Who's In Charge America?

"If Congress can do whatever in their discretion can be done by money, and will promote the General Welfare, the Government is no longer a limited one, possessing enumerated powers, but an indefinite one, subject to particular exceptions."

James Madison

James Madison is widely recognized as the author of the U.S. Constitution. We can only assume he would have a pretty good idea of what type of government he and the other founders hoped to establish. The situation he describes in the quote above is exactly where we find ourselves today. Government, on the federal, state, and local levels now assumes the authority to do whatever is in their discretion, and it is done with our money. Government has crept into so many areas of our lives, it's hardly noticed by most people, who just assume it's always been this way. County officials in Ohio just took an eight year old boy out of his mother's care because he's too fat and case workers decided it's his mother's fault. Earlier this year, the federal government told Boeing it could not relocate one of it's plants from a union state to a right to work state. A couple of months ago, Houston, Texas Mayor Annise Parker and the Houston City Council, declared several neighborhoods "historical districts", which subsequently places severe restrictions on future uses or modifications to the properties. This was done despite the opposition of at least half of the residents of one neighborhood. Parker the declared that the will of the residents was not a sufficient reason to halt the designation; it was city government's decision. The Declaration of Independence state that "governments are instituted among men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed".  How did we go from that to allowing the government to tell us what to eat, and taking away our kids if we refuse to comply? R. Allen Stanford is a former investment broker who was arrested in 2009 by federal regulators for, allegedly running a $ 7 billion Ponzi scheme; he has been held in a Texas prison without bail since. The federal government seized everything Stanford and his immediate family owned; money, homes, cars, property, everything, and he has yet to go to trial. He was denied the right to use his money to hire a lawyer. From what I've heard about the case, I'm pretty sure he's guilty. The problem is, to this point, that's all we have; a bunch of people that are pretty sure he's guilty. Is that now enough to take everything a man owns without proving that he's done a damn thing? No matter how you or I would answer that question, the legal answer is yes; it happens all the time. Government has grown and grown like a fat tick, and we've fed it with our money. But, we're at the tipping point now, the parasite is killing the host. We have the means to prevent it, but if we don't act, that may not be the case in a few years. In a dramatic effort last year, voters returned control of the house to Republicans. This was seen as a backlash against the runaway deficit spending. The house controls the purse strings, but the Republican leadership has refused to use that control. In fact, all of congress and the president have refused to address any spending cuts, despite the concerns of the majority of Americans. Unfortunately, I don't see enough Americans with the courage to do anything about it. They may wake up one day with the government they deserve. Sadly, so will the rest of us.

Forget Penn State, Let's Crack Down On Fat People!

There is a rampant, horrific epidemic of child abuse attacking America and I'm not talking about the serial sexual assault that was allowed to continue unreported by the administrations and police departments at Penn State and Syracuse. While those cases are undoubtedly deplorable, there is something of unprecedented evil happening in Ohio, and possibly all over the country: criminal fatness. That's right! Dirt bag parents, all over this country are feeding their kids too much and they must be stopped! Thankfully, heroic Cuyahoga County officials have done just that and removed an 8 year old boy from his mother and placed him in foster care. According to a story from The Blaze, even though the county does not have an official policy on dealing with obese kids, case workers removed the boy because they considered his mother's inability to control his weight a form of medical neglect. The mother has not been charged, much less convicted of a crime, but if the geniuses at Cuyahoga County consider her to be an unfit mother, that should justify any action they deem necessary. Hell, maybe we should just execute her! Let's not forget that all levels of government are authorized by the constitution to use any means necessary to insure the health and well being of the people. Okay, they actually have no such constitutional authority, but they're smarter than us, so they're going to do it anyway. I think we need to take a serious look at some of the other sadistic abuses that are being committed against kids by their parents. Keep in mind, the child does not actually have to be suffering the effects of the abuse, so long as there is the potential that he might at a later date. After all, the fat kid in Ohio, currently suffers from only sleep apnea. As you can see, this leaves a lot of opportunity to remove kids from the care of their idiot parents, who allow them to indulge in life threatening activities. For example:

• Driving-According to the CDC, eight people, between the ages of 15-19, die in driving accidents every day. However, roughly 35 million teens continue to drive, with new licenses being issued every day. Damn, this is going to take a lot of foster homes.
• Swimming-Yeah, it's fun and everything, but we all know it's a death factory. According to the lifeguard site Poseidon, 9 people die in unintentional drownings every day, drowning is the second leading cause of accidental death among children ages 1-14, and a swimming pool is 14 times more likely than a motor vehicle to be involved in the death of a child aged 1-4. Clearly, the number of swimming pools in this country borders on genocide.
• Cell Phones-First, there is the whole issue of talking or texting while driving, then you have the issue of the whole radiation/cancer thing. No I don't really believe that one, but I'm sure that at least a few people who have used a cell phone, have then also had cancer. So let's take away their kids, just to be safe.

I could have kept going, but I'm sure that these few examples, along with all the fat kids still out there will lead to every adult in America having to take in 5 or 6 foster kids, while losing at least one of their own. Let's be serious for a minute. Who really believes the government, at any level, is smarter than we are? It's been my experience that, whether you're dealing with the I.R.S., H.U.D., the state DMV, or your local tax collector, most govt. employees shouldn't be trusted to go to the bathroom alone. With few exceptions, they are lazy, stupid, and arrogant. They screw up everything they touch and they need to keep their intrusive noses out of our damn business.

Occupy This! Capitalism and Greed Are Not the Problem

As bums and losers have camped out in parks across the country for the last couple of months; dealing drugs, attacking women, and vandalizing public property, I've heard a lot of people, many of whom I usually agree with, come to their defense. The reasoning is; that these are just frustrated people who can't find job and they really have a point because these Wall Street firms and banks are corrupt and they prey on the poor working class people. This so called 1% are just greedy, only interested in profits, and unconcerned with creating jobs. Capitalism is just an unfair system that rewards those at the top and prevents everyone else from moving up. Well, excuse me, but that's a huge load of bullshit. Capitalism, free enterprise, and profits and greed are not the problem. They didn't cause the financial collapse or the high unemployment; and the vast majority of Americans don't believe they did. This weekend proves my point. When you see overflow crowds and waiting lines in the middle of the night on Thanksgiving Day, and full parking lots at various retailers; there's something at work here, at it's not a hate of capitalism or corporate greed. It's an embracing of it, even if those doing the embracing don't realize it. Merriam-Webster defines greed as: "a selfish and excessive desire for more of something than is needed". Now, at first glance, that does sound like a character trait that you wouldn't be proud of. My question is: How do you determine what qualifies as greed, and is it harmful to anyone, other than the greedy person? How much is "more of something than is needed"? Who decides?  Does a someone "need" a forty thousand square foot mansion? Probably not, even if they have a lot of kids, they could live comfortably in a much smaller home. The reality is that even those of us with much more moderate lifestyles could survive with much less. None of us actually "need" houses or apartments, or indoor plumbing and electricity; we could survive living in tents. We don't need restaurants, we could grow or kill our own food. No one needs a cell phone, but most Americans, regardless of income, have one. It seems to me that, by definition, we're all greedy. Guess what; that's a good thing. People were fighting crowds at Best Buy, Toys R Us, and Walmart last night because there were sales and they saw a chance to get more stuff in exchange for their money; they're greedy. The result of that greed is that a cop friend of mine, along with five of his fellow officers, worked an extra job at the local Walmart; jobs were created at a time of year when everyone needs more money. Retailers changed up their schedules this year and opened earlier, or never closed at all. They did it in an effort to gain an advantage over their competitors, to boost sales and make more money; greed. As a result of this "corporate greed", millions of part times jobs were created; some of which will become permanent. The greed will lead to a little extra food on millions of tables, and Christmas presents for a lot of kids that, otherwise, wouldn't have gotten them. A lot of people think it's ridiculous that people are camping out to buy TV's, and that people are having to work on holidays. I agree, so I don't do Black Friday shopping, and I don't work at Walmart. America is awesome! I have a buddy who has a business that specializes in the sales and installation of equipment for converting and fueling vehicles with compressed natural gas instead of diesel and gasoline. National companies are beginning to convert their fleets because CNG is cheaper; GREED. This is going to be huge and hundreds of thousands of jobs will be created, and that's a conservative estimate. As companies see increased profits from the fuel savings, they'll expand and create more jobs, because they're greedy. Some of the savings will be passed on to the consumers of their products, in order to take sales away from competitors. Their greed will lead to increased buying power for their customers. Skeptics will tell you that the corporate fat cats will never pass this savings along to their customers. Really? The first DVD player I ever saw cost about $400, you can buy a better one today for $29. Five years ago, I payed about $100 a month for my home phone; today, I pay $19.95 a year for Magic Jack, which we don't even use because the price of cell plans is so low. Capitalism and greed have given Americans the highest standard of living in the world, and has raised the standards of the rest of the world as well. How many jobs have been created in the Middle East, Russia, Africa, Brazil, Argentina, Venezuela, and Mexico due to methods of extracting and refining oil, that were developed by Americans? How many tech jobs have been created in India and China by greedy American capitalists? How many life saving drugs and medical procedures have been developed by greedy pharmaceutical companies and medical equipment manufacturers? You may have noticed, none of this is the result of government funding, intervention, or regulation. In fact, our current over-reaching, oppressive government would have stalled or prevented many of the life changing innovations of the last 150 years. One of the most hilarious and, at the same time, disgusting developments to come out of this anti-capitalism movement is the re-emergence of self proclaimed communists. Communism, are you freaking kidding me? No other economic system in the history of the world has produced more poverty, human suffering, starvation, and murder than Communism; yet it just keeps coming back like a case of crabs in a whore house. Thank you Karl Marx, you ignorant bastard. Attempting to revive it, is like suggesting that Chevy Chase should get another shot at hosting a talk show. A disaster of that scale should be scrubbed from the pages of history and never be revisited. Like it or not, the key to economic recovery is good old fashioned Capitalist Greed. Get government out of the way and let it work.

Beware of Fraudulent Conservatives

I received a City of Houston 2011 Voters Guide in the mail this week from "Texas Conservative Review". The editor of the publication is former Harris County Republican Chairman Gary Polland. After browsing through Mr. Polland's editorial, candidate grades, and endorsements; I now understand the sorry state of the Republican Party in Harris County and Greater Houston. Despite a bio that portrays him as the ultimate conservative advocate, Polland's commentary on the local elections indicate that he's closer to a Clinton Democrat than a Reagan Republican.

• In grading the Mayoral Candidates on the "conservatism", Polland gives Deputy Fire Chief Fernando Herrera a "B" and current Mayor Annise Parker (caution you might want to sit down for this) an "A-". Mr. Polland, how long have you been smoking crack? Annise Parker's name should not even be mentioned when grading conservatives. 
• Parker is praised as a fiscal conservative for "balancing the budget in hard economic times"; and the mayor has cut spending, but where? Of the $ 71 million in departmental spending cuts for the proposed 2012 budget, $ 60 million were to public safety; the Police and Fire Departments, while continuing to fund liberal/progressive social programs.
• $ 12 million is appropriated for The Recreation and Wellness and Community Center programs which, as the city website boasts, "Enhance the quality of life and wellness of Houstonians" In reality, these programs provide child and senior daycare to a select few citizens, who happen to form the base of the Democratic Party.
• $ 1 million dollars went to "Historic Preservation" which has imposed drastic restrictions of private property rights against the wishes of property owners, such as the residents of Glenbrook Valley.
• $ 7.3 million of taxpayer money will be spent on Planning and Development, which is Parkers attempt to force "environmental justice" down the throats of Houstonians. This includes $ 1.9 million for her newly formed "Community Sustainability Commission". To lead the effort, Parker hired Laura Spanjian, an environmental activist from San Francisco, as the "Director of Sustainability", at a reported salary of $ 100,000. Parker and Spanjian are strong proponents of the types of "open space" "restricted land use" policies that lead to the skyrocketing housing prices and cost of living in California.
• Parker has repeatedly defied the will of the voters on the red light camera issue; turning the off most recently when it appeared that her plummeting approval rating my endanger her re-election. If she wins, you can bet they're coming back on. This despite the fact that all statistics show an increase in accidents when the cameras were on.
• Just last week Parker and city council voted to reimburse Kroger $ 2.5 million plus interest for infrastructure improvements needed for a new store they want to build in the Heights; which Kroger would have almost certainly paid for themselves.
• Parker and City Councilman Stephen Costello deliberately mislead voters in supporting last years "Drainage Tax" claiming it would cost residents about $5 a month and would only be spent on drainage and flood control. When the bills started arriving, the actual cost was almost double ($9) and, just last week we learned that $ 857,000 from the "lock boxed" fund would be spent on bike trails.

This is a record that would make Barack Obama truly proud. I don't know anything about Gary Polland, but to assert that Annise Parker is in any way conservative, leads me to believe he is either a complete fraud and liar, an idiot, or that he's been bought and paid for. He also gives his endorsement to Councilman Costello in "At Large Position 1". Costello has been a rubber stamp for Parker on everyone of the issues mentioned here and lead the effort to pass the drainage tax. Fraudulent conservatives like Gary Polland are the reason for the sorry state of the Republican Party. They are the reason we end up with candidates like John McCain and Mitt Romney. I would advise anyone who receives a copy of his propaganda to burn it. I wouldn't use it for toilet paper. As for Fernando Herrera, he opposes Parker on all of the above. He's an A+ conservative and he's got my vote.