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April 7, 2009: Catching up on Council | April 17: You might be a right wing extremist.... | April 17, 2009: Tea parties not about taxes...but about Big Government | April 20: City Council | June 10: Here's what I think | June 16, 2009 The Council Meeting Another no bid contract | June 17 -- Picking our pockets, one no-bid contract at a time | June 22, 2009 SCS Voice is back | June 22, 2009: Retired chief runs for Council. Can we afford him? | June 27, 2009 -- 'Bidding?...We don't need no stinkin' bidding!' | June 30, 2009: EPA Coverup on Climate Change | June 30, Guest Column...Letter Shows Stabenow believes health care a "right" | June 30, 2009: House energy bill a piece of S***T | July 3, 2009: Forget Socialism --we're racing toward Totalitarianism | July 4, 2009: Independence Day | July 6, 2009 Letter to Editor - Climate Change Not Real | July 6, 2009: Seniors Beware! Government run health plan might just kill you | July 10, 2009: Bill Clinton would be proud...it depends on what your definition of a 'bid' is...business as usual in the Shores | July 10, 2009: Minutes of Special City Council -- Ahearn and Activities Committee, 2006 | July 20, 2009: City Council: Sometimes you just get tired of the BS! | July 21, 2009: You decide | July 23, 2009: ‘‘America’s Affordable Health Choices Act of 2009’’ is anything but. | August 3, 2009: VOTE TOMORROW | August 3: Shocking things from Health Care Reform Bill! | August 3: Look at Frederick's property on Elizabeth | August 12, 2009: Bev, get a life! | August 12, 2009: President's rigged town hall | October 11: Teddy Boys' support should be kiss of death | November 3, 2009: Now comes the hard part | November 11, 2009: Wahby distances himself from losers; Veteran's Day and other matters | November 16, 2009 A new day | November 19, 2009: A personal message | November 17, 2009: Socialized medicine failing in Germany | City -- Some Pension Costs, Oct. 2007
June 10: Here's what I think
I think:
It's nuts that we have an individual running for city council who depends on the taxpayers of this city for his livelihood, namely his pension and health care benefits. Frank Troester is retired from the city police department. He retired as chief about 4 years ago and is receiving a pension of about $122,000 a year from the city. Wonder how he'd vote on wages and benefits packages...hum?
I think:
The St. Clair Shores TIFA should be disbanded, immediately. I have watched this debacle for almost 22 years and have seen nothing but good money -- money that should be going to benefit the entire community instead of that roughly one mile stretch (save for having some on the board, notably Kip Walby who used some TIFA money to do road improvements) -- being tossed after bad. And what have we got? Empty lots, "new restaurants" where old ones once stood and closed and vacant buildings!
Now, a study is underway to build a "peninsula"! For God's sake, when are we going to stand up and say no more?
I think:
Water meters? I thought that we weren't putting in new water meters...yet they are being bid out and are on the agenda for next weeks meeting.
I think:
Road and street millage: Also on the agenda. Here we have people who have lost their jobs, their pensions, their health care and may be on the verge of losing their homes who are expected to 'renew' this millage. Do your math, people. A renewal will automatically increase your taxes, since it will be based on the built-in inflationary increase in your property taxes. I will never, ever, never vote for any 'special millage.' It is a license to allow city officials to ignore their financial responsibility and to live within their means. If it means crumbling streets, so be it. Maybe when the entire infrastructure fails we'll wake up and demand that the city (and other government entities) spend the tax dollars they take from us on the essential things they are supposed to be used for .... streets, sewers, sanitation, police and fire protection and place government spending back into the hands of the people who pay for it.
I think:
The Harper Avenue Business Corridor will turn into another TIFA. We are already seeing brilliance at work in tearing up a perfectly good road to install -- are you ready for this-- colored concrete! Have we lost our minds? And just look at all the "economic" development going on along Harper. In the worst economic period in our history -- and this is far worse than anything we have ever gone through before -- how smart is it to pour money into Harper Avenue?
But the brainwashing culture of "public/private" partnerships is so engrained it will be a hard nut to crack. For instance, much was made in the news about the federal government making a 'profit' on the "loans" it forced onto some banks. We must remember, government is not a business and was never meant to make a profit. It was never meant to spend more than it took in the form of taxes and was constituted to have to cut spending when tax revenues failed to pay for programs.
I think:
People my age have become a minority in this nation. Maybe you're one of them. If you can recall when it was a given that the regulated, but free enterprise system under which we lived was the envy of the world and a system which raised the standard of living for all those willing to actually work then you are a dinosaur because that system is under total assault and that Americans aren't in an uproar over what is happening is a bad omen for the future. While other nations are running as fast as they can from their past socialist leanings toward a more conservative view of government we -- the President and Congress are in the process of dismantling not only our Constitution but our free-enterprise system. Even Canada with it's much heralded "national heath care" has recognized the error of its ways and is now allowing -- because they were banned before -- private doctors, clinics and hospitals, yet here we are heading for nationalized health care.
I think:
The Hollywood and media crowd will cry foul the moment the Congress wants to 'regulate' how much money they can make, as they are suggesting be done in other industries. The problem with embracing socialism is that pretty soon you run out of other people's money and have to turn on your own. Where will Barbara Striesand move once the federal government decides that her multi-million dollar a year enterprise affords her too much money? Paris? Nah, Paris in particular has a tax rate on the 'rich' of approximately 50%. What will Johnny Depp say when he is told no more $20 million a picture?
I think:
I think we are paying the piper for our years of assuming that the American people had an inborn sense of what freedom and democracy were all about. We are paying for all those years we allowed our children to be brainwashed and taught revisionist history. We are paying for allowing the word patriotism to become a dirty word and the Judeo-Christian beliefs upon which this nation was founded to be co-opted by the idea that being a Christian is a bad thing. Our system welcomed people of all beliefs and allowed them freedom to worship as they wished, yet today Christians are being told they cannot do the same thing. We, as parents, have failed our children and it is no wonder that they are so scared and -- I hate to say it -- stupid today.
Instead of recognizing that America and Americans can do anything they set their minds too, and given the freedom to do it we will, we have allowed them to believe all the tripe that was taught them.
Want an example? Well, I can give you tons. But take the simple light-bulb, which in no small measure was responsible for the progress we made as a nation. It is cheap, it is efficient and relatively low cost to purchase.
How stupid are we when we allow our Congress -- most of whom would not even know how to change a light bulb-- tell us that come 2012, we are going to have to use more "energy efficient" bulbs, filled with MERCURY...MERCURY for heaven's sake! These bulbs are terrible, they are expensive and their mercury content is a hazard, which end up in land fills. Please explain the logic of this to me.
I think:
It is irrational to complain that gas prices are going up, when our major source of oil is Saudi Arabia and is intent on limiting production to force prices even higher. It is especially irrational when you consider that we have our own resources which we cannot touch due to some misguided belief -- again the brainwashing effect -- that we cannot drill for oil in our own nation without devastating the environment. What will it take for this generation to realize the error of their ways? Maybe the day they wake up and have no heat in their homes because the President of the United States has as a stated goal, putting the coal industry out of business...You might want to read the December 17, 2008 column (see 2008 Archives) which outlines Obama's "energy plan" for us!
Meanwhile, despite our best efforts to "conserve" energy, we are being charged more for using less. It is totally irrational that we put up with this.
I think:
As for our 'standing' in the world, well I could give a crap. I was fortunate enough to have been born in what was once the greatest nation in the world and could give one whit that "Europe" hates us. Tell that to the hundreds of thousands of American men (and women) who fought on the battlefields of Europe in WWI, WWII to ensure that Europeans could have the same freedoms which all men seek...the freedom to think, to do and to live their lives without the government telling what the could and could not do or say. Tell that to those who helped build this nation and tried to make sure that our government never became what they had left behind in Europe...a feudal system with its serfs and servants working to serve those who ruled them. We shirked in Korea and in Vietnam and look at where we are today...Korea is holding us hostage and Vietnam is still a communist nation.
What would those who have died in the Fields of Flanders, on the beachheads of Normandy, on the atolls of the Pacific and Iwo Jima, or at Cowpens, Kings Mountain and at Valley Forge think of America today? They died so that we could be free and we are pissing it away in some misguided notion that those who "hate" us will somehow "love" us if only we become like them. Instead of trying to lifting up the poorest of the poor as we have done throughout our history we are now to be content to lower ourselves and our nation to the lowest common denominator.
I think:
It is sad that so few Americans have ever traveled abroad to Europe or to Africa and the Arab nations. We know nothing of which we speak and to depend on the 'news' media -- (the Fifth Column) -- for their information. If America is hated is because of the freedoms we enjoy. If you don't understand that, you understand nothing about world affairs. The Arab world is a mystery wrapped in an enigma and those radicals truly believe that any non-Arab is evil. This was not always the case. Before Bin Laden, the Arab world respected the Christian faith because both religions embraced the "Book" -- the Old Testament to you and I -- Abraham plays a major role in the Koran -- we shared a common respect for one another's beliefs. Bin Laden changed all that when he found a Islamic cleric who said, no matter, they do not follow the Koran so kill them. And millions of young men (women are sub-human in most of the Arab world so it makes no difference what they think!) have been brainwashed and truly believe that there are 7 Virgins waiting for them when they become martyrs. Isn't that ironic? In a religion which treats women like chattel, the dream of a martyred Islamic terrorist turns out to be a virgin!
I think:
The financial mess, caused in no small measure by our 'leaders', will get much worse and we will never, unless drastic changes are made within the next couple of years, escape from the abyss into which we are being pushed. It is not too late to start studying history and start brushing up on how dictators come into power.
I think:
That we have sat silent so long that we have allowed the "courts" to make drastic changes to our Constitution...on everything from freedom of religion to freedom of speech...that the next few court appointments to the Supreme Court will complete the gutting of that document. It might as well be rolled up and put in the garbage. When the jurist of this nation decide what is the law, rather than ruling on it, we are done as a democratic republic.
I think:
You'd better get in touch with your government representatives, while you still can, for it won't be too long before they won't even pretend -- as they do now -- that your opinion matters to them. If you value your freedom, your liberty, your right to be an 'uncommon man'...your right to be an American, you'd better let them know.
There is still time, but the clock is ticking and we will soon reach the tipping point and our grand children and their children will grow up slaves to the State.
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