Cleaning out an old desk littered with papers from my past, I ran across this gem.  I don’t think I was the author, but judging from the papers I found it with, it must have been written circa 1990, and I was disturbed by Bush the Elder’s liberal mush, so it struck a chord.  It strikes an entire opus today.

“Not only did the Republican Party fail to articulate the important message of conservatism, the messages they did articulate were often in direct opposition to the coherent conservative philosophy, adopting as planks in the party platform measures that disavowed the party’s abhorrence of governmental interference into the personal affairs of the people of this nation.

               The Republican Party has a real challenge ahead.  We need to counter the empty humanitarian rhetoric of the liberals and articulate a real plan for divesting the federal government of its power and influence.  We do not need politicians who care about our needs, but politicians who respect us and are willing to protect our rights and allow us to take responsibility for our lives.”

Does it bother you that Wayne La Something or other would suggest that every school should have armed guards.  To me that implies that these armed guards should be provided by the federal government which would be in direct violation of the second ammendment which Wayne La something's magazine vows to protect. 

       Once again Warren Buffet is in the news insisting that the wealthy should pay more taxes. The problem is that the real wealthy, like Warren Buffet, would not be affected by a hike in income tax rates.  He and most of the really wealthy hold their wealth in the form of unrealized capital gains, not the type of income he proposes to raise taxes on. 

      A raise in the taxes on earned income is designed to prevent people from becoming wealthy.  In a 2004 interview with Charlie Rose, Buffet’s wife Susan said that his lifelong ambition was to become the richest man in the world.  He is using his influence in Washington to insure that he has no competition.

      If Buffet thinks men like him should be glad to pay more taxes, why doesn’t he pay his own?  He has been fighting the IRS since 2002 for the  over $1 billion in taxes that he owed than. And his unpaid tax bills are adding up.   Just last year NetJets, one of his companies sued for $642.7 million in taxes and this year the IRS is suing NetJets for an additional $366.3 million in unpaid taxes.

      Buffet is a snake oil salesman. He gets in bed with politicians and takes home the bacon.  When the president killed the Keystone Pipeline, Buffet won.  His Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad ships the oil.  The $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks saved his $5 billion investment in Goldman Sachs.  He pays his lobbyists $9.8 million a year and he gets his money’s worth.

      Buffet is the kind of crony capitalist that is a cancer on the American character. 

I took some notes of comments made in the room as I watched the last debate. It’s a little late to be publishing them, but my computer was in hospital until yesterday.

It’s interesting that President Obama thinks that Americans who earn $250,000 are in the top 2 per cent of wage earners.

Romney pays a lower tax rate than bus driver, only if you forget that he pays taxes twice, first at the corporate level and then again at the personal level.

Mitt’s plan will not costs 5 trillion because with lower corporate rates we’ll have twice as many people paying taxes.

Obama, “Your plan lacks specifics.  Americans would never take  such a sketchy deal.”  Oh, but we did, with you.

“Millions of women rely on Planned Parenthood.”  I invest heavily in charitable issues that are important to me.  If Planned Parenthood is so important to you, donate to it. 

It’s insulting that Romney said, “They brought in binders full of qualified women.”  But not that Obama’s white house pays it’s female staffers 13% less than it’s male staffers.

This will not be another Bush White House.  George bush was a liberal.

Romney, “Our party has been focused too much on big business. I'm for small business.”  Yeah!

Obama, “It’s tax cuts that took us Down.”  No. It’s Frannie and Freddie that Bush warned about over and over again, but Obama and his Dem buddies used the warning as a charge of racism.

It’s so annoying that he keeps going back to George Bush

“Osama is dead,” but the monster lives. And you blew the cover of the doctor who helped you find him.  Think anyone will trust you now?

“We passed toughest Wall Street reforms in history.”  Yes.  Reforms so complicated they make it impossible for small businesses to comply.  Only huge companies have the resources and staff to sort through the garbage.  Dodd Frank is for shit.

Same health care as Massachusetts.  If a state legislature decides to devise a method for handling health care, that’s fine.  For the feds it’s unconstitutional.  I don’t care what the Supreme Court Says.  It’s unconstitutional

You had two years with full majorities and you made no attempt, not one to devise an immigration plan.  Don’t tell me you care about the problems undocumented immigrants deal with. Oh, he did help the immigrant problem.  He sent them guns so they could shoot their way in.”

You also had two years to resolve entitlement issues.  You made NO attempt.  Don’t tell me you care.

You said you’d cut the deficit in half.  You made no attempt.  Don’t tell me you care.

The Arizona law lets officers stop people just because they look illegal.” Liar, Liar, pants on fire.

I sat down with Republicans and Democrats and begged them to fix the system.”  Liar, liar pants on fire.

“Mitt Romney is the last person to challenge China.  His portfolio is heavily invested in China.”  So is yours asshole.

“I called it a terrorist attack the very next morning in the Rose Garden.”  Two problems.  First, if you knew it was a terrorist attack, why did you skip your morning intelligence briefing and fly off to party Vegas.  Second, why did you spend the next two weeks trying to convince us that it was a stupid film that no one watched? 

“Replay that gibberish.  What did he say?  He met with her two months ago and then 3 months later, and then one month before???  It makes no sense. He's so full of shit.” 

“I believe in the 2^nd amendment.  I understand that people like to hunt, but we don’t need AK47s for that.”  He doesn’t understand the 2^nd amendment.  It has nothing to do with hunting.  It has everything to do with the fact that if a citizenry is well armed, they have less a chance of being overrun by totalitarian rule.

He wants to “Catch violent impulses before they occur”?  What does that mean?  Is he suggesting that we do some kind of DNA scan and try to eliminate the violently inclined at birth?

He has cut taxed 18 times. Yeah for those who don't pay taxes.

 “When I was president.”  Ah, Freudian slip. He already sees himself as a past president.

“I believe in free enterprise and self-reliance.  Everybody should do their fair share and play by the same rules.”  What a joke!

The whole energy debacle.  In fact  off shore permits cut by 62% and on-shore cut by 1/3. 

“We can't elect someone who thinks women should not work outside the home.”  Romney hired more women in top positions in Massachusetts than any other governor in any other states, percentage wise more that Obama has in the White House.

Obama is “Deliberate in his dishonesty.”

          Mr. Grijalva, you lie. There is no way you do not know the truth, so it has to be an intentional lie. There was no provision in the immigration law, that allowed "police officers to check an individual's immigration status based solely on suspicion" ("Proud of opposing SB 1070," Yuma Sun, June 28, 2012). A police officer must have justifiable cause to stop the individual, perhaps for a broken tail light or for speeding. Then he asks for identification.  Everyone, all of us, each and every one, are then asked for identification. You know that.  So you lie.

         There can be only one reason for you to perpetuate such a lie. You want to divide us. You want to create problems where there are none. We are all Americans, and we are the only country in the world that welcomes people from every corner of the earth.  We are proud of that.  We recognize the fact that America's greatest asset is her immigrant population.  We are energized by their enthusiasm, strengthened by their commitment, reawakened to a sense of what is means to be American.  We simply want to welcome them at our front door.

           You should be working on a plan to  open that front door, to reform policies, to make it easier for people to immigrate,  but you don't want to do that.  That wouldn't get you re-elected.  You need the division, the anger, so you foment it.  Shame on you.

              After a hiatus recovering from a leg injury, I have a new project in response to two prevailing mantras: "The Horatio Alger story is a myth. There are no rags to riches stories in America" and "The rich aren't doing their fair share." My project? Celebrating the rich. The first installment: John Paul Jones DeJoria hair products billionaire.

          John Paul Jones DeJoria was the second son of an Italian immigrant father and a Greek immigrant mother in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, California. When he was two his parents divorced and by the time he was nine he began selling Christmas cards and newspapers with his older brother to support his family. Eventually they were both sent to an East Los Angeles foster home.
           DeJoria, troubled and tough, spent much of his youth in a street gang in East Los Angeles. When his math teacher at John Marshall High School told him he would "never succeed at anything.” He made a conscious decision to change the direction of his life.
          Jo

hn Paul graduated high school, served honorably in the U.S. Navy, and then worked in a variety of jobs: selling encyclopedias, photocopying machines, dictating equipment, and insurance, working as a janitor, pumping gasoline, driving a tow truck, and repairing bicycles. At times he was homeless living in his car and he collected bottles to stay afloat.
          Finally he began to climb through the ranks, first securing a marketing position with Time magazine and quickly promoted to Circulation Manager. Then he found his passion, securing a position in a hair product company. Within months he was promoted to National Manager. Eventually, with a $700 investment, he teamed up with Paul Mitchell to launch the shampoo company that made him a millionaire. He earned his second fortune with Patron Spirits, a tequila maker.
         DeJoria is a pillar of the Austin community whose philanthropic efforts are legend: Grow Appalachia which helps families fight obesity and poverty by creating gardens, Mineseekers, Food4Africa and Blazer House. a patron-level sponsor of Children’s Hospital Los Angeles Nelson Mandela’s Aids Awareness Project ‘46664.
           Join me in celebrating John Paul Jones DeJoria.

Because Antonin Scalia disagreed with the Supreme Court’s majority opinion on Arizona’s immigration dispute, Paul Campos, A prominent law professor at the University of Colorado called him a “blowhard” and an “author of hysterical diatribes.” “Scalia… has in his old age become an increasingly intolerant and intolerable blowhard: a pompous celebrant of his own virtue and rectitude, a purveyor of intemperate jeremiads against the degeneracy of the age.”  A UJCLA professor of constitutional law added that Scalia had gone crazy, “finally jumped the shark.”  They agreed that their only hope is that his increasing uncontrolled rage will trigger an aneurism (sic).”

Hello?  Scalia is the intolerant blowhard?  The left has absolutely no ability to argue inssues.  All they know is character assassination.

  President Obama has indeed become “The Imperial President.”  He bypasses congress by not enforcing laws sworn to enforce: immigration laws, marijuana laws, the Defense of Marriage Act.

           He has usurped congressional powers allowing arms of the executive branch to enforce laws that congress refused to pass. The EPA enforces Cap and Trade.  The NLR implements the Orwellianly titled “Free” Choice Act.  The FCC regulates the internet. Department of Education provides to school districts who accept a national curriculum.

          He violated advice and consent rules by giving recess appointments when congress was not in recess.

          He invokes executive privilege to prevent congress from seeing thousands of papers related to Fast and Furious relying on “precedent.”  Executive privilege protects the president’s ability to openly discuss issues with his staff.  Neither the president nor Holder knew anything about Fast and Furious, so what’s to protect?

         Even if we agree that his decisions immigration or EPA or drug laws, we must insist he work with congress, and he has refused to, imperiously shutting himself off.  If we allow one branch of the government to usurp the powers of the others, that is tyranny. 

         I wonder if Joseph Rouff was serious, (“America needs more socialism,” Yuma Sun, June 19, 2012).  My first hint is his suggestion that we should be more “civilized” like Europe and provide for free health care and cast a broader social net for the needy. Has he noticed that the socialistic states of Europe are crumbling?

         And we are quickly heading in the direction of Europe.  Fully ½ of us are being fully supported by government programs, and 70 per cent get some form of financial assistance.  That’s quite a burden for the ever dwindling percentage of wage earners.

My second hint that he might be joking was his bemoaning our military spending.  Whether or not we should be fighting those wars or keeping troops all over the world is arguable.  And we probably spend more on defense than all the other countries of the world combined; but when you consider the entire budget, our military spending is a drop in the bucket.  According to the Congressional Budget Office, from 2001 to 2011 we spend 1.3 trillion on the military. That's 4.4 percent of the total budget: $29.7 trillion.

          With regard to income taxes, Mr. Rouff says that we need to raise taxes on the rich. “Rich folks pay only 16 percent taxes while many of the rest of us pay 30 percent taxes. This is totally unfair.” He is talking about those rich people who have investment incomes.  What he doesn’t consider is that that income was taxed first at the corporate level at a 35 per cent tax rate and then taxed again at the individual level at 16 per cent.

         And if he is one of the “Some of us pay 30 per cent taxes,”  he is making upwards of $300,000 a year. Shut up!

          I also think he might be joking because he’s a man, and I don’t think men like being on the dole. Women like being taken care of.  That’s one argument against giving us the vote.  We like our safety nets.  For the most part, men like the sense of fulfillment they get from providing for their families. Oops.  I just saw the top of your head blow off.  Okay, maybe that’s way too broad a generalization, but it certainly describes the world I’d like to live in.

          My most ardent argument against a more socialistic state is that it corrupts the human spirit. As Denis Prager says, we end up like those shiftless youth in England who out of boredom, go to Europe and piss in every fountain they can find.

          Furthermore, it encourages us to rely on government rather than relying on ourselves and our God.  I agree with our founders.  God intended us to be free, and “when we sacrifice our freedom for security we lose both.”

    I was shocked at this morning's cartoon on the editorial page.  Our president dancing with Dracula?  I agree that President Obama has crossed the line with regard to abusing the powers of the presidency, but that was way over the line, disrespectful, disgusting, inappropriate, and not at all true.  It isn't the president that is sucking the blood out of our country. He does not control the purse. 

            Now picturing bloodsucking members of congress dancing with Dracula would at least be metaphorically applicable.  Grijalva and his ilk, for example.  They feed off the public, sell their souls for another election.   

         We pay members of the house a salary of  $200,000 a year and provide them with MRA's (Members Representative Allowances of  $1,400,000 year.   Senators get an additional $3,300,000 a year.   All of them are fully vested in the retirement system after only 5 years and by the time they retire, which is always none to soon, they are all millionaires. 

          Martha Stewart went to prison for insider trading, but members of congress get to do it without penalty.  They know they are passing a law on Monday that is going to affect the stock of a company, so on Friday they call their investment advisers.  It's perfectly legal for them.

         I am not a mathematician, so I would appreciate your correcting me if I'm wrong (http://www.senate.gov/CRSReports/crs-publish.cfm?pid='0E%2C*PL%5B%3D%23P%20%20%0A), but I think that means that we pay those bloodsuckers a trillion dollars a year and they can't even pass a budget.  Their one duty, their only real responsibility is to meet every year and establish a budget, and they can't get it done.

            When Nimrod gathered his people to build the Tower of Babel and create this perfect society, God blessed us all by confusing our languages and dispersing us to the ends of the earth. God intended that we should live free without the constraints of big government.
            Can you imagine how He would feel about letting the United Nations herd us into carefully designed sustainable development patterns. It's an uncanny coincidence that the new parliament building in Strasbourg looks so much like the ancient tower of Babel.
           "Thou shalt have no other Gods before me."  I'm pretty sure that includes the United Nations, our federal government, our state legislatures, even our city planners.  If we learn one thing from history, we learn that individually we are remarkable beings, but that collectively we are capable of great evil.
             Even if that weren't true, do you really believe that George Sorros or Al Gore or Alec Baldwin would huddle with us in high rises sandwiched between office buildings at the top and sandwich shops and grocery stories at the lower levels.  They'd traverse the world in their jets an enjoy their castles because they'd have us all penned up.  We wouldn't even have to leave the building.  All our needs satisfied under one roof.

  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xL34H_PvTzg

                Anthony Barnosky, professor of integrative biology at the University of California, Berkeley, says the earth is reaching a tipping point. 

               He points to climate change as evidence and suggests that the way we are using the land has interrupted the natural order of things. Had he read the article in this month’s National Geographic about the unusual solar activity we’ve been experiencing, he might have realized that there is more going on in the universe than can be explained and solved by his peewee brain.  What vanity!  (http://ngm.nationalgeographic.com/2012/06/solar-storms/ferris-text)

Did he watch Venus rising last week?  That little speck, roughly the size of our planet, passed in front of our sun, 1,300,000 times as large, where a trillion nuclear explosions blast unceasingly.  Watching that should teach us, once again, one truth that God hopes we will hold fast to.  We are insignificant specks of dust held in the palm of his hand. 

Dr. Anthony Barnosky says we need to plan for the future, “for the long term in order to drive the planet in directions we want it to go.”  Thank you Mr. Barnosky , but I do not want some new version of William Burrows’ Dr Benway  or H. G. Wells’ Dr Moreau driving my planet.  There is nothing scarier to me than to let some PhD, or a group of PhD’s who are so full of themselves they think they can manage the universe.  Go find another planet to drive

I spent Memorial Day weekend on an emotional high.  When I signed up for the trip to DC, I had no idea I would have the privilege of flying with a bunch of WWII vets. We sang “God Bless America” as fire trucks doused the plane in gushers of water saluting the soldiers.  I swallowed tears when crowds of people lined the gate cheering the soldiers as they deplaned in Baltimore. This is a similar deplaning Reagan International, but that's the experience.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=FgecqttxoQg#!

 I thought my heart would break riding the tram through Arlington Cemetery, among “Endless rows for all to see. Freedoms seeds in sorrow sown. These blades of grass and pure white stones.”  I was especially moved by the fields of stones where lay the American Negros who fought for our country in the Civil War.  So much hope.  So much sorrow. 

We had the priviledge of singing at the Kennedy Center accompanied by the Army Symphony Orchestgra.  You see me there, don't you, way up there in the top row?


We visited a number of monuments.  At the base of the North Dakota pillar in the WWII memorial someone had left a frame with pictures of the six Jacobson brothers died in WWII fighting for our freedoms.  The caption read, “It takes a whole family to win a war.” 

The next day I heard Chris Hays explaining that he was “uncomfortable” about calling America’s fallen soldiers “heroes” because it was “rhetorically proximate” to justifications for more war.  His apology the next day was “rhetorically” difficult, but I think he said he regretted the disconnect between the likes of him and those rubes in fly over country who do not have the intellectual capacity to understand his discomfort. 

He sits at that desk in the most affluent city in the world, and he doesn’t seem to understand that that privilege rests upon those graves.  They made his life possible, but he senses a disconnect.   Chris Hays is emblematic of the internal cultural rot that causes a society to decline. 

Our great universities are producing generations of effete snobs who are way too smart to buy into the drivel produced by our founding fathers.  They see nothing exceptional about our country, so in their eyes those silly soldiers die for naught, for foolishness.   

And that’s what divides us from them.  We know that we are endowed by our Creator with certain unalienable Rights, and that the single purpose of government is to protect those rights.   We recognize that no other government on earth was established for that purpose and that purpose alone. 

We recognize that it is only a free people living in a free country where courage and initiative and daring and skill are still rewarded in spite of the restrictions those stunningly brilliant intelligentsia are trying  to harness us with.

We are at a tipping point, however.  Both Democrats and Republicans have conspired to create a government so huge and so intrusive that only the companies that are “too big to fail” have the money and the lawyers and the expertise to work their way through the morass of red tape.  That cultural rot at the head is eating away at the heart of a great nation.

     Christ Mathews says, “In terms of the long march towards freedom, liberals have always been pushing forward for the rights of all kinds of people, but another army feeds on their souls.  They are wolves and they’re out there feeding right now.”

      First of all, he has NO sense of history. It was his party that fought tooth and nail against abolition and suffrage and voting rights. 

       Second, he has no sense of good taste. Do you think a conservative would last long on network suggesting democrats are wolves feeding on the souls of the unfortunate? 

It IS 1984!!!!!

     Obama has just appointed a new czar. Samantha Power (Cass Sunstein'wife...Oh yeah!) will head the Atrocities Prevention Board.

        NOW GET THIS In a 2002 at U Berkeley she was asked how the U.S. should respond if “one party or another” were “moving toward genocide” in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

       She replied: “What we need is a willingness to actually put something on the line in sort of helping the situation. And putting something on the line might mean alienating a domestic constituency of tremendous political and financial import.”

        What kind of speech is that?  What does it mean? 

       The radicals over there, all of them, say their goal is to push the Jews into the sea. Does the language she uses sound like she'll to anything to prevent that?

     I have determined that liberals are not liberal. They are intolerant. They try to sensor speech at every juncture. If you make an attempt to refute their favorite mantras, they want you silenced.
       First in was Glenn Beck, then it was Rush Limbaugh, more recently it’s Jesse Lee Peterson because he said women’s suffrage was America’s greatest mistake.
      The most recent example that spurred me to respond was a story about the Norwegian elite silencing the Oslo Freedom Forum. Thor Havorssen’s, a Venezuelan American, head of Human Rights Foundation in New York, is an outspoken opponent of Hugo Chavez and invited challengers of Chávez and Castro to the conference.Yes, you read that right – in Norway, it just isn’t done to invite opponents of Chávez and Castro to a human-rights conference.

A House Divided against itself cannot Stand

        Another interesting bit of insight from the Hillsdale College Constitution class:  I never understood the full implications of President Lincolns famous comment in the Lincoln./Douglas debate: “A house divided against itself cannot stand.”  I always thought he was simply referring to the fact that the United States was a divided country, part slave holding and part free.  In fact he was referring to the logic of Douglas’ whole argument for slavery.

             The quote, “A house divided against itself cannot stand” alludes to the story in the book of Matthew.  Christ has cast out demons.  The Pharisees accuse him of doing the work of the devil.   “It is by the prince of demons that he drives out demons.”  When Jesus says “a house divided against itself cannot stand,” he shows how illogical the Pharisees’ accusations is.  Satan’s demons cannot be expelled with Satan’s aid unless Satan is willing to undermine his own empire. 

          The use of the quote suggests that Lincoln thought Douglas’ arguments equally illogical.  Douglas was arguing for the right of territories to decide to be slave or free, basing his argument of the principle self-government, “the birthright of free men resting upon free thought and action.”  Establishing a state that allows the citizens to vote for tyranny, for aristocracy, for the rule of one class over the other is absurd.  It cannot stand. There are no foundational supports. Voting for tyranny on the pretense of loving liberty is the height of hypocrisy.

           The Hillsdale class is a real adventure.  The most important thing I learned is that the founders had the wisdom of humility.  They knew they were fallible and that all of us share the same propensity for evil, so they struggled mightily to create a government that would protect the rights of every man.

           In his farewell address Washington said, “May the children of the stock of Abraham who dwell in this land continue to merit and enjoy the good will of the other inhabitants—while everyone shall sit in safety under his own vine and fig tree and there shall be none to make him afraid.”

Get a Job

          A passerby asked Benjamin Franklin what kind of government the convention had created.  He responded, “A republic, madam, if you can keep it.   Two interesting tidbits popped up this week giving evidence to the truth that we have not kept it very well.

        I like Mr. Biden because he so often tells the unvarnished truth.  At a fundraiser in Chicago he praised the accomplishments of Richard Daley admitting that Biden himself had never been interested in being a mayor “cause that’s a real job.  You have to produce….That’s why I was able to be a senator for 36 years.”  And then he was able to become vice-president, and he’s managed to live most of his adult life without doing “a real job.” 

             Then there is Orrin Hatch of Utah lambasting the Tea Party for their disrespect.  "These people are not conservatives. They're not Republicans," Hatch angrily responds. "They're radical libertarians and I'm doggone offended by it….I despise these people.”    Well, Mr. Hatch, we don’t despise you, but we are much offended by you.  For 36 years you have bent your spine into a pretzel allowing the federal government to become a bureaucratic behemoth with an insatiable appetite for money and power.

The founders expected that we would all be career politicians, deeply immersed in public service. They knew they had embarked on a great experiment and to make it work required an informed a vigilant populace.  We have not been vigilant.

              We have allowed politicians to create a climate that enabled them to make careers out of “public service.”  Our founders intended a citizen legislature where representatives would receive little pay, complete their constitutionally designated duties, and then go home and get a “real job.”

              Tea Party members simply want to bless their grandchildren with the great nation they were blessed with.  They too were “endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights” and deserve a government that respects “Laws of Nature and of Nature's God.”

North Dakota Memories

          Our house on the Miller place was a good old house.  At the entry was a big porch that held, for one thing, the cream separator.  That was my job, running the separator.  There was a big kitchen-dining room, a living room and master bedroom on the ground floor, two more bedrooms and a large unfinished storage room on the second floor.  Mom was proud of her house, loved to polish the hardwood floors.  Everything always smelled fresh and clean, especially on Saturday night, because we’d all had our baths and crawled into freshly laundered bedding.  We all still remember how the house smelled when Mom took the frozen bedding from the line and hung them on the indoor clothesline to dry.  It’s one of the sweetest smells you can imagine. 

               In winter the house was a snug refuge, blanketed in deep drifts of snow.  In the summer it was surrounded by an ocean of wheat fields that undulated rhythmically in the wind.  But in the spring it stood bleak and forlorn, surrounded by a sea of mud.  And North Dakota mud is different, not the mud typical of the southwest, 50 per cent sand, but the alluvial mud of the prairie, 50 per cent glue; and when it’s as deep as it was in the spring, the slimy, shiny goop would ooze up around your boots creating suction around your foot making walking across the field a tedious chore.

               I had been playing with Ben Guessner one  day and shortly before sundown I struck out across the field toward home.  As I extracted each foot out of the ooze, twisting it just a little to release the suction, I thought of a silly thing my brother had done the winter before.  He would poke a stick a few inches into the snow and then pretend that a “Chinaman” was trying to pull it through the earth and pantomime a struggle to get it back.  He was cute, but I wasn’t convinced.

               Not then.  Now in the gathering dusk I thought of the slant-eyed Chinaman pulling at my feet and before long my imagination got away from me.  Finally, my terror complete, I stepped out of my boots and scrambled stumbling across the field, praying for Solveig.

               Now Solveig was a full year older than I and, it seemed, twenty years wiser.  She always rescued me, but when we returned to the field, we couldn’t find my boots and we lost one of hers in the bargain.  Now we had to face the music with Mamma, and that was especially difficult that night.  Dad hadn’t been home since early the day before and Mamma, Mamma was tense.  She didn’t need one more burden. 

When we told her about the boots her shoulders sagged a little more.  The muscles around her jaw tensed and she sighed as she reached for her coat and her boots and a lantern, and the three of us struck out across the field.  Before long we had located the boots, but while Mom was trying to extract one from the mud, a frog jumped out.  Surprised, Mom squealed, lost her balance and fell into the mud, laughing, lying in the mud, laughing, her bright eyes shining in the reflected moonlight.

I think that was the night we carried a bunch of frogs home and learned how when you lay them on the dining room table and tickle their bellies they croak every time. 

My mother made everything fun. She’d often say, as we were starting out on an adventure, “It’ll either be a time we’ll never forget, or a time we’ll always remember.”  We knew that we were in charge of our own happiness.  In every picture of her she’s always laughing and fooling around.   She turned every trial into possibilities.

The Hillsdale College Constitution Class

         Hillsdasle College (http://www.hillsdale.edu) is offering a free online course in the constitution.  It’s excellent.  The brilliance of the founders rests on their profound understanding of human nature. They, on one hand, would agree with Hamlet’s “What a piece of work is a man, how noble in reason, how infinite in faculties… how like an angel.”

              But they also understand how stupid, selfish, and irrational we can be, and not just the rich or the poor, the unchurched or unschooled, but all of us.  Alexander Hamilton’s view was especially harsh.  “Men are ambitious, vindictive and rapacious.” Given the opportunity we all would trample another’s rights.

           The founders strived to create a government that would deal with those realities, draw on our remarkable potential and recognize our inescapable failings.  They were not Libertarians.  They understood that governments are necessary, and not a necessary evil, but a necessary good.  They had to find a way that we could govern ourselves without oppressing one another.

                 All tyrannies are the result of the failure of a utopian dream relying on the notion that man is perfectible. Progressives believe that over time, by tinkering with the educational system or the laws or the economic structure, they could create a more perfect society.  It always leads to totalitarianism. The founders were adamant:  “It’s time that we awoke from the deceitful dream of a golden age of perfect wisdom and happy virtue.”   

               But democracies can be tyrannies as well. A hundred despots can be as dangerous as one. We will violate the rights of others for personal gain.  Hoping to protect us from that reality, the founders gave us a strictly limited federal government, balanced carefully among three branches, each of which would govern the impulses of the other, and all dependent on an informed and vigilant populace, lest  “once fashionable follies begin to plague the country.”

             It is our responsibility to make sure they do not pass laws “so voluminous that they can’t be read, or so incoherent that they cannot be understood [under which] only the sagacious, the enterprising, and the moneyed few can function.”  We have done our job very well. 

I highly recommend the Hillsdale class.

The Reluctant Harry Reid

            Harry Reid, senate majority leader praised the House Friday morning for approving H.R. 3765, extending the payroll tax holiday and unemployment insurance for two months, and preventing a planned cut to reimbursements for Medicare physicians.

                 Reid said that the year has been a learning experience for the new members of the 112^th congress.  They’ve learned that politics is the art of compromise.  They’ve learned that they should not wage partisan battles to settle ideological scores.  Both he and President Obama have criticized the House Republicans for playing politics on every issue.

              I hope the year has been a learning experience for the American people. It is patently obvious that it has been Harry Reid who has been playing politics. The house has passed several budget bills and many jobs bills all of which sit on Harry’s desk because he refuses to bring them to the floor.  He knows that some of his Senate Democrats would vote for them and he afford that.

                 He was even reluctant to bring President Obama’s budget bill, his “pass it now…pass it now, pass it now” jobs bill to the floor of the senate for discussion.  He obviously wanted to avoid being embarrassed because he knew that the Democrats would unanimously vote against it.

                You may disagree with the ideology behind the bills passed by the house, but I am sure you would agree that they should be discussed, called to question on the Senate floor.  Here are a few.  You’ll notice that all of them passed with bi-partisan support, some with significant bi-partisan support.  All were refused for consideration by one voice, Harry Reed.

1) The Reducing Regulatory Burdens Act (H.R 872) passed 292-130 March 31, 2011

2) The Energy Tax Prevention Act (H.R. 910)  passed 255-172 on April 7, 2011

3) Preventing the feds from regulating the internet.  (H.J. Res. 37) passed 240 to 179 on April 8, 2011

4) Restarting American Offshore Leasing Now Act (H.R 1230) passed 266-149 on May 5, 2011.

5) Reinstating oil drilling permits in the Gulf Coast (H.R. 1229) passed 263-163 on May 11, 2011.

6) Reversing President Obama’s Offshore Moratorium Act (H.R 1231) passed 243-179 on May 12, 2011

7) Expedite the process for offshore drilling permit (H.R 2021) passed 255-166 on June 22, 2011.

8) The Clean Water Cooperative Federalism Act (H.R 2018) passed 239 to 184 on July 13, 2011.

9) Council to vote to set aside harmful federal regulation (H.R. 1315)  passed 241-173 on July 21, 2011.

10) Expediting the operation of the Keystone XL pipeline (H.R. 1938) passed 279-147 on July 26, 2011.

11) Give companies flexibility to operate in states that provide opportunity for growth (H.R. 2587) passed 238-186 on September 15, 2011.

12) The Transparency in Regulatory Analysis of Impacts (TRAIN) Act (H.R. 2401), passed 249-169 on September 23, 2011.

13) The Cement Sector Regulatory Relief Act (H.R. 2681) passed 262-161 on October 6, 2011.

14) The EPA Regulatory Relief Act (H.R. 2250) Passed 275-142 on October 13, 2011.

15) The Coal Residuals Reuse and Management Act (H.R. 2273) passed 276-144 on October 14, 2011.

Tea Party Rant no Harmless

     In the March 28th issue of the Arizona Republic Mr. Eugene Robinson’s (“Tea party rant not harmless”) plea to those who lead the tea party movement and those who “exploit it” start acting like responsible adults.   Mr. Eugene Robinson your bemoaning the violence and the threats of violence on the right is so absurd it set my hair on fire. 

      You identify several supposed threats, some of which may actually have occurred.  However, did you ever object to even one of the thousands of threats, really bloody ones, that were openly demonstrated against our own President Bush.  There were thousands of posters suggesting he be hanged, at least once by an image of Saddam, one by Bin Laden.  There were hundreds of images of his being burned in effigy.  Listed below are only a few of the most heinous posters. 

“Kill Bush.  Bomb his f------n house.”

“Hang bush for war crimes.”

“Bush is the disease.  Death is the cure.

“I’m here to kill Bush.  Shoot me.

“Bush, the only dope worth shooting.

“Death to worlds #1 terrorist pig.  Bush and his sheep.”

“Death to extremist Christian terrorist pig Bush.”

       Some of the pictures were absolutely grotesque, one of Bush with a bullet hole in the middle of his forehead, blood dripping down his face.  In one picture his severed head is held aloft blood oozing from the raggedly gashed throat.  Many posters had him brought to the guillotine, one called the Bush whacker. 

       Can you imagine the furor if even one such poster depicting violence against Obama appeared at a tea party?  You scorn Sarah for her imagery, but were apparently not disturbed at all that John Kerry suggested we “kill the bird in the White House.”  I go to tea parties.  They are Sunday School picnics.  The only violence you’ll see is the violence of your socialists friends, Mr. Robinson, who try to disrupt our peaceful gatherings. 

       Speaker Palosi, was supposedly moved to tears remembering the violence of the protesters on the left.  It was quite an act, wasn't it?    If we see violence on the right, we help you prosecute the perpetrators.  You reward your violent protestors with lucrative government jobs.  I know you’re following Saul Alinsky’s Rules for Radicals, attacking the character rather than the ideas of your opponents, and if you can keep the rest of America away from the tea parties so they can’t see the truth, it may work.  

John F. Kennedy: What liberals believe

John F. Kennedy supposedly made some assertions about liberals that may have been true for him, but that have been subverted by liberals who serve today. 

Someone who looks ahead and not behind:  Watch out that 15 trillion dollar debt is going to bite you in the rear.

Someone who welcomes new ideas without rigid reactions:  Canadian pipeline?  No thanks.  It’s safer to buy our oil from the Middle East.

Someone who cares about their health:  A turkey sandwich and a banana?  Your Momma is nasty.  Here, have some chicken Nuggets. 

Someone who cares about the welfare of the people:  Let’s trap them into lives of shiftless poverty that way we can always count on their vote.  We’ll keep our jobs and put billions in our personal accounts.

Someone who cares about their jobs: I don’t care if you spent millions building that plant in South Carolina where the unemployment rate is through the roof, you will offer those jobs over my dead body.

 Someone who tries to break though the stalemate:  For nearly four years now the Democratic senate has refused to bring one budget bill to the floor.  Where’s the stalemate? 

Someone who can resolve problems abroad:   Except for the Gulf, Democrats start wars, Republicans end them.

The Canadian Free Press recognizes the importance of religion in sustaining our republic.

                The Canadian Free Press recognizes the importance of religion in sustaining our republic.    http://www.canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/45021          

              " The one thing that Presidents from Washington through to modern times have held in common was the belief that religion was a central component of the life of the republic.

             "Calvin Coolidge, President from 1923 to 1929, said 'Our government rests upon religion. It is from that source that we derive our reverence for truth and justice, for equality and liberality, and for the rights of mankind. Unless the people believe in these principles they cannot believe in our government. There are only two main theories of government in our world. One rests on righteousness and the other on force. One appeals to reason, and the other appeals to the sword. One is exemplified in the republic; the other is represented by despotism.'"

               

Term Limits

        My first reaction to Rex Jabobsen’s “Limit terms of office” (Yuma Sun, January 3, 2012) was negative.  I had read an article that showed how the entrenched bureaucracy in D.C.  stymies change.  Many bills that would reform the way Washington does business get pigeonholed by the bureaucrats who really run Washington.  It takes a lot of experience for our representative to find ways to circumvent the behemoth. 

         His idea has resonated with me, however, and I now see the merit.  As it is now our president and congressmen and women lose sight of their allegiance to “we the people” and spend most of their time running for re-election.  If they are all lame ducks, perhaps they’ll think more about their legacy and spend their time making Washington work more efficiently for the folks who hired them.

           According to the constitution, congress shall meet on the first Monday of December.  I like that.  They’d have less time to screw things up.  They could put together a budget for the year and then go home and get a job.

The faith of our fathers

Were our founders men of faith

Based mostly on David Barton who wrote Original Intent

Lest I forget, a few notes about our founders whom we are led to believe were agnostics.

1. Continental Congress printed a Bible to be used in schools.
2. Benjamin Franklin recessed the Continental Congress for three days of prayer and contemplation.  When governor of Pennsylvania he drew up a plan to encourage wider church attendance.  Some historians have discredited him because for his opium use (was in so much pain that he had to be carried to meetings on a chair) and because he was considered by some of his contemporaries to be insane.  They don’t mention that it was because he was so fiercely anti slavery.  In one letter out of thousands he calls himself a deist, but only to emphasize the belief that it doesn’t matter who you think God is, worship him.  When asked about his faith Franklin said there is a god, there is an afterlife where we will have to answer for our sins.  We serve God by serving others.
3. Samuel Adams, governor of Massachusetts called the entire state to prayer and fasting 7 times.
4. Charles Carol, richest man in America used his estate to endow in perpetuity a chapel and a preacher for a remote area.
5. Benjamin Rose founded the Bible Society of America and the Sunday School Society of America.
6. Stephen Hawkins wrote treatises on Christianity
7. Robert Payne was a military chaplain
8. Washington’s adopted daughter described George Washington’s habit of Bible reading and prayer and said that to suggest that he father was not a Christian would be as silly as saying that he was not a patriot.
9. Jefferson signed his documents not just “In the year of our Lord” as most people did, but “In the year of our Lord Christ.”  He instituted church services in the Capitol.  The Marine Corp band played the service.  Ministers of every denomination took turns.  The first woman preacher and the first Black minister in the country spoke there frequently.  More than 2,000 people attended.  He also established churches in the treasury department, the war department, and at the naval yard.  Jefferson published a book called the Red Letter Book, the words of Christ in four languages which was printed every year and handed out to every new member of congress, until 1926 when progressives began taking control of the dialogue and got us to believe that the founders were all atheists.
10. James Wilson founded the first law school and said that you cannot have good civil law without divine law
11. Francis Hopkins published a book in which he set the entire book of Psalms to music
12. Benjamin Rush had a dream about John Adams and Thomas Jefferson who had been in bitter dispute for years.  In his dream he saw a book published containing the many enlightening letters exchanged between Adams and Jefferson.  He felt the dream was a message of the Holy Spirit and wrote to Jefferson telling him about the dream and, because they hadn’t written any letters, encouraged them to forget their differences and begin to communicate so that the dream could be fulfilled.  Adams and Jefferson agreed that messages from the Holy Spirit must be attended to, buried the hatchet and wrote many letters which have subsequently been compiled entitled The Adams and Jefferson Letters.
13. The founders were men of faith and duty.  George Washington did not want to leave Mt Vernon to fight in the wars or serve as president.  Patrick Henry said he had 19 children and 89 grandchildren and he wanted to go home, but he served as well.  They pledged their lives and their sacred honor.   Seven of them were assonated before they could see the result of their efforts.  Seventeen of them lost everything as a result of their stand for freedom and independence.  Five were prisoners of war. 
14. Early schools required students to read two books.  The Lives of the Signers  and The Wives of the Signers.  But in 1926 two college professors (Yale, Harvard, I can’t remember which) wrote a book called The Godless Constitution in which they pictured the signers as agnostics and atheists.  No footnotes, no scholarly references.  A year later a book was published that thoroughly disputed The Godless Constitution, a scholarly book filled with footnotes and references that proved them wrong, but professors at colleges still rely on  The Godless Constitution for their information about the founders. 
15. There are 5,600 quotations in the founding papers.  The largest percentage of them, 34 per cent, came from the Bible,  the largest percentage from the book of Deuteronomy, the book of law of the Old Testaments.

       If anyone is “regurgitat(ing) old tired mantras,” it is Jules Ohrin-Greipp (Debate the facts rather than fears,” Yuma Sun, March 19) calling us birthers, deathers, fringers and depressing ignorant racists.  (Incidentally the author cites not one fact to justify the slurs. 

       Casting ad hominem slurs on the opposition is common on the left.  At every stump speech President Obama manages to call us Flat Earthers.  Had he been up on his history, our president would have known that outside of a few leaders in the Catholic Church, most people knew 2,000 years ago that the earth is round. Eratosthenes calculated its circumference within 50 miles of today’s estimate in about 200 B.C.   The Bible makes several references to the fact that the earth is an “orb” suspended in space.

         The president’s grasp of presidential history is lacking as well.  He compared our resistance to his energy policy to Rutherford B. Hayes’ resistance to the telephone accusing Hayes of calling it a “crazy invention.”  Rutherford B. Hays actually celebrated the invention and was the first president own a telephone. 

Conservatives are called “flat-earthers” because they refuse to recognize that solar, wind, and bio-fuels are the answer to our energy problems. We support individuals investing in a variety of energy alternatives.  Both my daughter and my niece have made their own solar panels to use on their Northern Arizona acreages.  My husband and I built a solar oven way back in the 70’s. 

          All the science, however, reveals that gas, oil, coal, and nuclear energy, (the types of energy about which the left says “Katie bar the door!!”)  are by far the most efficient, most abundant, and the most reliable. First of all, let us dispense with one of our president’s favorite canards, that the United States consumes 20 per cent of the world’s energy and has only 2 per cent of the reserves, a mere 23 billion barrels.  North America actually sits on 1.5 trillion barrels, perhaps more than the entire Middle East.   We have an abundant supply.

           And it’s efficient. Studies at Cornell University illustrate the inefficiency of ethanol.  A car getting 30 miles per gallon on gasoline would get only 20 mpg using ethanol.  It takes 2 gallons of fossil fuel to create 3 gallons of ethanol. The producers gas and oil “to produce ethanol [because they] can't afford to burn ethanol.”   

          Nuclear power is mega efficient.  A nuclear plant takes up about 2 acres of land and can produce 1000 megawatts of power per hour.  It would take 240,000 acres (375 square miles) and 9,600 turbines to produce that much power and 20,000 acres or 31.25 square miles of solar panels. Both types of energy rely on the weather, but a nuclear plant produces its 1000 megawatts 24 hours a day.

          If we could get Katie (the Department of Energy) to quit barring the door, we might very well be paying 2 bucks at the pump again.  

Volcker Rule of the Dodd-Frank bill

     I thought some of our Patriots who cannot watch Cspan would be interested in getting summaries of discussions at the capitol.  Today’s discussion was of the Volcker Rule of the Dodd-Frank bill. Representatives from various regulatory agencies, FDIC, CFTC, SEC, FTC and the Federal Reserve were asked to create the guidelines that would distinguish risky proprietary trading from healthy market-making trading which is absolutely essential to the economic well-being of the country

      The issue is so complex that that one rule required nearly 400 pages of regulations and 1,300 questions.  The regulators agreed that the only way to really distinguish between the two is to examine the intent of the investor, discern the investor’s motives.  When asked how effective it would be all of them were hesitant:  “We think we can…”  We hope…”  “Maybe we can.”  The ineffective implementation of the rule could be caustic to the economy damaging capital building, affecting liquidity, interest rates, property values, the gamut.

Members of both sides of the aisle and all the regulators agreed that there is no evidence that proprietary trading had any effect on the recent banking crisis. They are apparently trying to get a jump on the next crisis which is in and of itself a scary proposition when we realize the unintended consequences of everything government does.

       There was also a lot of agreement with regard to how costly implementation would be.  It would take banks at least 18 months to set up tracking systems that could adequately track activity.  The actual monitoring would cost from 80 billion to 400 billion to implement.  Corporations would necessarily have to sideline a trillion dollars, take a trillion dollars out of the market to make the system work.  The agencies would have to hire extra staff to take on the responsibilities and they would also have to set up a separate research center to maintain data, a significant increase to federal bureaucracy.

       The other hitch is that none of the other G-12 countries have agreed to follow the guidelines which would probably cause a loss of jobs to countries that are more business friendly.

       Aside from some of the Democrats, the only person on the panels who seemed adamant about the importance of implementation was a professor from MIT.

Safety of Pipelines

A recent letter inspired me to do some research regarding the safety of pipelines. The first barrel of oil traveled through the Alaska pipeline in 1977 The only significant spill occurred as a result of an environmentalist’s blowing a 1-inch old in the line at Steele Creek in February 1978 at a loss of approximately 16,000 barrels.  The pipeline was shut down again in January 2011 when a leak was discovered the basement of the booster pump at Pump Station 1 where repairmen recovered 10 gallons of spilled oil. There may well have been other accidents, but apparently none that made the news.

The Exon Valdez which spilled 750,000 barrels into Prince William Sound's Alaska. Every year around 225 large trucks carrying approximately 8,500 gallons of oil and gas are involved in fatal traffic accidents.  That totals as many as ½ million gallons a year. I couldn’t find any specific information about accidents involving trains carrying oil and gas, but it is probably also significant.

The viscosity of the oil pumped through Keystoe Pipeline does require that dangerous chemicals have to be added to make it pumpable, but all considered the EPA’s own worst case scenario suggests that 1200 barrels may be spilled over the course of the 50 year expected life of the pipeline (See http://watercenter.unl.edu/downloads/2011-Worst-case-Keystone-spills-report.pdf)

We may not like the idea of pipelines, but it’s pretty obvious that environmentally it’s one of the safest to move it from point to point.

Liberals violating first amendment rights in the separation of church and state

         Those on the left are accusing the Catholic church of violating first amendment rights by refusing to comply with the health care mandate that requires them to provide coverage for birth control and the morning after pill in the health insurance policy the church organization provides. 

         I wonder if people on the other side of the issue can see that it is they who are imposing their religious views on the Catholic Church.  They are the ones who are violating first amendment rights.  The choice people have been forcing my Catholic cousin to financially support Planned Parenthood which aborts thousands of babies every year.  Kathleen’s heart breaks when she thinks of those babies.

       Now you may think she’s silly, that it’s not a baby; it’s just tissue, but can you see that you are forcing her to violate her moral conscience, her religious liberty by forcing her to support something she so adamantly opposes?

        No one is proposing that we outlaw either contraception or the morning after pill.  All we’re saying is that people who are morally opposed to the idea should not be expected to pay for something they abhor.

The Social Security Scam

       You’ve probably seen the email forward that suggests we are getting ripped off by our government.  Surprise!  The second time I got it I did the calculation and decided, “Pretty close.”  I forwarded it to my genius son who verified it.

       Assuming we averaged only $30,000 a year, had we bought an IRA that paid only 4 percent with the money our employers contributed to the Social Security trust fund over the 40 years we worked we’d have an $800,000 nest egg which would pay us $26,000 a year for 30 years, assuming we’d live to 95. 

The email ends, “The folks in Washington have pulled off a bigger Ponzi scheme than Bernie Madhoff ever had.”  My son says it’s worse than a Ponzi scheme, because “with a real Ponzi scheme you have a choice.  With Social Security you have a gun in your face forcing you to participate.  A Ponzi schemer, thief that he is, does not have the unlimited power of the government over his victims.”

Colorado River Tea Party Dinner Debate

       The Colorado River Tea Party group had a debate watch dinner party last night.  It was great, about 100 people, and in spite of the fact that once again the debate is moderated by a liberal jerk who is intent on asking questions that make the candidates look like empty headed idiots, they did quite well, turned most of the questions into real issues.      
        I have been waiting for someone to take Santorum down a notch or two because of his serious big government creds. It happened last night, his backing of Specter against Toomy,  the Tea Party candidate. Santorum also supported the bridge to nowhere, all the bailouts, Planned Parenthood, no child left behind, and he voted 5 times to raise the debt ceiling with no caveat to cut spending.
        And his excuses were quite lame. Specter was a power broker who could influence judicial votes, no child was in support of Bush and the party, planned parenthood because it was part of a big spending bill that needed to pass. All of them credible reasons, but reasons that dug deep holes for him last night. His conservative creds are all based on social issues and we need someone who is serious about fiscal issues. 
         The other three all did well, although I wish they wouldn't let those liberal moderators trap them into focusing on non issues rather than talking about real problems. Gingrich was great on clarifying issues: "You're asking the wrong question." "The issue isn't that simple..." When the moderator posed a question that he said was complex, Gingrich said, "That's not complex. The answer is simple." He and Ron Paul were having some fun. Ron Paul was blunt as usual.  Of Santorum he said, “Well, he’s a fake.”  Romney was serious and on target.

Obama's accomplishments

         I am quite certain that I could never convince Sally Sheridan that her deductions with regard to Obama’s successes are faulty, but I am compelled to respond. She would vote for him again on the basis of his accomplishments, first of all because he saved the American auto industry.  

      Not quite.  As I pointed out in my last letter, although General Motors is owned by the US taxpayer most of the company success has grown in foreign markets.  The Cadillac is made in Mexico, the Buick Regal in Germany, the Buick Riviera in China and according to Made in America Foundation GM violates import rules on many of the other models by stripping labels which are supposed to show where parts like the engines and transmissions are made.

         Obama’s car, the Chevy Volt costs $50,000 and has a real driving range of about 25 miles.  Most estimates say that every Volt costs the American Taxpayer $250,000, and now in his new budget the president proposes a $10,000 tax break for people who buy it.  That’s $10,000 we tax payers will give to those notorious one per centers because they’re the only ones who can afford a Volt.

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      Whether Obama has ended the wars in the Middle East remains to be seen.  I would remind Sally, however,  that the wars in Iraq were not in retaliation for 9/11. The first was at the request of Kuwait in response to the Iraqi invasion,  the second because Sadaam refused to comply with the terms of the surrender.

       She also admires Obama for having   “overseen 23 consecutive months of economic growth.”  We began tracking quarterly economic growth in 1947.  Obama is the first president who failed to achieve even one quarter of growth of at least 4 per cent.  Obama managed 3.9 in the first quarter of 2010, but growth has been sliding since then. According to this morning’s Sun, the unemployment rate in Yuma is over 20 percent.  Nationally only 64 percent of adult Americans are active in the labor force.  That wonderful 9 percent rate only counts people looking for work, not all of those out of work. 

            “He has made healthcare affordable for me and all Americans.” We haven’t seen what the effects of Obama care will be, but costs rise for whatever product the the government subsidizes.  My duplex rented for $225.  When Section 8 housing vouchers were available, the same apartment rented for over $600 a month. The reason healthcare is so costly is a result of government interference.  Read the book Code Blue.  Government interference in health care has been disastrous worldwide.

              Obama hasn’t saved the housing market either. According to this morning’s Sun, $4.9 million in Yuma properties, up 68 per cent from last year, go on auction block on Thursday.  The city of Detroit was unable to unload the thousands of tax delinquent homes, so now you can buy a house there for $500 if you agree to live in it for at least three years. 

             One thing that could have saved Obama would have been the approval of the Canadian pipeline.  I really think he wants to increase the unemployment numbers because he wants more people dependent on the federal government. It must be intentional.  He sees what’s happening in Europe.  He’s not dumb.

Warren Buffet, Jabberwok or Bandershatch?"

That President Obama honors Warren Buffet by naming his new millionaire’s tax in his name is wrong in so many ways.  Yes, Warren Buffet did say that millionaires like himself should pay more taxes.  Why then has he been fighting the IRS for 11 years trying to avoid paying the Billion, yes that’s the Billion dollars he owes the IRS in past taxes.  Another Geithner.  Does the president always side with tax cheats?

Then, according to The Financial Times, the income tax increases Buffett suggests will not apply to him because most of his wealth is in the form of unrealized capital gains, which don’t count as taxable income or capital gains of the sort he proposes to raise taxes on. Furthermore Berkshire Hathaway, by far Buffet’s biggest corporation, doesn’t even pay dividends.  The Buffet Rule does, however, affect most of his competitors, so he still stands a chance to achieve his life-time goal, which according to his wife Susan said in a 2004 interview with Charlie Rose was to become the richest man in the world. 

 So why does Warren Buffet even pretend to support the president?  First of all, the millionaire who gets in bed with the president takes home the bacon. .  American tax payers are being fleeced to make a millionaire richer. Is it a coincidence that by killing the Keystone Pipeline Buffet wins?  He owns the Burlington Northern Santa Fe Railroad that ships the oil.  Dick Holland, Buffet’s partner denies the influence peddling, says Buffet hasn’t talked politics with anyone for at least five years.  Yeah, that’s a story you can take to the bank.

 Buffet says that he doesn’t make that much money off oil shipments, but either way it means we pay, according to the Huffington Post, 60 cents more per barrel, twice as much for gas at the pump.

That’s not the first time the grandfatherly Buffet benefitted from government largess.  The $700 billion bailout of U.S. banks saved his $5 billion investments in Goldman Sachs.   After buying the BNSF in 2009, Buffett increased his investment in lobbying from $1.2 million a year to $9.8 million a year,.

In short, crony capitalism pays off in big ways.  It insures Buffet’s fortune, protects him from ambitious people like you who might join him on the ladder of success.  It’s lonely up there and he likes it that way.  

“Beware the Jabberwock, my son!  Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun the furious Bandersnatch!”

Disrespecting the President

          I confess a good deal of ambivalence about the photograph of Governor Jan Brewer pointing a finger at President Obama.  I admire our governor, but the image illustrated a profound disrespect for the office of the presidency

          Then I watched the ire of the pundits, and I regained my equilibrium.  Outrage! Brian Williams said, “Who have you ever seen talking to a president like this?” Well, Mr. Williams, you for one. 

          I don’t remember the date, but I clearly remember many of his hostile interviews with President Bush.  Williams was “in his face” the whole time.  I am quite certain that if those tapes were replayed you see fingers almost up our president’s nose.  Williams berated him for his mishandling of Hurricane Katrina suggesting he was so out of it he couldn’t even understand the mishandling of his mishandling.  He laughed at Bush’s reference to Albert Camus, clearly suggesting that Bush hadn’t the grey matter necessary to understand the French philosopher.

          Remember when the Iraqi journalist threw his shoes at our president?  The press corps was delighted.  They played the scene over and over giggling it up, roaring with laughter.  They called the Iraqi a hero. No one was outraged.  One reporter female journalist said, "This is your goodbye kiss, you dog.”

          Remember how Obama supporters booed President Bush at Obama’s inauguration?  Now that was unprecedented. And at the 2004 State of the Union, Democrats roared with boos and catcalls, heckling President Bush when he talked of the Patriot Act and again when he talked about the crisis in Social Security.

President Bush was called a dunce and an idiot and a liar.  Harry Reid called him both a liar and a loser.     One Democrat said that young men were dying In Iraq for the amusement of the idiot in the Whitehouse. 

          I still don’t like the picture of Governor Brewer’s finger at President Obama’s nose, but I wish the press corps would be more even handed about when they “get their undies in a bundle.”  Thank you Sarah Palin.

Obama's stunning State of the Union 2012

              I have watched President Obama’s State of the Union 2012 three times.  It’s stunning.  I won’t bother you with the voluminous notes I took, but I can’t not speak out about at least a few issues. 

              The president called for a “basic minimum tax.”  Apparently he doesn’t know that we already have on, enacted in 1969 to insure that those at the top pay their fair share.     

             He tells us that, “Through the power of our diplomacy a world that was once divided about how to deal with Iran’s nuclear program now stands as one.” What? 

             He brags about progress in Afghanistan. The latest National Intelligence Estimate on Afghanistan: “The Taliban will grow stronger, using fledgling talks with the U.S. to gain credibility and stall until U.S. troops leave, while continuing to fight for more territory.”

            He claims to have saved the American auto industry. Two problems there that need a little more clarification:  First of all the Made in the USA Foundation says, "’Made in America?’ Not quite.”  The AALA requires new cars to provide information on the window sticker including where the car was assembled and where the transmissions and engines were made.  They have charged GM with violating the American Automobile Labeling Act (AALA) stripping country of origin labels off of its cars. Joel D. Joseph, Chairman of the Made in the USA Foundation, said, “General Motors wants to hide the fact that, even after the government bailout, it has moved production of vehicles offshore. The Cadillac SRX is now made in Mexico. The Buick Regal is made in Germany.”

             Volkswagen disputes the presidents claim that “GM is once again the leading auto maker in the world.”  Volkswagen sold 8 million units and says that although GM boasts 9 million, that figure includes 2.3 million units sold by Chinese automakers SAIC and Wiling.  GM does have a financial interest in those companies, but it is not a controlling interest, so Volkswagen disputes the claim.

              The most galling lie, ( I hate to call it that, but it is a bare faced lie) is the president’s insistence that millionaires pay a lower rate of taxes than middle income people.  Geithner’s own figures show that people with incomes between 50,000 to 100,000 pay 9 per cent, millionaires pay 24 per cent, and the guys at the top pay 36 per cent.  Buffet’s secretary is obviously one of those one-percenters the OWS guys hate so much.

            And yes, that includes Mitt Romney.  What the president fails to admit is that those who live off investment income are taxed twice.  The corporations they own are taxed first at 35 per cent, the highest corporate tax rate in the world.  Then when the shares are paid, the coupon clipper pays another 15 per cent.  Get it?  That means they pay a total of 50 per cent on the money they earn.

           President Obama did say he wanted America to be a country where hard work is rewarded, where personal responsibility is honored, where everyone does their fair share and plays by the same rules.  If we Tea Party people thought he meant that we’d all vote for him.