Amber’s Beauty Chair: ‘How to Wear Tall Boots With Denim Jeans’

Posted on May 7, 2011 by Erik Schneider

Fashion Hack_ How to wear tall boots with jeans

Source:Amber’s Beauty Chair– Amber, in her jeans in boots.

Source:The Daily Press

“Fashion Hack: How to wear tall boots with jeans”

From Amber’s Beauty Chair

To me a sexy woman is a woman that’s of course at least pretty, cute as well, but in a sexy way and not sounding and looking like a little girl with the personality to match, but looks and sounds sweet, but looks and sounds like a grown up woman, as well a being well-built, with tight curves, a woman who stays in shape and eats full balanced meals.

Not an obese woman who looks like they live in front of all you can eat buffets. Or a stick-figure who eats nothing but rice cakes, vegetables., fruit and vomits half of that up. But a well-built healthy woman and what they look sexiest in as well as still looking classy with style, not looking like a woman who needs to look good to make a living, like a prostitute for example. To me the sexiest clothing on women are tight jeans, skinny jeans that are low-rise, but don’t show a woman’s butt crack when they stand up or bend over.

But tight modern jeans and one thing that’s great about tight jeans, as well as their sex appeal, is their versatility. Women can where them casually with a t-shirt or tank top. Like on the weekends or to appointments and shopping. Or in some cases where them to work, with a suit jacket, blouse, sweater. They can where them when they are going out on the town. They look great with leather, boots and jackets especially, as well as suede.

Every time I see a sexy woman on the street or in a store or at a restaurant or bar, or at a ball game, it’s like being in paradise for me. It’s a great moment that’s hard not to forget. Especially watching sexy women walk, especially up stairs or bending over. Men should thank God that sexy women love tight jeans and where them as often as they do.

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The Hill: Bernie Becker- ‘Members Eager For White House Tax Plan’

Posted on May 6, 2011 by Erik Schneider

Members eager for White House tax plan - Google Search

Source:NPR News– House Republicans talking about their own tax plan.

“Lawmakers on both sides of the aisle are eager for the Obama administration to release its blueprint for corporate tax reform.

Members said the unveiling of the plan would help move the reform discussion forward into specifics and provide a starting point for congressional action.

“I frankly would welcome any proposal that the administration has on tax reform,” Rep. Dave Camp (R-Mich.), the chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, told reporters Wednesday. “We’re having conversations. I know they’re looking at things.”

There is wide agreement in Washington that the U.S. tax code, now a quarter-century removed from its last overhaul, is in dire need of a tune-up. Prominent policymakers in both parties have said they would like to see both the individual and corporate code revamped, but the administration seems to have put more stock in corporate reform.”

From The Hill

The White House should release a tax reform plan that includes corporate tax reform, but they should actually write a bill, instead of just a series of speeches or a list of goals.

There’s bipartisan support in Congress in both the House and Senate for tax reform. And both sides even have similar goals, to broaden the tax base and lower the tax rates. President Obama supports a similar plan and here’s an opportunity to reach a bipartisan agreement on a key issue. Something the President has wanted to do since he’s been President.

The Republican Leadership who calculated the more they were against the White House, the better chance they would have to win majorities in the House and Senate. But I believe the President’s goal has been laudable, but for him to reach it, he’s going to have to play a bigger part than to just say: “Hey guys, work out something amongst yourselves (meaning the House and Senate) and let me know what you come up with.” The way it works in Washington, for any major piece of legislation to become law, the President has to play a big role or nothing gets done. And the House and Senate just argue instead.

Tax Reform including corporate tax reform to me is pretty simple, but maybe thats because I think about it way too much. But the way to do it, is simple: eliminate most if not all loopholes, and lower the rates. Instead of high rates and loopholes, let more people spend more of their own money the way they feel they need too. Instead of government telling people how to spend their own money.

You think corporations and high-earn individuals pay too little in taxes, then you should be for tax reform and they would no longer be able to avoid paying taxes on such a high percentage of their taxes.

If you feel America is not competitive enough in the world, then you should be for tax reform, because if we eliminate loopholes, then we could lower our corporate tax and they would be able to keep more jobs at home, because there are lower tax rates in Europe.

So there are multiple reasons of tax reform, another one for the President is that it would be such a huge accomplishment, that would be part of the President Obama’s legacy. But more importantly is that it would be great for our economy.

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Associated Press: Sagar Meghani- ‘Can We Win in Afghanistan?’

Posted on May 4, 2011 by Erik Schneider

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Source:Associated Press– American taxpayer funded troops in Afghanistan.

“President Barack Obama has ordered 17,000 more U.S. troops to help fight the war against the Taliban in Afghanistan. Can the U.S. prevail where others, including the Russians, have failed? (March 4)”

From the Associated Press 

President George W. Bush when he declared mission accomplished in Iraq in June or July 2003, after the U.S. military knocked out the Saddam Hussein regime there, took a lot of political heat, especially in the summer and fall of 2003 after it became clear that there were no more weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, which was the original justification for America invading Iraq in the first place in 2003.

But imagine if President Bush declared mission accomplished in Afghanistan in December, 2001 after we knocked out the Taliban Regime there and essentially told the Afghans: “Look, we’ve done our part and we’ll help you and train your people to be able to defend themselves and will give you resources to do that, but you need to defend your own country, if you don’t want the Taliban to come back.”

Of course hindsight is 20/20, but saying that is also Captain Obvious on his best day, but what the Bush Administration did instead and what the Obama Administration is continuing to say is: “We’re going to stay in Afghanistan until the job is done.” Which gives Afghans in the impression that they don’t need to defend themselves, because Uncle Sam and his nephews and nieces will always be there for them.

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The New Republic: Leon Wieseltier- ‘Osama Bin Gotten’

Posted on May 2, 2011 by Erik Schneider

Osama-Bin-Gotten_jpeg

Source:Josh Lyman– Americans celebrating the assassination of Al Qaeda terrorist leader Osama Bin Laden, in Washington.

“A few days after September 11, 2001, my wife and I walked down to the White House. The city was stilled with grief and fear. It was not yet clear that the danger had passed. The airport was closed. On television the doomed planes kept crashing into the towers and the doomed towers kept collapsing, until the horror began to feel a little unreal. The flood of words, the immediate eruption of understanding and analysis, the unseemly triumph over shock and silence, was having a similar effect. To preserve the sting of reality, we left the house for the nervous city. Lafayette Park was almost deserted. The quiet knew nothing of peace. The empty sky was an emblem of dread. There were snipers on the roof of the White House, which suddenly had the aspect of a target. We sat on a bench as a small expression of resolve, as an act of solidarity with the normal life that seemed under threat, and with the struggle that was to come. The American insulation had come undone. It was one of those moments—our strong and lucky history has spared us many such grim epiphanies—when you recognize again how much your country, how much this country, matters.”

From The New Republic

The killing of Osama Bin Laden the most dangerous terrorist in the world, was a justifiable homicide of a global serial murderer, who’s responsible for the murderers of thousands if not millions of innocent people. Including Muslims and Arabs, people Bin Laden claimed to love. The killing of Bin Laden closes a big chapter the first chapter in the War on Terror. A chapter that people around the world have been reading about for over nine years.

The first chapter of the so-called War On Terror included the World Trade Center in New York one of the greatest cities in the world, being blown up, because of planes being intentionally crashed into them. Which gave new meaning to the term kamikaze mission. Except it wasn’t a pilot taking his own life, but the life of thousands of others where people who were guilty of nothing other than going to work that, what look like a beautiful hot Tuesday morning, September 11th, 2001, but we’re caught in the middle of Osama Bin Laden’s battle on America. And we’re the innocent victims of Bin Laden’s war.

Some of the victims of 9/11 being so desperate, that they took their own lives, instead of waiting to be burned to death, by jumping out of the World Trade Center. As well an another suicide flight into the Pentagon in Washington, the symbol of our American military. Again, people there being guilty of nothing more than just going to work that day. And of course another suicide flight in Pennsylvania. Eliminating Bin Laden closes that miserable chapter in American history and gives Americans the opportunity to move forward with the rest of their lives.

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Business Insurance: Jerry Geisel: ‘Vermont Closer to Single-Payer Health Care System’

Posted on April 28, 2011 by Erik Schneider

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Source:The Progressive– rally for government-run health insurance in the Socialist Republic of Vermont.

“MONTPELIER, Vt.—The Vermont Senate has approved legislation that would move the state closer to a single-payer health care system.

H.B. 202, which cleared the Senate Tuesday on a 21-9 vote, would establish a five-member board to develop a health care benefits package that would be available to all state residents through a new state insurance exchange.”

From Business Insurance

If the State of Vermont decides to either by law through their Legislature and Governor, or by ballot that they want single-payer health insurance, then thats their right. This would qualify as a State Right, the ability to govern your own State. But it shouldn’t be forced on the rest of the country through the Federal Government, how the rest of the country should get their health insurance.

Even though the Vermont single-payer plan is called single-payer, looks like not all Vermonters would have to choose it. Looks like it will just be a choice and they don’t even know how to pay for it yet.

Californians have tried to in the pass to install a single-payer health insurance plan through the ballot box, but they haven’t passed one yet. When the Federal Government was considering health care reform back in 2009-10 and finally passed the Affordable Care Act in March 2010, they never even considered a single-payer health insurance plan. Even though thats was Democratic Socialists in Congress wanted.

Senator Bernie Sanders even has a bill that would make it illegal to set up a private health insurance company. Representative Dennis Kucinich has a Medicare For All single-payer plan that would eliminate private health insurance company’s. But these proposals were never even formally considered in Congress, because there was no chance just like now, that they were ever going to pass either the House or Senate. Only the so-called Progressive Caucus would probably vote for them.

As a Liberal, I believe in federalism and the 10th Amendment. I’m not personally in favor of government-run health care and health insurance with the government being the only option around as far as where we can get our health care and health insurance. But as a Federalist I believe the states, including Vermont have the right to go that way and pass government-run health insurance onto their people if they choose to as a state. And of course for people who don’t want that, they can always moved to another state, like New Hampshire or Maine.

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The New Republic: Jonathan Cohn- ‘As If Privatizing Medicare Wasn’t Enough’

Posted on April 26, 2011 by Erik Schneider

Your Road Map To Paul Ryan’s Plan To Privatize Medicare _ Talking Points Memo

Source:Talking Points Memo– U.S. Representative Paul Ryan (Republican, Wisconsin) Chairman of the House Budget Committee.

“Discussion of the House Republican budget has focused mostly on the privatization of Medicare, the block-granting of Medicaid, and the repeal of the Affordable Care Act. And that’s appropriate, given the magnitude of the changes and widespread impact they would have. But those proposals are obscuring some other proposed shifts that, in any other context, would be plenty troubling for their own sake. This week I’ll highlight five of them. On Monday, I talked about radical changes to the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program (SNAP). Today I return to a health care issue:”

From The New Republic

Well it looks like it’s official: the House GOP Leadership wants to end Medicare and Medicaid, not just reform them, but end them. They believe they can balance the Federal budget on the backs of the people who need these social insurance programs.

At first House Republicans were only concentrating on 13% of the Federal budget (or 481B$ in a 3.7T$ Federal budget) with a budget deficit of 1.6T$ and a national debt of roughly 14T$, but then they would only offer budget cuts of around 50-60B$ a year. It would be at least twenty years before they could balance the budget at that pace.

But now the House GOP has stepped up their game with Medicare and Medicaid, two health insurance programs that together are over 700B$ a year. They represent 20% of the Federal budget. I don’t like what they are doing here, but at least they are talking about real money now. And at least put something on the table.

But the House GOP has two problems: one on substance and the other political. Turning Medicare into a voucher system and forcing people off of Medicare, cuts back choice in Medicare. Senior citizens wouldn’t be able to choose Medicare for their health insurance. That cuts back on choice, which is both a policy as well a political problem for the House GOP Leadership.

From a political perspective I want Congressional Democrats as well as the White House to treat the GOP Medicare plan for what it is and go after it. Try to make it as unpopular as the Affordable Care Act was in 2010. House GOP fundraising totals are down and their members are feeling the heat from their Medicare vote of a few weeks ago. While at the same time the White House and the Democratic Senate led by the Democratic Leadership should be offering their own proposals to reform Medicare and Medicaid. As well a broader approach to cutting the deficit and debt.

What the White House offered a couple of weeks ago is not serious. Its mainly goals and objectives, not a serious policy document. President Obama hasn’t been serious in this debate yet. Even though he is the President, he’s been waiting for the House GOP to go first, so he can use this issue against him. And his approval rating has fallen.

Both Medicare and Medicaid need to be reformed, but not to the extent where they are no longer familiar, or no longer in operation, but where they are both cost-effective and provide a better service.

We can’t balance our budget without addressing these two programs that represent over 20% of the Federal budget. Just like we can’t balance the budget without addressing the Defense Department. Another 20% of the Federal Budget.

Representative Paul Ryan would have more credibility on fiscal responsibility, if he addressed national defense and the waste in that as well. Like defending developed nations that can afford to defend themselves. But he hasn’t done that and has instead taken an ideological route to deficit reduction and offering a plan that he knows is DOA in the Senate. Meaning the President would never even get a chance to veto it.

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The Hill: John T. Bennett: ‘With All Eyes On Deficit, Hawks Know Pentagon Cuts Are Coming’

Posted on April 20, 2011 by Erik Schneider

With all eyes on deficit, hawks know Pentagon cuts are coming _ TheHill

Source:The Hill– The Pentagon, which is obviously home of the U.S. Department of Defense, but also the home of hundreds of billions in deficit spending the last 10 years.

“Defense insiders on and off Capitol Hill increasingly acknowledge more cuts are ahead for the Pentagon as lawmakers and the administration intensify their efforts to reduce the nation’s deficit.

They say the political battle will focus on the size and nature of spending reductions and that major weapons programs could be spared from the cuts.

President Obama has set a marker of reducing defense spending by $400 billion through 2023.
This promises new cuts to his 2012 budget request, made just a few months ago, of $553 billion for the Pentagon.”

From The Hill

Anyone who says and believes that there’s no waste in the Defense Department, even though the Secretary of Defense (a Republican, by the way) and the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs believes there is, is out to lunch and never came back. Perhaps they went to a marijuana festival and never came back down. Left the real world to get a break from reality or is simply lying.

Secretary Gates would like to eliminate 50B$ a year in defense waste. Even Representative Paul Ryan Chairman, of the Budget Committee (no one’s hippie, pacifist, dove) acknowledges that there’s waste in the Defense Department with his budget plan. Members of the Tea Party have acknowledge this and have said that everything should be on the table when it comes to deficit reduction. The Speaker of the House John Boehner (no one’s hippie, Marxist-Communist) has acknowledged that defense spending should be on the table when it comes to deficit reduction. It’s only Neoconservatives and deficit Hawks (the John Bolton’s of the world) who believe otherwise.

President Obama and Senate Leader Reid will never get a clean debt ceiling bill from House Speaker Boehner who has made that clear. Any debt ceiling bill will have additional budget cuts in it. Especially with Standards and Poor’s downgrading American debt on Monday. That just makes this more clear. Which I think this is a good thing, because if you are going to request to borrow even more money, then you should show some ability to pay it back, especially when your debt equals your net worth. In this case the American economy of 14T$, but with a national debt of over 90% of that.

I say great, let’s make more budget cuts, even though the Federal Government just agreed to a record one year budget cut two weeks ago. I say great, let’s put in the defense cuts that Secretary Gates wants as well as eliminate subsidy’s for big oil and gas. And let these people play their role in “Shared Sacrifice” as well.

The House GOP as much as they might want will never be able to balance the Federal budget by just by cutting 13% of the Federal budget. Defense, entitlements, corporate welfare represent most of the budget. And there’s plenty of waste that taxpayers finance to go around. In other words: everything should be on the table to either cut or at least reform.

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The New Republic: Jeffrey Rosen: ‘Why Are Conservatives, Not Liberals, Fixated On Amending The Constitution’

Posted on April 18, 2011 by Erik Schneider

Why are conservatives, not liberals, fixated on amending the Constitution_ - Google Search

Source:The Conversation– the U.S. Constitution.

“On January 22, the first anniversary of the Supreme Court’s Citizens United decision, I attended a summit called We the Corporations v. We the People, sponsored by the Coffee Party, a network of liberals, leftists and progressives. The summit was designed to rally support for a constitutional amendment to overturn Citizens United by declaring that corporations are not entitled to the constitutional protections of natural persons. But the attendance was sparse, the energy subdued, and the keynote speaker, Harvard Law professor Lawrence Lessig, urged the activists in attendance to scale back their ambitions and forego the push for a constitutional amendment, which he warned would not solve the problem of corporate corruption.”

From The New Republic

One of the reasons why I’m a Liberal is because I love the U.S. Constitution and Bill of Rights with all the freedom and rights it guarantees. America might be the only republic in the world thats in a form of a liberal democracy, as much as Conservatives might hate that, it’s true, America is a liberal democracy. They argue that America is not a liberal democracy but a republic instead, because we are not purely governed by majoritarian rule. But the fact is we are a liberal, democratic republic. Not in a political party sense, but a governmental sense, because of all of individual rights that we have like property rights, but free speech, freedom of religion, right to privacy, self-defense, the limitations that we put on government as checks on it, but also to protect our individual rights.

Since I love the Constitution, even though its not perfect and think it’s a great document the way it is, I’m not for changing it. There’s not one single proposed constitutional Amendment that I’m in favor of, or one that I would come up with on my own. I’m a constitutionalist because I support the constitution and believe its a great document as it stands.

One of the reasons why the Founding Fathers (our Founding Liberals) made it so difficult to amend the Constitution and why there have only been twenty some odd amendments to it (sorry, I’m not a lawyer or try to play one on TV or on the computer) is because even though they didn’t write a perfect document from the start. With women not being able to vote, slavery not being abolished. Africans not being treated as a whole person in America, and they thought they had a hell of a document and they didn’t want it messed with.

So when I hear people who call themselves Constitutionalists or Constitutional Conservatives and yet they keep proposing new amendments to the Constitution or try to overturn current parts of the Constitution, which is what we’re seeing from the Tea Party in the House of Representatives today, I want to ask them what parts of the Constitution do you want to conserve.

And if you really are a Constitutionalist, how come there’s so much of the Constitution that you don’t like and want to throw out.

Being a Conservative is about conserving, not blowing up the establishment and replacing it with some new system and government. Which is what a lot of these so-called Tea Party Conservatives seem to want to do.

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The Hill: Erik Wasson & Pete Kasperowicz- ‘House Passes Paul Ryan’s ’12 Budget; Conservatives want more cuts’

Posted on April 15, 2011 by Erik Schneider

House passes Ryan's '12 budget; conservatives want more cuts - Google Search

Source:The Hill– House Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (Republican Wisconsin) Majority Leader Eric Cantor (Republican, Virginia) and Majority Whip Kevin McCarthy (Republican, California)

“The House on Friday approved a fiscal year 2012 budget resolution from Budget Committee Chairman Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) that seeks to drastically limit government spending next year and in years to follow.

But the vote on the measure — which imposes $5.8 trillion in spending cuts over the next decade — came after a clear sign that at least half of the Republican Caucus supports even tougher spending cuts.”

From The Hill

The House Republican budget passed in the House today without a single Democratic vote, as well as four Republicans voting against the budget. This budget was already DOA in the Democratic Senate, but what this means with 235 members voting for it, that even if it did somehow passed in the Senate (and cancer was cured tomorrow) that with just 235 votes, the House GOP would be fifty-five votes shy of overriding a presidential veto, which President Obama has already said he would do. If somehow the bill ever made it to his desk on Wednesday, the President once again laid out his opposition in what can be called his first campaign speech for 2012, his opposition to the House GOP budget plan.

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The New Republic: Jonathan Cohn: ‘President Obama to Talk Entitlement Reform’

Posted on April 11, 2011 by Erik Schneider

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Source:The Week– President Barack H. Obama (Democrat, Illinois) 44th President of the United States.

“The big news on Sunday was the announcement, from senior White House adviser David Plouffe, that President Obama plans to make a major policy speech about how to reduce the deficit. And I am worried–not about the substantive position Obama will stake out, but how that positioning will affect the rest of the debate about federal spending.

The speech will be Obama’s formal response to House Budget Chairman Paul Ryan, who last week put forward a Republican blueprint for balancing the government’s books. And Plouffe made clear on several Sunday shows that Obama is no fan of Ryan’s proposed scheme, which would transform Medicare into a voucher program, dramatically reduce the federal commitment to Medicaid, and extend the Bush tax cuts.”

From The New Republic

I think if you’re going to be a real Progressive, you have to acknowledge the fact that you not believe that government can be used in a positive way and positive force to bring progress for people, but that it’s funded by the people who receive those services (the taxpayers) and for government to be as progressive as possible, it also has to be fiscally responsible as possible, because it’s consumed by the people who pay for it.

What President Obama is doing is saying that our so-called entitlement programs aren’t run on monopoly money or leaves that fall from the trees, but paid for by the people consume and will consume those services.

To be a true Progressive, you have to also believe in fiscal responsibility, because you believe in government programs and you know who has to pay for those programs.

By acknowledging that our entitlement system has financial holes in it, President Obama is just acknowledging the obvious and trying to be fiscally responsible for the 320 million Americans that he works for.

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