The ARJIS Aspect

We not only have to deal with tax increases from Washington, but also from The U.N. in New York.

The U.N. decided to raise the fees for the US to support their peacekeeping operations, and who do you think gets the bill?

In addition, the U.S. allowed the U.N. General Assembly to pass a substantial increase in the U.N. regular budget that will cost American taxpayers millions of dollars over the next two years without demanding that the U.N. implement overdue reform or offset new spending by eliminating outdated or ineffective mandates.

Read the whole story at the Heritage Foundation website

This is why America is ticked off. This and hundreds, if not thousands of other examples of wasted taxpayer money.

First, they take from us. Steal it from our paychecks. Then they BLOW IT!!

Pelosi and crew blew loads of money on their trip to the Climate Summit in Copenhagen. Why did they need such a huge delegation? Didn’t Obama and Michelle go as well, on different jets?

Excerpt below from the story at Personal Liberty Digest:
Pelosi, Congressional Delegation Take Heat For $1 Million Climate Summit Trip

Although the climate summit in Copenhagen took place in December, it has recently emerged that the large congressional delegation headed by Nancy Pelosi charged taxpayers some $1 million for the trip.

Newly filed congressional expense reports indicated that more than 150 people—including legislators, staff and even some family members—made the trip at a cost of $2,200 a day, CBS News reported.

Further CBS investigation found that 59 House and Senate staff flew commercial to the Danish capital, costing taxpayers $408,064, while the rest used three military jets, which cost $168,351 for the flight time.

This type of spending in the face of an escalating federal deficit and during a prolonged recession has spurred critics to question the judgment of the congressional leadership.

Mother Teresa is scheduled to be honored with a U.S. postal stamp later this year. And naturally, someone has decided to protest the honor. The organization, Freedom from Religion Foundation, argues that postal regulations prohibit honors for “individuals whose principal achievements are associated with religious undertakings.” I have problems with this story.

First, other religious leaders have had stamps. The Rev. Martin Luther King a Baptist pastor, has a stamp. Malcolm X, an active member of the black Muslim faith had a stamp, and there were others. I do not know what Freedom from Religion Foundation had to say about those, but I do not recall any significant protest about them.

Second, Mother Teresa devoted her life to helping the poor people of India. She worked to help all who came her way without regard to their religious faith. Her work may have been in response to the teachings of the Catholic church, but her assistance was given to people of all faiths.

Now, I am fascinated by people who make such a big deal out of not believing in a God. Why are they so driven to punish those of us who are convinced of his existence? What if they are right? What if there is no God and no afterlife? What if we are the results of a stray cosmic ray rearranging the DNA of an ancient amoeba? If they are right, then we are created by the mixing of genetic material from our parents, we live our lives and simply cease to exits when we die. If so, what difference does it make if we believe or not believe. The results would be the same.

We cannot determine by our senses if God exist or not. If he exist, then the universe is filled uniformly with his presence. There would be no differentiation that we could detect. If he does not exist, then the universe is uniformly empty of any spiritual presence. Again, we have no way to determine if that is true. Believing in God is an act of faith. But non belief is also an act of faith. Therefore, atheism is just as much a religion as any other belief system based on faith.

“Now faith is the assurance of things hoped for, the conviction of things not seen” (Hebrews 11:1)

Now back to my question: Why do they make such an effort to attack religious belief? I think they are convinced that they are superior to the rest of us, that they are convinced that they have a right and a responsibility to force their opinions and beliefs on the nation without regard to the opinions of the masses. I think their attacks on people of faith are the results of their desire to have power over the inferior masses, and as long as we see God as the primary power in our lives, they get shut out.

I never try to impose my religious opinions on other people, and I resent those who try to impose their opinions on me. If they are right, it does not matter. If I am right, they have a problem.

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Frank Gillispie is the founder of the Madison County Journal in Danielsville and writes a weekly column. For more writings, information and biography of Frank, check out his personal webpage at www.frankgillispie.com

The political chess game is starting to take shape in Georgia. An interesting article concerning a phone conversation between Georgia State Insurance Commissioner John Oxedine,  and US Congressman Lynn Westmoreland, was published in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution last night stating that Westmoreland said “it smells funny”

An excerpt from the AJC article appears below:

By Cameron McWhirter and Jim Galloway

The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

U.S. Rep. Lynn Westmoreland said Monday that he believes Insurance Commissioner John Oxendine used an investigation into a failed insurance company in an attempt to pressure him to take a low profile in the governor’s race.

Westmoreland said Oxendine, a Republican candidate for governor, called him about an investigation into Southeastern U.S. Insurance, where Westmoreland served on an advisory board in 2003 and 2004. He said Oxendine told him that his name was found in company documents.

Westmoreland said Oxendine never said anything explicit, but the congressman said he felt a message was being sent. He said Oxendine said to him repeatedly that he would try to keep his name from becoming public as a favor.

Oxendine denied trying to pressure Westmoreland. He said politics had nothing to do with the call.

“Normally I would have had a staff person call him,” Oxendine said. “But since the guy is a sitting congressman, I thought it would be a little demeaning to have a staff person call him.”

Westmoreland is supporting Rep. Nathan Deal for governor. He said the call felt like a “shakedown.”

“I think he thought he was going to worry me,” Westmoreland said. “It smells funny.”

Oxendine said Monday that investigators had found documents that included Westmoreland’s name.

At the time of the call, the investigation was a civil matter, but beginning in January, the Insurance Commission launched a criminal investigation.

The private tension between the two exploded publicly after Oxendine told a reporter that Westmoreland was part of the investigation. The reporter then contacted Westmoreland’s office.

Oxendine said the reporter asked him last week to confirm Westmoreland was on the advisory board. “We didn’t want to lie,” he said.

“If anyone is trying to Monday make politics out of this, it’s not me, it’s the congressman,” Oxendine said.

The showdown between two of the state’s leading conservative politicians stems from the dissolution and takeover of Southeastern U.S. Insurance, an Atlanta-based workmen’s compensation insurer headed by M. Clark Fain. The ex-CEO had close ties to state Republicans and was a major contributor to several GOP candidates, including Westmoreland and Oxendine.

We now know that all the data used to proclaim a world wide climate crisis was manipulated to yield the result the advocates wanted. The millions of dollars that have been spent and the billions that have been budgeted or proposed are all based on a lie.

Why? It was designed to gain massive financial, social and political gains for the proponents of climate change at the expense of we the people who were expected to sacrifice our own financial, social and political freedoms to satisfy their ambitions.

So, how many of the other “emergencies” fall into the same category. Has our nation’s health been misjudged for the sole purpose of turning over a major part of our economy to the politicians and bureaucrats in Washington? Are all those appeals for donations to one desperate cause or another real, or are they based on false or non existent data?

Would all these financial institutions that were “too big to allow to fail” have done as much damage as the massive spending deficits being run up by our government? Would General Motors and Chrysler have survived after a normal bankruptcy without the billions of federal dollars they collected from our pockets?

I believe that in every case above, and many others, government intervention did far more damage than good. If we could just get government out of the way and allow the market place work as it should, most of these so called crises would be resolved If we remove the unnecessary government regulations from the work place the cost of American made goods will be competitive with those from outside the U.S. A dramatic cut or even elimination of payroll taxes would boost employment to the point that even those unneeded government workers would easily find truly productive jobs.

Just imagine a nation where workers get to keep all the money they earn and are allowed to spend it as they wish. Imagine a nation where workers never have to worry about filing income tax returns on
April 15. Imagine a nation where everyone who wants to work can easily find jobs, and those who don’t want to work will have to find a way to take care of themselves. Imagine a nation were anyone who wants to start a home based business can do so without having to fill out tons of tax forms and permit requests.

How do we achieve this? First, we should insist that our governments strictly obey the limits set by the Constitution as written, not as some judge thinks it should have said. We should eliminate all payroll taxes and apply a consumer tax at the wholesale level. That would force imported goods to pay the same taxes as the things we build here at home. We should dramatically reduce or eliminate government welfare programs, returning the responsibility for the care of those who cannot care for themselves to family, church and community where it belongs.

With these changes, U.S. made products will be competitive with imports. People will be free to start their own family business without interference from government so that they can support and care for themselves and their families. Unemployment would virtually vanish from our economy. And government can devote their time to preserving the safety, defense and communication systems that cross state lines.

President Reagan was right when he said, “Government is not the solution, government is the problem.”

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Frank Gillispie is the founder of the Madison County Journal in Danielsville and writes a weekly column. For more writings, information and biography of Frank, check out his personal webpage at www.frankgillispie.com