To pay for 10 years of wars, Congress, through the President’s Department of Defense and Veteran Affairs, is proposing 10 key cuts in benefits given to our military members.

• Increase healthcare premiums for military retirees on TRICARE
• Increase pharmaceutical fees for troops, families and retirees
• Eliminate presumptive service-connected conditions for disabled and ill veterans
• Lock out or increase fees for Department of Veterans Affairs Priority Groups 7 and 8 veterans
• Reduce cost-of-living allowances
• Freeze military pay
• End government subsidies to military commissaries
• Eliminate Department of Defense elementary schools stateside
• Eliminate the 20-year military retirement plan
• Eliminate DOD tuition reimbursement programs for service members

Everyone one of these draconian cuts hurts members of the military and their families. Bill Clinton first started this mess. He sought to cut health care coverage’s for millions of veterans in an effort to balance the budget. Now Obama has taken his cue from the former President and has proceeded to cut benefits promised to our military members. These are benefits promised to our veterans and as such are a breach of faith with our military and their families.

Like Bill Clinton before him, Barack Obama has an anti-military image he has failed to dispel. Most of our military that I know has nothing but disdain for the president. And there is little wonder considering the unprecedented cuts he is imposing on its members. They do not like or trust this president. Those who do not think these cuts will affect recruiting are fooling themselves. Our best and brightest will first search the civilian world for financial security for their families before going into the military.

Cuts to the members of our military is not the only way the President is undercutting our armed forces. President Obama has decided to impose draconian cuts to the Defense Department which displays his contempt for the military as a whole. As a result of these cuts, the United States faces a dangerous position. In a few short years, the US may not even be able to adequately protest itself. This is not the President we need to lead the world. We hired a leader and got a wimp. What we need is a real leader. And Obama is not it.

Two main problems we must fix are causing our state’s debt to soar, decreasing our prosperity.

Local officials need an injection of common sense. Spending is not the way to prosperity. It is time government tighten its belt just like families do every month. This is critical if we want our children and grandchildren to have a more stable and secure future.

The second issue that must be addressed is much of the local debt is taxpayer approved. Local officials sell initiatives as absolutely necessary, touting them “for the children.” In fact, these initiatives are misguided and wasteful. Texas taxpayers deserve better.

It may be a municipal swimming pool, a state-of-the-art stadium, or a Taj Mahal school facility in their community. The trick is in the salesmanship. Local governments often claim the cost to be just a few pennies here, a few dollars there.

Those pennies add up to dollars, and we’ve built ourselves a monster of a debt, one dollar at a time. Texas’ local debt totals are headed in the wrong direction. Texas ranked third among the most populous states in per-capital local government in 2008 before taking our current dubious second place standing. (emphasis added by TRS)

The highlighted part of the quote is particularly troubling to me since I, along with the other residents of Grimes County in Texas, were sold a bill of goods when local school officials told us that we needed a new school. When the bond was presented to the taxpayers, it failed for obvious reasons—we did not need it. So the corrupt school officials went back, hired a firm to condemn the old school building and proceeded to offer another more expensive building. This information was passed along to the taxpayers with the understanding that the price of the new school would go up again if the initiative did not pass this time. Many of the understandably addled taxpayers bought the scare tactic from the corrupt school officials and the bond passed by a mere 23 votes.

And so now the good people of Anderson have a Taj Mahal in the place where a simple school building should be. To pay for this monstrosity, taxes went up by 37%. All of this to fuel the egos of a bunch of corrupt local officials who wanted to leave a legacy. Instead, the local officials sold us a crushing debt that the locals can hardly afford. And the old condemned school building which was too dangerous to house our children is still standing and houses county offices.

All of this goes to show, it is not just the politicians in Washington who enjoy spending other people’s money. Local politicians like to spend money too. How can we deny raising bonds when the project in question is, “…for the children?” And only an old curmudgeon would be against the children.

Is it really, I mean really for the children? It is time to take our country back. We need local, state, and federal leaders who know that the money they are spending is not their own. If they treated it as their own, we would not be in the dire financial straights we are in. In the end, it is not us who will pay the price for our irresponsibility. That burden will fall to our children and their children. They are the ones who will pay the price for our inability to curb our financial diet. Doing it for the children means making sure we are doing it for the children and not ourselves. So, when we say, “cut out the out of control spending,” it is intended for our local officials as well.

This time the apology comes as word gets out about the accidental burning of a couple of Quarans. The Qurans in question were already written in by the Gitmo detainees in a violation of Islamic law. And, according to Islamic law, the Qurans as supposed to be destroyed by burning them. Again, the Quurans were burned by accident, but by accident the US followed Islamic Law. So why is Obama apologizing. All he is doing is giving the radical Islamists more ammunition in which to attack US interests.

With my children, I learned a long time ago to pick my battles, because you as a parent can not win every one of them. Obama seems like he is taking this same idea to the extreme. His first knee jerk reaction to any possible crisis (even before there is one) is to apologize for the US. Note to the President: Quit Apologizing and LEAD.

These liberals who put Whitney Houston on the same pedestal as our soldiers have no idea of what our military does, or else they would not make such idiotic statements. Ok…I am giving them the benefit of the doubt, hoping they would not intentionally make such an idiotic statement. But in the end, does it matter? The liberal mindset says there is no such thing as evil and there is no such thing as good since everyone is the same. The liberal mindset say that it is patriotic to denounce the US and unpatriotic to criticize those same individuals for doing so. The liberal mindset says there is no such thing as a military hero since we are all the same, but if there were, anyone who contributes to society is a real hero. The liberal mindset can not see the difference between those who protect our freedoms and those who use those same freedoms to abuse their own bodies. I guess the liberal mindset would also say that it is a tragedy that someone like Whitney Houston killed herself, but at least she did not kill anybody else like our soldiers are trained to kill and do so all the time. The liberal mindset can see no difference between those who kill for freedom and those who kill for money, or greed, or whatever. The liberal mindset has a screwed up view of the world since they see the US as the bad part of that world.

I found a post which sums up how so many liberals feel. Take a look at the last paragraph of the writer from the uber-liberal website, The Huffington Post:

The moving testimonies of those that knew her and worked with her define her as a very kind, giving person and a loving parent. How can anyone be so heartless as to disrespect Whitney by making these unfair, idiotic comparisons to how we view our military soldiers? If you really want to honor our fallen heroes, treat everyone with respect, especially one who gave so much of herself to the world through her art. (emphasis by TRS)

Ok….so Whitney Houston sang….okay, I get that. But that does not put her in the same boat as our fallen soldiers who gave their all so that those on the left could say such idiotic things. The writer made a passing reference to Lt. Michael Murphy who was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously for his bravery and linked it to Whitney as if they were the same thing. The writer is wrong. The two have nothing in common at all. The first died by her own hand by abusing her body. The former died trying to save his comrades and protecting our freedoms.

We could say this post was just an isolated incident, that the writer is a lone maverick in the liberal world. Unfortunately this is not the case. The liberal mindset can see no difference between those who contribute to society and die in a drugged stupor and those who gave their lives defending our freedoms. You have to understand, our soldiers kill people and that is wrong, they say. The liberal mindset does not like our military and they do not like the United States of America as they continually show to the world.

Whitney Houston was a great singer, but she essentially killed herself with drugs. He death is a shame and a loss to the music world, but to say that she was a hero just like our soldiers is misguided, foolish and wrong. Our soldiers are the true heroes and that is something we should strive to remember.

Those on the right believe it is in our best interest to define what constitutes a marriage. They would limit ‘marriages’ to a legal bond between a man and a woman. Anything else is up for debate as long as the ‘anything else’ is not defined as a marriage. Call it a ‘civil union’ if you wish but not a marriage.

The views expressed by Libertarians is somewhere in the middle. They claim the Constitution does not expressly allow the government to define or constrict the views on marriage. They want the government to ‘butt out!’ There is some merit to this view that the government need to butt out. Politicians try to control too many aspects of our lives now. So now what?

The Constitution is rather vague, but in my opinion this great timeless document does allow some wiggle room on the issue. Article 1 Section 8 of the Constitution says the following:

The Congress shall have Power To lay and collect Taxes, Duties, Imposts and Excises, to pay the Debts and provide for the common Defence and general Welfare of the United States; but all Duties, Imposts and Excises shall be uniform throughout the United States; (emphasis added by TRS)

General Welfare?! The dictionary defines the term as: health, happiness, or prosperity; well-being. Now that we have the definition, we have to understand what the definition means. For that, we need to look at history. To achieve that I am not going back to the pre-Constitution days, because a going back just under a century will do the purpose.

After the Bolshevik Revolution in Russia in October of 1917, the Communists came to believe that under Communism everyone needed to be equal. And since marriages are inherently un-equal, the party decided to redefine marriages. What it essentially did was to outlaw marriage. Since most of Union of Soviet Socialist Republic was Orthodox Christian, and most people believed that having children out of wedlock was against the teachings of the bible, people quit having children. The low birth rate so alarmed the Politburo that they quickly reversed the decision and the birthrate went back to normal.

The United States is by-in-large a Christian country. We too do not like to have children out of wedlock, or if we do, the situation is usually rectified quickly. What would happen if marriages in this country we done away with or redefined to the point where the definition was a joke? (This is what is happening by defining marriage as any relationship whatsoever.) The very definition of marriage becomes meaningless. As a result it is very conceivable that birthrates will suffer.

Stability is also a factor. Marriage offers something concrete, a cornerstone if you will. If the definition of a marriage is watered down to the point where liberals want it, what incentive is there for couples to remain together even after they have children.

And so because of these factors, it is incumbent upon the government to define a marriage as being between one man and one woman. Without the stability of marriage, our heritage is lost and without our heritage our country is lost.

So lets set the stage. A struggling black woman tells Mitt Romney of her troubles and in response he gives her $50. MSNBC, always the parrot of Barack Obama and the Democrats, says the Republican candidate was working the lines in South Carolina when he came across 55-year-old Ruth Williams, who also volunteers in his campaign office, and proceeded to tell her story. Romney then pulled out his wallet and gave her some money. This should have been the end of the story except for MSNBC news.

“As an African American woman it galls me. I don’t even like to watch it. I felt like it plays into every sort of patronizing stereotype of black people.” MSNBC contributor Joy-Ann Reid said, “‘Oh, here is this little lady let me give her 50 bucks’. . . I think it plays into that conservative meme, that you don’t need actual programs that the government puts in place to help people in need, we’ll just give them charity, I’ll just give him 50 bucks.”

“There are alot of very convenient elements to this story, as you said Joy, it really makes cringe. We have this black woman who suddenly almost becomes this mascot for the campaign.” said MSNBC contributer Janell Ross, “She is sort of affirming all sorts of Conservative ideas about whose poor and how certain people deal with their poverty and seek out the assistance of a wealthy white man to hand you some form of aid.”

Are you kidding me!!! This is an issue Romney can not win. If he gave her nothing, they would have criticized him for not caring. But because the former governor generously gave her money, MSNBC news rebukes Romney for what they see as disparaging her. As I said, he can not win. Then there is the information the network left out.

“I was on the highway praying and said, ‘God just show me how to get [my] lights on,’ and I pulled up to a stop sign and his bus was there,” said Williams, who has been unemployed since last October. “And then God said, ‘Follow the bus,’ and I followed the bus to the airport.”

…

Williams, who would not specify how much money Romney gave her, said also that South Carolina Treasurer Curtis Loftis paid her light bill on Thursday. A spokesman for Loftis, one of Romney’s major endorses in the state, confirmed to ABC News that he paid Williams’ bill. While Loftis didn’t know the amount of the bill, he confirmed that he gave her $150.

…

Williams said she has been volunteering at Romney’s Columbia headquarters since meeting his bus last week.
“I’ve been working at his campaign office cleaning and just doing little things,” she said.
“They really did, they really came through for real,” she said.

So MSNBC forgot to mention that Mrs. Williams was following her own heart and God when she decided to meet with Mitt Romney. The network forgot to mention that an aid to the Romney campaign also paid her light bill. And the parrots at MSNBC forgot to inform their viewers that because of the generosity of Mitt Romney and his campaign, she now volunteers in his South Carolina campaign headquarters.

Is there any wonder the American people have lost faith in the mainstream news networks? Is there any wonder MSNBC news has such a small audience? The people of America want the truth–pure and simple. They do not want bias, they do not want spin, sycophants or apologists. What they want is the news.

To begin with, what even minimally rational government enacts payroll tax relief for just two months? As a matter of practicality alone, it makes no sense. The National Payroll Reporting Consortium, representing those who process paychecks, said of the two-month extension passed by the Senate just days before the new year: “There is insufficient lead time to accommodate the proposal,” because “many payroll systems are not likely to be able to make such a substantial programming change before January or even February,” thereby creating “substantial problems, confusion and costs.”
The final compromise appears to tweak this a bit to make it less onerous for small business. But what were they thinking in the first place? What business operates two months at a time? The minimal time horizon for business is the quarter — three months. What genius came up with two? U.S. businesses would have to budget for two-thirds of a one-quarter tax-holiday extension. As if this government has not already heaped enough regulatory impediments and mindless uncertainties upon business.
But making economic sense is not the point. The tax-holiday extension — presumably to be negotiated next year into a 12-month extension — is the perfect campaign ploy: an election-year bribe that has the additional virtue of seizing the tax issue for the Democrats.

Could not have said it better.

Hat Tip: Outside the Beltway

Spending is totally out of control with no end in sight. Regulations are coming at a pace unseen since FDR. Holder and Obama are suing the states who are attempting to enforce federal laws on immigration. They are seeing selling weapons to drug dealers and gun runners. The Attorney General is even trying keep states from having fair and free elections. And it is the Democrats who are concerned about race.

Of that group of critics, Mr. Holder said he believed that a few — the “more extreme segment” — were motivated by animus against Mr. Obama and that he served as a stand-in for him. “This is a way to get at the president because of the way I can be identified with him,” he said, “both due to the nature of our relationship and, you know, the fact that we’re both African-American.”

Liberals have always loved playing the race card, it is a knee-jerk reaction to any attack. They know that throwing race into the mix will usually stop debate, because it changes the subject to one which is less palatable to your enemies. The idea of playing the race card is an old trick–accuse your enemies of something so heinous and they will back off.

Unfortunately, the card has been played too much by too many people. Look the politicians who have used race for their benefit: Jesse Jackson, Al Sharpton, Shelia Jackson Lee, Jeremiah Wright, Cynthia_McKinney, Crystal Mangumand (Duke Lacross accuser) many, many more. It is a tired old story, and that dog don’t hunt.

So where do we go from here? Eric Holder will continue to be a distraction for the Obama administration and so he should resign. By accusing his enemies of racism, the Attorney General has diminished both the contributions of legitament black leaders before him, but also those who have actually suffered from real racism. Either way, Attorney General Eric Holder needs to resign. It is wrong for a sitting Attorney General to falsely accuse Republicans of being racists, just because they are questioning him. By playing the race card, Holder is disgracing his office.

Hat Tip: Hot Air

Gingrich has suggested that judges who issue what he termed “radical” rulings out of step with mainstream American values should be subpoenaed before Congress to explain themselves before facing possible impeachment. As president, he said, he’d consider dispatching U.S. marshals to round up judges who refuse to show voluntarily. In extreme cases, whole courts could be eliminated.

Ok, they have a point, but how can the left complain when their own side has engaged in one massive power grab? They have been more than willing to give Barack Obama any power he desires. So far, the President has dozens of un-approved advisors he calls Czars. Isn’t this an abrogation of the Constitution? And that is not even discussing Obama Care which gives the Exectutive branch of government huge powers. He has signed 106 Executive Orders on everything from spending to regulations and others infringing on the Legislature. But that is not enough. Now Shelia Jackson Lee is suggesting that Barack Obama take upon himself the power once thought to be the purview of Congress. http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/200585-jackson-lee-urges-obama-to-use-executive-power-to-extend-payroll-tax-cut-

Rep. Sheila Jackson Lee (D-Texas) said Tuesday that President Obama “absolutely” should use his executive power to continue the unemployment benefits and payroll tax cut extension and said she hoped to discuss the option with the White House later in the day.

The amazing thing is that Ms. Lee is a sitting Congresswoman, someone who should know better, someone who should know what power Congress has and which of the powers resides in the Congress alone. She should know full well that only Congress can extend unemployment insurance, that only Congress can extend the payroll tax cut. If she wishes to give up this power, she should resign and let someone else assume the responsibility of representing Houston.

One thing we do not need to do is to give Obama even more power to turn the United States into another failed European democracy. Arbitrarily giving the President power reserved for Congress is stupid since doing so would make the President a virtual dictator.

You’ve got to love the Dems. Every time they attack someone for failure to understand the enter-workings in Washington, they make the same mistake.

So it comes as now surprise to me that Time magazine has since proved my reason for dropping the magazine was justified. Time has selected its Person of the Year and instead of voting for so many of worthy people who has been in the news all year, the magazine has selected—the protester?! By selecting this totally unworthy person, Time is cowardly. They could have selected Congressman Paul Ryan, or the killers of Osama bin Laden—Seal Team 6, or the new royal bride Kate Middleton. The editors are showing their hand by selecting the ‘protester.’ It is obvious who they really wanted to select was the ‘occupy wall street’ protestor, but did not want to face the criticism such a selection would envoke. So they were cowardly and choose the ‘protester.’

By selecting the protester for its person of the year, Time magazine will continue its slide into obscurity. What a joke. It is really hard to believe Henry Luce could have once started such a magazine, the same man who once coined the term—the ‘American Century,’ the ultra conservative, and the die-hard Republican. Time magazine has fallen a long ways since Henry Luce’s time. This year’s Person of the Year may be the final nail in Time’s coffin.