A good soldier in Iraq needs your help and words

It has been my honor for the past five years to be part of a collection of Marine moms who are organized to support all sons and daughrers in the war on terror.

Officially, it is now called Tennessee Marine Family. And often, e-mails such as these are sent out to the members in support of all servicemen and women, not just Marines.

I just got an email from a 20 year old Soldier's mom that he needs mail. Jonathan is 20 and in Iraq for his 2nd deployment w/ the 82nd ABN.

He deployed on Nov 30, 2008 and is expected to be there 12 months. He will turn 21 on May 5th.

His girlfriend just broke up with him last week while he is in Iraq. He is having a hard time with that. He just needs some cards and letters of encouragment to get him through the rough patch.

Let's flood him with mail...

Email me for the address.

Sarah

Consumer, investor confidence is everything to economy; it's why 2010 will another bad year; for the first time in my life I am afraid for my country

Of the $14 trillion U.S. economy, $10 trillion comes from consumer spending.

That truth was cited tonight on CNBC to make a point. And it shows why more economists and analysts see 2010 as another lost year for the U.S. economy. That's disastrous, since President Obama's wildly irresponsible budget is built upon the economy growing in 2010 by healthy rates of 3 percent or more each quarter.

It will not grow at all. Even Obama's top supporter, Warren Buffet, now says so. And the Dow Jones lost 4 percent of its value today or 300 points. The S&P is teetering less than one point above the 700-point floor. When it crashes through, the rest of the market will head to new and shocking lows.

Consumer and investor confidence in this nation is in full flight for cover. I heard people all over affluent Williamson County, a suburb of Nashville, saying as much and more this morning as I made my rounds of my former home.

People are cutting back even more on spending, particularly delaying big-ticket purchases. We are going to see car dealers and furniture stores going out of business in big numbers by the end of the year.

Vacant store spaces in malls and strip malls will become the most visible sight of the declining American economy. Commercial real estate will increasingly head into foreclosure.

If you think things are bad now, you ain't seen nothing yet -- including now for 2010. Some people say we should be talking positive and encouraging hope.

No, let us talk about reality and hard times, so that people can prepare for the worst.

For the first time in my life, I am afraid for my country. And never in my life have I been more convinced that the president in charge and the majority in Congress are bad for this nation and threaten its fall.

These are the true stakes at hand in an America that will never be the same.

God help us all.

Obama damns charities with plan to soak so-called rich; how much money actually defines wealth?

The Chronicle of Philanthropy has put out a distress call over President Obama's budget proposal to limit the worth of charitable deductions to households annually earning more than $250,000.

Obama in one instance is proposing to help people with broad new spending plans financed by the taxpayers while robbing from charities and the amount of private money they can raise -- particularly amid a deepening recession.

The Chronicle writes:

Some charities and nonprofit experts are worried that President Obama’s proposal to impose new limits on charitable tax deductions for wealthy people would dampen giving at a time when charities are under severe strain because of the recession.

“During the current economic downturn, which has forced nonprofits to do more with less, any proposal which would result in a decrease in private giving will be a disaster for America’s charities, and for those who depend upon them,” said United Jewish Communities, an umbrella group for Jewish social-service charities.

Mr. Obama proposed the new caps on Thursday as a way to finance changes in the country’s health-care system.

In a document outlining his 2010 budget plans, President Obama proposed limiting the value of the tax break for itemized deductions, including donations to charity, to 28 percent for families making more than $250,000. In other words, taxpayers would save 28 cents on their federal income taxes for each dollar donated.

That would reduce by as much as 20 percent the amount wealthy taxpayers could get in tax breaks. Under the current system, taxpayers who are in the 33 percent or 35 percent tax brackets use that rate to claim deductions.


This class warfare in American politics must stop, along with a bigotry against people with wealth that surmises that they somehow have come about their holdings from an unfair economic system.

A lot of us just worked our asses off, as our parents did. Some of us got college educations and took risks in our careers for advancement, moving and working in places we would rather have avoided. Some of us educated ourselves on how to invest wisely.

We didn't cheat to get where we are at. And we spend wisely even now to preserve and grow our wealth for our family. And many people of wealth donate a lot of money and time to charities and churches and children.

Yet Obama would ignore this truth for bigotry. Racism is not the only prejudice in this nation. From his elitist class, I have noticed a bigotry against people of faith, people living in rural America and the military.

I don't know the exact figure that makes a person wealthy, or me. Even a household making more than $250,000 a year can have a home mortgage, five children, a stay at home mom, a mortgage, retirement to save for, an emergency fund to maintain and funding for college educations to secure. Their spending is what fuels this economy.

So why should they be penalized by their government and its spending that simply is reckless?

The tragic moral to this story is that in going after the wealthy, Obama has actually hurt the very people he supposedly wants to help. Donors he has targeted already are pulling back on their giving when more of our citizens are looking for emergency help. So will I.

This president is just turning the economic evening in this nation to night, one that will leave more people in need gnashing their teeth.

Did we vote for this kind of societal destruction?

Broder sees the great risk Obama has incurred for this republic and his own political party

Washington Post columnist David Broder has come out with a sobering assessment of the great risk to this nation from all the plans and all the new spending President Obama has set forth in a little more than a month.

The bottom line is that this nation as we know it may not survive. You can call it a shift to socialism or whatever, but Obama has so radically changed the direction of this nation -- away from rewarding thrift, responsibility and good behavior -- to forever doom any return to prosperity in this nation as we have known it.

Broder writes:

The size of the gamble that President Obama is taking every day is simply staggering. What came through in his speech to a joint session of Congress and a national television audience Tuesday night was a dramatic reminder of the unbelievable stakes he has placed on the table in his first month in office, putting at risk the future well-being of the country and the Democratic Party's control of Washington.

A leader cannot initiate a spending increase of a historic nature when the country is amid a historic downturn in people working and paying taxes on things purchased and property owned. With GDP numbers revised shockingly downward Friday to a negative of 6.2 percent, the numbers in Obama's budget already do not work. It was assembled on comfortable growth next year.

Obama backer Warren Buffet even threw water on the president's numbers Saturday by saying the economy would be in shambles for the rest of this year and probably well beyond.

"Shambles" is pretty hopeless and not encouraging.

We are seeing the destruction of the American way of life that my parents and their parents used to create prosperity in our family. My parents left an inheritance, these first-generation American citizens of Mexican descent. They did it with their own rugged individualism and independent spirit that demanded government get out of the way.

And now because of them and my own hard work and inherited individualism, I'll leave an even greater fortune to my heirs to pursue the American Dream.

The American Dream is not owning a home. It is being left alone with enough of your income to make decisions that dictate happiness and progress in your life and those of your family. Government, in turn, is trying to create a one size fits all model. Yet all Obama is doing is ensuring the standard of living will be less for everyone and America's predominance of this globe has ended. That's socialism.

Broder is right in calling Obama a gambler. And he is rolling the dice on our futures and the Founding Fathers' promise of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness.

May God save this great Republic.

You'll want to read this post for inspiration

A friend of mine in the education choice wars, J.C. Bowman, posted the following on his Facebook account.

If you want some direction in dealing with hard economic times, his posting, called "Grandma's Hands", is very much worth a read.

J.C. also posted a YouTube video of the great late Bill Withers singing a song called "Grandma's Hands". It is wonderful.

Grandma's Hands

Grandma, some ninety plus years, sat feebly on the patio bench. She didn't move, just sat with her head down staring at her hands. When I sat down beside her, she didn't acknowledge my presence and the longer I sat, I wondered if she was OK.

Finally, not really wanting to disturb her but wanting to check on her at the same time, I asked her if she was OK. She raised her head and looked at me and smiled. Yes, I'm fine, thank you for asking, she said in a clear strong voice. I didn't mean to disturb you, Grandma, but you were just sitting here staring at your hands and I wanted to make sure you were OK, I explained to her.

Have you ever looked at your hands she asked. I mean really looked at your hands?

I slowly opened my hands and stared down at them. I turned them over, palms up and then palms down. No, I guess I had never really looked at my hands as I tried to figure out the point she was making.

Grandma smiled and related this story:

Stop and think for a moment about the hands you have, how they have served you well throughout your years. These hands, though wrinkled, shriveled and weak have been the tools I have used all of my life to reach out and grab and embrace life. They braced and caught my fall when as a toddler I crashed upon the floor. They put food in my mouth and clothes on my back. As a child my mother taught me to fold them in prayer.

They tied my shoes and pulled on my boots. They dried the tears of my children and caressed the love of my life. They wiped my tears when my husband went off to war. They have been dirty, scraped and raw, swollen and bent. They were uneasy and clumsy when I tried to hold our newborn daughter.

Decorated with my wedding band they showed the world that I was married and loved someone special. They wrote the letters home and trembled and shook when I buried my parents and spouse. They have held children, consoled neighbors, and shook in fists of anger when I didn't understand.

They have covered my face, combed my hair, and washed and cleansed the rest of my body. They have been sticky and wet, bent and broken, dried and raw. And to this day when not much of anything else of me works real well these hands hold me up, lay me down, and again continue to fold in prayer.

These hands are the mark of where I've been and the ruggedness of my life. But more importantly it will be these hands that God will reach out and take when He leads me home. And with my hands He will lift me to His side and there I will use these hands to touch the face of Christ.

I will never look at my hands the same again. But I remember God reached out and took my grandma's hands and led her home.

When my hands are hurt or sore or when I stroke the face of my children and husband I thank grandma. I know she has been stroked and caressed and held by the hands of God. I, too, want to touch the face of God and feel His hands upon my face.


Author unknown

Markets preparing to head sharply lower to begin month as news from Washington dashes hope

The financial markets are preparing to head sharply lower today as news over more taxpayer money going to AIG and the Obama administration defending its shocking level of new spending over the weekend.

And British PM Gordon Brown is coming to the U.S. this week to ask for more of your money for a global bailout plan.

Look for the Dow to decline near 6,900 today -- which is incredible. The S&P will threaten to break its lows. The British version of the S&P, FTSE, has lost almost 4 percent of its value today. But trading continues as I write.

Investor confidence, like the economy, is in shambles. More bad jobs and economic reports are due out this week.

If you still have your money in the stock market waiting for a rebound, you are going to lose a lot more money until then ... whenever that is going to be.

Any financial adviser or TV talking head who tells you different is lying to you. We are amid unprecedented financial times and incredibly bad policy decisionmaking from Washington.

Bend over everybody! Feds offer $30 billion more of your money to keep AIG afloat after losses

The pain you're feeling now in your derriere is the federal government agreeing this weekend to give another $30 billion of your money to keep giant insurer AIG afloat.

Your tax dollars have already purchased 80 percent of the holding company. Yet still, the insurer needs more to cover its losses. Sounds like a bad investment to me.

This kind of spending is simply madness.

The Times reports tonight:

The federal government agreed Sunday night to provide an additional $30 billion in taxpayer money to the American International Group and loosen the terms of its huge loan to the insurer, which is preparing to report a $62 billion loss on Monday, the biggest quarterly loss in history, people involved in the discussions said.

The intervention would be the fourth time that the United States has had to step in to help A.I.G., the giant insurer, avert bankruptcy. The government already owns nearly 80 percent of the insurer’s holding company as a result of the earlier interventions, which included a $60 billion loan, a $40 billion purchase of preferred shares and $50 billion to soak up the company’s toxic assets.

Federal officials, who worked feverishly over the weekend to complete the restructuring, said they thought they had no choice but to prop up A.I.G., because its business and trading activities are so intricately woven through the world’s banking system.

But the deal also presents more financial risks to taxpayers at a time when the public and Congress have been sharply questioning the wisdom of risking federal money to bail out private enterprises.

You're not going to believe this story

President Barack Obama is actually considering an offer of a New Deal program for the world to ensure security for every global family, The Sunday Times of London reported today.

Have you picked yourself off the floor? How can he offer a New Deal to the world when it can't even pay for the one at home?

But Obama and British Prime Minister Gordon Brown will be meeting this week to discuss just that. Yet Brown is offering tax cuts to stimulate the British economy, not record spending.

Here's the story:

GORDON BROWN hopes to forge a partnership with President Barack Obama in Washington this week, to call for a “global new deal” to lift the world out of recession.

As he prepares for his first White House visit since the president’s inauguration, the prime minister has hinted that he is ready to make further tax cuts to boost the UK economy.

Brown will meet Obama on Tuesday and address a joint session of Congress on Wednesday. Aides say he has both to demonstrate to a sceptical British public that he commands the respect of the president, and to persuade the American political establishment that global action is needed to rescue the US economy.

Brown is under pressure to persuade American political leaders to sign up to bold aims for the G20 summit of industrial and leading developing nations, which is to be held in London next month.

More Americans are catching on to the reckless nature of financial advise from guru Dave Ramsey

I haven't seen supposed financial guru Dave Ramsey on the cable TV shows lately.

Perhaps producers have caught on to a growing truth among the American public that the guy doesn't know a damn thing about investing in these financial times.

Here is a reader response I got this evening that says Ramsey also isn't all that smart about paying off debt either:

Tim,

This the first I've seen of your blog and I am impressed with your cogent comments about Ramsey.

The guy is only good at selling books. He clearly does not want to educate the lemmings that follow him.

Just consider how he tells them to snowball by paying the smallest instead of the highest APR debt. He could at least explain to them the math behind why paying the highest APR debt is the path that saves the most money.

But that would require him to have an IQ over 90.

Keep up the good work!


Indeed, if Ramsey has been following his own financial advice concerning the stock market, then he has lost 36 percent of his holdings since he told NewsChannel 5 viewers in Middle Tennessee back in September that it was a good time to get into growth mutual funds.

Then, the Dow was trading at 10,600.

Now it is at 7,062.

From his hyped-up history, Dave Ramsey lost all his money once. Perhaps it will happen to him again. That's fine, as long as he doesn't cause his listeners and viewers to lose it all, too.

A most marvelous anger is rising across Tennessee and America that will liberate us at the ballot box

I got the following response from a Nashville reader that shows a historic shift that will dramatically impact Congressional races in 2010 and the presidential race in 2012.

This response was to a post I wrote today about Republicans also betraying the taxpayers of this nation in President Obama's spending bills.

That's the very reason I can't bring myself to be identified with either major party.

I'm an Independent and reject the disgusting, duplicitous and at times illegal actions of our so called elected and appointed public officials.

Keep up the great work.

Rick Harris

No Rick. The thanks belong to you. I am feeling your anger and the same from readers across this state and nation of my blog.

They rightly feel betrayed by both political parties. They realize these politicians do not have their backs. No one is looking out for us, even though we pay all the bills of government.

As a result, many of us have been cast aside to wander, searching for a political home where our needs are recognized and where our contributions in paying our bills on time and being responsible workers are rewarded in public policy.

CNBC's Rick Santelli spoke for many of us during his rant against the Obama home foreclosure policy last month that was more about rewardin the bad behavior of the 8 percent of the population in danger of losing their homes instead of the 92 percent paying their mortgages on time.

He called for a Chicago Tea Party this summer. Since then, tea parties of protest have been held in Nashville and St. Louis.

I believe that anger and the independence that Rick Harris wrote of must be coalesced into a political movement and party for the 2010 Congressional races. That is the only way Republican and Democratic lawmakers are going to be forced to change and act responsibly like us.

And it would be most healthy if there could an Independent Caucus in Congress that both parties would have to go to for support of their agendas and we could ask to stop the madness.

In lieu of that, candidates and officeholders from both parties represent the same dead end for American and Tennessee households and their welfare.

So in the coming months, we must use our anger wisely as energy and momentum to create a new political movement from the kitchen tables, neighborhoods, town squares and places of worship to sweep toward Capitol Hill like a sword or broom. And we must look in the mirror and into the faces of our neighbors and ask: "will you answer the call and run as a candidate for public office?"

Don't let people tell you it is impossible for you to win. If Barack Obama had counted all the Democratic Party leaders supporting Hillary Clinton before thr 2008 Democratic Party primary and the superdelegates already in her pocket, he would not have dared run for office.

But he did, based on simply the emotion of the urgency of the times. And the people, not the party leaders, came forth to spend their money on his candidacy and their time in campaigning and voting.

The political paradigm of how candidates are picked has been altered forever. Thank goodness. And the times are now even more urgent for new candidates and a new sense of discipline and responsibility to the taxpayers first.

The window Obama created remains open. Answer the call and protect the backs of your neighbors, your fellow believers and your own households from further assault by both political parties.

Nashville Free Press is a worthy, thorough read

I was walking along West End Avenue near Centennial Park last week noticing all the gang graffiti on the sides of buildings holding shops and small businesses. I was shocked. There is nothing like that on the buildings around Our Lady of Guadalupe Catholic Church on Nolensville Road.

But I was pleasantly surprised to come across something called The Nashville Free Press in a newsstand. And I discovered it to be a thorough read with a skeptical eye cast to big media coverage to tell the rest of the story on issues of critical importance.

There are national pieces but there also is a bevy of local writers not scared to say what they are thinking. You don't have to agree with everything in the publication to still appreciate the knowledge brought to the issues.

It is up front that it is progressive publication on every page. That means its ideas come from the Left. But that is good. We need to learn about what each other is thinking. I consider myself in the middle and leaning more to the Right. But I have always been willing to listen to ideas and solutions without unnecessary labels. I consider simple right and wrong as more of a standard.

I understand The Free Press is available in West End and Green Hills. There may be more places. It is worth picking it up and reading and for advertisers to consider supporting it. I wish it well in growing and becoming a new and needed voice for Nashville.

Republicans continue to betray on spending and show their complaints are nothing but hypocrisy

The growing protest by Republicans against President Obama's incredibly growing spending budget would have credibility if their actions followed their words.

But they have not.

Here is a report from Politico.com that shows no one really has the people's backs:

We've been avidly following John McCain's "Ten Porkiest Projects in the Omnibus" list on his Twitter page and couldn't help noticing that four of five projects listed so far come from red states — and two are from Utah.

Note too McCain's massive snark on Montana's role as an international trade hub.

He's ticking it off last to first, maverick (or Letterman) style.

#10. $1.7M "for a honey bee factory" in Weslaco, Texas

#9. $475,000 to build a parking garage in Provo, Utah

#8. $200,000 "tattoo removal violence outreach program to could help gang members or others shed visible signs of their past" REALLY?

#7. $300,000 for the Montana World Trade Center — Enough said.

#6. $1 million for Mormon cricket control in Utah — Is that the species of cricket or a game played by the Brits?

The Mormon cricket, Wikipedia tells us, is not a cricket at all but an invasive cicada species that can decimate crops when it's allowed to swarm.


Earmarks such as these are always going to be part of spending bills. Republicans should admit it, and most certainly not protest what they are doing themselves.

What has to be stopped in the first place is not necessarily the small stuff such as the earmarks, but the massive spending into areas such as free capital markets, banking and pouring more money in things such as public education without first reforming the system.