The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas

MoonHowler

Christmas is a goner. Just ask Gretchen the Grinch. Jon Stewart brings reality back. He reminds us all that Christmas survived the Rome Empire.  Totally great cartoon. 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Gretch Who Saved the War on Christmas
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

 

Does it matter that cards we receive say Seasons Greetings?  Does it matter that sales clerks we don’t know tell us to have a great holiday instead of Merry Christmas?   Is it something to be paranoid over?  Is there really a war on Christmas? 

A Meeting with Destiny and Erik Finley

Elena

Call it fate, destiny, coincidence, whatever word you like,  but sometimes life is just too bizarre.  I met Erik Finley a few years ago during a paving job Finley Asphalt was hired to do for my community.  I can tell you, from first hand experience, he, and his company are top notch.  They are what makes small business America the best in the world.  He and other small business owners like him ARE the backbone of our economy.  The treatment he received from Corey, his office, and Wally was unconscionable. 

It was happenstance that Erik and I ended up talking.    Here is what Erik shared with me and his story, in three years, has remained consistent.

Somehow, the foreman and I began discussing PWC politics and county government, one topic lead to another and he asked if I would be willing to talk with Erik who was having some issues with the county.  I said, “sure, I would love to”.

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69th Anniversary of the Attack on Pearl Harbor

MoonHowler

If some of this looks familiar…it is.  That’s the neat thing about anniversaries.  You can recycle them.

The Greatest Generation  spent their childhood in the roaring 20′s.  As teenagers they weathered the Great Depression of the 30′s.  Reaching adulthood in the 40′s looked bright until that fateful Sunday afternoon in early December.  Every one from the Greatest Generation remembers where they were and what they were doing when they heard the news, much like those who followed now can tell you where they were and what they were doing when they heard of the Kennedy assassination or 9/11. 

Many people had no idea where Pearl Harbor was or that our Naval Fleet was berthed there.  Yet upon hearing of the Japanese attack on Pearl Harbor, most Americans were filled with rage and a sense of betrayal because of the sneak attack.  The Greatest Generation would have their lives unalterably changed forever. 

On December 8, 1941 they listened to their president, Franklin Roosevelt, make the following address to Congress: 

To the Congress of the United States of America

Yesterday, Dec. 7, 1941 – a date which will live in infamy – the United States of America was suddenly and deliberately attacked by naval and air forces of the Empire of Japan.

The United States was at peace with that nation and, at the solicitation of Japan, was still in conversation with the government and its emperor looking toward the maintenance of peace in the Pacific.

Click for full text

 

 

Over  3,000 lives, both civilian and non-civilian  were lost in the attack on Pearl Harbor.   America had a decimated navy.  The politics of war had kept FDR’s hand off the trigger and had kept us out of the war raging in Europe.  All but one member of Congress voted to declare war on Japan and within a week war had been declared on Germany and Italy.  The United States was fully at war, from the youngest child to the oldest citizen.

On this day, please give a second of your time to remember those who perished and a second to pay homage to that generation who gave so much.  Where would we be today without the Greatest Generation?  Soon they will be lost to the ages and the annals of time.  Those boys who went off to war are now staring down 90 if they are even still with us.  That is a sobering thought. 

Dick Morris compares tax-cut compromise to Hirohito signing surrender in World War II

MoonHowler

Now what is that old whore-monger Dick Morris babbling about now? Surrender? He should talk.

And what does President Obama have to say on the matter? According to MSNBC:

President Barack Obama announced the parameters of a tentative deal with Republicans on extending the Bush tax cuts, acknowledging that he still strongly opposes the extension of cuts for the very wealthy but saying that continuing a fight at the expense of the middle class would be “the wrong thing to do.”

“We have arrived at a framework for a bipartisan agreement,” the president said, after noting that it is “abundantly clear” that Republicans will block a permanent extension of tax cuts for the middle class without an extension for top earners as well.

“As much as the political wisdom may dictate fighting over solving problems, it would be the wrong thing to do,” to delay resolution until the next year, Obama said.

Some of the broad parameters of the deal, reported by NBC’s Chuck Todd, are:

— 2-year extension of ALL Bush-era tax rates

— 13-month extension of unemployment insurance

— 2 percentage point decrease in the payroll tax for one year.

The overall cost in lost revenue to the government is at least $450 billion in 2011 (or a tad higher than the yearly cost of the 2009 stimulus) and could climb as high as $600 billion depending on how much the economy grows over the next two years.

In the deal will be some extension of small business tax breaks as well and a “fix” to address inflation indexing of the alternative minimum tax (AMT) rates.

So how do we pay for it all? Do we borrow money from China to pay for the Republican tax cuts? I guess it is all a matter of priorities. What happened to the cuts in Social Security tax? I thought FICA was going to be reduced. Maybe just social security pay outs will be cut.

There is also more to come on the the estate tax. No mention of capital gains taxes.

Whatever deals he cut, President wasn’t going to leave the American people hanging. 

Media Matters: The Empire fights Back

MoonHowler

The Washington Post:

“Misinformation is dangerous when it metastasizes,” Rabin-Havt says. “Fox is going to lie with impunity. Rush Limbaugh is going to lie. The problem is when a story jumps from Fox News to CNN or the New York Times or The Washington Post. Our job is the head these things off at the pass.”

Rabin-Havt is the Vice President of Media Matters.  The CEO, David Brock, was a conservative before he was a liberal.

Media Matters is the watch dog group that loves to hate Fox News. . 

Fighting Fox is what Media Matters does, relentlessly and obsessively. In the six years since its founding, the watchdog group has evolved from an all-purpose scourge of the conservative media into Fox News Channel’s veritable shadow and constant irritant. From well before sunrise to long after it each day, teams of young researchers sift through video clips and transcripts of programs hosted by Fox stars such as Glenn Beckand Bill O’Reilly to find dubious facts, logical contradictions and poisonous – at least to Media Matters’ liberal sensibilities – rhetoric.

Brock further explains:

The dogged pursuit of Fox, says Media Matters’ founder David Brock, reflects not just the cable network’s popularity among conservatives but its power to set, and perhaps distort, the political agenda. Brock and his staff say they regard Fox as something more than just the televised equivalent of talk radio; they describe it as a de facto political operation, with a leading role in disseminating conservative messages, supporting conservative candidates and mobilizing voters.

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Sarah Palin Doesn’t Just Hunt Moose

MoonHowler

Sarah Palin also hunts American icons.  Now Palin is after JFK.  Why is she targetting all the American icons?  Let’s see:  Reagan, Daddy and Mrs. Bush, W. Bush, and now none other than JFK.  What has he done? 

Back in the summer we ran a post celebrating the 50th anniversary of JFK’s speech to the ministers of Houston on the importance of the wall of separation between church and state.   That speech was considered to be one of Kennedy’s most important.  To this day, he is the only Roman Catholic to be elected President of the United States. 

Kathleen Kennedy Townsend has addressed Palin’s erroneous thinking in an opinion piece in the Washington Post   Saturday:

In her new book, “America by Heart,” Palin objects to my uncle’s famous 1960 speech to the Greater Houston Ministerial Association, in which he challenged the ministers – and the country – to judge him, a Catholic presidential candidate, by his views rather than his faith. “Contrary to common newspaper usage, I am not the Catholic candidate for president,” Kennedy said. “I am the Democratic Party’s candidate for president who happens also to be a Catholic.”

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Dreaming of a Leesburg Christmas: Have a holly jolly atheist Christmas?

MoonHowler

The Leesburg Courthouse is always a place to look for some good old Christmas spirit and good old controversy.   Every year it seems warring factions go up against each other over the right to display Christmas decorations on the Courthouse lawn.  This year some decisions were made early–back in September even. 

A little refresher course is provided:

 

According to TDB (September):

The policy that the Loudoun County Board of Supervisors voted to maintain provides equal access for unattended, semi-permanent displays on the grounds of the historic courthouse in Leesburg.

Displays are open to all who apply, but the number of displays is limited to the ten locations on the grounds that have been designated as display sites. The Board also voted to limit the period of time for filing a display application to no earlier than one year before the date the display would begin.

The Office of the County Administrator has received six applications to date for displays, five of which are for the 2010 holiday season. Information about how to apply for a display on the courthouse grounds is online at www.loudoun.gov/courthousegrounds.

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A Yuletide Gift of Kindness–Ted Gup Learns an Incredible Family Secret

MoonHowler
Sam Stone aka "B. Virdot"

This month’s Smithsonian Magazine features the story of B. Virdot’s mysterious letter in the Canton, Ohio newspaper during the Great Depression. 

The year was 1933 and christmas was just a week away. Deep in the trough of the Great Depression, the people of Canton, Ohio, were down on their luck and hungry. Nearly half the town was out of work. Along the railroad tracks, children in patched coats scavenged for coal spilled from passing trains. The prison and orphanage swelled with the casualties of hard times.

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Tax cuts for the middle class are chicken crap?

MoonHowler

Apparently tax cuts for the middle class are chicken crap, according to the heir apparent speaker John Boehner.  Okkkayyyy.

One of my most serious pet peeves with the Democrats is their ability to drop the ball and allow the Republicans to define their rhetoric.  Today the House votes to extend middle class tax cuts created during the Bush administration, in accordance with what President Obama campaigned for.  The tax cuts would expire for anyone making more than $250,000. 

As I sat up in the night listening to all the days events, suddenly this tax cut vote had turned into democrats voting for a tax increase because the Republicans would never pass it.  STOP!  That isn’t what happened.  The Democrats voted to extend the tax cuts for those making less than $250,000.  Nothing more.  Nothing less.  Any spin is just that, spin.

If Republicans fail to get on board with extending tax cuts for 98% of the American people, then it is they who are going to have the problem.  At least half of Congress are millionaires.  It should be perfectly obvious that the Republicans are playing to their country club buddies who hand over the big checks.  If the Republicans had the stones, they would jump on board with this or …they could have compromised and probably gotten the ceiling changed to $500,000 or even a million dollars.  Or, they could go in after the first of the year and propose new legislation to include their sort of rich buddies. 

Hopefully the middle class will not forget that they are going to be sold out for 30 pieces of silver.  Where are the jobs that are supposed to be created?  We have had the Bush tax cuts for a long time.  Where are the jobs?  The jobs excuse is what is chicken crap, Mr. Speaker.  I see Congress circling the wagons for their rich cronies and spewing rhetoric.

If your taxes go up after January 1 and you are in the middle class, send a big thank you note with a chicken on it to the Republican Congress  because that is who you can thank.  And its time for the Democrats to stop letting the Republicans define who and what they are about.  Democrats, stones time!!

Randall Terry Meets With Upcoming Speaker of the House

MoonHowler
With Boehner’s chief of staff, after the election.

If Nancy Pelosi met with a known terrorist with a criminal record, there would be a hue and cry.  Apparently soon-to -be Speaker John Boehner isn’t being held to the same standard.  According to Right Wing Watch:

 

And Terry apparently  issued some big demands for Boehner and the Republicans now that they have taken control of the House – the complete end of abortion in America:

We must demand that Republicans who won the House of Representatives hasten the end of legalized child killing in America. Their victory could be a strong step forward for the babies, but it also might be yet another set back after 50,000,000 dead babies.

We must not delude ourselves! The landslide the Republicans enjoyed in the House of Reps was a repudiation of President Obama’s overall agenda; it was about the economy, about jobs, corporate bailouts, the debt, and about his health care bill.

Yet we already see pro-life fundraising letters and petitions heralding this GOP victory as an automatic victory for the babies’ lives. This is simply not true!

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The Manassas Christmas Parade Dec. 4, 2010

MoonHowler

                                                                                                                                                                      

 

Saturday, December 4 is the 65th annual Manassas Christmas Parade.  It begins at 10 am rain or shine, cold, or not so cold.  The parade lines up in front of Manassas Shopping Center on Mathis Avenue and heads up Center Street, going towards Grant Avenue. 

This is a particularly special parade because of our very own star!  Cindy Brookshire will reign as Woman of the Year. 

Cindy Brookshire and Parade Chair John Martin

Here is Cindy’s bio published on the Christmas Parade website:

Cindy Brookshire has lived in Manassas 29 years and is an active member of Trinity Episcopal Church in Old Town Manassas. She worked for the Prince William Journal newspaper, Publishing Partners, Inc., and is currently a contractor producing monthly newsletters for the City of Manassas. She is an active member of the local Chamber of Commerce and proud member of Leadership Prince William, Class of 2010.

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VA Lottery Money: How much does it help education?

MoonHowler

From Robley Jones, GR &R, VEA:

 The public perception is that education should be in no trouble because we are showered with lottery funds.  Check out this news story on TV3 in Hampton Roads:

 

To put the lottery proceeds for education on perspective, State General Fund Aid to Education in FY 2012 will be $4.9 billion.  The lottery proceeds for education in that year will be $435.2 million.

 
This money is not “bonus money” for our schools.  It is used to fund ongoing programs, so the lottery is, in effect, just another tax to fund essential programs.  If we did not have a lottery, these programs would need to be funded from the General Fund and a new revenue source would be needed.
 
Here is how the Lottery proceeds are being used in FY 2011:
 
Lottery Proce

 

eds Programs FY 2011

 


Foster Care $12,896,417
At-Risk $63,801,568
Virginia Preschool Initiative $67,607,769
Early Reading Intervention $14,720,585
Mentor Teacher $1,000,000
K-3 Primary Class Size $73,229,929
School Breakfast Program $2,687,265
SOL Algebra Readiness $9,018,272
Alternative Education $6,729,485
ISAEP $2,247,581
Special Education – Regional Tuition $75,141,153
Vocational Education – Categorical $10,400,829
No Child Left Behind/Education for a Lifetime $4,749,675
Project Graduation $2,774,478
Supplemental Basic Aid $938,311
Remedial Summer School $25,064,692
English as a Second Language $37,272,009
Textbooks (split funded) $24,919,982
Total $435,200,000

The bottom line is, the lottery money is controlled by the politicians, not the lottery.  Virginia politicians can play funny money like they do with everything else.  So add 20 teachers, take away 20 teachers and move them into administration is probably more common than most of us think. 
Cooking the books is nothing new in this state.  We have a balanced budget even though billions are owed to the VRS state pension fund. 
 

Food Safety Act: 5 Food Recalls that Scared the Pants off America

MoonHowler

According to the Christian Science Monitor, 5 food scares rattled  America and the Food and Drug Administration.  Here are the 5 most highly profiled food scares:

eggs (August 2010), peanuts (December 2009), Spinach (August 2007), lettuce (October 2006), and beef (February 2008)

The one piece of legislation that seems to have bipartisan support has hit a snafu reported by foodsafetynews.com :

 

A serious constitutional snafu is threatening to derail pending food safety legislation, which passed the Senate by a 3-1 margin early Tuesday.

The FDA Food Safety Modernization Act, S. 510, would be the most significant update of food safety laws in over seven decades, but it has become clear that the Senate made a potentially critical error by including a provision that would allow the FDA to impose fees on importers, and on companies whose food is recalled because of contamination.

Article 1, Section 7 of the U.S. Constitution says all revenue-raising measures must originate in the House. This error will almost certainly mean that the legislation will have to be reconsidered in the Senate, a major setback considering the precious floor time it could take to jump though the necessary procedural hoops: namely circumventing Sen. Tom Coburn’s (R-OK) filibuster threat.

The way forward for the beleaguered legislation–which seemed to catch a big break with its 73-25 passage in the Senate this week–remains highly uncertain.

Part of the problem with food safety has been that Congress lacks the ability to recall unhealthy food.  Currently, only companies can issue recalls.  The new act gives the Food and Drug Administration the power to recall and more power to enforce food safety. 
Several TV personalities have voiced an opinion on the Food Safety Act.  Glenn Beck has warned his minions that it is a way for the government to control the population and that it will lead to starvation.  He feels that the sheeple know more about food safety than the government. 
John Stewart addresses this serious issue as only John Stewart can:

 

The Daily Show With Jon Stewart Mon – Thurs 11p / 10c
The Food, the Bad and the Ugly
www.thedailyshow.com
Daily Show Full Episodes Political Humor The Daily Show on Facebook

 

Hopefully the kinks can be ironed out of this legislation and S. 510 can move forward.

NASA Announcement: I want to believe

MoonHowler

This afternoon, NASA will have a major announcement.  Naturally people are speculating that they are going to announce evidence of alien life.  Other speculation is that there are 3 times as many stars as previously thought.

I think they are going to tell us that the moon landings were a hoax, just like all the rednecks used to say and that NASA and NBC planned the hoax.  Just kidding, just kidding!

 

Would it be good news or bad news if alien life were discovered?  I am not so arrogant to think that we are the only beings out there capable of human-type thought.  However, I am not so sure I want them here. 

As more and more information has been released from the American vaults of secrecy, who knows what has been discovered or what will be released.