The glass ceiling and the welfare ceiling

Mother of two is trapped in the welfare system. With an income of $19,000 she qualifies for nearly $81,000 in benefits according to the Blaze panel tonight, many of which would be lost if she made more money--child care, SNAP, Medicaid, SCHIP, Section 8, earned income tax credit, heat, phone, etc. Another example from Pennsylvania in mid-2012 was of a statistical mother of 2 earning $29,000 gross income is better off than earning $69,000 gross because of entitlements she receives at the lower income. And if people say this is a trap, they are cruel, haters, racists, etc.

She can earn $57,000 and still get SCHIP; she can earn $45,000 and get child care and SCHIP; but why do that when at $29,000 she can also get food stamps, housing and heat as well as medical and child care? Look what she would lose if she got a promotion--or got married?

 http://www.aei.org/files/2012/07/11/-alexander-presentation_10063532278.pdf

Worst Multiple-Year Economic Recoveries Since WWII

1) June 2009 - Present: 7.5 percent growth

2) April 1958 - April 1960: 11.7 percent growth

3) May 1954 - September 1957: 13.4 percent growth

4) November 1970 - November 1973: 16.4 percent growth

5) November 2001 – January 2007: 17.2 percent growth

6) March 1975 – January 1980: 23.2 percent growth

7) October 1949 – July 1953: 28.7 percent growth

8) November 1982 – July 1990: 37.3 percent growth

9) March 1991 – March 2001: 42.1 percent growth

10) February 1961 – December 1969: 51.2 percent growth

Listen, Sparky. . .

Poverty and marriage

Only 7% of children in families living below the poverty line have married parents. Although the government has spent a lot of money on studies that prove this, it continues with so called anti-poverty programs that encourage men not to marry the mother of their children. She can get more government money without him, than with him.

And then there are the mega-rich NFL and NBA players with their 6-10 or so baby mamas each to set the example . . . but that's another crime to be solved  At least the reality series was cancelled.

Snow heading for the Northeast

The northeast is bracing for a snow storm. A recent study shows that 94.8% of us (14 states) have a working flashlight; 89.7% a 3-day supply of medicine; 82.9% a 3-day supply of food; 77.7% battery radio; 53.6% 3-day supply of water; and 21.1% an evacuation plan.

I think we need to research the importance of water or about 50% of us might not make it.

I hope those Sandy victims finally have electricity and water that the president promised and the press promptly forgot about or the snow won't be welcomed.  Two weeks ago, many were still without power and heat.

What’s in your purse?

I carry a small bag so I can't load it with junk. I don't even carry a bill fold/change purse. Kleenex, pen, checkbook, keys, ipod, pocket calendar/scheduler, sun glasses, small tape measure, some cards for coffee, hand sanitizer, comb, lipstick. I used to carry a small tool set but the government thinks that is a weapon.

Don’t set your purse on the kitchen counter.  Remember where it’s been.

Your healthcare will be more expensive and less efficient, if our other 4 are any indication

Before Obamacare, (PPACA) we had four major government health systems, all with significant problems. Medicare, Medicaid and S-CHIP are riddled with fraud and waste, and the recommendations put in place by the GAO have not been implemented by the Obama Administration. So Obama burdens us with another plan, this one with 14,000 regulations, thousands of new government employees and whole new bureaucracies.

The Veterans Affairs is the 4th, and although a fantastic organization, its claims are 255 days behind on the average, and 426 days behind in California. Do you suppose this might have made a difference for the veteran who just killed two other veterans and made threats against his family? How could anyone have gotten help for him with kind of wait? But guns, not health care for veterans, will be blamed.

Both items in JAMA, Jan. 9, 2013.

You can keep your health care he promised

But even the cheapest will cost you $20,000 a year for a family of five, so good luck with that.

Victoria’s father gives Congress a lesson on the Constitution

This father intends to do what lock down, 911, and police arriving after the murders could not--protect his daughter, Victoria. Pass this one along if you believe there are procedures for amending the U.S. Constitution and our state constitutions.

 

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhXPlCjr0Vw&feature=player_embedded#!

Drone strikes—secret—against Americans

The media are right on this, of course.

Drone strikes secret

DOJ White Paper

Little ones in the news

What would you have named the baby Clydesdale from the Super Bowl ad? Budweiser got over 50,000 suggestions. Winning name is HOPE. Her mother is Darla who was taking over the photoshoot (baby was sleeping).  Somewhere I saw that this ad was designed to grab women; I think it worked, that and the farmer/ Paul Harvey ad are the only ones I hear my friends talking about.  I’ve still never had a beer.  Smells awful.

Noticed a story on Fox News about a 6 year old girl who took her mom's car so she could visit her dad, who she missed. Hit a few cars and bushes (lots of snow on the narrow streets). No comment from the talking heads on the parents who apparently weren't together nor paying attention to visitation requirements. Actually, that and not car theft by kids, is the big break down in our society.  It was a Mercedes, so maybe mom was a baby momma of one of the NFL players.

World health rankings are distorted (and often used for political purposes, IMO). Infant mortality, for instance. "Doctors in the U.S. are much more aggressive than foreign counterparts about trying to save premature babies. Thousands of babies that would have been declared stillborn in other countries and never given a chance at life are saved in the U.S. As a result, the percentage of preterm births in America is exceptionally high—65% higher than in Britain, and about double the rates in Finland and Greece."

Wall St. Journal article

Don’t look down on Detroit

"If you want to know what the future of America is going to be like, just look at the city of Detroit. Once upon a time it was a symbol of everything that America was doing right, but today it has been transformed into a rotting, decaying, post-apocalyptic hellhole.

Detroit was once the fourth-largest city in the United States, and in 1960 Detroit had the highest per-capita income in the entire nation. It was the greatest manufacturing city the world had ever seen, and the rest of the globe looked at Detroit with a sense of awe and wonder. But now the city of Detroit has become a bad joke to the rest of the world. Unemployment is rampant, 60 percent of the children are living in poverty and the city government is on the verge of bankruptcy. They say that Detroit is just a matter of "weeks or months" away from running out of cash, and when Detroit does declare bankruptcy it will be the largest municipal bankruptcy in the history of the United States.

But don't look down on Detroit, because the truth is that Detroit is really a metaphor for what is happening to America as a whole. In the United States today, our manufacturing infrastructure has been gutted, poverty is absolutely exploding and we are rapidly approaching national bankruptcy. Detroit may have gotten there first, but the rest of the country will follow soon enough..."
Read more: http://theeconomiccollapseblog.com/archives/bankrupt-decaying-and-nearly-dead-24-facts-about-the-city-of-detroit-that-will-shock-you

New, fresh snow

In book club today we discussed "The sweetness at the bottom of the pie," by C. Alan Bradley. It won an award in 2009, his first, and now there are 5 in the series about an 11 year old girl, Flavia, who solves crimes. I recommend it, and I almost never choose to read a mystery unless it's on a list from book club.

Columbus weather--very messy and slow going.  Lots of cancellations tonight.  It took 35 min. to do a 12 min. trip coming home from book club this afternoon. Fortunately, the other drivers were patient and courteous, so we all kept moving at a safe crawl.

How great to drive home through the snow and know I had yesterday's oven fried chicken and pasta ready to warm up.

Do you make lists?

I make a list for 2 reasons; 1) company’s coming; 2) we’re planning a party. I have friends who derive great satisfaction from marking things off the to do list.  It just makes me feel like someone is nagging me.

The skeet shoot photo op of the President

"The photo, purportedly shot last Aug. 4 (which happens to be the president's birthday), shows Obama holding a shotgun. The barrel is smoking, indicating that the gun has just been fired. What's odd about it is that the president is aiming straight ahead, as if he were firing a rifle at a stationary target.

But in skeet shooting, the target, a disk known as a clay pigeon, is moving. It is launched from one of two "houses" and travels in a parabolic trajectory across the field. In order to hit it, one has to move the gun so as to follow the path of the clay. It's not impossible that one would fire at shoulder level, as Obama is doing in the photo, but it's unlikely. We therefore surmise that the picture is the product of a photo shoot, not a skeet shoot."
Wall St. Journal Feb. 4

Thought as much.  And I’ve never shot a gun.

What do wealthy Democrats in Congress do to ensure the rest of the country won't get what they have?

                         

1) Pass environmental regulations that stifle smaller businesses so their own corporations and businesses will pull ahead;

2) keep the poor out of their neighborhoods with set backs, parks, and required green spaces which adds thousands to the cost of building or maintaining a home;

3) Vote for burdensome tax regulations with loop holes only they can qualify for, engorging the tax code;

4) stifle all economic growth stemming from fossil fuels, so they can invest in alternative fuels with contracts from the government (like the railroad barons did to kill the shipping industry of canal owners in the 19th century);

5) foist government, single payer health care on the masses, but not for federal workers, and they'll pay cash for what they need even if they have to fly to a foreign country to get it;

6) look for ways to undermine marriage and religion, the two wealth builders that helped their families get ahead, so they won't have any competition;

7) provide as much “free stuff” as possible to lure voters to ensure they will stay in office;

8) hire private security guards with guns for the protection of their homes and families;

9) send their children to private schools while denying the same right to lower income parents who want charter schools;

10)  lie and blame, and when it doesn’t work, lie some more.

Airplane rides aren’t just for kids

These are the adult grandchildren of my husband’s sister, Jacob 20, and Erin 31, having a good time the the old airplane trick.  Ten years ago, they wouldn’t have been able to do this.

Pensions for Revolutionary War Soldiers—Monday Memories

While filling in gaps in the genealogy database I came across a transcribed document on the Internet from 2011, not available the last time I looked.  It was the Pension application for Jacob Williford, my 4th great grandfather, born in 1755 in North Carolina and died in Grainger County, Tennessee in 1839.  The application was for the 1832 Act of Congress on Pensions for war veterans.  Obviously, he was up a bit in years by then—being 77 years old.  His application was successful and he received $60/year from 1833 to his death six years later.  Because there were a number of pension acts by the federal government, I haven’t located information if he’d qualified under a previous one, nor did I find any mention of a wife (blank spot in the database).

Swore under oath (pension application  S1737   fn15NC   1832) 

“That he enlisted in the service of the United States under the following named officers and served as herein stated to wit Col. Benjamin Axum [Benjamin Exum] commanded the Regiment and Capt. Axum Phillips commanded the Company to which he belonged. He states that he entered the service in Edgecombe County in the State of North Carolina and rendezvoused at Tarborough in said State. He states that he entered the service in the month of June in the year 1780 and that he left the service in the month of September of the same year.”

He states that he served in this tour 3 months. He states that he was discharged in Hillsboro in the State of North Carolina at the expiration of his said term of service but that he has lost it long since. He states he marched from Tarborough and joined General Gates in the State of South Carolina and was attached to his Army when he was defeated but was not in the engagement in consequence of sickness but was left with the baggage wagons.

He states that after the defeat of General Gates he was taken prisoner by the Tories and was rescued by a company of Light horse -- that the Tories dispersed when the light horse came up. He states that Col. or General Lee and Col. William Washington commanded the Dragoons. He states that he volunteered he thinks in the month of June in the year 1781 and joined a Company at Halifax under Capt. Orphy Thomas and served a while under him and was then transferred to the Company commanded by Capt. Benjamin Coleman a Continental Capt., and marched under him to the County of Onslow near Wilmington and from thence we marched to Duplin County in North Carolina from thence we marched to Kingston [sic, Kinston] I think in Dobbs County where I was discharged by Capt. Coleman. He states that in this tour he served 3 months. He states further that he has lost his discharge given him by Capt. Coleman.

He states that he left the service in the month of September in the year 1781 and that after he returned home he heard of the surrender of Lord Cornwallis. “

The pension requirements, begun in 1776 for those disabled by the war, changed often, and by 1820 they had to show proof of need but not disability. The requirements were loosened as the veterans aged, particularly for the widows.  At first, pensions were only given to the widows if they had been married before the man left the service, but eventually, when there were very few left (1878), a widow could receive benefits no matter when they married and if the man served as few as 14 days! 

Pensions enacted by Congress for Revolutionary War Veterans

Tennesseeans in the Revolutionary War

Battle of King’s Mountain Roster:  There is a Jacob Williford in the roster, but no way to know if this is him and the dates don’t line up, however, he seemed a little unsure of the dates himself.

Tomorrow is the Super Bowl

Some people watch it only for the ads, which are very, very expensive. At Super Bowl XLVII between the Ravens and 49ers, the average cost of a 30-second advertisement was around $4 million.

Detroit coach shoots two thugs last night

"Police sources in Detroit say that a women's basketball coach, 72 years old and a reserve police officer, from Martin Luther King, Jr. Senior High School shot two men who attacked him as he was walking two basketball players to their cars in the school parking lot Friday night." [7NewsDetroit]

The man was accosted by the teens, former students at MLK school, who attempted to rob him with a gun, but the coach had a permit to carry. One teen is dead, the other hospitalized. He probably saved his own life, and maybe that of the girls, but strangely, I can't find this story in any of the major news outlets, or liberal news web sites like HuffPo or Daily Beast that have been saying there’s no reason to arm school personnel. If I weren't subscribing to a black conservative news source, I wouldn't have seen it.

http://newsninja2012.com/detroit-mi-mlk-jr-high-school-70-year-old-coach-shoots-attackers-who-tried-to-rob-him-one-teen-died-on-scene-other-survives/#axzz2JlX0GryJ