It’s easy to just assume that all we have to do to make things better is to get the government to come up with some good sounding program and it will provide a great panacea for the future. Have a look at this video that illustrates just such a great sounding program. Widely touted by the main stream media,politicians,and pundits the “Cash for Clunkers”program was born. If you bought a new lower polluting,more efficient vehicle the government would give you $4000 for your old “clunker”to apply to the purchase! It would stimulate the auto industry,lower oil imports,remove old gas guzzlers and polluters from the road. Great idea? You be the judge.
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This has been around a few times but its worth reading all year,over and over again. ==================================================== The old man sat in his gas station on a cold Christmas Eve. He hadn’t been anywhere in years since his wife had passed away. It was just another day to him. He didn’t hate Christmas,just couldn’t find a reason to celebrate. He was sitting there looking at the snow that had been falling for the last hour and wondering what it was all about when the door opened and a homeless man stepped through. Instead of throwing the man out,Old George as he was known by his customers,told the man to come and sit by the heater and warm up. “Thank you,but I don’t mean to intrude,”said the stranger.. “I see you’re busy,I’ll just go.”“Not without something hot in your belly.”George said.He turned and opened a wide mouth Thermos and handed it to the stranger. “It ain’t much,but it’s hot and tasty,“Stew …Made it myself. When you’re done,there’s coffee and it’s fresh.”Just at that moment he heard the “ding”of the driveway bell. “Excuse me,be right back,”George said. There in the driveway was an old ’53 Chevy. Steam was rolling out of the front. The driver was panicked. “Mister can you help me!”said the driver,with a deep Spanish accent. “My wife is with child and my car is broken.” George opened the hood. It was bad. The block looked cracked from the cold,the car was dead. “You ain’t going in this thing,”George said as he turned away. “But Mister,please help …”The door of the office closed behind George as he went inside. He went to the office wall and got the keys to his old truck,and went back outside. He walked around the building,opened the garage,started the truck and drove it around to where the couple was waiting. “Here,take my truck,”he said. “She ain’t the best thing you ever looked at,but she runs real good.”George helped put the woman in the truck and watched as it sped off into the night. He turned and walked back inside the office. “Glad I gave ‘em the truck,their tires were shot too. That ‘ol truck has brand new .”George thought he was talking to the stranger,but the man had gone. The Thermos was on the desk,empty,with a used coffee cup beside it. “Well,at least he got something in his belly,”George thought. George went back outside to see if the old Chevy would start. It cranked slowly,but it started. He pulled it into the garage where the truck had been. He thought he would tinker with it for something to do. Christmas Eve meant no customers. He discovered the the block hadn’t cracked,it was just the bottom hose on the radiator. “Well,shoot,I can fix this,”he said to hims elf. So he put a new one on.“Those tires ain’t gonna get ‘em through the winter either.”He took the snow treads off of his wife’s old Lincoln. They were like new and he wasn’t going to drive the car anyway. As he was working,he heard shots being fired. He ran outside and beside a police car an officer lay on the cold ground. Bleeding from the left shoulder,the officer moaned,“Please help me.” George helped the officer inside as he remembered the training he had received in the Army as a medic. He knew the wound needed attention. “Pressure to stop the bleeding,”he thought. The uniform company had been there that morning and had left clean shop towels. He used those and duct tape to bind the wound. “Hey,they say duct tape can fix anythin’,”he said,trying to make the policeman feel at ease.“Something for pain,”George thought. All he had was the pills he used for his back. “These ought to work.”He put some water in a cup and gave the policeman the pills. “You hang in there,I’m going to get you an ambulance.” The phone was dead. “Maybe I can get one of your buddies on that there talk box out in your car.”He went out only to find that a bullet had gone into the dashboard destroying the two way radio.He went back in to find the poli ceman sitting up. “Thanks,”said the officer.. “You could have left me there. The guy that shot me is still in the area.”George sat down beside him,“I would never leave an injured man in the Army and I ain’t gonna leave you.”George pulled back the bandage to check for bleeding. “Looks worse than what it is. Bullet passed right through ‘ya. Good thing it missed the important stuff though. I think with time your gonna be right as rain.”George got up and poured a cup of coffee. “How do you take it?”he asked. “None for me,”said the officer. “Oh,yer gonna drink this. Best in the city. Too bad I ain’t got no donuts.”The officer laughed and winced at the same time. The front door of the office flew open. In burst a young man with a gun. “Give me all your cash! Do it now!”the young man yelled. His hand was shaking and George could tell that he had never done anything like this before.“That’s the guy that shot me!”exclaimed the officer. “Son,why are you doing this?”asked George,“You need to put the cannon away. Somebody else might get hurt.” The young man was confused. “Shut up old man,or I’ll shoot you,too. Now give me the cash!”The cop was reachin g for his gun. “Put that thing away,”George said to the cop,“we got one too many in here now.”He turned his attention to the young man. “Son,it’s Christmas Eve. If you need money,well then,here. It ain’t much but it’s all I got. Now put that pee shooter away.” George pulled $150 out of his pocket and handed it to the young man,reaching for the barrel of the gun at the same time. The young man released his grip on the gun,fell to his knees and began to cry. “I’m not very good at this am I? All I wanted was to buy something for my wife and son,”he went on. “I’ve lost my job,my rent is due,my car got repossessed last week .”George handed the gun to the cop. Son,we all get in a bit of squeeze now and then. The road gets hard sometimes,but we make it through the best we can..”He got the young man to his feet,and sat him down on a chair across from the cop. “Sometimes we do stupid things.”George handed the young man a cup of coffee. “Bein’stupid is one of the things that makes us human. Comin’in here with a gun ain’t the answer. Now sit there and get warm and we’ll sort this thing out.”The young man had stopped crying. He looked over to the cop. “Sorry I shot you. It just went off. I’m sorry officer.” “Shut up and drink your coffee .”the cop said. George could hear the sounds of sirens outside. A police car and an ambulance skidded to a halt. Two cops came through the door,guns drawn. “Chuck! You ok?”one of the cops asked the wounded officer. “Not bad for a guy who took a bullet. How did you find me?”“GPS locator in the car. Best thing since sliced bread. Who did this?”the other cop asked as he approached the young man.Chuck answered him,“I don’t know. The guy ran off into the dark. Just dropped his gun and ran.” George and the young man both looked puzzled at each other.. “That guy work here?,”the wounded cop continued. “Yep,”George said,“just hired him this morning. Boy lost his job.”The paramedics came in and loaded Chuck onto the stretcher. The young man leaned over the wounded cop and whispered,“Why?”Chuck just said,“Merry Christmas boy …and you too,George,and thanks for everything.”“Well,looks like you got one doozy of a break there. That ought to solve some of your problems.”George went into the back room and came out with a box. He pulled out a ring box. “Here you go,something for the little woman. I don’t think Martha would mind. S he said it would come in handy some day.”The young man looked inside to see the biggest diamond ring he ever saw. “I can’t take this,”said the young man. “It means something to you.”“And now it means something to you,”replied George. “I got my memories. That’s all I need.”George reached into the box again. An airplane,a car and a truck appeared next. They were toys that the oil company had left for him to sell. “Here’s something for that little man of yours.”The young man began to cry again as he handed back the $150 that the old man had handed him earlier.“And what are you supposed to buy Christmas dinner with? You keep that too,”George said,“Now git home to your family.”The young man turned with tears streaming down his face. “I’ll be here in the morning for work,if that job offer is still good.” “Nope. I’m closed Christmas day,”George said. “See ya the day after.” George turned around to find that the stranger had returned. “Where’d you come from? I thought you left?”“I have been here. I have always been here,”said the stranger. “You say you don’t celebrate Christmas. Why?”“Well,after my wife passed away,I just co uldn’t see what all the bother was. Puttin’up a tree and all seemed a waste of a good pine tree. Bakin’cookies like I used to with Martha just wasn’t the same by myself and besides I was gettin’a little chubby.”The stranger put his hand on George’s shoulder. “But you do celebrate the holiday,George.You gave me food and drink and warmed me when I was cold and hungry. The woman with child will bear a son and he will become a great doctor.. The policeman you helped will go on to save 19 people from being killed by terrorists. The young man who tried to rob you will make you a rich man and not take any for himself. “That is the spirit of the season and you keep it as good as any man.”George was taken aback by all this stranger had said. “And how do you know all this?”asked the old man.“Trust me,George. I have the inside track on this sort of thing. And when your days are done you will be with Martha again.”The stranger moved toward the door. “If you will excuse me,George,I have to go now. I have to go home where there is a big celebration planned.”George watched as the old leather jacket and the torn pants that the stranger was wearing turned into a white robe. A golden light began to fill the room.“You see,George …it’s My birthday. Merry Christmas.”George fell to his knees and replied,“Happy Birthday,Lord Merry Christmas!! What a Christmas present we got when we woke this morning Dec 17th to hear that the Omnibus bill is dead!! With Democrats calling the Republicans “hypocrites”over their earmarks inserted into the bill,Senator Reid (D-NV) withdrew the measure as support for it evaporated. Instead a temporary measure will be produced to fund the government for a couple months while the spending for the remainder of the fiscal year 2011 is settled by the new Congress taking office after Jan 5th. One of the most amazing things to come out of this is the statement from Reid yesterday,“We have a constitutional duty to do congressionally directed spending and I don’t want to give up that responsibility. . . ” Where in that document is any such provision except perhaps in Senator Reid’s imagination? How can someone elected to the US Senate actually hold such a distorted view as to conclude that it is his responsibility to tax the people to provide benefits for a select few? No wonder congressional approval is down to 13%. Dead along with the Omnibus bill is some 6000 plus earmarks of pork barrel spending for both Democrat and Republican districts to the tune of some eight billion dollars. Dead also is a billion in Obamacare funding for the current year. Dead,at least for now,is the federal land grabs that would have closed more public land to public access. Likewise dead for now is Reid’s legalization of online poker where it appears that the chips are now down and Reid is holding a losing hand. Unlike the Obmacare bill where Peloci stated that they had to pass it to find out what was in it,with the Omnibus bill’s demise we will likely never know how many “gotchas”were actually stuffed into this huge package. According to Senate Republican leader Mitch McConnell,“it was not so much the substance of the bill but the process”that caused the opposition. One of the big winners here was the congressional clerks. They are now spared the mind boggling task of having to read aloud all 1923 pages of garbage in this thing. Also to be celebrated today is the tax bill has passed and will be signed by President Obama right away assuring that no one’s income taxes will go up January 1st. Small businesses will have a couple years freedom from the threat of increased taxes which will likely result in new real jobs finally beginning to free up. This is probably the first truly bipartisan measure passed under Obama and a real Christmas present to the American Taxpayer and the American worker. Still up on the agenda is the “Dream Act”,the “START Treaty”,and the repeal of the “Don’t ask don’t tell”provision to allow gays to serve openly in the military. Hopefully they will all go the way of the Omnibus bill. These controversial issues should not be decided by a lame duck congress where many of the members were removed by their constituents only last month and are no longer responsible to the people. We can only be reminded of Benjamin Franklin’s words: “No man’s life,liberty or fortune is safe while our legislature is in session.” This is even more true of a lame duck session. Experts report. Contrails seen Nov 8th coming from the area near Catalina Island off the coast of Los Angeles was a missile launch probably coming from a Chinese “Gin Class”submarine. Why is there no governmental questions being raised? It is hard to believe that a large missile launch 35 miles off the Los Angeles coastline would not spark a large inquiry unless the government knows exactly what it was and is just lying to the public. Who launched it? Where did it go? Where did it land? All of these questions are surely known by NORAD or other US governmental agencies. In the past,Garland County Arkansas has not had a truly effective Republican Party. The county offices and the vast majority of the JP districts as well have been traditionally tightly held by Democrats. To suggest that someone run for office here as a Republican would be met with the comment that “You can’t win a county-wide office in Garland County as a Republican.”That myth was busted yesterday!!! As a result of hard recruiting effort for good qualified candidates on the part of the local Republican party and the Garland County Tea Party,a slate of eighteen candidates for almost every Garland County office emerged. This was the first time ever in the history of this county that many of those offices had even received serious opposition. Of those candidates ALL but one won. The offices of county judge,county clerk,circuit clerk,tax assessor,treasurer,all fell to Republican challenges. The Quorum Court changed from nine Democrats and four Republicans to nine Republicans and four Democrats. Only one Democrat that ran against the new Republican challengers won a seat as a JP! Most of these positions have been held for forty years or more by Democrats. Some for 130 years and had never been held by a Republican!  Keith Crass tragically died Oct 27th The sitting county judge,running for the state legislature,lost to the Republican Kieth Crass that tragically died of a heart attack last week. Keith had worked hard for the last 18 months to achieve a lifelong dream to go to the state legislature. I can think of no tribute to him that would be better than the one given by the voters of Garland County yesterday in his win in that election. Our heart felt condolences as well as our prayers go out to Keith’s family. According to state law,there will now be a new election to fill that office and the likelihood is that it too will be filled by a well-qualified Republican. In this elections we saw lots of “dirty tricks”tried by a bunch of entrenched incumbents in an attempt to hang on to power. I had more than a dozen yard signs stolen from my property,a pattern that was repeated against Republican campaign signs all over the county. Some of them were stolen several times. Other signs were driven over by 4wd vehicles,or were covered by graffiti. Some were even shredded with the pieces left on the lawns. The local paper printed pro-incumbent articles,some on the front page, while refusing to publish opposing views in the closing days of the campaign except in very unusual occasions,but then what is unusual about that in Hot Springs,Arkansas? Now the job for us the voters of Garland County will be to hold those new officers to their pledges to convert the county government from the tired old good-old-boy,tax-and-spend policies of the past to a sound and responsible business model for the future. They have a hard job to accomplish and if they are not responsive to those who elected them, in two years we will repeat the process with another slate of well-qualified candidates to replace them with others who will. The myth is busted and the voters along with our kids and grandkids are the big winners in Garland County Arkansas on November 3rd,2010! Here in Garland County Arkansas we have had a bit of a circus in recent months. It seems that back in ’08 we had three ladies who served in elected offices down at the court house saw that the Arkansas Public Retirement System (APERS) had a provision that said that if an elected official retires and is off the job for 90 days they can be elected or appointed to return to the same job and draw both their retirement pay as well as their regular pay. This would make their jobs pay not the normal $60 to $80 K per year,but almost double that!! Since they were Democrats in a state where Democrats are mostly unopposed for reelection they decided to “retire”at least on paper so they could double their pay for their next term for which they were unopposed. I have seen a lot of information and mis-information here about our Garland County “double dippers”. I personally have no ill will about these ladies claiming what the legislators in the state of Arkansas allowed under the APERS rules. They had ever right to actually retire,spend 90 days off the job and then return and draw dual pay. That is the fault of the legislators that ever allowed such “double dipping”from people that received two years retirement credit for one year service in elected offices. It has been done elsewhere through the state in a quite legal,even if not a fully moral manner. What concerns me is that this was done under “cover of darkness”. In early Oct 2008 these people went to the county clerk in Garland County and had her certify that they were “retired”as of that date. With the explicit knowledge of that county clerk and the county judge they then showed up in their previous offices and posed for three months impersonating elected officials. They hid the fact that they had retired from the Quorum Court for three months with the complicit assistance of the county clerk and the county judge. Now I am no lawyer,but I do believe that to falsely impersonate a police officer,a federal official,or any other public official is highly discouraged by the laws in all fifty states. No amount of explanations as to how they were “misled by APERS”can make me believe that any APERS employee would actually recommend that they falsely pose as office holders for three months when they,as recent retirees had no official business in those offices. That just sounds like plain old garden variety fraud to me. Had I done that after retiring from the Air Force in ’83 I could have earned three years free room and board at the Fort Levenworth detention facility. Even the most casual observer of politics nationally,in Arkansas,or Garland County can not help but to recognize that this is an unusual election season. Incumbents are facing the biggest challenges in memory,but why? I have concluded it is a huge “Breach of Trust”that extends all the way from the court house to the White House. In 2006 voters,upset with the Bush administration and the Iraq war,voted in large numbers against the Republicans in charge,giving controlling majorities to the Democrats in both the US House of Representatives and the US Senate. After big election wins,the new speaker of the house Nancy Peloci promised that theirs would be the most open and honest administration in history. She said that they would “drain the swamp” of congressional corruption. Then in November of ’08 the voters rewarded the Democrats with not only the presidency,but also a filibuster proof margin of 60 seats in the US Senate and additional increases in the House. In Arkansas the Democratic party enjoyed its customary dominance across the state with most candidates being unopposed in the November ’08 elections. Today the American people are examining the swamp and finding that instead of being drained,it has become a toxic cesspool. Bills are crafted in secrecy and passed without the members even reading them. Election promises are ignored. Scandals involving high ranking members of the House leadership prevail while the house ethics committee has been dragging its feet for over three years doing little or nothing and allowing them to continue in control of their committees or other high positions. A breach of trust. When Obama took office he promised that all bills would be published for several days on the internet before he signed them –his promise was ignored in the very first bill he signed! He promised “what I’ve done throughout this campaign is to propose a net spending cut” yet in his first year in office spending increased by two trillion dollars,the largest spending increase in US history. On Jan 6,’09 Obama said,“We are going to ban all earmarks,” then the very first spending bill he signed only a few weeks later included over 9,000 earmarks many making direct or indirect payments to groups that supported Democrat election bids. A breach of trust. Our senator from Arkansas who voted like a liberal from Massachusetts for four years revised her voting pattern in the last two years so as to attempt to convince the people of Arkansas that she shared their conservative values. A breach of trust. “Obamacare”was extremely unpopular in Arkansas from day one. Our 4th district congressman repeatedly sent out letters to his constituents saying how he voted “against”it when in fact he,and he alone as leader of the “Blue Dog Democrats”back in the summer of 2009 had the ability to kill it in committee. Instead,he magically changed his vote on July 31st,2009 and voted for it paving way for its passage. Ross voted “Obamacare”out of committee when his vote was critical to Peloci then made empty gestures of voting against it when there were plenty of votes to assure its passage. A breach of trust. There is a “ticking time bomb”that is looming on Jan 1st. It is the expiration of the Bush era tax cuts which if not addressed will result in the largest single tax increase in history. Just last week Ross cast the deciding vote to adjourn without addressing the issue. With today’s unemployment at almost 10% and businesses afraid to hire because of not being able to predict costs,Ross’s vote sent house members home to campaign instead of addressing the issue! Every single one of the other members of the “Blue Dog Democrats”in the house as well as every house Republican voted against adjournment in order to address the issue even though the Senate would not act right away. It would have done a lot to ease small business’fears of looming tax increases and to jump-start job creation before Christmas. Instead Ross chose to support speaker Nancy Peloci while effectively “flipping the bird”to the out of work people in Arkansas with his tie breaking vote. A breach of trust. Lest we think it is a Washington phenomenon let us look at three Democrat office holders right here in Garland county. They figured out a way to feather their nests using provisions of the Arkansas Public Employees Retirement System (APERS) to nearly double their salaries for the next two years. Being unopposed for reelection in 2008 they decided to “retire”for the last three months of 2008 so they could draw both their retirement and their regular pay beginning Jan 2009. They apparently had the county clerk certify in early Oct ’08 they had retired. They then continued to go to work so the people of Garland County would not know they were “off the job”while they fulfilled the APERS 90 day requirements for receiving double pay. They concealed this from the voters and the Quorum Court with the complicit assistance of at least the county judge and the county clerk so that the court would not know that vacancies existed and would not appoint persons to fill those vacancies. That left Garland county with three impostors appearing to hold office at the court house and no one legally in charge for the last three months of 2008. A breach of trust. We have state legislators and senators that have ignored the people over issues like casting Arkansas’electoral votes in presidential elections,not on the desires of Arkansas voters,but according to the votes in the big population centers of the country! Fortunately that one failed,but it was supported by a number of AR Democrat legislators while being opposed by the vast majority of Arkansans. Why would anyone who is supposed to represent voters of Arkansas even think of voting to disenfranchise those same voters in presidential elections? A breach of trust. There are far too many other examples to include here,but it appears that there has been a vast effort throughout the county,the state and the nation to enhance the power of the Democratic party or their elected officials at the direct expense of the people and the constitution. It leaves voters with the conclusion that a vote for Democrats is a vote against America. National polls are now showing voters overwhelmingly favoring Republicans and Independents over Democrats. On Nov 2nd we will see how the people react to:A breach of trust. When You’re Holding a Hammer (Everything Looks Like a Nail). Popular new hit political song. Coming This Fall in a Polling Place Near You. | |||||
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Put me in charge . . .
Put me in charge …
Put me in charge of food stamps. I’d get rid of Lone Star cards;no cash for Ding Dongs or Ho Ho’s,just money for 50-pound bags of rice and beans,blocks of cheese,and all the powdered milk you can haul away. If you want steak and frozen pizza ….. get a job.
Put me in charge of Medicaid. The first thing I’d do is to get women Norplant birth control implants or tubal ligations. Then we’ll test recipients for drugs,alcohol,and nicotine and document all tattoos and piercings. If you want to reproduce or use drugs,alcohol,smoke or get tats and piercings …get a job.
Put me in charge of government housing. Ever live in a military barracks? You will maintain our property in a clean and good state of repair. Your “home” will be subject to inspections anytime,and possessions will be inventoried. If you want a plasma TV or Xbox 360 ….. get a job and your own place.
In addition,you will either present a check stub from a job each week or you will report to a “government” job. It may be cleaning the roadways of trash,painting and repairing public housing,whatever we find for you. We will sell your 22 inch rims and low profile tires and your blasting stereo and speakers and put that money toward the “common good.”
Before you write that I’ve violated someone’s rights,realize that all of the above is voluntary. If you want our money,accept our rules.. Before you say this would be “demeaning” and ruin their “self esteem,” consider that it wasn’t that long ago when taking someone else’s money for doing absolutely nothing was demeaning and lowered self esteem.
If we are expected to pay for other people’s mistakes we should at least attempt to make them learn from their bad choices. The current system rewards them for continuing to make bad choices.
This was in the Waco Tribune Herald,Waco,TX Nov 18 2010 –