... for every member of the legislature, administration, and bureaucracy. Unfortunately, I suspect most of them would find it completely foreign to their experience and political outlook.
... whose avatar looks like an imperial storm trooper. Come to the dark side, Luke; Jason will show you the way.
What's the problem with the comparison? It's central planning by politicians and bureaucrats. It will work as well as the USSR's destruction of their country's agriculture.
Not that I heard. So, presumably, private funding would pay for the construction of the new facility which, upon completion, would provide a sand-trap full of property tax dollars to the city, along with a bunch of new jobs and, overall, a real economic boost to the area. Evidently Auburn doesn't need or want this boost.
This seems like yet another instance of government picking winners and losers. Over the past 3.5 years, government, from DC on down, has an extremely lousy track-record in this area.
Dosh and other socialists: The best way for Auburn to "provide" housing for a poor person is to encourage the private sector to invest in the area and create a good job for that poor person so he can pay for his own housing.
Remember the old Cold War saying? You can always trust a communist to be a communist. The fox is similarly trustworthy.
The old saying about journalism? Trust nothing you hear and only half of what you see. If you apply that to big-eff Fox, they're far and away more trustworthy than the rest of the MSM put together.
... he should watch out for President Obama, who drove his campaign bus onto that road long ago. The latest pothole on that road is an "enemies list" - remember that goodie? - of those who contribute $100k or more to Romney, who are to be targeted (oh, the violent imagery) as right-wing racist cretins. How about those who contribute that much, and a lot more, to Obama? No, no, they are enlightened paragons simply exercising their 1st amendment rights.
... lower spending with higher taxes or, at best, the same level. That's what wrecked the economy of Greece, is putting Portugal's in peril, and threatening France, Spain, and even Germany. France's answer is to give Socialists the authority to hike spending and taxes, almost guaranteeing a collapse, perhaps of the entire EU.
The real solution is lower spending AND lower taxes. If the vote this Fall is for reelection and for restoring the Democrat majority in the House and maintaining it in the Senate, the US will jump on France's bandwagon. Trouble is, there won't be anyone left to pull it.
... for its restraint in avoiding the Obama excuse: We inherited this mess. After 36 years of profligate spending, any attempt at fiscal sanity is bound to experience some disappointments. That someone is actually trying to address our problems, rather than simply pandering for votes, is refreshing.
As the above comment reveals, Democrats in Maine, just like in DC, are reduced to claiming that the other side is waging a "war on ..." - pick your favorite target - because their own record of accomplishment is so abysmal.
You describe a very idealistic view of the unions and their activities. If that is how you have experienced them, then you too are extraordinarily fortunate. That idealism seems to have all but disappeared from the private sector, along with unions and the jobs and members they were so very concerned about. Whatever the zeal for advocacy, it makes no sense to "negotiate" a company or an entire industry out of business or off shore.
The idealism remains in the public sector, for the most part, especially where unions negotiate with themselves, the folks on the other side of the table being Democrat politicians. If past performance is a reliable predictor of the future, we will soon see entire states forced into bankruptcy. A very few are wising up and trying to move back from the brink.
There's nothing passive about it, Betty. When I looked into a job and found conditions (salary, benefits, ...) not to my liking, I negotiated and/or looked elsewhere. If I lived in an area where I couldn't find a job I wanted, I moved.
What I did not do was join a union and try to extort from an employer something he couldn't afford to do or something that didn't fit with his view of how a company should operate.
Also in all my working life, I have never had or met even one employer who was out to exploit anyone. To imply that most employers do is just union propaganda. On the contrary, Betty, the real passive attitude is to pay some dues and hand your responsibilities off to others because of vague hand-waving about supporting the "workin' people".
If ever there was a deserving recipient of a punch, of any kind, it's organized labor. "OL", cousin to "OC", has had free rein in this state for far too long. Hopefully their new role as punching bag will expand nationwide. On Wisconsin!
After my comment on Friday, there was not even one mention of the letter nor of Kamerad Dill. As usual with leftists, they are more concerned with tearing others down than with supporting even one of their own.
Wrong again, Herr Riml. I prefer to reserve my battles for the spelling azzholes. How cunnin'.
... you lost me. The left has manufactured a war on religion. Not all religions, of course, only Christianity and Judaism. The left fawns relentlessly on Islam.
What attack on marriage? Perhaps you refer to those who believe that marriage is one man and one woman. News flash: that belief is spread all along the spectrum, not just on the right. The rich (those who make more than $250k per year) already pay much more than their "fair share" and the Bush tax cuts (for everyone) tried to remedy that imbalance a little. The cuts expire at the end of the year when taxes (for everyone) will go up. Fresh idea from the left: Punish everyone because somebody, somewhere is having a good time.
Just because an idea is fresh doesn't imply that it's wise. BHO got elected on a bewildering gaggle of fresh ideas, not one of which has worked. How's your Solyndra stock doing?
This is a list of the tired, old platitudes that Democrats have used for decades to fool voters into electing them.
Notice the subtle phrasing. If you're against the policies of our illustrious president, then you are stonewalling and not paying attention to the business of the people - as if the two were even remotely connected. And, just to touch all bases, we have a glancing reference to the manufactured "war on women".
With advocates like this, Dill doesn't have a chance.
Most countries in Europe and the UK make kids go through drivers' education that shows up ours for the joke it is. This issue comes up from time to time, but it never goes anywhere. The Right hates it because it would cost more money; the Left hates it because it would require more individual responsibility. Here's where a little real bipartisanship would be valueable.
Angus King, he who would be senator, drove the state of Maine onto the road to bankruptcy; John Baldacci put the accelerator to the floor.
But, dang, were they polite! Forget the mounting debt and the generational dependency. All that matters is they didn't insult anyone. Unless, of course, you count the people of Maine and our children and grandchildren, who are expected to pay the bills for 16 years of profligacy.
Although I'm not up on the details behind this letter, I read it through and found it to be a reasonable presentation of the issue, except for a couple of pointless references to political affiliation. Then I got to the bottom and saw who wrote it.
Sometimes a little cynicism is healthy. The author once again exposes his preference for big government, central planning, and the mob rule that is small D democracy.
My advice to anyone concerned about the matters mentioned in the letter is: Apply the rock test - turn it over and watch what crawls out from under it.
That's all you provide, but evidently that doesn't satisfy. I'll wait for the emperor's proclamation that your opinions are to be received as incontrovertible fact. Meanwhile, calm down. Your spelling is deteriorating.
... for you to retire and produce the great American history re-write, with the "real" story of the Founders and the Constitution. If you need a publisher, contact Marvel Comics. They're used to scripts that are "totally absurd".
... on any scale larger than a New England town meeting. That's why the Founders adamantly avoided it and instead created a republic. The economic policy that ended the Great Depression was WWII, and the growth was so strong that Democrats couldn't throttle it back until Carter, with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term. The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all. The genius of the Founders was a creation that has survived bad presidents and worse Congresses, but its greatest test is yet to come.
What are his credentials to speak for anyone else?
One thing is certain. Those evil rich folks aren't buying their yachts in Maine. Democrats destroyed the state's yacht industry and all its jobs with their luxury tax. They wanted those fat cats to pay their fair share. Ask those unemployed shipwrights about fairness.
Taxes do not redistribute wealth. They redistribute tax payers.
Where's my "affordable" health insurance? I don't get a subsidy from an employer or a government, so my choices are high-deductible insurance for only $700 per month, or comprehensive insurance from Anthem for a nice, affordable $2300 per month. ObamaCare hasn't fixed a damn thing for me. If someone else is already getting insurance for a lot less, it's because my taxes have been hiked to pay for it. With a few more "improvements" like that, I'll be bankrupt and finally qualified for government help.
Seen from 2012, it's a load of empty promises and lack of performance. Don't ask the letter writer about policy - ask the president about his abject failure. But already know the answer: It's Bush's fault.
There's nothing magical about the obvious "fix all": lower taxes and stable taxes. The free market would welcome that kind of "messing".
Seen from 2012, it's a load of empty promises and lack of performance. Don't ask the letter writer about policy - ask the president about his abject failure. But already know the answer: It's Bush's fault.
There's nothing magical about the obvious "fix all": lower taxes and stable taxes. The free market would welcome that kind of "messing".
(-) It was passed without even one Republican vote. So much for the bipartisanship Democrats demand when they're not firmly in the majority.
(-) It's 2700 pages long and incomprehensible, even to its anonymous authors, and especially to Democrats in Congress, who didn't even read what they voted for. Their approval rating shows what people think of their performance.
(-) Groups tasked with trying to comprehend it, like the CBO, underestimated its cost by a factor of 2. With friends like that, ObamaCare doesn't need more enemies. But it's getting them.
(-) Since passage, support has eroded because of the above and other reasons, to the present when a "healthy" majority wants it repealed.
But never mind. Stop thinking, be happy, and embrace it, as we join all those enlightened but bankrupt "democracies".
We should be grateful the president is not leading, whatever the reason. If he were, the country would be much farther down the toilet than it already is.
I'm sorry, Mr. Grover, but I can't share your slight hope in the electorate. A majority has already discovered it can vote themselves largess from the public treasury and vote away any responsibility to pay for it. Ain't democracy great?
No one will mind if you don't dress like a derelict. Be that as it may, I saw this as recently as this morning at Hannaford, from my vantage point in line behind the alleged perp. Get out more often and find your own facts.
We're not talking about a 5¢ deposit, but a $2 deposit. Many local dairies do this to preserve their investment in expensive glass jugs. I have seen this scam with my own eyes, but it was back in the bad old days when they couldn't buy cigarettes with food stamps.
If you glance at some polls from organizations that aren't smooching the administration's posterior, it's a toss-up which candidate is taking a beating over this issue. The most important women's issue is this: Republicans value women in the home and in the workplace, and want to preserve their right to choose either path or both; Democrats value women as voters only, and want to dictate their choices to them. Women in general are much too smart to accept the Democrat vision and are telling that to any politician willing to listen, which doesn't include many Democrats.
In the above, substitute "blacks" for "women" and the issue remains pretty much the same. The left expects blacks to stay on the Democrat plantation. Again, they're too smart, a fact that is utterly lost on the race industrialists like Jackson, Sharpton, et al.
Go to your local grocery store and loiter around the checkout counters for a while. Watch the EBT users. In spite of bloviations to the contrary, they're easy to spot. Watch the steady flow of cigarettes, beer, and - for the kiddies - a nutritious dinner of cheese doodles.
In a thread already bursting with stupid comments, the previous two rise right to the top, like big ones in a septic tank. The discussion has nothing to do with Zimmerman or Martin. The only people who believe the Tea Party is rife with racism are those who never hoist their noses out of the liberal sycophant media outlets.
The military loved GWB. If Obama tried the carrier act, he would be boo-ed more than he was at Fenway. BHO is good at erecting a concerned expression on his puss, especially while watching an operation by US military "assets" put in place by his predecessor.
I was referring to the favorite garb worn by "dear leaders" the world over, especially in banana republics like Cuba and North Korea, the ones pretending to be communist states, when they are really hereditary monarchies.
The three alignments are capitalism (1st world), communism (2nd world), and everybody else (3rd world). The latter covers Central and South America, most of Africa, the Middle East eastward through southeast Asia and Indonesia.
If the US is fundamentally transformed to disavow capitalism but not to embrace (overtly) communism, we then belong to the third world, by definition. When Obama starts wearing a ribbon of office, and maybe military utility clothes, we'll be just another classic banana republic.
Since this is the opinion section, he's entitled to squawk freely.
Is it just me or do others feel it's rather deserted in here, since around the time the format changed, on-line and off-line?
Some of our buddies (like the wheelchair warrior) have vanished completely. Others (like the historical sailor) are staying well away from the opinion section. Has there been a purge?
... says that minimum wage should now be $14 to maintain the ratio from the good old days. In round numbers, that would double everything - including gas at the pump - and ripple throughout the economy. When the dust settles, we would have $8 gasoline and $10 Big Macs.
The unions would love it, since many contracts mandate wages as multiples of minimum wage.
... or subsidies or breaks - choose your favorite emotional word. The president's proposal would single out the oil industry for special tax punishment, a big part of his plan to make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket".
In the Democrat vocabulary, the word "subsidy" means "the difference between the tax they want to collect and what they legally can collect". If they don't get all they want from some company because it's obeying tax law, the rest of us have to make up the difference. No, it just means politicians have fewer of our dollars to waste.
And it's J. C. Watts, two T's. But you're right, Steve. Most black politicians stay safely on the Democrat plantation. A few, the best ones, have had enough of ignorance. You would do well to follow their lead.
Cliff, ask some of your teachers for their opinions on a longer school year. I bet you'll hear several arguments why extending the year is absolutely impossible.
... to see where they stand - sort of like when a jury starts deliberating. Assuming it's not unanimous, for or against, they start debating the matter among themselves and take as long as they damn well please before issuing a final ruling.
What's really unfortunate, and truly scary and ironic, is the solution proposed by the race industrialists: Jackson, Sharpton, V. Jones, New Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, ... Their solution is a mob, a rope and a sturdy tree. No "justice" required. String him up, boys!
Then why did the unnamed very-smart-people who wrote all 2700 pages of ObamaCare choose the non-Medicare route?
If you're on Medicare and reasonably healthy, you'll get nickeled-and-dimed to death for non-covered routine maintenance unless you buy supplemental insurance from a private company. It's amazing that, with decades available, Democrats were never able to screw up supplemental insurance along with everything else.
I guess I like the new online format. The old site took forever (for me) to load a page so that I could scroll down or up. This is much more responsive. I have two issues. Perhaps we can use the agree/disagree buttons for an informal poll.
First issue: The font size for system messages is way too large. There's no need for the words "Add comment" to take up nearly 0.75 inches of vertical space. Make them smaller.
... even though I'm not a Republican. Social Security and Medicare are funded by taxes; the mandate requires the purchase of "insurance" from a private company. If the unknown authors of ObamaCare had had the honesty to create a tax to fund it, today we could be discussing the bill's other merits, or lack of them - because nowhere in the Constitution is there one syllable enumerating an authority to force a citizen to buy anything - except for the liberal penumbras and emanations.
Instead they chose to invite this Constitutional controversy and created a pointless war among the three branches of government. My non-Republican cynicism suggests this decision was very deliberate for political advantage later this year.
Suppose SCOTUS leaves it alone. Forget what the MSM and their polls say, most Americans detest the ACA and would likely vote against the guy who shoved it down their throats.
Suppose SCOTUS strikes it down. Then BHO can campaign as the "underdog" being picked on by those nasty right-wing justices. Anyone with eyes and ears knows he has nothing else to campaign on.
You answered your own question with the phrase "That, in the end, ..." This entire kerfuffle is about the ends justifying the means.
... two steps back. Your midnight post was rational - sort of. Now you're back in familiar territory - irrational hatred of any person or organization that disagrees with your prejudiced view of the state and the world.
That's all for now. I have to go gas up my black helicopter before Obama hikes fuel prices again.
You moaned that "the fix was in". That is, you're interpretation of current events is the right-wing activist court is going to strike down your precious law from ideology only. I hope they do strike it down, although I have a different take on their motives.
Yup, a Democrat got it passed when you and your "brethren" (vocabulary from the Democrat War on Women - using them as cannon fodder) had complete control of the federal government. The people of this country witnessed that travesty and handed the House back to Republicans, which for two years has been the only check on left-wing activism. Now that the court, finally, is looking into it, following the rules in the Constitution, you and "your" president are soiling your shorts whining about the "unelected" judges.
38 states have prudently chosen to wait and see - 21 have pending legislation, 17 haven't done anything. New York is one of the 21. Yup, NY is a hot-bed of right-wingers. Delaware is one of the 17 - you know, the home of that famous conservative, Joe Foot-in-Mouth Biden.
Breton hates judicial activism - unless, of course, it's in support of some left-wing cause.
Jonnie heard this greed/need BS a couple weeks ago and latched onto it like a junkyard dog on a T-bone. The alien philosophy belongs to him, his mentors and handlers, and whitehouse.gov.
What about Social Security and Medicare? Huh? Huh? C'mon, you Republicans.
Those programs are funded by employment taxes. Wink, wink. That's the fairy-tale we've heard since the 1930's. Recent reductions in those taxes, to help "working people", display the fraud for all to see. The reality is, they are paid out of the general fund like everything else, and those taxes are just cash-cows for DC.
If the authors, whoever they may be, of the ACA had created a tax to fund it, instead of a premium, we wouldn't be having the current discussion about the Constitutionality of the mandate. We could instead focus on all the law's other controversial aspects, which are legion.
... the prez has a full staff with him at all times when he travels, even on campaign trips, and we tax-payers pick up the tab. The estimate I heard recently was $100,000 an hour. Given the cost and the frequency, you would think his golf game might improve.
Campaigning, vacations, world-wide apology tours ... am impressive pice tag. Maybe it's worth it to get him out of DC for a while.
“In the spirit of bipartisanship, just do it our way.” Democrats also worked tirelessly from 2001-2004 to make GWB a one-term president, opposing everything he tried to do, many of which they have since embraced as their own. The only thing worse than vitriolic speech is hypocritical speech.
If the president told the world today that the US was going to start using its own energy resources as much as possible, forgoing foreign sources, tomorrow the global price of oil would drop like a rock - and gas prices would follow within a few weeks. It's a "futures" market and there's no shortage of supply, even with that lunatic in Iran. Demand is pushing the price up.
We'll never know what would have happened to banks and auto companies if the government had allowed the free market to operate. What we do know is that Democrats are still complaining about fat-cat bankers screwing the 99%. What we do have are auto companies making over-priced "green" cars that no one wants, even with humongous tax-payer subsidies.
BA in computer science. Whatever similarity we have ends there.
No one had to point out the obvious to me: After I got that piece of paper, the rest was up to me. In each job I held, I learned and reinforced my academic credentials. I moved for jobs, all around the country and overseas, I didn't sit on my thumb in one place, whining about quality of life.
After Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany, he told his cronies: First thing we do is, kill all the lawyers. But that seems a somewhat harsh method of dealing with a surplus of ambulance chasers.
A large part of this problem is an antiquated "guidance" industry that tells a high school kid: Go to college or you're a failure. And then tells a college student: Go to graduate school or you'll be flipping burgers.
Mr. Rhoades says "students and parents deserve accurate information". On the other side, schools deserve to expect some level of common sense from a student, especially one who has managed to get all the way to law school; and some from his parents, if they're paying the tab. Common sense like ... No school, no business, no government owes you a job.
Common sense like ... Instead of choosing a field that makes you "feel" good, choose one that already provides jobs and is likely to continue to do so. As the Pirate said earlier, the trades are in some cases begging for people - especially where there are no unions to stifle the process.
Common sense like ... If you're determined to live in East Dinnerbucket, Maine, you won't find too many jobs that require a degree in art history.
Should it be legal for a corporation to own property? To sign a contract? To sue or be sued. I say yes. An individual person can do all those things. Which rights of a person must be denied to a corporation to make the anti-corporate-personhood people happy? It would seem that free speech is first on the list.
Would the restrictions reach to, say, a business partnership? Suppose a group of two lawyers decides to donate $10 to the local rest-home for old liberals. Can they do it? Can they deduct it on their tax return? How about $10,000 to the Obama SuperPAC?
How about a partnership of one, the sole proprietor. Whatever he says or does, is it the person or the business? Who decides? (For all anyone knows, this may be spelled out somewhere in the 2700 pages of ObamaCare. Lots of other irrelevant stuff is.)
The only difference between these forms and a corporation is a stock certificate sitting between the people who run the business and the people who own it. To say that rights exist only on one side of that divide is just envy of wealth or success or both.
Perhaps you can add it to your list of books to rewrite when you retire.
Supremacy has been a big part of the BHO administration: of race (black) and of religion (Islam). Others need not apply.
BHO has been aiding and abetting "democracy" in the middle east. The only trivial aspect is the results.
BHO has nothing to do with business. Except for GE having an office down the hall in the White House, GM producing tax-payer subsidized cars (the new volkswagens) that nobody wants, Solyndra, banks, insurance companies ...
The anti-women, anti-immigration, anti-democratic nonsense has been manufactured so the left has something to campaign on, actual accomplishments being extremely thin.
The single greatest accomplishment in the 20th century of the progressive movement was to hang the label "right-wing" on German Nazism. Only nationalism separated Nazi from Communist.
You gotta love that phrase "how the population is managed". The extreme left has slaughtered more human beings, in the name of politics, than the right, extreme or not, ever dreamed of.
I saw the cadets every day in the late 60s in NYC. They marched in unison, drilled with posters and flags, and had cute uniforms. Two varieties: John Lennon or V. Lenin. I don't recall which held the higher rank. And they also used terms like "fascist" very loosely.
My dictionary says: Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach. That's an accurate description of what the left is trying to establish here. In the spirit of diversity, I am widening "supremacy" to include all PC ethnic groups and the anti-nation philosophy.
It's about hospital and university administrators - not doctors and educators. Did you ever receive life-saving hospital care due to the CEO's compensation package? Did one of your kids get an A+ in underwater basket weaving due to the college president's high salary?
What's out of whack are lefties who launch into a trite tirade at the drop of a buzzword.
... based on how they "feel". The others make up their minds based on what the Constitution says. It's interesting, and telling, that you omitted Roberts and Kennedy from your prejudiced list. You do understand, Tronnie, that a SCOTUS justice has a life-time job and is not beholden to any other political considerations? Or are you admitting that the four take their orders from the DNC?
... have uncorked their thumbs - the armchair admiral, too.
WWII was the last war the US tried to win - Democrats got us into it, Republicans won it. After that, politics was the commander-in-chief. Democrats got us into Korea and that war is still officially going on. Democrats got us into Viet Nam and Republicans got us out, with our tail between our legs. Grenada went pretty well ...
After that, the tactical aim, D or R, was to make the enemy like us. In all of world history, that aim has never won anything, no matter how just or unjust. Until we learn the futility of that battle plan, we will lose before we start fighting. If we don't learn it, we may as well surrender now. I'm sure all those nasty folks out there will leave us alone if we promise to stay home.
... Bill Clinton made upgrading or modernizing a refinery almost as expensive as building a new one, all to appease the environazis. That's why it doesn't happen and we're stuck with inefficient refineries using out-dated technology. The crock is reducing every discussion to the greed of big oil.
You listed several trite "ends", pretty much the same ones found at Communist Party USA and at any of dozens of socialist sites - and union sites. But they all are vague about the "means". History is not vague - read it now before it gets rewritten. The honest party line is always:
You 99% are too stupid and lazy to manage your lives. We, the 1% wannabes, will handle everything for you. If you don't give us the authority, we'll take it.
... there is no difference between me and my business. Just as there's no difference between you and your old book business. Or do you conveniently forget to mention that stuff when you file your tax return? If you do forget, it wouldn't surprise me, since you're such a hypocrite. Those icky things only apply to other people, not card-carrying liberals.
The "common folk", at least the ones who seem to have nothing else to do but hang around here, spend so much time searching out, and envying, the wallets of others, they have no time left to consider their own and make appropriate decisions and efforts.
The wealthy didn't put you in your current situation, Claire. You did.
Your profile suggests your are, as you voluntarily list your age as over 70. You also list several prior jobs in the private sector - good ones, too, for Maine. If you're not making $20k with private pensions plus Social Security, I urge you to go to the nearest mirror and look in it. There you will see the person 100% responsible for your current conditions.
... so that makes me "wealthy", according to the Maine Revenue Service, and that definition hasn't changed substantially for 15 years. Yes, I have lots of deductions, but the bottom line: I pay a boatload of ME income tax. And employer taxes (for the privilege of providing jobs to other Mainers), and property taxes, and federal income tax, including self-employment tax. Apparently a self-employed couple doesn't qualify as a "working family", because our SE tax rate wasn't reduced, although it's the same tax that supposedly pays for current Social Security benefits.
Bob, would you please put me in touch with some of your wealth friends who don't pay taxes? Evidently they know some accounting tricks that I have missed.
... contrary to your wishes but, thankfully, your wishes have nothing to do with the wishes of the people. You brought up corporations, chump, but you can't defend your own silly positions. In any case, I would much prefer SCOTUS asserting its Constitutional authority over POTUS continuing to try to assert his unConstitutional authority.
... did nothing more than undo the arbitrary changes your Congress created. What does a for-profit corporation have to do with a SuperPAC? Unless you're admitting the Obama SuperPAC is for-profit.
Hillary wants a less stressful job, President of the World Bank, although that final word may be removable. She must be really tired of being SECSTATE to a POTUS who likes to mismanage foreign policy all by himself.
It's easy to balance a budget when the economy is roaring, like during most of the Clinton reign. It's not so easy when the economy is in the toilet. Ask any recent state governor.
Obama might get his hands dirty touching those dimes, so he has hired a bunch of folks to do it for him - his SuperPAC. You may not remember the long ago 2008 campaign in which he promised never to use organizations like that, but that may be the least of his broken promises.
Medicare is going broke faster than SS, which for the first time last year paid out more than it took in. Your pension and 401(k) will look a whole lot smaller when you have to pay into ObamaCare. When you have all that time on your hands, you'll be full time into rewriting history. Now it's only part-time.
4 is 5, love is hate, war is peace, ... I believe he was fumbling for Orwell's word bellyfeel: blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea. There's plenty of that around today. Ask anyone who has a good, non-union position at the White House.
If the recession ended, it's because the depression has begun. Phony economic growth is restored. How's your Solyndra investment?
Old wars ended, new ones beginning. Too bad the name Afrika Corps was already used.
Healthcare nationally is aiming to be more expensive everywhere than it is in Maine. We'll all be healthy bankrupts.
Frank and Dodd are two of the biggest criminals in recent decades. A good start would be indict them.
Republicans have put forth many plans, all roundly ignored by the liberal royalty in DC.
Recycling old, failed, far-left programs never solved anything, except for the employment status of old, failed liberals.
It's The Decline and Fall of the _______________. I can guess how you would fill in the blank.
The real flag was flown outside the Lake County Democratic Club in Florida a week or so ago. Someone photoshopped the flames in to make a point that I agree with - burn the face away and put back the stars.
They were universally known as the Bush gas prices. Now we have the Obama gas prices, although he will try to blame Bush for this, like he does for everything else.
By the way, Al, speaking of facts ... Obama was sworn in in 2009, not 2008, when he was elected on 11/4, a date that shall live in infamy. And it's the National Einquirer, but perhaps you are using the new relaxed Obama spelling rules.
... We're out of one war - by declaring victory and telling all those who sacrificed that it was for nothing.
... leaving the other - by invitation due to the acts a very few lunatics and low-lifes and zero US leadership.
... enabled democracy wins in the middle east - a couple of dictatorships shifted from one form to another. The only democracy in the middle east continues to be Israel.
... eliminated Osama - by sheer luck using the infrastructure created by the previous president.
... eliminated most if Al Qaeda - who moved to Libya to regroup.
... enhanced domestic security - by strip-searching little children and grandmothers.
Beware the Democrat middle finger. When Obama is not poking it in our eye, he's flipping it at us. The past 3.5 years have been the travesty, by acclamation.
The SJ should have added a blurb that Mr. Haszko (D) lost a recent election to Mr. Harvell (R), accounting for the lingering taste of sour grapes.
Youths do not lack health care. They may lack health insurance, but that's less a consequence of employment and more a consequence of a delusion of immortality and indestructibility.
People of all ages are priced out of comprehensive insurance due to Democrat policies over the 20 years leading up to the recent Republican election victories.
If one person is forced to buy something he doesn't need, it's to pay for someone else receiving it "free". It's part of a package of mandates, adopted 20 years ago, loosely called health insurance "reform", and it's directly responsible for chasing away all competition and pushing premiums into the stratosphere.
There's an easy fix: allow "buffet" policies like we used to have back in the bad old days. You pick the options you need and pay for them. A single man doesn't need pap smears; a single women doesn't need prostate exams. The problem with this solution is it doesn't buy the votes of those who like to believe they're getting something for nothing.
I have health insurance that I pay for myself, no subsidies from an employer or a government. It's a high deductible policy for only $700/mo. If I go to the ER, I get to pay the first $10,000, even with my insurance. Of course, I could switch to a "comprehensive" policy for only $2,300/mo. These easily "affordable" amounts are courtesy of Maine's health insurance "reform" and the Democrat party, motto: Dragging everyone down to the same level.
Call your friendly, neighborhood Democrat pol. If you're not poor enough, he will suggest several ways for you to become poorer.
I have high blood pressure and my medication costs about the same per month as birth control. I get to pay every dime. If I didn't take the stuff, for whatever reason, the results would be catastrophic to my health, to my wallet, and to my health insurance company. My $10K deductible would be consumed in about 2 days in a hospital. So why aren't my meds "free"?
They're not free because high blood pressure isn't as sexy as "women's reproductive health".
Everything that insurance pays out, is paid from premiums coming in. If government mandates that some health product or service is "free", it just means that all premiums are raised accordingly. If that doesn't affect you, Jillian, it just means that someone else is paying your premium for you.
I mean the Pelosi/Fluke show, staged to deflect attention away from the administration's bonehead mandate to the Catholic church.
Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by "cover"? I suspect you mean "pay for". Also out of curiosity, how much money do you personally pay per month for health insurance? How much of your premium is paid by someone else, like an employer? Current federal law requires an employer to disclose to you every year the total cost of your insurance premium. If it's paid by some other agency, like a government, that requirement probably doesn't apply.
In my case, being self-employed, I pay $700 / month for my wife and me for insurance that "covers" everything but "pays for" nothing, until I cough up the $10,000 deductible. A "comprehensive" policy would be $2300 / month, which is typical in Maine for a couple in our age bracket, 60-65.
If you're astonished by those amounts and by my use of the word "typical", you must be in the group that has its premiums "covered".
No politician of any credible national stature, of any party, wants to do what you claim, as a matter of public policy. Every politician's private policy may differ. If you require private and public policy to be the same, no one at all is qualified to be elected to anything. The media keep asking candidates the same questions about private vs. public, hoping someone will trip up, so they can have another feeding frenzy to justify their high salaries.
If possible, look away from this stage-managed issue for a moment. In public our president shows up at the proper places, looks properly solemn, says the proper words - except for that awful word "Creator" - and, in general, plays the part of a patriotic American. In private, amply demonstrated in his books and by the company he keeps, he wants to convert the country into one more glorious socialist workers' paradise. Does the press do its job and ask him about the differences between his public and private policies? Is the Pope a Lutheran?
The bill restricts access to free contraceptives. It undoes the mandate from the pinnacle of hypocrisy, the Democrat in the White House, that insurance cover 100% of the cost.
I would love it if my insurance would cover 100% of the costs of my medications. But it won't, because of high deductibles and co-pays. I can't afford "comprehensive" insurance because the premiums are out sight, due to all the costs shifted to pay for free stuff for people with better advocacy groups than I have.
... our two senators are both Republicans? They are RINOs, of course, but certainly not independents. King has always said he was independent, but that was also in-name-only: he is a stealth Democrat and not very stealthy at that. He is the architect of the DHHS mess that has been left for Republicans to deal with.
The US Senate is useless. It was eviscerated in 1913 by the 17th amendment, first, and later by their silly rule that it takes 60 votes to do anything significant. So much for small "D" democracy. Under this scenario, it's the perfect place for Angus King, plus it gets him out of Maine. The classic win-win situation.
Bill Maher went on one of his demented rants recently and called Palin and Bachman names that I won't dignify here with *'s. He has refused to apologize. Yet no one is calling for Maher to be booted from HBO, although doing so would raise the average IQ there from 50 all the way up to 60.
Maher just coughed up $1 million to Obama's SuperPAC - you know, that organization he promised he would never use during the '08 campaign. I wonder if that might have something to do with the Democrat lack of outrage?
Maher is just an entertainer. Allegedly. But that's what the left calls Limbaugh, when it's convenient. When it's not, generally in the next breath, he's the absolute ruler of the Republican party.
Evidently those reading your post don't agree with your personal definitions for "require", "lie", "slander", "apology", ... Isn't it great to live in a country where we all do not (yet) have to spout the same homogenized opinions?
About Limbaugh's "apology": At least his wasn't the standard Democrat line: If my statements offended you, I apologize; if they didn't, I don't.
About #4: it would be fun watching someone with principles run against someone who wouldn't know a principle if it swooped into his community and tweaked his activist nose.
... the juvenile defense argument is a two-way street. Try using adult English instead of asterisks.
The polls suggest that the Democrat mainsail is starting to flap in the breeze for many reasons, and this kerfuffle is just the latest. Romney and Republicans are already enjoying a bump, from women who are sick and tired of being told by liberals that they're dumb and helpless and need all the government help they can stand.
The dumb Democrats at the top staged the Fluke "testimony" as damage control to deflect attention away from the bonehead mistake of dictating to the Catholic church. Limbaugh gave them a bonehead mistake in return, a present they didn't deserve. He acknowledged the mistake and apologized, but some will never accept it. It's the same "some" who will never accept Santorum's statement on his private vs. public beliefs on birth control. They keep asking him the same question over and over, hoping for another bonehead mistake they can pounce on.
A lot of folks want Limbaugh gone because the liberal media has no counterpart who anyone wants to listen to. RIP Air America. They can want him gone, but they can't turn their want into force. Not yet.
Be very careful of the "fairness" crusaders. First they'll come for Limbaugh, then they'll come for the SJ.
With the long-time Democrat "leadership", a legislator's function is to sit down, shut up, and do as he's told. It would be nice if legislators actually think about what they vote on, but none of the good old boys have any experience doing that.
1. Convenient definition of oversight. Democrats do none and that's supposed to be called "helping" the poor and less fortunate; Republicans try to apply a little rational oversight, and that's kicking granny out in the snow on the side of the turnpike.
2. The wealthiest Mainers already pay far more than their "fair share" here, just as they do at the federal level. What's really fair is for everyone to have some "skin in the game".
3. Maine's population is the oldest in the nation. Over the previous 35+ years, Democrat policies chased away jobs and young people. Somebody has to pay the bills and the responsibility falls to those who are left. Whatever Democrats were paying back, they were paying with money borrowed from our children and grandchildren.
4. The cost shifting has been going on for 20 years. Finally the state is trying to get control of the situation and pay its bills.
5. Maine has been losing jobs since the 1980s, maybe earlier, especially since Democrats decided to shut down the forest products industry. The promised jobs are out of state somewhere, where Obama created or saved them, somehow without also reducing unemployment.
6. The control on the governor and legislature is the next election. Direct democracy on every issue is mob rule.
When Dr. Shields was in the legislature, the only times the Democrat majority gave a toot about his vote was when they needed political cover for their irresponsibility. If they could cajole a few Republicans to join the herd, they could face the people with See? They did it too!
... whenever anyone points out the disastrous results of decades of Democrat majorities in the legislature and Democrat governors, their apologists crawl out from under their rocks. It's good because sunlight is the best disinfectant.
... came only after the colossal blunder of the mandate directly on the Church. That maneuver, and certain other staged events, were designed to mask the fact that the administration stepped in it big-time.
That aside, many, not all, organizations owned or operated by the Catholic Church are self insuring - that is, they act as insurance companies for their employees. The shifted mandate is still directly on the Church.
That too aside, does this mandate apply in situations where the faith is something other than Christianity? Does it apply to, say, Brandeis University? Very probably. Does it apply to, for example, Islamic charities, hospitals and universities? Until I hear "Yes, of course!" from someone with authority to answer, I will continue to believe there's a high level of hypocrisy at work, along with a high level of anti-Christianity and anti-Judaism prejudice.
... the top management of DHHS knew the computer system was inadequate and "solved" the problem by throwing $50+ million down the crapper on a new system that never worked. In all that time, how many state employees responsible for the mess were even reprimanded, let alone fired? Zero. Perhaps you can guess why.
It's more than a little disingenuous to heap all the blame on the current crew and to demand complete fiscal responsibility from a legislature that has had little or no experience in that area for almost 40 years.
Change. What a joke. Any attempted change from the Democrat status quo is immediately jumped on by liberal hyenas as another right wing attempt to kick granny out in the snow.
It's not an attack on religion. It's an attack on Christianity and Judaism. This is just a sampling of the skirmishes in the war. If you like, I can provide references for every item.
October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion.
October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House.
November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries' religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.
February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do.
The issue is not birth control. It's just control - of Christian churches by the state. Especially control of hospitals, charities and, yes, universities - all those evil for-profit entities that Dan hates so much. Because all those things would be better run by government, all evidence to the contrary, which - under this president - has as its main activity picking winners and losers.
For "Christian" substitute "Jewish", and the issue remains unchanged. In fact, substitute any religion you can name - except, of course, "Islamic". With the most misogynistic religion on Earth, then the separation of church and state is .. well .. sacrosanct.
None of this has ever been an issue through-out the history of the U.S. up until the election of Obama. It's been a 3+ year war on all religions except, of course, Islam.
Suppose we keep all details as-is, except change "Catholic university" to "Islamic university". Never mind that the latter is something of an oxymoron. Islam's misogyny leaves Catholicism's in the dust. Is there anyone reading this naive enough to believe that our president would dictate to Islam?
... this issue was started by Democrats and choreographed by them ever since, aided and abetted by their wholly owned subsidiary, the "mainstream" media, to keep it in the forefront. With Eddie and Billie and, don't forget, Slick, the media delivered crickets. Your memory of playgrounds is conveniently selective.
... only after she talks about "a lot of students who, like me, ..." with some vague phrasing so she can't be pinned down. Evidently that's one class she never missed: Dissembling 101.
... that all misogyny originates from the right. Here are some snips from a column today by Larry Elder. The first two sure haven't provoked much attention from the media.
Ed Schultz, … the blowtorch left-wing MSNBC host, called conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut" and a "talk slut." … His punishment? One week's suspension without pay.
{Bill} Maher, of HBO's "Real Time," …, on more than one occasion, referred to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by the "c" word, called her a "dumb 't'-word" (think "twit" with a different vowel), and has called Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., "bimbos."
And, of course, the misogyny academy's life-time achievement award goes to …
The sexism police long ago exempted Bill Clinton from any conversation about ill-treatment of women. Some of the same people who condemn Limbaugh for his treatment of Fluke go deaf, dumb and blind over Clinton's treatment of and statements about the women who dared confront him.
First the president attempted to dictate to the Catholic church on what their medical insurance must cover. When he got slapped back hard, he shifted his mandate to insurance companies. Both moves are unConstitutional meddling by the state, first in church matters, then in the matters of private companies. This president has never been shy about telling business what to do, with precious little positive results.
Then, by an amazing coincidence, came the silly "testimony" of Ms. Fluke, who wants to engage in nearly continuous recreational sex and demands her insurance pay for her lifestyle choices. One wonders when she finds time to attend classes. Perhaps she doesn't, given she's north of 30 and still in law school.
All this has been stage-managed by Democrats to deflect attention away from matters of more immediate importance. In your case, Ms. Field, they have obviously succeeded.
... but I have never been a member of a union. 40+ years ago I used this technique to get my foot in some doors. I didn't need then, nor any time since, the "help" of bent-nosed union goons or their Democrat enablers.
But what you describe is borderline illegal now. We all haul our differences aboard, never let go of them, and the ship sails in circles, going nowhere.
Celebrating diversity for the sake of diversity is the same as walking the plank. The sharks are waiting.
Suppose you know a company with a job opening that requires your education and some experience. Go there in person, wearing a suit, no visible tattoos or piercings, no blue highlights in your hair, with a resume, and ask politely to see the personnel manager - excuse me - human resources manager.
Be honest about your experience. Offer to do the job without pay for a couple of weeks, while they observe your work, followed by a real interview.
Take my advice only if you're very sure of yourself. Under no circumstances take my advice if the job is unionized. You'll be laughed out of the building.
Starting with the big announcement, Sen. Snowe has been whining about partisanship in DC, neglecting to mention that she caused a good deal of it. She and the other RINOs, "moderates" on both sides, exist primarily to compromise - to get something, anything, done for the American people.
But a politician has to be wearing huge blinders to miss the fact that most of the country is not interested in compromise, especially on issues of "morality", which covers a lot of ground these days. The obvious backlash is partisanship. My way or the highway.
Enjoy retirement, Senator. Now you only have to compromise with Jock.
PP is part of the government in the same way GM is. Question in the mode of Limbaugh: What do you call a company that takes money to climb in bed with the government?
The government already does hand out birth control. It's called Planned Parenthood. Maybe they don't have an office within walking distance of Georgetown Law School.
... sex is the leading cause of pregnancy. Here's a bulletin: sex has consequences and therefore responsibilities. Both people involved share in the responsibility to deal with the consequences, perhaps even ahead of time. What a concept.
What's going on is at least one of those involved is demanding that someone else pick up the responsibility by paying higher insurance premiums so that contraceptive "care" can be "covered" and provided "free".
... that contraceptive products and services must be "free" to those who use them. My car must have an oil change at regular intervals, but I don't expect my car insurance to "cover" routine maintenance, nor do I expect my neighbor to be required to help pay my bills.
A pirate walked into a bar, and the bartender said, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What happened? You look terrible."
"What do you mean?" said the pirate, "I feel fine."
"What about the wooden leg? You didn't have that before."
"Well," said the pirate, "We were in a battle, and I got hit with a cannon ball, but I'm fine now."
The bartender replied, "Well, OK, but what about that hook? What happened to your hand?"
The pirate explained, "We were in another battle. I boarded a ship and got into a sword fight. My hand was cut off. I got fitted with a hook but I'm fine, really."
"What about that eye patch?"
"Oh," said the pirate, "One day we were at sea, and a flock of birds flew over. I looked up, and one of them sh&$ in my eye."
"You're kidding," said the bartender. "You couldn't lose an eye just from bird sh&$."
"It was my first day with the hook."
All I want is for the SJ to identify everyone who writes that has a potentially bias viewpoint. That is everyone, Dan, including you. Especially you. This is the "opinion" section. Your opinion is that anyone who disagrees with you is biased.
In all my twisting, at least I managed to spell your name right. But I may be too sensitive. Perhaps it was just a simple mistake and not another juvenile misspelling.
... they are Democrat in nature. It's the reason their power is slipping away.
So, Breton, you want everyone who writes a LTTE to list his party affiliation? How about age, race, employment status, welfare status, ... any condition that could possibly affect the author's opinion on any subject? Figures.
Your constant portrayal of the SJ's editorial staff as right-wing is laughable. Almost as laughable as your labeling as bigot or racist anyone who disagrees with you on anything.
The only jobs over which Augusta has reasonably direct control are public sector jobs, the one area that unions have left to squeeze. In the previous 16 years of Democrat rule, that area expanded at a furious rate, with no thought to how to pay for the expansion, except the hope that good times would continue forever.
Now that grown-ups are in charge, the entitlement classes are throwing a continuous tantrum. That's the trend that everyone sees.
... already knows the "basics of computers". In the upcoming 12 years of public "education", whatever more he learns about computers will be canceled out, and then some, by the progressive hogwash he'll be expected to swallow.
I have a BA in Computer Science and worked 40+ years in the field, writing programs for many systems, from medical imaging to tactical radar, and much more. In the last 10 years, I was asked regularly to read resumes prior to interviewing potential employees. I lost count of the number of PHDs I saw who could not string a sentence together without several mistakes in grammar and spelling. The worst ones, by far, were those who started on the "basics of computers" in middle school.
Learning how to surf and do email qualifies you for the computer equivalent of flipping burgers. The state's laptop program does more harm than good and, following the old poker advice, we should stop throwing good money after bad.
When a "target" image was spotted on a non-lefty site just after the Giffords shooting, the state controlled media threw a collective tantrum. For the one below, crickets ...
Don't ya just love the hypocrisy of the left .....
It's about a bunch of self-absorbed anti-religion nuts desperate to feel important in their mediocrity by imposing their will on the church using the power of the state.
This exemption that Wrenn's hyperventilating about is just an unconstitutional mandate shifted from the church to insurance companies. It forces them to cover contraception services free of charge, meaning customers (the church) will still pay via higher premiums.
It's all about control, and the state is using this minor issue as pure misdirection. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
This "contraceptive" farce was raised and has been managed by Democrats to attempt to deflect attention away from Obama shredding the Constitution and accumulating dictatorial power in the executive branch.
... during the GWB terms when he was NOT compared to Hitler, and the usual lefty suspects (already babbling below) called it the epitome of patriotism. With typical hypocrisy, Breton and Riml forget the past and call opponents childish authoritarians, while our sainted president is singing (allegedly) with blues bands and doing his best to void the first amendment. What's on display here is selective memory.
The boys at the DNC do a thorough job, don't they?
So, Dave, how much do you pay now for health insurance? How much more are you willing to pay for your "fair share" when OC kicks in full time? I'll take a wild guess: zero and zero.
It just occurred to me that OC is a good abbreviation for ObamaCare, because it's already an abbreviation for "organized crime". The Mafia never dreamed of a cash-cow like this.
"ObamaCare" is a well established nickname for the "Affordable Care Act". It's easier to say and not laced with hypocrisy. It might be affordable to you, but not to the dwindling number of us who actually pay the bills and are faced with staggering increases.
Would you prefer "Barack Insurance"? How about "Hussein Health"? The nickname is racist only under your self-serving definitions. And now we have a new entry in the Breton lexicon: If you disagree with Dan, you're irrational.
Your "idea" is that ObamaCare is perfect and any disagreement is both racist and irrational. The average American does and will continue to argue against that nonsense.
Steve Dosh, a citizen of Hawaii, and verified user here, routinely criticizes LePage for anything he can think of, but nothing that affects him directly. Perhaps you're restricted, Ron, but I'm a US citizen and that's all the standing I need to criticize anyone I believe deserves it.
I like Gov. Christie but I think this was a stupid decision, a small and unnecessary dishonor to the country whose structure enabled him to take over from a crook like Corzine.
Clearly, not only poor but low-income families have been increasingly less able to afford health care insurance without an employer who helps.
Mr. Rhoades, I am upper-middle income, 63, self-employed, and a no-frills Anthem policy for my wife and me is $2400 / month. Instead we have "catastrophic" insurance for an "affordable" $700 / month, and hope for the best.
My premium is that high to make up the deficit caused by government mandate to provide "free" insurance to those poor or low-income families you care so deeply about. So far I have managed not to join their ranks. Under ObamaCare I won't have a choice because it makes everything more expensive and removes the few options remaining.
But my worries will soon be over. In two years I can climb on the Medicare wagon. Right? And if Medicare goes belly-up, ObamaCare will pick up the slack. Right?
As long as government is picking winners and losers, costs increase, options decrease, there will be ever more of the poor and low-income, and fewer of those who pay the tab. If you submit this script to Hollywood, they would reject it as too unbelievable.
Bill Gates started in his parents' garage - pretty close to the corner store - and went on to become the richest man in the world - still is, for all I know. What loopholes did he get? What little guy did he hurt? He developed stuff lots of people wanted and, along the way, converted lots of little guys into millionaires.
Walmart moved to Farmington without tax breaks. But they did hurt a little guy. There was an Ames store right across the street. Ames refused to modernize, refused to compete, and now they're history. At least they didn't demand a bail-out.
OK, Wilma, pick a product that could be "made here and better" that you're ready to pay 2 or 3 times the price of the Chinese version for. The American consumer made his decision 30-40 years ago: Keep prices down or we'll stop buying. The American producer noticed that decision and started moving off-shore, since the only alternative was to go broke and leave the field entirely to the Chinese.
Consider Apple. Their products, extremely popular, are all designed and developed here, by very highly compensated, non-union employees. Those products are all assembled in and distributed from China, because the same jobs here would add so much to the final price that they couldn't compete with other brands. There's a big hole in the US foot and the shot was fired by unions, not greedy corporate executives.
I'm surprised our resident biblical scholars haven't chimed in yet. They don't have much use for Luke, but they love to trot out Mark and the "render" verse, now that they have their very own Caesar.
Could you please name one person who became rich because of federal tax loopholes?
Could you please name one product, now made only in China, that could not be made here for comparable cost, were it not for the greed of corrupt unions and the incompetence of the federal bureaucracy? Our manufacturing base has all but disappeared, not because of corporate greed, but because it's impossible to compete with China's slave labor, coupled with unions clamoring for more of everything, and with the US's business tax rates, highest in the world.
I bought gas yesterday. It's terrible that Obama has broken yet another campaign promise, to develop a comprehensive energy policy. It's even worse that the media is afraid to call him on it.
Mr. Lee and Ms. Meyer: Does our cabal have a secret handshake? How about a password of the day?
For today I nominate the word "vermin" and I'll watch others, who are well qualified in the subject, debate their various odors, while adjusting their tin-foil hats.
Maine Democrats are well skilled in the dictatorial aspects of state government, having exercised them for 30+ years. There's no other way to explain how Eagle Lake, with less than 1000 people, can elect a fellow who considers himself a representative-for-life and who wielded un-democratic power until relegated to the minority.
The Maine constitution specifies perfectly legal ways to change itself. Even your average rat know that.
That is one of the biggest problems in this country, people like Dan Breton. When did you get your medical license? How can you make a determination of a person's inability to work simply by casual observation? When will you get out of the business of judging people and start working on what is wrong in this country. You should be ashamed of yourself, Dan, and that says it all. So make one of your notorious rebuttals and I will continue to tell people like you to BUTT OUT of decisions you're unqualified for.
Government charity creates more dependence because it's a hand out; private charity is a hand up. I am all for charity, but I am all against your telling me how charitable I must be. Or the government telling me.
... to flagrant bigotry and intolerance. A witty retort would be: There's no point in your standing in front of a mirror because you don't cast a reflection.
... to flagrant bigotry and intolerance. A witty retort would be: There's no point in your standing in front of a mirror because you don't cast a reflection.
... is the traditional American belief that individuals are much better than government at identifying who needs help, what kind, and when and where to deliver it. The people of the US help more than all the governments of the world combined. On the contrary, you have bought into the liberal view that all charity must be funneled through government. Whatever "good" is accomplished by the gigantic check-writing schemes we have now, is swamped by the new dependence they create.
... is 29 times the population of Maine, but Maine's house of representatives is nearly twice the size of California's state assembly. Why do Maine people need so much more "government"?
See the discussion under this other letter for contrasting views on what government should "give" people. We get the government we deserve.
... because they'll never learn from you or in school that they will spend the rest of their lives in indentured servitude paying the debts liberals are racking up today pandering to illegal aliens.
When the boats sail up the Damariscotta River, you better hope you're under ground, because the invaders won't be satisfied with a couple of dusty old books.
For a specific example, do you believe Mexico should help Mexicans more, so they might not feel desperate enough to emigrate (now there's a charitable word) to the US and become dependent on our charity?
Without {government}, we would not have Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, loans/grants for education and so on.
Somehow the country managed reasonably well without all those things for about 150 years until, in the 1930s, government started telling us we needed all those things. Ever since, we the people have been happily chewing that excrement sandwich, until now we believe it tastes great, because we can't remember independence and freedom.
The US is also the only first world country that lacks socialism, but we're headed in that direction at a furious pace. What could possible go wrong, especially with all those stellar examples of success in Europe? They're going bankrupt but, boy, they're healthy.
... to solve this recent church-state issue. (By the way, the entire matter is just a smoke-screen to distract attention away from other problems. It seems to be working.)
Part 1 of the solution is to abandon the fairy-tale that employers "give" health insurance to employees. While sometimes it is mandated by government, it is just a cost of doing business. The cost is covered by reducing other compensation, like wages and salary. The cost is increased outrageously when a company must maintain an unproductive staff that does nothing but shuffle insurance paperwork.
Part 2 is to require insurance companies to deal with individuals in the same manner they deal with groups. They may not charge more for a group of one.
Part 3 is to legalize "buffet" policies. If you don't want "coverage" for birth control, you shouldn't have to pay for it. If you DO want it, you should have to pay for it. That's only fair, which leads to ...
Part 4 is to apply this, for the sake of the popular concept of "fairness", to EVERYONE: poor, rich; young, old; military, civilian; private, public - including politicians.
All that could be spelled out on a few sheets of paper, not the 2700 page, forest destroying monstrosity known as ObamaCare.
Maybe I'm the only one to notice. The side discussion under Jason's post below grew from his use of the word "cursing" when, presumably, he meant "cruising". Of course, Breton seized on it like a junkyard dog on a T-bone. It doesn't take much to keep some people amused.
That said, I "curse" while driving, especially when pot-hole surfing in LA. No, Dan, that's not Los Angeles, either.
If Israel has 200, so what? They haven't been threatening for years to wipe Iran off the map. Israel isn't run by a lunatic president and a pack of lunatic "clerics". Israel has shown more restraint and reason than the rest of the countries in the Middle East put together.
Who is asking for war, Mr. Drane? The UN is urging more economic sanctions on Iran, and the Obama administration is giving its lukewarm support, and the lunatics are threatening to shut the straits down and to blast away at anyone who cuts a loud one. Are you urging the US to leave the UN? I'll join you on that one.
In conclusion, Noam Chomsky is one of the most vicious anti-American "intellectuals" ever spawned; Jimmy Carter is the worst president in US history - until recently.
... are different from the narrow, dangerous lanes we have now. The ones I have used are at least two traveling lanes wide, with the EZ-Pass equipment overhead and out of the way.
Take a ride through the Hampton tolls in NH to see how it works. It's like that all along the east coast - except Maine. The lunacy is assuming the new system will have to use existing lanes. Lighten up.
... are in dangerously serious denial. US journalists - the last time that label could be used with a straight face - shredded their remaining dignity during the Nixon administration. Granted that he deserved personal disrespect, but opinion dispensers seized on Watergate like the junkyard dogs they were, and blooded the entire profession.
The change was sealed in the 90s when some dope of a "journalist" asked: Are they boxers or briefs? The bigger dope, Slick Willie, actually answered the question. He should have told the questioner to pound sand. He didn't and at that point there was no respect left for the office or the office holder.
When GWB came in, daily you tolerant "liberals" compared him to Hitler or worse, and wished for his immediate death, as painful as possible. You can't deny it. It's recorded.
Now you get your panties all twisted if anyone refuses to drop to his knees and smooch BHO posterior. You have only yourselves to blame.
It's too bad we didn't see more like it from Jan 2001 through Jan 2009, when the names slung daily made 'communist' seem tame. Maybe I missed a letter from Ms. Lawler back then. I must have because, if she didn't write one, it makes this one a wee bit hypocritical.
If you guys bothered to glance at the print version this morning, you would have seen the added line that it had earlier been printed with an editing mistake. The sloppy paranoia is is all from you.
The House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans have the majority in the House, Democrats in the Senate. A bill must be passed in both chambers before it becomes law. It takes a 2/3 majority in both chambers to override a veto. Just in the House, the Republican majority is nowhere near 2/3. Gridlock.
Here endeth today's lesson on the Constitution. Please pass it on to our elected officials, most of whom have never read the document or, having read it, choose to ignore it.
Now there's a typical content-free post tacked on the end of a discussion when Ron has run out of even remotely coherent ideas, but he feels he has to say something in his inimitable juvenal style.
Just this week, his imperial majesty voided, by royal decree, that part of the 1st amendment you libbies usually reference to as "the doctrine of the separation of church and state" - when it's convenient. The state, in the person of his sublime highness, climbed over the wall of separation right into the pulpit and delivered a sermon, ordering the church to do his bidding - or else. Of course, after hearing the outcry, he offered a compromise: "If the church doesn't want to, I'll command the insurance companies to do my bidding."
Our emperor bears a remarkable resemblance - in deed, not in visage - to one of the Caesars: Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
... that we had to be happy about all that rendering, nor that we had to accept Caesar's word about what was his. But it's exactly what today's Caesar is telling us, along with his belief that God gets nothing.
Liberals love taxes, as long as someone else is paying them.
I'll consider forgiveness and reconciliation when Obama repents, after he's out of office, and only if there any pieces of the country remaining to try to put back together.
I live in Maine, Steve. I don't have ObamaCare or RomneyCare, with or without the cute little mark. I have incredibly expensive private insurance, the only thing left after 20 years of Democrat incompetence. I suppose you're talking about the Peoples Republic of Hawaii. Have another pineapple sandwich.
John Kerry did not receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. If he had, I bet he would not have thrown it away with the others. The most heroic thing he ever did was marry Nurse Fuzzy-Wuzzy.
Dukakis sure looked fierce in that tank. What a hero.
I propose as captain of this lunar expedition our very own moonbat-in-chief, BHO; and as executive officer, of course, Joe "foot-in-mouth" Biden. Lift-off is set for 1/20/13.
Decoteau's letter proves that the full moon exaggerates lunacy.
Interesting. If you listen to people today, no one at all voted for Baldacci in 2006. It must have been rampant voter fraud that got him reelected by that whopping 38%. But don't feel sorry for ol' John. He got a cushy government job, with lots of nice bennies, in the Pentagon, screwing up health insurance for servicemen and veterans. He got the job based on his stellar track record of screwing up health insurance in Maine for everyone.
That's Greek for "fear of people from away." It was just a week or so ago that you said exactly the same thing about someone in Wyoming. Get a grip, Dan. You're using the internet, which makes the world a very small place.
Once again, Breton has no argument to counter the opinion expressed in the letter, so he wants the newspaper to investigate the author. What's next? Perhaps a one way ticket to an attitude adjustment camp out in the gulag?
Doing the work Breton refuses to do, Dr. Nachman is a professor of physics at Montana State University. Is that enough investigation?
Breton just can't stand it when someone uses facts and logic to explode one of his leftist fantasies.
Wind another couple of turns of tin-foil around your head. You can't credit the Koch brothers for every spasm of common sense displayed by others. But, I suppose you can try - it's easier than thinking about issues.
Help for the poor, disabled and elderly is paid for by state taxes collected from people who work. The tax rates are plenty high enough, so the problem is not enough people working. The folks who should be ashamed of themselves are liberals who have spent 20+ years chasing jobs away from Maine.
Champagne gives me a wicked headache, so I avoid it at all cost. I have never eaten caviar and won't start now, even if I could afford it. I'll leave the Ripple and fish eggs to Breton, who seems to have a real jones for them.
In every comment, it's "but you knew that ...". At least it's a break from "your clan".
Property, excise and sales are taxes within a state. They contribute nothing to running the federal government. Employment taxes are supposed to fund Social Security and Medicare, but they really go into the general fund so politicians can buy votes - and the rates have been reduced to buy more votes and hasten the demise of those bloated programs. Federal income taxes fund the federal government, so the half who pay nothing are getting an unfair share of federal services. But Dan already knew that.
Not being a Republican, I can't speak for them. Obviously other groups care about the issue. Just speculating now, I suppose some Republicans might be using the Obama-tax-rate argument: He knows higher rates won't bring in more revenue, but he wants the hikes just in the interest of "fairness".
Beyond that, I didn't say it's a trivial matter - others said it. My belief is it is spectacularly non-trivial to public employee unions, who see their strangle-hold slipping away.
... that right-to-work has very little or no influence at all over any aspect of labor.
Why then did unions howl bloody murder right through yesterday when Indiana became a RTW state? They sure wasted a lot of time, energy and money (follow it) over a trivial matter. Perhaps this issue is really just handwriting-on-the-wall that unions started ignoring decades ago. Unions have almost vanished from the private sector, along with the jobs they destroyed, and unions in the public sector are terrified.
... their non-taxable income? Now there's a real pearl of liberal wisdom. (Sorry I didn't issue an oxymoron alert.)
Where's the cut-off point, Dan, above which you no longer get "exemptions, deductions and the rest"? What is the threshold of evil?
Most of the deductions on a Maine return are simply copied from the federal return, where limits already exist on what one can deduct for mortgage interest, property taxes, ... Those limits kick in for $250K and above, sometimes well below. But you already knew that, being a student of federal and state tax minutiae.
Your complaints are simply wealth envy. Some people know how to make money, you don't and never will, and you want the government to make things "fair" by punishing success. But you know that.
But don't limit it to poor Dan. There's Riml, Albrecht, ...
Didn't you see those signs - Kill the Rich! - last Fall before it got too cold for most of the OWS idiots? Yes, a good many left leaners advocate just that.
... the highest Maine income tax rate kicks in at around $20k/yr for individuals - it's been that way for years. Do you know anyone making even twice that who considers himself rich? Someone making $250k pays exactly the same rate. If you want to make a new bracket with a higher rate, do it - but the numbers aren't there. Liberals think Maine is overrun by rich people who don't pay their "fair" share. But the only way to get significant new revenue is to squeeze the middle class. That's why neither Baldacci nor King dared to try it.
... I can afford to be generous. I'm guessing you're old enough to know that taste is more than that squeal of delight you emit when you bite into a quarter pounder. Maybe not. Most of your comments read like they were composed in a 7th grade boys' room.
Just a few days ago, our pal Dan exposed himself (bad phrase - oh, well) as a serious xenophobe, when he told a member living in Wyoming that he had no authority to comment on the US Constitution. Everyone knows Wyoming is not one of the 57 states. I join you in your part (C), but advise you not to hold your breath.
That is, you could have submitted it any time during the past 30 years without changing a word. In fact, it has been submitted many times by various authors from all over the state. I suppose it might have a slim chance of being noticed by the current legislature, but I won't hold my breath.
But if it gets mentioned beyond an obscure LTTE, guess who will howl the loudest that any change is evil and dangerous? You're right. Those folks who make damn good livings from the current structure funded by property taxes.
... had similar opinions about their economy. If you close your mind and your senses, anything appears rosy - as did Clinton's policies until the bubble burst, and I'm not talking about Monica.
No comment? You better comment now. Pretty soon you won't be allowed to. That's always the pattern approaching totalitarianism - check the SDS little red playbook.
The economy is wonderful - unless you like to eat, have to commute, are trying to keep warm, and would like to plan for the future farther out than two weeks.
Foreign policy is wonderful - if you like the spectacle of POTUS bowing and scraping, when he's not insulting allies.
Health care is just so affordable now - unless you get sick or hurt. But take heart - very soon you'll think of this time as the good old days.
The foreclosure problem is, I have to admit, getting better with the late and unlamented departure of the vaudeville team of Frank & Dodd, the prancing fools.
It's foolish to compare some positions on religion, abortion and gay marriage to the absolute carnage created by BHO. Sure he inherited problems - the only president who didn't was George Washington. But he has spent three years making everything much, much worse. If he gets another term, you and everyone else will have a brand new definition of chaos.
I remember wearing my green gum-rubber boots to and from school in winter, carrying shoes in a paper bag and changing before and after. It doesn't make sense today. If a kid lives more than 10 feet from school, he has to ride a bus. Obesity has nothing to do with the food served in the cafeteria.
But that was back in the bad-old-days. I graduated from high school in 6/66, the number of the beast, which is why I know that from is required in the previous phrase. Girls had to wear skirts or dresses and boys non-blue-jeans trousers. And if guys let their hair get a little too long, they could expect a day off to visit the barber. Two or three years later, kids suddenly acquired "rights" and these rules were dropped - including grammar rules.
Today, any classroom from junior high on up is a freak-show that makes pale in comparison anything you could have seen at the Windsor Fair back in the bad-old-days.
Do slippers matter? No, they're just a small symptom of a much larger, decades long disease.
Are you nuts? (Pause before you answer.) If they allowed one kid to bring a frog, the self-esteem of all the frogless kids would go down, requiring urgent action by teachers, their unions, and all other property tax parasites, to initiate support groups and a well funded frogs-for-kids program. Until all that got going, the one frogful kid would be suspended until he completes a remedial program in recognizing actions detrimental to the collective.
Shoot the frog? Even for suggesting the possibility, you would get picketed by PETA and all the various anti-gun nazis. There would be less reaction if you suggest shooting the kid.
Evidently, Dr. Dosh, your degree is not in medicine, because you clearly have no knowledge of Ritalin. Reports indicate it's a great help in fighting adult hyperactivity.
In the simple (to most people) context of my comment, I asked how much the LSJ pays to comply (prepare and file) with the current federal tax code. I did not ask how much taxes they paid, nor did I imply that they don't pay any. Of course they pay taxes - why they probably even pay their "fair share". They also make a profit for their owners. OMG!!
No amount of tinkering and tweaking will ever make this tax code simple and fair. Burn it, throw it out, and start over with one that's revenue neutral (so you can keep getting your Hawaiian potholes filled) and no loopholes.
The full cost of a tax system is more than simply the amount of tax paid. It also includes the cost of tax planning and paperwork. Economists call these "tax compliance" costs, and the IRS estimates Americans spend 6.6 billion hours per year filling out tax forms—including 1.6 billion hours on the 1040 form alone.
The money wasted on compliance does nothing but pay (very well) a class of lawyers and accountants who live off the system. I would be interested to know what the SJ pays for compliance. So should you, Mr. Rhoades.
There is exactly one way to make our tax code simple and "fair". Burn it.
We have ample proof that being a career politician is not a guarantee the individual knows how to govern. Consider this snip from a very recent speech:
With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow.
Keep? Right. This is blackmail on a much grander scale. But, of course, the ends justify the means.
I meant to point out your "insufferable" quality only. I'll leave your SOB self-description in your hands, because I am not acquainted with your mother.
That stage left you standing at the depot long ago. You did nail the insufferable SOB part, although it's pointless to state in print something so obvious.
This comment doesn't rise to the dignified level of pontification, no matter how many times you post it. It's just a rambling, pointless rant from another closed mind who has to try to reduce to racism and bigotry every disagreement with the anointed one. "Time will only tell." Such profundity.
The last time both sides played by the same rules, more or less, was WWII. The tactical rule was: Bomb the smithereens out of the enemy's civilian population. Was that "morally primitive"? If you say so, but the outcome would have been much different if the US alone had tried to be more subtle.
I would like our government, at any level, to express horror at the idiocy of training a soldier to do a job and, when deployed, telling him he can't do it without a permission slip from a politician.
... would result in a piece of garbage like the EU constitution - about the size of the Manhattan phonebook and a lot less readable. Note that I did not spell that word with a capital "C". It doesn't deserve the honor.
Dosh, aside from the strength of tissue paper, what other aspects make a "good" constitution?
... that any right not explicitly enumerated to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people. It's an ongoing discussion on limits of those enumerated rights.
If you don't buy the insurance, you pay a fine in the form of a tax. If it didn't have this obfuscation and it was paid for through taxes, we wouldn't have this Constitutional debate blurring the real issues.
If he and the unknown authors of ObamaCare had made it a tax instead of a mandate, we wouldn't be talking about it. But we are and it's a useful diversion from the real issue: The act is a wealth sucking, job destroying, abomination.
But, as you say, call it what you like. It can work, technically, only if everyone participates - including unions and their members, the military, and the young - with absolutely no exemptions. Anything else just perpetuates the system where one class subsidizes the other.
... reveals that Mr. Tetenman used to live in Maine and recently moved to Wyoming. It happens a lot. It's called "escaping". I'm sure someone as internet-savvy as Breton could easily find the same information, but it's not as much fun as acusing someone of shilling.
The commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate existing commerce among states, but it does not give the right to create new commerce to regulate. The individual mandate is a tax, but Obama and Democrats are afraid to let that truth out because ObamaCare would be even less popular than it already is.
Again Breton could find the same information, but it's more fun to pretend the Constitution means whatever he wants it to mean. I suppose it's easy to succumb to that delusion for someone who has never read it.
... about the time Edward R. Murrow smoked his last pack. It's an interesting definition some people use. When journalism supports Tron's lefty delusions, it's unbiased; when it doesn't, it's biased, intolerant, prejudiced, apology, probably from the hard-core Tea Party that controls the media and Congress.
... (Republican Home School Academy) is demonstrably better than the DPSF (Democrat Public School Factory) which teaches its kids to carry the spit-bucket for liberals.
... you guys yammer about? Please post just one example of someone who donated to LePage and received in return a "massive" tax cut. Please post one example of someone who received a massive tax cut - period.
I work for myself. I don't get a COLA; not in the past; not now; not in the future. I don't get health insurance from an employer, the state, or the tooth-fairy. The ultimate sacrifice, at the point of the government's gun, is having my earnings stolen from me to pay for benefits for people who "deserve" them.
There's only one word in my post that you can be referring to. It's the same word Breton has included in every post for the past week, although he hasn't been brave enough to spell it with a K.
I have no respect at all for Dan Breton. Why should I use obfuscating language that suggests otherwise?
... is the meaning of "rich" or "fair share", so their blathering about responsibilities is just mud-slinging at a moving target. Which is convenient to them, because that's what the Constitution is to them: a moving target.
Democrats had the majority in both houses of the Maine legislature. If they couldn't get a tax hike passed, it's because Democrats thwarted it. And, please, the Maine Republican party isn't in the same league as Democrats when it comes to outside money to buy votes.
The wealthy in Maine (anyone making more than $20k per year) have been pulling the wagon for decades while you and your klan complain the ride isn't fast enough. Same for the nation. The wealthy pay most of the federal income taxes now, with just under 50% of tax payers paying nothing. They have no skin in the game, as our illustrious president is known to say, when it's personally convenient. There's the shame.
If Breton knew anything about the ME income tax structure, he would understand that it is basically "flat", with the highest rate kicking in at about $20,000 per year for a single person. And it has been that way for decades, meaning it started back in the bad-old-days when Democrats controlled everything. When campaigning, Dems love to bleat about making the "rich" pay their "fair share", but when they get to Augusta they just re-cork their thumbs and it's business as usual.
Democrats refused over and over again to raise taxes enough to cover their profligate spending and, as usual, shoved responsibility off to our children and grandchildren. In 2010 the voters came to their senses.
The only "clan" (sic) Breton speaks for are the riders in the envy wagon.
The majority of Americans agree with all Republicans that ObamaCare is a disaster that will bankrupt the country - that there's nothing affordable about it. What's despicable are folks who don't care about that as long as they keep getting their free bennies that they have "earned".
You use it often enough. Why don't you spell it with a K? You know you want to.
Blacks and Asians, and I'll add Latinos, are more conservative than you liberals believe. They just want to be left alone to succeed or fail without the government on their backs, but you guys insist on shackling them to the Democrat plantation. Lift that bale.
This country has had an oligarchy for more than a century, started by TR, cemented in place by FDR, nurtured by leftists ever since. I agree 100% that it's an anathema. We'll never get rid of it as long as we allow malleable dopes to vote on anything more important than the state flower.
By the way, most parrots I've met can talk you right out of your cage, since their vocabulary doesn't originate with the DNC.
A few days ago, this newspaper ran the cartoon below. Evidently the editors have no problem with suggesting that white rednecks and hicks shouldn't be allowed to vote at all, ID or not. Partisan manipulation occurs from all points along the political spectrum. To claim it comes only from Republicans is just the kind of shallow comment we have all come to expect from Breton.
But not nearly as shallow as suggesting that politics should have no place in political elections.
Jason, take a deep breath. Not one of those countries I listed is a democracy, except in the sense of "mob rule". The military clamped down on Egypt many months ago and we haven't heard squat since - Mubarak looks like a benevolent grandfather. Libya has descended into a Somalia-like system of warlords. Syria is a bloodbath. Arab spring - phooey.
The DOW is up whenever BHO can keep his mouth shut - when the pie-hole-in-chief is open, the DOW tanks. Unemployment is down because of a burst of temp jobs last month - wait for the numbers to be reported next month. Doing better? Have you been to a grocery store recently?
It spikes whenever I see the shambles BHO has made of the economy, foreign policy and defense.
Please. Iran started developing nukes the day the Shah left town, about the same time NK started. BHO is going to leave the Middle East to Mahmoud Inadinnerjacket and concentrate on the Far East, where we must have some allies he hasn't insulted yet.
This administration is pretending it finished Iraq, which is already looking back at the war as the good old days - and Afghanistan is at the top of the list for similar treatment. BHO is also pretending that Egypt, Libya and Syria are now "democracies" who will fill the vacuum he is creating. I predict slag by election day - I just hope it's not here.
You should thank him profusely, Breton, for preserving your freedom to whine in English, instead of German, Japanese or Russian. The way things are going, soon you will have to whine in Chinese. How does one say "Dear Leader" in Mandarin?
Unlike Obama, LePage has not made worse everything he has touched. Well, he has upset the tummy of every leftist in the state and some outside. Keep up the good work, Paul.
In these threads, the term "public employee" means teacher, municipal worker, or government apparatchik. The good folks in our armed forces, in the overwhelming majority, know what they're supposed to be fighting for, when they're not hamstrung by politicians, and who supports them. That goes for most LEOs as well
With that cute phrase "Fux Gnus", are you related to Mark Wrenn? He too is hung up on alleged witticisms like that and considers them oh so clever. Get a room - you two are a perfect match.
Next time? I'm 63, been driving since I was 16, and have never had a ticket for anything. As I observed above about Breton, you must be commenting on your own habits. You gotta go with what you know.
What is this nonsense? The poi has caused severe brain damage. Government should not be the first resort - it should be the last. If you're a resident of Hawaii, why are you shilling for the Maine DHHS? Your grass skirt needs a retread.
Happy New Year to everyone who is employed, especially in what remains of the private sector. If you're tenured, meaning you don't have to take responsibility for your actions, I hope this year brings you close, personal knowledge that actions have consequences. If you're in a union, meaning you pay someone else to do your thinking for you, I hope this year you'll learn how to think for yourself. If you're any kind of public employee, I hope in this year you will be appropriately grateful to the dwindling group of us who pay taxes to support you.
All those hopes will be fulfilled when pigs fly and sing arias.
Significant money will go to those child parents and their spawn (Happy New Year!) instead of the elderly unless cuts (no pun intended) are made to keep those who don't deserve help off the welfare rolls.
... where it belongs. King and Baldacci loaded up the welfare rolls to such an unsustainable level, with no plan whatsoever to pay for it (other than the naive belief that the state's economy would grow forever, in spite of their eager policies to cripple it), that now any attempt at fiscal responsibility gets all the riders off the wagons to "protest" and wring their hands.
Shame? I cannot understand how Angus and John can face themselves in the mirror.
The Democrat-controlled Senate stalled most of President Bush's nominations for the federal court system, an 8-year-long despicable and disgraceful act. It's fine if they don't want to vote for approval, but to filibuster to prevent a vote is undemocratic!
Proving one more time that Democratic has nothing to do with democratic.
... was born in the King regime and raised by the Baldacci regime. Neither of those governors hiked income taxes to cover their deficit spending, because they knew the voters would throw them out if they did. So they let roads and bridges crumble and welched on promises to hospitals. Their gross irresponsibility lasted 16 years until the people finally had enough. Now that a governor is trying to address the issue rationally, a method totally unknown to liberals, it's no wonder that certain blind sycophants are throwing verbal tantrums.
... John Baldacci and Angus King. They invited lots of new riders onto the welfare wagon, and paid for it by ignoring the state's infrastructure and shifting more and more education costs to property tax payers. That irresponsibility led directly to the Democrat bloodbath in Nov. 2010.
Now real people in Augusta are looking at all state-level issues - and how to pay for them, without simply raising income taxes on the dwindling supply of income tax payers. Predictably, liberals just want to put the blinders back on and their heads back in the feed bags.
... the only way a student will learn anything about capitalism, other than the party line (evil, discredited, obsolete, ...), is by joining College Republicans.
... belongs to Baldacci and King, both of whom expanded the welfare rolls by unsustainable amounts. Both had the numbers in the legislature and could have hiked taxes to sustain their expansion, but they didn't, because they knew the voters would give the party the ax. So, with complete heartlessness, they kicked the can down the road, without the slightest care for the future.
The ax fell anyway, the can stopped rolling, and Republicans are trying to deal with the morally unacceptable mess created by Democrats.
“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
You want to jump into the sack with them, Jason? You go first.
The best way to cheapen the deaths of millions is to close your eyes and pretend it can't happen again. Memo to Mahmoud: Proceed any time. No one here will stop you.
In the early 1930s, Hitler had not yet killed millions of Jews, although he had published his intentions for the world to read long since. Very few paid attention; very many paid a price for that inattention.
A good working definition of stupid is, aside from posting juvenile images, ignoring the evidence right in front of you. I nominate Jason Theriault for the office of president of the Maine chapter of the Neville Chamberlain Fan Club.
Just look at Egypt, Greece, Libya, ... coming soon to Europe - all examples of mob-rule, the pinnacle of democracy beloved by Communists and dictators everywhere.
(2) There have been no prosecutions because the alleged perps are all well connected politically, one side or the other. The latest example is John i-dont-know what-happened-to-1.5-billion Corzine.
(3) Would you prefer those companies had been allowed to fail? Yup, me too.
(4) Because OWS does not represent the 99%, they just claim to.
(5) I agree with your plan for Congress, but your money will be safer in a coffee can buried in the back yard.
The real question (1) is: Can the Republic survive? Probably not, given the number of Americans who seem perfectly willing to chuck it away.
... conversation going on about another letter published about the same time as this one. It's about certain taxi drivers in Portland who find it a monumental inconvenience to have to show up in person once a year to renew their hack licenses. One version of the complaint is it cuts into their time for return visits to their home country. What level of nostalgia makes one take an annual trip to a war-torn country with violence and constant unrest? If you're visiting relatives, save your money and bring them here, where we'll have to embrace them - or else!
Morgan's letter is offensive because it assumes that any criticism of current immigration (word very loosely used) practices must be rooted in hatred and fear. My criticism is prompted by a desire for justice all around. Justice for new arrivals, justice for current inmates.
Notice I did not say "fairness". That word has been so overused recently that it is completely drained of meaning.
... because a lot of fools were deluded into believing he would immediately fix everything. Even after three years of utter failure, some still cling to that delusion. Obviously those in Hawaii are not immune.
The comments so far are interesting. Not one of the Obama brown-noses refutes anything Mr. Acheson said, because it can't be done. Instead it's: GWB was worse. Or: Poor old Slick. And, since Breton woke up, it's his usual spew: Democrats are good, Republicans are evil.
But I disagree with the letter. Impeachment would take far too long. Let's wait for the trial and conviction next November.
In this context, the word 'impeach' means that the House, serving as grand jury, voted to send the matter to trial in the Senate, where the jury, 100 senators, voted not-guilty. That is, 'impeach' means the same as 'indict' in regular court settings. And, as in regular court settings, 'not-guilty' does not imply 'innocent'.
Two US presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Neither was convicted. One should have been.
There is no such thing as an illegal immigrant. The true racist among us is the one who praises an illegal alien over a immigrant, one who follow the rules, learns English, learns civics (more than we demand of resident high schoolers) and strives to become an American. They both work and work hard, but the latter wonders why he bothered to put out the extra effort while the former gets all the benefits by just strolling north across the border.
We don't support them? Tell that to the taxpayers in the southern border states about their schools, hospitals, ... It's easy and hypocritical to pontificate under the safety of a 2500 mile buffer. Tronnie is a master.
..., or used to do, is take responsibility for the consequences of exercising their rights. If you scream FIRE in a crowded theater, and someone gets hurt, it's your fault. If you get your wagging jaw slugged, it's the least you deserve. Unfortunately, today, the slugger is the one who will be punished.
Remember the Dixie Chicks? When they shot their mouths off in England (not in the USA, curiously), a good many of their fans here reacted in a perfectly legal manner - they stopped buying CDs and concert tickets. The Chickies responded: Whatever happened to free speech? Nothing, you dumb nitwits!
The political class, more than any other, seems congenitally unable to understand a simple fact in today's world: Whatever you say will be recorded, preserved forever, and will come back to haunt you. It's true also for kiddies, who think nothing about blathering "jokes" on the internet - and for commenters on newspaper websites.
What sort of degree do you have? What field of study? Many college students pick a field based on their personal interests or on what makes them feel good, and completely ignore the job market for that field. When they get that expensive degree, they expect the rest of society to fall all over itself to provide a good job. They got this expectation in high school, or before, when counselors pushed them into college with the sage advice You gotta get a college degree, any subject, to get a good job.
You list your residence as Lewiston. Are you willing to relocate, perhaps to another state? Many recent college graduates make their first decision Where do I want to live?. Too many, as above, completely ignore the job market in their chosen place.
The most common gripe by the Occupy movement is that politics is corrupt. To reduce corruption, the obvious solution is to reduce government. But every other gripe begs for more government. For example, eradicating income inequality, another favorite gripe, requires massive new government regulations and taxes. There's a contradiction. Claiming it isn't is hypocrisy.
... are impressive for several reasons.
(1) Lack of focus. Pick 5 protestors and ask each one what is the purpose of the protest - you'll get 5 completely different answers. The most common theme is hatred of capitalism, although what to replace it with remains unspecified.
(2) Choreography. Far from a spontaneous "grassroots" movement, the protests are planned ahead and coordinated, using technology produced by capitalism.
(3) Violence and racism - especially that old favorite, antisemitism. Compared to these "protests", Tea Party rallies are Sunday afternoon picnics.
The OWS people are being manipulated by individuals and groups who believe it's in their best interests to have our country "fundamentally transformed". That Mr. Obama seems to embrace the movement, while overlooking its obvious faults, is all the more reason to make him a one-term president. That some perceive the movement as simple patriotic dissent makes "change" in 2012 all the more imperative.
In fact, I own one. I also have a 5-year-old grandson. He can do a few things on the iPad, but he prefers my 24" desktop iMac.
That does not imply that I believe he should receive one, paid for by my taxes and yours, in a program with no demonstrable results - except to make more and more people satisfied with mediocrity.
The laptops my children and grandchildren have been receiving, through the program promulgated by King Angus, are the cheap white ones.
<editorial>
Steve, I'll ask nicely again. Please stop overusing the non-alphanumeric characters. They yank the reader's attention away from the substance of what you're trying to say and make them focus instead on how you're saying it - which is, or should be, irrelevant.
</editorial>
Yes, free-market capitalism cooperating with non-intrusive government is an awful, mean, corrupt system. But it's better than any other, especially the various brands of socialism going toes-up all around the planet.
Claire, your touching, leave-it-to-beaver notion of "community" is what I grew up in. Then, starting in the 60s, the government began to dismantle community in favor of a federally mandated and managed "great society". And they have done such a wonderful job that we now have multi-generation "communities" totally dependent on government from cradle to grave.
Ron, you liberals (Is that what you are? I wonder.) grabbed Einstein's definition of insanity and turned it into long-term government policy. You must be proud of your masters' accomplishments.
... to become not needy, so we can concentrate America's incredible generosity on those who can't work. The best way to become not needy is to work at a good job. The way to make more jobs available is to cut taxes, hack away regulations (especially job-killing ObamaCare), and stop knuckling under to union extortion, the main reason for jobs moving off-shore. Most companies aren't looking for more profit, they're just trying to stay alive. That's really difficult with government and unions (but I repeat myself) on their backs.
You have not blessed these pages with your gracious comments since mid August. Have you been ill? I mean something other than the obvious disease of liberalism.
Or did you get your knuckles rapped so hard you can't type?
Here's a congressman, perhaps the only one, who pledged to vote against any legislation that was not explicitly authorized by the Constitution. I don't agree with all his opinions, but calling his core tenet questionable shows complete disrespect and disregard for the document that preserves your right to shoot your mouth off in public.
This letter is right out of the Fox and Piven playbook, expected from anyone with just a two-year degree in SDS Studies.
OK, I lied about the fuel tax - meaning I forgot about it. You lied about the number of taxes, by 200x - meaning you did not engage brain before putting mouth in gear. Mine is a thimble, yours is a 55 gallon drum. Obviously.
I forgot about the fuel tax. Since that does no good at all for anyone, it should be repealed immediately.
I did mention the employment tax. In your rush to call me a liar, you missed it. Self-employed people, like you, also have to pay that tax, both employee and employer parts. Did you know that? Or is your rare book operation a charity?
The communication tax started life in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War. Remember the Maine! 113 years and still kicking. That's what we get for (re)electing professional, career politicians.
Beyond that, if you or anyone else wants to smoke and drink himself to death, I couldn't care less, and I shouldn't have to pay for it. Repeal 'em!
You listed 5 or 6 taxes. That's your 100s or 1000s? You should write campaign copy for Obama since you're so used to inflating everything.
Very many people don't pay federal income tax. Recent reports put the number at 47% of all tax "payers". That is, about half of us, as our illustrious community-organizer-in-chief puts it, have no skin in the game.
Everyone who works pays federal employment taxes, but this terrible burden was reduced for this year, and perhaps will be reduced yet again for next. That is, Social Security and Medicare, funded by those taxes, will be even shakier than they already are.
Those are the biggies that affect the most people. As for your 1000s of other federal taxes, the average person is affected by those no more than a thimble of your blue koolaide.
... are how we arrived at a tax code that is incomprehensible and extremely wasteful. That is, liberals love it, joined by lawyers and accountants, and others who do nothing productive. Burn it, replace it with something that is revenue neutral, in round numbers, and the average person can comply with in 15 minutes on one side of one piece of paper. Yes, 999 is a new tax code, but it's an order of magnitude simpler than the monstrosity we have. The danger is doing nothing while we continue toward national bankruptcy.
I think. It's always difficult for me to parse your statements. I cringe to think the prescriptions you write look like your posts.
If you think questionable financial practices started in the previous administration, you're wearing blue blinders. It started with Carter, plowed ahead under the radar during Reagan/Bush I, and landed with a loud thud when the bubble burst in the 2nd Clinton regime. But he was distracted, of course.
If the occupiers put as much effort into community service as they put into unfocused protesting, the poor and homeless would be well served. Instead they're consuming the public services that usually go to charity.
But, hey, we shouldn't let a few bad apples spoil the barrel. No, we do that only for the Tea Party.
... but very few have listened. Why? Because the reduction was proposed by Democrats. If Republicans had pushed through the exact same thing, there would be 24/7 media "reporting" about the mean right kicking granny out in the snow.
Beyond that, we think we can have our benefits while someone else pays for them, and our pandering politicians on both sides encourage that delusion. Welcome to Greece.
At an evening party, Winston was as usual well into his cups. A real liberal elitist decided to out him in his place. He said: Churchill, you're drunk! To which Winston replied: And you, sir, are ugly. Tomorrow morning, I'll be sober.
... I'm sorry, no offense, I'm not a resident of Lewiston, because I would really enjoy voting for Macdonald.
Hey, I have an idea. Since so many people are determined to keep it easy and convenient, I can become a resident for a day. Or is that just for Democrats?
The Obam-minions tell us there has been no inflation and so the cost-of-living has stayed steady. That's the excuse for no COLA in Social Security for the previous two years. They're right, of course, unless you like to eat.
I know exactly what your standing behind Obama has cost me. I pay income taxes. What has it cost you?
... is Obama's top priority. And he's doing a great job!
You do understand, Al, that only Snowe is up for reelection next year. You'll have to wait a while for Collins. That said, they're both RINOs and should be replaced by conservatives. That's the day that can't come soon enough.
Where there is voting, whether it's a right or privilege, some amendments protect it. #15 says it can't be denied on account of race or color. #17 says people vote for Senators - a stupid idea in 1913, stupid to this day. #19 says it can't be denied on account of sex. #23 says it can't be denied to the dopes who live in DC. #24 says it can't be denied for failure to pay some tax. #26 says it can't be denied to anyone 18 or over but younger than 21 - another stupid idea. But there is no federal right to vote. It's a state thing.
Beyond that, Dan, the Constitution does not give rights. It enumerates those that say what the government can do, and goes to great effort to say what the government can't do. Nowhere does it say that the vote can't be denied to people who can't be bothered to register a couple days ahead.
... is beautiful and the ceremonies opening were moving and dignified. However ...
A better memorial would be more people who actually believe in and live by his philosophy. This kind of memorial, more durable than marble, is about to vanish from overwhelming apathy.
Dr. Dosh, it isn't Cal Thomas suggesting that blacks vote for Obama because he's black. It's the race industrialists, like Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan, Wright, ... Now they're finding out that blacks aren't as stupid as they thought.
Try reading the piece before you jerk your left knee. Put that in your kahuna and smoke it.
So, protesting the president's policies means you're not a patriot. That sure wasn't the rule from 2001 through 2008, when such protesting meant you were a patriot, according to the leftistas. Not a day went by when GWB wasn't compared to Hitler and burned in effigy, or worse. If the occupussies move to DC, they can poop on the White House lawn instead of a public street. The worst that might happen is, next Easter, some kid will find, instead of an egg, something that truly represents the current administration.
... being manipulated by an organized movement with nefarious aims. They are two different groups and the credulity exists only in the minds of those who think there is just one group.
... Mr. Adams worked tirelessly to prevent our country being founded as a democracy. He and most of those we revere as the "founders" understood well that democracy is mob rule. Instead they gave us a republic ... if we can keep it. (To paraphrase Mr. Franklin)
Watch who supports the "occupy" movement. They have been endorsed by the Communist Party and nearly every socialist group in the country, public employee unions (but I repeat myself), and - the most coveted endorsement of all - the American Nazi Party. All these groups have one thing in common: They proclaim love for democracy and hatred for capitalism. If they win, it will be too late for suicide - we'll get a bullet in the forehead.
You want to scathe someone, Mr. Turcotte? Scathe those who are already trying to grab the "occupy" coattails - the White House and Senate democrats.
... are sincere about protesting and exposing the people who have caused high unemployment, the financial mess, and reduced opportunity, they should immediately redeploy their forces to the White House and the Senate side of the Capitol Building.
... for Riml to lament his chosen major of Underwater Basket Weaving. After all, anyone's present situation is the sum of his past decisions. This is news?
I know several 20-somethings with fresh, 4-year college degrees in perfectly reasonable majors. Two examples are: Russian Literature and Oceanography. These two people have several points in common. After graduation, their first decision was to move to Farmington, ME, without the slightest expectation of finding jobs in their chosen fields. They both got on public assistance, did pick-up under-the-table jobs when they felt like it, and settled back in contentment: Ahhh, Maine, the way life should be.
These two are rather busy these days. They're off somewhere marching and chanting to bring down capitalism, the systems that supports them and their bad decisions.
It's fortunate we don't live in a democracy = mob rule. I'm not denying anybody anything - that's your job. I want everyone who is eligible to vote to drag his anal-retentive butt to the polling place, after registering well ahead of time, and to vote according to his beliefs, even if those are different from mine, and especially if they are different from yours. Difficult does not equal impossible - except for the typical liberal.
... during my career. I left Maine in 1966 for college and then work here and there. When I arrived in a new place, the first thing on my to-do list was to register to vote. It had nothing to do with my political beliefs, everything to do with my duty as a citizen. Often it wasn't easy or convenient because, Breton's delusions to the contrary notwithstanding, the only time I have been in a chauffeured limo was for my senior prom, where politics was the last thing on my mind.
In those early years, I was pretty liberal. Jimmy Carter cured me of that forever. Not too long after, I moved back to Maine in 1985, registered in July as an independent, and have remained such ever since. I am an equal opportunity obstructionist who is perfectly content to vote against someone because I don't care for his political agenda. BHO is the latest in a long line of such boneheads and certainly not the last.
... earlier. If you get all your info on the outside world from left-wing sycophant sources (most of them), all you will ever see are images of the Tea Party, or any conservative group, that put it one small step from the Ku Klux Klan and its ladies' auxiliary. Similarly, if all you listen to are the right-wing sources (some radio and one cable channel - unless you like the taste of Breton's koolaide), the OWS is comprised of only hygiene-impaired communists yearning for the good old days of Stalin and Pol Pot and, of course, Che Guevara.
The truth for either side is something else, not likely to be exposed by commenters here.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hoeh, what is your grandson's major there at Amherst? Is it sociology, the last refuge of the incompetent? Art history, really in demand there in Bethel, I bet? Emily Dickinson studies? What will his expensive education qualify him to do out in the real world? Perhaps he will work for an evil corporation and help to invent the next generation of networking, so the groups bent on destruction can be even more coordinated.
Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.
- Emily Dickinson
OMG, she valued individuality! I bet your grandson never heard that one.
... protests put together, few were hurt, few (in the Tea Party) were arrested, and no one had to clean up after them - none of which can be said of the current "protests". Some have a mighty low threshold of chaos and pandemonium - and endorsement. The media did a thorough job of twisting events to portray the Tea Party as violent racists. No twisting is needed to see the "occupiers" as such, and worse.
The Tea Party is working within the US political system to reduce the size of government and especially to reduce its reckless spending. The "occupy" protesters are working to destroy that system - and destroy it violently, given their preferences - although they can't explain what they want in its place. They are not focused and certainly not spontaneous. They are the "useful idiots" seen at every moment of totalitarian history, all with only one thing in common: They are the first to "go" when the revolution succeeds.
In many ways we're already there. Watch TV coverage of the "useful idiots" who are occupying fill-in-the-blank. It's only the signs in English that let you know you're not looking at Athens.
Our resident insomniacs again have nothing of substance to contribute. One pounces on a mistake and calls it a lie, a deliberate act to deceive. Why would a real Republican want to draw attention to RINO Bill to support his position.
The other makes another ad-hominem wrapped in a silly comparison. By the way, Veritas, the letter mentions Charlie Summers, not Charlie Webster. It was probably just an innocent mistake. As Dan can verify, when you're in a rush at midnight, your fingers can get all tangled.
I have seen a copy of the letter. The only way someone can take it as bullying or threatening is if that someone knows he's guilty, or makes a living out of pandering to the guilty.
Let's see. Take away one leaves ... 2010? That year when Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress? And held the presidency? That particular year? But, of course, behind the scenes, Republicans had simply scads of power to block stuff and give more breaks to their pals. Yup, they put a gun to the president's head and forced him to extend the Bush - pardon me - Obama tax rates.
Right. Dan, are you ready to put in a bid on my bridge down in Brooklyn?
... was all cow**** and no hat. Its leader should have worn one to protect us from the glare. Prince John, and before him Czar Angus (cue TV spot of rolling up sleeves), did their best to chase private sector jobs away and, not to coin a phrase, LePage inherited their mess. He and the legislature are trying to plow away the droppings, acknowledging the political and economic reality: The only jobs government can create are in government. Government can create an environment that's friendly to the private sector.
Claire: Tax cuts should be paid for by spending cuts. LePage is being "conservative" - I want him to call for the elimination of the state income tax for everyone.
Ron: How much did you pay year-to-date in employer taxes? I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Never mind - yours is zero.
Terry: BHO is still a socialist. Proposal after proposal, for 2.5 years, he swears will bring a flood of money or flood of jobs to the country. They haven't and they won't. The only thing that trickles from DC in any direction is male bovine excrement.
It's OK with me. California has only an annual emissions check. That state is trying to commit suicide by liberal policies, but it has nothing to do with motor vehicle inspections. But if the defect is there and your car is damaged or, God forbid, you get injured, for lack of knowledge of the defect, you have to promise not to start whining and moaning that the nanny state should have protected you, in spite of your fears.
You show an interesting prejudice, Mr. Tierney, by assuming that anyone who fails an inspection is also out of work. How about a little concern for the guy with a job who can't get to it? Perhaps you assume such a fellow is "rich" and can make alternative arrangements.
The government should do everything in its power to get as many eligible voters out to the polls as possible; and to encourage ineligible voters to follow the few simple rules to become eligible. Unfortunately those rules are too complex for the average Democrat.
... when a national "news" representative starts a brief interview of a governor of a backwater state with a calculated "gotcha" question that has nothing to do with the occasion. Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave.
Maine was turned into a laughingstock long ago by well-spoken, "serious" Democrats in their determination to make welfare, unemployment, and expensive everything the "way life should be".
... and never had any. It has been an anti-American debating society since its inception. Why we allow them to occupy valuable real estate in NYC is a total mystery. And a total waste.
It has no actual authority, either, because of the veto power of Security Council members. This issue is the one and only point of agreement between me and the Obama administration. Someone in DC is smart enough to understand that Israel is the one and only obstacle to Iran's total domination of the Middle East; and that the quickest way to bring Israel down is to have a terrorist "state" with a border within shoulder-carried missile distance of Israel's major airport.
The UN bigshots say they need new buildings to replace those old ones in NYC. I nominate an entirely new site: Port au Prince, Haiti. Let them gaze down from their splendorous heights on the real results of their moral and actual authority.
It is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011. What's that projected 2011 deficit again? Something like 1,500 billion. Aid to Israel is 0.2%, even smaller over the entire budget.
39.3% live in the U.S. Most polls suggest that a huge majority of them are liberals who pay only lip-service to their love for Israel, while planting their real lips firmly on the posterior of Israel's great, new pal there in the White House.
That's a lot of influence. It sure is, on top of total control of the media and the financial system. For a group trying to save Israel, they have done, on average, a lousy job over the past 63 years.
... to your Uncle-Tom list. There will never be equality for all as long as liberals battle against it every inch of the way. They are trying to elevate ignorance to a height it could never attain without their diligent help. The human species would do just fine if liberals would get off its back and stop dragging it down to their sub-species level. What do like, gavone? GodPapa Ginos?
... slavery would have lasted much longer than it did. Without the compromise, the slave states would have had a stranglehold on the House from the very beginning and it would have taken much more than a civil war to get rid of it.
The libs like to parade their moral outrage about "fairness" to mask their real intention: to keep the black population shackled on the Democrat plantation.
... of a bill that addresses the larger problem, of which celling while driving is only a part. The legislature should pass, LEOs should vigorously enforce, and judges should give stiff penalties for violating, a law prohibiting driving while stupid.
After passage, it would have the extra benefit of keeping most legislators away from Augusta.
No, it wasn't with FNC. I was when CNN, MSNBC and all the other left-wing sycophant "opinion" outlets started ignoring the facts completely. Journalism, as an honest profession, died decades ago.
Even before the House vote, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised that majority Democrats will scuttle the measure as soon as it reaches the chamber on Friday.
Even before the House vote, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised that majority Democrats will scuttle the measure as soon as it reaches the chamber on Friday.
What a thundering condemnation! But I will grant you that Mr. Kucera's descriptions of Mr. Steele and Justice Thomas could have been more discreet.
So the answer seems to be, we must recruit non-white voters into Maine to counteract the vicious racism exhibited by the current inmates. That's been going on for years with indifferent results, at best. Every voting bloc, except one, tends to be as "conservative" as any other. You put your thumb right on the exception from 2008 with people voting on exactly one issue - skin color. It's too bad more people don't vote for people like themselves - Americans.
When I was working overseas, I took full advantage of the expatriate tax "loopholes" (much better now) to reduce my tax liability to zero. Only after I came home did my taxes go through the roof.
So now you're in "business", without employees, of course, selling books to the elite. I assume you collect sales tax and send it on to Augusta. If I'm wrong, you MRS lurkers should pay attention. Do you take all the deductions you're "entitled" to on your income tax? If so, you're not paying your "fair share", but I'll bet you'll absolve yourself. If you're looking for justice, you'll never find it under the rules that allow you to ride while others pull.
... with 19% of the vote, Krissie, meaning 81% of the state voted the other way. The bad news for the left is your stridency, here and now, that any criticism of the ∅ne must come from toothless white rednecks and their black lackeys.
OK, Breton, where are you? You're the CEO of Racism R Us. What do you think of Krissie's post? Reminds me of Bull Connor, a card-carrying Democrat.
Sorry, Rimmie, I had better things to do yesterday than read your whining, pestering demands. If your memory wasn't so shot, you would know that I have already answered that question and I thanked you for your service. But I'll try again - maybe you can retain it for more than 20 minutes.
No, Rimmie, I have never served in any branch of the military. While you were floating around south-east Asia like a fuzzy cork, I was in college first with a deferment and then with a high lottery number. In '70 I "deployed" overseas as a civilian contractor, beginning a 40+ year career of paying high taxes to cover benefits for ungrateful braggarts. You should thank me - don't be shy. I'll pause now until pigs fly and sing arias.
With young adults, college kids, and minorities voting early and often, last November they elected a Republican governor and majorities in both houses of the legislature. So all those voters are white, huh? You can always rely on the tolerant, inclusive left to be anything but.
... in the current monstrosity of a tax code, you're definitely unpatriotic. If Earth is where Breton stays, then: Beam me up, Scotty. There's no intelligent life down here.
Kris, hold on a second ... 2..3..4.. OK, I'm calmer now. Of course, Kris, you and I are paying for all that free care through our hiked premiums. I didn't believe I needed to state in print something so obvious. Duh.
After that nonsense, I pretty much agree with what you said. However, if Obamacare is so great, why does it allow the "young" to weasel out and pay a slap-on-the-wrist tax penalty if they don't buy insurance? Why does it do that while eviscerating Medicare at the other end of the spectrum? The answer is that the administration thinks the youth vote is the key to reelection. They need to look at the geezer polls in Florida, which went for the O in '08 and has since done a 180 and then some.
I have a high deductible policy because it's what I can afford ($850/mo), courtesy of decades of Democrat incompetence. Thankfully, the current governor and legislature have begun to unravel it. I may actually be able to afford comprehensive insurance again, for a little while - until Obamacare once again hikes costs out of sight. I wish you luck with your tax-payer funded health care. Just be advised that John Baldacci's new job is at the Pentagon, screwing up military health insurance, based on his vast experience here.
I have read your profile, a load of self-serving horn tooting from someone with a severe case of delusions of grandeur.
Call the SSA and demand a report on the current status of your "account", with principal value plus earned interest. The answer will be very polite bureaucratese that translates to: You fool! You don't have an account, never have had an account, and every penny you and your employers paid on your behalf was immediately squandered by Congress. Have a nice day.
... your books were for the 'well to do' and 'elite'. You did. If that's "ridicule", blame yourself.
Indeed, our medical system is very expensive. When you have a medical issue of some magnitude, which country do you head for? Right, you stay right here because you know you'll get the best care and someone else will take care of most or all the expense. Do you use the VA? Or is the better deal the insurance paid by the good people of Kankakee?
Currently the people who can't afford health care get it free of charge. The biggest single danger to that cushy deal is Obamacare.
... for believing the trust fund fairytale. The SS taxes we pay go directly into the general fund which pays for SS, SSI, and everything else. Most left-wing wackos understand that, although they pretend not to when in full pander mode.
If it isn't repealed, Obamacare will destroy the best medical system on the planet, and every time he mentions health care, the likelihood of repeal increases. He got us out of Iraq, sort of, and into Libya, where he seems eager to welcome an Al Qaeda government. The cards he has put on the table are all jokers and he has more intransigence than he can handle from his own party.
From the other end of the telescope, let me thank you.
Thanks for electing people who thought it was a good idea, in order to buy votes, to cut the tax that supports Social Security, hastening the day of its demise.
For all the other items you listed, thanks for electing people all too willing to perpetuate the myths surrounding this gigantic Ponzi scheme.
But you're wrong, Jason. The new American dream is for someone else to have a job, paying hefty taxes to support your indolence and ignorance.
Like everyone else in the US military, the general had to state this oath: "I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
If he believes his orders are un-Constitutional (unlawful), it is his sworn duty to testify to that belief. The shameful and cowardly act is to keep his mouth shut and do what he's told. It's no big surprise that certain commenters here would overlook the Constitution, what with it being a living-breathing document that can mean anything or nothing.
As soon as you criticize the One's administration even indirectly, the apologists crawl out from under their rocks to deliver their standard telepromptery: Oh, yeah? Halliburton, Cheney, yellow cake, Aboo Grub, ... Get some new material, guys. Those oldies are way out of date.
... when people hear the same story every budget cycle: Give us more money (drumroll) for the children! It's actually more money for salaries and benefits, and the fairytale we're supposed to accept without question is that this translates directly into better education for the kiddies. But the real results are high grades, but lousy test scores, and rising dropout rates. The state isn't the only entity that doesn't fulfill its obligations.
Would you trust the SSA? There's lots of interesting data there. For example, Social Security and Medicare Tax Rates, where you can trace the hikes from 1% up to the current gouging. More interesting is Contribution and Benefit Base, where to can see the changes to the earnings cap. This was changed much more frequently than the rate so our invertebrate politicians could say they didn't raise the SS tax.
David Gagnon forgot one interesting fact. When FDR and the Democrats set up SS back in the 30s, they chose a minimum age to receive benefits - 65, I think, or close to it. Whatever, it was higher than the life expectancy at that time! That is, they hoped and expected not to have to pay out a dime. Oops! Then we ungrateful workers started living longer. How unpatriotic.
By picking him as your example of someone who should be punished forever after doing his time. And, anyhow, racism is always at the top of your hit parade, to the exclusion of all else, a convenient diversion for you to hide behind to avoid acknowledging your other obsessions: anti-Republicanism and wealth envy.
OK, the "system" worked. Vick was arrested, convicted, and served his time. How else would you punish him?
Perhaps you meant symptom. Be that as it may, the rest is your usual irrelevant anti-Republican ranting. You say this is a phony editorial because it advocates rational punishment for dog-fighting / animal-cruelty. You pick an example, slyly avoiding naming a name, of someone who was arrested, tried, convicted and punished for his crime. That should be the end of it, but you're all clenched that the guy has put it past him, and is earning more money in a year than you'll see in your entire life. You're driven more by envy than by political conviction.
But, Breton, Michael Vick is black! It is very very RACIST of you suggest he must be punished for the rest of his life for not living up to your high standards. What a hypocrite. Are you related to Riml?
What are these "right" causes you want the paper to champion? Let me take a wild guess. You want to use all Republican legislators for bear bait, leaving the field open for your precious Democrats to regain power and resume screwing things up.
It's been so long since Ron has seen a clear, short bill, his automatic reaction is to put it down: It's different so it must be bad. Riml has eaten too many of his rare books and now believes that quantity of pages equals quality of thought, all evidence to the contrary.
I'm saving some spicy marinara, Rimmie, just for you, to make palatable your Kibbles N Bits - it's going to be a long winter.
Both sides of one sheet of paper. One side would be even better. If you can't fit it in that size, you shouldn't submit it and Congress for sure shouldn't pass it.
... in forestry. Like all other "accomplishments" of the Obama regime, it can be measured in inches of paper. Wow, Mr. Broderick, for a pretty short letter you crammed in just about all known liberal code phrases.
common sense = liberals represent the voice of reason
working families = union families
responsibility and hard work will be rewarded = more welfare
balanced rebuilding = redistribution of wealth
long-shared and supported ideas = among liberals
fairness and responsibility = dissent will not be tolerated
Like Pelosi, you're correct only in the sense that it must be passed so we can see what's in it. Then the buyer's remorse kicks in.
Good job, Breton! Three complete sentences without accusing someone of racism.
... including the latest "jobs" scam. The only jobs it will create it has already created - some temporary ones involved with the destruction of a small forest to provide paper to print this stupidity on.
Jason, you have not caused the pirate even a slight twinge. He will return soon to smite your turban with his might cutlass.
In the 1960s LBJ began the big lie with the "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty", commencing the modern era of government dependency. Maine Democrats jumped on the liberal bandwagon in the mid 1970s, starting their 35 year march to bankruptcy which, thankfully, is finally being unraveled. Every day in public schools, our kids receive the message that, yes, life is easy, they can do whatever they want, even if there's no demand for it, they can live wherever they like, even though there are no jobs there, and government will always pull the slack, from cradle to grave. Some serious unlearning will be happening very soon.
... and Riml dispenses it in large quantities. Al, note where you are: the LETTERS page under the OPINION section. OPINION - that is, no proof required. I'll take elephant rants over donkey braying any day.
The letter mentions the "political circus". Everyone I know, all along the political spectrum, except for a couple die-hards here, believes that phrase is an incredibly generous summary of the situation in DC.
It then suggests that our illustrious president, who says he wants the circus to end, is really encouraging it to continue full-tilt boogie. I agree.
Where is the racism? Where is even the shadow of racism? If Breton knows, he's keeping it to himself.
The noted circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum once said Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public. If he's right, and I suspect he is, Obama will retire very rich.
It's pretty obvious how I feel. Not so the fuzzy-faced clerk. He never states his own opinions, just recycles long-winded pieces turned up by his "research". Riml's purpose in life is to belittle others, and it's obvious he believes in his mission.
Every time anyone criticizes him, he starts crying "I inherited this mess."
Wait. I bet you were talking about Boehner. Sorry, easy mistake. I would prefer a president with some passion for his country over an automaton who can't say "Good evening" without a teleprompter.
Why does Breton insist on seeing racism where none exists? It is perfectly possible to want Obama gone just because of his dangerous, reckless, hyper-expensive policies.
However, Mr. McClure, I have to disagree on one point. I prefer the election method of removing him. You see, if Obama resigns, Joe Biden becomes president and we would have the "Doddering-gaffer-bonehead in Chief."
Now, if we can persuade both of them to resign, John Boehner becomes president. Hmmmm.
You want the owner of a chicken to pass some competency test. If we required the same of the producers of human beings, the hen issue would vanish - along with most of our other problems.
... when I first asked, but you like to play games. So now we all know that you aren't an employer, you know nothing about what's involved, and your 'gig' is ripping others for doing in a small way something you can't be bothered to do at all. You fault me for not making a lasting commitment when you won't make any at all. What a hypocrite. No big surprise.
It's ironic that you clerk in items that only a select few can afford. When our economics-impaired president, whose posterior you smooch at every opportunity, gets through fleecing the evil rich, your customer base will be quite a bit smaller. When he gets through destroying what's left of the economy, and you get hungry, try eating those uncommon books. They are likely high in fiber, something you obviously need, but not very tasty. I'll hold aside some jars of tomato sauce just for you. Comprehend, appreciate, and grasp this: You can expect a very special price.
Letters like yours are in a 1-to-10 minority around here. Prepare yourself to be called a racist, among other things, when the same-day denizens wake up. I too prefer voters who are organized enough to register early or to take advantage of all the help available to those for whom registration at any time is inconvenient or impossible. I would tend to believe those voters are also sufficiently engaged to know what they're voting on.
It's the same with the 61%-ers who want to change rules to require a majority, not just a plurality, to elect a governor, because they're unhappy with the outcome last November. They don't mention the fact that Mitchell got only 19% of the vote. If their rule had been in place, they would be grousing about Gov. Cutler today. It will guarantee independent governors. That's not necessarily a bad thing - only when you have a liberal, like Angus King, pretending to be an independent.
I remember the goosebumps as I read the last sentence.
Unfortunately, I also remember that, very soon thereafter, Mr. Pitts resumed an 8 year career of bashing every word and act of GWB, whether or not it deserved bashing. He went on autopilot. Since the departure of that easy target, Pitts' columns have been all alike. Whatever the issue, he sees it through the lens of racism.
When he said "You don't know my people", he was speaking about all Americans. Today, he and the people at the top of the current administration attach a much more restricted meaning to that simple statement.
I wish all of the politicians in Washington could read. To learn, most of them would have to start with Dick and Jane. Then, after just a few short years, they could begin to actually read the bills they vote on.
Yesterday at 11:56 I asked you about the salary and benefits your employees receive. In response at 12:53 you demanded that I go first. Fair enough. I answered at 13:45 and expanded on it today at 6:59.
Now it's your turn, although I believe that you can't respond because you don't have employees - or you have some but you pay them under the table.
You sell the works of others, Ron. Those books are not your "product", nor are your posts of silly photos and long-winded screeds that you pass off as your "research". You're a glorified clerk, nothing more.
"Get Real" is a state initiative. Last time I checked, Mike was a member of Congress - temporarily. In most of those 40 years, Democrats in the legislature didn't need to know what constituents wanted - John Martin told them.
... has planned for after the 2012 elections. He won't be going back into the mills, that's for sure, but he'll have a nice cushy federal "retirement" package.
When Mike himself forgets every now and then his party affiliation, Nancy reminds him.
The knees are dirty after your encounter with Conner.
At the height of our season we had 16 employees. Most have gone back to college or high school, five remain to help finish the season, all knew the schedule going in, not one complains. Each one is a bona-fide employee, according to the rules set by MRS and IRS. I withhold their taxes, add my share, send checks every month to those wonderful organizations, and send out W-2's at year end.
Note well, everyone, that Ronald Riml, the great entrepreneur and businessman and name-dropper, once again operates under do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, the constant mantra of hypocritical lefties.
Democrats are wandering all over the state on their "Get Real" campaign to ask constituents what they want. This is a public admission that they have successfully avoided for 40 years any meaningful interaction with constituents except when pandering for votes near election day.
So you equate my use of a diminutive with your scraping the internet for "facts". That explains your juvenile understanding of "adult", a status you have yet to attain.
We all notice that you continue to avoid listing anything about your contributions to local employment. When you have nothing to say, it's best to keep your mouth shut, a lesson you obviously have not learned in your life above deck.
By the way, that would be "whiner", but it's in the 4th grade vocabulary list. Take the test next year. Maybe you can earn more than minimum wage.
Pattie, Rex: Here you can plainly see the downside to a forum where people post under their real names. Any nitwit with internet access can find and post irrelevant personal details when he runs out of anything remotely coherent to say about the subject at hand.
We currently have 5 employees, all part-time, ages from 16 to 25. We pay from minimum wage to, right now, $10/hour. The hourly rate has nothing to do with age, everything to do with attitude. If you show up on time, do the work efficiently, and don't watch the clock, your rate will increase; otherwise, get lost. Not one of those employees is forced to work here - they want to. And we have to turn people away, despite all that heartless treatment.
There is one benefit: a pay check. If you "need" more than that, if you have to "support a family", go elsewhere. This is a small, seasonal operation and it definitely is not a charity.
Just, curious, Rimmie. How much do you pay your employees? Benefits? If you don't have employees, what a heartless conservative you are, keeping all those profits to yourself. Outside your window right now there are probably homeless adults, carrying tattered briefcases, looking longingly at the splendor inside.
... who need a minimum wage job for maybe 10 hours a week - in fact I know many adults who would turn it down because they get a much better deal from DHHS. There is no sense, economic or any other kind, in paying an adult more just because he's an adult. It can only make sense to leftists who believe that all private business must be squeezed to the last nickel. It's easy to identify them. They're the ones lined up with their hands out and saying, like Oliver Twist: Please, sir, I want some more. And more and more and ...
Dan, ever the advocate for the nanny state and now nanny newspapers, would keep all teenagers unemployed and on the street to "protect" them.
I have an idea. The Democrat party, since laws don't apply to them, can recruit all those idle teenyboppers to circulate petitions on same-day registration. Of course we can trust them to obey the child labor laws. Let's hope no kid knocks on the door of a pedophile.
... that the average Democrat wouldn't know honesty, having very little experience with it, if it came up to him on the street and tweaked his nose. You keep watch, Dan, as your party slides even further into irrelevance.
... from Riml Enterprises, using the usual technique: When you have nothing to say on the current subject, switch to another subject. Try to remember which state we're in, Ron. There are plenty of Republicans, more every day, right here in Maine for you to vent your spleen on.
... is a claim of fraud and abuse the equivalent of "targeting the poor"? Since when does anyone need proof to make a claim? If that were true, the SJ would have to shut down the opinion page.
There are increasing numbers of unemployed and working poor because everything the Obama administration does to "help" the jobs picture instead makes it worse. The best way to deal with the overload at DHHS is to fundamentally change the political ideology in Washington - next year.
Since when, Dan, is it a crime to annoy liberals? Mr. O'Keefe is doing a great job at that.
You would not allow a parent, who conveniently now has most of the responsibility for his child's education, to question in public the methods of teachers or the contents of the material they're pounding into the heads of the little darlings. That's scary. You're way beyond unionism and wading in muck the world hasn't seen since Germany in the 30s.
... to an empty household. Is that your definition of crappy? It's empty because decades of liberal policies aimed at dismantling the family have succeeded to a disgusting level.
Raising a kid is a job. If you can't hack that, you shouldn't have kids.
It would invalidate about 90% of Maine's welfare state, the basis of which currently is: If you can manage the monumental accomplishment of producing a child, we'll give you everything you need for the rest of your life. Good luck getting that passed the PC police.
... want to participate as much as they can in their children's education, but are thwarted at every turn by PC regulations promulgated by politicians and unions. Your cowardly old solution is to heap more blame on the messengers and to ignore the message.
Public schools through HS are funded by property taxes, the most regressive tax we have; and of course through the 55% beneficence that Augusta has never even tried to meet. Colleges are funded by private means or public state-level funds, mostly from income taxes. Public education already hits hardest the parents, who you want to blame further, who both (when you can find two in a family) have to work one or more jobs just to tread water to support the rest of the welfare state.
You want to hear unions howl? Suggest that secondary public education be paid for by our wonderful "progressive" income tax. Hold your ears.
The 61%-ers are beating their gums about changing the mechanism from plurality to majority. That's nice, but suppose at the next gubernatorial election, the Democrat wins. (I'll pause for the wild, mindless cheering ...) And further suppose the win is 39% or less. Will this organization, and all those who support them, continue to demand the change? Or will they just go quietly into the night? My money is on the latter, because it's impossible to overestimate the hypocrisy of Democrats.
Yes, Lilly, thank you for noticing that 100 take away 39 leaves 61. Good job! Don't forget it was 62% who voted against Baldacci last time. I realize it's uncomfortable for some to remember things like that, but you can if you put your mind to it.
... and exchanged it for the yoke of a Baldacci. Now that the weight is finally coming off altogether, there will be people who can't deal with the missing burden. Chances are good that they come from the 19% of the popular vote who supported the last Democrat candidate.
... to criticize our politicians at any level? Unless, of course, you have swallowed the hogwash that Obama is perfect in every way, thus any criticism must be rooted in racism. If you have, you'll have plenty of company here.
I can think of maybe a half dozen politicians who I consider truly evil. The vast majority has good intentions, but we all should remember the destination of any road paved with them. Unfortunately the corrupt few command a large audience willing to be led down that road.
"work together" and "polarized name calling". These are just two current code phrases used to sugar-coat an underlying message: You in the opposition must sit down, shut up, and do what you're told, or we'll teach you all about evil and bigotry.
... the quake was a sign that God thinks we haven't suffered enough. If he thought we had suffered enough, he would have made the quake strong enough to keep Congress-critters out of DC for the foreseeable future.
It's the president's fault, due to total incompetence during his first two years, that the people of our country threw the Democrats out the House majority in 2010. House Republicans proposed several solutions to the debt ceiling issue that Senate Democrats refused even to read, because the solutions would have benefited everyone, not just the wagon riders.
Go ahead, Michael, and vote Democrat in 2012. I hope you can deal with loneliness.
... was aimed at Mr. Frecker. By the way, a family making less than the poverty level would still receive $9200. That is, they pay NEGATIVE taxes. Progressives who have concocted the current EIC scam say this is a good thing - as long as it originates with them.
Part of the FairTax legislation is the "prebate", a monthly rebate of the sales tax on the "poverty" level of income. You would know about this if you had actually read the legislation. For example, suppose that level is determined to be $40,000 per year, as in your example. You would receive $9,200 (23%) in 12 equal installments. That is, that family would pay ZERO tax. And the FairTax completely replace employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare) so the lower income folks would make out like bandits.
The prebate would be paid to everyone. Nothing fairer than that, unless your habit is to whine and moan about the rich paying their "fair share". But when some "fat cat" buys a Gulfstream V for $50 million, he'll have to cough up an extra $11.5 million. Isn't that soaking the rich?
That's a lot of checks for the Feds to write, but we already have the infrastructure - it's called Social Security.
The FairTax does affect everyone proportionately. But that fact is ignored by those who a vested interest in the current tax structure.
"If the profits stay overseas, they don't get taxed." That is 100% not true. The US taxes a US corporation on every dime of profit, no matter where it comes from. If they don't report a profit, the IRS will nail them, because they now have a lot more agents, thanks to Obama, looking for opportunities to meet quotas. I agree that GE can afford lawyers and accountants to arrange their affairs to pay minimum tax. That's not cooking the books. That's using the system that has been created by politicians - blame them. Just be aware of which party controlled Congress more often and was responsible for creating the byzantine rules - Democrats.
When you work for a corporation, you get a salary and benefits. How else, exactly, do you expect them to "care" for you? For "corporation", substitute "government", and I ask the same question. The outfit you work for is not a surrogate for your parents - and, no, I hope your dad's head never bursts into flame. Franz Kafka's head is already burning. Ever read The Castle?
I worked for a dozen corporations over the course of a 40 year career. With only one exception, every one of them was run by talented, hard-working people who were compensated accordingly and collaborated willingly with their employees, who they treated with exceptional fairness and consideration.
The exception was GE, the CEO of which now has an office in the White House down the hall from you know who, so is exempt from all criticism, even though it paid no income tax last year, despite being one of the largest corporations on earth.
Corporations are owned my stock-holders, Jason, the vast majority of whom are individuals trying to take responsibility for their own futures by investing their hard-earned money in profitable enterprises. Why did your Dad miss that tidbit? Perhaps he was distracted, on his way to a meeting at the union hall.
US corporations not only have to pay the highest business income tax on the planet, they also have to pay US tax on income earned in other countries. We have the distinction of being the only country that does that. Lucky us!
All the whining about business not paying its "fair share" comes from people who don't want to pay theirs.
The ultimate "quantitative easing" started in 1922. When the German government got a hold of a 1000 mark note, they just stamped it to become a 1 billion mark note.
Here's how you bought a loaf of bread.
The new economics! Brought to you by the Democrat party.
2009 and 2010 saw the attempted beginning of the fundamental transformation of America. They were such a disaster that enough of the country came to its senses and took back the House, to try to stop the bleeding. Evidently it was too late. Obama is determined to lead us into another recession.
Since fiscal bills must originate in the House, it's not likely that they will pass some sort of "revenue" enhancements that the Senate will accept. Nor will the House Republicans get meaningful tax and spending cuts passed the Senate. It's all up to Nov. 2012.
Democrats: Take the House back, get 60 Senate seats, reelect Obama (pardon me: retch), do what you want, and stop whining. Of course, running on your record won't accomplish any of that.
Republicans: Keep the House, sweep into 60 Senate seats, fundamentally transform the occupant of 1600 Penn. Ave., do what you want, and stop whining. Your winning campaign is: The Keystone Kops could do a better job than the current lefties.
... Obama is not riding the bus. He's riding Air Force One (that's the designation for any aircraft POTUS is on) to Martha's Vineyard to work on his golf game, and back and forth to the Blame-Bush-Bus. Heaven forfend he mingle closely with the proletariat, the great unwashed, who might criticize his imperial life-style. In 2.5 years he hasn't shown the slightest interest in saving our money. Why should he start now?
... the stock market tanks and a lot of people become a lot poorer. I believe Jesus also said "The poor will always be among us." Obama is doing a great job making sure Jesus' statement is as true as it can be.
The trend started decades ago, no later than the early 1970s. Trying to change it through taxation will just make it worse, while padding the federal coffers. The traditional method is import tariffs - make the importer pay to bring the end-user price up to US levels - if you can even find the same products made here.
But note well. The prices we pay will go up, either way. Republicans are not directly responsible, although they must share the blame for allowing it to go on this far, especially the absurdly high income tax rates.
Unions are responsible, and their wholly owned subsidiary, the Democrat Party. Their ever increasing demand for "living" wages and benefits have forced many US companies off-shore, many more out of business entirely. Now that they have wrecked the private sector, they're trying for the public sector.
... for the wants of the legislature and governor to trickle down and become codified. After just a few months with a new "board", we see a new set of wants and it's more than a little premature to label them "out of touch". Of course, it's always easy to say someone is out of touch, when all you mean is that he doesn't agree with you.
No one knew about the mural until it was gone. Then for a few weeks, lots of people discovered a long lost appreciation for "art", which they lost again after a few weeks. The lesson learned by LePage is the same lesson learned extremely well by past governors: Never over-estimate the attention span of Maine Democrats.
By profane, I guess you refer to the infamous (made so by Maine media) kiss-my-anatomy episode. My grandmother can do, and does, a lot worse than that. If you refer to his recent telling off some reporters, and I use the term loosely, they deserved it and much more. It's fun to listen to them whine. Anyhow, you set a remarkably low threshold of disrespect.
The "sting" technique has been used since Judas and the reaction is always the same. If you like the outcome, the sting is great; if you don't like the outcome, it's a travesty.
... you are so eager to thump. The actual phrase is: The love of Money is the root of all evil. Being wealthy does not make you evil, contrary to what you read here daily. It means that you are successful through personal initiative or, like the Kennedys, you picked the right parents.
How about our Jewish friends who celebrate the sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening? Shut down everything for a long weekend.
If your family prays on one day but preys on the other six, it is dysfunctional and you won't get into Heaven, no matter how many stores you close.
RIP Jim Carignan. I call him "Jim" because he and I had a lively, extended e-mail discussion years ago, before the advent of on-line commentary like this. He wrote a weekly column that appeared in the SJ's Sunday "Perspective" section.
What you didn't say is that Jim was just about the most "liberal" fellow in the Bates community and the entire state. If he were alive and healthy today, he would be leading the parade to blame all the country's problems on the Tea Party, and to propose fixing those problems by hiking taxes on the "rich". Each column summarized and lauded the major liberal cause of the week.
He and I disagreed on everything, but he lived and wrote according to his beliefs and principles, and that makes him much more than a "good man who will be missed" - it makes him damn near unique in Maine politics.
... worked in low-paying jobs most of their lives and paid into the system ...
Maybe you were speaking in general terms. MaineCare is Medicaid, and workers, whatever the level of their pay, do NOT pay a specific tax for the program, unlike Social Security and Medicare. MaineCare/Medicaid is funded by federal and state general funds - that is, general tax revenues. Whether you agree or disagree with its purposes, it is generosity at the point of a gun.
There is no SS trust fund and never has been. Oh, there's a bunch of paper in a vault somewhere, but we would all be better served if it were turned over to Charmin for recycling.
Current SS taxes go directly into the US Treasury, from which all current expenses are paid - including current SS benefits. SS is right now into deficit spending. This year, for the first time, it takes in less than it pays out. This condition is a couple years ahead of previous projections because you-know-who decided to "stimulate" the economy by reducing the tax.
SS is nothing but a humongous Ponzi scheme. If anyone other than the government tried something similar, they would land in jail.
... is the main pheromone of the US political class, both sides. The best deodorizer is, as always, sunlight. Instead of jerking left knees and blaming all problems on the Tea Party, we should thank them for opening the factory doors and letting us all see how sausages are made.
... of "reporters" actually commits an act of journalism, it's usually a mistake, for which they are reprimanded. And in that crop I do not include pundits, bloggers, columnists - everyone in the opinion business, including most reporters who are supposed to deliver fact and let their audience form its own opinions.
For example. BHO was touted as the best law student the planet has ever seen, and was unanimously appointed to the prestigious position of editor of the Harvard Law Review. Why is it then, with all reporters falling all over themselves to cover every aspect of his life, with all their journalistic principles and dedication to the truth, that no one has been able to uncover his transcripts or even one article published by the august personage?
Perhaps it's because the transcript would reveal, at best, a mediocre student who never wrote a law article worth publishing. We'll never know because the liberal biased journalists won't ask.
... to inject skin color where it has no bearing. I don't care if you're pink with purple polka-dots, if you can't afford the loan, you shouldn't have received it. And, yes, the banks could not say "no". The CRA was only the start of 3 decades of bureaucratic mismanagement that metastasized throughout the economy, making almost every lending decision dependent on race or other matters that should have remained irrelevant. Instead of helping those "brown people" (Don't you just love those cute phrases liberals think make them oh so tolerant and diverse?) the CRA has made their economic lives even more miserable.
... how about Apple? Almost 100% of Apple's manufacturing and assembly takes place overseas, mostly China. Almost 100% of Apple's research and development takes place in California. That is, the highly compensated professional jobs are here, the union jobs are there. And yet, US liberals love Apple, because Steve Jobs is one of them and knows how to stroke their massive egos. Do you want the IRS to confiscate 20-30% of Apple's income and/or penalize them through other tax schemes? Be careful. Apple may have to void that Maine contract where they sell cheap laptops for students to play frisbee with.
There are lots of companies in a similar situation, mostly on a smaller scale. If you dig just a little, you'll always find unions screwing things up for their members.
- The only way to raise significant revenue by increased taxation on the "rich" is to create a new "wealth" tax, different from the income tax. That is, tax what they already have, in addition to what they earn. This has long been a liberal dream. But believe this: it will immediately start "creeping" down into the middle class. Then you'll be looking for new ways to bleed the rich, those foolish enough to remain after the exodus to off-shore havens.
- They are not hoarding wealth, they are protecting it from a government that won't give them straight answers about near-term taxation, budgets, … you name it. The free market hates uncertainty.
- Banks and mortgage companies were forced to forget the criteria for good loans, forced to make risky loans to people who could not possibly pay them back - forced by government policies that would label the banks "racist" if they refused to knuckle under to extortion. Today you can get an excellent loan, for very low interest, almost anywhere - as long as you have the income to support it. Unfortunately, more and more people have no income at all, thanks to the job "destruction" of the Obama administration.
- Bonuses on Wall Street and anywhere else are a vanishingly small part of those companies' profits. This is just more wealth envy - see my first point.
- S & P has a much better track record than our federal government when it comes to analyzing the effects of economic policies. Question: What did Obama predict would happen to unemployment levels after all that stimulating?
- I agree completely about prosecuting those responsible. We will start with the mis-manager-in-chief in November 2012. But then you went on to blame the current favorite scapegoat. The Tea Party is a small part of Congress (although it will be larger soon) and played only a small, but vocal, part in the recent debt-ceiling fiasco. If you throw them into the bay, they'll swim and the American people will help them back to shore. If you want to throw people, start with the Ds and Rs, and throw them out of office.
Albrecht thinks he's channeling Richard Matthews and finds "Tea Party" in his crystal ball, because it's not in the letter. The TP is a small minority in Congress, without the clout to stop anything, let alone push something through. They are vocal and passionate and, without them, there would never have been even a discussion about the debt ceiling - the mindless dopes with D or R after their names would have just hiked it again and continued to goose-step toward bankruptcy.
Albrecht loves the Constitution, the "living, breathing" version that he twists to support his big government, high tax views, as long as he can re-label 90% of the current middle-class as upper, so that his tax-the-rich numbers work.
Albrecht calling anyone else ego-maniacal is crass hypocrisy - and that's his only quality.
The bill contained NOTHING. $1T in spending cuts spread over ten years is $100B per year. In a $4T budget (assuming the Democrats ever get around to proposing one) that's a 2.5% cut. The markets have reacted to that quite properly: Bee Eff Dee.
And, of course, no bill can constrain any future Congress in any way. At any point, even today, they can change it or repeal it. It is NOTHING but vapor. Without the Tea Party, we wouldn't even be talking about trying to get a handle on the country's fiscal affairs. DC would remain on autopilot as we head into total bankruptcy and Weimar-style inflation. You want to see the real "terrorists and hostage takers"? Turn on C-SPAN and watch the Ds and Rs. Oops, you'll have to wait until they return from vacation.
Given his track record, Obama doesn't deserve reelection. There's change that is hoped for by more people every day.
You sound like a fellow extremist, Robert. Oops! Sorry, that was the approved word two weeks ago. Now we're terrorists who take hostages. Doesn't matter, the definition is the same: someone who disagrees with the regime.
Those nasty Democrats played well the roll of terrorists and held the country hostage. Didn't you get the DNC memo about the proper vocabulary to describe your opponents' position?
... on both sides of the aisle. The version used for 2.5 years by Obama and Democrats: Keep spending at all costs and at all times. We have absolutely nothing to show for it, but keep printing that money and pumping it out. To China.
After all that time and all that spending, unemployment is still north of 9%, we have a debt/spending bill that will increase the debt and will increase spending, the stock market tanked, and the country's credit rating has been downgraded.
But, by all means, keep doing the same thing the same way. Einstein is spinning in his grave.
The word millionaire denotes a person who has assets valued at a million dollars or more. It does not mean that person's income is a million dollars per year. Same goes for billionaire. Most "rich" people have very little income, meaning changes in income tax rates don't affect them very much. The Bush tax cuts, now and forever known as the Obama tax cuts, really hit only the middle class, since nearly everyone below that already pays no federal income tax at all.
When folks demand the rich pay their "fair share", they mean the government should tax those assets - sort of a national property tax. It's the only kind of tax that would bring in significant "revenue". Those demanding folks never define "rich" nor "fair share", so such a tax would mean whatever the politicians want it to mean. This topic is really about envy of wealth and of success.
... On the other side of the aisle. The House passed the FAA bill already, but then the Senate objected to some minor issue about - what else? - unionism after the other chamber had left town after the stupid debt kerfuffle. Democrats messed up, so let them pass an emergency continuing resolution.
... Are right in front of you, Mark, trying to make it impossible to vote for anyone who is ineligible to vote. If an out-of-state student is properly registered (ahead of time), he is eligible and no one will stand in his way. And unless he is disabled, he doesn't need a van ride to the polls. Let him show some civic responsibility and drag himself to town hall.
The exercise of democracy in America is more than a free ride + a sandwich + a $5 bill and a list of things to vote for, so you don't have to think.
When a Democrat takes advantage of a law, it's always in the name of fairness and justice; when a Republican takes advantage of the same law, it's a "loophole" that suppresses the downtrodden masses.
When a Democrat takes advantage of a law, it's always in the name of fairness and justice; when a Republican takes advantage of the same law, it's a "loophole" that suppresses the downtrodden masses.
Without descending into puerile language, how much more in federal income taxes are you Democrats willing to pay? You are willing, aren't you, given all the shared sacrifice nonsense emanating from the Whitehouse? Right. Most often the demand comes from the half that pays no federal income tax for the other half, that pays all of it, to pay even more. In your doublespeak vocabulary, this is "fair". Put your money where your running mouth is.
The letter writer mentioned the Obama tax cuts, which were reductions in federal income tax rates. Diddling with employment taxes, which Obama also has already done, is another subject.
Rimmie, your long-winded accusation of intellectual dishonesty is the quintessential pot-calling-the-kettle-black. When the topic is income tax and someone points out the facts, you switch to other taxes. Try to stay focused.
For every dollar Washington spends, 40 cents is borrowed, shoving the responsibility off on our kids and grandkids. We have to stop borrowing and the only way to do that is to reduce spending - on everything - including military. If we don't, veterans, along with everyone else, will be on breadlines and bending knee to foreign masters.
The Bush tax cuts, now known as the Obama tax cuts, applied to all tax payers, not just the rich. But half those taxpayers, the lower income half, pay no federal income tax at all. The only tax hike that has a prayer of improving anything must include that half in some small way, so they actually contribute to the system they receive so much from.
What have they been doing for the previous 35 years? Listening to themselves and their big brothers in Washington while the people of Maine sank ever deeper into government dependency. Get Real is a crock.
Are you finished? Please now dredge up some memos or whatnot setting forth the agenda of CBS and 60 Minutes during Rathergate. Your obvious point is that all "news" organizations, including al-Jazeera, excluding FNC, are 100% objective, with no bias at all. Are you sure you don't want to make an offer on my bridge down in Brooklyn?
Who does own al-Jazeera? The answer, which I can accept as fact without absolute legal documentation, is the Emir.
I have a little security camera which can stream a live feed to the internet. A "reporter" no longer needs a van-load of equipment. That Arab reporter, who can get into Israel a lot easier than an Israeli reporter can get into Qatar, can bring in his innocent laptop and then buy whatever else he needs. It does sort of hint at a foreknowledge of what might happen.
Lack of proof in an opinion piece hasn't stopped anyone yet, in letters or responses, from claiming that indeed FNC is a Republican mouthpiece. When it happens, the silence from those demanding proof is deafening.
... in the US, give or take a few, depending on who you talk to. That does not mean their income is $1 billion per year - that level is reserved for a few oil sheiks. But pretend it's income. How much should they "give"? You say "a few million". What would be their "fair share", that phrase that's thrown around a lot but never defined? Would $100 million be OK? Doing the math, that's $40 billion.
At the time of writing, the US debt is over $14 trillion = $14000 billion. Your new billionaire tax will reduce that by 0.29%. At that rate we'll have that nasty debt paid off in only 300 years.
For another comparison, we pay over $200 billion per year just for interest on the debt. Your new tax is a hefty 20% of that, but it just slows a little the rate of increase.
There's only one plan that will stop the crash: Reduce spending, stop borrowing, balance the budget.
With same-day registration in place, Republicans took the whole thing last November and are actually implementing the things they campaigned on. Meanwhile, Democrats, still smarting from that drubbing, throw a mini tantrum every now and then, including insisting that registering a few days early is beyond the capability of ordinary Americans.
Ms. Ford, the column is, like your letter, an opinion and, like your letter and responses to it, need not contain evidence of any kind. You seem to think these missives are legal documents, not surprising from someone who doesn't understand that "innocent until proven guilty" is a burden placed on the justice system. We ordinary Americans are free to express our boneheaded opinions any time - for evidence, I offer this opinion page.
Sen. Reid says Social Security is fully funded and self-sustaining. Yeah, right.
Even if the debt limit is reached, the feds keep collecting taxes at the same rate. Everyone will get their bennies except perhaps bond holders, who might get stiffed for some interest. But who cares? They're all evil rich fat-cats, especially those huge mutual funds in which are invested most pensions, even for public employees.
If anyone doesn't get paid, it's entirely the decision of the panderer-in-chief.
Democrats won't take responsibility for their own actions without cover from the other side. They bleated this for 8 years of GWB and it continues: We must have bipartisanship!
Rimmie, I'm impressed. It's now a whole day at least during which you haven't resorted to your usual junior-high language. It must be that wonderful discretion you're always complimenting yourself for. It certainly isn't the SJ's policies.
More interesting info, this time from that discredited, fanatic site Office of Management and Budget. Again, lag after the tax cuts, followed by increases in tax revenues to 2008, 20% higher than when Clinton left office. Once again, recession + Obama ...
While Obama is scaring old folks, Harry Reid says there's no problem because Social Security is "fully funded". Dingy Harry has dragged into the 21st century the biggest lie of the 20th.
Republicans have offered to allow the president to raise the limit on his own authority and/or to get rid of the limit altogether. Democrats won't allow that because it exposes their flank, removing all political cover the "debate" provides, allowing ordinary Americans (those who the administration thinks are too stupid to follow these subtle and nuanced discussions) to understand intuitively who is drowning them in red ink.
You're right, Al, there's plenty of blame to spread around, but you'll never see the first commenter acknowledge it.
After the GWB tax cuts, there was an initial decline, then the number of jobs increased quickly. In 2004 the level was essentially the same as when Clinton left office. Increases continued into 2008, when the recession kicked in. In 2009 Obama kicked in. I can't wait for the 2011 numbers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Employees on nonfarm payrolls (thousands)
2000……131,785…Clinton
2001……131,826…Clinton/Bush
2002……130,341…Bush
2003……129,999…Bush
2004……131,435…Bush
2005……133,703…Bush
2006……136,086…Bush
2007……137,598…Bush
2008……136,790…Bush
2009……130,807…Bush/Obama
2010……129,818…Obama
I don't know which is worse: putting Israel on the list, or putting Israel on the list by mistake. Just another in a long and growing list of foreign policy and protocol gaffes by the O administration.
Here's a citation, but of course it comes from an organization with even less credibility than the Murdoch empire. It's odd that this story seems to be mentioned only by those fanatical right-wing pro-Israel sites. I guess the MSM, just full of credibility and pure as the driven snow, had better things to do over the past couple of weeks - like covering the Anthony trial like a cheap suit and scaring old folks.
Tony, that particular writer can take of herself and is no one to be tangled with. My comment was directed at the usual shoot-the-messenger posts that magically appear within minutes after the arrival of a letter from someone on the right.
... you can reduce your dependency on stupid phrases like "Faux News". Actually, I heard about the situation on FNC, part of that organization, long before HNN (Hyena News Network) reported it.
I am glad that Riml finally admitted that he's addicted to those fringe sites. Perhaps with the appropriate therapy he can also admit that FNC makes the rest of the MSM look like what they are: left-wing sycophants.
I knew what was going on and that I had to show my birth certificate. I called before going to ask how to prove the address of my principal residence. Current Maine license? Nope. Valid US passport? Nope. What would you like to see? Don't know - surprise us. I do blame Bush and Congress for this and other stuff that would make Franz Kafka's head explode. And I blame Baldy for reacting like a petulant child and making a bad situation worse.
I have never claimed to be a libertarian. On the other hand, you have claimed to be an authoritarian, when you admitted recently that your exalted position in the Kankakee Keystone Kops allowed you, under your interpretation, to play judge, jury and executioner. Did you get to wear jackboots and little S lightning bolts on your uniform? You authoritarian types really get excitedby this spirit of the law stuff.
That's the only solution your side has for anything. You may not like my opinions, but at least I respond. You just shuck and jive, tell me I'm wrong, and you're going to take your toys and go home. Go already.
It's revealing to learn how you grew up. It explains much of your current rancid bitterness.
So much for belief in the Constitution
By Jonathan Albrecht, verified user — Tue, 07/12/2011 - 13:06
Its one man one vote or the theory that each citizen has an equal opportunity to influence governmental decisions.
If you don't want comments on your gibberish, keep your gibberish to yourself.
(A) And like Prohibition, it should be overwhelmingly repealed.
(B) One person's social tinkering is another's enlightenment.
(C) It may be simple, but it's also true.
I agree that the public schools should teach economics and civics. Both subjects were marginalized as irrelevant back in the 60s. Of course, bringing them back today would present a huge problem. Who would teach them? The crop we have has been soaked for a couple generations in liberal socialist koolaid. But the effort would be worthwhile if even one kid could learn to filter out and dismiss Albrecht nonsense.
I just clicked the "inappropriate" button and sent: Here's another dose of Riml's soft-core profanity. If this is now approved language, please update the policy for your verified users. Thanks.
... the last time I went to renew my driver's license - I had to show my birth certificate. I had to prove I was a resident of Maine and eligible to have that license. It wasn't enough to show my current license - I may have moved out of state. Of course, since I was born in another state, I had the foresight to bring along a few recent utility bills. At the time, the explanation I got was that Maine was having a wicked problem with ineligible folks getting licenses.
Of course there was a problem. Governor Chrome-Dome caused it with his silly "sanctuary state" policies, including handing out driver's licenses to illegal "immigrants" like party favors. After he got slapped hard, the word went out to the DMV to retaliate by making legal renewals as hard as possible.
The country got along pretty well for more than a century without an income tax. Ever since the progressives rammed it down our throats a century ago, it's been just a tool for social tinkering, wasting the country's wealth.
As I said, when a business starts losing customers because their prices are too high, it reduces prices. To make up the difference, it reduces production and/or gets rid of employees, who stop paying income tax and start receiving welfare. Increasing taxes on business results in lowering taxes collected by government. You must have been asleep in economics class when that lesson was presented.
Nor can you find the slightest justification for the liberal doctrine: The government must do everything for everybody. You may now bleat about the "general welfare" clause.
One-man one vote is a SCOTUS decision based on as it should the Constitution. That's hard to parse. Are you bragging or complaining? You started this by asserting the decision was OK because it's supported by the Constitution. Would you mind citing a clause?
A national referendum is where eligible voters nationwide vote a question up or down. That is, individuals affect the decision, performing an end-run around the "republic" structure in the interest of "democracy". This is the perversion we enjoy here in Maine, when the party out of power throws a tantrum.
Businesses treat income tax as another cost of doing business - they factor it into the prices they charge for goods or services. Oh, they file returns and send checks (except for GE, of course, which has more loopholes than oil/gas ever dreamed of), but their customers really pay the tab, all the way down the line until it reaches you and me in the form of higher prices for everything we consume. If customers refuse to buy, businesses contract, first by shedding employees who won't be needed in a smaller operation.
Obama has offered nothing except standard scare tactics. He's using this kabuki theater to try to get reelected so he can spend four years working on his gold game. There's the fraud.
I agree that it's too bad no one is talking about changing the income tax rate to what it should be - zero.
In the current debt ceiling debate (and I use the term loosely), all that Obama has offered is higher taxes, details unspecified. If he wins (meaning the country loses), more businesses will contract or move off shore, pushing unemployment up more, reducing federal tax receipts - because all federal taxes are paid ultimately by individuals.
What's really meaningless is to pout and moan that the American worker has lost his way, and if he just returns to the liberal, union fold, all will be restored to righteousness and glory. The American worker is much too smart to swallow that fairy-tale again.
If Obama and his useful idiots, from DC to Dixfield, have their way, we won't have the opportunity to commit suicide, because they are busy committing homicide.
If you had ever read that document, you would know that we have a republic, not a democracy. We influence decisions of the federal government by voting for president and congress-critters. Your theory of national referenda is absurd and cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution. Liberals trot this out whenever the votes don't go their way. Other times, to them the document is irrelevant.
As an individual, you have the right to believe your one-dollar-one-vote corollary - that right is actually in the Constitution. You can also believe the sun revolves around the earth which is as flat as a pancake - and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that you do.
If the Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves, it's because of today's increasing desire to dispense justice by majority rule. If "the vast majority of Americans" believe, say, Casey Anthony is guilty and should ride the lightning, well plug in Old Sparkie and throw out the unanimous verdict.
With regard to Wal-Mart, the suit alleged that each and every one of 1.5 million female employees was a victim of sex discrimination. It was stupid from beginning to end and SCOTUS was very right to tell them to get lost.
The Arizona law was equally stupid in that, if one candidate received public funds, every other candidate would as well. It that's "fair", then don't give anybody anything and save some tax money. If a candidate can't raise money privately, that's a pretty good indication that his policies don't meet the views of "the vast majority". Aside from that, what would happen if one of those other candidates was from, say, the American Nazi Party?
There are plenty of issues that really make the Founders spin. These are not among them.
You might check with the other half of the state, or more, that is perfectly happy with the progress so far, expecting much more soon. From what we've seen of your half over the past 40 years, stay .. um .. hacked off - it makes it easier for normal people to recognize you.
Oh, Pattie, have the language rules been modified?
Ms. Reese used the phrase in the context of her letter, Bob, where you suggest it is vague and inaccurate. Other folks use it in the context of, say, global warming as absolute proof of their pet theory. Whatever the context, scientific fact is not decided by majority rule. The phrase is vague in every context.
Yes, public employees pay into their retirement system, and some of their income tax goes to subsidize that system. That's twice.
The rest of us, some of our income tax subsidizes that same system. That's once, with no benefit to us. We pay Social Security and Medicare. That's twice, with no subsidy from public employees.
Finally, observing one more time that Social Security is NOT a retirement system like MSRS, we get to fund our own private systems. That's three times, again with no help from the other side.
What I can't stand is folks like Mr. Smith, who continually whine about this lopsided system that's already rigged on their favor.
Take the weekend off, boys. Go to a cookout and/or a parade. Who knows, maybe they're right and it will turn you into Republicans. Although, with friends like you, Republicans don't need any enemies.
Ronnie: I'll accept your assessment, as it comes from an expert blowhard.
Dannie: I'm not assuming anything, I just stated my opinion. Since you're making the claim, prove it. Otherwise, you're just another graduate of the Riml School of Blowharding.
No one wants to deny anyone's right to vote. I want to deny the ability to vote to those who are ineligible. They don't have the right, so it can't be denied.
There evidently are those who want to encourage the ineligible to vote. Your agenda is obvious.
... can answer a stupid question like that. I'll help you. With the unions' ever increasing demands, the companies had a choice: increase prices so much that no one would buy; or scale back on size, quality, ... They chose to scale back to try to stay in business. It didn't matter what they chose, the result would have been the same: hand dominance to non-union Japan. They could have retooled to make the same stuff Japan was making, but they would have lost the competition because Japan could always under-cut the prices.
The story is always the same with rabid unionism. The union bosses make out like the bandits they are, the companies get marginalized, and the former union members wind up on the dole.
... is reaching record levels. Detroit was destroyed by Republicans?! That's a remarkable stretch even for Albrecht. It's obvious Jon doesn't get out of Dixfield very often.
Detroit was descending into the toilet by the mid-70s at the latest, directed by unions, Democrats (but I repeat myself) and hack politicians who couldn't get an entry-level janitorial job in the private sector. Detroit is where the unions drew a line in the sand - if they couldn't get their demands, they would happily destroy the companies and throw all their members under the bus. The bus was made in Japan. Detroit served as a model for the doom of manufacturing across the country.
BHO "saved" the auto industry by printing a mountain of money and screwing bond holders and non-union employees. Nothing was fixed, nothing was changed. The industry will need another transfusion soon, as long as the unions have their poisonous talons sunk this deep.
No Albrecht post would be complete with at least one ad-hominem attack, and he doesn't disappoint.
It is obviously very upsetting to the wagon-riding cadre that their cherished policies of redistribution may, for a change, give the wagon pullers a break.
Follow the "logic". Tighter registration rules favor Republicans. So, loose registration rules favor Democrats, or at least don't hurt them. Rewind to last November, when the loose rules were almost set in concrete, and ... Democrats lost big time. It must be because the rules aren't loose enough. It can't possibly be because enough registered Maine voters finally came to their senses.
Where did Mr. Reed whine about "why should we take them in"? All I see below is someone joining me in pointing out Breton's standard tactic: anyone who disagrees with Dan must be a racist. If you refer to some other thread, you should mention that.
We all know the history of the Somali immigrants in the L/A area. You don't need to restate it because it is, and should be, irrelevant to the original poster's letter. Since you insist on setting it forth again, you have made the same mistake Mr. Cooley did. The YoUMA program should benefit all kids, regardless of race, color or national origin. If it doesn't, then it is racist and should be terminated.
The ugliest racism anywhere in the country is the kind that suggests that some group can't possibly succeed without lots of government and tax-payer assistance. It's the kind promoted by the race "industrialists" like Jackson and Sharpton. And, unfortunately, it's the kind that has been imported to central Maine.
You say it was "so rewarding for the Lewiston students", leaving us to assume that ALL the students benefited. By mentioning one sub-group, you imply they have some special impediments to success, requiring staff help. Are the Somalis dumber than other students in Lewiston? Are they less ambitious? More willing to ride the wagon? Everything I have read suggests the answer is NO to all those questions.
Your letter would have made a much better summary had you stressed the program's benefits for kids, regardless of race or color.
PS: You can always depend on Breton to inject racism when he thinks it's missing. The only undesirables I know are those who post dopey comments at midnight.
The iPad is for kiddies what the McDonald dick-and-jane cash register is to teenagers. It's a crutch and a substitute for learning - and especially a substitute for teaching. The kid who goes through 12 grades of this sort of "help" will, if he's lucky, wind up working for the kid who can add with charcoal and a slate board.
90% or more of a LEO's job is to react by catching an alleged perp after a crime has been committed. 10% or less of his job is to "protect" anyone before the commission of a crime. It's the responsibility of the judicial system to spell out in detail exactly how public resources are to be used to protect us from convicted felons. If LEOs are "proactive", they open a big can of worms of harassment and violation of rights of the poor repeat offender - dumping it right back in the lap of the judicial system.
The cops did their job - the judge stepped on his robe and fell on his face.
... isn't stuck permanently in your cheek, Joe. That condition is not covered under Maine's baroque insurance rules.
Moderates, aiding leftists, have brought Maine to near bankruptcy. The last election was the people telling their state government, in no uncertain terms, to start repairing the damage - and telling Democrats that they didn't learn anything in nearly 40 years of power.
On the national stage, our president certainly isn't learning anything, except how to print money and insult allies.
I was talking about governors of Maine. Another typical i-hate-republicans spew from Veritas, with not one syllable in support of the prolific job creation skills of his beloved Democrats. You're right, Ronnie - it does go on and on - ad nauseam.
Most governors over the past 35 years knew only how to create more government jobs. When any governor showed a sign of enlightenment, the legislature quickly killed it. The secret, that is right out in the open for all to see, is that government cannot create jobs in the private sector. But it sure can destroy them.
... so it must be true? If that works for you, I have a really nice bridge for sale in Brooklyn. Make me an offer - cash only. So your way is the only valid comparison? That makes it real easy on you, not so much for the rest of us.
I got those two actual quotes from anthem.com after plugging in all they asked for. Both listed a bunch of details about what's covered and what's not - they were substantially the same, except for items I mentioned earlier. If that's not good enough for you, nothing will do.
What happened when MEGA started selling their policies? A lot of self-employed people started being able to afford some coverage - non-comprehensive, high deductible policies that "cover" everything and pay for nothing, unless you go over that first high step. It's the insurance I have and pay for - without MEGA I would have nothing and would be risking everything on the next hospital visit. What do you have, Terry, and who pays for it?
What happened with Dirigo? The promise was it would cover, long before now, 400,000 Mainers. Years later, and millions of $$ down the toilet, it covers about 4000 people and enrollment is closed - and has been for about 3 years.
Market forces worked very well until Democrats succumbed to their delusion that they could do everything for everybody - and failed miserably.
Since you believe the regulators kept insurance companies honest, how do you explain all the rate increases over the past 20 years? Somebody else was dishonest. Every year, the Democrat-appointed regulators caved. We could have saved a bunch of money by eliminating the regulators and just putting the process on autopilot, like the gas tax hikes.
The only chance the country has, let alone Maine, is if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and consigned to the dustbin of history, alongside HillaryCare.
Very nice compilation, notable for what it leaves out and assumes.
(1) All those stats are for employees in the private sector. There's no mention of individuals, self-employed, un-employed, and public-sector employees, all of whom have a higher percentage presence in Maine than in the other NE states.
(2) It assumes that "coverage" means the same from state to state, when the reality is it varies widely.
I just looked on Anthem's web-site for an individual policy for a couple, age 63, no dependents, $1000 deductible, 20% coinsurance. In NH it's $1600 per month; in ME it's $2200, 37% higher. There's no shame at all in our newly elected officials trying to bring our costs and coverage into line with our neighbors.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Mark Twain and/or Benjamin Disraeli
... you describe, Ms. Osborne, was created by Democrats in the early 90s with their "mandates" that crippled free-market health insurance. They then doubled-down on failure with Baldacci's massively expensive Dirigo Health. LePage and Republicans are just undoing the damage while, at the same time, Obama is replicating all this expensive failure at a national level.
Similarly, over about the same time span, Democrat "strategizing" has produced high taxes, tangled regulations and a bloated and ever-growing state government. No wonder the electorate finally got fed up.
Maine is now open for business, even though some dopes stole the sign. Whether it's there or not, it's better than the previous sign: Maine: the way life should be - and would, if Democrats would stop meddling with it.
Communism has nothing to do with commune, except etymology. Communes failed because the majority of members wanted to do nothing except enjoy the fruits of the minority's labor. Maine is a commune that has realized its mistake and is just beginning to dismantle itself.
Similarly, communism has nothing to do with community, which more appropriately describes our country's view at its beginning - many people pulling together voluntarily for common goals. There's nothing voluntary about communism.
The correct way to stop being poor is to get a job and earn some money. The best way to accomplish that is to register (I know: Dang, that's hard.), start paying attention to local and state politics, and vote for those people who advocate getting out of the way and letting the private sector work, and against those who want to keep you chained on the welfare plantation. You'll be a card-carrying Republican in no time.
... should be much more difficult than it is - at least as hard as getting a drivers license. Voting is much more dangerous than driving. You should have to study and pass a test. If you are enfranchised without any effort on your part, the privilege means nothing to you, except you will tend to vote for those who promise you the most free goodies.
The elderly, as a group, are far more civically engaged than any other group - just look at all the geezers who participate in this forum. The young - if you're an example - have more than enough energy to drag themselves to a registration place. If you choose not to, why should the rest of us make it easier for you to participate in a process in which you already show minimal interest. The poor? In town hall where I live, there's a big sign: While you're here, register to vote! Perhaps they could register when they come in to sign up for the free goodies.
Mr. Jones made the common mistake of equating 'debt' and 'deficit'. Obama has tripled the deficit, meaning the debt is getting higher three times faster than under GWB. That's the Democrat way. Always has been, always will be.
RWR increased the debt by about $2T in eight years; BHO did that in only two. What a guy! At least Mr. Jones can spell.
I meant to observe that Riml still has a free pass on language from the LSJ staff. They must feel pity for someone who is inarticulate without using junior high boys' room vocabulary.
Minorities and the young vote for Democrats because Democrats promise them an never-ending stream of free stuff. No job, no future, but lots of pretty trinkets. But the bloom is off the rose. Election day 2010 proved that. Election day 2012 will complete the process.
Israel is surrounded by countries and peoples who have sworn to wipe them out and are trying daily. During this wonderful, peaceful Arab Spring, Israel has taken more incoming missiles than in the previous three years. And they go overboard?! I admire their restraint, a quality which is in extremely short supply everywhere else in the Middle East.
Is there a union member out there reading this who has thought: You know, with my education and experience, I'm worth more than what I get now. To accept letters like this one, you have to accept the premise that the union negotiated package is the best you could ever hope for. The unions want you to believe that and, evidently, they are very successful at pushing that fairytale.
If there were no unions, employees would have to stand up for themselves and become real members of the meritocracy. I'll wager most of the union pushers here would be astonished at what employees can accomplish when they're not dragged down by the one-size-fits-all union mentality.
... should be at least as difficult to exercise as the privilege of driving. To get a voting license you should have to study, take instruction, and pass a test. If you can vote just because you managed the incredible feat of living 18 years, you won't attach any importance to it, won't feel any civic duty to understand what you're voting on, and will do what you're told by anyone with an attractive pandering delivery. That pretty much describes today's youth electorate.
... you still have a pig. Of course the waivers aren't permanent, Lil, but the sheer number of them indicate how eagerly states and unions want to stay out of the ObamaCare sty as long as they can, because they have "cadillac" health insurance paid for by OPM*. This porker will provide affordable, comprehensive health insurance when pigs fly.
... for an excellent letter, and an even better response. Ignore Breton. His hang-up du-jour is the "wacko right". You're guilty until you prove yourself innocent, which you have done admirably.
I don't believe that charter schools are the answer. Nor do I believe that throwing ever higher budgets at non-charter schools will solve anything - except union demands. What has a slight chance of providing change we can believe in is a venue for talking about changes to the status quo without drawing an automatic slam from the "wacko left". Have you attended a school board meeting recently and tried to even discuss an issue, let alone criticize the status quo? If you did, I hope you wore your kevlar leisure suit.
I casual reading of that reveals that you don't acknowledge ownership of your posts. That's refreshingly honest. I admit that you have a better than average facility with Google - you quickly find others' work to support positions that you want the rest of us to believe you support. The fact/truth is, you aren't a liberal - you aren't even a Democrat. You just hate anyone on the right side of the spectrum, for reasons that you can't or won't reveal, and find and then spew forth your long-winded plagiarisms. I won't waste my time refuting their opinions. If you ever post one of your own, I will happily display it as the only sideshow in the carny with no audience.
You must mean Democrats, who have completely mangled health insurance in Maine over the past twenty years, and were desperate to maintain the status quo so the general public wouldn't learn how criminally negligent they have been. If they can't swallow LD 1333, let them choke on it. I'm sure their health insurance, that we pay for, will cover appropriate treatment.
there never has been. In the past 3 months (aka the Arab Spring), Israel has received more incoming missiles than in the previous three years. They have defended themselves and, for that, they are vilified.
The people who call themselves Palestinians are being used by other Muslims in the Middle East who can't deal with the fact that they keep attacking Israel, with overwhelming force, and losing - big time. What they can't achieve on the battlefield, they are achieving politically by portraying Israel as the Zionist aggressor. They should all stop the hypocrisy and slip on their swastika armbands.
CAIR in 2010, there were more than 7 million Muslims in the US. So they have the clout advantage in numbers and votes. If they don't exercise that clout, it's not the Jews' fault or Israel's - it's theirs.
Now, the next step is to descend into liberal anti-semitic conspiracy theories about nefarious secret organizations that pull the world's strings. Pull on your hip-boots before walking into that swamp.
Those countries could easily absorb the "Palestinians", but they don't want them. They would rather use them as a pawn to further their real aim - to kill Jews.
John Clement, the current president is making Jimmy Carter look like a foreign policy wizard.
Paragraph 1: Republicans everywhere have lost their way; Democrats are right on track.
2: Democrats have been in control here for the previous 35+ years. They are the ones who have been doing the exempting. Do you put the blame where it belongs? No. As close as you can get is "those people".
3: One person grabbed the power to install the mural as a celebration of unionism. Up it went. But he was a Dem, so it's OK.
4: The total failure of the Dem's health insurance mandates to achieve any of their objectives is just fine. Any change to that lunacy is an insult and flawed.
5: Put Dems back in power. After all, they are entitled.
The OP mentioned the city's website and the LSJ. Which one are you calling a tabloid? As for the laughingstock crack, the city does a great job on its own making itself into one.
And the Democrats controlled the legislature for the previous 35 years. There hasn't been time to undo all that negligence.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious - the middle class picks up the tab. Under single-payer, whatever alias it uses, where do you think the government gets the money to do all that paying? Taxes. So you trade higher premiums for higher taxes, with no systemic changes, except you put bureaucrats in charge. Yup, that's always worked out so well.
... in Maine is with a free market shackled by government mandates and other clueless meddling, which killed competition and pushed premiums up beyond the reach of everyone except the very rich, who don't need health insurance, and the very poor, who get it free.
Maine: we used to have the way life should be, until Democrats began to dismantle it.
... that impacts existing public schools. It is: We must have more money this year than last year. Anything that threatens that cash flow becomes an attack on education itself, first; on teachers and their unions, second; and, third, on the heart strings. After all, it's "for the children", doncha know? It doesn't matter if inflation is zero or if the student population decreases. This issue of charter schools is a huge red herring. Anything that threatens the status quo is evil and must be destroyed.
He's never heard of the concept. To acknowledge that law would blow out of the water all his silly liberal ideas that have but one aim - to keep us dependent. Ernest, you're wasting your breath.
the White House. Oil is traded in US dollars - for now - if that changes, we'll be calling today the good old days. The dollar is being devalued because of inflation. Inflation is happening because we're printing new money, not backed by anything, at light speed to pay for profligate spending. On top of that, of every dollar we spend, 42 cents is borrowed, increasing the interest on the national debt, well on its way to becoming the biggest slice of the federal budget. Bloodsucking is popular everywhere.
That's your job. In 2010, GE paid $1B in income tax on $30B gross profit, for a rate of 3%. But that's OK because GE's CEO practically lives at the White House to advise BHO on money-sucking "green" job schemes.
XOM uses tax loopholes. Big surprise. Who created those loopholes? Congress. Who was in charge of Congress for most of the past 40 years? Democrats. Which one guided the creation of most of the loopholes. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, until he was forced out because of federal indictments leading to prison time. Where was he from? Chicago, where lead all US roads of corruption.
Another oddity in our lunatic tax code, courtesy of the above. The US is perhaps the only major country in the world that taxes the income of its citizens and businesses earned outside the country. When XOM earns $1B in Wazooistan, it pays Wazooistani and US income taxes. I don't blame them at all for using all legal, Democrat-created loopholes available.
... on Faux. You gotta go with what you know. Indeed, I could watch all those wholly owned subsidiaries of the DNC's ministry of truth, just about everything except FNC. I could watch, but I'll never see the truth.
Use of the word "whilst" in public is prima facie evidence of extreme elitism, one manifestation of which is the delusion that one's opinion is the same as truth.
The subject at hand is: Why should I or anyone else be forced to subsidize your opinions through our taxes? If you like the programming so much, please consider increasing your pledged amount to sycophant level. In return, you'll receive a nice pair of blue tinted sunglasses.
It is a well known fact, the truth has a liberal bias.
What's well known, Lilly, is the problem with categorical statements: If you can find just one counter example, the statement is crapola. For example: There are 60 seconds in a minute. That statement is true, no bias one way or the other. Here's the fact:
If a statement has liberal bias, it has a kernel of truth that has been mangled beyond recognition in support of liberal ideology.
Jason, do you have a reference to support your claim that Maine youth and jobs go only to Mass? Of course not. They go all over the country, various places, for various reasons. Mass. has been a high-tech magnet for decades, since the '60s at least, in spite of their Maine-like tinkering with business and social issues, and the attendant high cost of living.
I never said that capitalism is the solution to all problems. I do believe that, without compelling evidence to the contrary, a free-market solution is always better than a government solution. Evidence abounds that Maine's experiment in socialized medicine is an expensive failure. Changes are in order, even if we can't be 100% certain of the outcome, because we can be absolutely certain of the status quo. Dirigo Health is the best example. It was created with the promise that, well before now, around 400,000 Mainers would be covered. Today the figure is about 4,000, off by only a factor of 100. So much for government certainty.
A typical panel discussion on MPBN consists of a few liberals and one token moderate, all saying about the same thing. It's dialogue, I suppose, but hardly provocative when you hear only views with which you already agree. Education is teaching how to think, not what to think.
You have the right to shoot your mouth off; you have the freedom to seek out other sides, some or all. It is a false premise to suggest that only MPBN allows you to understand the difference.
Ms. Gamache says she appreciates an exchange of ideas. That's refreshing, because it has been disallowed for nearly twenty years. Whenever a Maine politician had the temerity to suggest a tweak to the status quo, the Democrat machinery rumbled into action to squelch the exchange. As things may be opening up a bit, here goes.
My wife and I are 63 and we'll cheerfully sign a waiver to the effect that, if she gets pregnant, we'll take care of the situation without recourse to insurance or government handout. Why can't we buy a policy that does NOT provide maternity benefits and, presumably, a significantly lower premium? It's not the insurance companies who say I can't do that; it's the ideology that just lost its stranglehold on Augusta.
If it's biased to imply that government is the root of all that is wrong in the world, it's equally biased to imply that government is the provider of all that is right. Ask folks in Greece.
... one of the big reasons Maine has a small and shrinking youth population, who work for minimum wage because they barely got out of high school, is the lousy insurance environment, just one aspect of the lousy business environment? With government in charge, as it has been, premiums have gone through the roof, competition is illegal, policies are one-size-fits-all, and the only people who are insured are those who are subsidized by employers or government or both. Those are the promises we know about and, boy, are they well kept.
Suppose a senior couple (too young for Medicare) today pays about $3,000 per month. If you think that's a ludicrous figure, go to the Anthem website and find out for yourself, using 63 as an age. The current rules mean that the minimum premium for age 23, for the same policy, is $2,000! 2000*1.5 = 3000. Go back to the web site, pretend you are 23 and living in NH to discover what the premium could be.
The only "affordable" policies now are the high deductible ones. Your fear of what might happen is already here, the direct result of the mandates promulgated by Augusta in the early '90s.
Lefties always blame the evil companies because, if the blame landed where it really belongs, Democrats would be out of power for generations.
... of changing the ratio from 1:1.5 to 1:5. It is to "allow" insurance companies to reduce dramatically premiums for the young, to get more people participating in the pool. Currently a 24 year old in Maine pays much more than a 24 year old in NH for the same policy because it is illegal in ME to lower the premium. That is, youth in ME don't bother with insurance unless they get it "free" from an employer.
Democrats encourage looking at issues backwards. It's the only way they can spin a legacy out of 35 years of failure.
that it's not your words - too many syllables and strung together too well. Follow your own advice, swabbie. Of course, if you actually think before posting, we'll never hear from you again.
No pensions here. Everything I have came from my own work and investing - not one dime extorted from employers or taxpayers - no inheritance or trust fund, either. I know you don't believe me, this concept being totally foreign to you. But we Republicans embrace and encourage taking personal responsibility. Enjoying the wagon ride?
the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.
It has nothing to do with facts or lies; it has to do with indiscriminate copying and pasting. Arrest yourself. There's none so loud and whiny as a former cop in an orange jumpsuit.
But not as boring as reading plagiarized comments.
Whatever the speed, there wasn't enough time to understand the contents or what it would cost, the same whining now coming from Maine Dems over a bill of much smaller scale. They had nearly 20 years to collect real data on the idiocy they foisted on us - they know full well what's in it and how much it has cost. They just don't want the voting public to know.
when Obamacare was passed at the speed of light, no debate, no amendments, along strict party lines. You can't have it both ways. And, no, this is not a Democracy.
It is a little like football. Democrats have had the ball for 4 downs (35 years) and failed to advance, even lost yardage. So the ball went to the other side with good field position, and the Dems are predictably whining about the rules, rather than their own lack of leadership. 1st and 10!
... not one word detailing any lie - excuse me - inaccuracy, kernel of truth, assumption or conclusion. Quoting now - Don't you just hate that? - ... your statements as either extreme biased opinions, or provable falsities ... Where precisely did you mention all that other stuff? Nowhere. That's your tactic, Tronnie - say one thing, back-pedal and claim to have said something else. It's not very original - it's used by BHO and everyone in his administration.
... Mr. Breton thinks my post above is full of lies, although he can't be bothered to point out even one. Instead he would rather talk about FNC and Latin. I'll try to help the handicapped.
Were the mandates passed in the early '90s? Yes. Who controlled both houses of the legislature? Democrats. Pick just one mandate: Anyone can get insurance at any time, without regard to condition, current or previous. This led to the standard practice: Don't get insurance until you get sick or hurt. In order to pay for such idiocy, the few remaining insurance companies had to hike premiums way up on all of us.
Is Dirigo Health the biggest money sucker the state has ever known? Yes. (Except perhaps the gas tax.)
... , and so has everyone else, that all your posts are ad hominem. This is your second comment in this thread and you have not yet contributed an objective syllable on the subject. Save your strength, old fella. I'll do it ...
Oh, Pattie. Tron would like you to punish Frostproof for another vicious, unprovoked attack. Thank you for your attention.
... was created by Democrats when they enacted those well-known mandates in the early '90s. They immediately killed competition and started pushing premiums into the stratosphere, leading to the black hole of liberalism known as Dirigo Health.
Based on his record of monumental failure, former governor 38 got a sweet job in DC to begin screwing up health insurance for our military. Look on the bright side - at least he's out of Maine.
There is a growing lack of support for those whose communication remains constant, year in and year out: Just throw more money at teachers in salary and benefits, and good education will follow.
It's curious that your letter doesn't mention two items. (1) That message has never been true yet. (2) The major player shouting that message the loudest is education unions.
But we're supposed to overlook those items and heap all the blame onto Augusta and DC and ... well, anyone who demands some results for all that money and all those promises.
By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, there is a Susan Callahan on the RSU #16 school board.
Back in 2008, if more people understood that the originator of the "hope and change" message was a dilettante communist whose purpose was fundamental transformation toward some unspecified target, we could have avoided lots of impact.
When I moved back to Maine in the summer of 1985, during that winter and the next several, we had many nights where the temp dipped to -20 or lower. I haven't seen that for 10 years and much prefer it this way over "the way they were."
Marsha, have you considered taking your two degrees and moving to where the jobs are? If you're waiting for the jobs to find you in Richmond, you're not going to "save the environment", you're going to be part of the environment.
Have you ever negotiated with a doctor or a clinic or a hospital over the cost of some medical "event"? No, why should you, since you have someone else paying for your health insurance, which will remain "primary" until you take a dirt nap. Believe me - or don't, I couldn't care less - they'll take a cash offer now always over long term payments.
Yes, there are a lot of thugs in the health insurance racket. Most of them are in DC and Augusta and all of them have a "D" after their names, not a "Dr." in front.
I focused on the one result that is obviously true, no motivations required. As for the treasure trove, even if it's more than OBL's home movies, we'll likely never know. Meanwhile, the story changes by the hour.
... under a policy that had been in place for nearly ten years. For that, he deserves some credit, far less than is being heaped on him. Killing OBL is a symbolic victory with one practical result: Every jihadist in the world is sharpening his scimitar and waiting for orders from the new leader.
While you're enjoying your extra sleep, you had better keep one eye open.
I agree. Social Security is not a retirement "plan", nor is it paid for by the participants. SS was created to be "insurance" against abject poverty for those folks who get to old age with nothing else. SS is paid for by current "contributions". The money extorted from you and me during past years was immediately spent on SS benefits and other things. There is no lockbox.
Similarly, Medicare was back-up "health insurance" for those same folks.
Over the decades since, more and more people every year believe that all they will need are these two programs, so they don't bother to do anything for themselves. Politicians, especially those on the left, have encouraged this fairytale, wisely equating more government dependency with more Democrat votes.
As these programs approach bankruptcy, their ugly undersides are becoming visible.
I actually agreed with your original post, until you descended into (1) blame Bush and (2) Republicans are all those nasty names. You are very competent, no confirmation needed, in drowning commentary in partisan nonsense.
... that private sector workers pay quite a bit more than public sector workers for retirement. I did not say that I want to do without state services - I would like to even up taxes paid for retirement.
Since you know so much about Wall St. and Bernie, I'll let you deal with them. If I had been allowed to deposit my SS extortion into a simple savings account, today I would be a multi-millionaire and could afford to retire to my compound in the Northwest Territories.
Workers who pay state income and property taxes would pay for the rest of state workers’ retirement.
Where do you suppose the state and municipalities get money to do anything? Not a penny of Social Security contributions goes to MSRS. That group of tax payers does indeed include workers in the public sector. But those of us in the private sector get to pay the taxes AND Social Security - and then, if anything's left, put something into a real retirement system. What a deal.
Mr. Plourde, the money you contributed to SS years ago was spent years ago. The money paid today in SS benefits comes from taxes paid today.
You lament "Given the choice ..." Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to become a state employee? No, you knew the deal going in. I wish I had had the choice, starting 40+ years ago, to deposit my SS taxes into a real investment. Instead, the gun at my head forced me to throw all that money down the federal toilet.
It's known as an election. If you're talking about more than that, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it and have it used against you next time.
... for accomplishing what no one else could do. You displaced from the front-page the "news" about the GREAT, BIG, COSMICALLY IMPORTANT MURAL CONTROVERSY.
Bless you. I know you'll do well, probably much better than at UM, in your next coaching position.
... Ms. Burns, those workers will spend their raise on the increased prices that they will have to pay for goods and services. Any increase in MW percolates throughout the state economy in a matter of days, after which those workers are right back where they started.
Instead we should tell those workers to get some training and/or education to qualify for a real job whose worth is genuine, not defined by some artificial minimum. If you or they say that that stuff isn't available, they you're blind and deaf and qualify for disability.
If you say those good jobs aren't available, you're probably right. So move to where they are available. If you sit around here waiting for the state government to improve your quality of life, you have only yourself to blame when it doesn't happen.
... earns, yes, wages or salary - he does not get more than a small fraction of income from "unearned" sources (probably no more than the average Democrat) which were, of course, earned earlier and now are paying back a little to the smart "investor". You lefties are at your silliest when you play the wealth envy game and try to claim all Republicans are closet Kennedys. That's as silly as claiming that all Democrats are entitlement royalty. Oh, wait ...
... or anyone else who, for whatever reason, don't have a driver's license, can get a state ID card. You don't even need to take an eye test, so you can leave on your blue tinted shades.
A college student with an ID from back home should vote back home. Get an absentee ballot. Since dead Democrats seem to able to get one, with a little effort the average college student can too.
The motivation is to try to ensure that only eligible voters actually vote. The politics is to try to make "eligible" so squishy that it means nothing.
Oh, and Tron, if the desire is to have a high turn-out on election day, move it to the weekend. This concept comes up every now and then, but it's always squashed by lefties. Tuesday is a work day, most Republicans work, so some of them can't get to the polls. Saturday would allow those disenfranchised right-wing wackos to vote, thus ensuring more support for voter ID.
... pulling a couple of examples out of your .. um .. hat and implying that all employers would exploit the poor worker, if only the beneficent unions and Democrats (but I repeat myself) would get out of the way. Any competent data analyst would warn that it's always dangerous to extrapolate from one or two points. But, in Maine, it is obviously very difficult to find a competent data analyst.
The dependent in Maine have been punished severely, until recently, for stepping off the liberal plantation. Finally they may have a shot at independence and climbing out of the quicksand muck of Democrat welfare.
I'm glad we agree about the income tax. Get rid of it, individual and business. It does nothing except increase prices for everyone.
... minimum wage are grossly overpaid. I employ several teenagers and pay each one more than MW, and will continue that policy because of enlightened self-interest: paid well, they perform well, and I don't need the nanny-state to explain that to me - nor do I need you to do it.
The state's tax structure is not fair, it's stupid. You're "rich" (paying the highest rate) when you make about $20K. Ask your union-member buddies who make that, if you can find any, if they feel rich.
I agree that sweatshops are right here in Maine. They are encouraged by decades of Democrat policies that keep Mainers dependent on the state and unwilling and unable to better themselves, for fear of losing welfare if they get too "rich".
If every Mainer were in a union, everything we buy would cost us about 5x what it costs today. I don't know how I would pull that slack, and neither do you.
... union history mural. The only thing unions have accomplished for Maine workers in recent decades is treat them as cash-cows for Democrats. If every union in the state disappeared today (we can but wish), there would be no effect at all on labor laws. But the sycophants trot out child labor and sweatshops every time to scare the masses, who are growing really tired of being called stupid by the no-longer-ruling elites.
... a democracy and was never supposed to be. We elect people to represent us on most decisions and, when free elections don't produce results you like, you want to change the rules or recall or impeach - or change our form of government to mob rule. Go visit the mural at its new home.
... more than whats-his-name, the previous governor, who spent 8 long years politely saying whatever his current audience wanted to hear, while guiding the state to the verge of bankruptcy.
Yes, we now have a governor with rough edges and blunt speech. Good. After all these years without it, that stink you all complain about is just fresh air. That's why you don't know how to deal with it.
... where they belong - the Maine headquarters of SEIU. The murals celebrate the history of unions, not the history of labor, and all the recent hyperventilating won't change that a bit.
I agree the gov. should be creating jobs. The only way to do that is to cut taxes, red tape and especially state spending.
... at Washington Square in NYC in the late 60s. At that time, most of the classroom buildings were located on the block that was destroyed by the Triangle Fire. That said, the occasion is not celebrating the history of labor - it celebrates the history of labor unions. The two concepts are not equivalent and are diverging more with every passing year, as union membership continues to decline because more and more people understand that unions are living on their glory of 50 years ago.
Whenever there was an issue of even minor controversy, he would trot out the all-purpose talking point: Republicans have offered no alternatives. Then he would do what he wanted to do in the first place. It's easy to find those who agree with you if you ignore everyone else.
... the usual silly side comments, I resent your original implication that someone who doesn't want to pay union dues is a slacker, compounded by your reply that implies that a union member can't be a slacker. There are slackers everywhere. They can be identified by their words "Someone is oppressing me!" and their stance: hand out, palm up.
... is the worst scofflaw with it horde of "confidential" employees who are NOT union members and do NOT benefit from the union's selfless efforts - because they are paid much more than union scale and make their own benefits.
No, Dan, it's not fair that some union slacker receives the same wages and benefits as a diligent worker, union or not, just because he paid the mandatory extortion. Unions hate the right-to-work movement because their membership continues to decline and they don't want to lose their last remaining cash-cow, the public sector worker.
On the state website, see this Maine DOT article of 2/1/2010 from back in the good old days when everything was run by polite, super-intelligent Democrats, so it must be true.
The number of Maine workers belonging to unions declined last year to 11.7 percent of the total workforce, down from 12.3 percent the year before. … In the U.S. more public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private sector employees (7.4 million) …
Also on the state website, the Local Area Unemployment Statistics puts the number employed around 2/1/2010 at 640,000. Using the percentages above, that's about 75,000 union members, more than half of whom work in the public sector.
The 2010 census puts Maine's 2009 population at 1.3 million. So all this breathless gushing in defense of the poor, downtrodden Maine worker relates to less than 6% of the people in the state, at the expense of the other 94%, to whom the promise is: You will keep paying through the nose.
In the private sector, all unions are almost extinct. In the public sector, unions are so intertwined with politics that it's impossible to say when one ends and the other begins.
... except for Baldacci, King, McKernon, ... Thievery has a long tradition among Maine politicians. LePage had his experience as a desperate child, the other as calculating adults, who seem immune to embarrassment.
The history of the Maine worker is not the same as the history of unions in Maine, although the unions and their political bedfellows would like you to believe they're the same. A mural celebrating unions has no place at all in a state government building.
The UN authorized, it did not order. If the members of NATO decided to act on the blanket authorization, they violated their own charter. The treaty says that if one member is attacked, the other members will come to its defense. Is Libya a member of NATO? Is NATO now transmogrified into the public safety officer for Europe - and North Africa?
I paid a boat load of taxes to support you and others who volunteered to work in the dirt, grit and blood. Thanks, by the way. If I and others like me had refused, today you wouldn't have the luxury of complaining about anything. They don't allow blogging in the gulag.
... most of them have a much better situation than the rest of us who pay to support them, thanks to Baldacci. Since you seem to have the numbers at your fingertips, how many state employees were there in 1/95 vs 1/03?
You're blaming the kids?! Wow, that's a new one. Those ungrateful yard-apes get educated here and then leave to find a job, which is why businesses don't come here. Baloney.
Business stays away because the taxes, regulations and expenses scare them from even considering Maine, no matter the number of educated workers we have.
... we had two liberals in the Blaine house who did nothing to fix the problem. Instead, they expanded state government as fast as possible, while herding private sector businesses and jobs out of state.
The order? Do you have a link to the text of that order?
Since you asked, yes, the US should pull out of NATO. Under that treaty, we pay most of the bills while the other signatories spend their money funding their failed experiments in socialism. NATO made some sense back when there was one big threat to Europe. That threat has been replaced by the threat of suicide by Muslim immigration, which no one will control for fear of being called intolerant.
At least, they weren't the same when the president was Republican and the country was Iraq. The Constitution does not require an attack because the UN authorized one. Obama decided, he owns it.
Jon, you're the one who tries to pass off your beliefs as the one true way. I'm just posting my opinions and I couldn't care less if they don't fit in your world view, where all data line up obediently to be analyzed.
I'll agree to this statement: Racism is a political strategy to divide people by racial antagonism so that race-panderers can retain power. That's how Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton live the good life.
... except for the irresistible zinger this administration (and those before it). Of course, this administration has been in office for less than three months and those before it had sixteen years to avoid giving relief to property tax payers.
As one myself, I'm all for reducing property taxes, but how do you propose to make up the difference? Any answer is curiously absent from your letter, although you imply that the state should pay more to the towns and cities. Where does that money come from?
Method 1: Reduce state spending elsewhere and shift the savings. This makes some sense, so that's why it hasn't been done. Elsewhere has a bunch of powerful special interest groups.
Method 2: Raise state taxes, income and/or sales. There's less merit here because it's not popular and politicians look ahead only as far as the next election.
Method 3: Bond it. This is ludicrous, so I expect the Democrats to propose it. It's the equivalent of printing new money, currently the answer this administration in Washington uses for everything.
Everything is backwards. Of course, that makes it convenient for the lefties who are always looking back (1) for someone to blame and (2) to see who is gaining on them.
I didn't say poor people were the cause, they were the pawns. Of course banks can be forced by social tinkerers to do their bidding: tax policy, rules and regulations, and pure extortion that would embarrass Tony Soprano. Democrats used the CRA to force mortgage lenders to make loans to deadbeats under threat of being labeled racist and losing all legitimate business from .. what was your term? .. oh, yeah .. non-whites. Nice, Jon.
Non-whites can't be racist? Have you ever heard the verbal sewage from Jeremiah Wright, he who was never heard over 20 years by our illustrious president? The racial bigotry represented there is staggering and is nothing more than a present-day reverse-KKK.
I agree that flipping has become an art form. Liberals flipping lids.
... the Albrecht-centered universe. Not a pretty sight.
The mortgage problem was started by Jimmy Carter and his Community Redevelopment Act, then aided and abetted by a long succession of spineless Democrat Congresses. The CRA robbed banks more than Bonny & Clyde ever dreamed. It said: Lend money to people who can't possibly pay it back, or we'll call you racist!! It worked so well that, in good times in the 90s, Congress made it worse by, every now and then, upping the ante and forcing banks to increase their holdings of junk mortgages. That this practice was unsustainable is intuitively obvious - unless you're a Democrat. Politicians ignored all the warnings because all they could see was a horde of new voters created by "free" money.
... stimulate unions, especially in the private sector where contracts often specify wages as a multiple of the minimum wage. Whenever someone wrings his hands and whimpers that a minimum wage increase helps working families, follow the money and you'll find a union official with his hand out.
King Angus enjoyed a "good" economy for most of his tenure. He could have easily fixed this problem. Instead, in his self-proclaimed position of Job Czar (roll up sleeves), he created lots of new government jobs while chasing away as many private sector jobs as he could find. Also, by strengthening the stupid mandates, he chased away most health insurance companies, killing what little competition was left. And, lest we forget, he climbed into bed with Apple and crippled a whole generation of Maine school kids.
"If one opposes the general welfare clause, then one opposes most of the Constitution." Well, I oppose that shallow logic, just as I oppose your interpretation of the clause, your interpretation of Jefferson's ideas, and especially your interpretation of reality, with you at the center as dispenser of truth to the masses.
Congress does not need the clause to regulate inter-state markets, but it does need the clause's legerdemain to establish markets and to regulate intra-state markets, both of which are absolutely required by the Constitutional abomination known as ObamaCare.
... waiting for you to answer a simple question on a subject that you brought up, without your usual hand-waving. The real answer is you have no names, no proof, no nothing - just a lot of whining that if people disagree with you, they are disagreeable. So be it. I wear the adjective as a badge of honor.
Are you seriously suggesting that Leon is a right-winger? Read his verbal sewage again, after removing your blue-tinted glasses. He's neither right nor left - just a wacko.
The only commenter I have seen banned - no, I don't scrutinize every article on the site - was about a month ago. He was pretty far right and the ban was immediate and permanent. I saw the post before it disappeared because it was "threatening". Technically, it was, if your definition is rather elastic.
On the other hand, there are several left-wingers still around who can't compose a one-line comment without terms like "right-wing wacko" and adolescent misspellings that are oh so clever. But let anyone else return even mild criticism and it becomes a "vicious unprovoked attack".
... the editorial board posts things we are supposed to avoid. The first two are: Defamatory, abusive, obscene, racist, or otherwise hateful Excessively foul and/or vulgar
I thought I had a good, general idea about what these and the rest meant, but now I'm not so sure. The first two comments (and I use the term very loosely) were removed, drawing the stern threat of a week's ban. A week?
I see that the commenter returned last night with a couple more submissions that were a little bit toned down, probing to see what he can get away with.
Less than two months ago, the EB began their verification policy to encourage more civil discussion. If Leon isn't banned permanently, the policy means nothing. At the very least, the board owes us more detailed, practical definitions of the items we're all supposed to avoid.
... if you're a member of the large portion of those 23.9 million who are today pounding the bricks because of the new smoke-and-mirrors employed by the current administration. And you conveniently dismiss as having no economic effects little items like 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, ... none of which are being addressed in any meaningful way by ∅bama. Even SECSTATE is fed up and longing for the good old days when she was co-president.
On thing lefties all agree on: Since a tax cut for all includes a tax cut for the rich, there must be a right-wing conspiracy behind it.
Slick raised taxes and, because the dot-com bubble started expanding like mad at the same time, percolating throughout the economy, for a while it seemed like real prosperity. Then reality started to sink in and his advisors gave him the bad news: If he wanted to get reelected, he had to shift way to the right. He co-opted most of the Republican platform and, aided by a likable but weak opponent, was returned to the Oval Office where he spent his 2nd term sampling the delights under his desk. The dot-com bubble burst and revenue fluctuated but was basically stagnant until the GWB tax cuts got things moving again.
While that was going on, here in Maine, times felt great and King Angus could have easily fixed the "mess he inherited" in under-funded liabilities. Instead, he ignored that mess and created one of his own by expanding state government hand over fist, gross mismanagement that is now approaching critical mass.
Ah, the Clinton years. Smoke and mirrors, no substance.
... still has an open door policy. We all hope the orderlies catch Mr. Leon soon and re-lace that jacket up the back.
The top 10% of earners already pay 70% of collected income tax. What does fair mean to you? Right, of course, 100%. The problem is the bottom brackets pay nothing. Well, they pay Social Security and Medicare which, I agree, are regressive - but they are not income taxes. Blame FDR, who started the trickle down from that first federal cash-cow. Blame LBJ for the second. Notice a common theme about who creates taxes that disproportionately hit the poor?
The other problem is that, historically, increasing taxes actually reduces government revenue. But don't let facts get in the way of your Reagan bashing.
The founders created a republic - not a democracy - to promote the common good, not to provide it. Every time the government has tried the latter, it has failed dismally.
The dictionary says that prophylaxis is an action taken to prevent disease. I'm glad you have finally shown some little sense and acknowledged that liberalism is a disease.
There's another current example: CFL lightbulbs. They last forever (or 10 weeks, whichever comes first) and provide cheap, excellent light (as long as you turn on 3 or 4 where 1 used to do) and they are safe (a broken CFL will cost thousand$ in clean up). Questions to the "green" nazis: If CFLs are so wonderful, why can't they succeed on their own in the marketplace? Why do you have to ban the competition? That's not very democratic.
And by increasing demand for CFLs artificially, GE (long in bed with green Democrats) closed its last US factory making incandescent bulbs, turning a bunch of union workers out on the street. But don't worry - China is happy to pick up the slack and Canada is looking forward to another robust smuggling category.
I learned about all this on FOX News, where you don't need blue tinted contact lenses.
It's intuitively obvious to the most casual reader of this thread that you exist only to irritate. The LSJ should dispense an electronic version of calamine lotion.
Rendered for some small content: The Constitution gives the federal government the authority to do everything for everybody.
Thomas Jefferson: the danger in the hands of politicians was that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.
John Quincy Adams: Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.
Those who worship before the golden calf of the "general welfare" clause depend on the suspension of good sense and the detachment of the people. Those bases, strong as they may appear to those on the left, have never been found to succeed.
... for you. I'll call it the Albrecht Doctrine of Infallibility. We should all kneel and kiss your .. um .. ring.
Your ideology is based on your interpretation of the Constitution, etc. Surely you can't be pretending to perfect knowledge of them. If you are, you can delude yourself and a few sycophants about that, but that's all. All your posts, including the last one, are all ideology and faith, in my opinion. Perhaps you can persuade the paper here to gather all your comments from the archives and publish them under the title Gospel according to St. Jon.
I have been asked to produce my sorry *zzed excuse for not trying to research the statement that MHPC keeps its donor list private. I'll ignore the usual junior-high pseudo profanity and give you my reason. You can call it an excuse, if you want. This is, after all, a discussion on the opinion page.
I scanned through the comments and noted that the first mention of MHPC funding came from one Ronald Riml at 10:17 am on Mar 17, along with the allegation that keeping donor information private proves some sort of power agenda. I responded at 11:03 that, in my opinion, it's Democrats who are on a power trip - trying to regain what is theirs by divine right.
I also inserted a crack about Rep Pingree. I'm sorry about that, because whatever her mode of transportation, it's just for the greater good of the collective.
For the record, I did not dispute Ron's statement, except the power nonsense. But in later comments, he demands that I research the matter of MHPC funding. You brought it up and there's no reason to be so defensive about it. You research it.
... the Democrat party. They lost power, they want it back, and they know only one way to try to get it: shoot the other side's messenger. They for sure can't ask the voters to consider their stellar track record.
Speaking of openness, who funds Chellie Pingree? What does the from-away boyfriend get for all that flying around in his Gulfstream V? Maybe she fixes his airport fees.
Rep. Shields, get a grip. Make the state private-sector business friendly? Lower taxes? Cut red tape? This is Maine! We want more government, higher taxes (especially on the evil rich) and more stultifying rules and regulations to keep business from even considering coming here and meddling in the way life should be.
Tron is, as usual, channeling the "working" people of Maine, who obviously want fewer jobs and more welfare, considering how they've voted until recently. Please stop publishing your right-wing gibberish. The left-wing trolls deserve a break.
He owns houses in both states and has said that as he gets older he prefers a warmer climate. It would be interesting to know which one is his primary residence. Is it Maine? Or is it income-tax-free Florida?
We export a lot of wheat. Quite a bit goes at cheap world market prices to countries that turn around and sell us oil at top dollar. If we had an administration with any stones, we could tell those countries to start eating oil when they get hungry.
The B in BP stands for "British". But I suppose it's too challenging to expect a liberal to manage a detail like that.
When is the last time anyone asked a US oil company to be patriotic? WWII. Ever since, liberals have used them as a convenient scapegoat on whom to hang the blame for their own politicians' failures. It doesn't work anymore.
If Stevie wants to pay more, he can stop taking deductions or just cut a check and send it in. But, as a liberal, he's not happy doing it himself, he wants to tell others what to do.
Question back to King: Since most of your books and stories are set in Maine, why are so few of the movies adapted from them produced here? It must cost an arm and a leg to plow through the government red tape and pay the union extortion, but a rich liberal like you should take the lead and suck up the loss.
It's powered by diesel and batteries. When operation doesn't recharge the batteries sufficiently, you plug into the wall and suck non-green power.
I agree. Let's do it all. Who's going to take the lead? Government? The current one stands in the way of progress and won't be happy until all of us use horse-and-buggy to commute.
It will always be 10 years away if we never start. If we had started drilling in 2001, after getting whacked by extremists from the Middle East, today we would be enjoying the increased domestic capacity and could reduce our dependency on foreign oil accordingly.
Most of the stuff I buy arrives here by truck. I have yet to see an 18 wheeler powered by fuel cells, nukes or wind. If we turn off the oil spigot, it's going to get very hungry around here while those new trucks are developed, taking lots longer than 10 years.
You have said this before. Why does oil extracted from American sites have to be sold on the world market? Only to be bought by American refineries. Does American wheat have to be sold on the world market just to be imported by King Arthur? No, of course not.
Social Security is not a retirement plan; it's insurance against abject poverty. Those of us in the dreaded private sector "contribute" to this Ponzi scheme because we don't have a choice. After that, those of us who accept responsibility for our own futures invest in real retirement plans. At age 50+, we contribute close to 20% of our salary. Or we can. There will always be dopes who won't lift a finger.
In the public sector, they contribute to the state retirement program - and the state kicks in a hefty chunk as well. Where does the state get the money? From taxes that, yes, we all pay. So I pay to subsidize public retirement. How much do they pay to subsidize mine?
If we all are really in this together, we should not be dividing into classes, the payers and the receivers.
Claire, Social Security is not a retirement plan; it's insurance against abject poverty. Those of us in the dreaded private sector "contribute" to this Ponzi scheme because we don't have a choice. After that, those of us who accept responsibility for our own futures invest in real retirement plans. At age 50+, we contribute close to 20% of our salary. Or we can. There will always be dopes who won't lift a finger.
In the public sector, they contribute to the state retirement program - and the state kicks in a hefty chunk as well. Where does the state get the money? From taxes that, yes, we all pay. So I pay to subsidize public retirement. How much do they pay to subsidize mine?
If we all are really in this together, we should not be dividing into classes, the payers and the receivers.
Pot, kettle - meet Ron. I asked you a couple of questions, you have no answers - so that means I went on a rant? All you have done is to focus on Maine's multi-class structure built on wealth. There's a strip about 0.5 miles wide on the coast from Kittery to Bar Harbor where the affluent live and play - and there's the rest of the state. I submit that it's you who needs to get out more often.
There's a lot of wealth in that strip, but not income. Your rich part-time residents are smart enough to establish full-time residency in more tax friendly states to shelter their income from MRS sharks. You can increase their property (wealth) taxes as long as you increase them for everyone else in town, you included.
How will I feel? Not as bad as you will after you succeed in evicting all those rich taxpayers and the town hands you the bill.
Disagree with Tron = rightwing wacko. What this rightwing wacko says is: If the best you can manage is a minimum wage job, you have no business trying to support a family - and especially no business starting one. Go back to school. Get some training. There are all kinds of "assistance" for those activities. No jobs where you live? Move. Put the blame for your situation where it belongs - on your own shoulders.
The trouble with all this good advice is it requires some effort on the part of the poor down-trodden worker and it goes against all the "promises" delivered by leftwing wackos over the decades. They don't want fairness; they want redistribution. And, of course, retribution.
But I'm not the one complaining. How much property tax does your evil rich summer resident pay? I'll bet those who run Boothbay are glad to have him. What's his ill-gotten income? Not his wealth, income. If you're so gung-ho to steal more of his success, call your state rep and have him submit a bill to raise rates. But be careful what you ask for. A lot of folks in Wilton and Boothbay will discover that they're rich, according to the state of Maine.
GOP — Greedy Old Party
The GOP has a long way to go before it reaches the level of greed and indifference attained by the Democrats over the past 35 years. Unions served a purpose long ago. There are a zillion laws in place now to protect all workers - some of that red tape - and they won't go away any time soon. Unions will.
They should balance the budget with money from the wealthy and corporations ...
Yup, Maine is just overflowing with those groups. Lets tax the bejeepers out of those remaining and get rid of them completely.
What it says is that it is OK for many citizens in Maine to be paid substandard wages.
A Mainer should be paid what the job is worth. Flipping burgers is not worth $13 an hour. If it is, get ready to pay $20 for your next Whopper. The minimum wage should be abolished as it is one of the principal hindrances to growth.
I did not put a time frame in my earlier post. Sorry. Yes, union membership has been in decline for a long time - except in the public sector, where its gradual increase has seen a non-gradual explosion over the past two years. Today Trumka is a de-facto cabinet member. Unions started killing off big US manufacturing much more than 20 years ago and the drumbeat was always the same: Give us what we want or we'll force you out of business, even if it means throwing our members out of work. They succeeded (or failed, depending on your POV) so well that they had no choice but to move into the public sector, where it was much easier to buy political protection. China had nothing to do with the start, but their leaders were smart enough to see that we were shooting ourselves in the foot - and moved in to take advantage.
The influence of unions in the private sector is not as strong as it once was, but the memory lingers. Today any company with brains has to ask where to locate in order to avoid hemorrhaging investors' money. It's almost impossible now to establish a business in the US where the workforce would be unionized.
Social Security is not a retirement plan. The private sector pays SS - and then contributes to a real system, usually a 401(k) plan, to which the employer usually does NOT contribute. In order to have a chance of living "well" in retirement, a worker in the DPS (Dreaded Private Sector) has to pony up close to 20% of his income, especially in his last years of working. Many of us believe that public sector workers should have to feel the same level of pain.
With regard to your comments on business, yes, there are greedy businesses, but they don't last long. For every greedy company, there are probably five others that have been forced off-shore, or out of business completely, by greedy unions who couldn't care less about their members. Those jobs are lost forever.
For decades we in Maine have been throwing ever larger gobs of money at education "for the children" and we have been forced to listen over and over to the same tired refrain: Happy teachers produce well educated students. The results suggest our money and their efforts have been wasted.
Welcome to the brave new world of civil discourse. If you dare to step off the reservation defined by the good old boys, you get a barrage of ad-hominem attack and subject switching.
If an American company produces crude oil, it can sell directly to American refineries. The world market has no authority (yet) to restrict activities that take place completely within our borders. That may come soon, since the O's administration is determined to give away what's left of our sovereignty and throw open our borders.
Drill in Lil's backyard, although I doubt it would yield anything worth having.
… In all that time I paid into Social Security. My money. Now, people rag on me for wanting some of it back …
It is not your money. The government spends SS "contributions" as soon as it receives them. There's an IOU in the lockbox, no money, no account - gone. Blame FDR for setting it up that way. … and how my Social Security should be taken away.
Of course not. Liberals always drag that out to scare old folks. SS should be fixed before it's lost to you and everyone else. The only way to fix this Ponzi scheme is to convert it into a real, private (gasp) investment like a 401(k). As long as the government can get its grubby paws on the money, it will continue to be just a slush fund for politicians. Teachers pensions should be taken away. Bargaining rights should be taken away.
No one ever said the former, but a lot of people have said the latter - starting again with FDR, the liberal demigod. And that money … goes into the pockets of the rich …
Ah, the mantra of envy, often stated, seldom substantiated. You can't show me one instance of a rich person stealing pension money from working stiffs. But I can show you plenty of instances of pensions being raided by union goons and politicians.
Woody, you have a lot of legitimate beefs but you're blaming the wrong perps.
I have no idea how intelligent you are, given just a few snarky bumpersticker posts. So until some different evidence comes in, I have to agree with you.
By the way, in a working career that is now 41+ years, the only handout I have taken was unemployment for 5 weeks in 2006. If that was your money, thank you very much. But I have always been under the impression that employers paid unemployment insurance. I could be wrong, I suppose, but with all that intelligence, money and importance, I'll stick to that impression.
Social Security is NOT a retirement plan. It's backup insurance. Private sector employees do indeed pay what you noted - and then they ALSO optionally contribute to a 401k or something like it, for a total approaching 20% of salary for older workers.
Note the word "optionally". Private workers a free to ignore their own futures. Then they retire and try to live on Social Security. Good luck.
A business pays income tax on its profit: revenue minus expenses. One of those expenses is electricity. Is this an example of a "write-off"? What would happen if Maine decided to disallow that expense? (Aside from getting way out of sync with federal tax law.) Profit would go up (artificially) and they would pay more state income tax; they would increase the prices they charge to cover the increased expense. The increased prices percolate throughout the state's economy until they finally arrive at the only real tax payers: individuals. You and me.
I was pointing out the obvious that Bob posts the same comment in every thread even remotely related to unionism. Evidently some folks need more obvious than others. At least yours has a few more words, although no more content.
Taking a guess here ... You say I shout "Unions are evil!" for every one of Bob's "Corporations are evil!" Actually, Veritas, I usually suggest that union[u]ism[/u] is evil. Union members are generally hard working, honest people who are being sold down the river by union leaders who generally make mafiosi look like choirboys.
The ultimate result of unionism is always the same. Before you sit down to play your masterpiece, look on the underside of that piano and see the label "Made in China".
Ms. Gamache, how many businesses have you worked for or run that exist for losing money or just breaking even? Of course they want to make a profit (gasp) to repay the folks who invested to get them going in the first place. Businesses pay property taxes to cover all those services you mentioned, just like individuals. We're talking about income taxes. Raising income taxes on businesses does nothing to help community services, in fact it hurts them because historical evidence suggests that higher income taxes lead to lower government revenue.
Businesses who damage customer satisfaction and product quality won't be in business very long and won't be able to sustain the union demanded wages and benefits at any level. In fact, you make them sound like those companies driven to desperation by union extortion. This has been what's going on for decades and it certainly hasn't improved the business climate in Maine. Ready, fire, aim!
Ms. Field, companies do not pay taxes. Oh, they fill out forms and some even send a check, but it's just another cost of doing business. They pass that cost to their customers in the form of higher prices for goods and services. The state may (heavy emphasis) give that money back to you, but you lose it immediately when you pay higher prices. We, the customers, can't pass the cost along because we're at the end of the line.
Meanwhile, companies lose the option of using those tax payments to hire more workers, all of whom pay income and payroll taxes, the source of most of the state's revenue. Higher wages and benefits, forced by unions, are indirect taxes with the same result.
With high corporate taxes and strong unions, "working people" get the worst of both worlds.
But, using the tried and true game plan of bullies everywhere, the compelling takes place behind closed doors, well away from disinfecting sunlight.
A public employee union is funded by their extorted dues (see above) withheld from the employees' paychecks, paid by taxes. Just because it isn't direct doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I think Mr. Bechard was observing that taxpayers, including union members, pay the wages and benefits of members of public employee unions. In the other direction, members of public employee unions pay little or nothing to support the average taxpayer during his working years and later retirement. Most of them in Maine don't even contribute to Social Security / Medicare to help provide those rapidly eroding benefits to the poorest among us.
I think Clem was expressing a feeling held my many people these days: If we are all really in it together, let's inject some fairness and get rid of the us-versus-them class warfare that unionism has created.
... Maine's Majority didn't raise a commotion back then. Could it be the switch in parties? Nah, they couldn't be that superficial.
Domain Name:MAINESMAJORITY.ORG
Created On:16-Dec-2010 02:30:52 UTC <-------- When the tantrum began
Last Updated On:14-Feb-2011 03:49:45 UTC
Expiration Date:16-Dec-2011 02:30:52 UTC
Did you also get the drift that anyone who disagrees with Dan is a right-wing wacko? It is indeed sad when that sort of ad-hominem attack passes for discussion. It's also sad that you didn't mention any of the left-wing sites that provide the thinking for many posters here.
The state and the unions sleep in the same bed. No, I have never been to contract negotiations. I have never been a member of a union and not one of my jobs over a 40+ year career came with any retirement benefits. For each one, I sent resumés, attended interviews, conducted my own negotiations and more than once walked away from offers I didn't like. All that cost a lot in time, effort and money, but it never once occurred to me to ask taxpayers to pick up the tab.
You're saying that public employees, on average, are too dumb to rate offers on their own without "guidance" from a union. I know a lot of teachers and, trust me, Ron, they are, on average, way smarter than you give them credit for. But, yes, most of them wear blinders when it comes to unions.
May I opt out of the retirement system? May I negotiate my own wage and benefit package. Yes, indeed, if I'm a confidential employee. Otherwise, nope, I'm stuck with what the union says is the best I can get. It seems most union supporters here are happy to believe what they're told.
It is possible, or it used to be, to opt out of the retirement system. Oh, it's still withheld from your pay all year, but in December you submit a form to request (beg) to get it back. After a few weeks, while union workers "process" the form, you'll get your money - every penny. No interest, of course, because the state spent the money, it didn't invest it.
You have to go through this every year. Meanwhile, make sure Social Security and Medicare are handled properly.
Yup, it's easy to work for the state of Maine, as long as you accept what the union says you're worth and forget what your education and experience could command in the DPS - Dreaded Private Sector.
The usual translation of that is to protect the right to join a union. If that's important, then so is the right not to join a union. I hope you will support the movement to convert Maine into a "right to work" state, where you can take a state job or teach in public schools without being coerced to participate in something you disagree with.
Mike, you're not going to get more people to agree with you by repeating your posts. Perhaps you spilled some koolaid in your keyboard making some of the keys sticky.
No. Lepage wants them to end their collective, union orchestrated tantrum and realize they have it a lot better than most of us who pay for their nice situations. Besides that, if better than average salaries and benefits are supposed to be attracting top notch public employees, it's not working.
... at $70K the salaries of hospital executives, all the current executives will leave for positions in states with rational governments, to be replaced by execs from the bottom of the barrel who can't find positions anywhere else.
Trevor, I congratulate you on your participation in this very public forum. It takes a great deal of self-confidence to jump into a venue where most of us adults behave like adolescents. But be aware that you may have to give up some of the protection usually given to the young by accepting some criticism.
School budgets are being reduced. Why? Because expenses increase every year and politicians are reluctant to increase taxes accordingly. Their reluctance comes from the assumption that we voters will kick them out of office - they may even be right. Why do expenses increase every year? Perhaps you could ask that question of your teachers. If they feel as passionately about their subjects as you feel about music, shouldn't they be willing to give up some of the increases mandated in their union contracts to hold down the expenses? The results of your poll, I assure you, will interest all of us.
You can't study music without also studying history and science, especially mathematics. If you try, you won't know who came before you or how they accomplished what they did. From what I have seen in your letter and your comments, your passion for music cannot be that superficial.
I live and pay taxes in the Farmington school district. It has an excellent music program because the public side is supported by a very strong private side. You can't have one without the other, and the private is hit by a bad economy every bit as much, if not more, than the public.
The better ways you want have eluded all of us for a long time. It's my hope they you will help find them for us, after completing your education in all subjects. They are all important. Wait until college to declare a major.
See the Tax Foundation for the burden through 2008. The top 1% of earners paid 38% of ALL income taxes collected. The top 5% paid 58%. The top 10% paid 70%. The "Class Envy" crowd won't be happy until it's 100%. Of course, before we get to that, those earners will give up or move out, leaving that one big "other" class without their favorite turnip to squeeze.
All the history lessons, charts (displayable or not) and long-winded bloviations, copied from union talking-point sites and class envy sites, can't disguise the major issue: Unions cover only a small fraction of the country's "workers". In the private sector, coverage has been declining for decades. Only in the public sector is coverage increasing, and that's only because unions and lefty politicians are in bed together.
Ask yourself who is that greedy, overpaid CEO who runs Maine's public school system. Or your town's public services. Should we tax them out of existence?
But take any successful, private, non-unionized company and the union apologists start hyperventilating about redistribution of wealth from those who create it to those who throw the loudest tantrum.
Thank you, Joe Gray, for an excellent summary. You do understand, I hope, that it won't make a dime's worth of difference to union leaders, members and their apologists. That group has only one plank in their platform: Raise taxes and/or prices (indirect taxes) to keep paying those bennies. It's going to take some massive layoffs before the remaining members realize the unions are (ab)using them.
I'm sure the Pirate (and the Parrot) will agree that unions are demanding the right to walk their own plank.
... it knew it couldn't keep? To buy votes, of course. The deception worked very well but now is falling apart. Good. Maybe we can create a rational system before we turn into Greece.
COLA stands for cost-of-living-adjustment which means, presumably, if the cost of living does NOT go up, neither do pension payments. Social Security recipients have been denied an increase for two years now. Why shouldn't public employees share the pain?
Some enter the teaching profession because they know it's almost impossible to get removed, even for gross incompetence. If the state is encouraging retirement, it's to get rid of as much dead wood as possible.
This comment rambles all over the map, even more than usual. Union goons riot in WI -> Kent State -> Iraq & Afghanistan -> Gates bad, Powell good -> Bush/Cheney caused all the world's problems -> Obama will cure them. Whew!
Two years in, the recession is worse, no end in sight, in spite of the mountains of money printed and thrown. Madison is just a preview of communist riots coming soon to a state capital near you. ME is not immune. Neither is HI.
It is not the business of the state attorney general to replace the rest of the justice system. If anyone, including Mr. Donald, feels he's the victim of a crime, he should contact police and swear out a complaint and pursue the matter through normal channels. The AG isn't there to take over that civic duty from a private individual, who perhaps wants to spare himself the time and effort. And the AG certainly isn't there to subvert the basic wisdom of a free society: Caveat emptor.
If anyone has misinterpreted the intent of the letter, it's due to the first commenter overpowering that intent with a load of political spite.
Finally, there are many kinds of wackos. The right does not have a monopoly and the left certainly has its share.
You can follow the above advice and descend farther into useless partisan bickering, or you can learn from your experience (plural?) and not fall again for this lame scam, which has been around for as long as there have been suckers to keep it going. Have you responded to any of those heart-breaking emails from Nigeria?
I thought Obama was doing that, with stimulus and kash for klunks, etc. Business sits on cash when it is wary of near future government shenanigans. Suppose I run a small business, want to hire another employee, and have $100k in a coffee can. How can I commit that money now, and going forward, when the feds are threatening to increase my taxes and fees by amounts unknown, because they're buried in the incomprehensible ObamaCare bill?
Memo to the Civil Discussion Police: Please inform Ron that stale misspellings, like 'shidter', are appropriate for junior high recess, not this newly reformulated group of verified posters.
.. not part of the solution.
Stan Tetenman: Without bonding, roads, bridges, water and other projects cannot be done.
That one sentence is a succinct summary of the pathetic state of everything, not just infrastructure. For decades our politicians have taken (almost said 'stolen' - my bad) the taxes and fees that are supposed to support maintenance and development of infrastructure, and used the money to fund other programs. If they couldn't find other programs, they just created new ones. A bond is a credit card that our children will have to pay off. If you can keep a straight face (most of our politicians can), explain to junior that in the 'future' he'll have a nice road on which he won't be able to afford to drive.
LePage has exactly the same mandate Baldacci received in 2006. The only difference is, four years ago there were no calls to change the election rules. Or perhaps there were calls, but the Maine media declined to mention them.
One environmental requirement is overdue for repeal - the silly formulation of gasoline which does nothing to improve the air quality in our state - it just destroys small engines in items like snowblowers and lawnmowers, etc. And of course it hikes the price of gas, but it's just a pittance compared to what the state tax adds.
The prevailing winds replace our air every day from the West. Whatever they do in that direction determines the quality we have. What we do here just makes the folks in New Brunswick happier.
Thanks Jack and John. I won't get home until 2/10, well after the drop dead date, so this may be my last dispatch. I'll pause for the cheers from the bilge crew.
I have spent about an hour skimming over the letters and comments posted since I left. Nothing I have seen leads me to believe that my real name, or any other real info, is safe in the hands of the green-badged. On the contrary, the general tone of these discussions (and I use the term loosely) has taken a very predictable dive. Maybe it will change when those hundreds of the newly verified actually do something other than lurk - but I would bet against it.
The central theme always devolves to plain envy. It is very appropriate that the staff chose the color green.
Shields: If employment levels in the next two years go up, the 2012 elections could give Republicans full Congressional control ...
No matter what numbers make up your truth, no matter which positions are relevant or ir-, that statement hit the bull's eye. Our attention span is short and getting shorter and in 11/12, only results will count, not counter-scenarios blathered by a small bunch of caustic commenters, verified of course, talking at each other in this civil community. So this is as good a time as any.
The car is packed and we leave in minutes to head far south for a couple months. I'll check back in after we return to see how the green-badged forum has developed. (Cue the crickets.)
Happy New Year!
PS: tron, I hope the cleaners don't put too much starch in your robe again.
Which party took over Congress in 2007 to begin the 110th? GWB didn't exercise the veto much - too bad.
Which party had the whole enchilada for the 111th? BHO doesn't know he has veto power. I bet he (re)discovers it next year.
Blaisdells: Government officials said that price indexing showed no increase, so there would be no cost-of-living increase in Social Security and government pensions for at least two years.
That's because the government, in its infinite wisdom and beneficence, has dropped both energy and food from the equation used to compute inflation for Social Security modifications. You must now do your patriotic duty: freeze or starve or both. Or contact Veritas AKA Invidia - perhaps he has some spare Gravy Train and some unsold books you can burn in the stove.
If the federal government "nationalizes" energy, here are the certainties: the price will go up and the availability will go down.
Most people think DoED stands for "Dept of Erectile Dysfunction", but they're smart enough to interpret DoE in context - perhaps after thinking about it for four hours.
Yours is the most common argument against cutting the size of government: That group is small - deleting it won't matter in the long run. So nothing ever gets cut.
For the moment, I'll agree. The real solution is to cut taxes and/or let people deduct ALL education expenses - the need for financial aid will drop like a rock. The other point, you can't be serious. The federal government is the biggest violator of privacy and civil rights - the fox makes a lousy henhouse guard. Education is a personal, local matter. The US government has no business wetting its beak.
... brought to you by the Voisine School of Cut & Paste, a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. You blamed Rs for "wars", neighbor, and I simply listed the Ds' contributions, as recorded faithfully in all histories except those churned out by the Soros Publishing House. Buy a good comic book, Poison, and stay in your area of competence.
Midterm elections usually support the party not in the Whitehouse. Surprise.
Rs haven't held Maine because Ds kept promising people something for nothing and we were stupid enough to believe them. We finally smartened up.
Obama won! If you don't believe me, just ask him. The only two-term D president since FDR was Slick. That's enough for another 50 years.
D presidents got us into: WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Bosnia ... The Rs have some catching up to do.
Congress' approval rating is about 11%, due entirely to the Ds ineptitude. And you're happy with that.
Ds still hold the Senate, so every time they kill something the R House sends over, the Rs will trumpet the news far and wide that there's a new party of NO.
For every $1 wasted by Rs in 8 years, the Ds have tripled down in 2 years, with zip to show for it.
If D stands for success, gimme more of that R failure.
Since Democrats would never listen to me, I'll give them some advice. Get a spokesman who will never, ever, even once say: We need to work harder getting our message out. You got your message out just fine, but finally the electorate decided they didn't like the same old, tiresome liberal pap.
... the Department of Pandering to Education Unions. If we got rid of it, the absence wouldn't cause even a blip in the education of students. In fact, it might improve the quality of teachers who would no longer have to waste time reading and responding to government nonsense.
As I write this, five posters have entered comments. Only one was "verified" and, as Gil pointed out, that one immediately violated all the objectives the SJ says it wants to achieve with this new police - excuse me - policy. It seems that big green tattoo isn't very popular. Neither was a big red A or a string of numbers on your forearm.
The rest of the comments are as civil as you can expect, and more civil than most other recent threads. That is, the threat alone was enough to tone things down. Now all you have to do is stop making your own "news" by publishing articles and letters about the change and the <sarcasm>overwhelming</sarcasm> response.
Since I posted, someone changed "police" to "policy". Marvelous. I see you've been "verified" - it must be a lot like being patted down at the airport. Ewww.
This thread started from a letter to the editor. It was the author's opinion, not fact. All the earlier commenters expressed their opinions, not facts - including you. I'm happy that my opinions often line up with Gil's.
OK, scratch the "liberal" remark. This place will be like a college seminar in partial differential equations: most peoples' eyes will glaze over with boredom.
You stated it and, as I mentioned in another comment, so did P. Reaves: If you fear reprisal, keep your mouth shut. Many more folks have pointed out that there are many forms of "reprisal", not just physical, which is way too much for most bottom-feeders to contemplate. Other forms are easy: make a phone call, or drop some innuendo (anonymously, of course) on other internet sites.
The founders of our country published their views under pen-names in broadsides - the internet of the 18th century - precisely because they feared reprisal, and not just from the 400 pound gorilla, the British. But they believed the views were important enough to get them out there anyway.
But not with mature, informed opinions. This place will be like a Poli-Sci seminar in any left-wing college - a bunch of liberals all saying the same thing and calling it debate.
The way to attract the best minds with the brightest ideas is to protect their privacy from the bottom-feeders, not to insult them with accusations of shame. That's been the #1 talking point since the announcement of this policy: You don't want to use your real name? You must be ashamed of your opinions. Male bovine excrement.
RR: ... we are not aware of any safety problems that have resulted.
Last March I notified you of exactly that. Here is your response:
On Mar 8, 2010, at 9:05 AM, Pattie Reaves wrote:
> I would suggest that you don't share comments in our community to which you would not want your name attached.
To which I responded:
Just over three months ago, my last published letter drew a similar cowardly, anonymous off-line response. In fact, stuff like this has happened often enough that my letter frequency is way down from previous years.
I don't mind having my name attached to an on-line comment and I'll debate it with anyone out in the light. But I don't have the resources to protect myself and my family from off-line threats and abuse from some in the community who operate only in the dark. There is accountability on one side only.
Forum anonymity encourages participation by people who might otherwise fear private retaliation from those who don't share the same public opinions. An obvious example is a whistleblower in a public position.
Exposing personal information encourages blandness and/or participation reduced down to the those who just don't care what happens on- or off-line.
This profound advice brought to you by someone with two taxpayer funded pensions and taxpayer funded health care - and that qualifies him to pontificate about what the rest of the world deals with. Avast, swabbie! Mop that bilge.
Pay attention to the boyfriend, dudette. It's likely that he'll be working to pay your social security. But, who cares? Go back to the beach, chug another mai-tai, munch a few more sugar-plums, and live for today. Somebody else will take care of your tomorrows. Is that positive enough?
As soon as Social Security began in1936, people believed their "contributions" (read "extortion") went into a personal account and started earning interest. And the government did absolutely nothing to dispel this delusion.
People also believed that SS was the national retirement plan. In reality, it's an emergency backup to avoid having old folks living in abject poverty. As always, private individuals had and have the primary responsibility to prepare for their own retirement. Surprise! The government encouraged this fairy-tale because they quickly realized what a cash-cow this scheme was.
Finally, in the biggest act of hypocrisy of the 20th century, they set the age at which you could begin collecting benefits higher than the current life expectancy. That is, FDR hoped the system would never pay out a dime. But then those ungrateful people started living longer.
fixit001, there is plenty of money to pay benefits now and in the future. Just trade some of those IOU-s for a mountain of newly printed dollars. Our current government is well experienced in these matters: bailouts, QE-s, TARP, etc. All that new money cheapens the value of the dollars already in the pool, a situation known as inflation. This hits people hardest when buying food and energy.
But wait! Those two items have been dropped from the equation used to determine if SS recipients deserve a COLA. What a coincidence.
.. haven't managed to find this discussion. Interesting. Perhaps they're just lurking, watching the fun, rubbing their hands in anticipation of the private playground they'll have in Feb. Of course, they'll tire of talking only to each other in about 30 seconds.
It's also interesting that the SJ dropped this blivet(+) around the same time that the FCC (Motto: We doan need no steenkin courts.) announced its unconstitutional power-grab of the internet. Both actions will yield similar results.
You can wrap it in the flag and Norman Rockwell and traditional values all you want, but what you're really trying to do is put a leash on the 6 or 8 idiots who spoil the place for everyone. I applaud that effort, but it's impossible without doing the same thing you want to eliminate - spoil it for everyone.
armymom just delivered an eloquent statement of the usual result of the law of unintended consequences. People will vote with their feet and their checkbooks and you'll be left trying to decide what else to drop from your paper to make up for the upcoming decline in readership. Anyone remember the printed TV book?
You have made your decision, and you have every right to do so. After all, your run a private enterprise, not some government social tinkering democracy. But I'm curious. Have the Costellos expressed an opinion on the matter?
You mean you think he hasn't already had ... Wait, mustn't take the chance of offending. Oh, well, I'll just post the kind of comment you'll be getting after 2/1: Can't we all just get along? Have a nice day! |-)
Maybe the students you know are dumb and fat, but my two oldest grandchildren (15 & 13 ) are on highest honors and skinny as rakes because they play sports. And all that's in spite of the fact that most of their teachers are well-educated socialists who never do anything more strenuous than hoisting a laptop.
Paul LePage ... cannot provide "affordable" health care.
Sure he can. (1) Get rid of the mandates, which make insurance unaffordable for all of us. (2) Establish a high-risk pool to help those who really need the help. (3) Pick up the slack left by 16 years of Democrats and pay what the state owes to health care providers.
1. Students will then be dumb and fat.
2. Get rid of unions and their political enablers who encourage those contracts.
3. Ditto. And get ready for the howls from union teachers when you tell them they can't have a 10 week summer vacation.
Also you won't improve test scores by subjecting students to longer days in and smaller vacations from our dismal school system. That will just annoy both students and teachers. Real progress will be achieved only when we break the stranglehold unions have on public education.
(1) Maine finally got sick of being shorn by the Democrats and decided to try a complete make-over.
(2) But we're still addicted to all the federal sugarplums supposedly placed in our stockings by those two drones in the House and those two RINOs in the Senate.
The bamboozling has been coming from the left for decades and the blinders are coming off - not all the way, yet, but getting there. Since you're into old sayings now, here's one: You can lead a donkey with koolaide, but you can't make him think.
PS. Palid? I had hoped that the junior-high misspellings were a thing of the past now that WideStanceRepublican has gone to that great forum in the sky.
The only point you have, Invidia, is the one under your Donald Duck hat. You said even partial privatization would just enrich GWB's buds. I said, even so it would pay for SS better than the current system. You don't want to debate anything, you just want folks to agree with your cut-and-paste arguments. Forget it.
does not constrain Russia's program to modernize its nuclear stockpile;
does nothing to control low-yield, tactical nukes - Russia has lots and terrorists are clamoring for them - just the thing for luggage headed for the US;
stops our development of missile defenses - Russia says it will walk away from the treaty if we make any improvements;
is not transparent - Obama will not release the full negotiation record - perhaps he's waiting for WikiLeaks - and a few senators are unwilling to bless a treaty when they don't know all the commitments.
The Democrat "tactic" has been, since 1936, to encourage people to believe that Social Security is the National Retirement Plan. Of course they would never say that out loud, being invertebrates. And, wow, have they been successful. Today the average American never lifts a finger to prepare for his own retirement, for which SS was always meant to be a just a back-up. The Democrat party has survived for decades by making as many people as possible, as dependent on government as they can get.
Which party wants to keep all tax rates at the current levels, at which they have stayed for 7+ years, to avoid letting them automatically revert up to the Clinton levels, to maintain some stability in a volatile economy, and not to single out one group and punish them for being successful in spite of their government? No hint required. It is the Republican
It's just wrong, Woody, to think it's your money. FDR didn't set it up that way in 1936 and it hasn't changed since: The taxes we pay are spent as soon as the government receives them, on whatever they want to pay for, and they drop an IOU in the famous "lock box". Paying Social Security benefits is just another expense, completely disconnected from the taxes we all pay. Well, except for most teachers and other government employees. Now-a-days, when they need to cash in an IOU, they just print more dollars out of thin air.
The only way that could happen is to move out of Maine. Interesting question: Is it an efficient use of welfare to rent U-Haul trucks for people to escape from the Glorious Socialist Paradise?
As a spokesperson for the entitled, whining, and paranoid rich, I'll let everyone in on a little secret: Next year it will become a lot easier to stay with a job and making it on your own, and a lot harder to remain dependent on other peoples' hard earned money.
Tilla: Certainly, if tax reduction for the rich was the problem, job growth would have continued these past 10 years.
There were 9/11 and two wars. But, of course, stuff like that doesn't affect the economy at all - just trivialities. And the Democrats got a stranglehold on Congress in 2006 and started down the slide to socialism. Insignificant! Oh, wait, the economy imploded, but pay no attention - and anyway, they inherited the mess.
Then came the Community Organizer in Chief to begin his fundamental transformation of the US .. into a 3rd world state, powerless and completely beholden to China, Russia and everyone else who wants to make us and keep us dependent on the new world order.
Hubert Kauffman: ... an electorate that is distracted and confused.
They must be because, instead of continuing to vote for the entitled class of liberal Democrats, they overturned the House in DC and everything in Augusta. We must get rid of those pesky elections! They just cause distraction and confusion.
I'm Dreaming of a Race Immaterial Non-Religious- Specific Day-Off in Winter
O Little Town of Israeli-Palestinian Joint Rule
O Come Let us Adore Him or Her
We Three Misogynist Autocrats of Eastern Asia are
O holiday tree
Have yourself a merry little day of winter
Frosty the snowperson
Chestnuts roasting over a safely contained, continuously monitored, eco-friendly, nontoxic outdoor fire (for which I do have a permit)
Higher power rest ye merry gentlemen
Grandma got allegedly run over by an unidentified non-human perpetrator
Deck the halls with boughs of undamaged foliage (If office policy approves)
Hark! The herald mythical winged creature sings
I saw mommy greeting santa claus with a purely platonic expression of inoffensive mutual affection
I'll be home for a short time in December
Ethan, your letter describes 99% of the people in our country - they don't make a big deal and do practice live and let live. It's the other 1% who try to spoil the season for the rest. They are those bitter, caustic and, unfortunately, very vocal folks who can't begin to be happy unless they are telling the rest of us what to think and what can be said out loud, how to behave and, especially, how to worship. Don't turn the other cheek - it just encourages them. Instead, avoid them altogether whenever possible - they thrive on attention. When you can't avoid them, cross the street, turn off the TV or radio, close the newspaper, or shut off your computer. Merry Christmas!
In 1979 we vacationed in Big Bend National Park in southwest TX. Part of the "experience" was to take a rowboat across the river, then hike a mile, all in 110 degrees, to a cantina in the middle of nowhere. Cold beer never tasted so good. And we din' need no steenkin' visas.
Today? If you can enter the park at all and get within 40 miles of the river, you'll be met by armed men, of uncertain affiliation, and the best you can hope for is a blunt order to turn around and get gone. If you get closer into cartel occupied territory, God help you - because you won't get any help from the US government.
The race panderers, aided and abetted by liberals everywhere, are hard at work addressing the illegal immigration issue. Their plan is to make life here as bad as it is south of the border. That will keep Mexicans in Mexico, but I'll bet we'll be hearing a different sort of whining from US libbies: Hey, wait, it's not supposed to affect me!
No states are going to be given back, or taken back, and in less than five years, that 30 mile strip just inside Mexico will be occupied by the US military, with all the fire power that hasn't been given away to Russia and China, and it will be an order of magnitude worse than anything in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's what you're buying with your crocodile tears for those poor children of illegal immigrants.
I'm surprised that Lukeski hasn't instructed his lawyer to sue Rite Aid for invasion of privacy. I hear the same whining from at least one high school student every November. He would much rather go hunting than go to school, so he phones in a bomb threat. A few minutes later, the cops show up on his doorstep, having traced him through Caller ID. Then the wailing begins: It's not FAIR!
If Congress does nothing and lets the Bush tax cuts expire, the rates go up. If Congress extends them, they stay where they are and have been for several years. Either way, what they pay does not go down. Unless your view is that the rates should go up for the "rich" and if they don't, those evil rich people won't have to pay more than they do this year, thus it's a break. This is pure class and wealth envy, wrapped in gymnastic pandering.
Voisine, does your computer have spell-check? You might want to turn it on.
For every Liberty U., there are 100 UM's. You libs are way ahead in the indoctrination wars.
You libs are also way ahead in shooting your mouths off with no information. I have a BA in computer science and 40+ years in the private sector. That is, I studied something with potential and then put it to productive use, which is a lot more than we'll ever see from our bunny skinner.
Confucius say: Always engage brain before putting mouth in gear.
After 4 years of comsimp indoctrination, it's impossible to be a "right wing Republican creep". I do agree, though, that he's a dimwit because he has to resort to look-at-me-aren't-I-important displays to get any attention.
Besides, I quit long ago when the price went over $3. $20! Does that come with a certificate of medical cleanliness?
So what's the deal? The Collected Non-Explosive Works of Bill Ayers? How much do you charge for one sheet of paper?
Quality vs. trash. Who have you hired to explain the difference to you? Tron, I bet. He doesn't do anything here, so he has plenty of time on his hands.
Thanks for explaining all that to us nefarious roll builders, Pontifex Veritatis. It must be a slow day at the store. Does this month's Hustler come in green and red shrink-wrap?
There are those who seem intent upon NOT blaming those responsible for making so many unemployed and keeping them unemployed. Nationwide I refer, of course, to Congress and the White House; in Maine, the legislature and the Blaine House. And everywhere, of course, unions.
The best thing for an unemployed person is a job. If government would get out of the way, the private sector would create one and the person would fill it. No amount of welfare, disguised as unemployment benefits, will do that.
In college my dorm roommate was Jewish. We still keep in touch - he sends me a Hanukkah card, I send him a Christmas card. No discomfort or discourtesy. To suggest that those qualities must be present in such an exchange does disrespect to both religions and implies that the suggester doesn't have any friends at all, except perhaps a few who are as closed-minded as he is.
Angus K. created this money burner and John B. perpetuated it. Now we have a generation of teachers who can't run a class without their computers. In ten years the next generation won't be able to teach without a cell phone. The hype was always that these gadgets prepare our kids for good jobs that require high tech experience. While that hand was waving, the other hand was chasing away all those jobs. Most of those kids are prepared only for playing video games while collecting welfare.
Some folks here, including the editorial board, seem to believe that "joining" the existing suit means duplicating everything that has already been done. This is from the WSJ on 11/18. Joining the ObamaCare Suit Some of the new AGs may consider filing their own separate suits against ObamaCare, following Virginia's Ken Cuccinelli. This may win a few headlines, but we doubt it will enhance the chances for legal success. The more states that join the Florida suit, the more the judiciary will appreciate how widespread the legal and popular opposition is to ObamaCare's federal intrusion on state powers and individual rights.
History's footnotes are littered with voices that kept silent, kept their heads down, tail between legs. If Mr. Rhoades had been around in Philly in 1776, he would have said: Gee, fellas, I don't think I want to sign such a pointless, impractical challenge to the king's authority. It will sort itself out. Rule Britannia.
The bipartisan support for START has shrunk ever since Our Dear Leader began his campaign to bow down before every tin-pot dictator he could locate, all the while apologizing for everything the US ever did - well, ever did under Republican leadership.
This treaty now is just a written version of Obama bowing down to the New World Order in the person of president-for-life Putin.
How's that trickle-up theory of bail-out working? Very well, if you believe the created-or-saved balderdash. Just print a mountain of money not backed by anything. Up or down, it's a mountain. The difference is, with the Bush tax cuts, everyone gets to decide what to do with more of their earnings; without, the decisions are made by politicians.
Up above somewhere, one of the usual pests moaned about overturning the Constitution if there are any restrictions placed on Muslims. Here's all it says about religion: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... It's that second clause that has proven so tricky. The courts have been reasonably consistent, at least for the last 20 years, that governments, not just the feds, can restrict the exercise of religion, as long as the restrictions apply equally to all religions. I haven't seen any recent stories about belligerent Christian parkers, so I have to believe that this is another instance of Islam being more equal than other religions.
Do you really believe the LSJ editorial board is a group of conservatives? It's a typical liberal tactic to suggest the Constitution can mean anything you want it to mean, and then to dare those of us who disagree to get out.
It took TSA only about a year to come up with this intrusive procedure. I suppose that's pretty efficient for a heavily unionized organization.
This whole approach to security is stupid because its premise is: Each one of 300 million Americans is equally likely to be a terrorist. The premise should be: Focus on those whose behavior is indicative of a terrorist. But that would be profiling!! (Cue the moaning and hand wringing.) Contact the folks at El Al for a quick lesson.
Those servicemen you speak of so righteously took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I wonder how they feel about another branch of the federal government trashing the fourth amendment.
Anyhow, Editorial Board, get back to us after your 4 year old daughter or 80 year old grandmother gets groped at the airport.
Progressive (uppercase) has nothing to do with progressive (lowercase). Pelosi is the former and the electorate finally got fed up and demoted her to the minority. Too bad the voters of her district didn't join in and move her where she belongs - out of Congress. I hear there's quite a waiting list for the California Old Progressives' Home where they dodder around on their walkers hollering "Tax the rich!" and "Power to the people!"
Wait. I forgot that a bed just opened up. The former occupant just got elected governor.
And they also mention that the top 1% pay more in federal income tax than the bottom 95%. There has never been even one instance of government making a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.
When Baldy won in 2006 by a very similar plurality, there was no concerted effort on the right to change the system. The left has grown to believe that it's their birthright to own governors and legislatures. Now that they've been evicted, they're whining up a storm.
Of course not. That question was never asked during the past 16 years. It's being asked now only because some don't like the recent results. Ranked choice voting doesn't guarantee anything except a winner by majority.
Charlie Rangel has been elected many times by huge majorities. So was his predecessor Adam Clayton Powell. Those two have other things in common: ethics violations and convictions. But they sure did bring the goodies back to Harlem.
... the silly misspellings and 6th grade playground profanity. I agree - evidence abounds that the current administration wants to impose idiocracy from the top down.
To the other 6th graders who regularly post here: Please accept my apology for dragging you down to WSR's level.
Fascism was in Italy, the SS was in Germany, and they and communism are all far-left. If you take nationalism out of NAZI, the result is almost indistinguishable from communism. The left's propaganda machine has been very successful over the decades in portraying Nazis as far right-wingers. Just surf old comments here for instances where the usual suspects try to equate Republicans and Nazis. You might want to check your morning Allen's.
"(all readers who hit 'disagree' after reading the first sentence) will ignore the remainder of the post." The ()-s are mine to emphasize what is the subject of the sentence. It is categorical in ascribing an action to all the subject readers. In our hair-splitting world, it does not cover those readers who hit 'disagree' after reading even one word beyond the first sentence. The folks who appreciate this sort of distinction likely also showed up for the Millennium party on 12/31/2000. Here are more categorical statements.
'Civics' in high school or lower is an endangered species at best. 'Government' is superficial until college, where it's indoctrination: republican democracy bad (unless it's power to the people); socialism / communism / totalitarianism good. History? Maybe kids still study the Greek city-states, but I'll bet the proximate (How's that for trendy elite?) connection is the movie 300.
So we have two kinds of democracy: correct and common. The former is pretty much ignored, the latter is thrown out everywhere like a verbal comma. This failing, comfortable or not, will never be corrected by snark-fest commentary in a 3rd-rate newspaper's web site.
One final piece of elitism. <irony>I'm impressed that you spelled "ad hominem" correctly.</irony> It helps my calorie intake.
And I read every word of your post. Thus your categorical statement is false, but I won't hold that against you. I'm baffled by the current overuse of the trendy word 'meme'. It connotes an elite, intellectual snobbery that does not fit comfortably with 'democracy'.
The key concept for me is contained in the word 'direct'. Direct participatory democracy is the town meeting, a political form that is dying out in this era of absentee ballots and 'early' voting. But even in the past, it never worked after the population grew beyond the possibility of holding a physical meeting of all eligible voters. In my town the typical meeting is attended by fewer than 5% of those voters, who usually have an agenda that does not necessarily match the wants and needs of the other 95%.
But the direct aspect is exactly what most commenters mean. Example: I voted for ABC, but now he's doing things I don't like and I want him gone. I don't want to wait for the next election. Another example from just a few years ago: He's not my president.
The danger is that we have come to a time when it is almost literally possible to hold nation-wide plebiscites via the Internet. When that happens, you can kiss the republican (lowercase) part goodbye as we usher in the era of instant referenda and, yes, instant impeachments. Again, be careful what you wish for.
We do not live in a democracy, which the founders considered mob-rule. They gave us a republic, along with the proviso if you can keep it. Liberals prattle about democracy only when the stupid voters don't do what they're told. Which leads to ...
Ranked choice voting, or instant run-off, or one of several other names. It's great. It's wonderful. Except for one thing. For decades Maine voters have been conditioned to think only enough to find the Democrat and put a mark beside his name. There was a mini rebellion this year proving that Democrats have overreached their own propaganda.
Now you want the voter to make at least two marks - in the recent governor's election it was five, I think - and each mark is different! 1, 2, 3 ... This will require a significant amount of re-education in the electorate. Voters will have to learn about candidates and issues and make difficult decisions. While it's technically possible with a lot of effort, remember the old advice: Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it.
Up above, in one of Veritas' pontificating comments, he claimed Your responsibility as a Citizen is to learn and understand how your rights are defined by the Constitution and applied by the courts so that all men and women enjoy equal protection under the law. Two entirely different battlefields fought by two completely different sets of warriors.
The document enumerates what the government can do and, more importantly, cannot do. The rights themselves come from another source.
By winning the Revolutionary War, veterans established a fertile bed for the Constitution to be accepted and implemented. Only after their sacrifices could the courts accomplish anything.
All the wars thereafter were to preserve the environment in which the courts could do all that good stuff. One set of warriors enabled the other set.
The far left, orchestrated by MoveOn.org, started attacking GWB on Inauguration Day 2001 and have never stopped. Not a week goes by without some dope in DC whining about the inherited mess. Yet all this attacking is quickly labeled patriotism when it's left on right; when it's right on left, there must be some other reason - like racism.
2nd, you're happy with the White House being run by aging communists and socialists? One has to wonder if they aren't left enough to suit you. You're satisfied with Obamacare? Very little of it is in effect yet, nobody has read it, not even the many authors, and nobody has a clue how much it will cost. What's not to be satisfied with?
Those who voted for Republicans might be right. But I doubt that possibility ever concerns you. Of course some will find any Republican action offensive. But that is to be resolved at the next election, not at the next meeting of the LSJ editorial board.
A sailor was using a public restroom when a little boy came in and stood beside him. The kid asked Are you in the Navy? The sailor said Aye aye, son. Would you like to wear my cap? The boy answered Wow, yeah! So the sailor took off his cap and placed it on the kid's head.
Then a soldier came in and joined them. The boy asked Are you in the Army? The soldier answered Yes, son. Would you like to insert-lewd-question-here?
The kid answered No, sir, I'm not in the Navy. I'm just wearing this guy's cap.
Pubikwerks, the phrase came from the original letter, not from me. I have no idea why you're talking about hygiene; perhaps you should bathe more regularly. And no one needs to know about your truck or your family.
When the Republican is elected in 2012, he and the Republican congress can start cleaning up the messes. It will take a huge effort to undo the damage caused in just the first two years of the current administration.
I had the pleasure of a leisurely north-bound drive through South Carolina on a couple of hot, late summer days in September. Stayed overnight with friends in Aiken. Stuck to back roads, mostly, and gave my GPS a workout. Took it slow. What a beautiful part of the country! I'm getting to an age where I look with envy at my snow-bird friends.
By the way, there's a nice little town in Florida, Frostproof, so named because the residents claim, perhaps tongue in cheek, that the temperature has never dropped below 32F.
... in Maine are all the mandates the legislature piled on the insurance companies. Here's hoping those mandates start disappearing soon after 12/1. Unfortunately, all those mandates are wired into Obama-care, so they'll come right back unless some more folks in DC start growing backbones.
We all know where your mind is, Truthie, because you provide ample evidence every day. Too bad Lewiston doesn't enforce its leash laws.
But you spelled it wrong. The only soul you'll ever get close to is the sole on the bottom of your size 13 combat-slippers, from which you hourly have to scrape the deposits from your schnauzer.
I hope you got a life-time supply of Gravy Train from your benefactor, and that you have gotten used to the taste. It will help to tide you over the bad times coming until Republicans repair the damage.
The Bald One had the same plurality and, yes, a lot of the leftie boneheads called it a mandate. I don't recall a bunch of sore losers then calling for the rules to change.
What do you mean by "compromising solutions"? If you suggest that Ds and Rs sit down together and have a rational discussion about how to approach problems, well ... First time for everything! That certainly hasn't been tried for at least the last 16 years.
The Ds have been claiming for decades that spending can't be reduced on anything because the people voted in the Ds, and the Ds voted in the spending. Therefore, the people voted in the spending. The Rs have been advocating reduced spending for those same decades, without being very specific.
Now the Rs have a governor and a legislature, and they can cut anything they want - maybe everything. But when they try, the howling you will hear will come from the Democratic Party of NO, taking up the mantle of obstructionism. If the Rs ignore the howls, then I'll wish them good luck and urge them to keep going.
If they heed the howls, two years will go by in a big hurry and that majority will disappear.
Did you make the same suggestion in 2006 when Baldacci became Governor 38? Or was it 39? I forget. When a Democrat wins, it's just fine and dandy; when a Republican wins, it's a horrendous assault on our democratic (lowercase) principles.
Not at all. I mean high-tech companies, computer, engineering, ... The ones we're supposed to have been attracting to Maine for years with a work-force prepared by ... a few years playing frisbee with Angus-King-laptops; the companies who won't consider coming to our state until we do something about high taxes, high insurance rates, high utility rates, ... all of which can be addressed by repealing decades of liberal mandates.
That said, if the best you can manage is a retail clerk position, your choices are (1) be happy and stop whining, (2) re-educate yourself, or (3) move to where the jobs are. What you should not expect is to be able to support yourself, much less a family, on a minimum-wage job. That kind of rug is suitable only for a lap dog.
I couldn't agree more, Lilly. Chellie and Mike certainly fit in that category. You couldn't possibly be talking about state positions - we just evicted the incompetent drones.
The corporations, big business and the well-to-do are the ones who create jobs - real jobs, not government pencil-pusher jobs or phony low-pay, no-benefits, short-term jobs like the census. If you want to give LePage a chance, do so because our state government may now begin to stop punishing success.
By the way, Harry Reid was reelected for exactly one reason - the boatload of money thrown to him by the unions he panders to.
Scramble the names around any way you like: How much of that outside money came in support of A and for the attack ads against B and C? The question is equally valid. Since you chose the order you did, I suspect what you really want is Democrat control over what transpires.
Liberal representatives will now be in the minority, with no protection attached to committee chairmanships and other favors handed out by the "leadership".
The voters of Maine will have two years to see what incompetent drones we keep electing. Here's hoping the new visibility carries over to the Senate as well.
Ask your Congress-critter to submit a bill of amendment. Please post back here the response you get. I would like to read the politically-correct equivalent of Pound sand.
When a country has a "national" police force, it's the same as an army. If you like Costa Rica's so much, let's out-source to them the protection of our southern border, since the current administration has no intention of performing its duty. At least they already speak Spanish.
China is green? Have you seen recent photos of people wearing surgical masks to avoid breathing the polluted air? They will gladly make windmills as long as fools like us buy them.
Russia doesn't invest a ruble in "social" programs. Which of ours do you want to raid for money to fund NASA and its latest program to promote Muslim equality in our space program?
Most of the violence and fear you perceive is domestic. We took a huge step Tuesday toward stopping it.
Detail where in the board rules you get the authority to order others around.
If one is generous and believes O's policies didn't kick in until fiscal 2010 (Oct '09), he added more than $1T to the debt in less than a year. About the same amount will be added today or tomorrow with QE2. During that year he pushed unemployment up to 10% and kept it there, nationalized GM, put a lot of parts operations out of business with kash-for-klunkers, damaged the dignity of the presidency by hiring a bunch of communists to run the White House and pandering to every union goon he can find, and destroying the prestige of the country by bowing and scraping to every tin-pot dictator he trips over.
The error we made Tuesday was not panicking enough to take over the Senate.
He inherited a mess and created much more and won't take responsibility for anything. The American people supported him in 2008 and are beginning to understand the magnitude of their error - and to correct it.
I wish that my granchildren could stay in Maine, if they choose, to enjoy the climate and forests. If they make that choice, however, they'll have to be satisfied with minimum-wage jobs, with no benefits and no future. Because that's all we'll have left if the enviro-nazis have their way.
But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Until Tuesday I would have said the light was an oncoming train. Now, finally, the 35 year nightmare is ending and Maine is waking up. There will be adaptation and mitigation, but no compromise. This is a future truly worth considering.
... in RSU16 and everywhere else in Maine? Throw all those laptops in the dump and go back to teaching the kids how to read, write and add. Then they might be able to graduate from high school and go on to college without taking remedial courses.
They hated the idea of democracy - that's why they created a republic. They used to teach this stuff in civics, but not any more. To the Founders, democracy was mob rule. We have never had democracy in this country and don't have it now. The closest thing to it is the New England town meeting, and those are vanishing quickly.
The fools on the propaganda network don't need propping up - they thrive in the free market. It's NPR that has to pass the collection plate in order to keep going with their minority, elitist "public" views.
You're probably right that Williams never belonged at NPR. They thought of him as a house n****r and he had higher aspirations than modern-day slavery.
Pandering and sycophancy are NPR's stock in trade. Their idea of a commentary show is to gather a few lefties and have them all say the same thing. FOX at least invites a token liberal now and then. Williams was punished for daring to step off the Democrat plantation.
Working People? That's Democrat code for union goons who want all their bennies handed to them as long as someone else pays for them.
Indentured servitude? If you accept it, you're either too stupid or too lazy, or both, to take responsibility for yourself. Move to where the jobs are. (Cue the whining.) That's too hard. Government should give me a good job and lots of free stuff, right here.
Truth? You couldn't find it with both hands, a flashlight, and a sea chart. Shove off.
The system is set up to allow and encourage cheating; that is, using the easy rules to get on and stay on welfare. I know several 20-somethings who have moved to the Farmington area, not because of the wonderful job prospects; because it's easy to get state assistance, a minimum-wage part-time job, and share an apartment with 4 or 5 others doing the same thing - all the while whining that someone should "give" them a better job.
I run a small business and have several employees. Those who are conscientious I pay up to $10 and hour - because that is the upper limit of what the job is worth to me. The rest get $7.50 and most of them deserve only $4. Too bad I can't pay them that.
And not one of them, from best to worst, has any business trying to support a family on this level of income. And they certainly shouldn't be starting one. But, hey, the system encourages producing more rug-rats to get more welfare and keep it longer - under the theory that they will grow up to be good little Democrats.
When your employer provides a benefit to you, the cost of that benefit is a cost of employment. If he pays it all, or you pay it, or you share, the cost remains the same. The average cost for family health insurance is around $14,000 a year. It might be higher. After some quick arithmetic, that amount translates to $6.73 per hour for a full-time worker.
The current minimum wage is $7.50. For someone making that wage, his employer would have to raise it to over $14 per hour to provide health insurance. I don't know any employers who could afford to do that, even Marden's.
If the government put its gun to that employer's head and forces him, the employer will have to lay off enough employees that the combined savings will cover the new insurance requirements for the remaining employees - or go out of business.
Working families do not benefit from hikes in the minimum wage. The real beneficiaries are the unions whose contract amounts are tied to minimum wage.
We have been throwing ever increasing wads of money at education for decades, even though the student population is shrinking. What do we have to show for it? Happy teachers and unions, and declining graduation rates. The dopes stay here and get on welfare, the graduates leave looking for those real jobs. As always, the promise is: Chucking more money at education will improve it. The gambler in me remembers the age-old poker advice: If you look around the table and can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you.
Sorry. Here goes. Nearly every municipality in Maine has a road crew and equipment. They are the guys who plow the roads and knock down the mailboxes. They are unionized and draw full pay and benefits all year, during most of which they sit on their thumbs. You're dang right it's not operated like a business.
Why not contract out to a private firm for public road maintenance? A lot of those guys are idle during the winter months and this would keep them on the payroll and off welfare. This would put a bunch of money back in the private sector where it belongs. Let the private firms invest in the equipment and expand to cover their natural business area, perhaps hiring the former town crews and giving them a taste of real life. At the very least this would dispense with the incredible duplication now with every little town owning its equipment.
Heck, the firms could even compete with each other, drawing costs down and maybe even saving the weary taxpayer a few bucks. All this is heresy to a Democrat.
Regarding the payback for our education "investment", when does that start? Each year, more of our kids can't manage to graduate from high school and are encouraged to settle into a "career" on welfare. Those that do graduate, leave Maine looking for jobs. But our investment in education goes up every year, with fewer tax payers to foot the bill.
Libby is going to "invest" in new technologies like ... what? Green? Each new green job destroys two non-green jobs. Maine is great at that kind of investment.
She will "support small business" ... how? Will she reduce their taxes? Will she wave the Democrat magic wand and reduce their insurance and utility costs? Yeah, right.
Maine government's focus, for decades, has been on the next election. It's way past time to take a longer look, and the myopic Democrats won't do it. Don't vote for them, or for anyone else who wants to "invest" more of what little money you have left.
Until the legislature created the rules and regulations (the commission just does what it's told), there were many health insurance companies operating in Maine, competing with each other, selling reasonable policies at reasonable prices. I know because I had one from 1985 until Augusta trashed everything in 1992 or 3.
The rules and regulations killed all that, leaving just Anthem and a handful of minor players - they all sell the same thing at the same price, evil competition is not to be tolerated here in the Socialist Workers' Paradise. What some people call the wild west, others call real life.
It's evident that in your career you never had even one significant position in the private sector so you could compare your federal/union bennies to what the rest of us get. I have a pretty fair arrangement with my employer - I pay half and he pays half, for a total of $2,700 per month. And that is better than what a lot of folks get. And it's considered a cadillac plan, so I get taxed on it as imputed income.
I agree it's ludicrous - because it's 100% caused by short-sighted politicians who will bankrupt the country in order to preserve their power.
I agree. The outrageous costs are to make up for the "free" care provided to the uninsured and the poor (not necessarily the same) and the "free" mandates on insurance - guaranteed issue, no pre-existing conditions, one-size-fits-all, ... The care is supposed to be reimbursed, but payment comes 5 years late and 60% or less of billed amounts. Fix the problems by going after the biggest deadbeat customer, the State of Maine, and repeal the mandates. Then pay attention to the folks who actually need help instead of trying, and failing, to do everything for everybody.
The Democrats have been throwing our money at education for decades and all we have to show for it are happy teachers and happier unions. The student population state-wide has been declining for years, but the education budget goes up every year like clockwork - and the graduation rate goes down. If this is the system that LePage will damage, then GO PAUL!
It's really interesting. When North Korea needs a new leader, the best qualified candidate they can scrounge up in the entire, glorious workers' paradise is the idiot son of the idiot father. Or idiot grandson of the idiot grandfather. That country is not a communist state, it's a hereditary dictatorship.
Same with Cuba. When Fidel was sick (Is he still alive?), they hauled out his drooling brother to take over. So much for the great equality under the hammer and sickle.
If they lift the ban on out-of-state insurance, all they would accomplish is to allow someone in Maine to buy a policy the same as Anthem's, at the same price, from a NH company. There will be no 40% savings unless Maine repeals the other mandates they require on ANY policy - guaranteed issue, pre-existing conditions, one size fits all, ... - those are the things that drive up premiums.
You may ask: How can Maine dictate to NH the contents of health insurance policies? Easy. All you need are several federal administrations and congresses who couldn't care less about the Constitution and want to keep interstate commerce on a short leash.
The repeal kept sales and income taxes at their previous levels. Nothing raised, nothing lowered. But in modern Dem-speak, a possible (but improbable) tax cut that is repealed before it is implemented becomes a tax hike. Sorry, Woody, this sort of dissembling doesn't work any more.
Whatever the outcome, I have it from a reliable source that down in a locked basement room in the state house in Augusta are several fine examples of the venerable craft of noose tying. For some reason, the state museum doesn't have them on display. If we bring back the death penalty, someone can easily learn how to replicate the knot, even using new materials to avoid those hateful neck abrasions. If not, because we can't find a union member capable of the exercise, I'll bet the old ones will last for quite a while.
I too am in favor of capital punishment in Maine, but only if a jury decides death, no judges, and there is a maximum of 10 days for appeal - and the procedure takes place on the state house steps with full media coverage.
Oh, and the punishment for dirty cops is hanging twice.
When the subject is drugs, the argument in favor of legalizing is that doing so would cut out the criminal elements. But then, Augusta would do what it does best: tax and regulate. And as with cigarettes and booze, they would overdo it - inviting cutthroat competition from the bentnoses. The only downside to legalizing gambling is the state's history with similar things.
It is "in vino veritas" and it means that when you drink alcohol you tend to get loose and sometimes say things you normally wouldn't say had you not imbibed. He lives up to his chosen name. Make that "down to".
If it had been overhauled 40 years ago, just as I was entering the work force, allowing me to retain and invest privately some or all of the money I was forced to waste on the Social Security Ponzi scheme, I wouldn't care today if my benefits were reduced by 100%.
And they probably will be. Oh I'll get a monthly check, but I'll be lucky if it will buy me a cup of coffee, thanks to the Weimar-like inflation coming in response to printing mountains of worthless currency to subsidize this scam that should have been declared unconstitutional in 1936.
But don't worry, be moronically happy. lil and her/his/its comrades won't allow changes except to hike the rates on our children and grandchildren.
If you are implying that compromise is always good, I'll have to disagree. Many of today's Democrats did a lot of compromising during the GWB years. That really worked out well. Now they happily blame him for every wrong in the world, ignoring the fact they were willing accomplices. Many of today's Republicans object to involuntary compromise (AKA bipartisanship) and are excoriated for obstructionism. Perhaps the time for compromise is past.
They all would, if they could get away with it politically. Earlier this year, the premier of Prince Edward Island came south of the border to avoid standing (and perhaps dying) in line for heart surgery. The best way to stop that is to convert our system to be as bad as theirs. Your lord and master has launched that process well.
BTW, I said "ruling" elite. The Queen and the Emperor rule nothing, not even their own families. The Pope can command any treatment he wants. But are you really suggesting that Vatican City operates under socialized medicine? If you are, you swallowed that clock and it's obviously interfering with you mental faculties.
The ruling elite from all those other countries come here for care when it's important, and they pay cash. They don't want anything to do with "free" government healthcare. Especially the kind provided in the Old Sailors' Dementia Home.
Are you on Medicare, Mainecare, or a cadillac deal extorted by union goons from your employer? I'm not, so tell me if my situation is a pretty darn good: the premium for a reasonably healthy couple in their early 60s is $2500 per month. That's not just Anthem, but every other private insurer, the few still doing business here, as well as from DirigoHealth, if you can contact them when enrollment is open. The companies aren't at fault, the politicians are, with their unfunded mandates.
This pretty darn good situation brought to you by your Democrats in Augusta - trying as hard as they can to kick the responsibility down to Washington. But, never mind. You can look at beautiful scenery while you slowly die from medical problems you can't afford to treat.
... but don't follow up on any of them. To pick just one, lots of us, not just the Tea Party, want Pelosi gone. Boehner will become speaker and, being pretty good at reading the numbers, will realize that he too will be gone in two years if the house goes back to business as usual. It doesn't get more active than that, unless you're advocating revolution.
The bitter tone makes me think you may have joined a local Tea Party group but couldn't get elected to a position high enough to stroke your ego. That sort of good discrimination is a reflection of America at its best.
... to keep up with the DNC/union talking points. When all you really have to do all day long is comb the fleas out of your dog and your beard, managing time is pretty easy. Oh, and that ship was drawing friendly fire because it didn't collect the garbage often enough.
Most of those dollars he brought to L/A started there. Michaud takes credit for returning your money to you - that is, to state and local government to use to pay for wonderful programs for working families and main street business and several other buzz phrases. But that money first, dontcha know, has to pass through the federal sewer pipe, where a great deal sticks to the sides.
Oops! As in - Oops! - I don't have anything to say in favor of my candidate, so - Oops! - I'll just have to spew slander and innuendo about the other guy. It's a venerable tactic, but it won't work this year. OPPPPS!
In a situation like this, doesn't the out-of-state company subcontract to outfits more local? It doesn't make sense to ship workers and equipment halfway across the country for such a small project.
The uneven playing field is more apparent when the work can be performed elsewhere and then shipped to Maine. The advantage goes to bidders from states that are a little more business friendly. Think taxes, insurance, ... It's not uncommon. Think about computer programming, for just one example.
The past 8 years of tact, professionalism, communication, patience, experience and knowledge have put Maine on a direct path to bankruptcy. Mitchell would complete the journey.
Jan Collins is the wife of Irv Faunce, the Democrat candidate for the Maine House from Wilton, running to replace the term-limited Tom Saviello. These details brought to you in the name of full disclosure.
Ms. Collins, you gave your version of what LePage and Cutler would do, but not Mitchell. That's because her plan is more of the same. She will continue the Democrat tradition of lying to the people of Maine by resurrecting the decades old promise of 55% state funding - never met even once - and of assuming we're all too stupid to understand the futility of that approach. Later, budget "emergencies" would force her to break the promise (surprise!) and property tax payers would once again get the education shaft.
Just out of curiosity, Ms. Collins, who do you work for?
No. Having a dope for VPOTUS offends me and everyone else. That's why rumors are flying that Joe "foot-in-mouth" Biden will be replaced on the ticket in 2012. The smart money says the new candidate will be another teleprompter - less chance of embarrassing mistakes.
Scan the comments attached to any letter that even hints at support for someone or something on the right. You'll find enough crassness to last a lifetime - or at least until the next election.
Lil's post is much more important than his/her/its usual post. It reveals that liberals want a king, not a president, and to them Congress is irrelevant. Barack the First will make all decisions by royal decree. They just can't get and keep their agenda within the structure of a republic - too democratic (small D).
Your letter is a great summary of why this year there is much voter dissatisfaction with both major parties. The D's are going to get trounced - and the R's better pay close attention to the reasons.
For 8 years we have had a governor with the passion of a cadaver, who smiles and nods and says whatever he decides his audience wants to hear. Boy, is he nice or what?
And for 8 years he has lied to the Maine electorate about the state of the state. (Before you get your boxers in a bunch, glance up to the top of the page. See the big word opinion?) Especially the financial state. The current Democrat platform is a very simple plan: Beg for more cash from Washington.
I'm ready for a governor who will tell us the truth in a stern way that shows he knows that it hurts: The way out of this mess starts in Augusta and will never be found by the current occupants.
Most D's running for (re)election don't mention Obama, except to say they voted against certain bills, and avoid like the plague having Obama campaign for them. Republicans are thanking him for all the help.
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, of course) was a member of the KKK and a recruiter. After his death, Slick Willie excused it as a youthful indiscretion - it started in his 30s and lasted about 10 years - and, further, he was trying to get elected in the South. I guess you can rob banks and get a free pass, as long as you're a Democrat trying to get elected. Come to think of it, most incumbent Democrats have done exactly that, and continue to this day.
Then why is the unemployment rate, which was never supposed to go above 8% with all that stimulating, now just under 10%, where it's been for about 14 months? Oh, yeah, the communists in the O-administration keep saying they underestimated the mess they inherited. You might think that all that high-priced czar talent would be better at estimating. You might be wrong.
Tron's response is completely unrelated to my comment on a statement he made. The waste is the statement, which obviously didn't have any thought behind it.
Assuming you pay income taxes, how then is it your business to know my SS number? Or anyone's? Like art, I may not know what waste is, but I know it when I see it - or read it.
I agree - and I so clicked. I always get suspicious when comments from certain folks here are spelled correctly and use proper grammar. What are the chances?
When (If) Obamacare kicks into high gear, we'll all be coerced into coughing up (pun intended) lots more personal information - medical, financial, ... - at the point of the tax gun. Handing out your Social Security number will be the least intrusive. For easy reference, have the number tattooed on your arm - before it becomes mandatory.
He ran as an independent because both parties knew he was really running a scam. Remember that TV spot with him rolling up his sleeves saying: I'll be the job czar. He kept his promise by starting the stampede of jobs out of Maine, a tradition maintained well by Baldacci and the Democrat paper-weights in the legislature. Take 8 years away from the R column and put them in the D, where he always really was.
Here's another sign of Democrat desperation. The apologists are throwing their own under the bus to hide their record.
There are those who, when hearing Tea Party, immediately think of some sexual deviancy. Be patient, you will hear from them soon, right here. They make arrogant desperation seem like a virtue.
If an employee earns more than some threshold amount, she loses some or even all of the public assistance she is already receiving. That's what LePage was referring to and he did the employee a favor. One employer can't change that government policy; perhaps a governor can.
The phrase "working family" is Democrat code. It means a family in which the workers are not skilled enough to earn the money they need to provide the lifestyle they want. Along comes government to give them a permanent hand-out - but it never provides a clear path for that family to regain self-sufficiency.
If Mitchell is elected, this family trap won't change at all.
The .. Republicans .. passed .. the .. tax .. cuts .. with .. sunset.
They had to include the provision or the Democrats would have blocked the bill in the Senate with the 60 vote rule. That rule is great when Ds block Rs - but when Rs block Ds, it's an offense to democracy.
You must have mistyped, Lil. Surely you meant to title your post duh...
Since the Republicans didn't make the cuts permanent, because the Democrats would have blocked the cuts without a sunset clause, and they are set to expire at the end of this year, it's the Republicans who are raising the taxes. The Democrat herd has nothing to with it.
And if you believe that, I have a really nice bridge for sale down in Brooklyn. Make me an offer soon. I have to sell by the end of December.
I know many retired folks who live on dividends from their investments made over a lifetime of taking responsibility for themselves and their future. Their taxes will double on Jan 1. But, who cares? Fairness is what matters. Of course it won't affect you - welfare is not taxed.
Great letter, Mr. Tetenman, however I'm afraid it will fall on deaf ears on the one side of the political debate that refuses to do anything but help itself and is only interested in getting reelected. They are actively engaged in the destruction of this country, and we are letting them get away with it.
By the way, those talking heads you mentioned all blather over radios and TVs which have an on/off switch. Use it yourself instead of trying to dictate to everyone else.
By Frostproof, unverified — Wed, 09/15/2010 - 14:35
Pirate, the concept is known as the Overton Window. With all the phony allegations of racism slung by the usual suspects, when the real thing comes, and it will, no one will care.
You didn't attend the rally, you didn't watch it, you just swallowed whatever your Democrat masters put on your highchair tray. And you call someone else a tool? Add the silly, juvenile name misspelling and the dopey Tom-Swifty. And you call someone else an idiot? A lot of people bought the snake oil in November 2008. The difference between you and them? They're smart enough to know what they have and to begin to get rid of it.
If Makley has acquaintances near the border from CA to TX, they can easily convince him the assumption is reality.
The author is guilty of perpetuating his own assumption - that is, if you don't agree with him, either you are not a person of goodwill or you are not a person of faith. If a woman is in this country illegally, she should be deported, whether she's pregnant or not; if she's here legally, let her give birth to a new citizen and hope she continues herself on the path to citizenship - let her take advantage of the current laws and their loopholes.
The author just wants to dilute with emotion a dollars-and-cents situation. He may get a warm fuzzy feeling from it, but it doesn't help anyone, especially the little rug-rat anchor.
It's already there. The Vermont equivalent of LURC is trying to force them to take it down, but they haven't yet figured a way to put their malleable regulations ahead of that pesky, inflexible Constitution.
Wow! That's a new personal record for you in wandering off topic. Since you do it all the time, I'll take a turn: Cite one instance of FOX (not the silly boring misspelling you goose-steppers adore) advocating the suppression of religious freedoms. For anybody, let alone all.
The liberal political majority (in their own minds) dictate to Christianity whenever they get the opportunity. The most recent example is the Lyndon cross. It must be really terrible to be so insecure that you have to resort to selective dictating.
Thanks, Mr. Gagnon, for mentioning the subject. Ted Turner, well-known anti-Semite, is the largest stock-holder in the parent company of CNN. If Ms. Lane implied that Ted was behind the anti-Israel tirades regularly broadcast on that unbiased and meticulously truthful "news" channel, then we would have a juicy story.
Regarding the letter's ending question. Are you suggesting that newspapers should actually practice .. gasp! .. journalism? It would be nice, but don't hold your breath.
One wonders why someone who claims the male name Mark would post under the female nickname Lil and complain about the size of pairs of anything. If you are uncertain of your sexuality, there are any number of state programs that can, according to their propaganda, help you along the bumpy road to self discovery. They may not be funded right now - after all, it's an election year and there's lots of paving to get done before November.
Anyhow, I have told you and your learning-impaired friends several times why I no longer post under my real name. There are other government programs that will help you with your memory problems, as long as you promise to vote Democrat. Can you remember that? Probably not. Sad.
They settled here because Georgia puts a real time-limit on welfare benefits. The were welcomed here under the assumption that they would be good Democrats.
Many folks exhibit a general tone of dismay and dislike for immigrants who won't make even a token attempt to assimilate into existing society. Somalis are just the latest example of a group that, in general, expects all the rest of us to bend over backwards to accommodate the trappings of the society they escaped from, but dragged with them when they came here to have a "better" life.
Someday (and sooner than later) all of your flippant advice will fade away into distant echos, so nobody will remember how condescending you sound.
Get some new material, Ronnie. You do sign your "work" and your word is worth no more than any one of your posts, which are just mindless repetition of liberal / union talking points. Return your "plume" to its usual position.
You had a good (although composed 100% of DNC talking points) letter going until the last sentence. One more time: If you don't like the message, shoot the messenger.
The only continuing drumbeat comes from the left's abject fear of Beck, who they have made the face of conservative talk-radio, much to Beck's amusement and the enrichment of his bank account. First, he's a dunce of a demagogue, clinging to guns and religion; next, he's a master manipulator, controlling all political dialog.
It was the same with GWB - still is. First, he's the dumbest president ever; next, he's the evil genius, pulling the strings, even to this day.
My advice to Fortier: If you don't like Beck, stop listening to him - but also stop trying to impose your opinions on everyone else.
Congress mandated it and then washed their hands of it. So we have 50 different versions of the same program, all so we can get back the money we sent to Washington in the first place, after a significant amount sticks to the sides of the DC sewer pipe. This is the kind of efficiency they have foisted on everyone's education protocols. Indeed, ha-ha.
Problem 1: The number of people working and paying SS taxes has shrunk. That number will dwindle to zero under the policies of the current administration. The population overall has increased wildly, especially in the wagon-rider classes.
Problem 2: FDR chose those ages deliberately so the gov't could collect more money than it paid out. Over the decades, Congress has raised the rates and the salary caps many times, trying to preserve the cash-cow. If they removed the cap completely, it would kick the can down the road about 6 years.
Problem 3: The taxes collected are not invested in anything, they are spent as soon as they are received to pay current benefits and, of course, other things completely unrelated to retirement. There is no fund, there is no account with your name on it. There is a huge stack of IOUs that are redeemed by printing money, debasing the value of what's already in circulation. There may have been surpluses on paper, but that stopped this year - SS will pay out more than it takes in. That crossover has arrived about 8 years earlier than the experts predicted.
Yes, the subtle humor of the left is just too nuanced for mere mortals, let alone us knuckle-draggers. We're still worrying that Guam is going to capsize.
By the way, neighbor, it's Sheryl, not Cheryl. Sheryl was serious. Maybe your friend Cheryl was yucking it up.
I didn't realize you were a smoker, Stupiditas. There are several state programs that could help you kick the habit, but they're low on funds right now.
Where in the letter did the author say he smokes? The usual flock of turkeys here start with the premise that anything Augusta does must be for the greater good and social justice, so anyone who criticizes it must have ulterior motives - and, of course, must be a wacko right-winger.
If Augusta really wanted to stop smoking completely, they could just hike the per-pack tax by $10. But that would require political backbone, a commodity in very short supply in Maine. And they do NOT want everyone to stop, because that would choke off their revenue stream used to pay for other stuff completely unrelated to stop-smoking efforts.
Maine politicians are far more addicted to tobacco taxes than Mainers are to tobacco.
This area of Manhattan is 99% commercial. The "community" it would serve consists of stockbrokers and insurance executives on their lunch breaks. That said, there are several houses of worship in the greater Wall St. region - Trinity Church comes to mind. There are plenty of alternative sites available for the proposed whatever-it-is that would not provoke any controversy. Pick one.
One of those houses - a Greek Orthodox church - was destroyed on 9/11. NYC has blocked its reconstruction for nine years, but it is bending over backwards to accommodate Islam. I agree there's bigotry evident here.
Some of you gentle posters insist that the site is "several large city blocks away". This is from MapQuest. Note the scale at the bottom left. A decent pro golfer could drive a ball from Ground Zero to 51 Park Place.
Of course you'd be happy to share your reliable sources on anything GWB did that has been found unconstitutional? Or would you like some crow with that?
Now, so what? Proposing an amendment is easy, it's done all the time by congresscritters on both sides. The hard, and time consuming, part is getting it ratified.
The real threats to the Constitution are simply ignoring the existing parts that are inconvenient and making up new parts to support your objectives. That's how we got ObamaCare, stimulus, bail-outs, ... These threats too are made from both sides, but the current administration, aided and abetted by their Democrat sycophants in Congress, have raised it to an art form.
Just take the 6th item. Albrecht, please read (for the first time) the US Constitution, the document you pretend to revere. Republicans cannot impose amendments, no matter how much you want to believe they can. An amendment requires first consent of 2/3 of both houses of Congress, then 3/5 of the states. No one could get even one of your unspecified 42 amendments through by the end of the current Congress, 1/1/11.
Cundy: Freedom of religion is one of the principles on which our country was founded ...
It's interesting that Ms Cundy mentions only one part of the 1st Amendment. Another is freedom of the press, what's left of it. Most of the MSM has has already surrendered that freedom for fear of being labeled bigot.
A third is freedom of expression. It's still legal to hold an opinion that's different from the party line. Enjoy it while you have it, because it probably won't survive the coming Autumn Surprise.
Ignoring, for the moment, your verbal sewage, Albrecht made the accusation: The right-wing is promoting two ideas - all muslims are terrorists, Obama is a muslim. Publish any link, then. Forget the request for one to a non-left-wing site. Most of us are more than able to judge sources when they are actually mentioned.
... to some non-left-wing pandering site with evidence that the right-wing is promoting your bilge? I love it how easily you and some others here slide back and show your nostalgia for the good-old-days of the 1930s.
Obama acknowledged that he became a Christian, without specifying what he had been, when he started listening to that foaming-at-the-mouth racist bigot J. Wright. What a great way to convert!
The right has joined with many others to say: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Hatred is purposely warping that to suit your twisted ends, hiding behind a pretense of tolerance and diversity.
Obama reveres the Constitution when it suits him. When it doesn't, it's a living, breathing document that can mean anything you want. All citizens have a responsibility to support the Constitution - it's too bad we now have 2+ generations of semi-citizens who have never read it or, having read it, don't understand it or, understanding it, want to fundamentally transform it. Maybe it's more generations, given your advanced years.
Obama has already weighed in on the subject and, as whenever he goes off teleprompter, he stepped into a bucket of something warm and brown and had to mince backwards again. Think Cambridge police.
Pelosi has also weighed in, demanding that the criticizers be investigated, for exercising their 1st Amendment rights. She, like Obama, and like you, bleat about your rights, but you couldn't care less about the rights of those who disagree with you.
Thanks to Obama we now have 80% of America's wealth being controlled by politicians and bureaucrats in DC, aiming at communism for the poor, a political system that has failed wherever it has been tried.
Half that $71k goes to local schools, the rest to local services. Flanery should be thanking Cutler. Instead he's expressing the standard leftist party line of success envy.
... I used the phrase "where they were coming from" in the current PC, psycho-babble sense of "what was there motivation". Sorry to confuse you, but almost any simple English phrase will do that.
... for a year and a half. Lived history, my foot. We invaded Iraq in 3/2003. We invaded Afghanistan in 10/2001 - that's what made Pitts go off his meds. I would suggest you think before you shoot your mouth off. First time for everything.
... because they are inefficient and more expensive than the non-green power sources they are supposed to replace.
Tell you what, XYZ (what a clever screen name), you put one in your backyard and get off the grid. This winter, when you turn into a liberal corpse-sicle, the rest of us will dance a jig of despair.
WASHINGTON (AP) - American taxpayers will pay the imam behind plans for a mosque near the Manhattan site of the Sept. 11 attacks $3,000 in fees for a three-nation outreach trip to the Middle East that will cost roughly $16,000, the State Department said Wednesday.
That's why he went into the service - and then into the police - so he could put his feet up now, camp out 24/7 on this site, and complain about the people who are paying his tab. The closest he ever came to the enemy was hiding in the head when his garbage scow came close to a real target.
... right after 9/11. He was waving the flag and spoke a line like this to the radical Muslim world: You don't know what you have done - but you are about to learn.
When he realized that GWB was actually going to do more than pee & moan and convene a national seminar to find out where the terrorists were coming from, he started back-pedaling. All these years later, he's just another race panderer who filters everything through black colored lenses. What a waste of a sharp mind.
... shot every arrow in their quivers today. The merry band of happy morons (tron, veritas and lil, et al) have trotted out most of their known hang-ups. We have bigot, teabagger, Nazi, ... others I forget. Oh, yeah, the ever popular, and extremely overused, Faux News. Get some new material, chumps. You're all so fascinated with what you perceive as clever vocabulary, you don't see how easily and quickly you make fools of yourselves. What a bunch of shallow wagon-riders.
And, Truthie, you're right - I don't have the rank to order you below. But it's clear for all to see that you're most comfortable down there swamping toilets, where you spent all of your first career. Then it was on to the toilet called Illinois. Did your town have, like Chicago, walking dead Democrats? Or were you too busy cooping and snarfing donuts to notice? Do yourself a favor and stop getting your news from Sesame Street. You're starting to look less like that poor dog and more like Oscar the Grouch.
... are somewhat shorter than elsewhere in the city, following the original cow paths. I know because I used to work in the area, spitting distance from the proposed site. But your point is taken. It's still a free country - sort of.
If and when they start building the mosque, it being NYC, all that labor will be performed by union workers. That is, it will take far longer and cost far more than the planners envision, what with all the "sick outs" and "slow downs". If this idiocy gets farther down the road, I'll bet the imam will join Our Dear Leader in questioning the wisdom of the enterprise.
That should be close enough that even you would understand what your new masters expect of you. The imam would, I'm sure, help you find east and kneel five times a day. Most Muslims show compassion for the less fortunate.
So are you claiming the Jonestown problem was caused by Catholics? That's interesting. I'm always outraged when self-proclaimed religious folks use their piety to excuse their atrocities.
The administration is doing a fine job discrediting itself. Jeffyd, of course not all Muslims are terrorists - but on 9/11 all terrorists were Muslims. All you self-righteous, self-proclaimed liberals can't deal with that fact, so you descend into the safe womb of Nazism. Tronnie, you know what's "constantly" appearing on FOX and Rush because you watch/listen constantly. What a pathetic life you lead.
The Empire State Building went from a hole in the ground to a completed structure in just over one year. It's been nine years since 9/11, the GWB administration did nothing, the BHO administration is going backwards with their silly pronouncements that it's their right to build a Mosque but it's a stupid idea to build it there. Barry's covering both sides of a butt that desperately needs covering. Who is this "they", Tronnie, who is supposed to build something there? Given the way the wacko left is shredding America, only the Chinese will be able to afford to build. Maybe they'll put in a Tin-Tin Buffet so we can get something to eat when we visit the hole.
... taken out of context? His contention was that raising taxes on the "rich" would somehow inspire the middle-class to contract for more plumbing work. That's the context and it's not socialist, it's just stupid.
You know, Jonnie, I don't care for any of your opinions I have seen expressed here in LTTEs or posts, but I used to have a grudging admiration for your composition abilities. Now you have fallen back into the swamp with the other shoot-the messenger posters. Too bad.
Explain that to the unfortunate chumps who own General Motors bonds. You know, the ones who were first in line and then told by this government to go to the back of the bus while the new "public" owners chowed down. Socialism, as a daily talking point, is government taking stuff from people who earn it and distributing it to people who don't earn it. That is what's loony, in spite of what your union masters tell you.
... that several times now. Truthie, your memory has gone the way of all your other faculties. At least I spew my own words and opinions. I'm happy to discuss them with you ... right here. But you're not interested - you just want to try to denigrate anything your tiny mind perceives as not leftist. And you or your silly friends prefer to discuss things on the phone at 2am. No thanks. You may now crawl back under your rock.
Not all short posts are short on words. Consider Crank's first spew above. There's really only one word in it - Republi-CON - obviously in 1st place in his vocabulary hit-parade. Get over yourself. It's not as clever as you think it is. On a par with Democ-RAT.
Having a one-word vocabulary is the primary characteristic of this crew. One loves "bigot", another loves "Nazi". Others post things longer than Crank's, obviously copied directly from their favorite union-goon's online ranting. Those zero-word posts are ranked below even Lil, whose last post was 100% incoherent.
... from tron and lil. If you exercise your 1st amendment rights and criticize our dear Premier and his Politburo and his growing entourage of apparatchiks, well you must be on drugs not to recognize that they know what's best for you. Only tron and lil and the rest of their circle of the small and the silly - only they are to be allowed to express what's on their minds. That's why their posts are so short.
Yup, everything is great when seen from up there in the wagon - get down and pull and you'll quickly change your tune.
What sort of government would you prefer controlling our ability to succeed? The current administration and Congress are striving mightily for the promised fundamental transformation. Trouble is, the more people catch a glimpse of the target of the transformation, the more they see the worst of capitalism as the-good-old-days. It's a brave new world they want to impose. You'll be happy if you never get sick, live and work where you're told, and do your patriotic duty and die before you become a burden on the state. Aside from those trivialities, enjoy the new land of the slave and the home of the coward.
... pays the entire load, employee and employer, of self-employment (SE) taxes for Social Security and Medicare, but only on his profit = income - expenses. He can then subtract one-half of the SE tax from adjusted gross income, to reduce (slightly) his income tax burden. The lower the profit, the lower the SE tax, and the lower the benefits later on. Don't like the rules? Work to change them or don't be self-employed. Heck, this is Maine - don't be employed at all.
The underfunding of MSRS has been going on for decades, under Democrat and Republican governors, all of whom were constrained by Democrat legislatures. See the common theme: Democrat? Still pretending you don't know who to blame? Blame yourself.
What a dope! Have you heard the term spell-check? It's Judaism. It's Quran or Koran. What on earth is "Tanakh"? Whatever your religion may be, does it allow you to possess a brain?
I knew early this morning when I read this letter that the moron brigade would be out in force, goose-stepping and heiling. Tronnie, that's Dr. Kuck, a title you couldn't attain if you tried for a century, despite your self-adulation on your "user" page.
My first job after college was with a firm on Wall St. less than 0.25 miles from the new, unopened WTC. I'll tell you what's too close: the same burough, the same city, the same state, the same country. The only purpose of this mosque is to plant a victory flag.
tron, xyz, lil, ... Start carrying your prayer rugs with you whenever they let you out of the nursing home. You'll need them when your new masters tell you to kneel.
... in the 50s and 60s. There were any number of swimming holes all over the place. Most were private - you paid a dime or a quarter and stayed all day. Augusta shut them down by mandating liability insurance the owners couldn't afford.
The public areas were definitely second class at best. But Augusta refused to pay to maintain the state areas, so they slowly disappeared - or the day use fee got so high, no one went anymore. The municipal areas lingered longer, but the disease was the same. Government spends money only where it's likely it can buy some votes.
Any pension system, public or private, is a Ponzi scheme if CURRENT benefits are paid from CURRENT "contributions". I quoted that word because there's nothing voluntary about it. Extortion is perhaps more apt. The nationwide example is Social Security. There is no lockbox. You don't have an "account" there from which your checks are drawn when you retire. All that money is spent by Congress as soon as it is stolen from your paycheck. The MSRS is the same. "Seriously under funded" is a serious under statement.
The public retiree did not pay for his benefits any more than I have paid what I will draw from SS over more than 40 years of work in the private sector. If I manage to live 10 years after retiring, I will have drawn back more than I paid in, and then some. My kids and yours will pay that tab.
Mr. T, I will receive no pension or any other retirement benefit from my employer. I have saved and invested money that I earned and that's what I'll live on when I retire. I built that fund myself and you didn't add one dime to it. But I have to pay taxes to pay public retiree benefits, and pay higher prices to pay for private benefits. That's the real iniquity in this scheme.
I couldn't care less who you forgive and what you forget. All I ask is you acknowledge that Obama is in office now, not Bush. I ask because you seem not to know that. No one put a gun to his head and forced him to run. He ran, he won, he owns it. Every time he or his minions moan "It's Bush's fault!", his poll numbers go down a point or two. Keep up the good work, guys.
$1 US equals $1.03 Canadian, basically equivalent. It's been like that for several months. If you're being charged a fee, it's for the service, and has nothing to do with the exchange rate. If you don't like the fee, use another bank. Isn't it great living in a free country?
Obama IS successful at exposing the liberal ideology for the massive fraud and failure that IT is. He's doing such a great job that there won't be much to preside over during his lame-duck years starting 1/1/11.
Ken, you can't expect them to stop chanting "It's Bush's fault!" They have nothing else. It's pathetic, I know, and it becomes more obvious every day. I'll join you with a loud guffaw on the morning after.
We already knew he can't think. The last paragraph suggests that Nestle does not now pay anything and the author thinks they should.
Also, it's obvious Tronnie hasn't been to Wall St recently, probably never. The boys and girls down there already pay far more than $5. What do they charge you, Tron, at the asylum?
They pass them along as a cost of doing business in the form of higher prices to the end users, people. When people can't pay the tab anymore, businesses close up and leave the state, taking with them their jobs and any future expansion.
... by throwing larger bundles of cash every year at the teachers' union. That just keeps the old, fat and incompetent teachers hanging around until they can be old, fat and retired.
Nor will it improve as long as the lying, thieving Democrats keep making funding promises that they have never met and have no intention of ever meeting.
... shut down offshore drilling to appease his far-left base and the environmental extremists. That pesky other branch of government, the judiciary, keeps reminding him that he's not a dictator - yet. He said he has been on top of this issue since day one, so he owns it. It's too late to start shrieking again "It's Bush's fault!" and the polls prove it.
The disaster beyond imagination is already well launched and the only chance we, and the rest of the world, have is starting this November, to be continued in 11/2012.
I have held several positions over the past 40 years, all in the private sector, and not one of them carried with it a pension or any other retirement benefits. There are two classes in the private sector. (1) the "salaried" class, the one I am in, who is expected to save and invest and prepare for his own retirement, and (2) the "hourly" class. When class (2) is also unionized, there's very little difference between it and the public sector.
The private sector reacts today to what it perceives the future to hold, about six months out or more. Obamacare injected a mountain of uncertainty, what the private sector fears most. Even the authors don't know what's in it, what it costs, and when it will kick in. Today's financial regulation sets up future punishment of main street for the sins of Wall street, and ignores the government perps, Fannie and Freddie. When private business today doesn't know what their future banking possibilities are, they are not likely to invest in job creation or anything else.
The economy is improving for sure in public sector jobs. The financial bill creates yet another fox-guarding-henhouse bureaucracy with a bloated budget and no accountability. While these jobs are better (for those who get them) than the vaporware jobs of the census, the private sector gets to pay the bills, as always, and all we get in return is a vague promise that things will get better. Maybe.
You should get down on your knees and thank those of us in the private sector whose CURRENT taxes pay for your CURRENT pension and bennies. Your contributions years ago were immediately spent by Augustacrats on vote buying programs, especially sweetheart deals with the union goons. Ditto their promised share. Augusta is great at making promises, terrible at keeping them.
Maine Democrats have always had a crippling case of NIH - not invented here. We don't copy other states - they copy us. And now the Feds have copied Maine's greatest success - Baldacci Care! Good luck telling Augusta their programs aren't working.
Now that the two left-wing wackos have had their usual content-free say ...
This is a typical Bulger letter: rehash old news and mix in some "They did it too!" No, Tom, we don't have to worry about the debt right now. We do have to worry about the deficit, right now. It has increased almost 5 fold since 2007, starting with the recession, made much worse by the bailouts (yes, started by Bush - calm down, you knee-jerkers) followed by the ruinously high spending of Obamacare, raised to a boil by the recent financial nationalization act.
For those of you who didn't make it past the 8th grade, the deficit is the rate of increase of the debt. So, Tom, don't worry about anything. Just remember the leftist mantra: Let our kids and grandkids worry about it.
... whether it's funded by public money. Public, good; private, bad. They don't care about efficiency or competence. We'll have to stop caring, too, because we won't get either under Obamacare.
... get the money to do the providing and the funding? By hiking taxes and/or printing money - that is, making everything more expensive for everybody. And, like anything else run by government bureaucrats, national health care is crap compared to the worst private health care here. Before you continue to smooch Obamacare's backside, ask a middle-class serf in England or France how much they love their "free" systems. But you won't do that because you might trip over some real truth that would spoil your whiny leftist persona. Veritas. What a joke.
... before you rush to the foolish conclusion that I'm against the Franks or for illegal aliens. For the record, the similarity I see is the heavy-handed arm of our federal government. Lighten up.
There's a similarity between this issue and the Arizona law. In both cases, we have un-elected bureaucrats deciding which laws to enforce or ignore, when, where and how much - and, being government workers, screwing up at every opportunity. Our elected bureaucrats don't seem to care that the laws they created are ignored and - just a few days ago - in a fit of spinelessness - they yielded up to the president all authority to nationalize private business, no confirmation required. Congress is hell bent on rendering itself irrelevant.
xyz, you have only one side and it wins out in every one of your posts. It's your moronic leftist side.
No BDS? No whining? If those were the rules, we would never again hear from Albrecht, tron, xyz, veritas, lil, ...
The Master of the Universe has been on the thrown for more than 1.5 years. If that UN thingy was even on his to-do list, he could have long since rammed it through the compliant Congress. (There's another rule: No blaming "obstructionist" Republicans.)
But the debate is over, really. The "financial" reform atrocity allows the O to issue a royal decree, with no confirmation by Congresscritters, that some private enterprise must be nationalized and run by the all-competent government. It's not much of a stretch of the monarch's authority to proclaim that the nanny state is now truly in charge, and will raise all young-human-units in manners most beneficial to the kingdom. After all, it's been done before with rousing success. Remember the Hitler Youth?
... the saying, ajg1959. It does expose the letter and several comments for what they truly are: pure envy. Of wealth, success, ... Of just about anything it takes effort to attain. Don't want to work for it? Heck, it's a lot easier to call it evil, dismiss it, and wait for the next hand out.
Tronnie implies he's a "normal American". Normal is an adjective that cannot logically appear anywhere near "tron".
Normal implies imperfect, and that's about the kindest thing I can say about Mel Gibson. But he did once make a movie set in Maine. Tron is hoping to be called up as an extra in the sequel: The Man without Principles. That is, Gibson contributed more to Maine in a few months than our resident hyenas, all together, have contributed in their entire careers - and I use the word loosely.
"Sinister" is the Latin word for "left". Nothing has changed in a couple millennia.
What is this hang-up you have with the Articles of Confederation? We've had the Constitution for a while now, remarkably intact, in spite of the attempts by you Progressives to mangle it out of all recognition. You succeeded admirably in 1913 with the atrocity known as the 16th Amendment. Up to that time the country had managed pretty well with the small-government notions of non-income taxes and fees to support the very few responsibilities laid out in the Constitution. You Progressives always trot out that word 'provide' to support whatever new monstrosity you want to shove down the country's throat.
What is truly bizarre is Albrecht (president of the Dixfield branch of the Living-Breathing-Document Society) complaining about someone else twisting the Constitution. Just last week he was blathering about how the Founders produced the Constitution to establish a strong, central government. Try as I may, I can't find Benito Mussolini among the signatories.
When I read the letter, it sounded to me like the author was an elderly lady, of a fundamental religious upbringing, with little formal education. I felt sorry for her, not for beliefs, but because she was about to be torn to shreds by the hyenas lurking here.
Albrecht's post illustrates how he reinterprets the Constitution as he goes along. The 1st Amendment doesn't permit anything - it says only that the government can't restrict speech - not Gabrielle's, not even Albrecht's.
There are a handful of regular posters who are hung up on the real name vs nickname issue. I have told my story before, but here goes again. I used to use my real name here. I withdrew it and switched to a nickname, with no information on my "user" page, after certain folks decided to "debate" by other means. I gladly take responsibility for my actions, but that does not include listening to morons make threatening telephone calls to me at 2am. I used caller ID to notify the drooling idiots of what would happen if they called again. I will continue using a nickname so as not to encourage similar behavior from others here who are too easily amused.
The real issue is that when some posters have nothing to say on a message, they switch to shooting the messenger, instead of responsibly keeping their traps shut.
... but Conservatives love tax cuts because they know, and history confirms, that they lead to higher government receipts so they can better fund the armed forces so they can protect Voisine's fundamental right to make a fool of himself in public and do his whining in English instead of German, Japanese or Russian.
Voisine, like Tron, has nothing to contribute to anything except tired, juvenile names and childish yelling. Simple debate? You wouldn't recognize it if it came up to you on the street and tweaked your beak.
As pointed out above, any tax on banks will be passed along as a cost of doing business. Thanks, Mr. Fochtmann, for volunteering to pick that up.
"The Obama administration [has] committed to cut spending and reduce the deficit to sustainable levels." Another example of Albrecht doublespeak. Obama has been spending money faster than it can be printed. When Germany balked and wanted to throttle back, Obama scolded them for not following the liberal playbook. Did you see those gentle liberal souls trashing Toronto during G-20? They were "protesting" even the slightest hint of avoiding world-wide socialism and the cradle to grave nanny-state. Indeed, this is a dangerous period, and will remain so as long as Democrats can stand in the way of economic recovery from the Progressive depression. Is it November yet?
If you had, you would find (among other things) $1 billion for summer jobs for unemployed teens. By the time the bill could have been passed, signed and funded, summer would be over. In other words, it's just another wad of cash to tuck in the Democrat slush fund.
You have a very well written letter that you chose to spoil with the usual backward looks. It was a party-line vote against yet another spending bill without any way to pay for it except printing more money.
I agree with your last sentence. Unfortunately, neither of the girls is up for re-election this year. If one was, there's finally a decent chance to elect a real conservative.
I have read our Constitution. You must be referring to the USSR's. If those were the big reasons for ditching the A-of-C, why did it take 150 years for you Progressive eggheads to get your claws into an income tax, if your plan was so perfect? In all that time, the Feds controlled the economy, sort of, only during the civil war by creating the Secret Service to try to get a handle on the money supply. Without those taxes and that control, somehow we managed to defend ourselves against GB a 2nd time, the minor punks of the 19th century, and then in WWI. Your coke-bottle glasses, Albrecht, have a functioning lens on the left side only.
jalbrecht1: "... Founding Fathers envisioned - a strong national government that controlled both national defense and the welfare of the country as a whole."
If I could package up Albrecht's blather, I wouldn't need to spread bovine excrement on my hay field. Aside from defense against foreign enemies (most today are domestic) and representing us to foreign friends (don't have many left today), the founders envisioned a weak central government whose first obligation was to get out of the way of individuals and private enterprise. If today's feds would try that (not likely) the country would heal naturally. That is, if they would follow the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights, those yucky negative rights, return to the Founders' wishes would happen comfortably for everyone except the boneheads who believe that mega-government is the answer to everything. All evidence to the contrary.
Frostie-Flakes? And you signed your name, online or off, to that. I'll have to lower by several degrees my estimate of your IQ. How does your real name, Ronnie, add even one ounce of legitimacy to the moronic drivel you post? It doesn't, no matter how fascinated you are with your own life and times. I admit I don't have a plan for the ages - you can't admit that you don't have a plan for the next 20 minutes - except to hope that a nurse shows up soon with your next dose and a change of Depends.
I answered the phone - that's letting someone 'harass' me? Fortunately, the caller was just as stupid on the phone as he is here. I hung up, glanced at Caller ID, called back and said: Call me again, you schmuck, and I'll hand the matter to the cops. End of problem. That's when I yanked my real name. Who knows what you room-temperature-IQ jerks might try next - you are so easily amused. That's what I call taking personal responsibility - and I didn't even expect a government to do it for me.
I withdrew my real name after some of the gentle, concerned folks on this forum started pestering me on the telephone. I couldn't care less who you are in real life. Your forum personality is pitiful enough.
Here's Tardif's monthly spew of ad-hominem nonsense. [This comment has been edited by the administrator]
The Democrat (Isn't that clever?) party has been peddling the same message for 30+ years and they're terrified of what's coming in November. Republicans, and quite a few crossover Democrats and independents, nominated a conservative and all Tardif and other far lefties can splutter is: We don't like the message, so shoot the messenger!
Highest taxes.
Cruddiest infrastructure.
Highest insurance premiums.
Highest power costs.
...
These are the "brands" Maine projects all around the country. Wind power will make all those worse and help only blow-hard politicians. If you can tolerate all that, yup, it sure does look pretty out there, and that's all that matters as Augusta preserves more of Maine each year from the ravages of the people who live here.
... veritas lived up to his screen name. Once a Maine politician realizes you can't vote for him, you may as well live on the moon. Good observation. Good, but obvious.
Or were you suggesting that a good politician is one that wastes time listening to your drivel? No one will believe that.
Sandra2, pay no attention to tron. When he starts throwing around "bigot", his favorite word, you know he has run out of any other words on the letter's subject. Indeed, more often than not, he starts with bigot, indicating he never had anything to say in the first place.
OK, tronnie, there were 102 NEW ITEMS to be covered by an OLD TAX. This was the Democrats' pride and joy and it got shot down in flames. Your allegations rely on parsing phrases and twisting words. Everyone knows your statement is stupid, you know it's stupid, so anything else you say must be stupid.
Yup, lets go after those deadbeats by making it impossible for them to fulfill their obligations. This same stupidity, on a larger scale, is on display today in DC. Lets bankrupt BP, making it impossible for them to help the folks who depend on the Gulf and, by the way, throwing millions of people on the dole, about half of them American, whose retirement funds are heavily invested in BP. But, who cares, revenge is what matters.
I agree completely, Cranky - ignorant and ill-informed. The unions make the suggestion whenever they want taxpayers to cough up more to compensate teachers for all this extra responsibility. When someone points out the crappy job they're doing, the unions switch to whining about fairness.
Thanks to xyz and his cohorts for proving beyond doubt that dinosaurs still exist among us humans. The announcement of your extinction was obviously premature. The new schedule calls for early November 2010.
There has never been a country named Palestine. There was a nomadic people who called themselves Palestinians. In the mid to late 1800s, a few Jews from many places around the world started moving to the area now known as Israel. No one lived there. It was barren desert inland and brackish swamp along the coast. The new arrivals started working hard to rehabilitate this abandoned region long known to them as the "promised land".
When they started to make real progress, the Palestinians noticed and began moving there too, where jobs were available. They knew a good thing when they saw it. Besides, their Arab and Muslim brothers all over the Middle East wanted nothing to do with them (same as today) and were relieved they were getting out of their hair. The Palestinians were thriving and then, suddenly, discovered a passionate fondness for their age-old homeland - that is, they wanted the Jews to get out and leave everything to the rightful owners. Sound familiar?
Then the first world-wide anti-Semitic organization, the League of Nations, decided to "protect" the area and assigned the job to Great Britain, because of their special knowledge of the region. Remember Lawrence of Arabia? The Brits bungled it completely and left it, after WWII, far worse than they had found it. At about the same time, the exodus of Jews from Europe to the promised land swelled the population to the point that it couldn't continue as just an unorganized group of settlers.
Then comes the 2nd world-wide anti-Semitic organization, the United Nations. They debated and passed resolutions and did nothing else. Sound familiar? The Jews realized they were never going to get any real help from anyone but themselves (same as today) and proclaimed the nation of Israel. The very next day every neighbor declared war on them.
It took a couple of months that first time, but Israel clobbered the aggressors. This was the first in a series of conflicts where Muslim fanatics started things and Israel finished them. It also continued the tradition of European and American intelligentsia savaging Jews / Israel and apologizing for Muslims.
All this history is irrelevant to the "liberals" here who, just underneath the surface, want to open their special closets and put on the old white robes and the pointed hats, join in the centuries old fun, and kill them some Jews - at least send them back to Auschwitz like Helen Thomas wants - all the while praising themselves for their tolerance and diversity.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Alzheimer's has reduced his vocabulary to one word. He can't make a post without using it. His other mental deficiencies prevent his understanding that he's the worst bigot here.
You never call anything else, Veritas. For income tax, this silly rearrangement means a few will pay more, a few will pay less, most will pay about the same.
Notice you didn't say a word about sales tax expansion. I hope you can afford the increase the next time you buy a gross of Depends.
Another content-free post from Veritas. Of course I have bad-mouthed the other side. I do it every time I respond to something from dopes like you, whose entire forum career is built on bad-mouthing others, because you have absolutely nothing constructive to contribute.
I was pointing out that Salerno is a wee bit disingenuous to imply he has pure motives in bad-mouthing Mills. And, by the way, just to show my own preference, I sincerely wish that the entire Mills family would retire and move to Saskatchewan.
Danny, correct me where I go wrong. You're a liberal or at least a Democrat who has to look right to see moderate. So, tell me. Why do you care about the Republican platform? Why do you care that a Republican candidate accepts that platform or at least doesn't repudiate it? The obvious answer is ...
You are terrified of what's coming in November and the only way you can deal with your fear is bad-mouth the other side. And it's coming precisely because of the growing disgust with the Democrat platform which, among other things, ...
- Hands over more sovereignty every year to the UN and IMF.
- Sends mountains of money to some amorphous world climate control organization.
- Wants to shut down, not just exploration, but all extraction of oil, coal, ... anything but wind, as long as you personally don't have to see or hear the turbines.
- Basically seeks to fundamentally transform America into ... Cuba.
To tron and his merry band of happy nitwits, remember this sage advice from the Fonz: If you have to tell other people you're cool, then you aren't. Applying that to the current discussion, if you have to tell other people you aren't a racist, then you are.
If any of you did anything even remotely productive - like trying to work a ranch within 100 miles of the southern border - your whining would be heard all the way up here - whining for the Feds to enforce the laws they created, and ecstatic that even one state is proposing to pick up the slack.
If you really hate those federal laws as much as you claim (hate them as long as those breaking them don't affect you directly), then tell our blue-nosed politicians to change the laws or repeal them. Tell them, but they'll never do it. Those invertebrates are always more concerned with the next election over what's best for their country.
It's tron and his comrades (word chosen on purpose) who inject racism into the discussion, because they have no ability at all to understand the desperation of productive US citizens who have been abandoned for years by their government.
You would not be comfortable anywhere with a function representative democracy. Your only comfort zone is in the politburo, dictating to everyone else, Commissar Tron.
If tron lived or worked with 50 miles of the border in AZ, he would be whining at the top of his lungs for somebody to do something to protect him and his property. But instead he lives up here in relative safety where he has the privilege to spout his liberal nonsense - sorry, that's an insult to liberals - to spout his nonsense.
Ms. Schultz did what she was told by her masters. She dropped the operative word. She should have said Our country has an illegal immigration problem ... But that doesn't draw any comments from the moronic myrmidons.
veritas: It's becoming apparent why you don't sign your work here (though you should)
I used to have my real name on the page that comes up when you click on my forum name. I deleted it when I had had enough of you morons pestering me on the phone.
It has been abundantly apparent for months or longer that you - and xyz, tron, and a few others - should not be allowed internet access there on the drooling ward at the asylum.
veritas and xyz are walking, talking examples of what Churchill meant when he observed that the navy was nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash. They had too much of the first, not enough of the last, and still indulge in the other when they get together to reminisce about the good old days.
It's amusing - pathetic, but amusing - to read 'xyz' calling someone else a zealot. While he's stuck in the past, his hero Barack I-inherited-this-mess Obama and his merry band of communists, socialists and radicals are hard at work transforming our country into the glorious workers' paradise, committing more offenses daily than Rove contemplated in eight years. If they succeed, the one bright spot will be that it will silence 'xyz' and his copycats who scamper around this opinion page, pretending to debate.
Frank & Dodd chaired committees that were charged to oversee this rather large part of the economy. Instead they overlooked it. If they relied only on information from an administration they vilified at every opportunity, they're even more incompetent than subsequent events have proven, to those who do not suffer from rectal-cranial inversion. This willful incompetence has its roots in the utterly corrupt Carter administration whose CRA started this spiral and pushed the economy for 25+ years toward destruction.
July 14, 2008: REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.:I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. ... I think they are in good shape going forward. ... I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.
The vaudeville team of Frank & Dodd destroyed the economy, saying as late as 7/2008 that everything was great, no worries, we're in charge. Anyone who wants to depend on them to fix anything is smoking 3-leafed clover.
Question for Mr. Taylor. Who drew swastikas using the interesting medium of refried beans on windows of the Arizona statehouse? A clear majority of the citizens of Arizona support the bill signed over the weekend to enforce laws against illegal immigration. What a concept! That leaves the shrill minority against the bill who want to spread our wealth around the world, starting with Mexico.
The next time you get a chill, look for the source closer to home.
Right, Pirate, and the Gore acolytes will bleat with straight faces that we can stop eruptions by driving hybrids and sending boatloads of money to the UN.
A CNN doofus (sorry for the redundancy) opined it was too cold in Iceland for volcanoes. Yup, and Guam is capsizing. I haven't been paying too much attention to this for a couple days. Has someone already suggested it's Bush's fault?
From Jan 2001 to Jan 2009, not a day went by without a DNC orchestrated comparison of Bush to Hitler. In Taylor's letter, change a couple names and party affiliations, and it would apply just fine in 2004 from a Republican complaining about, say, MoveOn.org.
Democrats raised (well, actually, lowered) demagoguery to an art form. It's rather petty to whine They do it too! But most of us know one of the authors of the current administration's ends, which justify any means.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. - AH
If mine was a red herring, yours was a yellow perch. The sub-discussion is about how gov't interference suppresses competition, not about alternatives to O-care. My dictionary defines viable as: capable of workingsuccessfully. Since it was modelled on Baldacci-care, O-care is by definition not viable.
Maine can issue bonds, DC can print money. Private enterprise can't compete against a state that has an endless supply of taxpayer dollars to buy its way out of failure. Thunk on Dirigo Health.
The real aim of Obama-care is achieve single-payer reform by driving private insurers out of the business, then stepping in to save the day. But they lack sufficient backbone to say it out loud.
Cherrypicking again. SSDD mentioned only one tax. The combined tax burden in France is 50% for a single person: income + payroll taxes. That's from MSN.
Why not choose Canada? Their burden is a measly 32%, not much higher than ours. But then he would have to explain why, last month, the premier of New Foundland grabbed his checkbook and headed for the USA to have heart surgury that he would have had to wait 6 months to get in the glorious socialist paradise. (He was wise to act quickly - that option may disappear soon.)
He also failed to mention that those "free" clinics in Los Angeles were created to pick up the horde of illegal immigrants who overwhelmed the area's emergency rooms, causing dozens of them to close their doors to everyone. They stand in line for hours, and the line extends all the way to Tijuana where, for some inexplicable reason, they want to head north to escape all the wonderful free stuff provided by the government of Mexico.
Like she is a [1] public school teacher or [2] state bureaucrat (sorry for the redundancy) or [3] some other union hack. The employers of those three groups can afford to pay big bucks for insurance because their customers are forced at the point of a gun to pay up.
Boo hoo, Judsie. My insurance is $21,600 per year and my employer pays half. Don't strain yourself. That means I pay $10,800 per year. Plus co-pays. Plus out-of-pocket because of high deductibles. And you complain because your ride isn't free enough. If Obamacare gets passed, you'll consider this time the good old days.
All the gummint solutions you listed are, today, already in really big trouble and they'll all immediately get worse if this cash-sucker gets passed. Then the countdown to the final destruction of the country can be measured in weeks, not decades.
RR also said that the scariest words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
If Republicans are the party of just say no, Democrats are the party of just hear nothing but their own words. It's ironic that Obama chose this Thursday for his umpteenth absolutely final date for passage of his health mangling bill. With Wednesday being St. Patrick's Day, we're in for a double load of blarney this week.
Trish didn't mention that Maine ranks 1st in premium rates. A significant part of the rate supports Dirigo. (There's that all-for-one bit that is loved so much by some of the denizens here.) Dirigo's enrollment is closed and shrinking. So where does the money go, Trish? You're getting more to subsidize fewer, but you wouldn't get more if the private companies didn't raise rates. Answer: down the Augusta rat-hole.
Dirigo does not have insufficient funding, it has insufficient competence - as does the rest of state government. And this is the model for Obama-care.
I spout my own words, unlike SSDD, who just repeats what is handed to him by his progressive masters. I forgot to ask which union web site he copied from. Never mind, they're all the same.
It's really hypocritical of tron to criticize others for a lack of original ideas. Everything he and SSDD spew comes directly from Karl Marx and his spawn.
How much of it was original with SSDD? NOT A GODDAMN THING!
Note well the predominant theme: Progressive. This is what they have in store for us: pretending that a flood of repeated propaganda is the same as meaningful and appropriate government. Dr. J.G. would be proud.
In the interest of full disclosure, Doc, please post your annual income and medical insurance premiums. If you're not pleading poverty, perhaps you're being a wee bit generous with other peoples' money.
This right you're so passionate about does not appear in the US Constitution. Therefore, according to the 10th amendment, it's up to the states and/or the people to secure that right. States like Maine have tried (Dirigo Health) and failed, utterly and expensively, and it's this failed model that Obama and Dems want to impose on the entire country. The federal government is not supposed to be in the business of granting rights.
SSDD, I pay for my health insurance. It is not universal - lots of things are not covered and deductibles are sky high. It is reasonably accessible - I live 5 minutes from a hospital and my clinic. But I assure you, it is most definitely NOT affordable. But even if it were all those things, I would still deny your right to pick my pocket to pay your expenses.
I have disagreed with you, so I guess that makes me a teabagger. So be it. But it also makes you shallow and suggests that you are the type of person that expects to be taken care of, cradle to grave. Are you listening?
Snowe was wise to decline that very late invitation. It was issued only because some staffer, now looking for work, pointed out the omission to the rest of the boobs in the Whitehouse. The summit was a complete sham. In the few minutes Republicans were allowed to speak, they tried to present their points, which are mostly ignored by the press and totally ignored by the bottom-feeders here. And then they were ignored again by the boob-in-chief when he demonstrated for all to see the real point of that meeting, which was the opportunity to say, one more time: I won, I can do what I want, and I inherited this mess. That's the embarrassment.
tron, you really need professional help. Beck, the dark side of conservatism, is like blazing sunlight, the world's best disinfectant, compared to the brightest side of liberalism. If the left wins, the first to go won't be Beck or me. It will be Sirota and others like him - then they'll come for you. You have to have a glimmer of talent to be a useful idiot.
thinkingman, that is precisely what the founders intended. Go to DC for a term or two and then: GO HOME! They didn't want career politicians, they wanted citizen legislators. The careerists got us into this mess and they cannot get us out.
And add Veritas to the Koolaid party roll. Sieg heil!
In the 1920s, the Communist and Nazi platforms were virtually identical, except for the personality cult at the top of the latter. But the winners get to (re)write history. Since the end of WWII, the progressives here and the communists there have waged a largely successful PR campaign to portray Nazism as a right-wing ideology - successful to the point that Rodney Abbott has swallowed this koolaid.
You make some good points, Rod, but you used only one side to make them. Have you watched videos of liberal rallies? Hold on to your lunch.
It may be bunk, Mr. Abbott, but it's protected by the first amendment, as is your right to label it. Enjoy that right while you still have it.
Kate, the rest of us (except a handful of the willfully ignorant inmates of this forum) know that we already have the best health care on the planet. That's why foreign big-shots, like Canadian premiers, come to the US when the chips are down. (Most of the MSM missed that little item.)
We also know that health insurance is expensive and that situation was caused primarily by governments, especially state governments, especially state governments like Maine's, who mandate coverage and pretend to believe that by doing so, they make the coverage cheap.
We further know that the monster bills currently (and hopefully) dying in Congress will result in higher premiums AND worse health care, because the US government can't manage its own butt.
You can easily see, Clyde, what passes for discussion on this alleged forum. They have no idea how to respond to a well written, well thought out letter, so they trot out the junior high school insults and taunts. They are also intimidated by someone who can spell and has a reasonable grasp of grammar.
Don't take it personally. They treat everyone this way - everyone who dares to criticize the party propaganda or question their something-for-nothing life-styles. Shooting the messenger is always easier than debating the message.
I don't blame a union member any more than I blame a non-union employee of a corporation. I do blame the CEO of a large union, who is indistinguishable from the CEO of a large corporation. At that level, greed is greed. The fundamental difference is, the union CEO is perfectly happy with Obama's end (justifying any means) of establishing in the US the glorious communist workers' paradise, which has worked so well in Cuba, North Korea, USSR ... We can't add China anymore because they now have more economic freedom than we do. Good luck getting a cheap ticket on the socialist train.
Tron, you don't need to waste your precious time and effort blaming GWB for everything. The president and his sycophants do it every chance they get. It's much easier than actually doing something. And I would much rather suck my thumb than do what you do with yours.
Government control of passenger rail service? What a concept! Have you heard of Amtrak? The feds took it over 40 years ago and have been subsidizing it ever since, although the promise was that it would be back on its feet in 3 years and even earning a - gasp - profit. Not the best "track" record if you want DC to run high-speed rail service too.
We don't need technology from overseas - we already know how to build this stuff. But the result will cost 4 times what we could import. You want to see real, rampant greed? Look into your friendly, neighborhood union.
That's IMBECILES, Rps. Didn't they teach you that in the DNC's Bush-Derangement-Syndrome school? Your boy won - he reminds us at least once a week - and then hides behind the lame excuse that he didn't know what he inherited. Also at least once a week. Before you talk about someone else's knuckles, you need to uncork yours from where you usually keep it.
We're all suffering now and, if Obama's programs get enacted, so will our children and grandchildren.
I'm familiar with the fact that a simple majority wins in the House, and with the fact that 60 wins in the Senate. The Dems have both. If they get tired in the Senate, they can go "nuclear" - that also is a simple majority. Right now those brave in-control Democrats are scared wee-wee-less to exercise their righteous power. Yet RPS and other myrmidons call those who try to inject a little common sense ignorant, lazy buffoons. Have fun, guys. 2010 approaches.
I don't buy into the "grand consensus", pandering 24/7 to get their hands on a mountain of our money. A lot of them were in the 1970's grand consensus who were utterly convinced that the earth was entering a period of global cooling and if we didn't do something (send them a mountain of money) we would have a man-made ice age.
The only consistent aspect of these bozos is that just about everything they say is dead wrong.
Tardif is having his monthly. Has it been 30 days already?
Mark, your masters control both houses of Congress and can do anything they want. If they don't get it done, it's their fault. But they're such spineless whiners, they always need cover if (when) their zillion $ programs fail. Who better than "obstructionist Republicans"?
Being called petulant by Mark Tardif is like being called wet by a fish.
Being called a racist by Albrecht is like being called a womanizer by Billy Clinton.
The few remaining insurance companies go to Augusta every year and say: Please, sir, we want some more. The invertebrate Democrats bloviate for a few minutes and then say: Take all you want. (wink, wink, nod, nod) The alternative would be to stand up to them, but the companies are free to close shop and leave. At that point, the hypocrites in Maine's government would have to raise taxes to pay for all the goodies they have handed out, and then we fools in the voting booths might not vote for them.
Who are all those people ...? Anyone who understands that the federal government can't manage a Sunday afternoon picnic.
Wonder why this nation has the most expensive national medical/insurance bills in the world? Because the feds and the states hand out free care to illegal aliens, welfare royalty, and other bottom feeders. If Drane thinks it's expensive now, his head will explode when it's "free". I wonder if that's covered by Obamacare.
It's obvious Drane has never tried to survive on a 2% profit margin. If he had, he wouldn't be so envious of those who succeed and are rewarded accordingly.
The closest Drane has ever come to a 3rd world country is downtown Auburn.
queenie, try to concentrate. It is illegal in Maine for a health insurance company to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. If you live in another state where that's not the case, please find a newspaper forum where you can discuss local issues. If you live in Maine and you or someone you know has been denied coverage, contact your state representative Democrat (but I repeat myself) and complain - he'll help you if you promise to vote for him. If you're just blathering about the national condition, why waste you breath? The DNC is working 24/7 to convert our country into the latest incarnation of the glorious socialist workers' paradise. Be patient and try to figure a nice way to tell your grandchildren that you favor enslaving them to pay for your bennies.
There is a direct relationship between AIDS and the bloated monstrosity of a "reform" bill in the Senate. If it passes, it will destroy all research, development and innovation in all areas of "health" treatment. If you or anyone you know has AIDS, you better hope to God that existing drugs and other treatments will help you, because there won't be anything new coming along. For AIDS read any other medical condition. But you demanded and voted for that hopey-changey codswallop - don't start whining when you realize it's a bitter pill.
What makes me woozy is contemplating the real liberal subtext of this issue. You couldn't care less about KSM or the American legal system. You want to put on trial the usual suspects who have always caused you to leave nasty deposits in your Depends: Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, ... Before you and the ACLU get finished, you'll give the terrorists a ticker-tape parade and send them back to butcher again.
Lil, I'll take my bunker every time over your asylum.
The story in print had a front-page headline with the word TRAGIC. There was nothing tragic in this event. There would have been if this dirtbag had taken some innocent bystanders with him.
Tom, move to France and take Harvard, Pingree and Michaud with you. By the way, what did you think of the majority's choice on question 1? Or do you invoke Jefferson only when he's convenient?
Queenie: "... its always easier to find a scapegoat."
Very true. The immaculated one descends into that quagmire at least once a week. Whenever any "journalist" asks him why his policies haven't accomplished a thing, he starts jerking is knee and his teleprompter: "I inherited this mess." Maybe, but now you own it. Uncork your thumb.
Thanks, Ms Newell. As usual, you are spot on. I urge you to put on your Kevlar lounge suit because, as you can see, the bottom-feeders and wagon-riders have crawled out from under their rocks.
How is it our decision? Evidently, Reagan, you have never read the US Constitution. I urge you to do so, even if your school doesn't believe it's worth studying. The effort will be of great benefit to you when you reach high school.
jalbrecht1, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican and I don't have any rich friends. If you have some you can spare, send me their contact info.
But I can read a balance sheet. The public option will destroy health care nationally by killing competition and then sucking up all those new taxes into the general fund, where our invertebrate Congresscritters will steal it for other programs. It will be another cash cow, just like Social Security. That's why those jerks, on both sides of the aisle, are rubbing their sweaty hands in gleeful anticipation.
The next time your doctor tells you to turn your head and cough, don't be surprised when a federal bureaucrat appears to demand that you fill out an environmental impact report.
Maine had a thriving private health insurance market until the early 1990's when our state government, in its infinite wisdom, mandated a few little changes: guaranteed issue, no exclusion of pre-existing conditions, coverage of everything under the sun, and one price fits all. Sound familiar? Those are the major points of Obamacare, only it needs 2000 pages to say it.
When the smaller companies saw they would all have to offer the same thing at the same price, they packed their bags and left, leaving just those evil, blood-sucking giants. Government interference terminated nearly all competition. The giants ask the government for rate increases every year and the legislature rubber-stamps it.
Maine saw this wonderful (sarcasm alert) new system and decided to make it even better with a "public option" - Dirigo Health. In case you haven't heard about it recently, it's a complete and utter failure, but very expensive. So today we have even less competition with just about the highest prices in the country. But don't worry about those details.
Doshie says we all want the system politicians have, and he's right - we just want somebody else to pay for it. Prepare for a new medical procedure: a wallet-ectomy.
I would rather be called an indecent, hating racist than someone ready and eager to convict without evidence. Perhaps tron found the sources. Maybe he also has those original documents Dan Rather has been looking for.
If all or even most of those points are valid, then why was the Limbaugh story entirely about a couple of remarks 'attributed' to him? He claimed he never said them and no one then or since has produced one shred of evidence that he did. When the slanderers realized they had stepped in it big time, they apologized (sort of) and retreated. But not before the spineless NFL gave him the boot for being too controversial. Funny, they had no problem with the return of Vick, someone who had actually committed the crimes he was accused of.
Pitts' column is all about envy: Rush owns a Gulfstream V, Pitts flies coach. Somebody has to level the playing field!
This is the LSJ's mandatory weekly LTTE complaining about FOX. Rich, you must have been asleep for 8 years when daily FOX complained about GWB for (1) not using the veto, (2) spending wildly in general, in particular (3) the stupid No Child Left Behind nonsense and (4) the even more stupid Medicare Drug fiasco, and (5) waging a war without trying to win it.
The MSM, with the exception of FOX and talk radio, is the Propaganda Ministry of the Obama administration. That's why the libs are so rabid to shut them down.
Of course not all Muslims are terrorists - that's not what Thomas implied. But on 9/11, all terrorists were Muslims. And since that day, the vast majority of Muslims have hidden behind one commandment of Islam: Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Muslim.
Rex, suppose a black - excuse me - African American murders your grandson. By your logic, you'll say: Oh, well, it's OK - plenty of white guys commit murder. How will that work out for you, Rex.
For someone who hates FNC as much as Mr Roy claims to, he sure seems to spend most of his day watching it. Lose the remote again? But don't worry, the administration and Dems in general want to remove your choice of what to watch, leaving you with just the pablum on ABC, CBS and NBC. See, they can't compete with FOX so they want the government to disappear it, in the interest of fairness. That whooshing sound you hear is the 1st Amendment being scrubbed out of the Constitution you love so much.
The History Channel?! How many episodes of Ice Road Truckers and the Nostradamus Effect can you watch before your mind turns to ... never mind, it's already happened. That channel is to history what the LSJ is to journalism.
Ms Mann, Beck is a commentator, not a news anchor. If you want news at 5 pm, put on your blue tinted glasses and switch to another station. Both his TV show and radio program show no sign of folding due to lack of sponsors, because they both are incredibly popular. If they do disappear, it will be because of government censorship - be careful what you wish for.
Tron, for real filth, cruise on over to democraticunderground.com and look at the archives from Jan 2001 through Jan 2009. Try to hold on to your breakfast.
The only way the wacko left can remain on TV and radio is with government subsidy - your tax dollars in action. That will not change no matter how much you scream.
Has it been 30 days already? Tardif is playing his broken record again. The Ds have control of Congress and can pass anything they want. If they can't get to that pesky 60 vote thing in the Senate, they can always use "reconciliation" - that's lipstick on the pig of the "nuclear option". You remember that, don't you? A few years ago Ds went apoplectic whenever Rs even hinted they might us it. The barrier can be removed, but all the Ds in DC can't put together one backbone. Go ahead and do it, but be careful what you wish for - and don't whine the next time Rs have control and don't have the barrier.
If Republicans are a circus, Democrats are a carny sideshow.
Well, the hard-core lurkers crawled out from under their rocks.
Death panels: The phrase first appeared in early 2005 when GWB suggested making some changes to Social Security. The left went ballistic - but it's hard to tell that from their usual state.
Bush tax cuts: Like the Reagan and JFK tax cuts, they increased the revenue of the federal government. If BHO lets them expire or cancels them, revenues will fall, leading to another round of tax hikes on those evil rich, leading to even less job creation than under all this wasted Bush/Obama stimulus.
Bush spending: Where was I? Right here, saying the same thing. Especially about the Medicare drug nonsense.
National debt: GWB doubled it and BHO is tripling that.
Joe, Walmart is having a special this week on air. Go on down and get your empty spaces filled up.
Obama has offered no compromises, constructive or any other kind. Republicans, the few who dare to speak up, object to being left completely out of the discussions. Obama says "Jump" and the spineless Democrat-controlled Congress asks only "How high?" Mercifully, there are a few vertebrates in that zoo who are showing a little spunk and complaining about hanging all this debt around the necks of our grandchildren so fools like you can have a free lunch while nattering about historical perspective.
Drane, this administration rode in chanting hope & change and asking us all to look forward with enthusiasm. I guess you didn't get the memo, nor did our new attorney general. You both want to look back and punish everyone you can find who had anything to do with the real center of your hatred.
Dosh, I followed your link and there's not one word about the million moron march. I don't know about Coyle but I remember it - and who organized it. Heil Louis!
Change (what an inspired screen name), the Bush tax cuts increased revenue to the federal government, just like the Reagan and JFK cuts before. But don't let history interfere with your hopium fantasies. The cuts had nothing to do with the spending binges begun by GWB and tripled by BHO
Fix: All will pay? I thought the party line was the evil rich and evil corporations would pay. All will be covered? Except for illegal immigrants. Excuse me, how racist. I mean except for undocumented Democrats.
Regarding drugs, where do you think all the world's research and development takes place? Answer: USA. If you libs succeed in destroying capitalism and the profit motive, you better plan on never getting a medical condition that can't be cured or controlled by existing drugs, because there will be nothing new. Unless, of course, the Chinese develop it. How much do you suppose it will cost then?
Sorry for the interruption. You may now resume your shallow discussion of DNC talking points.
Ms Kullson, I'm sure there's a guidance office at CMCC where they can provide you with a boatload of information on scholarships, grants, loans, jobs, ... If that seems like too much work, call (202) 456-1414 and tell the president you want him to pick up the tab. After all, you have a right to a free college education - it's right there in the Constitution. Surely you have read it at some point in your long years of scholarly pursuits.
If you can't or won't do any of that, then you are too lazy or too stupid or both for college. Maybe you really should look into a career swamping toilets at McDonalds.
You can always trust Lil's uncanny ability to find the psychos in any group. Birds of a feather.
Hysteria? Rational thought. Perhaps tron refers to the whackos who shriek RACIST whenever a riled up granny mentions health care for illegal immigrants? No, that's civilized discourse.
Obama is not the country. Wanting Obama's policies to fail is not calling for the destruction of the republic. For 8 years knee-jerk liberals advocated total failure for GWB, up to and including painful lingering death. If the president is the country, they were calling for the country's failure. You can't have it both ways, but that won't stop liberals from trying.
At least with a fascist you know where he stands; a liberal changes his principles more often than his underwear. As proof, stay tuned for more 'reform' changes caused by those phony town-hallers.
joeziehmer, of course it's your right to call me a Nazi, just as it's your right to make a fool of yourself in public at every chance you get. You exercise that right very well.
... rights such as those established for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ...
Holy crow. No wonder the country is crumbling in front of us. Rights come from God. Our founding documents mention them as rights that cannot be taken away by federal government, not created by federal government. There is no right to health care, to a job, to a house. Why are you obsessed with a right to health care for HIV/AIDS? Having you been sticking it somewhere you shouldn't?
OK. You said tort reform is a red herring. Same nit-picking question to you: What's your evidence? I mean, aside from your own personal inspiration which everyone else is supposed to accept as the revealed truth.
To you Constitutional experts: I believe the phrase LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is from the Declaration of Independence which, a remarkable document, is not part of the Constitution and is not law.
Every state has a government group that oversees doctors - or they are supposed to - supported by taxes. The AMA has a similar private group in every state, supported by dues from doctors - that is, from patients. If these groups aren't doing their jobs, lets get rid of them. But the solution is not shoveling mountains of money to literal ambulance chasers. The current situation does get rid of bad doctors, but it converts good doctors to mediocre doctors.
Ask your doctor what his biggest expense is, after employee costs. I'll bet his answer is malpractice insurance, even ahead of rent. Five years ago mine told me his premium was $40,000 per year. I'll take a wild guess that it's a lot more now. It is that high because of the American addiction to huge lawsuits whose sole purpose is to enrich lawyers. Tort reform would control this, reduce expenses and let doctors pay more attention to the practice of medicine than accounting.
Lil, Churchill also said: "If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you are not a conservative at 40, you have no head."
tron, all I pointed is that Thomas' column and Landry's letter appeared on the opinion page, because they, like you, are expressing opinions. What did I make up? Here's my opinion: I don't look to any of that group for facts. Especially you, tron.
OK, Blastie, just for you, from now on I will use the
<sarcasm> special formatting tags </sarcasm>
where appropriate to help those whose blue-colored lenses prevent seeing what's right in front of them. Given this first example of your erudition, I don't care to contemplate what you normally revert to, because your stratospheric level of dumbness is likely contagious. I have more than enough life; you obviously need one beyond this forum.
I guess the news is censored in Hawaii, alleged birthplace of BHO. McKay refers to those un-American rabble-rousers who insist on disrupting Congresscritters who are just exercising their Soros-given right to read from a teleprompter what the Whitehouse wants them to say. What a travesty when those enlightened personages have to interact with the great unwashed.
Just the other day, after Judson Duncan's latest screed blaming Republicans for everything since the last ice age, someone asked: Can Tardif be far behind? Presto! Here's his latest content-free letter. The pair of them could save a lot of effort if they would just send in the same letters every 30 days. Oh, wait, they already do.
Big Love, it's really bad form to post something that long. Post a link to it.
At least I have some principles, which clearly differentiates me from Lil. Certainly I'll sign up - I have been paying for it for 40+ years. The topic here is health insurance for the uninsured. If you are 65+ and have not enrolled in Medicare, you are terminally stupid and, following the guidelines in Obamacare, should do your patriotic duty and die as soon as possible.
I sympathize, keland, but only so far. I'm 61 and in the highest premium bracket. For just me and my wife, the monthly premium is $1800 for medical + dental + vision. No, that is not a typo. I won't go into detail on how that's split between me and my employer, because it's irrelevant. Like all business costs, the end user pays. That's not evil, it's just the facts of life in the most free society on the planet.
I hope you won't consider it worthless rhetoric when I say again: The most efficient way to create really affordable health insurance is to demand that government, at all levels, get the hell out of the insurance business.
And the self-proclaimed liberals here ignore the fact that it is illegal in Maine to deny coverage to the sick, to those with pre-existing conditions, or to charge higher premiums to those with riskier life styles. If an insurance company tries to, just report them to your closest left-wing Augustacrat. But just be aware that those illegalities are precisely why insurance costs so much here and why there only a handful of companies remaining who are willing to put up with all the rules and regulations promulgated by the Democrat party since the early 1990s.
If you can't afford insurance, please call John Elias Baldacci at 207-287-3531 and ask his staff to help you get enrolled in Dirigo Health, Maine's "public option" insurance. Oh, wait - I forgot that enrollment is closed, and has been for two years, because it's such a dismal failure. And this is one of the models for Obama-care. It is the model for government incompetence and we'll all get an overdose of that if jalbrecht1 and friends get their way.
JoeZ, you list your location as Lewiston. There must be some free class, say at Bates, to help folks for whom English is a second language. Do look into the availability. It would help immensely to keep your posts from sounding like pure gibberish.
Hobbes was a jerk. I prefer Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
As long as some here are making a list of American fascist lovers, don't forget Joe Kennedy. To paraphrase: the LEFT hates hearing their famed leader (-fill-in-the-blank-) being brought to task for his support of (-your-favorite-totalitarian-) and silently slink any bit of that into a re-written history.
Ever since the 1960s liberals have been slinging around the word 'fascist' as if it were a synonym for 'Republican'. It's no surprise that the Dunkster continues the tradition.
Within the lifetime of some who read this paper there was a regime from which we derive the modern meaning of fascism: a parasitic joining of government and big business. The regime was Mussolini's in Italy in the 30s and 40s. It's still not clear whether government was the host or the parasite. Just remember that it did not end well.
Since taking office Obama (1) fired the CEO of GM and replaced him with a lapdog (I missed the announcement that BHO was appointed to the board) and nationalized most of the automobile industry, (2) nationalized the banking and investment industries, and (3) is trying to nationalize the insurance industry - whew! - all the while blaming Bush for everything, including continental drift.
If that's not enough to convince you that our president is today's leading expert on fascism, then consider the private army he's organizing consisting of thugs from ACORN and SEIU, who make Mafia bent-noses look like altar boys. I wonder what informal title they will use - il Duce and der Fuehrer are taken.
And, I almost forgot, consider the two 'czars' who in very recent writings have embraced eugenics.
And, as before, folks are already apologizing for him with sayings that are eerily close to: Well, at least he made the trains run on time.
Publikwerks, no government fiat can ever force stupid people to read and understand a contract before they sign it. Sorry about your personal problems, but you will mourn severely when your premiums go down a little and your taxes go up a lot.
Typical post from Lil. Not one word on how to make the situation better. Just a long list of those to punish. Punishment, like other stuff, trickles downhill. Lil is an expert from her vantage-point at the bottom.
Did it ever occur to you, Ms Neu-Sokol, to wonder why your medications are available in Germany under the same brand name as here? Same question to folks who whine about cheap Canadian drugs. The drugs are NOT just like ours - they ARE ours.
US drug companies export their products all over the world and all those importers are glad to have them, because the cost is much lower than it would be from domestic manufacturers. The cost is very low in places like Canada, because they have instituted severe restrictions on punitive law suits, AKA tort reform. If you take your Nasonex here and all your hair falls out, chances are pretty good that you will call Joe Bornstein and sue for $100,000,000. You can't do that in Canada.
That's also why you can buy "Canadian" Nasonex for the same low price. It travels from US to Canada and back to US, but the export/import middle-men are protected by Canadian law.
But reality doesn't matter. Lets hand the whole mess to the federal government. Then we can be sure of low cost and plentiful supply. And if you believe that, I own a really nice bridge down in Brooklyn and I'll sell it to you for a special price. Call in the next 20 minutes and I'll throw in an Obama flying pig.
Lil's examples are bizarre. The first can't happen in Maine by legislative fiat. The second ... How often does that happen in Maine? If it's your leg, it's too often. Otherwise, is a leg worth $100 million or more? I could get by for the rest of my life known as Peg-Leg on less than a tenth of that amount. Whatever the amount, it is just spread out as premium increases to all of us who play by the rules. We have no recourse.
Rep Bolduc conveniently left off his list the greediest of them all: the Maine legislature. They imposed the raft of mandates on insurance companies, leading directly to the upward cost spiral, due to the complete lack of competition, all engineered by the boneheads we keep sending to Augusta.
Today's solution, obvious to nearly all Democrats, is: GO NATIONAL! ObamaCare is just DirigoHealth writ large. And the reasoning (and I use the term loosely) is exactly the same: We don't know what it does, because we can't be bothered to read it, but we know for sure that all them private things are evil and our grand plan will will save the country, if we just throw enough money at it.
Well, this is really slick, except ... Please post some instructions on how to print it. I have tried IE, Firefox and Safari - on a PC and on a Mac - and either the browser goes into a tailspin or the result is the cover page followed by 39 blanks.
Did anyone at LSJ actually try out this new format before you switched to it?
Add Amtrak to the list of federal management fiascos.
You crew of lurking myrmidons: Name a business that the federales have taken over from the private sector and run efficiently and economically. Waiting ...
Chellie and Mike can also probably quote chapter and verse from the gospel according to St Michael the J. They know Maine voters and they know the buttered side of the bread they just tossed into the circus.
Where was the Dunkster a year ago or more, and right through election day, when every other letter was copied and pasted from the DNC website's talking points? Now I remember. Every 30 days he sent in his peculiar list of BDS symptoms. By his own performance, plagiarism on the left is OK. On the right? That requires a crowded train ride out to a camp in the country for attitude adjustment.
Just what does "Public service of character ..." mean if not virtuous? Ted did not run for president in 1980. He ran in the primaries and got creamed. Jimmah Cahter ran to be reelected and got what he deserved. Revisionism - right. Ted was born into wealth and privilege and, aside from a few bad days in 1969, hasn't had to worry about anything in his entire life until recently, when his doctors diagnosed brain rot - a few decades late. And, tron, you're very wrong about the right, radical or any other kind, hating all things Kennedy. In today's political world, JFK would not be allowed in the Democrat party - you would expel him into the Lieberman limbo, reserved for the rabble rousers who won't goosestep to the party's propaganda line.
Recent Comments
This letter should be required reading ...
... for every member of the legislature, administration, and bureaucracy. Unfortunately, I suspect most of them would find it completely foreign to their experience and political outlook.
Says the guy ...
... whose avatar looks like an imperial storm trooper. Come to the dark side, Luke; Jason will show you the way.
What's the problem with the comparison? It's central planning by politicians and bureaucrats. It will work as well as the USSR's destruction of their country's agriculture.
"sane" and "Democrat"
There are two words that simply cannot appear next to each other anywhere.
Did Martindale demand TIF?
Not that I heard. So, presumably, private funding would pay for the construction of the new facility which, upon completion, would provide a sand-trap full of property tax dollars to the city, along with a bunch of new jobs and, overall, a real economic boost to the area. Evidently Auburn doesn't need or want this boost.
This seems like yet another instance of government picking winners and losers. Over the past 3.5 years, government, from DC on down, has an extremely lousy track-record in this area.
Dosh and other socialists: The best way for Auburn to "provide" housing for a poor person is to encourage the private sector to invest in the area and create a good job for that poor person so he can pay for his own housing.
I was talking about the little-eff fox.
Remember the old Cold War saying? You can always trust a communist to be a communist. The fox is similarly trustworthy.
The old saying about journalism? Trust nothing you hear and only half of what you see. If you apply that to big-eff Fox, they're far and away more trustworthy than the rest of the MSM put together.
But enough of this eff-ing around.
Two more content-free comments ...
... below by the usual suspects. That forced hibernation could be applied with a more liberal brush.
High road?
If Romney takes the low road, ...
... he should watch out for President Obama, who drove his campaign bus onto that road long ago. The latest pothole on that road is an "enemies list" - remember that goodie? - of those who contribute $100k or more to Romney, who are to be targeted (oh, the violent imagery) as right-wing racist cretins. How about those who contribute that much, and a lot more, to Obama? No, no, they are enlightened paragons simply exercising their 1st amendment rights.
Paul, I think in some cases it's ...
... forced hibernation.
Getting news from AARP on Social Security and Medicare ...
... is like accepting the fox's word that the henhouse is safe and sound.
The European definition of "austerity" is ...
... lower spending with higher taxes or, at best, the same level. That's what wrecked the economy of Greece, is putting Portugal's in peril, and threatening France, Spain, and even Germany. France's answer is to give Socialists the authority to hike spending and taxes, almost guaranteeing a collapse, perhaps of the entire EU.
The real solution is lower spending AND lower taxes. If the vote this Fall is for reelection and for restoring the Democrat majority in the House and maintaining it in the Senate, the US will jump on France's bandwagon. Trouble is, there won't be anyone left to pull it.
The LePage administration is to be commended ...
... for its restraint in avoiding the Obama excuse: We inherited this mess. After 36 years of profligate spending, any attempt at fiscal sanity is bound to experience some disappointments. That someone is actually trying to address our problems, rather than simply pandering for votes, is refreshing.
As the above comment reveals, Democrats in Maine, just like in DC, are reduced to claiming that the other side is waging a "war on ..." - pick your favorite target - because their own record of accomplishment is so abysmal.
Luck had nothing to do with it.
You describe a very idealistic view of the unions and their activities. If that is how you have experienced them, then you too are extraordinarily fortunate. That idealism seems to have all but disappeared from the private sector, along with unions and the jobs and members they were so very concerned about. Whatever the zeal for advocacy, it makes no sense to "negotiate" a company or an entire industry out of business or off shore.
The idealism remains in the public sector, for the most part, especially where unions negotiate with themselves, the folks on the other side of the table being Democrat politicians. If past performance is a reliable predictor of the future, we will soon see entire states forced into bankruptcy. A very few are wising up and trying to move back from the brink.
I have used this attitude all my working life.
There's nothing passive about it, Betty. When I looked into a job and found conditions (salary, benefits, ...) not to my liking, I negotiated and/or looked elsewhere. If I lived in an area where I couldn't find a job I wanted, I moved.
What I did not do was join a union and try to extort from an employer something he couldn't afford to do or something that didn't fit with his view of how a company should operate.
Also in all my working life, I have never had or met even one employer who was out to exploit anyone. To imply that most employers do is just union propaganda. On the contrary, Betty, the real passive attitude is to pay some dues and hand your responsibilities off to others because of vague hand-waving about supporting the "workin' people".
If ever there was a deserving
If ever there was a deserving recipient of a punch, of any kind, it's organized labor. "OL", cousin to "OC", has had free rein in this state for far too long. Hopefully their new role as punching bag will expand nationwide. On Wisconsin!
Weird discussion.
After my comment on Friday, there was not even one mention of the letter nor of Kamerad Dill. As usual with leftists, they are more concerned with tearing others down than with supporting even one of their own.
Wrong again, Herr Riml. I prefer to reserve my battles for the spelling azzholes. How cunnin'.
I tried to parse what you said, Zack, but ...
... you lost me. The left has manufactured a war on religion. Not all religions, of course, only Christianity and Judaism. The left fawns relentlessly on Islam.
What attack on marriage? Perhaps you refer to those who believe that marriage is one man and one woman. News flash: that belief is spread all along the spectrum, not just on the right. The rich (those who make more than $250k per year) already pay much more than their "fair share" and the Bush tax cuts (for everyone) tried to remedy that imbalance a little. The cuts expire at the end of the year when taxes (for everyone) will go up. Fresh idea from the left: Punish everyone because somebody, somewhere is having a good time.
Just because an idea is fresh doesn't imply that it's wise. BHO got elected on a bewildering gaggle of fresh ideas, not one of which has worked. How's your Solyndra stock doing?
What's fresh?
This is a list of the tired, old platitudes that Democrats have used for decades to fool voters into electing them.
Notice the subtle phrasing. If you're against the policies of our illustrious president, then you are stonewalling and not paying attention to the business of the people - as if the two were even remotely connected. And, just to touch all bases, we have a glancing reference to the manufactured "war on women".
With advocates like this, Dill doesn't have a chance.
It's not just Norway or Sweden.
Most countries in Europe and the UK make kids go through drivers' education that shows up ours for the joke it is. This issue comes up from time to time, but it never goes anywhere. The Right hates it because it would cost more money; the Left hates it because it would require more individual responsibility. Here's where a little real bipartisanship would be valueable.
Priorities.
Angus King, he who would be senator, drove the state of Maine onto the road to bankruptcy; John Baldacci put the accelerator to the floor.
But, dang, were they polite! Forget the mounting debt and the generational dependency. All that matters is they didn't insult anyone. Unless, of course, you count the people of Maine and our children and grandchildren, who are expected to pay the bills for 16 years of profligacy.
Gee, that looks like a nice rock.
Although I'm not up on the details behind this letter, I read it through and found it to be a reasonable presentation of the issue, except for a couple of pointless references to political affiliation. Then I got to the bottom and saw who wrote it.
Sometimes a little cynicism is healthy. The author once again exposes his preference for big government, central planning, and the mob rule that is small D democracy.
My advice to anyone concerned about the matters mentioned in the letter is: Apply the rock test - turn it over and watch what crawls out from under it.
This is the opinion section, Jon.
That's all you provide, but evidently that doesn't satisfy. I'll wait for the emperor's proclamation that your opinions are to be received as incontrovertible fact. Meanwhile, calm down. Your spelling is deteriorating.
Where have I seen these regulations before?
Oh, yeah, now I remember. When last used, the result was not good for the regulators, Herr Albrecht. But why not try again? Practice makes perfekt.
I can't wait ...
... for you to retire and produce the great American history re-write, with the "real" story of the Founders and the Constitution. If you need a publisher, contact Marvel Comics. They're used to scripts that are "totally absurd".
Democracy doesn't work ...
... on any scale larger than a New England town meeting. That's why the Founders adamantly avoided it and instead created a republic. The economic policy that ended the Great Depression was WWII, and the growth was so strong that Democrats couldn't throttle it back until Carter, with a total shutdown scheduled for a 2nd Obama term. The Constitution also doesn't mention public property, regulated markets, socialism, or any particular business at all. The genius of the Founders was a creation that has survived bad presidents and worse Congresses, but its greatest test is yet to come.
It sure is quiet here today.
I guess a lot of folks are out celebrating May Day. Workers of the world, unite!
Trickle down didn't work for Mr. Onnen.
What are his credentials to speak for anyone else?
One thing is certain. Those evil rich folks aren't buying their yachts in Maine. Democrats destroyed the state's yacht industry and all its jobs with their luxury tax. They wanted those fat cats to pay their fair share. Ask those unemployed shipwrights about fairness.
Taxes do not redistribute wealth. They redistribute tax payers.
Sure he does.
And who campaigned on the promise that, with his policies, unemployment would never rise above 8%? He who bears no responsibility, that's who.
Not that easy.
Where's my "affordable" health insurance? I don't get a subsidy from an employer or a government, so my choices are high-deductible insurance for only $700 per month, or comprehensive insurance from Anthem for a nice, affordable $2300 per month. ObamaCare hasn't fixed a damn thing for me. If someone else is already getting insurance for a lot less, it's because my taxes have been hiked to pay for it. With a few more "improvements" like that, I'll be bankrupt and finally qualified for government help.
It's Bush's fault again.
Obama and his apologists won't acknowledge that he has responsibility for anything.
So?
Like what?
... direct programs are far more effective.
Name one social ill that has been fixed by a direct program created by the Obama administration.
Sorry about the double post.
My internet service stuttered for a few moments.
That's a good summary of Obama's 2008 campaign.
Seen from 2012, it's a load of empty promises and lack of performance. Don't ask the letter writer about policy - ask the president about his abject failure. But already know the answer: It's Bush's fault.
There's nothing magical about the obvious "fix all": lower taxes and stable taxes. The free market would welcome that kind of "messing".
That's a good summary of Obama's 2008 campaign.
Seen from 2012, it's a load of empty promises and lack of performance. Don't ask the letter writer about policy - ask the president about his abject failure. But already know the answer: It's Bush's fault.
There's nothing magical about the obvious "fix all": lower taxes and stable taxes. The free market would welcome that kind of "messing".
I embrace ObamaCare wholeheartedly!
Except for a few minor reservations.
(-) It was passed without even one Republican vote. So much for the bipartisanship Democrats demand when they're not firmly in the majority.
(-) It's 2700 pages long and incomprehensible, even to its anonymous authors, and especially to Democrats in Congress, who didn't even read what they voted for. Their approval rating shows what people think of their performance.
(-) Groups tasked with trying to comprehend it, like the CBO, underestimated its cost by a factor of 2. With friends like that, ObamaCare doesn't need more enemies. But it's getting them.
(-) Since passage, support has eroded because of the above and other reasons, to the present when a "healthy" majority wants it repealed.
But never mind. Stop thinking, be happy, and embrace it, as we join all those enlightened but bankrupt "democracies".
We should be grateful the
We should be grateful the president is not leading, whatever the reason. If he were, the country would be much farther down the toilet than it already is.
I'm sorry, Mr. Grover, but I can't share your slight hope in the electorate. A majority has already discovered it can vote themselves largess from the public treasury and vote away any responsibility to pay for it. Ain't democracy great?
No one will mind if you don't
No one will mind if you don't dress like a derelict. Be that as it may, I saw this as recently as this morning at Hannaford, from my vantage point in line behind the alleged perp. Get out more often and find your own facts.
We're not talking about a 5¢
We're not talking about a 5¢ deposit, but a $2 deposit. Many local dairies do this to preserve their investment in expensive glass jugs. I have seen this scam with my own eyes, but it was back in the bad old days when they couldn't buy cigarettes with food stamps.
If you glance at some polls
If you glance at some polls from organizations that aren't smooching the administration's posterior, it's a toss-up which candidate is taking a beating over this issue. The most important women's issue is this: Republicans value women in the home and in the workplace, and want to preserve their right to choose either path or both; Democrats value women as voters only, and want to dictate their choices to them. Women in general are much too smart to accept the Democrat vision and are telling that to any politician willing to listen, which doesn't include many Democrats.
In the above, substitute "blacks" for "women" and the issue remains pretty much the same. The left expects blacks to stay on the Democrat plantation. Again, they're too smart, a fact that is utterly lost on the race industrialists like Jackson, Sharpton, et al.
Stereotypical?
Go to your local grocery store and loiter around the checkout counters for a while. Watch the EBT users. In spite of bloviations to the contrary, they're easy to spot. Watch the steady flow of cigarettes, beer, and - for the kiddies - a nutritious dinner of cheese doodles.
In a thread already bursting
In a thread already bursting with stupid comments, the previous two rise right to the top, like big ones in a septic tank. The discussion has nothing to do with Zimmerman or Martin. The only people who believe the Tea Party is rife with racism are those who never hoist their noses out of the liberal sycophant media outlets.
What do those photos have to
What do those photos have to do with anything?
The military loved GWB. If Obama tried the carrier act, he would be boo-ed more than he was at Fenway. BHO is good at erecting a concerned expression on his puss, especially while watching an operation by US military "assets" put in place by his predecessor.
I was referring to the favorite garb worn by "dear leaders" the world over, especially in banana republics like Cuba and North Korea, the ones pretending to be communist states, when they are really hereditary monarchies.
The three alignments are
The three alignments are capitalism (1st world), communism (2nd world), and everybody else (3rd world). The latter covers Central and South America, most of Africa, the Middle East eastward through southeast Asia and Indonesia.
If the US is fundamentally transformed to disavow capitalism but not to embrace (overtly) communism, we then belong to the third world, by definition. When Obama starts wearing a ribbon of office, and maybe military utility clothes, we'll be just another classic banana republic.
If Obama is reelected, within
If Obama is reelected, within 4 years the predominate color in the US will be pink. But you're already used to it, comrade.
As you can see from above,
As you can see from above, Paul, one of the talking dead has returned with another long-winded copy-and-paste job.
I propose a toast.
To glorious silence, with a stiff slug of grog. Not too much, though, because I fear the dead will speak again.
I need to ask the Parrot a question.
Since this is the opinion section, he's entitled to squawk freely.
Is it just me or do others feel it's rather deserted in here, since around the time the format changed, on-line and off-line?
Some of our buddies (like the wheelchair warrior) have vanished completely. Others (like the historical sailor) are staying well away from the opinion section. Has there been a purge?
A little quick arithmetic ...
... says that minimum wage should now be $14 to maintain the ratio from the good old days. In round numbers, that would double everything - including gas at the pump - and ripple throughout the economy. When the dust settles, we would have $8 gasoline and $10 Big Macs.
The unions would love it, since many contracts mandate wages as multiples of minimum wage.
All US companies get these grants ...
... or subsidies or breaks - choose your favorite emotional word. The president's proposal would single out the oil industry for special tax punishment, a big part of his plan to make energy prices "necessarily skyrocket".
In the Democrat vocabulary, the word "subsidy" means "the difference between the tax they want to collect and what they legally can collect". If they don't get all they want from some company because it's obeying tax law, the rest of us have to make up the difference. No, it just means politicians have fewer of our dollars to waste.
We rein in a governor at the ballot box.
The same way we rein in a political party. You may recall that's what happened in November 2010.
Maine's youth are finally getting a lesson in life outside the Democrat party. Lots of old fogeys are terrified the kids might like what they see.
Allen West, Tim Scott
And it's J. C. Watts, two T's. But you're right, Steve. Most black politicians stay safely on the Democrat plantation. A few, the best ones, have had enough of ignorance. You would do well to follow their lead.
Forget the school board.
Cliff, ask some of your teachers for their opinions on a longer school year. I bet you'll hear several arguments why extending the year is absolutely impossible.
The usual process is to take an initial vote ...
... to see where they stand - sort of like when a jury starts deliberating. Assuming it's not unanimous, for or against, they start debating the matter among themselves and take as long as they damn well please before issuing a final ruling.
What's really unfortunate,
What's really unfortunate, and truly scary and ironic, is the solution proposed by the race industrialists: Jackson, Sharpton, V. Jones, New Black Panthers, Nation of Islam, ... Their solution is a mob, a rope and a sturdy tree. No "justice" required. String him up, boys!
Then why did the unnamed
Then why did the unnamed very-smart-people who wrote all 2700 pages of ObamaCare choose the non-Medicare route?
If you're on Medicare and reasonably healthy, you'll get nickeled-and-dimed to death for non-covered routine maintenance unless you buy supplemental insurance from a private company. It's amazing that, with decades available, Democrats were never able to screw up supplemental insurance along with everything else.
Fidel-Care
Let's take a poll of all the Cubans vacationing in the US right now on how they like their system. Here are the results: zero for, zero against.
It's free and maybe even pretty good. (Evidently it's better than Venezuela's.) What are you prepared to give up to have the same?
I'll join you in ...
... 1 year, 4 months. Happy Birthday!
Off topic issue #2.
I continue to find the newest-to-oldest ordering awkward and counterintuitive. I would much prefer oldest to newest. How do you feel?
This is off topic.
I guess I like the new online format. The old site took forever (for me) to load a page so that I could scroll down or up. This is much more responsive. I have two issues. Perhaps we can use the agree/disagree buttons for an informal poll.
First issue: The font size for system messages is way too large. There's no need for the words "Add comment" to take up nearly 0.75 inches of vertical space. Make them smaller.
I'll take a stab at it, Ed, ...
... even though I'm not a Republican. Social Security and Medicare are funded by taxes; the mandate requires the purchase of "insurance" from a private company. If the unknown authors of ObamaCare had had the honesty to create a tax to fund it, today we could be discussing the bill's other merits, or lack of them - because nowhere in the Constitution is there one syllable enumerating an authority to force a citizen to buy anything - except for the liberal penumbras and emanations.
Instead they chose to invite this Constitutional controversy and created a pointless war among the three branches of government. My non-Republican cynicism suggests this decision was very deliberate for political advantage later this year.
Suppose SCOTUS leaves it alone. Forget what the MSM and their polls say, most Americans detest the ACA and would likely vote against the guy who shoved it down their throats.
Suppose SCOTUS strikes it down. Then BHO can campaign as the "underdog" being picked on by those nasty right-wing justices. Anyone with eyes and ears knows he has nothing else to campaign on.
You answered your own question with the phrase "That, in the end, ..." This entire kerfuffle is about the ends justifying the means.
One step forward ...
... two steps back. Your midnight post was rational - sort of. Now you're back in familiar territory - irrational hatred of any person or organization that disagrees with your prejudiced view of the state and the world.
That's all for now. I have to go gas up my black helicopter before Obama hikes fuel prices again.
Tronnie, try to remember all the way back to midnight.
You moaned that "the fix was in". That is, you're interpretation of current events is the right-wing activist court is going to strike down your precious law from ideology only. I hope they do strike it down, although I have a different take on their motives.
Yup, a Democrat got it passed when you and your "brethren" (vocabulary from the Democrat War on Women - using them as cannon fodder) had complete control of the federal government. The people of this country witnessed that travesty and handed the House back to Republicans, which for two years has been the only check on left-wing activism. Now that the court, finally, is looking into it, following the rules in the Constitution, you and "your" president are soiling your shorts whining about the "unelected" judges.
You brought up activism, Danny.
I just want SCOTUS to do its job: judge ACA according to the Constitution. You want them to judge the Constitution according to ACA.
12 states have created exchanges.
38 states have prudently chosen to wait and see - 21 have pending legislation, 17 haven't done anything. New York is one of the 21. Yup, NY is a hot-bed of right-wingers. Delaware is one of the 17 - you know, the home of that famous conservative, Joe Foot-in-Mouth Biden.
Breton hates judicial activism - unless, of course, it's in support of some left-wing cause.
Get some new material, pal.
Jonnie heard this greed/need BS a couple weeks ago and latched onto it like a junkyard dog on a T-bone. The alien philosophy belongs to him, his mentors and handlers, and whitehouse.gov.
The Midnight Whiner asks:
What about Social Security and Medicare? Huh? Huh? C'mon, you Republicans.
Those programs are funded by employment taxes. Wink, wink. That's the fairy-tale we've heard since the 1930's. Recent reductions in those taxes, to help "working people", display the fraud for all to see. The reality is, they are paid out of the general fund like everything else, and those taxes are just cash-cows for DC.
If the authors, whoever they may be, of the ACA had created a tax to fund it, instead of a premium, we wouldn't be having the current discussion about the Constitutionality of the mandate. We could instead focus on all the law's other controversial aspects, which are legion.
So who is this other Jason
So who is this other Jason Theriault?
OK, I'll bite.
Since someone disagreed, why do you believe I really love my aged keyboard?
Deck the Halls!
"pice" = "price"
Dang keyboard.
Yes, Danny, ...
... the prez has a full staff with him at all times when he travels, even on campaign trips, and we tax-payers pick up the tab. The estimate I heard recently was $100,000 an hour. Given the cost and the frequency, you would think his golf game might improve.
Campaigning, vacations, world-wide apology tours ... am impressive pice tag. Maybe it's worth it to get him out of DC for a while.
Democrats say...
“In the spirit of bipartisanship, just do it our way.” Democrats also worked tirelessly from 2001-2004 to make GWB a one-term president, opposing everything he tried to do, many of which they have since embraced as their own. The only thing worse than vitriolic speech is hypocritical speech.
If the president told the world today that the US was going to start using its own energy resources as much as possible, forgoing foreign sources, tomorrow the global price of oil would drop like a rock - and gas prices would follow within a few weeks. It's a "futures" market and there's no shortage of supply, even with that lunatic in Iran. Demand is pushing the price up.
We'll never know what would have happened to banks and auto companies if the government had allowed the free market to operate. What we do know is that Democrats are still complaining about fat-cat bankers screwing the 99%. What we do have are auto companies making over-priced "green" cars that no one wants, even with humongous tax-payer subsidies.
But, never mind. Just do it their way.
I got my degree in 1970.
BA in computer science. Whatever similarity we have ends there.
No one had to point out the obvious to me: After I got that piece of paper, the rest was up to me. In each job I held, I learned and reinforced my academic credentials. I moved for jobs, all around the country and overseas, I didn't sit on my thumb in one place, whining about quality of life.
A degree is literally worth what you make of it.
The anecdote goes ...
After Hitler was elected chancellor of Germany, he told his cronies: First thing we do is, kill all the lawyers. But that seems a somewhat harsh method of dealing with a surplus of ambulance chasers.
A large part of this problem is an antiquated "guidance" industry that tells a high school kid: Go to college or you're a failure. And then tells a college student: Go to graduate school or you'll be flipping burgers.
Mr. Rhoades says "students and parents deserve accurate information". On the other side, schools deserve to expect some level of common sense from a student, especially one who has managed to get all the way to law school; and some from his parents, if they're paying the tab. Common sense like ... No school, no business, no government owes you a job.
Common sense like ... Instead of choosing a field that makes you "feel" good, choose one that already provides jobs and is likely to continue to do so. As the Pirate said earlier, the trades are in some cases begging for people - especially where there are no unions to stifle the process.
Common sense like ... If you're determined to live in East Dinnerbucket, Maine, you won't find too many jobs that require a degree in art history.
Corporate "rights".
Should it be legal for a corporation to own property? To sign a contract? To sue or be sued. I say yes. An individual person can do all those things. Which rights of a person must be denied to a corporation to make the anti-corporate-personhood people happy? It would seem that free speech is first on the list.
Would the restrictions reach to, say, a business partnership? Suppose a group of two lawyers decides to donate $10 to the local rest-home for old liberals. Can they do it? Can they deduct it on their tax return? How about $10,000 to the Obama SuperPAC?
How about a partnership of one, the sole proprietor. Whatever he says or does, is it the person or the business? Who decides? (For all anyone knows, this may be spelled out somewhere in the 2700 pages of ObamaCare. Lots of other irrelevant stuff is.)
The only difference between these forms and a corporation is a stock certificate sitting between the people who run the business and the people who own it. To say that rights exist only on one side of that divide is just envy of wealth or success or both.
New Oxford American
Perhaps you can add it to your list of books to rewrite when you retire.
Supremacy has been a big part of the BHO administration: of race (black) and of religion (Islam). Others need not apply.
BHO has been aiding and abetting "democracy" in the middle east. The only trivial aspect is the results.
BHO has nothing to do with business. Except for GE having an office down the hall in the White House, GM producing tax-payer subsidized cars (the new volkswagens) that nobody wants, Solyndra, banks, insurance companies ...
The anti-women, anti-immigration, anti-democratic nonsense has been manufactured so the left has something to campaign on, actual accomplishments being extremely thin.
The single greatest accomplishment in the 20th century of the progressive movement was to hang the label "right-wing" on German Nazism. Only nationalism separated Nazi from Communist.
You gotta love that phrase "how the population is managed". The extreme left has slaughtered more human beings, in the name of politics, than the right, extreme or not, ever dreamed of.
More handbook philosophy.
Ridicule is man’s most potent weapon. - Saul Alinsky
They did have that school.
I saw the cadets every day in the late 60s in NYC. They marched in unison, drilled with posters and flags, and had cute uniforms. Two varieties: John Lennon or V. Lenin. I don't recall which held the higher rank. And they also used terms like "fascist" very loosely.
My dictionary says: Fascism tends to include a belief in the supremacy of one national or ethnic group, a contempt for democracy, an insistence on obedience to a powerful leader, and a strong demagogic approach. That's an accurate description of what the left is trying to establish here. In the spirit of diversity, I am widening "supremacy" to include all PC ethnic groups and the anti-nation philosophy.
Please identify any communist
Please identify any communist dictator armed with nuclear weapons in the world.
Barack Hussein Obama
Didn't you see that ...
... in the handbook back in SDS cadet school?
Also remember ...
... how much worse it was under Democrats during the 35 years up through 2010. And, I agree, vote accordingly.
Try actually reading the piece, Steve.
It's about hospital and university administrators - not doctors and educators. Did you ever receive life-saving hospital care due to the CEO's compensation package? Did one of your kids get an A+ in underwater basket weaving due to the college president's high salary?
What's out of whack are lefties who launch into a trite tirade at the drop of a buzzword.
Then we have not had a free election ...
... in Maine during the 35 years leading to 2010.
Those four make up their minds ...
... based on how they "feel". The others make up their minds based on what the Constitution says. It's interesting, and telling, that you omitted Roberts and Kennedy from your prejudiced list. You do understand, Tronnie, that a SCOTUS justice has a life-time job and is not beholden to any other political considerations? Or are you admitting that the four take their orders from the DNC?
We do need a better court.
The best way to achieve that aim is to elect a Republican president and wait for Breyer, Ginsberg, Kagan and Sotomayor to provide vacancies.
Shhh! You're not supposed to mention that.
The best funded SuperPAC around right now is Obama's, even though he promised in the 2008 campaign never to use one. So much for his word.
The armchair generals ...
... have uncorked their thumbs - the armchair admiral, too.
WWII was the last war the US tried to win - Democrats got us into it, Republicans won it. After that, politics was the commander-in-chief. Democrats got us into Korea and that war is still officially going on. Democrats got us into Viet Nam and Republicans got us out, with our tail between our legs. Grenada went pretty well ...
After that, the tactical aim, D or R, was to make the enemy like us. In all of world history, that aim has never won anything, no matter how just or unjust. Until we learn the futility of that battle plan, we will lose before we start fighting. If we don't learn it, we may as well surrender now. I'm sure all those nasty folks out there will leave us alone if we promise to stay home.
Regulations imposed by ...
... Bill Clinton made upgrading or modernizing a refinery almost as expensive as building a new one, all to appease the environazis. That's why it doesn't happen and we're stuck with inefficient refineries using out-dated technology. The crock is reducing every discussion to the greed of big oil.
When you make a reasoned comment ...
... you might get a reasoned response. Until then, calling a socialist a socialist is not a vile slur, it's just accurate.
I opens only the left eye.
You listed several trite "ends", pretty much the same ones found at Communist Party USA and at any of dozens of socialist sites - and union sites. But they all are vague about the "means". History is not vague - read it now before it gets rewritten. The honest party line is always:
You 99% are too stupid and lazy to manage your lives. We, the 1% wannabes, will handle everything for you. If you don't give us the authority, we'll take it.
Being self-employed ...
... there is no difference between me and my business. Just as there's no difference between you and your old book business. Or do you conveniently forget to mention that stuff when you file your tax return? If you do forget, it wouldn't surprise me, since you're such a hypocrite. Those icky things only apply to other people, not card-carrying liberals.
To quote Bob ...
What are you talking about?
You are your money manager.
Don't blame me because you messed up your retirement planning.
Pirate, I couldn't agree more.
The "common folk", at least the ones who seem to have nothing else to do but hang around here, spend so much time searching out, and envying, the wallets of others, they have no time left to consider their own and make appropriate decisions and efforts.
The wealthy didn't put you in your current situation, Claire. You did.
You're retired, right?
Your profile suggests your are, as you voluntarily list your age as over 70. You also list several prior jobs in the private sector - good ones, too, for Maine. If you're not making $20k with private pensions plus Social Security, I urge you to go to the nearest mirror and look in it. There you will see the person 100% responsible for your current conditions.
I make more than $20k per year ...
... so that makes me "wealthy", according to the Maine Revenue Service, and that definition hasn't changed substantially for 15 years. Yes, I have lots of deductions, but the bottom line: I pay a boatload of ME income tax. And employer taxes (for the privilege of providing jobs to other Mainers), and property taxes, and federal income tax, including self-employment tax. Apparently a self-employed couple doesn't qualify as a "working family", because our SE tax rate wasn't reduced, although it's the same tax that supposedly pays for current Social Security benefits.
Bob, would you please put me in touch with some of your wealth friends who don't pay taxes? Evidently they know some accounting tricks that I have missed.
SCOTUS may have changed something ...
... contrary to your wishes but, thankfully, your wishes have nothing to do with the wishes of the people. You brought up corporations, chump, but you can't defend your own silly positions. In any case, I would much prefer SCOTUS asserting its Constitutional authority over POTUS continuing to try to assert his unConstitutional authority.
My SCOTUS ...
... did nothing more than undo the arbitrary changes your Congress created. What does a for-profit corporation have to do with a SuperPAC? Unless you're admitting the Obama SuperPAC is for-profit.
Won't happen, Steve.
Hillary wants a less stressful job, President of the World Bank, although that final word may be removable. She must be really tired of being SECSTATE to a POTUS who likes to mismanage foreign policy all by himself.
It's easy to balance a budget when the economy is roaring, like during most of the Clinton reign. It's not so easy when the economy is in the toilet. Ask any recent state governor.
Obama might get his hands dirty touching those dimes, so he has hired a bunch of folks to do it for him - his SuperPAC. You may not remember the long ago 2008 campaign in which he promised never to use organizations like that, but that may be the least of his broken promises.
Good luck.
Medicare is going broke faster than SS, which for the first time last year paid out more than it took in. Your pension and 401(k) will look a whole lot smaller when you have to pay into ObamaCare. When you have all that time on your hands, you'll be full time into rewriting history. Now it's only part-time.
It's the new math, Paul.
4 is 5, love is hate, war is peace, ... I believe he was fumbling for Orwell's word bellyfeel: blind, enthusiastic acceptance of an idea. There's plenty of that around today. Ask anyone who has a good, non-union position at the White House.
If the recession ended, it's
If the recession ended, it's because the depression has begun. Phony economic growth is restored. How's your Solyndra investment?
Old wars ended, new ones beginning. Too bad the name Afrika Corps was already used.
Healthcare nationally is aiming to be more expensive everywhere than it is in Maine. We'll all be healthy bankrupts.
Frank and Dodd are two of the biggest criminals in recent decades. A good start would be indict them.
Republicans have put forth many plans, all roundly ignored by the liberal royalty in DC.
Recycling old, failed, far-left programs never solved anything, except for the employment status of old, failed liberals.
It's been there for 5 days.
You're the first to mention it. I'll change mine when you change the image of you with a condom on your head.
The novel has already been written.
It's The Decline and Fall of the _______________. I can guess how you would fill in the blank.
The real flag was flown outside the Lake County Democratic Club in Florida a week or so ago. Someone photoshopped the flames in to make a point that I agree with - burn the face away and put back the stars.
I mean ...
... ENQUIRER. I have to clean my keyboard.
I remember those prices.
They were universally known as the Bush gas prices. Now we have the Obama gas prices, although he will try to blame Bush for this, like he does for everything else.
By the way, Al, speaking of facts ... Obama was sworn in in 2009, not 2008, when he was elected on 11/4, a date that shall live in infamy. And it's the National Einquirer, but perhaps you are using the new relaxed Obama spelling rules.
With those blue blinders on, ...
... everything looks wonderful indeed!
... We're out of one war - by declaring victory and telling all those who sacrificed that it was for nothing.
... leaving the other - by invitation due to the acts a very few lunatics and low-lifes and zero US leadership.
... enabled democracy wins in the middle east - a couple of dictatorships shifted from one form to another. The only democracy in the middle east continues to be Israel.
... eliminated Osama - by sheer luck using the infrastructure created by the previous president.
... eliminated most if Al Qaeda - who moved to Libya to regroup.
... enhanced domestic security - by strip-searching little children and grandmothers.
Beware the Democrat middle finger. When Obama is not poking it in our eye, he's flipping it at us. The past 3.5 years have been the travesty, by acclamation.
Where is Breton's righteous indignation?
The SJ should have added a blurb that Mr. Haszko (D) lost a recent election to Mr. Harvell (R), accounting for the lingering taste of sour grapes.
Youths do not lack health care. They may lack health insurance, but that's less a consequence of employment and more a consequence of a delusion of immortality and indestructibility.
People of all ages are priced out of comprehensive insurance due to Democrat policies over the 20 years leading up to the recent Republican election victories.
If one person is forced to
If one person is forced to buy something he doesn't need, it's to pay for someone else receiving it "free". It's part of a package of mandates, adopted 20 years ago, loosely called health insurance "reform", and it's directly responsible for chasing away all competition and pushing premiums into the stratosphere.
There's an easy fix: allow "buffet" policies like we used to have back in the bad old days. You pick the options you need and pay for them. A single man doesn't need pap smears; a single women doesn't need prostate exams. The problem with this solution is it doesn't buy the votes of those who like to believe they're getting something for nothing.
I have health insurance that I pay for myself, no subsidies from an employer or a government. It's a high deductible policy for only $700/mo. If I go to the ER, I get to pay the first $10,000, even with my insurance. Of course, I could switch to a "comprehensive" policy for only $2,300/mo. These easily "affordable" amounts are courtesy of Maine's health insurance "reform" and the Democrat party, motto: Dragging everyone down to the same level.
Where to sign up?
Call your friendly, neighborhood Democrat pol. If you're not poor enough, he will suggest several ways for you to become poorer.
I have high blood pressure and my medication costs about the same per month as birth control. I get to pay every dime. If I didn't take the stuff, for whatever reason, the results would be catastrophic to my health, to my wallet, and to my health insurance company. My $10K deductible would be consumed in about 2 days in a hospital. So why aren't my meds "free"?
They're not free because high blood pressure isn't as sexy as "women's reproductive health".
Everything that insurance
Everything that insurance pays out, is paid from premiums coming in. If government mandates that some health product or service is "free", it just means that all premiums are raised accordingly. If that doesn't affect you, Jillian, it just means that someone else is paying your premium for you.
Get a grip.
I mean the Pelosi/Fluke show, staged to deflect attention away from the administration's bonehead mandate to the Catholic church.
Just out of curiosity, what do you mean by "cover"? I suspect you mean "pay for". Also out of curiosity, how much money do you personally pay per month for health insurance? How much of your premium is paid by someone else, like an employer? Current federal law requires an employer to disclose to you every year the total cost of your insurance premium. If it's paid by some other agency, like a government, that requirement probably doesn't apply.
In my case, being self-employed, I pay $700 / month for my wife and me for insurance that "covers" everything but "pays for" nothing, until I cough up the $10,000 deductible. A "comprehensive" policy would be $2300 / month, which is typical in Maine for a couple in our age bracket, 60-65.
If you're astonished by those amounts and by my use of the word "typical", you must be in the group that has its premiums "covered".
You listen but you don't hear.
No politician of any credible national stature, of any party, wants to do what you claim, as a matter of public policy. Every politician's private policy may differ. If you require private and public policy to be the same, no one at all is qualified to be elected to anything. The media keep asking candidates the same questions about private vs. public, hoping someone will trip up, so they can have another feeding frenzy to justify their high salaries.
If possible, look away from this stage-managed issue for a moment. In public our president shows up at the proper places, looks properly solemn, says the proper words - except for that awful word "Creator" - and, in general, plays the part of a patriotic American. In private, amply demonstrated in his books and by the company he keeps, he wants to convert the country into one more glorious socialist workers' paradise. Does the press do its job and ask him about the differences between his public and private policies? Is the Pope a Lutheran?
Compost happens.
To most of the folks who get
To most of the folks who get free stuff from the government, April 15th is just another day. GYAHICA!
Another content-free comment from ...
... Dr. Riml, professor of scatology. No one expects more from you, Ron.
Political cover
The bill restricts access to
The bill restricts access to free contraceptives. It undoes the mandate from the pinnacle of hypocrisy, the Democrat in the White House, that insurance cover 100% of the cost.
I would love it if my insurance would cover 100% of the costs of my medications. But it won't, because of high deductibles and co-pays. I can't afford "comprehensive" insurance because the premiums are out sight, due to all the costs shifted to pay for free stuff for people with better advocacy groups than I have.
I nominate this letter ...
... for best punch line of 2012. I'm still laughing.
I hope you understand, Mr. Potter, that ...
... our two senators are both Republicans? They are RINOs, of course, but certainly not independents. King has always said he was independent, but that was also in-name-only: he is a stealth Democrat and not very stealthy at that. He is the architect of the DHHS mess that has been left for Republicans to deal with.
The US Senate is useless. It was eviscerated in 1913 by the 17th amendment, first, and later by their silly rule that it takes 60 votes to do anything significant. So much for small "D" democracy. Under this scenario, it's the perfect place for Angus King, plus it gets him out of Maine. The classic win-win situation.
Double standard.
Bill Maher went on one of his demented rants recently and called Palin and Bachman names that I won't dignify here with *'s. He has refused to apologize. Yet no one is calling for Maher to be booted from HBO, although doing so would raise the average IQ there from 50 all the way up to 60.
Maher just coughed up $1 million to Obama's SuperPAC - you know, that organization he promised he would never use during the '08 campaign. I wonder if that might have something to do with the Democrat lack of outrage?
Maher is just an entertainer. Allegedly. But that's what the left calls Limbaugh, when it's convenient. When it's not, generally in the next breath, he's the absolute ruler of the Republican party.
Splitting hairs.
Evidently those reading your post don't agree with your personal definitions for "require", "lie", "slander", "apology", ... Isn't it great to live in a country where we all do not (yet) have to spout the same homogenized opinions?
About Limbaugh's "apology": At least his wasn't the standard Democrat line: If my statements offended you, I apologize; if they didn't, I don't.
About #4: it would be fun watching someone with principles run against someone who wouldn't know a principle if it swooped into his community and tweaked his activist nose.
Next off ...
... the juvenile defense argument is a two-way street. Try using adult English instead of asterisks.
The polls suggest that the Democrat mainsail is starting to flap in the breeze for many reasons, and this kerfuffle is just the latest. Romney and Republicans are already enjoying a bump, from women who are sick and tired of being told by liberals that they're dumb and helpless and need all the government help they can stand.
"Deflect" is the proper word for this soap opera.
The dumb Democrats at the top staged the Fluke "testimony" as damage control to deflect attention away from the bonehead mistake of dictating to the Catholic church. Limbaugh gave them a bonehead mistake in return, a present they didn't deserve. He acknowledged the mistake and apologized, but some will never accept it. It's the same "some" who will never accept Santorum's statement on his private vs. public beliefs on birth control. They keep asking him the same question over and over, hoping for another bonehead mistake they can pounce on.
A lot of folks want Limbaugh gone because the liberal media has no counterpart who anyone wants to listen to. RIP Air America. They can want him gone, but they can't turn their want into force. Not yet.
Be very careful of the "fairness" crusaders. First they'll come for Limbaugh, then they'll come for the SJ.
There's precious little thunking from the left side.
With the long-time Democrat "leadership", a legislator's function is to sit down, shut up, and do as he's told. It would be nice if legislators actually think about what they vote on, but none of the good old boys have any experience doing that.
re-corrections
1. Convenient definition of oversight. Democrats do none and that's supposed to be called "helping" the poor and less fortunate; Republicans try to apply a little rational oversight, and that's kicking granny out in the snow on the side of the turnpike.
2. The wealthiest Mainers already pay far more than their "fair share" here, just as they do at the federal level. What's really fair is for everyone to have some "skin in the game".
3. Maine's population is the oldest in the nation. Over the previous 35+ years, Democrat policies chased away jobs and young people. Somebody has to pay the bills and the responsibility falls to those who are left. Whatever Democrats were paying back, they were paying with money borrowed from our children and grandchildren.
4. The cost shifting has been going on for 20 years. Finally the state is trying to get control of the situation and pay its bills.
5. Maine has been losing jobs since the 1980s, maybe earlier, especially since Democrats decided to shut down the forest products industry. The promised jobs are out of state somewhere, where Obama created or saved them, somehow without also reducing unemployment.
6. The control on the governor and legislature is the next election. Direct democracy on every issue is mob rule.
Reverend Dan is quoting scripture again.
What's sad is, as always, There is none so righteous as a reformed *****.
When Dr. Shields was in the
When Dr. Shields was in the legislature, the only times the Democrat majority gave a toot about his vote was when they needed political cover for their irresponsibility. If they could cajole a few Republicans to join the herd, they could face the people with See? They did it too!
As you can see, Dr. Shields, ...
... whenever anyone points out the disastrous results of decades of Democrat majorities in the legislature and Democrat governors, their apologists crawl out from under their rocks. It's good because sunlight is the best disinfectant.
The mandate on insurance companies ...
... came only after the colossal blunder of the mandate directly on the Church. That maneuver, and certain other staged events, were designed to mask the fact that the administration stepped in it big-time.
That aside, many, not all, organizations owned or operated by the Catholic Church are self insuring - that is, they act as insurance companies for their employees. The shifted mandate is still directly on the Church.
That too aside, does this mandate apply in situations where the faith is something other than Christianity? Does it apply to, say, Brandeis University? Very probably. Does it apply to, for example, Islamic charities, hospitals and universities? Until I hear "Yes, of course!" from someone with authority to answer, I will continue to believe there's a high level of hypocrisy at work, along with a high level of anti-Christianity and anti-Judaism prejudice.
I'll apologize for Mark.
He should use the formal term HusseinCare. Your mom must be rolling her eyes.
Long before the current administration ...
... the top management of DHHS knew the computer system was inadequate and "solved" the problem by throwing $50+ million down the crapper on a new system that never worked. In all that time, how many state employees responsible for the mess were even reprimanded, let alone fired? Zero. Perhaps you can guess why.
It's more than a little disingenuous to heap all the blame on the current crew and to demand complete fiscal responsibility from a legislature that has had little or no experience in that area for almost 40 years.
Change. What a joke. Any attempted change from the Democrat status quo is immediately jumped on by liberal hyenas as another right wing attempt to kick granny out in the snow.
The Democrat program:
1. Keep running DHHS the same way it's been run for 10+ years.
2. Make even more people dependent on the state.
3. Hope for different results.
More?
October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion.
November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.
February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do.
Here are some facts.
It's not an attack on religion. It's an attack on Christianity and Judaism. This is just a sampling of the skirmishes in the war. If you like, I can provide references for every item.
October 2011 – The Obama administration eliminates federal grants to the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops for their extensive programs that aid victims of human trafficking because the Catholic Church is anti-abortion.
October 2011 – Obama’s Muslim advisers block Middle Eastern Christians’ access to the White House.
November 2011 – Unlike previous presidents, Obama studiously avoids any religious references in his Thanksgiving speech.
December 2011 – The Obama administration denigrates other countries' religious beliefs as an obstacle to radical homosexual rights.
January 2012 – The Obama administration argues that the First Amendment provides no protection for churches and synagogues in hiring their pastors and rabbis.
February 2012 – The Obama administration forgives student loans in exchange for public service, but announces it will no longer forgive student loans if the public service is related to religion.
February 2012 – The Obama administration makes effulgent apologies for Korans being burned by the U. S. military, but when Bibles were burned by the military, numerous reasons were offered why it was the right thing to do.
Oh no!
I agree (gag) with Breton (retch). March is a cruel month.
Breton's cheap TV service gets only MSNBC.
That's why he's always so cranky.
The issue is not birth control. It's just control - of Christian churches by the state. Especially control of hospitals, charities and, yes, universities - all those evil for-profit entities that Dan hates so much. Because all those things would be better run by government, all evidence to the contrary, which - under this president - has as its main activity picking winners and losers.
For "Christian" substitute "Jewish", and the issue remains unchanged. In fact, substitute any religion you can name - except, of course, "Islamic". With the most misogynistic religion on Earth, then the separation of church and state is .. well .. sacrosanct.
Selective activism.
I would put a finer point on it.
None of this has ever been an issue through-out the history of the U.S. up until the election of Obama. It's been a 3+ year war on all religions except, of course, Islam.
Suppose we keep all details as-is, except change "Catholic university" to "Islamic university". Never mind that the latter is something of an oxymoron. Islam's misogyny leaves Catholicism's in the dust. Is there anyone reading this naive enough to believe that our president would dictate to Islam?
As I said in my first post ...
... this issue was started by Democrats and choreographed by them ever since, aided and abetted by their wholly owned subsidiary, the "mainstream" media, to keep it in the forefront. With Eddie and Billie and, don't forget, Slick, the media delivered crickets. Your memory of playgrounds is conveniently selective.
She describes other women ...
... only after she talks about "a lot of students who, like me, ..." with some vague phrasing so she can't be pinned down. Evidently that's one class she never missed: Dissembling 101.
And you have obviously swallowed the propaganda ...
... that all misogyny originates from the right. Here are some snips from a column today by Larry Elder. The first two sure haven't provoked much attention from the media.
Ed Schultz, … the blowtorch left-wing MSNBC host, called conservative radio show host Laura Ingraham a "right-wing slut" and a "talk slut." … His punishment? One week's suspension without pay.
{Bill} Maher, of HBO's "Real Time," …, on more than one occasion, referred to former Alaska Gov. Sarah Palin by the "c" word, called her a "dumb 't'-word" (think "twit" with a different vowel), and has called Palin and Rep. Michele Bachmann, R-Minn., "bimbos."
And, of course, the misogyny academy's life-time achievement award goes to …
The sexism police long ago exempted Bill Clinton from any conversation about ill-treatment of women. Some of the same people who condemn Limbaugh for his treatment of Fluke go deaf, dumb and blind over Clinton's treatment of and statements about the women who dared confront him.
No laughing matter.
Indeed, acts that are unconstitutional are unconstitutional all the time, not just when it's convenient.
The repressing is left on right.
First the president attempted to dictate to the Catholic church on what their medical insurance must cover. When he got slapped back hard, he shifted his mandate to insurance companies. Both moves are unConstitutional meddling by the state, first in church matters, then in the matters of private companies. This president has never been shy about telling business what to do, with precious little positive results.
Then, by an amazing coincidence, came the silly "testimony" of Ms. Fluke, who wants to engage in nearly continuous recreational sex and demands her insurance pay for her lifestyle choices. One wonders when she finds time to attend classes. Perhaps she doesn't, given she's north of 30 and still in law school.
All this has been stage-managed by Democrats to deflect attention away from matters of more immediate importance. In your case, Ms. Field, they have obviously succeeded.
I know this is hard to believe, Bob, ...
... but I have never been a member of a union. 40+ years ago I used this technique to get my foot in some doors. I didn't need then, nor any time since, the "help" of bent-nosed union goons or their Democrat enablers.
Great comment, Al.
But what you describe is borderline illegal now. We all haul our differences aboard, never let go of them, and the ship sails in circles, going nowhere.
Celebrating diversity for the sake of diversity is the same as walking the plank. The sharks are waiting.
Here's a way.
Suppose you know a company with a job opening that requires your education and some experience. Go there in person, wearing a suit, no visible tattoos or piercings, no blue highlights in your hair, with a resume, and ask politely to see the personnel manager - excuse me - human resources manager.
Be honest about your experience. Offer to do the job without pay for a couple of weeks, while they observe your work, followed by a real interview.
Take my advice only if you're very sure of yourself. Under no circumstances take my advice if the job is unionized. You'll be laughed out of the building.
Starting with the big
Starting with the big announcement, Sen. Snowe has been whining about partisanship in DC, neglecting to mention that she caused a good deal of it. She and the other RINOs, "moderates" on both sides, exist primarily to compromise - to get something, anything, done for the American people.
But a politician has to be wearing huge blinders to miss the fact that most of the country is not interested in compromise, especially on issues of "morality", which covers a lot of ground these days. The obvious backlash is partisanship. My way or the highway.
Enjoy retirement, Senator. Now you only have to compromise with Jock.
I'm OK with it, as long as
I'm OK with it, as long as the woman doesn't turn around and demand a publicly funded artificial abortion.
Lighten up.
PP is part of the government in the same way GM is. Question in the mode of Limbaugh: What do you call a company that takes money to climb in bed with the government?
The government already does
The government already does hand out birth control. It's called Planned Parenthood. Maybe they don't have an office within walking distance of Georgetown Law School.
A grand consensus of scientists believes that ...
... sex is the leading cause of pregnancy. Here's a bulletin: sex has consequences and therefore responsibilities. Both people involved share in the responsibility to deal with the consequences, perhaps even ahead of time. What a concept.
What's going on is at least one of those involved is demanding that someone else pick up the responsibility by paying higher insurance premiums so that contraceptive "care" can be "covered" and provided "free".
SCOTUS did not rule ...
... that contraceptive products and services must be "free" to those who use them. My car must have an oil change at regular intervals, but I don't expect my car insurance to "cover" routine maintenance, nor do I expect my neighbor to be required to help pay my bills.
A friend sent me this and I thought of you.
A pirate walked into a bar, and the bartender said, "Hey, I haven't seen you in a while. What happened? You look terrible."
"What do you mean?" said the pirate, "I feel fine."
"What about the wooden leg? You didn't have that before."
"Well," said the pirate, "We were in a battle, and I got hit with a cannon ball, but I'm fine now."
The bartender replied, "Well, OK, but what about that hook? What happened to your hand?"
The pirate explained, "We were in another battle. I boarded a ship and got into a sword fight. My hand was cut off. I got fitted with a hook but I'm fine, really."
"What about that eye patch?"
"Oh," said the pirate, "One day we were at sea, and a flock of birds flew over. I looked up, and one of them sh&$ in my eye."
"You're kidding," said the bartender. "You couldn't lose an eye just from bird sh&$."
"It was my first day with the hook."
What word did I twist?
All I want is for the SJ to identify everyone who writes that has a potentially bias viewpoint. That is everyone, Dan, including you. Especially you. This is the "opinion" section. Your opinion is that anyone who disagrees with you is biased.
In all my twisting, at least I managed to spell your name right. But I may be too sensitive. Perhaps it was just a simple mistake and not another juvenile misspelling.
The big trouble with unions is ...
... they are Democrat in nature. It's the reason their power is slipping away.
So, Breton, you want everyone who writes a LTTE to list his party affiliation? How about age, race, employment status, welfare status, ... any condition that could possibly affect the author's opinion on any subject? Figures.
Your constant portrayal of the SJ's editorial staff as right-wing is laughable. Almost as laughable as your labeling as bigot or racist anyone who disagrees with you on anything.
Thank you, editor.
The only jobs over which Augusta has reasonably direct control are public sector jobs, the one area that unions have left to squeeze. In the previous 16 years of Democrat rule, that area expanded at a furious rate, with no thought to how to pay for the expansion, except the hope that good times would continue forever.
Now that grown-ups are in charge, the entitlement classes are throwing a continuous tantrum. That's the trend that everyone sees.
Slight correction.
That's what school should be for.
My 5 year old grandson ...
... already knows the "basics of computers". In the upcoming 12 years of public "education", whatever more he learns about computers will be canceled out, and then some, by the progressive hogwash he'll be expected to swallow.
I have a BA in Computer Science and worked 40+ years in the field, writing programs for many systems, from medical imaging to tactical radar, and much more. In the last 10 years, I was asked regularly to read resumes prior to interviewing potential employees. I lost count of the number of PHDs I saw who could not string a sentence together without several mistakes in grammar and spelling. The worst ones, by far, were those who started on the "basics of computers" in middle school.
Learning how to surf and do email qualifies you for the computer equivalent of flipping burgers. The state's laptop program does more harm than good and, following the old poker advice, we should stop throwing good money after bad.
Thanks, Ron.
For once you stayed within your area of expertise.
Yup, gotta love those librul cartoonists!
When a "target" image was spotted on a non-lefty site just after the Giffords shooting, the state controlled media threw a collective tantrum. For the one below, crickets ...
Don't ya just love the hypocrisy of the left .....
It's about a bunch of
It's about a bunch of self-absorbed anti-religion nuts desperate to feel important in their mediocrity by imposing their will on the church using the power of the state.
This exemption that Wrenn's hyperventilating about is just an unconstitutional mandate shifted from the church to insurance companies. It forces them to cover contraception services free of charge, meaning customers (the church) will still pay via higher premiums.
It's all about control, and the state is using this minor issue as pure misdirection. Pay no attention to that man behind the curtain!
Exactly right.
This "contraceptive" farce was raised and has been managed by Democrats to attempt to deflect attention away from Obama shredding the Constitution and accumulating dictatorial power in the executive branch.
Not a day went by ...
... during the GWB terms when he was NOT compared to Hitler, and the usual lefty suspects (already babbling below) called it the epitome of patriotism. With typical hypocrisy, Breton and Riml forget the past and call opponents childish authoritarians, while our sainted president is singing (allegedly) with blues bands and doing his best to void the first amendment. What's on display here is selective memory.
Really nice cutting and pasting!
The boys at the DNC do a thorough job, don't they?
So, Dave, how much do you pay now for health insurance? How much more are you willing to pay for your "fair share" when OC kicks in full time? I'll take a wild guess: zero and zero.
It just occurred to me that OC is a good abbreviation for ObamaCare, because it's already an abbreviation for "organized crime". The Mafia never dreamed of a cash-cow like this.
It sure is pedantic out this morning.
"ObamaCare" is a well established nickname for the "Affordable Care Act". It's easier to say and not laced with hypocrisy. It might be affordable to you, but not to the dwindling number of us who actually pay the bills and are faced with staggering increases.
Would you prefer "Barack Insurance"? How about "Hussein Health"? The nickname is racist only under your self-serving definitions. And now we have a new entry in the Breton lexicon: If you disagree with Dan, you're irrational.
Your "idea" is that ObamaCare is perfect and any disagreement is both racist and irrational. The average American does and will continue to argue against that nonsense.
I'm seeing double.
Pattie, et al, I'm seeing two agree/disagree lines after each comment. For example, see Breton's comment below.
Actually, that's a bad example. Dan deserves to have his "disagree" number doubled automatically.
Get some new material, Dan.
You're getting booed off the stage.
Give it a try, Veritas.
First time for everything.
Standing?
Steve Dosh, a citizen of Hawaii, and verified user here, routinely criticizes LePage for anything he can think of, but nothing that affects him directly. Perhaps you're restricted, Ron, but I'm a US citizen and that's all the standing I need to criticize anyone I believe deserves it.
I like Gov. Christie but I think this was a stupid decision, a small and unnecessary dishonor to the country whose structure enabled him to take over from a crook like Corzine.
Open your eyes a little wider.
Clearly, not only poor but low-income families have been increasingly less able to afford health care insurance without an employer who helps.
Mr. Rhoades, I am upper-middle income, 63, self-employed, and a no-frills Anthem policy for my wife and me is $2400 / month. Instead we have "catastrophic" insurance for an "affordable" $700 / month, and hope for the best.
My premium is that high to make up the deficit caused by government mandate to provide "free" insurance to those poor or low-income families you care so deeply about. So far I have managed not to join their ranks. Under ObamaCare I won't have a choice because it makes everything more expensive and removes the few options remaining.
But my worries will soon be over. In two years I can climb on the Medicare wagon. Right? And if Medicare goes belly-up, ObamaCare will pick up the slack. Right?
As long as government is picking winners and losers, costs increase, options decrease, there will be ever more of the poor and low-income, and fewer of those who pay the tab. If you submit this script to Hollywood, they would reject it as too unbelievable.
The Gospel according to St. Ron
I would like to read more but, as usual, the vocabulary doesn't meet scriptural standards.
Bill Gates started in his
Bill Gates started in his parents' garage - pretty close to the corner store - and went on to become the richest man in the world - still is, for all I know. What loopholes did he get? What little guy did he hurt? He developed stuff lots of people wanted and, along the way, converted lots of little guys into millionaires.
Walmart moved to Farmington without tax breaks. But they did hurt a little guy. There was an Ames store right across the street. Ames refused to modernize, refused to compete, and now they're history. At least they didn't demand a bail-out.
OK, Wilma, pick a product
OK, Wilma, pick a product that could be "made here and better" that you're ready to pay 2 or 3 times the price of the Chinese version for. The American consumer made his decision 30-40 years ago: Keep prices down or we'll stop buying. The American producer noticed that decision and started moving off-shore, since the only alternative was to go broke and leave the field entirely to the Chinese.
Consider Apple. Their products, extremely popular, are all designed and developed here, by very highly compensated, non-union employees. Those products are all assembled in and distributed from China, because the same jobs here would add so much to the final price that they couldn't compete with other brands. There's a big hole in the US foot and the shot was fired by unions, not greedy corporate executives.
I'm surprised our resident
I'm surprised our resident biblical scholars haven't chimed in yet. They don't have much use for Luke, but they love to trot out Mark and the "render" verse, now that they have their very own Caesar.
Could you please name one
Could you please name one person who became rich because of federal tax loopholes?
Could you please name one product, now made only in China, that could not be made here for comparable cost, were it not for the greed of corrupt unions and the incompetence of the federal bureaucracy? Our manufacturing base has all but disappeared, not because of corporate greed, but because it's impossible to compete with China's slave labor, coupled with unions clamoring for more of everything, and with the US's business tax rates, highest in the world.
I bought gas yesterday. It's terrible that Obama has broken yet another campaign promise, to develop a comprehensive energy policy. It's even worse that the media is afraid to call him on it.
Oh, boy! A cabal!
Mr. Lee and Ms. Meyer: Does our cabal have a secret handshake? How about a password of the day?
For today I nominate the word "vermin" and I'll watch others, who are well qualified in the subject, debate their various odors, while adjusting their tin-foil hats.
Maine Democrats are well skilled in the dictatorial aspects of state government, having exercised them for 30+ years. There's no other way to explain how Eagle Lake, with less than 1000 people, can elect a fellow who considers himself a representative-for-life and who wielded un-democratic power until relegated to the minority.
The Maine constitution specifies perfectly legal ways to change itself. Even your average rat know that.
Using casual observation to
Using casual observation to judge your post, your supply of grey cells was depleted long ago.
That is one of the biggest
That is one of the biggest problems in this country, people like Dan Breton. When did you get your medical license? How can you make a determination of a person's inability to work simply by casual observation? When will you get out of the business of judging people and start working on what is wrong in this country. You should be ashamed of yourself, Dan, and that says it all. So make one of your notorious rebuttals and I will continue to tell people like you to BUTT OUT of decisions you're unqualified for.
Government charity creates
Government charity creates more dependence because it's a hand out; private charity is a hand up. I am all for charity, but I am all against your telling me how charitable I must be. Or the government telling me.
Sorry.
My unbigoted and tolerant finger hit the button twice.
No, it's my idea of a reasonable response ...
... to flagrant bigotry and intolerance. A witty retort would be: There's no point in your standing in front of a mirror because you don't cast a reflection.
No, it's my idea of a reasonable response ...
... to flagrant bigotry and intolerance. A witty retort would be: There's no point in your standing in front of a mirror because you don't cast a reflection.
What I have bought into, Jason, ...
... is the traditional American belief that individuals are much better than government at identifying who needs help, what kind, and when and where to deliver it. The people of the US help more than all the governments of the world combined. On the contrary, you have bought into the liberal view that all charity must be funneled through government. Whatever "good" is accomplished by the gigantic check-writing schemes we have now, is swamped by the new dependence they create.
If you want to confront real ...
... bigotry and intolerance, Dan, stand in front of a mirror.
The population of California ...
... is 29 times the population of Maine, but Maine's house of representatives is nearly twice the size of California's state assembly. Why do Maine people need so much more "government"?
See the discussion under this other letter for contrasting views on what government should "give" people. We get the government we deserve.
God is your copilot?
So, Dan, you strive? I submit you have labored and brought forth a mouse - a clan of mice.
If you have a zinger, Ron, ...
... just spit it out. Don't wait for me to play straight-man for you.
I'll tell them, Ronaldo, ...
... because they'll never learn from you or in school that they will spend the rest of their lives in indentured servitude paying the debts liberals are racking up today pandering to illegal aliens.
When the boats sail up the Damariscotta River, you better hope you're under ground, because the invaders won't be satisfied with a couple of dusty old books.
¡Viva la revolucion!
Could you please be a little less obscure?
For a specific example, do you believe Mexico should help Mexicans more, so they might not feel desperate enough to emigrate (now there's a charitable word) to the US and become dependent on our charity?
An important role?
Without {government}, we would not have Social Security, Medicare, unemployment benefits, food stamps, loans/grants for education and so on.
Somehow the country managed reasonably well without all those things for about 150 years until, in the 1930s, government started telling us we needed all those things. Ever since, we the people have been happily chewing that excrement sandwich, until now we believe it tastes great, because we can't remember independence and freedom.
Jim, I heard it this way:
If you're not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you're not a conservative at 40, you have no head.
The US is also the only first
The US is also the only first world country that lacks socialism, but we're headed in that direction at a furious pace. What could possible go wrong, especially with all those stellar examples of success in Europe? They're going bankrupt but, boy, they're healthy.
There are some simple steps ...
... to solve this recent church-state issue. (By the way, the entire matter is just a smoke-screen to distract attention away from other problems. It seems to be working.)
Part 1 of the solution is to abandon the fairy-tale that employers "give" health insurance to employees. While sometimes it is mandated by government, it is just a cost of doing business. The cost is covered by reducing other compensation, like wages and salary. The cost is increased outrageously when a company must maintain an unproductive staff that does nothing but shuffle insurance paperwork.
Part 2 is to require insurance companies to deal with individuals in the same manner they deal with groups. They may not charge more for a group of one.
Part 3 is to legalize "buffet" policies. If you don't want "coverage" for birth control, you shouldn't have to pay for it. If you DO want it, you should have to pay for it. That's only fair, which leads to ...
Part 4 is to apply this, for the sake of the popular concept of "fairness", to EVERYONE: poor, rich; young, old; military, civilian; private, public - including politicians.
All that could be spelled out on a few sheets of paper, not the 2700 page, forest destroying monstrosity known as ObamaCare.
Maybe I'm the only one to
Maybe I'm the only one to notice. The side discussion under Jason's post below grew from his use of the word "cursing" when, presumably, he meant "cruising". Of course, Breton seized on it like a junkyard dog on a T-bone. It doesn't take much to keep some people amused.
That said, I "curse" while driving, especially when pot-hole surfing in LA. No, Dan, that's not Los Angeles, either.
If Israel has 200, so what?
If Israel has 200, so what? They haven't been threatening for years to wipe Iran off the map. Israel isn't run by a lunatic president and a pack of lunatic "clerics". Israel has shown more restraint and reason than the rest of the countries in the Middle East put together.
Who is asking for war, Mr. Drane? The UN is urging more economic sanctions on Iran, and the Obama administration is giving its lukewarm support, and the lunatics are threatening to shut the straits down and to blast away at anyone who cuts a loud one. Are you urging the US to leave the UN? I'll join you on that one.
In conclusion, Noam Chomsky is one of the most vicious anti-American "intellectuals" ever spawned; Jimmy Carter is the worst president in US history - until recently.
The high-speed lanes ...
... are different from the narrow, dangerous lanes we have now. The ones I have used are at least two traveling lanes wide, with the EZ-Pass equipment overhead and out of the way.
Take a ride through the Hampton tolls in NH to see how it works. It's like that all along the east coast - except Maine. The lunacy is assuming the new system will have to use existing lanes. Lighten up.
Danny, you and a few others ...
... are in dangerously serious denial. US journalists - the last time that label could be used with a straight face - shredded their remaining dignity during the Nixon administration. Granted that he deserved personal disrespect, but opinion dispensers seized on Watergate like the junkyard dogs they were, and blooded the entire profession.
The change was sealed in the 90s when some dope of a "journalist" asked: Are they boxers or briefs? The bigger dope, Slick Willie, actually answered the question. He should have told the questioner to pound sand. He didn't and at that point there was no respect left for the office or the office holder.
When GWB came in, daily you tolerant "liberals" compared him to Hitler or worse, and wished for his immediate death, as painful as possible. You can't deny it. It's recorded.
Now you get your panties all twisted if anyone refuses to drop to his knees and smooch BHO posterior. You have only yourselves to blame.
I agree with this letter.
It's too bad we didn't see more like it from Jan 2001 through Jan 2009, when the names slung daily made 'communist' seem tame. Maybe I missed a letter from Ms. Lawler back then. I must have because, if she didn't write one, it makes this one a wee bit hypocritical.
If you guys bothered to
If you guys bothered to glance at the print version this morning, you would have seen the added line that it had earlier been printed with an editing mistake. The sloppy paranoia is is all from you.
There are two parts of Congress.
The House of Representatives and the Senate. Republicans have the majority in the House, Democrats in the Senate. A bill must be passed in both chambers before it becomes law. It takes a 2/3 majority in both chambers to override a veto. Just in the House, the Republican majority is nowhere near 2/3. Gridlock.
Here endeth today's lesson on the Constitution. Please pass it on to our elected officials, most of whom have never read the document or, having read it, choose to ignore it.
Now there's a typical
Now there's a typical content-free post tacked on the end of a discussion when Ron has run out of even remotely coherent ideas, but he feels he has to say something in his inimitable juvenal style.
Cite this, Ron.
Just this week, his imperial majesty voided, by royal decree, that part of the 1st amendment you libbies usually reference to as "the doctrine of the separation of church and state" - when it's convenient. The state, in the person of his sublime highness, climbed over the wall of separation right into the pulpit and delivered a sermon, ordering the church to do his bidding - or else. Of course, after hearing the outcry, he offered a compromise: "If the church doesn't want to, I'll command the insurance companies to do my bidding."
Our emperor bears a remarkable resemblance - in deed, not in visage - to one of the Caesars: Nero Claudius Caesar Augustus Germanicus.
Jesus did NOT tell us ...
... that we had to be happy about all that rendering, nor that we had to accept Caesar's word about what was his. But it's exactly what today's Caesar is telling us, along with his belief that God gets nothing.
Liberals love taxes, as long as someone else is paying them.
Nobody = Obama
I'll consider forgiveness and reconciliation when Obama repents, after he's out of office, and only if there any pieces of the country remaining to try to put back together.
Unbelievable.
I live in Maine, Steve. I don't have ObamaCare or RomneyCare, with or without the cute little mark. I have incredibly expensive private insurance, the only thing left after 20 years of Democrat incompetence. I suppose you're talking about the Peoples Republic of Hawaii. Have another pineapple sandwich.
John Kerry did not receive the Congressional Medal of Honor. If he had, I bet he would not have thrown it away with the others. The most heroic thing he ever did was marry Nurse Fuzzy-Wuzzy.
Dukakis sure looked fierce in that tank. What a hero.
The Democrat sacrament is envy, or class warfare.
I propose as captain of this lunar expedition our very own moonbat-in-chief, BHO; and as executive officer, of course, Joe "foot-in-mouth" Biden. Lift-off is set for 1/20/13.
Decoteau's letter proves that the full moon exaggerates lunacy.
You have a really low threshold of "massive".
Interesting. If you listen to people today, no one at all voted for Baldacci in 2006. It must have been rampant voter fraud that got him reelected by that whopping 38%. But don't feel sorry for ol' John. He got a cushy government job, with lots of nice bennies, in the Pentagon, screwing up health insurance for servicemen and veterans. He got the job based on his stellar track record of screwing up health insurance in Maine for everyone.
You need treatment for xenophobia.
That's Greek for "fear of people from away." It was just a week or so ago that you said exactly the same thing about someone in Wyoming. Get a grip, Dan. You're using the internet, which makes the world a very small place.
Shoot the messenger.
Once again, Breton has no argument to counter the opinion expressed in the letter, so he wants the newspaper to investigate the author. What's next? Perhaps a one way ticket to an attitude adjustment camp out in the gulag?
Doing the work Breton refuses to do, Dr. Nachman is a professor of physics at Montana State University. Is that enough investigation?
Breton just can't stand it when someone uses facts and logic to explode one of his leftist fantasies.
For crying out loud, Claire.
Wind another couple of turns of tin-foil around your head. You can't credit the Koch brothers for every spasm of common sense displayed by others. But, I suppose you can try - it's easier than thinking about issues.
Help for the poor, disabled
Help for the poor, disabled and elderly is paid for by state taxes collected from people who work. The tax rates are plenty high enough, so the problem is not enough people working. The folks who should be ashamed of themselves are liberals who have spent 20+ years chasing jobs away from Maine.
Champagne gives me a wicked headache, so I avoid it at all cost. I have never eaten caviar and won't start now, even if I could afford it. I'll leave the Ripple and fish eggs to Breton, who seems to have a real jones for them.
Danny's new schtick.
In every comment, it's "but you knew that ...". At least it's a break from "your clan".
Property, excise and sales are taxes within a state. They contribute nothing to running the federal government. Employment taxes are supposed to fund Social Security and Medicare, but they really go into the general fund so politicians can buy votes - and the rates have been reduced to buy more votes and hasten the demise of those bloated programs. Federal income taxes fund the federal government, so the half who pay nothing are getting an unfair share of federal services. But Dan already knew that.
Oy!
More babbling, in or out of a nutshell. It's a shame the damage pineapple poisoning - gifting? - can cause.
Not being a Republican, I
Not being a Republican, I can't speak for them. Obviously other groups care about the issue. Just speculating now, I suppose some Republicans might be using the Obama-tax-rate argument: He knows higher rates won't bring in more revenue, but he wants the hikes just in the interest of "fairness".
Beyond that, I didn't say it's a trivial matter - others said it. My belief is it is spectacularly non-trivial to public employee unions, who see their strangle-hold slipping away.
Some posters earlier have stated ...
... that right-to-work has very little or no influence at all over any aspect of labor.
Why then did unions howl bloody murder right through yesterday when Indiana became a RTW state? They sure wasted a lot of time, energy and money (follow it) over a trivial matter. Perhaps this issue is really just handwriting-on-the-wall that unions started ignoring decades ago. Unions have almost vanished from the private sector, along with the jobs they destroyed, and unions in the public sector are terrified.
So you want to tax people on ...
... their non-taxable income? Now there's a real pearl of liberal wisdom. (Sorry I didn't issue an oxymoron alert.)
Where's the cut-off point, Dan, above which you no longer get "exemptions, deductions and the rest"? What is the threshold of evil?
Most of the deductions on a Maine return are simply copied from the federal return, where limits already exist on what one can deduct for mortgage interest, property taxes, ... Those limits kick in for $250K and above, sometimes well below. But you already knew that, being a student of federal and state tax minutiae.
Your complaints are simply wealth envy. Some people know how to make money, you don't and never will, and you want the government to make things "fair" by punishing success. But you know that.
What a concept!
But don't limit it to poor Dan. There's Riml, Albrecht, ...
Didn't you see those signs - Kill the Rich! - last Fall before it got too cold for most of the OWS idiots? Yes, a good many left leaners advocate just that.
According to MRS ...
... the highest Maine income tax rate kicks in at around $20k/yr for individuals - it's been that way for years. Do you know anyone making even twice that who considers himself rich? Someone making $250k pays exactly the same rate. If you want to make a new bracket with a higher rate, do it - but the numbers aren't there. Liberals think Maine is overrun by rich people who don't pay their "fair" share. But the only way to get significant new revenue is to squeeze the middle class. That's why neither Baldacci nor King dared to try it.
Trust me too, Danny, ...
... I can afford to be generous. I'm guessing you're old enough to know that taste is more than that squeal of delight you emit when you bite into a quarter pounder. Maybe not. Most of your comments read like they were composed in a 7th grade boys' room.
Your in trubble now, Joe.
Just a few days ago, our pal Dan exposed himself (bad phrase - oh, well) as a serious xenophobe, when he told a member living in Wyoming that he had no authority to comment on the US Constitution. Everyone knows Wyoming is not one of the 57 states. I join you in your part (C), but advise you not to hold your breath.
Obama should get another four years ...
A timeless letter.
That is, you could have submitted it any time during the past 30 years without changing a word. In fact, it has been submitted many times by various authors from all over the state. I suppose it might have a slim chance of being noticed by the current legislature, but I won't hold my breath.
But if it gets mentioned beyond an obscure LTTE, guess who will howl the loudest that any change is evil and dangerous? You're right. Those folks who make damn good livings from the current structure funded by property taxes.
In 1933 most Germans ...
... had similar opinions about their economy. If you close your mind and your senses, anything appears rosy - as did Clinton's policies until the bubble burst, and I'm not talking about Monica.
No comment? You better comment now. Pretty soon you won't be allowed to. That's always the pattern approaching totalitarianism - check the SDS little red playbook.
Yup, things are great!
The economy is wonderful - unless you like to eat, have to commute, are trying to keep warm, and would like to plan for the future farther out than two weeks.
Foreign policy is wonderful - if you like the spectacle of POTUS bowing and scraping, when he's not insulting allies.
Health care is just so affordable now - unless you get sick or hurt. But take heart - very soon you'll think of this time as the good old days.
The foreclosure problem is, I have to admit, getting better with the late and unlamented departure of the vaudeville team of Frank & Dodd, the prancing fools.
Yup, what could anyone possibly complain about?
And your pandering, ...
... dissembling, and silly misspellings. In addition to trashing the economy and relations with most of our allies and ... endless list.
There's plenty of foolishness to go around.
It's foolish to compare some positions on religion, abortion and gay marriage to the absolute carnage created by BHO. Sure he inherited problems - the only president who didn't was George Washington. But he has spent three years making everything much, much worse. If he gets another term, you and everyone else will have a brand new definition of chaos.
Slippers?
I remember wearing my green gum-rubber boots to and from school in winter, carrying shoes in a paper bag and changing before and after. It doesn't make sense today. If a kid lives more than 10 feet from school, he has to ride a bus. Obesity has nothing to do with the food served in the cafeteria.
But that was back in the bad-old-days. I graduated from high school in 6/66, the number of the beast, which is why I know that from is required in the previous phrase. Girls had to wear skirts or dresses and boys non-blue-jeans trousers. And if guys let their hair get a little too long, they could expect a day off to visit the barber. Two or three years later, kids suddenly acquired "rights" and these rules were dropped - including grammar rules.
Today, any classroom from junior high on up is a freak-show that makes pale in comparison anything you could have seen at the Windsor Fair back in the bad-old-days.
Do slippers matter? No, they're just a small symptom of a much larger, decades long disease.
I was very easy.
His name is Eric Holder.
Bring a frog to school?
Are you nuts? (Pause before you answer.) If they allowed one kid to bring a frog, the self-esteem of all the frogless kids would go down, requiring urgent action by teachers, their unions, and all other property tax parasites, to initiate support groups and a well funded frogs-for-kids program. Until all that got going, the one frogful kid would be suspended until he completes a remedial program in recognizing actions detrimental to the collective.
Shoot the frog? Even for suggesting the possibility, you would get picketed by PETA and all the various anti-gun nazis. There would be less reaction if you suggest shooting the kid.
Evidently, Dr. Dosh, your degree is not in medicine, because you clearly have no knowledge of Ritalin. Reports indicate it's a great help in fighting adult hyperactivity.
The insomniac twins were synchronized today.
Ron calls Dan at midnight: Get up! It's time to bash Republicans. Dan replies: OK! And you start showing your junior high vocabulary.
Take two pills and don't call anyone.
Steve, Steve ... *sigh*
Take a deep breath. Eat some more pineapple.
In the simple (to most people) context of my comment, I asked how much the LSJ pays to comply (prepare and file) with the current federal tax code. I did not ask how much taxes they paid, nor did I imply that they don't pay any. Of course they pay taxes - why they probably even pay their "fair share". They also make a profit for their owners. OMG!!
No amount of tinkering and tweaking will ever make this tax code simple and fair. Burn it, throw it out, and start over with one that's revenue neutral (so you can keep getting your Hawaiian potholes filled) and no loopholes.
Here's a short quote from the
Here's a short quote from the Tax Foundation
The full cost of a tax system is more than simply the amount of tax paid. It also includes the cost of tax planning and paperwork. Economists call these "tax compliance" costs, and the IRS estimates Americans spend 6.6 billion hours per year filling out tax forms—including 1.6 billion hours on the 1040 form alone.
The money wasted on compliance does nothing but pay (very well) a class of lawyers and accountants who live off the system. I would be interested to know what the SJ pays for compliance. So should you, Mr. Rhoades.
There is exactly one way to make our tax code simple and "fair". Burn it.
We have ample proof that
We have ample proof that being a career politician is not a guarantee the individual knows how to govern. Consider this snip from a very recent speech:
With or without this Congress, I will keep taking actions that help the economy grow.
Keep? Right. This is blackmail on a much grander scale. But, of course, the ends justify the means.
I apologize, Ron.
I meant to point out your "insufferable" quality only. I'll leave your SOB self-description in your hands, because I am not acquainted with your mother.
Implying that you are broadminded?
In the immortal words of our beloved SecState: That requires the willful suspension of disbelief.
Mark this day on your calendar.
Albrecht accuses Riml of being a conservative. Wow!
Long past is an understatement.
That stage left you standing at the depot long ago. You did nail the insufferable SOB part, although it's pointless to state in print something so obvious.
This comment doesn't rise to
This comment doesn't rise to the dignified level of pontification, no matter how many times you post it. It's just a rambling, pointless rant from another closed mind who has to try to reduce to racism and bigotry every disagreement with the anointed one. "Time will only tell." Such profundity.
The last time both sides
The last time both sides played by the same rules, more or less, was WWII. The tactical rule was: Bomb the smithereens out of the enemy's civilian population. Was that "morally primitive"? If you say so, but the outcome would have been much different if the US alone had tried to be more subtle.
I would like our government, at any level, to express horror at the idiocy of training a soldier to do a job and, when deployed, telling him he can't do it without a permission slip from a politician.
A national con-con in the USA ...
... would result in a piece of garbage like the EU constitution - about the size of the Manhattan phonebook and a lot less readable. Note that I did not spell that word with a capital "C". It doesn't deserve the honor.
Dosh, aside from the strength of tissue paper, what other aspects make a "good" constitution?
The amendments clearly say ...
... that any right not explicitly enumerated to the federal government is reserved to the states or the people. It's an ongoing discussion on limits of those enumerated rights.
If you don't buy the insurance, you pay a fine in the form of a tax. If it didn't have this obfuscation and it was paid for through taxes, we wouldn't have this Constitutional debate blurring the real issues.
Obama invited this argument.
If he and the unknown authors of ObamaCare had made it a tax instead of a mandate, we wouldn't be talking about it. But we are and it's a useful diversion from the real issue: The act is a wealth sucking, job destroying, abomination.
But, as you say, call it what you like. It can work, technically, only if everyone participates - including unions and their members, the military, and the young - with absolutely no exemptions. Anything else just perpetuates the system where one class subsidizes the other.
A brief interlude with Google ...
... reveals that Mr. Tetenman used to live in Maine and recently moved to Wyoming. It happens a lot. It's called "escaping". I'm sure someone as internet-savvy as Breton could easily find the same information, but it's not as much fun as acusing someone of shilling.
The commerce clause gives Congress the right to regulate existing commerce among states, but it does not give the right to create new commerce to regulate. The individual mandate is a tax, but Obama and Democrats are afraid to let that truth out because ObamaCare would be even less popular than it already is.
Again Breton could find the same information, but it's more fun to pretend the Constitution means whatever he wants it to mean. I suppose it's easy to succumb to that delusion for someone who has never read it.
Unbiased journalism joined the dodo in extinction ...
... about the time Edward R. Murrow smoked his last pack. It's an interesting definition some people use. When journalism supports Tron's lefty delusions, it's unbiased; when it doesn't, it's biased, intolerant, prejudiced, apology, probably from the hard-core Tea Party that controls the media and Congress.
The RHSA ...
... (Republican Home School Academy) is demonstrably better than the DPSF (Democrat Public School Factory) which teaches its kids to carry the spit-bucket for liberals.
What are these massive tax cuts ...
... you guys yammer about? Please post just one example of someone who donated to LePage and received in return a "massive" tax cut. Please post one example of someone who received a massive tax cut - period.
My heart bleeds for you, Crystal.
I work for myself. I don't get a COLA; not in the past; not now; not in the future. I don't get health insurance from an employer, the state, or the tooth-fairy. The ultimate sacrifice, at the point of the government's gun, is having my earnings stolen from me to pay for benefits for people who "deserve" them.
So say it out loud.
Only a conservative can blieve that their is no common agreement on what rich and fair share mean.
What is that common agreement? Go ahead, say it. Or does the SDS playbook tell you to shuck and jive at this point?
Respectful to whom?
There's only one word in my post that you can be referring to. It's the same word Breton has included in every post for the past week, although he hasn't been brave enough to spell it with a K.
I have no respect at all for Dan Breton. Why should I use obfuscating language that suggests otherwise?
What liberals never define ...
... is the meaning of "rich" or "fair share", so their blathering about responsibilities is just mud-slinging at a moving target. Which is convenient to them, because that's what the Constitution is to them: a moving target.
We're not talking about the US Senate, Danny.
Democrats had the majority in both houses of the Maine legislature. If they couldn't get a tax hike passed, it's because Democrats thwarted it. And, please, the Maine Republican party isn't in the same league as Democrats when it comes to outside money to buy votes.
The wealthy in Maine (anyone making more than $20k per year) have been pulling the wagon for decades while you and your klan complain the ride isn't fast enough. Same for the nation. The wealthy pay most of the federal income taxes now, with just under 50% of tax payers paying nothing. They have no skin in the game, as our illustrious president is known to say, when it's personally convenient. There's the shame.
The Grand Kleagle of the on-line LSJ has spoken.
If Breton knew anything about the ME income tax structure, he would understand that it is basically "flat", with the highest rate kicking in at about $20,000 per year for a single person. And it has been that way for decades, meaning it started back in the bad-old-days when Democrats controlled everything. When campaigning, Dems love to bleat about making the "rich" pay their "fair share", but when they get to Augusta they just re-cork their thumbs and it's business as usual.
Democrats refused over and over again to raise taxes enough to cover their profligate spending and, as usual, shoved responsibility off to our children and grandchildren. In 2010 the voters came to their senses.
The only "clan" (sic) Breton speaks for are the riders in the envy wagon.
The majority of Americans
The majority of Americans agree with all Republicans that ObamaCare is a disaster that will bankrupt the country - that there's nothing affordable about it. What's despicable are folks who don't care about that as long as they keep getting their free bennies that they have "earned".
Will you object, Ronnie, ...
... when ObamaCare swallows Tri-Care? The stuck-pig squeal will be heard in Togus.
Is "clan" your new favorite word?
You use it often enough. Why don't you spell it with a K? You know you want to.
Blacks and Asians, and I'll add Latinos, are more conservative than you liberals believe. They just want to be left alone to succeed or fail without the government on their backs, but you guys insist on shackling them to the Democrat plantation. Lift that bale.
This country has had an oligarchy for more than a century, started by TR, cemented in place by FDR, nurtured by leftists ever since. I agree 100% that it's an anathema. We'll never get rid of it as long as we allow malleable dopes to vote on anything more important than the state flower.
By the way, most parrots I've met can talk you right out of your cage, since their vocabulary doesn't originate with the DNC.
A step further.
Let's have an IQ test for Congress. Anything average (100) or above would empty the place and stop the damage they're inflicting on the country.
Discrimination?
A few days ago, this newspaper ran the cartoon below. Evidently the editors have no problem with suggesting that white rednecks and hicks shouldn't be allowed to vote at all, ID or not. Partisan manipulation occurs from all points along the political spectrum. To claim it comes only from Republicans is just the kind of shallow comment we have all come to expect from Breton.
But not nearly as shallow as suggesting that politics should have no place in political elections.
"the new Arab spring democracies"!!
Jason, take a deep breath. Not one of those countries I listed is a democracy, except in the sense of "mob rule". The military clamped down on Egypt many months ago and we haven't heard squat since - Mubarak looks like a benevolent grandfather. Libya has descended into a Somalia-like system of warlords. Syria is a bloodbath. Arab spring - phooey.
The DOW is up whenever BHO can keep his mouth shut - when the pie-hole-in-chief is open, the DOW tanks. Unemployment is down because of a burst of temp jobs last month - wait for the numbers to be reported next month. Doing better? Have you been to a grocery store recently?
Only my blood pressure is high.
It spikes whenever I see the shambles BHO has made of the economy, foreign policy and defense.
Please. Iran started developing nukes the day the Shah left town, about the same time NK started. BHO is going to leave the Middle East to Mahmoud Inadinnerjacket and concentrate on the Far East, where we must have some allies he hasn't insulted yet.
This administration is pretending it finished Iraq, which is already looking back at the war as the good old days - and Afghanistan is at the top of the list for similar treatment. BHO is also pretending that Egypt, Libya and Syria are now "democracies" who will fill the vacuum he is creating. I predict slag by election day - I just hope it's not here.
The feds now rank on an IQ
The feds now rank on an IQ curve. Evidently 80 is the new 150.
Still peddling that sailor
Still peddling that sailor porn to your buddy Dennis?
This is the "opinion" section.
If you want facts and straight reporting, look at the front page.
Oh, wait. For a moment there I forgot which newspaper this is.
Jason, where did Paul say Obama created those issues?
Like every issue he has touched, Obama has made these worse.
Perhaps you should consider your own pharmaceutical regimen before criticizing someone else's.
At least Mr. Carrier knows which flag to wrap himself in.
You should thank him profusely, Breton, for preserving your freedom to whine in English, instead of German, Japanese or Russian. The way things are going, soon you will have to whine in Chinese. How does one say "Dear Leader" in Mandarin?
I have had the new meters for
I have had the new meters for a couple months. No noticeable interference with WiFi.
There's a big difference.
Unlike Obama, LePage has not made worse everything he has touched. Well, he has upset the tummy of every leftist in the state and some outside. Keep up the good work, Paul.
Welcome back, Jon!
Are your knuckles healed?
Take a deep breath, Joanne.
In these threads, the term "public employee" means teacher, municipal worker, or government apparatchik. The good folks in our armed forces, in the overwhelming majority, know what they're supposed to be fighting for, when they're not hamstrung by politicians, and who supports them. That goes for most LEOs as well
With that cute phrase "Fux Gnus", are you related to Mark Wrenn? He too is hung up on alleged witticisms like that and considers them oh so clever. Get a room - you two are a perfect match.
Next time? I'm 63, been driving since I was 16, and have never had a ticket for anything. As I observed above about Breton, you must be commenting on your own habits. You gotta go with what you know.
One more time.
What is this nonsense? The poi has caused severe brain damage. Government should not be the first resort - it should be the last. If you're a resident of Hawaii, why are you shilling for the Maine DHHS? Your grass skirt needs a retread.
Happy New Year to everyone who is employed, especially in what remains of the private sector. If you're tenured, meaning you don't have to take responsibility for your actions, I hope this year brings you close, personal knowledge that actions have consequences. If you're in a union, meaning you pay someone else to do your thinking for you, I hope this year you'll learn how to think for yourself. If you're any kind of public employee, I hope in this year you will be appropriately grateful to the dwindling group of us who pay taxes to support you.
All those hopes will be fulfilled when pigs fly and sing arias.
Your first observation is re-proven ...
... every time Breton posts.
Significant money will go to those child parents and their spawn (Happy New Year!) instead of the elderly unless cuts (no pun intended) are made to keep those who don't deserve help off the welfare rolls.
I can't speak for Mr. Duchette ...
... but I don't run red lights. Breton must be describing his own habits.
Pin the blame on the donkey ...
... where it belongs. King and Baldacci loaded up the welfare rolls to such an unsustainable level, with no plan whatsoever to pay for it (other than the naive belief that the state's economy would grow forever, in spite of their eager policies to cripple it), that now any attempt at fiscal responsibility gets all the riders off the wagons to "protest" and wring their hands.
Shame? I cannot understand how Angus and John can face themselves in the mirror.
BHO is president of the United 57 States.
He and all other Progressives want exactly one state, the "national" government, replacing the "federal" government.
I get a headache ...
... every time I try to make sense of a post by Dosh, crammed with distracting weird abbreviations and weirder characters.
Steve, the real date for out-with-the-old-in-with-the-new is 1/20/13.
Please check your history.
The Democrat-controlled Senate stalled most of President Bush's nominations for the federal court system, an 8-year-long despicable and disgraceful act. It's fine if they don't want to vote for approval, but to filibuster to prevent a vote is undemocratic!
Proving one more time that Democratic has nothing to do with democratic.
The 'shortage' ...
... was born in the King regime and raised by the Baldacci regime. Neither of those governors hiked income taxes to cover their deficit spending, because they knew the voters would throw them out if they did. So they let roads and bridges crumble and welched on promises to hospitals. Their gross irresponsibility lasted 16 years until the people finally had enough. Now that a governor is trying to address the issue rationally, a method totally unknown to liberals, it's no wonder that certain blind sycophants are throwing verbal tantrums.
The 'real people' causing the pain are ...
... John Baldacci and Angus King. They invited lots of new riders onto the welfare wagon, and paid for it by ignoring the state's infrastructure and shifting more and more education costs to property tax payers. That irresponsibility led directly to the Democrat bloodbath in Nov. 2010.
Now real people in Augusta are looking at all state-level issues - and how to pay for them, without simply raising income taxes on the dwindling supply of income tax payers. Predictably, liberals just want to put the blinders back on and their heads back in the feed bags.
Jason has it backwards.
Macdonald made the SJ's excrement list a long time ago. If the SJ is only now on his, Macdonald has already shown great generosity.
In any Maine liberal arts college ...
... the only way a student will learn anything about capitalism, other than the party line (evil, discredited, obsolete, ...), is by joining College Republicans.
The real heartlessness ...
... belongs to Baldacci and King, both of whom expanded the welfare rolls by unsustainable amounts. Both had the numbers in the legislature and could have hiked taxes to sustain their expansion, but they didn't, because they knew the voters would give the party the ax. So, with complete heartlessness, they kicked the can down the road, without the slightest care for the future.
The ax fell anyway, the can stopped rolling, and Republicans are trying to deal with the morally unacceptable mess created by Democrats.
The brotherhood's motto is:
“Allah is our objective. The Prophet is our leader. Qur'an is our law. Jihad is our way. Dying in the way of Allah is our highest hope.”
You want to jump into the sack with them, Jason? You go first.
The best way to cheapen the deaths of millions is to close your eyes and pretend it can't happen again. Memo to Mahmoud: Proceed any time. No one here will stop you.
In the early 1930s, Hitler
In the early 1930s, Hitler had not yet killed millions of Jews, although he had published his intentions for the world to read long since. Very few paid attention; very many paid a price for that inattention.
A good working definition of stupid is, aside from posting juvenile images, ignoring the evidence right in front of you. I nominate Jason Theriault for the office of president of the Maine chapter of the Neville Chamberlain Fan Club.
In the early 1930s ...
... many Germans said "Let's be fair and give Hitler a chance. After all, he likes dogs and little children."
(1) Democracy is thriving!
Just look at Egypt, Greece, Libya, ... coming soon to Europe - all examples of mob-rule, the pinnacle of democracy beloved by Communists and dictators everywhere.
(2) There have been no prosecutions because the alleged perps are all well connected politically, one side or the other. The latest example is John i-dont-know what-happened-to-1.5-billion Corzine.
(3) Would you prefer those companies had been allowed to fail? Yup, me too.
(4) Because OWS does not represent the 99%, they just claim to.
(5) I agree with your plan for Congress, but your money will be safer in a coffee can buried in the back yard.
The real question (1) is: Can the Republic survive? Probably not, given the number of Americans who seem perfectly willing to chuck it away.
There's an interesting ...
... conversation going on about another letter published about the same time as this one. It's about certain taxi drivers in Portland who find it a monumental inconvenience to have to show up in person once a year to renew their hack licenses. One version of the complaint is it cuts into their time for return visits to their home country. What level of nostalgia makes one take an annual trip to a war-torn country with violence and constant unrest? If you're visiting relatives, save your money and bring them here, where we'll have to embrace them - or else!
Morgan's letter is offensive because it assumes that any criticism of current immigration (word very loosely used) practices must be rooted in hatred and fear. My criticism is prompted by a desire for justice all around. Justice for new arrivals, justice for current inmates.
Notice I did not say "fairness". That word has been so overused recently that it is completely drained of meaning.
BHO is president ...
... because a lot of fools were deluded into believing he would immediately fix everything. Even after three years of utter failure, some still cling to that delusion. Obviously those in Hawaii are not immune.
Parade of sycophants.
The comments so far are interesting. Not one of the Obama brown-noses refutes anything Mr. Acheson said, because it can't be done. Instead it's: GWB was worse. Or: Poor old Slick. And, since Breton woke up, it's his usual spew: Democrats are good, Republicans are evil.
But I disagree with the letter. Impeachment would take far too long. Let's wait for the trial and conviction next November.
Clinton was impeached.
In this context, the word 'impeach' means that the House, serving as grand jury, voted to send the matter to trial in the Senate, where the jury, 100 senators, voted not-guilty. That is, 'impeach' means the same as 'indict' in regular court settings. And, as in regular court settings, 'not-guilty' does not imply 'innocent'.
Two US presidents have been impeached: Andrew Johnson and Bill Clinton. Neither was convicted. One should have been.
Then tell them to arrive legally.
There is no such thing as an illegal immigrant. The true racist among us is the one who praises an illegal alien over a immigrant, one who follow the rules, learns English, learns civics (more than we demand of resident high schoolers) and strives to become an American. They both work and work hard, but the latter wonders why he bothered to put out the extra effort while the former gets all the benefits by just strolling north across the border.
We don't support them? Tell that to the taxpayers in the southern border states about their schools, hospitals, ... It's easy and hypocritical to pontificate under the safety of a 2500 mile buffer. Tronnie is a master.
I speak an atonal language, English.
Zzzzzzz. Inflect that.
One more thing Americans do ...
..., or used to do, is take responsibility for the consequences of exercising their rights. If you scream FIRE in a crowded theater, and someone gets hurt, it's your fault. If you get your wagging jaw slugged, it's the least you deserve. Unfortunately, today, the slugger is the one who will be punished.
Remember the Dixie Chicks? When they shot their mouths off in England (not in the USA, curiously), a good many of their fans here reacted in a perfectly legal manner - they stopped buying CDs and concert tickets. The Chickies responded: Whatever happened to free speech? Nothing, you dumb nitwits!
The political class, more than any other, seems congenitally unable to understand a simple fact in today's world: Whatever you say will be recorded, preserved forever, and will come back to haunt you. It's true also for kiddies, who think nothing about blathering "jokes" on the internet - and for commenters on newspaper websites.
Just curious, Ms. Hebert ...
What sort of degree do you have? What field of study? Many college students pick a field based on their personal interests or on what makes them feel good, and completely ignore the job market for that field. When they get that expensive degree, they expect the rest of society to fall all over itself to provide a good job. They got this expectation in high school, or before, when counselors pushed them into college with the sage advice You gotta get a college degree, any subject, to get a good job.
You list your residence as Lewiston. Are you willing to relocate, perhaps to another state? Many recent college graduates make their first decision Where do I want to live?. Too many, as above, completely ignore the job market in their chosen place.
Just curious ...
Conclusion
Obama will be reelected because he will have more money.
No one whose bottom line is money can be a patriot.
Therefore: Obama is not a patriot.
Thanks for reminding us of the obvious.
OK. Here's a turkey to carve.
The most common gripe by the Occupy movement is that politics is corrupt. To reduce corruption, the obvious solution is to reduce government. But every other gripe begs for more government. For example, eradicating income inequality, another favorite gripe, requires massive new government regulations and taxes. There's a contradiction. Claiming it isn't is hypocrisy.
From the poet laureate of the anti-Occupy movement:
Father, must I go to work?
No, my lucky son.
We’re living now on Easy Street.
On dough from Washington
We’ve left it up to Uncle Sam,
So don’t get exercised.
Nobody has to give a damn–
We’ve all been subsidized.
But if Sam treats us all so well
And feeds us milk and honey,
Please, daddy, tell me what the hell
He’s going to use for money.
Don’t worry, bub, there’s not a hitch
In this here noble plan—
He simply soaks the filthy rich
And helps the common man.
But, father, won’t there come a time
Whey they run out of cash
And we have left them not a dime
When things will go to smash?
My faith in you is shrinking, son
You nosy little brat;
You do too much thinking, son
To be a Democrat.
Clarence J. Brown (R-Ohio), 1949.
The "occupy" protests ...
... are impressive for several reasons.
(1) Lack of focus. Pick 5 protestors and ask each one what is the purpose of the protest - you'll get 5 completely different answers. The most common theme is hatred of capitalism, although what to replace it with remains unspecified.
(2) Choreography. Far from a spontaneous "grassroots" movement, the protests are planned ahead and coordinated, using technology produced by capitalism.
(3) Violence and racism - especially that old favorite, antisemitism. Compared to these "protests", Tea Party rallies are Sunday afternoon picnics.
The OWS people are being manipulated by individuals and groups who believe it's in their best interests to have our country "fundamentally transformed". That Mr. Obama seems to embrace the movement, while overlooking its obvious faults, is all the more reason to make him a one-term president. That some perceive the movement as simple patriotic dissent makes "change" in 2012 all the more imperative.
Yes, Steve, I have seen an iPad.
In fact, I own one. I also have a 5-year-old grandson. He can do a few things on the iPad, but he prefers my 24" desktop iMac.
That does not imply that I believe he should receive one, paid for by my taxes and yours, in a program with no demonstrable results - except to make more and more people satisfied with mediocrity.
The laptops my children and grandchildren have been receiving, through the program promulgated by King Angus, are the cheap white ones.
<editorial>
Steve, I'll ask nicely again. Please stop overusing the non-alphanumeric characters. They yank the reader's attention away from the substance of what you're trying to say and make them focus instead on how you're saying it - which is, or should be, irrelevant.
</editorial>
Are you shilling for Apple?
The laptops our kids receive are those cheap white ones. After they are "used" in Maine, you can find them on eBay for $25, tops.
iPad, laptop, whatever. When will we start seeing high school graduates who can add without using their fingers?
Ron and Claire:
Yes, free-market capitalism cooperating with non-intrusive government is an awful, mean, corrupt system. But it's better than any other, especially the various brands of socialism going toes-up all around the planet.
Claire, your touching, leave-it-to-beaver notion of "community" is what I grew up in. Then, starting in the 60s, the government began to dismantle community in favor of a federally mandated and managed "great society". And they have done such a wonderful job that we now have multi-generation "communities" totally dependent on government from cradle to grave.
Ron, you liberals (Is that what you are? I wonder.) grabbed Einstein's definition of insanity and turned it into long-term government policy. You must be proud of your masters' accomplishments.
We should be helping the needy who can work ...
... to become not needy, so we can concentrate America's incredible generosity on those who can't work. The best way to become not needy is to work at a good job. The way to make more jobs available is to cut taxes, hack away regulations (especially job-killing ObamaCare), and stop knuckling under to union extortion, the main reason for jobs moving off-shore. Most companies aren't looking for more profit, they're just trying to stay alive. That's really difficult with government and unions (but I repeat myself) on their backs.
By the way, Jon ...
You have not blessed these pages with your gracious comments since mid August. Have you been ill? I mean something other than the obvious disease of liberalism.
Or did you get your knuckles rapped so hard you can't type?
Questionable ideas of Ron Paul?
Here's a congressman, perhaps the only one, who pledged to vote against any legislation that was not explicitly authorized by the Constitution. I don't agree with all his opinions, but calling his core tenet questionable shows complete disrespect and disregard for the document that preserves your right to shoot your mouth off in public.
This letter is right out of the Fox and Piven playbook, expected from anyone with just a two-year degree in SDS Studies.
What a hard case.
OK, I lied about the fuel tax - meaning I forgot about it. You lied about the number of taxes, by 200x - meaning you did not engage brain before putting mouth in gear. Mine is a thimble, yours is a 55 gallon drum. Obviously.
Sorry, Rimmie.
I forgot about the fuel tax. Since that does no good at all for anyone, it should be repealed immediately.
I did mention the employment tax. In your rush to call me a liar, you missed it. Self-employed people, like you, also have to pay that tax, both employee and employer parts. Did you know that? Or is your rare book operation a charity?
The communication tax started life in 1898 to help pay for the Spanish-American War. Remember the Maine! 113 years and still kicking. That's what we get for (re)electing professional, career politicians.
Beyond that, if you or anyone else wants to smoke and drink himself to death, I couldn't care less, and I shouldn't have to pay for it. Repeal 'em!
You listed 5 or 6 taxes. That's your 100s or 1000s? You should write campaign copy for Obama since you're so used to inflating everything.
Rimmie, Rimmie, Rimmie ...
Very many people don't pay federal income tax. Recent reports put the number at 47% of all tax "payers". That is, about half of us, as our illustrious community-organizer-in-chief puts it, have no skin in the game.
Everyone who works pays federal employment taxes, but this terrible burden was reduced for this year, and perhaps will be reduced yet again for next. That is, Social Security and Medicare, funded by those taxes, will be even shakier than they already are.
Those are the biggies that affect the most people. As for your 1000s of other federal taxes, the average person is affected by those no more than a thimble of your blue koolaide.
Gradual changes ...
... are how we arrived at a tax code that is incomprehensible and extremely wasteful. That is, liberals love it, joined by lawyers and accountants, and others who do nothing productive. Burn it, replace it with something that is revenue neutral, in round numbers, and the average person can comply with in 15 minutes on one side of one piece of paper. Yes, 999 is a new tax code, but it's an order of magnitude simpler than the monstrosity we have. The danger is doing nothing while we continue toward national bankruptcy.
I agree, Steve.
I think. It's always difficult for me to parse your statements. I cringe to think the prescriptions you write look like your posts.
If you think questionable financial practices started in the previous administration, you're wearing blue blinders. It started with Carter, plowed ahead under the radar during Reagan/Bush I, and landed with a loud thud when the bubble burst in the 2nd Clinton regime. But he was distracted, of course.
If the occupiers put as much effort into community service as they put into unfocused protesting, the poor and homeless would be well served. Instead they're consuming the public services that usually go to charity.
But, hey, we shouldn't let a few bad apples spoil the barrel. No, we do that only for the Tea Party.
Many people have said it ...
... but very few have listened. Why? Because the reduction was proposed by Democrats. If Republicans had pushed through the exact same thing, there would be 24/7 media "reporting" about the mean right kicking granny out in the snow.
Beyond that, we think we can have our benefits while someone else pays for them, and our pandering politicians on both sides encourage that delusion. Welcome to Greece.
Two racial slurs in one sentence.
Pretty good for a slow Friday.
Winnie must have been thinking of you, Rimmie.
At an evening party, Winston was as usual well into his cups. A real liberal elitist decided to out him in his place. He said: Churchill, you're drunk! To which Winston replied: And you, sir, are ugly. Tomorrow morning, I'll be sober.
Yes.
Yes.
For the first time in my life ...
... I'm sorry, no offense, I'm not a resident of Lewiston, because I would really enjoy voting for Macdonald.
Hey, I have an idea. Since so many people are determined to keep it easy and convenient, I can become a resident for a day. Or is that just for Democrats?
Why should they get a COLA?
The Obam-minions tell us there has been no inflation and so the cost-of-living has stayed steady. That's the excuse for no COLA in Social Security for the previous two years. They're right, of course, unless you like to eat.
I know exactly what your standing behind Obama has cost me. I pay income taxes. What has it cost you?
Making Obama a one term president ...
... is Obama's top priority. And he's doing a great job!
You do understand, Al, that only Snowe is up for reelection next year. You'll have to wait a while for Collins. That said, they're both RINOs and should be replaced by conservatives. That's the day that can't come soon enough.
There is no Constitutional right to vote.
Where there is voting, whether it's a right or privilege, some amendments protect it. #15 says it can't be denied on account of race or color. #17 says people vote for Senators - a stupid idea in 1913, stupid to this day. #19 says it can't be denied on account of sex. #23 says it can't be denied to the dopes who live in DC. #24 says it can't be denied for failure to pay some tax. #26 says it can't be denied to anyone 18 or over but younger than 21 - another stupid idea. But there is no federal right to vote. It's a state thing.
Beyond that, Dan, the Constitution does not give rights. It enumerates those that say what the government can do, and goes to great effort to say what the government can't do. Nowhere does it say that the vote can't be denied to people who can't be bothered to register a couple days ahead.
The MLK memorial ...
... is beautiful and the ceremonies opening were moving and dignified. However ...
A better memorial would be more people who actually believe in and live by his philosophy. This kind of memorial, more durable than marble, is about to vanish from overwhelming apathy.
A thought so nice, he said it twice.
Dr. Dosh, it isn't Cal Thomas suggesting that blacks vote for Obama because he's black. It's the race industrialists, like Sharpton, Jackson, Farrakhan, Wright, ... Now they're finding out that blacks aren't as stupid as they thought.
Try reading the piece before you jerk your left knee. Put that in your kahuna and smoke it.
Does anyone have ...
... a translator from Dosh gibberish to English?
Wow indeed.
So, protesting the president's policies means you're not a patriot. That sure wasn't the rule from 2001 through 2008, when such protesting meant you were a patriot, according to the leftistas. Not a day went by when GWB wasn't compared to Hitler and burned in effigy, or worse. If the occupussies move to DC, they can poop on the White House lawn instead of a public street. The worst that might happen is, next Easter, some kid will find, instead of an egg, something that truly represents the current administration.
They are a street mob ...
... being manipulated by an organized movement with nefarious aims. They are two different groups and the credulity exists only in the minds of those who think there is just one group.
Which is exactly why ...
... Mr. Adams worked tirelessly to prevent our country being founded as a democracy. He and most of those we revere as the "founders" understood well that democracy is mob rule. Instead they gave us a republic ... if we can keep it. (To paraphrase Mr. Franklin)
Watch who supports the "occupy" movement. They have been endorsed by the Communist Party and nearly every socialist group in the country, public employee unions (but I repeat myself), and - the most coveted endorsement of all - the American Nazi Party. All these groups have one thing in common: They proclaim love for democracy and hatred for capitalism. If they win, it will be too late for suicide - we'll get a bullet in the forehead.
You want to scathe someone, Mr. Turcotte? Scathe those who are already trying to grab the "occupy" coattails - the White House and Senate democrats.
If the "Occupy" groups ...
... are sincere about protesting and exposing the people who have caused high unemployment, the financial mess, and reduced opportunity, they should immediately redeploy their forces to the White House and the Senate side of the Capitol Building.
It's a little late ...
... for Riml to lament his chosen major of Underwater Basket Weaving. After all, anyone's present situation is the sum of his past decisions. This is news?
I know several 20-somethings with fresh, 4-year college degrees in perfectly reasonable majors. Two examples are: Russian Literature and Oceanography. These two people have several points in common. After graduation, their first decision was to move to Farmington, ME, without the slightest expectation of finding jobs in their chosen fields. They both got on public assistance, did pick-up under-the-table jobs when they felt like it, and settled back in contentment: Ahhh, Maine, the way life should be.
These two are rather busy these days. They're off somewhere marching and chanting to bring down capitalism, the systems that supports them and their bad decisions.
You're right.
It's fortunate we don't live in a democracy = mob rule. I'm not denying anybody anything - that's your job. I want everyone who is eligible to vote to drag his anal-retentive butt to the polling place, after registering well ahead of time, and to vote according to his beliefs, even if those are different from mine, and especially if they are different from yours. Difficult does not equal impossible - except for the typical liberal.
I moved all over the place ...
... during my career. I left Maine in 1966 for college and then work here and there. When I arrived in a new place, the first thing on my to-do list was to register to vote. It had nothing to do with my political beliefs, everything to do with my duty as a citizen. Often it wasn't easy or convenient because, Breton's delusions to the contrary notwithstanding, the only time I have been in a chauffeured limo was for my senior prom, where politics was the last thing on my mind.
In those early years, I was pretty liberal. Jimmy Carter cured me of that forever. Not too long after, I moved back to Maine in 1985, registered in July as an independent, and have remained such ever since. I am an equal opportunity obstructionist who is perfectly content to vote against someone because I don't care for his political agenda. BHO is the latest in a long line of such boneheads and certainly not the last.
Lilly was right ...
... earlier. If you get all your info on the outside world from left-wing sycophant sources (most of them), all you will ever see are images of the Tea Party, or any conservative group, that put it one small step from the Ku Klux Klan and its ladies' auxiliary. Similarly, if all you listen to are the right-wing sources (some radio and one cable channel - unless you like the taste of Breton's koolaide), the OWS is comprised of only hygiene-impaired communists yearning for the good old days of Stalin and Pol Pot and, of course, Che Guevara.
The truth for either side is something else, not likely to be exposed by commenters here.
Meanwhile, Mrs. Hoeh, what is your grandson's major there at Amherst? Is it sociology, the last refuge of the incompetent? Art history, really in demand there in Bethel, I bet? Emily Dickinson studies? What will his expensive education qualify him to do out in the real world? Perhaps he will work for an evil corporation and help to invent the next generation of networking, so the groups bent on destruction can be even more coordinated.
Luck is not chance, it's toil; fortune's expensive smile is earned.
- Emily Dickinson
OMG, she valued individuality! I bet your grandson never heard that one.
In all Tea Party ...
... protests put together, few were hurt, few (in the Tea Party) were arrested, and no one had to clean up after them - none of which can be said of the current "protests". Some have a mighty low threshold of chaos and pandemonium - and endorsement. The media did a thorough job of twisting events to portray the Tea Party as violent racists. No twisting is needed to see the "occupiers" as such, and worse.
The Tea Party is working within the US political system to reduce the size of government and especially to reduce its reckless spending. The "occupy" protesters are working to destroy that system - and destroy it violently, given their preferences - although they can't explain what they want in its place. They are not focused and certainly not spontaneous. They are the "useful idiots" seen at every moment of totalitarian history, all with only one thing in common: They are the first to "go" when the revolution succeeds.
Good info.
The problem, David, is Breton believes the NY Times, like the LSJ, is a right-wing wacko rag.
to author and commenters:
Ridicule is the first and last argument of a fool.
- Charles Simmons
Reaches?
In many ways we're already there. Watch TV coverage of the "useful idiots" who are occupying fill-in-the-blank. It's only the signs in English that let you know you're not looking at Athens.
When you make a mistake ...
... with names, even twice, you're just shifting gears. When a Republican does it, he's a lying idiot.
You need some transmission work, Ronnie. Your hypocrisy gear, like its owner, has lost several teeth.
Our resident insomniacs again
Our resident insomniacs again have nothing of substance to contribute. One pounces on a mistake and calls it a lie, a deliberate act to deceive. Why would a real Republican want to draw attention to RINO Bill to support his position.
The other makes another ad-hominem wrapped in a silly comparison. By the way, Veritas, the letter mentions Charlie Summers, not Charlie Webster. It was probably just an innocent mistake. As Dan can verify, when you're in a rush at midnight, your fingers can get all tangled.
I have seen a copy of the letter. The only way someone can take it as bullying or threatening is if that someone knows he's guilty, or makes a living out of pandering to the guilty.
Last Year?
Let's see. Take away one leaves ... 2010? That year when Democrats held majorities in both houses of Congress? And held the presidency? That particular year? But, of course, behind the scenes, Republicans had simply scads of power to block stuff and give more breaks to their pals. Yup, they put a gun to the president's head and forced him to extend the Bush - pardon me - Obama tax rates.
Right. Dan, are you ready to put in a bid on my bridge down in Brooklyn?
The previous administration ...
... was all cow**** and no hat. Its leader should have worn one to protect us from the glare. Prince John, and before him Czar Angus (cue TV spot of rolling up sleeves), did their best to chase private sector jobs away and, not to coin a phrase, LePage inherited their mess. He and the legislature are trying to plow away the droppings, acknowledging the political and economic reality: The only jobs government can create are in government. Government can create an environment that's friendly to the private sector.
Claire: Tax cuts should be paid for by spending cuts. LePage is being "conservative" - I want him to call for the elimination of the state income tax for everyone.
Ron: How much did you pay year-to-date in employer taxes? I'll show you mine if you show me yours. Never mind - yours is zero.
Terry: BHO is still a socialist. Proposal after proposal, for 2.5 years, he swears will bring a flood of money or flood of jobs to the country. They haven't and they won't. The only thing that trickles from DC in any direction is male bovine excrement.
Do you want to do away with inspections?
It's OK with me. California has only an annual emissions check. That state is trying to commit suicide by liberal policies, but it has nothing to do with motor vehicle inspections. But if the defect is there and your car is damaged or, God forbid, you get injured, for lack of knowledge of the defect, you have to promise not to start whining and moaning that the nanny state should have protected you, in spite of your fears.
You show an interesting prejudice, Mr. Tierney, by assuming that anyone who fails an inspection is also out of work. How about a little concern for the guy with a job who can't get to it? Perhaps you assume such a fellow is "rich" and can make alternative arrangements.
The government should do everything in its power to get as many eligible voters out to the polls as possible; and to encourage ineligible voters to follow the few simple rules to become eligible. Unfortunately those rules are too complex for the average Democrat.
It is sad ...
... when a national "news" representative starts a brief interview of a governor of a backwater state with a calculated "gotcha" question that has nothing to do with the occasion. Edward R. Murrow is spinning in his grave.
Maine was turned into a laughingstock long ago by well-spoken, "serious" Democrats in their determination to make welfare, unemployment, and expensive everything the "way life should be".
The UN has no moral authority ...
... and never had any. It has been an anti-American debating society since its inception. Why we allow them to occupy valuable real estate in NYC is a total mystery. And a total waste.
It has no actual authority, either, because of the veto power of Security Council members. This issue is the one and only point of agreement between me and the Obama administration. Someone in DC is smart enough to understand that Israel is the one and only obstacle to Iran's total domination of the Middle East; and that the quickest way to bring Israel down is to have a terrorist "state" with a border within shoulder-carried missile distance of Israel's major airport.
The UN bigshots say they need new buildings to replace those old ones in NYC. I nominate an entirely new site: Port au Prince, Haiti. Let them gaze down from their splendorous heights on the real results of their moral and actual authority.
It is slated to jump to $3
It is slated to jump to $3 billion in 2011. What's that projected 2011 deficit again? Something like 1,500 billion. Aid to Israel is 0.2%, even smaller over the entire budget.
39.3% live in the U.S. Most polls suggest that a huge majority of them are liberals who pay only lip-service to their love for Israel, while planting their real lips firmly on the posterior of Israel's great, new pal there in the White House.
That's a lot of influence. It sure is, on top of total control of the media and the financial system. For a group trying to save Israel, they have done, on average, a lousy job over the past 63 years.
I guess you have added him ...
... to your Uncle-Tom list. There will never be equality for all as long as liberals battle against it every inch of the way. They are trying to elevate ignorance to a height it could never attain without their diligent help. The human species would do just fine if liberals would get off its back and stop dragging it down to their sub-species level. What do like, gavone? GodPapa Ginos?
Without the 3/5s compromise ...
... slavery would have lasted much longer than it did. Without the compromise, the slave states would have had a stranglehold on the House from the very beginning and it would have taken much more than a civil war to get rid of it.
The libs like to parade their moral outrage about "fairness" to mask their real intention: to keep the black population shackled on the Democrat plantation.
I am in favor ...
... of a bill that addresses the larger problem, of which celling while driving is only a part. The legislature should pass, LEOs should vigorously enforce, and judges should give stiff penalties for violating, a law prohibiting driving while stupid.
After passage, it would have the extra benefit of keeping most legislators away from Augusta.
When?
No, it wasn't with FNC. I was when CNN, MSNBC and all the other left-wing sycophant "opinion" outlets started ignoring the facts completely. Journalism, as an honest profession, died decades ago.
The House did pass it.
But you know those obstructionist Democrats ...
House Passes Stopgap Spending Bill to Avert Shutdown, but Battle With Senate Looms
Published September 22, 2011 | Associated Press
Even before the House vote, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised that majority Democrats will scuttle the measure as soon as it reaches the chamber on Friday.
Yup, we can't get anywhere ...
... with those obstructionist Democrats.
House Passes Stopgap Spending Bill to Avert Shutdown, but Battle With Senate Looms
Published September 22, 2011 | Associated Press
Even before the House vote, however, Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid, D-Nev., promised that majority Democrats will scuttle the measure as soon as it reaches the chamber on Friday.
To quote you from yesterday ...
... your silence is deafening. Couldn't find Canada?
Wow!
What a thundering condemnation! But I will grant you that Mr. Kucera's descriptions of Mr. Steele and Justice Thomas could have been more discreet.
So the answer seems to be, we must recruit non-white voters into Maine to counteract the vicious racism exhibited by the current inmates. That's been going on for years with indifferent results, at best. Every voting bloc, except one, tends to be as "conservative" as any other. You put your thumb right on the exception from 2008 with people voting on exactly one issue - skin color. It's too bad more people don't vote for people like themselves - Americans.
Did you enlist, Rimmie?
Or did the Democrat draft catch you?
When I was working overseas, I took full advantage of the expatriate tax "loopholes" (much better now) to reduce my tax liability to zero. Only after I came home did my taxes go through the roof.
So now you're in "business", without employees, of course, selling books to the elite. I assume you collect sales tax and send it on to Augusta. If I'm wrong, you MRS lurkers should pay attention. Do you take all the deductions you're "entitled" to on your income tax? If so, you're not paying your "fair share", but I'll bet you'll absolve yourself. If you're looking for justice, you'll never find it under the rules that allow you to ride while others pull.
And Mitchell lost ...
... with 19% of the vote, Krissie, meaning 81% of the state voted the other way. The bad news for the left is your stridency, here and now, that any criticism of the ∅ne must come from toothless white rednecks and their black lackeys.
OK, Breton, where are you? You're the CEO of Racism R Us. What do you think of Krissie's post? Reminds me of Bull Connor, a card-carrying Democrat.
Your whining is normally loud.
Sorry, Rimmie, I had better things to do yesterday than read your whining, pestering demands. If your memory wasn't so shot, you would know that I have already answered that question and I thanked you for your service. But I'll try again - maybe you can retain it for more than 20 minutes.
No, Rimmie, I have never served in any branch of the military. While you were floating around south-east Asia like a fuzzy cork, I was in college first with a deferment and then with a high lottery number. In '70 I "deployed" overseas as a civilian contractor, beginning a 40+ year career of paying high taxes to cover benefits for ungrateful braggarts. You should thank me - don't be shy. I'll pause now until pigs fly and sing arias.
Most of them voted for the GOP.
With young adults, college kids, and minorities voting early and often, last November they elected a Republican governor and majorities in both houses of the legislature. So all those voters are white, huh? You can always rely on the tolerant, inclusive left to be anything but.
If you believe ...
... in the current monstrosity of a tax code, you're definitely unpatriotic. If Earth is where Breton stays, then: Beam me up, Scotty. There's no intelligent life down here.
It's free to those who receive it.
Kris, hold on a second ... 2..3..4.. OK, I'm calmer now. Of course, Kris, you and I are paying for all that free care through our hiked premiums. I didn't believe I needed to state in print something so obvious. Duh.
After that nonsense, I pretty much agree with what you said. However, if Obamacare is so great, why does it allow the "young" to weasel out and pay a slap-on-the-wrist tax penalty if they don't buy insurance? Why does it do that while eviscerating Medicare at the other end of the spectrum? The answer is that the administration thinks the youth vote is the key to reelection. They need to look at the geezer polls in Florida, which went for the O in '08 and has since done a 180 and then some.
My plan?
I have a high deductible policy because it's what I can afford ($850/mo), courtesy of decades of Democrat incompetence. Thankfully, the current governor and legislature have begun to unravel it. I may actually be able to afford comprehensive insurance again, for a little while - until Obamacare once again hikes costs out of sight. I wish you luck with your tax-payer funded health care. Just be advised that John Baldacci's new job is at the Pentagon, screwing up military health insurance, based on his vast experience here.
I have read your profile, a load of self-serving horn tooting from someone with a severe case of delusions of grandeur.
Prove it, Danny.
Call the SSA and demand a report on the current status of your "account", with principal value plus earned interest. The answer will be very polite bureaucratese that translates to: You fool! You don't have an account, never have had an account, and every penny you and your employers paid on your behalf was immediately squandered by Congress. Have a nice day.
I didn't say ...
... your books were for the 'well to do' and 'elite'. You did. If that's "ridicule", blame yourself.
Indeed, our medical system is very expensive. When you have a medical issue of some magnitude, which country do you head for? Right, you stay right here because you know you'll get the best care and someone else will take care of most or all the expense. Do you use the VA? Or is the better deal the insurance paid by the good people of Kankakee?
Currently the people who can't afford health care get it free of charge. The biggest single danger to that cushy deal is Obamacare.
You should be ashamed of yourself, Breton, ...
... for believing the trust fund fairytale. The SS taxes we pay go directly into the general fund which pays for SS, SSI, and everything else. Most left-wing wackos understand that, although they pretend not to when in full pander mode.
He did what?
If it isn't repealed, Obamacare will destroy the best medical system on the planet, and every time he mentions health care, the likelihood of repeal increases. He got us out of Iraq, sort of, and into Libya, where he seems eager to welcome an Al Qaeda government. The cards he has put on the table are all jokers and he has more intransigence than he can handle from his own party.
You're welcome.
From the other end of the telescope, let me thank you.
Thanks for electing people who thought it was a good idea, in order to buy votes, to cut the tax that supports Social Security, hastening the day of its demise.
For all the other items you listed, thanks for electing people all too willing to perpetuate the myths surrounding this gigantic Ponzi scheme.
But you're wrong, Jason. The new American dream is for someone else to have a job, paying hefty taxes to support your indolence and ignorance.
Mark this day on your calendar.
I agree 100% with Al! To the list, I would add: ... with your pants buckled halfway between your waist and your knees.
You left out at least one choice.
Like everyone else in the US military, the general had to state this oath: "I, XXXXXXXXXX, do solemnly swear (or affirm) that I will support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic; that I will bear true faith and allegiance to the same; and that I will obey the orders of the President of the United States and the orders of the officers appointed over me, according to regulations and the Uniform Code of Military Justice. So help me God."
If he believes his orders are un-Constitutional (unlawful), it is his sworn duty to testify to that belief. The shameful and cowardly act is to keep his mouth shut and do what he's told. It's no big surprise that certain commenters here would overlook the Constitution, what with it being a living-breathing document that can mean anything or nothing.
But, go home, Dan, and work on your tan.
Predictable as sunrise.
As soon as you criticize the One's administration even indirectly, the apologists crawl out from under their rocks to deliver their standard telepromptery: Oh, yeah? Halliburton, Cheney, yellow cake, Aboo Grub, ... Get some new material, guys. Those oldies are way out of date.
Anger, not apathy, grows ...
... when people hear the same story every budget cycle: Give us more money (drumroll) for the children! It's actually more money for salaries and benefits, and the fairytale we're supposed to accept without question is that this translates directly into better education for the kiddies. But the real results are high grades, but lousy test scores, and rising dropout rates. The state isn't the only entity that doesn't fulfill its obligations.
Here's a source.
Would you trust the SSA? There's lots of interesting data there. For example, Social Security and Medicare Tax Rates, where you can trace the hikes from 1% up to the current gouging. More interesting is Contribution and Benefit Base, where to can see the changes to the earnings cap. This was changed much more frequently than the rate so our invertebrate politicians could say they didn't raise the SS tax.
Nice point list.
David Gagnon forgot one interesting fact. When FDR and the Democrats set up SS back in the 30s, they chose a minimum age to receive benefits - 65, I think, or close to it. Whatever, it was higher than the life expectancy at that time! That is, they hoped and expected not to have to pay out a dime. Oops! Then we ungrateful workers started living longer. How unpatriotic.
Yes, you did.
By picking him as your example of someone who should be punished forever after doing his time. And, anyhow, racism is always at the top of your hit parade, to the exclusion of all else, a convenient diversion for you to hide behind to avoid acknowledging your other obsessions: anti-Republicanism and wealth envy.
OK, the "system" worked. Vick was arrested, convicted, and served his time. How else would you punish him?
System?
Perhaps you meant symptom. Be that as it may, the rest is your usual irrelevant anti-Republican ranting. You say this is a phony editorial because it advocates rational punishment for dog-fighting / animal-cruelty. You pick an example, slyly avoiding naming a name, of someone who was arrested, tried, convicted and punished for his crime. That should be the end of it, but you're all clenched that the guy has put it past him, and is earning more money in a year than you'll see in your entire life. You're driven more by envy than by political conviction.
But, Breton, Michael Vick is black! It is very very RACIST of you suggest he must be punished for the rest of his life for not living up to your high standards. What a hypocrite. Are you related to Riml?
What are these "right" causes you want the paper to champion? Let me take a wild guess. You want to use all Republican legislators for bear bait, leaving the field open for your precious Democrats to regain power and resume screwing things up.
Even more obscure than usual.
It's been so long since Ron has seen a clear, short bill, his automatic reaction is to put it down: It's different so it must be bad. Riml has eaten too many of his rare books and now believes that quantity of pages equals quality of thought, all evidence to the contrary.
I'm saving some spicy marinara, Rimmie, just for you, to make palatable your Kibbles N Bits - it's going to be a long winter.
That's what a bill should look like.
Both sides of one sheet of paper. One side would be even better. If you can't fit it in that size, you shouldn't submit it and Congress for sure shouldn't pass it.
It has already created jobs ...
... in forestry. Like all other "accomplishments" of the Obama regime, it can be measured in inches of paper. Wow, Mr. Broderick, for a pretty short letter you crammed in just about all known liberal code phrases.
common sense = liberals represent the voice of reason
working families = union families
responsibility and hard work will be rewarded = more welfare
balanced rebuilding = redistribution of wealth
long-shared and supported ideas = among liberals
fairness and responsibility = dissent will not be tolerated
Like Pelosi, you're correct only in the sense that it must be passed so we can see what's in it. Then the buyer's remorse kicks in.
Good job, Breton! Three complete sentences without accusing someone of racism.
All Obama's policies are lame ...
... including the latest "jobs" scam. The only jobs it will create it has already created - some temporary ones involved with the destruction of a small forest to provide paper to print this stupidity on.
Jason, you have not caused the pirate even a slight twinge. He will return soon to smite your turban with his might cutlass.
Thanks!
CRAP = Creative Republicans Advise Pelletier
Do you feel OK?
Usually you post an accusation of racism just after midnight. Today there was a delay of almost 12 hours. Stick to your med schedule.
Yes they did.
Life isn't easy nobody ever said it would be.
In the 1960s LBJ began the big lie with the "Great Society" and the "War on Poverty", commencing the modern era of government dependency. Maine Democrats jumped on the liberal bandwagon in the mid 1970s, starting their 35 year march to bankruptcy which, thankfully, is finally being unraveled. Every day in public schools, our kids receive the message that, yes, life is easy, they can do whatever they want, even if there's no demand for it, they can live wherever they like, even though there are no jobs there, and government will always pull the slack, from cradle to grave. Some serious unlearning will be happening very soon.
Another quote from P. T. Barnum
Dirty Harry copied it. You obviously like the flavor of that excrement sandwich. Chow down!
You like crap ...
... and Riml dispenses it in large quantities. Al, note where you are: the LETTERS page under the OPINION section. OPINION - that is, no proof required. I'll take elephant rants over donkey braying any day.
Where is it?
The letter mentions the "political circus". Everyone I know, all along the political spectrum, except for a couple die-hards here, believes that phrase is an incredibly generous summary of the situation in DC.
It then suggests that our illustrious president, who says he wants the circus to end, is really encouraging it to continue full-tilt boogie. I agree.
Where is the racism? Where is even the shadow of racism? If Breton knows, he's keeping it to himself.
The noted circus entrepreneur P. T. Barnum once said
Nobody ever lost a dollar by underestimating the taste of the American public. If he's right, and I suspect he is, Obama will retire very rich.
There he goes again.
It's pretty obvious how I feel. Not so the fuzzy-faced clerk. He never states his own opinions, just recycles long-winded pieces turned up by his "research". Riml's purpose in life is to belittle others, and it's obvious he believes in his mission.
Explain it then.
You have said it's racist now twice, without a shred of evidence. Show us one word or phrase that's racist and explain why.
You're right.
Every time anyone criticizes him, he starts crying "I inherited this mess."
Wait. I bet you were talking about Boehner. Sorry, easy mistake. I would prefer a president with some passion for his country over an automaton who can't say "Good evening" without a teleprompter.
Speaking of ugly heads ...
Why does Breton insist on seeing racism where none exists? It is perfectly possible to want Obama gone just because of his dangerous, reckless, hyper-expensive policies.
However, Mr. McClure, I have to disagree on one point. I prefer the election method of removing him. You see, if Obama resigns, Joe Biden becomes president and we would have the "Doddering-gaffer-bonehead in Chief."
Now, if we can persuade both of them to resign, John Boehner becomes president. Hmmmm.
Novel idea!
You want the owner of a chicken to pass some competency test. If we required the same of the producers of human beings, the hen issue would vanish - along with most of our other problems.
You could have admitted that long ago ...
... when I first asked, but you like to play games. So now we all know that you aren't an employer, you know nothing about what's involved, and your 'gig' is ripping others for doing in a small way something you can't be bothered to do at all. You fault me for not making a lasting commitment when you won't make any at all. What a hypocrite. No big surprise.
It's ironic that you clerk in items that only a select few can afford. When our economics-impaired president, whose posterior you smooch at every opportunity, gets through fleecing the evil rich, your customer base will be quite a bit smaller. When he gets through destroying what's left of the economy, and you get hungry, try eating those uncommon books. They are likely high in fiber, something you obviously need, but not very tasty. I'll hold aside some jars of tomato sauce just for you. Comprehend, appreciate, and grasp this: You can expect a very special price.
Thank you, Ms. Frechette.
Letters like yours are in a 1-to-10 minority around here. Prepare yourself to be called a racist, among other things, when the same-day denizens wake up. I too prefer voters who are organized enough to register early or to take advantage of all the help available to those for whom registration at any time is inconvenient or impossible. I would tend to believe those voters are also sufficiently engaged to know what they're voting on.
It's the same with the 61%-ers who want to change rules to require a majority, not just a plurality, to elect a governor, because they're unhappy with the outcome last November. They don't mention the fact that Mitchell got only 19% of the vote. If their rule had been in place, they would be grousing about Gov. Cutler today. It will guarantee independent governors. That's not necessarily a bad thing - only when you have a liberal, like Angus King, pretending to be an independent.
By the way.
Mr. Editor, at the top of this on-line version, you attribute the column to Cal Thomas.
I remember this column.
I remember the goosebumps as I read the last sentence.
Unfortunately, I also remember that, very soon thereafter, Mr. Pitts resumed an 8 year career of bashing every word and act of GWB, whether or not it deserved bashing. He went on autopilot. Since the departure of that easy target, Pitts' columns have been all alike. Whatever the issue, he sees it through the lens of racism.
When he said "You don't know my people", he was speaking about all Americans. Today, he and the people at the top of the current administration attach a much more restricted meaning to that simple statement.
What a waste all around.
Slight modification
I wish all of the politicians in Washington could read. To learn, most of them would have to start with Dick and Jane. Then, after just a few short years, they could begin to actually read the bills they vote on.
Your product?
Yesterday at 11:56 I asked you about the salary and benefits your employees receive. In response at 12:53 you demanded that I go first. Fair enough. I answered at 13:45 and expanded on it today at 6:59.
Now it's your turn, although I believe that you can't respond because you don't have employees - or you have some but you pay them under the table.
You sell the works of others, Ron. Those books are not your "product", nor are your posts of silly photos and long-winded screeds that you pass off as your "research". You're a glorified clerk, nothing more.
Oh, and Al ...
"Get Real" is a state initiative. Last time I checked, Mike was a member of Congress - temporarily. In most of those 40 years, Democrats in the legislature didn't need to know what constituents wanted - John Martin told them.
I wonder what Mike ...
... has planned for after the 2012 elections. He won't be going back into the mills, that's for sure, but he'll have a nice cushy federal "retirement" package.
When Mike himself forgets every now and then his party affiliation, Nancy reminds him.
You better dry-clean your trousers.
The knees are dirty after your encounter with Conner.
At the height of our season we had 16 employees. Most have gone back to college or high school, five remain to help finish the season, all knew the schedule going in, not one complains. Each one is a bona-fide employee, according to the rules set by MRS and IRS. I withhold their taxes, add my share, send checks every month to those wonderful organizations, and send out W-2's at year end.
Note well, everyone, that Ronald Riml, the great entrepreneur and businessman and name-dropper, once again operates under do-as-I-say-not-as-I-do, the constant mantra of hypocritical lefties.
Democrats are wandering all
Democrats are wandering all over the state on their "Get Real" campaign to ask constituents what they want. This is a public admission that they have successfully avoided for 40 years any meaningful interaction with constituents except when pandering for votes near election day.
Veritas, Ron, Riml, ... whatever.
So you equate my use of a diminutive with your scraping the internet for "facts". That explains your juvenile understanding of "adult", a status you have yet to attain.
We all notice that you continue to avoid listing anything about your contributions to local employment. When you have nothing to say, it's best to keep your mouth shut, a lesson you obviously have not learned in your life above deck.
By the way, that would be "whiner", but it's in the 4th grade vocabulary list. Take the test next year. Maybe you can earn more than minimum wage.
Of course. But first ...
Pattie, Rex: Here you can plainly see the downside to a forum where people post under their real names. Any nitwit with internet access can find and post irrelevant personal details when he runs out of anything remotely coherent to say about the subject at hand.
We currently have 5 employees, all part-time, ages from 16 to 25. We pay from minimum wage to, right now, $10/hour. The hourly rate has nothing to do with age, everything to do with attitude. If you show up on time, do the work efficiently, and don't watch the clock, your rate will increase; otherwise, get lost. Not one of those employees is forced to work here - they want to. And we have to turn people away, despite all that heartless treatment.
There is one benefit: a pay check. If you "need" more than that, if you have to "support a family", go elsewhere. This is a small, seasonal operation and it definitely is not a charity.
That attention problem is getting worse.
Just, curious, Rimmie. How much do you pay your employees? Benefits? If you don't have employees, what a heartless conservative you are, keeping all those profits to yourself. Outside your window right now there are probably homeless adults, carrying tattered briefcases, looking longingly at the splendor inside.
No one ever asked me to sign a petition.
Nor anyone I know. I would have signed because I would have enjoyed watching the Maine electorate tell all the same-day boneheads to pound sand.
The SOS is treating the issue with the attention it deserves. It discriminates only against people who are not eligible to vote.
I don't know any adults ...
... who need a minimum wage job for maybe 10 hours a week - in fact I know many adults who would turn it down because they get a much better deal from DHHS. There is no sense, economic or any other kind, in paying an adult more just because he's an adult. It can only make sense to leftists who believe that all private business must be squeezed to the last nickel. It's easy to identify them. They're the ones lined up with their hands out and saying, like Oliver Twist: Please, sir, I want some more. And more and more and ...
Teen unemployment.
Dan, ever the advocate for the nanny state and now nanny newspapers, would keep all teenagers unemployed and on the street to "protect" them.
I have an idea. The Democrat party, since laws don't apply to them, can recruit all those idle teenyboppers to circulate petitions on same-day registration. Of course we can trust them to obey the child labor laws. Let's hope no kid knocks on the door of a pedophile.
I remember ...
... that the average Democrat wouldn't know honesty, having very little experience with it, if it came up to him on the street and tweaked his nose. You keep watch, Dan, as your party slides even further into irrelevance.
Another "research" project ...
... from Riml Enterprises, using the usual technique: When you have nothing to say on the current subject, switch to another subject. Try to remember which state we're in, Ron. There are plenty of Republicans, more every day, right here in Maine for you to vent your spleen on.
Since when ...
... is a claim of fraud and abuse the equivalent of "targeting the poor"? Since when does anyone need proof to make a claim? If that were true, the SJ would have to shut down the opinion page.
There are increasing numbers of unemployed and working poor because everything the Obama administration does to "help" the jobs picture instead makes it worse. The best way to deal with the overload at DHHS is to fundamentally change the political ideology in Washington - next year.
Since when, Dan, is it a crime to annoy liberals? Mr. O'Keefe is doing a great job at that.
Really?
You would not allow a parent, who conveniently now has most of the responsibility for his child's education, to question in public the methods of teachers or the contents of the material they're pounding into the heads of the little darlings. That's scary. You're way beyond unionism and wading in muck the world hasn't seen since Germany in the 30s.
The kids go home ...
... to an empty household. Is that your definition of crappy? It's empty because decades of liberal policies aimed at dismantling the family have succeeded to a disgusting level.
Good plan.
Raising a kid is a job. If you can't hack that, you shouldn't have kids.
It would invalidate about 90% of Maine's welfare state, the basis of which currently is: If you can manage the monumental accomplishment of producing a child, we'll give you everything you need for the rest of your life. Good luck getting that passed the PC police.
All Republicans I know ...
... want to participate as much as they can in their children's education, but are thwarted at every turn by PC regulations promulgated by politicians and unions. Your cowardly old solution is to heap more blame on the messengers and to ignore the message.
Apples / Oranges
Public schools through HS are funded by property taxes, the most regressive tax we have; and of course through the 55% beneficence that Augusta has never even tried to meet. Colleges are funded by private means or public state-level funds, mostly from income taxes. Public education already hits hardest the parents, who you want to blame further, who both (when you can find two in a family) have to work one or more jobs just to tread water to support the rest of the welfare state.
You want to hear unions howl? Suggest that secondary public education be paid for by our wonderful "progressive" income tax. Hold your ears.
I'm not endorsing anyone.
The 61%-ers are beating their gums about changing the mechanism from plurality to majority. That's nice, but suppose at the next gubernatorial election, the Democrat wins. (I'll pause for the wild, mindless cheering ...) And further suppose the win is 39% or less. Will this organization, and all those who support them, continue to demand the change? Or will they just go quietly into the night? My money is on the latter, because it's impossible to overestimate the hypocrisy of Democrats.
Patience ...
Yes, Lilly, thank you for noticing that 100 take away 39 leaves 61. Good job! Don't forget it was 62% who voted against Baldacci last time. I realize it's uncomfortable for some to remember things like that, but you can if you put your mind to it.
We threw off the yoke of a King ...
... and exchanged it for the yoke of a Baldacci. Now that the weight is finally coming off altogether, there will be people who can't deal with the missing burden. Chances are good that they come from the 19% of the popular vote who supported the last Democrat candidate.
How is it bigotry, Bruce, ...
... to criticize our politicians at any level? Unless, of course, you have swallowed the hogwash that Obama is perfect in every way, thus any criticism must be rooted in racism. If you have, you'll have plenty of company here.
I can think of maybe a half dozen politicians who I consider truly evil. The vast majority has good intentions, but we all should remember the destination of any road paved with them. Unfortunately the corrupt few command a large audience willing to be led down that road.
"work together" and "polarized name calling". These are just two current code phrases used to sugar-coat an underlying message: You in the opposition must sit down, shut up, and do what you're told, or we'll teach you all about evil and bigotry.
No.
Got some setters?
Research. Uh-huh.
How are you doing with your pornography investigations?
Crawling is right.
But you have the direction wrong.
I don't frequent the racist sites ...
... like you do. Are you a charter member? Try something in the mainstream:
There he goes again.
Riml gets cranky when the cleaners put too much starch in his white robe.
Here's the liberal "logic" that's always used in these situations:
Larry dislikes Obama's policies.
Anyone who criticizes Obama in any way is a racist.
Therefore: Larry is a racist.
It's easy to "prove" your conclusions when your premises are nonsense.
I'm another one, Bob.
How many do you need? I suspect it's always one more than the number that expresses serious doubt.
I believe ...
... the quake was a sign that God thinks we haven't suffered enough. If he thought we had suffered enough, he would have made the quake strong enough to keep Congress-critters out of DC for the foreseeable future.
Almost right.
It's the president's fault, due to total incompetence during his first two years, that the people of our country threw the Democrats out the House majority in 2010. House Republicans proposed several solutions to the debt ceiling issue that Senate Democrats refused even to read, because the solutions would have benefited everyone, not just the wagon riders.
Go ahead, Michael, and vote Democrat in 2012. I hope you can deal with loneliness.
This comment ...
... was aimed at Mr. Frecker. By the way, a family making less than the poverty level would still receive $9200. That is, they pay NEGATIVE taxes. Progressives who have concocted the current EIC scam say this is a good thing - as long as it originates with them.
It's called the "prebate".
Part of the FairTax legislation is the "prebate", a monthly rebate of the sales tax on the "poverty" level of income. You would know about this if you had actually read the legislation. For example, suppose that level is determined to be $40,000 per year, as in your example. You would receive $9,200 (23%) in 12 equal installments. That is, that family would pay ZERO tax. And the FairTax completely replace employment taxes (Social Security and Medicare) so the lower income folks would make out like bandits.
The prebate would be paid to everyone. Nothing fairer than that, unless your habit is to whine and moan about the rich paying their "fair share". But when some "fat cat" buys a Gulfstream V for $50 million, he'll have to cough up an extra $11.5 million. Isn't that soaking the rich?
That's a lot of checks for the Feds to write, but we already have the infrastructure - it's called Social Security.
The FairTax does affect everyone proportionately. But that fact is ignored by those who a vested interest in the current tax structure.
Of course - not.
"If the profits stay overseas, they don't get taxed." That is 100% not true. The US taxes a US corporation on every dime of profit, no matter where it comes from. If they don't report a profit, the IRS will nail them, because they now have a lot more agents, thanks to Obama, looking for opportunities to meet quotas. I agree that GE can afford lawyers and accountants to arrange their affairs to pay minimum tax. That's not cooking the books. That's using the system that has been created by politicians - blame them. Just be aware of which party controlled Congress more often and was responsible for creating the byzantine rules - Democrats.
When you work for a corporation, you get a salary and benefits. How else, exactly, do you expect them to "care" for you? For "corporation", substitute "government", and I ask the same question. The outfit you work for is not a surrogate for your parents - and, no, I hope your dad's head never bursts into flame. Franz Kafka's head is already burning. Ever read The Castle?
I worked for a dozen
I worked for a dozen corporations over the course of a 40 year career. With only one exception, every one of them was run by talented, hard-working people who were compensated accordingly and collaborated willingly with their employees, who they treated with exceptional fairness and consideration.
The exception was GE, the CEO of which now has an office in the White House down the hall from you know who, so is exempt from all criticism, even though it paid no income tax last year, despite being one of the largest corporations on earth.
Corporations are owned my stock-holders, Jason, the vast majority of whom are individuals trying to take responsibility for their own futures by investing their hard-earned money in profitable enterprises. Why did your Dad miss that tidbit? Perhaps he was distracted, on his way to a meeting at the union hall.
US corporations not only have to pay the highest business income tax on the planet, they also have to pay US tax on income earned in other countries. We have the distinction of being the only country that does that. Lucky us!
All the whining about business not paying its "fair share" comes from people who don't want to pay theirs.
$5 for bread?
The ultimate "quantitative easing" started in 1922. When the German government got a hold of a 1000 mark note, they just stamped it to become a 1 billion mark note.
Here's how you bought a loaf of bread.
The new economics! Brought to you by the Democrat party.
2009 and 2010 saw the
2009 and 2010 saw the attempted beginning of the fundamental transformation of America. They were such a disaster that enough of the country came to its senses and took back the House, to try to stop the bleeding. Evidently it was too late. Obama is determined to lead us into another recession.
Since fiscal bills must originate in the House, it's not likely that they will pass some sort of "revenue" enhancements that the Senate will accept. Nor will the House Republicans get meaningful tax and spending cuts passed the Senate. It's all up to Nov. 2012.
Democrats: Take the House back, get 60 Senate seats, reelect Obama (pardon me: retch), do what you want, and stop whining. Of course, running on your record won't accomplish any of that.
Republicans: Keep the House, sweep into 60 Senate seats, fundamentally transform the occupant of 1600 Penn. Ave., do what you want, and stop whining. Your winning campaign is: The Keystone Kops could do a better job than the current lefties.
The problem is ...
... Obama is not riding the bus. He's riding Air Force One (that's the designation for any aircraft POTUS is on) to Martha's Vineyard to work on his golf game, and back and forth to the Blame-Bush-Bus. Heaven forfend he mingle closely with the proletariat, the great unwashed, who might criticize his imperial life-style. In 2.5 years he hasn't shown the slightest interest in saving our money. Why should he start now?
Eh?
Pirate, it's all part of the Canadian jihad to make us suffer for stealing Aroostook county.
Every time he opens his mouth ...
... the stock market tanks and a lot of people become a lot poorer. I believe Jesus also said "The poor will always be among us." Obama is doing a great job making sure Jesus' statement is as true as it can be.
Threatens?
The trend started decades ago, no later than the early 1970s. Trying to change it through taxation will just make it worse, while padding the federal coffers. The traditional method is import tariffs - make the importer pay to bring the end-user price up to US levels - if you can even find the same products made here.
But note well. The prices we pay will go up, either way. Republicans are not directly responsible, although they must share the blame for allowing it to go on this far, especially the absurdly high income tax rates.
Unions are responsible, and their wholly owned subsidiary, the Democrat Party. Their ever increasing demand for "living" wages and benefits have forced many US companies off-shore, many more out of business entirely. Now that they have wrecked the private sector, they're trying for the public sector.
It took a lot of years ...
... for the wants of the legislature and governor to trickle down and become codified. After just a few months with a new "board", we see a new set of wants and it's more than a little premature to label them "out of touch". Of course, it's always easy to say someone is out of touch, when all you mean is that he doesn't agree with you.
Disrespect?
No one knew about the mural until it was gone. Then for a few weeks, lots of people discovered a long lost appreciation for "art", which they lost again after a few weeks. The lesson learned by LePage is the same lesson learned extremely well by past governors: Never over-estimate the attention span of Maine Democrats.
By profane, I guess you refer to the infamous (made so by Maine media) kiss-my-anatomy episode. My grandmother can do, and does, a lot worse than that. If you refer to his recent telling off some reporters, and I use the term loosely, they deserved it and much more. It's fun to listen to them whine. Anyhow, you set a remarkably low threshold of disrespect.
The "sting" technique has been used since Judas and the reaction is always the same. If you like the outcome, the sting is great; if you don't like the outcome, it's a travesty.
Perhaps you should read the book ...
... you are so eager to thump. The actual phrase is: The love of Money is the root of all evil. Being wealthy does not make you evil, contrary to what you read here daily. It means that you are successful through personal initiative or, like the Kennedys, you picked the right parents.
How about our Jewish friends who celebrate the sabbath from Friday evening to Saturday evening? Shut down everything for a long weekend.
If your family prays on one day but preys on the other six, it is dysfunctional and you won't get into Heaven, no matter how many stores you close.
I agree with everything you said.
RIP Jim Carignan. I call him "Jim" because he and I had a lively, extended e-mail discussion years ago, before the advent of on-line commentary like this. He wrote a weekly column that appeared in the SJ's Sunday "Perspective" section.
What you didn't say is that Jim was just about the most "liberal" fellow in the Bates community and the entire state. If he were alive and healthy today, he would be leading the parade to blame all the country's problems on the Tea Party, and to propose fixing those problems by hiking taxes on the "rich". Each column summarized and lauded the major liberal cause of the week.
He and I disagreed on everything, but he lived and wrote according to his beliefs and principles, and that makes him much more than a "good man who will be missed" - it makes him damn near unique in Maine politics.
What system?
... worked in low-paying jobs most of their lives and paid into the system ...
Maybe you were speaking in general terms. MaineCare is Medicaid, and workers, whatever the level of their pay, do NOT pay a specific tax for the program, unlike Social Security and Medicare. MaineCare/Medicaid is funded by federal and state general funds - that is, general tax revenues. Whether you agree or disagree with its purposes, it is generosity at the point of a gun.
No, they did not.
They took people's money from the "trust" ...
There is no SS trust fund and never has been. Oh, there's a bunch of paper in a vault somewhere, but we would all be better served if it were turned over to Charmin for recycling.
Current SS taxes go directly into the US Treasury, from which all current expenses are paid - including current SS benefits. SS is right now into deficit spending. This year, for the first time, it takes in less than it pays out. This condition is a couple years ahead of previous projections because you-know-who decided to "stimulate" the economy by reducing the tax.
SS is nothing but a humongous Ponzi scheme. If anyone other than the government tried something similar, they would land in jail.
The odor you object to ...
... is the main pheromone of the US political class, both sides. The best deodorizer is, as always, sunlight. Instead of jerking left knees and blaming all problems on the Tea Party, we should thank them for opening the factory doors and letting us all see how sausages are made.
Claire, do 94 wrongs make a right?
Stay tuned ...
They will apologize for them. What else can they do?
When today's crop ...
... of "reporters" actually commits an act of journalism, it's usually a mistake, for which they are reprimanded. And in that crop I do not include pundits, bloggers, columnists - everyone in the opinion business, including most reporters who are supposed to deliver fact and let their audience form its own opinions.
For example. BHO was touted as the best law student the planet has ever seen, and was unanimously appointed to the prestigious position of editor of the Harvard Law Review. Why is it then, with all reporters falling all over themselves to cover every aspect of his life, with all their journalistic principles and dedication to the truth, that no one has been able to uncover his transcripts or even one article published by the august personage?
Perhaps it's because the transcript would reveal, at best, a mediocre student who never wrote a law article worth publishing. We'll never know because the liberal biased journalists won't ask.
You can always trust Wrenn ..
... to inject skin color where it has no bearing. I don't care if you're pink with purple polka-dots, if you can't afford the loan, you shouldn't have received it. And, yes, the banks could not say "no". The CRA was only the start of 3 decades of bureaucratic mismanagement that metastasized throughout the economy, making almost every lending decision dependent on race or other matters that should have remained irrelevant. Instead of helping those "brown people" (Don't you just love those cute phrases liberals think make them oh so tolerant and diverse?) the CRA has made their economic lives even more miserable.
Instead of DELL ...
... how about Apple? Almost 100% of Apple's manufacturing and assembly takes place overseas, mostly China. Almost 100% of Apple's research and development takes place in California. That is, the highly compensated professional jobs are here, the union jobs are there. And yet, US liberals love Apple, because Steve Jobs is one of them and knows how to stroke their massive egos. Do you want the IRS to confiscate 20-30% of Apple's income and/or penalize them through other tax schemes? Be careful. Apple may have to void that Maine contract where they sell cheap laptops for students to play frisbee with.
There are lots of companies in a similar situation, mostly on a smaller scale. If you dig just a little, you'll always find unions screwing things up for their members.
Throw the bums out!
- The only way to raise significant revenue by increased taxation on the "rich" is to create a new "wealth" tax, different from the income tax. That is, tax what they already have, in addition to what they earn. This has long been a liberal dream. But believe this: it will immediately start "creeping" down into the middle class. Then you'll be looking for new ways to bleed the rich, those foolish enough to remain after the exodus to off-shore havens.
- They are not hoarding wealth, they are protecting it from a government that won't give them straight answers about near-term taxation, budgets, … you name it. The free market hates uncertainty.
- Banks and mortgage companies were forced to forget the criteria for good loans, forced to make risky loans to people who could not possibly pay them back - forced by government policies that would label the banks "racist" if they refused to knuckle under to extortion. Today you can get an excellent loan, for very low interest, almost anywhere - as long as you have the income to support it. Unfortunately, more and more people have no income at all, thanks to the job "destruction" of the Obama administration.
- Bonuses on Wall Street and anywhere else are a vanishingly small part of those companies' profits. This is just more wealth envy - see my first point.
- S & P has a much better track record than our federal government when it comes to analyzing the effects of economic policies. Question: What did Obama predict would happen to unemployment levels after all that stimulating?
- I agree completely about prosecuting those responsible. We will start with the mis-manager-in-chief in November 2012. But then you went on to blame the current favorite scapegoat. The Tea Party is a small part of Congress (although it will be larger soon) and played only a small, but vocal, part in the recent debt-ceiling fiasco. If you throw them into the bay, they'll swim and the American people will help them back to shore. If you want to throw people, start with the Ds and Rs, and throw them out of office.
That's scary.
Albrecht thinks he's channeling Richard Matthews and finds "Tea Party" in his crystal ball, because it's not in the letter. The TP is a small minority in Congress, without the clout to stop anything, let alone push something through. They are vocal and passionate and, without them, there would never have been even a discussion about the debt ceiling - the mindless dopes with D or R after their names would have just hiked it again and continued to goose-step toward bankruptcy.
Albrecht loves the Constitution, the "living, breathing" version that he twists to support his big government, high tax views, as long as he can re-label 90% of the current middle-class as upper, so that his tax-the-rich numbers work.
Albrecht calling anyone else ego-maniacal is crass hypocrisy - and that's his only quality.
Translation:
It is time for Republicans to cave in to the demands of the MSEA and their wholly owned subsidiary, the Maine Democrat party.
Breton is half right.
The bill contained NOTHING. $1T in spending cuts spread over ten years is $100B per year. In a $4T budget (assuming the Democrats ever get around to proposing one) that's a 2.5% cut. The markets have reacted to that quite properly: Bee Eff Dee.
And, of course, no bill can constrain any future Congress in any way. At any point, even today, they can change it or repeal it. It is NOTHING but vapor. Without the Tea Party, we wouldn't even be talking about trying to get a handle on the country's fiscal affairs. DC would remain on autopilot as we head into total bankruptcy and Weimar-style inflation. You want to see the real "terrorists and hostage takers"? Turn on C-SPAN and watch the Ds and Rs. Oops, you'll have to wait until they return from vacation.
Given his track record, Obama doesn't deserve reelection. There's change that is hoped for by more people every day.
Thank you.
You sound like a fellow extremist, Robert. Oops! Sorry, that was the approved word two weeks ago. Now we're terrorists who take hostages. Doesn't matter, the definition is the same: someone who disagrees with the regime.
He didn't have a choice, Lilly.
Those nasty Democrats played well the roll of terrorists and held the country hostage. Didn't you get the DNC memo about the proper vocabulary to describe your opponents' position?
Ideological blinders abound ...
... on both sides of the aisle. The version used for 2.5 years by Obama and Democrats: Keep spending at all costs and at all times. We have absolutely nothing to show for it, but keep printing that money and pumping it out. To China.
After all that time and all that spending, unemployment is still north of 9%, we have a debt/spending bill that will increase the debt and will increase spending, the stock market tanked, and the country's credit rating has been downgraded.
But, by all means, keep doing the same thing the same way. Einstein is spinning in his grave.
Definitions
The word millionaire denotes a person who has assets valued at a million dollars or more. It does not mean that person's income is a million dollars per year. Same goes for billionaire. Most "rich" people have very little income, meaning changes in income tax rates don't affect them very much. The Bush tax cuts, now and forever known as the Obama tax cuts, really hit only the middle class, since nearly everyone below that already pays no federal income tax at all.
When folks demand the rich pay their "fair share", they mean the government should tax those assets - sort of a national property tax. It's the only kind of tax that would bring in significant "revenue". Those demanding folks never define "rich" nor "fair share", so such a tax would mean whatever the politicians want it to mean. This topic is really about envy of wealth and of success.
Try to reply to the letter, Rimmie.
That attention disorder is getting worse.
The snit is ...
... On the other side of the aisle. The House passed the FAA bill already, but then the Senate objected to some minor issue about - what else? - unionism after the other chamber had left town after the stupid debt kerfuffle. Democrats messed up, so let them pass an emergency continuing resolution.
Wise Republicans ...
... Are right in front of you, Mark, trying to make it impossible to vote for anyone who is ineligible to vote. If an out-of-state student is properly registered (ahead of time), he is eligible and no one will stand in his way. And unless he is disabled, he doesn't need a van ride to the polls. Let him show some civic responsibility and drag himself to town hall.
The exercise of democracy in America is more than a free ride + a sandwich + a $5 bill and a list of things to vote for, so you don't have to think.
Sorry for the double post.
I'm in Florida, taking advantage of loopholes, and using a computer I'm not familiar with.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Dan.
When a Democrat takes advantage of a law, it's always in the name of fairness and justice; when a Republican takes advantage of the same law, it's a "loophole" that suppresses the downtrodden masses.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Dan.
When a Democrat takes advantage of a law, it's always in the name of fairness and justice; when a Republican takes advantage of the same law, it's a "loophole" that suppresses the downtrodden masses.
Practicing what you preach.
Without descending into puerile language, how much more in federal income taxes are you Democrats willing to pay? You are willing, aren't you, given all the shared sacrifice nonsense emanating from the Whitehouse? Right. Most often the demand comes from the half that pays no federal income tax for the other half, that pays all of it, to pay even more. In your doublespeak vocabulary, this is "fair". Put your money where your running mouth is.
You got it backwards, as usual.
The more intelligent, better educated crowd are implementing the GOP agenda to pull everyone else out of the mire of decades of liberal bs.
That's supposed to be ...
... Limit.
Republicans want to ...
... Iimit ineligible people's ability to cast illegitimate ballots.
I'm not doing the limiting.
The letter writer mentioned the Obama tax cuts, which were reductions in federal income tax rates. Diddling with employment taxes, which Obama also has already done, is another subject.
Rimmie, your long-winded accusation of intellectual dishonesty is the quintessential pot-calling-the-kettle-black. When the topic is income tax and someone points out the facts, you switch to other taxes. Try to stay focused.
40 cents
For every dollar Washington spends, 40 cents is borrowed, shoving the responsibility off on our kids and grandkids. We have to stop borrowing and the only way to do that is to reduce spending - on everything - including military. If we don't, veterans, along with everyone else, will be on breadlines and bending knee to foreign masters.
The Bush tax cuts, now known as the Obama tax cuts, applied to all tax payers, not just the rich. But half those taxpayers, the lower income half, pay no federal income tax at all. The only tax hike that has a prayer of improving anything must include that half in some small way, so they actually contribute to the system they receive so much from.
So they start listening.
What have they been doing for the previous 35 years? Listening to themselves and their big brothers in Washington while the people of Maine sank ever deeper into government dependency. Get Real is a crock.
Zzzzzzz
Are you finished? Please now dredge up some memos or whatnot setting forth the agenda of CBS and 60 Minutes during Rathergate. Your obvious point is that all "news" organizations, including al-Jazeera, excluding FNC, are 100% objective, with no bias at all. Are you sure you don't want to make an offer on my bridge down in Brooklyn?
Just curious.
Who does own al-Jazeera? The answer, which I can accept as fact without absolute legal documentation, is the Emir.
I have a little security camera which can stream a live feed to the internet. A "reporter" no longer needs a van-load of equipment. That Arab reporter, who can get into Israel a lot easier than an Israeli reporter can get into Qatar, can bring in his innocent laptop and then buy whatever else he needs. It does sort of hint at a foreknowledge of what might happen.
Lack of proof in an opinion piece hasn't stopped anyone yet, in letters or responses, from claiming that indeed FNC is a Republican mouthpiece. When it happens, the silence from those demanding proof is deafening.
There are about 400 billionaires ...
... in the US, give or take a few, depending on who you talk to. That does not mean their income is $1 billion per year - that level is reserved for a few oil sheiks. But pretend it's income. How much should they "give"? You say "a few million". What would be their "fair share", that phrase that's thrown around a lot but never defined? Would $100 million be OK? Doing the math, that's $40 billion.
At the time of writing, the US debt is over $14 trillion = $14000 billion. Your new billionaire tax will reduce that by 0.29%. At that rate we'll have that nasty debt paid off in only 300 years.
For another comparison, we pay over $200 billion per year just for interest on the debt. Your new tax is a hefty 20% of that, but it just slows a little the rate of increase.
There's only one plan that will stop the crash: Reduce spending, stop borrowing, balance the budget.
Remote control reporting.
Neary posted the statement below last night on AMG. It sounds like it's the SJ reporter who did not attend.
I'm pretty sure I made it to the correct court house at the correct time. Outside the courtroom, I hugged and kissed my husband. Kevin Joyce wasn't there.
Only chance?
With same-day registration in place, Republicans took the whole thing last November and are actually implementing the things they campaigned on. Meanwhile, Democrats, still smarting from that drubbing, throw a mini tantrum every now and then, including insisting that registering a few days early is beyond the capability of ordinary Americans.
Ms. Ford, the column is, like your letter, an opinion and, like your letter and responses to it, need not contain evidence of any kind. You seem to think these missives are legal documents, not surprising from someone who doesn't understand that "innocent until proven guilty" is a burden placed on the justice system. We ordinary Americans are free to express our boneheaded opinions any time - for evidence, I offer this opinion page.
Didn't get the memos?
Sen. Reid says Social Security is fully funded and self-sustaining. Yeah, right.
Even if the debt limit is reached, the feds keep collecting taxes at the same rate. Everyone will get their bennies except perhaps bond holders, who might get stiffed for some interest. But who cares? They're all evil rich fat-cats, especially those huge mutual funds in which are invested most pensions, even for public employees.
If anyone doesn't get paid, it's entirely the decision of the panderer-in-chief.
You confirm my point.
Democrats won't take responsibility for their own actions without cover from the other side. They bleated this for 8 years of GWB and it continues: We must have bipartisanship!
Rimmie, I'm impressed. It's now a whole day at least during which you haven't resorted to your usual junior-high language. It must be that wonderful discretion you're always complimenting yourself for. It certainly isn't the SJ's policies.
Where the revenue is.
More interesting info, this time from that discredited, fanatic site Office of Management and Budget. Again, lag after the tax cuts, followed by increases in tax revenues to 2008, 20% higher than when Clinton left office. Once again, recession + Obama ...
Year...Receipts (millions)
2000 2,025,191
2001 1,991,082
2002 1,853,136
2003 1,782,314
2004 1,880,114
2005 2,153,611
2006 2,406,869
2007 2,567,985
2008 2,523,991
2009 2,104,989
2010 2,162,724
2011 2,173,700 (estimate)
Get your story straight.
While Obama is scaring old folks, Harry Reid says there's no problem because Social Security is "fully funded". Dingy Harry has dragged into the 21st century the biggest lie of the 20th.
Republicans have offered to allow the president to raise the limit on his own authority and/or to get rid of the limit altogether. Democrats won't allow that because it exposes their flank, removing all political cover the "debate" provides, allowing ordinary Americans (those who the administration thinks are too stupid to follow these subtle and nuanced discussions) to understand intuitively who is drowning them in red ink.
You're right, Al, there's plenty of blame to spread around, but you'll never see the first commenter acknowledge it.
Where the jobs are.
After the GWB tax cuts, there was an initial decline, then the number of jobs increased quickly. In 2004 the level was essentially the same as when Clinton left office. Increases continued into 2008, when the recession kicked in. In 2009 Obama kicked in. I can't wait for the 2011 numbers.
Bureau of Labor Statistics
Employees on nonfarm payrolls (thousands)
2000……131,785…Clinton
2001……131,826…Clinton/Bush
2002……130,341…Bush
2003……129,999…Bush
2004……131,435…Bush
2005……133,703…Bush
2006……136,086…Bush
2007……137,598…Bush
2008……136,790…Bush
2009……130,807…Bush/Obama
2010……129,818…Obama
Whoopsie.
I don't know which is worse: putting Israel on the list, or putting Israel on the list by mistake. Just another in a long and growing list of foreign policy and protocol gaffes by the O administration.
Here's a citation, but of course it comes from an organization with even less credibility than the Murdoch empire. It's odd that this story seems to be mentioned only by those fanatical right-wing pro-Israel sites. I guess the MSM, just full of credibility and pure as the driven snow, had better things to do over the past couple of weeks - like covering the Anthony trial like a cheap suit and scaring old folks.
U.S. says Israel’s inclusion on terrorist watch list was a mistake
By Ron Kampeas · July 6, 2011
WASHINGTON (JTA) -- Israel was included erroneously on a U.S. Department of Homeland Security terrorist watch list, a U.S. official said.
Tony, that particular writer
Tony, that particular writer can take of herself and is no one to be tangled with. My comment was directed at the usual shoot-the-messenger posts that magically appear within minutes after the arrival of a letter from someone on the right.
By the way, beware the Lion. Rosetta is lost.
Crap?
He's making progress with that "discretion" problem.
With similar therapy ...
... you can reduce your dependency on stupid phrases like "Faux News". Actually, I heard about the situation on FNC, part of that organization, long before HNN (Hyena News Network) reported it.
Confession is good for the soul.
I am glad that Riml finally admitted that he's addicted to those fringe sites. Perhaps with the appropriate therapy he can also admit that FNC makes the rest of the MSM look like what they are: left-wing sycophants.
Voting should be easily accessible to ...
... those who are eligible to vote. It should be 100% inaccessible to everyone else.
Equine excrement, to paraphrase Riml.
I knew what was going on and that I had to show my birth certificate. I called before going to ask how to prove the address of my principal residence. Current Maine license? Nope. Valid US passport? Nope. What would you like to see? Don't know - surprise us. I do blame Bush and Congress for this and other stuff that would make Franz Kafka's head explode. And I blame Baldy for reacting like a petulant child and making a bad situation worse.
Me?
I have never claimed to be a libertarian. On the other hand, you have claimed to be an authoritarian, when you admitted recently that your exalted position in the Kankakee Keystone Kops allowed you, under your interpretation, to play judge, jury and executioner. Did you get to wear jackboots and little S lightning bolts on your uniform? You authoritarian types really get excitedby this spirit of the law stuff.
Rub the magic lamp.
That's the only solution your side has for anything. You may not like my opinions, but at least I respond. You just shuck and jive, tell me I'm wrong, and you're going to take your toys and go home. Go already.
It's revealing to learn how you grew up. It explains much of your current rancid bitterness.
As the rest of the country is learning ...
... (I sincerely hope) the radical "liberals" have nothing to say to anyone.
You brought it up.
So much for belief in the Constitution
By Jonathan Albrecht, verified user — Tue, 07/12/2011 - 13:06
Its one man one vote or the theory that each citizen has an equal opportunity to influence governmental decisions.
If you don't want comments on your gibberish, keep your gibberish to yourself.
By the letters.
(A) And like Prohibition, it should be overwhelmingly repealed.
(B) One person's social tinkering is another's enlightenment.
(C) It may be simple, but it's also true.
I agree that the public schools should teach economics and civics. Both subjects were marginalized as irrelevant back in the 60s. Of course, bringing them back today would present a huge problem. Who would teach them? The crop we have has been soaked for a couple generations in liberal socialist koolaid. But the effort would be worthwhile if even one kid could learn to filter out and dismiss Albrecht nonsense.
Naughty naughty.
I just clicked the "inappropriate" button and sent: Here's another dose of Riml's soft-core profanity. If this is now approved language, please update the policy for your verified users. Thanks.
An odd thing happened to me ...
... the last time I went to renew my driver's license - I had to show my birth certificate. I had to prove I was a resident of Maine and eligible to have that license. It wasn't enough to show my current license - I may have moved out of state. Of course, since I was born in another state, I had the foresight to bring along a few recent utility bills. At the time, the explanation I got was that Maine was having a wicked problem with ineligible folks getting licenses.
Of course there was a problem. Governor Chrome-Dome caused it with his silly "sanctuary state" policies, including handing out driver's licenses to illegal "immigrants" like party favors. After he got slapped hard, the word went out to the DMV to retaliate by making legal renewals as hard as possible.
I didn't get angry. I got even.
The country got along pretty
The country got along pretty well for more than a century without an income tax. Ever since the progressives rammed it down our throats a century ago, it's been just a tool for social tinkering, wasting the country's wealth.
As I said, when a business starts losing customers because their prices are too high, it reduces prices. To make up the difference, it reduces production and/or gets rid of employees, who stop paying income tax and start receiving welfare. Increasing taxes on business results in lowering taxes collected by government. You must have been asleep in economics class when that lesson was presented.
Nor can you find the
Nor can you find the slightest justification for the liberal doctrine: The government must do everything for everybody. You may now bleat about the "general welfare" clause.
One-man one vote is a SCOTUS decision based on as it should the Constitution. That's hard to parse. Are you bragging or complaining? You started this by asserting the decision was OK because it's supported by the Constitution. Would you mind citing a clause?
A national referendum is where eligible voters nationwide vote a question up or down. That is, individuals affect the decision, performing an end-run around the "republic" structure in the interest of "democracy". This is the perversion we enjoy here in Maine, when the party out of power throws a tantrum.
Wow is right.
Businesses treat income tax as another cost of doing business - they factor it into the prices they charge for goods or services. Oh, they file returns and send checks (except for GE, of course, which has more loopholes than oil/gas ever dreamed of), but their customers really pay the tab, all the way down the line until it reaches you and me in the form of higher prices for everything we consume. If customers refuse to buy, businesses contract, first by shedding employees who won't be needed in a smaller operation.
Obama has offered nothing except standard scare tactics. He's using this kabuki theater to try to get reelected so he can spend four years working on his gold game. There's the fraud.
I agree that it's too bad no one is talking about changing the income tax rate to what it should be - zero.
Meaningless?
In the current debt ceiling debate (and I use the term loosely), all that Obama has offered is higher taxes, details unspecified. If he wins (meaning the country loses), more businesses will contract or move off shore, pushing unemployment up more, reducing federal tax receipts - because all federal taxes are paid ultimately by individuals.
What's really meaningless is to pout and moan that the American worker has lost his way, and if he just returns to the liberal, union fold, all will be restored to righteousness and glory. The American worker is much too smart to swallow that fairy-tale again.
If Obama and his useful
If Obama and his useful idiots, from DC to Dixfield, have their way, we won't have the opportunity to commit suicide, because they are busy committing homicide.
If you had ever read that
If you had ever read that document, you would know that we have a republic, not a democracy. We influence decisions of the federal government by voting for president and congress-critters. Your theory of national referenda is absurd and cannot be found anywhere in the Constitution. Liberals trot this out whenever the votes don't go their way. Other times, to them the document is irrelevant.
As an individual, you have the right to believe your one-dollar-one-vote corollary - that right is actually in the Constitution. You can also believe the sun revolves around the earth which is as flat as a pancake - and it wouldn't surprise me a bit to learn that you do.
If the Founding Fathers are
If the Founding Fathers are spinning in their graves, it's because of today's increasing desire to dispense justice by majority rule. If "the vast majority of Americans" believe, say, Casey Anthony is guilty and should ride the lightning, well plug in Old Sparkie and throw out the unanimous verdict.
With regard to Wal-Mart, the suit alleged that each and every one of 1.5 million female employees was a victim of sex discrimination. It was stupid from beginning to end and SCOTUS was very right to tell them to get lost.
The Arizona law was equally stupid in that, if one candidate received public funds, every other candidate would as well. It that's "fair", then don't give anybody anything and save some tax money. If a candidate can't raise money privately, that's a pretty good indication that his policies don't meet the views of "the vast majority". Aside from that, what would happen if one of those other candidates was from, say, the American Nazi Party?
There are plenty of issues that really make the Founders spin. These are not among them.
What's really sad ...
... is an old duffer who can't pay attention. I'm Mike, not the Pirate. Aaaaarggh.
Oh, Pattie, here's another one who can't control his language when he gets frustrated.
You might check with the
You might check with the other half of the state, or more, that is perfectly happy with the progress so far, expecting much more soon. From what we've seen of your half over the past 40 years, stay .. um .. hacked off - it makes it easier for normal people to recognize you.
Oh, Pattie, have the language rules been modified?
Kings, dictators and socialists.
Obama has applied for membership in all three clubs. No big surprise his favorability goes up among his playmates.
Has he corrected his slice?
As a southpaw, BHO used to have a wicked slice to the left. He has been dreaming about drawing right, but will settle for straight down the middle.
Fore! Obama Has Already Played Twice As Much Golf As Bush in Just 2 Years
And, he still has horrible form.
Her context.
Ms. Reese used the phrase in the context of her letter, Bob, where you suggest it is vague and inaccurate. Other folks use it in the context of, say, global warming as absolute proof of their pet theory. Whatever the context, scientific fact is not decided by majority rule. The phrase is vague in every context.
I agree that "many
I agree that "many scientists" is a little vague. In at least one other context, it's known as a "consensus".
Not quite all taxes.
Yes, public employees pay into their retirement system, and some of their income tax goes to subsidize that system. That's twice.
The rest of us, some of our income tax subsidizes that same system. That's once, with no benefit to us. We pay Social Security and Medicare. That's twice, with no subsidy from public employees.
Finally, observing one more time that Social Security is NOT a retirement system like MSRS, we get to fund our own private systems. That's three times, again with no help from the other side.
What I can't stand is folks like Mr. Smith, who continually whine about this lopsided system that's already rigged on their favor.
Veritas & Tron
Happy 4th of July!
Take the weekend off, boys. Go to a cookout and/or a parade. Who knows, maybe they're right and it will turn you into Republicans. Although, with friends like you, Republicans don't need any enemies.
Ronnie: I'll accept your assessment, as it comes from an expert blowhard.
Dannie: I'm not assuming anything, I just stated my opinion. Since you're making the claim, prove it. Otherwise, you're just another graduate of the Riml School of Blowharding.
No one wants to deny anyone's
No one wants to deny anyone's right to vote. I want to deny the ability to vote to those who are ineligible. They don't have the right, so it can't be denied.
There evidently are those who want to encourage the ineligible to vote. Your agenda is obvious.
Lilly, even you ...
... can answer a stupid question like that. I'll help you. With the unions' ever increasing demands, the companies had a choice: increase prices so much that no one would buy; or scale back on size, quality, ... They chose to scale back to try to stay in business. It didn't matter what they chose, the result would have been the same: hand dominance to non-union Japan. They could have retooled to make the same stuff Japan was making, but they would have lost the competition because Japan could always under-cut the prices.
The story is always the same with rabid unionism. The union bosses make out like the bandits they are, the companies get marginalized, and the former union members wind up on the dole.
Male bovine excrement ...
... is reaching record levels. Detroit was destroyed by Republicans?! That's a remarkable stretch even for Albrecht. It's obvious Jon doesn't get out of Dixfield very often.
Detroit was descending into the toilet by the mid-70s at the latest, directed by unions, Democrats (but I repeat myself) and hack politicians who couldn't get an entry-level janitorial job in the private sector. Detroit is where the unions drew a line in the sand - if they couldn't get their demands, they would happily destroy the companies and throw all their members under the bus. The bus was made in Japan. Detroit served as a model for the doom of manufacturing across the country.
BHO "saved" the auto industry by printing a mountain of money and screwing bond holders and non-union employees. Nothing was fixed, nothing was changed. The industry will need another transfusion soon, as long as the unions have their poisonous talons sunk this deep.
No Albrecht post would be complete with at least one ad-hominem attack, and he doesn't disappoint.
More whining from the insomniac.
It is obviously very upsetting to the wagon-riding cadre that their cherished policies of redistribution may, for a change, give the wagon pullers a break.
The Midnight Whiner strikes again!
Follow the "logic". Tighter registration rules favor Republicans. So, loose registration rules favor Democrats, or at least don't hurt them. Rewind to last November, when the loose rules were almost set in concrete, and ... Democrats lost big time. It must be because the rules aren't loose enough. It can't possibly be because enough registered Maine voters finally came to their senses.
Don't hold your breath.
An apology from an elected official? Even a former one? Well, there's a first time for everything.
That sort of post perhaps explains the word "former", if anyone needed further explanation.
Just curious.
Where did Mr. Reed whine about "why should we take them in"? All I see below is someone joining me in pointing out Breton's standard tactic: anyone who disagrees with Dan must be a racist. If you refer to some other thread, you should mention that.
We all know the history of the Somali immigrants in the L/A area. You don't need to restate it because it is, and should be, irrelevant to the original poster's letter. Since you insist on setting it forth again, you have made the same mistake Mr. Cooley did. The YoUMA program should benefit all kids, regardless of race, color or national origin. If it doesn't, then it is racist and should be terminated.
The ugliest racism anywhere in the country is the kind that suggests that some group can't possibly succeed without lots of government and tax-payer assistance. It's the kind promoted by the race "industrialists" like Jackson and Sharpton. And, unfortunately, it's the kind that has been imported to central Maine.
Complain to Steve Jobs.
Complain to Steve Jobs.
I don't.
NO ONE who reads Breton's stuff takes it seriously. You shouldn't either.
It sounds like an excellent program.
You say it was "so rewarding for the Lewiston students", leaving us to assume that ALL the students benefited. By mentioning one sub-group, you imply they have some special impediments to success, requiring staff help. Are the Somalis dumber than other students in Lewiston? Are they less ambitious? More willing to ride the wagon? Everything I have read suggests the answer is NO to all those questions.
Your letter would have made a much better summary had you stressed the program's benefits for kids, regardless of race or color.
PS: You can always depend on Breton to inject racism when he thinks it's missing. The only undesirables I know are those who post dopey comments at midnight.
The iPad is for kiddies what
The iPad is for kiddies what the McDonald dick-and-jane cash register is to teenagers. It's a crutch and a substitute for learning - and especially a substitute for teaching. The kid who goes through 12 grades of this sort of "help" will, if he's lucky, wind up working for the kid who can add with charcoal and a slate board.
Great suggestion!
In other words, when Hell becomes a skating rink.
Backwards, as usual.
90% or more of a LEO's job is to react by catching an alleged perp after a crime has been committed. 10% or less of his job is to "protect" anyone before the commission of a crime. It's the responsibility of the judicial system to spell out in detail exactly how public resources are to be used to protect us from convicted felons. If LEOs are "proactive", they open a big can of worms of harassment and violation of rights of the poor repeat offender - dumping it right back in the lap of the judicial system.
The cops did their job - the judge stepped on his robe and fell on his face.
I hope your tongue ...
... isn't stuck permanently in your cheek, Joe. That condition is not covered under Maine's baroque insurance rules.
Moderates, aiding leftists, have brought Maine to near bankruptcy. The last election was the people telling their state government, in no uncertain terms, to start repairing the damage - and telling Democrats that they didn't learn anything in nearly 40 years of power.
On the national stage, our president certainly isn't learning anything, except how to print money and insult allies.
You're losing focus again.
I was talking about governors of Maine. Another typical i-hate-republicans spew from Veritas, with not one syllable in support of the prolific job creation skills of his beloved Democrats. You're right, Ronnie - it does go on and on - ad nauseam.
Most governors over the past
Most governors over the past 35 years knew only how to create more government jobs. When any governor showed a sign of enlightenment, the legislature quickly killed it. The secret, that is right out in the open for all to see, is that government cannot create jobs in the private sector. But it sure can destroy them.
NCSL is the only game in town ...
... so it must be true? If that works for you, I have a really nice bridge for sale in Brooklyn. Make me an offer - cash only. So your way is the only valid comparison? That makes it real easy on you, not so much for the rest of us.
I got those two actual quotes from anthem.com after plugging in all they asked for. Both listed a bunch of details about what's covered and what's not - they were substantially the same, except for items I mentioned earlier. If that's not good enough for you, nothing will do.
What happened when MEGA started selling their policies? A lot of self-employed people started being able to afford some coverage - non-comprehensive, high deductible policies that "cover" everything and pay for nothing, unless you go over that first high step. It's the insurance I have and pay for - without MEGA I would have nothing and would be risking everything on the next hospital visit. What do you have, Terry, and who pays for it?
What happened with Dirigo? The promise was it would cover, long before now, 400,000 Mainers. Years later, and millions of $$ down the toilet, it covers about 4000 people and enrollment is closed - and has been for about 3 years.
Market forces worked very well until Democrats succumbed to their delusion that they could do everything for everybody - and failed miserably.
We have had regulators.
Since you believe the regulators kept insurance companies honest, how do you explain all the rate increases over the past 20 years? Somebody else was dishonest. Every year, the Democrat-appointed regulators caved. We could have saved a bunch of money by eliminating the regulators and just putting the process on autopilot, like the gas tax hikes.
The only chance the country has, let alone Maine, is if the Affordable Care Act is repealed and consigned to the dustbin of history, alongside HillaryCare.
Very nice compilation,
Very nice compilation, notable for what it leaves out and assumes.
(1) All those stats are for employees in the private sector. There's no mention of individuals, self-employed, un-employed, and public-sector employees, all of whom have a higher percentage presence in Maine than in the other NE states.
(2) It assumes that "coverage" means the same from state to state, when the reality is it varies widely.
I just looked on Anthem's web-site for an individual policy for a couple, age 63, no dependents, $1000 deductible, 20% coinsurance. In NH it's $1600 per month; in ME it's $2200, 37% higher. There's no shame at all in our newly elected officials trying to bring our costs and coverage into line with our neighbors.
There are three kinds of lies: lies, damned lies, and statistics.
- Mark Twain and/or Benjamin Disraeli
The situation ...
... you describe, Ms. Osborne, was created by Democrats in the early 90s with their "mandates" that crippled free-market health insurance. They then doubled-down on failure with Baldacci's massively expensive Dirigo Health. LePage and Republicans are just undoing the damage while, at the same time, Obama is replicating all this expensive failure at a national level.
Similarly, over about the same time span, Democrat "strategizing" has produced high taxes, tangled regulations and a bloated and ever-growing state government. No wonder the electorate finally got fed up.
Maine is now open for business, even though some dopes stole the sign. Whether it's there or not, it's better than the previous sign: Maine: the way life should be - and would, if Democrats would stop meddling with it.
Heavy emphasis on the word
Heavy emphasis on the word "theoretical".
Oh wow, man.
Communism has nothing to do with commune, except etymology. Communes failed because the majority of members wanted to do nothing except enjoy the fruits of the minority's labor. Maine is a commune that has realized its mistake and is just beginning to dismantle itself.
Similarly, communism has nothing to do with community, which more appropriately describes our country's view at its beginning - many people pulling together voluntarily for common goals. There's nothing voluntary about communism.
The correct way to stop being
The correct way to stop being poor is to get a job and earn some money. The best way to accomplish that is to register (I know: Dang, that's hard.), start paying attention to local and state politics, and vote for those people who advocate getting out of the way and letting the private sector work, and against those who want to keep you chained on the welfare plantation. You'll be a card-carrying Republican in no time.
Registering to vote ...
... should be much more difficult than it is - at least as hard as getting a drivers license. Voting is much more dangerous than driving. You should have to study and pass a test. If you are enfranchised without any effort on your part, the privilege means nothing to you, except you will tend to vote for those who promise you the most free goodies.
The elderly, as a group, are far more civically engaged than any other group - just look at all the geezers who participate in this forum. The young - if you're an example - have more than enough energy to drag themselves to a registration place. If you choose not to, why should the rest of us make it easier for you to participate in a process in which you already show minimal interest. The poor? In town hall where I live, there's a big sign: While you're here, register to vote! Perhaps they could register when they come in to sign up for the free goodies.
Stop gloating, boys.
Mr. Jones made the common mistake of equating 'debt' and 'deficit'. Obama has tripled the deficit, meaning the debt is getting higher three times faster than under GWB. That's the Democrat way. Always has been, always will be.
RWR increased the debt by about $2T in eight years; BHO did that in only two. What a guy! At least Mr. Jones can spell.
Oops! Hit the wrong button.
I meant to observe that Riml still has a free pass on language from the LSJ staff. They must feel pity for someone who is inarticulate without using junior high boys' room vocabulary.
Minorities and the young vote for Democrats because Democrats promise them an never-ending stream of free stuff. No job, no future, but lots of pretty trinkets. But the bloom is off the rose. Election day 2010 proved that. Election day 2012 will complete the process.
Evidently Riml still has ...
Its not surprising that minorities and young people predominantly vote for Democrats.
Israel is surrounded by
Israel is surrounded by countries and peoples who have sworn to wipe them out and are trying daily. During this wonderful, peaceful Arab Spring, Israel has taken more incoming missiles than in the previous three years. And they go overboard?! I admire their restraint, a quality which is in extremely short supply everywhere else in the Middle East.
Half full, half empty.
Is there a union member out there reading this who has thought: You know, with my education and experience, I'm worth more than what I get now. To accept letters like this one, you have to accept the premise that the union negotiated package is the best you could ever hope for. The unions want you to believe that and, evidently, they are very successful at pushing that fairytale.
If there were no unions, employees would have to stand up for themselves and become real members of the meritocracy. I'll wager most of the union pushers here would be astonished at what employees can accomplish when they're not dragged down by the one-size-fits-all union mentality.
The privilege of voting ...
... should be at least as difficult to exercise as the privilege of driving. To get a voting license you should have to study, take instruction, and pass a test. If you can vote just because you managed the incredible feat of living 18 years, you won't attach any importance to it, won't feel any civic duty to understand what you're voting on, and will do what you're told by anyone with an attractive pandering delivery. That pretty much describes today's youth electorate.
When you put lipstick on a pig, ...
... you still have a pig. Of course the waivers aren't permanent, Lil, but the sheer number of them indicate how eagerly states and unions want to stay out of the ObamaCare sty as long as they can, because they have "cadillac" health insurance paid for by OPM*. This porker will provide affordable, comprehensive health insurance when pigs fly.
* OPM = Other Peoples' Money
Thanks, Shane, ...
... for an excellent letter, and an even better response. Ignore Breton. His hang-up du-jour is the "wacko right". You're guilty until you prove yourself innocent, which you have done admirably.
I don't believe that charter schools are the answer. Nor do I believe that throwing ever higher budgets at non-charter schools will solve anything - except union demands. What has a slight chance of providing change we can believe in is a venue for talking about changes to the status quo without drawing an automatic slam from the "wacko left". Have you attended a school board meeting recently and tried to even discuss an issue, let alone criticize the status quo? If you did, I hope you wore your kevlar leisure suit.
Cute.
I casual reading of that reveals that you don't acknowledge ownership of your posts. That's refreshingly honest. I admit that you have a better than average facility with Google - you quickly find others' work to support positions that you want the rest of us to believe you support. The fact/truth is, you aren't a liberal - you aren't even a Democrat. You just hate anyone on the right side of the spectrum, for reasons that you can't or won't reveal, and find and then spew forth your long-winded plagiarisms. I won't waste my time refuting their opinions. If you ever post one of your own, I will happily display it as the only sideshow in the carny with no audience.
Shoved down whose throats?
You must mean Democrats, who have completely mangled health insurance in Maine over the past twenty years, and were desperate to maintain the status quo so the general public wouldn't learn how criminally negligent they have been. If they can't swallow LD 1333, let them choke on it. I'm sure their health insurance, that we pay for, will cover appropriate treatment.
As Indiana Jones once observed ...
Archeology is about fact. If you want truth, Prof. Hoohah's philosophy course meets just down the hall.
You're so hung up on fact, you can't see truth. Wander down the hall after Pattie raps your knuckles.
Thanks, Ronnie, ...
... for another great copy-and-paste job. Do you have any opinions of your own?
There is no country "Palestine" and
there never has been. In the past 3 months (aka the Arab Spring), Israel has received more incoming missiles than in the previous three years. They have defended themselves and, for that, they are vilified.
The people who call themselves Palestinians are being used by other Muslims in the Middle East who can't deal with the fact that they keep attacking Israel, with overwhelming force, and losing - big time. What they can't achieve on the battlefield, they are achieving politically by portraying Israel as the Zionist aggressor. They should all stop the hypocrisy and slip on their swastika armbands.
According to ...
CAIR in 2010, there were more than 7 million Muslims in the US. So they have the clout advantage in numbers and votes. If they don't exercise that clout, it's not the Jews' fault or Israel's - it's theirs.
Now, the next step is to descend into liberal anti-semitic conspiracy theories about nefarious secret organizations that pull the world's strings. Pull on your hip-boots before walking into that swamp.
Land grab? Right.
Those countries could easily absorb the "Palestinians", but they don't want them. They would rather use them as a pawn to further their real aim - to kill Jews.
John Clement, the current president is making Jimmy Carter look like a foreign policy wizard.
Translation:
Paragraph 1: Republicans everywhere have lost their way; Democrats are right on track.
2: Democrats have been in control here for the previous 35+ years. They are the ones who have been doing the exempting. Do you put the blame where it belongs? No. As close as you can get is "those people".
3: One person grabbed the power to install the mural as a celebration of unionism. Up it went. But he was a Dem, so it's OK.
4: The total failure of the Dem's health insurance mandates to achieve any of their objectives is just fine. Any change to that lunacy is an insult and flawed.
5: Put Dems back in power. After all, they are entitled.
Tabloid?
The OP mentioned the city's website and the LSJ. Which one are you calling a tabloid? As for the laughingstock crack, the city does a great job on its own making itself into one.
Wow, almost 5 months.
And the Democrats controlled the legislature for the previous 35 years. There hasn't been time to undo all that negligence.
Thanks for pointing out the obvious - the middle class picks up the tab. Under single-payer, whatever alias it uses, where do you think the government gets the money to do all that paying? Taxes. So you trade higher premiums for higher taxes, with no systemic changes, except you put bureaucrats in charge. Yup, that's always worked out so well.
Who gave them that monopoly?
The Maine legislature controlled by Democrats.
The decades of experience ...
... in Maine is with a free market shackled by government mandates and other clueless meddling, which killed competition and pushed premiums up beyond the reach of everyone except the very rich, who don't need health insurance, and the very poor, who get it free.
Maine: we used to have the way life should be, until Democrats began to dismantle it.
It appears that ...
... in a catastrophe, all you'll get from government is doggerel.
There is exactly one concern ...
... that impacts existing public schools. It is: We must have more money this year than last year. Anything that threatens that cash flow becomes an attack on education itself, first; on teachers and their unions, second; and, third, on the heart strings. After all, it's "for the children", doncha know? It doesn't matter if inflation is zero or if the student population decreases. This issue of charter schools is a huge red herring. Anything that threatens the status quo is evil and must be destroyed.
No.
He's never heard of the concept. To acknowledge that law would blow out of the water all his silly liberal ideas that have but one aim - to keep us dependent. Ernest, you're wasting your breath.
The thieves' den is
the White House. Oil is traded in US dollars - for now - if that changes, we'll be calling today the good old days. The dollar is being devalued because of inflation. Inflation is happening because we're printing new money, not backed by anything, at light speed to pay for profligate spending. On top of that, of every dollar we spend, 42 cents is borrowed, increasing the interest on the national debt, well on its way to becoming the biggest slice of the federal budget. Bloodsucking is popular everywhere.
Only 60 miles
from Kankakee. That explains a lot.
I won't BS anyone.
That's your job. In 2010, GE paid $1B in income tax on $30B gross profit, for a rate of 3%. But that's OK because GE's CEO practically lives at the White House to advise BHO on money-sucking "green" job schemes.
XOM uses tax loopholes. Big surprise. Who created those loopholes? Congress. Who was in charge of Congress for most of the past 40 years? Democrats. Which one guided the creation of most of the loopholes. Dan Rostenkowski, chairman of the House Ways & Means committee, until he was forced out because of federal indictments leading to prison time. Where was he from? Chicago, where lead all US roads of corruption.
Another oddity in our lunatic tax code, courtesy of the above. The US is perhaps the only major country in the world that taxes the income of its citizens and businesses earned outside the country. When XOM earns $1B in Wazooistan, it pays Wazooistani and US income taxes. I don't blame them at all for using all legal, Democrat-created loopholes available.
In 2010 ExxonMobil paid
In 2010 ExxonMobil paid $21.5B, with a "B", on a profit of $53.2B, for a tax rate of 40%.
XOM Income Statement
The really most crooked are those who keep touting the zero tax legend. If you have to yell at someone, try GE.
Still hung up on ...
... on Faux. You gotta go with what you know. Indeed, I could watch all those wholly owned subsidiaries of the DNC's ministry of truth, just about everything except FNC. I could watch, but I'll never see the truth.
By the way.
Use of the word "whilst" in public is prima facie evidence of extreme elitism, one manifestation of which is the delusion that one's opinion is the same as truth.
Thanks for your opinions.
The subject at hand is: Why should I or anyone else be forced to subsidize your opinions through our taxes? If you like the programming so much, please consider increasing your pledged amount to sycophant level. In return, you'll receive a nice pair of blue tinted sunglasses.
Cute.
It is a well known fact, the truth has a liberal bias.
What's well known, Lilly, is the problem with categorical statements: If you can find just one counter example, the statement is crapola. For example: There are 60 seconds in a minute. That statement is true, no bias one way or the other. Here's the fact:
If a statement has liberal bias, it has a kernel of truth that has been mangled beyond recognition in support of liberal ideology.
Only Mass?
Jason, do you have a reference to support your claim that Maine youth and jobs go only to Mass? Of course not. They go all over the country, various places, for various reasons. Mass. has been a high-tech magnet for decades, since the '60s at least, in spite of their Maine-like tinkering with business and social issues, and the attendant high cost of living.
I never said that capitalism is the solution to all problems. I do believe that, without compelling evidence to the contrary, a free-market solution is always better than a government solution. Evidence abounds that Maine's experiment in socialized medicine is an expensive failure. Changes are in order, even if we can't be 100% certain of the outcome, because we can be absolutely certain of the status quo. Dirigo Health is the best example. It was created with the promise that, well before now, around 400,000 Mainers would be covered. Today the figure is about 4,000, off by only a factor of 100. So much for government certainty.
All sides?
A typical panel discussion on MPBN consists of a few liberals and one token moderate, all saying about the same thing. It's dialogue, I suppose, but hardly provocative when you hear only views with which you already agree. Education is teaching how to think, not what to think.
You have the right to shoot your mouth off; you have the freedom to seek out other sides, some or all. It is a false premise to suggest that only MPBN allows you to understand the difference.
Ms. Gamache says she
Ms. Gamache says she appreciates an exchange of ideas. That's refreshing, because it has been disallowed for nearly twenty years. Whenever a Maine politician had the temerity to suggest a tweak to the status quo, the Democrat machinery rumbled into action to squelch the exchange. As things may be opening up a bit, here goes.
My wife and I are 63 and we'll cheerfully sign a waiver to the effect that, if she gets pregnant, we'll take care of the situation without recourse to insurance or government handout. Why can't we buy a policy that does NOT provide maternity benefits and, presumably, a significantly lower premium? It's not the insurance companies who say I can't do that; it's the ideology that just lost its stranglehold on Augusta.
If it's biased to imply that government is the root of all that is wrong in the world, it's equally biased to imply that government is the provider of all that is right. Ask folks in Greece.
The real racketeers are in DC
The real racketeers are in DC and, until recently, Augusta. You elected them.
Do you suppose ...
... one of the big reasons Maine has a small and shrinking youth population, who work for minimum wage because they barely got out of high school, is the lousy insurance environment, just one aspect of the lousy business environment? With government in charge, as it has been, premiums have gone through the roof, competition is illegal, policies are one-size-fits-all, and the only people who are insured are those who are subsidized by employers or government or both. Those are the promises we know about and, boy, are they well kept.
That point sure is hard to see.
Suppose a senior couple (too young for Medicare) today pays about $3,000 per month. If you think that's a ludicrous figure, go to the Anthem website and find out for yourself, using 63 as an age. The current rules mean that the minimum premium for age 23, for the same policy, is $2,000! 2000*1.5 = 3000. Go back to the web site, pretend you are 23 and living in NH to discover what the premium could be.
The only "affordable" policies now are the high deductible ones. Your fear of what might happen is already here, the direct result of the mandates promulgated by Augusta in the early '90s.
Lefties always blame the evil companies because, if the blame landed where it really belongs, Democrats would be out of power for generations.
You missed the point ...
... of changing the ratio from 1:1.5 to 1:5. It is to "allow" insurance companies to reduce dramatically premiums for the young, to get more people participating in the pool. Currently a 24 year old in Maine pays much more than a 24 year old in NH for the same policy because it is illegal in ME to lower the premium. That is, youth in ME don't bother with insurance unless they get it "free" from an employer.
Democrats encourage looking at issues backwards. It's the only way they can spin a legacy out of 35 years of failure.
It's a fact
that it's not your words - too many syllables and strung together too well. Follow your own advice, swabbie. Of course, if you actually think before posting, we'll never hear from you again.
No pensions here. Everything I have came from my own work and investing - not one dime extorted from employers or taxpayers - no inheritance or trust fund, either. I know you don't believe me, this concept being totally foreign to you. But we Republicans embrace and encourage taking personal responsibility. Enjoying the wagon ride?
Plagiarism:
the practice of taking someone else's work or ideas and passing them off as one's own.
It has nothing to do with facts or lies; it has to do with indiscriminate copying and pasting. Arrest yourself. There's none so loud and whiny as a former cop in an orange jumpsuit.
I call it boring.
But not as boring as reading plagiarized comments.
Whatever the speed, there wasn't enough time to understand the contents or what it would cost, the same whining now coming from Maine Dems over a bill of much smaller scale. They had nearly 20 years to collect real data on the idiocy they foisted on us - they know full well what's in it and how much it has cost. They just don't want the voting public to know.
Where was the righteous indignation
when Obamacare was passed at the speed of light, no debate, no amendments, along strict party lines. You can't have it both ways. And, no, this is not a Democracy.
It is a little like football. Democrats have had the ball for 4 downs (35 years) and failed to advance, even lost yardage. So the ball went to the other side with good field position, and the Dems are predictably whining about the rules, rather than their own lack of leadership. 1st and 10!
Once again ...
... not one word detailing any lie - excuse me - inaccuracy, kernel of truth, assumption or conclusion. Quoting now - Don't you just hate that? - ... your statements as either extreme biased opinions, or provable falsities ... Where precisely did you mention all that other stuff? Nowhere. That's your tactic, Tronnie - say one thing, back-pedal and claim to have said something else. It's not very original - it's used by BHO and everyone in his administration.
I'm done with you. Would that that were true.
It has come to my attention that ...
... Mr. Breton thinks my post above is full of lies, although he can't be bothered to point out even one. Instead he would rather talk about FNC and Latin. I'll try to help the handicapped.
Were the mandates passed in the early '90s? Yes. Who controlled both houses of the legislature? Democrats. Pick just one mandate: Anyone can get insurance at any time, without regard to condition, current or previous. This led to the standard practice: Don't get insurance until you get sick or hurt. In order to pay for such idiocy, the few remaining insurance companies had to hike premiums way up on all of us.
Is Dirigo Health the biggest money sucker the state has ever known? Yes. (Except perhaps the gas tax.)
Is John Elias Baldacci working at the Pentagon? Pentagon announces Baldacci’s new job
Caveat commentor.
I've noticed ...
... , and so has everyone else, that all your posts are ad hominem. This is your second comment in this thread and you have not yet contributed an objective syllable on the subject. Save your strength, old fella. I'll do it ...
Oh, Pattie. Tron would like you to punish Frostproof for another vicious, unprovoked attack. Thank you for your attention.
Maine's health insurance mess ...
... was created by Democrats when they enacted those well-known mandates in the early '90s. They immediately killed competition and started pushing premiums into the stratosphere, leading to the black hole of liberalism known as Dirigo Health.
Based on his record of monumental failure, former governor 38 got a sweet job in DC to begin screwing up health insurance for our military. Look on the bright side - at least he's out of Maine.
Everyone supports education.
There is a growing lack of support for those whose communication remains constant, year in and year out: Just throw more money at teachers in salary and benefits, and good education will follow.
It's curious that your letter doesn't mention two items. (1) That message has never been true yet. (2) The major player shouting that message the loudest is education unions.
But we're supposed to overlook those items and heap all the blame onto Augusta and DC and ... well, anyone who demands some results for all that money and all those promises.
By the way, in the interest of full disclosure, there is a Susan Callahan on the RSU #16 school board.
I agree completely.
Back in 2008, if more people understood that the originator of the "hope and change" message was a dilettante communist whose purpose was fundamental transformation toward some unspecified target, we could have avoided lots of impact.
When I moved back to Maine in
When I moved back to Maine in the summer of 1985, during that winter and the next several, we had many nights where the temp dipped to -20 or lower. I haven't seen that for 10 years and much prefer it this way over "the way they were."
Marsha, have you considered taking your two degrees and moving to where the jobs are? If you're waiting for the jobs to find you in Richmond, you're not going to "save the environment", you're going to be part of the environment.
Have you ever negotiated with
Have you ever negotiated with a doctor or a clinic or a hospital over the cost of some medical "event"? No, why should you, since you have someone else paying for your health insurance, which will remain "primary" until you take a dirt nap. Believe me - or don't, I couldn't care less - they'll take a cash offer now always over long term payments.
Yes, there are a lot of thugs in the health insurance racket. Most of them are in DC and Augusta and all of them have a "D" after their names, not a "Dr." in front.
I focused on the one result
I focused on the one result that is obviously true, no motivations required. As for the treasure trove, even if it's more than OBL's home movies, we'll likely never know. Meanwhile, the story changes by the hour.
Obama made a strategic decision ...
... under a policy that had been in place for nearly ten years. For that, he deserves some credit, far less than is being heaped on him. Killing OBL is a symbolic victory with one practical result: Every jihadist in the world is sharpening his scimitar and waiting for orders from the new leader.
While you're enjoying your extra sleep, you had better keep one eye open.
Except for your first point, ...
I agree. Social Security is not a retirement "plan", nor is it paid for by the participants. SS was created to be "insurance" against abject poverty for those folks who get to old age with nothing else. SS is paid for by current "contributions". The money extorted from you and me during past years was immediately spent on SS benefits and other things. There is no lockbox.
Similarly, Medicare was back-up "health insurance" for those same folks.
Over the decades since, more and more people every year believe that all they will need are these two programs, so they don't bother to do anything for themselves. Politicians, especially those on the left, have encouraged this fairytale, wisely equating more government dependency with more Democrat votes.
As these programs approach bankruptcy, their ugly undersides are becoming visible.
You have peas ...
... I have brussels sprouts.
No where in this thread did I agree with anything the OP said in his letter. I addressed only the irrelevant comments made by the usual boneheads.
No thanks necessary, Jon.
I actually agreed with your original post, until you descended into (1) blame Bush and (2) Republicans are all those nasty names. You are very competent, no confirmation needed, in drowning commentary in partisan nonsense.
If not cruel ...
... two cases right here prove that self-revelation leads to juvenile behavior.
I was speaking for myself.
I haven't called anyone a racist. Albrecht is revealed, as are you, since you're backing him up. Who has the white robe concession in the L/A area?
In any crowd, you can always spot ...
... the real racist. He's the one who first calls someone else a racist. For 'racist' substitute 'nativist' or 'Islamophobic Christian extremist'.
He has plenty of vices, Gary.
Be patient. He'll display them soon enough.
I was trying to point out ...
... that private sector workers pay quite a bit more than public sector workers for retirement. I did not say that I want to do without state services - I would like to even up taxes paid for retirement.
Since you know so much about Wall St. and Bernie, I'll let you deal with them. If I had been allowed to deposit my SS extortion into a simple savings account, today I would be a multi-millionaire and could afford to retire to my compound in the Northwest Territories.
The correct statement is:
Workers who pay state income and property taxes would pay for the rest of state workers’ retirement.
Where do you suppose the state and municipalities get money to do anything? Not a penny of Social Security contributions goes to MSRS. That group of tax payers does indeed include workers in the public sector. But those of us in the private sector get to pay the taxes AND Social Security - and then, if anything's left, put something into a real retirement system. What a deal.
Mr. Plourde, the money you contributed to SS years ago was spent years ago. The money paid today in SS benefits comes from taxes paid today.
You lament "Given the choice ..." Did someone put a gun to your head and force you to become a state employee? No, you knew the deal going in. I wish I had had the choice, starting 40+ years ago, to deposit my SS taxes into a real investment. Instead, the gun at my head forced me to throw all that money down the federal toilet.
There already is a recall mechanism.
It's known as an election. If you're talking about more than that, be careful what you wish for. You might just get it and have it used against you next time.
Thank you, Cindy, ...
... for accomplishing what no one else could do. You displaced from the front-page the "news" about the GREAT, BIG, COSMICALLY IMPORTANT MURAL CONTROVERSY.
Bless you. I know you'll do well, probably much better than at UM, in your next coaching position.
If the minimum wage is increased, ...
... Ms. Burns, those workers will spend their raise on the increased prices that they will have to pay for goods and services. Any increase in MW percolates throughout the state economy in a matter of days, after which those workers are right back where they started.
Instead we should tell those workers to get some training and/or education to qualify for a real job whose worth is genuine, not defined by some artificial minimum. If you or they say that that stuff isn't available, they you're blind and deaf and qualify for disability.
If you say those good jobs aren't available, you're probably right. So move to where they are available. If you sit around here waiting for the state government to improve your quality of life, you have only yourself to blame when it doesn't happen.
What a great letter!
Thanks you, Lenny.
I agree.
It should be the "Department of Pandering to Unions".
Another cogent remark ...
... from the expert on BS.
The average Republican ...
... earns, yes, wages or salary - he does not get more than a small fraction of income from "unearned" sources (probably no more than the average Democrat) which were, of course, earned earlier and now are paying back a little to the smart "investor". You lefties are at your silliest when you play the wealth envy game and try to claim all Republicans are closet Kennedys. That's as silly as claiming that all Democrats are entitlement royalty. Oh, wait ...
Seniors ...
... or anyone else who, for whatever reason, don't have a driver's license, can get a state ID card. You don't even need to take an eye test, so you can leave on your blue tinted shades.
A college student with an ID from back home should vote back home. Get an absentee ballot. Since dead Democrats seem to able to get one, with a little effort the average college student can too.
The motivation is to try to ensure that only eligible voters actually vote. The politics is to try to make "eligible" so squishy that it means nothing.
Oh, and Tron, if the desire is to have a high turn-out on election day, move it to the weekend. This concept comes up every now and then, but it's always squashed by lefties. Tuesday is a work day, most Republicans work, so some of them can't get to the polls. Saturday would allow those disenfranchised right-wing wackos to vote, thus ensuring more support for voter ID.
What's absurd is ...
... pulling a couple of examples out of your .. um .. hat and implying that all employers would exploit the poor worker, if only the beneficent unions and Democrats (but I repeat myself) would get out of the way. Any competent data analyst would warn that it's always dangerous to extrapolate from one or two points. But, in Maine, it is obviously very difficult to find a competent data analyst.
The dependent in Maine have been punished severely, until recently, for stepping off the liberal plantation. Finally they may have a shot at independence and climbing out of the quicksand muck of Democrat welfare.
I'm glad we agree about the income tax. Get rid of it, individual and business. It does nothing except increase prices for everyone.
Most adults who work for ...
... minimum wage are grossly overpaid. I employ several teenagers and pay each one more than MW, and will continue that policy because of enlightened self-interest: paid well, they perform well, and I don't need the nanny-state to explain that to me - nor do I need you to do it.
The state's tax structure is not fair, it's stupid. You're "rich" (paying the highest rate) when you make about $20K. Ask your union-member buddies who make that, if you can find any, if they feel rich.
I agree that sweatshops are right here in Maine. They are encouraged by decades of Democrat policies that keep Mainers dependent on the state and unwilling and unable to better themselves, for fear of losing welfare if they get too "rich".
If every Mainer were in a union, everything we buy would cost us about 5x what it costs today. I don't know how I would pull that slack, and neither do you.
Are your bags packed?
I'm not the one doing the complaining.
It is a labor ...
... union history mural. The only thing unions have accomplished for Maine workers in recent decades is treat them as cash-cows for Democrats. If every union in the state disappeared today (we can but wish), there would be no effect at all on labor laws. But the sycophants trot out child labor and sweatshops every time to scare the masses, who are growing really tired of being called stupid by the no-longer-ruling elites.
No, this is not ...
... a democracy and was never supposed to be. We elect people to represent us on most decisions and, when free elections don't produce results you like, you want to change the rules or recall or impeach - or change our form of government to mob rule. Go visit the mural at its new home.
LePage will be remembered ...
... more than whats-his-name, the previous governor, who spent 8 long years politely saying whatever his current audience wanted to hear, while guiding the state to the verge of bankruptcy.
Yes, we now have a governor with rough edges and blunt speech. Good. After all these years without it, that stink you all complain about is just fresh air. That's why you don't know how to deal with it.
Place them ...
... where they belong - the Maine headquarters of SEIU. The murals celebrate the history of unions, not the history of labor, and all the recent hyperventilating won't change that a bit.
I agree the gov. should be creating jobs. The only way to do that is to cut taxes, red tape and especially state spending.
I attended NYU ...
... at Washington Square in NYC in the late 60s. At that time, most of the classroom buildings were located on the block that was destroyed by the Triangle Fire. That said, the occasion is not celebrating the history of labor - it celebrates the history of labor unions. The two concepts are not equivalent and are diverging more with every passing year, as union membership continues to decline because more and more people understand that unions are living on their glory of 50 years ago.
Who did Baldacci listen to?
Whenever there was an issue of even minor controversy, he would trot out the all-purpose talking point: Republicans have offered no alternatives. Then he would do what he wanted to do in the first place. It's easy to find those who agree with you if you ignore everyone else.
Leaving aside ...
... the usual silly side comments, I resent your original implication that someone who doesn't want to pay union dues is a slacker, compounded by your reply that implies that a union member can't be a slacker. There are slackers everywhere. They can be identified by their words "Someone is oppressing me!" and their stance: hand out, palm up.
State government itself ...
... is the worst scofflaw with it horde of "confidential" employees who are NOT union members and do NOT benefit from the union's selfless efforts - because they are paid much more than union scale and make their own benefits.
No, Dan, it's not fair that some union slacker receives the same wages and benefits as a diligent worker, union or not, just because he paid the mandatory extortion. Unions hate the right-to-work movement because their membership continues to decline and they don't want to lose their last remaining cash-cow, the public sector worker.
Most Mainers?
On the state website, see this Maine DOT article of 2/1/2010 from back in the good old days when everything was run by polite, super-intelligent Democrats, so it must be true.
The number of Maine workers belonging to unions declined last year to 11.7 percent of the total workforce, down from 12.3 percent the year before. … In the U.S. more public sector employees (7.9 million) belonged to a union than did private sector employees (7.4 million) …
Also on the state website, the Local Area Unemployment Statistics puts the number employed around 2/1/2010 at 640,000. Using the percentages above, that's about 75,000 union members, more than half of whom work in the public sector.
The 2010 census puts Maine's 2009 population at 1.3 million. So all this breathless gushing in defense of the poor, downtrodden Maine worker relates to less than 6% of the people in the state, at the expense of the other 94%, to whom the promise is: You will keep paying through the nose.
There are no free unions.
In the private sector, all unions are almost extinct. In the public sector, unions are so intertwined with politics that it's impossible to say when one ends and the other begins.
Worst governor ...
... except for Baldacci, King, McKernon, ... Thievery has a long tradition among Maine politicians. LePage had his experience as a desperate child, the other as calculating adults, who seem immune to embarrassment.
The history of the Maine worker is not the same as the history of unions in Maine, although the unions and their political bedfellows would like you to believe they're the same. A mural celebrating unions has no place at all in a state government building.
One more time.
The UN authorized, it did not order. If the members of NATO decided to act on the blanket authorization, they violated their own charter. The treaty says that if one member is attacked, the other members will come to its defense. Is Libya a member of NATO? Is NATO now transmogrified into the public safety officer for Europe - and North Africa?
I paid a boat load of taxes to support you and others who volunteered to work in the dirt, grit and blood. Thanks, by the way. If I and others like me had refused, today you wouldn't have the luxury of complaining about anything. They don't allow blogging in the gulag.
If there are fewer state employees ...
... most of them have a much better situation than the rest of us who pay to support them, thanks to Baldacci. Since you seem to have the numbers at your fingertips, how many state employees were there in 1/95 vs 1/03?
You're blaming the kids?! Wow, that's a new one. Those ungrateful yard-apes get educated here and then leave to find a job, which is why businesses don't come here. Baloney.
Business stays away because the taxes, regulations and expenses scare them from even considering Maine, no matter the number of educated workers we have.
And over the previous 16 years, ...
... we had two liberals in the Blaine house who did nothing to fix the problem. Instead, they expanded state government as fast as possible, while herding private sector businesses and jobs out of state.
NATO has what?
The order? Do you have a link to the text of that order?
Since you asked, yes, the US should pull out of NATO. Under that treaty, we pay most of the bills while the other signatories spend their money funding their failed experiments in socialism. NATO made some sense back when there was one big threat to Europe. That threat has been replaced by the threat of suicide by Muslim immigration, which no one will control for fear of being called intolerant.
I agree.
Except the drastic change will be a dramatic increase in property taxes to pay the new, much more expensive insurance to provide all that "free" care.
Authorized is not the same as ordered.
At least, they weren't the same when the president was Republican and the country was Iraq. The Constitution does not require an attack because the UN authorized one. Obama decided, he owns it.
Me?
Jon, you're the one who tries to pass off your beliefs as the one true way. I'm just posting my opinions and I couldn't care less if they don't fit in your world view, where all data line up obediently to be analyzed.
I'll agree to this statement: Racism is a political strategy to divide people by racial antagonism so that race-panderers can retain power. That's how Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton live the good life.
Great letter, Mr. Faunce,...
... except for the irresistible zinger this administration (and those before it). Of course, this administration has been in office for less than three months and those before it had sixteen years to avoid giving relief to property tax payers.
As one myself, I'm all for reducing property taxes, but how do you propose to make up the difference? Any answer is curiously absent from your letter, although you imply that the state should pay more to the towns and cities. Where does that money come from?
Method 1: Reduce state spending elsewhere and shift the savings. This makes some sense, so that's why it hasn't been done. Elsewhere has a bunch of powerful special interest groups.
Method 2: Raise state taxes, income and/or sales. There's less merit here because it's not popular and politicians look ahead only as far as the next election.
Method 3: Bond it. This is ludicrous, so I expect the Democrats to propose it. It's the equivalent of printing new money, currently the answer this administration in Washington uses for everything.
Agree.
Everything is backwards. Of course, that makes it convenient for the lefties who are always looking back (1) for someone to blame and (2) to see who is gaining on them.
Typical mind-bending liberal nonsense.
I didn't say poor people were the cause, they were the pawns. Of course banks can be forced by social tinkerers to do their bidding: tax policy, rules and regulations, and pure extortion that would embarrass Tony Soprano. Democrats used the CRA to force mortgage lenders to make loans to deadbeats under threat of being labeled racist and losing all legitimate business from .. what was your term? .. oh, yeah .. non-whites. Nice, Jon.
Non-whites can't be racist? Have you ever heard the verbal sewage from Jeremiah Wright, he who was never heard over 20 years by our illustrious president? The racial bigotry represented there is staggering and is nothing more than a present-day reverse-KKK.
I agree that flipping has become an art form. Liberals flipping lids.
Another view into ...
... the Albrecht-centered universe. Not a pretty sight.
The mortgage problem was started by Jimmy Carter and his Community Redevelopment Act, then aided and abetted by a long succession of spineless Democrat Congresses. The CRA robbed banks more than Bonny & Clyde ever dreamed. It said: Lend money to people who can't possibly pay it back, or we'll call you racist!! It worked so well that, in good times in the 90s, Congress made it worse by, every now and then, upping the ante and forcing banks to increase their holdings of junk mortgages. That this practice was unsustainable is intuitively obvious - unless you're a Democrat. Politicians ignored all the warnings because all they could see was a horde of new voters created by "free" money.
Minimum wage hikes ...
... stimulate unions, especially in the private sector where contracts often specify wages as a multiple of the minimum wage. Whenever someone wrings his hands and whimpers that a minimum wage increase helps working families, follow the money and you'll find a union official with his hand out.
Even worse ...
King Angus enjoyed a "good" economy for most of his tenure. He could have easily fixed this problem. Instead, in his self-proclaimed position of Job Czar (roll up sleeves), he created lots of new government jobs while chasing away as many private sector jobs as he could find. Also, by strengthening the stupid mandates, he chased away most health insurance companies, killing what little competition was left. And, lest we forget, he climbed into bed with Apple and crippled a whole generation of Maine school kids.
False premise.
"If one opposes the general welfare clause, then one opposes most of the Constitution." Well, I oppose that shallow logic, just as I oppose your interpretation of the clause, your interpretation of Jefferson's ideas, and especially your interpretation of reality, with you at the center as dispenser of truth to the masses.
Congress does not need the clause to regulate inter-state markets, but it does need the clause's legerdemain to establish markets and to regulate intra-state markets, both of which are absolutely required by the Constitutional abomination known as ObamaCare.
I agree that it is tedious ...
... waiting for you to answer a simple question on a subject that you brought up, without your usual hand-waving. The real answer is you have no names, no proof, no nothing - just a lot of whining that if people disagree with you, they are disagreeable. So be it. I wear the adjective as a badge of honor.
Ducked the question.
Several? Name one. Two righties were banned permanently? Earlier you said that never happens. That may be record time for a flip-flop.
Pop quiz.
Name one middle- or left-winger who has been banned permanently.
Extra credit: Name 6 who should be.
I need more coffee.
Are you seriously suggesting that Leon is a right-winger? Read his verbal sewage again, after removing your blue-tinted glasses. He's neither right nor left - just a wacko.
The only commenter I have seen banned - no, I don't scrutinize every article on the site - was about a month ago. He was pretty far right and the ban was immediate and permanent. I saw the post before it disappeared because it was "threatening". Technically, it was, if your definition is rather elastic.
On the other hand, there are several left-wingers still around who can't compose a one-line comment without terms like "right-wing wacko" and adolescent misspellings that are oh so clever. But let anyone else return even mild criticism and it becomes a "vicious unprovoked attack".
After each letter, ...
... the editorial board posts things we are supposed to avoid. The first two are:
Defamatory, abusive, obscene, racist, or otherwise hateful
Excessively foul and/or vulgar
I thought I had a good, general idea about what these and the rest meant, but now I'm not so sure. The first two comments (and I use the term very loosely) were removed, drawing the stern threat of a week's ban. A week?
I see that the commenter returned last night with a couple more submissions that were a little bit toned down, probing to see what he can get away with.
Less than two months ago, the EB began their verification policy to encourage more civil discussion. If Leon isn't banned permanently, the policy means nothing. At the very least, the board owes us more detailed, practical definitions of the items we're all supposed to avoid.
It's not very funny ...
... if you're a member of the large portion of those 23.9 million who are today pounding the bricks because of the new smoke-and-mirrors employed by the current administration. And you conveniently dismiss as having no economic effects little items like 9/11, Afghanistan, Iraq, ... none of which are being addressed in any meaningful way by ∅bama. Even SECSTATE is fed up and longing for the good old days when she was co-president.
On thing lefties all agree on: Since a tax cut for all includes a tax cut for the rich, there must be a right-wing conspiracy behind it.
OK.
Slick raised taxes and, because the dot-com bubble started expanding like mad at the same time, percolating throughout the economy, for a while it seemed like real prosperity. Then reality started to sink in and his advisors gave him the bad news: If he wanted to get reelected, he had to shift way to the right. He co-opted most of the Republican platform and, aided by a likable but weak opponent, was returned to the Oval Office where he spent his 2nd term sampling the delights under his desk. The dot-com bubble burst and revenue fluctuated but was basically stagnant until the GWB tax cuts got things moving again.
While that was going on, here in Maine, times felt great and King Angus could have easily fixed the "mess he inherited" in under-funded liabilities. Instead, he ignored that mess and created one of his own by expanding state government hand over fist, gross mismanagement that is now approaching critical mass.
Ah, the Clinton years. Smoke and mirrors, no substance.
I see that the asylum ...
... still has an open door policy. We all hope the orderlies catch Mr. Leon soon and re-lace that jacket up the back.
The top 10% of earners already pay 70% of collected income tax. What does fair mean to you? Right, of course, 100%. The problem is the bottom brackets pay nothing. Well, they pay Social Security and Medicare which, I agree, are regressive - but they are not income taxes. Blame FDR, who started the trickle down from that first federal cash-cow. Blame LBJ for the second. Notice a common theme about who creates taxes that disproportionately hit the poor?
The other problem is that, historically, increasing taxes actually reduces government revenue. But don't let facts get in the way of your Reagan bashing.
The founders created a republic - not a democracy - to promote the common good, not to provide it. Every time the government has tried the latter, it has failed dismally.
The dictionary says that
The dictionary says that prophylaxis is an action taken to prevent disease. I'm glad you have finally shown some little sense and acknowledged that liberalism is a disease.
Good points, Mr Howe.
There's another current example: CFL lightbulbs. They last forever (or 10 weeks, whichever comes first) and provide cheap, excellent light (as long as you turn on 3 or 4 where 1 used to do) and they are safe (a broken CFL will cost thousand$ in clean up). Questions to the "green" nazis: If CFLs are so wonderful, why can't they succeed on their own in the marketplace? Why do you have to ban the competition? That's not very democratic.
And by increasing demand for CFLs artificially, GE (long in bed with green Democrats) closed its last US factory making incandescent bulbs, turning a bunch of union workers out on the street. But don't worry - China is happy to pick up the slack and Canada is looking forward to another robust smuggling category.
I learned about all this on FOX News, where you don't need blue tinted contact lenses.
That's your purpose in life.
It's intuitively obvious to the most casual reader of this thread that you exist only to irritate. The LSJ should dispense an electronic version of calamine lotion.
You have one sycophant!
Wow, Jon, it's a movement. With friends like that, ...
More elephantiasis.
Rendered for some small content: The Constitution gives the federal government the authority to do everything for everybody.
Thomas Jefferson: the danger in the hands of politicians was that of instituting a Congress with power to do whatever would be for the good of the United States; and, as they would be the sole judges of the good or evil, it would be also a power to do whatever evil they please.
John Quincy Adams: Our Constitution professedly rests upon the good sense and attachment of the people. This basis, weak as it may appear, has not yet been found to fail.
Those who worship before the golden calf of the "general welfare" clause depend on the suspension of good sense and the detachment of the people. Those bases, strong as they may appear to those on the left, have never been found to succeed.
Your policy is very convenient ...
... for you. I'll call it the Albrecht Doctrine of Infallibility. We should all kneel and kiss your .. um .. ring.
Your ideology is based on your interpretation of the Constitution, etc. Surely you can't be pretending to perfect knowledge of them. If you are, you can delude yourself and a few sycophants about that, but that's all. All your posts, including the last one, are all ideology and faith, in my opinion. Perhaps you can persuade the paper here to gather all your comments from the archives and publish them under the title Gospel according to St. Jon.
In your humble opinion ...
... of course. You have made a bunch of claims that you can't possible prove without appealing to faith - or ideology.
Excuses.
I have been asked to produce my sorry *zzed excuse for not trying to research the statement that MHPC keeps its donor list private. I'll ignore the usual junior-high pseudo profanity and give you my reason. You can call it an excuse, if you want. This is, after all, a discussion on the opinion page.
I scanned through the comments and noted that the first mention of MHPC funding came from one Ronald Riml at 10:17 am on Mar 17, along with the allegation that keeping donor information private proves some sort of power agenda. I responded at 11:03 that, in my opinion, it's Democrats who are on a power trip - trying to regain what is theirs by divine right.
I also inserted a crack about Rep Pingree. I'm sorry about that, because whatever her mode of transportation, it's just for the greater good of the collective.
For the record, I did not dispute Ron's statement, except the power nonsense. But in later comments, he demands that I research the matter of MHPC funding. You brought it up and there's no reason to be so defensive about it. You research it.
That's my sorry excuse.
When?
When you uncork your thumb and do your own work.
Never try to teach a Democrat pig to sing; it wastes your time and it annoys the pig. - anon
And the someone is ...
... the Democrat party. They lost power, they want it back, and they know only one way to try to get it: shoot the other side's messenger. They for sure can't ask the voters to consider their stellar track record.
Speaking of openness, who funds Chellie Pingree? What does the from-away boyfriend get for all that flying around in his Gulfstream V? Maybe she fixes his airport fees.
Well known liberal stone-brain ...
... Stephen King once admitted that he suffered from verbal elephantiasis. Evidently the condition is contagious.
This comment from Jonnie, like all of his, can be summarized as: I hate Republicans. The rest is completely superfluous.
Are you out of your mind?
Rep. Shields, get a grip. Make the state private-sector business friendly? Lower taxes? Cut red tape? This is Maine! We want more government, higher taxes (especially on the evil rich) and more stultifying rules and regulations to keep business from even considering coming here and meddling in the way life should be.
Tron is, as usual, channeling the "working" people of Maine, who obviously want fewer jobs and more welfare, considering how they've voted until recently. Please stop publishing your right-wing gibberish. The left-wing trolls deserve a break.
He owns houses in both states
He owns houses in both states and has said that as he gets older he prefers a warmer climate. It would be interesting to know which one is his primary residence. Is it Maine? Or is it income-tax-free Florida?
Stephen King suffers from ...
... the Garrison Keillor syndrome. Whenever he steps out of his area of expertise, he comes off as a babbling idiot.
I see the editorial board has taken over the front page. Today a third of it is wasted on "news" like this.
Any parade of yours ...
... starts with all the crap it needs. I didn't bring up King's nonsensical babble because it's irrelevant to the letter.
We import nothing.
We export a lot of wheat. Quite a bit goes at cheap world market prices to countries that turn around and sell us oil at top dollar. If we had an administration with any stones, we could tell those countries to start eating oil when they get hungry.
The B in BP stands for "British". But I suppose it's too challenging to expect a liberal to manage a detail like that.
When is the last time anyone asked a US oil company to be patriotic? WWII. Ever since, liberals have used them as a convenient scapegoat on whom to hang the blame for their own politicians' failures. It doesn't work anymore.
I have read all about this.
If Stevie wants to pay more, he can stop taking deductions or just cut a check and send it in. But, as a liberal, he's not happy doing it himself, he wants to tell others what to do.
Question back to King: Since most of your books and stories are set in Maine, why are so few of the movies adapted from them produced here? It must cost an arm and a leg to plow through the government red tape and pay the union extortion, but a rich liberal like you should take the lead and suck up the loss.
Nice looking truck.
It's powered by diesel and batteries. When operation doesn't recharge the batteries sufficiently, you plug into the wall and suck non-green power.
I agree. Let's do it all. Who's going to take the lead? Government? The current one stands in the way of progress and won't be happy until all of us use horse-and-buggy to commute.
The tired 10 year argument.
It will always be 10 years away if we never start. If we had started drilling in 2001, after getting whacked by extremists from the Middle East, today we would be enjoying the increased domestic capacity and could reduce our dependency on foreign oil accordingly.
Most of the stuff I buy arrives here by truck. I have yet to see an 18 wheeler powered by fuel cells, nukes or wind. If we turn off the oil spigot, it's going to get very hungry around here while those new trucks are developed, taking lots longer than 10 years.
Restated nonsense.
You have said this before. Why does oil extracted from American sites have to be sold on the world market? Only to be bought by American refineries. Does American wheat have to be sold on the world market just to be imported by King Arthur? No, of course not.
Quoting myself in another thread:
Social Security is not a retirement plan; it's insurance against abject poverty. Those of us in the dreaded private sector "contribute" to this Ponzi scheme because we don't have a choice. After that, those of us who accept responsibility for our own futures invest in real retirement plans. At age 50+, we contribute close to 20% of our salary. Or we can. There will always be dopes who won't lift a finger.
In the public sector, they contribute to the state retirement program - and the state kicks in a hefty chunk as well. Where does the state get the money? From taxes that, yes, we all pay. So I pay to subsidize public retirement. How much do they pay to subsidize mine?
If we all are really in this together, we should not be dividing into classes, the payers and the receivers.
The last sentence says it all.
In any other context, it would be called what it is: extortion.
You listen but you don't hear.
Claire, Social Security is not a retirement plan; it's insurance against abject poverty. Those of us in the dreaded private sector "contribute" to this Ponzi scheme because we don't have a choice. After that, those of us who accept responsibility for our own futures invest in real retirement plans. At age 50+, we contribute close to 20% of our salary. Or we can. There will always be dopes who won't lift a finger.
In the public sector, they contribute to the state retirement program - and the state kicks in a hefty chunk as well. Where does the state get the money? From taxes that, yes, we all pay. So I pay to subsidize public retirement. How much do they pay to subsidize mine?
If we all are really in this together, we should not be dividing into classes, the payers and the receivers.
You tell your students ...
“If it weren’t for taxes, I wouldn’t have my teaching job.”
I wonder what students hear at Hebron Academy and Kents Hill.
Adapting a phrase from Veritas:
Pot, kettle - meet Ron. I asked you a couple of questions, you have no answers - so that means I went on a rant? All you have done is to focus on Maine's multi-class structure built on wealth. There's a strip about 0.5 miles wide on the coast from Kittery to Bar Harbor where the affluent live and play - and there's the rest of the state. I submit that it's you who needs to get out more often.
There's a lot of wealth in that strip, but not income. Your rich part-time residents are smart enough to establish full-time residency in more tax friendly states to shelter their income from MRS sharks. You can increase their property (wealth) taxes as long as you increase them for everyone else in town, you included.
How will I feel? Not as bad as you will after you succeed in evicting all those rich taxpayers and the town hands you the bill.
There he goes again.
Disagree with Tron = rightwing wacko. What this rightwing wacko says is: If the best you can manage is a minimum wage job, you have no business trying to support a family - and especially no business starting one. Go back to school. Get some training. There are all kinds of "assistance" for those activities. No jobs where you live? Move. Put the blame for your situation where it belongs - on your own shoulders.
The trouble with all this good advice is it requires some effort on the part of the poor down-trodden worker and it goes against all the "promises" delivered by leftwing wackos over the decades. They don't want fairness; they want redistribution. And, of course, retribution.
I like living in Wilton.
But I'm not the one complaining. How much property tax does your evil rich summer resident pay? I'll bet those who run Boothbay are glad to have him. What's his ill-gotten income? Not his wealth, income. If you're so gung-ho to steal more of his success, call your state rep and have him submit a bill to raise rates. But be careful what you ask for. A lot of folks in Wilton and Boothbay will discover that they're rich, according to the state of Maine.
Many union contracts use the
Many union contracts use the minimum wage as a base to compute what to pay a union member who has no other qualification. Unions love MW hikes.
I'm heading to the store for
I'm heading to the store for more tinfoil. I need a new hat.
GOP — Greedy Old Party The
GOP — Greedy Old Party
The GOP has a long way to go before it reaches the level of greed and indifference attained by the Democrats over the past 35 years. Unions served a purpose long ago. There are a zillion laws in place now to protect all workers - some of that red tape - and they won't go away any time soon. Unions will.
They should balance the budget with money from the wealthy and corporations ...
Yup, Maine is just overflowing with those groups. Lets tax the bejeepers out of those remaining and get rid of them completely.
What it says is that it is OK for many citizens in Maine to be paid substandard wages.
A Mainer should be paid what the job is worth. Flipping burgers is not worth $13 an hour. If it is, get ready to pay $20 for your next Whopper. The minimum wage should be abolished as it is one of the principal hindrances to growth.
If you have come here for debate, ...
... you will be very disappointed, Jason.
I did not put a time frame in my earlier post. Sorry. Yes, union membership has been in decline for a long time - except in the public sector, where its gradual increase has seen a non-gradual explosion over the past two years. Today Trumka is a de-facto cabinet member. Unions started killing off big US manufacturing much more than 20 years ago and the drumbeat was always the same: Give us what we want or we'll force you out of business, even if it means throwing our members out of work. They succeeded (or failed, depending on your POV) so well that they had no choice but to move into the public sector, where it was much easier to buy political protection. China had nothing to do with the start, but their leaders were smart enough to see that we were shooting ourselves in the foot - and moved in to take advantage.
The influence of unions in the private sector is not as strong as it once was, but the memory lingers. Today any company with brains has to ask where to locate in order to avoid hemorrhaging investors' money. It's almost impossible now to establish a business in the US where the workforce would be unionized.
Here we go again.
Social Security is not a retirement plan. The private sector pays SS - and then contributes to a real system, usually a 401(k) plan, to which the employer usually does NOT contribute. In order to have a chance of living "well" in retirement, a worker in the DPS (Dreaded Private Sector) has to pony up close to 20% of his income, especially in his last years of working. Many of us believe that public sector workers should have to feel the same level of pain.
With regard to your comments on business, yes, there are greedy businesses, but they don't last long. For every greedy company, there are probably five others that have been forced off-shore, or out of business completely, by greedy unions who couldn't care less about their members. Those jobs are lost forever.
For decades we in Maine have been throwing ever larger gobs of money at education "for the children" and we have been forced to listen over and over to the same tired refrain: Happy teachers produce well educated students. The results suggest our money and their efforts have been wasted.
Good luck, Zack.
Welcome to the brave new world of civil discourse. If you dare to step off the reservation defined by the good old boys, you get a barrage of ad-hominem attack and subject switching.
If an American company produces crude oil, it can sell directly to American refineries. The world market has no authority (yet) to restrict activities that take place completely within our borders. That may come soon, since the O's administration is determined to give away what's left of our sovereignty and throw open our borders.
Drill in Lil's backyard, although I doubt it would yield anything worth having.
Finally some evidence!
… In all that time I paid into Social Security. My money. Now, people rag on me for wanting some of it back …
It is not your money. The government spends SS "contributions" as soon as it receives them. There's an IOU in the lockbox, no money, no account - gone. Blame FDR for setting it up that way.
… and how my Social Security should be taken away.
Of course not. Liberals always drag that out to scare old folks. SS should be fixed before it's lost to you and everyone else. The only way to fix this Ponzi scheme is to convert it into a real, private (gasp) investment like a 401(k). As long as the government can get its grubby paws on the money, it will continue to be just a slush fund for politicians.
Teachers pensions should be taken away. Bargaining rights should be taken away.
No one ever said the former, but a lot of people have said the latter - starting again with FDR, the liberal demigod.
And that money … goes into the pockets of the rich …
Ah, the mantra of envy, often stated, seldom substantiated. You can't show me one instance of a rich person stealing pension money from working stiffs. But I can show you plenty of instances of pensions being raided by union goons and politicians.
Woody, you have a lot of legitimate beefs but you're blaming the wrong perps.
People have gone done the
People have gone done the unconstitutional path before. Most of them are in jail. There is a way to get there. Support the FairTax.
I have no idea how
I have no idea how intelligent you are, given just a few snarky bumpersticker posts. So until some different evidence comes in, I have to agree with you.
By the way, in a working career that is now 41+ years, the only handout I have taken was unemployment for 5 weeks in 2006. If that was your money, thank you very much. But I have always been under the impression that employers paid unemployment insurance. I could be wrong, I suppose, but with all that intelligence, money and importance, I'll stick to that impression.
Social Security is NOT a
Social Security is NOT a retirement plan. It's backup insurance. Private sector employees do indeed pay what you noted - and then they ALSO optionally contribute to a 401k or something like it, for a total approaching 20% of salary for older workers.
Note the word "optionally". Private workers a free to ignore their own futures. Then they retire and try to live on Social Security. Good luck.
A business pays income tax on
A business pays income tax on its profit: revenue minus expenses. One of those expenses is electricity. Is this an example of a "write-off"? What would happen if Maine decided to disallow that expense? (Aside from getting way out of sync with federal tax law.) Profit would go up (artificially) and they would pay more state income tax; they would increase the prices they charge to cover the increased expense. The increased prices percolate throughout the state's economy until they finally arrive at the only real tax payers: individuals. You and me.
I was pointing out the
I was pointing out the obvious that Bob posts the same comment in every thread even remotely related to unionism. Evidently some folks need more obvious than others. At least yours has a few more words, although no more content.
Taking a guess here ... You say I shout "Unions are evil!" for every one of Bob's "Corporations are evil!" Actually, Veritas, I usually suggest that union[u]ism[/u] is evil. Union members are generally hard working, honest people who are being sold down the river by union leaders who generally make mafiosi look like choirboys.
The ultimate result of unionism is always the same. Before you sit down to play your masterpiece, look on the underside of that piano and see the label "Made in China".
Ms. Gamache, how many
Ms. Gamache, how many businesses have you worked for or run that exist for losing money or just breaking even? Of course they want to make a profit (gasp) to repay the folks who invested to get them going in the first place. Businesses pay property taxes to cover all those services you mentioned, just like individuals. We're talking about income taxes. Raising income taxes on businesses does nothing to help community services, in fact it hurts them because historical evidence suggests that higher income taxes lead to lower government revenue.
Businesses who damage customer satisfaction and product quality won't be in business very long and won't be able to sustain the union demanded wages and benefits at any level. In fact, you make them sound like those companies driven to desperation by union extortion. This has been what's going on for decades and it certainly hasn't improved the business climate in Maine. Ready, fire, aim!
Bob, you are a virtuoso on a
Bob, you are a virtuoso on a one note piano.
You think about it.
Ms. Field, companies do not pay taxes. Oh, they fill out forms and some even send a check, but it's just another cost of doing business. They pass that cost to their customers in the form of higher prices for goods and services. The state may (heavy emphasis) give that money back to you, but you lose it immediately when you pay higher prices. We, the customers, can't pass the cost along because we're at the end of the line.
Meanwhile, companies lose the option of using those tax payments to hire more workers, all of whom pay income and payroll taxes, the source of most of the state's revenue. Higher wages and benefits, forced by unions, are indirect taxes with the same result.
With high corporate taxes and strong unions, "working people" get the worst of both worlds.
Of course they are compelled.
But, using the tried and true game plan of bullies everywhere, the compelling takes place behind closed doors, well away from disinfecting sunlight.
A public employee union is funded by their extorted dues (see above) withheld from the employees' paychecks, paid by taxes. Just because it isn't direct doesn't mean it doesn't happen.
I think Mr. Bechard was
I think Mr. Bechard was observing that taxpayers, including union members, pay the wages and benefits of members of public employee unions. In the other direction, members of public employee unions pay little or nothing to support the average taxpayer during his working years and later retirement. Most of them in Maine don't even contribute to Social Security / Medicare to help provide those rapidly eroding benefits to the poorest among us.
I think Clem was expressing a feeling held my many people these days: If we are all really in it together, let's inject some fairness and get rid of the us-versus-them class warfare that unionism has created.
We did organize.
The result became known on this past election day. I'm with you. We must not let anyone infringe on our right to throw a peaceful tantrum.
I wonder why ...
... Maine's Majority didn't raise a commotion back then. Could it be the switch in parties? Nah, they couldn't be that superficial.
Domain Name:MAINESMAJORITY.ORG
Created On:16-Dec-2010 02:30:52 UTC <-------- When the tantrum began
Last Updated On:14-Feb-2011 03:49:45 UTC
Expiration Date:16-Dec-2011 02:30:52 UTC
Did you also get the drift
Did you also get the drift that anyone who disagrees with Dan is a right-wing wacko? It is indeed sad when that sort of ad-hominem attack passes for discussion. It's also sad that you didn't mention any of the left-wing sites that provide the thinking for many posters here.
It's Ron's opinion that
It's Ron's opinion that everyone enjoys those wages and benefits as the best they could possible get.
Historical note: 61% of the Maine electorate voted against Baldacci in 2006.
No comparison.
No business is compelled to join the CoC. The CoC is not funded by taxpayers.
The state and the unions
The state and the unions sleep in the same bed. No, I have never been to contract negotiations. I have never been a member of a union and not one of my jobs over a 40+ year career came with any retirement benefits. For each one, I sent resumés, attended interviews, conducted my own negotiations and more than once walked away from offers I didn't like. All that cost a lot in time, effort and money, but it never once occurred to me to ask taxpayers to pick up the tab.
You're saying that public employees, on average, are too dumb to rate offers on their own without "guidance" from a union. I know a lot of teachers and, trust me, Ron, they are, on average, way smarter than you give them credit for. But, yes, most of them wear blinders when it comes to unions.
May I opt out of the
May I opt out of the retirement system? May I negotiate my own wage and benefit package. Yes, indeed, if I'm a confidential employee. Otherwise, nope, I'm stuck with what the union says is the best I can get. It seems most union supporters here are happy to believe what they're told.
It is possible, or it used to be, to opt out of the retirement system. Oh, it's still withheld from your pay all year, but in December you submit a form to request (beg) to get it back. After a few weeks, while union workers "process" the form, you'll get your money - every penny. No interest, of course, because the state spent the money, it didn't invest it.
You have to go through this every year. Meanwhile, make sure Social Security and Medicare are handled properly.
Yup, it's easy to work for the state of Maine, as long as you accept what the union says you're worth and forget what your education and experience could command in the DPS - Dreaded Private Sector.
Protect the right to .. what?
The usual translation of that is to protect the right to join a union. If that's important, then so is the right not to join a union. I hope you will support the movement to convert Maine into a "right to work" state, where you can take a state job or teach in public schools without being coerced to participate in something you disagree with.
Once is enough.
Mike, you're not going to get more people to agree with you by repeating your posts. Perhaps you spilled some koolaid in your keyboard making some of the keys sticky.
No. Lepage wants them to end
No. Lepage wants them to end their collective, union orchestrated tantrum and realize they have it a lot better than most of us who pay for their nice situations. Besides that, if better than average salaries and benefits are supposed to be attracting top notch public employees, it's not working.
If Maine caps ...
... at $70K the salaries of hospital executives, all the current executives will leave for positions in states with rational governments, to be replaced by execs from the bottom of the barrel who can't find positions anywhere else.
Trevor, I congratulate you on
Trevor, I congratulate you on your participation in this very public forum. It takes a great deal of self-confidence to jump into a venue where most of us adults behave like adolescents. But be aware that you may have to give up some of the protection usually given to the young by accepting some criticism.
School budgets are being reduced. Why? Because expenses increase every year and politicians are reluctant to increase taxes accordingly. Their reluctance comes from the assumption that we voters will kick them out of office - they may even be right. Why do expenses increase every year? Perhaps you could ask that question of your teachers. If they feel as passionately about their subjects as you feel about music, shouldn't they be willing to give up some of the increases mandated in their union contracts to hold down the expenses? The results of your poll, I assure you, will interest all of us.
You can't study music without also studying history and science, especially mathematics. If you try, you won't know who came before you or how they accomplished what they did. From what I have seen in your letter and your comments, your passion for music cannot be that superficial.
I live and pay taxes in the Farmington school district. It has an excellent music program because the public side is supported by a very strong private side. You can't have one without the other, and the private is hit by a bad economy every bit as much, if not more, than the public.
The better ways you want have eluded all of us for a long time. It's my hope they you will help find them for us, after completing your education in all subjects. They are all important. Wait until college to declare a major.
Burden?
See the Tax Foundation for the burden through 2008. The top 1% of earners paid 38% of ALL income taxes collected. The top 5% paid 58%. The top 10% paid 70%. The "Class Envy" crowd won't be happy until it's 100%. Of course, before we get to that, those earners will give up or move out, leaving that one big "other" class without their favorite turnip to squeeze.
Does the agriculture
Does the agriculture commissioner have to be a farmer?
Does the corrections commissioner have to be a prison guard?
All the history lessons,
All the history lessons, charts (displayable or not) and long-winded bloviations, copied from union talking-point sites and class envy sites, can't disguise the major issue: Unions cover only a small fraction of the country's "workers". In the private sector, coverage has been declining for decades. Only in the public sector is coverage increasing, and that's only because unions and lefty politicians are in bed together.
Ask yourself who is that greedy, overpaid CEO who runs Maine's public school system. Or your town's public services. Should we tax them out of existence?
But take any successful, private, non-unionized company and the union apologists start hyperventilating about redistribution of wealth from those who create it to those who throw the loudest tantrum.
Thank you, Joe Gray, for an
Thank you, Joe Gray, for an excellent summary. You do understand, I hope, that it won't make a dime's worth of difference to union leaders, members and their apologists. That group has only one plank in their platform: Raise taxes and/or prices (indirect taxes) to keep paying those bennies. It's going to take some massive layoffs before the remaining members realize the unions are (ab)using them.
I'm sure the Pirate (and the Parrot) will agree that unions are demanding the right to walk their own plank.
I agree.
As long as we agree that "rich" means public employee union member and "poor" means poor sap who has to pay for it.
Why did government make promises ...
... it knew it couldn't keep? To buy votes, of course. The deception worked very well but now is falling apart. Good. Maybe we can create a rational system before we turn into Greece.
COLA stands for cost-of-living-adjustment which means, presumably, if the cost of living does NOT go up, neither do pension payments. Social Security recipients have been denied an increase for two years now. Why shouldn't public employees share the pain?
Some enter the teaching profession because they know it's almost impossible to get removed, even for gross incompetence. If the state is encouraging retirement, it's to get rid of as much dead wood as possible.
Do you have a point?
This comment rambles all over the map, even more than usual. Union goons riot in WI -> Kent State -> Iraq & Afghanistan -> Gates bad, Powell good -> Bush/Cheney caused all the world's problems -> Obama will cure them. Whew!
Two years in, the recession is worse, no end in sight, in spite of the mountains of money printed and thrown. Madison is just a preview of communist riots coming soon to a state capital near you. ME is not immune. Neither is HI.
Mr. Breton & Mr. Donald
It is not the business of the state attorney general to replace the rest of the justice system. If anyone, including Mr. Donald, feels he's the victim of a crime, he should contact police and swear out a complaint and pursue the matter through normal channels. The AG isn't there to take over that civic duty from a private individual, who perhaps wants to spare himself the time and effort. And the AG certainly isn't there to subvert the basic wisdom of a free society: Caveat emptor.
If anyone has misinterpreted the intent of the letter, it's due to the first commenter overpowering that intent with a load of political spite.
Finally, there are many kinds of wackos. The right does not have a monopoly and the left certainly has its share.
You had the same issue last year?
When the AG was a Democrat? How can that be?
You can follow the above advice and descend farther into useless partisan bickering, or you can learn from your experience (plural?) and not fall again for this lame scam, which has been around for as long as there have been suckers to keep it going. Have you responded to any of those heart-breaking emails from Nigeria?
Prime the pump?
I thought Obama was doing that, with stimulus and kash for klunks, etc. Business sits on cash when it is wary of near future government shenanigans. Suppose I run a small business, want to hire another employee, and have $100k in a coffee can. How can I commit that money now, and going forward, when the feds are threatening to increase my taxes and fees by amounts unknown, because they're buried in the incomprehensible ObamaCare bill?
Memo to the Civil Discussion Police: Please inform Ron that stale misspellings, like 'shidter', are appropriate for junior high recess, not this newly reformulated group of verified posters.
Bonds are part of the problem ..
.. not part of the solution.
Stan Tetenman: Without bonding, roads, bridges, water and other projects cannot be done.
That one sentence is a succinct summary of the pathetic state of everything, not just infrastructure. For decades our politicians have taken (almost said 'stolen' - my bad) the taxes and fees that are supposed to support maintenance and development of infrastructure, and used the money to fund other programs. If they couldn't find other programs, they just created new ones. A bond is a credit card that our children will have to pay off. If you can keep a straight face (most of our politicians can), explain to junior that in the 'future' he'll have a nice road on which he won't be able to afford to drive.
It's the same mandate.
LePage has exactly the same mandate Baldacci received in 2006. The only difference is, four years ago there were no calls to change the election rules. Or perhaps there were calls, but the Maine media declined to mention them.
One environmental requirement is overdue for repeal - the silly formulation of gasoline which does nothing to improve the air quality in our state - it just destroys small engines in items like snowblowers and lawnmowers, etc. And of course it hikes the price of gas, but it's just a pittance compared to what the state tax adds.
The prevailing winds replace our air every day from the West. Whatever they do in that direction determines the quality we have. What we do here just makes the folks in New Brunswick happier.
Still at an undisclosed location.
Thanks Jack and John. I won't get home until 2/10, well after the drop dead date, so this may be my last dispatch. I'll pause for the cheers from the bilge crew.
I have spent about an hour skimming over the letters and comments posted since I left. Nothing I have seen leads me to believe that my real name, or any other real info, is safe in the hands of the green-badged. On the contrary, the general tone of these discussions (and I use the term loosely) has taken a very predictable dive. Maybe it will change when those hundreds of the newly verified actually do something other than lurk - but I would bet against it.
The central theme always devolves to plain envy. It is very appropriate that the staff chose the color green.
Quick note from an undisclosed location.
I see the caliber of posts from the green-badged ones is as expected. It was predictable as sunrise.
How could I forget?
Veritas, get yourself some new Navy-issue underwear a couple sizes larger. Your current batch is obviously pinching.
Happy New Year!
Shields: If employment levels in the next two years go up, the 2012 elections could give Republicans full Congressional control ...
No matter what numbers make up your truth, no matter which positions are relevant or ir-, that statement hit the bull's eye. Our attention span is short and getting shorter and in 11/12, only results will count, not counter-scenarios blathered by a small bunch of caustic commenters, verified of course, talking at each other in this civil community. So this is as good a time as any.
The car is packed and we leave in minutes to head far south for a couple months. I'll check back in after we return to see how the green-badged forum has developed. (Cue the crickets.)
Happy New Year!
PS: tron, I hope the cleaners don't put too much starch in your robe again.
Pop quiz.
Which party took over Congress in 2007 to begin the 110th? GWB didn't exercise the veto much - too bad.
Which party had the whole enchilada for the 111th? BHO doesn't know he has veto power. I bet he (re)discovers it next year.
The erudition of the certifiable.
Veritas: Now where did you ever get that shidt-house rumor from ...?
Ms. Web Editor: Does this meet your new standards for classy, non-mean-spirited discussion?
Verified?
I suggest instead the term Certified, since most of those who have achieved this exalted status are indeed certifiable.
Freeze and starve.
Blaisdells: Government officials said that price indexing showed no increase, so there would be no cost-of-living increase in Social Security and government pensions for at least two years.
That's because the government, in its infinite wisdom and beneficence, has dropped both energy and food from the equation used to compute inflation for Social Security modifications. You must now do your patriotic duty: freeze or starve or both. Or contact Veritas AKA Invidia - perhaps he has some spare Gravy Train and some unsold books you can burn in the stove.
If the federal government "nationalizes" energy, here are the certainties: the price will go up and the availability will go down.
Pedantic 'R Us
Most people think DoED stands for "Dept of Erectile Dysfunction", but they're smart enough to interpret DoE in context - perhaps after thinking about it for four hours.
Yours is the most common argument against cutting the size of government: That group is small - deleting it won't matter in the long run. So nothing ever gets cut.
For the moment, I'll agree. The real solution is to cut taxes and/or let people deduct ALL education expenses - the need for financial aid will drop like a rock. The other point, you can't be serious. The federal government is the biggest violator of privacy and civil rights - the fox makes a lousy henhouse guard. Education is a personal, local matter. The US government has no business wetting its beak.
The above waste of space ...
... brought to you by the Voisine School of Cut & Paste, a wholly owned subsidiary of the DNC. You blamed Rs for "wars", neighbor, and I simply listed the Ds' contributions, as recorded faithfully in all histories except those churned out by the Soros Publishing House. Buy a good comic book, Poison, and stay in your area of competence.
Another of the newly
Another of the newly "verified" immediately violates the objectives of the change. No surprise.
Midterm elections usually
Midterm elections usually support the party not in the Whitehouse. Surprise.
Rs haven't held Maine because Ds kept promising people something for nothing and we were stupid enough to believe them. We finally smartened up.
Obama won! If you don't believe me, just ask him. The only two-term D president since FDR was Slick. That's enough for another 50 years.
D presidents got us into: WWI, WWII, Korea, Viet Nam, Bosnia ... The Rs have some catching up to do.
Congress' approval rating is about 11%, due entirely to the Ds ineptitude. And you're happy with that.
Ds still hold the Senate, so every time they kill something the R House sends over, the Rs will trumpet the news far and wide that there's a new party of NO.
For every $1 wasted by Rs in 8 years, the Ds have tripled down in 2 years, with zip to show for it.
If D stands for success, gimme more of that R failure.
If what Ajax says is true ...
... sign me up for the Janet Mills in 2014 PAC.
Since Democrats would never listen to me, I'll give them some advice. Get a spokesman who will never, ever, even once say: We need to work harder getting our message out. You got your message out just fine, but finally the electorate decided they didn't like the same old, tiresome liberal pap.
The DoE is really ...
... the Department of Pandering to Education Unions. If we got rid of it, the absence wouldn't cause even a blip in the education of students. In fact, it might improve the quality of teachers who would no longer have to waste time reading and responding to government nonsense.
Ms. Web Editor:
Make the "edit" button work. There's a useful change to the system.
4 to 1
As I write this, five posters have entered comments. Only one was "verified" and, as Gil pointed out, that one immediately violated all the objectives the SJ says it wants to achieve with this new police - excuse me - policy. It seems that big green tattoo isn't very popular. Neither was a big red A or a string of numbers on your forearm.
The rest of the comments are as civil as you can expect, and more civil than most other recent threads. That is, the threat alone was enough to tone things down. Now all you have to do is stop making your own "news" by publishing articles and letters about the change and the <sarcasm>overwhelming</sarcasm> response.
What are you talking about, Danny?
Since I posted, someone changed "police" to "policy". Marvelous. I see you've been "verified" - it must be a lot like being patted down at the airport. Ewww.
This thread started from a letter to the editor. It was the author's opinion, not fact. All the earlier commenters expressed their opinions, not facts - including you. I'm happy that my opinions often line up with Gil's.
Freudian slip of the fingers?
When a staffer put the letter online, the title became New police for Sun Journal. Pretty soon they'll ask each one of us: Your papers, please.
Thanks, Steve.
OK, scratch the "liberal" remark. This place will be like a college seminar in partial differential equations: most peoples' eyes will glaze over with boredom.
You stated it and, as I mentioned in another comment, so did P. Reaves: If you fear reprisal, keep your mouth shut. Many more folks have pointed out that there are many forms of "reprisal", not just physical, which is way too much for most bottom-feeders to contemplate. Other forms are easy: make a phone call, or drop some innuendo (anonymously, of course) on other internet sites.
The founders of our country published their views under pen-names in broadsides - the internet of the 18th century - precisely because they feared reprisal, and not just from the 400 pound gorilla, the British. But they believed the views were important enough to get them out there anyway.
The public will be showered, for sure.
But not with mature, informed opinions. This place will be like a Poli-Sci seminar in any left-wing college - a bunch of liberals all saying the same thing and calling it debate.
The way to attract the best minds with the brightest ideas is to protect their privacy from the bottom-feeders, not to insult them with accusations of shame. That's been the #1 talking point since the announcement of this policy: You don't want to use your real name? You must be ashamed of your opinions. Male bovine excrement.
This policy is a solution in search of a problem.
See the posts above ...
... by Ronnie Rim-shot and Danny Brat-on. That's the level of commentary you'll have here after 2/1. Let the 2011 snark-fest begin.
Merry Christmas, Invidia.
You're still running neck-and-neck with LIL in the 2010 contest for the most content-free comment. It's difficult to focus after all that grog.
The daughter-hirer isn't in office yet so the state-level uncertainty was created by your precious liberals. Toke another lid.
You didn't read my post, Lilly.
Nothing new there. I'm happy to identify with my beliefs - until the low-life, knuckle-dragging, mouth-breathers start playing games off-line.
Not aware?
RR: ... we are not aware of any safety problems that have resulted.
Last March I notified you of exactly that. Here is your response:
On Mar 8, 2010, at 9:05 AM, Pattie Reaves wrote:
> I would suggest that you don't share comments in our community to which you would not want your name attached.
To which I responded:
Just over three months ago, my last published letter drew a similar cowardly, anonymous off-line response. In fact, stuff like this has happened often enough that my letter frequency is way down from previous years.
I don't mind having my name attached to an on-line comment and I'll debate it with anyone out in the light. But I don't have the resources to protect myself and my family from off-line threats and abuse from some in the community who operate only in the dark. There is accountability on one side only.
Forum anonymity encourages participation by people who might otherwise fear private retaliation from those who don't share the same public opinions. An obvious example is a whistleblower in a public position.
Exposing personal information encourages blandness and/or participation reduced down to the those who just don't care what happens on- or off-line.
Huh?
Were you reading comments at http://www.sunjournal.com/city/story/956149 ? You have a mighty low threshold of overwhelming.
Entitled?
This profound advice brought to you by someone with two taxpayer funded pensions and taxpayer funded health care - and that qualifies him to pontificate about what the rest of the world deals with. Avast, swabbie! Mop that bilge.
Don't worry, be happy!
Pay attention to the boyfriend, dudette. It's likely that he'll be working to pay your social security. But, who cares? Go back to the beach, chug another mai-tai, munch a few more sugar-plums, and live for today. Somebody else will take care of your tomorrows. Is that positive enough?
FDR is responsible.
As soon as Social Security began in1936, people believed their "contributions" (read "extortion") went into a personal account and started earning interest. And the government did absolutely nothing to dispel this delusion.
People also believed that SS was the national retirement plan. In reality, it's an emergency backup to avoid having old folks living in abject poverty. As always, private individuals had and have the primary responsibility to prepare for their own retirement. Surprise! The government encouraged this fairy-tale because they quickly realized what a cash-cow this scheme was.
Finally, in the biggest act of hypocrisy of the 20th century, they set the age at which you could begin collecting benefits higher than the current life expectancy. That is, FDR hoped the system would never pay out a dime. But then those ungrateful people started living longer.
fixit001, there is plenty of money to pay benefits now and in the future. Just trade some of those IOU-s for a mountain of newly printed dollars. Our current government is well experienced in these matters: bailouts, QE-s, TARP, etc. All that new money cheapens the value of the dollars already in the pool, a situation known as inflation. This hits people hardest when buying food and energy.
But wait! Those two items have been dropped from the equation used to determine if SS recipients deserve a COLA. What a coincidence.
75 years of hypocrisy with no end in sight.
If you win the lunch with
If you win the lunch with Rex, make sure ahead of time who is supposed to pick up the tab.
The constant whiners ..
.. haven't managed to find this discussion. Interesting. Perhaps they're just lurking, watching the fun, rubbing their hands in anticipation of the private playground they'll have in Feb. Of course, they'll tire of talking only to each other in about 30 seconds.
It's also interesting that the SJ dropped this blivet(+) around the same time that the FCC (Motto: We doan need no steenkin courts.) announced its unconstitutional power-grab of the internet. Both actions will yield similar results.
(+) 8 pounds of **** in a 4 pound bag
Amen.
Amen.
Rex et al:
You can wrap it in the flag and Norman Rockwell and traditional values all you want, but what you're really trying to do is put a leash on the 6 or 8 idiots who spoil the place for everyone. I applaud that effort, but it's impossible without doing the same thing you want to eliminate - spoil it for everyone.
armymom just delivered an eloquent statement of the usual result of the law of unintended consequences. People will vote with their feet and their checkbooks and you'll be left trying to decide what else to drop from your paper to make up for the upcoming decline in readership. Anyone remember the printed TV book?
You have made your decision, and you have every right to do so. After all, your run a private enterprise, not some government social tinkering democracy. But I'm curious. Have the Costellos expressed an opinion on the matter?
You mean you think he hasn't
You mean you think he hasn't already had ... Wait, mustn't take the chance of offending. Oh, well, I'll just post the kind of comment you'll be getting after 2/1: Can't we all just get along? Have a nice day! |-)
Which is exactly why, months
Which is exactly why, months ago, I removed my real name from the account page and changed my screen name.
This policy will demand blandness in the name of civility. On 2/1 you'll be able to hear your echo in here. But it sure will be tolerant and diverse!
Give us a break from your cut & paste.
Do you have any opinions of your own, Invidia?
Maybe the students you know are dumb and fat, but my two oldest grandchildren (15 & 13 ) are on highest honors and skinny as rakes because they play sports. And all that's in spite of the fact that most of their teachers are well-educated socialists who never do anything more strenuous than hoisting a laptop.
Why not?
Paul LePage ... cannot provide "affordable" health care.
Sure he can. (1) Get rid of the mandates, which make insurance unaffordable for all of us. (2) Establish a high-risk pool to help those who really need the help. (3) Pick up the slack left by 16 years of Democrats and pay what the state owes to health care providers.
By the numbers ...
1. Students will then be dumb and fat.
2. Get rid of unions and their political enablers who encourage those contracts.
3. Ditto. And get ready for the howls from union teachers when you tell them they can't have a 10 week summer vacation.
Also you won't improve test
Also you won't improve test scores by subjecting students to longer days in and smaller vacations from our dismal school system. That will just annoy both students and teachers. Real progress will be achieved only when we break the stranglehold unions have on public education.
Another content-free post.
It's obvious who really needs to grow up.
Two part message.
(1) Maine finally got sick of being shorn by the Democrats and decided to try a complete make-over.
(2) But we're still addicted to all the federal sugarplums supposedly placed in our stockings by those two drones in the House and those two RINOs in the Senate.
The bamboozling has been coming from the left for decades and the blinders are coming off - not all the way, yet, but getting there. Since you're into old sayings now, here's one: You can lead a donkey with koolaide, but you can't make him think.
PS. Palid? I had hoped that the junior-high misspellings were a thing of the past now that WideStanceRepublican has gone to that great forum in the sky.
PS-2. That's keep the tax cut, not get.
What does it mean?
Sounds good. My Latin-to-English dictionary comes up empty.
The only point you have,
The only point you have, Invidia, is the one under your Donald Duck hat. You said even partial privatization would just enrich GWB's buds. I said, even so it would pay for SS better than the current system. You don't want to debate anything, you just want folks to agree with your cut-and-paste arguments. Forget it.
Even if it made his buddies
Even if it made his buddies rich, there would enough left over to keep SS robust and secure - far more than the play money in the IOU box.
When you get tired (like everyone else) of your current screen name, try Invidia. It suits you better.
START …
does not constrain Russia's program to modernize its nuclear stockpile;
does nothing to control low-yield, tactical nukes - Russia has lots and terrorists are clamoring for them - just the thing for luggage headed for the US;
stops our development of missile defenses - Russia says it will walk away from the treaty if we make any improvements;
is not transparent - Obama will not release the full negotiation record - perhaps he's waiting for WikiLeaks - and a few senators are unwilling to bless a treaty when they don't know all the commitments.
I agree. This is a great deal - for Russia.
Heaven forfend!
Imagine that V doesn't take political advice from plaster doggies.
Honest Democrat?
Yawn.
Yawn.
But there are no honest
But there are no honest Democrats at all. Honest Democrat? There's an oxymoron.
The Democrat "tactic" has
The Democrat "tactic" has been, since 1936, to encourage people to believe that Social Security is the National Retirement Plan. Of course they would never say that out loud, being invertebrates. And, wow, have they been successful. Today the average American never lifts a finger to prepare for his own retirement, for which SS was always meant to be a just a back-up. The Democrat party has survived for decades by making as many people as possible, as dependent on government as they can get.
A billion here, a billion
A billion here, a billion there, and pretty soon you're talking about real money.
- Everett Dirksen
The statement does sound quaint now.
Translation from tron-speak:
Which party wants to keep all tax rates at the current levels, at which they have stayed for 7+ years, to avoid letting them automatically revert up to the Clinton levels, to maintain some stability in a volatile economy, and not to single out one group and punish them for being successful in spite of their government? No hint required. It is the Republican
First time for everything.
But don't hold your breath.
It's not selfish.
It's just wrong, Woody, to think it's your money. FDR didn't set it up that way in 1936 and it hasn't changed since: The taxes we pay are spent as soon as the government receives them, on whatever they want to pay for, and they drop an IOU in the famous "lock box". Paying Social Security benefits is just another expense, completely disconnected from the taxes we all pay. Well, except for most teachers and other government employees. Now-a-days, when they need to cash in an IOU, they just print more dollars out of thin air.
Memo to all grinches:
Print this letter and stuff it .. in every Christmas stocking you can find. It's a great present.
Become self-sufficient?
The only way that could happen is to move out of Maine. Interesting question: Is it an efficient use of welfare to rent U-Haul trucks for people to escape from the Glorious Socialist Paradise?
As a spokesperson for the entitled, whining, and paranoid rich, I'll let everyone in on a little secret: Next year it will become a lot easier to stay with a job and making it on your own, and a lot harder to remain dependent on other peoples' hard earned money.
*sigh*
Tilla: Certainly, if tax reduction for the rich was the problem, job growth would have continued these past 10 years.
There were 9/11 and two wars. But, of course, stuff like that doesn't affect the economy at all - just trivialities. And the Democrats got a stranglehold on Congress in 2006 and started down the slide to socialism. Insignificant! Oh, wait, the economy imploded, but pay no attention - and anyway, they inherited the mess.
Then came the Community Organizer in Chief to begin his fundamental transformation of the US .. into a 3rd world state, powerless and completely beholden to China, Russia and everyone else who wants to make us and keep us dependent on the new world order.
Indeed, how dare they.
You gotta love that phrase.
Hubert Kauffman: ... an electorate that is distracted and confused.
They must be because, instead of continuing to vote for the entitled class of liberal Democrats, they overturned the House in DC and everything in Augusta. We must get rid of those pesky elections! They just cause distraction and confusion.
The real bullying starts in January.
Politically Correct Carols
I'm Dreaming of a Race Immaterial Non-Religious- Specific Day-Off in Winter
O Little Town of Israeli-Palestinian Joint Rule
O Come Let us Adore Him or Her
We Three Misogynist Autocrats of Eastern Asia are
O holiday tree
Have yourself a merry little day of winter
Frosty the snowperson
Chestnuts roasting over a safely contained, continuously monitored, eco-friendly, nontoxic outdoor fire (for which I do have a permit)
Higher power rest ye merry gentlemen
Grandma got allegedly run over by an unidentified non-human perpetrator
Deck the halls with boughs of undamaged foliage (If office policy approves)
Hark! The herald mythical winged creature sings
I saw mommy greeting santa claus with a purely platonic expression of inoffensive mutual affection
I'll be home for a short time in December
The other 1%.
Ethan, your letter describes 99% of the people in our country - they don't make a big deal and do practice live and let live. It's the other 1% who try to spoil the season for the rest. They are those bitter, caustic and, unfortunately, very vocal folks who can't begin to be happy unless they are telling the rest of us what to think and what can be said out loud, how to behave and, especially, how to worship. Don't turn the other cheek - it just encourages them. Instead, avoid them altogether whenever possible - they thrive on attention. When you can't avoid them, cross the street, turn off the TV or radio, close the newspaper, or shut off your computer. Merry Christmas!
Visas? We doan need no steenkin' visas.
In 1979 we vacationed in Big Bend National Park in southwest TX. Part of the "experience" was to take a rowboat across the river, then hike a mile, all in 110 degrees, to a cantina in the middle of nowhere. Cold beer never tasted so good. And we din' need no steenkin' visas.
Today? If you can enter the park at all and get within 40 miles of the river, you'll be met by armed men, of uncertain affiliation, and the best you can hope for is a blunt order to turn around and get gone. If you get closer into cartel occupied territory, God help you - because you won't get any help from the US government.
The race panderers, aided and abetted by liberals everywhere, are hard at work addressing the illegal immigration issue. Their plan is to make life here as bad as it is south of the border. That will keep Mexicans in Mexico, but I'll bet we'll be hearing a different sort of whining from US libbies: Hey, wait, it's not supposed to affect me!
No states are going to be given back, or taken back, and in less than five years, that 30 mile strip just inside Mexico will be occupied by the US military, with all the fire power that hasn't been given away to Russia and China, and it will be an order of magnitude worse than anything in Iraq or Afghanistan. That's what you're buying with your crocodile tears for those poor children of illegal immigrants.
I'll cut AZ some slack.
For a while. To the others: Vaya con Dios.
Guilty of living while stupid.
I'm surprised that Lukeski hasn't instructed his lawyer to sue Rite Aid for invasion of privacy. I hear the same whining from at least one high school student every November. He would much rather go hunting than go to school, so he phones in a bomb threat. A few minutes later, the cops show up on his doorstep, having traced him through Caller ID. Then the wailing begins: It's not FAIR!
Huh?
If Congress does nothing and lets the Bush tax cuts expire, the rates go up. If Congress extends them, they stay where they are and have been for several years. Either way, what they pay does not go down. Unless your view is that the rates should go up for the "rich" and if they don't, those evil rich people won't have to pay more than they do this year, thus it's a break. This is pure class and wealth envy, wrapped in gymnastic pandering.
Natzis?
Voisine, does your computer have spell-check? You might want to turn it on.
For every Liberty U., there are 100 UM's. You libs are way ahead in the indoctrination wars.
You libs are also way ahead in shooting your mouths off with no information. I have a BA in computer science and 40+ years in the private sector. That is, I studied something with potential and then put it to productive use, which is a lot more than we'll ever see from our bunny skinner.
Confucius say: Always engage brain before putting mouth in gear.
The kid is a senior English major.
After 4 years of comsimp indoctrination, it's impossible to be a "right wing Republican creep". I do agree, though, that he's a dimwit because he has to resort to look-at-me-aren't-I-important displays to get any attention.
A stopped clock is right
A stopped clock is right twice a day.
I only read the articles!
Besides, I quit long ago when the price went over $3. $20! Does that come with a certificate of medical cleanliness?
So what's the deal? The Collected Non-Explosive Works of Bill Ayers? How much do you charge for one sheet of paper?
Quality vs. trash. Who have you hired to explain the difference to you? Tron, I bet. He doesn't do anything here, so he has plenty of time on his hands.
Merry Christmas, Pirate. And
Merry Christmas, Pirate. And Happy Rama-lama-ding-dong-kwanza-kah, Parrot.
Thanks for explaining all
Thanks for explaining all that to us nefarious roll builders, Pontifex Veritatis. It must be a slow day at the store. Does this month's Hustler come in green and red shrink-wrap?
There are those who seem
There are those who seem intent upon NOT blaming those responsible for making so many unemployed and keeping them unemployed. Nationwide I refer, of course, to Congress and the White House; in Maine, the legislature and the Blaine House. And everywhere, of course, unions.
The best thing for an unemployed person is a job. If government would get out of the way, the private sector would create one and the person would fill it. No amount of welfare, disguised as unemployment benefits, will do that.
In college my dorm roommate
In college my dorm roommate was Jewish. We still keep in touch - he sends me a Hanukkah card, I send him a Christmas card. No discomfort or discourtesy. To suggest that those qualities must be present in such an exchange does disrespect to both religions and implies that the suggester doesn't have any friends at all, except perhaps a few who are as closed-minded as he is.
Get rid of laptops, too.
Angus K. created this money burner and John B. perpetuated it. Now we have a generation of teachers who can't run a class without their computers. In ten years the next generation won't be able to teach without a cell phone. The hype was always that these gadgets prepare our kids for good jobs that require high tech experience. While that hand was waving, the other hand was chasing away all those jobs. Most of those kids are prepared only for playing video games while collecting welfare.
What part of "join" is mysterious?
Some folks here, including the editorial board, seem to believe that "joining" the existing suit means duplicating everything that has already been done. This is from the WSJ on 11/18.
Joining the ObamaCare Suit
Some of the new AGs may consider filing their own separate suits against ObamaCare, following Virginia's Ken Cuccinelli. This may win a few headlines, but we doubt it will enhance the chances for legal success. The more states that join the Florida suit, the more the judiciary will appreciate how widespread the legal and popular opposition is to ObamaCare's federal intrusion on state powers and individual rights.
History's footnotes are
History's footnotes are littered with voices that kept silent, kept their heads down, tail between legs. If Mr. Rhoades had been around in Philly in 1776, he would have said: Gee, fellas, I don't think I want to sign such a pointless, impractical challenge to the king's authority. It will sort itself out. Rule Britannia.
The bipartisan support for
The bipartisan support for START has shrunk ever since Our Dear Leader began his campaign to bow down before every tin-pot dictator he could locate, all the while apologizing for everything the US ever did - well, ever did under Republican leadership.
This treaty now is just a written version of Obama bowing down to the New World Order in the person of president-for-life Putin.
How's that trickle-up theory
How's that trickle-up theory of bail-out working? Very well, if you believe the created-or-saved balderdash. Just print a mountain of money not backed by anything. Up or down, it's a mountain. The difference is, with the Bush tax cuts, everyone gets to decide what to do with more of their earnings; without, the decisions are made by politicians.
Overturn what?
Up above somewhere, one of the usual pests moaned about overturning the Constitution if there are any restrictions placed on Muslims. Here's all it says about religion: Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof ... It's that second clause that has proven so tricky. The courts have been reasonably consistent, at least for the last 20 years, that governments, not just the feds, can restrict the exercise of religion, as long as the restrictions apply equally to all religions. I haven't seen any recent stories about belligerent Christian parkers, so I have to believe that this is another instance of Islam being more equal than other religions.
What a concept!
It used to be so central to everything that you almost never heard it said out loud: My rights end when they interfere with yours - and vice versa.
Today it's become: I have my rights and if you don't like it - sue me!
I like the latest comment a moment ago.
McClatchy columns.save one the trouble of reading DNC press releases.
Sorry about that.
Post in haste, regret in leisure. I skipped the JQ reference.
At least I'll acknowledge a mistake. Some, of course, never make any - if you don't believe me, just ask them.
Are you serious?
Do you really believe the LSJ editorial board is a group of conservatives? It's a typical liberal tactic to suggest the Constitution can mean anything you want it to mean, and then to dare those of us who disagree to get out.
This is in response to the Underwear Bomber.
It took TSA only about a year to come up with this intrusive procedure. I suppose that's pretty efficient for a heavily unionized organization.
This whole approach to security is stupid because its premise is: Each one of 300 million Americans is equally likely to be a terrorist. The premise should be: Focus on those whose behavior is indicative of a terrorist. But that would be profiling!! (Cue the moaning and hand wringing.) Contact the folks at El Al for a quick lesson.
Those servicemen you speak of so righteously took an oath to support and defend the Constitution. I wonder how they feel about another branch of the federal government trashing the fourth amendment.
Anyhow, Editorial Board, get back to us after your 4 year old daughter or 80 year old grandmother gets groped at the airport.
Spell it right.
Progressive (uppercase) has nothing to do with progressive (lowercase). Pelosi is the former and the electorate finally got fed up and demoted her to the minority. Too bad the voters of her district didn't join in and move her where she belongs - out of Congress. I hear there's quite a waiting list for the California Old Progressives' Home where they dodder around on their walkers hollering "Tax the rich!" and "Power to the people!"
Wait. I forgot that a bed just opened up. The former occupant just got elected governor.
If you have to tell others
If you have to tell others that you have class, then you don't. Simple corollary of Fonzie's Law of Cool.
And the usual suspects will
And the usual suspects will cling to their class-envy until H*ll is a skating rink.
In this side discussion, ...
... the old saying obviously is: Take the bull by the tail and face the situation.
They do mention it.
And they also mention that the top 1% pay more in federal income tax than the bottom 95%. There has never been even one instance of government making a poor man rich by making a rich man poor.
Supporting him is a different issue.
When Baldy won in 2006 by a very similar plurality, there was no concerted effort on the right to change the system. The left has grown to believe that it's their birthright to own governors and legislatures. Now that they've been evicted, they're whining up a storm.
Are we getting the best leadership possible?
Of course not. That question was never asked during the past 16 years. It's being asked now only because some don't like the recent results. Ranked choice voting doesn't guarantee anything except a winner by majority.
Charlie Rangel has been elected many times by huge majorities. So was his predecessor Adam Clayton Powell. Those two have other things in common: ethics violations and convictions. But they sure did bring the goodies back to Harlem.
Still hung up on ...
... the silly misspellings and 6th grade playground profanity. I agree - evidence abounds that the current administration wants to impose idiocracy from the top down.
To the other 6th graders who regularly post here: Please accept my apology for dragging you down to WSR's level.
Fascism was in Italy, the SS
Fascism was in Italy, the SS was in Germany, and they and communism are all far-left. If you take nationalism out of NAZI, the result is almost indistinguishable from communism. The left's propaganda machine has been very successful over the decades in portraying Nazis as far right-wingers. Just surf old comments here for instances where the usual suspects try to equate Republicans and Nazis. You might want to check your morning Allen's.
<zing>It's
<zing>It's inauguration.</zing> Spell-check isn't important for those to whom high-tech equipment means mop and bucket.
Your sentence is
"(all readers who hit 'disagree' after reading the first sentence) will ignore the remainder of the post." The ()-s are mine to emphasize what is the subject of the sentence. It is categorical in ascribing an action to all the subject readers. In our hair-splitting world, it does not cover those readers who hit 'disagree' after reading even one word beyond the first sentence. The folks who appreciate this sort of distinction likely also showed up for the Millennium party on 12/31/2000. Here are more categorical statements.
'Civics' in high school or lower is an endangered species at best. 'Government' is superficial until college, where it's indoctrination: republican democracy bad (unless it's power to the people); socialism / communism / totalitarianism good. History? Maybe kids still study the Greek city-states, but I'll bet the proximate (How's that for trendy elite?) connection is the movie 300.
So we have two kinds of democracy: correct and common. The former is pretty much ignored, the latter is thrown out everywhere like a verbal comma. This failing, comfortable or not, will never be corrected by snark-fest commentary in a 3rd-rate newspaper's web site.
One final piece of elitism. <irony>I'm impressed that you spelled "ad hominem" correctly.</irony> It helps my calorie intake.
I hit 'disagree'.
And I read every word of your post. Thus your categorical statement is false, but I won't hold that against you. I'm baffled by the current overuse of the trendy word 'meme'. It connotes an elite, intellectual snobbery that does not fit comfortably with 'democracy'.
The key concept for me is contained in the word 'direct'. Direct participatory democracy is the town meeting, a political form that is dying out in this era of absentee ballots and 'early' voting. But even in the past, it never worked after the population grew beyond the possibility of holding a physical meeting of all eligible voters. In my town the typical meeting is attended by fewer than 5% of those voters, who usually have an agenda that does not necessarily match the wants and needs of the other 95%.
But the direct aspect is exactly what most commenters mean. Example: I voted for ABC, but now he's doing things I don't like and I want him gone. I don't want to wait for the next election. Another example from just a few years ago: He's not my president.
The danger is that we have come to a time when it is almost literally possible to hold nation-wide plebiscites via the Internet. When that happens, you can kiss the republican (lowercase) part goodbye as we usher in the era of instant referenda and, yes, instant impeachments. Again, be careful what you wish for.
First, as usual ...
We do not live in a democracy, which the founders considered mob-rule. They gave us a republic, along with the proviso if you can keep it. Liberals prattle about democracy only when the stupid voters don't do what they're told. Which leads to ...
Ranked choice voting, or instant run-off, or one of several other names. It's great. It's wonderful. Except for one thing. For decades Maine voters have been conditioned to think only enough to find the Democrat and put a mark beside his name. There was a mini rebellion this year proving that Democrats have overreached their own propaganda.
Now you want the voter to make at least two marks - in the recent governor's election it was five, I think - and each mark is different! 1, 2, 3 ... This will require a significant amount of re-education in the electorate. Voters will have to learn about candidates and issues and make difficult decisions. While it's technically possible with a lot of effort, remember the old advice: Be careful what you wish for - you just might get it.
It used to serve the common
It used to serve the common good. Now it serves the collective good.
I will defer, of course, to
I will defer, of course, to this board's expert on lower levels.
Our rights are <strong>not</strong> defined by the Constitution.
Up above, in one of Veritas' pontificating comments, he claimed Your responsibility as a Citizen is to learn and understand how your rights are defined by the Constitution and applied by the courts so that all men and women enjoy equal protection under the law. Two entirely different battlefields fought by two completely different sets of warriors.
The document enumerates what the government can do and, more importantly, cannot do. The rights themselves come from another source.
By winning the Revolutionary War, veterans established a fertile bed for the Constitution to be accepted and implemented. Only after their sacrifices could the courts accomplish anything.
All the wars thereafter were to preserve the environment in which the courts could do all that good stuff. One set of warriors enabled the other set.
Push-button attacks are nothing new.
The far left, orchestrated by MoveOn.org, started attacking GWB on Inauguration Day 2001 and have never stopped. Not a week goes by without some dope in DC whining about the inherited mess. Yet all this attacking is quickly labeled patriotism when it's left on right; when it's right on left, there must be some other reason - like racism.
2nd, you're happy with the White House being run by aging communists and socialists? One has to wonder if they aren't left enough to suit you. You're satisfied with Obamacare? Very little of it is in effect yet, nobody has read it, not even the many authors, and nobody has a clue how much it will cost. What's not to be satisfied with?
Those who voted for Republicans might be right. But I doubt that possibility ever concerns you. Of course some will find any Republican action offensive. But that is to be resolved at the next election, not at the next meeting of the LSJ editorial board.
You know all about water and level.
A sailor was using a public restroom when a little boy came in and stood beside him. The kid asked Are you in the Navy? The sailor said Aye aye, son. Would you like to wear my cap? The boy answered Wow, yeah! So the sailor took off his cap and placed it on the kid's head.
Then a soldier came in and joined them. The boy asked Are you in the Army? The soldier answered Yes, son. Would you like to insert-lewd-question-here?
The kid answered No, sir, I'm not in the Navy. I'm just wearing this guy's cap.
Pubikwerks, the phrase came
Pubikwerks, the phrase came from the original letter, not from me. I have no idea why you're talking about hygiene; perhaps you should bathe more regularly. And no one needs to know about your truck or your family.
It's the non-pedantic kind.
It's the non-pedantic kind.
I hope that means you'll stay in Maine.
SC is looking better all the time.
There will be just a slight delay.
When the Republican is elected in 2012, he and the Republican congress can start cleaning up the messes. It will take a huge effort to undo the damage caused in just the first two years of the current administration.
My change was the opposite.
I had the pleasure of a leisurely north-bound drive through South Carolina on a couple of hot, late summer days in September. Stayed overnight with friends in Aiken. Stuck to back roads, mostly, and gave my GPS a workout. Took it slow. What a beautiful part of the country! I'm getting to an age where I look with envy at my snow-bird friends.
By the way, there's a nice little town in Florida, Frostproof, so named because the residents claim, perhaps tongue in cheek, that the temperature has never dropped below 32F.
The reasons we don't have affordable insurance ...
... in Maine are all the mandates the legislature piled on the insurance companies. Here's hoping those mandates start disappearing soon after 12/1. Unfortunately, all those mandates are wired into Obama-care, so they'll come right back unless some more folks in DC start growing backbones.
We all know where your mind is, Truthie, because you provide ample evidence every day. Too bad Lewiston doesn't enforce its leash laws.
It feels great, Truthless.
But you spelled it wrong. The only soul you'll ever get close to is the sole on the bottom of your size 13 combat-slippers, from which you hourly have to scrape the deposits from your schnauzer.
I hope you got a life-time supply of Gravy Train from your benefactor, and that you have gotten used to the taste. It will help to tide you over the bad times coming until Republicans repair the damage.
And now you're a stark, raving lefty.
There's change we can all believe in.
Do you think we got a bargain in 2006?
The Bald One had the same plurality and, yes, a lot of the leftie boneheads called it a mandate. I don't recall a bunch of sore losers then calling for the rules to change.
What do you mean by
What do you mean by "compromising solutions"? If you suggest that Ds and Rs sit down together and have a rational discussion about how to approach problems, well ... First time for everything! That certainly hasn't been tried for at least the last 16 years.
The Ds have been claiming for decades that spending can't be reduced on anything because the people voted in the Ds, and the Ds voted in the spending. Therefore, the people voted in the spending. The Rs have been advocating reduced spending for those same decades, without being very specific.
Now the Rs have a governor and a legislature, and they can cut anything they want - maybe everything. But when they try, the howling you will hear will come from the Democratic Party of NO, taking up the mantle of obstructionism. If the Rs ignore the howls, then I'll wish them good luck and urge them to keep going.
If they heed the howls, two years will go by in a big hurry and that majority will disappear.
Did you make the same
Did you make the same suggestion in 2006 when Baldacci became Governor 38? Or was it 39? I forget. When a Democrat wins, it's just fine and dandy; when a Republican wins, it's a horrendous assault on our democratic (lowercase) principles.
Not at all. I mean high-tech
Not at all. I mean high-tech companies, computer, engineering, ... The ones we're supposed to have been attracting to Maine for years with a work-force prepared by ... a few years playing frisbee with Angus-King-laptops; the companies who won't consider coming to our state until we do something about high taxes, high insurance rates, high utility rates, ... all of which can be addressed by repealing decades of liberal mandates.
That said, if the best you can manage is a retail clerk position, your choices are (1) be happy and stop whining, (2) re-educate yourself, or (3) move to where the jobs are. What you should not expect is to be able to support yourself, much less a family, on a minimum-wage job. That kind of rug is suitable only for a lap dog.
I couldn't agree more, Lilly.
I couldn't agree more, Lilly. Chellie and Mike certainly fit in that category. You couldn't possibly be talking about state positions - we just evicted the incompetent drones.
The corporations, big
The corporations, big business and the well-to-do are the ones who create jobs - real jobs, not government pencil-pusher jobs or phony low-pay, no-benefits, short-term jobs like the census. If you want to give LePage a chance, do so because our state government may now begin to stop punishing success.
By the way, Harry Reid was reelected for exactly one reason - the boatload of money thrown to him by the unions he panders to.
Scramble the names around any
Scramble the names around any way you like: How much of that outside money came in support of A and for the attack ads against B and C? The question is equally valid. Since you chose the order you did, I suspect what you really want is Democrat control over what transpires.
There is one consolation.
Liberal representatives will now be in the minority, with no protection attached to committee chairmanships and other favors handed out by the "leadership".
The voters of Maine will have two years to see what incompetent drones we keep electing. Here's hoping the new visibility carries over to the Senate as well.
You go first.
Ask your Congress-critter to submit a bill of amendment. Please post back here the response you get. I would like to read the politically-correct equivalent of Pound sand.
When a country has a "national" police force, it's the same as an army. If you like Costa Rica's so much, let's out-source to them the protection of our southern border, since the current administration has no intention of performing its duty. At least they already speak Spanish.
China is green? Have you seen recent photos of people wearing surgical masks to avoid breathing the polluted air? They will gladly make windmills as long as fools like us buy them.
Russia doesn't invest a ruble in "social" programs. Which of ours do you want to raid for money to fund NASA and its latest program to promote Muslim equality in our space program?
Most of the violence and fear you perceive is domestic. We took a huge step Tuesday toward stopping it.
Detail where in the board
Detail where in the board rules you get the authority to order others around.
If one is generous and believes O's policies didn't kick in until fiscal 2010 (Oct '09), he added more than $1T to the debt in less than a year. About the same amount will be added today or tomorrow with QE2. During that year he pushed unemployment up to 10% and kept it there, nationalized GM, put a lot of parts operations out of business with kash-for-klunkers, damaged the dignity of the presidency by hiring a bunch of communists to run the White House and pandering to every union goon he can find, and destroying the prestige of the country by bowing and scraping to every tin-pot dictator he trips over.
The error we made Tuesday was not panicking enough to take over the Senate.
He inherited a mess and
He inherited a mess and created much more and won't take responsibility for anything. The American people supported him in 2008 and are beginning to understand the magnitude of their error - and to correct it.
I hope you get your wish.
I wish that my granchildren could stay in Maine, if they choose, to enjoy the climate and forests. If they make that choice, however, they'll have to be satisfied with minimum-wage jobs, with no benefits and no future. Because that's all we'll have left if the enviro-nazis have their way.
But there's a light at the end of the tunnel. Until Tuesday I would have said the light was an oncoming train. Now, finally, the 35 year nightmare is ending and Maine is waking up. There will be adaptation and mitigation, but no compromise. This is a future truly worth considering.
Do you want to do a real service for students ...
... in RSU16 and everywhere else in Maine? Throw all those laptops in the dump and go back to teaching the kids how to read, write and add. Then they might be able to graduate from high school and go on to college without taking remedial courses.
I'll keep my opinion of the letter to myself.
But I must say that it is very hard to believe in Intelligent Design given the contradictory evidence presented my most commenters here.
In other words ...
Speak when spoken to and always follow the liberal playbook. Juan has a much better job now, with fewer restraints.
Neither did the Founders.
They hated the idea of democracy - that's why they created a republic. They used to teach this stuff in civics, but not any more. To the Founders, democracy was mob rule. We have never had democracy in this country and don't have it now. The closest thing to it is the New England town meeting, and those are vanishing quickly.
The fools on the propaganda network don't need propping up - they thrive in the free market. It's NPR that has to pass the collection plate in order to keep going with their minority, elitist "public" views.
You're probably right that Williams never belonged at NPR. They thought of him as a house n****r and he had higher aspirations than modern-day slavery.
Pandering and sycophancy are
Pandering and sycophancy are NPR's stock in trade. Their idea of a commentary show is to gather a few lefties and have them all say the same thing. FOX at least invites a token liberal now and then. Williams was punished for daring to step off the Democrat plantation.
It was a typo and it's been fixed.
Unclench your buns.
Thank you, Dr. Kuck.
Once again, NPR proved it is really NR.
What's the problem?
Don't they have cable TV at the asylum? It must be awkward to ROF in a straightjacket.
The author of the letter.
The author of the letter.
Guttering again.
You must really like the smell down there.
veritas: But the Dems aren't
veritas: But the Dems aren't warmongers like so-called conservatives.
WWI, Wilson, D
WWII, FDR, D
Korea, Truman, D
Vietnam, Kennedy/Johnson, D
Bosnia, Clinton, D
Yup, no warmongering there.
Code talker.
Working People? That's Democrat code for union goons who want all their bennies handed to them as long as someone else pays for them.
Indentured servitude? If you accept it, you're either too stupid or too lazy, or both, to take responsibility for yourself. Move to where the jobs are. (Cue the whining.) That's too hard. Government should give me a good job and lots of free stuff, right here.
Truth? You couldn't find it with both hands, a flashlight, and a sea chart. Shove off.
It's still early ...
... and already the inevitable descent into the gutter.
Why did you post a picture of Boss Tweed?
Did you finally see the light and now understand it's the Democrats who are wasting our money? Nah, it's too much to hope for that you see the truth.
No problem.
No problem.
Cheat the system?
The system is set up to allow and encourage cheating; that is, using the easy rules to get on and stay on welfare. I know several 20-somethings who have moved to the Farmington area, not because of the wonderful job prospects; because it's easy to get state assistance, a minimum-wage part-time job, and share an apartment with 4 or 5 others doing the same thing - all the while whining that someone should "give" them a better job.
I run a small business and have several employees. Those who are conscientious I pay up to $10 and hour - because that is the upper limit of what the job is worth to me. The rest get $7.50 and most of them deserve only $4. Too bad I can't pay them that.
And not one of them, from best to worst, has any business trying to support a family on this level of income. And they certainly shouldn't be starting one. But, hey, the system encourages producing more rug-rats to get more welfare and keep it longer - under the theory that they will grow up to be good little Democrats.
Minimum wage minimizes employment.
When your employer provides a benefit to you, the cost of that benefit is a cost of employment. If he pays it all, or you pay it, or you share, the cost remains the same. The average cost for family health insurance is around $14,000 a year. It might be higher. After some quick arithmetic, that amount translates to $6.73 per hour for a full-time worker.
The current minimum wage is $7.50. For someone making that wage, his employer would have to raise it to over $14 per hour to provide health insurance. I don't know any employers who could afford to do that, even Marden's.
If the government put its gun to that employer's head and forces him, the employer will have to lay off enough employees that the combined savings will cover the new insurance requirements for the remaining employees - or go out of business.
Working families do not benefit from hikes in the minimum wage. The real beneficiaries are the unions whose contract amounts are tied to minimum wage.
When does that start?
We have been throwing ever increasing wads of money at education for decades, even though the student population is shrinking. What do we have to show for it? Happy teachers and unions, and declining graduation rates. The dopes stay here and get on welfare, the graduates leave looking for those real jobs. As always, the promise is: Chucking more money at education will improve it. The gambler in me remembers the age-old poker advice: If you look around the table and can't figure out who the sucker is, it's you.
I forgot about the roads.
Sorry. Here goes. Nearly every municipality in Maine has a road crew and equipment. They are the guys who plow the roads and knock down the mailboxes. They are unionized and draw full pay and benefits all year, during most of which they sit on their thumbs. You're dang right it's not operated like a business.
Why not contract out to a private firm for public road maintenance? A lot of those guys are idle during the winter months and this would keep them on the payroll and off welfare. This would put a bunch of money back in the private sector where it belongs. Let the private firms invest in the equipment and expand to cover their natural business area, perhaps hiring the former town crews and giving them a taste of real life. At the very least this would dispense with the incredible duplication now with every little town owning its equipment.
Heck, the firms could even compete with each other, drawing costs down and maybe even saving the weary taxpayer a few bucks. All this is heresy to a Democrat.
Excellent post!
Excellent post!
Regarding the payback for our
Regarding the payback for our education "investment", when does that start? Each year, more of our kids can't manage to graduate from high school and are encouraged to settle into a "career" on welfare. Those that do graduate, leave Maine looking for jobs. But our investment in education goes up every year, with fewer tax payers to foot the bill.
Libby is going to "invest" in new technologies like ... what? Green? Each new green job destroys two non-green jobs. Maine is great at that kind of investment.
She will "support small business" ... how? Will she reduce their taxes? Will she wave the Democrat magic wand and reduce their insurance and utility costs? Yeah, right.
Maine government's focus, for decades, has been on the next election. It's way past time to take a longer look, and the myopic Democrats won't do it. Don't vote for them, or for anyone else who wants to "invest" more of what little money you have left.
Until the legislature created
Until the legislature created the rules and regulations (the commission just does what it's told), there were many health insurance companies operating in Maine, competing with each other, selling reasonable policies at reasonable prices. I know because I had one from 1985 until Augusta trashed everything in 1992 or 3.
The rules and regulations killed all that, leaving just Anthem and a handful of minor players - they all sell the same thing at the same price, evil competition is not to be tolerated here in the Socialist Workers' Paradise. What some people call the wild west, others call real life.
It's evident that in your
It's evident that in your career you never had even one significant position in the private sector so you could compare your federal/union bennies to what the rest of us get. I have a pretty fair arrangement with my employer - I pay half and he pays half, for a total of $2,700 per month. And that is better than what a lot of folks get. And it's considered a cadillac plan, so I get taxed on it as imputed income.
I agree it's ludicrous - because it's 100% caused by short-sighted politicians who will bankrupt the country in order to preserve their power.
We have a president? I
We have a president? I thought we now were ruled by a politburo.
Juan was stupid - all the way
Juan was stupid - all the way to the bank.
I agree. The outrageous
I agree. The outrageous costs are to make up for the "free" care provided to the uninsured and the poor (not necessarily the same) and the "free" mandates on insurance - guaranteed issue, no pre-existing conditions, one-size-fits-all, ... The care is supposed to be reimbursed, but payment comes 5 years late and 60% or less of billed amounts. Fix the problems by going after the biggest deadbeat customer, the State of Maine, and repeal the mandates. Then pay attention to the folks who actually need help instead of trying, and failing, to do everything for everybody.
Who got banned?
Can I make my short list one shorter?
The Democrats have been
The Democrats have been throwing our money at education for decades and all we have to show for it are happy teachers and happier unions. The student population state-wide has been declining for years, but the education budget goes up every year like clockwork - and the graduation rate goes down. If this is the system that LePage will damage, then GO PAUL!
So much for 'communist' equality.
It's really interesting. When North Korea needs a new leader, the best qualified candidate they can scrounge up in the entire, glorious workers' paradise is the idiot son of the idiot father. Or idiot grandson of the idiot grandfather. That country is not a communist state, it's a hereditary dictatorship.
Same with Cuba. When Fidel was sick (Is he still alive?), they hauled out his drooling brother to take over. So much for the great equality under the hammer and sickle.
What wealth?
If the current administration has its way, there won't be any wealth left to love.
Add the love of power, and
Add the love of power, and especially the love of I've got mine and the rest of you can go jump.
Crazy.
If they lift the ban on out-of-state insurance, all they would accomplish is to allow someone in Maine to buy a policy the same as Anthem's, at the same price, from a NH company. There will be no 40% savings unless Maine repeals the other mandates they require on ANY policy - guaranteed issue, pre-existing conditions, one size fits all, ... - those are the things that drive up premiums.
You may ask: How can Maine dictate to NH the contents of health insurance policies? Easy. All you need are several federal administrations and congresses who couldn't care less about the Constitution and want to keep interstate commerce on a short leash.
The repeal kept sales and
The repeal kept sales and income taxes at their previous levels. Nothing raised, nothing lowered. But in modern Dem-speak, a possible (but improbable) tax cut that is repealed before it is implemented becomes a tax hike. Sorry, Woody, this sort of dissembling doesn't work any more.
Whatever the outcome, I have
Whatever the outcome, I have it from a reliable source that down in a locked basement room in the state house in Augusta are several fine examples of the venerable craft of noose tying. For some reason, the state museum doesn't have them on display. If we bring back the death penalty, someone can easily learn how to replicate the knot, even using new materials to avoid those hateful neck abrasions. If not, because we can't find a union member capable of the exercise, I'll bet the old ones will last for quite a while.
I too am in favor of capital punishment in Maine, but only if a jury decides death, no judges, and there is a maximum of 10 days for appeal - and the procedure takes place on the state house steps with full media coverage.
Oh, and the punishment for dirty cops is hanging twice.
In vino veritas
In vino veritas
I agree.
But I have the feeling that, once again, the publisher is calling these shots and the editorial board is on auto-pilot for another week or so.
A huckster for president?
That's exactly what we elected in 2008. Billy from the grave can do a better job than the teleprompter-in-chief.
Still stuck on the silly, 4th
Still stuck on the silly, 4th grade misspellings, I see. Keep them coming. Each one drives another undecided to the right.
When the subject is drugs,
When the subject is drugs, the argument in favor of legalizing is that doing so would cut out the criminal elements. But then, Augusta would do what it does best: tax and regulate. And as with cigarettes and booze, they would overdo it - inviting cutthroat competition from the bentnoses. The only downside to legalizing gambling is the state's history with similar things.
He shortened a Latin motto.
It is "in vino veritas" and it means that when you drink alcohol you tend to get loose and sometimes say things you normally wouldn't say had you not imbibed. He lives up to his chosen name. Make that "down to".
If it had been overhauled 40
If it had been overhauled 40 years ago, just as I was entering the work force, allowing me to retain and invest privately some or all of the money I was forced to waste on the Social Security Ponzi scheme, I wouldn't care today if my benefits were reduced by 100%.
And they probably will be. Oh I'll get a monthly check, but I'll be lucky if it will buy me a cup of coffee, thanks to the Weimar-like inflation coming in response to printing mountains of worthless currency to subsidize this scam that should have been declared unconstitutional in 1936.
But don't worry, be moronically happy. lil and her/his/its comrades won't allow changes except to hike the rates on our children and grandchildren.
I agree.
If you are implying that compromise is always good, I'll have to disagree. Many of today's Democrats did a lot of compromising during the GWB years. That really worked out well. Now they happily blame him for every wrong in the world, ignoring the fact they were willing accomplices. Many of today's Republicans object to involuntary compromise (AKA bipartisanship) and are excoriated for obstructionism. Perhaps the time for compromise is past.
They all would, if they could
They all would, if they could get away with it politically. Earlier this year, the premier of Prince Edward Island came south of the border to avoid standing (and perhaps dying) in line for heart surgery. The best way to stop that is to convert our system to be as bad as theirs. Your lord and master has launched that process well.
BTW, I said "ruling" elite. The Queen and the Emperor rule nothing, not even their own families. The Pope can command any treatment he wants. But are you really suggesting that Vatican City operates under socialized medicine? If you are, you swallowed that clock and it's obviously interfering with you mental faculties.
None. Ours is the best care
None. Ours is the best care in the world. Is it expensive? Yes. Will it get much more expensive under O-care? Yes again.
The ruling elite from all
The ruling elite from all those other countries come here for care when it's important, and they pay cash. They don't want anything to do with "free" government healthcare. Especially the kind provided in the Old Sailors' Dementia Home.
Do you have health insurance?
Are you on Medicare, Mainecare, or a cadillac deal extorted by union goons from your employer? I'm not, so tell me if my situation is a pretty darn good: the premium for a reasonably healthy couple in their early 60s is $2500 per month. That's not just Anthem, but every other private insurer, the few still doing business here, as well as from DirigoHealth, if you can contact them when enrollment is open. The companies aren't at fault, the politicians are, with their unfunded mandates.
This pretty darn good situation brought to you by your Democrats in Augusta - trying as hard as they can to kick the responsibility down to Washington. But, never mind. You can look at beautiful scenery while you slowly die from medical problems you can't afford to treat.
You have 6 or 8 subject lines ...
... but don't follow up on any of them. To pick just one, lots of us, not just the Tea Party, want Pelosi gone. Boehner will become speaker and, being pretty good at reading the numbers, will realize that he too will be gone in two years if the house goes back to business as usual. It doesn't get more active than that, unless you're advocating revolution.
The bitter tone makes me think you may have joined a local Tea Party group but couldn't get elected to a position high enough to stroke your ego. That sort of good discrimination is a reflection of America at its best.
It takes 30 seconds a day ...
... to keep up with the DNC/union talking points. When all you really have to do all day long is comb the fleas out of your dog and your beard, managing time is pretty easy. Oh, and that ship was drawing friendly fire because it didn't collect the garbage often enough.
The answer is simple.
Most of those dollars he brought to L/A started there. Michaud takes credit for returning your money to you - that is, to state and local government to use to pay for wonderful programs for working families and main street business and several other buzz phrases. But that money first, dontcha know, has to pass through the federal sewer pipe, where a great deal sticks to the sides.
The interjection you're fishing for is ...
Oops! As in - Oops! - I don't have anything to say in favor of my candidate, so - Oops! - I'll just have to spew slander and innuendo about the other guy. It's a venerable tactic, but it won't work this year. OPPPPS!
That's a long commute!
In a situation like this, doesn't the out-of-state company subcontract to outfits more local? It doesn't make sense to ship workers and equipment halfway across the country for such a small project.
The uneven playing field is more apparent when the work can be performed elsewhere and then shipped to Maine. The advantage goes to bidders from states that are a little more business friendly. Think taxes, insurance, ... It's not uncommon. Think about computer programming, for just one example.
The past 8 years of tact,
The past 8 years of tact, professionalism, communication, patience, experience and knowledge have put Maine on a direct path to bankruptcy. Mitchell would complete the journey.
Google comes through again.
Jan Collins is the wife of Irv Faunce, the Democrat candidate for the Maine House from Wilton, running to replace the term-limited Tom Saviello. These details brought to you in the name of full disclosure.
So what would she do?
Ms. Collins, you gave your version of what LePage and Cutler would do, but not Mitchell. That's because her plan is more of the same. She will continue the Democrat tradition of lying to the people of Maine by resurrecting the decades old promise of 55% state funding - never met even once - and of assuming we're all too stupid to understand the futility of that approach. Later, budget "emergencies" would force her to break the promise (surprise!) and property tax payers would once again get the education shaft.
Just out of curiosity, Ms. Collins, who do you work for?
No. Having a dope for VPOTUS
No. Having a dope for VPOTUS offends me and everyone else. That's why rumors are flying that Joe "foot-in-mouth" Biden will be replaced on the ticket in 2012. The smart money says the new candidate will be another teleprompter - less chance of embarrassing mistakes.
Translation:
Veritas has the right to health care paid for by someone else. That's what it reduces down to.
Memo to 'gdls1'
This discussion is the perfect example, about 8 out of 10 on the Crass-O-Meter. Have a nice day.
You must be new to this forum.
Scan the comments attached to any letter that even hints at support for someone or something on the right. You'll find enough crassness to last a lifetime - or at least until the next election.
Who cares about that dusty, old Constitution?
Lil's post is much more important than his/her/its usual post. It reveals that liberals want a king, not a president, and to them Congress is irrelevant. Barack the First will make all decisions by royal decree. They just can't get and keep their agenda within the structure of a republic - too democratic (small D).
Thank you, Mr. Hoy.
Your letter is a great summary of why this year there is much voter dissatisfaction with both major parties. The D's are going to get trounced - and the R's better pay close attention to the reasons.
Evidently it's too much to
Evidently it's too much to ask that you write a comment that makes some rational argument for or against the content of a letter.
While others insist on debating history, on to current events.
For 8 years we have had a governor with the passion of a cadaver, who smiles and nods and says whatever he decides his audience wants to hear. Boy, is he nice or what?
And for 8 years he has lied to the Maine electorate about the state of the state. (Before you get your boxers in a bunch, glance up to the top of the page. See the big word opinion?) Especially the financial state. The current Democrat platform is a very simple plan: Beg for more cash from Washington.
I'm ready for a governor who will tell us the truth in a stern way that shows he knows that it hurts: The way out of this mess starts in Augusta and will never be found by the current occupants.
R's don't need to.
Most D's running for (re)election don't mention Obama, except to say they voted against certain bills, and avoid like the plague having Obama campaign for them. Republicans are thanking him for all the help.
Grand Kleagle
Sen. Robert Byrd (D, of course) was a member of the KKK and a recruiter. After his death, Slick Willie excused it as a youthful indiscretion - it started in his 30s and lasted about 10 years - and, further, he was trying to get elected in the South. I guess you can rob banks and get a free pass, as long as you're a Democrat trying to get elected. Come to think of it, most incumbent Democrats have done exactly that, and continue to this day.
Then why is the unemployment
Then why is the unemployment rate, which was never supposed to go above 8% with all that stimulating, now just under 10%, where it's been for about 14 months? Oh, yeah, the communists in the O-administration keep saying they underestimated the mess they inherited. You might think that all that high-priced czar talent would be better at estimating. You might be wrong.
Oops!
For tron read veritas. It's a mistake anyone could make, since their comments are so similar.
Typical.
Tron's response is completely unrelated to my comment on a statement he made. The waste is the statement, which obviously didn't have any thought behind it.
The bilge must have been deep on that garbage scow.
Assuming you pay income taxes, how then is it your business to know my SS number? Or anyone's? Like art, I may not know what waste is, but I know it when I see it - or read it.
Oh, yes, we see.
Oh, yes, we see.
I agree - and I so clicked.
I agree - and I so clicked. I always get suspicious when comments from certain folks here are spelled correctly and use proper grammar. What are the chances?
I can't argue with such a
I can't argue with such a cogent argument.
Oh, Ms. Reaves, would you please publish the paper's definition of "respectful"? Thanks.
We ain't seen nuthin yet.
When (If) Obamacare kicks into high gear, we'll all be coerced into coughing up (pun intended) lots more personal information - medical, financial, ... - at the point of the tax gun. Handing out your Social Security number will be the least intrusive. For easy reference, have the number tattooed on your arm - before it becomes mandatory.
King Angus was a Republican?
He ran as an independent because both parties knew he was really running a scam. Remember that TV spot with him rolling up his sleeves saying: I'll be the job czar. He kept his promise by starting the stampede of jobs out of Maine, a tradition maintained well by Baldacci and the Democrat paper-weights in the legislature. Take 8 years away from the R column and put them in the D, where he always really was.
Here's another sign of Democrat desperation. The apologists are throwing their own under the bus to hide their record.
What a load.
What are you waiting for, tron? Didn't you get the memo from your Democrat/union masters? You're not "exploring" anyone to the right of Karl Marx.
Head on over to the Obamacare clinic and have them extract the burdocks from your shorts. They're making you crankier than usual.
You forgot something, Joe.
There are those who, when hearing Tea Party, immediately think of some sexual deviancy. Be patient, you will hear from them soon, right here. They make arrogant desperation seem like a virtue.
If an employee earns more
If an employee earns more than some threshold amount, she loses some or even all of the public assistance she is already receiving. That's what LePage was referring to and he did the employee a favor. One employer can't change that government policy; perhaps a governor can.
The phrase "working family" is Democrat code. It means a family in which the workers are not skilled enough to earn the money they need to provide the lifestyle they want. Along comes government to give them a permanent hand-out - but it never provides a clear path for that family to regain self-sufficiency.
If Mitchell is elected, this family trap won't change at all.
I'll type very slow so maybe you can follow.
The .. Republicans .. passed .. the .. tax .. cuts .. with .. sunset.
They had to include the provision or the Democrats would have blocked the bill in the Senate with the 60 vote rule. That rule is great when Ds block Rs - but when Rs block Ds, it's an offense to democracy.
You must have mistyped, Lil. Surely you meant to title your post duh...
Yeah, right.
Since the Republicans didn't make the cuts permanent, because the Democrats would have blocked the cuts without a sunset clause, and they are set to expire at the end of this year, it's the Republicans who are raising the taxes. The Democrat herd has nothing to with it.
And if you believe that, I have a really nice bridge for sale down in Brooklyn. Make me an offer soon. I have to sell by the end of December.
Wealthy?
I know many retired folks who live on dividends from their investments made over a lifetime of taking responsibility for themselves and their future. Their taxes will double on Jan 1. But, who cares? Fairness is what matters. Of course it won't affect you - welfare is not taxed.
Great letter, Mr. Tetenman,
Great letter, Mr. Tetenman, however I'm afraid it will fall on deaf ears on the one side of the political debate that refuses to do anything but help itself and is only interested in getting reelected. They are actively engaged in the destruction of this country, and we are letting them get away with it.
By the way, those talking heads you mentioned all blather over radios and TVs which have an on/off switch. Use it yourself instead of trying to dictate to everyone else.
Pirate, the concept is known
Pirate, the concept is known as the Overton Window. With all the phony allegations of racism slung by the usual suspects, when the real thing comes, and it will, no one will care.
Where to begin.
You didn't attend the rally, you didn't watch it, you just swallowed whatever your Democrat masters put on your highchair tray. And you call someone else a tool? Add the silly, juvenile name misspelling and the dopey Tom-Swifty. And you call someone else an idiot? A lot of people bought the snake oil in November 2008. The difference between you and them? They're smart enough to know what they have and to begin to get rid of it.
Don't trouble yourself, Tronnie.
Nobody is going to come to you for religious advice, just as nobody comes to you for political advice.
You can always count on Joe
You can always count on Joe to play the racism card.
It's easy to doubt from 2800 miles.
If Makley has acquaintances near the border from CA to TX, they can easily convince him the assumption is reality.
The author is guilty of perpetuating his own assumption - that is, if you don't agree with him, either you are not a person of goodwill or you are not a person of faith. If a woman is in this country illegally, she should be deported, whether she's pregnant or not; if she's here legally, let her give birth to a new citizen and hope she continues herself on the path to citizenship - let her take advantage of the current laws and their loopholes.
The author just wants to dilute with emotion a dollars-and-cents situation. He may get a warm fuzzy feeling from it, but it doesn't help anyone, especially the little rug-rat anchor.
WSR needs to stand even
WSR needs to stand even wider, so he won't hit his foot so often.
OMG is right.
My computer crashed trying to parse your run-on sentences. Is this what non-FOX "news" means by cyber terrorism?
If FOX is not a real "news"
If FOX is not a real "news" organization, MediaMatters is not even a legitimate opinion sites. It's non-stop liberal propaganda.
It's already there. The
It's already there. The Vermont equivalent of LURC is trying to force them to take it down, but they haven't yet figured a way to put their malleable regulations ahead of that pesky, inflexible Constitution.
No apology needed. I agree
No apology needed. I agree with your comment. I was just pointing out that the letter writer is a wee bit selective in pointing out missing stories.
Wow! That's a new personal
Wow! That's a new personal record for you in wandering off topic. Since you do it all the time, I'll take a turn: Cite one instance of FOX (not the silly boring misspelling you goose-steppers adore) advocating the suppression of religious freedoms. For anybody, let alone all.
It happens all the time.
The liberal political majority (in their own minds) dictate to Christianity whenever they get the opportunity. The most recent example is the Lyndon cross. It must be really terrible to be so insecure that you have to resort to selective dictating.
Who owns CNN?
Thanks, Mr. Gagnon, for mentioning the subject. Ted Turner, well-known anti-Semite, is the largest stock-holder in the parent company of CNN. If Ms. Lane implied that Ted was behind the anti-Israel tirades regularly broadcast on that unbiased and meticulously truthful "news" channel, then we would have a juicy story.
Regarding the letter's ending question. Are you suggesting that newspapers should actually practice .. gasp! .. journalism? It would be nice, but don't hold your breath.
seekingthetruth, please don't
seekingthetruth, please don't get yourself bounced. We are in the minority here.
One wonders why someone who
One wonders why someone who claims the male name Mark would post under the female nickname Lil and complain about the size of pairs of anything. If you are uncertain of your sexuality, there are any number of state programs that can, according to their propaganda, help you along the bumpy road to self discovery. They may not be funded right now - after all, it's an election year and there's lots of paving to get done before November.
Anyhow, I have told you and your learning-impaired friends several times why I no longer post under my real name. There are other government programs that will help you with your memory problems, as long as you promise to vote Democrat. Can you remember that? Probably not. Sad.
They settled here because
They settled here because Georgia puts a real time-limit on welfare benefits. The were welcomed here under the assumption that they would be good Democrats.
You're not reading very well, Joseph.
Many folks exhibit a general tone of dismay and dislike for immigrants who won't make even a token attempt to assimilate into existing society. Somalis are just the latest example of a group that, in general, expects all the rest of us to bend over backwards to accommodate the trappings of the society they escaped from, but dragged with them when they came here to have a "better" life.
Someday (and sooner than later) all of your flippant advice will fade away into distant echos, so nobody will remember how condescending you sound.
The Imam told them?
Oh, well then. That changes everything!
Your hang-up is showing again.
Get some new material, Ronnie. You do sign your "work" and your word is worth no more than any one of your posts, which are just mindless repetition of liberal / union talking points. Return your "plume" to its usual position.
Get some new material.
Lilly, the Faux News schtick is really boring. Stop watching it if it makes you so dumb.
You had a good (although
You had a good (although composed 100% of DNC talking points) letter going until the last sentence. One more time: If you don't like the message, shoot the messenger.
The only continuing drumbeat comes from the left's abject fear of Beck, who they have made the face of conservative talk-radio, much to Beck's amusement and the enrichment of his bank account. First, he's a dunce of a demagogue, clinging to guns and religion; next, he's a master manipulator, controlling all political dialog.
It was the same with GWB - still is. First, he's the dumbest president ever; next, he's the evil genius, pulling the strings, even to this day.
My advice to Fortier: If you don't like Beck, stop listening to him - but also stop trying to impose your opinions on everyone else.
That's exactly what the federales did with MedicAid.
Congress mandated it and then washed their hands of it. So we have 50 different versions of the same program, all so we can get back the money we sent to Washington in the first place, after a significant amount sticks to the sides of the DC sewer pipe. This is the kind of efficiency they have foisted on everyone's education protocols. Indeed, ha-ha.
The problems were built in from the beginning.
Problem 1: The number of people working and paying SS taxes has shrunk. That number will dwindle to zero under the policies of the current administration. The population overall has increased wildly, especially in the wagon-rider classes.
Problem 2: FDR chose those ages deliberately so the gov't could collect more money than it paid out. Over the decades, Congress has raised the rates and the salary caps many times, trying to preserve the cash-cow. If they removed the cap completely, it would kick the can down the road about 6 years.
Problem 3: The taxes collected are not invested in anything, they are spent as soon as they are received to pay current benefits and, of course, other things completely unrelated to retirement. There is no fund, there is no account with your name on it. There is a huge stack of IOUs that are redeemed by printing money, debasing the value of what's already in circulation. There may have been surpluses on paper, but that stopped this year - SS will pay out more than it takes in. That crossover has arrived about 8 years earlier than the experts predicted.
I think it it impossible for
I think it it impossible for Albrecht to be sarcastic.
Those surpluses were spent as
Those surpluses were spent as soon as they were received. They are not there.
Caught me again!
Yes, the subtle humor of the left is just too nuanced for mere mortals, let alone us knuckle-draggers. We're still worrying that Guam is going to capsize.
By the way, neighbor, it's Sheryl, not Cheryl. Sheryl was serious. Maybe your friend Cheryl was yucking it up.
I didn't realize you were a
I didn't realize you were a smoker, Stupiditas. There are several state programs that could help you kick the habit, but they're low on funds right now.
The dopes can read minds now.
Where in the letter did the author say he smokes? The usual flock of turkeys here start with the premise that anything Augusta does must be for the greater good and social justice, so anyone who criticizes it must have ulterior motives - and, of course, must be a wacko right-winger.
If Augusta really wanted to stop smoking completely, they could just hike the per-pack tax by $10. But that would require political backbone, a commodity in very short supply in Maine. And they do NOT want everyone to stop, because that would choke off their revenue stream used to pay for other stuff completely unrelated to stop-smoking efforts.
Maine politicians are far more addicted to tobacco taxes than Mainers are to tobacco.
This area of Manhattan is 99%
This area of Manhattan is 99% commercial. The "community" it would serve consists of stockbrokers and insurance executives on their lunch breaks. That said, there are several houses of worship in the greater Wall St. region - Trinity Church comes to mind. There are plenty of alternative sites available for the proposed whatever-it-is that would not provoke any controversy. Pick one.
One of those houses - a Greek Orthodox church - was destroyed on 9/11. NYC has blocked its reconstruction for nine years, but it is bending over backwards to accommodate Islam. I agree there's bigotry evident here.
Some of you gentle posters insist that the site is "several large city blocks away". This is from MapQuest. Note the scale at the bottom left. A decent pro golfer could drive a ball from Ground Zero to 51 Park Place.
more sources
Of course you'd be happy to share your reliable sources on anything GWB did that has been found unconstitutional? Or would you like some crow with that?
The current champeen is a .. drumroll .. Democrat!
Rep. Jesse Jackson, Jr. (D) of Illinois has proposed nine constitutional amendments during the current Congress.
Sorry, Tronnie.
I never did well with fractions in the 7th grade. You must have done well. When does your 8th grade year begin?
I clicked the button to agree with you.
Now, so what? Proposing an amendment is easy, it's done all the time by congresscritters on both sides. The hard, and time consuming, part is getting it ratified.
The real threats to the Constitution are simply ignoring the existing parts that are inconvenient and making up new parts to support your objectives. That's how we got ObamaCare, stimulus, bail-outs, ... These threats too are made from both sides, but the current administration, aided and abetted by their Democrat sycophants in Congress, have raised it to an art form.
As usual, lots of accusations and not one shred of evidence.
Just take the 6th item. Albrecht, please read (for the first time) the US Constitution, the document you pretend to revere. Republicans cannot impose amendments, no matter how much you want to believe they can. An amendment requires first consent of 2/3 of both houses of Congress, then 3/5 of the states. No one could get even one of your unspecified 42 amendments through by the end of the current Congress, 1/1/11.
Cundy: Freedom of religion is
Cundy: Freedom of religion is one of the principles on which our country was founded ...
It's interesting that Ms Cundy mentions only one part of the 1st Amendment. Another is freedom of the press, what's left of it. Most of the MSM has has already surrendered that freedom for fear of being labeled bigot.
A third is freedom of expression. It's still legal to hold an opinion that's different from the party line. Enjoy it while you have it, because it probably won't survive the coming Autumn Surprise.
Ignoring, for the moment,
Ignoring, for the moment, your verbal sewage, Albrecht made the accusation: The right-wing is promoting two ideas - all muslims are terrorists, Obama is a muslim. Publish any link, then. Forget the request for one to a non-left-wing site. Most of us are more than able to judge sources when they are actually mentioned.
Do you have even one link ...
... to some non-left-wing pandering site with evidence that the right-wing is promoting your bilge? I love it how easily you and some others here slide back and show your nostalgia for the good-old-days of the 1930s.
Obama acknowledged that he became a Christian, without specifying what he had been, when he started listening to that foaming-at-the-mouth racist bigot J. Wright. What a great way to convert!
The right has joined with many others to say: Just because you can doesn't mean you should. Hatred is purposely warping that to suit your twisted ends, hiding behind a pretense of tolerance and diversity.
I hesitate to ask, but what
I hesitate to ask, but what is one example of a real civilization? North Vietnam? North Korea? North Kankakee?
Obama reveres the
Obama reveres the Constitution when it suits him. When it doesn't, it's a living, breathing document that can mean anything you want. All citizens have a responsibility to support the Constitution - it's too bad we now have 2+ generations of semi-citizens who have never read it or, having read it, don't understand it or, understanding it, want to fundamentally transform it. Maybe it's more generations, given your advanced years.
Obama has already weighed in on the subject and, as whenever he goes off teleprompter, he stepped into a bucket of something warm and brown and had to mince backwards again. Think Cambridge police.
Pelosi has also weighed in, demanding that the criticizers be investigated, for exercising their 1st Amendment rights. She, like Obama, and like you, bleat about your rights, but you couldn't care less about the rights of those who disagree with you.
Democrats want communism for the poor.
Thanks to Obama we now have 80% of America's wealth being controlled by politicians and bureaucrats in DC, aiming at communism for the poor, a political system that has failed wherever it has been tried.
Envy
Half that $71k goes to local schools, the rest to local services. Flanery should be thanking Cutler. Instead he's expressing the standard leftist party line of success envy.
And, by the way, ...
... I used the phrase "where they were coming from" in the current PC, psycho-babble sense of "what was there motivation". Sorry to confuse you, but almost any simple English phrase will do that.
You must have been asleep ...
... for a year and a half. Lived history, my foot. We invaded Iraq in 3/2003. We invaded Afghanistan in 10/2001 - that's what made Pitts go off his meds. I would suggest you think before you shoot your mouth off. First time for everything.
I don't want them ...
... because they are inefficient and more expensive than the non-green power sources they are supposed to replace.
Tell you what, XYZ (what a clever screen name), you put one in your backyard and get off the grid. This winter, when you turn into a liberal corpse-sicle, the rest of us will dance a jig of despair.
Is AP too right-wing for you?
WASHINGTON (AP) - American taxpayers will pay the imam behind plans for a mosque near the Manhattan site of the Sept. 11 attacks $3,000 in fees for a three-nation outreach trip to the Middle East that will cost roughly $16,000, the State Department said Wednesday.
More - http://apnews.myway.com/article/20100818/D9HM55S00.html
Freebies
That's why he went into the service - and then into the police - so he could put his feet up now, camp out 24/7 on this site, and complain about the people who are paying his tab. The closest he ever came to the enemy was hiding in the head when his garbage scow came close to a real target.
Pitts wrote a wonderful column ...
... right after 9/11. He was waving the flag and spoke a line like this to the radical Muslim world: You don't know what you have done - but you are about to learn.
When he realized that GWB was actually going to do more than pee & moan and convene a national seminar to find out where the terrorists were coming from, he started back-pedaling. All these years later, he's just another race panderer who filters everything through black colored lenses. What a waste of a sharp mind.
I'll show you my hand ...
... any time you like. One finger on it.
Veritas is the Latin word for truth.
He found it in a fortune cookie.
The pseudo-lefty sycophants ...
... shot every arrow in their quivers today. The merry band of happy morons (tron, veritas and lil, et al) have trotted out most of their known hang-ups. We have bigot, teabagger, Nazi, ... others I forget. Oh, yeah, the ever popular, and extremely overused, Faux News. Get some new material, chumps. You're all so fascinated with what you perceive as clever vocabulary, you don't see how easily and quickly you make fools of yourselves. What a bunch of shallow wagon-riders.
And, Truthie, you're right - I don't have the rank to order you below. But it's clear for all to see that you're most comfortable down there swamping toilets, where you spent all of your first career. Then it was on to the toilet called Illinois. Did your town have, like Chicago, walking dead Democrats? Or were you too busy cooping and snarfing donuts to notice? Do yourself a favor and stop getting your news from Sesame Street. You're starting to look less like that poor dog and more like Oscar the Grouch.
Typical.
Absolutely nothing to contribute yourself, so you attack other messengers. Go back below decks, swabbie.
The blocks in lower Manhattan ...
... are somewhat shorter than elsewhere in the city, following the original cow paths. I know because I used to work in the area, spitting distance from the proposed site. But your point is taken. It's still a free country - sort of.
If and when they start building the mosque, it being NYC, all that labor will be performed by union workers. That is, it will take far longer and cost far more than the planners envision, what with all the "sick outs" and "slow downs". If this idiocy gets farther down the road, I'll bet the imam will join Our Dear Leader in questioning the wisdom of the enterprise.
How about your backyard?
That should be close enough that even you would understand what your new masters expect of you. The imam would, I'm sure, help you find east and kneel five times a day. Most Muslims show compassion for the less fortunate.
Take a pill.
So are you claiming the Jonestown problem was caused by Catholics? That's interesting. I'm always outraged when self-proclaimed religious folks use their piety to excuse their atrocities.
You're the master of uninformed tolerance.
I must defer to your expertise as a Grand Master Kleagle of the KKK - Kankakee Keystone Kops.
No one needs to try to discredit the administration.
The administration is doing a fine job discrediting itself. Jeffyd, of course not all Muslims are terrorists - but on 9/11 all terrorists were Muslims. All you self-righteous, self-proclaimed liberals can't deal with that fact, so you descend into the safe womb of Nazism. Tronnie, you know what's "constantly" appearing on FOX and Rush because you watch/listen constantly. What a pathetic life you lead.
The Empire State Building went from a hole in the ground to a completed structure in just over one year. It's been nine years since 9/11, the GWB administration did nothing, the BHO administration is going backwards with their silly pronouncements that it's their right to build a Mosque but it's a stupid idea to build it there. Barry's covering both sides of a butt that desperately needs covering. Who is this "they", Tronnie, who is supposed to build something there? Given the way the wacko left is shredding America, only the Chinese will be able to afford to build. Maybe they'll put in a Tin-Tin Buffet so we can get something to eat when we visit the hole.
How's that ...
... taken out of context? His contention was that raising taxes on the "rich" would somehow inspire the middle-class to contract for more plumbing work. That's the context and it's not socialist, it's just stupid.
Provide one quote taken out
Provide one quote taken out of context. Waiting ...
You know, Jonnie, I don't
You know, Jonnie, I don't care for any of your opinions I have seen expressed here in LTTEs or posts, but I used to have a grudging admiration for your composition abilities. Now you have fallen back into the swamp with the other shoot-the messenger posters. Too bad.
Thinking?
That's never been a factor in your posts. Why should it start now?
Have it your way.
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Explain that to the
Explain that to the unfortunate chumps who own General Motors bonds. You know, the ones who were first in line and then told by this government to go to the back of the bus while the new "public" owners chowed down. Socialism, as a daily talking point, is government taking stuff from people who earn it and distributing it to people who don't earn it. That is what's loony, in spite of what your union masters tell you.
I have explained ...
... that several times now. Truthie, your memory has gone the way of all your other faculties. At least I spew my own words and opinions. I'm happy to discuss them with you ... right here. But you're not interested - you just want to try to denigrate anything your tiny mind perceives as not leftist. And you or your silly friends prefer to discuss things on the phone at 2am. No thanks. You may now crawl back under your rock.
Not all short posts are short
Not all short posts are short on words. Consider Crank's first spew above. There's really only one word in it - Republi-CON - obviously in 1st place in his vocabulary hit-parade. Get over yourself. It's not as clever as you think it is. On a par with Democ-RAT.
Having a one-word vocabulary is the primary characteristic of this crew. One loves "bigot", another loves "Nazi". Others post things longer than Crank's, obviously copied directly from their favorite union-goon's online ranting. Those zero-word posts are ranked below even Lil, whose last post was 100% incoherent.
Typical comments ...
... from tron and lil. If you exercise your 1st amendment rights and criticize our dear Premier and his Politburo and his growing entourage of apparatchiks, well you must be on drugs not to recognize that they know what's best for you. Only tron and lil and the rest of their circle of the small and the silly - only they are to be allowed to express what's on their minds. That's why their posts are so short.
Yup, everything is great when seen from up there in the wagon - get down and pull and you'll quickly change your tune.
Another GWB supporter, eh? Love that privatization.
What sort of government would you prefer controlling our ability to succeed? The current administration and Congress are striving mightily for the promised fundamental transformation. Trouble is, the more people catch a glimpse of the target of the transformation, the more they see the worst of capitalism as the-good-old-days. It's a brave new world they want to impose. You'll be happy if you never get sick, live and work where you're told, and do your patriotic duty and die before you become a burden on the state. Aside from those trivialities, enjoy the new land of the slave and the home of the coward.
A self-employed person ...
... pays the entire load, employee and employer, of self-employment (SE) taxes for Social Security and Medicare, but only on his profit = income - expenses. He can then subtract one-half of the SE tax from adjusted gross income, to reduce (slightly) his income tax burden. The lower the profit, the lower the SE tax, and the lower the benefits later on. Don't like the rules? Work to change them or don't be self-employed. Heck, this is Maine - don't be employed at all.
The underfunding of MSRS has been going on for decades, under Democrat and Republican governors, all of whom were constrained by Democrat legislatures. See the common theme: Democrat? Still pretending you don't know who to blame? Blame yourself.
That's a perfect avatar.
What a dope! Have you heard the term spell-check? It's Judaism. It's Quran or Koran. What on earth is "Tanakh"? Whatever your religion may be, does it allow you to possess a brain?
How far away?
I knew early this morning when I read this letter that the moron brigade would be out in force, goose-stepping and heiling. Tronnie, that's Dr. Kuck, a title you couldn't attain if you tried for a century, despite your self-adulation on your "user" page.
My first job after college was with a firm on Wall St. less than 0.25 miles from the new, unopened WTC. I'll tell you what's too close: the same burough, the same city, the same state, the same country. The only purpose of this mosque is to plant a victory flag.
tron, xyz, lil, ... Start carrying your prayer rugs with you whenever they let you out of the nursing home. You'll need them when your new masters tell you to kneel.
I grew up in Gardiner and Augusta ...
... in the 50s and 60s. There were any number of swimming holes all over the place. Most were private - you paid a dime or a quarter and stayed all day. Augusta shut them down by mandating liability insurance the owners couldn't afford.
The public areas were definitely second class at best. But Augusta refused to pay to maintain the state areas, so they slowly disappeared - or the day use fee got so high, no one went anymore. The municipal areas lingered longer, but the disease was the same. Government spends money only where it's likely it can buy some votes.
Any pension system, public or
Any pension system, public or private, is a Ponzi scheme if CURRENT benefits are paid from CURRENT "contributions". I quoted that word because there's nothing voluntary about it. Extortion is perhaps more apt. The nationwide example is Social Security. There is no lockbox. You don't have an "account" there from which your checks are drawn when you retire. All that money is spent by Congress as soon as it is stolen from your paycheck. The MSRS is the same. "Seriously under funded" is a serious under statement.
The public retiree did not pay for his benefits any more than I have paid what I will draw from SS over more than 40 years of work in the private sector. If I manage to live 10 years after retiring, I will have drawn back more than I paid in, and then some. My kids and yours will pay that tab.
Mr. T, I will receive no pension or any other retirement benefit from my employer. I have saved and invested money that I earned and that's what I'll live on when I retire. I built that fund myself and you didn't add one dime to it. But I have to pay taxes to pay public retiree benefits, and pay higher prices to pay for private benefits. That's the real iniquity in this scheme.
Who is asking you to forgive and forget?
I couldn't care less who you forgive and what you forget. All I ask is you acknowledge that Obama is in office now, not Bush. I ask because you seem not to know that. No one put a gun to his head and forced him to run. He ran, he won, he owns it. Every time he or his minions moan "It's Bush's fault!", his poll numbers go down a point or two. Keep up the good work, guys.
As of 12:40pm 7/29
$1 US equals $1.03 Canadian, basically equivalent. It's been like that for several months. If you're being charged a fee, it's for the service, and has nothing to do with the exchange rate. If you don't like the fee, use another bank. Isn't it great living in a free country?
Denial, thy name is BHO.
Obama IS successful at exposing the liberal ideology for the massive fraud and failure that IT is. He's doing such a great job that there won't be much to preside over during his lame-duck years starting 1/1/11.
Fantasy is the basis for public policy ...
... at the federal level, and has been since Immaculation Day 2009. That will change soon.
You can't take it away!
Ken, you can't expect them to stop chanting "It's Bush's fault!" They have nothing else. It's pathetic, I know, and it becomes more obvious every day. I'll join you with a loud guffaw on the morning after.
Is she still on her one-sheet-of-toilet-paper campaign?
If so and you get to meet her, think twice before you shake hands.
Tron can't read.
We already knew he can't think. The last paragraph suggests that Nestle does not now pay anything and the author thinks they should.
Also, it's obvious Tronnie hasn't been to Wall St recently, probably never. The boys and girls down there already pay far more than $5. What do they charge you, Tron, at the asylum?
Businesses do not pay taxes.
They pass them along as a cost of doing business in the form of higher prices to the end users, people. When people can't pay the tab anymore, businesses close up and leave the state, taking with them their jobs and any future expansion.
Maine schools will never improve ...
... by throwing larger bundles of cash every year at the teachers' union. That just keeps the old, fat and incompetent teachers hanging around until they can be old, fat and retired.
Nor will it improve as long as the lying, thieving Democrats keep making funding promises that they have never met and have no intention of ever meeting.
The president is trying to ...
... shut down offshore drilling to appease his far-left base and the environmental extremists. That pesky other branch of government, the judiciary, keeps reminding him that he's not a dictator - yet. He said he has been on top of this issue since day one, so he owns it. It's too late to start shrieking again "It's Bush's fault!" and the polls prove it.
The disaster beyond imagination is already well launched and the only chance we, and the rest of the world, have is starting this November, to be continued in 11/2012.
Private sector pensions?
I have held several positions over the past 40 years, all in the private sector, and not one of them carried with it a pension or any other retirement benefits. There are two classes in the private sector. (1) the "salaried" class, the one I am in, who is expected to save and invest and prepare for his own retirement, and (2) the "hourly" class. When class (2) is also unionized, there's very little difference between it and the public sector.
The private sector reacts
The private sector reacts today to what it perceives the future to hold, about six months out or more. Obamacare injected a mountain of uncertainty, what the private sector fears most. Even the authors don't know what's in it, what it costs, and when it will kick in. Today's financial regulation sets up future punishment of main street for the sins of Wall street, and ignores the government perps, Fannie and Freddie. When private business today doesn't know what their future banking possibilities are, they are not likely to invest in job creation or anything else.
The economy is improving for sure in public sector jobs. The financial bill creates yet another fox-guarding-henhouse bureaucracy with a bloated budget and no accountability. While these jobs are better (for those who get them) than the vaporware jobs of the census, the private sector gets to pay the bills, as always, and all we get in return is a vague promise that things will get better. Maybe.
Keep your pity.
You should get down on your knees and thank those of us in the private sector whose CURRENT taxes pay for your CURRENT pension and bennies. Your contributions years ago were immediately spent by Augustacrats on vote buying programs, especially sweetheart deals with the union goons. Ditto their promised share. Augusta is great at making promises, terrible at keeping them.
NIH
Maine Democrats have always had a crippling case of NIH - not invented here. We don't copy other states - they copy us. And now the Feds have copied Maine's greatest success - Baldacci Care! Good luck telling Augusta their programs aren't working.
Sleepless in the nursing home?
Now that the two left-wing wackos have had their usual content-free say ...
This is a typical Bulger letter: rehash old news and mix in some "They did it too!" No, Tom, we don't have to worry about the debt right now. We do have to worry about the deficit, right now. It has increased almost 5 fold since 2007, starting with the recession, made much worse by the bailouts (yes, started by Bush - calm down, you knee-jerkers) followed by the ruinously high spending of Obamacare, raised to a boil by the recent financial nationalization act.
For those of you who didn't make it past the 8th grade, the deficit is the rate of increase of the debt. So, Tom, don't worry about anything. Just remember the leftist mantra: Let our kids and grandkids worry about it.
What they mean by "effectiveness" is ...
... whether it's funded by public money. Public, good; private, bad. They don't care about efficiency or competence. We'll have to stop caring, too, because we won't get either under Obamacare.
Where do those enlightened countries ...
... get the money to do the providing and the funding? By hiking taxes and/or printing money - that is, making everything more expensive for everybody. And, like anything else run by government bureaucrats, national health care is crap compared to the worst private health care here. Before you continue to smooch Obamacare's backside, ask a middle-class serf in England or France how much they love their "free" systems. But you won't do that because you might trip over some real truth that would spoil your whiny leftist persona. Veritas. What a joke.
Try reading my post ...
... before you rush to the foolish conclusion that I'm against the Franks or for illegal aliens. For the record, the similarity I see is the heavy-handed arm of our federal government. Lighten up.
There's a similarity between
There's a similarity between this issue and the Arizona law. In both cases, we have un-elected bureaucrats deciding which laws to enforce or ignore, when, where and how much - and, being government workers, screwing up at every opportunity. Our elected bureaucrats don't seem to care that the laws they created are ignored and - just a few days ago - in a fit of spinelessness - they yielded up to the president all authority to nationalize private business, no confirmation required. Congress is hell bent on rendering itself irrelevant.
xyz, you have only one side and it wins out in every one of your posts. It's your moronic leftist side.
How unreasonable!
No BDS? No whining? If those were the rules, we would never again hear from Albrecht, tron, xyz, veritas, lil, ...
The Master of the Universe has been on the thrown for more than 1.5 years. If that UN thingy was even on his to-do list, he could have long since rammed it through the compliant Congress. (There's another rule: No blaming "obstructionist" Republicans.)
But the debate is over, really. The "financial" reform atrocity allows the O to issue a royal decree, with no confirmation by Congresscritters, that some private enterprise must be nationalized and run by the all-competent government. It's not much of a stretch of the monarch's authority to proclaim that the nanny state is now truly in charge, and will raise all young-human-units in manners most beneficial to the kingdom. After all, it's been done before with rousing success. Remember the Hitler Youth?
Thanks for correcting ...
... the saying, ajg1959. It does expose the letter and several comments for what they truly are: pure envy. Of wealth, success, ... Of just about anything it takes effort to attain. Don't want to work for it? Heck, it's a lot easier to call it evil, dismiss it, and wait for the next hand out.
Scathing and typical.
Another content-free post in a never ending line of same.
Laugh of the day!
Tronnie implies he's a "normal American". Normal is an adjective that cannot logically appear anywhere near "tron".
Normal implies imperfect, and that's about the kindest thing I can say about Mel Gibson. But he did once make a movie set in Maine. Tron is hoping to be called up as an extra in the sequel: The Man without Principles. That is, Gibson contributed more to Maine in a few months than our resident hyenas, all together, have contributed in their entire careers - and I use the word loosely.
"Sinister" is the Latin word for "left". Nothing has changed in a couple millennia.
Since that's all you ever say ...
... no, you need not say more.
Oh Albrecht
What is this hang-up you have with the Articles of Confederation? We've had the Constitution for a while now, remarkably intact, in spite of the attempts by you Progressives to mangle it out of all recognition. You succeeded admirably in 1913 with the atrocity known as the 16th Amendment. Up to that time the country had managed pretty well with the small-government notions of non-income taxes and fees to support the very few responsibilities laid out in the Constitution. You Progressives always trot out that word 'provide' to support whatever new monstrosity you want to shove down the country's throat.
Hypocrisy alert!
What is truly bizarre is Albrecht (president of the Dixfield branch of the Living-Breathing-Document Society) complaining about someone else twisting the Constitution. Just last week he was blathering about how the Founders produced the Constitution to establish a strong, central government. Try as I may, I can't find Benito Mussolini among the signatories.
When I read the letter, it sounded to me like the author was an elderly lady, of a fundamental religious upbringing, with little formal education. I felt sorry for her, not for beliefs, but because she was about to be torn to shreds by the hyenas lurking here.
Albrecht's post illustrates how he reinterprets the Constitution as he goes along. The 1st Amendment doesn't permit anything - it says only that the government can't restrict speech - not Gabrielle's, not even Albrecht's.
What's in a name?
There are a handful of regular posters who are hung up on the real name vs nickname issue. I have told my story before, but here goes again. I used to use my real name here. I withdrew it and switched to a nickname, with no information on my "user" page, after certain folks decided to "debate" by other means. I gladly take responsibility for my actions, but that does not include listening to morons make threatening telephone calls to me at 2am. I used caller ID to notify the drooling idiots of what would happen if they called again. I will continue using a nickname so as not to encourage similar behavior from others here who are too easily amused.
The real issue is that when some posters have nothing to say on a message, they switch to shooting the messenger, instead of responsibly keeping their traps shut.
I don't know about Republicans, ...
... but Conservatives love tax cuts because they know, and history confirms, that they lead to higher government receipts so they can better fund the armed forces so they can protect Voisine's fundamental right to make a fool of himself in public and do his whining in English instead of German, Japanese or Russian.
Is that some kind of itch ointment?
Voisine, like Tron, has nothing to contribute to anything except tired, juvenile names and childish yelling. Simple debate? You wouldn't recognize it if it came up to you on the street and tweaked your beak.
As pointed out above, any tax on banks will be passed along as a cost of doing business. Thanks, Mr. Fochtmann, for volunteering to pick that up.
What a load.
"The Obama administration [has] committed to cut spending and reduce the deficit to sustainable levels." Another example of Albrecht doublespeak. Obama has been spending money faster than it can be printed. When Germany balked and wanted to throttle back, Obama scolded them for not following the liberal playbook. Did you see those gentle liberal souls trashing Toronto during G-20? They were "protesting" even the slightest hint of avoiding world-wide socialism and the cradle to grave nanny-state. Indeed, this is a dangerous period, and will remain so as long as Democrats can stand in the way of economic recovery from the Progressive depression. Is it November yet?
Follow your own advice.
If you had, you would find (among other things) $1 billion for summer jobs for unemployed teens. By the time the bill could have been passed, signed and funded, summer would be over. In other words, it's just another wad of cash to tuck in the Democrat slush fund.
I inherited this mess.
You have a very well written letter that you chose to spoil with the usual backward looks. It was a party-line vote against yet another spending bill without any way to pay for it except printing more money.
I agree with your last sentence. Unfortunately, neither of the girls is up for re-election this year. If one was, there's finally a decent chance to elect a real conservative.
I have read our Constitution.
I have read our Constitution. You must be referring to the USSR's. If those were the big reasons for ditching the A-of-C, why did it take 150 years for you Progressive eggheads to get your claws into an income tax, if your plan was so perfect? In all that time, the Feds controlled the economy, sort of, only during the civil war by creating the Secret Service to try to get a handle on the money supply. Without those taxes and that control, somehow we managed to defend ourselves against GB a 2nd time, the minor punks of the 19th century, and then in WWI. Your coke-bottle glasses, Albrecht, have a functioning lens on the left side only.
What a load.
jalbrecht1: "... Founding Fathers envisioned - a strong national government that controlled both national defense and the welfare of the country as a whole."
If I could package up Albrecht's blather, I wouldn't need to spread bovine excrement on my hay field. Aside from defense against foreign enemies (most today are domestic) and representing us to foreign friends (don't have many left today), the founders envisioned a weak central government whose first obligation was to get out of the way of individuals and private enterprise. If today's feds would try that (not likely) the country would heal naturally. That is, if they would follow the Constitution and especially the Bill of Rights, those yucky negative rights, return to the Founders' wishes would happen comfortably for everyone except the boneheads who believe that mega-government is the answer to everything. All evidence to the contrary.
Cute.
Frostie-Flakes? And you signed your name, online or off, to that. I'll have to lower by several degrees my estimate of your IQ. How does your real name, Ronnie, add even one ounce of legitimacy to the moronic drivel you post? It doesn't, no matter how fascinated you are with your own life and times. I admit I don't have a plan for the ages - you can't admit that you don't have a plan for the next 20 minutes - except to hope that a nurse shows up soon with your next dose and a change of Depends.
I answered the phone - that's
I answered the phone - that's letting someone 'harass' me? Fortunately, the caller was just as stupid on the phone as he is here. I hung up, glanced at Caller ID, called back and said: Call me again, you schmuck, and I'll hand the matter to the cops. End of problem. That's when I yanked my real name. Who knows what you room-temperature-IQ jerks might try next - you are so easily amused. That's what I call taking personal responsibility - and I didn't even expect a government to do it for me.
Typical.
Don't have anything to say? Say something stupid.
I withdrew my real name after some of the gentle, concerned folks on this forum started pestering me on the telephone. I couldn't care less who you are in real life. Your forum personality is pitiful enough.
Lil is fascinated by the word
Lil is fascinated by the word "teabagger". Tron is hung up on "bigot". Small minds, small vocabularies.
Is it that time again?
Here's Tardif's monthly spew of ad-hominem nonsense. [This comment has been edited by the administrator]
The Democrat (Isn't that clever?) party has been peddling the same message for 30+ years and they're terrified of what's coming in November. Republicans, and quite a few crossover Democrats and independents, nominated a conservative and all Tardif and other far lefties can splutter is: We don't like the message, so shoot the messenger!
Maine's brand?
Highest taxes.
Cruddiest infrastructure.
Highest insurance premiums.
Highest power costs.
...
These are the "brands" Maine projects all around the country. Wind power will make all those worse and help only blow-hard politicians. If you can tolerate all that, yup, it sure does look pretty out there, and that's all that matters as Augusta preserves more of Maine each year from the ravages of the people who live here.
For once ...
... veritas lived up to his screen name. Once a Maine politician realizes you can't vote for him, you may as well live on the moon. Good observation. Good, but obvious.
Or were you suggesting that a good politician is one that wastes time listening to your drivel? No one will believe that.
Thanks ...
... for a great post. However, such an even-handed condemnation of "ad hominem" vitriol won't win you many friends here.
Sandra2, pay no attention to
Sandra2, pay no attention to tron. When he starts throwing around "bigot", his favorite word, you know he has run out of any other words on the letter's subject. Indeed, more often than not, he starts with bigot, indicating he never had anything to say in the first place.
Hair splitting
OK, tronnie, there were 102 NEW ITEMS to be covered by an OLD TAX. This was the Democrats' pride and joy and it got shot down in flames. Your allegations rely on parsing phrases and twisting words. Everyone knows your statement is stupid, you know it's stupid, so anything else you say must be stupid.
Yup, lets go after those
Yup, lets go after those deadbeats by making it impossible for them to fulfill their obligations. This same stupidity, on a larger scale, is on display today in DC. Lets bankrupt BP, making it impossible for them to help the folks who depend on the Gulf and, by the way, throwing millions of people on the dole, about half of them American, whose retirement funds are heavily invested in BP. But, who cares, revenge is what matters.
I agree completely, Cranky -
I agree completely, Cranky - ignorant and ill-informed. The unions make the suggestion whenever they want taxpayers to cough up more to compensate teachers for all this extra responsibility. When someone points out the crappy job they're doing, the unions switch to whining about fairness.
Thanks to xyz and his cohorts
Thanks to xyz and his cohorts for proving beyond doubt that dinosaurs still exist among us humans. The announcement of your extinction was obviously premature. The new schedule calls for early November 2010.
There has never been a
There has never been a country named Palestine. There was a nomadic people who called themselves Palestinians. In the mid to late 1800s, a few Jews from many places around the world started moving to the area now known as Israel. No one lived there. It was barren desert inland and brackish swamp along the coast. The new arrivals started working hard to rehabilitate this abandoned region long known to them as the "promised land".
When they started to make real progress, the Palestinians noticed and began moving there too, where jobs were available. They knew a good thing when they saw it. Besides, their Arab and Muslim brothers all over the Middle East wanted nothing to do with them (same as today) and were relieved they were getting out of their hair. The Palestinians were thriving and then, suddenly, discovered a passionate fondness for their age-old homeland - that is, they wanted the Jews to get out and leave everything to the rightful owners. Sound familiar?
Then the first world-wide anti-Semitic organization, the League of Nations, decided to "protect" the area and assigned the job to Great Britain, because of their special knowledge of the region. Remember Lawrence of Arabia? The Brits bungled it completely and left it, after WWII, far worse than they had found it. At about the same time, the exodus of Jews from Europe to the promised land swelled the population to the point that it couldn't continue as just an unorganized group of settlers.
Then comes the 2nd world-wide anti-Semitic organization, the United Nations. They debated and passed resolutions and did nothing else. Sound familiar? The Jews realized they were never going to get any real help from anyone but themselves (same as today) and proclaimed the nation of Israel. The very next day every neighbor declared war on them.
It took a couple of months that first time, but Israel clobbered the aggressors. This was the first in a series of conflicts where Muslim fanatics started things and Israel finished them. It also continued the tradition of European and American intelligentsia savaging Jews / Israel and apologizing for Muslims.
All this history is irrelevant to the "liberals" here who, just underneath the surface, want to open their special closets and put on the old white robes and the pointed hats, join in the centuries old fun, and kill them some Jews - at least send them back to Auschwitz like Helen Thomas wants - all the while praising themselves for their tolerance and diversity.
The more things change, the more they stay the same.
Cut tronnie some slack.
Alzheimer's has reduced his vocabulary to one word. He can't make a post without using it. His other mental deficiencies prevent his understanding that he's the worst bigot here.
You never call anything else,
You never call anything else, Veritas. For income tax, this silly rearrangement means a few will pay more, a few will pay less, most will pay about the same.
Notice you didn't say a word about sales tax expansion. I hope you can afford the increase the next time you buy a gross of Depends.
Another content-free post
Another content-free post from Veritas. Of course I have bad-mouthed the other side. I do it every time I respond to something from dopes like you, whose entire forum career is built on bad-mouthing others, because you have absolutely nothing constructive to contribute.
I was pointing out that Salerno is a wee bit disingenuous to imply he has pure motives in bad-mouthing Mills. And, by the way, just to show my own preference, I sincerely wish that the entire Mills family would retire and move to Saskatchewan.
Danny, correct me where I go
Danny, correct me where I go wrong. You're a liberal or at least a Democrat who has to look right to see moderate. So, tell me. Why do you care about the Republican platform? Why do you care that a Republican candidate accepts that platform or at least doesn't repudiate it? The obvious answer is ...
You are terrified of what's coming in November and the only way you can deal with your fear is bad-mouth the other side. And it's coming precisely because of the growing disgust with the Democrat platform which, among other things, ...
- Hands over more sovereignty every year to the UN and IMF.
- Sends mountains of money to some amorphous world climate control organization.
- Wants to shut down, not just exploration, but all extraction of oil, coal, ... anything but wind, as long as you personally don't have to see or hear the turbines.
- Basically seeks to fundamentally transform America into ... Cuba.
You are justified to be afraid.
To tron and his merry band of
To tron and his merry band of happy nitwits, remember this sage advice from the Fonz: If you have to tell other people you're cool, then you aren't. Applying that to the current discussion, if you have to tell other people you aren't a racist, then you are.
If any of you did anything even remotely productive - like trying to work a ranch within 100 miles of the southern border - your whining would be heard all the way up here - whining for the Feds to enforce the laws they created, and ecstatic that even one state is proposing to pick up the slack.
If you really hate those federal laws as much as you claim (hate them as long as those breaking them don't affect you directly), then tell our blue-nosed politicians to change the laws or repeal them. Tell them, but they'll never do it. Those invertebrates are always more concerned with the next election over what's best for their country.
It's tron and his comrades
It's tron and his comrades (word chosen on purpose) who inject racism into the discussion, because they have no ability at all to understand the desperation of productive US citizens who have been abandoned for years by their government.
You would not be comfortable anywhere with a function representative democracy. Your only comfort zone is in the politburo, dictating to everyone else, Commissar Tron.
If tron lived or worked with
If tron lived or worked with 50 miles of the border in AZ, he would be whining at the top of his lungs for somebody to do something to protect him and his property. But instead he lives up here in relative safety where he has the privilege to spout his liberal nonsense - sorry, that's an insult to liberals - to spout his nonsense.
Ms. Schultz did what she was told by her masters. She dropped the operative word. She should have said Our country has an illegal immigration problem ... But that doesn't draw any comments from the moronic myrmidons.
veritas: It's becoming
veritas: It's becoming apparent why you don't sign your work here (though you should)
I used to have my real name on the page that comes up when you click on my forum name. I deleted it when I had had enough of you morons pestering me on the phone.
It has been abundantly apparent for months or longer that you - and xyz, tron, and a few others - should not be allowed internet access there on the drooling ward at the asylum.
Farmington just needs a
Farmington just needs a simple ordinance against loitering with intent to annoy.
veritas and xyz are walking,
veritas and xyz are walking, talking examples of what Churchill meant when he observed that the navy was nothing but rum, sodomy, and the lash. They had too much of the first, not enough of the last, and still indulge in the other when they get together to reminisce about the good old days.
It's amusing - pathetic, but
It's amusing - pathetic, but amusing - to read 'xyz' calling someone else a zealot. While he's stuck in the past, his hero Barack I-inherited-this-mess Obama and his merry band of communists, socialists and radicals are hard at work transforming our country into the glorious workers' paradise, committing more offenses daily than Rove contemplated in eight years. If they succeed, the one bright spot will be that it will silence 'xyz' and his copycats who scamper around this opinion page, pretending to debate.
Frank & Dodd chaired
Frank & Dodd chaired committees that were charged to oversee this rather large part of the economy. Instead they overlooked it. If they relied only on information from an administration they vilified at every opportunity, they're even more incompetent than subsequent events have proven, to those who do not suffer from rectal-cranial inversion. This willful incompetence has its roots in the utterly corrupt Carter administration whose CRA started this spiral and pushed the economy for 25+ years toward destruction.
July 14, 2008: REP. BARNEY
July 14, 2008: REP. BARNEY FRANK, D-MASS.: I think this is a case where Fannie and Freddie are fundamentally sound, that they are not in danger of going under. ... I think they are in good shape going forward. ... I do think their prospects going forward are very solid.
You may now stick your head back in the sand.
The vaudeville team of Frank
The vaudeville team of Frank & Dodd destroyed the economy, saying as late as 7/2008 that everything was great, no worries, we're in charge. Anyone who wants to depend on them to fix anything is smoking 3-leafed clover.
11-2-10
Refried beans?
Question for Mr. Taylor. Who drew swastikas using the interesting medium of refried beans on windows of the Arizona statehouse? A clear majority of the citizens of Arizona support the bill signed over the weekend to enforce laws against illegal immigration. What a concept! That leaves the shrill minority against the bill who want to spread our wealth around the world, starting with Mexico.
The next time you get a chill, look for the source closer to home.
Right, Pirate, and the Gore
Right, Pirate, and the Gore acolytes will bleat with straight faces that we can stop eruptions by driving hybrids and sending boatloads of money to the UN.
A CNN doofus (sorry for the redundancy) opined it was too cold in Iceland for volcanoes. Yup, and Guam is capsizing. I haven't been paying too much attention to this for a couple days. Has someone already suggested it's Bush's fault?
Selective outrage.
From Jan 2001 to Jan 2009, not a day went by without a DNC orchestrated comparison of Bush to Hitler. In Taylor's letter, change a couple names and party affiliations, and it would apply just fine in 2004 from a Republican complaining about, say, MoveOn.org.
Democrats raised (well, actually, lowered) demagoguery to an art form. It's rather petty to whine They do it too! But most of us know one of the authors of the current administration's ends, which justify any means.
If you tell a big enough lie and tell it frequently enough, it will be believed. - AH
If mine was a red herring,
If mine was a red herring, yours was a yellow perch. The sub-discussion is about how gov't interference suppresses competition, not about alternatives to O-care. My dictionary defines viable as: capable of working successfully. Since it was modelled on Baldacci-care, O-care is by definition not viable.
Maine can issue bonds, DC can
Maine can issue bonds, DC can print money. Private enterprise can't compete against a state that has an endless supply of taxpayer dollars to buy its way out of failure. Thunk on Dirigo Health.
The real aim of Obama-care is achieve single-payer reform by driving private insurers out of the business, then stepping in to save the day. But they lack sufficient backbone to say it out loud.
No barrage, tronnie, just a
No barrage, tronnie, just a compliment. Your post has way more content than usual. Keep up the good work.
Cherrypicking again. SSDD
Cherrypicking again. SSDD mentioned only one tax. The combined tax burden in France is 50% for a single person: income + payroll taxes. That's from MSN.
Why not choose Canada? Their burden is a measly 32%, not much higher than ours. But then he would have to explain why, last month, the premier of New Foundland grabbed his checkbook and headed for the USA to have heart surgury that he would have had to wait 6 months to get in the glorious socialist paradise. (He was wise to act quickly - that option may disappear soon.)
He also failed to mention that those "free" clinics in Los Angeles were created to pick up the horde of illegal immigrants who overwhelmed the area's emergency rooms, causing dozens of them to close their doors to everyone. They stand in line for hours, and the line extends all the way to Tijuana where, for some inexplicable reason, they want to head north to escape all the wonderful free stuff provided by the government of Mexico.
Health care: good, fast, cheap. Pick any two.
Like she is a [1] public
Like she is a [1] public school teacher or [2] state bureaucrat (sorry for the redundancy) or [3] some other union hack. The employers of those three groups can afford to pay big bucks for insurance because their customers are forced at the point of a gun to pay up.
Boo hoo, Judsie. My
Boo hoo, Judsie. My insurance is $21,600 per year and my employer pays half. Don't strain yourself. That means I pay $10,800 per year. Plus co-pays. Plus out-of-pocket because of high deductibles. And you complain because your ride isn't free enough. If Obamacare gets passed, you'll consider this time the good old days.
All the gummint solutions you listed are, today, already in really big trouble and they'll all immediately get worse if this cash-sucker gets passed. Then the countdown to the final destruction of the country can be measured in weeks, not decades.
RR also said that the scariest words in the English language are: I'm from the government and I'm here to help.
If Republicans are the party
If Republicans are the party of just say no, Democrats are the party of just hear nothing but their own words. It's ironic that Obama chose this Thursday for his umpteenth absolutely final date for passage of his health mangling bill. With Wednesday being St. Patrick's Day, we're in for a double load of blarney this week.
It's rank, all right.
Trish didn't mention that Maine ranks 1st in premium rates. A significant part of the rate supports Dirigo. (There's that all-for-one bit that is loved so much by some of the denizens here.) Dirigo's enrollment is closed and shrinking. So where does the money go, Trish? You're getting more to subsidize fewer, but you wouldn't get more if the private companies didn't raise rates. Answer: down the Augusta rat-hole.
Dirigo does not have insufficient funding, it has insufficient competence - as does the rest of state government. And this is the model for Obama-care.
I spout my own words, unlike
I spout my own words, unlike SSDD, who just repeats what is handed to him by his progressive masters. I forgot to ask which union web site he copied from. Never mind, they're all the same.
It's really hypocritical of tron to criticize others for a lack of original ideas. Everything he and SSDD spew comes directly from Karl Marx and his spawn.
Nice cut and paste job!
How much of it was original with SSDD? NOT A GODDAMN THING!
Note well the predominant theme: Progressive. This is what they have in store for us: pretending that a flood of repeated propaganda is the same as meaningful and appropriate government. Dr. J.G. would be proud.
Full disclosure
In the interest of full disclosure, Doc, please post your annual income and medical insurance premiums. If you're not pleading poverty, perhaps you're being a wee bit generous with other peoples' money.
This right you're so passionate about does not appear in the US Constitution. Therefore, according to the 10th amendment, it's up to the states and/or the people to secure that right. States like Maine have tried (Dirigo Health) and failed, utterly and expensively, and it's this failed model that Obama and Dems want to impose on the entire country. The federal government is not supposed to be in the business of granting rights.
SSDD, I pay for my health insurance. It is not universal - lots of things are not covered and deductibles are sky high. It is reasonably accessible - I live 5 minutes from a hospital and my clinic. But I assure you, it is most definitely NOT affordable. But even if it were all those things, I would still deny your right to pick my pocket to pay your expenses.
I have disagreed with you, so I guess that makes me a teabagger. So be it. But it also makes you shallow and suggests that you are the type of person that expects to be taken care of, cradle to grave. Are you listening?
Whose truth? Yours? As
Whose truth? Yours? As tronnie lamented: How far they've fallen. If Republicans are in free-fall, pretty soon they'll be as low as Democrats.
Wise to decline
Snowe was wise to decline that very late invitation. It was issued only because some staffer, now looking for work, pointed out the omission to the rest of the boobs in the Whitehouse. The summit was a complete sham. In the few minutes Republicans were allowed to speak, they tried to present their points, which are mostly ignored by the press and totally ignored by the bottom-feeders here. And then they were ignored again by the boob-in-chief when he demonstrated for all to see the real point of that meeting, which was the opportunity to say, one more time: I won, I can do what I want, and I inherited this mess. That's the embarrassment.
The Republican attack?
tron, you really need professional help. Beck, the dark side of conservatism, is like blazing sunlight, the world's best disinfectant, compared to the brightest side of liberalism. If the left wins, the first to go won't be Beck or me. It will be Sirota and others like him - then they'll come for you. You have to have a glimmer of talent to be a useful idiot.
thinkingman, that is
thinkingman, that is precisely what the founders intended. Go to DC for a term or two and then: GO HOME! They didn't want career politicians, they wanted citizen legislators. The careerists got us into this mess and they cannot get us out.
And add Veritas to the Koolaid party roll. Sieg heil!
tron and Lil are
tron and Lil are card-carrying members of the Koolaid Party. They never had any valid arguments to begin with.
In the 1920s, the Communist
In the 1920s, the Communist and Nazi platforms were virtually identical, except for the personality cult at the top of the latter. But the winners get to (re)write history. Since the end of WWII, the progressives here and the communists there have waged a largely successful PR campaign to portray Nazism as a right-wing ideology - successful to the point that Rodney Abbott has swallowed this koolaid.
You make some good points, Rod, but you used only one side to make them. Have you watched videos of liberal rallies? Hold on to your lunch.
It may be bunk, Mr. Abbott, but it's protected by the first amendment, as is your right to label it. Enjoy that right while you still have it.
Thanks, Mr. Gagnon. Kate, the
Thanks, Mr. Gagnon.
Kate, the rest of us (except a handful of the willfully ignorant inmates of this forum) know that we already have the best health care on the planet. That's why foreign big-shots, like Canadian premiers, come to the US when the chips are down. (Most of the MSM missed that little item.)
We also know that health insurance is expensive and that situation was caused primarily by governments, especially state governments, especially state governments like Maine's, who mandate coverage and pretend to believe that by doing so, they make the coverage cheap.
We further know that the monster bills currently (and hopefully) dying in Congress will result in higher premiums AND worse health care, because the US government can't manage its own butt.
You can easily see, Clyde,
You can easily see, Clyde, what passes for discussion on this alleged forum. They have no idea how to respond to a well written, well thought out letter, so they trot out the junior high school insults and taunts. They are also intimidated by someone who can spell and has a reasonable grasp of grammar.
Don't take it personally. They treat everyone this way - everyone who dares to criticize the party propaganda or question their something-for-nothing life-styles. Shooting the messenger is always easier than debating the message.
By the way, great letter. Thanks.
I don't blame a union member
I don't blame a union member any more than I blame a non-union employee of a corporation. I do blame the CEO of a large union, who is indistinguishable from the CEO of a large corporation. At that level, greed is greed. The fundamental difference is, the union CEO is perfectly happy with Obama's end (justifying any means) of establishing in the US the glorious communist workers' paradise, which has worked so well in Cuba, North Korea, USSR ... We can't add China anymore because they now have more economic freedom than we do. Good luck getting a cheap ticket on the socialist train.
Tron, you don't need to waste
Tron, you don't need to waste your precious time and effort blaming GWB for everything. The president and his sycophants do it every chance they get. It's much easier than actually doing something. And I would much rather suck my thumb than do what you do with yours.
Government control of
Government control of passenger rail service? What a concept! Have you heard of Amtrak? The feds took it over 40 years ago and have been subsidizing it ever since, although the promise was that it would be back on its feet in 3 years and even earning a - gasp - profit. Not the best "track" record if you want DC to run high-speed rail service too.
We don't need technology from overseas - we already know how to build this stuff. But the result will cost 4 times what we could import. You want to see real, rampant greed? Look into your friendly, neighborhood union.
I'm concerned that you are
I'm concerned that you are delighted. Here are some other promises:
That's IMBECILES, Rps.
That's IMBECILES, Rps. Didn't they teach you that in the DNC's Bush-Derangement-Syndrome school? Your boy won - he reminds us at least once a week - and then hides behind the lame excuse that he didn't know what he inherited. Also at least once a week. Before you talk about someone else's knuckles, you need to uncork yours from where you usually keep it.
We're all suffering now and, if Obama's programs get enacted, so will our children and grandchildren.
I'm familiar with the fact
I'm familiar with the fact that a simple majority wins in the House, and with the fact that 60 wins in the Senate. The Dems have both. If they get tired in the Senate, they can go "nuclear" - that also is a simple majority. Right now those brave in-control Democrats are scared wee-wee-less to exercise their righteous power. Yet RPS and other myrmidons call those who try to inject a little common sense ignorant, lazy buffoons. Have fun, guys. 2010 approaches.
I don't buy into the "grand
I don't buy into the "grand consensus", pandering 24/7 to get their hands on a mountain of our money. A lot of them were in the 1970's grand consensus who were utterly convinced that the earth was entering a period of global cooling and if we didn't do something (send them a mountain of money) we would have a man-made ice age.
The only consistent aspect of these bozos is that just about everything they say is dead wrong.
Tardif is having his
Tardif is having his monthly. Has it been 30 days already?
Mark, your masters control both houses of Congress and can do anything they want. If they don't get it done, it's their fault. But they're such spineless whiners, they always need cover if (when) their zillion $ programs fail. Who better than "obstructionist Republicans"?
Being called petulant by Mark Tardif is like being called wet by a fish.
Whatever else might be
Whatever else might be covered, I sure hope Obamacare provides plenty of benefits for PMS.
Being called a racist by
Being called a racist by Albrecht is like being called a womanizer by Billy Clinton.
The few remaining insurance companies go to Augusta every year and say: Please, sir, we want some more. The invertebrate Democrats bloviate for a few minutes and then say: Take all you want. (wink, wink, nod, nod) The alternative would be to stand up to them, but the companies are free to close shop and leave. At that point, the hypocrites in Maine's government would have to raise taxes to pay for all the goodies they have handed out, and then we fools in the voting booths might not vote for them.
Who are all those people
Who are all those people ...? Anyone who understands that the federal government can't manage a Sunday afternoon picnic.
Wonder why this nation has the most expensive national medical/insurance bills in the world? Because the feds and the states hand out free care to illegal aliens, welfare royalty, and other bottom feeders. If Drane thinks it's expensive now, his head will explode when it's "free". I wonder if that's covered by Obamacare.
It's obvious Drane has never tried to survive on a 2% profit margin. If he had, he wouldn't be so envious of those who succeed and are rewarded accordingly.
The closest Drane has ever come to a 3rd world country is downtown Auburn.
queenie, try to concentrate.
queenie, try to concentrate. It is illegal in Maine for a health insurance company to deny coverage for pre-existing conditions. If you live in another state where that's not the case, please find a newspaper forum where you can discuss local issues. If you live in Maine and you or someone you know has been denied coverage, contact your state representative Democrat (but I repeat myself) and complain - he'll help you if you promise to vote for him. If you're just blathering about the national condition, why waste you breath? The DNC is working 24/7 to convert our country into the latest incarnation of the glorious socialist workers' paradise. Be patient and try to figure a nice way to tell your grandchildren that you favor enslaving them to pay for your bennies.
There is a direct
There is a direct relationship between AIDS and the bloated monstrosity of a "reform" bill in the Senate. If it passes, it will destroy all research, development and innovation in all areas of "health" treatment. If you or anyone you know has AIDS, you better hope to God that existing drugs and other treatments will help you, because there won't be anything new coming along. For AIDS read any other medical condition. But you demanded and voted for that hopey-changey codswallop - don't start whining when you realize it's a bitter pill.
What makes me woozy is
What makes me woozy is contemplating the real liberal subtext of this issue. You couldn't care less about KSM or the American legal system. You want to put on trial the usual suspects who have always caused you to leave nasty deposits in your Depends: Bush, Cheney, Halliburton, ... Before you and the ACLU get finished, you'll give the terrorists a ticker-tape parade and send them back to butcher again.
Lil, I'll take my bunker every time over your asylum.
The story in print had a
The story in print had a front-page headline with the word TRAGIC. There was nothing tragic in this event. There would have been if this dirtbag had taken some innocent bystanders with him.
Tom, move to France and take
Tom, move to France and take Harvard, Pingree and Michaud with you. By the way, what did you think of the majority's choice on question 1? Or do you invoke Jefferson only when he's convenient?
Queenie: "... its always
Queenie: "... its always easier to find a scapegoat."
Very true. The immaculated one descends into that quagmire at least once a week. Whenever any "journalist" asks him why his policies haven't accomplished a thing, he starts jerking is knee and his teleprompter: "I inherited this mess." Maybe, but now you own it. Uncork your thumb.
Thanks, Ms Newell. As
Thanks, Ms Newell. As usual, you are spot on. I urge you to put on your Kevlar lounge suit because, as you can see, the bottom-feeders and wagon-riders have crawled out from under their rocks.
How is it our decision?
How is it our decision? Evidently, Reagan, you have never read the US Constitution. I urge you to do so, even if your school doesn't believe it's worth studying. The effort will be of great benefit to you when you reach high school.
jalbrecht1, I am not now,
jalbrecht1, I am not now, nor have I ever been, a Republican and I don't have any rich friends. If you have some you can spare, send me their contact info.
But I can read a balance sheet. The public option will destroy health care nationally by killing competition and then sucking up all those new taxes into the general fund, where our invertebrate Congresscritters will steal it for other programs. It will be another cash cow, just like Social Security. That's why those jerks, on both sides of the aisle, are rubbing their sweaty hands in gleeful anticipation.
The next time your doctor tells you to turn your head and cough, don't be surprised when a federal bureaucrat appears to demand that you fill out an environmental impact report.
Maine had a thriving private
Maine had a thriving private health insurance market until the early 1990's when our state government, in its infinite wisdom, mandated a few little changes: guaranteed issue, no exclusion of pre-existing conditions, coverage of everything under the sun, and one price fits all. Sound familiar? Those are the major points of Obamacare, only it needs 2000 pages to say it.
When the smaller companies saw they would all have to offer the same thing at the same price, they packed their bags and left, leaving just those evil, blood-sucking giants. Government interference terminated nearly all competition. The giants ask the government for rate increases every year and the legislature rubber-stamps it.
Maine saw this wonderful (sarcasm alert) new system and decided to make it even better with a "public option" - Dirigo Health. In case you haven't heard about it recently, it's a complete and utter failure, but very expensive. So today we have even less competition with just about the highest prices in the country. But don't worry about those details.
Doshie says we all want the system politicians have, and he's right - we just want somebody else to pay for it. Prepare for a new medical procedure: a wallet-ectomy.
Too bad there's no button
Too bad there's no button "Flag as Ridiculously Verbose".
And the DNC can report all
And the DNC can report all the rest. If there was a sycophant tax, it would go broke tomorrow.
I would rather be called an
I would rather be called an indecent, hating racist than someone ready and eager to convict without evidence. Perhaps tron found the sources. Maybe he also has those original documents Dan Rather has been looking for.
If all or even most of those
If all or even most of those points are valid, then why was the Limbaugh story entirely about a couple of remarks 'attributed' to him? He claimed he never said them and no one then or since has produced one shred of evidence that he did. When the slanderers realized they had stepped in it big time, they apologized (sort of) and retreated. But not before the spineless NFL gave him the boot for being too controversial. Funny, they had no problem with the return of Vick, someone who had actually committed the crimes he was accused of.
Pitts' column is all about envy: Rush owns a Gulfstream V, Pitts flies coach. Somebody has to level the playing field!
This is the LSJ's mandatory
This is the LSJ's mandatory weekly LTTE complaining about FOX. Rich, you must have been asleep for 8 years when daily FOX complained about GWB for (1) not using the veto, (2) spending wildly in general, in particular (3) the stupid No Child Left Behind nonsense and (4) the even more stupid Medicare Drug fiasco, and (5) waging a war without trying to win it.
The MSM, with the exception of FOX and talk radio, is the Propaganda Ministry of the Obama administration. That's why the libs are so rabid to shut them down.
Of course not all Muslims
Of course not all Muslims are terrorists - that's not what Thomas implied. But on 9/11, all terrorists were Muslims. And since that day, the vast majority of Muslims have hidden behind one commandment of Islam: Thou shalt not criticize a fellow Muslim.
Rex, suppose a black - excuse me - African American murders your grandson. By your logic, you'll say: Oh, well, it's OK - plenty of white guys commit murder. How will that work out for you, Rex.
For someone who hates FNC as
For someone who hates FNC as much as Mr Roy claims to, he sure seems to spend most of his day watching it. Lose the remote again? But don't worry, the administration and Dems in general want to remove your choice of what to watch, leaving you with just the pablum on ABC, CBS and NBC. See, they can't compete with FOX so they want the government to disappear it, in the interest of fairness. That whooshing sound you hear is the 1st Amendment being scrubbed out of the Constitution you love so much.
The History Channel?! How many episodes of Ice Road Truckers and the Nostradamus Effect can you watch before your mind turns to ... never mind, it's already happened. That channel is to history what the LSJ is to journalism.
Ms Mann, Beck is a
Ms Mann, Beck is a commentator, not a news anchor. If you want news at 5 pm, put on your blue tinted glasses and switch to another station. Both his TV show and radio program show no sign of folding due to lack of sponsors, because they both are incredibly popular. If they do disappear, it will be because of government censorship - be careful what you wish for.
Tron, for real filth, cruise on over to democraticunderground.com and look at the archives from Jan 2001 through Jan 2009. Try to hold on to your breakfast.
The only way the wacko left can remain on TV and radio is with government subsidy - your tax dollars in action. That will not change no matter how much you scream.
I don't know and I don't
I don't know and I don't care. Today's Dems are afraid to use it on "health care" because they rightly fear the voters' reaction.
Has it been 30 days already?
Has it been 30 days already? Tardif is playing his broken record again. The Ds have control of Congress and can pass anything they want. If they can't get to that pesky 60 vote thing in the Senate, they can always use "reconciliation" - that's lipstick on the pig of the "nuclear option". You remember that, don't you? A few years ago Ds went apoplectic whenever Rs even hinted they might us it. The barrier can be removed, but all the Ds in DC can't put together one backbone. Go ahead and do it, but be careful what you wish for - and don't whine the next time Rs have control and don't have the barrier.
If Republicans are a circus, Democrats are a carny sideshow.
Well, the hard-core lurkers
Well, the hard-core lurkers crawled out from under their rocks.
Death panels: The phrase first appeared in early 2005 when GWB suggested making some changes to Social Security. The left went ballistic - but it's hard to tell that from their usual state.
Bush tax cuts: Like the Reagan and JFK tax cuts, they increased the revenue of the federal government. If BHO lets them expire or cancels them, revenues will fall, leading to another round of tax hikes on those evil rich, leading to even less job creation than under all this wasted Bush/Obama stimulus.
Bush spending: Where was I? Right here, saying the same thing. Especially about the Medicare drug nonsense.
National debt: GWB doubled it and BHO is tripling that.
Joe, Walmart is having a special this week on air. Go on down and get your empty spaces filled up.
Obama has offered no
Obama has offered no compromises, constructive or any other kind. Republicans, the few who dare to speak up, object to being left completely out of the discussions. Obama says "Jump" and the spineless Democrat-controlled Congress asks only "How high?" Mercifully, there are a few vertebrates in that zoo who are showing a little spunk and complaining about hanging all this debt around the necks of our grandchildren so fools like you can have a free lunch while nattering about historical perspective.
Drane, this administration rode in chanting hope & change and asking us all to look forward with enthusiasm. I guess you didn't get the memo, nor did our new attorney general. You both want to look back and punish everyone you can find who had anything to do with the real center of your hatred.
Dosh, I followed your link
Dosh, I followed your link and there's not one word about the million moron march. I don't know about Coyle but I remember it - and who organized it. Heil Louis!
Change (what an inspired screen name), the Bush tax cuts increased revenue to the federal government, just like the Reagan and JFK cuts before. But don't let history interfere with your hopium fantasies. The cuts had nothing to do with the spending binges begun by GWB and tripled by BHO
Fix: All will pay? I thought the party line was the evil rich and evil corporations would pay. All will be covered? Except for illegal immigrants. Excuse me, how racist. I mean except for undocumented Democrats.
Regarding drugs, where do you think all the world's research and development takes place? Answer: USA. If you libs succeed in destroying capitalism and the profit motive, you better plan on never getting a medical condition that can't be cured or controlled by existing drugs, because there will be nothing new. Unless, of course, the Chinese develop it. How much do you suppose it will cost then?
Sorry for the interruption. You may now resume your shallow discussion of DNC talking points.
Ms Kullson, I'm sure there's
Ms Kullson, I'm sure there's a guidance office at CMCC where they can provide you with a boatload of information on scholarships, grants, loans, jobs, ... If that seems like too much work, call (202) 456-1414 and tell the president you want him to pick up the tab. After all, you have a right to a free college education - it's right there in the Constitution. Surely you have read it at some point in your long years of scholarly pursuits.
If you can't or won't do any of that, then you are too lazy or too stupid or both for college. Maybe you really should look into a career swamping toilets at McDonalds.
You can always trust Lil's
You can always trust Lil's uncanny ability to find the psychos in any group. Birds of a feather.
Hysteria? Rational thought. Perhaps tron refers to the whackos who shriek RACIST whenever a riled up granny mentions health care for illegal immigrants? No, that's civilized discourse.
Obama is not the country. Wanting Obama's policies to fail is not calling for the destruction of the republic. For 8 years knee-jerk liberals advocated total failure for GWB, up to and including painful lingering death. If the president is the country, they were calling for the country's failure. You can't have it both ways, but that won't stop liberals from trying.
At least with a fascist you know where he stands; a liberal changes his principles more often than his underwear. As proof, stay tuned for more 'reform' changes caused by those phony town-hallers.
joeziehmer, of course it's
joeziehmer, of course it's your right to call me a Nazi, just as it's your right to make a fool of yourself in public at every chance you get. You exercise that right very well.
... rights such as those established for the Declaration of Independence and the Constitution ...
Holy crow. No wonder the country is crumbling in front of us. Rights come from God. Our founding documents mention them as rights that cannot be taken away by federal government, not created by federal government. There is no right to health care, to a job, to a house. Why are you obsessed with a right to health care for HIV/AIDS? Having you been sticking it somewhere you shouldn't?
Never mind. Heil Ziehmer! Unser liebe Fuehrer.
Pretty sure it was
Pretty sure it was 'concerned KD'. Scroll down a ways.
OK. You said tort reform is
OK. You said tort reform is a red herring. Same nit-picking question to you: What's your evidence? I mean, aside from your own personal inspiration which everyone else is supposed to accept as the revealed truth.
To you Constitutional
To you Constitutional experts: I believe the phrase LIFE, LIBERTY AND THE PURSUIT OF HAPPINESS is from the Declaration of Independence which, a remarkable document, is not part of the Constitution and is not law.
http://www.usatoday.com/news/
http://www.usatoday.com/news/health/2003-03-04-malpractice-debate_x.htm
Interesting story in a non-right-wing paper. Note they were talking about this just before we left to blow up the Middle East.
Principles again. Do you
Principles again. Do you have any evidence you can provide to support your truth? Or is that against your principles?
Every state has a government
Every state has a government group that oversees doctors - or they are supposed to - supported by taxes. The AMA has a similar private group in every state, supported by dues from doctors - that is, from patients. If these groups aren't doing their jobs, lets get rid of them. But the solution is not shoveling mountains of money to literal ambulance chasers. The current situation does get rid of bad doctors, but it converts good doctors to mediocre doctors.
Ask your doctor what his
Ask your doctor what his biggest expense is, after employee costs. I'll bet his answer is malpractice insurance, even ahead of rent. Five years ago mine told me his premium was $40,000 per year. I'll take a wild guess that it's a lot more now. It is that high because of the American addiction to huge lawsuits whose sole purpose is to enrich lawyers. Tort reform would control this, reduce expenses and let doctors pay more attention to the practice of medicine than accounting.
Lil, Churchill also said: "If you are not a liberal at 20, you have no heart; if you are not a conservative at 40, you have no head."
tron, all I pointed is that
tron, all I pointed is that Thomas' column and Landry's letter appeared on the opinion page, because they, like you, are expressing opinions. What did I make up? Here's my opinion: I don't look to any of that group for facts. Especially you, tron.
Mr Landry, look up to the
Mr Landry, look up to the top of the page. See the big word OPINION? If you want facts, turn to the front page.
Oh, wait. <sarcasm> For a moment I forgot what newspaper this is. </sarcasm>
Joe, put your glasses on.
Joe, put your glasses on. Rhinoblast presented the link, not me. I wouldn't wrap fish with the Globe - it insults the fish.
OK, Blastie, just for you,
OK, Blastie, just for you, from now on I will use the
<sarcasm> special formatting tags </sarcasm>
where appropriate to help those whose blue-colored lenses prevent seeing what's right in front of them. Given this first example of your erudition, I don't care to contemplate what you normally revert to, because your stratospheric level of dumbness is likely contagious. I have more than enough life; you obviously need one beyond this forum.
I guess the news is censored
I guess the news is censored in Hawaii, alleged birthplace of BHO. McKay refers to those un-American rabble-rousers who insist on disrupting Congresscritters who are just exercising their Soros-given right to read from a teleprompter what the Whitehouse wants them to say. What a travesty when those enlightened personages have to interact with the great unwashed.
Just the other day, after
Just the other day, after Judson Duncan's latest screed blaming Republicans for everything since the last ice age, someone asked: Can Tardif be far behind? Presto! Here's his latest content-free letter. The pair of them could save a lot of effort if they would just send in the same letters every 30 days. Oh, wait, they already do.
Big Love, it's really bad form to post something that long. Post a link to it.
At least I have some
At least I have some principles, which clearly differentiates me from Lil. Certainly I'll sign up - I have been paying for it for 40+ years. The topic here is health insurance for the uninsured. If you are 65+ and have not enrolled in Medicare, you are terminally stupid and, following the guidelines in Obamacare, should do your patriotic duty and die as soon as possible.
I sympathize, keland, but
I sympathize, keland, but only so far. I'm 61 and in the highest premium bracket. For just me and my wife, the monthly premium is $1800 for medical + dental + vision. No, that is not a typo. I won't go into detail on how that's split between me and my employer, because it's irrelevant. Like all business costs, the end user pays. That's not evil, it's just the facts of life in the most free society on the planet.
I hope you won't consider it worthless rhetoric when I say again: The most efficient way to create really affordable health insurance is to demand that government, at all levels, get the hell out of the insurance business.
And the self-proclaimed
And the self-proclaimed liberals here ignore the fact that it is illegal in Maine to deny coverage to the sick, to those with pre-existing conditions, or to charge higher premiums to those with riskier life styles. If an insurance company tries to, just report them to your closest left-wing Augustacrat. But just be aware that those illegalities are precisely why insurance costs so much here and why there only a handful of companies remaining who are willing to put up with all the rules and regulations promulgated by the Democrat party since the early 1990s.
If you can't afford insurance, please call John Elias Baldacci at 207-287-3531 and ask his staff to help you get enrolled in Dirigo Health, Maine's "public option" insurance. Oh, wait - I forgot that enrollment is closed, and has been for two years, because it's such a dismal failure. And this is one of the models for Obama-care. It is the model for government incompetence and we'll all get an overdose of that if jalbrecht1 and friends get their way.
JoeZ, you list your location
JoeZ, you list your location as Lewiston. There must be some free class, say at Bates, to help folks for whom English is a second language. Do look into the availability. It would help immensely to keep your posts from sounding like pure gibberish.
Hobbes was a jerk. I prefer Calvin: People think it must be fun to be a super genius, but they don't realize how hard it is to put up with all the idiots in the world.
As long as some here are
As long as some here are making a list of American fascist lovers, don't forget Joe Kennedy. To paraphrase: the LEFT hates hearing their famed leader (-fill-in-the-blank-) being brought to task for his support of (-your-favorite-totalitarian-) and silently slink any bit of that into a re-written history.
BobStone, in your point 6,
BobStone, in your point 6, please revise from 'wars' to 'quagmires'. We have to try to stick to the vocabulary that liberals understand.
Ever since the 1960s
Ever since the 1960s liberals have been slinging around the word 'fascist' as if it were a synonym for 'Republican'. It's no surprise that the Dunkster continues the tradition.
Within the lifetime of some who read this paper there was a regime from which we derive the modern meaning of fascism: a parasitic joining of government and big business. The regime was Mussolini's in Italy in the 30s and 40s. It's still not clear whether government was the host or the parasite. Just remember that it did not end well.
Since taking office Obama (1) fired the CEO of GM and replaced him with a lapdog (I missed the announcement that BHO was appointed to the board) and nationalized most of the automobile industry, (2) nationalized the banking and investment industries, and (3) is trying to nationalize the insurance industry - whew! - all the while blaming Bush for everything, including continental drift.
If that's not enough to convince you that our president is today's leading expert on fascism, then consider the private army he's organizing consisting of thugs from ACORN and SEIU, who make Mafia bent-noses look like altar boys. I wonder what informal title they will use - il Duce and der Fuehrer are taken.
And, I almost forgot, consider the two 'czars' who in very recent writings have embraced eugenics.
And, as before, folks are already apologizing for him with sayings that are eerily close to: Well, at least he made the trains run on time.
Publikwerks, no government
Publikwerks, no government fiat can ever force stupid people to read and understand a contract before they sign it. Sorry about your personal problems, but you will mourn severely when your premiums go down a little and your taxes go up a lot.
Typical post from Lil. Not
Typical post from Lil. Not one word on how to make the situation better. Just a long list of those to punish. Punishment, like other stuff, trickles downhill. Lil is an expert from her vantage-point at the bottom.
Did it ever occur to you, Ms
Did it ever occur to you, Ms Neu-Sokol, to wonder why your medications are available in Germany under the same brand name as here? Same question to folks who whine about cheap Canadian drugs. The drugs are NOT just like ours - they ARE ours.
US drug companies export their products all over the world and all those importers are glad to have them, because the cost is much lower than it would be from domestic manufacturers. The cost is very low in places like Canada, because they have instituted severe restrictions on punitive law suits, AKA tort reform. If you take your Nasonex here and all your hair falls out, chances are pretty good that you will call Joe Bornstein and sue for $100,000,000. You can't do that in Canada.
That's also why you can buy "Canadian" Nasonex for the same low price. It travels from US to Canada and back to US, but the export/import middle-men are protected by Canadian law.
But reality doesn't matter. Lets hand the whole mess to the federal government. Then we can be sure of low cost and plentiful supply. And if you believe that, I own a really nice bridge down in Brooklyn and I'll sell it to you for a special price. Call in the next 20 minutes and I'll throw in an Obama flying pig.
Lil's examples are bizarre.
Lil's examples are bizarre. The first can't happen in Maine by legislative fiat. The second ... How often does that happen in Maine? If it's your leg, it's too often. Otherwise, is a leg worth $100 million or more? I could get by for the rest of my life known as Peg-Leg on less than a tenth of that amount. Whatever the amount, it is just spread out as premium increases to all of us who play by the rules. We have no recourse.
Rep Bolduc conveniently left
Rep Bolduc conveniently left off his list the greediest of them all: the Maine legislature. They imposed the raft of mandates on insurance companies, leading directly to the upward cost spiral, due to the complete lack of competition, all engineered by the boneheads we keep sending to Augusta.
Today's solution, obvious to nearly all Democrats, is: GO NATIONAL! ObamaCare is just DirigoHealth writ large. And the reasoning (and I use the term loosely) is exactly the same: We don't know what it does, because we can't be bothered to read it, but we know for sure that all them private things are evil and our grand plan will will save the country, if we just throw enough money at it.
Well, this is really slick,
Well, this is really slick, except ... Please post some instructions on how to print it. I have tried IE, Firefox and Safari - on a PC and on a Mac - and either the browser goes into a tailspin or the result is the cover page followed by 39 blanks.
Did anyone at LSJ actually try out this new format before you switched to it?
Add Amtrak to the list of
Add Amtrak to the list of federal management fiascos.
You crew of lurking myrmidons: Name a business that the federales have taken over from the private sector and run efficiently and economically. Waiting ...
Chellie and Mike can also
Chellie and Mike can also probably quote chapter and verse from the gospel according to St Michael the J. They know Maine voters and they know the buttered side of the bread they just tossed into the circus.
Once again, thank you,
Once again, thank you, Professor.
Where was the Dunkster a
Where was the Dunkster a year ago or more, and right through election day, when every other letter was copied and pasted from the DNC website's talking points? Now I remember. Every 30 days he sent in his peculiar list of BDS symptoms. By his own performance, plagiarism on the left is OK. On the right? That requires a crowded train ride out to a camp in the country for attitude adjustment.
Hypocrisy, thy name is Judson.
Just what does "Public
Just what does "Public service of character ..." mean if not virtuous? Ted did not run for president in 1980. He ran in the primaries and got creamed. Jimmah Cahter ran to be reelected and got what he deserved. Revisionism - right. Ted was born into wealth and privilege and, aside from a few bad days in 1969, hasn't had to worry about anything in his entire life until recently, when his doctors diagnosed brain rot - a few decades late. And, tron, you're very wrong about the right, radical or any other kind, hating all things Kennedy. In today's political world, JFK would not be allowed in the Democrat party - you would expel him into the Lieberman limbo, reserved for the rabble rousers who won't goosestep to the party's propaganda line.