Communism in the USA

Hot Tub Party… Some Nice Racks

Jews Serving In The Lithuanian Army

A friend of mine stumbled across material about Jews serving in the Lithuanian Army. You don’t hear much about this topic. Still a number of Lithuanian Jews even won the Cross of Vytis during the War of Independence. If you are interested in Lithuanian or Jewish history check out: http://www.jewishgen.org/yizkor/Dusetos/dus070.html

Make Mine Freedom (1948)

Should We Buy Them Larger Screen Computers – Or – A Ticket Home, Permanently?

State of Connecticut House Minority Leader Lawrence F. Cafero Jr., R-Norwalk, pictured standing, far right, speaks while colleagues Rep. Barbara Lambert, D-Milford and Rep. Jack F. Hennessy, D-Bridgeport, play solitaire Monday night as the House convened to vote on a new budget.

The guy sitting in the row in front of these two… he’s on Facebook, and the guy behind Hennessy is checking out the baseball scores.

They haven’t got time to read the bills they vote on but they can play solitaire and check ball scores!!!

 

A Shortage Of Ammunition

In a year of job losses, foreclosures and bag lunches, Americans have spent record-breaking amounts of money on guns and ammunition. The most obvious sign of their demand: empty ammunition shelves.

Gun owners have bought about 12 billion rounds of ammunition in the past year, industry officials estimate. That’s up from 7 billion to 10 billion in a normal year.

The rush for bullets, like this year’s increase in gun sales, says something about how suspicious the two sides in the gun-control debate are of each other, even at a time when the issue is on Washington’s back burner.

The Obama factor

Democrats prompt sales of both guns and ammo. The U.S. government taxes both to support wildlife conservation, and those receipts are on pace to set a record in 2009, according to Treasury Department data, with tax revenue due from guns up 42 percent and revenue due from ammunition at 49 percent.

For gun owners, the run on ammunition has created shortages and price increases on everything from cheap .22-caliber bullets used for target shooting to the expensive hollow-point 9mm rounds bought for home defense.

Reason for alarm?

“I think it’s Katrina. I think it’s terrorism. I think it’s crime. And I also think that it’s people worrying about [whether] they’ll be attacked by politicians,” said Wayne LaPierre, executive vice president of the National Rifle Association. “They’re suspicious, and justifiably so.”

CIT Bankruptcy Filing Will Cost US Taxpayers Another $2.3 Billion

CIT group, America’s leading specialist lender to small business, filed for Chapter 11 November 1^st night in the fifth biggest bankruptcy in US history.

The collapse of the 101-year-old Utah-based lender, which trails behind only those of Lehman Brothers, Washington Mutual, Worldcom and General Motors in size, will leave US taxpayers with a $2.3 billion bill.

It is believed the board of CIT, which has $71 billion of loans, approved the filing after its creditors agreed a pre-packaged plan designed to ensure it emerges from bankruptcy with the core of its business intact.

Only last year, US financial regulators judged CIT sufficiently well-capitalized to survive. The lender was given access to $2.3 billion of funding under the Troubled Asset Relief Program (Tarp).

The bank’s collapse will be a blow for its million small and medium-sized customers, many in the retail sector, for whom sources of debt are scarce. Experts believe that, even if CIT can emerge intact from Chapter 11, its lending capacity could fall by 20 per cent.

The entire $2.3 billion Tarp loan is expected to be wiped out by the bankruptcy process. While the US Government helped other big non-bank lenders, including GMAC, General Motor’s finance arm, it rebuffed CIT’s subsequent bailout requests in July, concluding that its demise would not threaten the broad financial system.

Halloween Scare Photo

The Year is 1909

1909 FORD Model

The year is 1909 – One hundred years ago.
What a difference a century makes!

Here are some statistics for the Year 1909:

The average life expectancy was 47 years.
Only 14 percent of the homes had a bathtub.
Only 8 percent of the homes had a telephone.

There were only 8,000 cars and only 144 miles of paved roads.
The maximum speed limit in most cities was 10 mph.

The tallest structure in the world was the Eiffel Tower!

The average wage in 1909 was 22 cents per hour.
The average worker made between $200 and $400 per year…

A competent accountant could expect to earn $2000 per year, a dentist $2,500 per year, a veterinarian between $1,500 and $4,000 per year, and a mechanical engineer about $5,000 per year.

More than 95 percent of all births took place at HOME ..

Ninety percent of all doctors had NO COLLEGE EDUCATION!
Instead, they attended so-called medical schools, many of which
were condemned in the press AND the government as ’substandard.’

Sugar cost four cents a pound.
Eggs were fourteen cents a dozen.
Coffee was fifteen cents a pound.

Most women only washed their hair once a month, and used Borax or egg yolks for shampoo.

Canada passed a law that prohibited poor people from
Entering into their country for any reason…

Five leading causes of death were:
1. Pneumonia and influenza
2. Tuberculosis
3. Diarrhea
4. Heart disease
5. Stroke

The American flag had 45 stars.

The population of Las Vegas, Nevada , was only 30!!!!

Crossword puzzles, canned beer, and ice tea
hadn’t been invented yet.

There was no Mother’s Day or Father’s Day.

Two out of every 10 adults couldn’t read or write.
Only 6 percent of all Americans had graduated from high school.

Marijuana, heroin, and morphine were all available over the counter at the local corner drugstores.

Back then pharmacists said, ‘Heroin clears the complexion, gives buoyancy to the mind, regulates the stomach and bowels, and is, in fact, a perfect guardian of health’

Eighteen percent of households had at least one full-time servant or domestic help.

There were about 230 reported murders in the ENTIRE U.S.A.!
Mainly because there was a firearm of some sort in almost every home!

Try to imagine what it may be like in another 100 years.

Democrats Seek Cover To Boost Debt Limit

The Senate must soon increase the national debt limit to above $13 trillion — and Democrats are looking for political cover.

Knowing they will face unyielding GOP attacks for voting to increase the eye-popping debt, Democrats are considering attaching a debt increase provision to a must-pass bill, possibly the Defense Department spending bill, according to Democratic and Republican sources.

Adding it to the defense bill would allow Democrats to argue that they voted for the measure to help troops in harm’s way — and downplay that their vote also expanded the limit for how much money the country can borrow.

The strategy has not yet been finalized, aides and senators said. The House already approved a debt limit increase of $925 billion — above the $12.1 trillion ceiling Congress approved as part of the economic stimulus package last February — but Democrats may seek to increase the limit further so they don’t have to revisit the politically treacherous issue until after the 2010 midterm elections.

GOP Senate leaders — who expect their 40 members to unite against the debt limit increase and force Democrats to find the necessary 60 votes on their own — are eager to have a protracted amendment process on the floor.

“My guess is that we will try to offer some amendments to [the increase] because I think it’ll be a good opportunity for us to have a debate on spending and borrowing, and that’s obviously a debate that we want to engage in,” said Sen. John Thune (R-S.D.), No. 4 in the GOP leadership.

To read the entire article go to http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1009/28586.html