The Minuteman

Idaho’s house passed H222 yesterday morning. With a vote of 41-28. This vote was a lot closer than I would like to see and the bill is now rolling towards the state senate.

If you’re an Idaho resident, contact your state senator and tell them to support this bill. If you regularly visit any of the Idaho campuses, contact the appropriate senators and make sure to tell them to support it and why.

As I live on the border, I’m kicking a letter to Dan Schmidt to support the bill since I often find myself on both the WSU and UI campuses. I hope this can roll through to help in the fight to change the Washington Administrative Code as well.

The windows at a GOP office in DC were shot out with a air rifle last night. Previously the left even attacked it’s own offices with many immediately blaming the right. The left has shown a strong history of being willing to use violence.

Many on the “right” as well as those of us with “Wookie Suits” have been remaining calm and collected as all of this goes on. What they forget though is that eventually the victim will fight back, like Casey Heynes, who was repeatedly attacked by a bully and finally said enough is enough.

You push hard enough and long enough, eventually someone’s going to fight back. When they do, their sole goal is going to be to put your ass down so hard you’ll never want to do it again.

So while cutting the budget today by 6.5 billion dollars, congress increased the deficit by 72 billion dollars.

The national debt jumped by $72 billion on Tuesday even as the Republican-led U.S. House of Representatives passed a continuing resolution to fund the government for just three weeks that will cut $6 billion from government spending.

Only our government could increase the national debt while claiming they were cutting back.  The fun doesn’t stop there though because it ends up the Federal Revenue no longer covers the mandatory spending for required government functions.

The White House Office of Management and Budget projects that in the current fiscal year (2011), mandatory spending alone will exceed all federal receipts. So even if we didn’t spend a single cent on discretionary programs, we still wouldn’t be able to balance our budget this year — let alone pay off any of the $14 trillion in debt that we have already accumulated.

Joe had a great example the other day regarding the current finical situation.  At this point the government couldn’t save money even if it wanted to.  Even then it would require serious cuts including getting rid of unnecessary jobs, social programs, and other things that really aren’t the role of government.

While some are vehemently objecting, others will be upset that what was promised them is no longer possible, and it will require that people return to being productive.  Will it be painful, will many be upset they lost money “promised” them you bet.  However you can’t get money for nothing and with how things are going the only solution is going to be to print the money to pay off the debts.  This will weaken the value of the currency and people will be paid their due with cash that is worthless.

The government is still running flat out ignoring the fact that a mile down the road the bridge is out.  You have city councils giving themselves pay raises.  You have public employee unions working to continue and increase their burden on the public.  Then you have congress who are cutting back their budget while actually spending even more.

If you haven’t started thinking about how you’re going to survive the coming economic collapse, you might want to seriously start thinking about it.  This is unsustainable and it appears our elected officials are actually trying to ensure this crisis occurs.

The TSA backed out of a congressional hearing regarding the use of their full-body scanners today.

“It is customary for federal government witnesses to appear on government-only panels in order to allow for a thoughtful, direct and frank conversation between the witnesses and the committee members,” said spokeswoman Kristin Lee. “TSA would welcome the opportunity to have the agency officials testify in a forum that does not seat agency officials with opposing litigants.”

In other words, testimony to the government panel, should only consist of government shills, and no one who would present the opposing argument against a government agencies stance should be present.

This whole thing stinks to high heaven and hopefully those on the committee will see this action for exactly what it is. The agency has been willfully negligent, conspired to violate the law, and should be dealt with as the venomous snake they are. Their refusal to show up is nothing more than an excuse and a poor one at that. May congress roll down upon them like a ton of bricks.

Millionaires only have 24 hours in a day, just like the rest of us. What separates them from us is time management. While the rest of us go home and flop on the couch in front of the TV, the wealthy are reading and doing things that contribute to their success.

[Many people feel entitled to different things, from money to property, to services.  They look at millionaires and say they got rich by stealing from the poor.  While some, such as Madoff certainly did exactly that most make their fortune by working their ass off.

The government runs much the same scheme as Madoff, except they require mandatory investment at the end of a gun.  They then call this scheme “Social Security”.  The government takes the excess income and instead of saving it for when the payouts will be greater than the input, they spend it elsewhere.

Many of us in America are working hard, constantly trying to get ahead.  While we’re busy trying to save money, our government is squandering what it does have and is now taking even more.   If you want more money, look in the mirror, it’s up to you to earn it.  Though with all of those who feel entitled to your money, it’s becoming harder to keep it after you earn it.  -B ]

There is a serious problem when you let people give themselves raises from the public coffers and the City of Denver has been so kind to demonstrate it for us.

After spirited debate Monday, Denver’s City Council voted 10-3 to tentatively approve a 6.6 percent raise for the next sitting council and every other elected official — an increase to be delayed for half of their four-year terms.

The city is facing a $100 million budget shortfall for the 2012 budget and has a structural budget problem that, if not addressed, could balloon into a $500 million deficit by 2030.

In an economy where most people are struggling to make ends meet, are doing everything they can to save money and cut their personal deficit the city council voted to give themselves a raise from the public coffers increasing the already large deficit.  You do not save money or cut down on debt by spending more.

Many companies have not given their employees raises over the past couple years and even more took a reduction in equal to what they were making.  While the rest of America is tightening it’s belts, these individuals are choosing to spend more money that isn’t their and rack up more debt that they are neither responsible or accountable for.  I hope come election time the 10 that voted yes will have opponents and be voted out of office.  Hopefully their replacements will immediately work to revert the wages back.  Obviously many in the government still don’t seem to understand the concept of spending within your means.

As the world focuses on Japan, what is happening right under our noses?  Anything newsworthy is being completely overshadowed.  I am not trying to be crass or insensitive, what’s happening in Japan is truly heartbreaking, but some things are being severely exaggerated and creating mass panic. The reality, however, is being buried and only those of us that question everything are finding the truth. 

The mantra, “never let a good crisis go to waste,” is starting to come into play as the politicians attempt to sneak stuff in under the radar.  Just because this is not our crisis does not mean they won’t try to leverage it to their advantage.

It came out today that some of their full body scanners are putting out 10 times the expected radiation levels.

The Transportation Security Administration announced Friday that it would retest every full-body X-ray scanner that emits ionizing radiation — 247 machines at 38 airports — after maintenance records on some of the devices showed radiation levels 10 times higher than expected.

As always the agency immediately went into damage control mode claiming that it is still less than what a person receives in background radiation during a normal day.  The fact is this is not surprising at all considering the complete disregard for common safety measures taken when dealing with equipment that use radioactive material.  The spike caused by the malfunctioning equipment would have been immediately seen on the dosimeter worn by employees working around the equipment.  That’s one of the main reason dosimeters are worn by employees.   This is willful negligence on the part of the TSA and DHS.

This coupled with the fact that the DHS also claims the right to:

• strip search any passenger without cause or warrant,
• expand to malls
• expand to public transportation,
• expand to private aircraft,
• and otherwise strip you of your liberty and freedom

really illustrates an out of control agency that serves no other purpose than to abuse and kill Americans, albeit slowly by increasing cancer risks.  A Security Theater has done nothing to improve safety, in fact they are now showing that they are doing the complete opposite.  If any private organization had been this negligent OSHA would be all over them until they declared bankruptcy. 

This agency needs to be put down like a rabid dog and it’s behavior and rate of growth reminds me of some other agencies in the early 1990s.  The only difference  is they haven’t shot a woman holding a baby or burned a bunch of people to death.  Instead they are giving people extra unnecessary dose of radiation at the point of the gun, claiming necessity, but in reality it’s pointless.