Government Complicity In The College Tuition Bubble

This has nothing to do with the quality of the schools or the standard of the education students receive. It has everything to do with Government intervention in the marketplace. Did you ever think about how a person with no credit or colateral can borrow $200,000.00? In a normal market, they can't. How can colleges continue to charge insane tuition if there is no way for a person to pay for it?

Well there is...enter The Government. They will lend you ANY AMOUNT it will take to pay for college. Without the Goverment and the taxpayer money behind them, colleges would not be able to get these outlandish tuitions and they would have to streamline. Under the present structure there is no incentive to do so and the costs continue to rise. And why not, it's not like you can't get the money to pay for it, right? It is an artificial economic prop and it can't be sustained. It is a bubble of the Government's own making. 

The solution is to get Government out of the student loan business. The last time I checked, there is no provision in the U.S. Constitution that gives the Federal Government the madate or reason to fund peoples college education. What they are doing is against logic and market principles and as we see now, they haven't done anybody any favors.

Just like the housing bubble, college tuition credit is way over what the market is generating for a college educated worker. What we are seeing now is bank tellers and waiters with college degrees and $60,000.00+ in debt burden. What are they going to buy with that much debt? Not much. They are now removed from the economy until they can get that debt under control. It has nothing to do with payment options. You either have the money or you don't and these kids don't. It's not coming in so they can't pay it out. You can't get blood out of a stone.

So of what value is a college education if there are no jobs to take advantage of an advanced and educated workforce? The ends do not justify the means.

If you are carrying a 6% interest rate or more (up to 9.37%), that's a mortgage. A 30 year mortgage. I know people in their 40s with good jobs who still owe $20 to $30K. This is what you've got to look forward to kids. Perhaps the government can take the payments out of your Social Security checks.

We are starting to see this insidious debt creep in the housing market. Couples, both with outstanding college loans, are not qualifying for mortgages. The government already tried that mortgage give-a-way thing and that didn't work out too well so I wouldn't be expecting them to get in on that deal again so these potential buyers with no potential aren't going to be getting any help from them.

The job market cannot sustain all these people with such debt and something has got to give. The College Tuition Pyramid Scheme will unravel.

It can do nothing else.

Russia Annexes Crimea, Saves $ 98 Million

No wonder Russia wanted Crimea. No wonder Ukraine didn’t want to let the region go. Russia was paying Ukraine $ 98 Million to keep their ships in port in Crimea. And when the troops got paid, I’m pretty sure that they didn’t all send the money back to momma on the Volga. The local Crimean businesses made a bundle on having the Russian naval base there.

So now Russia is that much richer and Ukraine is that much poorer.

But the trouble is only beginning for Ukraine. The Ukrainian version of “George Bush’s Fault’ is going to manifest itself as other cash-starved or soon to be cash-starved regions of Ukraine vie for a chance to vote on a referendum to rejoin Russia. Now the Ukrainian region of Donetsk wants one.
This is obviously all Vladimir Putin’s fault.

The rest of Ukraine seems just as divided. There are factions that wish to rejoin Russia and there are the Ukrainian Nationalists who wish to stay an autonomous nation and join the EU.  This is going to have to be sorted out and having a vote will be a good start. The trick is to pull it off without the country descending into chaos.

The situation in Ukraine is beginning to play out in a fashion reminicent of the old "Bloody Kansas" turmoil in the days leading up to the U.S. Civil War. This was when the Kansas territory was given a chance a vote whether to join the Union as a "Free" state or a "Slave" state and bloody clashes took place between Free State and Pro Slavery factions. This lead to increased polarization, deeper divisions and then to civil war.

The Ukrainian insurrection that toppled its president is nothing less than a revolution. Not a particularly bloody one but with the absence of power, history has shown, there is an increasing risk there will be a clash between powerful groups to fill that gap and as we have seen, they are very wide apart in their views to say the least.

This is Vladimir Putin’s fault.

There have been many promises made by the U.S. and the EU as to guarantees of support both financially, politically and militarily. These are not going to happen nearly to the satisfaction of Ukraine’s interim government which is not only having to deal with a vote of their own and the loss of Crimea but also the potential of a breakup of the rest of the country.

Somehow I don’t think the losing parties in the Ukrainian elections are going to take it sitting down.

This is Vladimir Putin’s fault.

So whether you think the Crimean vote was legitimate or coerced or whatever, Ukraine is going to have bigger problems down the road with whichever group gains control of the country. The loss of Crimea is a big blow financially but if they don’t address other more pressing issues first, the Crimean vote will look like a good idea and then other regions will follow suit.  

Who’s fault will that be?

 

 

EU Motives, Propaganda, Ukraine and Russia

Not a whole lot of truth coming out of the Western press right now on the Ukraine/Russia standoff.

I immediately wonder when I read reports of  Russian troops storming command posts and guarding the borders, do they actually mean to say “Crimean militia troops sympathetic to Russia” or actually, from across the border Russian army troops?

There has been very little distinction between these militia forces which are home grown and who consider Russia to be their homeland and the so called “Invading Russian Army”. Since there are also Russian bases inside Crimea, how would that be an invasion?

The fact that Ukraine has just been taken over by a political faction that is, to be kind, diametrically opposed to a pro-Russia view, it stands to reason that Crimean militia and Crimean based Russian forces would want to isolate Ukrainian troops stationed there. The media is making this look like aggression when it is common sense. I find it remarkable that neither side has fired a shot with bad intent, an unusual result considering who we're talking about. It appears that nobody is looking for a fight on this except the EU and the new Ukrainian regime since the U.S.and EU want to force Russia off of the Black Sea and Ukraine doesn’t want to lose the income from the Crimea which by most reports is doing better economically that the rest of Ukraine.

And nobody really knows how many troops are currently in the Crimea or who they belong to so why is the U.S. media relying on obviously biased statements from the Ukrainian military for a troop figure? It makes no sense since they are clearly going to overstate the number of Russian troops in the area to “prove” a violation of the 1997 Ukrainian agreement that actually allows Russian troops to remain in that region. This is what passes for journalism in the Western hemisphere these days. Why not admit it's impossible to know instead of issuing misleading information? Because it serves the interests of the U.S and EU, that's why.

Can Russia really “seize” a country that is going to vote to join it in two weeks by national referendum? Just wondering. If the Ukraine votes in its new EU friendly government which is very likely, Crimea, an autonomous region with it's own separate system of government it has been reported, can certainly vote to decide where its own fortunes lie. If that’s Russia, well then, the Ukraine would most certainly march against them. Crimea has every reason to believe that the new Ukraine will come after them to forcibly bring them into the EU fold even if they vote to remain separate from both countries.

This is what I see the danger in the region to be, not Russian aggression but EU coercion. These regions have been divided between Western and Eastern leaning factions for ages and none of this is a new thing by any stretch. This is why the EU and especially the United States should stay out of it. Washington, so adept at squandering our resources, our good will and our tolerance for war with its useless, make-work wars over the last number of decades, has gone to the well too many times for the people to get behind them on this. Only perennial war mongers like John McCain and Sean Hanity will think that would be a good idea. People are tired of it all and by the way, we’re broke!

So why shouldn’t Crimea get to vote? Ukraine is going to vote.
Is it because Crimea is going to vote “wrong”? Is this the way of the EU, to recognize the people who will vote “right” and to deny the other? Aesop had a proverb about this: “Any excuse serves a tyrant”.

And Obama’s so called solution is a joke! We all know that outside observers either from the U.N. or the OSCE are totally useless and much like the U.N. itself, has not managed to protect anybody but looks on while people get killed all around them. History has shown that the U.N. has only served to prolong conflicts, not solve them. The OSCE group cannot be trusted in the first place since they work for the EU. Nothing independent about their point of view. Gee, I wonder what they're going to report? Good idea letting those spys walk around the place.

But I think the Whitehouse is welcoming this distraction since it would rather have you looking at the Ukraine "Crisis" than at your own paycheck which continues to shrink as the government programs they have implemented suck your resources and drive you and the company you work for to the poorhouse."Look, Russians on the boarder!" is the old familiar ring from the late 1950s, "Forget about us screwing with Libya, Syria, Egypt, Afghanistan et al, the Russian's are violating the sovereignty of a country! We've got to do something by God!"

And why don’t we just pledge to give Ukraine $100 Billion? We don’t really HAVE the $ 2 Billion anyway so what’s the difference?

One really has to laugh when CNN has earlier reported that some Ukrainian television channels inside the Crimean territory have been replaced by “state run” Russian channels. Considering here in the U.S. CNN is just one of many, many state run television channels. Can't help but stifle a chuckle when I read about "Russian Propaganda" these days. Thanks CNN for the laugh.

I don’t see the crime here other than the escalation of rhetoric and innuendo reported as fact. These days I find I trust the words of Barack Obama and David Cameron much less than those of Vladimir Putin. At least Putin has lied to me a whole lot less. Who'd of thunk that?

And so as I write this, the U.S. seems now willing to send ships and ordinance in the European region to “help”. What this never ending continuation of military blunders coming out of Washington will most likely do is increase the chances of starting WW III since the last two world wars started in Europe and we all know Russia is not going to give up it's access to the Black Sea. It means too much to them as a nation and what it would take to dislodge them from Crimea even if we had the political will to actually attempt it would be too large a price to pay for the world.

Would we destroy the Crimea to save them? Hell, we've done it before, just look at Vietnam, a country we spent a decade to "save" from the Communist Threat by killing upwards of 7 million people there. All in a days work for the United States.

Hold onto your hats!

Crumble, Crumble Goes Socialist Venezuela

The growing protest movement in Venezuela, organized by those opposed to Socialist Crazy-Man Nicolas Maduro and his total ignorace of everything economic and logical, will end badly.
 
When people are pushed to the breaking point, they will fight back. The freedom loving people of Venezuela will conclude that rather than waiting at home for the end, either by being murdered by thugs, dragged off by Maduro's undercover police or just shear starvation, that it would be better to die fighting than by any other means currently available in that South American Socialist Paradise that is the country of Venezuela.

As the country goes the way of all other Socialist nations, either being held together by walls or by guns, the Libertarian can once again look into the mirror and say, "Oh well, right again."

This isn't really about economics any longer, mainly because Socialism isn't based upon economics, it's based upon buying support of the uneducated majority and using them as a hammer against the educated and productive. With the exception of todays United States, nowhere has this been more evident than in Venezuela where the lower classes are kept down not by the upper classes so much as the government they've grown to rely upon for everything from their daily bread to the clothes on their backs. The government needs them so why the hell would they want them to advance themselves?

But these great unwashed, uneducated and devoted Socialist masses remain a force to be reconded with. With the government's blessing and support, they will fight the anti-socialist forces and mix their blood with the grime of their Venezuelan slums that they've never seemed to improve upon even though they has supported the government for the last 12 years.

The oposition had better be ready to fight because their freedom from Maduro's idiotic repression and total abandonment will not by given. It has to be taken. Walks for Peace ain't gonna cut it with the people with the guns and the will to use them. There is a decision to be made.  

It looks like years of hardship has taken it's toll on the thinking population, those people who work their jobs and businesses to make a living for themselves and their families. The loss of even the most basic items we take for granted everyday and without which makes living in an atmosphere of fear, scarcity and no future truely hard to bear.

They may not be able to dislodge Maduro but the Opposition can marginalize him. They can take back their townships and run them in a practical and functional way and dare Maduro and his minions to march against them into the countryside where their influence is not as strong. And like every revolutionary, the Opposition must contemplate the consequences of their actions and resistance. Under the present circumstances the choices are few.

People can only be pushed so far.
 

As Obama Wings It on Health Law, A Weary Nation Sighs

He can delay it all he wants, no economy in the world is ready to sustain government directed Socialized Medicine. Just the spectre of it's impending implementation has sent thousands to the unemployment line and has created a food stamp class of working poor.

It smacks of the old Soviet Union where they were always waiting for the economy to be strong enough to handle their commumist initiatives. But it never was.

It's almost like the Obama administration thinks that if it can get this Albatross off the ground then somehow it will stay aloft on its own. That trick has never worked and it will fail again. In fact, it already has failed it's just that these dictatorial types in Washington these days just can't manage to let a bad idea go. They will sacrifice the nations economy and it's citizenry to try to save their half-assed national takeover. And what do they get to lord over and dictate to? A Welfare State, WooHoo! That's the part I don't get; Who wants to be known throughout history as the lord and master over a failed Socialist State? The Age of Pericles this isn't.

But what I think the real plan in all of this might be is to force the countrys best and brightest workers into big corporations for their livelihoods and survival and the rest can just lump it in the junkyards of the nation. The Obama regime is crushing the small business owner under it's corporate-loving, tax-loving, regulation-loving Cuban Heel. It's driving up the cost of doing business, any business, to the point where only the large corporations can either pay the freight or can get a pass on it all together. And for the most part they are getting a pass.

This is because thousands of individual small businesses cannot combine their political clout or nor can decide even where best to place their resources to buy influence in government like a big, nameless, faceless corporation can. Large corporations with boards of directors, anonymous to you and I on the ground, can weild large sums of money and put it to good use in one collective objective to gain favor for...The Corporation. Small businesses do not have the organizational wherewithall to accomplish this. Thus they cannot buy the favor of government like a big corporation regardless of the fact that small businesses employ the majority of Americans in this country and always have.

So while more and more people shutter their own businesses and empty their storefronts, they turn to big businesses for their living. There is no other place to go now that they've been put out of business by the policies of their very own government.

So now these big businesses can pick and choose who they want from the hords of these educated unemployed. They know you have to go to them, that the deck is stacked in their favor. But do they want you or should they go for the H-1B guest worker? The mind boggles.

This will continue until we can't even afford a Happy Meal never mind an iPad. Where will the revenue come from then, a printing press? Tried that one already.

Barak Obama has continued to improvise a way to make his unworkable schemes work. He has delayed and put off and revised until the right time. But there is no right time. But there is no way to do it. He only has ideology as his refuge and his Communist minions as his solace and that isn't going to put Doctors in offices and people back to work. The only way to do that is to quit robbing the average American Citizen. But he can't do that. How else is he going to pay for all the good he's doing us?

As the weeks and months drag on until the next presidential election, we are stripped of our optimism that anything is going to change. We can only now hope to hold onto what jobs that we have left and the money that the government lets us keep. We will not buy what we like but only what we need and hold onto what we can until the day we too are thrown out of work.

It's all so tiresome, so predictable and it was all preventable.


　

　

The U.S. Fear of a Successful Russian Olympics in Sochi

Can the U.S. Government's fear of a successful Russian Olympics be more obvious?

The U.S. media machine has declared that Russian leader Vladimir Putin has "staked his reputation" on a safe and successful Olympic games and then has proceeded to trash everything about it.

With every buerocratic knucklehead also throwing in their two-cents and talking down the Olympics in Sochi, Russia, the value of their words, not worth much to begin with, simply fall by the road to Perdition that they have guided us down. Everybody knows that House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D - California) is a drug-addled idiot and that Senator Lindsey Graham (R - S. Carolina) is a war monger.

How dare a country other than the so called "Free World" put on a successful world display! We'll get back at Mr. Putin for making us look bad.

And this is why everybody in the government has been talking down these Winter Olympics. This is why the State Department, no strangers to criminal behavior, bullying, intimidation and corruption, has issued terrorist warnings about traveling to Sochi. They are delibrately trying to scare spectators away. This is the way we win friends and influence people. It's embarassing.

And it's not so much Putin making the Obama administration look bad, it's the Obama administration making themselves look bad. How dare Russia thwart our war making in the Middle East! Our "bombs first" diplomacy is wearing thin around the world and it's certainly tiresome here as well since our best and brightest are battling in a foreign land while the country is losing the war for it's borders, language and culture right here at home.

How is it that I can be more thankful of Vladimir Putin these days than I can of our President Barack Obama? I am thankful that Putin has given haven to Edward Snowden, a man of concience who would otherwise be persecuted for having the gall to reveal how the government, OUR government, has been spying on it's citizens in violation of the U.S. Constitution. Oh, don't worry, it's for your own protection, remember? But who will protect us from our government?

Can I be thankful that President Obama has chosen not to enforce certain laws and circumvented others? How trusting can I be of our gun running Justice Department? Can I be thankful that Mr. Obama and his Socialist minions have attempted to force Socialized medicine upon this nation and blown a huge hole in our economy? How about taxing away job opportunities for young workers and old and instead putting them on food stamps and the Dole? Can I rest easy knowing that the nation is $17 Trillion in debt, a sum that equals a full year of the country's GDP? How restful these next three years are going to be for me, my job and my bank account of which I am earning $ .15 in interest! And how "Putin-like" is it for the Obama administration to target opposition groups with IRS audits and holding up there legal right for tax exemptions while favoring more liberal groups? Where is the moral high ground? No where.

I am also thankful, in a way, that Putin has stepped into the path of the U.S. war juggernaut in the Middle East. We had no real cause to be anywhere but Afghanistan and even there we have been involved for way too long to do any good to anybody and should have gotten out long ago. Then there are the interventions in Libya and Syria. Enough said.

In short, Vladimir Putin is the least of OUR worries here in the U.S. these days. Let the Russian people deal with him if they don't like him. We have a bigger Marxist right here that's killing our businesses and opportunities in true unintended Bolshevik fashion. Nexy ot Obama Putin looks like Ronald Reagan.

And if anyone can't seem to recall, the 1996 Olympics in Atlanta had some big problems that we can compare to what we're being told is going on in Sochi: There was the overcrowded Olympic Village, the athletes complaining about the quality of the food, the massive transportation fiasco with it's traffic jams, late buses and epic snarl, the stupid opening ceremonies with it's 500 cheerleaders and 30 pickup trucks was a low-light along with the over-the-top crass commercialism of the games themselves that had the world shaking it's collective head AND THEN a bomb went off in Centennial Olympic park killing 2, wounding 111 and leading to libelous accusations that the only security person who gave a shit, the late Richard Jewell, planted the bomb himself in order to be a hero.

But in spite of everything, these games in Sochi are a BIG DEAL to the Russian people and it's too bad the U.S. has missed yet another opportunity to lead in the world.

But it's not just about winning is it? Others must fail.

Right Wing Media Stupid to Defend Gov Christie

Looks like New Jersey Governor Chris Christie just found out he’s really a Republican after all.

With the barrage of investigations, denouncements and pronouncements of being a bully, of being politically vindictive and a liar all from the very Democratic associates he’s been trying to cultivate since his second term, Governor Christie’s feelings of betrayal must go beyond the beratement and firing of a trusted aide.

No, the Governor has discovered, Democrats do not have Republican friends. It’s just not the way they play the game.

But the most embarrassing part of this “sudden” revelation that Christie is a bully with a long memory for me is that the Right Wing Radio wags have swung into full spin mode without knowing or caring about the facts in the exact same fashion the Liberal media does on a daily basis. And it looks and sounds bad.

What is the difference then if the Political Right blindly defends a "Conservative" and the Political Left blindly defending one of their own who holds the office of the Presidency?

The glad talking of the economy and the economic situation in the U.S. by the Leftist Media is supremely embarrassing to listen to and hard to ignore. There just aren't any bad economic numbers anymore only "less than robust". The jobless are merely shuffled off onto the American version of The Dole and the homeless have inexplicably disappeared only to return if a conservative should ever again gain the White House.

It's a real shame since I'm sure when these handsomely paid media automatons were studying their craft in college they must have dreamed of one day finding acclaim with groundbreaking investigative journalism and biting commentary but the only work they can find are these crumby propaganda jobs. What a waste of a career.

So I find this role reversal to be wholly uncomfortable and disturbing. There is NO DIFFERENCE between Left and Right in the media. They seem to be playing the same game and that game is Fear.

But what really set me off on this track was the recited rationalization of "Well, it's not Bengazi"

 Aarrg! Not the point. Sure, the attack on the U.S. embassy in Bengazi and the administration’s efforts to make it go away is a criminal blunder that not only offers insight into how alien foreign policy is to the Obama administration but also underscores the lack or responsibility they have to anyone who serves them. Anyone associated with these people must realize that they are a disposable commodity and that they are TOAST should they find themselves in a bad situation. This was perhaps Ambassador Stevens' big mistake. The poor sap actually thought he was there to do some good in that part of the world.

But to use this to defend Governor Christie's actions is basically admitting; "Yes, he’s a snake but he’s OUR snake." Perhaps the Political Right has just decided the high ground only leaves you exposed and that this no longer is a good strategy. The consequence of this attitude is that yet another snake makes his way to the Oval Office. Leave the brandings off, a snake is a snake.

Here is the GOOD NEWS. There is nothing better right now than having Chris Christie's presidential ambitions and the ambitions of his political machine DERAILED.

It is better for the believers in Limited Government in this country that this has come to pass (and let’s hope it sticks). And it is important for the present set of Republocrats that we are saddled with running Congress to realize that running a “Moderate” candidate against a Social-Democrat is the SAME THING and that the Left will always vote for the real, indoctrinated Leftist over anyone with an “R” by their name regardless of how much of a Socialist they really are.

And Christie is no better than a Democrat. He just happens to be a Democrat that is still concerned with New Jersey’s bottom line. But he has no qualms about sucking up for Federal Funds however and that’s still OPM (Other People's Money).

No, this is a good thing for the Tea Party, those working people who would rather be playing in the yard with their kids than organizing political events. The faster the focus is off Chris Christie, the quicker the focus can be on a more Libertarian/Conservative candidate.

The country doesn’t need a "more of the same" guy like Christie. Others are waiting.

 

Obama's State of the Union Address 1/28/2014: A Sneak Preview

Once again I have obtained a partial copy of President Obama’s State of the Union speech next Tuesday and am leaking it three days ahead of schedule.

Here it is:

My fellow Americans, today we find our nation on the upswing! Everything is fine! Ok, things could be more fine but really, everything is going great. Just look, we’re dropping the unemployment rate figures on a weekly basis. Pretty soon the rate will be 0.0% and that will mean we will in fact be entering a “Golden Age”. The Golden Age of Obama! Isn’t that wonderful? But wait, there’s more…

We will do more to get people working! We will entice more private companies to join a “Partnership” with government if they know what’s good for them, to create even more “shovel ready” jobs. Just like last time. And maybe this time I won't have to threaten them with IRS audits or Justice Department investigations!

Oh yeah, and if Congress doesn’t act, I will raise the minimum wage myself to $ 12.00 an hour. And why not? If you can’t find a job paying $ 7.25 an hour, you’ll look a whole lot better on paper being out of work for $ 12.00, right? No, don’t thank me yet, there’s even more…

If you are out of work and just haven’t felt like looking for one of these 9 million jobs we used to have in this country, your government will keep the unemployment checks coming for a third year and double your food stamp allowance. And if you should feel like you really should get out of the house, we will now create and fund new “Job Training” centers so you can learn from the best that government has to offer. Our NSA and Covert Operations apprenticeships are filling up fast.

And about these so called ‘Illegal Immigrants” running around our country, 11 million of ‘em they tell me, well I’m just going to go ahead and make them all legal. That’s right, they shouldn’t have to abide by legal immigration rules just because others before them have, they are yearning to get free benefits so to not want them here collecting benefits and mowing lawns on the side, well that’s downright mean spirited I’d say. By keeping them on the public benefit plan I’d say that would be a hell of a voting group to overcome, eh? 

And this leads me to another thing bothering me: Income Inequality! People work hard. People who work at McDonald’s work harder and they should get the same stock options and benefits that the CEO of the company gets. That’s right, it’s not their fault the only jobs out there right now are these crumby minimum wage fast food jobs, it’s mine. So to correct this inadvertent and unforeseen consequence of my own fiscal policies, I will command that these people make more money. Where's my pen?

And for women, it doesn’t matter that women are making the most money in the work force and have reached a higher level of autonomy and independence in this country than ever before, I’m going to fix that!  

And as I was coming here today through the cold and the snow I could not help but think that man-made Global Warming…er, I mean man-made “Climate Change”, excuse me, is the BIGGEST threat to our nation, right up there with the Tea Party, Edward Snowden and a Successful Russian Winter Olympics.

We’ve got to do something about this in a hurry and if I’m re-elected…I mean, sorry, I misspoke, if Congress doesn’t act I will sign an executive order to stop the exhalation of non-oxygen gases from all that emit them. With the exception of all branches of government and the U.S. Mint.

As for foreign policy, I think we’ve had a pretty good year with the exception of Libya, Afghanistan, Iran, Israel, Russia, Syria, China, France, England and Iraq. And although it’s getting harder by the month, I’m confident we will eventually find another country to screw with so we can test out more communications surveillance equipment and satellite guided drone missiles which are major parts of our foreign policy strategy. Whoa, I feel safer already.

The infrastructure of our nation is crumbling so I propose that we increase expenditures to make our roads and bridges better so that businesses can get their products to market and people can get to work on time and it doesn't matter so much if you no longer have a job to go to or a marketplace to take your products to, those roads, built by workers loyal to your government, will look so fine!

We will continue to subsidize green jobs, continue to choose which businesses are viable ones and that we want in our country and we will continue to pursue our enemies here on U.S. soil and, well, here on U.S. soil mostly, yeah.

Yes, with the Government on your side, you cannot fail. We will take care of everything. We will expand the economy, we will feed your kids, we will give them a good home and we will educate them too. With the power of all invasive government, we can make sure that you all will be well taken care of and so don’t worry, we’ve got it covered.

Just like always.

NSA Searches, Big Government & the 4th Amendment

“The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by Oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the person or things to be seized.”

The NSA, as an agent of the law, is bound like any other, to adhere to and uphold the Constitutional protections outline in the Bill or Rights. Without the Bill of Rights, the U.S. Constitution would not have been adopted by the States and therefor e is the lynchpin of all it stands for and the modern structure of the United States of America. To think otherwise is to ignore history and reality.

The whole idea of the term “Probable Cause” has been that authorities have to prove adequate reason to arrest someone or conduct a search, or seizure of their property. Probable Cause is required to be declared in a document where the facts for the arrest or search are detailed and a judge must agree, even if this step is a matter of course, for a warrant to be issued. These facts must be specific and not based on a “hunch”.
 
Now does any of this sound like what is going on?

Is the possibility that “Everyone could be a criminal.” a good enough excuse or that “it’s for the good and protection of the country.” when it clearly is not. However, it IS good protection for the preservation of the status quo of Big Government.

Does anyone believe, in light of the Internal Revenue Service scandal regarding the targeting of opposition groups and individuals for audit, denial of due process and exemption approval and the sharing of private tax information with the ruling party members that the NSA would NOT be called into service to listen in on and provide additional surveillance of these people?

And so this vague and general reason for the NSA listening in on conversations and sweeping and storing phone data and the ability and execution of reaching into a citizens computer records is a clear violation of the truths we hold as self-evident: It is wrong.

The NSA, thanks to Edward Snowden, has been revealed as yet another tool of the Authority State.

The current government and its agents the NSA and the IRS are acting in the unconstitutional exercise of authority.

This harkens back to the British “Writs of Assistance” exercised in 1761 where an officer of the British custom houses court could walk into any house and search it for smuggled goods without specifying the house or the goods. What is the difference between then and now except the means of the search?

The protection of the 4^th Amendment is not limited to one’s home but extends to one’s personal effects and papers where ever they may be. It does not mention “telephone” for obvious reasons but what is stored on today’s personal communication devices of only which part of is a phone these days should obviously be regarded as “your papers”. And in this world of converged networks where your personal computing device whether it be your laptop, tablet computer or your smartphone, you have a Constitutional protection from intrusion into your personal effects.

This is important to note because this amendment is specifically believed to have come from an incident when the controversies between England and the Colonies were reaching confrontational proportions whereby certain prominent opposition colonists were targeted for prosecution by the English state. Sound familiar?

Our ancestors didn’t bust their asses to come here to be held to an allegiance with the government for their sustenance, livelihood and well-being. They came here for the opportunity, the chance, to make the most of themselves in a free market of ideas and industry and to carve out a life of their own, free of an overbearing presence that dictates their behavior and customs. They had lived without the freedom of worship; they had lived without the right to be private in their homes and their affairs and without the protections from unreasonable searches and seizures. The challenge is what to do about these rights being ignored.

This is not a case of the Government preserving itself, this is a clear attempt at one party seeking to hold power into perpetuity and subverting the process of purging and renewal that keeps this country growing and going forward. Should this succeed even in the short run, stagnation and decay shall follow.

It is ironic that these United States, a country that has stood as a symbol of freedom and liberty throughout the world attempts to secure itself by rescinding the very statutes that made the nation what it was.

Hospital Code of Silence

The case of David Kwiatkowski, the cardiac technologist who was recently convicted of infecting a total of 48 people so far, patients in hospitals in New Hampshire, Kansas, Pennsylvania and Maryland where he worked, with hepatitis C has brought to light an aspect of America’s politically correct and legally confused healthcare establishments.  

This man, an intravenous drug addict, worked in a total of 18 hospitals across the country and from at least 4 of them that we know of, was fired for drug abuse and theft. Did any of these 4 hospitals call the police and have him arrested? Bet they didn’t. They let him walk out the door knowing he was a liability and an accident waiting to happen…to somebody else.

And did any of the hospitals he applied to for jobs afterwards check his references or call his previous employer? If they did, the chances are that all they got were the dates of his employment.  “Mr. Kwiatkowski worked for St. Lady of the Consumption Hospital from such and such a data to such and such a date.” And that’s all the information their HR department can legally provide. They can’t legally say; “Well he was stealing drugs so we fired him.” Because heaven forbid the guy sues them because he can’t find a job. No, that’s more important to the hospital’s bottom line than either having the bum arrested or telling a prospective employer that they should take a pass on this guy. It’s only a HOSPITAL after all, what could possibly go wrong?

I bring this up because of a conversation I had with a person who’s nephew is a registered nurse and also a drug addict. He has also been fired from two hospitals for stealing drugs. He is currently working at another hospital in the same city.

He is also an accident waiting to happen. But because nobody has taken any steps to either have him arrested which would give him a legal paper trail to follow AT LEAST, or attempted to have his nursing license taken away, this man is free to possibly infect people in his care with lord knows what.

There are probably a couple of thousand David Kwiatowski’s out there working in America’s hospitals. These are people who know that nothing is going to happen to them if they get caught stealing drugs.  The worst thing that happens is they have to go work someplace else. Just like the hospitals that enabled Mr. Kwiatkowski to keep moving from hospital to hospital to spread his disease.

And it was all preventable.  

Had some hospital Human Resources person spoken up or if someone had the sense turn this guy over to the police, this wouldn’t have happened. But since the bottom line apparently trumped their common sense, we get the suffering of his victims and their families. These people should fry along with Mr. Kwiatowski.

It's a matter of trust. Trust in an institution that has taken an oath to "Do no harm" or is it just the Doctors who have to pay attention to that one?

But no worries folks, hospitals also give the same silent treatment for bad Doctors who they simply just ask to leave with no questions asked.

I hope that Kwiatowski’s previous employers are held accountable for withholding what they knew about him. They must share the responsibility for doing nothing until it was too late and having the knowledge that they could have done something to prevent it. I hope these people know it and have to live with it.

It’s time hospitals stepped up and start protecting their patients to the level that they protect their bad employees.

Isn’t that what they’re in business for?

Our Ever Changing HealthCare Law

Just what healthcare law did the Supreme Court uphold anyway?

Was it the Affordable Care act of 2010 or the 14 different versions of that law that has been passed to the American public by word of mouth from the White House?

Was it ever even a law? I've heard it was and people are acting like it was a law but there doesn't really seem to be a law.

As the late, great Harry Nilsson wrote in his epic story The Point: "A point in every direction is like no point at all!"

When you try to cover everything, you end up covering nothing.

We have no President and we have no Healthcare Law.

Not if you don't want it to be at any rate.

Unlike what you may be reading in the government newpapers and hearing on the government news channels, the Affordable Care Act is not what President Obama says it is whenever he gets around to telling us what it’s going to be about THIS WEEK. Has anybody check the latest presidental TWEET?

In the 237-odd years that the country has been the United States, laws have tended to be more static in the past once they are signed into law. Now they are anything someone might tell you they are.

What makes anyone believe that any of this is going to be enforceable?

Challenge away o’ folks who still have enough money to actually be able to afford justice in this country, you will have this law tied up for a decade. All you have to do is ask for a dated copy of the new provisions passed by Congress. What? It WASN’T passed by Congress? Well then, were the new provisions signed by the President? They WEREN’T? Trying to find somebody who can interprete THE AIR will be a daunting task don't you think? Or maybe they just find some crazy homeless person who'll wave his hands around and tell the court what it's all about. And who's to say they would be wrong?  

And how the hell is the IRS going to enforce these tax penalties? Challenge away you scofflaws. The wheels of justice have been moving slower than ever before and will most likely grind to a halt over numerous and consistent court cases asking for proof of the new measures.

There is no law, not this law not ANY law anymore.

Maybe it won't be long now before the police will be shaking pedestrians down for cash and he courts will fine you for just about anything you can think of. The country is descending into one big  money-grab.  

It's been the American Way for way too long. You can live like a cricket and spend everything you earn and at the end of the day the government will take care of you. You can toil like the ant, scrimp and say and all you do is end up paying for the crickets healthcare plan. So why bother?

Forget Congress, they aren’t enforcing their own laws and have passed laws exempting them from being subject to laws in the first place which makes me wonder if they are actually subject to the laws they’ve passed making them not subject to the laws they have passed. Right?

So do as you please these days. Get health insurance, don’t get health insurance. Pay the fine, don't pay the fine or don't even pay your medical bills. They can't do anything to you by law anyway. They can't charge you interest and they can't put it on your credit report. All they can do is have someone call you on the phone so what the hell does it matter anymore?

Doctors should go back to the way things were before Medicaid and the meddling of the government in the business of providing healthcare. They should go back to coming to your home to give your kids a shot in the ass. Growing up in the Boston Projects, we had a doctor who visited our place to do just that since when one kid in the project got the measles, all the kids got the measles. The doc would come buy, give you a shot (Penicillin, remember those days before they shot all that shit into the livestock and screwed everything up?).

Anyway, the doctor gave us a shot in the patoot and my mom paid him and he left. No office manager, no insurance claim, no discount, no offset, no government overhead and no bullshit.

And it all worked just great. I got a shot in the butt, the measles went away, the doctor got paid and my mom got some sleep.

So what went wrong?

Government of course, solving problems that weren’t problems in the first place and buying their way into the industry with promises to the doctors that they wouldn’t lose a dime if they went along with their plans. And in the beginning they didn’t.

But look at them now.

Doctors have to consolidate their services in order to survive. There aren't many single doctors offices anymore. Now doctors have to be affiliated with a larger medical group to absorb all the liabilities that come with the field and that the ACA never even addresses.

Doctors should drop all insurance carriers period, especially the government ones that drive up the costs of patient care and just administrate their own billing. They’ve got their own billing and  collections departments now already anyway; they wouldn’t even have to gear up. All they have to do is drop the government plans and quit taking their filthy money. And need I remind anybody that it’s OUR filthy money which has gone to everything BUT us and which is used to batter any dissatisfied citizen challenger into the ground.  The government has taken all the resources before you can even think to fight them.

So then let the government take everybody to court and try to drive "rouge" medical centers out of business. Like they aren’t going to be forced out of business ANYWAY by ever increasing government intervention and the prospect of receiving ever decreasing payments for the services they provide. Their dead ducks either way so they might as well fight for their rights and their livelihood.

Let the government try to enforce their ever-changing illegitimate bullshit iron-gloved Healthcare boondoggle of a law that nobody on God’s Green Earth really knows what it does anymore.

So ultimately we should pay our doctors directly and CUT OUT THE MIDDLEMAN, namely THE GOVERNMENT and let them try to stop us.

National Public Radio: Last Believers in Global Warming

It’s about time that our nationally sponsored government radio stations across the United States just drop the whole Climate Change/Global Warming shtick once and for all since it’s quite obvious that nobody inside or outside of the public sector still believes it was actually happening.

The revelations of collusion between the Global Warming science “community” has long been brought to the light of day as is clear and mounting evidence,formerly suppressed or just never reported in the mainstream, revealing that for the last 17 years temperatures have not been rising but actually dropping after all.

Even staunch Leftists have been coming clean about the situation, the smartest of them already seeing the writing on the wall. Some have simply stopped attacking the Denialists and have just shut their mouths already.  Perhaps they can tour the talk circuit with the tagline: “I was a Climate Change believer” thereby gaining some added sustenance by reveling how they were duped or coerced by an evil government management into going along with the game. Maybe they could go on Oprah and talk about how they feel so used.

But tune into any NPR radio station any time of any day and you will never know that anything has changed. They will have either a panel discussion or a guest commentator who talk about how "more needs to be done" concerning the “settled science” of Climate Change which is how they’ve been trying to structure the argument ever since they realized their pseudo-science wasn’t holding up to scrutiny. 

Changing the name, it was hoped, would lend an air of ambiguousness to their Climate Science since people were seeing through their bogus Global Warming cabal that saw people like former democratic presidential candidate for the presidency of the United States, Al Gore, go from a lowly Millionaire to a more respectable Billionaire and saw just oodles of public funds funneled to American universities and scientists to “study” the problems in the fevered hope that someday they will find a solution, wink wink!

And the change in semantics was so clever, so subtle, one day the phrase is Global Warming and then the next day it’s Climate Change and so NOBODY NOTICED!

But it is a new world these days. There are no secrets. Or at the very least there aren’t enough people who can keep a secret anymore and so everything comes out eventually.

So it’s time for the good Leftists over at The People’s Radio Station to just drop the act. They’ve been able to keep a straight face for this long and that’s a marketable skill when one works for the government, especially the kind of government we’ve had to put up with for the last couple of decades, but it’s over.

It’s time that someone tell them that the propaganda war is over and THEY LOST.

To continue with an obvious charade is tiresome and, frankly, embarrassing. The money is sure to dry up so isn’t there some “Income Inequality” or “Services Access Disparity” for these good Comrades to jump on now? Surely there is another rainbow to chase now that the Political Lefts Holy Grail has turned out to be a shoddy pewter beer mug.

Maybe they can hold a fund raiser to retrain all the Climate Chicken Little’s to do something else with their lives. Perhaps they could be retrained for a new and completely different line of work. How about Journalism School?

Or perhaps the best of these Global Cooling Deniers at NPR could just transfer over to Bloomberg Radio and add a little more mileage to their careers since it will likely be Bloomberg , the station started by the former Crazed Mayor of New York City, Michael Bloomberg renowned for his Billions of dollars and certifiable odd behavior, that will hold onto the Global Warming party line to the last man, woman and Bolshevik.

But it makes no difference at this point in time since the argument, science, and quixotic belief in Global Warming as a man-made phenomenon is over.

It’s about time NPR got the news.