If we don't get a "Demonstration of Competence" from Congress soon, here's another good reason to bulldoze Washington, D.C. into the Potomac and let the states govern this country.
ALBANY — To the soundtrack of chanting protesters who draped banners from staircases and banged on the doors of the legislative chambers, lawmakers finished approving Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo's budget early Thursday morning, making for the state’s first on-time spending plan in five years.
The State Capitol was a place of pandemonium well into the night, with officials scrambling to get the education and health care parts of the budget printed so lawmakers could vote on them. The Senate passed its last budget bill about 11:30 p.m., while the Assembly finished about 1 a.m.
The $132.5 billion budget, which hews closely to what Mr. Cuomo proposed two months ago, cuts year-to-year spending for the first time in more than a decade and imposes no major new taxes. The Legislature’s approval cemented a huge political victory for the governor, who praised legislative leaders early Thursday “for this demonstration of competence” — something for which Albany is not exactly known.
“This bipartisan and bicameral cooperation will give New Yorkers the good budget they deserve,” Mr. Cuomo said in a statement. “It was an invaluable public service for the state government to ‘function’ so well at this difficult time.”
If it looks like a war, if the American military is being put in harm’s way like in a war, if it sounds like a war and if people die like it’s a war then call it whatever you want (kinetic military action for one) but we are at war in Libya!!!
This music video courtesy of Tom White at "Virginia Right" was written by, sung by and compiled by him as a way of exposing this "kinetic military action" taking place in Libya for what it is, war.
It also exposes President Obama for what he is, or more precisely for what he isn't which is a leader and a commander-in-chief.
More about the story behind the song and its lyrics:
Meet “Just Like a Real War” inspired by the Bob Dylan Classic
This is a commentary on Obama’s war with Libya. As before, I recorded and performed the music myself using a variety of keyboards, mics and alcoholic beverages. (Actually, I am kidding about the booze. I learned a long time ago it sounds even worse if I drink.)
And OK, there are better Bob Dylan impersonators in the world. I did mess up my hair, though. Just to feel like the real deal.
I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed making it.
Here are the lyrics…..
Just Like a Real War
Obama said he’d end all the wars
In Afghanistan and Iraq we’d fight no more
His chickens have gone to roost
Where his Tomahawks were loosed
And Libyans are dying in the streets
And Americans they don’t know why.
Chorus
And it looks just like a Real War
And it sounds just like a Real War
And it kills just like a Real War
But they call it a kinetic affair.
Obama said Gaddafi has to go
And now he says he really doesn’t know.
With the NCAA
And Vacation on the way
I guess we’ll do whatever folks down at the UN say
And Americans they start to die
Chorus
And it looks just like a Real War
And it sounds just like a Real War
And it kills just like a Real War
But they call it a kinetic affair.
If war was wrong when you campaigned, pray tell us what has changed
And why we must kill some more?
America is broke the world thinks we’re a joke
And you’re off on a vacation again
We can’t do this. We can’t do this any more
First it was a no fly zone
Now we’re dropping bombs on different people’s homes
Rob Bell Does Not Want To Save Your Soul, He Wants To Sell You His Book.
Listen Mr. Bell: this story's one you ought to know,
You'll reap the consequence of what you sow.
This fleeting world is not the world where we
Are destined to abide eternally:
And for the sake of an unworthy book
You let the devil claim you for his crook.
I've few days left here, I've no heart for war,
I cannot strive and struggle much more,
But hear an old man's words: the heart that's freed
From gnawing passion and ambitious greed
Looks on royalties and the dust as one;
The man who sells his story, as you've done,
For this same worthless dust, will never be
Regarded as a child of purity.
The world has seen so many men like you,
And laid them low: there's nothing you can do
But turn to God; take thought then for the way
You travel, since it leads to Judgment Day.
This verse is an adaptation of a passage found in“Shahnameh: The Persian Book of Kings”
Just when you think you've heard the most ridiculous way for our government to waste money it doesn't have, some bureaucrat comes up with this...
The Assistant Secretary for Indian Affairs needs someone to run the Facebook page for the Department of the Interior and they’ll pay up to $115,000 a year. That's $57.50 an hour plus all those great government employee benefits. I wonder if you have to have a Masters Degree in Facebooking to apply.
But let's get serious. Senator Rand Paul, R-KY., has proposed a five year plan for balancing the federal budget. His plan calls for the elimination of the Departments of Commerce, Education, Energy, and Housing and Urban Development. I suggest we add the Interior Department to that list.
Social Security is tied to a cost-of-living index called the "Consumer Price Index". This is the second year in a row there has been no Cost Of Living Adjustment (COLA) for Social Security. Since COLA's were authorized by congress there has never been two years in a row with no increases in Social Security payments until this year. We were told last fall by the Labor Department that there would be no COLA for 2011. We are not even three months into the second year with no COLA and guess what? The Labor Department tells us they have created a new "special index".
"A special index created by the Labor Department to measure the actual cost of living for Americans hit a record high in February, according to data released Thursday, surpassing the old high in July 2008. The Chained Consumer Price Index, released along with the more widely-watched CPI, increased 0.5 percent to 127.4, from 126.8 in January."
The cost of living for Americans is now above where it was when housing prices were the highest in history, when stock prices were at a record highs, unemployment was non-existent compared to today's figures and consumer confidence was soaring.
Senator Rand Paul, R-Ky., unveiled today his five-year path to a balanced budget, leaving several federal agencies behind. Among the items on the cutting room floor are the Departments of Education, Energy, Commerce and Housing and Urban Development.
Multiple uprisings in the Middle East, earthquakes all over the globe, a tsunami of epic proportions, a nuclear catastrophe. There are many horrible events happening in the world these days and I don't want to minimize the tragic loss of life and the suffering inflicted on tens of thousands of people around the world. But it could be worse. What if the pressures of these tragic events were too much to handle for President Obama. What if he went to bed tonight and had a fatal heart attack.
"Real sailors don't go to sleep, they pass out. And they don't wake up, they come to."
According to CNN, Navy Petty Officer Stephen Jones, a student at the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command in Charleston, South Carolina is accusing the Navy of baselessly trying to discharge him for "unprofessional conduct".
On the night of February 5, Petty Officer Jones was found asleep in the same bed with a male friend, Navy Petty Officer Bryan McGee. Jones says that Petty Officer McGee stopped by his room to watch TV and accidently fell asleep. Petty Officer Mcgee accepted a "Captain's Mast," a non-judicial procedure meant to avoid a court martial, but Jones refused. Consequently, Petty Officer Jones has been charged with "willful failure to exhibit professional conduct". Jones contends the Navy is merely trying to get around the recent "don't ask, don't tell" repeal and discharge him for being gay.
Jones, who claims nothing sexual happened, said they were both clothed, him in pajama pants and a white t-shirt and McGee in boxers, and that they were not under the covers together. Jones claims he was lying above the covers while McGee lay below. The play-by-play given by Jones is substantiated by the Naval investigating documents, although a different account on the amount of clothing worn was given by Jones' roommate who discovered the two men in bed together. The roommate claimed in his naval statement that both sailors were only dressed in their boxers.
"It is a violation of the Command Instruction for sailors to act unprofessionally in the barracks. It is considered unprofessional conduct to share the same bed in Navy barracks," said Thomas Dougan, a spokesman for the Naval Nuclear Power Training Command.
Jones' lawyer, Greg Myers states that is client has been "charged with falling asleep while watching a show on his computer while on his bed over the covers where another man under the covers was also sleeping. This is not a crime and never will be as there was and is no duty to avoid such a circumstance as a matter of laws". He has also charged that, "This Command suspects that Jones is a homosexual but has no proof. It cannot invoke 'don't ask, don't tell' because there is no homosexual conduct and there is no admission of homosexuality. Yet this homophobic Command is using its suspicions to reach the same result as though there were," said Myers. "This is bigotry disguised as the rule of law."
QUESTION: "What if Petty Officer McGee had been a female friend"?
