Friday, Sept 26th - Zero: The Bailout

I found some great information on the bailout proposal by going to John Boozman's website. If you are interested, please read this information.

If not - just know this: The bailout is listed at $700 billion. This is on top of $900 billion we have already spent on the bank crises (Bear Stearns, AIG, Freddie and Fanny). Already, that represents $5,666 per person in the United States.

However, you add that number to the current national defecit the number goes up to 53 TRILLION dollars. That is $176,666 per person in total tax burden. Now, since we know that a full 40% of the population pays NO taxes, that means that those of us that do, are stuck with $294,444 each.

Chew on that for a while.

Taxpayer dollars shouldn’t be used to subsidize salaries of executives who have made bad business decisions. We can’t allow company officials to who break consumer confidence and send businesses into turmoil to benefit from bad practices. We owe it to the American people to make these officials accountable for their actions.

This is not the time for hurried legislation. We need a well thought-out approach to solving the problems we are facing. Washington should not be rushed into making such a critical decision that impacts the American economy. Sure, we need to protect the credit system in this country, but not by killing the American taxpayers!

A BACKGROUND ON RECENT BAILOUTS

Until this year, the federal government has never injected so much money into the U.S. financial market since the Great Depression. In addition to using interest rate adjustments to address the looming financial situation, the Federal Reserve and the U.S. Treasury have stepped in to “bail out” large financial institutions that were nearing bankruptcy or facing grave financial distress. The bailouts have raised questions over whether the federal government has a role in staving off consequences of bad business decisions to protect further losses in the market, and whether the economic crisis today is of such grand proportion that it would warrant the federal government to step in on the free market economy.

The following provides a breakdown of each bailout that has occurred this year, and the situations leading up to each bailout.

Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are Government Sponsored Enterprises (GSEs), or privately owned, Congressional chartered financial institutions created for public policy purposes. They were created to increase liquidity and improve distribution of capital available for home mortgage financing. As GSEs, the charters of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac limit them to purchasing single family and multifamily home mortgages. As a result, they lack diversification in the types of mortgages they buy which makes them more susceptible to problems and fluctuations in the home mortgage market.

According to a report by the Heritage Foundation, experts have warned for decades that both Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac lacked sufficient capital to protect against losses. While most banks have $1 of capital for every $12 in assets, Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac only have $1 for every $20 in assets. Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac hold about 70 percent of the national market share of home mortgages, and they both guarantee mortgages and hold about $5 trillion worth of them in their investment
portfolios. Beginning in 2004, their portfolios began to grow primarily with subprime and alternative-A loans. From 2003 to 2006, subprime and alternative-A originations in the U.S. rose from less than 8% of all mortgages to over 20%.

Between the end of 2007 and August 2008, Fannie Mae's stock lost 72 percent of its value and Freddie Mac lost 77 percent of its values, which many attributed to improper accounting practices and homeowners falling behind on subprime mortgages, putting 70 percent of the home mortgage market share at risk.

On July 30, the President signed into law H.R. 3221, a $800 billion housing aid bill to rescue Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. On September 7, the U.S. Treasury announced the federal government seized control of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, arguing if the crisis had continued, lack of cash would have made it more difficult for consumers to obtain home loans.

Cost of the Bailout: $800 Billion

Congressional approval was sought for this bailout. Congressman Boozman did not support the bailout.

Bear Stearns:

At the beginning of the year, Bear Stearns was the nation's fifth largest investment bank. When the housing market took off earlier in the decade, Bear Stearns became actively involved in the residential mortgage market. As a result, it held a large amount of mortgage-backed securities. When the housing market plunged, Bear Stearns began to experience financial trouble. In response, Bear Stearns poured more money into subprime mortgage funds. When the housing market continued to decline, Bear Stearns found itself in an even deeper financial struggle. In March 2008, it was virtually crippled by a liquidity squeeze related to devalued mortgage-backed securities and neared bankruptcy.

In response, the Federal Reserve System announced on March 14 that it would provide a short-term loan to help Bear Stearns. Two days later, JP Morgan Chase, a commercial bank, agreed to buy Bear Stearns, and the Federal Reserve agreed to provide special financing to help with the transaction for up to $30 billion of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets. After additional negotiations between Bear Stearns and JP Morgan Chase, the transaction ended with the Federal Reserve agreeing to finance $29 billion of Bear Stearns’ less liquid assets. Before this point, the Federal Reserve had never "bailed out" a financial institution that was not a commercial bank.

Cost of the Bailout: $29 Billion

No Congressional approval was sought for this bailout.


Lehman Brothers:

Lehman Brothers is a global financial services firm who, like Bear Stearns, held a large share of mortgage backed securities. When the subprime mortgage market took a hit,the Lehman Brothers faced substantial losses just as Bear Stearns did. In the first half of 2008 alone, Lehman's stock lost 73% of its value.

On September 14, Lehman brothers announced that it would file for bankruptcy protection, subsequently sending the stock market down 500 points on September 15, the largest drop in a single day since the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001. Lehman Brothers sought government intervention to no avail. On September 16, Barclays PLC acquired a portion of Lehman brothers and no government bailout was instituted.

Cost of Bailout: None. No government bailout occurred.

AIG:

After Lehman Brothers, investors began looking at national insurance company American International Group’s (AIG) securities and found that they were similar to Lehman Brothers’. AIG’s credit rating was downgraded and it suffered a liquidity crisis because it could no longer access capital. As such, AIG's share prices fell 95% on September 16. At AIG's request, the Federal Reserve loaned money of up to $85 billion to AIG to prevent its collapse, in exchange for a 79.9% equity stake in the company because there was concern that many U.S. banks would fail if AIG did not keep operating.

Cost of the Bailout: $85 Billion

No Congressional approval was sought for this bailout.


THE PROPOSED WALL STREET BAILOUT BILL(The Paulson Plan)

The U.S. Treasury Secretary Henry Paulson is asking for authority from Congress to buy the troubled assets from financial firms that are said to be causing the current financial crisis. Secretary Paulson is asking for $700 billion to buy primarily mortgage-related debt, which will allow financial institutions to raise capital and begin lending and investing again, resulting in a theoretical “jump start” of the economy. The plan is for the government to hold the assets until the market can recover. It then would sell the assets back into the market through a “reverse auction,” where the government sets a minimum price for the asset and financial institutions bid on the asset for purchase.

The proposal is now being considered on Capitol Hill where some lawmakers and interest groups are pushing for additional provisions to allow bankruptcy judges to modify mortgage terms, adding terms to provide plan oversight and market regulation, and provisions to curb executive compensation in companies that participate in the bailout.

Leadership in Congress has suggested that the proposal is likely to be voted on this week.

Who is going to come up with the $700 billion?

American taxpayers will shoulder the cost of the bailout, which could actually be anywhere from $500 billion to $1 trillion, depending on how the assets are priced and how many are sold. The Treasury will attempt to resell them to investors, which some argue could result in profit and, ultimately, a lower price tag. There is no assurance of this profit, however, and many argue that the government is at risk of losing a great deal of taxpayer dollars through the purchase of this mortgage debt. In order to finance this plan, the Treasury will need to borrow money to buy the assets. It has asked for an increase in the debt ceiling, which means we must increase the federal deficit for the second time this year and increase interest payments on our federal debt. In addition, the $700 billion will be on top of the $900 billion tax dollars that have already been obligated for Bear Stearns, Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, and AIG.

How long will the government hold these assets?

Ideally, the government should hold assets for the shortest amount of time possible. However, in reality they could end up holding them until maturity. For example, the government could hold a 30-year mortgage for the entire 30 years, or they could sell it at its discretion. With respect to the reverse auction, the number one priority should be to maximize the price for the American taxpayer. While the government may hold these assets at their discretion, the current Paulson plan would allow the government to purchase these assets for only two years.

What is the rationale for acting now?

According to a Congressional Research Service report, a press release from the Treasury stated illiquid mortgage-related assets had clogged the financial system. The combination of the government’s refusal to intervene on behalf of Lehman Brothers the same week that a bridge loan was extended to AIG has led many to believe that a case-by-case approach needs to be replaced with broad intervention. In addition, the sudden spike in interest rate spreads and declines in financial activity following the AIG intervention caused some policymakers to believe that the fragile financial market could worsen if it were not addressed. On the other hand, many argue that while addressing disruptions in the market as soon as possible is preferable, the urgency to address the situation immediately is caused in part by issues unrelated to the financial markets such as congressional schedules and political elections.


Arguments for the Bailout

Proponents for the Wall Street bailout are concerned that the financial crisis is starting to impact historically safe assets like money market accounts, and that retirement savings and investments of middle class Americans may be at risk. While these “safe” assets have no direct reason to suffer financial distress, they may suffer due to lack of market confidence. When this sort of market panic has developed, proponents say the federal government has an important role in calming the markets. As such, Secretary Paulson has created a plan to restore confidence in the financial market, which the Administration argues would address financial market distress and would preserve an individual’s capacity to borrow money to buy a home or to finance a college loan or allow small businesses to obtain credit. Without this government intervention, he argues, we would experience dire economic conditions – tax dollars would provide insurance against economic disaster.


Arguments Against the Bailout


Opponents of the bailout plan argue that buying troubled debt provides the most help to firms who have made the worst investments. According to Douglas W. Elmandorf, Senior Fellow at the Brookings Institute, banks which made responsible decisions to stay clear of bad debt or cut their losses would receive little or no gain from the bailout. Banks with the weakest balance sheet will reap the best rewards. Opponents of the plan argue that this will undermine an important financial principle that companies which have failed should have a smaller role in the market and it sends companies the signal that the government will be there to bail them out when they make bad business decisions. Under this assumption, opponents question what incentive businesses would have to take steps to ensure their own survival, such as voluntarily renegotiating troubled loans. This type of action could put the U.S. on a dangerous and unsustainable path where fundamental market principles gradually disappear to an economy in which the federal government owns significant assets and controls liquidity.

In addition, the bailout is a big risk for taxpayers with little gain. Because the amount the Treasury will use to buy assets must be borrowed, it will raise the federal deficit. This liability, on top of other long-term liabilities for Social Security, Medicare, and Medicaid, means American taxpayers could be liable for more than $53 trillion, or $455,000 per household in federal debt.


Opponents also argue that much of the problem we now see has been the result of too much, rather than too little, government intervention. They say the current crisis is an example of what happens when politicians - Republicans and Democrats alike - enact policies in order to score political points or as knee-jerk reactions to perceived or real crisis without regard for the possible consequences and foresight as to future implications. Policies legislated in the past that have encouraged or even mandated lending to low-income and under-qualified borrowers may have made for a good sound bite, but they forced private businesses to enter into risky and unwise transactions that they otherwise may not have considered.


Sorry it was so long - but now you can't say you weren't informed!

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy

Wednesday, Sept 24th - Zero: Barak Obama

Been awhile since I used him, so it just felt right...

I have been watching with a bit of fascination, as you can imagine, the media and entertainment world completely go off the deep end over Sarah Palin and the resurgence of the Republican ticket. And rightly so. Palin is kicking their asses!!

The other issue is the Economy. Democrats have a REALLY bad track record with keeping a good economy. Clinton did a decent job of it, but come on, all he had to do was not screw with Reagan's policies too much. Of course, in his last couple of years he just couldn't help himself and made some REALLY, REALLY bad appointments to the Fed and Freddie Mac. Those names sound familiar? Yep, we are getting bit by those lapses of judgement right about now.

So, John McCain has decided to go back to DC and try to do something about the crises we are in. Naturally, that has driven the liberals STARK RAVING MAD. Letterman last night went off, which solidified my opinion that the guy is as stupid as he looks.

I just don't understand why the left-leaning Democrats hate the United States of America so bad.

When Benjamin Franklin was dispatched to France as ambassador of the United States in 1776, he won the hearts of the French through his authenticity. Rather than take on an affected and phony continental style, Franklin rebuffed the powdered wig of the European gentleman and donned the fur cap of an American frontiersman. The original political genius, Franklin understood that the French would see through any false pretension but respect an authenticity that sprang from an unpretentious, genuine, and somewhat naive love of country.

Contrast that to Obama who went to Europe for his rockstar tour. He went as a slick Harvard lawyer who hates what his country stands for. Like most 'entertainers', he's a mile wide and an inch deep. Obama is THE face of Liberals. You know, those people who have plundered the American system, gotten fithly rich off of it, but to 'fit in' and be considered intellectual sits back and berates the very culture and heritage that got them where they are. That's what us bitter americans in flyover country call 'biting the hand that feeds'.

Nothing exemplifies Obama’s hatred for American culture better than his statement that Americans “cling to” religion and guns out of frustration or bitterness. We can only suppose that Obama views religion and firearms as evils that need to be eradicated.

Of course, both guns and religion are essential aspects of our American culture. The United States was founded by people seeking religious freedom. Does the word “Pilgrim” ring a bell with anyone? Our freedom and the right to self-government were won by farmers with guns.

The American Revolution started when the British marched to Concord with the intention of confiscating the colonists' arms. Both the right to “keep and bear arms,” and the right to “free exercise” of religion are cornerstones of the Bill of Rights. We have come a long way when the presidential nominee of a major political party in America thinks of the exercise of these fundamental rights as a mental defect.

What is Barack Obama for? His campaign motto is “change.” But even a small child understands that “change” can be either good or bad. Without specification, the banner of “change” as policy is totally empty. As we watch Obama’s zombies mindlessly endorse the meaningless banner of “change,” it reminds me of the barnyard animals in George Orwell’s “Animal Farm” chanting “four legs good, two legs bad!”

Gives me the chills - how about you?

Obama is a vapid demagogue, a hollow man that despises American culture. He is ill-suited to be president of the United States. As the days pass, hopefully more Americans will come to this realization and elect McCain/Palin in a landslide.

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy

Thursday Sept 11th: Heros: Firefighters and Policemen

I know there are some bad seeds out there, but Wow, I mean really, there are some true heros out there.

Of course, all over the TV today there are tributes and replays of the news from that day. And I have been reminded all over again of the true bravery and heroism of those guys that went back INSIDE of those towers trying to rescue as many civilians as they could. I can't imagine myself doing that. I would like to think that I would, that God would put the courage in my heart if called upon. I do absolutely know without a doubt that I couldn't do it without him. I would fold into a spineless mess. Truly.

It's the same spirit of bravery that military people disply day in and day out. Makes me think of the phrase 'anointed by God'.

Peace, Love, and God,
Tracy

P.S. I hate to spoil the mood with a Zero, but you must know that Matt Damon is a true ZERO in every sense of the word. He gave an interview in which he called Sarah Palin's Vice Presidency an 'absurd Disney movie'. He kept calling her a 'hockey mom' rather than Governor. It was BALTANLY woman hating at its worst. He then made it worse by saying that her Christianity and a belief in Creationism made her so stupid that she couldn't be trusted with the Nuclear codes.

What a moron. Seriously. Complete jackass. If anyone I know ever watches, buys, or rents a Matt Damon movie ever again, you better go to great lengths to hide it from me. I will seriously question your decision making skills.

Zero #2: Gloria Steinem

Remember in one of yesterday's posts, I said that one of the stages of Conservative Female Abuse, was to make her out to be an Enemy of All Women.

Steinem jumped right to this stage today. See, she hates Palin because Palin is not in lock-step with the other FemiNazi's out there.

This part really makes me angry. When did the feminist movement get hijacked by these crazies? Normally, I would consider myself somewhat of a feminist. I do believe that women should be treated fairly in the workplace and everywhere else. I think women are as smart and can work just as hard as men. It makes me crazy when I think of how women are treated in some of the crazy corners of our world. However, I am realist enough to understand that we are different. There are some things that men do that women just shouldn't try. Same as there are lots of things us women are capable of that a man would be disastrous at. God made us DIFFERENT for a reason. If men and women were the same, He wouldn't have bothered making both of us!

Women like Gloria Steinem brings out a nearly homicidal rage in me, though, when they act like being a "woman" is some secret club where, in order to gain membership, you must solemnly swear to:

1)Support abortion on demand. No reason needed, and who cares if the baby is within days of delivery.
2)Support our teenage daughters right to abort their baby without any input from her parents.
3)Be against guns in any LEGAL form. After all, it's only the criminals that know how to use them safely...
4)Understand that Evolution is the only unproven theory acceptable to teach our children.
5)Understand that Global Warming is a fact (if by fact you mean no one can prove it's true) and that only the lowly middle class is responsible for it.
6)Uphold George Clooney and Barbra Striesand as the political GENIUSES they are.
7)Get all your Current Events from Cosmo magazine.
8)Get all your civic lessons from Michael Moore.
9)If you must have children, at least have the decency of having a different father for each, just promise, for the love of Allah, not to ADOPT. That might discourage teenage girls from abortion (see #1 and #2 above).
10)Last, but not least, you must NEVER think for yourself!!! If you feel you are faltering, run to the nearest TV and watch MSNBC until the feeling passes.

That's a good little feminist. Aren't you glad that you belong to a club where we do all the heavy thinking for you? We really saved you from the big, bad, controlling man - didn't we?


Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy

Thursday, Sept 4 - Zero: The Boston Herald

This, I am sure, will be the first of many today.

The Boston Herald ran an article today in the ELECTION section of there newspaper with this title "Stylists to passe Sarah Palin: Let your hair down".

Seriously. I could not make this crap up if I tried!!!!!

Here's some of the story:

Yes, Republican vice presidential nominee Sarah Palin has a lot on her plate: a pregnant teen daughter, a son on his way to Iraq, an infant with Down syndrome and a looming national election.

But must her hair suffer? With her long, straight, often pinned-up locks, Palin looks one humid day away from fronting a Kiss cover band.

“It’s about 20 years out of date,” said Boston stylist Mario Russo of the Alaska governor’s ’do. “Which goes to show how off she might be on current events.”

You know, I could seriously blow a gasket and GO OFF on this swishy LOSER, but instead, let me just say that I will feel a heck of a lot better knowing I have a VP in the White House who is more worried about running the country and taking care of her family than whether her HAIRDO is ACCEPTABLE to the National Enguirer reading, Queer Eye for the Straight Guy watching crowd!!!!!!!!!!!

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy

More on Sarah Palin

I keep thinking about this woman and the situation, so this may not be the last!

More on Palin:

Because she jumbles up so many cultural categories, because she is a feminist not in the Berkley Gender Studies sense but the Annie Oakley/Lara Croft way, because she is a woman who in style, history, moxie and femininity is exactly like a normal American feminist and not an Elitist Liberal feminist; because she wears makeup and heels and eats mooseburgers and is Alaska Tough (as Time magazine put it); because she is conservative, and pro-2nd Amendment and pro-life; and because conservatives can smell this sort of thing -- who is really one of them and who is not -- and will fight to the death for one of their beleaguered own; because of all of this she is a real and present danger to the American left, and to the Obama candidacy.

She could become a historical political presence.

So they are going to have to kill her, and kill her quick.

And it's going to be savage.

The liberal media is going to get into trouble with Sarah Palin. Mark my words. After all, most of the media live in places like Manhattan, Chevy Chase, Westchester, and Tarrytown. They hang out with other elitist media types and take occasionally trips into 'flyover country' to try and get the 'pulse' of America. But, they don't stay too long because their biggest, secret, fear is that they may become like us...

When they forget they are so isolated, they get in trouble, they misjudge things. For one thing, they assume evangelical Christians will be horrified and left with a bad taste in the mouth by the circumstances of Govenor Palin's daughter. But modern American evangelicals are among the last people who'd judge her harshly. It is the left that is about to go crazy with Puritan judgments; it is the right that is about to show what mellow looks like. Religious conservatives know something's wrong with us, that man's a mess. They are not left dazed by the latest applications of this fact. "This just in – there's a lot of sinning going on out there" is not a headline they'd understand to be news.

So the liberal media's going to wait for the Christian right to rise up and condemn Sarah Palin, and they're not going to do it because it's not their way, and in any case her problems are their problems. Christians lived through the second half of the 20th century, and the first years of the 21st. They weren't immune from the culture, they just eventually broke from it, or came to hold themselves in some ways apart from it. I think the media will explain the lack of condemnation as "Republican loyalty" and "talking points." But that's not what it will be.

Another Liberal media blind spot. There are a lot of liberal critics who do not buy the legitimacy of small town mayorship (Palin had two terms in Wasilla, Alaska, population 9,000 or so) and executive as opposed to legislative experience. But executives, even of small towns, run something. There are only 262 cities in this country with a population of 100,000 or more. But there are close to a hundred thousand small towns with ten thousand people or less.

We are a nation of Wasillas, not Chicagos.

Last points on the lefty media types:

The mainstream media, which has been holding endless discussions on the future of media in the 21st century, is in danger of missing a central fact of that future: If they appear, once again, as they have in the past, to be people not reporting the battle but engaged in the battle, if they allow themselves to be pegged by that old tag, which so tarnished them in the past, they will do more to jeapordize their own future than the Internet has.

This much I know is true: fact is king. Great reporting is what every honest person wants right now. But reporting that carries an agenda, that carries elitist assumptions and puts them out there as obvious truths? Sure, there is a crazy fringe of people that want that. But if I were doing a business model for newspapers and broadcast networks I'd say: Fact and data are our product, we're putting everything into reporting, that's what we're selling. Interpretation is the reader's job, and think pieces are for the editorial page where we put the blowhards and hacks.

All that to say this: Dig deep into Governor Sarah Palin, find out all you can, talk to everybody, get every vote, every quote, she may be the next vice president. But don't tell me what she's wearing, don't tell me you think she's good looking, don't tell me that she can't do her job cause she's a mother. And leave her kid alone, assholes.

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy

Wednesday Sept 3rd - Hero: Govenor Sarah Palin

There are many reasons that I like Sarah Palin, and several that make her a hero. But her, and her families', bravery to face the rabid Liberal Media is awesome.

Setting aside the fact that she has some family drama with her daughter's pregnancy, she will have to face the dreaded Conservative Female Abuse (as Michelle Malkin so aptly termed it). According to liberals, the only women allowed to be in politics are card-carrying espousers of the liberal agenda. If you aren't one of them, well, then it's okay to use the very 'stereotypes' they have railed against for the past 50years against you. You see, the words 'double standard' were removed from the feminists dictionary back in 1962.

As a Conservative Female, the first thing that will be savaged is your intellect. Then you will be reduced to a sexual object, after which you will be demonized and then stripped of your humanity. Here's some examples:

When George Bush was running for a second term, the San Fran Chronicle decided to focus on Laura Bush for a while. They joked about her being a 'docile doormat' that couldn't think for herself, made fun of her alma mater being a place to meet 'rich husbands'. You know, because any woman who believes in the 2nd Amendment and the American Dream (capitalism) must be being controlled by a man... Sarah Palin is already being called a "Neocon Puppet". You know, cause she's incapable of an original thought.

Here's an fact that has never been disproven to me. Conservative women are smarter than Liberal women (If any of you know of any that would like to debate me on Economics, Government, or Constitutional History, please give them my number). So what happens is that time that should be spent in intellectual debate, ends up being time that the Lefties spend on the CF's (conservative female)looks. Older, less attractive CF's are made fun of for being... older and less attractive. They will pick on her clothing, her weight, her make-up, whatever. Case in point - Barbra Bush, Katherine Harris, Linda Tripp, Nancy Reagan. If the woman is good looking, then she's made out to be a whore. MSNBC's Keith Olbermann (worst man in the media) made a reference to Fred Thompson's wife Jeri being on 'a stripper pole', for crying out loud!!! So, already with Sarah Palin, Maureen Dowd (of the NYT) has called Sarah Palin's rise in the Political world a 'hokey chick flick' and made fun of her being a beauty pagent winner and wearing sexy shoes (nothing enrages liberal women more than a good-looking, sexy CF who happens to be successful). A democratic fundraising website for Barak Obama, the Democratic Underground, has already Photoshop'd pictures of Palin's face on Bikini models and Pornographic still shots.

So, after the CF has been turned into a brainless, robotic, prostitute she will then be made out to be Evil and an Enemy to all women. After all, what self-respecting woman would dare to care about the economy of this country!!! What authentic woman wouldn't want drug addicts to qualify for food stamps?? Or, give even more welfare to the woman that just had baby #6 with babydaddy #6?? Or, best yet.. what self-respecting woman wants to be majority owner in her own business? That's ridiculous, we all know that small businesses should turn 56% of their income (per Obama's new tax plan) over to the government!! Because, unlike those docile doormats we all KNOW CF's are, us enlightened liberal women know that the only entity we should be completely submissive to is the GOVERNMENT... right? RIGHT!!!! I mean, really, do all those small business owners really think they can do a better job running their business than the government? Cause, look how successful they've been...

Bill Maher, the 2nd worse man in the media, called Laura Bush 'Hitler's dog', George Carlin called Barbra Bush 'the Silver douche bag', Ted Rall portrayed Condaleeza Rice as a thick lipped parrot and called her Bush's 'house nigga'. On Arianna Huffington's website, Nancy Reagan was called 'evil' and that she 'has lived far too long, and I hope she suffers for weeks'.

I guess my definition of 'enlightened' is different than theirs.

God save our country.

Peace, Love, and GOD,
Tracy