Free Range Humans
In an email today…
Just Do It Phil!
Yeah I know he is a Callaway guy not Nike, but for my little rant it works.
Phil decided to vent his frustration about high taxes last week, and then explained he won’t discuss it because of the backlash. To bad, he should be able to say he is getting screwed. It is the perfect model to explain to the public in layman’s terms what the affluent are dealing with. How many people have jobs because of Phil Mickelson and his charities, course design, and other business interests?
“If you add up all the federal and you look at the disability and the unemployment and the Social Security and state, my tax rate is 62, 63 percent,” Mickelson said. “So I’ve got to make some decisions on what to do.”
Len Burman, a contributor to Forbes magazine and Professor from Syracuse University decides to tell him to “quit whining”. Shame on you Mr. Burman. You are the problem, not the solution. Professor Burmans thoughtful analysis on Phil’s decision to complain:
Do you have any idea how lucky you are?
Please stop whining and give thanks for being able to earn a fabulous living playing a game and selling golf clubs (even after tax). 99.999% of people would never have that option, no matter how hard they worked on their swing.
Shame on you Forbes, I thought you were pro business. And Mr. Burman, I hope you get fired for being such a communist. Read the article here, and then read the comments. Burman gets roasted by about 99.99% of the comments, which is appropriate.
Oh by the way, this is what Governor Rick Perry had to say to Phil: Hey Phil….Texas is home to liberty and low taxes…we would love to have you as well !!
And check out Breitbart
Excellent!!!
Obama Domestic Policy After 4 Years – Own It!
A few more headlines just weeks after Bambam gets a second term……massive failure.
I Just Don’t Get Californians
Looking at the electoral map you can see that California has 55 electoral votes, New York 31, and Illinois 21. These states have some of the highest crime rates, worst educational systems, and billions in debt due to poor choices made over decades by your politicians. Yet most of the red states have brought their states back from the brink after the recession and are now seeing an uptick in jobs and revenue.
So why then is California still voting democratic? They have cities filing for bankruptcy, the public school system is a wreck, large businesses are fleeing the state due to relentless taxation and regulation, (see Comcast & Campbells Soup), and in all of their infinite wisdom, they brought back Jerry Brown, and have decided to build a high-speed rail that will cost $98.8 billion which frankly, you don’t have. Of course they do get federal dollars for the high-speed rail, but that is now MY money, going to a state that is in fiscal denial.
Why Californians? Why?
Is it that you have been so indoctrinated in liberal bullshit from grade school to college that you can’t see the forest for the trees? How can you as citizens side with politicians that have done nothing but raise taxes, implement ridiculous regulations, fail massively in the attempt to educate your kids, and watch large employers leave the state like rats jumping off a sinking ship, and at the same time, give themselves generous pensions and healthcare that are paid for by you the taxpayer. What is this blind loyalty?
Have you looked around at other states? Do you know that Texas, Utah, Idaho, Oregon, and Arizona are cleaning your clock and raiding your revenue pantry by welcoming your former businesses and the jobs/revenue that comes with them? In a perfect world everybody would be working and making hundreds of thousands a year, but this is the real world. Unicorns and fairy dust are not considered a reliable means of revenue. You can lean on that Hope & Change thing all you want, but like unicorns, it is not real.
So what are you hanging your fiscal hat on? What is the future generation, currently in grade school, going to do with the unsustainable and massive debt you have burdened them with by your head in the sand approach to your elected officials. This shit is not going to get better for you people.
You have 55 electoral votes, more than any state in the union, and you still vote for and idea that is currently destroying your state. And you put our country in peril because of that vote. Whichever political side gets the California vote, has the biggest foot in the door to the Whitehouse, and your continued blind faith in the democratic model, is threatening not just your state, but MY country as well. Wake up Californians, look at the electoral map and do some research. Look to the red states and see how their economies are doing compared to yours. Realize that you need to change your ways. Your weather may be beautiful but it will be hard to enjoy living in a cardboard box under the freeway.
Remember this guy? You people used to make good choices.
Obama Furiously Defending His Gaffe “You Did Not Build That”
So let’s take a look at the trancript line by line and you can decide what he meant. I will add my thoughts throughout. The video clip will be at the end.
“Look, if you’ve been successful, you didn’t get there on your own. You didn’t get there on your own.”
Really? I know may business owners who not only did it on their own, but needed government to get the hell out of the way.
“I’m always struck by people who think, well, it must be because I was just so smart. There are a lot of smart people out there. It must be because I worked harder than everybody
else. Let me tell you something — there are a whole bunch of hardworking people out there.”
These are the comments that prelude the big “you didn’t build that” gaffe. And these are the ones that are the most offensive. He say’s he is struck by the arrogance of business men who thought that they were smarter or more hardworking than anyone else, well in most cases, they may not have been smarter but they definitely worked harder than the average 9 to 5 worker bee. His smug thumb to the nose of these business men in this comment alone is telling of what he thinks about capitalism in America. Without a doubt it shows a disdain for business and a prelude to his big government thoughts in the next paragraph.
“If you were successful, somebody along the line gave you some help. There was a great teacher somewhere in your life.”
I worked for a company whose owner quit school in junior high, worked for a few years, bought a backhoe, and started his own business. He now employs over 50 people. The only thing that almost made him close his doors was the housing crisis in 2008. And guess who created that mess? It was not private business, it was government intervention forcing banks to quit redlining and give anybody a home loan. This was a directive of the Clinton administration. If that is the help he is speaking of, please don’t help anymore.
“Somebody helped to create this unbelievable American system that we have that allowed you to thrive.”
Bingo! There it is. “the American system that WE have allowed”, that small two letter word “WE” is the most telling of all. In a nutshell, “we” the government “allowed” you to be successful. That’s it. That’s his thinking, “we” the government is all knowing and and can do whatever, whenever it decides, and apprently, they have decided to “allow” you to own a business.
“Somebody invested in roads and bridges.”
Your damned straight somebody invested in the roads and bridges. The American taxpayer and business around the country paid for ALL of it. What was Obama thinking? The money does not grow on the magic tree out back of the Fed. It has to come from US! How can he say this and think it would not come back to bite him in the arse. Is he really that naive? If so, that is a chilling reality that he is in charge.
“If you’ve got a business — you didn’t build that. Somebody else made that happen.”
Who is the somebody else? We, the American taxpayer, made that happen. With every gallon of gas that you purchase, you are “building that!” The arrogance is staggering.
“The Internet didn’t get invented on its own. Government research created the Internet so that all the companies could make money off the Internet.”
Once again, who paid the employees to do the research and come up with an early sampling of networks, that eventually became the internet? The American Taxpayer you smug son of a bitch! Government is only functioning if taxes are imposed on it’s people to pay the salaries of it’s goverment employees. Senators, Congressman, interns, staff, Mr. Obama and his DOJ, EPA, DOE, USDA, ATF, FBI, CIA, bla bla bla is all owned and paid for by Americans…..PERIOD!
Now watch the video clip and look at his actions and the way that he makes these comments. The man is out of touch with reality. And if he get’s re-elected God help us all.
http://youtu.be/YKjPI6no5ng
…And The Horse You Rode In On…
How many countries have given a dime to the U.S.? They should not get anything from us. What level have we sunk to that we give VERIFIED terrorists anything? Get the hell out and let them self implode. I could give a shit less. And so should you. They get what they deserve!
The House agreed to a $650 million cut from Pakistan military aid Wednesday night as Republicans sought to tamp down demands for still deeper reductions because of conservative anger at the Islamabad government.
Rep. Ted Poe (R-Texas) first came to the floor demanding a $1.3 billion cut and initially won the endorsement of Rep. Bill Young (R-Fla.), who was managing the defense bill on the floor. But ultimately a cut of $650 million was settled upon with the intention of reducing Pakistan’s funds by half.
Rep. Norman Dicks (D-Wash.), the ranking Democrat on the House Appropriations Committee, appeared to agree to the compromise, since it was approved by a voice vote. And the end result is to conform with prior cuts agreed to this spring as part of a defense authorization bill.
Nonetheless, the fresh cut follows on Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent efforts to bridge the gap with Pakistan. And the combination of Poe’s inflammatory rhetoric and Young’s cheerful endorsement was not a reassuring for the Obama administration as it tries to rebuild relations.
“It is time for a new strategy with Pakistan,” said Poe, who described Pakistan as a “Benedict Arnold” nation. “More money is not going to solve the problem. … Pakistan is playing America.”
How Do You Spank A Rogue State? Ask Arizona!
This is not an executive administration, this is a “regime” using the executive branch to punish those whom they find out of line or bothersome. It is the Chicago way! A Nod to Weasel Zippers for the article.
(CNSNews.com) – The administration’s decision to end agreements with law enforcement agencies in Arizona just hours after the Supreme Court’s June 25 ruling on the state’s immigration law was not a political move, Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) Director John Morton told lawmakers Tuesday.
Under section 287 (g) of the Immigration and Nationality Act, state and local law enforcement forces can partner with ICE to enforce immigration laws in their jurisdictions. Immediately following the Supreme Court’s ruling on Arizona Senate Bill 1070, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) suspended 287 (g) programs with the state’s law enforcement agencies.The landmark decision deemed most of SB 1070’s provisions unconstitutional, but upheld the provision allowing Arizona law enforcement to request documentation from individuals suspected to be in the United States illegally.
During a hearing Tuesday of the House Homeland Security subcommittee on border and maritime security, vice-chairman Rep. Ben Quayle (R-Ariz.) asked Morton about the decision to suspend 287 (g) agreements in the state.
“I find it a little concerning that you recently gotten rid of the 287(g) agreement with Arizona state and local law enforcement agencies,” Quayle said. “What is the reasoning behind it? Why pick Arizona as the sole one right now, to actually remove a program that, you said, was an essential component of DHS’s comprehensive immigration enforcement strategy?”
The Great American Tragedy
New migration tendencies in California:
The state’s progressive tax-and-spend experiment is broken, threatening basic services, from courts and parks to education and health care for its most vulnerable citizens. Mr. Brown’s tax initiative only exposes the state to an ever more dangerous roller-coaster ride.
No wonder many Silicon Valley CEOs say they won’t expand in California because of high taxes and burdensome regulation. And no wonder net migration has recently reversed, with hundreds of thousands of workers and their families leaving the state in search of better opportunities.
California’s economy, which used to outperform the rest of the country, now substantially underperforms. The unemployment rate, at 10.9%, is higher than every other state except Nevada and Rhode Island. With 12% of America’s population, California has one third of the nation’s welfare recipients.
Partly due to generous union wages and benefits, inflexible work rules and lobbying for more spending, many state programs and institutions spend too much and achieve too little. For example, annual spending on each California prison inmate is equal to an entire middle-income family’s after-tax income. Many of California’s K-12 public schools rank poorly on standardized tests. The unfunded pension and retiree health-care liabilities of workers in the state-run Calpers system, which includes teachers and university personnel, totals around $250 billion.
Many Americans fear the federal fiscal train wreck will turn us into Greece. But, barring major change, they need look no further than California to see what this future portends. Relying on ever-higher taxes to fund payments to an outsized population of benefit recipients is a recipe for exporting prosperity. That is one California trend that other states emulate at their peril.
Just for Kicks
America On Life Support
In 1887 Alexander Tyler, a Scottish history professor at the University of Edinburgh, had this to say about the fall of the Athenian Republic some 2,000 years prior:
“A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will over loose fiscal policy, (which is) always followed by a dictatorship.”
“The average age of the world’s greatest civilizations from the beginning of history, has been about 200 years.
During those 200 years, these nations always progressed through the following sequence:
From bondage to spiritual faith;
From spiritual faith to great courage;
From courage to liberty;
From liberty to abundance;
From abundance to complacency;
From complacency to apathy;
From apathy to dependence;
From dependence back into bondage.”
The Obituary follows:
Born 1776, Died 2012 – The Death of a Nation
It doesn’t hurt to read this several times. Professor Joseph Olson of Hamline University School of Law in St. Paul , Minnesota , points out some interesting facts concerning the last Presidential election:
Number of States won by: Obama: 19 McCain: 29
Square miles of land won by: Obama: 580,000 McCain: 2,427,000
Population of counties won by: Obama: 127 million McCain: 143 million
Murder rate per 100,000 residents in counties won by: Obama: 13.2 McCain: 2.1
Professor Olson adds: “In aggregate, the map of the territory McCain won was
mostly the land owned by the taxpaying citizens of the country.
Obama territory mostly encompassed those citizens living in low-income
tenements and living off various forms of government welfare…”
Olson believes the United States is now somewhere between the
“complacency and apathy” phase of Professor Tyler’s definition of democracy,
with some forty percent of the nation’s population already having reached
the “governmental dependency” phase.
If Congress grants amnesty and citizenship to twenty million criminal
invaders called illegal’s – and they vote – then we can say goodbye to the
USA in fewer than five years.