Monthly Archives: March 2010

Economy, Fair Tax, Politics

Ways And Means Closed The Door On FairTax

I encourage the input from all Americans, from both sides of the aisle. If you have a better idea, I want to hear it. That is the talking point from this honest and open administration. That is what President Obama has said, over and over. It is his alleged open door policy.

But actions speak louder than words. What are the actions?

Leaders Fiddle While the Nation Burns

The United States hit a new record this month—more public debt piled up than any month before in the history of the nation. Unapologetic, Congress bought five luxury private jets for a brand new Congressional fleet because they didn’t feel that military jets were good enough for their junkets or their refined tastes.

Where did the money come from? The nation borrowed it from foreign creditors and secured the debt with our earnings and the future earnings of our children and grandchildren.

The FairTax ends the corruption practiced daily by tax writing committees who treat $2.5 trillion a year in tax receipts as their private property. It bars lobby deals and special favors and shifts power from the government to the citizen. It restores the role of the American people in deciding how much and when taxes are paid by their consumption decisions and it creates a new era of robust American economic growth.

But as good as the FairTax is for the nation, it is still ignored, at best, and distorted and despised, at worst, by those in the political elite who profit from corruption of the federal tax code. This week your FairTax organization delivered nearly 100,000 petitions to the House Ways and Means Committee–who could not be bothered to meet with national FairTax campaign chairman, Ken Hoagland.

“I am furious that the leading alternative to the income tax has again been ignored along with every American who petitioned their government for redress of grievances,” said Hoagland. “This betrayal of the voice of the American people adds fuel to the fire of our determination to break through the wholly unacceptable and un-American shell of disdain for the common man that we are seeing from Washington, D.C.”

Hoagland said that April 15th events planned including the “Storm the Hill” and “Operation FairTax” rallies as well as the on-line tax revolt march www.onlinetaxrevolt.com were needed efforts to “break through to our leaders”. “We will not give up, we will not stop and we will not rest until we have ripped this broken tax system and culture of political privilege out by the roots. That is a promise.”

Uncategorized

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'Davy Crockett, King of the wild frontier.'

Fess Parker, a television icon to a generation of youngsters as Davy Crockett and later Daniel Boone, has died at the age of 85 of natural causes.

Parker, who was also a major California winemaker and developer, died Thursday at his Santa Ynez Valley home, family spokeswoman Sao Anash said. His death came on the 84th birthday of his wife of 50 years, Marcella.

May he Rest In Peace.

This one needs no explanation.

This is just too cool.

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.

The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?”

Bud looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo..

The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany ..

Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.

Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”

“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.

Then Bud says to the young man, “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”

The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”

“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”

“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living – or about cows, for that matter.

This is a herd of sheep….

Now give me back my dog.

Warning to liberals. A little prayer follows. If you suffer from a lack of a sense of  humor, you may want to skip this lest you be offended. Don’t say I didn’t warn you.

DEAR LORD

IN THE PAST YEAR YOU HAVE TAKEN AWAY MY FAVORITE ACTOR, PATRICK SWAYZE, MY FAVORITE ACTRESS, FARRAH FAWCET, MY FAVORITE PERFORMER MICHAEL JACKSON AND MY FAVORITE TV SALESMAN, BILLIE MAYES.

I JUST WANTED TO LET YOU KNOW THAT MY FAVORITE PRESIDENT IS BARACK OBAMA.

AMEN

A cowboy named Bud was overseeing his herd in a remote mountainous pasture in California when suddenly a brand-new BMW advanced toward him out of a cloud of dust.
The driver, a young man in a Brioni suit, Gucci shoes, RayBan sunglasses and YSL tie, leaned out the window and asked the cowboy, “If I tell you exactly how many cows and calves you have in your herd, Will you give me a calf?”
Bud  looks at the man, obviously a yuppie, then looks at his peacefully grazing herd and calmly answers, “Sure, Why not?”
The yuppie parks his car, whips out his Dell notebook computer, connects it to his Cingular RAZR V3 cell phone, and surfs to a NASA page on the Internet, where he calls up a GPS satellite to get an exact fix on his location which he then feeds to another NASA satellite that scans the area in an ultra-high-resolution photo..
The young man then opens the digital photo in Adobe Photoshop and exports it to an image processing facility in Hamburg, Germany ..
Within seconds, he receives an email on his Palm Pilot that the image has been processed and the data stored. He then accesses an MS-SQL database through an ODBC connected Excel spreadsheet with email on his Blackberry and, after a few minutes, receives a response.
Finally, he prints out a full-color, 150-page report on his hi-tech, miniaturized HP LaserJet printer, turns to the cowboy and says, “You have exactly 1,586 cows and calves.”
“That’s right. Well, I guess you can take one of my calves,” says Bud. He watches the young man select one of the animals and looks on with amusement as the young man stuffs it into the trunk of his car.
Then Bud says to the young man, “If I can tell you exactly what your business is, will you give me back my calf?”
The young man thinks about it for a second and then says, “Okay, why not?”
“You’re a Congressman for the U.S. Government”, says Bud.

“Wow! That’s correct,” says the yuppie, “but how did you guess that?”
“No guessing required.” answered the cowboy. “You showed up here even though nobody called you; you want to get paid for an answer I already knew, to a question I never asked. You used millions of dollars worth of equipment trying to show me how much smarter than me you are; and you don’t know a thing about how working people make a living – or about cows, for that matter.
This is a herd of sheep….
Now give me back my dog.


Economy, Politics

The President Berates Health Insurance Industry

If it were not for the words ‘American’ and ‘Congress’ in this quote, one might think it this quote came out of the mouth of a dictator like Hugo Chavez. But no, these are the words of a community organizer on the campaign trail, who has made the health insurance industry (that makes a profit margin of 3-4%) a demon to be run out of town. Problem is, it is also the words of the President of the United States.

At the heart of this debate is the question of whether we’re going to accept a system that works better for the insurance companies than it does for the American people — (applause) — because if this vote fails, the insurance industry will continue to run amok. They will continue to deny people coverage. They will continue to deny people care. They will continue to jack up premiums 40 or 50 or 60 percent as they have in the last few weeks without any accountability whatsoever. They know this. And that’s why their lobbyists are stalking the halls of Congress as we speak, and pouring millions of dollars into negative ads. And that’s why they are doing everything they can to kill this bill.

That, coupled with the lies like this, is simply disgraceful.

Now, the third thing that this legislation does is it brings down the cost of health care for families and businesses and the federal government. (Applause.) Americans who are buying comparable coverage in the individual market would end up seeing their premiums go down 14 to 20 percent. (Applause.) Americans who get their insurance through the workplace, cost savings could be as much as $3,000 less per employer than if we do nothing. Now, think about that. That’s $3,000 your employer doesn’t have to pay, which means maybe she can afford to give you a raise.

Another of his bullet points, which are not true in the long run . . .

If you like your doctor, you’re going to be able to keep your doctor. If you like your plan, keep your plan. I don’t believe we should give government or the insurance companies more control over health care in America. I think it’s time to give you, the American people, more control over your health.

None of that will happen. What will happen is what he is not saying. Which is that this legislation will lead to the end of the private insurance industry and the birth of a single-payer system. Which will give the government control over the American people regarding their health care. Which, by the way, is his only objective. Other consequences are higher premiums and fines imposed on Americans, higher taxes, fewer doctors, more government dependents, longer waiting periods, government rationing (as opposed to you making your own rationing choices) of health care, and a health care system comparable to those in Europe or Canada.

If the plan was so good, it would have public support and Congressmen would not have to have their arms twisted or bribes made in order to ‘gain’ their vote.

His favorite lie of the whole campaign is how, the Cornhusker Kickback was removed. Fact is, it wasn’t. Instead, they are extending the same welfare subsidy to all the states rather than taking the one for Nebraska out. And this is going to lower costs? Pass the pixie dust please.

Does this look presidential to you?

Is it just me or do you get the impression that he doesn’t know how to sit at his desk in the oval office and calmly explain to the American people exactly what it is he wants to do, how much it will cost, and how he intends to do it? He should also be held accountable to explain why passing this legislation by deeming it passed is appropriate.

Bret Baier asked him about that process and Obama blew it off. So much as to say that the end justifies the means.

What was in that oath again? I recall it saying something about protecting and defending the Constitution of the United States.

Links:

Economy, Media, Politics

Talking Points vs. Reality

In a swindle that would make Bernie Madoff look like an amateur, Barack Obama has gotten a substantial segment of the population to believe that he can add millions of people to the government-insured rolls without increasing the already record-breaking federal deficit.

Those who think in terms of talking points, instead of realities, can point to the fact that the Congressional Budget Office has concurred with budget numbers that the Obama administration has presented.

Anyone who is so old-fashioned as to stop and think, instead of being swept along by rhetoric, can understand that a budget— any budget— is not a record of hard facts but a projection of future financial plans. A budget tells us what will happen if everything works out according to plan.

The Congressional Budget Office can only deal with the numbers that Congress supplies. Those numbers may well be consistent with each other, even if they are wholly inconsistent with anything that is likely to happen in the real world.

The Obama health care plan can be financed without increasing the federal deficit— if the administration takes hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare. But Medicare itself does not have enough money to pay its own way over time.

However money is juggled in the short run, the government’s financial liabilities are increased by adding this huge new entitlement of government-provided insurance. The fact that these new financial liabilities can be kept out of the official federal deficit projection, by claiming that they will be paid for with money taken from Medicare, changes nothing in the real world.

I can say that I can afford to buy a Rolls Royce, without going into debt, by using my inheritance from a rich uncle. But, in the real world, the question would arise immediately whether I in fact have a rich uncle, not to mention whether this hypothetical rich uncle would be likely to leave me enough money to buy a Rolls Royce.

In politics, however, you can say all sorts of things that have no relationship with reality.

If you have a mainstream media that sees no evil, hears no evil and speaks no evil— when it comes to Barack Obama— you can say that you will pay for a vast expansion of government-provided insurance by taking money from the Medicare budget and using other gimmicks.

Whether this administration, or any future administration, will in fact take enough money from Medicare to pay for this new massive entitlement is a question that only the future can answer, regardless of what today’s budget projection says.

On paper, you can treat Medicare like the hypothetical rich uncle who is going to leave me enough money to buy a Rolls Royce. But only on paper. In real life, you can’t get blood from a turnip, and you can’t keep on getting money from a Medicare program that is itself running out of money.

An even more transparent gimmick is collecting money for the new Obama health care program for the first ten years but delaying the payments of its benefits for four years. By collecting money for 10 years and spending it for only 6 years, you can make the program look self-supporting, but only on paper and only in the short run.

This is a game you can play just once, during the first decade. After that, you are going to be collecting money for 10 years and paying out money for 10 years. That is when you discover that your uncle doesn’t have enough money to support himself, much less leave you an inheritance to pay for a Rolls Royce.

But a postponed revelation is not part of the official federal deficit today. And that provides a talking point, in order to soothe people who take talking points seriously.

Fraud has been at the heart of this medical care takeover plan from day one. The succession of wholly arbitrary deadlines for rushing this massive legislation through, before anyone has time to read it all, serves no other purpose than to keep its specifics from being scrutinized— or even recognized— before it becomes a fait accompli and “the law of the land.”

Would you buy a used car under these conditions, even if it was a Rolls Royce?

To find out more about Thomas Sowell and read features by other Creators Syndicate columnists and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate web page at www.creators.com.  Thomas Sowell is a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, Stanford, CA 94305. His Web site is www.tsowell.com.

Politics

My Health Care Plan

Liberals keep complaining that Republicans don’t have a plan for reforming health care in America. I have a plan!

It’s a one-page bill creating a free market in health insurance. Let’s all pause here for a moment so liberals can Google the term “free market.”

Nearly every problem with health care in this country — apart from trial lawyers and out-of-date magazines in doctors’ waiting rooms — would be solved by my plan.

In the first sentence, Congress will amend the McCarran-Ferguson Act to allow interstate competition in health insurance.

We can’t have a free market in health insurance until Congress eliminates the antitrust exemption protecting health insurance companies from competition. If Democrats really wanted to punish insurance companies, which they manifestly do not, they’d make insurers compete.

The very next sentence of my bill provides that the exclusive regulator of insurance companies will be the state where the company’s home office is. Every insurance company in the country would incorporate in the state with the fewest government mandates, just as most corporations are based in Delaware today.

That’s the only way to bypass idiotic state mandates, requiring all insurance plans offered in the state to cover, for example, the Zone Diet, sex-change operations, and whatever it is that poor Heidi Montag has done to herself this week.

President Obama says we need national health care because Natoma Canfield of Ohio had to drop her insurance when she couldn’t afford the $6,700 premiums, and now she’s got cancer.

Much as I admire Obama’s use of terminally ill human beings as political props, let me point out here that perhaps Natoma could have afforded insurance had she not been required by Ohio’s state insurance mandates to purchase a plan that covers infertility treatments and unlimited ob/gyn visits, among other things.

It sounds like Natoma could have used a plan that covered only the basics — you know, things like cancer.

The third sentence of my bill would prohibit the federal government from regulating insurance companies, except for normal laws and regulations that apply to all companies.

Freed from onerous state and federal mandates turning insurance companies into public utilities, insurers would be allowed to offer a whole smorgasbord of insurance plans, finally giving consumers a choice.

Instead of Harry Reid deciding whether your insurance plan covers Viagra, this decision would be made by you, the consumer. (I apologize for using the terms “Harry Reid” and “Viagra” in the same sentence. I promise that won’t happen again.)

Instead of insurance companies jumping to the tune of politicians bought by health-care lobbyists, they would jump to the tune of hundreds of millions of Americans buying health insurance on the free market.

Hypochondriac liberals could still buy the aromatherapy plan and normal people would be able to buy plans that only cover things like major illness, accidents and disease. (Again — things like Natoma Canfield’s cancer.)

This would, in effect, transform medical insurance into … a form of insurance!

My bill will solve nearly every problem allegedly addressed by ObamaCare — and mine entails zero cost to the taxpayer. Indeed, a free market in health insurance would produce major tax savings as layers of government bureaucrats, unnecessary to medical service in America, get fired.

For example, in a free market, the government wouldn’t need to prohibit insurance companies from excluding “pre-existing conditions.”

Of course, an insurance company has to be able to refuse new customers with “pre-existing conditions.” Otherwise, everyone would just wait to get sick to buy insurance. It’s the same reason you can’t buy fire insurance on a house that’s already on fire.

That isn’t an “insurance company”; it’s what’s known as a “Christian charity.”

What Democrats are insinuating when they denounce exclusions of “pre-existing conditions” is an insurance company using the “pre-existing condition” ruse to deny coverage to a current policy holder — someone who’s been paying into the plan, year after year.

Any insurance company operating in the free market that pulled that trick wouldn’t stay in business long.

If hotels were as heavily regulated as health insurance is, right now I’d be explaining to you why the government doesn’t need to mandate that hotels offer rooms with beds. If they didn’t, they’d go out of business.

I’m sure people who lived in the old Soviet Union thought it was crazy to leave groceries to the free market. (“But what if they don’t stock the food we want?”)

The market is a more powerful enforcement mechanism than indolent government bureaucrats. If you don’t believe me, ask Toyota about six months from now.

Right now, insurance companies are protected by government regulations from having to honor their contracts. Violating contracts isn’t so easy when competitors are lurking, ready to steal your customers.

In addition to saving taxpayer money and providing better health insurance, my plan also saves trees by being 2,199 pages shorter than the Democrats’ plan.

Feel free to steal it, Republicans!

Well said Ann Coulter. All the above can be found on her website.

2010 Election, Florida, Politics

Khavari On Teacher Pay Legislation

Miami, FL Mar. 17 — Noted economist and Democratic gubernatorial candidate Farid Khavari spoke out today against proposed legislation tying teachers’ pay to students’ test scores.

“This idea is completely unfair and we need to stop Senate Bill 6 before it gets started,” Khavari said. “There are too many variables beyond teachers’ control. Teachers have little say about curriculum, and no say about tests, scoring or how student results would be evaluated.”

“Too many teachers are buying basic classroom supplies from their own pockets,” Khavari continued. “Many districts are suffering from lower funding and lack basic necessities. Further, this bill would penalize teachers who work with economically disadvantaged kids, who need extra help just catching up to grade level.”

“We must remember that teachers are the key to our society’s future. We need to find ways to pay them more, not less. When I see teachers working second jobs to make ends meet, it breaks my heart.”

“I urge all Floridians to contact their legislators and demand that this bill be killed,” Khavari said.

Farid A. Khavari, Ph.D. is an economist and author of nine books, including Environomics. His latest book, Toward a Zero-Cost Economy, is available in stores or for free download at his website, www.khavariforgovernor.com.

Economy, Media, Uncategorized

Mainstream Media Breaks New Ground

The Associated Press is breaking new ground in journalism. If you pay attention to news and the news media, you are already conditioned to the method the legacy media uses to frame their bias; how they put good spin on a bad event, or bad spin on a good event, by employing the ‘more (less) than expected’ phrase.

But I’m at a loss to figure this one out. This is new.

Referring to an interview with the chief economic figure in the government, the AP makes this assessment . . .

[F]ollowing the closing of the annual session of the party-dominated national legislature, which earlier Sunday approved a blueprint to keep government spending high, though at half the rate of last year, to buffer any economic turbulence.

Can someone, anyone, explain this ‘analysis’ for me?

The bias here is in favor of government spending, which happens to be the M.O. of  economically-illiterate bleeding-heart Liberals. Otherwise, one would expect to see something like ‘draconian cuts in welfare programs.’ That there was no perspective given to either the dollar amount or the ‘rate’ also serves to obfuscate what the real news is, that government spending can be harmful to your economic health.

Maybe it is because the subject of the story is Premier Wen Jiabao of Communist China?

There are other important issues raised in this AP piece, like the global economy showing signs of unraveling (see The State Of The Welfare State), but this one kind of blew me away.

WSJ JournalNow – News – Associated Press.

2010 Election, Economy, Media, Politics

The State Of The Welfare State

And by Welfare State I’m not talking about food stamps for the poor. What I’m talking about is the focus of where President Obama and his circle of advisers want to take this country. Which is to a place where European countries are. This is a place where the government takes on the responsibility of caring for their citizens by way of their health care and retirement plans. The latter of which is called Social Security in the United States.

Right now, and before Obama became president, Social Security and Medicare are poised to bankrupt the country, if you will allow the use of the term bankrupt as an adjective. Those two programs total $42.9 trillion in unfunded mandates. Due to the demographics of our population, there will soon be people owed benefits with no money in the bank to pay for it. This isn’t a right-wing talking point. This is an economic fact.

Starting his second term, Bush opened up the debate to head off this catastrophe, but there was no support for it, and, he was derided by the media. It was labeled as the third rail, something not to be touched. Well, except to tax it. It involved ‘privatizing’ 1-1/2 percent of it and letting the person actually own his share of contribution. We all know how that ended up.

Fixing social security is still not on the President’s radar. But health care is. The solution proposed by President Obama is to essentially, increase the coverage of Medicare to include the entire country. It will also include the demise of the private health insurance industry for their inability to cover more people regardless of medical pre-conditions on the modest 3-4% profit margin they earn. This is keeping in step with the European model that Democrats in Washington seem to champion.

So what’s wrong with that?

First of all, to compare the United States with any European country is like comparing apples and oranges. Or watermelons and grapes. The economic stability of the European countries are quite shaky right now. But something deeper and more fundamental is at work which the global credit crisis has merely helped to expose. Most European countries today operate under economic and labor policies crafted during the height of the post-war baby boom, featuring middle-class entitlements like generous pension systems that allow early retirement, liberal disability programs that exempt many laborers from work, and extended unemployment systems that make going on the dole and staying there easier than in the U.S.. Europeans designed these policies in an era when there were, in many European minds, too many people competing for jobs and a bulging work population to support those who were retired or on disability.

Now, this house of cards is falling down. The demographics are nothing today like they were 60 or 70 years ago. Now, not only are there less people working, but there are more people on the government dole collecting retirement pensions. Europe has baby boomers too.  Governments, like Greece, Spain, Italy and Portugal, have no money to sustain this welfare state and they and other countries face riots in the streets at the very thought of trying to reform (take away) the unsustainable benefits they have put in place.

Back to the watermelons v. grapes comparison. Many of these countries are smaller than  most states in the United States. And they’re going bust. It takes more than the audacity of hope and hubris to suppose that a country the size of the United States, already heading to default, can pull itself out by expanding a health insurance entitlement program to include the combined populations of France, Italy, Germany, United Kingdom, Spain, and Greece. Not only that, but President Obama is still claiming that it will lower the premium costs and increase the quality and availability of care. Oh, and that’s after cutting $500 Billion from Medicare first. I think we should run that proposition by the people in Canada and Europe who travel to the United States for medical treatment and see if they think that modeling a health care system after what they have would be a good idea.

The European countries are suffering from a demographic shift that is compounding their economic situation.  In addition to their workforce shrinking, and their retired populations growing, their birth rates are falling below what is considered to be a replacement rate. Clearly, they need to change course. The old paradigm of the Welfare State is not sustainable.

Although we are demographically robust compared to Europe (our working age population will increase by a projected 17 percent over the next 40 years) and we work longer, our own baby boom was so large that we will still need substantial changes in Medicare and Social Security to meet our future obligations. Meanwhile, our states face a tough road because many of them have granted European-like retirement benefits to government workers that are exacerbating state budget problems. It doesn’t take a rocket scientist to see a trend here. But it is a trend that seems to escape Democrats in Washington.

Why is it that, despite the history and conditions in Europe, the Obama administration insists that creating our own Welfare State here is the way to go? Obama and his advisers are of the wrong century. Still high from their heyday of the 60’s, only now they are in control of our government and espousing something called ‘social justice.’ Essentially, they are heading the country southbound in the northbound lane. And instead of advising him to turn around, they’re telling him to speed up. And before too long, this great country will be in the same shape as Greece, Great Britain, Spain, Italy, and the rest of them.

2010 Election, Media, Politics

Sen. Byrd (D-WV) Deja Vu, Obamacare

Right from the horses mouth, Sen. Robert C. Byrd (D-WV), who authored the ‘Byrd rule,’ aka ‘reconciliation.’ He put an end to Hillary Care then, and for the same reasons Obamacare should be stopped now.

Speaking on the floor of the Senate about the use of reconciliation to ram through Hillarycare, Sen. Byrd said . . .

I felt that changes as dramatic as the Clinton Health Care package, which would affect every man, woman, and child in the United States should be subject to scrutiny . . .

That health care bill, important as it is, so complex, so far-reaching, that the people of this country need to know what’s  in it, and moreover Mr. President, we Senators need to know what’s in it before we vote.

{Referring to a telephone call President Clinton made to him, Sen. Byrd continues}

I could not, I would not, and I did not allow that package to be handled in such a cavalier manner. It was the threat of the use of the ‘Byrd rule.’ Reconciliation was never, never, never intended to be a shield, to be used as a shield for controversial legislation.

Where has the ‘mainstream’ media been on this?

h/t Breitbart.tv

Uncategorized

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3 Comments

Just had fun simulchatting the Oscars with PNJ editor Julio Diaz and about a dozen others with nothing better to do. 😉

Netflix will be sending Hurt Locker. While watching Kathryn Bigelow accept her Oscar for best director, the scowl on old Barbra Streisand’s face was priceless.

Only saw the last half of the show which was good, for a change. Pleasantly surprised to not see any Bush bashing or war bashing. The other thing I liked was that everyone on stage was well dressed. Didn’t see anyone having to hold up their pants with one hand.

Sniper pickoffs in Afghanistan. Way better than in the movies.