Live Above Your Means-Chris Dodd Will Pay For It With Taxpayers Monies!

By all means live above your means. House too small? Pick up a 8000 square foot in a nice neighborhood for $1,000,000. What do you mean you and your wife only earn $200,000 a year? Not a problem sub prime mortgages are for you. Oh you are a Senator and a famous one in fact? Oh you are head of the Senate Banking Committee? Oh you wish to use your influence to get a better rate? Not a problem Senator! And when the market collapses you will help our mortgage company using taxpayer's monies to bail us out. Great! Just sign here...
Congress with the exception of a handful of its 535 members are an egotistical, self serving, self promoting and corrupted bunch of mediocre politicians. Whether it is this bailout or a lack of energy policy or excessive spending Congress has pushed itself to the point of no return. It lacks ethics, it lacks dignity and most importantly it lacks the ability to govern for the good of our nation. What a waste of taxpayers monies.

Free Mortgage Monies Provided By Us-The United States Taxpayers

Free Mortgage Monies Provided By Us-The United States Taxpayers! Yep, us! I am so happy that the elite United States Senate has developed and will enact shortly into law a complete bailout of the United States Banking, Mortgage and Housing industries. Led by our illustrious and corrupted Senator Chris Dodd, taxpayers should be preparing for a grave sticker shock when this bill becomes law. And if you are a special interest group your ship has come in! The reckless amendment to allow Hank Paulson a blank check to bail Freddie Mack and Fannie Mae out is obscene from an economics point of view. What gives him that right?
Maybe, just maybe it is time for the chips to actually fall and clear out the excessive bad debt in these markets and allow real supply and demand to operate in these markets again. The demand is not there at this time for these excessively large homes which have driven our children out of Connecticut since they can not find affordable houses to start their families.
Let the giants fall, our economy will be strong enough to recover without further wasting taxpayer dollars.

Why is heating oil $5 a gallon?

$5. a gallon for heating oil-why? I was asked this by one of my students recently. There are many factors that are falling into play to make heating oil unaffordable here in Connecticut this winter. One area which is complex to understand is the futures market for heating oil. To try to tie in the futures/hedge fund/investment bank market for heating oil, we must understand that most futures are bought on margin while your local oil company who is delivering your heating oil probably had to pay cash up front for his load of oil. I wonder aloud is this fair? The speculator only has to invest a small amount of the actual amount bought while the person making a living from it has to cover the whole amount. Who will make more profit? Obviously the futures trader.
The simplest solution for high heating oil prices is to build more refineries and drill offshore for oil and finally become energy independent in our country. I know 35 years is a long time for Congress to place the good of the country over their personal self interest but enough is enough.
The time has come to drill and produce in the United States. I wonder how many Connecticut citizens will freeze this winter and I truly wonder if Congress has the guts to act.

Maybe Congress Should Read the Declaration of Independence

Happy 4th of July to all! Maybe Congress should read again the Declaration of Independence. 56 brave and futurist Americans decided to form a new country, a new, free country not bound by the tyranny of England. A country in which all would have say in the government not just an elite few who were of nobility. They wished to create a fair and equitable system of taxation not taxation without representation as what was occurring at that time. Our brave country at that time was willing to wage war and die for the sake of freedom for all in our new country. Our history is formed by this unique document and has been challenged repeatedly since 1776. In the course of 232 years of our country, we should all praise those who have fought and have died for this freedom to endure for our well being. We may not have had a perfect history but we have the greatest country which was ever formed. A country which has seen war, catastrophe, freedom, innovation, technology, expansion all in the name of a United States of America. A great land which provides for us if we are willing to work and follow the laws established by our forefathers. A beautiful, unique and enduring country built by those who were not afraid of risk taking, hard work and belief in a spiritual God and religious faith. Yes for 232 years we have endured and we will endure for many, many more years. The majority of our citizens are not silent nor will they accept a new ruling political elite that will damage what was created for us in 1776. Congress needs to go back to actually governing not the quagmire of earmarks and self interest it has become in 2008.

Here is the Declaration of Independence again taken from the United States National Archives. I urge all to reread it and see if we need to create a new Declaration of Independence from our current Congress and Government - written in English only.

The Declaration of Independence: A Transcription

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IN CONGRESS, July 4, 1776.

The unanimous Declaration of the thirteen united States of America,

When in the Course of human events, it becomes necessary for one people to dissolve the political bands which have connected them with another, and to assume among the powers of the earth, the separate and equal station to which the Laws of Nature and of Nature's God entitle them, a decent respect to the opinions of mankind requires that they should declare the causes which impel them to the separation.

We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.--That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, --That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness. Prudence, indeed, will dictate that Governments long established should not be changed for light and transient causes; and accordingly all experience hath shewn, that mankind are more disposed to suffer, while evils are sufferable, than to right themselves by abolishing the forms to which they are accustomed. But when a long train of abuses and usurpations, pursuing invariably the same Object evinces a design to reduce them under absolute Despotism, it is their right, it is their duty, to throw off such Government, and to provide new Guards for their future security.--Such has been the patient sufferance of these Colonies; and such is now the necessity which constrains them to alter their former Systems of Government. The history of the present King of Great Britain is a history of repeated injuries and usurpations, all having in direct object the establishment of an absolute Tyranny over these States. To prove this, let Facts be submitted to a candid world.

He has refused his Assent to Laws, the most wholesome and necessary for the public good.
He has forbidden his Governors to pass Laws of immediate and pressing importance, unless suspended in their operation till his Assent should be obtained; and when so suspended, he has utterly neglected to attend to them.
He has refused to pass other Laws for the accommodation of large districts of people, unless those people would relinquish the right of Representation in the Legislature, a right inestimable to them and formidable to tyrants only.
He has called together legislative bodies at places unusual, uncomfortable, and distant from the depository of their public Records, for the sole purpose of fatiguing them into compliance with his measures.
He has dissolved Representative Houses repeatedly, for opposing with manly firmness his invasions on the rights of the people.
He has refused for a long time, after such dissolutions, to cause others to be elected; whereby the Legislative powers, incapable of Annihilation, have returned to the People at large for their exercise; the State remaining in the mean time exposed to all the dangers of invasion from without, and convulsions within.
He has endeavoured to prevent the population of these States; for that purpose obstructing the Laws for Naturalization of Foreigners; refusing to pass others to encourage their migrations hither, and raising the conditions of new Appropriations of Lands.
He has obstructed the Administration of Justice, by refusing his Assent to Laws for establishing Judiciary powers.
He has made Judges dependent on his Will alone, for the tenure of their offices, and the amount and payment of their salaries.
He has erected a multitude of New Offices, and sent hither swarms of Officers to harrass our people, and eat out their substance.
He has kept among us, in times of peace, Standing Armies without the Consent of our legislatures.
He has affected to render the Military independent of and superior to the Civil power.
He has combined with others to subject us to a jurisdiction foreign to our constitution, and unacknowledged by our laws; giving his Assent to their Acts of pretended Legislation:
For Quartering large bodies of armed troops among us:
For protecting them, by a mock Trial, from punishment for any Murders which they should commit on the Inhabitants of these States:
For cutting off our Trade with all parts of the world:
For imposing Taxes on us without our Consent:
For depriving us in many cases, of the benefits of Trial by Jury:
For transporting us beyond Seas to be tried for pretended offences
For abolishing the free System of English Laws in a neighbouring Province, establishing therein an Arbitrary government, and enlarging its Boundaries so as to render it at once an example and fit instrument for introducing the same absolute rule into these Colonies:
For taking away our Charters, abolishing our most valuable Laws, and altering fundamentally the Forms of our Governments:
For suspending our own Legislatures, and declaring themselves invested with power to legislate for us in all cases whatsoever.
He has abdicated Government here, by declaring us out of his Protection and waging War against us.
He has plundered our seas, ravaged our Coasts, burnt our towns, and destroyed the lives of our people.
He is at this time transporting large Armies of foreign Mercenaries to compleat the works of death, desolation and tyranny, already begun with circumstances of Cruelty & perfidy scarcely paralleled in the most barbarous ages, and totally unworthy the Head of a civilized nation.
He has constrained our fellow Citizens taken Captive on the high Seas to bear Arms against their Country, to become the executioners of their friends and Brethren, or to fall themselves by their Hands.
He has excited domestic insurrections amongst us, and has endeavoured to bring on the inhabitants of our frontiers, the merciless Indian Savages, whose known rule of warfare, is an undistinguished destruction of all ages, sexes and conditions.

In every stage of these Oppressions We have Petitioned for Redress in the most humble terms: Our repeated Petitions have been answered only by repeated injury. A Prince whose character is thus marked by every act which may define a Tyrant, is unfit to be the ruler of a free people.

Nor have We been wanting in attentions to our Brittish brethren. We have warned them from time to time of attempts by their legislature to extend an unwarrantable jurisdiction over us. We have reminded them of the circumstances of our emigration and settlement here. We have appealed to their native justice and magnanimity, and we have conjured them by the ties of our common kindred to disavow these usurpations, which, would inevitably interrupt our connections and correspondence. They too have been deaf to the voice of justice and of consanguinity. We must, therefore, acquiesce in the necessity, which denounces our Separation, and hold them, as we hold the rest of mankind, Enemies in War, in Peace Friends.

We, therefore, the Representatives of the united States of America, in General Congress, Assembled, appealing to the Supreme Judge of the world for the rectitude of our intentions, do, in the Name, and by Authority of the good People of these Colonies, solemnly publish and declare, That these United Colonies are, and of Right ought to be Free and Independent States; that they are Absolved from all Allegiance to the British Crown, and that all political connection between them and the State of Great Britain, is and ought to be totally dissolved; and that as Free and Independent States, they have full Power to levy War, conclude Peace, contract Alliances, establish Commerce, and to do all other Acts and Things which Independent States may of right do. And for the support of this Declaration, with a firm reliance on the protection of divine Providence, we mutually pledge to each other our Lives, our Fortunes and our sacred Honor.

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The 56 signatures on the Declaration appear in the positions indicated:

Column 1
Georgia:
Button Gwinnett
Lyman Hall
George Walton

Column 2
North Carolina:
William Hooper
Joseph Hewes
John Penn
South Carolina:
Edward Rutledge
Thomas Heyward, Jr.
Thomas Lynch, Jr.
Arthur Middleton

Column 3
Massachusetts:
John Hancock
Maryland:
Samuel Chase
William Paca
Thomas Stone
Charles Carroll of Carrollton
Virginia:
George Wythe
Richard Henry Lee
Thomas Jefferson
Benjamin Harrison
Thomas Nelson, Jr.
Francis Lightfoot Lee
Carter Braxton

Column 4
Pennsylvania:
Robert Morris
Benjamin Rush
Benjamin Franklin
John Morton
George Clymer
James Smith
George Taylor
James Wilson
George Ross
Delaware:
Caesar Rodney
George Read
Thomas McKean

Column 5
New York:
William Floyd
Philip Livingston
Francis Lewis
Lewis Morris
New Jersey:
Richard Stockton
John Witherspoon
Francis Hopkinson
John Hart
Abraham Clark

Column 6
New Hampshire:
Josiah Bartlett
William Whipple
Massachusetts:
Samuel Adams
John Adams
Robert Treat Paine
Elbridge Gerry
Rhode Island:
Stephen Hopkins
William Ellery
Connecticut:
Roger Sherman
Samuel Huntington
William Williams
Oliver Wolcott
New Hampshire:
Matthew Thornton

Page URL: http://www.archives.gov/exhibits/charters/declaration_transcript.html

35 Years To Energy Independence and Counting

35 Years To Energy Independence and Counting. It has been 35 years we have been fighting the war for energy independence. It looks like it will be another 35 years to continue this fight. We as a country need new energy sources, we need to control and promote our offshore oil drilling. We need to build new refineries, exact oil from shale, have only three blends of gasoline not fifty. We need to continue to promote nuclear, hydro, wind and solar energy.
What we really need is a Congress that has the guts to promote and actually act upon energy independence not the tired song of more taxes on oil companies. We need a new Congress as many members have been in office since 1973 and have not done anything to promote our energy independence. Republican Presidential candidate John McCain has it right, we need a new energy policy and to make it work for our energy independence.
Congress has failed us on energy in 2008 and we need to hold them accountable especially here in Connecticut. Rather than worrying about their self and special interests (like Chris Dodd's mortgage deal) they should be worried about an energy revolt by the people they supposedly represent. What do we have to look forward to $6 a gallon heating oil and $7 a gallon gas? What is their solution? Congress and their inaction is tiring and ruining our nation.