The Democrats are up to it again ... using the imperial federal government to tell private companies how to run their businesses. California Rep. George Miller has proposed new federal legislation that would force employers to provide paid time off for any workers that are told to stay home when they are sick. The excuse at hand is the Swine Flu. The real excuse? Labor unions ... and power.

Do you think that there is any way that our founding fathers .. the men who wrote our Constitution ... would have been able to conceive of a government powerful enough to force a private sector employer to pay someone for not working?

Slobbering Barney has let the cat out of the bag. Barney has gone on record saying that the Democrats are trying to do everything they can to increase the role of government in your lives. Now if you have been listening to me for a while or you have been a reader of Nealz Nuze, this is a real big "duh." Consider, though, that only a minority of Americans listen to talk radio, and there sure hasn't been anyone on their TV news or their newspapers telling them that the ultimate goal of the Democrat Party is to grow government while reducing the private sector. Actually ... they're too busy watching Entertainment Tonight and talking about this coming weekend's football games. Growing the role of government in our lives has been the Democrat goal for decades. After all, this is a party that believes America's greatness comes from government. The surprise is that they're finally saying it out loud! Maybe they think they've come to the point where the people share that goal. Have you ever heard such venom aimed at the private sector? The word "corporation" is now used as an epithet. People worry more about what businessmen earn than the corruption of their elected officials. The Democrats see this as their time ... get on the government growth road and go as fast as you can before the voters throw up a roadblock.

Keeping this quote in mind from Barney Frank, what is he currently doing with his position of authority in Washington? He is the guy in charge of solving this problem of "too big to fail." Yep. Slobbering Barney is the one who will figure out how to "give the federal government more powers to wind down major financial firms." How do ya like that? Barney Frank admits that he wants to increase the role of government while working on a piece of legislation to give the federal government unprecedented (and Constitutionally questionable) authority over private businesses.

Barney even got a little clever, comparing his plan to the Republicans "death panels." He says, "We're going to have death panels. But they're going to have death panels that are going to put to death these institutions before they can cause us problems, not old people."

I want you to remember something. Ever heard of someone named Herb Moses? Probably not. Moses was Barney's boyfriend for a number of years. OK ... so no problem with Barney and Moses having a relationship, right? But did you know that Moses was an executive with Fannie Mae while he and Barney were boxing tonsils? Yup; 'tis true! In fact; Herb Moses was one of the Fannie Mae executives pushing the very Fannie Mae loan guarantee programs that led to our housing and mortgage crisis ... all this while his boyfriend was serving on the House Banking Committee (now the House Financial Services Committee) for the entire 10 years of their relationship. During and since that time Barney Frank could be counted on to defend Fannie Mae and to make sure that nobody looked to closely at what was actually going on. Since 1989 Frank has received tens of thousands of campaign contributions from the now-defunct Fannie Mae. Why bring this up? Well ... considering the type of people we have running the show, aren't you looking forward to all that government moving into your personal life? And remember ---- it's the corporations, not government, that are evil.

Sadly, this is a legitimate question to ask. The Democrat plans to take over 18% of our economy (under the guise of healthcare reform) is well underway ..... but in order to get this thing passed, Democrats are not beyond bribery. Essentially, yes, that is what we are seeing. Democrats in Washington are including perks or exemptions for certain states in order to gain Senate votes from those states.

You want some examples?

Nevada would get help from the federal government with its Medicaid bills. Isn't that special? However, the same does not go for every state. Hmm wonder why. Could it be that Harry Reid is from Nevada, and he sure pulls his weight around Congress.

Senior citizens in Florida and New York get additional Medicare benefits! Aren't they lucky? Too bad if you decided to retire in Minnesota. Or Wisconsin. No extra benefits for you.

And it's not just states, folks. Some professions are being singled out. Like firefighting and construction ... these "high-risk professions" will be getting a tax break on a new insurance tax that the Democrats want to pass. Soon, teaching government schools will be a "high-risk" profession .... or being a Senator!

Are you seeing what is happening here, folks? This healthcare reform is nothing but a scam to make more Americans dependent on government. It is nothing more than a scam to give the government control of more of our economy. And the way the Democrats will achieve this scam is to offer perks and benefits and exemptions and pork until they get the votes they need.

The Community Reinvestment Act is back ... but disguised as a different animal. This report should scare the tar out of you. From the Hill:

The Obama administration launched a new initiative Monday aimed at supporting affordable mortgages, backed by the federal government.

Several cabinet agencies announced a new program to provide assistance to state housing financing agencies (HFAs), administered in part by the government-run Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac companies.

The U.S. departments of Treasury and Housing and Urban Development (HUD), along with the Federal Housing Finance Agency (FHFA), will allow state financing agencies to issue new bonds, while Freddie and Fannie will provide the state funds with credit lines, which the federal government will backstop.

The program puts the government in the interesting role of using Fannie and Freddie, which were taken into conservatorship last year in the midst of the mortgage crisis, of administering the credit lines to the state agencies.

Administration officials maintained Monday that the program would not mirror those from Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac in the late 1990s that inflated the mortgage market, saying the state agencies would be more judicious about lending to subprime borrowers.

Government does not learn from mistakes. Government and politicians profit from mistakes. Yet another difference between the government and the private sector.

For those of you who are completely fed up with the outrageous spending by our imperial federal government .... You might wanna wait to drink your coffee before you read this one. The Heritage Foundation has come up with a list of 50 examples of government waste. I picked out a few little gems, but here's where you can get the full list.

- The refusal of many federal employees to fly coach costs taxpayers $146 million annually in flight upgrades.

- Despite trillion-dollar deficits, last year's 10,160 earmarks included $200,000 for a tattoo removal program in Mission Hills, California; $190,000 for the Buffalo Bill Historical Center in Cody, Wyoming; and $75,000 for the Totally Teen Zone in Albany, Georgia.

- The federal government owns more than 50,000 vacant homes.

- Auditors discovered that 900,000 of the 2.5 million recipients of emergency Katrina assistance provided false names, addresses, or Social Security numbers or submitted multiple applications.

- Congress recently gave Alaska Airlines $500,000 to paint a Chinook salmon on a Boeing 737.

Jamie Dupree also has an entertaining list of earmarks for agricultural programs. These are your tax dollars, ladies and gentlemen.

Well ... YOU consider them to be your dollars. Politicians don't look at it that way. This sounds a bit radical ... but trust me on this one. These looters in Washington consider every single penny of your wealth to be theirs. You, in fact, belong to them. You are allowed to work so you will produce. And you are allowed to produce so that you can fund government. In order to keep you producing the government has to keep you calmed down by allowing you to keep some of the wealth you produce. Here's where the balancing act comes in. Day after day; session after session; these so-called "public servants" are diligently working on finding just the right balance. How much earned wealth do they have to allow you to keep before you slide into open revolt? Are they pushing your limits yet? Just wait for the VAT!

How hard is this to understand? Barack Obama and the Democrats don't care about your health. They don't care about your access to health insurance. All they care about is expanding the size of government making sure that you are dependent on it.

Take this short, seemingly innocuous article from the Associate Press.

The White House is asking Congress to give the executive branch more power to limit Medicare's rising costs.

A White House letter to top lawmakers on Friday said the move would be "a critical step forward" in controlling health care costs and providing better care.

This type of language should scare you, folks ... "give the executive branch more power" or the government "controlling healthcare costs." I want to know where in the Constitution these powers and duties are written.

This has to be a joke. I mean, I know that the average voter out there is government educated, but there is no way that the people of California could be ignorant enough to vote this twit into office. Here is a quote from Santa Rosa Democrat Noreen Evans about "living within our means."

Well, there is this mantra out there - "live within our means" - and while that sounds really nice . . . and it sounds really responsible, it's meaningless. Our means are completely within our control . . . We have just given away huge corporate subsidies in February; we have given away other tax reductions over many, many years; we've created tax loopholes; in good times, we routinely give away taxes, and then in lean times we never replace those tax deductions or close those loopholes. . . . So "live within our means" doesn't mean anything. The fact is, we have a state with a population that have [sic] needs that we have a moral obligation to provide.

And you wonder why California is in such trouble? I really didn't need to tell you that this barking moonbat was a Democrat, did I?

Slobbering Barney Frank has been busy lately. Last week he proposed the idea of relaxing regulations on the sale of condos. This week he wants to use TARP money to put poor people into housing. See, banks participating in TARP have to pay dividends to the Treasury. So far those banks have paid $5 billion. So now Barney Frank comes along and says, "Hey, I know how we can spend all of this money!" Certainly not to stimulate the economy, Barney, and not to pay off some of the debt you're running up either.

So here's Barney's plan. He has introduced legislation that would use $1 billion of those dividends in order to give rental housing to the poor, poor pitiful poor and to urban outdoorsmen. Here's the plan ... the $1 billion would be put into something called a national housing trust fund. This fund has apparently already been created ... it was done when the government decided to takeover Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac. So Barney has the fund .. but no funds. Now Barack Obama's 2010 budget calls for this fund to receive $1 billion, so Barney's plan is just a way to make that happen. That's just the beginning, folks. That's just "seed money." The goal would be to put $150 billion over the next decade into this housing trust for poor people. That's a "15" with a pant-load of zeroes behind it.

Stay tuned! That's not all ... another $1.5 billion of these TARP dividends will be allocated to state and local governments to help them redevelop abandoned and foreclosed properties.

It keeps going. Barney Frank also wants to use some of the TARP money itself, not just the dividends. He wants $2 billion in TARP dollars to go toward an emergency mortgage relief program. Then another $2 billion in TARP dollars would create a program to help people cope with foreclosures on multifamily properties. All of this would be run by the Department of Housing and Urban Development.

We're never going to pay any of this money back my friends, not while the Washington Barneys see ways to use it to buy votes.

We'll have to jump across the pond for this one ... a father has been warned by his housing association (that would be the government) that his daughter's trampoline posed as a safety risk and must be kept inside. The 3ft wide trampoline sat in the shared garden of this housing tenant. The father says he was told to remove the trampoline "in case burglars used it to jump though his neighbor's windows."

Now a spokesman for the housing association denies that the risk of burglary was a factor. After receiving a complaint from a neighbor, the association claims it was concerned that other children would use the trampoline unattended and hurt themselves.

Both excuses are lame. Nanny state government at its best.

More government regulations are never the answer .. unless you are a politician who loves government and the power it provides them. In this case, let's go to San Francisco. The city's Board of Supervisors has come up with new regulations for landlords. These 'renters' rights laws' were written by Supervisor Chris Daly. One proposal would make it illegal for owners who want to move into their property to evict a family with children. With or without a lease. This would mean that once you've rented an apartment ... all you have to do is download a tricycle motor and you're in for good. The idiot politician who introduced this regulation moaned about "children having to leave the city where they were born." Cry me a river.

Among the most outrageous proposals from Daly is one that "bars landlords from increasing rent to more than one-third of a tenant's income. Realizing how asinine this idea is, he proposed an amendment that would limit eligibility to those who are unemployed, people whose wages have fallen more than 20% over the past year or those who solely rely on the government for a living.

By the way ... did you know that in San Francisco they have something called a "Tenant's Union?" Just wonderful.

I've owned rental property. It's a good deal. But here's a word of warning. If you're going to own rental property be sure that the property can command rents far and above what would be deemed "affordable" for some household living at or near the poverty level. In today's economy I wouldn't touch a piece of rental property that rented for less than about $2000 a month. Once you're above that level your tenant isn't going to be among that class pandered to by politicians. You might actually end up making some money on your investment.

Hot outside, isn't it? How many of you remember your community swimming pools from your childhood years. These were your oasis from the heat; a place together with your friends. I remember a city pool in Taylor, Texas. When Aunt Joyce or my grandparents would drive me over there for the afternoon I was literally beside myself with joy. They would sit there in the hot summer Texas sun while I splashed in the water. Now ... let me tell you, this swimming pool in Taylor wasn't pretty. There was broken and jagged concrete. Fixtures were rusted. It was the best this poor farming community could do .. and it was fine enough.

In case you didn't know it, there are many swimming pools that didn't open for the summer this year. There are at least five pools run by the Georgia Department of Natural Resources that are closed.

Here's what happened: About 18 months ago a 7-year-old girl was held underwater in an outdoor spa by the drain. These spas circulate a lot of water, and the drain can be strong. Unfortunately she died. Hate to say it, but kids die in swimming pools all the time, and have been doing so for generations. This particular little girl, however, was the granddaughter of a former Secretary of State. Uh oh. Time for the Imperial Federal Government to step in.

So now we have a nifty new federal law that requires fancy new drain covers, sump pumps at the bottom of some pools. We have covers on skimmers and mesh outlets in the sides of pools. All of these new fittings have that wonderful little stamp on them which says that they meet all sorts of federal standards. Trouble is, in some cases the renovations were just too expensive, and so the pools remain closed.

Where does this end? Look, life isn't safe. There are dangers everywhere. If you really want to make pools safe, fill them in with dirt. Do you know that in some communities you aren't allowed to so much as have one of those Wal-Mart plastic wading pools in your back yard unless you have a trained lifeguard on duty? Where is this going? Are we eventually going to get to the point that the federal government appoints a safety watchdog to every American household? We could pass a law requiring that each household set aside a place for a government monitor to live, and that person can then spend six days a week watching the family's every move to make sure they don't do anything that could involve even the most remote chance of danger. The watchdog would get one day off, and on that day the family would be forbidden from leaving the home. They wouldn't even be allowed to plug in or remove an electrical appliance.

I grew up plugging stuff in. Did I ever get shocked? You betcha. It taught me to be more careful the next time. Now when you buy an electrical appliance the first thing you do is get some scissors or a knife to cut all of the warning labels off the cord. And then there's those ugly stickers on your visor telling you about the dangers of airbags with children in the car. The wonderful federal government has mandated that these stickers be impossible to remove. Impossible hell. I know how to remove them, and I take them off of every car I drive ... even the rental cars. That ugly sticker hovering above my eyes is just a constant and revolting reminder of the nanny state we're becoming.

You have seen what's happening in our government schools, haven't you? Children aren't allowed to touch each other during recess --- if there even is a recess - because someone could get hurt. At some schools they won't even let the children outside if the grass is wet. That's why the children in Seattle are so sickly looking. In Florida they lock down schools if someone hears a clap of thunder, and they won't let the kids leave until 30 minutes after the last thunder is heard ... even if their parents are waiting for them in a car outside.

Can you see where this is going? We're raising a generation of wimpy, pasty-faced, candy-assed cowards that are afraid of their own shadows. Watch out! Don't get sucked into that swimming pool drain! No, you can't go outside, the grass is wet. Wait! Was that thunder I heard? Get inside? Tommy! Stop touching people. No, you can't play tag. Someone might get touched. Besides, someone has to be "it," and that hurts their self esteem.

I'd love to write a book on this ... but only if they allow me to title the book. Hold your ears now. Cover the eyes of your precious frightened little children. "The Pussification of America." There. Can't you just see that one flying off the shelves? Can't, though; Someone might get offended.

I wonder if the pool in Taylor is open. Sure is hot there.

OK pay attention to this one. Here's a little taste of what it is like to live in a country with entirely too much government. In this case, let's focus on Hugo Chavez's Venezuela, where he has managed to nationalize nearly every major industry.

For the next three months, GM is stopping production in Venezuela. Why? Because the Venezuelan government won't give them enough dollars to import parts. Yep the government won't give them enough money to continue production. So they will just shut down. Where does Hugo Chavez get the power to do this? Simple, he had the government implement currency controls. Back in 2003, Chavez started regulating the access that businesses and people had to dollars. Now, if a Venezuelan wants to import goods or take a vacation, they must apply to the government currency agency for dollars.

So what started happening? Businesses and citizens started transferring money out of Venezuela to the tune of $72.7 billion since 2003. Clearly this had an effect on the economy ñ inflation, less private investment.

So all of this money and investment has left the country. Then what happens? An economic crisis. Oil prices drop, and oil represents 93% of Venezuela's exports. So now, the government has less money for imports. It has to tighten currency controls and ration its dollar supplies. The government starts prioritizing where dollars get spent. Food and medicine take priority while "luxury goods" like liquor, cosmetics and designer clothing are limited or completely shut out. And when it comes to those evil private businesses, they are rationed too. Hence, the closing of the GM plant ñ because the government doesn't view money for GM to import parts and continue production as a high priority.

So what happens now? Well when companies can't get government dollars they turn to dollar-denominated government bonds, which sell at three times the official exchange rate. Now more money is entering the system and .. tada the inflation rate continues to climb. Venezuelans suddenly have less purchasing power. What happens when you have less power as a consumer? Economic growth comes to a halt, and the cycle continues.

You want the Reader's Digest version of all of this? Hugo Chavez gets too involved with his dreams of regulating the free market and seizing private industry. In short order the market is on its way to hell on a sled. Hugo tries even more intervention. The sled speeds up.

Sound like anyone you know?

Department of Defense employees must take written exams as part of their routine training. See if you can correctly answer the following question:

"Which of the following is an example of low-level terrorism?"

• Attacking the Pentagon
• IEDs
• Hate crimes against racial groups
• Protests

Any guesses? I bet you know where this one is going, don't you? That's right. Protests. Now we have the Defense Department telling their workers that protests are "low-level terrorism." Excuse me, but isn't there something in the Constitution about the right to "peaceably assemble?" And then there's something else about the right to "petition the government for a redress of grievances." Now we call these activities low-level terrorism? What does that make all you tea-party demonstrators from earlier this year? Low-level terrorists?

Do you feel comfortable with this? Not I!

Last week, Obama announced that he was appointing a pay czar. Well .. he isn't going to exactly call this character a "Pay Czar," the official title will be "Special Master for Compensation. This is the guy who will be in charge of making sure that executives at evil financial institutions wouldn't make too much money At least, that is what we expected a pay czar to do. We are finally starting to get a better idea of what exactly the Obama administration had in mind. We will supposedly get all the details sometime this week. But here's a start ...

Any bank or corporation that has received two rounds of bailout money will be forced to submit changes in executive pay to be approved by the government pay czar, Kenneth Feinberg. Those would be companies like Citigroup, Bank of America, AIG, General Motors and its finance arm, GMAC.

Now do you really think that these pay restrictions will only apply to the institutions who have received two rounds of bailout funds? You're kidding me, right? Once the standards are set you can bet that the businesses and financial institutions will be under tremendous pressure to follow suit. This will apply to financial companies, US operations of foreign banks, and other private hedge fund companies and private equity firms. Even companies that repay the TARP funds in full will not escape oversight on their compensation structures. We are talking about the government setting the standards for an entire industry to make them more fair and comparable to other industries.

The principles currently being drafted by the Treasury Department will apparently allow regulators to tell banks when they need to change their compensation arrangements if the government feels it would "encourage too much risk-taking." What is defined as "too much risk" has yet to be determined. It will be a politically motivated government-style definition, though, and you can just guess what that will entail.

Here's a nifty little line that appeared in this article from the New York Times. Tell me that it doesn't make you do a double take ... to think that we once lived in a time when private companies like banks had the luxury of setting their own compensation levels! Here's the quote: "In the past, banks had free rein to determine the base salary and bonuses they awarded their employees." OMG! Can you believe that? Can you actually believe that there was a time in this country when private businesses could decide how to compensate their own employees? Just how backward were we? Any government-educated person certainly knows that this is a job for government, not the private sector.

Government setting private sector compensation ... change you can believe in.

Too late for me to construct much of a rant for the Nuze, but you can bet I'll be able to Boortztificate about this one on the air.

Our president, Barack Hussein Obama (Hey ... now he's proud of his middle name, so I can use it, right?) Has decided he needs a Pay Czar. The White House says that this person, one Kenneth Feinberg, will actually be called the "Special Master for Compensation." He is going to decide just how much executives for companies receiving bailout funds can make.

For now the Pay Czar will rule over companies receiving bailout funds. Well, you have to start somewhere I guess. But hold on ... this could only be the beginning. How about companies who receive special tax benefits from the government? Then how about companies who have contracts to do work for the government? After that we can expand the Pay Czar's responsibilities to companies who are deemed to be "too big to fail," and thus have to have their executive compensation levels monitored by the government.

Am I the only one out there reading Atlas Shrugged right now?

On Monday it was General Motors. On Tuesday, the Senate advanced a bill giving the government some controls over the tobacco industry. Let's see what our imperial federal government can come up with today! Oh wait! Almost forgot. There's Citigroup too. And our health care industry. Are you keeping a list out there? Just how much of our economy is going to be under government control, if not ownership, by the end of Obama's first year. The question now is whether to call this guy a fascist or a socialist. He's certainly not a capitalist.

Well ... it's going to be OK, isn't it? After all, we all recognize that the government does a much better job of running businesses and enterprises than the private sector does. Right?

Let's use the insurance industry as an example here. How would things be different if the government were running our life insurance companies? As things stand the life insurance companies have to take premiums and invest them. The object is to obtain a decent return on those investments so that the company will not only be able to make money for its shareholders, but also have enough assets to pay death benefits as they come due. Now ... if the government was running a life insurance company it would set enough money aside in any given year to cover expected claims, and then spend the rest. There would be no investment accounts. An inability to sell new policies and collect new premiums to cover current claims would lead to failure. Sounds good, doesn't it?

I know you're tired of hearing this, but elections have consequences ... as does allowing ignoranuses to vote