Old Hippie

Well, it's Thanksgiving again and I am reflecting on just what I have to be thankful for this year. There are many things that come to mind but one giant negative crowds out everything else from my train of thought; the direction of this "progressive Government". I hate it! Absolutely hate the direction Obama and his cronies are taking this country.

But I digress. Let me give thanks. Venus, my wonderful, kind, intelligent, hard-working, loving mom, teacher and my favorite daughter. Yes, she's my only daughter but I couldn't ask for anyone better than her to call my only daughter. I love you, dear.

My son-in-law and my two grandchildren. They are great and healthy and I am thankful to be their father-in-law and grandfather. I love you.

My very best friend ever, Shannon, who has reawakened in me energy that I thought was lost forever. She keeps me active, she keeps me straight, she keeps me thinking and she keeps me young. I love you, sweetheart.

My most wonderful, loving, loyal dog ever I have known, Luna. She is such a joy to me, a blessing every single day of my life. I don't know how I was so lucky to find this companion but I am eternally grateful for her presence in my life. I love you, Luna Belle.

My family, who is not as close as we used to be since my parents have passed away, but I have learned many things from each and every one of you and I am thankful to have been born into such a good family. I love you all.

My friends. I don't have a lot of friends, I never have. But the people I count as my friends are very special to me and I remain loyal to those of you in my inner circle. Acquaintances are fine, but good friends are so much better. Peter, a special shout out to you, my longest friend and hopefully we will always stay close. I love you all.

My country, the greatest country in the world's history. May we be able to weather this storm of dependence and entitlement the "progressive/liberal movement" has drawn us into and return our government to its rightful place of insuring freedom and liberty for all, not the ridiculous class warfare animosity that is being waged around me constantly, often in the name of political correctness or environmentalism. I love America, but I don't love government.

My health, which I believe I contribute positively to in the actions I take to continue my existence on this planet. Good health should never be taken for granted, I did that for many years during my long my drinking phase, which I regret severely, but have been on a healthy course since kicking that awful, negative habit. I guess I love myself for doing this. :<) But I do owe a deep debt to Jack Crosetti, my former boss and good friend, who pushed me and went with me to AA to start me on the road to recovery. May he rest in peace.

Simple pleasures. They are the best. Good conversation with a good friend. Games. Sports. Gator sports especially. Especially Gator basketball. Travel. Seeing new places and learning about different times, cultures and events in history. Doing this with people I love. Like my daughter and son in law and my two grandkids. Sushi. Freedom. I am a thankful person for all of these things. I love life.

And I am thankful for the timing of my life. Too soon and I would have missed some of the most extraordinary inventions of mankind. Too late and I would quite possibly be living in a socialist or fascist or Marxist country where the state dictates every aspect of one's life. And that's exactly where we are heading with Obama at the helm. Faster than I ever thought possible.

Politics scare me. Politics also intrigue me. I can't stand hearing about all the absurdities going on in Washington, yet I can't stand not knowing about those absurdities. I am constantly amazed at the audacity and ignorance and self-serving interests of elected politicians. They keep pushing and people keep nudging them to push harder and harder to benefit one group or another. And all the while our freedoms disappear one by one. Little by little they chip away at the very essence of our individualism, our country's power and reduce it to meaningless drivel. Inaccurate numbers on an over-priced government web site.

And the people who amaze me the most are the common people who think that socialism can work. Those who believe that government control of our lives somehow fulfills the idealistic, utopian dream of a perfect society. These uninformed people who believe their beloved politician actually cares about you and is doing everything in your interest. How can people not see through these blowhards, spending our money and our kids money and our grandkids money while enhancing their own interests. Power and control. Nothing happens unless it benefits their interests in some way. It must further their goals of power and control and they have the purse strings of the American taxpayer to play with. We have to realize that the level of corruption in DC has greatly exceeded its limits and the trend must be stopped and reversed. They are killing the goose that lays the golden eggs to benefit themselves or their pet group.

The assault Obama and Pelosi and Reid have unleashed on our freedoms were predicted by some and encouraged by many. After such division during the Bush years, the hard left thought they were going to get everything they ever dreamed about. Well, almost. Perhaps the message that Obama declared a few days before the election that he will "fundamentally transform America" is finally sinking in to those who are paying attention. I surely hope so.

I truly hope that masses of people will realize that what is happening in DC is NOT what is in the best interests of this country. I truly hope there is someone out there willing and able to lead the charge back to less government and more individual freedoms. I sincerely hope the fundamental transformation can be stopped before it gets going at a full gallop and it will be too late. I hope the tea party protests continue, I would like to attend another one. I wish the FairTax would get a fair discussion in Congress. I wish enough citizens of this country would wake up and stop the overthrow of our capitalistic system before it's too late.

I truly hope I can continue to give thanks for being born in this country. I truly hope the same will be true for my grandkids and their grandkids after them.

Happy Thanksgiving.

OH

Famous words from Queen Nancy Pelosi when asked if government requiring individuals to purchase health insurance was constitutional. That's not even in question. Of course it's constitutional. So she repeated the question "Are you serious twice", then moved on to another questioner.

Ditto for Illinois Senator Roland Burris, Barack Obama's temporary replacement in DC. He beileves the constitution explicity states that the government must provide for the health, general welfare and defense of the US. No question there whether it is constitutional.

When pressed on exactly where in the constitution it gives the government the authority to require individuals to purchase health insurance, many politicians will refer to the Interstate Commerce clause and to the Supreme Court decision of the 1930s that gives the government very broad authority to regulate anything that may be interstate commerce whether it currently is interstate or not. A Supreme Court ruling, no less, not an explicit statement in the constitution.

Most legislators today believe the constitution is outdated, an ancient relic of long forgotten times. Most of these legislators have a 'D' behind their name but there are enough of them with the 'R' behind their name that readily agree. As long as these politicians believe this to be true, we the regular citizenry are doomed.

But just this year there seems to be a change blowing in the wind. It started gently with the Tea Party protest on April 15th. It continued through the town hall meetings in August and reared its head again just yesterday on the grounds of the Capitol building. Ordinary Americans are disgusted with the business of politics in Washington, DC. Finally! Finally!

From my perspective, I think the massive takeover of health care by these power hungry bureaucrats will be stopped. I think the same fate awaits the idiotic Cap and Trade bill that the House so happily passed earlier this summer. Too bad we can't stop the spending of the rest of the ridiculous Stimulus bill. But the gauntlet has been thrown down and we'll see how the elite leaders handle it now.

There never seems to be a question anymore whether something the government wants to do is allowed or not. These holier-than-thou people simply assume that anything they want to do they can do. No questions of authority, they derive all the authority they need just by being elected. Bullshit! How arrogant!

How rude and how demeaning! They talk down to us all the time. They think we don't know how to live our lives, how to spend our money, how to decide what is best for ourselves. They think they alone have the answers and they should and will decide everything we need to know and do without our input. Seriously, we are too stupid to know what's best so we need to leave the decisions to them. Trust them and they will take us into the future.

Trust them? Are you serious?

OH

One of the main messages Democrats have been sending about a government run option for health insurance is that the private insurance companies need some competition to keep them honest. They feel that a public option for health insurance is the best way to generate more competition and help keep cost manageable. Of course, they completely disregard the fact that there already are more than 1100 insurance companies nationwide that offer health insurance plans. But because of draconian government laws these companies are not permitted to sell their products across state lines and, also because of government mandates, we, as individuals, cannot buy an insurance policy tailored to our individual needs, but must purchase coverage for things that the government says we need. I don't see how one more government plan introduces competition in the first place but I'll disregard that sentiment for now.

I want to shift to education for a moment and follow the Democrats logic, if that is possible. For years there has been an effort to introduce competition in education by increasing Charter Schools, home-schooling and private schools. Almost all of these efforts have been thwarted by Democrats, led by the Teacher's Unions, because they feel school choice is too important to be left up to individuals. They believe that government run education is the only way to go and they are afraid that introducing competition to government run schools will be bad for our children.

Where is their spirit of competition on this issue? If competition is so good for insurance companies, why isn't competition also good for education? The answer, of course, is that it isn't competition from the government, it is competition to the government. These same elitists, union members and control freaks heartily believe that only the federal government can manage education and insurance properly. The attitude, as expressed once by Hillary Clinton, is that we can't have people in this country going around making decisions for themselves all willy-nilly. I love that term, by the way.

But how did this country become the great leader in almost every area of life? By individuals going around making decisions all willy-nilly, of course. Government thinks it has all of the answers but truthfully government has no answers except for increasing the role of government. All decisions are made by individuals. All of government's money comes from individuals. All of government's power comes from individuals. Government is not the solution.

The truth would become obvious to everyone if pure school choice were allowed and if pure insurance choices were allowed. Government makes things cost more and run less efficiently. Always. No if, and or buts about it. government will screw up anything it tries to manage, and the only way to protect government's, and unions, interest in schools is to force people to use these schools. This gives them control of the educational process and allows them to teach us what they feel we should be taught.

By creating a government option for health insurance, they would then be able to control all facets of the health care industry. Individual choice be damned. Government knows that most people really don't want to be bothered with these things and if they can only manage to sneak this lunatic idea past those of us who are paying close attention, then they will be able to control our very lives as well as our education.

Make no mistake about it, this fight is not about health care, it is about control. Government wants to control us, our very lives on a daily basis. They want to guide our actions and they want to eliminate individual thought inn the process. We should become good members of state because the State knows best. After all, do you ever see Congress going around making decisions all willy-nilly?

Oh, I am funny sometimes.

OH

President Obama's Green Jobs Czar, Van Jones, resigned after he was exposed as, at least he used to be, a self-avowed Communist and a 9/11 Truther. While resigning his office he claimed he was a victim of a smear campaign by the right wing. Funny, all I ever saw was him speaking in his own words claiming that white people sent poison to the poor black and Hispanic neighborhoods. No one rearranged any of his statements or took them out of context. No smear campaign to be found anywhere.

President Obama's Information and Regulatory Affairs Czar, Cass Sundstein, has stated his opinion that animals should have the right to sue in court. I can't think of anything to respond to that! He also believes hunting should be banned.

President Obama's new FCC Diversity Czar, Mark Lloyd, has stated his dismay at the US past actions of thwarting Hugo Chavez in his attempts to take over the media in Venezuela and continue his socialistic takeover of that country. He also has railed against the imbalance of opinion on the evil "talk radio".

President Obama and Secretary of State Clinton have expressed their support for ousted Honduras leader, Manuel Zelaya, without regard for the Honduras Constitution which states that no person may change their Constitution to allow themselves to be president more than one elected term. The Honduran Supreme Court ordered his arrest on June 28, 2009. After all, what is a Constitution anyway? Just something else to be ignored when it does not fit your aims.

President Obama canceled the proposed missile shield in Eastern Europe for purposes of defense of Poland and The Czech Republic, among other countries, on the very anniversary of Russia's 70th anniversary of their invasion of Poland leading up to World War II. Such timing is inexcusable and par for the course for this administration.

Candidate Obama promised that he would not raise taxes on Americans earning less than $250,000 even by one dime. That's the same dime he promised would cause him to veto any National Health Care reform bill, if that dime spent was more than the Health Bill budgeted. One of his and Congress' first acts was to raise the federal taxes on cigarettes, which disproportionally affect people earning less than $250,000 a year. This Health Care fiasco has the potential to raise everyone's taxes by much more than one dime.

President Obama went on the Sunday news programs and stated that forcing every American to buy Health Insurance or face penalties from the Federal Government can not be called a tax. He even made fun of George Stephanopoulis for resorting to his dictionary to look up the definition of "tax", a sum of money demanded by a government for its support or for specific facilities or services, levied upon incomes, property, sales, etc. Sure sounds like a tax to me. Do you think Americans will silently allow the government to force them to buy health insurance. Does anyone in Washington ever even think about the Constitution anymore?

The House of Representatives passd an energy bill this summer, the Waxman-Markey Energy Bill aka, Cap and Trade, which is the government's misguided attempt to play in the global warming arena. This ridiculous attempt to control business through the use of energy will cost Americans plenty of money. Does President Obama think this qualifies as a tax?

President Obama also told George Stephanopoulis that the ACORN mess is not something he has followed closely. He says he wasn't aware that ACORN even got much federal funding. Seriously? Obama was weaned by ACORN. He was their lawyer. He worked for their Project Vote Campaign. He was a proud community organizer for ACORN before he got involved in politics. He told ACORN folks that they would have a seat at the table in his administration so that he could use their ideas in setting his agenda. President Obama has a short and convenient memory.

President Obama once stated that he wasn't interested in probing the previous administration and their efforts to fight terrorism in regards to potential abuses of terrorists housed at Guatanamo. He was actually against the investigation before he was for it, because now he has decided to let Attorney General, Eric Holder, go ahead and appoint a special prosecutor to look into possible CIA abuse. Even after seven prior CIA directors sent him a letter asking him to stop the investigation, he says he backs Holder's decision.

President Obama said shortly before the November election that we are five days away from fundamentally transforming the United States of America. Well, this is one promise that he didn't shy away from. He is certainly hell-bent on fundamentally transforming America. But what that fundamental change is doing to this country is something I would rather not be a part of in any way, shape or form.

President Obama, I trust you not!

OH

Hooray for the New York Times. You have become completely irrelevant to all Americans. You have been traveling in that direction for quite some time now but you have reached your goal. Congratulations. It's been good knowing you.

The one most trusted news organization in the United States that has forever been the leader in bringing us information and truth about our government, no matter how ugly that truth may be, has abdicated it's journalistic integrity to completely ignore a story about an unwholesome entity's intrusion into the corridors of the White House.

Have you heard the name Van Jones lately? Not if you read the NY Times, you haven't. Van Jones was Obama's appointed czar of Green Jobs. Green Jobs. Criminey! What a job! Van Jones is a self-avowed Communist. Self-avowed means he readily admits it. He really believes in Communism.

I have said many times before that the environmental movement started in the 60s and 70s was a victim of their own success. They managed to awaken Americans to the problem , we acted quickly and started cleaning things up. They were stunned, I believe, at the quickness of their success. And that got others thinking about the environmental movement in different ways.

Green on the outside and red on the inside. Watermelons. Environmentalists became the front for the Communist movement inside of America. How can anyone argue against the environment? Makes perfect cover for their nefarious ideas about infiltrating government. Communists had long ago predicted that America will be taken without a shot, from within. It is happening now.

And it worked! It worked so well, one of them made it inside the White house with a platform any environmentalist, or communist, would envy. Until Glenn Beck did a little research. And brought his findings to his viewers. And other media pundits started paying attention and doing their own investigations, thanks Michelle Malkin, and finding out about this man in a seemingly innocuous job who holds some very radical views indeed.

9/11 Truther? Wow. In our government. With the ear of the most powerful single person on the planet. Stunning.

However, not really as stunning as the main stream media's complete ignorance of the matter. Led by the NY Times, none of the MSM, ABC, CBS, NBC, whatever, Washington Post. No one even so much as hinted at the controversy surrounding one of Obama's appointments. Not until he went so far as to resign. Hard to ignore it then, but gimme a break.

Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio? Used to be a respected paper, known for quality journalism. Add this omission as another nail in the coffin of the newspaper who once bravely owned up to it's tag line, now it simply ignores it.

OH

I am. College Football, that is. It's useless to try and fight it. I can't fight this feeling any longer. I live in the land of the Florida Gators and have for the past 24 years. I did resist the College Football euphoria that engulfs this area every fall for maybe 2 years. But I couldn't fight it anymore. The feelings are just too strong to ignore forever.

So I became a loyal Gator fan somewhere around 1987. The performance of Emmitt Smith had something to do with that at the time. He was incredible. And I also became a fan of the lowly basketball team in the days of Vernon Maxwell and Andrew Moten, the M and M boys. Good stuff.

You see, I had always been a Major League Baseball and NBA fan. More accurately, a St. Louis Cardinals and Boston Celtics fan. Big time. I never looked at College sports. I was not interested in that level of play. I had a brief interest in the NFL, notably the San Diego Chargers when I lived in San Diego that centered mostly on quarterback Dan Fouts., a great passing quarterback. But I rarely ever paid any attention to any College level sports.

But I succumbed in 1987, with the constant exposure to a well-loved local College team. And I love it. Thankfully I still have much interest in the Cardinals, so the summertime still gives me a reason to be passionate about sports. That ties me over until school is back in session and football begins again.

And that day is today. Coming off of a National Championship season last year, their 2nd in 3 seasons, with the entire starting defense returning and the always potent offense headed by a Hesiman winner in Tim Tebow, I have heard it said that Superman wears Tim Tebow pajamas, the excitement for an undefeated season and a repeat Championship is high as it has ever been.

Gainesville is an exciting place in the fall. A magical place where you can feel the excitement in the air vibrating with anticipation at the next game. For those who do not enjoy sports of any kind, this is not the place to be. But for those who do, it is like heaven on earth.

Yeah, I know, college towns are liberal bastions of thought. This is true. I can't stand the politics in Alachua County. I see stupidity and lack of reason everyday and everywhere, but all of that is canceled out by the enjoyment of rugged competition of the nation's best athletes. It's just a game but it is the best way I know of letting it all go by taking a break from the tedium and stress of everyday life and simply rooting for my favorite team in my favorite sports. It's somewhat cathartic, and I like it.

These four months pass by so quickly and before you know it, it will be Christmas. But it will be an exciting four months with lots of ups and downs. It always is.

So come on, Hank. I am Ready for Some Football!

Let's play!

OH.

I thought after last year's successful campaign by Barack Obama that we would see a real change in a leader taking control of his situation, setting his agenda and pushing his priorities through Congress. What I have seen is a leader abdicating his leadership role to Nancy Pelosi, taking his agenda from Rahm Emanuel and pushing his priorities to the people as if he were still on the campaign trail.

Give it up Barack! You won the damn election so get off your campaign horse and start acting like a leader instead of a campaigner. You thought this was going to be easy, didn't you? You thought that Americans were in love with you and anything you even mentioned would be grasped by someone in your party and taken to completion with no guidance or forethought by you required. You couldn't have been more wrong.

How arrogant you have been in your rush to criticize everything Bush and most things American. You have gone on a worldwide apology tour for America which enabled you to pray for forgiveness for George Bush's numerous sins against the world. And the world loved seeing you apologize. And your sycophant followers in America loved your apologies as well. All was seeming right with the world again, according to the liberal mantras.

You squandered your good will immediately once you got in office by pushing a massive, ridiculous stimulus/porkulus bill that has stimulated nothing but Democrats demands for more pork and more government spending. You massive omnibus spending bill, the leftover task from last year's do-nothing Congress only served to further your party's desire for more power, more control, more spending, more government influence more of the same old shit we always get from politicians bent on making a name for themselves. And you followed that up quickly with the largest budget in US history including the largest single year deficit and you and your fellow Democrats patted each other on the back for ramming these things through Congress in record time.

I have been trying to decide if you are really an intelligent, thinking person who truly believes big government is the answer or if you simply like having the adulation and praise heaped upon you to mollify your tremendous ego. Either way you are proving to be an extremely ineffective leader of the free world and a disappointment to more and more people everyday.

It's a shame. I didn't vote for you, never would, but I always have hopes that a new president may actually prove to be more than what he seems. Someone who understands that once in office, the job becomes leaading with a rational mind and specific plan and methods of achieving your goals. I believe the only true agenda you believe in comes from the Rules for Radicals that your hero Saul Alinsky became so famous for. It's really a shame.

You have a limited time in office to accomplish your goals but you refuse to be straight with the American people about just what exactly those goals are. Because you know deep inside that your goals are not really the goals of the vast majority of the American people. Your goals are formed and hidden from the public because you know that if we knew your true intentions, there would be no f...ing way in hell you could accomplish them.

I wish you NO success in your agenda. I have NO desire to live in a socialized country. I have NO faith that you will wake up and realize you have been wrong. I have NO love for a president that thinks spreading the wealth around works better for everyone. I have NO doubt that America will be a worse place to live 4 years from now. I have NO idea how long we can endure the idiocy and scatterbrained approach to governing we have been seeing this year.

I do, however, believe that enough Americans loyal to the true spirit of a Constitutional Republic and what it means will rise up and present enough roadblocks to stop the mad rush to government health care intrusion and the idiocy referred to as Cap and Trade. I believe this will be stopped this time. But I fear we cannot stop it forever. Each generation coming up becomes more and more accustomed to government involvement in their lives and each generation seems to want and demand more of it. The tipping point is sure to happen sometime.

I only desire to outrun it.

OH

Mark Steyn wrote a piece for The National Review which encapsulates my thoughts perfectly concerning the Obama agenda for passing health care reform. He states:

It doesn’t matter what form of governmentalized health care gets passed as long as it passes. Once it’s in place, it will be “reformed”, endlessly, but it will never be undone. Same with a lot of the other stuff: Keep throwing the spaghetti at the wall. The Republicans may pick off the odd strand but, if you keep it coming fast enough, by the end of Obama’s first year the wall will be a great writhing mass of pasta entwined like copulating anacondas in some jungle simulacrum of Hef’s grotto. And that’s a good image of how government will slither into every corner of your life: You can try and pull one of those spaghetti strings out but it’ll be all tied up with a hundred others and you’ll never untangle them.

Steyn hits the nail on the head with this analysis, which can be read in full by following the link. Keep throwing the shit out there in different directions and different subjects faster than the news cycles can keep up and sooner or later something has to stick. The Dearest Leader managed to ram through the Stimulus Bill, the Omnibus Spending Bill and a vastly inflated Budget Bill fast enough score points with his progressive followers but later efforts to do the same with Health Care and Cap and Trade have hit snags.

So now I hear that Obama is planning on tackling Immigration Reform this year and "strengthening", not reforming, Social Security next year. Wonderful. This man sometimes acts like he's hopped up on Ritalin or something. He goes off on diversions like interjecting himself between a local police department and a friend of his simply because he is a black man and he really knows what it's like to be treated differently and he feels like he is a master of race relations. He alluded to this disturbing event between a white policeman and a black professor as a teachable moment for improving race relations and he is just the man to do the teaching. He has all of the answers, just ask him if you don't believe that.

I saw the policeman/professor incident as a "class" issue not a racial one. Not every incident between two people of different races is about the difference in race. Obama, being the great knower of race relations, sees everything this way. Kind of like a hammer that sees every problem as a nail, Obama sees every problem as a racial one. And he can fix it. Yes, he can. Can't we all just get along?

Just recently Obama was trying to play up his plans for health care and was upset about the opposition to his plans. He declared that he wanted the people that got us into this mess to get out of the way and not do a lot of talking. So, just sit down and shut up and let me run the country the way I want. You lost, I won. Get over it! The great Community Organizer has turned against community organizing? Only because these organizers have a different point of view than he has! Dissent is bad when it is happening to you, huh.

Hell of a thing for the president to say. Hell of a way for the president to believe that any American citizen should simply shut up and let him have his way because he won. Crikey! This is still America and his view is no more or less important, or right, than anyone else's. The only difference is that he has the bully pulpit to preach and admonish and shame and teach. And he obviously knows way more than us ordinary citizens, so we should put our trust in him and he will lead us to the promised land. Believe in Me and I will show you the Way. F... NO!

So I continue to watch bewildered and befuddled at the amazing indifference of our DC elites to the role of government in general, and to the people whose views differ from theirs, in particular. Have the Republicans learned enough from this man and from the reactions of those against his ideas to remake themselves into a party that can be trusted to do the "right", constitutional things if they manage to regain any power? I surely hope so but I won't hold my breath.

I have a Murphy's Law poster in my office that has hung there for about 22 years. I refer to it's many sayings frequently, they are often so very true. One of my favorite lines is this: "Once you open a can of worms, the only way to recan them is to use a bigger can." Obama has opened up a big can of worms with his shotgun approach to governance. I believe this to be a part of his plan, because once the can is open and the worms start crawling around, you have to at a very minimum go get that bigger can. Read the can as "government".

So whether the analogy is spaghetti or worms, it is all very slippery, slimy, sticky stuff that is hard to contain easily. Some of the spaghetti sticks to the wall and some of the worms slither away to cause trouble somewhere else.

In closing I'll refer to a line from a song from the classic Pink Floyd Album, "The Wall". "And the worms ate into his brain." Waiting for the worms.

OH

Amazingly enough another politician has opened his mouth and stuck his foot deeply inside. This time the prize goes to John Conyers, Democrat Congressman from Michigan. He stated "What good is reading the bill if it’s a thousand pages and you don’t have two days and two lawyers to find out what it means after you read the bill?”

Such a brilliant statement by one of our elected officials tasked with deciding whether or not to pass the National Health Care Bill. He wonders why on earth anyone would actually read something important that they are attaching their signature to?

I hardly even know how to respond to that line of idiocy. I suppose he just signs anything and everything placed in front of him? Is this man for real? Are we supposed to be as naive as him to believe that whatever happens to be included in this bill, however it is worded and whatever the actual details are (many of which will not be filled in until much later) is good and proper and desirable and legal and if not, well we can always fix it later?

Disastrous and incredibly arrogant and elitist. If you, Mr. John Conyers, cannot be bothered to actually read every single bill that you vote for or against, then perhaps you should look for a job in another profession. You obviously cannot handle the detailed, precision work involved in passing legislation. Perhaps Government Motors has a job you can handle better.

It seems to me to be a very common theme amongst our Federal legislators these days. Hurry up and pass something and work out the details later. Everyone knows the devil himself is in those very details, so who really has an interest in exposing him? Just get the damned thing passed, signed and into law, then we'll discuss it. Wonderful logic.

I'm wondering, if John Conyers thinks it does no good to read a bill that's 1000 pages long unless you have a lawyer and two days to figure it out, why should the American people think this is such a good idea. Didn't Congress just pass a law directing the Credit Card Companies to make their terms and agreements easy to understand and posted prominently on the web for anyone to access?

Why, yes they did do just that very thing last month. It's standard procedure for Washington to tell everyone else how they should act and run their business but always, always exempting themselves. Shouldn't this Health Care Bill be simple enough for the ordinary citizen to understand? After all, the ordinary citizen is who will have to abide by the rules.

And how damn long does it take to type something up and put a link to it on a web site so that anyone could read what's in it. I guarantee anyone that there are many, many ordinary citizens that would take the time to read and understand everything in this bill if it were made easily available to them, as was once promised by both the President and Congress. And they would not be hesitant to report what they learn on every facet of this complicated, bloated monstrosity.

The very reason they do not read large bills and do not make them available for others to read is because they know these bills will not stand under the scrutiny of their details. They practice deception while preaching transparency.

Same old song and dance.

OH

czar - noun

1.	an emperor or king.

2.	(often initial capital letter) the former emperor of Russia.

3.	an autocratic ruler or leader.

4.	any person exercising great authority or power in a particular field: a czar of industry.

Obviously the term "czar" in the United States fits definition 4 above and I would like to know just how many czars is enough for this new, transparent president? We may never know because he keeps creating new ones all the time.

It seems to me that creating a position of czar of anything is simply a left-handed attempt to circumvent the Constitutional duties of the president and Congress. There is not one czar position whose authority did not already fall under a constitutional or congressional mandated department in the first place. It just smacks of a president usurping powers from where they currently reside so that he who rules from the White House can exert greater control without getting it from the Constitution or Congress.

Our government is not supposed to work this way. I never liked the idea of a drug czar since the official appointment of a drug czar in the late 60s or early 70s. It seems Richard Nixon coined the phrase "War on Drugs" in 1969 and what better time to create a czar than to handle this idiotic, useless "War". Nixon felt emboldened to create this term since Lyndon Johnson coined the phrase "War on Poverty" to gin up support for his incredibly naive "Great Society".

I see no point in creating more bureaucracy and pushing our country closer and closer to socialism or fascism or communism or statism or marxism or whatever term trips your trigger. America is a Capitalistic country and needs to stay that way. No country has ever created more wealth and knowledge and good than this country foistered by a climate of free enterprise and hard work. Why are we trying to change that?

Here a czar, there a czar, everywhere a czar czar. Hey, that's what we need now, a "czar czar". Someone needs to control and oversee all the other czars. God knows Obama doesn't have the time to do so. I wait patiently for that announcement.

Will the 4th Estate in this country ever wake up and stand up for our Constitution? Doubtful, in the near future anyway. Maybe Obama needs to appoint a Media Czar to oversee what is being reported on in this country and take control of information. I wonder how the media would react if their chosen one did something like that? Perhaps then they would wake up and start to question authority instead of abetting it. Or would they cower in fear of their signal caller?

I am sometimes a dreamer, I know. But I'm not the only one. John Lennon roll over in your grave. I just used one of your lines but not in the way you meant it.

OK, how about Dream On, sing for the years, sing for the laughter, sing for the tears. Sing with me, if it's just for today, maybe tomorrow the good Lord will take you away. Sorry, Aerosmith.

Alright, I'm just getting kinda punchy right now. I've been working long hours and lots of days and I'm really, really tired. I'm so Tired, I haven't slept a wink. Oops. Slipped into a Beatles tune. Sorry.

I'm going to quit now. Hey Peter, do you like this one? Leave a comment.

Bye Bye Love. Was that a song by the Cars or the car czar? Lol.

TTFN,
OH.