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How does one insert a picture or jpeg into a post?

I hereby violate every dictum and realm of integrity of the blogosphere by posting the following, completely and totally ripped of from Toby Harndon of the London Telegraph - since I have given credit I ease my conscience. But this amateur statesmanship continuously demonstrated by Obama's staff is so Junior High - I do hope that someone brought a US Region 1 DVD player so Barack and Gordon can sit around and watch the DVDs our ever-so-thoughtful President dutifully gave to The Prime Minister of England upon his visit to The Colonies.  Oh, and I do pray the staffer with the 7th grade gifting skills remembered to bring a converter.  Now on to the most recent embarrasment:

So many things to comment on over the last few weeks- but nothing so chilling as Rick Wagoner being fired by our Federal Government - a private citizen hired by a board of a public company to run their operations, not living up to some government standard enough to merit more bailout funds - he is the first big one to go, what industry and what private citizen is next?

One down, how many to go??

. . . is not entirely clear.  How long ago did this hard turn to the left begin?  At what point did the power of the people begin to be transferred from the people and morph into the ever growing and powerful government we have today?  The Obama presidency is but another step, a giant step, away from the vision the founders and the framers had for this country - but when was the first step taken, from what sprung the root of the root, that has emerged to pull this country so far from it's original intent?  It is fact that the original intent of the founding of the United States was nothing short of freedom from tyranny and in support of a people governed only by the consent of the governed.  The history is without interpretation - from the first shots at Concord to Washington escaping in the fog to the surrender at Yorktown - the power of this new republic would be from the people, by the people.  The founders were emphatic that we be a federation of states with a central government that derived its power from the states and their representatives.  The framers were intent in developing a document that would withstand time and took great pains as to phrases and words that would stand the test of man's innovation and progress for centuries to come.

Did it begin with Tammany Hall in the 1850s, a mere 76 years after the Declaration and just over 60 year or so after Constitution was adopted?  Was it so soon that the ideals of a representative republic built on the principle of self-determination began to erode that has brought us to where we are today, such that our representatives can call on the power of government to impel private citizens to relinquish their earnings to the government because the government deemed those earnings to be the property of government?  Did it only really take 6 decades for the seeds of righteous indignation of our elected representatives, and their contempt for us, the governed, to be sown into fields of divisiveness and identity politics that lords over the political process of today?

Or was it some faceless, nameless bureaucrat from a listless and lowly presidency of a Tyler, Filmore, or Arthur that headed some obscure, newly created agency that gave birth to the idea that power was more important than doing the people’s biding, that control of the federal purse was more important than the will of the people.  At some point, the tide shifted from the states granting powers to and funding the federal government, to today where the federal government grants powers to the states and provides major funding and holds leverage over the states for their very existence.  

For example, in reality there was no literal national speed limit of 55 mph enacted in the early 70s.  The Emergency Highway Energy Conservation Act of 1973 was a mandate from the federal government to the states.  Any state that did not go along with the 55 mph speed limit would lose federal highway dollars to repair roads in that state,the federal government thereby exercised control and blackmail over the states in this one very narrow instance.  Multiply this one very real and damaging legislation over decades and decades and thousands of acts and of the growth and power of the federal government, counter to the founders’ and the framers’ intents – you have to ask yourself, when did it start?

And here we are today with the present administration of 40-somethings wielding more power than has ever been seen by a federal bureaucracy and inventing more money out of thin air than has ever been witnessed and can never be accounted for.  The assault on liberty and individuality and personal freedom has never been more in force than it is today.  What country are we living in when our legislators can demand that  a private individual remand over to the federal government his earnings at the threat of special legislation directed specifically at this said individual, totally contrary to the constitution (Article 1, Sections 9 and 10)?  What  kind of Americans have we empowered that grant our protections and rights granted us under our Constitution to those illegally in this country?

At what point . . . . I am tiring of asking questions that have no prospect of being answered absent a new and radical response from what is left of the rational, educated, and achievment class of our society.  Sadly, too many of them voted for change with no understanding at all of what this hard turn to the left would do, and is doing.  I have said in previous posts that the Left and the Obamists of this great nation will be more than willing to govern a 3rd rate country, and that is exactly their goal and the path to which we are being led down -  we will be consumed by our own debt as an effective net sub-prime borrower on the world stage, we will be emasculated militarily on the world stage, and we will be relegated to 3rd world status by any measure if the Left and Obamunism succeeds - AND, it will be perfectly alright with them, as long as they remain in power.

"Americans know that our economic recovery will take years -- not months," he said. "But they will have little patience if we allow politics to get in the way of action, and our economy continues to slide."

There have been 31 recessions in the United States since 1854.  We are currently in the 32nd contraction of the economy, which started in January of 2008. The average recession has lasted 17 months.  The second longest contraction lasted 43 months from Aug 1929 to Mar 1933, thank you Mr. Roosevelt - the longest was in 1870s.  A little thing called the Civil War and Reconstruction were in play then, as well as new transportation networks that displaced the working populations in the east to new centers of industry in the west.  So thank you, Mr. Obama, for continuing to talk down the American economy. We are desperate now, as you told us during your Health Care Summit.  Did not GDP grow 1.9% in 2008 in spite of the rest of the world's economies sliding and world-wide demand for all goods and services pulling back?  If it history is guide, and it always is, we would be coming out of this recession this spring or early summer.  By this summer $3.00 gas will be back with the summer driving season and reformulation, the Dow will be hovering around 5000, unemployment will be 10%, and a third homeowner bailout will be on the table because the first two will have only prevented the renter-society from going back to renting sooner than later.  Some people are born to rent and do not have the fiscal discipline or enough basic understanding of personal economics to own a home.

Obama's policies are basically guaranteeing a long, slow, painful road to recovery.  Obama recently declared "disasterous" consequences ahead if congress fails to act now.  He is acting now, and failing miserably. His management-by-crisis methodology is failing. Every week that goes by that his socialist plans are not implemented is another week where, in towns across America, the street lights are still on, the water still runs, and hard-working, innovative, and industrious Americans are getting by in spite of your doomsday scenarios and your 75 degree Oval Office. 

The primary scheme at work is escaping the American people. There is method in his madness and that of the left.  What Obama
 offers, in concert with his cadre of Harry, Nancy, and Barney is a long, long period of mediocrity.  Liberals and left in this country will be perfectly content governing a 3rd rate country.  We will now take a back seat in aid to Africa and aids research, a backseat in medical research, a backseat in manufacturing, a backseat in food production  - and that is perfecly alright with them. After al, look at the third rate cities where the left and liberals are in power. How does it feel, Detroit, New Orleans, New York in the burroughs, San Francisco, Atlanta?  Things better for you?  Your leaders are certainly living large. 

With recent event the following things stand out to me:
1) Obama has summarily transferred an even greater amount of power from the states to the federal govt - continuing the goals of the big dem movement started w/ FDR - that his stimulus so entices and goads state government into accepting fed funds in exchange for federal control over how their states are governed - do you realize how innocent the national 55 mph speed limit was when it was enacted in the 70s to save gas? and yet it was not a federal law, it was a mandate - forcing the states to comply or they would jeopardize federal highway funds.  These leftists have surely accomplished what they wanted thus far.
2)  The talking heads on cnbc and those on wall street are shocked and dismayed - yet they voted the guy in. And as they rant and worry about how profit is going to survive and "what are they thinking" - they are doing exactly what marxists do, they are eliminating any incentive and motive for profit - working for profit is in danger and that is their goal - the talking heads seem to be speaking as if the destroyers don't understand what they are doing but they know exactly what they are doing - eliminating the quest for profit in our society makes every entity beholden to the federal trough, individual and corporate.
3) He ingeniously and without apology or consultation with congress has inserted a budget for a nationalized health care system to the tune of some $800 Billion where no plan or bureaucracy exists - yet once the funds are there the bureaucracy will follow, never to be undone - national health care or no national health care.
4)  He alone is consolidating power inside the white house and bypassing congressional oversight and responsibility with all these csars and new white offices of this and that, obliterating the serparation of powers and usruping congress's and thereby the people's input on legistlation - BUT we the people are getting what we deserve.  And of course the Dem congress has no problem with that anyway. His white house is effectively setting a marxist legislative agenda without apology and without any checks on his power - and when Ginsberg is gone he will have the supreme court as well.
5) The stock market is no longer reacting to itself, or responding to market fundamentals or technicals - the market is reacting day by day, hour by hour, to pronouncements and prognostications of bureaucrats and those in government who have never runa company or earned a profit in thier life - the market is no longer reacting to capital inflows, profits, dividends, price to earning ratios, return on investment, free cash flow, bond yields, futures, commodity demands, business cycles, or any of the myriad metrics that drove the success of the US in the last 50+years - and that is also what the left is looking for - a market driven by fear and fiat, by sound bite and press secretaries. 

When he wrote in his book how he searched out all the radicals and the marxist professors he could he took it to heart - and as newspapers fail all over the country and media companies become more polarized  - and as his administration increasingly becomes the arbiter of who wins and loses and in what industries, we cannot be surprised at all by the turn of events and the hard turn left we have taken. 

We will see how the country and the world reacts to a US unemployment rate of 12-15 percent by Feb/Mar 2010 and $10 oil, yet $3 gas, and inflation at 8% - and zero capital flowing into the markets and china not buying our debt anymore, and an Israeli- Iran (Arab world) war.  All the while the bureaucracy grows and eats at itself and forces the achievement class in this country almost underground, or maybe off shore, to wait it out - perhaps never to return - while our kids learn to live on 30% of their income and what prosperity their parents could afford to leave them, if the government hasn't taken it all by then.

This mortgage cramdown, while being decried as impossible on the right and rewarding failure and driving interest rates up even further as a result, is exactly what they want to happen - along the line so of destroying the motive for profit and the incentive to achieve, contrary to Obama's cry for responsility, the course he is setting and policies he is promoting and unilaterally implementing are creating an environment that the underclass will be perfectly happy living in, with the 13% of housing stock in default in the US effectively being turned into government housing.  When these people were in section 8 housing or living in apartments, how much better is the greater square footage in a house the government basically pays the bank to write down.

The slopes cannot be at a more precarious angle, they know it, and it is what they want to happen, to further their plan for the greatest dependence on government ever, on the backs of the acheivement class, who will eventually stop acheiving - how right Ayn Rand and Freidrich Hayek were - they lived it in the Soviet Union and the GDR - and it is not hyperbole to say we are experiencing the early stages of what they lived now.

For one thing, when will the universal, worldwide spell checks stop underlining the words Barack and Obama with squiggly colorful lines indicating a misspelling?

My God  - I was born in 1961!  And Reagan was a public citizen in 1961. 

Copy and paste the link to your browser, I am an idiot that can't figure out how to add the link,

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fRdLpem-AAs

And if you can't access it, go to youtube and search - Reagan speaks out against socialized medicine

A recent op-ed in the New York Times by Charles M. Blow (24 Jan 2009) lamented an observation by Representative James Clyburn of South Carolina stating that now that Barack Obama was president, "Every child has lost every excuse."  This Mr. Clyburn stated at an awards dinner sponsored by BET.  Side barred with the opinion were several statistics on the state of black children in America and the seemingly doomed existence into which they are born.
And while Mr. Blow seems to recite the tired mantra "we can overcome" in his analysis by claiming that Obama is no panacea to these seemingly startling statistics, he finishes with the opinion that "black people need to keep their feet on the ground even as their heads are in the clouds."
For  50+ years Democrats and the Left have promoted theories of big government and the nanny state - The New Deal,  The Great Society, and finally The Ownership Society -  that has led to the current financial crisis.  These delusions of grandeur are promoted by the left and those delusions have sold not just the black population and the black family a bill of goods and a dependence on government like a ball and chain or forty acres and mule around the neck but have affected the poor whites of the Appalachians and impoverished people everywhere in this country. 
Does not the fact that these statistics are still ominously facing the affected populations indicate a failure of the social policies put forth by Democrats and the Left these 50+ years?  With Obama's election we of course can no longer be considered a racist country.   So why is it that these statistics hold true nationally but hold even more true and ominous in the top 10 or 20 urban population centers in the country, and primarily Democratically held or controlled centers of the country.  Have not these cities been generally governed by Democratic leaders and subjected to these same failed policies over and over for decades, and yet, Democrats continue to be elected to lead these districts, regions, and states by the very populace to which the greatest harm has come by the existence of these failed policies? 
Likewise the election of our current president in a populist uprising of ignorance, who is managing by crisis, creating an overreaching atmosphere of doom - and succeeding - yet settling for the implementation of his solutions in 18 months or further just in time for congressional elections and his re-election mode, while the market forces that made this country great finally begin to settle and adjust in spite of itself and the interference of the government. 

Ahh, the joys of home ownership.  A mortgage, a yard to mow, condo association fees to pay, mailboxes to repair after the snow plow explodes it off the post, water filters to change, rotting trim to repair on a 40 foot ladder, property taxes, heating bills, appreciation and, most recently, depreciation.

Owning a home takes discipline, hard work, sacrifice, time, commitment, and most importantly, a pride of ownership, the willingness to be a stakeholder in your future - one must be proud to say this is mine, I have earned it, I will cherish the right and live up to the responsibility and fulfill my obligation to my community no matter the cost, on my own, by my own hand and effort!

And yet our economic situation is placed squarely at the foot of Americans who had no clue what ownership entails, what pride in earning and saving and sacrificing toward a goal is worth.  These Americans wanted it on the cheap, wanted the easy way to the American Dream, were not willing to save and sacrifice and earn that right. These Americans are the born renters of our society.  And just as we need burger flippers and mop pushers and the newly anointed shovel-ready job fillers, we need renters.  And to those Americans,  I dedicate this song, lovingly and kindly ripped off from Bruce Springsteen from the days when Bruce embraced and celebrated the American spirit of sacrifice and hard work and its rewards,  the Bruce who sang of surviving and persevering in Darkness on the Edge of Town, the Bruce who celebrated the American Spirit in Jungleland, the Bruce who today sings against everything that ever existed in this country to make his life what it is.

So cue Born to Run in iTunes - or download it now - and take a few moments to revel in what it used to mean to suck it up in America, to depend on yourself or your family and to not look to government for the answers to your problems, to be an individual, to be responsible for your own actions and abilities and the future of your children. 

My meter may not be spot on the first run through but it is after a few, and this message is dead on - you know it is.  I am right. Don't doubt me. 

In the day we rented the space that we lived while we strived for the American dream
At night we wished we owned our own home, how killer would that be
Sprung from paying someone else to live,
Vinyl sided, wood floors, with a fence and grass to mow
Ooohhh!!, Baby that mortgage is less than rent
We got no income, but the government says
We gotta right to own that home
‘cause tramps like us, baby we were born to own.

Yes we were

Jimmy let me in, I gotta have that house
But those bad banks demand an income
Bill I have no credit or down payment, just welfare
It’s not fair the man keeps me down some
Together we could break this trap,
We’ll borrow all this money, but the banks will be ok
Ooohhh!!, Will you walk with me out into debt
‘cause baby I never really owned a house
But I gotta know how it feels,
I haven’t saved or earned but I want to know if mortgage is real

Oh, can you show me - (Cue the big man)

The house I have isn’t worth what it was, but I still have a monthly payment
No money down, I don’t have jack in this house
I just don’t get my monthly statement!
The gutters fell off, what are property taxes?
What do you mean, I have to fix this stuff?
I’m not responsible for all this debt I have
I’m a renter, I’ve had enough  -  Huh!!

1-2-3-4

The bank system jammed, these renters cry “We promise you our vote”
These people on the run from their debt, “Someone else please pay my note!”
Together Barney we can stay in this house
I’ll love you with all the madness in my soul
Ooohhh!!, Someday soon I don’t know when we’ll go back to that place
Cause we hadn’t earned the right to that house after all
Cause baby, tramps like us, baby we were born to rent
Aww honey, tramps like us, baby we were born to rent
C’mon with me, tramps like us, baby we were born to rent.

Oh–oh–oh, ooo-ooo-ooo, whoa-whoa-whoa,  . . . and so it goes.

I will have to read Atlas Shrugged once again for some peace.