And now for something completely different
I'm not sure if this will help much, but it seems to be an appropriately credible addition to the discussion begun recently by an Idaho State Representative concerning feminism as one of three strategies that communists would use to take down America. (Click here to read the discussion.)
What is my contribution to the dialogue? The June 7, 1994, issue of Weekly World News, which I found this weekend while rummaging through some old files at home. On page 15 there it is, the headline: "Our Bosses can Grope and Fondle us all they want....say happy Russian gals!" So the communist Soviet Union dissolved in 1991, and only three years later Russia is known as "the land where sexual harassment is the national pastime?" Sounds pretty cause-and-effect to me.
But seriously ... For me the Weekly World News was the saving grace of standing in line at the grocery store. Too bad they quit publishing last year; one more reason to use the self-checkout.
Who couldn't get a laugh out of a publication that revealed "12 U.S. Senators are Space Aliens" while billing itself as "The World's Only Reliable Newspaper." I guess that leaves us with ... NEWSMAX?
Anyway, if there is anyone else out there who misses WWN I'm taking my old found copy to my office at the Capitol Annex. You're free to come take a look.
And if you're looking for a laugh, WWN is still available online by clicking here.
It's the only place I know where you can get a BatBoy Ringtone.
Sen. David Langhorst
Idaho Legislature
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...a man with no party affiliation running for office.
IT'S!
Monty Python's IDAHO CIRCUSSSSS!
Please don't get goofy on us, mister. Idaho has enough trouble.
FYI--I AM A *LIFELONG* REGISTERED DEMOCRAT OVER HERE...DON'T CATER TO THE MOON PLEASE
Idaho can't come up with money for roads or schools
& Senator Langhorst thinks groping happy Russian women is a priority? If our representatives on every level were doing something besides looking at old news & blowing smoke rings up our wazzo about what great shape the nation is in, we might not be going broke one American worker at a time. Worker, being the key word. Work, look it up Mr. Langhorst. I didn't say contributor, it's spelled a little different. You'll have to go way past c to w in the dictionary. Stop at t & have a look at taxpayer. Take Otter along so he can look up taxes while you're looking at taxpayer.
Cash strapped states resort to taxing narcotics, sports stars.
That's the headline in today's Statesman. Read it & weap. Our representatives in DC have cut state funding, our tax $ & now our state representatives have to come up with $ & don't have the guts to raise taxes so they tax the rediculous & we don't even have a say.
Tolls & $3 gas are going to add up. When the rates shippers are paying truckers get off the $2.60 a gallon price truckers were paying for fuel last June & people feel the real affects of $3.50 fuel through their grocery bill they will realize how bad the economy really is. Independent truckers are going broke. Another American job that used to pay a living wage as BSU advertises jobs that pay $35K, $20K of which they will spend eating junk food. That's a career move?
I talk to manufacturers everyday all over the nation. Some in Texas are shipping absolutly nothing & others in Indiana are working three days week, shipping nothing.
According to Bush, America is in great shape & the war is going just fine. In the long term the economy is doing great? How many people are going to lose their homes in the short term?Congress is asking for $70 billion for 2009 for defense in January 2008 after how many dead & how much already spent? You'll see the $70 billion before you see the $150 billion for a stimulus.
If the people, taxpayers want a say they're going to have to step up. If they don't it won't be long & you'll be taxed on the air you breath. In Boise you will get an exemption to help pay for your hospital bills from breathing the same air.
www.nextrevolution.net
Post ideas that eliminate government waste and use tax $ saved to save Social Security and more.
Put your representatives back to work for US! If 300,000,000 Americans don't have any ideas we're in trouble. email ideas to greyghost@qwest.net, support ideas posted on
Submit An Idea:
If an idea saves $1,000,000, 5% to the person who's idea is used, 50% or $500,000 of that savings would go as tax relief. The remaining would be split as follows} 40% being split evenly between Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, and Education. 5% would go to a Health Ins. plan for all
Americans with a SS # and Veterans as well as the taxes generated from earned income from the idea leaving .5% which would go to Nextrev. to maintain this site. It doesn't have to be exactly as I wrote it here, ideas can make changes to make this site work better. This site is about US, taxpayers with ideas to make America more efficient & put our representatives back to work for US.
Where does the $ come from? Ideas themselves that generate or save $. Taxes already being paid & wasted, PORK! Governmnet programs that have outlived their original concept as the FEPP program where my boss at the Nebraska Dept of Forestry was stealing tax $.
Billions of tax $ handed out by your representatives as favors in return for campaign contributions. Look at the scandals, your representatives are giving billions of $ away for what amounts to pennies on the $1! The farm bill & defense! Tell me there are no contributors making $ on campaign contributions, pennies on the dollar for their investment!
The revolving door, 22 lobbyist for every congressman are just a couple examples of the influence in Washington DC buying our representation. This is a lobby for the people if you make it happen. You want some say, need a lobby, you have it right here if you make it happen. Put it in every school.
Other countries & illegal immigrants, & everyone who can fit a representative of the US taxpayer in their pocket has more representation than a US taxpayer dying in Iraq!
.5% would come from the 50% for tax relief leaving 49.5% for tax relief.
$1,000,000 saved.
$500,000 Tax Relief
$100,000 toward Social Security.
$100,000 toward Medicare.
$100,000 toward Medicaid.
$100,000 toward Education.
$50,000 toward Health Ins. for all Americans with a SS# and veterans.
$50,000 to the person who's idea saved the $1,000,000.
Realize the 5% a person earns for an idea is taxable income, 5% of $1,000,000 is $50,000. You can make s a year's wages on any idea that eliminates $1,000,000 waste or generates
$1,000,000 to put toward this plan. If we can't come up with an idea to save $, I would think we could at least come up with an idea to save one life!
Leave federal government out! They don't get any of the $ taxed on ideas because they're already holding out on states! All taxes paid go to the state leaving 75% of the $50K going to the individual!
Take 2% of credit card interest from credit card companies. 2% with money spent in a state, which ever state it was sent in goes to that state. Credit cards have people going bankrupt. They send them to every house in America, thousands of applications & like subprime lending they are given to people who can't make payments.
Consumer spending drives 70% of the economy & much of that spending is done through credit cards. Don't raise taxes, get the money from our spending. Put your governmnet to work for US!
How about it Senator Langhorst? Run it by the people. If people don't like it they can just come out & say so & if they would rather pay more taxes, fine with me. Run it by the teachers who aren't all about the new plan nobody can agree on.
Geez, guys, lighten up on the man...
Read the headline, and then re-read -- and try to comprehend this time -- the post!
Oh, and greyghost, FYI, credit cards never bankrupted anybody. It's morons who overspend with them that have problems. And the Americans losing their homes in the subprime lending mess are generally those people who made bad decisions about mortgages and payments in the first place, hoping to make a killing before the chickens came home to roost. Don't blame "the system" for people falling victim to their own stupidity and avarice.
DUHHHH...
Credit cards can be the ONLY credit source many people tend to have other than an old car that they paid attention to on that loan because it "mattered more".
You damned sure CAN and don't give me flak if you please.
I pretty much did. They're rather stupid for lower income people to have in the first place and they tend to become like the lotto or make people forget it's real money and real debt.
You're right
but when they send credit card applications, time & time again, to every house in the nation they're going to get people who don't have the money. They're just like drug dealers. You can't hang the temptation out there & not draw people in.
Junk mail, postal workers carry this stuff day after day & what is happening to the postal service?
I get a capital one application at least twice a month, maybe more, & that is just one card.
I guess you don't think 2% of credit card interest would be a good way to pay for roads & schools. 70% of consumer spending drives the economy & people use credit cards to do a lot of that spending. That includes people who go broke using crediit cards. It they weren't spending how would it effect the economy? I'm not saying it's right but it factors in.
Higher taxes sound better? What percentage of gross income can we afford to pay in taxes? The more we pay in taxes the less we have to drive that economy. It's a double edge blade, can't continue. It's like printing more money. Government is doing the same thing by printing money while running up a $9 trillion debt as someone who gets a credit card & going broke. What is the dollar worth?
I'm all about ideas to get things in order, let's hear them. Waiting for government is like expecting people to avoid credit cards. It'll take longer than an act of Congress & never get the job done. How long have they been working on Social Securty, illegal immigration, or health care?
I don't follow your reasoning at all...
Normally, I wouldn't respond to your post because, like your first one, it's not offered in the context of the thread. But, dang it, it's kinda like getting that extra credit card in the mail. It's FREE!! Yee-HA!! Plus, it's just too easy...
First off, because somebody gets an unsolicited credit card in the mail doesn't mean they have to rush right out and run up a big balance on it. What happened to reason and restraint? Cut the suckers up. The banks are somehow culpable because some people are stupid and greedy? Bull*@!t. If your logic was valid, every hungry lawyer in the country would be rushing to the local courthouse to file class action lawsuits against the banks alleging maintenance of what's called an Attractive Nuisance over the credit card business. Is credit card interest usurious? You bet it is, and that's why I pay mine off every month. I use them, I don't let them use me. Sorry, but I've got a brother who drinks too much, and when he blames the store for selling him the beer, well, I just laugh at him, too. Get real.
You asked me if higher taxes sounded better than your two percent of credit card interest idea. What's the difference between taking two percent of earned credit card interest from the banks and raising THEIR taxes? It's exactly the same thing. You're advocating for government to confiscate money from business, but only a particular business, to pay for public goods. That's a TAX, and being targeted like that makes it, in my opinion, an even more egregious tax. You just want somebody else's taxes, and not yours, to go up to pay for things you benefit from. That sounds like the classic entitlement mentality to me, and I think that's one of our biggest problems. Everybody thinks somebody else should pay their freight. In fact, that's one of the REAL problems we have in this country. We no longer examine WHAT we're paying for, we expend all our time and energy fighting about who will pay for it, and the system has devolved so that those with enough money to throw at the right people can get those people to protect them. After all, if you know somebody else is buying dinner, why not order the lobster? What would your reaction be if I told you that tomorrow, the government was going to cap credit card interest rates 2% below there current levels -- and raise YOUR taxes by enough to equal the amount the banks will lose? I bet you'd scream like a gored ox.
And where do you think "taxes" go? Do you think they just disappear from the economy? They most certainly do not! They pay teachers. They pay cops. They pay firefighters. They pay the bus drivers who drive kids to the schools that were built by carpenters and electricians and roofers paid by the government contract authorizing the school in the first place. They pay the heavy equipment operators and surveyors and asphalt workers who are about to start tearing up and improving those roads you're so worried about. They pay all those engineers at Lockheed Martin and General Dynamics who design and build the aircraft that defend YOUR country. They pay active duty members of the armed forces, like my step-son and daughter-in-law, and the Reserves, who defend YOUR country so you can sit home in front of your computer all day and bitch and moan into the ethernet, and not worry about being sniped or blown up when you hop into the Excursion to go down and pick up your pepperoni pizza and DVD. I'm not saying we should just hand over all our money to the government, and I agree that there is a lot of b.s. going on with our tax money that needs to be halted, but the radical conservative position that taxes are money down the rat hole is so ignorant it hardly deserves a rebuttal. All those people I mentioned -- teachers, cops, firefighters, bus drivers, et al, take their paychecks and go out and buy food and cars and clothes and houses just like YOU do. AND they all pay back the same taxes that you pay. THAT'S the economy, bud. I don't like taxes either, and think they're out of hand, but your position is absurdly untenable. Here's a scenario and some questions that will likely cause you to short out and overload... You were just elected Emperor and promptly issued an order cutting government spending 25% across the board, and reduce taxes by that amount. Period. All levels of government. That kind of spending cut is going to cost people, a lot of people, their jobs. Figure that some of it can be absorbed in cost savings, but you have to figure, too, that probably one out of five teachers at your local elementary school is going to go away, as is one out of five cops on tonight's graveyard shift. So, now you have some large, but undetermined, number of unemployed people who can't go buy food, or make their mortgage payment. Aren't they entitled to unemployment insurance? They've been paying for it, right? But, wait a minute, we just cut unemployment benefit spending by 25%. Where's the money going to come from? You can't raise taxes, and certainly you don't think that all those people are going to find jobs in the private sector -- unless they want to move to Sri Lanka or India, that is, because that's where all the jobs are. So, what do you do? Throw them to the wolves? Posit a solution to that one. And bear in mind that some wag has told us that "For every complex problem, there's a simple solution --that doesn't work."
I'm not going to be drawn into the "idea" fray here. This is Senator Langhorst's blog, not a chat room, and these discussions are supposed to be pertinent to what he posts and not degenerate into personal diatribes. In that vein, however, I will make one suggestion, and hope that the good Senator reads these comments. (If you do, Senator, you're a braver man than I.)
The one thing I would do immediately is institute a review into why competition, reason, and business acumen seems to be absent in the awarding of State contracts. "Negotiated Profit Margins" for road projects?! Are you kidding me? As a taxpayer, that makes me want to scream, as does the suggestion that contractors participate in setting their own performance measures, which then determine their profit margins! That's akin to me hiring a contractor to build a house and doing it Time and Materials, and then letting him do the occupancy inspection. Sorry, but only an economic moron would do that. But, that's apparently what ITD does...
I'm done. Thank you Senator, for your forebearance with your space.
I guess what you're saying
is we should be more in tune with happy Russian women being felt up by their bosses? That's my tax $ at work? If Senator Langhorst wants to blog about Russian women why doesn't do it as plain old Mr. Langhorst or whatever?
I didn't say I don't want to pay taxes, I know where taxes go or at least suppose to go. Maybe we could get mayor Coles back so I could be sure my taxes are being spent in NY fashion. If the American people don't have the right to suggest ideas to our employees we might as well let them finish changing the constitution.
Passing the cost of things along has to happen. Maybe you can explain why manufacturers/shippers are still paying rates in tune with $2.60 a gallon fuel while independent truckers are buying $3.40 a gallon fuel. If the cost of fuel was being passed on to the consumer instead of breaking truckers we would be hearing a lot more out of the public. They scream about $3 a gallon gas when they have to fill up once a week but what would they say if they were paying $3.40 a gallon for 300 gallons every couple days? If the cost were passed along you can bet the public would have a little more to say & when the independent truckers are just another job that used to pay a living wage. Have the illegal immigrant making $6 an hour explain, after he runs you over, providing you understand spanish.
Ever heard of the American Revolution? It came about for a reason, taxation without representation ring a bell?
Let's start at the top, We the Peopliticians. How's that sound? Change it right before our eyes with slight of hand, a few letters here & there & nobody will know the difference until it's too late. Is America a dictatorship? With Bush in office it's an executive privilege away because some people think We should have no say.
It's all about ideas, & it might get people thinking while we still have the right?
Where can I get one of those happy Russian women, Senator?
I'm done, Thanks Senator, for spending my tax $ anyway you see fit as long as I can't have any say.
I can't help but wonder
why some people are against ideas that would or could have people or corporations that are profitting & getting tax cuts & incentives to pay taxes instead of US taxpayers. We pay taxes they evade through campaign finance but some people love to pay them.
I'm not like some people who want government to tell them what, how, when, & where. When government says chit I don't squat like some people. When I see a problem, most of which government is responsible for, I don't just whine about it. As you can see I offer ideas. They may not seem reasonable to some people but no idea is going to seem right to everyone. Do I think a $9 trillion debt is ok? Do I think Congress should take $ from Social Security & put it in the general fund? Do I think government, our representatives should be allowed to take campaign contributions & give tax cuts in return, tax cuts I absorb? No.
Is government taking money from Social Security & putting it in the general fund? Isn't that the same as taking $ from credit card interst to support roads & schools? Government never accomplishes anything when it comes to Social Secuirty reform or health care but when they need a tax it comes out of the taxpayer/consumers pocket while giving tax cuts to campaign contributors. Corporations used to pay 50% of taxes & now pay 10%. Who pays 90%, 50% or our share & 40% of contributor's share?
How are US taxpayers/consumers who use credit cards, including the ones who shouldn't use them any different than government? Government has US $9 trillion in debt, $30K each man, woman, & child. I hear all the ads about every household in America having $10K or whatever in credit card debt. Why wouldn't people do as government does? Where would the economy be without plastic, even bad plastic?
If we all go broke, wouldn't I be better of going big time since the government, in the opinion of some people, is all, knows all? Government is breaking US, not just me. I'm putting out ideas in hope other people will do the same.
Some people are bred to pay all the taxes. Like a dog bred to herd cattle or point an upland game bird. Grand dad was a republican, dad was, the son is, & the grandson may be too but that doesn't make everything republicans do right, not for every one. It makes it right for republicans, especially the ones in office or campaign contributors. Campaign contributors don't care if politicians are republican or democrat as long as they get tax cuts. That's why the contribute to both parties. Politicians don't care who contributes as long as they get in office. Ever ask yourself why anyone would use millions of their own money to get into office? To serve the public? I don't thinks so.
If there were six parties would corporations contribute a million dollars to each party? They might but that just makes clear the fact that they don't need tax cuts because they have millions to give away. They know they'll get their money back & then some, our money! It's all about the money, not representation. Seems to me the people who need tax cuts are people who can't afford to contribute millions, you know, taxpayers who pay 90% of the taxes, their 50% plus 40% of which are evaded through campaign contributions.
Some people will never understand, they don't try because they are bred to serve others. They know their place. Is that a bad thing? No, knock yourself out. Don't think all of US are going to go along with paying all the taxes just because you want to. There are actually people who send $25 or $50 to the government to pay down the national debt too. Think it helps? Send a blank check if you think it'll help. Government has already spent that too. Think your name will be on a wall, all honors & such? What a man, wow. Government loves you, right into poverty if you let them.
Social Security, remember?
They give you money to keep you poor!
Idaho Statesman, 1-30-08 Business
FBI says 14 companies under investigation for possible fraud in connnection with subprime.
In a comment to Another long fight over I84, If our representatives were on the ball,
I made the point of full disclosure into our representatives, foreign countries/interest buying fanny Mae & Citi, free trade, & the banking scandals in the 1980s.
The scandals of the eighties were covered up in ways many people don't know. The Franklin Cover Up is a book people might want to read.
I knew a guy who met with Nebraska Gov. Exon in 1978, years before it all fell apart & warned him not to appoint a banker from Grand Island, NE to State Banking director. The banker was floating million dollar notes to several banks at the same time. Exon never appoint the guy but when Bib Kerry was elected Governor he did. Paul Douglas was the Nebraska State Attorney General & sat in on the meeting with Exon & the guy I knew but was also the State AG when Kerry appointed this guy to state banking director, never did anything to stop it.
1982 or 1983, can't recall what year but Common Wealth Savings & Loan went under. The story was that Bob Kerry pulled all his money out just before she fell apart. Frankin went under also & the scandal took off. Peter Citron, {spelling?} was news broadcaster who then was caught up in a sex scandal & before it was over there were tapes in the Omaha police evidence room which according to people I knew had all of Nebraska's elite on them. The tapes disappered. An investigator & his 9 year old son were killed in an airplane accident?
Paul Douglas was convicted only to have it overturned on appeal.
Wasn't too long ago Enron finnaly went through the courts & who died?
Ha sthis war been just about oil or has our representation been breaking a nation & the working class while profitting to the tune of trillions of $?
If you think I'm over the top, letting my imagination get away, doesn't matter. Time may tell. Still think I should lighten up?
Don't blame the system?
It's democracy, we vote them in, nobody to blame but ourselves. Lighten up? It took seven years but Bush, the self proclaimed war president who also claims to be all about an ownership society is finally pushing US into a recession. You'd have to be blind to miss the obvious. He couldn't have done the bang up job of breaking US that he has unless it was deliberate! If it wasn't done on purpose it was proficiently incompetent. Which would you prefer?
How many people of this ownership society are losing their lives while family are losing their homes as state legislators go on about happy Russion women being felt up? Is it any wonder they don't get anthing done?
Crunch the numbers. Not that I'm a democrat but I'm damn sure not a repulican. We had a surplus when Bush took office, no matter how phony the numbers. 9/11 while Bush, the war President is reading with the kiddies? Bush might have been on the right track in Afghanistan but went off the deep end going to Iraq. bin Laden said we'd spend a million for every $1 they spent. How many trillions have we spent & how many more while America spirals out of control? bin Laden must have been a campaign contributor to get that kind of representation.
The only people getting tax cuts in America are campaign contributors & they don't need them. If they can affrod to contribute a million dollars to both parties, their horse can't lose. The people who can't afford to contribute are dying in Iraq, working class Americans. The same people who are losing their homes! We pay the wages, health care, & retirement of our representatives while we lose more of all the same, everyday.
With the stimulus help? It'll help buy Bush time to get out of office while claiming victory in Iraq. If spending trillions of $ & killing thousands of people to secure one city, Baghdad, & at the same time breaking America can be considered a victory I guess he can take it to the bank! Full disclosure into all our representatives is what the American people should be demanding! If Larry Craig can spend $210,000 from campaign contributions on his personal legal fees after lurking about an airport restroom as Americans are losing their homes, it's time to do something about campaign finance. Where did your representatives have their money invested before the subprime fiasco? Foreign markets? Couldn't have been why free trade was so good for US while millions of Ameircans lost jobs?
Bush is still cutting education, health care, & more while & US soldiers come home to die in hospitals unfit for pet care. People have been conned into paying higher taxes than they should have through over valued property/assessments & now the ownership society is in the crapper. Billions over paid in property taxes. People are thinking about property tax reductions when they should be thinking about refunds & reductions.
It's a big scam & somebody is making outlike a bandit, our representatives & corporate unAmerica! Government needs people like MikeB to continue the crime wave. As long as people continue to go along with stories from our representatives about happy Russian women being felt up I guess we'll never get anything done. Most people go to work & the boss assumes they're going to do something beside waste time & money.
I worked for state government, I know how they are. They tell each other taxpayers are getting our $'s worth, pat you on the back with one hand while they have the other hand in your back pocket. They spend $ they don't need to, they spend the budget so they can get more next year because if they don't spend it they must not have needed it. That's how the budget game works, spend it or lose it. There are all kinds of government programs that have outlived their original concept yet continue because they have that budget & make sure they spend it.
Lighten up & don't understand reasoning at all. It's a good thing some of US understand because some obviously don't & never will.
That money was...
pooched long ago. No, don't think you should be silent either, yes, it's going to bug us a long time but we still need to latch on more quickly yet that doesn't sound likely.
Glad you brought all that up, actually.
A man with a paid up and current VISA balance!
I really don't look cheeky in an old lady dress like those guys pull off. My legs are too hairy and muscular to pull it off.
I'm waiting for shorts weather again.