The Secret Plan to Destroy America
I recently discovered this 2006 article by the ex-Governor of Colorado, Richard Lamm. The title of his article was “My plan to Destroy America” and outlines 8 steps to accomplish this plan. What I found astonishing is how the plan maps to the general strategies and tactics of the Progressive’s in America.
Mr. Lamm correctly points out that “History shows that nations are more fragile than their citizens think. No nation in history has survived the ravages of time. Arnold Toynbee observed that all great civilizations rise and they all fall, and that an autopsy of history would show that all great nations commit suicide.”
While all of his suggestions seem plausible to destroy a country, the two that I found most interesting were his suggestion that to destroy America, one must “place all these subjects to destroy America off-limits and make them taboo to talk about”. He suggests that he would “find words similar to “heretic” in the 16th century that stopped discussion and paralyzed thinking. Words like “racist,” and “xenophobe” halt argument and conversation”. The other suggestion was that he would “make it impossible to enforce the immigration laws in this country” – sound familiar?
Click here to read the entire contents of his article “My Plan to Destroy America”
Health Care Vote Ignites GOOOH Membership Surge
GOOOH.com recently welcomed its one millionth visitor as health care frenzy peaked and the Congress’ approval rating neared an all-time low, according to Gallup. Representative Joe Perriello of VA, speaking of our government’s out of control spending admitted, “If you don’t tie our hands, we will keep stealing.” Reactions to fiscal malfeasance, partisan bickering, and ethics violations are fueling the accelerating growth of the non-partisan GOOOH plan (pronounced “go”) to replace all 435 members of the U.S. House of Representatives with true citizen legislators.
CLICK HERE TO READ THE FULL ARTICLE TEXT.
Straight Talk from Krauthammer on Obamacare
In case you missed it. I believe he is “spot on” with the concept of a Value Added Tax (VAT). Hold on to your wallets.
Federal Spending and the Gimmicks
Once of my favorite illustrations is Political Math’s overview of the federal budget. Essentially, what’s mandatory and discretionary. After viewing, you can see why the US is in dire straits when it comes to managing these expanding deficits.
We often hear of “Pay-Go-as-You-Go” as one of the solutions to combat these aggressive spending plans by the Administration. This is especially true given the $787 billion for “stimulus” (you be the judge if actually stimulated anything), $410 billion omnibus in fiscal 2009, the new Health care reform bill, and the $3.5 trillion 2010 budget. The pitch goes something like this “Congress can only spend a dollar if it saves a dollar elsewhere.” Remember, back in 2006, Namcy Pelosi promised that this would be the first thing the Democrats would do (imposing paygo rules). Lets not forget that candidate Barack Obama repeated the paygo pledge during his 2008 campaign. , and instead we have witnessed the greatest peacetime spending binge in U.S. history.
As WSJ.com points out “The truth is that paygo is the kind of budget gimmick that gives gimmickry a bad name. As Mr. Obama knows but won’t tell voters, paygo only applies to new or expanded entitlement programs, not to existing programs such as Medicare, this year growing at a 9.2% annual rate. Nor does paygo apply to discretionary spending, set to hit $1.4 trillion in fiscal 2010, or 40% of the budget.” The loopholes don’t end there. There’s an exception for Congress’s annual alternative-minimum tax “patch,” which is worth at least $576 billion over 10 years; for any of the Bush tax cuts that Mr. Obama decides he wants to extend past 2010; and to protect against planned cuts in Medicare doctor payments. These carve-outs alone spare Democrats from having to come up with some $2.5 trillion in spending cuts or new taxes. As the WSJ points out “The paygo ruse gives Blue Dog Democrats cover to say they voted for “fiscal discipline,” even as they vote to pass the greatest entitlement expansion in modern history. The Blue Dogs always play this double game.”
The question become will Americans detect this pattern of spend, apologize and repeat? I guess we will find out in November of 2010 and 2012.
The Math Doesn’t Work
Our nation seems to be on the verge of bankruptcy but Democrats and Republicans both spend more money than we have, and we keep re-electing them. Doesn’t owing $12.5 trillion dollars matter? How can we spend $4 billion more each day than we take in, or to promise people benefits we can’t possibly afford? It doesn’t work that way in my home or at the office; is government so different? The politicians say we are going to give free health care to 30 million people and save money; what a deal. So shouldn’t we offer free health care to 60 million and save twice as much?
There is an organization called GOOOH that is working to send 435 citizen representatives to Washington instead of career politicians, which sounds like a great idea to me, and so I’ve signed up. I’m sick of the mess in Washington.
Getting to know Syrah and Wordpress Plugins
A pretty odd combination, huh? Well, in my quest to tighten up my blog, I thought I’d add some Snooth.com recommendations. I found a useful widget from Ncholas Krut (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/snooth-widget/) – essential a sidebar widget to display snooth updates (as determined by me at snooth.com). The tricky part with the plug in is that I had to manual edit the script to include my snooth numeric ID and hardcode the hash code to ensure the snooth recommendation file was properly formed in the code. The configuration entries from the widget control didn’t work (I plugged in my userid and hash code but the script still didn’t resolve correctly. Thus, the need for hardcode in the widget script).
I also found a useful widget, “widget logic” (http://wordpress.org/extend/plugins/widget-logic/) that allows dynamic control on the placement of widgets based on logic (e.g. using the is_home() function, I can have a particular widget only placed on the blog home page). This allows me to turn off various widgets on selected pages (which was my goal).
In the meantime, my original goal was to provide a nice reference here to Snooth’s “Getting to Know Syrah”. Commentary on the widely planted and adaptable noble grape. Snooth | Getting to know Syrah.
Bernie Madoff vs. Social Security
I’ve often wondered wondered why Social Security isn’t compared to a Ponzi Scheme given that it, by definition, it pays returns to separate investors from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors, rather than from any actual profit earned. Moreover, we are now faced with a program that must pay out MORE than it takes in.
As outlined by the Cato Institute (http://www.socialsecurity.org) Social Security is the largest government program in the world, accounting for 23 percent of the federal budget. The Social Security tax is the largest tax the average American family pays. Indeed, nearly 80 percent of Americans pay more in Social Security taxes than they do in federal income tax. And, millions of seniors depend on Social Security for their retirement income.
The program is unsustainable. It cannot pay future benefits without drowning future generations in debt and taxes. Social Security will begin running a deficit by 2016.. In theory, the Social Security trust fund will pay benefits until 2037, which should serve as cold comfort to today’s 31-year-olds. But that figure is misleading because the trust fund contains no actual assets. The government bonds it holds are simply a form of IOU, a measure of how much money the government owes the system. It says nothing about where the government will get the money to pay back those IOUs. Even if Congress can find a way to redeem the bonds, the trust-fund surplus will be exhausted by 2037. Overall, the amount the system has promised beyond what it can actually pay now totals $17.5 trillion. Yes, that’s trillion with a T.
Which brings me back to my point about Social Security vs. Ponzi Schemes. The american blogger does a nice job of outlining the similarities between Bernie Madoff and Social Security. While there are many similarities, once significant difference is that Bernie Madoff went to jail. The politicians remain in Washington, DC.
All American Blogger » Bernie Madoff v. Social Security.
The Problem with Tax Credits – WSJ.com
WSJ Article on the newest “stimulus” package that Congress is NOT calling a “stimulus”. Once could argue this is the “Jimmy Carter Jobs Credit Bill” since it has so many similarities on what was tried in the late 1970s (do we ever learn our lessons?). Essentially, as the WSJ puts it, it’s Congress’s latest stimulus idea which is a bust from the past.
The Problem with Tax Credits – WSJ.com.
Checks, balances don't exist in N.Y. — Page 1 — Times Union – Albany NY:1024:
I recently wrote a letter to the Albany Times Union Editor regarding the sorry state of affairs here in NYS. Well, it was published today.
Checks, balances don’t exist in N.Y. — Page 1 — Times Union – Albany NY:1024:.
I did ask them to published my email address – but, for some reason, they left it off (probably worried that I would get too many positive responses!)
A good 2009 fishing season
In the end, it was a good fishing season in 2009. This was the first year I really had a chance to fish the spring and summer season which demonstrated a few things to me. How the fish move from one spot to another based on the point in the season. There were several fishing spots that were “hot” in the spring that went completely cold in the summer. Moreover, I found that the gitzit lures proved to be more effective in the early season (in water approx. 3′-6′) where the sinko ruled during the summer (8-12′ of water). The problem with the sinko is how often I ended up having to replace the lure. The bass were definitely hungry for the Sinko and gitiz’s this past season. Regrettably, the carolina rig yielded little results. It was a very surprising season fishing under the various bridges in Northern Lake Champlain. traditionally, these were hot beds of activity for Bass. This year we were lucky to catch just a few. A couple of other items that were interesting this season: No Walleye’s were caught but we sure did catch a lot of northern pike this year! Next season I’m looking forward to trying out some new lures – specifically, the drop shot.
On a final note, I found this great little “survey”: What Does Bass Fishing Or Fishing In General Mean To You? http://bit.ly/48Qt36 – wondering if there are any particular responses that resonate with you? (I’m particularly fond of the “it’s a link” response).
