Last week we again saw the initial numbers upwardly revised for the week ending August 26th to 412,000. Claims for the week of September 2nd were at 414,000 the year after the supposed Summer of Recovery.

Well, what more can be said? This is what you get when you elect know-nothings to public office who are more interested in getting someone to butter both sides of their bred than they are in truth, justice and the American way.

The White House blamed the mistake on President Bush. No, not really. But they might as well. They blame everything else on him.

Now he is grading President Obama?

As Mitt Romney prepares to officially roll out his presidential campaign later this week, he’s giving President Barack Obama an ‘F’ for the last two years.

“It’s failed,” the former Massachusetts governor said of the Obama presidency in an interview taped over the weekend at his New Hampshire home that aired Tuesday morning on NBC’s “Today.”

Oooo … Foul tip. Honestly? Romney is sitting there with an 0-2 count, barely able to stay alive at the plate and he is seriously grading Obama? Ok, sure, he’s right. Obama has failed. But what would Romney’s grade be?

Not much better than a D from what I have seen so far.

This is all pretty straightforward.  I can put water lines in in my sleep having done it many times in my life.  But there has been one problem with me getting the whole shebang done so that I can call in the inspector for this final part of the job.

It all started when I went to the Home Depot.  You know these guys.  They have the big stores with the orange signs on them.  The issue I had was in buying the valve for the shower.  I specifically asked the man working in the plumbing department if he could help me select a valve that met all the local code requirements.  He pointed me to a Moen fixture.  I asked him again if it met all the local codes.  He assured me that it did.

So I go home with my new valve.

The next day I go down to the local code enforcement office and talk to the gentlemen down there and discuss what needs to be and apply for the permit.  At this time they dutifully warn me that to pass inspection my shower valve must have temperature and pressure balancing as well as integrated stops.

I pay my fee and go back home.  I open up my Moen valve bought from Home Depot and immediately I notice that it has no internal stops.  Or at least not any that I can see.

I pack it up and go back to the Home Depot.  I get the employee working the plumbing department that day and ask him point blank.  Does this valve have internal stops?  He looks at it and says yes.  Thinking I must be daft I take it back home.

Two days later however I am still not convinced.  I email Moen and tell them what I am looking for.  Low and behold the valve that was sold to me does not have internal stops.  They do however point me to the right one which does.  After comparing the price of the valve (the correct one I need) and the price of a trim kit to go with it I decided to also keep the one I already had since it cost me $79 and a trim kit alone was going to run me about $60 anyway.  Plus then I would have some extra pieces.

But this is what bugs me.  Why didn’t the guy at the Home Depot know that the valves he was selling did not even meet local code requirements?  And why did he lie to me afterwards.  Just for the sake full disclosure, and in case Home Depot cares, this is the Home Depot in Wilkinsburg, PA.

And don’t you think that the Home Depot should make an effort to stock items that meet code?  Because what this means is anyone in Allegheny Country who installed any valve the Home Depot sells would not pass the required inspection of the installation.  I know most people don’t bother getting permits for work in their own homes, but I do.  I like to make sure everything is kosher.

And just incase you are thinking, well of course I got bad advice from a big box store like the Home Depot, no one else seemed to know the local requirements at other local hardware stores including Lowes, Ace, Do It Best, another Home Depot in Robinson Township, PA and True Valve when I, after the fact, did some undercover investigations and pretended to be interested in buying valves from them too.  Each one of them tried to sell me a valve without internal stops and told me it would meet code.  When I told the employee I was conversing with at each of these stores that I was told that internal stops were needed they each told me I was wrong.

How hard is it to know how to do you job?  No, seriously!  And how hard is it to make sure you actually have what your customers need to do their projects right?

Anyway, the correct valve is in.  It is working great.  It just was a hassle to get it all plumbed in considering what I had to go through to get the right one.  Now I just have to run a couple tests, call the inspector and have this whole thing behind me.  Maybe someone at the Home Depot will see this and get on the ball and train their employees and carry the right equipment for the job.

Personally I am still trying to figure out why state derived welfare pays and other such redistributions are “mandatory spending” but things such as our national defense which actually appears as a line item in the Constitution as a role our government is tasked with doing are not. In between that pondering I am wondering if all of you angrily emailing me and accusing me of all sorts of heinous acts and not even discussing the topics at hand realize how silly you sound. Again, there are not my numbers. I did not make them up. Sorry if the truth about where the problems lay are too much for you to handle.

Well, this week I am going to tick off those of you who refuse to accept the truth even more. Yes, now we start to actually get somewhat serious. Next week is when we get really serious but once again judging by the angry emails from people accusing me of making up the numbers and lying about where money is being spent I think that we really need to ease into reality.

So here we are. And here comes unthinkable option number four!

Last week we looked at how trying to take a scalpel to the problem only resulted in progressively larger implements being used until the axe came down on everything other than the oh so precious and biggest social welfare programs of our government. This week we are going to start out with the axe and take it equally to every line item there is regardless how precious and necessary it is.

The math is extremely simple when we take this approach believe it or not. Once again just to rehash what the government’s own numbers tell us, in 2008 we had revenues of $2.569 trillion and expenditures of $3.094 trillion. Our deficit was $525 billion for just that year alone. Since then the yearly deficit has gotten worse. Instead of half a trillion we are now talking about a nice round whole trillion per year or more by the looks of things. So the first thing we would have to do is get back to 2008 levels of spending and revenue generation.

Once we do that however what is the reality of the matter? Well, just to break even in a year like 2008 we would have to cut spending 20% across the board. Ok, I lied. Actually cutting spending 20% for everything (expect debt interest payments) from Social Security to the Department of Defense based on 2008 numbers would actually turn us a profit. Yep, cutting spending 20% from top to bottom would give us an extra $3.1 billion each year. That is a payoff period on our total national debt of 3,871 years.

That is not a serious plan if you ask me. And if you think that 3,871 years is a reasonable period to pay back a debt try going into your local bank and see if they will give you such a term on your next mortgage. Good luck with that!

So let’s look at some more reasonable numbers. If we cut spending 35% on every line item in the budget we could pay back the debt in 30 years. That is assuming revenues like those in 2008. If we have some lean years it will take longer.

Now what, you may ask, about the $260 some odd billion of interest payments heading out the door each year? Wouldn’t that line item get smaller and enable us to pay down the debt faster? It would if we spent the surplus created by reducing the deficit each year. But remember we are looking at simple math here. To make the math simple we will say that the government will use the savings on this line item to gradually replace funding in other programs that had to be cut to pay down the debt in the first place. So for the sake of simplicity we will keep it steady over the course of the years.

Hmmm, but you know 30 years is a long time though. There could be five different Senators in a given seat over that period, a representation in the House could have cycled 15 terms under and we could have had anywhere from four to seven different Presidents in that time assuming each served at least four years. What do you think the odds will be that even if today we adopted such a plan that we could serious expect the course to be held over all those changes and all those years?

I am personally going to bet that the odds are not that good and I propose to you that if we are serious about getting this whole debt problem not just under control but wiped out as well then we are going to have to realistically do it in the term of one President or eight years. Yeah you heard me right, I said eight years. Yes, there will be Congressional turn over and even a potential new President but I think that if the American public were serious then we could hang on for those eight years and see it through. Any more than eight years and you really run the risk of a lot of people getting bored with the whole fiscal responsibility thing. Especially when those previously dependant on the government have had to now go out and make their own way without the benevolent hand of the federal government to sprinkle oodles of money upon their heads in the quantities they are used to.

Ok so what will this plan, unthinkable option number four, take? Oh, not much, just a prayer that we can maintain revenues at the same level as they were in 2008 and slash spending (also from a 2008 basis) across the board by 75%. That’s all.

Yep, this means cuts in Social Security from $608 billion to just $152 billion. It means Medicare cut from $386 billion to a paltry $96.5 billion. It means cutting the Department of Defense to just a tad over $120 billion from $481 billion. It means everything, and I do mean everything, is cut to the bones.

It is also very painful. But like I said in the opening article of this series, all the options are painful for someone. At least here the pain in shared equally by everyone from our senior citizens to the military. Sure your social security check will only be 25% of what it is today but at least you still have it. Sure the tanks our Army uses will be rusted out a little and may not work so great but at least we still have them.

I am not saying I agree with it, just saying that it is an option. Oh and once again even though we are cutting spending it doesn’t mean you get a tax cut either. Not with this option. While I personally believe that cutting taxes would indeed increase federal revenues like I have said before, we are not going to get into a scenario of adding more unknowns than we need to. We are sticking with what we know and what we know is taxes at current rates yield certain revenue levels and a certain payback period.

Well, it has been quite a journey through the reality of the federal budget and our deficits and we are almost at the end. Next week it is time for the last option; unthinkable option number five. That is when we get serious. That is when we adopt the approach of if it ain’t in the Constitution, sorry Charlie, but it ain’t going to get money spent on it on the federal level. And when we do that, you are going to see how easy it is to get this debt paid off.

Of course you are also going to hear the howls of misery from the welfare class too. Fun, fun, fun!

Looking pale and clasping his shaking hands in front of him, he told MPs: ‘I have obviously written some pretty awful emails.’

But he is not ready to give up! Nope, he looks ready to fight to his death over this issue and cause even more laughter every time he speaks.

He admitted withholding data about global temperatures but said the information was publicly available from American websites.

And he claimed it was not ’standard practice’ to release data and computer models so other scientists could check and challenge research.

Ok, lets seriously discuss this. No, I mean it. Stop snickering at the fool.

First, if the data was “available” elsewhere then why withhold it? This is known as lying by omission. It is like when your two year old smacks her younger brother on the head with a tennis ball but you don’t see the exact ball. If you ask her, “Did you hit your brother on the head with the dog’s squeaky ball?” and she answers no. Yeah, technically she didn’t lie but she still did a bad thing and did hit him. Phil Jones, if he was a serious scientist would not have hidden anything. But being a political hack for the progressive socialist left what he did was simply just not tell the whole story and then hope no one found the what he was omitting. And then we know what he and his fellow travelers would do when that omitted data was found – they vilified and attack the whistleblowers.

Now on to the silly claim of how this is all, “standard practice.” I call B.S.! Do you know any teacher that you have ever had that simply accepted your word for the fact that you accomplished something? No, you don’t. Not even in college where each time I did an experiment and wrote a report someone, somewhere reviewed it to ensure its correctness. I don’t recall ever seeing the memo from God saying that Phil Jones was infallible and that his work didn’t need to be checked. In fact from all we have learned so far Mr. Jones is someone who desperately needs his every move watched because he has proven himself to be highly unreliable and incompetent.

For the sake of your health Mr. Jones please renounce the lies you cling to. It is obvious that they are destroying you. If you need help breaking away from the Cult of Al Gore there are many willing to assist you. But you have to want to get help.

The dealer told me they would place an order for the part and that it would be in shortly and that I would receive a call when it arrived. A month later and no call I returned to the dealer. They told me the part had not arrived yet despite the seeming urgency of a recall and a car that did not meet “Federal Standards.” Please note that this post is not meant to endorse the existing of extra-constitutional power grabs by the federal government where they do things that they are not supposed to be doing such as setting standards for how automobile makers construct their vehicles. It is just meant to prove a point which will be fully flushed out by the end of my comments.

Ok, so the dealer tells me they will call me when the piece arrives and I return home. A month later after no call I go back to the dealer and still no part from GM. I return home in my car that the federal government has deemed unsafe and in need of repair.

A month later once again I head back to the dealer and still no part. This goes on for months.

Finally the part arrives and it is installed making my car compliant with federal vehicle standards for safety.

I do not recall there being hearings and members of Congress all in a huff over Chevy’s slow response to this safety issue and allowing me to drive around in a car the bureaucrats have decided is not properly built. But a fraction of a percent of a fraction of a percent of Toyota’s have a problem with gas pedals and acceleration and look what we have; we have hearings and the crucifiction of the company after a recall to address the problem.  I am not saying that Toyota should not work to fix the problem, just doing a comparison.

Now I am not one that is big on conspiracy theories but Chevy/GM is an American based company with lots of power in Congress wielded by their labor union. And Toyota while it employs many Americans is a foreign company that has for years done things far better than Chevy/GM to the point where they climbed to the #1 spot in the car market. Far be it from me to suggest that our government which has for years burned at the stake those who it does not like while propping up those that it does with billions of taxpayer dollars is engaging in some sort of back handed deal here.

I am just saying where was the outrage when I was driving around in my unsafe, American car that GM was not apparently all that interested in fixing quickly?

As much as those on the left wants to paint me as such I am no villain. I am just a man who comes before you each week to give you my opinion on matters of great importance to the well-being of our Republic and who has a healthy dose of the facts as well as history on my side. But I do have to say that I am sorry to have to come before you with what are indeed five unthinkable options.

Oh, they are not unthinkable because they cannot be thought of. In fact they all have been thought of. They are just unthinkable because once thought of they are quickly discarded by minds that do not want to accept the truth. That truth is that the way our federal government spends money, and likewise what it spends money on, is ruining America and heading us down a road to oblivion.

I am a big boy. I can fight for myself. My children however are another story. I see what our Congress and a long line of Presidents have done when it comes to spending and year in and year out toss away more money than is collected. The numbers are staggering. The United States is not millions of dollars in debt. It is not even billions of dollars in debt. Oh no, we are far past those milestones on the road to oblivion. The United States is trillions of dollars in debt as it has spent and spent and spent some more only afterwards to maybe ask a question or two. You know, simple questions like is this or that expenditure a good and wise usage of tax payer dollars and is it even allowed under the federal constitution; things like that.

Then once those questions are asked after the fact the inevitable kabuki dance begins. First those who support the spending try to just ignore the question. Then when that fails and people keep demanding answers step two is implemented which is to justify the spending under some obscure and wholly inconceivable interpretation of the Constitution. This tactic includes inserting words that do not exist into the text, redefining words that do exist and ignoring actual documentation by the founding fathers themselves that further explains the words they penned, voted on and later approved. If that fails it is on to step three where they again try to ignore the question. When that fails they pull out a line that goes something like, “The power of Congress to do [insert expenditure here] is unquestioned,” and then again return to ignoring the question. And finally when that fails to silence critics of their plans they resort to their final excuse which is to play on your heart strings and talk about all the pain and suffering that would ensue if all this spending that should never have been implemented in the first place were to be ended. Then if absolutely necessary they go back to step one and start all over again, never actually settling anything, admit they are wrong or solving the problem of all this gosh darn spending! Meanwhile they are heaping more such programs and spending upon us to boot!

I do, despite the angry emails from progressives and liberals that I get every week, care about my children. Not just my children either but all children of all Americans. And as much as these angry liberals hate it, and tell me so every time I dare speak the truth of the matter, when I compare what we are doing to millions of our children by burdening them with huge debts to cover today’s wants and desires to slavery, there really is no other comparison that comes even close. We are enslaving our children, just as the ancestors of modern day liberals in the past enslaved blacks, to work for them. We are forcing our children to give up the right to their persons and their productivity to make the lives better of liberals who just want and want and want more right now.

It is sick.

And this is why I come before you with, what will be when it is all said and done, the five unthinkable options which I will be spelling out over the course of five weeks and doing so in terms of hard numbers so that there can be no question about each one. I am going to talk a lot about spending and taxes and I am going to use a lot of big numbers that most people cannot get their arms around because they are so inconceivable to ordinary Americans. I know that a lot of people’s eyes start to glaze over when these sorts of topics come up. But I really do not know any way to make it any clearer and discuss the problems that we have and that I think a majority of Americans intuitively understand. I do not think a majority of Americans understand what must be done in order to make things right however.

I see polls that show overwhelming majorities of Americans think that the government should tax and spend less while providing fewer services. But I know from my conversations with many of you that the common belief is that we can solve the problems of deficit spending by cutting spending from the programs that you do currently draw from. I talk to seniors who rail against Medicaid and Food Stamps and other programs that are designed to give the poor more of a benefit than they pay for in taxes. But these seniors do not want their Medicare and Social Security touched. They actually think that the problem can be solved by pairing back these selected programs and leaving their entitlements intact.

On the other end of the spectrum I talk to people of lower incomes who think that the problem can be solved by cutting military spending; one of the few things that government actual does which is Constitutional by the way. Some of them also think that we should cut spending on programs that benefit senior citizens to solve the budget crunch and save their own piece of the government pie. Again, they think that by doing this while preserving their own space in the cookie jar for their only grubby hands can save this Republic.

The more I talk to people the more I know that most people are so wrong about this and have too many misconceptions about the federal budget, where money is actually spent and what our revenues actually are each year that it is necessary to crunch the numbers and lay them out. When I do this with people who I talk to individually they get a really shocked look on their faces because so much of what they think they know about where government spends money is wrong.

What I am going to do is spell out what needs to be done in order to not just stop the rate at which we are adding to the federal deficit and further enslaving all of our children, but also what is fiscally sound and morally responsible in order to actually pay down that debt. Each option to be presented one by one over the following weeks, I am sad to say, will cause untold misery. But it is a misery that so many Americans have inflicted upon themselves and the rest of us by simply not educating themselves.

Some of these options are also completely and fiscally unsound. But they are still options that must be looked at in order to help understand the ones that are in fact reasonable courses of action to take

And to conclude this introduction to what you will be reading about in this space for what is now the next four weeks, I present you with the first of the five unthinkable options. That first option is to just ignore everything. Ignore the deficits. Ignore the spending. Ignore the Constitution. Ignore the cries of our children who are being crushed under the debt we are piling up. Just ignore everything and put on your binders and keep on moving forward towards the cliff as that whip cracks us in the rear waiting for the day we eventually run off it and take everyone, including our children, with us.

That is the first of these options in the simplest terms I can state. And the misery that will be caused if you do choose this, the first of the five unthinkable options, will be the destruction of the United States of America and a resignation that our children should suffer for the selfish actions you choose not to end.

Next week, unthinkable option number two; tax the evil rich.

“As quickly as you start spending federal money in large amounts, it looks like free money.”
— Dwight D. Eisenhower

You know, like the fact that he founded Color of Change, a radical black nationalist organization that recently tried to take down Glenn Beck because he dared to tell the truth about Van Jones. They never talked about his being the lead speaker at a Communist Party function where he and his ideas were welcomed with open arms. Oh, and they never dared mention that he espoused Communist principles that were so foreign to American style government while with STORM (Standing Together to Organize a Revolutionary Movement) among many other instances. Nope. The media was just content to poo poo his actions for as long as possible and omit the truth to keep many Americans in the dark about who Van Jones really is – a radical communist who would no doubt institute a Stalinist regime if given the chance. And you can bet it would be complete with death camps and gulags for his political enemies. It is what the left does.

Well, the omissions continue. Today it is Christopher S. Rugaber of the Associated (People’s) Press forgetting to tell the whole truth about history. While he does point out the truth about the automobile bailouts of Chrysler and GM and that much of the money we taxpayers footed to them will not be repaid despite grandiose promises by liberals in government that it would (and which I repeatedly said not to hold your breath counting on it) he runs cover for most of those who bear responsibility for the whole fiasco. Instead he blames only one man, President George W. Bush.

Treasury Department officials have acknowledged that most of the $23 billion provided by the Bush administration is likely to be lost.

Uh … cough … excuse me Mr. Rugaber? Don’t you think it might be important to mention CONGRESS as the ones that actually provided the bailout? You know, since they are the ones that actually make laws and spend money in this country? How about a mention of how Obama supported such a plan?

Today’s actions are a necessary step to help avoid a collapse in our auto industry that would have devastating consequences for our economy and our workers. With the short-term assistance provided by this package, the auto companies must bring all their stakeholders together — including labor, dealers, creditors and suppliers — to make the hard choices necessary to achieve long-term viability. The auto companies must not squander this chance to reform bad management practices and begin the long-term restructuring that is absolutely required to save this critical industry and the millions of American jobs that depend on it.

These omissions are very important to understanding the actual truth of the subject. In Mr. Rugaber only mentions Obama once in his article and that is only in passing by referring to the “Obama administration’s Treasury Department.” How about some complete reporting?

It certainly would help to inform the American public, many of whom are still under the delusion that Obama is clean as the wind driven snow and not a radical leftist who honestly doesn’t have a clue about anything of importance to government.

September 4, 2009

Obama and DOE Violate Federal Law Enlisting Kids in Schools to Push Agenda

In what is an unprecedented and an illegal political move, President Obama has announced that on Tuesday, September 8, he will bypass parents and directly target their children in an effort to implement his political agenda. Millions of parents are justifiably outraged.

Federal law expressly forbids the Secretary of Education or any officer from exercising “any direction, supervision, or control over the curriculum, program of instruction, administration, or personnel of any educational institution, school, or school system.” 20 U.S.C. § 3403. The President must cease this illegal activity.

U.S. Department of Education Secretary Arne Duncan recently sent a sent a letter to school principals encouraging them to tune in to a live speech Obama will give to children during school hours on Tuesday at noon.

The DOE even provided lesson plans, sample activities and questions that teachers can use to promote the event. The letter encourages teachers to “build background knowledge about the president by reading books about Barack Obama.” After a backlash, some of the most offensive language has been softened, students as young as kindergarten will be asked: “Why is it important that we listen to the President?” Initially, they were to be asked to explain “what they can do to help the president.” Still, their writings are to be used “to make students accountable to their goals.”

DOE Secretary Duncan is no moderate. He is a former Chicago politician who chose Kevin Jennings as Assistant Deputy Secretary of the Office of Safe and Drug-Free Schools. Jennings was the founder of GLSEN (Gay, Lesbian, Straight Education Network), a radical group that promotes forced acceptance of homosexuality and transsexuality in schools to children as young as five.

Parents are urged to demand that schools not participate. If the school allows Obama and the DOE to indoctrinate school children, parents ought to opt their children out of this illegal program.

Read our News Release for more details.

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