Hello… Is Anybody Out There?

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Two of my friends complained to my wife yesterday that I haven’t been blogging lately… So, by way of explanation, this is a thought running around inside my otherwise empty head…

1979… Two great things happened in my life.  I joined the United States Air Force, and Pink Floyd released the song “Comfortably Numb”.  A slow song… Melodic… Not at all like the vast larger part of my life.  But one of the most beautiful songs I’ve ever heard.

Hello, 
Is there anybody in there? 
Just nod if you can hear me 
Is there anyone home?

The song is about a character, Pink, and a doctor that is taking care of him.  But underlying it all is how Pink is dealing with life in the world.  Depressing as the song sounds, mellow and very melodic, it certainly seems to capture the mood I’ve been in for the last few months.

I’ve been incredibly depressed.  Told by doctors that I should not be working… Realizing that my body is already, in many ways, not working… Now, working with doctors to determine the best way to get me some disability money from the government, an acceptable decision that was once way beyond the edge of my own value system…

My wife and I had a huge argument two nights ago (long distance is never the next best thing to being there).  The discussion revolved around her finding work to cover us while I slowly dissolve into obscurity… I don’t want to live off of her, but this apparently has to happen.  She’s been looking for a job far too long, in my opinion.

I expressed the idea that if she searches long and finds nothing, she should create a job from something she does well… Whatever that is.  I’ve long espoused the idea of self sufficiency.  I come up with ideas… She shoots them down… She has had one self-starting business idea, but buying real estate is not a turn-key start-up with a low entry budget.  She has decided to be less than entrepreneurial.

Comfortably numb is the feeling I am moving slowly into.  I give advice… To her… To the kids… To businesses… It’s what I do.  But of late, not very many people are listening.  Why spend time on a blog?

Hello, 
Is there anybody in there? 
Just nod if you can hear me 
Is there anyone home?

In response to those lines, in the Pink Floyd song, the doctor simply tells Pink that he can ease Pink’s pain.  He gives Pink a shot and then declares the medicine must be working.  Pink ends the song with the words:

When I was a child 
I caught a fleeting glimpse 
Out of the corner of my eye 
I turned to look but it was gone 
I cannot put my finger on it now 
The child is grown 
The dream is gone 
I… Have become comfortably numb

34 years of listening to this… I’ve never understood it quite the way I understand it now.

Of Idioms and Idiots – Obama on Gun Control Bill

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Earlier today, 17 April, the Senate rejected a bill that would have enacted MORE background checks on individuals wishing to purchase guns than are currently required.  That was followed by a Presidential temper tantrum far beneath the normal decorum of office of President.  Apparently, President Obama is not only angered by losing such a major election in the Senate, he must also have forgotten his own words shortly after his first election to the Presidency.

From the left-wing news pile called Huffington Post, we see this article from January 2009 quoting:

“President Obama listened to Republican gripes about his stimulus package during a meeting with congressional leaders Friday morning – but he also left no doubt about who’s in charge of these negotiations. “I won,” Obama noted matter-of-factly, according to sources familiar with the conversation.”

Mr President, in the case of Wednesday’s vote on this gun bill, “They won” would be the appropriate thing for you to have said, instead of whining about how the other side of the aisle “lied”.  What’s good for the goose, Mr President, is good for the gander.

Quit being a whiny baby, Mr President and at least ACT the part of President…

Facebook Friends List Purge 2013 – Complete…

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Today, I completed something I traditionally do on an annual basis.

purge complete

It is good to keep your friends list on Facebook thin, at least in my opinion.  Friends should carry an important place in your heart… Websites and social media have truly damaged words of the English language by minimizing meanings, or twisting definitions.

If you missed the symbol being thrown up on Facebook yesterday, here is a copy.

equality

People would usually make a comment about how much they support gay marriage, or marriage equality.  So, here are a couple of posts I made yesterday, prior to the Purge.

hand raised

and this…

protestThose left on my friends list have survived several rounds of purge.  About a year ago, I had over 350 friends on Facebook because I had really lost sight as to what that word meant, as much as anyone.  Now, my list has 65 names and faces of people that I will never forget… To those, I say:

THANK YOU for being MY FRIEND

 

 

Tom Price – Thanks, But No Thanks

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I’ve held my tongue (and keyboard) for quite a while now, not writing in this blog since mid-February.  Since before the re-election of President Obama, you can see here in my blog my particular disdain for the path the accepted conservative representative party, the Republicans, have taken.  I had reached a limit and couldn’t imagine how I could impact our society positively by expressing my opinion; one voice in a cacophony of political blasphemy cannot be heard.

Silence… I got quiet and began to listen instead.  Stephen Covey came to mind, and I decided to implement his 5th Habit:

Seek first to understand, then to be understood.

What exactly do American conservatives of the Republican party “stand for”?  That’s what I needed to understand before jumping to judgement.  I listened… I watched… I read and researched…

Today, I received a note in the mail from Tom Price, running for re-election to the nation’s House of Representatives, representing Georgia’s 6th District.  This is how his note began…

“Dear Timothy:

The President came to Georgia peddling Obamacare, Big Government stimulus spending schemes, and more regulations piled on the existing ones that have put our economy into a nosedive.  His goals are redistributing wealth and punishing success.”

Representative Price continues throughout the letter to denigrate many, if not most, of the President’s policies.  He then proceeds to ask for money to support his re-election campaign.  But after having read my way through his letter, I’ve decided I can be silent no longer.  I have GOT to say something to the Honorable Representative…

Representative Price, thanks, but no thanks.  You had the chutzpah to refer to yourself in your letter “Georgia’s Conservative Voice“.  You are only about 6 years older than me, so I doubt senility has set in yet.  Being in ‘that’ generation, the public school system had not been so destroyed yet, so I am reasonably sure you understand the meaning of your words… Brought up in Lansing and Dearborn, Michigan, at the very least, you didn’t have to tolerate the horrible public school system in Georgia.

Maybe the problem is simply that you have been a ‘professional politician’ for far too long to have any understanding of common words anymore.  Either way, sir, you are NOT Georgia’s conservative voice, not by a long shot.

I’ll admit that over the years, you have pandered quite well to conservatives, making the weaker minded of those believe that you yourself are conservative.  But, sir, there are those of us that KNOW better.  It doesn’t take much intelligence to follow your career and see your latest voting record, comparing what you claim in your letter with facts from other sources.

I’ll also tell you, sir, that I do not coddle my words and have no compunction to “political correctness.”  I leave that to professional politicians.  I don’t cotton to liars, sir, and when you state things that are not fact, it definitely catalogs you into the grouping of those who lie.  Said more plainly, sir, I consider you to be a liar.

In your third paragraph, for instance, you said:

“President Obama is missing one opportunity after another to grow our economy.  Too many of our neighbors are out of work.  A gallon of gas cost $1.72 here when he took office… it’s twice as high now.”

Really?  So this time around it is President Obama’s fault that gas prices are up.  Meanwhile, during President Bush’s terms in office, the $4 per gallon felt here in GA during and after Katrina were caused by those liberal lawmakers in Congress, who being in power at the time, had regulated the oil industry to the point of causing gas shortages driving up costs.  Sir, I hate hypocrisy as a high form of lying.  You tease the public into believing that Obama is at fault now, while the liberals were at fault during a Republican president’s term.

I will NOT defend President Obama.  Lord knows I have my own deep and lasting problems with his presidency.  But, I absolutely do not like the “voice of conservatives” that YOU claim to be.

“Serving as Vice-Chair of the House Budget Committee alongside Chairman Paul Ryan, plus serving on the influential Ways and Means Committee, gives me the perfect opportunity to apply our shared conservative values constantly to the challenges of curbing spending, cutting taxes, attacking the $16 trillion debt, stopping ObamaCare and making things better.”

Truth, being in those positions did truly give you the opportunity… However, other than paying lip service to the values you claim, you have failed in all of the above; curbing spending, cutting taxes, attacking the debt, and stopping ObamaCare.  Failures in EVERY case if you did indeed support the values you claim, then why should we wish to re-hire your ineffective self?

You voted this past year to support HR 933, Consolidated and Further Continuing Appropriations Act.  What was your conservative thinking on that issue?  By supporting the bill, you take away the ONE power that was built into the financing law that led to the sequester of this year.  The sequester was the ONLY clout conservatives had to dramatically impact the budget over the next few years.  Opportunity?  Yes… But, opportunity lost.  Ineffective and useless… Are those words that would cause anyone to forward a check for $25, $50, $100, $250 $500 all the way to $2600 donations??

I cannot list all of the issues in your letter that fail to motivate me to send money.  You voted YEA on HR 6233, Agricultural Disaster Assistance Act of 2012.  But yet, claiming that you were trying to reduce spending, you withheld funds from the areas of the country stricken by a nasty hurricane when you voted NAY on HR 152, Disaster Relief Appropriations Act 2013.  Are you telling me that it is somehow conservative thinking that one disaster deserves funding while another doesn’t?  Lots of folks in the Jersey Shore region of the world that are still homeless… Personally, this conservative would not have supported either funding the central east coast disaster, NOR the funding for an Ag disaster.  But, you know better being the real voice of conservatism…

Rep Price, I cannot in good faith tell you that I support your establishmentarian conservatism, as voice of the party rather than voice of your constituents.  When you show me that you not only support conservatism, but that you ALSO have been successful and effective in that mission, I may consider supporting you then.  Right now, to me, you are just another professional politician, and there is no room in this country for that anymore…

If you contact me, Mr Price, I would be glad to help you understand what real conservatives out here are thinking and why…

Illegal Immigration – An Old Idea Made New

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Something struck me this morning as an IDEA for helping solve the illegal immigrant problem. It will be an extremely unpopular idea, but I am truly curious… I’d like to hear your thoughts on this one.

A lot of citizens do not want these people to get “amnesty” and yet, a lot of other folks talk about the impossible idea of sending them all home. So, we are left with looking for a rational idea to allow them to ‘work’ their way to eventual green card status.  But the process we’ve all heard recently announced by the Obama administration doesn’t seem to me to punish these people for breaking the law, and makes it way too easy to get a green card without ‘paying their dues’…

All of this comes as an insult to many (if not most) of the citizens in this country which came as legal immigrants within the last 100 years.  They followed the rules, waited the long waits, and paid the fees to enter the country legally… They “paid their dues”.

So, here is my idea to help solve the problem while at the same time taking the insult out of it for anyone.  The illegal immigrant should love this idea as well because it allows them to show the honesty of a hard-working person interested in supporting their new homeland…

People who support the illegal immigrants efforts today often point to families that have been in this country hundreds of years and say, “You didn’t have to pay any dues, or work your way to citizenship…”  But, those people are forgetting an old ‘program’ that the United Kingdom started, and the United States continued for decades after initial colonization.  A lot of our families, if not a majority, came over from Europe as indentured servants.

Indentured servitude was similar to slave holding, but it was different in that an indentured servant was under a ‘contract’ to work hard for a set amount of time in order to earn freedom.  In most cases, indentured servitude also led to the ‘owner’ of the contract providing the ‘servant’ with a portion of land as their own property once the contract expired.

We should have the illegal immigrants ‘register’ with offices of Immigration and Naturalization Services (INS) which signs them up for availability to an indentured servitude contract.  Companies could then reach out to INS with a standard form contract for ‘servants’, and the INS could broker a deal between the two parties.  Companies get legal workers, workers get a contract that leads to a green card, and INS can provide a real service for both groups.  At the end of a contract, the company could provide the servant with some sort of property, a house, a car, whatever is agreeable… The servant would also get a sustainable income for the time they are here, and the United States could collect taxes on that income.

In the ‘registering’ of illegal immigrants, the lack of documentation of a worker would be much easier to administer. Once a registration occurs, the INS can reach out to the embassy of that immigrant letting that country know their citizen is here, and allowing them to provide the United States with any information about that immigrant which might affect the terms of the contract.

I see this idea as a win-win, no matter what angle I look at it.  It is also completely unique as far as I know.  It is a solution… But, I am only looking at it from my perspective and my understanding of indentured servitude from a historical perspective.  I need to hear your ideas, so that I can understand if I am way off base.  There may be, for instance, laws that I am not aware of that prevent an indentured servitude contract.  So please, comment below and let me know your thoughts.

 

Dr Benjamin Carson Sr for President!!!

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You may have already seen or heard about this speech.  Given by Dr Benjamin Carson Sr at the 2013 National Prayer Breakfast, I was personally amazed at some of the things Dr Carson had the gaul (nerve, bravery) to say while standing right beside President Obama.  It is a rather long speech, but as I said in my Facebook post, every word is laced in gold.  Please listen to the entire speech.

Political correctness has gripped our society in a way such that hearing this professional comes as a huge breath of fresh air.  He may be black and a leader in his community, but that did not stop him from publicly disagreeing with the president.  How un-PC is that?

I saw comments on Twitter yesterday suggesting this guy should be drafted for the next president of the United States.  Although I wouldn’t mind seeing more of what he has to offer, I doubt he would accept the job.

Of course, now the left is attacking him.  I wouldn’t be surprised if we soon hear how “racist” he is, or how he is a “house n*****” as was said about Herman Cain during the Republican primaries by leading black liberals.  See this article from Human Events which helps to document some of those.

He supports the idea of a flat tax, similar to but not the same as the “Fair Tax”.  10% is what God asks for in tithing in the Bible, and Dr Carson supports that as a tax rate in his speech.  Personally, I think it is a great idea on some levels… If you have a defined number of people working and a defined amount for taxation, it becomes very easy to realize that job creation helps to raise the revenue of the government.

Enough from me for now.  After watching such a long video, I’m sure you’ve lost interest in reading. :)

Navy SEAL

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CNN is reporting (and now NPR as well) about this poor Navy SEAL who was interviewed by Esquire. I’ve got so many problems with this story, I don’t know where to begin… So, first, read this article from NPR.  Here is the original Esquire magazine article as well.

First, I really have a hard time believing a Navy SEAL would whine like this. He knew when he decided to get out at 16 years that he did not qualify for any form of retirement, and without damages from injury on the job, he likely would not get medical benefits. If he knows this (and Navy SEALs are among the smartest people in the world), why would he whine about it?

Secondly, SEALs are sworn to secrecy about their missions. Why would this guy knowingly break that commitment after years of keeping secrets without any problems?

Phil Bronstein is the author of the article appearing in Esquire.  According to the Esquire article:

“Phil Bronstein is the former editor of the San Francisco Chronicle and currently serves as executive chairman of the Center for Investigative Reporting.”

Mr Bronstein writes a very artistic article, embellished with just the right flavor of wording to illicit the desire to help this SEAL cope.  However, without any evidence to the contrary other than my own knowledge of how a SEAL normally comports himself, I have to wonder about the truthfulness of this article.  But then again, why would he go to the effort to make it up?

I personally believe that anyone that has ever served in battle for our country deserves a happy ending, a compensation of some sort, for their sacrifice.  Everyone who has ever taken part in battle knows sacrifice is made by every single member of the battlefield.  Some sacrifice a little while others sacrifice everything… Today, our country only provides the same safety, security and freedoms that everyone else enjoys to those.

If you serve 20 years in the military, you are provided with a pension.  Many military members choose to remain in service to their country for up to 33 years (for nearly anyone but generals).  But, any service provided after that initial 20 years qualifies most for a retirement pension and medical benefits for the rest of the service-members’ lives… Assuming he spends his time in an honorable service to his country.

Every service member serves knowing that he/she may be called into battle.  Well, “she” does now considering the latest changes in Department of Defense policies.  But, we all knew we might be called to the battle front.  Those that serve and never see battle still honor their country with their service.  But those that enter a battle always leave a part of themselves there on the battlefield.  This is something that those that have never been in battle can only try to understand.

So, on the point made by Phil Bronstein in his article that our nation should help those that have been in battle, I support his point.  But, I still find it nearly impossible that this young man stepped out of the dark shadows of Special Ops secrecy to make the statements attributed to him…

 

Thought Catalog – Cool Site Report

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I have been beating my brain for days trying to find a good topic to discuss here.  Then tonight, just before 1:00 AM, it hit me… The rules of debate in our society have gone very wrong in the last 20 years or so, and it is getting so far worse that I am worried where it will take us.

This evening, my incredible lifelong friend and wife (one person, even though it sounds like two) got into a kind of debate with one of my brothers on Facebook about a statement made by Gabby Giffords to Congress today.  I did not watch the entire discussion / debate, but the original post by my brother was seething in bad vibes.  He posted a picture of Gabby’s speaking notes, the original document, and posted his comments with it:

“Sharing this. I watched her give this speech, in very halting language (an effect of her being shot in the head). I agree with her 1000%! For you folks living in 1776, you can keep your 2nd Amendment and your muskets. The rapid fire assault guns were designed for war… not self defense, sport, or hunting. It’s time to grow up!”

My wife and a couple of my brother’s friends made a few key historic inaccuracies to his statement, and my brother replied with name-calling… This is where the problem I mentioned above repeats itself in our example.  Eventually, my brother un-friended all three of these folks (my wife and two of his friends).  Then he posted this:

“believes in gravity, oxygen, and daylight savings time. I am sure that [name], [name] and [name] will discuss this ad nauseum, but they will have to do it elsewhere.”

You have to read that with his name as the first word, and I took out the other three names myself… But you get the idea.

It is often heard on conservative talk shows that liberals always stoop to name-calling when they are losing a debate.  Conservative talk-show hosts then move on to use their own form of name-calling without admitting that they do it to.  How many times have we heard Hannity call someone a twit after hanging up on them?  Don’t get me wrong, I like Hannity’s show a lot.  But, I honestly quit listening to Limbaugh years ago for the same thing…

When did the rules of debate degrade into a set where name-calling and red-herrings are accepted methods of argument?  Is debate a completely lost art?  Watching the debates of the last few national elections, I could see where the younger generation of today may think that the rules are agreed upon right before any debate… Which begs the question, how do you debate in your day-to-day life if you have to agree to terms of debate before each one?

Back in the day (as we old folks sometimes say), everyone in school debate teams typically used the Oxford University debate rules.  Click on this link to see a reference to these on Wikipedia.  Here at this link is an example of simplified instruction on the Oxford-Style Debate.

Even if you relieve yourself of the need to use a formal set of rules, there is a basic set of rules of etiquette when discussing anything with another person… Oh wait… I think they’ve also stopped teaching etiquette in schools these days too.  We did in our homeschool, but, I am pretty sure public school doesn’t anymore.  And if they did, I doubt any of the teachers under about 30 years old are particularly familiar with what we were taught “back in the day”.

So, in my Facebooking tonight (last night), I stumbled on a great post from a relatively close friend of mine that was pretty much right in-line with what I was thinking AND very timely considering my wife’s discussion with my brother… He posted a link to a site called Thought Catalog, a blog that I will be looking over for the next few hours, I am sure.  (I never sleep much)

I’m not considerably sure what Thought Catalog is all about yet (read their About page here), but they look really interesting with a nice twist on bloggery.  But the post that caught my eye definitely has me caught like deer in the headlights this windy early morning…

(I hope they don’t mind, but I am copying the pic to my site and giving a link to their site’s specific page as well.  That’s in case they should happen to misplace the pic as often happens with some blogs.)  You can find this same image at their site, and it is sheer genius. It is labeled “How To Have A Rational Discussion“…

having-a-rational-discussion

See?  Completely rational, easy to understand… :)

 

Current Events – Am I the Only One Getting Confused?

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I must apologize to my regular readers for having not posted anything here since January 14.  To be honest, I think it has been from a feeling of depression… I’ve got a lot to be depressed about from the perspective of our re-elected government.  But, I also suffered a pretty big personal loss in the death of my mother a few weeks back.  So, I hope that you’ll understand my ambivalence in writing of late…

The articles I have written have not been of the quality I’d normally expect from myself.  But then, the news from our government of late has been quite confusing besides causing depression.  I mean, we’ve still gone longer in understanding the government cover-up that is obvious in Benghazi-gate than we have in understanding the shootings at Sandy Hook Elementary.  How in the world is that even possible?

Now, twist the Benghazi-gate story with the immediate decisions after the fact of the Secretary of State and the Secretary of Defense stepping down from their positions, along with the Director of the CIA.  These are all of the primary players in the decision making during the Benghazi killing spree, and the ones Congress has the most questions for… Why would they all at once step down, and as quickly as is occurring?

But it wasn’t enough for one of them to simply step aside… Hillary Clinton, Secretary of State, suddenly collapsed from dehydration brought on by a flu-bug of some sort, which reportedly culminated in a concussion.  Of course, this was followed by the report of a blood clot in her brain, all of which keep her from answering the questions of Congress.  Not to mention, after a blood clot to the brain, how easy it would be to claim memory loss about the entire Benghazi affair.

Faint… Concussion… Blood clot… Hospitalization… Memory loss… All perfectly explainable events that just “happen” to have happened at the precise right time to keep her from talking to Congress at a critical point in the investigation.  Awesome… No possibility of any conspiracy there.

Yeah, I’m a little depressed…

Then, about the same time as Ms Clinton drops off the deep end, a strange person in Connecticut shoots his mother, then proceeds to Sandy Hook Elementary School to shoot another 26 people.  National outrage quite correctly comes next… It was an egregious event.  But it was NOT egregious enough to cause an over-reaction by the government.

Now, President Obama through many Executive Orders has begun the process of legislating away more of our rights.  One of those executive orders now requires universal background checks, doctors getting involved in discussing your ownership of firearms, and making psychiatric reports available to those making the background checks… Doesn’t that strike you as a little erosion to your right to privacy?

I was watching the following video a while back (and again today from a friend on Facebook) talking about a Psychiatric Police State as a result of ObamaCare laws.  But, I think you could easily extend the thoughts in this video to an application of those things to the government’s response to Sandy Hook.  It is a fairly long video, but I think you’ll get the point within the first 10 minutes or so… Please try to filter out the conspiracy theory side of this, and make it through at least 10 minutes to see the point I am agreeing with.

Are you angry at your father?  Have you recently had a screaming match with your brother?  Any thoughts or dreams about shooting up a school?  Do you like staring at fire?  How often do you masturbate?  Are you a blogger?  Will these be the types of things that you feel a right to privacy in discussing with your doctor, but now which will be used to confiscate your weapons???

I don’t think this is far fetched at all…

And now, “several shots fired at Lone Star College in Houston” reported on my television moments ago???  I can’t wait to keep up on that story now…

Obama : GOP Is Acting Irresponsibly

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Today, Obama said the GOP was acting “irresponsible” by not allowing the Debt Ceiling to go up… He said that by acting this way, the government would not be able to repay its debt and would in fact, default on the loans it has. That just doesn’t make sense…

“Republicans in Congress have two choices here,” he added. “They can act responsibly and pay America’s bills or they can act irresponsibly and put America through another economic crisis.”

We (my family) have a pretty big loan for our house, like many families.  If I run on hard times, the bank will let me pay just the interest until I get back on my feet.  By paying interest, the bank doesn’t lose any money.  In fact, they earn extra because they are letting you pay the interest as many times as you need until you can start paying more to cover the capital of your loan.  It’s a very common practice with big loans, so I can’t imagine it is any different for the government and its loans from other countries…

It’s so common, in fact, a perfect example is making the minimum payments on your credit card.  Usually, if you look at the credit card statement and it gives you an amount like $34, that will just about equal the amount of interest going toward your credit card loan. The balance on your card will stay the same, but you don’t get late fees and all that.  Your “capital” (money owed) never goes down as long as you make the “minimum payment”.

Now then, Obama says we cannot repay our debts, and generally his statement is not wrong based on the idea that paying interest is not like paying down the amount owed.  But, that’s not what he said in the quote above.  He is badly misleading people when he says we will “default” on our loans if we can’t raise the debt ceiling, that America would not be able to “pay its bills”.

In the example of your credit card that I used above, would you pick up the phone and call the bank to ask them to raise your credit card limit so you can use the card to pay the interest?  Not likely… More likely, the bank would tell you they can’t do that because it would be “irresponsible” of them and you to try such a thing.

Mr Obama has lied and thrown that “irresponsible” label back on House Republicans to try to make them look like the bad people, the demons holding back welfare checks from little old ladies. There are so many areas in the government where he could hold back funding (discretionary spending) which would STILL allow him to pay down the interest on our loans AND bring down spending to help bring the budget back on track.  He lied when he said we would not be able to “pay our bills”.

Mr Obama, YOU, sir are the one acting irresponsibly.  There can be no question about it.  Since you know that we are able to pay our bills without raising the debt ceiling, it makes you a liar to say otherwise.  You, sir, are a hypocrite of exceeding magnitude.