‘”I AM A FIRM BELIEVER IN THE PEOPLE. IF GIVEN THE TRUTH, THEY CAN BR DEPENDED UPON TO MEET ANY NATIONAL CRISES. THE GREAT POINT IS TO BRING THEM THE FACTS”…….……..Abraham Lincoln
Where to begin, one of our readers is a blue blooded REDNECK, (my buddy “Speedy” considers ME…a redneck. Can you believe that? Him an his “ole Carpet baggin self! LOL!)and better not use it as slang word, they are a very special tribe, generally located below the Mason-Dixon line…”any who”, he has a nick name for me, “SPEEDY AP”, because it takes me so long to respond and or understand what the hell he is talking about, always ask that he repeat and talk slower……which is nearly impossible for him, and impossible for me at this point in my life….so here goes , and I’m on the clock…..
THE HERITAGE FOUNDATION………MUCH OF THE TOPICS I WRITE ABOUT ARE GATHERED FROM THEIR PUBLICATIONS…… This morning I received their “Special Report #91”, called “Saving the American Dream “which is the Heritage plan to fix the debt, cut spending and restore prosperity.
The following are some passages from the FOREWORD by Edwin J. Faulkner, President of the Heritage Foundation. “At the end of the day our plan, while economic in nature, has a higher moral purpose. If entitlements are not reformed, the next generation and future ones, will have to pay a punitive taxt0061 rates that will end the liberty as we know it, our proposal aims to preserve America’s promise bequeathed to us by past generation.
Edwin Burke reminds us to think of our time on earth, not as an individual and temporary event, but rather than as a partnership, “between those who are living those who are dead and those who are yet to be born”
We have been here before, and every time the American people have always risen to the occasion and seized the moment. In 1776 we were told that no upstart colonists could defeat the strongest nation in the world, and we decided to change the course in history. In 1860 we were told the union could not hold and that America was over, and we brought forth a new birth of freedom. In 1980 we were told that the American century was at its end. And we launched a great economic expansion; re built our military, and revived our national spirit.
Hard times demand tough choices……..the future of our country is at stake.
All that is required, my hero Ronald Reagan once said “is our best effort, and our willingness to believe in ourselves and to believe in our capacity to perform great deeds, to believe that together, and with God’s help we can resolve the problems which now confront us”
REPUBLICAN CANDIDATES for PRESIDENT…The above is pretty heavy stuff, but I am very concerned with the current events, and the 9 candidates that will have to face Obama (maybe Hillary as V.P), I have my choice, but it is too early to make a decision, but, in my mind, have eliminated Bachman, Paul., Sanatorium and Perry at the edge, as for Romney George Will describes him as a “pretzel candidate” as Romney has difficulty reasoning why ethanol and it’s government subsidies should be wiped off the books.
What I am hunting for is one who shows leadership, which Justice Porter Stewart once said, as to the definition of pornography, “I know it when I see it”. The leader must have a clear sense of his mission, must have the ability to convey his mission, with enough passion to generate a following. Finally, the leader must have a plan, and means to execute that plan, to achieve the objective.
A leader can be helped by having the ability to give a good speech, which sometimes can be so dominate other failings may be over-looked. History takes exception to the need of good speakers, think of Presidents Johnson, Carter, Bush #1 and Bush #2, compared to Churchill, FDR and JFK. FDR advancing the New Deal when his country was in dire trouble, or when Churchill roared like a lion in the face of the Nazi tyrants, while JFK confronted Russia, when a war was minutes away. The leader who keeps on telling us how tough things are has to be able to convince us that we are following a direction that that is sound and morale, and will lead to success.
The nation cries out for someone to take charge, perhaps he is there, but wrapped in a fog, and difficult to distinguish….we need direction, passionate guidance and a candid diagnoses of our problems……Maybe we just need some good……sure has been missing for the past 7+ years.
ABORTION…Last week the House passed with bi-partisan support Passed the Protect Life Act, which amends The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, to assure no tax payer money will be used to fund abortions, by a vote of 251-172, the Nancy Pelosi and Debbie Wasserman Schultz, Florida National Democratic chairlady, issued statement condemning the ACT. According to the Center for Disease control and Prevention reported that 3% of abortions are related to the woman’s health, abortions that are “life or death” to the woman, amount to less than 1 percent, that leaves 96 percent for the sake of convenience, with 50 percent repeat customers
The Senate will probably not approve the House bill…..
“He can compress the most words into the smallest ideas of any man I ever met”
CONGRESS JOINT SELECT COMMITTEE on DEFICIT REDUCTION…The act was intended to prevent the rapid process to default which would have resulted from the 2011 the United States debt ceiling crisis, and has been interpreted as a reaction to the frustration over prolonged partisan political disputes during an uncertain economic struggle. With the ability to write and report legislation.
The Committee is composed of 6 Democrats and 6 Republicans, 3 from each party will come from the House, and 3 from each party from the Senate. The task requires the Federal Government to make $971 billion in spending cuts, over the next ten years. By November21st 2011, the Committee must arrive with a recommendation for at least $1.5 trillion in additional deficit cuts over a 10 year period. Supposedly “everything is on the table” for consideration of the Committee. The Committees recommendation will then be put in a “SIMPLE UP or DOWN” vote. Legislaters from both parties fear that tins arrangement will usurp both parties’ authority to write and revise legislation.
My opinion, it’s going to be a waste of time and money. The committee members were picked by their respective leaders, who must have been sure that each selected member will not defer from their party’s ideals. Example, Democrats John Kerry and Patty Murray vs. Republicans Jon Kyle, Pat Toomey’…I think the whole idea stinks, and is another “cop out”, rather than me making a statement, I will quote Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich who on August 11, 2011, during the Republican presidential debate, said, “I think this super committee is about as dumb an idea as Washington has come up with in my lifetime. I used to run the House of Representatives. I have some general notion of these things. The idea that 523 senators and congressmen are going to sit around for months while 12 brilliant people, mostly picked for political reasons, are going to sit in one room and brilliantly come up with a trillion dollars, or force us to choose between gutting our military and accepting a tax increase, is irrational…They are going to walk in just before Thanksgiving and say “All right, we can shoot you in the head or cut off your left leg, which do you prefer?” What they ought to do is scrap the committee right now, recognize it’s a dumb idea, go back to regular legislative business, and assign every sub-committee the task of finding savings. Do it in the open through regular legislative order and get rid of this secret phone business.” (Editor’s note: ….I believe that Gingrich is the most capable of the lot, as is Huntsman, but probably unelectable.
“Always bear in mind that your own resolution to succeed is more important than any one thing.”………Abraham Lincoln
IS PRESIDENT OBAMA GIVING IN TO “OCCUPY WALL STREET?…Rather than visiting the sites where the Wall Street protesters gather, just tune in to President OBAMA’S latest campaign swing across America, this time titled “WE CAN’T WAIT”…”I am here to say that we can’t wait for an increasingly dysfunctional Congress to do its job. Where they will not act, I will. There is no excuse for the games and gridlock we’ve seen in Washington. Where we don’t have to wait for Congress to act, we are just going ahead AND ACT ON OUR OWN”
The actions the President is proposing? More money for the underwater mortgages and yet to be announced student loan initiative? Does “bad policy” matter to the President? Or is it his end game to improve America’s economic situation or appeal to his base? One thing is certain, regardless of the answer; America cannot wait for the President Obama to stop circumventing Congress.
THE SERIOUS RISKS OF THE RUSSIAN RESET…President Obama may believe that America’s “reset” policy with Russia is the correct move to cover important foreign policy bases, but the policy is deeply flawed It puts the united States at a disadvantage we cannot afford and forces us to lay aside fundamental American principles of human liberty.
The ‘reset” concessions are simply not worth the exchange of empty promises from Russian President Medvedev, who is merely a talking vehicle for Prime Minister Putin…The large “reset “payoff requires America put it all on the line by cutting U.S. strategic nuclear forces and engaging in missile defense talks with Russia, in addition to abandoning missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic, and keeping it quiet about political freedom violations running rampant throughout Russia. America may have never won the COLD WAR 22 years ago with policies such as these.
“A fanatic is one who cannot change his mind and will not change the subject” ………Winston Churchill
A REAL ROBO-SIGNING SCANDAL…State Attorney Generals were shocked, to discover sloppy foreclosure practices last year in wake of the housing boom and bust, and they used that revelation to try to squeeze billions of dollars out of the nation’s largest banks. Here is a bigger scandal. Fannie Mae knew about the problem years ago.
The Inspector General of the Federal Housing Finance Agency found that in 2005, Fannie Mae hired an outside law firm to investigate a variety of allegations referred by one of the investors regarding purported foreclosure processing abuses and other matters.”….The next year the law firm reported that the same practices were continuing, in addition false paper work, were UNLAWFUL and should stop.
The IG says that that neither Fannie nor its regulator FHFA acted on the 2006 report, nor the order for a computer system, was never issued. FHFA “examination officials” only learned of the reports existence, by an article in one of the local newspapers. The IG’s report highlighted the loose rules that the two Fannies operated during the housing boom. Fannie “placed a higher priority on meeting specific earnings goals than it did in “ensuring proper accounting, risk management, internal controls, and complete and accurate financial reporting”
“ A love for a tradition has never weakened a nation; indeed has strengthened nations in their hour of peril”…………Winston Churchill
THE MULTI-BILLION DOLLAR LEAK…Bankers, lobbyists, and lawmakers from Wall Street to Washington scrambled to dissect, analyze and react to a leaked proposal for one of the most controversial elements of the Dodd-Frank financial overhaul law, the “VOLKER RULE”
Billions are at stake for big banks who have been working for months to shape the rule aimed at curbing risky trading activities that played a part in the financial crisis. The frenzy started when a website posted a 205 page draft of a memo dated September 30th, 2011. It’s too early to estimate the rule’s cost. Several analysts have predicted it would “at a minimum” increase the cost of funding for U.S. companies, could be at least $2 billion a year, the draft memo set December 16th as the deadline for public comments.
“ History is moving, and it will tend towards hope, or tend toward tragedy.”……………..George W. Bush
OBAMA’S FAILURE to CONFRONT the IRANIAN THREAT…On October 11th America learned that Iran had conspired to launch a terrorist attack in Washington, with a planned assassination of the Saudi ambassador and bomb attacks on the Saudi and Israel embassies. U.S. authorities disrupted the plot and brought charges against the men who planned the attack, but the audacity of Iran’s actions highlight a disturbing truth: The Obama Administration has done far too little to deter state-sponsored terrorism, and has utterly failed to confront the Iranian threat.
Not a month ago, Iranian President Ahmadinejad stood before the United Nations General Assembly in New York City, and delivered a speech filled with hatred of the United States, September 11th conspiracy theories, anti-Semitism, and Holocaust denials….The time for flowery speeches and benevolent engagement with America’s avowed enemies is over. President Obama must wake up to the fact, that Iran and countries like it, pose a real threat to America, it’s friends, and its allies, and must take proactive to protect itself from those who seek to do it harm.
HERMAN Cain……..I have no clue if it is possible for him to get the GOP nomination, but if he doesn’t get the sexual harassment claim behind him, the media will eat him alive……….
“Chew before you swallow”……….George W. Bush
LIFE IN ENERGY AND POLITICS… “Prostitution, horse racing, gambling and electricity are irresistible to politicians” says John Rowe. The CEEO of Chicago based utility EXELON,” who added “EXELON in 2009.began work on an urban solar-plant in a blighted area of Chicago, as part of a request from the White House Chief of Staff, Rahm Emanuel. EXLON was promised, and applied for an Energy Department loan guarantee that it ultimately DID NOT RECEIVE. After the EXELON station opened in 2010 and Emanuel was running for Chigoe Mayor, “he called and asked if he could have his picture taken at the facility…….I said, of course.” Emanuel then asked “will you have all your employees there?” Mr. Rowe paused a beat mischievously, and put up “one finger, and said “Yes Rahm, we’ll have HIM there”
“The utility business is a funny business and almost no one in the political authority in either party really believes in orderly markets in electricity, the Emanuel appeal was merely the latest installment in the series of political negotiations that never ends”….EXELON is one of the three largest utilities in the U.S., serving some 13 million retail customers from northern Illinois to southwestern Pennsylvania., at his point they are the largest nuclear owner plan operator, Mr. Rowe considers himself as a carbon bandit, I was the champion of climate regulation in the utility business, and we are the people who backed EPA regulation, the reason for seeming contradiction—between simultaneously supporting free markets and intervening economy wide CO2 reduction plans, is that we are always being asked to do thing—in our view bleeding crazy.
Off-shore wind….”that is one of the two most expensive ways to produce energy, unfortunately unlike solar, produces in thousands of megawatts rather than tens”…as for nuclear power, he tells those that who champion nuclear, he tells them” don’t kid you that it’s economical “. Building a nuclear plant would require as much as $300 billion in government guarantee, “There just isn’t that much money around. The money is gone. The printing press is broken.
In the meantime, Mr. Rowe is optimistic, “seeing a cleaner world” as the United States gradually switches to GAS” to which he adds, “we hate cheap natural gas, which will pull down the price of nuclear energy, it is a curse for us, it is great for America, The market says “that the only thing that makes sense for the next decade, maybe two, is for a new generation, to be of gas-fired.. NATURAL GAS IS CHEAPER THAN ANY OTHER SOURCE, THANKS TO DOMESTIC SHALE FINDS—-VIA FRACKING AND OTHER FACTORS”
“You can make more friends in two months by becoming interested in other people, than you can in two years by trying to get other people interested in you”…………….Dale Carnegie
STUDENT-LOAN DEBT SURPASSES CREDIT CART DEBT…Americans owe $826.5 billion in credit card debt, according to the Federal Reserve…….Student loans, both private and federal, total $828,85 billion….The growth in education debt outstanding is “ like cooking a lobster, the increase in student debt occurs slowly, but steadily, and by the time you notice the ware boiling, you are already cooked”……It’s no surprise that many parents have to advance more money to go to school today, Tuition at public and private four year universities last year went as high as $26 000, with additional fees for housing and books not showing any signs of letting up.. With the cost of educating increasing rapidly and the duration on unemployment increasing, perhaps the surprise is that the turning point didn’t happen earlier.
U.S. TAXPAYERS PAYING BIG for NEW U.N. BUILDING…National Review reported that the U.N. is erecting an addition as an estimated cost of $400 million which of course could go higher. As of October 3 the U.N. as not furnished the Obama Administration, or Congress the official cost estimate, or a detailed justification of the need for this addition. The cost of renovation of the existing tower was originally estimated at $600 MILLION. It is now estimated to wind up costing more than $2 BILLION….
The U.S. taxpayer will likely be expected to shoulder 22% of the increased cost, another surprise, we are expected to assume sole fiscal responsibility for security upgrades for the new building (based on 9/11), PLUS THE INCREASE IN SECURITY OF THE EXISTING BUILDING, above and beyond our regular “fair share” contribution for the renovation project……….guess the reasoning must be to keep our eye on all of our enemies………
“Be courteous to all, but intimate with a few, , and let those few be well tried before you give them your confidence. This friendship is a plant that grows slowly, and must undergo and understand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation.”…………….George Washington
FINALLY A GOP GROWTH PLAN…On October 14th. Senators McCain and Rand Paul (strange combination) have drafted an economic growth blue print which they hope will be a rallying cry for all Republicans.
The White House and Congressional Democrats are hoping to use the Senate rejection of the Obama job plan, as a campaign against “do nothing Republicans”, but that is not true any longer. The plan which contains tax cuts, a balanced budget amendment. ObamaCare repeal and a regulatory freeze. The plan would also promote an American pro-drilling policy to expand our oil industry and reduce our dependency reliance on Middle East oil.
The plan will not come close to getting the Senate’s 60 votes, but it does create a goal, helped by the chamber of Commerce poll asked 1,500 business owners across the country whether they would support such a plan, 85% agreed they would, and now we can see if the Republicans will fight for it.
While there is much more to add, if I do it will be weeks before this issue gets out………IF THIS ISSUE DOES NOT GET TO YOU BEFORE THANKSGIVING, TIS NOT BECAUSE I FORGOT…….See y’all in the funny papers…………..AP