Jaq ExaminesThe Issues

Why is it Impossible for Democrats to Learn from History?

2010-01-20T10:51:00.003-05:00

by j. wright 01/20/2010

If you recently recovered from a coma or haven’t been paying attention to the national political scene of late, the commonwealth of Massachusetts just held a special election to permanently fill the seat in the United States Senate left open with the recent passing of liberal Democrat Senator Edward (Ted) Kennedy. Against all odds and contrary to past history, the voters in Massachusetts elected a conservative Republican to fill that seat.

This from the Globe Newspapers: “Voter anxiety and resentment, building for months in a troubled economy, exploded like a match on dry kindling in the final days of the special election for US Senate. In arguably the most liberal state in the nation, a Republican - and a conservative one at that - won and will crash the Bay State’s all-Democratic delegation with a mandate to kill the health care overhaul pending in Congress.”

Yes, it appears that the outcome of this special election has ramifications as far away as Washington, D.C. where several Democrat lawmakers who narrowly won elections in 2008 are having second thoughts about their future employment if they continue to blindly follow Obama/Reid/Pelosi off the cliff in support of this thing being hashed over behind closed doors called “health care reform.”

The president and his Democrat legislative leaders have been unsuccessful in passing an extremely unpopular deficit busting bill for the past year while the national economy has sputtered and unemployment has climbed to near record levels. Because the Democrats couldn’t agree amongst themselves they decided their cover is to blame their failures on the Republicans, who weren’t invited to participate in the first place. Even the loss of the Democrat Senatorial hopeful in Massachusetts has been blamed on past Republican policies. They can’t be serious. Question: did they learn anything from this loss?

jaq~

Health Care Reform? Great for Some; Crappy for Others!

2010-01-12T09:52:00.005-05:00

by J. Wright - 1/12/2010

Quoting a CBS News poll in part, “President Obama's approval rating on handling health care is at an all-time low Just 36 percent of Americans approve of Mr. Obama's handling of health care, according to the poll, conducted from Jan. 6 – 10. Fifty-four percent disapprove.”

The Wall Street Journal opined last October ” …it may well be the worst piece of post-New Deal legislation ever introduced.” Since then it has worsened. There is little voter consensus that the reforms under consideration represent the right approach. Only about one in five Americans thinks the reforms strike the right balance when it comes to expanding coverage, controlling costs and regulating insurance companies. Worse, congressional experts say 15 to 25 million Americans will still be left uninsured.

Now the Democrats and some of their special interest supporters are again bickering about a thing labeled “Cadillac Insurance” policies, or blanket coverage that is the very best an individual can possibly enjoy in today’s market. The final bill now being considered would assess a huge tax on the value of those policies. Some special interest groups, financial supporters of Democrat lawmakers, are now discovering that they were not exempted, especially many of the millions of labor union members. They are furious and are making their displeasure known at some of the “Sweetheart” favoritism deals being handed out by Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid at the expense of everyone else.

Curious, why should a law grant some Americans special treatment and force others to pay higher costs? Constitutional scholars in opposition cite the 14th amendment guaranteeing “equal protection under the law.” In real reform, wouldn’t all Americans at the least be provided with improved health care coverage including lowered costs? This bill is allowing “better than equal protection” for a few several special interest groups. How constitutional is that?

jaq~

Republicans May Use USSC to Stop Health Care Reform

2010-01-06T17:40:00.004-05:00

by j. Wright - January 6, 2010

Imagine that, the Republicans using one of the liberal Democrats favorite secondary legislative bodies, the Courts, to stop health care reform in it's tracks.

In a recent blog here, I brought up the issue of “standing” as it applies to who can bring, or file a legal suit, with the United States Supreme Court. In order to bring a case before the Justices the plaintiff(s) or ones bringing suit, must have ''standing,'' because apparently the Court is not allowed to open a case on their own even if they suspect that a law, or portion of it, is unconstitutional.

By definition in part, “standing” means, ''...that in the United States, the current doctrine is that a person cannot bring a suit challenging the constitutionality of a law unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the plaintiff is (or will imminently be) harmed by the law. Additionally, the party suing must have ‘something to lose’ in order to sue unless they have automatic standing by action of law.''

Retired Judge Andrew Napolitano on FOX TV News recently confirmed that definition. Any citizen of the United States that will be harmed by the law, in this case, forced to buy health insurance under threat of financial fine or possible imprisonment, can bring suit because they have “standing.”

Judge Napolitano went on to say that if the pending health care reform legislation that is now being negotiated behind closed doors, not on C-Span as promised by Candidate Obama several times, is passed into law, a private citizen can seek relief and have the law deemed unconstitutional. Napolitano added that such action could also open the doors to looking at various other laws whose constitutionality has been questioned.

At this moment, Senator Orin Hatch, R-Utah, is putting this issue in motion. He can’t bring the suit personally but surely he will find an American citizen willing and able to do so. Time will tell.

Hatch and other Senators are arguing that the bill’s requirement that most people buy insurance or face a penalty violates the Constitution’s ban on taking private property for public purpose without just compensation.

Also, that a provision that could treat some insurance companies in Louisianna, Nebraska and Michigan different from others is a violation of the 14th Amendment's "equal protection'' clause.

The AG from Texas just joined in claiming that Congress can't force citizens to buy anything, including health insurance, by saying it falls under the Interstate Commerce clause.

Now it's getting serious, boy and girls. The AGs are using the "law of the land," our Constitution and the protections it affords the citizenry, to take a hard look at this mess the Democrats call reform.
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jaq~

"Standing..." You Either Have It Or You Don't

2010-01-04T18:39:00.001-05:00

by j. Wright 1-4-2010
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Every time I see the U.S. Supreme Court mentioned regarding the possible constitutionality of a new bill that Congress in its infinite wisdom has just passed into law, my head wants to explode; reason being, I don't fully understand the legality of the term ''standing.''
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Its my understanding that in order to bring a case before the SC Justices the plaintiff(s) or ones bringing suit, must have ''standing,'' because apparently the Court is not allowed to simply open a case on their own because of public sentiment or pressure, or even if they might think in their own minds that a law, or portion of it, is unconstitutional.
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If we examined all of the laws Congress has passed in the past decade or longer and examined them for constitutionality, I'd wager many of them wouldn't pass muster, but still they remain on the books. Why, because someone with ''standing'' didn't bother to make a federal case out of it? Or if someone did, a liberal federal judge in a lower court threw the case out before it reached the high court in Washington, D.C.

Or, trial lawyers being what they are and whom they support (Read: the liberal left in our politcal family) are not necessarily apt to take up such mundane matters as constitutionality. But I digress.

Definition of “standing” in part says, ''...that in the United States, the current doctrine is that a person cannot bring a suit challenging the constitutionality of a law unless the plaintiff can demonstrate that the plaintiff is (or will imminently be) harmed by the law. Additionally, the party suing must have something to lose in order to sue unless they have automatic standing by action of law.''
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If Congress passes a law next week mandating that all Americans MUST buy health insurance or be fined, and if the individual doesn't pay that fine they will be penalized a much larger amount and jailed, isn't that ''having something to lose?'' Such as one's liberty? Or is our loss of liberty just a foregone conclusion nowadays? Maybe the key word up there is ''imminently.''
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Imminently we may find out.
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jaq~

Connect the Dots? What Dots?

2009-12-31T13:34:00.003-05:00

by j. wright - 12/31/2009

Apparently before socialist leaning Democrat supporters begin to ravenously ''eat their own'' they must start nibbling around the edges as noted columnist Maureen Dowd did in a surprising column published recently in the NYT. For sure, Dowd injected her usual Bush Derangement Syndrome attacks, including attacks on former VP Cheney and Secretary of Defense Rumsfield, but by no means did she show any pity for President Obama and his pitiful national security team's recent actions.

I wish she had gone farther. What are we watching today in our intelligence gathering circles? The same type of ''intelligence wall" that stifled two previous administrations with political infighting? Have we forgotten the "Jamie Gorelick Wall" that was in vogue under President Clinton barring anti-terror investigators from accessing information or communicating with other federal security agencies? The ''Wall'' that the 9/11 Commission eliminated and later set up guidelines to be implemented that would improve our future security?

It's deja vu all over again, or close to it. Instead of being able to connect the dots, the current Obama Administration security heads are seemingly unable to recognize a dot when it's handed to them, and he is too busy playing golf to bother with an immediate acknowledgement of a near miss above our own soil. Instead we got unbelievable spin (blather) from Janet Napolitano, the current Secretary of Homeland Security about how well “the system” worked. The next day she reversed her self and said she was misunderstood; taken out of context. Had those remarks been uttered by Tom Ridge or Michael Chertoff, a couple of President Bush’s security chiefs, they would surely have been verbally tarred and feathered within hours by the national media and Democrat lawmakers and asked to submit their resignations immediately.

How's that ''hope and change'' working today? Not so hot as far as our national security is concerned, but Al Queda seems to be thriving under it. Unfortunately until the 2012 elections we are stuck with this amateurish administrative Lost Gonzo posse that President Obama has trotted out to lead our country
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Happy New Year readers, good riddance to 2009!

jaq~

"What I Really Think of Health Care Reform"

2009-12-23T09:46:00.004-05:00

by j. wright - 12/23/2009

My oldest daughter wrote recently asking my opinion of the proposed health care bills. The following was my answer.

IF it were real health care reform, the end result would cover people that really can't afford insurance, many will still be uninsured; overall drug and treatment costs would decrease; physicians would not have to pay exorbitant malpractice insurance premiums; people could buy their insurance coverage anywhere they wished, they can't now; they would get income tax breaks for setting up a personal medical savings accounts. It seems that none of those things will take place.

Origninally we were told that 47 million Americans were without health insurance converage. Then in a speech, President Obama lowered that number to 30 million. Now the experts are saying that after the passage of this bill, between 12 million and 25 million Americans will still NOT be insured. If that's the case, why are we bankrupting the country in the name of nationalized health care reform?

It's reform all right; it just doesn't do anything to improve on the health provider system we have now, but we will succeed in indebting you and your future grandkids' grandkids for the rest of their lives with another government entitlement program. All this is going to be done with borrowed dollars; you do know that the federal government operates on taxes and foreign loans don't you? They don't have any money of their own. It's not Obama's "stash" as some would like to believe.

Many current physicians have decided to retire early or leave the country when this is passed, and government estimates say that 30,000,000 additional people (which doesn't add up) will be added to the insurance roles. That means fewer doctors treating more people equals less than adequate medical care. Great, that’s something to look forward to.

Obama says this bill will create jobs: right, at the federal level. One report I read said that 118 new federal agencies (bureaucracies) would be needed to run this debacle. Who pays their salary? Yes, the U.S. taxpayer. Like we need a bigger, growing government.

Obama says this bill will lower the deficit. Not if you include the $240+ billion that is "off budget" in a separate bill called the "Doctor Fix." This is Medicare dollars that will be paid for services and for some reason, mostly to hoodwink the voters, is not inckuded in this health care reform bill.

Then there's this pipe dream that Congress is going to "cut" $500 billion out of Medicare funding. When pigs fly, my dear. This $500 billion is a big part of the great savings and deficit reduction expectations that Obama and the Democrat lawmakers are crowing about. No Congress in our lifetime is ever going to "cut" Medicare funding. You can take that to the bank.

Taxes will increase on about everything now to pay for this thing so you wage earners, if you are still employed, will have less money for food, clothing, mortgages, utility bills and my grandkids education. Forget anything else.

Most outrageous, the lawmakers we elected think they can force Americans to buy something, even if they don't want it. And if they don't buy it, they can be fined. And if they don't pay the fine, thay can be penalized thousands of additional dollars and jailed. Welcome to the USSA. I've read the constitution and can't seem to find where that's mentioned. There's also some mention of "equal protection under the law" in the constitution. Some states are receving preferential treatment in order to garner needed Senate votes to pass this monstrosity. Time will tell if any court in the land has the will to stand up and declare this mess illegal.

Does that answer your question, dear?

Love, Dad~

Again, Pass Anything to Save Face

2009-12-16T10:27:00.007-05:00

by j. wright 12/16/2009
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Journalist Jennifer Rubin, in a commentary.com article explains that the Democrats in the U.S. Senate are now at their wits end. Under mounting pressure they have dropped “another harebrained Harry Reid scheme.” But what’s next? The “ReidCare” public option idea has imploded along with adding more bodies to a failing Medicare including many who have reached 55 years of age. Ms. Rubin goes on, “ They need, because a few centrists insist on it, something that is semi-coherent and that actually might allow the Democrats to face the voters, who currently disfavor ObamaCare by a huge margin. What’s left after they take out the public option and the Medicare buy-in?”

A Republican leadership aide explains what’s left: “$500 billion in Medicare cuts, $400 billion in tax increases, raises premiums, raises costs, onerous regulations, individual mandates, employer mandates, and expensive subsidies.” So what’s not to like? Well, just about everything, boys and girls. And this is reform?

A Democrat leadership aide explained it another way, similar to a Willy Sutton bank robbery gone badly. They’re inside the bank surrounded outside by dozens of armed lawmen, their robbery plans went awry big time; they can leave the money and run, or shoot it out and take the money.

Apparently it has come down to this in the Senate… pass anything to save face and maybe give President Obama a boost in his plummeting job approval numbers, all at the expense of 1/6 of our faltering economy. Or maybe they can all go home and clear their heads. When they return, maybe they can come up with a few inexpensive, discrete reforms that will have bipartisan support and not destroy our present system. Maybe? When pigs fly.

Unfortunately I see the Democrats with their huge majority as more than willing to pass anything just to pass it, regardless of what the unintended consequences will be in the 2010 elections.

What we are seeing now in the Senate are a few Dems and Harry Reid behind closed doors again, not on C-Span as Obama the transparency candidate espoused, working on a 'new' bill while the rest of the Senate is wasting time debating much of the old one. Whatever passes the Senate, if it does, will then go to a Joint Conference Meeting with the Democrat Leaders of the Pelosi led House and God only knows what will come from that. All of the recent talk about dropping the public option and the Medicare buy-in may suddenly be back in play, including abortion funding, and at what financial cost? The problem is after it leaves the Joint Conference Committee, it takes only 51 votes in the Senate to pass it. Look for a few Democrat Senators, who may be in jeopardy in the upcoming 2010 elections, to seek political refuge and vote against it. Call it CYA, that's all it is.

Another problem, and a major problem at that, is that if this monstrosity is enacted it will be nearly impossible to rescind with Obama holding a veto pen, at least until the 2012 elections. If he is reelected in 2012 then we're really doomed. The America where many of us grew up will cease to exist.

jaq~

"The High Costs of Dying..."

2009-11-23T15:56:00.003-05:00

by j. wright - 11/23/2009
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Last Sunday I watched a portion of 60 Minutes on CBS-TV. Their first segment had to do with national health care. It began with an opening statistic (whose validity some might question) claiming $50 billion is expended annually to keep ailing seniors alive for an additional two months or so in their last days. Is the "do no harm" axiom now dependent on costs? Or on the sanctity of life?

We all should remember, it’s still the PATIENT'S choice to linger in possible pain with the HOPE (Remember that word? A favorite of many liberals) that their condition might improve. Remember that liberal favorote; CHOICE? It's not up to the Doctor or the Government to decide. Not yet anyway

CBS, as self-appointed experts in medicine and national economics, concluded in the case of extending a fellow human's life for an indeterminate length of time, that $50 billion dollars is obviously too much American capital to waste. We need to become more "cost effective."

On October 19, Senate Democrat Majority Harry Reid stated almost sneeringly that Medical Tort Reform would save "only" $50 billion a year.

On August 31, 2009 the NY Times said medical tort reform is moving to the fore of the health care debate, that medical malpractice cost the system $50 billion a year. Reid referred to it as a small fraction of the $2 trillion that health care reform would cost. Obviously a faux pas on Harry's part, one of those nasty unintended consequences of forgetting which lie to rely upon. His Senate bill claims to cost "only" $847 billion during the next ten years. Do the math... multiply $50 billion ten times: $500 billion. A small fraction, Harry?

If Medical Tort Reform were put in place, how many fewer needless tests and costly medications would our current system push in order to prevent frivolous lawsuits? No, apparently it’s easier to expect ailing seniors to just die rather than to take potential income away from trial lawyers, cronies who contribute tons of money to the Democrat Party. Sleaze politics

Is $50 Billion too much to spend on aging seniors or is it too little to save on overall health care? Decisions, decisions. It's still $50 billion every year. The Republican minority have insisted that any Health Care Reform include ways to save billions in Tort Reform. Harry Reid says no way. The Republicans also offered up eleven (11) amendments during the debate of these many bills, a,endments that would force the lawmakers to drop what they have now and be nsured like the rest of the country will be under their great plan. All eleven were nixed. These jokers are OUR employees, but who'd have guessed that?

$50 billion is either a drop in the bucket or it’s a needless waste of money. It depends on where your values lie. My question is simple, why should U.S. government bureaucrats now get into the business of determining when the ailing should die, or live, and for how long?

Proponents of the government plan say that many doctors feel that those final stabs at prolonging an uncomfortable life do more harm than good and not much good. I say it doesn't matter what the doctors or the government "feels" or concludes. If the patient is awake, lucid and can communicate their wishes, to either pull the plug or give it another try, it's their CHOICE.

How much longer we will have the FREEDOM of CHOICE is debatable under this president and our current lawmakers. The lawmakers passed Medicare and Medicaid years ago to afford seniors some type of medical care... as usual, their numbers were way off the target, like ten times less than the actual costs when it paned out. Quite a mistake. Now the Democrat lawmakers, seeing that mistake, want to take away between s450 - s500 billion in payments to doctors and care providers, who subsequently will NOT accept Medicare patients, or will discover a way to cut their losses like rationing care. The elderly will be the ones left holding the bag.

This new health care boondoggle will cause thousands of doctors to retire or move off shore; it will add millions of people that are now uninsured and still leave millions of Americans without coverage. Care and treatment will not improve, costs will increase. The deficit will expand. Our debts to foreign nations will increase as well. It will ultimately insure illegal aliens (for their future votes following amnesty legislation) and worst, it will use taxpayer money to fund voluntary abortions. Those are the bad things. It’s possible the good things that are included in the bill won’t justify the bad.

What in hell are those lawmakers (Democrats) thinking? They seem all to willing to pass a really bad law instead of trying to improve what we have now.

jaq~

Passing A Bad Bill is Better Than Not Passing Any?

2009-11-19T11:19:00.004-05:00

by j. wright - 11/19/2009
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Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and Company, behind closed doors again, NOT in the glare of C-Span cameras for all the world to see (as Candidate Obama promised) finally introduced the Senate's version of nationalized health care/insurance overhaul that the CBO estimates will cost $849 billion for the first ten years. Of course the new taxes to pay for this program begin now. The benefits, or lack of same, of the new plan will go into effect for the taxpayers six or seven years down the road, AFTER the 2012 elections. After the first ten years, who knows what the cost will be, or if the country will be solvent enough to afford it?
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We've seen what happened to Medicare in the 25 years it has been in effect. It has exploded to ten times the cost of what was predicted by our "experts" in Washington. If "comprehensive health care reform" follows suit, our economy could totally collapse. There are areas where the goverenment should not involve itself (Read: meddle) and IMO, ths is one of them. Besides, its constitutionality is questionable, but who is examining at that?
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The nearly $250 billion (1.4 trillion) "Doctor fix,” a stand-alone bill that strips a formula that automatically cuts Medicare physician payments out of "comprehensive" health reform, is still off budget, not paid for and raising the deficit. The Wall Street Journal writes, “This doctor maneuver is such a cleverly dishonest solution to their many contradictory promises that we're surprised Democrats didn't think of it sooner.” Will President Obama look the other way and break another huge campaign promise and sign health care reform into law while knowing it will definitely increase the deficit?
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It should be interesting to see how he reacts after being taken "to the wood shed" by the Chinese over the ever expanding U.S. deficit, the incessant federal spending, and the threat of massive inflation in the future, which would place the billions of dollars the Chinese have 'invested' in the U.S. government in jeopardy.
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The inmates are running the asylum and the Chinese recognize that. Too bad the MSM doesn't. They are too busy chasing former Governor Sarah Palin's skirt doing fact checks on her recent best selling book. Too bad someone from the Fourth Estate didn’t do as thorough a fact check on candidate Obama before the 2008 elections.
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jaq~

President Obama says Health Care Overhaul Isn't About Him

2009-11-11T13:15:00.003-05:00

by j. wright - 11/09/2009
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In August of this year, according to Senator Charles Grassley, (R-IA), “A Democrat congressman last week told (him) after a conversation with the president that the president had trouble in the House of Representatives, and it wasn’t going to pass if there weren’t some changes made and the president says, ‘You’re going to destroy my presidency.‘ “
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That president is none other than Barack H. Obama. The very same who stood in front of his vaunted teleprompter and asserted at various times that, “…this (health care reform) isn’t about me.”
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The same “ruin my presidency” line was reportedly used as leverage on some of the reluctant Democrat Representatives in the House last week when President Obama caucused with them pushing for passage of Speaker Pelosi’s 2,000+ page bill.
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If it isn’t about Obama, who is it about? It isn’t about the majority of the taxpayers who will have to eventually pay for this boondoggle called reform. Since when does the legacy of one president take precedence over the welfare of the 307 million Americans to whom he swore an oath?
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Poll after poll taken in recent weeks have shown a majority of Americans are not in favor of a government takeover of our current health provider system. Yes, changes must be implemented but not at the expense of destroying what is good about we have now.
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Speaker Pelosi stood on the steps of the nation’s capitol and pronounced, “…we have listened to the people.” The same ordinary people she insulted and derided following the Tea Party protests and Town Hall meetings last summer?
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In my opinion, we have a self-serving, arrogant, out-of-control administration and legislative branch where elected officials totally ignore the wishes of their employers, the taxpayers. This is not the America where I grew up.
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jaq~

Socialized Health-Care Is Already on the Books

2009-11-05T11:13:00.002-05:00

by j. wright - 11/05/2009
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In a televised interview recently, Dr. David Janda, orthopedic surgeon, University of Michigan, was featured as a guest. Janda, an author as well, is not a supporter of Obamacare in any fashion.
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In his interview he indicated that half of the proposed government take-over of our health care system is already law, "slipped" into the previous Stimulus package (H.R. 1 EH, The American Investment and Recovery Act of 2009) and will soon take effect. You remember that bill: $787 billion in borrowed dollars, more than 1,000 pages mostly unread. Find it on the Internet at: http://readthestimulus.org/hr1_final.txt
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Tragically, he indicated, no one from either party objected to the health provisions “slipped in” without discussion, which affects every one of us (see pages 445, 454, 479). Our medical treatments will be tracked electronically by a federal system. A new bureaucracy, the National Coordinator of Health Information Technology, will monitor treatments to make sure our doctors are doing what the federal government (bureaucrats) deem appropriate and cost effective. The goal is to have the remaining doctors who haven’t left the profession give up autonomy and learn to operate less like solo practitioners. Hospitals and doctors that are not “meaningful users” of the new system will face penalties.
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He also implied that if Obamacare passes into law, that 45% of the nation's current physicians will "retire" from practice. Add that fact to another, that more than 30 million new insured will be expecting treatment and we will have a total mess.
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The previous “Stimulus” bill, now law, generated yet another bureaucracy, the Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research (see pages 190-192). Its goal is to slow the development and use of new medications and technologies because they allegedly drive up costs. Mercy! Talk about achieving the lowest common denominator!
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Unfortunately, the elderly will be the hardest hit. As Democrat Tom Daschle wrote in his recent book, ”Seniors should be more accepting of the conditions that come with age instead of treating them.”
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Keep in mind this is already the law of the land. “I’m from the government, I’m here to help.” Doesn’t make a lot of sense, does it?
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jaq~

Two Examples of Deceit...

2009-10-22T13:21:00.001-04:00

by j. wright October 22, 2009
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In my construction supervision days, there was a time when the boss asked my Project Manager and me to each generate an estimate of a major renovation of an existing home in the exclusive Rancho Santa Fe community north of San Diego. It took us a couple of days and when we were finished, both of us had estimated a cost of slightly more than $700,000.

With estimates in hand we ventured into the boss’s office where he perused our numbers and began to line out various portions. We asked, “Are those items being deleted from the project?”

“No,” he answered, “Your numbers are too high.”

When the Senate Majority leader in Washington, D.C. attempted to remove about $250 billion dollars of future Medicare payments to doctors from the total cost of the proposed health care plan and pay for it “off budget” (Read: add it to the annual deficit.) the first thing I thought of was what my former employer attempted to create: a nice looking price, (a “low-ball”) but in the end, the home owner had to face the real cost of more than $700,000 as we had originally estimated.

I don’t know what most folks would call a stunt like that, but the word deceitful comes to my mind. The same applies to what the Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid attempted. And to the credit of twelve Senators from his own party plus the opposing Republicans, his attempt failed miserably. Maybe that’s a harbinger of things to come if and when a nationalized health care bill comes up for a vote.

No doubt our current health provider system needs improving. Beginning with a simpler plan we can afford financially seems more in order than to venture into the unknown and create additional unacceptable debt.
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One such idea comes from the Coalition to Protect Patients Rights, an organization that opposes congressional efforts to revamp the health-care system, the group opposes all the legislation being proposed in the House and the Senate. The bills avoid giving patients control of their health care.
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The coalition’s stance includes:
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1. allowing people to buy insurance across state lines,
2. advocating for health savings accounts,
3. opposing the public option of government-run insurance and
4. giving patients vouchers and tax credits to purchase insurance.
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The group also wants a revamping of medical malpractice suit filings that they say adds billions to health-care costs annually. Quoting one of the doctors involved, “What we want is a system where the patient controls their own destiny.”
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Baby steps... not a total overhaul of our existing system.
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jaq~

So Much For Transparency..."

2009-10-19T11:29:00.001-04:00

j. wright - 10/19/2009
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On August 21, 2008, Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama said in a televised campaign stop that as president, when it came down to deciding on health care reform that it would be done out in the open with Democrats, Republicans, Independents, doctors, hospital and insurance company reps all gathered around a big table and televised on C-Span for the entire country to see. Transparency.
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Apparently Democrat Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid of Nevada, Democrat House Speaker Nancy Pelosi of California, Democrat Senators Max Baucus of Montana and Christopher Dodd of Connecticut, and White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel didn’t see that speech. Either that or Barack Obama’s words mean nothing.
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Those individuals, sans any Republicans, Independents, doctors, nurses, insurance execs etc. are meeting behind closed doors, not on C-Span, to decide what 1/6 of the nation’s total economy and 300,000,000 Americans health provider system will look like for generations to come. I’d be fearful of buying a used car from them let alone trust them to destroy our current health care system and replace it with one that looks like it will offer less to more, cost trillions we don’t have and still leave millions of Americans uninsured. This power grab is called progress? Only in Washington, D.C.
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What ever happened to the “transparency” we heard so much about during the campaign? So far it seems to be missing in the Obama Administration; the administration that was purportedly based on “Change, change you can believe in.” So much for words, which candidate Obama said many times, have meaning. Really?
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When the politicians listed above finish their work, their product will then be revised again in a Joint Conference Committee; mostly Democrats behind closed doors before being voted on by both Houses. No televised hearings, definitely no “transparency.” Duped again

Debates Won: Wars Lost...

2009-10-08T15:01:00.003-04:00

by j. wright - October 8, 2009

In a recent Wall Street Journal article, former Bush Administration White House Chief of Staff Karl Rove indicated, “The GOP is Winning the Health-Care Debate.”
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Allow me to take on a former tennis great John McEnroe in-your-face attitude for a second: ''Winning the Debate? But Losing the War? You Can’t be Serious!” Great... if that's a victory please excuse me whilst my head explodes!
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The Marxist idiots many of us voted into office are going to pass their idea of national health reform regardless of rapidly growing public disatisfaction and the possible political consequences. That's supposed to be a win for the nation?
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Once in place, especially with Obama's veto pen until 2012, their idea of health reform will never be repealed and eventually we'll be ''enjoying'' a single payer monstrosity similar, maybe worse, than that in the UK and Canada.
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Its becoming more and more plain that these power guzzling Marxists have no conscience when they are in the majority, and in typical liberal fashion, have this inane belief that they and they alone know what is best for the rest of us, the uneducated inferior types.
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Sure, many of them will suffer at the polls in 2010 but it’s a small price to pay for their cause, as again, they will have forced their will upon us.To put it bluntly, we've had it. And I'd dearly love to be wrong.
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Additionally, even with the so-called pass the CBO just gave Senator Max Baucus and the Senate Finance Committee's version of national health care; the numbers are a joke.
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Out of that expected cost of $829-billion spread over ten years is a huge reduction in Medicare payments to doctors and hospitals of almost half; $404 billion. It's doubtful that will happen. Too many politicians see the folly in screwing with the seniors.The additional proposed taxes and fees will certainly take effect but not enough to offset the ''savings'' in lower Medicare expenses.
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Then there's the so-called savings to be garnered by eliminating Medicare ''fraud and waste'' to the tune of $500 billion? LMAO! As if any Congress ever discovered fraud and waste and did anything.
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So let's pretend this plan of theirs works for ten years. After that there is no allotment of money on any one's table to maintain this monster entitlement plan. Like now, Medicare/Medicaid is costing ten times what was planned at its inception 25 or so years ago. Imagine what our kids and their kid's kids will be facing in a couple of decades.
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The radical leftists have been compared to as an army of ants. Close, only worse. The ants aren't so much interested in control and power as they are in survival.
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They will accept a loss of the House in 2010 as long as they pass nationalized health care ''reform'' now.Like good socialists, they love their martyrs and are a patient lot. Sooner or later they would regain the House and control of the taxpayer dollars.
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Personally, I don't see a miracle in the making that will prevent them from passing Obamacare or whatever it’s called. And the arrogant One's ego trip will be nauseating to behold when that takes place.

jaq~

Now Even the Lawmakers Can't Understand What They Propose...

2009-10-03T11:55:00.002-04:00

by j. wright - October 3, 2009
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In the wee hours of the morning last Friday, the Senate Finance Committee, chaired by Senator Max Baucus, (D-Montana) completed the mark up of their proposed health care reform bill. The committee has been working with what is described as a “conceptual” version, or one prepared in common sense language. It had been given in part to the their staffers, lawyers, who converted it to legislative language before an upcoming floor vote.
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This is a portion of a quote from Senator Tom Carper (D-Del.): “I don’t expect to actually read the legislative language because reading the legislative language is among the more confusing things I’ve ever read in my life. We, we write in this committee and legislate with plain English and I think most of us can understand most of that. When you get into the legislative language, Senator Conrad actually read some of it, several pages of it, the other day and I don’t think anybody had a clue--including people who have served on this committee for decades--what he was talking about.”
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There was more but perhaps you get the gist. The Senate Finance Committee is the same committee that voted down a proposal to have the bill placed on the Internet 72 hours before an up-down vote takes place on the floor. Senator John F. Kerry, (D-Mass.) indicated it would be too confusing. Was he implying that the average American is too stupid to understand words?
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What I don’t understand is how the Obama Administration and the leftist Democrat legislators react to national polls concerning the public’s seeming disfavor with the Afghanistan conflict, yet totally ignore more conclusive polls concerning widespread opposition to major health care overhaul. Am I one of those average Americans Senator Kerry was speaking about? Maybe so but I do understand words.

Further Shredding of the Constitution

2009-09-28T11:34:00.002-04:00

J Wright - 09/28/09

After reading a piece in Politico.com, not a radical right-wing web site by any measure, I'm convinced beyond any doubt that the present Obama administration and its fellow lawmakers in D.C. are totally out of their minds. The problem? If this version of Obamacare passes into law and you don't buy mandated health insurance you can be fined, or jailed.

Politico.com published: "Sen. John Ensign (R-Nev.) received a handwritten note Thursday from Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff Tom Barthold confirming the penalty for failing to pay the up to $1,900 fee for not buying health insurance.

Violators could be charged with a misdemeanor and could face up to a year in jail or a $25,000 penalty, Barthold wrote on JCT letterhead. He signed it "Sincerely, Thomas A. Barthold."
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The note was a follow-up to Ensign's questioning at the (Senate Finance Committee's) markup. This is the Committee that is headed by Senator Max Baucus of Montana. Originally he had a “gang of six:” himself, two other Democrat Senators plus three Republican Senators, holed up for several weeks attempting to hammer out what he referred to as a “bipartisan” health care reform package.
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Apparently those Republicans, including a very liberal Olympia Snowe, concluded they were included only for “show”. When none of their suggestions were accepted by Baucus and the others, they walked. Now Senator Baucus is holding full committee hearings in an attempt to quickly mark up a questionable reform plan that up to now has had about 500 additional amendments added to it. The old adage about the definition of a camel comes to mind: a horse designed by a committee.
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Yes, we need health care/treatment reform; but we don’t need to throw out the baby with the bathwater. And I totally question the constitutionality of mandating, or forcing citizens to buy anything.
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jaq~

Now He's Thrown Israel Under the Bus!

2009-09-25T15:07:00.003-04:00

by j. wright -09/25/2009
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What was it that coke-head Sherlock Holmes always said to Dr. Watson ? "Elementary..."
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In the spirit of sarcasm, IF Israel had not been designated as a sovereign nation in 1948 then there would be no 'mideast problem' today.
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IF Hitler had been better at ridding the world of the 'infestation of Jews' during WW II: same conclusion.
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As former Dallas QB "Dandy" Don Meredith once told sports columnist/announcer Howard Cosell, "If 'ifs and buts' were candy and nuts, what a Merry Christmas we'd all have."
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Going back to the current but incessant, never ending 'mideast problem,' IF Jimmy Carter had developed a better pair of gonads as an adolescent, the mideast would be a far more stable place than it is today. All he can do now, in attempting to cover his skinny, saddle-ass, is blame Israel for everything bad that's ever happened and continue to kiss Muslim ass.
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Apparently President Obama feels that same way. I'm still fuming over his bigoted speech last week at the United Nations general assembly railing at Israel. If I were Bibi Netanyahu, I'd flat knock him on his skinny ass for interferring in the governance of their country. Sure, it would violate untold political decorum but would send a definite message. :)
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Originally, Obama said the 'new' mideast peace negotiations would commence with no set pre-conditions, then in his usual psuedo-intelligent chin jutting Il Duce fashion, proceeded to lay out several conditions that are, and will be, totally unacceptable to the Israelis. Talk about arrogance. Whose side is he on anyway? I guess we all know now.
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jaq~

Why More Pro-health Care Reform Speeches?

2009-09-04T11:10:00.003-04:00

by j wright
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At the risk of sounding anti-Obamacare, whatever that is, its difficult for me to understand why President Obama, in the face of devastating public opinion to the contrary, insists that a total overhaul of our health care system is necessary. Why, if I wanted to replace my kitchen cabinetry and counter tops, would I begin by demolishing the entire house?
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Now President Obama is set to make a high-level pitch for health care reform before a joint session of Congress. Many of those members, who if brave enough, recently stood before their constituents and felt the heat of an aroused public, who by all national polls are well satisfied enough with the current system that it doesn’t need to be totally destroyed and eventually taken over and operated by the federal government.
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President Obama will be preaching to the choir, at least that’s how it appears to me. The more he speaks, the faster his job approval ratings plummet, and they have, like a stone. All of his “face time” on national television has done nothing for health reforms and has definitely affected his popularity. One definition of insanity is to continue doing the same thing and expecting a different result. Maybe listening to the people is in order.
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Certainly, his failure to get consensus on health care reform can’t be blamed totally on the Republicans; they have been watching the congressional Democrats doing a good enough job of that. The House Democrats want a “public option.” (Government run health care; eventually eliminating private insurance providers.) The Senate Democrats say “No” to public option. The Republicans are left out of that stalemate all together. Many of their ideas are constructive and bear consideration but the special interests the Democrats favor prohibit even a look-see. No wonder much of the country is upset.
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jaq~

Take Care of Federal Deficit Later?

2009-08-22T10:23:00.001-04:00

by j. wright
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Friday gave us a “Good news, bad news” scenario: the good news was that President Obama would be vacationing at Martha’s Vineyard and out of the public spotlight briefly. The bad news is that his administration released a revised report showing the growing federal spending deficit would explode to an outrageous $9 trillion during the next ten years instead of the $7.1 trillion they had projected after taking office. Contrary to the Obama Administration’s economic experts, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) had predicted a $9.1 trillion deficit and it appears they had the right numbers all along.

So for the next ten years our federal government will go along, happily spending $900 billion more dollars annually than it takes in. I wish I could run my household finances like that. Maybe not, come to think of it. The really bad news is this $9 trillion expected deficit increase adds not only to the burgeoning $11.7 trillion National Debt, it doesn’t include a single dime for the cost of national health/insurance reform… if somehow passed, would be tacked on.

On May 24, 2009 President Obama, as quoted in the NY Post said during a lengthy interview referring to the country, " We are out of money, were broke.” He also added, as I remember, that our government’s current spending habits were “unsustainable.” So what is his solution? Break his campaign promise and increase taxes on every remaining wage earner in order to cover our various near bankrupt social programs? Or begin to reform all of them, cut wasteful fraud and spending and get our financial house in order before taking on anything new?

Still mired in a deepening recession, and with approximately 30 million currently out of work, a huge amount of social program dollars will never be collected. Scarlett O’Hara might suggest that we “…take care of it tomorrow.”

jaq~

Get Ready for Socialized Medicine

2009-08-14T11:08:00.003-04:00

by jwright - August 12, 2009
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The national health care reform proposals being generated in Washington and introduced in Town Hall meetings across the land are not receiving the warm welcome that many politicians wanted or expected. Many ordinary folks in attendance appear to be beyond angry with their lawmakers, who in fact were “hired” at the voting booths to represent but seem hell-bent on passing some sort of radical bill anyway. One in essence that “tears down the house to remodel the bathroom.” Apparently the lawmakers are more fearful of their leadership’s ability to destroy them than they are of the voters to boot them from office. How else could they all utter the identical pro-reform lines over and over?
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The bill most discussed, of several being generated, is HR3200, a 1,018 page complicated monstrosity that if passed could result in 30,000 pages rivaling our IRS code. That after the government bureaucrat’s finish fine-tuning and defining it into a total remake of our current medical care system; one that isn’t broken but could definitely use some major changes.
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The Democrats in power have rejected out-of-hand many changes proposed by Republicans including tort reform. A.good part of the escalating costs of medical care is passed on by the increasing costs of medical malpractice insurance. Anti-tort reform trial lawyers are a major financial contributor to the Democrats. No one wants to close that spigot.
NO one wants to close that spigot..
Another tidbit the Democrats refuse to consider is to allow the various independent insurance companies to sell their wares across state lines. For example, if you live in New York state today and wish to purchase lesser cost insurance in Delaware, you can't. Why?
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Now the Town Hall attendees in disagreement with health care reform are accused of being a mob, organized rabble-rousers, etc. because they want their voices heard. So the opponents of free speech send in their own ‘mob’ of organized thugs, even to the point of beating a conservative black man who was handing out “Don’t Tread On Me” outside one of the meetings. Add to that, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and her political toy-boy, Steny Hoyer, recently labeled public dissent as “un-American.” Our Founding Fathers must be spinning in their graves!
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One line I overheard last week sticks with me: ''They (the lawmakers) didn't come to listen, they came to teach.'' Good grief! I know all I need to know about any of their various health care reform plans, or as Obama now calls it, health 'insurance' reform. What I know is I don't want it! And for all of his so-called oratoical presence, President Obama can't explain it short of lying about what it includes.
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What I fear most is that come hell-or-high water, these elected idiots, as I mentioned before, are more fearful of Obama's ability to destroy them politically than they are of their constituents booting them out of office. They will dutifully do the bidding of their leader, their Messiah, and pass this or a similar abomination anyway, regardless of massive public sentiment to the contrary.
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Then what? Wait for the 2010 mid-terms, elect Republican or conservative Independents and attempt to rescind the entire mess with a president holding a veto pen? How much damage will have taken place in the interim?
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I sincerely hope that those good folks who were duped into voting for ''change'' are choking on their fears right now.
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jaq~

What is in the Democrats drinking water?

2009-08-03T10:44:00.002-04:00

by j wright - August 3, 2009
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A friend of a different political persuasion questioned what is in my drinking water that causes me to post here? Similarly I’d ask what’s in the water of many of our elected officials in Washington when they utter some of the things they do?
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President Obama began it with his statement that although he didn’t have the facts about an arrest made in Cambridge MA went on to assert, “The police acted stupidly.” This was at the end of a press conference covering his health care reform proposals.
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On that topic, Senate Majority Harry Reid, D-NV, blamed the media for “making up” the August 1st health legislation deadline. That flying in the face of several video clips showing Obama, Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, pushing incessantly for a pre-recess deadline.
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Pelosi later publically accused our health insurance providers of being the “villains” in this process.
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Later, Representative Charlie Rangell, D-NY described our current health care system as “terrible.” Terrible? I’m well satisfied with mine, and other than the annual cost increases of Medicare, my insurance premiums have not increased since 2001.
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Fellow Michigander John Conyers, Democrat, House Chairman, Committee of the Judiciary, questioned why lawmakers should bother to read 1,000+ page bills before passing them because it would take two days and two lawyers to explain it. Unbelievable!
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Then Democrat Barney Frank of Massachusetts, House Financial Services Chairman was caught on video saying the “public option” that Obama wants to include is the best way to achieve single payer coverage (such as Canada and the UK have). That would ultimately result in the rationing or outright refusal of some aspects of medical care, especially for senior citizens.
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This contentious, omnibus health care plan is being hashed over in several proposed bills; none of which the national polls find appealing to the informed voters. None of which many Republicans are involved in in or supporting. We need to reform our health system, perhaps starting with tort reform in order to get law suits agaionst doctors and hospitals uinder control BUT that would hinder the trial lawyers ability to make tons of money, AND the trial lawyers are one big fat special interest that supports the Democrat Party.
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Another move would be to allow insurance cmpanies to sell their services across state lines, increasng competition and lowering costrs to the nsured. Why this isn't in effect already is a mystery to me.
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jaq~

My 2-cents

2009-07-22T10:06:00.002-04:00

by jwright
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Comedian Steven Wright once said, "If you get a penny for your thoughts, why do we always put our '2-cents' in?"
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Real Politics columnist John Stossel writes on the very confusing issue of national health care reform: “It's crazy for a group of mere mortals to try to design 15% of the U.S. economy. It's even crazier to do it by August. Yet that is what some members of Congress presume to do. They intend, as the New York Times puts it, ‘to reinvent the nation's health care system’. Let that sink in. A handful of people who probably never even ran a small business actually think they can reinvent the health care system.”
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Stossel gives the congressional legislators credit for being mere mortals. I’d liken them more to being arrogant snake oil salesmen with blown dried hair and good quality suits. There was a saying that the definition of an expert is anyone more than 25 miles from home. This appears to be the case of the lawmakers who are attempting to follow President Obama’s orders and overhaul (or possibly ruin?) our national health care system.
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From the liberal NY Times: “Three of the five Congressional committees working on legislation to reinvent the nation’s health care system delivered bills this week along the lines proposed by President Obama. Instead of celebrating their success, many Democrats were apprehensive, nervous and defensive.” That’s understandable. Much of what they are proposing is so bizarre that even the unwashed, average American can understand it. Recent national polls reflect it’s not to their liking.
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The lawmakers can’t predict it’s eventual cost in new taxes, or if it actually improves the system or replaces it with what Canada and the UK currently “enjoy.” Still, President Obama is pressing hard for something now. Too often, and unfortunately, what a bill contains is secondary to its passing. This controversial bill will affect everyone, forever. Why the rush? Do it right.
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jaq~
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Information sources:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/07/22/arrogance_97561.html
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/07/18/health/policy/18health.html?_r=3&hp

Is Your Home Really Your Castle?

2009-07-17T22:22:00.001-04:00

by j. wright
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So you think “your home is your castle?” Not if the U.S. Senate passes the questionable “climate” bill the House of Representatives passed last week on a 219-212 vote. It legislates mandatory home inspections by federal regulators (Big Brother?) who will demand to audit every aspect of your home under the threat of substantial and repeated fines if their visits are denied or their demands not satisfied.
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The inspectors shall request copies of utility bills, or permission to obtain copies from your utility companies and use them to produce an estimate of generalized heating and cooling end-uses; and will inspect for R-values of wall/ceiling/floor insulation; type of windows: glazing type and frame material; type, model number, and location of heating/cooling system, ductwork, location and R-value of duct insulation; type of foundation if crawl, basement, or slab; the age and efficiency of your hardwired light fixtures and screw-in bulbs and the number of water faucets, showerheads just to name a few areas.
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Does this mandatory intervention violate the Fourth Amendment of the U.S. Constitution guaranteeing protection from unreasonable search and seizure? “The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”
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This legislation was fueled on the automatic assumption that global warming is taking place and it attributes to rising CO2 levels, despite the fact that this is a highly contentious question and is being rejected by more and more international scientists, but who cares? This government knows best even when it ignores the Constitution. Your choice: federal fines, or do you spend dollars you can’t spare to upgrade?
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jaq~

Step Two in Totalitarianism - Mandatory Home Inspections

2009-07-08T12:31:00.002-04:00

by jwright-July 8, 2009
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So you think “your home is your castle?” Maybe not if the U.S. Senate actually passes the questionable “climate” bill the House of Representatives passed last week on a 219-212 vote. It legislates mandatory home inspections by federal government regulators (Big Brother?) who will demand to audit every aspect of your home under the threat of substantial and repeated fines if their visits are denied or their demands not satisfied.

The inspectors shall request copies of utility bills, or permission to obtain copies from your utility companies and use them to produce an estimate of generalized end-uses (heating, and cooling); and then will inspect for R-values of wall/ceiling/floor insulation; Square footage and approximate age of home; Type of windows: glazing type(s) and frame material(s); Type, model number, and location of heating/cooling system(s); Type of ductwork, location and R-value of duct insulation, and any indications of previous duct sealing; Type of foundation if crawl, basement, or slab; Checklist of common air-leakage sites; Estimated age and efficiency of major appliances such as dishwashers, refrigerators, freezers, washers and dryers; Number and type of hardwired light fixtures and screw-in bulbs in portable lamps suitable for energy efficient re-lamping; Visual indications of condensation; Presence and location of exhaust fans, and whether they are vented outdoors; Number and type of water faucets, showerheads; and Presence and type(s) of combustion equipment; blocked chimney, and corroded or missing vent connections

This legislation was fueled on the automatic assumption that global warming is taking place and it attributes to rising CO2 levels, despite the fact that this is a highly contentious question and is being rejected by more and more international scientists, but who cares? Government knows best. If your home doesn’t pass muster, what then? Federal fines, or do you spend dollars you can’t spare to upgrade?

jaq~
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Information source: http://www.infowars.com/bureaucrats-will-carry-out-mandatory-home-inspections-under-climate-bill/

Step One in Totalitarianism - Cap and Trade

2009-07-01T14:44:00.003-04:00

by jwright

HEADLINE: Dollar Falls Most in Month as China Urges New Reserve Currency. That was the June 27 headline at Bloomberg.com, published by the Bloomberg Professional, a service terminal that provides real-time financial news, market data, and analysis.
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The U.S. Dollar declined the most against the Euro and dropped in value versus the Yen after China challenged Obamanomics and repeated its call for a new global currency.
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What does the decline in value of the dollar mean for you and me? In a capsule, according to the Gerson Lehman Group, its devaluation means higher prices for our every day goods and commodities, as they are expected to continue to rise along with the value of energy, oil, precious and base metals. Fuel costs will increase, and consumer credit will shrink while inflation increases (punishing those like me and others on a fixed income).
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The opponents of the president’s ominous Cap-and-Trade bill that passed recently in the U.S. House of Representatives said much the same. In the opinion of millions it’s a new, unfair tax on energy consumption that will essentially increase the costs of everything we use. Slowdowns in corporate production will ensue. American businesses relocating offshore would result, subsequently followed with the loss of American jobs.

Some politicians say the bill makes sense because if energy costs rise, consumption will be less. The nebulous reasoning is that we’ll then lessen our dependence on foreign oil and somehow change our planet’s climate. Is this like rearranging the chairs in a restaurant’s public smoking section while the growing smoke cloud lingers everywhere? With China and India’s growth, the pollution on the planet increases while our cost of living increases and our standard of living erodes, the economy continues to founder, and worse, the central federal government attains more power. We are the losers.

Sources: www.bloomberg.com; www.glgroup.com/
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jaq~

Why This Particular Health Care Reform Package?

2009-06-25T13:20:00.001-04:00

by j. wright
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A clever quote from a former U.S Senator, Illinois Republican Everett McKinley Dirksen said, "A million here, a million there, soon adds up to real money."

Not any more, at least if you are an elected legislator working in Washington, D. C.

Remember as recently as last fall when President Bush's Secretary of the Treasury Henry Paulson asked for a then astronomical $700 billion dollars ($700,000,000,000.00) which was approved after much wailing and gnashing of Congressional teeth. Called TARP for Troubled Asset Relief Program, it expanded beyond the $700 billion before leaving the Senate. Congress entrusted Paulson, unconstitutionally, to "fix" the financial mess; it's still with us. Where did the $700 billion in taxpayer dollars go?

Now we are getting used to larger numbers: trillions with 12 zeroes. Dirksen's millions here and there pale in comparison. President Obama started pushing a new health care reform package that was to top out at $1.trillion (1,000,000,000,000.00) over ten years. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) took a closer look and came up with $1.6 trillion. Today, their revised figure is $3 trillion. This astronomical amount of future taxpayer debt (Quoting Obama: we don’t have the money) will supposedly provide Americans with a questionable health care program similar to that of the UK and Canada. That's something to look forward to.

Why are we considering this? To provide access or coverage for some unverified number of Americans who for a multitude of reasons, some personal, do not have health insurance coverage? Even the various plans being considered do not cover everyone, that’s been reported for weeks. So how much will this boondoggle really cost if it passes? Many of the legislators are in the dark though they seem willing to pass the bill anyway. Can "We the People" stop them? Maybe when pigs fly. We need health care reform but is this it?

jaq~

Do We Have An Over-reaching Executive Administration?

2009-06-10T10:34:00.002-04:00

by j. wright

Two things in the national political works at this writing concern me greatly. One that may become enacted is the proposed appointment by President Obama of an “Executive-Pay Czar,” or as sometimes referred to in the media, a “Master of Compensation.” This appointed “Master,” not one selected or approved by Congress, will be filled by attorney Kenneth Feinberg, formerly on vice-president Joe Biden’s economic advisory staff. Feinberg’s job will be to ensure that private companies that received tazpayer bailout dollars from the questionable Troubled Asset Relief Fund (TARP) are abiding by the new executive pay levels put in place by Obama.

To begin with, TARP’s constitutionality was highly questionable when the Democrat controlled Congress relinquished its sovereign responsibility for the disbursement of the national treasury to the Executive branch, namely the Secretary of the Treasury under former president Bush and now under Obama. Add to that, the naming of a "Pay Czar" is another affront to the American free enterprise system exercised by the Executive branch whose apparent intention is to control private business expenditures. It has been reported that the new federal “Pay Czar’s” authority could possibly even reach into private companies that were NOT recipients of TARP. This the America where I grew up? Hardly.

The other issue is how Chrysler Corporation’s remaining debt holders had their day before the U.S. Supreme Court and lost, leaving the Indiana pensioners whose retirement savings were wrapped up in Chrysler bonds, standing alone in challenging Obama and his administration who earlier had called for “shared sacrifice” in this issue.

As National Review printed recently: “It should be noted that Chrysler’s unions, unsecured creditors who jumped to the head of the line thanks to White House power play, did not give an inch on their base pay or pension terms. Who would call that shared sacrifice?”

jaq~

National Review quote source: http://planetgore.nationalreview.com/post/?q=ZTA4MTRlYmFiODhhNGU5MDI0YjhhMGNkZTY1NzAwY2Y=.

Whom to Advise in the Ongoing Israeli-Palestinian Issue

2009-05-22T13:34:00.002-04:00

by jwright

In reading Philadelphia Inquirer columnist and editorial board member Trudy Rubin’s recent column in the Cadillac News, I found myself amazed at her naiveté in general with the ongoing, never ending Israeli-Palestinian issue.

Ms. Rubin suggested that President Obama “coulda-woulda-shoulda” said things much differently when meeting earlier with Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu at the White House and she offered some examples.

I’m not an expert on mid-east politics but my memory still works. The suggestion that Israeli should again seriously recognize a sovereign Palestinian state brings to mind what happened when the Israel government decided to remove itself, it’s people and military from the contentious Gaza Strip neighboring Egypt. This was a unilateral act on Israel’s part to show the Palestinians and their neighboring Arab state supporters that peaceful coexistence might be possible. It takes two to tango.

Israel discovered too late when Hamas, the elected Palestinian terrorist government of the Gaza Strip, began to ruthlessly and indiscriminately shower the neighboring Israeli villages and towns with rockets, killing and injuring hundreds of innocent men, women and children. All while the United Nations looked the other way. Very convenient for Hamas, a declared enemy of Israel who has vowed to never recognize Israel as a Jewish State, or as a sovereign state at all.

I also don’t know Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu personally but I’d wager that he is not interested in having a repeat of that mindless behavior coming from the West Bank from a newly formed sovereign Palestinian State. My suggestion would be to not advise Israeli on what to do but instead direct any further discussion at the terrorist government in Gaza, and to any potential Palestinian terrorists in the West Bank. In my biased opinion, that’s who requires that proverbial trip to the woodshed.
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jaq~

A Letter from a Dodge Dealer, soon to be "former dealer."

2009-05-20T20:17:00.004-04:00

by jwright
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For all the supporters of President Obama and his Administration currently intent on socializing or destroying privately owned businesses, some very much like Don's Auto Clinic here in Cadillac, MI , or that of a personal life-long friend, (James) McHugh Dodge-Jeep in Zanesville, OH.

Please read on...
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May 19, 2009 - Letter from a Dodge dealer
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Letter to the Editor:
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My name is George C. Joseph. I am the sole owner of Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu, a family owned and operated business in Melbourne, Florida. My family bought and paid for this automobile franchise 35 years ago in 1974. I am the second generation to manage this business.
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We currently employ 50+ people and before the economic slowdown we employed over 70 local people. We are active in the community and the local chamber of commerce. We deal with several dozen local vendors on a day to day basis and many more during a month. All depend on our business for part of their livelihood. We are financially strong with great respect in the market place and community. We have strong local presence and stability.
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I work every day the store is open, nine to ten hours a day. I know most of our customers and all our employees. Sunshine Dodge is my life.
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On Thursday, May 14, 2009 I was notified that my Dodge franchise, that we purchased, will be taken away from my family on June 9, 2009 without compensation and given to another dealer at no cost to them. My new vehicle inventory consists of 125 vehicles with a financed balance of 3 million dollars. This inventory becomes impossible to sell with no factory incentives beyond June 9, 2009. Without the Dodge franchise we can no longer sell a new Dodge as "new," nor will we be able to do any warranty service work.
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Additionally, my Dodge parts inventory, (approximately $300,000.) is virtually worthless without the ability to perform warranty service. There is no offer from Chrysler to buy back the vehicles or parts inventory. Our facility was recently totally renovated at Chrysler's insistence, incurring a multi-million dollar debt in the form of a mortgage at Sun Trust Bank.
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HOW IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA CAN THIS HAPPEN? THIS IS A PRIVATE BUSINESS NOT A GOVERNMENT ENTITY
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This is beyond imagination! My business is being stolen from me through NO FAULT OF OUR OWN. We did NOTHING wrong.
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This atrocity will most likely force my family into bankruptcy. This will also cause our 50+ employees to be unemployed. How will they provide for their families? This is a total economic disaster.
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HOW CAN THIS HAPPEN IN A FREE MARKET ECONOMY IN THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA?
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I beseech your help, and look forward to your reply. Thank you.
Sincerely,
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George C. Joseph
President & Owner
Sunshine Dodge-Isuzu
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Source: American Thinker Blog: Letter from a Dodge dealer
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Welcome to the new United Socialist States of America boys and girls.
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"Change You Can Believe In?" I hope the millions of star-stunned idiots that voted for Mr. Obama are discovering that it's not becoming the "Change" they expected.
..
jaq~

Will Michigan's Stimulus Billions Be Rescinded Too?

2009-05-08T15:12:00.002-04:00

by jwright
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A couple of weeks ago the Detroit News reported that the State House Republican leaders in Lansing were pressuring Governor Jennifer Granholm to slash state spending another half-billion dollars because revenue is falling short by $25 million a week.

The Republicans suggested that Granholm could accomplish the spending cuts by reducing all governmental departments wages by 5 percent across-the-board; a 5 percent wage cut for Michigan's 52,000 state workers and a 5 percent increase in the amount state workers must contribute for health care coverage.

They also called for 5 percent cuts in lawmakers' office budgets, pay for non-teaching workers at the 15 public universities and pay for legislative employees. It wasn’t mentioned if the state lawmakers, the second highest paid in the nation, would accept a wage cut as well.

This should be interesting to watch. The Los Angeles Times has reported that the Obama administration is threatening to rescind billions of dollars in federal stimulus money to California if its Governor Arnold Schwarzenegger and state lawmakers do not restore wage cuts to unionized home healthcare workers approved in February as part of the budget. California, much like Michigan only worse off financially, has a tremendous budget deficit currently with no seeming resolution in sight.
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Like California, many of Michigan’s state workers fall in the category as union members. Will Obama’s Administration threaten fellow Democrat Governor Jennifer Granhom with rescinding the billions of “stimulus” dollars promised to Michigan now? Or, because she is a Democrat, will they simply look the other way if Michigan’s state workers are forced to accept a cut?
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I’m semi-curious as to how many of our state workers might have voted for both Obama and Granholm and are wondering why today. Like I said, this should be interesting to watch.
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jaq~

Obama's Grand Plan to Spend Us Into Prosperity

2009-04-30T12:14:00.003-04:00

J wright says; "This isn't an original of mine. It's an article based on a recent Fact Check report and well worth repeating."
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FACT CHECK.org:
Obama disowns deficit he helped shape

Apr 29, 5:55 PM (ET)By CALVIN WOODWARD

WASHINGTON (AP) - "That wasn't me," Barack Obama said on his 100th day in office, disclaiming responsibility for the huge budget deficit waiting for him on Day One. It actually was him - and the other Democrats controlling Congress the previous two years - who shaped a budget so out of balance.
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And as a presidential candidate and president-elect, he backed the twilight Bush-era stimulus plan that made the deficit deeper, all before he took over and promoted spending plans that have made it much deeper still.
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Obama met citizens at an Arnold, Mo., high school Wednesday in advance of his prime-time news conference. Both forums were a platform to review is progress at the 100-day mark and look ahead.
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At various times, he brought an air of certainty to ambitions that are far from cast in stone.
His assertion that his proposed budget "will cut the deficit in half by the end of my first term" is an eyeball-roller among many economists, given the uncharted terrain of trillion-dollar deficits and economic calamity that the government is negotiating.
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He promised vast savings from increased spending on preventive health care in the face of doubts that such an effort, however laudable it might be for public welfare, can pay for itself, let alone yield huge savings.
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A look at some of his claims Wednesday:
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OBAMA: "Number one, we inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit.... That wasn't me. Number two, there is almost uniform consensus among economists that in the middle of the biggest crisis, financial crisis, since the Great Depression, we had to take extraordinary steps. So you've got a lot of Republican economists who agree that we had to do a stimulus package and we had to do something about the banks. Those are one-time charges, and they're big, and they'll make our deficits go up over the next two years." - in Missouri.
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THE FACTS: Congress controls the purse strings, not the president, and it was under Democratic control for Obama's last two years as Illinois senator. Obama supported the emergency bailout package in President George W. Bush's final months - a package Democratic leaders wanted to make bigger.
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To be sure, Obama opposed the Iraq war, a drain on federal coffers for six years before he became president. But with one major exception, he voted in support of Iraq war spending.
The economy has worsened under Obama, though from forces surely in play before he became president, and he can credibly claim to have inherited a grim situation.
Still, his response to the crisis goes well beyond "one-time charges."
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He's persuaded Congress to expand children's health insurance, education spending, health information technology and more. He's moving ahead on a variety of big-ticket items on health care, the environment, energy and transportation that, if achieved, will be more enduring than bank bailouts and aid for homeowners.
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The nonpartisan Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimated his policy proposals would add a net $428 billion to the deficit over four years, even accounting for his spending reduction goals. Now, the deficit is nearly quadrupling to $1.75 trillion.
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OBAMA: "I think one basic principle that we know is that the more we do on the (disease) prevention side, the more we can obtain serious savings down the road. ... If we're making those investments, we will save huge amounts of money in the long term." - in Missouri.
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THE FACTS: It sounds believable that preventing illness should be cheaper than treating it, and indeed that's the case with steps like preventing smoking and improving diets and exercise. But during the 2008 campaign, when Obama and other presidential candidates were touting a focus on preventive care, the New England Journal of Medicine cautioned that "sweeping statements about the cost-saving potential of prevention, however, are overreaching." It said that "although some preventive measures do save money, the vast majority reviewed in the health economics literature do not."
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And a study released in December by the Congressional Budget Office found that increasing preventive care "could improve people's health but would probably generate either modest reductions in the overall costs of health care or increases in such spending within a 10-year budgetary time frame."
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OBAMA: "You could cut (Social Security) benefits. You could raise the tax on everybody so everybody's payroll tax goes up a little bit. Or you can do what I think is probably the best solution, which is you can raise the cap on the payroll tax." - in Missouri.
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THE FACTS: Obama's proposal would reduce the Social Security trust fund's deficit by less than half, according to the nonpartisan Tax Policy Center.
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That means he would still have to cut benefits, raise the payroll tax rate, raise the retirement age or some combination to deal with the program's long-term imbalance.
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Workers currently pay 6.2 percent and their employers pay an equal rate - for a total of 12.4 percent - on annual wages of up to $106,800, after which no more payroll tax is collected.
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Obama wants workers making more than $250,000 to pay payroll tax on their income over that amount. That would still protect workers making under $250,000 from an additional burden. But it would raise much less money than removing the cap completely.
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Associated Press writers Kevin Freking and Jim Kuhnhenn contributed to this report.

More Attacks from the Left on our Constitution

2009-04-28T13:21:00.002-04:00

by j wright
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Recently a bill was introduced in the U.S Senate that would allow President Obama to shut down the Internet in the event of a national emergency. A Zogby poll afterward reflected that 81 % of those polled were in opposition with only 5% in favor of such a drastic move.
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Another rights infringing bill that could pass the U.S. House this week would outlaw preaching on homosexuality, calling it a “hate crime.” What happened to the First amendment of our Constitution allowing Freedoms of Religion and Expression?
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Or should we consider Homeland Security Secretary Napolitano's recent controversial report to our nation's law enforcement officials to be looked at as a hate crime as well, not to mention the continuing vitriolic blasts aimed at Alaska's Governor Sarah Palin and her family by the extreme leftists, especially MSNBC Cable News and the mainstream press? I mean they are mere words, similar to those the House bill would label hate as crimes.

Fair is fair. What Congress is attempting is far worse than a Christian Pastor or layperson expressing an opinion, which the last time I looked, the First Amendment still protected.

Maybe the next set of laws our Democrat Congress will consider might eliminate the open practice of Christianity altogether, making its practice punishable. What a wonderful new world we're living in today, so full of "Change."

President Obama has been in office 100 days or so and he had an opportunity, as did former President Clinton, to work wonders. Instead he is caving to the radical leftists in his party, who in my opinion, seem hell-bent on driving America’s government in the direction of progressive socialism, or worse. I’m not certain this is the “Change” many of his supporters had in mind, certainly not what the Founding Fathers of our Republic had in mind. Pray folks.
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jaq~

Big Time Corruption Discovered in the Big Federal Bail Outs

2009-04-21T10:22:00.003-04:00

by jwright
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The corruption has begun. And Whudda Thunk?
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Last fall you may remember that Bush administration’s Secretary of the Treasury Paulson saw a major financial crisis looming and asked Congress, led by liberal Democrats since 2006, to grant him $750 billion in taxpayer dollars to “bail out” various financial institutions and banks.
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According to a recent post in the Baltimore Sun, what started out last October as a single-purpose $750 billion effort to buy toxic securities has now under President Obama and the spend happy Democrat Congress morphed into 12 separate programs that covers up to $3 trillion in direct spending, loans and loan guarantees. The program has now committed an amount equal to the entire annual federal budget.
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Treasury Secretary Paulson spent half of the original $750 billion. President Obama’s Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner (the same guy who earlier failed to pay his federal taxes in full and now heads up the IRS) is spending the balance, and more.
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Today we have a major disclosure of corruption and fraud in the bailout program according to investigators who have opened 20 criminal probes into possible securities fraud, tax law violations, insider trading and mortgage modification fraud. The chief investigator indicated that the investigations are just the first wave of cases by his office. He expects criminal indictments to occur later this year.
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He added that ultimately, the fraud could run into the tens of billions of dollars and the risk of those kinds of criminal activities is growing as the bailout becomes bigger and more complex.
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The original $750 billion seems small now compared to the multi-trillions of taxpayer dollars the Obama Administration has proposed in further bailouts and reckless spending. The Treasury Department was asked to abandon its current proposed method of buying certain toxic assets. Treasury responded saying it would "consider" the request. Apparently corruption is no big deal.Treasury responded saying that the recommendations would be "considered"
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How will it end? How many taxpayer dollars will find their way into the wrong hands?

jaq~

The Hypocrisy of Liberal Socialism Laid Bare

2009-04-11T13:08:00.003-04:00

j. wright says, "This is one of the best descriptions of the Hypocrisy of Liberal Socialism I've ever read. If only we knew who wrote it. Enjoy!"
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There was a time in recent American history when certain Soviet jokes didn't work in translation - not so much because of the language differences, but because of the lack of common sociopolitical context. But that is changing. As President Obama is preparing us for a great leap towards collectivism, I find myself recollecting forgotten political jokes I shared with comrades while living in the old country under Brezhnev, Andropov, and Gorbachev. (I was too young to remember the Khrushchev times, but I remember the Khrushchev jokes.) I also noticed that the further America "advances" back to the Soviet model, the more translatable the old Soviet jokes become.
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Not all Soviet advancements have metastasized here yet, but we have nearly four more glorious years in which to make it happen.
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One of my favorite Russian political jokes was this, the six dialectical contradictions of socialism in the USSR:
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There is full employment - yet no one is working.
No one is working - yet the factory quotas are fulfilled.
The factory quotas are fulfilled - yet the stores have nothing to sell.
The stores have nothing to sell - yet people got all the stuff at home.
People got all the stuff at home - yet everyone is complaining.
Everyone is complaining - yet the voting is always unanimous.
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It reads like a poem - only instead of the rhythm of syllables and rhyming sounds, it's the rhythm of logic and rhyming meanings. If I could replicate it, I might start a whole new genre of "contradictory six-liners." It would be extremely difficult to keep it real and funny at the same time, but I'll try anyway.
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Dialectical contradictions are one of the pillars in Marxist philosophy, which states that contradictions eventually lead to a unity of opposites as the result of a struggle. This gave a convenient "scientific" excuse for the existence of contradictions in a socialist society, where opposites were nice and agreeable - unlike the wild and crazy opposites of capitalism that could never be reconciled. Hence the joke.
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Then I moved to America, where wild and crazy opposites of capitalism were supposedly at their worst. Until recently, however, the only contradictions that struck me as irreconcilable were these:
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Economic justice:
America is capitalist and greedy - yet half of the population is subsidized.
Half of the population is subsidized - yet they think they are victims.
They think they are victims - yet their representatives run the government.
Their representatives run the government - yet the poor keep getting poorer.
The poor keep getting poorer - yet they have things that people in other countries only dream about.
They have things that people in other countries only dream about - yet they want America to be more like those other countries.
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Hollywood clichés:
Without capitalism there'd be no Hollywood - yet Hollywood dislikes capitalism.
Hollywood dislikes capitalism - yet they sue for unauthorized copying of movies.
They sue for unauthorized copying - yet on screen they teach us to share.
On screen they teach us to share - yet they keep their millions to themselves.
They keep their millions to themselves - yet they revel in stories of American misery and depravity.
They revel in stories of American misery and depravity - yet they blame the resulting anti-American sentiment on capitalism.
They blame the anti-American sentiment on capitalism - yet capitalism ensures the continuation of a system that makes Hollywood possible.
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I never thought I would see socialist contradictions in America, let alone write about them. But somehow all attempts to organize life according to "progressive" principles always result in such contradictions. And in the areas where "progressives" have assumed positions of leadership - education, news media, or the entertainment industry - contradictions become "historically inevitable."
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If one were accidentally to open his eyes and compare the "progressive" narrative with facts on the ground, one might start asking questions. Why, for instance, if the war on terror breeds more terrorists, haven't there been attacks on the U.S. soil since 2001? Why would anyone who supports free speech want to silence talk radio? And why is silencing the opposition called the "Fairness Doctrine"?
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After the number of "caring," bleeding-heart politicians in Washington reached a critical mass, it was only a matter of time before the government started ordering banks to help the poor by giving them risky home loans through community organizers:
Which resulted in a bigger demand,
which resulted in rising prices,
which resulted in slimmer chances of repaying the loans,
which resulted in more pressure on the banks,
which resulted in repackaging of bad loans,
which resulted in a collapse of the banks,
which resulted in a recession,
which resulted in many borrowers losing their jobs,
which resulted in no further mortgage payments,
which resulted in a financial disaster,
which resulted in a worldwide crisis, with billions of poor people overseas - who had never seen a community organizer, nor applied for a bad loan - becoming even poorer than they had been before the "progressives" in the U.S. government decided to help the poor.
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As if that were not enough, the same bleeding hearts are now trying to fix this by nationalizing the banks so that they can keep issuing risky loans through community organizers. In other words, to prevent the toast from landing buttered side down, they're planning to butter the toast on both sides and hope that it will hover in mid-air. Which also seems like a sensible alternative energy initiative.
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Years ago, moving to America made me feel as though I had traveled in a time machine from the past. But after the recent "revolutionary" changes have turned reality on its head - which is what "revolution" literally means - I'm getting an uneasy feeling I had come from your future.
As your comrade from the future, I also feel a social obligation to help my less advanced comrades in the American community, and prepare them for the transition to the glorious world of underground literature, half-whispered jokes, and the useful habit of looking over your shoulder. Don't become a nation of cowards - but watch who might be listening.
Let's start with these few.

People's power:
Liberals believe they're advancing people's power - yet they don't believe people can do anything right without government guidance.
People can't do anything right - yet the government bureaucracy can do everything right.
The government bureaucracy can do everything - yet liberals don't like it when the government takes control of their lives.
Liberals don't like it when the government takes control of their lives - yet they vote for programs that increase people's dependency on the government.
They vote for programs that increase people's dependency on the government - yet they believe they're advancing people's power.
Public education:
Liberals have been in charge of education for 50 years - yet education is out of control.
Education is out of control - yet liberal teaching methods prevail.
Liberal teaching methods prevail - yet public schools are failing.
Public schools are failing - yet their funding keeps growing.
Their funding keeps growing - yet public schools are always underfunded.
Public schools are always underfunded - yet private schools yield better results for less.
Private schools yield better results for less - yet public education is the only way out of the crisis.

One has to believe this author hit the proverbial nail squarely on its head! Amen!

jaq~

"Why I No Longer Support the War" (Guest Opinion)

2009-03-29T12:23:00.003-04:00

A GUEST ARTICLE by Jocelyn Blease
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(Jocelyn is an Internet friend of mine going back several years. She resides in New England and loves it!
In this article she speaks from her heart in a clear, articulate manner. No teleprompters were required.)
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Over the course of the last 60 plus days, we have been treated to quite a show out of Washington, D.C. and none of it pretty and encouraging but most of it enlightening. We have buffoons and their jesters in charge of our government and try as the people might, these same buffoons and jesters have blinders on and no longer see the outrage of the American people.

That they salivate and slip on their own detritus clamoring to squeeze the very last breath out of common sense and common decency is becoming more than just a side show, it is the main event. That's too bad for the people, it's too bad for our form of government and it's too bad for the Nation as a whole.

Oh, yes, we've heard, false as it is, about how the poor the vast unwashed poor have suffered over the centuries of our Nation's existence and it's time to right the wrongs and set the records straight taking the ill gotten gains of hard working Americans who succeed and produce and give those rewards to the vast unwashed poor who have suffered over the centuries of our Nation's existence. That the exercise would be laudable if the circumstances were true is just a side show.

So, what we are treated to of late is the disassembling of not only the character of who we are as a Nation but the very fiber of what we as a Nation are made of, what we believe and how we get to where we want to go as a person, as a people and as a Nation.

The success of our Nation and the producers and the earners who create that success is being called into question world wide. That we have become a Nation of ideologues with no direction to succeed but to destroy is very clear to even the most blinded in our country and especially world wide. Because our success as a Nation is being called into question, we are about to lose our status as a solid investment for the future, our dollar which once was the currency the world used as a basis for valuing commodities world wide is being called into question and could very well change. Our banks are ridiculed and demoralized and 'scapegoated'.

And who suffers? The people and that includes the fake poor, the vast unwashed poor who have suffered over the centuries of our Nation's existence, that this government intends to raise up, not because they have earned the merit to be raised up by their own hard work and tenacity but on the backs of earners and producers. Unfortunately for this government those earners and producers aren't earning and producing.

What I've just rendered is the template for the insanity coming out of Washington, D.C. and this government. Now, lets expand on that insanity for just a bit.

So far, we've been talking about rights and monetary inconsistencies and a philosophy permeating Washington that is bogus, ridiculous and useful only in expanding government and nothing more. But underneath it all and hidden far away from sight is a War on Terror that we have been engaged in and the name of which we shall not be permitted to mention ever again.

That which we shall not be permitted to mention ever again involves the lives of our sons and daughters and fathers and mothers who answer the call of a Nation to serve.

If this government is so cavalier in its handling of the future of our children not born yet by saddling them with a debt they could never pay within their lifetimes, we should not expect an attitude and ideological mindset that is different for our children and our husbands and wives living and currently serving in our Military.

We no longer refer to the War on Terror as a war but some "Man made gibberish" according to the dictates of Napolitano, the Homeland Security Czar. We no longer refer to the enemy we are fighting as enemy combatants. We no longer have a clear and defining mission in Afghanistan but we are accelerating troop deployment. We are told that the same philosophy and tactics used in Iraq to win that war will be used in Afghanistan without taking into account that we are talking about two different types of countries, governments and people.

We are releasing prisoners from Guantanamo and relocating them to the United States and providing them shelter instead of repatriating them back to where they came from before they took up arms against our Military and against this Nation.

In less than three months in office, Obama has not become Jimmy Carter by using the same economic thinking he used. He has reached back even further to Lyndon B. Johnson and his template for redistributing wealth by tweaking the "Great Society" and "War on Poverty." Most importantly, however, Obama has reached back to Johnson's escalation of troops in Viet Nam with no mission philosophy behind them except the title of "advisor." Obama has Viet Namized the unnamed and unmentionable War on Terror. We are not going back to pre 9/10/1. We are going all the way back to 1965.

Therefore, I can no longer support the unnamed. That I will continue to support the men and women assigned to the nebulous task of advisor and training in Afghanistan during an unnamed exercise is without question. But I aggressively support their return home immediately.

The blood, sweat, tears and the very lives of our sons and daughters and husbands and wives are far too valuable for this government to squander as if they are nothing more than the pieces of silver already being thrown away.

More Discussion on the Henrietta Hughes Poverty Hoax

2009-03-24T16:28:00.004-04:00

by jwright

My friend Tom Jobson wrote in today's Cadillac News chiding me and asking in essence if the source (theliepolitic.com) I posted for the Henrietta Hughes poverty hoax was verifiable.
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Henrietta you may remember was the elderly black woman, allegedly poor and unemployed, who was sitting front center at a Fort Myers Florida town hall meeting that hosted President Obama. Henrietta gave a sterling performance in front of our president and live TV cameras as she pleaded for her own home so she could have a kitchen and a bathroom because she and her son were living in a pick-up truck.
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Front row center was also where several supporters of Candidate Obama were seated at various campaign stops where they either fainted or swooned during his recitations from the teleprompters and were "rescued" by the alert candidate who just happened to have some bottled water handy enough to toss it down to them. All coincidences happening in real life, of that I'm certain.

But I digress. Moving along, I’d invite Tom Jobson to visit theliepolitic.com or any Internet search engine and read what they have to say beyond what I previously wrote and posted here on blogspot. Apparently Henrietta was or has been a successful real estate investor who became “homeless” when she quit claimed her property over to her son Corey. That information was also picked up by redcounty.com, another Internet web source in an article written by Rus Thompson on February 23 stating: “Just as I and so many others suspected, this poor woman was a plant. Either that or she is the dumbest real estate investor on the planet, but at the same time she blew all that cash? Shifted it all into her poor sons name.”

Thompson’s article furnishes recent property transactions of Henrietta. According to Lee County, Florida property records she signed a quit claim deed in 2006, giving total ownership of a $124,000 valued residential property to her son Corey Lamont. Redcounty Journalist Rus Thompson went on to say, “I would guess this is because the value of the property would affect SSDI benefits along with Medicare/Medicaid.”

Further research of property records found that Henrietta Hughes owned as many as three homes in recent years. Was she a plant; a shill? Was I being disengenious as my friend Tom suggested? Decide for yourself.

Henrietta Hughes was the story the Obama staffers wanted out in the public eye in order to push more social engineering legislation. The Mainstream Media bought Henrietta hook, line and sinker, UNTIL the truth came out. Then she became a non-story. How typical of the MSM and their intense task of carrying this administration's water. My post took on the media for being complicit in deceit.

Later...

jaq~

Rus Thompson, Redcounty.com source: http://redcounty.com/sarasota/2009/02/obamas-homeless-fort-myers-wom

Voter Outrage Has Its Place, Ignoring the Constitution? Never!

2009-03-18T18:55:00.003-04:00

by jwright

American International Group, known familiarly as AIG, has generated some great headlines lately along with much self-rightous braggadocio emitting from many of our elected politicians in Washington, D.C. including our new president, Barack Obama. The latest brouhaha involving AIG stems from its paying out of $165 million in executive bonuses; bonuses that purportedly were part of previous contract agreements between AIG and some of their top level employees.

Politicians of all stripes in Washington, including many ordinary taxpayers who get their news spoon fed via the “main stream media,” became outraged. Sadly the outrage coming from Washington is a theatrical sham: the politicians knew about AIG’s proposed bonus payments weeks ago because it was written quite plainly in the “stimulus bill” signed earlier by nearly every elected Democrat in both legislative houses and enacted with President Obama’s signature.

Some of the politicians screaming the loudest are those who previously received huge sums of campaign cash from AIG before the economic collapse began, namely Senator Chris Dodd, D-CN. Now they are "outraged" at the behavior of one that has fed them.
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Beyond that, others of the outraged legislators have proposed ill-considered legislation (Read: Illegal) seeking to force AIG employees who received the taxpayer bonus dollars to return it. I’d suggest the legislators read the U.S. Constitution first, beginning with this: A Bill of Attainder is an act of legislature declaring a person or group of persons guilty of some crime and punishing them without benefit of a trial. Bills of Attainder are forbidden by Article I, section 9, clause 3 of the U.S. Constitution.

Yet an outstate New York Democrat member of the U.S. House of Representatives is hell-bent on defying the Constitution. "I think its legal," she said. "Contracts get broken and rewritten all the time." Good grief! I have two questions: where do these people come from? Who elects them?

Voter outrage certainly has its place. Ignoring the Constituion is never acceptable.

jaq~

PS- for more interesting info regarding AIG's generous contribution to candidate Obama's presidential campaign, visit the following link:

http://www.examiner.com/x-268-Right-Side-Politics-Examiner~y2009m3d17-Obama-Received-a-101332-Bonus-from-AIG

2009-03-06T16:37:00.003-05:00

by jwright
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If you currently have a 401-k investment, a mutual funds account, or any of dozens of other investments in our stock market, you are probably like many ordinary Americans; not filthy rich but at some point had some extra dollars to stash away beyond your annual budget requirements, maybe for your retirement years. If so, you are acutely aware that since November 4, the day when candidate Obama was elected to the highest office in the land, the value of the stock market and your investments have shrunk about 31% in value; or in total dollars, about $3-trillion dollars in lost investments.
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President Obama recently sloughed off those stock market losses, likening them to a political “tracking poll” that fluctuates up and down. [In this case, it has all been down.] Those financial loses of yours mean nothing. In otherwords, your dollar investment is now worth about 69-cents. In order to counter that, the Obama White House is currently attacking radio personality Rush Limbaugh. Where are the adults?
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So what is the newest, gimmicky, dishonest solution emitting from the Obama White House think tank? Instead of coming up with a feasible, workable plan to rescue our deteriorating banking system and possibly stop the downward slide of the markets, he’ s now blaming the nation’s ongoing financial problems on our inability to provide improvements to national health, education, and energy.
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As veteran journalist Charles Krauthammer recently wrote: “Clever politics, but intellectually dishonest to the core. Health, education and energy -- worthy and weighty as they may be -- are not the cause of our financial collapse. And they are not the cure. The fraudulent claim that they are both cause and cure is the rhetorical device by which an ambitious president intends to enact the most radical agenda of social transformation seen in our lifetime.”
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Candidate Obama campaigned on “Change.” I wonder now, after a mere six weeks since his inauguration, how many of the Obama faithful are experiencing buyers remorse?
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Krauthammer Quote Source: http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2009/03/a_dishonest_gimmicky_budget.html.
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This from the Internet today:
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen 20 percent since President Obama took the oath of office.
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Friday, March 06, 2009
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The Dow Jones Industrial Average has fallen faster under President Obama than under any new president in at least 90 years, according to a review conducted by Bloomberg.Bloomberg reports that since Inauguration Day, the Dow has fallen 20 percent, leading at least one investor to dub this the "Obama bear market."
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The Dow has also dropped 31 percent since Election Day.Despite a string of government bailout offers and Obama's advice earlier this week that Americans should be buying stock while shares are low, the Dow has continued to freefall.
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Bloomberg reported that Obama is at risk of breaking a historical trend -- in which the Dow soars an average of close to 10 percent in the first year after a Democrat wins the presidency.
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Business reacts to policy and you are seeing that reaction to the largest budget and government takeover of private industry in U.S. History. [Hello Socialism!]

More Hypocrisy from Our Liberal Media

2009-03-03T14:32:00.003-05:00

jwright

Some homework may have been in order for the individual who wrote in the Cadillac News recently bemoaning the “plight” of Henrietta Hughes, the black, elderly alleged homeless, unemployed woman, who at a recent town hall meeting in Fort Myers Florida claimed to be living in her pick up truck with her son and asked President Obama for a house so she could have her own kitchen and bathroom.

Afterward, Chene Thompson, wife of Republican State Representative Nick Thompson stepped forward, “Basically, I offered Ms. Hughes and her son the opportunity to stay in my home rent free, for as long as they need to. I’m not a millionaire, I’m not rich, but this is what I can do for someone if they need it.” Some how the main stream media gave President Obama credit for this.

Then the truth came out. Henrietta Hughes is not the homeless disadvantaged person she claimed to be. And the media knows it, but instead of admitting that she was a mere shill for the Obama public relations team, they chose to ignore the facts.
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The following, taken from ‘the liepolitic.com’ web site makes it perfectly clear: “The hypocrisy of the liberal media speaks for itself. Henrietta has been shown to be a complete fraud and the media has silenced their praise. Do they point out their blunder? Do they admit that Obama staged a lie? Do any of them have the courage to admit their headlines were total distortions?
It hasn’t happened because they want you to forget. They know Obama lied. they lied. They know you know they lied. Sad isn’t it?”
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It is sad. It’s more sad when good folks are duped into believing a lie. One staged for political advantage.
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jaq~

Talk about the foxes guarding the hen house.

2009-02-21T21:53:00.003-05:00

by jwright
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I just read an interesting piece on the Wall Street Journal.com web site written by Liz Peek where she stated that President Obama's first month in office had been graded an "F" by the folks on Wall Street. Certainly, the Dow Jones Industrial averages have plunged drastically and the economy hasn't improved even with the billion upon billions being stoked into it via "Stimulus" but can it all be Obama's fault? Anymore than what he inherited and blames on former President Bush is Bush's fault?

If presidents had the power to turn our national economy around, why didn't Jimmy Carter do it in the 1970s instead of allowing the quagmire that Ronald Reagan inherited to transpire? If presidents can do so much and be so powerful, why didn't President Bill Clinton alter the direction of the economy at the end of his second term of office?

In 2000, George W. Bush inherited what was rightly Clinton's recession, but the biased mainstream media and the Democrat politicians quickly blamed the weakening economy on Bush. Today, with the Democrats having been in control since 2006 as far as spending, none of what has taken place since Obama's nomination and election has stuck to him; it's still being blamed on Bush. I find it dazzling that the stream can flow in both directions simultaneously.

Much of this gigantic problem actually began in 1977 when Jimmy Carter who with the aid of the Democratic legislature enacted the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA), which forced financial institutions to lend mortgage money to questionable applicants who lived in questionable neighborhoods, all in the name of "Affordable Housing." FannieMae and FreddieMac guaranteed a lot of that money and you can see where that got us. Now today, it's more precious tax dollars going to bail out some of those mortgage loans.

Ignoring early warnings from the Bush Administration and even Senator John McCain, Democrat politicians Barney Frank and Chris Dodd, with the support of the Congressional Black Caucus claimed that these two financial institutions were lily-white in their dealings. Today those two gentlemen chair important legislative committees overseeing our economy and contribute greatly to Obama's economic policy. Talk about the foxes gaurding the hen house.

Essentially, many of the same people that helped to create this tremendous financial mess are the ones in charge of fixing it. I think it stinks to high heaven. "Change" definitely is necessary.

jaq~

2009-02-21T12:46:00.000-05:00

by jwright

Are our State Legislators Becoming Too Elitist?

2009-02-17T16:56:00.002-05:00

by jwright
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In an recent article published here from the Oakland Press, Pontiac, Senate Majority Leader Mike Bishop, R-Rochester, proposed that legislative term limits (implemented by the voters in 1992) should be rescinded because the state lawmakers don’t have time to do the people’s business. Their top priority, running for reelection, takes up too much of their time. Doing the people’s business came in a distant fourth.

It’s my understanding that their “top priority” was attending to the people’s business, that of representing and governing. For that they are paid a healthy $79,650.00 base salary (the second highest in the nation for state legislators) plus benefits and perquisites; all that for investing about 800 hours annually, or about 20 normal workweeks. They refer to that as “full-time,” and in doing so, Michigan is one of eleven states that have a full-time legislature. Additionally, if they serve for six years they are eligible to receive full pay at retirement.

Bishop also proposes that the legislature only serve “half-time.” It appears that’s the case already. Would his proposal also cut their salaries and benefits in half? The article didn’t say.

If our legislators haven’t the time to tackle and solve the steep learning curve in Lansing, and if running for reelection actually is their “top priority” upon taking office, then we as voters have been electing the wrong people.

As far as rescinding legislative term limits, it was reported a few weeks ago that 2/3 of the Michigan voters still approved of them, so why should we sit back and allow a few legislators in Lansing to overturn the voter’s will, especialy when it calls for amending the state constitution?
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Perhaps an overhaul is needed, perhaps more drastic than Senator Bishop had in mind. Like others, I’m in favor of disbanding the State Senate altogether and forming a unicameral legislature limited to a six month annual session. That would be a start.
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jaq~

"Stealth Health?" If not, just call it Socialized Medicine

2009-02-12T14:08:00.003-05:00

by jwright
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Candidate Obama campaigned on the premise that all America would access the same health coverage that he and others in Congress enjoy. Wrong.
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If the current pork-filled “Stimulus Plan” leaves the Congressional Conference Committee intact, count on socialized health care stealthily becoming law because president Obama’s “stimulus plan” contains an unprecedented federal takeover of our current healthcare system.
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According to Betsy McCaughey, former lieutenant governor of New York, here is some of what Obama and Company have in store, especially for those of us who are seniors:
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Your current medical records, retrieved from your doctor or hospital, will be tracked electronically on a national database to be monitored and tracked to make sure they agree with what Washington, D.C. deems effective and necessary.
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The new system is compulsory -- doctors and hospitals who are not "meaningful users" will be forced to pay penalties.
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A new Health Czar - a "National Coordinator Of Health Information" - willoversee the system. The bill establishes something called the "Federal Coordinating Council for Comparative Effectiveness Research" that will ultimately establish what procedures are "effective.” A federal HMO in other words.
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A dangerous standard of cost effectiveness will be added to the Medicare equation, which could lead to health rationing among the elderly for whom expensive treatments are less cost-effective. A senior can out live the benefit, in essence meaning that you will be considered too old for further treatments. Good luck. Maybe Good-bye.
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This bill will affect every part of health care, how patients are treated and how much hospitals are paid. This “stealth health” bill allocates more funding for this new bureaucracy than for the Army, Navy, Marines and Air Force combined.
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European style socialized healthcare - attempted more than a decade ago by Hillary Clinton and thrown out, now masterminded by socialists strategists months ago and sneaked into the "stimulus” bill – may become law. Thank you Tom Daschle, who didn't become Secretary of HUD but did write this proposal into the "Stimulus Plan."
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As an Obama staffer indicated in a TV interview, this is what the voters asked for. It isn’t what he promised.
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jaq~

A Stone Deaf Senate vs. the People's Will?

2009-02-09T11:42:00.002-05:00

by jwright~
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The U.S. Senate is poised to vote and pass a humungous non-stimulus bill that according to the latest Rasmussen poll, 62 % of U.S. voters want the plan to include more tax cuts and less government spending. Just 14% would like it to move in the opposite direction.
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Unfortunately, the majority isn’t being heard this time around except by 216 Republicans and 11 House Democrats who thus far are against it. It’s a Democrat bill.
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A few days ago the Congressional Budget Office (CBO), the Senate’s “watch dog,” claimed that this overstuffed bill would do more damage in the end than it would help. According to even the best Democrat sources, this pork-laden bill will only create about 1.3 million jobs at best; that at a huge cost of more than $120,000 dollars each according to one Senator, and all at your grandkids expense. Well, boys and girls, the U.S. Treasury doesn’t have $815 billion spare dollars in it so the money will have to be borrowed and paid back eventually by someone. None of this has changed any Democrat Senator’s mind.
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Several months ago when the so-called “Comprehensive Immigration Bill” was placed before the Senate, the people made it abundantly clear that this was not what they wanted. Upon hearing that loud and clear, the Senate let the bill die. This go-round, with a Democrat controlled Senate and House, it’s fat city and our future taxpayers are going to pay the bill. I find that unconscionable and highly irresponsible.
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I’m a conservative that is all for seeing President Obama succeed, as long as what he espouses is for the greater good of the country. If it’s only an expensive, wasteful measure to ensure that his party and those elected representatives in it succeed and gain in political power, then count me out.
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jaq~

More "old politics and influence peddling."

2009-02-06T10:30:00.005-05:00

by jwright
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Failure to pass the so-called Stimulus bill will be a catastrophe? So says claims our new president. It’s so urgent that our economy may collapse if your grand-kids don’t borrow the dollars somewhere to fund these Spending programs? Excuse Me?

I don’t see a lot of stimulus or urgency in much of the following; all of which are included in Obama’s “stimulus” package, and it isn't bi-partisan in any way, shape of means:

$145 billion for “Making Work Pay” tax credits; $89 billion for Medicaid; $83 billion for the earned income credit; $79 billion for State Fiscal Stabilization Fund; $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits; $30 billion for COBRA insurance extension; $20 billion for food stamps; $15 billion for boosting Pell Grant college scholarships; $15 billion for business-loss carry-backs; $8 billion for innovative technology loan guarantee program; $6.2 billion shall be for the Weatherization Assistance Program; $6 billion for university building projects; $4.5 billion for electricity grid; $4.5 billion for U.S. Army Corps of Engineers; $4.2 billion for “neighborhood stabilization activities”; $4 billion for job-training programs, including $1.2 billion to provide “youth” summer jobs for people up to the age of 24; $3.5 billion shall be for energy efficiency and conservation block grants; $3.4 billion shall be for the State Energy Program; $2.4 billion for carbon-capture; demonstration projects; $2 billion for federal child care block grants; $2 billion for renewable energy research; $2 billion for a “clean-coal” power plant in Illinois.
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Those are just a portion of the total bill.
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Columnist Charles Krauthammer wrote: “(Obama was elected) to create something new -- a new politics where the moneyed pork-barreling and corrupt logrolling of the past would give way to a bottom-up, grass-roots participatory democracy. That is what made Obama so dazzling and new.”
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Instead folks, we’re getting “perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington.” This is not the “Change” I expected.
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jaq~
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Krauthammer source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/02/05/AR2009020502766_pf.html

Change? Same ol'' Deceitful Crap; Different Faces.

2009-02-03T20:47:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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It’s interesting how many times during the past eight years that we heard the words, “Bush lied!’ When the dust settled and we examined his words, they weren’t exactly lies at all, just wishful thinking by those engaged in what later became known as "Bush Derangement Syndrome."
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Now we have a shiny new administration in Washington, one whose major premise whilst campaigning was that “Change” was on the horizon,; a new era of political ethics was coming our way. Huh?

First, former New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson withdrew his name for Commerce Secretary because of some shady “pay-for-play” dealings that are still under investigation. Then we are presented with a questionable nominee for Attorney General, who had he been a Republican would have been sent packing, instead he was confirmed by the Democrats in the Senate..

Following that, Timothy Geithner, who previously failed to pay the IRS all its due ($25,970.00) now heads up the Treasury Department wwhich also overseesg the IRS. Hey! The guy is sharp, and in our current state of national economic crisis; the "best" man for the job! (End sarcasm)

This was followed by former Democrat Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle who didn’t pay more than $140,000 in taxes or even bother to report it; he’ll possibly be out next HUD Secretary. His excuse? “I forgot.” Good grief, could you or I get away with a simple “I forgot?” Yet today, Obama’s pick for Performance post, Czarina Nancy Killefer, withdrew her name over a potential income tax problem. (Within hours after I wrote this post, Tom Daschle withdrew his name from contention.) Bully!

“Is this really the message he (Obama) wants to convey (snip), a message that it’s O.K. to break or skirt the law just as long as you’re a good guy with a special skill?” asked Andy Ostroy, a blogger writing on the liberal Huffington Web site.

During the campaign, Candidate Obama said he would not allow former lobbyists in his administration: already he has named at least three, possibly a fourth. His excuse: there are hundreds of posts to be filled and hiring three that are previous lobbyists is not a problem. It is to me President Obama, IF you say you aren't going to hire the first one and then proceed to break your word.

Worse, Candidate Obama pledged to ban earmarks from future Congressional bills (AKA “bringin’ home the bacon!” ) yet he doesn’t seem concerned with this massive taxpayer funded “$817 billion (non)-Stimulus” bill being considered in the Senate. (Reportedly, it's getting bigger... worse in other words,)

Change? Same ol’ deceitful crap; different faces. That's the way it appears from my living room.

jaq~

“Change You Can Believe In? Wrong!"

2009-01-30T10:02:00.000-05:00

by jwright, from my article published January 29 in the Cadillac News.
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“Change You Can Believe In?” You must be joking. $850 billion taxpayer dollars spread over a 647 page bill, HR-1, the “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” is being rushed through the House of Representatives. It’s referred to as a “Stimulus and Job Creation Package.” Your taxpayer dollars that are supposed to stimulate our economy and shorten the recession, but will take years to take effect, won’t create many actual jobs. Call it what it is; “Porkification.”

Here’s part of what the Congressional Democrat lawmakers propose:
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1. $4.19 billion to ACORN – A questionable, far left political organization.
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2. $200 million for the beautification of the National Mall, including $21 million for sod. (Note: this was removed via an Republican amendment before the House vote, as was one other spending item.)
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3. Over $200 million for contraceptives and the abortion industry.
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4. $650 million for digital TV coupons.
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5. $136 billion to create at least 32 new government programs – more than a third of H.R.1’s spending provisions would go towards growing the government—not the economy.
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6. $600 million for new cars for the federal bureaucrats.
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7. $50 million for the National Endowment of the Arts. (This may have been the other spending item removed.)
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8. $6 billion for colleges and universities –many of whom already have billion dollar endowments.
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9. $300 billion to bail out selected state governments – “Wealth redistribution?” Are the days over of state governments taking care of themselves and balancing their own budgets? (Of that $300-billion, $140 billion goes to additional education funding, doing absolutely nothing to stimulate the economy or create jobs.)
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10. Increased spending on more than 150 existing federal programs. (The Wall Street Journal published an article saying that less than 5%, or only $5-billion of this massive boon-doggle would be spent on job creating infrastructure such as bridge and highway repair.)
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In summary, this list illustrates that Congressional Democrats have little intention of actually stimulating the economy, and “American Recovery and Reinvestment Act” comes up embarrassingly short on efforts to cut taxes in any meaningful way. The nation is facing near bankruptcy and it appears they are attempting to spend our way into prosperity.
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Additionally, when this HR-1 passed the House, with 'Yea' votes consisting of just Democrats, and all 177 Republicans and 11 Democrats in opposition, the Senate then added more spending rasing the total to about $900 billion. Add in the interest this bill will cost, because there is NO money in the national treasury to fund it, the costs will exceed more than $1 trillion, according to the Congressional Budget Office. Isn't that sweet? Congress just indebted every family in the country about another $6,700.00.
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Republican Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell said in effect, "This isn't a stimulus bill, it's a spending bill." If it looks like a pig and walks like a pig, it's probably a pig, and that's PORK friends. There's still time to call your particular United States Senator and let your thoughts be heard.
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jaq~

A conversation: The Black Community's New Expectations

2009-01-23T12:02:00.000-05:00

by jwright

Following the Inauguration, some of us in the political discussion group I mentioned earlier were discussing how President Obama might become a role model for the black inner city youngsters and maybe even their parents. The following is an email exchange between several of us.

Jim: I just heard another one of those Obama supporters who expects to be rich due to the fact that Obama is President! She stated, “We aren’t rich like you folks but will be one day because we have Barack Obama as President.”

Now isn’t that special? Do you believe how dumb and naïve some people are? Can you imagine how suicidal this person is going to be when Obama fails to deliver on that expectation? What is wrong with people today with that cult mentality and their expectations for a handout that will make them rich? Was this country built on that mentality?

Alan: Absolutely not. In fact, I think it will get worse. I believe that many out there will have the attitude that they will be given a free pass because "one of theirs is in charge."

I believe that they will test the system more, expect more and, when they don't get it, will revolt.

Jaq: Well, they certainly have former Secretary of Labor (under Clinton) Robert Reich on their side. He's all for taking a portion of the "Stimulus infrastructure dollars" and handing it out to anyone but white male, skilled construction workers, contractors, etc. (Michelle Malkin » Robert Reich: Keep stimulus money away from skilled workers and “white male contractors” ).
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There, boys and girls, is the beginning of a broadening welfare program to redistribute our future tax dollars (and those of our kids and their kids as far as the eye can see.) How much infrastructure will be improved while handing out billions to the disadvantaged?
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At some point, more than 50% of the damn population will either be federal employees and po' folks on federal welfare of some description. Then we'll be well on our way to a one party system. Democrats forever! Mercy... the thought of it is sickening.
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Alan: Hopefully I will be living nearly full time in Thailand by the time things get that bad. My kids are the ones that I worry about. My son will no doubt head back to Asia as soon as he graduates. Either Japan or China.
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My oldest daughter is pretty much settled with a very good job as a senior project director for a major construction company.
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My youngest daughter is in her second year of Architecture and Design and has no problems moving back to Japan for her graduate degree in Architecture as she has an affinity towards Asian design.
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Things don't look so good for the social structure of America. Once they removed God from our public lives, the rest went downhill fast. Liberalism is a disease whose only cure is getting what they actually want. But then it is too late. Therefore, liberalism is a terminal disease killing everything it touches.
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Jaq: Alan, you are fortunate to be in such a position. What per cent of the country could be as fortunate, .0001%?
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That leaves a lot of us, particularly the ones that DIDN'T vote for Obama, Pelosi, Reid & Company holding the bag.
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Myself, I may be close to being as fortunate as you considering my tender age... :) hell, I may die before the liberal/socialist bullshit gets too deep. Even Hell might begin to look good as opposed to what this nation could turn into.
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Good luck, my friend.
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Alan: I truly am blessed, Jack. In the great scheme of things, we all are. It was only the good fortune of being born in American while each of us had a chance that put is in the position we are today. Each of us here on this thread have worked hard all of our loves and made no excuses for the failures we have had along the way or the misfortunes that have been subject to. We took the good with the bad and just kept on going knowing that our generation will succeed and that our children's generation will do even better than we did.
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We grew up in an America with a God, with a balanced political scene, with the American dream a reality for all. We saw Europe become socialized and watched it decay into a mere shadow of what it used to be. We looked at America and believed that we would never, never fall into that despair that fell on Europe. At least we felt that way until Vietnam began dividing our nation.
The leftist surge was sponsored by the communists and was all too eagerly signed on by the media with the likes of Walter Cronkite. They started by beating up Nixon and forcing his resignation. This gave them momentum and power. They next brought in an idiot of a peanut farmer to set the standards of a weak, meek and pacifist America.
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As the young left wingers grew up, they became the destructive force behind emasculating and changing America. They became and are the media, the Hollywood elite, the jet sum and flotsam of the hippy leftist generation whose first task was to eliminate God from our public lives. They are the liberal elitists who are nothing more than mini Czarists themselves.
They set forth an agenda of weakening America, setting one segment of the population against the other, turning right into wrong, removing censorship, promoting free and open sex and considering perverted relationships as normal.
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How far has this country gone in so few years? Most of the nation still prefers a Ronald Reagan to a Barack Obama, but the powerful left has fully and totally undermined our nation by belittling our presidents, reducing the standards of education, scandalizing our sacred institutions of marriage and religion, minimizing the reality of the threats against us by our enemies, kneeling before those that want to destroy us and bringing our social structure to its knees.
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They have produced a divide and conquer mentality amongst Americans inciting class warfare, pushing gay agendas, caring more for the environment than f or the humans that inhabit it, making us dependent upon foreign resources as well as foreign workers, allowing unions to dictate their own terms of employment thereby shutting down American businesses and weakening our positions in the world.
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I am fed up with these ingrates. These hypocritical asswipes who have no concept of the consequences of their actions. They don't deserve America but are more than willing to enjoy its spoils.

Lynn: Good grief, Alan, you sound almost like one of those gun clinging, right wing, Bible fundamentalists. :) I've asked a lot of people what do they think has caused our country's downward slide into being a few steps from a Sodom or Gomorrah. Most all start off with the removal of God from public life and national consciousness.
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Of course, I think the same but then I'm one of those gun clinging, right wing, Bible fundamentalists. lol It appears to me that when there is an acknowledgment and respect in something greater than yourself be it God as I know Him or a simple acknowledgment of a Higher Power, that respect flows over into one's daily life.
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By no means do I think a believing people are near perfect, but the majority of people seem to have an internal guidance system to be a little more honest, a little more courteous, a little more respectful of others, and a little more responsible.
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There is a hope, enthusiasm, and an expectation for tomorrow. I'm not deluded that we'd have a Utopia or had a Utopia but this country is consumed by greed, reeks of dishonesty, and an air of gloom and victimhood permeates the atmosphere.
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Our political leaders look out for themselves and are consumed with securing more money, more prestige, more power, and insuring their reelection. There is no love or loyalty for this country, only what they personally can obtain. I am thankful that I lived at our zenith and deeply sadden and distressed as it slowly dissolves.

Alan: You are spot on, Lynn. It has nothing to do with religion or being a religious zealot. It has to do with the acknowledgment that there is someone greater than us. Someone who the founding fathers based the birth of our nation upon.
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If we look at the alternative, we wind up with Soviet dominated communism. We also see the void that China went through during the Maoist revolutions. Remove God from the people and they only have the government to look up to as their Godhead.
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The liberals in this country are doing just that. Even Russian and China knew, as witnessed by freedom of religion in China now and same in Russia and the old Soviet states, that you can't control the people for long. Something the liberals will never get.
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Liberalism has not learned nor is willing to learn. You can't strip God from our lives, remove him from schools, remove him from courthouses and government establishment. It appears to be the bond that allows us the greatness and the freedom needed for the well being of our nation.
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Liberals substituded humanism. They cloak their agenda under the banner of PC. The desire not to ever hurt someone's feelings, even if it decays the inner fabric of America and undermines the will of the vast majority of Americans. Heading up this liberal cause is the ACLU, better know as the new American Communist Party.
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It is a sad day when the people of America are too timid to take back from this left wing minority what is theirs. Their rights to express their beliefs in schools, government oaths, civic auditoriums and public functions.

Jim: I couldn’t agree with you more, great post. You and I have so many similarities and I really can relate to your post. I have said on this thread how happy I am with my life. I have a wonderful family and we are close so I must have done something right growing up.
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I cannot help but notice how unhappy many liberals are and it seems they want to spread their misery equally to everyone else. I will never forget growing up in a relatively poor family and being taught that I could do anything that I wanted to do but that there are consequences for choices made. Over the years I made many mistakes but never booted God out of my life or my family’s life.
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I started out as a Democrat and the first President I supported was JFK however wasn’t old enough to vote at the time. I remember the Communist years and how we were told that Communism will bury us. At the time I thought that meant militarily but grew to learn that they would destroy us from within and without a shot being fired. I see that happening today as God is being removed from our lives and there is a moral decay today sweeping this country led by the secular progressives whose live for today ideology ignores personal responsibility. I have yet to hear any liberal blame themselves for personal problems they created.
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I believed strongly in the American dream and knew that I could achieve that dream with hard work, dedication, and the right mental attitude. I never relied on any President to take care of me and to make my life better although I knew that a President could hurt us by raising taxes and by failure to keep us safe. Those therefore remained the two most important issues for me in any election.
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Today I see the hero worship, cult mentality of so many. “Save me, Mr. President, from mistakes I have made”, “I will never have to pay my mortgage or for gasoline again” seem to be the cry of far too many. The swooning, fainting, stars in the eyes, and unrealistic expectations of one individual simply doesn’t’ make any sense to me. This attitude wasn’t prevalent when I was growing up so what happened to us?
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Could it be the removal of God from so many lives? I believe that is part of the problem along with the instant gratification crowd that lives for today instead of planning for tomorrow. In today’s world everyone lets the things they want get in the way of actually getting the things they need. This entitlement mentality where everyone deserves a home, everyone deserves health care, everyone deserves a living wage ignores the fact that all these are EARNED not guaranteed. The economic and history ignorance of so many is staggering. I see it all the time here on this thread but more importantly in real reported in the media.
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I will continue to keep things in the proper perspective and focus on that which I can control. I will remain proactive instead of being reactive and will never lose my positive attitude and will refuse to participate in the liberal negative rhetoric and creation of victims. That is why I always appreciate your posts.
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Jocelyn: What's scary is her scenario could come true. That ($350-billion) stimulus package that Obama is putting forward is earmarked especially for those people. You heard what Robert Reich had to say, didn't you? Granted, he's just an advisor but lets be clear, he is an advisor for a reason.
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When he says that the Administration has to find a way to cut out skilled individuals and that includes construction workers and focus on the chronically unemployed or unemployable to receive stimulus cash ($350-billion) in rebuilding our infrastructure, that should be taken to mean something like a promise. The Administration will pave that way forward. Obama campaigned on redistribution of wealth and anyone who thinks he's suddenly going to become a centrist is fooling themselves.
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These people aren't as dumb as we are for thinking that her scenario of becoming "rich" by her standards because her President is in office won't happen.
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This President cannot succeed. Now it's we who have to find a way to make that happen because our (Republican) leadership such as it is, is too busy holding their ankles.

"Soft Underbelly" article Follow-up

2009-01-21T12:52:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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I have had the pleasure (at times) of being connected with an online political discussion group for several years starting in the mid-1990s. One of the participants, known to me as SaraSabra, is an Israeli female who splits her time between Florida and Israel. Currently she is over there but she keeps in constant touch with us via her email communications.
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In my previous article I suggested that she might have some comments. She certainly did, and I have posted them below with her permission. Enjoy.
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John, I have a few comments....(laughing) but of course you had to know that...
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What he's saying shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone on the list... and Israeli's are not uniquely qualified to anticipate when and where terror will erupt. It just comes... it's an evolutionary process whereby the "don't have's" for whatever reason that they don't have, decide to make their presence and whatever point they feel they have known to the perceived "haves". (One can subsitute meanies, imperialists, genocidal maniacs, modern-day Nazis, far-right fascists...whatever euphemism one wants to for the "have's" in this case, as we have seen done over and over again).
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I look at the situation as a "class struggle".....Ladyhkr (another female email poster) looks at it as a "status struggle"....Fundy (another female email poster) apparently looks at it as an "interrelated Muslim - over-populating (in comparison to the aborting euro-caucasion-christian populace) socio -economic discontented with their lot in life conspiracy to overtake the world that can only be brought to a halt under the leadership of Ron Paul" struggle that will, by the by, bankrupt us along the way, if it hasn't already...

Whatever it is...there is no question that the "powers that be" will continue to wage conventional wars...and the "powers that aren't" will continue to attack the "soft underbelly".

I was driving by where Grad rockets hit Beer Sheva yesterday, and thinking about the difference of when I was a kid here.
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When I was a kid...I'd hop on a bus, and if there was an unattended package...you immediately reacted...like in the article. But more than that...before you sat down, (anyplace, not just on a bus) you used your hand to "sweep the seat" to make sure that nothing was there that you might sit on/over...because they used to leave bombs that would detonate upon physical pressure. In America, people think nothing of sitting down on a public seat in an airport or someplace and putting their things on the seat next to them. In Israel....you never did that...you would pile the things up underneath you, between your legs, on your lap, etc....but if something was on the seat, or beneath it, it was suspicious...you didn't so much as raise the alarm automatically, but you "swept the seat" by instinct just in case, and if something was there....people weren't blind to it...but they reacted appropriately.
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Those were the days before suicide bombers...generations have now been born that don't even remember those types of threat, nowadays, you have to "sweep the surroundings"....you literally have to eyeball everyone around, PROFILE, if you will...and yes...you are looking for people that look suspicious: Nervous, sweating, overdressed, not making eye contact, talking to themselves or conversely.....in the zone of euphoria....as if they are already on their way to heaven, (which I think I'd find even more alarming).

I have faith in America. Americans are a remarkably resiliant country, with a "can do / kick ass" attitude. We've shown it in the past. We are a nation of un-pedigreed mutts...and I say that with the greatest of respect.
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Americans came to this country seeking a better life from the countries that they left, and at their core, beneath the soft, bloated, underbelly that we have developed from living a particularly easy life in comparison to most of the rest of the world....we have maintained a very healthy work ethic, a belief in a strong defense, a "don't tread on me" mentality, an appreciation and sypmathy for the underdog, all while still being a world leader in technological progress and economy.

We have balance in this country...it enables us to roll with the punches and still come out swinging when the time comes...

We have had to change some of our travel habits a bit.... We have had some of our liberties (from most of which we haven't felt any real interruptions to our lives) curtailed....
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Some of our tax dollars have been siphoned off to pay for new "security systems".... Big Deal. I really haven't felt any appreciable difference in my way of living in the USA, other than I am always sure to wear socks when flying commercial because I don't want to walk barefoot where millions of others do.
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I have always felt that it was only a matter of time before terrorism (as opposed to pervasive violent crime) became a real problem in this country.... And I think that it is probably well on it's way here.
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We've had salvos and shots across the bow. We've had Oklahoma City and 9-11....direct hits...
and I don't doubt that we will have more. I also don't doubt that we will be able to adjust and adapt to the attacks.
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But.... PROFILING....will have to become a part of our strategy against this.
And in this case, the ACLU be damned. Pertinent questions will have to be addressed and the world of political correctness might have to be sacrificed on occasion when the question of the "greater good" is at hand.
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Laws CAN and SHOULD be enacted so that the abuse of this does not occur...for instance....if crimes are detected un-related to national security, by routine national security profiling, they might not be acted upon. I'm not a legal mind to determine the ins and outs of this...BUT....it seems to me that there has to be more security involved, and that those that will cry "abuse of power" can relax a bit if there are some legal adjustments.

As for the issue of attacking where the crowds are...well... I think that's a given. it's sort of ingrained in me at this point to try and avoid huge crowds to optimize my comfort zone...and yet, there are times when i say, "to hell with it, fate is fate, and i'm going to enjoy myself and GO"....but I do know, that it is safer to get past the checkpoints in place when in airports, cruise embarkations, etc.... Just a few years ago, some whacko in LA attacked the exterior check-in area at the LA airport near the EL AL counter, because they know they can't get past. The same has happened in Frankfurt Germany and Rome Italy.

I'm sure I could go on, but I actually have to go out now....bringing some dinner to the hospital here for shabbat.
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Shalom all,
Sara

America's Soft Underbelly?

2009-01-15T21:44:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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It's been a day short of a month since I penned something for this blog. Life happens...
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I happened to assist Sweetsusan in driving her Toyota from northern Michigan to sunny Phoeniz Arizona for her Dad Albert to buy. On our second day we visited my oldest daughter and her family in the Denver Colorado area. We then trekked south for lunch in Santa Fe the next day and spent the night in Gallup, New Mexico. Lots of open, uninnhabited land out there and along the way. Leaving Gallup we drove to Flagstaff and spent an overnight with Susan's son and his family before driving south out of the snow to Phoenix. There I caught a nasty respiratory virus and am still ridding myself of that.
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A lot has transpired since my last email. Some of it highly questionable. One of president-elect Obamas's choices for high office with a tremendous responsibility is the new pick to head our CIA (Central Intelligence Agency), Leon Paneta.
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Leon is a friendly enough appearing sort, everyone's friend but what the hell does he know about Intelligence? Time will tell I guess, it always does.
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With that in mind, the following article is taken from an email that I received late today. Rather scary reading in my opinion. After reading it, maybe you'll agree that it's scary too.
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Here goes: "Juval Aviv was the Israeli Agent upon whom the movie ' Munich ' was based. He was Golda Meir's bodyguard -- she appointed him to track down and bring to justice the Palestinian terrorists who took the Israeli athletes hostage and killed them during the Munich Olympic Games.
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In a lecture in New York City a few weeks ago, he shared information that EVERY American needs to know -- but that our government has not yet shared with us. He predicted the London subway bombing on the Bill O'Reilly show on Fox News stating publicly that it would happen within a week. At the time, O'Reilly laughed and mocked him saying that in a week he wanted him back on the show. But, unfortunately, within a week the terrorist attack had occurred.
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Juval Aviv gave intelligence (via what he had gathered in Israel and the Middle East ) to the Bush Administration about 9/11 a month before it occurred. His report specifically said they would use planes as bombs and target high profile buildings and monuments. Congress has since hired him as a security consultant.
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Now for his future predictions. He predicts the next terrorist attack on the U.S. will occur within the next few months. Forget hijacking airplanes, because he says terrorists will NEVER try and hijack a plane again as they know the people onboard will never go down quietly again. Aviv believes our airport security is a joke -- that we have been reactionary rather than proactive in developing strategies that are truly effective.
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For example: 1) Our airport technology is outdated. We look for metal, and the new explosives are made of plastic. 2) He talked about how some idiot tried to light his shoe on fire. Because of that, now everyone has to take off their shoes. A group of idiots tried to bring aboard liquid explosives. Now we can't bring liquids on board. He says he's waiting for some suicidal maniac to pour liquid explosive on his underwear; at which point, security wil l have us all traveling naked! Every strategy we have is 'reactionary.' 3) We only focus on security when people are heading to the gates.
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Aviv says that if a terrorist attack targets airports in the future, they will target busy times on the front end of the airport when/where people are checking in. It would be easy for someone to take two suitcases of explosives, walk up to a busy check-in line, ask a person next to them to watch their bags for a minute while they run to the restroom or get a drink, and then detonate the bags BEFORE security even gets involved. In Israel , security checks bags BEFORE people can even ENTER the airport.
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Aviv says the next terrorist attack here in America is imminent and will involve suicide bombers and non-suicide bombers in places where large groups of people congregate. (i. e., Disneyland, Las Vegas casinos, big cities (New York, San Francisco, Chicago, etc.) and that it will also include shopping malls, subways in rush hour, train stations, etc., as well as rural America this time (Wyoming, Montana, etc.).
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The attack will be characterized by simultaneous detonations around the country (terrorists like big impact), involving at least 5-8 cities, including rural areas. Aviv says terrorists won't need to use suicide bombers in many of the larger cities, because at places like the MGM Grand in Las Vegas , they can simply valet park a car loaded with explosives and walk away.
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Aviv says all of the above is well known in intelligence circles, but that our U. S. government does not want to 'alarm American citizens' with the facts. The world is quickly going to become 'a different place', and issues like 'global warming' and political correctness will become totally irrelevant.
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On an encouraging note, he says that Americans don't have to be concerned about being nuked. Aviv says the terrorists who want to destroy America will not use sophisticated weapons. They like to use suicide as a front-line approach. It's cheap, it's easy, it's effective; and they have an infinite abundance of young militants more than willing to 'meet their destiny'.
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He also says the next level of terrorists, over which America should be most concerned, will not be coming from abroad. But will be, instead, 'homegrown' -- having attended and been educated in our own schools and universities right here in the U. S. He says to look for 'students' who frequently travel back and forth to the Middle East . These young terrorists will be most dangerous because they will know our language and will fully understand the habits of Americans; but that we Americans won't know/understand a thing about them.
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Aviv says that, as a people, Americans are unaware and uneducated about the terroristic threats we will, inevitably, face. America still has only have a handful of Arabic and Farsi speaking people in our intelligence networks, and Aviv says it is critical that we change that fact SOON. So, what can America do to protect itself?
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From an intelligence perspective, Aviv says the U.S. needs to stop relying on satellites and technology for intelligence. We need to, instead, follow Israel 's, Ireland 's and England 's hands-on examples of human intelligence, both from an infiltration perspective as well as to trust 'aware' citizens to help. We need to engage and educate ourselves as citizens; however, our U. S. government continues to treat us, its citizens, 'like babies'. Our government thinks we 'can't handle the truth' and are concerned that we'll panic if we understand the realities of terrorism. Aviv says this is a deadly mistake.
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Aviv recently created/executed a security test for our Congress, by placing an empty briefcase in five well-traveled spots in five major cities. The results? Not one person called 911 or sought a policeman to check it out. In fact, in Chicago, someone tried to steal the briefcase!
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In comparison, Aviv says that citizens of Israel are so well 'trained' that an unattended bag or package would be reported in seconds by citizen(s) who know to publicly shout, 'Unattended Bag!' The area would be quickly & calmly cleared by the citizens themselves. But, unfortunately, America hasn't been yet 'hurt enough' by terrorism for their government to fully understand the need to educate its citizens or for the government to understand that it's their citizens who are, inevitably, the best first-line of defense against terrorism.
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Aviv also was concerned about the high number of children here in America who were in preschool and kindergarten after 9/11, who were 'lost' without parents being able to pick them up, and about ours schools that had no plan in place to best care for the students until parents could get there. (In New York City , this was days, in some cases!)
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He stresses the importance of having a plan, that's agreed upon within your family, to respond to in the event of a terroristic emergency. He urges parents to contact their children's schools and demand that the schools, too, develop plans of actions, as they do in Israel .
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Does your family know what to do if you can't contact one another by phone? Where would you gather in an emergency? He says we should all have a plan that is easy enough for even our youngest children to remember and follow.
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Aviv says that the U. S. government has in force a plan that, in the event of another terrorist attack, will immediately cut-off EVERYONE's ability to use cell phones, blackberries, etc., as this is the preferred communication source used by terrorists and is often the wa y that their bombs are detonated.
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How will you communicate with your loved ones in the event you cannot speak to them? You need to have a plan.

So there it is, boys and girls... one man's idea of what our future may hold. Pray he is mistaken.

jaq~

Special Interest's Needs Come Before Adhering to our Constitution

2008-12-16T23:05:00.000-05:00

by jwright

An article Saturday in the Cadillac News, front page above the fold, stated “Many in Michigan upset about bailout collapse.” The article quoted UAW president Ron Gettlefnger and Michigan Governor Jennifer Granholm. Both had nasty words to say about U.S. Senate Republicans in particular. Several local residents added responsible remarks to the commentary; some in favor, some not.

Me? I’d merely suggest that our lawmakers, especially the U.S. House and Senate Democrats who are heavily influenced by a major “special interest,” namely the UAW that represents most auto-workers in our region, to reread the 14th amendment of our U.S. Constitution; the part guaranteeing equal protection for all.

I’m not a constitutional scholar by any means but many smarter people than me have responded to these bailouts, especially retired Judge Andrew Napolitano, as follows: "Bailouts violate the Equal Protection doctrine because the Congress can’t fairly pick and choose who to bail out and who to let expire; they violate the General Welfare Clause because they benefit only a small group and not the general public; they violate the Due Process Clause because they interfere with contracts already entered into; and they turn the public treasury into a public trough. Worse still, Congress lacks the power to let someone else decide how to spend the peoples’ money. In effect, the Congress delegated to the Secretary of the Treasury some of the power the Constitution has delegated to the Congress: The power to decide when, how, for whose benefit, and in what amounts taxpayer dollars should be spent.”

The key wording to me is that Congress lacks the power to delegate someone else to spend the public’s money. They seem to forget that it’s NOT the government’s money; it’s ours!
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Additionally, they are in effect shredding the law of the land; our Constitution. I find that deplorable.
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jaq~

The Pendng 'Auto industry" Bailout

2008-11-18T12:08:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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I'm a native of Michigan, retired on a shoestring and now live "Up North" in Cadillac. Ten years ago while living in Colorado I vacationed in Michigan for a short time. One evening after shopping at the new Wal-Mart in Alma and walking back to my car, I noticed that EVERY automobile parked in the row with my Chevy rental car happened to be American made. Curious, I drove around the entire lot and didn't see a single foreign nameplate in the place. 'Remarkable,' I thought to myself. My old Michigan friends and neighbors are really supporting our home-grown auto industry. Now it's 2008, what a difference 10 years makes, hmm?
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In my lifetime, I have bought and owned (even sold) nothing but American made cars, the majority of them being Chrysler products. I wonder how many of the folks clamoring for an additional $25-billion for the Detroit auto industry can say the same thing?
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It was reported last week that the average American made auto hourly costs are more than $70.00, compared with the average foreign name plate, even those built down south, are around $40.00. Quite a difference. Union vs. non-union? Corporate management?
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Several years ago, maybe three, I read on line where a UAW member mowing grass at a Saginaw MI factory was earning more than $70.00 hourly including his benefits. He must have been one highly talented individual to deserve that kind of money.
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I spent most of a lifetime working in construction. With my God-given talent I can build a house, or most anything else, from the ground up with the help of a few grunts for muscle. During my career as an hourly worker, I never earned more than $32.50 per hour, with no benefits, and I had to invest more than $8,000 in tools in order to do that. Maybe I should have invested in a lawnmower instead.
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I'm not complaining, it was my choice, just as it was the automakers choice to cave in to organized labor and be tied up in massive labor and benefit contracts that now have come home to roost.
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The taxpayers have already made a $25-billion loan to the auto industry for future retooling in hopes of manufacturing a “green” automobile one day, now we are asked to do it again. My question is simple: where does that kind of money come from? Printing presses? And how much of it will be going to bail out the UAW? And the pensioners that are NOT working but are ENTITLED to fat retirement checks and health benefits according to their previous contracts with the automakers?
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As you may know, when Uncle Sam (federal government) gets involved in anything, many times the situation deteriorates and gets worse. I don't want and we don't need Senator Harry Reid and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, or even president-elect Barack Obama micro-managing the designing and manufacturing of our cars.
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I say let the Detroit auto industry do what most any of us that don't qualify for massive government loans would be forced to do: file for bankruptcy, restructure, and start anew. Learn to operate their company's in a logical, mature, business like manner for a change. They could look at the successful American auto industry in the southern states and maybe follow their lead?
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Will it ever happen? Who really knows?
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The Liberal Democrat politicians choose to use the expression "auto industry" when speaking of Detroit's "Big 3," including our next president, Mr. Obama. It's intentionally misleading. The American auto industry outside of Detroit and Michigan in particular is thriving; building new autos with foreign nameplates using high quality American labor (non-union of course.) They are a major part of the "auto industry" and don't need or want a bailout.
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This latest $25-billion fiasco that Obama, Majority Leader Reid, and House Speaker Pelosi & Company want stuffed down the taxpayers throats is nothing but a UAW labor union bailout, and guess what? The AP recently reported that UAW president Ron Gettlefinger says workers will not make any more concessions, and that getting the automakers back on their feet means figuring out a way to turn the economy around. (No kidding. What an amazing grasp of the obvious.) So, in essence, screw the taxpayers and the country; we got ours and we ain't gonna' budge.
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Having lived in Michigan most of my life, it's my opinion that that type of attitude is what put us, and the auto industry, in the shape its in today.
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Just for the hell of it, did you know that GM has more non-working retired former employees receiving benefits and health care coverage today than it has actual auto builders in the factories? And GM will run out of money soon and won't be able to keep their promises agreed to in the 2007 contract agreements with the UAW. Talk about corporate mis-management coupled with labor greed.
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On top of that, with all of the multiple billions of dollars the elected representatives in D.C. are doling out today, this country is in hock more than $36-TRILLION in 'future unfunded mandates'? (Future Social Security, Medicare/Medicaid promises/commitments made to our retirees and financially disadvantaged.) Or is that $36-Trillion stored away in some secret "lock box?" LOL!
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$36-TRILLION is more than the United States is worth if every bit of our combined assets, private and federal, were liquidated, and yet the politicians still get starry-eyed with their power to incessantly spend the taxpayers money. It has to end one day. Will it?
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jaq~

Obama and the Faltering Economy

2008-11-13T10:53:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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I'm not an expert on the economy by any means , and by the looks of what's happening today in the markets here and abroad, it appears that no one fits that description.
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However, on November 1, three days before the presidential election, NEWS Corporation chairman Ruppert Murdoch was quoted in Australian.news.com saying Barack Obama 'could worsen crisis.'
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Since the election, the market has lost 14% of it's value. That on top of what it lost in the few weeks before the election when the $700-billion (70% of a trillion, or about 26% of our 2008 federal budget of $2.6-trillion.) bailout legislation passed by Congress.
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Being retired and living on a shoestring, I'm not an investor, but if I were, I'd be converting any investment holdings to cash in a heartbeat.
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Looking over the ''new hires'' that pres-elect Obama has in the fold thus far, it appears to be "Clinton II", and we all should remember what was happening to the market at the end of Clinton's tenure; it wasn't pretty then. Why should it be different today or tomorrow with mqny of the same folks getting ready to run the show again?
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With Obama's constant pushing for another ''stimulus'' package, when the first one didn't work, and his penchant for ''saving" the Detroit auto industry' (read: the UAW pensioners etal) along with his seeming eagerness to spend tax money that doesn't exist, save for the printing presses, it's obvious to me why the market is skittish, saying the least. We saw it coming near the end of the campaign. As candidate Obama's stock (polls) began to rise, the market dropped. With the exception of a couple of recent spikes, it really hasn't stopped.

Quoting Murdoch again, "To some extent it is beyond the power of politicians. You are going to find that the politicians are very limited in what they can do: they can make it worse but they can't stop it."
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Noted economist Lawrence Kudlow wrote recently:
In a few weeks Barack Obama will inherit the mantle of the capitalist system. What will he do with this responsibility? That’s the question being asked everywhere.
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Since the election, and up until President Bush’s important G-20 speech, stock markets sold off nearly 15 percent. Investors want to know if economic rewards will be encouraged or penalized. Will trade remain open and free? Will we maintain competitive businesses that can compete worldwide? Or will we resort to the protection of ailing or failed businesses?Will the U.S. lurch toward the semi-socialism of Old Europe? Or will we stay with free-market capitalism? Will we expand the nanny-state economy? Or will we keep the door wide open to entrepreneurial spirit and gales of creative destruction?
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Investors want to know which way President-elect Obama is going to go. Might he reach back to the Democratic pro-growth supply-side policies of John F. Kennedy’s tax cuts, free trade, and strong dollar? Will he opt for Bill Clinton’s free-trade and strong-dollar policies, or even his capital-gains tax cut? Or will he fall back to the hopeless government tinkering of Jimmy Carter or the welfare-statism of Lyndon Johnson?
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I’m keeping an open mind on Mr. Obama during this post-election honeymoon period. After all, he stole the tax-cut issue from Sen. McCain during the election. And surely he knows the conservative red states that joined his campaign for change didn’t vote for a leftward lurch to socialism lite.
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Mr. Obama has a huge opportunity and an outsized responsibility to mend and revive the economy. It may be too much to ask, but perhaps he will give President Bush’s marvelous speech a close read. There is much wisdom there. And there is no iron-clad reason why a Democrat can’t adopt the economic-growth model that has worked so well and so long for this country.

— Larry Kudlow, NRO’s Economics Editor, is host of CNBC’s Kudlow & Company and author of the daily web blog, Kudlow’s Money Politic$.

jaq~

A Polite Re-hash...

2008-11-07T10:46:00.000-05:00

by jwright

A long time Internet friend of mine, Mr. Alan Sherman, attorney at law and professional "world traveler extroardinaire" recently added my name to a political emailing list of his; a broad, informed list containing many of his friends and acquaintances from across the planet.
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One of his friends in particular struck my fancy with his sensible postings and it's my pleasure to share part of a recent exchange we had prior to the election, or immediately afterward, one... allow me to introduce K. Murphy:
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Re: GWB
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Jaq posted in part: What JFBurk (another long time Internet friend) posted earlier is close to my opinion too. GWB initially offered to bring a "new tone" to Washington, DC and look what it got him; the most maligned president since Abraham Lincoln (and look where Lincoln's place in American history is today).
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K. Murphy's RESPONSE: Actually, by the end of Lincoln's presidency he was greatly loved and respected. Warren Harding, Ulysses S. Grant (who I greatly respect even though I am a southerner), Calvin Coolidge and Jimmy Carter were maligned at the end of their presidencies and history (with the possible exception of Grant) has not treated them well.
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I truly hope that GWB winds up with a high place in our presidential list but I solely doubt it. Bush did not really realize he was the President until 9/11. Attorney General John Ashcroft created a new category called a "person of interest." This is McCarthyism at its worst. No more is a person innocent until proven guilty. He (Bush) had (Secretary of Defense) Rummy, a man who did not listen to his generals and as a result did not put enough units into Iraq (putting aside whether we should be there or not-- if we go in we should at least try to win.) It took four years before we had a strategy that seems to be working. Bush abdicated his responsibilities and let the neocons take over. Shame on him.
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From 9/11 on the Dems gave him everything he wanted. Look at the financial cost of the war and yet we do not have Bin Laden, even when we had the chances. I do not like Michael Moore but maybe there is truth to the comments about Bush's relationship with Bin Laden's family. Further, we are no safer in the world than before.
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Finally, in 2006 the Dems started to have some backbone and said, "enough is enough!" Can they be effective leaders? Only time will tell but I do not think they can do any worse than what we have had. It is convenient to blame the current financial crisis on Clinton and Greenspan-- they deserve a share of the blame no doubt but Bush has been in charge of the nation and the economy since 2001. I spent five years in the USMC and as an officer when I took command, everything related to that command was my responsibility even if the problem predated my command. Shouldn't it be the same for Bush? It does not seem so. He has been in charge of the economy for almost eight years. He has plenty of time to correct problems. (By the way, Truman said the buck stopped here- He understood command, responsibility and accepted it.) He (Bush) did not do it (correct the problems) and the financial crisis fell on his and McCain's head like a ton of bricks.
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The fact is the Republican party has been controlled by the neocons and the Christian Taliban. It is time that true conservatives take back their party and quit complaining about the Democrats, Clinton, and Obama. When they do, I will probably vote with them. While I like McCain as a person he was not the right choice. He further aggravated the problem by choosing someone that made the Christian Taliban happy but not the rest of the country. About 56 million people felt it was time for a change. I agree with them.
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Finally, one of the people in this email pointed out that the Prisoners at GitMo are not covered under the Geneva Convention. OK. Then they should be covered under America's laws. Further, no president in our past has ever authorized torture as acceptable national policy. Shame on him and the fact that he allowed such a policy to be acceptable. We stand for much more than that. Have a great day.
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K. Murphy
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~ ~ ~

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Jaq responds: Well said, K. Murphy, I find little fault in much of what you wrote and don't chose to nit-pick. (However, one could write pages on the obstacles the Dems placed in GWB's way during the first six years bewfore they took over in 2006. Non-stop obstructionism IMO.)
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Post Election, GWB got off to a bad start, at least that's my recollection. First, the "dangling chad" fiasco in Florida that allowed Al Gore to attempt to cherry pick Dem strongholds for recounts that led to the USSC telling the FSSC to go pack sand.
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Then Bush got off to a very slow start after his inauguration because of that hassle, IMO at least. It took him forever to get his administration approved and in place, to the point of keeping some Clinton appointees; Tenet, for one. Questionable to say the least. At the same time, we had two Senate majority leaders, Trent Lott & Tom Daschle, who "shared" that post on and off for a while. Talk about gridlock.
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In May of 2001, Vermont's Republican Senator Jim Jeffords decided to jump ship switching parties allowing Dashle to run the Senate for the next 19 months. Adding to that mess, the country was coming out of a Clinton tenured recession brought about by the bursting of the tech bubble. Blue collar friends of mine in the construction industry were losing big bucks fast from there 401s and weren't too happy about it. Of course, the media took the bait and began beating up Bush, claiming adnauseum that the economy was "in the tank." It never stopped. All that prior to 9/11.
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Barring another one of those national tragedies, president-elect Obama will have it better, although if Rahm Emmanuel decides to be Chief of Staff, we might forget about "coming together." He is more partisan than Karl Rove ever thought of being, even his friends say so.
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I totally agree with your assesment of how the Iraq incursion could have been handled better. (Especially in the later stages following the fall of Baghdad and Saddam's capture.) Too many bureaucratic egos imbedded at the Department of State, Defense, CIA and in our military at first... (Many left-overs from the previous Clinton Administration). We were basically at "war" with ourselves for several years. Sadly, we took Iraqi exile leader Ahmad Chalabi at his word at first, an Iraqi politician who hadn't been in country since 1958? Leader? Jeesh!
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I also am of the opinion that the entire eight years of Bill Clinton's tenure were an unbelievable waste of a great talent (and mistakes as well). Too bad ol' Bill didn't govern as he could have.
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My biggest disappointment is the way the national media have during the last decade unashamedly and outwardly fallen into bed with the elitist liberals. Instead of reporting facts, as is their journalistic mission, they are seeming to emulate Woodard and Bernstein, or trying to be opinion columists. Pretty shabby IMO. The same goes for the broadcast media, and we can thank CBS's Walter Cronkite (remember Tet?) for that. Where are the new Edward R. Morrows?
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Regards,
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Jaq~

OK, it's over, I was wrong, now what?

2008-11-05T19:36:00.000-05:00

by jwright

First, my 2-cents worth of predicting an upset victory for Senator John McCain went down the toilet like many others dreams on Election night.
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Second, sincere congratulations are in order to president-elect Barack Obama, I truly wish him luck.
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A close friend from California, knowing that I was not voting for Barack Obama emailed me Wednesday, “How are you dealing with it?”
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I replied that I had dealt with it on Election night while watching the TV screen and acknowledging that in my heart I knew McCain was really a loser, and with that, I turned off the TV and enjoyed a decent nights rest.
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Two things came to mind in answering my friend: McCain picked a future winner with Alaska Governor Sarah Palin, regardless of whatever one will hear from the McCain camp about her inexperience (a lot of it possibly coming from some Romney-ites who worked for McCain after the primaries. Are they worried about 2012 already?)
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Second, McCain really exonerated former Senator Robert Dole (as I posted earleir) in running the worst presidential campaign in Republican Party history. However, that's what the media expected; what they wanted, and in my opinion, this is the first time the media picked both candidates and controlled who the next president would be.
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Now, I actually feel sorry for president-elect Obama. I don't think he's experienced enough for the office and it will be sad watching him attempt to grow into it.
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Picking ex-Clinton White House operative Rahm Emmanuel as his Chief of Staff (if he does) would show me that Obama, may NOT be about “Change” at all. Emmanuel is a rabid, hardheaded, North Chicago partisan who is not interested in "crossing the aisle" to serve the best interests of the country. He is more about the party. Emmanuel said in a recent interview, “Republicans can go fuck themselves”.
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Unless Emmanuel has suddenly changed his stripes, he intends to run the Republican Party out of business. That’s hardly “reaching across the aisle.” Is this the “Change That We Can Believe In? “ I pray not.
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jaq~

My 2-cents on the Election Outcome

2008-11-03T12:21:00.000-05:00

by jwright
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My 2-cents… when all the dust has settled on election 2008, McCain-Palin will be the winners. That’s my opinion; and if I’m wrong, it won't be the first time.
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As political analyst Dick Morris has said repeatedly, IF Senator Obama’s poll numbers are at 49% or lower, (giving Ralph Nader 1or 2%) and Senator McCain can stay within 2-3% points, there are enough “undecided” out there to boost McCain past him. Then take into account those whom the pollsters called but didn’t participate in the polls, the non-participants that I believe are mostly conservative. You know those bitter clingers who tend to take refuge in their church and their guns and who have probably rolled the words "President Obama" around in their mouths and had it feel something akin to being third world.
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I wouldn’t be surprised to see a strong victory for the underdog, and with enough separation to not allow the Dems to cry “voter suppression!” Especially if we have a repeat of Gore-Lieberman 2000 with Obama receiving more popular votes (based on massive black voter turnouts in the states that are Blue already), while McCain wins the Electoral College votes.
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However it turns out, we’ll finally be rid of the incessant political ads now running on our TV day and night. We have one dumpy little state representative here in northern lower Michigan that is running the dumbest TV ad I’ve ever seen. His “thing” is that he can’t be “bought” by the rich and powerful forces that are backing his opponent and he needs our help (our vote I guess) to “fight them.”
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Very intriguing. Very silly… in northern Michigan I can't imagine “rich and powerful forces” that are interested in one small district mostly covered by forests with many dirt roads and a small village here and there. This is NOT the south side of Chicago by any means.
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Anyway, VOTE tomorrow, unless your have already.
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jaq~

Thomas Jefferson on Wealth Redistribution...

2008-11-01T21:14:00.000-04:00

by jwright

Of late, there has been much said and discussed regarding “spreading the wealth around a little bit”, which for the uninformed is simply allowing the government or someone else to take a portion of your income or savings and give it to someone else. Don’t confuse this with charity where one gives to the disadvantaged of their own volition, free will.
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Thomas Jefferson, patriot, one of the nation's original Founders, best known as the author of the Declaration of Independence and third president of the United States, wrote in a letter to Joseph Milligan, April 6, 1816: “To take from one, because it is thought his own industry and that of his fathers has acquired too much, in order to spare to others, who, or whose fathers, have not exercised equal industry and skill, is to violate arbitrarily the first principle of association, the guarantee to everyone the free exercise of his industry and the fruits acquired by it.”
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For decades, this has been the foundation of our free enterprise system. One of the presidential candidates doesn’t seem to accept that premise. If you agree with that premise, you’ll know whom to vote on Tuesday November 4.

Why the Silence Concerning the Palin Effigy?

2008-10-28T12:53:00.000-04:00

by jwright

Many times words left unspoken convey more meaning than an ear-splitting shout. That appears to be the case with the Obama Campaign’s lack of response regarding the Sarah Palin effigy hanging by a noose from the gable of a West Hollywood CA residence. Quoting FOX NEWS.com, “The owner of a home that has a mannequin dressed like the Republican vice presidential candidate and hanging by a rope says it's just a "scary" Halloween decoration.”

Yes, and right above it mounted atop a wide chimney is a likeness of Senator John McCain, Republican presidential hopeful, shrouded in flames. More Halloween fun I presume?

What concerns me is the utter silence emanating from the Obama camp, especially with the likeness of Governor Sarah Palin hanging by a rope. Politics being what it is today, what would the media’s response be if a likeness of Democrat presidential candidate Barack Obama were seen hanging from a rope? I’m guessing there would be near riots in the streets accompanied by the hue and cry of racism along with a demand for John McCain to immediately repudiate the act. To date, no such outcry has been heard from the media demanding Obama repudiate the sexist Palin effigy. Is this the behavior we should expect during the next four years if Obama is elected president?

The national media has obviouly been soft on the Obama Campaign from the beginning, so much so as to be labeled “in their pocket.” Wonderful. When the honest media rufflles the feathers of the Obama camp, they are immediately chastised, placed in an unfavorable category and not allowed to contact or interview them further, as is the case in Orlando Florida now where in an interview, a local TV station’s reporter asked several uncomfortable questions of Joe Biden. Must we now condone selective free speech?

Following WW II and during the Cold War, the former USSR had it's Tass and Pravda, their "official" news sources. What name will our biased media pick for themselves later in time?

(Source: http://elections.foxnews.com/2008/10/27/effigy-palin-hanging-noose-halloween-fun-says-owner/ )

More on Obama's Socialistic Cravings

2008-10-27T15:40:00.000-04:00

by jwright

Earlier, a friend of mine applauded socialism on our local newspaper's op-ed page, listing our Social Security system, Medicare and the Post Office as fine examples. I agree to a point; believing that most anything administered in moderation is acceptable. But for a presidential candidate to openly campaign on “spreading the wealth around,” or in plain terms to take a portion of your hard earned money or savings and hand it over to someone else is nothing but socialism at its worst. To me, that is unacceptable.

Presidential candidate Obama told his Senate colleagues on March 7, 2007: “Let’s stop sending mixed messages. Let’s work together and set immigration fees at a level that are fair and consistent with our commitment to being an open, democratic, and egalitarian society.”
Quoting Canadian journalist Marinka Peschmann, “Egalitarianism is defined as ‘a social and political philosophy asserting the equality of all men, especially in their access to the rights and privileges of their society.’ It’s a social ‘philosophy advocating the removal of inequalities among people.’ The objective of egalitarianism advocacy is socialism.

“Socialism is ‘a stage of society in Marxist theory transitional between capitalism and communism and distinguished by unequal distribution of goods and pay according to work done.’ It’s founded on two tenets: Thomas Jefferson’s, ‘All men are created equal,’ in the Declaration of Independence and Karl Marx’s ‘From each according to his ability, to each according to his needs.’

”History proves that socialists offer few practical points about how these two principles can be reconciled where everyone’s quality of life is harmoniously lifted up instead of knocked down, (snip) capitalism may be the ‘uneven distribution of wealth,’ but ‘socialism’ is ‘the even distribution of poverty.’

I pray we won’t wake up one day and discover we’ve quietly become a socialistic welfare state, beginning with punishing of the successful.

jaq~

Marinka Peschmann quotes source: http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/5839

Obama Campaign Cuts Off Interviews With Florida TV Station

2008-10-26T10:51:00.000-04:00

Taken from the Internet...

Biden gets asked tough questions by Orlando reporter
FOXNews.com
Saturday, October 25, 2008 -

Barack Obama's campaign killed all interviews with a Florida TV station after Sen. Joe Biden, the Democratic vice presidential nominee, faced tough and critical questions from a reporter at the Orlando station, the Orlando Sentinel reported .

During a satellite video Thursday, WFTV's Barbara West quoted Karl Marx and asked Biden how Obama's comment to "Joe the Plumber," about spreading the wealth wasn't being Marxist.

"Are you joking?," Biden asked.

West replied, "No."

Click here to watch the interview.

Later in the interview West questioned Biden about his comments that if Obama wins the election next month, he would be tested early on as president and wanted to know if Biden was implying America was no longer the world's leading power.

"I don't know who's writing your questions," Biden asked her.

The Obama camp then killed a WFTV interview with Biden's wife Jill, according to an Orlando Sentinel blog.

"This cancellation is non-negotiable, and further opportunities for your station to interview with this campaign are unlikely, at best for the duration of the remaining days until the election," wrote Laura K. McGinnis, Central Florida communications director for the Obama campaign, according to the Sentinel.

Such arrogance, and that on top of the "Politics of Personal Destruction" the Obama-Biden camp along with their media friends used on an ordinary citizen, Samuel J. "Joe the plumber" Wurzelbacher, aka not to mention the ongoing scurrilous attacks almost daily on Republican vice-presidential candidate, Governor Sarah Palin.

The Obama folks seem to be following old WWII Gestopo and Cold War KGB tactics; silence or attack the critics, AND they haven't taken office yet. The next four years should be interesting.

jaq~

Are the presidential polls really accurate?

2008-10-23T12:41:00.000-04:00

by jwright

National columnist Michael Barone wrote an interesting Internet article on presidential polls and their accuracy where he said in part, “…this year especially, many who ask if we can trust the polls are usually concerned about something else: Can we trust the poll when one of the presidential candidates is black?

“It is commonly said that the polls in the 1982 California and the 1989 Virginia gubernatorial races overstated the margin for the black Democrats who were running -- Tom Bradley and Douglas Wilder. The theory to account for this is that some poll respondents in each case were unwilling to say they were voting for the white Republican.

So, if I’m understanding Mr. Barone accurately, many white folks when polled may respond in favor of a black candidate, if there is one. In this case that would be Senator Obama. Inside the voting booth they may vote their conscience, perhaps NOT voting for Senator Obama. Afterward, if polled while exiting, they may state that they favored Obama, essentially skewing the pollsters results.

Going one step farther, IF Obama then loses to Senator McCain, all we’ll hear from the left for months on end is, ‘voter fraud; voter suppression; another stolen election!’ Add to this, we may see litigation in many of the states where the vote difference was close; litigation in hopes of overturning the initial vote count in favor of the loser. We watched this agonizing spectacle in 2000 when vice-president Gore attempted to use the Florida State Supreme Court to “cherry pick” several select counties for a partial recount in order to circumvent George W. Bush’s eventual small lead. Unfortunately, due to the months of possibly innaccurate political polling statistics, what took place in Florida in 2000 may look like a walk-in-the-park in 2008.

For Michael Barone's complete article, go to: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB122463210033356561.html?mod=djemEditorialPage

Thanks, jaq~

Another "OP"

2008-10-22T18:29:00.000-04:00

(...OP stands for "Other Peoples." ) This is a great one; Pulitzer Prize material in my opinion. jwright

Would the Last Honest Reporter Please Turn On the Lights?
By Orson Scott Card

Editor's note: Orson Scott Card is a Democrat and a newspaper columnist, and in this opinion piece he takes on both while lamenting the current state of journalism.

An open letter to the local daily paper — almost every local daily paper in America:
I remember reading All the President's Men and thinking: That's journalism. You do what it takes to get the truth and you lay it before the public, because the public has a right to know.
This housing crisis didn't come out of nowhere. It was not a vague emanation of the evil Bush administration.

It was a direct result of the political decision, back in the late 1990s, to loosen the rules of lending so that home loans would be more accessible to poor people. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac were authorized to approve risky loans.

(Note: Remember a bill called the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) passed and signed into law by President Jimmy Carter in 1977? CRA prohibited financial institutions from using their previous "Red Line" qualifying process that identified questionable real estate neighborhoods and forced them to make questionable loans to questionable applicants. Read: bad or risky loans. All of this with the approval of the Democrat led Congress; then and now.)

What is a risky loan? It's a loan that the recipient is likely not to be able to repay.

The goal of this rule change was to help the poor — which especially would help members of minority groups. But how does it help these people to give them a loan that they can't repay? They get into a house, yes, but when they can't make the payments, they lose the house — along with their credit rating.

They end up worse off than before.

This was completely foreseeable and in fact many people did foresee it. One political party, in Congress and in the executive branch, tried repeatedly to tighten up the rules. The other party blocked every such attempt and tried to loosen them.

Furthermore, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae were making political contributions to the very members of Congress who were allowing them to make irresponsible loans. (Though why quasi-federal agencies were allowed to do so baffles me. It's as if the Pentagon were allowed to contribute to the political campaigns of Congressmen who support increasing their budget.)
Isn't there a story here? Doesn't journalism require that you who produce our daily paper tell the truth about who brought us to a position where the only way to keep confidence in our economy was a $700 billion bailout? Aren't you supposed to follow the money and see which politicians were benefiting personally from the deregulation of mortgage lending?

I have no doubt that if these facts had pointed to the Republican Party or to John McCain as the guilty parties, you would be treating it as a vast scandal. "Housing-gate," no doubt. Or "Fannie-gate."

Instead, it was Senator Christopher Dodd and Congressman Barney Frank, both Democrats, who denied that there were any problems, who refused Bush administration requests to set up a regulatory agency to watch over Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and who were still pushing for these agencies to go even further in promoting sub-prime mortgage loans almost up to the minute they failed.

As reputable journalist Thomas Sowell points out in a TownHall.com essay entitled "Do Facts Matter?" ( http://snipurl.com/457townhall_com] ): "Alan Greenspan warned them four years ago. So did the Chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers to the President. So did Bush's Secretary of the Treasury."

These are facts. This financial crisis was completely preventable. The party that blocked any attempt to prevent it was ... the Democratic Party. The party that tried to prevent it was ... the Republican Party.

Yet when Nancy Pelosi accused the Bush administration and Republican deregulation of causing the crisis, you in the press did not hold her to account for her lie. Instead, you criticized Republicans who took offense at this lie and refused to vote for the bailout!

What? It's not the liar, but the victims of the lie who are to blame?

Now let's follow the money ... right to the presidential candidate who is the number-two recipient of campaign contributions from Fannie Mae.

And after Freddie Raines, the CEO of Fannie Mae who made $90 million while running it into the ground, was fired for his incompetence, one presidential candidate's campaign actually consulted him for advice on housing.

If that presidential candidate had been John McCain, you would have called it a major scandal and we would be getting stories in your paper every day about how incompetent and corrupt he was.

But instead, that candidate was Barack Obama, and so you have buried this story, and when the McCain campaign dared to call Raines an "adviser" to the Obama campaign — because that campaign had sought his advice — you actually let Obama's people get away with accusing McCain of lying, merely because Raines wasn't listed as an official adviser to the Obama campaign.

You would never tolerate such weasely nit-picking from a Republican.

If you who produce our local daily paper actually had any principles, you would be pounding this story, because the prosperity of all Americans was put at risk by the foolish, short-sighted, politically selfish, and possibly corrupt actions of leading Democrats, including Obama.

If you who produce our local daily paper had any personal honor, you would find it unbearable to let the American people believe that somehow Republicans were to blame for this crisis.
There are precedents. Even though President Bush and his administration never said that Iraq sponsored or was linked to 9/11, you could not stand the fact that Americans had that misapprehension — so you pounded us with the fact that there was no such link. (Along the way, you created the false impression that Bush had lied to them and said that there was a connection.)

If you had any principles, then surely right now, when the American people are set to blame President Bush and John McCain for a crisis they tried to prevent, and are actually shifting to approve of Barack Obama because of a crisis he helped cause, you would be laboring at least as hard to correct that false impression.

Your job, as journalists, is to tell the truth. That's what you claim you do, when you accept people's money to buy or subscribe to your paper.

But right now, you are consenting to or actively promoting a big fat lie — that the housing crisis should somehow be blamed on Bush, McCain, and the Republicans. You have trained the American people to blame everything bad — even bad weather — on Bush, and they are responding as you have taught them to.

If you had any personal honor, each reporter and editor would be insisting on telling the truth — even if it hurts the election chances of your favorite candidate.

Because that's what honorable people do. Honest people tell the truth even when they don't like the probable consequences. That's what honesty means . That's how trust is earned.

Barack Obama is just another politician, and not a very wise one. He has revealed his ignorance and naivete time after time — and you have swept it under the rug, treated it as nothing.

Meanwhile, you have participated in the borking of Sarah Palin, reporting savage attacks on her for the pregnancy of her unmarried daughter — while you ignored the story of John Edwards's own adultery for many months.

So I ask you now: Do you have any standards at all? Do you even know what honesty means?
Is getting people to vote for Barack Obama so important that you will throw away everything that journalism is supposed to stand for?

You might want to remember the way the National Organization of Women threw away their integrity by supporting Bill Clinton despite his well-known pattern of sexual exploitation of powerless women. Who listens to NOW anymore? We know they stand for nothing; they have no principles.

That's where you are right now.

It's not too late. You know that if the situation were reversed, and the truth would damage McCain and help Obama, you would be moving heaven and earth to get the true story out there.
If you want to redeem your honor, you will swallow hard and make a list of all the stories you would print if it were McCain who had been getting money from Fannie Mae, McCain whose campaign had consulted with its discredited former CEO, McCain who had voted against tightening its lending practices.

Then you will print them, even though every one of those true stories will point the finger of blame at the reckless Democratic Party, which put our nation's prosperity at risk so they could feel good about helping the poor, and lay a fair share of the blame at Obama's door.

You will also tell the truth about John McCain: that he tried, as a Senator, to do what it took to prevent this crisis. You will tell the truth about President Bush: that his administration tried more than once to get Congress to regulate lending in a responsible way.

This was a Congress-caused crisis, beginning during the Clinton administration, with Democrats leading the way into the crisis and blocking every effort to get out of it in a timely fashion.
If you at our local daily newspaper continue to let Americans believe — and vote as if — President Bush and the Republicans caused the crisis, then you are joining in that lie.

If you do not tell the truth about the Democrats — including Barack Obama — and do so with the same energy you would use if the miscreants were Republicans — then you are not journalists by any standard.

You're just the public relations machine of the Democratic Party, and it's time you were all fired and real journalists brought in, so that we can actually have a news paper in our city.

AMEN!

Joe Biden's scary prediction...

2008-10-20T20:17:00.000-04:00

by jwright

How quickly the balance on the political stage shifts… last week it was “Senator Government” aka Senator Barack Obama inadvertently saying he wanted to “…just spread the wealth around.” A very Marxist/Socialist un-American philosophy to take from the wealthy and give to the disadvantaged.

On Monday, “Senator Gaffe” aka Senator Joe Biden, Obama’s vice-presidential choice spoke, unaware there were media types present, "Mark my words. It will not be six months before the world tests Barack Obama like they did John Kennedy" Biden said to a roomful of donors.

He continued, "The world is looking. We're about to elect a brilliant 47-year-old senator president of the United States of America. Remember I said it standing here, if you don't remember anything else I said," Biden continued. "Watch, we're going to have an international crisis, a generated crisis, to test the mettle of this guy.”

That “guy” Senator Biden referred to is none other than Senator Barack Obama, perhaps the next president of the United States. Unless the voters take a good look at the 'brilliant 47-year old senator' who Joe Biden himself criticized earlier during the Democratic primaries saying Obama was unprepared to become the chief executive, adding that the Oval Office is not a place for on-the-job training.

Afterward, the McCain camp released this statement: “There has been no harsher critic of Barack Obama’s lack of experience than Joe Biden. Biden has denounced Barack Obama’s poor foreign policy judgment and has strongly argued in his own words what Americans are quickly realizing -- that Barack Obama is not ready to be President.”

Obviously, the McCain camp is biased, but really, is Obama ready to be the next president? That’s for the voters to decide. While Biden’s prediction is scary, would he say the same if McCain were elected?

jaq~

Obama and "distribution of the wealth."

2008-10-17T12:07:00.000-04:00

by jwright

So Democratic presidential contender Barack Obama wants to “redistribute the wealth.” At least that's what he let slip last week while chatting with Joe Wurzelbacher, the plumber. Unfortunately the live TV cameras recorded his very words. How very arrogant of him; how very Socialist of him… and all of my life I thought we lived in a Free Enterprise society, where you were taxed fairly on what you earned and were encouraged to prosper and attain the American Dream.

Apparently Obama has a different slant on what constitutes the American Dream. Can it be that the encroaching liberal “entitlement attitude” has jaded his thinking? That no one should enjoy an abundance of success, which in most cases means accumulating wealth? That in the best class warfare scenario its “unfair” to succeed while others have not?

This could be the biggest gaffe in Obama’s short political career. It’s my opinion that most Americans would not favor any socialist plan to “redistribute their wealth.” Especially at the expense of being taxed at a greater rate. Believe what you will, at some point the existing Bush tax cuts will expire soon and guess what? The Harry Reid-Nancy Pelosi led Democrats in Washington, D.C. are perfectly willing to let them expire allowing the tax rates to return to the higher levels of the Clinton years. Yet, they refuse to call that a tax increase. What would you call it? Change?

If you as voters are willing to elect an individual whose philosophy is to take from the rich and give to the poor as Obama’s proposing in his so-called middle class tax cut plan where of the 95% whose taxes will be lowered includes 30-40% who do NOT pay any tax at all , will receive a “welfare” check labeled a "tax credit" from Uncle Sam (taxpayer’s dollars) then he’s your man.

Really, who is he?

2008-10-16T21:32:00.000-04:00

by jwright

(I apologize for the long absence. Last weekend my PC contracted a host of virus's and we just got it up-and-running today. Be careful what you open, boys and girls!)

One positive thing that John McCain can claim, regardless of the out come of the upcoming election; he exonerated former Senator Robert Dole who previously ran the most inept campaign in Republican Party history.

John “Maverick” McCain is not one of my favorites as I posted here months ago, but at least he is a known quantity as opposed to his Democrat opponent, Senator Barack Obama.

Barack Obama is a “new kid on the block” politically, finishing his fourth year in the U.S. Senate where he spent less than 150 actual days on the job, the balance of the time running for our highest office. Before that, he was an Illinois State Senator. Cool, calm and collected, he reads well from a teleprompter in front of large audiences. As one critic remarked, in that capacity he does as good a job as the average television news anchor. And with this vast accumulation of qualifications, he could become our next president?

His accomplishments are few, his record is sparse. He did author two autobiographies, apparently to get it right as to who he is. But, who is he? To many of us he’s a total unknown quantity, but with the incredible capability to attract huge amounts of campaign cash in small quantities, some from questionable Internet subscribers with no vowels in their names or addresses.

To many of his followers and supporters he is akin to being Messianic, one who at the campaign’s beginning advocated ‘Change,’ but nearing the end he comes off as just another liberal tax and spend politician; ask “Joe the Plumber.” A young politician with questionable past associates, who if connected to John McCain would have driven him from the race early on.

Obviously, the power of the biased media is in full bloom today; it successfully handpicked McCain, the weakest of the Republican field, and they certainly picked Barack Obama. Trick ‘em, vote for McCain.

Causality; Coincidence; Casualty…

2008-10-08T10:21:00.000-04:00

by jwright

Causality; Coincidence; Casualty… three words that in most cases have no connection. Unless they do.

Anymore I follow the stock market only to the point of determining if the Dow-Jones average went up today or dropped. I’m not an investor any more. My history of investing is similar to my history as a poker player; I’m not very good at either. You can’t get ahead by breaking even so I avoid both the market and the card game.

I do watch political trends as many in the market do and I’m seeing one now. That’s where Causality may be in play. Since Treasury Secretary Paulson and President Bush proclaimed that we needed a $700-billion bail out of Wall Street, presidential candidate Obama’s poll ratings have been creeping ever higher. Conversely, the stock market has not. We’ve seen record losses almost on a daily basis. Is it a Coincidence or is there more to it? The dreaded cause and effect factor?

Do the market investors see in Obama something that is worrisome? Frankly, I do, based on both he and his running mate’s avoidance in answering a simple question: which of your proposed spending programs would you drop or cut? Both Obama and Biden have successfully avoided naming any, instead they ramble on about the importance of the programs they will keep, most of them requiring huge increases in spending, spending tax dollars that aren’t there. Give Senator McCain some credit-- at least twice now he has said he would enact a spending freeze except for defense and veterans affairs.

Casualties, the third word I listed, might come into play with an Obama presidency. Though Obama would seek to build a new economy from the “bottom up,” there’s no way that unfortunate economic times will not affect those at the bottom.

Where did the Money Come From?

2008-10-06T22:28:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

This is an email forwarded to me by my old friend and supervisor, Cal, apparently emailed to him and signed by someone name Stan. I have no way to prove or disprove it's contents.

This election has me very worried. So many things to consider. About a year ago, I would have voted for Obama. I have changed my mind three times since than. I watch all the news channels, jumping from one to another. I must say this drives me crazy. However, I feel if you view MSNBC, CNN, and Fox News, you might get some middle ground to work with.

About six months ago, I started thinking, "Where did the money come from for Obama". I have four daughters who went to College, we were middle class, and money was tight. We (including my girls) worked hard and there were many student loans. I started looking into Obama's life.

Around 1979 Obama started college at Occidental in California. He is very open about his two years at Occidental, he tried all kinds of drugs and was wasting his time but, even though he had a brilliant mind, did not apply himself to his studies. "Barry" (that was the name he used all his life) during this time had two roommates, Muhammad Hasan Chandoo and Wahid Hamid, both from Pakistan.

During the summer of 1981, after his second year in college, he made a "round the world" trip. Stopping to see his mother in Indonesia, next Hyderabad in India, three weeks in Karachi, Pakistan where he stayed with his roommate's family, then off to Africa to visit his father's family. My question - Where did he get the money for this trip?

Nether I, nor any one of my children would have had money for a trip like this when they where in college. When he came back, he started school at Columbia University in New York. It is at this time he wants everyone to call him Barack - not Barry. Do you know what the tuition is at Columbia? It's not cheap to say the least! Where did he get money for tuition? Student Loans? Maybe.

After Columbia, he went to Chicago to work as a Community Organizer for $12,000 a year. Why Chicago? Why not New York? He was already living in New York. By "chance”, he met Antoin "Tony" Rezko, born in Aleppo Syria, and a real estate developer in Chicago. Rezko has been convicted of fraud and bribery this year. Rezko, was named "Entrepreneur of the Decade" by the Arab-American Business and Professional Association".

About two years later, Obama entered Harvard Law School. Do you have any idea what tuition is for Harvard Law School? Where did he get the money for Law School? More student loans? After Law school, he went back to Chicago. Rezko offered him a job, which he turned down. However, he did take a job with Davis, Miner, Barnhill & Galland. Guess what? They represented "Rezar" which is Rezko's firm. Rezko was one of Obama's first major financial contributors when he ran for office in Chicago. In 2003, Rezko threw an early fundraiser for Obama which Chicago Tribune reporter David Mendelland claims was instrumental in providing Obama with "seed money" for his U.S. Senate race.

In 2005, Obama purchased a new home in Kenwoood District of Chicago for $1.65 million (less than asking price). With ALL those Student Loans, where did he get the money for the property? On the same day Rezko's wife, Rita, purchased the adjoining empty lot for full price. The London Times reported that Nadhmi Auchi, an Iraqi-born Billionaire loaned Rezko $3.5 million three weeks before Obama's new home was purchased. Obama met Nadhmi Auchi many times with Rezko. Now, we have Obama running for President.

Valerie Jarrett, was Michele Obama's boss. She is now Obama's chief advisor and he does not make any major decisions without talking to her first. Where was Jarrett born? Ready for this? Shiraz, Iran! Do we see a pattern here? On the other hand, am I going crazy?

On May 10, 2008 The Times reported, Robert Malley advisor to Obama was "sacked" after the press found out he was having regular contacts with "Hamas", which controls Gaza and is connected with Iran. This past week, buried in the back part of the papers, Iraqi newspapers reported that during Obama's visit to Iraq, he asked their leaders to do nothing about the war until after he is elected, and he will "Take care of things". Oh, and by the way, remember the college roommates that where born in Pakistan? They are in charge of all those "small" Internet campaign contributions for Obama. Where is that money coming from?

The poor and middle class in this country? Or could it be from the Middle East? And the final bit of news. On September 7, 2008, The Washington Times posted a verbal slip that was made on "This Week" with George Stephanapoulos. Obama on talking about his religion said, "My Muslim faith". When questioned, "he made a mistake". Some mistake!

All of the above information I got on line. If you would like to check it - visit Wikipedia, encyclopedia, Barack Obama; Tony Rezko; Valerie Jarrett: Daily Times
Obama visited Pakistan in 1981; The Washington Times –September 7, 2008; The Times May 10, 2008.

Now the BIG question - If I found out all this information on my own, why haven't all of our "intelligent" members of the press been reporting this? A phrase that keeps ringing in my ear - "Beware of the enemy from within!”

P.S. I checked most of this info out myself and it is factual!!!

Stan

As I said at the beginning, I received this email a week ago from an old friend and former supervisor (when I was a lad in the Central Division Consumers Power Company electrical engineering department...) it was signed by Stan. My former supervisor's name is NOT Stan so I'm certain he didn't generate it, he merely passed it along.

The questions posed by it's author are valid; we don't know jack-shit about Obama (or his campaign contributions that are under some scrutiny now by the FEC) other than as John McCain finally admitted, Obama came out of nowhere and hasn't done much of anything since except run for the highest office in the land. That act of running, in Obama’s own words, is qualification enough that he has the basic executive experience to run the country. Oh, really? I use 'run' loosely as most presidents are flummoxed by a contrary Congress and don't accomplish a fraction of what they set out to do, ergo their campaign promises are a joke.

Back to experience, I've watched TVs "Law & Order" series from its outset, many more years than Obama has been in the U.S. Senate... I suppose that qualifies me run for the office of District Attorney here in beautiful Wexford County. Damn, it's too late to get on this election's ballot so I'd better get busy writing a couple of autobiographies in order to settle in on exactly who I am and what I might be about.

Then there is this little unresolved problem of qualifications… in order to serve as president of the United States, one must be born in the United States or one of it’s protectorates, as explained here, to wit:

Qualifications for the Office of President
Age and Citizenship requirements - US Constitution, Article II, Section 1
No person except a natural born citizen, or a citizen of the United States, at the time of the adoption of this Constitution, shall be eligible to the office of President; neither shall any person be eligible to that office who shall not have attained to the age of thirty-five years, and been fourteen years a resident within the United States.

Term limit amendment - US Constitution, Amendment XXII, Section 1 – ratified February 27, 1951
No person shall be elected to the office of the President more than twice, and no person who has held the office of President, or acted as President, for more than two years of a term to which some other person was elected President shall be elected to the office of the President more than once.

So our liberal friends will continue to argue about what the definition of the word “is" is… and they will pathetically argue as to what the Founding Fathers meant by “natural born.” Once such remark, “Duh, does that mean born without use of an anesthetic pain-killer, man?”

In a case now pending, Barack Obama and his legal counsel, instead of producing a valid birth certificate, chose instead to fend off a pending legal action taken in Pennsylvania by a Phillip J. Berg, attorney-at-law, who is petitioning the presiding court to force Obama to produce such a document, if there is such a thing.

Instead, this is the latest response:

Lafayette Hill, Pennsylvania – 09/24/08)
Philip J. Berg, Esquire, the Attorney who filed suit against Barack H. Obama challenging Senator Obama’s lack of “qualifications” to serve as President of the United States, announced today that Obama and Democratic National Committee [DNC] filed a Joint Motion-to-Dismiss on the last day, to file a response, for the obvious purpose of delaying Court action in the case of Berg v. Obama, No. 08-cv-04083.

Their joint motion indicates a concerted effort to avoid the truth by delaying the judicial process, although legal, by not resolving the issue presented: that is, whether Barack Obama was “natural born.”

So many questions, so little time. Later... take care out there.

jaq~

Obama's Campaign Contributions In Doubt...

2008-10-06T11:01:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

Mike Isikopff, veteran Newsweek columnist says in his latest column, “The Obama campaign has shattered all fund-raising records, raking in $458 million so far, with about half the bounty coming from donors who contribute $200 or less. Aides say that's an illustration of a truly democratic campaign. To critics, though, it can be an invitation for fraud and illegal foreign cash because donors giving individual sums of $200 or less don't have to be publicly reported.

For the complete article: http://www.newsweek.com/id/162403

As most of you are aware, Newsweek is NOT a flaming right-wing publication, so when they become alarmed that all is not on the up-and-up in Obamaland, maybe it’s time for the voters to take note.

In the past couple of weeks I have read a couple of other articles seriously questioning Obama’s campaign sources. $458-million or so is a lot of cash in which to keep an accurate accounting. His staff claims that about half of it came from small contributions of less than $200 each from hundreds of thousands of contributors. They go on to claim that that’s proof of his vast popularity. But some of it has come from foreign sources including the Hamas terrorist controlled Gaza Strip bordering Israel, and that folks is illegal. One article I read says that about $200-million of the funds raised are in question. A few thousand dollars has been returned, much, much more has not. Does the average voter care? I’d say the average voter isn’t even aware.

Quoting from Isikopff's article, "Some critics say the campaign hasn't done enough. This summer, watchdog groups asked both campaigns to share more information about its small donors. The McCain campaign agreed; the Obama campaign did not. "They could've done themselves a service" by heeding the suggestions, said Massie Ritsch of the Center for Responsive Politics.

Will the Republican National Committee, who are now suing for disclosure and for alleged violation of campaign contribution laws, or the Federal Election Committee have time to get the real facts before the election? You’d have to be delirious to believe that will happen. Campaign contribution laws and regulations are broken all the time but no one pays the price until it’s too late, usually after the offending party is happily ensconced in office and out of harms way. Pitiful.

jaq~

Don't Blame the Republicans for Bailout's Failure or its Cause!

2008-10-05T15:21:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

(Another “Letter to the Editor” which was published on Tuesday, September 30, 2008)

Don’t Blame Republicans for Bailout’s Failure, or its Cause!

A bit more than 30 minutes into a 15-minute vote Monday in the U.S. House of Representatives it became apparent that nearly 100 Democrats voting in tandem with more than 130 Republicans had heard the loud voices of their constituents and voted against a $700-billion taxpayer funded bailout of financial institutions that previously made questionable mortgage loans to questionable applicants, all in the guise of “affordable housing.”

Following the vote, Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi, D-CA, found the TV cameras and proceeded to blame failure of the legislation on the House Republicans, conveniently forgetting that her Democrats have a majority of the votes in the House and could have easily passed it without any Republican votes. What she also forgot were basic social graces; if you seek bipartisanship don’t poison a session prior to an important vote with a starkly partisan speech, hammering your opponents and then expect their cooperation.

As far as blame for this entire financial mess, it’s my opinion that its roots go back to 1977 when Democrat President Jimmy Carter signed the Community Reinvestment Act (CRA) into law. CRA prohibited lending institutions from “redlining” or discriminating against neighborhoods, in particular, high financial risk neighborhoods.

With those restrictions removed, Pandora’s box was opened to allow financial institutions to make questionable real estate loans, which coincidentally seems to be the big economic problem today.

Many institutions that refused to abide by CRA were threatened with federal lawsuit if they didn’t comply and make the questionable loans. Only in Socialist America, I guess?

So where does the real blame fall? On the 1977 Congress that enacted the CRA legislation? Certainly not on today’s Congress… this Democrat controlled Congress is seemingly “without sin.” Ask any of them.

Today in this era of overblown partisan bickering, sitting president George W. Bush and the Republicans are labeled the fall guys. Following him, it’s presidential contender Senator John McCain, R-AZ. Someone please tell me how anyone in their right mind can agree with that premise, especially when it was Senator McCain in 2005 who warned the country of the impending crisis featuring FannieMae and FreddieMac and was ridiculed by his Democrat Senate associates.?

Go online and find anything that Democrats Senator Christopher Dodd or Representative Barney Frank said in warning of their collapse. No, all you will find are positive statements about how strong the two agencies are. It’s pretty damning when you actually read their words.

For further evidence, please check out this link to a video filmed in the U.S. House, a C-Span filmed video of Democrat Representatives covering up the Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac Scam that caused our current Economic Crisis…

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_MGT_cSi7Rs&feature=email

Unless you are willing to disbelieve what your eyes and ears tell you.

Jaq~

"Trickle Up Economy?"

2008-10-05T13:16:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

Trickle Up Economy? I snicker just thinking about it, sorry... I digress.

Presidential hopeful Senator Barack Obama’s web site states:

Provide Middle Class Americans Tax Relief
Obama and Biden will cut income taxes by $1,000 for working families to offset the payroll tax they pay.
Provide a Tax Cut for Working Families: Obama and Biden will restore fairness to the tax code and provide 150 million workers the tax relief they need. Obama and Biden will create a new "Making Work Pay" tax credit of up to $500 per person, or $1,000 per working family.
The "Making Work Pay" tax credit will completely eliminate income taxes for 10 million Americans.

“Up to” are key words boys and girls, what if it’s only $188 depending on your previous year’s income. And IF all 150 million workers do receive $500 each in federal welfare, aka “tax relief,” where is Obama going to find the money now with the recent brouhaha in D.C. and the huge $700-billion Wall Street bailout? Will he and Joe Biden insist on increasing the federal deficit even more by borrowing the non-existent dollars? Certainly they aren’t willing to CUT any of the excessive spending they have espoused in their campaign promises. Or to lower their expectations of what grand social advances they can achieve, at least based on their non-responses in the last two debates when asked a simple question; in these questionable economic times what of your proposed programs do you intend to eliminate or cut? (I didn't hear an answer.)

As far as “Growing the Economy From the Bottom Up” as they propose, are most of you like me? In my lifetime, every job I ever held was a result of being hired by a businessman or his personnel manager. I never had a “man on the street” pay my wages. Am I the exception?

Jaq~

"Smokin' OPs..."

2008-10-04T23:03:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

OPs?

Yeah, remember when you smoked a lot of those nasty old cigarettes and discovered that you'd suddenly runout? Next move; you "borrowed" one from a buddy. OP is an acronym for "Other Peoples."

In this case I borrowed the title to this blog from a Bob Seger mid-70s album .

The article below is from:

(http://www.exposeobama.com/obamataxesbe.html)

It's a few weeks old: BLDEBO. (Before Latest Disasterous Economic Bail out). It goes like this:

“The Obama spend-o-meter is now up around $800-billion and tax hikes on the rich won't pay for it.“
Lawrence Kudlow

Just to make it clearer, Kudlow goes on: "It's the middle class that will ultimately shoulder this fiscal burden in terms of higher taxes and lower growth..."

$800-billion... that's a staggering figure!

Just to put it in perspective, the United States government collected approximately $2.6-trillion in revenues in 2007. $800-billion is 30% of that figure! $800-billion would represent the GREATEST EXPANSION OF GOVERNMENT in the history of the United States!

To put it in further perspective, $800-billion is about $6.800.00 per household or $2,700.00 for every man, woman and child in the United States!

And YOU get to pay for it! Kudlow lists just a few of Obama's goals:

$150-billion on a green-energy plan.
An infrastructure investment bank to the tune of $60-billion.
An expansion of health insurance by roughly $65 billion. Steve Moore, writing for The Wall Street Journal did the math. The Weekly Standard quotes him as saying that Obama's tax proposals will add up to a “39.6% personal income tax, a 52.2% combined income and payroll tax, a 2% capital-gains tax, a 39.6% dividends tax and a 55% estate tax."

But What About Obama's Middle Class Tax Cut? Isn't He Just Going To Take From The Rich? Make no mistake, Barack Hussein Obama WILL raise your taxes! He won't just raise taxes on the "rich." He'll raise YOUR TAXES! He'll raise your children's taxes. He'll raise your grandchildren's taxes!

To paraphrase former-President Ronald Reagan, “If it moves, he WILL tax it!"

Let's take a real close at one of his middle-class tax relief proposals. According to Politico.com: "Sen. Barack Obama (D-Ill.) on Friday announced an 'Emergency Economic Plan' that would give families a stimulus check of $1,000 each, funded IN PART by what his presidential campaign calls 'windfall profits from Big Oil'.

Separately, Obama's plan includes a $50 billion stimulus package. Essentially Obama wants to fund something on the order of $100-billion - $200-billion dollars a year on the back of Big Oil. But we've been down this road before and history tells us what happens when we tax the "windfall profits" of oil companies. Tax revenues go DOWN to NOTHING and the domestic oil industry collapses! Internet blogger Michelle Malkin recently quoted a Congressional Research Service (CRS) assessment of the Carter-era windfall profits tax: "[T]he windfall profits tax was forecasted to raise more than $320-billion between 1980 and 1989. However, according to the CRS, the government collected only $80-billion in gross tax revenue ($146 billion in 2004 dollars). The net amount was actually less than this -- roughly $40-billion -- because the tax was deductible against corporate income."

"[T]he windfall profits tax was forecasted to raise more than $320-billion between 1980 and 1989. However, according to the CRS, the government collected only $80-billion in gross tax revenue ($146 billion in 2004 dollars). The net amount was actually less than this -- roughly $40-billion .

"CRS also found the windfall profits tax had the effect of decreasing domestic production by 3 percent to 6 percent, thereby increasing American dependence on foreign oil sources by 8 percent to 16 percent. A side effect was declining, not increasing, tax collections. Figure 1 clearly shows that while the tax raised considerable revenue in the initial years following its enactment, those revenues declined to almost nothing as the domestic industry collapsed."

So, who is going to pay for President Barack Hussein Obama's grand income redistribution scheme? You can be certain of this much... that $1000.00 check will come in handy -- if it ever comes -- particularly when the price of gasoline at the pump goes up even further, the taxes collected from the oil companies drops to 'nada', and Obama searches for other sources of revenue to make up the difference!

Who Is Going To Pay For All This?

According to Obama's campaign website:

“Barack Obama is the only candidate who has a real middle class relief plan. He will provide $1,000 in a refundable tax credit to working families, create a universal mortgage interest credit for homeowners who can't benefit from a mortgage tax incentive available to wealthier Americans, and create a $4,000 college tax credit for middle class families."

"Obama will eliminate all income taxation of seniors making less than $50,000 per year. This will provide an immediate tax cut averaging $1,400 to 7-million seniors and relieve millions from the burden of filing tax returns."

$1,400.00 times 7-million... That's $9.8 billion. A $1,000 tax credit and a $4,000 college tuition credit... we're talking hundreds of billion of dollars!

Who is going to pay for all of this? YOU ARE! That is, if it happens at all...

Remember what happened the last time a Democrat running for president promised a middle-class tax cut? In his very first campaign ad, which aired in January of 1992, Bill Clinton stated: "I'm Bill Clinton and I believe that you deserve more than 30-second ads and vague promises. That's why I've offered a comprehensive plan to get our economy moving again, to take care of our own people, and regain our economic leadership. It starts with a tax cut for the middle class and asks the rich to pay their fair share."

Within days of taking office, Clinton reneged on that promise. On nationwide television he said he 'tried as hard as he could' but just couldn't deliver! At least he 'felt our pain'. You could see the heartfelt agony in his face over breaking that promise! And then, it only took him about TWO MONTHS to push the largest tax increase in United States history on the American people through Congress! It was one of his top priorities! And like Bill Clinton, Barack Hussein Obama was never shy about taxes.

At the Democratic Presidential Debate at Howard University on June 28, 2007, Obama said: "And the Bush tax cuts--people didn't need them, and they weren't even asking for them, and that's why they need to be less, so that we can pay for universal health care and other initiatives."

In his response to the 2008 State of the Union Address, Obama stated: "[W]e know that at a time of war and economic hardship, the last thing we need is a permanent tax cut for Americans who don't need them and weren't even asking for them."

When questioned on the issue of taxes at the Democratic Presidential Debate in Los Angeles, California on January 30, 2008, Obama proudly boasted: "I'm not bashful about it."

A middle-class tax cut? It won't happen!

If we're lucky, Barack Hussein Obama will give with one hand and take (a greater amount) with the other! 'Obama giveth and Obama taketh away' (after all, some have called him a "messiah").

That's why we call it, 'income redistribution!' Giving Your Money To The World... But Obama's income redistribution schemes don't stop at the shores of the United States! Let us not forget Barack Hussein Obama's Global Poverty Act -- a bill that lays the groundwork for -- according to some estimates -- what could amount to a $845-billion United Nations tax on the people of the United States!

And just how much is $845-billion? Vincent Gioia, writing in Right Side News, translates this incomprehensible figure into language every American understands: "This amounts to a tax of over $2,000 on each man, woman and child in the United States. The foreign aid budget now stands at $300 billion; the Act would add the additional expenditure to the already huge amount allocated to assist the world."

But wait a minute, folks! The Global Poverty Act is part of a much larger United Nations scheme. The United Nations' Millennium Development Goal -- proclaimed in 2000 -- contains plans for the additional plundering of your bank account. Among their stated goals are: · a "currency transfer tax," -- that is, a tax imposed on companies and individuals who, in the course of traveling or doing international business, must exchange dollars for foreign currency;

a "tax on the rental value of land and natural resources;"
and "fees for the commercial use of the oceans, fees for airplane use of the skies,
fees for the use of the electromagnetic spectrum...
and a tax on the carbon content of fuels."

NOW is the time to take the fight to Senator Barack Hussein Obama and Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

NOW is the time to make it clear to the American people that Obama, Pelosi and Reid stand for higher taxes and more failed socialist programs that will squeeze the wealth from middle-class Americans and that we stand for lower taxes and personal prosperity.

Demand that they push the issue NOW!

Demand that they dare Barack Hussein Obama and Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid to oppose them and, in the process, force Obama, Pelosi and Reid to show their true tax-and-spend colors to the American people!

In about 30 days we will elect the next President of the United States. That's not a lot of time and there is not a moment to lose!

Let's Clear the Air!

2008-10-04T21:36:00.000-04:00

by jwright~

My opinion piece was recently printed by the Cadillac (MI) News...

A good friend of mine, a staunch liberal, recently had a partial out-of-context remark published, credited to presidential candidate Senator John McCain regarding proposed health care deregulation that read, “… as we have done over the last decade in banking...” implying that this deregulation would give health care providers an unsupervised blank check. Not so.

Let’s clear the air. Factcheck.org, an impartial Internet fact finding group, stated that was a twisting of McCain’s words referring to presidential candidate Barack Obama’s recent ad using the same incomplete, out-of-context phrase.

Here’s the full text of Senator John McCain’s statement:

“I would also allow individuals to choose to purchase health insurance across state lines, when they can find more affordable and attractive products elsewhere that they prefer. Opening up the health insurance market to more vigorous nationwide competition, as we have done over the last decade in banking, would provide more choices of innovative products less burdened by the worst excesses of state-based regulation. Consumer-friendly insurance policies will be more available and affordable when there is greater competition among insurers on a level playing field. You should be able to buy your insurance from any willing provider—the state bureaucracies are no better than national ones. Nationwide insurance markets that ensure broad and vigorous competition will wring out excess costs, overhead, and bloated executive compensation.”

As Factcheck.org also stated, “Note that McCain began by speaking of buying insurance ‘across state lines.’ His comparison with banking regulation was limited to ‘opening up the insurance market’ to ‘nationwide’ competition to ‘provide more choices’ to consumers.”

Presidential candidate Barack Obama has claimed that words have meanings. I contend if we are to use other people’s words, let’s use their entire statement in order to clarify their original intent, not to confuse and scare the voters..

CadillaqJaq
10/3/2008