Musings from a non-progressive person about politics, illegal invasions, and how the government enables.

You might be interested in the following information which seems to have become unimportant to many Americans.

Musings from a Silly Non-Progressive American on CHANGE! Is this what we want when we talk change? Oh, by the way, weren't all 3 major SENATORS part of this change that we have heard so much about during the campaign?

CHANGE- Part 1
In just one year. Remember the election in 2006? CHANGE HAS ALREADY HAPPENED -- Because a little over one year ago:

1) Consumer confidence stood at a 2 1/2 year high;

2) Regular gasoline sold for a $2.19 average per gallon;

3) The unemployment rate was 4.5%.

CHANGE - Since voting in a Democratic Congress in 2006 we have seen:

1) Consumer confidence plummet;

2) The cost of regular gasoline soar to over $3.50 average a gallon;

3) Unemployment is up to 5% (a 10% increase);

4) American households have seen $2.3 trillion in equity value evaporate (stock and mutual fund losses);

5) Americans have seen their home equity drop by $1.2 trillion dollars;

6) 1% of American homes are in foreclosure.

America voted for change in 2006, and we got it! Remember it's Congress that makes law not the President. He has to work with what's handed to him.

CHANGE Part 2:

Taxes -- whether Democrat or a Republican you will find these statistics enlightening and amazing.

www.taxfoundation.org/publications/show/151.html

GOOD OL' DAYS Taxes under Clinton 1999

Single making 30K - tax $8,400
Single making 50K - tax $14,000
Single making 75K - tax $23,250
Married making 60K - tax $16,800
Married making 75K - tax $21,000
Married making 125K - tax $38,750

vs THOSE UNFAIR TAXES under Bush 2008
Single making 30K - tax $4,500
Single making 50K - tax $12,500
Single making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 60K- tax $9,000
Married making 75K - tax $18,750
Married making 125K - tax $31,250

CHANGE - Both democratic candidates will return to the higher tax rates. It is amazing how many people that fall into the categories above think Bush is screwing them and Bill Clinton was the greatest President ever. If Obama or Hillary are elected, they both say they will repeal the Bush tax cuts and a good portion of the people that fall into the categories above can't wait for it to happen. CHANGE is all that matters (and all they will have left). This is sort of like the movie The Sting with Paul Newman; you scam somebody out of their money and they don't even know what happened....until it is TOO LATE....

CHANGE PART 3:

You think the war in Iraq is costing us too much? Read this:

Boy, am I confused. They say it is the Iraq war and the war on terror that is bankrupting us; I find that to be RIDICULOUS. I hope that you will carefully consider the following 14 reasons as to why they don't make sense.I have included the URL's for verification of all the following facts.

1. $11 Billion to $22 billion is spent on welfare to illegal aliens each year by state governments. Verify at http://tinyurl.com/zob77

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens. Verify at http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens. Verify at http://www.cis.org/articles/2004/fiscalexec.html

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and they cannot speak a word of English! Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.0.html

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent for education for the American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

7, 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & social services by the American taxpayers. Verify at http://premium.cnn.com/TRANSCIPTS/0610/29/ldt.01.html

9. $200 Billion Dollars a year in suppressed American wages are caused by the illegal aliens. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0604/01/ldt.01.html

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that's two and a half times that of white non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to make a huge additional crime problem in the US. Verify at http://transcripts.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0606/12/ldt.01.html

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 MILLION illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border also, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens from Terrorist Countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U. S from the Southern border. Verify at Homeland Security Report: http://tinyurl.com/t9sht

12. The National Policy Institute, 'estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.' Verify at http://www.nationalpolicyinstitute.org/pdf/deportation.pdf

13. In 2006 illegal aliens sent home $45 BILLION in remittances back to their countries of origin. Verify at http://www.rense.com/general75/niht.htm

14. 'The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly One Million Sex Crimes Committed by Illegal Immigrants In The United States .' Verify at http://www.drdsk.com/articleshtml

The total cost is a whopping $ 338.3 BILLION DOLLARS A YEAR; which is NOT SPARE CHANGE.

What are cost-plus contracts?

With Gary out today, I thought I'd post something that might interest you.

What's a cost-plus contract? From Wiki:

A cost-plus contract is a contract framed in such a way that when the contractor finishes the agreed-upon work, they receive compensation equal to their expenses plus some bonus (which can be either a fixed amount or proportional to the expenses).

Even if the contractor suffers cost overruns, they will still receive full compensation plus their expected profit.

With this kind of contract, what motivation does a contractor have to control costs? From Halliburton Watch:

A typical contractor earns a base fee of 1 percent of the estimated contract cost and an "incentive fee" of up to 9 percent of the cost estimate based on the contractor's performance in a number of areas, including cost control.

The upshot: The contractor will never spend $1 million to do a job when it can spend $10 million and thereby earn a higher fee. So, contractors actually earn more money by wasting taxpayer money.

I'm not familiar with Halliburton Watch, but a Google search will show that cost-plus contract abuses are not the product of the tinfoil-hat crowd. There's more information on the subject in this piece from The Center for Public Integrity titled "Katrina Contracts Worth $2.4 Billion Offer Profit Guarantees."

UPDATE: I forgot to include the link to the Project on Government Oversight's Federal Contractor Misconduct Database.

Federal Contractor Misconduct Database (from Project on Government Oversight)

What's a superdelegate?

I heard the term superdelegate on Monday's show and had to look it up. Here's a summary from Wikipedia:

In some states, the delegates so chosen are legally required to vote for the candidate to whom they are pledged, at least on the first ballot at the convention. By contrast, the superdelegates are seated based solely on their status as current or former elected officeholders and party officials. They are free to support any candidate for the nomination, although many of them have publicly announced endorsements.

Wiki says that the term usually applies to Democrats, although it seems that Republicans have something similar (usually called unpledged delegates).

About one-fifth of the DNC's delegates are superdelegates at this time. Do I understand this correctly? And if I do, does this practice sound non-democratic to anyone else?