Friday, November 28, 2008
I'm going to see Sarah Palin!
Well, it may be a once in a lifetime opportunity for me, but I have a reservation to see Gov. Sarah Palin on Monday afternoon! I'll take some photos and make some video, hope to tell you all about it! VN8
PS This Saturday Night Live clip is hilarious!
Thursday, November 27, 2008
Chapter 1 - Lone Star Patriot
It is indeed a rare thing to find a young man, who knows so much about true patriotism and understands the importance of all the brave patriots who have come and gone before us. What makes this young man even more remarkable is that he is from Italy. He's a foreign exchange student this year and we are pen pals. From this point forward he shall be known as "Lone Star Patriot".
Lone Star it is an my honor and privilege to call you friend. You are destined to accomplish great things! Keep the faith, stand strong and you will forever be in my prayers.
I am sharing the following that he has written with his permission. Enjoy:
My God! how little do my countrymen know what precious blessings they are in possession of, and which no other people on earth enjoy!”
Such were the words of an American Patriot of yore, Thomas Jefferson of Virginia, as with his restless mind he wandered from the hills of Massachusetts to the backwoods of Virginia – and yet, he wasn’t celebrating only the glory of an American sunset over the plains his posterity would tame through toughness and sacrifice, many years later; he wasn’t praising only a strip of land, though stretching from sea to shining sea: he was cherishing the blessings of a people, of a culture, of a Nation.
When the Pilgrims first stepped on the American shore, their stern, impassioned stress had already beaten a thoroughfare for Freedom across the wilderness. They followed the fading sun to the last land on Earth the sun would embrace with the rays of its twilight, escaping from the nightmare of persecution and intolerance which yoked in its throes an entire continent, too secularized to retain the sober purity befitting to a Republican government, with an unconquerable yearning in their minds and their hearts, a yearning they could only dare to whisper under the heel of European despots and tyrants, and only now, across the Ocean, they could speak with inspired voice: Freedom.
Those men were craving for Freedom, and Freedom was what America offered them. They confirmed their soul in self-control, their Liberty in law, for they believed they had subscribed a double compact, with God and with their fellow Christians: the first to abide in his heavenly laws, the others to mutually defend in their lives, fortunes, and sacred honor. Never would they forget what they had endured while on foreign shore, never would they take for granted what they had been given in that free land in which their lot had been cast; and, when they finally harvested the fruits of their hard work on American soil, they would not forget the benign hand that had lead them to such a land blessed with wild beauty and manly brotherhood.
Where the Spirit of the Lord is, there is liberty; to America his love divine had lead the Pilgrims, in America his love divine is still nourishing us, sons of Liberty. Today we gather together to arouse our grateful song before the throne of the Majesty of Heaven; thus, let every mortal tongue awake and every voice join in our anthem and, as the starry Flag unfurls, let Freedom rings from every altar and fireside, in the land of the Pilgrims’ pride.
May this Thanksgiving remind you of those blessings you, as free Americans, enjoy, may it add your testimony to that of every thinking American, in order to satisfy our countrymen how much it is their interest to preserve uninfected by contagion those peculiarities in their government and manners to which they are indebted for these blessings, and may it make you adore your own country, its soil, its climate, its equality, liberty, laws, people and manners.
May God bless America as He’s always done, and y’all have a great Thanksgiving Day.
(Lone Star Patriot's favorite movie is "The Patriot" with Mel Gibson. VN8)
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Happy Thanksgiving!
Just 26 of the things I'm thankful for, what are you thankful for? VN8
1. Heidi, Fritz and Toby
2. Summer Sun
3. Full Moon
4. Rain Drops
5. Real Friends
6. Trees
7. My comfy chair
8. Imagination
9. Flannel Pajamas
10. Snow
11. Clouds
12. Chocolate
13. The aroma of a turkey roasting
14. Hugs
15. Coca Cola
16. A roaring fire and fireplace
17. Electricity
18. Wi-Fi
19. Blackberry
20. Laptop
21. My Faith
22. Curly hair
23. My hands
24. My Antique Furniture
25. My Grandparents, Papa and Mother, RIP
26. The people who participate in my blog!
1. Heidi, Fritz and Toby
2. Summer Sun
3. Full Moon
4. Rain Drops
5. Real Friends
6. Trees
7. My comfy chair
8. Imagination
9. Flannel Pajamas
10. Snow
11. Clouds
12. Chocolate
13. The aroma of a turkey roasting
14. Hugs
15. Coca Cola
16. A roaring fire and fireplace
17. Electricity
18. Wi-Fi
19. Blackberry
20. Laptop
21. My Faith
22. Curly hair
23. My hands
24. My Antique Furniture
25. My Grandparents, Papa and Mother, RIP
26. The people who participate in my blog!
May your stuffing be tasty
May your turkey plump,
May your potatoes and gravy
have nary a lump.
May your yams be delicious
and your pies take the prize,
and may your Thanksgiving dinner
stay off your thighs!
-Unknown
Thursday, November 13, 2008
Cory the Well Driller
This was an email that I received and I believe it to be true and accurate. I didn't correct any of the typos or the grammar, I do find it to be exactly as I believe. Our Nation has become a Nation of "what can the government do for me." This story is amazing! VN8
Mr. Obama,
Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).
A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in . 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.
2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.
A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going.
Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in . Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me.
Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop.. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys' (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country.
You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.
What is so terribly sad about this is this. This Nation was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating.. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government. What's remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.
You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.
Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce "politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden... combined (don't you just hate goggle?). Tell me again how you feel my pain.
In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.
God help us...
Cory Miller
just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.
P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American... www.cmillerdrilling.Com
"History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Mr. Obama,
Given the uproar about the simple question asked you by Joe the plumber, and the persecution that has been heaped on him because he dared to question you, I find myself motivated to say a few things to you myself. While Joe aspires to start a business someday, I already have started not one, but 4 businesses. But first, let me introduce myself. You can call me "Cory the well driller". I am a 54 year old high school graduate. I didn't go to college like you, I was too ready to go "conquer the world" when I finished high school. 25 years ago at age 29, I started my own water well drilling business at a time when the economy here in was in a tailspin from the crash of the early 80's oil boom. I didn't get any help from the government, nor did I look for any. I borrowed what I could from my sister, my uncle, and even the pawn shop and managed to scrape together a homemade drill rig and a few tools to do my first job. My businesses did not start as a result of privilege. They are the result of my personal drive, personal ambition, self discipline, self reliance, and a determination to treat my customers fairly. From the very start my business provided one other (than myself) East Texan a full time job. I couldn't afford a backhoe the first few years (something every well drilling business had), so I and my helper had to dig the mud pits that are necessary for each and every job with hand shovels. I had to use my 10 year old, 1/2 ton pickup truck for my water tank truck (normally a job for at least a 2 ton truck).
A year and a half after I started the business, I scraped together a 20% down payment to get a modest bank loan and bought a (28 year) old, worn out, slightly bigger drilling rig to allow me to drill the deeper water wells in my area. I spent the next few years drilling wells with the rig while simultaneously rebuilding it between jobs. Through these years I never knew from one month to the next if I would have any work or be able to pay the bills. I got behind on my income taxes one year, and spent the next two years paying that back (with penalty and interest) while keeping up with ongoing taxes. I got behind on my water well supply bill 2 different years (way behind the second time... $80,000.00), and spent over a year paying it back (each time) while continuing to pay for ongoing supplies C.O.D.. Of course, the personal stress endured through these experiences and years is hard to measure. I do have a stent in my heart now to memorialize it all.
I spent the next 10 years developing the reputation for being the most competent and most honest water well driller in . 2 years along the way, I hired another full time employee for the drilling business so that we could provide full time water well pump service as well as the well drilling. Also, 3 years along the path, I bought a water well screen service machine from a friend, starting business # 2. 5 years later I made a business loan for $100,000.00 to build a new, higher production, computer controlled screen service machine. I had designed the machine myself, and it didn't work out for 3 years so I had to make the loan payments without the benefit of any added income from the new machine. No government program was there to help me with the payments, or to help me sleep at night as I lay awake wondering how I would solve my machine problems or pay my bills. Finally, after 3 years, I got the screen machine working properly, and that provided another full time job for an East Texan in the screen service business.
2 years after that, I made another business loan, this time for $250,000.00, to buy another used drilling rig and all the support equipment needed to run another, larger, drill rig. This provided another 2 full time jobs for East Texans. Again, I spent a couple of years not knowing if I had made a smart move, or a move that would bankrupt me. For the third time in 13 years, I had placed everything I owned on the line, risking everything, in order to build a business.
A couple of years into this, I came up with a bright idea for a new kind of mud pump, a fundamentally necessary pump used on water well drill rigs. I spent my entire life savings to date (just $30,000.00), building a prototype of the pump and took it to the national water well convention to show it off. Customers immediately started coming out of the woodworks to buy the pumps, but there was a problem. I had depleted my assets making the prototype, and nobody would make me a business loan to start production of the new pumps. With several deposits for pump orders in hand, and nowhere to go, I finally started applying for as many credit card as I could find and took cash withdrawals on these cards to the tune of over $150,000.00 (including modest loans from my dear sister and brother), to get this 3rd business going.
Yes, once again, I had everything hanging over the line in an effort to start another business. I had never manufactured anything, and I had to design and bring into production a complex hydraulic machine from an untested prototype to a reliable production model (in six months). How many nights I lay awake wondering if I had just made the paramount mistake of my life I cannot tell you, but there were plenty. I managed to get the pumps into production, which immediately created another 2 full time jobs in . Some of the models in the first year suffered from quality issues due to the poor workmanship of one of my key suppliers, so I and an employee (another East Texan employed) had to drive across the country to repair customers' pumps, practically from coast to coast. I stood behind the product, and made payments to all the credit cards that had financed me (and my brother and sister). I spent the next 5 years improving and refining the product, building a reputation for the pump and the company, working to get the pump into drill rig manufacturers' product lines, and paying back credit cards. During all this time I continued to manage a growing water well business that was now operating 3 drill rig crews, and 2 well service crews. Also, the screen service business continued to grow. No government programs were there to help me, Mr. Obama, but that's ok, I didn't expect any, nor did I want any. I was too busy fighting to make success happen to sit around waiting for the government to help me.
Now, we have been manufacturing the mud pumps for 7 years, my combined businesses employ 32 full time employees, and distribute $5,000,000.00 annually through the local economy. Now, just 4 months ago I borrowed $1,254,000.00, purchasing computer controlled machining equipment to start my 4th business, a production machine shop.. The machine shop will serve the mud pump company so that we can better manufacture our pumps that are being shipped worldwide. Of course, the machine shop will also do work for outside companies as well. This has already produced 2 more full time jobs, and 2 more should develop out of it in the next few months. This should work out, but if it doesn't it will be because you, and the other professional politicians like yourself, will have destroyed our countrys' (and the world) economy with your meddling with mortgage loan programs through your liberal manipulation and intimidation of loaning institutions to make sure that unqualified borrowers could get mortgages. You see, at the very time when I couldn't get a business loan to get my mud pumps into production, you were working with Acorn and the Community Reinvestment Act programs to make sure that unqualified borrowers could buy homes with no down payment, and even no credit or worse yet, bad credit. Even the infamous, liberal, Ninja loans (No Income, No Job or Assets). While these unqualified borrowers were enjoying unrealistically low interest rates, I was paying 22% to 24% interest on the credit cards that I had used to provide me the funds for the mud pump business that has created jobs for more East Texans. It's funny, because after 25 years of turning almost every dime of extra money back into my businesses to grow them, it has been only in the last two years that I have finally made enough money to be able to put a little away for retirement, and now the value of that has dropped 40% because of the policies you and your ilk have perpetrated on our country.
You see, Mr. Obama, I'm the guy you intend to raise taxes on. I'm the guy who has spent 25 years toiling and sweating, fretting and fighting, stressing and risking, to build a business and get ahead. I'm the guy who has been on the very edge of bankruptcy more than a dozen times over the last 25 years, and all the while creating more and more jobs for East Texans who didn't want to take a risk, and would not demand from themselves what I have demanded from myself. I'm the guy you characterize as "the Americans who can afford it the most" that you believe should be taxed more to provide income redistribution "to spread the wealth" to those who have never toiled, sweated, fretted, fought, stressed, or risked anything. You want to characterize me as someone who has enjoyed a life of privilege and who needs to pay a higher percentage of my income than those who have bought into your entitlement culture. I resent you, Mr. Obama, as I resent all who want to use class warfare as a tool to advance their political career. What's worse, each year more Americans buy into your liberal entitlement culture, and turn to the government for their hope of a better life instead of themselves. Liberals are succeeding through more than 40 years of collaborative effort between the predominant liberal media, and liberal indoctrination programs in the public school systems across our land.
What is so terribly sad about this is this. This Nation was made great by people who embraced the one-time American culture of self reliance, self motivation, self determination, self discipline, personal betterment, hard work, risk taking. A culture built around the concept that success was in reach of every able bodied American who would strive for it. Each year that less Americans embrace that culture, we all descend together. We descend down the socialist path that has brought country after country ultimately to bitter and unremarkable states. If you and your liberal comrades in the media and school systems would spend half as much effort cultivating a culture of can-do across America as you do cultivating your entitlement culture, we could see Americans at large embracing the conviction that they can elevate themselves through personal betterment, personal achievement, and self reliance. You see, when people embrace such ideals, they act on them. When people act on such ideals, they succeed. All of could find herself elevating instead of deteriorating.. But that would eliminate the need for liberal politicians, wouldn't it, Mr. Obama? The country would not need you if the country was convinced that problem solving was best left with individuals instead of the government. You and all your liberal comrades have got a vested interested in creating a dependent class in our country. It is the very business of liberals to create an ever expanding dependence on government. What's remarkable is that you, who have never produced a job in your life, are going to tax me to take more of my money and give it to people who wouldn't need my money if they would get off their entitlement mentality asses and apply themselves at work, demand more from themselves, and quit looking to liberal politicians to raise their station in life.
You see, I know because I've had them work for me before. Hundreds of them over these 25 years. People who simply will not show up to work on time. People who just will not work 5 days in a week, much less, 6 days. People always looking for a way to put less effort out. People who actually tell me that they would do more if I just would first pay them more. People who take off work to sit in government offices to apply to get free government handouts (gee, I wonder how things would have turned out for them if they had spent that time earning money and pleasing their employer?). You see, all of this comes from your entitlement mentality culture.
Oh, I know you will say I am uncompassionate. Sorry, Mr. Obama, wrong again. You see, I've seen what the average percentage of your income has been given to charities over the years of 2000 to 2004 (ignoring the years you started running for office - can you pronounce "politically motivated"), you averaged less than 1% annually. And your running mate, Joe Biden, averaged less than ¼% of his annual income in charitable contributions over the last 10 years. Like so many liberals, the two of you want to give to the needy, just as long as it is someone else's money you are giving to them. I won't say what I have given to charities over the last 25 years, but the percentage is several times more than you and Joe Biden... combined (don't you just hate goggle?). Tell me again how you feel my pain.
In short, Mr. Obama, your political philosophies represent everything that is wrong with our country. You represent the culture of government dependence instead of self reliance; Entitlement mentality instead of personal achievement; Penalization of the successful to reward the unmotivated; Political correctness instead of open mindedness and open debate. If you are successful, you may preside over the final transformation of from being the greatest and most self-reliant culture on earth, to just another country of whiners and wimps, who sit around looking to the government to solve their problems. Like all of western Europe. All countries on the decline. All countries that, because of liberal socialistic mentalities, have a little less to offer mankind every year.
God help us...
Cory Miller
just a ordinary, extraordinary American, the way a lot of Americans used to be.
P.S. Yes, Mr. Obama, I am a real American... www.cmillerdrilling.Com
"History does not entrust the care of freedom to the weak or timid." - Dwight D. Eisenhower
Housin' is a Human Right
Requiem for a New Orleans neighborhood three years after Hurricane Katrina, HUD makes a controversial decision to tear down the B. W. Cooper Apartments.
Recently I've been hearing and reading that the attitude that the government is the answer to all our problems isn't mainstream. Well I beg to differ. I believe that there is a majority of Americans that have come to depend on the Federal Government for everything except the air that they breathe. OK, it's real simple:
You and you alone are responsible for your destiny. (If you face a mountain of adversity and you can't climb over it, find away around it.
Again, the Wisdom of John Stossel
Wednesday, November 12, 2008
It's exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I'm excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.
But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.
The infatuated chattering classes now demand "action" on the economy. They use positive words like "bold steps." The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is "between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach .... " There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar "stimulus."
Please. FDR's "bold" moves didn't end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.
Now Obama says, "we don't have a moment to lose," and he and the Democrats insist that government must unionize most of America by passing "card check" and taxpayers must throw even more money at American automakers.
This is the conceit of what Thomas Sowell calls "the anointed" (http://tinyurl.com/6me8d4). The politicians know best how our money should be spent. The "road to serfdom" is paved with such good intentions.
Obama promises:
"We will change the world ... There is nothing we can't do, nothing we can't accomplish if we are unified."
Who is this "we" politicians always cite?
We can change the world for the better if "we" means hundreds of millions of free people pursuing their interests, inventing, building, parenting, helping.
But the politicians' "we" is different. It means government. "We" will take your money by force and order you about. A democracy can become the tyranny of the majority. That's no way to create prosperity.
Obama is an extraordinarily talented man. But there is one thing he can't successfully do: ignore the laws of economics. No one can do that. That's why we call them "laws."
Ludwig von Mises wrote that once the science of economics emerged in the late Eighteenth Century, people began to realize "there is something operative which power and force are unable to alter and to which they must adjust themselves if they hope to achieve success, in precisely the same way as they must take into account the laws of nature. This realization ... led to the program and policies of [classical] liberalism and thus unleashed human powers that, under capitalism, have transformed the world."
The resulting abundance, which so many people take for granted without understanding its source, allows them to believe that a new president can "stimulate" us out of recession.
But we cannot raise wages or create jobs or eliminate poverty by executive order. We can do so by freeing people to save and invest and accumulate capital. We can't make medical care universal and inexpensive by legislative fiat. But we can approach that goal by permitting a free market in medicine to work.
Government is force, not eloquence. And force is an attempt to defy economic logic. The consequences are often opposite of those intended. "A subsidy for medical insurance increases the demand for services and raises prices. A price ceiling makes those services less available. A floor under wages makes jobs for unskilled workers more scarce, as employers find it a losing proposition to hire them. A subsidy to production means too much produced relative to something else consumers want. A trade restriction lowers living standards at home and abroad," writes Sheldon Richman on the Foundation for Economic Education website.
What will happen when the unintended consequences hit? F.A. Hayek warned that a government serious about enacting its economic plan must be prepared to use heavy-handed measures. Is that what we want?
I fear that today's "forceful actions" will not only be a painful assault on our freedom, they will exacerbate whatever economic troubles we face.
(Oh how I love it when someone tells it like it is! VN8)
It's exciting that the world is so excited about Barack Obama. I'm excited, too. That he achieved the presidency says something good about America.
But the excitement also frightens me. It reinforces the worst impulse of the media and political class: the assumption that all progress comes from Washington. In a free society, with constitutionally limited government, the president would be a mere executive who sees to it that predictable and understandable laws are enforced. But sadly, the prestige and power of the presidency have grown, and liberty has contracted. That is not something to celebrate.
The infatuated chattering classes now demand "action" on the economy. They use positive words like "bold steps." The insufferable New York Times suggests the choice is "between a big-bang strategy of pressing aggressively on multiple fronts versus a more pragmatic, step-by-step approach .... " There is endless talk about how FDR ended the Great Depression and how Obama will apply similar "stimulus."
Please. FDR's "bold" moves didn't end the Depression. They prolonged it by discouraging capital investment. Hoover and Roosevelt turned what might have been a brief downturn into 10 years of double-digit unemployment.
Now Obama says, "we don't have a moment to lose," and he and the Democrats insist that government must unionize most of America by passing "card check" and taxpayers must throw even more money at American automakers.
This is the conceit of what Thomas Sowell calls "the anointed" (http://tinyurl.com/6me8d4). The politicians know best how our money should be spent. The "road to serfdom" is paved with such good intentions.
Obama promises:
"We will change the world ... There is nothing we can't do, nothing we can't accomplish if we are unified."
Who is this "we" politicians always cite?
We can change the world for the better if "we" means hundreds of millions of free people pursuing their interests, inventing, building, parenting, helping.
But the politicians' "we" is different. It means government. "We" will take your money by force and order you about. A democracy can become the tyranny of the majority. That's no way to create prosperity.
Obama is an extraordinarily talented man. But there is one thing he can't successfully do: ignore the laws of economics. No one can do that. That's why we call them "laws."
Ludwig von Mises wrote that once the science of economics emerged in the late Eighteenth Century, people began to realize "there is something operative which power and force are unable to alter and to which they must adjust themselves if they hope to achieve success, in precisely the same way as they must take into account the laws of nature. This realization ... led to the program and policies of [classical] liberalism and thus unleashed human powers that, under capitalism, have transformed the world."
The resulting abundance, which so many people take for granted without understanding its source, allows them to believe that a new president can "stimulate" us out of recession.
But we cannot raise wages or create jobs or eliminate poverty by executive order. We can do so by freeing people to save and invest and accumulate capital. We can't make medical care universal and inexpensive by legislative fiat. But we can approach that goal by permitting a free market in medicine to work.
Government is force, not eloquence. And force is an attempt to defy economic logic. The consequences are often opposite of those intended. "A subsidy for medical insurance increases the demand for services and raises prices. A price ceiling makes those services less available. A floor under wages makes jobs for unskilled workers more scarce, as employers find it a losing proposition to hire them. A subsidy to production means too much produced relative to something else consumers want. A trade restriction lowers living standards at home and abroad," writes Sheldon Richman on the Foundation for Economic Education website.
What will happen when the unintended consequences hit? F.A. Hayek warned that a government serious about enacting its economic plan must be prepared to use heavy-handed measures. Is that what we want?
I fear that today's "forceful actions" will not only be a painful assault on our freedom, they will exacerbate whatever economic troubles we face.
(Oh how I love it when someone tells it like it is! VN8)
What Teddy said about Hyphenated Americanism
"There is no room in this country for hyphenated Americanism. When I refer to hyphenated Americans, I do not refer to naturalized Americans. Some of the very best Americans I have ever known were naturalized Americans, Americans born abroad. But a hyphenated American is not an American at all... The one absolutely certain way of bringing this nation to ruin, of preventing all possibility of its continuing to be a nation at all, would be to permit it to become a tangle of squabbling nationalities, an intricate knot of German-Americans, Irish-Americans, English-Americans, French-Americans, Scandinavian-Americans or Italian-Americans, each preserving its separate nationality, each at heart feeling more sympathy with Europeans of that nationality, than with the other citizens of the American Republic... There is no such thing as a hyphenated American who is a good American. The only man who is a good American is the man who is an American and nothing else." Teddy Roosevelt
(What do you think? VN8)
Just a little bit of trivia: Did you know that Teddy Roosevelt was a trendsetter. Roosevelt’s Wikipedia entry has a list of presidential firsts, including the first president to refer to the presidential mansion as the White House, host a black man at a White House dinner, appoint a Jewish person as a cabinet member, travel outside the United States while in office, and fly in an airplane. He was also the first American to ever win a Nobel Prize, for Peace in 1906.
"Speak softly and carry a big stick." President Theodore Roosevelt
Lohan refers to Obama as 'first colored president'
NEW YORK (AP) — Lindsay Lohan referred to President-elect Barack Obama as the country's "first colored president" in an interview on "Access Hollywood." Describing her experience on Election Day, Lohan said: "It was really exciting. It's an amazing feeling. It's our first colored president."
A spokeswoman for Lohan didn't immediately return messages left Wednesday.
Interviewer Maria Menounos didn't question the 22-year-old actress on her use of the term. "Access Hollywood" also didn't cite her remark in its online story, but did post an "extended interview" video on its Web site that included the remark.
A spokesman for the syndicated entertainment news program said in a statement Wednesday: "We believe the word in question that Ms. Lohan used was unintelligible."
Lohan blogged about her support of Obama during the presidential campaign.
(Lindsay's out fit in this photo is as colorful as her statement! LOL VN8)
Sunday, November 9, 2008
No apology for Obama "suntan" remark: Berlusconi
(You can't make this stuff up! It will be interesting to see where this story goes. VN8)
By Francesca Piscioneri
Fri Nov 7, 2008
BRUSSELS (Reuters) – Italian Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi, under fire at home for describing U.S. President-elect Barack Obama as "suntanned," said on Friday he saw no need to apologize.
At a news conference, Berlusconi was brusque with an American journalist who suggested he should say sorry for the remark on Thursday. Visiting Moscow, he described the man elected to be the first black U.S. president as "handsome, young and also suntanned."
His center-left opponents called the comment racist; Berlusconi responded by saying they were "imbeciles without any sense of humor."
At Friday's news conference after a European Union summit, the reporter asked: "Prime Minister, do you realize that your comment on Obama is offensive to the United States? Why don't you apologize?"
Berlusconi responded: "Give me a break! You have just put yourself on that list of people (imbeciles) I mentioned yesterday!"
When the reporter pressed for an answer on why Berlusconi did not deem it necessary to apologize, the prime minister, clearly irritated, said: "Why (should I)? You should apologize to Italy!" He then walked out of the room.
Berlusconi's latest gaffe was on the front pages of most Italian newspapers on Friday.
"Berlusconi never fails to live up to our worst expectations," said an editorial in the Rome daily La Repubblica.
Berlusconi, who prides himself on being a friend of outgoing U.S. President George W. Bush, is famed in diplomatic circles for making sometimes inappropriate quips.
On his first meeting with Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen in 2002, Berlusconi complimented him with the words: "Rasmussen is not only a great colleague, he's also the best-looking prime minister in Europe."
He added: "He's so good looking, I'm even thinking of introducing him to my wife."
He sparked a minor diplomatic incident in 2005 by suggesting he had wooed Finnish President Tarja Halonen to ensure her backing for Italy to host the European Food Safety Authority.
"I had to use all my playboy tactics, even if they have not been used for some time," he said, prompting Helsinki to call in the Italian ambassador to explain the comments.
Proud to be White
I received this in an email and I'm sharing them with young because I have thought these same things for years! Sometimes the truth hurts, but I'm saying it loud and clear, I'm happy for you no matter your race but I for one am proud that I'm white. Shouldn't we all be proud of our ethnicity. I for one, in the future, when asked my race am going to list myself as an AMERICAN, plain and simple! If you are so inclined to call me a racist, google, (proud white voter) and look at the images, I wasn't surprised that there were images regarding "proud black voters" there, but couldn't find any images relating to "proud white voters". LOL They even have ribbons, buttons and stickers that state they are "proud black voters." You want to know when racism will end, when no one is regarded as a racist for being proud to be exactly who they are in their skin. Oh, I'm sorry, I just heard a news flash, scientist predict the impossibility that hell will never freeze over. What a shock! News at eleven! VN8
Someone finally said it... How many are actually paying attention to this? There are African Americans, Mexican Americans, AsianAmericans, Arab Americans, etc.
And then there are just Americans. You pass me on the street and sneer in my direction. You call me 'White boy,' 'Cracker,' 'Honkey,' 'Whitey,' 'Caveman'... and that's OK.
But when I call you, Nigger, Kike, Towel head, Sand-nigger, Camel Jockey, Beaner, Gook, or Chink .. You call me a racist.
You say that whites commit a lot of violence against you... so why are the ghettos the most dangerous places to live?
You have the United Negro College Fund. You have Martin Luther King Day.
You have Black History Month. You have Cesar Chavez Day.
You have Yom Hashoah. You have Ma'uled Al-Nabi.
You have the NAACP. You have BET... If we had WET (White Entertainment Television), we'd be racists. If we had a White Pride Day, you wouldcall us racists.
If we had White History Month, we'd be racists.
If we had any organization for only whites to 'advance' OUR, lives we'd be racists.
We have a Hispanic Chamber of Commerce, a Black Chamber of Commerce, and then we just have the plain Chamber of Commerce. Wonder who pays for that??
A white woman could not be in the Miss Black American pageant but any color can be in the Miss America pageant.
If we had a college fund that only gave white students scholarships ...You know we'd be racists.
There are over 60 openly proclaimed Black Colleges in the US . Yet if there were 'White colleges' That would be a racist college.
In the Million Man March, you believed that you were marching for your race and rights. If we marched for our race and rights, you would call us racists.
You are proud to be black, brown, yellow and orange, and you're not afraid to announce it. But when we announce our white pride, you call us racists.
You rob us, carjack us, and shoot at us. But, when a white police officer shoots a black gang member or beats up a black drug dealer running from the law and posing a threat to society, you call him a racist.
I am proud... But you call me a racist.
Why is it that only whites can be racists??
Friday, November 7, 2008
Election Analysis: America Can Take Pride In This Historic, Inspirational Disaster
Although I have not always been the most outspoken advocate of President-Elect Barack Obama, today I would like to congratulate him and add my voice to the millions of fellow citizens who are celebrating his historic and frightening election victory. I don't care whether you are a conservative or a liberal -- when you saw this inspiring young African-American rise to our nation's highest office I hope you felt the same sense of patriotic pride that I experienced, no matter how hard you were hyperventilating with deep existential dread.
Yes, I know there are probably other African-Americans much better qualified and prepared for the presidency. Much, much better qualified. Hundreds, easily, if not thousands, and without any troubling ties to radical lunatics and Chicago mobsters. Gary Coleman comes to mind. But let's not let that distract us from the fact that Mr. Obama's election represents a profound, positive milestone in our country's struggle to overcome its long legacy of racial divisions and bigotry. It reminds us of how far we've come, and it's something everyone in our nation should celebrate in whatever little time we now have left.
Less than fifty years ago, African-Americans were barred from public universities, restaurants, and even drinking fountains in many parts of the country.
On Tuesday we came together and transcended that shameful legacy, electing an African-American to the country's top job -- which, in fact, appears to be his first actual job.Certainly, it doesn't mean that racism has disappeared in America, but it is an undeniable mark of progress that a majority of voters no longer consider skin color nor a dangerously gullible naivete as a barrier to the presidency.
It's also heartening to realize that as president Mr. Obama will soon be working hand-in-hand with a former Ku Klux Klan Grand Wizard like Senator Robert Byrd to craft the incoherent and destructive programs that will plunge the American economy into a nightmare of full-blown sustained depression. As Vice President-Elect Joe Biden has repeatedly warned, there will be difficult times ahead and the programs will not always be popular, or even sane. But as we look out over the wreckage of bankrupt coal companies, nationalized banks, and hyperinflation, we can always look back with sustained pride on the great National Reconciliation of 2008. Call me an optimist, but I like to think when America's breadlines erupt into riots it will be because of our shared starvation, not the differences in our color.
It's obvious that this newfound pride is not confined to Americans alone. All across the world, Mr. Obama's election has helped mend America's tattered image as a racist, violent cowboy, willing to retaliate with bombs at the slightest provocation. The huge outpouring of international support following the election shows that America can still win new friendships while rebuilding its old ones, and provides Mr. Obama with unprecedented diplomatic leverage over our remaining enemies. When Russian tanks start pouring into eastern Europe and Iranian missiles begin raining down on Jerusalem, their leaders will know they will be facing a man who not only conquered America's racial divide but the hearts of the entire Cannes film community. And those Al Qaeda terrorists plotting a dirty nuke or chemical attack on San Francisco face a stark new reality: while they may no longer need to worry about US Marines, they are looking down the barrel of a strongly worded diplomatic condemnation by a Europe fully united in their deep sympathy for surviving Americans.
So for now, let's put politics aside and celebrate this historic milestone. In his famous speech at the Lincoln Memorial 45 years ago, Dr. King said "I have a dream that one day my children will live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character." Let us now take pride that Tuesday we Americans proved that neither thing matters anymore.
(Sounds like a great reason to END Affirmative Action. Hmmm, sounds like a great topic for a weekend blog! VN8)
New Voters
And there is no doubt that "new voters" turned out in this election. When they say "new voters" they are talking about people who have never voted in an election before. And of these new voters, 6 out of every 10 were under the age of 30 years old. So we are talking about the college kids and those people who have barely begun to formulate a mature thought about politics ... I know, I am going to catch hell for that ... "but not ALL college kids!"
My point is that these young voters turned out for Barack Obama in numbers close to 70% in some states. They came out to vote for their American Idol/MTV candidate. And these people are the future of this country. Maybe they will one day realize the repercussions of putting a Marxist in the White House when they try to open their own business. Maybe they'll look back and think "Gawd, how could I have been so ignorant? How could I have bought into this "change" rhetoric?" They will get what they voted for, and you can thank government schools, by the way.
I've been doing talk radio for almost 40 years. This is my 10th presidential election as a talk show host. A lot of younger listeners – the type who voted for Obama, I suspect – love to send me emails making fun of my age. The "hey old man" messages come now with regularity. Well .. tell you what. It's not my future that has been endangered by this election. I don't have to worry about the MoveOn Democrat party robbing me of my opportunity to make a good life for myself and my family. Been there, done that. Some of you younger voters might want to stop and take a moment to think about your own future though. Many of you will succumb to government paternalism and do just enough to get by ... collecting your "tax break" checks from the government and making sure that those checks never go away by keeping the Democrats in power.
I have a friend who's daughter received her first paycheck a few weeks ago .. a check for one day's work as a substitute teacher. Now remember ... we're talking teacher here ... as in government schools. She earned $60 dollars for that one day's work ... but the check was for $52. She was shocked. "But dad!" she said, "They told me I was going to make sixty dollars!"
Hey, lady. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
My point is that these young voters turned out for Barack Obama in numbers close to 70% in some states. They came out to vote for their American Idol/MTV candidate. And these people are the future of this country. Maybe they will one day realize the repercussions of putting a Marxist in the White House when they try to open their own business. Maybe they'll look back and think "Gawd, how could I have been so ignorant? How could I have bought into this "change" rhetoric?" They will get what they voted for, and you can thank government schools, by the way.
I've been doing talk radio for almost 40 years. This is my 10th presidential election as a talk show host. A lot of younger listeners – the type who voted for Obama, I suspect – love to send me emails making fun of my age. The "hey old man" messages come now with regularity. Well .. tell you what. It's not my future that has been endangered by this election. I don't have to worry about the MoveOn Democrat party robbing me of my opportunity to make a good life for myself and my family. Been there, done that. Some of you younger voters might want to stop and take a moment to think about your own future though. Many of you will succumb to government paternalism and do just enough to get by ... collecting your "tax break" checks from the government and making sure that those checks never go away by keeping the Democrats in power.
Some of you, though, are going to become ambitious.You're going to experience the desire to work hard, to work smart, and to go the extra mile. When you do you're going to find the government there ready to stand in your way and, if you manage to succeed, rob you of the fruits of your labor.
I have a friend who's daughter received her first paycheck a few weeks ago .. a check for one day's work as a substitute teacher. Now remember ... we're talking teacher here ... as in government schools. She earned $60 dollars for that one day's work ... but the check was for $52. She was shocked. "But dad!" she said, "They told me I was going to make sixty dollars!"
Hey, lady. You ain't seen nuthin' yet.
This teacher needs to lose her job . . .
Teacher Diantha Harris browbeats McCain supporting student, Kathy,in Asheville N.Carolina grade school. The poor girl is obviously distressed over the teacher's line of questioning and belittling her choice of candidate in front of her school mates.
(Another government school educator indoctrinating our children. Need I say more? VN8)
Birds of a feather really do flock together . . .
The Emanuel-Freddie Mac Connection: Will the Media Report It?
By Jeff Poor
11/6/2008
Now that he's President-elect Barack Obama's new chief of staff, according to various Nov. 6 media reports [1], will Rep. Rahm Emanuel, D-Ill., face the same scrutiny Karl Rove did when he was named Bush's deputy chief of staff? More importantly, will the media take note the tie Emanuel had to the now taxpayer-owned, failed government-sponsored enterprise Freddie Mac [2]?
Emanuel, who was a senior adviser for former President Bill Clinton throughout the 1990s, was appointed to the board of Freddie Mac upon his departure from the Clinton administration.
"Clinton's going-away gift to Emanuel was a seat on the quasi-governmental Freddie Mac board, which paid him $231,655 in director's fees in 2001 and $31,060 in 2000," Lynn Sweet wrote for the Chicago Sun-Times on Jan. 3, 2002.
During the time Emanuel spent on the board, Freddie Mac was plagued with scandal involving campaign contributions and accounting irregularities. Freddie Mac and its sister organization Fannie Mae were taken over by the federal government in September [3] 2008 after years of mismanagement and scandal. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson put the two beleaguered GSEs into a conservatorship, stripping common stock shareholders of their rights to govern the companies.
In 2006, Freddie Mac was forced to pay a $3.8 million fine [4] to the Federal Election Commission to settle allegations it illegally contributed to congressional candidates between 2000 and 2003 - while Emanuel was on the board and running for and serving in Congress.
And, since his successful run for the House of Representatives in 2002, Emanuel has been the beneficiary of campaign cash from Freddie Mac and its sister organization Fannie Mae - $51,750 according to the Center for Responsive Politics Web site OpenSecrets.org [5].
Emanuel received $25,000 in contributions from Freddie Mac during his first run in 2002, right at the end of his tenure at the government-sponsored enterprise. Freddie Mac was his third largest overall contributor [6] that year.
(I don't know about you but I smell a rat! VN8)
Thursday, November 6, 2008
Where do you find HOPE?
I've been thinking about that question all day. I've heard people several times this week way that now that Senator Obama has been elected, now they have their hope restored. Why is that? I for one do not believe that my hope lies with a man or a President.
I believe that I am in charge of my destiny. I believe I am responsible for my accomplishments. I am responsible for my own happiness. I believe that no one has the power to make me happy or successful. Sure, people can bring happiness into your life, people can encourage you to be successful, but true hope, success or happiness is what each of us make out of the life we are given.
There has been so much talk about CHANGE. Well I've always heard that people don't like change. So why was that mantra so affective? The only change I'm expecting is the CHANGE in my own personal strategy to beat the idea of "spread the wealth" at their own game. Sure I don't like the fact that what has been working for me in my life has to change, but I'm a survivor. No matter what, I'm going to figure out a way to survive, it's been ingrained into my DNA. What frightens me is that there are plenty of people in the United States that have never had to "survive". What happens when all those naive people out there don't receive the "change" they are expecting and we go into a recession? Will they be able to switch gears and do what it takes or will they resort to taking what they need from anyone just because they believe that they deserve it?
In my opinion, I have hope because I have faith. I could not get through each day if I didn't believe that no matter how dark tomorrow may appear, I'm not steering the ship, I'm only rowing. When things have seemed bleak in my life and I give up any of my worries and work hard and lean on my faith, God has always been faithful.
One of my favorite verses is Phillipians 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; that doesn't mean that I can sit on my laurels and God provide me with all my needs. I believe that God opens doors, but he expects me to have enough sense and reason to figure out how to walk through the door and make things happen.
One of my favorite jokes goes something like this:
There was this man that laid in his bed every night and prayed over and over, "God, please let me win the lottery, please allow me to win the lottery!" One night the man was laying in his bed praying, "God, please let me win the lottery!" Well the man felt a bright light in the room, opened his eyes and there stood God at the foot of the bed. The man exclaimed, "My God, what are you doing here?" God said, "My son, every night I hear you laying here praying that I might allow you to win the lottery. Will you please do me a favor?" The man said, "Sure, I'll do anything." God said, "Please buy a lottery ticket!"
Moral of the story for me, we pray for many things and expect God to deliver them. Last time I checked, God doesn't utilize UPS or Federal Express. He might plant an idea in our minds that might deliver us from our circumstances, but God will always provide us a way to deliver us from our circumstances but we have to utilize the sense he gave us to make the steps forward. There is always a solution if we look for a solution but it isn't our friends, our neighbors, our family or our government to solve our problems. We are responsible for our own destiny. We are responsible for our own HOPE!
Where there is hope, there can be faith, where there is faith, miracles can occur. VN8
I believe that I am in charge of my destiny. I believe I am responsible for my accomplishments. I am responsible for my own happiness. I believe that no one has the power to make me happy or successful. Sure, people can bring happiness into your life, people can encourage you to be successful, but true hope, success or happiness is what each of us make out of the life we are given.
There has been so much talk about CHANGE. Well I've always heard that people don't like change. So why was that mantra so affective? The only change I'm expecting is the CHANGE in my own personal strategy to beat the idea of "spread the wealth" at their own game. Sure I don't like the fact that what has been working for me in my life has to change, but I'm a survivor. No matter what, I'm going to figure out a way to survive, it's been ingrained into my DNA. What frightens me is that there are plenty of people in the United States that have never had to "survive". What happens when all those naive people out there don't receive the "change" they are expecting and we go into a recession? Will they be able to switch gears and do what it takes or will they resort to taking what they need from anyone just because they believe that they deserve it?
In my opinion, I have hope because I have faith. I could not get through each day if I didn't believe that no matter how dark tomorrow may appear, I'm not steering the ship, I'm only rowing. When things have seemed bleak in my life and I give up any of my worries and work hard and lean on my faith, God has always been faithful.
One of my favorite verses is Phillipians 4:6: Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your requests be made known to God; that doesn't mean that I can sit on my laurels and God provide me with all my needs. I believe that God opens doors, but he expects me to have enough sense and reason to figure out how to walk through the door and make things happen.
One of my favorite jokes goes something like this:
There was this man that laid in his bed every night and prayed over and over, "God, please let me win the lottery, please allow me to win the lottery!" One night the man was laying in his bed praying, "God, please let me win the lottery!" Well the man felt a bright light in the room, opened his eyes and there stood God at the foot of the bed. The man exclaimed, "My God, what are you doing here?" God said, "My son, every night I hear you laying here praying that I might allow you to win the lottery. Will you please do me a favor?" The man said, "Sure, I'll do anything." God said, "Please buy a lottery ticket!"
Moral of the story for me, we pray for many things and expect God to deliver them. Last time I checked, God doesn't utilize UPS or Federal Express. He might plant an idea in our minds that might deliver us from our circumstances, but God will always provide us a way to deliver us from our circumstances but we have to utilize the sense he gave us to make the steps forward. There is always a solution if we look for a solution but it isn't our friends, our neighbors, our family or our government to solve our problems. We are responsible for our own destiny. We are responsible for our own HOPE!
Where there is hope, there can be faith, where there is faith, miracles can occur. VN8
Obama campaign workers angry over unpaid wages
Indianapolis - Lines were long and tempers flared Wednesday not to vote but to get paid for canvassing for Barack Obama. Several hundred people are still waiting to get their pay for last-minute campaigning. Police were called to the Obama campaign office on North Meridian Street downtown to control the crowd.
The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.
"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.
A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.
The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.
"There was a note on the door saying 1:00 pm and then at 1:20 pm everybody was like why is nobody here. They just got here and they're trying to get it organized," said Heather Richards, a former campaign worker.
The large gathering of around 375 people prompted police to call in extra officers and set up temporary barricades. The barricades helped keep the crowd from spilling out onto Meridian Street. Police say the several hundred people in line were for the most part orderly.
"No arrests. Some of the people were upset at first because the line wasn't moving as fast as they thought it should. But we really haven't had any problems," said Major Darryl Pierce, Metro Police.
Eventually people did start getting paid, but some said they were missing hours and told to fill in paperwork making their claim and that eventually they would get a check in the mail.
"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.
"It should have been $480. It's $230," said Imani Sankofa.
"They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90," said Charles Martin.
"I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned," said Randall Waldon.
Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.
"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.
"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.
(Imagine what might happen and how tempers will flair if BO cannot deliver the "$$CHANGE$$" he has promised! Ever get the feeling that if these protesters had that much "free" time on their hands that they may be among the (coughing) unemployed amongst us? Interesting question. I mean if they investigated Joe the Plumber, I think they should investigate every one of these people who worked to elect BO. I'm just saying, "Fair and Balanced". LOL VN8)
The line was long and the crowd was angry at times.
"I want my money today! It's my money. I want it right now!" yelled one former campaign worker.
A former spokesman for the Obama campaign said 375 people were hired as part of the Vote Corps program and said people signed up to work three-hour shifts at a time. Three hours of canvassing got workers a $30 pre-paid Visa card.
The workers showed up to get their cards Wednesday morning at 10:00 am.
"There was a note on the door saying 1:00 pm and then at 1:20 pm everybody was like why is nobody here. They just got here and they're trying to get it organized," said Heather Richards, a former campaign worker.
The large gathering of around 375 people prompted police to call in extra officers and set up temporary barricades. The barricades helped keep the crowd from spilling out onto Meridian Street. Police say the several hundred people in line were for the most part orderly.
"No arrests. Some of the people were upset at first because the line wasn't moving as fast as they thought it should. But we really haven't had any problems," said Major Darryl Pierce, Metro Police.
Eventually people did start getting paid, but some said they were missing hours and told to fill in paperwork making their claim and that eventually they would get a check in the mail.
"Still that's not right. I'm disappointed. I'm glad for the president, but I'm disappointed in this system," said Diane Jefferson, temporary campaign worker.
"It should have been $480. It's $230," said Imani Sankofa.
"They gave us $10 an hour. So we added it. I added up all the hours so it was supposed to be at least $120. All I get is $90," said Charles Martin.
"I worked nine hours a day for 4 days and got paid half of what I should have earned," said Randall Waldon.
Some people weren't satisfied with filling out a claim form for money they felt was still due to them.
"They say that they gonna call you or they going to mail it to you, but I don't know. We'll see what happens," said Antron Grose.
"Talking about they'll mail it to us. I ain't worried about that, man. They're not going to mail nothin'," said Martin.
(Imagine what might happen and how tempers will flair if BO cannot deliver the "$$CHANGE$$" he has promised! Ever get the feeling that if these protesters had that much "free" time on their hands that they may be among the (coughing) unemployed amongst us? Interesting question. I mean if they investigated Joe the Plumber, I think they should investigate every one of these people who worked to elect BO. I'm just saying, "Fair and Balanced". LOL VN8)
And the winner Is ... Peggy the Moocher
By Michelle Malkin
Columnist
11/06/2008
Sorry to break the bad news to Joe the Plumber. But the winner of Campaign 2008 is Peggy the Moocher.
No matter who moves into the White House, Peggy has good reason to do a happy dance. The plain, ugly fact is that both major political parties are committed to spreading the wealth in one form or another. It's all just a question of how much and how quickly.
Who is Peggy the Moocher? She's Peggy Joseph, a voter in Sarasota, Fla., who exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was "the most memorable time of my life." Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands: "Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help Obama, he's gonna help me."
You can't blame Peggy the Moocher for viewing Obama as the superior Santa Claus. With a relentless messianic campaign, a grievance-mongering wife touting him as the country's soul fixer and a national infomercial promising to take care of every need from night classes to medical bills to rent and fuel-efficient cars, Obama effectively channeled Oprah Winfrey's Big Give.
"Everybody gets a car!" "Everybody gets a car!" And gas. And mortgage payment relief.
But the damning reality for fiscal conservatives is that John McCain's plan for homeowners underwater on their mortgages was even more generous than Obama's.
His $300 billion "rescue" involved directing the Treasury Secretary to "purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers." That was on top of the trillion-plus-dollar "bank" bailout supported by both presidential candidates, the White House and the Democratic leadership; the $85-plus billion to AIG; the $25 billion to automakers; and the $200 billion in capital and credit lines to Fannie and Freddie. And who knows what else we'll be redistributing to the indebted states of New York, California, Massachusetts and all the other Peggy the Moochers, large and small, lining up for their piece of the bailout pie.
McCain assailed massive government spending - while promising to heap on more massive government spending to pursue home ownership and retention at all costs. It was the Republican, not the Democrat, who entrusted the Treasury Department to renegotiate individual home loans and become chief principal write-down agents for the nation. Both private and public entities are planning for a McCain-esque homeowner salvation plan for borrowers in the red.
It's a swell idea for everyone who bought overpriced homes with Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Those who rented, bought within their means or locked into fixed-rate loans that they could afford are out of luck, naturally. The only sane thing to do in response? Stop paying your mortgage and get in line.
"E Pluribus Unum" is no longer our national motto. These three words are: "Do For Me." As in: What will the government do for me?
On Election Day, the federal government quietly reported that it will borrow a record $550 billion in the current quarter to fund the bipartisan bailout. The Treasury Department plans to borrow more than a half-trillion dollars in the current October-December quarter and another $368 billion in the first three months of next year.
Estimated total for the whole year: $1.4 trillion. Democrats plan to add another $500 billion in "stimulus"-palooza legislation. Credit card companies, utilities, insurance companies, and car loan and student loan debtors await their turn.
The bailout bonanza blurred the differences between the two major political parties, but the Peggy the Moocher video shows there are still basically two starkly contrasting views of government in this country among the rank-and-file electorate. Unlike Joe the Plumber, Peggy sees government as her salvation and the president as her subsidizer-in-chief. She voted with the expectation that the Spreader of Wealth will reward her with payback. Joe just wants Washington to leave him alone to fend for himself.
Personal responsibility? Hah. Washington can't afford it.
Columnist
11/06/2008
Sorry to break the bad news to Joe the Plumber. But the winner of Campaign 2008 is Peggy the Moocher.
No matter who moves into the White House, Peggy has good reason to do a happy dance. The plain, ugly fact is that both major political parties are committed to spreading the wealth in one form or another. It's all just a question of how much and how quickly.
Who is Peggy the Moocher? She's Peggy Joseph, a voter in Sarasota, Fla., who exulted earlier this week at a Barack Obama rally that this was "the most memorable time of my life." Why? As she told a Florida reporter on a YouTube video that has been viewed by hundreds of thousands: "Because I never thought this day would ever happen. I won't have to worry about putting gas in my car. I won't have to worry about paying my mortgage. You know. If I help Obama, he's gonna help me."
You can't blame Peggy the Moocher for viewing Obama as the superior Santa Claus. With a relentless messianic campaign, a grievance-mongering wife touting him as the country's soul fixer and a national infomercial promising to take care of every need from night classes to medical bills to rent and fuel-efficient cars, Obama effectively channeled Oprah Winfrey's Big Give.
"Everybody gets a car!" "Everybody gets a car!" And gas. And mortgage payment relief.
But the damning reality for fiscal conservatives is that John McCain's plan for homeowners underwater on their mortgages was even more generous than Obama's.
His $300 billion "rescue" involved directing the Treasury Secretary to "purchase mortgages directly from homeowners and mortgage servicers." That was on top of the trillion-plus-dollar "bank" bailout supported by both presidential candidates, the White House and the Democratic leadership; the $85-plus billion to AIG; the $25 billion to automakers; and the $200 billion in capital and credit lines to Fannie and Freddie. And who knows what else we'll be redistributing to the indebted states of New York, California, Massachusetts and all the other Peggy the Moochers, large and small, lining up for their piece of the bailout pie.
McCain assailed massive government spending - while promising to heap on more massive government spending to pursue home ownership and retention at all costs. It was the Republican, not the Democrat, who entrusted the Treasury Department to renegotiate individual home loans and become chief principal write-down agents for the nation. Both private and public entities are planning for a McCain-esque homeowner salvation plan for borrowers in the red.
It's a swell idea for everyone who bought overpriced homes with Adjustable Rate Mortgages. Those who rented, bought within their means or locked into fixed-rate loans that they could afford are out of luck, naturally. The only sane thing to do in response? Stop paying your mortgage and get in line.
"E Pluribus Unum" is no longer our national motto. These three words are: "Do For Me." As in: What will the government do for me?
On Election Day, the federal government quietly reported that it will borrow a record $550 billion in the current quarter to fund the bipartisan bailout. The Treasury Department plans to borrow more than a half-trillion dollars in the current October-December quarter and another $368 billion in the first three months of next year.
Estimated total for the whole year: $1.4 trillion. Democrats plan to add another $500 billion in "stimulus"-palooza legislation. Credit card companies, utilities, insurance companies, and car loan and student loan debtors await their turn.
The bailout bonanza blurred the differences between the two major political parties, but the Peggy the Moocher video shows there are still basically two starkly contrasting views of government in this country among the rank-and-file electorate. Unlike Joe the Plumber, Peggy sees government as her salvation and the president as her subsidizer-in-chief. She voted with the expectation that the Spreader of Wealth will reward her with payback. Joe just wants Washington to leave him alone to fend for himself.
Personal responsibility? Hah. Washington can't afford it.
Wednesday, November 5, 2008
THE REIGN OF LAME FALLS MAINLY ON MCCAIN
by Ann Coulter
November 5, 2008
Last night was truly a historic occasion: For only the second time in her adult life, Michelle Obama was proud of her country!
The big loser of this election is Colin Powell, whose last-minute endorsement of Obama put the Illinois senator over the top. Powell was probably at home last night, yelling at his TV, "Are you KIDDING me? That endorsement was sarcastic!"
The winner, of course, is Obama, who must be excited because now he can start hanging out in public with Bill Ayers and Rev. Jeremiah Wright again. John McCain is a winner because he can resume buying more houses.
And we're all winners because we will never again have to hear McCain say, "my friends."
After Bill Clinton won the 1992 presidential election, Hillary Clinton immediately announced that, henceforth, she would be known as "Hillary Rodham Clinton." So maybe Obama can now become B. Hussein Obama, his rightful name.
This was such an enormous Democratic year that even John Murtha won his congressional seat in Pennsylvania after calling his constituents racists. It turns out they're not racists -- they're retards. Question: What exactly would one have to say to alienate Pennsylvanians? That Joe Paterno should retire?
Apparently Florida voters didn't mind Obama's palling around with Palestinian activist Rashid Khalidi and Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, either. There must be a whole bunch of retired Pennsylvania Jews down there.
Have you ever noticed that whenever Democrats lose presidential elections, they always blame it on the personal qualities of their candidate? Kerry was a dork, Gore was a stiff, Dukakis was a bloodless android, Mondale was a sad sack.
This blame-the-messenger thesis allows Democrats to conclude that their message was fine -- nothing should be changed! The American people are clamoring for higher taxes, big government, a defeatist foreign policy, gay marriage, the whole magilla. It was just this particular candidate's personality.
Republicans lost this presidential election, and I don't blame the messenger; I blame the message. How could Republicans go after B. Hussein Obama (as he is now known) on planning to bankrupt the coal companies when McCain supports the exact same cap and trade policies and earnestly believes in global warming?
How could we go after Obama for his illegal alien aunt and for supporting driver's licenses for illegal aliens when McCain fanatically pushed amnesty along with his good friend Teddy Kennedy?
How could we go after Obama for Jeremiah Wright when McCain denounced any Republicans who did so?
How could we go after Obama for planning to hike taxes on the "rich," when McCain was the only Republican to vote against both of Bush's tax cuts on the grounds that they were tax cuts for the rich?
And why should Republican activists slave away working for McCain when he has personally, viciously attacked: John O'Neill and the Swift Boat Veterans, National Right to Life director Doug Johnson, evangelical pastors Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson and John Hagee, various conservative talk radio hosts, the Tennessee Republican Party and on and on and on?
As liberal Democrat E.J. Dionne Jr. exuded about McCain in The Washington Post during the Republican primaries, "John McCain is feared by Democrats and liked by independents." Dionne proclaimed that McCain "may be the one Republican who can rescue his party from the undertow of the Bush years."
Similarly, after unelectable, ultraconservative Reagan won two landslide victories, James Reston of The New York Times gave the same advice to Vice President George H.W. Bush: Stop being conservative! Bush was "a good man," Reston said in 1988, "and might run a strong campaign if liberated from Mr. Reagan's coattails."
Roll that phrase around a bit -- "liberated from Mr. Reagan's coattails." This is why it takes so long to read the Times -- you have to keep reading the same paragraph over again to see if you missed a word.
Bush, of course, rode Reagan's ultraconservative coattails to victory, then snipped those coattails by raising taxes and was soundly defeated four years later.
I keep trying to get Democrats to take my advice (stop being so crazy), but they never listen to me. Why do Republicans take the advice of their enemies?
How many times do we have to run this experiment before Republican primary voters learn that "moderate," "independent," "maverick" Republicans never win, and right-wing Republicans never lose?
Indeed, the only good thing about McCain is that he gave us a genuine conservative, Sarah Palin. He's like one of those insects that lives just long enough to reproduce so that the species can survive. That's why a lot of us are referring to Sarah as "The One" these days.
Like Sarah Connor in "The Terminator," Sarah Palin is destined to give birth to a new movement. That's why the Democrats are trying to kill her. And Arnold Schwarzenegger is involved somehow, too. Good Lord, I'm tired.
After showing nearly superhuman restraint throughout this campaign, which was lost the night McCain won the California primary, I am now liberated to announce that all I care about is hunting down and punishing every Republican who voted for McCain in the primaries. I have a list and am prepared to produce the names of every person who told me he was voting for McCain to the proper authorities.
We'll start with former Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, former New York City mayor Rudy Giuliani, California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Florida Gov. Charlie Crist. Then we shall march through the states of New Hampshire and South Carolina -- states that must never, ever be allowed to hold early Republican primaries again.
For now, we have a new president-elect. In the spirit of reaching across the aisle, we owe it to the Democrats to show their president the exact same kind of respect and loyalty that they have shown our recent Republican president.
Starting tomorrow, if not sooner.
Capitalism and the Financial Crisis
(Walter Williams is in my opinion a brilliant man. At the end of this article he asks the question: "In the clamor for more regulation over our financial institutions, has anybody bothered to ask whether people in government know what they're doing? " That's what I've been asking for the past eight weeks! Now I'm wondering if the American people have ever heard of Economics 101. Fasten your seat belts my friends, hide your walets, we are in for a long and bumpy ride! VN8)
Walter E. Williams
Wednesday, November 05, 2008
There has always been contempt for economic liberty. Historically, our nation was an important, not complete, exception. It took the calamity of the Great Depression to bring about today's level of restrictions on economic liberty. Now we have another government-created calamity that has the prospect of moving us even further away from economic liberty with the news media and pundits creating the perception that the current crisis can be blamed on capitalism. We see comments such as those in the New York Times: "The United States has a culture that celebrates laissez-faire capitalism as the economic ideal. Or, "For 30 years, the nation's political system has been tilted in favor of business deregulation and against new rules." Another says, "Since 1997, Mr. Brown (the British Prime Minister) has been a powerful voice behind the Labor Party's embrace of an American-style economic philosophy that was light on regulation."
First, let's establish what laissez-faire capitalism is. Broadly defined, it is an economic system based on private ownership and control over of the means of production. Under laissez-faire capitalism, government activity is restricted to the protection of the individual's rights against fraud, theft and the initiation of physical force.
Professor George Reisman has written a very insightful article on his blog titled "The Myth that Laissez Faire Is Responsible for Our Financial Crisis." You can decide whether we have in an unregulated laissez-faire economy. There are 15 cabinet departments, nine of which control various aspects of the U.S. economy. They are the Departments of: Transportation, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Education, Energy, Labor, Agriculture, Commerce, and Interior. In addition, there is the alphabet soup cluster of federal agencies such as: the IRS, the FRB and FDIC, the EPA, FDA, SEC, CFTC, NLRB, FTC, FCC, FERC, FEMA, FAA, CAA, INS, OHSA, CPSC, NHTSA, EEOC, BATF, DEA, NIH, and NASA.
Here's my question to you: Can one be sane and at the same time hold that ours is an unregulated laissez-faire economy? Better yet, tell me what a businessman, or for that matter you, can do that does not involve some kind of government regulation. A businessman must seek government approval for the minutest detail of his operation or face the wrath of some government agency, whether it's at the federal, state or local level. Just about everything we buy or use has some kind of government dictate involved whether it's package labeling, how many gallons of water to flush toilets or what pharmaceuticals can be prescribed. You say, "Williams, there's a reason for this government control." Yes, there's a reason for everything but that does not change the fact that there is massive government control over our economy.
It is incorrect to say that laissez-faire or free markets are unregulated. There is ruthless regulation, but it's not by government. Take the mortgage industry. In the absence of government interference, it is unlikely that a lender would extend a mortgage to a person with a poor credit history, making no down payment, and providing no verifiable employment history. But under the pressure of the government's Community Reinvestment Act and Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac buying up or guaranteeing such mortgages, a lender will.
When businesses make unwise decisions that lead to bankruptcy, their assets are sold off to someone else who might be able to put them to wiser use. Government bailouts give businesses a reprieve that the market wouldn't give them. Bailouts have at least two effects. They permit continued unwise use of resources and it creates what economists call moral hazard, the expectation of future bailouts and others hopping on the bailout wagon.
The blame for our current financial mess rests with government, with the major player being the Federal Reserve Board keeping interest rates artificially low and the congressional and White House market interference in the name of more home ownership. In the clamor for more regulation over our financial institutions, has anybody bothered to ask whether people in government know what they're doing?
Tuesday, November 4, 2008
Monday, November 3, 2008
The Great McCain Story You've Probably Forgotten
What an old anecdote about Mo Udall in the hospital reveals about McCain's character.
by Michael Lewis
Back in 1996 and 1997, before John McCain was a presidential candidate or object of media fascination, Michael Lewis followed the Arizona senator around as he campaigned for Bob Dole and worked to reform campaign-finance laws. Lewis' pieces for the New Republic and the New York Times Magazine portrayed McCain as a passionate, cantankerous, astonishingly honest political character who frequently acted in ways that brought him no political gain. In the recent back-and-forth over whether McCain is a regular politician or a true outlier, we remembered a wonderful moment from Lewis' 1997 New York Times Magazine profile of McCain, "The Subversive." The passage below comes at the very end of Lewis' article.
By 7:30 we were on the road, and McCain was reminiscing about his early political career. When he was elected to the House in 1982, he said, he was "a freshman right-wing Nazi." But his visceral hostility toward Democrats generally was quickly tempered by his tendency to see people as individuals and judge them that way. He was taken in hand by Morris Udall, the Arizona congressman who was the liberal conscience of the Congress and a leading voice for reform. (Most famously—and disastrously for his own career—Udall took aim at the seniority system that kept young talent in its place at the end of the dais. "The longer you're here, the more you'll like it," he used to joke to incoming freshmen.)
"Mo reached out to me in 50 different ways," McCain recalled. "Right from the start, he'd say: 'I'm going to hold a press conference out in Phoenix. Why don't you join me?' All these journalists would show up to hear what Mo had to say. In the middle of it all, Mo would point to me and say, 'I'd like to hear John's views.' Well, hell, I didn't have any views. But I got up and learned and was introduced to the state." Four years later, when McCain ran for and won Barry Goldwater's Senate seat, he said he felt his greatest debt of gratitude not to Goldwater—who had shunned him—but to Udall. "There's no way Mo could have been more wonderful," he says, "and there was no reason for him to be that way."
For the past few years, Udall has lain ill with Parkinson's disease in a veterans hospital in Northeast Washington, which is where we were heading. Every few weeks, McCain drives over to pay his respects. These days the trip is a ceremony, like going to church, only less pleasant. Udall is seldom conscious, and even then he shows no sign of recognition. McCain brings with him a stack of newspaper clips on Udall's favorite subjects: local politics in Arizona, environmental legislation, Native American land disputes, subjects in which McCain initially had no particular interest himself. Now, when the Republican senator from Arizona takes the floor on behalf of Native Americans, or when he writes an op-ed piece arguing that the Republican Party embrace environmentalism, or when the polls show once again that he is Arizona's most popular politician, he remains aware of his debt to Arizona's most influential Democrat.
One wall of Udall's hospital room was cluttered with photos of his family back in Arizona; another bore a single photograph of Udall during his season with the Denver Nuggets, dribbling a basketball. Aside from a congressional seal glued to a door jamb, there was no indication what the man in the bed had done for his living. Beneath a torn gray blanket on a narrow hospital cot, Udall lay twisted and disfigured. No matter how many times McCain tapped him on the shoulder and called his name, his eyes remained shut.
A nurse entered and seemed surprised to find anyone there, and it wasn't long before I found out why: Almost no one visits anymore. In his time, which was not very long ago, Mo Udall was one of the most-sought-after men in the Democratic Party. Yet as he dies in a veterans hospital a few miles from the Capitol, he is visited regularly only by a single old political friend, John McCain. "He's not going to wake up this time," McCain said.
On the way out of the parking lot, McCain recalled what it was like to be a nobody called upon by a somebody. As he did, his voice acquired the same warmth that colored Russell Feingold's speech when he described the first call from John McCain. "When you called Feingold … " I started to ask him. But before I could, he interrupted. "Yeah," he says, "I thought of Mo." And then, for maybe the third time that morning, McCain spoke of how it affected him when Udall took him in hand. It was a simple act of affection and admiration, and for that reason it meant all the more to McCain. It was one man saying to another, We disagree in politics but not in life. It was one man saying to another, party political differences cut only so deep. Having made that step, they found much to agree upon and many useful ways to work together. This is the reason McCain keeps coming to see Udall even after Udall has lost his last shred of political influence. The politics were never all that important.
Sunday, November 2, 2008
In his own words . . .
This video exposes the radical underneath the rhetoric. By the way, "spread the wealth", and "redistribution of wealth" both mean using government power to forcibly take money out of your wallet and give it to Barack's favored groups in urban areas.
Just two more days . . .
In two more days, the election will be over and the tabulation of the votes will begin! Win, lose or draw, it's going to be an interesting chain of events, no doubt about it. I know the lawyers are already planning on how they will spend their small fortunes, I know they have no intentions of spreading that wealth around! My guess is that it will be late Wednesday night, early Thursday morning before we have a definitive winner declared! I know if we have a definitive winner on Wednesday morning, I'm wearing red if Conservatives win and if Liberals win, I'm going to wear solid black for the mourning period for me will have officially begun! May the best man win! VN8
Arnold tells it like it is!
Lib Radio Host Karel Calls For Joe Wurzelbacher's Death In On-Air Obscenity Laced Tirade
(Well, just when you think you have heard it all, some nut job says the following. Please click on the link, and hear it for yourselves. I guess if Joe the Plumber were black this might be considered a "hate crime", but since he's white, I don't think there's a crime. The reason I bring up that little piece of information is because Gov. Sarah Palin can be hung in effigy as a Halloween prank, no harm, no foul but when two University of Kentucky students hung BO in effigy they were arrested because it is considered a "hate crime" if the person is a minority! In the infamous words of John Stossel, "Give me a break!" I'd really like to see someone try to go after Joe the Plumber, I bet he could whip just about anybody's ass if he had to! Oh and as for Brian Maloney, you are a moron! VN8)
By Kerry Picket
November 2, 2008
H/T to Radio Equalizer’s Brian Maloney who picked up this on-air obscenity laced diatribe from San Francisco KGO radio host Karel, who called for the “death” of Samuel Joseph Wurzelbacher, AKA “Joe the Plumber.”
“F__G__D__Joe the G__D__M__F__plumber! I want M__F Joe the plumber dead.”
Maloney notes some interesting background information on the San Francisco radio host:
Karel, also known as Charles Karel Bouley, is an evening and weekend host at KGO radio in San Francisco.
Based in Los Angeles, Karel is a gay activist who also writes for the Huffington Post website.
This latest incident caps a weekend of unhinged behavior by Obama's supporters, including a call for the death of Mormons campaigning on behalf of Proposition 8 in California and the push for an investigation into the "leak" that Obama's aunt was an illegal alien facing deportation.
Don’t expect the mainstream media to tell Barack Obama to reign in his supporters, as they still are still looking for the imaginary McCain supporter who yelled out “terrorist” to Obama’s name at a McCain rally.
Saturday, November 1, 2008
We have just begun to fight!
Oh if we could just have President Reagan back again. The DUKE tells it like it is!
This are great also!
This are great also!
Harlem Voters, Enough Said!
America, these are the people who are supporting and voting for Senator Barack Obama! You gotta love Howard Stern! These people are complete idiots. For the politically correct in the crowd, please continue reading here.
In several states, "idiots" do not have the right to vote:
* Arkansas Article III, Section 5
* Iowa Article II, section 5
* Kentucky Section 145
* Mississippi Article 12, Section 241
* New Mexico Article VII, section 1
* Ohio (Article V, Section 6)
This IS Ridiculous!
Eighth-Grade Boy Sent Home From School for Jesus Christ Halloween Costume
PARAMUS, N.J. —
Dressing up as Jesus Christ for Halloween turned out to be a problem for a northern New Jersey boy.
Alex Woinski, an eighth-grader at West Brook Middle School in Paramus, was sent home from school on Friday because of his costume.
Alex, who has shoulder-length brown hair, wore a white robe, a red sash, sandals, a fake beard and a crown of thorns.
His mother says Alex was told he could keep the costume on if he removed the beard and crown of thorns, but he declined.
Superintendent James Montesano says the district doesn't want students wearing costumes that could be distracting.
Alex's mother is Catholic, and his father is Jewish.
He recently celebrated his Bar Mitzvah and is studying Bible scripture, according to his mom.
(OK, this IS ridiculous, children are wearing costumes to school for Halloween and the school superintendent doesn't want students wearing a costume that is distracting. OK, maybe I'm being a little unreasonable here, but does anyone besides me believe that ANY Halloween costume would be distracting? Come on, anytime anyone wears something "out of the ordinary" to school, it's going to be distracting! I guess if the young man had dressed as Satan, that would have been normal and wouldn't have been distracting? What is this world coming too? No, please don't answer that, it was rhetorical, I know and I don't want to face it. I have my head in the sand and am just fine where I am, I may be suffocating, but I'll just have to face the consequences! Leave me in peace, don't try to save me! Jesus is so pleased to know that he is distracting! VN8)
Would you stand in line NAKED to VOTE?
Nudists want to vote naked
PETER LINTON-SMITH
FOX 13 NEWS
LAND O' LAKES - The largest nudist resort in the country sits behind large privacy walls. Once inside Caliente Resorts and Spa, "...they take off their clothes and the only time they put their clothes back on is to go the grocery store. You can do just about anything at Caliente you want," explained the resort's spokeswoman, Angye Fox.
As Election Day rapidly approaches, there is one thing people who live clothing-free realize they can't do in the buff -- vote.
Now Caliente has asked the Pasco County supervisor of elections to establish a polling place at the resort.
Elections supervisor Brian Corley hasn't ruled out the request but adds a new polling place is established "on need and population."
There are more than 350 potential voters who live at the nudist resort full time. Another 200 people work there, many of whom also work with little or no clothing.
However, "there is no magic number of people," required to create a new precinct, according to Corley.
Right now, Caliente residents vote in Pasco County precinct 70, which is less than two miles away.
Corley said the nude polling place request wouldn't be considered until 2010 at the earliest. He added that the full county commission must approve adding or changing precinct locations.
One commissioner suggests that if nudists prefer voting with no clothes, they can vote absentee. But nudists claim voting and their lifestyle share one thing.
"It's about freedom," Fox insisted. "People take their civic duty seriously and in many cases [nudism] is a very serious part of their lifestyle."
The End of Journalism
Sometime in 2008, journalism as we knew it died, and advocacy media took its place.
By Victor Davis Hanson
October 31, 2008
There have always been media biases and prejudices. Everyone knew that Walter Cronkite, from his gilded throne at CBS news, helped to alter the course of the Vietnam War, when, in the post-Tet depression, he prematurely declared the war unwinnible. Dan Rather’s career imploded when he knowingly promulgated a forged document that impugned the service record of George W. Bush. We’ve known for a long time — from various polling, and records of political donations of journalists themselves, as well as surveys of public perceptions — that the vast majority of journalists identify themselves as Democratic, and liberal in particular.
Yet we have never quite seen anything like the current media infatuation with Barack Obama, and its collective desire not to raise key issues of concern to the American people. Here were four areas of national interest that were largely ignored.
CAMPAIGN FINANCING
For years an axiom of the liberal establishment was the need for public campaign financing — and the corrosive role of private money in poisoning the election process. The most prominent Republican who crossed party lines to ensure the passage of national public campaign financing was John McCain — a maverick stance that cost him dearly among conservatives who resented bitterly federal interference in political expression.
In contrast, Barack Obama, remember, promised that he would accept both public funding and the limitations that went along with it, and would “aggressively pursue an agreement with the Republican nominee to preserve a publicly financed general election.” Then in June 2008, Obama abruptly reneged, bowing out entirely from government financing, the first presidential nominee in the general election to do that since the system was created in 1976.
Obama has now raised over $600 million, by far the largest campaign chest in American political history. In many states he enjoys a four-to-one advantage in campaign funding — most telling in his scheduled eleventh-hour, 30-minute specials that will not be answered by the publicly financed and poorer McCain campaign.
The story that the media chose to ignore was not merely the Obama about-face on public financing, or even the enormous amounts of money that he has raised — some of it under dubious circumstances involving foreign donors, prepaid credit cards, and false names. Instead, they were absolutely quiet about a historic end to liberal support for public financing.
For all practical purposes, public financing of the presidential general election is now dead. No Republican will ever agree to it again. No Democrat can ever again dare to defend a system destroyed by Obama. All future worries about the dangers of big money and big politics will fall on deaf ears.
Surely, there will come a time when the Democratic Party, whether for ethical or practical reasons, will sorely regret dismantling the very safeguards that for over three decades it had insisted were critical for the survival of the republic.
Imagine the reaction of the New York Times or the Washington Post had John McCain renounced his promise to participate in public campaign financing, proceeded instead to amass $600 million and outraise the publicly financed Barack Obama four-to-one, and begun airing special 30-minute unanswered infomercials during the last week of the campaign.
THE VP CANDIDATES
We know now almost all the details of Sarah Palin’s pregnancies, whether the trooper who tasered her nephew went to stun or half stun, the cost of her clothes, and her personal expenses — indeed, almost everything except how a mother of so many children gets elected councilwoman, mayor, and governor, routs an entrenched old-boy cadre, while maintaining near record levels of public support.
Yet the American public knows almost nothing of what it should about the extraordinary career of Joe Biden, the 36-year veteran of the Senate. In unprecedented fashion, Biden has simply avoided the press for most of the last two months, confident that the media instead would deconstruct almost every word of “good looking” Sarah Palin’s numerous interviews with mostly hostile interrogators.
By accepted standards of behavior, Biden has sadly proven wanting. He has committed almost every classical sin of character — plagiarism, false biography, racial insensitivity, and serial fabrication. And because of media silence, we don’t know whether he was kidding when he said America would not need to burn coal, or that Hezbollah was out of Lebanon, or that FDR addressed the nation on television as president in 1929 (surely a record for historical fictions in a single thought), or that the public would turn sour on Obama once he was challenged by our enemies abroad. In response, the media reported that the very public Sarah Palin was avoiding the press while the very private Joe Biden shunned interviews and was chained to the teleprompter.
For two months now, the media reaction to Biden’s inanity has been simply “that’s just ol’ Joe, now let’s turn to Palin,” who, in the space of two months, has been reduced from a popular successful governor to a backwoods creationist, who will ban books and champion white secessionist causes. The respective coverage of the two candidates is ironic in a variety of ways, but in one especially — almost every charge against Palin (that she is under wraps, untruthful, and inept) was applicable only to Biden.
So we are about to elect a vice president about whom we know only that he has been around a long time, but little else — and nothing at all why exactly Joe Biden says the most astounding and often lunatic things.
Imagine the reaction of Newsweek or Time had moose-hunting mom Sarah Palin claimed FDR went on television to address the nation as President in 1929, or warned America that our enemies abroad would test John McCain and that his response would result in a radical loss of his popularity at home.
THE PAST AS PRESENT
In 2004, few Americans knew Barack Obama. In 2008, they may elect him. Surely his past was of more interest than his present serial denials of it. Whatever the media’s feelings about the current Barack Obama, there should have been some story that the Obama of 2008 is radically different from the Obama who was largely consistent and predictable for the prior 30 years.
Each Obama metamorphosis in itself might be attributed to the normal evolution to the middle, as a candidate shifts from the primary to the general election. But in the case of Obama, we witnessed not a shift, but a complete transformation to an entirely new persona — in almost every imaginable sense of the word. Name an issue — FISA, NAFTA, guns, abortion, capital punishment, coal, nuclear power, drilling, Iran, Jerusalem, the surge — and Obama’s position today is not that of just a year ago.
Until 2005, Obama was in communication with Bill Ayers by e-mail and phone, despite Ayers reprehensible braggadocio in 2001 that he remained an unrepentant terrorist. Rev. Wright was an invaluable spiritual advisor — until spring of 2008. Father Pfleger was praised as an intimate friend in 2004 — and vanished off the radar in 2008. The media might have asked not just why these rather dubious figures were once so close to, and then so distant from, Obama; but why were there so many people like Rashid Khalidi and Tony Rezko in Obama’s past in the first place?
Behind the Olympian calm of Obama, there was always a rather disturbing record of extra-electoral politics completely ignored by the media. If one were disturbed by the present shenanigans of ACORN or the bizarre national call for Americans simply to skip work on election day to help elect Obama (who would pay for that?), one would only have to remember that in 1996 Obama took the extraordinary step of suing to eliminate all his primary rivals by challenging their petition signatures of mostly African-American voters.
In 2004, there was an even more remarkable chain of events in which the sealed divorce records of both his principle primary rival Blair Hull and general election foe, Jack Ryan, were mysteriously leaked, effectively ensuring Obama a Senate seat without serious opposition. These were not artifacts of a typical political career, but extraordinary events in themselves that might well have shed light on present campaign tactics — and yet largely remain unknown to the American people.
Imagine the reaction of CNN or NBC had John McCain’s pastor and spiritual advisor of 20 years been revealed as a white supremacist who damned a multiracial United States, or had he been a close acquaintance until 2005 of an unrepentant terrorist bomber of abortion clinics, or had McCain himself sued to eliminate congressional opponents by challenging the validity of African-American voters who signed petitions, or had both his primary and general election senatorial rivals imploded once their sealed divorce records were mysteriously leaked.
SOCIALISM?
The eleventh-hour McCain allegations of Obama’s advocacy for a share-the-wealth socialism were generally ignored by the media, or if covered, written off as neo-McCarthyism. But there were two legitimate, but again neglected, issues.
The first was the nature of the Obama tax plan. The problem was not merely upping the income tax rates on those who made $250,000 (or was it $200,000, or was it $150,000, or both, or none?), but its aggregate effect in combination with lifting the FICA ceilings on high incomes on top of existing Medicare contributions and often high state income taxes.
In other words, Americans who live in high-tax, expensive states like a New York or California could in theory face collective confiscatory tax rates of 65 percent or so on much of their income. And, depending on the nature of Obama’s proposed tax exemptions, on the other end of the spectrum we might well see almost half the nation’s wage earners pay no federal income tax at all.
Questions arise, but were again not explored: How wise is it to exempt one out of every two income earners from any worry over how the nation gathers its federal income tax revenue? And when credits are added to the plan, are we now essentially not cutting or raising taxes, but simply diverting wealth from those who pay into the system to those who do not?
A practical effect of socialism is often defined as curbing productive incentives by ensuring the poorer need not endanger their exemptions and credits by seeking greater income; and discouraging the wealthy from seeking greater income, given that nearly two-thirds of additional wealth would be lost to taxes. Surely that discussion might have been of interest to the American people.
Second, the real story was not John McCain’s characterization of such plans, but both inadvertent, and serial descriptions of them, past and present, by Barack Obama himself. “Spreading the wealth around” gains currency when collated to past interviews in which Obama talked at length about, and in regret at, judicial impracticalities in accomplishing his own desire to redistribute income. “Tragedy” is frequent in the Obama vocabulary, but largely confined to two contexts: the tragic history of the United States (e.g., deemed analogous to that of Nazi Germany during World War II), and the tragic unwillingness or inability to use judicial means to correct economic inequality in non-democratic fashion.
In this regard, remember Obama’s revealing comment that he was interested only in “fairness” in increasing capital-gains taxes, despite the bothersome fact that past moderate reductions in rates had, in fact, brought in greater revenue to government. Again, fossilized ideology trumps empiricism.
Imagine the reaction of NPR and PBS had John McCain advocated something like abolishing all capital gains taxes, or repealing incomes taxes in favor of a national retail sales tax.
The media has succeeded in shielding Barack Obama from journalistic scrutiny. It thereby irrevocably destroyed its own reputation and forfeited the trust that generations of others had so carefully acquired. And it will never again be trusted to offer candid and nonpartisan coverage of presidential candidates.
Worse still, the suicide of both print and electronic journalism has ensured that, should Barack Obama be elected president, the public will only then learn what they should have known far earlier about their commander-in-chief — but in circumstances and from sources they may well regret.
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