A Day In The Life

Ignorant Voters

2012-01-10T22:11:00.002-05:00

People blame our government for the shape the country is in, but the government isn’t at fault. It’s the voters who are to blame. People are as ignorant as the day is long when it comes to voting and what their priorities for government are. How do you think Bush got elected to a second term? It was all up to Ohio in the second election and what did the Ohio voters do? They voted for Bush because he was against abortion and same sex marriages. Meanwhile innocent lives were being taken and billions of dollars were being spent on a war that we didn’t need to be in and big corporations were getting tax breaks.
While abortion and same sex marriage may be important to voters, it’s not the biggest problem facing our country right now, nor was it the most important problem facing our country when Bush ran for a second term. We were in a war with Iraq, a country that was not a threat to us, nor did they have weapons of mass destruction like Bush’s government said they did. They lied to us and it cost us billions of dollars that ultimately led us spiraling down the road that led to the shape that we’re in today. Politicians lie, it’s in their DNA. The sooner you the voter realize that the better off we will all be.
But the only thing the voters were concerned about was abortion and same sex marriage. First of all I am not pro nor con when it comes to abortion and same sex marriage, I really don’t care either way. But I do care about the economy and what our elected officials are doing with our lives and our money. We need to set our priorities straight. Being against abortion and same sex marriage is not going to get us out of the problems we’re facing today. Americans need jobs, we need job security; we need big corporations and Wall Street to quit looking after themselves and start looking after the people.
I realize that corporations are considered people now thanks to a pathetic law passed by our Judicial System. Exactly how corporations are people is beyond me. I wonder how much money they paid the judges to vote that way. I wonder how much money our elected officials got from big corporations to vote the way they do. The members of Congress can tell us how to live yet they can’t tell the big oil companies how much to charge for gas. I saw recently that gas prices may reach $5.00 a gallon before the end of the year. Most Americans can’t afford $5.00 a gallon for gas, I can’t. And what does Congress have to say about it? “We can’t do anything about that.” They can’t do anything about it or don’t want to do anything about it, that is the question. And the reason is big oil companies give billions of dollars to Congressmen. They can tell you how to live your life when they don’t live by the same rules they pass for us to live by. They can tell us which healthcare we need, yet they don’t have the same health care that we do. They have a great healthcare system, it pays 100%. They get their full salaries until they die, yet everyday Americans are being laid off without any compensation at all. And all we’re concerned about is a gay couple getting married and a woman having an abortion?
Mitt Romney is probably going to be our next President, unless everyone thinks Obama is doing a great job – which he’s not. Romney is a corporate man. If he gets elected we’re just going to keep spiraling down that road to destruction. If Newt Geingrich is elected, it will be the same thing; if Rick Sanatorium gets elected it will be the same thing. In fact, Santorium is playing the abortion card now because he knows that’s what the voters want.
Ron Paul wants to quit sending billions of dollars to foreign countries. He wants to get out of the foreign countries and let them take care of their own problems. Maybe we should vote for Ron Paul, but that will never happen. That’s change that Americans aren’t ready for – Ignorance, that’s all it is.
We’re sending billions of dollars to Columbia to control drug traffic, yet drugs are a bigger problem today than ever before. We don’t even know where all that money is going. We have no idea whose hands it’s getting into, but we keep sending it to them.
Marijuana has been proven time and time again to be great medicine and it helps cancer patient’s deal with their pain, it cures stress, most of which is brought on by our government, and it’s far less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes, both of which are legal, but marijuana is illegal and always will be because the voters want it to be – ignorance, that’s all it is. Why will marijuana never be legal? Congress has too much to lose from the drug companies who put billions of dollars into their campaigns to keep it illegal. Meanwhile the voters are too strung out on Prozac and Valium to care.
Our prison system is over crowded with people who were caught smoking a weed that grows out of the ground. I read recently where police broke down a man’s door and went into his house and arrested him for sitting on his couch smoking marijuana while watching TV, hurting no one. Now he’s in prison with rapists and murderers and gang members, all because of one joint. There is something terribly wrong with this picture.
We’re sending billions of dollars to countries that don’t even like us and vote against us every time in the United Nations, yet we just sit back and let it happen. As long as abortion is illegal and gay couples can’t get married it’s okay. That is beyond pathetic, it’s detestable.
How do you think Barack Obama got elected when he knew nothing about how our government runs? He’d only been in Congress for one term and before that he was nothing but a community organizer. He wasn’t a community leader, he was a community organizer. Anybody can be a community organizer. He’s arrogant and he’s ignorant when it comes to policy, yet he was elected. Why, because black people voted for him just because he’s black. They thought that by electing a black president things would get better for them, but it didn’t happen, did it?
Mexicans have it better than Americans; they’re getting social security and didn’t even pay anything into it. No wonder our social security system is broke. I’m not against them coming to America for a better life, but I am against them taking jobs away from hard working Americans and living a life they haven’t earned. If they’re going to get social security, let them put something into it first. And if they’re going to live here, make them learn our language – English.
The unemployment rate is higher than ever in this country for both black and white people, so apparently electing Obama didn’t help the black people at all. But I’m sure they will vote for him again just because he’s the same color. They can’t see the big picture.
We need to set our priorities straight. We need to quit sending billions of dollars to other countries and start spending more on America. We’re building schools in other countries and at the same time we’re laying off teachers in America and cutting back on education. Education is the key. So why does our government keep cutting education, it’s simple - because they want to keep the voters ignorant. They don’t want smart voters; they want ignorant voters, the only kind that will vote for their two-faced sorry asses.
We can’t save the whole world, that’s obvious, so we need to quit trying. But we can be more concerned with who we vote for so things will change in this country.
Quit voting for the candidate that looks the best or the one who is the same color, or the one the TV tells you to vote for and vote for the one who is going to change the way our government is run. Do your own research; don’t leave it up to someone else. I know why you don’t do it. It’s because you’re too busy running you own life to worry about the politicians. And our government is why you don’t have the time. Politicians have made it that way on purpose. It’s a catch 22 and it in their favor and they love it.
We can bring about change. It can be done, we just have to quit being so ignorant when it comes to voting. If voters want change they can get it. All they have to do is vote for the right person. We need to vote for the one who will do what they say they will do. And if they don’t do it, vote them out. It’s that simple. Get on all the social networks, find like minded people and join together and let’s change the way our government is run.
If you can’t see that Barack Obama knows nothing about running the country and Mitt Romney is nothing more than just another corporate guy who’s going to do everything he can to get corporations everything they want, then you need to have your eyes checked.
People are ignorant when it comes to voting and our government wants to keep it that way because that’s the only way they’re going to get elected. Fortunately ignorance can be fixed and that’s the purpose of this article, to help you look beyond your ignorance and vote the right way.
Our country can get back on its feet but it’s going to be up to the voters, not the government to do it. Obviously our government can’t fix it; all they can do is make it worse.
America can’t take much more of this crap. Something has to change and it has to change pretty quickly. And that change needs to be this – quit being so ignorant when you vote.

BofA Said to Split Regulators Over Moving Merrill Derivatives to Bank Unit

2011-12-07T15:56:00.000-05:00

Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms.
Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms. Photographer: Scott Eells/Bloomberg
Bank of America Corp. (BAC), hit by a credit downgrade last month, has moved derivatives from its Merrill Lynch unit to a subsidiary flush with insured deposits, according to people with direct knowledge of the situation.
The Federal Reserve and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp. disagree over the transfers, which are being requested by counterparties, said the people, who asked to remain anonymous because they weren’t authorized to speak publicly. The Fed has signaled that it favors moving the derivatives to give relief to the bank holding company, while the FDIC, which would have to pay off depositors in the event of a bank failure, is objecting, said the people. The bank doesn’t believe regulatory approval is needed, said people with knowledge of its position.
Three years after taxpayers rescued some of the biggest U.S. lenders, regulators are grappling with how to protect FDIC-insured bank accounts from risks generated by investment-banking operations. Bank of America, which got a $45 billion bailout during the financial crisis, had $1.04 trillion in deposits as of midyear, ranking it second among U.S. firms.
“The concern is that there is always an enormous temptation to dump the losers on the insured institution,” said William Black, professor of economics and law at the University of Missouri-Kansas City and a former bank regulator. “We should have fairly tight restrictions on that.”
Accommodating Clients
Jerry Dubrowski, a spokesman for Charlotte, North Carolina-based Bank of America, declined to comment on the transfers or the firm’s discussions with regulators. The company “continues to accommodate the needs of our clients through each of our multiple trading entities, including Bank of America NA,” he said in an e-mailed statement, referring to the company’s deposit-taking unit.
Barbara Hagenbaugh, a Fed spokeswoman, said she couldn’t discuss supervision of specific institutions. Greg Hernandez, an FDIC spokesman, declined to comment.
Bank of America posted a $6.2 billion third-quarter profit today, compared with a loss of $7.3 billion a year earlier, ascredit quality improved and the firm booked one-time accounting gains. The lender rose 7.3 percent to $6.47 at 1:54 p.m. in New York trading, making it the day’s best performer in the Dow Jones Industrial Average. Credit-default swaps on Bank of America eased 10 basis points to a mid-price of 380 as of 11:49 a.m. in New York, according to broker Phoenix Partners Group.
Moody’s Investors Service downgraded Bank of America’s long-term credit ratings Sept. 21, cutting both the holding company and the retail bank two notches apiece. The holding company fell to Baa1, the third-lowest investment-grade rank, from A2, while the retail bank declined to A2 from Aa3.
Moody’s Downgrade
The Moody’s downgrade spurred some of Merrill’s partners to ask that contracts be moved to the retail unit, which has a higher credit rating, according to people familiar with the transactions. Transferring derivatives also can help the parent company minimize the collateral it must post on contracts and the potential costs to terminate trades after Moody’s decision, said a person familiar with the matter.
Bank of America estimated in an August regulatory filing that a two-level downgrade by all ratings companies would have required that it post $3.3 billion in additional collateral and termination payments, based on over-the-counter derivatives and other trading agreements as of June 30. The figure doesn’t include possible collateral payments due to “variable interest entities,” which the firm is evaluating, it said in the filing.
Dubrowski declined to comment on collateral or termination payments after the downgrade.
‘Be Prepared’
Bank of America’s rating is now four grades below the one Moody’s assigned to JPMorgan Chase & Co. (JPM), the biggest U.S. bankby deposits at midyear, and a level below the rating given toCitigroup Inc. (C), the third-biggest. Bank of America is the only U.S. lender that lacks a rating of A3 or higher among the five firms listed by the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency as having the biggest derivatives books.
“We had worked very hard over the course of the last nine months to be prepared to the extent that we did receive a downgrade, and feel very good about the way that we’ve minimized the potential impact” Bank of America Chief Financial OfficerBruce Thompson said in a conference call today with analysts.“Since the downgrade, we have not seen any change in our global excess liquidity sources.”
Derivatives are financial instruments used to hedge risks or for speculation. They’re derived from stocks, bonds, loans, currencies and commodities, or linked to specific events such as changes in the weather or interest rates.
Dodd-Frank Rules
Keeping such deals separate from FDIC-insured savings has been a cornerstone of U.S. regulation for decades, including last year’s Dodd-Frank overhaul of Wall Street regulation.
The legislation gave the FDIC, which liquidates failing banks, expanded powers to dismantle large financial institutions in danger of failing. The agency can borrow from the Treasury Department to finance the biggest lenders’ operations to stem bank runs. It’s required to recoup taxpayer money used during the resolution process through fees on the largest firms.
Bank of America benefited from two injections of U.S. bailout funds during the financial crisis. The first, in 2008, included $15 billion for the bank and $10 billion for Merrill, which the bank had agreed to buy. The second round of $20 billion came in January 2009 after Merrill’s losses in its final quarter as an independent firm surpassed $15 billion, raising doubts about the bank’s stability if the takeover proceeded. The U.S. also offered to guarantee $118 billion of assets held by the combined company, mostly at Merrill. The company repaid federal bailout funds in 2009 with interest.
‘The Normal Course’
Bank of America’s holding company -- the parent of both the retail bank and the Merrill Lynch securities unit -- held almost $75 trillion of derivatives at the end of June, according todata compiled by the OCC. About $53 trillion, or 71 percent, were within Bank of America NA, according to the data, which represent the notional values of the trades.
That compares with JPMorgan’s deposit-taking entity, JPMorgan Chase Bank NA, which contained 99 percent of the New York-based firm’s $79 trillion of notional derivatives, the OCC data show.
The moves by Bank of America are part of “the normal course of dealings that we’ve had with counterparties since Merrill Lynch and BofA came together,” Thompson said today.
‘Created a Firewall’
Moving derivatives contracts between units of a bank holding company is limited under Section 23A of the Federal Reserve Act, which is designed to prevent a lender’s affiliates from benefiting from its federal subsidy and to protect the bank from excessive risk originating at the non-bank affiliate, saidSaule T. Omarova, a law professor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill School of Law.
“Congress doesn’t want a bank’s FDIC insurance and access to the Fed discount window to somehow benefit an affiliate, so they created a firewall,” Omarova said. The discount window has been open to banks as the lender of last resort since 1914.
As a general rule, as long as transactions involve high-quality assets and don’t exceed certain quantitative limitations, they should be allowed under the Federal ReserveAct, Omarova said.
In 2009, the Fed granted Section 23A exemptions to the banking arms of Ally Financial Inc., HSBC Holdings Plc, Fifth Third Bancorp, ING Groep NV, General Electric Co., Northern Trust Corp., CIT Group Inc., Morgan Stanley and Goldman Sachs Group Inc., among others, according to letters posted on the Fed’s website.
The central bank terminated exemptions last year for retail-banking units of JPMorgan, Citigroup, Barclays Plc, Royal Bank of Scotland Plc and Deutsche Bank AG. The Fed also ended an exemption for Bank of America in March 2010 and in September of that year approved a new one.
Section 23A “is among the most important tools that U.S. bank regulators have to protect the safety and soundness of U.S. banks,” Scott Alvarez, the Fed’s general counsel, told Congress in March 2008.
To contact the reporters on this story: Bob Ivry in New York at bivry@bloomberg.net; Hugh Son in New York at hson1@bloomberg.net; Christine Harper in New York at charper@bloomberg.net.
To contact the editors responsible for this story: Gary Putka at gputka@bloomberg.net;David Scheer at dscheer@bloomberg.net.

Walmart

2011-10-28T16:03:00.002-04:00

Walmart

1 . Americans spend
$36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2.. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St.
Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +
Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest
private Employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the
World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway
combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 supermarket chains sought
bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the
world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which
1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had
5 Years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences
will occur At a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is
approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a
Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying
the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the
guys who run Wal-Mart to Fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans

Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the
Legislature,

It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

* The U.S. Post Service was established in
1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is
broke.
* Social Security was established in 1935.
You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
* Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You
have had 71 years to get it right and it is broke.
* War on Poverty started in 1964. You have
had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is
confiscated each year and transferred to "the
poor" and they only want more.
* Medicare and Medicaid were established
in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are
broke.
* Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You
have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
* The Department of Energy was created in
1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has
ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a
year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32
years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you
have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax
dollars

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A
GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH CARE SYSTEM??

I don’t think so.

Obama and the Burden of Exceptionalism

2011-09-05T16:54:00.000-04:00

Post-'60s liberals, with the president as their standard bearer, seek to make a virtue of decline.

By SHELBY STEELE

If I've heard it once, I've heard it a hundred times: President Obama is destroying the country. Some say this destructiveness is intended; most say it is inadvertent, an outgrowth of inexperience, ideological wrong-headedness and an oddly undefined character. Indeed, on the matter of Mr. Obama's character, today's left now sounds like the right of three years ago. They have begun to see through the man and are surprised at how little is there.

Yet there is something more than inexperience or lack of character that defines this presidency: Mr. Obama came of age in a bubble of post-'60s liberalism that conditioned him to be an adversary of American exceptionalism. In this liberalism America's exceptional status in the world follows from a bargain with the devil—an indulgence in militarism, racism, sexism, corporate greed, and environmental disregard as the means to a broad economic, military, and even cultural supremacy in the world. And therefore America's greatness is as much the fruit of evil as of a devotion to freedom.

Mr. Obama did not explicitly run on an anti-exceptionalism platform. Yet once he was elected it became clear that his idea of how and where to apply presidential power was shaped precisely by this brand of liberalism. There was his devotion to big government, his passion for redistribution, and his scolding and scapegoating of Wall Street—as if his mandate was somehow to overcome, or at least subdue, American capitalism itself.

Anti-exceptionalism has clearly shaped his "leading from behind" profile abroad—an offer of self-effacement to offset the presumed American evil of swaggering cowboyism. Once in office his "hope and change" campaign slogan came to look like the "hope" of overcoming American exceptionalism and "change" away from it.

So, in Mr. Obama, America gained a president with ambivalence, if not some antipathy, toward the singular greatness of the nation he had been elected to lead.

But then again, the American people did elect him. Clearly Americans were looking for a new kind of exceptionalism in him (a black president would show America to have achieved near perfect social mobility). But were they also looking for—in Mr. Obama—an assault on America's bedrock exceptionalism of military, economic and cultural pre-eminence?

American exceptionalism is, among other things, the result of a difficult rigor: the use of individual initiative as the engine of development within a society that strives to ensure individual freedom through the rule of law. Over time a society like this will become great. This is how—despite all our flagrant shortcomings and self-betrayals—America evolved into an exceptional nation.

Yet today America is fighting in a number of Muslim countries, and that number is as likely to rise as to fall. Our exceptionalism saddles us with overwhelming burdens. The entire world comes to our door when there is real trouble, and every day we spill blood and treasure in foreign lands—even as anti-Americanism plays around the world like a hit record.

At home the values that made us exceptional have been smeared with derision. Individual initiative and individual responsibility—the very engines of our exceptionalism—now carry a stigma of hypocrisy. For centuries America made sure that no amount of initiative would lift minorities and women. So in liberal quarters today—where historical shames are made to define the present—these values are seen as little more than the cynical remnants of a bygone era. Talk of "merit" or "a competition of excellence" in the admissions office of any Ivy League university today, and then stand by for the howls of incredulous laughter.

Our national exceptionalism both burdens and defames us, yet it remains our fate. We make others anxious, envious, resentful, admiring and sometimes hate-driven. There's a reason al Qaeda operatives targeted the U.S. on 9/11 and not, say, Buenos Aires. They wanted to enrich their act of evil with the gravitas of American exceptionalism. They wanted to steal our thunder.

So we Americans cannot help but feel some ambivalence toward our singularity in the world—with its draining entanglements abroad, the selfless demands it makes on both our military and our taxpayers, and all the false charges of imperial hubris it incurs. Therefore it is not surprising that America developed a liberalism—a political left—that took issue with our exceptionalism. It is a left that has no more fervent mission than to recast our greatness as the product of racism, imperialism and unbridled capitalism.

But this leaves the left mired in an absurdity: It seeks to trade the burdens of greatness for the relief of mediocrity. When greatness fades, when a nation contracts to a middling place in the world, then the world in fact no longer knocks on its door. (Think of England or France after empire.) To civilize America, to redeem the nation from its supposed avarice and hubris, the American left effectively makes a virtue of decline—as if we can redeem America only by making her indistinguishable from lesser nations.

Since the '60s we have enfeebled our public education system even as our wealth has expanded. Moral and cultural relativism now obscure individual responsibility. We are uninspired in the wars we fight, calculating our withdrawal even before we begin—and then we fight with a self-conscious, almost bureaucratic minimalism that makes the wars interminable.

America seems to be facing a pivotal moment: Do we move ahead by advancing or by receding—by reaffirming the values that made us exceptional or by letting go of those values, so that a creeping mediocrity begins to spare us the burdens of greatness?

As a president, Barack Obama has been a force for mediocrity. He has banked more on the hopeless interventions of government than on the exceptionalism of the people. His greatest weakness as a president is a limp confidence in his countrymen. He is afraid to ask difficult things of them.

Like me, he is black, and it was the government that in part saved us from the ignorances of the people. So the concept of the exceptionalism—the genius for freedom—of the American people may still be a stretch for him. But in fact he was elected to make that stretch. It should be held against him that he has failed to do so.

Mr. Steele is a senior fellow at Stanford University's Hoover Institution. Among his books is "White Guilt" (Harper/Collins, 2007).

Nero in the White House

2011-09-05T12:01:00.001-04:00

Mychael Masse wrote the following

© 2011

Three significant historical events have been eclipsed by Obama: 1) Jimmy Carter will no longer be looked upon as the worst president in American history; 2) Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton will no longer be recognized as the greatest liars in presidential history; 3) Clinton's stain on Monica's dress, and what that did to White House in general and the office of the president specifically, will forever pale in comparison to the stain and stench of Obama.

I need not spend much time on the failure of Obama as president. His tenure has been a failure on every measurable level. So much so, in fact, that some of the staunchest, most respected liberal Democrats and Democratic supporters have not only openly criticized him – some even more harshly than this essayist – but they have called for him to step down.

Richard Nixon's words "I am not a crook," punctuated with his involvement in Watergate, and Bill Clinton's finger-wagging as he told one of the most pathetic lies in presidential history, in the aftermath of Obama, will be viewed as mere prevarications.

Mr. Nixon and Clinton lied to save their backsides. Although, I would argue there are no plausible explanations for doing what they did, I could entertain arguments pursuant to understanding their rationales for lying. But in the case of Obama, he lies because he is a liar. He doesn't only lie to cover his misdeeds – he lies to get his way. He lies to belittle others and to make himself look presentable at their expense. He lies about his faith, his associations, his mother, his father and his wife. He lies and bullies to keep his background secret. His lying is congenital and compounded by socio-psychological factors of his life.

Never in my life, inside or outside of politics, have I witnessed such dishonesty in a political leader. He is the most mendacious political figure I have ever witnessed. Even by the low standards of his presidential predecessors, his narcissistic, contumacious arrogance is unequalled. Using Obama as the bar, Nero would have to be elevated to sainthood.

As the stock markets were crashing, taking with them the remaining life saving of untold tens of thousands, Obama was hosting his own birthday celebration, which was an event of epicurean splendidness. The shamelessness of the event was that it was not a state dinner to welcome foreign dignitaries, nor was it to honor an American accomplishment – it was to honor the Pharaoh, Barack Hussein Obama. The event's sole purpose was for the Pharaoh to have his loyal subjects swill wine, indulge in gluttony and behavior unfit to take place on the property of taxpayers, as they suffer. It was of a magnitude comparable to that of Tyco CEO Dennis Kozlowski's $2 million birthday extravaganza for its pure lack of respect for the people.

Permit me to digress momentarily. The U.S. Capitol and the White House were built with the intent of bringing awe and respect to America and her people. They were also built with the intent of being the greatest of equalizers. I can tell you, having personally been to both, there is a moment of awe and humility associated with being in the presence of the history of those buildings. They are to be honored and inscribed into our national psyche, not treated as a Saturday night house party at Chicago's Cabrini-Green.

The people of America own that home Obama and his wife continue to debase with their pan-ghetto behavior. It is clear that Obama and family view themselves as royalty, but they're not. They are employees of "we the people," who are suffering because of his failed policies. What message does this behavior send to those who today are suffering as never before?

What message does it send to all Americans who are struggling? Has anyone stopped to think what the stock market downturn forebodes for those 80 million baby boomers who will be retiring in the next period of years? Is there a snowball's chance in the Sahara that every news program on the air would applaud this behavior if it were George W. Bush? To that point, do you remember the media thrashing Bush took for having a barbecue at the White House?

Like Nero – who was only slightly less debaucherous than Caligula – with wine on his lips Obama treated "we the people" the way Caligula treated those over whom he lorded.

Many in America wanted to be proud when the first person of color was elected president, but instead, they have been witness to a congenital liar, a woman who has been ashamed of America her entire life, failed policies, intimidation and a commonality hitherto not witnessed in political leaders. He and his wife view their life at our expense as an entitlement – while America's people go homeless, hungry and unemployed.

ObamaCare

2011-08-12T14:00:00.001-04:00

The constitution is only 16-pages long and it’s done pretty well for over two hundred years. Why then does the healthcare bill or Obama Care, have to be over 10-thousand pages, because of legal crap, that’s why. And why don’t the politicians who put the health care into law sign themselves up for it, because they’re full of crap. If the health care system is so good, why did Obama exclude his family from it? Why did all the politicians exclude themselves from it? They’re only politicians, they’re not God. If it’s good enough for us it should be good enough for them, don’t you think? If they want us to believe in them and have faith in them, then they should subscribe to the same laws that they pass for us.
Did you know that congress has excluded themselves from being sued for rape? That’s interesting, don’t you think, since they’re screwing all of us everyday.
And it’s not just national law; local law is just as bad. In Ga. sodomy is illegal. Why? They already have their heads up their ass.

The President is Helping Bankrupt the Country

2011-07-25T22:39:00.001-04:00

This is interesting.

This is from Mark Knoller of CBS.

The pilots and crew of Air Force One are flying more hours than a rookie on a beer run. They are tired of it too, and are adding more crew to Air Force-1, - I know this for a fact because I'm one of the instructors that trains the crews Our company (Atlas Air) has had the Air Force-1 and E-4 contract for over two years and I've been doing it for about 8 months now.

Last year (2010) Obama flew in Air Force One 172 times, almost every other day.

White House officials have been telling reporters in recent days that the Democrat doesn't intend to hang around the White House quite so much in 2011. They explain he wants to get out more around the country because, as everyone knows, that midterm election shellacking on Nov. 2 had nothing to do with his health care bill, over-spending or other policies, and everything to do with Obama's not adequately explaining himself to his countrymen and women.

And with only 673 days remaining in Obama's never ending presidential campaign, the incumbent's travel pace will not likely slacken.

At an Air Force-estimated cost of $181,757 per flight HOUR (not to mention the additional travel costs of Marine One, Secret Service, logistics and local police overtime), that's a lot of frequent flier dollars going into Obama's carbon footprint.

We are privy to some of these numbers thanks to CBS' Mark Knoller, a bearded national treasure trove of presidential stats. According to Knoller's copious notes, during the last year, Obama made 65 domestic trips over 104 days, and six trips to eight countries over 22 days. Not counting six vacation trips over 32 days.

He took 196 helicopter trips, signed 203 pieces of legislation and squeezed in 29 rounds of left-handed golf.

Obama last year gave 491 speeches, remarks or statements. That's more talking than goes on in some entire families, at least from fatherly mouths.

In fact, even including the 24 days of 2010 that we never saw Obama in public, his speaking works out to about one official utterance every 11 waking hours. Aides indicate the "Real Good Talker" believes we need more.

Related: Obama spends nearly half his presidency outside Washington , plans to travel more

Related: Vacationer-in-Chief Spends $1.75 Million to Visit Hawaiian Chums

Obama has spent over $100 million taxpayer dollars flying around in Air Force One, and probably another $100 million on his entourage. Obama is just another tin-pot dictator living lavishly at the expense of his subjects.

And we seniors have to "tighten our belts" because we aren't getting a COLA again this year... and none last year!

THANKS TO ALL WHO HELPED PUT THIS GREEDY WINDBAG IN OFFICE!! BE MORE CAREFUL NEXT TIME!!

HB 1388 PASSED

2011-07-25T22:36:00.001-04:00

You just spent $20,000,000 to move members/supporters of Hamas, a terrorist organization, to the United States ; housing, food, transportation, the whole enchilada.
HB 1388 PASSED
Whether you are an Obama fan, or not, EVERYONE IN THE U.S. Needs to know....
H.R. 1388 was passed, behind our backs. You may want to read about it...
It wasn't mentioned on the news... Just went by on the ticker tape at the bot tom of the CNN screen.
Obama funds $20M in tax payer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA . This is the news that did not, and will not, make the headlines.
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza .
The "presidential determination" (ain't that nice?) which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States , was signed and appears in the Federal Register.
Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing, transportation and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.
Now we learn that he is allowing thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in, the US at American taxpayer expense.
These important, and insightful, issues are being "lost" in the blinding bail-outs and "stimulation" packages.
Doubtful? To verify this for yourself: www.thefederalregister.com/d.p/2009-02-04-E9-2488
YOU MUST PASS THIS ON... AMERICA NEEDS TO KNOW...
Friends, WE are losing this country at a rapid pace.

Budget Cuts

2011-07-25T22:25:00.002-04:00

These are all the programs that the new Republican House has proposed cutting. Read to the end.
• Corporation for Public Broadcasting Subsidy. $445 million annual savings.
• Save America 's Treasures Program. $25 million annual savings.
• International Fund for Ireland . $17 million annual savings.
• Legal Services Corporation. $420 million annual savings.
• National Endowment for the Arts. $167.5 million annual savings.
• National Endowment for the Humanities. $167.5 million annual savings.
• Hope VI Program. $250 million annual savings.
• Amtrak Subsidies. $1.565 billion annual savings.
• Eliminate duplicative education programs. H.R. 2274 (in last Congress), authored by Rep. McKeon, eliminates 68 at a savings of $1.3 billion annually.
• U.S.. Trade Development Agency. $55 million annual savings.
• Woodrow Wilson Center Subsidy. $20 million annual savings.
• Cut in half funding for congressional printing and binding. $47 million annual savings.
• John C. Stennis Center Subsidy. $430,000 annual savings.
• Community Development Fund. $4.5 billion annual savings.
• Heritage Area Grants and Statutory Aid. $24 million annual savings.
• Cut Federal Travel Budget in Half. $7.5 billion annual savings
• Trim Federal Vehicle Budget by 20%. $600 million annual savings.
• Essential Air Service. $150 million annual savings.
• Technology Innovation Program. $70 million annual savings.
• Manufacturing Extension Partnership (MEP) Program. $125 million annual savings.
• Department of Energy Grants to States for Weatherization. $530 million annual savings.
• Beach Replenishment. $95 million annual savings.
• New Starts Transit. $2 billion annual savings.
• Exchange Programs for Alaska , Natives Native Hawaiians, and Their Historical Trading Partners in Massachusetts . $9 million annual savings
• Intercity and High Speed Rail Grants. $2.5 billion annual savings.
• Title X Family Planning. $318 million annual savings.
• Appalachian Regional Commission. $76 million annual savings..
• Economic Development Administration. $293 million annual savings.
• Programs under the National and Community Services Act. $1.15 billion annual savings.
• Applied Research at Department of Energy. $1.27 billion annual savings.
• FreedomCAR and Fuel Partnership. $200 million annual savings.
• Energy Star Program. $52 million annual savings.
• Economic Assistance to Egypt . $250 million annually.
• U.S. Agency for International Development.. $1.39 billion annual savings.
• General Assistance to District of Columbia . $210 million annual savings.
• Subsidy for Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority. $150 million annual savings.
• Presidential Campaign Fund. $775 million savings over ten years.
• No funding for federal office space acquisition. $864 million annual savings.
• End prohibitions on competitive sourcing of government services.
• Repeal the Davis-Bacon Act. More than $1 billion annually.
• IRS Direct Deposit: Require the IRS to deposit fees for some services it offers (such as processing payment plans for taxpayers) to the Treasury, instead of allowing it to remain as part of its budget. $1.8 billion savings over ten years.
• Require collection of unpaid taxes by federal employees. $1 billion total savings.WHAT!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
• Prohibit taxpayer funded union activities by federal employees. $1.2 billion savings over ten years.
• Sell excess federal properties the government does not make use of. $15 billion total savings.
• Eliminate death gratuity for Members of Congress.
• Eliminate Mohair Subsidies. $1 million annual savings.
• Eliminate taxpayer subsidies to the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. $12.5 million annual savings
• Eliminate Market Access Program. $200 million annual savings.
• USDA Sugar Program. $14 million annual savings.
• Subsidy to Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD). $93 million annual savings.
• Eliminate the National Organic Certification Cost-Share Program. $56.2 million annual savings.
• Eliminate fund for Obamacare administrative costs. $900 million savings.
• Ready to Learn TV Program. $27 million savings..
• HUD Ph.D. Program.
• Deficit Reduction Check-Off Act.
• TOTAL SAVINGS: $2.5 Trillion over Ten Years
My question is, what THE HELL is all this doing in the budget in the first place?

Obama & Politics

2011-07-01T02:01:00.002-04:00

Obama & Politics
I’m going to play the devil’s advocate here and bring up something no one else seems to have noticed. Isn’t it amazing how Obama’s birth certificate showed up at a time when he was about to run for re-election? And he couldn’t get it before because of legalities. Why weren’t we told that long before now? Hawaii is part of the United States. The FBI could have gotten the document if they wanted to, but they had to be told not to
We’re supposed to have the smartest minds in the world running out country and they couldn’t let us know this before now? My nine year old boy can tell you if you’re not born in the United States you can’t be president. The state of Hawaii could have made special arrangements for Obama’s birth certificate to be put on display. It’s the least they could do since he is after all the president of the United States.
Is Obama so arrogant that he was holding out for this moment, just before he announces that bin Laden is dead? That’s a guarantee that he will get re-elected. The Republicans can’t pull a rabbit out of the hat that’s big enough to top that one.
And, let’s not forget, the Bush family was friends with the bin Laden family. It wouldn’t surprise me if they knew where he was all along. It was a hell of a gesture on Obama’s part and I hate to see four more years of a rising debt and unemployment, but it seems that’s where we’re headed. American’s aren’t even thinking debt right now. They’re just too damn proud. Let them spend all they want, we’re number one, we’re number one. Fly that American flag on your front porch.
Personally I’m glad to see the S.O.B. dead and yes, today is a great day to be an American. All our chests are out just a little bit farther, even Dolly Parton’s. I heard Obama’s speech on the radio while America the Beautiful played in the background. The speech had been edited and spliced together in a way to make it sound better than the ‘I have a Dream’ speech. What it was is politics as usual.
And if alcada wants to attack us, just remember, we have a bullet waiting with your name on it. Go ahead, make our day. You’re not playing with amateurs here. These are American Navy Seals, the best there is.
And here is a message to you Obama, job well done. And since you’ll be in the white house four more years, you better do something about the rising debt and you better find jobs for America. We can’t pay for everything.

Yes We Can Enforce

2011-07-01T01:59:00.001-04:00

Yes, We Can Enforce
BY RICH LOWRY
What the Supreme Court’s E-Verify decision symbolizes.
After it passed a robust immigration-enforcement measure last year, Arizona was practically expelled from the union.
The great and good denounced the state for its Gestapo tactics. The Obama administration sued it. The professionally outraged announced boycotts. Arizona stood condemned before the world, a byword for hatred and defiance of federal law.
And yet the Supreme Court last week implicitly ratified Arizona’s leadership role on immigration enforcement. It’s everyone else who is out of line, not Arizona.
The Supreme Court upheld the state’s requirement that businesses use the federal E-Verify system — a database accessible through the Internet — to confirm the legal status of employees. This is different from last year’s law saying that police should, when practicable, check the immigration status of suspected illegal immigrants, but the echoes are clear enough. The same critics (the business community and civil-rights groups) used the same tactics (loud condemnations and lawsuits) over the same essential issue (whether the state had gone beyond federal law).
Arizona passed the E-Verify law in 2007, and the Chamber of Commerce fought it all the way to the Supreme Court. The organization’s courtroom tenacity shows just how dangerous it is to get between the Chamber and its illegal employees. The dirty little secret of the Chamber is not, as the Democrats shamelessly alleged in the 2010 elections, Chinese money; it’s Mexican workers.
The Chamber maintained that Arizona had gone too far in requiring E-Verify because Congress had only made the program voluntary. But Congress didn’t forbid states from mandating the program. The Arizona law is careful to stay within the bounds set out by Congress. The punishment in Arizona for knowingly hiring illegal workers is the loss of a business license. Federal law says that states may “through licensing and similar laws” sanction businesses employing illegal immigrants.
Congress has been adept through the years at passing laws and programs notionally targeting illegal immigration, but with no intention of acting on them. It’s enforcement by pretense. Arizona’s offense is to take the federal law at face value and act on it. So if Congress creates a widely ignored voluntary system to verify the status of employees, Arizona will actually use it as a tool of enforcement.
According to an Institute for the Study of Labor report, Arizona accounts for one-third of all employers nationwide enrolled in E-Verify. Roughly 700,000 of Arizona’s new hires between October 2008 and September 2009 were checked with E-Verify, about half of all the state’s new hires.
This increased attention to the legal status of employees has had the effect any reasonable person would expect — it has made it harder for illegal immigrants to get jobs and therefore made Arizona less hospitable terrain. The Institute for the Study of Labor finds a statistically significant reduction in the state’s population of Hispanic noncitizens, a category overlapping heavily with illegal immigrants. The result holds even when accounting for the recession. The study looked at Arizona’s population of Hispanic naturalized citizens — who are obviously not targeted by the law — and found no such decline.
The Supreme Court decision will encourage other states to follow Arizona’s lead. Already, South Carolina, Utah, and Mississippi have passed similar laws. As more and more states make E-Verify mandatory, it will make more sense for Congress to require the system nationwide.
There are shopworn objections to any kind of immigration enforcement. We are told that the simple expedient of building a fence on our southern border is a gross un-American symbol of exclusion. Is it also un-American to ask that employers do a few clicks of due diligence to ensure that they are abiding by the nation’s laws? We are told we can’t deport 11 million people. Is it impossible, too, to make it a little harder to come here and find a job?
Slowly, we are beginning to move from a culture of permissiveness to a culture of enforcement on illegal immigration. For that, we can all say, “Thank you, Arizona.”
— Rich Lowry is the editor of National Review. He can be reached via e-mail at comments.lowry@nationalreview.com. © 2011 by King Features Syndicate

Will Obama Get Elected Again?

2011-07-01T01:57:00.000-04:00

DR. WALTER E WILLIAMS predicts that Obama cannot lose the 2012 election.
In addition to the voting blocks he mentions, there is another huge group: the nearly one-half of all adults who do not pay any taxes and, in fact, most of them receive money from the government. these people do not want to "shake the boat" to do anything to stop the flow of taxpayer money to themselves.
Dr. Williams' prediction: Maybe you have read some newspaper articles written by Dr. Walter E Williams, a conservative economist who happens to be Black. He has taught at several Universities and is currently teaching at George Mason University. No Matter What By Dr. Walter Williams

Can President Obama be defeated in 2012? No. He can't. I am going on record as saying tha President Barack Obama will win a second term. The media won't tell you this because a good election campaign means hundreds of millions (or in Obama's case billions) of dollars to them in advertising.
But the truth is, there simply are no conditions under which Barack Obama can be defeated in 2012.
The quality of the Republican candidate doesn't matter. Obama gets reelected. Nine percent unemployment? No problem. Obama will win. Gas prices moving toward five dollars a gallon? He still wins. The economy soars or goes into the gutter. Obama wins. War in the Middle East? He wins a second term.
America's role as the leading Superpower disappears? Hurrah for Barack Obama! The U.S. government rushes toward bankruptcy, the dollar continues to sink on world markets and the price of daily goods and services soars due to inflation fueled by Obama's extraordinary deficit spending? Obama wins handily.
You are crazy Williams. Don't you understand how volatile politics can be when overall economic, government, and world conditions are declining? Sure I do.
And that's why I know Obama will win. The American people are notoriously ignorant of economics. And economics is the key to why Obama should be defeated.
Even when Obama's policies lead the nation to final ruin, the majority of the American people are going to believe the bait-and-switch tactics Obama and his supporters in the media will use to explain why it isn't his fault. After all, things were much worse than understood when he took office.
Obama's reelection is really a very, very simple math problem. Consider the following:

1) Blacks will vote for Obama blindly. Period. Doesn't matter what he does. It's a race thing. He's one of us,

2) College educated women will vote for Obama. Though they will be offended by this, they swoon at his oratory. It's really not more complex than that,

3) Liberals will vote for Obama. He is their great hope,

4) Democrats will vote for Obama. He is the leader of their party and his coat tails will carry them to victory nationwide,

5) Hispanics will vote for Obama. He is the path to citizenship for those who are illegal and Hispanic leaders recognize the political clout they carry in the Democratic Party,

6) Union members will vote overwhelmingly for Obama. He is their key to money and power in business, state and local politics,

7) Big Business will support Obama. They already have. He has almost $1 Billion dollars in his reelection purse gained largely from his connections with Big Business and is gaining more everyday. Big Business loves Obama because he gives them access to taxpayer money so long as they support his social and political agenda,

8) The media loves him. They may attack the people who work for him, but they love him. After all, to not love him would be racist,

9) Most other minorities and special interest groups will vote for him. Oddly, the overwhelming majority of Jews and Muslims will support him because they won't vote Republican. American Indians will support him. Obviously homosexuals tend to vote Democratic. And lastly,

10) Approximately half of independents will vote for Obama. And he doesn't need anywhere near that number because he has all of the groups previously mentioned. The President will win an overwhelming victory in 2012.

Dr. Walter Williams

What a difference 100 years make

2011-07-01T01:55:00.002-04:00

The year is 1911 --- One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!
Here are some statistics for the Year 1911:
************ ********* ************
The average life expectancy for men was 47 years.
Fuel for this car was sold in drug stores only.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.
There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.
The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower !
The average US wage in 1910 was 22 cents per hour.
The average US worker made between $200 and $400 per year ..
A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year,
A dentist $2,500 per year,
a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year,
and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.
More than 95 percent of all births took place at home .
Ninety percent of all Doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
were condemned in the press AND the government as "substandard."
Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.
Most women only washed their hair once a month,
and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.
Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
entering into their country for any reason.
The Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke
The American flag had 45 stars...
The population of Las Vegas , Nevada , was only 30!!!
Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and iced tea hadn't been invented yet.

There was neither a Mother's Day nor a Father's Day.
Two out of every 10 adults couldn't read or write and only 6 percent
of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter
at the local corner drugstores.

Back then pharmacists said, "Heroin clears the complexion,
gives buoyancy to the mind, Regulates the stomach and bowels,
and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health!"
( Shocking? )

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help ....
There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A. !

EGYPT WOKE UP WHY HAVEN'T WE!

2011-05-31T17:07:00.000-04:00

EGYPT WOKE UP WHY HAVEN'T WE!
Friends, would you believe that Lee Iacocca is 82 years old and is still kickin butt? Check out his latest rant.

Just as true today as it was when his book first came out.

He was, and still is, a brilliant businessman!

Often we need to be reminded of Iacocca's words.

Remember Lee Iacocca, the man who rescued Chrysler Corporation from its death throes? He's now 82 years old and has a new book, 'Where Have All The Leaders Gone?'.

Lee Iacocca Says:
'Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening? Where the hell is our outrage with this so called president? We should be screaming bloody murder! We've got a gang of tax cheating clueless leftists trying to steer our ship of state right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even run a ridiculous cash-for-clunkers program without losing $26 billion of the taxpayers' money, much less build a hybrid car. But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when the politicians say, 'trust me, the economy is getting better..' Better? You've got to be kidding. This is America , not the damned 'Titanic'. I'll give you a sound bite: 'Throw all the Democrats out, along with Obama!'

You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore..

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs.. While we're fiddling in Afghanistan , Iran is completing their nuclear bombs and missiles and nobody seems to know what to do. And the liberal press is waving 'pom-poms' instead of asking hard questions. That's not the promise of the ' America ' my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I'm ready and willing to have. The Biggest 'C' is Crisis! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, with crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born. Leadership is forged in times of crisis. It's easy to sit there with thumb up your ass and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself. It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down.

On September 11, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes. A hell of a mess, so here's where we stand.

We're immersed in a bloody war now with no plan for winning and no plan for leaving.. But our soldiers are dying daily.

We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the world, and it's getting worse every day!

We've lost the manufacturing edge to Asia , while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs.

Gas prices are going to skyrock again, and nobody in power has a lucid plan to open drilling to solve the problem. This country has the largest oil reserves in the WORLD, and we cannot drill for it because the politicians have been bought by the flea-hugging environmentalists.

Our schools are in a complete disaster because of the teachers' union.

Our borders are like sieves and they want to give all illegal's amnesty and free healthcare.

The middle class is being squeezed to death every day.

These are times that cry out for leadership.

But when you look around, you've got to ask: 'Where have all the leaders gone?' Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, omnipotence, and common sense? I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point..

Name me a leader who has a better idea for homeland security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away our shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened.

Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping the government will make it better for them. Now, that's just crazy.. Deal with life.

Name me an industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when 'The Big Three' referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen, and more important, look what Obama did about it!

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debt, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the Chicago gangsters in Congress. We didn't elect you to turn this country into a losing European Socialist state. What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on NBC or CNN news will call them a name? Give me a break. Why don't you guys show some spine for a change?

Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire. I'm speaking out because I have hope - I believe in America .. In my lifetime, I've had the privilege of living through some of America 's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of our worst crises: The 'Great Depression,' 'World War II,' the 'Korean War,' the 'Kennedy Assassination,' the 'Vietnam War,' the 1970's oil crisis, and the struggles of recent years since 9/11.

entitlement My Ass

2011-05-31T17:04:00.000-04:00

Entitlement my ass, I paid cash for my social security insurance!!!! Just because they borrowed the money, doesn't make my benefits some kind of charity or handout!! Congressional benefits, a.k.a. free healthcare, outrageous retirement packages, 67 paid holidays, three weeks paid vacation, unlimited paid sick days, now that's welfare, and they have the nerve to call my retirement entitlements !!!!!!.....scroll down...............
What the HELL's wrong???

WAKE UP AMERICA!!!!

Tuesday's Daily Bulletin paper, ran two articles on the front page side by side :

1- California's 20 Billion Dollar Budget Deficit

2- The California Supreme Court ruling that ILLEGALS can attend college and get benefits.

Why don't they just deport them when they arrive to register?

3- Last year they ran an article on the yearly costs to California Taxpayers from Illegals using Hospital Emergency Rooms for their general health care -

At just one hospital the cost to tax payers totaled over 25 million a year.

Someone please tell me what the HELL's wrong with all the people that run this country!!!!!!

We're "broke" & can't help our own Seniors, Veterans, Orphans, Homeless etc.,???????????

In the last months we have provided aid to Haiti, Chile, and Turkey. And now Pakistan... home of bin Laden. Literally, BILLIONS of DOLLARS!!!

Our retired seniors living on a 'fixed income' receive no aid nor do they get any breaks while our government and religious organizations pour Hundreds of Billions of $$$$$$'s and Tons of Food to Foreign Countries!

They call Social Security and Medicare an entitlement even though most of us have been paying for it all our working lives and now when it’s time for us to collect, the government is running out of money. Why did the government borrow from it in the first place?

We have hundreds of adoptable children who are shoved aside to make room for the adoption of foreign orphans.

AMERICA: a country where we have homeless without shelter, children going to bed hungry, elderly going without 'needed' meds, and mentally ill without treatment, etc., etc.

YET....................
They have a 'Benefit' for the people of Haiti on 12 TV stations, ships and planes lining up with food, water, tents clothes, bedding, doctors and medical supplies.

Imagine if the *GOVERNMENT* gave 'US' the same support they give to other countries.

Sad isn't it?

99% of people won't have the guts to forward this.
I'm one of the 1% -- I Just Did

“Disobedience to Tyranny, Is Obedience to God”
"Government is not the solution to our problems,Government is the problem" Ronald Regan
"When the people fear the government we have tyranny. When the government fears the people we have liberty."
Thomas Jefferson.

Change is Comin'

2011-05-31T17:03:00.000-04:00

Yes, he told us in advance what he planned to do. Few were listening.
The following is a narrative taken from a 2008 Sunday morning televised "Meet The Press'.

From Sunday's 07 Sept. 2008 11:48:04 EST, Televised "Meet the Press" THE THEN Senator Obama was asked about his stance on the American Flag.

General Bill Ginn' USAF (ret.) asked Obama to explain WHY he doesn't follow protocol when the National Anthem is played.

The General stated to Obama that according to the United States Code, Title 36, Chapter 10, Sec. 171...

During rendition of the national anthem, when the flag is displayed, all present (except those in uniform) are expected to stand at attention facing the flag with the right hand over the heart. Or, at the very least, "Stand and Face It".

NOW GET THIS !!
'Senator'Obama replied:

"As I've said about the flag pin, I don't want to be perceived as taking sides". "There are a lot of people in the world to whom the American flag is a symbol of oppression.." "The anthem itself conveys a war-like message. You know, the bombs bursting in air and all that sort of thing."

(ARE YOU READY FOR THIS???)
Obama continued: "The National Anthem should be 'swapped' for something less parochial and less bellicose. I like the song 'I'd Like To Teach the World To Sing'. If that were our anthem, then, I might salute it. In my opinion, we should consider reinventing our National Anthem as well as 'redesign' our Flag to better offer our enemies hope and love. It's my intention, if elected, to disarm America to the level of acceptance to our Middle East Brethren. If we, as a Nation of waring people, conduct ourselves like the nations of Islam, where peace prevails - - - perhaps a state or period of mutual accord could exist between our governments ...."
When I become President, I will seek a pact of agreement to end hostilities between those who have been at war or in a state of enmity, and a freedom from disquieting oppressive thoughts. We as a Nation, have placed upon the nations of Islam, an unfair injustice which is WHY my wife disrespects the Flag and she and I have attended several flag burning ceremonies in the past".
"Of course now, I have found myself about to become the President of the United States and I have put my hatred aside. I will use my power to bring CHANGE to this Nation, and offer the people a new path..My wife and I look forward to becoming our Country's First black Family. Indeed, CHANGE is about to overwhelm the United States of America "
WHAAAAAAAT, the Hell is that???
Yes, you read it right.
I, for one, am speechless!!!
Dale Lindsborg , Washington Post

Where Are Jobs Going Now? Peru, Bulgaria, Bangladesh. . .

2011-05-07T19:41:00.002-04:00

By DANNY KING

Take heart, America. Yours isn't the only country to lose jobs to developing nations.

Australia, Canada and Israel, among others, have dropped off the list of best places for information-technology and business-processing services, according to a report that research firm Gartner released Monday.

As more developing countries have created workforces that can handle those tasks at lower cost, Ireland, New Zealand, Singapore and Spain are also no longer on Gartner's list of the 30 best countries for outsourcing, which considers both costs and skill sets.

Meanwhile, Bangladesh, Bulgaria, Colombia, Peru and Mauritius have all joined the list for the first time, while Panama, Sri Lanka and Turkey reappeared after an absence during previous years. Those nations join South American countries, such as Argentina, Brazil, Chile and Colombia, as well as the Asian powerhouses of China and India.

Competition for Outsourcing Grows

The changes reflect the growing trend of cost-cutting via outsourcing, which started with U.S. companies and spread to other parts of the world.

Countries such as Mexico, Chile and Costa Rica have created government programs that boost education and upgrade the domestic labor pool. China and Malaysia, among others, have improved their infrastructure to make them attractive to tech companies. And Brazil's relatively stable government status keeps the country attractive to many different types of companies.

"In this increasingly dynamic global environment, multinational providers will continue to extend their footprint in different geographies, carrying with them their expertise and maturity, while local providers will strive to become offshore providers, searching for opportunities and niches they can explore," Ian Marriott, research vice president at Gartner, said in a statement. "Even though some countries are rated poorly for some categories, clients may find individual providers -- global and local -- whose capabilities mitigate some of the risks."

Where Are the Jobs Going?

Increased outsourcing has hindered the U.S.'s economic recovery and may pose similar problems to other countries that have been bumped off the list.

In November, the U.S. unemployment rate rose to 9.8% from 9.6% in October, with the U.S. private sector adding just 50,000 jobs -- about a third of what analysts had forecast. Additionally, the underemployment rate, which includes both the unemployed and those working part time who are seeking full-time jobs, remained flat at a staggering 17%, while the number of people out of work for at least six months increased to 6.3 million.

The threat of a similar "jobless recovery" means more could be at stake for countries, such as Canada and Israel that have fallen off the list.

"In the past four decades, American-born workers have faced greater and greater competition from robots, far-away foreigners, recent immigrants and microprocessors," wrote Edward Leamer, director of UCLA'S Anderson Forecast, in a presentation earlier this month. "Technology and international trade have fundamentally altered the demand for skills and have changed the business cycle dynamics."

The Constitution

2011-04-02T01:33:00.000-04:00

Constitution of the United States, document embodying the fundamental principles upon which the American republic is conducted. Drawn up at the Constitutional Convention in Philadelphia in 1787, the Constitution was signed on Sept. 17, 1787, and ratified by the required number of states (nine) by June 21, 1788. It superseded the original charter of the United States in force since 1781 (see Confederation, Articles of) and established the system of federal government that began to function in 1789. The Constitution is concise, and its very brevity and its general statement of principles have, by accident more than by design, made possible the extension of meaning that has fostered growth. There are seven articles and a preamble; 27 amendments have been adopted (see the table entitled Text of the Constitution of the United States).
The wording of the Constitution is general, necessitating interpretation, and any short summary is only rough and approximate. From its very beginnings, the Constitution has been subject to stormy controversies, not only in interpretation of some of its phrases, but also between the loose constructionists and strict constructionists. The middle of the 19th cent. saw a tremendous struggle concerning the nature of the Union and the extent of states' rights. The Civil War decided the case in favor of the advocates of strong union, and since that time the general tendency has been toward the centralization and strengthening of federal power.
The Preamble
The Preamble does not confer power, but its first words, We the People of the United States, describe the source of the powers conferred by the rest of the Constitution and have been used by the advocates of a strong union arguing against the proponents of states' rights. The Preamble also states the purpose of the document. One of the statements of purpose, to … promote the general welfare, has been of great importance in the 20th cent. in upholding social legislation, for which no warrant could be found in the enumerated powers of Congress.
The Articles
The first three articles set up the threefold separation of powers, said to have been modeled on Montesquieu's study, which on this point was incorrect, of the British government. In actuality this separation has been weakened by the granting of greater powers to the President and his administrative agencies, which now have legislative and judicial as well as executive functions.
1: Congress
Article 1 provides for the establishment of the bicameral Congress composed of the Senate and the House of Representatives. The various powers of the Congress and the respective houses, together with their methods of election, are enumerated in the article. The Seventeenth Amendment, passed in 1916, instituted the direct popular election of Senators and removed the power of their election from the state legislatures as had originally been provided in Article 1.
Section 4 of Article 1 gives the states power over the conduct of federal elections but permits the Congress to alter such regulations at any time. In 1842 the Congress imposed the district system on the United States. In 1962 the Supreme Court dealt with proper apportionment of election districts and in its decision in Baker v. Carr allowed voters to go into a federal court to force equitable representation in a state legislature. This decision was, however, based on the equal protection clause of the Fourteenth Amendment. Later, the court ruled (1964) that state legislative apportionment must reflect the one-person one-vote principle.
As a legislative body Congress has certain inherent powers. Among these are the power to investigate pursuant to legislative needs. Congressional investigations have led to a great many court decisions concerning the right of a witness before a Congressional committee to refuse to testify even when granted immunity from prosecution.
Section 8 of Article 1 lists the enumerated powers of the Congress. The clause of this section, the commerce clause, which grants the Congress the right to regulate commerce with foreign nations, and among the several States, has, in the 20th cent., been used as a strong argument for the expansion of government power. Since the historic case of Gibbons v. Ogden (1824), the commerce clause has been the battleground over which much of the struggle for and against increased federal regulation of private enterprise has been fought. Until the late 1930s Congress exercised its powers under the clause solely with reference to transportation. But after a series of dramatic reversals by the Supreme Court, Congress began to enter areas that had previously been controlled only by the states. The commerce clause is now the source of important peacetime powers of the national government and an important basis for the judicial review of state actions.
Besides its enumerated and inherent powers, the Congress has implied powers under Article 1 to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the enumerated or expressed powers. Sections 9 and 10 of Article 1 contain guarantees of the writ of habeas corpus, prohibit bills of attainder and ex post facto laws, and also improve certain limitations on state power.
2: The Executive Branch
Article 2 creates the executive branch of government headed by the President, elected, along with the Vice President, for a term of four years (see president; electoral college). The Twenty-second Amendment (1951) provides that no person may be elected President more than twice. The Twenty-third Amendment (1961) permits District of Columbia residents to vote in presidential elections. Since the adoption of the Constitution there have been two conflicting views of Article 2. The first is that the powers of the President are limited to those enumerated in the article. The opposite view is that the President is given executive power not limited by the provisions of the rest of the article. Every President has had to make the choice of interpretations for himself.
3: The Judiciary
Article 3 provides for a judiciary and defines treason. Besides its enumerated powers, the judiciary has the inherent authority to interpret laws and the Constitution with an authority that must be deferred to. Article 3 also guarantees trial by jury in criminal cases and lays the basis for federal jurisdiction. The Eleventh Amendment (1798), which prohibits suits against any state by citizens of another state or foreigners (see sovereignty), was passed in reaction to the Supreme Court's accepting jurisdiction of a suit against a state by a citizen of another state.
4: The States
Article 4 deals with the relations of the states (see conflict of laws), providing that Full faith and credit shall be given in each State to the public acts, records, and judicial proceedings of every other State. Section 2 prohibits any state from discriminating against citizens of other states, or in favor of its own. It also provides for the extradition of criminals. The article guarantees a republican form of government to every state and provides for the admission of new states as well as the government of territories.
5: Amending the Constitution
Article 5 provides for amending the Constitution. The supremacy of the federal Constitution and of federal law over those of the states is the heart of the federal system and is established by Article 6. Article 6 also provides for an oath of office for members of the three branches of the federal government and the states and specifically forbids any religious qualification for office. Article 7 declares that the Constitution should go into force when ratified by nine states.
The Amendments
The Constitution has undergone gradual alteration with the growth of the country. Some of the 26 amendments were brought on by Supreme Court decisions. However, the first 10 amendments, which constitute the Bill of Rights, were added within two years of the signing of the federal Constitution in order to ensure sufficient guarantees of individual liberties. The Bill of Rights applied only to the federal government. But since the passage of the Fourteenth Amendment (1868), many of the guarantees contained in the Bill of Rights have been extended to the states through the due process clause of the Fourteenth Amendment.
The Bill of Rights
The First Amendment guarantees the freedom of worship, of speech, of the press, of assembly, and of petition to the government for redress of grievances. This amendment has been the center of controversy in recent years in the areas of free speech and religion. The Supreme Court has held that freedom of speech does not include the right to refuse to testify before a Congressional investigating committee and that most organized prayer in the public schools violates the First Amendment.
The right to keep and bear arms—adopted with reference to state militias but interpreted (2008) by the Supreme Court as essentially an individual right—is guaranteed by the Second Amendment, while freedom from quartering soldiers in a house without the owner's consent is guaranteed by the Third Amendment. The Fourth Amendment protects people against unreasonable search and seizure, a safeguard only more recently extended to the states.
The Fifth Amendment provides that no person shall be held for a capital or otherwise infamous crime without indictment, be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb for the same offense, be compelled to testify against himself, or be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law. The privilege against self-incrimination has been the center of a great deal of controversy as a result of the growth of Congressional investigations. The phrase due process of law, which appears in the Fifth Amendment, is also included in the Fourteenth Amendment. As a result there has been much debate as to whether both amendments guarantee the same rights. Those in favor of what is termed fixed due process claim that all the safeguards applied against the federal government should be also applied against the states through the Fourteenth Amendment. The supporters of the concept of flexible due process are only willing to impose those guarantees on the states that are implicit in the concept of ordered liberty.
The Sixth Amendment guarantees the right of speedy and public trial by an impartial jury in all criminal proceedings, while the Seventh Amendment guarantees the right of trial by jury in almost all common-law suits. Excessive bail, fines and cruel and unusual punishment are prohibited by the Eighth Amendment. The Ninth Amendment states that The enumeration in the Constitution of certain rights shall not be construed to deny or disparage others retained by the people.
By the Tenth Amendment The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people. Powers reserved to the states are often termed residual powers. This amendment, like the commerce clause, has been a battleground in the struggle over states' rights and federal supremacy.
The Other Amendments
Of the succeeding sixteen amendments, the Eleventh, Seventeenth, Twenty-second and Twenty-third Amendments have already been discussed under Articles 1, 2, and 3. The Twelfth (1804) revised the method of electing President and Vice President. The Thirteenth (1865), Fourteenth (1868), and Fifteenth (1870) are the Civil War and Reconstruction amendments; they abolish slavery, while guaranteeing civil rights and suffrage to U.S. citizens, including former slaves. The Sixteenth Amendment (1913) authorizes the income tax. Prohibition was established by the Eighteenth Amendment (1919) and repealed by the Twenty-first (1933). The Nineteenth (1920) grants woman suffrage. The Twentieth (1933) abolishes the so-called lame-duck Congress and alters the date of the presidential inauguration. The poll tax and any other tax made a requirement for voting in primaries and elections for federal office was outlawed by the Twenty-fourth Amendment (1964). The Twenty-fifth (1967) establishes the procedure for filling the office of Vice President between elections and for governing in the event of presidential disability. The Twenty-sixth Amendment (1971) lowers the voting age in all elections to 18. The Twenty-seventh Amendment (1992), first proposed in 1789, establishes procedures for Congressional pay increases.

Folks wanted change-------and they got it.

2011-04-02T01:19:00.000-04:00

After 2 Years of CHANGE
After two years of Obama and a Democratic Congress

January 2009 TODAY % chg Source
Avg. retail price/gallon gas in U.S. $1.83 $3.104 69.6% 1
Crude oil, European Brent (barrel) $43.48 $99.02 127.7% 2
Crude oil, West TX Inter. (barrel) $38.74 $91.38 135.9% 2
Gold: London (per troy oz.) $853.25 $1,369.50 60.5% 2
Corn, No.2 yellow, Central IL $3.56 $6.33 78.1% 2
Soybeans, No. 1 yellow, IL $9.66 $13.75 42.3% 2
Sugar, cane, raw, world, lb. fob $13.37 $35.39 164.7% 2
Unemployment rate, non-farm, overall 7.6% 9.4% 23.7% 3
Unemployment rate, blacks 12.6% 15.8% 25.4% 3
Number of unemployed 11,616,000 14,485,000 24.7% 3
Number of fed. employees, ex. military (curr = 12/10 prelim) 2,779,000 2,840,000 2.2% 3
Real median household income (2008 v 2009) $50,112 $49,777 -0.7% 4
Number of food stamp recipients (curr = 10/10) 31,983,716 43,200,878 35.1% 5
Number of unemployment benefit recipients (curr = 12/10) 7,526,598 9,193,838 22.2% 6
Number of long-term unemployed 2,600,000 6,400,000 146.2% 3
Poverty rate, individuals (2008 v 2009) 13.2% 14.3% 8.3% 4
People in poverty in U.S. (2008 v 2009) 39,800,000 43,600,000 9.5% 4
U.S. rank in Economic Freedom World Rankings 5 9 n/a 10
Present Situation Index (curr = 12/10) 29.9 23.5 -21.4% 11
Failed banks (curr = 2010 + 2011 to date) 140 164 17.1% 12
U.S. dollar versus Japanese yen exchange rate 89.76 82.03 -8.6% 2
U.S. money supply, M1, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim) 1,575.1 1,865.7 18.4% 13
U.S. money supply, M2, in billions (curr = 12/10 prelim) 8,310.9 8,852.3 6.5% 13
National debt, in trillions $10.627 $14.052 32.2% 14

Just take this last item: In the last two years we have accumulated national debt at a rate more than 27 times as fast as during the rest of our entire nation's history.
Over 27 times as fast. Metaphorically speaking, if you are driving in the right lane doing 65 MPH and a car rockets past you in the left lane. 27 times faster, it would be doing 7,555 MPH!

Sources:
(1) U.S. Energy Information Administration; (2) Wall Street Journal; (3) Bureau of Labor Statistics; (4) Census Bureau; (5) USDA; (6) U.S. Dept. of Labor; (7) FHFA;
(8) Standard & Poor's/Case-Shiller; (9) RealtyTrac; (10) Heritage Foundation and WSJ; (11) The Conference Board; (12) FDIC; (13) Federal Reserve; (14) U.S. Treasury

An Obituary You Should Read

2011-03-02T18:19:00.000-05:00

July 28, 2010 | By Larry Winget | In Money & Personal Dev |

From a London newspaper:

Today we mourn the passing of a beloved old friend, Common Sense, who has been with us for many years. No one knows for sure how old he was, since his birth records were long ago lost in bureaucratic red tape.

He will be remembered as having cultivated such valuable lessons as:

- Knowing when to come in out of the rain;
- Why the early bird gets the worm;
- Life isn’t always fair;
- and maybe it was my fault.

Common Sense lived by simple, sound financial policies (don’t spend more than you can earn) and reliable strategies (adults, not children, are in charge).

His health began to deteriorate rapidly when well-intentioned but overbearing regulations were set in place. Reports of a 6-year-old boy charged with sexual harassment for kissing a classmate; teens suspended from school for using mouthwash after lunch; and a teacher fired for reprimanding an unruly student, only worsened his condition.

Common Sense lost ground when parents attacked teachers for doing the job that they themselves had failed to do in disciplining their unruly children. It declined even further when schools were required to get parental consent to administer sun lotion or an aspirin to a student; but could not inform parents when a student became pregnant and wanted to have an abortion.

Common Sense lost the will to live as the churches became businesses; and criminals received better treatment than their victims. Common Sense took a beating when you couldn’t defend yourself from a burglar in your own home and the burglar could sue you for assault.

Common Sense finally gave up the will to live, after a woman failed to realize that a steaming cup of coffee was hot. She spilled a little in her lap, and was promptly awarded a huge settlement. Common Sense was preceded in death, by his parents, Truth and Trust, by his wife, Discretion, by his daughter, Responsibility, and by his son, Reason.

He is survived by his 4 stepbrothers; I Know My Rights, I Want It Now, Someone Else Is To Blame, and I’m A Victim.

Not many attended his funeral because so few realized he was gone. If you still remember him, pass this on. If not, join the majority and do nothing.

Opinion: How Obama Lost His Magic (and How He Can Get It Back)

2011-03-02T18:16:00.000-05:00

Rabbi Shmuley Boteach

(Oct. 26) -- The erosion of President Barack Obama's popularity has lessons in it for every American who wishes to remain interesting and current, both professionally and personally.

The real story in this election is not that America has no jobs, that the economy continues to falter or that the national debt continues to balloon. While all three are true and, more importantly, Obama has failed to fix them, it is also true that these conditions existed prior to Obama's election. Yet somehow his personal charisma and captivating charm elevated the electorate.

The real story of campaign 2010 is how boring Obama has become.

Obama, who had never run anything except a campaign in his entire life, performed an almost unprecedented conjuring act in 2008, getting the electorate to embrace him regardless of the utter absence of managerial skills.

They believed not necessarily in Obama's capacity to fix America's transient problems but in his ability to focus us on more eternal, upbeat themes like hope, faith and the future. Yet, this time his very presence seems irritating. A man whose oratory lifted him to earth's highest office can't seem to deliver a single uplifting speech.

As a connoisseur of great oratory, I used to love hearing Obama's staccato delivery, perfect timing and mesmeric self-confidence -- the mark of any great speaker -- even as I disagreed with him on many of the issues. But Obama's speeches have now become insufferable, devoid of charisma and personal magnetism.

Here are three principal reasons why.

Obama has utterly overexposed himself. As a marriage counselor, I always advise husbands and wives that, paradoxically, their marriages require intimacy on the one hand, but barriers and distance on the other. Overexposure, as everyone knows, breeds contempt.

But Obama is forever in our face. From weighing in on every issue right down to the ground zero mosque to becoming the president who traveled most in his first two years, Obama lives permanently in the sun. Even on holiday he is constantly photographed buying ice cream and shooting hoops.

Less is more, Mr. President. Sometimes you have to give the people the opportunity to miss you. Superman knows that his grand entrances depend on being disguised the rest of the time as Clark Kent. But by being forever available, Obama has made himself pedestrian. He went from Messiah to mortal, rock star to bland stone.

Obama has betrayed a lack of substance. When he was more mysterious, Obama encouraged our belief that there was subterranean depth beneath the gleaming surface. Just give the man some time and out will come the magic. It turned out that vacuous speeches on hope and change were not the thin veneer that concealed great complexity but the very substance itself. I have yet to hear one truly new or exciting idea from Barack Obama since becoming president.

President George W. Bush was dismissed as a lightweight. But love it or hate it, the Bush doctrine of pre-emption and its corollary of exporting democracy to recalcitrant states was a compelling and divisive idea that invited ferocious debate. With Obama we are back to the tired, yawn-inducing discussions of big versus limited government and whether Keynesian stimulus spending or reducing the national debt is the best way to kindle the economy. I'm bored.

Obama comes across as perfect. The most interesting people are always the most tortured. Bill Clinton clogged his arteries with cheeseburgers and had sex with an intern in the Oval Office. Yet, he left the presidency with a 60 percent approval rating. America never lost its fascination with this angst-ridden and highly imperfect leader.Sponsored L

No-drama Obama evinces an imperturbable cool utterly bereft of inner trauma. Of course we don't want the president to cheat on his wife. But show us a tiny demon or two, other than the fact that you light up a cigarette. Demonstrate that you wrestle with moods the way we do when we can't pay our bills that you struggle with life's disappointments like us ordinary mortals.

I believe Obama was poorly served by seemingly being a golden boy who suffered few setbacks, even though in truth he has endured a life of considerable adversity. Perfect people are boring and monolithic. But flawed human beings who rise above adversity to reach great heights are inspirational.

And if the president wants to recapture the public imagination, he would do well to expose a wart or two.

Elizabeth Edwards Funeral

2010-12-18T22:56:00.002-05:00

Elizabeth Edwards was laid to rest in Chapel Hill, North Carolina recently, but not without protest. A group of “Christian” protesters staged a protest just down the street from the funeral. They were carrying signs that read: God Hates Fags, because Elizabeth was an advocate of AIDS. They claim that because of that God took her sons life and he gave her a cheating husband and He gave her cancer. Somehow, to me, the word hate and God shouldn’t be in the same sentence. I don’t know whose God these people are praying to, but my God doesn’t hate. These same “Christians” protest dead soldiers’ funerals carrying signs that read: send us more dead soldiers. And they walk all over the American flag. It’s idiots like this who give Christianity a bad name. Here are some more people who give it a bad name: Jimmy Swaggart, Jim Bakker, Rod Parsley, Benny Hinn, and those are just the ones I can think of right off the top of my head. These people need to read the Bible. I read it and I don’t remember anything in there about God hating anybody. These Christians have a loose screw somewhere. I tried to do Christian comedy once. I was told by a preacher that Christians shouldn’t laugh. Think about that one for a minute. Christians shouldn’t laugh. It clearly states in Proverbs 15:22 - Laughter doeth the heart good, like medicine. It’s in the Bible. Read the book you preach from you moron. If Jesus came back today I truly believe the first ones he would get rid of would be these stupid Christians. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not against Christianity, I’m a Christian; I’m against the stupid people who claim to be Christians. These people who think they are holier than thou. These people who think everybody except them is wrong. Who do they think they are? Where do they get off protesting a funeral? Who are they to say that God hates fags? God made them. Are you saying that God doesn’t love everyone that He made? There is a good side to this story, however. These idiots were greeted by twice as many people protesting them, people who pray to a God that doesn’t hate, people who know what the Bible is all about because these people, unlike the so called “Christians” who claim that God hates, have a brain and they know how to use it. All I can say is let’s be thankful for the fools among us. For without them, how would the wise know they were wise? Hell is full of so called “Christians” like these fools. And there is always room for a few more.

Government by Wishful Thinking

2010-12-17T22:50:00.000-05:00

posted at 6:00 pm on December 6, 2009 by Steven Den Beste

Way back in the depths of time, Greek philosophers ended up with two basic and incompatible ways of looking at the universe. One way was materialism, which says that there is a material universe which behaves in a consistent way, and if you study it you can learn the way it works.

That’s the world view of engineers and scientists — and businessmen, for that matter. It’s the world view of people who understand and use mathematics, and statistics. It is a place where cause leads to effect. It’s the place that game theory studies. It isn’t necessarily inherently atheistic; a lot of religious people live in the materialist world.

But there are people who don’t. A different epistemological view is teleology, which says that the universe is an ideal place. More or less, it
exists so that we humans can live in it. And human thought is a fundamental force in the universe. Teleology says that if a mental model is esthetically pleasing then it must be true. Teleology implies that if you truly believe in something, it’ll happen. Wikipedia says:
A teleological school of thought is one that holds all things to be designed for or directed toward a final result, that there is an inherent purpose or final cause for all that exists.

And in its modern form that final result is presumed to be creation of a world of peace and harmony, a utopia, in which all men live in peace and brotherhood, in harmony with nature.

At least, that’s the distorted form of Teleology that has come down to some of us in the modern era, mainly on the left wing. Aristotle probably wouldn’t recognize his red-headed step child as it exists today, though. Like many philosophically pure ideas adopted into popular culture, it’s gotten mutated nearly beyond recognition and almost all the mutations were negative.

One way to compare and contrast those two world views is to consider what they think about socialism. Materialists look at history since Marx and point out that socialism has been tried many times, in many nations, in various forms, and it has always failed. In places where it was fully implemented the result was decline and economic collapse. When it was only partially implemented you got slower decline. It often looks like it’s working in the early stages, but in the longer term it has never succeeded.
So to materialists, it’s apparent that socialism is a nice idea, but one that doesn’t work and shouldn’t be adopted.

To teleologists, none of that matters. What matters is the fact that it’s a beautiful idea. It’s how things should be. In a world in which socialism was implemented and which worked the way the teleologists think it should work, you really would have a utopia. The fact that it’s invariably failed when used doesn’t change any of that. (When asked to explain all the failures, usually the answer is, “They didn’t do it right.” But for teleologists, a long string of failures doesn’t matter because fundamentally teleologists don’t believe things like that make any difference.)

It’s teleologists who drive around with bumper stickers that say, “Imagine world peace.” I can imagine it just fine. I don’t expect to see it in my lifetime, though. Why would they want me to imagine it?

It’s because teleologists believe that human thought truly affects things. Of course it does; thought precedes action, and actions change history, right? Yeah, but that’s not the point. Teleologists believe that thought directly affects things. The mere act of thinking about something and wanting it a lot directly changes reality, even if the thought doesn’t get translated into action.

It was teleologists who were mainly involved in the anti-war movement about five years ago when it was at its greatest. I remember reading about how they’d have a demonstration somewhere. Lots of people would come out. They’d parade about carrying signs saying, “End the war!” Someone would burn a giant mockup of President Bush’s head. And afterwards they’d all talk about how successful the demonstration had been.

Successful how? It didn’t have any political effect that I ever noticed. The war didn’t end because of the demonstrations. So what was it that they thought was successful? Well, if you asked them they’d talk about how there was all sorts of positive vibes. How good it felt to be out there. And how so many people were feeling the same thing. Which sounds like masturbation, if you’re a materialist, but genuinely makes sense for a teleologist. They really thought that if enough of them got together and wanted the war to end strongly enough, it would spontaneously end. Not because getting enough voters on their side would have electoral consequences, but because the act of wanting it would directly bring that about.

To a materialist this sounds like insanity. It is, as Chip Morningstar memorably put it, “epistemologically challenged”. And it doesn’t survive real world test. But to teleologists, “real world tests” don’t matter. The teleological world view inherently rejects all of that stuff.

Why does teleology (in this mutated form) matter? Because right now we have a teleologist as our President.

Matthew Continetti says that we’re in “a year of magical thinking.” And to someone who has grown up with a materialist view of the universe, it could certainly seem that way. But what’s really going on is that Obama has this kind of world view. And that explains everything he’s done.

It explains his foreign policy. To a teleologists, it just makes sense that everyone should want to get along. If you unclench your fist and hold out

your hand, everyone else will unclench their fists, and become your friends. So Obama is doing that, and as we know the result has been a shambles.

It explains his economic policy. Teleologists inherently don’t believe in unintended side effects when it comes to implementing their idealistic policies. Obviously it should be possible to provide free health care to everyone without wrecking the economy; it’s just how things really should be, so that’s how it will be. Where will the money come from? That’s the kind of question that materialists ask; teleologists don’t concern themselves with such trivial. It’ll happen somehow, because it’s obviously how it should turn out. To say we shouldn’t do it is to be heartless, uncaring — and those things are more important than mundane claims that it won’t work. If you just believe, it will work.

Of course, it won’t work. The materialists are right about that. But when it fails (if it gets tried) the teleologists will blame the negative vibes of all the materialist doubters for the failure. If only they’d come on board and supported it, then it would have come out OK.

It explains his dealings with Congress in general. He has been telling Congress in very general terms what he wants from them, and seems to think that this is all he really has to do. He wants the bills enough so that Congress will spontaneously create exactly the bills he wants and send them to him as soon as he says. Nothing else need be done by him except to want them.

The teleological world view on the left has been a factor in American politics to a greater or lesser extent since the 1960’s, but this is the first time it was largely in control. And the most likely outcome of it is to make most Americans understand just how deeply worthless, and outright damaging, it is. Which, in the long run, will be very good for America.
The only concern is that we can come through the remaining three years of Obama’s first (and almost certainly his only) term of office without sustaining irreparable damage. If Congress had moved at the speed Obama wanted them to, we might have suffered such damage, but now that we’ve almost made it through his first year and are moving into an election year, with public opinion polls moving strongly against Obama and his policies, I am becoming cautiously optimistic that we can survive this.

This post was promoted from GreenRoom to HotAir.com.

What Charlie Reese Has to Say

2010-12-17T22:45:00.000-05:00

By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered; if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The president does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one president, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a president to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The president can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? Nancy Pelosi. She is the leader of the majority party. She and fellow House members, not the president, can approve any budget they want. If the president vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million can not replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army &Marines are in IRAQ , It's because they want them in IRAQ

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people and they alone, are responsible.

They and they alone, have the power.

They and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees.

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it.......... Is up to you.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge T ax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Sales Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Ser vice FeeTax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge=2 0Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

THINK THIS IS FUNNY? Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, and our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the ____ happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'
And I still have to 'press 1' for English!?

I hope this goes around THE USA at least 100 times!!! YOU can help it get there!!!
GO AHEAD - - - BE AN AMERICAN!!!

Opinion: Putting the Security Back in Social Security Robert P. Murphy

2010-11-12T12:38:00.000-05:00

Social Security needs fixing, most analysts agree, but supposedly we had a few more years to work out the details. Now the crisis is upon us. This year, Social Security will pay out more in benefits than it collects in employer and employee contributions, but the problems don't stop there.

If the economy suffers a "double dip" -- meaning the current recovery soon turns into recession -- Social Security may never return to the black. Worse still, the "trust fund" is an accounting gimmick and doesn't represent a genuine pool of savings. On top of all the other bleak news, Americans need to accept that Social Security is already broke.

Analysts have been warning that the annual surpluses -- the difference between how much the government collects for the Social Security component of FICA versus the total benefits paid out in any given year -- would gradually shrink to zero. It was inevitable that Social Security would eventually slide into deficit, because of the underlying demographics and because it was a Ponzi scheme from the beginning.
The first Social Security retirees collected benefits far in excess of what they paid in during their last working years. Over the decades, the chain-letter process continued: Current workers would pay for current retirees, and the only way to keep the system going was to hope that a new crop of young workers would arise to fund the next batch of retirees as they in turn started collecting checks.

Relatively fewer workers now support the population of retirees. The officially estimated year at which the system would go permanently into the red has bounced around, but the depth of the current recession took analysts by surprise. Because of high unemployment and early retirement, this year the system is already in deficit.

The Congressional Budget Office now estimates that Social Security will briefly return to the black in 2014 and 2015, before plunging -- permanently -- back into the red. Yet even this projection assumes that we will avoid another downturn.

Defenders of the current system argue that Social Security is still solvent, because of the $2.5 trillion "trust fund." They argue that there is no emergency, because the system can draw down these savings to fund the annual deficits between payout and pay-in, allowing the system to stay afloat until 2037. Yet this is an illusion.

In past years, the Social Security system typically took in more revenues than it paid out. If the trustees had used those annual surpluses to buy, say, shares of mutual funds or bonds issued by foreign governments, then the accumulated $2.5 trillion in the trust fund would indeed provide a large cushion during which the system could be reformed.

Instead, the federal government raided the surplus and took that extra money and spent it. Of course, Uncle Sam is "good for it"; the Social Security trustees have $2.5 trillion worth of IOUs issued by the Treasury, and they will cover their annual deficits (at first) by selling off these assets.

Yet from the point of view of the taxpayer, the Social Security trust fund is an accounting gimmick. If an intern accidentally dropped the entire contents of the trust fund into a paper shredder, the taxpayer would be unaffected. Either way, taxpayers are on the hook for paying all the Social Security benefits.

In 2010, the crisis is upon us and we are still in search of a solution. Ultimately, the only way to fix the actuarial insolvency of Social Security will be to increase taxes, cut benefits or both.

Robert P. Murphy is a senior fellow in business and economic studies at the California-based
Pacific Research Institute. Contact him at RMurphy@pacificresearch.org.

Opinion: How Obama Lost His Magic (and How He Can Get It Back)

2010-10-29T16:12:00.000-04:00

(Oct. 26) -- The erosion of President Barack Obama's popularity has lessons in it for every American who wishes to remain interesting and current, both professionally and personally.

The real story in this election is not that America has no jobs, that the economy continues to falter or that the national debt continues to balloon. While all three are true and, more importantly, Obama has failed to fix them, it is also true that these conditions existed prior to Obama's election. Yet somehow his personal charisma and captivating charm elevated the electorate.

The real story of campaign 2010 is how boring Obama has become.

Obama, who had never run anything except a campaign in his entire life, performed an almost unprecedented conjuring act in 2008, getting the electorate to embrace him regardless of the utter absence of managerial skills.

They believed not necessarily in Obama's capacity to fix America's transient problems but in his ability to focus us on more eternal, upbeat themes like hope, faith and the future. Yet, this time his very presence seems irritating. A man whose oratory lifted him to earth's highest office can't seem to deliver a single uplifting speech.

As a connoisseur of great oratory, I used to love hearing Obama's staccato delivery, perfect timing and mesmeric self-confidence -- the mark of any great speaker -- even as I disagreed with him on many of the issues. But Obama's speeches have now become insufferable, devoid of charisma and personal magnetism.
Here are three principal reasons why.

Obama has utterly overexposed himself. As a marriage counselor, I always advise husbands and wives that, paradoxically, their marriages require intimacy on the one hand, but barriers and distance on the other. Overexposure, as everyone knows, breeds contempt.

But Obama is forever in our face. From weighing in on every issue right down to the ground zero mosque to becoming the president who traveled most in his first two years, Obama lives permanently in the sun. Even on holiday he is constantly photographed buying ice cream and shooting hoops.

Less is more, Mr. President. Sometimes you have to give the people the opportunity to miss you. Superman knows that his grand entrances depend on being disguised the rest of the time as Clark Kent. But by being forever available, Obama has made himself pedestrian. He went from Messiah to mortal, rock star to bland stone.

Obama has betrayed a lack of substance. When he was more mysterious, Obama encouraged our belief that there was subterranean depth beneath the gleaming surface. Just give the man some time and out will come the magic. It turned out that vacuous speeches on hope and change were not the thin veneer that concealed great complexity but the very substance itself. I have yet to hear one truly new or exciting idea from Barack Obama since becoming president.

President George W. Bush was dismissed as a lightweight. But love it or hate it, the Bush doctrine of pre-emption and its corollary of exporting democracy to recalcitrant states was a compelling and divisive idea that invited ferocious debate. With Obama we are back to the tired, yawn-inducing discussions of big versus limited government and whether Keynesian stimulus spending or reducing the national debt is the best way to kindle the economy. I'm bored.

Obama comes across as perfect. The most interesting people are always the most tortured. Bill Clinton clogged his arteries with cheeseburgers and had sex with an intern in the Oval Office. Yet, he left the presidency with a 60 percent approval rating. America never lost its fascination with this angst-ridden and highly imperfect leader.
No-drama Obama evinces an imperturbable cool utterly bereft of inner trauma. Of course we don't want the president to cheat on his wife. But show us a tiny demon or two, other than the fact that you light up a cigarette. Demonstrate that you wrestle with moods the way we do when we can't pay our bills, that you struggle with life's disappointments like us ordinary mortals.

I believe Obama was poorly served by seemingly being a golden boy who suffered few setbacks, even though in truth he has endured a life of considerable adversity. Perfect people are boring and monolithic. But flawed human beings who rise above adversity to reach great heights are inspirational.

And if the president wants to recapture the public imagination, he would do well to expose a wart or two.

This Just In: America No Longer 'Free' Country

2010-10-14T14:50:00.002-04:00

David Knowles Writer

AOL News

How free is "mostly free"?

The Heritage Foundation, a self-described conservative think tank that espouses a free-market, small-government ideology, today released its annual Index of Economic Freedom World Rankings. And by its metrics, America's status has dropped from "free" to "mostly free."

Ranking countries throughout the world in 10 categories, the index concludes that the United States is now the eighth most economically free nation, down two spots from last year. Hong Kong ranked No. 1, while North Korea, which was categorized as "repressed," took the bottom rung.

Only seven countries actually rated as "free" on the index, which was released in conjunction with The Wall Street Journal (owned by conservative media mogul Rupert Murdoch, owner of News Corp.).

The largest factor in the Heritage Foundation's demotion of the U.S. is the rise in government spending, especially under the Obama administration.

"The national government's role in the economy, already expanding under President George W. Bush, has grown sharply under the administration of President Barack Obama, who took office in January of 2009," the report read. "Economic growth, which collapsed in 2008, had resumed by the second half of 2009, but legislative proposals for large and expensive new government programs on health care and energy use (climate change) have increased prospects for significant economic disruptions and raised concerns about the long-term health of the economy."

Beating out the United States in terms of economic freedom were, in descending order: Hong Kong, Singapore, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland, Switzerland and Canada.

Sarah Palin's No Tina Fey: 'Palinisms' Fall Flat, What About Biden's Gaffes? Carl M. Cannon

2010-08-23T13:57:00.003-04:00

It's always good, especially in these dark days for journalism, when a working scribe can make a buck for himself and his publisher, so for years I ignored conservatives' complaints and applauded Jacob Weisberg for figuring out how to monetize George W. Bush's penchant for faux pas. Jacob's Bushisms books sold a bundle and made people laugh, the former president included. What's the harm in that?

Anyway, a thin new volume arrived over the transom this week, an offering from Jacob Weisberg called Palinisms: The Accidental Wit and Wisdom of Sarah Palin. There are a few nuggets here, but it would seem from this little paperback that Sarah Palin is not the dimwit liberals make her out to be. Palinisms made me miss George W. Bush -- and Ronald Reagan, too. It also implicitly raises the question of where the comparable volume is for Joe Biden, the gaffe-prone pol who actually holds the job Sarah Palin sought in 2008.

Weisberg's critics have long complained that he's a liberal with an obvious partisan agenda, and while I can't speak to that, it's apparent than in modern political writing a point of view can be a shrewd marketing technique. My father, Lou Cannon, pioneered the literary conceit of the "Reaganism of the Week," ending each Reagan & Co. column with one of them, but those were an eclectic compilation, catering neither solely to Reagan lovers nor Reagan haters.

Some "Reaganisms" made The Gipper sound foolish, as when he mused about his "suspicion" that the Mount St. Helens volcano released more sulfur dioxide into the atmosphere than 10 years' worth of automobile driving. Others Reaganisms were clever. "I'm not worried about the deficit -- it's big enough to take care of itself." The best Reaganisms rendered his listeners speechless, which is how the leader of the free world left Mikhail Gorbachev in 1985 when Reagan sought to establish common ground by telling the Soviet premier that if Earth was attacked by aliens, the Russians and American would fight the extraterrestrial invaders together. And some of the most memorable Reaganisms were statesmanlike -- as when Reagan stood at the Brandenburg Gate in Berlin and declared: "Mr. Gorbachev, tear down this wall!"

The most endearing Reaganisms were self-deprecating: "It's true hard work never killed anybody," Reagan liked to quip, "but I figure why take the chance?" When a wire service reporter Reagan knew asked him to autograph a photo from Bedtime for Bonzo, the 1951 screwball comedy starring Ronald Reagan, the president signed it, "I'm the one with the watch."

Unfortunately, it's a different era now; we're supposed to laugh mirthlessly at those we voted against, and to use verbal misfires as proof of their idiocy -- whether or not they are laughing along with us at their own fallibility.

While giving the commencement speech at his alma mater, Yale, President George W. Bush said: "And to you 'C' students, -- you too can be president of the United States." Another time, while campaigning for reelection at a town hall in Ohio in 2004, one of Dubya's questioners identified himself as an operator of air compressor stations – a man who sells air. Bush retorted quickly: "You and I are in the same business. Is it hot air, by any chance?"

Such cleverness could be quickly negated, by George W. Bush's own hand -- or rather his tongue. The same day as the Ohio rally -- at a bill-signing ceremony, no less – the president uttered one of his most famous Bushisms: "Our enemies are innovative and resourceful, and so are we. They never stop thinking about new ways to harm our country and our people, and neither do we."

Everyone has their favorite Bushism. "Rarely is the question asked: Is our children learning?" he said while discussing education in South Carolina on Jan. 11, 2000. "I know the human being and the fish can co-exist peacefully," was his contribution to environmental thought. His economic theory? "We ought to make the pie higher."
The Texan's saving grace -- at least to some -- was that he was in on the joke, something that Jacob Weisberg himself explained. "People often assume that because I've spent the past nine years collecting Bushisms, I must despise George W. Bush," Weisberg wrote at the end of Bush's tenure in the White House. "To the contrary, Bushisms fill me with affection for the man -- and not just because of the income stream they've generated..."

Less than two years into a new administration, we're in a political environment that is even more polarized and poisonous. Into this milieu comes Palinisms. Two things can be said about the woman nicknamed in high school "Sarah Barracuda" and who calls her political allies "mama grizzlies." The first is that barracudas and grizzlies don't laugh, they bite. In other words, Sarah Palin doesn't easily laugh at herself -- not in public, anyway. The second point is that she's not all that funny, which helps explain why Palinisms is so thin.

The book is tiny -- 5-by-7 inches -- and fits in a back pocket. It's 95 pages, but the preface goes to page 13. And though the pages are small, the type is big -- and double-spaced with a picture on about half the pages. You can read the whole thing in five minutes. Worse, you've heard much of this stuff before, although Tina Fey said it better: "I can see Russia from my house!" is hilarious. But what Palin actually said in her infamous interviews with Katie Couric was: "They're our next door neighbors, and you can actually see Russia from land here in Alaska, from an island in Alaska." Not that funny.

Scanning this booklet, something else occurs to a discerning reader: Sarah Palin may be more careful than people think. She has given numerous interviews, talks, and campaign speeches since John McCain plucked her out of obscurity two years ago, and yet of the 116 Palinisms in Palinisms, eight are from her (ghost-written) autobiography Rogue. Another seven are from a single talk she made while speaking about her faith at Wassilla Assembly of God church; six are from those Katie Couric interviews; five from a speech she made in Ontario, Canada last April to raise money for Charity of Hope, which helps needy children; four came from her resignation as governor; three from an interview with Charlie Gibson.

The Palin material from the Gibson interview certainly isn't elegant, but it's simply not in Bush's league for being off-kilter or entertaining. "You are a cynic," she told Gibson (page 50), "because show me where I have ever said that there's absolute proof that nothing that man has ever conducted or engaged in has had any effect -- or no effect -- on climate change." Maybe I'm cynical, too, but that clunky prose sounds to me like the mind-numbing obfuscation that is a politician's stock-in-trade.

None of the Palinisms in this booklet are lifted from her 2008 debate with Joe Biden. And there's the rub: In that debate, Biden said numerous things, which, had Palin uttered them, would have generated pressure for John McCain to drop her from the ticket the following day. Palin wasn't perfect. Twice she referred to the top U.S. military officer in Afghanistan as "General McClellan." (His name is David McKiernan), she claimed that McCain's $5,000 tax credit for health coverage was some how "budget-neutral," and she combined the last names of the Democratic ticket when she called opponent "Senator O'Biden," reminiscent of Biden's gaffe of introducing Obama to a crowd as "Barack America."

But Biden's performance that October night in 2008 wasn't characterized by slips of the tongue so much as wildly inaccurate claims about everything from the basics of the Afghanistan war to Constitutional provisions of the office he was seeking.
Joe Biden claimed that McCain voted against a nuclear test ban treaty "that every Republican has supported" (McCain actually voted with 50 other Republicans to kill the treaty), credited Pakistan with having intercontinental nuclear-armed ballistic missiles (it doesn't), and asserted that he had opposed Bush's support for holding elections on the West Bank (Biden actually gave a spirited defense of this policy). He also maintained -- while prefacing his point with the statement "facts matter" -- that the United States spends "more money in three weeks on combat in Iraq than we spend on the entirety of the last seven years that we have been in Afghanistan." Biden was so taken with this statement that he repeated this ludicrous claim, which was off by 2,000 percent.

Biden tried to establish his common-man bona fides by inviting voters to walk down Union Street in Wilmington and talk to regular folks at "Katie's Restaurant," which would have been hard to do because the diner (actually located on Scott Street) had been closed for 20 years. More substantively, Biden excoriated Dick Cheney for his "bizarre notion" about Article I of the Constitution (Cheney was correct) in a confused riff that reminded one commentator of John Belushi's famous rant in Animal House: "Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?"

Biden has continued in this vein as vice president. No less an aficionado of the official gaffe than Jacob Weisberg oversaw their collection for Slate. Weisberg explained to me that they didn't get a big response. Perhaps this is because Slate's readership trends liberal. Or, as Weisberg says, the problem might be that Biden's goofiness is so situational it doesn't translate well to print -- you have to be there to really appreciate the outlandishness -- which was often the case with John Kerry's verbal blunders.

Maybe the moral of the story is that employment is not the only thing in short-supply -- these aren't great days for political humor, either. Of course, there's always Twitter, and this may be the saving grace for collectors of Palinisms. A post-script to Palinisms pays homage to this truism with a "top 10 tweets" postscript. These are pretty good, and many of which have already been topped since the book went to press. My favorite: "Research is your friend, News Media," Palin tweeted on May 15. "Try it sometime."

To that, I'd say: Be careful what you wish for, Sarah Barracuda. You, too, Joe "Regular Guy" Biden.

Putting things into perspective: What If George W. Bush had ...

2010-08-16T18:06:00.003-04:00

Unattributed | July 1, 2009
Posted on Wednesday, July 01, 2009 5:52:20 PM by Zakeet
What If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the Fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as “proof” of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he is inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 weeks -- so you'll have three years and nine-and-a-half months to come up with an answer.

As BP Oil Gushes, Obama's Energy Call Falls Flat By SAM GUSTIN

2010-07-30T01:42:00.001-04:00

There's an old saying that if you try to do too many things at once, you won't do any of them well.

Fifty-seven days into the catastrophic BP (BP) Deepwater Horizon oil spill, President Barack Obama tried to reassure increasingly desperate Gulf Coast residents that the U.S. government is doing everything it can to stanch the gushing well and was hard at work cleaning up the toxic mess befouling their shoreline. In his first-ever address from the Oval Office on Tuesday night, Obama also used the opportunity to issue a call for the U.S. to embark on a "national mission" to wean itself off petroleum.

On the first two counts, Obama was less than convincing. He offered qualified promises but no actual program to stop the leak, other than a mysterious reference to "additional equipment and technology." On the third count, the president was roundly criticized -- by liberals for not demanding a massive federal green technology push, and by conservatives for politicizing the catastrophe. And on all counts, Obama was faulted for being too vague about the concrete steps needed to achieve his goals -- from stopping the leak, to cleaning the oil, to transforming America's fossil-fuel-based economy.

Obama used war-tinged rhetoric to describe the black sludge that has been "assaulting our shores and our citizens" since Deepwater Horizon exploded 40 miles off the coast of Louisiana, killing 11 workers and injuring 17 others.

Bipartisan Criticism

Both friends and foes alike found the speech deficient. "Where was the 'How?' in this speech, when the nation was crying out for 'How?'" asked Keith Olberman, MSNBC's liberal pundit. "I don't think he aimed low, I don't think he aimed at all." Colleague Rachel Maddow lamented that the speech was not a "clarion call" for energy reform.

Appearing on Fox News immediately after the speech, former vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin told host Bill O'Reilly that "We haven't had the assurance by the president that [stopping the oil leak] has been his top priority. Instead, what his top priority is, Bill, is cap and tax. It is using this crisis, not letting it go to waste, but to use this crisis to increase the cost of energy."

After weeks of failed attempts to halt the toxic gusher, Obama sought to offer Gulf Coast residents a measure of hope, saying the U.S government has "directed BP to mobilize additional equipment and technology. And in the coming weeks and days, these efforts should capture up to 90% of the oil leaking out of the well." But his qualified language -- "should capture up to" -- left what was meant as a note of reassurance sounding hollow.

A Dry and Detached Recitation

In his speech, Obama tried to accomplish a difficult political high-wire act: maintaining the focus on the spill while making a larger point about U.S. fossil fuel consumption, all without appearing to take advantage of the disaster for political gain. But after a dry, almost detached recitation of the number of National Guardsmen deployed and maritime vessels marshaled -- followed by equally dry talk of dreaded blue-ribbon panels and his Nobel Prize-winning experts, Obama only seemed to become engaged when he directly linked the crisis to energy reform.

"The tragedy unfolding on our coast is the most painful and powerful reminder yet that the time to embrace a clean-energy future is now," Obama said. "Now is the moment for this generation to embark on a national mission to unleash America's innovation and seize control of our own destiny."

Using language lifted almost entirely from his rhetoric during last year's epic political struggle over health care, Obama said he was "happy to look at other ideas and approaches from either party, as long as they seriously tackle our addiction to fossil fuels. . . . But the one approach I will not accept is inaction. The one answer I will not settle for is the idea that this challenge is somehow too big and too difficult to meet."

"You know," he continued, "the same thing was said about our ability to produce enough planes and tanks in World War II. The same thing was said about our ability to harness the science and technology to land a man safely on the surface of the moon." But those on the left looking for details of a full-scale Manhattan Project-style mission to transform our economy away from petroleum must have been disappointed.

Separating the Issues Would Be Better

In trying to have it both ways -- making the energy reform pitch, but not so strongly as to be accused of politicization -- Obama simultaneously managed to appear political and yet failed to make a strong political argument. The president would have been much better off focusing on the spill and cleanup, and leaving the energy push for another speech -- like, say, after he has done the necessary heavy lifting to dislodge his energy bill from the legislative purgatory that is the U.S. Senate.

Obama used the oil spill to push his energy reform agenda, but didn't have the courage to demand immediate action.

Three Big Lies About The Economy By Brett Arends

2010-07-30T01:39:00.003-04:00

The counter-revolution is underway.

The G-20 calls for members to slash their budget deficits. The U.S. Senate ices further aid for the unemployed. The head of the Business Roundtable slams President Obama for undermining American capitalism. Wall Street succeeds in watering down reform.

Depending on your politics, you'll love this or hate it.
But there's just one problem.

We're still living in a fantasyland. Most people have no idea what's really going on in the economy. They're living on spin, myths and downright lies. And if we don't know the facts, how can we make intelligent decisions?

Economists worry that jobs, consumer confidence readings won't support hope for economic recovery, Barrons.com's Bob O'Brien reports.

Here are the three biggest economic myths -- the things everything thinks they know about the economy that just ain't so.

Myth 1: Unemployment is below 10%
What nonsense that is. The official jobless rate, at 9.7%, is a fiction and should be treated as such. It doesn't even count lots of unemployed people. The so-called "underemployment" or U-6 rate is an improvement: For example it counts discouraged job seekers, and those forced to work part-time because they can't get a full-time job.

That rate right now is 16.6%, just below its recent high and twice the level it was a few years ago

And even that may not tell the full story. Many people have simply dropped out of the labor force statistics.

Consider, for example, the situation among men of prime working age. An analysis of data at the U.S. Labor Department shows that there are 79 million men in America between the ages of 25 and 65. And nearly 18 million of them, or 22%, are out of work completely. (The rate in the 1950s was less than 10%.) And that doesn't even count those who are working part-time because they can't get full-time work. Add those to the mix and about one in four men of prime working age lacks a full-time job.

Dean Baker, economist at the Center for Economic and Policy Research in Washington, D.C., says the numbers may be even worse than that. His research suggests a growing number of men, especially in deprived, urban and minority neighborhoods, have vanished from the statistical rolls altogether.

Myth 2: The markets are panicking about the deficit

To hear the G-20 tell it, the U.S. and other top countries had better slash those budget deficits before the world comes to an end.

And maybe the markets should be panicking about the deficits.
But they're not. It's that simple.

If they were, the interest rate on government bonds would be skyrocketing. That's what happens with risky debt: Lenders demand higher and higher interest payments to compensate them for the dangers.

But the rates on U.S. bonds have been plummeting recently. The yield on the 30-year Treasury bond down to just 4%. By historic standards that's chickenfeed. Panicked? The bond markets are practically snoring.

They aren't seeing inflation either. On the contrary, they're saying it will average just 2.3% a year over the next three decades. That's the gap between the interest rates on inflation-protected Treasury bonds and the rates on the regular bonds. By any modern standard the forecast is low. Instead of worrying about inflation, some are starting to worry about something even more dangerous: deflation, or falling prices.

If that takes hold, cutting spending and raising taxes would be a bad move.
It's certainly possible the lenders buying these bonds are being foolish. And it's worth noting that the Treasury market is also subject to political distortions, because foreign are among the heavy buyers of bonds. So it's worth treating its apparent verdicts with some caution. Nonetheless, the burden of proof, as usual, is on those who argue the market is wrong.

Myth 3: The U.S. is sliding into "socialism"

For a system allegedly being strangled in its bed, U.S. capitalism seems to be in astonishingly robust shape.

Numbers published by the Federal Reserve a few weeks ago show that corporate profit margins have just hit record levels. Indeed. Andrew Smithers, the well-regarded financial consultant and author of "Wall Street Revalued," calculates from the Fed's latest Flow of Funds report that corporate profit margins rocketed to 36% in the first quarter. Since records began in 1947 they have never been this high. The highest they got under Ronald Reagan was 30%.

The picture is also similar when you exclude financials.

The Dow Jones Industrial Average /quotes/comstock/10w!i:dji/delayed (DJIA 9,686, -46.05, -0.47%) is above 10,000. Small company stocks have rallied astonishingly since early last year: The Russell 2000 index is back to levels seen not long before Lehman imploded. Meanwhile Cap Gemini's latest Wealth Report notes that the North American rich saw an 18% jump in their wealth last year.

Meanwhile, federal spending, about 25% of the economy this year, is expected to fall to about 23% by 2013. In 1983, under Ronald Reagan, it hit 23.5%. In the early 1990s it was around 22%. Some socialism.

These days, three-fifths of the entire budget goes on just three things: Insurance for our old age (through Social Security and Medicare), defense, and debt interest.
Conservatives don't want to cut the $700 billion-plus we spend on defense. We can't cut debt interest payments. And while Social Security and Medicare certainly need reform, the main "problems" are simply rising life expectancy and health care demands. If we didn't provide for the insurance through our taxes we'd have to do it individually.

What about the rest of the budget? It's jumped from around 7% of GDP a few years ago to about 10% now. Out of control? It's been in the 6% to 9% range for decades. It's forecast to fall to about 8% again in a few years.

So much for a revolution. But here comes the counter-revolution just the same.

Barak Obama At West Point

2010-07-30T01:37:00.002-04:00

Barrack Obama spoke to the graduating class at West Point and he made the comment, “As our leaders go into battle.” I don’t know if you’re aware of this or not, but today’s leaders don’t go into battle. Today’s leaders have never even seen a battle field. Today’s leaders sit in an air conditioned, plush hotel room and make commands. They don’t know who is doing what on the battle field. It’s been that way for some time. They all sit in hotel rooms and make the moves and the soldiers are on the field getting their asses blown to kingdom come and the “leaders” take all the credit when they win a battle. As pathetic as it seems this is the way it’s done in “today’s army.” Leaders don’t lead; they can’t lead if they’re behind the soldiers instead of in front of them. Apparently, they have forgotten what the word ‘lead’ means. It means to be out in front. How can you expect the soldiers to do a great job when their so called leaders are a bunch of scared candy asses who won’t even go onto the battlefield? We need leaders like General Patton. He wasn’t afraid to go onto the battlefield. He wasn’t afraid to be shot at. He led his men. He’s not one of my favorite people, but at least he wasn’t a chicken like the ‘leaders’ we have today. And Patton’s men respected him for it. Today’s West Point leaders aren’t really leaders, they’re followers. The soldiers on the battlefield are the leaders and they deserve, I’m sorry, they have earned the right to be called leaders. Quit giving the West Point brass all the credit. They have done nothing to earn it. Sipping on wine in an air conditioned hotel room is not my idea of a leader. All we’re producing at West Point is a bunch of pussies as far as I can tell.

Al Sharpton

2010-07-30T01:33:00.002-04:00

Civil rights activist the Rev. Al Sharpton gave a rousing eulogy for a 7-year-old girl killed in a police raid in Detroit recently, challenging the hundreds of mourners to take responsibility and help stop a spiral of violence that has swept the city.

Sharpton lobbed some criticism at Detroit police, whose explanation of how Aiyana Stanley-Jones died from a gunshot has been contradicted by the girl's family. But he mostly offered a broad cultural message to a city where at least three children and an officer have been killed in recent weeks.

"I'd rather tell you to start looking at the man in the mirror. We've all done something that contributed to this," he said referring to Aiyana's death. (That much is true. We have ALL done something including you Sharpton.)

"Do they throw these flash grenades in everybody's neighborhood? Would you have gone in Bloomfield Hills and did what you did?" Sharpton said, referring to a wealthy Detroit suburb. "Have you ever heard of putting on a light and calling people to come out?" (No, they wouldn’t do this in Bloomfield Hills, because they don’t have this kind of violence there, and if they did, the people of that neighborhood have enough sense to react in a civilized way rather than shooting at the police. And, by the way, black people live in Bloomfield Hills also.)

A few days earlier, Michigan Attorney General Mike Cox, a Republican running for governor, criticized Sharpton's visit, saying he was disgusted and accusing the New Yorker of a "drive-by at the scene of a tragedy."

"I'm disgusted when I look at a 7-year-old baby in a casket," Sharpton said during his eulogy. "And rather turn to each other, we name-call and go ego-tripping and try to jump in front of a camera rather than stand up and say, 'Enough is enough.'"
The girl’s family should be disgusted at Sharpton for using this funeral as a platform for his pathetic publicity.
Sharpton gets in front of the camera every chance he gets, like this funeral, and starts trouble. I can’t believe that Sharpton would stoop so low as to use this little girl’s funeral as another chance for him to get in front of the camera and get publicity. And I’m sure he knows nothing about the facts of the shooting. All he knows is, a little black girl is dead and a white cop shot her. (I am assuming it was a white cop. Neither I nor Al Sharpton knows for sure. Like I said, all Sharpton wants is publicity. To hell with the facts.If it was a black cop he wouldn't be making his pathetic speech.)

Like the time he and Jesse Jackson came to Durham, NC ready to crucify a group of rich white kids from Duke who had been wrongly accused of raping a black girl in a bathroom. He didn’t care about the facts; he didn’t care about the truth. All he and Jesse Jackson wanted was to see the white men hanged for raping a black girl. Turns out she was lying. IT NEVER HAPPENED. Yet, black people in Durham and everywhere else don’t care. They still believe the rich white kids did it even though it was proven they didn’t be her admitting she was lying? Where was Sharpton and Jackson when that was unveiled, nowhere. It was mud in their face and they disappeared quicker than a coin in a magician’s handkerchief.

Sharpton, I’m sure, knows nothing about how this awful crime unfolded in Detroit either. All he cares about is getting publicity, that’s it, nothing more. He doesn’t care about the facts. I’m sure if it was a black cop who fired the bullet he wouldn’t have gone there.

All Al Sharpton wants is publicity. And using the funeral of a 7-years old girl to get publicity is stooping to an all-time low.

Al Sharpton saying that “All we do is we name-call and ego-trip and try to jump in front of a camera rather than stand up and say, 'Enough is enough.'" is like the pot calling the kettle black. And no, I didn’t mean that in a racist way, in case you’re wondering.

I’m truly sick of this ignorant moron.

Jessee Jackson & Slave Mentality

2010-07-12T11:17:00.002-04:00

I was wondering when Jessee Jackson was going to come out from under the racist rock he was hiding under.

Jesse Jackson criticized Cavaliers owner Dan Gilbert on Sunday, saying Gilbert sees LeBron James as a "runaway slave" and that the owner's comments after the free-agent forward decided to join the Miami Heat put the player in danger.

Leave it up to a moron like Jackson to use the word “slave” referring to a white coach putting down a black basketball player. I guess the coach would put down a white basketball player too if there were any in the NBA.

Jackson will do anything he can to start a controversy in his favor. I’m surprised that half-wit Al Sharpton hasn’t jumped on the slave bandwagon.

Yes, I’m sure that LeBron James is in grave danger for going to Miami. What grave danger is he in Jackson? What grave danger are all those millions of dollars he getting for going to Miami putting him in?

It’s the 21st Century, you moron, we don’t have slavery anymore and you can stop using the word now.

And while you’re at it, why don’t you tell that racist, idiot leader of the New Black Panther Party to stop using the word “cracker”? Oh, wait, that’s a black person calling a white person a name. That doesn’t count, does it?

You can call us anything you like. But if we say anything about you it’s slave mentality.

I’m really getting sick of hearing it. Why don’t you just shut up? After all, it’s better to remain silent and appear intelligent than to speak and remove all doubt.

New Black Panther Leader Defends Group in Voter Intimidation Case

2010-07-12T11:11:00.001-04:00

The New Black Panther Party, in an interview Friday with Fox News, defended his group amid an uproar over a voter intimidation case dropped by the Obama administration, a move that an ex- Justice Department official alleges was for racial reasons.

Malik Zulu Shabazz distanced himself from the actions of Minister King Samir Shabazz, seen in an amateur video from November 2008 brandished a billy club at a Philadelphia polling station, an incident that led to charges of coercion, threats and intimidation. The Black Panther chairman told Fox News' Megyn Kelly that the actions caught on video "were outside of organizational policy."

"We still do not condone the carrying of nightsticks at polling places and we have been consistent on that since Day One," he said. "Any individual member that violates organizational policy cannot be attributed to the organization any more than any individual member of the Catholic Church, one of their acts can be charged to the Vatican."

Malik Shabazz's comments come after J. Christian Adams, who quit the Justice Department last month over the handling of the case against the Black Panthers and its members, accused his former superiors of instructing attorneys in the civil rights division to ignore cases that involve black defendants and white victims.
Adams' allegations have led the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights to plan a new round of subpoenas and call for a separate federal probe.

But Shabazz alleged that the story is being "overhyped and overblown" as "part of a right-wing Republican conspiracy to demonize President Obama, his administration, to demonize the New Black Panther Party and blacks in order to drum up white dissatisfied support for the midterm elections."

Asked whether he agreed with the sentiments of Samir Shabazz, seen in other video footage calling white people "crackers" and urging blacks to kill them and their babies, the chairman said "no." But he acknowledged he may have called whites "crackers" himself.

As chairman, Malik Shabazz was one of three Black Panthers charged in a civil complaint with violating the Voter Rights Act in the November 2008 incident, and Samir Shabazz specifically was accused of brandishing what prosecutors called a deadly weapon.

The Obama administration won a default judgment in federal court in April 2009 when the Black Panthers didn't appear in court to fight the charges. But the administration moved to dismiss the charges in May 2009. Justice attorneys said a criminal complaint against Samir Shabazz, which resulted in the injunction, proceeded successfully.

The injunction states that Samir Shabazz cannot appear at a polling station in Philadelphia until after 2012.

Malik Shabazz said that it was "right" for the Justice Department to drop the charges against the organization and the party's leadership.
He also said Samir Shabazz was suspended for his actions before he was reinstated as a Black Panther member.

When asked whether Samir Shabazz is a racist, Malik Shabazz said, "I can't speak for him on that. I would say the New Black Panther Party is not a hate group or a racist organization."

That’s mighty black of you, Shabazz, saying the New Black Panther Party isn’t a racist group. I guess calling white people “crackers” and to “kill white babies” isn’t racist. That just goes to show how stupid you are.

If the Obama administration has done anything it has shown us who the racists in America really are.

Go here for the video:

http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2010/07/09/new-black-panther-leader-defends-group-voter-intimidation-case/

The Gulf Oil Spill

2010-06-30T01:03:00.000-04:00

With oil spilling into the Gulf of Mexico daily and people on the Gulf losing their livelihood there seems to be no end in sight, and congress is doing very little to solve the problem. Why should they, they are in bed with the big oil companies. They aren’t going to do anything except maybe slap them on the wrist and they haven’t done that yet. BP's embattled CEO Tony Hayward is at a yacht race and doesn’t care. He knows he has congress in his back pocket. All he wants is his life back. How about the people of the Gulf Coast, do you think maybe they would like to have their lives back too? And all Obama is doing is costing the tax payers a lot of money by taking Air Force One to the Gulf to look at the problem again and again. He has no solution; he just goes there, looks at it and then flies back to Washington, and we, of course, pay for it. And then Joe Biden flies to the Gulf to look at it. And he has no solution either. There aren’t even any people on side of the road waving at his or Obama’s entourage as it passes by because they don’t care. They have had enough. They’ve heard all the rhetoric they want to hear from the President. He speaks well but he says nothing. I suppose that takes talent. If there was ever a time to rally for alternative fuel, I believe it’s now. We need to wean ourselves off of oil and we need to do it quickly. Congress says they can’t create an alternative fuel. The cell phone in your pocket contains more technology than the computer that sent man to the moon and we can’t create an alternative fuel. Stop yanking my Franklin. I wasn’t born yesterday. Ordinarily Obama is insane, but he has lucid moments when he is merely stupid. I think Martin Luther King, Jr. said it best when he said, “Nothing in all the world is more dangerous than sincere ignorance and conscientious stupidity.” It’s a shame that we’re the only country in the world that has to keep a government four years no matter what it does. Obama has such a small mind. And you know what they say, “The smaller the mind the greater the conceit.” Can’t you just see the conceit dripping off him when he speaks? He actually believes people are hanging on to his every word. His problem, of course, is that we stop listening before he stops speaking. He has committees working on the Gulf Oil Spill and I have learned from past experience that a committee can make a decision that is dumber than any of its members. If he wants a really dumb decision he should put Nancy Pelosi in charge. She is dumb to the tenth power. Dumb squared, if you will. I wonder if the spill would still be a problem if McCain or Palin were in charge. I wonder if the country would be better off if the community organizer wasn’t in charge. Only in America could we be at war with Muslims and then elect one as our President. I guess it just goes to show that if you get all the fools on your side you can be elected to anything. Michelle Obama said, “For the first time in my life I am proud to be an American.” Well I am saying that for the first time in my life I am ashamed to be an American. What the hell have we done to our country? -BC

Barack Hussein Obama: I Told You So

2010-06-17T23:25:00.001-04:00

By Howard Galganov
Montreal, Quebec, Canada

When Obama won the presidency with the help of the leftist media, Hollywood and entertainment liberals, ethnic socialists (ACORN), stupid non-business professionals and Bush haters, I wrote: It won't take six months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a mistake they've made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to the United States of America will be so great it will take a generation or more to repair - IF EVER.

The IDIOTS who not only voted for the messiah, but also worked hard to promote his lordship, are now left holding the bag.

Here are two things they will NEVER do: they will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind. They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they've imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country.

In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror show in power are themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof.

In just six months, the messiah's polls are showing the following: on Healthcare Reform, he's going under for the third time with polling well under 50 percent, even within his own party. Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago bully tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.
On Cap and Trade (Cap and Tax), the fat lady is already singing. On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend), his popularity is in free fall. On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush, it's all but Good-Night Irene. On the closing of GITMO and "his" war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism, he's standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under.
It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere he shouldn't be. He's personally invested in totally insulting America's only real Middle Eastern ally (Israel) in favor of Palestinian despots and murderers. He's traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected.

He went to the moslem world in Egypt to declare that America "is not a christion nation" while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the "plight" of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

The Russians think he's a putz. The French think he's rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to get his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he's a joke. The Iranians won't acknowledge his calls. And the British can't even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him. As for the Chinese, he's too frightened to even glance their way. (After all, China now owns a large portion of the United States .)

Maybe if America's first emperor would stay home more, travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday (or forget about his Wednesday date nights with his amazon wife) or stop running to "papered" Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation.

In all fairness, it wasn't hard to be right in my prediction concerning Obama's presidency, even in its first six months, so I'm going to make yet another prediction: OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way.

He is such a political horror show, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either force him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out. Who knows, maybe he really isn't a born US Citizen and that's a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him.

I don't believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast.

The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for everything, but that game's already begun to wear real thin. Their mantra was "WE DON'T WANT 4 MORE YEARS," which the STUPID people bought. The new mantra will soon become: "WE DON'T WANT 6 MORE MONTHS."
Please tell me, how is it that the majority of the Canadian population understands what's going on in the United States however, the majority of the American public and the socialistic idiots in Washington DC have no idea of what's happening to their country, or they're too stupid to care.

The Incredible Deflation of Barack Obama

2010-06-17T23:16:00.001-04:00

Mort Zuckerman is a card carrying Liberal Democrat. He’s also Senior Editor of US NEWS AND WORLD REPORT. He is also a smart guy who knows his way around politics because he’s been around a while. His column, which is attached, is not an attack – it’s an observation. Which, in my opinion, makes it all the more damning.

By Mortimer B. Zuckerman

The air is seeping out of the Obama balloon. He has fallen to below 50 percent in the poll approval ratings, a decline punctuated by his party's shocking loss in the Massachusetts special election.
Why?
Barack Obama was undoubtedly sincere in what he promised, even if his promises were within the normal range of political exaggeration. The first trouble is that his gift for inspiration aroused expectations, stoked to unprecedented heights by his own staff, that he would solve the climate crisis on Monday, the jobs crisis on Tuesday, the financial crisis on Wednesday, the education crisis on Thursday, Afghanistan on Friday, Iraq on Saturday, and rest on Sunday. His oratorical skills were highlighted by the contrast with President Bush, who mangled words so much that his incoherence became, as Tina Brown wrote, "a metaphor for incompetence." Expectations were spurred, too, by Obama's recognition that Americans yearned for a new kind of politics, a rejection, as he put it, of "politics as usual."
Perhaps the inevitable outcome was disappointment—and on this Obama has not disappointed. Alas, he has accelerated the deflation of hope with his extraordinary volume of public appearances. In his first six months, he gave three times as many interviews as George W. Bush, four times as many prime-time news conferences as Bill Clinton, and more interviews than both combined: 93 for Obama and 61 for his two immediate predecessors. He appeared on five Sunday talk shows on the same morning, followed the next day by David Letterman, the first-ever presidential appearance on a nighttime comedy show. In another week, he squeezed in addresses to the U.S. Climate Change Summit, the U.N. General Assembly, the U.N. Security Council, and a variety of press conferences.
His promiscuity on TV has made him seem as if he is still a candidate instead of president and commander in chief. He—and his advisers—have failed to appreciate that national TV speeches are best reserved for those moments when the country faces a major crisis or a war. Now he faces the iron law of diminishing novelty.
Despite this apparent accessibility, Obama's reliance on a teleprompter for flawless delivery made for boring and unemotional TV, compounding his cerebral and unemotional style. He has seemed not close but distant, not engaged but detached. Is it any wonder that the mystique of his presidency has eroded so that fewer people have listened to each successive foray? The columnist Richard Cohen wryly observed that he won the Pulitzer Prize for being the only syndicated columnist who did not have an exclusive interview with the president.
Poor results. But Obama's problems are more than a question of style. There is doubt aroused on substance. He sets deadlines and then lets too many pass. He announces a strategic review of Afghanistan, describing it as "a war of necessity," only to become less sure to the point that he didn't even seem committed to the policy that he finally announced. As for changing politics in Washington, he assigned the drafting of central legislative programs not to cabinet departments or White House staff but to the Democratic congressional leadership of Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid, the very people so mistrusted by the public. Who could be surprised that the critical bills—the stimulus program and healthcare—degenerated under a welter of pork and earmarks that had so outraged the American public in the past?
Pelosi benefited from $54 million to relocate a Bay Area wine train, not to speak of a secret deal with the drug industry lobby to preclude negotiations on Medicaid drug prices and exclude drug imports from Canada, concessions that had previously been strongly rejected by Obama. Reid favored the gambling industry by arranging an earmark for a Los Angeles-to-Las Vegas high-speed monorail, even though it won't be built for years. Some components of the stimulus did help soften the recession, yet only roughly a third of the $787 billion stimulus has been spent, and too much was spent on programs supported by liberal Democrats, which explains why so much of the stimulus money went toward education, health, energy conservation, and other activities, mostly worthy but not geared to achieving recovery and getting people back to work.
Taxpayers have thus come to see politics as usual masquerading as economic recovery. Indeed, both the stimulus and healthcare plans were voted on so quickly that the lawmakers had no time to read the bills. In both cases, the White House created the impression it was interested in passing anything, no matter how ineffectual. This was epitomized by Obama's chief of staff essentially asserting that a healthcare bill would be passed even if all it consisted of was two Band-Aids and an aspirin.
Most critically, Obama misjudged the locus of the country's anxiety: the economy. Instead of concentrating on jobs, jobs, jobs, he made the decision to "boil the ocean" and go for everything, from comprehensive health reform to global warming to a world without nuclear weapons ... and the beat goes on.
This was more than the Congress could absorb and more than the country could understand. Obama, the theoretician in a hurry, made no allowance for the normal resistance to dramatic change and the public's distaste for big government, big spending, and big deficits. He didn't seem to realize that Americans understand in the most personal terms that excessive debt has real consequences, given how many have mortgages that exceed the value of a home and credit lines that are too much to carry. Yet this was what the president seemed to be getting us into. Over 60 percent of the country believes that government spending is excessive; Obama's lowest approval ratings come from his mishandling of the present and future deficits.
Delayed stimulus. It is not as if the limited stimulus program has done the job either, since unemployment rates soared over 10 percent (compared with the 8 percent ceiling that was promised). Shelby Steele asked a good question in the Wall Street Journal: "Where is the economic logic behind a stimu¬lus package that doesn't fully click in for a number of years?" Yes, we might have just escaped a depression, but as the Econo¬mist magazine observes, voters will not thank the president for averting a depression that did not come but are "more likely to blame him for the recession that did." On top of all this, and not all Obama's fault, a financial crisis usually produces weak recoveries in jobs, so a good number of Americans are likely to remain furious at the spectacle of the financial world doing well while so many ordinary folks lose their jobs and their savings. This anger will not subside while households see net worth slump to where it was 20 years ago and debt reach close to record highs at about 130 percent of disposable income, and while the residential real estate crisis continues unabated and the official jobless rate doesn't come close to reflecting the true extent of unemployment and ... and ... and ....
The White House might have at least demonstrated that it cares about fiscal restraint and independence from the leadership in Congress, but consistently Obama has failed to veto spending while centralizing power. A majority of Americans think it a mistake at this time of economic distress to embark on a costly healthcare program. As it was, the program's apparently stalled trip through Congress turned out to be another fiasco of political corruption, with millions of dollars allocated to buy votes, such as those of Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu and Nebraska Sen. Ben Nelson. Anger with that process and the bill it produced helped fuel the stunning election of Republican Scott Brown in Massachusetts.
The result is a widespread concern that progressive taxation to pay for the "nanny state" will snuff out future opportunities that Americans believe they deserve for themselves and their children. Obama misjudged the public's appetite for taxpayer-funded solutions; most people believe all the government does is waste money. In a recent NBC/Wall Street Journal poll, only 23 percent said they "trusted the government just about always or most of the time"—the smallest proportion in 12 years, and the all-important independent swing voters who decide elections now favor Republicans by 52 percent, up from 30 percent.
Unfortunately, there is not much solace in international affairs either, where, again, expectations were so pumped up. America's image is better, no doubt, but uncertainty and procrastination prevail. One major international political leader recently put it well: "Not only does the leadership of this region not think that Obama is strong enough to confront his enemies; they aren't sure he is strong enough to support his friends." The administration seems "hopelessly naive," according to one Arab foreign minister, and unable to face the full truth about Islamic terrorism. The public frustration over the administration's mismanagement of the latest jihadist attempt to blow up a plane with all its innocent travelers (on Christmas Day) was captured in the New York Daily News headline "Mr. President, it's time to get a grip!"
The consequence is that there isn't a single critical problem on which the president has a positive public rating. Only a minority of Americans now believe the president will make the right decisions for the country. Nor can he any longer take refuge in the rejoinder that "we inherited a terrible situation." Or blame it on fat-cat bankers and insurance companies. Blaming others, including Bush, for the country's predicament is less and less persuasive. "At some point you own your presidency," wrote Peggy Noonan in the Wall Street Journal. "At some point the American people tell you it's yours."
More worrying for the administration is that while Obama gets the approval of 76 percent of non-whites, his approval among whites is down to 41 percent, according to Gallup. This is a huge change that literally puts the Democratic control of Congress at risk. The Republicans have hardly been stellar either, but there is now a renewed openness in the country to hear what they have to say. Obama's political realignment of America is over. We no longer believe that he will "change the world" and "transform the country."
This brings to mind why an adviser to President Roosevelt in the 1930s, Bernard Baruch, told electors to vote for the person who promised them less. In this way, he said, "you would be less disappointed." There is still time for Obama to change and turn things around. But the first year is the critical year, one in which the public defines the president, and it has to be said that broad swaths of the country are deeply disappointed.

Your President-The Biggest Racist Of All

2010-06-17T23:12:00.002-04:00

THIS IS OUR PRESIDENT
Everyone of voting age should read these two books. Don't buy them, get them from the library before they are removed from the shelves.

From Dreams of My Father: 'I ceased to advertise my mother's race at the age of 12 or 13, when I began to suspect that by doing so I was ingratiating myself to whites.'

From Dreams of My Father : 'I found a solace in nursing a pervasive sense of grievance and animosity against my mother's race.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'There was something about her that made me wary, a little too sure of herself, maybe and white..

From Dreams of My Father: 'It remained necessary to prove which side you were on, to show your loyalty to the black masses, to strike out and name names.'

From Dreams of My Father: 'I never emulate white men and brown men whose fates didn't speak to my own. It was into my father's image, the black man, son of Africa, that I'd packed all the attributes I sought in myself: the attributes of Martin and Malcolm, DuBois and Mandela.'

And FINALLY, and most scary!

From Audacity of Hope: 'I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly direction.'

Now, with that being said, let me ask you a question. What the hell were you thinking when you voted for this racist, incompetent, stupid jerk? Did you want change that bad? Is this the change you were expecting? Do us all a favor, the next time you vote, check the person out that you’re voting for. Don’t rely on what the TV says. They’re incompetent too. We can never let something like this happen again, and, no, I don’t mean elect another black person. Hell, I don’t care if you elect a Mexican, just make sure you know their background. We don’t need another racist, incompetent, stupid pig in the White House. I know you’re not that ignorant. Fortunately, ignorance can be fixed, stupidity can’t.

Walmart

2010-05-29T15:22:00.001-04:00

1 . Americans spend
$36,000,000 at Wal-Mart Every hour of every day.

2.. This works out to $20,928 profit every minute!

3. Wal-Mart will sell more from January 1 to St.
Patrick's Day (March 17th) than Target sells all year.

4. Wal-Mart is bigger than Home Depot + Kroger + Target +
Sears + Costco + K-Mart combined.

5. Wal-Mart employs 1.6 million people and is the largest
private Employer, and most speak English.

6. Wal-Mart is the largest company in the history of the
World.

7. Wal-Mart now sells more food than Kroger & Safeway
combined, and keep in mind they did this in only 15 years.

8. During this same period, 31 supermarket chains sought
bankruptcy.

9. Wal-Mart now sells more food than any other store in the
world.

10. Wal-Mart has approx 3,900 stores in the USA of which
1,906 are Super Centers; this is 1,000 more than it had
5 Years ago.

11. This year 7.2 billion different purchasing experiences
will occur At a Wal-Mart store. (Earth's population is
approximately 6.5 Billion.)

12. 90% of all Americans live within 15 miles of a
Wal-Mart.

You may think that I am complaining, but I am really laying
the ground work for suggesting that MAYBE we should hire the
guys who run Wal-Mart to Fix the economy.

This should be read and understood by all Americans

Democrats, Republicans, EVERYONE!!

To President Obama and all 535 voting members of the
Legislature,

It is now official you are ALL corrupt morons:

* The U.S. Post Service was established in
1775. You have had 234 years to get it right and it is
broke.
* Social Security was established in 1935.
You have had 74 years to get it right and it is broke.
* Fannie Mae was established in 1938. You
have had 71 years
to get it right and it is broke.
* War on Poverty started in 1964. You have
had 45 years to get it right; $1 trillion of our money is
confiscated each year and transferred to "the
poor" and they only want more.
* Medicare and Medicaid were established
in 1965. You have had 44 years to get it right and they are
broke.
* Freddie Mac was established in 1970. You
have had 39 years to get it right and it is broke.
* The Department of Energy was created in
1977 to lessen our dependence on foreign oil. It has
ballooned to 16,000 employees with a budget of $24 billion a
year and we import more oil than ever before. You had 32
years to get it right and it is an abysmal failure.

You have FAILED in every "government service" you
have shoved down our throats while overspending our tax
dollars

AND YOU WANT AMERICANS TO BELIEVE YOU CAN BE TRUSTED WITH A
GOVERNMENT-RUN HEALTH
CARE SYSTEM??

Folks, keep this circulating. It is very well stated. Maybe
it will end up in the e-mails of some of our "duly
elected' and their staff (they never read anything) will
clue them in on how Americans feel.

Workings Of Congress

2010-05-29T15:07:00.001-04:00

For too long we have been too complacent about the workings of Congress. Many citizens had no idea that members of Congress could retire with the same pay after only one term, that they didn't pay into Social Security, that they specifically exempted themselves from many of the laws they have passed (such as being exempt from any fear of prosecution for sexual harassment) while ordinary citizens must live under those laws. The latest is to exempt themselves from the Healthcare Reform...in all of its forms. Somehow, that doesn't seem logical. We do not have an elite that is above the law. I truly don't care if they are Democrat, Republican, Independent or whatever. The self-serving must stop. This is a good way to do that. It is an idea whose time has come.
Proposed 28th Amendment to the United States Constitution
"Congress shall make no law that applies to the citizens of the United States that does not apply equally to the Senators and/or Representatives; and, Congress shall make no law that applies to the Senators and/or Representatives that does not apply equally to the citizens of the United States."

Thank You Obama

2010-05-29T15:07:00.000-04:00

This is so well put, I'm going to carry it around in my back pocket. It's all in a NUT Shell

BEFORE YOU THINK I'VE FLIPPED MY LID, READ THE ENTIRE COLUMN!

Three Cheers for Obama!

That is right - I will say it. . . . . THANK GOD FOR OBAMA!

He destroyed the Clinton Political Machine - Driving a stake thru the Heart of Hillary's Presidential aspirations--something no Republican was ever able to do. Remember when a Hillary Presidency scared the daylights out of you!

He killed off the Kennedy Dynasty - No more Kennedy’s trolling Washington looking for booze and women wanting rides home. American women and freedom are safer tonight!

He is destroying the Democratic Party before our eyes!
Dennis Moore had never lost a race - quit
Evan Bayh had never lost a race - quit
Byron Dorgan - had never lost a race - quit
Harry Reid - bid for re-election doesn't look good
These are just a handful of the Democrats whose political careers Obama has destroyed! By the end of 2010 dozens more will be!
In December of 2008 the Democrats were on the rise.. In the last two election cycles they had picked up 14 senate seats and 52 house seats.
The press was touting the death of the Conservative Movement and theRepublican Party.
In one year Obama put a stop to all of this and will probably give the house, if not the senate back to the Republicans.

He has completely exposed liberals and progressives for what they are.
Every generation seems to need to relearn the lesson on why they
should never actually put liberals in charge.
He is bringing home the lesson very well!
Liberals tax, borrow and spend - check
Liberals won't bring themselves to protect America - check
Liberals want to take over the economy - check
Liberals think they know what is best for everyone - check
Liberals aren't happy till they are running YOUR life - check

He has brought more Americans back to conservatism than anyone since Reagan.

In one year he rejuvenated the Conservative Movement and brought out to the streets millions of Freedom Loving Americans.
Name me one other time in your life that you saw your friends and neighbors this interested in taking back America!

In all honesty one year ago I was more afraid than I had ever been in my life.
Not of the economy, but of the direction our country was going.
I thought Americans had forgotten what this country was all about.
My neighbors, friends, strangers proved to me that my lack of confidence
of the greatness and wisdom of the American people was flat out wrong.

When the American People wake up, no smooth talking teleprompter reader can fool them! Obama woke up these Great Americans

Again I want say Thank you Obama!

So, Lets Recap "2009".........what a year! WOW!!!
1. The American people inaugurate a half-Arab president with a total of 142 days experience as a US Senator from the most politically corrupt state (city) in America whose governors have been ousted from office. The President's first official act is to order the closeing of Gitmo and make sure terrorists civil rights are not violated. (Honest mistake?)

2. The U.S. Congress rushes to confirm a black Attorney General, Eric Holder, whose law firm we later find out represents seventeen Gitmo Terrorists.. (An honest mistake?)

3. The CIA Boss appointee, Leon Panetta, has absolutely no experience in the intel business, has a daughter Linda, we find out, who is a true radical anti-American activist and a supporter of all the Anti-Americanregimes in the western hemisphere. (There were socio-economic factors involved!)

4. We got the second most corrupt American woman (Pelosi is #1) as Secretary of State; bought and paid for. (You can put lipstick on a pig, but it still stinks!)

5. We got a Tax Cheat for Treasury Secretary who did not properly
file his own taxes for 12 years. (He misspoke!)

6. A Commerce Secretary nominee who withdrew due to corruption charges.
(Another honest mistake???)

7. A Tax cheat nominee for Chief Performance Officer who withdrew under charges. (Hmmm... Another screw-up?)

8. A Labor Secretary nominee who withdrew under charges of unethical conduct. (Ok, maybe this person was just plain stupid.)

9. A Secretary HHS nominee (Daschle) who withdrew under charges of cheating on his taxes. (I'm running out of excuses for these idiots!!)

10. Multiple appointments of former lobbyists after an absolute campaign statement that no lobbyists would be appointed. (Dear God, I am getting a headache!)

All this occurred just during the first three weeks … But who's counting?

America is being run by the modern-day Three Stooges; Barry, Nancy and Harry and they are still trying to define stimulus..."it's spending!!!"

The congress passes the $800,000,000,000 (that's $800 billion) pork-loaded spending bill where the government gives you a smidgen of your tax dollars ($13 per week), making you feel so good about yourself [stimulated], that you want to run out to Wal-Mart and buy a new Chinese-made HDTV!

Only with the Liberals...

Pray for our country.
Here's the good news though - Obama took Air Force One to Denver to sign the stimulus package, wasting as much as 10,000 gallons of fuel OR 24 JOBS FOR ONE YEAR.

Don't you just love hypocrites?
Obama went to the International Olympic Committee to have them choose Chicago for a host city, he failed.

Obama went to Copenhagen to lecture them on global warming, he failed.

Obama went to New Jersey to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, he failed,

Obama went to Virginia to promote the Democratic candidate for governor, he failed.

Obama went to Massachusetts to promote the Democratic candidate for senator, he failed.

Speaking of praying, Obama has now been president for a full year and yet he & wife (first lady) Michelle, the Christian family they claim to be, have not attended church since the inauguration.

Obama is the 1st president in history who did not attend anyChristmas religious observance. He must miss Reverend Wright!

And finally, he is the 1st president to remain on vacation after a terrorist attack. In these times 'I'll keep my God, my freedom, my gun and my money.

Anyone that supports this insanity can keep "THE CHANGE".
Just Facts........yet I'm sure those on the Left will say this is no big deal!!!

Life isn't about waiting for the storm to pass, Its learning to dance in the rain.

Health Care Reform

2010-04-29T19:07:00.001-04:00

AOL News Staff

AOL News

(March 17) -- What will health care reform do to health spending, premiums, deficits and so on?

With details about the final bill still being worked out and fresh cost estimates flying back and forth on Capitol Hill, the exact effects of health care reform are still not entirely clear.

But the changes to the Senate bill that the House is working on aren't likely to be dramatic. So the numbers below aren't likely to be too far off the mark.

National health spending

An analysis of the Senate bill by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services found that it would push spending on health care up by $222 billion over the next decade, compared with no reform (see table 5 in this report).

Premiums

Reform's effects on premiums depends on how you get coverage. The Congressional Budget Office found that Senate bill:

Would have little to no effect on premiums for workers in big companies, compared with no reform;
Could either boost premiums slightly, or lower them slightly for workers in small companies;
Would push premiums up as much as 17% for those in the individual market. But more than half of these people would be able to get taxpayer subsidies that would cut insurance costs well below what would be the case without reform.
Deficit reduction

The CBO says the Senate bill would cut the deficit by $118 billion between now and 2019. That sounds like a lot, but it amounts to less than 3% of the more than $4 trillion in deficits the government will run over the next decade if President Barack Obama's overall budget plans are enacted. In 2019, for example, the deficit would be $1.253 trillion without reform, and $1.242 trillion with reform.

Universal coverage

While the Senate bill would cover 30 million additional people by 2019, it would still leave 23 million without coverage that year, according to the CBO.

When will it take effect?

In the Senate bill, at least, several reforms -- including insurance market reforms -- don't kick in until 2014. The House similarly delayed enactment of reforms. A key reason was to make the budget numbers add up over the first 10 years, since new taxes and fees, as well as cost-control measures, start immediately, while programs that spend tax money are delayed. Some supporters of reform admit this is a budget gimmick.

Carl Rove

2010-03-31T20:42:00.000-04:00

Karl Rove, the White House adviser whom George W. Bush called his political "architect," admits in a new memoir that the failure to find weapons of mass destruction in Iraq severely damaged the Bush presidency -- and he suggests the war might not have occurred had Bush actually known the truth.

Of his own role, Rove writes that his biggest mistake was not pushing back against claims that the president had led the country into the Iraq war under false pretenses.

If Bush had known about the absence of weapons of mass destruction, Rove questions whether the United States would have gone to war, according to an excerpt quoted by the New York Times. "Would the Iraq War have occurred without W.M.D., I doubt it," Rove writes. "Congress was very unlikely to have supported the use-of-force resolution without the W.M.D. threat. The Bush administration itself would probably have sought other ways to constrain Saddam, bring about regime change and deal with Iraq's horrendous human rights violations."

The lingering perception that the war was unjustified hurt Bush's credibility and diminished support for the war in Iraq, Rove says, according to the Associated Press, which obtained an advance copy of the book "Courage and Consequence" and first reported on it.

"When the pattern of the Democratic attacks became apparent in July 2003, we should have countered in a forceful and overwhelming way," he says in material quoted by the Washington Post. "We should have seen this for what it was: a poison-tipped dagger aimed at the heart of the Bush presidency."

Rove devotes space in the memoir to the 2005 hurricane that devastated states along the Gulf Coast and put most of New Orleans under water. Bush was sharply criticized for the federal government's slow response to the disaster and he made matters worse when he commended FEMA director Michael Brown for doing a "heck of a job." That line became fodder for the ridicule of late night comedians and a catch-phrase for critics who thought the Bush administration incompetent and detached.

But Rove blamed state and local officials for bungling the recovery, especially then-Louisiana Gov. Kathleen Blanco and then-New Orleans Mayor Ray Nagin, both Democrats. Yet he also concedes, the "White House was too passive for too long" in the early days of the disaster. "Louisiana's failures became our failures anyway."

The Texas native, now a Fox News analyst, also took a shot at President Obama in the book, calling him the stereotype of the Chicago politician, playing fast and loose with facts.

On the international stage, Rove maintains the 2003 invasion was the most momentous act of Bush's presidency and the right response to the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks, even though Iraqi leader Saddam Hussein wasn't responsible, the AP reported.
"Having seen how much carnage four airplanes could cause, Bush was determined to do all he could to prevent the most powerful weapons from falling into the hands of the world's most dangerous dictators," Rove wrote.

Rove, in excerpts cited by the Post, describes the first hours after the Sept. 11 attacks and the swift departure of Air Force One with the president aboard. "The 747 shot down the runway with a force I had never experienced. Once in the air, Air Force One then stood on its tail to get as high as possible, as rapidly as possible. I had not been in a jet at such a steep incline."

Rove asserted that history will look favorably on Bush's two terms as president. "Courage and Consequence" will be released March.

I have a question for you. Where the hell is all that money we’re spending on defense going? Billions of dollars and yet, Bush thought there were weapons of mass destruction? You would think they’d spend at least a couple million on someone who can tell the truth to the President. I don’t know whose ass you’re trying to suck up to but Bush knew and Cheney did too.

2010-03-31T20:33:00.002-04:00

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

An Obama Promise Gone Up In Smoke

2010-02-24T17:46:00.002-05:00

Jacob Sullum Special to AOL News

(Feb. 23) -- During his presidential campaign, Barack Obama made it clear that, if elected, he would take a different approach to medical marijuana."Prosecuting and raiding medical marijuana users," he said in the summer of 2007, is "really not a good use of Justice Department resources." Later he extended that statement to include medical marijuana growers and promised that "I'm not going to be using Justice Department resources to try to circumvent state laws on this issue." Early in his administration, Obama's attorney general, Eric Holder, reiterated these points.The Drug Enforcement Administration apparently didn't get the message.Two weeks ago, DEA agents busted a medical marijuana grower in Highlands Ranch, Colo. After the raid, Jeffrey Sweetin, the special agent in charge of the DEA's Denver office, declared: "It's still a violation of federal law. It's not medicine. We're still going to continue to investigate and arrest people." Last week the DEA raided a medical marijuana dispensary in Culver City, Calif.These busts were the latest in a series of DEA raids that have violated President Obama's campaign promise to stop interfering with medical marijuana laws, which 14 states and the District of Columbia have enacted. The Obama administration's failure to deliver on his promise is due not only to resistance from hard-liners like Sweetin but also to its own mixed signals.Consider the memo that the Justice Department sent U.S. attorneys in November, telling them they "should not focus federal resources" on prosecuting people who grow or possess marijuana for medical purposes in compliance with state law. The memo said only "individuals whose actions are in clear and unambiguous compliance with existing state laws" would be eligible for the Justice Department's newfound tolerance. That language leaves a lot of leeway for federal interference in states where the requirements of medical marijuana laws are a matter of dispute.

David McNew, Getty Images
Dave Warden, a bud tender at Private Organic Therapy (P.O.T.), a non-profit co-operative medical marijuana dispensary, displays various types of marijuana available to patients in Los Angeles, California.California's law, for example, lets patients "collectively or cooperatively" grow marijuana and distribute it to each other, but local officials disagree with state officials and each other about what exactly that means. Last month the Los Angeles City Council approved new regulations for medical marijuana dispensaries. Meanwhile, City Attorney Carmen Trutanich and Los Angeles County District Attorney Steve Cooley maintain the dispensaries are completely illegal because they exchange pot for money, even though guidelines from California Attorney General Jerry Brown permit such transactions.Chris Bartkowicz, the Colorado grower arrested this month, says the patients he was supplying had designated him their "primary caregiver," a status that would allow him to grow at least six plants per patient. The Colorado Board of Health is considering regulations that would limit caregivers to five patients each and require them to do more than supply marijuana, but those rules weren't in place at the time of Bartkowicz's arrest.Even if Colorado's courts would say that Bartkowicz's operation was legitimate, the Justice Department seems to be reserving the right to favor its own interpretation of state law. Among the factors that could expose a medical marijuana supplier to federal prosecution, the November memo lists "financial gains or excessive amounts of cash."But Colorado's law says nothing one way or the other about how much compensation a caregiver can receive from a patient. So on what basis does the federal government decide that a grower's "financial gains" are illicit or that the amount of cash he has is "excessive?"The Justice Department may think it's outrageous for medical marijuana growers to turn a profit, or even to get reimbursed for their expenses, but Colorado's law says no such thing. This sort of second-guessing is inconsistent with the president's commitment to respecting state autonomy in this area.Meanwhile, drug warriors like Sweetin do not even pretend to be interpreting state law, as the new policy ostensibly requires. And given Obama's choice to head the DEA -- a Bush holdover who enthusiastically oversaw the agency's medical marijuana raids as acting administrator and as special agent in charge of the L.A. office -- it's no wonder Sweetin feels confident in asserting that the president's promises mean nothing.

Jacob Sullum, a senior editor at Reason magazine, is the author of Saying Yes: In Defense of Drug Use (Tarcher/Penguin).

President Obama

2010-01-04T08:46:00.003-05:00

When Obama won the Presidency with the help of the LEFTIST Media, Hollywood and Entertainment Liberals, Ethnic Socialists (ACORN), Stupid Non-Business Professionals and Bush Haters, I wrote:

It won’t take 6 months until the people figure this guy out and realize how horrible a mistake they’ve made. And when they come to that realization, the damage to the United States of America will be so great, that it will take a generation or more to repair - IF EVER.

The IDIOTS who not only voted for the Messiah, but also worked their sorry asses-off to promote his Lordship, are now left holding the bag. Here are two things they will NEVER do:

1 – They will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind.

2 – They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they’ve imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country.

In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror-show in power are in themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof. In just 6 (SIX) months, the Messiah’s polls are showing the following:

On Healthcare Reform - He’s going under for the third time with polling well under 50%, even within his own Party.

Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago BULLY tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.

On Cap And Trade (Cap & Tax) – The Fat-Lady is already singing.

On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend) - His popularity is in FREE-FALL.

On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush - It’s all but Good-Night Irene.

On the closing of GITMO and “HIS” war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism - He’s standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under.

On a comparison between himself and George W Bush at the same 6 months into their respective first term Presidencies - Bush is ahead of him in the Polls.

On a comparison between He Who Walks On Water and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now - Obama ranks 10th.

On a Poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today between Obama and Mitt Romney - It’s a dead heat. Between Obama and Palin - Obama’s ONLY ahead by 8 points and she hasn’t even begun to campaign.

It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere where he shouldn’t be. He’s personally invested in screwing-over America’s ONLY REAL Middle Eastern ally (Israel) in favor of Palestinian Despots and Murderers.

He’s traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth, he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected.

He went to the Moslem world in Egypt to declare that America IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the “plight” of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

The Russians think he’s a Putz. The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.

As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way.

Maybe, if America’s first Emperor would stay home more and travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday, or forget about his Wednesday Date Nights with his Amazon Wife, or stop running to “papered” Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation.

In all fairness, it wasn’t HARD to be RIGHT in my prediction concerning Obama’s Presidency, even in its first 6 months, so I’m going to make yet another prediction:

OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way.

He is such a political HORROR-SHOW, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either FORCE him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out.

Who knows, maybe he really isn’t a BORN US Citizen and that’s a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him.Or – MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT.

I don’t believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast.

The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for EVERYTHING. But, that game’s already begun to wear real thin. Their mantra was “WE DON’T WANT 4 MORE YEARS”, which the STUPID people bought, since McCain was nothing at all like George W Bush.

The new mantra will soon become: WE DON’T WANT 6 MORE MONTHS.Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov

HealthCare-Please Read

2009-12-25T22:33:00.002-05:00

PLEASE PASS THIS FAR AND WIDE, THIS WILL BE TAKEN INTO ACCOUNT Please read and act, only takes a minute!

On Tuesday, the Senate health committee voted 12-11 in favor of a two-page amendment courtesy of Republican Tom Coburn that wouldrequire all Members and their staffs to enroll in any newgovernment-run health plan.

It took me less than a minute to sign upto require our congressmen and senators to drink at the same trough!

Three cheers for Congressman John Fleming of Louisiana ! Congressman John Fleming ( Louisiana physician) has proposed anamendment that would require congressmen and senators to take the samehealthcare plan they force on us (under proposed legislation they are curiously exempt).

Congressman Fleming is encouraging people to go on his Website andsign his petition (very simple - just first, last and email). I haveimmediately done just that at:http://fleming.house.gov/index.cfm?sectionid=55&sectiontree=29,55

Please urge as many people as you can to do the same! If Congress forces this on the American people, the Congressmen shouldhave to accept the same level of health care for themselves and theirfamilies. To do otherwise is the height of hypocrisy!

A Note From Canada

2009-12-25T22:19:00.002-05:00

1 – They will NEVER admit to making a blunder out of all proportion by electing a snake-oil salesman with no positive social history or management experience of any kind.

2 – They will NEVER take responsibility for the curse they’ve imposed upon the immediate and long-term future of their country.

In essence, the people responsible for putting this horror-show in power are in themselves responsible for every cataclysmic decision he makes and the consequences thereof.

In just 6 (SIX) months, the Messiah’s polls are showing the following:

On Healthcare Reform - He’s going under for the third time with polling well under 50%, even within his own Party.

Even though he might be able to muscle a Healthcare Reform Bill by using Chicago BULLY tactics against his fellow Democrats, it will just make things worse.

On Cap And Trade (Cap & Tax) – The Fat-Lady is already singing.

On the Stimulus Package (Tax and Spend) - His popularity is in FREE-FALL.

On the TARP package he took and ran with from President Bush - It’s all but Good-Night Irene.

On the closing of GITMO and “HIS” war on what he no longer wants called the War On Terrorism - He’s standing in quicksand with his head just about to go under.

On a comparison between himself and George W Bush at the same 6 months into their respective first term Presidencies - Bush is ahead of him in the Polls.

On a comparison between He Who Walks On Water and the 12 preceding Presidents between WW II and now - Obama ranks 10th.

On a Poll just conducted, that asks who would you vote for today between Obama and Mitt Romney - It’s a dead heat. Between Obama and Palin - Obama’s ONLY ahead by 8 points and she hasn’t even begun to campaign. It seems to me that Obama wants to be everywhere where he shouldn’t be.

He’s personally invested in screwing-over America’s ONLY REAL Middle Eastern ally (Israel) in favor of Palestinian Despots and Murderers.

He’s traveling the world apologizing for the USA while lecturing others on how to do it right, when in fact and truth, he has no experience at doing anything other than getting elected.

He went to the Moslem world in Egypt to declare that America IS NOT A CHRISTIAN NATION while he heaped praises on Islam, where he compared the “plight” of the Palestinians to the Holocaust.

The Russians think he’s a Putz. The French think he’s rude. The Germans want him to stop spending. The Indians want him to mix his nose out of their environmental business. The North Koreans think he’s a joke. The Iranians won’t acknowledge his calls. And the British can’t even come up with a comprehensive opinion of him.

As for the Chinese, he’s too frightened to even glance their way.

Maybe, if America’s first Emperor would stay home more and travel less, and work a little bit instead of being on television just about everyday, or forget about his Wednesday Date Nights with his Amazon Wife, or stop running to “papered” Town Hall Meetings, perhaps he would have a little bit of time to do the work of the nation.

In all fairness, it wasn’t HARD to be RIGHT in my prediction concerning Obama’s Presidency, even in its first 6 months, so I’m going to make yet another prediction: OBAMA WILL PROBABLY NOT FINISH HIS 4-YEAR TERM, at least not in a conventional way.

He is such a political HORROR-SHOW, and so detrimental to the USA and his own Democratic Party, that the Democrats themselves will either FORCE him to resign or figure out a way to have him thrown out.

Who knows, maybe he really isn’t a BORN US Citizen and that’s a way the Democrats will be able to get rid of him.Or – MORE LIKELY THAN NOT, the Democrats will make Obama THEIR OWN LAME DUCK PRESIDENT.

I don’t believe the Democrats have nearly as much love for their country as they do for their own political fortunes. And with Obama, their fortunes are rapidly becoming toast.

The Democrats can keep on blaming Bush for EVERYTHING. But, that game’s already begun to wear real thin. Their mantra was “WE DON’T WANT 4 MORE YEARS”, which the STUPID people bought, since McCain was nothing at all like George W Bush.

The new mantra will soon become: WE DON’T WANT 6 MORE MONTHS.

Best Regards . . . Howard Galganov

Putting things into perspective: What If George W. Bush had ...Unattributed | July 1, 2009

2009-12-01T12:23:00.001-05:00

I am by no means a George Bush fan. But I am not a fan of Obama either.

What If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the Fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as “proof” of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he is inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?
So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 weeks -- so you'll have three years and nine-and-a-half months to come up with an answer.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

This Article is from a Canadian Newspaper.

2009-11-04T00:34:00.001-05:00

Knowing it and Stopping it are Two Different Things - Obama’s Assault on America
By JB Williams Thursday, August 27, 2009

Based upon the thousands of American citizens taking to the streets at Tea Parties and Town Hall’s across the country, in protest to the outright theft of their nation by far left extremists now in control of all three branches of the Fed, I’d say it’s safe to assume that the American people are finally awake…

But knowing what’s going on and stopping it are two very different things. Being willing to act and being committed to winning at any cost are also two very different things.

American citizens are finally awake and they are beginning to take action against the greatest threat to American freedom and liberty ever known to American citizens. But are they as committed to winning, to stopping the destruction of their country, as Obamanation is to completing their assault on all things American?

As the old saying goes, it’s not always the size of the man in the fight that determines the outcome of the fight. Often, it is the size of the fight in the man…

Americans, taxpayers in particular, are clearly under attack today. In the name of “social justice,” Democratic Socialists in Washington DC have cast off the constitutional chains intended to keep the Fed shackled and impotent in their leftist quest to seize power entrusted only to the people and the states.

The term “social justice” dates to early twentieth century Germany and the passage of The Weimar Constitution in 1919. In fact, if you take time to study the document, you will find that it very much defines exactly how modern Democratic Socialists in America choose to interpret the Constitutional Republic of the United States.

In short, the concept of “social justice” pertains to the power of the state to force “social equality” in a free society where free individuals will quite naturally use varying degrees of talent and ambition to achieve socially unequal results. This is socially unacceptable to leftists.
As individual freedom always results in a natural imbalance of power between those who have used their freedom well and those who have not, “social justice” assumes the state power to “equal the playing field” so that all members of society can “participate equally” in society.

There can be no “rich,” for that means that there will be “poor.” Freedom is unfair and unjust, in the mind of those who seek “social justice.” For them, equal opportunity is not enough. They seek equal outcomes, regardless of individual talent, sacrifice or ambition.

This is “social justice,” - The states power to confiscate and redistribute private property, taking from those who earn and redistributing to those of “lesser fortune.” It is not an act of charity, as charity is an individual act which requires the consent of the giver. It is an act of tyranny…

“Social justice” is the end that justifies the means. This is the “change” that Barack Obama promised to bring to the United States of America. This is the “change” that 56 million American voters voted for last November, whether they knew it at the time or not.

And this is the “change” that the international left has invested billions of dollars in, including hundreds of millions in illegal foreign campaign contributions through “bundlers” – responsible for placing a freshman senator with a blank résumé in the most powerful office in the world.

International Socialists invested more than $1 Billion to make certain that Barack Obama would sit in the Oval Office as America was led into unbridled Marxism, “social justice.” They expect a return on their investment and Obama MUST deliver, or his best friends will quickly become his worst enemies and the greatest threat to his presidency.

The American people have taken note of 32 unelected Czars and the federal confiscation of banking, insurance, auto manufacturing and energy, as the left sets their sights on 1/7th of the entire U.S. economy, the medical industry.

The people are awake and taking action. But how committed are they to putting down the rising tidal wave of Marxism running rampant in the halls of congress and Oval Office under the leadership of Saul Alinsky’s Chicago Cabal?

Today’s Washington DC apparatus sees the U.S. Constitution as an outdated piece of paper which only stands in the way of “progress.” Progress, being defined as “social justice,” of course.
The left is half right in this assertion… The individual freedom and liberty guaranteed every American citizen in the Constitution, is a major impediment to their search for “social justice.” The U.S. Constitution places all power squarely in the hands of the people and the states, with very limited powers assigned to the Fed, which was to exist and operate at the pleasure of the states.

This idea is wholly at odds with the agenda of those seeking the federal power to force their idea of “social justice” upon the free masses, and in this way, they are right. The U.S. Constitution is a foundational structure that must be abolished, if “social justice” is to reign in America.
But is it an outdated idea in the mind of the average American?

Sadly, for many Americans, the answer is yes… Note how many Americans are enraged by the notion that millions of Americans dare doubt or question Obama’s Article II eligibility for the office he currently holds…

The idea that average Americans should have the right (standing) to ask such a question of any taxpayer employee is simply beyond the imagination of people who believe in unelected Czars and unlimited federal powers to define and distribute “social justice.” They are enraged by the audacity of American citizens who dare question their king… or is it “messiah?”

However, I still believe that these anti-American elitists represent a small (but powerful) minority in America, namely the 29% who “strongly approve” of Obamanation today, down from the inauguration day high of 44%. But we are about to find out if I am right in that belief.

Hundreds of stories like Emotions run high at town hall meeting - CharlotteObserver.com show growing public anger over not just ObamaCare, but all Marxist policies coming out of Washington DC of late.

The ONLY Town Hall meetings that show any support at all for Obamanation, are those carefully orchestrated by Rahm’s White House propaganda machine, like the one in Montana described here; How Obama Organizes a Town Hall Meeting John Goodman NCPA – hired, trained, armed and paid for by Obama’s labor unions and ACORN thugs.

Believe it or not, most Americans can read. And since they distrust the Chicago cabal more than any administration in American history, they have taken the time to read Pelosi’s Marxist ObamaCare bills for themselves and they ain’t buying the so-called “facts” from Obama propaganda partners at FactCheck or Snopes, NBC, ABC, CBS, CNN, NPR or PBS.

This is just the tip of the iceberg. ObamaCare is the fuse that ignited widespread revolt, but the revolt is about much more than public opposition to ObamaCare. It’s about everything Obama & Co. have done to dismantle America since they defrauded American voters last fall.

As U.S. News put it, “This healthcare town hall was only nominally about healthcare. It was really about something else. It was about anger and fear. It was about a trenchant sense of disillusionment, resentment, and powerlessness.” - Behind the Rage at Healthcare Town Hall Meetings

Exactly! The people were tricked into “making history” and supporting “change” without knowing what kinds of “change” was in store. Now that they can see what kinds of “change” the Chicago Ayers and Alinsky cabal had in mind, saying that they resent it, might be a gross understatement.

My question remains however…. What are the American people prepared to do to stop the theft of freedom and liberty in America? Clearly, they are awake and prepared to inform themselves, call, write or confront their elected officials at town hall meetings, organize via Tea Party movements, initiate law suits, file criminal complaints and Grand Jury indictments and then some… Is this enough to stop the Chicago cabal?

What if it isn’t? Obama has spent more than $1.35 million in legal fees to refuse American taxpayers the right to know who and what their president really is…and no court in America will even agree to hear any evidence on the matter. Most Americans aren’t even engaged in the effort to find out who and what this blatant fraud is living in our White House.

Exactly how committed are average Americans to saving their country and preserving individual freedom and liberty for future generations?

Nobody knows for certain, but I have a strong suspicion that we are about to find out.

Obamanation is committed enough to its agenda that they are willing to label all dissenters, “crackpots” – “extremists” – “racists” – “fascists” – and “potential domestic terrorists.” These terms give them the right and power to use even US Military force to quell the voice of dissent, if need be. Before this is over, we will very likely see average Americans put in prison for their willingness to stand up and speak out against Obama.

So, Americans know just how ugly this thing can get. Are they prepared to do whatever it takes to take their nation back, or only that which is politically correct and socially acceptable in the eyes of their enemies?

Time will tell, and I think that time is growing close at hand. I pray for the safety of every American patriot willing to take a stand for freedom and liberty.

And yes, I pray for the complete utter failure of Obamanation, because the success of the Chicago cabal can only be defined as the destruction of the United States of America. To preserve the good ole USA, Obamanation must be decimated. The terms and conditions of the battle are being determined by Obamanation, not the American people.

Cut off from the courts and ignored by their elected officials, all peaceful means of resolution are being systematically eliminated by the left. When only violent measures remain, leftists will seek to lay blame with those who oppose the destruction of their country.

But when no peaceful option is afforded, who is to blame for the violence that follows?

Now that Americans know it, are Americans ready to stop it? We will soon see… My money is on the real American spirit which will in the end, refuse to live in bondage

Gold Tips

2009-10-05T08:45:00.002-04:00

How to play the mind game of golf

Keep a Tight Rein on Your Emotions

Panic is a major dilemma on the golf course; often, when you find yourself in serious trouble, it's easy to lose your composure because you allow a feeling of anxiety to take charge of your inner self. And usually the situation is not as hopeless as you interpret it to be.

Being realistic about your ability is one of the most difficult mental tasks that we all face on the golf course. And that doesn't mean you should ever take a defeatist attitude toward your game; just be practical in how you try and overcome obstacles such as a bad lie or other predicaments.
Whether on the golf course or in everyday life, it's difficult for all of us to recognize our limitations. Accepting our shortcomings and learning to live with them is important in daily life and it's vital on the golf course.

All golfers occasionally hit poor shots at the worst possible time. The normal reaction is to have a feeling of desperation creep into your psyche, feeling you have to do something spectacular to make up for the bad shot. For most of us that isn't possible and it's inviting disaster to even attempt near-impossible shots.

Often we find ourselves in an untenable situation on a particular shot because of the weather, a prior poor shot, or our limited ability. When this happens, don't try to force a miracle shot that will lead to a round-ruining hole.

Here are six examples of problem shots that all golfers encounter from time to time:

1 On a par four or five, you can have a long approach shot to the green because of a poor tee shot or a fierce headwind. If it's a shot that you are unlikely to hit successfully with a three-wood, use a more-forgiving club like a five-wood that will leave you in a good position to approach. The percentages are against reaching the green with the three-wood and you can end up in the rough or a trap if you try it.

2 When you have an 80-100 yard iron shot that's downwind to a pin set behind a trap on a downhill lie, don't try and hit a miracle shot to get it close. You're in a situation where you have to accept a par or bogey and go on to the next hole. Be sure and hit your approach safely on the green so you don't jump up a double-bogey by hitting a dumb shot.

3 Don't be embarrassed to hit a wood instead of an iron to a long par three into the wind, even if your playing companions all hit an iron. It's a game of how many, not how. Play within your own capabilities.

4 On slick, downhill putts with a lot of break, allow more break than you need to in order to stop the ball close the hole. If you try and make the putt, chances are you'll let it get away and three-putt. However, circumstances during a particular round will dictate whether or not to do this. But it's a good rule to play more break than you think you need on treacherous downhill putts. In other words, you're sacrificing a long-shot chance to make the putt in order to be certain of a two-putt.

5 On short pitch shots out of heavy rough close to the green, it's easy to try to be too cute with them. You have to chop down on the shot and hit it firmly to be sure it comes out of the heavy rough. This shot is extra tough to get close to the hole and the first consideration should be to make certain that you get it on the green within easy two-putt range.

6 When an errant tee shot puts you in the trees and you have a choice between hitting through a narrow opening or pitching back to the fairway, take the safer route. If you try and hit a full shot through a narrow opening, you can end up in even more trouble and jump up a double- or triple-bogey.

That's just six examples of difficult shots that can lead to wasted strokes; there are so many predicaments requiring you to rein in your emotions that they would fill a book.
You have to think on the golf course and you must maintain your concentration and poise. Be aware of and accept your weaknesses and make the best of unfavorable situations; that's a practical rule for golfers of all skill levels.

How Madoff Did It by Michael Zhuang

2009-10-05T08:34:00.002-04:00

Bernie Madoff was sentenced to 150 years in prison by New York District Judge, Denny Chin. With the trial now over, Madoff's victims are still fighting over what little is left of his fund. They want to know: Where was the SEC?

More appropriate questions should be: How did Madoff do it? What human frailties did he exploit? How was he able to con $65 billion out of the most sophisticated members of our society? Here's how his scam worked:

Affinity
We humans lower our guard when we believe other people are similar to us. Madoff exploited this one masterfully. Much like Charles Ponzi, who looked for his prey among Italians, Bernie Madoff focused on exclusive Jewish social clubs and Jewish foundations.

Social affirmation
We rely on social affirmation when assessing a person we don't know. This is why celebrities carry extraordinary persuasive power. Madoff became known as a philanthropist. He served on the boards of non-profit foundations. Many of them ended up investing with him. His philanthropic activities allowed him to bag clients like Elie Wiesel and Steven Spielberg. Much like Jordan affirms Nike, Madoff used the names of these righteous and talented people to gain credibility.

Authority
One Madoff victim, a CPA, said: "If I had just dug a little, I would have uncovered the scam; but there is no reason for me to dig - he is the chairman of NASDAQ." We humans are known to defer judgment to authority. Madoff was an expert at creating an impressive aura of authority.

Scarcity
According to one report, a NYC real estate investor literally begged Madoff to take her money: he refused. When stories like this spread, prudence gets thrown out the window.
How to avoid being "made off"
Keep a healthy dose of skepticism. The fact that Madoff kept personal custody of client assets should have rung an alarm bell.

Take your time to do due diligence. A phone call would have uncovered Madoff's accounting firm was just a hole in the wall.

Demand total transparency. Never, never, never invest in a "black box", even if it is supposed to generate fabulous returns.

From http://investment-fiduciary.com/2009/07/03/how-madoff-did-it/

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

2009-08-01T11:27:00.001-04:00

The president makes $400,000, and there is a big gap between that and the highest paid staffer -- $172,200. The salaries for staffers in the Office of First Lady are also on the newest list. The highest paid is Chief of Staff Susan Sher, who gets the top $172,200.

Here are the rest:$140,000Frye, Jocelyn C. (DEPUTY ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)

$113,000Rogers, Desiree G. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND WHITE HOUSE SOCIAL SECRETARY)

$102,000Johnston, Camille Y. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DIRECTOR OF COMMUNICATIONS FOR THE FIRST LADY) Winter, Melissa E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT TO THE PRESIDENT AND DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)

$90,000Medina, David S. (DEPUTY CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)

$84,000Lelyveld, Catherine M. (DIRECTOR AND PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)

$75,000Starkey, Frances M. (DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND ADVANCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)

$70,000Sanders, Trooper (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF POLICY AND PROJECTS FOR THE FIRST LADY)

$65,000Burnough, Erinn J. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)Reinstein, Joseph B. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY SOCIAL SECRETARY)

$62,000Goodman, Jennifer R. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF SCHEDULING AND EVENTS COORDINATOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)

$60,000Fitts, Alan O. (DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF ADVANCE AND TRIP DIRECTOR FOR THE FIRST LADY)Lewis, Dana M. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT AND PERSONAL AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)

$52,500Mustaphi, Semonti M. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR AND DEPUTY PRESS SECRETARY TO THE FIRST LADY)

$50,000Jarvis, Kristen E. (SPECIAL ASSISTANT FOR SCHEDULING AND TRAVELING AIDE TO THE FIRST LADY)

$45,000Lechtenberg, Tyler A. (ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)Tubman, Samantha (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR,SOCIAL OFFICE)

$40,000Boswell, Joseph J. (EXECUTIVE ASSISTANT TO THE CHIEF OF STAFF TO THE FIRST LADY)

$36,000Armbruster, Sally M. (STAFF ASSISTANT TO THE SOCIAL SECRETARY) Bookey, Natalie (STAFF ASSISTANT)Jackson, Deilia A. (DEPUTY ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR OF CORRESPONDENCE FOR THE FIRST LADY)

Truly change we can believe in.

Putting things into perspective: What If George W. Bush had ...

2009-08-01T11:17:00.004-04:00

I really didn't think we could get any worse than George Bush, but Obama has proved me wrong.

What If George W. Bush had made a joke at the expense of the Special Olympics, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given Gordon Brown a set of inexpensive and incorrectly formatted DVDs, when Gordon Brown had given him a thoughtful and historically significant gift, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had given the Queen of England an iPod containing videos of his speeches, would you have thought this embarrassingly narcissistic and tacky?

If George W. Bush had bowed to the King of Saudi Arabia, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had visited Austria and made reference to the non-existent "Austrian language," would you have brushed it off as a minor slip?

If George W. Bush had filled his cabinet and circle of advisers with people who cannot seem to keep current on their income taxes, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had been so Spanish illiterate as to refer to “Cinco de Cuatro” in front of the Mexican ambassador when it was the Fifth of May (Cinco de Mayo), and continued to flub it when he tried again, would you have winced in embarrassment?

If George W. Bush had misspelled the word advice would you have hammered him for it for years like Dan Quayle and potato as “proof” of what a dunce he is?

If George W. Bush had burned 9,000 gallons of jet fuel to go plant a single tree on “Earth Day”, would you have concluded he’s a hypocrite?

If George W. Bush’s administration had okayed Air Force One flying low over millions of people followed by a jet fighter in downtown Manhattan causing widespread panic, would you have wondered whether they actually “get” what happened on 9-11?

If George W. Bush had been the first President to need a teleprompter installed to be able to get through a press conference, would you have laughed and said this is more proof of how he is inept he is on his own and is really controlled by smarter men behind the scenes?

If George W. Bush had failed to send relief aid to flood victims throughout the Midwest with more people killed or made homeless than in New Orleans, would you want it made into a major ongoing political issue with claims of racism and incompetence?

If George W. Bush had ordered the firing of the CEO of a major corporation, even though he had no constitutional authority to do so, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had proposed to double the national debt, which had taken more than two centuries to accumulate, in one year, would you have approved?

If George W. Bush had then proposed to double the debt again within 10 years, would you have approved?

So, tell me again, what is it about Obama that makes him so brilliant and impressive? Can't think of anything? Don't worry. He's done all this in 10 weeks -- so you'll have three years and nine-and-a-half months to come up with an answer.

Bailout Costs Could Reach $24 Trillion

2009-07-21T00:02:00.001-04:00

By JIM KUHNHENN

WASHINGTON (July 20) - The federal government has devoted $4.7 trillion to help the financial sector through its crisis, a level of assistance equal to about one-third of the overall U.S. economy, a watchdog report said Monday.

Under the worst of circumstances, the report said, the government's maximum exposure could total nearly $24 trillion, or $80,000 for every American.

The figures are part of a tough new quarterly report to Congress from special inspector general Neil Barofsky, who accuses the Treasury Department of repeatedly failing to adopt recommendations aimed at making one component of the government financial rescue effort more accountable and transparent.

The $4.7 trillion commitment to the industry takes into account about 50 initiatives and programs set up since 2007 by the Bush and Obama administrations as well as by the Federal Reserve. Barofsky oversees one of the initiatives — the $700 billion Troubled Asset Relief Program.

Much of the government assistance is backed by collateral and Barofsky's $23.7 trillion estimate represents the gross, not net, exposure that the government could face.
Because of declining participation in short-term loan programs and because some infusions of money have been repaid, the maximum amount actually spent has declined to a current outstanding balance of $3 trillion, Barofsky said.

Treasury spokesman Andrew Williams said the actual cash outlay to date of all the programs cited by Barofsky is actually less than $2 trillion and said the maximum exposure estimate "is inflated in a number of ways."

The agencies and the programs assisting the financial sector include a newly created Federal Housing Finance Agency, increased deposit insurance initiated by the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., and 18 support programs created by the Fed under the special powers it can deploy to address a systemwide financial crisis.

Banks have cut back on their use of the Fed's emergency lending program as well as other programs to ease credit stresses. Given that, the Fed has reduced the amount it will lend to financial institutions under two programs and it has decided to let a program to support money market mutual funds to expire as currently scheduled at the end of October.

Barofsky's $23.7 trillion estimate represents the maximum exposure that the government would face if all eligible applicants requested the maximum assistance at the same time. It does not account for the fees and other costs that some of these programs charge and for the collateral that many of the programs require that participants provide.

For instance, Barofsky assigns $6.8 trillion in potential exposure to the Federal Housing Finance Agency, which oversees mortgage giants Fannie Mae , Freddie Mac and the 12 federal home loan banks. However, losses of that magnitude would require every homeowner with a Fannie or Freddie guaranteed mortgage to default and the value of the homes drop to zero. And Barofsky concedes that the finance agency and Treasury are not entirely liable for Fannie and Freddie losses.

The total also includes $3.35 trillion for a Treasury program, announced in September, to back money market mutual funds. But the Treasury has capped its liability for that program at $50 billion.

"While quantity and quality of the assets backing all of these programs vary, ignoring that side of these programs misrepresents 'potential exposure' associated with them," Treasury's Williams said.

In his report, Barofsky says Treasury has accepted some of his recommendations for greater accountability, but says the department has not taken steps to require all TARP recipients to report on their actual use of funds. He said Treasury also should report the values of its investments in banks and other financial institutions, disclose the identity of borrowers under a nonrecourse loan program and disclose trading activity under a public-private investment fund.

Barofsky says Treasury's inaction means taxpayers have not been told what the financial institutions that have received assistance are doing with the money.
Rep. Darrell Issa, the top Republican in the House of Representatives Oversight and Government Reform Committee, said that by not adopting Barofsky's recommendation, Treasury is contradicting President Barack Obama's vows to increase government accountability.

"I don't know how you can justify hiding from the American people how their tax dollars are being spent," Issa said.

Barofsky's conclusion is contained in a quarterly report to Congress and in testimony he is prepared to give Tuesday to the Oversight and Government Reform Committee.
"The very credibility of TARP (and thus in large measure its chance of success) depends on whether Treasury will commit, in deed as in word, to operate TARP with the highest degree of transparency possible," Barofsky said.
—
It's your money America. You need to be involved with what our government is doing with it. It won't get better until you do.

2009-07-14T13:23:00.002-04:00

New Haven paid $100,000 to a high stakes diversity testing firm, IO Solutions, Inc. of Illinois, to design the exams to be completely free of any racial bias. This is a necessary step these days in order to avoid charges of disparate impact upon protected minority groups -- and New Haven does have a large population of protected minority groups.

IO Solutions, Inc. is one of a few dozen firms which specializes in this kind of politically correct test design, and they are very good at it. According to court filings, IO Solutions did everything right in designing the New Haven fire department's promotional exams to be completely race-neutral, i.e., to not have a disparate impact upon selected, preferred skin colors.
Yet, when the New Haven FD administered the race-neutral tests in November and December of 2003, white firefighters scored so much higher than their black and brown counterparts that very few preferred minorities would have been promoted to the seven open Captain vacancies, nor to the eight open Lieutenant vacancies, if the exam scores were used.

New Haven's city charter requires that they follow a "rule of three" which requires that each open promotional position be filled from among the top three scorers on the exams.

If the "rule of three" were strictly applied to the 2003 promotional exams, it would have resulted in all of the open Captain and Lieutenant positions being filled by the best-qualified, highest scoring candidates.

Unfortunately the best-qualfied, highest scoring candidates turned out to be mostly white.

Oops.

The City Fathers and Mothers of New Haven reacted quickly to this politically unacceptable turn of events. They simply refused to certify the results of their fire department's race-neutral exams, thus effectively nullifying the results.

A reverse discrimination lawsuit was filed by the mostly white, highest-scoring firefighters who insisted that the race neutral exam scores should be used to promote them. Their lawsuit was thrown out by a liberal judge (a Clinton appointee), and the firefighters have filed an appeal which they stand a good chance of winning. More on that later.

The upshot is that as of the date of this posting (12-11-06) -- three years after the race-neutral exams were administered -- vacancies have been allowed to go unfilled and are temporarily occupied by firefighters in an 'acting' capacity. Some of the temporary 'acting' firefighters occupying these positions actually failed the Lieutenant and Captain exams, thereby endangering firefighters under their command and the public at large.

This, then, is a saga of dysfunctional racial sensitivity, political correctness, and a discriminatory policy which demands that selected skin colors (preferred or protected minorities) be hired in proportion to their numbers in the locally available labor pool even if those individuals do not hold the highest qualifications (or exam scores).

The question is, if the firefighters filing the lawsuit were black would it have been thrown out of court? How would this case be different if they were black?

Gunmen in mass killings had permits

2009-04-07T20:26:00.002-04:00

They had more in common than unleashing carnage — nearly every gunman in this monthlong series of mass killings was legally entitled to fire his weapons.

So what does that say about the state of gun control laws in this country? One thing appears certain: the regulations aren't getting stricter. Many recent efforts to change weapons laws have been about easing them.

Despite eight rampages that have claimed 57 lives since March 10, "it hasn't sparked any national goal to deal with this epidemic. In fact, it's going the other way," said Scott Vogel of the Freedom States Alliance, a gun control activist group.

Even President Barack Obama has felt that sway. Last month, 65 House Democrats said they would block any attempt to resurrect an expired federal ban against assault weapons.

'A long and divisive fight'The pro-gun Democrats, led by Rep. Mike Ross of Arkansas, wrote Attorney General Eric Holder saying they opposed not only a ban on military-style guns, but also efforts "to pass any similar law."

Gun control issues would only produce "a long and divisive fight," they said, at a time when Congress should be focused on the roiling economy.

A few states are trying to loosen gun restrictions. In the Texas Capitol — where legislators can carry guns — bills easily passed the Senate in recent weeks that would allow employees to bring weapons to work as long as they leave them locked in their cars, and let those packing heat off the legal hook if they walked into a bar that didn't have signs saying guns weren't allowed inside.
The state also is considering allowing students licensed to carry a concealed weapon — there are about 300,000 such adults in Texas — to bring guns on campus.

Kansas plans to put a measure on its 2010 ballot that would rewrite the state constitution to make gun ownership a personal, rather than collective, right. In Tennessee, lawmakers made progress this month toward allowing guns to be carried in state and local parks.

‘Who's going to stop them?’"I think you're seeing a continuing change of culture," Vogel said. "I think the gun lobby wants to take away any stigma to gun ownership. I think they feel emboldened, like who's going to stop them?"

The National Rifle Association, the country's most powerful gun lobbying group, declined to comment this week on gun control laws. "Now is not the time to debate politics or discuss policy. It is time for families and communities to grieve and to heal," it said in a prepared statement.

Groups such as Vogel's, and the Brady Campaign to Prevent Gun Violence, say existing laws are already too weak — just look at the men who received gun permits, legally bought high-powered weapons, and then mowed down family, friends and total strangers in these past few weeks, they say.

Joining their outrage was the U.S. Conference of Mayors. "How many more gun-related acts of violence must we experience before the nation's leaders will decide that it is time to act?" asked president Manuel Diaz, mayor of Miami.

No way to prevent insane actsGun enthusiasts say there is no way to prevent human beings from committing insane acts. Whether they have a gun permit or not.

On Friday, a depressed and angry Jiverly Wong used a 9 mm and .45-caliber handgun to kill 13 immigrants and service center employees in Binghamton, N.Y., police said. Earlier that day, the ethnic Chinese immigrant from Vietnam mailed an envelope to a Syracuse television station. In it were his gun permit, photos of him smiling while hoisting shiny, big handguns, and his driver's license.

Questions have been raised over the upstate New York gun permit issued to Wong in 1997. Two years later, he was reported to state police by an informer who claimed Wong was planning a bank heist to feed a crack-cocaine habit. Unlike other areas of the state, including New York City, Wong's Broome County permit did not have to be renewed.

Broad discretionLocal authorities, however, have broad discretion in reviewing and revoking such permits, according to legal experts. Especially when it comes to drug use, criminal behavior and violence.

"In retrospect, this is probably not a guy who should have had a gun," said attorney Jeffrey Chamberlain, a former Rochester prosecutor and chief counsel to the New York State Police. "No one likes to see things fall through the cracks and it looks like this guy fell through the cracks."
Binghamton police chief Joseph Zikuski said Tuesday that no robbery occurred and there was no merit to review Wong's gun permit.

In New York City, gun permits are reissued every three years.

Yet, regulations differ only slightly between states, Chamberlain said. "They're fairly typical — don't be a felon, don't be a drunk, don't beat your kids or your wife. Don't be so mentally unbalanced that you need be in an institution."

‘We've had guns for a very long time’To Chamberlain, the answer to gun violence lies not in stricter regulations, but in answering the question, "Why are we so tolerant of having guns in this country? The answer to that is historical. We've had guns for a very long time.

"I can't think of any sweeping law change that would address that."

To Vogel, the answer to why atrocities happen in places such as Binghamton, and before that

Washington state and Santa Clara, Calif., lies in sheer numbers.

The number 280 million, to be precise, the estimated total of every gun in this country.

"When you have that many guns, those guns are going to be used in horrific ways," Vogel said. "There's just too many. Inevitably, somehow, some way, those weapons are going to be used in an egregious way."

Solar Car

2009-04-07T20:18:00.003-04:00

BOSTON - In a dingy basement in Boston, some young scientists are putting the finish touches to Eleanor, one of the most advanced solar cars yet designed.

The technology-packed, environmentally friendly, solar racing car can hit speeds of 80 mph and drive up to 200 miles in the pitch dark — all good traits for a car getting ready for a long race across the Australian outback.

Eleanor is the invention of the solar vehicle team at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, one of the universities now preparing for this year's World Solar Challenge in Australia in October.

"Eleanor is definitely pushing the limits of what can be done with solar panels and solar power," said Fiona Hughes, a senior at the school of mechanical engineering at MIT.

Eleanor, ironically named after the gas-guzzling 1967 Ford Mustang showcased in the movie "Gone in 60 Seconds," has 20 square feet of silicon solar panels that put out 1,200 watts — about the same as a hair dryer.

While it doesn't seem like much power, Eleanor's weight of less than 500 pounds and aerodynamic design allow her to speed down a highway as fast as many traditional cars.

"Using just power from the sun, Eleanor can cruise without draining power from her battery pack at about 50 miles per hour. If we were draining power out of the pack we would be able to reach higher speeds, possibly 70-80 miles an hour," said Hughes.

Eleanor will compete in the 10th World Solar Challenge — a grueling 7-day, nearly 1,900-mile race from Darwin to Adelaide across the Australian Outback that is a testing event for the latest in efficient solar-powered car design.

MIT has been competing in the World Solar Challenge since its inaugural event in 1987, and Eleanor is the 10th design that students at MIT will race in the Australian contest.
George Hansel, a physics major at MIT, says the real beauty of Eleanor is her battery pack.

"Our battery pack is composed of more than 600 cells from laptop batteries. They are lithium-ion cells and they give us an equivalent of about 6 to 7 times that of a normal car battery but is only twice to three times as heavy," said Hansel.

The team says their biggest obstacle between now and race day is putting some miles on Eleanor's tires to ensure their design can perform on the highway and that it will go farther, faster and more efficiently than the competition.

The last World Solar Challenge, held in 2007, attracted 41 participants.

I figured I would mention this because it's probably the last you will ever hear about it. The government will buy it and it will never be heard of again. The lobbyists for the big oil companies will pay the politicians not to move forward with it. Besides, it's a great idea. When is the last time you ever heard of our government deciding on a great idea?

Tea Bags

2009-03-30T23:45:00.000-04:00

Tea Bag

There's a storm abrewin'. What happens when good, responsible people keep quiet? Washington has forgotten they work for us... We don't work for them. Throwing good money after bad is NOT the answer. I am sick of the midnight, closed door sessions to come up with a plan. I am sick of Congress raking CEO's over the coals while they, themselves, have defaulted on their taxes.I am sick of the bailed out companies having lavish vacations and retreats on my dollar. I am sick of being told it is MY responsibility to rescue people that, knowingly, bought more house than they could afford. I am sick of being made to feel it is my patriotic duty to pay MORE taxes. I, like all of you, am a responsible citizen. I pay my taxes. I live on a budgetand I don't ask someone else to carry the burden for poor decisions I may make. I have emailed my congressmen and senators asking them to NOT vote for the stimulus package as it was written without reading it first. No onelistened. They voted for it, pork and all.O.K. folks, here it is. You may think you are just one voice and what you think won't make a difference. Well, yes it will and YES, WE CAN!! If you are disgusted and angry with the way Washington is handling our taxes. If you are fearful of the fallout from the wreckless spending of BILLIONS to bailout and "stimulate" without accountability and responsibility then weneed to become ONE, LOUD VOICE THAT CAN BE HEARD FROM EVERY CITY, TOWN, SUBURB AND HOME IN AMERICA. There is a growing protest to demand that Congress, the President and his cabinet LISTEN to us, the American Citizens.What is being done in Washington is NOT the way to handle the economic free fall.So, here's the plan. On April 1, 2009, all Americans are asked to send a TEABAG to Washington , D.C. You do not have to enclose a note or any other information unless you so desire. Just a TEABAG. Many cities are organizing protests. If you simply search, "New American Tea Party", several sites will come up. If you aren't the 'protester' type, simply make your one voice heard with a TEABAG. Your one voice will become a roar when joined with millions of others that feel the same way. Yes, something needs to be done but the lack of confidence as shown by the steady decline in the stock market speaks volumes.This was not my idea. I visited the sites of the 'New American Tea Party's and an online survey showed over 90% of thousands said they would send the teabag on April 1. Why, April 1?? We want them to reach Washington by April 15. Will you do it? I will.Send it to; 1600 Pennsylvania Ave. Washington , D.C. 20500 .Forward this to everyone in your address book. Visit the website below for more information about the 'New American Tea Party'. I would encourage everyone to go ahead and get the envelope ready to mail, then just drop it in the mail April 1. Can't guarantee what the postage will be by then, it is going up as we speak, but have your envelope ready. What will this cost you? A little time and a 40 something cent stamp.What could you receive in benefits? Maybe, just maybe, our elected officials will start to listen to the people. Take out the Pork. Tell us how the money is being spent.

We want TRANSPARENCY AND ACCOUNTABILITY.Remember, the money will be spent over the next 4-5 years. It is not too late.Of course, if you agree with the way things are being done now, just delete!!!!!

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

How Much Is Two Trillion Dollars?

2009-02-01T12:43:00.005-05:00

Washington says it will cost two trillion dollars to fix the bridges and roads in America. and they said it without even blinking an eye. It's not their money, it's ours, so why should they be concerned with how much it costs.

Remember back before Regan? We talked about millions of dollars. Then the first Bush came along and we started talking about billions of dollars. Then the second Bush came along (because we were stupid) and now it's trillions of dollars. Our government keeps getting more expensive.

And we will probably let them spend it. I don't think Americans even understand how much two trillion dollars is. So I'm going to try and explain it:

If you spent one million dollars a day from the time Jesus was born to today you would still have 700 years to go to spend two trillion dollars. That's a lot of money isn't it? And guess what, it's not going to cost that much money to fix the roads and bridges in America.

That money is going somewhere else and we aren't going to know where. Keep up with what's going on in Washingto, America. It's your money, it's your life. Don't let them ruin it anymore.

Just 1 bank will track bailout money

2009-01-09T20:29:00.002-05:00

How is it that an ATM can give my exact balance at any time, but banks can't say what they did with $1 billion in bailout money?

Because no one forced them to. The government is handing out money like Halloween candy -- no strings attached. No strict rules on what banks should do with the money or how they should account for it. Only after the fact did people see the money go to executive bonuses and other non-essentials.

Yet another uh-oh moment for the U.S. Treasury, which is getting raked over the coals for its incompetence by a congressional watchdog.

But at least the Treasury learns from its mistakes. After nearly 200 take-our-money-please handouts, the department finally wised up and asked one institution for a regular accounting of what it does with the taxpayer funds.

And -- surprise -- banks are actually able to do that. Citigroup (C), which received a $20 billion promise on New Year's Eve, said it will use its "reasonable best efforts" to track the money and will send the government quarterly reports, according to ProPublica.

But don't consider the new leaf officially turned yet. The Treasury also gave $13 billion to seven other financial institutions that day, ProPublica reports, but made no similar demands.

Why not? Because the Treasury doesn't want to impose a burden on institutions it deems healthy. Yes, in this twisted reality, even healthy banks are getting bailout money.

But the health of a bank is beside the point. The real issue is that the Treasury is spending taxpayer money. Our money. And most of us wouldn't give a loan to anybody without first asking what the money would be used for.

Treasury official Neel Kashkari gives a shockingly condescending defense of the department's actions. "It's not going to be perfect," he said recently. "And as you know, you put $1 into an institution, it's impossible to follow where that $1 goes."

That's funny, because banks follow my dollars around like a highly-trained bloodhound. I can only hope that more public outrage persuades the Treasury to rethink its approach. As it stands now, the Halloween handouts keep coming.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Mexico City To Give Free Viagra To Older Men

2008-11-15T07:37:00.002-05:00

MEXICO CITY - Mexico City is giving out free Viagra and other impotence drugs to men 70 and older.

Mayor Marcelo Ebrard says the city is implementing the plan because sexuality "has a lot to do with quality of life and our happiness."

City Health Secretary Armando Ahued said Thursday that the government will start handing out doses of one or two Viagra, Levitra or Cialis pills on Dec. 1.

They will be distributed at three centers that specialize in sexual health for the elderly. The men will receive medical examinations before receiving the pills.
Ahued says an estimated 112,000 men 70 or older live in the Federal District, which has a population of 8.7 million.

Some 20 million people live in the greater Mexico City area. Expect the numbewr to rise rapidly over the next year. I have a bus leaving next week.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Chrysler gives bonuses, asks for bailout

2008-11-15T07:17:00.002-05:00

Posted Nov 14 2008, 12:52 PM by Kim Peterson

Chrysler is asking the government for a bailout. It's laying off employees and cutting salaries. It's a company in trouble.

Oh yeah, it's also paying $30 million in bonuses to dozens of top executives.

That's the end result of a poorly-timed plan to keep Chrysler together as it was being sold. The company didn't want top executives to leave during the transition, so it promised big money for people who stuck around. Now, Chrysler is asking the government for billions of dollars in aid while it writes million-dollar bonus checks out to A-list employees. How's that for awkward?

In Chrysler's defense, this bonus plan was created in April of 2007. The company had no idea that its industry was headed for collapse, or that the executives it was desperate to keep might have a hard time finding employment at a Jiffy Lube at this point.

The bonuses are going to be another sticking point in Chrysler's request for government aid. The industry is asking for $25 billion in low-cost government loans. Chrysler is a private company, and may be asked to hand over a lot of information about its finances and how it handles its money. That includes information on those controversial bonuses.

Bonuses are under fire at other carmakers. Ford has cut some merit raises and bonuses for next year. The company is quickly running out of money, and is slashing its spending.

Executives from Chrysler, Ford and GM are headed to Congress next week to make their case for $25 billion in aid. The bonus numbers will quickly become a central point of the conversation, and deservedly so.

As a private company, Chrysler can do whatever it wants when it comes to compensating its executives. But a private company asking for a government bailout cannot. Better brush up on those resumes, boys, because the good times are coming to an end.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

$50 billion of bailout going to employee bonuses

2008-11-03T07:52:00.002-05:00

Posted Oct 31 2008, 07:30 AM by Andrew Horowitz

As if the economic bailout by U.S. taxpayers isn't enough to make you sick to your stomach, new information has come to light that several banks are planning to pay billions of dollars in year-end bonuses from the bailout funds they received. Investigations are beginning into the nine banks that took in the first $125 billion -- the same $125 billion that was supposed to be used to unclog the credit system which was preventing banks from providing much needed funds for individuals and businesses.

There are many feathers in a ruffle over this and New York Attorney General Andrew Cuomo and several congressmen are furious that over $20 billion has already been earmarked as bonus funds for management and employees. Unbelievably, that is just the estimates from Goldman Sachs, Morgan Stanley and Merrill Lynch. There are six more banks that are also working on similar heists.

Here is their rationale for using that money: It is reported that the financial industry pays base salaries in the range of $80,000 to $600,000 and apparently that is simply not enough to keep some of the best and brightest working to keep their companies profitable. It seems that if they were paid only this meager amount, the company would risk mass defections. That would be a real problem...or would it?

Maybe it is time to peg annual bonuses to something meaningful like profitability. As I recall, not only are these the firms that have been losing money (as is evident by the need for a massive multi-billion dollar bailout) but they have also been shown to be the creators of securitization, derivatives, sub-prime mortgages and other toxic credit that is the root cause of this historic global economic catastrophe!

Maybe I am being too harsh? Perhaps management is entitled to hundreds of millions in bonuses for the hard work they do, day in and day out. You have to feel sorry for them as most have had to give up their private jets and instead fly in a cramped seat in first class. Surely most will now have to wonder how they will deal with the excess workload as they have had to fire thousands of employees. Also, they will need to use a good chunk of that money to rebuild their retirement plans as much of their wealth was tied up in their company's stock which, under their leadership, could be down more than 60% just this year alone. Bless their heart

What do you think?

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

2008-10-24T17:43:00.003-04:00

The smartest minds in America - that's what the politicians in Washington claim they are. The arrogance of these leeches.

Even Joe Biden said he was the smartest man in Washington just before the debate with Sara Palin.

The smartest minds in America have gotten this country bankrupt. Isn't that something? If they're the smartest minds in America, then let's give the dumb ones a chance. I'm sure they can do a better job than the weasels in Washington right now.

We need to vote everybody out of Washington; senators, congressmen, representatives of the house, all of them and put new ones in. And if they don't do the job, we vote them out and start all over again. And we keep doing it until they finally catch on that we mean business.

That is the only way we're going to get the politicians in Washington to sit up and listen to the voters. And until then, it's just going to get worse.

Get out and vote and vote for someone different. Let's take back control of our country before the smartest minds in America ruin it.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

We're Not Educated

2008-10-02T07:27:00.004-04:00

Politicians say that the $700-Billion needs to be passed because the voters don't realize just how important it is - just the way it's written - to bail out Wall St. not Main St. It doesn't benefit us. It benefits the people who made this happen. They're getting rewarded for this.

We just don't understand how the whole thing works, like the politicians do. They're the smartest minds in America. These are the people we put our money in, our trust, our faith...

The country is going to hell in a handbasket, whatever that means, and the politicians are still looking out for themselves. Will they ever wake up?

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Thank You Wal-Mart

2008-08-15T08:28:00.003-04:00

If consumers could see the child labor and conditions they work under in China and India and Honduras, they would never buy another piece of clothing or toy from Wal-Mart.

These countries don’t have laws protecting the workers. They don’t have child labor laws. So they get four and five year olds to work sometimes twenty hours a day without pay to make those nice clothes and shoes and toys you have.

The United Nations estimates there are now more than 250-million child laborers in a hundred countries between the ages of five and fifteen. Think about that for a minute.

Imagine, if you will, your little five year old boy or girl going to a sweat shop and being chained to a pole so they can’t escape, working under very unsafe conditions, no air conditioning, no bathroom breaks, crying to go home and getting beaten because of it. Go ahead, imagine it. It’s not a pretty sight is it?

More and more companies are moving overseas to increase their profits. The corporations don’t care how they make their profits; they don’t care about how the children are treated.
All they care about is making more money. It’s all about profits.

Our tax code actually gives tax breaks to those who move their jobs overseas. What the hell was Congress thinking when they passed this law? Congress should be locked under the damn jail. And so should you for electing the people who passed this law. You can't just vote for them and then forget it. You have to keep up with them. Otherwise, they will take advantage of their position.

Here is how Wal-Mart has hurt American business more than anyone else. They are the number one toy seller in the country. So they told the toy makers they needed to make cheaper toys if they were going to keep selling in Wal-Mart. And the only way they could do that is to move their business to China.

They told the bicycle makers, if they wanted Wal-Mart to keep selling their bicycles, they had to make them cheaper. So the bicycle company had to move to China; Huffy Bicycles, an American icon, proud to be American; that’s why they used to put and American flag decal on the handle bar. Now that American flag has been replaced with a decal of the world.

Wal-Mart told the clothing manufacturers if they wanted Wal-Mart, the number one retail chain in America to sell their clothes, they had to make them cheaper. So, all the clothing manufacturers moved to China.

Thank you Wal-Mart. Thank you for all the jobs you have moved overseas. Thank you for all the jobs you have cost Americans. Thank you for all the child labor you have created. You truly are an American institution. God bless you Wal-Mart. Thanks to you I can buy a pair of pants for about $3 cheaper than before.

When consumers begin to question the origin and ethics behind some business practices, we will have the opportunity to effect positive change. So, how about it America, if you don’t question it, you shouldn’t be allowed to live in this country.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Fat Kids And The Politicians Who Are Making Them That Way

2008-08-12T01:22:00.001-04:00

Fat Children & Drug Companies

Have you seen a skinny kid lately? Have you seen skinny person at all lately? Chances are you haven’t. We’re getting fatter every year. We’re the second fattest nation on the planet. Australia is number one. And they’re not a country, they’re a continent. So, technically, we are the fattest country. Fat people everywhere, and fat people aren’t jolly, they’re sick and unhealthy.

We eat more junk food than any other country. We also throw away more food than any other country. We throw away more food in one day than most people in Ethiopia eat in a whole year. We really should respect food more. We should respect our bodies more, too.

When we get fatter, the drug companies get fatter bank rolls because they have the drugs to help you with all the problems that are caused by being overweight. You really don’t want to help the drug companies now do you? They don’t really care about you. They only care about how much money they’re making off you. They have drugs for diseases that don’t even exist yet. They’re making up stuff for drugs they’ve invented.

Like ADD and ADHD. When I was a kid, we all had ADD and ADHD. It’s part of being a child to not pay attention and ask questions about everything and to get excited. That’s what being a child is about. Thomas Edison, the greatest inventor of all time had the symptoms of ADHD. Albert Einstein, the greatest scientist of all time had the symptoms of ADD. They didn’t take pills for it and they grew up just fine.

Only back then it didn’t have a name. Drug companies can’t invent a drug for it if it doesn’t have a name, so they made up one; Attention Deficit Disorder. Sounds serious, doesn’t it? When I was little it was called just being a curious kid.

It kills me to see little children taking pills for a disease that was made up by the drug companies. The drug companies have no heart and they have no soul. They only see green and they don’t care about you, your children or your health, they only care about how much money they can make and how many politicians they can put in their back pocket. There aren’t many fat politicians are there? No, they’re eating right and we’re paying for it.

And why are we becoming so fat? Because most Americans now work two or more jobs to make ends meet thanks to our politicians who don’t care about the people who voted for them. They don’t have time to cook a decent meal. But not to worry; we have McDonalds, Burger King, Taco Bell, Wendy’s, KFC; all the fried, unhealthy food you can think of, right there on side of the road on your way to work, just waiting for you to stop and get it.

Go ahead get the greasy French fries and fatty burgers and shakes and pies with 1000 calories cooked in unhealthy grease. Go ahead gain all the weight you can. And when you’re laying to your death bed at age 42 or 55 or 60 way to early to die, you’ll look back and regret eating all that crap.

But, it’s too late now. Now you’re dying. Now you’re going to miss seeing your children grow up and you’re going to miss playing with them and going places with them. You’re going to miss a lot of things because you were too stupid and gullible to take care of yourself.

Hopefully reading this article will make some of you wake up see the light. But I doubt it. It all starts with you. You need to respect your body the way you respect your car. Be careful what you put in it.

By 2010, just two years from now, the government predicts that 25% of all children in America will be obese. And they’re hoping it’s true because they’re on the drug company’s side, not yours.

Hopefully, by 2010 you will wake up and realize this and save your children. Save them from the government and drug companies who don’t care about you, only about themselves.

Please save our future.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Gas Prices

2008-08-12T01:15:00.001-04:00

Have you noticed gas prices going down lately? You know why don’t you? Of course you do. You shouldn’t be allowed to vote if you don’t. They’re going down because it’s an election year.

How much you want to bet that they start to rise again right after the election? Go ahead, how much? How many politicians have you heard talking about the high gas prices? I haven’t heard any talk about it. Obama hasn’t said anything about it. McCain hasn’t said anything about it. George Bush certainly hasn’t said anything about it and why should he. He’s an oil man. Saudi Arabia has ol’ Bush in their back pocket.

If you turn on C-SPAN you won’t hear any politician talking about high gas prices. They’re too busy voting on little things like what to call a certain city and where to put a monument and which sports figures are taking steroids. And this is why we voted for them?

Is a monument going to help you at the gas pump? Is a steroid taking athlete going to help you pay the bills? No, they’re not. And the politician you voted for aren’t going to help you either. They’re only going to help themselves.

You see, here’s the dirty little secret. They know that they can say anything you want to hear to get elected even if they don’t mean it when they say it. They’re just saying it to get elected. Then, once they’re in office, they can do whatever they like because they know that once you vote for them you’re going to go back to your job (or jobs if you have more than one) and forget about them, leaving them to do whatever they want with your money, even vote themselves a raise in a time when the country is almost bankrupt - if they want to.

You’re probably working two jobs to make ends meet and don’t have time to look after their sorry a**. And why are you working two jobs? Because of the bad choices the sorry a** politicians are making.

Here’s what I propose to anyone who reads this article. I propose we get a website that lists every politician from every state; every representative of the house, every senator every congressman, list them by state and list every thing that they vote for or against, every time they show up to vote and how much money their campaign took from which lobbyist to vote that way. Then, we the people who voted for these sorry a** politicians can go to this website and with one click see if they’re sticking to their campaign promises. With one click we can see if they’re on our side or the lobbyist side

And if they’re not, we vote them out of office. If we don’t vote them out, then it’s our fault.

I don’t have the know-how or the money to put up a website like this, but it will be a great idea and the start of an enema of Washington if we could get it up and running. It would be the start of a revolution. The only ones who would be against it would be the sorry a** politicians, because for once we could see just what the hell they’re doing and it wouldn’t be pretty.

If we had a site like this, Senator Ted Kennedy and Byrd of West Virginia and that screwy little moron from Alaska would have been out of office long ago.

Think about it the next time your at the gas pump putting $4 a gallon gas in your tank; gas that’s going to rise to about $5 or more after November.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

I Am Not A Motivational Speaker

2008-07-25T21:29:00.002-04:00

Motivational speakers get on stage and spend people time and in some cases their hard earned money, and all they do is quote a bunch of famous dead people.

The sales team gets a motivational speech from someone who has sold more then them. The production team gets a motivational speech from someone who has produced more than them.
They leave the speech feeling up and ready to take on the world. And then, two hours later, they're back down to real life. Motivational speakers just don't work. They don't get to the real problem that the people in the audiences have.

The real problem is their lives aren't what they want them to be; they don't have the relationships with their children or spouse that they would like to have, they don't feel appreciated at work, they don't realize that they can make the life of their choice, they're working more and making less and its affecting their lives at home.

When you have this problem, it doesn't matter how motivated you make them, it's just not going to do any good.

Corporations have used motivational speakers out of habit; it's always been done that way. They don't realize they're wasting their money. That's why I try to get to the heart of the situation. I don't try to motivate people into doing a better job at work. I try to understand what's happening to them in their personal lives and look for ways to make it better.

When you're happy at home, you're happy at work. It’s that simple. Motivational speakers don't realize this. That's why I'm not considered a motivational speaker. I want to give you something that will work. That's what my Four Keys to a Successful life is all about.

It's about how you can make the life of your choice. The four keys are: 1) Challenge yourself everyday. 2) Never accept failure. 3) Laugh everyday. 4) Realize that you are where you are right now because of choices in life that you made.

I talk about these four keys in my speech Four Keys To A Successful Life. And the amazing thing about these four keys is, if you use all four of them together, they work everytime - guaranteed.

Please e-mail me with your suggestions and comments. My address is bc@worldwidebc.com
I look forward to hearing from you.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

What Lee Iccoca Has To Say

2008-07-16T16:41:00.002-04:00

He's now 82 yrs. old and has a new book, and here are some excerpts...... Am I the only guy in this country who's fed up with what's happening?Where the hell is our outrage?

We should be screaming bloody murder!! We've got a gang of clueless bozos steering our ship of State right over a cliff, we've got corporate gangsters stealing us blind, and we can't even get clean up after a major hurricane much less build a hybrid car.

But instead of getting mad, everyone sits around and nods their heads when politicians say "Stay the course". Stay the course? you've got to be kidding ! This is America, not the damned "titanic".

I'll give you a sound bite; Throw all the bums out!" You might think I'm getting senile, that I've gone off my rocker, and maybe I have. But someone has to speak up. I hardly recognize this country anymore.

The most famous business leaders are not the innovators but the guys in handcuffs! While we are fiddling in Iraq, the Middle East is burning and nobody seems to know what to do. And the press is waving "poms-poms" instead of asking hard questions.

That's not the promise of "America" my parents and yours traveled across the ocean for. I've had enough. How about you?

I'll go a step further. You can't call yourself a patriot if you're not outraged. This is a fight I am ready and willing to have. The biggest "C" is Crisis!! (Iacocca elaborates on nine C's of leadership, crisis being the first.)

Leaders are made, not born! Leadership is forged in times of crisis.It's easy to sit there with your feet up on the desk and talk theory. Or send someone else's kids off to war when you've never seen a battlefield yourself.

It's another thing to lead when your world comes tumbling down. On September 11th, 2001, we needed a strong leader more than any other time in our history. We needed a steady hand to guide us out of the ashes.

A Hell of a Mess, so here's where we stand. 1. We're running the biggest deficit in the history of the country. 2. We're losing the manufacturing edge to Asia, while our once-great companies are getting slaughtered by health care costs. 3. Gas prices are skyrocketing, and nobody in power has a coherent energy policy. 4. Our schools are in trouble. 5. Our borders are like sieves. 6. The middle class is being squeezed every which way! 7. These are time that cry out for leadership.

But, when you look around, you've got to ask, "Where have all the leaders gone?" Where are the curious, creative communicators? Where are the people of character, courage, conviction, competence and common sense?I may be a sucker for alliteration, but I think you get the point!

Name me a leader who has a better idea for Homeland Security than making us take off our shoes in airports and throw away or shampoo?

We've spent billions of dollars building a huge new bureaucracy, and all we know how to do is react to things that have already happened. Name me one leader who emerged from the crisis of Hurricane Katrina.Congress has yet to spend a single day evaluating the response to the hurricane, or demanding accountability for the decisions that were made in the crucial hours after the storm. Everyone's hunkering down, fingers crossed, hoping it doesn't happen again.

Now, that's just crazy. Storms Happen!Deal with it! Make a plan. Figure out what you're going to do next time.

Name me an Industry leader who is thinking creatively about how we can restore our competitive edge in manufacturing. Who would have believed that there could ever be a time when "The Big Three" referred to Japanese car companies? How did this happen? And more important, what are we going to do about it?

Name me a government leader who can articulate a plan for paying down the debit, or solving the energy crisis, or managing the health care problem. The silence is deafening. But these are the crises that are eating away at our country and milking the middle class dry.

I have news for the gang in Congress. We didn't elect you to sit on your asses and do nothing and remain silent while our democracy is being hijacked and our greatness is being replaced with mediocrity.

What is everybody so afraid of? That some bonehead on Fox News will call them a name? Give me a break! Why don't you guys show some spine for a change? Had Enough? Hey, I'm not trying to be the voice of gloom and doom here. I'm trying to light a fire! I'm speaking out because I have hope! I believe in America.

In my lifetime I've had the privilege of living through some of America's greatest moments. I've also experienced some of the worst crises:the "Great Depression", "World War II", the "Korean War", the "Kennedy Assassination", the "Vietnam War", the "1970 Oil Crisis", and the struggle of recent years culminating with 9/11.

I've learned one thing, it's this:"You don't get anywhere by standing on the sidelines waiting for somebody else to take action.

Whether it's building a better car or building a better future for our children, we all have a role to play." "That's the challenge I'm raising in this book. It's a call to "ACTION" for people who, like me, believe in America.

It's not too late, but it's getting pretty close. So let's shake off the crap and go to work. Let's tell 'em all we've had enough!!

MAKE YOUR OWN CONTRIBUTION BY SENDING THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW AND CARE ABOUT. IT'S OUR COUNTRY, FOLKS, AND IT'S OUR FUTURE. OUR FUTURE IS AT STAKE.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Who Are You Gonna Vote For?

2008-06-27T09:38:00.005-04:00

I was going to vote for Obama, but here lately, he seems to know he's going to win the election and he's getting a bit of an attitude about it. He's changing his mind quite a bit. At first I thought he would really make a difference in politics. After all, his campaign was based on the line, 'A Change For America', but now it looks as if we will just get more of the same old crap.

I think I may vote either Libertarian or Independent this time. I'm definitely not going to vote for McCain and now, I don't think I will vote for Obama either. How did we end up with these two candidates (idiots) in the first place? There were a lot of other more qualified people running. Are we that stupid or is the campaign and the election rigged?

I'm beginning to wonder if our vote counts at all.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Fuel Idea

2008-06-17T03:23:00.002-04:00

Has anyone ever entertained the idea of hemp for fuel? It burns clean, it's easy to grow, it's a weed, a wild weed that grows everywhere in America. And it makes great fuel.

I know the government hasn't thought of hemp fuel because hemp is marijuana, but it won't get you high from smoking it. There is no THC in hemp, that's commercial marijuana. You can make paper products from hemp. The constitution is printed on hemp paper. Most bibles are printed on hemp paper. You can make clothing products with hemp, you can make food products from hemp. Make it legal and put our farmers back in business.

But just like with everything else, our government won't do what's best for the country, they will only do what's best for them. I think what's best for us is to give Washington an enema.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

2008-05-03T19:53:00.003-04:00

I don't understand the people in my hometown. We've had a Kentucky Fried Chicken place here for about 20 or 30 years. It's done alright, but it isn't as popular as the other fast food restaurants in town. I've never seen a large amount of traffic there even at lunch time. Then they built a new KFC on the other side of town. When it opened they had a line of traffic a mile long waiting to get in. Police were actually directing traffic outside the place. You would think people around here have never seen a piece of chicken before.

It was the same with McDonald's. They've been here forever, but they closed for a couple of months to do renovations. And when they re-opened, it crippled traffic on the Boulevard. There was a line of traffic from both directions to get into McDonald's. The food was the same greasy, fat, unhealthy crap that its always been, but people had to get into McDonald's and try it all over again. Apparently they thought it was going to be something different this time. Either that or they just missed getting fat and unhealthy for two months.

I actually overheard one women say, I've lost four pounds since they closed. I'm here to gain it back. She bought two Big Macs, a large order of fries, and a Diet Coke. I have no idea what the Diet Coke was for. If you order two Big Macs and a large order of fries, a Diet Coke isn't going to do anything.

Try broccoli people. Get in shape and live a longer, healthier and happier life.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Relief, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

The Book Daddyhood Is Finally Available

2008-04-07T18:31:00.005-04:00

My new book is finally here. Daddyhood hit Amazon.com and Righter publishing this week. http://www.righterbooks.com/

It's a humorous look at life with my two boys. It's also a serious look at why children are turning out the way they are and what we as parents can do about it.

You can order a copy from Righter Publishing or from my website. They're $15 + $3 S&H.

I cover everything that parents go through raising children. I just found the humor in it. Order your copy today.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Your Social Security

2008-03-25T07:44:00.003-04:00

Your Social Security
Just in case some of you young whippersnappers (and some older ones) didn't know this. It's easy to check out, if you don't believe it. Be sure and show it to your kids. They need a little history lesson on what's what and it doesn't matter whether you are Democrat or Republican. Facts are Facts!!! Franklin Roosevelt, a Democrat, introduced the Social Security
(FICA) Program. He promised:

1.) That participation in the Program would be Completely voluntary,

2.) That the participants would only have to pay 1% of the first $1,400 of their annual Incomes into the Program.

3.) That the money the participants elected to put into the Program would be deductible from their income for tax purposes each year

4.) That the money the participants put into the Independent "Trust Fund" rather than into the General operating fund and therefore, would only be used to fund the Social Security Retirement Program, and no other Government program, and,

5.) That the annuity payments to the retirees would never be taxed as income.

Since many of us have paid into FICA for years and are now receiving a Social Security check every month -- and then finding that we are getting taxed on 85% of the money we paid to the Federal government to "put away" -- you may be interested in the following:
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Q: Which Political Party took Social Security from the Independent "Trust Fund" and put it into the General fund so that Congress could spend it?

A: It was Lyndon Johnson and the democratically Controlled House and Senate.
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Q: Which Political Party eliminated the income tax Deduction for Social Security (FICA) withholding?

A: The Democratic Party.
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Q: Which Political Party started taxing Social Security annuities?

A: The Democratic Party, with Al Gore casting the "tie-breaking" deciding vote as President of the Senate, while he was Vice President of the US
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Q: Which Political Party decided to start giving Annuity payments to immigrants?

A: That's right Jimmy Carter and the Democratic Party. Immigrants moved into this country, and at age 65, began to receive Social Security payments! The Democratic Party gave these payments to them, even though they never paid a dime into it!
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Then, after violating the original contract (FICA), the Democrats turn around and tell you that the Republicans want to take your Social Security away!

And the worst part about it is uninformed citizens believe it!

If enough people receive this, maybe a seed of awareness will be planted and maybe changes will evolve. Maybe not, some Democrats are awfully sure of what isn't so.

But it's worth a try. How many people can YOU send this to?

Actions speak louder than bumper stickers.

AND CONGRESS GIVES THEMSELVES 100% RETIREMENT FOR ONLY SERVING ONE TERM!!!

A government big enough to give you everything you want, is strong enough to take everything you have.
-Thomas Jefferson

2008-03-14T22:20:00.003-04:00

SPRINGFIELD, Pennsylvania (CNN) -- Sen. John McCain charged Friday the Senate was ignoring the will of the people when it rejected a one-year moratorium on earmarks that he co-sponsored. Sen. John McCain of Arizona has long been a vocal critic of earmarks.

The Senate voted 71-29 against the ban late Thursday night.

There's only one place left in America that they don't get it," McCain told a town hall gathering outside Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, referring to Washington. "Pork-barrel spending is out of control and Americans want it stopped."

He said the result "is an interesting commentary on how the Congress and the Senate [are] disconnected from the American people." Watch more of McCain's comments »
McCain returned to the Senate for the first time in a month to cast his ballot for an issue that is one of his central themes on the campaign trail.

Of the 29 votes in favor of the measure, six were from Democrats, including rivals Sen. Barack Obama and Sen. Hillary Clinton. McCain accused both Democrats of wasting hundreds of millions of taxpayers' dollars in earmarks.

Earmarks are requests for money by a specific legislator, usually for her or his constituency, added onto often unrelated government spending bills.
Don't Miss

"The first thing they can do if they're against the earmarks is ask that the money that they've gotten, the hundreds of millions they've gotten in pork-barrel projects, not be spent. A lot of that money's not spent," said McCain.

The Arizona senator prides himself on having never requested an earmark for his state.
McCain had urged his Democratic rivals to reveal the earmarks they've asked for and turn back the money that hasn't been spent.

Approved earmarks are public record, but information about earmark requests that do not get approved can come only from the legislators themselves. Watch the battle over earmark ban »
Clinton received $342 million in earmarks last year, ranking her 10th highest in the Senate, according to the budget watchdog group Taxpayers for Common Sense. But as of Thursday, the Clinton campaign had not released details on how much she requested for 2007 and what it was for.

The senator "is proud of the investments in New York she has secured," according to her spokesman, Philippe Reines. But she believes the one-year ban "will allow a hard look at how more sunlight and transparency can be brought to this process," Reines added.
Obama in fiscal year 2008 secured $98 million in funding for Illinois projects, according to Taxpayers for Common Sense. Information released Thursday by the Obama campaign indicates he requested $311 million in earmarks for the same year.

Also according to information released Thursday by the Obama camp, the Illinois senator had 138 earmark requests for the 2007 fiscal year.

His total requested funding was about $330 million. His average request was about $2.4 million, with the largest request being $62 million intended to modify a Boeing 747 aircraft to capture infrared images of the Earth.

In a statement this week, Obama complained earmarks are doled out based on a lawmaker's seniority, not the merit of a project, and that many of the projects "fail to address the real needs of our country."

Earmark opponents pushed for the ban after watching Congress approve an increasing number of special projects in recent years.

Last year, Congress approved 12,884 earmarks. While the budget watchdog group said that figure is down from an all-time high in 2005, it still represents more than $18 billion in spending.

I think this proves that politicians don't care about the taxpayers. They only care about themselves. Remember, we put them in Washington, we can take them out. Come on America, pay attention to what the people you voted for are doing.

America - We're #1

2008-03-07T09:12:00.004-05:00

I keep hearing people say, "We're number one." Exactly what are we number one in? Any idea? Let's see; we're number one in crime. We're number one in deaths by gun. we're number one in high school drop outs. We're number one in teen pregnancy. We're number one in broken homes and divorce. We're number one in people in prison. We're number one in obesity. We're quickly becoming number one in corrupt government. We're the number one most hated country in the world. We're number one in all the wrong things.

When we went to war in Iraq I saw a soldier on TV saying, "We're going to bring some western culture to the mideast. Why? Why would anyone want this kind of culture in their country? Why would anybody want to be like us?

All we have left is freedom of speech, freedom of expression and freedom to own a gun. I'd be willing to give it all up just to make the country safe.

In third world countries if you're caught stealing, they cut off your hand. That's why people don't steal in third world countries, at least not more than twice. If you're caught for rape, they cut off your penis. I'm all for that. That's the kind of punishment we need here. We treat prisoners better than we treat homeless people here. I know people who are not homeless who don't get treated as good as prisoners. They have the second best medical insurance in America next to politicians. I can't afford medical. We let people who have sodomised children out of prison to make room for more violent prisoners. Meanwhile, people who were caught smoking pot are getting life sentences. It just doesn't add up. I'm tired of being a civilized country. We certainly weren't civilized when we took the country from the Indians. Why be civilized now?

People aren't safe here anymore. People are getting killed while shopping at the mall. Our kids are getting killed on college campuses and high schools. Drive by shooting are everywhere. No one is safe. When does it stop? How do we stop it? Our government isn't doing anything to stop it. They're too concerned with gays getting married and which athletes took steroids.

It's obvious we need a revolution. We need to take our country back.

Bush's Latest Speech

2008-02-28T13:28:00.002-05:00

Bush said the country is not headed for a recession. Right, and Brittany Spears is not crazy. When asked about gasoline hitting $4 a gallon by summer he said, "That's interesting. I hadn't heard that."

He hadn't heard that, amazing. He's the President. He should know what's going on in his own country, shouldn't he?

Is he really that out of touch? How did we elect this idiot - TWICE?

He says the North American Free Trade Agreement (NAFTA) is good for america. It will bring more jobs to our country. Tell the people of my hometown that. They've lost the two biggest companies in town. They moved overseas. And more are getting ready to. NAFTA hasn't been good for the people of this NC town. And we don't have any companies about to move in. No NAFTA is not good for this country.

And president Bush hasn't been good for this country either.

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

The Latest News

2008-02-27T06:21:00.001-05:00

The Latest News

Brittany is preparing for a world tour. Wow! She got well quick, didn’t she? Apparently she just faked it to see if anyone still cared about her. She was taken to the hospital in an ambulance escorted by about 20 police cars, armored cars and helicopters. I even thought I saw an army tank or two in the lineup. Hell, the president doesn’t get that much security. If JFK had that much security he’d still be with us today. So would MLK. Frankly, I just don’t see where she’s worth it. I’m glad I don’t like in LA. The citizens there are the ones who had to pay for this with their tax dollars. If I were them I’d demand she pay every cent of it back. She’s a drug addict, an alcoholic an unfit mother and she dresses sleazy. She’s wacko and can’t handle success. Enough said.

There has been another campus shooting, this time in Illinois. And again they’re saying that security on campus has been “beefed up.” I thought it was “beefed up” when that idiot shot students in Blacksburg, VA. Where’s the beef? All the colleges in the Raleigh-Durham area have “beefed up” security on campus because of this. And in a couple of months when no one has been shot, they’ll cut back on the “beef” to save money. Never mind saving lives. Saving money is way more important. If guns are that easy to get, then we need to do something about it. I’ll bet if a congressman’s kid was shot there would be something done. The next day you wouldn’t be able to buy a gun online or in a store on at a gun show. They wouldn’t care what the NRA said or how much money the Lobbyists for the NRA gave to their campaign, they’d do something about the easiness of getting guns in America if their kid was shot. But their children are protected by the government that our tax dollars pay for. I think our tax dollars should go to protect our children too, but the government doesn’t see it that way. They’re only looking after themselves, not us. We need to wake up and see what our politicians are doing on Capitol Hill. And if they’re not doing the job we elected them to do, then vote them out of office. Make your voice be heard America. Our children aren’t safe anymore and the politicians don’t care and we need to do something about it. Is it time for a revolution? - I think so.

The war in Iraq is costing us billions and we shouldn’t even be there, illegal aliens are coming into our country by hundreds of thousand a year, gas prices are getting way to high for middle America to afford, we’re almost in a recession and what is congress doing about it – northing. They’re too busy trying to find out if Roger Clemens took steroids or not. This is not the job of congress. It’s the job of the baseball commissioner. If they want to ruin the sport then let them, but don’t let congress get involved. Steroid use among professional athletes is not a National threat and I don’t appreciate my tax dollars paying for crap like this.B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

Election Rigged

2008-02-14T00:43:00.003-05:00

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

I believe the people who make the voting machines already know who's going to be president. We can't check the machines for accuracy, they won't let you and our government will back that.

You can pull the lever for McCain and get five votes for Hillary or vice versa.

If you don't believe the voting machines are rigged then explain how George f**king Bush got elected twice. How could anybody be so stupid as to elect this man for a second term when he did such a lousy job the first time around? And the second time he did and even worse job.

I know Americans aren't that stupid. If they are, then please, send my white ass to the Great White North. I've had it.

Election Time

2008-02-02T09:55:00.001-05:00

B.C. is a professional speaker on Stress Management, Humor Therapy and Family Entertainment. His website is www.worldwidebc.com Feel free to join his newsletter.

As I listen to the candidates for Pesident argue in the debates on TV I can't help but wonder, "Is this the best we have?"

John McCain says we may be in Iraq for the next hundred years. Since we shouldn't be there in the first place, I'm definately not voting for him.

Romney seems to only think from the neck up. He has no heart. All he has is millions of dollars. He has no idea what it's like in the real world. He's never been in it.

I used to think that Hillary would make a great President. Being the first woman she would show the world how well a woman could do things. She would make a difference. But now, all I see is a power hungry woman who would do nothing for us, only for herself.

Then there's Barac Obama. He says he would change things but once he gets in Washington and realizes how much power he has, he'll be meserized and forget all about us too. Besides, I just can't see a Muslim for President since they're the ones who attacked us on 9/11.

The only ones who made any sense so far are John Edwards and Ron Paul, but niether one of them will be President because people are too blind to the truth.

Ron Paul says the only reason that other countries hate us is because we're runnig the world and he's right. If Iraq came to our country and started a war, would you be happy? Who the hell do we think we are? we seem to have our noses in every country in the world. Leave ot up tp someone else to run the world for awhile. All we've done is ruin it.

John Edwards says if he's President there will be no lobbyists in the White House. Great, but he's no longer running. No one voted for him.

What kind of people do we have voting these days? I'll tell you. We have people like my cousin. He didn't vote for Bill Clinton because he though he was a fag. That's the only reason. He had no idea what he stood for or what his past was, he just though he was a fag and didn't vote for him If there was ever a President who is not a fag, it's Bill Clinton.

My sister voted for Bill Clinton just because he reminded her of John Kennedy. No other reason.

My friend who is a born again Christian voted for George Bush because he said he was a Christian and he was against same sex marriage. Suddenly same sex marriage took presidence over the War in Iraq, illegal aliens, high gas prices and a sagging economy. I can't believe it. I don't care if a married gay couple live next door to me or not. Just stay away from my kids and we'll get along just fine. I do care if a terrorist lives next door to me, or an illegal alienb, but Christians don't seem to care about that. They just don't want two men who are married living in this country.

And look at people in California. They voted for Arnold because they actually thought they were getting the Terminator. He even talked like the Terminator when he was running, remember?; "I'll be back." People didn't care if he knew anything about politics or not, all they knew was, "He's the friggin' Termintaor. Holy crap. We're electing the Terminator"

That's the kind of people we have voting and that's why we have such idiots on Capitol Hill runnig our country. As long as politicians hide behind religion every religious person in America will vote for them. That's why they all hide behind religion, like George Bush. Believe me, he is NOT religious. And neither is Dick Cheney. But people believe they are because they said they were. Remember, they're politicians, THEY LIE.

Black people will vote for Obama just because he's black. And because Opra told them he's the best candidate. Opra is the voice of a lot of Americans. Opra, I just can't see that.

People will vote for Hillary just because she's a woman, no other reason. It's pathetic, isn't it?

It seems to me the only change we ever get are the people who say, "It's time for a change."

I'm tired of it all. I think it's time for a Revolution. I think it's time we gave Capitol Hill an enema.

My Car Bit The Dust

2008-01-15T16:13:00.000-05:00

I knew it was going to happen sooner or later. When you have close to 300,000 miles on your car it's eventually going to quit running. Mine has finally bit the dust.

I bought the car brand new in 2001 back when I was still on the road doing comedy, travelling around 50,000 miles a year in all kinds of weather. That's the thing about road comis. They have to drive their cars into the grouhd because the can't get any trade-in value on them with that many miles.

My car has gone across country at least three times from Pa to FL, from NC to the Bad Lands of the Dakotas. It has been through alot.

The transmission fell out of it in Layeffette, IN. They saw the out-of-state tags and decided to take advantage of me. That happens quite a bit on the road. They charged me for a new transmission and then just rebuilt the old one and put it back in.

There are alot of crooked people in this world believe it or not. But I got them back. I talked about them on stage that night and now everyone in town knows they're crooked.

Since I'm off the road I'm sure my next car will last much longer. By the way, I'm selling it for $500 if anyone wants to but it. It's been a good car. I swear by Ford Focus. Great mileagle, about 31 M.P.G. Can't beat that.

If that car could talk it would have some great stories to tell,

What's The Deal With Christmas?

2008-01-07T15:23:00.000-05:00

So, what’s the deal with Christmas? We can even say “Merry Christmas” anymore? Why? Who does it offend? Does it offend atheists? Because if it does, get a life.

You don’t believe in anything. Why should it bother you? Apparently one of the qualifications of being an atheist is you must hate children. My neighbor hates children. He is an atheist, who knew?

Apparently Wal-Mart gets a lot of atheist customers because they say, “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.” So do the clerks at the supermarket and the drug store and all over the mall.

Are there that many atheists in the world to where they could actually make a difference? Where have all the Christians gone? I know they’re there. My church and every other church is full every Sunday morning.

Maybe is offends the Muslims. Well, if that’s the case, I don’t care. The people who attacked my country on 9/11 were Muslims. I don’t care what bothers you. I’ll shake a jingle bell in your face if I get the chance. I don’t care how you celebrate Christmas in your country, so don’t care how I celebrate Christmas in mine. Go get involved in a war somewhere and leave us the hell alone.

I read recently in some country Santa can’t even say “Ho, ho, ho” anymore because it offends prostitutes since the word ‘ho’ relates to a cheap prostitute (like there’s any other kind).

Instead they want him to say, “Ha, ha, ha”. I would never let my child sit in the lap of a jolly, fat man who says, “Ha, ha, ha”. It’s not right.

Why do we care if we offend prostitutes? Are there that many politicians having affairs that they can actually get this done?

This country has gotten so politically correct and over run by so many crooked politicians that we can’t even say “Merry Christmas” any more and Santa can no longer say “Ho, ho, ho”.

And if that’s not bad enough, nutritionists now say that Santa could lose a few pounds. They want a slimmer Santa. A SLIMMER SANTA, do you hear me?

How would that sound, “A jolly thin man”? Thin men aren’t jolly. Only fat men are jolly.

Next thing you know they’ll make us quit using red lights because that’s reference to a house of ill repute. And we can’t use elves anymore because that offends midgets. And Santa can’t use the reindeer anymore because of a protest by P.E.T.A.

Quite frankly, I don’t care what they think; I have a tree in my living room with an angel on top, reindeer on my roof, red lights around my house and a fat Santa in the front yard who says “Ho, ho, ho” when you press the remote.

And when someone says, “Happy holidays” to me I reply with, “And Merry Christmas to you, too.”

And when they ask, “Why”, I will say, “Because I’m BC and that’s the way I see things.”

* BC is a professional speaker on parenting, a humor therapist, stress management expert and author of the book ‘Daddyhood’ and ‘Stress Management 101’ His website is http://www.worldwidebc.com/
bc@worldwidebc.com

Christmas With The Kids

2007-12-31T23:11:00.001-05:00

Christmas With The Kids
If you don't have children then you don't have any idea just how exciting Christmas Day can be. The look on their faces when they saw the presents under the tree was utopia.I put one of the gifts outside on the porch and told my oldest boy that Santa's bag must have ripped open and a present fell out. He believed it. That's all that matters. I got a feeling this is going to become a Christmas tradition around the BC house every year.I did it last year and this year he comes up to me and says, "We have to look on the porch this year to see if Santa's bag bust open."They got way too much stuff. Grandma gave them each a toy cell phone. I told Austin when he's old enough to get a job he can get his own cell phone and he can pay fot it. I figure that's fair.I didn't understand what Christmas was all about until I had children. Now it's all so simple.And, by the way, our favorite holiday movie to watch together is "Polar Express." A great movie for the entire family. We've watched it about 10 times already.

Online Business

2007-12-11T23:58:00.000-05:00

I'm looking for an internet business that I can do at home. Any ideas? I've had several pieces of mail sent to me advertising internet businesses, but nothing really jumped out and grabbed me. With the way American business is going these days, it's good to have a business on the side and that's what I'm looking for. Something to make money while I sit on my butt in front of the computer.

Please send your ideas and comments to bc@worldwidebc.com and thank you very much in advance.

Christmas Shopping

2007-12-10T07:53:00.000-05:00

I did Christmas chopping for my two boys today. I bought them computers. The ad read for ages 3 and up and my youngest is almost three and my oldest is six. And already they have computers. When I was six I got a Davy Crockett coon skin cap and jacket.

Isn’t it amazing how times change? The cap and jacket was made in America, too. You won’t see that today. No, today the cap and jacket is made in a third world country by an underage child.

The computers I got my two boys were made in China because I couldn’t find a computer that is made in America. That’s pathetic, isn’t it? TV’s aren’t made in America anymore, Computers; all appliances are made overseas now. It just isn’t right. What the hell is our government thinking? Do they care at all about the people who voted for them? Apparently not.

I really hate to see what this country will be like when my children grow up. I know what the language will be, Spanish and Chinese.

July 4th With My Kids

2007-07-08T00:27:00.000-04:00

I spent the best July 4th holiday ever with my two boys this year. The fireworks were wonderful, especially for a littl town like mine. My youngest son, Carson had eye as big as saucers as he watched the fireworks explode in the night sky. And Austin, my oldest sat calmly and watched also.

For the first time in quite a while I was actually proud to be an American. A lot of people haven't felt that way in quite a awhile.

the crowd for the fireworks was amazing. The whole town showed up at the high school. the band played oldies and did costume changes.

At the July 4th parade in town earlier that day my two boys and I rode with the grandparents in his classic 57 Ford Fairlane. My sons waved at everyone and everyone waved back.

I sure do wish everyday could be like the 4th of July. I felt like a politician.