A Ton of Truth Lies In These Words

Have I told you I love Craigslist? Especially "Rants and Raves". Yes, it is inhabited by a ton of trolls but it also has a ton of regular contributors that often provide good sources of information too. If you read between the lines on many posts you can get a feel for what people are thinking and what is important to them. I like to posts words here that make people think and I have used several sources, including Craigslist R&R, to accomplish that desire.

By the OP (original posters) comments it would appear this is an email circulating around the web but I haven't seen it yet, and it's possible you haven't either. It's says a lot:


REPOST From CL

Please take a few minutes to read and absorb just what this woman had to say, and then hopefully everyone will pass it to their entire mailing list, and theirs to theirs until it circles the nation! Time is short and arrogance, stupidity and ignorance abound.............. Americans everywhere identify with this 53-year-old woman. She has given us a voice. Once you read this, you will want to forward it to all of your true American friends

"I am a home grown American citizen, 53, registered Democrat all my life. Before the last presidential election I registered as a Republican because I no longer felt the Democratic Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. Now I no longer feel the Republican Party represents my views or works to pursue issues important to me. The fact is I no longer feel any political party or representative in Washington represents my views or works to pursue the issues important to me. Instead, we are burdened with Congressional Dukes and Duchesses who think they know better than the citizens they are supposed to represent.

There must be someone. Please tell me who you are. Please stand up and tell me that you are there and that you're willing to fight for our Constitution as it was written. Please stand up now.

You might ask yourself what my views and issues are that I would feel so horribly disenfranchised by both major political parties. What kind of nut-job am I? Well, these briefly are the views and issues for which I seek representation:

One, illegal immigration. I want you to stop coddling illegal immigrants and secure our borders. Close the underground tunnels. Stop the violence and the trafficking in drugs and people. No amnesty, not again. Been there, done that, no resolution. P.S., I'm not a racist. This is not to be confused with legal immigration.

Two, the STIMULUS bill. I want it repealed and I want no further funding supplied to it. We told you No, but you did it anyway. I want the remaining unfunded 95% repealed. Freeze, repeal.

Three: Czars. I want the circumvention of our constitutional checks and balances stopped immediately. Fire the czars. No more czars. Government officials answer to the process, not to the president. Stop trampling on our Constitution, and honor it.

Four, cap and trade. The debate on global warming is not over. There are many conflicting opinions and it is too soon for this radical legislation. Quit throwing our nation into politically-correct quicksand.

Five, universal healthcare. I will not be rushed into another expensive decision that will burden me, my children, and grandchildren. Don't you dare try to pass this in the middle of the night without even reading it. Slow down! Fix only what is broken -- we have the best health care system in the world -- and test any new program in one or two states first.

Six, growing government control. I want states rights and sovereignty fully restored. I want less government in my life, not more. More is not better! Shrink it down. Mind your own business. You have enough to take care of with your real [Constitutional] obligations. Why don't you start there.

Seven, ACORN. I do not want ACORN and its affiliates in charge of our 2010 census. I want them investigated. I also do not want mandatory escrow fees contributed to them every time on every real estate deal that closes -- how did they pull that one off? Stop the funding to ACORN and its affiliates pending impartial audits and investigations. I do not trust them with taking the census with our taxpayer money. I don't trust them with any of our taxpayer money. Face up to the allegations against them and get it resolved before taxpayers get any more involved with them. If it walks like a duck and talks like a duck, hello. Stop protecting your political buddies. You work for us, the people. Investigate.

Eight, redistribution of wealth. No, no, no. I work for my money. It is mine. I have always worked for people with more money than I have because they gave me jobs -- and that is the only redistribution of wealth that I will support. I never got a job from a poor person! Why do you want me to hate my employers? And what do you have against shareholders making a profit?

Nine, charitable contributions. Although I never got a job from a poor person, I have helped many in need. Charity belongs in our local communities, where we know our needs best and can use our local talent and our local resources. Butt out, please. We want to do it ourselves.

Ten, corporate bailouts. Knock it off. Every company must sink or swim like the rest of us. If there are hard times ahead, we'll be better off just getting into it and letting the strong survive. Quick and painful. (Have you ever ripped off a Band-Aid?) We will pull together. Great things happen in America under great hardship. Give us the chance to innovate. We cannot disappoint you more than you have disappointed us.

Eleven, transparency and accountability. How about it? No, really, how about it? Let's have it. Let's say we give the buzzwords a rest and have some straight honest talk. Please stop trying to manipulate and appease me with clever wording. I am not the idiot you obviously take me for. Stop sneaking around and meeting in back rooms making deals with your friends. It will only be a prelude to your criminal investigation. Stop hiding things from me.

Twelve, unprecedented quick spending. Stop it now. Take a breath. Listen to the people. Slow down and get some input from nonpoliticians and experts on the subject. Stop making everything an emergency. Stop speed-reading our bills into law. I am not an activist. I am not a community organizer. Nor am I a terrorist, a militant or a violent person. I am a parent and a grandparent. I work. I'm busy. I am busy, and I am tired. I thought we elected competent people to take care of the business of government so that we could work, raise our families, pay our bills, have a little recreation, complain about taxes, endure our hardships, pursue our personal goals, cut our lawn, wash our cars on the weekends and be responsible contributing members of society and teach our children to be the same all while living in the home of the free and land of the brave.

I entrusted you with upholding the Constitution. I believed in the checks and balances to keep from getting far off course. What happened? You are very far off course. Do you really think I find humor in the hiring of a speed reader to unintelligently ramble all through a bill that you signed into law without knowing what it contained? I do not.

It is a mockery of the responsibility I have entrusted to you. It is a slap in the face. I am not laughing at your arrogance. Why is it that I feel as if you would not trust me to make a single decision about my own life and how I would live it but you should expect that I should trust you with the debt that you have laid on all of us and our children. We did not want the TARP bill. We said no. We would repeal it if we could. I am sure that we still cannot. There is needless urgency and recklessness in all of your recent spending of our tax dollars.

From my perspective, it seems that all of you have gone insane. I also know that I am far from alone in these feelings. Do you honestly feel that your current pursuits have merit to patriotic Americans? We want it to stop. We want to put the brakes on everything that is being rushed by us and forced upon us. We want our voice back. You have forced us to put our lives on hold to straighten out the mess that you are making. We will have to give up our vacations, our time spent with our children, any relaxation time we may have had and money we cannot afford to spend on bringing our concerns to Washington . Our president often knows all the right buzzwords like unsustainable. Well, no kidding. How many tens of thousands of dollars did the focus group cost to come up with that word? We don't want your overpriced words. Stop treating us like we're morons.

We want all of you to stop focusing on your reelection and do the job we want done, not the job you want done or the job your party wants done. You work for us and at this rate I guarantee you not for long because we are coming. We will be heard and we will be represented.. You think we're so busy with our lives that we will never come for you? We are the formerly silent majority, all of us who quietly work, pay taxes, obey the law, vote, save money, keep our noses to the grindstone... and we are now looking at you.

You have awakened us, the patriotic freedom spirit so strong and so powerful that it had been sleeping too long. You have pushed us too far. Our numbers are great. They may surprise you. For every one of us who will be there, there will be hundreds more that could not come. Unlike you, we have their trust. We will represent them honestly, rest assured. They will be at the polls on voting day to usher you out of office.

We have cancelled vacations. We will use our last few dollars saved. We will find the representation among us and a grassroots campaign will flourish. We didn't ask for this fight. But the gloves are coming off. We do not come in violence, but we are angry. You will represent us or you will be replaced with someone who will. There are candidates among us who will rise like a Phoenix from the ashes that you have made of our constitution.

Democrat, Republican, independent, libertarian. Understand this. We don't care. Political parties are meaningless to us Patriotic Americans are willing to do right by us and our Constitution, and that is all that matters to us now. We are going to fire all of you who abuse power and seek more. It is not your power. It is ours and we want it back. We entrusted you with it and you abused it. You are dishonorable. You are dishonest. As Americans we are ashamed of you. You have brought shame to us. If you are not representing the wants and needs of your constituency loudly and consistently, in spite of the objections of your party, you will be fired. Did you hear? We no longer care about your political parties. You need to be loyal to us, not to them.. Because we will get you fired and they will not save you.

If you do or can represent me, my issues, my views, please stand up. Make your identity known. You need to make some noise about it. Speak up. I need to know who you are. If you do not speak up, you will be herded out with the rest of the sheep and we will replace the whole damn congress if need be one by one. We are coming. Are we coming for you? Who do you represent? What do you represent? Listen. Because we are coming.

'We the People' are coming."

The End

Now many of you may read these words and think "Great, another conservative gimmick email", and you may be right. But for a minute try to pull out your broad paint brush, eliminate the words Obama or Democrats, and insert the words "Elected Officials".

It takes on a new perspective, don't it? And when you apply the context in that manner, then it becomes not only more understandable but it is believable. I agree with much that was said in those words. Our politicians, long ago, stopped representing the electorate, they only serve the "party" and you and I pay the price.

I guess you might just want to save this and read it the next election day.

I Hate To Say This....

But I told you so. Several months ago on this blog I addressed the "Stimulus Package" saying it would create few jobs due to the allocation of money. I said the construction jobs would go to the same players that always get it.

Below is an article that appears in today's Detroit Free Press that I thought was worth sharing:

Posted: Nov. 15, 2009
FREE PRESS SPECIAL REPORT

Billions for state, but where are jobs?
Majority of stimulus awards have brought little help

BY TODD SPANGLER
FREE PRESS WASHINGTON STAFF

WASHINGTON -- Seven months into the massive federal stimulus program, the vast majority of government grants, contracts and loans in Michigan so far have created or retained virtually no jobs, a Free Press analysis shows.

The analysis also revealed that others who have been promised or have received stimulus money have overstated -- in some cases greatly -- the number of jobs created or protected.

Obama administration and state officials say it's too early to draw conclusions about the overall impact of the $787-billion nationwide program to stimulate the economy and generate jobs. They promise that job growth will follow as more funding arrives.

"It looks to us like the program is unfolding much as we hoped in Michigan," said White House economic adviser Jared Bernstein.

The Free Press examination of more than 1,800 government reports of those who have received or expect to receive stimulus money found the biggest impact was spurring or protecting public-sector or summer jobs -- not private-sector jobs. Michigan has the nation's worst unemployment rate.

Officials reported that by Sept. 30, some 22,500 Michigan jobs were created or retained thanks to the promise of $5.2 billion in stimulus money for the state, $1.2 billion of which had arrived.

The analysis also found:

• Three of every four stimulus grants, contracts and loans approved in Michigan created or retained one job or less.

• Fewer than 700 awards had received some money, and nearly half of those -- 327 -- had created one job or less, at a cost per job of $2.7 million.

• Some job estimates were wrong: General Motors Co., for instance, reported 105 jobs saved or created for a government purchase of 5,000 vehicles but later said no jobs were saved or created. The City of Detroit reported 342 jobs it now says were projections -- not jobs already created or retained.

Peter Morici, a University of Maryland economist, said the results suggest the stimulus won't deliver promised results.

"All those claims," he said, "are ridiculous."

Flawed reports raise questions about how stimulus has helped

At first glance, the impact of the federal stimulus act so far in Michigan looks like cause for celebration -- some 22,500 jobs created or saved in about seven months, $1.2 billion received to date and promises of $3 billion more to come.

But closer inspection reveals flaws in the claims and raises doubts about the mammoth spending bill's impact to date.

A Free Press analysis of reports on more than 1,800 awards to agencies, departments, municipalities and firms in Michigan under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act found huge inaccuracies in job estimates of several recipients and millions of dollars in errors in their reports.

It also found that the vast majority of jobs reported or created -- 85% -- were tied to 15 primary recipients, with three-quarters of all stimulus awards made to date in the state creating or saving one job or less. Most of those funded still were awaiting checks, which could help explain the lag in job creation. Still, hundreds of awards led to reports of job creation before stimulus money arrived.

Some are clearly wrong.

Detroit reported on a grant award -- $10 million for work on 14 improvement projects in the city -- saying 342 jobs had been saved or created, despite none of the money actually reaching the city yet. Last week, city officials told the Free Press those were only projections -- not jobs saved or created.

The White House Recovery Office warns against projecting jobs. It wants an accurate reflection of jobs created or retained to date.

There were other exaggerations.

The Ingham County Health Department reported 97.49 jobs retained, but an official with the agency said without the funding, six jobs would have been lost. The Inter-Tribal Council of Michigan in Sault Ste. Marie, which provides services to member American Indian tribes, reported 99 jobs created or saved thanks to $46,000 in cost-of-living adjustments for Head Start employees. An official with the tribal council said she believes no jobs would have been lost without the government money.

Promise of transparency

Signing the stimulus bill into law in February, President Barack Obama promised an unprecedented amount of transparency in how the money was spent -- even as officials warned that with so much money being poured into the economy so quickly, there was bound to be error and fraud. While few instances of the latter have been charted, there seem to be may indications of the former.

The $787-billion federal stimulus is the equivalent of about $6,800 for every American household.

Leslee Fritz, director of Michigan's Recovery office, spent two days in Washington, D.C., last week talking to stimulus officials from other states about how to improve reporting. Still, she said, she's pleased with the federal investments.

"In a state like Michigan, there's never going to be a situation where we feel they've moved fast enough" to get money flowing and jobs created, she said. But, she added, "I think we're off to a good start."

The spending

Jared Bernstein, an Obama administration economist, said the reports from agencies and larger contractors getting stimulus money make up a sliver of the stimulus act.

About a third -- $275 billion -- will be directly spent nationally in areas such as state stabilization funds to support government jobs; building and repairing roads, bridges and other infrastructure; investing in drinking water and wastewater projects; funding alternative energy projects, and much more.

Those are the areas where recipients must file reports on their spending. The rest of the stimulus spending goes for tax cuts -- the Making Work Pay tax cut was worth about $65 a month to the average household, for instance -- and entitlement programs, such as those increasing unemployment benefits and covering the government's commitment to pick up 65% of the premium for health insurance for laid-off workers.

Bernstein says those tax cuts and entitlements have already contributed to the 3 million to 4 million jobs expected to be created or retained through the stimulus.

Last month, the Recovery Office reported that $37 billion in checks had gone out for $159 billion in direct investment awards by the end of September. The estimated jobs created or saved: 640,000.

Errors in reporting

Since then, news media reports across the country have found errors. A Boston Globe review last week of claims of 12,374 jobs being created or saved in Massachusetts concluded the claim was "wildly exaggerated." The Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel found that a report saying 10,000 jobs had been created or saved in Wisconsin was "rife with errors, double counting and inflated numbers."

"Are you surprised?" asked Peter Morici, an economist and business professor at the University of Maryland who is a critic of the stimulus bill. "Using this ruse, we now have unemployment" nationally "above 10%, and it's going to keep going up. In Michigan it's much worse, and worse is going to become terrible."

Morici's biggest complaint is that, despite Obama's claim last January that 90% of the jobs the stimulus created or retained would be in the private sector, it is set up to produce mostly public-sector jobs.

So far in Michigan, the numbers support his claim. Of 22,513 jobs reported, 13,555 were tied to state money for education, doled out to local school districts. Without a huge economic turnaround or more federal money after the 2-year stimulus ends, many of those jobs could be threatened.

Another problem: More than 3,000 were summer-only jobs for youths. Those jobs do little to bring down Michigan's highest-in-the-nation unemployment rate.

Both Bernstein and Fritz say what's missing from any snapshot analysis of the recipient reports to date is that the stimulus spending is still in its infancy. Investments in so-called shovel-ready projects, such as road and bridge building, are just now getting under way.

Job creation tied to high-speed rail improvements have yet to be felt, and $1.35 billion in grants for advanced battery and electric vehicle manufacturing and development are estimated to create 6,800 jobs in Michigan by the end of 2010.

If they're correct, the stimulus may deliver on its promise.

"We think the kind of time-release mechanisms built into the Recovery Act are very appropriate," Bernstein said. "This is not a program we would want either phasing out or fully up and running at precisely this moment. We need to be generating good jobs at least through next year."

Help for more than jobs

Fritz said she expects job creation to swing from the public sector to the private sector soon, but she also notes that much of the money is for purposes other than jobs. Rental assistance grants, for one, help people stay in their homes, she said, and justice grants help police purchase technology to keep people safe.

The Hamilton Community Health Network in Flint received $625,000 of a $920,000 award for equipment at a new facility serving growing numbers of people who have no or inadequate health insurance.

That award didn't create direct jobs, but Chief Executive Officer Clarence Pierce said without the equipment, the hires the network made for the facility would be irrelevant.

In Ingham County, Deputy Health Officer Jaeson Fournier said the department may not have really retained 97 positions -- but the funding it has received has resulted in nine new hires, with four more jobs being posted and more to come.

Perhaps more important, it received a designation that allows it to collect higher federal reimbursements to serve the growing numbers of uninsured people.

"We have not seen so much demand," Fournier said. "It couldn't have come at a better time for us as a community."

Contact TODD SPANGLER: 202-906-8203 or tspangler@freepress.com

Clearing The Cobwebs From My Mind

It's been a while since I sat down to write about anything serious but it's time to clean some thoughts I've been storing. In my life, just as in yours, events take place every day that impact the way I feel, live, spend, eat and sleep. Some of these events are within my control and some are not. This blog is my place to feel like my opinions matter to someone other than me. It's my place to rant at the big guys and point out how wrong they are or how right they may be. It's therapeutic at best and a good way for me to keep reality in check. By reading my thoughts perhaps it will help keep your world in check too.

FRIENDS, LOVERS, POLITICS AND RELIGION

My friends don't always know how to take me. To the conservative ones I'm a liberal and to the liberal ones I'm conservative. The truth is I am neither. As a brilliant woman I once worked for used to say about herself, I am every man. I am the middle of the road. I am the one that will stand in your face and ask questions that hundreds of others wish they could. I am not a sheep waiting to be led to the slaughter like so many others. I am a product of the generation that learned to question everything, and remained true to that ideal.

With that said I will also say that I am a person that does not believe I am always right, nor do I close my mind to any mans, or woman's, opinion. A closed mind has no chance to grow, it becomes a vacuum that lives with archaic concepts. A closed mind leads to a lack of progress, and it stifles personal growth and the advancement of society. Many have said a version of this thought before me, and they were certainly wiser than me, but the only certain thing in life is the uncertainty of constant change. Life is flux and to be a productive member of society, we too must be in flux, in our thought process, in our willingness to adapt.

Note that I said to adapt. No place did I say we had to put aside our values or our ideals, but in a democratic republic you do need to be willing to open those values and ideals to personal review. In our form of government there is no "It's all my way" or "I am against everything you stand for". That was never the intent of the founding fathers. If it were they never would have created such a complex system of checks and balances within our government. If they thought that "I'm right and you're wrong" attitude was the proper way to govern they would have created a parliamentary monarchy, or a theocracy, but certainly not a democracy.

With that said our political arena today turns more venomous and hateful with each passing day. Personally I have lost three friends in the last 30 days due to political debate. How stupid is that? Now it so happens that these friends were conservatives and making statements about Obama, socialists, death panels, political lies and religion in a public forum. When I pointed out that many of the things they posted were untrue they took exception. When I asked them to back up their statements with clear facts, I was called names. And when I pointed out the hypocrisy of their sitting in judgement of others in the name of Christianity I was rudely dismissed.

How stupid was that? How ignorant have we become that people, friends, cannot express conflicting or different points of view without someone reacting like a 6 year old? In fact, to draw a parallel to a 6 year old is an insult to every elementary playground in the nation. Everyone knows when they get mad they take their ball and go home but they always return the next day.

Now, my three friends severed all ties. I feel bad for them and I feel bad for myself. For them because they live in a vacuum and they are destined to live a life filled with frustration because they can't always have it their way. I feel bad for me because I cared for these people, I sometimes agreed with them and other times I thought they were a few sandwiches shy of a picnic. But they were always entitled to their opinions because the more I saw someone else's point of view it allowed me to allow mine to evolve.

Oh, and before all of my liberal friends start high fiving each other, you're just as closed minded as the conservatives. How'd that taste?

WAR, HUH, GOOD GOD Y'ALL, WHAT IS IT GOOD FOR...ABSOLUTELY N'THIN'

Do you realize that our country, The United States of America, has not won a war or major conflict since WWII? And if you look at the amount of Toyota's on our roads or the products on the shelves at Walmart, that statement may not be so accurate either. But I digress.

No, we did not win in Korea, Viet Nam, Bosnia, Somalia, Desert Storm nor are we winning in Desert Shield. (All the other skirmishes we were involved with ( Panama, etc) were like pitting 280 pound NFL lineman against a little league football team so they don't count.) Now before you get your panties all up in a wedgie, think about it, we had no absolute victory in any of these wars named. They all resulted in political resolutions.

I believe it was General George Armstrong Patton that is credited with the quote " Wars should be fought by soldiers, not politicians", and if he didn't say it, well dammit, he should have.

We have seen time and time again the severe toll in human lives that takes place when politicians try to play soldier. Today I received a call from my niece and in the course of conversation she mentioned that her brother-in-law was hit today by a rocket in Afghanistan. The family is not aware of how he is doing but hope to find out soon.

Now I was one of the first ones yelling to invade Afghanistan, to kill Bin Laden, after 9/11. I objected to our invasion of Iraq because it served no purpose other than GWB cleaning up the mess left by his Dad in the last war run by politicians. But after 8 years of young people trying and dying to fulfill their mission, I need to say;

Mr. Obama shit or get off the pot! Play politics with your health care, green energy, electric cars, but let the Generals dictate how to win wars. They know, you don't! And if you don't want to be in this war then get our children out of harms way.

Sir, you are the Commander in Chief and as such it is your constitutional obligation and job to protect this country. But based upon your indecisiveness over the last 30 days about whether or not to send additional troops requested by your Afghanistan Commander I'm having serious doubts whether or not you're the right man for the job. Being a leader means you need to make snap decisions sometimes. You can't govern by quorum. It appears you want a quicker response to your national heath care plan than you are willing to give the soldiers dying on your watch.

Quit playing politics with young peoples lives.

THE CIRCLE OF LIFE

Just this last week I lost a friend to cancer, I had another friend diagnosed with cancer, and a relative continue his courageous fight against cancer. I also had a friend give birth to her first baby, a boy named Mason. I'm waiting to hear from another friend who is about to be a Grandpa for the first time. I have a dear friend with a daughter needing surgery and another child sick. One friend lost his job and another finally found work, and one friend is getting married.

This is life. This is what you and I share in common every day. We have those moments that make us laugh and those that make us cry but each moment is precious. Take the time every day to tell someone you love them, for you never know if it will be the last chance you have to say it.