Voter Intimidation Charges Dropped Against Members of Racist Group

Charges were dropped today against members of the KKK who stood outside polling booths in Philadelphia intimidating voters with racially charged comments and brandishing a baseball bat. The three men dressed in white robes and stood outside a polling booth during the November presidential election in a position where everyone coming to the polling place had to pass. Other election observers were intimidated by the brandished weapon and had racial slurs hurled at them.

Despite the testimony of numerous witnesses (including a YOUTube video) and the statements by many of this being the worst case of “voter intimidation” they had ever witnessed, the Feds dropped all charges against the three members after winning an injunction against the man brandishing the bat.

Does that rub you the wrong way?

Does that make you say, “WHAT!?”

It happened just like that this week. Accept the men were not members of the KKK, but of the New Black Panthers. They were not dressed in white robes but in black from head to toe. It wasn’t a baseball bat, but a night stick. The racial slurs included one testimony of whites being told “you are about to be ruled by the black man, cracker.”

It was appalling when it happened.

It’s appalling that it is being dismissed.

If you believe racism is wrong, as I do, then it is wrong no matter what race it is directed against. If you believe voter intimidation should not be tolerated, as I would affirm, then you can’t pick and choose who it is okay to intimidate.

The law is there for a reason. It should be enforced.

The Automobile Task Force

Recently it was announced that part of a government approved restructuring plan Chrysler would be shutting about 25% of its dealerships and cutting its advertising budget in half. I can understand cuts, but cutting the availability of a product and the advertising for a product, doesn't usually help you sell MORE of a product.

But a better question is, who in the government negotiated and 'approved' this restructuring? In fact who has been working with the car companies on all of the bailout mess? Surely this must be some super group of former car company CEOs and execs who have successfully restructured and led car companies in the past, Lee Iacocca type figures.

Evidently not.

In fact the sum total of their car experience (a couple dozen people) is about... well... zero.

But don't worry, they all OWN cars... well, okay... maybe NOT ALL OF THEM OWN cars.

That's right.

They aren't even all car OWNERS. No dealers. No designers. No automotive engineers. No automotive execs. No car people on the automotive task force.

VAT, Inflation, and White Paint?

I’m going on very little sleep here, so I can’t say I will have the best tone today, just to warn you right off the bat.

As I look at the news the same question keeps coming to mind over and over :

What! Are they stupid?!

I know, a little juvenile at best, but… then again…

The first one that sticks out is our Nobel Prize winning Energy Secretary; obviously a man of incredible mental acumen… until he opens his mouth. Secretary Chu claims that global warming has reached a “crisis situation”. Really? Are we looking at data here or does someone have Al Gore’s An Inconvenient Truth looping over and over again on his DVR. What is even more mind boggling is that not only do we have to do all of the already proposed insane ideas that would crush our economy and send us into the Greatest Depression, but we also need to go up on our roof with a five gallon bucket of white paint and cover the whole thing. That’s right! Our brilliant energy secretary claims that if we painted all of our roofs white it would effectively take all of the cars off the road for over a decade. I’m not sure how on earth he came UP with that number, but as long as he is pulling random numbers out of orifices, maybe he could give me the winning Powerball numbers for tonight.

The second one is a little more wide spread. Last week a handful of ballot measures in California went down in flames after people realized that the only solution that their law makers had come up with to solve their massive budget shortfall was to create new ways to tax them to death, all while they have been giving themselves pay raises and spending BILLIONS of dollars on state programs for illegal aliens. Unfortunately this particular stupidity isn’t limited to California, in fact it is rampant in Washington. Evidently the President and the Treasury Secretary (don’t get me started on THAT guy) are hearing from “tax experts” that we really need to have a Value Added Tax (VAT) to help make up for our SOARING deficits. If you aren’t familiar with the VAT let’s just say it is ONE more way for the government to take the money out of your wallet a little bit faster. It’s also known as a national sales tax. Now, I’m not opposed to a national sales tax… just get rid of the income tax first. I’ll be the first to admit that I am not a “tax expert” but I’ve got an even better idea to make up for the massive deficit that we have… STOP SPENDING MONEY, MORONS!!!! Okay, I feel a little better now.

It’s one thing for the average Joe like me to get upset with my government and yell at them for doing stupid things, but you would think they would pay a little more attention to the people that are actually lending them money (they just TAKE mine). Evidently the Chinese aren’t really happy with our monetary policy lately. For a while now they have been yelling at us to cut off the bailouts and stop spending money, but they seem to be even less fond of the fact that the Federal Reserve is buying Treasury debt. That’s right, the Fed is buying debt (or lending money) to the Treasury.

Let that process for just a second.

Got it?

Yes, that’s called printing money out of thin air. We are loaning ourselves money and if I were the Chinese (who own a HUGE portion of our debt), I wouldn’t be talking with people about this problem I would be smacking them senseless. In fact, we should all be smacking them senseless! This is a recipe for DISASTER. Can anyone say inflation?

Okay, believe it or not, I haven’t had my coffee yet. I was afraid that if I drank that first I would just throw the computer off the desk and end up on some security video, spam email that you end up getting four dozen times.

Ugh… stupid people.

Sorry, I’ll try and make the next post a little more civil.

Race, Sex, and Justice

Here is a quote from the Republican Supreme Court nominee, “I would hope that a wise white man, with the richness of his experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion than a Hispanic female who hasn’t lived that life.”

Oh wait, that’s not what happened. But what if it had? Is that a racist statement? Is it a sexist statement? I would certainly say so.

Now here is the real quote from President Obama’s Supreme Court nominee, “I would hope that a wise Latina woman with the richness of her experiences would more often than not reach a better conclusion [as a judge] than a white male who hasn’t lived that life.” — Judge Sonia Sotomayor, in her Judge Mario G. Olmos Law and Cultural Diversity Lecture at the University of California (Berkeley) School of Law in 2001.

Any way you slice it, the statement is racist, sexist, and has NOTHING to do with the rule of law. In fact it is clear that not only does the Judge Sotomayor believe that the race and background of the two parties should be considered, but that justice itself may be different depending on the race, sex, and background of the judge trying the case.

Can we go ahead and redesign any statues of Lady Justice and have them strip off the blind fold and throw the lopsided weights of race and sex into the scales.

Unfortunately this isn’t just talk for Judge Sotomayor, she was actually admonished by a colleague (and President Clinton appointee) for her judgment (or lack there of) in a case where white, male firefighters were being passed over for promotions based on their race.

Justice?

The crazy world we live in

Hold on to your seats, things are bumpy, crazy, and just plain dizzying. Here is a quick list that will make your head teeter on the brink of exploding.

- The first of the two big stories is North Korea. Kim Jong Il is about as loopy as they come. The man appears to be going through some substantial physical struggles and this whole show that he has been putting on for the last couple of days is probably aimed toward his own people and having the backing of senior military leaders to be able to name one of his sons as his successor. Still it is further testament to the fact that the man is crazy. Obviously just the kind of person that we need to sit down and hold talks with.

- You’re the president, it’s Memorial Day, you laid your wreath and followed tradition, one of the biggest psychopaths in the world just tested a nuclear weapon… and you’re… off to play golf? Seriously, if President Bush had done this in the same situation you wouldn’t have been able to find ANYTHING else on the news.

- The second big story is that the President will be announcing his pick for the replacement of Justice Soutor. In fact as I typed this Drudge just updated to say that he has picked Sonia Sotomayor, which is not a surprise and has been on the short list. Unfortunately she has been chosen for three reasons, only one relating to her real qualifications. Number one, she is a she. The President made it very obvious from very early on that he would be picking a woman. She will also be the first Latina appointed to the Supreme Court. Quite frankly I don’t really care about either of these “qualifications”. I don’t agree with picking people because they meet a certain demographic, it demeans the office and leaves you guessing about the person’s actual qualifications. Pick a Philippino-Hungarian hermaphrodite for all I care, as long as they are really the best person for the job. The third and final reason that she was picked is that she is a holds a liberal activist line and meets Obama’s requirement for being empathetic. The AP is already heralding her as bipartisan (shocking) because she was given an appointment by President George H. W. Bush, but just remember, so was Justice Souter who turned from somewhat conservative to extreme liberal on the bench.

- The President is adding to his long list of new ‘czar’ positions by creating the post of cyber czar. Unnecessary and even frightening in some respects. The cyber czar responsibilities are fairly broad and focus on the vague term of ‘security’. Nice to know that this unelected official could possibly exercise authority over public and private networks… all in the name of ‘security’. Seriously how many people does the President need to report to him and how many things do we need government putting their foot into. How much is this going to cost the taxpayers? You know this isn’t just some hacker sitting in a room of supercomputers but an entire STAFF of people. Great, just what we needed.

- Gas prices. Ugh. No one seems to care about the dollar falling compared to other world currencies… until of course they start to understand what that means. It means higher gas prices and inflation on the billions of things that we import. This is the tip of the ice berg. Interest rates on treasury certificates are going up because of the HUGE debt load. Rising inflation, rising interest rates, and rising unemployment. Welcome back Mr. Carter! Oh you may not be feeling it yet, or just starting to notice, but it’s here and it’s growing…

- The US is on the brink of losing our AAA credit rating. That means… refer back to my previous point.

- And finally, a California court will decide today whether or not the Constitutional Amendment that was passed by the voters is really legal. Huh? I thought that was the whole point of passing a Constitutional Amendment. Doesn’t the Constitution DEFINE the law?

Coffee time.

Waxman - Markey Cap and Trade

Here is a pdf of the Waxman-Markey Cap and Trade bill if you would like to read it.

Only 932 pages and a real page turner at that.

Remember what I've said about bills that are this big... they are intentionally written this big so that you will never read them, so that you will not know all that they are trying to do, and so they can create loop holes for all of their big donors and constituents.

This is a mess.

The mere fact that the following amendments were proposed, let alone voted down, should scare you. (From the Heritage Foundation)

The first was an amendment that would void the legislation within a year without a deal with India and China. A second would have voided the bill if gas prices surpassed to $5-a-gallon. The third would void legislation if unemployment reached
15 percent. And a fourth provision would have repealed “the entire law if the average retail price of electricity sold to residential sector goes up by more than 10 percent in one or more census divisions.”

All of this for a "possible" reduction in global temperatures (mind you these are the same people that predict the weather) of less than .05 degrees C in the next 40 YEARS.

There is NO SCIENCE to back this up.

This is an economy CRUSHING bill.

This will cost YOU thousands of dollars... if it doesn't cost you your job because of the impact that it will have on your business or company.

Anybody want to make a phone call? Can I suggest the capitol switchboard so you can contact your Reps and your Senators?

(202) 224-3121

****UPDATE: Talk about a bill that is so big it is MEANT to confuse people. This is Waxman, of Waxman-Markey aka the AUTHOR of the bill being asked about the contents of the bill. Nice.

Killing One Business Owner at a Time... all for the greater good... of course

Read this letter to the editor from the owner of a Dodge dealership in Florida.

Life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness... really?

What should the GOP do?

If you listen to talk shows and the mainstream press, you may have heard an increasing amount of banter by liberal thinkers that the GOP is dead; that as a party the Republicans have lost their way and need to reinvent themselves. Some official members of the Republican Party have echoed this same sentiment. General Colin Powell has talked recently that the GOP needs to moderate on issues and that we basically need to take a good few steps to our left.

At the same time, others in the party, such as former Vice President Cheney have said that we need to stick to conservative principles and that General Colin Powell has basically left the Republican Party.

What should we do?

The answer is pretty obvious when you take a step back. The Republicans blew a prime opportunity when they had it and when the economy tanked they were the ones left holding the hot potato. Hence, they had two very bad elections. They didn’t lose by landslides, but they did lose handily.

However, the Democrats have come to power and have done exactly the opposite of what the Republicans did when they were in power. The Democrats have stuck to their liberal ideology. They’ve held to their principles and are moving in lightning fashion to the left.

And the country is starting to realize this might not be the way to go.

In a recent poll, which is a regular Rasmussen poll repeated every month or so, the country seems to be rejecting the liberal ideology and starting to favor Republicans.

However, the Republicans are the minority party. The candidate that we had for president was not the candidate we needed. Although he is the type of candidate the Gen. Powell says that we need (although he supported President Obama). We have no clear leader at this point. We have several promising, conservative prospects, but nobody has emerged as a clear leader of the party.

Fortunately Republicans are gaining ground without a clear leader to rally around, and conservatives are becoming more dominant within the party. This is good news.

The smart players in Congress can see the writing on the wall. They know they are facing some tough elections and while so many (mainly OUTSIDE the party) are telling Republicans to take a step to the left, the Democrats in Congress are finding that they need to take a few to the right… just to survive.

One of the first things that President Obama did when coming into office was sign an executive order to close the prison in Guantanamo within a year. It doesn’t look like he is going to be able to do that. While it is in his realm of authority to do this he has to go to Congress to get the funding. And yesterday his Democrat led Congress said – NO. Overwhelmingly, NO. By a vote of 90 to 6 the Senate voted to REJECT an amendment to a war funding bill that would have funded the closing of GITMO and the movement of the prisoners to US soil. In fact they also stipulated that no funds already approved could be redirected toward this effort. Ouch.

Despite a still fairly rosy opinion of the President, he is not winning any policy victories with the people.

On top of the tide moving against the liberal policy flood, the country is also moving toward a more conservative moral stance on abortion. 51% of people now call themselves pro-life.

So in an increasingly favorable climate, why on earth would the Republicans move toward a more moderate position?

Forget the fact that I firmly believe that conservative principles are the only moral, intelligent, and historically proven way to run a country successfully. Look at it from a strategic perspective. The country is shifting in your favor, against your opponent. Do you take this opportunity to grey the lines between you, or do you pull out the Sharpie and make that line as clear as possible.

Fortunately this is not the first time we have seen this. Or the first time that the Republicans have been told that they need to moderate. It has happened repeatedly and there is an appropriate response:

"Our people look for a cause to believe in. Is it a third party we need, or is it a new and revitalized second party, raising a banner of no pale pastels, but bold colors, which make it unmistakably clear where we stand on all of the issues troubling the people?" Ronald Reagan 1976 CPAC

Don’t pull out the pale pinks and mint greens now. Listen to the man who won real landslides with a Democratic congress and a hostile press.

Bold colors.

Maricopa County Board of Supervisors

If you live in Maricopa County then you need to look into a couple of things.

#1 We have an awesome County Attorney who won re-election EASILY. He's on the ball. He works hard. Andrew Thomas is a stand up guy.

#2 The Board of Supervisors is out of control... BIG TIME. They need to go. At least one of them needs to, and probably will be, going to prison.

Sonoran Alliance has a bit on their latest shenanigans of pulling the funding from the County Attorney that YOU elected and giving the money to an attorney that they chose. Nothing like usurping authority that isn't yours to take.

Channel 5 sums it up here.



BTW: If you are looking for AZ political info, Sonoran Alliance is one of the best.

The Notre Dame Commencement

The President’s recent speech and accompanying honorary degree at Notre Dame was controversial and highly publicized. As always, the president conducted himself well and read his speech very smoothly with a comfortable and relaxed demeanor. He is after all, a very talented orator. As with all of the president’s speeches, if you enjoy the moment and ignore the words you miss a lot of what was said, both good and bad. So here is a break down.

First the controversy.

The fact that the president was speaking at the commencement was not controversial; he is after all, the president. The controversy revolved around the honorary degree that the university was giving him and a particular edict issued from the Catholic church relating to political figures who support abortion. Catholic institutions are strongly discouraged from giving awards or honors to politicians who hold a ‘pro-choice’ viewpoint. This would apply particularly to President Obama, who holds a more ‘pro-abortion’ viewpoint than any of his predecessors. Many students, staff, clergy, and other invited guests protested and even boycotted the graduation to voice their disapproval.

In the midst of this controversy, the president did quite well. Of course, he didn’t do what I would have thought was the best thing, but what he did, he did well. He acknowledged and addressed the issue in his speech. The speech itself was an encouragement to engage on difficult issues and try and find common ground. A very admirable approach to any ‘gray’ issue.

Unfortunately abortion is not one of those issues. There is nothing ‘gray’ about abortion. There is no common ground to be found on murder.

And the President acknowledged that too, I was surprised to find. He said, “… the fact is that at some level, the views of the two camps are irreconcilable. Each side will continue to make its case to the public with passion and conviction. But surely we can do so without reducing those with differing views to caricature.”

Fair enough.

He went on to discuss a variety of issues including giving a powerful example of how the Civil Rights Act of 1964 was actually created. It is an example that you don’t normally hear from the Democrats. Not to say they don’t talk about the Civil Rights Act, but they rarely give credit where credit is due. The President quite admirably gave kudos to President Eisenhower, who did more to advance the Civil Rights movement and dialogue than his Democratic successors, especially President Johnson, who merely signed the measures that President Eisenhower spent years assembling.

These were definitely the highlights of the speech, but closer inspection on some of the finer points does show some interesting bits.

A common theme throughout the speech is a sense of ‘fairness’, not so much from a perspective that you would expect at a commencement. Instead it carried the constant drumbeat of a latent hostility against success; an encouragement for service given by the students and a rebuke of the affluence that many of them are aspiring to, an affluence that the President himself has attained.

In the middle of the encouragement to deny yourself, the President, who had just assailed selfishness, pride, and ego, holds himself up as an example and repeats the story of what led him to become a community organizer working to lift up South Side neighborhoods. All while making no mention of the millions of dollars of success that the President has enjoyed after writing two best selling books. He goes on and on about the people that he has learned selflessness from and speaks of the wonders of non-profit ventures and being generous towards others, all while his wallet and his checkbook are telling a remarkably different story.

An odd commencement speech indeed.

I applaud the President for addressing the very issue that brought such controversy to the occasion, though it seems it would have been less self serving and more understanding if he had graciously asked not to receive the honorary degree in order to honor the Catholic heritage of those present.

I fully acknowledge that personal sacrifice, charity, and generosity are great and wonderful things that should be practiced by everyone, including the President, Vice President, and every member of his administration.

I would also encourage everyone to realize that class warfare, rather than helping the whole, actually hurts the whole. If we’ve learned anything from history it is that when you try and ‘level the playing field’ (i.e. promote a socialist doctrine) all you succeed in doing is dragging all but the elite in government DOWN to a common lower standard. When you practice liberty and encourage people to dream and succeed, then give them the freedom to do just that, then everyone is elevated by the success. Yes, naturally a few will rise above the others, but the level of the whole is higher. Our country was not established on equality of results, but rather freedom of opportunity.

When we celebrate the greatness, talent, ambition, creativity, and intelligence of the individual, we inspire the call to greatness within us all. We should not strive to covet the things that our neighbor has, but rather to develop the talents and abilities that God has given each one of us.

A Tangled Web Indeed

Wow, what a mess.

So here it goes. After September 11, 2001, the US captured some very mean, nasty, and high ranking members of the Al Qaeda network. Evil men by all accounts. It was believed that these men were in a position to know information about possible attacks that could be significant. The Bush administration asked their legal team about the possibility of “enhanced interrogation techniques” and the team weighed in on a number of techniques including waterboarding. The time came, the order was given, the technique was used, useful information was gained, and innocent American lives (possibly hundreds of thousands of lives but the current administration won’t release that info) were saved and no permanent damage was done to the bad guys.

The far left base of the Democratic Party has been apoplectic about this for years now, so when Barack Obama became president they started lobbying for him to prosecute President Bush, Vice President Cheney, Donald Rumsfeld, and whoever else might have been involved. He very quickly ruled out prosecuting the executive leadership, for good reason; the whole idea is absurd and it would set a very bad precedent. He also very quickly ruled out prosecuting the CIA agents that actually performed the waterboarding. All of this enraged the leftists who worked so hard and contributed so much to Democratic campaigns. So the administration opened up to the idea of prosecuting, get this, not the people who gave the ORDER to do the waterboarding, or the people who DID the waterboarding, but the LAWYERS who gave a legal opinion to the President, that waterboarding was not illegal.

Well, it became obvious very quickly that this strategy was not going to work, would put egg all over the face of the administration, and would fail to appease the base. So… they appealed to the home state Bar Associations of these lawyers for them to consider ethical complaints against the attorneys. In the view of those searching for blood, President Obama failed to deliver.

So… here comes the queen of the leftists, Speaker Pelosi. She demands a truth commission be set up to find out who was involved and bring them to justice. One problem; the CIA says that they briefed her on this subject repeatedly since 2002 and she never raised any concerns about the techniques being used. Oops. She denied, then says that she new they thought the technique was legal, but that it wasn’t being used… oh wait she knew it was being used but not until 2003 and only because some random staff person told her… no wait it was another member of congress that told her… spinning, spinning, spinning…

Then yesterday the wheels came off the bus and the Speaker’s finger pointing was everywhere. She was flustered and had to read repeatedly from her prepared statement because it was obvious that she was lying through her teeth and turned abruptly and unexpectedly on the CIA saying that they had lied to Congress in the past and were lying now. Here is a quote from the press conference:

QUESTION: Madam Speaker, just to be clear, you're accusing the CIA of lying to you in September of 2002?

PELOSI: Yes, misleading the Congress of the United States, misleading the Congress of the United States. I am.

QUESTION: And also -- and doing it again now, as they've released this list of briefings that says you were briefed on the interrogation tactics that were used.

PELOSI: I'm saying -- I'm quoting what the head of the CIA has said. This is -- we don't know if this information is accurate that he's talking about.

What they briefed us on -- and perhaps they should release the briefings. I would be very happy if they would release the briefings. ...

But I'm telling you that they talked about interrogations that they had done and said, "We want to use enhanced techniques, and we have legal opinions that say that they are OK. We are not using waterboarding." That's the only mention, that they were not using it. And we now know that earlier they were.

So, yes, I am saying that they are misleading -- that the CIA was misleading the Congress.

Now the Speaker has lost her credibility (with the few people that still held her in any regard).

Pundits are now taking bets on how long she will last.

Unfortunately I’m not sure that it is going to work that way. The Democratic Party doesn’t have the same kind of ethics standards that the Republicans have. I think Speaker Pelosi will be there for some time to come.

But I hope I’m wrong. She needs to go.

Falling In and Out of Love... Aw

There haven’t been many, but I have read a few articles now by the typical main stream media, that do a pretty decent job of reporting what is said by the administration and then actually checking to see if those things are true.

Shocking, but very encouraging.

Recently Vice President Biden reported on the economic effects of the stimulus and the report was all fluff. More impressively, the AP picked up on the fact that it was fluff and wrote a decent piece picking apart the misleading statements. It’s a good read. They even finished up the piece in a decent fashion.

Spending money will put people to work. But spending has a cost. At some point,
Washington will have to pay for this program, either by raising taxes or interest rates, and those policies typically hurt job growth. The Obama administration's job data do not take into consideration this back-end cost, an omission some economists, particularly conservative economists, say is a flaw in the analysis.

This is encouraging.

At the same time it appears that the White House press corps seems to have lost some of their… let’s say respect for Press Secretary Gibbs, who seems a little frustrated by this new found contempt.




While these marks of true journalism and reporting are starting to shine through, by and large the President still gets a pass on most tough questions, as evidenced by the ‘enchanted’ primetime questions he fielded a couple of weeks ago. His administration, however, is starting to feel some heat. As they should.

I wonder how long it will take the flames to spread and pass the warmth on to the Oval Office.

Faces of Nationalized Health Care

Our healthcare system has issues. I understand that. I admit that. The government is not the answer to the problem. I also understand that. There are some good solutions out there that involve modernizing our system, increasing competition in health insurance, health savings accounts, and a variety of new ideas that once you hear them make complete sense.

The president has said repeatedly in the past that if he could do what he wanted we would have a single payer nationalized healthcare system. Democratic law makers are on video saying that what they are doing now is the first step toward a single payer system and the goal is to drive private insurance companies out of business.

So what are they trying to get us into?

Read some stories of people living under this ‘dream’ of nationalized healthcare.

Having government control your healthcare is a game changer. It is a fundamental change in the relationship between the citizens and their government.

This brings dependency to a whole new level.

There are solutions.

This is not the one we want.

'They Owe Me' Culture

The culture of a country is absolutely critical. Throughout our history the culture of America has been one of self reliance. Personal responsibility goes hand and hand with liberty and freedom. You have the liberty to make your own choices. Work hard and you’ll eat. Slack off and you’ll starve. It’s a naturally reinforcing system.

Unfortunately I think we are losing that. Certainly it isn’t gone and I hope that all of us can think of at least one person that they know who has struggled and persevered and advanced themselves through struggle and hard work. The problem is that changes like this don’t happen all at once, they happen over time and as you continue to feed and nurture the problem it continues to grow.

America is the land of opportunity! And everyone has an opportunity in America to do what they dream of doing. That’s part of the beauty of liberty and freedom; you have the ability to make decisions for yourself. Inherent in that liberty is the freedom to succeed and to fail, and that is a good thing. People need to be able to fail. Businesses need to be able to fail.

Being the father of young kids you learn that you don’t jump up and catch them when they are about to fall. You watch and you monitor so that they learn what is safe and what is dangerous. They learn to manage their own risks and as they get older you monitor less and less. If you follow them around every day and live in a state of paranoia and fear that they are going to hurt themselves, then a) the child isn’t going to understand risks and b) you’ll only wear yourself out in the process.

The situation is actually directly applicable to what we are seeing now. People and companies have over spent and taken some unwise risks; unfortunately the government is following them around and holding out a hand to catch them every time they stumble. Instead of taking their lumps and growing wiser for it, they continue on exactly as they did before, believing that someone will always be there to catch them. Instead a character of self reliance and strength it breeds dependence and entitlement. In the meantime the government will bankrupt the country with out of control spending and endless red ink.

Instead of dreaming of what you might be able to accomplish, you dream of what might be handed to you. Instead of looking within yourself to see where you need to grow and change, you look for a government program to give you a leg up. The shift can appear minor at first and it happens over time, but the long term effects are crushing both personally and on society as a whole.

A person that thinks that the world OWES them something will never accomplish the things that their God given ability and talents would have brought them to. They will never realize their potential because they can’t fuel their own engine of ambition. This country could not have been built by people holding out their hands to the government; it had to be done by men reaching out their hands to take hold of what their dreams and desires told them was possible.

We’re losing that ambition. We’re driving it out of our culture by our actions. People who are carried by their government will eventually lose the ability to carry themselves.

Organizing for America

Last year when then the President’s campaign was touting his sacrifice to become a community organizer instead of taking some high income position, we should have been paying more attention. The roots of union labor and community organization run deep and are very closely tied. Even after the election President Obama has continued to have his organization send out email updates to supporters under the tag line “Organizing for America”. Maybe a more appropriate line would be “Unionizing America”. The Union President seems to have drawn his line of allegiance very clearly.

The first shot was the DC voucher program which I mentioned yesterday. The obvious point of this is that the teachers’ unions are very much against school choice or voucher programs, charter schools, and home schools. These alternate sources for education cut down on head count and in some cases cut down on funding available to the public school system. For instance, in the DC voucher case each voucher recipient was given $7500 a year to use at the school of their choice. Likewise in many states charter schools receive their state funding based on their headcount. In all cases that I have read about or studied, the funding sent to the charter or voucher program is significantly less than the normal state funded institution spends on a per child basis. It actually saves the tax payers money. But it is money that doesn’t go to the state educational system, where the teachers’ unions have real influence. Yesterday I mentioned the 160 “teachers” in LA that are paid not to teach. This is just one example of the negative affect that these unions have; schools find it nearly impossible and EXTREMELY costly to fire a bad teacher.

Let me give you another example of the teachers’ unions at work. This story also comes out of CA, but it does take too many Google searches to see that this problem is wide spread. This particular example is just out right heinous. An eighth grade student was responding to questions from his teacher about his recent absence and he finally admitted that he had been in the hospital because he tried to commit suicide by slitting his wrists. The teacher took a look at the cuts and said that they “were weak” and that he should “carve deeper next time.” The principle requested that he be terminated. The school board voted to fire him. A review commission said… no. He still has his job. They said he was “misunderstood”. According to a former principle, “You’re not going to fire someone who’s not doing their job. And if you have someone who’s done something really egregious, there’s only a 50-50 chance that you can fire them.” Obviously they have the best interests of the kids in mind.

Unfortunately our Secretary of Education and President are on the side of the unions.

Take a look at the recent Chrysler bankruptcy situation. Normally when you are investing in a company, there are different levels of investment involving varying amounts of risk. Unsecured investments are the riskiest because there is nothing standing behind the loan. That’s like if you went to the bank and got a signature loan or any other type of loan where you don’t have to put up collateral. Then there are secured investments. This means that there is an agreement that no matter what happens to a company, that money will get returned or certain property or capital will be forfeited. In normal bankruptcy proceedings those who hold secured debt get paid as much as possible. Those with unsecured debt get whatever is left over. That is the nature of the investment. In the recent Chrysler bankruptcy that was not the case. The union got 50 cents on the dollar for their UNSECURED investment, while those holding SECURED loans received 33 cents on the dollar. Obviously some resisted this flip in bankruptcy practices which truly violates the established contracts. One of the lawyers who had represented the secured bond holders reported that his clients had been threatened to accept the proposed deal or risk the wrath of the White House and their minions in the press. The bond holders were then derided by the President himself at a press conference who denounced them as “speculators”. Since then these investors have been receiving death threats for causing the down fall of Chrysler. All for investing in a company that needed help and was offering secured notes. What do you think that will do for other companies seeking outside investors, especially if they already have debt held by large influential unions? What a great strategy to “get credit flowing again”!

Of course that’s not the only deal that the UAW has made out on since President Obama came to power (in a very real sense). With the government at the helm of GM, after dismissing the CEO, they recently cut a deal with the UAW, exchanging debt for 39% of GM, more of GM than the Ford family owns of Ford Motor Company. In a similar deal the UAW received 55% of Chrysler before the bankruptcy. They get to appoint board members and have influence over who is chosen as CEO; any guesses on how the labor negotiations at GM will go now?

But wait, there’s more!

President Obama just proposed $17 BILLION in budget cuts, most of which will be ignored by congress. One that I am sure they will probably NOT miss is a cut in funding at the Department of Labor. Not to the department as a whole, but in a certain division, the division that investigates union corruption. The Labor Department's Office of Labor-Management Standards investigates allegations of corruption against union officials. Let me ask a rhetorical question here, but why would the President propose cuts to the government body that regulates unions? Hasn’t he called for more government oversight in almost EVERY area? The administration stated an insufficient workload. Obviously there just isn’t anything for them to be investigating, despite the 929 convictions of corrupt union officials that they have won and the $93 million dollars they have been able to return to union members. Maybe President Obama will be investigating any corruption charges himself, since he obviously spends a lot of time with them.

Card check legislation will be coming up soon. It is one of the major goals for the administration and the Democrat party as a whole. It will enable union leaders to coerce new businesses and groups into unions, which of course should have a hugely beneficial effect on the union coffers, which will naturally want to reward the administration that has been so favorable to their cause.

Welcome to the Obama Administration, “Organizing for America”.


****Update: Another union gets in on the action this morning. The president threatens to hold back stimulus dollars if CA doesn't rescind some union wage reductions. Great message! Don't do ANYTHING to cut spending!

Thank your local teachers’ union.

I’ve mentioned before that I think unions have by and large outlived their usefulness in the U.S. Teachers’ unions are definitely on that list.

In Los Angeles right now they are paying “teachers” approximately $10 million dollars a year NOT to teach. That’s right, they are being paid NOT to teach. These people are “housed” for different reasons including, “sexual contact with students, harassment, theft or drug possession.” But they still get a paycheck while their cases are under review. Some reviews take months; some take years. Union rules.

Isn’t it great to see your tax dollars at work!

Education Reform That Works, But Not for the Kids

Beholden to Unions

This is the most heartbreaking, convincing, accurate, and informative video I have seen on this topic. The only thing it leaves out is the answer. Why would the President do this?

Simple: Teachers’ unions. That’s his real litmus test for education.




***Update: President Obama has proposed some budget changes including a renewal of the DC voucher program, but only for kids already enrolled. No new students admitted. Quite the change to believe in.

Bigger Isn't Always Better

The key to effective and efficient government is small government. Government that is large and bloated is by nature inefficient and throughout history has been shone to lend itself more easily to corruption.

As I mentioned yesterday, once government expands, it is very hard to contract. Once additional government positions are created, they are very hard to remove simply because they are not measured by efficiency and productivity on a normal basis, like any private industry position. This fact alone means that governments are bloated beyond reason; restricted and governed by rules that were created without logical intent. The systems are inefficient because they are not judged by their efficiency, nor in many cases even there effectiveness.

The recent financial collapse is a perfect example. Government regulators at Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac blew the whistle years ago and said that these institutions were acquiring too many subprime loans and they were operating from a very week cash position. Quite frankly they were headed for the devastation that we all witnessed with great horror. However, the regulators soon found that their authority was very limited. In fact, they were completely dependent on the congress to actually take action. The system was then crippled by congressmen who were receiving campaign contributions and “special loans” with below market interest rates. Not that the government should have been nor should be, involved in the mortgage industry, but the system that they created to regulate the industry was weak, ineffective, and easily subverted by executives and congressman who benefited from the sheer idiocy of the system.

This is just a brief and very painful example of how government systems work. Why have regulators if they have no real authority? Why allow for a feedback loop between the industry that is being regulated and the elected officials with the ultimate authority over that industry?

The conservative answer would be to dissolve Freddie and Fannie, or force them off into the private sector economy. Government has no business being in business. No bailouts. No government intervention. That would eliminate the need or temptation for these industries to try and court political favors and it would require them to stand on their own merit. They would be forced into efficiency or forced out of business. You could then dissolve the position of the regulators, which weren’t effective to begin with. In the end you have a company that will either thrive or bust, a government that is no longer meddling in private affairs, and you have now decreased the size and cost of the government.

The liberal answer to this problem exasperates the problem. Instead of privatizing, you nationalize. Instead of removing the regulators, you increase the regulators but don’t increase their authority. Instead of realizing that the government was a big part of the problem, the belief is that the government is the only solution to the problem. A government trying to improve the efficiency, stability, and liquidity of an industry, all while running a crippling and irresponsible deficit of their own, makes no sense. More importantly the main issue of ineffectiveness and corruption was never dealt with. No accountability, no repercussions, and nothing to prevent it in the future.

Acknowledging this, why would a conservative, who believes in smaller, limited government, ever become a part of the government? To move into the public sector, all the while decrying the size and scope of the public sector almost seems hypocritical.

True.

This is the problem and the struggle that many conservatives have. It is also one of the things that prevents some conservatives from getting involved.

Unfortunately they are sorely needed. Conservatives that do it well move in and make or at least propose sweeping changes that center around smaller government, lower costs, lower taxes, federalist principles (restoring power back to the states rather than centralizing it), and above all liberty for the people. Along with that is a desire not to become part of the problem and so many impose term limits upon themselves. Which is a noble but crippling measure when you have well connected moderate and liberal politicians who stay in positions for decades sinking roots of influence that expand ever deeper into the Washington soil.

We need conservatives that will hold their ground because we are in a constant struggle between ideologies. We need people that can get into the system, but not become a part of the system. People who can point out the inefficiencies and slowly dismantle them; stripping away public sector jobs while cutting taxes to encourage the private sector to expand.

The change we need is not a big government solution, but a smaller government revolution.

Public Sector vs. Private Sector

I would like to take a couple of posts and explain further the purpose and implication behind one of the main tenants of conservatism, limited government. President Reagan once said it best, “in this present crisis, government is not the solution to our problem; government IS the problem.” An unspoken message from President Obama is, government is the solution to this problem, and every problem.

The government is the solution mantra has led to an explosion in the scope and size of government. We’ve created whole new government positions for advisors, regulators, and administrators that haven’t been needed for the last 233 years, but now are crucial to the survival of our system and our country.

The jump start to the government solution was the $787 BILLION stimulus package which dumped huge amounts of resources into areas that didn’t have the personnel and infrastructure to handle this influx. The choice then becomes to deny the funds, which thankfully some have done, or expand and create an organization that can handle this waterfall of funding.

The theory behind this is that any spending is stimulus and any job created is beneficial to the system. This is true to a very small degree and for a very limited time. The problem with public sector, or government jobs, is that they don’t make money. Think about it. What are public sector jobs? Teachers, fire fighters, police officers, the Motor Vehicle Division, social workers, politicians and their expanding staffs, and the increasingly popular regulators of everything from environmental conditions to bank health and welfare. These of course are just the tip of the iceberg; quite frankly the list is growing every day. All of these are fine and good and yes we need and are thankful for all, well okay, most of these positions, when they are in the correct proportions. But take a look at the list for a minute. Do any of these positions generate money? I don’t mean, do they bring home a paycheck; of course these positions are paid, but do they generate money?

The answer of course is no. These are not profit generating positions. I know that seems to be a bad word these days, “profit”, but it is not a bad thing. Profit is a good thing; a necessary thing.

While none of these positions actually generates a profit, they all COST money and to have them we have to get the money from somewhere. Money doesn’t just fall from the sky and the government just can’t print all of the money that it needs. I have been shocked at the people that I have talked to that seem to think that this is exactly what happens. That’s not the case. The government brings in money in the way of taxes and then spends that money on the critical things including all of the necessary public sector jobs. The problem is that money has to first come out of the private sector. This means that people have to hold private, profit generating positions in order to fund the public sector positions.

Now do you understand my concern, and the concern of many others, when we see the size of the private sector shrinking and the public sector growing? Where does the money come from when you are pulling more and more money from an ever shrinking pool?

You are seeing the answer to that question as well in the form of deficits and debt, which carries its own implications and burdens that I won’t discuss right now.

The problem is magnified when hard times hit and suddenly the private sector is not producing the profits that it use to. A recession in the private sector means layoffs, cutbacks, even companies folding and going out of business. The public sector doesn’t quite work like that because they don’t get funding based on their output, sales, or profit. Their funding is provided through taxes and administered by politicians and other public sector workers or appointees. Instead of decisions made on economic realities, they become leverage for political campaigns.

Ever hear slogans like this:

“We need to fund education!”
“My opponent voted to slash welfare benefits”
“I care about the children, so I will push for increased after school programs.”
“My opponent will slash you Medicare benefits!”
“My opponent wants to get rid of your Social Security!”
“I will push for a universal healthcare”

Understand now? Instead of finding a way to fund a new program but cutting an old one, they just get stacked on top of each other until it becomes a burden that the private sector can’t support.

That is why is hard to cut funding in these areas. That is why public sector jobs are harder to reduce than private sector positions. That is why they need to be created slowly, with great thought and long term consideration, not under the guise of stimulus and unsustainable budgets.

The fact is that we need to reduce the number of public positions to the point where they are sustainable under the worst economic conditions and funding should come, as much as possible, from local and state sources.

This public sector explosion can’t last and more importantly it shouldn’t have started.

Just one reason and one example of why conservatives believe in limited government.

Videos of the Week

I was up late last night reading some of the latest bills in congress. Several hate crime bills. One bill called the "Rangel Rule" for Rep. Charlie Rangel from NY who is in the middle of a tax mess (not that you can read about it in the paper). The bill says that any US citizen will be able to avoid penalties and interest on his taxes if he writes "Rangel Rule" on the top of his form. Classic.

Anyway, here are some vids and brief comments. Enjoy.

After Joe Biden said that he wouldn’t ride in a train, plane, or subway right now and was telling his family members the same thing the travel industry of course freaked out. Evidently Joe forgets that he is the man one heartbeat away from the Presidency and people might actually take his words seriously. BTW… WHO says that there are 10 world wide deaths from swine flu. 10. As a side note, Jake Tapper is a phenomenal journalist. He asks real questions and expects real answers… but I don’t think that he is very popular with Mr. Gibbs.



The newscasters really try and keep a straight face, but you have to admit it would be tough. A two part series : Shadow Hare, the Cincinnati Superhero!





Surprised? I’m surprised that this passes for a press conference. Troubled? I’m troubled with the fact that THIS is the type of SOFTBALL question the press is asking the president at a prime time news conference.


A video of the panic that the White House caused with the “fly by photo op” that cost you $328,000.



Crazy times.