Note to WSJ BOTWT asking why US national debt lists...

... do not show national debt decreasing for the 4 years Bubba (ably assisted by Republican congresses) allegedly had surpluses In 72 months with a Republican (spending initiating) House of Reps... Monday, June 27, 2011 7:40 AM ... George W Bush had an average monthly deficit of $20 billion: $1.4 trillion total. In 24 months w/ a Democrat congress, O'wutzisname had a monthly average deficit of $135 billion: $3.2 trillion total. House/Senate joint resolution of 10 October 2002 listed 22 reasons (Whereas...) to invade Iraq (w/o even once using the word 'oil') has 1350 words. I'm sure there were some members of Congress who did not read this entire document, but I would hopefully guess it was read by more Republican members than Democrats. I feel certain George W Bush read it more than once. ObamaScare (The Affordable care act etc) has 2100 pages. I have not yet determined how many words it has per page. How many hands would it take to count how many members of Congress have read all 2100 pages? Somehow I feel certain BH Obama did not. The 2011 World Almanac shows the US Federal Government running surpluses in FYs 1998, 1999, 2000 and 2001 (the first in 40 years.) This point listed in case you haven't heard AlGore announce it. But a listing of the annual national debt in the same publication doesn't show the national debt going down in even one of those years. Any idea why this surplus was not applied to the debt, as it was the last time it happened (1951)? Arn Nelson in CHicago

Letter to ChiTrib chiding them on misuse of Carl Sandburg quote

Chicago Tribune

Page 6, Monday 20 June 2011

Simple, elegant half-page ad, deservedly celebrating your recent redo...

But “Now with broader shoulders”?!?

Chicago has nothing to do with broad shoulders; let alone 'broader' shoulders. Other papers make the gaffe - a Wednesday 18 November 2009 Mary Schmich column referenced a Wednesday 21 August 1996 Wall Street Journal making doing it in an article featuring Chicago, but what do they know.)

Look up in your own archives:

Chicago Sunday Tribune 13 August 1916

Fanny Butcher Tabloid Book Review "Virile Chicago Poet"

"One of the most modern of the voices raised in song

is 'Chicago Poems,' by Carl Sandburg...:

"Chicago Hog Butcher of the World,

"Tool Maker, Stacker of Wheat,

"Player with Railroads and the Nation's Freight Handler

“Stormy, husky, brawling

"City of the Big Shoulders...."

Arnold H Nelson

5056 North Marine Drive 60640

773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Letter to US Financial Times explaining why USA went to war in Iraq

Chicago USA Saturday PM 18 June 2011

Editors, UK Financial Times

Gentlepeople:

A letter in the Saturday 18 June UK Financial Times "The real grounds for war with Iraq" says they were "the now disproven, misleading claims made by the US and Britain of Iraq’s possession of weapons of mass destruction...." The writer concludes wishing "commentators on contemporary affairs would avoid distorting patently accepted historical truths."

The only listing of the reasons for the US going to war in Iraq that mean anything were the 1300 words of the House/Senate joint resolution of October 10 2002, "To authorize the use of United States Armed Forces against Iraq"

. Many wish objectors to those statements would quote the actual sentence or phrase from that document they consider not a "historical truth."

Arnold H Nelson

5056 North Marine Drive Chicago USA

773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Note to WSJ BOTWT showing that CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR doesn't understand 'begging the question'

"CHRISTIANE AMANPOUR, HOST: You'd be hard-pressed to find a sex scandal involving a female politician these days, which begs the question, what if there were more women in politics and in positions of power? Would they change the way business is done from Wall Street to Washington and beyond?" http://www.newsbusters.org/blogs/noel-sheppard/2011/06/12/abcs-claire-shipman-group-all-white-men-are-not-going-reach-best-deci Arn Nelson in Chicago

Letter to WSJ trying to put Dorothy Rabinowitz back on the track

Chicago pm Sunday 5 June 2011

The Wall Street Journal OpEd “The Republican Who Can Win”

of Friday 3 June has Dorothy Rabinowitz opening with “The candidate would know Americans

are more worried about their jobs and their savings than abstractions like 'big government.'”

Big government an abstraction? In the Wall Street Journal? From the pen of Dorothy Rabinowitz?!?

The Journal on Monday 14 June 2010 had an OpEd by Gerald P. O'Driscoll Jr., former vice president at the Federal Reserve Bank of Dallas and vice president at Citigroup, “The Gulf Spill,

the Financial Crisis and Government Failure” opening with “The Gulf oil spill and the global financial crisis both demonstrate the failings of big government.”

Ms. Rabinowitz continues: “From the Republican side comes an incessant barrage of... proclamations that the nation is imperiled by the greatest crisis in a generation...” from “spending on social programs” with a “clamor for boldness—for massive cuts in entitlements....”

No one is proposing taking away SocialSecurity or Medicare from those already receiving them, because there is no need for that. All these people are at least 65 years old, and in 40 years they will all be gone, God rest their souls. What must be done is stop adding people to the taking side of these programs.

And that's completely legal according to the SCOTUS Fleming vs Nestor decision of 1961: “The noncontractual interest of an employee covered by the [Social Security] Act cannot be soundly analogized to that of the holder of an annuity, whose right to benefits are based on his contractual premium payments. To engraft upon the Social Security System a concept of 'accrued property rights' would deprive it of the flexibility and boldness in adjustment to ever-changing conditions which it demands and which Congress probably had in mind when it expressly reserved the right to alter, amend or repeal any provision of the Act."

Further, Ms. Rabinowitz refers to “voters of mature age” who have “spent their working lives paying into Social Security....” No wage earner has ever sent in a nickel to Social Security. The actual $ that went to the feds came from the employer bank account, never wage earners'. If the feds don't get the check, the employer goes to jail, never the wage earner.

It has been a tax on employers from the start. Since all employers must pay the tax, there is no competitive advantage for any employer to do any more than add it to the price of their product, thus converting the 'Social Security tax' to a silent, painless national sales tax. In 2009 this tax was 36% of total federal income.

Arnold H Nelson

5056 North Marine Drive Chicago 60640

773-677-3010 ah_nelson@yahoo.com

Note to WSJ BestOfTheWeb on Andrew McCarthy eliminating Mediscare

Andrew C. McCarthy writing at National Review magazine online. The best thing it says is its title:: “End Medicare”. The next best thing is the last 24 of its 2300 words: “Preserving a scam in the vain hope of making it less offensive may be well-meaning, but it’s not right, and it’s not courageous.” In between, He points out that Paul Ryan, for all his good intentions, voted “for the prescription-drug entitlement, TARP, Keynesian “stimulus” spending, and the auto-company bailout.” He describes medicare as being based on “the plinth of the entitlement edifice — the 'second Bill of Rights' — that began construction in the New Deal, under the direction of designers who knew full well that it was financially unsustainable[!]” I had to look that up: plinth: the lowest member of a base. McCarthy continuing: “Sadly, this is the standard Beltway conservative position, too... The government plays an important oversight role in Ryan’s Medicare-reform plan ... rest assured that we would never suggest scrapping Medicare, or that the government doesn’t have a ... role to play in the market for medical services — a role we somehow managed to do without for the first century and a half of the nation’s existence.” These are just the first five items that impressed me about this piece. If I continued here, I would get at least 20 more. http://www.nationalreview.com/articles/268818/end-medicare-andrew-c-mccarthy Arn Nelson in Chicago