Obama, Broadway and the Bada Bing

Maybe it’s just me… but I don’t think Obama gets it.

I think our President made a mistake by having date night in New York.   After knowing that additional employees were laid-off indefinitely by GM and other companies earlier in the week, our President decides that keeping his promise to his wife was more important than the economic crisis that faces America.  He promised the Queen that after the campaign, they’d take in a Broadway show, and darn it, he meant to keep that promise.  No matter what the sacrifice or the cost to the American people.

Taking a look at this whole fiasco, I feel like I am watching a new episode of the Sopranos.  No…the series did not end in that diner…here is proof.  A whole new cast is set for this new season…

President Obama  lives by his own self interests…he does not have to live to any standard other than his own.  He just dictates how everyone else will live their lives. (bada bing)

How much did it cost?  He is not telling… nor is his staff.  With the help from the Washington Times…let’s take a look at this a little closer…

In an odd twist left unexamined by the media (no surprise here), the White House on Monday said it simply would not release the cost of President Obama’s weekend jaunt to New York City, where the First Couple had dinner and caught a Broadway show.   Spokesman Robert Gibbs, keeping the White House press corps in stitches, as he always does, said the Obamas would have preferred using a commercial airline shuttle to New York and back, but the Secret Service would not allow such unprotected travel.  (bada bing)

And that was that.  No further probing; asked and answered; time to move on.  And move on he did…right into this little video release of Obama telling us that the sacrifices already made would be for the better life for our children.  I find it hard to accept that Mr. Obama is  really concerned for their future considering the 10 trillion dollar debt  he has placed on the heads of our children and grandchildren. (bada bing)

Who exactly is the “we” he refers to?  Surely he isn’t referring to himself.  Where is the sacrifice that “he”  made?  Maybe he and Michelle did not get an extra bag of peanuts on the flight.  (bada bing)

That was, of course, an ironic element of the trip.   In February, Obama scolded corporate executives (while also costing Las Vegas some $130 million) when he said: “You can’t get corporate jets. You can’t go take a trip to Las Vegas, or go down to the Super Bowl on the taxpayers’ dime.” (bada bing)

Did he not take the trip to New York on the tax payers dime?   Is there any thing different about this than our criticism  for the excesses of corporate America?  Why are we not upset about this?  Union and Non-Union employees are being laid off by the thousands and yet they will continue to blindly “vote” for the democrats…the same democrats that are telling you now to sacrifice…but remember that sacrifice only applies to you. (bada bing)

The media response of the trip has been tempered, with the exception of village idiot Chris Mathews of Hardball on MSNBC.   He rants and raves about the “disdain” and “lack of thought and culture” of George Bush.  That in itself was the reason that the trip was acceptable for the tax payers to foot the bill.   Mathhews claims of “cheap shots” of the Republican party for being angry of a President that has “Interests”.  I agree he has “interests”…  his own selfish interests. (bada bing)

Wake up people this is all happening under our noses.  Is this really the change you wanted?  Are we really better off?

One early estimate (from the New York Post) put the cost at $24,000. Absurdly low. The Daily Mail in London threw out another number — $75,000. Sure, three times as much as the first estimate, but still probably spectacularly low. Remember, joyriding Air Force One around for a few hours over Manhattan a couple months ago cost $250,000, so the cost of the weekend trip was likely not likely that low.

While the White House is simply refusing to say how much taxpayer money it spent, here’s a helpful way to calculate the cost of the trip:

First, the First Couple (and entourage) flew from the White House to Andrews Air Force Base — three choppers (two decoys), if the Marines stuck to standard operating procedure (and they are sticklers for SOP). That means dozens of men and women — radar, communications, mechanics, crews, everyone, perhaps 100, who knows? — were involved. (A batch of tagalongs must’ve taken a taxpayer pool of vehicles out from the White House to AAFB, since it took three jets to get the gang to NYC).

Second, the president moving on a Saturday takes a full operation at and around the White House, dozens and dozens of people. Maybe they’re all on salary, so that didn’t likely cost much. But all the cops involved — D.C. police, uniformed Secret Service officers, Capitol police — were probably paid overtime, even double time. Probably, again, 100 personnel or so.

Then there were the jets — at least $24,000 for the three aircraft used to ferry the Obamas, aides and reporters to New York. The Obamas’ jet, a Gulfstream 500, served as Air Force One.

Third, a C-17 had to fly to NYC to put in place a full motorcade (at least a dozen vehicles, maybe more). The military cargo plane may have taken up at least two, but maybe three, more choppers to fly the whole party from JFK to a Wall Street landing zone, where the motorcade was waiting. If not, the choppers flew there solo (White House veteran reporter Mark Knoller of CBS Radio wrote recently that “The VH-3D that serves as Marine One consumes about 1,200 pounds of fuel per hour.” Ouch. (bada bing)

Fourth, driving through Manhattan is an expensive exercise. Dozens, perhaps hundreds, of NYPD have to be stationed all along the way, shutting down roads, holding back pedestrians. There were police cars involved, dozens of motorcycles, and the ever-present NYC ambulance (oh, don’t forget that the White House doctor also probably went — with all his gear). The city likely gets reimbursed by the White House for the cost (they usually do). And they were all probably getting time and a half (the NYPD overtime budget is extraordinary).

Fifth, the United States Secret Service (USSS) had to scope out the whole thing, then station agents all over — sharpshooters, undercover agents, etc. — at a huge cost. Who knows if they were on overtime. And if you think they went up Saturday morning, think again. They were likely in NYC upwards of a week before, planning the whole evening, every second of every movement. They had to map out five movements — from JFK to the Wall Street LZ, then a motorcade to the restaurant, then another motorcade to the play, then a final motorcade back to the LZ, then a chopper flight to JFK, before the First Couple and crew jetted back to AAFB for another chopper to the White House.

One thing is known — The Obamas picked up the cost of dinner costs and their orchestra seat tickets, which cost $96.50 a piece. So if the whole thing cost $250,000, the Obamas offset that by at least a few hundred bucks.  Phew.

Thank you Mr. President for your sacrifice…(bada bing)

I don’t know about you…but I think our President just doesn’t get it…or maybe he does…

Either way, I believe we are in more trouble than we have ever could have imagined.

But then again, maybe it’s just me.

Obama is Starting to Sound Like McCain

Maybe it’s just me…

but Obama is starting to sound a lot like John McCain these days.

This week, President Obama said, “if we are keeping focused on all the fundamentally sound aspects of our economy, all the outstanding companies, workers, all the innovation, and dynamism in this country, then we’re going to get through this. And I’m very confident about that.”

It seems like ages ago, but when John McCain came out in September and said the “fundamentals of the economy are strong” candidate Obama responded furiously, in what became a defining moment of the campaign.

Here is a video of  Obama’s  response to McCain’s  statement that the “Fundamentals of the Economy are strong”

Now we have Obama come out and say basically the same thing…

During the presidential campaign, then candidate Obama pilloried Republican nominee Sen. John McCain when he made similar remarks on the state of the economy. Back in September, John McCain expressed confidence in the nation’s economy, saying that the fundamentals of the economy were, “strong.” Obama attacked McCain for the remark, saying that it showed just how out of touch the Arizona Senator was with the struggles of average Americans.

But by almost any measure, the economy was in better shape in September than it is today. The Dow Jones Industrial Average is off more than 3,000 points since McCain made his remarks on September 15. Unemployment is up two percent from 6.1% in September to 8.1 percent today, including more than 650,000 jobs lost just last month. Consumer confidence stands at a near record-low of 25.0, down from 64 in September.

President Obama has been criticized for talking down the economy. Given all the bad economic news of late, his sudden shift from being the harbinger of economic bad news to the economy’s cheerleader-in-chief can be nothing but pure political posturing.

As far as that is concerned…I am sick of this political posturing going on in Washington.  The double standard that is given to Obama and his policies  is unbelievable.

I can’t wait until 2012.

Buy then again, maybe it’s  just me.

51% of Democrats Wanted Bush to Fail

Maybe it’s just me…

but don’t you think it so hypocritical that…

51% of Liberals wanted Bush to Fail in 2006

The left is apoplectic because Rush Limbaugh dared to say that he hopes Barack Obama’s policies fail, and the media is driving this story into the ground. Yet, where were they when the liberals wanted George W. Bush to fail? Hypocrites!

Remember, in the case of Bush, this wish for failure involved a war with the lives of our troops on the line. Yet, a majority of Democrats were chomping at the bit for Bush and the war against terror to be an utter failure. Also, consider this factor: if the liberals wanted “Bush’s” war against terror to fail, who would be the winner? The terrorists, that’s who. Talk about treasonous!

Read from Hot Air about a 2006 poll regarding whether Americans wanted Bush to succeed or fail:
http://hotair.com/archives/2009/03/09/guess-who-also-wanted-a-president-to-fail/

Guess who also wanted a president to fail?;  And the military?

“Patterico dusts off a 2006 poll from Fox News that plumbs the history of wishing failure a little more thoroughly than the media seems to want to do on their own. The question of wishing success or failure is not new; Fox explicitly asked that very question to its survey respondents. Fifty-one percent of Democrats wanted to see George Bush fail:
http://patterico.com/2009/03/08/democrats-have-no-right-to-be-snooty-about-rush-not-wanting-the-president-to-succeed/
http://www.foxnews.com/projects/pdf/FOX_230_release_web.pdf

Even 34% of independents said they wanted to see Bush fail. This came after Katrina and in the middle of the deluge of sectarian violence in Iraq, and not long before Bush’s second midterms. Three months later, Republicans lost Congress and Donald Rumsfeld got the boot. Bush was not terribly popular then, and it didn’t get better for him afterwards.

We didn’t hear screams of outrage in the media when this survey showed a majority of Democrats wanting “our President” to fail. Nor should we have; our democratic republic uses competing political interests as its own check on extremism. Some people had a legitimate policy interest in hoping that Bush would fail, and some had less legitimate reasons, but few screeched “TREASON” at these results. No one in the media found the idea that an opponent of Bush might wish him failure particularly noteworthy in 2006, either.

Now the 51% of Democrats who wanted Bush to fail in 2006 suddenly get the vapors when the tables turn and the hero of Hope and Change is in the White House.  Maybe they’re just not used to having to play defense. The way they act, they won’t have to play it for long.

I recently was blasted by one of my co-workers because I was not being a “good” American because I was not supporting the President.  This well meaning individual asked me why I had to be so negative and that now was the time for all of us to show unity.   I told him that actually I was more Patriotic now than ever…because I was able to state my own opinion… and I asked him where his “unity” was 2 years ago when all he did was bash Bush.  Like most Democrats I know, he really did not know how to respond to that.

The bottom line is this… I want America to succeed… America is not Obama.

Last I read…our Constitution says, “We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.”

Here is a link to the Constitution  http://www.usconstitution.net/const.html#A2Sec1

It states “We the people…” not “President Obama”.

Obama’s success is irrelevant just as Bush’s success or failure was irrelevant.

Like it or not Obama is the President, but that doesn’t mean I have to want him to succeed.

This is indeed America…I will continue to voice my opinion and I will give others the same opportunity.  But I have NO obligation to show unity nor show support for a President that is leading us down a path of a Socialistic form of government.

But then again,  maybe it’s just me.

I’m the Taxman…

Maybe It’s just me…

but Lennon & McCartney had it right 40 years ago…

One, two, three, four…
Hrmm!
One, two, (one, two, three, four!)

Let me tell you how it will be;
There’s one for you, nineteen for me.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Should five per cent appear too small,
Be thankful I don’t take it all.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

(if you drive a car) – I’ll tax the street;
(if you try to sit) – I’ll tax your seat;
(if you get too cold) – I’ll tax the heat;
(if you take a walk) – I’ll tax your feet.

Taxman!

‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Don’t ask me what I want it for,

If you don’t want to pay some more.
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

Now my advice for those who die, (taxman)
Declare the pennies on your eyes. (taxman)
‘Cause I’m the taxman,
Yeah, I’m the taxman.

And you’re working for no one but me.

Taxman!

Take a look at this…

Not one of the taxes listed below existed 100 years ago…and yet our nation was the most prosperous in the world.

We had absolutely no national debt….We had the largest middle class in the world…and Mom could stay home to raise the kids.

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax Federal Income Tax

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

This is just a short list of taxes we are subject to.

There will be more on the horizon.

This is what is around the corner when it comes to our tax liability now that we have a “Trillion Dollar” porkulus bill.

It is only a matter of time and certainty.

Is it too early to say I told you so? We are not even into a month of Obama’s term in office and we have had embarrassing cabinet resignations, offensive remarks made by his staff, signs of Government threats and intimidation made by our own President and a reckless pork laden stimulus bill that has guarrenteed an extreme tax burden on us, our children and grandchildren.

It is keeping me up at night wondering what the next few months will bring…

We have no one to blame but ourselves… we could have stopped this from happening.

As President Obama gives his best “It’s going to get worse before it gets better” speech tonight,  I wonder if the ground around Ronald Reagan’s tomb isn’t turned up from all the tossing and turning he will do tonight listening to all the socialist, left-wing,  I’m the taxman and you work for me rhetoric coming from OUR Whitehouse.

But then again…maybe it’s just me.

The Fierce Urgency of Pork

“A failure to act, and act now, will turn crisis into a catastrophe.”

– President Obama, Feb. 4.

Catastrophe, mind you.

So much for the president who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.”  Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill. 

And so much for the promise to banish the money changers and influence peddlers from the temple. An ostentatious executive order banning lobbyists was immediately followed by the nomination of at least a dozen current or former lobbyists to high position. Followed by a Treasury secretary who allegedly couldn’t understand the payroll tax provisions in his 1040. Followed by Tom Daschle, who had to fall on his sword according to the new Washington rule that no Cabinet can have more than one tax delinquent.

The Daschle affair was more serious because his offense involved more than taxes. As Michael Kinsley once observed, in Washington the real scandal isn’t what’s illegal, but what’s legal. Not paying taxes is one thing. But what made this case intolerable was the perfectly legal dealings that amassed Daschle $5.2 million in just two years.

He’d been getting $1 million per year from a law firm. But he’s not a lawyer, nor a registered lobbyist. You don’t get paid this kind of money to instruct partners on the Senate markup process. You get it for picking up the phone and peddling influence.

At least Tim Geithner, the tax-challenged Treasury secretary, had been working for years as a humble international civil servant earning non-stratospheric wages. Daschle, who had made another cool million a year (plus chauffeur and Caddy) for unspecified services to a pal’s private equity firm, represented everything Obama said he’d come to Washington to upend.

And yet more damaging to Obama’s image than all the hypocrisies in the appointment process is his signature bill: the stimulus package. He inexplicably delegated the writing to Nancy Pelosi and the barons of the House. The product, which inevitably carries Obama’s name, was not just bad, not just flawed, but a legislative abomination.

It’s not just pages and pages of special-interest tax breaks, giveaways and protections, one of which would set off a ruinous Smoot-Hawley trade war. It’s not just the waste, such as the $88.6 million for new construction for Milwaukee Public Schools, which, reports the Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, have shrinking enrollment, 15 vacant schools and, quite logically, no plans for new construction.

It’s the essential fraud of rushing through a bill in which the normal rules (committee hearings, finding revenue to pay for the programs) are suspended on the grounds that a national emergency requires an immediate job-creating stimulus — and then throwing into it hundreds of billions that have nothing to do with stimulus, that Congress’s own budget office says won’t be spent until 2011 and beyond, and that are little more than the back-scratching, special-interest, lobby-driven parochialism that Obama came to Washington to abolish. He said.

Not just to abolish but 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. Turns out the “fierce urgency of now” includes $150 million for livestock (and honeybee and farm-raised fish) insurance.

The Age of Obama begins with perhaps the greatest frenzy of old-politics influence peddling ever seen in Washington. By the time the stimulus bill reached the Senate, reports the Wall Street Journal, pharmaceutical and high-tech companies were lobbying furiously for a new plan to repatriate overseas profits that would yield major tax savings. California wine growers and Florida citrus producers were fighting to change a single phrase in one provision. Substituting “planted” for “ready to market” would mean a windfall garnered from a new “bonus depreciation” incentive.

After Obama’s miraculous 2008 presidential campaign, it was clear that at some point the magical mystery tour would have to end. The nation would rub its eyes and begin to emerge from its reverie. The hallucinatory Obama would give way to the mere mortal. The great ethical transformations promised would be seen as a fairy tale that all presidents tell — and that this president told better than anyone.

I thought the awakening would take six months. It took two and a half weeks.

By Charles Krauthammer  (Washington Post)

Friday, February 6, 2009

I couldn’t have said it better myself…

But then again… maybe it’s just me.

Never Let a Serious Crisis go to to Waste

Maybe it’s just me…but…

I never would have believed that in the two weeks since we spent $150 Million on the inauguration,  would be jamming a $825 billion House legislation bill down our throats.

WELCOME TO THE CHANGE EVERYONE WANTED…WELCOME TO BIG GOVERNMENT

The Democratic Motto, per Rahm Emanuel:

“Never let a serious crisis go to waste. What I mean by that is it’s an opportunity to do things you couldn’t do before.”

This “stimulus plan” is a political pork- laden deception that has us passing the debt and burden of this debacle on to our grandchildren.   Just about every proposal that was presented by the Democratic Party for the past 40 years  is going to get renewed life and funding in this plan.  I can’t believe that this “stimulus plan” includes the following:

1. $1 billion for Amtrak, the federal railroad that hasn’t turned a profit in 40 years.
2. $2 billion for child-care subsidies.
3. $50 million for that great engine of job creation, the National Endowment for the Arts. (ever heard of Maplethorp?)
   
4. $400 million for global-warming research  (Been to Ohio lately?)
   
5. $2.4 billion for carbon-capture demonstration projects.  (Seriously…?)
   
6. $650 million on top of the billions already doled out to pay for digital TV conversion coupons. (we have been hearing about this for two years…are people really that ignorant?)
   

In selling the plan, President Obama has said this bill will make “dramatic investments to revive our flagging economy.”

Well, you be the judge…

1. $30 billion, or less than 5% of the spending in the bill, is for fixing bridges or other highway projects.
   
2. $40 billion for broadband and electric grid development, airports and clean water projects that are arguably worthwhile priorities.
   
3. $20 billion for business tax cuts
4. Only $90 billion out of $825 billion, or about 12 cents of every $1, is for something that can plausibly be considered a growth stimulus.
   

• Most of the rest of this project spending will go to such things as renewable energy funding ($8 billion) or mass transit ($6 billion) that have a low or negative return on investment.

• Most urban transit systems are so badly managed that their fares cover less than half of their costs. However, the people who operate these systems belong to public-employee unions that are campaign contributors to . . . guess which party?

And if all of this was not enough…

1. Congress wants to spend $600 million more for the federal government to buy new cars. Uncle Sam already spends $3 billion a year on its fleet of 600,000 vehicles.
   
2. Congress also wants to spend $7 billion for modernizing federal buildings and facilities. The Smithsonian is targeted to receive $150 million; we love the Smithsonian, too, but is this a job creator?
   
3. Another “stimulus” secret is that some $252 billion is for income-transfer payments — that is, not investments that arguably help everyone, but cash or benefits to individuals for doing nothing at all.  For example…
   

• $81 billion for Medicaid
• $36 billion for expanded unemployment benefits
• $20 billion for food stamps
• $83 billion for the earned income credit for people who don’t pay income tax.
  

While some of that may be justified to help poorer Americans ride out the recession, they aren’t job creators.

As for the promise of accountability…

• $54 billion will go to federal programs that the Office of Management and Budget or the Government Accountability Office have already criticized as “ineffective” or unable to pass basic financial audits. These include the Economic Development Administration, the Small Business Administration, the 10 federal job training programs, and many more.

Oh, and don’t forget education, which would get $66 billion more. That’s more than the entire Education Department spent a mere 10 years ago and is on top of the doubling under President Bush.

• Some $6 billion of this will subsidize university building projects. If you think the intention here is to help kids learn, the House declares on page 257 that “No recipient . . . shall use such funds to provide financial assistance to students to attend private elementary or secondary schools.”
  

The larger fiscal issue here is whether this spending bonanza will become part of the annual “budget baseline” that Congress uses as the new floor when calculating how much to increase spending the following year, and into the future. Democrats insist that it will not. But it’s hard — no, impossible — to believe that Congress will cut spending next year on any of these programs from their new, higher levels.  The likelihood is that this allegedly emergency spending will become a permanent addition to federal outlays — increasing pressure for tax increases in the bargain.

This is supposed to be a new era of bipartisanship, but this bill was written based on the wish list of every living — or dead — Democratic interest group.

As Speaker Nancy Pelosi put it, “We won the election. We wrote the bill.”

So they did.

Republicans should let them take all of the credit.

Personally, I think we need to wrap all this information up and place it in a time capsule.  Have that capsule scheduled to be opened in 40 years.  That way our great grandchildren can better understand how we sold their future down the sewer all in the name of CHANGE.

But then again…maybe it’s just me…

What’s a Few Billion Among Friends?

Maybe it’s just me but…

Saying the word BILLION can be fun.  Try it.

First of all… let’s all say it together…  BILLION… now spell it

B. I. L. L. I.O.N.

Pronunciation:

\ˈbi(l)-yən\

Function:

noun

Now take the time to say Billion…900 times. That should take you about 15 minutes to do.

Now try and count to a billion…

Counting non-stop, at one number a second (not humanly possible, but if you could)…it would  take you 31 years, 251 days, 7 hours, 46 minutes. and 39 seconds to count to one billion.

Multiply that by 900 to count to 900,000,000,000 and it would take you…

28,542 years, 240 days, 18 hours and 25 minutes. (Give or take a few seconds)

Now THAT would be great fun if we had the time but… there is nothing funny about Congress wanting to spend close to $900 Billion or more to bail out Lending Institutions, Wall Street and the US Automotive makers…all masked as a “stimulus” package.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend, but one advertising agency did a good job of putting that figure into some perspective in one of it’s releases.

A.  A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.  A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.  A billion hours ago our ancestors were living in the Stone Age.

D.  A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth.

E.  A billion dollars ago is only 8 hours and 20 minutes, at the rate
our government is spending it.

So..the next time you hear anyone use the word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about the impact of the ‘politicians’ spending YOUR tax money by bailing out every organization known to man.

Where does this end? Will this be our future?

It’s a cynical world we live in today… everybody wants theirs.

The whole issue of $900 Billion should upset all Americans… but today I found myself not being upset at the condition of our economy or any of the problems of we face today.  The only thing that really pissed me off was that I had to press ‘1′ for English.  I am ashamed.

$900 Billion…a Trillion or whatever it ends up being… all of this is happened under our watch…we all are responsible.  This is not about Democrats vs. Republicans or even Conservatism vs. Liberalism.  We as AMERICANS are to blame.  We should really be pissed at ourselves.  We allowed our politicians to do our own thinking for us and we will pay the price for not doing something about holding them accountable.  More importantly…why didn’t we hold ourselves accountable?  Why do we think someone should always “bail” us out?  Our borders are not safe, we have a serious illegal alien problem, our educational system is broke, Health care costs are out of control, unemployment is at 8% …need I go on?  I am afraid that we all are going to have to swallow a jagged little pill and deal with the consequences for quite a while before it gets better. The payment and the debt is past due and payday is LONG way off.  We cannot put a check in the mail and hope it clears the bank…it’s time to reap what we have sown. I hope I am wrong…but I don’t think so.

I have tried to sit down and rationalize the whole issue. Maybe I am taking this way to seriously…I mean what’s a few BILLION dollars among friends…right?  Spread the wealth, they say, take some from them (but not me)…send some here and drop some there…just don’t look like you’re enjoying it cause there would be political implications.  And most of all, for the love of God, don’t let anyone know you are doing it to pay off what you owe to them for their vote.

But then again, maybe it’s just me…

President Barrack Obama, I’ve Been Wrong All Along

Well, it’s almost nine o’clock on election night, and it’s a foregone conclusion that Barack Obama is the new president. I was upset by this at first, but then I realized something, something that has set me free.

I’ve realized that I’ve been wrong all along.

Let me explain. I was raised by well-meaning, but obviously deluded parents. They worked hard to instill in me the same misconceptions they themselves grew up with, and as a result I have been a victim of those misconceptions my entire life. Thus, when I saw that the most liberal-minded democratic candidate of all time was about to assume the presidency, those life-long, deeply ingrained misunderstandings led me to believe that this would be an awful, even frightening thing. “How is it,” I thought to myself, “That the majority of this country can fanatically support a man who represents the exact opposite of the ideals I was raised with?” And for the first time in my life, I asked a question that very few people ever honestly pose to themselves: Is it possible I am wrong and they are right?

It was an epiphany. I am shocked and amazed that it took me so long to realize how wrong I have been. And I have to tell you, it is extremely freeing to come over to the other side.

But I fear I am not being as specific as I should be. Like those who suffer from the disease of alcoholism, the first step to healing is admitting one’s specific problem. Let me take a deep breath and face this.

I was raised to believe in personal responsibility. It was, in fact, the cornerstone of my family’s belief system. I was taught that if I was ever to succeed, it was up to me to do the hard work of making it happen. I was told that no one would give me a free lunch. I was made to buy my own first car and pay my own way through college. As an adult, I have struggled and worked long, hard jobs, all because I believed it was my responsibility to take care of myself and my family. In short, my life view was summed up by the idea that I, and I alone, was responsible for my own health, success and family.

What a prison I had constructed for myself! To think of all the time I spent trying to work it out on my own, struggling to learn and grow, slaving through the days to hone my talents into marketable skills. How much time I wasted trying to create new products and valuable services, all to achieve my own success, to take care of myself and my family. In short, how very long I struggled to reach that elusive and teasing American Dream! Oh, what a fool I was! For now I see what the majority of the rest of this country sees, what the rest of you have apparently known all along: it ISN’T my job to take care of myself and my family. It’s the government’s!

WHAT a relief!

You know, I laugh now, looking back on how I felt during the election. I was so annoyed at people for not seeing the apparent folly of Obama’s statements about “being our brother’s keepers” when his own brother was living in a shack for twelve dollars a year and his aunt was living in a rat-infested slum in Boston. Now, of course, I see the real truth. Obama didn’t literally mean we should take care of our brothers. What he really meant was that the government should take care of our brothers (and aunts). This explains how he intended to help his slum-living Aunt, and I see now that it is a much more loving method than just sending her some of his own money. Instead, once he becomes president, he’ll just send her a bunch of everybody else’s money. I understand now that it wasn’t Obama’s job to help Aunt Zeituni specifically, since she is just one of the millions of children of the government, meant to be taken care of like chicks under a huge, federal wing. It makes sense to me now. I used to be so shamelessly literal.

Similarly, I used to labor under a delusion of ownership. I was plagued by what Congressman Jim Moran recently called “the simplistic notion that people who have wealth are entitled to keep it.” Never mind what Thomas Jefferson (the slave owner) meant when he said “a wise and frugal government… shall leave [men] otherwise free to regulate their own pursuits of industry and improvement, and shall not take from the mouth of labor the bread it had earned”. It was quite the two-edged sword of heresy I lived under: the idea that I had to work hard for myself and my family, and the idea that what I earned by that hard word was mine. Only now do I see the folly of my ways, and now that I have rejected them, I feel such a sense of complete freedom.

Shall I describe it? Now I can finally- finally!- let it all go. No longer do I have to work hard day and night to make a way for myself and my family. No more will I have to struggle to create new products that the market may wish to enjoy. Finally, I can catch up on all that wonderful TV I’ve been missing because I’d been working so hard. Now, finally, it’s someone else’s duty to take care of me! How completely and utterly freeing! Here, all this time, I had resented the fact that the government takes away thirty percent of my income. Now, finally, I see that if I simply give up, lay back, and do nothing, that same government will give me chunks of someone else’s thirty percent! What a complete and unadulterated fool I have been, working so hard and trying to be self relient! Obama, and you, the rest of the country who figured this out a long time ago, have finally shown me the way.

It’s a new day. It’s a “what’s in it for me” day. This is the moment where I officially abandon the idea of personal responsibility and making it by myself. After all, I’m a victim. I was misled by my parents, taught a narrow-minded and probably racist litany of lies about character and hard work and wisdom and good choices. Now I see the truth: choices don’t matter, because if I make a mistake, I can abort it (even in the third month, and I won’t even have to pay for it). If I screw up, the government will take care of me anyway, so why even try? Why work so hard to be the one creating the income for everyone else, when I can be the one sponging it up? Let the Joe the Plumbers of the country be the schlubs to go out and work their butts off. They may be sucker enough to think its still worth it to be self-reliant, but I have seen the light. I have learned that it is better not to try, because trying just means having more and more taken away. I have learned that this is the “gimme” country. So gimme. I want mine. I don’t want to work for it anymore. Why should I? It wouldn’t be mine to keep even if I did. I want someone else’s, because they have too much and don’t deserve it, even if they worked for it.

I’m late coming to this party, I know. Most of the country is in line ahead of me. All of you who voted for Obama got here first, but I’m shouldering in with you, lining up outside the federal coffers for my chunk of the handout. The bank doors are open. We’ve finally gotten to that fabled point where we are voting in a president because of the free goodies he’s promising us. I know it means the end of the country is at hand, but it isn’t here yet. There’s still at least a few more years of good looting to be had before everything is completely broke and all the producers flee the country like rats from a sinking ship. Until then, at least for a little while, there will be plenty of wealth to spread around, so get outta my way. I want mine.

If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em. Hallelujah, Reverend Wright, pass the collection plate.

and if no one else calls it…I got first dibs on 30% of Bill Gates bank accounts…

Senator Obama…I want to ask you a few Questions…

Maybe it’s just me…

But if we don’t get the word out and vote for John McCain, I believe we are in for a hard long four years with Obama.

The economy crisis did not just happen.  The Democrats dropped the ball on this one. They are now in control of the House and Senate.  Look up who truly is responsible for the unchecked regulation on Fannie and Freddie.  If we put Obama in the White House, I am truly scared to see where this economy goes.

Obama on his visit to Toledo, Ohio, stated that as President he wanted to…”spread the wealth around”.  Sounds like to me like a reference to the basics of Communism.  I may be wrong but I thought the responsibilities of the president were as follows:

The president’s principal roles:

• Approve federal laws (bills) created by Congress (Senate and House of Representatives), which is the legislative branch of government.
• Lead the nation’s people, making sure citizens obey the laws and setting priorities for the country, including helping the Congress decide how the budget is spent.
• Manage the government, making sure that decisions and programs are being carried out effectively, with the help of the vice president and appointed cabinet members who head different departments (agriculture, commerce, defense, education, energy, health and human services, housing and urban development, interior, justice, labor, state, transportation, treasury, veterans affairs)
• Represent the U.S. in meetings with leaders of other countries, including signing treaties and other agreements (with approval from Congress) on behalf of the U.S.
• Command the U.S. military, including declaring war (with approval from Congress)

It is not the job of our president to “spread the wealth around”.

Having Obama and a Democratic controlled Congress without a check and balance in Washington is going to be the basis for uncontrolled taxation and the agenda of Democratic party shoved down our throats.

Have you noticed that no one is talking about our relationship with Israel, the illegal alien problem, abortion, education, homeland security and family value issues that have received little or no coverage at all.

I want to know where he stands on these issues.

So…Senator Obama…please answer the following:

What is your position on the country of Israel?

Setting your “pay grade” to the side, could you please state your true position on Abortion?

In light of the fact that we are spending $300 Billion per year to deal with just some of the issues surrounding illegal alien problem, what are you proposing as a solution to this domestic problem?

What are you going to do to ensure the protection of my family and our borders from a terrorist act? 

Maybe those of you that are determined to vote for Obama are REALLY AFRAID to ACTUALLY know where he stands on these issues.

 

 

I wish he would answer these questions for me…but I am sure he will not.

Food for Thought…

I believe that many people who “say” they are voting for Obama really are doing it to punish (in their mind) George Bush for the troubles they are experiencing.   I believe that some are so obsessed at blaming George Bush for all of their problems that they are blind to the real issues and in-turn lose perspective on what is right and what really is important. 

But then again, maybe it’s just me…

This Democrat is Voting as a Reluctant Rebublican…

Come join me… become a member of the Reluctant Republicans and vote for John McCain.

As a registered Democrat,  I have made the decision to vote for John McCain.  I have always been a conservative in my politics.  If there can be such a thing… I am a “conservative democrat”.  Probably a better definition would be is a “Reagan” Democrat.

What I am looking for in my president is a “principled, conservative leader” That is what caught my attention and led me to the organization called the Reluctant Republicans.  Read ON…

The head of the Reluctant Republican Organization stated the following, “We are the disenfranchised in the party. We are the conservatives who have been left behind by a party ever moving to the “center” and ever increasing in its partisan politics rather than sticking to the conservative ideals that once made it great. We want to engage in this election. We need to engage in this election. But we are looking for a principled, conservative leader. “

He continues, “As a real conservative, this election year seems especially daunting and maybe sometimes even downright depressing. With no real champion of all the conservative ideals it can be easy to lose heart and forget that sometimes it’s just as important to vote against someone or something as it is to vote for someone. Let’s be honest, John McCain is no Ronald Reagan. In many ways, I think we can all agree that Reagan would be ashamed that McCain has the R next to his name. But that doesn’t mean that there aren’t aspects of McCain that we true conservatives can’t support, and more importantly, it doesn’t mean that we should forget about how horrifying the alternative is. Brush up on why the opposition should scare you, find some things about McCain “the maverick” that you can support, embrace your reluctance and your duty simultaneously, and admit to yourself quietly that sometimes the lesser of two evils is still the best choice. After you’ve done that, proclaim it loudly and help defeat the greater of two evils.”

As much as I am frustrated with both of these candidates, Obama just doesn’t make sense.  I mean, he says “a bunch” of words (rhetoric)…he likes to hear himself talk (not much different than Joe Biden) but he NEVER says anything of substance.  He never details anything…it’s always a “outline” with no specifics.

For example, in the debate tonight, Obama stated, “Actually I’m cutting more than I’m spending so that it will be a net spending cut.”

What does this mean? He said it without giving any details…just a good sound bite for the bias media to headline.

But according to the Associated Press,  Obama has many ambitious plans to spend more taxpayer dollars on a variety of federal programs, including clean energy technologies and job training. He’s said he’ll cut pork-barrel programs and the costs of the war in Iraq to pay for it — as well as raise taxes on the wealthy — but the specifics of his new spending plans GREATLY OUTWEIGH the few spending cuts he’s identified.  So I see no “net spending cut” in a future that includes him as our President.

To be fair…I do not want to be like the biased media that floods the airways every night.

A good friend of mine, a Human Resources Specialist in the State of Ohio, wrote me to provide some insight into McCain’s policy regarding employee Health Care contributions.

“As you know, McCain proposes a $ 5000.00 tax credit for Americans which will more than offset the fact that he wants to remove pretax deductions for Health Care contributions and make employees pay for Health Care after tax. But, what you may not know is that this will reduce employee take home pay due to increasing taxable income and increasing income tax at a time when the cost of everything is going up. Also, companies will be paying more taxes due to employee taxable income being higher. In essence, employees will see less take home pay and business will experience more burden.”

Will this approach really help the economy and create jobs?  I don’t know.

What I do know is that we have to be prepared for the long road ahead of us.

These two candidates are the options we have… the burden of our economy and the future of our children are at stake.

Which candidate will bring back the America that my grandparents and parents built?

These questions need to be answered by someone with experience.  What we do not need in the Oval Office is a novice.  One hundred and forty two days (142) in the Senate are not enough for me.

That is why this democrat is voting for John McCain.  Would you consider becoming a member of a grass roots organization called the Reluctant Republicans?

Come… join now and let us together put someone in the Office of President that can truly get the job done.

Click Here for More Information on How You Can Become a Member of the “Reluctant Rebublicans”