Campaign Mode

You know what the definition of Campaign Mode is, don’t you? That’s when politicians tell you exactly what you want to know even if they have to lie about it. Hey, often, they’ll lie to us when the truth would serve better.

If you’ve noticed, in the last few weeks our president has gone back to his campaign mode he so successfully utilized in ’08. You remember, sleeves rolled up, collar unbuttoned-just a regular good old boy.

And he’s doing exactly what he did back then, telling us what we want to hear regardless of truth.

For example, a few months back at a Democratic National Committee meeting in Austin, he made the remark that we had doubled our exports.

The truth is in 2009, exports totaled $1,571 trillion. The first quarter of 2011, exports totaled just over $505 billion. If you multiply the first quarter of 2011 by four, you’ll have $2,020 trillion, which is an increase, but only 29%, not the doubling he claimed.

Why do they deliberately misrepresent their accomplishment to us? Obviously, to be re-elected, and if they don’t have something positive to say, they’ll make it up.
The old saw ‘believe half of what you see and nothing of what you hear’ is as valid today as when old Ben Franklin coined it.

Have you grown as sick of the budget mess we have up there?

I'd like to say, take heart, but I can't.

The president claims his budget ‘will help reduce the deficit to $400 billion over the next decade—the lowest level since Dwight Eisenhower was president.’

But a strange thing happened on the way to the forum. Using Obama’s own summary tables from his budget proposal, PolitiFact found that the deficit for 2011 will be $1.645 trillion. In 2021, the end of the span of which he spoke, the deficit is projected to be $774 billion, almost double his claim of $400.

In his effort to defend his healthcare, he stated categorically “twelve judges have thrown out legal challenges to the health care law because they rejected the notion that health care law was unconstitutional.”

Twelve judges did dismiss the case, but not because of ‘the notion health care was unconstitutional’ but because upon procedural grounds. They did not even look at the merits of the case.

Four more judges have ruled on it, two for, two against.

But doesn’t it sound much better to claim twelve tossed it out? He blatantly stated, “they rejected the notion that health care law was unconstitutional “, which they did not.

In another fairy tale, he claimed he had not raised taxes. If he didn’t then it was his clone who signed into law raising taxes on cigarettes and other tobacco products.

His clone also signed into law the new healthcare law that taxes those who decide not to have health insurance. By 2016, penalty/tax will be from $695 per uninsured person up to a maximum of three times that amount or $2,085.

No taxes, he claims. How would you explain that starting in 2013, individuals who make over $200,000 and couples making over $250,000 will see additional Medicare taxes as well as begin paying Medicare taxes on their investment income.

Another false statement.

Had enough?

No, well, this idea of cronyism has been bandied about in the last few weeks.
If you’ll think back, in his State of the Union address last year, the president stated “we’ve excluded lobbyists from policymaking jobs or seats on federal boards and commissions.”

According to PolitiFact, he did sign legislation barring lobbyists, but, as usual in politics, there was a loophole. That loophole was that he could, by executive order, issue a waiver okaying a lobbyist to work for the administration.

And that is what took place.

He issued a waiver for:

William Lynn to be deputy secretary of defense, the No.2 positional at the Pentagon.(think defense weapons) Lynn was a Raytheon lobbyists for six years, lobbying on defense-related issues.

Jocelyn Frey, director of policy and projects in the office of the First Lady. (this one states she is director of policy)

Cecilia Munoz, director of intergovernmental affairs in the executive Office of the President.

In addition, the White House has issued seven more waivers and among various federal agencies, fifteen more waivers had been issued.

I’m tired of listening to such dribble as ‘health reform will give every American the same opportunity to buy health insure the way members of Congress do.

Or preventive care saves money.

Or –never mind. The list of half truths is interminable.

I could go on and on relating his remarks, but the point is that up until the next federal election, citizens should remember Ben Franklin and be skeptical of all they hear, not just from the president, but from all politicians.

Now in all fairness to him, probably ninety-five percent of our politicians do the same thing.

They just don’t have a big a platform from which to speak.





rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26

Is America Turning to Socialism?

Unless you've been stuck away in an attic for the last few years, you've heard the word 'socialism' batted around more than a volleyball in a five-game match.

Socialism advocates the means of production, distribution, and exchange of wealth should be owned and regulated by the community as a whole.

The philosophy is very much like communism in which all property is publicly owned.
Each person works and is paid according to their abilities and needs.

The difference in the two is that communism advocates class warfare, a word you’ve heard bandied about in the media over the last few years.

Joseph Stalin once said that "America is like a healthy body and its resistance is threefold: its patriotism, its morality and its spiritual life." He continued. "If we can undermine these three areas, America will collapse from within."

To that end, a platform of forty-five communist goals were established to insinuate destructive philosophies into the American model. In fact, these goals entitled 'Current Communist Goals' were published in the U.S. Congressional Record in 1963.

You're probably saying that was over sixty years ago, so what does that have to do with today? Read on.

Forty-five is too many to cover in such a short space, but there were some that leaped off the page and struck me between the eyes.

Goals twenty-four through twenty-six:

24. Eliminate all laws governing obscenity by calling them ‘censorship’ and a violation of free speech and free press.

25. Break down cultural standards of morality by promoting pornography and obscenity in books, magazines, motion pictures, radio, and TV. (what explanation is necessary? Take a look at what Hollywood and the printed word offers today)

26.Present homosexuality, degeneracy and promiscuity as "normal, natural, healthy."
(gay marriage had dominated headlines for the last several years)

In fact, take a gander at your TV schedule for the next week and tell me these three goals have not been achieved.

What a change from the sitcoms of the sixties and seventies. We had ‘Leave it to Beaver’,‘My Three Sons’, and the 'Brady Bunch-, all of which provided healthy lessons on life. We had heroes then such as Batman, the Lone Ranger, Superman. And we had the light-hearted 'Gomer Pyle', 'Dick Van Dyke Show,' and 'Betwitched'. The cartoons were light, always concluding with the good guy winning, not vulgar like the current South Park or King of the Hill or Family Guy, all three of which are laced with obscenities.

How did all this come about?

Here’s how.

Communist Goal 21 states 'Gain control of key positions in radio, TV, and motion pictures.’

Do you think this happening? The most recent example I can point out is last week, Hank Williams Jr made the remark that Obama and House Speaker Boehner playing golf was like Hitler playing with the Israeli Prime Minister. When asked to explain, Williams replied, "They, meaning Obama and Biden, are the enemy." His remark got his Monday Night Football opening canceled by ESPN.

Now, I'm not saying ESPN is communist. I’m not saying any media is communist. All I’m saying is that over the last forty or fifty years, our country has leaned more and more toward that particular philosophy.

Over the decades, government has been insidiously insinuating itself more and more into our lives.

Is this just coincidence?

Goal 27 calls for infiltrating the churches and replacing revealed religion with 'social' religion; it calls for discrediting the Bible and emphasizing the need for intellectual maturity, which needs no religious crutch.

Goal 28 states eliminate prayer or any phase of religious expression in the schools on the ground that it violates the principle of "separation of church and state."
We've seen that come about. We've witnessed students punished for praying in school. We can’t pray in school. We can’t pray at ball games.

And then there is the furor over ‘In God We Trust’ on our coinage.

I'm not smart enough to have a solution satisfying everyone, but our country was founded upon and by religious principles. We're not floundering around now because God is punishing us; we're floundering because our country has moved away from the principles upon which it was founded.

In Washington today, the thrust is to take from those who've worked hard, who've worked smart, or who hit a streak of luck, and give part of their income to those who don't have as much. Pure socialism.

Communist Goal 29 states ‘discredit the American Constitution by calling it inadequate, old-fashioned, out of step with modern needs, a hindrance to cooperation between nations on a worldwide basis.’

Don 't think so, then explain why North Carolina Governor Beverly Perdue suggests we skip--yep, skip (as in forgettabout it) Congressional elections.

And then farther up north, we have Peter Orzag stating that what our country needs is less democracy. Who is Orzag? A graduate of Exeter and former Obama staff member.

Are they communists? No, but they are leaning in the direction the communist philosophy espouses.

Fifty percent of households pay no income tax. How to you reconcile that with the socialist philosophy? Fifty million Americans are on welfare. That's not counting the twenty-three million illegals, the majority of whom are drawing some type of welfare. Aren't taxpaying Americans taking care of them?

Any way you cut the cake, it stills comes out socialism.

rconwell@gt.rr.com
http://www.kentconwell.blogspot.com/
www.goodreads.com/author/show/13557.Kent_Conwell
www.amazon.com/-/e/B001JPCK26

Dirty politics, Dirty Minds

Dirty Minds, Dirty Politics

It never ceases to amaze me how some political zealots will grab at any opportunity to demean and degrade their opponents. The latest example is a result of the horrific tragedy of the Arizona shooting.

Everyone has heard about it by now. A crazed shooter went on a rampage leaving behind dead and wounded, and within minutes political left wingers were hurling accusations at Sarah Palin for her website.

If you haven’t seen the website, too late. It’s down, but being the intense competitor she is, the site had pinpointed Democrat positions around the country the Republicans wanted to take over.

So what was the problem? Seems like the site marked those positions with the crosshairs of a rifle scope.

And so what happened? Zealots seized the opportunity of trample over those wounded and dead to place the blame on Palin and her supporters for influencing the killer to act.

Several right wing media faced the camera and with an holier-than-thou countenance, expressed their concern and regrets that she should have approved such a site.
Politicians around the country have spoken up, saying we should all civilize our rhetoric.

Well, I’ve got news for them. Such inflammatory, irresponsible rhetoric has savaged politics since Fred Flintstone first ran for pooper-sweeper.

In fact, some of it was even more despicable than that taking place today. Last week in an interview with CNN, Nancy Pelosi blamed unemployment on the Bush
administration two years into the Obama administration, asserting the Democrats lost the House because of former President George W. Bush’s policies. How is that for irresponsible and inflammatory?

I wish someone would explain that logic to me.

In all honesty, that remark was pure Pablum compared to the flack Andrew Jackson
caught in his presidential run. During his military career, he was forced to order the execution of six deserters. In a subsequent political race, an opponent printed up handbills with six black coffins and the accusation that Jackson had deliberately murdered them. On top of that, he was accused of adultery, vilified for running off with another man’s wife, and that wife, Rachel, was accused of bigamy.

You’ve got to admit that sort of mud-slinging is a little stronger than suggesting Obama was not born an American citizen.

Now, Jackson was no saint. During his battle with John Quincy Adams, Jackson’s supporters spread the rumor that Adams, while he was ambassador to Russia, procured an American girl for the sexual services of the Russian Czar. Adams was labeled and pimp and his great success as an ambassador was a result of his service to the Czar.

And then there was Thomas Jefferson who was accused of being a misogynist and of having an affair with a black lady. Ironically, in the decades to follow, the latter accusation was proven to be true, although such interracial practices in that period were much more common than one would believe.

According to Joseph Cummings’ book, “Anything For a Vote,’ Thomas Jefferson hired a writer to attack opponent John Adams, Quincy’s father, as a “repulsive pendant” and “a hideous hermaphroditical character that has neither the force of a man, nor the gentleness and sensibility of a woman.”

In a later campaign, Davy Crockett accused Martin Van Buren of wearing women’s corsets, and James Buchanan, whose congenital condition caused his head to tilt to the left was accused of unsuccessfully trying to hang himself.
And poor old Abe didn’t escape the onslaught. He was said to be ape-like because of his lean appearance and beard. And oh, yes, he was also accused of having stinky feet.

In the 1912 campaign, Teddy Roosevelt, wearing his western regalia, referred to William Howard Taft, the sitting President, as ‘a rat in a corner’. Another rodent accusation was when FDR called Alf London, his 1936 opponent “the White Mouse who wants to live in the White House.”

But the dirtiest campaign of all, says Cummings’, was Johnson versus Goldwater in 1964.

Johnson, says Cummings, put a subversive group together to demean Goldwater, first by putting out a book under his name entitled “You Can Die Laughing’ and then a coloring book for kids with Goldwater dressed in Ku Klux Klan robes.
In addition they spread editorial letters around the country under false names expressing their fear of Goldwater. The group even influenced a well-known financial writer into writing two columns explaining how the stock market would melt down with Goldwater’s election.

The slander campaign ruined Goldwater forever.

So, take the nonsense you read today with the proverbial grain of truth. Dirty politics and dirty minds have always been around, and it ain’t going nowhere anytime soon.

The Little Man's Party. Really?

I’ve told you, probably too often, about my two little grandsons, Mikey and Keegan. Well, guess what? We now have a brand-new little granddaughter, Kenli Marie Johnstone, Keegan’s little sister.

She was born October 1, only four days before Keegan’s birthday on October 5. Can’t you just visualize just how chaotic that birthday week will be in the coming years?

But, she’s healthy, ten fingers, ten toes, black hair, 20 inches long and topped the scales at six pounds, nine ounces.

Now, I know there isn’t a grandparent out there who doesn’t believe their grandchild is even prettier than Kenli. And that’s okay. I know the truth.

She came along a day so after I ran across some rather startling data online. Aware of just how online data can be manipulated, I checked all the information, and the results were very interesting.

Why? Well, you see, as soon as little Kenli gave her first cry at 1:21 pm October 1, that bundle from heaven was already $43,572.43 in debt thanks to our government. When I say government, I don’t mean just the present administration although it has set records that I hope will never be matched.

They spend money they don’t have. Why?

In the name of helping citizens.

Does it really? Take a look at the following data, and then you decide if the government has really helped.

The ten poorest cities over 250,000 in America.


City % below poverty Democratic mayor
1 Detroit 36.4 since 1961
2 Buffalo 29.9 since 1954
3 Cincinnati 27.8 since 1984
4 Cleveland 35 since 1989
5 Miami 26.9 since 1947
6 St Louis 26.8 since 1949
7 El Paso 25.3 since 2001
8 Milwaukee 26.2 since 1908
9 Philadelphia 25 since 1952
10 Newark 24.2 since 1896

See what they hae in common? They all adhere to the principles espoused by democrats. Now we all know that the Democratic Party is known as ‘the little man’s party’, a moniker of which that party’s politicians are proud.

What I see here are cities wallowing in an economy of entitlements. Naturally, those recipients are voters. And naturally, they do not want to lose free money. It is the poor who habitually elect Democrats based upon the promises of help and aid.

But you know what? Those poor are still poor after all these years. You tell me, what good have the Democratic mayors done for the cities?

The majority of those percentages want the government to take care of them. They want something for nothing. And obviously in those cities, that’s exactly what they are getting, nothing.

Oh, the politicians—hey, they’re cleaning up like bandits while the citizens are still waiting for handouts.

Now before any one becomes too rabid over what I’m saying, understand, we must help the sick and infirm as well as those who are making an effort to shed the shackles of poverty.

The others?

In 1942, Presbyterian minister William J.H. Boetcker published the pamphlet, Lincoln on Limitations. He also added ten of his own quotes to those of Lincoln, and often, writers have attributed those quotes to Lincoln. Some have attributed them to Reagan.

1. You cannot bring about prosperity by discouraging thrift.
2. You cannot strengthen the weak by weakening the strong.
3. You cannot help the poor by destroying the rich.
4. You cannot further the brotherhood of man by inciting class hatred.
5. You cannot build character and courage by taking away man’s initiative and independence.
6. You cannot help small men by tearing down big men.
7. You cannot lift the wage earner by pulling down the wage payer.
8. You cannot keep out of trouble by spending more than your income.
9. You cannot establish security on borrowed money.
10. You cannot help men permanently by doing for them what they will not do for themselves.

If you think about our present administration honestly, not with the colored lens of party affiliation, you’ll have to agree their actions are the opposite of these ten philosophies.

And that spells nothing but trouble.

I don’t want my little granddaughter or you grand children $43,572.43 in debt because of irresponsible congressmen and their leaders.

Do you?

There You Go Again, Mr. President

You’re doing it again, Mr. President. You’re jumping into new projects without completing any that you’ve begun. Oops, I apologize. You did push through the health bill that will not only drive the deficit higher, but also dig deeper into the American pocketbook. Oh, yeah, the stimulus—that will-of-the-wisp dream that stimulated hundreds of CEOs to award themselves obscene bonuses. Good job there.

But look at where we are today. The economy is sputtering along like an old Model T. Of course, the old Model T usually got where it was going. I have my doubts about your economy.

And yes, despite your fervent insistence that it is all ‘George’s’ fault, after almost two years, it is your economy. With the firepower you have in Congress, you’ve had ample time to make things better—like you promised over and over.

You were voted in because many wanted change. In their eagerness to make their lives better, they grasped at straws, and you were the straw they grabbed. So desperate, they never thought to ask what kind of change you had in mind.

I voted for the first time back in the fifties. I always voted for that individual I thought best for the job. When I looked at your record and when I listened to your speeches, I didn’t like what I heard and saw. That’s my right. The majority disagreed with me.

You know something, Mr. President. The majority doesn’t disagree now.

In a way, I hate that for I don’t believe you’re a despot like many say. I don’t believe you want to rule the world.

I think you sincerely believe all you say. I think your advisors believe that they say.

The problem is, you and your advisors come from another planet, that of Academia where cute little theories tossed around in the upper atmosphere in the tea rooms of Harvard and Yale seem Utopian, but actually pale in comparison to the harsh realities of hardworking people struggling day in and day out to put food on the table, educate their children, save a little, and perhaps enjoy life on the weekends.
And now you plan on reforming education in America.

I suggest you listen to people who know education. I have news for you. Three-quarters of the superintendents, chancellors, and commissioners to whom you have spoken are as inept as some of the teachers you are blaming for failing the children.

Other than you’re both Chicago boys, I can’t figure out why you chose Arne Duncan as Secretary of Education. If I handed out report cards to school district CEOs, Mr. Duncan would get a bright red F.

Why?

Greatschools, a nation wide non-profit organization that provides K-12 information about all private, public, and charter schools, ranked Chicago schools as a 4 out of 10 while rating Nederland and Port Neches, Texas as sevens and eights. A sobering comparison, huh?

If after eight years as CEO, Duncan couldn’t even get Chicago to a passing score, why listen to his ideas on how to better American education? Get real, Mr. President.

You talked about longer school days. You have no glimmer of what is going on there. You get an F also—also in red.

According to the Associated Press, Duncan’s rationale for longer school days was ‘Young people in other countries are going to school twenty-five, thirty percent longer than our students here.” He added to the AP. “I want to just level the playing field.”

Sounds noble, you think?

That’s B.S., Mr. President. That’s just another of the many fabrications to make your administration appear as if it cares.

In fact, according to the AP, U.S. kids spend more hours in school (1,146 instructional hours yearly) than kids in Asian schools who outscore us in math and science.

True, Japan and Hong Kong, said the AP, have longer school years by up to twenty days, but only spend 1,005-1,013 instructional hours yearly—less than our schools.
I predict this reform of yours will not succeed.

Why? Because the last two years have been eye openers for many of us. We might not have Harvard degrees, but we ain’t dumb. And we learned a long time back what B.S. smells like.

We’re doing okay down here. We’ve got a lot of bright kids graduating and going on to college and into the work force.

Sure we have problems, but our communities are working on them. We don’t need outsiders with completely alien cultural beliefs running our schools for us.

By the way, while you were enjoying your vacations, over five hundred Southeast
Texas teachers were in summer school working on advanced degrees and honing their skills as teachers.

Just thought you and your people might like to know.

So Says the Constitution

There are two initiatives I feel are essential to all of us, issues that will have a definite effect on us and our children in the years to come.

Now, don’t laugh when I mention the first, term limits for all elected individuals. We can talk about that later.

The second, and the one I wish to address today, has to do with birth granted citizenship for offspring of individuals who are not American citizens.

The latter topic is naturally much more volatile than the first for it is what ties many of the illegal aliens to the U.S. You know how it goes, a young couple sneaks over the border in time for a child to be born, and Presto! Instead of Instant Oatmeal, you have Instant American.

Now, I’m not talking about the right or wrong of it. America is basically a fair-minded and compassionate country, willing to help others. It takes a cold-hearted person not to understand why so many aliens wish to be a part of this great nation.
And one of the slickest means is for an illegal to have his child born in the United States.

Now there is a great deal of talk about changing the XIV Amendment so such a finesse becomes a thing of the past.

The kicker is that when the amendment was first ratified in 1868, the idea behind the law was not as it is interpreted today. I don’t know when it changed precisely, but it is different. Somewhere along the way, some judge, whether Republican, Democrat, Libertarian, atheist, or Wiccan, was too full of himself and issued an interpretation of the amendment. That interpretation stuck so today we have a back door that is flooding country into bankruptcy.

The XIV Amendment begins “All persons born or naturalized in the United States and subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

The first nine words mean exactly what they say, right?

The rest of the statement is also clearly laid out, “And subject to the jurisdiction thereof, are citizens of the United States and of the State wherein they reside."

Now the word ‘jurisdiction’ is the culprit. Noticably so for it is a multi-syllabic, and most politicians and judges can’t handle more than two syllables.

Do you really think that if a Cheyenne maiden had given birth to a child in one of the Philadelphia hospitals that the country would have given the little tadpole the mantle of citizenship? Not likely. That was a privilege not given to the American Indians until 1924. So can one of you Constitutional Scholars out there provide evidence that the intent of that portion of the XIV Amendment was to cover any child of any pair of non-citizens even it the infant is born on our soil?

I think not, so let’s talk a little further about “Subject to the jurisdiction thereof.”

As you are well aware that those folks that Lincoln’s Dmancipation Proclamation liberated still did not enjoy the sames rights as those who freed them?

In 1866, the Civil Rights Act tried to rectify the 1863 proclamation by stating--now, read this carefully. “All persons born in the United States, and not subject to any foreign power, excluding Indians not taxed, are hereby declared to be citizens of the United States. ... All persons within the jurisdiction of the United States shall have the same right in every State and Territory to make and enforce contracts, to sue, be parties, give evidence etc. . .” It goes on to list all the rights of citizenship.

Now follow me here. “Not subject to any foreign power.” You and your spouse have a child. That child is yours. If you are a citizen of Mars, that child is a Martian, not an American. I don’t care if you’re in the middle of Times Square. If you and your spouse are Hispanic, Asian, Polish, Russian, you name it, that child is the same race. If you don’t have legal papers, he doesn’t have legal papers. He is still subject to the foreign power from which he came.

It is truly that simple.

Now we all know politicans seldom read what is put before them. It’s about time they do, and this is something with which they can begin.

That’s how all this mess began, with some full-of-himself judge interpreting a law he had probably never read.

What Kind of Country Are We?

I cringe every time I witness another decision that diminishes our country’s allegiance to God. Unfortunately, evidence of such is everywhere.

A few weeks back, I mentioned that Richard Henry Lee, the Virginia statesman who called for the colonies’ independence in the Second Continental Congress, harbored the fear that the absence of legal limits to political tenure could create an oligarchic structure, a structure that allows a ‘rule by the few’.

His fears were echoed by Thomas Jefferson who worried that the Courts would overstep their authority by ‘Making Law’ instead of ‘Interpreting Law.’ Such endeavors create an oligarthic configuration in which select individuals in power determine what is best for all of us.

That, ladies and gentlemen, is what is taking place today. A few, who think they ‘know best’, are doing all they can to herd us like sheep into various pens.

That isn’t what our Founding Fathers had in mind. What they intended is that each of us would make his own decisions based, for better or worse, upon the relationship or nonrelationship we had with our Lord.

Man should take care of himself, not the other way around.

Recently I received an email from my old high school chat group that attributed several remarks to Andy Rooney, that admirable old curmudgeon.

I couldn’t determine if he were the author of the article since many articles have been falsely attributed to him. On the other hand, it seems to me this would be his type of wry admonition to those who harbor the notion they are better than everyone else.

You cannot deny that many court judges around the country are rendering decisions that cast God from our lives, despite the undeniable fact that 235 years ago, a handful of dedicated men established a republic based upon Christianity.

Now this Christianity is not a specific faith, but an adherence to God’s basic tenets of brotherhood and love.

Our country once believed that. Honest.

For example, did you know if you stand in front of the U.S. Supreme Court building and look up at the gable of the structure, you will see a row of world’s law makers. Each one faces the one in the middle who is looking out over the country. That middle lawmaker is Moses, and he is holding the Ten Commandants.

Then as you enter the Supreme Court, the two massive oak doors have the Ten Commandments engraved on the lower portion of each door. Inside, above where the judges sit is another display of the Ten Commandments.

Just about anywhere you go in Washington, you’ll find buildings and monuments covered with verses from the Bible.

James Madison, the fourth president, “The Father of our Constitution” said, “We have staked the whole of all our political institutions upon the capacity of mankind for self-government, upon the capacity of each and all of us to govern ourselves, to control ourselves, to sustain ourselves according to the Ten Commandments of God.”

And of the fifty-five founders of the Constitution, fifty-two were members of established orthodox churches in the colonies.

Patrick Henry, a Founding Father, exclaimed, “It cannot be emphasized too strongly or too often that this great nation was founded not by religionists, but by Christians, not on religions, but on the Gospel of Jesus Christ.”

Something else you might not have known. Every session of Congress since 1777 has begun with a prayer by a paid preacher. Oh yes, and his salary has always been paid by the taxpayer.

John Jay, appointed the first Supreme Court Chief Justice in 1789, stated “Americans should select and prefer Christians as their rulers.”

We could go on and on here, but the shame of our present situation is that for over two hundred years, our country prospered as a Christian nation. Now in the last few decades, either our leaders’ spines have turned to jelly, or they’ve forgotten God, or they simply do not believe in God.

They think because they try to accommodate everyone’s wish, they are doing that which is right and moral.

I wouldn’t be surprised if ‘In God We Trust’ were taken off our coin and replaced with ‘Praise to Allah’ or ‘Viva Zapata’ or ‘Hot’cha Sweet Mama.’

That’s how ridiculous it has become.

The Yellow Brick Road

I can make the following remark because I am neither Democrat or Republican.
“No one, not even those Republican-bashing Democrats way out in left field who support the present administration’s policies can deny our country is in debt, big debt.”

Nobody sneezes at thirteen plus trillion bucks in the hole.

So what is the Fed doing about it? In all their so-called wisdom, they are printing more money. They’re buying debt with debt, according to Bob Livingston. “It’s shuffling money piles around. It’s taking money from one pocket and putting it into another.”

Meanwhile, writes Laurence Kotlikoff of Bloomberg News, the International Monetary Fund declares the United States is essentially bankrupt.

Bankrupt!

I can remember back in the post war years reading how well the automobile factories up North paid. The amount was a few times the $3,900 I earned my first teaching year in 1959.

Don’t misunderstand. That’s no complaint. I could’ve moved north for one the jobs, but I opted to teach. So, I’m not complaining.

It is just that over the years, I noticed, as I’m sure you, the increasing number of imports, some good, some shabby, but all produced at a wage considerably less than what I made as a teacher. I don’t think it is a stretch to say that during any year in my career, if I’d had that income and lived in one of those countries, I would have been considered wealthy.

That’s when I began to wonder when the bubble would burst.

Now it has.

And our government isn’t really helping us in the long term by continually printing up money and handing it out.

On the one hand, I’m glad for those teachers and firemen and police the last bailout bill helped. But then, I resent it because the 39 billion is not paid for. It is just another chunk added to the debt.

The bill kicked unemployment up to 99 weeks, almost two years. If I were in the unemployed shoes, I’d be grateful for it, but what will help more than the benefits are jobs.

It is a Catch 22!

What is so disgusting is that there are businesses wanting to hire workers, but cannot find qualified employees.

According to the Personal Liberal Digest, Mechanical Devices, which supplies parts for heavy equipment manufacturers like Caterpillar, say they’ve been looking for $13 per hour machinists for months. If they could hire forty, the company’s sales would increase by as much a 20 percent.

Trips to job fairs have been almost fruitless, said Mark Sperry, co-owner of Mechanical Devices. Many of the applicants just go through the motions so they could continue to collect unemployment checks.

A 52 year-old mechanic in North Carolina told The Journal he had turned down more than a dozen offers in the 59 weeks he’s been unemployed because they didn’t pay more than the $450 a week he collects for unemployment.

This is happening all over the country, said Bob Livingston. People used to making fifty to sixty thousand a year are not willing to take a thirty thousand dollar a year job when they can sit home drawing $23,000 per year and do it for two years.

Jobs are out there. Maybe not the plush jobs, unless you’re a federal employee. Federal civil servants earned an average $123,000 per year in salary and benefits in 2009 compared to the private sector that made about $61,000.

The present administration, in an election year vote-buying scheme, prints more money, passes it along to certain states to save state jobs. I told you who received the money in those states, teachers, firefighters, and police, each with unions that were among Obama’s and the Demo’s biggest supporters. (no, Texas isn’t one of those states)

What the present administration is doing is creating an ever-growing dependency class of government workers and handout takers, all of whom just happen to be voters. And for whom do you think they’ll vote? Not George W!

Don’t anyone try to convince me we aren’t on the yellow brick road to socialism!

What else can you call it?

Tell you what. Read Ecclesiastes 10:2.

Think the Lord doesn’t know what He’s talking about?



rconwell@gt.rr.com
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com

Ponzi Scheme Deluxe

Did you know that 142 million Americans paid absolutely no income tax this past year? That’s right. Forty-seven percent of all taxpayers ended up owing a big fat zero. Zero, as in nothing, zilch, goose egg, Sweet Fanny Adams.

How did they manage to pull off this miracle?

They did it because the tax codes and generous benefits Obama has provided the middle class and lower income citizens.

Now I took exception when I read the previous paragraph. Being retired, I consider myself a fairly middle class, not even upper middle, and yet I paid a few thousand in taxes this past year.

Be that as it may, it is obvious why the government is cutting lower income earners and hiking the upper earners. President Obama has made no bones about taxing the upper class until it hurts.

According to CNN, nonpaying status used to be a sign of poverty, but Congress and the president changed the laws enough that much of the middle class is becoming part of the pool of nonpayers.

Now the income level at which a family of four will owe no taxes tops $51,000. Oh, you’ll pay in during the year, but you’ll get it all back.

This isn’t just a tax matter. It is much larger. If you can’t see what’s happening, I’ll tell you. The present administration is using taxes as a social policy in an effort to draw more voters into their devious web of the socialized existence our leader envisions for us.

Now, hold on, don’t shout me down right now. Follow me here. Those who pay no taxes do get money back because of various credits. They look, according to CNN, not at April 15 as the dreaded tax day, but the payoff day. They have put nothing in the game, so they don’t give a hoot what the government does as long as it pays off.
What is the difference in that and various entitlements?

Now I’m not including S.S. because we pay into it. I’m talking about the social welfare that has become so monstrously inefficient and hopelessly bureaucratic that it wastes billions of dollars annually.

And where does that money come from? Not just the fifty-three percent like me who pay taxes.

You remember old Bernie Madoff and his unbelievable Ponzi scheme. He used money from clients to pay off other clients. Worked great until it blew up.

And the schemes always do!

The government is doing essentially the same thing.

The money it gets from its taxpayers obviously does not cover the expenses of running the country. That’s why we have a deficit.

To get the money to cover the deficit, the government sells Treasury Bonds that they pay for by simply printing up more money. If it weren’t so serious, I’d laugh at the idea of those presses up in Washington running day and night until the bearings burn out printed 696 million bucks a day.

Here it is very simply. Say they write a thousand dollar check, then next day print two thousand to cover it, then the next day three thousand, and so on and so on.
Right now, they’ve printed thirteen trillion plus with no collateral. According to Bob Livingston, right now debt is paying for debt.

If you aren’t worried by now, you should be.

Obama and his party are perpetuating this outrage. They’re counting on tax cuts for the lower incomes, amnesty for illegals, ignoring terrorists, and increased welfare to built a voting base for their agenda.

IBD quotes a poll that says 51 percent want the Bush tax cuts made permanent. Just 28 percent do not. Republicans by more than four to one and independents by two to one want them permanent. Democrats, by 40 to 38 percent, do not.

The president has his vacations, golf, dinners, concerts; his wife exotic vacations to Spain; Nancy Pelosi spends 600 thousand dollars a year just to fly back and forth from California to Washington.

And hey, the Republicans are just as uncaring.

We can solve the problem. All we have to do is watch those we put in. If they are not prudent with our money, then vote them out.

Sure, it’ll cause us a little extra work, but I’m not any too anxious to spend twenty bucks for a bottle of soda water, are you?

The Other Four-Letter Word

The other four-letter word? Spin!

You know what Spin is. You relate facts in such a manner to make yourself look good.

I don’t know about you, but I’ll readily admit that Spin is the technique that keeps me wondering just exactly what is going on in this state of confusion surrounding us today.

Give some guy or gal ten, twenty, or more years in an elected office, and they automatically put a spin on everything that rolls off their lips. Those snake-oil-smooth guys could make the sinking of the Titanic appear the fault of the current sunspots bombarding us or the result of George Bush driving a tractor on his Crawford, Texas ranch.

Take a look at what happened a couple weeks back when the Labor Department made its July report.

A caveat here. You and I both know the economy isn’t leaping forward.(a common spin) ‘Slogging ahead like a slug with a broken leg’ would be a better description.
But, take a look at the spin the government puts on job creation.

‘Unemployment holds steady at 9.6 percent!’

What they do not say is that an additional 5.9 percent have given up looking for jobs. Isn’t that group still part of the unemployed? Washington obviously doesn’t want us to think so.

The reality? 16.5 percent unemployment and holding steady.
Why give only partial figures? Naturally, to look good.

This same report states a loss of 131,000 jobs and the creations of 73,000 during July. In his speech, the president only mentioned the 73,000. He ignores the 131,000 jobs lost. Major spin.

As I see Labor’s report, there was a total job loss in July of 58,000 jobs. Why can’t they explain it like that?

This is the kind of biased spin put on information spouted by politicians kissing up to their constituents for re-election.

And that is the reason so many fail to tell the entire truth. Re-election!
But what if that reason were removed? What if they knew their time in Washington was ‘but fleeting’?

Thomas Jefferson urged a limit on tenure to be included in the Constitution, “to prevent every danger which might arise to American freedom by continuing too long in office.” The article also stated ‘no person shall be capable of being a delegate(to the continental congress) for more than three years in any term of six years.”

Richard Henry Lee said that the absence of legal limits to tenure along with other features of the Constitution as ‘most highly and dangerously oligarchic’, a structure in which power rests with a small segment of society. . .royalty, wealth, family ties, or, heaven forbid, career politicians.

George Mason stated ‘nothing is so essential to the preservation of a Republic’, our type of government, ‘as a periodic rotation.”

Unfortunately, in the final ratification, the measure was not included in the Constitution. I don’t know who kept it out, but I have a feeling that if you did a genealogy tree on those long termers up in the Magic City, you’d probably find some of their ancestors played an instrumental part in deleting the recommendation.

Don’t think so?

Take a look at what’s happening now up in that over-the-rainbow World of Oz they call Washington DC. A couple long term politicians are under the gun, accused of ethics violations.

They are not by themselves. You don’t have enough fingers and toes to count all the politicians guilty of such a violation, and invariably, they had one thing in common, multiple terms.

Will term limits ever come about?

I doubt it.

Too many up there covet the largesse passed out by the oligarchic class the wields the power today.
But it is a darn good idea.

Zip Up Your Pocketbook

Sometime back, I did a column on the overwhelming plethora of taxes that will jump up and smack us right between the eyes come the first of this next year.

A portion of these taxes are cuts the previous administration had enacted and that our present administration refuses to renew. That means we pay more taxes. Pure and simple. Yet Obama promised time and again, no tax increase.

Given the all-people-being-equal-even-if-they-don’t-work obsession of the ruling party in Washington these days, even a dummy like me can understand why the cuts haven’t been renewed. By not renewing them, the government is forcing more of the middle class to assimilate with those who constantly seek entitlements. One way or another, Obama is going to make us all equal, except for him and his elite clique of untouchables.

The decision is simply another cog in the current socialist-inclined wheel making everyone equal, everyone except the ruling party and its pals.

Such idealistic pie-in-the-the-sky nonsense has been around since the beginning of time. This current version might have had its genesis years back up in Harvard when Obama and some his classmates sat around in their BMWs on the beach at Bar Harbor posturing idealistic philosophies and theories that would save the world. Each probably swore that one day, he would be the one to right all injustices, to make sure no one did without, and to save the American way of life—you know, like Superman.

The major fallacy in such a scenario begins with those who initiate it. I figure it unlikely any of those young prima donnas had any concept of the middle class life, a life, according to Henry David Thoreau, ‘of quiet desperation’, whose owners went ‘to the grave with the song still in them.”

Like most Utopian concepts, when romantic theory meets harsh reality, theory crumples under scrutiny.

Of course, all of you, especially those who jumped on the ‘change the world’ bandwagon Mister Obama was driving, remember how he time and again proclaimed anyone making less than $250,000.00 would not see a tax increase?

You want to know how many he lied to? He lied to every last one of us who pay taxes. That’s right.

Just for a beginning, if you pay taxes in the lowest bracket, yours will increase from 10 to 15 percent; the next bracket increases from 25 to 28 percent, and the old 28 percent bracket jumps up to 31 percent. For those of you on the higher end, 33 percent jumps to 36, and 35 percent up to 39.5 percent.

Those of you with over a million dollar estate and who want to leave it to your heirs, well, I hate say it, but you best go to the grave before 2011.

Why? Under the previous administration’s cuts, your estate tax would be zero, zilch. Next year, because the man who wants to save the nation insists, your taxes will be 55 percent. That’s right. At the stroke of midnight, December 31, you can raise a glass of champagne to celebrate a jump in taxes on your estate from zero dollars to 550 thousand dollars. That sure makes for a Happy New Year, huh?

That isn’t all.

Not only will the marriage penalty return (where a couple pays a higher tax on the same income than a single filer), but also deductions for youngsters will drop from one thousand to five hundred.

And capital gains taxes increase from 15 percent to 20. Dividend taxes jump from fifteen to 39.6, and both will increase in 2013 when the healthcare reform bill ads a 3.8 percent Medicare tax for those making $200,000 and joint filers $250,000.
According to the Congressional Budget Office, by Obama permitting the previous administration’s tax credits to expire will increase taxes $115 billion next year, and $2.6 trillion through 2020.

How is that for ‘no tax increase?’

That’s just the tip of the iceberg, folks.

Unless you’ve been in a cave the last year or so, you know the staggering debt the government has run up. We’ve got to stop this madness. I’m not talking party, but individuals who support such wasteful ideas. Starting in November, we have to throw those wastrels out and then keep a close eye on those we put in.


rconwell@gt.rr.com
www.kentconwell.blogspot.com

When You're in a Hole, Stop Digging

I don’t know about you, but it seems to me there’s quite a bit of excitement going on around us today

A massive health bill will soon take over our lives; spilling oil is quickly filling up the Gulf of Mexico; a new Supreme Court nominee is in the news; and our neighbor, Arizona, appears to be teetering on the brink of revolution.

Oh, yeah, I forgot. A naturalized American citizen from Pakistan tried to detonate a
SUV full of explosives in Times Square. We were lucky as the dickens that he obviously had the IQ of a snail to bungle it as he did.

Despite the media stories catering to the administration, Iraq still looks bad to me, and Afghanistan is no better.

Any of us could talk for hours about the horrors and tragedies of earthquakes, volcanoes, mudslides, airline crashes, drug murders, and the plethora of angst with which we are hit everyday.

If we allow the tragedy to consume us, we’ll end up so depressed that we’ll play the ostrich and stick our heads in the sand or at least, stay in bed with the covers over our head.

When I get to that point, I take a deep breath, step back, and take a long look at really just how lucky I am despite a world gone bonkers.

I ask myself, just what can be done that isn’t already being done? Politicians control the laws; thousands of men and hundreds of ships are working feverishly to control the oil; Arizona will handle Arizona’s problems; aid is already assisting the victims of earthquakes, mudslides, and volcanoes; and professional lawmen are hard at work in the other areas.

About all I can really do is pray and send what donations I can. I think that’s about all anyone can do.

Everyone has his own opinions about the health bill, but, hey, that’s settled. It’s a law. There is a strong Latino outcry against Arizona. And it is easy to see why. Of course, Latinos are not the only illegals. There are folks here illegally from probably every country in the world, but right now, our neighbors to the south hold center stage because it is so simple to enter. Just crawl under the fence or ride the bus over.

As just about every American, I’m upset because our own government has crawfished on immigration control. I have no problem with immigration, but let’s do it by the book.

We’re a nation of immigrants. If you don’t think so, just ask the Native Americans (that’s politically correct language for Indians) from whom we stole the whole country in the beginning—from sea to shining sea we stole it.

You know, I would be willing to make all twenty million illegals legal today, at this very minute—IF a single one of you bleeding hearts can assure me that would not set off a flood of illegals from all four corners of our country.

You can’t. That cannot be done without securing borders. I mean, really securing them first. And you can’t prove that statement otherwise.

That being said, I can’t blame our Mexican neighbors for wanting to bail out of drug wars and find a better life for their families. And yes, there’s the rub. Why should those illegals be granted favors others of their own had to earn?

The answer is they should not.

Are we being insensitive to deport them back into harm’s way? Should we feel responsible for injury they might receive? Should we separate illegal parents from legal children or simply make the parents legal?

What about the fact illegals strain school budgets; swamp emergency rooms; and overburden social services? What about the fact you and I pay those expenses in our school, city, county, state, and federal taxes?

My only answer is to secure the borders. If you have a better answer, let’s have it. If you don’t, stop bellyaching.

Various sources put the number of illegals at 12-20 million. That’s 12-20 million who pay no tax other than perhaps a sales tax. They don’t work from January 1 to the middle of April just to pay all their taxes as you and I do. And in many instances, most of their wages go back to Mexico, not to local American businesses.

You’ve heard the old saying, when you find yourself in a deep hole, stop digging.

The only way we can stop the deep hole of illegals is to secure the borders like Arizona. Don’t count on Washington. They’re too busy playing their games up there.

America Soars, Right into its Pocketbook

America Soars-Right Into Its Pocketbook

Throughout presidential candidate Obama’s campaign, he promised change that would send America to soaring heights while spreading wealth to every backwoods niche in the country.

And he has done some of that, especially the soaring business. I figured those of you who voted for his pie-in-the-sky dreams might care to see the results of his first sixteen months of soaring.

A few days back, the House Ways and Means Committee released the list of the $670,341 billion in tax increases that he has already signed into law. These taxes total a whopping $2,100 increase for each man, woman, and child in America. Now, that’s what I call soaring.

Remember the ‘no tax increase for incomes under $250,000?” According to Texas Insider, he’s violated that promise fourteen times. But, hey, who’s counting? Keep in mind, this information is not from a liberal or conservative source, but the House Ways and Means Committee. (how truthful they are, you decide)

Under his one-party control regime, he will level new taxes upon individuals and employers who do not buy government-approved insurance; stick a 40% tax on high cost health plans, but exempt union members; increase Medicare taxes on all income; levy a 3.8% tax increase on investments; lower medical deductions by 2.5%; 10% tax increase on UV tanning services; $2,500 annual cap on Flexible Spending contributions; excise taxes on brand name pharmaceuticals as well as medical devices including wheelchairs; and a double penalty for non qualified HAS distributions.

Oh, yeah, I forgot-tax increase on tobacco—naturally.

Also this year, there are several more increases scheduled to kick in:
1. Alternative Minimum Tax will decrease from $46,700 to $33,750 for single filers and from $70,950 to $45,000 for married couples filing jointly
2. No deductions for state and local general sales taxes on federal income tax return.
3. Businesses will not be able to claim a tax credit for research, experimentation, and development.
4. Taxpayers will not be able to claim a deduction for qualified tuition and expenses.
5. School teachers will no longer be able to write off books, supplies and other equipment
6. Five year depreciation of farm machinery and equipment will expire.
7. Donations of books to public schools will no longer be eligible for an enhanced charitable deduction.

How’s all of that for change? Hold on, I ain’t done yet. In 2011:
1. 35% income tax bracket increases to 39.6.
2. 33% bracket will increase to 36%
3. 28% bracket will increase to 31%
4. 25% bracket will increase to 28%
5. 10% and 15% brackets will coalesce at 15%
6. child tax credit will decrease from $1,000 to $500
7. marriage penalty tax will be restored, charging married couples a higher tax rate than individuals on the same total income
8. the “death” tax returns with a 55% maximum rate and a $1 million exemption, after years of decreasing “death” tax rates
9. dependent care tax credit will decrease from $3,000 to $2,400
10. adoption tax credit from $13,170 to $5,000

But that isn’t all. The following tax credits will also expire: energy efficient home appliance; hiring unemployed veterans and disconnected youth; Work Opportunity Tax Credit; the $400 ‘Making Work Pay” credit; electric drive motorcycles, three-wheeled vehicles, low-speed vehicles, and plug-in electric vehicles, most of which are utilized by the handicapped.

Somehow, I don’t believe this is the change the majority wanted. Do you?

The Past is Over

The Past is Over!

Quick, who said, “I’m not going to fire a two million dollar missile at an empty ten dollar tent and hit a camel in the butt.”?

If you answered former president, George Bush, you hit the answer right on the butt.

Old George. He caught, and still does, a lot of flak, some of which he brought on himself, but not all. Of course, if you listen to the present administration, old George is even responsible for the earthquakes of recent months as well as the volcano eruption in Iceland.

I voted for George, for governor and president. I didn’t approve of all his decisions, just as I do not approve of the current president’s. On the other hand, while I’m not the greenest pickle in the barrel, I’ve learned enough to realize that the human animal has a propensity for criticizing decisions without the benefit of pertinent knowledge. We’re all superb sidewalk superintendents.

No one can claim George is a polished speaker. He often mispronounces words, uses malapropisms, butchers syntax, and in general, garbles the point of his message. He is an English teacher’s worst nightmare.

I mean, after all, who else but George would say “I think we will agree, the past is over.”

Duh! If it is past, it is over.

In researching George, I ran across the following poem of his verbal gaffes on several sites. I got a good laugh from it. You will too. I could not find who composed the poem, but whoever they are, my thanks.

Make the Pie Higher

I think we all agree, the past is over.
This is still a dangerous world.
It's a world of madmen and uncertainty
And potential mental losses.

Rarely is the question asked
Is our children learning?
Will the highways of the internet become more few?
How many hands have I shaked?

They misunderestimate me.
I am a pitbull on the pantleg of opportunity.
I know that the human being and the fish can coexist.
Families is where our nation finds hope

Where our wings take dream.
Put food on your family!
Knock down the tollbooth!

Vulcanize society!
Make the pie higher!
Make the pie higher!

Oh, and there are many, many more gaffes. And yes, he certainly lacks President Obama’s eloquence. I can’t remember very many presidents who were as articulate, but George is a good and decent human being-and in today’s world, that is more important than eloquence.

Presidents always catch the blame even if they were not responsible for the situation. Of course, they often exacerbate the problem by decisions they make in regard to it.

People around the world took potshots at Harry Truman for doing what he had to do to end the war. Every president is in the same boat.

Clinton will never live down “I did not have sex with that woman.” H.W. Bush will always be remembered for “Watch my lips. No knew taxes.” Dan Quayle (though not a president, fortunately) will always suffer the embarrassment of being unable to spell potato. And who will every forget Lloyd Bentsen’s cutting reply to Quayle, “You’re no Jack Kennedy.”?

So, our forty-third president is not a gifted speaker. I’ll always believe he did his best just as I believe our current president is following ‘the wings of his dream.”

By the way, Nostradamus’ 1555 prediction, “In the millennium, the village idiot will become leader in the home of greatest power,” was not referring to poor old George, though many swear it was.

Actually, old Nostradamus was referring to Harry Reid.

A Misspeak is a Misspeak is a Lie

A Misspeak is a Misspeak is a Lie

I don’t have to tell you, ladies and gentleman, that things are getting crazier and crazier up in Washington—at least as I see it. The vote on Health Care and the subsequent bill sent to the President who signed it seems to have just ignited even more of a firestorm.

I didn’t oppose it when it began over a year back, but as I learned more about it, I perceived its fallacies. Then I began to oppose it. Now, despite what some firebrands might think, there were no politics on my part. I did what ninety percent of you, nor apparently our Congressmen, did not do. I read the whole disgusting House and Senate Bill all the way through. It blows my mind at the staggering number
of folks who blindly accept whatever they are told.

Contrary to what you may think (and I’ve been so accused), I do not regurgitate the philosophies of the Right Wing commentators so prominent on the airways today.
Many of them profess the conservative values my parents gave me. I treasure those values. And there are hundreds of thousands of folks out there who were taught as I. The explications of Glenn Beck, Hannity, Limbaugh, and O’Reilly embrace those values.

Beck, I listen to maybe five minutes a week, and then only when I switch stations. Limbaugh, who is full of himself, ten or fifteen minutes on Tuesdays when driving out to the weekly luncheon with a bunch of old codgers like me who believe we can change the world.

I listen to Hannity, who dwells on too many half truths, when I have my grandsons and we’re heading for McDonalds. And then they’re shouting what they want to eat. Now if any of you holier-than-thou Liberal Saints think I retain anything from his words during that trip, you’re nuttier than the administration we have up there now, and you ought to run for a Democrat office.

Where do I get most of my information? Golly, gee, this is going to be a revelation, but I do what every American should do. I read and research a cross-section of media to see what is going on, C-Span, CNN, Fox, ‘The Nation’, ‘Harper’s’, newspapers, etc—an eclectic selection.

Then I listen to the words of Congressional leaders explaining portions of a bill only to discover when I read the bill, their explanation contradicts the bill.

A lie? Or perhaps a ‘misspeak’, one of those currently coined words used to coat the truth. If it were a lie, a ‘deliberate misspeak’, then shame on them. If it were an honest ‘misspeak’, then shame on them for not knowing the bill before they interpret it for the average Joe Sixpack.

We can call it what we want, but you know a lie—sorry, a ‘misspeak’. And here is one of the many ‘misspeaks’ in the Health Bill jammed down our throats. Obama led parents to believe kids with pre-existing conditions could not be turned down. But, gee whiz, seems like there’s a itty bitty catch. It just so happens that isn’t true.
Don’t believe me? Would you believe Karen Lightfoot, spokeswoman for the House Energy and Commerce Committee, one of the main congressional panels that wrote the bill? She says ‘Under the new law, insurance companies still would be able to refuse new coverage to children because of pre-existing medical problems.” Google it yourself.

Now, I don’t know about you hard-core Democrats, but to this little old country boy with no political affiliation, that’s as black a ‘misspeak’ as I’ve ever heard.
If you can explain it, help me out.

Disagreement is the source of America’s greatness as far as I’m concerned. We can disagree about anything we want. That’s our right.

To accuse, without proof, those with whom you disagree of repeating information from prejudicial sources is nothing short of political ignorance. Of course, Ignorance is great at throwing strikes of unsubstantiated accusations.

I’ve had many disagree with me in the past. Some, eventually, have seen what I meant; others have not. And that’s fine.

I’ve always believed ignorance seeks its own level, like stagnant water. But then, those who see things differently than I think the same about me.

Get Our Priorities Straight

How About Getting Our Priorities Straight

Prior to this administration, I’ve have always prided myself for supporting my president. I’ve having a hard time now. And I don’t like the feeling.

How can I support someone who is diametrically opposed to what my Dad taught me about fiscal responsibility? He taught me that I pay my bills as I go; that I quickly pay off anything I charge; that I buy only what I need to survive; that just because everyone has it is not sufficient reason to go into debt; that I save for retirement so I won’t be a burden on others; that I help those less fortunate; and that I mind my own business.

If any of us handled our personal finances the way Obama is handling the U.S.’s, we’d be bankrupt, evicted, and facing a life without Dr. Phil or Oprah on TV.
Obama’s devastating lack of executive experiences is painfully obvious. Like the majority of the media, “Newsweek” has always been an Obama supporter. Now, they have also drawn the line at Obama’s failed conciliatory efforts to establish a relationship with many of the so-called ‘rogue’ nations.

The ‘I’m your pal, so let’s be friends’ doesn’t work.

According to ‘Newsweek’, ‘from Burma to North Korea, Venezuela to Iran, the outstretched hand has been met with the clenched fist. Aung San Suu Kyi remains under house arrest in Rangoon, Pyongyang is testing missiles, Caracas rails against gringo imperialism, and Tehran has dismissed a year-end deadline to do a deal on its nuclear program. Engagement has failed and Obama is now poised to deliver on threats of tougher sanctions, as surely he must.’

In fact, Iran now brags that it is a nuclear nation, so my question, as I honestly believe every American’s question should be, will he go for tougher sanctions?

I don’t think so. Boy, I hope I’m wrong, but when I look at the guy, I wonder if he has a backbone; I wonder just what his priorities are. Is he looking after the economy and security of our country?

It doesn’t look that way.

Now, before you call me all sorts of names, then explain to me, like I’m a third grader, so said the guy in movie, why he is wasting his time addressing the BCS selection process when our problems in Irag, Iran, China, Afganistan, North Korea, and Pakistan are much more pressing that football.

What’s that? You don’t know what the BCS is?

For shame. That’s the august body that decides who plays in the major bowl games in football.

Foolish me. I guess I’m making too much of the fact Iran is only an eventual nuclear threat--like North Korea. But hey, football garners more votes than the dingy ‘Dear Leader’ of North Korea.

The BCS decision stunned me. When the world about us is filled with nuclear threats, terrorist crackpots, and tragic disasters, the Obama administration, according to the Justice Department, is considering several steps that would review the legality of the controversial Bowl Championship Series.

Now you tell me, what do you want from a president, someone to build the economy and keep the country safe, or someone who’s got nothing better on his mind than worry about college football or do color commentary at a basketball game? What’s next, Texas football realignment?

Another stunt of his was trying the 9/11 guy in New York. Now he wants to move the trial, but on top of that, Robert Gibbs, Obama’s press secretary said, “Khalid Sheikh—will be brought to justice and he’s likely to be executed for the heinous crimes that he committed in masterminding in killing three thousand Americans.”

Obama granted the terrorist the legal rights of an American. With all this attendant publicity, the terrorist’s lawyer is going to scream to high heaven his client can’t get a fair trial because of the president’s press secretary’s remarks.

Don’t be surprised if our judicial system doesn’t save the killer. Nothing under the present administration would surprise me.

Those of your supporting him, how about coming up with an explanation that will make all of us sleep better.

Thanks.

lbj, met ben nelson

LBJ, Meet Ben Nelson

Those of us long in the tooth remember Lyndon Johnson, the Texan who succeeded John Kennedy. Well, LBJ would be right at home in the wheeling and dealing in Washington these days. So much money has been spent, we can’t comprehend it.

The stimulus bill is a done deal. Almost a trillion dollars. You know how much that is? If you started the day Jesus was born and spent a million bucks a day, you still would not have spent a trillion dollars.

Now while the world is constantly changing, it seems about the only thing that remains the same is politics and politicians, ninety-nine percent of which give the other one percent a bad name.
Politicians are still cutting deals behind closed doors, buying off each other, and doling out copious amounts of largesse at the taxpayers’ expense.

And this largesse has never been more obvious than in the Senate’s Health bill.
You’re all aware of Nebraskagate, and if you aren’t, then you’re probably a typical voter.

But anyway, Demo Senator Ben Nelson sold out his vote if the government would pay Nebraska’s Medicaid of $100 million over ten years; Blue Cross Blue Shield and Mutual of Omaha of that state would be exempt from annual fees on insurers; and a physician-owed hospital would get referrals from doctors who own it.

Who pays for all that? The other forty-nine states.

Those who see nothing wrong with this, I’d appreciate it if you’d send me your name and I’ll let you pay my share.

The guy who wrote the senate bill, Max Baucus believes insurance commissioners are taking kickbacks, yet he included no reform for these companies’ regulation. In fact, he put an entire town in his state on Medicare whether citizens were qualified or not. That was his payoff.

In addition, the Los Angeles Times reported that 166 aides from the nine congressional leadership offices and five committees involved in shaping healthcare overhaul legislation, along with 13 former lawmakers, are registered to represent at least 338 healthcare clients.

And don’t go getting all that excited about pre-existing health conditions being covered. Do you actually believe you could call up an insurance company and say “hey, my house just burned. I need insurance,” and they would greet you with open arms?

According to People’s Daily, those ‘pre-existing’ clients will go into a high risk pools with sky high insurance rates.

Neither the House nor Senate bill cover everyone as the liberals first proclaimed, but both bills plan on cutting hundreds of billions of dollars in future payment to doctors, hospitals, and other health providers who care for Medicare patients according to The Associated Press.

Cutting pay results in one obvious fact, lower quality medical care.

However slick and devious LBJ might have been, he could take lessons from those sleazy excuses for humans who are jamming this through for their own benefit.

According to the People Daily, Aetna Health Insurance sent Senator Joe Lieberman over $100,000.00 to go to bat for their company when creating the health bill. And he went to bat for them. He killed the public option, which took away a lower government price, forcing people to buy from Aetna and other insurance companies. That might not be so scary, but he gave all the insurance companies anti-trust exemptions.

To boil it all down, and I wish we could boil it away, the Senate bill contains 47 amendments that will benefit the health care industry, and higher taxes for taxpayers with poorer medical care.

I read a horror book about a gypsy putting curses on people. One curse was turning their skin to that of a reptile, one quite deserving for those like Lieberman and Nelson, Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, and the other fifty-seven so-called ‘public servants’ in the Senate who sold out the American people for what they could gain.

Shortcut to Nowhere

Shortcut to Nowhere

My Dad was one of those who knew better than anyone else. Even when facts confronted him, he found a way around them. He was probably the source of that ubiquitous joke about men drivers never asking directions.

I never saw him look at a map or stop at a gas station to ask for help. All Dad knew was where he was starting and where he was going. He’d point the grill of the car in the direction of our destination and take off.

In our frequent trips from Fort Worth to the Panhandle, we had to go through Wichita Falls. On each of the first dozen trips, he tried a different route to circumvent downtown.

Now, I’ll admit we saw sights we would never had seen otherwise. Once I think we might have seen the Grand Canyon, but that’s pretty far fetched. Still-- Anyway we never saved any time with his shortcuts. He would never listen to suggestions, exclaiming instead, “I know what in the (expletives here-big time expletives) I’m doing.” And with that retort, the argument was settled.

Of course, he’d really get mad when he took a shortcut and then got back on the highway only to discover cars that he had passed ten miles back were ahead of him. My brother and I always muffled our snickers.

The reason I’m waxing nostalgic here is that if you look around this world of ours, there are a lot of folks out there who, I believe, are trying to take us where they think we should go, and without any better reasons that my Dad had in believing he knew the best shortcut.

Look how politicians tried to make us believe global warming was man-made- and now, look at how they’re crawfishing ever since personal e-mails have revealed scientists conspired to manipulate data to support what they surmised instead of the truth.

Certainly, you can’t argue with icebergs and glaciers melting. That is happening; there is global warming; but man is not the main cause. We might not be helping, but this earth will do what it wants.

No one denies ice once covered most of North America, then began retreating. All that is merely happening is that the ice is still retreating (duh), and if there were no humans on this planet, the ice would still be retreating.

There is talk about too much carbon dioxide, yet the proponents cannot tell us how much is too
much. All they can tell us is that it is higher than it has ever been. In other words, they don’t know what will happen, just like Dad didn’t know the way around Wichita Falls.

And the same is going on with this health care mess. Proponents jammed it through without knowing exactly what the effects will be. Their argument was ‘get it done, then figure it out.’ We need some reform. I won’t argue that, but let’s go about it sensibly.

All Dad should have done was look at a map and figure out a shortcut, not blunder ahead as he did so often, wasting time, gas, and patience.

The government needs to slow down, figure out exactly where we’re going, determine what it will cost, and then act, not the way the Senate pulled it off the other day.

I keep hearing politicians talk about how historical this health bill will be. Well, Jockos, jam that bill all the way through to the president’s desk, and I’ve got a feeling history will not treat you as saviors, but instead vilify the 111th Congress as the most dimwitted (pardon the redundancy), uncaring, and selfish congress in the history of our country.

A woman by the name of Joan Gorner observed that governments historically used crises to increase their power. In this last year we’ve had an Economic crisis, Health-care crisis, H1N1 crisis, and Global climate crisis.

This administration has told us unless we let the government step in and tell us what to do, we will drown, die, lose our homes, our savings, our hair, and happy hour at the local bar.

The lady makes sense.

Obviously, she knows this congress better than most, don’t you think?

All Gargle and No Guts

All Gargle and No Guts

I had planned to watch the president’s speech on Afghanistan last week, but we went out to eat at Pine Tree Lodge where I not only enjoyed a tasty meal of grilled catfish but rolled pool balls on the table with my three- and five-year-old grandsons.

Truth is, I had a better time with them than I would have listening to the speech.
I watched bits and pieces of it later on various networks. One thing you’ve got to give the president, he is one dandy speaker.

You ever notice how he always poses after making a statement? Presidential type poses. He has mastered the technique of tilting his chin and staring into space as if he is seeing into the future. Another pose is turning his head sharply and glaring over the heads of the audience.

I wonder how long he had to practice all the poses so they would become part of his demeanor, or does the teleprompter suggest the gestures.

Can you imagine such a prompt on the teleprompter? The screen might look like this.

“Time is critical. We must act now!”
-STARE AT CEILING-TILT JAW-LOOK DREAMY

Don’t misunderstand. I’m not trying to be critical of his delivery. That delivery is what got him elected in the first place. It is smooth and slick and engaging. Of course con men are smooth and slick and engaging. All I’m saying is that no one is born with such a well-developed gift in place. They have to work to develop it, and obviously, he has.

There have been many gifted orators, perhaps the most notable being Martin Luther King, Jr. There was Kennedy, Franklin Roosevelt, and yes, Adolf Hitler as well as many, many more.
The gift of oratory is like the Sirens’ Song, leading an audience to whatever goal the speaker has in mind, imbuing the listeners with rosy visions the future has for them. Unfortunately, his oratory will have the same effect as the Sirens’, a shipwreck.

King’s oratory had goals, specific goals.

Obama’s speech did not. Not really. Of course, I’m probably wrong, but here is what I came up with after winnowing the chaff from the seed. He’ll send in more troops, but will start pulling them out in eighteen months. And now, true to form, he’s even waffling on that. At least Bush took a stand.

Now you tell me, what sort of message did he send?

Republicans put one spin on it, Democrats another. We Independents just sit here and scratch our heads, recognizing another example of his lack of substance. Other countries just laughed.

It was the same sort of speech you would use to mediate problems between warring Chicago neighborhoods whose leaders have trouble spelling ‘duh’.

Hate him or not, you can’t say Bush waffled on the fight against terrorism—and I’m sorry, but the word ‘extremists’ is not specific enough to describe those fanatics our young men and women are battling; that we are battling. We’re battling terrorists, not just extremists!

This president made over five hundred promises during his campaign. He’s kept fifty-eight, broken seven, compromised on fifteen, had eighteen stalled, working on one sixty-eight, and has not addressed two hundred fifty-seven.

And he’s twenty-five percent of the way through his term.

I hope your promise isn’t in that two fifty-seven.

In all fairness, he’s done a few good things such as rebuilding schools in New Orleans because of Katrina.

But even that makes you wonder. Why didn’t he do the same for the rest of the coast devastated by Katrina? If you’ll remember, New Orleans was on the west side of the eye. The bad stuff hit thirty miles east, in Mississippi. The problems in New Orleans arose because of the levees, which were the responsibility of local, state, and federal agencies.

But he did help the Big Easy and ignored the rest of the coast. Again, I ask why, but then, foolish me, I didn’t consider the demographics.

when is a book not a book

When is a Book not a Book

Sarah Palin has a book out on politics. So what? Obama wrote a book also. Again, so what? Politicians, actors (sorry about the redundancy), journalists, commentators, and dozens of others write books. And again, so what?

If you buy one looking for an epiphany of some sort, all you’ll discover is the same old garbage rehashed from that individual’s point of view.

I haven’t read any of them, but I’ll wager you half the facts in each are questionable with some being outright lies. Sorry, I mean ‘fabrications’. Our present administration is big on political correctness. We don’t have a ‘war on terror’ any longer. No, it’s something like ‘overseas contingency’ or some such nonsense.

Skewing the truth, which appears to be a prerequisite for political office at the state and federal level, is a means to confuse and mislead citizens, a ploy that has proven quite successful.

I did watch Palin on TV the other night. I don’t know if I would vote for her or not, but one thing that caught my attention was the remark that in the proposed health bill, people will have to buy policies that "will cost a minimum of about $15,000 per family per year." That’s when I sat up and took notice.

Doing some research on her comment, of which I admit I was very skeptical, I ran across the following details on PolitiFact, an impartial project of the ‘St. Petersburg Times’.

The article cast a fairly understanding light on that fifteen thousand dollar remark. You might want to pay attention, especially, if you buy your own insurance.

Currently, the bill more or less won’t tinker with those who get insurance through work, VA, Medicare, or Medicaid. (nobody can say what it will do tomorrow)

The poor souls it lambasts are those who buy it on their own or who are uninsured. Folks of modest means will get a credit to help buy it, and the poorest will be put on Medicaid.

The $15,000 is not something Palin created as a political ploy. The figure came from the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office, which found that when all the reforms are enacted by 2016, a basic family policy will cost $15,000.

What about the tax credits? Well, right now, it is on a sliding scale up to 400 percent of the federal poverty level, which means for a family of four making under $88,200 or a single under $43,320, there will be some relief. How much? Beats me. That’s another one of those ‘reforms’ left up to a panel of bureaucrats, so guess what?

She was wrong when she made the comment that Reagan inherited a recession much worse than this one. Lou Jacobson of the ‘St. Petersburg News’ talked with economists and compared statistics of the current recession with the one from the early 1980s. The consensus was that this recession is worse.

Why? Well, from what he wrote, economists (not bureaucrats) believe short and long-term employment will continue to rise; industrial production will continue to fall; more banks will fail; and more foreclosures will take place.

On the other hand, she was right when she stated that Obama admitted that “under my plan of a cap-and-trade system, electricity rates would necessarily skyrocket."

In fairness to him, he went on to say, "Coal-powered plants, you know, natural gas, you name it, whatever the plants were, whatever the industry was, they would have to retrofit their operations. That will cost money. They will pass that money on to consumers."

All I can say is that joker is mighty anxious to spend my money.
If you’ve been paying any attention, you’ve seen the press Palin is getting about her book.

Perhaps it’s my imagination, but it seems to me the last time I witnessed such a groundswell of adoration was prior to the 2008 election when the majority of Americans swept up in Obamamania.

Remember the old saying, ‘fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.”

Let’s don’t let emotion cause us to make another big mistake like the one we have now. Let’s start asking hard questions and demanding straight answers for all of the politicians. We can’t afford more of the same.