Oh Say, You Can't See

Can you imagine George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, Abraham Lincoln or Teddy Roosevelt putting up traffic cones and crime scene tape to gratuitously impede distant views of a National Monument? Ah, but Barack Obama is progressive, different. Since he had already closed the Washington Monument your vindictive president resorts to shutting off views out in real America in order to punish the people and press his politics.

It's time to turn over Mount Rushmore to South Dakota. The states can handle the parks, monuments and memorials respectfully and responsibly. 

Mount Rushmore Sculptor Gutzon Borglum wrote,

"We believe the dimensions of national heartbeats are greater than village impulses, greater than state dreams or ambitions. Therefore we believe a nation's memorial should, like Washington, Jefferson, Lincoln and Roosevelt, have a serenity, a nobility, a power that reflects the gods who inspired them and suggests the gods they have become.

"As for sculptured mountains - Civilization, even its fine arts, is, most of it, quantity-produced stuff: education, law, government, wealth - each is enduring only as the day. Too little of it lasts into tomorrow and tomorrow is strangely the enemy of today, as today has already begun to forget buried yesterday. Each succeeding civilization forgets its predecessor, and out of its body builds its homes, its temples. Civilizations are ghouls. Egypt was pulled apart by its successor; Greece was divided among the Romans; Rome was pulled to pieces by bigotry and bitterness much of which was engendered its own empire building.

"I want, somewhere in America, on or near the Rockies, the backbone of the Continent, so far removed from succeeding, selfish, coveting civilizations, a few feet of stone that bears witness, carries the likeness, the dates, a word or two of the great things we accomplished as a Nation, placed so high it won't pay to pull them down for lesser purposes.

"Hence, let us place there, carved high, as close to heaven as we can, the words of our leaders, their faces, to show posterity what manner of men they were. Then breathe a prayer that these records will endure until the wind and rain alone shall wear them away."

Yes, their visage endures for posterity until the wind and rain shall wear them away, or until Barack Obama becomes Dear President of the United States.

September Top Posts

Thank you loyal readers!  We surged out of the summer doldrums in September, beating our previous best month, page view wise, by 21 percent.  To date, Along the Gradyent's top ten September posts are as follows.

1. It is gratifying when a post offering useful suggestions is widely read. With the budget impasse coming, we wrote a piece advising During the Shutdown Go to Mount Vernon.  At the time we posted, little did we know that Obama's National Park Service would try to shutter the operation by lawlessly Barrycading Mount Vernon's privately owned parking lots. Cheers to the Mount Vernon Ladies Association for thwarting the attempt. We are pleased to offer advise on getting down to George's place, and visiting numerous other places of interest in DC and Alexandria not owned or patrolled by Obama's Federales.
2. Go to was a popular theme again, underlying the No. 2 post Please Visit the BMW Championship: It's for the Caddies. When yours truly was completing high school, we pulled a Noonan and were blessed to receive the caddie scholarship.  Because the Western Golf Association sponsored Evans Scholar Foundation is the charitable beneficiary of the BMW Championship, we encouraged readers to attend the golf tournament.  The tournament was a smashing success with attendance of more than 130,000 for the week, and a magical 59 shot by Jim Furyk in the second round. Next year the tournament moves to Cherry Hills in Denver.  That's a long day's drive from Bozeman. Hmmmmm.  
3. Failing to note that we had not even a single hurricane of intensity one through five, Prince Al climbed on his Gore box to insist we need a category six to classify 'canes of increasing intensity. We inquired Calling Al Gore: What About Cats 1 Through 5?
4. In Declining Median Incomes we shared data illustrating that our friends who support Dear President the most have fared the worst under his economic regime. 
5. We enticed prospective attendees to the BMW championship with the possibility of hostilities breaking out as Tiger and Sergio were paired for the first time since their dust up during the third round of the Players Championship and Garcia's racial dig at Tiger a couple of weeks later over in Europe.  Alas, no fireworks ensued.  Their meeting was marked by icy indifference.
6. On September 11, 2001 we lived in Arlington, Virginia two neighborhoods up from the Pentagon and worked across the river from the site of the plane crash in Washington, DC. In September 11, 2001; We Remember we recounted our experiences during that horrible day and remembrances honoring victims in years since.
7. In Educate the Dream we blogged on the importance of providing a high school education to immigrants, no matter where they come from and regardless of how they got here.
8. We said Barack Pays For Golf Access in Montana. What we really meant was access to the Golf Channel. Obama's spending stimulus keeps on giving, providing cable television and high speed internet access to Ted Turner's ranch and gated developments and high brow private country clubs further south in Big Sky.
9. On the occasion of its success evacuating personnel under attack from the Washington Navy Yard, we recognized its heroism, bravery and effectiveness over the years in Kudos to the US Park Police Helicopter Crew.
10. It ain't about lollipops. Suckers! blasts Obama for falsehoods he spread concerning the badly misnamed Affordable Care Act.

Thanks again to all our readers!  

The Myth of Financial and Economic Armageddon

Don't believe the fairy tale stories reported in the media of financial and economic free fall resulting from the tussle between the House of Representatives and the President, and the resulting so-called gridlock and dysfunctional government.  There are always short term fluctuations to be sure, but the dollar has actually strengthened since the Republican House was elected in November 2010 and has been fighting to reduce deficits and slow the growth of the federal government debt bomb. Here are the data.

Obama's NPS Holds Tourists Hostage

It's ironic that Barack Obama prattles on about how Republicans are holding a gun to the head of the American people when Dear President is using his armed US Park Police and Rangers posses to actually hold tourists hostage.

US 212 closed due to
winter weather conditions.

A small geography lesson is in order. Cooke City, Montana (elevation 7,835 feet) is a tourist town located four miles outside the northeast entrance to Yellowstone National Park. There is one road into and out of Cooke City. To the west the road out travels down through Yellowstone National Park, then outside the park to Gardiner Montana on US 89, continuing down Paradise Valley towards Livingston and points beyond. Leaving Cooke City to the east is US 212, the Beartooth Highway, which crosses the Abasaroka Mountains, Beartooth Pass, (Elevation 10,947 feet) and the Beartooth plateau, before dropping down to Red Lodge Montana, then on to Billings. Due to continuous extreme weather conditions, the eastern route is closed in winter, i.e., most of the year in these parts. Typically, the Beartooth Highway closes in mid-October and opens in late May to early June.

Green Line is Yellowstone NP Border, Red is Beartooth Highway, Yellow are alternate roads.

Early season snow storms this year have closed the Beartooth Highway since September 24, and shut down the Chief Joseph Highway bypass as well, giving tourists in Cooke City no way out because they are blocked by Obama's NPS thuggery.

The most recent storm dropped between 10 and 14 inches of snow, preventing road travel to the Chief Joseph Highway, which can be used as an alternate route out of Cooke City. And Yellowstone closed Tuesday because of a congressional budget impasse that caused the federal government to shut down. Locals can travel through along the still-plowed roads of the park to Gardiner with special stickers they apply for from the park. Tourists, however, are unable to traverse the stretch, barring a medical emergency. “We're trapped,” said Bill Anderson, of Wichita, Kan., one of about 15 tourists in Cooke City. “It's nuts.”

How can it be nuts?  This is the policy of Dear President of the United States. Don't dare call him nuts, lest the plethora of useful idiots on the left label you extremist, racist and bigot.  Just say it's time to turn national parks over to the states. We've had enough of this.

Obama Closes Ocean, Changes National Park Service Culture

Virtually overnight, Barack Obama has changed the National Park Service culture from one of serving the people to that of sticking it to the people -- a remarkable transformation.

After Barrycadding the open air plaza that is the WW II Memorial, blocking bicyclists from riding into the District of Columbia, unlawfully shutting down private parking at the foundation owned and operated Mount Vernon Estate, refusing the state of Arizona's offer to pay to keep the Grand Canyon open and blanketing the National Capital Region with unpaid police officers who are issuing $85 tickets to motorists parking in vacant unmetered parking spaces, the latest is that Obama's National Park Service is issuing orders to shut down the ocean.

Charter guides received a message from the National Park Service this week informing them that they are not permitted to take clients fishing in Florida Bay until the feds get back to work. That means that more than 1,100 square miles of prime fishing is off limits between the southern tip of the mainland to the Keys until further notice.

The ocean is for them, not you.

The closing affects not only fishing guides, but anyone with a license to conduct business in the park, including tour operators and paddling guides — anyone with a Commercial Use Authorization permit, said Dan Kimball, superintendent of Everglades and Dry Tortugas national parks.

You got a hick bully in the Oval Office. It's catching, working its way down and through the bureacracy through Obama's OMB enforcement arm. Good choice American People!  From here on out I will be an advocate of turning all National Park Service properties over to states and local government. They get the job done. They, unlike Obama's NPS, will be good and faithful stewards.

Read more here: http://www.miamiherald.com/2013/10/03/3668028_p2/shutdown-day-3-food-distributor.html#storylink=cpy

Government Shutdown Activities: Colonial Williamsburg

Colonial Williamsburg visitors interacting 
with period actors/interpreters.

If you have driven to the DC area, it's only a couple more hours to Colonial Williamsburg, a privately operated historical attraction that Barack Obama's National Park Service doesn't own or control, and hasn't tried to close down -- yet. It, like Mount Vernon, the attraction we first recommended for stranded tourists, is an amazing historical exhibition --  fascinating, entertaining and instructive. Colonial Williamsburg is made up of about 20 blocks of preserved and restored Colonial Americana, with the Governor's Palace and the Virginia colonial Capitol (George Mason, George Washington, Thomas Jefferson and Patrick Henry served there in the 18th century) thrown in for good measure. Guides and period actors/interpreters abound. Visit only if you want to be astounded by our roots, the founding of our country, and the people behind it.

The Colonial Williamsburg web site sums it up,

Colonial Williamsburg is open during the government shutdown.

The Colonial Williamsburg Foundation is a privately funded, not-for-profit organization and is not affected by the federal government shutdown. All activities and events will go on as planned.

As with Mount Vernon, when we lived back east we purchased annual passes at Colonial Williamsburg and visited repeatedly.

Here is the Foundation's overview,

Tropical Storm Karen

As of late yesterday, Karen was predicted to grow into a hurricane, and make landfall as a tropical storm all the way into Georgia, continuing as a tropical depression up into Virginia.

Oops, Karen is weakening, not intensifying.  

POORLY DISORGANIZED TROPICAL STORM KAREN WILL CONTINUE TO MOVE
SLOWLY NORTHWARDS TONIGHT. SWELLS AS RESULT OF KAREN ARE STARTING TO GET INTO THE COASTAL WATERS THIS AFTERNOON. THE ONSET OF TROPICAL STORM FORCE WINDS WILL BE SLOWER THAN PREVIOUSLY EXPECTED REACHING THE COASTAL WATERS LATE TONIGHT AND SATURDAY MORNING.

Didn't mean to say a hurricane after all.  And when it hits land it will be a depression, not storm anymore. As for the last two days, forget about it.

Those climate scientists, they are magicians who understand what's going on with 95 percent probability.  If you don't believe that, just ask them.

Update 10/5:  Dudes and dudettes, storm is not even gonna make it to land, will be downgraded to a tropical depression off the Louisiana shore.

And Saturday evening...

WATCHES AND WARNINGS
--------------------
CHANGES WITH THIS ADVISORY...

ALL TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS HAVE BEEN DISCONTINUED.

SUMMARY OF WATCHES AND WARNINGS IN EFFECT...

THERE ARE NO COASTAL TROPICAL STORM WARNINGS OR WATCHES IN EFFECT.

INTERESTS ALONG THE NORTH-CENTRAL GULF COAST SHOULD CONTINUE TO
MONITOR PRODUCTS ISSUED BY YOUR LOCAL NATIONAL WEATHER SERVICE
FORECAST OFFICE AT WEATHER.GOV.

Sunday Morning, BYE BYE Karen!

Obama Administration Spends to Avoid No Spending

Barrycades are popping up throughout the DC region. NPS is putting fences at road crossings and comically blocking trail access points in open park areas. Locals are laughing at the impositions all the while walking, running, biking or rolling around the barriers and pushing the barriers asunder, even though busting a barrier is now a capital crime in the District of Columbia.

The Obama administration attempts to shut down DC to bike riders.

The Weekly Standard pictured the NPS reinforcement of barriers surrounding the open air plaza at the WW II memorial earlier this week.  While adverse publicity has forced Obama's OMB (orders issue from OMB which is the president's operational arm) and DOI thugs to cut off the plastic ties, the picture exposes the absurdity of putting up the barriers in the first place.  

Weekly Standard picture of RentACades

Lack of funding is the excuse for blocking off the WW II Memorial. But as I've noted, the Memorial is open air plaza, not normally staffed, a place with steps and pillars designed for walking around. Volunteers are there virtually around the clock to answer questions and help visitors -- not salaried park rangers.  So when the Obama administration runs out of money, what does it do?  It leases protection.  The Barrycade is a RentACade -- dial 888-276-2618 or go to http://www.rentaguard.com/rentacade/.  NPS is paying a vendor to supply materials to block off a site where access is costless.  That's presidential spite for you. “It’s a cheap way to deal with the situation,” an angry Park Service ranger in Washington says of the harassment. “We’ve been told to make life as difficult for people as we can. It’s disgusting.”

Meanwhile, open space abutting the WW I DC Memorial, around the corner and down Independence Avenue from the WW II Memorial, remains unbarricaded.

File picture of DC Veterans WW I Memorial on Independence Avenue

The last living WW I veteran died a couple years back at age 110 -- no living infirm visiting veterans for the Obama administration to block.

Lawless Move: NPS Barrycades Private Mount Vernon

Barrycades at Mount Vernon

I've been advising tourists to go down to Mount Vernon during the Federal Government shutdown. Mount Vernon is open and welcoming. It's privately owned and privately funded. The Mount Vernon Ladies Association is clear, stating that " Mount Vernon does not accept grants from federal, state or local governments, and no tax dollars are expended to support its purposes."

Well that's not enough for the petulant, grubby, power mongering presidency of Barack Obama. The National Park Service sent its jack booted rangers and maintenance workers down to Mount Vernon to shut down all the foundation owned parking -- Barrycades is what the barricades have come to be known. Barrycades appeared as if from nowhere to block off publicly accessible areas that are unstaffed and have never been shut down for any reason (including many previous government shutdowns). Obama's move is not only ridiculous.  It's lawless.

Now let me talk about the law for a second here.  Mount Vernon parking spaces are accessed through National Park Service land, but Mount Vernon has secured access and use through legally enforceable easements. Easements are all about. Here in Montana, for example, many public roads are built on private land, but landowners have through one means or another granted public access through and along those roads. The private owners have no right whatsoever to deny the public access through their property on those roads.  

Current Parking Situation at Mount Vernon,
Courtesy of www.thecollegepolitico.com

An easement is every bit as much of a property right as what is commonly thought of as ownership.  The owner of property who has granted an easement has no more right to eject or interfere with users of an easement than a landlord has to willy, nilly evict or interfere with the quiet enjoyment of leased property by a tenant. The NPS Barrycading was a lawless move, but what else would you expect from the most lawless administration since Richard Nixon occupied the White House?

The Mount Vernon Ladies are a cooperative crowd. Their parking is open and available to all, including those looking for a place to anchor a hike or begin a bike ride along at the southern terminus of NPS's Mount Vernon trail. Cooperativeness just makes them an easy target in the world of Obama. 

Confronted by the Mount Vernon Ladies Association, the National Park Service has backed down, removing the saw horses and police tape from the entrances to all but a distant satellite lot that fills only during the heavy summer tourist season.  

The barricading of the parking lots at Mount Vernon comes at the same time the National Park Service has blocked off many other public monuments, memorials, and parks. They’ve even blocked off small parking lots that are otherwise unmanned. In fact, every parking lot along the George Washington Memorial Parkway has been barricaded.

That includes a parking lot with a mere 3 spots located on the parkway between Mount Vernon and Old Town Alexandria.

At the moment there is no word on when the government shutdown will end, when the National Park Service will remove their barricades, or why the barricades were really necessary in the first place. Hopefully those answers will all become apparent soon.

Petulant twits carrying out Obama's will -- NPS, you are totally losing my respect dudes.

The creepy presidency continues.

What Is It About October 3rd?

October 3, 2012

October 3, 2013

Starry, Starry Night

Happy 68th Don McLean.

Overcoming Barriers

A little bit of anarchy is a very good thing.

WASHINGTON — Wheelchair-bound elderly veterans pushed aside barricades to tour the World War II Memorial Tuesday morning, in defiance of the government shutdown which closed all of the memorials in the nation’s capital. 

The four bus loads of veterans — visiting from Mississippi as part of a once-in-a-lifetime Honor Flight tour — ignored National Park Police instructions not to enter the site as lawmakers and tourists cheered them on. 

“We didn’t come this far not to get in,” one veteran proclaimed.

They weren't alone.

As Rep. Steve King, R-Iowa, distracted a Park Police representative, other lawmakers and their staff helped topple the metal fences. A bagpiper on hand for the event led the men past the crowd and into the heart of the memorial, attracting a large, applauding crowd. 

“This just means so much to me,” said Alex “Lou” Pitalo, an Army vet who also served in the Pacific during WWII. “I waited 70 years to get a welcome like this. And to get to see this and to have all those people clapping … I’m just so happy. This was amazing.”

Veterans and their escorts broke through the Barrycades and crime scene tape at the WW II Memorial.

The WWII Memorial is an open plaza with steps and pillars. It's granite. It is never closed for any reason and seldom is there any official presence. More personnel resources are needed to close plaza off than to leave it alone. There is no reason to have closed it off this week to begin with other than advancing Barack Obama's power, ego and cause. The spite presidency continues its work. 

Promoting the Shutdown

Furloughed, nonessential DC federal government employees get discounts, free drinks and free food and extra-long happy hours to drink themselves into oblivion -- active federal employees (forgive the oxymoron) too. The deals have spread into the wealthy counties in Maryland and Virginia. And later, to work off the calories, there are complimentary pole dancing lessons in Alexandria. Party on!

Why I Like Mike Huckabee

When I had a chance in the spring of 2008, without a second of hesitation, I voted for Mike Huckabee and against John McCain. One of the things I liked about Mike Huckabee was that he was a realist governor, someone who day by day grappled with the political and operational reality of a state government actually responsible and accountable for delivering services to the people, balancing a budget all the while. Huckabee is a doer and an achiever in the soul of a preacher.
  

Governor Huckabee took his job seriously and by most accounts was very effective. On domestic issues he is a student and a learner. Huckabee understands what works and what does not. Take his post on Facebook yesterday.

Here’s just what you wanted to hear: there’s a new problem with Obamacare…When Congress passes a 2,000-page health care bill without reading it, you have to expect bad stuff to come dropping out of it like a piñata past its sell-by date. And the latest surprise is the “family glitch.” The Kaiser Family Foundation reports that the act defines an affordable health plan as costing 9.5 percent or less of an employee’s household income. But they forgot to apply that to the whole family. What that means is that an average plan for an individual costs about $5600 a year. But for a family, it can skyrocket to $15,700. Breadwinners whose employers don’t cover that are looking at huge cost increases. Kaiser estimates that it could leave up to half a million children without coverage. Experts at Indiana University pointed the family glitch out two years ago, and were told, “No, you must be wrong.” They weren’t.

When you sum it all up, Obamacare is a budget busting, liberty and choice destroying monstrosity that is anti-employment, anti-marriage, anti-family and anti-union (ask the Teamsters), and yes, for millions, is taking away their hard earned and previously secure health care coverage. So why are Obama and his Democratic supporters for keeping it? Is it some sort of weird form of tribal allegiance? I don't get it. You tell me.

During the Shutdown Go to Mount Vernon

First, the food for thought. George Washington would understand what's going on. His sage advice:

There is plenty more wisdom from where that came from.

“George Washington famously warned against ... 'ungenerously throwing upon posterity the burden which we ourselves ought to bear” ― George Washington

“Paper money has had the effect in your state that it will ever have, to ruin commerce, oppress the honest, and open the door to every species of fraud and injustice.” ― George Washington

“We must consult our means rather than our wishes.” ― George Washington

“If freedom of speech is taken away, then dumb and silent we may be led, like sheep to the slaughter.” ― George Washington

“However [political parties] may now and then answer popular ends, they are likely in the course of time and things, to become potent engines, by which cunning, ambitious, and unprincipled men will be enabled to subvert the power of the people and to usurp for themselves the reins of government, destroying afterwards the very engines which have lifted them to unjust dominion.” ― George Washington 

“...overgrown military establishments, which, under any form of government, are inauspicious to liberty, and which are to be regarded as particularly hostile to Republican Liberty.” ― George Washington, George Washington's Farewell Address

“A free people ought...to be armed” ― George Washington

Blake and Blythe at the Mount Vernon
Colonial Market September, 2010

When you are in Washington DC it is well worth your while to drop down into Virginia and visit George Washington's Mount Vernon Estate. When I lived in the area we visited frequently to the point of purchasing annual passes. Admission is $17.00 per adult, $8.00 per youth (6-11) and free for the young ones. You can spend a full day at George's place and have no less fun than in a day at Disney World for 5 and 10 times the price. Washington was not beyond having fun himself.

“I have a great many instructive Books,
on many subjects, as well as amusing ones.” 

– GEORGE WASHINGTON to Lawrence Lewis, August 4, 1797

Oh, Shut It Down!

It was great for yours truly back in the 90's when the government bureaucracy shut down because the DC commute was so much easier for those of us who worked in essential jobs or were employed by agencies or worked in functions that had essential missions or paid for themselves. The world, our country, my state and my town didn't come to end, not by any means. 

But rant and rave. Rave and rant. Blame and taunt. Besmirch and belittle.  But most importantly, scare the folks. 

Obama goes into his fear mongering mode to campaign against a government shutdown (which is actually a slowdown). Appropriations run out on Tuesday October 1st, the day Obama claims "is the day that a group of far-right Republicans in Congress might choose to shut down the government and potentially damage the economy just because they don’t like this law.”  

Damage the economy?  But what happened the last time a president ran into a Congress insistent on exercising its power of the purse?

In the bad old days of locking horns the economy grew better than what we've been getting under Obamanomics. So go ahead, shut it down -- the worst that will happen is a smidgen of economic activity will be displaced a month or two. And who knows, when under the gun for a few hours, a few days or a few weeks, the President may actually be willing to accept drastically needed changes to his job killing and economy dragging policies.

Where is Al's Cat 6?

This is the hurricane season that wasn't -- a trend.

"We have moved past the 3/4 point of the Atlantic hurricane season which has been the quietest since 1994 and 5th slowest since 1950 in terms of a metric called Accumulated Cyclone Energy or ACE. Compared to historical ACE records, the 2013 Atlantic hurricane season is 71% below normal. While Hurricane Ingrid is the 8th named storm, the overall season has been characterized by short-lived and generally weak systems. The formation of Hurricane Humberto just beat the clock by a matter of hours to keep 2013 from going into the record books for the latest-forming first hurricane. Seasonal forecasts clearly overestimated the number of major hurricanes with some scientists blaming African Saharan dust layers drying out the tropical Atlantic atmosphere.

You mean variables other than carbon dioxide affect climate? Imagine that, there are actually two variable scientists. That's spelled P-R-O-G-R-E-S-S. See the graph.

Saturday Pictures

Saturday Pictures

September 28, 2013

(click to enlarge)

Early season snow in the Bridgers, plus flowers for February remembrances of things past.

Eastern ridge.

Moving up Bridger Canyon.

A Bridger peak.

Horsing around.

So I see.

A closer peek at the peak.

See snow on the boughs.

Who dat?  Say it ain't so.  It's too early to start the winter beard.

Dianthus.

More dianthus.

Marigold.

Petunia.

Snapdragon.

Collection.

Fall blooming perennial.

Obamacare Wedding Tax

Here is another look at the Obamacare wedding tax.

You can not bother getting married or one or the other can stop working. Pick your disincentive. Either way it is insanity.

Increase Postal Service Rates

The Postal Service proposes to increase rates by 7 percent to cover a meaningful portion of its mounting endemic deficits. It's a move that goes a long way towards requiring the users of the system to cover the costs of its operation (more increases will be needed if Congress continues to block Postal Service cost control initiatives). 

Who are the mailers and rate payers? Not really you. When you want to communicate with friends and relatives you almost never mail personal letters; instead, you pick up the phone or email and text your friends, or you post to Facebook. These days, if you are like most people, you no longer use the mails to pay your monthly bills. Automatic deductions are drawn against your credit card bills, cable and internet bills, and electric, gas, sewer and water. Or you go online and pay directly. You electronically file your income taxes. The net result is that typical household will pay but a few bucks more a year for increased postage.

There still are large and significant users of the mail -- businesses and predominantly big business at that. Big banks flood the mails with statements and notices, plus solicitations. Utilities send much of the same. AT&T, Verizon and Sprint use mail to bill customers who insist on paper. Harte-Hanks and Valassis are huge direct mail marketers, as are mail order firms like Lands End and LL Bean. Catalogs are still big in gardening, used by companies like Burpee, Springhill and Jackson and Perkins. Publishers like Time Inc., Conde Nast and Readers' digest collectively send billions of magazines and direct mail pieces through the Postal Service each year.

You have a choice. Mail users can pay the full cost of mail service. Or postal deficits can continue to spiral out of control, and the bill will be passed along to your children and grandchildren. Is that what you want?

As on so many issues, the only sane and balanced voice on postal is coming out of the Republican side of the House of Representatives, led by Darrell Issa (R - Calif.), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee.

“The Postal Service isn’t just broke,” Issa said before lawmakers debated his bill, noting that the agency is facing insolvency. He described the mail system as an “absolute federal entity that delivers your right to communicate and be communicated with. It must be saved.”

The agency lost close to $16 billion in the last fiscal year as mail volume continued to plummet. Postal Service officials defaulted on two $5.5 billion payments to set aside health care for future retirees, another financial burden causing huge losses.

As its revenue has fallen, the agency said it is hampered by more workers and facilities than it needs. By law, it cannot raise prices faster than the rate of inflation. Legal restrictions also keep it from easily expanding into new products or services.

Congress has worked to address these obstacles for two years but has bumped up against competing demands of unions, mailers and lawmakers representing rural districts.

Issa had a long business career before being elected to Congress. We need more like him. Even the Washington Post has endorsed Issa's bill.

But the unions, the special interests and their Washington representatives (aka lobbyists) stand in the way. They are happy to stand for a status quo that is leading to almost $50 billion in accumulated losses.

The Hallmark Cards guy says increasing rates to recover costs "will exacerbate the Postal Service's current predicament."

GCA along with dozens of Washington
lobbyists stands in the way of
postal rate increases.

Please, I still send Christmas cards, but not those put out by Hallmark, which cost 5 times the price of postage. Does any thinking person actually believe that adding a few cents to the price of a missive that cost three or four bucks is going to drive away "much needed volume." C'mon, in Obama's print, borrow and spend world the price of most everything else is going up. 

 “No private company would increase prices when sales are already plummeting,” said Mary Berner, chief executive officer of the Association of Magazine Media, Of course, the magazines who make up her association have been increasing newstand and subscription prices all along as their circulation has declined and managed to survive. They didn't throw out fundamental economic principals when their business weakened and neither should the Postal Service. 

The Direct Marketing Association stands with its fellow lobbyists in opposing rate increases that would have their members actually pay compensatory, unsubsidized prices for the services they receive.

And in Montana, the yoke around our neck is the joke in the Senate who goes by the name of Jon Tester. He invokes the fictitious constitutional right to mail delivery to stand in the way of meaningful Postal Service cost reforms and compensatory rates. He actually does believe thus in protecting big business and passing postal costs along to our children and grandchildren. I didn't vote for the dude, and have nothing kind to say about those who did. Just increase rates and ignore the dork.

Boomers Reign Supreme

Baby boomers are sticking it to young adults.

U.S. officials for the first time disclosed insurance prices that will be offered through new federally run health-care exchanges starting Oct. 1, showing that young, healthy buyers likely will pay more than they do currently while older, sicker consumers should get a break.

That's not health insurance, it's theft, generational theft. Shame on everyone who is complicit in this.

It's Divorce-A-Care

For old folks numbers,

And married with children,

It is so progressive for the state to encourage divorce and discourage marriage. Good thing Obamacare is gonna get funded.

Cruz Wins Handily: Ted Cruz 21 Wendy Davis 11

Three touchdowns vs. a touchdown with a two point conversion and a field goal --  not close. It would never have occurred to me but last night I tuned into MSNBC and there sat Rachael Maddow comparing the State Senator from Texas (11 hours) with the filibustering US Senator from the Lone Star State (21 hours).  I am pleased to announce the final result. As for style points, Wendy Davis' team used mob tactics to thwart the majority, Cruz politely shut down. All things considered, it's a crushing victory.

A Few Words From Alan Greenspan

Mr. I can go along, get along and do the bidding of whomever is in the Oval Office has no political magic, but he is a solid economist and financial analyst when he gives himself a chance. In his forthcoming book Greenspan says, 

Robert Rubin, Alan Greenspan and Larry Summers

"financial crisis lurks should we fail to resolve our deeply disruptive fiscal imbalance. And that imbalance is far greater than the official data portray [because of contingent liabilities to the U.S. government from possible rescues of large financial firms and iconic nonfinancial firms] … At risk is the status the American economy has held as the preeminent world economic power for more than a century. … … The bias toward unconstrained deficit spending is our top domestic economic problem.” 

Which in view of my agreement is why I endorse virtually all across the board or broad based spending cuts (which are mostly constraints on spending growth) and why I have supported positive economic measures (they generate tax revenue rather than consuming it) and the very few broad based tax increase measures that have been put forward. But never trust the gifts that Greenspan and his fellow travelers (pictured above with Democratic Treasury Secretaries Robert Rubin and Larry Summers, his compatriots in wrecking the banking system) bring you in the political sphere -- never, ever.

That's Gold Streaming Along the Potomac

The latest census data has DC area residents ranked 1, 2, 3 and 4, among the richest counties in the country. My old neighbors in Arlington, whose million dollar bus stops are being financed by the federal taxpayer, are way ahead of us all.

Indeed, the metropolitan area of Washington, D.C., a city with little identifiable industrial output, dominates the Census Bureau’s newly updated list of America’s wealthiest counties. Here are some highlights from that list: 

Based on the median family income in 2012, the wealthiest county in America—by far—is Arlington Co., Va., located just across the Potomac River from D.C. In fact, Arlington’s median family income ($137,216) is more than $10,000 higher than that of any other county in the United States.

The county with the 2nd-highest median family income ($127,192) is Loudoun Co., Va., also located in the D.C. metro area (according to the White House Office of Management and Budget’s list of metropolitan areas). The 3rd-highest tally ($125,162) belongs to Howard Co., Md., which technically isn’t part of the D.C. metro area but is located between D.C. and Baltimore and is home to many people who commute to D.C. The 4th-highest tally ($124,831) belongs to Fairfax Co., Va., yet another county located in the D.C. metro area. 

Arlington, VA, viewed across the Potomac River from the Lincoln Memorial 

In other words, in a nation that ranges from the Pacific to the Atlantic and boasts such grand and affluent cities as New York, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Chicago, Dallas, San Diego, Boston, and Seattle (among others), the four wealthiest counties in the land are all within commuting distance of the capital.

Though many Howard County residents do commute to DC, it is hardly necessary because Howard County is where Fort Meade is located, home to tens of thousands of NSA employees and contractors. Not only are these people spying on you, they are getting paid incredibly well for the privilege.  I am sure my ex-neighbors join in seeking your support, as budget debates continue, to ensure the federal government works smoothly and without interruption because it is operating so efficiently and working so well.
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