Easy To Use Obamacare Calculator Here

Figures bronze and silver plan costs.

http://kff.org/interactive/subsidy-calculator/

A Moment of Pure Genius

I may have to end this blog right here because of something that happened to me this week.

I think most of us have a few moments in our lives- moments when we are completely baffled by a problem. Suddenly a moment of clarity or a solution appears and we are shocked by the obvious. We wonder why something so simple- took us years to figure out.

For just a brief moment in time, we feel the joy of having solved a giant problem or of discovering some concealed truth. It is an "aha!" moment. A moment when pure genius strikes us suddenly and then quickly leaves- hibernating until it re-appears at some future time. In my case, about once every ten years. If that often.

My ten years must have been up this week.

Earlier in the week, I had engaged in one of those flame wars with a liberal on Huffpo. I get so sick and tired of their partisan bullshit and hatred for conservatives- when I know their party is every bit as bad. The subject of our back and forth is not important. What is important is that I am completely baffled by this back and forth head bashing without end. What is the underlying problem? Why is everyone so entrenched in their faulty positions and politics? I began to mull this over and to look for the source, the underlying illness when it hit me.

In the early 1900's, a group of private, international bankers hatched and carried out a plan to form a central bank while secretly meeting on Jekyll Island, Georgia. Eventually their  measure passed both houses on Christmas Eve, 1913, when many members of Congress had left for the holiday. Woodrow Wilson signed the legislation and thus created the Federal Reserve Bank. Wilson called it the biggest mistake of his life. Wilson was right.

Now all of this information is pretty well documented and available even for the biggest skeptic- but the real question is- why is the Federal Reserve Bank necessary? Prior to 1913 we survived just fine, sans those banker created bank panics of the late 1800's spawned by the same men who carved out the Federal Reserve Bank Act on Jekyll Island.

The Federal Reserve Bank is necessary because Congress desperately needs an unlimited funding mechanism that bypasses voters.

What does Congress do? Congress creates and passes projects and laws. Somebody has to pay for that stuff. Now you can't keep coming to the American taxpayer year after year, begging for permission to subsidize things like the American Wool Growers Association. Americans won't pay for these minority concerns and pork barrel projects. Taxpayers would say no or maybe even throw the bums out. So Congress invented a way to bypass citizens.

They invented the Federal Reserve Bank. That way, Congress has an unlimited checking account and an unlimited line of credit. What they don't have to do- is ask American taxpayers for budgetary permission nor do they have to worry about American taxpayers getting angry and voting them out of office. Congress simply spends money they don't have, the Federal Reserve finances it by issuing treasury debt, and the American taxpayer gets stuck with the bill.

The Federal Reserve Bank was created so that politicians or government, could borrow as much money as they needed without EVER asking our taxpaying citizens for permission.

The Federal Reserve was born and sold to us a panacea to smooth out all those panics of the early 1900's. In 16 short years, the Fed gave us the Great Depression- an event far worse than any bank run.

We should have eliminated the Fed right then and there.

Without citizen stewardship or budgetary input or oversight, American citizens or taxpayers or voters were effectively marginalized. We were no longer in charge of our government. Government was no longer constrained by it's citizens. They could spend as much as they liked without repercussion. They were free to redistribute wealth anyway they saw fit by drawing on that unlimited line of credit and forcing you to pay for it. You could not vote them out of office and even if you did, the new ones were apt to be just as bad as the old ones. It's the system that is flawed- yet we argue about the symptoms.

The underlying problem has always been the Federal Reserve Bank.

That was my moment of clarity, of pure genius. That's why we fight. We think we hate the other guy's politics. We hate his spending. We blame him for all of that inflation, lost purchasing power, four dollar gas, crappy wages. We think we hate his social programs, his wars, his lies, and all of that debt. Trillions to bankers, sequester, debt ceiling hikes. All of that financial chaos is directly attributable to the unelected Federal Reserve which enables our unaccountable politicians to literally steal taxpayers blind. Yet, we ignore the real problem- the Federal Reserve- and instead fight some imagined enemy which is either the GOP or the Democrats.

I probably won't stop writing but I'll tell you this-

The Federal Reserve Bank and it's never ending debt creation is responsible for virtually all of our problems. God could not design a better distraction than partisan politics. Politics is simply one of the symptoms of this disease. Some day if we are to survive, real political reform and accountability in this country will come at the cost of eliminating the Federal Reserve Bank. That is job one. I am sure of it.



 

The Real Victims of the Trayvon Martin Shooting- The Sunday Collage

Like most of you, if I never hear the name Trayvon Martin again, it may be too soon.

So it was this morning, that I found myself reading a story about the former Police Chief in Sanford, Fla., Bill Lee and his Captain, Robert O' Connor. Both men had combined law enforcement experience of 60 years. Good men.  http://www.policeone.com/chiefs-sheriffs/articles/6355062-Zimmerman-Martin-case-Exclusive-interview-with-former-Sanford-police-chief-and-captain/

That is what pisses me off. Real people with real careers get sacrificed when our President can't keep his mouth shut. Obama had no business interfering, race baiting, or pretending he cares about local issues and injecting himself anywhere he finds a spotlight. These two guys were real men, good men, and they deserve far better than the pile of shit that they were handed as retirement gifts.

Sanford is a relatively small community of 55,000 people. Both Lee and O'Connor had spent their lives working through the ranks of the Sanford Police Department. You generally don't get to the loftiest perches of any police department without showing good judgment, good reasoning, and intelligence. It's very hard to survive in a police environment- especially at the upper levels. That's where the politics gets played and trust me when I say this.

Mostly, I have never met a politician without an ax to grind. Maybe once or twice.

I dreaded becoming Chief. I had to somehow make 10 years (to retirement) in the most liberal environment in the entire state. That and after 20 or so years, particularly in small towns like Hailey, (population 9000) local politics is brutal. I had pissed people off and despite my fantastic attitude and warm, loving people skills- there were people that did not like me. Local politicians are self serving and seldom run opposed in Moonbat Valley. There is an absolute dearth of compassionate, quality people willing to get into local politics. Good people avoid conflict. They have a great deal of common sense and only under the most dire of circumstances, will good people submit themselves to public scrutiny and media ridicule. That was my experience.

So what we get in local politics, especially in Moonbat Valley, are educated trust funders or people with money. Occasionally a power hungry, ego maniac gets into some political office. I dreaded those folks the most and so it was that I ended up catching one of those types for the last five years of my career- and that was just bad luck. She even told me once, how she enjoyed firing people. That statement is all I ever really needed to know about her.

I had always imagined a false rape report might be the end of me. Those investigations were tough to defend especially when the investigation let to a high probability that the "victim" was lying. I dreaded those cases but thankfully- we could submit them to the prosecutor who could turn them down and in Idaho- you can't sue a prosecutor for a bad charging decision or for no charging decision. Cops don't have that luxury. What makes a police chief in Idaho even more vulnerable is that they are not elected. They can be fired at any time without due process.

There is one other very odd thing about being a career police officer. Many members of the public think they know how to do your job better than you do. It is a fascinating thing. Every once in awhile in my previous life, when I ran into one of these people I might ask, "Why is it that people think they know more about how to perform this job than the person who has been performing it for 20 years?" That was part of my warm, embraceable, people skills. I'll tell you this. There is no shortage of those types.

My favorite instructor in college was a small town Chief who got fired because he had consumed a beer in public and then drove home. It ruined a remarkable career. In his last days, Noble Taylor, taught young guys like me how to be decent cops. He hated teaching- I knew he did. If he could have been a Chief anywhere, he would have taken the job in a heartbeat. He reminded me of "Sully" on Third Watch. The last time I saw him he was in a wheelchair. What a way to go. It still conjures up a little anger in me.

But that is the life.

So Police Chiefs everywhere get fired or forced out on political whims. The standard "on the job life expectancy" of a Police Chief used to be 4 years. Fire chiefs (mattress backs if you prefer) fare far better. They are not political whipping posts. You usually have to pry them out of their jobs.

Bill Lee and Bob O'Connor did what they were supposed to do. They investigated the Martin shooting just like they had been doing with thousands of cases over 30 years. They knew Zimmerman had acted within the law even though he might have exercised bad judgment. The law doesn't negotiate. With a complete lack of evidence, cops and prosecutors can't simply trump up a charge and hang it on an innocent party even if it is politically expedient. Like it or not, Lee and O' Connor could not escape this shit storm. The professional armchair quarterbacks had arrived en masse.

Local politicians can always be counted on to do the wrong thing and this group was no exception. They second guessed everything Chief Lee was doing and they were angry that he was doing his job- and not catering to the media or the President. Lee only knew to do the right thing. The same thing he had been doing his entire life. They investigated and found no reason to charge an innocent man. Local prosecutors concurred. The Florida Governor, and some cherry picked prosecutor, tried to make  a case out of nothing and the prosecution got their collective asses kicked. That's exactly how it should have turned out.

For 30 years, Bill Lee and Bob O' Connor were willing to take a bullet and lose their lives to protect the citizens of Sanford. For 30 years, they could be counted on when things took a nasty turn. For a few weeks, Bill Lee and Bob O' Connor needed some community help and support. Most folks might think that 30 years worth of service in exchange for a few weeks of support might be a fair trade. They received nothing. Lee and O ' Connor were abandoned by the City of Sanford and it's citizens. That's the world we find ourselves in.

The world of disposable lives and careers. The real victims of Trayvon Martin and George Zimmerman. Two innocent cops doing what they had always done. Doing their jobs.

That's seriously messed up. The President, the media, and the City of Sanford should be ashamed of themselves.

Take no victory lap here, cowards. I want to leave you with a quote from Bill Lee (from the article I linked) about what happened to him and his feelings about it.

Chief Lee was relieved of his duties and was informed the community no longer had trust in him. 

“The whole thing has been pretty ugly. I’m at peace with it on most days. I was happy I could walk away with my integrity,” Lee said. 

I think I would like Bill Lee and Bob O' Connor. They were the only people in this entire mess  who acted like responsible adults. And they paid a dear price for it.

Ten Reasons To Hate Huffington Post (like you needed any)

For several years now, I have tried to limit my daily intake of left and right wing fanaticism to two blogs. Ace of Spades and Huffington Post. They are polar opposites.

In terms of sheer writing ability, nobody can match Ace. He is simply the best political writer out there and he has a very insightful way of looking at things. Unfortunately, Ace is mired in the same two party rhetoric that has kept our country hostage for the last 50 years. He hasn't figured out yet that it's all one mongrel dog party. Ace is a true conservative who clings to a party that abandoned him at birth. He just doesn't know it yet.

A meandering slice of my Huffpo experience.

I began reading Huffington Post in 2010. I did that primarily to see if those people were any better informed than the dog pound over at Ace's. Perhaps I thought, they might generate something of value to read and they did. Once. I found it in the comments and actually had a conversation with somebody who wasn't hopelessly jaded. He was aware of the idea of corporate welfare or as my friend Billy loves to say...

"Privatizing profits and socializing losses." The new American corporate business model. Pay people chump change because you can- and then stick taxpayers with their SNAP card and Obamacare bills. One typical Walmart store might cost taxpayers nearly a million dollars a year. http://money.cnn.com/2013/06/04/news/companies/walmart-medicaid/index.html

That Adrianna Huffington sold this on line rag for 300 million- is proof positive that any idiot with too much money to spend- is still an idiot.

Here then is the list.

10. Huffington Post publishes a great deal of gossip and fluff. Anything that is narcissistic, superficial, and materialistic might very well find it's way onto Huffington Post's front page. That's their bread and butter.

09. Adriana Huffington. I can't stand her elite, smug attitude. I always loved to find things that she had written and point out the obvious flaws. Of course, my comments were never published.

08. The commenters on Huffpo are some of the most ego centered and righteous people I have ever read or tried to carry on a flame war with. Many think quite highly of themselves. Often they write in a belittling way as though they have captured the meaning of things you haven't yet noticed.

07.  It is impossible to have a constructive conversation on Huffpost. The readers just make up shit and post it. Very often, daily in fact, I would ask for proof for some of their more outlandish statements. That would shut them up 90% of the time. The other 10% of the posters would start some childish "fuck you match" wherein any chance of exchanging constructive information was lost.

06. Badges. Who gives out little badges? Huffpost does. Some of the more prolific commenters have all kinds of these silly badges. It reminds me of those nerdy little girls when I was a child- girls who used to sit in the front row of class- thrusting their arms in the air anytime the teacher asked a question. It happened. It still happens on Huffpo.

05. All things must lean left. Huffpo readers cannot have an original, independent thought. They can't carry on a conversation unless it's pro abortion, pro atheism, anti-gun, or some other democratic party tenet- real or imagined. The criminal activity of the democratic leadership never gets mentioned.

04. Huffpo readers hate Republicans. These folks are professional haters and what's more- they REALLY think the GOP is the problem. That level of unconsciousness is awe inspiring.

03. Huffpo readers love Obama and they make more excuses for him than any man living or dead. Let's face it, if Obama were white, he'd be impeached by now. This worthless bastard gets a free pass because he is black. If he were judged on performance as an employee, most of us would fire him.

02. Censorship. Huffpo employs "moderators." These are people without lives who sit around their grandmother's basement and delete any comments they don't like. Hijacking and controlling the conversation is a typical Alinsky style tactic. They must delete thousands of perfectly good comments every day.

01. Fanaticism. If there was ever a statement that summed up the general thought process of a typical Huffpo reader it would be this one according to Winston Churchill, "A fanatic is one who can't change his mind and won't change the subject". By either description the fanatic displays very strict standards and little tolerance for contrary ideas or opinions.

There are so many worthwhile things you could be reading rather than Huffpo- like the ingredients on your shampoo bottle. Even the employees hate the place. http://tktk.gawker.com/hell-is-working-at-the-huffington-post-1707724052?utm_campaign=socialflow_gawker_twitter&utm_source=gawker_twitter&utm_medium=so

We Spend 1.1 Trillion a Year To Get 1.7 GDP Growth???

Wow. 1.7 GDP growth and of course, that will get revised lower.

Can you imagine what would happen to our "economy" if the FED wasn't injecting a trillion a year?

Unlike Huffpo, readers of the Frankenstein Government blog do not subscribe to hot air and bullshit. It just never seems to quit. Government revised GDP this morning to make all the suckers think the economy is doing better than it is.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2013-07-31/dear-americans-according-todays-data-revision-you-are-all-richer

Obama: Who You Going To Believe, Me or Your Lying Eyes?

From ZeroHedge. The whole story on one chart.

Obama: "...the economy is far stronger now than it was four and a half years ago."

...as long as one ignores the reality of the following chart...

Just Tell 'Em, "Pog Mo Thoin!"- The Sunday Collage

In with a gaelic twist today.

In Moonbat Valley this week, the part time County Commissioners who I believe are all liberals of some sort, gave themselves a 33% pay hike. This they did over the objections of nearly every taxpayer who bothered to take notice.

Giving yourself a 33% pay hike is not a horrific event if you are making a few thousand a yr. But if you are already making 61, 500 and then say, "Hey I got a great idea, let's give ourselves a 20,400 dollar a year raise!... well that is almost like slapping your constituents in the face- many of them making 40- or 50k a year at full time jobs. Oddly enough, the measure passed unanimously although I noted that one "departing" commissioner said earlier this year that he was "against" the monster raise.

He was always that gutsy.

It is also worth noting that the commissioners gave themselves a paltry 11% raise the year before. That is a cumulative 44% in two years.

Here's the link to the piece. I always try to sign my name and having been relegated to the pastures of the retirement community, I don't mind spanking people without fear of retribution. http://www.mtexpress.com/index2.php?ID=2005148263#.UfMXQxz5knY

The commissioners will not be sending me a meat and cheese tray for Christmas although it appears quite likely, they could afford to do so if they wished.

Can you imagine walking into your job on Monday and demanding a 33% raise or failing that, simply appropriating a like amount from the safe?

Now I don't pretend to know all of the details of what a County Commissioner does- although I have had a few friends who were commissioners. They assured me it was a rather easy gig, but often very time consuming. I knew one commissioner who actually worked his butt off. He was one of those rare people who did this kind of thing to advance his community. In the old days, we called this "public service." He probably worked harder than all of these people and he was a gentleman. Len Harlig was his name.

So commissioners read things like applications after they have been routed and reviewed by various departments. They develop meeting agendas. They usually have a county attorney attending their meetings who interprets and advises them on legal issues. They are quick to delegate work to reviewing departments and the county manager. The county manager is supposed to do this kind of work full time- and in the case of Moonbat Valley- he is like the Yeti. Some say that he exists, yet I have never personally seen him.

So mostly I think, commissioners read, attend meetings, make up their minds, and then pretend to be open minded as a developer or department head pitches some project or budget. They are the budget deciders. They always know how each other is voting and sometimes, they will vote a dissenting opinion although they know it won't cause an application or proposal to fail. Sometimes they will nod approvingly and solemnly while secretly mulling over what type of wine to have with dinner that night or whether they paid their American Express bill on time. They also attend ancillary meetings on additional pet projects and they talk with the press.

A couple of years ago, the Moonbat Valley Commissioners even commissioned a working group to study and compare with other communities-whether their salaries were adequate. Unfortunately, the working group came to the conclusion that the commissioners were adequately paid and said so.

The first job of all committees is to rig them with people who will give you a friendly result. This is not rocket science. If you want to rig a committee, talk to a school district. They are professionals. There is nothing more embarrassing than putting together a committee and receiving some truthful and adversarial result. That is not what committees are designed to do. They are designed to take the heat off of the people who are going to benefit so that they can get re-elected. That way, it makes the whole process look honest and above board.

I worked in government for nearly 25 years and what it taught me- was a horrible disdain for all things political.

I wasn't predisposed to that result, I simply let the truth take me where it would. I suppose I could pretend that all of this does not happen and ignore it. Most do.

On the other hand, my Uncle Lynn tells me- that you must always confront stupid. I have to admit- I like confronting stupid and that's why I write. Which brings me back to the gaelic and one universal truth. You are entitled to your opinion- do not be afraid to utter it if you are culling out stupid and have a well thought out position.

But know this. Some people have no sense of shame and they will send an aircraft carrier full of ridicule your way for having the audacity to point them out. I have a simple solution.

The other day, some jail work crew was in my alley weed whacking. The crew leader noticed my car and my license plate frames colored with the Irish flag and said, "What does "pog mo thoin" mean? And with a conjunctive word first, I mean to say that he butchered that phrase just like he was sounding through the syllables.

Gaelic with a brogue is tough to pronounce, so I've included a tutorial. You can buy the license plate frames on E Bay for 5 bucks.