One of the articles I have in the works is an opinion piece called “Something for Nothing… or Even Less” which will be about how lucrative it is to continue to stay unemployed. After all, the cruel United States of America has provided all sorts of safety nets for its disadvantaged, so much so that it almost pays to be a bum… sorry, I mean homeless person. Unfortunately, I was stuck in the welfare system back when I moved here from Iowa. But the benefits were so little that I had to find work… and quick! Now, I can almost make as much not working as I can in an entry level minimum wage job. Not to mention the additional benefits of health and dental care paid for by the taxpayers. How sad is that? I even contemplated going on unemployment when my census stint ended. Who knows how long they will extend the benefits?

But back to the emotional intensity issue. Perhaps people are having a letdown after the primaries. Although they didn’t put as many conservatives on the ballot as we would like. For example, there’s no way I will ever vote for Abel Moldonado for Lt. Governor… or anything for that matter. But the “moderates” who made it (Fiorina and Whitman, for example) have a good chance of winning in California’s political climate. The alternative Democrat choices (Boxer and Brown) are disasters we’ve already seen in action and have a proven track record of failure. Then we have Jim Judd for Congress and Robert Louis Stephens for Assembly who stand a good chance of winning according to a generic poll I just saw today.

On the down side, the Marin County Republican Central Committee was unable to remove the “moderate” Chair, Sashi McEntee, from her position, even though there was an apparent sentiment of anger over her choosing to openly back open primaries with a newspaper editorial. Regardless of the outcome, we have shown that grass roots groups like the Marin Conservative Forum and the North Bay and Bay Area Patriots actually can have as much or more influence than the local Republican Party. If they clean house next year that could change, but I wouldn’t hold my breath.

I, for one, am getting worn out with all the bad news coming out of this administration. It seems like there is a daily effort to undermine the Constitution, and none of our elected leaders seem to challenge Obama about it. Why do we even have a legislative body when many of the mandates the President is handing down are not privileges given to the Executive Branch? The recent health care mandate to demand insurance companies provide FREE services to their customers is a perfect example of Executive overreach. How is that even legal? These orders bypass the very congressmen and senators who were elected to pass laws. Yet Ms. Pelosi is mum about the usurpation of her powers by our President. Maybe because they are of the same mind and political party? I hardly see her standing still if Bush were trying to do the same thing. But that argument requires intellectual honesty; something liberals seem to lack.

Look at the race issue with the election tampering in Philadelphia. If that had been white people intimidating black people in front of the polls instead of the other way around, that’s all we would be hearing about on the mainstream media. Instead, about the only place we can hear about the incident is in alternative media or on Fox news. That is a sad commentary on the state of race relations in the United States. Watch the movie Invictus (whether factual or not) and tell me that Obama is following the same prescription that Mandela did in bringing his country together. Mandela, at least in the movie, was a man of principle and intellectual honesty. He knew that the law had to be color blind before race relations would improve. Instead, Obama is allowing the New Black Panthers to disobey the election laws which can only the, that is if people actually hear about it!

During the day I listen to shows like Hannity and Limbaugh when I can and am amazed at the people who call into the show supporting the administration’s handling of the incident… which is basically ignoring it. Again, no intellectual honesty. And in my opinion, this constant barrage of negativity leads to a let down to those of us who are pulling the cart. I’m sure that is the goal. By wearing us down, it’s easier to get us to stay with the status quo.

The perfect example came from my accountant who is a conservative. He said, “When it all comes down to it, Republican or Democrat, they are all the same!” Then he used an expletive.

Are they?

FedUpEditor

Day in and day out we are being presented with stories about the oil leak in the Gulf with finger pointing as to who is to blame for it. Industry blames regulators, and regulators blame the various industry players; the players start blaming each other. Why isn’t the environmental lobby being implicated? After all, if it weren’t for their strict no-drilling policy in other “safe” places, would we have to go so far off-shore to retrieve oil with dangerous deep-water drilling techniques? The answer, of course, is no.

But put all that aside. Just because there have been a few disasters related to oil production, refining and transport, does that mean we should stop drilling altogether like Arnold Schwarzenegger has concluded? With that same logic, any time a plane goes down, we would discontinue air travel. It is as stupid and predictable as those anti-gun zealots who think crime will stop if we ban firearms. All or nothing.

And if we stop drilling, does that mean the rest of the world stops drilling? No! In fact, other countries are ramping up their domestic oil production because we are not. Seeing us as the suckers we are, they know there is no other alternative energy source right now, and they have leverage over us.

Lynn Woolsey is leading the charge against big oil and big coal. Google reported many news stories over the last couple of days mentioning her name and quoting her, not like the lame representative she is, but as if she is riding in on her white horse to save us all. Her committees have been especially harsh on these two industries because of the recent problems; the mining disaster and the oil spill in the gulf. It’s almost as if Woolsey thinks she can legislate our way to never having another disaster or another lost life. Could this be considered a “God” complex? After all, she has been in the House so long I’m sure she thinks she is invincible. I hear she is so confident (or is that arrogant?) that she will not campaign here this fall, but will go out and help other Democrats get elected. Is she counting her chickens? But I am getting off my point.

Let me ask a few questions of Lynn Woolsey. If everyone starts running electric vehicles like you propose, where will the electricity come from? Have you thought that far ahead to consider that California has brown outs almost every summer as it is? Are you offering any alternative solutions to producing electricity in our state or in the nation? You talk about wind and solar as if they are our salvation. But I hear environmentalists are against putting solar panels in the desert to preserve its pristine beauty. That would make wind farms out of the question as well. How do you, Ms. Woolsey, propose to supply our country’s energy needs? Get back to me after we put you out on your rear end this November.

Now let’s look at our President. We are 18 months into his presidency, and Obama is still pointing to the failures of the previous administration for our woes today. It is wearing thin, as polls show. For Heaven’s sake, he has had more than enough time to do at least ONE thing right, but day after day he continues to lay blame and make excuses. The only solutions he has are to raise taxes, spend more money, create more government welfare and pass the buck. Is that what we want from our leaders?

I, for one, am tired of it. I know most of you are too. So is the country, and polls show there will be a huge surge to the right in November if the trend continues. Dick Morris says we stand to pick up 10 Senate seats (including California where he thinks Boxer is especially vulnerable to Chuck DeVore). This is because people are tired of the blame game.

No matter how you dress it up, people are waking up to the fact that government, you know, the ones who caused these problems, are certainly not the ones to solve them. If anything, people are learning that actually solving problems is not in the government’s best interest. Only saying they are going to solve them is business as usual. Barney Frank and Chris Dodd can blame whomever they want for the housing crisis, but they should be pointing into the mirror when doing so. Let’s send them back to the Minor League this Fall.

- FedUpEditor

It’s true we are spending lots of money on the two wars, but not nearly as much as the money we are spending here at home on worthless government jobs and their benefits. It is killing our economy, and the war will now be brought home. Woolsey thinks her seat is safe, so much so that she will not campaign in her own district this fall. Pure arrogance.

What she fails to realize is that people (even Democrats) are tired of the endless spending and want to move this train wreck off the tracks and rebuild our engine of economic prosperity. With unemployment hovering at nearly 10% (and ready to climb as the recession drags on) Congress is set to extend unemployment benefits once again. This will disguise the real number of people out of work. As the printing presses whirl away kicking out endless supplies of more and more devalued dollars, Woolsey thinks she can buy her seat.

Woolsey doesn’t understand that people of Marin and Sonoma Counties are the ones producing so that others can feed off their hard work. The ones I have talked to are tired of it… both parties. After 17 years in Congress, are we better off now with Democrats running everything? You be the judge.

In the meantime, take a look at Jim Judd for Congress and see what you think. He is a commonsense guy who thinks both party establishments are to blame. Woolsey is going to be surprised come November!

I was surprised. His take on Obama is right on. After all the promises to do it differently from Clinton or Bush, Obama is still in both Iraq and Afghanistan. He also hasn’t closed Guantanamo. Not that I am against either one, I am just agreeing with his point that Obama, in spite of promises for hope and change, he is more of the same.

Where I also disagree with Sahl is that these two wars are just like Vietnam and that enemy combatants shouldn’t be tried by the military. I was nearly drafted in the Viet Nam War… Drafted. There is no draft. All these soldiers in the Middle East are volunteers so that makes the current wars much different than the one in 1968. Sahl also talks about bankrupting the country, but doesn’t blame entitlement spending which is much more than any war we have fought. He blames paying for the wars as to why we are in debt. WRONG! And why should enemy combatants be tried in civilian courts and given the same rights as citizens? WRONG AGAIN!

Regardless of our political differences, I believe this is one person you could have a sane conversation. Apparently he frequents the Piazza D’Angelo’s in downtown Mill Valley. Who knows? I may have even seen him there and not recognized him!

- FedUpEditor

Dear Marketing Department,

I have been a supporter of big oil companies and your right to drill off shore, in spite of public opinion being against you. However, for some reason, your commercials (at least here in California) are aimed at people who will NEVER support what you do. In fact, they think you are the scum of the earth.

Right now with this oil spill in the Gulf, you are their number one target. These people want to shut you down so you can never drill again. They say your product kills plant and animal ocean life; you are an affront to God himself (not that they believe in God except when it’s convenient.)

The Chevron plant in Richmond, CA has been under assault by environmental groups who are going so far as blocking retrofits of outdated plant facilities which would actually be good for the “environment” by making oil and gas transport safer and less prone to leakage.

Regardless of how many commercials you produce that talk about alternative energy and other “green” subjects, radicals will never think what you do is okay. They believe the only green you care about is the money you make from peddling what they believe is a dangerous product. So why cater to them and tug at their little environmentalist hearts while insulting people like me?

I, on the other hand, get nauseous every time I am assaulted on television by the “green” agenda pap you are spewing and would prefer you start aiming your commercials at the rest of us who like and appreciate your products.

Finally, I would like to point out that we have become a culture of celebrity. People tend to believe everything they see on television is true, including commercials. For that fact, your insistence in supporting the “green” agenda, even though the movement has been shown to be a political sham based on flawed studies, reinforces people’s erroneous beliefs that global warming is actually happening. The worst part about that? They think it is being caused by you and your product.

Education is the key. Please reconsider your marketing perspective and get back to telling people how much our country needs petroleum products. We would not have become the greatest country on earth without it. Please explain to them all the uses oil and its derivatives have. Tell the television audience how much of the Prius (like plastic parts) is actually made from oil products that does NOT go into the gas tank!

Most respectfully,

- FedUpEditor
A Petroleum Loving, Sports Car Driving Citizen

As a regular guy, I see my price per gallon on gas creeping up or my energy bills (gas and electric) climbing upward, I know it is becuase of Lynn Woolsey and Democrats like her, all pandering to the far left environmental fringe, that are to blame.

Now they want to introduce a VAT tax. Who do you think will hurt the most? With components taxed at every level of production, big screen televisions will be all but out of reach for most poor and moderate income consumers.

Look at Woolsey’s voting record, and you will see she is beholden to special interests like big union and environmental groups that she is too wrapped up in their concerns to begin to address her constituents. She has to go. There will be other choices out there. Hopefully one of them will take her place.

- FedUpEditor

And after all, if it’s worth doing, it’s worth making a profit at it, right? You wouldn’t think so to hear some liberals talk. And what amazes me is the number of San Francisco Realtors who really think this administration and our Congress is doing a good job while the rest of us in the outlying areas are being put out of business.

Why do they support him? Because the really bad market hasn’t hit them yet. Yes, San Francisco sales are down, but that has happened in other years. No big deal. So again it’s a case of, “it’s all about me.” It’s selfish and it’s un-American. Being economically naive, they don’t realize that what Obama and his Democrat pals in Congress are doing and planning on doing is going to take us into that double dip recession experts have been talking about. Just because it’s not bad yet doesn’t mean it can’t get that way… and fast!

Ask me if big government and over-regulation are bad, I say yes they are. But the market is very dynamic. Eventually it finds equilibrium. Regulators have put all sorts of restrictions on business for years. Usually, once things calm down, the business figures out a way to get back to doing business. When things are stable, business owners can make plans even if the government has made bad decisions and sticks with them.

But what has happened during this administration is the constant changing of rules so that, in this chaos, none of the businesses have a chance to regroup and figure out how to turn that profit. With new Health Care regulations, Cap and Trade around the corner and a VAT tax on the horizon (even though the Senate passed a resolution against it), we could be in big trouble because businesses can’t make plans. It’s like building a house on shifting sand. It can’t be done.

Think of it. A national sales tax at every level of production, in addition to the ones already in effect, will drive up costs for everyone. After all, to stay in business, a company has to have a profit to be a going concern. A national sales tax of 0.05% doesn’t sound like much until you start talking about really big numbers. And we all know that just as compound interest can make us really rich, so can compound taxes can make us really poor.

If this bunch of politicians were purposely trying to send us into a depression, they are doing all the right things. Raising taxes during a recession will only stagnate our economy and could possibly cause it to fail. More businesses will lay people off because it will be just too expensive to keep them with the shrinking margins. Other businesses will give up and go under creating new unemployment. With people out of work, unable to pay their mortgages and property taxes, foreclosures will increase dramatically.

Short sales might be a new “industry” for Realtors, the lemonade made from lemons in this case. But what if we prefer caviar? More on this later.

FedUpEditor

In the post the author pointed out many of the signs we are seeing today parallel what happened in 1776 before the Revolutionary War. The percentage of people who are in the Tea Party surge today is roughly the same as what it was in those early days of the Republic. Though they were not a majority of the country, these were the great thinkers and founders of the country; the ones who made it work. This gave the author great hope that we will turn this around in the next election. That our best days are ahead of us. Young readers of the story who commented on his post had a different take.

The general feeling from young conservative bloggers was that their peers have turned into an entitlement generation and are more about “what’s in it for me” than what is best for the country. In their minds, sports figures and movie stars are the ones to look up to, and that it’s better to be notorious than invisible. They felt that with abundance their generation had become lazy and willing to accept our young President because he seemed “cool”. The teen bloggers chastised their generation for not knowing about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, what they stand for, the greatness of our country; that the freedoms they enjoy are only possible because of these factors, not because of anything they have done for themselves. These are some of the reasons they thought the US is beyond salvation. I think they are dead wrong, and here’s why.

First and foremost, there are still fine young people willing to sign up for military duty and go overseas to protect our country’s ideals in foreign lands. Even if they don’t know what’s in the Constitution, that spirit of freedom and the knowledge of right versus wrong is in their hearts and is a part of them.

The second reason is that government giveaway programs are only possible because of the promise of taxes taken from a hard-working middle class; you and me. We are the people who make the country work by creating jobs and paying taxes. And make no mistake, these are the people now participating in Tea Parties. Without us, the government would have no tax revenue to hand out in entitlements. That is why I believe we will succeed. They need us to pay for the programs and jobs the government creates. And fortunately, we still get to vote!

- FedUpEditor

In the post the author pointed out many of the signs we are seeing today parallel what happened in 1776 before the Revolutionary War. The percentage of people who are in the Tea Party surge today is roughly the same as what it was in those early days of the Republic. Though they were not a majority of the country, these were the great thinkers and founders of the country; the ones who made it work. This gave the author great hope that we will turn this around in the next election. That our best days are ahead of us. Young readers of the story who commented on his post had a different take.

The general feeling from young conservative bloggers was that their peers have turned into an entitlement generation and are more about “what’s in it for me” than what is best for the country. In their minds, sports figures and movie stars are the ones to look up to, and that it’s better to be notorious than invisible. They felt that with abundance their generation had become lazy and willing to accept our young President because he seemed “cool”. The teen bloggers chastised their generation for not knowing about the Constitution or the Declaration of Independence, what they stand for, the greatness of our country; that the freedoms they enjoy are only possible because of these factors, not because of anything they have done for themselves. These are some of the reasons they thought the US is beyond salvation. I think they are dead wrong, and here’s why.

First and foremost, there are still fine young people willing to sign up for military duty and go overseas to protect our country’s ideals in foreign lands. Even if they don’t know what’s in the Constitution, that spirit of freedom and the knowledge of right versus wrong is in their hearts and is a part of them.

The second reason is that government giveaway programs are only possible because of the promise of taxes taken from a hard-working middle class; you and me. We are the people who make the country work by creating jobs and paying taxes. And make no mistake, these are the people now participating in Tea Parties. Without us, the government would have no tax revenue to hand out in entitlements. That is why I believe we will succeed. They need us to pay for the programs and jobs the government creates. And fortunately, we still get to vote!

- FedUpEditor

• No to health care choice (everyone must now have health coverage or pay a fine). As we know, health insurance companies will be “starved” out of existence by having to compete with a government entity that doesn’t have to earn a profit. Experts say they have about 3 years before the government will be forced to step in and offer a public option… something Obama and Pelosi wanted from the beginning.
• No to following the immigration laws that are on the books with amnesty.
• No to smoking and tobacco products, though look at all the entitlement programs that are being funded by the taxes levied on them. What happens when everyone finally stops smoking? Where will the money for those programs come then? (If you are patting your wallet right now, you would be correct.)
• No to gun ownership, but I am told that even the most liberal of our representatives (Woolsey, Boxer, Feinstein and Pelosi) all have carry permits. I wonder if there is a way to get this information through the Freedom of Information Act? Of course, as we also know from our reading, the rules apply to us, not to them. That’s why there is a push to get a 28th amendment passed.
• No to trans-fats (Democrats in some states have passed this ban) as if trans-fats are the only thing that are making us unhealthy. And as if we will live forever anyway.
• No to salt (Same as above) which has been responsible for high blood pressure. You’d think politicians, knowing the health care system will be overburdened, would welcome death in any form… Sorry if this is politically incorrect!
• No to fast food, especially for children. We have an obesity problem. Does anyone else wonder when poor people are shown on the television they are all overweight? I usually associate poor with malnourished. I guess being fat doesn’t make you nourished. But it certainly doesn’t make you a Biafran baby either.
• No to choice of vehicles people drive as in the case of trying to raise mileage standards so as to put SUV and big car manufacturers out of business. Everyone should be driving an electric car… however, where will we plug them in if they won’t develop nuclear, let us burn coal, dam up rivers for hydroelectric. We saw what happened to Boone Pickens’ wind farm experiment. Even with government subsidies, he has given up!
• Here in Marin, they are saying No to PG and E in order to set up a second tier bureaucracy to run our power systems. Remember, PG and E is already regulated by the Public Utilities Commission. Now they want to lay another level of red tape on top which they “say” will lower our costs. Remember, PG and E will still have to manage their resources for the Marin group, so where will the cost savings come from? And what business has the government run right? I asked that question last week and am still waiting for an answer.
• No to petroleum.
• No to  nuclear power.
• No to coal.
• No to hyrdroelectric.
• No to LOWER TAXES.

The list could go on. Any time liberals and “moderate” Republicans get an idea of what’s best for us (as in John McCain’s bill to control supplements) they are saying no to Freedom! To buy Sudafed I have to give them my driver’s license so they can record my name. It’s the same with many other so-called “over the counter” medication. Are they over the counter or not?

Make no mistake, reasonable people of all parties understand the process of how our economy works, and they are well aware that saying no to the free enterprise system only hurts our country. I have talked to several people who are leaving the health care industry while they can to find a job in another sector before there is a mass exodus from the sinking ship. After all, we have seen the kind of people who end up working for the government… which is what the health care industry will become, a wholly owned and run government program.

So when you run into that rabid liberal who starts calling you the party of no, lay into them with some of these facts or any others you can come up with. It may not change their mind, but you might feel better knowing the facts are on our side.

- FedUpEditor