Just Too Funny!

I met a wonderful lady recently whose son is a Marine Corporal serving in Afghanistan. She, like millions of us is burdened with an imperious, tin-eared, nanny state, myopic Democratic Congressman. In this case, it is Ben Chandler of Kentucky’s 6th District.

Ben refuses to hold town hall meetings and disparages the folks who want to get his ear and demand he vote for their long term interests instead of rubber stamping the Obama agenda. Eunice is fighting back with a wonderful website showing what a dilfarb Mr. Chandler actually is. One of her best works is a craftily photo shopped video demonstrating where her Congressman is when he should be travelling his district listening to the will of the voters.

Just imagine your Senator (Murray for instance?), or Congressman (Inslee, McDermott, Baird, Larson, Smith?) in this clip. Please accept my apologies as I am not nearly as savvy as Eunice, or I would have blatantly copied her work with one of our current Obama sycophants.

You may want to watch this more than once. The sappy music fits the scenes perfectly and you will get a real kick out of where Ben manages to appear in the photos.

It would be wonderful to find a creative computer whiz that could knock something like this out for those of us here in Washington. Email me at oldironjarhead@live.com if you are that person.

Eunice’s website is:
SeeBenSpend.com

Enjoy!

Jeff

Brilliance

I was preparring to run this as the next post, but Investor’s Business Daily picked it up and ran it in their Monday edition. Please click the link to see it. It is high time someone shout loudly from the rooftops that “The emperor has no clothes!”

http://www.investors.com/NewsAndAnalysis/Article/545302/201008271806/How-Brilliant-Can-President-Obama-Be-.aspx

We can’t stop this spigot of insanity until 2012, but we can pinch it down considerably if we change control of Congress this November.

Semper Fi,

Jeffrey S. Howard

Changing Gears

I have been writing this blog for 8 months now. The only reason I have done so is to perhaps convince a few voters to agree with me that this upcoming mid-term election is probably the most important one of our lifetimes.

I am concentrating my efforts in a somewhat different direction for the next 2 months. I will not have the time to make regular posts, but will do so when time permits.

I have volunteered to be a Precinct Committee Officer in my neighborhood. The work involves gathering support by contacting residents personally, distributing yard signs, doorbelling with the candidates, and holding small group meetings for folks to discuss the issues and meet the candidates themselves. This work will involve a lot of time and shoe leather, but it provides the opportunity to perhaps turn a few opinions and get out the vote for the general election.

Our nation faces huge problems that have been building for decades and only exacerbated by the present administration and Congress. Debt and entitlement programs are out of control. Inept Foreign Policy is weakening America’s position in the world. Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, the FHA and VA are still pushing “liar loans” and other subprime instruments to promote social engineering instead of intelligent lending. Each is in dire straights and in the process of failing with huge taxpayer bailouts in the future.

“Taxpayers” are only bearing part of the burden. Our children are on the hook for the rest – $13 Trillion in National Debt, and over $100 Trillion more in unfunded entitlement program liabilities. Our economy is trying mightily to recover, but policies and regulations pushed by an administration of academics and eggheads with no private sector business experience are threatening to tip the economy back into the recession. They are intentionally attempting to balkanize America along race and class lines instead of continuing the healing and progress that has occurred since the Civil Rights Act.

The only way to begin to turn this ship around and save our children’s’ future is to flip control of Congress from the administration to the opposition. That will stop further harmful legislation and defund some that is already on the books.

The quote on my business card is:

“I dedicate my remaining years on earth to preventing our government from squandering the future of our children.”

I mean that, I am committed to that goal, and I will work my tail off to accomplish it. There are 7 little nieces and nephews whom I treasure who are depending on you and me to save them from a future we have to strive to prevent.

Jeff

Dear Mr. President

Dear Mr. President: 

 In today’s dangerous world, we need a President with experience, leadership, and courage. Unfortunately you have shown us little of those traits. Your childhood and younger years denied you the opportunity to grow up as an American man, and that is no fault of your own. Unfortunately, your lack of empathy for and experience of a traditional American upbringing has left you out of touch with those of us who grew up learning the traditions and work ethic of our predecessors. You have never accepted the honor of military service, nor held and survived in any sort of entry level working position. You are bereft of many of the basic building blocks of a true American personality and world view. 

You have never experienced the icy fingers of fear caressing your gut during a firefight when your very survival from second to second depends on your luck, wits, fellow troopers, and the grace of God. You have never sweated out a payroll when your receivables are late. You’ve missed the rewarding feeling of flogging a loaded truck all night to deliver a load 500 miles away at 7:00 AM. You never shoveled cow manure for less than minimum wage to earn enough for a rattletrap car. You missed out on greasing dump trucks on the night shift, and never had the opportunity to start out cleaning restrooms and sweeping floors in a factory. 

 Your education was in the law, and you ignored any opportunity to absorb the lessons of history or the theories of economics. You have never experienced the ecstasy of success or the lash of defeat in the private sector. While you play golf, basketball, and surround yourself with “the swells” enjoying concerts in the People’s House, those of us in the general public dine on Spam and Costco burgers. I can’t put my wife on a 747 and send her to Spain so she can be ready to spend 10 days on Martha’s Vineyard when she gets back. She works 7 days a week and so do I – spreading 4 full and part time jobs between us to make ends meet. 

 I watch in pain while my business venture slides into oblivion and my small IRA erodes as your economic policies push the nation into a double dip recession. This economy is locking up again, and you cannot blame former President Bush. The great construction jobs I created are ending while you pour trillions in borrowed money into the public sector to buy votes. I blame you personally for appointing the ship of fools you have as cabinet officials and advisors for this. You are repeating the gross mistakes of Japan in the ‘90s and the Roosevelt Administration in the ‘30s – both of which failed and lengthened severe economic problems for a decade or more. You are intentionally smothering our private sector with regulations, taxes, and mandates at the same time you squander the wages and futures of our children and grandkids. 

 I deplore your continued efforts to divide the greatest nation of immigrants in the world along race and class lines. Pandering to various groups and attempting to set them against other Americans is demagoguery at its worst. I sincerely hope such actions end up damaging you in the end and not our country. 

 You will leave office with a big pension, Secret Service protection, and gold plated health care for life. I may well end up with 40 years of hard work down the drain, living in a mobile home in the backwoods. I do not resent you for your good fortune – you worked hard to become President and won the election fair & square. I do however despise your policies and the horrendous damage they are visiting on our nation, its economy, and our future. I have dedicated my remaining years to fighting you, your policies, and protecting our children’s futures. 

 I may well end up destroyed financially from the results of your misguided and dangerous actions – but you will never break me psychologically, nor crush my spirit. I am a Marine, I have a wonderful wife and family, and last but not least, I live in the greatest nation in the world. I shall work to my last breath to keep it that way, and you sir, shall fail to destroy that dream. 

Jeffrey S. Howard

Redmond, Washington

Our Children

When these cute little kids get old enough to understand – who is going to explain to them that they were born owing hundred of thousands of dollars to faceless bondholders around the world?

Americans love their children. It makes no difference whether we are liberal, conservative, progressive, independent, or even politically sterile – our children are our hopes and dreams projecting our lineage into the future. At this moment, their future is in jeopardy and our generation has the moral responsibility and imperative to reverse that.

We see a future for our kids on the horizon that we have to change before it arrives. Our entitlement programs – Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid – are spiraling into insolvency. The Federal Budget Deficit has tripled in two years. Our government is mortgaging our kids’ future earnings at an alarming rate and shows no signs of exerting any sanity.

Combining the liabilities of the National Debt at over $13 Trillion at present and the unfunded liabilities of the above mentioned entitlement programs; every baby born today is on the hook for just under $400,000. That, of course, includes every living American of any age. Now we have piled the Health Care Bill on top of all the previous government commitments to entitlement largesse and the long term costs of that are not being truly enunciated. Only time will tell if it will be the final nail in the destruction of our nation’s fiscal stability.

We can no longer sit in front of the TV with 500 channels of sports, porn, and sappy sit-coms and ignore the peril in which we have placed our children’s future. We must awake and realize that piling up unmanageable debt and then dying to escape repayment is nothing short of criminal.

We have to stand up and demand the drastic reform of the entitlement monster before it destroys the opportunity our kids deserve. As individuals we must be strong enough to swear that we will not enroll in any of these programs unless fate and bad fortune leave them as the only way to preserve our lives. We have to get back to the concept that a government handout is not a right – but an insult, and an affront to our dignity. Sure you say you paid in and want your benefits. Too bad the government stole every penny of what you contributed and left the funds empty – it’s GONE! The people we elected over the past half century stole every penny! It is our burden and responsibility to realize the dough is gone and we have to take the hit – not our kids.

Watch that cute clip again and think hard on whether you want to be part of the problem, or part of the solution. Your little loved ones need your involvement now.

Video Analogy

Take a few minutes and see a video analogy of big government and where we will all be if President Obama continues to get his way:

Watch the debt climb.

See the bureaucrats running their departments.

Observe the few trying to prevent the disaster.

Note the apathy among the dedicated workers.

Witness the tipping point, and the unstoppable aftermath.

Notice the businessmen, stripped of their dignity, thrown into the maw.

Watch how the workers are tossed in immediately after.

Whose children are these – yours, mine, or will they be our grandchildren?

Stalin culled out the thinkers and entrepreneurs and worked them to death in the Gulags. Mao selected the landlords, business owners, and intellectuals and put a bullet in the back of their necks. Obama is not a dictator, and does not have the power to become one. His kinder, gentler way of crippling a free economy is to ostracize, criticize, tax, regulate, and marginalize those who create jobs and write the paychecks.

 “Spreading the wealth around” will soon lead to no more wealth to spread around.

VOTE THIS NOVEMBER!

Double Dip?

The Dow is down 275 points this morning, below 9900 and falling like a safe dropped from a helicopter. It just touched beneath the absolute low hit in the “flash crash” of May 6th. Consumer confidence plunged from 62.7 to 52.9 in one month. Recent polling shows that over 62% of Americans think the nation is on “the wrong track.” Exactly what is this market, supposedly a leading indicator of economic activity, trying to tell us?

The market is telegraphing that there is no confidence in the present government trajectory toward tax increases, more borrowing, and higher deficits. It also dislikes the dead hand of government in the management of financial institutions, automakers, and health care. It deplores the idea of saddling the economy with cap & trade costs, and realizes that “stimulus” spending largely directed toward the public sector is totally non-productive. Investors and businesses have seen this movie before – when the very similar activist policies of FDR failed to cure the Great Depression which lasted well into his 3rd term.

Vice president Joe Biden has said that we “need to spend money to keep from going bankrupt.” Nancy Pelosi has stated about the Health Care Bill that “we have to pass the bill so we can see what’s in it.” Christopher Dodd comments on his financial reform legislation: “No one will know until this is actually in place how it works”. Of course no one can forget candidate Obama’s comments on cap & trade: “electricity rates will necessarily skyrocket,” and on taxes: “it is better for everyone when we spread the wealth around.”

Peter Orszag, the OMB director responsible for planning budget deficits beyond contemplation and cooking the books to make Health Care appear feasible is bailing out. President Obama just got slapped around by the leaders of the G-20 when he floated a trial balloon involving more massive “stimulus” spending. These heads of state are belatedly awakening to the fact that Keynesian economic theories eventually crash, but Obama, Summers, Geithner, and Biden have yet to catch on. Unfortunately, they never will because they are so completely wed to big government along with massive spending, taxing and regulation schemes. Of course, buying votes from SEIU and UAW members is the prime benefit to the administration of the mix.

This administration is stealing from our grandchildren and spending our national future down the drain. The red ink must be staunched, entitlement spending reformed, Health Care repealed, and government cut back. Obama will never consider it, so the only way to begin a reversal is to elect a Congress that will refuse to fund these massive programs.

The next time you see a baby, stop and wonder how he or she will think of our generation in about 50 years. Then promise that baby that you will vote now to stop this insanity before it is too late. No American has the right to live in the present off the future earnings of another.

Twelve Provocations

He is bigger than me, nasty, and cruel – the bully, assigned the seat behind me in 4th grade. Every few minutes, he reaches forward and tweaks my ear. I quietly seethe in growing anger, but continue to hope his harassment will cease. It is not to be. In an instant reaction of boiling rage, I rise, whirl, and attack. After getting in a few good hits and some choice words, I am sent to the principal’s office feeling relieved and rather proud.

The Bully

The Obama Administration has been tweaking the American people’s ears for 17 months. Each time a new story breaks, it is another drip in the water torture of those who value their country and way of life and wish to preserve it. The retaliation will begin in November. Let’s look at a few of the reasons.

Stimulus Bill: Well north of $800 Billion is committed to this blatant purchase of public employee and union loyalty. The vast bulk of this pork barrel is targeted at maintaining employment in the public sector – not at energizing private, wealth producing industry.

TARP Automaker Bailout: Diverting money from a financial bailout fund, GM and Chrysler were forced into a perverted form of “bankruptcy” directed by the Obama Administration. Bond holders were ripped off and the UAW paid off. Instead of allowing the courts to settle the issues, the Administration propped up zombie companies solely to preserve union pensions, dues, and votes at taxpayer expense.

Blame America First: The President never misses an opportunity either at home or overseas to criticize America for deeds of the past and lecture citizens on the unfairness of our free economy and lifestyles. Americans want a President to lead and support them – not continuously degrade the nation’s accomplishments and the efforts of its entrepreneurs.

Close Guantanamo Bay: This idea was inept foolishness, and has not been accomplished. Americans do not want terrorists on US soil and feel they should be dealt with fairly, by the military, in a far away place.

Terror Trials in NYC: Based on PC instead of common sense, the Administration’s promise to hold the trials of the 9/11 defendants in New York in a civilian court instead of relying on a Military Tribunal has enraged millions. There is no cogent excuse for this decision and the pushback has been massive and widespread.

Health Care Bill: Against the will of the majority of the American people, this monstrous 2700 page bill was passed into law before anyone could read and understand its unintended consequences. Sold partly as a way to “bend the cost curve down”, recent developments have pointed to the exact opposite. Doctors are trying to sell their practices to escape the business. Major firms are charging huge amounts against future earnings, and it is estimated that half of those presently insured will lose the coverage they have within 3 years.

Border Security: The Administration has avoided securing the border apparently for political reasons, the security of the American people and the rule of law be damned. Out of desperation Arizona passed a law to enable local authorities to participate in the apprehension of illegal immigrants and turn them over to ICE. Instead of enforcing Federal law, the Administration is suing Arizona!

Cap & Trade legislation: In the depths of the worst recession since the 1930s, and after candidate Obama’s admission that “energy costs will necessarily skyrocket”, the Administration plans to push for passage of “Cap & Trade”. This will create a huge market in carbon credits ripe for manipulation and punish job creating businesses with crushing increases in costs. It will kill yet more jobs when we least need such results.

Oil Spill response: Two months of uncontrolled oil gushing into the Gulf of Mexico has fouled beaches, smothered fish, drowned wildlife, and tossed thousands out of their life’s work. Foreign countries’ offers of aid are spurned by the Administration out of hubris and refusal to suspend the Jones Act. Instead of gathering experts and planning a response, a “commission” consisting of anti-oil zealots is appointed and deep oil drilling is prohibited for 6 months throwing thousands more out of work. There is no direction and no clear lines of authority. Operations and plans by states and municipalities to protect themselves are quashed by federal bureaucracies. Throughout this time, the President plays golf, throws parties, and attends private concerts. The Nero Administration is totally dysfunctional while the greatest environmental catastrophe in America’s history runs amok with no coordinated reaction.

Spending: No Administration in history has spent more money, most of borrowed from China and future generations, than this one. The Federal Budget Deficit has quadrupled on an annual basis and these tankers full of red ink are projected as far as the eye can see. This has to be reversed immediately by stopping the Administration in its tracks before the plunge toward national bankruptcy and the destruction of our children’s’ future is irrevocable.

Tax Increases: The Administration is rubbing its hands together awaiting an expected increase in revenue from the expiration of the Bush Tax Cuts. Unfortunately the consequence is that businesses are allocating as much revenue as possible into 2010, and hoarding cash. This is a recipe for compounding and prolonging the recession since money on the sidelines cannot create jobs through purchasing and expansion.

McChrystal Article: The Afghan people live in and prefer the 7th century. Attempting to drag them kicking and screaming into the 21st goes against their grain. They have proudly defeated outside invaders for a thousand years and see no reason to quit now. Presidential preferences (Bush and Obama) to eliminate opium cultivation, turn Islam from a lifestyle into a religion, stand up a secular democracy, and eliminate the Taliban may be a bridge too far. Obama already canned one general, and now fires McChrystal over an article in which the general and his staff let their guards down badly. This is not the President’s fault directly, but the overlapping and confused lines of authority between the military and various civilian officials are similar to the oil spill debacle. The apparent lack of direct leadership and control from the Oval Office cannot help but add to the impression that the Administration is in way over its head.

Foreign Relations: The act of sending the Churchill bust back to England and presenting schlocky DVDs to the British Prime Minister was crass. The ill treatment of the Israeli Prime Minister was inexcusable. Pulling the plug on missile defense in Poland and the Czech Republic was pathetic, and expecting the Iranian Mullahs to abandon their nuclear ambitions by smiling at them is naive at best. Dissing Honduras after the court legally deposed a President and leaving Columbia twisting in the wind on trade are alerting our historical allies that the US is not a dependable partner. Bowing to foreign heads of state is unacceptable conduct by an American President. Jimmy Carter may yet live to see himself elevated in history by the abject performance of this President.

The Obama Administration is the bully, the American people; its victims. Our ears are stinging from this continued abuse. As Americans it is our duty to the nation and its future to whirl and fight back. Your opportunity to vote this November must not be missed.

You Choose

Look what Patty Murray and the Democrats think is good for America – deficits that plunge us towards bankruptcy!

Whose children and grandchildren will end up paying for this catastrophe?

Unsustainable Federal Budget Deficits

Murray rose from a faculty position, fully baked in the hothouse of liberal PC groupthink, to US Senator in a few short years; swept into the office in “the year of the woman,” 1992. She means well, but her voting record is does not help America’s future.

The Democratic Party’s belief in big government solutions to every problem has created legislation that has proven counterproductive, expensive, harmful, and unsustainable for 77 years. Patty Murray has been a myopic cheerleader for such buffoonery all her adult life. During the 110th Congress, her voting record was 97.5% along party lines; a tie for the very top spot with Richard Durban of Illinois. That is not legislating – it is rubber stamping anything the party tells her to vote for.

Of course, Murray voted for Obamacare and the unintended consequences are now emerging from the closet like Willard’s rats. Contrary to the President’s solemn promise, more than half of the presently insured will lose the coverage they prefer within 3 years. Now she is tuning up to vote for Cap & Trade which will burden job creating businesses with punitive energy costs during the depths of a severe recession.

Murray is blind to the fact that as the future unfolds, far too many have claims upon the earnings of far too few. The massive entitlement programs we already have are nearly bankrupt. Her knee jerk support for yet more government control and spending can only be explained by her typical liberal preoccupation with the present time. She knows not about history, cares not about reality, and sees not the future. Her only vision is limited to her slavish devotion to yet more big government solutions she mistakenly “feels” would make things better. “Reasoning” out the costs and unintended consequences is obviously beyond her capacity.

The future of our nation depends on whether the march of the nanny state and its exploding debt can be arrested and rolled back. If not, it will destroy liberty as we have known it and condemn our children to serfdom. Murray is a major enabler of our potential future under Big Brother. Leaving her in office for 6 more years only exacerbates the possibility of the day when it will be too late to stop it. We in Washington have to elect a different Senator.

Murray went to the Senate as “The Mom in Tennis Shoes” but quickly turned them into a rubber stamp. Her hardwired base will back her forever since they pay no more attention to history and future consequences than she does. It is up to those of us who can see the long term damage of liberal policies, spending, entitlements, and social engineering to send Murray back to a college classroom. There she can damage only a few young minds at a time instead of continuing to help push America off the precipice of dependency, indebtedness and international impotence. She must be fired in November!

Here is a cute description of Murray’s propensity for earmarks, followed by links to two great candidates who should be seriously considered to replace her:

click here for Paul Akers’ Website

click here for Clint Didier’s Website

The Gift

In late 1941, WW II had been raging for over two years.  Britain was holding out alone in Europe and Hitler’s Panzers were within sight of Moscow.  With the horrors of WW I fresh, the United States wanted no more foreign entanglements.

FDR knew the US would have to enter the war on the side of the Allies.  Allowing the Axis Powers to absorb huge populations and untold natural resources would eventually create powers too big to defeat.  Every farm, oil well, rubber tree, factory, and military age man absorbed by the Axis meant another increment of strength to our enemies.  What – if anything – could awaken the American people to the growing and imminent threat to our very existence as a free republic?

Admiral Isoroku Yamamoto stepped up with a perverse and tragic gift on December 7th.  The horrific news of the attack on Pearl Harbor galvanized the American people as nothing else could.  The intense anger following that sneak attack combined with the sober realization that half the world’s modern military strength was arrayed against us stoked the determination to destroy our enemies.  The acute realization that our nation was in mortal danger of becoming an Axis conquest awoke the instinct of self preservation.  From that moment on, America was at war to win.

The Obama Administration is our generation’s domestic Pearl Harbor.  We must take advantage of it to preserve our country for future generations.  Barack Obama has given us a priceless gift if we are strong, smart, and organized enough to use it to our advantage. It is an attack on our freedom, liberties, way of life, and our children’s future, from within. It is an assault on America’s greatness, the destruction of her exceptionalism, and the squandering of her prosperity.  It is up to us and like minded people throughout the land to seize on this gift and turn it to our advantage.

In my adult lifetime, America’s population has increased about 40%.  In that same time, the proportion of people dependent on, or working for government has increased by over 270%.  A whopping 30% of all Americans are currently either working for government or receiving some sort of assistance, transfer payment, or entitlement.

The currently employed labor force is about 45% of our total population.  Almost half of them pay no taxes whatsoever, so that further dilutes the number supporting the 30% to around 22.5%.  If you pay taxes, you are not only supporting yourself, but also more than one person on government programs or employment.  The imbalance of these numbers gets worse by the year.  It is the slow bleeding of our fiscal stability on the path to inevitable to economic suicide.

Obama and his cadre of hacks, elitists, sycophants, czars, camp followers, and assorted & sundry buffoons are ratcheting up every handout, entitlement, and subsidy they can to increase dependency on government.  These burgeoning government giveaways are no different than the farms, oil wells, factories, mills, and young men that were being swept into the maw of the Axis war machine. Each new handout buys strength for the Obama welfare state juggernaut.  Senator Jim DeMint stated that “A dependent voter is a dependable vote.” Obama is buying as many as he can with money as yet unearned by those yet unborn.

This is the path so disastrously trod before us by Greece, and being quickly followed by Italy, Spain, Portugal, Ireland, and Hungary.  Our future is unfolding before us in Europe this very minute.  The only preventative measure that will save us from a similar fate is to emasculate the Obama Administration in November with our votes. While we are at it, let’s broom out a few dozen Bush-era RINOs who don’t concern themselves with our future any more than the current regime.

Here is deficit spending compared to a cross country road trip.  It will give some perspective:

Now is the time for all good men to come to the aid of their country!

Just for clarification; that line did not come from the mouth of some famous leader back in history.  It originated as a typing class drill by a teacher named Charles E. Weller in about 1867.