On the Lighter Side, a Couple of Good Ones

Late one night in Washington, DC, a mugger jumped into the path of a well-dressed man and stuck a gun in his ribs.

"Give me all your money," he demanded.

Indignant, the affluent man replied, "You can't do this - I'm a US Congressman!"

"In that case," replied the thief, "give me MY money!"

* * * *

Last Tuesday, as President Obama got off the Helicopter in front of the White House, he was carrying a baby piglet under each arm.

The squared away Marine guard snaps to attention, Salutes and says: "Nice pigs, sir."

The President replies "These are not pigs...these are authentic Arkansas Razorback Hogs. I got one for Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and I got one for Speaker of The House Nancy Pelosi."

The squared away Marine again snaps to attention, Salutes and says, "Excellent trade, sir"

Another (and hopefully final) Letter to the San Francisco Chronicle

It may interest you to know that a number of those with whom I have shared my letters to you have suggested that those responsible for freeing the killer of the four Oakland policemen be charged with, and tried for being accessories to the murders.

Be that as it may, the Chronicle obviously is determined to shield from accountability and protect the anonymity of those who set the killer loose.

Accordingly, even though I long have been a newspaper junky, I have concluded that the Chronicle's approaching demise is deserved as it has become devoted to giving its readers the mushroom treatment -- keeping them in the dark and covering them with bullshit

Buy GM

Now that the government is dictating who is going to run the company (and undoubtedly how it will be run and what it will produce), surely we all should buy GMC -- Government Motors Corporation -- vehicles.

Government Motors and its products certainly can be expected to function in the same excellent fashion that we have come to expect from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac.

Ignore the fact that we'll be pouring in an endless supply of tax dollars to provide lifetimes of wealth for politically favored insiders.

Book Recommendations

Have just finished reading a truly delightful book that I can and do recommend to one and all. It is entitled If You Lived Here, I'd Know Your Name, by Heather Lende. It is about life (and death) in a small town, Haines, in Southeast Alaska. I am a voracious reader and this is one of the best things I've read in a good many years. It is just superb and leaves one feeling very good. Enjoyed it so much that I for the first time ever wrote a letter of appreciation to the author even though I disagree with her on quite a few things.

Anyone seriously interested in understanding who really ran our economy off a cliff, how they did it, and where they now are taking us should get a copy of, and carefully read Meltdown by Thomas E. Woods, Jr.

Why They Run

The reason congressmen try so hard to get re-elected is that they would hate to have to work for a living under the laws they've passed.

. . . from my astute Texas friend

From a Friend

I recently asked my friends' little girl what she wanted to be when she grows up. She said she wanted to be President some day. Both of her
parents, liberal Democrats, were standing there, so I asked her, 'If you were President what would be the first thing you would do? '

She replied, 'I'd give food and houses to all the homeless people.'

Her parents beamed.

'Wow....what a worthy goal.' I told her, 'But you don't have to wait until you're President to do that. You can come over to my house and mow the lawn, pull weeds, and sweep my yard, and I'll pay you $50. Then I'll take you over to the grocery store where the homeless guy hangs out, and you can give him the $50 to use toward food and a new house. '

She thought that over for a few seconds, then she looked me straight in the eye and asked, ' Why doesn't the homeless guy come over and do the work, and you can just pay him the $50? '

I said, 'Welcome to the Republican Party.'

Her parents still aren't speaking to me.

A Brit MP Tells It Like It Is

The Ballad of Timothy Geithner

Anne McKinney is a Knoxville , Tennessee attorney who cut her teeth as an IRS Staff Attorney. She composed and sang this for the attending attorneys at a recent continuing legal education seminar she taught. Many there suggested she take it further. She moved quickly to do so.

Here it is. Enjoy!

Exchange Prompted by Preceding Post

Here is K.R.'s response to a friend and follower of this blog who suggested removing the legal immunity of parole board members so that they could be charged with being accessories to murder:

I would make individual parole board members and judges liable for civil damages in malpractice actions.

Argument against is that they have to be free to make decisions without fear of sanctions.

But they can gather all the relevant facts and consider the matters before them at leisure. Unlike surgeons and cops on whom they have imposed liability even though the docs and officers have to make split second life-or-death decisions.

Justice for the honorables is just us.

K.R. Letter to San Francisco Chronicle

The Tuesday, March 24, issue of the old Comical contained the following information:

The sentencing report in a 2002 case described the thug who was free on parole when he killed four Oakland police officers last weekend as a "cold hearted individual who does not have any regard for human life" and stated that state prison was the only way "to rein in this man's proclivity for violence."

Now there's a recommendation for parole ! ! ! !

Was that report not available to those who let him out? By whom was the decision to free him made? What was the basis for the decision?

And why are we not getting answers to these questions from the media?

A Parable for Our Time

Heidi is the proprietor of a bar. To increase sales, she decides to allow her loyal customers - most of whom are unemployed alcoholics - to drink now but pay later. She keeps track of the drinks consumed on a ledger (thereby granting the customers loans).

Word gets around and as a result increasing numbers of customers flood into Heidi's bar.
Taking advantage of her customers' freedom from immediate payment constraints, Heidi increases her prices for wine and beer, the most-consumed beverages. Her sales volume increases massively.

A young and dynamic customer service consultant at the local bank recognizes these customer debts as valuable future assets and increases Heidi's borrowing limit. He sees no reason for undue concern since he has the debts of the alcoholics as collateral.At the bank's corporate headquarters, expert bankers transform these customer assets into DRINKBONDS, ALKBONDS and PUKEBONDS. These securities are then traded on markets worldwide. No one really understands what these abbreviations mean and how the securities are guaranteed. Nevertheless, as their prices continuously climb, the securities become top-selling items.

One day, although the prices are still climbing, a bank risk manager -- subsequently of course fired due his negativity -- decides that slowly the time has come to demand payment of the debts incurred by the drinkers at Heidi's bar.

However they cannot pay back the debts.

Heidi cannot fulfill her loan obligations and claims bankruptcy.

DRINKBOND and ALKBOND drop in price by 95 %. PUKEBOND performs better, stabilizing in price after dropping by 80%.

The suppliers of Heidi's bar, having granted her generous payment due dates and having invested in the securities are faced with a new situation. Her wine supplier claims bankruptcy, her beer supplier is taken over by a competitor.

The bank and all the bond dealers are saved by the government following dramatic round-the-clock consultations by leaders from the governing political parties.

The funds required for this purpose are obtained by taxes levied on non-drinkers.

Finally an explanation I understand . . . .

. . . Courtesy of an Astute Texas Friend

They Don't Need and We Shouldn't Give Them Our Money

It has become clear that there is no rational reason to pay income taxes.

First of all, the government has demonstrated that it can borrow and print all the money it needs to throw down every bottomless rat hole they choose, to pay off -- oops, pardon me, stimulate -- those who pay bribes -- oops, pardon me again -- campaign contributions -- to them, and otherwise to waste any way our honorable rulers wish. Therefore, the government doesn't need our paltry contributions.

Furthermore, as Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner, former senate majority leader Tom Daschle, and house of representatives ways and means committee chairman Charles Rangel have demonstrated, our exemplary rulers don't pay taxes, and Queen of Mean Leona Helmsley was right years ago when she proclaimed that "only the little people pay taxes."

Anonymous Progenators of Carnage

It's long past time for responsible citizens to usefully channel and positively direct the grief and outrage over another tragic trail of multiple murders perpetrated by a violent criminal let free on parole to run amok, spreading death, destruction, and mayhem.

Want to know who is responsible for the endless repetitions of lethal tragedies?

We are . . . you and I and everyone else, excepting only anyone who demands to know and calls to account those who exercise authority to parole convicted criminals.

The fact is that those authorities are anonymous. They are unknown to almost everyone and not accountable to anyone. And we, without raising any objections or questions, have tolerated a parole system that functions in obscurity. The media ignores the issue and thus facilitates the in camera nature of what obviously is a dangerously malfunctioning system.

We should insist on the parole authorities' identities being made known to the public, and whenever a paroled violent criminal again harms someone the authorities should be required to publicly explain why the repeat offender was freed before serving his full sentence.

Tapped Out

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Our Rulers' Delusions of Adequacy

In a rational country people viewing the inept performance of our government would be sufficiently skeptical to pose a couple of impertinent but fundamental questions:

1. What gives the government the legal authority to presume to control the nation's economy or to attempt to do so?

2. What is the basis for any belief or confidence that those engaged in that effort are capable of making and implementing national economic decisions?

Time for Outrage, or Have We Become a Nation of Sheep?

Surely It Must Be Merely a Coincidence.

Almost the first action taken by Hitler -- after he was elected to lead Germany during a period of great economic turbulence -- was to use the powers of government and the public treasury to make the nation's major financial institutions and industrial concerns dependent on, and subservient to what rapidly came to be the Third Reich.

P.S. Nazism was short for National Socialism.

Endorsed by Satisfied Users Such as Charles Rangel and Tom Daschel

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But We Prefer Shortcuts to Destroy the Foundation

"If in the opinion of the people the distribution or modification of the constitutional powers be in any particular wrong, let it be corrected by an amendment in the way which the Constitution designates. But let there be no change by usurpation; for though this in one instance may be the instrument of good, it is the customary weapon by which free governments are destroyed. The precedent must always greatly overbalance in permanent evil any partial or transient benefit which the use can at any time yield."

. . . George Washington, Farewell Address, 1796

Maybe We Need a Carpenter

"Obama is not Jesus. Jesus could
actually build a cabinet"

. . . Originated by blogger Don Surber and forwarded by a Friend

Unable To Make History, The Kennedys Tap Taxpayers To Buy It With Other People's Money

"More than one out of every five dollars of the $126 million Massachusetts is receiving in earmarks from a $410 billion federal spending package is going to help preserve the legacy of the Kennedys," the Associated Press reports from Boston:

The bill includes $5.8 million for the planning and design of a building to house a new Edward M. Kennedy Institute for the Senate. The funding may also help support an endowment for the institute.

The bill also includes $22 million to expand facilities at the John F. Kennedy Presidential Library & Museum and $5 million more for a new gateway to the Boston Harbor Islands on the Rose Kennedy Greenway, a park system in downtown Boston named after Kennedy's mother and built on land opened up by the Big Dig highway project.

Which State Will Secede First?

A President for Texas?

Dear Mr. President

Dear President Obama,

Thank you for helping my neighbors with their mortgage payments.

You know the one's down the street who in the good times purchased their house for no money down, refinanced it several times, and then used the loan proceeds to buy SUVs, ATVs, RVs, a pool, a big screen plasma TV, two Wave Runners, a boat, and a Harley.

I was wondering, since I am paying my mortgage and theirs, could you arrange for me to borrow the Harley now and then?

Signed:
"Concerned in CA"

P. S. They also need help with their credit cards, when do you want me to start making those payments?

P. P. S. I almost forgot - they didn't file their income tax return the last few years. Should I go ahead and file for them or will you be appointing them to posts in your administration?

A Taxpayer Letter to the IRS

"Dear IRS, I'm sorry to inform you that I'm not going to be able to pay the taxes owed on April 15th, but all is not lost. I paid these taxes, accounts receivable tax, building permit tax, CDL tax, corporate income tax, dog license tax, federal income tax, unemployment tax, gas tax, hunting license tax, fishing license tax, waterfowl stamp tax, inheritance tax, inventory tax, liquor tax, luxury tax, Medicare tax, city tax, school and county property tax up to 33% the last four years. Real estate tax, Social Security tax, road use tax, toll road tax, state and city sales tax, recreational vehicle tax, sales franchise tax, state unemployment tax, federal excise tax, telephone tax, telephone federal state and local surcharge tax, telephone minimum usage surcharge tax, telephone state and local tax, utility tax, vehicle tax, registration tax, capital gains tax, lease severance tax, oil and gas assessment tax, Colorado property tax, Texas, Colorado, Wyoming, Oklahoma, Mexico sales tax and many more I can't recall and I've run out of space and money. When you do not receive my check April 15th, just know that it was an honest mistake. Please treat me the same as the way you've treated Congressman Charlie Rangel, Chris Dodd, Barney Frank, ex-congressman Tom Daschle and, of course, your boss, Timothy Geithner. No penalties, no interest. PS, I'll make at least a partial payment as soon as I get my stimulus check.

. . . With Thanks to Glenn Beck

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

. . . James Madison, letter to Edmund Pendleton, 21 January 1792

. . . and All With Other Peoples' Money

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Rebellion Overdue

"On every unauthoritative exercise of power by the legislature must the people rise in rebellion or their silence be construed into a surrender of that power to them? If so, how many rebellions should we have had already?"

. . . Thomas Jefferson, Notes on Virginia, Query 12, 1782

Ethos of Our Government

See Another Great Site

See the Sipsey Street Irregulars site reachable by clicking on the newly added link in the Kindred Blogs and Websites section below in the right hand column.

Alan Keyes Tells It Like It Is

What People Seem to Have Forgotten and Politicans Scorn

"[C]ommercial shackles are generally unjust, oppressive and impolitic. ...[I]f industry and labour are left to take their own course, they will generally be directed to those objects which are the most productive, and this in a more certain and direct manner than the wisdom of the most enlightened legislature could point out."

. . . James Madison, speech to Congress
9 April 1789

Government of the Worst

We now have a government of the cheaters, by the cheaters, and for the cheaters. This has become government business as usual -- so routine that when it becomes known that another presidential appointee has failed to pay his taxes, it isn't even newsworthy so far as the media is concerned and our 'leaders' brush the matter aside as insignificant.

Blundering to the Bottom With Clueless Pretenders in Charge

All but the most obtuse among us should be coming to realize that our 'leaders' are winging it on the economy. They try to appear knowledgeable and wise, and seek to assure us that everything will be fine and dandy as they scurry from crisis to crisis, avoiding one institutional meltdown after another. The fact is they are terrified to the point of panic and absolutely clueless. They have neither a coherent economic plan nor any realistic idea of what to do to stem the accelerating decline.

This is hardly surprising giving the absurd lack of logic -- not to mention the lack of morality -- of the basic approach.

Our financial institutions, at the behest of the government, created an unsustainable bubble by stimulating excessive spending through loaning out excessive (and unrecoverable) amounts of money. As was inevitable, the bubble burst, rendering the financial institutions insolvent.

So now, the government would have us accept the idea that the way to solve the problem is for it to borrow more money, creating unprecedented levels of new debt, in order to reward the failed financial institutions that created the problem in the first place by keeping them alive and pouring more money into them so the institutions, in turn, can loan out even more money to stimulate still more excessive spending.

Only in the rarified atmosphere of the upper levels of government can it appear logical to believe that more borrowing and more spending can solve a problem caused by excessive borrowing and spending.

Pursuit of this madness seems doomed to fail. The hole into which the zombie financial institutions have dug themselves appears to be bottomless. Some of the larger ones -- Citigroup and AIG, for example -- keep coming back time after time for additional infusions of billions of dollars from the public treasury and the Federal Reserve printing presses just to maintain the appearance of solvency. (And we have yet to see recognition of the inevitable write offs of either the consumer credit card debt or the corporate leveraged buyout debt that cannot be repaid as incomes and business decline in a deflating economy. Nor does anyone have any idea of what will occur when the pension funds, which are invested in the securities market, and their government insurers are unable to meet their obligations.)

In any case, even if pursuit of the feckless policy appears to stop the decline, the respite will be illusory. Any respite will be dependent on perpetually continuing and increasing the flow of credit based spending -- sort of like a drug addict requiring ever increasing and more frequent doses of narcotics to function. Thus any respite will be temporary. The borrow-and-spend cycle is not infinitely sustainable. When it stops the bubble that will burst will be even bigger and its collapse will be even more devastating. The mountain of debt will still be there and it will have grown to magnitudes that are unimaginable.

This, of course, is not of concern to today's political 'leaders'. They will be gone, leaving the next generations in the abyss. In the meantime, the politicians will have achieved their objective, which is not a healthy and sustainable economy but, rather, to appear to be "doing something" about the problem and, in the process, expanding and concentrating their power.