Will the president ever step up?

Barack Obama has been president for a few years now.  He’s had a chance to implement policies and run the country the way he thinks is right.  But by the way he talks, you’d think he has absolutely no control and no responsibility for the way things are going.

Unemployment is hovering around 9%.  Our credit rating has been downgraded.  The stock market is tumbling.  Food prices are skyrocketing.

And no one is taking responsibility for it.

The president consistently blames the previous administration.  His claims that he inherited most of these financial woes has been the cornerstone of his explanation for years now.

The president blames a trickle-down of the financial problem in Europe.

The president blames Congress for not getting enough done and continues to spew to the press how little confidence he has that they ever will get much done.

I want to know, will Barack Obama ever step up?  Will he ever take responsibility for the financial state of our country?  Will he continue to blame it on everyone but himself?

I don’t think he will.  And I don’t think it’s a political move.  I believe he’d gain much more of our confidence if he’d tell us straight, that he messed up and he’s going to fix it.  No, I think the president is weak and cowardly.  He doesn’t know how to face tough situations.  It would explain why it would take him days to address something as critical our credit rating being downgraded or a group of brave soldiers dying for their country.

He cannot handle it.

Barack Obama is a weak and ineffective president who will never take responsibility for the mess he helped to create or the one he continued to perpetuate.

It’s funny how he campaigned so hard under the banner of “hope and change”, yet he’s incapable of either.

What does your employer owe you?

Someone I know recently spent a few years overseas in a country that has a lot of social programs.  Employers are required to provide you with 6 weeks of paid vacation and 6 months of paid maternity leave.

Now back in the U.S., this person finds our “policies” on leave from work to be lacking.  Because in this country, as a general rule, employers have the freedom to set their own policies when it comes to paid time off.  That often means we get about 2 weeks of paid vacation a year and a woman gets about 6 weeks maternity leave, often unpaid.

I’m left to wonder, what exactly do our employers owe us?  Where does what we demand from them end?  Do they owe us 6 weeks of vacation?  Six months of paid maternity leave?

I don’t think so.  In fact, I don’t think they owe us anything like that at all.  If you ask me, an employer owes employees a fair wage and a safe environment to work in.  That is it.  Health insurance, vacation days and everything are benefits to make jobs more attractive.  Employers use these as tools to attract candidates to their companies.  They cost the company money, and often you actually make less money every week because of them.  But sometimes that’s a fair trade.

Do I think  it would be great to work somewhere that gave me a whole month off work every year?  Yeah!  I mean, who wouldn’t like that?  But I don’t think any employer owes me that.  I’m thankful for the 2 weeks a year I get now.  Because they don’t have to give me any at all.

 

Letting people keep their money = Government spending?

I like calling things what they are, which is why I often have such a hard time with the crap politicians spew.  They don’t call things what they are they don’t tell it like it is.

Take this tidbit from California congressman Pete Stark:

You’ve heard a lot about the Debt Limit.  And I guess that’s – I don’t know how many of you are worried about it or concerned about it.  The fact is I think it’s a political charade.

I’m afraid that the Democrats have done that in the past, threatened to shut down the government.  I don’t think there’s a chance that it will happen. I think the last time somebody did, they lost enough seats in the House of Representatives to convince them it was a dumbest thing they ever did.  [It] doesn’t get us anywhere, it doesn’t help anybody, and to extend the Debt Limit is nothing more – than people have described it – than that the government’s credit card doesn’t run out of resources.

And we all know we have more debt than we should be carrying and there’s a fight going on: Should we raise your taxes to lower that debt?  Should we quit government spending?  The question is if we quit government spending, what do we quit spending?  Do we quit spending on Social Security and WIC and children’s daycare?  Or do we quit spending for corporate jet deductions, and those sorts of things?  And those are the political fights.

I don’t necessarily disagree with him on a couple of points he made, but then he talks about government spending and the agreement ends.  Stark wants to compare apples to oranges, all the while convince you it’s apples to apples.  Well I don’t buy it, and I hope you don’t either.

Government spending is pretty straight forward.  The government takes our money in the form of taxes and they spend it on stuff.  Whether you believe they spend it on the right stuff, well that’s a different debate.

Stark wants you to believe, however, that money they don’t take from tax payers is also government spending.  According to him, if the government is generous enough to let us keep more of our money, that’s government spending.

Now, does that make sense to you?  Because it doesn’t to me.  Certainly it means less revenue for the government, but that’s different.

But they have to use tactics like this, don’t they?  Because many fiscal conservatives are pushing hard for less government spending and liberals can’t fight against that in this kind of economy unless they can show how conservatives are big spenders too, even when generally speaking that’s not the case.  So, they have to use smoke and mirrors and hopefully trick the American people into believing it.

What a way to instill trust in the people you’re supposed to be representing.

What kind of responsibility comes with financial wealth?

I want to say it seems like lately the wealthy in this country are being vilified, but isn’t that the way it’s been for a while?  Certain people want you to believe there are two classes of people, the haves and the have-nots.  And the haves the reason the have-nots are in the situation they’re in.

There’s this assumption that with wealth comes this responsibility to share it, to do good with it.  Take the site FairEconomy.org for example.  It’s all about using your wealth responsibly and the disconnect between the “rich” and the “poor.”  It doesn’t take you long to realize their position is that the rich are to blame.  If they’d just share what they have, all our problems would be solved.

They have a section called “11 Things the Wealthiest Americans Could Buy for the U.S.”  According to their sources, the wealthiest 400 Americans could easily buy every family in the country a new car.  Or give every worker in the country $10,000.  Or even pay off every single outstanding student loan.

But should they?  Just because they’re wealthy, do they have a responsibility to take care of those who aren’t?  I don’t think so.  What have I or any other citizen done to deserve that kind of payoff?  Could I use that kind of charity?  Yeah, I’ve got a mortgage, student loans and a host of other financial responsibilities to take care of.  But they’re my responsibility.  And I have to be the one to take care of them.

Do I wonder sometimes what rich people do with all their money?  Sure, who doesn’t?  But they earned it.  And that’s why it’s their right to do what they want with it.  If they want to hoard it away in a bank, so be it.  If they want to live extravagantly with it, ok.  If they want to give it away, that great.  But it’s not a requirement.

Wealthy people have the same responsibilities as I do when it comes to money – which is to use however want.  Whether our choices are foolish or not, well that’s up to us to decide.  And no one should get to tell you if that’s wrong or not, because it’s part of living in a free society.

Obama spends 3 trillion dollars, what do we have to show for it?

It took from 1776 to 1990 for our country to rack up $3 trillion in debt.  It took Barack Obama less than two years.

Our economy is in the tank.  People are out of work, and the president thinks if he just keeps spending money we don’t have, the problems will go away.

Well, they aren’t going away.  But they keep shoving this cock-and-bull story down our throats about how much worse it would be if they hadn’t spent all this nonexistent money.

Sure, I can pay for gas and groceries with a credit card.  I can take out a cash advance to pay some bills.  I’ve done it before.  And yeah, for a little while it makes things ok.  But it’s false sense of “ok.”  You still owe that money.  You haven’t made anything better.  You’ve just delayed the hurt.  Believe me, I know.

I wised up and realized if I can’t afford it with what’s in my bank account, I have to find a way to live without it.

Barack Obama seems nowhere near such a revelation.  He continues to spend money we don’t have, despite having no way to pay that debt down.  But it’s ok, because he’s creating jobs (or saving them, it’s unclear which) and just as soon as the economy rebounds we’ll be able to pay it all back.

The fantasy world our president lives in must be a special one indeed.

~Trish

I heart you Arizona

I felt like the state needed some love, considering what left-wing wackos are trying to do to it.  All because they’re making an attempt to enforce laws that the federal government refuses to.

Crap like this infuriates me:

I’m at work, so I’m just popping in to post this.  I haven’t had time to research the sponsors of this boycott, but I will.  There will also be phone calls and e-mails placed.  I urge you to do the same.  If they can direct attacks at a state that’s doing nothing but upholding what the federal government should be doing, they can take the angry onslaught from people who value this country enough to want to keep it safe and secure.

We refuse to secure our borders.  We refuse to crack down on the illegals that are here (and who knows how many are coming in daily).  There is absolutely  no deterrent to keep more illegals coming into this country.  There is nothing stopping people who want to get here illegally so they can attack our country.

This isn’t an issue of race.  This is an issue of protection.  If I lived in a foreign country where I didn’t speak the native language, I might expect that under some circumstances a person of authority might want proof that I have a legal right to be there.  Of course, I wouldn’t expect that just because I speak or look different I’d be put under a microscope.  This law in Arizona allows local law enforcement officials to legally request proof of residency status, if it is warranted.  It is perfectly appropriate.

I hope Arizona refuses to back down.  I hope Arizona clings to the rights it has to remain safe and secure, even if the federal government has abandoned that quest.

There are a lot of people supporting the state right now.  I’m one of them.

~Trish

Trish vs. The 2010 Census

I received a regular census form in the mail.  I also received an American Community Survey in the mail.  I decided from the beginning to object to both and see what happens.

First, they sent me a lot of mail.  Most of stating how important the census is and how the American Community Survey will help them better understand where to send funding.

Then visits from census workers started.  For most part I ignored them, until one evening as I had just sat down to relax and watch a movie.  There was a knock on the door, so I decided to face the problem head-on.  The result was a shouting match in my front yard with a heinous woman (who explain to me several times how important she was because she works for the federal government).  I had fully intended to just tell her to go away, but she threatened to talk to my neighbors about me.  It wasn’t a pretty scene.

A few days later, another lady showed up.  She was significantly more pleasant, so I allowed her to give me her speech about sending in the census.  She said she just needed the age and race of all the occupants of my house and she could leave me alone.  I nicely asked her what race had to do with anything.  She said it helps them to know where to send federal funds.  So again, I nicely asked her why more or less funding would be sent to an area based on the color of skin of its residents.  She didn’t have an answer.  She just stared at me and said she could “look it up.”  I told her not to bother, because there is no explanation.

We had a cordial encounter and I thanked her for being a decent human being, unlike the other person who had been stopping by.  She was getting ready to leave and she said she hopes that I decide to fill out my census, otherwise “groups” of people would be coming by to “compel” me to fill it out.  I said “You mean groups of people are going to harass me in my home?”  She didn’t even bother to deny it.  She nodded her head, knowing that’s exactly what they were going to do.

So far today, she’s been back to my house at least 2 times.  She stands outside knocking on my door for 5 minutes, making my dog bark and making me want to lose my mind.

I suppose if I gave them a few pieces of information I could make it all go away, but I plan to continue my protest and see where it goes.

God  help the group of people who try to coerce me into filling this form out.  They don’t know what kind of patriot they’re dealing with.

~Trish

So much for that separation of church and state thing

Nancy Pelosi spoke at the Catholic Community Conference in Washington.  Now, I don’t have a problem with politicians being involved with religious organizations.  Go to church.  Stand up for what you believe in.  Meet with like-minded people.  Give speeches to them.  Just don’t push your political agenda on them.

If there was ever a time for the liberal gospel of “separation of church and state” to surface, it would be when a politician starts to tell religious leaders how to lead.  But it only works the other way in the liberal world, apparently.  Your politics can’t be infused with your religious beliefs, but religion can be as political as they can get it.  I mean, think of all those voters!

This is what Nasty Nancy Pelosi had to say at the conference:

I would hope that there’s one thing that we can do working together as we go forward that speaks to what the Bible tells us about the dignity and worth of every person — and that is on the subject of immigration. Because I think the Church is going to have to play a very major role in how we, in how people are treated.

The cardinals, the archbishops, the bishops that come to me and say, ‘We want you to pass immigration reform. And I say, ‘But I want you to speak about it from the pulpit.’

I want you to instruct your, whatever the communication is — the people, some of them, oppose immigration reform are sitting in those pews and you have to tell them that this is a ‘manifestation of our living the gospels.’

Do I even need to explain how scary that is?  Nancy Pelosi is no moral authority.  Frankly, none of us are.  The fact that she was allowed to stand up in front of people and speak in an official capacity and mix her political agenda with the GOSPEL of all things is ridiculous.

I’d say she should just stick to what she’s good at, but she’s not really good at much.  So I’ll just hope that she’s out of a job soon.

~Trish

He probably never learned how to program a VCR either

First, a bit of an explanation about why I haven’t been writing here.  Basically, I had lots to say but no words to say it with.  It was an interesting form of writer’s block.  More like the inability to express in words how ridiculous I felt things were getting with regard to politics and our country.  I also needed to find a way to separate politics from certain aspects of my life.  I can’t eat, sleep and breathe it.  So I spent some time away and I think I’m coming back with an even stronger resolve to keep writing and fighting for this country.

Having said that, let’s move on to the fun stuff!   I’m going to tear into the president like I would a box of Little Debbies after a week of fasting.  Got that mental image going?  Ok, good.

So, the president was giving a commencement speech and had this to say:

And meanwhile, you’re coming of age in a 24/7 media environment that bombards us with all kinds of content and exposes us to all kinds of arguments, some of which don’t always rank that high on the truth meter. And with iPods and iPads and Xboxes and PlayStations — none of which I know how to work — information becomes a distraction, a diversion, a form of entertainment, rather than a tool of empowerment, rather than the means of emancipation. So all of this is not only putting pressure on you; it’s putting new pressure on our country and on our democracy.

I haven’t read the entire speech, but this snippet alone is enough to get me worked up.  The speech, at least in part, was not about sending these new grads off with words of wisdom.  It was about spewing his own agenda, which he seems to be incapable of not doing.  Is he really so afraid of dissenting opinion that he has to warn against it in a commencement speech?  And as a guy who couldn’t even handle giving up his Blackberry for the duration of his presidency, you’d think he’d be a touch more in tune with the power and draw of new technology in this country.  But no, he talks about it like you’d expect an 80 year old grandmother to, with trepidation and ignorance.

That’s what I think this boils down to, the collision of a political agenda and flat out ignorance.  This kind of technology isn’t going anywhere.  You can embrace it and figure out how it works for your life, or you can fight it and only see its flaws.

Maybe that’s what Obama should have said.

~Trish

P.S.  I’d like to point out that while Obama claims to not know how to use an iPod and has lamented about the dangers of such technology, he actually gave one as a gift to the Queen of England.  I bet SHE could figure an Xbox out.

Obama Art – My Favorites

Pretty much from the time Barack Obama became a sensation, people have been painting ridiculous pictures of him.  Thus far I’ve only looked and laughed, but I think it’s about time I put my favorites together.  And regardless of political affiliation, you have to admit this shit is funny.

A-Unicorn-Is-Chasin’-Me Obama:

Wrastlin’ Obama:

Almost-Full-Frontal Obama:

It’s-Not-Cancer Obama:

Pancake-Junk Obama:

You’re welcome.

~Trish