Once Upon a time

Once upon a time there was an evil land called America where people got rich by working hard _ The evil people of America would work all day so they could buy things, pay their bills and save for the future _ The evil people in America were so wicked they insisted on paying for their own medical care! (imagine that!) _ Many of these evil Americans even borrowed money from evil bankers so they could own the house they lived in _ To make matters worse these evil Americans would actually pay back the evil bankers the money they borrowed _ These evil Americans were greedy and selfish, they wanted to keep the money they worked so hard for. _ The evil Americans wouldn't share, they would say things like; "If you want an I-phone get a job and pay for it _ Then one day a brave courageous man saw the evil and spoke up, His name was Obama _ Obama said "just because you don't work doesn't mean you can't have a house" _ Obama told the people "Too many people in America go to work every day and I want to change that!" _ Obama explained "the greedy selfish evil hard working Americans got rich by stealing from you" "And I Barack Obama am going to punish those evil greedy selfish hard working Americans" _ All across America Good hearted Malcontents, Dirt bags, Criminals, Layabouts, Misfits, and Losers rejoiced _ The well meaning kind hearted Riff Raff made Obama their leader and he would make America fair _ Obama became President and in just 5 years there were millions fewer Americans working! _ Obama saw to it the hard working Americans were made to suffer. They paid more for gas, food, and medicine _ But Obama gave the good hearted Riff Raff Free cell phones, food stamps, and their own auto company! _ And they all lived happily ever after

Fathers day , a cautionary tale

"The Mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation" I used to throw that quote out there all the time.I used it to justify why my lifestyle didn't conform to my peers. I was doing what I wanted to do, Living on my own terms while they sacrificed to raise a family. I was the smart one all right. However I saw something today that gave me what the folks at the AA meetings call "A moment of clarity".Something that made me realize that I was more or less rationalizing a big lie I was telling myself. I was celebrating Fathers day at my sisters house with my 87 year old father and my younger sister. I ran out the store to grab a bag of ice and while there I saw something I would normally ignore or pay little attention to. Maybe it was because it was fathers day I stopped and took notice of . It was a family, 4 kids a Young mother & father out for a bike ride and they stopped at the store for Ice cream bars. As I watched I had an odd sensation, like when you were a kid and Mom was chewing you out about something you screwed up and you couldn't look her in the eye and she grabbed you by the chin and forced you to. I watched this family For maybe a minute and I realized the opportunity I had squandered Fathers day wasn't this young guys reward for raising a family. He wasn't looking for a thank you from the kids for all he does. This was a day this guy could devote exclusively to enjoying his children. He gets to admire something he helped create, Something far more important than himself. Maybe even pat himself on the back a little bit for a job well done so far. He knows he'll never be done, that's why he goes to the crappy job every day. That's why he works overtime to make extra money for Christmas and vacation. So he can squeeze a few more days like this out of life. His is not a quiet desperation, it is a purposeful sacrifice for a goal greater than the freedom to do what you wish when you wish. And that's where I pooched it. On the scale of bad decisions mine is on par with "New Coke" I've had some of this swirling around my head for a while but today was that card you flip in solitare and the whole game rolls over in your favor. I used to tell myself I was living my life my way and to an extent that's true. But it's also been the path of least resistance.Here I am at 47 with nothing to show for it. Sure my friends love me and miss me when I don't come around for a while. But that ain't the same thing. I can now admit, I'm a little jealous of my best friend Dennis whose nightly routine involves checking in on each of his sleeping kids before he goes off to bed. Today I realized Thoreau was trying to tell me something,

Just what is behind Obama's "Tax the Wealthy" plan?

Just what is behind Obama's "Tax the Wealthy" plan? First and foremost it is a re-election campaign. Obama was elected president by blaming George W.Bush for everything wrong in the world and this election is no different Obama needs an enemy he can demonize, preferably one who can't fight back. Which is why the rich are such an easy target. It's easy to make people who don't have much believe that an Evil "Other" is the source of their plight. It worked for the Nazi's it worked for Stalin in the Ukraine, It worked for Mao and his Cultural Revolution, It worked for Pol Pot and his Khmer Rouge, Rwanda, Serbia... Don't get me wrong Obama's plan is not the beginning of a Genocide it's just a means to an end. In this case Re-Election. But it has to be more than that right? It can't be just to get elected, There must be some policy imitative behind it right? Correct! It's about separating Americans from their money. Not just "Rich" Americans but ALL Americans. In the 2008 campaign and earlier Obama stated he wanted Americans to pay more for energy, More in taxes for wealth transfer programs, More for autos, etc etc. And by using taxation and legislation like Cap & Trade he could achieve those goals. The dirty little secret about raising Taxes is that there is no amount you could raise taxes and balance the budget. The game is rigged. Baseline Budgeting assures that every year expenditures increase regardless of need. Even if your tax increases generate enough to pay for this year, next year you will need more. Your Economy must grow at a Voracious pace but it can't because you keep siphoning much need capital out of the economy for government. (something Western Europe has experienced for 20 years) I remember back in the early 2000's the French were dancing in the streets because they had achieved ZERO GDP growth! Zero was a big milestone because for the previous 12 or 13 years they had been in NEGATIVE GDP growth. Even sadder than the notion of taxing ourselves into prosperity is the idea that we can just "Tax the Rich" The sad reality is if you took every penny the top 1% earned next year you could cover about 25% of what we borrowed this year. Increasing taxes on the top 1% from 35% to 39% gets you something like 90 billion a year. Which works out to about 5.4% of what we borrowed this year. I know what you're saying, Obama has to know this so what is his plan? His plan is the other Dirty Little Secret. Raise EVERYONE'S taxes. It's the game! When Congress sets itself to raising taxes on day one they realize that no amount of accounting tricks or gimmicks will get the CBO to state that 90 Billion is really 1.65 Trillion. And the CBO will fall for anything, They will let you count borrowed money as revenue, they will let you count money twice, they will even let you count revenue from taxes based on unrealistic or even fantasy GDP growth estimates. None of this will get 5.4% looking even close to 100% So what will congress do? Raise Everybody's Taxes! Congress has already decided to do the unpopular thing and raise taxes. This decision alone has already assured that some congress men and women won't be back next term. Congress has decided they need the icky tasting medicine, they might as well swallow it. So they start moving down the tax brackets and usually they decide to stop about one tax bracket above your baby sitter. It's still not enough money but with some tricks and gimmicks and promises to cut "Next Year" and when all is said and done "Taxing the Rich" has elevated the kid who washes dishes at the IHOP to "wealthy" status, Sans all that troublesome privilege and prestige that goes along with being wealthy, Besides Kid, the speeding tickets you would get in your Bugatti Veyron would bleed your bank acct. dry.

Selecting candidates by the lowest common denominator

Selecting candidates by the lowest common denominator or "Any one of the Republicans would be a better president than Obama"

How many times in the last month have you heard that phrase from a Republican? 10? 20? 100? To quote the eloquent Cynthia Leathers (Cat lady Extrordinaire) "I'd vote for a turnip with a face painted on it before I'd vote for Obama" But is that what we really want? the least desirable candidate? I mean a turnip would probably be a better president than Obama but I think we need to shoot a little higher.

Call me crazy but I think we should be using this time to try and weed out the poor candidates and select the best candidate and not just sit around and wait to be presented with the worst possible candidate we all can agree upon. The time is quickly approaching where we need to cut some dead wood from the tree. The discussion between candidates needs to go beyond petty sniping and soundbites to actual cold hard facts. What are you going to do? Give us specifics not broad generalities.

That being said Some candidates have to go, and the sooner the better. I like Michele Bachmann I don't care that she got John Wayne's birthplace wrong, but she jumped the crazy fence when she suggested someones child became mentally retarded from a vaccine. The Guardisil vaccine is an injection Lets not make it out to be a gynecological exam on the 50 yard line half time at the Superbowl.

Ron Paul. Ron is a nice guy with some great ideas but he hangs around with too many flakes and nutters. In addition to his good ideas he's offered an amazing array insane ideas. I would need 18 months and a grant from the Library Of Congress to document all the crazy that Ron has spewed just since January 2011. Not the least of which is the notion that Iran with nuclear weapons is no big deal.

Newt Gingrich. Surely he is a smart man, so why does he so often say some of the stupidist things? The Ryan plan may not have been perfect but it was the first and most likely to succeed plan for fiscal solvency that has been offered in the last 40 years. I can only postulate that Newt called the Ryan plan "Right Wing Social Engineering" in an effort to ingratiate himself to the liberal media elite. I have to question the competency of someone who seeks adulation from people who think Obama is doing a good job.

Rick Santorum, Sorry Rick, Guardisil vaccine is not going to make America's 12 year old girls sexually active.

Huntsman? Tap tap tap, Is this on?

Johnson?


Allowing weak candidates to continue will only result in resentment by supporters when their candidate is forced out in the primary process. In addition it will allow a failing candidate to triangulate himself into a better position by denying other viable candidates a win. Remember in 2008, Huckabee stayed in to split off votes from Romney insuring a McCain win.

My point is this; Sure any of these candidates would be better than Obama, but right now I am concerned about finding the one who would be better than all the other Republicans

Does Obama want the USSC to Kill Obamacare? Maybe

Does Obama want the USSC to overturn Obamacare?

The other day the Obama Administration said it would not seek an
appeal en mass to the 11th circuit ruling on Obamacare but rather it
would petition the USSC to decide the case. This action more or less
fast tracks the decision with a USSC decision likely before next
June.Conventional wisdom had the Obama Admin slow walking this through
the courts hopping to delay a USSC decision until after the election
possibily until the law began to take effect.

Whether or not the court would throw out the law is any ones
guess.Constitutional scholar's on both sides of the law have made
valid claims. But what has never been in dispute by any rational
person is Obamacare's unpopularity with the American people The
numbers have been bad since passage and have slowly gotten worse.

The Republicans undoubtedly will try to hang Obamacare around the
president's neck as reckless lawmaking and a job killer in an economy
that most think has never come out of recession. So what can the
president do to blunt this arrow and minimize this avenue of attack by
the GOP? He can cause the USSC to kill the law. Putting up weak
defense and pressuring Kagen to recuse herself could insure a defeat.

Obama could kill the law himself if he were to sign the Republicans
repeal bill, (providing it could make it through the senate), That
however would be an admission of failure of Gaussian proportions. it
would kill off support from his base faster than announcing U.S. was
going to invade the Palestinian territories.

However if the supreme court were to throw out the law it removes that
arrow from the GOP's quiver and Obama remains blameless. But here is
the silver lining to that storm cloud. Obama would now have an enemy
to run against. Demonizing the Teaparty hasn't worked, Mostly due to
the fact that you can't put a face on the Teaparty. Furthermore when
you try to demonize the tea party defenders from all across the
political spectrum have been popping up. Attacking the Teaparty in a
national election campaign is an un-winnable game of Whack-A-Mole. But
the USSC is a different story. They are just 9 people and really only
4 of them are the "enemy" to Obama. It would be easy to say Roberts,
Allito, Scallia and Thomas took away your healthcare.

The Campaign can now be that Obama needs to be re-elected so he can
assure the next president won't appoint more justices along their
political ideology. The jackpot is that the USSC will not respond.
Obama's perfect enemy, an enemy that won't fight back.

To sum it up, Losing Obamacare in the USSC means Obama doesn't have to
spend the campaign defending an unpopular law, Obama can then decry
the injustice. Obama can continue to make the claims of law being paid
for, reducing the deficit and creating creating jobs and what are the
republicans going to do? Attack a law that isn't even a law any
longer? But here is the real kick in the ass, Obama can run on the
platform that he will fix health care. It's 2008 all over again.

Rand Paul and the self perceived intellectual superiority of libertarianism

I have a lot of Libertarian beliefs I subscribe to many of the tenants
of Libertarianism. It's Libertarians and their insufferable smugness
that I have a problem with.

While their political ideology is polar opposite, much like Liberals
the Libertarians have a certain unshakable belief in their own
intellectual superiority

Rand Paul is the most recent example of this smugness. Let me begin by saying I don't for a moment believe Rand Paul is a racist or harbors any racist ideas or tendencies. I don't think MSNBC commentator Rachael Maddow who interviewed Paul the other night thinks he is a racist either. However Paul couldn't have painted himself as more of a backwards jackass than he did the other night in an MSNBC interview when Paul suggested Title II of the 1964 Civil Rights act violated the rights of private business owners to descriminate on the basis of race.

As a philosophical exercise Paul's questioning the 1964 Civil Rights
Act Title II impact on the right of free association is compelling.
Paul, however, is not arguing with friends in a smoke filled coffee
house, he is in a political campaign for nthe US senate seat in Kentucky and living in a nation where racism and it's effects are very real. Paul is also living in an imperfect world where we can't make perfect laws that completely respect philosophical absolutes like freedom.

Presumably someone as intelligent as Paul who
had the temerity to assume he needed to educate the rest of us on
freedom and the constitutionality of title II. would be able to
recognise that a post primary election victory TV interview was
neither the time nor the appropriate venue to for said philosophical
discussion.

Perhaps it's just my cynicism but I saw the MSNBC interview as a setup
and of no political benefit and I was amazed Paul fell for this
obvious ruse. The fact that someone who is as intelligent as Rand assumes he
is,couldn't see this and couldn't extract himself from this obvious
pitfall is amazing.

Paul has stated repeatedly that He supports the 1964 Civil Rights Act,
Is not interested in any way changing or repealing title II so why
does he allow himself to be drawn into a philosophical debate on
something he doesn't seek to change?

This was such an easy subject to defuse and give the media nowhere to
go yet Paul chose to argue a philosophical absolute that in the real
world he could in no way possibly win.

Here's a sample statement Paul could have made and put an end to the
controversy.

"While philosophically I am troubled by the government intrusion into
the civil right of free association caused by Title II of the civil
rights act, I also recognise that while title II is an imperfect
solution it is the best possible solution and the minimal incursion
into civil rights is outweighed by the the effort to De-institutionalize
racism."

This is a television interview and in such Once you start arguing about the minute details it becomes a defensive battle and there is no way to win a defensive battle. The only way to win is to not allow the other party to draw you into a debate of details.

The questions I am left with are, How can losing a debate possibly help Paul's campaign for a Kentucky senate seat? To answer my own question, It can't. How can arguing the soundness of a law you have no interest in changing possibly help your goal of becoming the senator from Kentucky? Again to answer my own question, It cant.

I'm a college dropout and I can see this, Rand Paul
is an eye Doctor why can't he see that? I think it comes back to the self
perceived intellectual superiority of Libertarianism. In essence it's
the concept of the holy man on a mountain top. It is much easier to be
pure in the abstract than in the real world. Rand Paul demonstrates Libertarians have been on the the mountain top too long.

What ultimately really bothers me about the other days events is not
Rand Paul's stupid behavior but the fact that he doesn't see how this
behavior reflects poorly on his supporters. On the night of his win
Paul stood before the cameras and said;
"I have a message, a message from the tea party, a message that is loud and clear and does not mince words: We've come to take our government back."

As a self proclaimed spokesman for the movement Paul has a duty to not
sully the reputation of the members of that movement. This is a
movement that has been painted as racist by the MSM since it's
inception. Paul does these people no favors by getting into a debate
about Title II infringing on the rights of business owners to racially
discriminate .

For Democrats Obama has become like a really bad first date

The Obama experience so far has played out kind of like a really bad first date. You meet this woman in the grocery store snack dept. one evening, She is attractive, she dresses nice she speaks well She's pretty, Much prettier than you're used to dating, She can't seem to find the microwave popcorn she likes, You see it, hand it to her making a poor joke, She laughs at it, She smiles in a way that tells you she's interested. You take a chance, Introduce yourself and ask her out. She accepts! You exchange phone numbers to call later in the week to make plans.

You voted for Obama, he looked like a good candidate, You feel like you made a good decission.

Saturday Night, date night is here. You arrive at her place to pick her up, she comes to the door she greets you with a smile and a kiss on the cheek. Then you notice something, She smells a little funny, You put it out of your mind. In the car, On the way to the restaurant you smell it again, Stronger, The smell is kinda like cheese. A funky cheese.

You notice something is not right, you found out Obama has a bunch of tax cheats in his administration.

You get to the restaurant and the two of you are seated, The bus boy brings a basket of hot bread sticks and fills the water glasses. She reaches for a bread stick and knocks over your water glass right in your lap.

Now something really bad happens, The trillion dollar stimulus bill is passed, and unemployment goes up.

You come back from the men's room after trying to dry your crotch with the hot air hand blower, She apologises profusely, The waiter arrives takes your drink orders. You ignore your damp crotch while the two of you chat, She is now eating a bread stick and you notice something, she talks with her mouth full of food. So in addition to your chilled junk you are now being pelted with a hailstorm of bread crumbs. You dread saying something funny for fear of being on the receiving end of a half chewed ball of saliva moistened bread.

North Korea and Iran are going nuclear and all the talk in the world isn't going to deter those crazy bastards.

The two of you talk all through dinner, and aside from the the occasional stray chunk of veal picatta flying your way it's going well. You were off to a rocky start but things are going smoothly. In the back of your mind you know the worst is yet to come.

Cash for clunkers looks like it may do some good but in your heart you know eventually the truth about it will come out and it won't be good.


After dinner, the two of you go to a club to have drinks and listen to some live music. Now the evening starts to go south, This woman drinks like a fish, Worse yet when she really opens up and gives her opinion she sounds like a moron. As she drinks more she gets worse, When she falls off her chair You decide you have had enough. You help her up and make your way to the car.

The House and Senate pass their respective 2000+ page Health care reform bills The nation goes berserk there are tea party rallies, town hall meetings become hate fests for Democrat legislators. and despite a filibuster proof majority in the senate and a huge majority in the house they can't get a Bill on the president's desk. The bigger problem, Every time Obama opens his mouth on health care reform support for the bills drop.

On the drive home she is ranting and raving blaming you for the disastrous evening. She is calling you names, and generally being an ass when the look on her face changes to one of discomfort, She turns away and caps the evening off by puking in your car.

Obama Stumps for Democrat Governors in Virginia and New Jersey and they lose bad and to frost the cake Obama stumps for Caokley to win Teddy Kennedy's senate seat and a Republican wins a senate seat in the most democrat of democrat run states Massachusetts!