Whoo Hoo! You heard it here first! Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid has declared that paying taxes in the US is now voluntary! Apparently it has been for some time but I guess I missed the announcement. Don't believe me? Just watch the interview below!
So, my liberal friends... Would you care to debate the merits of Senator Reid's argument? Nah, I didn't think so.
What's odd is that I don't see any evidence of blunt trauma to the head of Harry Reid or a barrel of empty Buds nearby...what else could explain this completely irrational fantasy that Reid seemingly believes that taxes are voluntary? Oh, yes! He's a liberal.
Reid is not just any liberal, he is the King of the Liberals. The proverbial Sugar Plumb Fairy of Liberalville.
In Reid's mind, "A is not A". "A is really B". Hot is cold and cold is hot. The reason that this comical clip is so scary is that Reid appears to genuinely believe that the decision to pay taxes or not pay taxes in the US can be described as "voluntary". But then again, look at how fast and loose the Dems use terms like "investment" and "stimulus" and "working Americans" and...well, you get the idea.
Rational, reasonable people who are guided by the product of their minds and not their feelings (or hopes or wishes or prayers) accept reality for what it is. If I drop a brick, currently suspended two-feet above my bare foot, I will soon feel extreme pain and will likely utter, uncontrollably, words I would not want my mother to hear. Liberals don't think that way. "Why does there have to be any pain in the world? Why don't we have a government program that provides steel-toed boots to all citizens of the world? How can we be so careless and cavalier with bricks when people around the world don't have any bricks?"
So, according to Senator Reid:
Paying taxes in the US is "voluntary" but if you don't do it, you can be imprisoned or fined, but paying taxes is still voluntary.
Paying taxes is "voluntary" because your employer only withholds some of your taxes (and if you don't have enough withheld you must pay a fine, unless you choose not to pay your voluntary taxes and are sent to prison and fined or both, twice.)
Paying taxes is "voluntary" because you can deduct mortgage interest before you pay your voluntary taxes.
Who thinks that the cynicism and treachery that characterized Bolshevik Russia in the late teens and early '20's was any more vile and wicked then that which we are hearing in this piece from the senior Senator from Nevada? Utter contempt for the people he is sworn to serve... Don't pee on my back and tell me it's raining.
So I'm left with the question... do 53% of American voters believe what Harry Reid is saying? Really?
A well regulated Militia, being necessary to the security of a free State, the right of the people to keep and bear Arms, shall not be infringed. --- 2nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America
It’s funny but I didn’t see any of the news outlets carry the story this month that Democrat Bobby Rush of Illinois submitted House Resolution 45 (H.R.) entitled “Blair Holt’s Firearm Licensing and Record Sale Act of 2009” on 1/6/09 - a bill which would effectively gut the 2nd Amendment. This bill was assigned to the House Committee on the Judiciary.
We in New Hampshire have no requirement to obtain a license prior to purchasing a firearm, consistent with the spirit of the 2nd Amendment. Several weeks ago, I went to a gun show in Manchester, found the Berretta M9A1 9mm handgun I was looking for, paid the seller, and went home with the gun. As it should be.
Not so if H.R. 45 becomes law. Specifically, this law states:
“It shall be unlawful for any person other than a licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, licensed dealer, or licensed collector to possess a qualifying firearm on or after the applicable date, unless that person has been issued a firearm license.”
Yup. A national firearm license… approved by the US Attorney General. (No wonder the line at the Gun Show in Manchester in January was soooo long). But, getting a license should be every bit as easy as any process that involves the Federal Government. Specifically, this bill requires that the applicant provide:
(1) a current, passport-sized photograph of the applicant that provides a clear, accurate likeness of the applicant;
(2) the name, address, and date and place of birth of the applicant;
(3) any other name that the applicant has ever used or by which the applicant has ever been known;
(4) a clear thumb print of the applicant, which shall be made when, and in the presence of the entity to whom, the application is submitted;
(5) with respect to each category of person prohibited by Federal law, or by the law of the State of residence of the applicant, from obtaining a firearm, a statement that the individual is not a person prohibited from obtaining a firearm;
(6) a certification by the applicant that the applicant will keep any firearm owned by the applicant safely stored and out of the possession of persons who have not attained 18 years of age;
(7) a certificate attesting to the completion at the time of application of a written firearms examination, which shall test the knowledge and ability of the applicant regarding--
(8) an authorization by the applicant to release to the Attorney General or an authorized representative of the Attorney General any mental health records pertaining to the applicant;
(9) the date on which the application was submitted; and
(10) the signature of the applicant.
By the way, if you actually do get a license, it’s only good for 5 years.
Now, let’s move to the penalty round. Sooo, what happens if the police break into your home (based on the probable cause that you possess firearms and that you do not possess a license)?
“Whoever knowingly violates f section 922 shall be fined under this title, imprisoned not more than 2 years, or both.”
OK, so let’s put this in perspective. The same federal government that claims it cannot possibly manage the round-up and manage the deportation of some small portion of illegal aliens is now signing-up to provide licenses to every gun-owner in America? Does anyone believe that the implementation of this new gun licensing law is bureaucratically possible without a massive growth in government? Nah, I didn’t think so either.
If we allow this Bill to become law, we will have provided our consent to the government to have a master list of those Americans who may be armed. This violates the spirit and letter of the 2nd Amendment on its face.
If we allow this Bill to become law, we will have provided our consent to a labyrinth-like series of false obstacles designed specifically to dissuade an American from exercising his 2nd Amendment rights. The Democrats will require us to provide a fingerprint to exercise our 2nd Amendment rights, but if we ask that someone provide an ID before voting that is racism. The hypocrisy among the Democrats is shameless.
Since when do I need a license to exercise a right defined in the Bill of Rights?
The Wall Street Journal featured a neat little gizmo in its on-line edition today (1/28) that showed the distribution by state of the planned pork in the gazillion dollar "stimulus" package being voted on today.
"Winners" and "Losers" (we're all losers if we allow the Dems to get away with this robbery) by major category (in terms of per capita spending):
Aide to states: Highest Utah ($225.64 per capita) Lowest Florida ($193.51 per capita)
School and College Modernization: Highest DC ($118.49 per capita) Lowest Nevada ($43.59) per capita
Job Training: Highest Michigan ($20.07 per capita) Lowest Virginia ($5.06 per capita)
Transportation / Infrastructure: Highest DC ($634.88 per capita) Lowest N. Carolina ($108.02 per capita)
Other tidbits from this data...
$15.2 Billion to California; $10.1 Billion to Texas; 0.5 Billion to New Hampshire; $6.6 Billion to Florida...
Also, if your stomach isn't already turning, read the Wall Street Journal's Review & Outlook piece this morning about what is contained, in what it described as "A 40-Year Wish List"
...as President Obama encourages states to create more stringent emission standards, in order to pander to the radical environmentalists, the leadership of Ford, GM, Chrysler, Toyota, Mercedez, BMW and Nissan issue the following joint statement:
"While we respect the wishes of our California customers, with regard to more stringent emission standards, in light of the current financial problems of the domestic auto industry, we have determined that the incremental cost to the industry to comply with this new directive will prove fatal to the domestic auto industry. Given that the success of the domestic auto industry has been deemed critical to our national government as evidenced by the recent bailout grants and loans, we shall no longer provide automobiles for sale in California, so long as it chooses to demand an emissions standard that will jeopardize the viability of the auto industry. While we regret the inconvenience that this measure will have on Californians, we have determined this course of action to be in the best interest of the auto industry."
...we see a statement from Detroit auto executives:
"We can no longer deny the contradiction in the demands that have been coming out of Washington for years with regard to emissions requirements, gas mileage, safety standards, labor costs, material requirements and a long list of other stipulations on how we manufacture automobiles. We are now being told the kinds of cars we have to build - cars that our marketing experience has proven will sell poorly and at low margins. Complying with the directives from Washington has resulted in the self-immolation of our once successful industry, the only difference, now, being the pernicious intrusion of directives written by nitwits who know nothing about building and selling cars. As such, until such time as CAFE standards are suspended until at least 2015, Detroit shall terminate production of all automobiles."
Imagine...
...if President Obama came to the microphone and read the following speech...
"I have met with leaders of both parties, listened to their arguments and have concluded the following: There is sufficient uncertainty regarding the plan to 'spend our way into prosperity' as proposed by my fellow Democrats as to warrant caution and a full, dispassionate review, even if such a review takes several more weeks, before wasting over a trillion dollars. There is no evidence recorded in the history of man when a person, group or government has ever spent its way into prosperity. A rational review of the causes that have gotten us, collectively, into this mess, reveal that any solution or solutions implemented by our government must address increasing production and not consumption. Any rational, honest person knows that wealth can only be produced - it can't be created by spending."
"Given the risk of corruption, in the allocation of hundreds of billions of current and future Americans' hard-earned money by the Federal Government, I have been convinced by a dispassionate and fair review of the data, that the best opportunity for reviving the economy is to give back to Americans that which they have earned and to which they have the only moral claim. I will honor the request that is on the lips of many Americans regarding the role of government, 'Get the hell out of my way.'" The Obama Stimulus package will consist of permanent tax breaks for individuals and businesses.
"To my fellow Americans who expected a Democrat president to confiscate wealth produced by your hard-working neighbors and provide it to you simply because you create the false claim that you 'need' it, I say, 'Get up, get out and get to work.' America has so much work to do, and no one will have a right to lay-claim to unearned wealth extorted at the point of a gun from his neighbors. Start earning your keep."
The AP reported today that former President Bill Clintonearned nearly $6 million in speaking fees last year, almost all of it from foreign companies, according to financial documents filed by his wife, Secretary of StateHillary Rodham Clinton. So, tell me again, Secretary Clinton why there is no potential conflict of interest. Exactly how much does Bill need to earn from foreign companies and governments before there is a conflict of interest? --------------------------------------- Kudos to Rep. Mike Pence (R - Indiana, 6th District) for calling the House Democrats (the Pelosi rouge) in today's meeting with President Obama for their attempt to appear to be engaging Republicans in honest, bi-partisan discussions regarding the proper path for the government to take vis a vis the economic mess, when in fact the Pelosi-nistas are ram-rodding through the same old, worn-out, liberal agenda. Rep Pence, in a statement released on his website, asked:
“What does $50 million for the National Endowment for the Arts, $200 million to plant sod on the National Mall, $400 million for climate change research, and $200 million for contraception have to do with creating jobs?"
The Democrat bill won't stimulate anything but more government and more debt. The slow and wasteful spending in the House Democrat bill is a disservice to millions of Americans who want to see this Congress take immediate action to get this economy moving again.
“House Republicans have a better solution. By enacting the Republican plan for fast-acting tax relief for working families and small businesses the American people will see immediate results that will put our nation on the road to recovery.” House Republicans would do well to close-ranks tonight and vow to vote down any such pork fest and force Democrats to take responsibility for, this socialist country-killing bill, that Michelle Malkin has appropriately called The Generational Theft Act of 2009. Remember, the socialists in public now have no interest in controlling the means of production. Instead they look to control the fruits of production. Power is consolidated by taking from producers who are shamed into giving-up that which they have fairly earned and giving it to those non-producers whose votes can be bought.
Mike Pence is one of our country's leaders willing to stand in the face of the Liberal Storm, protected only by the strength of his convictions. Notice when Congressman Pence speaks and then watch, say, Harry Reid or Nancy Pelosi and compare their composure and confidence. Congressman Pence shows no guilt, no pain, no remorse and no doubt. While each of us is entitled to his / her own opinion, we are not entitled to our own facts. A is A. A is not not-A. Saying that extorting hundreds of millions of our money to fund pet liberal projects will stimulate jobs will not make it so, no matter how urgently liberals want to believe it will. No matter how much they want to believe that A is not-A, liberals will never look you in the eye and say it is so. Mike Pence has no such worries. He is right and knows it. As Americans we owe it to House Republicans to fight the monster that is growing in Washington... ----------------------------------------------------------
Speaker Nancy Pelosi, explained on Sunday (1/25) how funding hundreds of millions of dollars for family planning (aka abortion planning and execution and condom hand-outs) is, not only a proper role for government but, a compelling and urgent part of the stimulus package. To suggest that Madam Speaker, behind only the Vice President in the succession to the presidency (scared yet?), was disingenuous or somehow uniformed about this incredibly offensive and inappropriate step (each of us will have another buck taken out of our wallets to pay for this)is giving her a free pass, one she has not earned. Click on the You Tube below and listen to the sound of evil.
Some priceless Pelosinomics:
Well, the family-planning services reduce cost. They reduce cost. The states are in terrible fiscal budget crises now, and part of what we do for children’s health, education and some of those elements are to help the states meet their financial needs. One of those—one of the initiatives you mentioned, the contraception, will reduce costs to the states and to the federal government.
We have to deal with the consequences of the downturn in our economy. Food stamps, unemployment insurance, some of the initiatives you just mentioned. What the economists have told us from right to left: There is more bang for the buck, a term they use, by investing in food stamps and in unemployment insurance than in any tax cut.
Check-out the outrage across our country with the links below. I plan on asking my Congressman if he agrees with Speaker Pelosi's priorities.
Also, given the urgency with which Madam Speaker has said we need to address that portion of the economic crisis that finds itself in not having enough condoms to hand out, I intend, and I invite all patrons of Hugh Aktson's Diner to send Madam Speaker a condom in the mail. Perhaps an outpouring of support will provide the prophylactic timulus our economy needs. Madam's address is:
Office of the Speaker H-232, US Capitol Washington, DC 20515
If, instead you would like to send Madam Pelosi an email detailing your outrage at her purposeful wasting of taxpayer money by using the immediate crisis as an excuse to advance her far-Left agenda, then click here. No free passes. Hold her accountable.
Looking for some inspiration in these dire times, I read and listened to that wonderfully uplifting speech given on January 20th. Oh..not Jan 20, 2009 but Jan 20, 1981 by the newly sworn-in president Ronald Reagan. I encourage you to read and listen to these powerful words....if ever there were a cause and vision around which Americans could rally in these difficult times it could be found in President Reagan's 1981 Inaugural speech. Enjoy the words, the feeling and then go out and realize the vision, first within yourselves, then in others.
As the wheels of the economy were coming off the tracks in Ayn Rand’s chillingly prescient novel Atlas Shrugged, one of the desperate, discredited, feeble central planners states to his cohorts, “You boys have no excuse for permitting all of that need and misery to spread through this country – so long as there are people who aren’t broke.”
As startling, though perhaps unexpected, as Obama’s first week's of Presidential Directives were, they are merely an overture to the greater pageant that is unfolding before our eyes. President Clinton, in his first term, had Gingrich and a united Republican House to check his leftist agenda. President Obama has no such counter-balancing force with which to limit the reach of his leftist agenda – an agenda that will fulfill his promise of change…but a change that few understood.
In a recent piece, entitled A Tyrant's 'Liberation', published in the 1/26/09 edition of the National Review, Otto Reich recalls his memories from another place in time, when the population unhesitatingly heralded the overthrow of an unbearable tyrant and the coming of their savior. All of their problems were behind them. Freedom and equality were finally within their reach. The long awaited liberator - a messiah, perhaps - was delivered. That place was Havana, Cuba on January 1, 1959 and the savior was Fidel Castro.
Fifty years later and after the total and undeniable emasculation of what was once a thriving economy and a vibrant people in Cuba, there are still apologists, if not out-right admirers of the Castro regime. Fifty years of denying reality. Fifty years of believing (of feeling) that, as Rand would say, "A is not A". Fifty years of living with the contradiction between the world that is and the world as these apologists would have it.
Fast forward fifty years. The parades celebrating Obama this week are no shorter than the ones that welcomed Castro fifty years ago. The mindless, desperate unthinking hope of the Cubans fifty years ago is no less than that displayed by hundreds of thousands of sobbing Americans who filled the Mall this week. The firing-squads that Castro used fifty years ago will be replaced by Obama with means more "politically correct" yet comparably effective to silence dissent and to consolidate power. An "unprecedented" time? No, the times are quite well precedented and are in plain view to all who would see them.
So, the Obama Clan (OC) is pushing forward a trillion dollar "stimulus" package, one that no honest, informed person can possibly think will stimulate anything but the rapidly-advancing left-wing power grab. If, the middle class, whom tax cheat Charley Rangel told Robert Reich, former Clinton Labor Secretary and current Obama economic advisor, at the 1/21/09 House W&M hearing, "And one thing you can depend on, you don't have to worry what the middle class will do. Things are so bad. They have to put food on their tables, get clothes on their kids, get them in school." Words uttered not in a smoke-filled back room somewhere - but in full committee, on C-Span. In August 2007, the nation shuttered at the thought of injecting $3 billion into the economy to ease a potential credit crunch. 18 months later, it is $1 trillion and Charley Rangel is saying not to worry...that the middle class is too busy trying to work hard supporting this corrupt government to know it is being further enslaved.
So, it is almost a fait accompli that within a month, in a fabulous signing ceremony (where the choicest interviews and photo ops will be provided to the media who pay more to play), we will witness the spark of the match which will result in our immolation. This stimulus bill will be worse than useless for it will empower the enemies of America. In fact, for its true, primary purposes the "stimulus bill" will be incredibly effective. With the stroke of a pen:
1. Money will flow from those who produce (and will produce in the future from generations to come) to the worst of the worst "shovel ready" programs. Rangel and former Labor Secretary and socialist Robert Reich, in their conspiracy caught on tape for all to see, want a federally mandated formula and criteria to "expedite" tax payer money to land not where it can be most productive, but where it can be least productive.
2. The money is not being spent to pander to current and future voters in the interest of improving their plight. Quite the contrary. The purpose of this "stimulus" package is to make the appearance of stimulating the economy while ensuring that every penny spent is wasted. The OC have no interest in remedying the emergency they have declared. For if the emergency passes, then what would justify their need for emergency measures? The sinister beauty of what we are watching unfold before us dwarfs the horror described by Rand in Atlas Shrugged.
Fast forward one year. As we slip deeper and deeper into recession, where the "light at the end of the tunnel" draws dimmer and dimmer, we will be reminded in the news that this is all the fault of George W. Bush and that President Obama is working feverishly for all of us and that while the initial $1 trillion stimulus doesn't appear to have done the trick, the problems inherited from the Bush administration were much worse than was admitted. But if we all work together we can get through this....but we need another infusion of cash.
So, where will the next "stimulus package" come from? The one that will be pushed in September 2009? It will come from your 401K. Yup. Your 401K. You know, for years, when you've been setting aside money instead of spending it now? That money.
In October 2008, Democrat-led sub-committee hearings were held to review a plan hawked by Teresa Ghilarducci, a professor at the New School of Social Research. In essence, the plan would empower the government to seize the assets in our 401Ks, provide some pedestrian income on these stolen assets and do so under the name of "Guaranteed Retirement Accounts".
Too audacious? Really? Do you think there are any bounds or moral limits to what the OC will try to do to bleed America? When candidate Biden was called by a courageous journalist who accused Biden and Obama of promoting socialism (from each according to his ability to each according to his needs) the left was ready in deflecting that parry. In essence, Biden stated "we're not trying to control the means of production." True statement. But as Milton Friedman cited in Free to Choose, "W. Allen Wallis put it in a somewhat different context, socialism, 'intellectually bankrupt after more than a century of seeing one after another of its arguments for socializing the means of production demolished - now seeks to socialize the results of production."
Charley Rangle doesn't worry about any resistance from the producers of this country because we're too busy trying to get by. But so long as there are men and women among whose who "aren't broke" the OC will take steps every day - each step more audacious and pernicious than the last - to bleed the life out of each of us and give our blood to the leeches who posses the one thing the OC needs... a vote.
Posts
