Saturday, October 24, 2015

You Don't Say!

Really, Mr. Vice President, if it walks like an enemy, talks like an enemy and acts like an enemy, it must surely be an enemy.  After the way Republicans have been treating former Secretary of State Clinton for around a decade, as well as her husband before her, I cannot believe you would say Republicans are not her enemies.

Perhaps you classify all the attacks they have made as simple politics.  If so, they have made them with great relish.  And they have lied and misrepresented facts in volume and circulated the trash to their gullible constituents who eagerly embrace it all.  We have the richest of rich sewing trash to their blue collar base and the base acting as though it is Biblical truth.

I'm sure politics has always been an ugly business, but beginning around the time of the Watergate break in, the Republican Party started on the fast track to a new moral low.  I know, I know!  The Democrats are not squeaky clean either, but they haven't quite stooped to the Republican level of disgusting behavior.

Would that both sides would "clean up their act", "straighten up and fly right" . . . behave in a Christian manner toward each other.  It isn't necessary to attack each other to win.  Just develop the best platform you can that shows both compassion toward the poor at the same time it cuts waste from necessary programs.  Remember the $100 hammers?

And you, the Republicans, wasted over four million dollars more on an eighth investigation into the same tragedy?  Don't you ever listen to the news reports?  A military leader assigned to the area at the time of the attack said there was not time for a military intervention.  It would have taken four days of preparation to get there.

But you guys have the nerve, after this kind of waste, to threaten more cuts to Social Security and Medicare?  You don't say!

Sunday, October 18, 2015

The Least Justifiable Tax

Perhaps the least understandable as well as least justifiable tax is the estate tax.  This is sometimes referred to as the death tax.

First, the company or corporation must pay taxes.  Then, if I understand correctly, the owner(s) must pay taxes on their personal income.  As if that isn't enough of a double whammy, that greedy gut vacuum called Congress just must get it's mitts on a death tax.  Holy smokes, folks, is there no end to this?  This morning on This Week, Bernie Sanders was spouting off about more estate taxes.

Let me refresh your memory.  I am not a wealthy individual.  Neurotic fantasies aside and the occasional Powerball ticket-- I have no real expectations of having to pay a death tax or to leave enough so my children or grandchildren would happen to have such an obligation.  This is pure, vindictive taxation.  It's like saying, how dare these individuals accumulate so much and not expect us to take one more swipe at it.  One could almost hear the anger in Sander's voice as he referred to the rich passing the wealth to their heirs.  I suggest you might want to watch a recording of the show on NBC's web site.

I am all for the rich paying their fair share of taxes with no access to loopholes.  But, really folks, the operative words are fair share and no loopholes.  It isn't any more moral to gouge the rich than to gouge the wage earners or consumers.

One of the things Sanders wants to do with the "extra" money is to provide free public college for all.  Laudable an idea as this is, the timing is piss poor, as the crude expression goes.  Such luxuries should definitely wait until our budget is balanced; our debts are paid.  Have Democrats totally lost their minds?  This is as unreasonable in one direction as the Tea Party extremes in the other direction.

 The good Lord forbid that I might actually vote for more Republicans next election.  I would like to see a little reality orienting among the candidates of my own party.

We need realistic taxes, realistic expenditures and cutting  --  not increasing  --  of waste in programs.  We don't have enough income from taxation to support the social programs we already have, much less for adding new ones.

Wednesday, October 7, 2015

How Dare You?

I've heard a couple of people recently say that people who want the amendment that gives us the right to bear arms upheld are the same people who don't trust the United States government.  One of these had very high status.  How dare the two of you or anyone else devalue what we believe by likening us to the militant lunatic fringe of this or any other country.  So, we don't believe like you?   What kind of lunatic fringe are you?  If we are casting aspersions at people who disagree with us, we can do it too.

Are you saying that all members of the IRA, the main organization upholding this constitutional right, are distrustful of the government?  Are you stating that all conservative Republicans don't like the government?  Even the ones in Congress?  The Democrats that own guns as well?  How about the hunters?  So we don't believe like you?  The constitution only applies to the likes of you?  The whole government and the country belong to you only?  And don't give me the crap that the people who negotiated the Bill of Rights and the Constitution meant that only the military should bear the arms.  I've done enough research on the topic and published an article that disputes that claim.  You should read it sometime.  In fact, maybe you should read all my blogs. 

Yes, I'm angry.  I ought to be.  Just a curiosity if you will bear with me.  I know, you like to quote your experts.  But do you know that you can get a team of experts to quote you stats that support about any stance on any subject?  I know that because I've been trained in research, and for that matter I even had a course in advertising.  Did you choose a smattering of experts from all sides of the opinions, or did you just find the ones that support your side?

I shall reiterate that we do not have a gun issue in this country.  We have a mental health issue.  We need to begin intervention with preschoolers and end it with the grave, because the insurance programs, the school districts, the military, and just about every other institution we have prefers to stick their heads in the sand and hide from the pure plain truth.  They don't want to support mental health issues financially.  Being mentally fit will cost plenty.

How dare you blame people who want to keep the right to protect themselves, when so much of the trauma in our country is caused by criminals and the mentally ill!  Get yourself out of denial.