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“After hacking into the Islamic jihadist magazine Inspire, British intelligence agents changed the directions for making a homemade bomb to a recipe for making cupcakes.”
545 vs. 300,000,000 People
-By Charlie Reese
Politicians are the only people in the world who create
problems and then campaign against them.
Have you ever wondered, if both the Democrats and the
Republicans are against
deficits, WHY do we have deficits?
Have you ever wondered, if all the politicians are against
inflation and high taxes, WHY do we have inflation and high
taxes?
You and I don’t propose a federal budget. The President
does.
You and I don’t have the Constitutional authority to
vote on appropriations. The House of Representatives does.
You and I don’t write the tax code, Congress does.
You and I don’t set fiscal policy, Congress does.
You and I don’t control monetary policy, the Federal
Reserve Bank does.
One hundred senators, 435 congressmen, one President, and
nine Supreme Court justices equates to 545 human beings out
of the 300 million are directly, legally, morally, and
individually responsible for the domestic problems that
plague this country.
I excluded the members of the Federal Reserve Board because
that problem was created by the Congress. In 1913, Congress
delegated its Constitutional duty
to provide a sound currency to a federally chartered, but
private, central bank.
I excluded all the special interests and lobbyists for a
sound reason. They have no legal authority. They have no
ability to coerce a senator, a congressman, or a President
to do one cotton-picking thing. I don’t car
e if they
offer a politician $1 million dollars in cash. The
politician has the power to accept or reject it. No matter
what the lobbyist promises, it is the legislator’s
responsibility to determine how he votes.
Those 545 human beings spend much of their energy
convincing you that what they did is not their fault. They
cooperate in this common con regardless of party.
What separates a politician from a normal human being is an
excessive amount of gall. No normal human being would have
the gall of a Speaker, who stood up and criticized the
President for creating deficits. The President can only
propose a budget. He cannot force the Congress
to accept it.
The Constitution, which is the supreme law of the land,
gives sole responsibility to the House of Representatives
for originating and approving appropriations and taxes. Who
is the speaker of the House? John Boehner. He is the leader
of the majority party. He and fellow House members, not the
President, can approve any budget they want. If the
President vetoes it, they can pass it over his veto if they
agree to.
It seems inconceivable to me that a nation of 300 million
cannot replace 545 people who stand convicted — by present
facts — of incompetence and irresponsibility. I can’t
think of a single domestic problem that is not traceable
directly to those 545 people. When you fully grasp the plain
truth that 545 people exercise the power of the federal
government, then it must follow that what exists is what
they want to exist.
If the tax code is unfair, it’s because they want it
unfair.
If the budget is in the
red, it’s because they want it in the red.
If the Army & Marines are in Iraq and Afghanistan
it’s because they want them in Iraq and Afghanistan …
If they do not receive social security but are on an elite
retirement plan not available to the people, it’s
because they want it that way.
There are no insoluble government problems.
Do not let these 545 people shift the blame to bureaucrats,
whom they hire and whose jobs they can abolish; to
lobbyists, whose gifts and advice they can reject; to
regulators, to whom they give the power to regulate and from
whom they can take this power. Above all, do not let them
con you into the belief that there exists disembodied
mystical forces like “the economy,”
“inflation,” or “politics” that prevent
them from doing what they take an oath to do.
Those 545 people, and they alone, are responsible.
They, and they alone, have the power.
They, and they alone, should be
held accountable by the people who are their bosses.
Provided the voters have the gumption to manage their own
employees…
We should vote all of them out of office and clean up their
mess!
Charlie Reese is a former columnist of the Orlando Sentinel
Newspaper.
What you do with this article now that you have read it…
is up to you.
This might be funny if it weren’t so true.
Be sure to read all the way to the end:
Tax his land,
Tax his bed,
Tax the table,
At which he’s fed.
Tax his tractor,
Tax his mule,
Teach him taxes
Are the rule.
Tax his work,
Tax his pay,
He works for
peanuts anyway!
Tax his cow,
Tax his goat,
Tax his pants,
Tax his coat.
Tax his ties,
Tax his shirt,
Tax his dirt.
Tax his tobacco,
Tax his drink,
Tax him if he
Tries to think.
Tax his cigars,
Tax his beers,
If he cries
Tax his
tears.
Tax his car,
Tax his gas,
Find other ways
To tax his ass.
Tax all he has
Then let him know
That you won’t be done
Till he has no dough.
When he screams and hollers;
Then tax him some more,
Tax him till
He’s good and sore.
Then tax his coffin,
Tax his grave,
Tax the sod in
W
hich he’s laid…
Put these words
Upon his tomb,
‘Taxes drove me
to my doom…’
When he’s gone,
Do not relax,
Its time to apply
The inheritance tax.
Accounts Receivable Tax
Building Permit Tax
CDL license Tax
Cigarette Tax
Corporate Income Tax
Dog License Tax
Excise Taxes
Federal Income Tax
Federal Unemployment Tax (FUTA)
Fishing License Tax
Food License Tax
Fuel Permit Tax
Gasoline Tax (currently 44.75 cents per gallon)
Gross Receipts Tax
Hunting License Tax
Inheritance Tax
Inventory Tax
IRS Interest Charges IRS Penalties
(tax on top of tax)
Liquor Tax
Luxury Taxes
Marriage License Tax
Medicare Tax
Personal Property Tax
Property Tax
Real Estate Tax
Service Charge Tax
Social Security Tax
Road Usage Tax
Recreational Vehicle Tax
Sales Tax
School Tax
State Income Tax
State Unemployment Tax (SUTA)
Telephone Federal Excise Tax
Telephone Federal Universal Service Fee Tax
Telephone Federal, State and Local Surcharge Taxes
Telephone Minimum Usage Surcharge Tax
Telephone Recurring and Nonrecurring Charges Tax
Telephone State and Local Tax
Telephone Usage Charge Tax
Utility Taxes
Vehicle License Registration Tax
Vehicle Sales Tax
Watercraft Registration Tax
Well Permit Tax
Workers Compensation Tax
STILL THINK THIS IS FUNNY?
Not one
of these taxes existed 100 years ago, & our nation was
the most prosperous in the world.
We had
absolutely no national debt, had the largest middle class
in the world, and Mom stayed home to raise the kids.
What in the heck
happened? Can you spell ‘politicians’
Used without permission
jodon
Thats right… I said rain. Early this morning. I just sat on the patio and enjoyed the sound…and a cup of Community.
Clarence Clemons, who died tonight, performs at Giants Stadium in this 2003 file photo. He was the spirit of the E Street Band, and the oaken staff that Bruce Springsteen leaned on.
Clarence Clemons — the Big Man with the big horn — died yesterday of complications from a stroke he suffered last weekend. He was 69.
“Clarence lived a wonderful life,” Bruce Springsteen said in a statement last night. “He carried within him a love of people that made them love him. He created a wondrous and extended family. He loved the saxophone, loved our fans and gave everything he had every night he stepped on stage.”
News of Clemons’ death was first reported last night on nj.com, The Star-Ledger’s real-time news website.
“He was the kahuna of surf and soul and a man that had love in his heart and, always, a smile on his face. He was my brother — my musical brother,” said original E Street Band drummer Vini “Mad Dog” Lopez.
Lopez last saw Clemons when he guested at an E Street Band show in Philadelphia, in 2009. “I was in the dressing room with him, and we were laughing and talking about golfing,” said Lopez.
There have been many charismatic figures in the E Street Band, but none had the personal gravity of Clemons, the group’s Bunyanesque saxophonist.
Springsteen himself acknowledged this, always introducing Clemons last at concerts. It’s Clemons’ big shoulder that Springsteen was looking over lovingly on the famous cover of his “Born to Run” album. As his bandleader beamed at him, Clemons, black-hatted and bold, turned toward the camera and blew his sax.
Clemons seemed to be a character out of a storybook — or better yet, a widescreen movie about the triumph of a romantic gang of rock ’n’ roll renegades. Wildly popular among fans of the E Street Band, he was the sort of larger-than-life figure to whom legends accrued. Recognizing this, Clemons and Springsteen did much to play up those legends: “Big Man: Real Life and Tall Tales,” Clemons’ 2009 autobiography written with Don Reo, combined genuine reflections with fiction in an attempt to capture the mythical quality of the musician.
Springsteen’s oft-told story of his initial meeting with Clemons felt biblical: With a lightning storm raging outside, the Big Man tore the door off an Asbury Park club, strode onstage, and made magic. (Springsteen would later immortalize this meeting in “Tenth Avenue Freeze-Out,” a song on “Born to Run.”)
Was this embellished? Most likely. But reality never seemed quite big enough to accommodate Clemons.
“Mere facts,” wrote Springsteen in the preface to Clemons’ book, “will never plumb the mysteries of the Big Man.”
MINISTER’S SON
Born in Norfolk, Va., Clemons was the son of a Baptist minister who had no love for raucous rock ’n’ roll. But at the age of 9, his family gave young Clarence an alto saxophone — and soon he discovered his lung power was formidable.
By young adulthood, he excelled at music and athletics and earned a football scholarship to the University of Maryland Eastern Shore. Injuries suffered in a car accident prevented the young lineman from trying out for the Cleveland Browns. From then on, Clemons dedicated himself to his horn.
Clemons called his instrument “a vehicle to move my spirit around.”
“I don’t think it’s only my saxophone,” Clemons told All Access Magazine in 2008, “it’s who I am. My spiritual guide … told me that my purpose in life was to bring joy into the world. He didn’t know about my music, he didn’t know who I was. He saw my heart, he saw my soul, and he saw my determination for this life.”
On the tenor saxophone, Clemons developed a style that was considerably more than the sum of his influences: party-ready King Curtis, brassy Junior Walker, skronking Earl Bostic. Clemons could be tough, raspy and percussive, but as a carrier of melody, his shoulders were broad.
After playing with a number of Asbury Park outfits in the early ’70s, Clemons joined the as-yet-unnamed E Street Band in 1972. Along with bassist Garry Tallent, Lopez, organist Danny Federici, pianist Dave Sancious and Springsteen himself, Clemons was an original member of the group.
He was also the oldest, and it’s no exaggeration to suggest he was often treated as the in-house big brother. His saxophone became a pillar of the E Street sound, and helped anchor Springsteen’s storytelling in blues, jazz and gospel traditions.
“That night we first stood together,” said Springsteen of Clemons during his Rock and Roll Hall of Fame induction speech in 1999, “I looked over at C and it looked like his head reached into the clouds. And I felt like a mere mortal scurrying upon the earth, you know. But he always lifted me up. Way, way, way up. Together we told a story of the possibilities of friendship, a story older than the ones that I was writing and a story I could never have told without him at my side.”
BEAUTY AND DRAMA
Clemons’ solos on songs like “Jungleland” and “Born to Run” were quintessential rock ’n’ roll sax rides — things of beauty and drama unmatched by efforts of thousands of imitators. But Clemons also took his support role seriously. On “Spirit in the Night,” his graceful passages were part of a thick tapestry of sound. On “Hungry Heart,” the E Street Band’s first Top 10 hit, his baritone sax tugged at the bottom of the track like taffy on the sole of a sneaker.
That wasn’t the only time Clemons swapped his trademark tenor for a baritone. In the early ’70s, he kept another tool in his shed: a lilting soprano saxophone; on more recent tours, he covered the top end with a pennywhistle. Reeds weren’t all he did — with the E Street Band, Clemons also proved himself an able percussionist and an enthusiastic backing vocalist, too.
With his instantly identifiable tone and pa
ssion for all varieties of popular music, Clemons was often in demand as a session musician. When E Street activities slowed in the ’80s and ’90s, Clemons had no difficulty finding work. He played on scores of records, including Aretha Franklin’s “Who’s Zooming Who,” Twisted Sister’s “Come Out and Play” and Roy Orbison’s comeback “King of Hearts.” In 1989, he joined the inaugural version of Ringo Starr’s All-Starr Band, where his charismatic stage presence and playful attitude fit in perfectly.
When Lady Gaga attempted to resurrect the glory of ’80s stadium rock on her recent album “Born This Way,” she called in Clemons.
“The universe is there to give you what you want,” Clemons told All Access about his multifaceted success. “You just need to be there to get it.”
Clemons also released five solo albums under his own name. “Hero,” a 1985 set produced by Narada Michael Walden, gave him a hit duet (with Jackson Browne): “You’re a Friend of Mine,” a song, ironically, about the relationship between Clemons and Springsteen. Even on his solo sets, the sax player could not elude the shadow of the Boss.
For two years, Clemons operated Big Man’s West, a rock venue in Red Bank that became something of a clubhouse for the E Street team and affiliated acts. Springsteen himself appeared at Big Man’s close to 20 times. Although the club closed its doors for good in 1983 for financial reasons, its existence helped revive the Shore sound. Many of the musicians who’d rock the Garden State (and beyond) during the late ’80s took the stage at Big Man’s, including Jon Bon Jovi and John Eddie.
Stone Pony founder Butch Pielka warned the saxophonist about the perils of running a rock club.
“He offered me some advice in the beginning, like, ‘Get out of the business,’?” Clemons told The Star-Ledger this year. “My accountant agreed with him: ‘Just consider that you had a party for two and a half years, and invited all your friends, and you picked up the tab.’ That’s what it was like.”
STILL THE BIG MAN
Clemons’ celebrity never quite faded. But in recent years, a series of debilitating ailments kept him out of the limelight. The Big Man was felled by multiple spinal surgeries and knee replacements. Undeterred, he continued to blow from his wheelchair. (“He’s always on time, he’s always in pain,” wrote Don Reo in “Big Man.”)
The musician lived long enough to see “Who Do I Think I Am?,” a documentary about his life, air at the Paramount Theatre in his beloved Asbury Park this April. Hobbled by his health problems, he nevertheless took the stage at the Paramount and answered questions and signed autographs, smiling all the while.
Under the stagelights, surrounded by those who loved him, Clemons was in his element. Pushing 70, he rehabbed hard, hoping for a chance to join the E Street Band on tour in 2012.
He told Rolling Stone magazine in February that as long as he had a mouth, a brain and a pair of hands, he would keep on playing. Nobody who saw Clemons perform would ever have doubted it: his dedication was total. The saxophone was a conduit for his spirit, he assured us, and that spirit was a colossus.
Far beyond the boardwalk of Asbury Park, those big notes will keep echoing.
Staff writer Jay Lustig contributed to this report.
© 2011 NJ.com. All rights reserved.
So I’m not the only one….
Even CNN picked up on this..
http://www.cnn.com/2011/OPINION/06/11/welch.palin.email/index.html?hpt=hp_c2
How do you scare a Liberal?
Find a WomanWe have been without rain for so long, I had forgotten it can sneak up on ya.
I was coming home from Louisiana and caught this storm…Hail and all.
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This really gets my goat. Once again I hear our federal government say the borders of south Texas are safe. Their ignorance or possibly their arrogant disregard for the safety of the citizens borders on criminal.
Nope, I’m wrong. It is criminal.
ridersblock 