Rep. Murtha Dead at 77

Pennsylvania Democratic Rep. John Murtha, the first veteran of the Vietnam war and one of the most powerful lawmakers in Congress, died Wednesday morning at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, VA, after complications from gallbladder surgery. Murtha was 77.

Wednesday morning? You mean he’s been dead for 5 days, and someone is just now getting around to telling the public?  Today is Monday, right?  I’m very confused.

UPDATE:  Evidently, that was a major typo, and they’ve now changed it to Monday afternoon.

I’ve been trying to think of something nice to say about the guy, but to be perfectly honest, nothing comes to mind.

Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act (Introduced in House)

H. R. 4431

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a 500 percent excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES

January 13, 2010

Mr. GRAYSON introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on Ways and Means

A BILL

To amend the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 to impose a 500 percent excise tax on corporate contributions to political committees and on corporate expenditures on political advocacy campaigns.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled,

SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE.

This Act may be cited as the `Business Should Mind Its Own Business Act’.

500% tax on company contributions?  C’mon….is he serious?  Not that I’m all that crazy about companies inserting themselves into the political process, but this is nothing new.  You contribute to the candidate that you believe are business friendly.  That wouldn’t be the Democrats, which is probably why he came up with this harebrained idea.

Hey….does this mean the high dollar unions will have to pay that 500% tax too?  Wonder if he considered them when he started drooling in his lap over sucking more money out of the private sector?

Starting this weekend and continuing into next week, I will host a series of listening sessions across the 7th District. These will not be traditional town hall meetings, where a Member of Congress stands at the podium and tells you what is going on in Washington. Instead, I want to hear from you.

I want to hear what ideas you have for how we can do things better in Washington. I want to hear what concerns you have about the bills that we are working on. I want to know what you think is working in Washington and what you think isn’t. More than anything, I think of these sessions as idea raisers, where we can work together to turn your good ideas into solutions in DC.

We will start with seven sessions in the western and mid-district over the coming weekend, with more sessions to be announced in Montgomery county and elsewhere soon.

I hope to see you there!

FRIDAY, FEBRUARY 12

1:15-2:00 PM Somerville
Bank of Fayette County Community Room
106 East Market Street, Somerville

2:30-3:15 PM: Bolivar
Joe’s Restaurant
1410 West Market Street, Bolivar

4:00-5:00 PM: Selmer
U.T. Martin at Selmer
1269 Tennessee Avenue, Selmer

SATURDAY, FEBRUARY 13

9:00-10:00 AM: Henderson
Henderson City Hall
121 Crook Avenue, Henderson

11:00 AM – 12:00 PM: Savannah
Sweet Pea’s Family Restaurant
869 Pickwick Street South, Savannah

12:45-1:30 PM: Lexington
Grecian Family Restaurant
741 W Church St, Lexington

2:00-2:45 PM: Parsons
U.T. Martin at Parsons
535 Tennessee Ave S, Parsons

A Six-Hour Infomercial Can’t Save Obamacare
The Foundry

Right before the Super Bowl, President Barack Obama spoke about health care reform with CBS News’ Katie Couric: “I want to come back and have a large meeting, Republicans and Democrats, to go through systematically all the best ideas that are out there and move it forward.”

According to aides, the President envisions a half-day meeting on February 25th held in Blair House (a building across the street from the White House) presumably televised by C-SPAN. President Obama’s conciliatory rhetoric aside, everyone knows this publicity stunt has nothing to do with actually considering conservative health care reform ideas and everything to do with the appearance of transparency and bipartisanship. The New York Times reports: “In making the gesture on Sunday, Mr. Obama is in effect calling the hand of Republicans who had chastised him for not honoring a campaign pledge to hold health care deliberations in the open, broadcast by C-Span, and for not allowing Republicans at the bargaining table.”

And the reality is that Democrats have no intention of including conservative ideas this late in the game. The Washington Post reports that White House officials “said the president will come to the health-care summit armed with a merged version of the two bills that Democrats strong-armed through the two chambers with almost no GOP backing.” And The Post adds that Congressional Democrats show no signs of intending to listen to new ideas either: “In separate statements Sunday, Democratic leaders praised the president for calling the bipartisan summit but made clear they are not prepared to give up on the progress they made last year.”

The White House continues to operate on the assumption that the American people would support their plan, but that President Obama just has not explained it well enough to the American people. The exact opposite is true. The American people have a very good idea of what is in President Obama’s health care plan, and they do not like it. The President’s plan takes the worst part of the status quo – a slow-motion federal government takeover of health care – and makes the problem much, much worse. Tacking-on one or two conservative ideas will not change the fundamental direction Obamacare would take our country.

Take for example the President’s insistence that his plan includes the conservative idea to allow individuals to purchase health insurance cross state lines. The problem is the President’s plan also gives czar-like powers to unaccountable federal bureaucrats to decide what does and does not qualify as health insurance for the entire country. These regulations would squeeze-out any real competition among private health plans anywhere, making competition across state lines useless.

If the President were really interested in bipartisan reform, he should have reached-out to conservatives months ago. Even before the President was sworn into office, our conservative health care analysts here at The Heritage Foundation have been reaching-out with common sense, free-market-friendly ideas that can ensure access to affordable health insurance. But for more than a year, the President chose not to listen. If the President truly is interested in bipartisan health reform, he needs to step back and start over. His six-hour February 25th Hail Mary pass just isn’t going to cut it.

I read they are expecting up to 5 inches, but not sure exactly where in the area.  All the schools are closed….again.  It looks like we’ve got about an inch, so far.  Now, you’d think this wouldn’t be a major deal.  Well, most places…in the north….it wouldn’t be, but down here, this is NOT normal!

The NORMAL temp for Podunk in February is 53 degrees.  Light jackets needed at most.  Normal low?  32, sometime in the middle of the night no doubt.

Average NORMAL snowfall, for an entire year….the green line:

Inch and a half.  Since we’ve moved here, we’ve had a dump of 8 inches….in March…a couple of times.

In case you weren’t aware, I believe Al Gore is a major ass, who lies through his ugly teeth, all to make a few million bucks!  And you can include all those so called representatives in D.C., who are falling for that BS in order to control our lives, in that mega ass category as well!

Hmmm….  I’m wondering….  If this keeps up, will we get some of that stimulus money to buy snow plows, provide jobs, so people around here can actually get to their jobs?  I mean those who still HAVE jobs.

This particular one I found highly offensive! I’m sure they meant it as humorous, but how long will it be before we see this happening in reality?

Now this one, I loved. Well, critters are usually a favorite of mine anyway, so when you combine the longhorn with a big horsey…..

The Importance of Walking!!

Walking can add minutes to your life..
This enables you at 85 years old to spend an additional 5 months in a nursing home at $7000 per month.

My grandpa started walking five miles a day when he was 60.
Now he’s 97 years old and we don’t know where the hell he is.

I like long walks, especially when they are taken by people who annoy me.

The only reason I would take up walking is so that I could hear heavy breathing again.

I have to walk early in the morning, before my brain figures out what I’m doing.

I joined a health club last year … spent about 400 bucks.
Haven’t lost a pound.. Apparently you have to go there.

Every time I hear the dirty word ‘exercise’, I wash my mouth out with chocolate.

I do have flabby thighs, but fortunately my stomach covers them.

The advantage of exercising every day is so when you die, they’ll say, ….’Well, she looks good doesn’t she.’

If you are going to try cross-country skiing, start with a small country.

I know I got a lot of exercise the last few years……. just getting over the hill.

We all get heavier as we get older, because there’s a lot more information in our heads.
That’s my story and I’m sticking to it.

Every time I start thinking too much about how I look, I just find a Happy Hour, and by the time I leave, I look just fine.

This really IS me! Heh!

Live simply.
Love generously.
Care deeply.
Speak kindly.
Leave the rest to God.

Sent by capper. Yes…..that capper!

She tells me they are expecting more of that no winter stuff this week.  Yes, there is such a thing as ‘climate change’.  It’s called WINTER!

Mass casualties and multiple injuries were reported Sunday after a massive explosion at a Connecticut power plant, police confirmed to Fox News.

The explosion occurred just before 11:30 a.m. local time at the Kleen Energy plany on River Road in Middletown, Conn., according to authorities.

About 100 people were working at the plant during the time of the explosion.

Dozens of ambulances and fire trucks were on the scene and witnesses said black smoke could be seen for miles.

Many prayers for the folks up there in Middleton, those who lost their lives, the injured, and all families and friends.

Mitch Landrieu was elected mayor of New Orleans on Saturday, the first time in over 30 years that voters of this majority-black city have chosen a white candidate.

Landrieu, a Democrat and Louisiana’s lieutenant governor, won more than 50 percent of the vote, defeating a field of 10 other competitors and avoiding a run-off election. Democrat Troy Henry, a black businessman, came in second.

Landrieu, 49, the son of New Orleans’ last white mayor, Moon Landrieu, rode a wave of discontent over the slow pace of the city’s recovery from Hurricane Katrina in 2005 and rampant crime.

I’d be more impressed if NO had elected a Republican. Who cares if he’s white? He’s a Democrat, which in that part of the country, usually means “business as usual”.  Well, with a sister in the Senate, making those backroom deals, I’m sure there will a LOT more of our money heading in that direction real soon.

“And Jesus knew their thoughts, and said unto them, Every kingdom divided against itself is brought to desolation; and every city or house divided against itself shall not stand”. (From the Bible, Matthew 12:25.)

The schism that slices through America today has been widening since the 19th century. Little by little, decade-by-decade, year-by-year it has continued to get ever wider and ever deeper. It has nothing to do with geography. It has nothing to do with slavery… and, yet, it has everything to do with slavery.

“What,” you say? “Didn’t we put the slavery issue to rest with a war in the 1860’s?”

The truthful answer is NO, we did not. We put to rest the issue of whether or not a man could hold another man in bondage in this country. What we did not put to rest, however, is the question of whether this country’s government could hold its citizens in bondage.

The Founders of America intended to set up a government with very little power. They intended the government to have only the power the citizens allowed it to have. Almost instantly the power struggle began between those who wanted a strong central government and those who wanted strong states and a weak central government. After all, it was The States that created the Federal Government… as a utility of the states. Not the other way around. Look it up.

In 1860 there were 33 states in the so-called United States of America. I do mean “so-called” because they were anything but UNITED. By the spring of 1861 thirteen of those states had had enough of being “dictated-to” by a oligarchic federal government wielding powers the constitution did not grant it, and .– as the US Constitution did not forbid it (as had the Articles of Confederation) — they took their leave of the United States. They created a country of their own with a constitution (mostly copied from the original constitution of the US) and they became a separate country.

A few Americans, today, actually know what caused that split. A handful of Americans understand what the ensuing war was fought about. A few million Americans still feel the sting of being forced, at the point of a government bayonet, to be a part of a country their ancestors had forsaken in order to set up a representative republic in the image of the government the Founding Fathers of America had given the United States.

A few million Americans who either live in, have lived in, or hail from, the only portion of this country to ever be invaded, conquered, and occupied by a foreign power, understand what is happening in America today, not because we learned it in school, — because we learned it from the stories our families have handed down, from generation to generation, and from our own research into what happened to a country which had, less than a hundred years before, won it’s independence from the Mother Country.

We are scattered all over America today… north, south, east, west, all over. We see where America is headed… and we fear for our fellow Americans because they/we are not ready for the cost of what is happening to America. None of us are.

What America is facing, in the next few years, will make the American Civil War seem like a Sunday School picnic.

Yes, I am referring to SLAVERY. Voluntary slavery to begin with… then involuntary slavery — when it is then too late. The socially accepted word for it these days is… SOCIALISM.

Back in November of 2008, Americans went to the polls and voted, voluntarily, to assume the national yoke of socialism. Whether America should stay free, or whether America should give up the freedom so many have fought, bled, and died for, apparently was not even under consideration by the electorate at the time.

Even thought we conservatives had warned of impending national destruction, if the nation chose socialism, the voter’s chose the current President — and– added many more socialists to the rolls of Congress. Effectively, America stopped being a constitutional republic, at that moment, and became just another mediocre socialist state like unto so many countries in Europe.

In January of 2009 the “rot” at the heart of America began to spread, exponentially, and we find ourselves, in 2010, in a country, which is beginning to resemble a third-world “banana republic.”

America is currently ruled by “command and control” by a President with strong Socialist/Marxist tendencies. He believes in Socialism, Marxism, Collectivism, and some even go so far as to declare that he also has strong leanings toward communism. As a result America is broke, in debt so deep our great grandchildren will still be burdened with the nation’s debt, and many Americans are humiliated and angry.

The average American has now begun to understand that socialism will destroy a nation — just as we warned before the election! They also understand that destruction has begun and is well on its way to destroying America. Much of America has awakened and are angry at the bitter taste of Socialistic Slavery.Make no mistake. SOCIALISM IS SLAVERY. Under socialism a people give up all their rights… all their freedom… for security guaranteed by a powerful Central Government. Believe me, if you think democracy is expensive; wait ’til you have to pay for all those FREE programs.

All my instincts tell me that today’s crop of Americans are willing to give up everything for the promise of security. I must tell you — of all things “un-American”… that is the MOST un-American.

Do not expect the half of the country who stands solidly against socialism to go along, quietly, into the self inflicted slavery of this hell-spawned form of government called socialism.

The word “United” can be dropped from the name: “The UNITED States of America.” The country has been torn in two. And there will be no compromise. It cannot be healed, ever, again. Two peoples, this diametrically opposed, cannot share the same space. Only the most naive among us cannot understand where this argument, over how we are to be governed, will eventually wind up.Americans have been divided before. More Americans died in the first American Civil War than in all the wars in which America has fought since her founding. And today, at least half of this country is deadly in earnest about their love of freedom and are willing to sacrifice, as their forefathers did, to preserve it.

Yes, we are in dangerous times — extremely dangerous. On the horizon of America’s future, dark clouds are gathering. Let us hope those gathering clouds are not the leading edge of the winds of war.

Personally, I’d very much like to see her as the head of the RNC! I’m sure Michael Steele is a nice guy, and I THOUGHT he was more conservative than he seems to be. Oh, his words say he is, it’s his actions I’m having issues with, so, yeah, I do think Sarah would do a good job in that spot.

From WMC: (click link to watch the short video)

Unlike many politicians, Herenton did not avoid the issue of race. Instead he spoke very candidly.

“I want all the white citizens that are fair minded and believe in a representative form of government to understand us and to join us,” Herenton said.

Let me see if I’ve got this right. Willie wants ‘fair minded whites’ to get behind him? Personally, I can’t understand how any ‘fair minded’ person, of ANY color would get behind him for anything. Ya sure wouldn’t wanna be in front of him either, well, unless of course, ya wanna be thrown under the proverbial bus.

I wonder if Willie actually understands what a representative form of government really is? Hmmm…