Pigs to the Rescue!!!

So...both Presidential candidates have been telling us for months now that they are going to CHANGE Washington, they are going to stop Ear Marks and PorkBarrel spending!
John McCain goes as far as to tell us he will VETO any and all bills that contain them!!
hmmmm...when does he start?
It seems campaign promises are just that 'promises', the things they are only going to do IF we elect them..certainly NOT before!
The $700 BILLION dollar BAIL OUT for Wall Street is a perfect example of what these men truly stand for. John McCain 'pretended' to suspend his campaign then rushed back to Washington to ensure the passage of this historic interference by our government. Well, while he was in Washington, literally doing nothing, his campaign forged ahead. Attack ads continued to clog our air ways and his volunteer troupes continued making calls to put the fear of Obama into the homes of every citizen. *I don't think that is an actual 'suspension'?*
All of McCains silence paid off with the result of the bill NOT passing ...so much for being a MAVERICK ahhahaha guess he left his guns at home.
Barack Obama stayed on the campaign trail, appearing at rally after rally doing his best to explain to the American people why WE needed to bail out the greedy elite of Wall Street and Investment Banking. In the midst of the failed passage I guess we can surmise his point was elusive to those of us working hard every day, paying our bills on time and NOT living outside our means.
But....wait.....as we Americans began to celebrate our victory our government had another card to play...well more like $110 BILLION dollars worth of cards to play...
YEP! They went back to work, wheeling and dealing, making compromise and manipulation the golden crown of politics breathe again!
Insistent on putting the pressure on the House the Senate drafted its own bail out! Doing its best to manipulate the people they adamantly insisted this was no longer a 'Bail Out' it was a 'RESCUE PLAN'.....my question is who were they 'rescuing'?? it certainly wasn't you or me!!
This new plan had an additional $110 BILLION dollars in EAR MARKS ADDED TO IT!!!
hey...you read that RIGHT.....this overloaded PORK BARREL BILL was passed by the Senate in an overwhelming MAJORITY..and yep...BOTH McCAIN & OBAMA VOTED YES!
This 110 page bill grants the Authority to the Secretary of Treasury "to purchase, and to make and fund commitments to purchase, troubled assets from any financial institution, on such terms and conditions as are determined by the Secretary,.."
http://i.cdn.turner.com/cnn/2008/images/09/28/ayo08c04_xml.pdf
Well I feel better already...how about you?
Now let's talk about that Pork...or should we say 'Sweeteners' of the so-called Rescue Bill.
While the additional $110 BILLION dollars tacked on allowed for the extension of expired or due to expire tax cuts and provisions for Research & Development of alternative energies, it also included wasteful spending.
What they aren't telling us, well very loudly that is, it also includes "..Extending an expired provision that gives Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands a rebate against excise taxes charged on imported rum.." Cost $192 million ( http://www.nypost.com/seven/10032008/news/nationalnews/sweetners_tacked_onto_rescue_plan_132000.htm )
*we all know how important our Rum is to the American Citizen!!!*
Oh and let's not forget the tax extension for us 'Joe Six-Pack Americans' or in this case the Nascar fan... "Extending for one year a seven-year depreciation timetable that NASCAR and other motorsport racing facilities have had for some years,.." *hey what else we got to watch while we drink our six-pack?*
or the "Extending for five years a program that reduces import duties on some wool fabrics..." Cost: $148 million * gonna need those wool sweaters this winter!*
Oh I know you movie buffs are gonna be grateful for this one "Increasing the single-year deduction in production costs, from $15 million to $20 million, that film and TV productions may take if the costs are incurred in economically depressed areas..." Cost: $478 million. *who knows they might make a movie in the Ninth Ward*
And those with children you are going to be so grateful for this one! "Exempting wooden practice arrows used by children from an excise tax of 39 cents per arrow.." Cost: $2 million *hey a kids gotta hunt ya know*
Let's not forget what's being called the 'Lance Armstrong' ear mark "Allowing employers to exempt from taxation what they spend on some fringe benefits for workers who commute to work by bicycle, for example reimbursing the cost of parking the bikes" Cost: $2 million *damn where are they parking these things?*
you view these and ALL the added Pork here:
(http://www.nypost.com/seven/10032008/news/nationalnews/sweetners_tacked_onto_rescue_plan_132000.htm?page=2 )

It was not only a sugar overload but while the bacon was burning our 'CHANGE' candidates were signing away OUR tax dollars! It just didn't matter how many Americans aggressively called or e-mailed their senators and representatives begging them to VOTE NO....NO ONE was listening!
We the People? really? where?
With 159,000 jobs lost in September alone you would think our government could have done better. This mass spending and political push & pull will NOT save ONE job, it will NOT keep ONE homeowner from its already impending foreclosure, it will NOT keep you and me warm this winter, nor our children fed.
$810 BILLION DOLLARS SPENT.....and NOTHING changes for us.
sometimes life has road blocks, sometimes detours, but in this case I do believe we have fallen into the biggest pothole of politics yet!
ahhhh this never ending winding road.....

Bail Out? really???

Is this Armageddon or did Wall Street plan this to get back at George W. for NOT following through with is campaign promises?
Well if ever there were an Armageddon on the economy we are certainly setting the stage for it.
The rumor mills are in overtime and the American middle-class can't catch a break, then out of know where the stock market takes an Olympic Dive into the abyss of an already staggering economy leaving the so-called 'white collar' worker standing in line at the unemployment office behind the rest of us.
The Federal Reserve stood quietly by and watch a 135 year old company close it's doors, lay off its workers and file for bankruptcy and just when you thought the bottom of the barrel had been reached they jump up and throw 85 MILLION dollars on the doorstep of AIG!
Washington will let the investment banks fend for themselves and watch the retirement plans of millions disinigrate, but when an insurance company is going to give the Federal Government an 80% interest in the company..hey...let us empty the pockets of Americans everywhere and bail them out!??
I don't know about you but the idea of our Federal Government having an invested ownership in one of the top insurance companies in the country kinda gives me the heebie jeebies!
What happened to the idea of 'less' government control? First they bail out Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, now AIG....what's next?
Well I don't know what is next but I can tell you what WON'T be next...the almighty Federal Reserve won't be offering up any bail outs to you and me!
Nope, if we make a bad investment, or fail to make a loan payment you and I will be left in the shadows of the giants.
Yep, our hard earned, scarcely saved monies will be taxed and given to the corporate giants that promise to give the Feds a cut. Our taxes will no longer build new infastructure, it will be used instead to patch up the walls of a failing one.
Yesterday Gov. Palin was rejoicing in the governments decision to let the Lehman Brothers fall and then today claiming it was a necessary decision to bail out AIG.?? huh?
Yesterday Senator McCain claimed the fundamentals of our economy were strong, and today is saying what he really meant was our working class citizens are strong....but what he failed to mention was the thousands that are now NOT working.
and let's not forget Senator Obama, while he and Joe Biden both claimed a bail out of the Lehman Brothers was the right thing to NOT do, today the only thing they could offer us was an explanation for why McCain was wrong?? huh?
I think you and I can figure out for ourselves who is right and who is wrong, but what we still have failed to hear is what McCain and Obama are GOING TO DO for US!!
I wanna know HOW they are going to get more and higher paying jobs HERE in the USA.
I wanna know HOW they are going to put Wall Streets balls in a noose.
I wanna know HOW they are going to keep my tax dollars from bailing out a corporate giant that got greedy.
More importantly I wanna know HOW they are going to BAIL MY BUTT OUT of the mess George W. Bush has left us in.
another twist in this long and winding road......

Why Vote At All??

I received this from a friend and while I have always seen myself as one who takes my right to vote very seriously, I will admit I had NO CLUE about the horrific, tragic and heroic fight it took to give me that right.
I, like many of us, always imagined a group of ladies in long dresses, carrying home-made signs chanting some feministic phrase, politely asking for the right to vote.
How many of you were like me?
With a very important election upon us,
I felt it EXTREMELY IMPORTANT that every woman, every PERSON read this!
For every woman I say VOTE! it's your PRIVILEDGE to uphold
For every man I say VOTE! you owe it to YOUR MOTHERS!
and YESSSSSSSSSS that means you toooo Kyzac!!
There is NO EXCUSE for not voting.....
WE ALL OWE IT TO THESE WOMEN......

HOW QUICKLY WE FORGET.....
IF ....
WE EVER KNEW......
WHY WOMEN SHOULD VOTE
This is the story of our Grandmothers and Great-grandmothers;
they lived only 90 years ago.
Remember, it was not until 1920 that women were granted the right to go to the polls and vote.
The women were innocent and defenseless, but they were jailed nonetheless for picketing the White House, carrying signs asking for the vote. And by the end of the night, they were barely alive.
Forty prison guards wielding clubs and their warden's blessing went on a rampage against the 33 women wrongly convicted of 'obstructing sidewalk traffic.'
They beat Lucy Burns, chained her hands to the cell bars above her head and left her hanging for the night, bleeding and gasping for air.
They hurled Dora Lewis into a dark cell, smashed her head against an iron bed and knocked her out cold. Her cellmate, Alice Cosu, thought Lewis was dead and suffered a heart attack. Additional affidavits describe the guards grabbing, dragging, beating, choking, slamming, pinching, twisting and kicking the women.
Thus unfolded the 'Night of Terror' on Nov. 15, 1917,
when the warden at the Occoquan Workhouse in Virginia ordered his guards to teach a lesson to the suffragists imprisoned there because they dared to picket Woodrow Wilson's White House for the right to vote.
For weeks, the women's only water came from an open pail. Their food--all of it colorless slop--was infested with worms.
When one of the leaders, Alice Paul, embarked on a hunger strike, they tied her to a chair, forced a tube down her throat and poured liquid into her until she vomited. She was tortured like this for weeks until word was smuggled out to the press. http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/collections/suffrage/nwp/prisoners.pdf

So, refresh my memory.
Some women won't vote this year because-
-why, exactly?
We have carpool duties?
We have to get to work?
Our vote doesn't matter?
It's raining?
We donʼt like the candidate?
Last week, I went to a sparsely attended screening of HBO's new movie 'Iron Jawed Angels.' It is a graphic depiction of the battle these women waged so that I could pull the curtain at the polling booth and have my say. I am ashamed to say I needed the reminder.
All these years later, voter registration is still my passion. But the actual act of voting had become less personal for me, more rote.
Frankly, voting often felt more like an obligation than a privilege.
Sometimes it was inconvenient.
My friend Wendy, who is my age and studied women's history, saw the HBO movie, too. When she stopped by my desk to talk about it, she looked angry. She was--with herself.
'One thought kept coming back to me as I watched that movie,' she said.
'What would those women think of the way I use, or don't use, my right to vote? All of us take it for granted now, not just younger women, but those of us who did seek to learn.' The right to vote, she said, had become valuable to her 'all over again.'
HBO released the movie on video and DVD .
I wish all history, social studies and government teachers would include the movie in their curriculum I want it shown on Bunco night, too, and anywhere else women gather. I realize this isn't our usual idea of socializing, but we are not voting in the numbers that we should be, and I think a little shock therapy is in order.
It is jarring to watch Woodrow Wilson and his cronies try to persuade a psychiatrist to declare Alice Paul insane so that she could be permanently institutionalized. And it is inspiring to watch the doctor refuse. Alice Paul was strong, he said, and brave.
That didn't make her crazy.
The doctor admonished the men: 'Courage in women is often mistaken for insanity.' Please, if you are so inclined, pass this on to all the women you know. We need to get out and vote and use this right that was fought so hard for by these very courageous women.
Whether you vote democratic, republican or independent party -
remember to vote.
History is being made...

How Many Days Has It Been??

Ok...it has been wayyyy too long since my last very informative, totally hysterical and quite sarcastic post...but that is not the reason for this one.
Nope.
I have had TONS of readily available political rhetoric, as the Political Season has been extended this year with the long, drug-out, terribly tiresome Primaries of the Democratic Party. Which of course included the long, boring, squibble amongst themselves meeting they referred to as a 'special session' ; that had to be called in order for them to decide if the rules they made years ago did indeed matter or not (they concluded that they didn't).
And the Democrats were not the only ones offering up boxes of ammunition for my pleasure, the republicans have given me MORE than their share of lies, scandal and misrepresentations.
I have not posted, because well there is SOOOO MUCH to talk about I fear overloading cyber-space with one mere post!!
But alas...I finally can take no more!
First we have the racist blurbs flying back and forth, then sexism rearing its ugly head, oh and let's not forget the 'ageism' discrimination! I do believe the only discrimination in this never-ending race to not be mentioned is that of the American CITIZENS!!
Has anyone noticed that through out all of this bashing, spewing and stupidity NOT ONCE have we been asked what we think??
Are we NOT the ones who get to DECIDE who wins? While campaigns have indeed been sold to the highest bidder in more than one election, I INSIST MY VOTE COUNTS!
It would do the the media, the administration and the candidates to REMEMBER THAT!
On this day of rememberance in the lives of EVERY American I want each of you to remember that its is YOU & I that get to decide who will protect us in the next administration, who will lead us out of the perpetual rut we have fallen, and it is US that will decide WHAT MATTERS!
This is 2008 and yet the MEDIA has insisted that gender, race and age matter more to you and me than the Economy, the War, Terrorism, Education and Health Care.
Every day at any given moment you can flip on the television, the internet, open a newspaper and you will hear the constant argument of who has more elected experience, who had harder times in there life than you, who is more patriotic, who is more in tuned to your ideals and beliefs (although your ideas and beliefs are NEVER mentioned)!
Well, here ya go..
Here is EXACTLY how many days EACH have been in ELECTED Office......

John McCain who served in the U.S.House of Representatives (1983–87) ; or 1,460 daysand the U.S.Senate (1987– present) or; a little over 7,540 days thus far

Governor Sarah Palin made history on Dec. 4, 2006, when she took office. which was about 604 days before she was selected as McCains running mate.Wasilla Alaska's Mayor term is 3 years, thus she gets 6 years for being mayor twice; or 2,190 days

Barack Obama was elected to the Illinois State Senate in 1996, where he remained until 2004; thats 2,920 days, In 2004 he was elected to the United State Senate where he remains; that is a little over 2, 795 thus far.

Joe Biden who has served as a U.S Senator since 1973 or; 9,855 days

therefore days served in Public Office:
McCain 9,000
Palin 2,794
Obama 5,715
Biden 9,855
or a combined total of:
McCain/Palin = 11,794 days of Elected Office
Obama/Biden = 15,570 days of Elected Office
* 3,776 days MORE EXPERIENCE THAN McCain/Palin*

Now how many of you really give a crap?? How many of you are now MORE impressed with one or the other?
EXACTLY!! The American Citizen DOES NOT CARE!
What we do care about is what there individual plans are for:
Economy
Health Care
Alternative Fuels/Energy
Education
Environment
Terrorism/Homeland Security
& the War

With only 54 days til WE DECIDE you would think the media would focus on the REAL ISSUES..as afterall, they too, ARE AMERICAN CITIZENS and the decision will GREATLY EFFECT THEM TOO!!

well that is life down this winding road....watch out for the potholes...

I Don't Mind You Telling Me What's Been On Your Mind Lately.

Happy Valentine’s Day Month, everybody!!! This is a very important month for us all, because it’s the time where our love for one another is tested. Whether it be your spouse, fiancé, boy/girlfriend, or just partner of the day, weekend, week or month, if you don’t own up to your duties as being in love on Valentine’s Day you won’t be getting your ugly bumped in a very long time. At least, not by your lover of the moment. Many people don’t like Valentine’s Day just because it really is so much pressure. I don’t really mind it because I’m single and it’s just another day to me, but then again I LOVE the people who are single and complain about it! They just crack me up by all their whining about how they don’t have to be pressured into spending tons of money for someone who they’ll probably be broken up within a week anyways, when really they should be thankful. Love is not about a single day, anyways. It’s about surprising your lover by waking them up in the middle of the night to a special something-something on Flag Day! Support the troops! *salutes*


Bai Ling's $16 Arrest
Actress Bai Ling, a native of China that really claims to be from the Moon, was arrested at an LA airport because she stole about $16 worth of goods from one of the convenience stores in it. I did not even know you could get arrested for stealing $16 worth of stuff! Maybe she just thought the line for the counter started at the door! If I had been working I simply would have asked her to pay. $16! That is far from a big deal, in my opinion, but then again if it does not get stopped now she’ll probably try to steal again. I just can’t believe she had the cops called on her for $16! That’s good stuff! Apparently, she was very cooperative. This proves my point even more about how she just thought the line started at the door. If you need anything Bai, just give me a call! Well, except not this week because I have finals. And not this weekend because I have plans with my brother, in which I'm still figuring out what they are.

Heidi’s Going Higher Again
Last time I showed everyone her disaster of a music video. Rumor has it that she’s going to redo the music video because of all of the negative comments it’s been receiving. Well… That’s fine, but what about the music? That’s not going to change how you sound! Apparently, because she had more hits or comments than Britney Spears she thought that she was winning. To explain the hits, it’s like seeing a massive car wreck, in which you just can’t take your eyes off of it because it’s so bad! And of course you're going to want to show all of your friends what you've just seen, it's only humanly natural! As for the comments, these people are not saying, “We like your music!" and "Please make more!” Okay? These are angry messages telling you to go away and to stop singing! She also keeps talking about how her budget for the video was $0. Well... that's very obvious just by watching it. Moving on to another singer with problems…

Britney's Faking Being Normal
Britney Spears is actually acting normal, everybody! In fact, she has even seen her children again just the other day. Here’s my favorite part of this story, though! There are claims that it’s all just an act so that she can get her fortune back as soon as possible. I’m not how someone could be so aloof that they had to fake being normal! Maybe this will put her back onto the right path! Apparently the conservatorship is driving her crazy. Personally, I think we should give Jamie (her father) about a year to fix all the damages that Lutfi guy has done! Jamie basically had to rehire her entire security detail because Lutfi dismissed almost the entire staff! Changing the locks was also a smart move on Jamie’s part. And now that Lutfi is out of the picture, at least for a while, I think we’ll start seeing some positive changes. I think her father has really made a lot of good moves on her behalf, and I hope she realizes it. Everyone should pay attention when I say nice things, because I don’t usually have any nice things to say ever!

Spice Girls Cut World Tour Short
You know when you get back together will an ex-friend, ex-girlfriend, or ex-boyfriend? There’s that whole awkwardness happening there… I’m assuming that is what has happened to make the Spice Girls end their tour early. They’re saying that it’s for personal commitments to their families and own lives. They also are telling us that they never even thought the tour would be as long as it was! I just… don’t know about that! At first they were telling us how great it was and how they wanted to do it “right” one last time. Ending early is not doing it right! Apparently, there are also a lot of fans in China or somewhere who are very disappointed in them ending their tour early! Yet another story reveals that Posh was the one wanting to drop out of the group and starting cat fights between them! Whatever it may be, tomorrow is the last day to see them! I would say they're definitely not reuniting again after this! Ever!


That’s it for now! I have to go actually do some school work now! It involves taking finals, so it’s definitely not going to be very fun. Hopefully everyone had a fantastic Valentine’s Day, and if you have not I'm sorry I did not post my advice about that day sooner, but there’s always next year! Remember to comment! Every time you don’t leave us a comment, Larry King gets one more liver spot added to his back. Now there’s a visual for you!


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