ONE EARNED WEEK OFF

Hi all...
Just a quick note to say I am grabbing one week sabbatical from blogging. Today is my birthday and I am told by my loved ones that I deserve some time off. (Gotta love them!!) I'll be back next week after the Labor Day break, renewed and reinvigorated for the continuing fight against the communist take over of America.

Have a great Labor Day and remember this: It is our personal labors that make our country free from totalitarianism. Don't give up and don't give in!!

All my best to you,
Cheryl

“The moment the idea is admitted into society that property is not as sacred as the laws of God; and there is not a force of law and public justice to protect it, anarchy and tyranny commence.” —John Adams, in a letter to Thomas Jefferson. July 16, 1814

NO WAY OUT OF THE FEDERAL TRAP

Two paths of research this past few days, and lo and behold, both paths took me to the same exact place; Washington DC.

First, before I launch into the paths I took, I will quickly relate the story of a traffic light. A couple of years ago an intersection near my residential neighborhood was in need of a traffic light. A request for it went to the city...because the roads in question are within the city limits. The city should be responsible, by all measures, for the traffic light. "Oh, NOOOO, not us," said the city. "We don't have the money for that." So the traffic planners went to the county. "Oh, NOOOO, not us," said the county. "That is not within our jurisdiction." So the traffic planners went to the State of North Carolina. "Oh, NOOOO, not us," said the State. "We don't have any money for traffic lights." So, the traffic planners, not to be denied, went the Federal government. "Oh, NOOOO, we don't have money for traffic lights," said the Feds. "BUT, we do have money for a round-about (traffic circle), and you can have THAT money if you do what we pay you to do."

What's wrong with this picture? The traffic light would have cost $175,000.00. The round about costs $250,000.00. The Feds don't really have money, BUT the Chinese have money and the Feds borrowed that money from the Chinese to spend on a round-about. So we spent twice as much money as necessary and borrowed it from the Chinese..with interest. The EPA is happy because they say the round-about lowers traffic pollution. The city, county and state are happy because they didn't have to spend any of their money. BUT, you and I and every American citizen and their children are now paying the Chinese for this cute little round-about in my neighborhood. Don't you love that?? I think we should plant the Chinese flag right in the center of that round-about to remind everyone who drives around the circle that we paid the Chinese for that round-about instead of buying a traffic light.

Back to the two paths I took today.

One was a boondoggle toll road cooked up by some developers and the Chamber of Commerce to get rich. The boondoggle toll road idea is hated by over 70% of the population here, it carves up a beautiful rural area, will cause traffic to flow in areas otherwise quiet, and generally is a monster idea that should be trashed. The developers went to the city and schmoozed the council members to support the toll road. Voilá. The council says, "Sure, we want more money from development, so go right ahead." The developers went to the county and the commissioners were divided. Some said yes. Some said no. Then the developers got their little butts onto the Municipal Planning Organization board so they could influence that board. Looking for funding for their cute toll road, the MPO went to the State. The State first said yes....UNTIL, the local citizens managed to turn the tide by electing more sensible representatives last fall. The new representatives defunded the toll road, BUT could not kill the proposal altogether, for some unknown reason to me. Lo and behold, without the state funding, the developers and the MPO go where???? You guessed it. Straight to the Federal government for borrowed money to fund their toll road. This saga is still in progress, so I don't know the end of this story yet. If I were betting, I'd bet on the developers and the Feds over-ruling the 70% of locals who do not want this toll road.

This sent me to the MPO website where I found a pdf file on all of the federal money that has flowed into my county over the last two years. Source page for pdf file on Federal Spending in Gaston County (I don't know how to upload the file to this page, so just sending you there.) Trust me, it amounts to millions. Mind you, this is one county in one state out of fifty states. And there are MPO's in every county in every state. Multiply that in your mind and you might have to grab the next bottle of Scotch on your shelf, grab a cigar, put up your feet, and mull over the $14.5 Trillion that our Federal government has indebted all of us. Millions of dollars in every county in every state in the Union.

Second path. This one involves Smart Meters. I'm so naive sometimes. I think people should actually have a choice on whether or not they want their personal thermostats hooked up to central planning. Foolish me. So I was looking into a source that a friend sent me to this morning...regarding Smart Meters and the Smart Grid. I was originally thinking about cities and counties and whether or not elected councils and commissioners would reject or support the idea. Lo and behold, I found that the ARRA (Recovery and Reinvestment Act) passed by the Democrats in 2009, funded grants and subsidies to all kinds of industries creating Smart Grid technology.

Duke Energy in North Carolina

"The company also has sought $14 million in federal funds for smart grid transmission lines in North Carolina and South Carolina.

The smart grid allows utilities, such as Duke, to send signals to specially equipped appliances over transmission lines. The signals allow the utilities to tell the appliances to operate using less power during peak consumption times."

The U.S. Department of Energy will award $4.5 billion in smart grid grants nationwide, funded through the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009.

"Charlotte, N.C.-based Duke (NYSE: DUK) intends to transform its entire electricity-delivery infrastructure into a smart grid system, the company said in a news release."

And by all means, do not just funnel money through the DOE, but use all Federal agencies to do the dirty work. Such as the USDA below: Smart Grid News

"If you thought federal funds for smart grid projects came and went with the Recovery Act, check in with the rural electric cooperatives that are on the receiving end of millions in loans from the USDA for smart grid technologies and improvements to generation and transmission facilities. "


Stimulus for Smart Grid


Let's face it, most people if asked would flat out reject technology attached to their house that relays all energy activity in their personal residence to a central data bank that can be controlled by the 'statists.' Not to mention two other dangers that no one talks about. 1. the electromagnetic pulse from Smart Meters has proven to be unhealthy for people and pets. And 2. the opportunity for taking the country down through a central grid (or regional grids) is creating another vulnerability for the nation's security. I make the leap here that 99% of the population is not happy about this, doesn't want it, and is sick from the intervention of central planners into their lives. That's my assessment. You can come up with your own percentage.

Bottom line...What do a traffic light, a toll road, and your energy have in common? Washington DC. No matter what path you take, all roads lead to DC. Federalism, states rights, individual rights, all have been bought out by Washington DC using borrowed money that you and I, our children and our children's children, will be paying for infinity. And all we wanted was a traffic light, some say over where our roads go, and to purchase energy for our homes and businesses.

The fix is in. The trap is laid. The only ....I repeat ONLY way out of this is to STOP TAKING FEDERAL MONEY. Otherwise, there is no way out.

(Want to know about Duke Energy and Smart Grid technology go HERE. )

CLOUDS OVER MAN-MADE GLOBAL WARMING

Lately it seems, candidates Perry, Romney, and others are slugging it out over who is a "Man-made Global Warming" believer or not. Politico Reports And I'm glad to see it. I hope they have a huge verbal contest for months over who believes the lies the least. America will be so much the better off for that. If they kill the myth of AGW once and for all, we should all shout hallelujah and grab the nearest bottle of champagne.

AGW is already dead...it is the myth that lives. A really great report to read on this is here: 1000 International Scientists Dissent AGW

One of them is quoted below:
“Any reasonable scientific analysis must conclude the basic theory wrong!!” -- NASA Scientist Dr. Leonard Weinstein who worked 35 years at the NASA Langley Research Center and finished his career there as a Senior Research Scientist. Weinstein is presently a Senior Research Fellow at the National Institute of Aerospace.

The truth on this issue is finally out and AGW (Anthropogenic Global Warming) is now known absolutely to be a scam and a fraud. Yes, some socialist environmentalists are all in a state of denial, clinging to the lie like it is their life-blood. Well..it is their life-blood, so no wonder. And that brings me to the larger problem.

While Al Gore and his UN cronies were busy indoctrinating the world, the U.S. government was busy implementing an entire system of "governance" based on the UN, IPCC, and Gore's lies. O.K. fine, but what does that have to do with you and your life today??

The U.S. government is a powerful money machine. And when laws don't do the dirty work that administrations want, then orders are given and the horizontal system known as federal agencies kick into gear with regulatory powers. Those agencies get busy handing out money for any states, counties, and cities who will do certain things. This is known as the reward system, or also Behavior Modification, in psychiatric circles. "Do what we want you to do and we will hand you money..or gold stars..or let you go to the dance. If you don't do what we want you to do, then Susie (or Jack) will get the money, the stars, and go to the dance."

Now we know that the actions demanded by horizontal agencies are control issues and have nothing to do with AGW. Their premise is blown. They truly can no longer use AGW as an excuse for their insane demands. It's a cloudy day for those environmentalists, non-profits, states, counties, cities, NGO's, and corporate opportunists who have been raking in buckets of money and merrily zipping along modifying everyone's behavior, making everyone poorer and life very uncomfortable for a lot of people. Billions of tax payer dollars have been spent on this lie already, with billions more proposed. Yet, the scam is up and most people know it... finally.

Trouble is, the agencies haven't gotten the memo. We know it, but they don't seem to know it or accept the truth. Not yet. Why would they? The truth doesn't support their actions. Non-profits are still profiting. NGO's are still using the AGW theory to make recommendations and authorizations. Corporations are still advertising their endorsements of "Sustainable Development" and donating money to non-profits in order to get tax deductions is return. The states, counties, and cities are still looking for the handouts, grants, and subsidies. The comprehensive "Vision" plans for these states, counties, and cities have all been written to get the money, gold stars, and the ticket to the dance. These "Vision" plans are ensconced into our entire government structure at this point. And all of them are based on pure evil fiction.

There is no reason to spend gas taxes on "Walkable Cities," greenways, bike lanes and trails, equestrian paths. There is no reason to demand draconian regulations on buildings. There is no reason for a state or federal agency to charge "mitigation" points for development. There is no reason to force people to cluster into "mixed use" neighborhoods or congested cities. There is no reason to take the land next to a creek away from a farmer. There is no reason to ban incandescent light bulbs and force CFL's on the public. There is no reason for RFID chips on recycling bins. There is no reason for "Smart Meters." There is no reason for regulating every industry into a "Climate Change" model of "Sustainable Development." No reason for insanely high café standards for vehicles. No reason for demanding CDL licensing for farm vehicles. No reason to hand out tax money to money grubbing entities who are in the game just for that purpose. No reason for any of it. The entire industry of money grubbing over Climate Change needs to go the same route as "Cap and Trade," and that is gone....outta here!

Today we are watching hurricane Irene come barreling towards the east coastline. Mother Nature is telling us who is in charge of the situation....and it is not us. Clouds have gathered over the lies of "AGW." With any kind of luck, Irene will blow the lies clear off the planet. It's time to dismantle the system of UN, AGW, IPCC schemes that have taken over our entire government structure. A storm can be a cleansing event.

We can do this from the bottom up. All local governments have to do is stop taking the money. All voters have to do is elect those who refuse to buy the lies. And as elections come and go, voters can keep up this process until all of this nonsensical theft of our money and liberties is reduced to the sorry annals of history, just like Stalinist Russia is now a lesson of what not to do to people.

It's a good day. The lies are finally discussed by major presidential candidates. One of them, we don't know yet which, will start the process of ridding the country of the bad weather created by the UN...once and for all. I'm almost ready for the hallelujahs and the champagne.

ONE HALF OF THE LAST CENTURY OF "PROGRESSIVE" RULE

They say it is the entitlements that are killing us. And that may be half of the story. But you cannot tell me that discretionary spending on subsidies isn't the other half of the story. Neither entitlements or subsidies are constitutional, so we are on wrong footing with both of these issues. But if you will humor me for a small walk back through history, I'll see if we can figure out how we got where we are. Sometimes a historical perspective can help us get a grip.

Both entitlements and discretionary spending have become monstrous burdens on the people of this nation. Both entitlements and subsidies are the brain children of "Progressive" meddlers. Interestingly enough both government entitlements and subsidies a century ago were designed by Theodore Roosevelt, Woodrow Wilson, and Franklin Delano Roosevelt, all self proclaimed "Progressives." Since then, add Johnson, Carter, Clinton, and now Obama so far. That is seven presidents, with somewhere around 47.1 years of governing between them. By the time Obama is finished it will be almost 50 of the last 100 years of "Progressive" rule that has bent and manipulated our way of life to benefit Socialists. You can add whichever "Progressive" policies into the mix by RINO Republicans, and you see how far "Progressive" Socialism has come. And by that, measure how far removed we have become from the U.S. Constitution. Is it any wonder that our country is split in half by two sets of ideology. We have half of the last century taking us in a completely different direction from the Founders' vision of America. Maybe it is more of a miracle that half of us still stand with them.

Here we are 100 years + from the origins of the "Progressive" movement in America and the government has its hands on manipulating everything. Our fight for freedom is not new. It has been going on a long long time and we are just visiting the latest incarnation of it. Perhaps, in our day and time, it is that we have only just barely tasted freedom really, when you look at the state of our government from 1900 forward. There are so few freedoms left.

From Academic American

"The Progressive Movement, which gained substantial strength after 1900, can be defined in part as a protective reaction against the growing threat of communism or socialism in American economic and political life. The Progressives were behind many reforms aimed at cleaning up capitalism and protecting workers’ rights. But because the Progressive Movement did not move fast enough for some, the Socialist Party in United States gained a bit of traction. In 1912 the Socialist party under Eugene Debs won almost a million votes. The Populist Party in 1892 had had similar success, and though the Populists were not explicitly communists or socialists, their interests certainly lay in the same direction."

"Although the Progressive Movement is considered to have ended with the outbreak of the First World War, the Progressive Party continued to thrive, and many liberal politicians were—and still are—comfortable being identified as Progressives. Wisconsin’s Robert La Follette garnered almost 5 million votes as the Progressive Party candidate for president in the election of 1924. When the Great Depression hit and American capitalism seemed to be crumbling, those who had embraced communism and socialism seemed vindicated. Intellectuals flocked to the Socialist camp, led by men such as Lincoln Steffens who, having visited Soviet Russia, said, “I have seen the future and it works.”

"With the Cold War tensions on the rise, and with the rise of McCarthyism in the early 1950s, the Socialist movement began to die out. Being labeled a communist or socialist ceased to be respectable except to the fringe on the very far left of America’s political spectrum. That fringe emerged once again in the 1960s as part of the protest movement against the Vietnam War and the excesses of American capitalism; a few old Socialists became darlings of the “New Left.” But with the fall of the Soviet Union in 1990 and the end of the Cold War, the Socialist alternative in America was for a time considered dead and buried. More recently, however, government responses to the economic crisis and the debate over health care reform have awakened the notion that the nation may be drifting toward socialist solutions."

(Note: the article cited above has some built in biases. For instance in the paragraph just above it does not mention the Socialist fringe that, since the 1960's, has infiltrated the education system and the media to sell their ideology to the culture over these past 50 years. And that right after the Soviet Union fell, Americans elected Bill Clinton who is one of the global Socialist left.)

The entire focus of "Progressives" is to control everything. Their model is communism. And through entitlements and subsidies, they control those on the receiving end of these, PLUS they control those on the paying end of these. That pretty much covers all of us at this moment.

The Constitution has already been shredded by these "Progressives" in our country. They came here, they stayed here, they have ruined everything they've touched. If you are taking an entitlement or a subsidy, you are already in the clutches of communist control. If you are still one of the paying segment of the population, you are already forced into supporting communism.

You can't say it is just the entitlements. You can't say it is just the discretionary spending of subsidies. You can't say it is just regulations. It isn't just one thing here and there. It is all of it. You can't say it is only in certain sectors of our lives. Since Barack Obama was elected, it is now everywhere, in every pore and crease of life itself. He has just built a higher castle on the foundations laid by the previous "Progressive" presidents. Time has a way of giving one a perspective if you just step back and look at the events of history.

The fight for freedom goes on.

THE TRAVESTY OF WINDFARMS - KEEP SPINNING THE SCAM

Some days it is hard to optimistic. Today is one of those days. I've written before on the horrendous downsides of windmills, killing birds by the thousands, wrecking landscape views, generally creating not much energy for the billions of money being BLOWN AWAY on these damn monstrosities.

So if you want to join in my total disgust and depression over the continuing insanity of windmills, here is some new information confirming the disaster that they are: From the Telegraph in the UK Article by Christopher Booker

"In a sane world, no one would dream of building power sources whose cost is 22 times greater than that of vastly more efficient competitors. But the Government feels compelled to do just this because it sees it as the only way to meet our commitment to the EU that within nine years Britain must generate nearly a third of its electricity from “renewable” sources, six times more than we do at present."

"The insanity does not end here. The Government talks of building 10,000 windmills capable of generating up to 25,000MW of the electricity we need. But when it does so, it – like the BBC – invariably uses that same trick of referring to “capacity”, without explaining that their actual output would be well below 30 per cent. (Last year, onshore turbines generated just 21 per cent of their capacity.) In other words, for all that colossal expenditure – and even if there was the remotest chance that two new giant turbines could be built every day between now and 2020 – we could only hope to generate some 6,000MW. This is not only way below our EU target, it is only a tenth of our peak demand during those cold, windless weeks last winter, when wind power was often providing barely 1 per cent of the power we needed."

" Madness is far too polite a word."

And that last sentence is exactly my opinion of what global socialist environmentalists have done to sanity. I suggest we wrap them all up in ropes attach them to the swirling blades of these steel constructs of Hell, and leave them there for however long they may live, which hopefully would not be long. Then we can let the rotting carcasses resume their proper carbon use by decomposing to replenish the earth.

I told you I was not in a good mood. Fair warning.

Comment from a post at Wattsupwiththat - Science Blog

"Gore’s work is being handled quite nicely, thank you, by the extra-constitutional organization known as the EPA. Essential power plants are going to fall off line not because terrorists have blown the transmission lines or overrun the control rooms, or some rogue nation has lit off an EMP device over US soil – the EPA, with a weapon no mightier than the common pen, has put into motion the final fall of American manufacturing.

I imagine the final insult will be the body bags needed when rolling brownouts punctuate the hot days of summer and the frigid nights of winter will be imported from some smoke stack nation that has a growing industrial base.

Gore has won his battle, and the EPA has won the war. We’re screwed."

THE GIANT SUCKING SOUND OF OBAMA'S GREEN STIMULUS JOBS

Way back, when the marketplace ran things, products were tested and tested before given prime time exposure in the world of commercial sales. Otherwise, you ended up like the Delorian, bankrupted and the poster child for excessive investment in a product no one could buy. Or maybe the Edsel is a better analogy. Either way, they were expensive commercial flops, each for their own reasons. But way back when, the investors took the hit. It was their risk and their opportunity to succeed or fail.

Today, it is the taxpayer taking the hit. Somehow, the green lobbyists have convinced politicians that citizens must collectively pay the cost of products to satisfy the false insanity of Anthropogenic Global Warming. Bad enough that the science was completely off the charts wrong. But then to soak the public by pushing technology and products based on that false assumption is criminal. We get to pay for light bulbs no one wants, smart grids no one wants, ID chips in recycle bins no one wants, windmills no one wants, solar panels too expensive for most people to buy, lousy paints without lead which encourage mold, toilets that don't flush well, storm water fees for what, I don't know, greenways a very few people use, light rail costing taxpayers 500 times what each ride should cost, bike lanes for under 1.5% of commuters, gasoline blends with ethanol that wrecks engines, etc.

Obama has to be a hopeless stooge for the green globalist lobbyists, or he saw the opportunity to soak the American people for any reason and jumped onto the Global Warming Green Jobs idea like a tick on a dog. I'm betting it is the latter. Any excuse will do when your objective is to economically rape the most successful country in the history of the world. Putting communist Van Jones in charge of the Green Jobs program when it was first announced is just a little hint, don't you think? What does a communist have to do with green anything? Think about it.

It isn't about green anything. It's all about redistribution, social justice, diversity, collectivism, "shared sacrifice" as Obama puts it. He'll make us all pay, alright.

From AL FIN "Many of Obama's expensive green stimulus programs cost $1 million to $2 million per job -- mainly "hands-off" make-work administrative jobs, rather than the entry-level practical jobs as promised."

That is the same thing that put the unemployment rate in Spain over 17%, i.e. the extravagant costs of green jobs put other private sector jobs out of business.... because to force the green jobs onto everyone, you have to regulate the previously normal jobs out of existence. Just like the Obama administration is doing to the coal industry. He may add 58 jobs here and 700 jobs there, but at the same time he is putting tens of thousands out of work. Maybe he thinks green jobs are a loss leader, only in his case he adds a few green jobs and then adds thousands to the unemployment lines. He leads us down the garden path, and we all lose our shirts. But it's all for our own good, he would tell you.

"Something unexpected happened on the way to the Garden of Eden. Despite massive spending and stimulus, the green jobs revolution fizzled. Wind energy failed to meet expectations, as did solar. Electric vehicles were not ready for prime time, because electrical storage batteries are still 3 breakthroughs away from being up to the task. And the "smart power grid" is proving to be one more way that government and malicious hackers can monitor private activity, and shut it down."

Obama has sucked the life out of the economy from the energy sector, to the housing sector, to the manufacturing sector, to the auto industry, to the food supplies, to everything he has touched. He has tried to label all of these fiscally draining procedures, "Green." Green homes, green cars, green energy, green manufacturing, green foods. (This is giving the color green a bad name, if you ask me. None of us will ever want to even hear the word green as this keeps going.)

Years ago it was funny to hear Ross Perot use that phrase about "the giant sucking sound." Today it isn't so funny when you see what Obama's giant green sucking machine has done to the American economy. You can only do so much sucking before you suck the life out of everything. 15 mos. to go, folks.

AL FIN on the Return to Eden

HORIZONTAL GOVERNANCE - THE KEY TO VOTER APATHY

A hundred years ago the structure of government in America was a vertical structure. Actually, from the founding and the Constitution, the structure of American government was vertical, i.e "of the people, for the people, by the people." Picture in your mind a pyramid, wide at the bottom representing the people and narrowing to the top where leadership exists. Each section from the bottom to the top of the pyramid is a representation of the voter's decisions to elect representatives. Each section rests on the massive will of the people at the bottom. The voter's were key to this pyramid, the base structure holding all of the rest of the sections securely. Without the base structure at the bottom, the top has nothing to keep it in place. Eliminate the base and there is no higher structure.

As we know from Egypt, pyramids are strong structures. They last a long time and the bases of them are meant to hold the higher levels. That is the essence of the vertical American representative government structure. The people hold the power to support representative leadership.

But let's say you like the power of leadership, but you don't like the people holding that vertical structure up. Let's say you and your friends want power, but you don't want to go through the efforts to convince the people to hold you up. You want the people's money, but you don't want their input into the decision making process. What do you do?

You figure out some way to do what you want without the base support of the people. If the people don't want what you are selling, they will tell you to go fly a kite. So the base of the pyramid is not your friend at this point. Then, you create a sideways avenue to get your way. You set up a horizontal path outside of the vertical arrangement. You use executive powers to mandate the creation of the horizontal path. You set up regulatory agencies filled with appointees who have no connection to the pyramid, but are in your ideological back pocket.

The poster child for this is sitting in the White House right now. Executive orders which turn power over to regulating agencies who are not elected by the people and are not accountable to the people, that is the hallmark of the current President. Not alone in this, many have done this before him.

Here is how it works: First you create, by executive order, unelected agencies to regulate activities of the people. You order these unelected agencies to implement your desires, whatever they may be. Then you turn to the one institution left in the hands of the people, congress (actually the House of Representatives), and you demand money for your desired agencies operating expenses. If they refuse, you call them names, smear them in the media, say the are stubborn obstacles to 'progress,' and generally throw a hissy fit. You create a propaganda machine to villify your opposition, be it the people or their representatives. You command the unelected agencies to continue on their march to obey your orders, in spite of the people's objections. You try to establish that your executive orders trump all else in the land.

Welcome to horizontal government. Sideways instead of vertical. So simple a caveman could understand it. So unconstitutional any American can understand the insults of it. Yet agencies of horizontal government have been set up at least since FDR. (Maybe before that, but I haven't researched it.) Each time a horizontal agency has been set up, the people have suffered the consequences. I could start naming them, but here are a few: Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, Fannie and Freddie, FDA, USDA, HUD, DOT, EPA, PCSD, NEA (both of them, education and arts) Obamacare, and now the WHRC (White House Rural Council by BHObama), and so many more. The creation of these agencies was not approved by the voting public. In fact, the creation was never on a referendum ballot for the public to approve or not. Granted, the people's representatives acquiesced to the executive branch in these matters. That in itself is a travesty of abuse of powers. But once created, no one seems to listen to the people's requests to eliminate the horizontal existence of these agencies. Beyond that, these agencies have so grossly usurped States rights, that the power of the people over their tax monies is now just a relic of the nostalgic past.

The executive branch was never to hold this kind of power. And the representative legislative branch was supposed to be the check and balance against that kind of power. Failing that, the judicial branch was supposed to hold back any assaults on the Constitution. But the executive branch figured out how to bribe the legislative branch. And the executive branch has the keys to Supreme Court appointees...with the approval of the legislative branch who is now being bribed by the executive branch. When it comes down to it, vertical government has been subverted by corruption at all levels at this juncture in time.

So, no wonder voters are skeptical, discouraged, and percentages of them tune out and don't show up. NO WONDER. What is the point if the game is rigged? We were not supposed to be in this position. We, the voters, were supposed to be the deciding base of that vertical pyramid. Now we, the voters, are stuck trying to figure out how to get rid of the horizontal governance that is replacing our vertical government, dropped like a spider's web all over us. The candidates we are seeking are the ones who will take that web of horizontal government off of us. Me, included.

Notes added:
1. On top of this, add voters who do not even understand the difference between democracy and a republic, the difference between vertical and horizontal governance, and the difference between the Constitution vs. Socialism. This allows the horizontal web to continue as voters who don't know these concepts are just voting for favortism from the agencies in the horizontal revenue stream. And then if they don't get that favortism, as the Black Caucus is yelling about this past week, they start screaming, "Foul." Those who follow this line of thinking are clueless and have no business voting in the first place.

2. If someone asks you to join an unelected bureaucratic board of governance, please tell them to stuff it somewhere unmentionable and that you do not believe in horizontal boards going around the will of the people. Please.


Into the weeds:
Example of a Regional Governing Board - RPO - High Country Council of Governments
Here is another one in the Southeastern portion of North Carolina
UK site on Federalism and variations
Wikipedia on Euro Mulit-level Governance
Here is a report on integrating horizontal policies to implement Sustainable Development