Category: Archives

Yes, it does.

At 3am this morning, my 3 year old woke up. He wouldn’t let me put him back in bed.

Acting as if we weren’t in the middle of a tantrum, I said in a conversational tone, “Hey – lets make pancakes for breakfast.”

He stopped crying. “Can you put strawberries in them?”

“I don’t think I have any. How about Granny Smith apples?” (The green fruit forbidden to children we had bought for daddy when he was home. No squishy 99-cents-a-pound McIntoshes for him!)

“Aw, yeah!” he said, all tough, somehow unaware that he had tears on his face or that he had nearly woke up half the neighborhood or how deathly afraid he had just been of the dark.

“You gotta remind me when I wake up, though. I forget promises I make when I’m sleepy – just ask your dad.”

A few short hours later, I woke up to the “make pancakes, mommy” mantra x 5 x 1000.

Here’s my impromptu, “It Still Feels Like Monday Pancakes” recipe – because it does still feel like Monday. You see, one needs adequate sleep in between the days, or they just become a like long, extended hallway from one day into the next that can’t be traveled through without a headache.

Basic Bisquick Pancake Recipe (4 c. mix, 4 eggs, 2 c. milk)
1 lg Granny Smith, belonging to daddy and coming out of your allowance if you eat one, apple – diced
4 TB vanilla extract
1 TB maple syrup for giggles
1 TB sugar from the sugar bowl – because it’s right there and you don’t feel like opening a new bag
2 TB cinnamon

Scrape up the hardened macaroni noodles off of your burner from some time last week – days are irrelevant because they all blend together anyway – and cook your Monday/Tuesday pancakes on a griddle over medium heat. You’ll know they’re ready to flip when they’re bubbly. (No amount of magic will make the first batch perfect. I’m just sayin’.) Serve with just enough syrup (Tom, it’s pronounced Sir-Rup) for flavor but not enough to get in everyone’s hair when they aim for their mouths and miss. Enjoy! :)

His reply:

Dear Mrs. Albrecht:

Thank you for contacting my office regarding the financial rescue legislation. I appreciate your views on this matter.

I reluctantly supported this package because the failure of Congress to act would run the risk of dire consequences, including an economic downturn which could cause more foreclosures, jeopardize retirement accounts, and further restrict credit which is necessary for small businesses to operate. I am philosophically opposed to bailouts. I think that when you have Wall Street entrepreneurs who take big risks to make big profits and they go sour, they ought to sustain the loss themselves and not look to the government for a bailout which ends up in the laps of the taxpayers. However, I supported the plan to avoid economic disaster that would extend well beyond Wall Street.
Continue reading “RE: Note to Senator Specter”

Senate roll vote on financial bailout package
By The Associated Press – 12 hours ago

The 74-25 roll call by which the Senate approved a $700 billion rescue package for Wall Street aimed at preventing a credit crisis.

On this vote, a “yes” vote was a vote to approve the package and a “no” vote was a vote against it.

Voting “yes” were 39 Democrats, 34 Republicans and 1 independent.

Voting “no” were 9 Democrats, 15 Republicans and 1 independent.

Alabama

Sessions (R) No; Shelby (R) No.
Continue reading ““Sweetened” Bailout: How Did Your Senator Vote?”

“Dear Senator Specter,

I’ve never written to a Senator before, but I did vote for you in the last election and I’m asking that you please vote “NO” tomorrow to the revised “bailout” plan.

While our nation is in a dire and sorry financial mess, I would rather that the market correct itself over time than to raise the National Debt for a short term fix.

Please do not give into lobbyists who being paid to flood the phone lines. Many Pennsylvania residents who elected you, like me, do not want this measure to pass. I’ll be watching to see how you vote to determine how I will be voting the next time you run for office.

Respectfully,
SJA

Summary
-Silence on the floor after the vote “shook up a lot of people” “a serious vote”
-Emails/contacting Representatives made the difference
-SEPTEMBER 29, FED PUMPED IN OVER $600 BILLION IN CREDIT, W/O CONGRESSIONAL APPROVAL
-Ron Paul is WORKING ON AN “AUDIT THE FEDERAL RESERVE” BILL
-We do not need to regulate the market
-Blame should not be on free market; this is cronyism, interventionism, corporatism

Action Items :
Click here to get contact information for YOUR ELECTED Congressional Representative
Send an email to YOUR ELECTED Representative @ www.votenobailout.org
Digg Ron’s Letter to increase its readership

Wednesday, September 24, 2008

Dear Friends,

Whenever a Great Bipartisan Consensus is announced, and a compliant media assures everyone that the wondrous actions of our wise leaders are being taken for our own good, you can know with absolute certainty that disaster is about to strike.

The events of the past week are no exception.

The bailout package that is about to be rammed down Congress’ throat is not just economically foolish. It is downright sinister. It makes a mockery of our Constitution, which our leaders should never again bother pretending is still in effect. It promises the American people a never-ending nightmare of ever-greater debt liabilities they will have to shoulder. Two weeks ago, financial analyst Jim Rogers said the bailout of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac made America more communist than China! “This is welfare for the rich,” he said. “This is socialism for the rich. It’s bailing out the financiers, the banks, the Wall Streeters.”

That describes the current bailout package to a T. And we’re being told it’s unavoidable.

The claim that the market caused all this is so staggeringly foolish that only politicians and the media could pretend to believe it. But that has become the conventional wisdom, with the desired result that those responsible for the credit bubble and its predictable consequences – predictable, that is, to those who understand sound, Austrian economics – are being let off the hook. The Federal Reserve System is actually positioning itself as the savior, rather than the culprit, in this mess!

• The Treasury Secretary is authorized to purchase up to $700 billion in mortgage-related assets at any one time. That means $700 billion is only the very beginning of what will hit us.

• Financial institutions are “designated as financial agents of the Government.” This is the New Deal to end all New Deals.

• Then there’s this: “Decisions by the Secretary pursuant to the authority of this Act are non-reviewable and committed to agency discretion, and may not be reviewed by any court of law or any administrative agency.” Translation: the Secretary can buy up whatever junk debt he wants to, burden the American people with it, and be subject to no one in the process.

There goes your country.

Even some so-called free-market economists are calling all this “sadly necessary.” Sad, yes. Necessary? Don’t make me laugh.

Our one-party system is complicit in yet another crime against the American people. The two major party candidates for president themselves initially indicated their strong support for bailouts of this kind – another example of the big choice we’re supposedly presented with this November: yes or yes. Now, with a backlash brewing, they’re not quite sure what their views are. A sad display, really.

Although the present bailout package is almost certainly not the end of the political atrocities we’ll witness in connection with the crisis, time is short. Congress may vote as soon as tomorrow. With a Rasmussen poll finding support for the bailout at an anemic seven percent, some members of Congress are afraid to vote for it. Call them! Let them hear from you! Tell them you will never vote for anyone who supports this atrocity.

The issue boils down to this: do we care about freedom? Do we care about responsibility and accountability? Do we care that our government and media have been bought and paid for? Do we care that average Americans are about to be looted in order to subsidize the fattest of cats on Wall Street and in government? Do we care?

When the chips are down, will we stand up and fight, even if it means standing up against every stripe of fashionable opinion in politics and the media?

Times like these have a way of telling us what kind of a people we are, and what kind of country we shall be.

In liberty,

Ron Paul