U.S. war funding bill brims with unrelated extras - Reuters

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) – A $100 billion bill to fund U.S. wars in Iraq and Afghanistan is rapidly accumulating extra items such as money for military aircraft the Pentagon doesn't want and possibly a scheme to jump-start sagging auto sales.

The cars and planes are not directly linked to the U.S. war effort. But they are typical of Congress' penchant for loading bills with unrelated spending in hopes the funds will sail through on the strength of the main legislation...

Democratic Representative John Murtha, who heads the House Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, managed to get $3.1 billion for eight C-17 and 11 C-130 military transport planes included. However, that has been pared back by four C-130s.

The Pentagon did not request the aircraft but lawmakers want them to preserve jobs in their home states and Murtha disputes the military's contention that they are not needed."

OINK!! Talk about PORK! We're expected to pay for military aircraft that the military neither wants nor needs?? And "Murtha disputes the military's contention that they are not needed." How would Murtha know better than the end-user what they need or don't need? Murtha's military experience is limited to 3 years of active duty - at the end of which he was probably a 1st Lieutenant - and a career in the USMC Reserves (with one year of voluntary active duty during the Vietnam conflict) from which he retired as a Colonel in 1990. He's been a member of the U.S. House of Representatives since 1974! How would he have any idea what the military needs? His practical military knowledge is 40 years old! What a DB! Murtha seems to have donned the mantle of Assistant Messiah.

If the military says they don't need something, take their word for it. Perhaps they would rather have more/better armor for their HumVees! Here's a revolutionary idea... ASK them what they need and give that to them instead of slicing off more bacon! This little piggy went to Congress...

I could be wrong about this... and Murtha could have a bit of common sense, but both assumptions are incorrect!

Government 101 - How To Control A Runaway Government

First let's establish what the United States is and is not:

a. The United States is a democratic Republic, it is not a Democracy. The difference is that a Republic is a form of government under a constitution which provides for the election of:

1. an executive and

2. a legislative body, who working together in a representative capacity, have all the power of appointment, all power of legislation, all power to raise revenue and appropriate expenditures, and are required to create

3. a judiciary to pass upon the justice and legality of their governmental acts, and to recognize

4. certain inherent individual rights.

b. A pure democracy is strictly "majority rule", and is destructive of liberty because there is no law to prevent the majority from trampling on individual rights. Whatever the majority says goes! A lynch mob is an example of pure democracy in action. There may be only one dissenting vote... and that is cast by the person at the end of the rope.

Professor Alexander Fraser Tytler, nearly two centuries ago, had this to say about Democracy: "A Democracy cannot exist as a permanent form of Government. It can only exist until the voters discover they can vote themselves largess out of public treasury. From that moment on the majority always votes for the candidate promising the most benefits from the public treasury with the result that Democracy always collapses over a loose fiscal policy, always to be followed by a Dictatorship."

We have recently seen this come to pass in the private sector, although Congress has been "voting themselves largess out of public treasury" for decades!

Now that we are all on the same page let's do a little probing. First question: What is the stated purpose of government? Tick-tock, tick-tock... time's UP! According to our Constitution the purpose of government is - "We the People of the United States, in Order to
a. form a more perfect Union,
b. establish Justice,
c. insure domestic Tranquility,
d. provide for the common defense,
e. promote the general Welfare, and
f. secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity,
do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."

Those six charges in the Preamble establish the "purpose" of our government. What follows in the body of the Constitution constitute the ways and means by which those goals may be achieved - the "details". The Constitution establishes the limits of the government over those who have installed it.

Second question: Who is the government? Easy answer - "We the People", although we subrogate the responsibilities for the day-to-day operation of the government to those whom we elect (here comes the democratic part) by majority vote.

Third question - Who controls the government? Buzzzzzzzz - WRONG ANSWER! Although technically it should be "We the People", the government has developed its own power to control vital resources, and has encouraged the indolent to become highly dependent upon the government through various giveaway programs. This is - more often than not - against the expressed will of the vast majority of the people. Our government has been growing less responsive to the will of the people for the past fifty years! What we have today is a modernized version of the Roman Circus. Smoke and mirrors, misdirection, sleight-of-hand, palpable charisma, individual complacency, and the promise of "Gubmint cheese" for all who are willing to surrender their rights under the Constitution, have combined in a comedy of errors to erode the people's control of government.

Our elected officials no longer see themselves as the servants of the people, but rather, they now see themselves as the masters of the largest single plantation on Earth. "We the People" must now "tote that barge and lift that bale", or Massa Government will punish us.

How do we regain control of our unresponsive and irresponsible government? The government has no income producing arm other than the Constitutional ability to levy taxes. Government is essentially a parasite feeding upon the fruits of the labors of the governed. If you earned four bananas today, the government will eat at least one of them. As the government grows larger, it requires more food for itself - which leaves you with less food for you and your family. How do we stop the increase of government's girth? We stop feeding it until it slims down! What does it eat? TAXES. If you have ever stopped to think about it, you must realize that every government tax, fee, and license is an (unlawful) income tax! From where does the money come to pay those taxes, fees, and licenses? Your INCOME!

So here are our options:
(1) Continue to feed the beast until you starve, or
(2) refuse to feed the beast until it brings its appetite for taxes under control,
(3) replace the exisiting beast with a more responsive/responsible beast. And, one that is less likely to buy pork with your hard-earned money.
(4) I don't even like to think about option #4.

As always, I could be completely wrong about this... and the millions of entitlement whores could get jobs!

Obama's Lack of Cojones Shows As He Hides to Sign Omnibus Spending Bill

Your left-wing President was so embarrassed by the pork laden Omnibus Spending Bill, submitted for his approval today, that he chose to sign it in private! No media, no photographers, no anything that would record him in his moment of shame. He did NOT have to sign the bill. He chose to do so, in spite of his campaign promise to "eliminate earmarks" (earmarks is politspeak for PORK). He could have simply said, "No. I'm not signing this as it is. I promised the citizens of this country to eliminate earmarks, and this has almost 9,000 of them." Fini - end of discussion.

Instead, he now vacillates, and restructures his campaign promise as "I will eliminate unnecessary earmarks." Pork is pork! All good Muslims know that. It therefore follows that ANY pork is too much pork. How do we define political pork? If there is little or no return for the citizenry of that region or state against the cost of the project itself, it is PORK! A study of the Entertainment Preferences of the Toe-Sucking Swamp Rat of California is pork ... a verifiable improvement of a state- or county-run hospital is not pork. Bridges to nowhere are pork, as are $120,000 per week fuel expenditures to fly Nazi Pelosi round-trip to California - and that doesn't include the salaries of the flight crew, or wear-and-tear on the Boeing 757 we are paying for!

I was sent an original idea today, for which, unfortunately, I cannot claim credit. It goes like this: on April the first send a tea bag in an envelope to "Current Occupant", 1600 Pennsylvania Ave, Washington D.C. 20500, as a subtle reminder that the government is the servant of the people, not the master, and that they serve at our pleasure even though we may be somewhat less than pleased. Displease us too much, and we have a Constitutional right and obligation to remove and replace that government ... assuming "we the people" have more cojones than your President has shown. A few million tea bags may just get somebody's attention ... assuming anybody is paying attention to what the people want.

I could be wrong about this ... (and Barack Obama could act like a leader instead of the puppet of Nazi Pelosi, Harry Reid, et al) but I'm NOT!

Living Large on Taxpayer-Supplied Easy Street

Want a raise? Don't beg to your boss. Just vote yourself one. That's what the United States Congress did in 2004. "For the fifth year in a row, lawmakers voted not to reject their automatic "cost of living" raise that will increase the annual salary of members by $3,400 to a total of $158,103 per year."

During the Constitutional Convention, Benjamin Franklin considered proposing that elected government officials not be paid for their service. Other Founding Fathers, however, decided otherwise.

From 1789 to 1815, members of Congress received only a per diem (daily payment) of $6.00 while in session. Members began receiving an annual salary in 1815, when they were paid $1,500 per year - a significant amount of money in 1815, considering that those who were working for "wages" (as opposed to farmers and tradesmen) were knocking down a whopping 50¢ per day! Members began receiving a larger annual salary in 1855, when they were paid $3,000 per year. The current salary (2009) for rank-and-file members of the House and Senate is $174,000 per year. The Majority and Minority Leaders of the House and Senate are paid $193,400 each. And the Speaker of the House, Nancy Pelosi is paid $223,500. Are we getting our moneys worth? Oh, and let's not forget the $120,000 in jet fuel that Pelosi burns up every weekend in that 200 seat Boeing 757 aircraft for a round-trip from D.C. to California at taxpayer expense! If the private sector (Big 3 Auto CEOs) flies in private jets to meetings called by the ruling party in Congress, it's a big waste of taxpayers money. If a Democrat flies in a taxpayer funded private jet on government business, it's OK. If the country is having hard economic times, you certainly couldn't tell it by looking at how our government is managing our tax dollars!

Here's what I see as a few problems in our system:
1. Our laws are made by lawyers rather than people with common sense. This is the equivalent of having the fox guard the hen house. Does anybody still wonder why our laws have become so complex and bifurcated? Special interest groups, PACs, Labor Unions, and essentially anybody else with lobbyists on Capitol Hill goes to the head of the line, while the majority of the citizenry suffers in silence. We have the best politicians money can buy.

2. Those who make our laws are overcompensated for what little they do for us - they're too busy doing for themselves. And they get to approve their own pay raises! Wouldn't we all like to have a job like that? "Public service" means serving the public, not servicing them!

3. Members of Congress are entitled to a retirement after only 5 years of participation (I refuse to use the word "service" to describe what they do). There are about a half-dozen different retirement schemes for them, so they can milk us for as much as possible (source: 2007 Congressional Research Service Report). They also have full medical coverage, and a staff and office plus other expenses for which we pay.

4. The worst part is that "we the people" keep re-electing the same lazy, corrupt, lying bastards over and over again!

What's the solution? There is no solution so long as #4, above, continues unchecked. Should that ever be corrected then things like term limits, a salary cap at around $50,000 with a very modest local housing allowance become more possible (or, better yet, government supplied quarters on a military installation such as Bolling AFB, Andrews AFB, or Fort George Mead, all within reasonable commuting distance of downtown D.C.). Lawyers should have minimal representation in Congress, comprising no more than 1/3 of the total makeup of Congress, thus insuring that our laws are less likely to be intellectualized to the point of ineffectiveness in the real world.

I just think "we the people" are getting ripped off to the maximum extent possible by professional politicians, and thought I'd share these "tip of the iceberg" thoughts with you.

I could be ... nah, no way!

A Little Quick Math ...

A little quick math tells us that of the $410 billion Omnibus Spending Bill of which Nazi Pelosi is so proud (the governments operating capital for the remainder of 2009), and thanks to the "elimination of earmarks" promised by Barack Obama (there were only 8,570 earmarks in the bill - I suppose that's called "elimination" in the mystical language of politics), there was only $7,700,000,000 ($7.7 billion) set aside for those eliminated earmarks.

There are two ways to look at this, I suppose:

1. Pork accounts for just under 2% of the Omnibus Spending Bill, or

2. The mathematical mean average cost per slice of eliminated pork is only $898,483.08.

On the positive side, that is slightly less than $1 million per slice ... not much less ... but less. I'm glad our newly elected President has the intelligence to be a good steward of our tax dollars - I just wish he'd USE that intelligence!

Yo Ho Ho And A Bottle of Rum!

Arrrr, Maties! 'Tis the crewe of Cap'n Obama, sailing up the Potomac into D.C., and plundering the coffers of the United States of America ... and they're taking no prisoners. Instead they are putting the financial future of this country into jeopardy for the next one hundred years!

Most people, myself included, have no concept of the word "trillion" or what it represents numerically. Certainly most of us understand hundreds, thousands and tens of thousands, but the numeric concept becomes a bit blurry around the million mark, and from there on it's all downhill. Thanks to Alexander E. Braun, I have a few examples of what a trillion actually represents in terms that you may be able to get your head around:

A trillion seconds add up to 31,710 years. If you started your count while Egypt’s Great Pyramid was being built, you’d have over 26,000 years to go.

If you wanted your trillion dollars in $100 bills, you’d have to carry off 10,000,000,000 bills. This roughly adds up to 9,370 tons of paper—the U-Haul folks will love you!

Stacked one on top of the other a column of those $100 bills would reach 631 miles up, endangering low-orbit traffic, such as Shuttle flights, the International Space Station, and the Hubble Space Telescope.

A car going at 65 miles per hour would take 1,756,235 years to travel a trillion miles.

And those figures are just for ONE trillion. Do you have some idea now? The debt that the Obama administration is creating for our country via the $789,000,000,000 "stimulus package", including pork earmarks and interest, (which has also been referred to as the Generational Theft Act of 2009) will cost American taxpayers $3.27 trillion over the next 10 years. (That stack of $100 bills is now 1,893 miles high. Or, if you got your $3.27 trillion in $1.00 bills, you could construct a wall of bills [laid on their edges] 13.08 feet high extending from New York City to San Francisco.) Now, keep in mind that the only money the government has is that which they collect from the citizens in the form of taxes and fees for services. Even the left wingers that elected Obama are beginning to have second thoughts, although most won't admit it, because to do so means recognizing that they were stupid enough to be taken in by Obama's mezmerizing, but empty, oration. The Democratic Spend-A-Thon will surely cripple the country for several generations to come.

I wonder what the shortest time record is for the impeachment of a United States President ... and will we set a new record? Oh, no ... I forgot ... impeachment proceedings against a sitting President must be initiated by the Congress, the body of which is overflowing with socialist liberal lefties itself. No impeachment on the horizon! Somebody wake me when the revolution begins ...

A trillion here, a trillion there ... before long we're talking about serious money!

I suppose there's an outside chance that I could be wrong about all this ... but I'm NOT!

U.S. lawmaker to push repeal of online gambling ban

Barney Frank strikes again! From Reuters Washington D.C. desk ...

"WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A senior Democratic lawmaker will push legislation this year to repeal a U.S. ban on Internet gambling that has hurt trade ties with the European Union, a congressional aide said. "The bill introduction should happen in the next month," a spokesman for House of Representatives Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank said."

Barney Frank (with the able assistance of his faithful sidekick, Chuck Schumer) was the driving force behind the collapse of our banking and mortgage industry, by requiring Fannie May and Freddie Mac to back loans for people who obviously didn't meet the minimum standard to qualify for such loans under established banking principles! Now he wants to insure that a huge amount of American's disposable (and in many cases, not-so-disposable) income be used to support gambling interests overseas? And, to make this acquisition of U.S. dollars even easier for the Europeans, the gamblers won't even have to leave their homes to lose their money! What is wrong with this man's thought processes? Has he lost his mind?

I spent a couple of years working in the gaming industry in Las Vegas, and I have seen what happens to the weak-willed and the undisciplined. These are the folks people generally refer to a "inveterate gamblers", but who casino workers (who are less P.C. than the general public) refer to, and much more accurately, as "gambling degenerates". I saw them lose cars, homes, and families to their addiction ... an addiction they cavalierly refer to as "a fun night out", or "just something to do", or almost anything other than "getting my gambling fix." Until the mid-1900s, people who gambled away more than they could lose were frequenly:

a. coerced into doing business "favors" for the casino management ... IF their line of work proved to be profitable for the casino ownership, or

b. physically abused with fists, brass knuckles, saps, baseball bats, lead pipes, 2x4 lumber, or anything else that may have been handy, or

c. never seen or heard from again.

Items b & c, above, were means of providing examples to others who may be inclined toward slow, incomplete and/or non payment. And the "vigorish" or "vig" for short (interest on money owed) was absolutely outrageous, sometimes doubling the amount lost in a week. These things combined to motivate many people who were otherwise honest and upstanding citizens, but now caught in the machinery of gambling, to commit crimes ranging from prostitution, auto theft and drug dealing, to robbery, embezzlement, and yes, sometimes even maiming and murdering.

But, Las Vegas isn't that place any more ... they say. There is no Mafia there these days - just ask Salvatore, the pit boss from Detroit - or Dominic, the casino manager imported from Chicago - they'll set you straight.

Gambling, for many people, is an addiction. Perhaps it's the socializing at the craps table, the electric atmosphere generated by all those people "having a good time", the lure of the city lights, or just the obscure hope that they can turn their last $10 into $10,000. For those people, gambling is an illness, and they either lack the will-power - or the desire - to cure themselves. They will bet their ability to live indoors, their children's college fund, the money their son was saving for that all-important sex change operation, or any other negotiable item on the next roll of the dice or turn of the cards.

Barney Frank wants to make it almost impossible for them to "kick the habit" ... to escape, what for them is, the grim reaper of gambling, by allowing it into their domiciles. Why should we care if the Europeans are upset by the loss of gambling revenues from Americans? Our laws are supposedly designed to protect those who are incapable of protecting themselves ... even if it's FROM themselves!

Shame on Barney Frank! He's nothing but another punk politician willing to sell out his countrymen for a few words of praise from some foreigners.

I suppose there's a chance I could be wrong about all this ... on second thought ... nah, NO WAY!