New Year…New Annoyances

1. Hypocrisy of the Left – Remember Trent Lott? I do.  The left went CRAZZZY over his comments about Strom Thurmond and segregation.  Recently it was revealed that Senator Harry Reid had made this comment in 2008 pertaining to President Obama: “with no Negro dialect, unless he wanted to have one”.  If the left pushes this under the rug, they’ll have a lot of explaining to do come November.  All I really have to say to this is…Bye-bye, Reidie.

2.  Rod Blagojevich – Blago claimed that he is “blacker” than Obama.  When a CBS affiliate caught up with him to ask him about that statement, he replied with “It was a very stupid thing to say”.  Nice catch, Blago…but wait…the man really needs to learn to keep his mouth closed because he finished with, ""Obviously, I'm not blacker than President Obama."  Sigh…

3. Broken Promises – It takes a lot to piss of C-SPAN, but that’s just what the current Congressional leadership and President Obama has done.  We all get that politicians lie to get elected, that’s nothing new.  However, then presidential-nominee Obama repeatedly reinsured the country that he would govern over the most open government the world has ever seen.  He would make sure C-SPAN covered all the health care reform talks to bring to the spot light those in Congress that put insurance companies before the people.  Well, guess what?  It never happened, nor will it.  President Obama, you lied.

4. Socialism -  Our loveable world dictator, Hugo Chavez, ordered a 50% currency devaluation over the weekend.  He also promised to seize any business that attempt to raise prices to cover the currency flop.  Now doesn’t socialism seem just so wonderful?  I just hope Bernanke or Obama don’t get any bright ideas from this…

5. Al Gore-  Whether you believe in the whole global warming farce or not, you have to admit the man needs to chill.  Have you ever noticed that he gets really quiet when the world is in a deep freeze? And as soon as it heats up a little, he jumps on his soap box and cries for the polar bears?  The man is a self-made joke and really needs to retire.

6. Speaking of retiring – Before you announce to the world that you intend on retiring…please line up a hobby just in case you don’t like the whole not being in the spot light thing anymore.  NBC just announced that Leno will be returning to his 11:35 time, pushing back Conan to 12:05.  Jay had years before he officially retired to change his mind, why do it after you’re gone?  Bret Favre, the powerhouse NFL quarterback, has retired twice? three times? I’ve lost count.  It should be a federal law that once you say “I’m retiring” then you’re done.  The end.

7. Job Creation – where are the jobs?  Every month I see more and more jobs being lost.  We spent billions if not trillions of dollars to pull the country out of the recession and save and create jobs yet I see absolutely nothing happening.  It’s been a year, President Obama, when are you going to accept the blame for what’s happening instead of blaming it on President Bush?

8. Nancy Pelosi – instead of getting another Botox shot, how about you act like the Speaker of the House and allow the country to be involved in the health care reform talks instead of going to bed with the Obama administration and Bye-Bye Reidie?  If you don’t want to act for the people than you can go back to San Francisco.

9. Breast Cancer Awareness via Facebook – I’m all for bringing awareness to help bring about cures, but posting the color of your bra on a social networking site?  Really?  There isn’t another tactful way of doing it?  Maybe donating $5.00 to the cancer fund and challenging your friends to match it?  Sounds a little classier to me.

10.  Sanctity of Marriage – What a joke.  When the divorce rate hit 50%, the ‘sanctity of marriage’ went out the window.  Heterosexuals are doing fine themselves destroying marriage, they really shouldn’t worry about the gay community.

A little Common Sense Goes A Long Way…

Anyone who thinks a single-payer health care system will work in the United States is a moron.  The Democratic controlled Congress and White House is again trying to bribe the Republic to set their liberal agenda in motion.  Any government program that guarantees a human right is a scheme to ultimately enact a soft tyranny.

Don’t get me wrong, health care reform is greatly needed but only to correct the greed of the insurance outfits and to destroy frivolous lawsuits.   Health care costs have risen drastically due to these lawsuits and threaten the pockets of hard working Americans.  A universal health care coverage will only add more hurt than good.  Not only will your every health need be mandated by Washington, you and your neighbor will have to pay the ever growing bureaucratic cost that comes along with it.  Nothing comes cheap in Washington…

Social Security:

• Benefits will outpace revenues by 2016 – 2017 which means we will have to tap into the ‘Social Security Lock Box’ (cue Al Gore…) to help pay for the deficits.
• The Social Security Trust Fund is full of United States Treasury Bonds also known as IOUs.
• Remember, We are both the United States and Social Security – so in theory we (as the United States) have to borrow money to pay back us (as the Social Security Trust Fund).  I thought the money we paid was going to be in a very safe place…
• Ultimately if we continue on this track the Social Security Trust Fund will be out of money by 2042 (Social Security Administration) or 2052 (Congressional Budget Office).  Guess where the money will come from? Yup…your pockets.

Medicare:

• The Medicare Hospital Trust Fund will be insolvent by 2019 if nothing is done to fix the growing cost of health care.
• Medicare costs have doubled every four years from 1966 to 1980.
• In 2008 Medicare made up 13% ($386 Billion) of the federal budget; In 2010 it will make up 12.5% ($422 Billion) of the federal budget; For the decade of 2010-2019 we will spend roughly $6.4 Trillion dollars or on average 14.8% of the budget per year.
• According to the Government Accountability Office less than 5% of all Medicare claims are audited.  The website www.USDebtClock.org states there is roughly $40,437,977,102 in Medicare fraud.

United States Postal Service:

• As on 2008, the USPS has a negative capital account, meaning their liabilities exceed their assets.
• Even as the volume of mail decreases the operating income of the Postal Service has increased (more of less due to their ever increasing stamp prices) yet they still ultimately make no money.
• Mail volume is dropping at a hefty 5% per annum.  (213.138 billion in 2006 to 202.703 billion in 2008)
• In 2006 the Service had a healthy $900 million profit leading to their incredible $5.327 billion dollar loss in 2007.  2008 didn’t bring much better numbers with their still staggering $2.806 billion loss.  Time to raise stamp prices again?
• As of 2008 their liabilities totaled a whopping $27.658 billion in which includes $7.2 billion in blown out debt.

The United States Government:

• The Following numbers are as on 12:45 p.m. on September 2, 2009…
• US Debt - $11,744,493,687 – meaning $38,212 per citizen
• US Spending to date - $2,659,285,390 – meaning $8,651 per citizen
• Current US Deficit - $1,259,181,175 (Largest in nation’s history)
• Current US Unfunded Liabilities - $58,989,382,748,568 – meaning a lovely $191,935 per citizen
• Largest Current Year Budget Items (as of the same time and date above)…
• Defense Spending - $535,226,562,310
• Social Security Spending - $431,350,780,530
• Medicare/Medicaid Spending - $417,933,464,913
• Interest On National Debt - $317,952,921,222

How can anyone expect a government run health care system to work if three of the largest pet projects of that same government have failed so miserably?  The federal government alone is a ticking financial time bomb.

We have always laid our full faith and trust in the elected members of Congress and the White House yet they always seem to betray us.  The private sector is the only true successful force in the American System and we can’t turn our backs away from it now.  More government is never the solution…More government is the problem.  If Washington was a Fortune 500 company, how many of you would invest?

This Week’s Top 10 Annoyances…

1. Charles Rangel is an I-D-I-O-T – Anyone else want to give him a V8 head slap right now? The man is the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee which means he writes tax laws…Yet, for some reason he thinks the same tax laws don’t pertain to him.  First it was his unreported rental income, now it’s his failure to show all of his assets and income on his financial disclosures (I know that’s not the same as his actual tax return butttttt if he’s stupid enough to hide it from Congress you know he’s the same with the Internal Revenue Service).  Resignation? Please?
2. The Race Card – Okay, we get it, you’re black and therefore the whole world is against you!  Really?  Governor Patterson (D-NY) and Rep. Diane Watson (D-CA) seem to think so.  They both believe that the only way to explain Lord Obama’s drop in approval ratings is because he… is… black.  I was thinking more because his ‘hope’ and ‘change’ never came, I could be wrong. *Shrugs*
3. Free Speech? What’s that? – Listen, I personally don’t think Lord Obama is a racist but if someone really believes he is then he has every right to make his opinion known.  Wait…Why is it fine that Governor Patterson and Diane Watson accuse the rest of the country of being racist but when Glenn Beck accuses Lord Obama of it the world pauses?  Well, I’ll tell you.  For some reason we have a double standard for these types of things (aka Affirmative Action).  A black man/woman can accuse any white man/woman of being racist and it’s all fine and dandy because we all know if you’re white you belong to the Ku Klux Klan.  If a white man/woman cries racism towards a black man/woman, that cracker better hope he has a good lawyer because the ACLU will be breathing down his/her neck.
4. Cash for Crap – Investing in tomorrow or today? In order to fully recover from our situation we need long-term investments.  I really don’t think Obama has the slightest clue about the economy, so far his plan consists solely on throwing large amounts of cash at every problem he encounters.  Sure, there will be signs of recovery but that’s only because we just turned up the voltage to our life support vessel.  Once the power goes out, we end up where we started.
5. Al Gore – He just needs to shut his big mouth.  As soon as you think he’s gone…BAM…he’s back.
6. Democrats in Congress – The only thing I can say about them is…Damn, they’re annoying!  They finally regain power and feel the need to jam reform after reform down the throats of Americans, even though we don’t want them.  The recent town hall meetings just prove my prior statement.  I have a feeling that come November we’re going to see much less of these annoying little pests.
7. The Morally Bankrupt Right – The death of Senator Edward Kennedy brought sadness to the country and pure hate from the far right.  Senator Kennedy was far from perfect, I disagreed with almost everything he has ever done but at the end of the day he was a man, patriot and political legend.  Kennedy was the surviving member of the American Camelot and his passing brings about the end to an era.  The “moral” right again show their hypocrisy by spewing their hate towards a family in their time of sorrow.
8. AIG – How can a company lose billions upon billions of dollars in a little more than a year, be bailed out by billions of taxpayers dollars, and be worth ultimately nothing trade for $50 a share?  I just don’t get it.
9. Michael Jackson – Are we seriously still talking about him?  Was it murder?  Who is the real father to his children? WHO CARES?!?!? Seriously.
10. Governor Sanford – admit you are an idiot and resign.

The Bribery Of The Republic

“The American Republic will endure, until politicians realize they can bribe the people with their own money”

- Alexis de Tocqueville

The Great Depression allowed Franklin D. Roosevelt to lay the building blocks to a future generation of soft despotism.  He was an extremely effective politician and knew what had to be done to transform the American Republic into a nation that fit his socialistic left-wing ideology.  The nation of Washington, Jefferson and Lincoln ended on March 4, 1933 (with the brief exception from 1981 – 1989).  I believe that Roosevelt knew that he wouldn’t achieve his plan for ultimate transformation during his lifetime so he planted the seeds of socialism for future politicians to water and watch grow.

The most powerful tool in Roosevelt’s arsenal was the knowledge that he could bribe the American people with their own money.  Future presidents followed in his footsteps with the excessive spending on unnecessary government programs that ultimately led to the generation of votes that kept them in power. It’s like the old saying, “don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”  FDR’s Social Security Act of 1935 and the amendment signed into law thirty years later by Lyndon Johnson that created Medicare were the beginning of the fall of the Republic.

Social Security in it’s purest application is a great savings tool to supplement our retirement, but allowing the Federal Government complete control over the coffers was a huge mistake.  They left IOUs in the “trust fund” to pay for entitlement programs that indirectly buy votes by bribing the Republic with their own money.  I don’t understand how people can’t see this.  Food stamps, unemployment benefits, money for the arts and sciences, the public school system, farm subsidies, mortgage relief, bank bailouts, easy credit, guarantee of jobs and national parks (among many more) are NOT free.  The government taxes those who chose to work for a better lifestyle for those who expect that same lifestyle to be an inalienable right.  We have allowed them to mortgage our future for instant gratification.

We currently are running a $1.8 trillion deficit (that’s four times larger than the record set under the Bush Administration) and we have a national debt of $11.4 trillion dollars!  Assuming that there 306 million people living in the United States each American’s share of the debt is $37,254.90 and that doesn’t include the amount of interest we will have to pay. 

When will we learn that it is up to us, We the People, to pay for their spending?  Every day we are being bribed with our own money and yet we allow it to occur.  We empower the government to rule with a soft tyranny and 52.9% of America ENJOYS it.   

Day 1 in Washington D.C. – Arlington Cemetery

Only spent a couple hours in Arlington due to the rain and getting there later than expected, but here are a few pictures I took when the rain finally let up a little.

The entrance to the cemetery also includes the Women’s Memorial on the left side.

 

 

 

 

The seal over the memorial above.  I HAD to take a picture of it.

 

 

 

 

This is looking for the entrance memorial above back to DC.  You can see the rear of the Lincoln Memorial.

 

 

 

 

I zoomed in for a better view of the bridge and the Lincoln Memorial.  I love this city!

 

 

 

 

Another shot of the entrance memorial.  You can see the Lee-Curtis House above.  Just gorgeous.

 

 

 

 

A plane flying into the Reagan Airport right above the Lincoln Memorial as seen from Arlington Cemetery.

 

 

 

 

One of the seals on the doors to the cemetery.

 

 

 

 

These two pictures speak for themselves.  Real American Heroes.

 

 

 

 

Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

 

 

 

 

Engraving on the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier.

“Here Rests In Honored Glory, An American Soldier, Known But To God”

 

 

 

I’ll be heading back into DC tomorrow and spending all day doing the tourist thing.  More pictures to come and hopefully I’ll have the chance to make it back into Arlington to take more pictures. 

My Stand for Liberty

The two-party system is broken. Acts of tyranny have come from both sides of the aisle and now we, as Americans, need to stand up for personal liberty. In my earlier blog, I noted that the left-wing extremists have come down with a bad case of the “hypocrisy flu” and after today I’ve noticed the same goes for the self-proclaimed “champions of morality” also known as the far-right wing of the GOP.

Recently, Carrie Prejean (current Miss California) was thrown into the national spotlight when asked for her stance on gay marriage. After taking a lot of unnecessary personal attacks from Perez Hilton and the far-left because of her personal beliefs in “opposite marriage” (that’s another story), Prejean became the moral poster child of the religious right. The end, right? Not so fast. Photos of a topless Prejean (while she was a teen, good parental judgment?) have surfaced in the blogosphere. You would think the right would condemn Prejean for these photos, seeing how they were outraged over Miley Cyrus in Vanity Fair a few weeks prior. Nope. The religious right have the tendency to only condemn the sinful acts of the opposition while still touting their unwavering moral judgment. Sure.

I guess my point in all of this nonsense is whatever happened to the Party of Reagan, individual tolerance and personal liberty? Wasn’t Ronald Reagan’s 11th commandment to never speak ill of another Republican? Yet, the far-right wing of the GOP feel the need to remove anyone that doesn’t see totalitarianism as a means of good government? (Side note: I know I referred to Arlen Specter as a RINO in a previous blog, but before you tar and feather me for being a hypocrite you have to understand that he used the Republican Party to gain political power and for that sole reason brought about my accusation)

Every morning 300 million Americans wake up as free men and women. What you or I choose to do with our lives is not up to the government or our neighbors. We all work together for a civil society, to form a more perfect union. We, the people. Why is that so hard to understand?

With that said, I’ll take this opportunity to officially announce my defection from the GOP. I have now aligned myself with the Libertarian Party and will fight to bring America back to it’s founding principles.

Life, liberty and property.

Hypocrisy Flu

The Democratic party loves to build them-selves up as being the "party of tolerance" but in the last few weeks I've noticed that the only thing they tolerate is their own liberal agenda. On April 15th hundreds of thousands of Americans came to the streets to show their disapproval of the excessive spending of not just the current Obama administration but the Bush administration as well. The main-stream media and the majority of the radical left pegged the demonstrators as unhealthy, un-American racists.

How is exercising our first amendment right to peacefully protest, unhealthy?

How is being concerned about the future of our generation and the generations to come, un-American?

How is disagreeing with irresponsible, socialistic policies, racist?

Seems to me, the "tolerant" left has unfortunately caught the hypocrisy flu. Why did Reagan fight to reform this country if we were just going to turn our back as soon as he left office? Our country is still very young, yet we have showed the world a power that no other country has ever shown. We have been able to do that through limited government, capitalism and the pure belief in self-responsibility. Those are the three basic building blocks of a great nation and without them we have nothing. It's time to bring this country back to the constitution.