Saturday, December 31, 2011

How Shallow Are We?

When Kim Kardahsian is considered "relevant talent" to have at a New Year's Eve party, that's shallow.

When said appearance at TAO in the Venetian room on New Year's Eve is seen as worth $600,000, that's shallow.

What exactly IS KK's "talent"?

Those are all rhetorical questions in case you haven't figured that out. So please don't bother telling me what you think are the answers because I have no interest in knowing. After all, anything about KK is beyond boring and irrelevant.

Friday, December 30, 2011

More On America's Moral Decline

Some interesting links ... food for SERIOUS thought ... for your consideration following up on my previous blog:
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286820/thatcher-vs-decline-rich-lowry
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286822/growth-not-redistribution-michael-barone

What Defined Us In 2011: Do We REALLY Want To Go There Ever Again?

This link pretty much describes what I've thought all year.
http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286807/2011-you-can-t-win-losing-jonah-goldberg

We're becoming pretty nutty here aren't we? Narcissists and knuckleheads completely lacking in self-control and common sense. In contrast, here's what we ought to be about posted on Facebook by my daughter-in-law, Heather: http://www.dispatch.com/content/stories/local/2011/12/23/praise-flows-for-pastor-joe.html

Compassion, humility and selflessness with NO "PC" motivation ... and NO government 'taking care of people'. Just love and doing the right thing. Say what you will about our being a Christian nation but the latter link demonstrates what fundamentally separates us from most. We need to get back to individuals(!) doing more of this simply because it's right.

Wednesday, December 28, 2011

If You Want: 1) To Know More Details About Cosiness Between Wall Street And Politicians And 2) A Headache, Read This

Honestly, I'm so dumbfounded by this that I have no idea where to start with comments of my own. Does this sound like the dealings of honest 'representatives' who are trying to make us believe they're on our side against the greed inherent in Wall Street?

http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/286704/repo-men-kevin-d-williamson

Sunday, December 25, 2011

Check Out "Family Facts" Website Run By The Heritage Foundation: How Broken Families (Esp Broken Men!) Affect Our Kids' Lives And Why Government Can't Fix It

Check this out:
http://www.familyfacts.org/

Several things are clear from that website's statistics and are consistent with what I've been harping on for a couple of years now:
  • Our kids are failing in many areas of life/living. School is just one but an important one.
  • Broken homes, especially broken men/husbands/fathers, are mostly to blame.
  • Government action/money CANNOT fix this.
  • American men need to man-up and start putting their families first.

Friday, December 23, 2011

Obama And Reid Subvert Legislative Process In Order To Cast Unfounded Blame On Republicans

There are several things about what the Democrats did regarding the two-month extension of the payroll tax cut that ought to ALARM us. They should bug any American who really cares about maintaining the integrity of our Democracy, The Declaration of Independence and the Constitution.

You need to understand how the legislative process is supposed to work in order to appreciate the subversion going on. Briefly, here's the process that Democrats subverted:
  1. Either House or Senate body may start their version of needed legislation.
  2. Once the bill is passed in the first body it is sent to the other body.
  3. The second body either approves it as-is, amends it and send it back to the first one, rejects it and does nothing more, or rejects it and sends back a totally different version of their own.
  4. If the legislation is not dead or signed as-is from the first body that means they both want some form of it passed but they're too far apart to agree yet. If they each have their own separate versions then it is supposed to go to a 'conference' committee to iron out a compromise between the two versions.
  5. Once the conference committee, composed of representatives from both the House and Senate, has a version on which they mutually agree, then it goes back to both bodies for passage.
  6. The back-and-forth process can continue for multiple iterations until it finally does pass in both bodies.
  7. Then it goes to the president who can sign or veto it as he/she chooses.
If you need proof or further information regarding this legislative process, this link provides it: http://usgovinfo.about.com/od/uscongress/a/legprocess.htm

In the case of this payroll tax reduction extension legislation, both houses produced their own versions and neither agreed to the other body's version. At that point both of the bills were supposed to go to conference where the various differences are worked out into one bill that provides a fair balance of 'gain' and 'loss' for each body. In fact, that's what Speaker Boehner asked to be done. THAT DID NOT HAPPEN THIS TIME.

Both House and Senate produced their own versions of the extension and then the president said the House MUST accept the Senate's version. In other words, the president picked which one he would sign instead of a conference committee producing one that balanced both bodies' interests.

Think about that. Both House and Senate produced their own versions of the needed legislation and THE PRESIDENT PICKED(!) which one he'd sign under threat of doing nothing and blaming doing nothing on Republicans. The constitution did NOT set up the process to work this way!!! The PRESIDENT HAS NO SUCH AUTHORITY to pick whether the House's or Senate's version HE WILL ALLOW to come to his desk.

Think about that in terms of the constitution's balance of powers principles. If anyone has final and ultimate authority it is CONGRESS(!), NOT THE PRESIDENT. While the president can veto a given piece of legislation, his veto can be overcome by a 2/3 veto override vote in both congressional bodies. The constitution was set up specifically to ensure that CONGRESS, NOT ANY ONE MAN/PRESIDENT, has ultimate authority. In this case the president decided that the House MUST sign the Senate's version. He has NO SUCH authority.

Think about the wisdom of that by our founders. They understood that if one person had authority to control legislation it could lead to "tyranny". They said so in various writings! That kind of tyranny is why their ancestors fled their countries of origin in the first place. They were dead-set against one man being able to say which congressional body would have control or which of competing parties would 'win' a particular vote. The constitution makes the president ULTIMATELY subject to congress' authority, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND. So what Obama and Reid did this week was a total subversion of the constitution, both in its content and its principles.

And to make matters worse, the president and Democrats in general are being rather successful blaming Republicans for not cooperating better. Boehner in fact asked the president to support a conference action to happen, consistent with the constitution and the president refused! Good grief folks! The president doesn't even have the authority to stop congress from sending it to conference. Republicans were following the constitution. Democrats blamed Republicans for not accepting the Senate version immediately. And Democrats(!) are winning that argument?!?! Does that make any sense?

Perhaps the most important questions to ask you are, how comfortable are you with:
  1. Subversion of constitution-based principles and procedures by Obama and Democrat leadership?
  2. One person having that much power over what legislation gets passed?
  3. One political party subverting the constitution and then blaming the other party?
  4. The President playing such partisan games PURELY for the sake of polical gain, not for the sake of getting done what needs to be done?
  5. Americans having so little understanding of the constitution and its principles that they're not even aware of how the constitution-based processes are being subverted?
  6. Americans having so little understanding of the constitution and its principles that they have no problem with one person having so much control over congress?
  7. Americans having so little understanding of the constitution and its principles that they don't understand why it's important that the president should not be able to tell congress what to do (without declaring a state of emergency)?

Tuesday, December 20, 2011

But Aren't You Getting Tired Of Congress, Especially The Senate, Kicking Debt-Related Legislation Down The Road?

As I said yesterday, I think Boehner's rationale for opposing the Senate's Two Month Payroll Tax Cut Extension is bogus. However, that doesn't mean I think the House should pass it. I only objected to his nonsense rationale. There's a better reason to reject it.

A two month extension is stupid from the standpoint of buying a short amount of time until they can work something out that is based on a one-year extension which the House, Senate and White House all seem to think is necessary. It's ANOTHER(!) example of deadlines and 'need dates' meaning nothing to those knuckleheads in congress, especially among Senate Democrats.

In other words, the Senate screwed up by not working out a one year deal in the first place. It's the same Senate that hasn't passed a budget in over two years because they don't want to face the problems in that area head-on. I think Senate Democrats are cowards for not moving aggressively to get sensible legislation done.

The House has submitted many debt-reduction bills this year that the Senate Democrats refused to even bring to the floor for debate, including a budget. Rather than debate the version of the current legislation that the House submitted, the Senate passed yet another stop-gap version and are trying to kick yet another problem down the road. The House did their job. The Democrat-controlled Senate punted. AGAIN!

What makes NO sense at all is that even the Senate wants a one-year extension. If they didn't like the House version, the Senate should have produced their own completely unique version of a ONE-YEAR extension. That would represent an honest effort to extend this tax cut. But they chose to punt again. It's what they've been doing for over two years and it's unacceptable. Note that they were doing this kicking our problem down the road when Democrats controlled the House as well. What are they thinking?

We're beyond ready for the Democratic Senate to roll up their sleeves and get required legislation done by the need dates. That includes budgets. That includes deficit-reduction and debt-reduction. Isn't this a big enough crisis yet for them to actually want to do their jobs on the People's behalf instead of playing political games and rarely producing legislation that actually fixes things?

Sunday, December 18, 2011

Speaker of the House Boehner Is Playing A Stupid Political Game By Rejecting The Senate's Payroll Tax Cut Extension

Speaker Boehner spoke complete nonsense today in his reasoning for rejecting the Senate's payroll tax cut two-month extension. First, a link to one report: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/45715200/ns/politics-white_house/

Boehner said his reason for rejecting it is the uncertainty businesses have as a result of extending the payroll tax cut only two months. Problem with that is, that payroll tax cut or even letting it expire does NOT help or hurt businesses in any way.

The payroll tax cut only reduced what EMPLOYEES pay into the Social Security (SS) 'trust fund'. The portion of the payroll tax that employers pay has not been touched in any way. What most Americans and, apparently, Speaker Boehner(!) don't understand is that the payroll tax is half paid by employees into SS and half paid by employers. The payroll tax cut that congress approved during this economic trouble only cut what EMPLOYEES pay into the SS trust fund. The amount that employers pay into the system wasn't affected.

Therefore, companies' ability to hire is UNAFFECTED by these increases and decreases. The tax cut put money directly into the hands of employees, not employers. To say, as Speaker Boehner did, that extending the tax cut OR even letting it expire has ANY effect on a company's bottom line or, therefore, on its ability to hire or otherwise run its business is illogical and obviously strictly political.

It does NOT matter to businesses whether the payroll tax cut is extended for two months, for one year or even if it's allowed to expire.

Speaker Boehner is being untruthful in order to play political games against Democrats. This kind of behavior that BOTH parties have been practicing the past five years is irresponsible to the extreme.

Monday, December 12, 2011

The President's Speech In Kansas Last Week: Idiologically Scary

So President Obama wants to double down on policies and strategies that have been miserable failures? Not good folks. See Heritage's analysis here:
http://blog.heritage.org/2011/12/07/morning-bell-the-last-incarnation-of-barack-obama/

Step back from the political spin for a moment and consider, as objectively as possible, the extent to which his policies have worked. Do we really want him to double down on them in another term? Rhetoric won him his first term. Now it's time for his results (or lack of same) to stand on their merit and be the measuring stick for justifying a second term.

We need action, not flowery smart-sounding speeches. Time to stop blaming other people and take responsibility for one's record, especially when we consider he had FULL control to do anything he wanted his first two years. In fact, he did exactly what he wanted (running over Republican opposition in the process), all the while PROMISING that it would fix the problems we have. We need to think for ourselves whether more of this will be good for us irrespective of how smart President Obama looks and sounds. Results (or lack of same) MATTER!!!

Time to get realistic about the progressive approach to fixing these problems. We let him try. He failed, period!

ANOTHER Year Of Congress Doing NOTHING?!?! R U KIDDING ME? In THIS Economy?

Well, we gave congressional Republicans ANOTHER chance to fix this mess and what did they do this year? ALMOST NOTHING! If it weren't for the Tea Party folks among House members we wouldn't have even had a budget proposed. Establishment Republicans in the House and Senate are a truly sorry lot. I'm disgusted with the lot of them.

In BOTH the House and Senate, Establishment Republicans AND Establishment Democrats have PROVEN themselves to be incapable of doing their constitutional duty to control the federal budget and runaway spending/debt. This year we're spending more than last year ... AGAIN!!! Don't these people 'get' how much trouble we're in?

No wonder Gingrich is so popular. Why would we want to vote someone into the White House with whom Establishment politicians of either party are happy or 'comfortable'? It's time for them all to be uncomfortable don't you think? We need someone who will go in there and kick some serious butt!

The Heritage Foundation recently published a critique of these politicians' nonsense and a strategy to get our country headed in the right direction:
http://www.heritage.org/research/reports/2011/12/appropriations-endgame-one-last-shot-at-fiscal-credibility

Doesn't Heritage's critique make you mad? Isn't it extraordinary how incompetently both(!) parties have performed this year? Are you mad ... at BOTH parties? I am!

Doesn't Heritage's proposal sound like it contains some common sense ideas? Someone has to start somewhere. These yahoo's in congress had better get their act together soon or our economy is going to be flushed down the drain altogether.

WISE UP CONGRESS!!! WE WANT NO MORE BAND AIDS!!! WE WANT REAL FIXES!!!

Friday, December 9, 2011

So, Establishment Republicans Don't Like Gingrich. Big Deal! That's A POSITIVE In His Resume!

Words fail me in expressing how mad I am at 'establishment' Republicans. For the past ten years they've done a TERRIBLE job so if they don't like Gingrich's principles or his way of leading, that makes me want to vote for him more, not less!

They haven't the backbone to propose a sensible budget in these tough economic times. Yes, Ryan proposed a budget that was a REALLY good starting point in reducing our spending and the establishment Republicans voted it through ... only because it would be political suicide not to. But it was a Tea Party guy that produced that, not establishment Republicans! Where HAVE the ESTABLISHMENT Republicans been all year? I see no real leadership of the kind we need most. Indeed, Speaker Boehner has been acting more responsibly but he isn't leading as if the historical conservative core of the Republican party matters in really tough times when we need it most.

What has the Republican controlled House done in 2011? They've had the ability to at least put a halt to increasing spending but, BY CHOICE!, they haven't even done that at a time when it's clearly insane to keep growing it.

Establishment Republicans are mad at Gingrich. ALL Democrats are mad at Gingrich. I say, FINE! Establishment politicians of BOTH PARTIES GOT US INTO THIS MESS AND THEY'RE DOING NOTHING TO GET US OUT OF IT! Do we REALLY want someone in the White House that keeps THOSE GUYS happy? REALLY?

Thursday, December 8, 2011

Why Are Only Republicans In Congress Decrying The Need To Balance Congress' Budget?

Let's see. Congressional Democrats patently refuse to even offer a budget. It's obvious why. If they created a proposed budget they'd have to defend their irrational spending spree in these tough economic times AND and they'd have to submit to controls over their appetite for progressive spending. Because the Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't offered a budget they are conveniently free of both of those 'problems'. Never mind that the constitution SAYS they must make a budget every year. Never mind that their oath of office says they'll adhere to the constitution. Never mind that both The People and our circumstances demand the create a responsible budget and stick to it.

Honestly, when was the last time you heard a Democrat talk about any need to get the budget back in balance? Either when addressing The People OR in speeches on the floor of the House or Senate? They cannot do it because then they'd be obliged to walk the talk. Better not to talk about it so they can continue their irrational spending unencumbered by having to defend/explain their spending choices.

Republicans have been talking about the need to balance the national budget for a long time. That is SO welcome because they started this precipitous slide down the debt cliff. Yes, they did it too but at least they are now both admitting they screwed up AND ARE trying to do something about it. They are not only talking but walking the talk.

Democrats keep talking about nibbling around the edges of our enormous debt. House Republicans have been submitting bills ALL YEAR that would have made a difference but they are being ignored by the Democratic Senate. It's well past time when congressional Democrats started acting responsibly and stop complaining about the past. They cannot do anything about the past so they should stop complaining about it (especially since they're at least as much at fault for this mess!) and do their constitutional duty.

Sunday, December 4, 2011

Why Are Congressional Democrats So Opposed To Even Talk About Spending Cuts Much Less DO Some?

Here we are, nearly at year's end and congress has passed NO spending cut legislation except a few very minor ones that barely nibble at the edges of our debt problem. Why is that? Our debt is at $15 TRILLION and still rising at a historic rate. Let's consider who has taken actual legislative action and who hasn't.

Republicans have gotten several spending cut bills passed in the House that were then totally ignored by the Democrat-controlled Senate. If congressional Democrats are so big on compromise, why didn't they allow a discussion to even begin? How can you simultaneously declare yours is the 'real' party of compromise yet refuse to allow Republican legislation to be discussed/debated? Isn't that hypocritical? Honestly, isn't it?

The Republican-contolled House submitted a budget early this year containing many significant spending cuts. What did the Democrat-controlled Senate do? They refused to even debate it. Which party was standing in the way of compromise then?

The Democrat-controlled Senate hasn't produced a budget for the past two years. How can a party claim to be THE party of compromise but not submit a proposed budget so that it CAN be debated and compromised on? If you're so big on compromise, how do you get compromise going if you're not willing to contribute but, rather, choose(!) to sit on the sideline? Isn't that hypocritical too? C'mon, isn't it really?

Besides being hypocritical isn't the refusal to consider Republican spending cut bills and budgets also irresponsible? C'mon! Why isn't a $15 TRILLION debt a big enough problem for them to feel responsible to do more than sit on the sidelines and throw rocks at Republicans who, as a matter of record and fact, have been sending them spending cut bills to consider?

How is compromise possible if one party refuses to even discuss multiple, formal constitution-based proposals from the other? How this kind of behavior is okay with any citizen is a total mystery to me. How any citizen can find acceptable Democrats' refusal to produce a constitutionally-required budget is an equally big mystery to me.

This year congress will still spend much more than it takes in and the year is ending without any serious spending cuts having been made. While I feel congressional Republicans should be far more aggressive in spending cut legislation, I appreciate that they've been trying to get it done while Democrats have been sitting on their hands, afraid to submit a budget because that would require having to defend things they want to keep in the budget.

Since congressional Democrats don't want to act accountable much less be held accountable, they refuse to submit to the people's will, their oath and the constitution. They're thumbing their collective nose at us and we should find it offensive and unacceptable.