GOP Claims Leverage on Bailout

Republicans are holding out on any bail out proposals being offered up for bail out measures in the current Wall Street financial debacle. What is the driving force behind their stand, and how will it affect the outcome of any proposal that does pass?

Senator Richard Shelby (R-AL) is not pleased with the Democratic proposals coming out to "bail out" for the financial system. Shelby, who until the early 90's served in the Senate as a Democrat, is no stranger to the way that Democrats do business, which is part and parcel the reason he chose to switch parties, with the support of the majority of his constituency in his home state of Alabama, who have chosen to return him to his office since his party switch.

Republicans by and large are claiming that they have the leverage that they need to make sure that any "bail out" that is approved be done the way that they want it to be done, otherwise they will continue to balk at proposals being laid forth by Democrats, claiming that the Democrats alone will be responsible for any flawed legislation that is passed in an effort to save the United States financial system.

Reps. Eric Cantor (R-Va.) and Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) are leading an effort by House Republicans to circulate the set of principles to their colleagues and like-minded Democrats, according to a senior Republican.

Asked whether the effort comes too late, the GOP official said the votes would be leverage enough to have the principles considered by congressional negotiators.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.) has indicated that a bill will not be brought to the floor without broad Republican support.

GOP presidential candidate Sen. John McCain (Ariz.) and the White House have been made aware of their alternative.

Fingers are being pointed on both sides of the aisle, as always, as politicians attempt to pass the blame for the economic situation from one to the other, with neither side truly being capable of standing in either blame nor credit for the state of the nation's economy, unless it such blame lies in economic policies that put burdens upon American businesses and their ability to conduct trade and commercial ventures both at home and abroad. The decline of the American economy lies more in the way that we have been forced, by necessity of economic survival on the part of our industry, to have our manufacturing base moved overseas and off shore due to regulatory and tax structures that make it unprofitable for large industry to maintain operations domestically. Both parties can take credit for that development.

Who suffers? The American people. There is much caution that needs to be undertaken in any federal aid lent to the financial system; caution that the tenets of the United States Constitution are not violated, caution that any aid is not a first step towards nationalization of any industry, caution that any aid rendered does no harm to the American public.

To give credit where it is due, several Republican members of the House and Senate have been warning of this coming meltdown for years, with Democrats calling for and pushing legislation for cheaper and more available credit for the public. Cheap and easy credit, if one looks to history, were the main causes for the market failures leading to the great depression, a global economic nightmare that gave rise to the regime of Adolf Hitler and the Third Reich, a situation that I don't think anyone wishes to see repeated less than 100 years after the rise of the last world war.

Any "bail out," a misnomer created by the main stream media, once again, for a loan proposal in which money lent to the financial institutions would be repaid to the federal government, will have to be carefully crafted and such safeguards included that the monies lent are tightly regulated, monitored, and assurances made that there be no room for abuse of the funds lent to companies so that they can continue to operate. The failure of these businesses, the inability of banking and lending to lend money to business, means an overall shutdown of the American economy at large. Such a situation would have global repercussions, creating a hole in the economic stability of other nations who trade with us, and who, in turn, trade with other nations.

This is a much larger and more broad scoped problem than many people realize.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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9 out of 10 Marxists Agree, Obama Beats the Other Brands...

It's almost as if the flood gates have opened since the end of the Clinton-Obama fight for the Democratic top spot for the party. Flood gates that seem to be bringing one negative thing after another on a daily basis for Obama.

There is an old Chinese curse that goes, "may you live in interesting times." I don't know, maybe it's just because I see things from having lived my life as a political independent for so many years, but I've gotta say, I'm absolutely not amazed by this news, and if anyone is, they're either lying to themselves or in a great state of denial, OR completely ignorant of anything other than what they have been spoon fed by the dinosaur media.

It's an interesting thing in today's world. Information is literally at one's fingertips. All you have to do is sit down at a computer and go online and you can find pretty much anything you want to find out about anything. It's also another way of people networking with each other to discuss things of common interest, common causes, common beliefs, so forth and so on.

And on Barack Obama's official website, like minded Marxists, communists, and socialists are doing just that.

One popular community group on the Illinois senator's official MyObama website calls itself "Marxists/Socialists/Communists for Obama."

"This group is for self-proclaimed Marxists/Communists/Socialists for the election of Barack Obama to the Presidency. By no means is he a true Marxist, but under Karl Marx's writings we are to support the party with the best interests of the mobilization of the proletariat," states the groups charter.

"We support Barack Obama because he knows what is best for the people!" exclaims the group's online creed.

And on Obama's site, the declared Marxist, communist and socialist bloggers rant against such varied targets as Republicans, capitalism and the Fox News Channel. According to author profiles, the bloggers range from registered voters to underage high school students who state they are looking to foment revolt.

Ah yes, isn't that just what we want from a Presidential candidate? An inspiration for a Marxist revolution, as called for in another posting entitled "The Nature of the Proletariat." There are many such entries to be found along the same vein, all speaking of "The Revolution."

Just words?

There seems to be a drawing of this sort of commentary from other groups, as well, on Obama's site, with groups such as Atheists for Obama, Jedi Knights for Obama, Muslims for Obama, and even one mysterious sounding group called "The Secret" Believers for Obama.

I have a feeling that the "secret" that they're referring to has nothing to do with an antiperspirant that is strong enough for a man, but made for a woman.

And then there are the anti-Semitic postings, some of which are no longer found on the site as of this writing.

Yesterday WND reported a blog posting on Obama's official campaign site urged Americans to take action to secure the release of imprisoned terrorist fundraiser Sami Al-Arian, comparing the controversial former professor to Martin Luther King and Malcolm X.

The posting, which has been removed since publication of the story, is just a sampling of a large volume of racist, anti-Semitic and pro-Palestinian rhetoric published on the user-friendly MyObama community blog pages.

One recently removed posting claims Jews control the media. Another referred to Jews as "puppet masters" and "war criminals." Yet another posting, titled "The Israeli connection to 9/11," claimed Israeli intelligence was involved in the mega-attack and planted "false flags" to blame Arab countries.

Other MyObama posts have warned of "Judeofacists and their Neocon comrades" who "already destroyed America" and declare the "entire Congress should be overthrown by revolution for having sold America to the Israelis."

Is this the sort of "change" Obama means when he refers to it in his speeches? Is this the "hope" that he has for "unity" in the United States? Marxism?

To be fair, the Obama site does make the disclaimer that it can't regulate each and every posting that comes through on the site. But it's a question of character, and the inspiration that that character instills and brings forth from the voting public that has to be examined.

Marxism has been tried, and has failed, everywhere that it has been brought into play. The former Soviet Union is the best example of the failure of Marxist ideology, and yet there are a number of Obama supporters who would have that same sort of system installed in the United States.

They're even announcing that they want the revolution to come. And they're putting their support behind Barack Obama because they see him as one of them.

Just words?

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Sex, Lies, and Denial of a Socialist Agenda

Oil prices have continued to rise daily, with each rise marking a new record for high fuel prices around the world. The blame has been tossed about from one party to the next, but certain Democrats are suddenly backtracking from some of their statements.

Imagine how you would feel as a business owner if the government decided one day that it needed to nationalize your industry. Suppose, for example, that some politician, in cahoots with a group of bureaucrats, decided that, let's say, the office supply industry was so vital to the American economy that it needed to be taken over by, administered by, and controlled by the federal government.

Suddenly, a few months down the road, changes have to be made. It wasn't enough just to catch the office suppliers, now the government has discovered, after spending tireless hours of research, that it also needs to nationalize the paper industry, the ink industry, and the manufacture of paper clips and staples, because they are all vital suppliers to office supply companies and their survival is vital to the economy. A few more months pass, and the makers of the bodies for ink pens are added in, along with printer cartridge manufacturing and copy machine toner, pencils both wooden and mechanical are added in as well.

Wooden pencils come from trees, so eventually, to ensure the proper flow of pencil products, the timber industry will fall under nationalization as well, which would sub branch out into the building industry, because, as you know, the timber industry supplies the lumber industry and everyone who builds needs lumber, making it a vital part of the American economy as well and therefore in need of regulation. What holds a house together, now that we think about it? Why, that would be nails and fasteners, so naturally those industries would have to be nationalized, and subsequently there would be a nationalization of the metals industries, foundries, machine shops, leading all the way back to the raw materials mined out of the earth to create them.

Tools are used in mining, building, manufacturing, as well, which would make the manufacture of tools vital to the American economy and thus in need of Nationalization.

Need I continue, or have I adequately illustrated the snowball effect (I SO loathe the "slippery slope analogy, personally) that comes of nationalization of an industry? That business alone isn't affected, all suppliers to that industry become affected as well, over the course of time, and before you can say "supercalifragilisticexpialidocious" nationalization is becoming a national trend. And yes, I spelled that right, I googled it to make sure. I have to say, I was mightily impressed with myself.

I digress.

Last month, Congresswoman Maxine Waters demonstrated that timeless tradition of Socialists when she "outed" herself fully and publicly in calling for a nationalization of the oil industry; step 1, open mouth, step 2, insert foot, step 3, chew vigorously. Her comment did not go unnoticed by another Democrat cum Socialist, Congressman Maurice Hinchey, who chimed in this month saying practically the same thing as Waters, only without the catch of trying to stop himself from saying what he meant.

Link: sevenload.com

In light of the heavy fire that Waters and Hinchey have taken over their statements (Hinchey, doesn't that just sort of sound like a pirate name or something? AVAST, First Mate Hinchey, make ready to be underway!) the Democratic Party has sent out their spin doctors to try to patch up the sucking chest wound that has resulted from two Socialists in their ranks publicly showing their true agendas.

Thomas Fiery, a policy analyst at the libertarian Cato Institute, told Cybercast News Service that he doubts whether Waters, Hinchey or any Democrats truly support the nationalization ("socializing") of U.S. oil refineries.

"The Democrats in general do no support this idea," he said. "My guess is that neither Waters nor Hinchey really support this idea. They are ducking and covering and saying anything that might get people riled up."

Fiery added that if the federal government were to take over refineries, oil companies would profit. "The people who would be the most happy to hear about the socialization of oil refineries would be ExxonMobil, Shell, Chevron and all the oil companies because there really isn't much money to be made in refining," he said.

"Historically, there has been close to no profit in those industries at all," Fiery added.

Correct me if I'm wrong here, but hasn't everyone been complaining because Exxon has reported such staggeringly large record breaking profits per quarter? Or does Mr. Fiery know something that we don't? It is precisely because of the huge profits that Exxon and the other major oil producers are making that Democrats would be interested in nationalizing them. What, 18.9 cents per gallon of profit for doing nothing in the production of gasoline other than imposing a tax upon it isn't enough for the federal government? At 18.9 cents tax per gallon for gasoline, the federal government makes 10 cents more per gallon than the companies that make it possible for you to put it in your fuel tank and drive down the road. And the federal government plays absolutely no role in the production of gasoline.

While Mr. Fiery can go around all he wishes to spouting off how he doesn't think that Waters and Hinchey really believe in the nationalization of the oil industry, one has to wonder and ask, if they don't really believe it, why aren't they out there saying so themselves rather than relying on the Cato institute to say it for them?

Oh, and as to the sex portion of the title, I'm sure that you, the reader, have noticed that there is no mention of sex in this article whatsoever to this point. The truth is, it's been a tried and proven marketing device that sex sells. If the title caught your interest because of the sex part, then you have just proven years of psychological and marketing research correct in participating in this little experiment.

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Maxine Waters, Out of the Closet as a Socialist?

Last week during Congressional hearings with oil company executives, industry executives told members of Congress they were being hamstrung by being unable to access oil on American soil and territory. Maxine Waters of California has another solution...

Fuel and oil prices are climbing, daily. No one can argue that, although there is plenty of argument over the reasons for it and solutions and alternatives petroleum products. There are plenty of fly by night opportunities for get rich quick schemers to jump in offering miracle products to a public looking for relief from rising fuel prices, which are in turn driving the prices up on practically everything else.

I didn't know where to expect it coming from, or rather whom, but I did expect it, and I did expect it to be suggested for the oil industry. Bear in mind this is the SECOND industry that is being targeted by politicians for nationalization.

That's right, the second industry.

More on that in a few minutes.

The who has turned out to be Democratic Congresswoman Maxine Waters, who suggested last week in meetings (hearings) with oil company executives that she had no problem with the government taking over the industry.

That's called "nationalizing."



I don't see anything, anywhere, in the Constitution, where it calls for the federal government to get involved in industry. The role of the government is a national defense, creation of laws governing relations between the states and our country with other countries, and improvement of the interior. In a nutshell, that's it. It is not the responsibility of government to become involved in private industry. Not under our constitutional structure. That road leads to a socialist system, and that lies in contradiction with our rule of law.

And yet it has now been suggested for a second industry, the oil industry, by Maxine Waters.

That brings us full circle, back to the question that's lurking beneath the surface, of what was the first industry? If you haven't figured it out by now, that's because you've been conditioned not to even think about it by politicians and the main stream dinosaur media at large that it doesn't even cross your mind at this point to consider that to put control of the nation's health care industry into the hand of the government would be nationalizing it to federal control. That's right, the first industry to be targeted was the health care industry.

Watch for this trend to become more frequently mentioned in the coming months...

Once and Always, an American Fighting Man

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Totally at Random

This is one of those nights where I sit at the screen thinking, "Where do I start? What do I start with?"

Ever have those nights? Those of you who write know what I'm talking about. It's a sort of writer's block, but not really, because you have a MILLION and one ideas running through your mind but can't think of which one you want to lead out with.

The trick is to pick ONE thing, then let the others just sort of flow until you finish, depending of course on what your subject matter is. Fortunately, this particular piece has no singular subject matter OTHER THAN the randomness of ones own mind, and I gotta tell ya, sometimes, THIS mind can be fairly random.

Some say it's a symptom of genius, others that it's a sure sign of insanity.

Perhaps it's some sort of strange conglomeration of both.

History will be the judge.

Raoul, Dracula, whatever you're calling yourself tonight, my offer still stands, btw. Bring it on, amigo. I'm waiting. :)

Ahem.

I don't often "toot my own horn," soneone recently pointed out on this site my qualifications and experience, commenting that I was being FAR too modest about myself. What follows is, I suppose, something that goes along those lines, and I say what I'm about to say not to take any credit for myself, but rather to, hopefully, inspire thought and action from others. I met a man this week through my work, he was one of my customers, who is a Vietnam veteran (for those of you who don't KNOW exactly what it is that I do, right now I'm a communications contractor, at this customer's home I was installing a digital satellite television system). I arrived at his home to meet him as he and his brother were heading to the hospital some 60 miles away for his weekly radiation therapy. He has cancer. Cancer caused by Agent Orange. His mother was staying at the house as I did my work. During the course of my doing my thing, doing what I do, I learned this from her, about the Agent Orange and his fight the past few years with cancer that had been caused by it. There are many days when he is too ill to do much other than to lay in bed and watch television. His one satellite receiver was located in the living room. Typically, running a second line, called a mirror line, from one location to another so that both television sets are showing the same thing gets an extra charge. I pondered this as I was working, pondering the fact that this man served our nation in an unpopular war, that he has, according to his mother, difficult nights many times because of the things that he experienced, and the fact that while I served at a time when we weren't actively engaged in hostilities (officially, anyway) that I have my own difficult nights from let's just leave it at that I have difficult nights as well. I don't want to dwell and tonight be one of them. Anyway, I decided that I would run the second line for this man, this brother veteran, at no charge. It was the least I could do as a gesture of thanks for his service, and hopefully a little something to ease him a bit in what he and his family know are his last days.

Little things.

I share this illustration not to praise myself, not by any means. I share this illustration to hopefully show how SIMPLE it is to do little things to say "thank you" to our veterans.

Random acts of kindness.

It's an amazing thing how twisted things SUCH as kindness can be twisted around, as well. A few of us from time to time refer to Atlas Shrugged by Ayn Rand. What an incredible visionary this woman was. A child of Russia, she had seen first hand the trappings of socialism and the way that it can take the ordinary and the most basic of human nature and virtue and TWIST it into something surreal, something vulgar, something...else. Another magnificent work by Rand is The Fountainhead, which I am reading now for, unfortunately, the first time. One of the main characters IS a Socialist, and she shows, through her writing, how skillfully and artfully, how INNOCENTLY, people can be manipulated into absolute ruin and self doubt, allowing themselves to be controlled by others. This work was written almost a CENTURY ago, and yet both works are so highly relevant to our society today.

Prophetically so.

A few lines from The Fountainhead, because I HIGHLY, HIGHLY recommend this book to be read, as well as Atlas Shrugged:

"One Small Voice" never seemed to say anything dangerously revolutionary, and seldom anything political. It merely preached sentiments with which most people felt in agreement: unselfishness, brotherhood, equality. "I'd rather be kind than right." "Mercy is superior to justice, the shallow-hearted to the contrary notwithstanding." "Speaking anatomically - and perhaps otherwise - the heart is the most valuable organ. The brain is a superstition." "In spiritual matters there is a simple, infallible test: everything that proceeds from the ego is evil; everything that proceeds from love for others good." "Service is the only badge of nobility. I see nothing offensive in the conception of fertilizer as the highest symbol of man's destiny: it is fertilizer that produces wheat and roses." "the worst folk song is superior to the best symphony." "A man braver than his brothers insults them by implication. Let us aspire to no virtue which cannot be shared." "I have yet to see a genius or a hero who, if stuck with a burning match, would feel less pain than his undistinguished average brother." "Genius is an exaggeration of dimension. So is elephantiasis. Both may be only a disease." "We are all broghers under the skin - and I, for one, would be willing to skin humanity to prove it."

How much of that sounds familiar, if one steps back and takes a look at the world around them? How MUCH of that diseased mindset has settled itself into our society today? How much of it do we see so subtly delivered to us from the pulpit of the modern Democratic party? Worse, how much of it is seeping over to the Republicans?

Something to think about, methinks.

I'm amazed at the work ethic of so many of our younger generation, as well. I can tell a major difference in the quality of work done by some of the young twenty-somethings that do the same sorts of work that I do. I'm amazed at the quality of work in other places, as well. My mother was commenting today about my brother's car having to go back into the shop this week after being serviced just last week, because he has a problem that was caused, likely, BY the routine service work.

I suppose it's always been that way, though, but I'm not sure.

I do remain hopeful, or at least I try to. I know others who have magnificent work ethics and excel at what they do.

We have let our guard down as a nation. We have allowed Nikita Khrushchev's prophecy of "taking us from the inside" almost to come true. Almost. But not quite.

We can take the words that make the title for this blogsite and make them a mantra. We can take them into our hearts, and into our MINDS, and live them, breath them, use them.

Wake Up America can be our rally cry, and this, from Atlas Shrugged, our oath of our character and a testiment of our determination: "I swear by my life and my love of it that I will never live for the sake of another man, nor ask another man to live for mine."

Random thoughts, from

An American Fighting Man

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