Shakedown Cruise

Congressman Joe Barton (R-TX) had the audacity to say what is on a lot of people's minds these days. The $20 billion BP fund IS a shakedown for which the President has no constitutional authority. So this time a company (BP) is too big to succeed, not too big to fail. BP's responsibility to clean up the mess and compensate those affected is a private, civil matter not one of federal legal concern. Let the states and localities deal with BP on a case-by-case basis. Meanwhile, what is this congenital proclivity for Republicans to constantly eat their own, to snatch defeat from the jaws of victory? It's an inbred family flaw, sort of like hemophilia in the British royal family. The Dems must be laughing themselves silly in the Congressional cloak-room. Republicans are afraid of their own shadows and all some Democrat has to do is yell 'boo' and Republicans wet their collective pants. Boehner, et al are playing right into Pelosi's hand. Kiss her ring and kiss November goodbye. We out in the trenches are waiting for our guys to grow a set. Why won't we stand up and defend our people when they are right? The Democrats circle the wagons and defend their people even when they shouldn't. They know that blood is thicker than water. If one of our people uses the wrong fork at a state dinner we demand they resign from Congress before sunrise. Come on, this is Chicago thug politics; it's win or die. The Tea Party is watching Mr. Boehner.

King For A Day, Year, Term, Life?

The liberal progressives love to talk about the Constitution being a 'living,

breathing' document. How is that possible when they have deliberately

killed it? It's dead as a doornail as my mother would say. Proof of that is

that the current federal government does anything and spends anything it

darn well pleases and any of us that raise constitutional objections to their

behavior are laughed out of Washington. A city named for the man who

had the most reverent respect for the Constitution. We used to talk about

being a nation of laws, not men. History clearly shows that when the whim

of men rule without legal restraint, tyranny and horror follow. The same

holds true for a pure democracy. Simple, unfettered majority rule is merely

anarchy by another name. Actually its worse, its oppression and abuse of

the minority by majority mob rule. That's why our Constitution did not

establish a simple democracy with majority rule. We are a constitutional

representative republic with democratically elected public servants. The

majority is constrained by the mutually agreed to provisions and restrictions

of the Constitution. Furthermore, changing any tenet of the Constitution

is a laborious and time-consuming task, requiring far more than a simple

majority vote. As it should.

So today, with our Constitution essentially relegated to tawdry Saturday

Night Live skits for laughs, we are no longer a national of laws. We are

a nation ruled by the whim of the man-of-the-moment. Right now that

man is Barack Hussein Obama. Whatever he says goes, whatever he

wants he gets. Rule by executive order and regulatory fiat, not by

constitutional principles or even legitimate legislation. Take over private

businesses and industry at the drop of a hat. This is fascist tyranny.

Tomorrow the man (or woman) of the moment might be Mitt Romney

or Sarah Palin or Hillary Clinton or Joe Biden. I don't care who it is,

I don't like it. I don't want to be ruled (vs. governed) by anyone under

such tyrannical circumstances, whether right or left, Republican or

Democrat, conservative or liberal, libertarian or progressive. The rule

of any man, if unfettered will lead to disaster; no matter how seemingly

benevolent or altruistic the original intentions.

In my estimation, the survival of our nation rests upon our ability to

restore the Constitution and the rule of law to its rightful preeminence

in a very short period of time. Failing this, I fear all is lost.

E.P.A. Takeover Senate Vote

To all 53 Senators who voted to allow the E.P.A. to exercise legislative authority over the regulation of carbon dioxide:

Your vote to illegally and unconstitutionally empower the E.P.A. to make, implement and enforce laws just shows the feckless cowardice of you and your fascist ilk to shirk your responsibility. Only Congress has this power and authority. We who understand and adhere to the Constitution will overthrow you and take back this government and this country and reinstate our Constitution and the representative Republic it created. Don't ever doubt this. We will roll back all of the crap you and Chairman O have tried to force down our throats! Every last bill. Every single one.

Graduation vs. Innovation

If I were asked to speak to graduates (yeah right) I would give them one idea to take away; our economic society rewards innovation, not graduation. Now I’m not down on education. I’m not down on graduation from high school or college or professional school. Good education is a good thing. It gives you a basic core of general knowledge which is useful in life and it can teach you to think. There is no doubt that the more graduation you have under your belt the more probable it is that you will earn a bit more in the job market than people without some education. But don’t construe that to mean that higher education will automatically lead to wealth, freedom of time, happiness and satisfaction and the creation of a life legacy. Education may give you a marginal advantage at the starting line but by no means guarantees a top finish at the tape. If you don’t take what you have learned and then innovate you will probably settle for a mediocre job with a mediocre income and a mediocre life. You will trade the great life for the good life, which is OK if that’s all you want. Sadly many graduates think that their diploma guarantees them an exceptional income, a big new house, racy cars, fancy clothes and jewelry and glamorous vacations. And it all comes immediately upon graduation. That is a fantasy, sheer nonsense. What is more scary is that easy credit attacks kids right out of school and sucks them in with the ‘you deserve it, you deserve it now and you can have it now,’ mentality. All for easy monthly payments. Forever. These youngsters start living the good life on credit right out of school and think they have the world by the tail. For a while. Then reality sets in. The bills start coming and the payments get bigger and bigger every month. All of a sudden those houses and cars aren’t nearly as glamorous as they originally looked. Maybe our grandparents did know something after all. When they got out of school they rented a small house or apartment, bought a small used car for cash and then worked hard and SAVED their money, living well below their means for many years. And mostly the women didn’t work; they stayed home and took care of the kids. And yet with modest jobs they finished life owning their homes and cars outright with no personal debt and hundreds of thousands of dollars in the bank. Ah, the magic of compounding. Many had boats and summer cabins that they owned free and clear. There were no credit cards when they started their adult lives and when they did arrive on the scene they thought that such things were from the devil. Their philosophy was if you can’t afford it with cash don’t buy it! Save up for a while if you want it and pay cash or forget it, but don’t buy things on credit. Hmmm, wish they could run for public office!

So if you really want to succeed then what is this innovation thing all about? Well, if you look at people that really seem to have succeeded in life (and I’m talking primarily economically right now) most of them have done so by creating a product or service or business that meets a need in society. The more unique and innovative and widely needed it is then generally the more successful that individual will be. You can look at big examples like Henry Ford, Sam Walton, Bill Gates and Steve Jobs, but there are untold thousands who succeed quite handsomely that you never hear about. You don’t have to succeed to the level of one of the giants to live an exceptional life. But you do have to go beyond mere graduation and a mediocre job. And you need to stay out of personal debt. It’s hard to innovate when you can’t pay your bills. So, to be trite; to innovate you are going to have to think outside of the box. Maybe design a new box. And most likely the answer is something outside of your current job if you are employed somewhere. You will probably have to launch out on your own. This is where you will probably be surprised to find that many successful people who own their own businesses may not have much formal education. The old saw that B students wind up working for C students and A students teach is pretty accurate. Many times the C students are more motivated to innovate and launch out on their own because they can’t get a ‘well-paying’ job and if they want to really succeed they have to start their own businesses. With a bit of innovation and long hours of hard work they develop a successful business. They hire B students to work in and run their businesses, but pay them a lot less than they, the entrepreneurial business owner earns. The tables are turned. The A students become tenured professors making a modest income teaching about how to start and run businesses out of textbook theory since they have never really done it. Now of course this is a generalization, but there is a lot of truth in it. Just go out and talk to a lot of business owners. The A and B students can avoid falling into this trap if they understand the concept of innovation. Take what they have learned and go beyond merely looking for a ‘good’ job and innovate and launch a business of their own. Invent something! Then work hard. But remember, hard work alone is not enough. If it was, every maid in every hotel in town would be a millionaire. Hard work must be smart work. It’s not just doing the task right, but doing the right task. Innovate or stagnate!

So, congratulations on graduating. But remember, the world doesn’t owe you anything. You haven’t contributed anything to the world yet. You can’t make a withdrawal until you make a lot of deposits. You may know something now, but you haven’t done anything. And if you don’t you won’t get anything. And you wouldn’t deserve to. Now get out of here and think hard and work hard and innovate; and hopefully you will enjoy the great life!

Hey Paul, Does Obama REALLY Know What a Library Is?

So Paul McCartney thinks that Barack Obama really knows what a library is. Based upon what? Of course, we've been told since this whole rigamarole began how smart Barry is. Based upon what? Well...he says so. Just trust us.

Based upon what he's said and done since taking office a good case could be made that he is as dumb as a stump. If he is so smart then let's see his school transcripts. Other presidents have released theirs. How come this Einstein-in-Chief won't allow his grades to be released. What does he have to fear? Let's see those straight-A's!

Perhaps things are not as they seem, or as they would like us to believe. Maybe he's just average, or God-forbid, below average. Maybe he went through school on an affirmative action program, not his smarts. Well, inquiring minds want to know. And he's not talking. Which adds to the mystery. People who act like they have something to hide...usually do. People with nothing to hide, well have nothing to hide. Or possibly, his school records might show something adverse about his citizenship, or his parents. We don't really know at this point, which just adds fuel to the rumor mill fires. He could put out those fires by simply releasing his transcripts. Or just maybe, that would fan the flames of those fires.

And so we wait. And wait. And wait.

Paper Chase

I'm no wild-eyed rabid 'birther' on the question of Barack Obama's eligibility to serve as President, but his recalcitrance on coming clean with his official birth certificate is of passing interest. The Constitution does require that our President be a natural born U.S. citizen. John McCain, born in the Panama Canal Zone has produced his full birth certificate on several occasions and the U.S. Senate has even passed an opinion on his eligibility. So why all of the secrets Mr. Obama? To date he has not produced the official, original long-form birth certificate from Hawaii, his purported birth state. He has only produced a short 'Certificate of Live Birth' which appears to have been created around 2001. He has also spent a lot of lawyer time and money keeping the original document locked up. It is curious that he would make such a fuss over a simple constitutional requirement that could be cleared up within minutes of releasing the birth certificate. Strange. A number of parties have filed various state and federal lawsuits to try and resolve the issue, most met with laugher and dismissal. To date, none have successfully been able to subpoena the necessary document. Which raises an interesting question in my mind; is it incumbent upon the person seeking the office of President to provide verifiable proof that he is constitutionally eligible to serve (as John McCain has voluntarily done), or is it necessary for some party (say one of the States) to challenge a candidate's eligibility? It would seem to me that the logical answer is that the party positively seeking the office must provide proof of compliance with all constitutional requirements. Why would the country be required to simply accept someone's word as proof positive that they are compliant? Who would lie about such a thing? Hmmm, I wonder. But who would obfuscate as well? And why? And if the party seeking office is not required to provide the proof but rather some party must challenge the question of eligibility, then it would seem that the candidate in question would not be legally able to hide the necessary documents to either exonerate them or prove the questioning parties' case. Isn't that what discovery is all about? And since this is a fundamental constitutional requirement, why can't a party who has standing (such as a State) get their case heard? Why are they all dismissed? We have a crucial, fundamental constitutional question that is unresolved and the courts (the place that these questions are supposed to be resolved) will not allow the issue to be adjudicated. Stranger still. Who's pulling the strings here? So what we are left with is merely the President asserting that he is a natural born United States citizen because...he says he is. "Just take my word for it." As Indiana Jones would say, "Trust me." Well, Mr. Obama, frankly we don't trust you because you have given us no reason to trust you. We have an old saying, trust but verify. We are still waiting on the verify part. And waiting. And waiting.

Guess Who's NOT Coming to Dinner...

If a strange man crossed the door threshold and came into your house uninvited, plopped his butt down in your La-Z Boy recliner, flipped on your television and demanded that you bring him a beer; would you ask if he wants peanuts with the beer or throw him back out into the street? Well, duh. Hello McFly!

God Plugged the Hole

Obama couldn't command the rain and lightening to stop on Memorial Day. It took God to plug the hole and turn off the teleprompter to give all our ears a rest.