A Change is Coming

Two things have profoundly impacted me lately and I am encouraged to act.  I am not completely sure what form my action will take but I wanted to “put it out there”. 

The first event was the Sunday morning (12/26/10) lesson at our church New Hope Christian Fellowship by my friend Dewey Bertolini.  I was hoping to put a link to his message here but it does not appear to be up yet maybe by the time you click it will be there.

http://www.newhopeconnection.com

The other thing was a simple paragraph in a book I just finished by Betsy Hart called “It Takes a Parent”.

“We can’t keep the world out of our homes, even if we turn off the TV, don’t watch movies, make our girls dress in long skirts, and homeschool our kids.  Those might all be good things, but they will not keep sin out of the heart.  And if they lead to false complacency or, worse, self-righteousness, they will be destructive influences for out kids.”

I have so much I want to write but my 2 boys really need some guidance right now.  Thanks for checking in, I hope to be back this evening to expound a bit more.

gm

Marco Rubio wins in Florida

I watched and listened to this speech with tears in my eyes, he speaks not only for the people of Florida but for millions of us who also believe in the greatness of this country and who are determined to see that our children's inheritance is more than debt and chaos.  May God Bless the USA!!!


gm

And they say I'm impatient

I love this guy......He is a reason I could actually agree with cloning!

gm

Susan Sokol Blosser can't defend her behavior so she sues instead

"We hired crews of Mexican workers to harvest.  It was always difficult to find pickers, because strawberry harvest was at the same time and promised more money with less work."  

Pg. 65-66

"There was no federal program allowing foreign farm workers, but that didn't stop them from coming or us from hiring them.  There was always an abundance of Mexican farm workers in our area, and we were lucky to have them.  It was generally known that most of the workers entered the country illegally...the black market must have been huge.  The whole situation existed under the table.  Everyone knew about it; nobody talked about it."

Pg.66

These are excerpts taken from the book 
"At home in the vineyard" by Susan Sokol Blosser

She is now suing Jim Weidner for this ad:

  

Hey, Susan Sokol Blosser...Can you say sour grapes??!!


gm

Call Me Senator

So funny,but sadly not far from the truth, let's work "so hard" to get rid of this elitist attitude from our government!

gm

Who does Mary Stern think she is fooling?

Just a small taste of the local politics here in Yamhill county, if they will go this far to deceive the voters I can only imagine how far they will go at the national level.

gm

Twelve Days 'til Voting

I know there are only 10 days left until the election but I think you will all still enjoy this song.....AWESOME, so looking forward to Christmas in November this year!!!!

gm

Yamhill County can do better than Mary Stern

Vote for the GOOD Mary!

Please check out this video, who do you think is the Good Mary and the best person for Yamhill County?!?

gm

What do you really know about Mary Stern's Campaign Manager?

Hear Sal Peralta caught on tape selling Independent Party nominations!


http://tinyurl.com/salperalta

The Right Mary for Yamhill County

I just finished reading my local paper (yes, I sometimes still do that) The Yamhill Valley News-Register.  On the front page is an article by Hannah Hoffman about a criminal probe into the taping of the Chehalem Valley Chamber of Commerce endorsement interviews in Newberg which occurred in April of this year.  In Ms. Hoffman's piece she states that Yamhill County Commissioner Leslie Lewis (the accused) is a "close adviser to Stern's opponent, Mary Starrett."  Sal Peralta, Commissioner Mary Stern's campaign manager, was quoted as saying "Starrett's involvement in something like that wouldn't surprise him, but I'm stunned Lewis would go this far."  It was noted in this same article that Kris Bledsoe "...was taken aback to find Lewis participating in the interviews at all" and "she considered that an obvious conflict of interest."  The article goes on, it is a pretty substantial piece but I wonder why it wasn't mentioned that Sal Peralta is not only Commissioner Stern's campaign manager but that he is also the Secretary of the Independent Party of Oregon or that he himself was given a cease and desist direction from the Oregon Secretary of State Kate Brown.  I also wonder why Mary Stern doesn't want to stand by her voting record.  I could tell by watching the video that she was talking about being "fine" paying more taxes personally and she wasn't as Peralta stated "referring to Oregon taxpayers" and that is the PROBLEM.......she wasn't voting in the best interest of Oregon taxpayers when she voted yes on measures 66 and 67.  This is why I'm voting for Mary Starrett to replace Commissioner Stern, I believe she has Oregonians best interests in mind, she also isn't afraid to stand behind her record.


gm

Good Neighbors

We have the best neighbors, Morgan gave up his Sunday afternoon to build frames around these signs then he put them up in his yard.....Thank you!!!

gm

Tolerance for freedom of speech?!?

This is a sign in a field in front of our house, someone decided they didn't like what it said and decided to set it on fire in the middle of the night last night as well as steal 7 Jim Weidner signs......Can you say dirty politics!?

gm

One of the best political ads EVER!

This is a great ad......let's see more like this!

gm

Barney Frank Freddie Fannie Flip

It is time to retire Barney Frank, for America's sake......please help elect Sean Bielat!

gm

Why we should send Sean Beilat to Congress

The money quote is at 2:50.
Send $$$ to Sean Bielat, Barney Frank needs to go!!!

gm 

In Search Of: People Of Color

Check out my buddy Norris at 3:47!

gm

Mary Starrett for Yamhill County Commissioner

Mary Starrett is the Right Choice for Yamhill County or would you rather vote for the "other" Mary, the one who is fine with higher taxes and proudly takes the Lord's name in vain.....the choice is yours.



Do you personally have a problem paying "extra taxes" because Mary Stern is "fine with that"?!



Real classy, don't ya think?

Who would you prefer to represent you?

gm

REMEMBER NOVEMBER

Only 21 more days.......Let's take our country back!!!

gm

Check these guys out!

If you live and vote in Oregon please check these guys out:

Scott Bruun (District 5) is taking on Congressman Kurt Schrader.
503-699-6978
http://www.joinscott.com/

Rob Cornilles (District 1) is running to unseat notoriously pro-abortion (and crazy man) Congressman David Wu.
503-336-1233
http://www.cornillesforcongress.com/

Art Robinson (District 4) could be one of the best upsets for Oregon is challenging Peter DeFazio.
541-255-2785
www.artrobinsonforcongress.com


We won't be fooled again, make sure you check out who you are sending to be YOUR representative and vote!

May God Bless the USA!
gm

Only 21 more days!

There are only 21 more days until November 2nd.
Please make sure you are registered to vote and then make sure
you get out and vote.  WE THE PEOPLE must be heard!!!

In Oregon (my home state) you can register on line at:
www.oregonvotes.org and select "Register Now" to
update your registration or to become a new voter.
You can also call the Secretary of State's Election
Division at 1-866-ORE-VOTE (673-8683).  The LAST
day to register is October 12 - TODAY.

gm

"Free At Last?"

We can do better than these guys!!!

The Government Can

Our Lives, Our Fortunes, and Our Sacred Honor: Election 2010

Only 27 more days!

gm

Stanford at Oregon 10/2/10 51-31 Highlights

This was a great game.......Go Ducks!!!

gm

Tough Teachers

Things are sure different now days.... our kids are graduating without being able to read or speak properly.....but, they have good self-esteem and that is what matters.

gm

What drives Obama's rage?

The "other" march on D.C.

Reason TV, March on DC 9/12/10

Hold The Stimulus And Pass The Tea

Hold The Stimulus And Pass The Tea


Really, this has got to stop, anyone can see that we cannot spend our way out of debt!!!

gm

We Fall Down

Walter E Williams - Private vs Public

We also all need to read Dr. Walter Williams........Please!

gm

Thomas Sowell - The Option Destroyers

We all need to read Dr. Thomas Sowell......Please!

gm

Beautiful slide show of 8/28 Restoring Honor Rally

I took a lot of pictures but nothing like these, hope you enjoy!

gm

Widow of murdered rancher in Arizona

I had the chance to meet Sue Krentz following the Restoring Honor Rally in D.C. on 8/28/10, this woman and her family have endured so much heartache yet she is still fighting to protect our borders, more than I can say for our federal government.  We need to get behind and support Arizona, our very survival as a sovereign nation depends on it.

gm

Charles Lollar at Freedom Works 8/27/10

We need more leaders like Charles Lollar!

Reagan vs. the political elite

Presidential behavior???

The Smartest President

Just How Smart Is Obama?

The meteoric rise to the presidency of Barack Obama was fueled in no small part by the widely accepted contention that he was one of the smartest men ever to seek the Oval Office. He is not the first leader to be oversold.


"As far as Saddam Hussein being a great military strategist, he is neither a strategist, nor is he schooled in the operational art, nor is he a tactician, nor is he a general, nor is he a soldier. Other than that he's a great military man -- I want you to know that."

It is an article of faith among the mainstream media, even on the squishy right (Bill O'Reilly comes to mind), to start any discussion of the 44th President with a ritual expression of utter amazement at his enormous brain power.
This immortal witticism of Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf ,after a lightning 1991 campaign that cut to pieces the Iraqi dictator's vaunted army, resonates with me each time I read or hear any discussion of President Obama.

Does Obama deserve his reputation? Not really -- unless of course, a "perfectly creased pant" is a true metric of rapier wit and towering intellect, as David Brooks seems to think. One can certainly take such things on faith merely on the basis of credentials: the right university, the right profession, the right crowd. Columbia and Harvard Law alum -- what other proof is needed that the accomplisher of such lofty achievements must be right up there with the Einsteins of the world? Assumptions of this sort could cause one acute embarrassment, such as the one experienced by the historian Michael Beschloss at the hands of Don Imus. Beschloss was extolling Obama's "sky-high IQ," but just as he was hitting his stride, the host interrupted his guest's rapture: "So what's his IQ?" The historian had to sheepishly admit that he didn't know.
But mindless sycophancy of Obama groupies aside, what gives his admirers the reason to believe in the incomparable intellectual faculties of their idol? An ability to more or less fluently read a prepared text? But each time he drops the life buoy of the teleprompter and ventures to go unscripted, Obama stumbles and mumbles in search of words, launching an avalanche of "uhs" and more likely than not putting his foot into his mouth. Watching him on such excursions into the terrifying world of improvisation, anyone can see that Obama would be wise to take a few speech lessons from purported lowbrow Sarah Palin. Are his glaringly poor off-the-cuff skills evidence of great intelligence?
How about his endless gaffes? Like


"I've now been in 57 states -- I think one left to go."
- Obama 2008 campaign event, Beaverton, OR (Perhaps it was a Freudian slip, considering that there is indeed an entity consisting of 57 states -- it's called the Organization of the Islamic Conference.)


Or the "Austrian" language which Obama believes is spoken in Austria? Or


"In case you missed it, this week, there was a tragedy in Kansas. Ten thousand people died - an entire town destroyed."
- 2007 campaign speech on a Kansas tornado that killed 12 people


Or as he said in this year's Ramadan greeting, "Islam has always been part of America and ... American Muslims have made extraordinary contributions to our country." What country was he talking about? Or this pearl: "On this Memorial Day, as our nation honors its unbroken line of fallen heroes -- and I see many of them in the audience here today -- our sense of patriotism is particularly strong." An occasional slip of the tongue is an accident. A habit of dumb misstatements is evidence of laziness and lack of mental discipline, of the tongue just wagging uncontrollably. Is it evidence of Obama's intellectual superiority?


What about his propensity to jump feet-first before thinking and let the devil take the hindmost? Like accusing the Cambridge, MA police of stupidity in the Skip Gates incident, while freely admitting that he actually didn't know the circumstances of the case? Or getting into the Manhattan mosque controversy -- how's that for political acumen? Does it take a genius to figure out that coming down on the unpopular side of the issue, contrary to the will of nearly 70 percent of the American people, would be a major political blunder, particularly with the midterm elections just around the corner? Liberal pundits heaped praise on the president for his courage and steadfast adherence to principle. Why, then, did he hastily backtrack the very next day? Hardly a profile in courage is it. So what was it? Apparently an infantile, ideologically driven whim: I want it! I need it! And a hasty retreat as soon as the utterly predictable explosion ensued. A political genius?

How hard was it to predict that endless golf-cum-basketball outings, musical soirées at the White House, and vacation upon vacation in posh spots, culminating in Michelle's Spanish junket and a forthcoming stay in the elitist retreat of Martha's Vineyard, would be a major irritant to the people hard-hit by the recession or an undermining influence on the president's popularity? A callous disregard for the proles? Obviously. But how astute is it? Not very, for in-your-face arrogance has never been a mark of intelligence.


Add to this Obama's obvious economic ignorance, his glaring naiveté in international affairs, his boundless faith in the power of his oratory, his intellectual laziness, his intrinsic indecisiveness smacking of childish belief in the power of wish (close your eyes and the bad stuff will just go away), his political tin-ear -- are these the attributes of a genius? Sorry, Obama fans, what it all adds up to is an immature narcissist, an utterly inexperienced tyro, devoid of administrative ability, lacking political skills...a radical ideologue, who apparently believes that the job of president boils down to an incessant gabfest.


So with compliments to General Schwarzkopf: As far as Barack Obama being smart as a whip goes, he has no clue in economics, nor has he any understanding of foreign policy; he is supremely arrogant and doesn't care if it rubs people the wrong way; he has few political skills and no administrative ability, nor does he have any desire to engage in the day-to-day drudgery of ruling, preferring to reign instead; and he revels in the luxury of presidential perks and delights in flaunting his excess. Other than that, he is a true genius.



By Victor Volsky (emphasis mine-gm)
Page Printed from: http://www.americanthinker.com/2010/08/just_how_smart_is_obama_1.html at August 18, 2010 - 03:10:13 PM CDT
 
 
Why do we continue to believe that other people can run our country and our lives better than “We the People”???
gm

Allen West for Congress

We need more leaders like Colonel Allen West in Washington!

border crossing

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438021/

http://www.wsbtv.com/video/23438021/index.html


wonder if Pete Stark has seen these???


gm

Congressman Pete Stark of California 6/26/10

This video shows how incredibly out of touch our “representatives” are in Congress. This guy has been in Washington since 1972 and he is now chairman of the powerful Ways and Means Committee. Makes you feel pretty secure doesn’t it, knowing that leaders like him are working hard for us in government?!?!


gotta check out the young guys question at minute 9 and listen to the scary reply


gm

Read more:


http://thehill.com/homenews/house/84749-new-chairman-is-one-of-congress-most-controversial-members

http://www.familysecuritymatters.org/publications/id.6612/pub_detail.asp


http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0310/33845.html#ixzz0sMNsBIQr

AMERICA THE BEAUTIFUL by Ray Charles

What is the purpose of education?

I finished reading “Dumbing Us Down” The Hidden Curriculum of Compulsory Schooling by John Taylor Gatto and I would highly recommend it to anyone with kids, grand-kids or even if you are thinking about having kids. This is a short book, it is only 104 pages but it is powerful, I read it twice. If you would like to know more about Mr. Gatto, check out www.johntaylorgatto.com

I would also like to encourage you to read an essay he wrote titled “Against School” http://www.johntaylorgatto.com/hp/frames.htm
in it he quotes H.L. Mencken, who wrote in “The American Mercury” for April 1924 that the aim of public education is not

to fill the young of the species with knowledge and awaken their intelligence. ... Nothing could be further from the truth. The aim ... is simply to reduce as many individuals as possible to the same safe level, to breed and train a standardized citizenry, to put down dissent and originality. That is its aim in the United States... and that is its aim everywhere else.

I don’t know about you but that scares me, could this be true?


As I said before, I read the book twice, the second time with a highlighter. I want to share just a few of the lines that are now glowing yellow in my marked up copy. The publisher of “Dumbing Us Down” wrote a note in the beginning of the book……..

”If one were to poll our nation’s leading educators about what the goal of our educational systems should be, I suspect one would come up with as many goals as educators. But I also imagine that the capacity to form one’s own convictions independent of what was being taught in the classroom, the ability to think critically based upon one’s own experience, would not rank high on many lists.
In the context of our culture, it is easy to see that critical thinking is a threat. As parents, we all want what is ‘best’ for our children. Yet, by our own actions and lifestyles, and through the demands that we place on our educational institutions, it is clear that by ‘best’ we all-too-often mean ‘most.’ This shift from the qualitative to the quantitative, from thinking about what is best for the holistic development of the individual human being to thinking about which resources should be available to semi-monopoly governmental educational institutions certainly does not bear close scrutiny.”


So, I would like to hear from you, what do you think is the purpose(s) of education and do you think our public schools are accomplishing those goals?

gm

Jack Webb Schools Obama on Democracy

We must act now

http://www.goooh.com/

Margaret Thatcher

"If you just set out to be liked, you would be prepared to compromise on anything at any time, and you would achieve nothing."

"Enough Money"

One of the many shallow statements that sound good-- if you don't stop and think about it-- is that "at some point, you have made enough money."

The key word in this statement, made by President Barack Obama recently, is "you." There is nothing wrong with my deciding how much money is enough for me or your deciding how much money is enough for you, but when politicians think that they should be deciding how much money is enough for other people, that is starting down a very slippery slope.


Politicians with the power to determine each citizen's income are no longer public servants. They are public masters.
Are we really so eaten up with envy, or so mesmerized by rhetoric, that we are willing to sacrifice our own freedom by giving politicians the power to decide how much money anybody can make or keep? Of course, that will start only with "the rich," but surely history tells us that it will not end there.

The French Revolution began arbitrary executions among the hereditary aristocracy, but ended up arbitrarily executing all sorts of other people, including eventually even leaders of the Revolution itself, such as Robespierre.
Very similar patterns appeared in the Bolshevik Revolution, in the rise of the Nazis and in numerous other times and places, where expanded and arbitrary powers were put into the hands of politicians-- and were used against the population as a whole.


Once you buy the argument that some segment of the citizenry should lose their rights, just because they are envied or resented, you are putting your own rights in jeopardy-- quite aside from undermining any moral basis for respecting anybody's rights. You are opening the floodgates to arbitrary power. And once you open the floodgates, you can't tell the water where to go.


The moral bankruptcy of the notion that third parties can decide when somebody else has "enough" money is matched by its economic illiteracy. The rest of the country is not poorer by the amount of Bill Gates' fortune today and was not poorer by the amount of John D. Rockefeller's fortune a century ago.


Both men were selling a product that others were also selling, but more people chose to buy theirs. Those people would not have voluntarily continued to pay their hard-earned money for Rockefeller's oil or Gates' software if what they received was not worth more to them than what they paid.


The fortunes that the sellers amassed were not a deduction from the buyers' wealth. Buyers and sellers both gained from these transactions or the transactions wouldn't have continued.


Ida Tarbell's famous muckraking book, "History of the Standard Oil Company," said that Rockefeller "should have been satisfied" with the money he had acquired by 1870, implying greed in his continued efforts to increase the size and profitability of Standard Oil. But would the public have been better off or worse off if Rockefeller had retired in 1870?


One of the crucial facts left out of Ida Tarbell's book was that Rockefeller's improvements in the oil industry brought down the price of oil to a fraction of what it had been before.
As just one example, oil was first shipped in barrels, which is why we still measure oil in terms of the number of barrels today, even though oil is seldom-- if ever-- actually shipped in barrels any more. John D. Rockefeller shipped his oil in railroad tank cars, reducing transportation costs, among other costs that he found ways of reducing.


Would the public have been better off if older and more costly methods of producing, processing and shipping oil had continued to be used, leading to prices far higher than necessary?


Apparently Rockefeller himself decided at some point that he had enough money, and then donated enough of it to create a world-class university from day one-- the University of Chicago-- as well as donating to innumerable other philanthropic projects.


But that is wholly different from having politicians make such decisions for other people. Politicians who take on that role stifle economic progress and drain away other people's money, in order to hand out goodies that will help get themselves re-elected. Some people call that "social justice," even when it is anti-social politics.

by Thomas Sowell Tuesday, May 18, 2010

We need more of this!!!

Victoria Jackson

Taking Feminism Back

Today, in Columbia, South Carolina, two of the women who are showing America what real feminism is, will appear together, at which time Sarah Palin will officially endorse Nikki Haley for South Carolina Governor. I had the honor of meeting Nikki Haley, and hearing her speak, in Atlanta at the Red State Gathering last Summer.

She’s even more impressive in person than she is on paper (or web). She was one of several women, including Liz Cheney whom I also adore, who spoke at that event, each as impressive as the next. All smart as whips, charismatic, charming, quick, impassioned, energetic and with a fighting spirit embodying my personal motto: “Walk softly. But carry a big lipstick.”

The left hates that phrase and they have ridiculed me for it on more than one occasion. You see, they don’t get it. It’s not surprising, really, as we’ve all known for some time that while the left trots out the For The Women ™ meme constantly, they are anything but. The same way that self-avowed modern day feminists are anything but feminist. In fact, they are diametrically opposed to feminism, by it’s very definition, because their entire agenda is actually harmful to women. This is why I now call them Femogynists and I’m taking the term feminist back.

True feminists are women like Sarah Palin and Nikki Haley. They are the new faces of feminism. That has a great built-in bonus, too — they are far easier on the eyes and exhibit none of that irksome hysterical screeching like the already irrelevant and soon to be extinct femogynists. They, and women like them, are coming to the forefront now.
We’ve had it, you see. We are angry. We are tired of femogynists claiming that they speak for us. We are tired of being sneered at as gender traitors for not toeing the faux feminist line and by daring to be pro-life. We are tired of the attempts to diminish Motherhood. We are tired of women being painted as perpetual victims by the left, in need of Big Daddy Government to save us.

We are tired of working so hard to raise our families and having the government take more and more away. We are angry at being treated like children who aren’t capable of running their own lives, even down to what foods we eat. We are angry that our children’s futures are being squandered and we are fearful that they will never know the country we knew and love. We are angry that we are losing our freedom. That old phrase “hell hath no fury like a woman scorned?” Say hello to the scorned (I’m waving at you right now)

We are the women whom the left hates. And, you know if the left hates us, we must be doing something right, yes? They hate us because they don’t understand us, they actually believe that women are lesser, and they have a perverted definition of equality. With all their claims of “equality”, they don’t honestly believe that at all. Amanda Marcotte, once head blogger for cheater and long-time paternity denier John Edwards, exposed that when she recently tried to explain why all women should be liberals:
For me, women’s rights and liberalism are, in my mind, pretty hard to unhook, and it fascinates and amuses me that you see conservatives complain that feminists are always with the democrats, as if there’s ever going to be a form of conservative feminism. You look at someone like Sarah Palin trying to wear that mantle, and you see the flaw in trying to be a so-called conservative feminist, which is that you’re not very pro-women. Women need things for equality that tailor very neatly to the general liberal agenda: Clean environment, universal healthcare, civil rights, individual rights, bodily autonomy, things like that. I fail to see how the two agendas are all that different.

Who is not very pro-women, Miss Marcotte? Silly me! I suppose you must be right because I’m a big dum-dum. How can mere women care about pesky things like the economy or icky military stuff? Math is hard! And that’s for boys! (Well, except for President Obama, evidently). I should just shut up or start screeching about my “right” to abort unborn babies so that I can be “equal” and care about pretty stuff like the environment.

Yeah, not so much. I’ll stick with Sarah Palin, Nikki Haley, Liz Cheney, Michelle Bachmann, Michelle Malkin and other strong, brilliant Moms.

I believe that the left is in for a rude awakening and a nice long time out given to them from said Mommies. Leave it to Mommy to make it all better, as always!

by Lori Ziganto 2010 May 14
 

Texas doctors opting out of Medicare at alarming rate

“You do Medicare for God and country because you lose money on it”  “The only way to provide cost-effective care is outside the Medicare system, a system without constant paperwork and headaches and inadequate reimbursement.”

http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/metropolitan/7009807.html


If you put the federal government in charge of the Sahara Desert, in 5 years there'd be a shortage of sand.

Milton Friedman

Power of the Individual

How about a tax incentive?

Anybody with a vague sense of the power of numbers realizes that a million people paying a dollar is better than one-hundred people paying a thousand dollars. That’s pretty straightforward, no real argument here. I also hope this next proposal is as close to universal as the last. The purpose of government is to, in some way; enhance the lives of the governed. It’s not what happens but in a perfect world it would be the goal.
Deep down everyone knows, no mater what drivel spews from a politicians mouth pre-election, that the most effective way to raise money is to tax the largest number of people, which at this point is the lower-middle class and the middle class.
All of what I have regurgitated to this point I hope is self-evident, but this is where I have a drastic and maybe revolutionary departure from the conventional governmental financial wisdom. For simplicity and to avoid reader boredom I am going to use round numbers that I’m grabbing from mid-air to illustrate a simple point. Because I’m not an accountant the actual numbers would be different based on many factors I’m not privy to, but the theory would still be the same.
So, to raise the standard of living without financing myriads of government bureaucracy, why not change the tax codes? For simplistic purposes I will only talk about a single family tax code.
Why not reverse the tax brackets? We would of course exempt any family that falls into the economic status of poverty… let’s call that 20k. We know that the median household income is around 40k so that would be the bulk of households. Then let’s assume an outbreak of governmental honesty, OK, OK I know it’s a stretch but suspend disbelief for just a moment.
The President goes on TV and says, “Our country is in financial trouble, we can not pay for most of our programs. We are going to implement a new more aggressive tax structure to solve this problem and I’m sorry to say the middle class is going to shoulder the burden. The tax structure is simple; if you make 21k to 100k you will pay a flat income tax of 50%. Everyone that falls above and below that will pay zero…
This tax code will do 2 things, it will generate more revenue to finance current programs, but even more importantly it will create a huge incentive for middle income people to increase their standard of living without another government program. Dare I say that in five years the United States would have more millionaires’ per-capita than any other time in history?
So instead of trying to legislate the myth of fairness by pulling down people that achieve, why not reward those that are willing to get the extra job and find a way to earn the extra dollar? If we were able to increase the individual income by such an amount there would be significantly less need for all the entitlement programs in turn the government would need less money.

gm

How To Be Poor

Extreme poverty is not a difficult condition to reach. All you have to do is remove yourself to a desolate wilderness area, and exert the minimum effort necessary to feed and shelter yourself. Any increase in activity, or human interaction, will make you less poor.
It’s more difficult to become poor if you start off with the advantages of modern technology, surrounded by the incredible human resources of a capitalist republic. Here are some techniques that both individuals, and nations, find equally reliable for impoverishing themselves:
Spend more than you earn. Nothing gets you to the poor house faster than spending money with wild abandon, especially when you borrow large sums, and pay exorbitant interest rates. The national debt of the United States approaches $13 trillion, and it’s growing by four billion dollars per day. Babies born today will begin their lives with $42,000 in debt clamped around their wrists and ankles. We paid over $383 billion in interest on the national debt last year. Anyone who has allowed a huge portion of their income to drain away into interest payments on credit card debt can testify how effectively it greases the slide into poverty.
Be as inflexible as possible. Long-term commitments locking in high levels of spending will greatly reduce your ability to exploit new opportunities, and deal with setbacks. Someone who dedicates most of their income to monthly cable service, cell phones, club memberships, and car payments is poorly equipped to investigate new business opportunities. A financial emergency can wipe out their meager savings and push them into ruin.
The same principle applies at the national level. Huge amounts of untouchable entitlement spending fuel our national debt, and leave us with limited resources for coping with war and disaster. Our massive government has already begun to eat into the muscle and bone of the economy, reducing the flexibility of private corporations through taxes and regulations. Nationalized industries become calcified in layers of bureaucracy, political ambition, and the need to satisfy powerful constituencies. Efficiency and flexibility are far down the list of priorities. Government is far slower to adapt to changing conditions than free markets, leaving poorly-invested national resources to rot away.
Lose control of your finances. People who don’t pay attention to their bank accounts and balance sheets are always surprised to discover they’re bankrupt. If you’re already broke, it really stings when a $20 check for pizza bounces, costing you $50 in fees. The tumble into poverty often begins when a spendthrift relative or spouse is given access to a formerly solvent bank account.
The American taxpayer is suffering through a shotgun wedding to an irresponsible government. We have very little idea of what happens to the money vacuumed from our paychecks by Washington. The federal government could never pass the kind of audit it routinely demands from businesses. Billions of dollars from the Obama “stimulus” simply vanished into thin air.
No one can possibly comprehend the entirety of federal spending bills or tax law, and our congressional representatives don’t even try. Massive bills like ObamaCare sprawl across the American economy, groaning and popping out poisonous little “Easter eggs” every few days. The percentage of the government’s tax and spending machinery which lies completely beyond the understanding or control of its citizens is growing at a rapid pace.
Try not to cooperate with others. Human interaction produces wealth: the exchange of goods and services, from which both parties gain. Almost every job is easier if you have help. Operations become more productive when labor can be specialized, leaving each worker to concentrate on using his talents and expertise.
An individual can become poor by minimizing his contact with others. Removing the benefits of exchange and cooperation goes a long way toward destroying wealth. A nation achieves the same effect by replacing free markets with government control, building barriers to exchange and cooperation. When the State separates producers and consumers, using hearty blows from its ham fists, it keeps resources from finding demand. A notable effect of this is high unemployment, which greatly assists our national quest for poverty.
Convince yourself improvement is impossible. Poverty requires a certain lack of initiative. The best way to remain unemployed is to stop looking for a job, because you’re certain none can be found. Despair flourishes after the careful elimination of hope. Some poor souls look at the ruins of a dissolute life, decide they don’t know where to start fixing it… and therefore never get started. If success is the refusal to be beaten, failure is the refusal to pursue success.
A nation becomes poor by making unsustainable commitments, then telling itself they can never be reformed. A confession of national helplessness transforms a recession into a depression. Big Government grows like a tumor, after convincing the public there is no way to reverse its growth. Every government program is indestructible, pushed on a populace with the assurances there are no practical or moral alternatives. We’re told we can never improve the situation – there are too many entrenched dependencies, stupid voters, powerful politicians, and unbreakable laws in our way. All opposition to the statist agenda is illegitimate, based in racism or greed.
To complete our journey into national poverty, it’s essential to give another Congress, and presidential term, to those who tell us we’re not capable of managing our business affairs, speech, and personal health. We must accept the proposition that freedom is such a failure that even thinking about it is sinful. There are no possible solutions to our problems, beyond those officially approved by the great minds in Washington, who are only interested in policing only one border: the limits of their imagination.
Obedience is the perfect ingredient to complete the recipe of poverty, after risk and innovation have been filtered out. History has shown us many wonders, but there has never been such a thing as a wealthy slave. If we surrender another decade to politicians who spend delusional amounts of imaginary money, demand rigid control of our markets, and replace voluntary cooperation for mutual advantage with compulsory obedience to the State, America can finally become poor.

Posted by Doctor Zero on May 13, 2010

“The closest thing on this earth to immortality,”

“is a federal program.” – Ronald Reagan


"Mrs. Obama — all-too-happy recipient of a Wal-Mart dependent compensation package worth more than $100,000 in 2008, according to Securities and Exchange Commission records"
http://article.nationalreview.com/434020/michelle-obama-food-profiteer-turned-food-cop/michelle-malkin

“A funny thing happened on the way to preventing hunger among America’s poor – the nation got fat.”
http://article.nationalreview.com/434169/the-first-lady-and-fat-government/mona-charen

You know the old saying “Half a truth is as good as a lie”.
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/05/17/junk-economics-a-closer-look-at-those-shocking-health-insurance-profits/

"According to the Congressional Budget Office, the new law will provide coverage to 32 million by 2019, but will still leave 24 million Americans uninsured."
http://blog.heritage.org/2010/04/23/obamacare%e2%80%99s-big-surprises-for-the-uninsured/

An interesting day at work

As you know, I work in healthcare. I have had the opportunity to work in many different arenas and in many different facilities; such is a blessing of my profession, flexibility.

Something that I have noticed in the last few years is the change in a few patients’ expectations. There are those that expect to have pain free surgery. They want to be seen now and they insist on every test and procedure imaginable. More often than not, the people with these attitudes are unwilling to pay for ANYTHING. I recently took care of a woman recovering from elective surgery. While I was in her room giving her pain medication and taking her vital signs I listened while she visited with her family. She mentioned that they had just returned from a trip to Disneyland and that they were looking forward to their future trip to Hawaii in the summer. This woman talked about going to a tanning salon to get “ready” for the sun. She talked about needing to get her hair and nails done (yes, some people talk about this kinda stuff while they are recovering) I noticed that she had a couple of large detailed tattoos. Later in the day I heard about their small living room (I was asking if they had stairs in their house that she would have to deal with) but now that they have the 52 inch flat screen TV they had more room, and she intended to stay in the recliner and watch movies during her recovery. This same patient told me that her husband was out of work and they have 4 children and that they couldn’t wait for “nationalized healthcare” because they couldn’t afford insurance (she was receiving all of her care for free).

I know this story sounds amazing and made up because what person would say all this while I was working right there but this is exactly what I am trying to point out. Some people have the expectation that because they want a service and need that service that it is a RIGHT.


Well, not to brag or anything but we don’t own a big TV, we don’t have cable or a dish, we rarely eat out and my husband drives a 39 year old car to work (and believe me it is NOT considered a classic, but don't tell him that:) we don’t have the latest and greatest cell phones, laptops, iPods or iPads and the reason we don’t have these things is because we make CHOICES.


All my life I was taught to work hard and save money and that I could be successful if I learned a “marketable skill” (my dads favorite term). We are extremely blessed. Neither my husband nor I went to expensive universities or hold impressive degrees but we have those marketable skills and we try hard to be good stewards of the gifts God gives us and to be charitable to those less fortunate. We are living the American dream.


Oh, and when my patient was finally ready to go home and she had met all the discharge criteria, I wheeled her out to the front of the hospital and her husband picked her up in a brand new car.

gm


 en•ti•tle•ment

Pronunciation: \-ˈtī-təl-mənt\

Function: noun

Date: 1942

1 a : the state or condition of being entitled : RIGHT b : a right to benefits specified especially by law or contract

2 : a government program providing benefits to members of a specified group; also : funds supporting or distributed by such a program

3 : belief that one is deserving of or entitled to certain privileges


very interestig, check it out when you have a minute
http://www.helium.com/items/316120-a-history-of-american-entitlement-programs



 
kinda fits:) 
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KRgB2eeHZEw
pretty funny