"Perception Is Reality"

Three years of being president is a helluva way to turn a Marxist into a conservative, but by golly, it almost worked.

After Obama eats his Peas and gets some skin in the game etc. etc. etc. I guess the "Wash his mouth out with soap" would be in order. Costco has the really big boxes of soap!

The 23rd President of the U.S.A., Benjamin Harrison at the age of 22, wrote "Fame is truly honorable and fortune only desirable when they have been earned. Charity-given bread may nourish the body but it does not invigorate the soul like the hard earned loaf". (Biographer C.W. Calhoun)

This articulate young person who was an early Republican is representative of the students and young activists who provided the support for the 16th President,Abraham Lincoln to be elected the first time.

The resistance to a European developed concept of the "less fortunate" was still part of the American culture within the first century of the United States existence. Cheers;

"When a man who is honestly mistaken hears the truth, he will either quit being mistaken or cease to be honest"
Abraham Lincoln

Now tell me, what is lacking the most in Washington; truth or honesty?...History would tell me that honesty is all but gone now because history most always knows the truth from experience.

"...I shouted out,
Who killed the kennedys?
When after all
It was you and me..."
1969, The Rolling Stones, 'Sympathy for the Devil'.

And thus, we are mostly all to blame for it...We have voted our responsibilities and for that matter, our freedoms away too.

The US got what they wanted. So stop feeling sorry for them. Like Que they have what they voted for. Let them live with it.

The US got what they wanted. So stop feeling sorry for them. Like Que they have what they voted for. Let them live with it.
Posted by: a@c at July 12, 2011 11:34 AM

Yes, but when the US coughs, it now appears that the world has caught leukemia.

The US was a big money player but not alot of people. Today the world is our market and we must learn this. We have always served the US because that was easy.Look around and sell to people who need what we have and can pay.

politically, the saying holds water

but all bets are off when Margie Thatcher's revelations about socialism come to pass.

it seems we've come to such a crux

How do you stop a charging elephant...take away his credit card!

Yesterday the "won" declared that we must get past this debt/deficit thing to get on with the "desired" "investments."

If a deal is not made and a default looms look to this crowd to sellectively default on pensions/health but make sure SEIU pay checks are in the mail.

However this may be the "Fort Sumpter". My prayers were for a "velvet revolution" but this gun-walker thing indicates that the lefties will opt for a bloody decision....there is nothing civil about civil war.

I don't paraphrase Trotsky enough. You may not be interested in reality, but reality is interested in you.

The real distinction is between those who adapt their purposes to reality and those who seek to mold reality in the light of their purposes.
~Henry Kissinger

It may come to pass that we are made aware of the fact that "politicians" are redundant

then we may have an increase in the unemployed!!!

BTW; Oz, quit quoting kommunists!!!!

Volunteers:

Chung Mee: Opium is my business. The bridge mean more traffic. More traffic mean more money. More money mean more power.
Lawrence Bourne III: Yeah, well, before I commit any of that to memory, would there be anything in this for me?
Chung Mee: Speed is important in business. Time is money.
Lawrence Bourne III: You said opium was money.
Chung Mee: Money is Money.
Lawrence Bourne III: Well then, what is time again?

I'm not surprised that you didn't understand the quote, GYM.

Okay, then let's not say "perception is reality". Here's the same notion, expressed by Thomas Sowell:

It is hard to understand politics if you are hung up on reality. Politicians leave reality to others. What matters in politics is what you can get the voters to believe, whether it bears any resemblance to reality or not.

Not only among politicians, but also among much of the media, and even among some of the public, the quest is not for truth about reality but for talking points that fit a vision or advance an agenda. Some seem to see it as a personal contest about who is best at fencing with words.

Everything else is just seven second delay.

Great line Kate. Goes perfect with the subject.

perception says they're not getting paid

reality says they'll likely get bigger paycheques

still...I do like the concept, even if in reality it's just smoke and mirrors and tricks with semantics...

California lawmakers lose pay until they pass balanced budget

By Tami Luhby @CNNMoney June 21, 2011: 4:32 PM ET

NEW YORK (CNNMoney) -- California lawmakers will forfeit their pay until they pass a balanced budget, the state controller said Tuesday.

Legislators raced to approve a balanced budget last week to meet a deadline imposed by voters in November. The ballot measure required that the Senate and Assembly pass a balanced spending plan by June 15 or lose their salary and per diem.

Lawmakers agreed on a budget that they said met the requirement. But Governor Jerry Brown swiftly vetoed it as unbalanced. Controller John Chiang agreed, saying the vetoed budget committed the state to $89.75 billion in spending, but only provided $87.9 billion in revenues.

"My office's careful review of the recently-passed budget found components that were miscalculated, miscounted or unfinished," said Chiang. "The numbers simply did not add up, and the legislature will forfeit their pay until a balanced budget is sent to the governor."

California lawmakers have the highest salaries in the nation, according to the National Conference of State Legislators. They earn $95,291 a year, as well as $142 per diem for each day they are in session.
Jerry Brown vetoes California budget

Democratic lawmakers, who control both chambers, quickly defended their actions last week, saying that the controller was wrong.

"We carried out our responsibility to pass a budget reflecting all the options available to close the deficit without new revenues and without cuts so deep as to cost the state jobs and jeopardize our economic recovery," said Assembly Speaker John A. Perez.

Perez said lawmakers will be "taking additional budget action informed by the controller's analysis" in coming days.

California officials have struggled with closing a $26 billion gap since the start of the year. Brown has spent months trying to woo Republican lawmakers to approve his proposal to put a tax extension on the ballot.

Republican leaders, who blasted last week's budget that was pushed through by the Democrats, have refused to put the extension before the voters unless it is accompanied by a spending cap, as well as pension and regulatory reform.
0:00 / 1:47 2 million government jobs at stake

The legislature approved several measures in March that closed $14 billion of the gap. Their job was also made somewhat easier because tax revenues are coming in several billion dollars higher than forecast.

But lawmakers had been unable to solve the remaining budget deficit of more than $9 billion. Facing the loss of their pay, the Democrats' solution was to quickly pass a budget that relied on spending cuts, fund transfers and optimistic assumptions to eliminate that shortfall.

Brown, who has repeatedly said he would not sign a budget that contained gimmicks, vetoed the legislators' plan.

"It continues big deficits for years to come and adds billions of dollars of new debt. It also contains legally questionable maneuvers, costly borrowing and unrealistic savings," said Brown last week, adding that he will continue to negotiate with the Republicans. "We can -- and must -- do better."

His Democratic counterparts in the legislature, however, assailed the governor for not outlining a detailed plan for solving the state's budget mess before the fiscal year ends on June 30. They said his talks with the GOP on extending personal income and sales tax hikes from 2009 have gone nowhere.

"We are too far down the road for the governor to continue avoiding a specific set of proposals of what he intends to do or wants to be done if he can't gain those Republican votes," Senate President Pro Tem Darrell Steinberg said last week. To top of page