“Now back in 1927 an American socialist, Norman Thomas, six times candidate for president on the Socialist Party ticket, said the American people would never vote for socialism. But he said under the name of liberalism the American people will adopt every fragment of the socialist program.

There are many ways in which our government has invaded the precincts of private citizens, the method of earning a living. But at the moment I'd like to talk about another way because this trip is with us and at the moment is more imminent.

One of the traditional methods of imposing statism or socialism on a people has been by way of medicine. It’s very easy to disguise a medical program as a humanitarian project. Most people are a little reluctant to oppose anything that suggests medical care for people who possibly can't afford it.

Now, the American people, if you put it to them about socialized medicine and gave them a chance to choose, would unhesitatingly vote against it. We had an example of this. Under the Truman administration it was proposed that we have a compulsory health insurance program for all people in the United States, and, of course, the American people unhesitatingly rejected this.

So with the American people on record as not wanting socialized medicine, Congressman Ferrand said, if we can only break through and get our foot inside the door, they can we can expand the program after that. Well, let's see what the socialists themselves had to say about it. They say once the Ferrand bill is passed, this nation will be provided with a mechanism for socialized medicine capable of indefinite expansion in every direction until it includes the entire population. Well, we can't say we haven't been warned.

James Madison in 1788, speaking to the Virginia Convention said: “Since the general civilization of mankind, I believe there are more instances of the abridgment of the freedom of the people by gradual and silent encroachment of those in power, than by violent and sudden usurpations.”

Now in our country under our free enterprise system, we have seen medicine reach the greatest heights that it has in any country in the world. Today, the relationship between patient and doctor in this country is something to be envied any place. The privacy, the care that is given to a person, the right to chose a doctor, the right to go from one doctor to the other.

But let’s also look from the other side, at the freedom the doctor loses. A doctor would be reluctant to say this. Well, like you, I am only a patient, so I can say it in his behalf. The doctor begins to lose freedoms; it’s like telling a lie, and one leads to another. First you decide that the doctor can have so many patients. They are equally divided among the various doctors by the government. But then the doctors aren’t equally divided geographically, so a doctor decides he wants to practice in one town and the government has to say to him you can’t live in that town, they already have enough doctors. You have to go someplace else. And from here it is only a short step to dictating where he will go.

This is a freedom that I wonder whether any of us have the right to take from any human being.

In this country of ours, took place the greatest revolution that has ever taken place in world’s history. The only true revolution. Every other revolution simply exchanged one set of rulers for another. But here for the first time in all the thousands of years of man’s relation to man, a little group of the men, the founding fathers for the first time – established the idea that you and I had within ourselves the God given right and ability to determine our own destiny.

This freedom was built into our government with safeguards. We talk democracy today. And strangely we let democracy begin to assume the aspect of majority rule is all that is needed. Well, majority rule is a fine aspect of democracy, provided there are guarantees written in to our government concerning the rights of the individual and of the minorities.

What can we do about this? Well, you and I can do a great deal. We can say right now that we want no further encroachment on these individual liberties and freedoms and that you demand the continuation of our traditional free enterprise system. You and I can do this. The only way we can do it is by writing to our congressmen, even if we believe that he's on our side to begin with, write to strengthen his hand. Write those letters now. Call your friends and tell them to write. If you don't, this program, I promise you, will pass just as surely as the sun will come up tomorrow. And behind it will come other federal programs that will invade every area of freedom as we have known it in this country... until one day as Norman Thomas said, we will awake to find that we have socialism. And if you don't do this and if I don't do it, one of these days you and I are going to spend our sunset years telling our children and our children's children what it once was like in America when men were free.”

 -- Ronald Reagan

Ok, so everybody is up in arms about AIG bailout and bonuses.  Here's a few of my points that I hope you think about:

1) $165 million out of the $165 billion given to AIG by Geithner accounts for 0.10% of the handout-- that's 1 tenth of 1 percent!  If you gave me $10, it would be the same to complain about how I spent 1 PENNY.

2) Let's not forget who gave AIG the money, and told Chris Dodd to remove any restrictions on bonuses... Obama and Geithner!

3) Do you know what the difference is between performance and retention?  The bonuses given out are RETENTION bonuses.  It's for keeping people around.  Let's see-- if your company was going out of business, would you stick around till the end?  Or would you start looking for a new job?  Duh-- look for a new job as soon as you could, right?  AIG is paying bonuses to keep people around.

4) Keep in mind that WE WANT THE BAILOUT MONEY BACK (and I'm talking about the $165 BILLION.)  How do you expect that to happen if you take away contractual bonuses, meant to keep people around in the first place!!!!  It makes no sense to me, to want to take away 0.10% of the money and expect people to stay around, to work on getting $165 billion back to the taxpayers.  Sheer stupidity if you think it's going to happen by magic dust or fairies.

5) Tell me this-- if you worked for a company, and they gave you airline tickets as a Christmas bonus, then 2 months later, said you cannot use them and to give them back, would you really want to work there?  Keep in mind that the minute we think the government can break contractual labor and payment agreements, then we have opened up the door to just about anything.

6) As for creating a special tax to try and reclaim the bonus money, the government is constitutionally FORBIDDEN to single out any body, person, business, entity and punish them financially.  But, I have to digress on this because, in reality, there's not much left of the constitution left, under the past few years of a DEMOCRATIC controlled congress, and now under the Obama administration.

THINK WITH COMMON SENSE!  Don't blindly follow CNN/ABC/CBS/NBC/MSNBC/NPR/WP and the other 80% liberally controlled media.

By Phil Kerpen
Director of Policy, Americans for Prosperity

Promise #5: Sunlight Before Signing

What he said:

"Too often bills are rushed through Congress and to the president before the public has the opportunity to review them. As president, Obama will not sign any non-emergency bill without giving the American public an opportunity to review and comment on the White House website for five days." (BarackObama.com campaign Web site)

What he did:

Obama signed the Lily Ledbetter bill, the SCHIP/cigarette tax hike, and the stimulus bill all with far less than a five-day waiting period that he promised–and continues to promise–on his campaign Web site.

Promise #4: Lobbyist Revolving Door

What he said:

"No political appointees in an Obama-Biden administration will be permitted to work on regulations or contracts directly and substantially related to their prior employer for two years. And no political appointee will be able to lobby the executive branch after leaving government service during the remainder of the administration." (BarackObama.com campaign Web site)

What he did:

Obama appointed Goldman Sachs lobbyists Mark Patterson chief of staff at the Treasury Department, where he directly oversees his former employer, a recipient of $10 billion of taxpayer funds from the TARP. Obama also appointed Raytheon lobbyist William Lynn to be an undersecretary of Defense.

Promise #3: No Tax Hikes on the Poor

What he said first:

"I can make a firm pledge. Under my plan, no family making less than $250,000 a year will see any form of tax increase. Not your income tax, not your payroll tax, not your capital gains taxes, not any of your taxes." (September 12, 2008, Dover, N.H.)

What he did first:

By signing H.R. 2 into law, Obama happily signed onto the idea that smokers should pay for a $35 billion expansion of the State Children's Health Insurance Plan (SCHIP). Cigarette taxes are going up 61 cents a pack starting April 1. Obama signed this bill knowing that the majority of smokers in the United States are working poor, and one in four lives below the federal poverty line.

What he said next:

"If your family earns less than $250,000 a year, you will not see your taxes increased a single dime. I repeat: not one single dime." (February 24th, 2009, Address to a Joint Session of Congress)

What he did next:

Ignored the already-hiked cigarette tax at the time of the statement and then this restated promise was broken just two days later, when the Obama's budget proposal was released. His new budget raises 45 percent of its revenue from energy taxes that will be paid by everyone who fills a gas tank, pays an electric bill, or buys anything that was grown, shipped, or manufactured.

Promise #2: Pork Barrel Earmark Reform

What he said:

"The system is broken. We can no longer accept a process that doles out earmarks based on a member of Congress' seniority, rather than the merit of the project. We can no longer accept an earmarks process that has become so complicated to navigate that a municipality or non-profit group has to hire high-priced D.C. lobbyists to do it. And we can no longer accept an earmarks process in which many of the projects being funded fail to address the real needs of our country."

(Statement on Earmarks, March 10, 2008)

What he is expected to do:

The White House has signaled that it intends to sign the $410 billion Omnibus Appropriations bill, which according to Taxpayers for Common Sense, contains 8,570 earmarks totaling $7.7 billion, including dozens of wasteful pork-barrel projects. These earmarks were awarded based on seniority, not on merit, and were mostly the result of high-priced lobbying, precisely the process that Obama promised to end. When the omnibus reaches his desk later this week or next week, we'll find out if this is one more broken promise.

Promise #1: Big Government

OK, so this one is more of a statement than a promise, but it's the biggest whopper of all.

What he said:

"Not because I believe in bigger government — I don't." (February 24, 2009, Joint Address to Congress)

What he did:

Obama proposed a budget that is breathtaking in scope, a blueprint for the biggest permanent expansion of government in history right on the heels of a sweeping trillion dollar stimulus plan. The budget lays the foundation for a government takeover of the health care and energy sectors and dramatically increasing spending across the board, other than defense weapons programs. Spending as a percentage of the economy under this budget will reach the historic level of 27.7 percent this year. The deficit as a percent of the economy, at 12.3 percent, is set to be the biggest in the entire history of the country outside of the four peak years of World War II. Anyone who offers such a budget can only fairly be described as a believer in bigger government.

On Friday, February 13 Congressman Peter DeFazio and seven cosponsors, introduced H.R. 1068: "Let Wall Street Pay for Wall Street's Bailout Act of 2009", which aims to impose a 0.25% transaction tax on the "sale and purchase of financial instruments such as stock, options, and futures." I believe this move would kill trading.

If you want our markets to remain the most liquid on the planet, then you need to oppose this bill. Not doing so will turn our markets into the same illiquid CDOs and CMO markets that have crushed 99 percent of the banks and financial institutions in the United States.

The proceeds of this tax are to pay for the "net cost" TARP and emergency Federal Reserve programs.

We strongly oppose this bill, believe the bill is based upon misstated facts, and challenge the underlying premises of those alleged facts. We believe that passage of this bill could lead to serious disruptions in the capital markets at a time the markets can least afford them.

Wrong Facts:

The bill is based upon a claim that the $700 billion TARP is intended to "protect Wall Street Investors; therefore, the same Wall Street investors should pay for this infusion of taxpayer money." In fact Wall Street investors have lost an additional 30.2 % of their investments since the passage of the TARP on October 3, 2008 as measured by the S&P 500 index.

Infusions of money under the TARP have been accompanied by the government's protection of taxpayers in the form of its receiving warrants and preferred stock, as well as imposing restrictions on compensation and mandating corporate and operational changes at the institutions. The TARP has been used by the Treasury Department to stabilize the banking system and prevent an unprecedented economic meltdown. The monies approved and spent under the "TARP" authority have not been used to protect investors or Wall Street, but instead to protect Main Street and the financial system.

The premise of the above flawed "findings" is even more troublesome.

Suggesting that Wall Street Investors caused the turmoil facing the economy and the markets shows a blatant disregard for the facts. Blame can be assigned to many different players in the economy; consumers taking out a mortgage they could not afford, mortgage broker industry practices that resulted in loans being made without adequate verification of income and financial condition, the mortgage lenders who were forced to compete with government subsidized competitors, securitizers who blindly packaged and repackaged sub-prime mortgages for resale exponentially raising the risks they contained, the existence of an unregulated secondary market for mortgage backed securities that allowed lenders to shift the risks of originating loans, credit rating agencies that failed to adequately assess and report the risks of default of securitized products, and the national policies of promoting home ownership, which while laudable, did not take into account the ramifications of promoting home ownership to people who might not have the financial resources to afford it..

Wrong Target:

The incidence of the tax fall squarely on the very victims of the financial crisis who have seen the value of their investment decrease by 40-50% over the last year, that is, individual taxpayers, savers, small businesses, endowments and those relying on retirement plans. This legislation purposely hits these victims of the meltdown one more time, asking them to pay for a financial bailout of a market meltdown that they did not cause.

Ill Timed:

It is a tax on capital formation and especially targets the final frontier of liquidity in the financial markets marketplace, the stock, options and futures markets. These markets have been remarkably resilient and liquid in a time of extreme stress and illiquidity. These exchange markets should NOT BE TAXED, but should be applauded for being able to function in the manner for which they were designed in such tumultuous times. This ill advised tax will be aimed at these important national market centers and will hurt their ability to remain highly liquid. In short it may worsen the financial crisis.

Will Hurt the United States at a Time of Extreme Financial Stress:

The rate the bill would impose---0.25% is very large and meaningful—and will most certainly drive stock, options and futures trades offshore to foreign venues. For example, a $10,000 trade (or approximately 100 shares of stock in Apple, Inc.) would increase the cost of a round trip transaction by $50 which is a very large amount in a trading environment where fractions of a cent profit are the norm. Likewise a Eurodollar contract is based on a notional $1,000,000 and 0.25% of that amount is $2,500. By way of reference an exchange may charge about $0.08. These very large tax burdens will result in less trading activity, less saving and investment, and most certainly less business in the United States, thereby damaging the United States' position as a world financial center at the very time that we are experiencing extreme market distress.

The Bill will Impair Liquidity and Price Discovery:

By adding to the execution costs of an individual trade, the transaction tax would greatly increase the cost of doing business for the essential liquidity providers on U.S. futures exchanges. These market makers, whose constant participation and rapid turn-over is the major source of market liquidity, operate on razor thin margins. Many of these Market Makers are at the margin of profitability. This tax will expose them to the choice of continuing on the exchanges at a profit level unjustified by the risks assumed or taking their business elsewhere or simply close their doors forcing their employees onto the government dole.

The exit of liquidity providers means decreased efficiency of the markets, wider bid ask spreads, more volatility and less facility for other market participants to make effective use of markets. Moreover, stock, options and futures markets provide significant benefits to market users and to persons seeking meaningful information, including pricing, in order to guide their decision making on investment, crop planting, herd management, etc. The deeper and more liquid the market, the better the price discovery and related information provided. Impairment of liquidity lessens the value of the information and the functioning of our market based economy.

We urge you to oppose this bill which penalizes investors and further erodes confidence in the U.S. capital markets. This bill is wrong for Americans and Wrong for America.

PLEASE OPPOSE H.B. 1068.

"Soon after Deutch's departure from the CIA in 1996 it was revealed that classified materials were being kept on several of Deutch's laptop computers designated as unclassified. In January 1997, the CIA began a formal security investigation of the matter. Senior management at CIA declined to fully pursue the security breach. Over two years after his departure, the matter was referred to the Department of Justice, where Attorney General Janet Reno declined prosecution. She did, however, recommend an investigation to determine whether Deutch should retain his security clearance.  President Clinton pardoned Deutch on his last day in office."

"You understand that in this election, the greatest risk we can take is to try the same old politics with the same old players and expect a different result… The change we need doesn't come from Washington, change comes to Washington." – B. Hussein Obama

Leon Pinetta, Obama's pick for CIA Director was Chief of Staff under Bill Clinton

Rahm Emanuel, Obama's chief of staff, was a senior advisor for Bill Clinton

Robert Reich, one of Obama's key economy advisors was Secretary of Labor under Bill Clinton

Eric Holder, Obama's pick for Attorney General, was Deputy Attorney General under Bill Clinton

Carol Browner, Obama's global warming guru ran the EPA under Bill Clinton

Susan Rice, Obama's pick for the UN, was an assistant secretary of state under Bill Clinton

Ironically, the one person who truly didn't have any official in the Clinton administration, is, Obama's pick for secretary of state, Hillary Clinton

Ah, yes… Change… I wonder what we have in store for "hope."

So, I'm to believe Ted Turner (created CNN and other liberal media outlets) that the KGB is an honorable organization, akin to our FBI.  Last time I checked, the FBI didn't take you out of your house and kill your entire family on the whim of some communist dictator.  Or, for exercising the same fundamental rights we in the US take for granted.  Honorable my ass.  Ted, you're an idiot!

Another wonderful, successful trip to Disneyland with the kids- everybody had a great time during the Halloween time.  Last time, the kids were 2 and 4, this time, they were 4 and 6.  I think Malia enjoyed it much better than last time.  Her favorite was having lunch with the princesses... Joy described Malia as "...having tears in her eyes..." when meeting princess Aurora.  Ethan enjoyed riding Buzz Lightyear and Star Wars several times.  Both Joy and I like Pirates of the Caribbean the best, but we also enjoyed the new Toy Story ride in Disney's California Adventure park.  Lots of pictures to peruse.  Lots of stories to tell.  The kids loved having grandma there, and we all enjoyed the overlapping time spent with the Hamptons for a few days.  Counting down to the next time!

I'll tell you who I married.  I married the most wonderful wife, who is always loving, kind, rational, supportive and who makes a killer lasagna.

I married the most wonderful wife, who is the best sister, sister-in-law, daughter-in-law, aunt, daughter, who will literally drop everything to help with just about anything.

I married the most wonderful wife, who out of the blue, will buy you a jamba juice and surprise you at work and pick up some clothes you had on hold at Gymboree, but never got a chance to pick it up yourself.

I married the most wonderful wife, who throws the best wedding and baby showers.  I'm sure you've been to one, and wanted to hire her for your own events.

Best of all, I married the most wonderful wife, who is the best mother to my 2 crazy kids.  Who love to shuttle them to school, ballet class, tae kwon do, doctors appointments, grammy and grandma's houses, the park, friends and family's houses, showers, movies-- and loves every minute of it.

Happy Anniversary to my "firecracker."  I love you with all my heart.

So I logged on tonight after church and found this article on MSNBC "debunking" vaccines and autism.  This was interesting, because it is a rare article talking about GI (gastrointestinal) problems and autism-- something Ethan is dealing with.  I was steaming mad when I read the article... they claim no MMR commonality to autism because they took samples of intestines and searched for the measles virus and found none.  Viola!  No MMR connection to autism.  What the frak!!!  I work in an industry debugging issues, and if that was the analysis made, I would lose my job.  To me, this is evidence that there is indeed some kind of government-pharmaceutical-media connection to this misleading information. I don't want to call it a conspiracy, but if it walks like a duck...

Well, here's my reply found on newsvine to the article and the comments on it-- most people want the whole debate to just go away... They do call us crazy for thinking that there's a connection between vaccines and autism.  I doubt anybody I know would ever catch that by chance, so I'm re-posting my reply here.  In my effort of being more vocal in life about my thoughts, this is a good example of what goes thru my head sometimes:

"Whoever does not live with autism in their own lives needs to just sit down and shut up. My son is autistic and I watched his entire progression start from the very day he got a vaccine shot. Up to that point, he was very social, would look you in the eye and was completely "normal." That day, after the shot, he became very lethargic and ran a fever. Kids get fevers all the time but this was slightly different-- the look in his eyes was indescribable. I now know exactly what "glassy eyes" means and it makes me sick to think about it even now. I have a picture of him sitting on the couch in his PJs (I could probably cross-reference the date of the picture with his medical records to see exactly what shot(s) he received, but it's too late, I'm tired.)

Since then, he is not social but is very loving. He would not look anybody in the eye for many years. We got him tested about a year ago for food allergies and we thought we hit something-- he was allergic to most foods: gluten/wheat, nuts, dairy products. We also had his stool sampled (quite fun) and found that he had absolutely NO good bacteria in his gut. We're trying out some pro-biotics, vitamins, DHA, cod liver oil, etc. We're also on an organic diet and avoiding most every kind of food we took for granted before-- I feel so bad that for quite a few years, he enjoyed ice cream, breads, etc... He cannot communicate that well, but his gut was never quite right... lots of "toilet" issues that I won't explain here.

The biggest gripe from me with all of this, is that parents of autistic children HAVE NO IDEA WHAT'S GOING ON. Sure-- there's going to be quite a bit of commonalities drawn to vaccines but I don't think that's the entire story. Ask yourself-- why does an adult get the very same dosage that a 2 year old gets for MMR? We have increased the number of vaccines our kids get... back when I was a kid, I got a small handful... now they get about 20, many of them in mega-dose/multiple-vaccine shots. My kids are small... anybody with some knowledge in medicine dissipation might wonder what those chemicals are doing to our kids. If you want us to stop making this such a big issue with pharmaceuticals, then GIVE US SOMETHING TO HELP US FIX OUR KIDS! I love my son. He is what he is and I will always love him for what he is. But if there's any thing we can do to make him enjoy live more, then let me know. In the end, it will be wonderful to see him in heaven for who he truly is, and free from this disease. I'm sure he'll have lots to tell me then, what he can't tell me now because of autism.

We have a loving family. For now, that's what is getting me thru all of this."

Link to newsvine (for my own tracking of replies)

This last weekend, Monte, Morgan and myself went to Alan and Don Wachlin's farm on Scholls-Sherwood Rd for a church fundraiser.  This was year # 2 of this event, where the men would take a Caterpillar 307 excavator and crush the living daylights out of some kind of vehicle.  Last year was a Dodge van... this year, was an old school bus that operated in around 1950s in Groner.  Had lots of fun taking turns on the controls and eating a literally "farm-fresh" BBQ dinner.  The fundraiser went to benefit St. Paul Lutheran church, and I do have to thank Claude Hampton (again) for purchasing tickets for us boys.  Take a look at the photo albums on this website for more pictures.  I got a lot of video clips, and am working on stitching those together for a cool video of the event.

Before:

After:

I've posted a video preview on YouTube... check it out here:

Just saw that my good friend Morgan is leading a team for the Race for the Cure....  Sept 21st this year-- not on our anniversary weekend.  Interesting-- check it out if you get a chance and donate!

Morgan- the studmeister on the left (lovely wife Karissa on the right)

Go to Morgan's Race page...