POLITICS: Presedential sensitivity?

Saturday, October 10, 2009

http://www.swamppolitics.com/news/politics/blog/2009/10/obamas_night_out_first_wh_anni.html

Obamas’ night out: First WH anniversary
Posted October 3, 2009 10:15 PM

*** begin quote ***

That a simple date at a relatively modestly priced Washington restaurant to celebrate a wedding anniversary – the first for the first couple in the White House – could generate as much venom as it has in these e-pages (see the comments below) on a Sunday suggests something deeply troubling about the American mood.

*** end quote ***

What’s the proper decorum for a President who that very day lost 8 AMericans in Afghanistan?

My understanding is that President Bush gave up golf so as not to appear uncaring. President Obama has been doing lots of things while “vacationing” and “politicking”, while troops were dying.

What is proper?

I still think that there should be politicians at each funeral. Maybe then the cost of their dilettante frivolity about “war” would be Rahm-ed home.

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FUN: Green golf balls!

Friday, October 9, 2009

http://dailyjokes.somelifeblog.com/2009/03/i-want-to-buy-golf-ball.html

A blonde golfer goes into the pro shop and looks around frowning.

Finally the pro askes her what she wants. “I can’t find any green golf balls,” the blonde golfer complains.

The pro looks all over the shop, and through all the catalogs, and finally calls the manufacturers and determines that sure enough, there are no green golf balls.

As the blonde golfer walks out the door in disgust, the pro asks her, “Before you go, could you tell me why you want green golf balls?”

“Well obviously, because they would be so much easier to find in the sand traps!”

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MONEY: Pirate’s chest

Friday, October 9, 2009

http://townhall.com/columnists/PeterFerrara/2009/09/10/making_up_crime

*** begin quote ***

When Fed Ex got started, the Feds charged it with violating the legal monopoly of the post office. When Fed Ex won that battle, it was a landmark victory for all Americans. The case against Liberty Dollar offers another potential landmark victory for American liberty.

*** end quote ***

Everyone needs competition and “dollars” are no different.

Here’s an entertaining thought experiment. You find a “pirates’ treasure chest”. Breathlessly you open it. What finding would excite you most:

(a) A chest full of 1940 Federal Reserve notes. (When our “pirate” buried a million “dollars”, it was worth the equivalent of a a hundred million. Reference: coffee was 22 cents per pound. You do the math.)

(b) A chest full of Confederate money.

(c) A chest full of Sadam’s Iraqi dinars.

(d) A chest full of GM stock.

(e) A chest full of gold coins.

Yea, I know what I’d pick. And, rebury them under the shore house. Just like our proverbial pirate. For the coming “rainy day”.

Argh!

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POLITICAL: An organ marketplace

Thursday, October 8, 2009

http://lifesharers.blogspot.com/2009/10/transplanting-kidneys-from-people-who.html

Friday, October 02, 2009
Transplanting kidneys from people who had kidney failure

*** begin quote ***

Nobody should think they’re too sick (or too old) to be an organ donor. People who need transplants would rather live with imperfect organs than die waiting for perfect ones.

As transplant medicine continues to advance, surgeons will continue to transplant lots of organs once thought unusable. Transplanting kidneys from people who suffered acute kidney failure will expand the supply of kidneys by about 1,000 per year. It’s a shame Americans continue to bury or cremate 10,000 transplantable kidneys every year.

*** end quote ***

Seems obvious. Better a poor substitute than the alternative.

10k kidneys every year? That’s criminal. We need a free market.

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POLITICAL: Opposition is NOT racism

Thursday, October 8, 2009

http://townhall.com/columnists/WalterEWilliams/2009/09/30/is_disagreement_with_obama_racism

Wednesday, September 30, 2009
Walter E. Williams :: Townhall.com Columnist
Is Disagreement with Obama Racism?
by Walter E. Williams

*** begin quote ***

Obama’s presidency is truly a remarkable commentary on the goodness of Americans and how far we’ve come in resolving matters of race. Obama convincingly won votes in states with insignificant black populations, such as the New England states, Iowa and Minnesota. For the nation as a whole, he managed 53 percent of the popular vote and 365 of the Electoral College votes when he only needed 270 to win. So now Jimmy Carter, Dowd, Rangel and other race-carders want us to believe that the massive discontent with Obama is racism. I say nonsense!

*** end quote ***

I agree with Prof W that opposition is NOT racism.

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: Sheeple get a “bargain”!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Subject: FW: Cash for Clunkers Math another Government Ponzi Scheme!!!!

Here’s what a friend had to say about “Democratic Math”. Ignore all the gas crap, and just look at how the stupid car buyer got taken to the cleaners:

If you traded in a clunker worth $3,500, you get $4,500 off for an apparent “savings” of $1,000. However, you have to pay taxes on the $4,500 come April 15 (something that no auto dealer will tell you). If you are in the 30% tax bracket, you will pay $1,350 on that $4,500.

So, rather than save $1,000, you actually pay an extra $350 to the feds. In addition, you traded in a car that was most likely paid for. Now you have 4 or 5 years of payments on a car that you did not need, that was costing you less to run than the payments that you will now be making.

But wait, it gets even better: you also got ripped off by the dealer.

For example, every dealer here in LA was selling the Ford Focus with all the goodies including A/C, auto transmission, power windows, etc for $12,500 the month before the “cash for clunkers” program started. When “cash for clunkers” came along, they stopped discounting them and instead sold them at the list price of $15,500. So, you paid $3,000 more than you would have the month before. (Honda, Toyota, and Kia played the same list price game that Ford and Chevy did).

So lets do the final tally here:

You traded in a car worth: $3,500

You got a discount of: $4,500

  

Net so far $1,000

But you have to pay: $1,350 in taxes on the $4,500

  

Net so far: -$ 350

And you paid: $3000 more than the car was selling for the month before.

Net so far: -$3,350

We could also add in the additional taxes (sales tax, state tax, etc.) on the extra $3,000 that you paid for the car, along with the 5 years of interest on the car loan but lets just stop here.

So who actually made out on the deal? The feds collected taxes on the car along with taxes on the $4,500 they “gave” you. The car dealers made an extra $3,000 or more on every car they sold along with the kickbacks from the manufacturers and the loan companies. The manufacturers got to dump lots of cars they could not give away the month before. And the poor stupid consumer got saddled with even more debt that they cannot afford.

Obama and his band of merry men convinced Joe consumer that he was getting $4,500 in “free” money from the “government” when in fact Joe was giving away his $3,500 car and paying an additional $3,350 for the privilege.

Thanks a lot guys!

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FUN: When the wife is mad

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

Chris Rock on the View commenting on Letterman:

“When the bad guys are after you, you call the cops. When the cops are after you, you call your lawyer. When your wife is after you, there ain’t no one to call!!”

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RANT: Building stadiums at taxpayer expense!

Wednesday, October 7, 2009

http://spectator.org/archives/2009/09/30/bomberphobia

Sports Arena
Bomberphobia
By Lisa Fabrizio on 9.30.09 @ 6:06AM

*** begin quote ***

Yet, many of you secretly applaud baseball’s version of socialism, euphemistically called the Competitive Balance Tax, which has resulted in the Yanks paying out over $150 million in the last six years to their direct competitors. Meanwhile, Robert Nutting, the dastardly owner of the Pittsburgh Pirates who pocketed $40 million in revenue-sharing alone last year, saw fit to reduce his 2009 payroll to $20 million by selling off the few good players he had. Such doings make those who cooked up the Oil for Food program look like pikers.

*** end quote ***

MP4B = “Millionaires Playing For Billionaires”

Argh!

Before I would hold up ANY sports team as an exemplar of “conservative” values, I’d think about the stadiums they play in.

Taxpayer funded.

We don’t build McD’s. We don’t build WalMarts. We don’t build lots of things for businesses!

Why are we building stadiums for billionaires where they can exercise their millionaire “talent”?

Argh!

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GOVEROTRAGEOUS: VA care is disgraceful

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

http://www.pittsburghlive.com/x/pittsburghtrib/s_645645.html#

Veterans Affairs won’t release any more care home reports

By Walter F. Roche Jr., TRIBUNE-REVIEW

Wednesday, September 30, 2009

*** begin quote ***

Facing congressional scrutiny over details revealed in a review of care given to veterans at one of its Pennsylvania facilities, the Department of Veterans Affairs slammed the door on the release of similar reports nationwide.

In a directive dated Friday, VA officials in Washington informed local agency officials that inspection reports like the one on the VA nursing home in Philadelphia are not to be released to the public.

The directive came less than a week after the Tribune-Review disclosed details of a 2008 report on the VA’s Philadelphia nursing home that concluded the VA “failed to provide a safe and sanitary environment for their residents.”

Such reports from the Long Term Care Institute — which the VA hired to inspect its facilities — are considered “protected” documents under the provisions of a federal law designed to promote improved quality, the directive states.

*** and ***

The report cited by the Trib was released by VA officials in Philadelphia under a public records request. It described how one veteran had to have his leg amputated after a serious infection had gone untreated for so long that it attracted maggots. It described blood-stained floors, a fly infestation and life-threatening treatment of veterans dependent on tube feeding.

Sen. Arlen Specter and Rep. Joseph Sestak — two Democrats vying for Senate in next year’s primary — visited the nursing home last week and questioned why it took a public records request to get the report made public.

Sestak called on VA Secretary Eric K. Shinseki to “release any other inspection reports of this nature.”

Withholding such documentation “only adds to the perception that the VA does not take the principles of accountability seriously,” Sestak wrote in an e-mail response Tuesday to the VA action.

“If the VA is unable to provide this necessary reform at the administrative level, legislation must be introduced,” Sestak wrote in a letter to Shinseki.

Specter also disagreed with the report-release ban. “This runs contrary to the VA’s desire to be an open and accountable agency,” his statement said. “I believe these documents should be made public.”

*** end quote ***

And, you want these same bozos to run our health care, health insurance, and anything else health related like drugs?

I wouldn’t let them run a dog kennel!

Sheeple, wake up!

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POLITICS: Obama is 0 (a zero)

Tuesday, October 6, 2009

http://www.politico.com/politico44/

*** begin quote ***

ONE STEP FORWARD… Consumer spending jumped by 1.3 percent in August – the most in almost eight years – thanks in part to the Cash for Clunkers program, AP reports.

… AND ONE STEP BACK: But, the wire service also reports, jobless claims rose to 551,000 – “evidence that jobs remain scarce.”

*** end quote ***

Obama was a ZERO.

Not O! That title still belongs to Oprah. At least, she’s a savvy business women. (I think she hurt herself and her ratings by getting to close to the ZERO and the Chicago Olympic bid.)

Obama could have:

(1) drastically realigned our troop deployments around the world. (I can hear the conversation now. “Sorry, <insert head of foreign country>, we have pulled the load for 60 or 100 years. We’re so done and out of here.”) Saving oodles of money.

(2) ended the psuedo drug war and pardoned all non-violent drug offenders. (I can hear the conversation now. “Sorry, <DEA, FDA, BATF, and FBI>, we shifting from Prohibition to Treatment.”) Saving oodles of money.

(3) stopped TARP, bailouts, and all sorts of raids on the Treasury. (I can hear the conversation now. “Sorry, <insert name of special interest group or Wall Street firm>, I’m from Chicago. I know how the game is played. And, I ain’t paying you off.”) Saving oodles of money.

(4) cut the capital gains tax to zero. Corporate income tax to zero. Cut the personal income tax to say 10%; just like the Bible. (I can see the corporate HQs relo-ing BACK to the USA as it’s a direct hit to the bottom line.)

(5) executively stopped the Patriot Act, closed the TSA, closed Homeland security, and closed the Department of Education.

The economy would have jumped back like a rocket ship.

And, he’d be on his way to a second term.

But unfortunately, the Sheeple elected 0 (zero) and not Ron Paul!

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