Beware of Scammers

I like the classifieds on Craigslist. I’ve used the service several times and each transaction has been smooth and uneventful. I made good deals with no hassles and no fees. But such is not always the case. Craigslist provides a good service and I will continue to use it, but, as in all things, I use abundant caution. I never know what type of individual I may be dealing with -- and scammers are everywhere.

Recently a friend advertised a car for sale on Craigslist. He listed all the pertinent information about the vehicle, including photos, the price, etc. He got several responses to his ad, but one response in particular caught his attention:

I will buy your car. I am okay with the price and the conditions. I would have come to check it out, but it's just that I am very busy and I am out of state.

I will make payment to you via Certified Cashier’s Check and I understand it must clear your bank before you release the item to me. I will also be responsible for the pick-up and shipping. So, all you will do as soon as you get the payment check is to get it cashed, deduct your money for the item and send the rest to my shipper whose name and address will be enclosed in the envelope of the check, so that they can come for the pick up at your residence.

Hope I can trust you with my money cos I’ve been scammed before and I don’t want to be scammed again. If this is okay with you, please get back to me with your.... Name, full contact address(city,state and zip code,) and your phone number.Do get back to me ASAP so that I can issue the payment check to you via UPS Next Day delivery. Kindly remove the item from site so that no one will contact you for it.

Regards,

XYZ

Being the cool sort that my friend is, he responded with the following cryptic email:

Hey XYZ,

There's a problem. See, I'm on the run from the law, so I have to keep a low profile. I can't go into banks or anyplace with cameras where the FBI might see me. This would have to be an in person deal, I'm very familiar with dealing with large sums of money and contraband and am always well armed so as to insure a deal goes off without a hitch -- well except for that last one, but he drew first. Anyhow, I'm really anxious to unload this car. The upholstery is freshly cleaned and there's also a new passenger window, so I hope you’re not just yanking my chain.

Rick Santelli, A Free Speech American

I strongly believe that a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom. This was never better illustrated than this morning while CNBC’s Rick Santelli was doing his usual early morning live report from Chicago on the CBOE. He had no script – his many years as a trader are all he needed to do his reporting from the trading pits.

And then it happened – the moment of truth. Listen and watch Santelli (see below). And listen to the spontaneous reaction of the traders around him.

There was nothing staged about this moment -- no punches pulled and no dutiful mouthing of scripted talking points. Santelli was honestly speaking his mind and the reaction from the traders was the same. This is free speech.

It is uncontrolled speech. It is free. It's American.

Free speech cannot be controlled or it is not free at all. We in America have for too long engaged in self-censorship as a form of political correctness and it is enslaving us. I'm not talking about yelling "Fire!" in a crowded theatre, but rather, I'm referring to speaking one's opinions honestly and openly.

Sometimes, you have to let go and let the words fly. And if you cannot do that, you are not free. And if you are not free, why be an American at all?

God bless Rick Santelli.

Considering that CNBC is owned by NBC, I pray he still has a job next week.

~~~~~~~~

Edited to add the video:

The Reagan - Obama Debate

In their own words:

The Insult and the Outrage!

The Porkulous Package -- the largest stimulus-spending bill in the history of the United States -- passed in the House a short time ago. The vote was 246 – 183. Thankfully, there was not one single Republican on board.

The Senate is scheduled to vote later this afternoon -- about 5:30 PM -- and I would suggest that the 3 blind mice -- Specter, Collins and Snowe -- the RINO's of the Republican Senate rethink their positions carefully. Before the Senate votes, you still have time to MELT THE PHONES. Call one -- call all. The American people cannot afford to lose this round.

Republican Ladies and Gentlemen of the House of Representatives, I thank you for your desire to serve the wishes of the American people who sent you to Washington. We will not forget you for today you served your country well.

This bill was supposed to be about jobs, jobs, jobs, but it quickly became Pelosi’s pulled pork of spend, spend, spend. Can anyone tell me how we are supposed to pay for this beast of a bill? Can anyone who voted today on the bill, say with all honesty that they have read it? Not possible -- the 1100 page bill was not made available until very late last night. Our elected officials voted on an $800 billion (yes, that's billion with a b) spending bill that they have not even read! And what about the American people's right to read it? What happened to Obama's campaign promise of putting bills on the Internet before a vote? Another campaign promise bites the dust.

I'm insulted and I'm outraged.

The American President, Madam Speaker and the rest of the Dems cannot stop the fear mongering and urgent yapping, and every time they yap, more jobs disappear as they reveal that they are driven less by a desire to serve than to control. They are more interested in backroom connivance than transparency. Back rooms with only one party allowed in does not equal transparency even in Obamaland. Transparency, it seems, is just another word.

Barack Obama must be giving fits to those backroom supporters who never meant for the nation to so clearly recognize his hyper-partisan purposes - and his limitations. And we’re only a mere three weeks into his presidency.

And Obama promised there would be no federal sprawl. What about those construction jobs in the new stimulus package? They are mostly FEDERAL construction jobs meant to construct or shore up FEDERAL buildings and agencies in and around Washington, DC, where FEDERAL SPRAWL will be allowed. Bigger government needs bigger buildings -- and you can be sure Obama is going to have bigger government. Of course, some construction companies in Bethesda, Maryland may see boom times, but what about the rest of the country? Is that Obama's idea of sharing the wealth?

So, what is the message here? Obama is telling the country to find something else to do, something other than growing, working, producing, creating, innovating, building. He wants energy independence but does not want drilling, refining, and the jobs that go with them to take place in America. He wants everyone to have a house, but apparently we’re not supposed to build any new ones. He wants Americans to become less materialistic, more personally responsible for our mistakes, and he wants the government to grow larger and to spend our way out of debt.

One thing is painfully clear -- Obama’s rhetoric is empty, and what is not empty is evasive. He is, increasingly, the “just words” president. He speaks of American dreams, but he works to limit them. And he is not alone.

Where does Barney Frank, a wealthy public official (I find it impossible to refer to him as a public servant), get off telling free Americans what their salary caps should be?

Where does the extremely wealthy John Kerry get off slobbering on the floor of the United States Senate that Americans are too “free to invest their money where ever they want!”?

How dare the set-for-life Chuck Schumer show such contempt for the “little” people, who simply want to know what we’re being put on the hook for?

Corrupt and singular, many of these little kings and godlings serve themselves alone. They are merely playing Lego's with the rest of us. And you can be sure they will not cap their own salaries.

Where do any of these public officials who have either grown wealthy on the public purse, or used their wealth to purchase their office, or have used their office to protect their wealth, get off telling us, the can-do Americans, how much we can earn?

How dare they begin to shred the Constitution and dismantle The American Dream? How dare they discourage the sort of dreaming that made America into Ronald Reagan's shining city on a hill, an exceptional nation of limitless possibilities?

How dare they -- those who aspire not to serve but to rule, create destructive, historic and transformational 1100-page bills behind closed doors and show them to lobbyists before they show them to legislators or to the American public they are supposed to be serving?

But it's done.

It's scandalous.

And no one is calling it treason.

Lest We Forget...

The One who is always in ultimate control of all things.

"Are not two sparrows sold for a cent? And yet not one of them will fall to the ground apart from your Father."

~~ Matthew 10:29 (NASB) ~~

Keep Your Kool-Aid, Mr. President

How quickly we fall victim to scare tactics and fear mongering. Have we all forgotten that for almost a third of all the months during the 1970’s, 1980’s, and the 1990’s, America had an unemployment rate as high or higher than it is now? True. And does anyone remember the economic crisis Reagan inherited from Carter? It was much worse than what we have now and Reagan didn’t plunge the country into massive debt nor did he nationalize one single thing.

The economy goes through cycles, it always has, and the sky has not yet fallen so why are we so quick to believe it will this time? Unless, of course, Obama, Pelosi and Reid are successful in choking off the country’s future by shoving the largest spending spree in history down our throats.

We, as free Americans cannot afford to allow the good ol’ boys to do our thinking for us. Their thinking is not rational. Well, that’s not quite true. Their thinking is rational in that they are frantically pushing to achieve their own agenda of socialism and they lack the intestinal fortitude to call it what it is. Instead they are using fear and urgency to scare us into their way of thinking.

This bill is not – NOT -- a stimulus for the economy. It is a liberal domestic spending binge to the tune of $800 billion dollars, masquerading under the guise of a "stimulus bill" that they want to pass without going through the normal legislative processes.

In order to do this quickly -- and they know if it's not done quickly, much of it won't get done -- they, especially Obama, are screaming that the sky is falling in order to scare us into acquiescing. They are playing us for fools. I will not drink the Kool-Aid, Mr. President.

They are shredding our Constitution and every American should rise up and take decisive action and contact all our Senators and Congressmen. Make the calls, write the emails, ever mindful that a man who will not use his freedom to defend his freedom, does not deserve his freedom.

The American Dream is in our hands. Our children and grandchildren’s future depend on us. We cannot – we must not let them down.

New site to check out: Stimulus Watch.

“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end, for they do so with the approval of their consciences.” ~~ C.S. Lewis ~~

President or Dictator?

Today would have been Ronald Reagan's 98th birthday. If the Gipper knew what was going on in Washington over the stimulus package, he would be spinning. And he would never approve of the scare tactics being used by Obama and the Dems.

Such great memories from the past -- such unbelievable insanity in the present.

There's insanity and then there's the insanity of the Democrats -- and I must say, Democrat insanity is in a league of its own. It's no longer a question of a stimulus, but of what should be included in the package. And the Dems have it all wrong, again. You don't spend your way out of a financial crisis. You cut taxes, you cut spending and you put people to work. You don't mortgage the future of your children and grandchildren on an asinine spending bill, especially one using100 percent borrowed money.

If you're so inclined, MELT THE PHONES. More numbers can be found here.

I hope the Republicans stick to their guns and hold the line against the current bill. I hope you've let your representative and your senators know how you feel. I'm on the verge of being on first name bassis with mine. And if you haven't contacted yours, shame on you. After all, it's your money, and your children's money, and their children's money. What's being done to their future is nothing short of criminal. Their chances for achieving the American Dream are rapidly diminishing. I pray that sanity will somehow prevail.

~~~~~~~~

Lately, we've seen flashes of anger from "the One who would bring us together." The message is beginning to come through -- "It's my way or the highway." Tough talk from one who would unite.

Are we witnessing the leopard changing his spots; the President morphing into the Dictator? Or are we watching the Socialist letting his guard down and being the Socialist that he has always been? I've been warning readers about Obama the Socialist since the inception of The Shepherd Report but I take no joy in being proven correct.

We're in for a world of hurt, my conservative friends.

May God help us.

~~~~~~~~~~

The must-read of the day: Charles Krauthammer

"So much for the president, who in his inaugural address two weeks earlier declared “we have chosen hope over fear.” Until, that is, you need fear to pass a bill."

Read Mitt Romney's Sound Advice

And this interesting piece from DeRussy at Pajamas Media.

And then there's this:

Mr. Obama's "Non-Negotiables" For the Stimulus Is Really His Domestic Agenda That He Intends to Cram Down Our Throats Without Going Through the Normal Legislative Process:

Infrastructure, weatherizing homes, health IT spending, (liberal) education spending, investments in science/technology (alternative energy) research, health insurance for the unemployed, relief to states and aid to families."

The fact is that much of this is Obama's effort to get his domestic agenda enacted under the guise of stimulus that has lawmakers -- on both sides -- increasingly agitated.

"And make no mistake, a significant portion of the stimulus spending comes right out of the agenda Obama announced last summer -- long before the need for a massive stimulus bill emerged."

IBD Editorials, February 5, 2009

~~~~~~~~

“If this is the change we all can believe in, then Americans’ best days are behind them.”
~~~ Senator Lindsey Graham, SC, on the so-called stimulus package ~~~

The Shocking Facts About the New Bailout Bill

Do you know the shocking facts about what THEY want to do with OUR tax dollars, all in the name of a bailout bill? Read the info and then let your congressman and senators know how you feel as soon as possible.

From the new AskHeritage site:

AS PRESIDENT OBAMA settles into his new office, it is imperative that we encourage him and Congress to exercise prudence when attempting to rescue the economy. Massive deficit spending will only throw our country further into economic shambles, as the current stimulus and SCHIP bills do little more than increase our debt and healthcare costs. Consider the following issues with the "stimulus" bill:

1) The $825 billion bill would dump $10,520 of new debt per household into the laps of our children and grandchildren. The interest on this debt ($347 billion) will dump even more.

2) Under the stimulus, new groups of children and adults would be eligible for Medicaid, the welfare program for the poor which is already going broke. These expansions are on top of spending $89 billion to bailout the failing state Medicaid programs.

3) The current "stimulus" bill will be the largest spending bill ever enacted by Congress, making the New Deal look small, accounting for inflation.

4) President Obama anticipates that spending over $800 billion will create 3.7 million new jobs. That means each job will cost more than $200,000, which is roughly equivalent to 5 times what the average American worker earns!

5) The bill is full of wasteful spending, including $21 million on new sod for the National Mall in Washington, $600 million on cars for government bureaucrats, and $650 million for digital television converters.

Read more, if you dare. And be sure to take ACTION by letting your representatives in Washington know how you feel about their use of our tax dollars.

Oh, and by the way, do you know that the defense budget is going to get cut? All those billions of dollars being thrown around and there’s nothing for defense spending? The Pentagon has been told to cut their 2010 budget by 10 percent – and that's for starters.

I’m amazed at how one single election could let loose such a scandalous swarm of insanity in Washington – but on the other hand, look at the politics of the people who were elected. Are these people connected with reality?

I guess the War on Terror is over. Is it now time for us all to join hands and sing Kumbaya?

More later.