A Trip to the Social Security Building or the Third Circle Of Hell?

I had to get a copy of my Social Security Card this week and I (foolishly) thought it would be faster to just make a trip to the Social Security Office to pick it up.  I was there 20 minutes after they opened and I was 56th in line.  I took a number.  I looked around and I began to wonder a few things.
First of all, why do we pay an armed guard to sit there for the whole day?  It used to be a real police officer, and I guess enough people asked why we were paying someone over 30k a year to just sit there at a desk and read.  Now we pay a renta-cop who knows what to just sit there.
Are they expecting trouble from the flood of retirees and disabled folk?  I suppose that they guy with crutches, and the couple that are 150 years old combined might start some trouble, but it would be short in duration, I'll bet.
Is there any trouble that the renta cop is better trained to stop then the fifty or so of us who are short tempered from sitting there for over an hour? I'll bet not.
Second, three of the people who were there worked alone at a computer for the entire time that I was there, never once helping anyone.  What are they doing that is so important that they couldn't help the one person who was sitting at a desk helping and the one person who was behind the counter helping?
Third, what are we paying those people, clearly it is too much.  The average wait that I saw was forty two minutes.  If it takes almost an hour for a person to be helped, why aren't there more people helping?  Even Walmart is fluid with there scheduling.  How about if you have more people there on busy days- say Monday and Friday- and less people there on Tuesday?  That's just crazy enough to work.
Also, why does it take over 15 people to run an office?  Couldn't we streamline that into- say seven?  I'm thinking about all of the ridiculous benefits that we were paying those people to sit at a computer and eat a bagel.  That's crazy.
I guess the sequester didn't cover that.  It only stopped school children from touring the White House.
We must find a way to make our government more responsive to us, the people who are paying for it.  We pay them too much, and don't get a fair value for our money.  Why do they work banker's hours?  No one else does, anymore.
How about if they start rearranging their workers so that they can be open longer than just eight to three?  They certainly have enough people on the payroll if they staggered them out.  I would think that they have enough people in that office to be open 24 hours a day.  I have seen convenience stores manage it with only five people on the payroll.  You would think the United States Government could figure it out if a Jiffy Store can,
Consider if you are getting your money's worth from the Social Security Office near you.  You'll thank me later.

2+ Part Time Jobs is the New Full Time

Because B.O. and his pals that crafted obamacare never bothered to consult with a licensed insurance person while they were crafting their socialized medicine plan, the tax, penalty, boondoggle is about to implode all over the rest of us.  Unless you have been fortunate enough to work for the United States federal government that is.  Or one of the unions. Or any of the other politically connected groups to whom b.o. has been handing out waivers.  He's been handing out pay  offs, that is waivers, like kleenex at a screening of Steel Magnolias.
But here we have the rubber hitting the road, so to speak, and the truth of this horrendous socialized boondoggle is finally soaking in to people.  If you used to pay $142 dollars for your individual insurance policy per month, you are about to start paying  $282.56 per month if you are a man and $230.84 if you are female.  Of course these are averages, many people will be dropped and forced into the exchanges where you can "shop" around to find the plan that hurts your tukas the least.
Still can't afford it? Well that's too bad. The tax credits that were supposed to help people pay for the socialized helping of gruel have been going out like party favors to those poor souls in the unions who are struggling to make ends meet with their $38 an hour jobs.  Yeah, they have it rough.
One of the prime hunks of idiocy in this craptacular piece of legislation is the get out of jail free card for employers.  Full time is now classified as more than 30 hours per week.  What kind of amateur* political newbie, with less than six months of experience, wouldn't see that employers would simply cut hours to less than 30? 
It's not the fault of the businesses either.  They are there specifically to make money, that's what they do, and if obamacare is going to cost them money (and boy is it!) then they would be stupid not to do what they had to do to avoid those costs.  B.O. and his cronies never took a second to consider their repercussions with this monstrosity.  More scary is the thought that they did.   Could you sleep at night if you thought that b.o. was doing this on purpose, that this was all part of a plan- say spelled out in Rules for Radicals? Me neither.  I average about five hours a night now.
And while the  folks over at Yahoo have helpfully run a new pro-obamacare piece every day for the last six weeks, most people are looking at their dwindling paychecks and wondering how they can get out of this hot mess.  How in the world are they going to find another part time job to supplement the one they have now?  And how in the world are they going to coordinate the hours so that nothing overlaps? And finally, with real unemployment sitting at 20% where is this magic new job going to come from, anyway?
While b.o. is jetting around Africa with his wife, two daughters, mother in law, niece, nephew and assorted toadies for thirty days,(man was it smart of him to exclude himself from his sequester) the rest of us are looking at the mess he has made of our lives and wondering how to fix it.  The price of groceries has risen 28% more than the average person's take home pay. Beef is becoming a luxury, and the need for food stamps has also skyrocketed.  Hard working people are being forced to ask for government assistance in record numbers just to make sure that they and their children don't have to go to bed hungry. Pathetic.
The price of a gallon of gasoline has almost tripled under b.o.'s tenure.  His "war" on coal has caused electricity prices to sky rocket, and while he has no problem using Air Force 1 as his own private taxi service, along with Marine 1 to haul his dogs to Martha's Vineyard for his third of nine get- aways.  He has sent those children to Mexico on Spring break, he's sent the yeti to Aspen for skiing, he has taken more vacations this year alone, than most people have taken in the last five years.  But then, he's excluded from obamacare, isn't he?  He (and his cohorts)  have wisely excluded themselves from this hot mess.
We're screwed.  Our only hope is that Boehner grows a pair of testicles and forces b.o. to back off the implementation of socialized medicine for at least another year.  And when your only hope is testicular fortitude from the current Speaker of the House, you really have no hope.
Pray for our Republic. You'll thank me later.  God help us all.



*slick willie's description of b.o.

Slick Willie vs Shellie Zimmerman

Do you remember when the consensus was that Clinton had only lied about sex, so that wasn't perjury perjury, it was only fibbing?  I do too.  My how times have changed.
Shellie Zimmerman was charged and convicted of perjury in the matter of the bail that was set after her husband, George, was falsely arrested for saving his own life.
Clinton was in the middle of being the first sitting president of the United States of America to be sued for sexual harassment.  He lied about everything in his deposition from start to finish. He lied about exposing himself. He lied about what he said, and when he said it. But the lie that landed him in the history books was the one about Ms. Lewinsky.  He did have sex with that woman. He did tell people to lie, and all the finger wagging and wasted bomb strikes in the world couldn't change that.  The media-at the time so far up his hiney that they could give him a clean bill of health on his prostate-immediately went into overdrive.  They told us that lies about sex don't count.  They told us that everyone in Europe thought we were just being silly.  They told us that it was no big deal that he lied, as it was a teeny, tiny sex lie, and everyone knows that those don't really count.
Fast forward to Mrs. Zimmerman.  When bail was being set for her husband's witch hunt arrest- she didn't give the judge any more information than what he asked for. ( I think they call that not incriminating yourself) The Zimmerman's had accrued a sizable amount of donations from other people who felt that the stand your ground law in Florida covered the case and that George Zimmerman was being sacrificed on the alter of the msm's anti gun campaign. 
Mrs. Zimmerman didn't inform the judge of these donations and now she is being strung up as a scofflaw of the highest order.  Luckily, she was able to plead to lesser charges and will still be able to get her license in nursing.  Why was she charged at all?  If lies about sex aren't perjury perjury, then why are lies about money?
I don't suppose that it has anything to do with the agenda of the msm do you?  I mean, they had tried and convicted her husband for the serious crime of not allowing himself to be beaten to death by a drugged up gangsta wannabe- how could they not want to see someone pay after those fools in Florida let him get away with defending himself?
I write about this all of the time, but please-don't let the media color your judgements.  Look at all of the facts before you make up your mind about things, and don't even consider making a decision until you have double checked what the main stream media has assured you is the truth.  You'll thank me later.

Just Where Did Syria Get Those WMDs Anyway?

Early in President George W. Bush's first term he had to deal with Bill Clinton's incompetence after air planes were flown into the Twin Towers.  Had Slick Willie shown the least bit of interest in taking Bin Laden when he was offered to the United States on a silver platter by Pakistan, hundreds of thousands of people would still be alive today.  Instead, Slick concentrated on receiving oral sex from an unpaid intern.
Fast forward to President Bush's dilemma  and you have a president who promptly took the matter into hand and cleaned out Afghanistan of Al-Qaeda and then did the same in Iraq-the place where the money was coming from. One of the main reasons that President Bush authorized the invasion into Iraq was the intelligence report that Hussein was actively trying to get weapons grade uranium.
So now we have B.O. and he has decided that Syria needs an intervention.  To date, the only "ally" willing to help out is France.  Great Britain gave a resounding no to their Prime Minister's request, leaving enough egg on faces to ricochet across the Atlantic.
Ignore all of the past quotes from our vacationer in chief and you still have an ironic soup to dip in to.  B.O. quotes about demanding congressional approval were everywhere during Iraq- but now you have to only look and there they are for all to see.  Liberal hypocrisy at its finest.
Biden, Pelosi, and a host of liberal mouth pieces were in histrionics at the very thought of rescuing women and children from government sanctioned rape rooms.  In the end, when all of the barbaric tortures were exposed-without much help from the msm thankyouverymuch- the only carp that the liberals could produce was that the wmds were never found.  Golly, we only gave Hussein about six weeks to get rid of them, what did they think was going to happen anyway?
But, much like the liberal perpetuated lie that algore won in 2000, the wmds were the only stick that libs could scrape up to beat their anti military drums.  Now, would you look at this?  It would seem that Syria has laughingly danced across B.O.'s "red line" and gassed many many many people with the very wmds that libs from here to there claimed never existed in the first place.
Of course, the msm isn't very interested in the origin of those weapons.  Much like their lack of interest in all the folks being killed south of our border and in our own backyard by Eric Holder's illegal gun give away- the media is, for the most part, taking a giant pass on any stories about how Syria acquired those wmds.
The only country willing to help with B.O.'s latest international catastrophe is France.  Yeah that'll work out well.  France has never won a war in their history.
Call your congressional employee and tell them how you feel about B.O.'s latest foreign policy screw up.  Do we have a dog in this fight?  Do we have any interests that will be helped by muslims controlling another area thanks to B.O.?  You'll thank me later.

Let Them Eat Cake

Marie Antoinette was not very concerned with the common people who were starving.  She suggested the cake menu to them when told that they were starving.  Congress and B.O. had a very similar response when they found out that their families and their staff would be paying much much much more for health insurance under Obamacare-and they would in fact be losing some of their sweet benefits.
What was their reaction?  Why, to exempt themselves of course!  Not one of them has to deal with the onus that they created for the rest of us.  Not one single congress person or senator has to sort through the higher premiums of obamacare.  Not one single judge or justice has to dig through the volumes of paperwork and write a larger check for their health care.  That's convenient for them, isn't it?

It's a lot like a person reading their own electric meter and deciding what they owe.  Where in the world can I sign up for something like that?  For that matter, why can't we all be excluded?
 B.O. has delayed the employer mandate for one year.  That is pretty handy for him, as the elections are coming up, and it's not looking like a great year for the democrats who foisted this train wreck upon us.  When Pelosi said we would have to pass it to see what was in it, she wasn't kidding.  Now, not one single politician is running their re election on the platform that they voted for the biggest leap toward socialism we have had since FDR was president.
The state that I live in has declined to set up the exchanges that will be needed so that people can "shop" for health insurance.  Most of the states have done the same thing.  That means one more delay, on more debacle for B.O. to "fix" if he ever stops vacationing.  Poor guy- he was so tired after hauling his wife, two children, mother-in-law, and niece and nephew all over Africa for 17 days that he needed a month in Martha's Vineyard.  Poor guy.
I didn't think that B.O. could arbitrarily delay parts of a law once it's signed into being.  As a constitutional professor from Harvard, I would have thought he would have all the ins and outs on what a president was allowed to do.  Maybe not.
But the Constitution aside- B.O. has decided that employers will have another year before they have to start dealing with all of the many headaches that obamacare will be bringing.  The response of most employers?  They have cut most employees hours so that they are no part time employees.  Now they don't have to provide insurance for those part timers.  Of course, the employee will now need another job to cover the hours they just lost.  Unless of course, they can feed their family on 32 hours a week. 
Can you imagine how complicated your week will be when you have to coordinate two work schedules and get yourself back and forth to both of them?  What happens when your days off don't coincide?  Is it possible that a day off will mean only having to go to one job?  If that's the future you are facing-thank an idiot that voted for Obama.  It's their fault too.  In the mean time, I'll save the want ads for you, and you can thank me later.

Al Sharpton is 0-for

Do you remember who Tawana Brawley is?  If you were alive during the 80's you may recall that this liar was a fifteen year old girl who stayed out for a few days and tried to cover it up by claiming she was raped by four men.  The rape kit proved that she hadn't been raped.  Her testimony fell apart, much like the lives of the four men she lied about.  A few weeks ago she began paying restitution to at least one of the men she falsely accused of raping her and stuffing her in a garbage bag.  She has to pay him a little less than a half of a million dollars.  I hope she writes that check every week-knowing what a hot mess she is.
Of course, she couldn't have done it alone.  Reverend Al ( is that racial unrest I can stir up) Sharpton was right in the thick of it, he loves a camera almost as much as Bill Clinton.  He never missed an opportunity to hold a press conference-he had them almost daily there for a while.
He complained about the injustice to black people served daily by the evil whites.  He complained about the system that discriminated against black people and made them born victims.  He complained about the four men who supposedly took Tawawna Brawley and held her hostage for four days-all the while beating and raping her.  He complained when they weren't arrested right away- and then he complained that they weren't arrested sooner.
Of course- the dna test from the rape kit performed on Miss Brawley came back one hundred percent negative.  So either these four men were able to beat, rape, and force Miss Brawley into a garbage bag without leaving one single shred of evidence- or- as the rape kit confirmed- she lied about the entire incident.  That must be one proud parent she has there.
Fast forward to 2013.  Business has been rather slow in the race baiting business, when all of a sudden a golden apple lands in the laps of Reverends Fake Raped and Baby Daddy.  Hold the presses!  Before you can say slave reparations those two "reverends" are holding press conferences, offering counsel, and counting the money of a potential gold mine.  A fresh faced, cherubic little angel has been murdered by an evil white guy who drove around stalking little kids who were only trying to deliver soup to their sick grandmother buy a snack and a bottle of tea.
The only problem with that scenario is that the cherubic little angel 1) wasn't an angel he was a hulking thug 2) he had been suspended for having theft tools and a load of stolen jewelry on his person, 3) he had marijuana in his system and 4) he initiated the confrontation.
None of this stopped Reverend Make a buck.  Before you could say false accusation- the msm and our two leading race agitators were holding press conferences and trying to grow another crop of racial unrest and another big payoff.
Thankfully- the man who saved his own life by stopping that not so little felon- was acquitted.  No thanks to Reverends Fake Rape and Baby Daddy.  There is no money to be had in the sad tired story of a young black man committing  robberies.
So ask yourself yourself just what it is that Al Sharpton is selling.  It isn't God's word, and he doesn't seem to be very good at it. He is 0 for 2 after all.  Think about it, you'll thank me later.
  

You're Not Supposed to be Able to Live on Minimum Wage!

If you are counting on a minimum wage job as a means to have a life-you probably didn't pay attention as you were growing up.  I just finished reading an article online that there is a movement to increase the minimum wage to $10.10 an hour.  Other than obamacare, I cannot think of anything that will kill hiring any faster.
If you are being paid minimum wage, no offense to your job skills, but you are not all that valuable to the work market.  You can be replaced with another person who walks in off of the street, pretty quickly.  Minimum wage jobs are supposed to give you job skills that you will build on and increase your worth to the competitive market place.  They are not supposed to be a life style.
The very first job that I had paid $3.50 an hour. I answered phones and waited tables in a pizza place.  I lasted a little over a year in that job, and the biggest thing that I learned was that I wanted to finish my education so that I could make more money.  I had ambition- I knew that a McJob was never going to fill my needs in the long term.  I was motivated to improve myself and get a better job. I learned a lot about what it would take to get and keep a better job, especially in a stress filled situation.  It has served me well.  If I were still working in a minimum wage job, I believe I would be tempted to shoot myself.
Do you realize what the cost of things will become if the workers were required to be paid $10.10 an hour?  Goodbye one dollar burgers, everything would double or triple in price.
Of course, the real motivation behind raising the minimum wage to such an unsustainable amount has nothing to do with giving people with zero job skills a better life, because it wouldn't do that.  They would be in the same boat- the cost of everything would increase. Food, shelter, fuel, clothing, it would all go up.  That is, it would go up even higher than it already has thanks to B.O.'s tidy little depression.
But the dirtiest secret behind this sudden "desire" to make the minimum wage a living wage has nothing to do with concern for people with few job skills.
The real reason behind this sudden desire to tank the economy even more, raise the minimum wage is one great big giant reach around for the unions.  You see, they base their wage demands on an extrapolation of the minimum wage.  That is to say, if minimum wage is three dollars, than their workers get three times the minimum wage, or nine dollars an hour.  See the payola?  This is just one more attempt by B.O. and his cronies to keep thanking the unions that he screwed over with obamacare.  Don't fall for it.  Even if you are stuck in a minimum wage starter job- don't fall for it.  Do you want to pay seven dollars for a gallon of milk?  You would be better off getting an education- and not majoring in romance languages- but a REAL education.  Then you can support yourself and your family, maybe even pay it forward.  Think about it, you'll thank me later.

This is a Newspaper??

There is a local "newspaper" in the town I live in.  It owns several small town papers in this area.  It is to news what B.O. is to leadership.  Technically, it is what is described as, in reality-not so much.  The views of the owner are screamed from every page that trumpets b.o.'s successes (few that they are) and decries every mean, awful, Republican for taking the food from babies' mouths.
Some years back this town had a strike at one of the foundries.  In 1999, they couldn't make it on an hourly wage of around $15.00 plus insurance and other benefits.  They wanted more salary, plus they wanted the foundry to pay more of their insurance premiums.  The foundry said no.  The union voted and went on strike. These people who had been making $15.00 -$19.00 an hour were immediately eligible for food stamps and a host of other benefits.  I guess it was hard to save anything away when you are bringing home $680.00 a week before over time.  So, long story shorter- the union voted to strike and the newspaper (whose son worked at the foundry) backed them up one hundred percent.  Stories of unsafe practices were printed.  Horror stories from workers who didn't feel safe emerged.  The "newspaper" printed every one of them, every day for weeks.
Then, one day, a driver was delivering something to this foundry.  He had no dog in the fight, so to speak.  He was simply trying to earn his living by doing what he was paid to do.  The striking workers hauled him from his truck and beat him so severely that he almost died.  He lost the sight of one eye and all of it was because he was doing his job, and some jerks thought that he shouldn't be able to earn a living if they didn't want to earn one.  Two people went to jail, not that you would have known from the local "news" paper.  The foundry in question closed its doors and relocated to another facility. Three hundred people went from making $15.00 to $19.00 dollars an hour to making $10.00 at the new facility. Go union.  The paper made not a peep about the causes, only lamented the end of the foundry.  What did they think would happen?
Fast forward to this week: I got an email from someone who had received a mailing from a car dealership.  The mailing said that this person was guaranteed to win a prize for coming in to discuss the vehicles that were for sale.  The prizes were 10k, a couple of ipod minis, $350, a gift card, or $150.  Every one won the gift card.
When this person went to the web site relating to this gift card, what they found was a scam.  ShoppingCardStore.com is the provider of the "prize" that all of these people won.  It is filled with third rate merchandise, and the kicker is- when you have completed you shopping spree- you are on the hook for the shipping charges.  Of course, these shipping charges can't be paid with the shopping card-they must be paid with a debit or credit card. Can you see the scam yet?
So- the person who contacted me had called this car dealership to complain.  The dealership basically blew them off.  First, the story was that the promotion came to try and drive in more used cars.  Then the story evolved to perhaps the person in charge didn't do enough due diligence.  Finally, the dealership offered a car detail and an oil change (retail value: $12.00) to make it all go away.  This person politely declined.
When a letter to the editor was submitted, the local paper said that they couldn't print it because it mentioned the local business by name (who just so happens to bill thousands of dollars in advertising with the paper) and suggested they try the BBB.
So in irritation- I was sent an email.  I did thirty minutes of investigation and found out more in that half an hour than the newspaper was willing to try and find.  They won't have to worry about a Pulitzer Prize, that's for sure.  So the point of this (believe it or not) is to be very careful when you are reading your local small town paper.  It's not just what they print- it's also what they leave out.  Think about it, you'll thank me later.

But What About Chicago, Mr. Obama?

In his latest diversion, race-baiting, show of utter incompetence, B.O. has said that the jury has spoken, accept the verdict.  In the next breath, he is threatening to use his favorite chained dog, the Department of Justice to try George Zimmerman on federal charges.  What an awesome waste of tax payer funds.
Since he is clearly so worried about the deaths of minorities, when can we expect him or his minions to do something about the spiking death rates in his adopted hometown of Chicago?
Since overruling the second amendment and making lawful gun ownership a crime there- the rates for violent crimes has skyrocketed! Who would have ever foreseen that criminals would take advantage of unarmed citizens?? It's simply crazy, I know.
So now that B.O.'s right hand man Rahm Emmanuel is calling the shots in Chicago -is that a preview of what our number one vacation taker would like to see for the rest of the nation? I think that it is. While B.O. is vacationing in Martha's Vineyard (again) this week- at least one hundred people will be shot in Chicago.
If Obama is so worried about the violence that was caused by one wannabe gang banger getting himself shot- why hasn't he done anything about Chicago?  Why hasn't he done anything about the overwhelming black on black violence that plagues inner cities?  Why hasn't he done anything about the growing unemployment for blacks? Why hasn't he lowered instead of raised the amount of black people living below the poverty level?
When will B.O. step in front of a camera and condemn the three blacks that were beating a white person?  When will he condemn the black youth that shot a toddler in the face?  For that matter, when will B.O. start being concerned with all Americans and not just the ones who vote in blocks?
Blacks. whites, browns, plaids are all sinking lower because of Barrak Hussein Soetoro Obama.  He is not a good leader, he is not a good executive.  He takes a vacation pretty well, he passes off blame to others pretty well, other than that, I haven't really seen his strong suits.  Chicago and even more so Detroit are the future of the United States of America if we don't stop his socialist agenda.  Vote his agenda and his minions out.  You'll thank me later.

www.ShoppingCardStore.com is a Big Fat Scam

A friend of mine-who is normally very sensible when it comes to money- falls for every in mail pitch that he receives.  He fills out the paper work for publisher's clearing house, he enters contests all the time.  He recently received one from a local Car Dealership-Ben Davis.
The pitch from Ben Davis was that you automatically won something.  It was either $10,000 in cash, a couple of ipods, a gift card, or $150 in cash.  Everyone won the gift card for $300.00 worth of merchandise. Here is the problem:  the gift card is from some low rent crappy business called ShoppingCardStore.com.  There was a time when they were called the GiftCardStore.com but they had to stop using that name when the complaints started pouring in.  Here is how the scam works:  You receive this card as a "prize" and then you go to their web site.
That is dangerous in and of itself, when I accessed the website my firewall had to remove a virus attempt.  So be warned.  Next, you are directed to their site where yo may choose from several items, all of them of Fingerhut quality.
Next, you will be hit with a handling charge-that you cannot use this "gift card" to pay.  Have you spotted the scam yet?
In addition, there is a $5.00 processing fee.  So you may well end up paying $90.00 for a bunch of free crappy stuff that you could have easily purchased at any dollar store.
Avoid VCard if you can at all.  You may also want to avoid www.ShoppingCardStore.com as well.  They are not a legitimate, fair or honest company.  You'll thank me later.


I received a comment by someone who had been scammed by ShoppingCardStore.com    The first thing you want to do is contact your bank and tell them it was fraudulent.  They can stop payment on the money that you sent to these scammers. It may take a few weeks, but you should get your money back.  I hope that helps.