OK .. I'm going to make some people mad with this one, but would you folks please put this asinine "tea party" idea to rest? I'm just a wee-bit tired of hearing excited stories about people sending tea bags to their congressmen. Sorry ... but how LAME!

OK .. first of all; these tea bags are NOT getting to the people you're sending them to. Do you remember 9/11? Do you remember the anthrax scares that came along after 9/11? Well ... maybe you also remember that they set up a mail processing facility for members of congress after the anthrax letters were sent. Now you folks actually think that your tea bags are going to go ripping through that mail processing facility and end up being dumped on some congressman's desk? Yeah ... and Obama's going to give a speech without a teleprompter any day now.

Do we need action? Yes, absolutely. We've lost control of this government. We're rapidly approaching the point ... give it two years or so ... where the majority of eligible voters in this country will be getting checks from the government instead of paying taxes. Can you guess how these people will vote? It certainly won't be for anyone who promotes self-sufficiency. And you think we're going to turn this thing around by mailing tea bags that will get thrown away in some postal handling facility miles away from the office of the elected official you sent them to?

Not trying to rain on your parade .. but you're taking the easy way out here. "Hey, we're in a jam, but I DID something! I mailed a tea bag to my congressman! When the history of the 21st century is told I'm going to be right there because I mailed a tea bag!"

Over two hundred years ago young patriots dragged their naked feet down icy roads - leaving a trail of blood - to fight for independence. And you're sending tea bags. Put a tea bag in the mail and your job is done.

Quit taking the easy way out here. Anyone can go to the grocery store and buy tea bags. Takes a bit more to hit the pavement and find voters.

From now on ... no more calls about your great tea party protests. If that's all you have to offer go find a copy of People Magazine and dig in.

Over the weekend, one of the big stories was these AIG bonuses. If you'll remember, AIG has received three government bailouts totaling $180 billion. But yesterday, the company paid out $165 million in bonuses to employees. The fact that AIG had to pay millions in bonuses, considering its massive failings, has politicians irate. Politicians don't get irate when millions of dollars are spent by government on blueberry research or lobster farms .. but let the private sector pay that type of money pursuant to a contract and all hell breaks loose. We're certainly not at all shocked to find that one of the ticked-off politicians is none other than Barney Frank. He says that we need to figure out whether or not these bonuses are "legally recoverable." Barney wants to know, "Who said and at what point, 'We're going to give these bonuses no matter what.' And I do think it's inappropriate for those people to stay in power at that company."

Hey Barney ... some taxpayers out here might want to know whether some of the pork you clowns throw around to buy votes is legally recoverable as well. Remember - if you had to put the blame for this economic mess we're facing right now on just one person in Washington, that person would, without a doubt, be Slobbering Barney. Maybe someday we'll get the full story about Barney protecting his boyfriend who worked at Fannie Mae while this mess was building.

AIG Chairman Edward Liddy says that "the firm was legally obligated to make already-committed 2008 employee-retention payments, the value of which were set early last year before problems at its Financial Products unit became public."

Here's the new reality my friends. Government can seize and spend as much as it wants where it wants and when it wants. The private sector? Not so much. God forbid a company should reward performance. Rewarding performance is something very foreign to politicians and they don't like it. They're used to punishing performance, not rewarding it. The private sector rewards performance and punishes failure .. just the opposite for Barney and his clown circus.

Here's the video we were laughing about this morning:

Today Barack Obama's administration is going to announce plans to aid small business owners. Great. I think we all can agree that small business owners are the driving force in this economy, considering the fact that there are 27 million small businesses in the U.S. that employ more than 40 million workers.

From Barack Obama's $787 billion stimulus package, $730 million will go towards reducing small business lending fees and increasing government guarantees on some Small Business Administration loans to 90%. Along with this, $10 billion will go toward unfreezing the secondary credit market.

First of all, just like the rest of the $787 billion in this stimulus package .. the money has to come from somewhere. And that "somewhere" would be you, the taxpayers. There's a better way to stimulate small businesses by allowing them to keep more of the money they would otherwise pay in taxes .... But we know that the FairTax isn't on Obama's radar. It would allow the people too much power, and strip the power from the imperial federal government. If the politicians don't make you more dependent on them, then they are out of a job.

Moving right along ... while Barack Obama introduces this package to aid small business owners, hasn't he already promised to raise taxes on these very people by 2011? Obama plans to raise income taxes on people earning over $250,000 a year, the very small business owners who claim their income on their personal tax returns. In fact, half of the people earning over $250,000 a year are small business owners. So, while aiding them up front, those gains will be slashed once the government demands more of their earnings in just a few years time. We'll be right back to square one.

It will never happen, but Rush Limbaugh has challenged President Barack Obama to a debate on his show. What a wonderful hour that would be. Put it on Pay-Per-View and I would pay $500 just to watch it. Let me tell you something .. and of this I am as certain as I am of my own name ... and I'll put this in a box in big bold letters so that there will be no doubt how I believe this great debate would turn out ...

Lordy, I would so love to see that happen. But, as my father told me, "People in hell want ice water."

The latest from our friend Joel Samuelson:

Can we stop for a moment and think back to the presidential campaign. John McCain proposed the idea of taxing employee health benefits. At the time, I said I disagreed with the idea --- I understood his reasoning, but knew the idea would be very unpopular. Now Barack Obama is president, guess what he wants to do? Why, he wants to tax employee health benefits! And I still disagree with the idea. During the campaign, Obama called this idea "the largest middle-class tax increase in history." But now that he is supporting it, let's see how many Obama sycophants jump on board with the idea. If Obama really wants this to work he can insert a wealth-envy angle here. Maybe only nail the benefits of high-income earners.

Here's how he is going to get around it ... Obama will never directly propose the idea, but he won't oppose the idea if Congress proposes it. Isn't that clever? More change you can believe in.

We are having a little HOA brouhaha here in the metro Atlanta area. A man by the name of Ron Tripodo spent $900 to install a 14-foot flag pole on his front lawn. Tripodo put the American flag on the pole, complete with landscaping and lighting.

Then the Bridgemill subdivision home owners association comes along and orders him to take down the flag pole. The rules of the HOA apparently stipulate that "you are not allowed to have any structure outside the framework of the home." But Tripodo refuses to remove the pole. The HOA is going to sue him for $25 a day for damages for every day the flag pole remains, on top of attorney's fees.

Know what? I'm on the association's side. He knew what the rules were when he moved in. If he wants to put a flag pole out there in his front yard ... move to an area where there is no homeowner's association and no restrictive covenants to abide by. Sorry to say it .. but this guy is being a jerk. He signed a contract ... he should be a man and live within its terms.

Just a little updated on our wonderful government education system in this country. According to the national survey commissioned by the California Academy of Sciences:

• Only 53% of adults know how long it takes for the Earth to revolve around the Sun.
• Only 59% of adults know that the earliest humans and dinosaurs did not live at the same time.
• Only 47% of adults can roughly approximate the percent of the Earth's surface that is covered with water.*
• Only 21% of adults answered all three questions correctly.

I've said before that the most dangerous group of people in this country ... and that would include drug dealers, gang bankers and terrorist cells ... is the teacher's unions.

Check out some of the works of scuplter Duane Hanson. He made the realistic people Neal saw this weekend at an art festival.

This is a must-read article from Victor Davis Hanson .. what if Barack Obama had campaigned on the things he has done since becoming president. He would be in the Senate, that's what.

Is Obama taking on too much at once, at economy's expense? Can't let a good crisis go to waste!

Dick Cheney says that Obama is using this crisis as a means of justifying the largest expansion of federal authority "in the history of the Republic."

The Obama administration has abandoned the term "enemy combatant" to describe detainees at Guantanamo Bay. I guess he went to talk to the terrorists and decided that they really aren't our enemy.

Just a week ago, the Obama administration was saying, "fundamentally, the economy is weak." Now they are changing their tune.

Damn ... really picking on PrezBO today, aren't we? Not that he hasn't earned it.

Pennsylvania Senator Arlen Specter, RINO, is at a crossroads right now when it comes to this Employee Free Choice Act. If he votes for it, it could spell the end of his career in 2010. Great. Excellent. Let's get rid of the guy.

Here's a word that the Obama administration probably didn't expect would become synonymous with their administration: incompetence.

Speaking of incompetence .. Dick Morris has the same question: Does this guy really know what he is doing?

An open mic moment from Joe Biden ...

The earth hasn't been warming for years; in fact it is getting cooler. So why are environmentalists still trying to tell us how to live? I'll tell you why .. because the global warming movement isn't about science. It's about finding new ways for government to control the private sector and raise money.

The President of Bolivia has decided that his government should seize private land from large-scale owners and redistribute it to people who have none. Worked well in Zimbabwe.

President Medvedev says that Russia's wealthy business owners should return "moral debts" and make sacrifices at a time of economic crisis.

Everybody panic! Washington DC is experiencing a severe AIDS epidemic.

A government school in Portland, Oregon has banned a fifth grader from wearing an Obama mask while performing in the school talent show because some parents felt it was "inappropriate and potentially offensive."

Georgia is back in the news again after both chambers of the Georgia Legislature approved a bill to require proof of citizenship in order to vote. Do you mean these characters actually did something right this year?

The Wall Street Journal asks .. is Ayn Rand relevant? I think we know the answer to that one.

So 1.5 million American children were "homeless" in 2005-2006? Yeah, depends on your definition of "homeless."

In New York City, borough presidents are doing their best to spend tax dollars as wisely as possible. Wait .. who am I kidding.

According to scientists, old age starts at age 27.