WHERE DO THESE PEOPLE COME FROM?

Obama favors collective over individual rights

President Obama believes in collective rights, not individual rights!

1. Obamacare
2. 1-2 percent. The rich have to give their fair share (by whose standards?)
3. War on fat. Tax on sodas and shakes. Smaller portions, restaurant restrictions.
4. War on women. They should all have birth control and abortions.
5. Gun control.
6. Immigration. Open borders, collective citizenship. If you do your own homework, look up the meaning of “socialist.”
   Draw your own conclusions. People who want gun control or no guns at all are telling law-abiding citizens they don’t trust them. They don’t trust women or think they’re not smart enough to defend themselves against a stalker or rapist or someone breaking into their home by using a gun when help is not available . Suck it up, let criminals have their way. Don’t defend yourself or your family.

The only problem is help is not always available when you really need it. Look at how government worked with these situations:

1. Libya: Four Americans dead and they asked for help.

2. Fast and Furious: Gun trafficking, two Americans killed. They were in control of it.

3. Sandy Hook, Columbine: Not enough time for law enforcers to stop all the killing.

4. Gulf oil spill, Katrina: Government’s dismal response and help.

I could go on. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Government doesn’t solve problems, it just adds to them.

Obama has guards at his children's school and for his family. Does that mean his family and children are more important than yours?

I don’t own a gun, but I’m sure thinking about it now.

Why Obama is using the gun issue? Opportunity. He doesn’t want anyone, especially Congress or the media, to focus on the problems he hasn’t or won’t try to solve, such as debt, jobs, Dodd-Frank, tort reform, etc.

Margaret Lee, Caldwell



Good lord, Margaret, where to begin. You are so wrong in so many cases, it's difficult to know where to start. So....let's take these issues one at a time.

First off, I guess I can consider you are Republican, right? Okay, then let me make another assumption. You get your information from Right Wing press and TV like Fox News, right? The problem starts right there. You are listening, reading and watching very biased sources and getting information from biases sources with agendas that are Right Wing driven. Margaret, there's another side...actually, several other sides.

You said: “President Obama believes in collective rights,” what does that mean? Obama believes in the rights of the citizenry rather than the one-person right. Is that what you mean? The preamble to the Constitution says Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness by one AND all. So, to say that Obama is for Collectivism is a banal argument and without any facts to back it up. Let's carry that a bit farther:

Collectivism: people's ownership and management: the system of control and ownership of factories and farms and of the means of production and distribution of products by a nation's people.

What in the world gives you the idea this president or any president has ever believed in Collectivism? Are you saying the President of the United States is a Communist? If so, you are severely deluded. Who bailed out the banks and General Motors, then gave them back their corporations? Does that sound like Collectivism? It sounds like just the opposite.

You said: “Obamacare” Obamacare, what? Are you saying the Healthcare Act is Collectivism? Healthcare is simply, healthcare. People pay for it, that sounds like capitalism to me. If Obamacare is Collectivism, then so is Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and the following departments: Department of Energy, Department of Education, Department of Commerce, Department of Agriculture, Department of Transportation...these are all social programs, therefore, according to your definition are examples of Collectivism. Should we do away with them?

You said: “War on fat. Tax on sodas and shakes. Smaller portions, restaurant restrictions.” What? What the hell do any of those things have to do with Collectivism? By your definition, they have more to do with...I don't know...uh, intelligent suggestions. So, there are taxes on nearly everything. Is that Collectivism? Don't think so, Margaret.

You said: “War on women. They should all have birth control and abortions.” Remember that little thing called Life, Liberty and Pursuit of Happiness? Doesn't that include one's body? Again, there is no Collectivism here.

You said: “Immigration. Open borders, collective citizenship. If you do your own homework, look up the meaning of “socialist.”” Okay: A political system of communal ownership: a political theory or system in which the means of production and distribution are controlled by the people and operated according to equity and fairness rather than market principles

1. movement based on socialism: a political movement based on principles of socialism, typically advocating an end to private property and to the exploitation of workers
2. stage between capitalism and communism: in Marxist theory, the stage after the proletarian revolution when a society is changing from capitalism to communism, marked by pay distributed according to work done rather than need
   

Margaret, what the hell does this have to do with 'open borders?' Nothing! It also has nothing to do with your Collectivism argument. Are you talking about Socialism and/or Communism? They are different concepts. I suggest you look up the word REPUBLIC. That's what the U.S. Is, a Republic, not a Democracy.

Republic: a state in which the supreme power rests in the body of citizens entitled to vote and is exercised by representatives chosen directly or indirectly by them. That means Congressmen and Senators.

2. any body of persons viewed as a commonwealth.

1. a state in which the head of government is not a monarch or other hereditary head of state.

That, Dear Margaret, is what we are; a Republic. We are not a socialistic state. We are not a Communistic nation and we are not headed in that direction despite what they tell you on Fox News.

You said: “The only problem is help is not always available when you really need it.” No guff? Really? What a dumb thing to say. Someone shoots someone in your neighborhood and the cops are not there at that exact time and you're saying they're not there when you need them? What the hell do you expect? Katrina? Who would have thought that thing would have been as terrible as it was... Mistakes made? Yep. But should we dump our government because it didn't instantly respond? Does the phase 'Baby – Bath Water ring a bell?

You said: I could go on. This is only the tip of the iceberg. Government doesn’t solve problems, it just adds to them.

Obama has guards at his children's school and for his family. Does that mean his family and children are more important than yours?

Let me see. Is my kid less important than the leader of the free world's kid? Hmmm. Yep. Could you imagine killing or kidnapping the President's children would affect his governing? Yes, keeping his family safe is paramount. This protection has been an ongoing thing for many many presidents. If you were president, you would get the same protection. It goes with the job. It has nothing to do with whether or not his kids are 'more important' than yours or mine; HE IS PRESIDENT OF THE UNITED STATES, not Joe Citizen. Try to get that through your head, Margaret. He's THE PRESIDENT. You are not.

The government doesn't solve problems? Where's Osama? How come General Motors is still in business. How come the banks are still doing business? How come the elderly are getting the care they need? How come people who are unemployed still able to beans on the table? How come we are not still in Vietnam or Iraq?

Margaret, are you deluded or what?

Oh, Oh, here comes the Holocaust

Idaho state senator compares Holocaust to health exchange

Sen. Nuxoll says insurance companies like Jews on trains to concentration camps

By Betsy Z. Russell    The Spokesman-Review 

 

BOISE — As the debate over Idaho Gov. Butch Otter’s proposed state health insurance exchange heats up, a North Idaho senator has sent out a mass email and posted a message on Twitter comparing the role of insurance companies to “the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps,” saying the federal government is using private insurers and in the future will “pull the trigger” on them.     

Sen. Sheryl Nuxoll, R-Cot - tonwood, defends her analogy. “I just want people to hear the truth and to be aware that what is being presented be us is a socialistic program,” Nuxoll said Wednesday. “There is no disrespect for any group or people with the analogy. … I just want people to know the truth.”    

Nuxoll sent the email out Jan. 23 to more than 120 email addresses, and also posted the message on Twitter.     

Senate President Pro-Tem Brent Hill Rexburg, said he doesn’t fault her. “This is a very emotional issue for a lot of people,” Hill said. “There’s a lot of ‘stuff’ going around, a lot of information, a lot of viewpoints being expressed. As we get closer to making that decision, the rhetoric’s going to get more dramatic.”    He added, “I don’t think this is exclusive to Sen. Nuxoll.”     

The governor’s exchange legislation was introduced in a Senate committee on Tuesday. The same day, Otter posted a petition on his official website for Idahoans to sign to urge support for the bill, and encouraged them to contact their legislators. Wayne Hoffman, head of the Idaho Freedom Foundation and a vocal opponent of the bill, posted his own dueling petition the same afternoon, opposing it.     

Nuxoll’s message, headed, “Another Reason against the State Health Insurance Exchange,” said in full, “The insurance companies are creating their own tombs. Much like the Jews boarding the trains to concentration camps, private insurers are used by the feds to put the system in place because the federal government has no way to set up the exchange. Several years from now, the federal government will want nothing to do with private insurance companies. The feds will have a national system of health insurance and they will pull the trigger on the insurance companies.”     

Another message she posted a week earlier on Twitter said, “The health insurance exchange will be the battle for the legislature this year. It simply is replacing capitalism with socialism.”     

Nuxoll said she made the analogy because “I felt badly for the Jews – it wasn’t just Jews, but Jews, and Christians, and Catholics, and priests. My thing was they didn’t know what was going on. The insurance companies are not realizing what’s going to end up in their demise.”  

Idaho’s health insurance industry has been strongly supportive of Otter’s move to have a state-based health insurance exchange, rather than defer to a federally run exchange.     

“I am shocked by that message,” said Marnie Packard, manager of Idaho government relations for PacificSource Health Plans, one of five major Idaho health insurers that are participating in a coalition pushing for a state-based exchange. “I think that some of the terms that she used can be very offensive to a lot of people.”     

Packard said, “A state-based exchange, it’s going to lower the cost, it’s keeping the jobs local, keeping the insurance industry and those doing business in the state of Idaho continuing to do business in the state of Idaho. If it’s a federal exchange, who knows who’s going to be participating in the exchange?”    

Opponents have been calling on Otter to refuse to cooperate with the national health care reform law in any way, including by setting up a state-run exchange.    

Otter convened a working group that studied the issue for months, before overwhelmingly recommending a state-based exchange. The governor’s newly introduced bill calls for the exchange to be a quasi-governmental entity, not a state agency; it would have to be self-supporting and couldn’t receive any state tax funds.     

Under the national health care reform law, exchanges in each state — whether state- or federally run — will serve as an online portal for citizens to shop for health insurance plans and access government subsidies, if they qualify.     

Otter, who strongly opposed the national health care reform law, said in a “Call to Action” sent out to Idahoans this week, “Ceding all control to the federal government means giving up any possibility of effectively pursuing local priorities regarding cost containment, quality control, regulatory control, accountability, job formation and a product tailored to our Idaho needs.”     

Hill said, “When we are emotional about something, sometimes we use hyperbole to get across our point. We need to be careful not to judge one another on the way we say things – we need to try to understand one another.” 

Oh the hyperbole!  Comparing the ACA to the Holocaust.  What a shameful thing to do.  I can't believe this Idaho Senator.  She's really got no business being in politics if she's going to make comparisons such as those above.

The Good Senator Nuxall is taking a page out of the Idaho Freedom Foundation headed up by IPT -- Idaho Press Tribune's Wayne Hoffman [http://idahofreedom.net/].  This is a right wing organization that espouses anything that has anything to do with Barack Obama as being bad...in fact, anything Democratic is bad in Wayne's eyes.  Here are a few IFF headlines: HELP STOP OBAMACARE [funny, it could have said Romneycare, but Wayne and his foundation don't make that distiction.], Facts about Medicaid Income Rules [then goes on to point out it will become the new standard by which eligibility for state and federal assistance programs is determined.  Oh, oh, the big bad govt. is out to get ya...again.], Goldwater Institute believes insurance exchange violates state’s Health Freedom Act [Y'all remember Barry, right?  You know, the guy who was so radically right, even his own party dumped him?].  IF you go to the web site it will become extremely obvious where this foundation's feet are planted...check out 'far rightwingnut.'

Nuxoll compares the Healthcare Act to Socialism.  What rot.  We already have a socialistic type Republic...based on Democratic ideals.  She needs to bone up on her history of the U. S. of A.  We have many, many social programs and nobody complains until you mention Medicaid or Medicare or Social Security.  What about Transportation, bridge building, infrastructure maintenance?  All of those are social programs.  What about a 'free' educationals system?  That's a social program.  How about the Environmental Protection Admin...that's a social program.  That's what government does.  It promotes SOCIAL welfare.  God, Nuxoll, wise up.

 

SABER WAGGING

So now we've got this idiot.

North Korea warns of nuke test, more rocket launches

By HYUNG-JIN KIM    The Associated Press 

 

SEOUL, South Korea — North Korea’s top governing body warned Thursday that the regime will conduct its third nuclear test in defiance of U.N. punishment, and made clear that its long-range rockets are designed to carry not only satellites but also warheads aimed at striking the United States.     

The National Defense Commission, headed by the country’s young leader, Kim Jong Un, denounced Tuesday’s U.N. Security Council resolution condemning North Korea’s long-range rocket launch in December as a banned missile activity and expanding sanctions against the regime. The commission reaffirmed in its declaration that the launch was a peaceful bid to send a satellite into space, but also clearly indicated the country’s rocket launches have a military purpose: to strike and attack the United States.

This is a case of "little Big-Man" disease.  Let me explain.

On the school yard you have a bully -- you always have a bully.  And the bully is a "little Big-Man."  Generally, he's a coward with a big mouth and/or a big stick and/or a bunch of sycophants who back his play.  Get him alone and threaten him and he becomes the "little man" quite quickly.

Kim Jong Un is that man.  He grew up privileged and got his way with any and everything he wanted.  Now he thinks his tiny country can actually attack the UNITED STATE OF AMERICA and get away with it because his Asian pals will back his play.  What Un doesn't realize is this world is much different than the world of his daddy and his country's understanding.  This world is about cooperation between super powers.  We all know we can annihilate each other and so, we draw lines and say we won't cross 'em willy-nilly.  Un doesn't realize his saber rattling will only cause him grief.  If he doesn't stop it, the major Asian powers will dump him like a hot potato and his countrymen will pay the price in economic suffering more so than they already do.

That's the flaw in Un's thinking.  And it will be his undoing. 

BORING? MAYBE NOT.

Wayne Cornell wrote this in the Idaho Press-Tribune:

Bill on initiatives shows arrogance

The arrogance of some of some of Idaho’s elected officials is beyond belief.    In November, Idaho voters resoundingly approved three initiatives that canceled out education “reform” bills proposed by Superintendent of Public Instruction Tom Luna and passed by the Legislature.     

Getting those initiatives on the ballot required obtaining signatures from qualified voters all over the state. That was no small task.     

One of the first bills introduced in this year’s legislative session, sponsored by Farm Bureau lobbyist Russ Hendricks and Nampa Sen. Curt McKenzie, is obviously aimed at fixing things so the drubbing lawmakers took last fall can’t be repeated.    The new proposal would require 6 percent of the registered voters in at least 22 Idaho of Idaho’s 35 legislative districts to sign petitions to get an initiative on the ballot. That would make the task virtually impossible. 

A similar amendment passed in 1997 by the Legislature that would have required the signatures of 6 percent of registered voters in 22 counties was ruled unconstitutional by a U.S. district court.    

The message to Idaho voters is clear. Our lawmakers believe they know what is good for us and we don’t have any business interfering with their work. Absolutely unbelievable.    So if the boys and girls at the Statehouse want to play hardball, here’s a message: the people who elected you showed through the initiative last fall that they have considerable power. As a member of that group, I promise to actively campaign in the next election against any legislator — Republican or Democrat — (particularly those from Canyon County) who votes for Sen. McKenzie’s proposal. And I urge anyone else who is tired of the “voters aren’t smart enough” attitude in state government to make the same pledge.     

Wayne Cornell, Caldwell 

Mr. Cornell has a point.  Along with Gerrymandering, this is another way to control votes and the voting proceedures set down by the State's Constitution.  Does it sound familiar?  It should.  This is exactly what many states tried to do to suppress votes around this country.  This man speaks up...I say here, here!

Education in this state has been on the chopping block ever since Governor Otter appointed Tom Luna as the education czar of this state.  Tom Luna got his degree out of a Cracker Jack Box [internet] and hasn't spent one day teaching in a classroom in his life and he supposes he knows what is best for the educational system in this state.  He can barely write a cogent paragraph himself.  His grammer is attrocious and he can hardly spell his name and his math...his math?  He thinks 5 + 5 = 11.  He actually thinks teachers are in the business for the money and that by offering 'merit' pay, the teachers will shape up and teach better.  What rot.  Every one who knows a teacher knows h/she is not in it for the money.  They are in it for the joy of influencing young minds...NOT MONEY.

Thank you Wayne for your post.  

EMOTION REASONING

Isn't emotional reasoning interesting? Example: gun control. Whenever this issue comes up, people who are NRA gun owning right wing-nuts go absolutely crazy. “The sky is falling, the sky is falling, that is, they are coming in black helicopters to take away my guns.” Clearly, that is not the case. Nobody is coming to take your guns away, Mr. NRA. They are not coming at all...period.

This is emotional reasoning at it's most visible. Here's what I mean. If it feels bad, therefore, it must be bad, or, it feels good, therefore, it must be good. This is emotional reasoning. You see it all the time on Faux News, and in Right Wing Press's and talk show hosts. They are the voices of doom and gloom [Glenn Beck/Rush Limbaugh] and they always point out the worst possible scenarios. They are pandering to the two biggest, and worst, of emotions: Fear and Anger, and they are dangerous.

This type of reasoning, is, of course, illogical and usually wrong. Because something feels bad doesn't necessarily factually mean it IS bad. Point in fact: Social Security. In the 30's, when FDR proposed and national social type retirement program for all working people, the Righties screamed Communism/Socialism/Nazism. Three emotion producing words. Was in hind sight, Social Security a bad thing? Of course, not. However, the right wing-nuts would have had you dump it before anyone gave it a chance.

The National Debt. Oh My God, what'll we do? The United States is doomed because we owe big money. Phooey. Let me quote Paul Krugman [Nobel Prize winner for Economics and a professor at MIT:  "This [the National Deficit] is, however, a case in which what everyone knows just ain’t so. The budget deficit isn’t our biggest problem, by a long shot. Furthermore, it’s a problem that is already, to a large degree, solved. The medium-term budget outlook isn’t great, but it’s not terrible either — and the long-term outlook gets much more attention than it should."] In other words, we need to worry much more about other national problems before we get so upset about the deficit. Emotional reasoning says, the Deficit feels bad, therefore, it IS bad. It may be bad, but not nearly as bad as some would have you believe. Yes, we owe money, so...LET'S JUST PAY IT BACK and stop all the alas/alack and woe is me.

We literally drive ourselves crazy using this type of reasoning. Some folks have actually been diagnosed with disorders that are caused because of emotional reasoning. One of the reasons for clinical depression, for instance, is emotions. Our brains work with a couple of neurotransmitters [dopamine/serotonin] that are controlled by the individual's emotional state. One can lose one's mind when these two transmitters are upset by illogical reasoning.

Abortion. That one word is another great emotional reasoning subject. To the right, it connotes murder [Pro-Lifers]. On the other hand [Pro-Choicers], it means a woman's right to choose how she uses her body. People have actually been murdered over this word.

I can't get over how vitriolic the emotional outpouring of reasoning during this last election campaign. You would have thought that President Obama was the second coming of Beelzebub or Stalin and Hitler. People actually called him a Nazi and a Socialist and doubted his birthright. What rot. If this was a dictatorship, those people would have been eliminated with prejudice. But we are not a dictatorship, we are a Democratic Republic and we are supposed to be above all that rhetoric. Obviously, we aren't - above it all - that is.

As a therapist, my job is to realign a client's thinking so as to help h/her find a mental balance and hopefully h/she can find happiness or at least comfortable mental attitudes.

It seems nobody is above Emotional Reasoning. I would like to believe only the uneducated among us think illogically, but that is absolutely not the case. Our government's law makers reason emotionally with the best of 'em. This scares me and it ought to scare you too. This lack of cogent reasoning has gotten us in a lot of trouble and killed thousands of people in illegal in illogical wars, and/or, police actions throughout the world. One need only look back to the last administration and the Iraq War to see emotional and illogical reasoning in action. The worst case of this type of reasoning was President G. W. Bush. We entered into war with the Iraqis without valid intelligence. Thousands died. The war was probably even illegal. It was definitely not in our best interests. But George Bush wanted to get EVEN with Saddam Hussein for his jihad against his father. Emotional Reasoning. Saddam feels bad, therefore, he is bad and, by definition, is doing bad things and he shouldn't, therefore, he must be eliminated. How many people died because of that type of reasoning? Hundreds? Thousands?

I hope I've made my point. Emotional Reasoning is dangerous as well as mentally unhealthy.

Look, a Republican Bone

House GOP may seek debt limit extension

By DAVID ESPO

   The Associated Press

   WILLIAMSBURG, Va. — House Republicans may seek a quick, short-term extension of the government’s debt limit, a move that would avoid an immediate default by the Treasury as the party seeks to maximize leverage in negotiations over spending cuts with President Barack Obama this spring, officials said Thursday.

   “All options are on the table as far as we’re concerned,” Rep. Paul Ryan of Wisconsin said at a news conference during a three day retreat of the rank and file. He said private discussions focused on how best to “achieve progress on controlling our deficits and controlling our debt.”

   Ryan declined to say how long an extension of the government’s borrowing authority is under consideration, or what conditions might be attached. Obama has said repeatedly that he favors additional deficit savings yet he will not negotiate spending cuts as part of an agreement to raise the current $16.4 trillion debt limit. Some Republicans have suggested they may seek unspecified reforms rather than reductions, perhaps trying to force the Democratic-controlled Senate to approve a budget.

   The debt limit is one of three deadlines that Congress and the administration will confront this spring. Across-the-board spending cuts begin in early March, and the government runs out of funding for many agencies and services on March 27.

Oh, forgodsake, let's not fix the problem, let's just kick the can down the road.  Come on boys, you know you have to up the limit, stop procrastinating.  WE have to pay our bills...period.  Everybody knows that means upping the debt ceiling.

HERE'S ANOTHER ONE OF THOSE NUTBALLS

A recipe to restore fiscal responsibility

We’re constantly told there’s no money for necessary programs. School funding is a bottomless pit.

More pay doesn’t necessarily mean better teachers. We currently can’t afford pay raises nor laptops for every student. Schools offer computer classes; most households and libraries have computers.

Legislators aren’t representing the people if they revive propositions we voted against. Schools should eliminate half days — go whole days or nothing. It’s a waste of school bus gas. If parents want their kids bused to after-school activities, they should pay a fee.

Tax money collected is our money, to be used for U.S. citizen benefits. Eliminate all foreign aid (that includes Israel; they’re just as guilty as their neighbors for launching attacks). Maybe we could bring the subject up again when we have a $15 trillion surplus, not deficit.

Any money that’s been taken out of our Social Security fund needs to be replaced.

Same-sex marriage is only going to increase benefits paid to survivors; we can’t afford it.

Only U.S. citizens should receive welfare benefits, and young, able-bodied single mothers should support their own children, with child support enforced. There are disabled and mentally ill persons who need food stamps, medical and psychological aid.

Personal property tax should be repealed. We’re losing millions of dollars in property tax by allowing organizations to become nonprofit and pay no property tax. Only buildings used exclusively for charitable work should qualify. Churches amount only to a second home for their members and should pay property tax.

Online sales should be taxed. It’s unfair to local businesses if purchases can be made online paying no tax.

Bills introduced in congress should be on one subject only, no pork.

The space program should be eliminated. While interesting, it serves no practical purpose.

Judy Smith, Huston



This woman is so wrong on so many levels it's hard to know where to begin, but, you know me, I'm gonna try. Let's take these one at a time...

1. More pay doesn’t necessarily mean better teachers. We currently can’t afford pay raises nor laptops for every student. Schools offer computer classes; most households and libraries have computers. What does that even mean? Money can't buy teachers? Computers won't help the learning curve of children? I really don't get her point. How would she know that money doesn't mean better teachers? We in the State of Idaho pay our teachers less than almost any of the other states; in fact, we are 17^th in the nation. We are 26^th in the nation when it comes to ACT test scores; actually lower than almost any of the Eastern Seaboard states [does that mean that they are higher paid, therefore, the students tested higher?]. Mississippi is in the bottom of the barrel of ACT scores and their teacher pay is 2^nd to the lowest [the lowest is South Dakota and they are higher than Idaho in ACT scores...hmmm]. What this all boils down to is Money is not a teacher's motivation to teach, but don't get me wrong, they do not want to do it for nothing. Here's some more facts:
   

Nationally, the average turnover for all teachers is 17 percent, and in urban school districts specifically, the number jumps to 20 percent, according to the National Center for Education Statistics. The National Commission on Teaching and America's Future proffers starker numbers, estimating that one-third of all new teachers leave after three years, and 46 percent are gone within five years. Here's an answer for this problem: Overhauling NCLB is a top priority for NEA, which believes that a massive infusion of federal money is needed to create smaller classes and bolster proven, beneficial strategies for school reform. High-stakes testing and punishment for low scores are not what's needed.

1. A. Legislators aren’t representing the people if they revive propositions we voted against. Schools should eliminate half days — go whole days or nothing. It’s a waste of school bus gas. If parents want their kids bused to after-school activities, they should pay a fee. So, here again this lady is talking out her...you know what. Full days? What the hell does she know about teaching. There aren't enough hours in the day for the teacher to get his/her work done as it is. This lady seems to think teachers only work during school hours. Nothing could be further from the truth. Every teacher or teacher's spouse knows this isn't true. The classroom is for teaching and after school is for grading and lesson planning and everything else needed to enhance the classroom experience of the students. Teaching isn't a 6 hour a day experience, it's a 16 hour a day experience. A waste of school bus gas? What? Let's use some logic here. The school bus picks up children and delivers them to school, then the bus picks them up after school and takes them home WHETHER THAT IS AFTER 6 HOURS OF SCHOOL OR 8 HOURS OF SCHOOL THE BUSES GAS USAGE IS THE SAME. Now to the fee. If the kid wants to do some after school activity like sports, then the parents should pay a fee to have their children bused where ever they are to go. Well now, that's just dandy if you've got money, but what about the poor student who is a great football player but the parents haven't got the fee? Let the kid suffer is your answer, right? Where the hell is your heart lady?
   
2. Tax money collected is our money, to be used for U.S. citizen benefits. Eliminate all foreign aid (that includes Israel; they’re just as guilty as their neighbors for launching attacks). Maybe we could bring the subject up again when we have a $15 trillion surplus, not deficit. I guess you have a half-assed point here, Ms. Smith. We do have a problem with foreign aid spending. However, we also have to help struggling countries in order to maintain our reputation throughout the world and a beneficent country. Take that away and we are just another richy-rich country with no care for others who need help. However, you do have a point. We need to pay our bills and pay less of other country's bills. I'll give you this point.
   
3. Any money that’s been taken out of our Social Security fund needs to be replaced. Same-sex marriage is only going to increase benefits paid to survivors; we can’t afford it. Well, I guess you got me here; replace the Social Security monies that the Republicans have spent on unnecessary wars. Unfortunately, we can't replace it because it's spent. You go out and buy groceries and spend $100.00. You cannot replace that money. You can go out and make more money, but that money has been spent; it's irreplaceable. Same sex marriage will not cost any more than regular marriages cost. Forgodsake these people paid their taxes just like every one else and the money they receive in benefits are theirs to begin with. They won't be a burden on anyone because they are everyone just like you and I. The costs are the same whether they are married or not; benefits will be paid to someone no matter whether they are married or single.
   
4. Only U.S. citizens should receive welfare benefits, and young, able-bodied single mothers should support their own children, with child support enforced. There are disabled and mentally ill persons who need food stamps, medical and psychological aid. Again I ask you, where the hell is your heart? Here you have a 16 year old pregnant girl with no education who has a child to raise. Where is she supposed to get the money to raise the kid? I suppose you will say from her parents. What if her parents have disowned her because she got pregnant? Now what? Oh, I get it...Social Darwinism. Let her and the baby starve to death, that way we will save all those food stamps and welfare checks for the disabled and mentally ill. What planet do you live on? Fiscal responsibility without morals or ethics is Totalitarianism or a Plutocracy. Plus, dear Ms Smith, I can prove that giving money to poor people, including those dreaded food stamps, is actually a good investment, way better than foreign aid because the money stays in America not overseas.
   

Let's do some math, Judy. Let's say our pregnant 16 year old who was kicked out of her home is living in an apartment that costs $600 per month [the govt. picks up the tab]. She is allotted $250 in food stamps [actually there are no more stamps only a plastic card]. And she receives a stipend of $400 to live on and buy what ever she might need for herself and her baby. That's a total of $1250 per month. At first glance you might say my oh my what a waste of money, but let's take this example a bit farther. Where does this lady spend that money? Well the rent check goes to her landlord who uses it to keep up the property or h/she spends it on other goods for other properties. In other words, that six hundred dollars goes back into the American economy to help support us all. The same can be said of the dreaded food stamp money and her stipend. If this woman were to be put out on the street there's no telling what problems she could incur that we, the American public, would have to pick up the tab for...just think of the medical costs alone because she would be receiving no care and neither would her child. Have you ever been in a hospital...and paid the bill?

5. Personal property tax should be repealed. We’re losing millions of dollars in property tax by allowing organizations to become nonprofit and pay no property tax. Only buildings used exclusively for charitable work should qualify. Churches amount only to a second home for their members and should pay property tax. Here again, I don't get your point. Allowing organizations to become nonprofit? And then you say that churches should not be nonprofit. I don't get it. But I will say that it might be a good idea for churches to pay taxes, after all, they make more money that almost any other entity out there.
6. The space program should be eliminated. While interesting, it serves no practical purpose. The US Space program has usually been less than 1% of the US Budget. How has the space program benefited us, let me count the ways:

1. 1978: Teflon-coated fiberglass developed in the 1970s as a new fabric for astronaut spacesuits has been used as a permanent roofing material for buildings and stadiums worldwide. (By the way, contrary to urban myth, NASA did not invent Teflon.)
   
2. 1982: Astronauts working on the lunar surface wore liquid-cooled garments under their space suits to protect them from temperatures approaching 250 degrees Fahrenheit. These garments, further developed and refined by NASA’s Johnson Space Center, are among the agency’s most widely used spinoffs, with adaptations for portable cooling systems for treatment of medical ailments such as burning limb syndrome, multiple sclerosis, spinal injuries and sports injuries.
   
3. 1986: A joint National Bureau of Standards/NASA project directed at the Johnson Space Center resulted in a lightweight breathing system for firefighters. Now widely used in breathing apparatuses, the NASA technology is credited with significant reductions in inhalation injuries to the people who protect us.
   
4. 1991: Tapping three separate NASA-developed technologies in the design and testing of its school bus chassis, a Chicago-based company was able to create a safer, more reliable, advanced chassis, which now has a large market share for this form of transportation.
   
5. 1994: Relying on technologies created for servicing spacecraft, a Santa Barbara-based company developed a mechanical arm that allows surgeons to operate three instruments simultaneously, while performing laparoscopic surgery. In 2001, the first complete robotic surgical operation proved successful, when a team of doctors in New York removed the gallbladder of a woman in France using the Computer Motion equipment.
   
6. 1995: Dr. Michael DeBakey of the Baylor College of Medicine teamed up with Johnson Space Center engineer David Saucier to develop an artificial heart pump – based on the design of NASA’s space shuttle main engine fuel pumps – that supplements the heart’s pumping capacity in the left ventricle. Later, a team at Ames Research Center modeled the blood flow, and improved the design to avoid harm to blood cells. The DeBakey Left Ventricular Assist Device (LVAD) can maintain the heart in a stable condition in patients requiring a transplant until a donor is found, which can range from one month to a year. Sometimes, permanent implantation of the LVAD can negate the need for a transplant. Bernard Rosenbaum, a Johnson Space Center propulsion engineer who worked with the DeBakey-Saucier group said, “I came to NASA in the early 1960s as we worked to land men on the moon, and I never dreamed I would also become part of an effort that could help people’s lives. We were energized and excited to do whatever it took to make it work.”
   
7. 2000: NASA’s “Software of the Year” award went to Internet-based Global Differential GPS (IGDG), a C-language package that provides an end-to-end system capability for GPS-based real-time positioning and orbit determination. Developed at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, the software is being used to operate and control real-time GPS data streaming from NASA’s Global GPS Network. The Federal Aviation Administration has adopted the software’s use into the Wide Area Augmentation System program that provides pilots in U.S. airspace with real-time, meter-level accurate knowledge of their positions.
   
8. 2000: Three Small Business Innovation Research contracts with NASA’s Langley Research Center resulted in a new, low cost ballistic parachute system that lowers an entire aircraft to the ground in the event of an emergency. These parachutes, now in use for civilian and military aircraft, can provide a safe landing for pilots and passengers in the event of engine failure, midair collision, pilot disorientation or incapacitation, un-recovered spin, extreme icing and fuel exhaustion. To date, the parachute system is credited with saving more than 200 lives.
   
9. 2005: Two NASA Kennedy Space Center scientists and three faculty members from the University of Central Florida teamed up to develop NASA’s Government and Commercial Invention of the Year for 2005, the Emulsified Zero-Valent Iron (EZVI) Technology. Designed to address the need to clean up the ground of the historic Launch Complex 34 at KSC that was polluted with chlorinated solvents used to clean Apollo rocket parts, the EZVI technology provides a cost-effective and efficient cleanup solution to underground pollution that poses a contamination threat to fresh water sources in the area. This technology has potential use for the cleanup of environmental contamination at thousands of Department of Energy, Department of Defense, NASA and private industry facilities throughout the country.
   How soon we forget, Judy.
   

Let me just say in closing. Ms. Smith would have us throw out all the babies with the bathwater. She's one of those Fiscal Conservatives who are not Fiscally Conservative, they just want to cut, cut, cut until every one of us suffers. If we did as she suggests, we would fall into a depression so low that the world would follow and that would be the end of our fiscal-ness period. She doesn't understand money or how it works. She doesn't understand expenditures and how they work. I suggest she take a Macro Economics course to catch up with the rest of the fiscal conservatives and progressives.

SHE'S GOT THE ANSWERS

Labrador willing to stand on principle

Does it seem odd to any of you that our U.S. congressmen were only given six minutes to read this “Fiscal Cliff” bill before they were asked to vote on it? There was no time to debate the law or even read it! Are you kidding Leiann, 6 minutes? They were arguing this thing for months. Where have you been living, under a rock?

Common sense has been replaced by a president who thrives on operating in continual crisis mode! That's it, remind us how really crisis mode this president is. Check out the do-nothing-congress of the past 4 years. That's what creates crisis. People who sit on their hands and do nothing, while others do the work. That's who you should be mad at, not President Obama.

Are we the citizens of the United States so foolish that we buy into this ploy of big government expansion and ever-increasing spending as our only option?

Is it logical for us regular people to increase our spending when we are faced with difficult financial decisions in our personal lives and in our businesses?

Those with personal integrity do not rush in and blindly respond with knee-jerk reactions. Sensible people take a look at their situation and are willing to make tough choices. They are able to do hard things to get themselves back on track financially. This often involves sacrifice and self-discipline. Sacrifice and self-discipline? Okay, Leiann, let's just cut out your salary for the next year so we can pay back the national debt...a debt, by the way, that is owed to you by the federal government because they've been investing in wars overseas. That's what's caused this crisis. We've got ourselves in debt fighting 'Bush Wars' AND Reagan's Cold War for the past 20 years, and before that Nixon's Vietnam War, one of which was one big phoney...there were no weapons of mass destruction in Iraq and the Vietnam war was illegal. Obama got us out of Iraq and is getting us out of Afghanistan. That'll cure a whole bunch of our spending problems. How come, Leiann, is that every time you folks talk about self-discipline and self-sacrifice, it's always the poor and disenfranchised that pay the price?
As a nation, we have had a major financial problem long before 2013 arrived.
I would like to thank Congressman Raul Labrador for being willing to see the bigger picture of our country’s problems. He voted with integrity and with the strength of character that we value here in Idaho. Mr. Labrador is willing to vote on principle and not waver because of what may be considered unpopular. Raul is a fool, Leiann. He voted like a fool. This guy is a junior legislator and he voted against his party. It could be the end of his political career or it could mean that he will be lauded in the end, but either way, he has probably made some enemies and at this stage of his career, this is a bad move. The Beltway has a tendency not to forgive or forget so-called political rebels and though it might seem heroic to you that he voted no when his whole party voted yes, he may have stepped off the political cliff into ignominy.
I certainly don’t want my taxes to go up! I am more concerned, however, with our fiscal responsibility as a nation going down.

We face many challenges ahead of us. I stand with Mr. Raul Labrador and his vote! We can do hard things. Well la-de-da to you Ms. Snyder. You can do hard things. Some people out there have been doing 'hard things' for years without relief. They have been struggling to make ends meet with their SS checks and food stamps. Of course, you and your ilk would say they are sucking on the government's teat and they need to be cut off and pull themselves up by their bootstraps...even though they don't have any boots or straps. These people are so poor they can't and don't pay taxes. But you would cut them off from their 'freebees'. Cause you are the know-er of right and wrong. You know what SHOULD be done cause you have so much experience being well-to-do. I hear people like you every day talking about how the succubus poor are draining this country dry and they are the cause of the financial mess we are in. You are so misguided it's laughable. The reason we are in the financial mess we are in is because of folks like you who think they have the answers to this nation's problems. You, don't even know the questions, but you have the answers: Self-discipline and Self-sacrifice. What rot. You, my dear, need to do a bit more research about America's condition before you write stuff in the paper.
Leiann Snyder, Nampa

OH PREACHY ME

Today, I thought I'd lay something out there for you folks who have or are still smoking cigarettes, cigars, or chewing. I smoked for 22 years and at the last, I was downing 3 packs a day. I finally made the decision to quit...that's the secret...MADE A DECISION. Oh, I wanted to quit many times and tried to quit too, but never succeeded, and here's why.

The secret to quitting anything, be it food, drugs, alcohol, cigarettes or even coffee is that golden word: DECISION. In the drug/alcohol treatment game we call the non-deciders want-tos. Oh yes, they want to, but they haven't decided to...not yet. But they will. Like my drug/alcoholism counselor [yes I was an alcoholic...notice I said was...I haven't drank in 30 years] said “you'll quit alright, it just might take the grave to make you do it.” That was enough for me as far as booze was concerned, but not cigarettes. My alckie friends kept telling me that cigarettes for them was harder to quit than booze. That scared me, so I kept on smoking. After all, it's one addiction at a time, right?

Then one day at the age of 57, I was taken to the hospital with clogged femoral arteries. I was damn near dead when they finally diagnosed what was wrong. I was lying in the intensive care unit after surgery and my doc came in and I asked him how long it would be till I could have a smoke, and he said never. What? Never? Bull****, Said I. He then went on to say, “oh yeah, you can have another cigarette or two, but it will kill you because you now have problems with clogged arteries and smoking enhances that problem.”

I quit. Right then. I had made the DECISION to quit and it was final. But look what it took to get there forgodsake – and I was lucky!

But that's not the end of the tale. No, no, not the end at all. NINE YEARS after quitting cigarettes, I developed throat cancer. The cancer doc said the only way to get it is if you smoke cigarettes. Smoking and chewing were the number one causes of throat cancer. Luck you, he said, cause we now have treatment for this problem rather than having to cut out your larynx and have you electronically speaking. It's called Radiation. It turns your skin to hamburger after several treatments; to this day I can't grow hair on my neck where the voice box is located. Yup, Lucky me.

My point is, you never know when you've had your last drink, drug or cigarette. It could be 10 cases of beer ago, or 10 fifths, or 10 cartons, or 10 highs, but the time comes when the body says, that's it buddy. We are through with this behavior and it rebels. According to statistics, it happens rapidly after the age of 40.

Even after quitting some people die. I remember Jerry Garcia [The Grateful Dead], a person I met and thought a lot of, went into treatment for heroin addiction and never came back. His body had consumed as much heroin as it could stand way before he decided to quit. And he isn't the only one.

In counseling the addicted, I could tell many tales of people who came into treatment, that had not made the DECISION to quit and died because of it. It is so common, it is almost nonsensical. Why do people continue to do destructive things when they know – or have been told – that they will eventually be destroyed by doing them. Y'all know the answer. Insanity. They believe that they can continue to do what they are doing without paying the price for doing it. Doing the same thing over and over expecting different results.

No one escapes paying dues. It's an immutable [unchanging through time; unalterable; ageless] law. The law is called THE LAW OF RECIPROCITY or you could call it Karma, or you could simply say what goes around, comes around, and you would be correct. If you have a destructive habit and you continue to habituate, you will be destroyed. Simple: destruction = destruction. No big mystery here.

If I sound like a preacher, I don't mean to be. I simply know from personal experience and education that destructive habits destroy. In my 'other' life as a professional musician, I have see this devastation played out many many times. You too can look into the past and count up the entertainers who have died by the hands of their destructive addictions.

I'm not even saying you need to quit doing what your doing, that's up to you. If you are a Christian, God gave you free will. If you are an American, our constitution allows you to continue doing what you are doing unless you are breaking the law. All I'm saying is there is a price to pay for behaviors and that price is called consequences. You just have to ask yourself, “am I willing to pay the price?” If you say yes, then you have actually made a DECISION.

Guns

I'm so conflicted.

On the one hand, I hate the idea that anyone can mess with the 2^nd Amendment. I'm an avid hunter and have guns [no automatic or semi-automatics] and it worries me that a ban on so-called military weapons and high capacity clips could lead to other weapon bans. I don't hunt with an AK47 with a 30 round banana clip. My hunting friend has a single shot he uses to hunt and he makes good sense. If you don't hit that target with the first shot, there's a real good chance that target will not be there when you jack in another shell. I'm not that good a shot, so I have a gun that holds 6 bullets.

I worry that there might be a slippery slope affect with banning guns of any kind.

The conflict comes when I think about those poor children who were mowed down with a semi-automatic. This act was absolutely disgusting. My knee-jerk reaction to this excruciating act is to ban-baby-ban all those terrible semi-automatics RIGHT NOW. Then I think, you know, I was out on the George Nourse's target range just a few months ago shooting a friend's M16 with a 30 round mag. God, it was fun. I blew up about 10 pumpkins with absolute glee. Not only that, I found the rifle to be very accurate and the barrel stayed fairly cool for firing so many rounds. In other words, the M16 semi-automatic rifle was helluva great weapon. That same day, I shot a Glock 9MM and had the same enjoyment. If these guns are banned, that feeling will never happen again.

To ban or not to ban, that is the question [sorry for my ill use of Shakespeare's Hamlet's Soliloquy]. I'm still conflicted. As a Liberal, I should be up in arms to ban-baby-ban, but as a gun owner, I'm really not so sure that's the correct answer to a terrible problem.

I found Pierce Morgan pretty convincing when he said there were 50-some gun deaths in Great Britain in 2011. However, he didn't quite go far enough [he seldom does]. In Great Britain in 2011, there were 663 murders [all weapons]. They have a population of 63,181,775 people and that would mean the ratio of murders to population would be 1: 95,296...pretty good actually. In comparison, America has a population of 312,727,538 and there were 14,612 in 2011 and that would make a ratio of 1: 21,402. Clearly America beats Great Britain in murders per year.

Great Britain had 42 gun deaths in 2011 or a ratio of 1: 1.5 million people as opposed to the U.S. With a ratio of 1: 9673. It would appear that a ban on guns works for Great Britain.

But, Pierce, we are not talking England and surrounds. We are talking The United States of America. We are a gun loving nation with a history of using and appreciating hour weapons. We like our guns so much we have created an Amendment to our constitution that protects us from people who would take them away. You Brits don't have that persona or gun filled way of life historically. When the Japanese were thinking about invading our shores, they were cautioned by a Japanese general who said there would be a gun behind every blade of grass in this country. They decided not to land on the West Coasts.

I simply cannot make up my conflicted mind. I want to hear all the arguments before I make a stand. That's the problem with being a Liberal. You see both sides of the argument and, in this case, both sides have valid data. Phooie!

The Debt Ceiling Scam

I've said it before, and ill say it again, this Debt Ceiling business isn't what it's cracked up to be.  Finally, I have vindication from a Nobel Prize winner for Economics, Paul Krugman.  Here's what he has to say:

See Comments in Red.

Paul Krugman: Clueless Washington Doesn't Know The Deficit Is 'Mostly Solved'

 "Reasonable projections do not, repeat do not, show anything resembling the runaway deficit crisis that is a staple of almost everything you hear, including supposedly objective news reporting," the Nobel Prize-winning economist wrote in a blog post on Thursday. He cited a new graph from the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities showing that since early 2011, the government has largely stabilized the U.S. debt outlook.

The New York Times columnist returned to the subject on Friday in a blog post on California's disappearing budget deficit. Krugman wrote that now that the economy is recovering, "deficits are receding as an issue before our eyes," which he predicted will anger "deficit scolds" that are "set on exploiting the alleged fiscal crisis to dismantle social insurance programs."

The deficit has loomed large in political debates over the past few years. Major newspapers published far more articles about the deficit than about unemployment starting in late 2010, according to a 2011 analysis by National Journal. The debt ceiling fight amplified coverage of the national debt on major TV networks, according to a 2011 analysis by ThinkProgress. And CNBC recently launched a campaign called "Rise Above" to call for deficit reduction.

Politicians have shaped government policies in kind. The government has shed 651,000 employees since President Barack Obama took office, according to Bureau of Labor Statistics data. This austerity has made the unemployment rate higher than it would have been otherwise, according to some economists.

Obama seems to be gearing up for future budget battles. On Thursday, he nominated his Chief of Staff Jacob Lew, a budget expert, for Treasury secretary. Congressional Republicans have threatened to force the U.S. government to default by March if Obama does not agree to spending cuts.

As I've stated time and time again, debt is NOT BAD ,unless you cannot pay it back.  The U.S. is one of the richest countries in the world and has no problem paying back debt...unless the U.S. Congress decides to default on our loans.  That, my friends, is an unheard of scenario.  The U.S. has always paid back it's debts and had a triple-A credit rating up until this congress screwed it up by being a 'slow pay' government.  We paid, but not on time.  We had the money, but screwed around and didn't sen in the payment.

Now the president has another disgruntled asinine congress to deal with who are creating a no-problem-but-let's-make-it-a-problem falderah.   DON'T FALL FOR IT!  

IN TODAY'S PAPER

From a Mr. Wayne Butterfield [Die-hard Republican Tea Partier]

Democrats will refuse to cut spending

I appreciate the Press-Tribune bringing out Rep. Labrador voting against the “fiscal cliff” bill.  Poor ol' Raul.  He actually think by voting no he is drawing a line in the sand.  What he did was fall into his own tiger trap.  He'll have a very hard time getting anything he proposes through the Senate this year...or for the next 4-years because of that idiocy.  Even his own party is disgusted with him.

Several things to remember. This was not a fiscal cliff, it was only a fiscal step. He voted his conscience. I like people that vote for what is best, not what is easy.  Voting your concious is all well and good, Mr Butterfield, but Raul's conscous is not what he's there for.  He's there to vote his country's conscience not his.  He's there at the people's will, not his own.  What he did was alienate himself and now he's going to be a nonentity in the congress because of it.

This bill will have no benefit for the American public. The fiscal cliff is looming.  NO Benefit?: Let's examine that asinine statement.
What would have happened if we DID go over the so-called cliff...

 1.  Almost everyone who pays taxes would see a hit to take-home pay in the first paycheck of January. The lowest income tax rate would rise to 15 percent from 10 percent. The highest rate would rise to 39.6 percent from 35 percent. The 25 percent, 28 percent, and 33 percent rates would rise to 28 percent, 31 percent and 36 percent respectively. Most capital gains taxes would rise to 20 percent from 15 percent. The tax rate on dividends, now set at 15 percent, would jump to ordinary income tax rates, and since most dividend taxes are paid by the wealthy, that would mean a new dividend tax rate of 39.6 percent. The exemption on taxation of inherited estates would drop to $1 million from $5 million. The tax rate above that exemption would jump to 55 percent from 35 percent.

Even many of the working poor who do not earn enough to face such taxes would take a hit when a temporary, two-percentage-point cut to the payroll tax that funds Social Security and Medicare expires on Jan. 1. In all, taxes would rise by as much as $6 trillion over 10 years, $347 billion in 2013 alone, if the Bush-era tax cuts expire along with the payroll tax cut, and Congress fails to deal with the expanding alternative minimum tax, according to the Congressional Budget Office and Decision Economics Inc., a private economic forecaster.

On the spending side, most defense programs would be sliced by 9.4 percent. Most non-defense programs outside the big entitlements — Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid — would be cut by 8.2 percent. Medicare would be trimmed by 2 percent. Social Security, veterans benefits, military personnel, Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program would be exempt.

3.  So how did we get in this mess, Mr. Butterfield? 

President George W. Bush and Republicans in Congress could not muster the 60 votes in the Senate to pass Mr. Bush’s initial 10-year, $1.7 trillion tax cut in 2001, so they used a parliamentary tool called reconciliation to pass the tax cuts with a simple Senate majority of 51 votes. The catch was that this meant the tax cuts would expire after the 10-year budget window closed in 2011. In 2003, when Mr. Bush went back for another round of tax cuts, Republicans in Congress again used reconciliation to avoid a Democratic filibuster and maximized the initial size of the tax cuts by having them expire at the same time as the first tax cuts, in 2011.  DO YOU SEE Mr. Butterfield why we blame Dubya?  Do you?  And now your beloved Repub Congress is at it again.  Shame on you folks.

You seem to think now that Republicans have given in on taxes, Democrats will do their part in spending cuts. Wrong-O.

The president wanted $1.4 trillion in tax hikes and spending cuts. If you did much reading, you would have found out that he planned $1.6 trillion in spending increases. Most people don’t understand, but those numbers were for 10 years. That’s 140 billion per year. That is nothing, considering he is spending a trillion per year more than he is taking in.

We can’t keep spending like this. The budget has to be cut by a trillion per year. If he was going to do it, why didn’t he do it in the last four years?

Democrats screamed bloody murder when the Republicans wanted to cut $86 billion, when they should have cut $860 billion.

Hopes for spending cuts are admirable but badly misplaced. Mark my words, it’s not going to happen. Democrats will not cut spending. It’s not in their DNA. They’ll continue to blame Republicans, saying they want to starve the old and poor. What mainstream America doesn’t seem to want to understand is that Obamacare will strip $771 billion from Medicare. That’s what will hurt the old and poor, not Republicans.  Not so.  Obama saved $771 Billion for Medicare by cutting payments to hospitals and doctors because the Affordable Healthcare Act would bring increased revenue to both hospitals and doctors by having more patients participating in the healthcare process...because they were now insured and could actually go to a hospital or doctor and not have to stiff the payments cause they couldn't afford them.  This will actually be good for the economy and actually bring down medical costs to everyone.  Course, the Repubs would have you think that this 'Obamacare' business will bankrupt the entire country.  Let me show you why Repubs are not to be trusted: [see below in purple]
 

If Democrats did what was good for the American people and stop blaming Republicans, we wouldn’t be in this mess. The House can’t stand up against the president and Senate.  You are right Wayne, we should stop blaming you people, but let's face it, you people ARE THE PROBLEM.  We Americans stood by and watched your Republican congress filibuster for an entire 4-year period swearing that you were gonna make Obama a 1-term president.  That didn't work.  WE, the people of the United States of America, decided you were cowards and bullies and we voted in Mr. Obama for another 4-year term just to spit in your do-nothing faces.  While Obama was trying to do some good for this country y'all sat on your lard-butts and simply stared at him.  Well, now the table is turned.  The whole country is staring at you Repubs, Mr. Butterfield and you folks had better shape the hell up.

   Wayne Butterfield, Nampa

Ah Mr. Butterfield, you, of course, are saying the sky is falling, the sky is falling, right?  You and the rest of the Republican doomsayers are absolutely wrong and if you have your way, we'll dive right back into a bigger recession and maybe a full-blown depression.

I like what Paul Krugman [2008 Nobel Prize winner for Economics] says:  "And you should recognize all the hyped-up talk about the deficit for what it is: yet another disingenuous attempt to scare and bully the body politic into abandoning programs that shield both poor and middle-class Americans from harm."

Everytime Republicans open their mouths they yell WE GOTTA CUT SPENDING, WE GOTTA CUT THE DEFICIT.  Yet, they are the party that has caused this problem in the first place.  Course we aren't supposed to say the Name Dubya anymore because Obama's been in office for what...um...4-years and a month?  Do you people realize that this problem has been going on since the 80's and even before?  We began borrowing money during the Civil War forgodsake.  We continue to borrow everytime we go to war and continue to borrow while we are fighting the war.

Let's examine the largest spending program in the world: Military.  We don't have a 'Spending Problem we have a Military Spending Problem.' [ Ezra Klein on January 7, 2013]

"As a broad point, I don’t think this proves that we have a spending problem rather than a taxing problem. It shows we have deficits driven by a range of factors, including tax cuts, war spending, the recessions, Medicare Part D, the stimulus, and more. It implies the solution should include measures to boost taxes, cut spending, and increase growth,. But if you want to argue that our current deficits are the result of overspending, then the military budget and the wars need to be the center of your analysis. Yet the Republican budget doesn’t envision big defense cuts and the 2012 Republican nominee for president sought large increases in defense spending."  [ Ezra Klein on January 7, 2013]

Since the Iraq and Afghanistan wars, the defense spending has gone from $530 billion dollars [that's 1/2 trillion dollars folks] to $750 billion dollars [3/4 trillion dollars] and the Afghan war is still going on.

Here's why the Repubs are not to be trusted ...

As Republicans, we seek a world of liberty; a world in which all individuals are sovereign over their own lives and are never deprived of property or forced to sacrifice one’s values for the benefit of others. We believe that respect for individual rights is the essential precondition for a free and prosperous world, and that only through freedom can peace and prosperity be realized. Consequently, we defend each person’s right to engage in any activity that is peaceful and honest, and welcome the diversity that freedom brings. We defend the right of each individual to be free and to follow their own dreams in their own ways, unless the exercise of their freedoms infringes upon the valid rights of others.

In the following pages we have set forth our basic principles and enumerated various policies derived from those principles. Let it be clear that these specific policies are not our end goal. Our goal is nothing more nor less than a world set free, and it is to this end that we stand together. (emphasis mine. They sure do love that word “free.” Too bad they don’t know what it means) Reading this, one would think we live in a dictatorship. We have more freedom now than we did when the country was founded but Tea baggers still think we should turn back the clock. How profoundly ignorant.

A Right to Life

1.1 We believe in the sacred gift of life from conception to natural death. On day one a baby’s genetic code and DNA are formed. That is the beginning of life. We affirm that the unborn child is a living human being, with rights separate from those of its mother regardless of gestational age or dependency. So every miscarriage is a potential homicide? How do you plan on prosecuting that? Will you issuing death certificates?
1.2 We oppose infanticide, euthanasia, and assisted suicide. No assisted suicide? What happened to “We defend the right of each individual to be free and to follow their own dreams in their own ways?” I should die in agony from cancer because it makes YOU squeamish?
1.6 We oppose the use of public revenues for abortion, and call for elimination of government funding for all organizations, such as Planned Parenthood, which advocate or support abortion.  But we sure don’t mind using public revenue to blow up children in other countries! We’re pro-life!

Agriculture

1.3 We oppose any laws prohibiting and/or restricting Iowans from selling farm products directly from the farm to the consumer. But will you force the farms to follow guidelines for safety? No. Will you then hold farms accountable for outbreaks of E. Coli and the like? No. That would be punishing success or some such stupidity.
1.7 We oppose proposed Department of Labor regulations on the work of children on their own family’s farms. The Federal Government should not regulate young people working in agriculture through new labor laws, or revisions or new interpretations of existing ones. Because child labor is always in the best interest of a society. Work’em hard and long when they’re young and they’ll be too uneducated to question when they’re adults.
1.8 We oppose regulations that would require a state-certified electrician to perform all electrical work on a farm. Better to risk fire and death to save a few bucks on a “discount job.” Slumlords think this way.

Budgeting

1.14 We strongly oppose government monies being given to private organizations such as Planned Parenthood, AARP, ACORN, ACLU, and other groups which lobby for policies contrary to the views expressed in this platform. But funding for groups that support said views is fine? Amazing the level of hypocrisy is – Liberal Yoda. Oh, and by the way? 
1.16 We oppose federal funding for all media outlets. Because NPR tells too much of the truth and Sesame Street doesn’t spread conservative dogma.

Business

1.7 We support a landlord’s right to refuse to lease property and a business owner’s right to refuse service based on moral grounds. So discrimination against, gays, minorities or whatever else I was raised to hate is just fine because it’s my “moral position?” Let freedom ring!
1.8 We demand the elimination of the Federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration (OSHA) and the return of safety inspections and regulations to the IOSHA. That would be awesome! After corporations infiltrate and weaken IOSHA, we can get back to the freedom of dead or maimed workers! Safety drains the bottom line, after all.
Are you getting the basic gist of it? Remember, this is their CHOSEN platform. Here’s a little more:

Environment

1.2 We believe that claims of human-caused global warming are based on fraudulent, inaccurate information and that legislation and policy based on this information is detrimental to the wellbeing of the United States. We deplore extremist scare tactics not based on scientific evidence. We recognize it as a plan to take our freedoms and liberties away from the people through legislation. I was not aware the Iowa GOP was filled with scientists. Oh wait, they just watch Fox News so they’re experts in denial.
1.3 We call for closing government branches, offices, and agencies that strip us of economic prosperity in the name of saving the environment. We should eliminate policies and rules related to this. Yes, let us pollute the air we breath and the water we drink. What could possibly go wrong?
1.6 We strongly oppose the diabolical collusion of the United Nations in establishing the unconstitutional “sustainable development agenda 21” in our local communities, our state and our nation. Oh noes! The diabolical UN is gonna make us slaves or something. We don’t really know what Agenda 21 is but it sounds scary and we were told to be afraid of furrners.
1.7 We support Iowa Laws to ensure clean air, clean water, and safe management of wastes. However such laws and rules should be based on unbiased scientific research, risk analysis, economic impact, and common sense. Such research to be conducted by corporations, of course. We can’t trust a government scientist.

Family Values (See if you can spot the pattern)

1.1 We believe that the traditional family is the building block to a moral, healthy, and thriving society. No fags getting married.
1.9 We favor improving, strengthening, and simplifying the adoption process. But no fags.
1.10 We oppose adoption by homosexual individuals and couples. See? No fags.
1.12 We support non-familial adoption by heterosexual married couples consisting of one man and one woman, and believe that no law should infringe on faith-based adoptive service agencies that offer their services in accordance with their beliefs.  No fags. 

Foreign Policy

No Agenda 21…bla bla bla…no foreign aid…bla bla bla…no World Government…bla bla bla…Kyoto Protocols are evil..bla bla bla…No United Nations…bla bla bla…No mythical North American Union and No adoption of the Amero as currency…bla bla bla…Not a single word about not invading other countries under false pretenses or bringing our troops home.

Government: General

1.1 We believe the language in the United States Constitution and Declaration of Independence is as relevant today as when it was penned. Any attempts to revise or deviate from the original intent of said documents must be vigorously opposed. Yes, the Forefathers were prepared for the internet, in vitro fertilization, stem cell research, cloning, space travel and a population of over 310 MILLION people from all over the world. By way of comparison, the first census recorded roughly 2.5 million people in 1777. By way of further comparison, Brooklyn, New York ALONE has that many people. Sure, the Constitution is totally up to date as it was originally written.
1.11 We support the public display of the Ten Commandments. I think that pretty much sums up the conservative “understanding” of government.
1.14 We call for a full investigation of the organization formerly known as ACORN and its
allied organizations, call for full prosecution of those involved in any illegalities
discovered, and call for elimination of government funding of such organizations. You mean the same ACORN that was shut down because of known hoax? The same one that no longer receives any funding because, again IT’S ALREADY BEEN DISBANDED? Is this a form of Tourette’s? Are we going to have to listen to you imbeciles trembling in fear of the awesome power of ACORN, the evil shadow organization that “stole” the 2008 election for another four years?

Government: Legislative Branch

1.2 Any federal or state legislator who proposes a new law or agency must stipulate at the beginning of the bill the exact section of the state or federal constitution under which the bill is proposed. Where do you suppose NASA fits in? Did Thomas Jefferson slip in a bit about “Space: The final frontier?”

Government: Executive Branch

1.3 We oppose the unconstitutional appointment and power of “Czars”. And what power would that be, precisely? The power to advise? Perhaps you can find the official job title that lists them as “Czars?” Or maybe, just maybe, you’re too fucking stupid to know that “Czar” is a nickname invented by the press so they would have to continually repeat “Adviser to the President for Public Health Emergency Preparedness” (AKA Bird Flu Czar) which gets really tedious. I almost can’t wait for a Republican president to get into office so I watch the backpedaling of the entire right over this childish non-issue.
1.5 We support the elimination of the departments of Agriculture, Education, Homeland Security, Housing and Urban Development, Health and Human Services, Energy, Interior, Labor, and Commerce as well as TSA, FDA, ATF, EPA, National Endowment for the Arts, Fannie Mae, and Freddie Mac. Because all these things can take care of themselves! McDonald’s would NEVER sell glasses to children with toxic metals in it! Who needs regulations?! Look at how good Somalia does with it!

Gun Rights

1.5 We call on the Iowa legislature to pass a “stand your ground” law similar to that in several other states. Because a life is definitely less important than “feeling manly.”
1.6 We believe that the term “assault weapon” should not be used as a term applicable to a semiautomatic weapon. Because semiautomatic weapons are great for hunting home defense skeet shooting killing people.
1.7 We call for the repeal of the law denying a citizen’s right to bear arms based on a single conviction for simple misdemeanor domestic assault. Because nothing says “We care about your safety” by letting a known wife-beater have access to a gun after his wife pressed charges.

Health Care (Think they’ll mention Medicare?)

1.1 We oppose nationalized Healthcare and support the repeal of the Affordable Health Care Act (Obamacare). Because we want a return to children without coverage from “pre-existing conditions” and allow insurance companies to take your money for years and then cancel your policy when you get cancer. FREEDOM!!!
1.14 We demand an end to the legal monopoly enjoyed by allopathic medicine and demand a level playing field for every legitimate health-care modality. Holy crap. What does this mean? They want to legalize homeopathy as “medicine.” Maybe we can toss in healing by prayer as well? I’ll stick with actual medical science, thank you very much.
Funny how these hardcore anti-government fanatics can’t bring themselves to condemn Medicare. Hmmmm…..

Homeland Security

1.3 We support behavioral profiling to identify possible terrorists. What you really mean is “profile Muslims.” Just say “Muslims” because we all know for a FACT that whenever the government even GLANCES at the network of potential domestic terrorists known as the militia movement, you squeal about tyranny. Because we all know only brown people can be terrorists.

Human Services

1.5 We believe, with the imminent bankruptcy of Medicare, Medicaid, and Social Security, Republicans should take the lead in replacing these programs, over time, with private solutions. Oh, THERE’S the condemnation of Medicare! And Social Security, too! Of course, “over time” means that the elderly get it now because these programs are just fine for them. Have to be careful not to make the old folks think Republicans are trying to destroy these programs. For the rest of us in our old age? Tough shit.

Marriage

No fags. 

Seriously, that’s pretty much the entire section.

Religious Freedom (Oh this should be good)

1.2 We assert that the public display of the Ten Commandments, nativity scenes, and other displays that honor the civilization that provided the philosophical basis for our cherished liberties, religious tolerance, and efforts to help the poor and oppressed around the world, are not “an establishment of religion,” do not compel or coerce others, and should be protected by the 1st Amendment. Riiiight, that’s why God and Jesus are specifically names in the Constitution and the Declaration of Independence! Wait, they’re not?! Besides, if the Ten Commandments are the foundation of our country, then we should be putting up Jewish imagery. Christians are Johnny-come-latelys. And why no Muslim symbols? They certainly acknowledge the Old Testament as the foundation for Islam, just like Christianity does. No? I’m shocked. Really.

1.3 We oppose further attempts to remove any mention of God from the Pledge of Allegiance, the Declaration of Independence, and other documents; or from our governmental buildings, monuments, or currency. Ah? You found the word “God” in the Declaration? I would LOVE to see that! I would also like to know who is attempting to remove it. Further, if you’re all about “originality” as you claim to be, then surely you know that the word “God” was only added to the Pledge of Allegiance in 1954. Let’s get back to the original text just like you want! No? Again, I’m shocked.
1.4 We advocate freedom of public prayer and religious expression for all.  Except Muslims.
1.9 We believe that Judeo-Christian values and Scripture should not be excluded from government schools.  But ONLY Judeo-Christian. No Muslims.
1.10 We support the free-speech right of students to write and speak about God and religion in government schools. Unless they’re Muslim.

Right to Work

Unions are bad…bla bla bla…Right To Work…bla bla bla…free markets…bla bla bla…Wall Street Reform is bad…bla bla bla…minimum wage is evil…bla bla bla

Taxation

All taxes are bad…bla bla bla…permanent Bush Tax cuts…bla bla bla…but they don’t have to be paid for…bla bla bla…lower corporate tax rates…bla bla bla…end Capital Gains tax…bla bla bla…end the Death Tax…bla bla bla…end the IRS…bla bla bla

 And there you have it: The Iowa GOP platform. Remember it the next time a conservative tells you that Obama is the one pushing social issues as a distraction. No one is forcing the GOP to go insane except for its own members. Maybe it’s time they took a little personal responsibility for how far off the deep end they’ve gone.