I'm Having a Bad Dream

In a flurry of last minute legislative activity, Governor Jerry Brown, that perennial civil servant who will hopefully retire one of these days soon without ever having held a real, private sector job, signed into effect AB 131, the infamous "Dream Act." One of 760 new laws (!) this year advanced by those otherwise unemployable Sacramento politicians, that's the companion piece to earlier legislation he previously signed which provided access to private funding for illegal aliens to attend California colleges and universities as of January 1, 2012. This one, remarkably, but perhaps not surprisingly, provides public taxpayer money for that same purpose as of January 1, 2013, providing an effort currently underway to gather signatures for a petition drive to overturn this legislative overreach are unsuccessful.

That leaves me with a question. If you can't work in the U.S. of A. without proving that you're here legally, how does providing those here illegally with a college education who have already consumed at least three and as many as twelve years of lower-level schooling at a cost to the taxpayers of more than $10,000 per annum make any fiscal sense at all? So they go on to college at public expense and graduate and still can't legally find employment. Accept that then we, the taxpayers, are out even more of our hard-earned dollars.

I'm thinking that four years from now when the ink is drying on the sheepskins of a whole bunch of newly-minted illegal alien college graduates, there will be no other choice but to extend the term of the current liberal largesse. Since they will still be illegal and still won't be able to find work, but will be much better educated, perhaps we should provide them with a graduate degree as well. A nice MBA, maybe. Or a Masters in Social Work. After all, the only place they will then still be welcome is in the hallowed halls of academia. And then how about a doctorate? Yeah, that's the ticket. A doctorate would be nice, maybe in International Relations or Criminal Justice or Latino Studies. Because then they could become professors and continue to maintain their "legal" illegal status while teaching others what it means to be a very well educated shadow resident.

Is California a Great State, or what?

Paying Their "Fair Share"

I don't know about you, but I'm growing weary of waiting for all those rich people out there to finally begin paying their fair share. We all know there's a huge pot of money somewhere and the rich managed to somehow get there before the rest of us and took more than they deserved and now they won't give it back! And that must be true because they're the ones with the big houses and the big cars and the big planes and the big boats and we're the ones with the masters degrees in Transgender Studies and Medieval Poetry and no jobs and we can't pay our student loans! All we ask is that they finally cough up what they actually owe!

Oh, I know what you're going to say. You're going to tell me that the rich already pay the vast majority of all Federal income taxes. That the top two-tenths of one percent pay more than 20% of all taxes; that the top 2% pays 40%; that the top 5% pays 70% and that the bottom 47% of all wage earners pay no income taxes at all! Well, Mr. and Mrs. Know-it-All, I just don't care, and neither do the rest of the 99%ers. The rich need to pay more! Redistributor-in-Chief Obama and past, present and no doubt future Governor Brown (aka Civil Servant for Life) tell us so and we know they wouldn't lie to us, right? Obama is campaigning every day for wealth redistribution. "At some point you've made enough money," he's told us. "You've got to spread the wealth around. It's good for everybody," he told Joe the Plumber. Obama says the millionaires and billionaires, you know, those nasty folks making more than $250,000 a year (!), should pay more so the rest of us can continue to enjoy our perks and entitlements. It's working well in Europe, right? And Brown is even advocating a ballot measure for next June which would require a tax surcharge of up to 2% on all those who make more than a certain amount. No matter that California is already in the top one or two states as far as income taxation is concerned, and that the wealthy are leaving in droves. Well I say, why stop there? I mean, who's better at determining how to redistribute "excess" earnings? Those who earned it, or the Government?

Even though the "rich" are the folks who operate the businesses that hire almost everybody in America, I say in the interest of "fairness" they should be required to pay much, much more. After all, it's okay to extoll the virtues of capitalism and studying hard and getting ahead and keeping your nose to the grindstone, but once the rich have gotten that way, it seems reasonable to change the rules a bit and penalize them for doing so. Who the heck do they thing they are, anyway? So I say, if a little bit is good, more must be better. So why not simply tax everybody who makes more than a politically correct amount at 100% of their earnings? Pick their bones clean! Teach them a lesson! Punish them! Who cares that there would be no more new MicroSofts, or Apples, or Googles, or E-Bays, or Amazons, or McDonalds or Trader Joes, or Starbucks, etc., etc., etc. As Obama has stated, even if lowering tax rates would increase Federal revenues, he'd still rather bump up tax rates on the rich. We're talking fairness here, right?

Oh wait. I just put pencil to paper and came up with a simple fact: If we take 100% of the earnings of the 249,000 millionaires in America, leaving them without a single dime, we'd bring in a grand total of $1.2 Trillion into the Treasury. Or, put another way, two hundred billion less than what it would take to cover our increased Federal debt of $1.4 Trillion for just this Fiscal Year alone. Whoops! On second thought, maybe we should leave them with some of what they have earned so they can continue to operate their filthy businesses and keep on hiring those of us who aren't occupying someplace or other and making some of their evil profits so we can continue to buy big screen TVs and double mocha lattes and ugly little overpriced, plug-in electric weenie cars. After all, we've got to save the planet, right? Maybe we should just leave the successful alone to continue creating wealth in our society and finally decide to spend a little bit less as a country for a change. After all, when was the last time a poor person hired somebody?

Occupy Everywhere

Has anyone besides me noticed that this whole Occupy Wall Street, and nearly everywhere else it seems, protest movement started just about a nanosecond after our Campaigner-in-Chief decided that engaging in class warfare was his one and only chance at reelection? With 9% unemployment, GDP growth stagnated, housing in the dumper and the Federal debt in the stratosphere, he realized running for reelection on his record obviously wouldn't work. So he fired up his TelePrompTer and started blaming Wall Street "fat cats" and banks and Congress and Republicans for his troubles, pitting Americans against Americans to cover for his own shortcomings. And to assist him in this effort he enlisted MoveOn.org, the Center for American Progress, SEIU, ACORN, the AFL-CIO and Congressional Democrats to join with him in a carefully orchestrated effort to retain power. Their bought-and-paid-for "Occupy" movements, which began in NYC, have now spread across the country. By their actions they hope to change the subject away from the abject failure in leadership that Obama and his Chicago crowd have visited upon America.

Unlike the Tea Party, which spontaneously rallied against unfettered government spending, massively increasing Federal debt and unwanted healthcare legislation, the "Occupiers" are protesting against something or other as yet undefined. My favorite Occupy Wall Street sign thus far stated: "We demand an immediate and unconditional change in a whole bunch of unspecified things!" And unlike the Tea Party, which was calm, considerate and clean, the Occupy movement is messy, dirty, anarchic and dangerous.

Since Obama cannot use success in the job as his platform for reelection, vilifying the so-called "rich" has become his default campaign strategy. You know, forcing the so-called "1%" to "spread the wealth around." Even though the top 1% pays more than 40% of all Federal income taxes, he says "They need to pay their fair share." Huh?

I just love these protesters. Beating drums all day and night, smoking dope, defecating on police cars, raping and pillaging and setting fires and blocking entrances to businesses, they have been led to believe by their keepers that the rich have somehow stolen their money and their future. They are making their lefty supporters truly proud.

The Occupiers have trashed NYC, Atlanta, D.C. and now Oakland. There have been thousands of arrests, serious property damage, numerous assaults, untold economic costs, a severe disruption to the residents and businesses around the encampments and every reason to believe it will get far worse. And who has publicly endorsed the Occupy movement? Here's a short list: President Obama; the Republic of North Korea; the American Nazi Party; Louis Farrakhan, Nation of Islam; Revolutionary Guards of Iran; Communist Party of China; Michael Bloomburg, Mayor of New York City; Industrial Workers of the World; V.P. Joe Biden; David Duke; Hugo Chavez; the Black Panthers (original); Nancy Pelosi; Hezbollah and the Socialist Party USA (various sources).

If an organization is known by the company it keeps, or by those which endorse it, the above list of supporters says more about the Occupy movement than anything else I could mention.

Open Carry

We can all thank God that the silly season is finally over in Sacramento. Yep, 760 new laws were passed by those otherwise unemployable legislators up there and now they've all gone home. Did you really need 760 new laws? 760? Didn't think so. And now our perennial civil servant, Gov. Jerry Brown, a man who will hopefully soon retire after an entire career completely devoid of ever having held a real, private sector job, has gone about approving some and vetoing others. And, like in previous years, many if not most of these laws were laughably ludicrous, especially when fixing our State's broken fiscal condition should have been those politicians' primary, if not only, focus.

But one of those that was passed, and then signed into law by the Guv, attracted my special attention. Assembly Bill 144 bans the open carrying of an unloaded handgun. Now we know that the open carrying of firearms by law-abiding citizens has been necessitated and provoked by California's unfair concealed carry laws, which allow citizens from one county to apply for and receive a permit while neighbors in the next county over are denied that same basic Constitutional right in an arbitrary and capricious manner. Kind of like the difference between Riverside and Orange counties, as an example.

Let me say that again. Apply for a concealed carry permit in Orange County and the Sheriff will issue a polite rejection. She came to us from up there in that vast wasteland toilet called Los Angeles, where packing hidden heat is verboten. Of course the Crips and the Bloods and every other gangbanger there is armed to the teeth, but allowing the average taxpaying citizen a means of self-protection? No way. And then there's Riverside County, just a short drive away. Make an application to the Sheriff and, assuming you're an upstanding citizen devoid of any felony convictions, you'll walk with a permit. So now, with the passage of AB 144, no more open carry in our once-Golden state. Why is this a problem?

27 little words comprise the 2^nd Amendment to the Constitution of the United States of America. I'll hereby cut to the 14 meaningful words writ therein: "…the right of the people to keep and bear arms, shall not be infringed." Hmmm. According to my handy dandy little dictionary, "bear" is defined as: "To shoulder, carry, take, have, show, display, exhibit and present." I'm guessing the majority party miscreants in Sacto either do not have access to a dictionary, or can't read, or, more likely, simply do not care that by their action they have willfully ignored – more accurately, shot the bird – to a rather important part of the document under which our nation was founded and is supposed to operate. And the consequences? I predict not too many days will pass before the National Rifle Association, perhaps backed with amicus briefs from the Attorneys General of the more than 40 states which shall issue concealed carry permits to law-abiding citizens (no option, political or otherwise) when requested, will file suit to overturn this stupid law. And they will win. And California will waste tens of millions of dollars in legal fees in a misguided effort to defend a piece of legislation that should never have been conceived, much less passed and signed. Of course, there will be one contingent of our population overjoyed at this bill's passage: Lawyers. In fact, I predict that this piece of legislation will come to be known as "The Attorneys' Full Employment Act of 2011."

Maybe it would be simpler if we just went straight from the 1^st Amendment directly to the 3^rd. Oh, and the 4^th and the 10^th have been causing a lot of trouble lately. Maybe we could get rid of those also…

Venture Socialism

As a member of that minority group of Americans which actually pays Federal income taxes, I have a question: Can I deduct my portion of the Country's losses on the Obama Administration's venture socialism investment in Solyndra, Inc., from my income taxes? Or from losses on any of the other $38 Billion in "green energy" loan guarantees issued by the White House?

For those too busy earning a living to follow this shocking travesty as it unfolds, the Obama folks chose to guarantee with our money a $535 million dollar loan to this Silicon Valley solar chip manufacturer, even though the Bush White House refused to do so and his own Treasury, Energy Department and Office of Management and Budget officials counseled against it. And that loan placed the public, you and me, in an unprecedented subordinated position behind private investors in the event Solyndra went upside down. And upside down it went, as of August 30^th, declaring bankruptcy as of that date.

Now, the half of America that pays income taxes (does that mean we're finally paying our "fair share?") has watched one half-billion of their precious dollars go "poof" in an uncoordinated partisan flurry of activity to finally produce some of those so-called "green jobs" in time to create a little bit of positivity in advance of the 2012 general election.

So, I'd like to know if I can recoup some of that loss by declaring it on my taxes. Or as one of the ever-diminishing cadre of those who are actually pulling the wagon so that others can ride for free, do I not deserve even this small consideration? Or has half-a-billion dollars become such chump change that it becomes a rounding error? Loose change Obama could find between the cushions of his Oval Office couch, perhaps? Pardon me, but I'm growing a bit weary of this whole costly charade. How about you?

I Now Pronounce You...Divorced!

Campaigner-in-Chief Barack Hussein Obama is at it again. He's such an ideologue that he just can't get away from his deep-seated, almost religious fervor to tax the "rich" into the Stone Age. Maybe that's because his mom was a devout communist, his dad a proud socialist and his step-dad a dedicated, militant Marxist. In any event, after nearly 3 years of his White House-sponsored class warfare, during which he has beaten the tax increase drum unrelentingly, he's just announced Stimulus 2 (or is it 3 or 4, or 8 or 9? I've lost count.).

After blowing nearly a trillion bucks of our money on a failed stimulus program in 2009, which created somewhere around ZERO jobs, he's asking Congress for another $447,000,000,000.00 (that's billion, with a "B"). He wants to create some jobs, knowing that if he doesn't, his own job is toast next November. And where is this money to come from? Our President, who's never managed anything except the Federal Government, if you can call that "managing," tells us $421 Billion of the total will come from a tax increase on, and the eradication of tax deductions utilized by, those nasty, evil "rich" people among us. "Rich," according to the Redistributor-in-Chief, are those individuals who make $200k or more per year as individuals, or couples making $250k combined.

Now, anyone with any sense at all knows that this level of income does not make one rich. Not even close. Especially in cities like New York or L.A. or most other large U.S. population centers. That's your average married fireperson and nurseperson. And anyone with any sense knows that more than half of the folks making this level of income own and operate small businesses, which are responsible for the creation of way more than 70% of all American jobs. And Obama has stated repeatedly that the very last thing you want to do in a recession is increase taxes on the folks who create jobs (!). And because most of these small business types file their taxes as individuals under Subchapter S of the IRS code, their wages are taxed as ordinary income just like the fireperson and nurseperson. They don't get the benefits of myriad deductions, even on money they may plow back into their businesses. So money picked from their pockets by the Feds is money not available to them to hire with, or expand their business with, or even pay their bills with. So Barry's America's Jobs Bill, if passed, will obviously result in fewer jobs, not more. But he either doesn't know this (unlikely), or doesn't care (quite probably), or is doing it on purpose so as to screw things up (almost certainly). Clearly, the Golfer-in-Chief won't stop until he's gotten his wish and hiked taxes unmercifully on those "miwwionaires and biwwionaires." You know, the ones making $200k/$250k a year.

And now we have Warren Buffett, America's second richest man and the Oracle of Omaha, joining forces with the TelePrompTer-in-Chief to convince the American People that the "rich" are under taxed. He's fond of saying that his secretary pays a higher percentage of taxes than does he. He's right. He pays 17.4% and she pays 30%. He wants his taxes raised so that he and his secretary are both hosed equally. What good ol' Warren fails to mention (an oversight, no doubt), is that his income is realized almost entirely from capital gains on investments, not from ordinary income like his secretary. And he fails to mention that the income he used to make those investments, which are now producing capital gains, was already taxed once as ordinary income, back when he first earned it. So Warren wants you to throw in with the Vacationer-in-Chief on the idea that taxing us twice and at the same rate is quite alright…once when we first earn our paycheck, and again when the pittance that's left over after we've paid our bills is invested at a risk in something that might possibly produce a return. It's called, I understand, the "Buffett Rule." Excuse me Warren, but isn't that double taxation? Do you think that's fair? And if you do, might I suggest you utilize the line provided at the bottom of your IRS Form 1040 which permits you to pay more than your tax liability would ordinarily be if the spirit moves you to do so. That might help you get over some of that Democrat guilt you're experiencing from making so damn much money.

So I, the Chuckmeister, a graduate economist, entrepreneur, humorist, gadfly, food and wine connoisseur, noted business consultant and blogger extraordinaire have a solution. I recommend all the successful married Americans who might get caught up in this commie, pinko, lefty, dumbass, progressive weenie trap proceed directly to their local shyster, bottom-feeding lawyers and file for divorce. Then, you and your significant other can earn up to $400 Grand together without getting reamed by the Speechifier-in-Chief's National Wealth Distribution Whether You Like It Or Not plan. Of course, unless America turns him out next November, he'll come back after us again and again like a rabid hamster until he's managed to trade the fruits of the labor of the productive to those who are less than in exchange for their ill-considered votes. But for the short term we can all put a "we dodged that bullet" smirk on our faces while shooting him the collective bird.

No need to thank me. That's why God put me on this Earth…

National Underachievers Day

Folks, in less than two months another anniversary will be upon us. And although we haven't up until now, it's one we as a nation should all be celebrating. Please allow me to elucidate…

As everyone unfortunately knows, the elections' over and Barack Hussein Obama won. Congratulations Mr. Obama on your historic accomplishment. In recognition, I'd like to propose that November 4^th, the date you were elected, be forever proclaimed "National Underachievers' Day." No more must those who have heretofore failed to excel be relegated to the scrap heap of mediocrity. You have a new champion! Mr. Obama, with the possible exception of Millard Fillmore, is almost certainly the least qualified candidate for President in the history of our beloved Union. He boasts no private sector employment or record of success. He has no management experience of any kind, not even so much as a running the corner 7/11. He never met a payroll. He never signed a check on its face. He never hired or fired or held executive-level authority. While serving as an Illinois State Senator and during the 143 days (only!) he served as a U.S. Senator before deciding he was worthy of becoming a candidate for POTUS, he sponsored absolutely no major legislation. In fact, most of the time he voted "present" in order to avoid taking a controversial position on legislation. And, although he is Commander in Chief, he never served in our military.

So now, all Americans who could have, and should have, but didn't, work unceasingly to gather the experience necessary to be considered qualified for the Most Important Job in the World, are hereby vindicated. If you share our new President's qualifications, or rather the lack of same, you're just as qualified as is he. You should hold your collective unqualified heads high! In fact, it's not too late for you to launch your exploratory campaign for POTUS - 2012. With Obama's breakthrough, we could have any one of 50 million or so underachievers running for President next time. All they'll need is $1 Billion or so in donations from questionable sources like the unions, a "D" behind their names, a media that chooses not to ask any questions, difficult or otherwise, and the White House could well be theirs. Is America a great place, or what?

Micromanaging Outrage

Critics of the Government's heavy-handed efforts to try and micromanage each and every aspect of our lives, including this author, are always on the lookout for ever more egregious examples of this attempt to try and sway those not as yet convinced. Well folks, I've finally found an example that will bring around to my way of thinking all but the most liberal, brain-dead, commie pinko weenies among us. And here it is…

I read the other day that the Obama Administration had produced 75 new major rules and regulations governing all or certain aspects of the way business in America is permitted to do business. And that those new rules and regs add a total of $38 Billion in additional compliance fees to the cost of doing business, for an increase of more than 138% in the past two and one-half years. Think of that. 75 major changes in just a tad over 900 days, or a new one every two weeks.

Doubt it? Remember no more drilling in the Gulf? Or in Alaska? Or off the coasts? The EPA decided that carbon dioxide is such a threat that it has mandated dozens of changes in environmental laws. Corn has doubled in price since more than one-half of all production now winds up in motorists' gas tanks. And new fuel mileage requirements of 56.5 mpg, although impossible to accomplish, are now on track for the very near future. It's now okay to be an illegal alien facing prosecution and deportation. They are now home-free with the new executive order signed by BHO just recently. No prosecution. No deportation. And even better (or worse, depending upon your political persuasion), state and Federal grants are now available to help pay for their education. And Barry's National Labor Relations Board just sued Boeing to prevent it from manufacturing the new 787 passenger jets in South Carolina. Keep making them in Washington State, the NLRB dictated, no doubt to keep its union thug backers happy. Think of that. The Government is dictating where an American business can do business. These are just a few examples. Sadly, there are many more.

The Dems couldn't get any of this stuff through Congress. But Obama decided he didn't need no stinkin' Congress. He just went around them and unconstitutionally declared these changes by fiat. Rules changes in health care and banking and farming and energy and the environment and food labeling and cancer avoidance and so on and so on and so on are now imposed on us all by a Government which knows no bounds. But even in the face of all this, I wouldn't have believed what Barry and the Chicago Boys conjured up. And I bet you'll have difficulty in believing it as well.

The Obama Administration is actually now setting new workplace regulations to assist foreign workers who fill goat herding positions in the U.S., including employee-paid cell phones and comfy beds. The Labor Department issued these new special procedures last week which must be followed by anyone who employees foreign workers to herd sheep or goats. It describes strict rules for sleeping quarters, lighting, food storage, bathing, laundry, cooking and new rules for the counters upon which food is to be prepared. It even describes in-depth what shall constitute an acceptable sleeping unit, including the comfort of the bed and the mattress. Try this, a direct quote from the new regs: "Wall surfaces next to all food preparation and cooking areas shall be of nonabsorbent, easy-to-clean material. Wall surfaces next to cooking areas shall be of fire-resistant material," the regulations say. Those who have doubted we are now firmly entrenched in a "nanny state" need to carefully consider the impact of edicts such as these. I wonder if those who currently operate herds of sheep and goats will decide that continuing to do so just isn't worth the trouble, or the additional cost.

When the Government tells you how and when and under what circumstances you can herd goats, is there anything in our lives they won't try to micromanage? Just remember this: The liberal elites just want to be left alone to live your lives. If that alarms you, keep it in mind next November. And if it doesn't, you should seek professional help. And soon...

NAALCP

W.E.T. You know what that is, right? That stands for the White Entertainment Network. Never heard of it? Well, you've heard of the Black Entertainment Network, haven't you? So why isn't there a White Entertainment Network to go along with it? I don't know either.

And why, I ask, isn't there a National Association of Lightly Colored People to co-exist peacefully alongside the NAACP? Or a Congressional White Caucus? Or a group called "The Race" for white folks so can they feel just as good about themselves as Latinos do with "La Raza?" Or the American Caucasian College Fund? In fact, why do organizations emphasizing or lauding race exist at all? Isn't that in itself racist?

Somehow or other we have evolved (some would say devolved) as a society in such a way that our differences are emphasized instead of our similarities and commonalities. And those who profit from it most are the same ones who propagate its continuance. Black people need preferences to get jobs or home and car loans or to get into colleges and universities. We know that's true because poverty pimps like Jesse Jackson and Al Sharpton tell us so. All the way back to The Great Society programs conjured up by LBJ and his limousine liberal buddies of the era, we have pandered to the minorities so we could, in my opinion, assuage our collective white guilt over slavery. And in the process we've thrown trillions of dollars at problems such as hunger and ignorance and education and inner-city crime and high minority unemployment and teen pregnancy and multi-generational welfare recipients without any discernable improvement. Except, of course, an improvement in the pride lefties feel at having been able to (unsuccessfully) micromanage societal unfairness. One could make the case, I believe, that had we done nothing at all as regards attempting to correct racial inequalities we would be exactly where we are now, except we'd be a whole lot better off as a society financially.

Of course, the libs have ulterior motives behind their high-profile pandering. They want votes from those to whom they pander. And they get them. We were told the fact that Blacks voted to the tune of 97% for Barry Obama the last election was because of their "racial pride." But had a similar percentage of whites voted for McCain, wouldn't the leftwing media have labeled them as racist? Wouldn't they have been? Is your brain hurting yet?

And, by the way, why don't Asians get preferences on college entrance exams or loan applications or when they apply for jobs? After all, they're minorities too, aren't they? Maybe it's because they don't need them. They work and study hard and apply themselves and succeed without extra or undue assistance from any source. No Federal preferences are asked for and none given. In fact, one could argue they succeed in spite of being vilified by Blacks and Latinos who consider them unfair competition because they're so successful. And why, therefore, aren't Asians held up as role models by Blacks and Latinos? Why, indeed.

And lastly, pray tell where, exactly, is the "Black Community?" Black leaders and TV pundits routinely speak of this mythical neighborhood, and I'd like to know where it is. Is it near Watts? Or downtown Detroit? Harlem? Maybe somewhere in the South? And I'd also like to know if white people are permitted to live there. And if not, why not? By the way, have you ever heard of the "Asian Community?" I didn't think so.

So all you Blacks and Latinos out there, how does it feel to be treated like losers? How does it feel to be pandered to? How does it feel to be kept down by those of your race who can only succeed by making sure you continue to fail? Just think, if you were to somehow magically manage to pull yourselves up by the bootstraps and no longer need Jesse and Al to speak for you, what would they do for a living? And by the way, where exactly do I find The Reverend Jesse Jackson's church?

Did I mention that I'm proudly politically incorrect?

Obama TV

NOTE: To all Chuckophiles, the following is a reprint from an earlier posting, brought back by (1) popular demand, and (2) absolute necessity.

I noticed something very strange last Thursday afternoon and 4:40 p.m. I turned on the TV and guess what? No Obama! He was nowhere to be found. Not on CBS or NBC or ABC or CNN or Fox. Not even on MSNBC, the marketing, sales and public relations department for Obama & Company, and the primary publicity subsidiary of the Democratic National Committee. Since I'm used to awakening each day to the soothing and dulcet tones of Mr. Obama as I crank on the Telly, and then seeing him give speech after speech after speech all day long, his very absence that fateful day was shocking! I was wondering if he was sick. Or maybe he was in some high level meeting planning to take yet over another segment of our rapidly-dwindling democratic society, robbing us of yet another freedom. Or figuring out which military program to gut. Or which union to give even more millions of our tax dollars. Or flying to yet another campaign stop in Air Force One (by the way, hasn't he worn out that airplane yet? Isn't it time for a new one?).

Think back. Remember when you could turn on the TV and not see the President of the United States? No, really. I mean he was nowhere to be found. And although it seems like eons ago, it was in actuality only a few short months back. Ahh, those were the good ol' days.

Now he's everywhere. From early in the morning until deep into the evening, he'll be delivering his Major Policy Speech of the Day, followed by a Town Hall meeting somewhere, and on to reading from his trusty TelePrompTer at a unionized plant that he single-handedly rescued from failure with tons of our money, and on to an address to a group of sycophant libs who slavishly lap up every word cascading from his highly polished mouth, and then on to another fund-raiser to amass even more millions with which to bash the Republicans. Or he'll be chatting with Letterman just before heading off to his umpteenth round of golf, or leaving for his fortieth vacation since assuming office, or scolding us for some real or imagined transgression or other, letting know it's really our fault for all the problems he faces. Is it me or is it All Obama All The Time?

So it hit me. Instead of all the networks having to cover the Energizer Messiah's every move and record his every word, why not have the Government simply take some more of our diminishing money supply and start the Obama Channel? Kind of like a reality show (but far less interesting), the cameras could follow him everywhere all day long. This would leave the other networks finally able to provide uninterrupted programming, sell their ad space and grow profits. Profits that he could then tax to the max. Just tune your DirecTV to channel 666. Of course, he could simply take over NBC, which is so in the tank for Obama they're selling His memorabilia in their Manhattan gift shop. And in the unlikely event that you finally have your fill of him, you could simply tune to any other channel without fear of having your airwaves and your attention span high jacked by the most overexposed public figure of our time.

Just a suggestion…

Corporate Jets

Last week when our Redistributor-in-Chief gave his Major Policy Address of the Day, he mentioned six times that we had to do away with tax breaks for owners of corporate jets. Six times! He's spent us upside down more than One Thousand Six Hundred and Twenty Five Billion Dollars and he's worried about corporate jets? I got to thinking, what has this guy got against the folks who design corporate jets, and make them, and sell them, and service them, and work or around them, and maintain them and fly them. According to Federal statistics, the corporate aviation industry accounts for more than $150 Billion per year in gross revenues and equates to 100,000 American jobs. That's pretty serious territory, business-wise, so there must be something here I don't see that causes the Campaigner-in-Chief to want to hose them out of their goodies. Or is it just that good ol' Class Warfare so deeply ingrained in the Liberal Mindset. You know, in order to buy one of these expensive toys the purchaser MUST have stolen the money to do so from some poor person somewhere. Probably a Black farmer from Arkansas. Yeah, that's the ticket.

So I got to checking. Back in 2009 our Community Organizer-in-Chief came up with his Stimulus Package to right all the wrongs in America. $787 Billion it cost, but by the time the dust settled the actual price was nearly One Trillion Dollars! A piece of this little package was a series of tax breaks to get companies to make more corporate jets and advanced depreciation schedules to get more people to want to buy them. It's worth remembering that not one Republican in the House and only 3 RINO Republicans in the Senate voted for this bloated load of pork. So let's see now. Our Hopeychanger-in-Chief and his liberal weenies in both houses of Congress, which he controlled, dreamed up and passed tax breaks for corporate jet owners pretty much all by his lonesome, and is now railing against Republicans to try to browbeat them into eliminating them. Huh?

Consider if you will that the totality of the cost of the tax breaks in question equates to about $3 Billion Dollars a year. Contrasted against our current 2011 Federal budget shortfall of $1.65 Trillion, it would take more than 5,000 years to generate enough revenue from this piddling effort to equal our budget deficit for 2011 alone! Looking at it another way, screwing the corporate jet buyers would save a whopping 0.03% of this year's deficit. Can you say disingenuous? Do his liberal sycophants actually buy this load of crap? If they do, why do they? Are they truly that brain dead? Is anybody besides me paying attention to this stuff?

You're Just Too Damn Dumb

Let me start with the Bottom Line: You out there in the digital universe. Yes, you. You are too damn dumb to be permitted to make decisions for yourself. There. I said it. Yes, Mr./Mrs./Ms./Other America, the Commie Pinko Liberal Dumbass Weenies (CPLDW) believe to their very core that the American people cannot and should not be allowed to decide for themselves where, when, how and under what circumstances to live their own lives. You think I'm exaggerating? Please allow me to elaborate:

Although I'd dearly love to lay everything that's happening squarely at the feet of our newly-minted Redistributor-in-Chief, in truth, pols in both parties have colluded to erode our individual and collective civil and Constitutional rights for the past 70 years. But the efforts of the Democrats since they took charge of D.C. on January 20, 2007, under the direction of Speaker Nancy ("You have to pass the bill to find out what's in it") Pelosi and Majority Leader Harry ("This war is lost!") Reid, and more recently under the aegis of the New Chicago Administration and with the complicity of state governments such as the spectacularly lame and feckless one currently operating in Sacramento these days, our rights have been under an assault of unprecedented proportions (Whew! 86 words. Long sentence!). Let me count the ways:

Shelly Obama has decided that we eat too much and of the wrong things. According to her, we should cut back on the fats and calories and drop some Elll Beeezzz. Yes, she of supremely large, Kardashianesque derriere feels comfortable in telling us what to eat and what to feed our kids. But, she freely admits that she just cannot stop eating Freedom Fries. Weenie. Just do what you're told. You're too damn dumb to do any different.

Mikey Bloomberg, the billionaire ex-Republican, ex-intelligent Mayor of New York City, believes that you shouldn't eat salt. So, he simply banned it from New York's restaurants. Oh, and trans fats too. And let's not forget, despite the 2^nd Amendment guarantees, he really, really doesn't want you to have guns. So much so that he sent two plainclothes N. Y. detectives on the clock to a gun show in Phoenix to try and buy some weaponry without background checks. In Phoenix! Hello! Phoenix isn't in New York, Mikey! Can you say nosey? Yep, go straight from the 1^st to the 3^rd, says Mikey. Right. Without Bloomberg you'd no doubt be gobbling handfuls of salt and swilling gallons of trans fats while working overtime to try and buy lots and lots of guns. Because you're too damn dumb not to.

BHO really, REALLY believes that five buck gas is quite okay. He's said so repeatedly. Check out YouTube and you'll find the video. He thinks that will cause us to feel all warm and fuzzy about "investing" in green energy so we can save the planet, presumably from Al Gore. You know what "investing" means, don't' you? That means taking tax dollars from those that produce and spending them by the bushel to try and jump-start the windmill/solar technology industry that has nearly bankrupted Spain. The Spanish say for every new "green" job created there during the last ten years, they've lost 4 and one-half regular jobs. Interesting. In the meantime, Barry has said you can't drill your way to energy independence, as if the rules of supply and demand economics have somehow been rendered ineffectual where oil and gas are concerned. Yet, he just decided to release somewhere between 30 and 60 million gallons of crude from the National Petroleum Reserve to help bring down prices, no doubt to help his fading reelection prospects. Can you say no clue? Can you say disingenuous? You don't understand all of this do you? That's because you're too damn dumb.

The Sacto boys passed a law last year making it a crime to feed a live hamster or mouse or rat to your pet python. You must now euthanize them so they feel no pain whilst your Boa gobbles them down. BTW, snakes don't want to eat dead critters. They prefer their meals to be kicking and screaming. And then they made it a crime to drive with your Teacup Chihuahua on your lap. All this while (mis)managing to spend $25 Billion each year for the past several they do not have. And now they want you to agree to allow them to extend temporary taxes for another five years to cover their shortfall. Right. And now, the good citizens of the People's Republic of San Francisco have outlawed Happy Meals and the purchase of any pet that flies, walks, crawls or swims. Yep, no dogs, cats, hamsters, snakes, birds, or even FISH! BTW, it's okay to buy a lobster to take home, boil up and eat, just not put it in a fish tank. Cruelty, don't you know. Tell me this all sounds very strange to you and I'll tell you're it's because you're just too damn dumb.

You love pickups and SUVs and really large, heavy cars. Ford has been selling more than 500,000 F150 pickups a year for more than 20 years. That's what you want and you should be able to buy it, right? Unfortunately, wrong! The TelePrompTer-in-Chief and the Boys don't want you to drive these vehicles, especially Fords, because Ford refused to take TARP money. They want you to buy little overpriced hybrid and electric weenie cars. So much so they'll give you some of your neighbor's money as a bribe to get you to buy one (invest?). Does that make sense? If you don't think so it's because you're too damn dumb.

In the final analysis, CPLDWs just want to be left alone to live your life, because you're just too damn dumb to handle the task for yourself. You need to be told what to eat, what to wear, what to drive, where to educate your kids and even whether or not you can own a pet. And don't you dare try to stop them! They get really nasty when confronted with common sense…

Anothony Weeeeeennnnnerrr

Sung to the tune of the Oscar Meyer jingle:

Oh, I'm glad that I'm not Anthony Wei – ner,
That is what I'm really glad to say - ay - ayyy.

'Cause if I were Anthony Wei – ner,
I'd be a Commie, pinko, liberal dumbass, loudmouth,
Latte-sipping, limousine-riding, overpaid, undersmart,
Arrogant, disingenuous, fool with a Nepoleonic complex.

I just love poetry. Don't you?

Push Polling in Costa Mesa

Work with me here while I pretend to be an actual reporter. Not a self-important, politically-incorrect pundit. Nope. An actual reporter such as they puke forth from "J" schools like the University of Missouri, from whence I emanated. I'm going to try to play against type from my normal nasty, snarky, snide, sarcastic, opinionated little self and do what my good friend the Pot Stirrer suggested and report on the facts as I witnessed them recently. So, fair citizen, sit back, open up a Bud, or the adult beverage equivalent of your choice, and let's consider the situation together…

For those of you who don't know, the Chuckmeister has been a happy, loyal and productive resident of the wonderful little city of Costa Mesa, California, for more than 35 years. Mrs. Chuckmeister, too, and all the little Chuckmeisters we've produced along the way. It suits me and my family just fine. Along with another 117,000 or so residents, it appears. Of late, Costa Mesa has found itself embroiled in a monumental controversy that threatens to tear our tight-knit little town apart. Some background for the unanointed out there in Digitalville…

Over the past few years the City has suffered diminished revenues due to a painful recession, which reduced sales tax receipts, and increased expenditures due to ever-escalating costs of operation. The biggest of those costs has been and will be employee labor and healthcare benefits, and the pension contributions that go along with it. Our city budget is down about 20% from its high a few years back and our costs for people is now consuming nearly 85% of all revenues. Data published by the City indicates that over 90% of our public employees earn more than $100,000 per year. A side effect has been a serious reduction in infrastructure expenditures such as for parks, curbs, gutters and street repair. We've burned through more than $30 million of our savings during the past five years and are now $1.5 million short in balancing the 2011- 2012 budget. The Bottom Line: Something had to be done.

The new City Council majority chose to attack the problem this past March 17^th by giving layoff notices to nearly half of Costa Mesa's 472 employees. This did not make those who received the pink slips happy. It made their union bosses even less happy. And, sadly, one of those employees chose to take his own life in the aftermath. It also angered a fair percentage of our citizenry, who believe that this action was taken precipitously and without sufficient prior discussion and planning. Since then there's been an ongoing war between the Orange County Employee's Association (OCEA), the union representing the laid-off workers, and the Council majority and City management, who are attempting to outsource the services these folks have been providing. The Union has since sponsored numerous events to try and change the Council's mind, which have on occasion resulted in picketing, yelling, name-calling, personal attacks and threats, as well as a very negative advertising campaign. A group has been formed to try and stop the layoffs, and another has been created to show support for the Council majority's decision. In short, it's a colossal mess and one not likely to be resolved anytime soon.

With this background now provided, let me tell you about a phone call I received last week.

A woman identifying herself as "Monica" was on the phone. She said she was calling from "California Opinion Research" and asked if I would answer a few important questions about a subject that may appear on the ballot during a special election this November. I agreed to participate. I was not expecting what then ensued.

It became immediately apparent that the questions the lady was asking me were clearly of a type known as "push polling." For those not familiar with this term, push poll questions are phrased in such a way as to elicit the desired response. The questions are designed to educate (or indoctrinate) the respondent so that the desired answer to the various questions will be given. An example of such a technique could be, "If you were told that your next door neighbor had stopped beating his wife, would you be a) very happy, b) happy, c) sad, or d) neutral in your feelings." The questions coming at me from Ms. Monica were nearly that transparent. And, by the way, I spent 35 years as a marketing, sales, advertising and P.R. exec, so I'm pretty well versed on the subject.

The poll in my opinion had been bought and paid for by the OCEA. I was even asked if I'd seen the Repair Costa Mesa ads appearing in the paper and on the Internet that they were proudly sponsoring, so I'm comfortable in drawing this conclusion. I answered in the affirmative, commenting that these Internet and newspaper ads were so ubiquitous they would be hard to avoid. Paraphrasing, I was asked questions such as, "If you were told that the top five executives in Costa Mesa paid themselves more than $1.5 million last year and were given more than $50,000 in car allowances, would you approve or disapprove?" A little research tells me that this salary number is inflated by about 300%. And, "If you were told your City's executives had spent $10,000 for carpeting in its executive offices, how would you feel?" We know, and the Union knows, that the carpet and other improvement to the CEO's office cost at most a few hundred dollars and were donated by some of our citizens who wished to make the new CEO feel welcome. And also, "If you were told that 18 city services were being outsourced and half the City's employees were being fired, but that the City's management continues to pay themselves lush salaries and perks, would you be okay with that?" Oh well, you get the idea.

Several questions later I was asked whether I approved or disapproved of the Council majority who voted for the outsourcing plan. I was asked to evaluate and approve or disapprove of each of the four Councilpersons in the majority, one at a time, and then asked if I would vote to recall any or all. I asked the caller if there was a question as to whether I would vote to recall the lone Council person who chose to vote against this plan, as inclusion of this question would tend to make the poll more balanced. I was told that wasn't part of the survey. I was then asked a series of questions about my age and educational level. Surprisingly, I was then asked to state my race. I inquired as to why she needed to know the answer to this question. The caller would not answer and continued to ask the question in a variety of ways until she became convinced I had no intention of answering it.

I then asked the caller where California Opinion Research was located. She said, "California." Cute. She would not supply the address or the city, nor would she tell me who paid for the survey to be conducted, although it was glaringly apparent which organization was behind this very misleading exercise.

I would warn my fellow Costa Mesa residents to be wary of the results of this survey if and when they're made public. By the push polled questions I was asked, they will most assuredly be found uniformly favorable to the employees' union and to their efforts to overturn the Council's outsourcing plans, and uniformly unfavorable to the Council majority's efforts, whether or not those efforts are misguided, to put our City on firm financial footing. They will likely use these suspect results in an effort to underpin a fall recall election geared toward the two members of the Council majority the survey indicates are most vulnerable. Push polling of this type is dishonest and should not be conducted by either side in this controversy. I recommend that the City immediately seek to conduct its own poll in an effort to accurately gauge the residents' actual opinions about this important topic in advance of the Union's possible advertising, marketing and public relations onslaught.

Four points in closing: First, Mrs. Chuckmeister received the very same call the next day, indicating that these folks are dedicated to reaching as many as possible with this little campaign. Second, those who have a negative opinion of union bosses and their tactics will have no reason to change their minds following this little exercise. Third, both sides of this food fight should be held accountable by the electorate and urged not to engage in this type of conduct. Fourth, I did a Google and Bing search on "California Opinion Research." My computer tells me it does not exist. Makes one wonder where those calls are coming from, doesn't it? The Union's offices, perhaps?

I don't know about you, but I'll make it a point to vote come November.

The Church of the Chuckmeister

There may be some of you out there in Digitalville who remain unaware that the Chuckmeister is an ordained minister. Yep, it's true. It took lots of reading and study and living a good clean, moral life (uh, well, sometimes) to achieve this milestone, but I did it. In fact, I've been a Reverend for most of the past 25 years. I obtained this honor with the idea in mind that I might have to start my own church in order to avoid the nasty realities that President Jimmuh Carter was foisting on me and those of you who happened to be alive during his divisive, destructive and demoralizing turn in the White House. You know, like an energy crisis and interminable gas lines and 21% interest and 24% inflation and Iranian hostages and feckless incompetence. Like that.

But, as it turned out I didn't have to. I bought a piece of the Oakland Convention Center and some unreleased Willie Nelson records and a share of a Jojoba bean farm instead to lessen the unrelenting tax bite. Great tax shelters, those. It's an old truism that if you tax those who produce enough, they'll figure a way to keep some of that which they've earned, even if they have to get creative to do it. True then. True now.

But I've been a Reverend in good standing ever since. So, in addition to being a world-class salesman and marketeer, public relations wonderkind, advertising genius, star strategist, classy dresser and stellar professional pool player, as well as possessing a near encyclopedic memory for all things useless and a sense of humor second to none, I am authorized by whichever Democrat Weenie who happens to running California into the ground at the time to conduct weddings. In fact, I've done so more than 300 times over the years, including one of my own daughters, and as far as I know every single couple I've joined in Holy Matrimony are still married. That would be "as far as I know," which isn't terribly far. But I'm also permitted to conduct funerals and Bar Mitzvahs and the Blessing of the Harvest and Druid-style equinox celebrations Roman Bacchanalian soirees and other religious gatherings at will. It turns out that may finally prove helpful.

You may also be as yet unaware that certain religious orders are exempted from having to participate in our boy President's signature new legislation, the "Affordable Care and Screw America to the Wall Forever Healthcare Act of 2009." I'm not sure that's the exact title, but it's close. This little 2,700 page wonder (drop it on your foot and bones will be breaking, trust me) has come to be known as "Obamacare." It basically subsumes one-sixth of our great nation's economy, guarantees European-style socialist healthcare rationing, robs hundreds of billions of dollars from Medicare and dumbs down healthcare service delivery to all Americans. All except the D.C. ruling class, don't you know. And the Health and Human Services Department, that bloated Federal organization that Barry has tapped to oversee this behemoth legislation, has thus far granted more than 1,200 waivers to nice folks wishing to opt out of it. Waiver recipients thus far include companies such as McDonalds, unions such as A.C.O.R.N., the AARP and even a couple of our United States. It truly makes one wonder why, if this piece of legislation is so damn good, why would be those who would wish not to participate? Good question. But that's for another discussion.

It turns out also that Obamacare exempts a couple of religious organizations from having to participate. Those would be the Church of Christ (Scientist) and the Amish Order. Why, you might ask? Well, the legislation doesn't state exactly, but we all know that the Church of Christ (Scientist) believes that you can heal whatever ails you with only the power of prayer. No doctors or hospitals needed, thank you. And the Amish don't cotton much to those newfangled things like electricity and cars and doctors. Good for them. Sounds to me like we have the makings here of the perfect way to give the finger to the Administration, HHS and the Government as a whole in one swell foop. So here's my plan…

Ta Da! I am hereby launching the Chuckmeister Church of Christ with Scientific and Amish Leanings (CCCSAL). This new church will have as its charter the belief that medical care obtained as a result of legislation stuffed down our collective throats by Commie Pinko Liberal Dumbass Weenies (CPLDW) is against God and all that is Holy. It also specifies that we should consider praying for the things we both want and need, and we should try getting around via horse and buggy and eschewing electricity whenever possible. BTW, with gas prices through the roof and no new power plants having been built in the past 30 years, we all may have to.

So, by way of this posting I'm formally notifying the Federal Government that my Church and all its members are hereby exempt from participating in Obamacare and anything like it that Barry and the Boys might up with subsequently come (remember, never end a sentence with a preposition!).

"So how do I join, Mr. Chuckmeister?" you might be asking yourself at this very moment. Very simply, just send me a check for $5.00 and I'll add your name to the Church roster and email you with proof so you can give the Feds the bird. Or, if you'd care to be a Minister in my holy quest to right all the world's wrongs, including the wrongs coming our way out of Washington on a daily basis, make it $10.00 and a self-addressed and stamped envelope and you'll be ordained. Poof! You'll receive a very nice (well, not terribly nice) certificate of your ordination by return mail. That's all there is to it. No regular Church services. No regular Church! No meetings, no requirements, no nothing. Just live a good, clean and moral life and obey at least 7 of the 10 Commandments routinely and you'll remain an adherent in good standing.

The Chuckmeister thanks you for your interest in this Public Service Announcement. Go with God, my child…

Gates, Jobs and Doggy Doo

I begin this posting on April 18^th, Tax Day 2011, with a simple economic fact: Unless you operate a Ponzi scheme, or engage in armed robbery or some other form of actionable illegal behavior, you do not get rich by making others poor. Simple, huh? In fact, Sir Winston Churchill had a famous quote on the subject. He said, "Trying to make oneself rich by making a rich man poor is like standing in a bucket and trying to pull yourself up by the handles." An Englishman said that! It would be reasonable to assume that everybody, and I mean everybody, recognizes this pronouncement as fact. Reasonable, yes. Unfortunately, such is not the case.

As we learned from our Campaigner-in-Chief on April 13^th, during his most recent "Major Policy Speech of the Week," the wealthy in this country aren't paying their fair share. They need to pay more so that Obama can redistribute it according to his progressive agenda. After all, he said, they can afford it. No matter that the top 1% of wage earners in America pays nearly 40% of all income taxes. And the top 5% pay more than 70%. And the bottom 53% pay only 3% of all income taxes collected. Pay attention Mr. and Mrs. and Ms. America, 47% of Americans pay no income tax at all! In fact, many get a redistribution check from the Feds due to "Earned Income Tax Credits" and other exemptions and deferments. No, the "rich" aren't paying enough according to Obama, and he intends to almost (actually, not almost…not even close) balance our Federal budget in the next 12 years by imposing on millionaires and billionaires increased taxes while simultaneously reducing or eliminating altogether their onerous, unearned and unfair deductions which they should never have been granted in the first place by those evil Republicans. And by "millionaires and billionaires" he means individuals making $200k a year and married couples pulling down $250k per annum. That oughta' fix them. Oh, and by the way, talk about the "marriage penalty." Two people living together and pooling their incomes could earn $399,999 per year in total before being hit with Obama's new tax sledgehammer. Yet, two folks who are married can only earn up to $249,999. Is anybody out there paying attention but me?

So, in summation, those slimy capitalists are trying to keep too much of the money they've earned, and they need to be punished! Class Warfare! Those of you who believe this would be a good idea, consider the following:

80% of those earning $200,000 per year, the threshold at which one becomes "rich" according to Obama, operate small businesses incorporated under sub-chapter S of the income tax code. That means what they earn via their company passes directly through to them personally, and then they are taxed on that profit. If we as a country take more of the money through taxation these entrepreneurs earn, that will necessarily leave them with less to reinvest in their businesses, and less to pay those they might hire. In other words, the less they're left with the less they have to plow back into their businesses and, indirectly, into our Country. If that extra money is confiscated by the Government so that it may be redistributed according to some leftist ideology, it cannot be used to create the jobs we sorely need to get us out of this recession. Of course, those running things in D.C. who have never created a job, managed a business, signed a check on its face or struggled to meet a payroll, including our brilliant young President and 93% of the very nice folks in his Cabinet, seem to be ignorant of this fact. One should consider that if 100% of the incomes of all Americans earning over $250k were confiscated by Obama and Company, it would still not be enough to erase our 2010 – 2011 Federal deficit of $1.65 Trillion. In fact, it would take 134% of the incomes of those in the top tax rate to bring $1 Trillion Dollars into the Treasury,(1) still leaving us with a $650 Billion deficit. The tax burden of the top 1% of taxpayers now exceeds that paid by the bottom 95%.(2) Enlightening?

Oh, and by the way, 75% of all the jobs in America come from small business. A small business is defined as those with up to 250 employees. Three quarters, folks. 3 out of 4. Does raping the earnings of the creators and maintainers of these jobs make a little less sense now?

Bill Gates did not become a multi-billionaire by taking those billions from others. He became rich by creating something others want and are willing to pay for. Steve Jobs did the very same thing. He created wealth by creating value. And in the process he created jobs (Jobs creates jobs, get it?). Thousands of them. Don't want an iPad? Don't buy one. The guy who invented microchips got rich, and as a result, many, many tens of thousands of others did the same using that basic technology to create a myriad of other products and services. And our lives were improved in the process. And newly-created taxes gushed into the Treasury as a result. They still do. Snoop Doggy Doo earns millions by making a fool of himself. But he does not earn those millions off the labor of others. He makes it by uttering unintelligible (c)rap. When he makes money others don't lose it. So should Gates and Jobs and Doggy Doo pay more taxes even though they're already bearing the lion's share of all taxes paid? Obama says an emphatic "Yes." And those in his little downstream redistribution club agree with him.

Should Obama be successful in raising taxes on the highest income earners in our country, I predict that no additional revenue will be raised. In fact, less money should be coming over the transom than is presently being collected. Why, Mr. Chuckmeister, you might ask? The top earners among us didn't get that way by being stupid. Tax them too much and they'll do exactly the same thing they did while Jimmuh Carter was screwing up America. They'll involve themselves in tax avoidance schemes to minimize the tax bite. They'll invest in pieces of Jojoba bean farms, unreleased Willie Nelson records, wind and solar generation plants, art investment/depreciation programs and sale/leasebacks of government buildings, etc. Or they'll engage in bartering, trading something they have or make for something else they need or want, taking that transaction off the IRS radar. It worked then and, with the help of some able accountants, it'll work again. The Bottom Line is, lower tax rates and increase tax revenues. Reagan and Bush's 1 and 2 proved it. I hope the next president is smart enough to prove it again. And hopefully, soon.

I say Obama's position on this issue proves one thing for sure: Having an Occidental and Columbia and Harvard education and having worked hard for several weeks as a Community Organizer for A.C.O.R.N. signing up folks to vote Democrat does not make one a qualified economist. In fact, I believe it proves that this fellow doesn't even know what he doesn't know. But he has been given the keys to our lives and our Treasury by a bare majority of our citizenry. They will all feel better if some extra taxation is extracted from the productive in our society, just because the "rich" can afford it. And they want it. And they're going to get it. And just because they seem to believe that these folks got "rich" by luck or thievery rather than hard work and the willingness to take risks. Keep it up, all you lefties, and watch as those who are growing weary of being picked clean by our society's Professional Leaches vote with their feet and take their money and their jobs (no, not Steve) to Costa Rica, the Panama Canal or the Cayman Islands, leaving no one here in Astlan to create jobs and pay the bills but sign twirlers and Starbucks' Baristas.

Somebody ought to tell Obama that he's making a bigger fool of himself than Doggy Doo. Given that he's surrounded himself with ideologues even less qualified than he is, if that's at all possible, I somehow doubt that's going to happen any time soon.

Oh, and by the way, yes, the Chuckmeister is a graduate economist.

1. Calculations compiled by the Heritage Foundation from data provided by the White House Office of Management and Budget.



2. Interal Revenue Service, 2008

Enhancing Self-Esteem, at a Stiff Price

NASA's website states its "…mission is to pioneer the future in space exploration, scientific discovery and aeronautic research."

It used to be anyway. I think that its website should be updated a bit following revelations revealed in Charles Bolden's June, 2010 speech in Egypt. Mr. Bolden is NASA's Administrator and he was being interviewed by Al Jazeera TV on the one year anniversary of President Obama's Cairo speech. Mr. Bolden had some very interesting things to say about NASA's new mission. Bolden stated that he had been called in by Obama and told that "…NASA's foremost duty is to make Muslims feel good about themselves." He was told to help them boost their self-esteem. He was told to reach out to the Muslim world and honor their historic contributions in science, math and engineering. Bolden went on to state that "NASA is not only a space exploration agency. It's also an earth improvement agency." Well isn't that special.

It's good that NASA has this new task on its plate, because the Obama Administration has drastically cut its budget, which has resulted in the cancellation of virtually all manned space flights. That includes the development of the next rocket which was supposed to take mankind back to the moon. And now with the end of the Space Shuttle program in view, it seems NASA will now morph into a Muslim outreach program. I wonder how that makes the engineers and scientists working for NASA feel? I wonder how it negatively impacts the hundreds of thousands of jobs dependent on space exploration, many of them in California. I wonder if NASA now stands for National Arab Sensitivity Association.

And considering that the International Space Station was built using mostly American money and manufacturing, one has to wonder how we're going to send our astronauts back and forth? Fear not, good friends, we have the answer. Russia, that paragon of virtue, has offered to help. At a price, of course.

We have a contract with the Russians to rocket our folks to the ISS for only $56,000,000.00 per chair. And starting in 2014, the price goes to $63,000,000.00 per ride. I guess when you have a monopoly you can charge whatever you want. And we have a Government which, in a short-sighted decision, has given them that monopoly. I guess it costs less to improve Muslim self-esteem than it does to fire rockets into space. I don't know about you, but I'd prefer our continued investment in space exploration, even if it means that our Muslim friends have a little less self-esteem.

A Very Quiet Declaration of War. With Mexico?

I think everyone who's been paying attention knows President Barack Hussein Obama is against the private ownership of weapons of any kind, and especially handguns. He's from Chicago, after all, a town which has effectively banned almost all guns for nearly 40 years. And so is Attorney General Eric Holder, ex-White House Advisor David Axelrod and ex-Chief of Staff Rahm Emmanuel, all from Chicago. And although not from Chicago, so is State Department Secretary Hillary Clinton. And let's not forget the two newest Supreme Court Justices, Sonja Sotomayor and Elena Kagan. Both opined during their Senate confirmation hearings the identical, and presumably coordinated, notion that private ownership of handguns is "settled law," and then voted against the private ownership of handguns at their very first opportunity.

Clearly, the folks running things in D.C. are anti-gun in the first degree. Sadly. And just last week Obama stated that we had to find "…some new way to verify at the point of sale that those who shouldn't be permitted…" to buy a weapon were kept from doing so. Some new way. I guess this law professor isn't aware there are literally hundreds of local, county, state and Federal laws which insure just that. Billy Jeff Clinton did his best to gut the 2^nd Amendment when he was POTUS, without success. But, unlike Obama, he didn't have virtually every Chicago pol working with him in D.C. helping him to do so. And as this is written Hillary is actively working with the U.N to enact a worldwide treaty to outlaw virtually all small arms. If passed, this treaty would, for the very first time in history, render our Constitution subservient to the United Nations and effectively erase our 2^nd Amendment guarantees. So what's Obama willing to do to try to do to steal even more of our liberties? You just won't believe it. Read on…

Hillary Rodham Clinton has repeatedly stated her belief that guns were being bought in the U.S. from complicit gun stores and smuggled into Mexico, helping to fuel drug cartel violence there. Mexico's President Calderon has agreed with her. So have Obama and Holder. So the question must have been, how do they validate this theory? Simple. In order to make sure this so-called "iron pipeline" really exists, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF) allowed nearly 2,000 firearms over a 15 month period to go from gun dealers in the border states to straw buyers that were the accomplices of a gun runner ring set up by the ATF. In other words, in order to prove that guns were making their way from the U.S. into Mexico, they set up a program to make sure that guns were making their way from the U.S. into Mexico! They called it "Operation Fast and Furious." It was known internally as "Operation Gun Walker," because ATF agents were calmly watching the guns "walk" across the border.

Gun store owners repeatedly contacted ATF with fears that purchasers of multiple weapons, especially so-called "assault" weapons, were being transshipped into Mexico. They were told not to worry and continue selling these weapons. These straw buyers were under surveillance, they were told. And they were…by ATF, who watched as at least 1,759 guns, and as many as 3,000, made their way south. The ATF's plan, I surmise, and presumably the Administration, was to bust a drug ring or two and find loads of black rifles which would then be traced back to the U.S. gun dealers. This would provide "proof" that our laws were lax and should be seriously stiffened, unfairly harming honest gun dealers, perhaps putting them out of business, and further gutting the 2^nd Amendment. What they weren't counting on, I'm sure, was that two of these assault rifles were found at the scene of U.S. Border Agent Brian Terry's death on December 14, 2010. They were subsequently traced back to ATF Gun Walker sales. Others were found near the murdered body of Border Agent Jaime Zapata this past February. ATF has acknowledged that 195 weapons sold in Arizona under their surveillance have turned up in Mexico. Mexican authorities have said they believe that at least 150 Mexicans have died due to these guns.

So how do we know all this is true? It was reported on the CBS Evening News with Katie Couric. A CBS investigative journalism unit videoed gun sales taking place while ATF watched. They then observed these same guns being transferred from one car trunk to another, and then on across the Border. This evidence has caused an international furor, sparking investigations in both Mexico and the U.S. Mexico is more than miffed, considering they were not told in advance this action was to occur. Sen. Grassley and Rep. Darrell Issa have launched investigations in their respective bodies, as have their counterparts in Mexico. Atty. General Holder has commented that this activity is simply "unacceptable." I would tend to agree. However, I'm fairly sure this whole fiasco wouldn't have happened without his – and likely the President's - direct authorization and knowledge.

Put simply, this activity was criminal, and those responsible should be indicted, tried and convicted. But worse is the fact that this action was a clear-cut Act of War on our neighbor to the south. Having this astoundingly stupid and illegal activity see the light of day, it makes one wonder what else our Government is doing to erode our civil rights. Considering those in charge in D.C. were schooled in doing things "The Chicago Way," I'm pretty sure there's nothing they wouldn't do to remake America according to their warped leftist sensibilities. Those of us who believe what the 2^nd Amendment's 27 little words have to say know we're in for a rough couple of years until we get a chance to rid ourselves of these ideologues. I fear for our Country. You should as well.

One Possible Solution

I just had an epiphany. I conjured up a possible solution to the current impasse between the Republican-held governorships, Assemblies and Senates in Wisconsin, Ohio and Indiana, and to an extent New Jersey and Florida, and no doubt others to come, and the public-sector unions in those states.

It seems that the majority of our states are constitutionally required to balance their budgets each and every year. And the recession has made it inordinately difficult to do so of late. We in California know all about that. Since Arnie the Governator promised to "blow up the boxes," California has somehow (mis)managed to go in the toilet to the tune of more than $150 Billion Dollars. That, by the way, is a reeeaaalllllllyyyy big number. But unlike in California, the new governors in the states above listed have begun making the tough choices necessary to save the billions they're upside down. In Wisconsin's case, Governor Scott Walker needs to find $3.7 Billion to balance his budget. And to do so, he's dead set on forcing the public sector union members, with the exception of cops and firefighters (one has to wonder why that exception), to cough up slightly more in individual contributions to help pay for their pensions and their health care benefits. But more than that, just like President Carter with Federal employees, he's planning to eliminate their ability to collectively bargain on anything but wages above any annual cost of living increase. The other states are taking similar measures to rid themselves of red ink. All three states have new laws in the hopper which will accomplish these objectives. The unions are not pleased. In fact, they've been picketing and chanting and singing and sloganeering all day, every day since this tussle began. They've turned the stately old WI Capitol Building into a trash heap, resulting in damages exceeding $8,000,000. It kind of makes one wonder just what these irreplaceable, hard-working, middle-class public-sector Americans do for a living which permits them to take two or three weeks off to protest. It seems to me there has to be an answer to this perplexing problem. And I think I've found it.

The public employee union members should simply convert to Islam. Voila! Instantly they would become sacrosanct and off limits. They would be beyond controversy. We would not be able to judge their actions or motivations, or criticize them in any way, because to do so would be hate speech. They would become a protected class, not to be besmirched in the slightest by the media or leftist zealots or those who revere political correctness. And even if they took that conversion to the maximum, embracing polygamy and stoning and wife beating and honor killings, we still wouldn't be able to complain, because that would be racist. If you doubt that, consider what's happening on Capitol Hill. Rep. Pete King, Chairman of the House Homeland Security Committee, is conducting an inquiry into the growing radicalization of young Muslims. His critics consider this inquiry to be racist. He is being called a bigot and an Islamophobe. His life has been threatened. He's under 24-hour guard. And the dinosaur media is excoriating him for his "McCarthy-style" witch hunt against those nice young Muslims. U. S. Rep. Shiela Jackson Lee, D-TX, has even gone so far as to demand that the KKK be investigated right alongside the Muslims, because, once again, to do otherwise would be racist. How many acts of terror has the KKK carried out recently? Oh, never mind.

So all you public-sector union members out there, the answer couldn't be simpler. Convert to Islam and you'll be forever free to live high on the hog, scrutiny free, especially after you retire, at your neighbors' expense. You're welcome.

What Shuts Down in a Shutdown

Government shutdown. Sounds ominous, doesn't it? We've heard from our young Community Organizer President that shutting down the Government would necessarily lead to Social Security checks not going out. Nor those to the military. And a halt to all Government services. San Fran Nancy ("You have to pass the bill to find out what's in it") Pelosi, our ex-House Speaker who now has to fly commercial, poor thing, repeated that allegation. And Harry ("This war is lost!") Reid, Senate Majority Leader, has offered up even more dire predictions about a Government shutdown. You know, Grandma eating dog food and crime running rampant in the streets. That sort of stuff. Well folks, I decided to personally look into this matter and try and separate the wheat from the chaff. What's the truth and what's blatant, partisan demagoguery, I wanted to know. And here are the results of my research:

We have in the good ol' U.S. of A. what we call "essential services." These are the services that are so important they may not be shut down. Ever. They include mail delivery. The 600,000 unionized mail carriers are exempt from shutdowns. Gotta' get those coupons and Victoria's Secret catalogues out to the folks. Air Traffic Controllers. These are the guys who learned from President Ronald Reagan in 1981 that they are so important that they may not go on strike. They did. He fired them. Their replacements are essential. They stay on the job. Or else. The military. Our Army, Air Force, Marines, Navy and Coast Guard keep on working in the event of a Government shutdown and we continue to pay them. Medicare will keep on truckin' and keep on paying our seniors. So will the food inspectors. Can't allow any Mad Cow Disease to occur while our Congressional leaders are engaged in a wrestling match. Health care for our Country's veterans will continue on unabated in the event of a shutdown. Our Federal courts will stay open even if the Government closes so we can continue prosecuting the bad guys. And last but not least (pay attention here, Mr. President), Social Security will continue working like Santa's little elves, sending checks along to the old folks. The dog is safe from Grandma, it seems.

So what services would be curtailed if the Democrats persist in spending at record levels and the Republicans are unsuccessful in getting them to spend just a wee bit less? Well, no visit to Federal parks or museums for you. You wouldn't be able to obtain a new visa or passport. Pity. Toxic waste cleanup at 609 sites would be curtailed. Recruitment of Federal law enforcement officers would be put on hold until an agreement is reached. All Federal contractors in and around Washington, D.C. would be sent home without pay (ahwwww…). No new patients would be accepted for National Institutes of Health clinical research. And there would be delays in processing applications for Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Explosives applications (I'm afraid you'll have to wait to buy that Dynamite!).

Now I ask you, is this extreme? Considering the plethora of absolutely incredibly stupid laws pouring forth from Foggy Bottom of late, I for one am quite looking forward to a Government shutdown. Remember what Mark Twain said on this subject: "No man's pocketbook is safe while Congress is in session." Just imagine if there were a shutdown in Sacramento. Over the past decade or so our Assembly and Senate members have put forth, argued about and passed an average of more than 950 new laws each year. And the Governor has signed into law an average of half them. Some of my favorites include the Paris Hilton law from two years ago. It's now a crime to drive with your teacup Chihuahua in your lap. And last year's new law requiring you to euthanize a mouse, rat or Guinea pig prior to feeding it to your pet Python. While going upside down an average of $22 Billion Dollars each year for the past eight, these otherwise unemployable dimbulbs found time to worry about the mental health of a rat just prior to being ingested. It makes one wonder what benefits would accrue to us, the taxpayers, if the Feds and the State were to send our lawmakers packing for a few months. Write your Congressman/woman/other and let them know your feelings on the subject…

Cutting out the Middleman

Everybody agrees our Country has a serious debt problem. The projected shortfall between revenues and spending is expected to grow to $1.625 Trillion this year. That's One Thousand Six Hundred Twenty Five Billion bucks! That equals all Federal expenditures just 14 short years ago. We are over $14.2 Trillion in debt, mostly to China, Japan and England. It won't be long before our debt eclipses our Gross National Product, which would put us in Greece and Ireland territory. That's not a good territory to find oneself. Not good, indeed.

So, I got to thinking. As a businessman, how I could use good business practices to reduce costs, or increase revenues, or both, without raising taxes and strangling the engine of productivity. And I think I've lit upon a rather creative solution to at least a piece of our problem.

We provide economic aid to scores of countries each and every year. Although it amounts to less than 1% of all spending, it's still a number in the range of $65 Billion per year, which is some pretty serious money. For instance, we send Egypt a care package to the tune of $1.2 Billion a year. Egypt. That's the same country which just ousted its dictator and replaced him and the constitution with some army generals. And within a few months, the army will likely be replaced by a mullah or two. But that's okay. Maybe they will be friendly mullahs. We like mullahs, don't we? It worked so very well in Iran, didn't it? But in the meantime, it makes no sense to me that we borrow money from China so we can send it to Egypt, and Jordan, and Chad, and Namibia, and Fiji and all those other countries. So here's the plan: We do what businesses do every day. We cut out the middleman. Everybody knows that doing so lowers costs and streamlines operations. We simply ask China to send the money straight to Egypt! Instead of laundering it through the Department of the Treasury and the State Department, and the Democratic National Committee, our inscrutable friends should send it straight to Egypt's army! We ought to be able to lay off hundreds, maybe even thousands of Federal public sector union employees who will no longer be needed to massage and redistribute China's money.

Oh, wait a minute. Considering that the Feds have added 200,000 new union employees since January 20, 2008, and appear dead set on adding more, the likelihood of any of them being laid off is somewhere between slim and none. And Slim, as they say, is out of town. Oh well, never mind…