celebrated on the anniversary of their births. But a living currently serving President? Nope.

I find the lyrics in this song to be bordering on cult of personality worship:
“He said red, yellow, black or white All are equal in his sight.” This is almost demigod worship in its tone, much like the song “Jesus loves the little children”. This is a message to children that President Obama loves you no matter who or what you are. It is nearly cultlike. It is not the job of the President of the United States to love us. It is his job to protect us from all enemies foreign and domestic and to ever support and defend the Constitution of the United States.

“He said that we must take a stand To make sure everyone gets a chance.”
Who can argue with this sentiment? The problem here is that our children are being taught that there is blatant inequality in our culture, which I concede there is still some. However, the reality is that not everybody makes the most of the opportunities that life and our culture provides them. If opportunity for "minorities" was truly as bad as the progressives would have you believe, then why do Haitians fleeing abject poverty in their own country bypass Cuba, the Turks and Caicos, Jamaica and the Bahaamas, which are all far closer in order to emigrate to the United States? Why do hundreds of thousands of Mexicans flee to the U.S. in the face of the chance of capture, punishment or deportment? Opportunity! That's why!

But instead, for the sake of creating "nurturing" environments where our children are not subject to the "threat" of failure we are instead creating a whole generation of kids who do not know how to learn from their mistakes and overcome adversity using innovation, dedication and persistence. This school environment is emulated nowhere in the real world of employment. If you fail and give up, or repeatedly make the same mistakes you will be written up, demoted or terminated. But I digress...

I have no problem in teachers encouraging an attitude of respect for our President, but I am vehemently opposed to teaching our kids politics unless you will teach them by presenting both viewpoints equally or worse, adulation for a man who has yet to prove if he deserves the respect of the office that the People of the United States have already entrusted to him.

Ben... It's the UN. Of Course They Have No Shame!

2009-09-25T10:43:00.000-07:00

An excerpt from the dramatic speech given by Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netenyahu: "But to those who gave this Holocaust denier a hearing, I say on behalf of my people, the Jewish people, and decent people everywhere: Have you no shame? Have you no decency?"

He was addressing the UN. Therefore this was clearly a rhetorical question.

Goodbye Chrysler. It was nice doing business with you.

2009-09-16T12:48:00.000-07:00

Today, CNN Money reports that Italian auto manufacturer Fiat, which bought ailing Chrysler this year, believes that the situation at Chrysler is "more dire than first thought". The bringer of gloom was Mr. Sergio Marchionne, Fiat's CEO.

"We were surprised by how little had been done in the past 24 months."

Industry insiders, such as Todd Turner of Car Concepts Automotive Research found Mr. Marchionne's comment surprising. "I'm a little surprised that he was surprised."

Let's lay it out.

In 1998, Chrysler Corporation was the new U.S. automotive manufacturing prodigy which had joined with Daimler-Benz. Chrysler had an impressive stable of trucks, Jeeps and minivans. Innovative designs like the PT Cruiser, the Chrysler 300c and the 3rd generation Dodge Ram trucks were selling and keeping their customers happy.

But the merger turned into something of a bad marriage. The disciplined and formal German business structure meshed badly with Chrysler's more innovative and somewhat random business approach. Additionally, the movement of technology from Daimler to Chrysler was very slow in getting implemented. An example: The innovative Chrysler Crossfire was designed upon the 1998-2003 mechanicals (chassis, drivetrain and suspension) of the Mercedes-Benz SLK230K. This decision was reportedly made by Stuttgart because the Benz car was being dramatically redesigned for 2004.

For some reason which I do not understand the quality of Chrysler products plummeted drastically during this same period. Cars that looked innovative and interesting on the outside were found to have bland or just plain odd interiors. And customers caught on as more and more Chrysler products found their way quickly into repair shops. A simple comparison of first year vs. subsequent year sales for same models show an average 60% drop in sales.

Innovation disappeared on mechanicals. The Chrysler 300, the Dodge Charger, the Dodge Magnum and yes, even the new Dodge Challenger are all based on the same chassis and suspension systems.

Why these decisions were made will be for the history writers to chronicle, but my guess will be that to keep the stockholders happy Chrysler was forced to trim manufacturing costs such as research and development while trying (vainly) to leave the auto union and retirees pensions alone.

In my lifetime, I have owned vehicles from Chrysler than any other maker. These include the 1993 Dodge Dynasty, 1996 Dodge Ram 1500 pickup, 2001 Dodge Ram 3500 dually pickup and finally a 2006 Chrysler Crossfire (vroom! vroom!).

As Shakespeare so eloquently put it, "All good things must come to an end."

Comparing Joe Wilson's "You Lie" to the "New Face of the KKK". You've Gotta Be Kidding Me!

2009-09-15T15:45:00.000-07:00

Representative Hank Johnson (D-GA) has now taken the political debate to yet a new low, showing that the Black Congressional Caucus and the Democratic Party is completely prepared to throw the "race card" down on the table at any time that it looks like it might create political advantage.

Representative Joe Wilson (R-SC) blurted out "You lie!" during President Barack Obama's September 9th speech promoting his health care reform plan to Congress. Wilson personally apologized to the President the following day, and that apology was accepted.

However, since Congress is a tank of sharks that just love the smell of blood, and partisan rhetoric is just as rancid and raucous as ever, the Democrats wasted no time in debating and then voting on a censure of Wilson today (September 15th). Of course CNN was there to cover this debate (where were they on Van Jones, ACORN, All the President's Czars, etc?). CNN caught Johnson on camera and he had this to say:

"He did not help the cause of diversity and tolerance with his remarks. If I were a betting man, I would say it instigated more racist sentiment and feeling. 'It's OK. You don't have to bury it now. You can bring it out and talk about it fully.' And so I guess we'll probably have folks putting on uh, white hoods and white uniforms again, riding through the countryside intimidating people. And uh, you know, that's the logical conclusion if this kind of attitude, uh, is not rebuked. If Congressman Wilson represents, uh, he's the face of it."

I've never cussed on this blog before. But I'm going to now. You've got to be shitting me. Joe Wilson is now the face of racial intolerance and hatred in the United States of America because he disagrees with the President's assertion that SR3200 will not prevent illegal immigrants from receiving health care benefits? You got all that from two words?. In my opinion that's one helluva stretch. This just demonstrates and proves what Glenn Beck, Rush Limbaugh, Sean Hannity, Michelle Malkin and all the other conservative talkers have been saying since Obama started campaigning for election, which is that you cannot disagree with the President on any topic and then avoid being charged with opposing the President because you are a racist and he is an African-American.

I'm sure that were I to have an opportunity to speak directly to Representative Johnson, and he were willing to actually waste his time defending himself to me, that he could come up with some convoluted explanation about how he can rationalize the connection between Rep. Wilson to the KKK by the evidence of the two words "You lie!" In my opinion, this can only be rationally explained by Saul Alinsky rule #12: "Pick the target, freeze it, personalize it and polarize it." By portraying Wilson as a personalized face of racism, Johnson successfully demonizes Wilson and weakens him and what he stands for. The simplest explanation is the most likely, and this certainly fits the data.

Political discourse in this country is dying. And the rules are skewed. Nobody will defend Wilson against this ridiculous, baseless and from my point of view, irresponsible charge because no white guy is going to get fair representation.

Hey! Conservatives! Can you TONE IT DOWN A LITTLE!?

2009-09-15T10:58:00.000-07:00

OK. 9/12 and Jim O'Keefe's videos show that the conservatives can run plays from Saul Alinsky's little handbook too. But the message is being lost in the rhetoric.

Do we have to completely crawl down in the mud with "World Can't Wait", "Code Pink", "ACORN", "MoveOn.org" and others who feel that the only way to get the message across is with vile statements?

Some examples: A poster showing President Obama with a Hitleresque moustache. How does a poster that says "Long Legged Mack Daddy" help our cause? How about a Confederate battle flag? Good Lord! Could anything be more offensive to a black man than the Confederate battle flag? There were others that were in even poorer taste and judgment but I refuse to describe or restate them hear.

We will win this argument because we have better facts and figures than the opposite side does. We will win this argument because we will create better opportunity and freedom of action than a government that calls the shots for more and more of the decisions in our lives. We will NOT win by calling President Obama a "Mack Daddy" or somehow connecting him to Adolf Hitler, who designed the most heinous genocidal program of the 20th century.

When we crawl down into the mud with the opposition, the message is completely covered and lost in the filth.

I recently decided to spend some time on MediaMatters.org and ThinkProgress.org. I absolutely cannot tell what the message is because of the amount of dreck and libelous noise that you have to wade through.

How can I seriously argue against my opponent's agenda when I can't even tell what it is? Not what the politicos are saying but because of what the common citizens on the other side are saying, feeling and wanting.

Both left and right need to go get a hug and then let's try to discuss and compromise a deal based on the value of the arguments.

Kanye West's Disgraceful Behavior is Mirror of our Times

2009-09-14T17:13:00.001-07:00

One of the reasons I don't watch the Academy Awards, VMAs, Emmys, or any other award program, because crap like this happens.

Taylor Swift wins the Best Female Video at the (MTV Video Music Awards). During her acceptance, 37 year old rapper Kanye West jumps up on the stage, rips the microphone from her and then pimps Beyonce, who does NOT need defending from anybody when it comes to her musical prowess. Of course, this completely destroys Taylor's moment forever.

A shocked MTV CEO could only comment later, "It's rock and roll." Excuse my impoliteness but that's a bullcrap response. That kind of tolerance only encourages this kind of behavior.

So... with the dumbing down of America's schools, the destruction of our culture and the acceptance of increasingly rude and socially improper behavior in the name of "unity", "tolerance" and "sensitivity", is anybody freaking surprised?

Until Americans start treating Americans with more respect ALL the time, this kind of behavior will only become MORE common, not less.

However, there was a glimmer of hope. When Beyonce went up to accept her award for Video of the Year, she instead invited Taylor Swift back to the podium to finish her acceptance speech. In a word, that's class.

New Administration Transparency.

2009-09-14T14:54:00.000-07:00

I was reading some comments made by Howard Kurtz, a commentator/columnist who has made it quite clear that he is not a big fan of the conservative cause.

In a media chatroom hosted by the Washington Post, Mr. Kurtz was asked about how he felt about the current administration essentially playing the media "like a violin" concerning the dustup around Van Jones and the press announcement at 12 AM on a saturday morning announcing his resignation.

His response: I don't buy your reasoning. We can't cover a resignation until it happens. Leaving aside online and TV coverage, the Jones resignation got plenty of attention in the Monday papers. And if Sunday hosts ask the likes of David Axelrod and Robert Gibbs about the resignation, and get tepid or incomplete answers, I think it's clear to the audience what's going on. The Obama administration may have succeeded in muting the coverage on a holiday weekend, but that Friday-night and holiday releases of bad news were also a favored tactic in previous administrations.

Mr. Kurtz is right when he says that Friday-night and holiday releases have been used by previous administrations... But I'm going to throw one back at him: Didn't President Obama disavow the usage of such tactics? He did not specifically say "We will never make a significant press release after 10:00 PM Eastern on a Friday." But what he did say was that his administration would become much more "transparent" than the previous one.

Yet Van Jones was not properly vetted. It took "rodeo clown" Glenn Beck to discover Jones' very radical past, which I will not dredge up here using a staff of 7 and "Google" web searches. The information found couldn't be refuted and was easy to locate. It painted a picture of a man who clearly supports redistribution of wealth, nationalization of private industry, and a day of "comeuppance" of the long suffering black and minority communities against the dominant white race.

I truly believe that in this case, the Administration simply believed that even if this easily to be found information was dredged up, that nobody would care. Well, that's not the transparency that many Americans voted for.

I believe that Mr. Obama has more personal advisors that have past histories that are also quite radical. It would behoove Mr. Obama to submit those advisors to Congressional scrutiny because it is quite clear that Glenn Beck and others (Hannity, Van Susteren, Limbaugh) aren't going to let up anytime soon. Mr. Obama needs to let the American people know up front what kind of people he's selecting as his closest advisors as opposed to just hoping that their past are simply not scrutinized.

9/12 Rally Attended by "Tens of Thousands"

2009-09-14T12:45:00.000-07:00

www.dailymail.co.uk reports that as many as "a million" may have attended the 9/12 protest march. I'm pretty sure I'm skeptical of that number.
Michelle Malkin seems to think that it could be as high as two million. I'm even more skeptical.
Let's assume that the liberals are right and only tens of thousands showed up (30 to 60 thousand people). That's still nearly unheard of when you consider that the conservative elements of our society almost never turn out for "protest" marches. I'm sure that even at the low number of 30,000, that many of the left wing organizations are thinking "Holy Cow! We've got problems if the "silent" majority is starting to become activitsts."

What is far more illuminating, and far more hypocritical, is the attempt of the left wing to portray this "9/12" movement, or "tea party" movement as "astro-turf" and highly organized and further that the people in these tea party rallies are "crazy" or "lunatic".

How come when several hundred-thousand people march on Washington to grant amnesty to illegal resident aliens in this country, those people are NOT lunatics, or that the movement was genuine grass-roots with no organization at all. Are you really trying to sell me on the idea that ACORN or La Raza or any other leftist organizations had NO ROLE whatsoever in drumming up support for that rally? Really? Are you telling me that Code Pink never encouraged their membership to attend rallies? How about SEIU? How about Nation of Islam?

Come on, let's all grow up here. Sure, FreedomWorks, MoveAmericaForward, Glenn Beck's 9/12 project and many others encouraged their subscribers to show up. But to tell me that the LEFT NEVER ORGANIZES is just another bald faced lie that they try to propound.

Instead, what is happening is that the "conservative" element of our national culture is scared witless at the massive and sweeping changes that have already occurred or are being seriously debated in Congress right now. 83% of Americans are happy with their healthcare plans and are very scared that the proposals currently being debated will either limit their choices or will cost more money for the same choices now.

Let's just stop the name calling. If leftist organizations want to organize and march on Washington, let them. It's their right. If rightist organizations want to organize, let them. It's their right.

Putin is Russia's Most Powerful Man. Any Questions?

2009-09-11T16:32:00.000-07:00

Financial Times today reported that Russian Prime Minister may run for President in 2012. Wow. Who could of seen this coming? I'm just saying?

President Dmitriy Medvedev has attempted to carve out a political image that is distinguishable from Putin's, his predecessor. He recently has indicated that Russia's government would be more open and accessible under his administration than under Putin's. As has been widely reported, Putin is a former KGB man and although he does not desire a resurgence of the old Communist Party he clearly desires a more authoritarian, centralized government than Mr. Medvedev.

Like many of the nations of the Middle-east, Russia is a nation whose population does not know how to take advantage of a true republican or democratic form of government. Russians are more comfortable under a stronger government that takes more responsibility for the basic needs of it's citizens. Many Russians, especially older ones, are unhappy with the rampant crime and runaway mega-capitalism and perceived lost of national prestige that existed during Boris Yeltsin's administration. They are therefore happier with Putin and Medvedev in charge, where Russia is once again flexing it's muscles abroad as well as nationalizing some of it's private industry.

My prediction: While he will not claim the title, I believe that Mr. Putin will do everything he can in order to garner the same level of power that the Czars ("Kings") had in order to create, in his eyes, an orderly, powerful and peaceful united Russia.

ACORN Contradictions in Tax-Evasion/Prostitution Advice Scandal.

2009-09-11T10:34:00.001-07:00

Jim O'Keefe released a video through www.biggovernment.com that shows himself and a young, attractive woman disguised as a pimp and prostitute trying to get advice from a pair of ACORN "community organizers" on how to buy a house in order to lodge over a dozen young females from El Salvador. During the conversation, the undercover couple let the following "facts" be known to the ACORN workers:

Their business was prostitution.
They would be housing 13 young women from El Salvador.
They weren't paying income taxes.
If they were to start paying taxes, what should they claim in terms of income, occupation and dependents.

The response from the ACORN representatives is truly stunning. They tell the undercover couple that they can file under the classification of "Performing Arts". They tell them that since the 13 young girls don't have Social Security numbers, don't worry about them. They completely ignore the implication that the girls are probably illegal aliens, that they are underage, and that they will be working in their "business". The advice received concerning how to avoid paying taxes given is "Don't file." Even though the undercover couple indicate that their annual income would be about $96,000, they are told to declare $9,600 in income since they are probably doing mostly a cash business.

If it weren't as grotesque as I've just described it, this would be hilarious. But it gets better.

On Wednesday, ACORN spokesman Scott Levenson said "The portrayal is false and defamatory and an attempt at 'gotcha' journalism." The national headquarters also stated that there would be no further comment until they saw the "entire" video. This notwithstanding the "entire" video is currently available for download at www.biggovernment.com right now and has been since September 5th.

On Friday it was reported by ACORN Maryland chapter leader Stuart Katzenberg that the two employees were fired because "they did not meet ACORN's standard of professionalism." Whoa. I though ACORNs position was that the video was misleading, "false and defamatory". Yet two employees were fired? Seems contradictory to me.

Oh wait, it get's even better! (Or sicker, depending on your point of view.) Fox News is now reporting that in addition to the Baltimore office being "stung" by Jim O'Keefe and Hannah Giles, they managed to pull the same stunt off at an ACORN office in Washington, D.C. as well. In this NEW tape Lavernia Boone, an ACORN "mortgage consultant" and Sherana Boone, an ACORN "housing employee" (are they related?) allegedly give the undercover couple similar advice as the Baltimore office did.

So... I think we've got some contradictions here.
ACORN believes the videotape is "false and defamatory" and yet two "community organizers" lost their jobs because of their "unprofessional standards". ACORN would also have you believe that the Baltimore employees were part-time temporary help and that no senior staffers were in the office at the time. This is clearly intended to get people to believe that the situation was unique to "Tonya" and "Shira" at the Baltimore office and that they were acting beyond ACORN rules and regulations. And yet... here comes the DC video! And what advice does the DC office give? The exact same advice as in Baltimore. To wit; lie on your taxes, tell the kids to shutup, keep your prostitution business low-key or somebody will get nosey and call "Fox".

"Healing Parks" and America's 9/11

2009-09-11T09:40:00.000-07:00

I opened the Arizona Republic this morning and on the front page, there was a photograph of a fireman helping to set up a "healing field", which is a large field with thousands of U.S. flags in it on white poles. Each flag, in this case, represents a life lost on 9/11/2001 as a result of the infamous jihadist attacks against the United States.

Since Americans have such short memories, I remind you that on 9/11/2001 that 2,974 innocents were killed when 19 Islamic jihadists intentionally flew two hi-jacked airliners into the New York World Trade Center, one hi-jacked airliner into the Pentagon building. One additional airliner was hi-jacked but the passengers rose up against the hijackers and the aircraft ended up crashing into a farmer's field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania.

I do not understand healing fields. I don't need healing. I don't desire healing. I expect that those who lost loved ones in those attacks don't really want healing as much as they want justice. When Pearl Harbor was attacked in 1941, Americans may have planted flags in fields. But what was far more important is that Americans enlisted in our armed services. Our industrial might began building vast numbers of tanks, bullets, rifles, helmets, warplanes and warships. Our President informed Congress that "we would win through to the absolute victory, so help us God."

I will be healed when the governments that supported this horrendous act are held responsible for the "stateless" persons that perpetrate these crimes of terror against "soft targets". I will be healed when the world recognizes that no person can be "stateless" and that if the nationality of a terrorist perpetrator is determined, that nation will be held to account. I will be healed when any nation or group of people is made to understand that the price for committing acts of terror is far too high in terms of the suffering that will be levied upon their homeland.

Update to Baltimore ACORN Faux pas.

2009-09-10T15:19:00.001-07:00

Oh yeah, one more thing...

Where the hell is the main-stream media on this? At 6:19 PM Eastern today (September 10th, 2009), the following news organizations were NOT reporting this story, even though it actually broke on www.biggovernment.com last Saturday:

1) www.msnbc.msn.com
2) www.abcnews.go.com
3) www.cbsnews.com
4) www.nytimes.com
5) www.latimes.com

Only Fox News is running with this story, largely through the efforts of the Glenn Beck show (5PM Eastern), who in turn got this information from Andrew Breitbart's new website www.biggovernment.com. That's one heckuva scoop, Mr. Breitbart.

Other than that, most of the other news outlets that had picked up on the story were blogs and smaller local news sites (Phoenix, Baltimore, both were Fox affiliates).

And the politicians and left elites are wondering why those of us who are either moderate or conservative have only the radio and Fox News to inform us about very serious issues like this one.

ACORN Offers to Help Setup a Brothel.

2009-09-10T15:09:00.000-07:00

Wow. I thought I'd seen it all...

Then I see a video on www.biggovernment.com that shows two young white students posing as a prostitute and her pimp in trying to use ACORNs consulting services to secure a loan to purchase a house. The video completely speaks for itself and every American should be casting severe distrust against this organization.

ACORN responding by saying that the video was "false and defamatory" and an attempt to "smear" their organization. False? How? This was a video of two of their employees providing the following advice:
1) Run a prostitution brothel under the IRS classification of "Performance Arts".
2) Avoid paying taxes by using the following tactic: "Don't file."
3) Continue to assist with tax form preparation even when the couple states that they will also have numerous young girls from El Salvador working for them "in the trade" and living in the house.

What should have happened at that point is that the ACORN employees (or representatives or whatever) demand the couple's identification or even make a citizen's arrest. What this couple were "pretending" to setup was a child pornography/sex slave operation working out of the house that ACORN was going to assist them in purchasing with falsified tax documents.

And President Obama wants to use these same people to collect 2010 census information and funnel them 8.9 billion dollars?!?

I agree with Glenn Beck. This is not a Democrat/Republican issue. This is a corruption issue. And it is clear that ACORN and the politicians that support/protect them are about as corrupt as it gets.

Gross Intrusion of Government into Our Lives.

2009-08-28T10:53:00.000-07:00

cnet.com just reported that Congress has apparently been working behind the doors to draft a little-known piece of legislation (S.773) that would effectively permit the President to seize control of private-sector during a "cyber-security" emergency.

The sponsors of the bill, notably Senator Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) explained that this bill provides a capability to the President that is functionally similar to the power President Bush evoked to ground all airborne aircraft in the wake of the September 11th, 2001 attacks. As an example, this would give the President the ability to respond to a cyber-attack directed from or against a network that controls an electrical power grid.

My VERY FIRST QUESTION: Why in the name of all that is HOLY would computers that actually CONTROL an electrical grid would be accessible from the Internet? Any critical system like that should NOT be connected to the Internet. Most military systems use an INTRAnet that is not accessible from outside. Critical infrastructure systems should be segregated from the internet in a similar manner.

My VERY SECOND QUESTION: If President Bush (43) had suggested this there would be a huge outcry from the media and general public. So where's the liberal media on this one? Near silence.

My VERY THIRD QUESTION: Once the mechanism is in place, how would we prevent any administration from abusing it to disrupt the business of a company that is opposing the administration in any manner?

My recommendation: Get any critical system computers OFF the internet. Then President Obama and his Democrat cronies won't NEED to pass this tremendous and gross intrusion of government into the private-sector.

More about ObamaCare: August 27, 2009

2009-08-27T17:04:00.001-07:00

ITEM 1:
According to a Fox News report, both ABC and NBC news are refusing to run a national ad critical of Pres. Obama's health care reform plan. The ad was created by the League of American Voters, which describes themselves as a "national non-partisan and 501(c)4 non-profit organization created to keep our elected officials in Washington and across the nation accountable." The ad features a neurosurgeon who admonishes that the current health care reform plan will affect the U.S. industry much like the rapidly failing public single-payer systems in both the United Kingdom and Canada. Quotes from important newspapers scroll across the screen, proclaiming dire consequences if the current plan is enacted into law.

An ABC News spokesperson responded to criticism for this decision by stating that "The ABC Television Network has a long-standing policy that we do not sell time for advertising that presents a partisan position on a controversial public issue."

Really? So when ABC essentially gave an entire day to discuss the plan with Preisdent Obama back in June, when did ABC plan on giving the same amount of time to the loyal opposition to provide their views on this complex legislation. This is an example of where the "Fairness Doctrine" could certainly be applied to broadcast TV as opposed to just AM talk radio. 33 seconds vs. most of primetime for a day. To me, it still seems that ABC is in President Obama's hip pocket.

ITEM 2
I read on Breitbart.com that Representative Pete Stark (D-CA), head of the Health subcommittee on the House Ways and Means committee has declared that the "Blue Dogs" (a fiscally conservative faction of roughly 50 Democratic representatives) are "brain dead" and "just want to make trouble" with their opposition to President Obama's health care reform plan. He went on to essentially accuse the Blue Dogs of siding with big-money insurance companies and health care providers in order to "raise money". The political discourse in this country has absolutely gone to the dogs (pun intended). Why can't either side of this debate admit that the other side believes what they want is the best without slandering their character or intentions? Sure... the constituency for the Blue Dogs has nothing better to do than send representatives to Congress who just want to make trouble. I find it interesting that the Blue Dogs are fiscal conservatives. Maybe they have not yet been convinced that ObamaCare won't actually cause our federal budget deficit to skyrocket to the point where we might actually owe more money in debt than our gross national domestic product. And this at a time when foreign countries are actively considering dumping U.S. dollars in favor of a new "world currency" or a fund made up of several currencies, not just U.S. dollars.

ITEM 3
TimesOnline.co.uk: Apparently the Democrats, realizing that the August recess has only shown a weakening of public support for Pres. Obama's health care reforms, are trying to capitalize on the recent passing of Senator Edward "Ted" M. Kennedy (D-MA). Senator Robert Byrd suggested the health care reform plan (currently the United States Nationalized Health Care Act) should "bear his name", while Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) opined "Ted Kennedy’s dream of quality healthcare for all Americans will be made real this year because of his leadership and his inspiration.” While there is no question that the Chappaquiddick... er ... Massachusetts senator made public health care a major policy priority during his tenure as a elected servant, isn't this getting just a bit operatic?

ITEM 4
This is from CBSnews.com. ObamaCare would require that the IRS (yes, THOSE guys) would be required to divulge taxpayer identity information to include filing status, modified adjusted gross income, number of dependents and "other information as is prescribed by" regulation. This information will then be used by the Health Choices Commissioner (a new position mandated by USNHC (ObamaCare)) to determine if someone qualifies for "affordability credits". Don't believe, go to Section 431(a) of the bill. I'd give you the page number, but this thing keeps getting rewritten so the section keeps moving. This is also restated in Section 245(b)(2)(A). Uh, wait a minute... I think I remember reading that the Privacy Act requires that agencies get their information directly from individual, not from other agencies. This would mean that thousands upon thousands of government employees would suddenly have very easy access to some of your most important information, namely, your income. What's to prevent those agencies from using this information in other ways?

Well, that's enough for today... oh yeah, and still no addition of Tort reform in USNHC. Which absurdly brings me to DNC Chairman Howard Dean's opinion on that subject.

ITEM 5
From SFExaminer.com: SFExaminer reporter Mark Tapscott accurately described this slip as "incredibly candid" when he reported on the following. At a townhall meeting hosted by Jim Moran (D-VA), an audience member asked why the legislation does nothing to cap medical malpractice class-action lawsuits against doctors and medical institutions (Tort reform). DNC Chairman Howard Dean, himself a former physician, responded by saying "The reason tort reform is not in the bill is because the people who wrote it did not want to take on the trial lawyers in addition to everybody else they were taking on. And that's the plain and simple truth." Well, great. So it's ok to take on doctors, hospitals, clinics, pharamceutical companies, but those trial lawyers just FIGHT TOO HARD so we'll not take them on, and incidentally, cut U.S. national spending on healthcare by possibly as much as two-hundred million dollars as the result of smaller malpractice insurance premiums and outrageous settlement amounts. Incidentally, you WERE aware that the most common prior occupation for a member of the U.S. House of Representatives is "lawyer", right?

"Grassroots" vs. "Astroturf"

2009-08-25T19:38:00.000-07:00

April 15th, 2009: During an interview on KTUV news in San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) who is the Speaker of the U.S. House of Representatives declared "This [tea party] initiative is funded by the high end — we call call it astroturf, it’s not really a grassroots movement. It’s astroturf by some of the wealthiest people in America to keep the focus on tax cuts for the rich instead of for the great middle class."

Again on August 6th, 2009 she restated to a reported who asked if the angry town hall meetings were "Astroturf" she responded by saying that she thought they were, "You be the judge."

Today (August 25th, 2009), the Politico.com reports that Democratic National Committee through it's organizing arm "Organizing for America" are going to push through 500+ "events" between Wednesday and September 8th when Congress returns from the Break. “In these last few weeks of recess we want to demonstrate the energy, passion and commitment that the American people have to health care reform so that when members return after Labor Day they know that they can turn their attention to getting this done because they have the backing of the American people,” said DNC spokesman Brad Woodhouse.

Is this "astroturf", Mrs. Speaker?

Another Indication of the Breakdown of Civil Discourse in the US.

2009-08-25T10:16:00.000-07:00

So, it's not big news, but maybe it is.

Once upon a time, not so very long ago, Rosemary Port had an anonymous blog. In it, she said some very unkind things about people. Very unkind things. Things that had she said them to their subject's faces would have probably resulted in a fist fight or worse. But because she was hiding behind a screen name or assumed identity, she felt that she could do so without fear of reprisal.

Except, when the individual that Ms. Port was saying unkind things about was model Liskula Cohen. And Ms. Cohen was starting to get pretty angry at this anonymous person that was saying very unkind things about. Things like 'ho', which is a very unkind thing to say to a woman, rap music's popularity notwithstanding. Ms. Port conveyed this message on her blog which was uncharitably titled "Skanks in NYC". So by association, Mr. Port also called Ms. Cohen a 'skank', which is also a very unkind thing to say to anybody, much less a woman.

So Ms. Cohen, who has considerably more money than Ms. Port, hired a lawyer who wrote a very convincing letter to Google strongly requesting the email address of the blogger that owned the blog. Google said "OK", and now Ms. Port is known to the world.

Her argument for her actions is that she believes that blogs are a forum for discussion and that Google did not do enough to protect her identity. As outrageous as her vitriolic postings defaming Ms. Cohen were, this is far more outrageous. As a friend of mine once said, "You're first amendment right to expression ends where my nose begins." Translated, in the United States your freedom of speech is only protected as long as said speech does not unfairly demean or slander the reputation of any person who is not deserving of such speech. And those that commit slander should be made to pay for it.

The right to free speech should never be allowed to impede any other citizen's right to pursue happiness. Ms. Port's blog did just that by making vicious and slanderous public comments, which are apparently a reprisal for a comment made by Ms. Cohen to Ms. Port's boyfriend. How does the fact that Google and other companies provide venues for web logs ever get interpreted to mean that you can say whatever you want, no matter how cruel, about somebody and not fear any reprisal?

I'm reminded of Thumper from the Disney movie "Bambi" and his famous sage advice: "If you can't say somethin' nice about somebody, don't say nothin' at all."

Why Do We Look At Health Insurance so Differently than Other Kinds?

2009-08-19T17:40:00.000-07:00

This national health care insurance debate has caused me to think very seriously about a big problem that I can't believe hasn't been seen by other more qualified persons than myself.

Why do we not look at health insurance the same way we look at, let's say, car insurance or property insurance? Consider this scenario. I'm driving home from work and I get into a serious accident which the police determine to be my fault. Although I survived the crash with only minor injuries, my car is completely wrecked. Further, let's say the car is a very new Italian car. Let's say it's worth more than fifty or sixty thousand dollars. So I get home, whip out the business directory and call up an auto insurance company. I hide from them the fact that my car is already totaled. I get comprehensive coverage. The following day, I call up the insurance company and make a claim for my totaled car.

Do you think the insurance company is going to pay? Heck no! Why not? Because the damage to the car existed PRIOR to the insurance purchase, and any insurance company that would be willing to pay for such damages is simply guaranteeing that they will be soon out of business. Why? Because if car insurance companies were required to cover pre-existing damages what would happen is that people would only sign up for an insurance policy when they had an accident.

This principle is known as "adverse selection". People who are more likely to suffer a loss (high risk) or who have already suffered loss (guaranteed risk) are much more likely to buy insurance than someone that is not likely to suffer a loss (low risk). Insurance companies survive when only a certain fraction of the people they collect premiums from actually submit a claim. As long as the claim payouts and the costs associated with running the business are lower than the premiums being collected, an insurance company will stay in business. When this fraction is exceeded, insurance companies can quickly find themselves with no cash reserves left. A recent example is the number of insurance companies that went out of business trying to pay out all the claims made in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina in 2005. (Incidentally, it is still very hard to find insurers willing to accept the risk for homes built in New Orleans.)

Back in the day when I sold insurance, I once tried to sell a life insurance policy to a guy whom already knew that he had diabetes. He didn't make any effort to hide it since the required blood test would have revealed the condition anyway. I told him that I could protect his family against his loss for any reason except a death related to the diabetes itself. His response was "If you cover me for diabetes related death I'll buy your insurance, otherwise, have a nice day." So he was willing to buy insurance so long as we covered the most likely reason that he would die. See the problem? He was only willing to buy the protection on the sure thing that will probably kill him. And that means that the insurance company would be guaranteed to have to absorb the loss. That's NOT what insurance is all about. Insurance is the idea that for a relatively low monthly cost being paid in by any one individual of a group an insurance policy can be obtained that transfer the risk of loss to the whole group. No insurance company or any other type of plan (including a co-op) will stay in business long if they have to accept responsibility for a sure risk.

I frequently ran into this problem while I was an insurance salesman. The problem is that people think that buying insurance is a gamble. They think they have lost the gamble if they pay for the insurance and never use it. The gamble is actually always on the other side... the insurance company and the group of people they represent. Every time the insurance company grants a new policy they are gambling that they will one day have to pay out a claim on that policy.

Since USNHC promises to prohibit the exclusion of pre-existing conditions it is logical to conclude that health care payouts are going to become much more frequent and these payouts will be more expensive. Much more expensive, since many people who want insurance for their pre-existing conditions will jump at the chance to get on an insurance plan that is guaranteed to transfer the risk of that condition. How can President Obama possibly think that he can control these kinds of costs?

Relevant sections of SR 3200 (Senate version of USNHC)
Title I, Subtitle B Sec 111: Prohibiting pre-existing condition exclusions.
Title I, Subtitle B Sec 112: Guranteed issue and renewal for insured plans.