Last 2 weeks of News

I have been MIA the last two weeks, to much work and to do at home in the nice Spring weather to spend time on the computer.

1) California Supreme court rules Prop 8 is a “legal” amendment but stating the only the term marriage is what was made illegal for same sex couples in California. This is a ruling I actual agree with. Marriage is a religious term and should be taken totally out of the Governments hands. The government should create a mutual support contract to be filed with a government agency to give the “marriage rights” to any two people who want to enter such a relationship. Also a dissolution of the mutual support contract form and process would be needed. No need for lawyers or courts. Just a notarized form.
A good legal analysis can be found here.

2) Supreme Court nominee, Sonia Sotomayor, A normal far left wing hack job who thinks that they no better than anyone else what is “good” and “just” for all without any regard for the actual law.

3) Government Motors is now bankrupt. Big shock here, a poorly managed company for the last 30 years that has a huge union presence so short and long term costs can’t be controlled. To bad it will result in a motor company which is fascist in nature, supposedly privately owned by run by the government.

4) Obama stumping for his health care plans passage this summer before the bill is even written. The plan is here but there are no specifics. Normal politics, talk, give speech, no substance and rush through a plan in the darkness of night that nobody can read or comprehend since a true debate of the bill will result in it being something a vast majority of US citizen’s do not want.

5) North Korea leaves the peace Armistice, blows up a nuclear weapon and tests some long range missiles, the US response, maybe we can get a harsher worded letter to be considered at the UN but no passed. While this is going on make statements that this is not tolerable and North Korea is a rogue state, yada yada yada, nothing changed in 20 years on this front.

Searching for a silver lining but do not see anywhere that people are being told to be responsible for themselves and live with the consequences of poor decision making. Another couple of weeks on the road to fascism.

Massachusetts near-universal health insurance

Massachusetts Faces Costs of Big Health Care Plan

Three years ago, Massachusetts enacted perhaps the boldest state health care experiment in American history, bringing near-universal coverage to the commonwealth with Paul Revere speed.
To make it happen, Democratic lawmakers and Gov. Mitt Romney, a Republican, made an expedient choice, deferring until another day any serious effort to control the state’s runaway health costs.
The day of reckoning has arrived. Threatened first by rapid early enrollment in its new subsidized insurance program and now by a withering economy, the state’s pioneering overhaul has entered a second, more challenging phase.
Thanks to new taxes and fees imposed last year, the health plan’s jittery finances have stabilized for the moment. But government and industry officials agree that the plan will not be sustainable over the next 5 to 10 years if they do not take significant steps to arrest the growth of health spending.
With Washington watching, the state’s leaders are again blazing new trails. Both Gov. Deval Patrick, Mr. Romney’s Democratic successor, and a high-level state commission have set out to revamp the way public and private insurers reimburse physicians and hospitals.
They want a new payment method that rewards prevention and the effective control of chronic disease, instead of the current system, which pays according to the quantity of care provided. By late spring, the commission is expected to recommend such a system to the legislature…………..

Bold for emphasis – this is code for rationing care. Is this what American’s want, reduction of the quality of care to save costs?

This is the inevitable conclusion to any government run health insurance system, rationing to save costs.

National health insurance is great in concept until you are sick and actually need treatment.

Market drops again as the Federal Government Grows more Socialist

The problem with the economy today is that the government is to heavily involved.

This is not an Anti-Democrat concept, it is an anti-big central government, reduction of capitalism and personnel liberty issue.

Bush was a failure when it comes to financial policies his entire 2 terms as I stated previously: Why republicans lost in 2006 and 2008 and George W Bush, The 1st American Socialist President.

Here is a very timely editorial at IDB, Is It Any Wonder The Market Continues To Sink?.

Last Oct. 13, in trying to explain why the market had sold off 30% in six weeks, we acknowledged that the freeze-up of the financial system was a big concern. But we cited three other factors as well:

• The imminent election of “the most anti-capitalist politician ever nominated by a major party.”

• The possibility of “a filibuster-proof Congress led by politicians who are almost as liberal.”

• A “media establishment dedicated to the implementation of a liberal agenda, and the smothering of dissent wherever it arises.”

No wonder, we said then, that panic had set in.

Today, as the market continues to sell off and we plumb 12-year lows, we wish we had a different explanation.
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Someone needs to stop saying that everything is a crisis and then go off with a little information and make bad decisions. I want a president who will make rational decisions in times of crisis and not appear overwhelmed. Americans are in deep trouble as spending continues to dramatically outpace any economic growth.

Money managers can see this, you can’t spend trillions of dollars more than exist and expect everything to be OK in the long run.

Today’s drop I think is directly related to the comments about cutting the deficit in half by 2013 that came out today. The market looks at this and says why does the progress on deficit reduction always occur after the current president is no longer on office or at the beginning of the second term. The press announcements are wrong and shows how stupid the present administration and media thinks Americans are.

By the president’s account, the administration inherited a $1.3 trillion deficit for the current fiscal year from the Bush administration – that’s the figure Obama says he’ll cut in half – and the stimulus law, coupled with rescue efforts for ailing automakers, the financial industry and beleaguered homeowners will raise this year’s red ink to $1.5 trillion.

He is saying that it is going to take 4 years to get to a $650 billion dollar debt. If that is a linear decrease for the annual debt, the total debt will be increase by [1.3 Tril - 1/4 650 bil + 1.3-1/2 of 650bil +1.3 trill - 3/4 of $650 billion + 650 billion] = (1.13 Tril + 0.975 Tril + 0.813 tril + 0.650 Tril)= $3.65 trillion more will be added to the national debt during the Obama Administration. That is adding >33% of the current national debt after 232 years. Just think of that America is going to be 35.6% more in debt in 2013 than when George W Bush left office. This is why the financial geniuses on Wall street are saying business will not have profits or anything of value in the foreseeable future.

Oh for the days of the responsible Bush administration financial policies, those where the days of efficient, inexpensive federal government (sarcasm intended) when the debt only went up by $1.54 trillion dollars in 6 years. Obama will have that passed before the mid-term elections in 2010. Wow, that is change which will result in everyone being prosperous.

US Government spending will bankrupt the world

The US federal government is in the process of bankrupting the world as accounting practices that the federal government does not allow private companies to use are used to hide the real government debt. This cuts across party lines and the end of liberty and personnel freedom in the world.

The total economic of the world based on the ponzi scheme known as government spending is close (if not already beyond) the tipping point. Paper currency will be virtually worthless since the governments that print them have no possible way to back their value.

Government spending is the problem and drastic government spending cuts (real cuts not decreasing the rate of increase) of 50 to 90+% in some cases are required.

Federal obligations exceed world GDP, Does $65.5 trillion terrify anyone yet?

As the Obama administration pushes through Congress its $800 billion deficit-spending economic stimulus plan, the American public is largely unaware that the true deficit of the federal government already is measured in trillions of dollars, and in fact its $65.5 trillion in total obligations exceeds the gross domestic product of the world.

The total U.S. obligations, including Social Security and Medicare benefits to be paid in the future, effectively have placed the U.S. government in bankruptcy, even before new continuing social welfare obligation embedded in the massive spending plan are taken into account.

The real 2008 federal budget deficit was $5.1 trillion, not the $455 billion previously reported by the Congressional Budget Office, according to the “2008 Financial Report of the United States Government” as released by the U.S. Department of Treasury
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“The federal government is bankrupt,” Williams told WND. “In a post-Enron world, if the federal government were a corporation such as General Motors, the president and senior Treasury officers would be in federal penitentiary.”

Assuming 330 million Americans, 65.6 trillion debt is equal to $198,484 per American. This is on top of any state, local or personnel debt.

If you want to really understand the what the future holds and the consequences read the A Citizen’s Guide published by the treasury department.
It would be nice if government would live by this motto in the report.

Using the government accounting methods that if any private business used, the CEO, CFO and board of directors would be in jail, here are some tables from the report on future predictions.

These projects do not take into account the money spent since Oct 1, 2008. TARP and the new stimulus plan are on top of this staggering debt.

Americans need to hold our employees the elected government officials responsible. New blood is needed.

Thoughts on 1st Obama Press Conference

I did not want to write what I was thinking during the press conference because I wanted to think about the questions and answers taken in their entirety instead of one piece at a time. I also did not watch any of the pundits analysis of the press conference.

My impression of the Obama answers to the questions:

1) I will negotiate with Iran who has leaders that publicly espouses that America needs to be destroyed because it is the great Satan.

2) I will not negotiate with Republicans who believe that government is not the total solution to America’s issues and that private business is at fault for all that is wrong with America.

3) I will talk about partisanship and blame the republicans for not agreeing with me and praising me since I agreed to listen to their ideas. I will not mention that the democratic leadership of the congress totally ignores the republican ideas for which I am bragging about listening.

4) If I do not get what I want America will be a catastrophe and anyone who disagrees is ignorant.

5) I will not look into the camera as I answer the questions giving the impression that I am above the common man since I do not need to look them in the eye. I also will tilt my head to one side while responding to questions which is a body language sign for begin uncomfortable and lying.

6) Republicans and the Bush administration are totally at fault for everything that is wrong in America and I am the savior who will right their wrongs.

7) Even though 0% down and interest only mortgages caused this crisis in the short term more of this needs to be done and in the future sometime we will fix the problems caused by the short term fixes.

8 ) Even though Social Security (entitlements) will be paying out more than is collected on a monthly basis is 6 to 7 years I am going to ignore that since I think any crisis is 10 to 20 years away.

9) Elimination of the current health care industry is a necessity and being rebuilt as I see fit it required for America to go forward.

I tried very hard to find something positive from the press conference. I wish I could have found something positive but the body language, repeating of campaign talking points and failure to look at the camera (the American people) while talking leads me to believe that Obama is hiding his true beliefs or he is lying.

Republicans need to do more of this

Jindal Says Republicans Can Only Blame Themselves for Loss

SPRINGDALE, Ark. — Louisiana Gov. Bobby Jindal said Saturday that the Republicans only had themselves to blame for losing control of Congress and the White House.

“The country fired us from our congressional majority in 2006. Why? The country didn’t stop being conservative. The Republican Party did,” Jindal told a gathering of Arkansas Republicans. “We became what we came to Washington to change — the party of earmarks and government spending. The party needs to stop worrying about what to do to fix itself. Let’s worry more about fixing our country. Then the party will fix itself.”

Jindal also discussed his push to put a new set of ethics rules in place in Louisiana — a state where he said “half of it is under water and the other half is under indictment.”

“Hundreds of members of state boards and commissions resigned in protest,” he said. “That was fine with me. I knew they could be replaced by people who’d work for free and wouldn’t mind having everyone know what they were doing.”

Jindal, 37, spoke to a crowd of 660 people at the Washington County Lincoln Day dinner Saturday night, an event attended by U.S. Rep. John Boozman, former Arkansas gubernatorial candidate Asa Hutchinson and several state legislators. On his trip to Arkansas, Jindal also visited the Bentonville headquarters of Wal-Mart Stores Inc. to thank the world’s largest retailer for its help after Louisiana’s four hurricanes since 2005.

Friday, Jindal attended a private fundraiser in Fayetteville. His previous fundraising travels have taken him to Texas, North Carolina, Mississippi, Florida and Connecticut.

Jindal, a former member of the House, has strong support from conservatives for his income tax-cutting initiatives and is an early favorite among many Republicans for the 2012 presidential election. Many of them advocated for John McCain to pick Jindal as his vice presidential running mate.

I could not agree more with this statement.
The country fired us from our congressional majority in 2006. Why? The country didn’t stop being conservative. The Republican Party did

This is why the Washington centric republican party is falling apart. A lack of leadership, the party has been to much of a liberal-lite party.

America at a crossroad, freedom vs socialism

The historical American way of life is at a crossroad. For the last 80 years there has been a slowly chipping away of Americans freedom by the federal government. The pretense is that the American government will make your life easier by limiting the lows of life with “safety nets”. With each safety net that has been installed by the federal government more regulations have been imposed using the sentiment that it is for the betterment of all. This has resulted in an America where success and the successful has been demonized, failure must be backstopped by the federal government and group think politics.

Group politics treats nobody is an individual, each person is part of a group classified by some characteristic (race, religion, sexuality, age, rich,poor, middle class). Based on this it generates conflict between the groups and each group wants to curry favors from the elected officials in exchange for support.

This group classification is a form of prejudice. Because someone is in a certain group they must have these beliefs. The individual has been lost to the collective.

This has culminated in an America where demonizing America and individual liberties while pretending to be defend America and individuals liberty is how politicians do their job. Trading one groups freedoms for a different groups liberty based on group think.

I am saddened by how much “hatred and fear” exists in America today. Both the republican and democrat parties claim the others use scare tactics to convince people that what the party currently in power is doing is just scare tactics and they are lying to you and nothing changes.

For the last 8 years all that has been said is how Evil Bush is and he is using the fear of terrorism to get elected and how is domestic policies are terrible for America. The federal government is not spending enough on some project and how some many people are hurt by the governments inaction. If Bush was a democrat, his growing of the federal government would have been lauded as being enlightened, the federal government grew by 50% under Bush in dollars being spent and taxes collected grew by 25%. The republican party and some conservatives supported him out of blind party loyalty.

During the 90s, Bill Clinton did some horrendous things to embarrass America and he was support by the democratic party loyalists and he could do no wrong.

Now the same people have flip flopped again everything Obama does is terrible by republicans and everything he does is great by democrats. This politics just disgusts me and is just tearing the fabric of America apart. The republicans are saying that Obama and the democrats are using fear about the economy to get what they want in the stimulus plan and there is not very much value it the plan. These are the same politicians who voted for the TARP plan 4 months ago.

Bush did play to fear some and Obama is playing to the fear now with the rhetoric about how bad the economy is and will be if the government does not do something.

Historically Americans have always joined together in times of crisis, Americans still do this but the political leaders start tearing the “opposition” down very shortly after the crisis starts which results in people arguing with each of over very silly topics based on nothing other than what some politician or talking head on TV says is important. I find myself getting caught up in this at times.

Americans historically have been knocked down but previous generations have picked themselves up off the ground, bushed themselves off and looked around and said to themselves, what can I do to make my life, my families life and my neighbors life better.

I see to many Americans today get knocked down and complain someone trampled on my rights and wait for some government help they stand back up. We are in hard economic times but there are still opportunities for one to be a success. The key is to look into one’s heart, think what can I do to help myself and my fellow man, not what can I expect government to do for me.

Fundamentally America has done more for the advancements of mankind in our short 230 year history than at any other society. This is due to individuals ideas, freedom to try new things and for lots of inventions that have succeeded and lots of attempted inventions which have failed miserably.

Just look at this map of the world and life expectancy from Wikipedia. The areas with the most democratic forms of government for the longest time have the longest life expectancy. This alone should prove to people that freedom from government oppression is better for mankind.

The free exchange of ideas and respecting other opinions that are different than one’s own is a corner stone of America. Just because someone has a differing opinion on some topic does not make that person evil.

In order for the human experiment called the American Representative Republic to continue to succeed and result in the prospering of mankind on the planet earth people must be allowed to fail. I know this initially sounds totally contradictory. How can America succeed if people fail. The reasoning is sound and true if it is allowed to be expressed and not criticized before explanation is interrupted.

GOP Rep. Jeb Hensarling on TARP last year.
“In my heart and in my mind, I believe that this plan is fraught with unintended consequences, would force generations of taxpayers to pick up the tab for Wall Street losses, and could permanently and fundamentally change the role of government in the American free enterprise system. Once the government socializes losses, it will soon socialize profits. If we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed. If we bail out risky behavior, we will soon see even riskier behavior. “

Think hard about the phrase If we lose our ability to fail, we will soon lose our ability to succeed. Failure breeds success, America promises opportunity and the pursuit of happiness not a guarantee of happiness. America will not survive and all of mankind will suffer if America continues on the current path of protecting failures and limiting success.

Thomas Sowell: Republicans as Democrats

Find his entire column here: Republicans as Democrats

A brief glimmer of sanity among Congressional Republicans has been followed, almost immediately, by a return to the more traditional Washington insanity.
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This was a rare smart move by the Republicans. If the Republicans had gone along, pursuing the will o’ the wisp of “bipartisanship,” then if the stimulus had by some miracle succeeded, it would have been a bill for which Democrats would claim credit at the next election.

On the other hand, if the stimulus failed– which seems far more likely– then it would be called a “bipartisan” bill, meaning that the Democrats would pay no price at the next election for a colossal failure.
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Within 24 hours, however, Republicans in the Senate came out with a plan to have the government fix mortgage interest rates at four percent– and use taxpayers’ money to cover the losses that lenders would otherwise sustain.

It is painfully obvious that government intervention in the housing markets over the past several years has been at the heart of the boom and bust that has led to a huge economic downturn.
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The last time the Republicans pushed for price controls was during the Nixon administration. It was very popular in the short run. But, in the long run, even Nixon admitted in his memoirs that it was bad for the country.
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What principle separates the Republicans from the Democrats? If they are just Tweedledee and Tweedledum, then elections come down to personality and rhetoric. If that happens, you can bet the rent money on the Democrats winning
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When have the Republicans won big? When they stood for something and told the people what that something was.
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It is the only advantage the Republicans have. The Democrats have the media, the unions, the environmental extremists and the tort lawyers on their side. Why should Republicans throw away their one advantage by becoming imitation Democrats?

This article expresses my beliefs very well.
More thinking and acting like this will revive the conservative concepts that allowed America to push forward and improve the lives of humans world-wide.

The Righteous Tax Paying Democrats

From Townhall.com

If this cartoon was not so true it would be sad. I am sure there are a bunch of republicans in high office that do not pay their taxes correctly either. This is part of an infectious problem which has been growing and growing in the government of America. Lack of responsibility in elected officials.

The sad truth is that in today’s government, everyone seems to be in politics to get rich and for their own power and glory nobody cares what really happens to America as long as they get re-elected. The media is playing right along, creating controversy about minor differences between the center left and far left people who are in the federal government.

The elected official have pushed the job of passing laws on to the alphabet soup of agencies in the federal government and have given them legislative, executive and judicial powers in their fields of expertise. The elected officials then campaign on how hard they work to help out the people when dealing with the government bureaucrats they created.

The elected officials have insulated themselves from all the rules and regulations Americans face through the government agencies. A radical change to eliminate 90+% of the federal government agencies needs to be undertaken and restore the federal government to the limited weak entity it was originally intended to be.

There are about 6 times as many rules and regulations put into place by the alphabet soup government than by congress.

If you do not believe me go to the federal registry and do some research.

The 110 congress passed 460 laws that were signed by President Bush.

The list of federal regulations dwarfs this in comparison. Here is a partial list.

Our elected officials are failing America.

McConnell on 2009 Stimulus plan

Just when there was a glimmer of hope that the Republican party gave us conservatives a sign of hope that the stimulus plan may be fixed so that there is less pork and spending of the money that is just being printed out of thin air.

Here come McConnell and the Senate GOP.

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How many changes will the Senate make? “Maybe none, but we’re going to try to make a case,” said Sen. Charles E. Grassley (Iowa), the top Republican on the Finance Committee.

Grassley’s key mission is trying to ensure that the funding formula for $87 billion in aid to governors for Medicaid is favorable to rural states such as Iowa, but the effort faces an uphill battle against a Democratic leadership team stocked with lawmakers from New York, California and Illinois.
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A small but growing number of senators are upset that neither bill provides money to address the housing crisis. “We should first fix the real problem: housing,” said Sen. Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.).

Republicans expect to offer an amendment that would create government-backed mortgages with interest rates between 4 and 4.5 percent. Sen. Kent Conrad (D-N.D.), chairman of the Budget Committee,
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That’s right, make sure I get my pork Sen. Grassley.

I guess the banks loaning money to people who would not pay them back under coercion from the Federal government through HUD, Freddie Mac and Fannie Mae was not enough.

Might as well take out the middle man, have the government directly loan money to people who will not pay their bills. This will make the banks more liquid, no bad loans. Since the Federal Government will set the mortgage rate, no need for a free market there.

How will a bank compete on getting good mortgages, have a lower rate than the feds.

I think this scheme has been tried and has failed which was one of the catalysts for this financial mess.