KING ARLEN

Well it appears 30 years of serving us is not enough for Arlen Specter.  Specter is running again for another term and my question is WHY?  I'm trying to figure out what compels a person to get elected to an office to serve the public and then NEVER want to leave.  Specter is not alone in doing this sort of thing but what makes him different is his level of desperation in trying to hold on to his power forever.  He is so desperate that he changed his party affiliation to Democratic,  in order to avoid being defeated in the Republican Primary in PA.   What makes a person think that they are doing such a great job and that no one else is capable of doing the  same thing, namely, serving the public. 
In my humble opinion, these career politicians are ruining the country.  The Founding Fathers never intended to establish a system were a person would hold such power for 30 or 40 years.  Our country was founded on the principle that a King ruling over his subjects like a dictator was a terrible idea.  Even George Washington voluntarily left the office of President after two terms, establishing a precedent that lasted until Franklin Roosevelt in the 1940's.  Yet, lifetime politicians like Specter don't get the hint and leave after a couple or three terms, he wants to be there till he dies.  In this respect he is just like Ted Kennedy, Strom Thurmond or even John Murtha in his unwillingness to serve for a period of time and then leave.  In fact in Murtha's case it took a bad surgical experience to retire him, otherwise he would have never left either.  The only solution is term limits and don't look for that to ever happen since the politicians must put that restriction on themselves.  We already know they will never do anything to threaten their stranglehold on power.

THE SHIP CARRYING NFL INEGRITY SAILED LONG AGO

The perception the NFL has of itself as this "honorable fraternity" with high standards and a strong moral compass couldn't be more way off base.  I'm not sure Roger Goodell is completely rational when he attempts to tout the high standards and expectations of the league.  All one needs to do is take a look  at the punks, thugs and goons who have participated and are presently participating in the current NFL.
You have" Ben Roethlisberger (Accused of Rape), Ray Lewis, accused of murder, Chris Henry (Multiple Charges), Tank Johnson (Weapons Violations), Michael Vick, (Convicted of dog fighting) Pacman Jones  , O.J. Simpson, and on and on.                                                                             
Any organization with these losers and dozens of others in there membership can not claim to be an honorable one.  In reality you have a very dishonorable and criminal organization.  So Mr. Goodell, you can put the thought of trying to convince us that your organization has a higher level of expectation for its members to rest. We aren't buying what you're selling.                                                                                                              

ALL PRESIDENT AND ACCOUNTED FOR

The greatness of any President is directly proportional to the amount of long term damage he leaves behind at the end of his term.  
Throughout our history we have had a number of Presidents whose level of damage was quite extensive and destructive to our country.  Richard Nixon left us with a major Constitutional Crisis with the Watergate Scandal.  Jimmy Carter left us with massive inflation and a hostage crisis.  Lyndon Johnson left with the nation embroiled in a bitter and divisive war in Vietnam and George Bush departed with two wars in progress.  I suppose it's inevitable that there will always be some unfinished business at the end of an administration but, just how damaging the trail of destruction is should certainly enter into those water cooler discussions of who the greatest (and worst) Presidents were. 
Perhaps the most frightening thing regarding the current President is the great potential he has established for leaving behind the most crippled America ever.  Including  just  the unbelievable debt his administration is piling up,  is enough to put him near the top of the list of most damaging Presidents.  However when you add in the weakening of our military, nuclear response capabilities and the historic turn toward Socialism, he will certainly claim the title of the most destructive President in American History.  What a very sad thing to watch and to have to live through. 

WELFARE THE DESTROYER

God bless my mother who worked five days a week, eight hours a day for a dollar an hour back in the 1960's.   Mom was a single parent who had always been a very hard worker.  Prior to the cleaning jobs she worked in various local mills during WW II and took on pretty much every challenge.  I have really come to admire all she did.  In my mind she was a living example of Rosie the Rivetter.  She did a man's work and handled it. My earliest memories of this hard working single parent was how she made her way to work each day, relying on a lift from a friend or family member to and from work since she didn't know how to drive. She tried to learn once later in life when she had gotten remarried but, that didn't end to well as she crashed the car into a neighbor's garage.  That was the end of that.  Mom returned to walking and getting rides from family or friends.  Now mom not only had to raise me but, she also was forced to care for her own mother.  So the three of us lived in the same 4 room apartment until my grandmother passed away when I was twelve.   As I recall grandma was ill a lot and mom would end up being the one responsible for the bills,  despite the fact that she had five other sisters and one brother living in the area.  Most times none of these aunts or uncles were much help and if mom wanted to go out to a PTA meeting or to visit a friend, I would have to watch grandma. Grandma, was a big burly old Slovak lady who could be pretty rough to deal with.   Fortunately,  she never really gave me a problem.  I would get all her medicines and help her go to the bathroom and basically babysit her when mom went to work.
My point here is that mom never took welfare in her life and even though she was lucky to make 7 or 8 dollars a day, she paid her bills, bought and cooked the meals and took care of all the family business including keeping me in line.  Mom, like most people from that generation was driven to do things the right way and to work for everything she got.  She did not have the mentality or the makeup to do otherwise.  Thankfully, she passed that quality on to me. 
This is a big part of the reason I am quite disgusted with these career welfare families, whose chief accomplishment is to pass that "take, take take" mentality on to their children and grandchildren.  Especially, aggravating is that many times you see these slobs with multiple kids (with several different last names), smoking, going to bingo or just sitting around doing nothing.  They have no concept of working for money or volunteering or doing any type of positive community service.  Our government has helped create this nightmare with all the giveaway programs over the past 40 years with no end in sight.  What the hell ever happened to welfare reform?

IT'S LYIIN TIME AGAIN

Well it's nearly that time of the year again when political campaigning is getting started, the flowers bloom, the birds chirp, temperatures rise and the candidates begin their never ending stream of lies, half truths and making promises they will surely break.  The ads here in the Pittsburgh area are just beginning and one can't help but be amazed that these dufusses are looking at us with a straight face and saying things to us that we have to know are not true.  Promises like cutting taxes, spending less money, balancing the budget, finding money for every social and political program there is, cutting taxes, improving public education, stopping illegal immigration, stopping the wars and, oh yeah, did I mention cutting taxes?  
Evidently, we the majority of Americans must have idiot stamped on our foreheads because we fall for this same line every election.  It couldn't get any more idiotic if someone was making up a story.  It seems that no matter how many times we go through this, we can't help ourselves and continue to vote these idiots in.  It's like, Groundhog Day meets Titanic.  So take leave of your senses America, forget everything that's happened in the past six months and just vote for the same guy or gal you did last time......OR NOT!!!

AMERICA SAYS..."DO WHAT I SAY NOT WHAT I DO"

Isn't it funny that we Americans are so busy trying to spread Democracy and Freedom around the globe yet, we ourselves have less and less of both.  How ironic that Americans are dying in wars to spread all these rights to others but, our government's actions lead us away from those very things.  Our recent Presidents have taken to scolding countries like China and Russia when they crack down on their people or drift away from their Constitutions or appear to be treating their citizens unfairly.  
It is no wonder these nations give us the "one finger salute," and do what they want to do.  How in the world can we remotely even hope that they will listen to us?  Somewhere along the line we ceased to be a "role model" for democratic ideals and principles and have devolved into nothing more than a paper tiger when it comes to these sorts of things.  
Many of us can remember growing up in the 50's, 60's, and 70's believing that our country was special and better than everyone else and we could take great pride in being Americans.  Sadly,  the actions of our government over the last 40 years or so have thrown that out the window.  It really makes me feel like we have truly lost something we may never get back.  WTF HAPPENED??

FREE SPEECH ....GONE WITH THE WIND

I remember reading something in junior high school about this thing called "free speech" and the first time we really talked about it in class.  Now regardless of what my teacher probably said about this freedom,  I think most of us kids left the class with the mistaken notion that this "free speech" stuff give us the right to say anything we wanted to.  I can remember many of my classmates chiding each other with the phrase, "you can't make me shut up, I have freedom of speech!   Every once in while one of us would try that line at home and boy or boy did we learn the limits of free speech....the hard way.  As years went by the reality of what free speech really meant set in and  the later years of high school taught us that free speech was not totally unlimited.  You couldn't just say anything you want to anybody you want at any place you want.  However, through much of my life I never felt that in the right situation and in the proper way, I couldn't say something or express myself openly.
Unfortunately, in the last 15 years, with the spread of the disease of "political correctness," that belief, in this "freedom of speech thing," has rapidly disappeared.
I have come to realize that it is becoming more and more difficult to freely express oneself and it has in fact, become dangerous to do so.  This wonderful right I enjoyed in years past has become a concept in a book, merely words on a page, which can be pointed to and talked about like one might speak of a Greek or Roman artifact, at the museum.  When viewing real events in 2010 America I have come to the recognition that we are just kidding ourselves into believing that any of the statements in the Bill of Rights truly exist.  All one has to do is read example after example of how our recent government has destroyed any and all meaning of those words.
The spirit of the nation is being destroyed.  Elections are being bought, politicians hold offices for decades, scandal and corruption are rampant at all levels of government, mere accusation now means guilt, the truly independent media no longer exists, and states rights are either being usurped or willing given to the federal government.  Diversity if being forced down our throats and is used a tool by those seeking to destroy us.  Ah, how I long for the days when I believed in freedom of speech!
We are truly in the midst of a national catastrophe which will destroy this country.