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A friend sent me these video links. 
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YouTube - "Chicken Button"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=geaYuQq5Gag
YouTube - "Trust"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7sDcKHd_fvU&feature=related
YouTube - "Balloon"
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUIjCvjzJtI&eurl=http://www.neverfindout.org/
Hope live links below answer some of your questions. Rampant spending has proven the government unwilling to rein itself in. Citizens controlling purse strings is the only way to force government to be responsible to all of us again.
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Click on the questions below to view the answers.
"ABOUT THE FAIRTAX
What is the FairTax plan?
The FairTax plan is a comprehensive proposal that replaces all federal income and payroll based taxes with an integrated approach including a progressive national retail sales tax, a prebate to ensure no American pays federal taxes on spending up to the poverty level, dollar-for-dollar federal revenue neutrality, and, through companion legislation, the repeal of the 16th Amendment.
The FairTax Act (HR 25, S 1025) is nonpartisan legislation. It abolishes all federal personal and corporate income taxes, gift, estate, capital gains, alternative minimum, Social Security, Medicare, and self-employment taxes and replaces them with one simple, visible, federal retail sales tax administered primarily by existing state sales tax authorities.
The FairTax taxes us only on what we choose to spend on new goods or services, not on what we earn. The FairTax is a fair, efficient, transparent, and intelligent solution to the frustration and inequity of our current tax system.
The FairTax:
We offer a library of information throughout this Web site about the features and benefits of the FairTax plan. Please explore!
The FairTax Five (live links)
The gloves are off as critics try to pick apart the FairTax. Trouble is, it's just a replay of the same five FairTax myths:
"The FairTax replaces all federal taxes paid by you and by businesses. No income tax. No capital gains taxes. No death tax. No Social Security tax. No alternative minimum tax. All gone. The elimination of these taxes will remove these tax components from the price of everything you buy." Surely, ......you will understand that all of the taxes paid by all of the people who are responsible for bringing a loaf of bread, a movie theatre ticket or a gallon of gasoline to the marketplace are passed down the line and paid by the final consumer of that item. Think about this ... where ELSE would the money to pay those taxes come from? There is no other way to generate the income necessary to pay these taxes OTHER than to include them in the final price of everything sold in our economy. So, how much is this tax component? About 22%. The taxes included in some consumer items are higher, lower in others, but the average is about 22%. When this 22% tax component comes OUT of the price of everything you buy, it is REPLACED by the 23% FairTax. So, THE TRUTH is that the FairTax does not "add 23% to the cost of everything you buy." It replaces the 22% average tax component included in the cost of everything you buy with a 23% sales tax.
There's so much more to this, and you can get the details from Americans for Fair Taxation, Congressman John Linder's website, or by heading to your bookstore and buying a copy of The FairTax book. Promise ... those of you who were initially frightened by this DSCC lying attack on the FairTax will come away supporters if you educate yourselves."
http://boortz.com/nuze/200810/10162008.html#fairtax
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"Americans Oppose Income Redistribution to Fix Economy
http://www.gallup.com/poll/108445/Americans-Oppose-Income-Redistribution-Fix-Economy.aspx
"Just Trust the Government?
At the heart of the financial meltdown now bedeviling Americans is a simple and profoundly ignored fact that does not require an advanced degree in economics to understand: Our government spends more than it takes in—a lot more.
Sure, regulators could have done a better job but, in truth, politicians at every level have frustrated attempts to blow the whistle on bad loans, bad reporting and bad ethics. Why? Because politicians have been buying our votes with our money—and our future earnings—for a long time. And they don't want any interference from those they are "helping."
It's not just the naked bribes represented by "earmarks" for hometown voters; it is new entitlement programs like the prescription drug benefit, new rules governing the behavior of favored banks and investment houses and a headlong rush to buy the votes of the poor by guaranteeing home ownership, irrespective of one's financial ability to repay a loan. Lest we forget, let's also add up all the special tax breaks for favored contributors that have bloated income tax code rules to 67,500 pages. It's a bi-partisan betrayal of our future cloaked as concern for the common good.
Although our nation was founded on the principle that the citizen was sovereign, government spending increases and more and more taxes taken from our earnings, savings and investments have effectively transformed the American citizen into a serf working another's land for the privilege of taking a fraction of the fruits of his or her own labor.
Just Trust Us
"Trust us," we are told. "We have the best interests of the nation at heart." Citizens are now left with no rational choice to protect savings, college plans, and investments but to accept the new aristocracies' trillion dollar picking of our pockets to prop up institutions that must function. It is not the first time in recent years that we have accepted the grasping hand of the federal government in our wallets to avert a disaster not of our making.
In 1983 a "Blue Ribbon" panel of similar leaders including Alan Greenspan, Daniel Patrick Moynihan and others "saved" Social Security from another big collapse by dramatically raising taxes on earnings of up to $97,500 annually. The promise, then, was that Baby Boomers would actually "pre-fund" their own retirement with astoundingly increased taxes, decades ahead of time. It was also promised as relief to the coming generations so they would be free of crippling taxes. Sounded good.
Lo and behold, the trillions of dollars taken in since then—far exceeding promised payments to senior citizens—have since been spent on everything else. Turns out, that it was nothing more than a new tax levied on those with earnings below $97,500 a year so executive and legislative branch office holders could have more of our money to spend extravagantly on "us" so they could win new terms in office. The FICA payroll tax has become a major factor in keeping the poor that way, retarding new business growth and keeping middle-class earners from moving up. Worst, it also turns out that our children and grandchildren will, in fact, still be burdened an ever-growing and mind-numbing national debt AND unbelievably high FICA taxes to support their parents.
In yet another example of playing fast and loose with politics and our money, 1986 saw Congress reject the tax policies of the Reagan administration and as consequence, the Savings and Loan industry collapsed. Turns out the definition of the tax value of real estate holdings had been changed overnight by the House Ways and Means Committee and banks no longer met liquidity rules. That politically inspired cat fight cost American taxpayers hundreds of billions of dollars. And worse, we didn't learn.
It is past time--way past time--for hometown America to save America from our well-intentioned but criminally incompetent, at best, and cynically corrupted , at worst, national leadership. Do we have a moment to lose? Do we really need any more examples of how the new aristocracy can—and will—destroy the pursuit of happiness?
The reform that can save the nation and restore our identity as citizens who have empowered and limited government (instead of the other way around) is called the FairTax.
Because the FairTax allows every American to take home everything that is earned without any federal withholding, millions of distressed homeowners could actually afford home mortgage payments. The elimination of FICA taxes eliminates the highly regressive Social Security and Medicate tax but the FairTax provides a far broader stream of revenue into these faltering programs. Because the FairTax eliminates all exemptions, gimmicks and loopholes, Congress would be removed from the ability to buy votes with tax giveaways and billionaires pay taxes when they spend money. Because the FairTax makes nearly all federal government taxes entirely transparent, the sovereign citizen can know the score and put the brakes on extravagant new spending. Because the FairTax eliminates the price advantage now enjoyed by overseas producers, American jobs won't be leaving our shores. In fact, because the FairTax makes the USA the most favorable tax environment in the world, we can expect trillions of dollars of investment rushing into the US economy. With the FairTax, our money is ours first and only secondly devoted to government. Savings growth, investments and business decisions are guided by opportunity and real progress instead of tax avoidance tactics.
We've lost more than $2 trillion of our retirement savings in a week's time and our kid's future at college is in serious jeopardy. This didn't happen by accident but at the hands of the very same people who have given the FairTax a cold shoulder. Those candidates and incumbents of either party who would spend our future earnings to stay in office and who reject the FairTax for similarly self-interested reasons now need a strong reminder from voters about whose offices they occupy. Please pay attention to our voting guide and send that message. ....."
...."The plain fact is, we either now save ourselves from our new aristocracy or suffer the consequences as modern day serfs in a nation never contemplated by our Founding Fathers. "
"Knoxville's Joe the Plumber doubts Obama, too
Source knoxnews.com
"Joe the Plumber, of Knoxville, that is, says he's less concerned about whether he gets a tax break if his customers still can't afford to hire him.
Still, Joe Shanks, a licensed master plumber and owner of Joe's Plumbing Service in the Cedar Bluff area, has followed the presidential campaigns the same as his much-quoted counterpart in Toledo, Ohio,................."
"Joe the plumber derangement syndrome
"L.A. Times: Joe the Plumber Has Liens!!!!1!!
"I think we can all agree that this is critical information.
Not because it says anything about Joe the Plumber, mind you. But it does serve a useful function: it warns any future citizen who might dare question Barack Obama that his life will be closely scrutinized for any irrelevant but embarrassing information.
So, you know. Critical in that sense. "
http://www.patterico.com/2008/10/16/la-times-joe-the-plumber-has-liens1/
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"Operation Destroy Joe the Plumber
Source WorldNetDaily
Sen. Barack Obama lied in last night's debate about his opposition to an Illinois bill aimed at protecting an infant who survives an abortion, charges the nurse who instigated the legislation.
Jill Stanek, a WND columnist, launched her work as a pro-life activist after witnessing the death of an infant who survived an abortion but was left untreated.
In a column today, she asserts that last night, in the third and final debate with GOP rival Sen. John McCain, Obama "obfuscated his radical record of abandoning abortion survivors to die in hospital soiled utility rooms."
The subject was raised by McCain.
"Sen. Obama, as a member of the Illinois State Senate, voted in the Judiciary Committee against a law that would provide immediate medical attention to a child born of a failed abortion. He voted against that," the GOP senator said.
Obama responded, arguing the Born Alive Infants Protection Act, which he opposed, "said you have to provide lifesaving treatment and that would have helped to undermine Roe v. Wade."
"LIE," writes Stanek. "BAIPA simply stated all born alive babies became legally protected persons immediately upon birth, no matter what gestational age and no matter if unwanted abortion survivors."
Continues Stanek, "Obama further obfuscated his radical record of abandoning abortion survivors to die in hospital soiled utility rooms by adding 'there was already a law on the books in Illinois that required providing lifesaving treatment. ...'
"LIE," Stanek writes. "Illinois abortion law to this day only protects abortion survivors their abortionist deems fit to live. The potential for subjective assessments in these cases is clear to all but Obama. In fact, Obama opposed closing this loophole by voting against legislation to mandate a second doctor be present at deliveries of all live abortion survivors to independently assess their viability."
She notes Obama not only opposed the state's proposed protection for infants, "he took a leadership role to kill it. His website still contains an ABC News quote from the Illinois Planned Parenthood CEO at the time stating 'Obama approached her' to strategize to defeat BAIPA as well as the Partial Birth Abortion Ban. Barack Obama actually sought out PP to help him defeat a bill protecting abortion survivors."
"Finally, for four years Obama lied about his record opposing BAIPA. In 2003 he voted against an identical version that passed 98-0 in the U.S. Senate and for which the pro-abortion group NARAL even expressed neutrality," Stanek writes.
"He then purported several times, as recently as August 16, 2008, that the bills were not identical and he would have supported the Illinois version had it been the same as the federal version. This was yet another LIE, which Obama's campaign finally had to recant after his actual vote tally from the Illinois General Assembly archive was posted online," she writes.
"I'm beyond disgusted that Obama continues to repeat the same lies without MSM (mainstream media) investigating and denouncing him. We'll see what tomorrow brings," Stanek says.
Obama, during an appearance with McCain at Rick Warren's Saddleback Church in California earlier in the campaign, refused to answer specific questions about his views on abortion.
Asked by Warren at what point a baby "gets human rights," the Democrat did not answer.
"Well, I think that whether you are looking at it from a theological perspective or a scientific perspective, answering that question with specificity, you know, is above my pay grade," he said.
Obama has sought to cast his abortion voting record as moderate, but as WND has reported, it sometimes has gone beyond what even the National Abortion Rights Action League has desired.
Arguing against the Illinois Born Alive Infant Protection Act in 2002, after even Planned Parenthood had dropped its opposition, Obama expressed concern that the bill might burden abortionists, reported blogger Erick Erickson on RedState.com.
Erikson, noting Obama was the only lawmaker to speak out against the protective measure, summarized the senator's concern this way: "Let's trust the guy who just botched the abortion to determine whether or not he actually did botch the abortion."
According to the transcript, Obama said:
As I understand it, this puts the burden on the attending physician who has determined, since they were performing this procedure, that, in fact, this is a nonviable fetus; that if that fetus, or child – however way you want to describe it – is now outside the mother's womb and the doctor continues to think that it's nonviable but there's, let's say, movement or some indication that, in fact, they're not just coming out limp and dead, that, in fact, they would then have to call a second physician to monitor and check off and make sure that this is not a live child that could be saved.
WND also reported an ad by the Obama campaign that attacked an abortion survivor. ......"
"Jessen herself released a statement saying, "Mr. Obama is clearly blinded by political ambition given his attack on me this week. All I asked of him was to do the right thing: support medical care and protection for babies who survive abortion – as I did."
http://worldnetdaily.com/index.php?fa=PAGE.view&pageId=78189
If this is not "paid from high places" to go away, then its implications are very interesting.
Story from African Press International is at the bottom of this page.
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So far this story about Michelle Obama's temper tantrum when she called African Press International (API) http://africanpress.wordpress.com/ hasn't been reported by the mainstream media but it is a very hot topic in the Blogosphere. Your humble correspondent checked on the credentials of API and it has been in existence for a little over two years and has filed numerous stories in that period. Additionally, this story has been posted at World Net Daily. If the MSM wants to verify this story they can contact API directly to investigate its veracity. Perhaps they don't want to check out this story because Michelle Obama comes off with an extreme case of bad temper. This API article starts out with Michelle article making accusations of disloyalty against that organization in a phone call (emphasis mine):
Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to call API because of what she termed, API’s help to spread rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man’s name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should identify themselves with.
When API told her that our online news media was only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.”
Wow! Talk about a red hot temper! But will the MSM even ask Michelle Obama about this? This article is chock full of more shocking information:
This is a very interesting turn of events. The American man Dr Corsi was recently reported to have been arrested in Kenya because there was fear that he might reveal information on Obama when he wanted to hold a press conference in Nairobi.
The question now is why he was arrested and who ordered his arrest. Was Obama’s hand in this in any way? We will never know the truth but what is clear is that Dr Corsi was seen as a threat while in Kenya.
When API asked Mrs Obama to comment on why Dr Corsi was arrested by the Kenyan government and whether she thought Kenya’s Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga was involved in Dr Corsi’s arrest, she got irritated and and simply told API not to dig that which will support evil people who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency.
When asked who she was referring to as the evil people, she stated that she was not going to elaborate much on that but that many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of envy.
On Farakhan and his ministry, Mrs Obama told API that it was unfortunate that Mr Farakhan came out the way he did supporting her husband openly before the elections was over. That was not wholehearted support but one that was calculated to convince the American people that my husband will support the growth of muslim faith if he became the president, adding “even if my husband was able to prove that he is not a Muslim, he will not be believed by those who have come out strongly to destroy his chances of being the next President. Do real people expect someone to deny a religion when 80 percent of his relatives are Muslims?; Mrs Obama asked.
Mrs Obama asked API to write a good story about her husband and that will earn API an invitation to the innoguration ceremony when, as she put it , her husband will be installed as the next President of the United States of America next year.
Double WOW! As I stated, African Press International has been in existence for over two years and has filed over a thousand stories. So will the MSM investigate this? Meanwhile this story is gaining enormous steam in the Blogosphere. "
http://newsbusters.org/blogs/p-j-gladnick/2008/10/15/will-msm-investigate-alleged-angry-phone-call-michelle-obama-african-p
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"Accusing API of colluding with American internet bloggers in an effort to bring down her husband, Mrs Obama said she decided to call API because of what she termed, API’s help to spread rumours created by American bloggers and other racist media outlets in their efforts to damage a black man’s name, saying she hopes African Media was mature enough to be in the front to give unwavering support to her husband, a man Africans should identify themselves with.
When API told her that our online news media was only relaying what the American Bloggers and other media outlets had discovered through their investigations, Mrs Obama was angered and she came out loud with the following: “African press International is supposed to support Africans and African-American view,” and she went to state that, “it is strange that API has chosen to support the racists against my husband. There is no shame in being adopted by a step father. All dirt has been thrown onto my husband’s face and yet he loves this country. My husband and I know that there is no law that will stop him from becoming the president, just because some American white racists are bringing up the issue of my husband’s adoption by His step father. The important thing here is where my husband’s heart is at the moment. I can tell the American people that My husband loves this country and his adoption never changed his love for this country. He was born in Hawaii, yes, and that gives him all the right to be an American citizen even though he was adopted by a foreigner; says Michelle Obama on telefon to API.”
This is a very interesting turn of events. The American man Dr Corsi was recently reported to have been arrested in Kenya because there was fear that he might reveal information on Obama when he wanted to hold a press conference in Nairobi.
The question now is why he was arrested and who ordered his arrest. Was Obama’s hand in this in any way? We will never know the truth but what is clear is that Dr Corsi was seen as a threat while in Kenya.
When API asked Mrs Obama to comment on why Dr Corsi was arrested by the Kenyan government and whether she thought Kenya’s Prime Minister Mr Raila Odinga was involved in Dr Corsi’s arrest, she got irritated and and simply told API not to dig that which will support evil people who are out to stop her husband from getting the presidency.
When asked who she was referring to as the evil people, she stated that she was not going to elaborate much on that but that many conservative white people and even some African Americans were against her husband, but that this group of blacks were simply doing so because of envy.
On Farakhan and his ministry, Mrs Obama told API that it was unfortunate that Mr Farakhan came out the way he did supporting her husband openly before the elections was over. That was not wholehearted support but one that was calculated to convince the American people that my husband will support the growth of muslim faith if he became the president, adding “even if my husband was able to prove that he is not a Muslim, he will not be believed by those who have come out strongly to destroy his chances of being the next President. Do real people expect someone to deny a religion when 80 percent of his relatives are Muslims?; Mrs Obama asked.
Mrs Obama asked API to write a good story about her husband and that will earn API an invitation to the innoguration ceremony when, as she put it , her husband will be installed as the next President of the United States of America next year. "
As a follow up to JAP69's post " I just went out in my vehicle and their was a talk host talking about comments that Jessie Jackson made about the muslim religion and Obama. It was not a good comment that Jessie made.
If I am correct on what I heard ......" https://www.lotterypost.com/blogcomments.asp?i=24888
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To my knowledge below is the original interview, original article. Please post correct article if it isn't.
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"PREPARE for a new America: That's the message that the Rev. Jesse Jackson conveyed to participants in the first World Policy Forum, held at this French lakeside resort last week.
He promised "fundamental changes" in US foreign policy - saying America must "heal wounds" it has caused to other nations, revive its alliances and apologize for the "arrogance of the Bush administration."
The most important change would occur in the Middle East, where "decades of putting Israel's interests first" would end.
Jackson believes that, although "Zionists who have controlled American policy for decades" remain strong, they'll lose a great deal of their clout when Barack Obama enters the White House.
"Obama is about change," Jackson told me in a wide-ranging conversation. "And the change that Obama promises is not limited to what we do in America itself. It is a change of the way America looks at the world and its place in it."
Jackson warns that he isn't an Obama confidant or adviser, "just a supporter." But he adds that Obama has been "a neighbor or, better still, a member of the family." Jackson's son has been a close friend of Obama for years, and Jackson's daughter went to school with Obama's wife Michelle.
"We helped him start his career," says Jackson. "And then we were always there to help him move ahead. He is the continuation of our struggle for justice not only for the black people but also for all those who have been wronged."
Will Obama's election close the chapter of black grievances linked to memories of slavery? The reverend takes a deep breath and waits a long time before responding.
"No, that chapter won't be closed," he says. "However, Obama's victory will be a huge step in the direction we have wanted America to take for decades."
Jackson rejects any suggestion that Obama was influenced by Marxist ideas in his youth. "I see no evidence of that," he says. "Obama's thirst for justice and equality is rooted in his black culture."
But is Obama - who's not a descendant of slaves - truly a typical American black?
Jackson emphatically answers yes: "You don't need to be a descendant of slaves to experience the oppression, the suffocating injustice and the ugly racism that exists in our society," he says. "Obama experienced the same environment as all American blacks did. It was nonsense to suggest that he was somehow not black enough to feel the pain."
Is Jackson worried about the "Bradley effect" - that people may be telling pollsters they favor the black candidate, but won't end up voting for him?
"I don't think this is how things will turn out," he says. "We have a collapsing economy and a war that we have lost in Iraq. In Afghanistan, we face a resurgent Taliban. New threats are looming in Pakistan. Our liberties have been trampled under feet . . . Today, most Americans want change, and know that only Barack can deliver what they want. Young Americans are especially determined to make sure that Obama wins."
He sees a broad public loss of confidence in the nation's institutions: "We have lost confidence in our president, our Congress, our banking system, our Wall Street and our legal system to protect our individual freedoms. . . I don't see how we could regain confidence in all those institutions without a radical change of direction."
Jackson declines to be more concrete about possible policy changes. After all, he insists, he isn't part of Obama's policy team. Yet he clearly hopes that his views, reflecting the position of many Democrats, would be reflected in the policies of an Obama administration.
On the economic front, he hopes for "major changes in our trading policy."
"We cannot continue with the open-door policy," he says. "We need to protect our manufacturing industry against unfair competition that destroys American jobs and creates ill-paid jobs abroad."
Would that mean an abrogation of the NAFTA treaty with Canada and Mexico?
Jackson dismisses the question as "premature": "We could do a great deal without such dramatic action."
His most surprising position concerns Iraq. He passionately denounces the toppling of Saddam Hussein as "an illegal and unjust act." But he's now sure that the United States "will have to remain in Iraq for a very long time."
What of Obama's promise to withdraw by 2010? Jackson believes that position will have to evolve, reflecting "realities on the ground."
"We should work with our allies in Iraq to consolidate democratic institutions there," he says. "We must help the people of Iraq decide and shape their future in accordance with their own culture and faith."
On Iran, he strongly supports Obama's idea of opening a direct dialogue with the leadership in Tehran. "We've got to talk to tell them what we want and hear what they want," Jackson says. "Nothing is gained by not talking to others."
Would that mean ignoring the four UN Security Council resolutions that demand an end to Iran's uranium-enrichment program? Jackson says direct talks wouldn't start without preparations.
"Barack wants an aggressive and dynamic diplomacy," he says. "He also wants adequate preparatory work. We must enter the talks after the ground has been prepared," he says.
Jackson is especially critical of President Bush's approach to the Israel-Palestine conflict.
"Bush was so afraid of a snafu and of upsetting Israel that he gave the whole thing a miss," Jackson says. "Barack will change that," because, as long as the Palestinians haven't seen justice, the Middle East will "remain a source of danger to us all."
"Barack is determined to repair our relations with the world of Islam and Muslims," Jackson says. "Thanks to his background and ecumenical approach, he knows how Muslims feel while remaining committed to his own faith."
http://www.nypost.com/seven/10142008/postopinion/opedcolumnists/the_o_jesse_knows_133450.htm?page=0
Siezure through taxation so the money you earned can be given it to someone else. Class warfare via wealth envy.
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How to stop it in its tracks
Fair Tax
http://www.fairtax.org/site/PageServer
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"Joe The Plumber: Obama Tax Plan 'Infuriates Me'
Source ABC News
"To be honest with you, that infuriates me," plumber Joe Wurzelbacher told Nightline's Terry Moran. "It's not right for someone to decide you made too much---that you've done too good and now we're going to take some of it back."
"That's just completely wrong," he added. ".............
[ VIDEO ]
.............."During his telephone interview with ABC News, the Ohio plumber argued that the government should not tax some Americans at a higher percentage than others and argued that this principle should extend not only to taxpayers at his income-level but also to the world's richest man.
"I don't like it," said Wurzelbacher. "You know, me or -- you know, Bill Gates, I don't care who you are. If you worked for it, if it was your idea, and you implemented it, it's not right for someone to decide you made too much."
http://blogs.abcnews.com/politicalradar/2008/10/joe-the-plumber.html
Brought up by Obama last night, his false accusations revealed as pure BS.
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"Secret Service says "Kill him" allegation unfounded
"By Andrew M. Seder
Staff Writer
"SCRANTON – The agent in charge of the Secret Service field office in Scranton said allegations that someone yelled “kill him” when presidential hopeful Barack Obama’s name was mentioned during Tuesday’s Sarah Palin rally are unfounded. "......
.......... "Agent Bill Slavoski said he was in the audience, along with an undisclosed number of additional secret service agents and other law enforcement officers and not one heard the comment.
“I was baffled,” he said after reading the report in Wednesday’s Times-Tribune.
He said the agency conducted an investigation Wednesday, after seeing the story, and could not find one person to corroborate the allegation other than Singleton." ...............
http://www.timesleader.com/news/breakingnews/Secret_Service_says_Kill_him_allegation_unfounded_.html
Think CNN reporters must have been reading conservative blog(s) commentary about ACORN and massive voter fraud. Saving face they followed with a report finally.
Looking at dates on the videos, McCain called it first.
Think Obama's close ties with ACORN and William Ayres are becoming well established. Do we really want this man as president???????
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Griffin on Acorn: CNN 10/14/08
Jarasan posted a video here of Obama's actual converstion with the plumber where Obama let it slip his real intention for the economy was Marxist redistribution of wealth "spread the wealth around." Amounts to nothing more than stoking class/wealth envy. Link to video below.
[ My note .... envy or resent someone else having something you'd like to have then you're definitely not in sync with creating it for yourself .... you push it away. ]
Bold emphasis mine for speed scanners.
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Jarasan's blog "It slipped out." https://www.lotterypost.com/blogcomments.asp?o=k&i=24851&b=p
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"When Barack Obama responded to the Ohio plumber who didn't want his taxes raised that Obama wanted to "spread the wealth around," I wanted to tell him to spread his own wealth around. It was in any event a rare moment of candor on the part of Senator Obama.
Obama all but told the plumber that his wealth should be seized in the name of equity. The encounter played out one of the old themes of democratic politics: the appeal to the many to take from the few. It's traditionally an easy sell in democratic regimes.
Despite Obama's implication to the contrary, however, It doesn't represent much in the way of change. According to the most recent (2006) data released by the IRS, the top 1 percent of filers paid nearly 40 percent of all income taxes; the top 5 percent paid 60 percent of all income taxes. The bottom 50 percent paid virtually no income taxes (3 percent of all income taxes paid).
The personal income tax, the federal government's main source of revenue, is collected overwhelmingly from a relative handful of Americans. The large majority of all Americans pay little or no income tax.
Given that poorer citizens always outnumber the rich, political philosophers have long worried that government based on majority rule could lead to organized theft from the wealthy by the democratic masses. "If the majority distributes among itself the things of a minority, it is evident that it will destroy the city," warns Aristotle.
The founders of the United States were deep students of politics and history, and they shared Aristotle's worry. Up through their time, history had shown all known democracies to be "incompatible with personal security or the rights of property." James Madison and others therefore made it a "first object of government" to protect personal property from unjust confiscation. Numerous provisions were included in the Constitution and Bill of Rights to protect the property rights of citizens.
Given that one of the causes of the American Revolution was a tax, the founders understood very well that taxation could become a way for one group to prey on another. So while the Constitution empowered the federal government to levy taxes, it limited this power mostly to indirect taxes like tariffs, duties, and excise taxes. For much of American history the federal government subsisted solely on those fees.
The Constitution did grant the federal government the power to levy "direct" taxes on a "per head" basis, but required that all money raised this way must be given to the states according to their population. The aim here was to preserve a decentralized federal system of rule, and to make it "difficult to place a direct tax on capital, the most destructive tax in terms of economic growth and economic initiative," according to Professor Edward Erler.
Until the Civil War, the idea of a tax on individual incomes would have seemed preposterous to most Americans. Only as an emergency wartime measure did Congress adopt an income tax in the 1860s, and the measure was allowed to lapse with little fanfare in 1872. Estimates vary regarding the percentage of citizens affected by the income tax of this era, but none places it at more than 10 percent.
The modern income tax begins with the Progressive era in American politics. In an influential 1889 article entitled "The Owners of the United States," crusading attorney Thomas Shearman argued that the lion's share of the country's wealth was in a limited number of hands. If an income tax was not adopted, he warned, within 30 years "the United States of America will be substantially owned" by 50,000 people.
This marked the beginning of a never-ending campaign. Many activists since have characterized America as a permanent plutocracy. And their prescription has generally been more and higher taxes.
Shearman's advocacy of an income tax found a receptive audience in populist politician William Jennings Bryan. Exploiting the dire economic circumstances created by the depression of 1893, Bryan avidly promoted the adoption of an income tax. His proposal succeeded when Congress passed a 2 percent flat tax on incomes over $4,000 in 1894. The following year, however, the Supreme Court held the tax to be unconstitutional.
In response, Progressives condemned the Constitution as an instrument crafted by the rich to protect their selfish interests (Allen Smith), and a document rendered obsolete by intellectual progress in the century since its drafting (Woodrow Wilson).
The Progessive condemnation of the Constitution climaxed in 1913 with the publication of An Economic Interpretation of the United States Constitution by Columbia history professor Charles Beard. Beard purported to expose the Constitution as the handiwork of a propertied elite serving its own interests to the exclusion of the majority.
Few works of American history have been more erroneous than Beard's, as later shown by debunking historians like Robert Brown and Forrest McDonald. But by the time scholarship caught up with Beard's book, a lot of damage had been done. Frenzied attacks on "the rich" and "the wealthy" culminated in the ratification of the Sixteenth Amendment in 1913, authorizing federal taxation of income from all sources without limit.
So why hasn't the majority in America helped itself to more of the minority's wealth, as Aristotle and our founders feared? Partly because the protections for individual property erected by the founders have worked. Partly, too, because many Americans' political convictions are (thankfully) based on principle rather than immediate economic self-interest. And partly because the fraction of Americans who think of themselves as rich, or likely to become rich in the future, is quite large, undercutting the incentive for bashing the rich.
Obama's appeal for higher taxes to "spread the wealth around" nevertheless harks back to an old theme in political philosophy and American politics. You can believe in it, but it's not exactly change, and it is more to be worried about than hoped for. "