These bills can (and knowing Obama/Congress, will) censor the Internet, something explicitly they are not supposed to do by the Constitution.

While the supporters of the bills say “that will never happen,” all we have to do is look at the history of our government and see that when they give themselves power over something, they take it and use that power.

Contact your congressman/senator and tell them you are opposed to these bills. Here are the websites for the House and Senate. Follow the links to your representative’s webpage. Call, email, fax or all three.

The object of a citizen is to keep his mouth open. I highly suggest you do that in this case. The consequences of not doing so are dire indeed.

It seems destined that Memphis is not a gaming store city. We have had multiple people try their hands at gaming stores, and all of them have closed their doors for one reason or another. The only reason why the GW Battle Bunker stays open is because it is a benefit to those who work there. They don’t care if the store makes money or not, the gaming space will remain open.

These Occupy movements are starting to strangle the budgets of the cities they are “occupying.” Extra police, clean up, and all of the other things are adding up and they are getting ready to collapse the cities. Once 4 or 5 cites have devolved into chaos caused by these “useful idiots,” Obama can order martial law and then all bets are off. He gets his wish and becomes Dictator-for-life. America becomes a third-world country and not only the US, but the world will be finished.

This must be stopped. Our future depends on it.

“Professional homeless” (their words, not mine) have been invading the OWS camp to partake of the wonderful food. So, whatever happened to Lenin’s words? “From each, according to their means, to each according to their needs,” or something like that. Turning away the homeless to soup kitchens or just feeding them PB&J is not very nice.

Just another part of the hypocrisy that is exhibited by the OWS crowd every day. You mean the homeless can’t get the same nice food that everyone else gets? Nice treatment of those who need it the most.

Just as a side note, Tea Party organizations in some cities like Atlanta have sent letters to their mayors demanding the same treatment as the Occupy movements in their cities. I mean, there are no permits for the gathering, no permits pulled or fees paid to squat on the parks. The Tea Party wants nothing more than equal treatment under the law, which is what this country was founded on. Will they get it? Probably not, but it will expose those in office as the hypocrites they are.

This list goes on, and on about how the Tea Party are “violent subversives,” but the (armed) Tea Party people hold peaceful demonstrations, all within the law and do not squat and set up camp in public parks. You don’t see clashes with the police, rapes (yes, women are leaving the OWS encampment because of the rapes) or other disruptions of the peace found at the various Occupy places across the country.

And yet the OWS is being compared to the Tea Party. It’s kind of like comparing Rush Limbaugh to Air America. That dog won’t hunt.

We are Occupy Memphis. We stand with the Occupy Wall Street Movement and all other nonviolent democratic uprisings around the world.

We are here to denounce the control of our government by the 1%. We the People have a right to govern ourselves; that right has been usurped by corporations, big banks, Wall Street, the Federal Reserve, and the wealthiest 1% of our population. These elites put profit over people, self-interest over justice, and oppression over equality.

They say we have a budget crisis, but what we have is a priority crisis. They say we have a fiscal deficit, but what we have is a deficit of democracy. They have taken our silence for consent, but no more.

We are seniors, teachers, small business owners, clergy, and union members. We are clerks, firefighters, nurses, police, and immigrants. We are service workers, veterans, entrepreneurs, students, the unemployed, and recipients of Social Security benefits.

We are mothers, fathers, children, grandparents, friends, and neighbors. We are those who do all the work and keep this society running. We are you and you are one of us. We are the 99%. We are here to peacefully Occupy Memphis until our demands are heard.

All well and good. We just heard your demands. Does that mean you’ll go away now?

We demand that Wall Street be held accountable for its role in the destruction of the global financial system.

We demand that the 1% pay their fair share of taxes, that all tax loopholes benefiting the super-rich are closed, and that those who try to skirt our country’s tax laws are tried and prosecuted to the full extent of the law.

You don’t specify what “their fair share” is. The top 1% of taxpayers already pays 38% of the total personal tax revenues. So, as I always ask (and never get an answer) WHAT IS THE “FAIR SHARE” of that 1%?

As far as those who skirt our countries tax laws and are not prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law, those are the people in power under your illustrious President Obama. You elected him, I didn’t.

We demand that corporations not be afforded the same First Amendment rights as individuals; that corporations not be allowed to influence elections through campaign contributions.

That is a slippery slope that I don’t want to go down. Curtailing somebody’s First Amendment rights today, no matter whom and how specific you want to get, will lead to everybody losing their rights tomorrow. Look at just about every set of laws there is on the books. Compare when they were started, and where they are now. DUI laws, Income tax, the list goes on. The term is “mission creep.”

How exactly do corporations “influence” elections through campaign contributions? By allowing candidates to run ads to press their view in 15 second soundbites and attack ads, wearing them into your brain, that’s how. Now, if you actually HAD an independent thought process, you would pay attention to what the candidate meant, not just what he says. You would do some research and look at their plans they want to enact if elected.

We demand equal treatment from our justice system at all levels and at every stage, from investigations, through trials and sentencing, regardless of race or social class.

A laudable goal. I wish that could happen as well. But when 50% of the crime is black-on-black, and 65% of the crime is black-on-white, and most of those blacks are poor, what do you mean, “regardless of race or social class?” Should we let a certain percentage of blacks go just because they are black and/or are poor?

We demand that our government recognize healthcare as a basic human right. It is shameful that our city’s infant mortality rate is higher than in many developing countries.

Healthcare is NOT a basic human right. It takes a person 10 years and over $100,000 to learn to be a medical doctor. He is going to want to be compensated appropriately for the effort he put into becoming a doctor. If you decide he “makes too much” and he only deserves to be paid as much as a plumber, then he will become a plumber instead of a doctor. If you have no doctors, how will you have healthcare?

One of my medications costs about $35 a pill. And that is cheap compared to other medications. These miracle drugs need to recoup the R&D costs needed to develop and test the medications. That’s why one of my pills costs almost $35 each, and the generics runs about $2-4 each.

We demand an end to Tennessee’s regressive labor laws, such as right-to-work and at-will employment, which keep us in poverty. We demand an ordinance mandating that no city services can be privatized; any outsourced services should be brought back in-house.

How do these “keep us in poverty?” There are two reasons why you are fired from a job. One is that the company can no longer afford to support the position, and thereby eliminate it, and the other reason is to fire you because you’re not doing the work, or you’ve messed up and violated company policy.

If you force employers to keep sub-performing people employed, then businesses won’t hire new people unless they are sure of the person, and that growth of the company will support the position. Also, if you force employers to keep too many positions that they cannot support, the entire company may have to close, throwing everybody out of work. A good example is the Memphis police department recently, either everybody takes a $30 a week cut, or a lot of officers lose their jobs entirely. If you had to make a choice, which one would you pick, $30 a week cut, or no job at all?

We demand affordable and fair housing for all and that Wells Fargo be held accountable for its racist, predatory lending practices in Memphis.

I am not absolving Wells Fargo, but if you are too stupid to read the paperwork, and understand what it says and its ramifications, then you shouldn’t purchase a home. The fault lies on both sides of the table. But the federal government also deserves some blame as well. If the Feds hadn’t mandated that more people own homes, the banks wouldn’t have underwritten the risky loans they did, causing the housing crisis.

We demand that those Memphians who experienced foreclosures due to the illegal activities of banks and other financial institutions be adequately compensated and their debt forgiven.

Like I said above, the banks were mandated into making the loans. Does this mean I can be “adequately compensated” and I get my home loan forgiven as well? Woo Hoo! I mean, I was responsible and didn’t buy a $200,000 home with an interest only, variable rate balloon mortgage on my salary.

We demand that the city use our money for education and public services rather than corporate incentives and tax freezes for companies like Bass Pro or Electrolux. Memphis gives away more public dollars in corporate welfare than any other city in the state, yet our unemployment rate is at 12.1%.

The Memphis City Schools budget before the merger was about $960 Million a year. Considering that only 70% of kids graduate from MCS, and 60% of those who did graduate couldn’t read their own diplomas, just how much more money do you want to throw down that rathole? With Memphis being 53% black, and most of them are illiterate or functionally illiterate, what else do you think the result of our unemployment rate would be? Imagine our unemployment numbers if companies like Bass Pro and Electrolux didn’t come here because of the tax breaks. That would mean fewer jobs, and more unemployment.

We demand a government of the people, by the people, and for the people. Our concerns will be addressed. Our demands will be met. We will not be discouraged. We will not be intimidated. We will not be ignored. We are the 99%.

You got the government you wanted, because you elected the people you wanted. Steve Cohen is the U.S. Representative to Memphis because he promised to bring home “our share” of Federal dollars instead of being fiscally responsible by getting the government to spend only what it has instead of borrowing against our grandchildren’s future. Obama is President because he promised to “spread the wealth” around by redistributing it. In three years, he’s managed to spend $9 Trillion that we didn’t have, and he’s not slowing down.

The nice thing about the First Amendment is you have the right and freedom to stand on a soapbox with your bullhorn and say whatever you want. However, there is no guarantee that anybody has to listen to what you have to say. You can say that you are “the 99%” all day, but either I’m part of the 1% or you’re not “the 99%”

And that’s all I have to say about that.

It seems to me that this “movement” is nothing more than a disorganized mob. They can’t agree on a common message, they have no significant reason to protest, except to protest itself. It stated on Wall Street, where the protesters purchase products from companies traded on Wall Street, if they have a 401(k), it is most likely invested in that very same Wall Street. The ignorance and hypocrisy is blinding.

The reason for this post is the following two photographs. I don’t know their names, but let’s call them Ashley and Karen.

Ashley looks like she came into a comfortable amount of money because of the hard work of her parents. She is calling for her to be taxed more. “She is the 1%, and she stands with the 99%.”

Next comes Karen. She has dire medical and financial problems. I am not going to get into the complexities of medical insurance here. Just the fact that she doesn’t have, and is very likely never to have medical insurance.

I would now like to introduce them to each other. Ashley, meet Karen. Karen, Ashley.

I would then say, “Ashley, if you want to help other people, here is a person that will gladly take any money you want to give her because it will keep her alive.”

Why give money to the Government for “redistribution” when 83% gets absorbed into the government for overhead? Ashley could give $275,000 to Obama, who would let only $47,000 actually make it to a person or persons. Or, she could give all of it to Karen, who would be able to use 100% of it.

Besides, when Ashley calls for takes to go up on “her,” she is also calling for taxes to be raised on many other people as well. Ashley, if you want to pay more to the government, please, write a check and send it in. I’m sure they will cash it. BUT DON’T GET MY TAXES RAISED WHILE YOU’RE AT IT. You may be swimming in money, but I’m not.

Liberals. Bah. The view that government can be the parent to everybody is not what this country was founded on. Stand up on your own. Take what comes your way, good and bad. If you get knocked down, stand up and try again, and again, and again until you win. That’s what America was founded on. That’s what made America great. These Liberals want to tear that ideal down. I don’t know why, no Liberal has ever been able to hold a coherent conversation with me. When faced with facts, they start screaming epithets and attack me rather than calmly debate the facts.

“Scour this report, identify all those areas in which we can act administratively without additional congressional authorization and just get it done,” President Obama said today to a “Jobs Council” meeting.

From what it sounds like, (and if it walks like a duck…) Mr. Obama doesn’t want to be President, but rather Dictator-for-Life! That way he could get what he wants done, done!

Of course, what he wants to do (and he is succeeding) is to wreck this country. Saddled with $14,000,000,000,000 worth of debt that didn’t produce squat but to make some people rich before they took the money and ran (like Solyndra), Barry wants to do it again with his “jobs bill.”

The definition of insanity is to repeat the same thing over and over, expecting a different result. No matter how many times you use the recipe for Cinnamon bunt cake, you will never get a devils food cake out of it!

Let’s get this guy out of office in 2012. At this point, I am almost convinced that a chimpanzee throwing darts at a wall could do a better job than what Barry is doing now.

He gets it. America is not a location on a map. It is an ideal held in the heart, a desire to be free and to live ones life without the encumbrance of government.

He also understands the difference between Socialism and Communism. “An AK-47 pointed at your head.”