bman

So I'm catching up on the news over the past few days. Suddenly I see a clip of Bill Clinton at the podium addressing the Media. I figured this was merely footage from his administration of years gone by. I then realize he's discussing current events. WHAT THE HELL?! Pinch me. Is Bill back? Could it be true? Am I dreaming? Are we really this lucky as a Nation? Nope. Darn. Turns out Obama brought Clinton in to help rally his base around this change to our current tax rates. What really caught my interest is that the scrolling text at the bottom described why Clinton was there talking to the press and how he was helping Obama sell this legislation to the base. But where's Obama? He's not even standing next to Clinton. Turns out Obama merely introduced Clinton at the podium and then told everyone that he had to leave because he was keeping Michelle waiting. Waiting? Waiting for what? What's more important than being at the podium with an ex-President like Bill Clinton at a press release when he is there helping YOU sell your ideas? Turns out they were late for a Christmas party according to Press Secretary Gibbs.

After he's done speaking I'm assuming Clinton will bow out and leave. Nope... He starts calling on reporters and taking questions!! Ha! I almost fell off the chair! Clinton then ran the entire press conference, almost another 25 minutes. He was taking all kinds of questions, not just questions on the original topic of extending the current tax rates. LOL

Start watching at 10:45
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Ac9uDLUdSs

Well, well well... it appears that this healthcare plan isn't so good afterall. It appears the Dept of HHS has issued 222 companies and unions waivers. This means their health insurance costs are going to be placed directly on you and I while the companies get a 'pass' on paying.

The full list is here, right from the horse's mouth:
http://www.hhs.gov/ociio/regulations/approved_applications_for_waiver.html

Take a look at some of the companies who were granted waivers... Universal Studios in Florida, a LOT of labor unions, even SEIU!! Good job Congress and Obama.... good job.

The materials are currently housed on over 1500 (published) servers according to a new list of mirrors released this morning. You can bet that there are at least another 10,000 unpublished mirror sites just waiting to be published. As sites are shut down another mirror address will be released in it's place. The majority of the mirror sites are simply using IP addresses and not domain names to prevent any DNS poisonings.

My suggestion to those Governments concerned with the content being released:
(1) Start preparing statements to mitigate your damages.
(2) Quit thinking your documents are secure, they aren't. Never have been, nor will they ever be.
(3) There is no amount of money or legislation to fix this problem, please don't try, we're in enough debt already.
(4) Don't enact stupid legislation on your ISP's and NSP's. We don't want you controlling us or dictating what we do with our networks. You cannot run yourselves therefore we certainly don't want you running us. This problem is YOURS and YOURS alone. You created your own problems by archiving materials that should have never been archived. Don't act surprised, mad, or upset. Don't pound your chests, beat the drums, or shake a stick in the air. You've known for 3 decades that anything kept on magnetic, printed or electronic media could and would most probably be compromised at some point in time. You made your bed, now it's time to lay in it.

Good ole Charlie Rangel of New York. What a piece of work this tool is. He evades millions upon millions of dollars in taxes, he has abused his authority with some rather shady use of fund raising, and of course lied to his constituents time and time again about this whole situation. This guy actually helped write much of the Fed Tax Code over the past decade?

I wonder how the IRS would handle you or I not paying a mere 20,000.00 in taxes? Wesley Snipes goes to jail for 7 years for tax evasion.

Yet Charlie Rangel walks away with nothing more than a stern scolding, a verbal reprimand from House speaker. Unbelievable.

Hey! Is it too late to make a nomination for the dumbass of the year award? I hope not, for I have a good candidate right here.

Postal Carrier Seen Throwing Away Mail
Monday, November 15, 2010 11:00 PM
Updated: Monday, November 15, 2010 11:59 PM
WBNS-10TV

COLUMBUS, Ohio — Federal authorities are conducting an investigation after 10 Investigates captured video of a postal carrier throwing away mail in a Dumpster. The video showed the postal worker looking around, before he slid the Dumpster door shut, returned to his postal van and drove off. The Dumpster is located just a few feet from 10TV by the main post office, located on Twin Rivers Drive.

Just minutes after the Dumpster delivery, 10 Investigates sifted through the garbage and found dozens of pieces of undelivered mail, including what looked like a credit card application, a billing statement, sex offender notifications and what appeared to be a check intended for Tamieko Moss.

"I'm very happy 10 Investigates brought this to my attention," Moss said. Stephanie Merckling was stunned when 10 Investigates told her that we found her mail. "My jaw dropped open," Merckling said. "I (said), 'Great, what else does he have of mine?'" 10 Investigates also tracked down Karen Funksellers and showed her the mail that had her name on it.

"I am a little shocked," Funksellers said. "I didn't even know I was getting mail from these people. A lot of it I tear up and throw away, but that's my choice. Not (the letter carrier's)." 10TV News did not name the letter carrier.

After 10 Investigates contacted the United States Postal Service, it immediately sent over undercover special agents, demanded the mail we found and reviewed our video. The next day, the USPS sent us a statement that said, "Special agents... are investigating the incident you brought to our attention...the public should know of incidents of this nature are rare... (We) aggressively pursue those few employees who violate the public trust." According to the USPS, the letter carrier seen on the video is no longer employed.

10 Investigates' Paul Aker tracked the carrier to his last apartment but moved without leaving a forwarding address. Still, we managed to find his mobile phone number. The mail carrier would not explain why he dumped the delivery. "I already gave my explanation to (whomever) you guys talked to," he said. "I lost my job for what I did. I feel bad. I made the mistake so I mean there's nothing I can do."

10 Investigates turned up three other similar cases in Ohio in the past couple years. In those cases, the letter carriers were prosecuted for federal misdemeanors and were given a fine.

It's dumb enough to be tossing mail in the trash - it's even DUMBER when the dumpster you choose is located on a local TV station parking lot.

Full details/video here

Earmarks. Everyone hates them but the people who obtain them. Little tidbits of legislative money wrangling to be brought home to the politicians backyard. In reality, Earmarks are only about 1/2 of 1% of the entire Federal Spending budget for the year. Hardly any cost savings there. In fact the process of drafting and enacting legislation to get rid of them will cost almost as much as keeping them for a 5 yr span.

Our elected officials claim that this will be an important first step, a symbolic message to cut spending in Washington. Haha, really? When is someone going to have the balls in DC to put forth real legislation or removing legislation that will really make an impact on the budget and our economy?

80% of the Federal Budget is contained in 3 programs:

1) Social Security
2) Education
3) Federal Prisons

Gee.. where do we start?

Let me introduce to you NY congressman Charlie Rangel. I would personally like to nominate him for the phucktard of the year award.

This tool has been chairman of the Ways and Means committee - you know the committee who writes our tax code. Mr. Rangel is up on charges that he cannot seem to follow the same taxation rules that you and I will go to prison over. Just simple things like unreported income that he eventually disclosed, nothing major just a little over a million dollars in rental income and various other things he has his hands in. No big deal. Blah.

Mr. Rangel has been front and center in the news media crying for his day in court, a chance to let the American public know the real story. Yesterday he got his wish in front of the Ethics Committee and what did he do? He walked out. Yup, walked out claiming he has no legal representation. His previous counsel quit almost 2 months ago knowing this old fossil's goose was cooked - and nobody else will belly up to the bar to help him. Take your medicine Mr. Rangel.

Rangel has acknowledged ethical lapses, but he has argued that he did not intend to break the rules.

Well Mr. Rangel, in the very same tax code YOU helped draft and become law it is clearly stated that violating tax law, regardless of intent/interpretation/misunderstanding, does not excuse your responsibility for them.

These infractions of congressional ethics probably put Mr. Rangel in the company of many of his peers. Let's just hope the Ethics committee continues with Mr. Rangel and then starts looking into all the other congressional representatives on both sides of the aisle as well. Let's start with those whom are on the current panel and work our way backwards - lets see who's left at the end of the debacle.

Source

A prominent UK military head hauncho speaks out about the war on terror and claims "Al Qaeda Can't Be Defeated". Doh?

"In conventional war, defeat and victory is very clear cut and is symbolized by troops marching into another nation's capital.

"First of all you have to ask: do we need to defeat Islamist militancy in the sense of a clear cut victory? I would argue that it is unnecessary and would never be achieved," Richards said.

Exactly. Taking down Saddam in Iraq - very easy since they fought conventionally, for the most part. Taking down extremists will be next to impossible since they fight unconventionally and hide amongst the civilians, they have little hierarchy and most importantly don't care if they die as long as they take several of us with them. You cannot stop those that want to kill themselves. That holds true for terrorists and nutjobs here in the US as well as in other Countries.

I'm fed up with the continual reports that these attempted bombings are some huge coordinated efforts amongst these religious freaks of nature when they are most likely nothing more than the inner workings of individuals all with the same thoughts, beliefs and end-goals. Most likely the other Jihadists don't know what someone is planing until it's played out either by success or failure.

Whether the Jihadist's actually succeed or not is irrelevant because they have still won. When we have to spend billions on increased security, the newsdesks are full of stories daily, people always have them on their minds, then they've successfully terrorized without ever blowing anything up or killing anybody. They've won.

When are the pro-war conservatives/moderates/liberals going to have the balls to admit to what all the other NATO nations seem to understand? Iraq was one thing and could be argued either way, but this continuing madness in all the other 3rd world sandboxes is beyond stupid. I am all for going in to take out countries that want to wipe us off the face of the Earth, I'm pro-war when its justified. When a VALID serious threat does come to our doorstep, like North Korea, any administration is going to have a hard time selling it to us after watching the clusterphuck in the middle east.

Bring the troops home. Spending the trillions instead on increased security measures here and paying down our debt would most certainly make the majority of people here much happier.

Back in July one of the first parts of the new Obamacare program was to insure the un-insurable - the ones who could not obtain healthcare due to pre-existing conditions. Late last week the Dept of Health and Human Services published the total number of people signed up so far - a whopping 8,011 people since July 1st through November 1st. Yup, 8,011 people. Estimates and videotaped interviews from several administration officials claimed there would be an instant 375,000 people signing up with numbers totaling 1.4 million by the end of the first year of offering. There would be mass chaos in the enrollment offices, the phone banks would be ablaze, emergency rooms and doctor's offices would be jammed full.

Here is the administrations published numbers from earlier this spring:
255 million: The number of Americans with existing health insurance coverage.
20 million: The number of Americans without any health coverage at all due to economic circumstances.
375,000: The number of Americans with pre-existing conditions HHS said would apply for coverage in the first year of Obamacare, one of the main political arguments for its implementation.

8,011: The number that actually did. (Dept of HHS www.healthcare.gov)

( http://republicans.waysandmeans.house.gov/UploadedFiles/OACT_Memorandum_on_Financial_Impact_of_H_R__3962__11-13-09_.pdf )

States had the option of designing their own pre-existing condition insurance with federal dollars in lieu of the HHS plan, and 27 chose to do so. But they haven’t had much more success. Combined federal-state enrollment is merely 8,011 nationwide as of November 1, according to HHS.

This isn’t what HHS promised in July, when it estimated it would be insuring 375,000 people by now, and as many as 400,000 more every year. HHS even warned that it would bill private carriers for any claims if HHS decided that they had cancelled coverage to dump costs on the government.

That comes to a success rate for that prediction of just under 2.2%. The Wall Street Journal points out that the program operates at a loss — which means that consumers who qualify for the program in essence have partial subsidies by entering it. And yet, despite the billions of dollars committed to funding it and the efforts of 27 states to duplicate it, only eight thousand people have bothered to apply for the program.

There is no way people can use the excuse, "Gee, I didn't know about it." This has been front and center on every news program, newspaper and google news sidebar for 2 years along with millions upon millions spent in a snail mail campaign with nice shiny glossy propaganda pamphlets mailed to virtually every household in America. The fact is that the entire situation has been overblown since the rhetoric first began. Yes, the people need help however we would have been far better off simply paying for them individually rather than implementing a mountain of paperwork, 310 new government employees, 4 new departments and red tape totaling billions of dollars for a mere 8000 people to date.

Fail! No wait...Epic fail.

RICHMOND, Va. – Corpses, cancer patients and diseased lungs: These are some of the images the federal government plans for larger, graphic warning labels for cigarette packages.

The images are part of a new campaign announced by the Food and Drug Administration and the Department of Health and Human Services on Wednesday to reduce tobacco use, which is responsible for about 443,000 deaths per year in the US.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2010/11/10/feds-propose-graphic-cigarette-warning-labels/

Ok fine.

Cigarettes are legal.
Abortion is legal.

Cigarettes cause approx 1/2 million deaths per year, abortions cause approx 1.3 million deaths per year in the US. If you want graphic depictions on cigarette packaging then you should put graphic depictions of abortion results in the clinics. Whats good for the goose is good for the gander.

The controversy in Alaska is stirring over write-in ballots for the incumbent Lisa Murkowski(R). Joe Miller(R) who's challenging her for the Senate seat has decided to sue to stop them from counting ballots where her write-in name may be slightly misspelled. Ok... really? It's not like you have two candidates named Tom L. Jones and Tom R. Jones. Her name is Murkowski.. just how damned many others are running up there with a similar last name?

With the name of Murkowski it should be plain and obvious the voter's intent no matter how butchered her name is spelled on the write in ballots. If you can legibly make out a decent amount of letters in her name then it should count for her. I realize the State Law says the name must be spelled 100% correct but this is a case where the Courts should send the legislation BACK to the State's congressional body to be amended to also include the voter's intent. We all know that misspellings happen adn that the votre intent sholuld also be considred when tabluating.

Murkowski
Mercowski
Muirkwoski
Murkoski

I think our elected officials act more like our Kindergarten children than the professionals they should act like.

Grow up people.

Looks like we've begun to monetize our debt over the past couple of months. Good Job Bernanke.. Good Job Geitner. I guess our debt was a wee bit more than what you tools wanted to tell us.. yes? Funny how just 1 year ago you both are on all the news programs explaining how there is no way the Fed would ever attempt to monetize the debt, you even testified before a congressional hearing earlier this spring under oath that this would never happen. Fuggin liars. It all started by saving Fannie & Freddie now it's worse and you've decided to try to hide it.

All the other Countries holding our debt finance notes are about to get pissed - their investments are quickly turning into nothing but paper hardly worthy of wiping your ass or blowing your nose with. For the first time ever the demand in US treasuries from Countries abroad is plummeting, which any 8th grade economics student can tell you will drive up the interest rates. Gee.. I guess that means imported goods prices into the US will RISE since the dollar is worth jackshit which means .. um duh, inflation and ultimately higher interest rates to cover it. Meanwhile people don't want our money or goods anymore because it's too damn expensive to buy and way too damn risky to hold onto.

When are we finally going to realize that the needs of the few do not outweigh the needs of the many? How much longer do we want to continue to fund all these damn handouts and entitlements? How long did we think we could continue handing money out to those who are less fortunate? Hrm? It's all been fun and games with the class warfare. The politicians have successfully made greed and prosperity a target for those who don't have as much. Go ahead blame the people with money, sure, but those with money are what drive the economy - how can the poor drive the economy when they have nothing to contribute?

America is the land of opportunity.. not the land of the financially equal. There are and always will be the less fortunate in the USA, but in this day and age nothing is stopping them from becoming as wealthy as they want to be. Bad things happen to people, some will never amount to much of anything, some are less fortunate - everybody will not do well - it's a fact of life. The sooner we admit this to ourselves the better off we'll be.

Hold on to your asses people.. this is gonna get ugly.

The voting is over. Some stay in office, some leave. Some are happy, some are saddened. End result? No change.

I was hoping to awaken this morning to a bunch of fresh new faces in our elected offices. You know, the ones who will really do what everybody knows needs done but is afraid to be the bad guy. Nope. More of the same, just with a different name and party affiliation.

They say the only way that a drug addict or alcoholic will begin to recover is when they hit rock bottom and have nowhere else to go, nothing left to try. Hang in there America, another few years of this and we'll hit that bottom. At that point we'll either dust ourselves off and start climbing again or we'll continue to founder in the quagmire that is the American entitlement program.

I bet the Separation of Church and State group is just thrilled to pieces about all the people visiting their designated polling/voting places today that just happen to be located in a church!

I'm heading home from a weekend of fun with the Motorhome late afternoon yesterday. I am heading south on State Route 23 and roll around the exit ramp to get on I-270 East. Now, mind you, this ramp is a very long steep 4% grade drop as you wind your way around and eventually onto I-270 - the actual merging part is somewhat hidden until you are right upon it. What do I find SITTING at the bottom of the ramp WAITING to merge? Yup a dumbass driver who has decided to sit and wait to merge. Forget about my 45' long 35,000lb vehicle lets worry more with the 80,000lb semi's in a line behind me, forget all the tire smoke trying to get everybody stopped. I think I emptied my air tanks laying on the horns. Only then did this phucktard find the throttle pedal and almost hit several cars trying to merging off of the I-270 back onto St Rte 23 ramp.

Any bets the driver was an 20yr+ AARP card carrying member?

I'm sick of it all. Television advertisements, phone calls, USPS mailbox full, newspaper ads, magazine ads, large fixed billboards, yard signs, big ads on the side of our city buses, dedicated mobile rolling billboards, flyers hung on telephone poles, planes flying around with banners. ENOUGH already.

-None of you do what you advertise. Can we sue for false advertisement?

-Whatever you campaign on you'll do the exact opposite when in office

-When the going gets tough you just switch parties. Is that legal?

-Do any of you really have any experience or background in the decisions you make? I mean.. you need a license to sell Real Estate, Stocks/Bonds, Insurance.. even to be a Plumber or Contractor.. Most of us have to take drug tests and get background checks, show a nice shiny worthless piece of paper called a Degree, submit resumes, yet there are no prequalifications to be a politician. Hrm.

-You all act like a class full of kindergartners - "Teacher, he touched me", "Stop touching me or Im gonna tell my mommy" "Im tellin the teacher you picked your nose", "Im telling the teacher you said a bad thing about me", "You have cooties".

Enough already. Enough already... ENOUGH.

The temporary reversal has been reversed! Excellent news. I agree with the Obama administration that this issue should be resolved in the Congress and NOT in the Courts. Judges making law from the bench is a bad thing.