Politics By Krista

American Community Survey? Huh?

2011-12-30T12:17:00.000-08:00

Do you remember all the stress over the Census that was taken this past year? It was repeated over and over again, that we MUST fill it out, but not to worry because there was no sensitive information being sent. We all did our duty and moved forward. NOW I'm getting the "American Community Survey" sent to my ADDRESS not my name with a letter saying that I am required by law to fill out this massive survey and mail it back to the Census Bureau. First red flag? The Census Bureau is in Washington, DC...but this Survey will be mailed to a PO Box in Jeffersonville, IN.
What is IN this survey, you may be asking yourself? They are requesting my full name and the full names of everyone living in my home, our birthdays, race, what type of house I live in, when it was built, when I moved INTO the house, how many rooms are in my house and how many of those rooms are bedrooms, and what we heat our home with. They want an itemized list of all my utility costs, how much I think the house would sell for, my mortgage costs, my personal mortgage and home insurance history. They go on to ask the education level of each member of the family, what health insurance you have, and physical handicaps, how many marriages each adult has had, if you've given birth in the past 12 months, military history, work history and addresses of locations if you have more than one job. They want your 12 month wages including any retirement, welfare, or other income.

Hmmm...let me dig a bit more.

Do I call the 800 number listed on the letter? Erg...not a good idea if it IS a scam. Then they will have my phone number and the last thing I want to deal with are MORE telemarketing calls at all hours of the day and night. So what DO I do? I got online to get an idea of what others were saying. It seems that the majority believe that it's real...but still feel as I do...it's very fishy. Many have resorted to shredding this survey and there are horror stories about how they started getting angry phone calls from people claiming to be government officials. I've seen nothing on TV as we all saw during the Census. I've seen nothing in the news or on line letting us know that this is even something that will be taking place. I'm expected to put VERY personal information that can easily be used to steal my or my sons ID through the USPS...to a state where the Census Bureau is not known to be located...or suffer the consequences? Come on now. We DO live in 2011 (nearly 2012), DON'T WE?

What am I going to do? I'm sure as heck not filling this out and putting it in the mail. I will hold the line for a bit and see how this thing plays out.

If anyone else has gotten this form and can tell me their story...please do! I'm feeling very uncomfortable about this.

It’s like this...

2011-02-25T10:28:00.000-08:00

It’s like this. I’m sick and tired of hearing “well Bush did it” or “it’s Bush’s fault”. I turned a cheek and let the Obama-bots use those excuses for far too long. I’ve rolled my eyes at their ignorance of what went on and was going on in the past 10 years…but I’m finished with that now.
NOW we can’t afford for you to be ignorant of the facts, so I’m going to lay them out.

For YEARS the left (and much on the right) criticized Bush for his deficit spending. Each time he added to the deficit it was as though the sky was falling. Since the Clinton years, the debt ceiling had been increased by about a trillion dollars almost every year. Both sides seemed to back each and every increase. This trend continued while we flew through the Bush years. Almost every year an increase was proposed and each year it went up about a trillion dollars. Bush left office with a whopping 10 trillion dollar debt ceiling in place. Our recession had already begun. Our housing market had already begun to crumble. It was no longer a secret that we had to stop the spending. Two years prior to all of this, Obama himself was quoted to of said, “ The fact we are here today to debate raising America's debt limit is a sign of leadership failure. ... Washington is shifting the burden of bad choices today onto the backs of our children and grandchildren."

Pretty logical…stop the spending by stopping the debt ceiling to increase …right? Well, it seems he wasn’t really being serious about what he really thought. Two years later he entered into office and since then he has increased the debt ceiling four times from 10 trillion to a whapping 14 trillion in 2010. NOW he’s asking for it to be increased yet again to almost 16 trillion dollars.

What’s my point? “But Bush did it too.”? Yeah, and riding that wave was FUN, wasn’t it? We laughed the whole way down, right? Wrong. Now we’re in WAY over our heads, we’re hoarse from telling our leaders to stop or we just don’t care anymore. I see people leaning back in political defiance, “because Bush did it” and I just want to scream! Yeah, and look what happened?? Are you THAT blind that you think that Obama can and SHOULD do the same, even AFTER the facts are glairing you right in the face? WAKE UP, people. We’ve SEEN what over spending can do. We’re LIVING the result, and you’re not going to get in the face of you guy and tell him to knock it the heck off??

We’ve LEARNED what happens, yet the left is STILL ignoring the facts. They are STILL allowing the spending to go on UNCHECKED as though nothing has changed. What happened to “Change and Hope”, Obama backers? Isn’t that what so many wanted to see? I’m here to tell you, that’s not what you’re GETTING. You’re getting status quo and lapping it up. We need YOUR voices to push it home. STOP THE SPENDING. STOP THE INCREASING DEBT CEILING. SAVE OUR CHILDRENS FUTURES!

YES, I stood up and voiced discontent for the Bush spending and many OTHER things that he did that I did not agree with. Now it’s YOUR turn. Look at the state of our nation and put HER first…not a man that is good with “just words.”

"But all things should be done decently and in order."

2011-02-16T09:30:00.001-08:00

The story of the PA teacher blogging about her students being disobedient triggered this blog. Now, I know some of my friend’s views on the issue, and I hope anyone that reads this doesn’t take this as some sort of direct “finger wagging”. The reality is that I’ve been disturbed by this trend for some time.

For anyone who has not read the story, here it is. : http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20110216/ap_on_hi_te/us_teacher_suspended_blog
I’ll wait while you go catch up. Go ahead…I’ll wait. ;)

Was your first impression, “good for her!”, “freedom of speech at work!”, “It’s about time SOMEONE pointed this out!”? If so, you’re not alone. Hell, that was MY first impression…but then I stopped and I thought about it for a minute. Do I really want my teachers to behave in such a way? Being a mother of a 6th grader, I hear often about how children can read a lot into what a teacher says…even in class. Students can feel bullied and singled out even when there are no names mentioned. Children KNOW whom you are talking about. They KNOW who you have issues with most in school. They KNOW what students you favor and which you have given up on. Regardless of names being excluded, it is naive to imply that it was not directed at any one child or group of children.

For years now we have heard about children getting suspended for “venting” about their school or teacher. Why is this not something that extends to the teachers? Do they have freedom of speech? Yes, and they should feel comfortable using this freedom. I believe that it is important to understand that you and I edit our selves for our employers every day. If you blogged about your boss and his bad breath or his stupid rules but were careful not to mention his name…and he happened to come across it…do you think you will be kept in his high graces? Would he not be hurt, offended, and angry? Would you not expect retaliation? Is he not justified in his retaliation for your personal, public attacks? In this particular case, she did just that. She vented about her “boss’s family” and they got wind of it. Is she right? Do our children need to behave better? Yes, but the open and shut of it, is that she is given the proper outlets to make her opinions known and she chose to take it public. This was a very poor decision on her part.

We have become a generation who is so plugged in, that we forget about what’s right and what’s wrong. In our personal desire to “vent” or “be right”, we say and do things that less than 10 years ago, we never would have done. We’ve forgotten that there is a person at the other end of our words because we don’t have to see it. I’ve done it. Just last week I called someone an “idiot” because I didn’t agree with a view that I found amazingly offensive. IS he an idiot? Would I have ever said that to his face? Probably not, I can’t look someone in the face and hurt them…regardless of how vulgar their views are. We’ve all fallen into this trap and we’re allowing our children to fall into it with us.

Have you ever watched Wall-E? Great movie. It has a lot of conservationist mentality to it…but it also points out what we can become when we refuse to unplug. We do, wear, and say what the great big Internet “clique,” tells us we must. Do we really want our children to grow up WORSE than what our generation has become?

In closing, I want to post a simple quote. “A rude nature is worse than a brute nature by so much more as man is better than a beast: and those that are of civil natures and genteel dispositions are as much nearer to celestial creatures as those that are rude and cruel are to devils. “ – Margaret Cavendish
We all need to remember to be kind to one another, and remember that, that also means on line.

Great big ball of hate.

2011-01-12T10:32:00.000-08:00

For the past decade I've been paying very close attention to politics and people in general. Maybe it's because I've grown up. Maybe it's because I'm a mother. Maybe it's because it seems to hold a more prominent roll in our everyday lives. I don't know for sure. What I DO know is that as the years have gone by and Government has gained more and more control over our everyday lives...we've all gotten more an more angry. I know I feel it and have displayed it. I've also seen it displayed in all of it's glory. True blue hate.

It was first brought to my attention after 9/11 when groups were adamant that our government orchestrated the entire thing. Not only did we see true "hate" in the eyes of those taking responsibility for that terrible day, our own citizens were displaying a different form. The hate grew into anger and frustration as we entered into a war. It was almost as though a bottle of soda had been shaken and the top was about to blow. Going to war released that pressure for a short time. We felt like we had an outlet. We felt like we were DOING something. Then the lid was replaced and the bottle was being shaken again. Our intelligence was off...so of course anyone voting for this war that the public had been calling for...must have been lying. It HAD to be about money. Bush HAD to be the one to blame and the anger came back. The protests were ugly and filled with hate, using our dead soldiers in the form of military boots and coffins draped in the flag. They burned Bush and other politicians in effigy.
They displayed signs like this:

They portrayed him as Hitler. They called for his impeachment. They were violent and disruptive...but Clinton stood before tthe Democratics said:

When did that right change? Is the freedom to protest or disagree...only meant for the Left?

Every day I hear about how "hateful" the Right is while those spewing this silliness are simitaniously calling them "Repugnantcans" and referring to the Tea Party as "Tea baggers". Seems slightly more than a little contradictory for someone to claim that the right is hateful while they, themselves spew hate. Don't you think? Now, if I don't agree, I'm hateful. If I don't agree with the PRESIDENT, I'm racist or a bigot. If I wish to keep more of my earnings and push for people to WORK for what they want, I'm "greedy". If they don't like a politician they wish them dead. If they don't like a party, they push to silence it. If they don't like a network, they petition to destroy it. So, again...all those hateful things being spewed by the Left...but I'M in the hate filled party?

This past week has been the MOST hateful of them all in my opinion. A crazy man with his own God complex decides to purchase a gun and go on a shooting rampage. One would think that it would be open and shut. That as a nation we would move together as one and be supportive. That's not what happened. IMMEDIATELY speculation hit the airways and everyone with any kind of dislike for Palin or the Tea Party began point fingers. Somehow, a man with ZERO Conservative values, was said to be alined with the Right or the Tea Party. Somehow, a map that was released LAST year was said to be the trigger for his madness. What map? This one:

Does this look similar to THIS map released by the Democrats in 2004?

How about THIS map released just last year by the DCCC:

Who's hateful? Who's angry? The Left is displaying a blatant desire to harm and slander. They have become so full of hate, they can no longer SEE that they have no RIGHTS to our money, that the government has become so large that they can TAKE anything they wish. They've become selfish, greedy, lazy, wrathful, envious, judgmental and prideful. The same people will look to me and tell me I will go to Hell for my "selfishness", while they have no idea what I give to others. They will push blame from a murderer, to a mother who wasn't even there, simply because they hate her...and they will claim they are the peaceful party.

You choose.

AZ shooing and the politicizing behind it.

2011-01-10T10:13:00.001-08:00

It's been a very long time since I've had the time to sit and type up a political blog! I've got a BIT of time today, but this will still be rather short and sweet. We've all heard about the shooting of Gabby Gifford this past weekend and I'm certain most of not ALL of us send our thoughts and prayers not only to her for a full recovery, but to the families of those who lost their lives that day.
Since then, the news has been FULL of speculation and finger pointing. I knew the media and the White House would somehow spin in a way to make the Right or the Tea Party responsible for this crime...I just didn't know which they would pick. Seems it's the Tea Party and Sarah Palin.
For days now they have been implying that this crazy person was influenced by Palin and her map with cross hairs on it, and for DAYS they have been ignoring the fact that this shooter was a Gabby follower. He had letters from her in a safe at his mothers home, thanking him for his participating in her rally's. He SHOT her because he didn't like the way she answered a question. He SHOT her because he is psychotic. He SHOT her because of his OWN instability. Not because of a silly little map put out before November. The Tea Party wasn't even in his radar, nor was it a group that he held in any kind of regard.

This NEED that so many have to push blame is ridiculous! They will sit for hours trying to find someone or a group that was responsible for the actions of a crazy man, but not blame HIM for his OWN psychosis. When did we stop being responsible for our own actions? When did we become so weak that we can't do ANYTHING unless the media or a politician TELLS us to?
With all this finger pointing toward the Right...people forget what our own leader has been saying.
Thing like:
“They Bring a Knife…We Bring a Gun”

“Get in Their Faces!”

“I don’t want to quell anger. I think people are right to be angry! I’m angry!”

“Hit Back Twice As Hard”

“We talk to these folks… so I know whose ass to kick.“

Re: what a Republican victory would mean “hand to hand combat”

“It’s time to Fight for it.”

“Punish your enemies.”

“I’m itching for a fight.”

Don't even get me started on how this is being DEALT with. A single shooter, that is IN custody...and Obama has changed his schedule and started using this situation to push his gun control agenda. He speaks out RIGHT away and immediately tries to draw similarities or comparisons between the shooter and extremist groups. He gets Homeland Security involved.
Was he this involved in the Fort Hood Shooting? No...in fact we were told to STOP drawing comparisons to terror groups. They edited themselves and tried to play it down. How about the Gulf oil leak? No, he took forever to even address it with us, and then only parroted what we already knew. Not to mention the fact that his actions in the clean up actually HINDERED a swift recovery.

So now we wait. Because of ONE CRAZY person, gun laws will be pushed to change. Because of ONE crazy man, our leaders will imply that they are somehow unsafe and need more spending to hire security. Because of ONE crazy man, the political climate will change as our leaders choose to politicize their own far left agenda. Pitiful leadership.

Stop throwing stones! You're glass house is getting far too weak.

Faith.

2010-09-17T11:52:00.001-07:00

This is a topic that could result in little to no debate. My point of this blog is to TRY and get my feelings on the issue down in writing in hopes that after re-reading it I can somehow understand a mentality that I've yet to be able to grasp.

I grew up as a Roman Catholic. Baptism to First Communion, to Catechism (kiddy-prison as some called it), to Confirmation. To this day, I remember each step I took to become an adult in the Roman Catholic community, embraced as one of them. I watched my step father get baptized and go through the proper steps to become a Catholic, so he may marry my mother as a Catholic and be accepted as a Catholic and their marriage blessed under God. We donated money that we didn't have, time, and work to our church every week. We were engulfed in the community and embraced by them for all of our dedication. I was rather proud to be a part of the community...but things changed rather quickly. After some time, it became apparent that my then step-father was an abusive man, and my mother was unwilling to continue to submit us to his abusiveness. After much therapy he left, never to return. We turned to the church and what had become our community, only to be shunned by them. Told that he is forever our father and her husband in the eyes of God. Blaming US and telling us that we were sinful and wrong for not holding on to the relationship. As children, we needed our communities support at that point in our lives, more than you could imagine...but they turned their backs on us. Judged us.

What's this little story have to do with my feelings today? This "judgment" led me down a path that I don't think I would have traveled if it hadn't happened. I was able to see the church and it's followers in a very different light. I was able to see how they viewed "outsiders" and how they propped themselves above all others. I found myself desperately looking for another option... needing to be included in a community in the way that I once was, but I couldn't get that feeling of security back no matter how hard I tried. I was married by a Methodist Pastor. My son was Baptized Presbyterian. I ventured into a Catholic mass from time to time for weddings and holidays...but never felt like I belonged, nor did I want to feel like I wanted that anymore. I spent some time as a "born again Christian", but for the most part I've always considered myself a "recovering Catholic". I paid more attention to the faithful. Listened to their stories of how they found God. I read the bible, talked a lot about how I felt with men AND women of the cloth...trying to find where I fit in with my belief system that had slowly begun to develop into what could only be described as a "table top Christian". What is THAT? Well...I believe the bible in that I don't need to be in a church to pray. I don't need to be in a community for him to hear me. I don't need to talk to a special man or woman for my prayers or sorrows to be heard. I only need to say it and he hears. A church can be as simple as a small group discussing God and his teachings, non-judgmentally.

While on my path to a faith I found that "non-judgmentally" is a pipe-dream to many faiths. If you do not follow the bible word by word, or THEIR translation of the bible, you are wrong. If your faith paints God with a different face than the one we portray on the cross, you are wrong. If you do not sit in a pew and receive the blood and body of God, if you do not confess to a man of the cloth, if you do not give money to a church...you are wrong and you are not only judged, but they will literally imply that you are a sinner. I ask you, how is this living in Christ? How can you consider yourself a "Christian" if you can't accept others and their views. I don't present an evil path. I don't preach distain toward God. Why, if I'm not part of your community am I viewed as "uneducated" in regard to Jesus or faith in general?

Today I see faiths of all types jockeying to be the chosen. Competing with one another, and judging each other. Being...well...unGodly in their actions. As Christians we are taught to believe in One Lord God, Jesus Christ...but why aren't we also taught to at least understand those who believe their God to be of a different name or face? Why aren't we looking at the person or the life and how they live it? Does it HURT you or your faith if a Mormon doesn't see Jesus as we do? Is it going to destroy your religion if the Muslims choose to worship Mohammed? Is it THAT bad that the Jews think Jesus is a good man...but not God and pray while they wait for him? How about Wicca? It's a BEAUTIFUL faith! Their God is not a God but a Goddess. What are THEY like? How do they live their lives? Do you take the time to know how they live and if they are good people or do you simply judge them based on their religious belief?

As Christians we were taught that we have free will. Why is it so hard for so many to understand that sometimes that means that we have different beliefs? Who are we to judge what is right or wrong? Who are we to dictate how others translate the word of God? If they believe in a higher being and live their lives right why is that a BAD thing? Because our CHURCH tells us it is? Have we engulfed ourselves so deep in our churches that we've forgotten how to think for ourselves? Have we forgotten that "we are all Gods children"?

Don't get me wrong, judgment comes from all sides. The Atheists judge the faithful, the faithful judge the Atheists. They all judge the Pagans...and funny enough...I've yet to meet a Wiccan who judges quite as much as the rest. This is only a small portion of the faiths we see in this world...but you get the picture.

All this judgement and I have to ask...how do you know? I know, I know, the Christians will say because of faith and the Bible...but Mormons will say the same thing! Who's right? You know what I think? I think none us will know for sure...until the day we die. We will hold tight to our beliefs AND SHOULD, until the day we die and finally learn the truth. Who is our maker, is it a man or a woman? Do we only see darkness? No one knows for certain. We have only our faith...and faith in and of it's self is beautiful and personal. Who are we to judge how a person sees his/her savior? Who are you to claim that your view is better than? If I lived my life well...but believe in "The Goddess" as my savior, will God reject me into his kingdom? No...and anyone who tells you otherwise is guilty of this judgment and not worth my time.

I re-read what I wrote...and understand nothing more than I did when I began...but I'm peaceful in knowing that I can live my life only for myself and my child. How others view me and my faith is of no concern to me. Only God has the power to judge me and how I live my life...and I know in my heart that he will be fair.

"Alien Invasion"

2010-09-17T06:48:00.001-07:00

Written by my husband, after watching the video posted at the end. My sentiments exactly...

"Alien Invasion"

If you're a member of my generation, you may remember the semi-popular TV series "V" that was aired a couple of decades ago. The show was a story of outer-space aliens who disguised themselves as humans, even though they had evil designs for the fate of mankind.

The series began with the peaceful arrival of the aliens, who offered to share their technology and medicine with the people of Earth, in exchange for acceptance and cooperation. The allure was too great for those who were suffering from the many challenges of daily Earth life. After all, work is very hard, and we never seem to have everything we want, right?

Many people leapt at the aliens' offer, and some even went so far as to become agents of the alien society. They helped spread the "peaceful" propaganda that encouraged others to join the cause, and to discredit or even destroy those who resisted the aliens' encroachment of their society.

This went on for a while, until a handful of people woke up and realized that the invaders from outer space were actually infiltrating the government, revoking freedoms, and slowly eradicating the human race.

These few observant humans formed a resistance, started a war, and eventually saved the tiny remnants of humanity from total extinction. Just barely, though. In the interest of TV drama, the good guys had to win. This, despite the fact that it was totally unrealistic considering the scope of domination the aliens had achieved in all facets. But I digress...

Now, I know it was fiction. I understand that we don't have outer-space aliens in our government, courts, and schools. There's no man-eating lizard people taking away our heritage and replacing it with their own. There's no UFO-bound race of beings teaching our children to accept a future with fewer freedoms. There is obviously not an other-worldly agenda trying to wipe our country off the planet.

That would be hard to believe, right? We would never just sit around and take it, let alone join the cause and march side by side with those who want to enslave us and destroy our way of life.

Or would we?

Bible burning...what?

2010-09-14T12:18:00.000-07:00

I wonder if you've paid much attention to the Quran burning story after the Pastor stepped back from his threat.

After a load of "he said/he said" he claimed that he would not burn the Quran after all. Yippy...right? Not so much. For weeks the US has endured threats of violence if this should take place. For weeks, the US has fought internally over which right we shall allow in this country. For weeks, we have heard how "intolerant" we are as a nation, regardless of the more than 2000 mosques built in the USA, we even had to endure watching our flag burned in effigy and when this Pastor called off the book burning on the 8th...one would think that it would have stopped. I mean...it was only 50 people that would have participated in this burning, so why NOT take a look at the big picture and admit that maybe the US didn't really deserve the attacks?

What followed?
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100911/ap_on_re_as/quran_burning_protests

We STILL hear reports of leaders from all over the world, and our VERY OWN leaders, openly criticizing the idea of the protest. Have any of you heard as much when this happened to Christians? This never HAPPENED to Christians? Well...if you believe what IS reported in the main stream media I can believe that. What we hear a lot of...are things from professors claiming things like Chris van Gorder, a religion professor at Baylor University in Texas. He was quoted saying, “To burn a holy Quran for a Muslim is to throw down a gauntlet,” he says. “Those who deface any holy book, including the Bible, in many Muslim countries today, will be executed. How many Bibles have been burned in the Muslim world in the last nine years? None.”

None? Really? I'm sure it SEEMS as though there have never been bible burnings in the Muslim world, my friend. The truth of the matter is that it's simply because the media failed to REPORT it. Take a look at what happened in 2007.

According to this article from 2007: http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/285123/christians_in_gaza_fear_for_their_lives.html?cat=9
A local Priest in Gaza, Father Manuel Musallem, head of Gaza's Latin church, reported that his Catholic community suffered attack, burning, looting, and broken religious symbols at the hands of radicle Muslims. They even desecrated the church by killing from it's rooftop! They blasted the doors open and destroyed everything of religious significance before burning the bibles.
Tolerance? Unprovoked? Come on now.

Here are more extreme bible burnings in the not so distance past:
2005- http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1410190/posts
2006- http://justifythis.blogspot.com/2006/12/australia-muslim-students-urinate-spit.html
2008- http://www.speroforum.com/a/17283/Muslims-burn-Bible-in-Pakistan

One of my favorites: http://www.crosswalk.com/1331609/ "As a matter of official policy, the government either incinerates or dumps Bibles, crosses and other Christian paraphernalia," the Saudi Institute said in an article posted on its website.

"Although considered as holy in Islam and mentioned in the Koran dozens of times, the Bible is banned in Saudi Arabia, and is confiscated and destroyed by government officials," it said.

So...NOW do you see why I really didn't care if some crazies wanted to burn a Quran?

IS Islam a religion of peace?

2010-09-09T11:20:00.001-07:00

I've been paying attention (and I'm sure you have been too), to the news about the Florida preacher that plans on having his congregation burn the Quran on Saturday. My feelings on the matter have been simple. The Preacher is just as wrong as the Imam that will be building the Mosque at Ground Zero. I've been flabbergasted by the mentality of two "men of God", completely incapable of showing a snippet of moral standing. Our country has gotten to the point where it's more important to do what is legally right, than what is MORALLY right. So be it. I throw my hands in the air in submission. The Mosque will be built, no matter how painful it is to those who lost that day. The Mosque will be build regardless of the fact that it will do nothing but spit in the face of America, and make their plight that much more difficult. But...the Preacher? Where politicians avoided telling the Imam not to build and continually fell back on their "right" to build, the Preacher is being slammed from all sides. Even the President and his staff has come out and openly attacked the plan. Mr. President...what happened to the freedom of speech? Freedom of expression? Why is it that one freedom is held close to your heart, but the other is not?

Now I read this story: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100909/ap_on_re_as/quran_burning_reaction

A religion of PEACE?? Really? "If the Quran is burned it would be beginning of the destruction of America" written on a protest sign? "Down with America", being chanted? Burning our flag? Threatening of "tragic consequences"? How is this...ANY of this..."peaceful?" How can the actions of FIFTY individuals possibly result in members of a "peaceful" religion to have such a violent knee jerk reaction? They burn our flag. They burn our politicians and leaders in effigy. They constantly threaten death or violence if we do not submit to their desires in OUR COUNTRY. They openly threaten Christianity regularly. Have you ever seen such hate come from OUR end? And WE'RE the intolerant?

The push to silence the Preacher from his "protest" is yet another attempt of our government's desire to condition us to fear offending anyone Muslim. It's not like Family Guy or South Park where everyone is fair game. We are being programmed to believe that "everyone is fair game...unless they are Muslim". Is this really what America is about? Be too afraid to offend...or keep your mouth shut? Did our soldiers fight so that our government could use one hand to protect us from terrorism...while the other hand is stroking the egos of those who wish to hurt us?
I think not.

We are at a crossroad and things are about to change for us. We will need to remember that what we have the right to do is not always right. We need to remember that we can not choose one right over the other. If we choose to allow one offensive thing to happen out of fear of retaliation, we must allow the other side to protest accordingly. In this time of war, it's inappropriate to use our troops as leverage in eliminating rights that so many fought so hard to give to us.

In closing...Two wrongs do not make a right. Maybe this newest situation is something that will remind us of he morals that our parents tried so hard to instill in us. Maybe watching two religious leaders voice their discontent so terribly will force us all to step back and reevaluate our own moral standing...

or maybe we will be entering into another war...this one centered on faith...
Which path do you choose?

Restoring Honor 8/28

2010-08-30T15:08:00.000-07:00

Todays blog will be nothing more than an explanation of what this Rally was all about. For months what little has been reported about this Rally, has been fear mongering and spewing of the word "bigot". No one really knew anything ABOUT this Rally, even those attending, other than the place, time, and that Glenn and Sarah Palin were to be 2 of the speakers. We all went to this Rally because of the promise a peaceful gathering of like minded people from all over the country. A way to show, with numbers...that we exist. None of us really KNEW what to expect...and after watching the news for the past few days, I have begun to realize that those who didn't go STILL don't know what really happened. Here is a picture walkthrough of what our day consisted of.

We left our friends home at 7:20am in the morning and drove to the Metro station closest to his home...thinking that we would easily get on the metro and to the monument with time to spare. The reality is that we weren't the only ones with that idea. ;)

Finally, after almost an hour and a half in line with an 11 year old...we enter the station and get in line to get our ticket. Ouch.
The Rally was to begin at 10am. I was worried we wouldn't make it!

We all piled into the train and began eating our breakfast...KNOWING that while the car was pretty empty NOW...it wouldn't remain that way.

With smiles and big welcomes...people piled on the metro. People we didn't know...suddenly became "friend" as we all grouped up and helped one another to the Rally. It truly felt like we were coming together with family.

We all emerged from the Metro tunnel and hurried toward the Washington Monument that could be seen from the steps. The gasps that came from nearly everyone as they saw the masses and the monument was heart warming.

It was hot...we were all late and knew it...but EVERYONE was happy! It was amazing! As we walked closer to the Monument we all seemed to pick up our speed when we heard the Rally begin...but you could see the hesitation in everyones step...when they go over the hill and saw this directly in front of them.

We arrived just in time to say the Pledge Allegiance and sing the National Anthem. Then...just like it had been planned, a flock of geese...that I'm certain frequent that area...but chose that moment to come back, flew over head and directly over the reflecting pond and over the Lincoln Memorial. The gasps from the crowd told me that they were all thinking what I was thinking. God approved.

We continued to walk forward toward the Lincoln Memorial, trying to get as close as we could. Shocked by the politeness of EVERYONE we encountered, I couldn't remove a silly grin from my face most of the day! I steadily snapped shots of the group...desperately trying to capture the feeling in pictures so I may remind my son when he's older...of just how wonderful it was to be there that day. The group was simply too large and the weather too hot, so we spent most of OUR time walking through the crowd and stopping when we could to listen to the speeches that consisted of military mothers, Generals, religious leaders of every faith that could be thought of, Glenn Beck himself, and my favorite...Martin Luther Kings niece. Tears were shed by many that day in the realization that we were NOT alone. We honored so many that day that deserved it, and I wouldn't change what we did that day for the world. Here are a few more photos of our walk through the monuments and the crowd.

This Rally was about the troops and their families, Martin Luther King, Faith, and togetherness. Nothing about this rally preached hate, bigotry, or intolerance. This was a Rally that should always be remembered and the story of it should be repeated to our children's children and remind them when the masses stood up as one...on 8/28/2010.

WW III STARTED in 1979

2010-08-15T18:56:00.000-07:00

There is a LOT to write about lately, sadly I've been too busy to get all my frustrations down. This is a copy and paste of an e-mail that my uncle sent to me today. Funny how we forget history and would much rather hold our hands over our ears and keep our eyes closed tightly. It seems...it's far more difficult than it should be to get the masses to remove their hands and open their eyes now days. Even when History is staring them in the face.
School is ready to begin, my friends. Are your children being taught everything they SHOULD be taught so they may learn from history or is all being sugar coated so as not to upset anyone? It's up to us to make sure we teach what the schools aren't. Sad...but a true fact...while our tax dollars pay for our schools...the government will have a say in what they learn. A BIG say.

Learn from history.

When WW III Started - 1979

Please read the catalogue of events in this brief piece. Then, ask yourself how anyone can take the position that all we have to do is reset the snooze alarm, go back to sleep, and no one will ever bother us again. For those that missed it, World War III began in November 1979...

US Navy Captain Ouimette is the Executive Officer at Naval Air Station, Pensacola, Florida. Here is a copy of the speech he gave last month. It is an accurate account of why we are in so much trouble today.
AMERICA NEEDS TO WAKE UP!

That's what we think we heard on the 11th of September 2001 (When more than 3,000 Americans were killed) and maybe it was, but I think it should have been 'Get Out of Bed!' In fact, the alarm clock has been buzzing since 1979 and we have continued to hit the snooze button and roll over for a few more minutes of peaceful sleep since then.
It was a cool fall day in November 1979 in a country going through a religious and political upheaval when a group of Iranian students attacked and seized the American Embassy in Tehran. This seizure was an outright attack on American soil; it was an attack that held the world's most powerful country hostage and paralyzed a Presidency The attack on this sovereign U. S. Embassy set the stage for events to follow for the next 25 years.
America was still reeling from the aftermath of the Vietnam experience and had a serious threat from the Soviet Union when then, President Carter, had to do something. He chose to conduct a clandestine raid in the desert. The ill-fated mission ended in ruin, but stood as a symbol of America's inability to deal with terrorism.

America's military had been decimated and down sized since the end of the Vietnam War. A poorly trained, poorly equipped and poorly organized military was called on to execute a complex mission that was doomed from the start.

Shortly after the Tehran experience, Americans began to be kidnapped and killed throughout the Middle East. America could do little to protect her citizens living and working abroad. The attacks against US soil continued.

In April of 1983 a large vehicle packed with high explosives was driven into the US Embassy compound in Beirut. When it explodes, it kills 63 people. The alarm went off again and America hit the Snooze Button once more.

Then just six short months later in 1983 a large truck heavily laden down with over 2500 pounds of TNT smashed through the main gate of the US Marine Corps headquarters in Beirut and 241 US servicemen are killed. America mourns her dead and hit the Snooze Button once more.

Two months later in December 1983, another truck loaded with explosives is driven into the US Embassy in Kuwait, and America continues her slumber.

The following year, in September 1984, another van was driven into the gate of the US Embassy in Beirut and America slept.

Soon the terrorism spreads to Europe. In April 1985 a bomb explodes in a restaurant frequented by US soldiers in Madrid.

Then in August 1985 a Volkswagen loaded with explosives is driven into the main gate of the US Air Force Base at Rheine-Main, 22 are killed and the snooze alarm is buzzing louder and louder as US interests are continually attacked.

Fifty-nine days later in 1985 a cruise ship, the Achille Lauro, is hijacked and we watched as an American in a wheelchair is singled out of the passenger list and executed.

The terrorists then shift their tactics to bombing civilian airliners when they bomb TWA Flight 840 in April of 1986 that killed 4 and the most tragic bombing, Pan Am Flight 103 over Lockerbie, Scotland in 1988, killing 259.

The wake up alarm is getting louder and louder.

The terrorists decide to bring the fight to America. In January 1993, two CIA agents are shot and killed as they enter CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The following month, February 1993 , a group of terrorists are arrested after a rented van packed with explosives is driven into the underground parking garage of the World Trade Center in New York City. Six people are killed and over 1000 are injured. Still this is a crime and not an act of war? The Snooze alarm is depressed again.

Then in November 1995 a car bomb explodes at a US military complex in Riyadh Saudi Arabia killing seven service men and women.

A few months later in June of 1996, another truck bomb explodes only 35 yards from the US military compound in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. It destroys the Khobar Towers, a US Air Force barracks, killing 19 and injuring over 500. The terrorists are getting braver and smarter as they see that America does not respond decisively.

They move to coordinate their attacks in a simultaneous attack on two US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania. These attacks were planned with precision. They kill 224. America responds with cruise missile attacks and goes back to sleep.

The USS Cole was docked in the port of Aden, Yemen for refueling on 12 October 2000 , when a small craft pulled along side the ship and exploded killing 17 US Navy Sailors. Attacking a US War Ship is an act of war, but we sent the FBI to investigate the crime and went back to sleep.

And of course you know the events of 11 September 2001. Most Americans think this was the first attack against US soil or in America. How wrong they are. America has been under a constant attack since 1979 and we chose to hit the snooze alarm and roll over and go back to sleep.

In the news lately we have seen lots of finger pointing from every high official in government over what they knew and what they didn't know. But if you've read the papers and paid a little attention I think you can see exactly what they knew. You don't have to be in the FBI or CIA or on the National Security Council to see the pattern that has been developing since 1979.

I think we have been in a war for the past 25 years and it will continue until we as a people decide enough is enough. America needs to 'Get out of Bed' and act decisively now. America has been changed forever. We have to be ready to pay the price and make the sacrifice to ensure our way of life continues. We cannot afford to keep hitting the snooze button again and again and roll over and go back to sleep.

After the attack on Pearl Harbor , Admiral Yamamoto said '... it seems all we have done is awakened a sleeping giant.' This is the message we need to disseminate to terrorists around the world.

This is not a political thing to be hashed over in an election year, this is an AMERICAN thing. This is about our Freedom and the Freedom of our children in years to come.

Short and sweet...

2010-07-22T10:01:00.000-07:00

"They asked me to resign, and, in fact, they harassed me as I was driving back to the state office from West Point, Georgia yesterday," Sherrod told CNN. "I had at least three calls telling me the White House wanted me to resign…and the last one asked me to pull over to the side of the road and do it."

Sherrod said the final call came from Cheryl Cook, an undersecretary at the Department of Agriculture. Sherrod said White House officials wanted her to quit immediately because the controversy was "going to be on Glenn Beck tonight."
Sherrod was not only forced out by the White House before she was able to plead her case, but the NAACP ripped into her publicly.

All this before they viewed the ENTIRE tape or ever SPOKE to Sherrod about the incident.
Today I read:

The NAACP openly admits to have been "snookered". "Snookered"??? This speech happened at one of YOUR events, you fire a woman in a knee jerk/political reaction, and SOMEONE ELSE "snookered" you?? I think not.

The White House has even KIND of apologized about the incident. I have to wonder though...with all the bashing going on, Sherrod seems to have been the only one receiving the apology. (if you want to call it an apology...) I wonder if after all the times the White House and NAACP have raked Beck over the coals...if they will offer HIM an apology? He WAS, however, the only one in that group thinking logically.

Is this a "teachable moment" like Gibbs calls it. I think it is! I think the White House should be learning a lesson of their own...sadly I don't think they will. Let's watch them do what they always do. Push the blame to someone else, play the victim, and try to play "father knows best" even though they have a large amount of egg on their faces.

Who is Teresa Ghilarducci?

2010-07-16T12:00:00.000-07:00

A simple Google search on Teresa Ghilarducci will give you the answer to this question. She's been out there for some time now...but has been able to go relatively unchecked for far too long. It seems that people like her depend on our complacency.

A little introduction on Miss Ghilarducci. She is an author of a book entitled "When I’m Sixty-Four: The Plot against Pensions and the Plan to Save Them" Basically, this book lays out her view on the "evils" of retirement funds. Her view is that there are too many people who cash in their 401K plans for what she considers "frivolous" reasons and that because of this, too many rely on Social Security. She openly pushes for a "National Pension Program" that she would refer to as Guaranteed Retirement Accounts or GRA's. These GRA's would limit tax exemptions on 401k's and other voluntary retirement accounts so as to finance the GRA program. So basically her plan will take your 401k that you've so carefully contributed to and nursed to a respectable size...to fund this program, costing the Federal Government nothing while simitaniously provide retirement funds to those who spent their funds frivolously from your pocket. In short redistributing your wealth.

This plan was embraced by a large number of Democrats late in 2008 and many simply pushed it under the rug because the likelihood of such a plan actually coming into play in the USA was absurd. In March Obama announced that he wished to create what will be in essence an "Obama 401k" plan in the new spending plan of the next fiscal years budget. This plan is basically the same plan presented by Miss Ghilarducci in 2008, stating that employers who don't offer a 401k MUST enroll their employees in a direct deposit IRA account. If you do not opt out, you're in and money from your account will automatically go into this IRA.

You may be looking at this and saying to yourself, "WOW! That's actually a GOOD thing. Why wouldn't we want to help out and give everyone SOME kind of retirement plan?" Let me explain why this particular plan is so terrible.

In short...a basic 401k that you and I pay into will pay out at about 8% after 30 years. A forced IRA from the Obama 401k will pay out at about 3%...but remember...this 3% will not come from tax dollars. It will come from you and me and OUR 401's that we will loose our tax exemption from. Our paychecks will be smaller and our payout LESS, so as to pay for the 3% payout of those who will then be funneled into the system.

True redistribution of wealth, my friends. Don't let this happen!

Vote them out?

2010-06-24T07:41:00.000-07:00

I have to admit, that the first time I heard that term...I wast totally on board with it. The more I read into what some of our leaders had done to us while holding office, the angrier I got at ALL of them. I wanted them ALL to be out of a job and out of my way and I had every intention of voting against each incumbent regardless of who they were. Then I got my wits about me and I thought about it for a minute. "Regardless of who they are"? Well now...that's not only unfair...but kind of shoots me in the foot! Just like child care, we award good behavior and punish bad. Why in the world would we punish GOOD behavior in our leaders? Aren't they the ones we WANT in office? Aren't they the ones that we want to give a boost to? I don't care what party you're on, if you did a good job by me while holding office, I why would I WANT to get you OUT? I want to put you high on a pedestal to show the rest of the politicians what I want to see MORE of.

Okay, okay, I fully understand the point that the "vote them all out" group is trying to make...and if we were all brainless, inept, monkeys, I would expect us all to fall into that little trap and do what they tell us to do. But we're not. We're all capable adults that have the world at our fingertips in todays world. Today, knowledge is no more than a click away, so we have no excuse to be uneducated about what's going on in our political world. Public records and voting records can be found on a person in less than 5 minutes on the web and we even have free access of internet in libraries for those who can't afford the computer. Our only problem is that the web has what I like to call, a LOT of "sink-holes". Youtube, far left and far right news reports and blogs. There are very few (if any), places where we can get the full skinny on who's running for office. We can go to their sites, and get an idea of who they are and what they've done. We can go to: www.votesmart.gov and get most if not ALL of the answers to our questions...but we don't. We sit down and watch the news or our favorite "news show" with our favorite commentator...and we watch our leaders rake each other over the coals for the all mighty rating. Too many seem to think that it's EASIER to be TOLD what to think and how to vote, than to actually do some foot work and know what we're could be getting ourselves into. That couldn't be farther from the truth! How far down this path will we go before we open our eyes and see that we got ourselves into this mess?

Stop voting for the race, checkbook, name, sex, or party. Vote for the individuals. Vote the PERSON into office who will get the job done, not the party. Blind party voting is what got us into this mess in the first place. Get off your high horse and acknowledge the fact that your party doesn't always put up the best candidate! To vote in the crappy candidate so that the other side will lose is ridiculous. Stop playing the game. Politics has turned into a game...and we need to stop it now.

Please vote smart...

Amnesty via Executive order.

2010-06-23T13:19:00.001-07:00

Well, well, well. It seems our new President has become fond of Executive Order. It has come to the attention of our Senators Obama is thinking about pushing through his Amnesty bill via Executive Order regardless as to what we or the Senate feels about it. See, that's what a dictator does. If you can't get your way through the proper channels, you simply put your foot down and DICTATE what you want done.

Will he definitely DO this? That remains to be seen. If his little threat doesn't scare the Senators into voting this piece of poop bill through, it sure will. He would much rather make it look like the SENATE pushed this through though. Less flack on his back.

This blog has no NEED to be long and drawn out...because it's simple. We have the house and senate for a reason. For Obama and his cronies to bypass these levels of government simply because he WANTS to is a direct violation of the constitution and our protection of checks and balances. For crying out loud...if he can't get this passed with a HUGE majority...it's GOT to be telling you SOMETHING!

Oh...and may I also touch on the fact that MEXICO has recently filed a court brief in AZ against AZ'x new immigration law. WHAT??? A foreign nation has come INTO OUR COUNTRY to push a change in OUR LAWS and the Administration is BACKING them??

Get your giggles in now, Obama. You allow this all to continue you will not only go down as the worse president in history, but you will be lucky if you don't get your ass impeached.

Big brother is growing up.

2010-06-14T13:05:00.000-07:00

I hate to be "that person" who is constantly screaming "the sky is falling"...but...the sky IS falling, people! For crying out loud...is no one paying attention to what has been going on this year ALONE?

For 8 years under Bush we were all screaming about how big government was getting. We hated the idea of losing our rights or our privacy. The left was constantly screaming about "Big Brother" spying on everything they did...however in the past year alone the big government under Bush has grown to what could potentially become uncontrollable if we don't get our wits about us...and SOON.

Let's see what's been going on in the past year. Obama and the Left forced through an amazingly expensive healthcare bill that will cost us a bundle and won't even be available for another 4 years. Attached to that bill were all sorts of things that had nothing to DO with healthcare, because our brilliant politicians saw a way to force through more pet projects of their own on our federal dollar. This was bad enough. I've vented about this many times in the past, so anyone that READS this blog knows where I stand on that law.

We are currently dealing with a terrible oil spill that could potentially bring us back to the 1972 energy crisis this winter and it's still not really controlled. Not to mention there is another rig that has been leaking since April! Thank GOD BP is footing the bill for this, because the tax payers are broke! What BP is doing, is what someone does when they take responsibility. Obama is simply giving lip service and reacting to OUR outrage. Maybe it's time he be PRO-active and less REactive. You know...like a President is supposed to be...

We have massive border control issues in this country and HAVE had these issues for decades. Illegals have murdered numerous American citizens and have the audacity to demand that we extradite the border control agent that shot the 15 year old boy last week. You know, the boy that had a record and was wanted in the US? Yeah, Mexico is portraying him as an innocent child. I think not. The President is quite eager to apologize for the US, why is he not as eager to stand up for us and tell Mexico to shove it? Why is he not openly condemning the Mexican president coming to OUR country and speak at OUR House about OUR state's law being "racist"? Why is he not openly condemning the Mexican government's portrayal of this boy and implication of race being an issue when they (the Mexican government) won't even patrol that border on their side and let the cartels run amuck.

We're STILL fighting 2 wars, but now the media has lessened the amount of info. that we get from overseas. During Bush's 8 years, they filled every moment of every day with updates and death tolls and used it to destroy his reputation. Now, they rarely even MENTION a death from overseas, let alone how the war is progressing. Why? Because if you FORGET that Obama still has 2 wars going on, you are more likely to keep him on his pedestal.

North Korea has their finger on the button on a regular basis...could care less about how the UN or the rest of the world views them.

Israel has spent decades and decades and decades, dealing with constant attacks and when they get no help from their allies (cough-cough...the US), they take matters into their own hands. What do our leaders do? They condemn them and send billions of dollars to Palestine! Why don't we just spit in the faces of the Israelis???!!

Not to mention that the Iranian Parliament is currently cutting ties with the IAEA! What is the IAEA? It's the UN Atomic weapon watch dog. Why do you suppose they wish to cut ties with them? Because they want to create atomic WEAPONS, not power. Duh...we've only been TELLING people this for the past 10 years or more. Guess we've got to get even MORE diplomatic...

What does this bring me to? This brings me something that has just been tossed through via "Executive Order" last week. With all that's going in the this country, the world, and our ever growing debit...our President just signed an Executive Order, creating what is to be called "The National Prevention, Health Promotion, and Public Health Council." Hmmmm...that's a lot of words. Take a little "look-see" at what this Executive order is:http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/executive-order-establishing-national-prevention-health-promotion-and-public-health

For years the left has been up in arms about privacy...and the President of the US has just passed an order that will look into EVERYTHING YOU DO, and could give them whatever ammunition that they want to force you to do what THEY, (the government) WANT you to do to be "healthier". If that means that they feel they can regulate alcohol more, they will. If they feel they can force meds to your children because they feel it is best, they will. If they feel they want to ADD to this order as they see fit, Sub-section G will allow them to! (determined appropriate buy the president)

Watch out, people. If you are struggling with your weight and want a Hershey's bar...the Government can see it. Maybe they will put you on a "no junk food watch list". Want a beer, but have a family history of alcoholism or maybe you were arrested for peeing on the street when you were 21 and drunk...will the government be able to put you on a "no serve watch list"?
Don't want to give your child a vaccine that you find to be dangerous? Won't matter if they determine that it's appropriate.

OPEN YOUR EYES PEOPLE! This order was slipped in FOUR DAYS AGO and I have yet to see a single news report on it! Pass this information along and pay attention to what your President is turning this country into!

Is there REALLY separation of church and state?

2010-05-12T11:24:00.000-07:00

Today we discuss one of the favorite chants repeated by the liberal left. "separation of church and state!" Time and time again we hear how the church should have no say over what happens in the political world. Religious icons are removed from government ground, Days of Prayer are deemed "offensive" by our highest of leaders, and many are even trying to remove "God" from the Pledge of Allegiance because our schools are funded by tax dollars.
Now I'm sure, that some are reading this and nodding in approval for all of these things, and you have every right too. There IS a strong need for separation of church and state. We never want there to come a time where politicians can use the church to it's advantage or vis-versa.

What am I getting at? Well, with all the complaining about the church that we've been hearing and the implication that it is the church or Right leaning "religious fanatics" in office that want to push their control over our political world...many seem to be turning a blind eye to the reality of the situation. I wonder how many are actually paying attention to what some of the more powerful Democratic politicians have been doing as of late. I know, I know...the media doesn't do as good a job reporting THAT side of the isle, so let me let you in on a little bit of information that you may not have heard.

Nancy Pelosi not only spoke at Nation’s Catholic Community conference last week. NANCY PELOSI...spoke at religious conference...how is THAT upholding separation of church and state? Not only should she NOT have gone...she probably shouldn't have been quoted as saying this.: "The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me … say, ‘We want you to pass immigration reform,’ and I said, I want you to speak about it from the pulpit," Pelosi told the audience.
"Some [who] oppose immigration reform are sitting in those pews, and you have to tell them that this is a manifestation of our living the gospels,"

Nancy Pelosi JUST TOLD the Church to preach POLITICS from the pulpit!! That's in direct conflict with why the CHURCHES are tax exempt, people...and our Speaker of the House just told the church to DO it! Why does she still have a job???

Obama has spoken twice at Martin Luther Kings church in his first year in office...and used terms like "Moses" generation and "Joshua" generation in his speech. He's given a pat on the back for a job well done. Yet Bush is a "religious wacko" for his strong and open faith...and criticized because he used his faith to guide him with hard decisions.

The Left and Right use the church to their disposal on a regular basis...yet the moment the church doesn't do what they want them to do, they rip into them as though they are crazy or attempting to take power from the Federal Government.

Foolishness.

Bottom line. Like it or not. Our founders created a separation of church and state for a reason. It is not there to be "translated" or disregarded when it suits you. The church CAN NOT preach politics from the pulpit, and ANY politician that implies that they CAN or SHOULD, should immediately be removed from power. If you are NOT a faithful politician, there is no REASON for you to speak at a church function and if you do you should NEVER speak politics. This is a huge issue that has been going on for far too long and every time, it's the church that is the fall guy. It needs to end. Now.

Ramblings...

2010-04-28T12:22:00.000-07:00

I'v been dealing with a lot of frustrations lately. Thing that I've noticed have got me thinking...and a bit worried to say the least. Let's start with what set of this blog.
I've always been a person who leaned toward the survivalists world. I LOVE the idea of roughing it and I try to be sure that I'm always prepared...as we all should. What I'm noticing is that, that mentality has become more and more "popular"...but not for the same reasons. I'm not saying that their reasons are wrong, mind you...just more common...and justified.
I spoke at length with my brother today, who spoke in detail about how he is preparing himself. Things he said, and the way he said it, were echoes of what I hear a LOT of now days from people that I never thought would ever think that way. It's like hearing a very strong minded person, suddenly say they believe in ghosts. It almost MEANS more coming from them, because the ARE so level headed.

People are scared. It's really that simple. It's not all Republicans, it's not all Democrats, it's not all Christians...it's a lot of everyone. They see the way things are going...not only in our country, but in the world...and they are worried about how and when it will directly affect the little guy. It's fear of the unknown. This fear has become rampant in many households to the point where it becomes an obsession. Some have made it a way of life to keep their pantries full and grow a garden, because that is what makes them happy and how they were raised. Others are literally preparing for "the end of the world" and have really no knowledge of how to prepare for terrible storm, let alone the end of the world. But that doesn't stop them from trying.

Just to list a FEW of the hot button issues that have been inundating our media lately. Just a BIT of the downhill slide we are all seeing each and every day...

--Bail outs. Not for us, but for the big guys that caused this issue.
--Bail outs for those who made bad calls and spent beyond their means in the private sector.
--Dirty deals in Wall Street, Dirty deals in Washington...and Washington claiming that they are somehow qualified to regulate Wall Street.
--Washington putting a HUGE bank on trial...not for breaking a law...but because WASHINGTON believes they were unethical. I have to type that again...because I didn't think that I would EVER type those words together. WASHINGTON believes the BANKS behaved unethically. The same Washington who employed/employs MULTIPLE employees who were a PART of the damage that this "unethical" bank caused. Employees that we are now paying with our tax dollars.
--The promise to be bi-partisan, while relentlessly proposing bills that the Right would NEVER back, while refusing to give in to key points for the Right. Guess it's easier to be sarcastic and destroy the party than to keep your promise to WORK with the other side.
--Government regulating what the private sector can and can not do! From car dealer and banks, to Insurance companies and fast food, the government is sticking their noses in to "regulate" OUR private sector and we're allowing it.
--Obama on Letterman...while our commanders in Afghanistan ask for support.
--Political correctness on crack. No longer can we upset our enemies and call them terrorists, they are extremists.
--Pro-lifers and Military veterans are now 'considered dangerous'.
--Day of Prayer is "offensive" according to this administration.
--VAT tax
--Those responsible for murdering 3000+ American civilians, given the same rights as a tax paying American citizen.
--States resorting to laws THEY can enforce, in order to keep Americans safe, being raked across the coals and called racist.
--Storms, wars, nuclear weapons in the hands of those who would like to hurt us and our allies.
--Our own government disrespecting important allies who are in desperate need of our backing.
--Our out of control national debt and our congresses disinterest in stopping the spending.
--ALL of our politicians needing a "time out" and a pay cut...but have no way to do it.

This is only a bit of what we have slammed in our face on a daily basis! THIS is what worries us to the point where we prepare for the worse. We have allowed our government to degrade to such a point...where their terms are too long, and there's nothing we can do about it. What politician is going to volunteer to let us vote on shorter terms? They're paid too much, and get THEIR pay raises regardless of having to take it from our Social Security, and making the tax payer go without...but what politician do you know...that will allow for us to DEMAND they ALL take a pay cut? Obama makes 400,000.00 a YEAR on the tax payer, but just raked in a whopping 5.5 MILLION dollars last year alone. Why is he not the FIRST to step forward in this economy and accept 1.00 a year for the remaining of his term?

For the little guy...we will continue to lose our jobs. Unemployment will stop because there is simply no more money. Prices will increase to the point where we can't afford to feed ourselves. We will begin to see fines handed out to those of us who drop our insurance to AFFORD food...because in a couple of years it will be mandatory for us to have healthcare insurance. I have to agree with the fearful...things are just beginning...and Washington still has no clue. We're going to become desperate. We're going to become hungry. THEY will continue to tax us to death, vote for their pay raises, and claim the worst is over...but we will know the truth.

Stop the over regulation! Get them out of our private sector before they destroy it further! BE LOUD! BE MAD! DEFEND what so many have died to give you! Say NO!

Time for a little venting.

2010-04-12T16:19:00.001-07:00

Little background. We have someone important to us that has gotten stuck in this real-estate crash! Yeah, yeah, I think we all know someone that got sucked into that black hole.

Anyway, we wanted to help them, as they will soon be losing their home. We've been diligent with our credit for years. Gone without, knowing that one day we can finally have what we waited so long to get, and not go broke getting it. Well, then this economy went south, and banks stopped lending. But wait...you can still get loans if your credit is good so we stepped in to help. Our fist option was to purchase a home for them, and they would pay us the mortgage costs. The home would be their home, but I would hold the loan in my name so they could GET a home and not be out on the street. I got the pre-approval from the bank, after explaining what I needed, I was able to get plenty to accomplish what we needed and keep their monthly bills down while still allowing for them to live comfortably.

After some conversations, we even looked into he possibility of BUILDING a home that we would all live in. That seemed like an amazing idea, because it would get us out of our old drafty house and into a NEW home. This is when it gets funny. So it seems that the bank will give me 250,000.00 for a normal mortgage loan...but will only give me 170,000.00 for a lot/building loan and the closing costs that must be brought to the table are astronomical! Finally I thought that it would be a good idea to go back to a VA construction loan...but guess what! I can get a VA loan...and I can get a construction loan...(from the small banks) but I there are NO banks that offer a VA construction loan anymore! Okay...I'm losing my mind at this point. I've had my credit checked twice now. Once for the conventional mortgage loan and once for the lot loan that I was told that I needed to get before I could be considered for a building loan.

I pull out of the idea to build. I just can't find the money for down payment, and they won't give me a lower percentage down. I go back to the big bank who gave me my conventional mortgage pre-approval and asked for her to forward my paperwork so I can get an offer in on a home for them ASAP. With rates going up, we need to move fast. She sends me an approval for a VA loan. Huh?? I tell her that I won't be living in the home, so I can't use my VA loan. Her reply was, (and I quote) " If you are purchasing a home that is not owner occupied, then it would be an investment property. Are you able to put 20% down?" WHAT?? I ASKED you about that BEFORE you took my credit information!!! You mean to tell me that you weren't LISTENING to me? You mean to tell me that you dinged my credit because you weren't even paying ATTENTION to what I was telling you I needed????

Okay, that's not even the worse part! I want to show you a few numbers to get a better idea of what banks are actually asking of us now.

So, say you currently live in a 200,000.00 - 400,000.00+ house. You can't pay your mortgage because you've gotten far too deep in debt. You KNOW you will lose the house, because you just can sell it and you OWE far more than it is WORTH. You need to down size...and fast...because the bank outright refuses to work with you and help you stay in your home. Hell, they act as though they would rather the house to be empty!
You asked for help from the bank and you're given none...so you have no other option but to pay what you can when you can for as long as you can...and you KNOW they will be knocking on your door to kick you out soon. Problem...your bad decision has now destroyed your credit so you can't even get a mortgage so you have a place to live. If by the grace of God, you CAN get a mortgage, you have to put an average of 20-30% down at closing! Just so you know how much that is...
150,000.00 mortgage requires almost 30,000.00 at the table. If I had an extra 30,000.00 laying around I wouldn't NEED a freakin' loan, people!!

This is something that really set me off too. This whole thing has screwed ME, and I've BEEN responsible all these years. If something happened, and I had to move, I would be lucky to break even when I sold this house. House values have plummeted. There is a REALLY good chance that I would have NOTHING to put down on my loan if I should need to move into a new home. This is a huge issue! Even zero down mortgages are harder and harder to come by! THANK YOU unethical buyers and loaners! THANK YOU for screwing us responsible people! Thank you for destroying OUR investment because of your own inability to stop spending! Thank you for making it damn near impossible for a RESPONSIBLE borrower, like ME to get my family into a home that will make life much more comfortable. THANK YOU for making us spend many more winters in this drafty old house, because I can't afford to sell it for a loss.

Screw you, Washington for using our tax dollars to bail out these damn banks! May you rot in hell.

*vent over.

Aggravation has set in...

2010-03-29T08:55:00.001-07:00

Let me give you a little back story of what it was that triggered this rant: (and yes, they may just turn into a rant that could put all other rants to shame...)

http://www.wxyz.com/news/story/UPDATE-Members-of-Milita-Group-Indicted/eE6ZljBWa0uFOMUdtOLzvw.cspx
http://www.foxnews.com/us/2010/03/28/arrests-alleged-militia-activity-midwest/

Okay, now that we're all on the same page, what was the first thing that bothered you or caught your eye in all those stories about what was going on this weekend? For ME, it was the word "Militia" being repeatedly used in describing these yahoos. One has to sit and wonder WHY this was the word of choice...is it because they don't want to imply that our own people can be just as bad as the extremist Muslims that want to harm us? Is it to destroy the meaning of the word "militia" so as to govern you by fear? I mean...how many of YOU want to openly appose (protest) the government NOW? Could that make you a target now? What makes you a "danger"? Better yet, how many of you will go out of your way to go to the site this group has, and read up on who they really were? None? Why? Because you're scared!!! You go to that site to see what they're all about and see if they were truly a militia, what does that do? That hands your IP address over to the Federal Government and puts a target on your back. THAT'S why.
Why is it that important to me? There are a couple reasons why this is important. First and foremost it's important because of the use of the word 'militia'. Let me share with you a few memorable quotes by some pretty important people, and then you tell me if the group that the FBI took down this weekend is what these men were talking about.

"For people who are free, and who mean to remain so, a well-organized and armed militia is their best security." --Thomas Jefferson

A well regulated militia, and composed of the body of the people, trained in arms, is the best most natural defense of a free country. --James Madison

I ask, Sir, what is the militia? It is the whole people except for a few public officials. -- George Mason

What, Sir, is the use of a militia? It is to prevent the establishment of a standing army, the bane of liberty. Whenever governments mean to invade the rights and liberties of the people, they always attempt to destroy the militia, in order to raise an army upon their ruins. --Elbridge Gerry

Just the simple definition of "militia":
1. An army composed of ordinary citizens rather than professional soldiers.
2. A military force that is not party of a regular army and is subject to call for service in an emergency.
3 The whole body of physically fit civilians eligible by law for military service.

The very WORD militia is Latin meaning "military service" NOT "armed group".

So now re-read and re-watch what that group was doing or planning to do, and ask yourself...were they a militia. NO. They weren't defending a country they were planning to ATTACK it, her protectors and her government. Do I LIKE what our government has been doing? Hell no, and anyone that has read ANY of my blogs knows this. I'm appalled by how our leaders have been behaving for the past 10+ years. I'm angered that they don't listen to the people, spend uncontrollably while living high on the hog on our tax dollars, and I'm infuriated that my tax dollars are being used to make me fearful of educating myself on things like this, because I may make myself a target! If I teach my child about Hitler's SS am I a Nazi? What if I teach him about the great Generals of the world, and Erwin Rommel is on the list. Am I a danger to our freedoms in the eyes of Homeland Security? What if I read more about Iran or North Korea...should I be monitored? Where does this end?
These people were not "militia" they were home grown terrorists. The word was used to frighten you and make you worry about standing up and saying enough is enough. The word was used deliberately to destroy it.
Our very constitution protects our rights as civilians to protect ourselves from tyranny. "A well regulated militia being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms shall not be infringed." --US Constitution Second Amendment to Bear Arms

I honestly hope I'm not the only one who sees this as yet another attack on our constitutional rights.

In closing,
Real courage is found, not in the willingness to risk death, but in the willingness to stand, alone if necessary, and against the ignorant and disapproving heard. --Jon Roland.

Care to stand with me to protect our freedoms and protect word like "militia" against slander?

What you've missed...

2010-03-23T10:12:00.000-07:00

Because after ALL this time there are still far too many people who don't totally understand what they just asked their congress men and women to do, I feel I need to explain it to you.

Here are only a few of the BIGGEST issues with this bill:

This bill is linked to our IRS Tax code in regards to the penalty for non-payment of taxes. What's that mean? That means that if you are single and make more than 9,350 a year or if you're married and make more than 18,700.00 a year, you are REQUIRED to obtain health insurance or you will be charged a 1900.00 fine. If you do not PAY this fine, you are charged a 25,000.00 fine. If you do not pay THAT fine you do jail time. This is our IRS Tax code for not paying your taxes, and it has been entered into this bill as punishment for noncompliance. Section 7203 of the bill.

So now, let's take this a bit farther, shall we? One of the biggest issues the Left has been throwing around for justification for this healthcare bill has been the lie that hospitals and/or doctors were refusing care to patience who had no insurance. That's simply not true. Being someone that got much care from both hospitals AND doctors in the past because my OWN problem with not having health insurance, I know for a fact that they will NOT refuse care. Hell, even illegal aliens can and DO walk into our emergency rooms and obtain care without insurance. Will you be given a bill for the care? YES, and if you don't PAY your bill they will turn you over to collections. What exactly do you think will happen under this bill? I'll tell you. If you don't have insurance you WILL be refused care because this bill makes Healthcare insurance mandatory.

THE COST! Let me show you some numbers:
Bush left office, leaving Obama with a deficit of 1 trillion dollars that was accumulated from military rebuilding, 2 war fronts, natural disasters, and 9/11. 1 trillion+! We have all heard that number over and over again. We have all heard how terrible it was of Bush to be so "irresponsible" and run up such an astronomical deficit in his eight years but have you taken a look at what Obama has done in ONE year? Let me show you...First and foremost, this bill alone will cost a MINIMUM of 1.7 TRILLION dollars. One year of 1.7 trillion compared to the Bush 8 year spending. Now this isn't even ALL his spending. Obama doubled the Bush deficit in LESS than a year, and entered into 2010 adding another 1.7 trillion on top of that, making his spending double what Bush did in 8 years!

ONE bill that the majority of us didn't WANT. ONE bill that was supposed to cover only 50 million of our 300 million+ population just blew Bush spending out of the water. But wait! That's not all. Since his first day our 2009 our National Debt rose to from 10 trillion to 12 TRILLION dollars, and is estimated to top at 14 TRILLION dollars by the end of 2010. (however CBO claims that it may even go as high as 16 trillion) Let me give you a bit more...
As of 3/23/2010 at 5:50pm our exact deficit will be at $12,676,522,480,612.45 and is steadily increasing by 4.05 billion dollars per day since 2007. For educations sake, let's stick with the number captured above. Our estimated population in the US is 308,061,276, so each of us will owe $41,149.35. Oh...wait, wait...that number isn't even correct because there are close to 50% of us who don't even PAY taxes and 15% who have NEVER paid taxes and have never gotten caught, but you get the picture. Please keep in mind too...that isn't just the adult population. That's our children and grandchildren who haven't even begun working yet that will owe 41,149.35 each. There are 3 of us in my home, so the government has graciously put me $123,448.05 further in debt. Brilliant.

You know...there's more...there's a LOT more...but now I'm depressed and desperately need to figure out how to pay off my new 124,000.00 in debt.

VOTE THEM OUT!

Healthcare summit or Democrat politicking?

2010-02-25T11:55:00.000-08:00

So, I've been watching the "healthcare summit" today. Is it just me or is it ALL Democrat and Obama yammering? Someone has to have a breakdown of who spoke for how long. I KNOW the Republicans are being silenced just by WATCHING. Now the second half is even worse, and there is a little more than an hour left!
Come on now, this is proof. No more of this "Republicans are playing politics with healthcare" crap. This was a photo opportunity for Obama, in an attempt to up his poll numbers by looking "diplomatic". Well, let me let you in on a little secret, Mr. President. Your disgust was clear on your face while listening to what LITTLE you let the Republicans say. You set this up, and then sit there all ticked off when those who GET the chance lay in on you? Well, like Paul Ryan said...you DO work for us. You DON'T know what's better for us. You're not going to win this battle without one HELL of a fight. Thank God we still have congress men and women like Ryan and McCain, and Cantor on our side!!! This isn't going to be a productive "summit", this will be nothing more than an expensive waste of time, and photo op for the president. Sad. Very sad.

Okay...enough is enough.

2010-02-19T08:48:00.000-08:00

Dear Mrs. Palin,

I understand and adore your passion. I see your commitment to your family and I smile with glee. I hear you give those Washington cronies "what for" and giggle with delight. I watch you at a podium stumping for politicians that I want in office, and speaking on behalf of those of us who feel we have no voice and my heart fills with happiness. I've seen the interviews that went bad because the media has/had it out for you. I've cringed at things people say when attacking your beautiful children and was proud to see you stand up for who they are. As a woman, it's wonderful to see another woman stand up in the public eye and be PROUD to be who she is and offer no apologies. I can honestly say, I've always been one of your biggest backers. I've always giggled at those who imply you're uneducated because you choose not to use vulgar language...because look at you now! Your name is a household word, my friend.

Where am I going with this? Well...my Dear Sarah...there are times when you simply have to let things slide and NOT take offense. There are times when regardless of a "jab" being aimed at you...the "jabber" has and will take a comical swing at any and everyone to get a laugh. While this doesn't excuse bad taste, sometimes it's not worth your reputation or the reputation of your children, to harp on every single thing, implying that you are constantly a target. Stop BEING a target. If you don't like the way someone says something, let someone else be the whistle blower. Don't imply a PERSONAL attack regardless of how possible it could have been a personal attack. Just let it go.

Little detail for those who are lost at this point.

Okay, okay...is it just wrong to pick on certain things? YES! By all means go ahead and be offended if it offends you. Family Guy has pushed the envelope since it came on air! It messes with Christians, Republicans, Democrats, physical handicaps have been on the block since the darn thing STARTED, minorities of all shapes and colors, and they portray a DOG who speaks and dates humans for crying out loud. What about that show could you seriously find "in good taste"? Sometimes there comes a time to just shake your head and giggle or simply turn off the TV. Family Guy is an equal opportunity offender. Turn a cheek Sarah. You're making a mountain out of a mole hill. Be happy with who you are. Be happy you have a beautiful, healthy family, teach them that sometimes there are battles that aren't worth getting into. You're not going to change the type of people who write that stuff or find it funny anymore than they will change you. Just let it go and focus on the important stuff that will affect your children more directly as they grow.

Thank you for your service to this great country,

~Politics By Krista

Sarah Palin...

2010-02-11T09:11:00.000-08:00

We've all either seen or heard of what has become the infamous pen on hand incident. Please excuse me while I giggle. There have been a lot of arguments back and forth on why she did it, why she SHOULDN'T have done it, questions about her intelligence, and I've even heard people fall back on the same old "she's a bad parent" when discussing this issue. WHAT?? First and foremost, if SHE'S a bad parent for trusting her daughter and then standing by her after she made a mistake, you should be handing out that title to three quarter of a MILLION parents out there, because that's about how many teens get pregnant now days. That little criticism will come back to bite the Left in the butt. Just you wait and see.

On with the rest of my blog...

Sarah Palin, has been writing her own speeches since she stepped down, but regardless, she doesn't read a direct speech. She clearly carries notes that she has never kept secret, but regularly speaks from her heart during the speech, not using her notes at all for some points.

Obama, does NOT write his own speeches, and has been open about his 20-something speech writer since he was running for office, and reads his speeches verbatim from his ever present TelePrompTer...we've all seen what happens when it's not there. He either puts his foot in his mouth, or stumbles painfully. So much for him looking better in that situation...

Sarah Palin, has never refused to allow certain questions to be asked. If she doesn't want to answer them, she says so during the interview with grace.

Obama, has been known to regularly enter into interviews with very clear description of what questions may or may not be asked. Hmmmm...Strike 2?

There is a mountain of difference between these two...and in the end...I trust Palin MUCH more than "TelePrompTer boy". Obama can have a TelePrompTer in his face and STILL repeatedly mispronounce rather important words, clearly not even KNOWING what it is he's TALKING about. You're not listening to HIM. You're listening to what someone else wants him to sound like.

At least with Sarah you know where she stands. So what that she jotted 4 words on her hand? She knew she was going to have a question and answer session after her long speech. Would you have wanted her to bring a separate piece of paper on stage for 4 words reminding her of her talking points? Is it that important that she not write on her HAND? Last I knew the Pro Choices movement, prominent on the Left side of the isle, still saw the hand as "her body". Maybe because she is speaking against their views and that she was a politician makes it "their body" now? I can't begin to understand how that side thinks. * sigh *

This isn't about the simplistic discussion of to TelePrompTer or not to TelePrompTer. This is about who's words are you REALLY listening to? I KNOW I'm listening to Sarah when she talks...and I KNOW that's not Obama when he speaks. Sadly, there are too many out there that don't see clearly yet. Maybe Sarah and the Tea Party can open the eyes of the blind...

Left and Right

2010-01-27T06:40:00.000-08:00

I'm a HUGE fan of Zonation and I can honestly say that his most recent video is the best one yet! Enjoy!

Sexism.

2010-01-22T08:22:00.001-08:00

Todays topic is Sexism. I've struggled with sitting down writing this blog, because honestly I didn't want it to come across as whiney or bitchy. In the end, though...it needs to be said, and I don't really care how it comes across. If you don't want to hear it, I say, "move along looky-lews."

Women have struggled with sexism for far too long. Even after we obtained our rights and were embraced under Civil Rights Act...we had our hard road to walk. We've learned from what past women have taught us, and walked with our head held high. Women work EXTRA hard in the work place and at home in an attempt to prove themselves. We are now in year 2010, more than 4 decades from when the law viewed us as "equals"...but sexism is still alive and well in our society. Women STILL make less than men in the work place...for the SAME job. On average women will make .80 cents for ever dollar that the competing man will make. As a woman ages, she will make even LESS than her male counterpart. It's even been documented that in the early 2000's women's median full time salaries DECREASED by 0.6% while the mens remained unchanged. This is just the income comparison...not even taking a look at the work place its self or every day situations.

Workplace discrimination is still a huge issue for many women. A woman is discriminated against if she is married with NO children, because she may have the "audacity" to WANT children. A woman is discriminated against if she HAS children or has not worked for a time to be with her children. A woman is discriminated against if she voices INTEREST in WANTING children. A woman can even be discriminated against if she is single! This is not an open discrimination, mind you. They are careful about being too direct. This discrimination is enacted with salary, bonuses, and or advancements. Many companies have a limit they will allow women to advance to, believing that if they allow for her to advance too high, she will leave to be a mommy. Is this possible? Yes, but in todays day and age, it's also possible for any MAN to do that very same thing.

Women in the news or politics have it terrible! You could be brilliant have a spotless record, and a list of top notch schools...but when reported on, or talked about, you will only be recognized for the pantsuit you chose to wear or your hair style. I've actually watched fat, bald, men critique Hilary Clintons LOOKS, while they themselves make me gag to look at. If the politician isn't pretty or have a pretty wife...things are different for them. Ever wonder why women must be made over in those situations? Because if they aren't, they will be raked across the coals for what they LOOK like. Granted, in Palin's case she was raked across the coals for EVERYTHING. Funny though...as stupid as Biden is...why hasn't the media attacked him as much? This also brings me to Brown. What would have happened if it were a WOMAN who had posed for those nude/semi-nude pictures? She would have been a whore, her career would have been destroyed and she would have lost the election by a landslide.. This isn't speculation or paranoia. This happens every day.

Even in the media women have to watch their backs. On sports shows, you have to be fit and pretty, while sitting with your chubby, old co-host. If someone sneaks a picture of you and posts it all over the web...don't expect a huge uproar...maybe a story or two. You should just be pleased that someone finds you pretty enough to take the time. Be careful though...because if you get heavy or start to age too quickly, YOU will be replaced with a 20-something that's more pleasant to look at. Will this happen to men? Nah. It's all about what HE knows.

Women KNOW this is the way things are in our world. Every day we struggle with the way we look...because we fear what someone will think of us if we don't. We have eating disorders because men want you to look a certain way. We dye our hair, cake our faces with anti-aging creams, starve ourselves, and rip hair from our bodies in a desperate attempt to hold on to our youth, fit in with what's "beautiful", and to grow in the workplace. We stuff ourselves into pantyhose, destroy our feet in heals, hike up our boobs in terribly uncomfortable bras and wear equally uncomfortable thongs so our pantie-lines don't show in those tight pants. We spend hours doing our hair and makeup, so that we look "pretty" in the work place because let me tell ya...if I have to hear that I look tired or sick when I don't wear makeup one more time...

What am I getting at with all this bellyaching? I'M SICK OF IT! I'm sick of speaking up and being called a "women's lib. bitch". I'm sick of speaking up and being told that the only way I can be this passionate about it is if I'm a Lesbian. I'm sick of being told that I don't HAVE a say because I decided to stay home with my son. I'm sick of watching women resort to destroying one another for that prized position instead of working harder...because they KNOW that work doesn't get you squat now days.
I'm sick of men thinking that it's okay to say and do what they want to me within earshot of my child, and laugh at me when I defend myself. I'm sick of being looked at like a piece of meat and feeling that I have to kill myself in the gym to BE this piece of meat. Finally...I'm sick of not seeing more women SICK OF IT!!

Now...if will please excuse me...I have a bra to burn.

Don't be a "Victicrat".

2010-01-11T14:04:00.000-08:00

This is a video from one of my favorite Righties! Zoe and his pals always have a knack for touching on exactly what we need to hear, and putting it perfectly. While I'm not really into this music, take a listen, pay attention to the lyrics. Worth the view.
Enjoy!

Strike 2, Mr. President.

2010-01-07T10:35:00.001-08:00

The failed Christmas day terror plot has been eating at me lately. I giggle when the Left repeats the word "failed" over and over again, implying that the administration shouldn't receive a black eye from this incident. Why do I find this amusing? Because it failed because of the passengers, not because of the quick thinking of those who are put in HIGH PAYING positions to do it for us. It's funny how that little nugget of knowledge is glossed over...but that's the way the Left has been since Obama came into the game, so I'm not remotely surprised.

What's been eating at me is how it's been dealt with. Is it just me...or is this administration screwing this up just as bad as they did the Ft. Hood shooting? It's almost as though Obama jumps in front of the camera "to keep America informed," about these terrible events...without THINKING. As with Fort Hood, he jumped into a little speech...and it made him look terrible. Reporting things that the public had known WELL before he decided HE needed to tell us about it. Claiming the attack was due to a "mix of human and systemic failures". Referred to the would be terrorist, not as a "terrorist" but an "extremist". (well...I guess pro-lifers and veterans are the real terrorists, according to Janet Napolitano.) , " Without skipping a beat, Obama tried to pick up the pieces. Now it's been 4 days after the incident. Is he willing to point the finger at the person that HE put in charge of our safety yet? Oh, no. He proceeds to repeat information that we've KNOWN for at least 2 days now, as though he, himself has just learned of it! Now he's implying that the system that has been in place under the Bush administration, and has successfully kept us safe for EIGHT years, has somehow failed. No, Mr. President. Janet Napolitano failed, and YOU failed for putting her into such a powerful position. The only thing that has changed about the system, has been YOUR choice of Director of Homeland Security.

What I find even more amusing is that after 9/11...a time in which the IDEA of a plane being used as a weapon...was totally foreign to us, the Bush administration was criticized for not stopping it. The anger and hatred aimed at Bush for the intelligence failures 9 months into his term was unbearable. Not to mention the fact that it took 7 whole minutes for President Bush to gather his thoughts (while sitting in front of a classroom full of children), when told about the US being under attack...but it takes Obama 3-4 DAYS, and he's reporting things that we already KNOW?
This double standard was seen earlier in the year when a handful of Tea Party members, compared Obama and his administration to Hitler or the Nazi's. Do you not REMEMBER the same thing on a MUCH larger scale, from the Left when Bush was in office???

Obama was eating Ice cream with his family (on vacation) in Martha's Vineyard when Fort Hood was attacked, and he was on a 1 million dollar+ Christmas vacation in Hawaii when this latest attack attempt took place.
Two strikes Mr. President. You thought the Tea Parties were bad? We're very close to making them look like a play-date. 78% of Americans are certain that you have made this country weak and we will be attacked on American soil within the next 12 months. Do you think you can talk your way out of THIS one? I think not. Even your Senators are abandoning ship. You're sinking...let's see how you deal with it.

Healthcare...again.

2010-01-05T11:02:00.000-08:00

Now that we're in 2010, we get ever closer to new healthcare "reform". As I have voiced earlier this past year, I don't see it as reform at all, but a governmental GUT of the current healthcare system that the majority of Americans are rather fond of. It's also a power grab for 6% of the American economy, an attempt to take over even MORE of the private sector...but this is another topic.

Today I would like to discus what has been happening with the newest bill in the past few weeks. Believing that the Left would eventually give up on their push for such an obviously bad idea, many of us in the civilian sector have gone back to our lives and planned our holidays. While we were complacent, the Left put together yet another back-room reform bill, and even got a few extra votes from the Right to pass it in the Senate. Voting in the dead of night (literally, they voted at 1am), this bill was rushed through with provisions that would be somewhat acceptable to some on the Right and sweetheart deals to MANY Left leaning states for their yea votes, while all the while grinning because of their promises to overturn all of those promises made to the right, in order to make the left happy in the house. Well, obviously the Right heard of this little plan, and made it clear that they would refuse to vote for this bill again, if things change. The Left can't have THAT, can they? Those little noggins got to thinking...what can we do, to keep those who voted for this new bill from turning tail and run?

They had to be very careful. There were terms that were learned by the voting public and those terms put up red flags. (You remember that seemingly harmless word, "reconciliation"?) They would have to find another term...and quick! It's important that they make it LOOK to the media and to us, that they aren't doing a damn thing wrong. What will they do to push THIS through without those vital Independent and Republican votes??

Ping-pong!!! THAT is a totally HARMLESS term! They will use this little tactic to keep their precious bill afloat!! Okay...you are now quite confused, so let me explain what this term, "ping-pong" actually means. Basically it's a term that says that they don't CARE what the Republicans have to say, so they will simply skipping the formal conference committee, made up of both Left and Right Senators. A formal conference is what happens when a bill is passed in the Senate and a bill is passed in the House...but both bills have differences. The conference is required to fill in the blanks, do a final run down, bicker over what stays and what goes. The Left wants to do this without the Right. This means all the promises that were made to the Right in order to GET the vote to pass the Senate were smokescreens, or in not so PC terms...they lied, because they had absolutely NO intention on keeping those promises.

For almost a year now, the Left has been going on and on about how the Right has no ideas. False. The Right has been pushing for reform in the form of Tort reform! The Right is all for competition within the private sector, by allowing you to purchase your insurance from companies in other states! BOTH of these ideas require no funding and keep the government OUT of the private sector! Both ideas are ignored by the left, instead they kept repeating how the Right has no plan, in hopes that if they repeated it enough, the masses would believe it. Sadly...it's working. The Left has also been going on about how the Right won't work with them. Wait a minute...who was it that has been writing these bills behind closed doors? The Left. Who's been repeatedly threatened to go it alone in an attempt to make the Right look like nothing but a bunch of trouble makers? The LEFT! Last I checked...threatening reconciliation and to ping-pong while simitaniously LIEING is not being "bi-partisan"

I think it's time for another Tea Party! Vote those two faced liars OUT. Let's show them who the boss really is.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ynews/ynews_ts1044

Christmas Vacation...on CRACK!

2009-12-23T15:32:00.001-08:00

I've been rather busy lately, getting ready for the Holidays...so I'm sorry for not posting much. This story caught my eye today though.
Apparently the Obama Family will be flying to Hawaii this week for their 2 week Christmas vacation. One would think that it wouldn't be that big of a deal, as most Presidents take time away from the White House around Christmas time. Bush Jr. sometimes flew to Camp David to be with his family, other times he went to his own ranch. Not a big issue, as he OWNED the ranch and Camp David is a Military Base expected to be used by the President of the USA. Cost of Air Force One was high, but not a big issue for most, because his locations of choice off set the cost of using Air Force one. (35-56,000.00 an hour of use.)

Obama, during a massive recession, has bypassed Camp David, and decided to fly to Hawaii. Eh...not the best...but hell, it's his "home" so maybe it's okay. Not so much. It seems that Obama family has chosen to stay in a hotel that cost 4000.00 a night...but wait...they are paying for THREE rooms too. Let me do the math for you. That's 12,000.00 a NIGHT, just for them to SLEEP in this hotel. They've even imported a Christmas Tree to Hawaii and placed it in the Obama's room. I wonder if anyone knows how much it cost to GET an evergreen, pine tree in Hawaii...let alone import one from the mainland.
So...let us break down a bit of what will be spent by the Obama family in the next 2 weeks, shall we?

Hotel Rooms: 168,000.00
Flight to Hawaii: 455,000.00 to 728,000.00 EACH way.

Total TRAVEL costs of: 1,078,000.00 to 1,624,000.00

Then let's add in meals, drinks, shows, Christmas gifts for the children and family...

What am I getting at with this? The Obama-bots can't even claim that he's paying for this ONE holiday out of his own pocket. How do I know this? The President of the USA makes 400,000.00 a year. That means that WE are paying for his million dollar+ Christmas vacation while MANY of us are jobless and struggling to even HAVE a Christmas.

Just the facts, Kids.

American Terror.

2009-11-12T08:14:00.000-08:00

The media always makes me roll my eyes lately.
We all watched in shock as the events of Fort Hood unfolded last week. Wondering HOW this could possibly happen. WHY this happened, and what was going to be done to make sure this would never happen again. In the beginning of the story, it came out that the shooter was a Muslim, but it was quickly followed by, "but he was a good soldier and it wasn't a terror attack." Now, that in and of its self was enough to throw up MY red flag...but it seems to take a bit longer for most.

As time went on, we heard many reports about how "Poor Hasan counseled veterans returning home from war time, and somehow 'caught' post traumatic stress disorder from the stories that he was told." False. The TRUTH is that Hasan counseled soldiers GOING to war. Not returning FROM war. So I guess they will have to come up with some other reason for his snapping. Could it be PRE-post traumatic stress disorder, maybe? Nah. This morning they said "psychotic"! Really? "psychotic"? Hmmmm...so if military doctors are not saying that they feared that he was "psychotic", why exactly was there nothing done about it? How in the hell can a DOCTOR who is psychotic supposed to council OTHER soldiers?

We also hear that Hasan was doing a research paper and that his "research" discussions with Anwar al-Awlaki were justified. One has to ask the question...why did Hasan CHOOSE to contact a known RADICAL Imam? Why did Hasan CHOOSE to contact an Imam that did time in Yemen for his part in a bomb plot? Why did Hasan CHOOSE to contact an Imam who has repeatedly been noted as a potential Al-Qaida link? Why, when this was discovered by the military and the FBI, was it swept under the rug as something that was of no interest? Why when he claimed he was a Muslim first and a soldier second...was there STILL no red flag? Why, when multiple posts by Hasan were discovered on the internet, comparing the noble acts of a soldier jumping on a bomb to save his fellow soldiers to a suicide bomber, was there no issue taken? Why, after all of this is out in the open for the world to see...is there STILL no uproar?

Because of political correctness. Because it has come to the point where it doesn't matter WHAT you do, if you are a minority of any kind, (regarding gender, sexual preference, or race) you have more protection from the laws than you should. Because if Hasan had been pulled aside and REALLY looked into, he could have cried foul and WON. Because no one is willing to lose their job over something that may not end in their favor because laws PROTECT people like Hasan.

In the end? 13 people have died on AMERICAN SOIL, at the hands of a man who cried out "Allahu Akbar" before unloading his weapons on a group of UNarmed soldiers and civilians, and the man who did it is being labeled with a "disorder" that will protect him because they are too frightened to give him the proper label. A TERRORIST.

Afghanistan "surge".

2009-11-10T11:06:00.001-08:00

In March we learned that General McChrystal was requesting 40,000 reinforcement troops. This request was actually made well before March, but we only learned of it at that time. We are now in November. For 8 months President Obama has been dragging his feet in this matter. Instead he has found it more important to travel around the country pushing for his fellow Democrats coming up for re-election, push his healthcare "reform" down the throats of the tax payer, pile more and more money into the hands of failing businesses in the private sector, and reading gloriously historic speeches from his ever-present teleprompter. Oh, let us not forget his oh, so important trip to China. Lord knows his trip to China is so much more important than the lives of our soldiers.

The white house insisted that they were going to hold off on the troop levels until this past week, when the election in Afghanistan was complete, however there are still no troops scheduled for Afghanistan. In fact it has been reported that there won't be a final decision for weeks. All the while EVERY SINGLE ONE of Obamas advisors have pressed for the 40,000 troop surge. Obama has FINALLY been reported to have said that he PLANS on giving most if not all of the 40,000 troops that have been requested, however he clearly specified that he has no intention of making a final decision until after he returns from China. What excuse will he give when he returns, I wonder...

What he didn't openly tell US is that first COMBAT troops will not arrive until early 2010 and THEN they won't all BE there until the END of 2010. What will happen if they need more troops before the end of 2010? They get to wait until 2011 if they're lucky, I guess. This buildup is actually only due to last 4 years though, so the likelihood of more troops going into Afghanistan to support the troops stationed there is slim. Let me make it even more clear what Obama actually wants to do. He plans on sending 4 combat brigades...that's 14,000 troops, "plus thousands more support troops". What is a support troop? medical workers, supply workers, logistics, administrative, mechanics. Support troops are unlikely to see combat and are even unlikely to even CARRY a gun. So in short, Obama is playing a game. He's doing what he's asked, but while simitaniously NOT doing what he's asked. Brilliant.

For comparison purposes, the surge in Iraq that ended quite successfully and has been praised by MANY, sent 30,000 troops in a 5 month period.

When hanging your flag tomorrow morning...say a little prayer, not only for those veterans that are home with us today, but for the soldiers fighting right now, under a man that is putting their lives in far too much danger, an irresponsible politician that seems to enjoy the game of politics.

Donations.

2009-11-09T07:59:00.000-08:00

I'm taking a break from my normal political posts today. With the holidays coming and the economy being what it is, things as simple as food become a daily struggle for many of us. We don't and have never had a lot. We are the typical American family who works hard for what they have, and when we have a little more, we get ourselves a treat or go out for a meal. We're far from big donators when it comes to charities, because we simply never have it. We do make a point of picking one charity to give what we can to per year, and most of that time that's a food bank.

This week my son made me the proudest momma in the world. My son wrote an essay a couple of months ago, on how a veteran has inspired him, and submitted it to the local American Legion for their annual essay contest. We received notification that he was one of the winners. Out of hundreds of entries, my sons essay was picked as one of the three winners to receive at least 50.00 or as much as 250.00. Without skipping a beat, my son decided that he wanted to donate WHATEVER he won to the local food bank to feed the hungry in the area. With tears in my eyes, I thanked God for such a wonderful child. Upon learning that he won 3rd place and a 50.00 prize, he wasn't disappointed for his failure to WIN...but for his inability to get a bigger donation. In an attempt to help him feel a little better I promised to double his donation so he may have 100.00. Soon after he comes to me with 70 more dollars to be added to the kiddy, from others taken by his cause.

This week my Son will be going to CEO, People Helping People (http://www.ceopeoplehelpingpeople.org/), to hand deliver his donation of 170.00 and see the distribution center first hand, just in time to help with the Thanksgiving project!

While I've been blessed to never need such a service, I fully understand that if there is one thing in this world that we can not do without...it's food. When we have little, there are so many more that have less.
When you can't give money or food, sometimes even just giving a bit of your time goes far.

Give what you can, stay warm and and keep your bellies full this winter!!

Are You Ready For Some Football?

2009-10-28T14:25:00.000-07:00

This country has prided itself on it's private sector. The private sector in the United States allows for growth and competition, while providing jobs for the middle class. This is something that we have all taken for granted for far too long. For months now, people have been fearful about what could possibly happen with these bail outs. With the Federal Government OWNING the majority of our banks and another handful of our car dealerships, it was looking more and more like our fears could possibly come true. First the Federal Government took away bonuses, then they replaced CEO's, finally they even regulated CEO salaries in some of these federally owned companies. This was all pushed under the rug, because hell..."They were using MY tax dollars, I should be able to tell them how to spend it", Right?

So today I see this: http://www.latimes.com/sports/la-sp-football-congress29-2009oct29,0,5259160.story

This beautiful little link will take you to a report about how Congress spent an entire day scrutinizing the NFL! That's right! You heard me right. The Congress of The United States of America, spent the entire DAY discussing issues they have with the safety of the NFL officials. Now, last I knew the NFL was a privately owned business that DIDN'T take federal money. That's not even my BIGGEST issue with it though. My BIGGEST issue is that we're fighting TWO WARS right now, and our generals have been begging for reinforcements for nearly a year! What about our unemployment rate in the USA. Isn't THAT more important for Congress to be working on? In todays climate, the NFL is the LAST business that should be under and GOVERNMENT scrutiny.
Why is it then, that they spent an entire day, (so far) on pushing their will on a PRIVATELY OWNED SPORTS ORGANIZATION?? What business does our federal government have to do with this??

WAKE UP! They are moving in, and you are allowing for it to happen. OPEN YOUR EYES! If they go after the NFL, what HOPE will smaller businesses have when the Federal Government wants a say in THEIR business?

This needs to stop now. Not later. No more chances. Stand up and be heard. Election day is coming. VOTE THEM ALL OUT! I don't care what party you are in. If your guy is up for election, get them the hell out.

Just a little about the flu...

2009-10-26T08:25:00.000-07:00

Most people get a sniffle, and assume they have the flu while most of the time it's the common cold. Know the difference, and keep your hands clean and away from your face when you CAN'T clean them. Just use common sense and everyone will be fine. That goes for taking care of yourself if you DO get the flu.

The COMMON flu, that the country has vaccinated for, for years, STILL kills at least 36,000 people in the United States alone each year, yet it's still not classified as a pandemic, and no "national emergency" has been declared for it.

The SWINE flu has killed only 5,000 people WORLD WIDE, and it's a National Emergency? Ugh. Talk about fear mongering. The way the white house and the media are going on about it, you would think it's the next Black Death.

Will I get or have my son get the shot? HELL NO! This is why:
This vaccine contains high levels of Mercury that has been linked to GBS ( Guillain Barre Syndrome), and restriction of the levels of Mercury have been lifted JUST for this new H1N1 vaccine. Secondly, it also contains squalene. Squalene was used during the Gulf War (Gulf War Syndrome) in the Anthrax shots that were administered to the troops. Remember that? Squalene laced Anthrax shots, given to women soldiers, were accompanied by warnings not to get pregnant for the next 18 months, because it was linked to birth defects and pregnancy issues. Yet they are now making children and pregnant women priorities for this new vaccine? Another proven issue with Squalene is that when injected into animals, causes incurable, autoimmune diseases like multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis or systemic lupus. They want us to give this to our CHILDREN?

Finally, Squalene (MF 59) enzyme is not approved for human consumption but the government waived this for use in the H1N1 vaccine.

That's TWO very dangerous additives that the government has previously regulated because of proven disaster, that they are now allowing and pushing.

...Have you ever heard of Obama's Science Czar, John Holdren and his views on population control? Yeah...I think we spoke of that earlier.

Hypocrite.

2009-10-16T08:09:00.001-07:00

This blog is a simple video. Why? Because this report says it all, and there isn't a darn thing I can add to it. The fact that there are so few that SEE this is mind boggling.

Baucus Bill passes.

2009-10-14T07:07:00.000-07:00

The Baucus Bill! Wow!! "What a grand concept", so many politicians thought at first. The GASPS of excitement when it was presented with the promise to reduce the Federal Deficit by 81 BILLION dollars annually was almost deafening.

When...the euphoria wore off, and our elected officials realized that...that couldn't happen unless there was a LOT of crap in there that would screw their constituents, they actually sat down and read THIS bill, thank God, and found it to be appalling to say the least. Just after this bill was proposed, amendments en-mass flooded from both the Left AND the Right to alter it. Criticisms were thrown at every aspect of this bill, yet it was still voted on yesterday, and it actually passed Congress after only a couple of months (at best) of altering.

Now...our leaders can't decided after almost half a year of requests, to send support troops into Afghanistan, but they can totally re-write a multi-billion dollar healthcare bill in less than 2 months?? Come on now.

Then we look back at what Obama himself promised us. He PROMISED us to post these things on line for us to read before they are voted upon. They did that with the first bill, and all hell broke loose. Why? Because we finally SAW the kind of crap that our leaders were trying to pass off as Healthcare "reform". We SAW that it wasn't "reform" at all, but government funded. We SAW that their plan of running the market and setting the rules, while competing with the private sector was not conducive to competition which is needed to drive down prices. We SAW that the bill didn't even address the REAL reasons behind high cost healthcare, like TORT reform, and wondered why it was so important for the government to protect the shady lawyers of the world who push frivolous lawsuits. We demanded answers and protested. The bill died and we were pleased. The problem is that Congress has learned from it's mistake, and has decided NOT to show us what they are spending our money on in the future. Oh, the "bill" is out there alright, but it's been changed SO much, that it's not even the same bill anymore. It changed so much, that the company who audited the bill, was receiving changes well into this past weekend, that they had to take into account before Tuesdays vote. What DID they vote on, exactly??

Then this morning we wake up to the news that Rahm Emanuel ASKED the Unions to keep their opposition to the bill to themselves. Hmmm...Unions have issues with this bill and it passed? Wow! Did you see the outcry this morning by the Unions? Seems what's pissing them off is (well, the biggest thing), there's no public option. Hmmm, seems they didn't hear what I heard just last week. The bill they voted on yesterday STILL isn't done. They have already vowed that they plan on ADDING a public option TO it. The Snowe Amendment, (you know who Snowe is, right? The turncoat that's helping out the Left with their votes.) is being pushed hard by the Left, and that Amendment will add a "triggered public option" to the Baucus bill that they voted through on Tuesday. Now, she has made a point of referring to it as an "exchange" when discussing it, but IS a public option.

Not only is all of this happening, but were ANY of you aware of the fact that, out of our 30 million uninsured citizens that this is to help, only HALF of them will even be helped with this multi-billion dollar bill?

Let's watch and see how this all pans out, shall we. Take notes though, there will be many on both sides of the isle after this is all said and done, that will need to be taught an important lesson.

Vote them all out America! Let's get people in there that LISTEN to us when we say "no". This game is over. More and more of us are opening our eyes every day. These thieves are on their way OUT of our wallets.

Speak without fear.

Short and sweet.

2009-10-05T12:52:00.000-07:00

The last video is hilarious, by the way. He sure did "tip his hand" in

regard to Pakistan, but ask him about a country that may have or may be working on nuclear weapons and mum's the word.

So the long and short of it, was that he was wrong.

Obama's "good front" was Afghanistan, the same front that has been asking for reinforcements

for months.

He was even quoted as saying that he will listen to his military

commanders in regard to the fronts that our soldiers are currently fighting. He's NOT doing that.

Hell, everyone should have known that he had no idea how the military worked and how

they kept us safe, when he was quoted as saying

""When President Bush says, 'I just want to give the commanders what they want, listen to the generals,' he doesn't understand how we work here in America. Civilians control the military, and we are supposed to set the mission for the generals and then the generals should carry out the mission," Obama said at an outdoor town hall meeting." in a pre-election speech in 2007.

Today, I see this article: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091005/ap_on_go_pr_wh/us_obama_afghanistan

"The debate over whether to send as many as 40,000 more U.S. troops to Afghanistan is a major element of a strategy overhaul that senior administration policy advisers will consider this week as they gather for top-level meetings on the evolving direction of the war.

Obama has invited a bipartisan group of congressional leaders to the White House on Tuesday to confer about the war. He said the administration would brief leaders from both parties and key committee chairmen and would seek their opinions."

So, now to add insult to injury, he is meeting with suits to make military decisions. Still think he isn't using our boys as political pawns?

Back to our regularly scheduled program:

2009-10-04T17:02:00.000-07:00

Today I'm taking you back to our previous discussion about "All the Presidents Czars".

Todays topic is Obama's Science Czar, John Holdren. Now, Holdren has a HUGE list of "WTF" moments, but I find this first one to be his most offensive.

To quote an article written by Jerome Corsi with World Net Daily, Holdren was quoted as saying in a college textbook, that "illegitimate children" born to unwed mothers could be taken from their mothers and put up for adoption if they chose not to abort.

See, our good friend John Holdren believes this to be a successful way of controlling population growth. In this textbook co-authored by Paul R. Ehrlich in th 70's, they argued in FAVORE of INvoluntary birth-control measures. They believe that sterilization in the form of forced sterilization and forced abortions may be necessary, and they even claim it is MORALLY acceptable under what they consider to be "extreme conditions".

They even believe that unwed mothers should be forced to put their child up for adoption or to demonstrate her ability to support and care for "it". They called the BABY an "IT". They've even gone so far as to say that FORCING a single pregnant woman to marry or have an abortion as an alternative to adopting the child away.

Now let's see some numbers. This same author made it easy for me. 2005 statistics show, that 68.8% of African American babies were born to a single mother and only 30.5% to whites and 48% to Hispanic babies were born to single mothers.

"If you want to know how I think, look at the people I surround myself with"

--Barack Obama

What I find funny and scary at the same time, is that this was a quote from one of his debates with Senator John McCain while he was running for the Presidency. It's been scrubbed from the web in all forms. If you find it, please send it my way. I would LOVE to save this little golden tidbit of information before it's lost forever.

I'm judging you by the people that surround yourself with, Mr. President...and quite frankly, I'm sickened.

Olympics 2016

2009-10-02T08:48:00.000-07:00

The past week of news has been dedicated to the news about the President and his wife, flying to Denmark to put in a bid for the 2016 Olympics to be held in Chicago! Let's break down some things before I get into the actual point of this blog.

Do any of you remember this? "All of us must live within our means again." Were you aware of the fact that he even created a "Fiscal Responsibility working group?" I'm sure you've all heard the TERM "being fiscally responsible" MANY of times. I know I have. This is all GOOD. These are all things that got him elected, because we ALL want our government to be fiscally responsible. How about this quote. Do you remember this one? "Just words."

In comes 2009, and fiscal responsibility is thrown out the window. The White House is not the only culprit, it seems the states are doing the same, and getting a pat on the BACK from the White House. We all remember "date night" right? Ever wonder how much that one evening cost? A REPORTED 70,000.00. Now I say "reported" because the common tax payer has no real concept of the amount of money needed to pay for security via the USMC, accompanying jets courtesy of the USMC, and the fact that the Obama's actually flew in THREE, lear jets and 5 helicopters for that "private little getaway". The actual cost is well past the reported 70,000.00. I don't know...if I wanted privacy, that's the last thing I would do.

Let's remember back to the brilliant decision to fly Air Force One over Ground Zero for a "photo op." Do any of you know how much it cost to FLY Air Force One? Did you know that it cost us more than 56000.00 for ONE hour of use of Air Force One? Do the math. How much do you think we paid to FLY Obama 150 miles to VA earlier this year?

That's not nearly ALL of his "fiscally responsible" decisions year to date, and doesn't even touch on those made by our brilliant congress, but it does bring me to TODAYS big news.

Seems Mrs. Obama flew in a jet to Denmark to start her push for the 2016 Olympics in Chicago! She can't do this alone though, so Mr. Obama then hopped his OWN jet to Denmark to let HIS voice be heard. All of this, while Illinois puts up MORE than 48 MILLON dollars just for the RIGHT to bid on the Olympics. Brilliant. Where is the fiscal responsibility? It was a HUGE gamble, yet the administration backed it!

So, now after the visit, Illinois has officially been eliminated from contention, and the Obama's will return with their two jets and get back to work on IMPORTANT American issues. (so we hope) Let us sit back and see how this is reported. Maybe they will claim that Denmark is racist for not picking Chicago. Maybe they will blame it on Bush! (I put my money on that one. It seems to be their favorite.) Either way, there will be a check of 48 Million going to Illinois at some point, to "bail them out" of a bad gamble that Obama himself condemned the practice of, and then backed.

Let's see where this money comes from, shall we?

The NEWEST Healthcare Reform Bill...

2009-09-25T10:20:00.000-07:00

So, as most of you have already heard, our brilliant leaders have put yet another healthcare reform bill on the table. THIS one was hated by both sides of the table, and was followed by an overwhelming number of amendments from both the left and right.

Before everyone gets all giddy over a possible bi-partisan bill, here are a few of the things the left has blocked the right from disclosing.

As reported by senator John Thune:

Yesterday Democrats on the Senate Finance Committee, blocked proposals by Republicans to:

--Require that before the committee can vote on final passage of health care bill, the legislative language must be publicly available on the committee's website for at least 72 hours. (Obama promised disclosure and transparency. He promised posting these types of things on the website while running for the Presidency. Now the left is blocking it? Why? What are they hiding? Will Obama follow through with his promise of transparency?)

--Preserve the Medicare Advantage plans and benefits that millions of seniors currently enjoy and would lose under the Democrats' plan.

--Prohibit the establishment of federal health care rationing board. (even THEY know they will be forced to ration under this plan!)

--Include medical malpractice liability reform measures in the bill to reduce costs caused by the practice of defensive medicine. (why are they protecting the lawyers who push frivolous lawsuits? THEY are driving up our costs, and the government is letting them)

That's not all. In Wednesday's hearing, we learned that the cost of increasing taxes on businesses in the bill, will be passed onto consumers. (Now, we KNEW this, but now they are finally admitting to it. Just for translation and educational purposes, the consumers are you and me)

"We have analyzed this as largely falling on the consumer and it could happen in a couple of different ways." - Thomas Barthold, Joint Committee on Taxation Chief of Staff.

They've also begun to admit that this legislation will raise insurance premiums.

"our judgment is that this piece of legislation would raise insurance premiums by roughly the around of money collected." - Congressional Budget Office Director, Douglas Elmendorf

This is only a BIT of the questionable issues with this latest bill. People on BOTH sides of the isle should be furious about the behavior of those whom we elected to make these calls. They have thrown their commonsense out the window!

Ask your congressmen and women what they are hiding THIS time. DEMAND to see the bill before voting. THEY work for US, and do NOT know what is best for us. WE do.

Come on people. Wake up!

More boots please?

2009-09-22T11:47:00.000-07:00

When President Obama was campaigning for office in 2008, he was quoted as saying:

"The Afghan government needs to do more. But we have to understand that the situation is precarious and urgent here in Afghanistan. And I believe this has to be our central focus, the central front, on our battle against terrorism, I think one of the biggest mistakes we've made strategically after 9/11 was to fail to finish the job here, focus our attention here. We got distracted by Iraq.

For at least a year now, I have called for two additional brigades, perhaps three," he told CBS. "I think it's very important that we unify command more effectively to coordinate our military activities. But military alone is not going to be enough."

Obama repeatedly called the war in Afghanistan as “the GOOD war”, and said over and over that he wishes to end the war in Iraq, and focus on this “good war” front in Afghanistan.

Let us now fast forward to today, shall we. Today our top presidential news is and HAS been the healthcare bill that he has spent HOW much in tax dollars marketing? His most recent speech has been how we can make the country greener. Top stories have been his finger wagging at Israel and Palestine, the white house “note” about terror attacks, and a very general description of the situation in regards to what was leaked by the current administration.

I’ve yet to see one big story about how there was talk about the need for more troops in the beginning of August, and a formal request for more troops in the beginning of September, and how there are STILL NO TROOPS being sent to Afghanistan! His excuse for not addressing this issue before his healthcare baby? He wants a strategy before he will send more troops. Really?? Isn’t that funny. Why is that funny, you ask? Because when General McChrystal asked for 6 brigades, he presented a strategy! What ever happened to his promise to listen to his generals? Out the window with the rest of his promises, I’m sure.

Obama was TOLD that Afghanistan was not Iraq. He was told that it was a different terrain and harder to fight. He ignored us. He chose to pull from Iraq, and place into Afghanistan anyway, and the death toll this year is now higher than it was last year.

NOW, the left is recommending to him that he drop it all together, all the while, leaving the men and women that are out there now, short handed.

RED TAPE is KILLING our soldiers every year, because an inexperienced President, with zero military experience has decided that he wants this to be a political war. He’s actually said “there is no immediate decision pending.” You know it’s because it’s far more important for him to go on 5 Sunday talk shows and David Letterman, right? Those troops can take the back burner to his celebrity any day.

This is what we have as a leader? This is the best the best country in the world has to offer? We should all be ashamed. He sent our boys and gals into a country to die, and finds it more important to fluff his feathers in front of a camera, than to send them reinforcements. Of all the shameful things that he has done this year, this one takes the cake.

Good job Mr. President. I hope you’re wearing gloves. Their blood will be hard to get off of your hands.

Playing politics with the lives of young men and women. Shameful.

Christmas, Hanukah, and Quanza, oh my!

2009-09-16T13:07:00.000-07:00

It's that time of year! The kids are back to school, the leaves are changing, we're all planning our big holiday gatherings, and the schools aren't allowing for traditional Christmas carols to be sung in the Christmas concert that is now called a "Holiday concert."

I think every year we all brace for this topic, because let's face it, every year we, as Christians are asked to give up even more of our Christmas season in an attempt to be "PC".

As with most of my blogs, this topic was triggered by something. This time it was the songs my son brought home for the "Holiday" concert this year. Expecting to see silly songs that were altered to be more "PC" I thumbed through the list. Imagine my surprise when I found a Hanukah song. They butchered "God Rest Ye Merry Gentlemen", by making it into a song about teachers giving out homework, but are to sing this Hanukah song, with all kinds of details about the celebration of lights.

Am I "offended" by Hanukah? No. Hanukah is a beautiful holiday! What I AM offended by is the fact that they don't mention any of the Christian OR Quanza beliefs at all, and Quanza isn't even religious...is it?! Why are some to be censored, but others not? Is it because we don't complain enough? Is that how it works? No matter the FACT that there are more Christians in this country than any other faith...because we're not loud enough, we are the ones to be censored?

This behavior needs to stop. We came to this country for religious freedoms, and now our faith is "offensive"? Who can REALLY be offended by a FAITH? When someone celebrates Hanukah, and wishes me a HAPPY Hanukah, do I get angry and correct them? No. They don't know what I celebrate. They are only sending wishes my way! I'm flattered that they take the time to even say it. Why is it that I'm not allowed to say "Merry Christmas"? I've actually been TOLD not to say "Christmas", but "Holiday" in the work place. I've been given dirty looks by those I wish "Merry Christmas". I've been CORRECTED by Atheists who are "offended" by my audacity to wish anything upon them that may possibly have to do with God, as though I'm dooming them in some way. The funniest party is that those same atheists CELEBRATE Christmas with a tree and everything. Why can't people simply take the "wish" as it is meant to be?

Baby Jesus is no longer being displayed in many locations, but you will find a Menorah and other religious icons. Remember why our ancestors came here. They were bring persecuted for their religion, their faith. Do we want to go back to that? There IS no faith that is "better" or more acceptable than the rest. We are all from the same belief that there is a higher being. If you are offended by the belief of others, maybe you're not as solid in your own faith as you should be. Instead of censoring MY faith, it may be a better idea for you to become more educated on your own.

In closing...Merry Christmas, Happy Hanukah, and Blessed Quanza! SAY IT WITHOUT FEAR THIS YEAR! Be proud of your belief and tell those screaming "politically correct", that our FAITH has nothing to do with politics.

Remembrance.

2009-09-11T08:37:00.000-07:00

Because today is 9/11 I will deviate from my normal political posts and remember September 11, 2001.

We were all home that day. My son being only 2, we were snuggled in bed watching cartoons together. The phone rang, and the voice on the other end was panicked and crying. All she said was, "They're killing them! We're under attack." Thinking it was a sick joke, I left the room to try and figure out who it was on the line. After what seemed like forever, I realized it was my mother in law, who was living in Arizona at the time, in a complete panic. I finally turned on the news just in time to see the first tower fall...and fell to my knees in tears.

To this day, 8 years later, I cry when I hear the bells ring in remembrance of those who died that day.

Today I will pray and cry for all of those who died, and survived that terrible day. May we never forget the sacrifices of those who brought down the final plane in Pittsburgh and all of the emergency crews who rushed to the rescue of those in the towers...only to perish with them.

May God bless and hold you all close to his heart.

First list of Czars

2009-09-04T13:34:00.000-07:00

Two in one day? WOW!

So here's a little bit about just a couple of the Obama Administrations 33 Czars, as promised.

Regulation Czar:

Cass Sunstein. Mr. Sunstein has said that he believes the government should presume consent and harvest organs for transplant, unless they EXPLICITLY indicate that their organs are not to be used for transplant. WHAT?

Sunstein was quoted as saying, "The major obstacle to increasing donations is to get the consent of surviving family members." So... basically, he just wants to eliminate that obstacle all together and "assume" that I would have WANTED my kidney to go to the guy down the hall? Ummmmm...

He's also a backer of what's called a "mandated choice". This is basically that if you don't CHOOSE when you get your license, you won't HAVE a choice when you pass. They will simply harvest your organs with our without you or your family's consent. How's that sound to you? Pretty shitty IMO.

He also thinks that we need to be counseled and that governments should follow the the state of Illinois' example and try and influence people by making organ donation seem popular. He believes that we are incapable of making what he says "the right decision," but that we will gravitate to what we believe to be the "popular" thing to do. Great...not he thinks we're stupid?

That's not ALL the bad about this guy, but if listed it all about each of them, each would have their own blog and I simply don't have the time for that one.

Next we have someone most of you may have heard of.

Green Czar: (as the president calls him "special advisor")

Mr. Van Jones. Mr. Van Jones is a monster all of his own.Mr. Jones was part of the Apollo Alliance. These are the people responsible for this TERRIBLE stimulous package. That's bad enough, right. There's more. Not only is he a self proclaimed "communist"/"anarchist" and spent the next TEN years as a radicle who taught revolution through his use of marxism. Many may not know this, but he also has very racist views about Caucasians in general. So much so, that he truly believes that the white man is deliberately poisoning African Americans through pollution. He truly believes that white people are the only ones who pollute.

I've got so much on Jones that I could go on forever...but I'm going to end it with this.:

Jones is a 9/11 Truther. The same people that believe that our president and high level politicians LET 9/11 happen on purpose. He signed a petition that suggested that people in the administration of President Bush, "may indeed have deliberately ALLOWED 9/11 to happen, perhaps as a pretext for war", and then had the audacity to say that he didn't read the petition before signing it, so he can't be held responsible for it!

HOURS after the 9/11 attacks he was quoted as saying "Anti-Arab hostility is already reaching a fever pitch as pundits and common people alike rush to judgment that an Arab group is responsible for this tragedy,"

Read into these two men, people. They are only 2 of the 30+ czars that have our presidents ear, and more power than you can imagine. I'll show you more about others when I have more time.

Town hall meeting?

2009-09-04T11:10:00.001-07:00

We all know what a town hall meeting is, right? Traditionally it's a meeting with our politicians where everyone in the community is invited. Lately our town halls have become quite televised because of the uproar that has been voice over the healthcare bill. When our Senators first began these meetings, I understood that many underestimated the amount of people who would show up. I expected there to be an overflow, and many not to be able to gain access to these meetings. I also expected that the first few instances would be learned from, and more of our Senators would take the numbers into account and reserve locations where there was no worry of overflow, and all community members could attend. Sadly, only a small few have taken this step, and every day we hear more and more about members of communities all over the country, who aren't allowed to sit in on one of these town halls.

Sadder still, I hear about bus loads of protesters shipped in from outside the community, getting access to these town halls before the community members themselves, in a desperate attempt to portray the meeting as successful.

What brought this blog into being? The biggest trigger was a copy of a letter I received from a close friend of mine, outlining the actual events that took place when President Obama himself decided to visit the predominately Republican state of Montana early last month. Seems harmless enough that the President would visit any town he wishes to push his healthcare bill. More power to him, I say. The problem is that is not exactly what happened. Now, I don't know why this shocks me because let's admit it, Obama has been all about "smoke and mirrors" since we've known he existed.

On with what I was informed. For the most part, the media was very good about reporting that the "town hall" in Montana was uneventful in regards to large protests or outbursts. I kind of wondered how that could be, considering the political leaning of so many who live in Montana, but this letter cleared that right up for me. Seems as though Mr. Obama is still fabricating "town halls" in an attempt to fix his ever falling approval numbers.

In this small little town of Montana, word travels fast, so even though much of what I am about to tell you was meant to be kept on the "down low", people hear it. People talk.

A local printer was asked to print up 1500 tickets to be passed out to local community members to attend this "town hall" with the president. The actual number of community members to attend were not only hand picked by the administration, was 600. Where did the other 900 tickets go? Who were those people, and why were THEY brought into this meeting before the community members? The most basic of definitions of "town hall" is clear. The term "community" does not encompass those who you bus in.

Another big problem that I found was the astronomical amount of money that he is spending on these fake "town halls". This meeting alone, the administration flew in "supplies" for an entire week before the meeting. They chose a remote location, that was easier to control the media with, and because of the location they even had to ship in chairs and tables. To make it even worse, with Montana being one of the biggest beef producers in the country, one would think that Obama would help support the local economy while he was there. Not the case. In stead Obama shipped in THOUSANDS of dollars of LOBSTER. Hell, he didn't even do it thought the USPS. He shipped UPS for crying out loud.

To make matters worse, the locals organized a protest, obtained the required permit to protest, gathered in their designated area...and in comes a BUS LOAD of SEIU members who strong-armed the locals out of their location, and the police were helpless to do a damn thing about it.

Why am I so angry? I'm angry because our president is blowing millions on FAKE town halls to play politics. This is OUR money. We are in a major recession, and the ONLY ones that haven't cut back are our politicians. Every day, every second, our debt increases, and every day they spend money like they have a tree spitting out dollar bills in the white house.

Many will throw their arms in the air and claim that Bush spent a lot too. Damn straight he did. He had a military that had been suffering for 8 years to rebuild. He and Congress voted to go to war! Not to mention the everyday expenses faced by any administration.

Too many have their eyes closed too tightly. Too many are fearful of saying how they feel because the big "come back" has been that you must be racist. That one word can destroy a career and a reputation, and the Left knows that. But what the left doesn't know is that their using that word as frivolously as they have, has lessoned the impact. They have done themselves more harm than good.

My only request. WATCH, LISTEN, LEARN, and as Beck says, SPEAK WITHOUT FEAR.

What would Reagan do?

2009-08-28T16:32:00.000-07:00

"Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

There are many ways in which our government has invaded the precincts of private citizens, the method of earning a living. But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this trip is with us and at the moment is more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand said, if we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, they can we can expand the program after that. Well, let's see what the socialists themselves had to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed, this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Well, we can't say we haven't been warned.

James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention said: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

Now in our country under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world’s history. The only true revolution. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relation to man, a little group of the men, the founding fathers for the first time – established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny.

This freedom was built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today. And strangely we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rule is all that is needed. Well, majority rule is a fine aspect of democracy, provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minorities.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms and that you demand the continuation of our traditional free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen, even if we believe that he's on our side to begin with, write to strengthen his hand. Write those letters now. Call your friends and tell them to write. If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country... until one day as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free."

--Ronald Reagan

What is a Czar?

2009-08-26T16:32:00.001-07:00

Since the beginning of Obama’s term we have learned a lot in this country. One of the newest things that we’ve learned is a nice little word called “Czar”. Just a quick definition of what a Czar really is. A Czar is “and Emperor or King. An Autocratic ruler or leader, or a great authority or power in a particular field.” Just the definition alone of the word “czar” has got to give you the heeby-jeebies. Now, there have been czars in American history, but never to the level that they are being used today, nor SHOULD there be. A czar has too much power and no accountability because they are not elected officials. We the people have no say in how he does his job, and when we want him out of office. We also have no say on WHO gets appointed, and they get their appointments without having to gain senate approval in most instances. They are simply whomever the President wants to place in that position and draw a paycheck from the American taxpayers.

So now we all know a little more about how a czar comes into power, and we have a better understanding of the level of power, and our comparative weakness against them. Our next step is to look into exactly how MANY czars we are dealing with so far in this administration. To be totally fair, I will first list the number of czars held by the previous TWO administrations.

First let’s start with President Clinton. Mr. Clinton had a total of 4 czars, and never more than 2 czars at any one time. His czars dealt only with AIDS and Border Control. (senate confirmed)

Next we have President George Bush. In his 8 years, Mr. Bush had a total of 12 people work as czars for 9 offices. Those offices were as follows: AIDS, bank bailout, bird flu,(senate confirmed) bioethics, budget, clean up (nuclear/senate confirmed), cyber security, domestic policy, and drug.(senate confirmation)

Finally, let us look at the czars that Obama has already appointed in less than a years time. Mr. Obama currently has 32, soon to be 35 czars in his administration doing everything from monitoring the war front to monitoring California WATER! Less than 2 months ago, he only had 16 czars, and back when Bush only had 8 the media was drooling at the opportunity to rake him over the coals for it! Why are so many so silent over Obama’s 32 and GROWING number?

Let’s take this a bit farther, shall we? Does anyone remember Ivan the Terrible? All was fine with him until his wife died…and then all hell broke loose. There was no one to challenge his power. He even had the power to dictate what their police did and did not do. In his reign, he was able to gain followers, who benefited from others hard work, because Ivan played a typical “Robin Hood" role who took from the rich and gave to his supporters.

Isn’t that scary? It should be. He is exactly what any of those 35 czars can become, and look at the history created by ONE man. One czar. We have a certain amount of power in our government. Thank God our forefathers protected us by giving us the right to vote for our leaders. Now our leaders have taken it upon themselves to APPOINT people with more power than our own police force, and pay them with our tax dollars.

Am I pushing this all on Obama? No way! The idea of a czar NEVER should have come into this country! Shame on Clinton for using them, but thank God he used them sparingly. Shame on Bush for using them, and DOUBLE shame on Obama for not only using them, but continually appointing czar after czar for every task under the sun.

Now, we have to look at this from yet another angle. Why the czars? Why the over-delegation? Why have SO many hands in the pot…unless…he has NO idea what the hell he is doing, and needs to have pawns to take the blame when he fails miserably? Think about it logically for a moment. If you were handed a position, and had no clue as to how to do it…wouldn’t YOU find someone to do it for you? Sure! The problem is that we the people elected Barack Obama to do these jobs because he told us he was ready. He told us that he wasn’t as inept as we thought he was. He promised that he knew how to run this country…but his answer was to delegate every responsibility to another (not elected) person, and put people in power with questionable histories and mentalities. Is this what we want for our government to become?

When I have time next, I will begin to outline WHO our czars are, and their beliefs that they have made pretty clear to the public. Until then, I would think long and hard about what a czar is, the power he/she holds, and if we WANT that for our country. Will a czar, with all his power...really make us safer or more free? Is a human being good or bad...capable of having that much power with no checks or balances?

The Current Healthcare issue, and our children

2009-08-11T19:00:00.000-07:00

Today I submit my feelings to you, in hopes to open minds or maybe start a dialog with those who would normally disregard me, or my views, because of political stereotypes. Before I get too far into how I feel about the state of the union, I think it’s important to tell you all a little about myself, in an attempt to strike common ground.

I think we’ve all got our own stories, and our own reasons for our political views. Many learn their views from their parents. Many learn from their own lives. I’m one that learned what I know from life. My mother is actually on the other side of the political spectrum from me. I’m certain she’s not remotely proud of this fact, but in the end I based my views on the way I see the world.

The majority of my life, I was raised by a single parent. My mother, my brother and my sister, and I lived on a plot of land, 10 miles out of town. We never had much. Gifts came not from a treat or a thank you, but only at Christmas and birthdays. It was what it was. Life was hard, and we knew it. Don’t get me wrong, I look back at what I learned as a child, and I thank God that I was given a view into that life, so that I could better decide what I wanted from my life when I got older.

Not too long before I graduated high school, my mother married my current father. An ex- local politician, I always admired his passions and articulate way of communication. I found myself reading more, and learning more about politics during that time of my life. Not because he wanted me to, in fact I don’t even think he knew I was so interested in politics until this past election.

Like most Republicans, I was silent. As angry as I was about the Republican party changing throughout the years, it was more important for me to go to work and sock away money to pay my bills with.

I moved from home a week after graduation to live in a basement apartment of a great family that owned a resort in the Poconos. I saved and saved until I could afford my first car, and that’s when life took over. I met my soon to be husband, only to leave him while I tried my hand at a business school in Pittsburgh. Sadly the school didn’t work out, and was totally not what I wanted out of life, so I returned back to work at the resort and spend time with my boyfriend.

Soon after we moved to Allentown, where we lived in what was in essence a garage, for a few years, while I helped get him through school. I worked hard for a local long-term care company, based out of Allentown, and was gradually promoted to more and more responsible positions. This is when I began learning about insurance in general. While I adored the insurance that this company offered, I soon learned from the elderly folks that I spoke to regularly in this position, that health insurance was changing. I was blessed, at the time, and because I worked for an insurance company, and didn’t need much to live on, I didn’t know just how great my insurance was until I got pregnant.

The life of living paycheck to paycheck, and eating oodles of noodles, was over. I had another mouth to feed. I chose to stay home with my son at that point, and because I left, my family lost the insurance that my job offered. That’s when we realized just how expensive healthcare insurance was. We could still swing it, though. For years we were able to continue with our healthcare insurance, until one year we made a decision that would come back to bite us in the butt. Hoping to pay down credit card bills accumulated, we decided to drop our employer group healthcare insurance policy. We were healthy, and my son was covered by the state if we NEEDED it. There was no need to continue to burden ourselves with an insurance policy if it was just making our lives more difficult.

Not too long after we made that decision, 9/11 hit, my husband lost his job, and my doctor began to find suspicious lumps that needed to be removed. Now I was uninsurable, and we had no group plan to insure though anyway. Private insurance was a fortune, so we went through the process out of pocket. Thankfully, not too long after that we moved to Arizona where he was hired with a relatively large company, worked with them, with some pretty good insurance, and then came home to PA. Sadly, because of cutbacks, he lost his job again. Leaving us uninsured. Because my lumps came back as cysts, I was lucky, I was still insurable, but with unemployment the price was too high.

Finally he found his new temporary position, we found that they didn’t have a group policy. We thought we would be fine, but bad news struck again, and I was in need of multiple tests and surgery to remove a tumor from my abdomen. Believing that I would never be able to obtain care from a reputable doctor, I was depressed to say the least. Thankfully I was able to obtain one of the best doctors in one of the best hospitals in this part of the country. I was braced to pay my fees out of pocket. My doctor was willing to work with me to pay these fees, and give me the best care that I could get. Just before the surgery, my husband’s temporary employer was able to obtain a VERY expensive group insurance policy for us…and after much discussion we decided to go for it. I mean…why not? Either way we would be paying for it. We choose the cheapest avenue at the time, even though it was very hard for us to pay the premiums. Since then, we’ve had more and more medical issues in our family, and have learned through trial and error, never to drop our insurance policy to save some dough.

My story isn’t out of the ordinary. There are many of us who have gone through this type of ordeal, as we grow older. Many if not all of us need to live and learn. The idea of just doing what we are told is alien to us. Do I expect you, your family, friends, or MY family and friends, to foot the bill for the decisions I made as I grew into myself? No. In fact, even as I was going through my hard times, I never once thought of welfare or someone bailing me out of the hole that I dug myself into.
Even going through the issues I went through, I paid my child’s doctor bills out of pocket, no matter how much it strained us, because the idea of using a government plan was foreign to me. The idea of blaming or forcing someone to pick me up when I fell, was and is, the most absurd thing I can think of.

Some may be reading this, and saying that they didn’t dig their own hole, that someone else put you where you are today. I know it’s hard, but take it from someone that lived on less than 7000.00 a year and still paid for insurance, there’s always a way.

I learned that in life, we must choose our priorities. What’s more important? Getting that cool new game system for our child or paying for the important stuff like healthcare insurance? As I grew into an adult, I watched more and more people complain about the simplest things. I witnessed a friend complain about a 20.00 co-pay in the same breath as he told me about a beach vacation he just took. I spoke to another friend complain about her deductable while also telling me about a new TV and recreational vehicle she had just purchased.

As much as I love our country, I’ve grown to realize that we have become lazy. We are selfish. We have come to expect someone to dig us out of our messes, and this turns my stomach.

WANTS should always take the back burner to NEEDS. If we all lived our lives knowing there was no one there to bail us out, we wouldn’t MAKE bad investments. We wouldn’t over extend ourselves in an effort to keep up with the Jones’s.

Every day I watch people blame our economy on big business or politicians. Every day I watch people push for a government-funded healthcare that would raise ALL of our taxes. But did any of you stop to think logically about what you’re pushing for? We are taking choice away from our children and grandchildren. When this plan is said and done 8 to 10 years from now, we will all be a part of it, and our children and grandchildren will no longer have the CHOICE that WE had. Is that fair? I have to wonder if most people are actually thinking that far into the future.

For far too long now, voters have voted in the “here-and-now”. What we need to remember is that what we vote for today, will affect our children and our children’s children. Do we really want the future of our children to be in the hands of the government alone? Is that really what our forefathers wanted for us?

I raised my son to put need before want, and with hard work and determination he will one day be able to give his family what I could not give him. This government insurance policy is making a mockery of a wholesome lesson that we should all be teaching our children.

I’m in no way saying that we don’t need some kind of reform in the insurance system, but this isn’t reform. This is in essence a “hostile takeover” of the healthcare industry, under the guise of healthcare “reform”. You simply cannot reform something by burning it to the ground and giving us no option but to accept what is left. In this case what will be left will BE the government plan.

This plan will not only put undue strain on insurance companies that will lose income, and result in job loss, it will also force companies (our employers) to pay not only for our private group plans, but part time employee medical coverage, and be taxed for the government plan to cover the uninsured. The next logical step, so that the companies may continue to pay their employees is to drop healthcare benefits or terminate employees. This bill would then require the employee who just lost their benefits to be funneled into the government group plan, upping taxes again, while taking more customers from the private sector, making it harder for them to maintain operations. Ultimately, the government option becomes the only option because they will have driven all of the competition out of business.

Is this what our Senators are telling us? No, they don’t want us to protest the plan. They want us to be on board, and keep voting them into office. They need to take over the healthcare industry. Why? Because they have driven the national debt to an all time high, and there is nowhere near enough tax revenue to make up the difference. The next best option is to take over the industry that represents 1/7 of the US economy.

Please understand that this is not paranoia. I’m not a far-right, overly religious wacko, crying that the sky is falling. This is common sense that too many people are blinded to in today’s day and age, because of their own political outrage over things that have happened, and they had no control over. This isn’t about Left and Right. This isn’t about sticking it to the Republicans. This is about what is best for our children, and our children’s children. Do we really want to expand government into the role of universal caretaker? Have we become so lazy that we need the government to be our “baby-sitter”? Do we not want our children to be brought up to be independent, self sufficient, and free?

I remember during the Bush years, the idea of government becoming too big was appalling to the Left. Now it’s not only big, but it’s trying to become bigger at your expense.

I ask you all to think about what it is that you are asking the government to do. I ask you all to take the time to read the bills that are being presented to our congressmen and women, and be fully informed. I ask you all to ask questions when you are uncertain, fight for what you feel is right, and to accept the fact that there is always another point of view and others that are just as passionate as you.

Maybe we should all remember that we are Americans before we are Republican or Democrat. If we remember this, maybe one day we can find common ground and a solution to the healthcare problem that this country is facing. This proposal is not the make or break of America as we know it. The last time we pushed something through without reading it, we ended up 800 billion dollars in debt and unemployment rose to 10%. Read the bill. Force your Congressmen and women to read the bill. Don’t take anyone’s word for it, because in the end, if this passes, good or bad, we have only ourselves to blame.

"Mob" mentality?

2009-08-05T16:39:00.000-07:00

So for the past few days I've been hearing the Left on numerous news reports, calling the protests at the town halls, orchestrated and mob like. These same people claim they want a meaningful debate...yet openly said they don't need the Republicans votes, and will push through this bill with or without the help of the Right.
Let's replay that for a second...

The protesters are fake...the dissent they are voicing is fake...they say they want a debate with the Right...but that they will push their bill through without them.

Am I the only one that sees a problem with the way they are handling things? We've BEEN voicing problems with this bill. We've BEEN trying to have a meaningful debate of some kind and have gotten nowhere because the Left doesn't listen. Now we're told that the Left is going to ignore the votes from the right and push the bill through regardless?? We put those people in office so that our voices would be heard. How DARE one side completely silent the other.

So all of this was bad enough, I'm watching an interview with a California Senator that's complaining again, about the "mobs" that have shown up at the town halls. He says he understands the anger, but kept dwelling on the extremists that showed up burning effigy's of some of the Senators, and displaying swastikas.
That made me think...

So the Left doesn't LIKE this type of protesting? Funny...did you ever see them step up in the past 8 years denouncing it when it was aimed at Republicans? Ring any bells?
This is just Bush. Effigies of many Republicans and the American flag were burned often by the protesters on the side of the Left.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=f2m_S8X0xso

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Mbxbq5eHnXQ

How about those lovely pictures that we've had to endure for the past 8 years portraying Bush and his administration as nazi's or Hitler.

Do a search on how many planned protests there are throughout the country every single year. Suddenly it's wrong to organize a protest? What BETTER time to protest something, or to voice discontent, than when your senator is right there?

You want discussion? You screwed that up when you took the Republican vote off the table. Now I'm joining the "mob".
Democrat leaders screwed the pooch on that one.

The State of Things.

2009-07-01T11:10:00.000-07:00

So, for the past year or so, we've all noticed how our economy has suffered, our investments have stopped growing, our jobs have disappeared, and prices have skyrocketed.
Most of us have stopped focusing on the BIG picture, because let's face it, that's all we can handle. It's easier to focus on our measly paychecks, our mountain of bills, and our lack of a nest-egg than to really look into what this means on a larger scale. I mean...who cares about the market, when I can't pay for food AND my electric bills, right?

One has to wonder if that's what our elected officials are counting on. If we are too focused on our little lives to protest what has been going on (I mean what's REALLY going on), in the rest of the country, they won't have to worry about the nation rebelling. I mean, what do you think would happen if people who spent the past umpteen years with their hands over their ears and eyes closed tight suddenly paid attention? Those thieves would be tarred and feathered, that's what. Our elected officials are COUNTING on our own self preservation. They are counting on our focus on the little things, because it leaves us little to no time to really sit down and SEE what's been going on.

Now, we've all seen the whack-jobs in both parties. We see those who preach "peace at all cost", and those who preach "kill them all, and God can sort them out." We've seen the conspiracy theorists, and those who swear that the Anti-Christ is here. We've seen those who vote blindly, so as to be part of "history", and those with so much racist hate...it's down right scary.

I, in no way, want to sound like any of those extremists because, honestly I'm not one. I believe in a small government and conform to Thomas Jefferson's view that "A government that is big enough to give you all you want is big enough to take it all away."
I believe in very LITTLE government assistance, and no government assistance at all in the private sector. When you give your government too much access to your money, they seem to think they have some sort of right to tell you how to spend it. Think you want a big screen TV? Not if the government doesn't think you "need" it. Think you've earned a vacation? Not if the government thinks that money should go to the guy down the street who lost his job because he was surfing the web during work hours.
The more power you give, the less you have. That's my mentality.

I've gone off on a little tangent. Let me explain what made me want to write down a bit of what I've been thinking about.

Less than 2 months ago, when rates were low, I took the opportunity to refinance my mortgage. Citi was failing miserably. The fed was dumping tax money, hand over fist into a failing bank, and the idea of my mortgage, my home, becoming federally owned was not an appetizing thought. It's one thing to default on your loan with a bank, but if "the people" own your home when you default...what happens THEN?

I chose to refinance through a bank right here in PA. I got an amazing rate, and knew that I was with a small, but strong bank that took very little TARP funds. I was rather proud of myself. My first payment was not due to the first of July...and in that time I received two letters regarding my new mortgage. First, my mortgage was sold to Countrywide, which was purchased with TARP money by Bank Of America. SUCKS! I leave one federally funded bank and get sold to a worse one? WTF? Then I'm told that Bank Of America is servicing my account, but that my mortgage is now a Fannie Mae mortgage.
I leave a bank that is dangerously close to becoming federally owned and run, only to be railroaded into a worse bank that is even CLOSER to being federally owned and Fannie Mae???

I was/am infuriated. In essence, I was told that I have NO power over who I place my moneys with or whom I choose to do business with. How am I supposed to protect myself, my family and my money, if the banks that I choose to avoid are using federal dollars to buy off the few banks that AREN'T federally owned? This is happening across the country and there is no way to stop it. A bank with federal TARP money (YOUR MONEY), can buy off any debt that you've accrued through any source. This means, in very little time the federal government can feasibly own everything that everyone in the country has yet to payoff. If you still owe money on it, the federal government will own it.

Now, in the past year or so, the federal government has shown "compassion" to the irresponsible and the criminal. They lifted them from the holes that they dug themselves, padded their pockets and sent them on their way. Unfortunately, their actions have screwed all of us that went into our investments responsibly. What will happen to ME, when I can no longer pay for my mortgage because I'm being taxed to pay for everyone else's bad financial decisions? "The people's home" (my home), will be pooled into the enormous catalog of federally owned assets that the government will redistribute.

Do I sound paranoid? Do I sound like I'm trying to predict the future of events? Maybe, but let's be honest. There is no evidence to indicate otherwise. This administration and this congress have exhibited no restraint in forcing the expansion of government programs ( that's socialism for those who don't recognize it).
They have continually thwarted the efforts of the opposing party, to even attempt to make an informed decision on legislation that expands government and wastes tax dollars.
We are not only allowing our government to reward the lazy and dishonest, but we are allowing our government to prevent any future opposition to the foundation that they are unlawfully building towards a dictatorship.

This isn't a partisan rant. I'm not pointing the finger at any one party. The entire body of elected officials is to blame. Every last vote has been put up for sale. While we bicker over Left and Right and over who is buying who's vote, the government has quite obviously seized the opportunity to make a power-grab. We hand our voice to the elected officials, who then cave to the highest bidder. What happens when the money runs out? When there are no more lobbyists, because the government owns everything? When our officials have taken away our liberty, in favor of expanding their own budgets and silencing dissenting voices, how will we reverse the trend? By the time we wake up, and recognize the changes, it will be too late. We will no longer have the liberty to do anything about it.
We have done this to ourselves. We have forgotten the lessons of our Founding Fathers. We have forgotten that the government works for US. Not vice-versa.

If you think I'm kidding, try and contact your congressmen/women. Call their offices. Ask them about the legislation that is being pushed through and why the bills aren't being read before voting. ASK them why the bills are being presented at the last possible second before the vote so that the other party doesn't have a chance to read them or dispute them. Ask them why they ALLOW for this to happen. If you get through, and get an honest answer, if you're not laughed at and called stupid by whomever answers the phone, if the number hasn't been disconnected or changed, please let me know. All the reports that I have heard, from people trying to express their constituent's concern to their congressmen or senator, have all been road-blocked. The government is cutting us off. They don't care what we want, they have an agenda, and it doesn't take into account the people who put them in power.

Just my 2 cents on the state of the union. Put that in your teleprompter and smoke it.