"Truth, What is truth?

Chop-Shop Pads “their Bottom Line”

Conservatively, Planned Parenthood could be taking in between $5,897,754 and $22,935,710 annually from selling aborted babies’ body parts.

Not quite the half billion dollars they get in taxpayer money, but that'll buy a couple Lamborghini's.

Parts ain't parts when they are babies' hearts.

2/3 of Americans Favor Taxpayer Bailout for Abortion Business Selling Murdered Baby Parts. Really?

By: Matthew Clark (Diary)  |  September 29th, 2015 

No. Not really. But the deceit is useful for them, so it is propagated.

As are other lies. And when liars lie, they use statistics.

WaPo: Three Pinocchios for Planned Parenthood’s “3 Percent” Abortion Lie

Planned Parenthood is “misleading,” “using meaningless and incomplete comparisons to make their argument, and the public should wary . . . .”

By: Matthew Clark (Diary)  |  August 12th, 2015 

But the lie continues to circulate where it is useful and the audience is ignorant. Like Congress, for example.

More Famous Than the Beatles?

Stephen Colbert to Pope Francis: We can’t fix wealth inequality until we get money out of politics

BETHANIA PALMA MARKUS

Rawstory.com featured an interview with Stephen Colbert on the eve of Pope Francis' visit to the United States. I have a few comments on it.

interviewer Sebastian Gomes called Colbert “the most famous Catholic in America.” Colbert handled it well, replying, “Sure, I’ll tell Timothy Dolan you said so.” 

He probably is with the same demographic who considered John Stewart the most trusted newsman in America. Oy!

And again, for the Jon Stewart generation, they've learned that 'the personal is political, so of course the most important thing to as a public Catholic is about the US politics surrounding the pope's visit.

“Gomes asked Colbert what he thinks the message is that Congress most needs to hear when Pope Francis addresses a joint session.

“The corrupting influence of money in politics because it reinforces not looking out for the poorest or the least of my brothers,” Colbert responded. “I think that’s the one they need to hear the most because until you can control the money you won’t control the message of Congress, and so you won’t get action from Congress that looks out for average people.”

True enough. But overturning Citizens United or trying to create some sort of campaign financing scheme or a limit to what can be spent on politics in order to solve the influence problem is a fool’s errand. That sort of War on Money in Politics has as much chance of success as the War on Drugs has had. Let’s take a quick look at where the big money is in Washington:

From Opensecrets.org:

House

Financial activity for all House candidates, 2013-2014

Democrats: $450,776,626

Republicans: $585,606,851

Senate

Financial activity for all Senate candidates, 2013-2014

Democrats: $285,218,602

Republicans: $315,898,295

That adds up to: $1,637,500,374

In 2013-2014, the Congress spent about $7,000,000,000,000

Which is 4275 times as much as lobbyists spent on Congress.

Get Congress out of the big money and you will get the big money out of Congress.

He also discussed the need to prevent religion from being associated with a political party.

“It’s perceived of in the United States that the right is the more Christian party,” Colbert said. “But in any given election, if the right doesn’t do well, well did Christ not do well? You’ve poured that infection of competition into the eternal world of the Gospel.”

I’ve only watched to the 2:00 mark, but this is another opportunity to wonder if Stephen has a problem with the Episcopal Church or the Church of Christ who seem more concerned with supporting the most popular current cultural fads and Left wing politics than they are about God.

YouCut bumpkiss

The myriad scandals besetting the administration have put sequestration and budget battles on the back burner for a little while. But as federal employees actually begin to see their pay cut, and as the news cycle clears up a bit, the budget butter battles will begin again.

When they do, the Administration and their apologists for Big Government will once again bleat about grandmothers thrown from Head Start and children denied their arthritis medicine and undocumented workers losing their free cell phones and Native American Transgendered Women's Studies majors being denied their subsidized student loans.

Every government expenditure is vital to this country's prosperity.

And if you believe that, you are a Democrat.

Or maybe a Republican.

Truth is, the one place where bipartisan agreement can be found in Washington is in the avoidance of real spending cuts - or even tangential, largely symbolic cuts to programs that everyone knows are superfluous, wasteful and counter-productive.

The House Repubs have been running a gimmick called YouCut. You get to pick the wastful government expenditure that will be introduced to oblivion. It seems to play on the human characteristic of baseless hope.

Many months ago, the then-new House Majority Leader, Eric Cantor introduced YouCut with great fanfare.

You may have missed the launch, if you get your news from ABC, CBS, NBC, MSNBC, CNN, NPR, Time, Newsweek, the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, Chicago Tribune, Philadelphia Inquirer, Washington Post or Orlando Sentinel, etc.

In a nutshell, the YouCut web page invites people to vote on which of three federal expenditures ought to be cut. The winner is then introduced as a bill in Congress.

This week, the three candidates for the 32nd week of the 112th Congress are:

Reduce U.S. Contributions To The United Nations By 10 Percent. Potential Savings over 10 Years: $4Billion

Terminate Environmental Protection Agency Grants For Community Organizing.  Potential Savings Over 10 Years: $10Million

Eliminate Federal Agency Purchases Of High-End Office Chairs. Potential Savings over 10 Years: $1Million

I think all three are more than worthy of implementation.

As of today, there are 58 expenditures listed. As best as I can tell, none of them have passed Congress and become law. If they had, we, the beleaguered taxpayers would be saving

$259,673,000,000 over the next ten years. Nearly $26 Million per year, every year, for the next 10 years. And remember, that's only one of three choices presented each week. Given that every expenditure nominated is as worthy of cutting as the three presented this week, the real questions are:

1. Why aren't we looking at $779,019,000,000 in proposed savings and

2. Why have NONE of these blindingly obvious examples of unconscionable waste been cut?

Here is the list:

112th Congress, 2nd Session		Potential 10 year savings ($millions)
Week 29	Eliminate the Department of Energy's Vehicle Technology Program	2,800
Week 28	Terminate Federal Payments for the District of Columbia Public Defender's Service	372
Week 27	Terminate the Christopher Columbus Fellowship Foundation	5	Introduced
Week 26	Eliminate the Energy Star program	627	Introduced
Week 25	Terminate a program that funds community organizing among tenants of public housing	100	Introduced
Week 24	Reduce the number of TSA agents by increasing the efficiency of airport security screening	1,000	Introduced
Week 23	Reduce Census Bureau data collection that is beyond the Constitutional mandate	2,400	Introduced
Week 22	Terminate loan guarantees for speculative alternative technology ventures like Solyndra	380	Introduced
Week 21	Reduce funding for poor performing grantees in the Community Services Block Grant program	3,200	Introduced
Week 20	Terminate a Department of Labor office that focuses on labor problems in foreign countries	665	Introduced
Week 19	Reduce the number of non-essential vehicles purchased or leased by federal agencies	500	Introduced
Week 18	Terminate a program that pays farmers for making conservation improvements on their land	10,600	Introduced
Week 17	Stop mine cleanup payments to states that have already completed the cleanups	4,200	Introduced
Week 16	Stop rewarding States for recruiting additional Food Stamp recipients	180	Committee
Week 15	Terminate Federal Programs That Pay People to Volunteer	11,500	Introduced
Week 14	Terminate HUD's HOPE VI Program	1,000	Introduced
Week 13	Suspend Federal Land Purchases	2,300	Committee
Week 12	Terminate the Weatherization Assistance Program	2,100	Introduced
Week 11	Terminate the National Science Foundation Grants for Arctic Research	250	Introduced
Week 10	Eliminate the Ready to Learn Television Program	273	Introduced
Week 9	Enforce Restrictions Excluding Illegal Aliens from Refundable Tax Credits	40,000	Passed by Committee
Week 8	Eliminate the Science to Achieve Results Program	650	Introduced
Week 7	Repeal the Advanced Technology Vehicles Manufacturing Program	2,500	Introduced
Week 6	Eliminate Cell Phone Subsidies in the Universal Service Fund	5,000	Introduced
Week 5	Refocus National Park Service Spending on National Parks	157	Introduced
Week 4	Terminate Funding for So-Called Comparative Effectiveness Research at the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality	1,000	Introduced
Week 3	Reduce the Number of Federal Employees by 10 Percent Through Attrition	139	Passed by Committee
Week 2	Terminate the Federal Railroad Administration's Funding of High-Speed Rail Projects	3,800	Introduced
Week 1	Terminate U.S. Contributions to the United Nations Population Fund	400	Passed by Committee
	Total Savings Over 10 Years ($ Millions)	98,098
112th Congress, 1st Session	For some reason there is no dollar amount or status for these items.
Week 6	Repeal The $17 Billion "Prevention And Public Health Fund Created In The 2010 Health Care Law	17,000
Week 5	Reduce Printing And Reproduction Budget By 10%
Week 4	Terminate The Neighborhood Stabilization Program
Week 3	Obtain Refund Of Funds Owed To The U.S. By The U.N. Tax Equalization Fund
Week 2	End The Presidential Election Fund
Week 1	End Duplicative Government Printing
111th Congress
Week 13	End Taxpayer Funding Of National Public Radio (Tens of Millions of Dollars)	45	Voted on House Floor
Week 12	End The TARP Program Prohibiting Any Additional Bailouts (Several Billion	7,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 11	Reduce Government Employment To 2008 Levels	35,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 10	Require Collection Of Unpaid Taxes From Federal Employees	1,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 9	Bipartisan Proposal To Terminate Advanced Earned Income Tax Credit AEITC	1,100	Voted on House Floor
Week 8	Prohibit Sleeper Car Subsidies On Amtrak	1,200	Voted on House Floor
Week 7	Prohibit Stimulus Funding For Promotional Signage ($10s of Millions)	30	Voted on House Floor
Week 6	Taxpayer Subsidized Union Activities	1,200	Voted on House Floor
Week 5	Prohibit Hiring New IRS Agents To Enforce Health Care Law	15,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 4	Sell Excess Federal Property	15,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 3	Reform Fannie Mae And Freddie Mac	30,000	Voted on House Floor
Week 2	Eliminate Federal Employee Pay Raise	30,000	Voted on House Floor
Week	Cut The New Non-Reformed Welfare Program	25,000	Voted on House Floor
Total Savings over 10 Years ($ Millions)		161,575
Total Total Savings over 10 Years ($ Millions)		259,673

		259,673

Some thoughts on the limits of limitlessness

First thought: Tim Geithner is an idiot. This is merely further proof: "Treasury Secretary Geithner: Lift Debt Limit to Infinity"

If Congress simply stopped limiting the amount the U.S. could legally borrow, in the current regime of spending without budgeting, there would be no legal limit on what Congress and the Administration could spend money on. They'd just borrow and spend with no checks or balances, or even authorizations.

The only real limit would be the market's willingness to buy U.S. debt. But that is a real and catastrophic limit. The recognition of that limit is what led Congress to try the debt ceiling gimmick to impose a modicum of self-discipline.

The fact that Congress can neither stop spending money nor refuse to raise the limit makes the whole thing a political charade. The limit doesn't really exist because everyone knows it will be raised when necessary and that spending will not abate.

So, we wait until not even the Chinese will buy our debt, then we become Greece to the 10th power.

Tim Geithner is an idiot, but he isn't the only one.

The list gets longer every day

The list of impeachable or incarceratable offenses by the members of the ruling regime grows day-by-day.

Today's culprit,  EPA Administrator Lisa Jackson:

Congress demands EPA’s secret email accounts

Jackson is accused of using an alias email account to evade open record laws and to avoid disclosure of the unethical, insidious and potentially illegal actions in which she and her agency are engaged. Judging from the Washington Times article, and an earlier one in the Washington Post, it was nearly official policy to use personal email accounts, like gmail, to hide information from congressional oversight potential legal fights.

I didn't see any articles that indicates Sliver suffered any legal ramifications. He merely lost his job for allegedly advising subordinates to evade open government laws and potential congressional attention by using unsecure personal email accounts.

Meanwhile the layers continue to be pealed back on the rotten onion that is Benghazi.

Meanwhile clear instances of voter fraud in Ohio and Philadelphia and perhaps Florida and elsewhere will never be investigated by the most politicized Justice Department in the history of the Nation.

Meanwhile, the (mal)administration refuses to perform its constitutional duty to defend DOMA

While it refuses to enforce immigration laws, thereby effectively enacting a law never passed by Congress

Meanwhile, Operation Fast and Furious questions remain unanswered regarding when the Attorney General and the White House knew guns were being shipped to Mexican drug cartels by the hundreds if not thousands, and why they didn't do anything to stop it before Border Patrol agents and hundereds of Mexican citizen were killed with those same guns.

And the list could go on, if I had more time.

My BS Meter is off the Scales

Washington Times Headline:  "White House says it didn’t edit Benghazi talking points"

"On Friday, Mr. Petraeus told a congressional committee investigating the Libya attack that the CIA’s references to “Al Qaeda involvement” were stripped from his agency’s original talking points."
David Petraeus had to be feeling heat following the Benghazi debacle. CIA contractors killed in an al Qaeda attack is bad enough. The possibility that the unseemly things they were doing would become public is worse. We now know that he was under investigation for something unseemly in his personal life at the time as well. We don't know, yet, if the FBI investigation was used by someone to coerce him to shade his statements to shift attention away from administration malfeasance in Libya.

But by the time he testified last week, it seems his boils had all been popped. His affair was made public, he lost his job, he suffered personal dishonor, and the investigation turned to whether classified information may have been compromised in the course of his affair. About the only thing that could make things worse for him would be to be found in contempt of Congress.

So, he had no reason to lie on Friday.

But that's what the White House expects us to believe.

White House national security council spokesman Ben Rhodes "told reporters the only change made by the White House to the CIA’s initial reports was to change the word “consulate” to “diplomatic facility.”

“Other than that, we worked off of the [talking] points that were provided by the intelligence community,” Mr. Rhodes told reporters traveling aboard Air Force One with President Obama on a trip to southeast Asia. “So I can’t speak to any other edits that may have been made within the intelligence community. If there were adjustments made to them within the intelligence community, that’s common, and that’s something they would have done themselves within the intelligence community.”

When a propagandist for the regime uses the same phrase FOUR TIMES IN THREE SENTENCES, you can be sure his purpose is to plant an idea in your head, not to convey truthful facts.

Stay Strong!

I would just like to remind my Congressman and all of the members of the Republican caucus in the House and Senate: When the Democrats say they have a mandate from the American people because they received slightly more than 50% of the popular vote, they are wrong. They do not represent the country and their policies do not have the support of the American public. Only half. You represent fully 1/2 of the country. You have a responsibility to fight for the policies which 1/2 of the country supports: limited government, fiscal responsibility, Religious Liberty, the Right to Life, Free Markets and individual freedom to succeed or fail, to assist others in need without government mandate or coersion, a National Defense scaled to protect national interests and a foreign policy that has a clear vision of what the national interest is, the Rule of Law and the supremacy of the Natural Law endowed upon us by our Creator. Stay strong.

What the AP thinks you should think

AP sources: Administration mulls pared health law

An entire article of *no news* is news only because its main purpose seems to be guiding readers what to think when finally there is news on the Supreme Court's decision on Obamacare.

"Even if the requirement that nearly every U.S. resident have health insurance is declared unconstitutional, the remaining parts of the law would have far-reaching impact, putting coverage within reach of millions of uninsured people, laying new obligations on insurers and employers, and improving Medicare benefits even as payments to many service providers get scaled back."

How terrible it would be for the Supreme Court think Health is unconstitutional! But our guardian would go ahead and put coverage within reach of millions, make nasty corporations fulfill their obligations to us the 99% and it would simutaneously improve Medicare benefits and scale back payments to 'service providers' (aka the doctors, nurses and hospitals that actually provide us with medical care and services - but who are inordinately among the *not 99%)*.

"Because the law's main coverage expansion does not begin until 2014, there would be time to try to fix serious problems that losing the individual coverage requirement may cause for the health insurance industry."

In case you forgot, it is the nasty Republicans and their partisan allies on the court that threaten to cause 'serious problems' to the insurance industry - NOT the Obama administration, Democrat lawmakers or their allies who will profit from the law - so who ya' gonna vote for?

"Surviving parts of the law would "absolutely" move ahead, said the congressional official. A Congress mired in partisan trench warfare would be unable to repeal or amend what's left of the law, allowing the administration to advance. Much of the money for covering the uninsured was already provided in the law itself.




"Legislatively we can't do a thing, and we are going to move full speed ahead (with implementation)," the official said."

Why do I hear a "Bwwaaaa-Haaaa-haaa-HAAA" in that statement?

"Skeptical questioning by the court's conservative justices during oral arguments this spring has fueled speculation that the court may invalidate the so-called individual mandate."

Umm. Sonia Sotomayor is not usually counted among the 'court's conservative justices.' And yet, she appeared skeptical too.
But the AP does give both sides of the issue - sorta.

"Opponents say the requirement that individuals have coverage is unconstitutional, that the federal government can't tell people to obtain particular goods or services."

vice:

"Supporters say the mandate is a necessary component of a broader scheme to regulate health insurance, which is well within the powers of Congress. By requiring people to carry health insurance or pay a fine, the law seeks to broaden the pool of people with coverage, helping to keep premiums affordable.


If the mandate is struck down, that would still leave in place a major expansion of Medicaid, the federal-state safety net program for low-income people.

The Medicaid expansion was originally estimated to account for about half the more than 30 million people slated to get coverage under the law. Without a mandate, the number would be smaller but still significant.

Federal tax credits to help middle-class people buy private health coverage would also survive, as would new state-based insurance markets.

Such subsidies have never previously been available, and millions are expected to take advantage of them, whether or not insurance is required by law. Still, it could be tricky to salvage the law's full blueprint for helping middle-class uninsured people.

Overturning the mandate would have harmful consequences for the private insurance market. Under the law, insurers would still have to accept all applicants regardless of health problems, and they would be limited in what they can charge older, sicker customers.

As a result, premiums for people who directly buy their own coverage would jump by 15 percent to 20 percent, the Congressional Budget Office estimates. Older, sicker people would flock to get health insurance but younger, healthier ones would hold back.

To forestall such a problem, the administration asked the court - if it declares the mandate unconstitutional - to also strike down certain consumer protections, including the requirement on insurers to cover people with pre-existing health problems. That would mitigate a damaging spike in premiums.

Whether or not the court goes along with that request, more work would be needed to find alternatives to a federal mandate. That could provide an opening for state officials, as well as major insurance companies, to join in finding workable substitutes for the mandate. Congressional approval would likely be needed.

Without the individual requirement, some 14 million people would still get coverage, budget office estimates suggest. Supporters of the law point out that's still a lot of people."

Yeah. That's balance.

Sometimes the Forces of Evil in the country manage to create nuanced talking points to obscure the evil they are intent on inflicting on us. The sophistry vomited out of the mouth of Ba'al to cover opposition to a law making sex-selection abortion illegal is a case in point.

The way the regime intended the message to be sent:

"The administration opposes gender discrimination in all forms, but the end result of this legislation would be to subject doctors to criminal prosecution if they fail to determine the motivations behind a very personal and private decision," White House spokeswoman Jamie Smith said in a statement. "The government should not intrude in medical decisions or private family matters in this way."


The way a Congressional witling garbled the Party Line:



Thanks to the incompetence of prominent members of the Left like Shelia Jackson Lee, only the most Kool-Aid-intoxicated drone would fail to see the preposterous position that defending girls in utero from death by abortion is "an affirmation of the devaluing of woman." 

I expect I won't take the time to watch the POTUS SOTU speech, when ever it is. Perhaps I will, and give it the "Mystery Science Theater 3000" treatment. That might be fun with some beers and similarly minded friends.


The WashTimes correctly points out that the speech is merely a campaign event with the taxpayer providing an impressive-looking venue: "Anyone wondering whether President Obama’s State of the Union address Tuesday will focus more on policy or the politics of his re-election should consider the trip he has planned immediately afterward: visits to five battleground states in three days."


There is zero chance of candidate Obama doing other than pandering to his base and head-faking to Independents. But, in case some naive soul or alien from another planet doesn't believe me, he gave us a preview in the form of a (paid for by taxpayers) ad: "In a video preview of his State of the Union speech emailed to 10 million supporters Saturday, Mr. Obama said he would call for “a return to American values of fairness for all and responsibility from all.”

Anyone doubt that the pre-view included a plea for contributions to 'help the president win the future we can't wait to fundamentally transform hope and change to dispair and decline blah blah blah..." But we don't have to conjecture. "fairness for all" and "responsibility from all" - well, not exactly ALL "all". We want fairness FOR all the people who support the concerns expressed by OWS blah blah blah. We want responsibility from the Koch brothers and the 1% that don't attend $36,000/plate Democratic fund raisers.

"“We can go in two directions,” the president said. “One is towards less opportunity and less fairness. Or we can fight for where I think we need to go: building an economy that works for everyone, not just a wealthy few.”

This is less than a weak echo of President Reagan's A Time For Choosing speech. In fact, it is more of a tawdry parody.

"This is the issue of this election: whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capitol can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves.
You and I are told increasingly we have to choose between a left or right. Well I'd like to suggest there is no such thing as a left or right. There's only an up or down: [up] man's old -- old-aged dream, the ultimate in individual freedom consistent with law and order, or down to the ant heap of totalitarianism. And regardless of their sincerity, their humanitarian motives, those who would trade our freedom for security have embarked on this downward course."

But of course the administration can't admit that it is taking its cues from an iconic Republican president. So, they pretend they are channelling Slick Willie:

"Americans of all political persuasions are going to want their elected representatives here in Washington to work together, whether it’s an even year or an odd year or a year in the presidential cycle,” Mr. Carney said. “I think there are historic examples that actually contradict the assumption that you can’t get anything done in a presidential election year — 1996 comes to mind.”
"In 1996, President Clinton delivered his election-year State of the Union address to a Republican Congress that voters had put into power in a midterm election as a check on Mr. Clinton.
"It was in this speech that Mr. Clinton famously declared, “The era of big government is over.” During the address, he added that it was time to “finish the job and balance the budget.” He had to wait just one year to sign legislation requiring a balanced budget by 2002."

Of course, a president is far more likely to get what he proposes through Congress when he proposes what Congress wants in the first place. Unfortunately for the current president, Congress is not interested in "fundamentally transforming America" into a Democratic Socialist Progressive distopia.

"Former U.S. Comptroller General David A. Walker, CEO of the nonprofit Comeback America Initiative, noted that presidents “love” to begin State of the Union speeches with declarations that “The state of our union is strong.”
“This year, that statement would be false,” Mr. Walker said. “And it is more false now than ever before, because of our calamitous financial situation.”"

Social Security Scam

The current debate over the FICA tax holiday is an opportunity to shed some light on the Social Security scheme.

I hear Leftists repeatedly misrepresenting SocSec to the point where they own the terms of the debate.

A representative of some beltway organization lied that the SocSec trust fund has so many trillions of dollars and is solvent for another twenty years or more. He also pretended that there are actual accounts with actual value guaranteed to workers who have 'contributed' to the program.

Of course, none of this is so.

The 'trust fund' holds non-negotiable Treasury bills. The tax dollars used to buy those bills went into the Treasury general fund (that's the one that is $14T in the hole and borrowing over $1T per year. In other words, there is no money there waiting to redeem those Treasury bills. Might as well be Solyndra stock or an MT Global account.

There is no contractual or fiscal relationship between the dollars we have paid in FICA taxes and what we may be given in SocSec payments. Your FICA taxes are a percentage of your income based on the law at the time. Your SocSec payments will be based on the law at the time. The fact that AARP and others can convince so many uninformed Seniors that the Congress can 'take away' or reduce their current SocSec 'benefits' should be proof enough that you have no contractual claim to your contributions. Your 'benefits' are subject to Congressional and regulatory decisions. If your FICA taxes had actually bought Treasury bills or bonds, you would own that portion of the federal debt. The interest on those bills would have been set when they were issued and the proceeds would be yours. The Treasury or Congress would not have the authority to change the terms of the debt you purchased. If your FICA payments had gone into an annuity, the insurance company would be contractually obligated to annuitize the value of the policy and pay you the contractually agreed to amount. The insurance company would not have the authority to change the terms of the contract.

Simply put, none of us OWN our SocSec accounts or the federal debt in them. They are ledger entries, at best.

Next lie: Republicans want to destroy Social Security and let old people die in poverty. Well, no. Some Republicans do, but they are the ones who don't want to act to save a social safety net by allowing SocSec to continue on reformed. Conservatives and responsible Republicans (but I repeat myself) recognize the moral necessity of a true safety net for those who need help. But they also recognize that SocSec is no longer filling that role, while it is consuming unsustainably larger portions of the nation's wealth.

Now that the Left has shown everyone that there is nothing magical about SocSec 'contributions', maybe we can have the conversation necessary. SocSec was based on an industrial society with a growing population. Life expectancy was 20 years or more less than today. There was no such thing as a 401K or IRA. The situation has changed. The program ought to change to fit the current situation.

How anyone can call themselves "Progressive" when they fight to the death to resist updating an 80 year old program is a mystery to rational people.

What Sort of Idiot Hires Idiots?

UPDATE:

Half of the country recognizes that the government wastes half the money it takes from us.

"Most Americans think the federal government wastes more than half of the tax dollars it collects, according to a recent Gallup Poll.
On average, the guesstimate of waste is 51 cents of every dollar, the highest level going back at least 32 years that Gallup has been asking the question."

What kind of idiots are we?


Half of the country thinks the previous president was an idiot.

Half of the country thinks the current president is an idiot.


Over 3/4s of the country thinks the Congress is full of idiot.

Why do we give so much power and money to a bunch of idiots?

"Manipulate the Constitution"?

I listened to the House debate on Cut, Cap and Balance during my drive home today. Unbelievably, the talking points issued to the Leftist zombies were to assert that going through the constitutional process for considering an amendment to the Constitution is 'manipulating the Constitution'. Every one of the witlings who spoke against it, used that phrase, among the handful of canned lines that they tried to pass off as reasoned debating points.

No, I don't get it either - except that the Dems know they don't have to appeal to the absent reason of the drones who feed at the federal trough or senselessly guffaw at Bill Maher's sophomoric prattle and parrot whatever schlock they pick up on MSNBC since they are too ignorant of the Constitution or too befuddled generally to grasp the stupidity of the assertion on its face.

I missed this howler from Congressdope Debbie W. Schultz - so did the target of her fallacious ad hominem, Congressman Allan West. But he did respond appropriately. I look forward to hearing their face-to-face confrontation. A battle of wits between LTC West and the drooler Schultz, well it wouldn't be one, since she is plainly witless.

In defense of the non-existent

So, Eric Cantor asked me what I thought the U.S. Congress should cut from the Federal Budget.

Actually, it was a button on the YouCut web site.

And I gave him - or his web master and most junior intern at least - my advice. It has been a burning issue with me since I saw the Distinguished Gentleman from New York, Anthony Weiner, defending CPB funding a little while back.

He intended to belittle Republican efforts to end funding for CPB. But apparently he and his fellow Statist nomenclatura are blind to how his attempt at sarcasm actually glaringly illustrates the ridiculousness of trying to defend adding to the National Debt for such frivolity.

Here is my recommendation:

Cut the subsidies to the Car Talk guys' fictitious legal advisors, Dewey, Cheetham & Howe. I know Rep Weiner has defended the government's support of their vital, albeit imaginary, contribution to civil society and the General Welfare. I know that Congress has the constitutional right to expend tax dollars, or yuan borrowed from China under the interstate commerce clause since sometimes radio waves travel across state lines. I know that their non-existent existence is a right that demands public support and that without them, yuppies across the country might have more difficulty asking why their 10 year old Volvo squeaks when it starts. I realize that listeners to NPR may have to listen to ads telling them that Click and Clack the Tappet Brothers are being brought to them by major corporations rather than donor acknowledgements that the show is being brought to them by, well, major corporations - and taxpayers like us.

I'm good with that. "

Perhaps Rep. Weiner ought to consult with the Car Talk Director of Ethics and Honesty: U Lyon Sack. I think he is already consulting with Illgott and Gaines for financial advice.