http://www.youtube.com/watch_
Have a great weekend!
Saturday, September 29, 2012
What Happens After November 6?
I'm chillin' in the mountains and a little bit removed from the 24-hour new cycle, but the emails never stop. I received this one this morning and had to share.
http://www.youtube.com/watch_
Have a great weekend!
http://www.youtube.com/watch_
Have a great weekend!
Wednesday, September 26, 2012
What Happens When Entitlements Can't Be Sustained
The more dependent we become on government entitlements, the more painful it will be when some politician finally grows large enough cojones to rein them in.
After years of overspending, Spain and Greece are being held accountable to reform by their fellow Eurozone countries.
I'm not going to ramble and rant about this; I'm just going to state the obvious:
This is our future if Obama manages to be successful in using entitlements to buy another term in the White House.
Granted, Mitt Romney may not have a cool recipe for mirco-brewing beer. He's not even the guy you want to drink a beer with. He doesn't sing as well as Obama, and heaven help us, he'd probably also lose at basketball, golf or dancing. But those are not the skills I'm looking for. We need leadership. We need someone to show up, not just check in via iPad. And we need someone who will have the testicular fortitude to make the tough decisions to get our economy back in order.
After years of overspending, Spain and Greece are being held accountable to reform by their fellow Eurozone countries.
I'm not going to ramble and rant about this; I'm just going to state the obvious:
This is our future if Obama manages to be successful in using entitlements to buy another term in the White House.
Granted, Mitt Romney may not have a cool recipe for mirco-brewing beer. He's not even the guy you want to drink a beer with. He doesn't sing as well as Obama, and heaven help us, he'd probably also lose at basketball, golf or dancing. But those are not the skills I'm looking for. We need leadership. We need someone to show up, not just check in via iPad. And we need someone who will have the testicular fortitude to make the tough decisions to get our economy back in order.
Tuesday, September 25, 2012
The Year of Voting Dangerously
I'm both fascinated and disturbed at my perception of how voters are approaching this election. Most of the people I know, except for a handful, don't seem to have the time or then inclination to motivate themselves to think about the implication of this presidential decision.
Some are focusing on responsible, worthy and noble activities, such as thoughtfully and carefully raising their children. I certainly respect that, but I also contend that the single most important thing parents can do for their young ones is to do everything they can to ensure that our next president doesn't infringe upon their liberty while saddling them and future generations with unreasonable debt. But at least this is a concept I can understand.
What I don't understand are the people who can muster an obsession with American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Saturday's Georgia Bulldog's game, some random city's housewives (my own personal mindless--no, truly mindless--entertainment) or, heaven forefend, the replacement NFL referees. The Packers should've won? WHO CARES????? Unless you bet the farm against the Seahawks, a questionable call probably won't really affect your life. The results of this presidential election certainly have the potential to change it greatly.
And then there are those who will vote, but for questionable reasons. First of all, just for grins (because you'll surely laugh to keep from crying) you may want to take a few minutes to review a recent Howard Stern "man on the street" segment. Remember, when you're thinking about sitting home because it's cold or rainy on election day, your vote counts, because these people can vote too.
The most articulate woman on the tape says she just doesn't like Romney. And, as my favorite radio talk show host so eloquently put it: Likeable? Who Cares? We're Hiring a New CEO, Not Looking For a Friend. Do you remember in high school when kids campaigned for student council? And the winner was always someone who was the cutest (eye candy, anyone?) or most popular or who made crazy campaign promises like how they would regulate how teachers could test or give homework? Have we learned nothing since high school?
And speaking of pandering with promises, shall we make a list of a few of the things Obama has thrown out there clearly to curry favor during the campaign:
Some are focusing on responsible, worthy and noble activities, such as thoughtfully and carefully raising their children. I certainly respect that, but I also contend that the single most important thing parents can do for their young ones is to do everything they can to ensure that our next president doesn't infringe upon their liberty while saddling them and future generations with unreasonable debt. But at least this is a concept I can understand.
What I don't understand are the people who can muster an obsession with American Idol, Dancing with the Stars, Saturday's Georgia Bulldog's game, some random city's housewives (my own personal mindless--no, truly mindless--entertainment) or, heaven forefend, the replacement NFL referees. The Packers should've won? WHO CARES????? Unless you bet the farm against the Seahawks, a questionable call probably won't really affect your life. The results of this presidential election certainly have the potential to change it greatly.
And then there are those who will vote, but for questionable reasons. First of all, just for grins (because you'll surely laugh to keep from crying) you may want to take a few minutes to review a recent Howard Stern "man on the street" segment. Remember, when you're thinking about sitting home because it's cold or rainy on election day, your vote counts, because these people can vote too.
The most articulate woman on the tape says she just doesn't like Romney. And, as my favorite radio talk show host so eloquently put it: Likeable? Who Cares? We're Hiring a New CEO, Not Looking For a Friend. Do you remember in high school when kids campaigned for student council? And the winner was always someone who was the cutest (eye candy, anyone?) or most popular or who made crazy campaign promises like how they would regulate how teachers could test or give homework? Have we learned nothing since high school?
And speaking of pandering with promises, shall we make a list of a few of the things Obama has thrown out there clearly to curry favor during the campaign:
- Female voters: birth control
- Jewish voters: signing the Israel military aid bill (just as Romney was headed over for a visit...something Obama hasn't done) and ramrodding Jeruselum as the capital of Israel back into the DNC platform after they busted for trying to pull it out.
- Hispanic voters: the executive order that he'd previously admitted he didn't have the authority to do.
- The gay/lesbian community: "Evolving" his views on same-sex marriage on a convenient time line.
If the idea of a hidden agenda with Putin or his pandering/appeasing approach to Muslim leaders doesn't scare you into voting for Romney, we have bigger concerns that one incompetent President's second term.
Thursday, September 20, 2012
I Could EASILY Have Been Part of the 47%
I'm a second-generation single (divorced) mom. My mother and father divorced when I was in middle school. I divorced the father of my children when the girls were 4 and 2. If anyone was ever set up to wallow in victimhood and depend on entitlements, it should've been me.
But even though I was raised by uber-left, card-carrying liberals (you have no idea), I was raised that you are responsible for your own future, you can do anything as long as you're willing to work hard enough, and no, it's not the village's responsibility to raise a child.
When my parents divorced, my mom worked her butt off to support us. She had been a stay-at-home mom, had not yet finished a college degree and made ends meet as a clerk-then-manager of a convenience store, then a waitress-then-bartender at a bar in very touristy St. Augustine Beach. I spent a lot of nights home alone. I helped my mom roll tips. I read a lot of books. And yet, the lesson I learned was self-sufficiency.
I became an over-achiever. As a November baby, I started first grade at five years old. I was one of the younger kids in my class, so when I skipped my senior year, that meant I started college at 16. Of course, I quit at 17 when I met my first husband...and although my mom was convinced I would never finish, 5 attempts and 22 years later, I finally did. (Thanks for the challenge, Mom!)
When I divorced, I had started but not yet completed my college degree. I'd been in my full-time job that paid $6.25/hour for a year. I had the burden of a car payment, because the area I lived in didn't have mass transit.
I left my husband with the house and took only the bare minimum of furniture I needed for the children. We didn't even have a sofa until my grandmother gave me the old one she had in her basement. My mom had by that time moved to Arizona. I can't remember exactly where Daddy (oh, yes, I'm a Southern girl, so I can call my father Daddy, regardless of how old I am!) was at that time (Kentucky, Maryland...maybe Georgia?) but basically, I was on my own without much support.
It became clear to me almost immediately that most of the folks in my neighborhood of duplex apartments near "downtown" McDonough, GA had their housing subsidized. I didn't.
I probably could have qualified for WIC or food stamps, but it never occurred to me to apply.
I'm pretty sure I was so poor I could've gone back to school on a Pell Grant, but I didn't have the time or energy.
My child support barely covered childcare, but it was a priority for me to send my girls to a private kindergarten at the Stockbridge First Baptist Church where they learned to read from Beka Books at ages 2 and 3.
Yes, I did have a car payment, but my car of choice was a Subaru Justy (before the AWD), a stripped-down sub-compact that got great gas mileage, because my metro-Atlanta commute was 25ish miles each way. Sure, I probably could've qualified to buy a more expensive car, but my parents taught me better than that.
5 years after I got divorced, I bought a house. I was not part of the sub-prime lending debacle. Again, my housing was not subsidized. I only purchased a little starter house that I could afford, because my parents raised me to live within means. Keeping up with the Joneses was not in my repertoire. As Paul Ryan has said, he and Romney want "to bring growth and opportunity to society instead of this class warfare, instead of speaking to people like they're stuck in some class or station in life."
My station in life was something I felt like I could always improve upon...and I did.
I returned to school on my own dime several times, finally finishing at a private school, emerging with $38K in student loans and a grand sense of accomplishment.
I stuck with that $6.25/hour job and made good decisions...and advanced. I have a pension, a 401K, good healthcare and a good salary. My children both graduated from high school with honors. My youngest bought a house at 23 and is currently pursuing her masters degree.
Folks, it's not about a class or a color. It's not about a nuclear family, although that definitely helps. It's about the values my parents imparted to me and the education-oriented achievement culture in which I was raised. The government is not our panacea. I am proud to be Julie and not Obama's Julia...and tickled to be in the top 10% based on hard work and good decisions, because my parents always told me that it was possible instead of convincing me that I was a victim.
But even though I was raised by uber-left, card-carrying liberals (you have no idea), I was raised that you are responsible for your own future, you can do anything as long as you're willing to work hard enough, and no, it's not the village's responsibility to raise a child.
When my parents divorced, my mom worked her butt off to support us. She had been a stay-at-home mom, had not yet finished a college degree and made ends meet as a clerk-then-manager of a convenience store, then a waitress-then-bartender at a bar in very touristy St. Augustine Beach. I spent a lot of nights home alone. I helped my mom roll tips. I read a lot of books. And yet, the lesson I learned was self-sufficiency.
I became an over-achiever. As a November baby, I started first grade at five years old. I was one of the younger kids in my class, so when I skipped my senior year, that meant I started college at 16. Of course, I quit at 17 when I met my first husband...and although my mom was convinced I would never finish, 5 attempts and 22 years later, I finally did. (Thanks for the challenge, Mom!)
When I divorced, I had started but not yet completed my college degree. I'd been in my full-time job that paid $6.25/hour for a year. I had the burden of a car payment, because the area I lived in didn't have mass transit.
I left my husband with the house and took only the bare minimum of furniture I needed for the children. We didn't even have a sofa until my grandmother gave me the old one she had in her basement. My mom had by that time moved to Arizona. I can't remember exactly where Daddy (oh, yes, I'm a Southern girl, so I can call my father Daddy, regardless of how old I am!) was at that time (Kentucky, Maryland...maybe Georgia?) but basically, I was on my own without much support.
It became clear to me almost immediately that most of the folks in my neighborhood of duplex apartments near "downtown" McDonough, GA had their housing subsidized. I didn't.
I probably could have qualified for WIC or food stamps, but it never occurred to me to apply.
I'm pretty sure I was so poor I could've gone back to school on a Pell Grant, but I didn't have the time or energy.
My child support barely covered childcare, but it was a priority for me to send my girls to a private kindergarten at the Stockbridge First Baptist Church where they learned to read from Beka Books at ages 2 and 3.
Yes, I did have a car payment, but my car of choice was a Subaru Justy (before the AWD), a stripped-down sub-compact that got great gas mileage, because my metro-Atlanta commute was 25ish miles each way. Sure, I probably could've qualified to buy a more expensive car, but my parents taught me better than that.
5 years after I got divorced, I bought a house. I was not part of the sub-prime lending debacle. Again, my housing was not subsidized. I only purchased a little starter house that I could afford, because my parents raised me to live within means. Keeping up with the Joneses was not in my repertoire. As Paul Ryan has said, he and Romney want "to bring growth and opportunity to society instead of this class warfare, instead of speaking to people like they're stuck in some class or station in life."
My station in life was something I felt like I could always improve upon...and I did.
I returned to school on my own dime several times, finally finishing at a private school, emerging with $38K in student loans and a grand sense of accomplishment.
I stuck with that $6.25/hour job and made good decisions...and advanced. I have a pension, a 401K, good healthcare and a good salary. My children both graduated from high school with honors. My youngest bought a house at 23 and is currently pursuing her masters degree.
Folks, it's not about a class or a color. It's not about a nuclear family, although that definitely helps. It's about the values my parents imparted to me and the education-oriented achievement culture in which I was raised. The government is not our panacea. I am proud to be Julie and not Obama's Julia...and tickled to be in the top 10% based on hard work and good decisions, because my parents always told me that it was possible instead of convincing me that I was a victim.
Wednesday, September 19, 2012
Campaigner-in-Chief
Doesn't it bother anyone else that our President doesn't have time to do the job we elected him to do?
Perhaps he has forgotten that he has a full-time job, since his previous experience with campaigning for President occurred while someone else was actually doing the work. (Well, actually, Obama should've been in the Senate, but if you look at his voting record, maybe he was shirking there too?)
But this time, when we have a crisis of foreign policy and Americans have been killed by extremists, perhaps it's time to DO YOUR JOB, Mr. President?
You snub Benjamin Netanyahu, blowing off the Jobs Council and your security briefings, but you've got time for flights to Las Vegas, interviews with Pimp with a Limp, David Letterman and rubbing elbows with your celebrity friends Beyonce and Jaz-Z? It's probably important to meet with Morsi, as well, but to give the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi preferential treatment over Netanyahu--when he's not even sure Egypt is even an ally, but we know that Israel is--seems a little odd.
And in related news, I'm still struggling with the fact that our embassies and consulates didn't have heightened security on 9/11. Rumor has it (from those who have been "over there") that the anniversary of 9/11 is a pretty big deal in the Islamic extremist communities.
Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Will Obama be showing off his rapping prowess when the next ambassador is being dragged* through the streets by Muslim zealots?
*Yeah, yeah, this sounds strange, but Grammar Girl assures me that drag is really not an irregular verb.
Perhaps he has forgotten that he has a full-time job, since his previous experience with campaigning for President occurred while someone else was actually doing the work. (Well, actually, Obama should've been in the Senate, but if you look at his voting record, maybe he was shirking there too?)
But this time, when we have a crisis of foreign policy and Americans have been killed by extremists, perhaps it's time to DO YOUR JOB, Mr. President?
You snub Benjamin Netanyahu, blowing off the Jobs Council and your security briefings, but you've got time for flights to Las Vegas, interviews with Pimp with a Limp, David Letterman and rubbing elbows with your celebrity friends Beyonce and Jaz-Z? It's probably important to meet with Morsi, as well, but to give the Muslim Brotherhood-backed Morsi preferential treatment over Netanyahu--when he's not even sure Egypt is even an ally, but we know that Israel is--seems a little odd.
And in related news, I'm still struggling with the fact that our embassies and consulates didn't have heightened security on 9/11. Rumor has it (from those who have been "over there") that the anniversary of 9/11 is a pretty big deal in the Islamic extremist communities.
Did Nero fiddle while Rome burned? Will Obama be showing off his rapping prowess when the next ambassador is being dragged* through the streets by Muslim zealots?
*Yeah, yeah, this sounds strange, but Grammar Girl assures me that drag is really not an irregular verb.
Tuesday, September 18, 2012
"You Want the Truth? You Can't Handle the Truth!!!"
That line from A Few Good Men was all I could think of when I was watching the line taken out of context from Mitt Romney's statement at a private fund-raiser.
“[M]y job is, is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
If you read the whole speech or see the entire video, it's clear that he's not talking about how he would represent citizens as President were he to be elected--as the mainstream media would have you believe--but that he's only referring to the goal of his campaign. Here's the larger context:
“There are 47 percent of the people who will vote for the president no matter what. All right, there are 47 percent who are with him, who are dependent upon government, who believe that they are victims, who believe the government has a responsibility to care for them, who believe that they are entitled to health care, to food, to housing, to you-name-it,” the former Massachusetts governor can be heard saying.
“That, that’s an entitlement. And the government should give it to them. And they will vote for this president no matter what…These are people who pay no income tax,” he continued, adding “so our message of low taxes doesn’t connect.”
“[M]y job is, is not to worry about those people. I’ll never convince them they should take personal responsibility and care for their lives.”
As you can see, he's clearly talking about whom he can sway in terms of voting, and his point is a valid one...and his tone matter of fact and honest.
It's a tough political reality, and it's been summarized in this quote which may or may not be correctly attributed to Alexander Fraser Tytler, Professor of Universal History, and Greek and Roman Antiquities, in the University of Edinburgh in the late 18th and early 19th centuries:
"A democracy is always temporary in nature; it simply cannot exist as a permanent form of government. A democracy will continue to exist up until the time that voters discover that they can vote themselves generous gifts from the public treasury. From that moment on, the majority always votes for the candidates who promise the most benefits from the public treasury, with the result that every democracy will finally collapse due to loose fiscal policy, which is always followed by a dictatorship."
It's a frightening perspective on the future, which may be closer than we think.
The truth is, the Democrats are known for dangling entitlements. It may seem that Obama was just dealt a bad hand and has bungled with his policies. But has he? Or is it more strategic? With the above quote in mind, are the Dems encouraging more dependency on entitlements? Pandering to women and the elderly with promised healthcare handouts (really ladies, are you so silly that your votes can be bought with $10/month birth control pills?) and clearly targeting elderly minorities with radio ads for food stamps, because a 100% increase in food stamp usage since Obama took office is surely not large enough. Ask any cashier from any store that accepts them whether food stamps are abused. And what about free cell phones, to which you and I contribute every month when we pay our own cell phone bills?
No, it's not pretty, but Romney's right. Obama's actively buying votes with entitlement programs, and those folks aren't likely to jump voluntarily off the fast-moving gravy train. Romney doesn't need to spend his campaign time and dollars there. Call it what you want, but I call it pragmatic.
Move along, Mr. Romney, speak some common sense to independents who are still on the fence, and maintain your integrity by not back-peddling when liberals start flapping their hands in horror when you state the truth. I've seen you stick to your guns several times, and your stock has risen with me each time. Truth is still truth, even when those who are determined to edit tape selectively to spin a story against you become apoplectic when they hear it.
And as an added bonus, I'll share with you one of my favorite rants from Neal Boortz. If you have any questions about what poor really is in America, let's let The High Priest of the Church of the Painful Truth set you strait as he discusses "Hysteria Over The 'Risk' Of Being Poor."
Monday, September 17, 2012
Why This Blog?
When you're being selfish, you just have to own it. I'm sorry, if there's actually someone reading this and you're not me, I'm not writing this for you. Oh, you're welcome to be here, but this is a purely selfish undertaking.
I can't imagine that we'll have a more important or intense political season than the one we're currently in. There's not a day that goes by where I'm not tempted to post a political rant to my FaceBook account...but I don't want to rant on FaceBook. For me, FaceBook is about being social and keeping connected, and I don't want to be that person who gets unfriended because she's always posting political rants. I want to keep FaceBook for fun things, like random photos of family, friends and the occasional margarita.
Therefore, I'm carving out this little space in the interwebs to vent. I hope that sometimes my husband will read it. Maybe my kids and stepkids will read it. Since we're diametrically opposed, I'm pretty sure my parents won't read it, and I'm okay with that. Honestly, I'm okay if no one reads it. The likelihood that I could sway anyone politically is somewhere near non-existent, and that's not my goal.
My goal is pretty simple: to keep my other social media outlets political-rant free. And so it begins...
I can't imagine that we'll have a more important or intense political season than the one we're currently in. There's not a day that goes by where I'm not tempted to post a political rant to my FaceBook account...but I don't want to rant on FaceBook. For me, FaceBook is about being social and keeping connected, and I don't want to be that person who gets unfriended because she's always posting political rants. I want to keep FaceBook for fun things, like random photos of family, friends and the occasional margarita.
Therefore, I'm carving out this little space in the interwebs to vent. I hope that sometimes my husband will read it. Maybe my kids and stepkids will read it. Since we're diametrically opposed, I'm pretty sure my parents won't read it, and I'm okay with that. Honestly, I'm okay if no one reads it. The likelihood that I could sway anyone politically is somewhere near non-existent, and that's not my goal.
My goal is pretty simple: to keep my other social media outlets political-rant free. And so it begins...
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