Remember Democracy never lasts long. It soon wastes, exhausts, and murders itself. There never was a Democracy yet that did not commit suicide.�� – John Adams, letter to John Taylor, April 15, 1814

THE AVERAGE AMERICAN DOES NOT UNDERSTAND THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN FREEDOM AND LICENSE! In recent years the Greatest Nation on earth has been slipping into the licentious nature off a Country that has entered into the trap that substitutes the rights we have as God given rights, and rights granted to Us by our Constitution and Bill of Rights with the acceptance of permissiveness and immorality.

Ronald Reagan said: “The ultimate determinant in the struggle now going on for the world will not be bombs and rockets but a test of wills and ideas - a trial of spiritual resolve: the values we hold, the beliefs we cherish and the ideals to which we are dedicated�� .

I have been lucky enough to have lived from the great depression to the present day. During this time I have been fortunate to witness the development of Penicillin that saved at least two of my younger brothers, and many more “miracle drugs�� that have both prolonged life and made life more endurable for those suffering terminal illnesses. Unfortunately I have also been witness to the degradation of our culture via the miracle of television and the Internet. In my boyhood days television was seen from late afternoon until midnight, and shows like Milton Berle’s Texaco Star Theater, Ed Sullivan’s Toast of the Town and Hody Doody were watched on 5 inch black and white televisions. In my home state color TV was not available until the early 1950s, and then only on a limited basis for lots of money! Ten inch sets were the maximum size.

Today the choices are numerous. Satellite, cable and the old standard TV antennas depending upon your location and ability to pay. But the one constant is that no matter what your mode of reception, there is a avalanche of sexual content and violence available twenty four hours, seven days a week!

With programs like Sex and The City, there has been a significant increase in the number of television shows with sexual content over the last two years. Just one in ten of these shows includes a reference to safer sex or to the possible risks and responsibilities of sex. These are among the findings of SEX ON TV: Content and Context, the largest study ever of sexual content on television. The Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation released the study at its Sex on TV conference for entertainment industry leaders at the Museum of Television and Radio.

Their study shows that Sexual intercourse is depicted or strongly implied in 10% of shows, up from 7% during the 1997/98 season. Nearly a quarter (23%) of the couples in scenes with intercourse appeared to be young adults ages 18 to 24, and 9% appeared to be under age 18. In 16% of all scenes with intercourse, the couples have just met.

Nine percent of all shows on TV include sexual content involving teens (8% two years ago). In addition, more teen television characters are involved in sexual intercourse. Two years ago, 3% of all television characters involved in intercourse were teens; that figure is now 9%.

Ten percent of TV shows with sexual content make at least a passing reference to the risks and responsibilities of sexual activity about the same as the nine percent of shows with sexual content that included such a reference two years ago. Dramas are most likely to include such references (15%), and sitcoms are least likely to do so (5%).

And if you think television has degraded the morals of this country then the statistics about the movie industry are just as bad, if not worse from a moral point of view. Movies were the most likely to contain sexual content (89%), followed by sitcoms (84%) and soap operas (80%). Reality shows were least likely to do so (27%). The largest increase occurred in situation comedies, which went from 56% to 84% of all episodes.

The purveyors of sex and violence have used the freedom of speech and tolerance to give way to permissiveness, and moral degeneration!

As a result the rate of teenage sexual activity has increased from a relatively small percentage of promiscuous teen age children in the 40s and 50s to the present high rate of teenagers, who despite taking birth control pill and available contraceptives, become pregnant.

Of the 29 million young people between the ages of 13 and 19, approximately 12 million have had sexual intercourse. Of this group, in 1981, more than 1.1 million became pregnant; three- quarters of these pregnancies were unintended, and 434,000 ended in abortion (What Government Can Do, 1984). The number of pregnancies increased among teenagers in all age groups during the 1970s, but among those who were sexually active the pregnancy rate has been declining. Because of increased and more consistent use of contraceptives by teenagers, the rate of pregnancy among them has been increasing more slowly than their rate of sexual activity. Although the number of teenagers who are sexually active increased by two-thirds over the 1970s, over half of U.S. teenagers are sexually inactive (Teenage Pregnancy, 1981).

About five percent of U. S. teenagers give birth each year. A recent study by the Alan Guttmacher Institute showed teen birthrates here to be twice as high as Canada, England, and Wales, three times as high as Sweden, and seven times higher than the Netherlands.

Although these statistics are somewhat deceiving because of the now mandated ability of a teenager to have an abortion without parental consent. The rise in the out-of-wedlock birthrate has continued among almost all groups of teenagers. The rise has been steepest among 15- to 17-year-old whites. Repeated Unintentional Pregnancies As might be expected, 78 percent of births to teenagers are first births. However, 19percent are second births, and four percent are third or higher order births. Source: Subcommittee on Census and Population of the Committee on Post Office and Civil Service and Subcommittee on Health and the Environment of the Committee on Energy and Commerce, House of Representatives, Ninety-Ninth Congress,

After falling steadily for more than a decade, the birth rate for American teenagers jumped last year, federal health officials reported yesterday, a sharp reversal in what has been one of the nation’s most celebrated social and public health successes.

The birth rate rose by 3 percent between 2005 and 2006 among 15-to-19-year-old girls, after plummeting 34 percent between 1991 and 2005, the National Center for Health Statistics reported. And not just coincidentally the number of explicit and suggestive sexual content shows has been increased during the same period!

The marriage rate also dropped to 7.3 in 2005 from 7.6 the year earlier and 7.7 in 2004, the report said. People are taking longer to decide who they’ll marry and more are considering financial security, whether to have children.This tracks right along with the high rate of couples living together outside of marriage, and the high rate of abortion for connivance in career women.

Fifty-two percent of U.S. women obtaining abortions are younger than 25: Women aged 20-24 obtain 33 percent of all abortions, and teenagers obtain 19 percent. Black women are more than 3 times as likely as white women to have an abortion, and Hispanic women are 2 1/2 times as likely. Forty-three percent of women obtaining abortions identify themselves as Protestant,despite knowing that their religion considers abortion a Mortal sin, 27 percent identify themselves as Catholic.

Two-thirds of all abortions are among never-married women. Over 60 percent of abortions are among women who have had 1 or more children. On average, women give at least 3 reasons for choosing abortion: 3/4 say that having a baby would interfere with work, school or other responsibilities; about 2/3 say they cannot afford a child; and 1/2 say they do not want to be a single parent or are having problems with their husband or partner. the sum substance of all three are abortions( killing a human being) for convenience!

More than 50 million abortions have been performed since Roe-Wade, and now we have partial birth abortions! And we elected a President who voted twice not to give medicine or sustenance to a live baby born after a botched abortion! And we call us a civilized Nation!

Nov. 28th, 2008 | 10:11 am

Friday, November 28, 2008

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.�� —Ronald Reagan

In my youth Errol Flynn made A movie about a Nobleman who turned robber to take from the rich to give to the poor Saxons in Great Britain. He was called Robin Hood!
Today, it appears, the Federal government is trying to play Robin Hood, but I believe their efforts are directed in the wrong direction.When the smoke clears and the dust settles in the fight going on in Congress. They will have run the tab for the so called bail out up to three trillion dollars!

We don't have that much free money in circulation to spend it on corporate welfare, but the key to this whole charade is that the government has printing presses that allow them to print money in vast amounts that have little or no backing. It will fall upon the taxpayer to pay for this government largess in the form of taxes. All kinds of hidden taxes and reductions or elimination of deductions that the average taxpayer has now when he/she files the annual Federal tax return.
Many tax deductions have been taken away from us in the last thirty years and I suspect many more will follow!

The following is an article released in today's edition of the Internetedition of the Wall Street Journal. It details the massive amounts of money that are being poured, literally dumped into the institutions that control the flow of money in the name of helping the economy. But I question if the intended results will reflect the actual affect of delaying the Crash that surely must come-sooner or later- due to the fact that as each industry is "helped" another comes to Washington with it's hand out for cash infusion. The potential list is never ending!

President Roosevelt tried to buy his way out of the Great depression,with make work programs and welfare, but if it were not for the War that started the military industrial complex. His efforts would have failed. Will we need a war to solve the dilema we now face?

We have the modern day equivalent of Robin Hood, Barrack H. Obama riding on a cloud of "CHANGE" in to Washington promising his supporters that he will give them many social welfare "goodies" at the expense of the RICH!

Meanwhile, "The Federal Reserve says it will buy up to $600 billion in mortgage-backed debt issued and backed Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Ginnie Mae and the Federal Home Loan Banks in a bid to lower the elevated costs of home loans at a time when the housing market and wider financial markets are still stricken by the credit crunch. The Fed plans to lend an additional $200 billion to support entities willing to buy asset-backed securities collateralized by student loans, auto loans, credit card loans and small-business loans. In announcing that move, the Fed noted that interest rates for such debt have soared at a time when all credit is deemed a riskier investment, and said that its new loan program is aimed at making more loans available to consumers and businesses".
SOURCE: JOSEPH SCHUMAN OF THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Yesterday's moves mean the loans and other assets listed on the Fed's books will probably soon be at around $3 trillion -- triple what it was in mid-September, Business Week notes. And The Wall Street Journal adds that Washington at this point has now "made more than $4 trillion of financial commitments, ranging from direct investments to debt guarantees, through a wide range of rescue programs hatched by the Fed, Treasury and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp," and that this number "could grow if markets worsen." The message from the Fed and the Treasury, as the New York Times puts it, is "that they would print as much money as needed to revive the nation's crippled banking system." And while yesterday's new measures are "gargantuan," they were "probably not the last of the federal government's initiatives to absorb the shocks that began with losses on sub prime mortgages and have spread to every corner of the economy,"

Analysts tell report that "the (bail-out) program will do little to reduce the tidal wave of home foreclosures ... because most of the foreclosures are on subprime mortgages and other high-risk loans that were not bought or guaranteed by government-sponsored finance companies like Fannie Mae." Bloomberg points out while the new programs are supposed to make credit more accessible to nervous consumers, those consumers may still not want to spend: "Households and lenders may not respond much because of the wealth destruction from plunging property and stock values, and the deepening economic slump.

DESPITE ALL THIS MONEY INFUSION INTO THE INSTITUTIONS THAT CONTROL OUR MONEY FLOW;
The Washington Post reports that "fueled by rising unemployment and food prices, the number of Americans on food stamps is poised to exceed 30 million for the first time this month, surpassing the historic high set in 2005 after Hurricane Katrina."
It appears to me that we need more fiscal responsibility from our elected "Princes" in Congress, and less, not more hand outs to sate the appetite of a corrupt and inefficient monetary system that needs to be put on a diet not gorged with tax payers IOU's!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.�� —Ronald Reagan

THE WAY THE CONGRESS AND THE TREASURY DEPARTMENT ARE GOING ABOUT THROWING GOOD MONEY AFTER BAD REMINDS ME OF THE NORWEGIAN TRAITOR QUISLING WHO BETRAYED THE NORWEGIANS TO THE NAZI OCCUPIERS, BECAUSE HE SAID HE BELIEVED IT WOULD BE BETTER FOR THE NORWEGIANS IN THE LONG RUN THAN TO FIGHT THE GERMAN OCCUPIERS.

President-elect Barack Obama wants to project fiscal restraint even as his economic team assembles a massive recovery package that could cost several hundred billion dollars. A day after introducing the captains of his economic team and promoting a giant jobs plan, Obama on Tuesday was to lay out his budget belt-tightening vision. The dual images(big spender and disciplined budget watcher)were designed to give both political and economic assurances to the public, the Congress and the financial markets.

Obama’s economic team embodies what at first glance seem to be mutually exclusive goals.Save the economy and spend,spend, spend tax payers money!

Timothy Geithner, Obama’s choice for treasury secretary; Lawrence Summers, who will head the National Economic Council, all have links to Robert Rubin, who as President Clinton’s treasury secretary pushed for a balanced budget. But all three will also be part of an administration that will drive deficits to new heights with an economic plan designed to save or create 2.5 million jobs( most will be govt. created and govt. controlled), and redirect the economy over the next two years. Economists from across the political spectrum, including some who have served as informal advisers to Obama, have put the size of an economic recovery package as high as $700 billion over two years.Considering that the a few months ago Henry Paulson gave $700 billion in taxpayers money to help taxpayers aid their “neighbors�� who could not pay their mortgages, it would seem the estimate is low!

AS bizarre as it may seem, CitiGroup has announced that they have to lay off thousands of employees worldwide, but that they still will pay 500 million dollars to have their name on the new New York Mets stadium. These are the same directors and officers that will receive taxpayers bail-out monies to the tune of a guarantee loan of $306 billion!

This fact was announced by a joint statement issued by the Federal Reserve, Treasury Department and Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.this week. The deal involves Treasury injecting an additional $20 billion in capital into Citigroup. Citi had already received $25 billion in aid from TARP.

The Bush Administration surprisingly, said rescuing the battered bank was imperative to stabilizing the financial system, and ultimately putting the economy back on track. In my unhumble opinion, he is just delaying the inevitable debacle until Obama takes over the Oval Office!

This action was also cheered by Senator Schummer of New York, and I begin to believe that the Government is bailing out their New York friends and benefactors more than they are trying to help the American people. The “fat cats�� , who just a few days ago were poised to leap out the windows of their corner offices. Can now breath deeply and exhale a sigh of relief for their friends in Washington have come to their rescue! Maybe they should invite a failed mortgagee over for Thanksgiving dinner as a token of thanksgiving!

How can it be a good thing, when the Congress and the President print worthless money to give to failing enterprises(in this case Banks, Mortgage Houses and later Detroit auto) without demanding a radical reshaping and structure of the way they run their business, and whom continues to show no signs of restraint!

During the campaign, Obama proposed a $175 billion stimulus package that included infrastructure spending, tax credits to small businesses for hiring new employees, targeted tax credits for middle class families, investments in alternative energy and aid to local and state governments. Democrats now say the package will be much larger. Sen. Charles Schumer put the figure at $500 to $700 billion and House Speaker Nancy Pelosi said it would be “in the several hundred billion category, making it one of the largest spending bills for economic recovery since the New Deal. Obama Senior Adviser David Axelrod wouldn’t put a dollar figure on the package, but he said on “FOX News Sunday" that the plan “has to be big enough to deal with the huge problem we face."

And guess who will have to pay for all of this so called “stimulus" ! There is only one way to get the money–from the taxpayers unless they want to continue the printing of worthless money!!!

"Freedom is a fragile thing and is never more than one generation away from extinction. It is not ours by inheritance; it must be fought for and defended constantly by each generation, for it comes only once to a people. Those who have known freedom and then lost it, have never known it again." Ronald Reagan

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.” —Ronald Reagan

Just last April gas stations were selling gas for more than $4 a gallon. At that time
"experts" were saying that part of the blame for the jump at the pump is a lack of supply.They backed up there assertions with the statement that the latest government data showed a sharp drop in gasoline supplies. Never considering the off-shore or ANWR capacity for exploration and production.

"Unfortunately demand for gasoline has been rising faster than our ability to produce it domestically, “said Geoff Sundstrom, AAA spokesperson.

Even President Bush bought into the "ecofreaks" assertion that a big part of the problem is America's addiction to oil. And of course there were the socialists who hate "big-business", that said the oil companies "greed" was the cause for the gas price spikes.

Judy Dugan of Oilwatchdog.org said, "The oil companies have found that it is more profitable for them to sell less gasoline at a higher price and because current laws do not do anything to stop them, they do it."She obviously had a biased approach!

The so called experts were quoted as saying, "most Americans are not changing their driving habits because of the high prices"! Well, fast forward 7 or 8 months and we find that they all were wrong!

Today the U.S. Department of Transportation said that gasoline taxes paid into the highway trust fund fell by $3 billion in the 2008 fiscal year.

"Our current approach has us encouraging Americans to change their driving habits and burn less fuel while secretly hoping they drive more so we can finance new bridges, repair interstates and expand transit systems," Transportation Secretary Mary Peters said in a statement. "We need a new approach that compliments, instead of contradicts, our energy policies and infrastructure needs."

So guess what "experts" have to say about how to recapture the tax moneies lost due to the changing driving habits of the consumer and the rapid drop of gasoline.

One new approach would be to raise the federal gasoline tax from its current 18.4 cents a gallon. By comparison, the tax rate in the U.K. is about $2.85 a gallon. So it seems as likely in the current economic climate that Congress will entertain a plan to raise gasoline taxes. Especially if the Democrats achieve the super majority they need in the Senate. Tax and spend President-elect Obama would love to sign such a bill!And is right in line with Obama's promise not to tax the middle class, RIGHT!

Higher gas taxes they say, would finance improvements to roads and mass transit, encourage further conservation or offset the costs of the various federal bailouts. But the collapse of gasoline prices since the summer,a drop of more than $2 a gallon in my neighborhood, is an economic stimulus worth an estimated $200 billion a year.If gasoline prices stay low, demand for vehicles that use sophisticated technology to consume less gasoline per mile will depend on consumers making long-term decisions that aren't in their short-term economic interests. Otherwise, these new high-mileage cars might not sell for high enough prices to cover their higher costs.

And the ethanol industry , high cost alternative for gasoline, will become just one more industry to come, "with hat in hand", to the Congress for a bail-out! Which you can bet the farm that they will give them all they need. And guess whose pocket and pay check this money will come from. The middle class working man/woman!

Government’s view of the economy could be summed up in a few short phrases: If it moves, tax it. If it keeps moving, regulate it. And if it stops moving, subsidize it.�� —Ronald Reagan

Senator Ron Wyden and the co-sponsors of the Healthy Americans Act sent Barack Obama a letter today:
“As former colleagues in the United States Senate, we would like to congratulate you on your election as the 44th President of the United States and offer our commitment to working with you in a bipartisan fashion to reform our health care system,�� wrote the group of seven Democrats, seven Republicans and one Independent. “Over the last two years, we have come together as Democrats and Republicans because we believe that for health reform to succeed it must be bipartisan… we believe [these] principles outline the best way to reform the nation’s health care system and create the best “roadmap�� to build bipartisan consensus on reform.��
The principles include: Ensuring that all Americans have health care coverage; Making health care coverage both affordable and portable; Implementing strong private insurance market reforms; Modernizing federal tax rules for health coverage; Promoting improved disease prevention and wellness activities, as well as better management of chronic illnesses; Making health care prices and choices more transparent so that consumers and providers can make the best choices for their health and health care dollars; and Improving the quality and value of health care services.

The letter was signed by: U.S. Senators Ron Wyden (D-Ore.), Bob Bennett (R-Utah), Lamar Alexander (R-Tenn.), Maria Cantwell (D-Wash.), Tom Carper (D-Del.), Norm Coleman (R-Minn.), Bob Corker (R-Tenn.), Mike Crapo (R-Idaho), Judd Gregg (R-NH), Daniel Inouye (D-Hawaii), Mary Landrieu (D-La.), Joe Lieberman (ID-Conn.), Bill Nelson (D-Fla.), Arlen Specter (R-Penn.) and Debbie Stabenow (D-Mich.).

Healthy Americans Act. The fundamental principle of that bill was the end of the employer-based market and the total reorganization of how most Americans purchased health insurance. That made it harder to pass, but much better than the alternatives. The plans we're seeing from Obama and Baucus and other players, however, don't take that risk, and so this letter isn't defining it as core to the legislation's principles. It's important for everyone involved to be able to claim some intellectual influence on the final legislation, and that means they have to stick to principles that might be in the final legislation. But even if we pass the sort of bills we're looking at, and even if they show themselves a happy improvement over the current arrangement, in 10 years, we'll be looking at cost estimates, and wishing we'd been more attentive to Mr. Wyden. That said, I've heard that Obama has actually looked fairly closely at the HAA, and was rather impressed by its structure. So we could see some of its more radical lessons given life yet. But no one is willing to bet in that direction. SOURCE:EZRA KLEIN THE AMERICAN PROSPECT

Meanwhile, the Country that has had Socialized Medicine for decades has a new report out that was published in the Telegraph today that illustrates the severe problem that has developed in the government run Health Care system.
"The Healthcare Commission tested 51 trusts unannounced and found that only five adhered to Government rules. Its sample represents around a third of acute health trusts in England and were part of the largest ever programme of hygiene inspections in the NHS.
While most of the failures did not pose an immediate risk to patient safety,(blogger comment;since when does the spread of infection not pose an immediate risk?) the Commission found almost all acute trusts had more work to do to control the spread of infection.

In the areas where breaches did cause a serious risk, managers were told to take immediate action.(How about reporting what they will do to correct the problem?0

Three trusts were given improvement notices to tackle failures in decontamination processes.

Just over half of the 51 trusts failed to keep all areas clean and well-maintained, the Commission said.( This is probably the one most common cause of the spread of infection!)

However, it found that most had improved in relation to leadership and ensuring uniforms were clean and fit for purpose.(I would hope so!)

Anna Walker, chief executive, said: "At nearly all trusts we have found gaps that need closing. It is important to be clear that at these trusts we are not talking about the most serious kind of breaches. ( That would be deaths caused by post -operative infections!)

"But these are important warning signs to trust boards that there may be a weakness in their systems.( The whole system run by a bureaucracy is the problem-and I was privy to a serious one three years ago in the hospital in Italy. One of many European Countries that have "universal health care!)

"In particular, trusts need to ensure that their wards are consistently clean and well maintained, and that they have good decontamination and isolation arrangements.
( And the Obamaistas want us to have a system like this to replace the sterile and clean environment we now have that may be expensive, but is not a threat to your life!)

And to top it off the British Government announced today that: "Workers face higher tax and national insurance payments to fund a £20 billion package meant to help Britain spend its way out of recession, Alistair Darling has announced.

National insurance contributions will rise by half a penny in the pound for everyone earning more than £20,000 from April 2011 under the Chancellor's plans. Taxes will rise by a total of £7.5 billion in 2011/12.

However markets welcomed the announcement, with the FTSE posting its biggest ever daily gain." But the workers who cannot buy stock on the FTSE will not look at their paycheck with pleasure as it shrinks once again to pay for a bloated bureaucracy!
And as an added note, after 60 years of National Health Service, the British people finally get the freedom to choose hospitals! This article appears in today's addition of NHS's "About Choice Bulletin".

"A dramatic expansion of patient choice in the NHS got under way in April 2008.

Surveys have consistently shown that patients want choice. The 2005 British Social Attitudes survey revealed that 65% of patients said they wanted choice of treatment, 63% wanted a choice of hospital and 53% welcomed a choice of appointment time.

The introduction of free choice means that patients referred to see a specialist are themselves able to choose where they are treated from any hospital that meets NHS standards.

The list includes many private hospitals as well as all NHS providers. Between them offer everything from treatment to your cataracts to open-heart surgery.

Under the move to free choice, if you and your GP decide that you need to see a specialist, you'll be able to choose the hospital that best suits your needs.

Tell me the average person in the USA wants to change the excellent health care we now have for this type travesty!? British National health Service began in 1948, and it took sixty years to give the 61.4 million people covered by NHS to get freedom to choose their doctors and hospitals! Guess what over 200 million people will bring to a NHS in the USA. If you think Wall Street and the Banks are a mess just wait to see what the Obama people do to our health system!
And by the way the killer that strikes more post surgical patients is the antibiotic resistant Staff Aureus bacteria, most comonly found in unclean areas!