GOVERNMENT, STAY OUT OF THE BCS DISCUSSION

With all the problems facing our government today, I was shocked to read an article in today’s USA Today announcing the fact that Senator Orrin Hatch R-UT is pushing for Senate Hearings on the Bowl Championship Series.

Obviously this suggestion is coming from pressure instigated by President Barrack Obama’s critical comments about the BCS, and the fact that Hatch’s home state University of Utah was left out of the Championship game despite going undefeated last year. Good God, our government has many more important matters to take up during the few hours that they work than to hold expensive hearings of the Senate Judiciary Sub-Committee on Antitrust, Competition Policy and Consumer Rights to study this question.

Even Representative Joe Barton R-TX is wasting taxpayer dollars sponsoring legislation to keep the NCAA from calling the play-off game “The National Championship”, unless it results from a play-off.

Citizens are losing their jobs, individuals are homeless, children are hungry, American boys are dying in Wars around the world, and these fools want to waste extremely valuable time talking about a game. The expression “Rome is burning while Nero fiddles” is most apropos. This kind of absurdity gets your Commander’s “hair on fire”.

COMMANDER GRANGER

WILL THE POLITICIANS GIVE BACK THEIR AIG BONUSES?

This morning your Commander was in deep contemplation when he came up with the politically related question noted above.

The other day I heard that many elected officials in Washington had received political contributions from AIG, so I went to Google to secure some substantiation. Shockingly, I learned that your Commander and the Huffington Post are on the same page on this interesting question. Jamie Court reported that AIG gave $9.3 million over the last decade in political contributions, and they were split 50/50 between Republicans and Democrats.

Here is a list of recent recipients:

Senator Barack Obama $104,332
Senator Chris Dodd $103,900
Senator John McCain $ 59,499
Senator Hillary Clinton $ 37,965
Senator Max Baucus $ 24,750
Candidate Mitt Romney $ 20,850
Senator Joe Biden $ 19,975
House John B. Larson $ 19,750
Senator John Sununu $ 18,500
Candidate Rudolph Giuliani $ 13,200
House Paul E. Kanjorski $ 12,000
Senator Dick Durbin $ 11,000
House Edwin Perlmutter $ 10,500
House Charles Rangel $ 9,000
Candidate John Edwards $ 7,850
Senator Bob Corker $ 7,400
House Chris Smith $ 6,900
House Richard Neal $ 6,500
Senator Jay Rockefeller $ 6,500
Senator Jack Reed $ 6,000

This certainly is a very interesting list of names, which makes this subject one of major conflicting relationships. The House of Representatives passed retroactive legislation requiring employees who were given contractually promised bonuses from companies that received government TARP money to repay them or pay a 90% tax. The Senate has yet to vote on similar legislation. The question is: Wouldn’t it be appropriate for politicians who received campaign contributions from AIG and other TARP recipients several months ago return those funds to the companies, or to the government?

Remember, politicians returned monies they received from Enron to charities after that scandal broke, so should they not do the same with AIG.

I hope you know how much it pains your Commander to agree with anything suggested in the Huffington Post. Already President Obama is making noise that he has concerns about the 90% tax proposal, so it should be very interesting to see the political dance as it unfolds in the coming days and weeks. Are we experiencing CHANGE and TRANSPARENCY or just a cunning political plot?

COMMANDER GRANGER

AIG - WHO KNEW WHAT AND WHEN DID THEY KNOW IT

When historians look back upon the actions of the House of Representatives fifty or one hundred years from now, they may consider Wednesday March 18, 2009 as the date the United States of America took a giant move toward socialism, a monarchy or even a dictatorship. Clearly the precipitous near panic actions taken by an almost mob incited Congress leads me to feel our government has dangerously moved toward the destruction of our democracy.

I sat through the hypocritically staged televised session of the House of Representatives Committee that grilled the Government appointed Chairman of AIG Edward Liddy. It is beyond belief the way in which Congressmen from both sides of the aisle attacked an honorable man who had absolutely nothing to do with the establishment of the inappropriately paid bonus programs.

Even the liberal media is now reporting the fact that both the Bush and Obama administrations knew of the AIG bonus program, and Obama and/or his people were complicit in the insertion of language protecting the bonus payments. That was the rushed through legislation that the Congressmen did not even have a chance to read before voting approval. Now the cat is out of the bag, and Congressmen who had dirty hands in this deal are running for cover. Congress is playing the old bait and switch game in an effort to deceive the voting public with their unrighteous indignation.

Yes, the American public is up in arms that the bonus program existed and was paid after massive public funds were awarded. But the fact of the matter is that it is against our Constitution to go back and break legally executed contracts.

Were I to have been in the chair getting the unwarranted attacks from those political hypocrites, I would have stood up and said: “Members of this Committee you have uncaringly attacked my integrity, and you know full well that I had absolutely nothing to do with the creation of the AIG scandal. I was asked by this government to take this job for one dollar a year and I will not stand here and be your whipping boy. You know who is responsible, just look into the mirror. You will receive my letter of resignation tomorrow, and you can take this job and shove it.”

It is my opinion that the current administration has organized its Union friends to demonstrate outrage in the streets of America inciting a class-warfare struggle to off-set the voter’s attention to the true source of responsibility in the AIG fiasco. Again we see a perfect example of Rahm Emanuel’s plan to take advantage of any crisis and get other questionable legislation passed successfully. In this case it is the “Card Check” program to payoff the Unions for their support of the Obama election. The Unions want to eliminate the secret ballot, which is a basic American right. This program is wrong in many ways and it is detrimental to the long-term benefit of our economy.

If the Courts do not reject this recent Congressional taxing legislation, assuming the Senate supports this rush to judgment or cover-up, then we are all in for big trouble in the years ahead. If the U.S. Constitution is not upheld then much is lost. Your Commander believes fervently that we need to clean house in Washington, and I wonder where the Justice Department is in announcing indictments against the real culprits of the AIG scandal. We are experiencing another perfect example of transference to cover-up the real criminals.

My wonderful Editor and Consigliore has repeatedly urged me to refrain from frequently attacking our political leadership, but it is impossible to ignore the obvious. We the voters and citizens of the United States of America have much to lose, but we have no one to blame but ourselves.

Benjamin Franklin said; “They that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety”.

Equally appropriate are the words of Thomas Jefferson when he said; “When the government fears the people there is liberty, when the people fear the government there is tyranny”.

COMMANDER GRANGER

WHO WAS THOMAS RILEY MARSHALL?

Thomas Riley Marshall was the Vice-President of the United States during the administration of President Woodrow Wilson from 1913 to 1921. He was born in North Manchester, Indiana, and became famous for his remark “What this country needs is a good five-cent cigar”.

Marshall served as Vice President for both of Wilson’s terms as President, which included the difficult World War 1 years, and when President Woodrow Wilson suffered a stroke. Your Commander suggests you take a peek at the Junto Society site as a diversion from the trials and tribulations of the day.

An interesting aside is the fact that Marshall invited Indiana’s Culver Military Academy Black Horse Troop to represent the state for the first time in the Inauguration Parade of the Wilson/Marshall Administration in 1913. That invitation began the now long established tradition of Culver’s participation in Presidential Parades that continues through the recent Obama/Biden Inaugural in January, 2009.

In doing some research for this brief essay, I ran across a very interesting website titled “Junto Society”. It is a non-profit educational site whose managers “are politically active citizens seeking to assist others in gaining a better understanding of the American political process.” If you are a history buff, as I am, you might be interested in taking a look at the Junto Society site: http://www.juntosociety.com

To read more about Marshall you can go to:
http://www.juntosociety.com/vp/marshall.html

COMMANDER GRANGER

AIG & OUR GOVERNMENT

The hot topic is the outrage in Washington’s political circles toward the recent announced bonus payments to personnel at AIG. Recently, President Obama outlined his outrage via his teleprompter speech to an adoring media, and the dumfounded American public. This was quickly supported by his talking puppet White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs, and now Senator Charles Schumer (D-NY) claims that he will introduce legislation declaring the bonus checks to be subject to a 100% tax.

All this really represents is a text book example of Transference or changing the attention of the audience away from the true facts. No one can tell me that our government officials did not have prior knowledge of the bonus payment plan. Yesterday it was disclosed that a special amendment was inserted recently in the Stimulus Plan legislation by Senator Christopher Dodd (D-CT) to protect bonuses paid to “bail-out” recipients after February 11, 2009. It is very interesting that Senator Dodd was the largest recipient of campaign contributions from AIG (more than $100,000 for his re-election campaign last year). There is a very revealing article by Jim Meyers on Newsmax.com 3/17/09 titled Two Faced: Dodd Protected Bonuses, Now He Wants Them Out, which proves his culpability and repeated conflict of interest.

Each day your Commander sees growing evidence that our liberal media is smelling smoke, and is finally recognizing that they inserted the hook in their mouths far too early. Our media did not properly vet the Obama resume, and they became mesmerized in his carefully crafted campaign. It is not only Fox News that is exposing the true facts behind this AIG story, but even the Big Three network newscasts now find they must air the story. As slim as the coverage has been, it is beginning to creep into the airwaves, and the Obama administration is desperately running for cover.

Do you believe that our supposedly brilliant Treasury Secretary Timothy Geithner did not have prior knowledge of the inner workings of AIG? Geithner worked in the inner circles of Wall Street and our government’s financial institutions, and worked with former Treasury Secretary Hank Paulson to put the AIG bail-out package together last fall. It is impossible to believe that he did not know about the long established bonus retention plan. Assuming he knew, Geithner should be immediately replaced for permitting Obama’s team to walk into a mega-problem.

Additionally, the duplicity of both the Senate and Congressional Oversight Committees is beyond comprehension. Congressman Barney Frank (D-MA) is lying through his teeth on a daily basis, because he repeatedly failed to meet his Congressional responsibilities. Both Frank and Senator Dodd urged AIG to make unsupportable loans years ago and their actions led to the current scandal.

There is a very interesting article written by Vasko Kohlmayer for American Thinker titled: Who is Barney Frank? You should read it, and I think you will agree that he should be removed from the House, if not be put in jail. Here is the link:
http://www.americanthinker.com/2009/03/who_is_barney_frank.html

In yesterday’s Wall Street Journal there is an excellent editorial “The Real AIG Outrage”, and a thorough article by Ron Shelp titled “AIG Can Be Salvaged by a Breakup”. They can be found by copying the individual links below and pasting them in your browser:
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123725551430050865.html
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB123725397773050525.html

What really concerns your Commander is just how secure are any contracts that we all hold in view of the Obama administration’s recent pronouncements? I believe the contracts signed by AIG are valid. I do not like them, but how can you go back and make they invalid? What is next? What if Obama’s hatchet men decide they want my home, and they invalidate my contract with my bank or any contract I have for services rendered? Honestly, these recent actions are scaring the hell out of me because I no longer think anything is secure once the government gets involved.

Your government and mine had prior knowledge of the deals within AIG, and they are lying to the American public with their unrighteous indignation. This is pure corrupt political double-speak. Sadly many administrations have been lying to us for many years, and we never held them accountable. We better wake-up before it is too late or all our liberties will evaporate before our very eyes. The American Way of Life is in great peril. Transparency, although a much used word these days, has left the Washington vernacular. The new definition of transparency is lying, because if you tell a lie enough times the fools will believe you. We have no one to blame but ourselves.

COMMANDER GRANGER

I AM CHANGING MY WILL

The decision to change your Will is not something that one does without considerable soul-searching. Immediately I want to assure my family that my action will not impact their inheritance one bit, but it is directly related to bequests I have made to my alma mater, the University of Illinois. This is assuming there is any money remaining when President Obama completes redistributing wealth, and absorbing my hard earned portfolio.

Way back on April 5, 2008 I commenced my F. Roberts World blog with the first one titled “Sportsmanship is Dead”, and that was when the thought process about changing my Will began. Some twenty years ago in consultation with my attorney, I decided to make a sizeable contribution to the General Fund of the University of Illinois upon my death. Since that time two specific situations occurred that led me to changing my mind, and totally withdrawing my bequest.

First, as covered in my inaugural blog, I remain infuriated by the National Collegiate Athletic Association’s decision to force the University of Illinois to drop their mascot, Chief Iliniwek. At that time I was, and remain opposed to grossly over-paid President Miles Brand’s arbitrary hypocritical decision that the Chief was a derogatory racial figure. Brand demanded that many teams change their long established mascots. Some schools like Florida State elected to buy off the problem with money, and thus they continue to have an Indian mascot and team name. While I am very sympathetic with President Brand’s current battle with pancreatic cancer, I continue to feel that his actions were really none of the NCAA’s business.

It remains my opinion that the NCAA has more important fish to fry, and it bowed to unjustified pressures brought forward by two under-worked, over-paid, radical, tenured professors at Illinois. The NCAA should get its own house in order before it tells other institutions how to function. I also feel that the Illinois Trustees gave in to unwarranted pressures from the NCAA when repeated polls taken by the Champaign News-Gazette, and the Chicago Tribune reported that 70% of the thousands of respondents supported the retention of The Chief. The University spent millions of public dollars studying this issue, and they took the easy way out and destroyed a time honored institution of admiration in everything The Chief represented.

Anyone who ever witnessed The Chief dance at half-time at an Illinois home football or basketball game knows that The Chief represented nothing but honor to the traditions of native Illinois Indians. To suggest that Chief Illiniwek was a racially insensitive symbol is nothing short of absurd.

Your Commander’s roots run very deep as far as the University of Illinois goes because my Father graduated back in 1918, I graduated in 1956, and my son in 1979. I continue to love the Fighting Illini teams, and especially The Chief, but I cannot support the lily-livered administration.

As the son of Genevieve Margaret Finnegan Kalthoff I am a 50% proud Irishman. What is the difference between Chief Illiniwek’s half-time dance and the actions of Notre Dame’s Leprechaun running around frantically throughout entire games? However, the NCAA never considered touching Notre Dame. I believe that the NCAA’s actions are both arbitrary and hypocritical. I can see the NCAA’s actions encouraging the ACLU to consider all team mascots as offensive to somebody. It is not too far a stretch to see the Illini called the Big Block I or Notre Dame renamed the Dancing Irish Lace.

Secondly and more importantly is the fact that the University of Illinois continues to employ unrepentant admitted terrorist William Ayers as an Education Professor on the University of Illinois-Chicago campus. This act alone is more than proper justification for no longer supporting my alma mater financially. William Ayers should not be receiving public dollars when he continues to state “I wish I did more when we bombed public buildings”. Do you want William Ayers teaching your children?

So, if my old University has repeatedly forsaken their principals of right over wrong, and desires to have terrorists on their staff, they are not getting my hard earned dollars.

COMMANDER GRANGER

BORDER INFLUENCES

Anyone who has read the Commander’s essays knows that I have long considered the United States borders to be a long neglected, festering issue. It is my opinion that the economic problems facing our great nation have their roots flowing from the numerous issues directly attributable to our long neglected political hot-button…immigration.

Having lived about four years within a few miles of the Mexican/Arizona border, I know this subject first-hand. On more than one morning, I walked into my fenced back yard and found illegal travelers filling their plastic water bottles from my garden hose. They were as scared by our chance confrontations as I was, and fled immediately northward across the vast desert.

Our politicians refuse to objectively address this complicated subject because they want every single vote they can attract. Both Republicans and Democrats have long blatantly misused legal and illegal immigration to their benefit. Obviously this is an emotionally charged issue, but I know from personal experience that the agricultural communities along the entire southern border have long taken advantage of the Mexican workers. The Agricultural political action committees have been most effective in protecting their self-serving positions. I have seen many Mexican farm workers being worked like dogs, and living under less than humane conditions. There must be a middle ground on workers rights and living conditions, but the all-powerful farm lobby refuses to compromise to reach a fair solution.

In recent days we have witnessed horrid stories about Mexican drug gang violence along the southern border, but this is nothing new. Yes, the problem is escalating, and American citizens as well as U.S. Border Patrol personnel are getting killed. That is why the politicians are starting to express concern, typically after the fact. Only last week did our new Homeland Security Secretary suggest a study group to look into the border violence question. It is my opinion that Janet Napolitano, the ex-Governor of Arizona, is unqualified to solve this problem.

Many administrations have failed to address immigration, including George W. Bush’s, and it thus far has not even been mentioned on Obama’s agenda, because it is a political hot-potato. Our government’s failure to address immigration and propose a realistic plan to solve the inter-related issues has directly impacted our current economic crisis.

The growing financial obligations in the states of Texas, New Mexico, Arizona, and California all have their foundation in the immigration fiasco. Here are some shocking statistics:

1. State governments spend between $11 Billion and $22 Billion on welfare to illegal aliens each year.

2. $2.2 Billion dollars a year is spent on food assistance programs such as food stamps, WIC, and free school lunches for illegal aliens.

3. $2.5 Billion dollars a year is spent on Medicaid for illegal aliens.

4. $12 Billion dollars a year is spent on primary and secondary school education for children here illegally and many cannot speak a word of English.

5. $17 Billion dollars a year is spent on education for American-born children of illegal aliens, known as anchor babies.

6. $3 Million Dollars a DAY is spent to incarcerate illegal aliens. That’s $1.1 Billion Dollars a year.

7. 30% percent of all Federal Prison inmates are illegal aliens.

8. $90 Billion Dollars a year is spent on illegal aliens for Welfare & Social Services by the American taxpayers.

9. $200 Billion dollars a year in suppressed American wages is caused by illegal aliens.

10. The illegal aliens in the United States have a crime rate that’s two and a half times that of white, non-illegal aliens. In particular, their children are going to add a huge additional crime problem in the U.S.

11. During the year of 2005 there were 4 to 10 Million illegal aliens that crossed our Southern Border. An additional, as many as 19,500 illegal aliens entered from terrorist countries. Millions of pounds of drugs, cocaine, meth, heroin and marijuana, crossed into the U.S. from the Southern border, per Homeland Security Report.

12. The National Policy Institute estimated that the total cost of mass deportation would be between $206 and $230 billion, or an average cost of between $41 and $46 billion annually over a five year period.

13. In 2006, illegal aliens sent home $45 Billion in remittances to their countries of origin.

14. The Dark Side of Illegal Immigration: Nearly one million sex crimes are committed by illegal immigrants in The United States.

The total cost is $338.3 Billion Dollars A Year!

Should you question any of these statistics, I have a number of reference websites available to verify the data.

Thus far, I have heard few politicians discuss the cost of our immigration dilemma, because they do not want to jeopardize the illegal immigrant vote. The answers to this matter are not simple, but most complex. Certainly the corruption of the Mexican government is something we must recognize, but we cannot permit their shortcomings to compound our economic interests. Our government should not permit Mexico to push their problems into our country, but they do just that by their neglect.

Your Commander is not against legal immigration, because I am a direct product of my Grand-Parents legal immigration from Germany, England, and Ireland three generations ago. It is legal immigration that made the USA the Land of the Free, and the Home of the Brave. This country continues to be the most desirous place in the world to immigrate.

I again urge our leadership to address the problems head on, and send U.S. military troops to the border immediately to combat growing border violence, and the flow of illegal drugs. We can seal off illegal immigration, and we must protect our citizens who live and work along the border before one more person is killed by the Mexican thugs. The citizens of Phoenix have found an answer to their local problem by voting Sheriff Joe Arpaio repeatedly into office. He enforces the law, and cuts the costs of confinement. God Bless Sheriff Joe.

This subject is so serious that it is endangering our national security, and it is adding a financial burden to our economy that is unsustainable. I suspect that this matter will be addressed only when it has reached crisis status, and then our all-knowing leadership will take advantage of addressing the crisis in a way that could significantly enhance their position. Is that not exactly what White House Presidential Advisor Rahm Emanuel repeatedly suggests?

Let’s not wait for more American citizens to get kidnapped, murdered or die from drug usage before our brilliant leadership responds. One has to wonder if our government truly wants to solve this situation.

COMMANDER GRANGER