Let Blue State Boston prisons take the Gitmo detainees

I say, since Obama wants to close Gitmo and there is a dilemma (not to Democrats who think these terrorists can just be put into the general prison population amongst criminal who already have too many rights and freedoms) as to where the detainees will go.

I say that since this is all Obama's idea and that current polls suggests that most Americans aren't against Gitmo or the treatment of the detainees there, the detainees should be sent to prisons only in blue states and specifically in counties and cities that voted specifically for Obama.

Let's put them in the communities with the liberal elitists that so blindly support this kind of B.S. and see how they like that! Let's send them to Boston, we can see if the Franks, or Kerrys or Kennedys like that plan!

The ride of our lives

In my business (Oil and Gas) we knew the rise was over several months before the world knew it was. One of my superiors used a very good analogy: "We heard the chain stop" and we knew what would come next.

We've all ridden a roller coaster at some point in our lives and we can remember that familiar sound of the clicking chain pulling the cars up the first big hill. Clicking and clacking as we are pulled up this huge rise whether we want to go or not, it's too late, we're locked in and we are along for the ride. As we near the top we can see for miles and feel unbeatable, but we're too busy taking in the sites and revelling in our triumph that not all of us notice (but some do) that the clicking sound of the chain has stopped. For a moment most of us are weightless and euphoric as all brace for the next big thing...in this case, the fall and decline of Obama worship.

The chain has stopped clicking, we are at the top of this liberal/socialist roller coaster. There will be a lot of screaming, arms waving, lots of drama, pomp and circumstance, but it will soon be over and America will wake up and realize that Obama is not going to be able to wave his magic wand and fix everything. That he will not be able to deliver on most of his lofty campaign promises. This is his best moment. George Bush was so hated because mainstream media has spent 8 years herding people's opinions that way but more because he was faced with crisis after crisis and did what he has done better than many presidents, he made the tough decisions. Those tough decisions inevitably alienate people. The reason people love Barack Obama is because the media has done the exact opposite for him but more importantly because he has no history, he has made no major decisions, he has not had the fortune or chance to make decisions that alienated people. So, he too, will feel the sting of hatred, it will just take longer to surface.

That slim margin of people who voted him into office will begin to wonder why their lives are not suddenly better. There was no check in their mailbox, no new car in the driveway, no letter from their mortgage company telling them that their mortgage had been paid off. Their employer is still bracing for the worst, they will still see their taxes go sky high to pay for bailouts and nationalized health care, groceries and household goods will continue to cost more and more, they will see their friends, family and neighbors will lose their jobs left and right, lose their houses and disappear and know that their children and great grand children will be enslaved by this deficit and we will have gotten nothing for it.

Welcome to the roller coaster ride of your lives folks, you're strapped in and at the top of the first big hill. If you now feel like you didn't want to be on this ride, the time to act was 4 years ago while you were still in line. All we can do now is ride it out, hold on tight, pray our safety restraints do their jobs and the ride will be over and we can gather and regroup for 2012.

Well Said...

"You cannot legislate the poor into freedom by legislating the wealthy out of freedom. What one person receives without working for, another person must work for without receiving. The government cannot give to anybody anything that the government does not first take from somebody else. When half of the people get the idea that they do not have to work because the other half is going to take care of them, and when the other half gets the idea that it does no good to work because somebody else is going to get what they work for, that my dear friend, is about the end of any nation. You cannot multiply wealth by dividing it."

The late Dr. Adrian Rogers, 1931 - 2005

Two interesting thoughts

1. Why was the knowledge of back taxes owed by a person who wasn't even running for ANY kind of office the biggest media-bashing party on a private citizen seen in perhaps forever (Joe the Plumber) but the last minute knowledge of and last minute sense of morality to fix 4 years of owed taxes "just a hiccup" and shouldn't be held against a man to be selected to run the IR fricken S (Timothy Geithner)?

2. Why was $150,000 for the wardrobe of a vice-presidential candidate (which was always going to be auctioned off or given back) such a media frenzy but the largest presedential inauguration party in history, as much as $160,000,000 (over a 1000-times more) during "the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression" no big deal?

THIS ABSOLUTELY INFURIATES ME!!!!!!!!!!

Better Luck than Last Time (Click for article)

It's been amazing to me that the government and more so the American people can't seem to use common sense and historical argument as a means of determining what NOT TO DO this time! It is also amazing to me that we've let people gain power in this country that believe that the reason we spent 11 years in a depression 80 years ago was because the New Deal'ers didn't SPEND ENOUGH!!??

We can't even see the not so distant past and look at Japan in the 1990's. They tried this very thing and they now have what they call 'the lost decade' where they had no growth. They tried to create money and balloon deficit spending and it didn't work.

It won't work. Plain and simple. The only way is for people to feel that the future is steady and will improve. Not be up and down with huge swings, but stable and on an incline (even if it is only a small incline). Until the average person feels safe to spend some dough and more importantly the wealthier of us feel safe to begin investing and creating capital and business and opportunities will we get out of it. Reaganonomics, man. Obamanomics is going to not only keep us here or worse, but it already is creating a house of debt that we will never get out from under, ever. Shame on George Bush for being on their side of this. Shame on all Republicans and conservatives who were/are not railing against ALL OF THIS!

(Click to read WSJ article)

A letter I received for your edification (source or validity cannot be confirmed)

As I have said, this is a contribution I received from my father-in-law. I cannot confirm its origins and thus I cannot confirm its validity, but knowing the U.A.W. it is probably not far off:
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Unions are BAD

The one thing that this story does not mention is that Toyota, Nissan etc do not have UAW in their plants. There in, my friends, is the source of the real problem; it costs American automakers $75/hr in labor costs while it only costs foreign automakers $40/hr for labor costs.

I worked in U.S. auto plants and I can tell you from first hand experience that UAW has crippled the American Auto Manufacturers, period end of story!!

Example; did you know that the janitor for the boiler room, (yes the boiler room and only the boiler room because work rules were such that they had to have a separate janitor) made $55K in 1978 doing only janitorial work in the boiler room? No bull story, not second hand, not from a guy who knows a guy, personal first hand experience by me while working in the auto plant in Lordstown Assembly.

You can blame Management all you want but the bottom line is that UAW workers don't work, and that is what the real issue is.

Consider this, the three most powerful unions represent the three most inept and least effective workforces around today; do you know which ones they are?

UAW - the American auto worker, not much more to be said here.

The American Education Association - teachers. Did you know that in all major school systems the teachers are rated outstanding to excellent yet the schools, on average of 70 to 90%, are all rated as poor to failing?

Union of Government Workers (the largest section of the AFL-CIO) represents all those wonderful people that make our lives so interesting when we have to deal with the government on any level. (Did you know that 10 years ago the Cuyahoga recorders office had 5 employees to handle all the county recorder business? Today they employ 105 workers and the county has actually shrunk while "improved methods" of record keeping have been implemented.

Did you know that it is practically IMPOSSIBLE to get rid of a union worker? In addition, if you really wanted to it would cost between $200 to $350K to do so. Did you know that in the Cleveland School System only one BAD teacher, out of 3900, has been fired in the last two years? It cost $350K plus the salary earned while going thru the process?

Posted by Le Consigliere (January 10, 2009 3:43 PM)

In response to the post:
"Musings on Democracy from Friends of the Team":
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We are seeing the sellout of a nation by 536 individuals (give or take a few), mostly for short term personal, political, or financial gain.

While the politicians have us watching one hand (the bailout), we are not watching the other. The chipping away at the foundations of free enterprise is also continuing under the radar. The equal pay for equal work goal of the left, especially feminists, will come to fruition soon under this congress.

Equal pay for equal work is another one of those feel good liberal chants. But it has nothing to do with equal pay for equal work for the same job, skill and seniority. It's really about government establishing pay scales to job skills based on some distorted perception of social value and justice instead of the free market. Think Title IX on a massive business scale.

Here's what scares me. We can survive a few years of this. But if conservatives take back the government, we can't just hold the line, we would have to actively repeal dozens of bad laws. I just don't see that happening.

January 10, 2009 3:43 PM

Musings on Democracy from Friends of the Team

This was passed on to me by a friend, Brad Z. It is a sad commentary that both of Thomas’ assessments are sadly all too true as we have watched our once proud and independent capitalist republic sink, ever so slowly, over a period of 77 years – starting with the inauguration of the first socialist, FDR - into the abyss that is that is socialism, culminating in less two weeks with the socialist canonization of the poster child of American socialism, The Anointed One, Barack H. “Big Bailout Bucks Barry” Obama, who will immediately begin the largest handout (approaching $1 Trillion) in this country’s history. BHO won the presidential election because this is a democracy and a majority of the common people voted to elect him to that high office. However, I wish to remind all of you now that four years hence you should think back to the observation by that great cynic H.L. Mencken who once advised that “Democracy is the theory that the common people know what they want, and deserve to get it good and hard” since by then we will have undoubtedly gotten it good and hard!
-Rich

Response:
What is really ironic is that we were not meant to be a democracy. We were designed to be a republic. In the beginning there was only one federal office that was voted by popular vote: your representative. That was by design. The House is where all appropriations start and is the institution closest to the people. Senators were selected by your state legislatures. And the president was and still is selected by the electroal college. Although now the electoral college is just a rubber stamp for the popular vote.

Senators were "ambassadors" to Washington representating their respective state government. That's why we call states "states" and not provinces. States have independent governments. That changed with the 17th amendment when senators began to be selected by popular vote.
Our founders did a pretty good job in desiging our government but made a couple of mistakes. One, is they failed to put term limits into the constitution. The other mistake is that they thought that all elected office holders would adhere to the their oath of office which calls for supporting the constitution. Instead, popular voting causes politicians to support their constituents. And thus politicians vote on issues based on populism instead of principle.
-Tony

Response:
An excellent analysis and you are of course correct. This country was founded as a “constitutional republic” by some very savvy individuals who were well-educated in the classics and in history, from which they drew the best lessons to design our form of government. It survived very well, with only minor fits and starts, until FDR, at which time the slide away from a constitution-guided confederation of states that were held together by the three separate but equal branches of a federal government – whose powers were enumerated and limited by that constitution, to what we have now, which is a strong, centralized federal government which, through unconstitutional congressional legislation, and presidential and judicial fiat, arbitrarily rules the land, having almost totally usurped the power of the states. This has been accomplished because the electorate “elected” to relinquish their responsibilities as informed and involved citizens and instead voted into office those politicians who would pass to them funds and benefits from the public trough.
-Rich

“Kiss Common Sense Goodbye or How the Auto Industry is paying my bills AND making me crazy at the same time”

I recently read a column in the December 8, 2008 issue of the Crains’ Auto Industry publication Automotive News. In this the column the author actually had the audacity to suggest that it is our obligation to protect the “Heritage” of the Auto Industry because of the industry’s historical support of minorities. The author also indicated that the value of the industry’s support of minority education, communities and businesses outweighs the negative impact of bailouts to the taxpayer.

I quote the article; “It’s no secret Republicans are in favor of allowing the industry to fail, ostensibly so they can lay the blame at the feet of the Democrats”. The column continues with accusations of “certain media” and their effort to push “partisan agendas”. God give me strength…

My opinion of the auto industry bailout aside (I’ll get into that in a minute) how someone can suggest that it is our obligation to support this dying “beast” in its present incarnation SIMPLY because of its supposed commitment to minorities and not be punched in the neck by the very pissed off ghosts of Washington, Lincoln, and Henry Ford is beyond me! +

Are you ready for another “rich one”…I quote "All corporations, especially the financial institutions we’re continually rescuing, should be expected to be as supportive of our society, businesses and communities as the auto companies have been.” First, just these few words…ACORN…sub-prime loans…Fannie May…Freddie Mac…minorities…are you grabbing the connection, my little conservative friends? Lastly, NO BUSINESS DOES ANYTHING WITHOUT CONSIDERING HOW IT AFFECTS THE BOTTOM LINE (or unless it is forced by some liberal, “you’re all racists if you don’t”, card carrying socialist law maker with an agenda or the union).

Anyway, here was my letter to the editor in response. Do you think it was passionate enough?

I do not understand how Mr. Payton can be so obtuse about the state of the U.S. auto industry today! It is not a question of “Social Consciousness” or “Community Support” and many MANY Americans believe that the last thing any part of the “Detroit 3” is displaying is a commitment to Americans! Enough about how important it is to preserve the “National Heritage” of the U.S auto industry. If a company is not profitable it MUST adjust its business practices. The value of a successful company is how it serves its customers NOT how the customers serve the company.

Mr. Payton, how dare you suggest that “certain media” is driving partisanship on the issue when your statements were so obviously partisan, they may as well have been wearing a donkey hat!
I say ENOUGH! NOBODY wants the Auto Industry to fail. Americans want all companies to be respectful, to be responsible and to be responsive to the needs of ALL Americans! The issue is bigger than any one group – whatever its minority/majority status; as a tax payer I will NOT happily go along with putting my dollars into an industry, and its associated organizations, that refuses to adjust ANY of its practices but still expects me to pay - pay for sub-quality product as a customer and pay to keep its sorry state afloat.

I do hate to admit that the Industry may have passed through its first Golden Age but it can be golden again – with REAL hard work.
-Gina