Walmart vs FEMA

Resent exposure of the failures in local, state, and federal governments in handling Katrina, and the noteworthy efficiency of American Corporations such as Walgreen and Wal-Mart in providing necessities to the victims. One could make the argument that Americans would be better served by disbanding FEMA and subcontracting the humanitarian needs to Red Cross and Corporations who have more experience then politically appointed bureaucrats. The competency in which they operated far exceeded that of inexperienced political appointees. Though the vast destruction of Katrina probably stretched even the Red Cross, the American people and companies not to mention other countries, picked up the slack without even being asked. State Governors have the authority and the responsibility of activating their respective National Guard to transport its citizens out of harms way before and after the fact, along with upholding the law. The Governor failed. The Citizens of disaster prone States should make a candidate’s planning and leadership abilities before and after a disaster a top priority rather then their political promises when in the voting booth. Though the idea of privatizing any function government runs is a Libertarian idea, that many find distasteful, the possibility of 1,000s dead seems more so.

Sheehan arrested

Cindy Sheehan pleaded not guilty of demonstrating without a permit. The First Amendment to the Constitution says “ Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or …of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances.” How can you brake a law that by the Constitution can no be made? What part of “no” do both Republicans and Democrats not understand? Do Americans hold the Constitution in so little regard that it can be ignored when it causes a conflict with ideology? Though I disagree with Ms. Sheehan, I served in the Marine Corps for 12 years so she could protest without asking for permission. The Libertarian Presidential Candidate said it best. Those who ask the Government for permission to protest, deserve to be told no.

Worthy of a Taskmaster

Over the past week several letters have been published in the Buffalo News to protest federal cuts in social programs. On the 29th of December one asked “How did government, on all levels, get so involved in our lives?” The fore mentioned is one major reason. We as Americans constantly look to government for solutions to all problems and then for it to fix them. Rarely is a view expressed promoting individual or private ideas and action to solve problems, unless to force others unwillingly. We have become so dependant on “government”, that little is said as it slowly strips the rights in the Constitution away until blatantly thrown in our faces. Even then the outcry is minimal. Individualist are looked down on in scorn, a prehistoric three headed monster of greed, selfishness, and cold heartedness whose time has past. Individualism has been assassinated by socialism lite. Yet we certainly don’t scorn what they have given us, electricity, modern transportation, medical miracles, and vast luxuries we take as entitlements. Maybe it is fitting that the government that this counties first individualists founded is slowly turning into our taskmaster as we look down at the very traits that made them who they were.

EZ TAX FORM

With tax season upon us, the headaches have started. Everyone hates taxes to some point. Though I despise them I grudgingly concede that SOME are necessary. But it seems every year more and more regulations are inserted into the tax code. More and more of our time is used preparing tax forms, which could be better used in getting under our significant others skin. How about making the tax codes for “income tax” a one-page regulation.

WAY EZ TAX FORM


INCOME EARNED ......TAX PERCENTAGE........TAX DUE

1st $30,000 earned ...............0%.................................. $0

$30,001 to $75,000..............20%...................max of 9,000

$75001 and up ......................35%......................$26,250
(lets say 150,000)

Total due................................................................$35,250


______________________________
Signature

No deductibles no credits.

No matter how much a person earns the 1st $30,000 is taxed at 0%. The next $45,000 is taxed at 20% and any thing over that at 35%.


Each person would file (end of joint filing).

Interest on Savings accounts would not be taxed. The Government and consumer groups whine the Americans don’t save enough. Well, stop penalizing those that do then.

Here’s the kicker.

Congress shall spend no more then what tax is collected in the prior year. Any expenditure over that collected shall come out of the elected officials own pocket.

Cyber Storm to Social Security

WASHINGTON -- The government concluded its "Cyber Storm" wargame Friday, its biggest-ever exercise to test how it would respond to devastating attacks over the Internet from anti-globalization activists, underground hackers and bloggers.

Participants confirmed parts of the worldwide simulation challenged government officials and industry executives to respond to deliberate misinformation campaigns and activist calls by Internet bloggers, online diarists whose "Web logs" include political rantings and musings about current events.

Does this mean that the Government doesn't trust those who speak out against it?
Hmmmmmm, deliberate misinformation campaigns... What, doesn't the Government like competition?

SS Phamplet of 1931? (Used to sell the program to the Public)

WHAT THIS MEANS TO YOU

The checks will come to you as a right. You will get them regardless of the amount of property or income you may have. They are what the law calls "Old-Age Benefits" under the Social Security Act. If you prefer to keep on working after you are 65, the monthly checks from the Government will begin coming to you whenever you decide to retire.


Supreme Court:

The argument for the respondent is that the provisions of the two titles dovetail in such a way as to justify the conclusion that Congress would have been unwilling to pass one without the other. The argument for petitioners is that the tax moneys are not earmarked, and that Congress is at liberty to spend them as it will. The usual separability clause is embodied in the act. Section 1103 (42 U.S.C.A. 1303) .
http://www.agh-attorneys.com/4_helvering_v_davis.htm

hmmmmm??????


Phamplet AGAIN

YOUR PART OF THE TAX

The taxes called for in this law will be paid both by your employer and by you. For the next 3 years you will pay maybe 15 cents a week, maybe 25 cents a week, maybe 30 cents or more, according to what you earn. That is to say, during the next 3 years, beginning January 1, 1937, you will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, and at the same time your employer will pay 1 cent for every dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. Twenty-six million other workers and their employers will be paying at the same time.
After the first 3 year--that is to say, beginning in 1940--you will pay, and your employer will pay, 1.5 cents for each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. This will be the tax for 3 years, and then, beginning in 1943, you will pay 2 cents, and so will your employer, for every dollar you earn for the next 3 years. After that, you and your employer will each pay half a cent more for 3 years, and finally, beginning in 1949, twelve years from now, you and your employer will each pay 3 cents on each dollar you earn, up to $3,000 a year. That is the most you will ever pay. http://www.ssa.gov/history/ssn/ssb36.html


Look at your paycheck lately?
3% huh?

Now is that misinformation or just pure out right lies? Either way what's the governments response? Cover it up and distraction...........

Global Economy (Old School)

Items that were priced "way" out of your income bracket
in the old days you could only dream of (unless you were traveling on a troop transport)
But now you don't have to join the service and see exotic places to get those deals.

Brass Bed $200.00, Mink Blanket and Satin Sheets $30.00. Stiffing the "Man" out of Import and Sales Tax. priceless!

Just a passing thought

The Local newspaper up here in Niagara Falls prints the First Amendment in each addition (as far as I've noticed). It got me thinking about how narrow of a interpretation the Fed's use for the freedom of the press or even establishment of religion. Then I remembered, Cindy Sheehan was once again arrested. This time for a T-shirt, no verbal words, no nothing, but simply a T-shirt, with of course, a anti-war message. It wasn't even from T-shirthell.com, so how bad could it have been? Though I don't agree with her or her methods.....

Amendment I
Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the government for a redress of grievances.

I mean, she even had a ticket and was invited by a congresswomen.

But hey, when was the last time the polititions, bureaucrats, or those lawyers in black housecoats REALLY read, let alone obeyed the Constitution.

Who's more evil, CEOs or Supreme Court Justices?

Amazing!

Here's a Bank that sees our rights as more sacred then the Supreme Court!

January 25, 2006
BB&T announces eminent domain policy
WINSTON-SALEM, N.C. BB&T Corporation today said it will not lend to commercial developers that plan to build condominiums, shopping malls and other private projects on land taken from private citizens by government entities using eminent domain.

“The idea that a citizen’s property can be taken by the government solely for private use is extremely misguided, in fact it’s just plain wrong,” said BB&T Chairman and Chief Executive Officer John Allison.“One of the most basic rights of every citizen is to keep what they own. As an institution dedicated to helping our clients achieve economic success and financial security, we won’t help any entity or company that would undermine that mission and threaten the hard-earned American dream of property ownership.”


HEY SOUTER! Don't bother asking BB&T for a loan!

http://www.bbandt.com/about/media/newsreleasedetail.asp?date=1%2F25%2F06+9%3A48%3A52+AM

What Property Rights?

A Jan 17 letter in the Buffalo News stated that eminent domain “Is explicitly permitted so long as “just compensation “ is paid.” and “under 100 years of court decisions it is the states that have the power to decide what projects are “for public use.” this is misleading.

Amendment V, states “ nor shall private property be taken for public use without just compensation.” Eminent domain is authorized, but for “public use” the states do not have the power to dictate what “public use” is, that power belongs ultimately to the Supreme Court. Unfortunately each time a state has encroached on property rights the courts redefine the meaning of “public use” (What happened to Rule of Law?). Once it was unthinkable that a poor mans land would be taken away from him, by force if necessary, and given to a rich man, it’s called fighting blight now, in colonial days they were called “Lords”. The latest trick, revenue crazed municipalities use is condemning middleclass neighborhoods, confiscating them, then giving it to politically connected developers who promise more revenue.

Justice Stevens, cited cases in which the court has interpreted "public use" to include not only such traditional projects as bridges or highways but also slum clearance and land redistribution. He concluded that a "public purpose" (notice he changed USE to PURPOSE) such as creating jobs in a depressed city can also satisfy the Fifth Amendment. Using Stevens’ own words we see how he justifies theft. Justice O’Connor in the descent stated, "specter of condemnation hangs over all property. Nothing is to prevent the State from replacing any Motel 6 with a Ritz-Carlton, any home with a shopping mall, or any farm with a factory."

The majority went on to say the government could pass laws protecting private property. Or the fox can guard the hen house? A far cry from Thomas Jefferson’s “Let no more be heard of the confidence in man, but bind him down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution.” The Supreme Court is slowly destroying the links in the chain.

The Evil of the "Living Document" doctrine

Being the son of an immigrant, I was taught at a early age that the founding fathers desired a country that was founded on the principles of Life, Liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.
I’ve come to realize that these unalienable Rights were not given to us by politicians nor by even the Declaration, but are natural, obtained by our existence, by our very birth and being. The fathers of this country believed that it was the government's duty to protect these rights for us against anyone or group that wished to take them away. They also mistrusted men of power, those, who charged with the projection of our rights, could become drunk with power, abuse their positions, and become the very people that they were to project our rights from. It’s one reason why they met and forged the U S Constitution. As Thomas Jefferson stated "Bind him down from mischief with the chains of the Constitution."
For sometime now certain groups and even members of the three branches of government have said this document is a "living document", who's meaning can be changed to fit the needs, wants, demands, and even ideology of society at large. If this is true then what protects the principles that our Founding Fathers were willing to be hung for? They are no longer rights secured and protected by the Constitution, but privileges granted to us by the courts and the whims of the populace, which they have the power to take away.
Those who feel that it is a living document argue and point to the preamble and section 8 of the Constitution and say "Look, General Welfare", to justify a myriad of laws, regulations, and even unfunded mandates. What about the Bill of Rights, the Tenth Amendment, "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." , and what it's main author, James Madison, a Federalist, said about it in Federalist paper #45. "The powers delegated by the Constitution to the Federal Government, are few and defined. Those which are to remain in the State Government are numerous and indefinite...The former will exercise principally on external objects, as war...The powers reserved to the several States will extend to all the objects...lives, liberties and properties...."
The convenience of the "Living Document" gives us gifts like the Patriot Act. It allows Congress to abandon their power to declare war and then lay it before the feet of a President. The most frightening, the branch that is supposedly to hold the legislatives leash, the Supreme Court, has decided, that cancer victim's using marijuana, grown in their own home, fall under inter-state commerce, not because it was transported across state lines but because it "could be". Could Grandma's garden be next, or will the State decide to give her land to Wal-Mart or some politically connected developer, like what happened to homeowners in New London. The Supreme Court has ruled that your liberties and property rights are out weighed by the desire to generate more tax revenue.
Alexander Hamilton feared a democracy leading to politicians catering to the masses at the expense of the individual, Thomas Jefferson feared a strong central government catering to the wealthy and business would do the same, both fears are now reality.