Wednesday, January 01, 2014

The Benghazi 15


The Members of the House of Representatives Oversight Committee who walked out on Benghazi victim family members on September 19, 2013 they are
The Benghazi 15

Here is the Video Evidence
 
Videos Copyright C-Span 2013

Video #1 - Review Panel



Video #2 - Parents Panel



 In Video #2 the #Benghazi15 have excused themselves and abandoned the Parents of American Heroes Killed in Service to their Country :
 

 Please Tweet their Names and Deed often during 2014

1.   Rep. Lacy Clay @LacyClayMO1 · lacyclay.org  Missouri 1st

2.   Rep. Carolyn B. Maloney @RepMaloney · maloney.house.gov New York 12th

3.    Rep. Danny Davis @RepDannyDavis · davis.house.gov  Illinois 7th

4.   Rep. Gerry Connolly @GerryConnolly · connolly.house.gov  Virginia 11th

5.    Rep. Jim Cooper @repjimcooper  · cooper.house.gov  Tennessee 5th

6.    Rep. Stephen Lynch @RepStephenLynch · lynch.house.gov Massachusetts 8th

7.    Rep. Steven Horsford @RepHorsford · horsford.house.gov  Nevada 4th

8.    Rep. Tony Cárdenas @RepCardenas · cardenas.house.gov San Fernando Valley

9.     Del. Eleanor H. Norton @EleanorNorton · norton.house.gov   Washington, DC

10.   Rep. Tammy Duckworth @RepDuckworth  · duckworth.house.gov  Illinois 8th

11.   Rep. John Tierney @RepTierney Tierney.house.gov Massachusetts 6th

12.   Rep. Mark Pocan @repmarkpocan  · pocan.house.gov  Wisconsin 2nd

13.   Rep. Matt Cartwright @RepCartwright · cartwright.house.gov Pennsylvania 17th

14.   Rep. Michelle Lujan Grisham @RepLujanGrisham · lujangrisham.house.gov  New Mexico 1st

15.   Rep. Peter Welch @PeterWelch · welch.house.gov  Vermont - At Large

 
        

Wednesday, November 06, 2013

Virginia 2013, Thanks to Jefferson, Madison, & Mason - A thankful Draw... Amen

A powerful wind blew through the Commonwealth of Virginia on Tuesday November 5, 2013, not the usual gale one might expect to come from the South off the Carolina Capes, but a odorous and ominous belch of stench funded by forces known not by Virginian's but by silent invaders hoping to further their agenda through betting on their candidate for Governor. They succeeded in their goal of turning the highest state office over to a Democrat with no experience in public office beyond back room dealing and bundling cash for those who would do the bidding for the true brokers of power. They took the top three positions in the Commonwealth, and picked up a few seats in the Virginia House of Delegates as well.

However, what did not accomplish was a clean sweep, as the control of the House of Delegates remains firmly in control of the Republican party. They accomplished an exact mirror of the government in Washington, DC with control of the upper house of the legislature and the executive with one party and the lower house of the legislature with the other. Unfortunately for them, the Constitution of the Commonwealth of Virginia will not provide any playground for the nonsense found on Capitol Hill. Virginia has its fiscal house in order and plans to keep it that way, and the House of Delegates is not about to lay down or cower to their counterparts in the Senate or to the Governor. Their role is clearly laid out for them, and they have the power of the purse firmly in their grasps. The new Governor who won by a margin of less than fifty percent in a plurality has no firm mandate to make demands, regardless of any claims to the contrary. This is especially true because the very political machine that so profoundly funded the exploitive negativity of the past many months, also contributed heavily to the third party candidate that provided for the bitter sweet pill of not receiving a clear mandate with a true majority of the voting citizens.

The fact that the money driven election polls tumbled violently in the last days of the campaign as the major issue moved to ObamaCare and that the name sake of the law came to tout the virtues of the winning candidate without uttering a word about his signature legislation leaves one to wonder why on the occasion of his acceptance speech the Governor elect chose to make ObamaCare's Medicaid expansion a primary point of his agenda drawing from a missing mandate.  The very media that helped to support him was forced to report exit polls showing more than half of all voters had some serious reservations about implementing all or parts of the law based upon its website debacle and the cancellation of what will be untold millions of Americans who were blatantly lied to by their President on more than two dozen occasions stating the exact opposite would be true in order to insure passage of the legislation, and for many months in fact years afterwards.


Money Politics was played in Virginia and the Money won a hollow victory. It is proof beyond a shadow of a doubt that the framers of both the Virginia Constitution and the US Constitution were wise beyond their ability to comprehend. Even in this advanced technological age their tried and true system of checks and balances won out in the end. Thank God, yes God (as would have they) for a Draw... Amen.

Thursday, September 26, 2013

The BPOL Tax Pledge



I ________________________ PLEDGE TO WORK WITH ALL MEMBERS OF

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY TO AMEND “§ 58.1-3732. Exclusions

and deductions from "gross receipts.". TO RESTORE FAIRNESS TO “§ 58.1-

3700. License requirement; requiring evidence of payment of business

license, business personal property, meals and admissions taxes.” FOR

MOTOR FUEL RESEELERS, BEFORE THE CLOSE OF THE NEXT SESSION OF

THE GENERAL ASSEMBLY.

 _________________________
CANDIDATE


We all purchase motor fuel, gasoline and diesel fuel from service stations and convenience stores that sell gasoline and diesel fuel regularly, some of us more regularly than we would like. Over the past five years we have seen prices skyrocket to unheard of levels and we have resent days been told the national average price of a gallon of regular gasoline alone has been over $3.00 per gallon for more than one thousand (1,000) days. When motor fuel prices rise so do the gross receipts of resellers that market them to the public. Because petroleum is a commodity, these prices are subject to market forces resellers have no control over. Unfortunately, their profit margin whether the price is $5.00 per gallon or $0.99 per gallon is about the same, between 10 and 15 cents after applying fees for credit and debit cards. While it is true some resellers earn more, the majority are in this category. The margin on Diesel fuel is slightly higher averaging between 25 and 30 cents per gallon.

That said, the Business Professional and Occupational Tax also known as the BPOL tax is based on Gross Receipts. When the price goes up, so do the gross receipts. If the price remains high so do the taxes levied against the sales of the motor fuel. For many years prices were stable under $2.00 per gallon. Then came the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan and prices began to fluctuate wildly. Still it took quite a while for them to rise and remain above $3.00 per gallon. This is true even during period when fuels are blended to account for seasons, winter fuel and summer fuel blends for air quality. When Refineries switch blends it causes inventories to fall, so prices increase; then as capacity returns to normal so to do prices.

Counties and Independent Cities in the Commonwealth of Virginia have had nothing short of a Windfall Profit over the past five years at the expense of Resellers of Motor Fuel. This is a separate and unequal manner of taxing businesses that cannot be allowed to stand. A few jurisdictions have gone as far as to deny Resellers important deductions from gross receipts that are codified in the Code of Virginia. The Federal and Virginia Excise Taxes paid by the Reseller on the Invoice received from the wholesaler. They depend on a twisted interpretation of how taxes are paid as their way to skirt the will of the General Assembly.

I am asking on behalf of Resellers that All Candidates for the General Assembly and for Governor in Virginia take the BPOL Tax Pledge. It is simple and straight forward and is just the right thing to do to restore fairness to Virginia's small businesses. Resellers of Motor Fuels we all depend on are our friends and neighbors. They deserve the same treatment as any other retailer.


Please ask your candidates to take the pledge!

Monday, September 09, 2013


Is Russia going to clean up its own mess in Syria... 

Today, Secretary of State John Kerry suggested that if President of Assad of Syria were to give up his Chemical Weapons that he could avoid a US Military Strike. Russia took up the idea and ran with it, Syria concurred, and the United Nations will be considering action on the matter soon. Go Figure...

These are my tweets since June about Syria & Mr. Putin

06/16/2013
 #Syria is screwed and so are we for getting involved at this point. #Syria is #Russia 's problem. Let Putin deal with it. We've done enough!

08/24/2013
#RT If you believe that @PutinRF_Eng 's Russia is the responsible party for cleaning up the mess in #Syria @whitehouse #US_Foreign_Policy

08/27/2013
@PutinRF_Eng  #Russia 's Role in #Syria http://t.co/BEE4MlP6a9 @BarackObama @whitehouse @whpresscorps
http://chrisfilby.blogspot.com

08/30/2013
@TheSoulfulVixen @Patrick_Baz We Do Nothing because it is Putin's problem #GoodLuckRussia #UN  #Assad #Syria #CW #TCOT 

09/04/2013
@RickLeventhal @BarackObama needs to call out #Putin at the G-20 and demand he hand over his proxy Assad to be tried for War Crimes.

09/08/2013
 @ShannonBream Sorry... This is #PutinsProblem the UN needs to press Russia hard to clean up its proxy's mess. @FoxNews

09/08/2013
 It is time for @PutinRF_Eng to clean up the #Proxy mess President Assad has created in #Syria. Make your own UN Resolution President Putin

Didn't the President just shake up his National Security Team? I'm wondering who has been saying what? It's a miracle we are going to get out of this one without having to fire a shot. Amen. 

Saturday, August 31, 2013


"The Decider in Chief Has Decided"

I'll take one from column from "Article I" and one from "Article II" but really I can do what I want if I decide to do that.  Excuse me Mr. President?

It is pretty clear that all you are doing on the domestic front is seeking cover from Republicans in Congress to not have to use military force against Syria so you can blame them for not being able to do the right thing in the 2014 mid-term election. While that may sound crass, it falls right in line with your first chief of staff's motto "Never let a good crisis go to waste".

At this point You've disrespected  the UN, you've rolled your Secretary of State under the bus, and you've found yourself left hanging out to dry by your most ardent ally Great Britain. That's not batting 1000, it's not even making it into the batter's box on a good day. What to do, what to do? Well there's really only one play left, and it's on the international stage. Granted a place you have again not had much luck, especially given the outcome of your Cairo speech, but I digress.

You must use the G-20 Meeting to hang all of this around the neck of Russian President Vladimir Putin. You must embarrass him into resolving the Syrian chemical weapons issue, if not the entire civil war. Assad is his protectee and he's blocked every vote involving Syria in the UN Security Council by hook or crook since he's been in power. So, if he's going to keep the world from acting, he needs to show the world he's capable of controlling his step-child. Whether he has to spank his bottom or bloody his nose to do it frankly is his business. The G-20 should put Russia on notice that there will be a price to pay if Putin fails to control Assad and you do still hold some sway at the G-20 by virtue of the fact that we still have a 16 trillion dollar economy regardless of a nearly 17 trillion dollar debt. The world needs a vibrant US Economy, it is less concerned with Russia. While you will have to overcome some natural gas concerns of our European friends who depend on Russian controlled pipelines, I am fairly certain Russia's thirst for cash will outweigh its need to protect Assad in Syria.
What's more Mr. President, harkening back to my previous blog entry, Mr. Putin has certain interest in seeing chemical weapons do not fall into the wrong hands. He has had a horrible movie theatre terrorist attack I am sure he would never want to see repeated. Islam Terrorist were responsible for that problem, just like they were for our 9-11 disaster at home, and last year in Libya. I believe this is the course you must take to secure a place in history and to find some reasonable manner to reclaim a sense of dignity at home which is certainly lost after what has to be the worst open source planning session ever. You might as well have had a Google Plus Hangout and taken suggestions from regular citizens.

 There you have it Mr. President, your course is clear, Have fun in Leningrad... oops that's St Petersburg again now isn't it... well for now anyway. God Speed.  

Monday, August 26, 2013


Whose Problem Is Syria Anyway?

Russia has strategically blocked any United Nations action against its quasi satellite state Syria for Decades mainly to protect their interest in Syria's Mediterranean Sea port of Tartis where Russia has a Naval support facility. Losing that port would present particular problems for Russia which is landlocked except for Russian Ports on the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov that do not provide Russia with ready access to the Suez Canal and points East. China has joined in blocking UN Security Council Action against Syria mainly to create good will with its benefactors Russia and Iran, from whom China purchases crude oil for its rapidly developing economy.
Syria presents a problem for the United States on several fronts. First and foremost it shares a border with Israel and any instability on that border endangers the only US allied democracy in the region. Syria also shares a border with Turkey which is a NATO member country and tens if not hundreds of thousands of refugees from Syria have crossed into Turkey fleeing the violence of the Syrian Civil War. Turkey has also been the recipient of several stray attacks which have met measured response from the Turkish military. The same is true for the Kingdom of Jordan, also a friend of the United States, and temporary home to Syrian refugees which the US is currently giving assistance to support.

About a year ago President Barack Obama drew a line in the sand as it were, often referred to as a "red line" with respect to the use of chemical weapons in Syria by the Bashar Hafez al-Assad led government, either against the rebel fighters or civilian populations or both. Several months ago there was evidence of use of chemical weapons which was verified independently by several governments. The US response was unknown at the time, but recently revealed by the President as to have provided some kind of lethal military assistance to the Syrian opposition.  In recent days another more serious attack has occurred killing many hundreds perhaps more than one thousand Syrians and a great number of them women and children. While not fully or independently verified video evidence sent out by rebel forces seems to show what is likely the result of a nerve agent attack. This action would be a clear crossing of any and all lines set in place by the President of the United States concerning the use of Chemical Weapons.
The President is faced with a dilemma, none of them good, and none of them worthwhile, especially since President Assad doesn't much care what President Obama does short of taking him out altogether. If President Obama strikes militarily, it could start a regional war bringing in Iran, and their proxy Hezbollah. This would no doubt result in NATO involvement. It would also leave a Syria without a government, which is what faced Iraq after the fall of Saddam Hussein and we all know how well that worked out. They are still killing each other and we've been gone nearly a year.

I look to the wise words of former President Ronald Reagan who said "You can accomplish much if you don't care who gets the credit..." The United States is not weak by any means, but we are war torn and war weary. We do not need to involve ourselves in another Middle East conflict at this time, or perhaps ever again if it is at all avoidable. We've made our contribution, and our relationships with our friends in the region can be furthered without the need of entering into unnecessary entanglements.
President Putin of Russia has been President Assad's Protector in Chief, and before that General Secretaries of the Soviet Union protected President Assad's father who was a dictator for many decades over his people in Damascus. Russia's history there makes them the perfect foil for this very difficult dilemma. Without Russia President Assad will no doubt lose his United Nations Security Council veto and without Russia there is every reason to believe that Iran will back down and play nice in its own sandbox. Russia has a very long standing economic relationship with Iran as well since the fall of the Shah in the mid 1970's.

President Putin knows and understands the military complexities, and certainly can explain to President Assad the need to destroy his stockpiles of chemical weapons.  President Putin does not want to end up in his native Russia as the result of an acquisition of Islamic Militants from Chechnya and Dagestan partnering with Al Qaeda fighters running lose in Syria amongst the rebel groups. President Putin has a vested interest in maintaining peace in Syria and protecting his Naval Base. President Putin also would not mind being cast on the world stage as a peace maker, which would also allow him to again thumb his nose at the United States.

Our Most recent incursion into Libya where we "led from behind" left us with a country in chaos and a consulate in flames with four dead including our Ambassador. Our ability to affect constructive change in Syria is very limited. In war, you are all in or you aren't; if you are not you lose. Our Military is not trained to lose. The President is not willing to commit us to a full on war with or without allies to take over Syria, let the United Nations set up a new democratic government, and then provide enough troops for enough time to insure that government is a success. Neither Russia or China would be willing to go along, and Iran would constantly be interfering like it has in Iraq. Sometimes it is better to quit while you're ahead, right now, even though he might look really bad, he's still ahead. Leave this one to RUSSIA!

Monday, July 16, 2012



My Very Racist Rant


Perhaps I should have just called this a very Politically Incorrect Rant, but then you likely wouldn’t have come here to read what I have to say. Frankly, this is about race in several definitions of the term, race in the sense of politics and race in the sense of the human condition.

Some time back, I am not sure exactly when… Americans began to be associated with their ethnic heritage and a hyphen… most predominantly the “African-American” and “Hispanic or Latino-American” are used to identify minority populations in the United States. Like window dressing the Italians, Arabs (secularly) and Muslim’s (religiously), the Greeks, Polish, and the very catch all European groups have been tossed into the lexicon mix. It is simply disgraceful to separate and segregate by term who or what someone is… unless of course you are a “Native American” which is a term summarily attached to American Indian, but is a more apt descriptor of anyone whose heritage by birth began their journey here. I am not sure where American Indians came from, some say they traveled up through South and Central America to settle here, others think some tribes were born from those crossing a thin land mass now occupied by the seaway dividing Russia and Alaska. Regardless, they were here for some time because Christopher Columbus so stated in 1492 or there about, but I digress.

The point here is that if you are a legal resident of the United States you can call yourself an American, and if you were born here or spend the time and effort required to become a legal United States Citizen then you can say you’re an American Citizen. The bottom line is neither being born on United States Soil or taking the oath of citizenship requires you to be anything but alive. Having a moniker hung around your net like a Scarlet Letter is nothing more than a tool to divide a society that is more fractured than it needs to be already. So, that’s all pretty “not racist” at this point unless it is considered racist not to call someone by their heritage-hyphenated designation. Who really knows or cares, even the courts have difficulties deciding.

 We are looking as American’s at an election that could well be one of the most significant in generations. Like the elections of Washington, Lincoln, Roosevelt, and Reagan the time has come for America to do some serious soul searching. The news media was beside itself in 2008 when Barrack Hussein Obama was elected the 44th President of the United States, the first African-American or Multi-Racial President ever elected. More than a million people filled the streets of Washington, D.C. and the National Mall to bear witness to his Inauguration. Today he would be lucky to gather a crowd of 10 thousand to hear his campaign speeches, and more often than not the huddled masses have more on their mind than listening to political speak from someone whose ideas and ideals only a few years ago made them feel good about the prospects of our country moving in a forward direction. What they got was a man who exhibited in every imaginable way the fact he had never run anything in his life. The President of the United States is after all the chief executive of a budget that is now in excess of 1 trillion (with a t) dollars, more than any company or country in the world. It takes a lot more than platitudes and feels good speeches to manage something as confounding and complex as the beast that’s head is Washington, D.C. Further, the President is responsible for setting the foreign policy of the United States and furthering the agenda of our country and our allies around the world. This is no small task for someone with a lifetime of experience dealing with huge personalities, much less that of countries capable of waging war in a way that could potentially be hugely destructive to the American way of life.

Put simply, the man who is now our President was and sadly still is in way over his head and has nary a clue as to what to do to fix the problems we face, and is unwilling to upset those who he is indebted to for his office. This is not to say he made this journey on his own… No without question he had plenty of help from large majorities in both houses of the Congress, and contrary to the line painted by the President and his party who lost the House of Representatives in the 2010 mid- term election for having displayed arrogance and incompetence in larger than life ways, he could have signed into law literally any bill he asked for or was given by the Congress because the minority party could do nothing to stop legislation from being passed or to override a veto if one had been offered. It was all Democrat (with a big “D”) all the time from January 2009 through December of 2010. What has the President done?
Given that the President who was at the time he ran for the office of President a sitting United States Senator from the State of Illinois and who was fully aware of the fact that a war was still raging in both Iraq and Afghanistan, as well as complete knowledge of the fiscal disaster that was brought about by the collapse of the real estate markets brought on by a complete lack of any discipline in trading insane derivative instruments on Wall Street among other things, persisted in his effort to attain the office and won the election. The former President, George W. Bush quite publicly invited Senator Obama and Senator McCain to the White House to discuss fully the financial condition of the country, where Senator McCain for a brief time suspended his campaign so he could devote his full attention to passing some sort of legislation to help rectify the matter. He received exactly what he knew to be true, not some surprise that only became evident at the time he took the oath of office. It is true that President Obama inherited a mess, but it wasn’t a mess he was not familiar with, nor was it one he was or is prepared to deal with managerially or otherwise. That would require leadership and experience, neither quality President possesses. So, the President and his friends Nancy Pelosi the Speaker of the United States House of Representatives and Senator Harry Reid the Majority Leader of the United States Senate set out to right the ship of state and all that was wrong with her, but try as they did, they failed miserably because they were not capable of leading either as a team, or following the vision of the President who clearly had none.

They passed a stimulus spending package that was designed to create or save millions of jobs, and it cost nearly 800 billion dollars of borrowed money, but the jobs did not come and the economy sputtered in the face of high gasoline prices that robbed any tax benefits average American’s received through the stimulus. They fashioned a bail out from an ill conceived program called TARP left to them by the Bush Administration that took aim at Wall Street firms like Bear Stearns and Lehman Brothers and forced them out of business while propping up AIG (the largest insurer of Wall Street inequities) and Goldman Sachs the boardroom home of the former and newly appointed Secretaries of the Treasury. They passed a health care reform bill commonly referred to as Obama Care, but put forth as The Affordable Health Care act, they wrote it largely behind closed and locked doors and passed it on the eve of Christmas very much like the stimulus bill with no votes from the opposing party. The Speaker of the House of Representatives proudly stated that members would have to vote for the bill so the American people could find out what was in it, sadly neither she nor anyone else in her august body had read all or even most of it before voting in the affirmative. The bill came over from the United States Senate as a gutted bill from the House of Representatives turned into what the Supreme Court has now dubbed a tax which is a bill that is supposed to originate in the House of Representatives, the Constitution of the United States, Article I notwithstanding, and found its way to the desk of the President who also had not read all or even part of the bill before he affixed his signature to it and forced it down the throats of the American people. Finally, near the last hour of their party together they realized that the economy could take no more and they extended for two years (until after the next quadrennial election) the tax cuts signed into law in 2001 and 2003 by former President George W. Bush, and by association his namesake to this day.

Now, it seems like I have spent less time or race and more time of politics, but the story had to be told to bring into context what is the main concern of the author and that is pandering to minorities for votes. American Blacks make up something between 12 and 14 percent of the population but something less than that of the voting population for reasons we will not get into here. American’s of Hispanic or Latin decent make up between 20 and 24 percent of the population and again less than that of the voting population. The two together pull in the neighborhood of one third of the vote nationwide. They are not a monolithic voting block and try as they might to maintain ignorance of the truth from them; an awaking has begun to take place. Unfortunately, it may not be fully developed before the November election. The President and his party are quite content to pander shamelessly to these populations, insisting that they cannot possibly get along without significant assistance from the government. In fact the President stated this past Saturday, July 14th that no one in this country achieved success on their own, regardless of their ingenuity, their stictuitiveness, or their hard work and good sense. If not for the community and the government they would be sputtering aimlessly in a country with no infrastructure and no manner of social substance. What an insult to the generations of Americans who have laid the way through their hard work and the payment of tax dollars used to fund the so called “help” that previous generations have commonly referred to as the American Dream. They left place where the next generation necessarily does better than the current one, not because they built a better government, but because they built a better America. Today that dream is in jeopardy, and seems unreachable for many who have lost so much in the economic downturn.  But the least able to take full advantage are those in the minority who for their entire lives have been kept down by archaic laws that perpetuate and promote a welfare state and dependency where it need never have come to that. Laws that made it profitable for families to split up or never come together in the first place in order for the cars of the benefit train to become filled with booty from Uncle Sam. Now waivers are being issued to reinvigorate the welfare state as we once knew it before the reforms passed by a Democrat President and a Republican Congress while managing to balance a budget on the back of no American.

American Blacks are expected to support a President who has given them nothing, no fair deal, no good deal, just a raw deal. American Hispanics and Latinos expecting immigration reform when it could easily have been achieved in a fully empowered Democrat government were left holding the bag once again, even though comprehensive immigration reform failed in the previous administration by only a very few votes. As a token the President extended a non-deportation order for unlawful entrants into the US who met certain criteria, until they attain the age of 30. These populations are not what reasonable people consider liberal. They are very conservative in their core beliefs about spending and about social matters, but generationally they have been entrapped and corrupted into believing that they could not make it without the hand of the government in their lives. They have been bludgeoned into submission as voters for the Democrat Party when everything they have inside says they want have and live traditional American values unencumbered by the shackles of the government dole. The Democrat Party that holds so dear a “Separation of Church and State” freedom from religion rather than of it, panders in American Black churches at the very pulpits they would ban from a high school graduation. Truly it is Shame, shame, shame on them and a pox on their houses.

Americans get up every day and go to work, they attend a religious service, they believe in an American ethic, and not a hyphenated representation based their skin color. They don’t want their money used to kill babies, and they don’t want their babies to be gunned down on the streets. They don’t want their friends and neighbors to be lead astray by the glamour of crime. They want to be honest Americans who love their country. It is time to stop setting people aside, time to stop ignoring the cause of their problems, and time to stop putting band-aids on the errors of the past that perpetuated the conditions that bring forward nothing but pain and suffering. It is time to let people believe in themselves, in their families, in what they hear coming from their pulpits, and in their country. It is time to stop bickering about benefits and to start implementing solutions based on American values. It is time to give people a chance to become great because they are great and not because they show up. There are winners and losers in America and more often than not the losers eventually become winners because they believe that they have the opportunity to be just that, a winner, an American.

No President has been more divisive than President Obama, nor has any President done more damage to our way of life by trying to fundamentally change who we are. We were not a broken people, we were a broken economy. We were not deprived of healthcare; we were denied the ability to access affordable health care. The President of the United States is a leader and although for some President’s that has taken different paths, some in war, some in peace, some in difficult financial times, until now all of them have tried to make a difference and to lift the American people. Even Jimmy Carter whose economic record was a dismal disgrace tried to lead. This President has done nothing to lead, nothing to rally the American spirit, nothing to give the hope he so boldly spoke of in his campaign in 2008. He let the Congress run rough shot over him and he took credit for their bad choices by putting lipstick on a pig. It’s very sad. Now he claims a banner “Forward” which is quite appropriate since his past is one no American is willing to relive.

The American people may not like Mitt Romney, they may not like the fact he is a Mormon, or that he has achieved his American Dream and become wealthy through hard work. They may not like he is a family man with a large family and that he has evolved more than once on a number of issues near and dear to their heart. This election is not about liking the man, rather believing in him and trusting him to do the right thing. It is about expecting him to use his experience as a leader to truly right our ship of state and bring our economy into calm waters. This election is about a choice between a man who has been exposed to leadership and a man who has lived as a leader. This election is about giving America back to Americans and turning a deaf ear to anyone who disputes that they are not as ready to sacrifice as any generation before them. This election is about continuing to correct a grave mistake which started in 2010 when Americans stopped the free will of President Obama, Nancy Pelosi, and Harry Reid to experiment with their lives and their livelihoods. It is time for Americans to collect on President Obama’s belief that if he did not turn things around in three years it would be a one term proposition. How prophetic on his part to state what so many envisioned, and now how many now see. Thank you President Obama for nothing and please have a nice comfortable ride on Air Force One back to whence you came, Chicago is your kind of town, and Rahm Emanuel is keeping it ready for you.

Sunday, December 04, 2011

Where are your friends????

Throughout our lives we meet people, some are simply just folks we see in passing, a glance, a tip of a hat, or other less friendly gesture, and some become acquaintances who weave themselves in and out of our lives for myriads of reasons, some good, some not, but from time to time much less often than not you meet someone you can call a friend. We all have friends. We have friends from childhood, friends from high school and college, friends from work or professional relationships, and social friends.

When a person becomes your friend or you become theirs as a rule a bond forms that last a lifetime. Of course this bond might simply be an indelible memory of the person, but a bond forms nonetheless, assuming that the friendship was in fact a real friendship, one that was based on mutual respect, trust, admiration, and in many cases love. I’m not ashamed to admit that I have a deep love of my friends. There are times that I don’t particularly like certain friends, or that a friend may fall out of favor for one reason or another, but as a Christian I would like to believe I love them in some meaningful way, and hope they do the same regardless of their momentary status.

When I grew up there were no cellular telephones, no personal computers, no internet, life was pretty simple. I man a met recently that lives down in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia said, if someone wants to get in touch with me, they know where to find me. I have a phone at my house, and if I’m not home someone knows where I am. Wow, did that somehow make a whole lot of sense. That is the way it used to be before technology became our way of life and before the age of instant gratification settled in on all of us. Here and now has to be better right? It makes me wonder sometimes… but I digress. Social Networking works for a reason. It works because it takes the effort out of doing what I just described, staying in touch, or going to find someone. That’s not evil, it is however our reality, and an evil we should be at least somewhat weary of when we lay our heads down at night.

So what’s my point in babbling on about all of this with friendship stuff and old and new. It’s a sad point and one I am not very proud of frankly. I suppose there’s an app for it, but since I don’t have an iPhone along with most of the country, I’ll just come out with it… It sucks to lose someone and not find out about it until months or well several years later. Yes, that’s right people die and people don’t know that they died and it sucks when they find out. There I said it. It sucks more when they realize how bad they feel for themselves that they didn’t do what they should have done to keep in touch, to be a better friend. It’s guilt, its remorse, its sadness, and it’s grief, but it’s also fact. We all have lives that are busy and we all lose track of folks we care about. We don’t stop caring, people grow apart and go their separate ways from time to time; that’s no one’s fault, but it does happen all too often. Then there are people that move away, you might be one of them. I’m one of them. I moved and I left a forwarding address to some, to others I didn’t but I certainly wasn’t unable to be found, “someone knew where I was”.

Now that Facebook, its predecessor MySpace, and the much more thrifty Twitter are available, along with the many Classmate and Reunion websites, it’s possible for most people who want to be found to be found. In some cases it’s impossible not to be found with all the data available online. There are new entries to the market as well Google’s Google Plus with Circle’s is fast growing amongst the more tech savvy crowd, and with those who want a more private environment than Facebook in which to wonder about . I’m on all of them, but I prefer the Twitter arena personally. Google Plus remains largely unexplored however.

Anyway, back to the point, the point being that I’m sad. I’m sad that I sucked as a friend to a couple of people who in some way I could have benefited, I’ll never know. I was too involved in my own life doing unimportant things that didn’t change the world, or even my world, but seemed important at the time, too important to take time to find out what was happening in the lives of those I cared about. Perhaps I am being too hard on myself here, perhaps a little melodramatic. I’m trying to drive home a point, and that is that as Christmas approaches and you send out your “CHRISTMAS CARDS” (Okay I send out some secular cards too) that a once a year remembrance of people just isn’t enough. They might not be there in January, or March, or June. Next year when your Christmas card comes back return to sender you may not have enough money to buy postage to get it to the forwarding address, I hear that Heaven is a long way off, and well paper doesn’t keep well at the “other address”. The bottom line is we all need to do better. We all need to be better, and we should try to find ways to appreciate the friends we have. Of course Social Networking is a great way to keep in touch, but it’s not really the end all be all. If you’re close, you should do some face time.

I stopped reading newspapers some time ago because they were too depressing and well for the most part beyond the front page and the sports section I really didn’t get much out of them. Even when I did buy them I rarely ever looked at the obituaries. Sadly enough to say I did that more often when I was growing up having lost so many friends in those formative years. Perhaps now that should be the one section I should read, certainly it’s one I’ve missed at least twice in the last several years. Forgoing that I will turn to Google e-mail alerts for news, at least then at least I won’t miss an obituary. The holiday season gives us much to reflect upon, but nothing more important to ponder than our relationships with others. They are more precious than any dollars we spend at any store, more valuable than any gift we can give or receive. We only get one life, we only get a few friends, let’s all try not to forget that long past the day the decorations get put back in the boxes after New Years.



Monday, August 29, 2011

FULL MEDIA DISCLOSURE - SHOW US THE MONEY!

As we enter into a new campaign season, why don't we ask our media to do something new and refreshing? Why don't we demand a little transparency on their part for a change? We don't need to require them to disclose their closely held sources, that would jeopardize their journalistic ethics, but we do need to know who is paying their bills. What campaigns or outside interest groups are funneling money to them? Full disclosure to the American people all the time, at the beginning of every broadcast, on the front page of every newspaper, and on the cover of every publication should be a standard the media lives by. We deserve to know how the political money is being spent without having to dig through a mountain of paper over at the FEC. If they can report what's going on in a campaign, they can sure as hell report what they are being paid to run advertisements by campaigns. If it runs on their air or in their publication, we need to know what they received for it and where it came from, period.

Why has no one has demanded this on a Sunday Talk Show in the past. Why this is is so inside politics that it beyond the reach of average American's who truly deserve to know. Who is afraid for this information to become public? Are the advertisers ashamed of their handy work? No one is asking for disclosure from the advertising agencies. This is simply a call for who is paying to put it out there on the air waves and in print. Is the media afraid? Is the media ashamed? Whether the money comes from, Union members, Special Interest PACs, Political Parties, Candidates Campaign Funds, Corporations, or Individuals, media outlets have an obligation to report who is spending what, and no one knows better than they do because they are sending out the bills.

So here is a challenge to all the media… conservative and liberal media alike, are you true patriots or are you afraid a little of the scrutiny you happily dish out? The real campaign is about to begin, can we the American people count on you to tell the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth about how much is being paid for what we see on your air and in your publications and from whom you receive payment? Yes we hear and see the FEC disclaimers… this ad is paid for by… but who is that really? Are you really going to share that? America is waiting….

Sunday, August 21, 2011

Defending Emily Fields

When Non Profit groups like the Florida Family Foundation pressure advertisers like General Mills to pull their support from quality programming like ABC Family’s show “Pretty Little Liars” we all suffer. First Amendment issues notwithstanding; the real issue here is whether we as a people are prepared to accept reality and deal with situations that at times can make us uncomfortable; in this case two young women kissing. One would have thought that Norman Lear crushed that barrier with his cutting edge 1970’s series “All in the Family” on CBS when America was force fed the reality of bigotry in Prime Time. From that point on it became clear to everyone that the television industry had more than token black and strong dominant participation. A whole host of programming was born and for the better. It did not take long before barriers fell for the homosexual community as well, albeit in predominantly male roles.

Here we find ourselves some four decades after a bigoted Archie Bunker came to the realization that he had to accept the first successful human heart transplant operation was from a black man to a white man, and somehow as a nation we cannot get passed the image of two young women sharing an intimate moment coming into our living rooms. Never mind the fact that the argument to used to get the advertisers to pull their support from the program had very little to do with the mission statement of the organization promoting the action. Pretty Little Liars is not a show about children; it is a show about older adolescent teenagers. Emily Fields the subject of all the Ire is one of four main characters and of many story lines of the program. Emily has come to discover that she is not attracted to young men like her friends (Spencer Hastings, Hanna Marin, and Aria Montgomery), learning to kiss with her murdered friend Alison DiLaurentis and she begins to experiment with young women, finally realizing her sexuality. Emily also had to deal with the threat of being exposed by a mysterious nemesis “A” a yet undiscovered character causing chaos and mischief for all four of the Pretty Little Liars.

This matter was handled tastefully and in a serious way. It was not extraneous frivolity strewn across the small screen for the delight of perversion. Emily faces serious dilemmas within herself, her closest trusted friends, and finally her parents. Her mother initially rejected her as broken. Emily’s father away in the military and a very conservative man returned home to face a household in disarray and a daughter confused and in distress. At the same time Emily was falling in love with a girl, one who used marijuana, and who was whisked out of her life almost as quickly as she had entered. Emily continues to meet new people into the second season, but still burns a candle for her first love.

This is not about Promoting Traditional Biblical Values or Christianity. This is about wholesale abuse of the First Amendment by radical extremists who claim to represent a Godly view. Any decent self respecting Christian with a cursory knowledge of the four gospels of the New Testament would be able to tell you that Christ did not preach judgment to the masses, nor did he preach disassociation due to differences. He healed the sick including lepers, the blind, the deaf, the crippled and the possessed. He forgave the prostitute and the adulteress woman and sent them on their way to sin no more. He turned the other cheek at his own crucifixion. These are not the values that persecute a little girl who finds herself dealing with her sexuality. These are not the values that demand advertisers run away from a series telling a story that deals with issues which are prevalent in our society and require thoughtful and sincere discourse. These are quite simply displays of bigotry, cowardice, and most importantly ignorance that have no place in a society that prides itself on being open and forthright. Shame on them!

All of the advertisers knew when they signed on to this project exactly what they were getting. The show has never been billed as a Disney style G rated feel good series. The basis of the show is about telling lies and keeping secrets between friends, and all the havoc that goes along with keep that up. All of the girls date and each have seen sexual situations presented in the show, but certainly nothing flamboyant in nature. Of course having a few murders and some great fashion thrown in as a bonus can’t hurt the marketing, and the stars are all attractive. The producers, writers, and cast are committed to delivering outstanding programming. Excellent veteran actors, among them Holly Marie Combs, Laura Leighton, Chad Lowe and Nia Peeples backstop the main cast.

While I do not believe in retaliatory boycotts, mainly because the retailer is the one that suffers, not the advertiser, our voices do need to be heard. Call and Write General Mills, Call, Write the Florida Family Foundation, and let them know how you feel about the show and how they have conducted themselves regarding this miscarriage of justice. Tweet and e-mail your friends, because pressure works both ways.

Monday, June 06, 2011

THE INTERNET IS A HUMAN RIGHT - SO SAYS THE UN

Well, I'll say this... Free speech is a Human Right. There are many ways to exercise free speech and the Internet does not constitute the primary mode folks in the world communicate, that would be necessarily true because most of the world isn't hooked in to the Internet in any meaningful way if at all. In fact, the Internet in terms of free speech is a "Johnny Come Lately". That's not said to diminish its importance, simply to put into perspective thousands of years of communications that have taken place without the Internet. For the UN to declare anything a Human Right at this point is pretty pointless given that the UN channels a great deal of the money it's given to it's own bureaucracy and quite frankly graft. Their real idea of a Human right is not having to pay parking tickets all over Manhattan. The rest of New York has to pony up or get booted. The bottom line here is that until someone from the UN is willing to pay my Internet bill, its not a Human Right at all... It's just a declaration of pompous asses trying to justify their own existence in an ivory tower funded by far too much US taxpayer money. Sorry UN, better luck next time. Oh, you might go for Electricity or Gasoline next, they're really expensive these days...

Monday, April 18, 2011

GAS PRICES ARE CRIPPLING THE ECONOMY! WHAT CAN BE DONE?

It should come as no surprise to you that your wallet or purse is a lot lighter than it used to be, and that your credit or debit card has a lot more wear than it has had of late because of the amount of use it has had at the gas pump. Gasoline prices have taken a big bite out of everyone's budgets and we all have cut back on the other spending we normally do. We have stopped buying extra food items at the grocery store. We have stopped having auto repairs if they can possibly wait. We will wait for a movie to come to DVD or Netflix rather than spend the money to go to the theater. We have even made conscious decisions to make coffee at home instead of stopping at Starbucks.... what's the world coming to... the prices keep going up and up and there isn't a thing as consumers we can do to stop it.

Well, what is causing the constant increases in price. Is there a shortage of gas because of the trouble in the Middle East? No, there is no shortage of crude oil on the market. The is plenty of supply and inventory, that is not the problem. The problem is speculation in the commodities markets and that is not necessarily associated with any specific reality. Those markets are driven by emotions, feelings, and sometimes pure conjecture. People bet on what might happen based on what might be happening months and months from now assuming facts that do not yet exist. Is it ridiculous, yes. Should it be illegal, probably. Is there anything that can be done about it, NO!

We are our own worst enemy here. Our government has created the mess we are in by failing to have an energy policy that included building new modern refineries to increase capacity and provide security to our nations energy reserves. I'll say it again, like many others... We have not built a refinery in this country since the 1970's. Our current refineries are old, they are operating at less than their capacity because they are constantly being rebuilt and refurbished. Many are located in areas that are dangerously close to hurricane prone areas. We are days and hours away from a major energy disaster and no one is lifting a finger to do anything.

That said, the immediate problem is putting money back in your pocket so that you can get to work, and put money back into the economy. They guy at the Quickie Mart needs your money and so does them man at the Quickie Lube and the woman at the Dry Cleaner and all the other people you deal with in your day to day life. Truckers need lower cost fuel to help keep the cost of your groceries lower. How can this be done? The Federal Excise Tax on Gasoline (Gasohol) and Diesel can be suspended and this would drop prices 18 to 20 cents immediately. Congress and the President can work together to temporarily suspend these taxes. Second with the summer driving season comes the boutique blending of gasolines to reduce vehicle emissions. This drives the price of fuel up by at least 10 cents but by as much as 15 cents. The blending is an EPA regulation that can be suspended by the President. Both of these moves would help every American NOW.

You should take time to call your Member of Congress and Senators to demand that they work to suspend the Federal Excise taxes on Motor Fuels and call the White House to demand that the boutique blending on gasolines be suspended until gasoline prices fall as the result of market forces (not due to the suspension of the excise taxes) and not before. Congress and the President must hear from the American People. They must be pressured to take action NOW. They must be made to hear we are all fed up with this nonsense brought on by people playing on the Commodities Exchanges.

You should also demand that Congress legislate changes to allow for permitting of new refineries. We must have new refineries to protect our energy security and to achieve the amount of capacity we need to be able to meet the needs of the American people. We cannot depend on 40 year old facilities that could disappear at any time due to a natural or man made disaster. We have to know that our demands will be met. We have to know that when we pull up to the pump in our neighborhood or on the highway across the country that we are able to purchase low cost high quality fuels. We do not want to be forced to import refined gasoline into the United States.

Come on Congress! Come on Mr. President! You say you want to do something to save America's Energy Future... Put Up or Shut Up. We don't need or want Cap and Trade. We want Security and Low Cost Energy and we want it NOW!

Saturday, April 16, 2011

It is time for the Republican Party to Take Charge!

The Republican Party controls the United States House of Representatives which is one half of the Congress of the United States. The Democratic Party controls the United States Senate the other half of the Congress and the Presidency. The President has Veto power and with a super majority in both the House of Representatives and Senate being required to override a Presidential Veto; the upper hand in terms of power in terms of the Government lies with the Democratic Party, or so one would think.

The Constitution provides that the spending and taxing authority begins in the House of Representatives. The government cannot perform it's day to day operations without the funding approved by appropriations from the House of Representatives. The Senate cannot act until it receives legislation from the House. The President cannot sign a bill into law or veto it, until it has been passed by both houses of Congress. So, if a political party is going to have control of one of the two bodies in Congress, the power certainly is in the House of Representatives. That is not to say that the Senate does not have exclusivity, but when it comes to spending money, nothing happens unless it happens in the House.

The Senate is a fickle place with lots of rules. The minority in the Senate has many protections. These have been developed over the years by all parties who have had control of the Senate because they knew at some point they would lose control and would be once again in the minority. The most effective tool in the arsenal of the minority, say of any one Senator is the Filibuster. A single Senator can stop all legislative business for as long as that Senator can hold the floor. There are some fairly significant records when Senators have spoken on and on and on to make their position clear and generally gain some sort of compromise from the Senate. Whether it is a concession for a Senator's state or for a Senator's party this tool can be very effective. However, it is rarely ever used in this manner. What is used in the modern day Senate is an implied Filibuster. The threat of a Filibuster is enough to get the attention of the majority. If the Minority decides not to participate, the Majority cannot move forward without them if the Minority has at least 41 votes. If the Majority has 60 votes or more, then it is impossible for an implied Filibuster to be used.

Currently the Republican Party has 47 seats in the US Senate. This is 6 seats more than is needed to use an implied Filibuster. If all 47 Senators stay together they can effectively stop all Senate business, or they can prevent particular Senate business from being considered. This provides a considerable position for negotiation. The Majority cannot run rough shot over the Minority. In effect The Democratic Party cannot do anything unless at least 7 Republicans go along with them.

With Control of the House of Representatives, and the ability to shut down business in the Senate, the Republican Party has much more power than it has been exercising and much more than they have been putting forth to President Obama. It is time to take off the gloves. It is time to stand up and take charge. The Democrats cannot beat the Republican's into submission with lies about starving children, elderly, and poor. The Republicans can force the President and Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid to tell the truth. They can force them to come clean about spending and about taxes. They can force the President to lead or get out of the way.

I call upon Speaker Boehner and Senate Minority Leader McConnell to get on with it and pull out all the stops. Stop going along to get along. Make the hard choices and show the American people that THEIR government can function in a way that is responsible and responsive. Stand up to the Media and tell them that business as usual is over and that the days of rhetoric have passed. Give us a government that will deliver to us a future we might not like but that we know our country will be proud of, one that does not rob its citizens of a dime more than is necessary to accomplish that goal, and one that spends not a penny more than is required to do a proper job.

We don't need a political campaign. We need someone to get off their ass and do the job! Thank you!