Letter to U.S.Rep.Brown, U.S. Senators Graham, DeMint;

Many mutual funds, 401(k) plans, pensions, and insurance companies contain some automaker’s debt, and will lose up to 90% of its value if Obama's Auto Task Force has its way.

The Administration's Auto Task Force has ignored small bondholders, senior citizens, and (current and future) retirees in discussions over the automaker solvency. With the Administration in the driver's seat, they have offered small bondholders only cents on the dollar, which would impact millions of American's pensions, savings, college funds, and retirement accounts.

Bonds are loans, not speculative stocks, but the Administration is proposing that holders of automaker’s debt will receive $0.10 on the dollar for their holdings while the United Auto Workers (UAW) union and the Federal Government will receive 89% of the equity in the restructuring.

This is just another unintended consequence, or intended, of the Obama Administration, just like the Credit Card bill. The Credit Companies will start charging interest from the day of purchase which will punish the people who pay in full and on time as well as the ones who think they are getting a break. It sounds like the whole Senate and House bought into this one.

Government intervention is getting way out of hand and you guys have to find a way of stopping it. I can only hope the voters across the country understand what is going on and vote accordingly in the mid-term elections.

Just about every economic expert agrees that government intervention causes ciaos in a free market capitalistic system.

They agree just about 100%, this particular down turn in our country’s economy was definitely caused by government intervention, starting back in the Carter Administration’s answer to the “Black Housing” problem with the birth of the “Community Reinvestment Act (CRA)”. Carter didn’t have the time to implement it and the next administration would not. However each President blames the previous administration including the Obama administration, for what they inherited. Let us not forget laws are passed by the congress and may not portray the policy of a President, depending on their makeup.

Have you ever heard a speech by President Obama which he was taking ownership of the problems he inherited? To the contrary all the moves he is making economically is so he can blame the Bush administration if any of it fails

Each administration always accuses the previous one of “lack of oversight” or “non transparency” when a situation such as this happens. Each administration reacts differently because the questions they ask are, “how can we get the most out of this politically”? Another question is “what did I (President) promise during my campaign”? The question that should be asked, after first getting an in-depth understanding of the problem, must be “what is best for the people of this country?” If this question is asked by every politician at every level of Government, we would not be prone to debacles such as we are experiencing now.

There are other inhibitors for government making the right decisions. The politicians usually answering the questions are ones who have never ran a business or had to meet a payroll in their life. Others have been collecting a paycheck from the Congress so long they have been involved in creating these messes and now want to cover their butts.

One root cause of our problems is the extortion of Congress by special interest groups such as the Auto Workers Union (UAW), Steel Workers Union, big financial and Wall Street intuitional lobbies. All of these and more have donated Billions of dollars to the Democrat party and along with the radical left wing PACs and media supporting their causes have the government tied up in knots. This is not to say the Republicans haven’t received some as well, however the amount is about 10 to 1 in favor of the Democrats.

Now that the Democrats have control of both houses of Congress these groups want pay back. By the way this Union thing started screwing things up in 1935 with the enactment of the National Labor Relations Act (NLRA) which made wages much higher causing a higher unit cost of business products and services which had to be passed on to the consumer. Manufactures were caught without the money to expand production and as a result consumers weren’t buying, unemployment rose, and the economic climate was drastically stifled. The NLRA, in my opinion was one of the major players in starting the “Great Depression”.     

I believe answers to the wrong questions, which are slanted because of the above, are disastrous and is what has caused, not only our current situation, but lead us here in the first place. Results of the answers years ago, such as the NLRA are still having affects on the economy and the answers to the wrong questions today will have much longer effects because of problems and associations both foreign and domestic.

Wrong answers leads to government pretending to solve problems by creating new bureaucracies, Government run or sponsored intuitions, and regulations which will over time screw up free market capitalism. Free market is the process based on competition and encourages people to do their best too beat the other guy. If regulations are introduced to provide “safe havens” such as insuring failure, competition will cease to exist. If interest rates are regulated, competition can only go so far. Regulations are usually put in place to level the playing field.

Every president thinks he has political capital which really means he thinks he can get away with political decisions that put him in good favor with particular groups of voters. When he tries to tweak the free market system by interjecting political favoring the country will get screwed up and usually the next president has to pick up the pieces.

This screwing around is not limited to the President. The Congress has too much to say about tweaking the system favoring their voters, in most cases more than the President. I have always said if Congress took off at least nine of the twelve months every year we would be in much better shape.                                 

One really wrong question was asked, by our “first black President Bill Clinton,” to the treasury department was, how can we help the poorest voters experience the “American Dream of owning their own home”? Wasn’t that the same question Carter asked?  

This was not only the wrong question but it was asked for the wrong reason which resulted in the wrong answer. Since the answer was “yes we can” the solutions use in making this happen, revival of the CRA, caused catastrophic results. You have to understand that at this time the housing values were starting to climb. Dot-Com companies started to pay outrages salaries which together put just about everything out of the reach of the lower income families. So the answer was to come up with some real creative lending schemes and have them backed by the Government’s “MAE and MAC” siblings which are essentially the taxpayers. 100% and even 110% mortgages were made available and the lending institutions were told by the Government, they would have to make these loans which would be guaranteed by the Federal Government.

The wrong reason was really not about the “American Dream” but to maintain a lock for the Democrats, on the low income voters. This reasoning also was backed by the notion that the housing market would just keep escalating and every body would make money when selling their home or by refinancing their mortgages.

An unintended consequence was that this became real popular with the people with very good incomes as well. They also got into this market and started buying homes that their dual incomes could cover the monthly payments with no down payments. Some even bought homes with the intent of “flipping” (selling) them in a year or two, and took out low cost 5 year balloon mortgages. Others took out variable rate mortgages at more than reasonable rates.

Contractors and national home builders started building houses as fast as they could and selling them at inflated prices. A large percentage of the houses were purchased by speculators, with 100% mortgages, with the intent of selling them in a few months and making a bundle. Believe me a lot of money was made in a relatively short time, but California and the Country as a whole started to see a housing “glut” around 2007 and all of a sudden people could not sell their house or in some cases houses.

When we sold our last house in California in 2002, the woman who bought it took out a 100% thirty year 1^st mortgage (interest rates we very low but I forget how low) as well as a five year balloon for another 10% to cover the closing costs and the down payment on the balloon. In 2007 her balloon came due but at that time housing prices were still going up, and she must have covered it because we were out there February 2009 and she was still in the house.  She most likely refinanced the whole house including the 10%.  However, the bottom dropped of the California housing market in late 2008 and her house is now worth only what we paid for it in 1996 leaving her with an upside down house.

People who had these “creative mortgages” were fore-closings at a staggering rate in 2008 and 2009 which started to affect the banks and the mortgage lenders. And now we all know the rest of the story of how just one stupid answer to a politically motivated wrong question caused the collapse of our entire “Financial System”, but not without help.

The Federal Reserve System is another Government intervention to the free market capitalist system. Adjusting the prime and lending interest rates results in an artificially reflected market. In free market system it is the consumer who determines the terms, conditions and prices. They look for the best prices, discounts and terms.

It seems that every day the “Feds” meet they would come up with new ways and rates to muck up our free market system. The stock market now makes decisions based on the Fed’s rates. By doing this the stock markets are reacting to something that, in the real world, is not happing but since the Fed is dictating the lending rates they have no choice

I guess low Fed rates spur corporations and banks to borrow and high Fed rates slow the borrowing. How novel is that?

What do you think would happen if there were no Federal Reserve? First of all we would save a lot of money by relieving the Government employee count, but my guess would be the free market would react to the consumer demands. The rates would go up until borrowing slowed or stopped then would come down until borrowing started to pick by consumers shopping around looking for the best deals and eventually the market would find a leveling point. Now isn’t that a novel idea?

Our crisis did now happen because the free market system doesn’t work, it happened because the Boneheaded Congress and the Federal Reserve screwed with it for political purposes and because they mucked up our free market system our financial systems are collapsing, and it’s for real. All the interjections of the Bonehead Congress broke the system which took away the power of the consumer. The stock market plunged taking away the savings of the nearly retired and everybody else, people are losing their jobs resulting in home foreclosures and what does our Bonehead Congress and President do?

They start spending money faster than they can print it, which means they have to borrow more. Doesn’t this sound like the 100% mortgage problem that started “The Mess We Are In”? They panic and now are totally asking the wrong questions, or in this case making wrong assumptions, spending based on political reasons and feeding money to organizations that should go into bankruptcy and or reorganize which they will have to anyway.

Their solution was again, to borrow and print more money, like $3.7 Trillion dollars. This will create an interest payment of well over $500 Billion a year which over ten years will be more than the original loan or around $5 Trillion. That leaves the total of the entire bailout worth almost $9 Trillion. We will then have an upside down federal treasury. We should get ready for a 50% income tax for every body starting in 2013.

The reasoning was that during the “Great Depression” not enough money was spent which allow it to go on for almost a decade. Again, the wrong answer to a wrong question!

First, most of the decision makers in the Obama administration have no, nada, association with the “Great Depression” other than hearsay. Most of them were not born until after WWII. I was born in 1938 and live thorough the resulting years and WWII. WWII did not cause the ending of the “Great Depression” which is contrary to what you hear from these “Baby Boomers” who went to liberal colleges and then went work in Government agencies with ideas of creating a new world order. They did not take the time to analyze our past history, in the financial sector, and the resulting effects it had on the economy in the 1930s, 1940s, and even the 1950 time frame.      

Anyway the “bailout” fever spread over the Bush administration and now Obama’s. The rush to save these intuitions in trouble was again the wrong answer to a politically motivated question. The question was how do now we save these financial and auto makers intuitions who in the boneheads mind “there too big to let go bankrupt”.  The politics is in the quote because both of these sectors have paid extortion money to the majority of the congress through campaign financing, again answering the wrong question for the wrong reason. I also should say they did not listen to the overwhelming response of the taxpayers who said to let these sectors go bankrupt with only 2% in favor of bailouts. We have already given GM $31million and they still will, in a short time, go bankrupt leaving the taxpayers holding the money bag.

The taxpayers are right, and usually are, because they are a larger cross section of experience with the free market system, many who are cutting paychecks and running successful enterprises, than what is in the U.S. Congress. By ignoring the taxpayers and giving out worthless paper backed by a bankrupt Government, means the Government will have to take equity shares or common stock, at some time, in all these companies and become voting shareholders. We will have the President with the majority of Congress, who by the way as I said before, never met a payroll or ran a business in their lives, in the position of directing these companies with their bonehead decisions. Does the term Nationalization mean anything to you?

WOW! I was just about to push the publish button when I got an alert from Stratfor.com that Chrysler filed for Chap.11. This post was getting to long so earlier I decided not to include a few lines about my opinion on the Automakers bail out.

I said above that the government would have to take equity shares for the taxpayer money given to the automakers. I was thinking of GM when I wrote that and never gave a thought about Chrysler. We, the taxpayers own 60% of Chrysler now even before the bankruptcy. The Government gave, as one of the conditions, that Fiat of Italy would take a 20% of the equity shares when the deal is signed and controlling ownership by 2016 with the U.S. and Canadian Governments owning another 10%.

Why didn’t the Government let Chrysler, and for that matter GM, go bankrupt when this thing started, instead of putting billions of our dollars up just to keep them afloat for a few months? Because the wrong question that was again asked was, “how do we save the Union voting block”.

I think there is something rotten with this arrangement because Fiat was suppose to buy into GM and that fell through, then Fiat wanted to by Saturn, and that fell through and it was GM that back out  in 2005 when a deal was proposed with Fiat, because Fiat had a major amount of dept in its car division. The Government thinks that Fiat has better small car technology than what is on the Chrysler drawing boards. The Government knows best.

There are many people who believe that Socialism and Democracy can exist with one another. They can, but that’s because Socialism is a threat to Capitalism, at least at first, not Democracy.          

Socialism to Democracy is not the issue in what is going on with our current crisis in the USA. However Socialism, in a democratic society, is now the method used by liberal left leaning elected societies intent on chipping away at individual freedoms and human rights and our free market capitalistic system, resulting in a collective form of Government. It is also the method by which supplying one’s “daily bread” will lead to the control of the people. What the Government gives they can also take away.

Those who think that the WWII era was the time socialism became prevalent in European democracies are dead wrong. In fact it was that time when Communism expanded its hold on Europe, when the powers at the Alta conference decided that most of the free people prior to WWII should fall slaves to the USSR. This didn’t end until the fall of the “Berlin Wall” 40 years later and their Communistic form of government crumbled under its own weight.  Most of the rest of Europe were already Socialistic Democratic States. 

One has to realize that European countries were ruled by Monarchies, Clan leaders, and Warlords, which were collective forms of Government, where nobody owned anything of their own. This is a pure form Socialism, or in today’s world Communism. Therefore Socialism was what they had to start from. Unfortunately the people had no idea what a “Capitalist Democracy” was and were scared because they had been always at the mercy of the Monarchy. Socialistic Democracies Started when the European people decided they had enough with being ruled by appointed Royalty and beheaded or diminished their powers to nothing more than figureheads. Even then Socialism started gaining control in areas of the business ownership, the workforce and religion. Hence the movement to America occurred. The people formed Parliaments and free elections were held. That was before WWII. (Of course this is an accelerated summation, a lot of other stuff happen before they got their freedom.)     

Socialism started in this country in the late 18^th century in the form of Unionism as the means to end the exploitation of woman, children, workers coming from the farms and the large influx immigrants. It was a good concept then. Now however, with their sometimes outrages wage demands and extreme lifetime worker benefits, layoff restrictions, no firing clauses, and restrictions on companies to utilize more modern and efficient methods of manufacturing and processing, has led to anti-competitiveness. Union demands have been the major factor in the reduction of jobs or job relocation in unionized companies. If you look at the areas or States in deep trouble you will find a large concentration of unions.

The Labor Unions now have a strangle hold on the SDP and forcing the insertion of Socialistic demands, such as “card check”, or “Employee Free Choice Act, and demanding that any project using Federal money must us Union workers in their policies.

Now from MoneyNews.com one of the largest labor unions, the Service Employees International Union (SEIU), wants to centralize all retirement plans for under one new “retirement system” including 401(k) plans for the United States. In effect, every one will have a Government Retirement whether they like it or not. Also Union labor must be used on federally funded projects was just introduced in the new “Stimulus Bill.”  

Former Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich explains Card Check:

"Under Card Check, union organizers and their enforcers will be able to go into any small business, hospital or construction site and coerce workers into signing cards. If they get 50 percent plus one, the deal's done, and the workers are forced into a union. And if management and the new union fail to reach a negotiated contract, the federal government will just impose one.

Other Socialistic mandates:

On top of that a Government mandated the Social Security System (SSS) that takes a percentage of the workers earned wages, which are taken off the top, or gross, of the workers and was suppose to be set aside in a fund for when workers became sixty five years old and retired.  People of that generation had no idea what was happening or understood that the workers not only had their money taken away for 30 or 40 years, were paid “NO interest” and then the Socialists Democrat Government made us pay income taxes on it when we were qualified to collect. However the Social Security fund money was to inviting and free, not in a locked account, for the Federal Government, and almost right away it started being used it for other things.

The only thing that stopped the spending and the abuse of the Government Treasury in the late 1930s up to the mid 40s was WWII. SSS was an entitlement and once started it could not be discontinued.

Today we have many entitlements and many restrictions that have been forced on or into our lives for the “good of the country”. In all cases, Capitalism and a free market driven society can handle these problems, only big government solutions will, without a doubt, cause recessions and then inflation especially one that favors Socialism. Having said that, many more are be proposed by our Socialist Democrat President and labor controlled Socialist Democrat Party, soon to known as the ”Socialist Democrat Labor Party”. There are three very dangerous ones:

Cap and Trade, or better known at “Cap and Tax”, which taxes everything we manufacture, touch and consume, and is being use to combat “Global Warming”. There is no scientific proof that it is even happening. There is however scientific proof that it is not.

Second, is a mandated “Healthcare system” which we know does not and will not work for this country. How do we know? Well in the European Union there are 27 countries all of which have a different government run Healthcare systems. All these countries are imploding because the amount of people using the systems, and the very high unemployment, are consuming more money than the Governments coffers can support. People in those countries are now paying 50 to 60 percent of their pay to their governments for all the entitlements. This is another entitlement which, if started, can not be discontinued.

From The GOPUSA Eagle:

Now, our dive toward socialism appears to be gaining steam and some elected officials around the country are considering another anti-capitalist move: price controls. That's right... in the good, old U.S.A. you could be the owner of a rental property where the government tells you how much you can charge. Own a grocery store? Better not raise the price of milk unless the government says it's OK.

Third, our new Socialist Democrat President is nationalizing our financial and insurance industries as well as handing the automakers tons of bailout money. These industries have made some bad business decisions and should be allowed to go bankrupt.              

Socialism is the belief that any of the various theories or systems of social organization in which the means of producing and distributing goods and services is owned collectively (includes labor unions) or by a centralized government that often plans and controls the economy. It is the stage in Marxist-Leninist theory intermediate between capitalism and communism, in which collective ownership of the economy under the dictatorship of the proletariat has not yet been successfully achieved.

Our Socialist Democrat President is planning on increasing the Government payroll by 600,000 workers. We currently have 33% of our workforce getting a paycheck from Federal, State and Local Governments. When that reaches 51% we will have become a European Socialist style State and we can officially call our country the “United Socialist States of America.

The Government is handing out more money than what is taking in, and our Government is becoming a “Giant Bernie Madoff Ponzi scheme”, which is a fraudulent investment operation that pays returns to investors (in this case substitute Government employees)  from their own money or money paid by subsequent investors rather than from any actual profit earned.  

”Capitalism is a social system based on the recognition of individual rights, including property rights, in which all property is privately owned. Under capitalism the state is separated from economics (production and trade, just like the state is separated from religion. Capitalism is the system of political freedom”.

Communism is any system of government in which all property and wealth is owned by the state. This is where we could end up. 

On June 17^th 2008 I wrote a BLOG post titled Change, Change, Change. I would like the readers of this BLOG Post to read that one before reading this. One thing more, I would never call the Democrat Party, the Democratic Party. If anything I would label them the Socialists Democrat Party.

The Heritage Foundation has come up with the cumulative cost of $8,400,000,000,000.00 for this spending bill for the 8 years, 2010-2017. That is about $28,000 for every man, woman and child in the USA and a family of four, $112,000.

On top of this, since Obama came on board on January 20^th 2009 the stock market went plunging from 7949.09 to, on March 5^th 6594.44 which amounts to $2.5 trillion in market losses. Even prior to that when it was almost certain he would be the Domocrat nominee the market started heading down from 12,000.

We have lost over 50% of the savings in our 401K accounts leaving retirees relying on their own savings CDs and other out of stock market accounts. Even the Wall Street Journal has said that “the economy actually would be recovering were it not for the anti-growth policies being pursued by the Obama administration”.

Obama has managed to mismanage just about every financial and industrial sector in the nation with his new policies and the articles in his Stimulus Bill and his proposed budget or just by opening is inexperienced mouth.

Obama has talked about the need to nationalize our banking industry, government control over our insurance and a European socialistic universal health care plan.

The Government will mandate the rules of banks when lending money. He has said that even solvent banks have to accept the money so they can lend more. This is so he can get control of all banks. Many solvent banks have sent the money back regardless of his order, saying, they have plenty of loan available money and in fact have not turned down any qualified borrowers.

There goes the HMO, PPO, Blue Cross and God knows how many other Health Insurance Companies. The Government will expand to about 650,000 more employees for oversight, distribution of money, and administration of services. 

Obama’s talking about cutting back our spending on strategic defense systems, raising taxes on large corporations and even on money made off shore by multinational corporations.

Say so long to thousands of defense manufacturing jobs, and also will put the USA’s security at risk.

Just by putting a cap on executive salaries will cost the Government $11billion in tax revenue over a ten year period.  Letting the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010 from would cause large and multinational corporations to relocate their headquarters in other countries, which many companies already have. Obama is saying he supporting small business by cutting their Capitial Gains tax, but 95% of small businesses only pay income tax which will go up because they make above the $250.000 limit.  Remember Joe the Plummer?    

The Government is the taking away the tax deduction on high end home mortgage interest and just recently the Democrats are talking about using the money in our 401K plans to bolster up Social Security.

If you remember this whole downward cycle started with the subprime mortgage debacle. Fannie Mae finally became insolvent and could not take on any more of the bundled mortgages from conventional banks. Of course the Democrat war machine went to work on former President Bush and blamed his administration for lack of over sight. This was a good move by the Dems. who wanted to direct the attention away from their own lack of understanding of the problems that would occur in later years after the Clinton admistration in the 1990s forced banks to take on mortgages from people who could not meet the conventional mortgage terms.

This problem was well documented in a feature article in the New York Times on September 30^th 1999. .

This is a summation of the article:

''Fannie Mae has expanded home ownership for millions of families in the 1990's by reducing down payment requirements,'' said Franklin D. Raines, Fannie Mae's chairman and chief executive officer. ''Yet there remain too many borrowers whose credit is just a notch below what our underwriting has required who have been relegated to paying significantly higher mortgage rates in the so-called subprime market.''

Demographic information on these borrowers is sketchy. But at least one study indicates that 18 percent of the loans in the subprime market went to black borrowers, compared to 5 per cent of loans in the conventional loan market.

In moving, even tentatively, into this new area of lending, Fannie Mae is taking on significantly more risk, which may not pose any difficulties during flush economic times. But the government-subsidized corporation may run into trouble in an economic downturn, prompting a government rescue similar to that of the savings and loan industry in the 1980's.

''From the perspective of many people, including me, this is another thrift industry growing up around us,'' said Peter Wallison a resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute. ''If they fail, the government will have to step up and bail them out the way it stepped up and bailed out the thrift industry.''

You should also know that Franklin Ranies left Fannie Mae just before the DoDo hit the fan, with millions of bonus dollars. Raines was also the lover of Barney Franks, Democrat and House Financial Services Committee Chairman.

Obama has also just about killed every energy sector with all this talk about Cap and Trade. He is not fully utilizing our own resources, and caving into the environmentalist’s lobby. This will result in a price hike and higher taxes on just about every product and service we consume and use.

Making automobiles more efficient and cheaper is just BS. The Department Of Transportation of the Federal and State’s Governments gets their income from gas tax. With the entrance of gasless motor vehicles how do you think they will come up with that money? They will mandate putting a GPS in all vehicles and tax us on our mileage at the same time they will know our exact location, like On-Star, except we won’t have the choice of purchasing it.   

In my opinion, I don’t think President Obama has the slightest idea what he is doing or how he is affecting our economy by what he is implementing or saying. If he keeps spending under his current plan, there will be less people paying into the tax pool, because of business closings and employee layoffs.  We will be, in effect be pulling a Bernie Madoff on ourselves. Obama might be a Harvard Graduate but he has no practical application in Business or working in the private sector. This is the problem when we elect Senators who have not run any prior form of government. Obama is using this office as his training ground and we will suffer for electing him.

President Obama will be drastically changing the model this country was founded on by converting our Capitalistic form of enterprise to a Socialistic Hugo Chaves Government model. This will never be tolerated in this country and a high tech Boston Tea Party will be waged. In the mean time all sectors of our country will be crippled for many decades.

Let me say, I believe, that Obama has created the deepening of this recession and it started when he was on the campaign trail. All of our business sectors and investors, listening to his proposeed policy statements, were laying the foundations for the time when, or if Obama, got elected. Investors and businesses, large and small, knew that they were his target. They prepared for the cataclysmic events that would occur if he got elected. As soon as they knew he would be President they started selling off. The banks stopped lending, small and large business started laying off employees, thousands even thought it was time close and take their money and run. This was their “Boston Tea Party”

Obama has to stop blaming the former President. All new Presidents inherit something from previous administrations. The sooner Obama takes ownership of these problems and stops acting in a panic mode the sooner this will be over. I am willing to bet though, the Democrats will keep on going until the 2010 Congressional elections and thereafter if they keep wining.

What more does Obama need to be convinced that we have a “supply side economy”. When the Stock market plunges, manufacturing cuts back or closes and the banks stop lending, money goes no where. I am convinced the solutions are sitting on his desk, however he has promised so many people, so many things, he has to spend, big time. His policies are all about politics while people are having some of the worst times in their lives he is serving $100.00 a pound KOBE Beef to guests in the White House and flying around on Air Force One everyday telling people his policies saved 25 jobs.

Obama’s Cabinet Choices

As fast as I was researching this BLOG post Obama’s picks were dropping like flies. However not all that should of did. 

Governor Bill Richardson: Commerce Secretary (withdrew)

Bill Richardson on Sunday announced that he was withdrawing his nomination to be President-elect Barack Obama's commerce secretary amid a grand jury investigation into how some of his political donors won a lucrative state contract which is named after him (Governor Richardson Investment Partnership, GRIP).

Eric Holder:   Attorney General (should never have been picked)

(New York Times, George Lardner)

Erick Holder facilitated the Clinton pardon of Mark Rich. In 1983 Marc Rich was indicted along with his partner, Pincus Green, and their companies on 65 counts of defrauding the I.R.S., mail fraud, tax evasion, racketeering, defrauding the Treasury and trading with the enemy. (The last of these was for an oil deal with Iran while it held American hostages.) On hearing that they were about to be prosecuted, they fled to Switzerland. For the next 17 years, Mr. Rich ducked extradition requests as well as attempts by federal marshals to arrest him in France, England, Finland and elsewhere.

Eric Holder, (WSJ.com, Debra Burlingame) also facilitated the Clinton pardon of 16 members of the Armed Forces of National Liberation, FALN (the Spanish acronym), a clandestine terrorist group devoted to bringing about independence for Puerto Rico through violent means. Its members waged war on America with bombings, arson, kidnappings, prison escapes, threats and intimidation. The most gruesome attack was the 1975 Fraunces Tavern bombing in Lower Manhattan. Timed to go off during the lunch-hour rush, the explosion decapitated one of the four people killed and injured another 60.

FALN bragged about the bloodbath, calling the victims "reactionary corporate executives" and threatening: "You have unleashed a storm from which you comfortable Yankees can't escape." By 1996, the FBI had linked FALN to 146 bombings and a string of armed robberies -- a reign of terror that resulted in nine deaths and hundreds of injured victims.

Timothy Geithner: Treasury Secretary (should never have been picked)

 (Politico)

The Wall Street Journal/New York Times reported that Geithner had failed to pay $42,000 in taxes and had employed a housekeeper whose work permit had expired. But minutes after the news broke, the Obama transition team pushed back with talking points -- distributed to Capitol Hill, K Street and congressional reporters -- in which it portrayed the problems as simple mistakes or oversights." He admitted that he had failed to pay tens of thousands of dollars in federal self-employment taxes while working for the International Monetary Fund despite having signed paperwork acknowledging the obligation.

Hillary Clinton: Secretary of State (should never been picked)

Hillary simply cannot tell the truth. Here's her scorecard: (Dick Morris)

Admitted Lies

• Chelsea was jogging around the Trade Center on Sept. 11, 2001. (She was in bed watching it on TV.)
• Hillary was named after Sir Edmund Hillary. (She admitted she was wrong. He climbed Mt. Everest five years after her birth.)
• She was under sniper fire in Bosnia. (A girl presented her with flowers at the foot of the ramp.)
• She learned in The Wall Street Journal how to make a killing in the Futures Market.

                (The WSJ was not reporting on the futures back then)  

Whoppers She Won't Confess To

• She didn't know about the FALN pardons.

By Ron Kolb: Hillary Clinton, Terrorism and the FALN

Despite the Clintons' repeated denials, there is evidence that the pardons were offered to the terrorists with Hillary Clinton's full knowledge. In the Oct. 4, 1999, issue of the New Republic, Jose Rivera, then a New York City Councilman, is quoted as saying that he personally approached Hillary on Aug. 9, 1999. He said he gave her a packet of information about the FALN members along with a personal letter asking her to "speak to the president and ask him to consider granting clemency" to them.

Two days later, on Aug. 11, President Clinton would offer pardons to the terrorists.

(Dick Morris)
• She didn't know that her brothers were being paid to get pardons that Clinton granted.
• Taking the White House gifts was a clerical error.
• She didn't know that her staff would fire the travel office staff after she told them to do so.
• She didn't know that the Peter Paul fundraiser in Hollywood in 2000 cost $700,000 more than she reported it had.
• She opposed NAFTA at the time.
• She was instrumental in the Irish peace process.
• She urged Bill to intervene in Rwanda.
• She played a role in the '90s economic recovery.
• The billing records showed up on their own.
• She thought Bill was innocent when the Monica scandal broke.
• She was always a Yankees fan.
• She negotiated for the release of refugees in Macedonia (who were released the day before she got there).

Tom Daschle: Secretary of Health and Human Services (withdrew)

(Bloomberg.com)

Daschle, who withdrew yesterday as President Barack Obama’s nominee for the cabinet post, spent four years helping friend Leo Hindery Jr. raised cash for purchases including 1970s hit dance show “Soul Train.” The appointment ran into trouble after he amended three years of tax returns for unreported income, including personal use of a car and driver provided by Hindery’s buyout firm. Daschle bowed out of the confirmation process, saying the tax issue had become a distraction.

Make way for Dr. Howard Dean.

Nancy Killefer: Chief Performance Officer (withdrew)

(Michelle Malkin)

Just before the Daschle announcement came the withdrawal of Nancy Killefer. She was tapped to be President Obama's "Chief Performance Officer," overseeing compliance, organizational effectiveness and waste management across every federal agency. But the former Clinton Treasury official and head of the prestigious Washington office of the management consulting firm McKinsey & Company, Inc., couldn't be bothered to manage her own household help effectively. She failed for a year and a half to pay employment taxes and had an outstanding tax lien on her home. The lien was worth less than $1,000.

Janet Napolitano: Secretary of the Department of Homeland Security

Janet Napolitano was confirmed as secretary of the Department of Homeland Security. She previously served as Arizona governor and is not in favor of a closed southern boarder and is against the Real-ID. She is not in favor of current laws calling for the arrest and deportation of illegal immigrants.

We will need to watch out, with her in this position.

Leon Panetta: CIA Director (should not have been picked because of no intelligence background)

(National Review On Line)

Before he was a Democratic congressman, before he was director of the Office of Management and Budget, before he was White House chief of staff, and certainly before he was President Obama’s nominee for CIA director, Leon Panetta was director of the Office of Civil Rights at the Department of Health, Education, and Welfare—the precursor to today’s Department of Health and Human Services. He was also a Republican.

Around the time he left HEW in 1970, Panetta may have been involved in leaking a secret White House document that caused a major embarrassment for the Nixon administration and had policy repercussions for decades.

Nixon, appointed Pat Moynihan—who had served as assistant secretary of labor for policy in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations—as his urban-affairs adviser and all-around White House intellectual.

Moynihan suspected that a staffer at HEW had leaked the memo, and that HEW was responsible for leaking his authorship of the black family report five years earlier. (Decades later, Senator Moynihan would get some measure of revenge by having the Social Security Administration removed from HHS and made into an independent agency.) Although memos leak all the time, and the Leakers are rarely identified, The New Republic’sJohn Osbornereported in a March 1970 profile of Moynihan that Leon Panetta was a prime suspect in the leak.

How cool is it to have someone who suspected of leaking secret documents now ready to head up the CIA.

Hilda Solis: Labor Secretary (should not have been picked by Obama standards)

Hilda Solis was haven sent to Obama. She is one of the authors of the Card-Check Labor bill that she and Pelosi have been tying to get voted on since coming into power in 2004. Labor Unions are one of the major contributors to the campaigns of the Democrats.

What she forgot to tell the President was that she secretly was the non-paid treasure of the labor lobby group who has been funneling big money in their PACs, in other words she is another lobbyists that Obama said he would never have in his administration.

Comments in general

Remember, any Democrat bill that contains the words FREE or FAIR usually means the opposite.       

Obama certainly knows how to pick them, maybe it’s because of his own shady associations, and we will “PAY to PLAY” the price before the he ends the first two years of his first term.

Starting already with the new State Children's Health Insurance Program (SCHIP)

I knew there was a “Stupid University” in Washington now we know the Dean of Admissions. Obama signed into law on Feb. 4^th 2009, a bill which will expand SCHIP to children in families of four earning up to $80,000 per year. The Congressional Budget Office reports that 77 percent of such children already have private health insurance. The cool thing is that it will be funded by raising the cigarette tax up to a dollar. Aren’t we trying to convince people not to smoke? How will we pay for this stupid bill if smoking is cut in half?

I am sure the majority of the people who read the thank-you note from Chrysler, in the Wall Street Journal and other papers, thought how nice it was of them to do so.

Well let me say they spent  around $600,000 is doing so when they are in dire financial straits. This is as bad as the AIG management taking their company paid outing at a resort at $3000.00 a night at the taxpayer’s expense. However; this is more than spending our money.

If you think about the last poll I saw the American people were not in favor of taxpayer’s (85%) money going to the automakers, therefore the Democrat Congress could not get a veto proofed vote, this is their (automakers) and the UAW’s way of putting a knife in our gut and then twisting it.

What they really meant by the statement from Bob Nardelli
Chairman and CEO , Chrysler LLC “The United States is home to 74% of our employees and over 3300 dealers in communities across this country. Of every dollar we spend, 78% is spent here at home. On behalf of the 1 million people who depend on Chrysler for their livelihoods, thank you for investing in Chrysler, and America”, that they are big enough and powerful enough, they can get what they want when they want it regardless of what the American people want.

It is time for the Taxpayer/Voters to take back our Country and we can do it by evaluating the type of elected officials we want and exercising our vote accordingly.

We elected our officials in South Carolina who were supposedly conservative Senators and Representatives to stand up for our South Carolina conservative principles. We now have a crisis, and they need to exercise these principles, by voting NO on this bridge/UAW bailout bill.

These loans, bailouts are not required to save the auto industry. What they would be doing by supporting them is give the UAW more time to spend the money on their outlandish benefits plan, and gain a stronger control, it will not change then status of the auto companies. The country can not afford these bailouts and more importantly the vast majority of the Americans do not want them approved.

Every time the liberal congress overrides the people we have gotten in deep trouble. In the last four years there has been a congress that seems to have put in place polices that are totally disconnected from what the people of our State and Country want. Why do you think this is happening? It can be said the Congress has and is being extorted. The Labor Unions are one of the major influencers along with Trial Lawyers Wall Street firms, and Environmentalist who control the way the Democrat party is ignoring the taxpayers. They are using their billions of dollars for campaign donations and demanding a return on their investment, they now have a strangle hold on the Congress.

This time it can not be said, if they vote for these massive bills, that they are doing it for the greater good of the country. This is for the greater good of the big money donor crowd. We, the taxpayers, have been taken out of the process altogether.  

Our forefathers did not come to this land to set up a government which was the same as the socialistic governments they left.

I don’t want any ownership in American Auto companies that can’t understand what to do when their tally sheets don’t look good and let themselves, over a ten year period, get into such a financial state that all of a sudden it’s either go to the taxpayers for money or go “Chapter 11”. I say let them go “Chapter 11”

What do the responsible taxpayers do when things get tough? They cut up credit cards, put off vacations and large purchases. Why aren’t the auto companies biting the bullet by laying- off workers, or cut back hours, or something novel like canceling those big bonuses, cut out the farm banks, and trim down the retirement and health benefits like other companies have done.

It appears to me that nobody, in Congress, has done the math on this and the other bailouts, that is the total they should be looking at. It will be in the Multi Trillions, and nobody alive today, will see these massive bills paid off. It will also be over 40% of our GNP, and my friends this is called Socialism. Hell, they even want an Auto Czar to dictate the use of the funds.

Dictatorship is now the next step for this Government if this bill does not get voted on or does not get passed if voted on. Even though some 78% of the taxpayers are against bailouts or government intervention of any kind the President, and treasury, will take some of the money already appropriated for the “financial sector”, (the $700 billion) which was voted and approved for that purpose, and bail the UAW out. This is an action that overrides the will of the people of a Democracy, and without a congressional vote of approval, which is specifically for this purpose, it constitutes a Dictatorship.

The Government of the United States of America, through the actions of the people that we elected, has committed monumental frauds right before our eyes. They did this by passing laws, approbation bills, and Earmarks favoring special interest groups that supported their reelection campaigns. They have imposed regulations without oversight on companies and institutions, then providing them with government guaranteed insurance covering their abuses.

We the people are the only ones that can put a stop to these types of abuses and the corruption we have been experiencing with this Congress and the last. The people have the power if you we want this to stop. Over the next two years we must evaluate our elected officials and the ones that have been holding this country back by accepting contributions from lobbing groups, special interest Political Action Committees (PAC) political fund raising organizations, or bundlers and earmarking funds for special interests in their State, vote them out of office.

Do you realize, there are elected officials in the Congress of the United States for 30, 40, and 50 years an have links and associations with all the groups mention above. They keep winning because they accumulate massive donations for their reelection campaigns, from all over, and turn loose the money power of the PACs, and other online political organizations, that spend money on radio and television advertising.

The Senators and the House Representatives only represent the people of their State or Congressional District and only the people of that State or District can vote for them. Donations for their campaigns should only come from individuals of the State and the District and not from local special interest groups such as Realtor organizations or local Labor and not from the parties national committees (DNC or RNC),or PACs of any type. These outside interests are what corrupt our election process. Just look at what happen in Alabama, if it weren’t for the determined people of that State ignoring the thousands of TV and Radio advertisings of these outside groups which spent Millions of dollars on, they wouldn’t have gotten the Senator elected that they wanted.    

We as taxpayers and voters should draw a line in the sand decide the number of terms an elected official should serve. In my opinion Senators should serve no more than three terms (18yrs) and the House Representatives no more than four terms (8yrs).

Terms limits for Congress will never become law because the Congress would have to approve a law requiring it.  So we the voters must do it when we vote. Remember, no matter how good you think the people are when you first elect them, the longer they stay in office, the more they will stink.         

Sitting at home, drinking some homemade coffee, and watching the political polling results I fail to understand why Obama’s pole numbers are surging ahead of McCain. I guess the mantra of a Bush forth term has resonated with the people. Some how they think the McCain will carry on the torch of the Bush admistration. I think the people should be scared of another two years of a Democrat Congressional majority, and one with the possibility of being a veto proof majority, led by Nancy Pelosi and Harry Reid.

I know the Republicans deserved what they got in 2006. Many of the morally incestuous and lobbyist loving spenders were asked to leave or voted out of office for the same reasoning.

So now we look to the future, perhaps of the Republicans losing the Oval Office, and being taken over by a person who has just about all of the characteristics mention above even before being elected and who’s mantra is “Change or will it Cambiare maybe both”.

First if anything I say sounds raciest, just remember Obama is just as “White as he is Black”. 

First I want to direct you to a, Democrat and Republican Party and Presidential Candidate comparison done by the National Black Republican Association.  Take the little test.

Print and distribute our Candidate Comparison Newsletter to family, friends and associates, so they can learn the truth about Obama who does not have the character or judgment to be our president. 

http://www.trustedpartner.com/docs/library/000143/NBRA%20Newsletter.pdf

Democrat Racism has been prevalent throughout this whole campaign and it got really bazaar after a rally because Sarah Palin was wearing a white jacket. Democrat supporters said the Republicans are sending out coded messages of KKK meanings by wearing that white jacket and she might as well put on a white hood. One Obama supporter gave her the title of KKK Grand Princess.

Let’s talk about some real issues: You heard Obama talk many times about some of McCain’s campaign staff being former lobbyist. But he hired them because of their expertise in their specialized fields in both the private and public sectors. And you should also know the Senator McCain has never requested one Earmark the whole time he ahs been in Congress. Obama on the other hand has gotten 1 million dollars of Earmarked money for every day he has been active in the Senate, including voting for the bill that contained the money for the bridge to nowhere.

Another interesting tidbit is that Obama’s wife received a very large salary increase when Obama became Senator. Guess what was included in that same bill as the bridge to nowhere? 1 Million Dollars for the University of Chicago where Michelle Obama worked.

Earmarks are not illegal but they are not constitutional in the way they are introduced into already passed committee funding bills that are certain to pass a full floor vote. In most cases the earmarks, which are monies set aside for members of a particular Congressional District, were used as a bribes to get a Congressional Representative and or Senator to vote for the larger bill. Obama is the Earmark King of the Congress.

Obama was mentored by the methods of Saul Alinsky who was a Communist activist and in turn Obama supported radical activities, with millions of dollars while he was on the Boards of various foundations. Obama taught the members ACORN the radical methods of intimidating Banks to issue loans to people with no income or visible means of support because they were guaranteed by the federal government agencies, Fanny and Freddie, as well as the current Voter Fraud debacle.

The Alinsky extreme radical left belief is that class warfare is the only war worth fighting and that in order to win it the ends always justify the means, any means.                  

I am sure you have heard about the relationship with the bomber Bill Ayers by now. Just think if McCain had a friendship with somebody who bombed an abortion clinic, all hell would break lose.  

So we are near the end of this election cycle. I have sent at least a hundred faxes to Congress, twice as many E-Mails, about 25 letters to individual S.C. Congressional members on many different subjects and started this BLOG stating my views on many different subjects.

I am now going to wait for the outcome of this election and start reading some history books and novels that have been stacking up for the past year. I will wait and see if the new admistration is any better the last and then pick up the Computer and start all over again around the next Presidential election.

I’m sure I will have something to say now and again and I will send you an alert. Please send me your interesting tidbits, my e-mail will always be checked daily.

                                                Thanks for your support and encouragement,

                                                                        Jack      

Michelle Obama
 
I don’t know the origin of this but a friend forwarded it to me. Since it is out there in the public domain and it has snippets from a valid web site Snopes.com I guess I can post it on governmentreform.townhall.com   

According to Snopes.com,  Princeton was requested to put a "restriction" on distribution of any copies of the thesis of Michelle Obama (a/k/a/ Michelle laVaughn Robinson) saying it could not be made available until November 5, 2008 but when it was published on a political website they decided they would  lift the restriction.

Here is the link to snopes.com with this information stating it is true...............

Urban Legends Reference Pages: Michelle Obama's Thesis

Subj: Thesis - Michele Obama aka Michelle LaVaughn Robinson
OBAMA'S MILITANT RACISM REVEALED

In her senior thesis at Princeton, Michele Obama, the wife of Barack Obama stated that America was a nation founded on crime and hatred". Moreover, she stated that whites in America were "ineradicably racist".   The 1985 thesis, titled "Princeton-Educated Blacks and the Black Community" was written under her maiden name, Michelle LaVaughn Robinson.
 
Michelle Obama stated in her thesis that to "Whites at Princeton , it often seems as if, to them, she will always be Black first..." However, it was reported by a fellow black classmate, "If those "Whites at Princeton " really saw Michelle as one who always would "be Black first," it seems that she gave them that impression".
 
Most alarming is Michele Obama's use of the terms "separationist" and "integrationist" when describing the views of black people.
 
Mrs. Obama clearly identifies herself with a "separationist" view of race.
 
"By actually working with the Black lower class or within their communities as a result of their ideologies, a separationist may better understand the desperation of their situation and feel more hopeless about a resolution as opposed to an integrationist who is ignorant to their plight."
 
Obama writes that the path she chose by attending Princeton would likely lead to her "further integration and/or assimilation into a white cultural and social structure that will only allow me to remain on the periphery of society; never becoming a full participant."
 
Michele Obama clearly has a chip on her shoulder.
 
Not only does she see separate black and white societies in America , but she elevates black over white in her world.
 

Sources to benefit the black community first and foremost. "
 
What is Michelle Obama planning to do with her future resources if she's first lady that will elevate black over white in America ?
 
The following passage appears to be a call to arms for affirmative action policies that could be the hallmark of an Obama administration.
 
"Predominately white universities like Princeton are socially and academically designed to cater to the needs of the white students comprising the bulk of their enrollments."
 

 
The conclusion of her thesis is alarming.
 
Michelle Obama's poll of black alumni concludes that other black students at Princeton do not share her obsession with blackness. But rather than celebrate, she is horrified that black alumni identify with our common American culture more than they value the color of their skin. "I hoped that these findings would help me conclude that despite the high degree of identification with whites as a result of the educational and occupational path that black Princeton alumni follow, the alumni would still maintain a certain level of identification with the black community. However, these findings do not support this possibility."
 
Is it no wonder that most black alumni ignored her racist questionnaire? Only 89 students responded out of 400 who were asked for input.
 
Michelle Obama does not look into a crowd of Obama supporters and see Americans. She sees black people and white people eternally conflicted with one another.
 
The thesis provides a trove of Mrs. Obama's thoughts and world view seen through a race-based prism.
 
This is a very divisive view for a potential first lady that would do untold damage to race relations in this country in a Barack Obama administration.
 

 
Michelle Obama's intellectually refined racism should give all Americans pause for deep concern.
 
Now maybe she's changed, but she sure sounds like someone with an axe to grind with America . Will the press let Michelle get a free pass over her obviously racist comment about American whites?  I am sure that it will.
 
PS: We paid for her scholarship

I feel that the inaction of Congress yesterday (09/21/2008) was a good thing.

Yes, I know the stock market took a large hit, but think about it, does the stock market really reflect the state of the economy or for that matter the health of the companies the stock represents? I say NO.

In my opinion the stock market is not what it use to be in as much as the players are not looking at the companies health but only at the price of a piece PAPER  with a company’s name on it, and that is what they are trading, PAPER.

The traders will take advantage of the fall and then the rise based on the price of the PAPER without regards to the companies the PAPER represents. The market will start off in an UP situation this morning (it has of this writing) and will continue until the traders have made at least made enough money to make their clients think they regained some of their money (PAPER) back.

So, one of the good things is somebody will make money, and a lot of it. Don't forget, the traders will trade, because if they don't they won't have a job.

The other was that the bill, voted on yesterday, was not the best it could be or it would have passed, regardless of what the polls said.

I personally don’t know if it was or not. I do know we will get a better one and it will pass as long as the taxpayers understand it as not a bailout for wall-street. I said above the PAPER will fly with or without the bill. This bill is a massive loan, which in the long run will make some money and put it back in the government treasury.

The Government will buy the PAPER from these companies at a discounted rate and later, years later, sell it off at a profit. Sort of like Wall-street, only they will be buying and selling their own PAPER.

Don’t panic, remember buy LOW sell HIGH not the reverse.       

The opinion polls show the Barack Obama Campaign as in the tank. He is in trouble and will loose the national election unless he does something spectacular in October.

Joe Biden, at a rally in Nashua, N.H., on Wednesday 09/10/2008 in response to a statement by a supporter about how lucky they were that he was picked instead of Hillary: “Make no mistake about this”, Biden responded, "Hillary Clinton is as qualified or more qualified than I am to be vice president of the United States of America. Let’s get that straight. She’s a truly close personal friend, she is qualified to be President of the United States of America, she’s easily qualified to be Vice President of the United States of America, and quite frankly, it might have been a better pick than me. But she’s first rate, I mean that sincerely, she’s first rate, so let’s get that straight.”

So what do you think Barack and Billy Bob talked about in New York today, besides Billy campaigning for him? I think they talked about dumping Biden about the second week in October, and replacing him with Hillary.

Timing is everything in politics and if this happens in October it would not leave enough time for the McCain campaign to react or even to have a debate between Hillary and Sarah because Sarah would not have enough time to prepare for Hillary. That could be seen as a weakness for Sarah.

On 07.24.2008 this letter was sent to the following:

To Senators Lindsey Graham, Jim DeMint and House Representative Henry Brown:

Subject: Drilling for Oil

What in God’s name is it going to take to get congress to lift the ban of offshore drilling?

Speaker Pelosi, and Senate Majority Leader Reid must be exposed and force to debate this issue in a public forum. There can be no misunderstanding the feelings of the Citizens of United States on this issue

Recent polling suggests that more than 60 percent of the American public supports domestic offshore drilling for oil and natural gas.  The problem is that all the politicians see are the no-drilling extremists who lay siege to their offices and howl on the news outlets every night.  Congress must hear from the silent majority of Americans who support more domestic energy production to drive down costs and relieve our dependence on foreign oil!

Please support any bill or amendment that encourages increased domestic energy exploration and production today!

Dear Senator Graham;

Thank you for your Cap and Trade response of August 1, 2008.

I hope you will take time to read my position on this subject since, it seems that your “Big Government” methodology of a non-scientific consensus and the idea of “if the United States will do it others will follow” of yours, differs from my position. 30,000 real scientists have documented, individually, that warming or cooling of the Earth can not be caused by or constrained by our actions on Earth.  

If you have been watching the Olympics, in China, you should see what Government Control policies can do and the effects it can have on pollution. The pollution in China is having devastating effects on their land, air, and water, killing hundreds of thousands of people every year. What we see, watching the Olympics, is a complete disregard for the Chinese people whose only existence is to serve the greed of their Government.

China will do nothing about their environment except “talk” about their new laws constraining pollution. Their only show of enforcement is executing the heads of small polluters, or moving millions of people out into the tundra where they will take part in new industries, or farming that will continue to pollute and be moved again. The government supplies “their daily bread” and they do as they are told.

The United States may consume one third of the worlds energy but when we expel our so called pollutants, which are already regulated, it is nothing compared to China. If our Government thinks the answer to the worlds CO2 polluting problems, which you say is the reason we have or are going to have a “global warming” problem, is to have the United States take it on the chin and think the rest of the world will follow, is naive.

Our free market system is already reacting to the threat of this “global warming” hoax. they have seen the in-action of the 1970s, the recent increase in the oil barrel price and as a result we will produce more efficient clean energy and transportation products without any government tax and funding programs.

Senator Graham, you and the other Republicans in name only (RINOs) and the rest of the “Gang of 10” are attempting to promote Government intrusion with restricted energy policies, and by imposing arbitrary no drilling zones in the Gulf of Mexico. “Carbon Credits” under this “Cap and Trade” act and is just another form of taxing the American people and funding the world’s real polluters with controls on, and tax revenues from our industries.

GOP House members have spent nearly three weeks demanding that they be allowed an up or down vote on drilling for our oil, not only to lower prices but also get us off of foreign oil. You, on the other hand, are out all over the country clapping for Senator McCain every time he opens his mouth when you should be joining the GOP house members, in their fight for the security of the American people. 

This “New Era Compromise” is nothing more than an $84 million new spending bill which if tied to a simple up or down vote will turn out to be a disaster for America and the Republican Party. I guess you never learn, you are in office at the will of the people of the State of South Carolina and their interests should be considered before you step into this mine field. Just because we have the lowest gas prices in the country we also are first in everything we should be last in and last in everything we should be first in and our medium income is in that category.     

I know the House Republicans expected to fight Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats for the right to drill for American oil but I don’t think they realized they also had to fight members of their own party?

This is just like the “Comprehensive Immigration Reform Act” you tried to force down our throats. There is nothing new about new about this “New Era” legislation that supposedly represents a true compromise, incorporating common sense. You are pandering to the left wing special interest lobbies and the Democrat Party, just as you did on the immigration issue and we will not stand for it            . We will either get a simple UP or DOWN vote or we will delay anything from happing and let the current oil ban expire.

I see no reason for you to introduce any amendment or for that matter any legislation having any control on user or municipally owned rural electric power generators. The user owned utilities are managed more efficiently, producing better products at a much better cost. I hope you understand the most if not all of user owned utilities were formed because of these reasons. Let the private or investor owned utilities do their own thing and keep the Government out of their wallets as well.   

Let’s discuss “EARMARKS”, since you brought up Virginia and Montana Co-Ops receiving them. Earmarks in my opinion are unconstitutional in the way they are slipped into a bill after committee and not debated on individually or voted on up or down. Anyway, I don’t see any difference in the earmarks you slipped in for a State owned collage than the ones slipped in for the Virginia or Montana Co-Ops, both are unconstitutional and are owned by the taxpayers and exist for their benefit.

I lived in California for sixteen years before moving to South Carolina. In California for the first 10 years I lived in the San Francisco area with power supplied by an IOU, Clean Energy Group Lobby group, company which is supports Democrats as well as some Republicans. I lived through brown outs, black outs and the mismanagement of power contracts. The last 6 years we live in a municipal owned power generator, who bought power contracts years in advanced at the very low prices, and no brown-outs or black-outs. When we moved here we had only two requirements for where we lived. One being at least 7 miles away from the ocean and the other was that we would be in an area where power was supplied by a user-owned or municipal utility.

Needless to say I fine your response to my letter to the defeat of the “Cap and Trade” proposal and your participation in the “Gang of 10” very disturbing. I was one of the many 100,000 emails, letters, Faxes and letters to the Editors of South Carolina papers on the Comprehensive Immigration Reform Bill when you called us, the majority of US citizens, “Bigots”. We are ready to do it again on this issue as well. You will see the start of this campaign in the Myrtle Beach Sun News this week and the State Paper the week after next. This letter will also be posted on the “governmentreform.townhall.com” BLOG after all the SC papers publish their letters.

Again, we want an up or down vote to drill for oil with out any restrictions or expiration dates, nothing else. If, as a compromise, you need an expiration date, that date should be 2030 when everybody says the new forms of energy will be ready.

We want our free market system of private enterprises to develop all other forms of energy.

We want the Government to get out the business of restricting nuclear and clean coal gasification development and usage. Safety standards and Security standards should be its’ only job.

We do not need a “Hydrogen Fuel Cell Caucus” which will put a bureaucracy in place coming up with ways to tax and control development and usage. There are already H20 fuel vehicles on the road. If the US car makers are not working on this technology then they will be out of business by 2030.

We don’t need the Government handing out $7.5 billion to US auto makers who have already gotten the message to make fuel efficient vehicles, if they haven’t, the Japanese have, and we will buy their vehicles. If you do give out incentives to the US automakers, the foreign automakers who manufacture fuel efficient vehicles in the US should also get them. 

We don’t want tax credits to consumers when they already are waiting in line to buy fuel efficient vehicles and hybrid cars. A one time customer rebate would serve the people more favorably which could be taken at time of purchase with dealers applying for the rebate money from the government. People have to be paying taxes to get tax credits.

It doesn’t make any sense to repeal the tax deduction from domestic oil producers to pay for any incentive plan when all that has to be done is to let them drill and build more refineries. Our free market system will take care of the rest.

Again thank you for taking the time and responding to my request for you not to vote for the “Cap and Trade legislation”.

To the Editor Myrtle Beach Sun News:            

The Congress of may be doing us a big favor with all this bickering about drilling for oil now, because the current congressional ban is set to expire on Oct. 1^st 2008 without restrictions on drilling.

To allow the up or down vote would still be a good thing. However; if Congress formulates legislation which includes, drilling location restrictions, taxes on the producers and allows special interest lobbing resulting in earmarks, it will become a political football and cost us the taxpayers more money. That’s not all, if they do formulate a bill it will have to go to the Senate to be voted on.    

The Senate has this new “Gang of Ten” which, includes our Senator Lindsey Graham, and they are chomping at the bit to impose restrictions by returning the “Cap and Trade” and the “Comprehensive Energy Bill” to floor debates, which ultimately will replace the House Bill. These bills have a life all of their own but the bottom line is that they would cost us dearly. Come to think of it the new Senate formulated bill will have to go back to the House and they probably will be out on recess.  

To the Editor of The State Paper: 

Senator Graham, and the other Republicans in name only (RINOs) and the rest of the “Gang of 10” are attempting to promote Government intrusion with restricted energy policies, and by imposing arbitrary no drilling zones in the Gulf of Mexico. “Carbon Credits” under this “Cap and Trade” act and is just another form of taxing the American people and funding the world’s real polluters with controls on, and tax revenues from our industries. GOP House members have spent nearly two weeks demanding that they be allowed an up or down vote on drilling for our oil.  You, on the other hand, are out all over the country clapping for Senator McCain every time he opens his mouth, when you should be joining the GOP house members, in their fight for the security of the American people. 

I know the House Republicans expected to fight Nancy Pelosi and House Democrats for the right to drill for American oil but I don’t think they realized they also had to fight members of their own party?