ENTITLEMENTS AND SUBSIDIES

     Some of the more patriotic millionaires and billionaires are actually intelligent.  They understand that they did well with President Clinton with higher taxes, know their lifestyle will not appreciably change with higher taxes, and are ready to support the economy by assisting with their share.
     Unearned income is a real problem in the tax code.  A venture capitalist spoke and said that some are worried that it will hurt the rich and claimed it is just the opposite.  It helps everyone.  Senator McConnell is hoping for a fight over entitlements.
     The CTJ (Citizens for Tax Justice) have a nice explanation about tax entitlements, which I have, frankly, never understood before.  To read this and understand the issues, click here.  One sentence contained begins to show a part of the problem  It reads:"What makes tax expenditures similar to spending programs is that they are special tax provisions that are designed to accomplish some social or economic goal unrelated to equitable tax collection. They are like "entitlements" because they are not subject to annual budget appropriations, but are paid out to any business or individual that meets the eligibility rules, regardless of the total cost".   After it discusses a great deal done for low income  people, it adds a more interesting sentence.  "Most government spending through the tax code is not targeted toward low-income people, however. In fact, tax breaks tend to reward those with the most lobbying muscle in Washington, especially organized business interests."
     Areas of entitlements and subsidies get a bit murky when trying to separate them. Another interesting thought was raised.  "Still another fundamental question about many tax expenditures ­ at least those structured as personal deductions ­ is their "upside-down" nature. Who could imagine a direct government spending program that paid an increasing share of, say, mortgage costs as peoples' incomes rose? Yet that's exactly the effect of the current deduction for mortgage interest."
     Certainly with the rapidity of change in all things economic in our country today, we should change the rules and examine entitlements yearly as the budget is set up.

     Lastly, I need to better understand why some people are paid NOT to grow something.  There was a time when we tried to help people who lost their jobs.  There is not a lot of history circulated about paying people who can no longer follow their professions.  Many teachers became computer specialists, people went back to school and learned new vocations and professions.   If something does not get examined frequently, it is not keeping current with the needs of our times.

DO NOT MISTAKE PRESIDENT OBAMA'S KINDNESS FOR WEAKNESS

The worst kind of people are those who confuse kindness for weakness. -Werner Makowski, banker (b. 1929) 

Obama doing his job

People misunderstood Obama's ethics and attempts to work with others as weakness.  He has nothing to lose by trying to be the best president he knows how to be.  We can readily see that the Republicans, who have no real wish for the country to do much except for the wealthy, plan to continue their obstruction to anything that will help the economy, the middle class, and thus the country overall.

Romney no longer has  lie about what he will do as president.  His new lies are in the service for having to find a way to lay the blame on the Democrats for 'giving the gifts' to the electorate.  Further, some Republicans are trying to impeach President Obama  on the theory that he is not an American citizen born in America.  We haven't seen Trump lately.  I wonder if he is behind that one.

It was gratifying to hear firmness and constrained anger from our President, defending Susan Rice.  He must have finally figured out that the Republicans are ruthless and does not plan another four years of trying to appease them. Haley Barber has it correct when he says the Republicans all have to start by having a proctology exam .He believes the problem of the Republican loss must be studied thoroughly.

Assuming the Republicans will try to retain a high profile but we shall see when they will see reality.  It sounds like Jindal, one of the brighter Republicans, see where his political future will have to veer.

THE SMALL MINDS OF LINDSAY GRAHAM AND JOHN McCAIN ERUPT THROUGH THEIR BIG SWINGING, REPUBLICAN STICKS

 The Republicans have not yet discovered that the American public voted for ideas of change.  McCain and Graham threw down the glove.  They challenged President Obama by anticipating whom he might choose and  can reject.  They have no basic facts but have made their minds up.  It is business as usual for the Republicans in Washington.

It certainly makes me wonder who is pulling their puppet strings.  John McCain used to have the people's respect,  his blind faith to his party rather than the country has cost him that.  Grover Norquist sounds as though he stopped the clock during the election and thinks that everyone has gone back to his business as usual..

The Republicans do not have to get their government smaller, they have to get their party back. They need to put forth a candidate for President whom the people of America can respect. So far, I have not seen a potential candidate in the Legislature.  I've heard Republicans talk about governors.  Actually governors are not easy to elect to the Presidency.  Eighteen governors later became president.

I've watched Presidents since Roosevelt. It is my opinion that the best prepared and most competent president is Obama.  Republicans talked about GW Bush heading for being the best president ever.  What happened to that prediction?

IT IS NO SURPRISE THAT REPUBLICANS ARE POOR LOSERS

Today's Republicans have not been interested in facts nor reality.  They have been on a diet of lies, conspiracy theories, and ego feeding propaganda.  For those who run because they wish to represent the electorate, they somehow missed that part of the campaign.  I am an independent voter but it has been a few years that I have found few Republicans for whom I can vote, knowing they will be in office and not representing anything for which I believe.

There are some deja vu floaters before our eyes.  McConnell sounds like he will follow his leaders, Norquist being the main one.  He insists he is not stubborn but that he cannot vote to raise taxes on the rich because he believes it would be bad for the economy and our country.  Clearly, the man is not an economist, nor does he represent the public interests by accepting the mandate given President Obama by his re-election.

We have yet to see what will happen.  It is rumored that some Republicans have elected to ignore the signed pledge to Norquist.  I can only imagine they are between a rock and a hard place, figuratively, since the electorate is unlikely to vote them in should they continue their obstructionist ways.   If they don't stick to the pledge, they will get no support from the Republicans for their next campaign.  Clearly, none of them can run on their own,  Gone are the days when  you made it to Washington because of your ideas for the good of all citizens and the country.

While I mistakenly thought that things would begin to simmer down after the election, I forgot that our news comes from media that has to keep things stewing to keep ratings up.  Perhaps I can go back to listening to music instead of watching so much TV political news.

AMERICA, STOP LOOKING THROUGH BEDROOM KEYHOLES!

It seems that the public and the Legislature view the country as one big bedroom keyhole over which they have the privilege of attaching their eye to it whenever they wish.  I for one, object to that 'right to know' before the facts are obtained.  The media, in my opinion, has lowered themselves to grabbing onto pure gossip long before it has turned into an actual story with facts and proof.  It damages reputations unnecessarily, serving no purpose other than feeding the prurient interests of those who are above using porn for the same purpose.

Too many see adultery ss always the fault of the adulterous spouse.  However, it does not fill in a complete picture.  If the other spouse remains out of view and not of public interest, it is assumed they are not adulterous...not always the case.  Adultery must not be seen (no, I am not advocating it). as simply breaking one of the ten commandments.  If a more human and modern interpretation is applied, each situation would tell a totally different story.  As a therapist who treated couples for years, I found couples who were not sexually compatible, having dutifully waited until marriage to learn this devastating fact.  After several years of marriage one or the other might wonder if this is all there is to sex life and, if a willing partner was available, that research is turned into adultery.

Others may act out in an attempt to learn new sexual techniques, having married with little experience to an equally inexperienced partner.  While there are tons of good books to teach people, too many people are loathe to admit to their partners or too themselves that something is missing in that department.  Others find themselves married to a frigid woman or an impotent male. When their pheromones get stirred by someone it is too easy to fall into a prone and passionate, adulterous  position.  I've even watched marriages saved because of adultery, as odd as that may seem by people who love each other but do not find intimacy and sex with their partner possible for them..

The above are buit a few examples.  There are as many reasons as there are people.  Regardless of the reasons, they are personal to the married partners involved and it should be the business. of no one else.  However, the country insists on remaining hypocritical and continues casting stones.  If the Legislature wants to know what is going on, they will also have to learn to keep their mouths shut to the media. In the case of General Petraeus, it should not have been made public until there was proof of danger to national security or a crime had been committed.  Absentthis information, if the rules of the job prohibit such behavior, it is not a crime and can be handled privately and without the media having their feeding frenzy.

RACISM HAS NOT CHANGED SINCE THE CIVIL WAR

     President Obama is as much Caucasian as he is African American.  However, as existed a century and a half ago, if there was one drop of black blood in the family tree, the person was deemed to be black.  I have wondered how many mixed, racially, citizens we now have in the United States. 
     "The terms multiracial and mixed-race describe people or groups of people whose ancestries come from multiple races. Unlike the term biracial, which often is only used to refer to having parents or grandparents of two different races, the term multiracial may encompass biracial people but can also include people with more than two races in their heritage, or also may refer to the origin of more generationally distant genetic admixtures of more than one race in a person's DNA.
     The actual incidence of multiracial admixture and heritage is believed to be far higher than is commonly reported, although there is evidence that this is changing as people become more comfortable with revealing personal multiracial heritage. Census records and other studies also show the real number of multiracial individuals to be increasing in the United States along with an increase in marriages across race lines. Other surveys also reflect this trend in many modern nations. The term "multiracial" may also be used to refer to groups or populations where individuals of more than one race are counted as a part of a whole group. In this sense of the word, "multiracial" refers to a racially heterogeneous rather than a homogeneous group or population." - from Wikipoedia.

what we will look like in the future

     For years, anthropologists have claimed that somewhere in our future, all people will be a mixture, a blend of all the races.  Most of us have friends who are bi-racial, if not multi-racial.  Beautiful Karen Finney  of MSNBC talks about her Irish father and black mother.  There are more and more faces, especially on TV, in which physiognomy suggests more than one race,  When will the people of the United States catch up to the leaders in the rest of the world.  We have been riding on old laurels for far too long.  We need to face up to how we have been led to near oblivion as a nation.  It is likely the Republicans will take quite a while to realize they no longer have the nation's citizens behind them.  Will they act accordingly or will those representing the less than 50% continue to behave as though they are a majority just because they elected more of themselves into the Legislature?
    

BEN STEIN: EXPELLED:THE VIDEO

Occasionally some Jehovah's Witnesses come to my door,  I've always been interested in how people think so I talk to whoever is a representative though my favorite JW got married and there are knew people whom i don't know very well now.  The last time as I informed them I am an Atheist because I could never make a believer simply by 'having faith' for which I am constitutionally unprepared.Somehow we got into a discussion about evolution which, I was informed, is only a theory.  Thus, apparently, one nice lady (who insisted evolution is only a theory) dropped off this video for me to watch.

It took a few weeks to have it get somewhat near the top of the pile of things I want to do, simply because it is about time she will come to retrieve it.  The film is nicely done, seemingly well represented by opposing views, but I fire up when I hear evolution used in eugenics.  As with everything else in science, there is rarely a singular cause.  Just because Nazi Germany used evolution as a way of trying to make perfect people by killing off all those whose genes they thought not to allow to be used in procreation, they ignored that the environment can be toxic to a fetus, substances ingested by the mother can, in utero, harm the fetus as can diseases she may contract while gestating.

The major theme of the film was whether Intelligent Design might be responsible for our species and world.  Instead of accepting that evolution is real, it seems to be thrown out as a valid concept because no one can explain why or how it got started.  Neither can the many Gods of the religions of our worlds be better explained, but they are accepted by many.  That Creationists decided to couple with Intelligent Design and teach what they cannot explain in schools never is answered in the film, since it obviously has no answer.

The film was out in the market in 2008.  Much of what is used is from the Bible does not mention how little was known by science and physics at those times.  It is ridiculous to hold up those ideas today and claim all you need to survive is a Bible.  I will be a big disappointment to my JW ladies when I next see them and return the video.  We will not agree on our interpretation of the conclusions to be drawn from the video.  I will still believe in the importance of evolution even though we know nothing about the origin of life on our planet and I will continue to belief there is not God as humans define their Gods.  There may,m in fact, be a designer somewhere but that would be more like a parent giving birth nor an omniscient, omnipotent being who watches over each of us individually and rewards or punishes us for the paths we choose.

I guess I am bound to reach my death having not all the answers to my questions and will be most pleasantly surprised if I discover I have a soul, another self, an alternate universe in which I get to live all over again.  Will I know that I have been reborn?  If so, why are we all born as babies with no memories or functioning brains for language, puzzle solving, etc.?