Fantasy Land

I heard a couple of sound bites today.One made me laugh and the other made me a bit angry. The first was by that darling of the loons in San Francisco, Nancy Pelosi. The second was by Indiana congressman, Andre Carson.

Let's laugh first. Good ol' Nancy was at a fundraiser about ten days ago trying to convince folks of the great things that the Obama administration has done. She spoke about raising the minimum wage within the first 100 hours of this regime. She went on to say that the Republicans had not raised the wage in order to keep those earning this wage to keep borrowing against their mortgages, keeping them perpetually in debt and the banks would keep making money. ROFLMAO!

For starters Ms. Pelosi, if a person is only making $7.50 an hour probably doesn't own their own home. Especially in the People's Republic of California. That wouldn't get the basement of an outhouse there. Yes, I can say that since I am originally from SoCal. Even here in Utah, it would be difficult to own a house on $7.50 an hour. So I guess what I'm getting at is, how in the hell do people that don't own a home borrow against it? They can't! Do you listen to yourself when you speak? Do you think before speaking? It's fairly obvious that you don't.

The worst part of it all, you could hear people in the background agreeing with Pelosi. I realize that this was being held in San Francisco, so I gotta figure that there were a few hippies in the crowd. Somebody had to be stoned to think that this was somehow based in reality and not in just political rhetoric.

And speaking of rhetoric...........Now we get to Congressman Andre Carson (D-IN). The day after Ms. Pelosi made her ridiculous comments, Mr. Carson topped her.

It seems that Mr. Carson, a member of the Black Congressional Caucus, was somewhere in Florida, I believe, speaking to which group, I don't know, but by his comments I would guess it was a group of African Americans.

Mr. Carson was doing the fashionable thing these days and bashing the TEA Party. In his comments, Mr. Carson said that there were people in Congress today that wanted to see them as second class citizens. He went on to say that there were people in Congress today that wanted to see them swinging form a tree.

This buffoon actually accused other members of Congress of wanting to lynch blacks! WTF? I wonder what Allen West thinks of this. He is also a member of the Congressional Black Caucus and a TEA Party member. I can't wait for his response.

What Mr. Carson has said is reprehensible. What he and others like him continue to do is keep the wedge between the races. And yes, I mean whites vs. everybody else. If there is ever to be an end to racism in this country this type of vitriol must stop. Question:  What happened to the civility that the post racism president asked for this spring?  Answer: It has never materialized.

The left can't run on their record so they run out the old tried and what used to be true, race card. Everyone that is white, or conservative, or that just doesn't agree with the far left has got to be a racist.

I've said to the others I will say it to you, Mr. Carson. If you want to see the real racist in this country these days, look in the mirror.

Hatch vs. Chaffetz

Ladies and Gentlemen- Are you ready to Ruuuuuuuuummmmmmbbbbbbllllllleeeeee? (Sorry Mr. Buffer, I couldn't resist) In the right corner, the senior Senator from Utah, singer, songwriter and  remnant of the Federal Government left over from the Carter administration, six time incumbent, Orrrrrrriinnnnnn Haaaaaatch.    

And in the far right corner the two time Representative from southern Utah, BYU placekicker, darling of the TEA party and sometime waffler, Jaaaaaasssooooonnn Chaaaaaaaaafeeeetttzzz.

Wow folks, what a battle we have tonight. There's the bell for round one, they meet in the center of the ring, touch gloves and Chaffetz goes down. It doesn't look like he's getting up. And he's out. A knockout for Senator Hatch. His seat is safe for another six years.

Okay, that's not that funny, depending on how much you've had to drink or if you don't like what Jason Chaffetz has done.

I'm sober as I type so by the processing of elimination, guess which camp I'm in. It seems that as soon as Sarah Palin endorsed Senator Hatch, after he made a hard turn to the right in an act of political expedience,  Chaffetz threw in the towel. Why? I'm not sure. I have a few ideas. Oooohh, let's look at them, shall we?

First, maybe it was discretion that made Chaffetz bow out of next years Senatorial showdown. With the endorsement from Palin, money will be coming in, which means more advertising and that might be tough for Chaffetz to overcome. Idea the second, a back room deal was struck. Maybe Hatch told Jason that this would be his last run and if Chaffetz backed off this time, Hatch would endorse him in 2018. That is if he survives that next three elections as Representative. Then again it could be that Chaffetz lacks the intestinal fortitude (that means guts) for the fight. After all, Jason did describe the upcoming "battle" as a "bloodbath."

If it's the first, okay I understand that you shouldn't beat your head against a brick wall, that can cause brain damage and a turn to liberalism. I know that's harsh, but the truth usually is. If it's the others, then Jason don't even bother running again next year for term. If you made some backroom deal, then you have become just another politician and we don't need that. If you don't have the guts, well there's really no shame in it, but quit acting like you're a true believer and just quit now.

Carl Wimmer would love that.

You remember Carl, don't you. He's been riding your coattails, hoping to run for either your seat, if you took on Uncle Orrin, or maybe he would run for the now fictional fourth US Congress seat that Utah has been hoping for. Wimmer is a sufficient self promoter, but he comes across as a bit if a yokel. But I digress bringing Wimmer into the conversation.

But don't look now Jason, It won't just be Wimmer after you now. The liberals can smell your weakness. And by backing off Hatch...............who knows?

The President's Vacation

My suggestion to you Mr. President, stay on it.

Okay, I know that's a bit harsh, but he deserves it, doesn't he? The job of POTUS has got some inherent stress built into it and anyone would need a bit of a break. The man does have two young children that he needs to spend some quality time with. I certainly don't begrudge Barry that. Plus, he has an economy in the toilet, along with his poll numbers, a declining national credit rating, amnesty for illegal aliens and Joe Biden looking to pick on his political carcass. Who wouldn't want to get away?

Look, nothing this man has done for the economy has worked. Unemployment is still high, the latest unemployment numbers were on the rise, spending is still out of control, Obamacare will most certainly keep employers from hiring and we've even had a tax increase during a recession. So how as the stimulus helped us? In short, it hasn't.

So if Barry wants to work on his golf game, let him. The longer he is away from Washington, the less damage he does. The only problem while he's away is the cost to those of us that pay taxes. His 40 car motorcade is a bit much. How much do you think it cost to keep The One and his family safe on Martha's Vineyard? Yes, I believe that any siting president deserves a security detail, but come on, how much is too much?

Oh yeah, how could I have forgotten? He also needs this time to work on his job creation proposal that is due  next month. Or at least he said it would be ready next month. Isn't this something he needed to have, or at least have a reasonable facsimile of, the day he ascended to the throne? I think so. Ooh, maybe Barry and Huntsman are working on this project together. Wouldn't that be great?

So Mr. President, enjoy your time away from 1600 Pennsylvania Ave.

With any luck it won't be your address much longer. 

Military Retirement Pay

The other day I heard something from the Washington that irritated me more than just about anything those clowns have proposed so far. Instead of starting to give 20 year military veterans a pension immediately upon separation from the service, these idiots want to put the money into a 401k type account and then the retired service member can start to draw that money upon reaching "retirement" age. Wow, what a deal.

It's obvious that people that come up with these brilliant ideas have never put on any type of uniform in their lives. Well, maybe an SEIU uniform, or one of some other communist organization, but certainly not one of the Unites States military. We must also remember that these folks are also receiving some benefits after having served only one "tour of duty" in the US congress. I don't see them reducing those, do you?

So what they are now telling our service members is that you wont get your retirement eventhough you have sacrificed the prime of your physical life, time away from family, going to the ugliest parts of the world to do difficult and dangerous work on behalf of your fellow country men and that you are now going to have to wait for another 20 years probably for the benefit that was promised to you the day you swore to defend this great nation. Outstanding. I bet it makes you want to stay for another enlistment, doesn't it?

What these people don't understand is that it is only 50% of a service member's base pay that is the benefit. There are plenty of other things that are added to a paycheck that are not considered base pay. I remember that I was receiving extra rations along with BAQ (sorry, I can't remember what that stands for) because I was stationed at a place where my wife couldn't join me. That was not considered part of my $700 a month base pay. Yes, I was a private and this was in the early 1980's. No, I did not retire from the military and no I do not receive disability payments from the government even though I received a medical discharge.

Now a person that serves 20+ years gets a monthly check for the rest of their lives. I have no problem with that. Neither should you. This is not a great amount in the grand scheme of things and it should be considered a "thank you" from a grateful nation. Because if it wasn't for fine folks like this, being willing to go fight and maybe even die for all of us, who knows what this country would look like.

We aren't talking about a great deal of money either. My maternal grandfather served 23 years in the United States Marine Corps. Remember Mr. President, the "r" and the "p" are silent. Grandpa fought at Gudalcanal in WWII and in Korea. He and my grandmother lived in a double wide trailer after he retired. He wasn't living in a big house on the hill. He worked a normal job after getting out of the Corps, as did my grandmother, and they had a decent life, but the benefit didn't create an atmosphere of tremendous wealth.

Besides, from the news report that I heard, this would only reduce the the total cost by only $250B ($250,000,000,000) over the next ten years. So what is that? I think that's about three weeks of overspending by the current government.

How about we look at reforming the welfare system? How about we eleminate the benefit of our current crop of legislatures? How about we look at reforming Medicare and Medicaid? How about we look at reforming the tax code and making more people pay taxes?

How about we look at changing the addresses of the Obama's and Harry Reid in 2012?