Shhhh! Don't tell anybody!

Ya know, some time it doesn't pay to get out of bed and check up on those rascals in Wishingtonia.

You ask why?

Those buzzards, and I don't know if I would equate our wonderful congress people in the same class as buzzards, because buzzards actually do what they are supposed to do and congress? Well...if you weren't teed off before, this came to my attention several days ago and I forgot where I read it, and then found it again thanks to George Ure's site www.urbansurvival.com. Hat tip George! If you haven't read his site, you are missing a GREAT daily read...

From The Hill...

With economy in shambles, Congress gets a raise
By Jordy Yager
Posted: 12/17/08 05:41 PM [ET]

A crumbling economy, more than 2 million constituents who have lost their jobs this year, and congressional demands of CEOs to work for free did not convince lawmakers to freeze their own pay.

Instead, they will get a $4,700 pay increase, amounting to an additional $2.5 million that taxpayers will spend on congressional salaries, and watchdog groups are not happy about it.

“As lawmakers make a big show of forcing auto executives to accept just $1 a year in salary, they are quietly raiding the vault for their own personal gain,” said Daniel O’Connell, chairman of The Senior Citizens League (TSCL), a non-partisan group. “This money would be much better spent helping the millions of seniors who are living below the poverty line and struggling to keep their heat on this winter.”

However, at 2.8 percent, the automatic raise that lawmakers receive is only half as large as the 2009 cost of living adjustment of Social Security recipients.

Still, Steve Ellis, vice president of the budget watchdog Taxpayers for Common Sense, said Congress should have taken the rare step of freezing its pay, as lawmakers did in 2000.

“Look at the way the economy is and how most people aren’t counting on a holiday bonus or a pay raise — they’re just happy to have gainful employment,” said Ellis. “But you have the lawmakers who are set up and ready to get their next installment of a pay raise and go happily along their way.”

Member raises are often characterized as examples of wasteful spending, especially when many constituents and businesses in members’ districts are in financial despair.

Rep. Harry Mitchell, a first-term Democrat from Arizona, sponsored legislation earlier this year that would have prevented the automatic pay adjustments from kicking in for members next year. But the bill, which attracted 34 cosponsors, failed to make it out of committee.

“They don’t even go through the front door. They have it set up so that it’s wired so that you actually have to undo the pay raise rather than vote for a pay raise,” Ellis said.

Freezing congressional salaries is hardly a new idea on Capitol Hill.

Lawmakers have floated similar proposals in every year dating back to 1995, and long before that. Though the concept of forgoing a raise has attracted some support from more senior members, it is most popular with freshman lawmakers, who are often most vulnerable.

In 2006, after the Republican-led Senate rejected an increase to the minimum wage, Democrats, who had just come to power in the House with a slew of freshmen, vowed to block their own pay raise until the wage increase was passed. The minimum wage was eventually increased and lawmakers received their automatic pay hike.

In the beginning days of 1789, Congress was paid only $6 a day, which would be about $75 daily by modern standards. But by 1965 members were receiving $30,000 a year, which is the modern equivalent of about $195,000.

Currently the average lawmaker makes $169,300 a year, with leadership making slightly more. House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) makes $217,400, while the minority and majority leaders in the House and Senate make $188,100.

Ellis said that while freezing the pay increase would be a step in the right direction, it would be better to have it set up so that members would have to take action, and vote, for a pay raise and deal with the consequences, rather than get one automatically.

“It is probably never going to be politically popular to raise Congress’s salary,” he said. “I don’t think you’re going to find taxpayers saying, ‘Yeah I think I should pay my congressman more’.”

I guess what I am attempting to do is to destroy your appetite with the upcoming holiday meal. You know everyone always complains about how much weight they gain this time of year.

Maybe we should head to our friendly Congress person's home to partake, as they sure are partaking from us, right?

Wonder whose goose got cooked this year?

Merry HoMama

As I make this new post, I feel more like our wonderful guvment is a Merry HoMama.

Posted today by AP, an account of where our hard-earned future taxes are going ... what we will never see, what our children, great-grands, hell, nobody will see ... ever!

It seems our beloved guvment got in bed with the financiers, who screwed, blued and tattooed us, while we weren't looking. (See what I meant about tying your head around this one in the last post?)

AP study finds $1.6B went to bailed-out bank execs

By FRANK BASS and RITA BEAMISH
Associated Press Writers


Banks that are getting taxpayer bailouts awarded their top executives nearly $1.6 billion in salaries, bonuses, and other benefits in the calendar year 2007, an Associated Press analysis reveals.

The rewards came even at banks where poor results last year foretold the economic crisis that sent them to Washington for a government rescue. Some trimmed their executive compensation due to lagging bank performance, but still forked over multimillion-dollar executive pay packages.

Benefits included cash bonuses, stock options, personal use of company jets and chauffeurs, home security, country club memberships and professional money management, the AP review of federal securities documents found.

The total amount given to nearly 600 executives would cover bailout costs for 53 of the 116 banks that have so far accepted tax dollars to boost their bottom lines.

Rep. Barney Frank, chairman of the House Financial Services committee and a long-standing critic of executive largess, said the bonuses tallied by the AP review amount to a bribe "to get them to do the jobs for which they are well paid in the first place.

"Most of us sign on to do jobs and we do them best we can," said Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat. "We're told that some of the most highly paid people in executive positions are different. They need extra money to be motivated!"

The AP compiled total compensation based on annual reports that the banks file with the Securities and Exchange Commission. The 116 banks have so far received $188 billion in taxpayer help. Among the findings:

-The average paid to each of the banks' top executives was $2.6 million in salary, bonuses and benefits.

-Lloyd Blankfein, president and chief executive officer of Goldman Sachs, took home nearly $54 million in compensation last year. The company's top five executives received a total of $242 million.

This year, Goldman will forgo cash and stock bonuses for its seven top-paid executives. They will work for their base salaries of $600,000, the company said. Facing increasing concern by its own shareholders on executive payments, the company described its pay plan last spring as essential to retain and motivate executives "whose efforts and judgments are vital to our continued success, by setting their compensation at appropriate and competitive levels." Goldman spokesman Ed Canaday declined to comment beyond that written report.

The New York-based company on Dec. 16 reported its first quarterly loss since it went public in 1999. It received $10 billion in taxpayer money on Oct. 28.

-Even where banks cut back on pay, some executives were left with seven- or eight-figure compensation that most people can only dream about. Richard D. Fairbank, the chairman of Capital One Financial Corp., took a $1 million hit in compensation after his company had a disappointing year, but still got $17 million in stock options. The McLean, Va.-based company received $3.56 billion in bailout money on Nov. 14.

-John A. Thain, chief executive officer of Merrill Lynch, topped all corporate bank bosses with $83 million in earnings last year. Thain, a former chief operating officer for Goldman Sachs, took the reins of the company in December 2007, avoiding the blame for a year in which Merrill lost $7.8 billion. Since he began work late in the year, he earned $57,692 in salary, a $15 million signing bonus and an additional $68 million in stock options.

Like Goldman, Merrill got $10 billion from taxpayers on Oct. 28.

The AP review comes amid sharp questions about the banks' commitment to the goals of the Troubled Assets Relief Program (TARP), a law designed to buy bad mortgages and other troubled assets. Last month, the Bush administration changed the program's goals, instructing the Treasury Department to pump tax dollars directly into banks in a bid to prevent wholesale economic collapse.

The program set restrictions on some executive compensation for participating banks, but did not limit salaries and bonuses unless they had the effect of encouraging excessive risk to the institution. Banks were barred from giving golden parachutes to departing executives and deducting some executive pay for tax purposes.

Banks that got bailout funds also paid out millions for home security systems, private chauffeured cars, and club dues. Some banks even paid for financial advisers. Wells Fargo of San Francisco, which took $25 billion in taxpayer bailout money, gave its top executives up to $20,000 each to pay personal financial planners.

At Bank of New York Mellon Corp., chief executive Robert P. Kelly's stipend for financial planning services came to $66,748, on top of his $975,000 salary and $7.5 million bonus. His car and driver cost $178,879. Kelly also received $846,000 in relocation expenses, including help selling his home in Pittsburgh and purchasing one in Manhattan, the company said.

Goldman Sachs' tab for leased cars and drivers ran as high as $233,000 per executive. The firm told its shareholders this year that financial counseling and chauffeurs are important in giving executives more time to focus on their jobs.

JPMorgan Chase chairman James Dimon ran up a $211,182 private jet travel tab last year when his family lived in Chicago and he was commuting to New York. The company got $25 billion in bailout funds.

Banks cite security to justify personal use of company aircraft for some executives. But Rep. Brad Sherman, D-Calif., questioned that rationale, saying executives visit many locations more vulnerable than the nation's security-conscious commercial air terminals.

Sherman, a member of the House Financial Services Committee, said pay excesses undermine development of good bank economic policies and promote an escalating pay spiral among competing financial institutions - something particularly hard to take when banks then ask for rescue money.

He wants them to come before Congress, like the automakers did, and spell out their spending plans for bailout funds.

"The tougher we are on the executives that come to Washington, the fewer will come for a bailout," he said.

As the wizard said as he sailed into the sunset without Dorothy, "I can't come back, I don't know how it works!"

Obviously, those in Wishingtonia don't know how it works either, those stinking pork-barreled, greed-mongering flying monkeys. I never did like those ugly monkeys and our capital is FULL of them.

Who can you trust anymore? Where is Glenda and those ruby slippers when you need them?

Who could have imagined a better Christmas?

Everything appears to be coming apart at the seams.

No take I it back...everything is coming apart at the seams. I really hate to say this, but when I was a 1972 high school senior, I imagined something like this to happen to my world. I really did. And although we are just at the precipice of it all, it is reality, and there is no going back.

Tis the season?

Somehow, for me, it began when I found out that there was no Santa Claus...I know I've said this before, in earlier posts. But this is something you really need to put your head around and digest. It is a difficult thing to do, as escaping only prolongs the pain, and if you don't, then you can't blame anyone but yourself. The truth is out there to be discovered and you best hurry before it is hidden.

Today I watched The Net with Sandra Bullock...a great sci-fi flick showing what could happen to one person's identity should they discover truths. Oh, I know, this could never happen, yeah, right. One website I follow, shows how many leading world scientists who have mysteriously died or have been murdered. Say it ain't so...want the site, let me know...but I digress here...

What happens when Mom and Dad lies to you? If you have a real sense of reality, you begin to think that everything is a lie. It is.

From our heralded halls of justice right down to the Wizard of Oz, and the promise of something wonderful as though someone, or something, would bring us to that special place, where the young in heart exist...Ah, those years of innocence, where did they go?

I don't make this stuff up, but thank goodness I am a good researcher, or else we'd all be blind, huh?

The following was gleaned from CounterPunch: Tells the Facts, Names the Names

"It's Kristallnacht Two!" An Ethnic Cleansing in America

By ALEXANDER COCKBURN

Call any Jewish friend across the few days and the degrees of separation from someone financially devastated by Bernie Madoff are often only one or two. One rich Jewish friend in New York volunteers that because of some intricate family dispute his own money hadn’t been parked at Bernard L. Madoff Investment Securities LLC. On the other hand his uncle had woken up the morning after Madoff’s arrest to discover that the $40 million he’d entrusted to Bernie was gone forever, along with the multi-million pension fund of his workforce, which he’d also entrusted to Madoff.

It’s not just ruined heiresses in the Palm Beach Country Club now faced with the prospect of dividing the contents of the Whiskas can into two equal portions for mistress and cat, it’s academics on Ivy League campuses, doctors in Santa Monica, rich people from Boston to San Francisco to the West Side of Los Angeles finding their retirement nest eggs or charitable trusts wiped out overnight.

In terms of financial and psychological impact, Bernard Madoff's $50 billion heist certainly ranks as a major ethnic cleansing here in America, a hugely traumatic event for American Jewry. Of course Madoff had clients of every creed and nation, but he made a specialty of trolling for Jewish money. I asked a Jewish woman I know here in California if any in her circle had taken a hit. She looked at me tremulously, shaking her head, on the edge of tears. Though no one was in immediate earshot, she whispered, “They kept telling me to put my money with Madoff. At that time the entry level was $250,000. I dodged the bullet. Some of my friends didn’t. They’ve lost everything. This is Kristallnacht Two.” Her fear and horror would scarcely have been diminished if she’d heard what a perfectly nice young person had remarked to me earlier, apropos the Madoff affair: “Now the rich people will know what it’s like.”

"‘It’s an atomic bomb in the world of Jewish philanthropy,’ Mark Charendoff, president of the Jewish Funders Network, told Anthony Weiss and Gabrielle Birkner of The Forward newspaper. ‘There’s going to be fallout from this for years to come.’ The collapse of the investment firm of Bernard Madoff has opened a black hole at the center of the tight knit circles of wealthy Jews who socialize and do business together, and who, year after year, support Jewish causes… ”

Among those apparently taking serious and even financially fatal hits: Yeshiva University in New York; Senator Frank Lautenberg, New York Mets owner Fred Wilpon, real estate and media mogul Mortimer Zuckerman (“significantly hurt”), GMAC Financial Services chairman J. Ezra Merkin (who ran a hedge fund, Ascot Partners, which reinvested many charities’ funds with Madoff), the Elie Wiesel Foundation for Humanity, Steven Spielberg’s Wunderkinder Foundation, Jeff Katzenberg, the Boston-based Robert I. Lappin Charitable Foundation (which has closed its doors), Eliot Spitzer’s family, the Chais Family Foundation, the Carl and Ruth Shapiro Foundation, Hadassah (the Women’s Zionist Organization of America), the United Jewish Endowment Fund of the Jewish Federation of Greater Washington , the Los Angeles’ Jewish Community Foundation’s $238 million Common Investment Pool, the American Jewish Congress, the Technion-Israel Institute of Technology.

It’s a savage body blow to the commercial real estate market in New York. Christine Haughney in Friday’s New York Times quotes Robert J. Ivanhoe, a lawyer who is representing 10 developers and investors who lost $5 million to $50 million each, as saying “The level of devastation, both financial and on a human level, is astounding,” Haughney cites a Manhattan psychotherapist who counsels real estate leaders and bankers as saying “most of the patients he has seen this week have close friends and relatives who lost money with Mr. Madoff. The victims include executives at the global commercial brokerage CB Richard Ellis, most prominently Stephen Siegel, a major Bronx landlord who is chairman of worldwide operations at the brokerage.”

A huge problem is that many developers were using their investments with Madoff as collateral on projects and now banks are saying, “Show us the money.” Residential real estate will take a hit too as people back out of purchases because they’ve lost their money , or abandon coops because they can longer afford the annual fees and mortgage payments.

Pam Martens, CounterPuncher and former Wall St stockbroker, points out to me that “Yes, in the early years Madoff and his brother, Peter, worked the Jewish country clubs and got referrals from referrals. But as he ran into trouble with redemptions and needed ever larger pools of new money, he turned to funds of funds (hedge funds that raise money and then dole it out to various hedge fund money managers). That meant that Madoff really didn't know who the ultimate individual investors were. That also means that a lot of these people don't yet know they're victims because they were never told by their fund of funds that their money went to Madoff. (He would not let his name be given out by the fund of funds; obviously so the SEC couldn't figure out how much money he was really taking in.) So expect to hear a lot more big names being announced as victims over the next few weeks.”

"People are horrified. They are frightened of being exposed. They don't know how to go on," said a Boston-area psychologist, cited in an interesting story by Svea Herbst of Reuters: “Many duped investors have been left with a sense of betrayal so strong that it will cause severe psychological scars, said Dr. James Grubman, a psychologist who counsels wealthy families in the Boston area struggling with the emotional issues of having money. "He gave his investors a lot of intangibles. He allowed people to feel they were part of an exclusive club, part of the 'in crowd' and ultimately deemed worthy of investing with him."

How did Madoff, despite widespread suspicions across many years, continue to allure so many investors, smart fellows like Steven Spielberg well equipped with expert number crunchers? The most gullible dupes of all are those who preen themselves as being privileged accomplices in a profitable conspiracy, at scant risk to themselves. Part of Madoff’s genius as a swindler was that he turned many away. As my father, Claud, used to joke to me, “Alexander, people talk about ‘falling into the clutches of money lenders. I had to force my way in.” Madoff would turn down applicants unless they could put up millions, and that of course vastly increased the zeal of the suckers to be on a good thing, to join the exclusive club.

Of course many of them thought Madoff’s famous model was dubious. After all, how could the laws of financial gravity be defied, year after year, producing an unending yield (for the fortunate) of 10 to 12 per cent annual returns on capital invested. But the thought came with a knowing wink, that Bernie was scoring these huge returns, by being in the know, running on the inside track, using insider knowledge. As my father pointed out to me many times, many people have a bit of larceny in their bloodstream, and it’s what con men trade on, as Gogol imperishably described in Dead Souls.

CounterPuncher Pam Martens, who will be writing about the affair here in a few days, was on to Madoff back in 1991, as Susan Antilla described in a column on Bloomberg. Martens was “taking over management of a customer’s municipal-bond portfolio, but was alarmed when she heard how the man had invested the rest of his nest egg.

"He told me that the bulk of his money was with Bernie Madoff, and that Madoff guarantees a 13 percent a year return. I said, “First of all, that’s impossible, and second of all, that’s illegal.’” Martens got copies of the man’s brokerage statements and phoned Madoff. “I said, ‘I’m looking at Mr. X’s statements, and it’s clear you’re not doing anything here that generated 13 percent a year,’ He said, ‘No one has ever dared question what I’m doing.’”

In the years that followed, there were those who did question. Some of them pressed their suspicions upon bodies like the SEC, stating emphatically their view that Madoff was running a Ponzi game. Madoff sailed through the charges for a variety of reasons. First, he posed as a regulator and due diligence watchdog himself. The SEC thought he was one of their own. Then again, he had heavy duty social and financial connections and heavy duty political protection. Here’s where there should be a lot more investigation. Madoff poured money into the Democratic Senatorial Campaign war chest ($100,000 between 2005 and 2008)and made large contributions to important Democrats on the Finance Committees, like Rep Henry Waxman and Senator Charles Schumer. Waxman and Schumer have hastily announced they’re donating this money to charity. (Who knows? Maybe the donations have gone to the next Ponzi racket down the food chain so it’ll come back to them again as protection money.)

The carnage will go on for years. As Dean Rotbart points out in The Jewish Journal:

“A phalanx of plaintiffs attorneys are trolling this very moment for clients who are certain to mount a legal assault on charities, universities and other non-profits in a bid to force them to disgorge past donations whose origins can be linked back to the Madoff scheme.

“At the very least, large numbers of individuals and institutions who today consider themselves to be victims of the Madoff scandal should brace for forthcoming legal actions that will allege their remaining wealth is not theirs at all – rather, it is the recoverable property of other claimants who were bilked by Madoff.

To keep their libraries, laboratories, scholarship programs, hospital services, meal programs and the like, universities and other non-profits who continue to operate in the wake of the Madoff scandal will also almost certainly have to retain law firms to combat efforts to strip those non-profits of past Madoff-related donations – whether directly from Madoff or indirectly from Madoff investors.”

Maybe not. Since a ot of Madoff-derived money went to Israel, I think perhaps we will soon see Congress rush through legislation to limit the liability of Madoff recipient non-profits, with President Obama , whose campagn contributions surely included Madoff money too, only to happy to sign on the dotted line.

On the larger canvas, what exactly separates Madoff’s operation from those of the banks rewarded for their shady follies by a $700 billion bailout? Just like Madoff, the banks finally had to admit that all their public financial statements were false, that the supposed assets were worthless.

The operating assumption of the Ponzi scheme is that the tide will always rise, that old investors can be repaid by the infusions ponied up by the fresh recruits. For the past twenty years the entire American economy has become—to quote Bernie’s succinct résumé of his business to his sons —“a giant Ponzi scheme,”.

Uncle Sam is the biggest Ponzi operator of all, with the added magical power denied Madoff (unless forgery was among his talents) of being able to print money at will. CounterPunch tip of the week. Wheelbarrow stocks. Buy ‘em while the price is right. Soon Americans will be needing wheelbarrows to put the money in to go shopping. A vast new wheelbarrow industry could be part of Obama’s recovery plan. Collapsible wheelbarrows for the soccer moms to get in the back of the Volvo. Electric-powered wheelbarrows. Hybrid wheelbarrows from GM. Gold-plated wheelbarrows from the Defense sector.

This was no one-man operation, run after hours by Madoff with a secret ledger. No one person can single-handedly run a $50 billion business, even one with cooked books. This was a family business. Every decade has its signature swindles capturing the zeitgeist, and we remember them fondly – from Clifford Irving’s homage to Howard Hughes, the Hitler Diaries, Keating. Madoff is in the pantheon now. Though the legal obstacles will be formidable, I hope Spielberg, one of those stung by Madoff, gets around to making a movie about him. The Jewish Journal has even comes up with a title for him, Swindler’s List.

Oh, me, let me go "follow the yellow brick road!"

Edukashun -21st cenutyr stile?

Yep, we need to build buildings to get our kids into the 21st century learnin. Seen in a Burger King window in Memphis, please read carefully. Hat tip to David for sending me this jewel!

Buildings always helped me learn...not the instructors, the lesson plans, the curriculum. Kinda makes one think twice, about this upcoming trillion dollar package.

With all the problems this country faces, I don't see throwing money at "sub-prime" contractors to build these magnificent structures...remember the $400 toilet seat?

Yeah, I trust those construction companies...sounds like another Chicagoland deal. Except this time we, the US gets taken to the cleaners, not just Illinois.

This takes us back to Gov. Hot Rod and crew. You know something smells about this whole deal. Corruption following corruption, four governors have gone to prison because of the corruption. So what makes this so different? Just the fact that President-elect Obama's Chief of Staff, Emanuel and Axelrod, are somehow involved...well, why are they keeping quiet now? why won't they answer questions from the Press.

Can we say oops?

Well, first of all, who runs for the Office of President of the US, that only pays $400K a year? Sure you live in the big house, have Secret Service watching your butt 24/7 and many other perks, but at what cost? Over 1/2 billion dollars? Can you say overkill? Was it all spent? Are there any monies left? I mean, I know advertising and the like cost a lot, but this is overkill, right? The big staged productions, for what?

Now if he was really wanting to be like his idol, JFK, he would donate ALL his salary to charities. Bet you didn't know that about JFK. I think about him (JFK) much differently once I found out this information.

So pony up Mr. President-elect, give unto others as you would have them give unto you...what do you think?

If he were really serious about helping his beloved country, why not spread the funds into the problems at hand...oh yeah, he's going to spend our money.

Nothing to surprise us now, right?

We couldn't possibly be so surprised as when we find out that there is such extra-ordinary corruption within our democratic form of government.

Why?

Is it so important to sell your soul to the devil , just to get to the top?

In an article in Salon Magazine, "What do the Clinton's have on Obama?", the question, asked and answered, proves one thing.

Power corrupts. Absolute power will destroy.

Although we are stuck with choices made yesterday, we can only hope that whatever is in place now, we are in deep dooo dooo, if we don't make changes for tomorrow.

What has happened to Gov. Hot Rod in Illinois, didn't just happen. Over the course of many years of plotting and scheming in Chi (pronounced "shy") town, some of these allegations come from Tony Rezco's recent felony conviction.

Remember Tony? He and his wife, sold the house next to them, to our President-elect and his wife. Some of the scenarios of Michelle and Hot Rod's wife job resumes sound the same, or at least the desire on the Gov.'s wife's part. She wanted a job like Michelle's, paying 6-figures, as part of one of his deals. I just don't think he was able to obtain his goal, do you?

Apparently, all this has been coming since Rezco's conviction and rather squeal, softening his incarceration time, he came forward with all he knows...I somehow doubt that he will be "that" honest. After all, he knows, a pardon is just a door knock away.

In Prez-elect's news conference today, the PE said he had not spoken to Hot Rod in way, shape or form, about any sale of his senate seat. Only time will tell...unless the FBI could be complicit in hiding information from us...and phone records hidden...not that they would do that, would they?

How much does it cost to live in the White House? How much can we afford?

While googling the news this morning, I found this interesting article from The Bulletin - Philadelphia's Family Newspaper.

There is now growing evidence that Sen. Barack Obama bought the White House by using illegal and fraudulent fundraising, but that's a story you won't read in the mainstream media. You will read about it here today. While that story of Obama election law violations is still developing, what is the mainstream media reporting on? The New York Times isn't interested in election fraud ... if committed by Sen. Obama and the Democrats. So it is using its resources to investigate the amount of money the McCain campaign spent on hair stylists for Gov. Sarah Palin. (New York Times, Dec. 6, 2008). They've already investigated the amount spent on her wardrobe. Yes, the bias and dishonesty of the New York Times no longer just oozes out, it floods out in epic proportions. The once great paper has become a sad joke, a puppet and propagandist for the Democratic Party that can hardly write an honest word on politics.

For full story, click on headline.

Apparently, the Federal Election Commission is concerned, and has been for some time, about where all the funding came from, as many irregularities have raised their nasty heads bringing to light things that I am certain Obama, himself, had no control over.

However, I know, as everyone does, that if you want something bad enough, you may be tempted to sell your soul to the highest bidder.

I can only hope this is not the case. I can only hope that at the end of his tenure, we will be a better Nation, but only time will tell.

Naughty or Nice--The 21st Century New Deal

When looking at the 21st century New Deal, I have to wonder just what is involved in this plan and what effect it will have on all of us.

Obama's plan is a follows...

—ENERGY: “[W]e will launch a massive effort to make public buildings more energy-efficient. Our government now pays the highest energy bill in the world. We need to change that. We need to upgrade our federal buildings by replacing old heating systems and installing efficient light bulbs. That won’t just save you, the American taxpayer, billions of dollars each year. It will put people back to work.”

Public buildings energy efficient, but what about my home being made the same? The government is paying the highest energy bill. No, we pay for that energy being used. And who solicited bids for those buildings to be built? Our government. Did they not see an energy crisis coming? If they are the be all and end all, where did they go wrong? Where did we go wrong? Are we not responsible for the waste and inefficiency by re-electing the suits that blatantly believe they deserve a second, third, fourth, chance to make things right? Have they exhibited such discretion once arriving in Wishingtonia, or are they indoctrinated into the "ways and means" of how Wishingtonia works.

And don't get me started on the auto industry. Why didn't they see what was coming? Couldn't they see what cars were being sold--Honda (which after 23 years, my 86 Civic SI is doing just fine, needs a paint job, but doing just fine)--Nissan, which we own a 20 year old 240 SX) --or Volkswagon, and yes I have a 1972 Yellow Super Beetle, whose smile was made crooked from a hit and run several years ago, but gets around just fine! So what is wrong with Detroit?

But back to the subject at hand...How are we going to get the "money men lobbyists" from enticing our elected reps with bribes and treats, in order to vote in their favor. Unless they are banished from our halls of justice, nothing will change. So how much energy will be saved once our POTUS institutes this new edict? How will the new contracts be allocated to resurrect our old buildings with the new green technology?

We have a federal building in a neighboring county that has been put up for sale. They recently built a new post office out of the downtown area and also built a Social Security office next door. The "old" building was built in 1965 and fully occupied by federal offices until about 10 years ago. All that is housed there now is a post office and a USDA office.

Where are the monies coming from? How much more money can we Americans print?

—ROADS AND BRIDGES: “[W]e will create millions of jobs by making the single largest new investment in our national infrastructure since the creation of the federal highway system in the 1950s. We’ll invest your precious tax dollars in new and smarter ways, and we’ll set a simple rule – use it or lose it. If a state doesn’t act quickly to invest in roads and bridges in their communities, they’ll lose the money.”

Have you ever watched a road crew work? Why it only takes 50 or 60 men to stand around while a paver paves, a flagman flag traffic, but the rest are just standing around, smoking cigarettes, yapping on cell phones, while just three or four are actually getting the work done. Yep, that will provide millions of jobs.

Boy, I can think of many roads and bridges within 30 miles that urgently need repair. But, again, where is the money coming from? Oh, yeah, our precious tax dollars. I thought we were going to lower taxes. I don't see the wealthy parting with their hard earned cash,(mostly earned by hook, crook, steal or deal) in order to put this country back on its feet. If we looked at these states who profited from the fed co-investments, and by looked, I mean a required full financial auditing of the coffers, I believe we would find something quite amiss. Although, one would look from the top down for fraud, believe me, the little learn from the big.

As in a nearby county, the state tax commission recognized and found massive fraud within the county assessor's office, thereby, arresting every employee, including the tax assessor, for selling car tags with "county" addresses versus their actual city address. The employees discounted the fees, taking kickbacks, in order to feather their own pockets. Where did they learn this behavior, or believe that what they were doing was right, if not from the top.

—SCHOOLS: “[M]y economic recovery plan will launch the most sweeping effort to modernize and upgrade school buildings that this country has ever seen. We will repair broken schools, make them energy-efficient, and put new computers in our classrooms. Because to help our children compete in a 21st century economy, we need to send them to 21st century schools.”

Upgrading school buildings will not attract the talent needed to advance the education of our youth. Throwing money at physical structures won't make them educator or educational friendly. Energy-efficient schools and new computers won't educate the students. 21st Century schools are in need of 21st century teachers.

It is the educational system that is broken, not the school buildings, themselves. What made the 19th Century schools thrive and survive? It wasn't the physical building, but the education process.

I recently read where the Department of Education had nearly 4,000 employees dictating their suggestions into the the states, few of whom held a degree in Education. What is wrong with this picture?

—BROADBAND: “As we renew our schools and highways, we’ll also renew our information superhighway. It is unacceptable that the United States ranks 15th in the world in broadband adoption. Here, in the country that invented the Internet, every child should have the chance to get online, and they’ll get that chance when I’m president – because that’s how we’ll strengthen America’s competitiveness in the world.”

(Incoming White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel had talked about expanding broadband access, but this is the first time the transition has formally proposed it.)

Oh, don't get me started...In a little, nearby village obtained guvment funding for a museum honoring a Civil Rights activist. They were able to obtain funding to build a broadband access tower to provide free service to the entire community. That was over a year ago. The only broadband service provided is to the museum, a few of the townsfolk and the mayor. When inquiring about obtaining access, I was informed it would cost $80 a month. What happened to community-wide free access?

—ELECTRONIC MEDICAL RECORDS: “In addition to connecting our libraries and schools to the Internet, we must also ensure that our hospitals are connected to each other through the Internet. That is why the economic recovery plan I’m proposing will help modernize our health care system – and that won’t just save jobs, it will save lives. We will make sure that every doctor’s office and hospital in this country is using cutting edge technology and electronic medical records so that we can cut red tape, prevent medical mistakes, and help save billions of dollars each year.”

Now this is one I can't wrap my head around. Am I supposed to provide all my history to one hospital, just to get it moved to a centralized location. I'm sorry, I don't travel that much and i don't think red tape is what its all about anyway. I somehow think that big brother wants total control of my life and times and all that I am. When will they be satisfied? Or will I wind up in some database that will tell them its time to retire me to the farm, as in "Wild In The Streets"--where those that reach the age of 30 are put to rest on LSD farms.

I'm sorry, I must go take a classical music break...something to let me think of happier times, when I did believe in Santa Claus...maybe The Nutcracker Suite, cause some body's nuts are about to be cracked.

Before ending my rant, I must say, the day I realized there wasn't a Santa, I was sorely disappointed in my parents. How could they lie to me? If you can't trust your parents, how the hell can you trust Uncle Sam?

Oh such are the thoughts of a cynic.