Brigid is a wonderful friend of mine. Not only on the interwebz, but in Real Life. What is important to her is, by definition of “friend”, important to me.

She asked me to post this. Likely, if you read my blog, you also read hers. But, just in case:

Please, go read. Donate if you can. Or not. You have free will… But I think the kids and wife are gonna have a hard enough time, and a donation can help with one small part of their struggle. And enough small donations make for a really big help.

Help demonstrate the power of the Internet.

Thank you.

So 38.5 BILLION equals 100 BILLION. At least, that seems to be the way the Republicans do math.

Jesus H. Tapdancing Christ. WTF is wrong with these people?!?

The promise was ONE HUNDRED BILLION DOLLARS. Which, BTW, wasn’t really enough, but would have been a good start. The current deficit, depending on who you ask, is somewhere north of 1.5 trillion dollars. so while the cuts of 100 billion dollars would not have erased the deficit (that is deficit spending, not total debt, by the way) it would have begun a process wherein we could have cut a bit more each year until we as a nation were at parity with our collected taxes in a few (maybe 15) years.

These Republican legislators sold us out. They failed in their promise. $38.5 billion isn’t even close.

Just to put things in perspective:

The US was (is?) currently spending one hundred twenty five billion dollars more each month than we, as citizens are giving it in taxes, fees, and other income. $125,000,000,000 EACH MONTH. That is, BTW, one hundred twenty five thousand thousand thousand dollars.

Our legislators cut a really big amount off of that: 3.2 billion per month.  $3,200,000,. So this year we as a nation will now go 1.46 trillion dollars farther into debt each year. That number is 1,460,000,000, dollars DEEPER into debt.  While I will agree that 1.46 trillion is a smidge better than 1.50 trillion, it really isn’t all that much. We are drowning. The hole we are in is being filled with 4 firehoses going full bore….they are bailing with a teaspoon.

   $1,500,000,000, (before)
   $1,460,000,000, (after)

Not a whole lot of change, is there?

Yeah, those folks in congress and the senate really helped here, didn’t they?

 A little perspective…
Think about this:
If you were to make a stack of dollar bills (of you could find enough….there aren’t actually that many actual bills in existence) containing all of the deficit spending that we do each year, it would make a stack about 537,500 feet high. A little less than 102 miles high. the stack would weigh 3,303,964 pounds…give or take a bit. 

Now that the “spending reductions” are in place: The stack of dollar bills that are spending (that we don’t have) will only be 523,167 feet high….or only about 99 miles high. It would weigh only 3,215,859 lbs…more or less.

Note: these numbers are for the deficit spending THIS YEAR, not the debt.

Yep. those folks in congress sure fixed things, didn’t they?

Sometimes I feel that the ballot box isn’t going to get us out of this mess. The soapbox isn’t getting the job done either.  There are other boxes….

Me? I like lampposts. More visual. But it is hard to get good American made rope these days.

While I think that Ms Barhardt is a wee bit over the top, I cannot fault her for doing what she does HERE.

She has, if you will pardon the expression, balls. Big ones. Or she is foolish. Take yer pick.

But in my opinion, her point is well made. Especially the first video.

They are long, and a bit wordy (and a bit shrill). But worth watching. Especially the first part.

And Mr Graham really needs his ass kicked for his stupidity. His comments really show his unsuitability to govern anything, even a whorehouse.

Listen to her, Srsly.

Pass this forward to other folks who might find it interesting. Make it go viral.

Srsly, follow the link. Watch

1:

If some parts of government are so “non-essential” that they can easily be furloughed….Are they really needed? While I am sure that the folks in the Department of Agriculture feel that their jobs are essential, and the tasks they labor mightily at are of great importance to the economic health and welfare of this fine country……Counting ears of corn is not really an essential task….Nor will the children of this country stop learning if the Dept. of Ed fails to come to work next Monday….And let us not forget those earnest, hard working folks at the Dept of Energy who labor mightily at….Well, whatever they so mightily labor at. (yeah, I know ending a sentence with a preposition and all that…so sue me).  Do we really need all these non-essential personnel? Other than acting as a (well compensated) jobs program, why do we need all these “non-essential” folks?

If these departments of whatever are so little needed that they can be arbitrarily shut down, then, as so many other folks have asked, what for do we need them? Can the Military folks just pack up and go home? I think not. Police? Nope, again, they got to stay at work.

B: Which bringz me to the subject of priorities:

On the one hand, we have the military folks who can’t just go home (even though, by my reckoning, we taxpayers will have voided our contract with them by cutting off their pay (should the Goobermint shut down)…on the other hand, those departments which take in money at the IRS will remain open (but not those who hand out refund checks) and those departments of the government who hand out freebies to those who are unwilling to take responsibility for their own welfare help our needier citizens live more fulfilling lives through taxpayer funded assistance will remain open…..How come the screwed up priorities? Do the powers that be really feel that the fine men and women of our military are non-essential? As opposed to the folks who hand out ever increasing amounts of YOUR money to others? Perhaps they are afraid of those “entitled” folks growing angry and rioting? WhatRyaGonnaDo if the military does???

Personally, had I the power to do so, I’d force a shutdown until our legislators could find a way to bring our spending to the point where there IS NO DEFICIT…How they chose to spend that money is another discussion, for another post….

Stingray has GOOD ADVICE.

I too was at the 2009 SHOT show….I walked up to H-S precision and said “Lon Horiuchi”

He turned and walked away from me.

Let us hope that their business suffers forever. It will only be so if this story is repeated often.

I wish that I could find a 1911 in .357 Sig. Single stack, of course.

It would be a perfect firearm for Buy-A Gun Day.

Of course, I’d want a production pistol, not a one-off custom. Bar-Sto makes barrels for a 1911 in .357 Sig, but I’d end up with some sort of FrankenGun, and I really don’t want that.

No one I can find makes one. 

But it’d be nice….

When I go nuts and begin killing/maiming/shooting Liberals people because someone chose to burn the Flag of the United States…..Or defamed or trashed the Constitution of the United States…..

Can I escape blame?

Can I expect that the person who burned the Flag or trashed the Constitution will be blamed?

’cause according the logic used by most of the MSM and the President, I would not be at fault.

when they made their recommendations earlier (too safe?)?

Or are they lying now (not safe enough?)?

Either way, this shows that the EPA is (or was?) not doing their jobs properly…

If the levels of recommended isotopes that were previously set were truly safe, and not arbitrary,  then increasing them by a factor of 1000X (yes, one thousand times!) is obviously unsafe. On the other hand, if the levels were arbitrarily set way too low, then they have forced unneeded regulatory expenses on industries for years for no apparent increase in safety.

One wonders which it is.

Either way, they show their incompetence…either then, or now.
And makes one wonder why we need the EPA.