NO MONEY FOR PROGRAMS THEN NO PAY CHECKS FOR LEGISLATORS OR THE PRESIDENT!!

Today, the White House announced that due to sequestration all tours of the White House will be cancelled. Perhaps in the spirit of cost containment and fiscal responsibility we as citizens should restrict the President to staying at the White House instead of spending millions of dollars every time he wants to go to Five Guys in Arlington or take his girls for ice cream in Alexandria, or everytime he has the Air Force warm up one of seven 747s or 777 any time he feels like taking a global vacation?

Should we not withhold all pay checks for both the Senate and House until they sit down and get their acts together to start to put  differences aside and fix our Nation's economic crisis in the next week with legitimate resolution and creativeness to overhaul taxes, fix our nation's infrastructure and once and for all put the tens of millions of Americans who want to work back to work with real jobs?

Not for nothing but would we not be better off with a flat tax for all citizens of 7.5% and a 15% for corporations and imposing a national VAT of 1.5%.  Would we not be better off having everyone pay something than to have more than half paying nothing while the other half pays for everyone?

I am pretty sure that if you locked these clowns in the building and would not let them out until there was resolution to our budget and economic wows things would get done!  So let's flood the switchboards of the House, Senate and White House and demand this situation be resolved by the end of next week or not one of them gets paid!

SEQUESTRATION...ONE MORE SIGN OF FAILURE!!!

Perhaps we as citizens have failed to make it clear to our elected that they work for US! That they have been entrusted with the responsibilities of conveying our thoughts, concerns and resquests to formulate rules, regulations and laws to better our society.

Yesterday's sequestration is one more sign that the system is broken AND IN NEED OF DESPERATE OVERHAUL!!!!  Perhaps instead of the President cutting over $85 billion in spending that is essential for the economy's recovery we draw a hard line once and for all to send a message to all these clowns in Washington...NO APPROVED BUDGET THEN NO ONE ELECTED GETS PAID THIS INCLUDES THE PRESIDENT.

I ask once and for all what is it going to take to get these people to stop acting like idiots and start acting as concerned Americans trying to fix our economy?  I am a firm believer that the only way to get these people to take the hint is to hurt them where they live ....in the WALLLET.

Let's see what would happen if you even dared to try and pass legislation that would deny elected officials their salary until a balanced budget was formulated, approved and signed into law!  Bottom line is the only people who will suffer as a result of the this sequestration is the American Public and not the elected who will collect their $200K salaries through their bi-weekly  pay checks as will their staff and the President his $400K as well.  Let's send a message...NO Budget NO Pay! Then let's see how quickly these people will get their act together!

ACCESS TO MENTAL HEALTH TREATMENT NOT GUN CONTROL

My definition of gun control I believe is completely different than that of our President or most legislatures... I am pretty sure that what I learned from the academy and from my friends was that gun control meant using two hands, taking a deep breathe and letting it out slowly as you gently squeezed the trigger, only after taking an extra two seconds to ensure your aim!!!!

The truth about gun control is that it only keeps guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens! If you are a criminal you have no regard for the law and therefore will always find a way around the law to gain access to firearms!

The problem with knee jerk reactions to such horrible incidents such as Newtown is that they are REACTIVE and NOT ANALYTICAL.. I.E. they fail to understand and address the real problem.
In this country the issue is not gun control but providing access to mental health clinicians to those who are in need of mental health! Yes, I said it. Guns do not kill people..Nut Cases Kill People!

If our nation would take a different view as to eliminating its stigma over mental health then more people would be inclined to more confidently seek access to getting the mental healthcare they need. Lets all face it we all will share the name of a good dentist, internist, general practioner, dermatologist, or gynocologist with friends family or someone new to town. But let's face it would you tell your friends, family you are seeing a psychiatrist or psychologist? Would you make a recommendation to a friend here is the name of a great psychologist I see? The answer shamefully is NO, because of the stigma associated with the need to be seen or treated BY a mental health care clinician.

I for one truly believe that the answer to our issues of violence in our streets and the use of violence using firearms does not get resolved by the passing of half ass legislation that fails to address the root cause of the violence... usually mental health!

I believe that when you examine the facts regarding Newtown, you will learn that the shooter had a long running history of mental illness, that his own mother recognized his illness and rather than get her son the help he so desperately needed instead took her son the range to teach him how to use a firearm! I ask you all where is the sanity of that? Would any of you give a monkey a loaded gun in a room full of people and be surprised that someone ends up getting hurt or killed? NO!!!!!

Call me over educated but like I said my definition of gun control means taking careful aim, breathe control and using two hands when using a firearm. Solving the problem to preventing future incidents like Newtown, Columbine and any where else violence has and will occur is getting people who need help the access they deserve prior to their hurting others and doing so with out putting a stigma on them! I know none of you brave and loyal veterans would ever judge a fellow veteran for being treated for Post Traumatic Stress Disease. I respectfully ask why should we as a society make people feel the need to avoid help to the point where they break simply because these people are afraid of how we would view them knowing they were getting help before they break?

I leave you with this thought twenty years ago you would have never have seen a commercial for anti-depressants on television, so why is it we laugh at the commercials or silently judge people who may need these drugs? Is it not better these potential ticking time bombs are defused and are treated before someone gets hurt? Let's focus our efforts not on gun control legislation let's focus on directing our legislatures to understand and address the real problem and pass laws to provide easier access for people to get the help they need!

I AM AN AMERICAN...... WHAT ARE YOU?

It has finally come to a point where we as a country need to help our President help rebuild our nation and fix this economy once and for all.
In one of my earlier blogs .. Eulogy for America , I wrote that Abraham Lincoln stated that a house divided could not stand by itself. One Hundred and Fifty Four Years Later this truth is self evident!

We as a nation have proudly boasted of our nation being one of free elections, freedom of speech and living in a republic with freely elected representation of the people, by the people and for the people.

How terrible it seems that the truth is that while we try and convince the world that our society is the best we as a nation are destroying ourselves because of BIPARTISANSHIP.
Yes I am going to lecture again on the evils of Bipartisanship again because it is has been taken to an all time extreme of system failure.

Gone are the days where Ronald Reagan a Republican could sit side by side with Tip O'Neil the great liberal Bostonian and work not as adversaries but as Americans to rebuild our nation! How was it that one of the greatest of Republican Presidents could succeed with a House and Senate both controlled by Democrats.... Because Reagan and O'Neil instilled in our elected officials THAT they all were Americans first elected of the people, by the people and working for the people...Wow a concept now almost gone forever it seems!!!!

Gone are the free thinking individuals we elected to represent us not as Democrats or Republicans but as elected Americans representing the foundations of government of the people, by the people and for the people.

I for one am tired of being asked what party I belong to because the truth is I am ashamed of both parties and how they have failed to do anything but turn our nation upside down and have failed to realize our need for decisive leadership and a course of action agreed upon by the many!

When I am asked I reply, I am a lost breed... I am neither a Democrat nor a Republican... I am an American....! Are there any others out there? 

Until we all demand that our elected officials come together as a Nation of Americans we will never fix our nation's problems and the concept of government of the people, by the people and for the people will be viewed by the world as a social experiment that failed replaced by Two Parties creating A House Divided!

I AM AN AMERICAN .........WHAT ARE YOU?...... ARE THERE ANY OTHERS OUT THERE OR AM I ALONE?

REBUILDING OUR MILITARY

Today's military is more reliant upon technology than numbers...

I worry that such reliance on technology in the event of such a potentially devastaing threat as an Electro Magnetic Pulse (EMP) would put us back to the stone age destroying our economy and our safety with greater simplicity than any man made virus or weapon of mass destruction ever could.

It is essential that our military and the wonderful young men and women serving our country still be trained on the fundementals of land and sea navigation using  low tech approaches such as maps and compasses, that they be able to call in artillary and air strikes low tech methodologies using maps and grids and not being reliant upon technology that could be destroyed leaving our soldiers with no back plans or abilities to operate.

Reliance on technology is extremely dangerous especially when people forget how to do things the way we did ten, twenty, fifty or even one hundred years ago. While technology is wonderful not being taught how to do things should technology fail us is way too dangerous. 

It is critical that we continue to teach our troops both the old school methods as well  as with using high tech approaches by doing so then and only after  both methodologies have been mastered can we consider our forces truly well trained.

In addition we a nation can not continue to afford Two Billion dollar a piece bombers and Mutibillion dollar a piece ships when the majority of the world posess affordable missiles and torpedoes that when used on less expensive platforms in numbers are capable of destroying our ships and planes.

I can not help but think that history has a way of repeating itself and that our military finds itself taking the same dangerous mentality as our former enemy Germany did during WWII having few numbers of quantity by focusing solely on quality and not taking hedence on Stalin's philosophy that quantity has a quality all its own. 

I ask how badly would our abilities to carry out our policies be effected if we were to lose a single carrier, B2B or Ohio class submarine? I remind you that during the Reagan administration we had a six hundred ship navy comprised of ships of all different classifications to include patrol craft, corvettes, fast frigatets, fast attack and Ohio class submarines, destroyers, cruisers, four Iowa class battleships armed to the teeth and fully modernized, and both nuclear and conventionally powered  carriers.

Respectfully our navy has traded in 70 guided missile fast frigates, tens of patrol craft and frigates as well as our battleships for 10 carriers, 58 subs, less than a hundred cruisers and destroyers leaving us a fleet of less that 250 vessels with the average cost per ship exceeding $2.0 Billion.  Even our attempt to build "cost effective" littoral vessels fiascally ended with again a multi billion dollar a piece vessel instead of a cost effective vessel.

I ask what is the purpose of continuing to build next generation "Nimitiz" class carriers capable of carrying 90 aircraft when only 45 planes will be deployed?  Would we not be better off having smaller nuclear carriers like France's DeGaulle class  which is nuclear and capable of carrying sixy aircraft at a cost of literally one fifteenth cost of a new Ford class carrier?  Would we not be better off in the event of having to deploy to more than one hot spot while protecting or nation's shore at the same time having thirty carriers for the price of two? What would happen if we were to lose one of our carriers I ask let alone one of our thirty B2s? With the advent of stealth technology would we not be better off having thirty or forty small nuclear carriers carrying hundreds of some variant of the F22 or F35 with a battle group of dozens of small specialized ships able to perform specific duties rather than ten carriers protected by five to ten ships each so expensive that if lost would represent an inability to project fire power and policy? I remind you all that we won WWII not by having the best equipment money could buy but by having superior quantities of equipment.  In the end if we were to face a long protracted global war our reliance of technology and our loss of manufacturing would put us back to a situation we faced on 8 December 1941!

THE UGLY TRUTH ABOUT OUR ECONOMY AND POLITICS

Many people have been posting stories stating that unemployment is down and that there seems to be improvement in the economy.  Further some geniuses the U.S. has reported a rise in wages trying to convince you that things are getting better so is it? How can this be?
 

Here is the ugly truth....

 
Unemployment is a fictional number is is calculated by counting the number of people who are drawing unemployment benefits from the state they reside. Once your unemployment benefits run out guess what? YOU ARE NO LONGER COUNTED AS BEING UNEMPLOYED!!!!!! HOW STUPID IS THIS??? Facts will show that unemployment if calculated by adding those collecting benefits plus those out of work and no longer eligible for benefits would put the numbers up horrifically something that politicians don't want you to know! The real number is staggering and truly scary!

 
Facts on Salaries/Wages being up: Well the simple reason wages or salaries seems to have risen is simple there are less people working lower paying jobs that have been shipped off shore so when the number of people working has decreased divided by the salaries range the statistical fact is that the average salary number will increase rules of simple math.

 The Root of the Problem:

 The facts are that we will not be able to fix our economy until we bring back jobs in this country and this means real lower and middle class jobs which bring back MANUFACTURING.

 Until you bring back the Made in the USA label we will be stuck as an economy with fewer jobs and greater numbers of people competing for them. Take a long look around you what do you see is missing compared to ten, twenty, forty, or sixty years ago?  Have you noticed?

Gone are the Knitting and Steel Mills that clothed us and produced the steel to build our nation. Gone are the Ship Yards, Tire Factories, Shoe Mills, Metal Shop, and Furniture Mills. Gone are the factories that produced our light bulbs and electronics! Gone are the manufacturing plants that built components for the automobile industry, medical and electronic devices manufacturers, gone are the sewing mills and rail road depots. These were once the major employers of the lower and middle class that was and still should be what makes America!

Every cargo container unloaded in our ports hurts our economy especially when these ships sail off empty with nothing to export!  But how can we export when there are no factories to manufacture goods to trade?

Worse is that our politicians can create jobs tomorrow if they did nothing more than to see how badly our infrastructure is in need of desperate need of repair and fund these critically needed repairs.

 As a Nation we need to rebuild our dilapidated infrastructure rebuilding our outdated levees, damns and deteriorating highways and roads. We need to rebuild our telecommunications and power grid networks, as well as replace our aging bridges and tunnel. The jobs especially when done using U.S. made materials will provide jobs for the next twenty to fifty years and will in turn rebuild our economy.
 
Lastly, we need to start filling every cargo ship that leaves our ports with better made, affordable exports while at the same decreasing our consumption of imports. If we use this common sense approach to understanding economics and the economy the faster we can once again be the greatest nation in the world again!

What To Do:

 The time has come to stop complaining about nothing getting done and start calling your senators and congressman and demand that the put and end to bipartisanship and start acting as Americans united to address a national crisis! What are you waiting for...Go yell at someone to do their job and put Americans back to work!

 

THE TRUTH ABOUT NEWTOWN AND GUN CONTROL

Ladies and gentlemen lets face facts.

The recent horrific events of Newtown have legislators looking to take away guns from law abiding citizens to "prevent another Newtown".

I respectfully remind all Americans that gun control only keeps guns out of the hands of law abiding citizens and that the truth is that criminal in the past, present and future will always find a way to gain access to firearms!!!

Gun control is not the answer nor is it the ISSUE!! The real issue most people fail to even come to their senses to recognize nor address so what is the issue/problem?

The ISSUE is providing people who need access to mental health professionals the proper medical attention they desperately need!  The need to overcome the stigma of mental illness and mental defect!

The truest tragedy of what happened in Newtown is that the mother of the shooter failed to provide her son the medical attention he so desperately needed and deserved. The tragedy is that she chose to deny the problem and that had her son been treated or perhaps even committed to psychiatric facility this horrific situation would never have occurred.

This overwhelming fact of the matter as it is related to this horrific tragedy being wrongfully blamed on gun ownership and not focused as again I reiterate on the stigma of mental disease or mental defect and providing access to proper treatment to those who are in need of treatment!!!!!!

In this country we constantly praise our physicians for treating our diseases and ailments and openly discuss our medical problems with our loved ones, family, and friends. We often recommend doctors to one another openly but all this changes when it is related to mental illness..!  We as a society need to stop burying our heads in the sand and when we see our loved ones need help rise above social perceptions, and stigmas  and get our loved ones the help the need and deserve.

 

We need to lobby our legislators to ensure that medical insurance covers mental illness and that long term care is covered!

Again I wish to remind everyone that the tragedy of Newtown could have been prevented had the gunman's mother sought the mental help her son so desperately needed. No amount of gun law legislation can ever protect our children, teachers or society for that matter if people who are of danger to themselves and the public are not provided the proper medical attention they so desperately need especially when their care givers, family and friends are in denial that their loved ones need help! This is the true tragedy!

 

Again  I remind you all ...THE ISSUE IS NOT GUN CONTROL BUT TREATMENT OF MENTAL ILLNESS...  WE AS AN EDUCATED SOCIETY NEED TO UNDERSTNAD THIS ONCE AND FOR ALL AND FOCUS ON GETTING THOSE WHO NEED MENTAL TREATMENT THE ATTENTION THEY NEED BEFORE THEY HURT THEMSELVES OR WORSE CAUSE ANOTHER NEWTOWN!

UNTIL WE UNDERSTAND THE PROBLEM AND ADDRESS THE ISSUE MORONS, AND LEGISLATORS WILL ALWAYS POINT SOCIETY IN THE WRONG DIRECTION AND CALL FOR STRICTER GUN CONTROL! 


I ASKED YOU ALL PLEASE...GET YOUR FRIENDS AND LOVED ONES THE HELP THEY NEED BEFORE IT IS TOO LATE.