The GOP Should Be Very, Very Careful

After all the times the Democrats have loudly proclaimed that the GOP has no ideas on health care reform; now the Great One wants to have a televised meeting with them to discuss their ideas. Well, DUH.

Does anyone else besides me smell a trap here?

First of all, it needs to be explained to Obama and the dynamic duo (Reid and Pelosi) that we don't want their health care reform. We don't want one speck of the massive wolf-in-sheep's clothing bill intended to take over our lives and economy.

The Republican's have had ideas all along. Here is SC Senator Jim DeMint's plan.

Sens. Coburn and Burr and Reps. Ryan and Nunes have a plan.

And here is House GOP leader Boehner’s health care reform page.

I like Michelle Malkin's idea:

"Here’s an idea: Republicans can tell Obama they’ll participate in his health care summit after he provides transcripts of his backroom meetings with Big Labor/SEIU."

I hope the GOP doesn't get taken in by this obvious trickery. If they do, there may be no hope left.

Learn Our History

We all studied American History in school. That was a long time ago for me. Since I have become so interested in politics and what's happening in our country, I decided it was time to refresh my memory. Over the weekend I started reading The Making of America, The Substance and Meaning of the Constitution, by W. Cleon Skousen. I'm almost through Part One: The Making of the Constitution.

I think reading about our early history and the trials and tribulations of the Founding Father's as they worked tirelessly to create a totally new form of government is something all of us should do. As children we studied about our history and tried hard to remember dates and places in order to pass our tests. As an adult who has traveled over all the original 13 colonies, I have a grasp of what I'm reading that is so much more meaningful than it was then. I've been to these towns, I know geographically where they are in relation to where I am.

In my reading I rediscovered how close our nation came to failing while operating under The Articles of Confederation. We owed war debt for the Revolutionary War and due to the lack of power granted to the Federal Government under the Articles of Confederation, were unable to repay that debt. We were borrowing money to pay the interest on money we already owed. Sound familiar?

England and Spain were poised at our borders, waiting for us to fail. Until we reworked our government and the Constitution was put in place our odds of survival as a free nation were slim and none.

Today, after many years of complacency by the people of our nation, that Constitution has been eroded and stands in danger of being destroyed. The Founding Father's were aware that could happen and warned against it.

It is indeed time for us to all take time and read and study the Constitution, and the history of how it came into being. I believe we will all be the better for doing so. We owe it to George Washington and those brave soldiers, who unpaid, starving, and clothed in rags fought for and won our freedom. We owe it to all those since that time who have fought to keep us free. We owe it to ourselves and generations yet unborn.

If we fail now, the result will be the same as it would have been over 200 years ago: the last hope of freedom in the world will have disappeared forever.

The FBI Wants Records Kept of All Web Sites We Visit

Did you know that the FBI is pressing internet providers to keep a log of all, yes, ALL the web sites we visit? Think about it. Their premise is that it is a way for them to catch those creeps who view child porn and commit other serious crimes via the net. The FBI proposes these logs be kept for two years. Joe McCarthy would be so proud, as would Herbert Hoover.

Cnet News Reports that:

FBI Director Robert Mueller supports storing Internet users' "origin and destination information," a bureau attorney said at a federal task force meeting on Thursday.

In my opinion this would be a violation of our fourth and fourteenth amendment rights. Normally I would not think that congress would take such a route, however in the current political climate I'm not so sure.

Under the guise of "protecting" us, they could monitor who was reading what blog, political site, social networking site, where we shopped; the list could go on forever.

And Lord save us if we clicked on one of those bait-and-switch links that took us to a porn site we didn't mean to visit. The cops would be at the door and we would be gone. Or, for us bloggers, if our research led us to a site they thought was subversive; oh well, too bad for us.

I, and many of my readers, visit many web sites, whether "terroristic" or not to gain knowledge of world politics, culture, and religion. Are we to give up our wonderful source of information out of fear we're being watched and judged? If this is made legal, a child doing a report on The Manhattan Project could end up on a watch list for doing his research on the web or on a no-fly list.

To me this is one more example of Big Brother attempting to know everything about us, 100% of the time.

Birthday of Hero's

Today is Ronald Reagan's 99th birthday. Happy Birthday, Mr. President! You will always be one of my hero's.

I'm glad they are having a celebration for President Reagan's birthday today. In my mind he is one of our greatest Presidents. We could really stand to have a few more men like him around today.

Today is also my father's birthday. Daddy was a little bit older than President Reagan and considered Reagan to be a sensible man. Daddy liked President Reagan and supported his programs.

My Daddy would have been 115 years old today. He was a little boy when the papers reported the Wright brothers first manned flight.  He saw his country put men on the moon. He had the first car in his community. He lived through WWI and WWII and the Great Depression.

He raised his children to be honest, hard working citizens. He taught us to take an interest in our country and vote outside party lines if necessary to pick the right person.

Daddy had strong conservative values and was totally against government intrusion into our lives. He foresaw the corruption and slide toward socialism we are fighting so hard against now. He warned his children to watch for the time when our rights were stolen away, a small piece at a time.

Today I raise a birthday toast to two of my heroes, Harvey Gosnell, farmer and textile worker and Ronald Reagan, President of the United States. God bless you both, we miss you.

Global Warming or Washington Cooling?

I couldn't pass up sharing this with you guys, considering the snow occurring in Washington this morning:

Local Candidate for Congress Dr. Dan Eichenbaum

The North Carolina 11^th District Republican Primary is going to be an interesting affair. I plan to ask questions of the candidates and post their answers here. At this point in time, this blog is not endorsing any candidate. I'm looking them over carefully, as we should all do our representatives, no matter where we live.

My first question was to Dr. Dan Eichenbaum regarding his plan to eliminate Social Security. As a person nearing retirement this is a topic I will approach with all local candidates. After several days I received this email from Dr. Eichenbaum, posted in its entirety:

I am concerned that Social Security will be financially unable to meet its future obligations. Like you and I, millions of Americans worked for many years, paying into the Social Security system with the reasonable expectation of receiving the retirement benefits promised by the federal government. Instead of investing this money taken from hard-working Americans, career politicians spent our savings to create and fund entitlement programs whose primary purpose is to buy votes so they can remain in office.

Social Security is a ponzi scheme so massive that it makes Bernie Madoff look like a two-bit con artist. In fact, the Supreme Court ruling that "approved" Social Security is one of Professor Levy's "Dirty Dozen" – the twelve worst Supreme Court decisions in our nation's history. In a constitutional and moral sense, I do not believe money should be taken from one party for the "security" of others. Furthermore, the entire system is on the verge of going bankrupt and must be corrected. It is imperative that we use free market principles, without government intervention, to solve this critical issue.

In my opinion, out of fairness, current Social Security recipients should stay on the program until it sunsets. Workers who have met the 40-quarter work requirement would also remain fully vested. A gradual reduction in benefits would only affect those who were still working toward the 40-quarter goal. Future retirees would be allowed tax free retirement and health savings accounts to take care of their specific health and retirement needs. My best guess is that such a phase-out program would require about 20 years to accomplish, giving all concerned the opportunity to make the changes necessary to plan for retirement. Most importantly, in accordance with the free market principles that I believe in, the entire Social Security program must be administered privately and each account must be owned by the individual retiree.

Dr Dan

To check out the doctor's web site, go here.

12 More Inches of Global Warming

This past weekend my little cottage was blessed with 12 more inches of global warming; as I write, it is being honored with a wintery mix of snow, sleet and freezing rain and the threat looms for another snowstorm in a few days.

I've been told that weather is not the same as climate and that I should not be discounting global warming because of recent weather events. The first time I got this reprimand was when I commented about the huge snowstorm of December 18^th and the arctic cold that linger here for the rest of December. When this snow fell, there were still piles of the December snow to be found around the edges of local parking lots.

Don't get me wrong, we get snow In Western North Carolina every year. Usually 1 to 3 inches at a time that melts within a day or two. This, folks, is not normal!

My understanding of the greenhouse effect is that the earth warms everywhere. Greenhouse gasses warm the planet to the point where it is tropical or subtropical all over. In the middle of this winter, I'm starting to think that wouldn't be such a bad thing.

If the Earth warmed up; people would be displaced; some islands would disappear, etc, etc. You've heard all those dire warnings. Such changes would take place over a long, extended period of time, not overnight. People (and other creatures) would have time to relocate. Of course, with ice melting at the poles, sea levels would rise. My advice, if global warming is indeed happening: don't buy beach front property.

Recent disclosures of faulty information, raw data disappearing, official reports being based on student papers and magazine articles just make this old gal more convinced that global warming is a hoax. It is a manufactured fear. Its goal is to gain control over our lives and pocket books while making a select few richer than scratch.

Mother Earth has been around a lot longer than we have. Like all living organisms, she changes and evolves. Over her life-time she has warmed up and cooled down many times; and will continue to do so. She needs no prompting from Al Gore or faulty science to do so and we are powerless to stop her when she decides to make a change. We humans have to adapt and go with the flow. We've done that for the entirety of our existence on this planet and if we are smart, we will continue to do so.