Mark Twain's Letters from Hawaii by Mark Twain
His Excellency: George Washington by Joseph J. EllisI was alarmed at reading about the bus tour of AIG employee homes that took place on Saturday. While it is certainly upsetting when so many are in financial trouble to hear about people receiving these large bonuses, it disturbs me though that they are being treated the way we saw on Saturday. The employees had contracts with AIG that promised them these bonuses, is this really any different than the many union employees working for our state and local governments that are receiving raises this year when many of the taxpayers are struggling with unemployment and/or drastically reduced retirement portfolios? Or is it any worse than our Congress who just got automatic raises in their salaries?
What really disturbs me is some of the comments by the people on the bus tour. It is clear that what we are seeing and not just in this case but many others, is class envey. Was this bus tour the beginings of something more, it was clearly meant to intimidate the AIG folks who received the bonuses. Isn't initmadation a form of warfar? If so are we seeing the beginings of class warfare?
To me this is a big fear. We are rapidly approaching the econimic situation of the Great Depression. Only the United States is a considerably different place now. We have a great many people who have an entitlement mentality as compared to the time of the Great Depression where people were highly independent and many were too proud to except any kind of welfare. Now we have just the opposite mentality, with large numbers of people dependent on the government. What happens when government does not help these people out, who are they going to go after? I fear that they are going to go after the rich, we are already seeing this with more and more proposal to "tax the rich". The problem is that the rich are already supporting the lower 40% who don't pay taxes. The question is, is this going to lead to real class warfare, where people who are rich (whatever that is) are going to have to fear for there lives and property? The AIG folks are already being warned to not wear there ID's in public, and may have had to hire private sercurity gaurds. Where does this end?
I had been alarmed and dismayed at how fast our Congress passed the stimulus bill back in Feb of this year. They rushed this mammoth bill to a vote despite many legislators saying they hadn't had time to read it. They had also promised that the bill would be available on a web site for public review for at least 5 days before the vote. But for some reason Congress rushed it to a vote but ironically President Obama then went away for a long Valentine's Day weekend and didn't sign the bill for several days. Knowing this why did Congress rush the vote.
Now we find out that the very same people who rushed this bill to a vote are surprised and shocked that it allowed a group of AIG executives to receive 100 plus millions in bonus payments. Let us and them not forget that every single Democrat in the House that voted for the bill voted to approve and protect those AIG bonuses, as did everyone in the Senate that voted for that bill and the President when he signed it into law. Now all or a sudden they are against those very same bonuses that they signed into law. In my opinion to make matters even worse they want to, and the House did, pass an unconstitutional bill and illegal bill to tax those bonus retroactively.
Maybe if someone had paid attention to what was being passed we would not be here. Or was this intentionally snuck into the bill because they knew it wouldn't pass if this provision was known. And those of us in Connecticut let's not forget Senator Dodd's involvement in this mess and his initial lie about his involvement and then his somewhat truthful answer that he did know about it but it was someone else that made him change it.
This is the problem with rushing a large, complex piece of legislation through Congress. I hope the Congress and the President learn a lesson from this, but I doubt it.
Watch on Breitbart TV what Rep. Thaddeus McCotter had to say about the bonuses and pay special attention to the disgust in his voice as he yeilds the floor.
The mainstream media was constantly calling our attention to President Bush's gaffes, I wonder how much attention the press will give to President Obama's latist miscue and what the blogosphere's outrage will be. This gaffe and the one's in the attached link come from what we are told is the smartest man on the earth and the greatest man every to occupy the White House. And while I am talking about the great orator President Obama, why is it he can't say two words without a teleprompter and when he is using the teleprompter he NEVER takes his eyes off of them? Please read the following article from the Telegraph.co.uk http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/toby_harnden/blog/2009/03/20/top_10_gaffes_by_barack_obama_and_joe_biden_ And remember these are the men that we elected to lead us and to fix the economy. It is really sad!
I was rather surprised when I saw President Obama on the news last night with his picks for the NCAA basketball tounament. Our economy is a mess, and with revelations that the Obama administration may have been the ones responsible for putting an amendment in legislation that exempted the bonus payments to the AIG employes, he can find time to go on TV and talk about his picks. Where is his priorities???
I think this article is very interesting, It says a lot about what is going on in Washington.
The Associate by John Grisham
A Slobbering Love Affair: The True (And Pathetic) Story of the Torrid Romance Between Barack Obama and the Mainstream Media by Bernard Goldberg
Line of Fire by W.E.B. GriffinPolitico is caring a story that top Democrats are targeting Rush Limbaugh as the new GOP bogeyman. According to the story several Democrat strategists have realized what a polarizing figure Limbaugh was and came up with plans to take advantage of this. Whether you agree with Mr. Limbaugh or not, the real question is should the administration be targeting a private citizen for it's attacks. What has happened to "Freedom of Speech"? Mr Limbaugh has the right to say what he thinks. Is this any different the many Hollywood celebrities who criticized President Bush. The answer is no! It seems to me that the liberals have two sets of standards, if the criticism is of a Republican it is OK, but if the criticism is of a liberal it is not. The full story can be read at http://www.politico.com/news/stories/0309/19596.html
A couple of days ago in response to criticism from CNBC's Jim Cramer President Obama said something along the lines of following the stock market go up and down is like following a tracking poll. Well Mr. President I beg to disagree, when the stock market goes down people loss money. The only similarity to a tracking poll is that the stock market is an indication of your failed economic policies.
