31 December 2008

The Minster of Information is Flabbergasted

New years eve is my favorite holiday. I have such a good feeling knowing that with the passage of time things usually get better. Love grows stronger, friendships grow deeper, challenges are faced and surpassed. The new year brings to me a fresh start.

Until now.

Webster defines Shame as a "Condition of humiliating disgrace". For the first time in my life I feel shame for being from Illinois. I cannot believe what we have experienced in just the last 24 hours, let alone the last few weeks since Blago was accused of selling Obama's Senate seat. I did want to remove politics from this but given the circumstances I cannot. The outrage I hope most thinking people of Illinois feel this morning should truly be directed at the Democratic party. The dems had a great opportunity to do the right thing and hold a special election. But they failed because of fear that they may lose to a republican. So what did our leaders do to correct this....not a Dam thing. Their inability to act led to the debacle that happened yesterday. Watching yesterdays press conference was like watching the Hindenburg blow up. It was jaw dropping bizarre. Blago with his multi language greeting to Burris confused gaze/smile when asked direct questions related to contributions to Blago. The guile between these two buffoons was off the scale, joking about who should take to podium. Blago telling Burris "Go ahead your the Senator".


Just when you think it could not get anymore strange. Up prowls a Black Panther. Completely setting back the clock to the 1960's using the term lynching to any person who dares to oppose this appointment. What country did we wake up in. More importantly what planet are these jokers from. Why couldn't I stop watching. This was like some Twilight Zone Gong Show gone out of control. With Blago as Chuck Barris and Burris as the smiling Mean Jean the Dancing Machine. Pat Quinn as Rip Taylor trying to Gong them off.


This will be a true test of every politician in this country let along the state. I challenge the Dems to hold their ground to fight this appointment. This may be the only case in which I support Obama with His support of the Senate blocking any Blago appointment. In this instance the ONLY fair course of action is a special election. Which will never happen with Quinn stating that the people of Illinois have suffered enough. Or for the good of the state he will make the appointment. If the Republicans fail to use this as their battle cry then they are truly lost in this state. Just a quick question as of this morning has anyone heard from Short Shanks Da Mayor??


Going back to my respect for time. 2009 is going to be a very interesting year. With every delay comes the hope of impeachment. If Blago gets the boot Quinn can overturn Burris's appointment. With my wish of a special election or more likely he will make his choice for the seat. Either way in 2 years there will be a election. The Republicans must act in this situation. This is a golden opportunity for both parties for I hate to say "Real Change" in Illinois. I am calling to arms any candidate who could stand up to the leviathan of the Democratic Machine and break this grip on our state. It must happen one election at a time. We voters must let our voices be known no matter which party you belong too. I pledge not to let party bias my vote. If the better candidate is a democratic then so be it. I challenge Party Chairman P*! and Vice Chairman P%T# to make this same pledge. Can you vote against a Democrat running in Illinois? Do you have the courage? Do I? Only time will tell.In conclusion,We should change our states logo from Land of Lincoln. To Welcome to Illinois where Misery Loves Company.

Comrade Citizen
Information Minister
U.S.S.A

29 December 2008

Quotes from the All Mighty

Focusing your life solely on making a buck shows a certain poverty of ambition. It asks too little of yourself. Because it's only when you hitch your wagon to something larger than yourself that you realize your true potential.

I cannot swallow whole the view of Lincoln as the Great Emancipator.

I know my country has not perfected itself. At times, we've struggled to keep the promise of liberty and equality for all of our people. We've made our share of mistakes, and there are times when our actions around the world have not lived up to our best intentions.


I think when you spread the wealth around it's good for everybody.

In the end, that's what this election is about. Do we participate in a politics of cynicism or a politics of hope?

Issues are never simple. One thing I'm proud of is that very rarely will you hear me simplify the issues.

It's not surprising, then, they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren't like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.

No one is pro-abortion.

The fact that my 15 minutes of fame has extended a little longer than 15 minutes is somewhat surprising to me and completely baffling to my wife.

This is the moment when we must build on the wealth that open markets have created, and share its benefits more equitably. Trade has been a cornerstone of our growth and global development. But we will not be able to sustain this growth if it favors the few, and not the many.

We can't drive our SUVs and eat as much as we want and keep our homes on 72 degrees at all times... and then just expect that other countries are going to say OK. That's not leadership. That's not going to happen.

We need somebody who's got the heart, the empathy, to recognize what it's like to be a young teenage mom, the empathy to understand what it's like to be poor or African-American or gay or disabled or old - and that's the criterion by which I'll be selecting my judges.


We need to steer clear of this poverty of ambition, where people want to drive fancy cars and wear nice clothes and live in nice apartments but don't want to work hard to accomplish these things. Everyone should try to realize their full potential.

Why can't I just eat my waffle?

With the changing economy, no one has lifetime employment. But community colleges provide lifetime employ-ability.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.


Pot had helped, and booze; maybe a little blow when you could afford it. Not smack [heroin] though.Barack Obama Admitting taking cannabis and cocaine as a teenager, in 1995 memoir 'Dreams from My Father'.

We can't change the way Washington works unless we first change how Congress works.

Most people who serve in Washington have been trained either as lawyers or as political operatives - professions that tend to place a premium on winning arguments rather than solving problems.

In an interconnected world, the defeat of international terrorism - and most importantly, the prevention of these terrorist organizations from obtaining weapons of mass destruction -- will require the cooperation of many nations. We must always reserve the right to strike unilaterally at terrorists wherever they may exist. But we should know that our success in doing so is enhanced by engaging our allies so that we receive the crucial diplomatic, military, intelligence, and financial support that can lighten our load and add legitimacy to our actions. This means talking to our friends and, at times, even our enemies.

We should be more modest in our belief that we can impose democracy on a country through military force. In the past, it has been movements for freedom from within tyrannical regimes that have led to flourishing democracies.

Another gem from the Information Minister U.S.S.A

22 December 2008

A Little Late Post Election Rant

I have a few closing thoughts that I would like to share with you. A word comes to mind that was used quit a bit that brings this all together for me, its....HOPE. I see the pull out section in the Trib today and the masses faces are filled with it. Why? What does he have to give people such feelings? The Big question is can he live up to this aura he has built for himself. Can he really walk on water? Hope got him this far its up to him to milk this for all its worth. What I hope for is that people see him for who he really is.



The one thing I truly hope for and the numbers prove me right is. The Republicans/Conservatives did not vote in this election. The numbers show that Obama's victory was not a landslide the Dems were hoping for. One good thing about Obama's victory is that puts to rest any hanging chad, vote controversies the Dems can use in the next election. I interested to see the platform they will use in 2012. They can't use the Bush excuse anymore. I'm so glad for that. My guess it will be a we need more time platform, "I need your help once again, please help again change America". Problem with that is how many times can you call for a revolution when your the guy in the big chair. It worked once I hope it will not work twice.


Now the rant...



I hope that the RNC has a candidate that truly supports the core values in 2012. I hope the Republicans learn how to engage the youth in the country. I hope the media backs off a little in their bias towards the left. I hope Mitt looks the Media square in the eye and says bring it on. If Obama religion did not matter why should Mitt's? I hope Palin never goes away. I hope Obama will have to run on his record and I hope he is held accountable for it. I hope Crazy Uncle Joe the VP never shuts up. I hope McCain never runs again. Moderate Republicans are not effective candidates, and I hope the RNC wakes up to this. I hope the youth who voted for Obama in 4-8 years are in a position to say hey wait a minute Obama's not "The One" we hoped he'd be. I hope we gain more seat in the House and Senate with each election. I hope we don't get attacked again like we did on 9-11 just to prove the point that Obama can handle it. I hope Obama's dream of a Socialist America never comes true. I hope my kids will never worry about how successful they can become before they are deemed the evil rich. I hope Americans never feel bad about doing good. I hope America stays America. We are the greatest country in the world because our government stays out of its people success. I HOPE people come to realize this.

Information Minister
U.S.S.A

20 December 2008

Mrs. Thatcher and Bail-outs

Thatcher Wouldn't Have Gone Wobbly on Detroit Keynsianism is proof you shouldn't 'leave economics to economists.'

By ANDREW B. WILSON

There's a telling difference between the Big Three auto makers and the average American household today. It's the difference in their appetite for debt. The auto makers want to borrow a huge amount of money from the only source that might be willing to extend additional credit to them: the federal government. They have nothing to lose because they are, in effect, already bankrupt.

By contrast, millions of gainfully employed but frightened people are fighting to stay out of bankruptcy. Without suffering any loss of current income, over the past year they have seen a third or more of their savings and personal wealth disappear into thin air. The last thing they want to do now is to borrow and spend. Consider the simplified balance sheet of someone in his 40s or 50s who earns $100,000 a year and has two principal assets -- the equity in his house and the money in his retirement account. Let's assume that his only debt is the $300,000 mortgage on his house, which was appraised at $500,000 a year ago but is now worth just $400,000. Let's assume too that his retirement account -- in line with the decline in stock prices -- has taken a 37% hit over the past year, falling from $200,000 to $126,000.

So how is this seemingly affluent individual feeling about his personal finances? He is, to put it mildly, in a state of shock. Even though his income has remained the same, in just 12 months he has lost a staggering 43% of his net worth, or personal wealth. His entire nest egg (the retirement account plus the real value of his house) has dropped from four times his annual income to just double.

The Federal Reserve can pump up the money supply, drive down interest rates, and pressure banks to restart lending. But this person only wants to replenish his savings and repair his badly damaged balance sheet. Despite the reports of a credit squeeze, local real estate agents and car salesmen will tell you that there is little demand. The incoming administration is talking about spending hundreds of billions on public works with the hope of creating some jobs, but remember: 93.3% of Americans, though shaken, already have jobs.

So what to do?

The government must do something, and something fairly big, to jump-start the economy, an economist friend told me. His point was that the private sector is too shell-shocked to climb out of the hole it is now in, and government needs to take the lead. He also quoted the old shibboleth among economists -- the "fallacy of composition" -- which argues that what might be a good course of action for an individual can lead to disaster if widely adopted by members of the larger group. In this case, disaster could be the result if there was too strong a preference for savings over consumption. I disagree with this whole line of thought. It reminds me of the open letter that 364 economists addressed to British Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher in 1981, condemning her for daring to cut public borrowing in the midst of a recession, which was contrary to the Keynesian orthodoxy at the time. They did not accept Mrs. Thatcher's reasoning that too much public-sector borrowing and government-directed investment could only crowd out private-sector borrowing and risk-taking. They also implicitly rejected Mrs. Thatcher's strongly held belief that both governments and individuals must be guided by fundamental rules of common sense and frugality, in good times and bad. The economists described her thinking on this score as naive. Mrs. Thatcher spurned the collective wisdom of the 364 economists, seeing their advice as just more of the same failed interventionist policy prescriptions which the country had followed for over three decades. When she came to power in May 1979, the British economy, by every measure, was in worse shape than the U.S. economy is today. Inflation was out of control. Unemployment was high and rising rapidly. Job creation had been at a total standstill for almost a decade and a half. No one has captured the Keystone Cop-like futility of government intervention to fix this or that problem any better than Mrs. Thatcher's long-time sparring partner and rival, Denis Healey, the Chancellor of the Exchequer in the Labour government that preceded her administration. Speaking of Britain's periodic bouts of wage-and-price controls to counteract inflation, he wrote: "Adopting a pay policy (i.e. limiting wage increases to a set percent) is rather like jumping out a second-story window: no one in his senses would do it unless the stairs were on fire. But in postwar Britain the stairs have always been on fire." Clearly, some things have changed since Mrs. Thatcher's time. Inflation is more easily controlled today, due to intense global competition. But Thatcherite principles remain as valid as ever. The freedom of the marketplace is still the only effective mechanism for eliminating poor business practices, identifying productive investment, and providing long-term growth.

President-elect Barack Obama has said that he expects things to get worse before they get better. If the experience of the first Thatcher administration is anything to go by, that will certainly be the case. For one thing, some "hidden unemployment," as Mrs. Thatcher called it, will be flushed out into the open. This will be the case with the expected closure of the Big Three's "job banks," which pay almost full wages and benefits to several thousand auto workers for doing nothing. With the elimination of much higher levels of "over-manning" in parts of British industry that were heavily unionized and subsidized, unemployment doubled to 12% in Mrs. Thatcher's first three years in office. Yet by sticking to her policies of lightened regulation, reduced trade barriers, privatization of a raft of publicly owned companies, reduced taxation, and the adoption of laws to prevent abuses of union power, Mrs. Thatcher achieved something few if any of today's economists have begun to consider. She achieved a genuine, productivity-led recovery that transformed Britain from perennial basket case into the Europe's most improved and vibrant economy. U.S. policy makers and professional economists should study her example in order to turn this time of crisis into useful and enduring change. As she herself said, "Economics is too important just to be left to the economists." Mr. Wilson, a St. Louis-based writer, was Business Week's London bureau chief from 1981 to 1985.

Wall Street Journal
December 20, 2008

Thanks B's-N-H's for the info

19 December 2008

Another gem from my brother

Comrades,
With the turmoil and the heartache the middle class is feeling in the troubled times we live in. Our Government comes to the rescue. By demanding the big three leadership receive only $1.00 of pay next year. With the Democratic leadership being the champion of the common people. They decided to give themselves a pay raise. That's right the rest of the country is learning to go without. But not our Congress and our Senate. Raises for everybody!!! Just ask them they'll tell you the deserve it.This is our money Comrades!

Where is Obama?? Where is his leadership to tell the Senate and the house, "Fellas this is not the right thing we should be doing right now". No he's busy sitting in his make believe "office of the President Elect". Adding to his Trillion dollar stimulus package. Just so you know stimulus package in the Democratic language means earmarks.

13 December 2008

A Bunch of Quotes

Norman Mattoon Thomas (November 20, 1884 - December 19, 1968) was a leading American socialist, pacifist, and six-time presidentialcandidate for the Socialist Party of America. The Socialist Party candidate for President of the US said this in a 1944 speech:

"The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of "liberalism," they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened." He went on to say: "I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democrat Party has adopted our platform."

From Thomas Jefferson:

When we get piled upon one another in large cities, as in Europe, we shall become as corrupt as Europe.

The democracy will cease to exist when you take away from those who are willing to work and give to those who would not.

It is incumbent on every generation to pay its own debts as it goes. A principle which if acted on would save one-half the wars of the world.

I predict future happiness for Americans if they can prevent the government from wasting the labors of the people under the pretense of taking care of them.

My reading of history convinces me that most bad government results from too much government.

No free man shall ever be debarred the use of arms.

The strongest reason for the people to retain the right to keep and bear arms is, as a last resort, to protect themselves against tyranny in government.

The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants.

To compel a man to subsidize with his taxes the propagation of ideas which he disbelieves and abhors is sinful and tyrannical.

In light of the present financial crisis, it's interesting to read what Thomas Jefferson said in 1802:
'I believe that banking institutions are more dangerous to our liberties than standing armies. If the American people ever allow private banks to control the issue of their currency, first by inflation, then by deflation, the banks and corporations that will grow up around the banks will deprive the people of all property until their children wake-up homeless on the continent their fathers conquered.

Thanks, B's-N-H's

08 December 2008

My Brother's Rant

Comrades,Please to read the release from the Information Minister Citizen JimComparing Obama's current "Changes" to his stances.
Yes Comrades this is Change you can believe in.

Change on windfall Tax on big oil stopped, their not so bad now because oil is down below $80 bucks a barrel

Change on rescinding the Bush tax cuts on the Rich, maybe tax cuts really help the economy

Change on Iraq, lets not move so fast for this withdrawal, don't want anything bad to happen on his watch

Change on Pro labor, NO Labor secretary named in his new economic team Yet?? I'll give him time on that one

Change on bring a new face to government with the Clinton third term enacted.Change on Hillary "She has no real foreign policy experience save tea parties with wife's of leaders" his New Secretary of State.

Change on his stance on domestic wire tapping, I guess we really need to keep an eye out for the bad guys and wire tapping works

Change in the feeling of Obama supporters wondering if they have been had.Hope that all the reasons they elected Obama were not just pandering for their votes.

Yes Comrades I know the man has not even taken the oath yet but think about this.How in the last months of the election all the man did was to say he knows and truly understands how bad the state of our economy was and he is the only one who can fix it.

How bad Big Oil was

How fast he was going to get out of Iraq

How the Bush tax cuts must be stoppedHow inexperienced Hillary was

How the evil rich are killing to poor just because they make more money, so tax them to death
that will teach them a lesson

How the Bush policies on everything was wrong

And the people drank the Kool-Aid and said YES WE CAN!!Buckle up Comrades the back peddling has just begun.Plus his 700 billion stimulus package where is the money going to come from for this???That's right, your "Change"