This was just passed by the house 219-212. The original bill was 1090 pages. They added another 300+ pages late lastnight that noone really knows what is in them. The additional pages became available this morning at 3:09am. No one read this legislation! Now it is on the way to becoming law of the land. This is not representation period. We need a completely new government. No more Democrats or Republicans. They do not represent Americans. This country is going to come apart at the seams if this does not stop. Updated article at (Politico)

It appears that Democrats in Washington have finished their all day discussions about Climate Control. It appears that Business, then consumers are going to pay the price for this program. (Wall Street Journal)

Read the rest of this entry »

common sense, government, taxes | 3 Comments »

     A Fellow Blogger at independenceinexile.blogspot.com has been really staying on top of the Iran situation. All of the discussions about the situation are important to those here in the U.S. that feel our government is ignoring us. Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: independenceinexhile, iran

common sense, corruption, dangerous countries, government, morals and ethics, rights | No Comments »

Imagine you come to work one day, let’s say a Wednesday, and all seems well. It is the middle of the week and you are going about your normal business when you get a phone call. You are surprised to hear a member of the President’s staff on the other end. They are demanding your resignation from your job! What would you do? Would you say OK and get to typing, or would you stand on principle and demand to find out what is going on?

Read the rest of this entry »

Tags: americorps, fired inspector general, foxnews, gerald walpin, Obama

Obama, common sense, corruption, government, morals and ethics | 1 Comment »

This is a great cartoon. It is a Rob Smith Jr. cartoon. I found it on the Glenn Beck page.

Think they are scared now?

Think they are scared now?

Tags: cartoon, glenn beck, Obama, rob smith

Funny | 3 Comments »

One World Leader had this to say about what is currently going on in Iran

“The extent of the fraud is proportional to the violent reaction,” [blank] said Tuesday. “It is a tragedy, but it is not negative to have a real-opinion movement that tries to break its chains.”

“If Ahmadinejad has really made progress since the last election and if he really represents two thirds of the electorate… why has this violence erupted?” asked the [blank] leader.

(from PressTv)

And another said

My understanding is, is that the Iranian government says that they are going to look into irregularities that have taken place.  We weren’t on the ground, we did not have observers there, we did not have international observers on hand, so I can’t state definitively one way or another what happened with respect to the election.  But what I can say is that there appears to be a sense on the part of people who were so hopeful and so engaged and so committed to democracy who now feel betrayed.  And I think it’s important that, moving forward, whatever investigations take place are done in a way that is not resulting in bloodshed and is not resulting in people being stifled in expressing their views.

Give up?  The first was the French President Sarkozy and the Second was the President of the United States.  Never in my life did I think that I think I would be telling another nation to go look at the French for inspiration as opposed to the Leader of the Free World.

The president seems to think that the goons that stole the election will investigate and … what exactly? I didn’t have observers on the ground either but I have a pretty good idea of what happened.

Mr. Obama likes to throw Reagan around a lot, why not follow this example (here and here)

The people of Poland are giving us an imperishable example of courage and devotion to the values of freedom in the face of relentless opposition.

Tags: election, iran, Obama, reagan, sakozy

Obama, morals and ethics | 2 Comments »

This was a letter sent to Glenn Beck from a listener that he had on the radio program yesterday. Can you identify with this letter.

I’m a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me.

     There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you’re willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now. You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would horribly feel so disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut job am I? Will you please tell me? Well, these are briefly my views and issues for which I seek representation:

-  One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I’m not a racist. This isn’t to be confused with legal immigration. 

 -  Two, the TARP bill, I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you no, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

-  Three: Czars, I want the circumvention of our checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution and honor it.

-  Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There is more to say.

-  Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision. Don’t you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night and then go on break. Slow down!

-  Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real obligations. Why don’t you start there.

-  Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes. Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census over with our taxpayer money. I don’t trust them with our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

-  Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs. That is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person. Why do you want me to hate my employers? Why ‑‑ what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

-  Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

-  Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we’ll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. Have you ever ripped off a Band‑Aid? We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

-  Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let’s have it. Let’s say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please try ‑‑ please stop manipulating and trying to appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

-  Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Let’s just slow down and get some input from some nonpoliticians on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I’m busy. I’m busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave. I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not. It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance.

     Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is such urgency and recklessness in all of the recent spending. From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back.

     You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on you to bring our concerns to Washington. Our president often knows all the right buzzword is unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don’t want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we’re morons. We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done.

     You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented. You think we’re so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work , pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone and we are now looking up at you. You have awakened us, the patriotic spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office.

     We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn’t ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us when hewill rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution. Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don’t care. Political parties are meaningless to us.

     Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you.

     If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming. We the people are coming.

Conservatives, Obama, We The People, common sense, corruption, morals and ethics, rights | 1 Comment »

There are more of us than of them.

According to Gallop

Thus far in 2009, 40% of Americans interviewed in national Gallup Poll surveys describe their political views as conservative, 35% as moderate, and 21% as liberal. This represents a slight increase for conservatism in the U.S. since 2008, returning it to a level last seen in 2004. The 21% calling themselves liberal is in line with findings throughout this decade, but is up from the 1990s.

Anyone think the recent uptick is the realization of what ‘Liberal’ means? We’ve started nationalizing banks, car companies, raising taxes, and looking at socialized medicine and suddenly there are more conservatives than there were last year?

Tags: Conservatives, gallop, poll

Conservatives, common sense | 4 Comments »

Think about the last time you went to the DMV.  Even if the person behind the counter was pleasent and trying to help you, as was my case, you still had to wait in line or make appointments that were not kept, jump through government hurdles that didn’t seem to make any sense, and that was just to get a new driver’s license.

Take a listen to the health care plan being proposed by Ted Kennedy (via Bloomberg)

“Our health-care system is a crisis for American families, and President Obama and members of Congress of both parties recognize the urgency of the problem,” Kennedy, a Massachusetts Democrat and chairman of the Senate health committee, said in a statement today. “Our goal is to strengthen what works and fix what doesn’t.”

The legislation would require all Americans to have health insurance, prohibit insurers from refusing to cover pre-existing conditions and place other restrictions on the industry. It would establish online exchanges where the uninsured and employees of small companies could shop for affordable insurance policies.

…

The effort to overhaul health care would affect an industry that makes up 17 percent of the U.S. economy.

Think about the phrase ‘place other restrictions on the industry’.  What this essentially means is that the government will be telling insurance companies, more-so than they do now, the type of insurance they can cover.  They will do this by creating a giant beauracracy that will look over health plans, tell companies that they aren’t doing it right and will eventually force those prices to go up until more people are forced onto the public insurance plans.  Picture going to the DMV to get your insurance, schedule Drs appointments, and get surgeries taken care of.

Other countries have tried it.  Canada for instance, who our friends like to point to as being more enlightened as their American Cousins, have a Health Care plan similar to this.  They made it mandatory for everyone to have insurance (in their case it is now all through the government) and what has been the result?

The NCPA says

The median wait time for Canadians seeking surgical or other therapeutic treatment dropped to 17.3 weeks in 2008 from 18.3 weeks in 2007, according to new research published by the Fraser Institute.

• This year’s report shows the main decrease in wait times occurred in the time between a referral from a general practitioner and consultation with a specialist, which decreased to 8.5 weeks from 9.2 weeks.
• The 2008 survey shows the median wait time between seeing a specialist and receiving treatment dropped to 8.7 weeks in 2008 from 9.1 weeks in 2007.

So basically your primary doctor says ‘you need surgery’ and it takes 17 weeks to get it (actually the whole report says in some providences the average was closer to 27 weeks, but we’ll give the enlightened ones a break on this one).

So, what’s an alternative to DMVCare?

One plan that I personally think is worth looking at is the idea of portable health care coverage.  Stop making Health Care something that goes from job to job and make it more akin to car insurance.  I shop around for my car insurance and buy what I want.  Make health insurance similar, eg, if I’m a college student with no defendants and all I want is catastrophic, done.  If I’m a small family and I want to cover broken arms and pregnancies with insurance but don’t care about birth control, etc, ok.

Let health care companies sell à la cart plans much in the way that I can get basic coverage, full coverage, etc from my car insurance company.  If you lost your job and wanted to take your health insurance with you your company wouldn’t even be involved in the transaction.

Where would you get the extra money?  Well, if you were a smart consumer and buying a plan tailored for your needs it would be, hopefully, cheaper than it is now and you would also have the right to demand the money your employer is paying for health insurance now as part of your salary so your gross salary would go up.  Since you would be in charge there would be less paperwork involved from a employer<->employee<->insurance standpoint and efficency would go up.  All of this would increase your health care dollar’s effectiveness.

One of the things that stands in the way of this idea is that there is too much government regulation now.  In many instances a state will mandate that an insurance company will cover silly things like ‘liposuction’ or ‘toupees’ so if I’m a guy comfortable with my weight and hairline I am still paying for those things on my insurance.  Another regulation in the way is that many times conflicting regulations make it impossible for one insurance company in one state to offer it in another, or at least they have to offer a different plan.

Removing all of these regulations and returning health care to what it should be, a sell-able commodity, would go a long way to giving people who want health care access to it.

Tags: canada, government, health care, kennedy, money

medical | 1 Comment »

You know our move toward a more socialist country is out of control when criticism comes from the former Soviet Union! 

Merge of U.S. and Soviet Ideas

 Socialists mainly share the belief that capitalism unfairly concentrates power and wealth among a small segment of society that controls capital, creates an unequal society, and does not provide equal opportunities for everyone in society. (Wikipedia) This is what I believe to be Obama’s understanding and guiding factor for his vision in his presidency

     An article in Pravda online magazine speaks of our march toward Marxism and blatant this move is. The author, Stanislav Mishin, has written about how American capitalism is dying. Piece by piece it is disappearing.

     Our Government is making moves that are unheard of in a free market society. Some steps involve communist ideas such as common ownership. GM, AIG are examples of this. Others are socialist in nature. Equality for all no matter how hard one works is a central idea here. Marxism , however is leading us into this future that very few people realize or want. Marxism is an economic political theory by which law is considered an instrument of oppression and control, and which the ruling class uses against the working class. (Wikipedia)

     The government is the true ruling class and they are using the rule of law to oppress the way of life in the United States. Our Government officials do not truly represent us anymore. They represent their own political agendas. Our ability to enact change is a smoke screen and the proverbial carrot on a string.  It seems as though the government is getting in business for themselves. The only way they can pay for all these large entitlement programs is to get income from business. Taxes are not enough to feed the insatiable appetite of the larger government programs. Mishin recognizes this. He has been writing on the fall of U.S. Capitalism for some time. In October of 2008 Mishin wrote another article for the Pravda online news outlet. It can be found here at the Information Clearing House.

     His perspective is one of a person who lived in a communist country that was headed toward severe socialism. Now Russia is much more open. They are still a mixture of communism and capitalism, but they are polar opposites of the once massive Cold war Russia. They have embraced the ideas of free market capitalism for the most part. They also involve the people much more in their decision making.  The point, is that they went the opposite direction. We are moving backwards.

     Ex. It is like two cars passing in opposite directions on a two lane road. Russia is driving away from the cliff having climbed out of the cavern at it’s end. The United States seems to be ignoring that fact that the Russian car is driving away. We are driving at the cliff at 100mph.

     Our Driver, evidently knows of an invisible bridge or is completely blind. Hopefully we find out before the bottom of the cavern swallows us whole and China takes over the world.

     A lot of smart people are warning of what is going on and how we are getting there. We are getting there by borrowing from everyone in the world to the point where it is going to be virtually impossible to repay our debts. Glenn Beck is speaking out against these moves daily. Ben Bernanke, our Fed Chairman even said today while at a hearing on Capital Hill, “large U.S. budget deficits threaten financial stability and the government can’t continue indefinitely to borrow at the current rate to finance the shortfall.” He also said,  “Unless we demonstrate a strong commitment to fiscal sustainability in the longer term, we will have neither financial stability nor healthy economic growth.” (courtesy of Bloomberg) Even if his political views are parallel to the President’s and his administration, Bernanke knows we can not keep the faucet open forever.

     Let’s hope the government heads his warnings. The Fed Chairman was practicing the idea of (CYA) to the American people today! We are in dangerous territory and he is protecting himself.

Tags: Bernanke, Bloomberg, capitalism, Pravda, russia, socialism, Socialist

Budget, We The People, common sense, economy, government | No Comments »

Eminent Domain is the idea that the state can take a piece of land or house, etc, at a fair price, so they can build a road or something for the public good.  Not too long ago the Supreme Court, wrongly in my opinion, expanded this to say the government could take the land from one private organization to another for development purposes (Kelo v City of New London, FindLaw.com, WikiPedia.com).

What does this have to do with Sotomayor?

She was also on the panel that decided the 2006 case of Didden v. The Village of Port Chester by unpublished summary order.

The important part of that sentence is ‘unpublished summary order’, which I’ll come back to in a bit.  The case was this

The case involved what can fairly be described as an extortionate use of the state’s power of eminent domain. Bart Didden wanted to build a CVS pharmacy on land he owned. A politically powerful developer wanted to build a Walgreens on the same spot, so he “asked” for $800,000 cash or a 50 percent stake – or else he’d have the town seize Mr. Didden’s property. Didden refused and Port Chester took his land the very next day.

Instead of exploring the obvious differences between that case and the Supreme Court’s controversial decision in Kelo v. City of New London, Sotomayor and her colleagues issued an unpublished decision, devoting but a single paragraph to conclude that there was “no basis upon which relief can be granted.” Moreover, the panel made a wholly inappropriate factual finding that the $800,000 cash “offer” was not extortion but merely “voluntary attempts” to resolve the case. Didden – and property owners everywhere – deserved a better airing of his constitutional challenge.

(Both of the previous quotes from CsMonitor.com)

Basically a town takes a guy’s land, gives it to another guy and this Judge does not even actually listen to the case (that’s the ‘unpublished summary order’ bit).  She basically says ‘nope, not going to listen to this case, I don’t have to, I’m a judge and oh, here’s a case Kelo v City of New London that sort of supports me’.  Even a cursory glance at the facts of the case reveals that the case was not really about eminent domain but rather about extortion (and probably some dirty politicians).

Really, this is the person we want on the bench?

Tags: sotomayor

Supreme Court | 2 Comments »