My Inaugural Address

Let me state, unequivocally, that I am not running for President, much to the relief of the nation. With no great deal of agonizing, I decided to prepare a last minute Inaugural Address just in case the Society for Cantankerous Americans Ready to Yell (S.C.A.R.Y.) mounts a write-in campaign:

My fellow Americans:

Based upon the best advice of the commanders on the ground and the Joint Chiefs of Staff, I intend to draw down the number of troops in Iraq as soon as possible. I will heed their advice, and that of my conscience.

The troops that return will earn a well deserved rest and all the support we can give them.

I also intend to instruct our military to prepare plans to secure our southern and northern borders, in conjunction with homeland security, the governors of the states affected, and all other applicable branches of our government.

All persons now here illegally need not fear deportation, unless you are a felon, a gangbanger, drug dealer, or any similar blemish on the decency of humanity. Those of you who have crossed our borders only to provide a better living for your families will be given ample time and opportunity to become American citizens, but once our borders are secured, those trying to enter our country illegally will face immediate deportation to their country of origin. I will ask Congress to provide me with proposals for a revised immigration policy that is fair and focuses on allowing greater ease of entry to any individual who has skills that will promote the security and welfare of our country.

Similar to the project in Los Alamos that created the atom bomb, I intend to gather the best scientific and engineering minds we have in this country. They will enter a secure facility and remain there until such time as they have created an alternative energy source that eliminates our dependence on oil. I anticipate complete voluntary participation by those requested to join this effort, but do not doubt my intention to have the very best minds available, one way or another.

I am also inviting any nation that wishes to participate to send their best people as well. The facility may be secure, but the knowledge gained and the new energy source created will be shared with all those who participate, in anticipation of making this new source of energy available to every nation for the betterment of all mankind.

There is no greater threat to this nation’s economic security than our dependence on oil, and I am calling upon every American to become involved. Think of ways you can conserve energy around the house or on the job and share them. I will ask Congress to pass legislation that gives a household tax credit if you use less power in 2009 than they did in 2008. If you don’t want to participate, that will be your loss, as the program will be optional, but if a 20% drop in your taxes for a 20% drop in power usage doesn’t appeal to you, okay. I can understand that there are those of you who will feel that your power supplier sharing usage information with the government is against your right to privacy, and it’s okay to feel that way – no one is going to think you’re doing anything illegal using all that power.

We must be mindful of the time it is going to take to find our new energy source, even with the finest people in the world. Consequently, I intend to do what ever it takes to explore and tap the oil, gas and coal we have in our lands, where ever those lands may be. Mindful also of the need to protect our wilderness to every extent we can, I will appoint members of various environmental groups to participate in the planning. I also intend to explore the new technologies available with nuclear generated power.

I want all Americans to rest assured that the current tax cuts due to expire in 2010 will be made permanent. Any member of Congress who opposes this measure had best consider the needs of their constituents, lest they find themselves on the outside looking in after they fail to be re-elected. The American people are with me on this – any doubt you have about that will cost you votes.

I will ask Congress to pass legislation that provides a college education for any American who is willing to give four years of service to their country. That service may be military or civilian at the option of the college graduate. It is my intention to provide these funds by eliminating current subsidies to corporations where possible, while providing some tax credits to corporations that participate in the funding of this education initiative. This country, and every corporation in it, can only benefit from a greater pool of college graduates – it’s a “no-brainer”. If individual corporations fail to see the value of this effort and elect not to participate, I will ask Congress to apply a tax surcharge of 25% for all corporations that elect not to play along. I intend to make it very costly for those who fail to support this education initiative. Any business generating less than a million dollars in income will not be surcharged, but will be eligible for tax credits by participating.

All of these initiatives are going to take time, so what can we do in the short term to get our economy rolling?

I will ask Congress to pass legislation eliminating all federal gas taxes for the months of July and August. We are the hardest working country on the planet and this tax break will make it a little easier for all of us to spend quality vacation time with our families.

I will ask Congress to pass legislation demanding that taxes on gasoline be posted at the pump. This will be a return to the old days when we always had this info available at the pump. Once each state has to post how much they are taxing their residents for every gallon of gas, I would anticipate legislation to lower the taxes, or new legislators at the next election should they fail to do so.

I will ask Congress to pass legislation eliminating all federal income taxes, including Social Security, for the months of July and August. We only get one turn at life, and living from paycheck to paycheck is not the way most of us would prefer to live. You deserve to have more of your hard earned money in your pockets, not ours. Corporate taxes will not be eliminated during that two month period.

I will also ask Congress to pass legislation entitling every worker to 2 weeks of vacation from the starting date of their employment. We are a profit driven society, but even so, workers should have the ability to take time off, regardless of their length of service.

The health and welfare of our citizens is paramount, so I will ask Congress to pass legislation that entitles any person under the age of 21, and any person over the age of 75, access to whatever medical treatments they require, regardless of their ability to pay. Hospitals and other care facilities will receive tax credits based on the volume of patients unable to pay.

Let me recap the priorities for my first 100 days in office:

Iraq - drawing down to troops to the extent recommended by our military

Secure our borders, deport criminals and offer a path to citizenship for those who wish to become Americans

Blueprint for immigration reform from the Congress

Initiate alternative fuel source effort

Open all federal lands to exploration for oil, gas and coal while mindful of environmental concerns

Make the Bush tax cuts permanent

Eliminate federal gas taxes, income taxes and Social Security taxes for the months of July and August

Legislation to demand the posting of all taxes on gas

Vacation legislation

Guaranteed medical service for those under 21 and over 75

These ten items are not the only issues that face us; there are hundreds of other issues that need to be addressed, and they will be to every extent possible. However, I believe that by focusing on these issues, many of these additional issues will also be addressed.

We have become a polarized nation: red states vs. blue states, liberal vs. conservative, Republican vs. Democrat. This really is nothing new, but what has changed and deepened our problems is the constant, daily efforts of our media to attract viewers but focusing on those things that divide us. As a believer in the Constitution, I will never do anything that eliminates freedom of speech in this country - that is one of the dearest principles we were founded on. I leave it to the American people to decide who they watch or listen to, as I trust the American people a whole lot more than I do the media. The lost revenues and layoffs at The New York Times is ample proof that the American people know who's telling them the truth and who isn't.

I am asking all media in the United States to do two things, voluntarily:

1.) Focus more on what joins us together, not what separates us

2.) Focus more on events around the world - we Americans tend to be quite parochial and unaware of how the rest of the world lives. Knowing the generosity of the American people is unmatched anywhere in the world, greater effort to look outward, instead of inward, will go a long way towards restoring our image around the world

My fellow Americans, that's all I have to say for now; the needs of brevity must be served (compared to most Inaugural Addresses this would be considered brief) and besides, it's too damn cold on January 20th to be standing around outside, and I believe that your President should have brains enough to get in out of the cold.

Let me finish by saying that the fires under the melting pot of American society must be relit and brought to a boil. Only by becoming Americans, working together with courtesy and respect for each other, will we become the nation that indeed is a bright, shining light for freedom loving people everywhere to see.

May God Bless Each of You, and may God Bless America!

Thus ends the fiction - I await your responses, good or ill. I also invite anyone who would like to post their own Inaugural Address in the comments section to do so. It will be interesting to see the priorities of other people and the means by which they intend to address them. If you just want to tell me I'm full of it, that's okay too.

Have a great Saturday with your families!

A Message From Mom

It will be ten years this June since my mother passed away. I miss her gentle kindness and love; she was always the one with a ready ear and compassionate heart. There are still many of her things in the house and I was cleaning out a drawer the other day when I found something she had cut out and saved.

It was a poem by Doone F. Lemmy (searched and couldn't find anything on him) and was published in the Washington Star. The Star was a Washington D.C. daily afternoon paper from 1852 to 1981 when it went out of business. There is no title on this poem, so I'm just calling it a message from Mom:

While working at my desk today
Striving to put my thoughts in rhyme
I heard my little children say
What I oft said in olden time,
Before my hair had turned to gray
Before times wrinkles creased my brow,
"Please, mother, do not keep us now,
But let us go and play!"

Their plaintive voices came to me
From the adjoining chamber, where
Both wife and children I could see
When seated in my easy chair,
She kissed them tenderly, and they
With joyous shouts went to their game,
They could not hear my heart exclaim,
"Oh, would then we could play!"

O God, I pray that thou wilt leave
Their mother here until my boys
Can comprehend that they but grieve
Themselves when they leave her for toys!
Oh, they'll remember when they pray
For their dear mother, when she's dead,
How often they to her have said,
"Please let us go and play!"

Aye, in this life from day to day
Unknowingly we oft disdain
Our blessings, and but wish for pain
When we scorn sacrifice for play.

What would you sacrifice for one more day with your mother?

Idle speculation on the impossible, but a catalyst for fond memories.

Have a wonderful Saturday my friends and if you're still lucky enough to have your mother with you, give her a call just to let her know how much you love her.

The IRS

"If duties are too high, they lessen the consumption; the
collection is eluded; and the product to the treasury is not
so great as when they are confined within proper and moderate
bounds. This forms a complete barrier against any material
oppression of the citizens by taxes of this class, and is itself
a natural limitation of the power of imposing them."

-- Alexander Hamilton (Federalist No. 21, 1787)

“An unlimited power to tax involves, necessarily, a power to destroy; because there is a limit beyond which no institution and no property can bear taxation.” — John Marshall

Luckily the beautiful weather this week helped lessen the depth of disgust on IRS day. Republican or Democrat, our pork-barrel politicians never tire of dreaming up new ways to spend our money. Taxes are necessary, I'll grant you that, but the extent of taxation, known and hidden, is growing more burdensome by the day. Depending on how many liberals we send to the Congress and the president we elect, we could very well see the largest tax increase in the history of our country simply by letting the Bush tax cuts expire in 2010. Toss in the price of oil and spiraling food costs and you've got a remedy for a worldwide economic decline.

Here's a story that I think illustrates the danger that lies ahead:

There was a chemistry professor in a large college that had some exchange students in the class. One day while the class was in the lab, the Prof noticed one young man, an exchange student, who kept rubbing his back and stretching as if his back hurt. The professor asked the young man what was the matter. The student told him he had a bullet lodged in his back. He had been shot while fighting communists in his native country who were trying to overthrow his country's government and install a new communist regime.

In the midst of his story, he looked at the professor and asked a strange question.

He asked: "Do you know how to catch wild pigs?"

The professor thought it was a joke and asked for the punch line. The young man said that it was no joke.

"You catch wild pigs by finding a suitable place in the woods and putting corn on the ground. The pigs find it and begin to come everyday to eat the free corn. When they are used to coming every day, you put a fence down one side of the place where they are used to coming. When they get used to the fence, they begin to eat the corn again and you put up another side of the fence. They get used to that and start to eat again. You continue until you have all four sides of the fence up with a gate in the last side . The pigs, which are used to the free corn, start to come through the gate to eat that free corn again. You then slam the gate on them and catch the whole herd.

Suddenly the wild pigs have lost their freedom. They run around and around inside the fence, but they are caught. Soon they go back to eating the free corn . They are so used to it that they have forgotten how to forage in the woods for themselves, so they accept their captivity."

The young man then told the professor that is exactly what he sees happening in America . The government keeps pushing us toward Communism/Socialism and keeps spreading the free corn out in the form of programs such as supplemental income, tax credit for unearned income, tax cuts, tax exemptions, tobacco subsidies, dairy subsidies, payments not to plant crops (CRP), welfare, medicine, drugs, etc. while we continually lose our freedoms, just a little at a time.

One should always remember two truths:

1) There is no such thing as a free lunch

2) You can never hire someone to provide a service for you cheaper than you can do it yourself

If you see that all of this wonderful government 'help' is a problem confronting the future of democracy in America, you and I share a similar vision. If you think the free ride is essential to your way of life, then you will probably vote Democrat with joy.

But God help you when the gate slams shut! Many thanks to my friend Craig in Texas for sending that story along.

Michael Yon In The Wall Street Journal

I was ready to post today when I learned that Jimeh Cahtah was going to meet with Hamas. Abandoned on the visit by the Secretary General of the United Nations and other officials because he unilaterally decided to meet with a terrorist organization, our well-intentioned buffoon will achieve just as much as he did as president - diddly.

I was also concerned about the announcement from Iran that they are building 6,000 more centrifuges in addition to the 3,000 that are already in operation. The concern deepens when you consider the prospect of a president that's ready to follow in Jimeh's footsteps. If you don't know who that is, you are among the millions of Americans who either don't bother to vote, or vote with a minimum of information. Regardless of what side of the aisle you find yourself on, the astounding numbers of people that don't vote is puzzling.

What I found the most enlightening was Michael Yon's editorial in the Wall Street Journal - the link is in the title of this piece. I can't say it any better than he did, so I'm not even going to try. If you're interested in the opinion of an independent journalist who's spent more time in Iraq than any other correspondent, read his article.

For my friends who will find fault with Mr. Yon, please feel free to explain where he's wrong. Since most of us have never been to Iraq to see precisely what's going on, it should be interesting to see what our liberal arm-chair quarterbacks have to say. I'm an arm-chair quarterback as well, I just play on a different team.

A Beautiful Sunday

Hello again - at long last. I have not been inclined to post of late because I've been enjoying life too darn much. When you consider the fact that our politicians continue to ignore anything other than being elected/re-elected, I'm just going to ignore them as best I can until November. It helps my blood pressure as well.

We finally have a beautiful day here in Lewis County, which means mud in the front yard and driveway. When the 2 year old and 8 year old grandsons finished yesterday, the clothes were left on the front porch for a much needed "pre-wash" before hitting the washer. I joined in the puddle splashing with the 2 year old a while back, but I'm not much for mud wrestling of any sort.

The only reason I'm not outside is baseball. The Yankees have lost the last couple, but are leading 2-0 as this is written. That's one of the great things about the sport, you can actually accomplish a lot and still keep track of the game at the same time.

For my friends who visit here regularly, I just wanted you to know that the lack of posting was not due to any slide back into depression - quite the opposite. I'm going to return my attention to the ball game and then head outside to play a little catch with my grandson. I coached baseball and softball for my kids, and this will be my second year as a coach for my grandsons.

What could be better than teaching the sport you love and all of it's accompanying lessons to 8, 9, and 10 year old boys and girls - especially your grandchildren?

I'm a lucky guy.

Blessings & Miracles

PS: The video was shot by a new Japanese camera that takes 2,000 frames per second!