Sold Down The River

Get this!

I may be slow on the up-take, but I’m still way ahead of the American public that still believes that by simply substituting a few political heads on Election Day, we can set things right again.

Scanning the headlines this morning, I happened to run across one that said “New Call To Greece To Sell Off Its Assets”. With all that’s going on, why did this particular item set my alarm bells ringing?

How much land does the U.S. government own? According to www.answerbag.com, “The United States government owns approximately 650 million acres of land, according to NationalAtlas.gov. That total amounts to about 30 percent of the total land area in the U.S. Some large categories of federally-owned land include national parks, national forests and national wildlife refuges.” Even if this answer is wrong, we all know it’s a lot. Out West, the percentages are even higher. In Nevada, for example, privately held land amounts to barely 20%.

Who owns or controls most mortgages? Don’t know the exact answer to this one, but you can bet the Feds have their fingers in this one as well (via Fannie and Freddie).

Who is it that keeps private industry from mining and drilling, keeping our land pristine and valuable to the max? Again, the answer is government.

After our currency has collapsed under the dead weight of unserviceable debt, what will be left to trade? Answer: land.

We’re being set up to be sold down the river, folks!

http://pkoelliker.blogspot.com/

Close in Nevada

JB makes it look close in Nevada. In fact, the brutal Democrat pro’s pro machine going up against the novice, amateur Angle would seem to give Reid the edge and set up a David vs. Goliath-like confrontation in November. Nevada’s unemployment rate is the highest in the nation. Reid will claim he has sufficient political standing to bring home the Washington bacon in the form of unemployment checks and government cheese. He may even suggest federally sponsored ‘shovel-ready’ jobs to build or repair more ‘bridges to nowhere’ in the desert. No doubt Harry can deliver on such things. Real prosperity based on real jobs, of course, is another matter entirely.

Yet he could claim that real jobs are just over the horizon: wind; solar; batteries; nuclear, even. He could try to convince voters of existing jobs ‘saved’ by his party; that all that appears to have gone wrong so far was due to Bush’s eight years in office and Republicans’ mindless knee-jerk opposition; that he had been (albeit barely) successful in averting total economic collapse. He could warn of slippage; of a repeat of the past two years’ struggle (against good sense).

Angle has no such arguments. She can only paint Reid’s reign as ‘failure’, promising change without resume or clout. JB is right. It could be close.

Say what you will, Harry Reid has proven himself a master in the political arts. His mastery, however, only extends to the intricacies of political maneuvering in the ‘glass bead game' as it is played in far-away Washington. And Washington will be eager to come to Reid’s aid.

There remains the sense, though, that Washington is no longer wedded to the people’s best interests; that Washington is strictly out for itself; and that the worst is yet to come. The gusher in the Gulf is a metaphor for a whole basket of gushing threats to our liberty; the private sector economy; American influence abroad; and, perhaps most troubling of all, American identity.

It is still unclear if the average American voter appreciates the implication of America’s overall slide into irrelevance due to a series of highly coordinated domestic and international efforts; or if he even cares about who (on the world stage) thinks what of us. These are issues that are generally left in the hands of high-ranking officials who receive their salaries precisely to handle such things in our stead, leaving us to provide for our families and keeping our neighborhoods safe.

Since Obama has been in office, there are many now crying ‘fire!’ in our crowded theater. While most of us do not yet smell smoke, our suspicions have nevertheless been heightened. We tend to look more closely at things. Many have taken to connecting the dots. Overwhelmingly, the picture that emerges is troubling.

The word has gotten out and can no longer be ignored and buried in an avalanche of distracting minutia. Is Reid even aware of the groundswell that is building against Washington with which he is joined at the hip? Or does he remain blithely confident that pre-2009 tactics will work as they always did. The MSM certainly continues to do it’s best to cover but the bare surface of our metaphorical oil slick. By making Nevada’s November senatorial election out to be a horse race, JB himself hopes we will keep tuning in.

I predict right now that Reid will lose badly – not that it makes much difference with Schumer and Durbin standing in the wings. It will nevertheless send yet another signal to Washington that its gig - one way or another* – is up.
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*read carefully.