AMERICA-Where Are You?

“Being shot down may not qualify one to be president, as retired Gen. Wesley Clark infamously said recently. But what men do under fire might tell us about the character we may discover in a president. Clark’s precise words, aimed at undermining John McCain’s executive experience, were: ‘I don’t think getting in a fighter plane and getting shot down is a qualification to become president.’ In fairness, Clark also praised McCain’s heroism, saying that he honored his service as a prisoner of war and even that ‘he was a hero to me.’ Predictably, Republicans were outraged and Democrats were outraged at the GOP’s outrage. For his part, Barack Obama performed the political minuet of condemn ‘n’ distance. He condemned the remarks and distanced himself from his surrogate/general… Clark misses the point of McCain’s story. McCain isn’t a hero because he was tortured. He’s a hero because he declined an offer by his captors to be released, refusing to leave his fellow Americans behind. It may not take much effort to get shot down, but it must take a considerable act of will to consign oneself to more deprivation and torture. It must take a level of courage unknown to most to place concern for others above one’s own interest. Surely self-sacrifice, courage and loyalty figure somewhere in the calculus for selecting a president. We can make no similar analysis of Obama, since he hasn’t fought in any wars in his lifetime. But we have been given a glimpse at how Obama responds to external pressures and where he draws the line on loyalty and self-sacrifice. When it comes to family and friends, it seems Obama is first a survivalist… Clark is right that getting shot down doesn’t qualify one to be commander in chief. But it is relevant to wonder with whom one would rather share a foxhole.” —Kathleen Parker

Some are critical of Obama because he says that visiting Iraq, consulting with Generals and troops on the ground might influence his opinions. Would it be better if he stated that no facts, and no opinion, no matter how well-informed, will ever cause him to modify his position on Iraq? Do we really want a leader with the mindset, “I’ve said what I said and that settles it once and for all.”? Obama prefers a timetable for troop withdrawal. That preference puts him at odds with the Republican establishment that equates a timetable with surrender. A timetable is where Obama stands, but to state on the eve of an Iraq visit that this withdrawal plan is immutable and untouchable no matter what, well, that’s not leadership, that’s foolishness. We already have a President whose view of the world, even after seven years in office, remains reality-free. We don’t need another brickhead, even one from the other side of the spectrum. Indeed, there’s all this talk of the duplicity implied in Obama’s “moving towards the center.” I really don’t think voters much care if a candidate moves to the center or not, but whether he uses his brain. Over the next eight years, what will happen with Social Security, health care, education and national defense? A candidate who cares about solutions will not lose sleep over the ideological purity of his proposals, but whether they can garner sufficient votes to be embraced, whether the solutions are broad and attractive enough to cut through our current red state/blue state impasse.

This is too true to be funny.

The next time you hear a politician use the
word ‘billion’ in a casual manner, think about
whether you want the ‘politicians’ spending
YOUR tax money.

A billion is a difficult number to comprehend,
but one advertising agency did a good job of
putting that figure into some perspective in
one of it’s releases.

A.

A billion seconds ago it was 1959.

B.

A billion minutes ago Jesus was alive.

C.

A billion hours ago our ancestors were
living in the Stone Age.

D.

A billion days ago no-one walked on the earth on
two feet.

E.

A billion dollars ago was only
8 hours and 20 minutes,
at the rate our government
is spending it.

While this thought is still fresh in our
brain…

let’s take a look at New Orleans …

It’s amazing what you can learn with some simple division.

Louisiana Senator, Mary Landrieu (D) is presently asking Congress for 250 BILLION DOLLARS to rebuild New Orleans . Interesting number… what does it mean?

A.

Well… if you are one of the 484,674 residents of New Orleans (every man, woman, and child) you each get $516,528.

B.

Or… if you have one of the 188,251 homes in New Orleans , your home gets $1,329,787.

C.

Or… if you are a family of four… your family gets $2,066,012.

Washington, D. C

< HELLO! >

Are all your calculators broken??

Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL License Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Federal Income Tax < BR>

Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges (tax on top of tax)
IRS Penalties (tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Tax
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service charge taxes
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax (Truckers)
Sales Taxes
Recreational Vehicle Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Tax

Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Non-recurring Charges
Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Tax
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax

STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?

Not one of these taxes existed 100 years ago…
and our nation was the most prosperous in the
world.

We had absolutely no national debt…

We had the largest middle class in the world…

and Mom stayed home to raise the kids .

What happened?

Can you spell ‘politicians!’

And I still have to
press ‘1′
for English.
I hope this goes around the
U S A
at least 100 times
What the heck happened?????

I find it amazing that this photo, taken so many years ago, actually still exists!

And now someone has put it online for all of us to see.
This INCREDIBLE picture was taken in 1918.

It is 18,000 men preparing for war in a training camp at Camp Dodge in Iowa EIGHTEEN THOUSAND MEN!!!!!

What a priceless gift from our grandfathers…

Payback is fun!!!!!!!!!!!!!
WRITE IT ON THE BACK OF YOUR ENVELOPES or front!

WE THINK THIS IS A GREAT IDEA. WE’LL START WRITING IT ON THE FRONT OF OUR ENVELOPES, TOO! ! Including Bills

You may have heard in the news that a couple of Post Offices in Texas have been forced to take down small posters that say

‘IN GOD WE TRUST ,’ The law, they say, is being violated.

Anyway, we heard proposed on a radio station show, that we should all write ‘IN GOD WE TRUST’

on the back of all our mail. After all, that’s our National Motto, and it’s on all the money we use to buy those stamps. We think it’s a wonderful idea.

We must take back our nation from all the people who think that anything that offends them should be removed.

If you like this idea, please pass it on and DO IT. The idea of writing or stamping!

‘IN GOD WE TRUST’ on our envelopes sounds good to us . WE’RE HAVING A STAMP MADE TOO! Heck, lets use it as our signature on e-mails too!

It’s been reported that 86% of Americans believe in God. Therefore, we have a very hard time understanding why there’s such a mess about having ‘In God We Trust!’ on our money and having God in the pledge of Allegiance.

Could it be that WE just need to take action and tell the 14% to ’sit down and shut up’?

The #1 reason why this world is in the mess we’re in now.WE SIT BACK & LET IT HAPPEN!

G

‘
Since the dawn of creation there has been both good and evil in the hearts of men and women. We all contain the seeds of kindness or the seeds of violence.

The death of my wonderful daughter, Rachel Joy Scott, and the deaths of that heroic teacher, and the other eleven children who died must not be in vain. Their blood cries out for answers.

‘The first recorded act of violence was when Cain slew his brother Abel out in the field. The villain was not the club he used. Neither was it the NCA, the National Club Association. The true killer was Cain, and the reason for the murder could only be found in Cain’s heart.

‘In the days that followed the Columbine tragedy, I was amazed at how quickly fingers began to be pointed at groups such as the NRA. I am not a member of the NRA. I am not a hunter. I do not even own a gun. I am not here to represent or defend the NRA - because I don’t believe that they are responsible for my daughter’s death. Therefore I do not believe that they need to be defended. If I believed they had anything to do with Rachel’s murder I would be their strongest opponent.

I am here today to declare that Columbine was not just a tragedy, it was a spiritual event that should be forcing us to look at where the real blame lies!

Much of the blame lies here in this room.
Much of the blame lies behind the pointing fingers of the accusers themselves.
I wrote a poem just four nights ago that expresses my feelings best.

Your laws ignore our deepest needs,
Your words are empty air.
You’ve stripped away our heritage,
You’ve outlawed simple prayer.
Now gunshots fill our classrooms,
And precious children die.
You seek for answers everywhere,
And ask the question ‘Why?’
You regulate restrictive laws,
Through legislative creed.
And yet you fail to understand,
That God is what we need!

‘ Men and women are three-part beings. We all consist of body, mind, and spirit. When we refuse to acknowledge a third part of our make-up, we create a void that allows evil, prejudice, and hatred to rush in and wreak havoc.

Spiritual presences were present within our educational systems for most of our nation’s history. Many of our major colleges began as theological seminaries. This is a historical fact.
What has happened to us as a nation?

We have refused to honor God, and in so doing, we open the doors to hatred and violence. And when something as terrible as Columbine’s tragedy occurs — politicians immediately look for a scapegoat such as the NRA. They immediately seek to pass more restrictive laws that contribute to erode away our personal and private liberties.

We do not need more restrictive laws. Eric and Dylan would not have been stopped by metal detectors. No amount of gun laws can stop someone who spends months planning this type of massacre. The real villain lies within our own hearts.

‘As my son Craig lay under that table in the school library and saw his two friends murdered before his very eyes, he did not hesitate to pray in school. I defy any law or politician to deny him that right! I challenge every young person in America , and around the world, to realize that on April 20, 1999, at Columbine High School prayer was brought back to our schools. Do not let the many prayers offered by those students be in vain. Dare to move into the new millennium with a sacred disregard for legislation that violates your God-given right to communicate with Him. To those of you who would point your finger at the NRA — I give to you a sincere challenge. Dare to examine your own heart before casting the first stone!

My daughter’s death will not be in vain!
The young people of this country will not allow that to happen!’

Do what the media did not - - let the nation hear this man’s speech.

“All hail the imperial court. In a bitterly divided 5-4 decision, the Supreme Court ruled Thursday in Boumediene v. Bush that alien enemy prisoners, waging a jihad against the American people and captured by our military in a war authorized by Congress, have a right—under our Constitution—to petition our courts for their release. So doing, the Court invalidated laws it had only recently implored Congress to enact, laws that provided these prisoners with generous protections never previously extended to enemy operatives in American history. Justice Anthony Kennedy, writing for Justices John Paul Stevens, David Souter, Ruth Bader Ginsburg, and Stephen Breyer, dictates that Americans must regard enemies as if they were mere criminal defendants, entitled to an exacting legal process—access to discovery, witnesses, counsel, etc.—that will, as a practical matter, make it impossible to detain them without shutting down interrogations prematurely and informing the enemy of our national-defense secrets. There can be no justification for this stunning conclusion… The runaway justices say that foreign al-Qaeda killers detained in Cuba can march right into the federal district courts and demand what, suddenly, are their constitutional rights. In those courts, judges—without guidance and emboldened by the high court’s usurpation of war powers—will be encouraged to make it up as they go along: More access to classified information? Subpoenas commanding the testimony (and cross-examination) of our soldiers regarding the circumstances of capture? Miranda warnings? Prompt access to counsel, which is certain to halt any questioning—and thus any revelation of lifesaving intelligence—before it can even start? Full-blown trials in the criminal-justice system with the same presumptions of innocence, privacy, and other privileges vested in American citizens? And who will adjudicate the resulting mess? Our imperial court, of course.” —National Review

“Ideological descendants of Marx and Rousseau now lead the Democratic Party and they have turned it into a disloyal opposition to an increasingly accommodating GOP. They have molded the Party into a force working stridently and unashamedly against a Commander in Chief during wartime. They have made it a den of treachery devoted to American defeat in Iraq. They preside over an institution advised and influenced by moneyed, non-governmental groups and individuals with unquestionably anti-U.S. agendas who help make the Party a pseudo-intellectual sinkhole filled with perverse, tried-and-failed ideas repulsive to the majority of Americans. Those ideas are shaped into agendas which are then forced on the public by an activist leftwing judiciary and by a major media and arts consortium shot through with utter disrespect, indeed contempt, for traditional American values, religions and institutions. The Democratic Party has devolved into a club for the illegitimately aggrieved, the self-absorbed, the self-hating and the perpetually [angry]. It is a sanctuary where solipsistic malcontents and their disjointed causes find refuge and support. It has long ceased being an earnest gathering of broad minds where man’s timeless problems are examined against the backdrop of the Constitution and solutions to them proposed based on the actual realities of the human condition…[Barack] Obama is in step with that radical element and with that leadership.” —Rocco DiPippo

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“The problem on the Left is, now that Karl Marx has forsaken them, they have no philosophy. Thank goodness. Think what evil creeps liberals would be if their plans to enfeeble the individual, exhaust the economy, impede the rule of law, and cripple national defense were guided by a coherent ideology instead of smug ignorance. As for our side, conservatism is a gut reaction for most of us, and a done deal for the rest. The moral philosophy of American politics can be explained briefly and clearly, and, the Constitution being written, it has been. Where is there a philosopher in Washington?” —P.J. O’Rourke

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“Congress is spending us into a hole. We hear about the cost of earmarks and the Iraq war. But what about ‘entitlements’? That’s the government’s ironic term for programs that transfer money from people who earned it to people who didn’t. Entitlement? How can you be entitled to someone else’s money? To finance ‘entitlement’ programs, the government threatens force against the taxpayers who provide the money. Why are people who favor compulsion called humanitarians, while those who favor freedom are stigmatized as greedy?… What we really need is a top-to-bottom freeing of the economy, including the health-care industry, and massive cuts in government both spending and taxes. This would leave us wealthy enough to take care of ourselves, with private charity assisting those who can’t manage.” —John Stossel

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“I would define a conservative, first as one who believes in the Constitution as it is written. That takes care of free speech, freedom of religion, the right to petition the government, the right to keep and bear arms and, in the words of William O. Douglas in one of his saner moments, ‘the right to be let alone. Second, a conservative believes in small, limited government at every level. Along with this he believes strongly in individual responsibility. That is, a person or a family should take care of itself and turn for help to government only when all other means have been exhausted. It also means that society, before government, has a duty to take care of its own. Government should be a resource of last resort. Third, a conservative believes taxes should be levied for the purpose of financing the limited responsibilities of government such as providing for the common defense, catching and incarcerating criminals, minting money and filling potholes. Taxes should not be levied for the purpose of redistributing wealth… One other thing I think a conservative believes is that the parents, not government, are and should be responsible for the upbringing and behavior of their children.” —Lyn Nofziger

Talk about putting your most valuable where your mouth is! Apparently this was not “newsworthy”enough for the media to comment about. Can either of the other presidential candidates truthfully come close to this? … Just a question for each of us to seek an answer, and not a statement.

You see…character is what’s shown when the public is not looking. There were no cameras or press invited to what you are about to read about, and the story comes from one person in New Hampshire.

One evening last July, Senator John McCain of Arizona arrived at the NewHampshire home of Erin Flanagan for sandwiches, chocolate-chip cookies and a heartfelt talk about Iraq. They had met at a presidential debate, when she asked the candidates what they would do to bring home American soldiers - - soldiers like her brother, who had been killed in action a few months earlier.

Mr. McCain did not bring cameras or press. Instead, he brought his youngest son, James McCain, 19, then a private first class in the Marine Corps about to leave for Iraq. Father and son sat down to hear more about Ms. Flanagan’s brother Michael Cleary, a 24-year-old Army First Lieutenant killed by an ambush … a roadside bomb.

No one mentioned the obvious: In just days, Jimmy McCain could face similar perils. ‘I can’t imagine what it must have been like for them as they were coming to meet with a family that ……’ Ms. Flanagan recalled, choking up. ‘We lost a dear one,’ she finished.

Mr. McCain, now the presumptive Republican nominee, has staked his candidacy on the promise that American troops can bring stability to Iraq. What he almost never says is that one of them is his own son, who spent seven months patrolling Anbar Province and learned of his father’s New Hampshire victory in January while he was digging a stuck military vehicle out of the mud.

Two of Jimmy’s three older brothers went into the military. Doug McCain, 48, was a Navy pilot. Jack McCain, 21, is to graduate from the Naval Academy next year, raising the chances that his father, if elected, could become the first president since Dwight D. Eisenhower with a son at war.

I chose to share this with those who I believe will pass it on, to others who will pass it on. We hear so much inflated trash out there. How about a simple act of kindness … and dedication to others placed above oneself?

Has anybody heard if Barack Hussein Obama has served in The American Armed Services?

This is for all you Barack voters.

From Barack’s book, Audacity of Hope:

“I will stand with the Muslims should the political winds shift in an ugly
direction.”

HE DID NOT SAY STAND WITH AMERICANS!!!!!

“It wasn’t Bush, it wasn’t greedy corporations, or free trade, or history’s most over-predicted recession. It was not the oil companies, income inequality, or the excesses of cowboy capitalism. None of these things caused the unemployment rate to jump a half a percentage point in one month. Ask yourself a few questions: Why did unemployment surge at a time when unemployment compensation claims are historically low? More to the point, how could unemployment spike this much without a coinciding spike in corporate lay-offs? The answer to all of these questions is same: because very few people lost jobs last month. This huge jump in the size of the unemployed comes from new entrants to the economy—hundreds of thousands of them. In short, well over 600,000 people who were not job seekers in April became job seekers in May. And who starts looking for work at the end of Spring? That’s right—students. Hundreds of thousands of students are looking for work right now, and they’re not finding it. Congress is to blame. Last year Congressional Democrats (along with some Stockholm-Syndromed Republicans) passed the Fair Minimum Wage Act of 2007, which started a phased hike of the minimum wage from $5.15 an hour to $7.25. Free market economists warned them that this would increase unemployment—that rapid increases in unemployment compensation hit teens and minorities the hardest. But the class-warriors are running the people’s house now, and they would hear none of that, so they took to the floor, let loose the dogs of demagoguery, and saddled America’s pizza parlors, municipal swimming pools, house painting businesses and lawn mowing services with a huge cost increase. Now, we see the perfectly logical outcome of wage controls—rising unemployment among the most economically vulnerable.” —Jerry Bowyer