Hey. AARP crowd. You’re being played.

Are you really stupid enough to believe that the government is going to fiddle with your end of life decisions? Are you dumb enough to believe that Senator Charles Grassley is anything except your run of the mill, truth twisting politician? Do you really believe he gives a rat’s backside about you or your problems?

Here’s the deal: There is a way you can lose in this health care debate. But, it’s not the way you think. Read more »

Okay. So now we’ve recovered (somewhat) from our sticker shock on our beautiful house in Scottsdale. The next questions we have is: What can I do to get myself into this house using the Payment + Interest + Taxes + Insurance formula?

Well, there’s good news and bad news here.

The good news is Read more »

77% of Americans say "yes" to the choice of a public option. That’s good enough for me, and it should be good enough for our so called "representatives" in Congress.

What say we put the Public Option on the 2010 ballot as a public referendum and take it out of the hands of the 5-year-olds who toddle the halls of the world’s largest daycare center (a.k.a. the U.S. Capitol building)?

By the way, my back-channel Wall Street sources indicate the U.S. Congress is the biggest consumer of diapers and pacifiers in the free world.

Leave me a comment and let me know if you favor a referendum on the public option and why, or why not.

Although I said I wasn’t going to say anything more about healthcare reform, there is a new development that compels me to resubmit this post for your consideration.

Here’s the deal: The polls were clear. They were sliced and diced, and the results were still the same: 72% of Americans wanted a Public Option.77% of Americans still support the choice of a Public Option!

Now, amidst a massive amount of throat clearing, hedging, and deer-in-the-headlights looks, We The People are being told that the Public Option is more or less dead. My congratulations to all you town hall screamers, GOP organizers, and health care and insurance company lobbyists. You have just managed to do the very thing the Constitution was designed to guard against.

You have taken over the United States of America. The revolution is over. You won.

Who would have thought that it would be a bloodless coup? Who would have considered that the people of the United States would go out not with a bang, but a whimper. Who would have thought that not one shot would be fired, not one body buried, not one building set ablaze?

You deserve kudos. You really do. Because, you understood more than anyone else that the U.S.Congress, and thus America, was for sale. You saw before the rest of us that the Statue of Liberty is not a symbol of freedom and democracy, but a street corner whore available to whoever has a buck to shove her way.

All you screamers and organizers and lobbyists deserve a lot for this, and I hope you get everything you deserve. As for me, you will not see another post here about health care reform.  Because, as I said: (Okay, I lied.)

The war is over.

I didn’t know Bob Novak personally. I did, like most people, develop some perceptions of him over the years.

So, here’s the deal:

1. I admired his passion for his work. Whether I agreed with him or not, I always got the feeling he believed what he said.
2. I always thought he was an egotistical bastard.
3. He made an egregious, unforgivable error when he outed Valerie Plame. Outing any active, undercover operative of any U.S. intelligence agency is a morally and ethically reprehensible act, and he should have been indicted for it.
4. I feel a little sorry for him, because his ego ultimately got him played by the Bush Administration.
5. He forgot the Prime Directive of his profession: Never let yourself become the story.

Things like this make me wonder if the country is worth saving.

Just disgraceful.

How to Determine How Much House You Can Afford

Notice I didn’t say how much house you can buy. There are all kinds of vehicles that will let you buy as big a house as you want. But, buying that big house and keeping that big house are two completely different things. Lots of people bought big houses. Lots of people are being foreclosed on. Because they bought more house than they could afford.

So, how do you figure out how much house you can afford? Read more »

There’s a dirty little secret to this health care reform debate. It’s something no one’s talking about. But, it’s out there just the same. Headed straight for a lot of us like an asteroid headed toward the planet.

Take a look at this chart put together by CalculatedRisk.

It shows how unemployment has tracked over time by education level.

See the red line? Read more »

What do you get when you cross a moron with an idiot?

A line was crossed yesterday. Crossed not by some flamboyant cowboy type, but by a plain looking guy in New Hampshire who decided to go to a town hall with a loaded gun strapped to his hip. A town hall where the President of the United States was scheduled to speak. The guy’s name is William Kostric.

Now, this isn’t going where you think it might go. In fact, this is going to an entirely different place.

It’s tempting to label all these people nut jobs, as many already have. But, of all the things you could do with these people, the last thing you want to do

Read more »

There’s a lot of yelling and screaming going on by the so-called tea-baggers and their supporters in the GOP and Congress about freedom of speech and Nazis. The problem with all of this is that the vast majority of these people don’t have the vaguest idea what they’re talking about. So, here’s the deal:

You have the right to free speech. You don’t have the right to be disruptive to the point that those who are in the room for a legitimate reason can’t hear or exercise their rights to free speech. Just as you can’t yell "fire" in a crowded theater, your right to free speech extends only so far as it does not interfere with my right to free speech and my right to hear someone else speak.

As for the Nazi thing that Mr. Beck and Ms. Bachmann and others are yelling at the tops of their collective lungs: They wouldn’t know an honest-to-God Nazi if one bit them in the ass. If this really were truly a Nazi thing, those protesters being bussed all over hell’s half-acre on behalf of the GOP would either have been gunned down on the streets or hauled off to concentration camps by now, never to be seen or heard from again.

Congresswoman Bachmann? Suddenly didn’t show up for work today. Mr. Beck? Oh, he was hauled off the set right in the middle of his show after being beaten silly on camera.

Townhall? Forget about it. This bill would be law by now. No debate, civil or otherwise. Want to protest the fact that no one asked your opinion or tried to explain the bill to you? Nothing was more effective for the Nazis than to blow a protester’s brains all over the sidewalk. Tended to change people’s priorities real quick.

Net/net: This ain’t even close to the Nazis, and I don’t think anybody really ought to be going there. It’s offensive. It’s ignorant. And it’s not even close to being reality.

After reading Bill Maher’s August 7 post on the Huffington Post, I decided to repost this article. I can’t tell if America is getting more ignorant, or if it was always that way and the internet and 24 hour cable has just brought it to light. Either way, it’s very disturbing. Read more »

Looks like Jesus saw these three coming 2000 years ago.

Read more »

Something very insidious and very clever has crept into the political landscape of America. It is the notion that the government can wage war on a concept, rather than on another government. Like the War on Drugs. Or the War on Climate Change. Or the War on Terror.

Terror is not something you can fight. Terror is, by definition,

Read more »

This article from the Huffington Post absolutely floored me. What the hell did anyone expect? Here’s a news flash for all you fat cats sitting on your asses inside the beltway arguing about the economy:

Read more »

This is the first of a series of posts designed to help keep you from driving off the cliff as you navigate the treacherous road to first time home ownership. I decided to write this because so many people got burned by all of the scam and sham mortgages that were (and still are) out there. I have been a homeowner for 20 years. I have bought 4 houses and sold 3. I have lived in my current home for 15 years, and refinanced my mortgage on this home 3 times.

That said, I don’t pretend to be an expert. I am definitely not the end-all and be-all of home buying and home ownership. But, there are certain things that don’t change. These are the fundamentals. I learned them through experience, and I want to share them with you for what they’re worth.

If you find anything in this series to be helpful, I would appreciate it if you would send me a comment and let me know. Now, let’s get started. Read more »