America Flounders While Princess Michelle plays in the Med

Everyone is entitled to a little get away now and then and Michelle Obama and daughter Sasha are no exception; and 40 of their closest friends; and 32 Secret Service Agents.

While the American Taxpayer is wondering if he or she will ever find a job, Michelle and entourage have no problem spending your tax dollars for a little vaca.



Here is an approximate cost of the trip:

US Air Force, presidential appointed jet.

Pre-flight prep $ 15,000
Crew, for trip and stand-by $ 17,000
Flight to and from Spain $ 26,000

Total $ 58,000

Security Detail

Pre-Trip Security Sweep $ 98,000
32 Secret Service Agents $112,000
Transport for Security $ 36,800
Spain security detail $500,000

Total $ 746,800

Michelle and Sasha’s wardrobe

Designer clothing $ 7,000
Shoes and accessories $ 3,000

Total $ 10,000

Accommodations
(rooms paid for several days in advance for security checks and a day or so after to make sure no embarrassing things left behind, i.e. underpants, love notes, national security secrets)

Michelle and Sasha $ 17,500
Security $ 29,200
Entourage $ 100,000
Flight Crew $ 15,000

Total $ 161,700


Meals (includes all flight crew pre-security, security and entourage)

Food and Snacks $ 12,750 $ 12,750

Excursions

Side Trips, closing beaches
and local shops etc.
pissing off local Spaniards $ 70,000 $ 70,000




Grand Total $1,089,250



Now this seems like a totally reasonable amount to spend for a jaunt across the pond. Especially since this amount could have been used to start 10 new businesses, creating up to 100 new jobs; or paid off 10 mortgages for struggling American homeowners; or fed 200 hungry American families for a year; or created 10 new overpaid Federal jobs; or reduced the Federal Debt by .000001%.

And this is just 1 of 6 such trips in as many weeks. Totally reasonable?

Obama’s BP Blunders!

How do you force the hand of a company that provided an estimated $13 to $18 Million to your election campaign?

One way is to put a ban on all offshore drilling, yep that’ll fix the problem. In addition to gas prices expected to spike to between $6 and $10 per gallon, this is a double edged sword. The other side of that sword is the loss of jobs and not just a few we are talking 183,000 lost jobs in the Gulf states alone.

Now let’s put it all together. Ban off shore drilling. 1) Gas prices rise to astronomic heights, crippling the mobility of Americans, retails prices skyrocketing; we are once again slaves to OPEC oil barons, like Chavez, as they begin to line there pockets once more. 2) Nearly 200,000 people will lose their jobs as a direct result of this ban, another estimated 600,000 will become un or underemployed as a result. This will decimate local economies of the Gulf shore states.

Unrelated to the BP spill, but still effecting the same region is the loss of space and high tech jobs due to the ending of the Space Shuttle program. Directly at the Kennedy Space Center there will be the direct loss of nearly 9,000 jobs, in the Florida Space Coast area, another 43,000 will either become un or underemployed. But the loss of the Space Shuttle doesn’t just effect Brevard County, Florida. From Florida, to Alabama, to Utah, California and a multitude of other locations here and abroad, thousands more will lose their jobs. The same type of high tech jobs that Obama says we need to be competitive.

Another Obama ban that has gotten almost no media attention is the banning of one of the most commercially viable fisheries in the Atlantic, the American Red Snapper. This fishery is valued at nearly $1Billion in Florida alone. The ban has resulted in the loss of hundreds if not thousands jobs, and again that double edged sword, it has decimated the coffers of state governments conservation coffers. Why? No fishing, no fishing licenses bought, boat registrations drop, resulting in millions being lost to help fight things such as this BP spill.

The Administrations reaction to the spill has been very knee jerk. The red tape thrown up by the Administration has prolonged the effort to plug the damn hole, and has been more than ridiculous. Approvals for courses of action, has taken days to weeks, when they should only take hours. Now with the off shore drilling moratorium, no relief well can be drilled, which is the ultimate and absolute fix.

What does Obama have against the Southeastern U.S., which is set to have nearly 1 million people economically affected by his administrations decisions?

What Obama doesn't get!

Unemployment’s up, unemployment’s down. While Obama and his staff has been feeding the media, who fawn over his every word; the U.S.A has been going down the toilet.

Real close to home, some major bad things have been happening. I live in a middle to upper middle class neighborhood. It’s filled with retirees, NASA engineers and semi pro and professional people. Approximately 10% of the homes in my immediate area are in or very near foreclosure.

Down the street a few doors lives Bev and her husband Jerry. Bev has been a gung ho Obama supporter, with an “Nurses for Obama” bumper sticker on her hybrid Prius. Her husband has been told to expect walking papers in the fall from the Space Center. Bev was told at the hospital where she works that when the new health plan kicks in, her hours will be cut and she will have to follow new guidelines. Today, Jerry was mowing the grass and Bev was scraping off the “Nurses for Obama” bumper sticker. While chatting with her and Jerry, I said, “Bev, what are you doing, you were such a die hard”, Bev said, “this is not the change that I had been told would happen”.

A friend of my daughter’s, Trish, whose mother is a teacher with a masters degree, had to recently file bankruptcy, and this single parent family is losing their home to foreclosure and have been selling everything they can just to survive. The teachers union in Florida told her that with Obama in office everything would get better quickly, that there would be special programs to help those with a higher education avoid financial problems.

The meltdown, is very evident. People in my area are selling boats, cars anything they can for whatever they can get. It’s very sad. People who a few years ago seemed to be invincible are now on the verge of being paupers.

Tonight, while driving down the road, I witnessed the end of an accident. A little old lady, probably in her 80’s crashed her 15 year old Grand Marquis through an intersection, taking out a concrete pillar, and multiple signs, with her car coming to rest on an embankment into a palm tree. I stopped to see if there was anything I could do to help, as the squad and fire truck arrived, within seconds two deputy sheriffs arrived. The lady, incredibly, shook up, was not hurt, but was visibly mentally upset. She had attempted to kill herself, by crashing her car. From what I got from her conversation, she had recently lost her husband and was losing her home, due to unscrupulous lenders. She had no one as she laid her head crying on the fireman’s shoulder. It was one of the most heart wrenching things I’ve ever witnessed.

Obama and Congress and the mainstream media for that matter have failed to understand the fundamental economics of this country. This country is a constitutional republic, not a democratic republic or democracy, regardless of what we’ve been spoon fed over the years. In the institution of nations, to be viable, you have to first have solid form of government, a means to maintain yourself (constitution and treasury) and conduct commerce. A country has to be able to support itself, that means jobs and trade within that country, not external trade.

We have to step back and look at what we are doing, what other country’s are doing, and whether the observations showing wrong or right, we need to get back to basics of governance and economics. We need to invest in and create jobs for us, screw the rest of the world. We were always first and should be to this day. For anyone to be hungry, in jeopardy of losing their home or to be without work if they want it, is a terrible and unforgivable thing.

WTF Obama!

You want to create jobs, you want to get the economy moving, you want banks to start lending again. So what do you do? You tell the banks you are going to penalize them for recession so they have to help fund the bailout.

What are the banks going to do? They are going to divert their investments from the stock markets, they are going to start holding cash to build up reserves for this asinine plan of yours.

You clearly do not understand how any healthy economy is supposed to function. You have not listened to the ones who matter, your own citizens. You’ve imperiled our very existence as a free country. By listening to the rest of the world, you’ve complied with their desires to see the USA be reduced to a nation that does not matter, that can’t make a difference. The morale of this country is currently in the toilet.

You want to make a difference, invest in Main Street USA. Invest in people. This will create jobs. When people are back to work, you’ll have the money for infrastructure, small investors and others will come back into the market. Tell the oil companies to find and develop new reserves, ask them to reduce domestic crude prices to lower energy costs for American, this can be done as green energy tech emerges. There were ideas, workable models, submitted to your administration and members of Congress, that would have been far more effective, not jeopardized our financial standing as a country and would have had meaningful economic stimulus, but these were ignored in favor of more regulation. You and Congress spent a year working on a health plan that the majority of us didn’t want. What could have been accomplished if you had worked on getting Americans back to work and listening to the American people?

Have you noticed what your actions are resulting in? WTF Obama!

We Told You, It’s the Economy Stupid!

The following article is both original and gleaned quotes from: AFP, AP, Reuters, Politico, Pravda, and the Huffington Post.

"If there's anybody in this building that doesn't tell you they are more worried about elections today, you should absolutely slap them," Democratic Sen. Claire McCaskill of Missouri told reporters at the Capitol. "Of course everybody is more worried about elections. Are you kidding? It's what this place thrives on."

Rep. Chris Van Hollen of Maryland, head of the House Democrats' campaign effort, said Coakley's loss won't deter his colleagues from continuing to blame the previous administration. "President George W. Bush and House Republicans drove our economy into a ditch and tried to run away from the accident," he said. "President Obama and congressional Democrats have been focused repairing the damage to our economy."

"Whatever happens on health care, we've got to focus on jobs," said Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.), who said he'd still like to see health legislation passed.

Casey said the party's challenge was not the perception that it is viewed, as Bayh contended, as overly liberal.

"I don't buy the ideological positioning argument," Casey said. "People want us to be talking about the biggest problem in the country right now, jobs and the economy."

Wounded in Massachusetts, frustrated Democrats on Wednesday urged the White House to focus on jobs and the economy — not the health care overhaul that's now at risk…

"We need a jobs bill. We need short-term, focused strategies to create jobs, real fast," said Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa. "If the dominant message isn't about jobs and spending, we'll be making a difficult challenge exponentially more difficult."

Said House Speaker Nancy Pelosi: "We will move forward with their considerations in mind, but we will move forward."

White House spokesman Robert Gibbs told reporters: "That anger is now pointed at us because we're in charge. And rightly so." Gibbs said of the president: "We will have him… …focus on the economy and jobs."

[The Democratic] Congress writes the laws, so they can tax, penalize, hold your funds hostage and although they'd never use the word, "confiscate" your assets at their discretion. Marxism at it’s finest. Pravda.ru

Warren Buffett said he thinks government should be more focused on the economy than health care reform right now.

Okay so now they are saying they need to focus on the economy and jobs!!!??? That’s what they’ve been telling us all along. That’s what T.A.R.P. and all of the other stimulus crap was supposed to be…. RIGHT!? And Pelosi has the gall to say that she will keep our considerations in mind???? But will move forward????? Against the majority’s wishes??????

Other nations press is comparing the Obama Administration to Chavez’, calling it “State Capitalism” or “Pseudo-Socialism”, whereby the State (Federal Government) controls every aspect of your life and has it’s fingers in every aspect of business. The Russians say this is totally destructive to a society and they should know, they tried it… …it was called the Soviet Union.

Next on the agenda is, are you ready….

Guaranteed Retirement Accounts. The Feds need cash and they need it now. Where are they going to get it? From China? No Silly, from you of course. Re-distribution of wealth. It will be painless and unseen, because it will come out of your pay, before you ever get your pay check. It’s only $600 per year or 5% of your gross income, which ever is greater.

You people had better wake up and take your country back! It will be gone before you know it.

What’s your thoughts?

Was Rush Right? Is it all about Obama?

According to the press in the rest of the world, he is and it is.

The United Nations must investigate and clarify the dominant U.S. role in earthquake-ravaged Haiti, a French minister said Monday, claiming that international aid efforts were about helping Haiti, not "occupying" it.

International aid flights coming to Haiti have been waved off and refused permission to land, giving priority to such flights as arriving U.S. Diplomats or U.S. only planes.

Citizens of our allies have been refused seats on flights to the U.S. even when available, this has recently been changed, due to protests from Canada and France, among others.

With the U.S. Military in control of the airport in Port-Au-Prince heavy lift equipment and other cargo handling equipment has been denied to other nations planes, resulting in hours long delays in unloading and no logistical support to get aid where it needs to go.

Formal complaints against the U.S. are expected to be filed in the United Nations.

This is supposed to be a humanitarian action. It’s been said that orders for how the Haiti aid program is to be conducted is coming from the top or nearly the top down of the Executive Administration.

If the orders come from the top down, then let the people who know how to do the job do it.

In my opinion, Haiti is in our back yard. We need to be first and lead this effort; but not with grand standing tactics. If others are there to help, let them help. It’s not only up to the U.S. tax payers to bail out everyone all the time around the globe.

Should we do all that we can? Absolutely, it’s a crime against the very soul of humanity not to want to help. If the U.S. wants to lead, then step up and lead, but don’t do it for political points at home and most definitely not against the very lives we are suppose to be saving.

What’s your thoughts?

What’s WRONG with the Media, and what American Investors aren’t getting about the Internet? Or, 8 year old Cub Scout on Terror Watch List again and ag

How many of you have seen the article on 8 year old Mikey Hicks, the Cub Scout Terrorist, like for the last week. It’s ridiculous! Why is there not better coverage on what’s going on in this country. Unless this kid is from the same gene pool as Stewie Griffin or his surname is bin Laden or has graduated from Suicide Bomber U, he’s probably not much of a threat and it’s probably not newsworthy for a weeks worth of headlines.

News is spontaneous. News is frequent, and instant. Traditional news organizations are reporting the same stuff over and over again, on the world fastest way of disseminating information, the Internet, what a waste of technology. There are some blogs and news groups, in my opinion, getting it right. Take ‘Tech Crunch’, these guys are fast and up to the minute on Tech and Internet news. While they are often very opinionated, they are dead on the mark for factual content. Now Yahoo News, these guys could dominate. They use to have “Kevin Sites in the Hot Zone”, that was great stuff. But it’s gone, and Yahoo has reduced itself to a clearinghouse for other news organizations, although they have Tech Ticker, which is good for financial news and opinion.

The point is, that we have at our disposal, the fastest, most economical way to get vast amounts of information and news out to the public, on a global scale, and we aren’t doing it.

Why China is gaining and we’re not. Google is strong arming their position in China. Is it admirable? Is it Noble? I think it’s stupid. Google has a presence in the largest internet user market in the world. As far as advancement in tech. China and the rest of Asia included has the largest 4G network in the world, they are light years ahead of the U.S. in internet technology and distribution to mobile. China is also grasping New Media. I have a prediction; Google is going to so piss off and embarrass the Chinese that the get booted out of the country. Baidu, Jadoo and Yandex are going to jump in there and dominate the Asian Market and Google will be out for good.

Right now there is tremendous investment in both Europe and Asia in New Media, 4G infrastructure, Web 3.0 applications and platforms while the U.S. and predominately North America is going to be left out in the cold. If American investors want to see go return on investment, the should be heavily in tech and new media. These areas are where there will be significant job creation and areas of opportunity. American investors are saying show me “Bricks and Mortar” types of investment. They want to see bricks and mortar! I’ll show them dozens of vacant sub-divisions, empty commercial buildings and sundry other bricks and mortar projects. American investors need to get off of their asses and move toward the future or they will be left out in the cold just like traditional media.

What’s your thoughts?

God Puts the Smack Down on Global Warming

As I write this from my Central Florida office, I can’t help but wonder why temperatures are 20 degrees below the average, and are my lime trees going to survive the next few nights for my margarita and Land Shark beer pleasure.

Isn’t it ironic that during the big global climate fiasco last month in Europe, that those all knowing, gonna save the world, gonna tax the people ‘til they bleed to pay for it, Global Warming neophytes/posers froze their tushies off, with record cold temperatures.

The Global Warming crowd says that the U.S. is experiencing a typical cycle due to El Nino. Okay, what about Asia, Europe and everywhere else? Why are they experiencing below normal temperatures? Well according to the “experts”, this is due to… … you guessed it, GLOBAL WARMING.

When asked, ‘how is record cold a result of global warming’? Their response is sometimes, ‘the planet is trying to regulate itself’. Wow, imagine that! Is this something we fully understand?

Now I’m not a scientist, and I don’t claim to be. I tend to look at things from a common sense approach. I remember hearing that icebergs are mostly underwater, about 10 to 20% is above the surface. This means that all of this Arctic and Antarctic sea ice is already displacing a lot of water. Sea ice contains a lot of air, 10 to 20%, trapped inside and is not as dense as say, an ice cube. So if the bulk of the Arctic and Antarctic sea ice is already displacing most of its mass in water and also has trapped air, how much is the sea level really going to rise if it does melt? I think the problem to rising sea levels is Super Tankers and cruise ships, and probably shipping in general. For that matter, people displace water and so do whales. So we should ban all shipping, prohibit people from swimming at the worlds beaches and get rid of all the whales. That would drop the sea levels by at least 5 or 6 feet.

Eroding beaches is another sign of Global Warming. Erosion has taken place on this planet since the introduction of wind and water. Which brings me to beach reclamation. A hurricane comes through, tears up the beaches and we reclaim them. How? We go off shore a few hundred yards and dig a massive trench and pump all of this sand back to shore to build a bigger and better beach. The ocean is going to want to fill that trench, and we just increased the angle of decline dramatically from the beach to the trench. Where do you think our reclaimed beach is going to go? Back to the trench. Then the Global Warming crew says, ‘Oh my gosh, the beach is disappearing, the water must be rising’. “GLOBAL WARMING, GLOBAL WARMING!”
Didn't we learn in school, that eons ago, large portions of the U.S. was under water? Was this attributible to the methane gas from dinosaur farts? Was there an ancestor of man, whose vast industrial campfires caused this calamity to flood most of what is present day North America?

Something I never understood, if we pump a lot of pollutants into the air it causes global warming. When volcanoes pump pollutants into the air, it causes cooling. If a super volcano were to pump pollutants into the air, it would cause the equivalent of a nuclear winter. Where’s the correlation?

I’m not a super religious guy, but I think its possible God is putting the Smack Down on us for buying into something that we claim to understand and don’t.

WHY IS AMERICA LOSING?

As hard as our government tries, or says they are trying, the Good Ole USA is losing.

Let’s take the ‘War of Terror’, what is wrong with it? People in general hate war, I hate war, but it has been a necessary evil since biblical times. Whether it’s been for gain of territory, because of political or ideological differences, revolutionary for good or evil, or for the preservation of freedom; war has happened and will continue to happen.

War is not pleasant, it’s not meant to be pleasant; if it was it would be call badminton or croquet, baseball or sex. The problem with America at war is that the government makes it political, look at Vietnam, we called it a police action to make it more appealing. 50,000 plus lives later, it was one of the bloodiest most demoralizing non-wars ever. The U.S. Government makes sure politicians run the wars, which result in the U.S. losing sight of the goal, which is to win. Victory must be decisive. If we are going to be ‘Offensive’, be on the offense. If we are going to win, we must kick ass the first time around. If we are going to lead a coalition, lead it to win. If the cause is just, there is great glory in winning and a boosting of morale for all.

The U.S. has always been a nation that kicked ass, from the Revolutionary War, up to WW II. General Douglas MacArthur wanted to win in Korea, but the politicians became involved and so our will to win has diminished since. Our past military dominance has been viewed as Imperialistic and warmongering. The one exception to pols running a war was during the Reagan years and the invasion of Grenada. Reagan said he didn’t like the situation there, told his military brass to figure it out and win, and that’s what they did, in one day.

The U.S. has grown to the lone Super Power, but that is waning fast. The USA use to be feared, loved, hated and most importantly respected. We may kick your butt if you mess with us, but we will try to help make you better after we do.

This indecisiveness in how we conduct our wars is a direct reflection on how as a government we conduct our day to day business. The government says they have all the answers, put us in debt up to our unborn great grandchildren’s ears and their solution is not working. Our government is to provide for the common defense, promote the general welfare, and so on. The things that made us great are going away fast. The people that made us a great nation, the melting pot of the world are no more. We look to an entity, the Great God in Washington to save us from ourselves; and in their quest for ultimate power are destroying the very fabric of their creation…. Us.

Reel News: SON OF STIMULUS

Reel News: SON OF STIMULUS

SON OF STIMULUS

Son of Stimulus

Congress is now looking to spend an additional $174 Billion on a jobs creation package; adding to our already exploding deficit. Republicans are referring to it as “Son of Stimulus”.

Traveling across the country, signs adorn the highways professing the projects under the ‘American Recovery and Reinvestment Act’. Funny how most to the time those signs only appear in states with a Democratic majority or governor? Is this because, only Democratic States received this money? Or is it because Republicans don’t want to give credit to a successful program? What’s even more suspect is the areas where these signs are, no or little work is being done.

My Friend Imran had an excellent idea on how to stimulate the economy early on in this economic fiasco. It provided a bottom up solution, with no long term risk to the government or the country’s economy. Here was his proposal from one year ago, http://www.youtube.com/user/imrananwar#p/u/25/D00tGsS7hm8. It made perfect sense, empowered the people, put a tremendous amount of money back in the economy and would have resulted in a rapid turn around, and probably have averted the terrible unemployment we are experiencing now.

My suggestion is if Congress decides to move forward with ‘Son of Stimulus’ they do the following:

1) Provide the money only to new businesses that would create 10 or more jobs or to small business whose presence is critical to a community and is not a subsidiary of a major corporation.

2) Simplify the means of distribution, as a grant through the Treasury Department.

3) The applying business must be a viable idea with a business plan certified by a CPA and an unrelated business law firm as to it validity. Must be registered with the state and locality where they are headquartered. No pre-requisites on what type of business.

4) Businesses would need to provide an accounting of how the money was spent, again certified by a CPA.

That’s it. Keep it simple (stupid). If 20,000 businesses applied, the suggested amount of ‘Son of Stimulus’ would be $8.7 Million per business. The tax revenues alone would pay the total amount back in less than 5 years. 100’s of thousands of new jobs would be created in a very short period of time. Jobs that are not government jobs, or lining the pockets of America’s fat cat corporate executives.

Think about it.