Lalo Alcaraz for January 09, 2013

Reminds me of North Korea.Yesterday was Kim Jong “W” Un’s birthday, he was 30.He took over from Kim Jong “Poppy” Il. Next in line is Kim Jong “Jeb!” Yuk.

There are many ways to lower defense spending. 1 – Retiring military personnel who work with corporations on government contracts should be banned from working for, or on behalf of that company, for 2 to 5 years.2 – Senators and Congressmen leaving office should be banned for the same length of time.3 – Ban legislators from voting on contracts or bills in which they have a financial interest. Not the way I want to say that, but basically, make them easier to fine/punish if a reasonable connection between a government contract and the performance of their stock portfolio can be identified. 4 – Create 1000 to 10000 new positions to be filled with accountants, auditors, inspectors, regulators, and enforcers. These positions can be transfers from downsizing the military and other government offices, so there would be no need increase payroll.. Give these inspectors guidelines/laws/rules/etc that are clear and enforce violations severely. The fines accrued would be a well earned tax on their negligence, or worse infraction and help defray costs.A single inspector, professional, supported by his office, and unafraid of upsetting an executive or contractor being inspected can keep a levee from breaching, an oil rig from exploding, a coal mine from collapsing, a building from burning,…A single auditor/evaluator/efficiency expert, with the support of supervisors and the strength of law, can save billions in lost pensions, ponzie schemes, “creative” finanicing formulas, hyper trading, foreclosures etc.If the right person is in the right place and has the confidence to know the office and people served will give support, one person can justify the 20 year budget of an entire office.In a world where nations can rise or fall based on the value of currency is a Weapon of Monetary Destruction.Respectfully,C.

The defense budget almost doubled since 9/11, not even counting the costs of the wars. With Osama bin Laden gone, we can EASILY reduce defense back to Clinton levels, and be perfectly safe. Especially if we kill expensive boondoggles in fighter jets and missile shields that aren’t operational and have little prospect of having any use. And the point of the cartoon is, if you act as though we shouldn’t raise the debt ceiling, you need to be willing to vastly cut defense. It’s the part of the budget with the most fat.

There you go, don’t put a net in place since it won’t catch some of the fish. Let’s continue to let all of the fish slip through.

I’ll add another item to C Down’s excellent list:*House members must recuse themselves from voting and/or adding riders to bills where more than 10% of the money would be spent in their voting districts. (I wish this could also be applied to the Senate, but that would mean that Senators from many states would have to recuse themselves from everything.)

Please list the dollar amounts of any giveaways by Obama to unions. Can you come up with any that add up to even 1/1000th of $1 trillion?

“Defense” and “Homeland Security” (33 new agencies created) blew that roof clear off a long time ago. $1.3 TRILLION, JUST for the F-35! MOre subs we don’t need. Retrofitting Abrams tanks the commander doesn’t need, or want! Hugely expensive missiles used to replace bullets. Drones, and of course, faulty showers that kill our troops. Nope there’s absolutely nowhere to look for cuts in “defense”.**sarcasm alert

Why is it the righties tell us the main purpose of the Second Amendment is to keep the citizens armed to the teeth so we can overthrow the government if necessary, but they also want to keep that government’s military as large as possible?

@ Rightisright – over the years many people have said to me, “Good idea, but no one will ever do it.” For a long time, it was easy to believe they were just cynical/fatalistic and lost hope. Over the last decade, it seems more like they are giving themselves a reason not to try. Is it laziness, hopelessness, or do they really not want a change? The ideas presented would put many K street offices out of business and limit future employment opportunities for military officers and ex politicians.@ Stipple – Yes. I have a dream. In my dream, your life is better and happier too, along with my the lives of my daughters, son, and grandchild.@ M Ster – I second the amendment.@ Baleine – Agreed. One reason we have so much waste is that no one wants to work their selves out of a job. Let’s get the job done first, then see if the savings and improvments made to our economy give them other jobs to which they can happily migrate. I also qualified the kind of supports auditors/inspectors/efficiency experts would need. If a good worker has a bad boss, the mission is at risk. And as you said, understanding is imperative, that’s why I said efficiency EXPERT in my first post as well as here. The word expert behind the other positions should be redundant, but I know not everyone in a position is an expert in that position.Respectfully,C.

I don’t understand your request, Onguard, as I didn’t make a statement; I asked a question.Which part of the question are you having trouble understanding? Would you like to claim that the righties want to cut military spending and reduce the size of the military? Or would you like to claim that they don’t say the main purpose of the Second Amendment is to protect the citizenry from a tyrannical government?Or both?

That’s it, dodge the question. There have been more posts here claiming that the 2nd Amendment was intended to allow citizens to protect themselves from government tyranny than I can count. There are many who claim we need to keep our bloated military to fight Iran, Al-Qaeda, China & possibly Canada. The U.S. already accounts for nearly half of worldwide military spending.If we want to look beyond GoComics, it’s easy: just Google, “we need guns to protect ourselves from tyranny”. Google, “republicans increase military spending”.Go ahead, I dare you.

Thanks, Uncle Joe. Saved me some typing.Here, Onguard, this is one of the first examples that popped up on Google:http://patriotupdate.com/2013/01/2nd-amendment-overthrowing-a-tyrannical-government/“Given all the gun talk lately, Mark Levin opened his show tonight clarifying the purpose of the 2nd amendment saying that it wasn’t for target shooting or hunting or anything else in that realm. He said that whether you like it or not or whether you agree with it or not, the reason why 2nd amendment exists is to arm the population in order to overthrow a tyrannical government. That’s it.”Here’s another that popped up:http://www.homepagedaily.com/Pages/article10789-right-wing-militias-and-the-nra-second-amendment-soulmates.aspx"The Time article describes, in chilling terms, the proliferation of heavily armed, right wing militias engaged in paramilitary training to resist the perceived “tyranny” of government authority.“…”For decades, NRA leaders have insisted that the Second Amendment is not only about duck hunting or self-defense against criminal attack. Rather, as one NRA official so colorfully put it, “the Second Amendment . . . is literally a loaded gun in the hands of the people held to the heads of government.”Is that enough to get you to answer the question, Onguard? Or are you going to keep dodging it?

So that would be, “No, Anthony, I can’t answer your question. How could I?”(And congrats, Onguard…you’re probably the first person to call Mark Levin a “Dem Lib”!)

Oh, by the way, Onguard…you asked me to support my statement, and I did. You’re welcome.Now will you do me the courtesy of supporting your statements?1. Dem Libs must create Illusions and Fabricate Demons to progress their agenda.2. There is no meaningful force that intents to do by force to do what the Extreme left HAS done to take over the Government.3. The Left has been using the corrupted MSM and expending tax payer money to buy Votes by giving Free Stuff.We’re waiting…

No, sorry…I asked you to support your statements. You didn’t. For the first one, you just restated it. For the second, you just admitted you can’t support it. And for the third, you offered no evidence at all.Sounds like you should be a birther as well.Hey, I have a question for you: Why is it the righties tell us the main purpose of the Second Amendment is to keep the citizens armed to the teeth so we can overthrow the government if necessary, but they also want to keep that government’s military as large as possible?

Crickets and clanging cymbals.