Charlie Reese's Last Column

Charley Reese's final column for the Orlando Sentinel... He has been a journalist for 49 years. He is retiring and this is HIS LAST COLUMN.

Be sure to read the Tax List at the end.

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits.. ( The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.)

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House?( John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. ) If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to. [The House has passed a budget but the Senate has not approved a budget in over three years. The President's proposed budgets have gotten almost unanimous rejections in the Senate in that time. ]

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ..

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power.
Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible. They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses. Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees... We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren't so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:

Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he's fed.

Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.

Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!

Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.

Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his work,
Tax his dirt.

Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.

Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his tears.

Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.

Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won't be done
Till he has no dough.

When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He's good and sore.

Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
Which he's laid...

Put these words
Upon his tomb,
'Taxes drove me
to my doom...'

When he's gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world. We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

International Sympathy?

I just received this email with a message a Jewish woman in Britain sent Monday (19 November) to William Hague, the British Foreign Secretary, and I just had to forward it.

Dear Mr Hague

You have stated that if Israel  tries to defend its population through a
ground offensive in Gaza ‘it  risks losing the sympathy of the
international community.’   
Let me tell you  something about the sympathy of the international
community Mr Hague.  My father was liberated from Buchenwald
concentration camp in 1945,  having lost his entire family but gaining
the sympathy of the  international community at the time. After 6 million
Jews had been  annihilated at the hands of the Nazi regime, the
international  community had plenty of sympathy for the Jewish people.
There is  always plenty of sympathy for victims.

Israel doesn’t need the sympathy  of the international community.
What it needs is to defend its  citizens.
When as a tiny country  it gained its independence in 1948 it had to
absorb 800,000 Jews who  were thrown out of Arab lands in the Middle
East, and it did so  without fuss and with dignity giving them shelter
and a place of  security in which their children could grow up to become
productive  citizens. When Jordan, Egypt, Lebanon and Syria tried to
destroy  Israel in 1948 and again in 1967 they took in hundreds of
thousands  of Palestinian Arabs, but did they give them dignity or
shelter? No  they left them to rot in refugee camps in order to maintain
a symbol  of grievance against Israel and use them as a political tool
against  the Jewish state. What has arisen in those camps is a
complicated  situation, but it is what has led to Gaza today.

So don’t lecture  Israel on international sympathy Mr Hague.
Not when Israel has just sent in  120 truck loads of food into Gaza to
feed the Palestinian people  there, because their own leadership is more
interested in using its  population as human shields, launching rockets
against Israel from  within major civilian centres.

Don’t lecture Israel on international  sympathy Mr Hague.
Not when Israel targets with as much military precision  as it can, only
terrorists and their bases, trying its utmost to  prevent civilian
casualties.

Don’t lecture Israel on  international sympathy Mr Hague.
Not when the Palestinian media  deliberately uses images of victims of
the Syrian civil war and  presents them as casualties in Gaza to gain
international  sympathy.

Go read your history books Mr Hague, go see that since the  beginning of
the twentieth century all the Arabs wanted to do was  destroy Israel. Go
look at the country of Israel now since the Jews  have established a
state there. Go read what advances in science,  medicine, biotechnology,
agriculture and high tech Israel has  developed, and dedicated that
knowledge to making the world a better  place for humanity. Can you
imagine any other country that after 60  years of continuously being
under attack could have achieved so  much.

So Mr Hague don’t lecture Israel on international  sympathy.
Israel will do whatever it takes to defend itself from outright  attack
on its citizens, whether it be from Hamas, Hizbollah, Iran or  any other
country or terrorist group that attacks it.

And if  it loses the sympathy of the international community so be it.  We
don’t need the international community’s sympathy. We don’t need  another
6 million victims.

We Want A Divorce

Dear American liberals, leftists, social progressives, socialists, Marxists and Obama supporters, et al: We have stuck together since the late 1950's for the sake of the kids, but the whole of this latest election process has made me realize that I want a divorce. I know we tolerated each other for many years for the sake of future generations, but sadly, this relationship has clearly run its course.



Our two ideological sides of America cannot and will not ever agree on what is right for us all, so let's just end it on friendly terms. We can smile and chalk it up to irreconcilable differences and go our own way.



Here is a our separation agreement:


--Our two groups can equitably divide up the country by landmass each taking a similar portion. That will be the difficult part, but I am sure our two sides can come to a friendly agreement. After that, it should be relatively easy! Our respective representatives can effortlessly divide other assets since both sides have such distinct and disparate tastes.



--We don't like redistributive taxes so you can keep them.


--You are welcome to the liberal judges and the ACLU.
--Since you hate guns and war, we'll take our firearms, the cops, the NRA and the military.


--We'll take the nasty, smelly oil industry and the coal mines, and you can go with wind, solar and biodiesel.


--You can keep Oprah, Michael Moore and Rosie O'Donnell. You are, however, responsible for finding a bio-diesel vehicle big enough to move all three of them.



--We'll keep capitalism, greedy corporations, pharmaceutical companies, Wal-Mart and Wall Street.


--You can have your beloved lifelong welfare dwellers, food stamps, homeless, homeboys, hippies, druggies and illegal aliens.


--We'll keep the hot Alaskan hockey moms, greedy CEO's and rednecks.


--We'll keep Bill O?Reilly, and Bibles and give you NBC and Hollywood .



--You can make nice with Iran and Palestine and we'll retain the right to invade and hammer places that threaten us.


--You can have the peaceniks and war protesters. When our allies or our way of life are under assault, we'll help provide them security.



--We'll keep our Judeo-Christian values.


--You are welcome to Islam, Scientology, Humanism, political correctness and Shirley McClain. You can also have the U.N. but we will no longer be paying the bill.



--We'll keep the SUV's, pickup trucks and oversized luxury cars. You can take every Volt and Leaf you can find.


--You can give everyone healthcare if you can find any practicing doctors.


--We'll continue to believe healthcare is a luxury and not a right.
--We'll keep "The Battle Hymn of the Republic" and "The National Anthem."


--I'm sure you'll be happy to substitute "Imagine", "I'd Like to Teach the World to Sing", "Kum Ba Ya" or "We Are the World".



--We'll practice trickle-down economics and you can continue to give trickle up poverty your best shot.



--Since it often so offends you, we'll keep our history, our name and our flag.



Would you agree to this? If so, please pass it along to other like-minded liberal and conservative patriots and if you do not agree, just hit delete. In the spirit of friendly parting, I'll bet you might think about which one of us will need whose help in 15 years.



Sincerely,


John J. Wall


Law Student and an American



P.S. Also, please take Ted Turner, Sean Penn, Martin & Charlie Sheen, Barbara Streisand, & ( Hanoi ) Jane Fonda with you.



P.P.S. And you won't have to press 1 for English when you call our country.

Why Is Obama A Democrat?

Why Is Obama A Democrat?

To my knowledge no one has asked this question, but it might be important. 

Does he have a genuine desire to lift up the down trodden, the under achiever, the illegal alien which is his base, or did he discover early on that these very people he says he wants to help are the people who are easiest to deceive?

How is it he feels confident to accuse his opposition of the very things he himself is and has been planning for years? It is because his followers will not question his statements and therefore it does not matter if the other side calls him out ... his followers will stubbornly stick by him.

At the first debate Obama accused Romney several times of planning tax increases, which Romney repeatedly denied. The very next day, Vice-President Joe Biden proclaimed loudly in public, that yes there will be a 1 trillion dollar tax increase put in place by the Democrats, canceling the Bush era tax cuts. 

Historically, Democrats have raised taxes, while Republicans have lowered them. 

His voter base will applaud this because it punishes the comfortably wealthy and supposedly will put more freebies on their own plate. But it won’t actually help the poor or illegal person. It will simply buy votes with promises and squander the new tax revenue.

I thought I was born a Democrat. I thought all working people were required to be Democrats. I worked for a living and belonged to various unions which of course were extensions of the Democratic party and/or other groups. I blindly voted the Democratic ticket without studying issues or backgrounds. Being a Democrat insured me a job. This is what nearly all young people think, that the Democratic party will protect and provide for you as long as you are loyal.

This is conditioned ignorance and it is what the Democratic Party relies upon. It is idealistic and unsustainable.

It is my observation that Barack Hussein Obama is at very least a smooth talking con man whose talents are more suited to being a Talk Show host/TV preacher. Nothing in his background qualifies him to be where he is today, and is a testimony to his ability to deceive, blatantly.

He has a face and a glib demeanor which allows him to get what he wants from ignorant people. He walks and talks like a messiah while promoting a self-serving socialist agenda. He is currently engaged in calling Romney a liar while being unable to defend his own extremely poor record. He promises better things in 4 more years, but his history strongly suggests otherwise.

Road To Ruin

Preaching To The Choir

In principle, the ideal country would provide all needed goods and services to it's people. This is the goal, or at least the promise, of the Democratic Party.

And how does the Democratic Party plan to finance all these benefits? Well, by heavily taxing anyone who actually earns a lot of money and putting it in a slush fund for hand outs.

Do you see a problem here? I see a bunch of problems.

The Republican Party thinks that each of us, rich or poor, should pay a little into taxes to keep up our infrastructure, roads, bridges, and so on plus provide essential services such as fire, police, emergency health care, etc. That way there would be more job opportunities created rather than less, and the treasury would stand a better chance of not being drained.

Oddly, the Democratic Party doesn't see this inevitable outcome and continues to press for higher taxes, higher spending limits, more debt, and less opportunity. They have always insisted this is how life should be and they always will.

Does this remind you of any place you know of? How about Cuba ... the Cuba where strangers are forbidden to visit and citizens are forbidden to exit, at least without leaving behind healthy collateral. Cuba is a Communist country led by a dictator (and his brother). In Cuba, if you own a car it is most likely a 1954 Chevy held together with duct tape and bailing wire. This is the country Senor Obama would dearly love to create.

Vote, Dammit!!

Definition Of Insanity

QE3: The definition of insanity returns
By Herman Cain

Einstein may have been a genius, but it doesn’t take a genius to see the wisdom of one of his most famous sayings: Doing the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result, is the definition of insanity.

That’s how you know that the Obama Administration and the Federal Reserve have lost it. The Fed announced last week that it plans another round of “quantitative easing,” which means keeping interest rates artificially low and printing a lot more money (technically through the buying of mortgage-backed securities - $40 billion a month’s worth).

This is known as QE3, and it follows the highly unsuccessful QE1 and QE2, but it is different in one respect: QE3 is forever. Fed Chairman Ben Bernanke says he will put no sunset date on this plan. The Fed will keep doing it until the economy improves, no matter how long it takes.

Bernanke’s announcement got immediate results, too, although not the type he wanted. The credit rating agency Egan-Jones immediately responded to QE3 by downgrading America’s credit rating from AA to AA-. Explaining their decision, Egan-Jones said what anyone should be able to figure out: All this pump-priming is not going to raise America’s gross domestic product, but what it will do is deplete consumer purchasing power.

Remember last year when Standard & Poors downgraded the United States from AAA to AA+? Democrats and the media insisted that Standard & Poors had taken this action solely because Tea Party Republicans had demanded budget cuts as a condition for raising the debt ceiling, thus introducing a short-term risk of default on the debt.

In fact, Standard & Poors cited the dysfunction of the policymaking process in general, and rightly so. Rating agencies don’t care how you reduce your debt – cut spending, raise taxes – they just want you to do it. What they saw is what anyone with common sense can see. Our fiscal situation is so out of control that we have to borrow money just to pay the interest on the money we’ve already borrowed. When the debt ceiling showdown resulted in no serious action on the deficit, Standard & Poors had seen enough. Even so, Democrats and their media allies did everything they could to blame the Tea Party – as if the people who want put a stop to out-of-control debt are the ones upsetting the credit agencies.

So then, how will they find a way to blame the Tea Party for Egan-Jones’s latest downgrade of the U.S., which is it second this year? The first downgrade resulted from the utter failure of Congress and the White House to deal with the debt. This time, Egan-Jones recognizes that devaluing our currency will do nothing to make the situation better. The only way to do that, after all, is to achieve robust and sustained economic growth.

So why won’t QE3 do that? In buying up all those mortgage-backed securities, they’ll certainly pump a lot of capital into financial institutions. The banks will turn around and lend it, and Main Street will suddenly be cash flush, right?

Wrong. That was the theory behind QE1 and QE2, as well. Why didn’t it work? Because of a little thing called Dodd-Frank, the “reform” through which Democrats presumed to crack down on big banks. Dodd-Frank has introduced so many new regulations and restrictions, big banks are scared to death to make risky loans of any kind. So sure, there’s going to be money, but they’re only going to lend it to the safest loan applicants – people who would almost certainly have gotten loans even without the pump-priming.

So we devalue our currency for nothing, and we’re going to do it endlessly!

I don’t know how we maintain a credit rating as good as AA- when we maintain policies like this. These people have no idea what they’re doing.

WWIII Fuse Is Lit

Middle East Analysis: WWIII fuse has been lit

By Doug Hagmann Saturday, September 15, 2012

After extensive investigation and analysis of the events on September 11, 2012, in Libya and Egypt, there is only one conclusion I am able to reach: the official narrative of the details of these attacks, provided by U.S. officials and parroted by a complicit, unquestioning media, are being deliberately misrepresented with regard to what actually happened.


Simply put, we are being lied to. But it’s much deeper and much more sinister than a simple lie, and it’s not over yet. In fact, what we are seeing is just the beginning.

Since early Wednesday, I have received numerous e-mails asking why I have failed to report about the murder of a U.S. Ambassador and the other attacks at our embassy in Cairo. After all, nearly all other columnists, especially those on the conservative side, have already written pages upon pages of material about the “tragic” events. Some with hysteria, others with rage, but all blinded by partisan politics and emotion that prevents them from seeing the larger agenda at play, which is exactly what the power players want. Meanwhile, the unsettling truth eludes all but a few.

The following represents a summary of my investigative findings, followed by what I suspect will happen next. The timing of the future events is anyone’s guess, and such events could even be modified or stopped completely by exposing the agenda of those who are actually behind the scenes.

Libya & Egypt attacks: Well planned & coordinated

The attacks against the U.S. embassies in Libya and Egypt were planned far in advance by the Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt and in the U.S. It would appear that the Egyptian president had, at the very least, foreknowledge of these attack plans. The White House and State Department were warned of impending attacks on or about September 4, 2012, a full week before the attacks were carried out. A logical question to raise is why, then, was nothing done to prevent or at least mitigate the effects of these attacks? The answer is not as simple as the question, and not what everyone appears to be asserting.

The Obama-Carter comparison

Nearly everyone is using the warnings and subsequent lack of preparation as an indication of the incompetence of Obama and his people, even comparing Obama to former President Jimmy Carter, and September 2012 to November 1979. While such comparisons can be made, they are not completely correct and deliberately limit the scope of analysis. Carter’s activities were much more passive and overt with regard to the 1979 embassy crisis and the events leading up to it. (For historical purists reading this, additional information can be obtained by researching Iran’s ex-president Abolhassan Bani-Sadr role in the hostage crisis).

Obama, by comparison, is actively engaging in reshaping the geo-political structure of the Middle East, creating an Islamic caliphate from North Africa to Syria. The goal is to isolate Israel and push that nation into a confrontation with its Arab neighbors. Therefore, comparing Obama to Carter and 1979 to the present is not only naive, but dangerously so.

Obama, lies and videotape

According to the official government narrative perpetuated by news reports, the motive behind the embassy attacks is an obscure film called Innocence of Muslims. Investigation of that production by an alleged Israeli-Jew finds that the film was produced in such a fashion that it was never intended for any other purpose than to be used as a stage prop and fodder for media consumption.

Originally, erroneously but deliberately linked to an “Israeli-Jew,” this low budget video is itself a lie. According to an analysis of the trailer, the video was hastily created on a low budget with bad costumes and fake backdrops. According to cast members, they believed the film to be about something entirely different than their lines portray - lines they never said. The offending audio was dubbed over.

Tentatively, the creation and “distribution” of video has been linked to three people: Nakoula Bassily Nakoula, 55, an Egyptian native on conditional release from prison, 65-year-old Alan Roberts, and outspoken Florida pastor Terry Jones. The controversial Jones appears to be the most vocal supporter of the film.

It is interesting to note that the film itself possesses certain features are notably similar to some of the old Osama bin Laden videos circa 2003-2006. As my investigation into this is continuing, further information about this production and others who might also be associated with it will be withheld - for now.

My investigation determined that the film, which remains accessible on You Tube despite its alleged volatility, could not possibly have been the motive for the 9/11 multi-national embassy attacks. The fact that it remains accessible on You Tube suggests something so sinister that I will refrain from going there - for now. Using the Danish cartoons and other similar controversies that led to violence as a historical template for comparison, all elements reviewed were inconsistent with previous incidents of provocations and subsequent violence.

At this point, all investigative evidence suggest that this film is not the motive behind the initial violence, yet it continues to be used by members of the U.S. government and the media to point the masses away from the real motive. It has served its intended purpose well, and will ultimately result in conforming our First Amendment rights to a larger UN body. All criticism of Islam will eventually be illegal on a global scale.

The Obama motive(s)

The reshaping of the geopolitical structure was done at the hands of Obama by design. To understand the reasons behind it, one must understand exactly who Obama is, understand his roots and origins, his proclivities and biases, which will then reveal not only his motives, but the intentions of the people who groomed him to take the seat of U.S. power. As everyone knows, we’ve got a major problem with this as the American people have been denied access to the most basic documentation about Obama’s past, from his actual birth certificate to his college and passport records.

It is important to understand that the reason for sealing off Obama’s past is to prevent people from seeing the larger agenda of the man and the people who rose in an inexplicable meteoric fashion to the highest levels of public office - and entities and people behind him. Not only have we been denied the most basic access to his records and background, the top levels of our government have been concurrently infiltrated by both members of the Muslim Brotherhood and card-carrying members of the Communist Party USA (CPUSA) under his watch and with his imprimatur. While this did not begin under his watch, the process was exponentially and even overtly increased to unbelievable levels the minute he assumed office.

Lacking his bona fides, compliments of both sides of the false right-left political paradigm, we can learn much about Obama from the company he keeps, such as his advisors and associates. Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s most visible handler, has a personal stake in the outcome of Middle East events to the point of actively shaping them.

I have previously written and spoken about Obama’s 2012 contingency plans, and we are seeing them play our before our very eyes. The fuse for WWIII, as well as societal chaos in Western nations - and soon coming to urban areas in the U.S.- has been lit. The question is whether the plan will be exposed for what it is, or whether the facilitators and those complicit in this morass will continue their activities as instructed.

The future of the civilized world hangs in the balance.

Copyright © Douglas Hagmann
Douglas J. Hagmann and his son, Joe Hagmann host The Hagmann & Hagmann Report, a live Internet radio program broadcast each weeknight from 8:00-10:00 p.m. ET.

Douglas Hagmann, founder & director of the Northeast Intelligence Network, and a multi-state licensed private investigative agency. Doug began using his investigative skills and training to fight terrorism and increase public awareness through his website.

Stop Blaming The Victims

President Obama, stop blaming the victim for Mideast violence
By Kirsten Powers
Published September 14, 2012
FoxNews.com

"Disgusting and reprehensible." said Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. "Truly abhorrent," an outraged White House official told an international conference. Were they talking about the murder of four Americans in Libya? Or perhaps the hoisting of an Islamist flag over the U.S. Embassy in Cairo?

No. For that they stuck to diplomatic speak. For the president, the harshest language was: "I strongly condemn the outrageous attack." For Clinton it was that the US is heartbroken and she condemned "this senseless act of violence." But "disgusting and reprehensible" and "truly abhorrent " were reserved for an amateurish and silly film by someone nobody has ever heard of.

In fact, what is "disgusting and reprehensible" is that there are people in the world who think they are justified in attacking and killing people because someone hurt their feelings or offended their sensibilities. The US government should not act as a validator or enabler of this upside down worldview, which is exactly what the Obama administration has done repeatedly as they have responded to these abhorrent attacks against the United States.

I have defended the Obama administration against the complaints from the right that they have run an "apology tour" in the Middle East because I believe the US should admit when we make mistakes, such as the accidental burning of Korans. But what we shouldn't do is affirm the wrongheaded view that people should be protected from the free speech of others.

Worse, our leaders shouldn't let our enemies know that when they kill our people and attack our embassies that the US Government will act like a battered wife making excuses for her psychotic husband. Wake up: we weren't attacked because of a movie made by an American. We were attacked because there are crazy religious fanatics who hate the United States. We didn't ask for it.

Egypt's President Morsi reportedly asked Obama "to put an end to such behavior"—presumably freedom, constitutional rights and the like -- as it led to the making of, in his eyes, the offensive movie.

Obama has no legal recourse but our president seems to be acquiescing to Morsi’s request by trying to silence the movie-maker through verbal intimidation, including a call from Chairman of the Joint Chiefs General Dempsey who asked Pastor Terry Jones to withdraw his support for the film. Additionally, The Hollywood Reporter reveals that the FBI was dispatched to Hollywood to uncover the identity of the filmmaker. (Don't they have real terrorists to catch? I'll be looking for the administration's condemnations next for the selling of the DVD of “The Da Vinci Code,” the blockbuster American movie that claims Jesus had sex with Mary Magdalene.)

Team Obama’s unseemly groveling to violent extremists has been cloaked in a newfound concern on the left for respecting religious sensibilities. Tuesday, a liberal professor argued in USA Today that the maker of the Mohammed film should be arrested.

President Obama said in the Rose Garden: "We reject all efforts to denigrate the religious beliefs of others" and Clinton asserted that, "The United States deplores any intentional effort to denigrate the religious beliefs of others." Deputy National Security Adviser Denis McDonough endorsed efforts to create "a world where the dignity of all people—and all faiths—is respected."

Apparently our foreign policy is now being run by Dr. Phil. Someone needs to explain to the White House that our Constitution protects freedom of religion from government interference, not the protection from people who say mean, critical or offensive things about one's religion.

But if this is truly their new position, then they have a lot to be outraged about right here at home. Remember Amanda Marcotte, one of the left's top bloggers and a columnist for the left-wing Guardian who chose last Easter -- the holiest day of the Christian calendar -- to chime "Happy Jeebus Day"? She once asked: "What if Mary had taken Plan B after the Lord filled her with his hot, white, sticky Holy Spirit? [Answer]: You’d have to justify your misogyny with another ancient mythology."

Then there was the tweet last year by Bill Maher about Tim Tebow during a particularly bad game: "Wow, Jesus just f----- #TimTebow bad! And on Xmas Eve! Somewhere in hell Satan is Tebowing, saying to Hitler "Hey, Buffalo's killing them." This was so offensive that President Obama's PAC still managed to take a million dollars from this man to help finance his reelection.

If Christians had burned down Maher's house in response, would the administration put out a statement condemning the violence but pointing out that he should have respected the religious beliefs of others?

Of course not. Nor would anyone want that.

But that is what the administration keeps doing with their responses to the attacks in the Middle East. The condemnations are paired in with claims about respecting religious beliefs, which is implicit sympathy for the claims of some of the attackers and rioters.

It’s time for the Obama administration to stop blaming the victim.

http://www.kirstenpowers.org
Kirsten A. Powers is an American columnist, blogger, pundit, and political commentator. Powers, a Democratic political analyst on Fox News, appears regularly on shows such as The O'Reilly Factor, Fox News Sunday, Special Report with Bret Baier and Freedom Watch. She is a regular guest host on the morning Fox News Radio show Kilmeade & Friends and a columnist for the New York Post and the Daily Beast. She is a regular guest host on Hannity and was rumored to be one of the top contenders to replace Alan Colmes when he left the Hannity & Colmes show in December, 2008.

Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/09/14/president-obama-stop-blaming-victim-for-mideast-violence/#ixzz26U8x7BOS

Open Letter To President Clinton

Dear President Clinton,

Back when I was a Democrat I voted for you twice, and I have not regretted that. You proved to be the best President for our country in many, many, years. I am as proud of your Presidency as you surely are.

But recently we have elected a President who is ... not so much. Many serious questions swirl around him which tend to be dismissed and ignored by those who could clear things up. As you know there is serious evidence that both his birth certificate and Social Security number are fakes. More than one expert has shown unexplainable anomalies in both documents.

Further, his background is not that of an ideal Presidential candidate. His past associations are more like an anarchist than a man of ethics and moral fortitude. His race and glib tongue are what elected him and we all know it. It is my belief that no one in official capacity will come forward with the truth because they fear the man and fear losing their comfortable position.

But, in you I see a man of integrity who has the ways and means of showing America the proper direction we should travel. I see a charismatic, influential man who could, with a few words, reveal who is behind the mask of our current leader. I see a man who would be hailed as a hero for saving us from the 'Hope and Change' which is taking us further from Democracy and deeper into Socialism or worse.

Many of us 'middle of the road' types have been wondering why that man has been able to get where he is and stay there in spite of all evidence he is a fraud. We are dedicated to voting him out and will probably do so, but he will still be free to carry on his ruinous activities. And four more years of him will destroy us.

This mere plea set forth in an unknown blog will do no good. I know it, but dammit I have to do something. You can set things right ... please stand up speak out before it is too late.

Dems Jumping Ship

Recent Polls and Interviews have shown that nearly 60% of Democratic registered voters who voted for Barack Obama in 2008 are not willing to do so again. With jobs at depression era levels, record breaking national debt, and rising taxes, they say they cannot survive more Hope and Change as is Obama's vision.

Many interviewed were legalized, Hispanic voters who recognize that Obama's open borders policies have taken their jobs and given them to illegal border jumpers.

With debt now at unprecedented highs and climbing, many voters recognize that much more debt has the power to collapse our economy, which was the goal of the 9/11 Trade Center attack.

They also recognize that Obama's idea of job creation is to create more government jobs and pay the salaries with higher taxes from private sector jobs. This is akin to paying credit card debt with other credit cards.

Some interviews are featured here: "The Hope, The Change"

Want real hope and change? Register, Vote!

P.S. Barack Obama could well be the man who single-handedly brings down the Democratic Party.

This Guy Is Not Cool !

THIS GUY IS NOT COOL!!

Well, early Saturday morning we learned that Congressman Paul Ryan, Republican from Wisconsin , is to be Mitt Romney's pick for the next Vice President of The United States.

What are we to think of this selection? He's not a graduate of Columbia University . He's not a graduate of Harvard. He wasn't selected as the President of the Harvard Law Review. He didn't get a special free quota scholarship ride to any prestigious university and, instead, had to work his way through Miami University of Ohio. For God's sake the man drove the Oscar Mayer Wiener Truck one summer and waited tables another!

One morning when Paul Ryan was sixteen years old he went in to wake his father up and found him dead of a heart attack. He didn't write two books about that experience. Instead, he assumed the role of adult at an early age, never having the luxury to pursue youthful drug use and the art of socialist revolution.

Instead, Paul Ryan and his mother took his grandmother, suffering from Alzheimers, into the household and served as the primary care provider for his grandma. His grandma wasn't the Vice President of the Bank of Hawaii so she could offer nothing in return, except the element of "need".

Once Paul Ryan got his BA in Economics from Miami University of Ohio he was hired as a staff economist in Wisconsin Senator Kastin's office. The job must have not paid well because young Ryan moonlighted as a waiter and fitness trainer. No one offered him a "token honor" position at the University of Chicago and a $200,000 dollar a year salary.

When a still young Paul Ryan returned to Wisconsin to run for Congress he didn't demonize his opponent and dig up dirt to shovel against him. He waited until the standing Congressman vacated the office before seeking the office. In Janesville , Wisconsin they don't have a big political machine to promote you, to criminalize your opponent; instead Paul Ryan had to go door to door and sit at kitchen tables and listen to his future constituents.

After getting elected to Congress Paul Ryan didn't triumphantly march into Washington , buy himself a Georgetown townhouse and proceed over to K Street to rub elbows with lobbyists. He bunked in his Congressional office and used the house gym for showers and a fresh change of clothes.

Paul Ryan then married and took his bride back to Janesville . He lives on the same street he lived on as a kid and shares the neighborhood with eight other members of the Ryan clan. He hunts with the local Janesville hunt club and attends PTA meetings and other civic functions.

For those who can't make those public functions, Paul Ryan bought an old bread truck, converted it into a "mobile constituent office" and drives around to meet with those who need his help and attention.

No, I don't know if we can vote for a guy like this. He doesn't have a regal pedigree; he's Irish for God's sake! No one awarded him a Nobel Peace Prize two months after getting elected. No one threw flowers or got "chills down their leg" as a he took his seat in Congress.

What is most despicable about Paul Ryan is that he has had the nerve to write the House Budget for three years in a row. He is brazen and heartless in advocating in that budget for a $5 trillion dollar reduction in federal spending over the next ten years! The House passed his budget three years in a row and three years in a row the Democratically controlled Senate has let it die in the upper house, without ever proposing a budget of their own. What is wrong with this guy? If Congress were to cut $5 trillion dollars from the budget where would the President get the money to give $500 million dollars to a bankrupt Solyndra? Or $200 million dollars for bankrupt Energy 1? Or $11 billion dollars to illegal aliens filing INIT, non-resident tax returns to claim $11 billion big ones in child tax credits, even for their children living in Mexico ?

I don't know. Paul Ryan seems heartless to me. He keeps wanting to cut government waste, he keeps wanting to put a halt to those big GSA conventions in Vegas and, worse, he keeps trying to make people look at that $16.7 trillion dollar deficit! The guy's no fun at all!

Who wants a numbers cruncher? Who wants someone spoiling the party by showing folks the bill? Nothing will spoil a party quicker than sending the host the bill before the party's over.

Party Hearty folks! At least until November.

Down Goes CNN ... Who's Next?

Op-Ed: Down Goes CNN - Who's Next?
Published: Friday, August 17, 2012 9:39 AM
There seems to be an awakening of the public to media distortions. What is the next step?

Jack Engelhard is the author of “The Bathsheba Deadline” and “Indecent Proposal”, as well as the award-winning memoir of his experiences as a Jewish refugee from Europe, "Escape From Mount Moriah". His latest novel, "The Girls of Cincinnati," is available on Amazon. He can be reached at his website www. jackengelhard. com.


The ratings are not good over there at CNN. The network’s honchos are so desperate that there’s talk they may, in part, switch to Reality TV.

What’s next? I suppose it’s The Housewives of Ramallah, starring Hanan Ashrawi. This was CNN’s sweetheart and Yasser Arafat’s mouthpiece when there was yet another suicide bombing and SOMEONE had to explain why murdering Jews was so necessary. Miss Ashrawi was no more than a phone call away and always helpful to CNN.

On top of it all, the latest has it that CNN’s top foreign affairs commentator, Fareed Zakaria, was (allegedly) caught plagiarizing and got himself suspended.

Before that it was Eason Jordan who confessed in a New York Times Op-Ed that as head of News, he withheld news about Saddam’s atrocities so that his reporters could continue to function in Baghdad. (Another case of “half the news that’s fit to print.”)

Speaking of The New York Times and “half the news that’s fit to print,” well, the paper of record is on record as losing millions every month and sometime back had to go to Mexico to beg for money – but is still losing money as, apparently, this ship is being abandoned except for the rats who still get a thrill up their legs when Obama speaks.

UK’s Guardian is being exposed and even ridiculed for flagrant bias against Israel and Steven Plaut (and Arutz Sheva) has finally got the world to understand that Haaretz is a Palestinian/Arab newspaper published in Hebrew.

Meantime, this is the season when PBS and NPR go panhandling for more funds, but the money is not coming in as swiftly as it used to because (is this possible?) even liberal Jews have some smarts. (Don’t quote me on this.)

Get the drift? The colossus that was called mainstream news media, as in America-hating /Israel-bashing journalism, is being cut down to size. People are catching on to the deceptions that characterize most of our traditional news organizations – and work with me when I say that a misinformed public is the greatest danger we face.

This is why I dare not say that you can’t fool all the people all the time. Here in the USA we’ve been fooled for more than three years…and come November we shall see if this persists, this madness when we fell for this dreamer of dreams.

So we’re not safe yet from media distortions that imperil us day to day…such as the lie that appears on Page 1 in our mainstream media and the truth that is buried on Page 36.

Here’s the good news. The hard left makes up only about 10 percent of the population here and in Israel. (Go argue, but this is my personal estimation.)

Here’s the bad news. The hard left still controls just about everything. (Do you really expect Elena Kagan and Sonia Sotomayor to ever rule against their prophet who selected them for the Supreme Court?)

Somewhere out there in a galaxy far away the Bob Simon-Tom Friedman-Paul Krugman Axis still exists and the scheming never ends. Do you remember how Bob Simon trapped Ambassador Michael Oren?

Do you remember how Paul Krugman wrote that he was afraid to speak up against Israel because of the Jewish backlash? What? He was afraid that he’d get captured and beheaded by my dentist?

Do you remember how Tom Friedman said that Bibi’s standing ovation in Congress was “bought and for by the Israel lobby?”

So who paid for that nincompoop’s THREE Pulitzer Prizes?

CNN may be down, but truthful journalism can succeed only if we demand nothing less.

Makers v. Takers

America's coming civil war -- makers vs. takers
By Arthur Herman
Published July 12, 2012
FoxNews.com

“A house divided against itself cannot stand.”
Abe Lincoln used those words in 1858 to describe a country that was careening toward civil war. Now we’re a house divided again and another civil war is coming, with the 2012 election as its Gettysburg.

Call it America’s coming civil war between the Makers and the Takers.

On one side are those who create wealth, America’s private sector–the very ones targeted by President Obama’s tax hikes announced Monday.

On the other are the public employee unions; left-leaning intelligentsia who see the growth of government as index of progress; and the millions of Americans now dependent on government through a growing network of government transfer payments, from Medicaid and Social Security to college loans and corporate bailouts and handouts (think GM and Solyndra).

Over the past century America’s private sector has been the source of productivity, innovation, creativity, and growth–and gave us the iPhone and iPad. The public sector has been the engine of entitlement, stagnation, and decline -- and gave us Detroit and the South Bronx.

The private sector built the strongest economy in the world. It armed the free world in World War Two, and then in the three decades after the war turned America into the most prosperous society history had ever seen. It revived America in the Reagan and Clinton years, and thanks to the Bush tax cuts brought this country back from economic collapse after 9/11.

In those same years a growing public sector, by contrast, turned Europe into a cesspool of debt, stalled economies, and chronic social dysfunction that’s set the streets of Athens -- and perhaps other European capitals--on fire.

That’s where we’re headed, too, more rapidly than we like to think.

That public sector–state, local, and federal -- now consumes 40% of GDP, compared to 33% just twelve years ago. It’s brought us to the point where 48% of Americans are now on some form of government handout, from 44% when Obama took office–almost a fifth more than during the Reagan years. And too many of them have been programmed to believe they have no future unless the government takes more from the Makers -- precisely what Obama promised on Monday.

So we know which side Obama and the Democratic party are on. Like John Brown’s raid on Harper’s Ferry, ObamaCare has been a wakeup call to what’s at stake–just as the turbulent events in Wisconsin showed how far Democrats are willing to go to win.

We’re not Greece yet -- or on the brink of Bull Run. But it’s time for Romney and Republicans to make clear which side they’re on -- and to make it clear there can’t be government transfer payments, from Medicaid to Social Security, without a strong vibrant private sector to pay for them.

They don’t have to stoop to the Democrats’ tactics. They just have to give our free market, private sector economy the robust defense it deserves.

A country where more Americans go on Social Security disability than get jobs -- as happened last month--can’t stand.

Lincoln hoped in 1861 that the “angels of our better nature” would pull us back from catastrophe. He was wrong. Let’s hope in 2012 those angels still hover -- and can make a house divided whole once more.

Historian is the author of the just released "Freedom's Forge: How American Business Produced Victory in World War II" (Random House May 2012) and the Pulitzer Prize finalist book "Gandhi and Churchill: The Epic Rivalry That Destroyed an Empire and Forged Our Age" (Bantam, 2008).


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/opinion/2012/07/12/america-coming-civil-war/?intcmp=obnetwork#ixzz239EC646m

Proud To Be American

VIETNAM IMMIGRANT

It looks like we did some good after all! On Saturday, July 24th, 2010 the town of Prescott Valley , AZ, hosted a Freedom Rally. Quang Nguyen was asked to speak on his experience of coming to America and what it means. He spoke the following in dedication to all Vietnam Veterans. Thought you might enjoy hearing what he had to say:

35 years ago, if you were to tell me that I am going to stand up here speaking to a couple thousand patriots, in English, I'd laugh at you. Man, every morning I wake up thanking God for putting me and my family in the greatest country on earth.

I just want you all to know that the American dream does exist and I am living the American dream. I was asked to speak to you about my experience as a first generation Vietnamese-American, but I'd rather speak to you as an American.

If you hadn't noticed, I am not white and I feel pretty comfortable with my people.

I am a proud US citizen and here is my proof. It took me 8 years to get it, waiting in endless lines, but I got it, and I am very proud of it.

I still remember the images of the Tet offensive in 1968, I was six years old. Now you might want to question how a 6-year-old boy could remember anything. Trust me, those images can never be erased. I can't even imagine what it was like for young American soldiers, 10,000 miles away from home, fighting on my behalf.

35 years ago, I left South Vietnam for political asylum. The war had ended. A t the age of 13, I left with the understanding that I may or may not ever get to see my siblings or parents again. I was one of the first lucky 100,000 Vietnamese allowed to come to the US. Somehow, my family and I were reunited 5 months later, amazingly, in California. It was a miracle from God.

If you haven't heard lately that this is the greatest country on earth, I am telling you that right now. It was the freedom and the opportunities presented to me that put me here with all of you tonight. I also remember the barriers that I had to overcome every step of the way. My high school counselor told me that I cannot make it to college due to my poor communication skills. I proved him wrong. I finished college. You see, all you have to do is to give this little boy an opportunity and encourage him to take and run with it. Well, I took the opportunity and here I am.

This person standing tonight in front of you could not exist under a socialist/communist environment. By the way, if you think socialism is the way to go, I am sure many people here will chip in to get you a one-way ticket out of here. And if you didn't know, the only difference between socialism and communism is an AK-47 aimed at your head. That was my experience.

In 1982, I stood with a thousand new immigrants, reciting the Pledge of Allegiance and listening to the National Anthem for the first time as an American. To this day, I can't remember anything sweeter and more patriotic than that moment in my life.

Fast forwarding, somehow I finished high school, finished college, and like any other goofball 21 year old kid, I was having a great time with my life. I had a nice job and a nice apartment in Southern California. In some way and somehow, I had forgotten how I got here and why I was here.

One day I was at a gas station, I saw a veteran pumping gas on the other side of the island. I don't know what made me do it, but I walked over and asked if he had served in Vietnam. He smiled and said yes. I shook and held his hand. The grown man began to well up. I walked away as fast as I could and at that very moment, I was emotionally rocked. This was a profound moment in my life. I knew something had to change in my life. It was time for me to learn how to be a good citizen. It was time for me to give back.

You see, America is not just a place on the map, it isn't just a physical location. It is an ideal, a concept. And if you are an American, you must understand the concept, you must accept this concept, and most importantly, you have to fight and defend this concept. This is about Freedom and not free stuff. And that is why I am standing up here.

Brothers and sisters, to be a real American, the very least you must do is to learn English and understand it well. In my humble opinion, you cannot be a faithful patriotic citizen if you can't speak the language of the country you live in. Take this document of 46 pages - last I looked on the Internet, there wasn't a Vietnamese translation of the US Constitution. It took me a long time to get to the point of being able to converse, and until this day, I still struggle to come up with the right words. It's not easy, but if it's too easy, it's not worth doing.

Before I knew this 46-page document, I learned of the 500,000 Americans who fought for this little boy. I learned of the 58,000 names scribed on the black wall at the Vietnam Memorial. You are my heroes. You are my founders.

At this time, I would like to ask all the Vietnam veterans to please stand. I thank you for my life. I thank you for your sacrifices, and I thank you for giving me the freedom and liberty I have today. I now ask all veterans, firefighters, and police officers, to please stand. On behalf of all first generation immigrants, I thank you for your services and may God bless you all.

Quang Nguyen
Creative Director/Founder
Caddis Advertising, LLC
"God Bless America "
"One Flag, One Language, One Nation Under God"

For those who understand, no explanation is needed.
For those who do not understand, no explanation is possible.

Fair Share : Must Share

Plus, New Definitions of 'Work'

The Truth

This is about as clear and easy to understand as it can be. The article below is completely neutral, neither anti-republican or democrat. Charlie Reese, a retired reporter for the Orlando Sentinel, has hit the nail directly on the head, defining clearly who it is that in the final analysis must assume responsibility for the judgments made that impact each one of us every day. It's a short but good read. Worth the time. Worth remembering!

545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese

Politicians are the only people in the world who create problems and then campaign against them.

Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the Republicans are against deficits, WHY do we have deficits?

Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high taxes?

You and I don't propose a federal budget. The President does.

You and I don't have the Constitutional authority to vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.

You and I don't write the tax code, Congress does.

You and I don't set fiscal policy, Congress does.

You and I don't control monetary policy, the Federal Reserve Bank does.

One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and individually responsible for the domestic problems that plague this country.

I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress delegated its Constitutional duty to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but private, central bank.

I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President to do one cotton-picking thing. I don't care if they offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator's responsibility to determine how he votes.

Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They cooperate in this common con regardless of party.

What separates a politician from a normal human being is an excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the President for creating deficits. The President can only propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress to accept it.

The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land, gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the President, can approve any budget they want. If the President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they agree to.

It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted -- by present facts -- of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can't think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal government, then it must follow that what exists is what they want to exist.

If the tax code is unfair, it's because they want it unfair.

If the budget is in the red, it's because they want it in the red.

If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan it's because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan ...

If they do not receive social security but are on an elite retirement plan not available to the people, it's because they want it that way.

There are no insoluble government problems.

Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats, whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them con you into the belief that there exists disembodied mystical forces like "the economy," "inflation," or "politics" that prevent them from doing what they take an oath to do.

Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.

They, and they alone, have the power.

They, and they alone, should be held accountable by the people who are their bosses.

Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own employees...

We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their mess!

Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel Newspaper.

What you do with this article now that you have read it... is up to you. This might be funny if it weren't so true. Be sure to read all the way to the end:

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was the most prosperous in the world.
We had absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.

What in the heck happened? Can you spell 'politicians?'

Dear President Obama

Dear President Obama,

My name is Harold Estes, approaching 95 on December 13 of this year. People meeting me for the first time don't believe my age because I remain wrinkle free and pretty much mentally alert.

I enlisted in the U.S. Navy in 1934 and served proudly before, during and after WW II retiring as a Master Chief Bos'n Mate. Now I live in a "rest home" located on the western end of Pearl Harbor , allowing me to keep alive the memories of 23 years of service to my country.

One of the benefits of my age, perhaps the only one, is to speak my mind, blunt and direct even to the head man.

So here goes.

I am amazed, angry and determined not to see my country die before I do, but you seem hell bent not to grant me that wish.

I can't figure out what country you are the president of. You fly around the world telling our friends and enemies despicable lies like:
" We're no longer a Christian nation"
" America is arrogant"
(Your wife even announced to the world," America is mean- spirited. " Please tell her to try preaching that nonsense to 23 generations of our war dead buried all over the globe who died for no other reason than to free a whole lot of strangers from tyranny and hopelessness.)

I'd say shame on the both of you, but I don't think you like America, nor do I see an ounce of gratefulness in anything you do, for the obvious gifts this country has given you. To be without shame or gratefulness is a dangerous thing for a man sitting in the White House.

After 9/11 you said," America hasn't lived up to her ideals."

Which ones did you mean? Was it the notion of personal liberty that 11,000 farmers and shopkeepers died for to win independence from the British? Or maybe the ideal that no man should be a slave to another man, that 500,000 men died for in the Civil War? I hope you didn't mean the ideal 470,000 fathers, brothers, husbands, and a lot of fellas I knew personally died for in WWII, because we felt real strongly about not letting any nation push us around, because we stand for freedom.

I don't think you mean the ideal that says equality is better than discrimination. You know the one that a whole lot of white people understood when they helped to get you elected.

Take a little advice from a very old geezer, young man.

Shape up and start acting like an American. If you don't, I'll do what I can to see you get shipped out of that fancy rental on Pennsylvania Avenue . You were elected to lead not to bow, apologize and kiss the hands of murderers and corrupt leaders who still treat their people like slaves.

And just who do you think you are telling the American people not to jump to conclusions and condemn that Muslim major who killed 13 of his fellow soldiers and wounded dozens more. You mean you don't want us to do what you did when that white cop used force to subdue that black college professor in Massachusetts , who was putting up a fight? You don't mind offending the police calling them stupid but you don't want us to offend Muslim fanatics by calling them what they are, terrorists.

One more thing. I realize you never served in the military and never had to defend your country with your life, but you're the Commander-in-Chief now, son. Do your job. When your battle-hardened field General asks you for 40,000 more troops to complete the mission, give them to him. But if you're not in this fight to win, then get out. The life of one American soldier is not worth the best political strategy you're thinking of.

You could be our greatest president because you face the greatest challenge ever presented to any president. You're not going to restore American greatness by bringing back our bloated economy. That's not our greatest threat. Losing the heart and soul of who we are as Americans is our big fight now.

And I sure as hell don't want to think my president is the enemy in this final battle...

Sincerely,
Harold B. Estes
WWII Veteran

Las Vegas Odds Maker Predicts ...

Most political predictions are made by biased pollsters, pundits, or prognosticators who are either rooting for Republicans or Democrats. I am neither. I am a former Libertarian Vice Presidential nominee, and a well-known Vegas oddsmaker with one of the most accurate records of predicting political races.

But as an oddsmaker with a pretty remarkable track record of picking political races, I play no favorites. I simply use common sense to call them as I see them. Back in late December I released my New Years Predictions. I predicted back then- before a single GOP primary had been held, with Romney trailing for months to almost every GOP competitor from Rick Perry to Herman Cain to Newt- that Romney would easily rout his competition to win the GOP nomination by a landslide. I also predicted that the Presidential race between Obama and Romney would be very close until election day. But that on election day Romney would win by a landslide similar to Reagan-Carter in 1980.

Understanding history, today I am even more convinced of a resounding Romney victory. 32 years ago at this moment in time, Reagan was losing by 9 points to Carter. Romney is right now running even in polls. So why do most pollsters give Obama the edge?

First, most pollsters are missing one ingredient- common sense. Here is my gut instinct. Not one American who voted for McCain 4 years ago will switch to Obama. Not one in all the land. But many millions of people who voted for an unknown Obama 4 years ago are angry, disillusioned, turned off, or scared about the future. Voters know Obama now- and that is a bad harbinger.

Now to an analysis of the voting blocks that matter in U.S. politics:

*Black voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. His endorsement of gay marriage has alienated many black church-going Christians. He may get 88% of their vote instead of the 96% he got in 2008. This is not good news for Obama.

*Hispanic voters. Obama has nowhere to go but down among this group. If Romney picks Rubio as his VP running-mate the GOP may pick up an extra 10% to 15% of Hispanic voters (plus lock down Florida). This is not good news for Obama.

*Jewish voters. Obama has been weak in his support of Israel. Many Jewish voters and big donors are angry and disappointed. I predict Obama's Jewish support drops from 78% in 2008 to the low 60’s. This is not good news for Obama.

*Youth voters. Obama’s biggest and most enthusiastic believers from 4 years ago have graduated into a job market from hell. Young people are disillusioned, frightened, and broke- a bad combination. The enthusiasm is long gone. Turnout will be much lower among young voters, as will actual voting percentages. This not good news for Obama.

*Catholic voters. Obama won a majority of Catholics in 2008. That won’t happen again. Out of desperation to please women, Obama went to war with the Catholic Church over contraception. Now he is being sued by the Catholic Church. Majority lost. This is not good news for Obama.

*Small Business owners. Because I ran for Vice President last time around, and I'm a small businessman myself, I know literally thousands of small business owners. At least 40% of them in my circle of friends, fans and supporters voted for Obama 4 years ago to “give someone different a chance.” I warned them that he would pursue a war on capitalism and demonize anyone who owned a business...that he’d support unions over the private sector in a big way...that he'd overwhelm the economy with spending and debt. My friends didn’t listen. Four years later, I can't find one person in my circle of small business owner friends voting for Obama. Not one. This is not good news for Obama.

*Blue collar working class whites. Do I need to say a thing? White working class voters are about as happy with Obama as Boston Red Sox fans feel about the New York Yankees. This is not good news for Obama.

*Suburban moms. The issue isn’t contraception…it’s having a job to pay for contraception. Obama’s economy frightens these moms. They are worried about putting food on the table. They fear for their children’s future. This is not good news for Obama.

*Military Veterans. McCain won this group by 10 points. Romney is winning by 24 points. The more our military vets got to see of Obama, the more they disliked him. This is not good news for Obama. Add it up. Is there one major group where Obama has gained since 2008? Will anyone in America wake up on election day saying “I didn’t vote for Obama 4 years ago. But he’s done such a fantastic job, I can’t wait to vote for him today.” Does anyone feel that a vote for Obama makes their job more secure? Forget the polls. My gut instincts as a Vegas oddsmaker and common sense small businessman tell me this will be a historic landslide and a world-class repudiation of Obama’s radical and risky socialist agenda. It's Reagan-Carter all over again.

But I’ll give Obama credit for one thing - he is living proof that familiarity breeds contempt.

Homebuying: Prison Rape

Is Homebuying Like Prison Rape?
Sun, 10 Jun 2012, 5:56pm

I can't find a more appropriate analogy.

The entire market is controlled by bug-eyed, cackling psychopaths who derive monstrous pleasure from torturing and extorting their victims, directly and through horrific inflation of market valuations which everyone pays for and by which they make new gains in their satanic enterprise.

A young family is greeted by a commission-fueled psychopath who lies to them that the place has 100 offers and in 15 minutes they'll be priced out of the market forever and the kids will grow up homeless and one spouse or another will likely - though righteously - suicide when it becomes clear they passed up their only chance for a normal life.

Then, thus terrorized, they're shoved in front of the Realtor®'s friend in the mortgage business, the psychopathic mortgage broker who announces that the family, although holding 20 percent for a downpayment, only qualifies for a subprime exploding ARM that will max out whatever fees the mortgage broker hopes to get on the deal. This freak twists the knife by making vague threats that if they turn down his generous offer, he will report that they were turned down for the note and fuck their credit forever.

The cell phone rings.

It's the Realtor®. There are 70 other offers that just came in on the house, all over yours but the seller "really likes you people - and, hey, I do, too and we want you to get the house. Can you match the top offer. It's only $37,000 more. My mortgage guy can help you out. Of course, for this extraordinary service, I would need some compensation. It's traditional, you know."

The exploding ARM detonates and the couple are hung with a 12 percent note. The market tanks. The mortgage broker has disappeared and the Realtor® appears in the papers, convicted of fraud and extortion amounting to $120 million for which he will serve 3 months in jail. The husband overhears the Realtor® in a bar bragging about retiring to Cyprus where he has a villa with a staff and six Russian mail order brides. Bouncers stop him from plunging the jagged edge of a broken bottle into his throat. Most of the crowd cheers him on but a gun shot from the publican puts down the riot.

No one will refinance the couple. The house was grossly overpriced to begin with. The phone rings. It's a mortgage banker at one of the banks that turned them down. A friend has a short-sale consultancy that could get them out from under. A few bucks up front - but it could save your life - and we can set you up in a new place. Desperate, despairing, they sign some papers and move into a rental home that had no utilities working. They use their cells and finally the owners get the electricity turned on but the gas company refuses to return their calls.

They wait for the call about the disposition of the short sale but it never comes and they can't get the consultant on the phone. A friend calls and tells them their old house has been sold. It's in the notices in the newspaper.

The door flies open. It's the local sheriff evicting them. The house was foreclosed a year before and they're trespassing. They tell their story and the sheriff roars laughing. You're the fifth couple this week he had to tell that they'd been paying rent on a foreclosure to a scamming Realtor®.

Sheriff throws them into the street and the family is forced to sleep in their car behind the Piggly Wiggly and the children adjust admirably to eating from the same dumpster they have to defecate into.

The couple shows their copies of the paperwork to a legal aid services attorney. Every transaction they've completed has been fraudulent. Every professional committed egregious crimes.

The husband buys a hunting rifle and vows revenge. The wife can't get through to him and takes the kids and the car and sets off to her mother's house. A month later, the husband dies in a SWAT raid on the home of the original Realtor® who he managed to behead with a fireplace shovel.

In a dramatic exit strategy, he grabbed the decapitated body and used it as a shield in a dash to his car. SWAT snipers shredded him just steps from his car. The wife watched it all on TV with her mother, weeping, 'Mommy, all we wanted to do was have our own home for the kids.'

Why Bush Was Bad At The End Of His Term ...

George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH

The day the democrats took over was not January 22nd 2009, it was actually January 3rd 2007 the day the Democrats took over the House of Representatives and the Senate, at the very start of the 110th Congress.

The Democrat Party controlled a majority in both chambers for the first time since the end of the 103rd Congress in 1995.

For those who are listening to the liberals propagating the fallacy that everything is "Bush's Fault", think about this: January 3rd, 2007 was the day the Democrats took over the Senate and the Congress. At the time:

The DOW Jones closed at 12,621.77
The GDP for the previous quarter was 3.5%
The Unemployment rate was 4.6%

George Bush's Economic policies SET A RECORD of 52 STRAIGHT MONTHS of JOB GROWTH

Remember the day...

January 3rd, 2007 was the day that Barney Frank took over the House Financial Services Committee and Chris Dodd took over the Senate Banking Committee.

The economic meltdown that happened 15 months later was in what part of the economy?

BANKING AND FINANCIAL SERVICES!

Unemployment... To this CRISIS by (among MANY other things) dumping 5-6 TRILLION Dollars of toxic loans on the economy from YOUR Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac FIASCOES! Bush asked Congress 17 TIMES to stop Fannie & Freddie - starting in 2001 because it was financially risky for the US economy.

And who took the THIRD highest pay-off from Fannie Mae AND Freddie Mac? OBAMA

And who fought against reform of Fannie and Freddie?

OBAMA and the Democrat Congress

So when someone tries to blame Bush...

REMEMBER JANUARY 3rd, 2007.... THE DAY THE DEMOCRATS TOOK OVER!"

Furthermore, the Democrats controlled the budget process for 2008 & 2009 as well as 2010 &2011.

In that first year, they had to contend with George Bush, which caused them to compromise on spending, when Bush somewhat belatedly got tough on spending increases.

For 2009 though, Nancy Pelosi & Harry Reid bypassed George Bush entirely, passing continuing resolutions to keep government running until Barack Obama could take office. At that time, they passed a massive omnibus spending bill to complete the 2009 budgets.

And where was Barack Obama during this time? He was a member of that very Congress that passed all of these massive spending bills, and he signed the omnibus bill as President to complete 2009.

If the Democrats inherited any deficit, it was the 2007 deficit, the last of the Republican budgets. That deficit was the lowest in five years, and the fourth straight decline in deficit spending. After that, Democrats in Congress took control of spending, and that includes Barack Obama, who voted for the budgets.

If Obama inherited anything, he inherited it from himself. In a nutshell, what Obama is saying is I inherited a deficit that I voted for and then I voted to expand that deficit four-fold since January 20th.