Showing posts with label pacs. Show all posts
Showing posts with label pacs. Show all posts

Saturday, June 7, 2025

June, 2025, Part 3, Political Class Insanity: Another Member of Congress Lies, The COVID Scandals Get Investigated, and the Social Security Administration Is Still Inept

 Even though we have spent a lot of our recent posts discussing how DOGE and Trump are identifying and eliminating stupid and wasteful spending of the Federal government. However, that does not mean that the American political class had stopped doing stupid and inane things, be it wasting taxpayer wealth,  enriching themselves and family members, implementing stupid government programs, etc. 


We usually called these failures “political class insanity.” Thus, let’s catch up on the insanity that American politicians have continued to indulge in:


1)In our latest posts we have  reviewed  some of the latest corruption of public officials in Washington, in Congress, and in the Federal bureaucracy. Unfortunately, we have not covered all of the  corruption:


  • Congresswoman Jasmine Crockett has always claimed to have accepted “zero dollars” from corporate PACs.

  • But government records show that she has lied and indeed accepted almost $400,000 from PACs.

  • These PAC contributions came from PACs associated with BlackRock, AbbVie, and Lockheed Martin.

  • She has also accepted numerous trips from foreign governments such as India and the United Arab Emirates and a $17,500 trip to Qatar.

  • Government watchdog groups have raised ethical concerns about the trips as they avoid the accounting needed when plain cash is contributed to a Washington politician.


Did she do anything illegal? No. Did she lie about her financial contributions? Yes. Has she enjoyed trips around the world, something that had very little to do with her Congressional responsibilities and something that ordinary Americans did not receive? Yes. Is this corruption? Yes.


2)As time has passed, it has become apparent that the Federal government and DC  politicians lied repeatedly to us about the COVID virus:


  • They said the virus arose naturally in  nature but it did not, it came from a Wuhan Chinese biolab.

  • They said if you take the vaccine you would not get sick, that was not true.

  • They said if you wore a mask and stood six feet away from others you would not get sick, that was not true.

  • They said there would not be serious or fatal side effect consequences of taking the vaccine, that was not true also.


But finally the truth is being sought behind these above lies with a three prong FBI investigation underway:


  • The FBI investigation is a criminal investigation effort related to the hiding and destruction of Federal government records, the manipulation of the vaccine approval process, and subsequent side effects of the vaccine. 

  • The investigation is currently spread out in at least three cities: Cleveland,  New  York, and  Baltimore.

  • FBI  Deputy Director, Dan Bongino, described the effort in a social media post: “As we read and process reports of a new COVID strain emerging, I want you to know that we are actively investigating, in multiple field offices, the cover-up of the origin of the COVID virus, along with associated matters requiring our attention. You deserve answers.”

  • Already they have found that Federal government scientists have admitted that they were trying to hide COVID discussions from the public by using private email accounts, not the government email accounts they were supposed to be using.

  • Other evidence already uncovered has shown that the virus was known to the Chinese government well before they admitted it existed but the Chinese government did little to contain the spread.

  • The question to yet to be determined is when did  anyone in the American  scientific community or political class learn of the concerns of the Chinese about the virus and did they try to cover up the facts.

  • In New York, FBI agents are focusing on  whether there was political hanky-panky in the approval of the COVID vaccines and  then were there efforts to  cover up the side effects that the vaccines were causing, especially as it  affected young, healthy adults.

  • Whistle blowers in the vaccine process have already provided incriminating evidence to support this last part of the investigation.


The good news is that a fresh, and hopefully  non-corrupt set of leaders are in charge of the FBI and maybe we will get some honest answers about what has become obvious to most people: the government and the politicians in that government lied to us about our health as related to COVID. The bigger question is whether someone will FINALLY face the consequences of their lies.


3)While the previous two topics  talked about government corruption in different areas, let’s return to an old favorite topic, government incompetence:


  • The Social Security Administration has admitted its incompetence by  announcing that it  is removing a whopping 12.3  million names from its database.

  • The reasons for the removal is that according to its records, these 12.3 million people are over 120 years old but are listed as “still alive” in  the database.

  • 3.4 million were listed with ages between 120 and 129, 3.9 million people were listed  with ages between 130 and 139 and  over a  million people were listed with ages over 150 years old.

  • Thus, in theory, people born in the late 1800s were eligible to still receive Social  Security checks.

  • Another idiotic  condition not yet fixed is that an unknown number of people  listed in the database  have at least two different birth dates on file, a problem that is being looked into now.


Unbelievable incompetence. How could anyone in charge of this process not have  done a simple audit check on a regular basis to see what was going on?  Beyond basic incompetence of maintaining a system that handled trillions of taxpayer dollars over the years, how many of those trillions of dollars were siphoned off by criminal activity using accounts that were well over a hundred years old? Will the FBI  launch another probe and try to gift how much and  more importantly, who, benefited from this incompetence?


This is the ineptness that our tax dollars pay for everyday.


Okay, enough insanity for today: another lying member of Congress, finally trying to get to the truth about the COVID scandals, and the incredible incompetence of a major government program, a program that affects tens of millions of Americans.



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If you agree that we need to deseat every member of Congress for their lack of success and accomplishment, then please consider going to the following petition link to help the cause:


https://www.change.org/p/deseat-congress-reset-freedom



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Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:


Friday, August 16, 2013

Will The Economic Plight and Suffering Of Young Greek Adults Become the Same Plight For Young American Adults?

As most informed people know, Greece has been a fiscal basket case for the past several years. Corruption, mismanagement of the economy, and political economic ignorance has driven the country into defacto, if not official, bankruptcy. Sky high national debt, sky high and chronic unemployment, and no viable economic or financial plan to turn the country around has created hardships for just about every Greek citizen.

But it seems that young adults in Greece, those that should be embarking on their careers and building their futures today, seem to be getting hit especially hard. Consider some of the findings from a recent Businessweek article about the young adults in Greece:
  • While overall unemployment in Greece is about 27%, for young Greek adults that unemployment figure is about twice as high.
  • In 2013 and 2014 it is estimated that about 40,000 government employees will lose their government funded jobs, making a horrible unemployment situation even worse.
  • Over 100,000 young Greek adults have left the country to find better paying employment overseas.
  • The Businessweek article discusses the plight of a young Greek woman who applies for one of 21 social worker jobs that are being interviewed for. She is one of about 2,000 people trying to land on of those 21 jobs.
  • Many young Greeks have been forced to move back in with their parents and families or need financial support from their families to get by.
Heart breaking that people have to leave their country to have any chance of a good life and good paying job and career.

But, the situation in Greece is not that different than the heartbreaking challenges and frustration of young adults in this country. Consider some facts and realities, as pointed out in a recent article from the Independent Journal Review website (“8 Signs You're a Young Adult During the Obama Administration“)
from August 6, 2013:
  • Since young American adults struggle to find a decent-paying job these days after graduating from high school or college, they are often left with no other financial option than to return home to live with their parents and families. According to a recent Pew Research poll, a record 36% of young adults (that's over 21 million) live with their parents. 
  • This fact has consequences all throughout the economy. Since fewer households are formed, the housing market does not grow as fast to accommodate the lower number of new households formed, less furniture and appliances are sold since there are fewer new households, etc., all of which depress economic growth beyond the fact that young adults cannot find decent employment.
  • As proof of this previous point, the article points at some research from Pew which found that while 40% of young adults owned their homes in 2007, the number dropped to 34% in 2011 in just four short years, and in a few of those years we were supposedly in an “economic recovery“ mode.
  • The Independent Journal article cites another article, this one from Soopermexican, that pointed out 7 out of every 8 jobs added by the Obama administration have been part-time employment. Given that 2 million American young adults graduate college every year, this administration and its economic policies are turning most of those graduates into part time workers.
  • While part time work for a college graduate can be frustrating, consider a recent assertion from NPR. NPR claimed as many as one-third of internships in this country are unpaid, and an even higher percentage pay less than minimum wage. Thus, it may be a better option, from a financial perspective, to flip hamburgers at minimum wage than to work for nothing or near nothing as an intern with only a faint promise of moving into full time work out of the internship.
  • No job means no money which probably means no new set of wheels. According to CNW Research, while young adults account for 27% of new car sales, that is down significantly from 38% in 1985. Thus, not only does the housing industry suffer from the economy’s inability to create worthwhile employment for young Americans, the auto industry suffers also.
  • Not only can’t young Americans look forward to that first big, full time, good paying job, they are already looking at how hard it is going to be to pay off their college loans. The Project on Student Debt estimates that in the past 25 years, the cost of college has risen by 900%. The Wall Street Journal estimates that two-thirds of college graduates have mounting student debt. Thus, young Americans might almost immediately take a hit on their credit scores since they cannot pay off their college loans because their college loans did not pay off in a good job. Thus, bad credit leads to the future inability or lessened ability to get a home mortgage or car loan, further depressing those two industries.
  • As a direct consequence of delayed financial, career, and housing stability, young adults in America are waiting until they're older to get married. A Pew Research analysis estimates that the median age at first marriage is higher than ever in America, 26.5 years old for brides and 28.7 years old for grooms.
  • Given the fact that young Americans are finding it difficult to find a good paying, full time job, they are saddled with debt , and raising kids is an expensive proposition, the Population Reference Bureau estimates that the U.S. fertility rate (# of children per woman) is now 1.9. How bad is that? 1.9 is lower than the fertility rate during the Great Depression, another bad economic time when kids were viewed as an expensive like to have, not have to have. Only this time, it is worse than the Great Depression.

Let’s go beyond these global trends and look at the latest Federal government jobs report as reported in Yahoo Finance on August 3, 2013 (“We Have Become a Nation of Hamburger Flippers”): 

  • Only 162,000 jobs were created in the month of July, a month that most economists expected to see at least 200,000 jobs created.
  • Even worse, updated job creation estimates for May and June were revised downward from their current estimates.
  • 69% of the jobs created in the second quarter  and 57% created in the first half of 2013 – were in the three lowest-paying sectors of the economy: retail trade, administrative services, and leisure and hospitality. 
  • These positions, which account for 33% of all private sector jobs, pay an average of $15.80 per hour.
  • “What you’re seeing is now the spreading of low wage growth,” says Dan Alpert of Westwood Capital, “Really, we have become a nation of hamburger flippers, Wal-Mart sales associates, barmaids, checkout people and other people working at very low wages. The fact is that the U.S. employment situation is more of a wounded beast than a bull.” 
Consider more, yet similar, details from an Associated Press report from August 3, 2013:
  • The 162,000 jobs the economy added in July were a disappointment as were the poor quality, pay wise and career wise, of those 162,000 positions.  Low-paying retailers, restaurants and bars supplied more than half of July's job gain.
  • "You're getting jobs added, but they might not be the best-quality job," said John Canally, an economist with LPL Financial in Boston.
  • Year-to-date in 2013, low-paying industries have provided 61% of the nation's job growth, even though these traditionally low paying industries represent just 39% of all U.S. jobs, Mid-paying industries have contributed just 22% of this year's job gain.

This is the so-called economic recovery that the Washington politicians have created for us, the weakest and lamest economic recovery in a long, long time in this country. We have over 20 million Americans either unemployed or under employed. We have the record for longest number of consecutive months with the official unemployment rate over 7%. We have a sky high national debt of almost $17 TRILLION that every American will have to pay off. 

And we have a train wreck (Senator Max Baucus’s words) called Obama Care about to hit young adults in America where they will become criminals in the eyes of Obama Care and Washington if they do not sign up for compulsory health care insurance, an added expense that many just cannot afford. Yes, from a young American adult’s perspective, the Washington political class has made their world and their future look a lot like Greece.

What can be done to change the situation before we actually become Greece? Albert Einstein once said that “the definition of insanity is doing the same thing over and over and expecting different results.”  Four years after the Great Recession ended we obviously have to do some things differently. What Obama, Reid, Pelosi, Boehner, McConnell, et al have been doing for the past four years has not worked, especially for young adults in this country.

Here’s a couple of potential solutions, based on Einstein’s observation:

  1. Kill Obama Care altogether and start over in addressing our health care cost crisis.  This act that would terminate the asinine requirement that anyone working over 30 hours a week  is “full time.” This insanity is causing/forcing businesses across the country to change their personnel profile from full time employment to part time employment, all because of Obama Care. Killing this law would free up time for business people to focus on growing their business, with both full time and part time employees, and growing the economy and not on what Obama Care’s 2,500 pages mean for their business.
  2. Dramatically reduce the thousands and thousands of  useless Federal government regulations on the books that cause business owners to waste time, energy, and money complying with many regulations that are useless from an environmental and safety perspective. 
  3. Create a one time tax holiday that would amnesty the over one trillion dollars of cash that American businesses have stashed overseas in order to avoid paying high Federal taxes on. Put in some restrictions that prevent those funds from being used for executive compensation, stock buybacks, etc. and allow only employment creating expenses to be incurred with these funds (e.g. building factories, hiring more shifts, providing job training, etc.)
  4. We need to overhaul our entire education system so that it is more focused on efficiently spending the way too much money the country already spends on education for far too poor results. Find out what other countries do to educate their kids far better than how we educate ours and then steal their good ideas. Make a case that becoming a welder, plumber, etc. is not a bad thing to pursue, that college is NOT for everybody.
  5. Rewrite the tax code so that it fosters economic growth rather than foster revenue growth for the Federal government and for the Washington politicians to waste.
  6. Allow only individual citizens to contribute to politicians’ campaign funds, not corporations, unions, PACs, and super PACs. I recent read an article that touched home in this area. The article made a data, fact based case that it is now a better business decision to spend a million dollars on Washington incumbent politicians and lobbyists to get a sweetheart deal from the government than it is to invest that million dollars in new plant and facilities, an option that would generate jobs in the process. Currently, that million dollars only creates a handful of high powered lobbyist jobs while corrupting the democratic and governmental processes in this country.

Unfortunately, according to Einstein, the odds of the current set of politicians doing something different, something effective is pretty small. They thrive and advance their political careers by maintaining the status quo. They keep their full time jobs, the fates of the careers of young American adults be damned. Even if it does turn the country into Greece.

But there is a way to take Einstein’s advice before it is too late. Visit the following website and join the cause to impose term limits on all Federal politicians. The current set of politicians are part of the problem, join the term limits drive and you can be part of the solution that results in Greece becoming a nice vacation and not becoming the financial reality for our kids and family members:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Doing things differently to help the young adults in America: sounds like a good idea and besides, how much worse could it get?

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

Term Limits Now: http://www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com
http://www.reason.com
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w 


Friday, July 12, 2013

Term Limits Now! Because Really, How Much Worse Could It Get?

Think about just a fraction of the agony, pain, and frustration the American political class has inflicted on us over the past few decades:
  1. A sky high national debt of about $17 TRILLION, a person debt burden of about $54,000 for every man, woman, and child in the country.
  2. Annual budget deficits that have been over one TRILLION dollars a year for the past four years.
  3. Economic policies that have left over 20 million Americans either unemployed or under employed.
  4. Recent college graduates that cannot find a job in their field of interest, relegated to taking jobs that did not require them to rack up record amounts of student debt.
  5. A government that uses the IRS, the NSA, and other agencies to harass and hinder political opponents and to spy on every form of electronic communications of every American.
  6. Decades worth of government spending worth TRILLIONS of dollars without resolving any of the major issues of our times including our failing public schools, our lack of a national energy policy, leaky borders, skyrocketing health care costs, etc.
  7. Politicians that are more focused on their perpetual reelection and personal enrichment than the needs and desires of American citizens.
  8. Political processes that have been corrupted to almost always guarantee the incumbent’s reelection.
  9. Cronyism and obscene amounts of political money that flow into our political class from PACs, Super PACs, unions, and businesses, money that drowns out the voice of individual Americans.
  10. Foreign policies that are stupid, expensive, ineffective, and have turned us into the terrorist target of the world’s radicals and nut jobs.
  11. Government processes and programs that are inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, and subject to massive criminal fraud, wasting hundreds of billions of dollars a year in taxpayer wealth.
I could go on but it is too depressing. At the same time that all of these messes were occurring and all of these issues went unattended, consider the tenure of some of Washington’s current political figures:
  • John Dingell - 57 years
  • John Conyers - 48 years
  • Charles Rangel - 42 years
  • Bill Young - 42 years
  • Joe Biden - 42 years
  • Thad Cochran - 40 years
  • Don Young - 40 years
  • Patrick Leahy - 38 years
  • Max Baucus - 38 years
  • Chuck Grassley - 38 years
  • Tom Harkin - 38 years
  • George Miller - 38 years
  • Henry Waxman - 38 years
  • Ed Markey - 36 years
  • Orrin Hatch - 36 years
  • Barbara Mikulski - 36 years
  • Nick Rahall - 36 years
Consider some factoids from a January, 2013 Congressional Research Services analysis:
  1. The current average service time in Congress of sitting politicians is near an all time high.
  2. Congressional tenure as been steadily increasing over time.
  3. The percentage of incumbent politicians not seeking reelection has been steadily decreasing over time.
  4. The percentage of incumbent politicians winning reelection has been steadily increasing over time.
A number of conclusions are obvious. First, people running for Federal office are staying longer and longer in office to enjoy the perks and benefits of being in those positions, perks and benefits that they determine. Second, they are holding onto to their seats longer despite numerous elections, leveraging their incumbency status and the ability to write and adjust our political processes.

Out of the longest serving Washington politicians in the entire history of our country, a remarkable 17% of them (the list above) are currently still in office. These people have been present and a contributor to the numerous disasters we listed above.

- Present and contributing to a $17 TRILLION deficit.

- Present and contributing to unresolved crises in education, health care, and energy.

- Present and contributing to an inefficient, ineffective, corrupt, and criminally infested government programs.

I maintain that these politicians in the list, and the rest of their long serving peers, are truly part of our problem because they sure are not part of the solution. If they were part of the solution, our taxes would be lower, our degree of liberty and freedom would be higher, and major issues of our times would have been resolved long ago.

So why do they keep getting reelected if they truly are part of the problem? Because they control the political processes, the fund raising rules, the gerrymandering of Congressional districts, etc. that ensure their reelection and the continual flow of incompetence.

That is why we need to take this matter into our own hands and impose term limits on these people if we are to have any chance of fixing what ails our political processes and the nation. That is why we ask three things of you today:

1) Read the following paragraphs from our new, grass roots term limits initiative, paragraphs that come from the first page of our “Term Limits Now!”:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

2) Answer the question posed at the end of that first page relative to your grandchildren and children

3) Join our effort to fix what long serving polticiains have broken.

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Term Limits Now!

"It can't get any worse, vote Tiririca"
Political campaign slogan used by the famous Brazilian clown, Tiririca, a slogan that helped him garner over 1.3 million votes and which propelled him into a seat in the Brazilian Congress.

The mood in America is not good. Economic conditions are bad and trending worse, our national debt is skyrocketing, the country's citizens have never been more divided against each than they are today, our world standing and prestige continue to deteriorate, and the political class in America has not solved a single major issue in the past several decades. Our schools continue to under educate our kids, we have no strategic and effective national energy policy, health care costs continue to escalate, our borders leak, and we have already lost the war on drugs.

Many of these chronic issues have been with us for decades, proving that the Washington political class has been incapable or unwilling to address and resolve these national problems. And most recently, our politicians have again illustrated their impotency and their hand in the destruction of freedom and liberty in the following, unfolding scandals:

1. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class used and abused the powers and reach of the IRS to harass and hinder citizens and organizations who held contrary political views to this administration, violating their First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

2. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class used and abused the powers and reach of the IRS to harass and hinder religious groups who held contrary political views to this administration, violating their First Amendment freedom of speech rights.

3. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class have forced religious entities to break their religious tenets and beliefs to remain lawful under politically motivated legislation such as Obama Care, violating their freedom of religion rights.

4. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class are conducting massive data collection, storage, and analysis activities on the just about every form of electronics communications of just about every American, using secret warrants issued by secret judges in secret courts without any due process, violating the Fourth Amendment rights of every American.

5. It has become clear that the Obama administration and the Washington political class have conducted illegal secret searches and confiscations of journalists telephone records and possibly other information, violating the First Amendment's freedom of the press and freedom of speech rights.

These blatant and massive violations of citizens' rights and the Constitution, our economic distress, and divisive politics benefit only one group of Americans in this bitter environment. The career Washington politicians continue to get themselves re-elected over and over again and continue to reward themselves handsomely, not for resolving issues and protecting our freedoms and the Constitution, but for the simple act of being in office. Many of them have been in office for the same decades in which the Federal government has resolved no major issues, lending themselves to the old saying, "if you are not part of the solution, you are part of the problem."

Their constant need to get re-elected has perverted our democratic institutions and processes so much that political special interests and their overwhelming money power have drowned out the voices of ordinary citizens. Corporate bailouts, corporate welfare, union concessions, wasteful and useless budget earmarks to campaign donators, etc. subvert our democracy and sub-optimize the decisions made in Washington. And this perversion is most evident when incumbent politicians leverage their position and power in office to get themselves reelected.

To remove this perversion and greatly reduce the amount of special interest money that flows into our political processes, the need for term limits has never been more important. Our founding fathers never imagined or wanted a political class to develop in America. They viewed getting elected to political office as a calling and a short term service to the country, not a long term career. Unfortunately, this vision is lost on today's American political class.

Many Americans believe that we need to go back to the idea of short term citizen politicians vs. long term career politicians. We need to greatly reduce the amount of special interest money that almost always ensures that low performing politicians get re-elected, and we need a fresh set of people and ideas in Washington to deal with the crushing, unresolved issues of our times. If you agree, please join us in enacting a Constitutional amendment drive to limit service in the White House, Senate, and the House of Representatives to one term and one term only.

Our plan is gather 100,000 signers of this petition as soon as possible. Once we attain 100,000 signers, we will then go into a "crowd sourcing" mode to gather enough volunteer financial resources to take this term limits initiative to all fifty states, according to the Amendment process laid out in the Constitution. We will go the crowd sourcing and volunteer route in order to not be influenced or overcome by corporate, union, think tank, or political interests' money and resources. These entities want the status quo maintained, they will have no influence in our drive for "one and done."

Please fill out the petition form and send it to us by hitting the "submit" button. Please consider helping us further by indicating that you would be able to volunteer your time and talents for this effort. Also, we would appreciate if you would tell similarly minded friends and family to sign our petition and to "Like" us on Facebook where we are looking to get one million "Likes" to further prove our concept to crowd funding sources.

We will keep your information private and on file and will keep you informed of the process and progress we make going forward to make term limit's a reality. To contact us directly, our email address is:

UnitedStatesofPurple@gmail.com

One last thought: imagine yourself ten years down the road from today. Your kids or grandkids ask you why the economy is so sour, why it is so difficult to get a good job, why freedom in America seems like an empty promise, and why their tax burden is so onerous in order to support the ever growing national debt. Do nothing today and you will be able to tell them that when you had a chance to turn out the career politicians that were responsible for their economic distress and replace them with actual problem solvers, you passed on the opportunity.

Get involved with this effort to implement term limits and you may never have to answer their questions.

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If you never want to answer these future, hypothetical, and depressing questions from your kids ands grandkids, consider joining us at:

www.howmuchworsecoulditget.com

Because, really, how much worse could it get it if we swapped out every politician in Washington?

Our book, "Love My Country, Loathe My Government - Fifty First Steps To Restoring Our Freedom And Destroying The American Political Class" is now available at:

www.loathemygovernment.com

It is also available online at Amazon and Barnes and Noble. Please pass our message of freedom onward. Let your friends and family know about our websites and blogs, ask your library to carry the book, and respect freedom for both yourselves and others everyday.

Please visit the following sites for freedom:

http://www.reason.com/
http://www.cato.org
http://www.robertringer.com/
http://realpolichick.blogspot.com
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=08j0sYUOb5w