Hiatus

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January 2013

I am seriously contemplating revamping this blog into something else, no more current affairs or politics. However, I don't have a clue what I want to do - yet. Blogging on politics is like shouting over a jet engine, it's pointless. Since no one really cares what I have to say anyway nothing is lost. The fools (criminals) who are running this country into the ground don't care about anything but themselves and I should not be surprised nor flummoxed by it anymore. 

So, when I think about the things I love I realize I already have a web presence for my original art www.static-art.blogspot.com . I have website for my original music www.facebook.com/youngcraig61 . I also have a neglected website for "Reviews" that I've done over the years  http://www.sacracyliac.blogspot.com/ .  I love my family and Jesus, but neither is "blogging" material in my eyes. The family is off limits and I don't have an evangelistic bone in my body. Jesus Christ may be the most recognizable person in world, but He is also the most misunderstood and misrepresented person (mostly by Christians) who has ever lived. I have no authority to try to set anyone straight...

So, hope to see you around sometime, whoever you are. When I come up with something I'll be back.

Good luck!
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 original post

Am I so out of touch? Do I have views so off center? How is it possible, even cosmically, that every single thing I voted for  - everything - lost.

I feel like I live in Alice's Wonderland. As an example the voters here in my city have voted to give the school district more millions. There is absolutely no evidence that the last millions they received has done anything but lowered outcomes once again. Obviously I'm just not seeing the wisdom and really ought not to bother myself and just pay up...

Having lost interest in current events in one fell swoop this blog, such as it is, is going down. I have no idea when I might be energized to give a crap again. I can't even rightly ask anyone to stop by now and again - I probably won't be here.

I plan to turn introspective - largely because no one gives a damn what I have to... Mmm forgot where that was going. Whatever.

I do plan to keep my online art website going. So, if you land here CLICK HERE to see some pretty pictures.

So long




CW

Uncertainty, what uncertainty?

The last few days of this election season it is hard to see the forest for the trees. We have all wore out the mute button on our TV remotes because the political ads have driven us insane. How many times can you hear that so-and-so Republican beats baby seals with a club and such-and-such Democrat is liar? Anyway, for those undecideds out there consider this...

For three years on CNBC - the business news channel - a parade of CEO's and business titans have said the same thing over and over about the current administration. The President and his team have fostered a hostile posture towards business in general and created an atmosphere of uncertainty. The Uncertainty is particularly acute among our small businesses. Despite the rhetoric that they have given tax breaks and grants to small businesses (primarily in the green-energy field) the entrepreneur class is just barely hanging on, unable to expand, unable to grow and unable to hire. Why?

Could be this...

Business Owners Warn Of 4,100 New Regs And The Administration's Secrecy About Them

The nation's small business owners are warning of the effects of 4,100 new regulations and the administration's refusal to produce a legally-required report explaining them.

Every administration is legally required to publish a report each April and October in the Federal Register to inform Congress and the public of the administration's regulatory agenda and its potential economic impact. The requirement is part of the Regulatory Flexibility Act of 1980.

The Obama administration has missed its second straight legal deadline for disclosing its regulatory plans and their economic impact to Congress and the American public. No previous administration has ever failed to produce the report even once.

The article by Craig Bannister of CNSNews.com details another act of lawlessness by this administration. Between this and Fast and Furious - the gun running scandal - and the President announcing which immigration laws he will and will not enforce this administration does exactly what it wants regardless of the law.

Small business in particular can't operate in this sort of environment when even the smallest decision may end up miscalculating the effect of some unknown regulation that could sink the entire business. This is exactly what the law is supposed to do - allow businesses to gauge the effect of regulation on their business plans. Essentially, ladies and gentlemen, the Obama administration isn't being straight with anyone on this and one has to wonder what they have up their sleeves should they be reelected.

They real question is where is the media on this? Where is the Republican leadership? Why is it up to Rep. Issa and Senator Inhofe to do the brow beating on this stuff over and over? Why is the Republican leadership rolling over and playing dead on everyone of these issues? Why are we hearing about this 1 day before the election?

For me it's just another in a long list of reasons to vote for Mitt and Paul.




CW

Living in the Present(or Drifting with the Wind)

Over the past year - or maybe longer - I feel a change in myself. Not a drastic flip or any weird fundamental transformation, just an "easing" if one can call it that. It's nothing I can put my finger on but I definitely feel it. For all I know it's a function of getting older, but I suspect it's more than that.

For the longest time I felt like I've was just drifting through life, not taking control and descending into a rut where I would rather people just left me alone. This included my wife, my kids, my mother, my siblings, my friends and my co-workers. I was a daydreamer, a serious daydreamer. I was waiting for  this or that to happen so I could be free to pursue a real life. Of course those "things" never happened.

Last year I had some health issues - serious, yes, but I'm alright now. There's little doubt that this had an effect on my outlook, facing your mortality will do that I suppose. During the trying times I remember walking around our place and thinking I really need to buy one those, get one of these, fix up that, organize this before winter etc etc, and then stopping to think how utterly unimportant it all was. It was just stuff. Mostly stuff that will be tossed out when I'm gone anyway. The things I valued were just things. What I was missing was the value of the people in my life and the relationships I had put off. For so long, too long, people were a hassle to be endured - and that included myself. I needed to change that.

Don't for a minute think I've succeeded, not yet anyway. I am trying to stop, think and act like a decent human being, a citizen of a Godly kingdom instead of a self righteous, know-it-all of 21st century Earth. Reaching out, making an effort to connect and re-connect with family and friends or just engaging with the people in your daily walk is the first step. This is far more difficult than it would seem.

Our modern world has us focus on ourselves so much that we exclude or shut out everyone else. This busy, busy, hurry up existence saps our energy and provides the convenient excuse we all use to keep everything at arms length. I see it with young people, young men particularly. They build electronic/online relationships and then spend all their waking moments in cyber-land. They miss out on so much. For young women there's texting, e-mail and, of course, Facebook that gives the appearance of connecting with others but it's superficial at best. We ancients aren't immune to it - obviously - as I sit alone typing this out into an Internet blog.

The thing is computers, TV shows, football teams, smart phones and cars can disappoint us, but not like people do. People require real relationships, with these other things it's nearly always a one way street. They don't require much from us - no true emotion anyway. Our cats and dogs require a little love and attention but they give it back in spades, but people, people are so demanding - especially loved ones.

It's called living in the present, being present. It's difficult to do. When my wife and I started going to a new church earlier this year - a teaching church - this was one of the first "lessons". Being present, being engaged where you are with the people you're with. I am becoming convinced that it is the secret of success. And yes, this too, is difficult to do all the time.

Now that I'm conscious of the concept and have seen the benefit of engaging I plan to start to get involved with my own life - and then maybe I can pay attention to you too.



CW  

Brothers

"Brothers"

20 x 24 acrylic

by Craig Willms

A commissioned painting (by my wife) for our good friend Jill. Ahti and Junior. Brothers, grown up and grown old together... I'm hoping this painting will help Jill remember these beloved dogs forever.


See more paintings at www.http://static-art.blogspot.com/


CW

Indespensible Tool for Listening to Joe Biden

Seriously though, would this face BS  you?

CW

A quiet, decent man

Perhaps one day the truth about the kind of person Mitt Romney is will come out. This most certainly won't be because of the mainstream media in the run up to the 2012 election. Once again as noted here before CBS at least shows some integrity. A while ago - in fact a few days before the attack in Benghazi, Libya - CBS revealed that Obama doesn't often attend his own daily intelligence briefings. Today they have run a story on their website (TV?) showing Romney in a flattering light, one that Romney himself won't elaborate on out of some sort of modesty.

FTA (http://www.cbsnews.com/8301-505267_162-57415081/supporters-seek-to-define-the-real-mitt-romney/)

That story begins in the aftermath of the wildfires that engulfed San Diego in the fall of 2007, consuming dozens of homes in Reed Fisher's neighborhood and nearly his own.

Fisher told CBS News the fire did burn a hole through a fence and caught the corner of his house.

While the house was being repaired Fisher got a call from a fellow Mormon, one of his son's friends, offering help. It was Matt Romney, one of Mitt Romney's five sons.

When asked what he said, Fisher said, "We would like to come help. We would like to come do something. And I said, 'Matt, I wish you could, but almost everything has been cleaned up.' But he pressed me, and I said, 'Well, there is this one thing. And I don't know if the insurance is going to cover it. There is a big tree stump in my front yard. They took the tree down, the tree was torched in the fire. But the stump was still there.' So Matt insisted, he said, 'We would like to bring a couple of guys and do some service at your house.'"

On that day, Fisher said he ran out to get some breakfast for the volunteers. Fisher said, "As I drove down to my house, there are four men working in the hole there, ... and one of them is running for President of the United States of America."

That man was Romney. When his son told him about the service project, he had asked if he could help.

"He had dirt under his fingernails," Fisher said. "He was the first one down the hole. He's the first one with the power saw. He's doing the hardest work of any of us."

And as Fisher made clear, not a single reporter was in sight.

"This wasn't a publicity event," Fisher said. "In fact, when they grew up as boys there was occasions where their dad...would get them up and they would go do a service project for someone."

There are other similar stories quietly creeping into the public conscience, but not because of Romney himself, but others who are dismayed by the "lying liar" label being foisted upon him.

One of the most compelling is the story of a business partner who's daughter was missing. Romney shut down Bain, his company, and organized the entire staff to help find the girl. They did. He was in no way seeking praise or triumph for himself he was genuinely helping a friend in need.

These are just a couple of unheralded examples of the kind of human being Mitt Romney is. He is among other thing a quietly decent man.


CW

The Great Debate

I wasn't going to watch the debate tonight and in fact I didn't. I turned on the radio while I filled the dishwasher and then went into to the office and worked on a painting while listening. I thought Romney was articulate and on his game, scoring points at will, President Obama, in contrast was a bit smarmy at times, filling his time with tired anecdotes and false premises of what a Romney presidency would do to the middle class.

I thought Romney won, clearly, but I was not prepared for the post debate analysis that is declaring it a blowout. Perhaps watching it on TV was much more compelling. Obviously the President didn't have much to go on. The country is in a world of hurt. It was hurting before he got the job (a job he wanted by the way) but it has gotten so much worse on his watch that his holster was completely out of bullets tonight. Romney, on the other hand, had the whole playground to run around in - as if he owned it.

Perhaps the memorable moment for me was Romney saying "But don't forget, you put $90 billion, like 50 years' worth of breaks, into -- into solar and wind, to Solyndra and Fisker and Tester and Ener1. I mean, I had a friend who said you don't just pick the winners and losers, you pick the losers, all right?" The President was busy regurgitating his ads, misstating Romney's positions over and over, and setting up a straw men arguments.

The compelling sentiment for me was the number of times Romney had to say directly to the President "let me just start by saying virtually everything you just said is wrong" when rebutting Obama's critique of "Romney's" tax and deficit plans. Romney eventually said "you can choose your plane and your house but not your facts".

Right now on all the cable news shows they are declaring Romney the winner, hands down. Yes even MSNBC.

Good.



CW

What Romney Wants

So, is the endless Obama bashing you see here getting to you? Yeah, me too. I have known since about Jan 1, 2010 who I was voting for in 2012. Anybody but Obama. Any hopes President Obama was more than I thought he was was wrung out of me by then. True, if Bachmann or Gingrich became the "R" nominee I might have drove past the voting booth in November. To be sure, either would be ultimately better than Obama,  but it would have been a long, long four years. I am glad Romney made it. He is, in my opinion, fairly moderate I don't worry too much that he is planning on a radical transformation of a country and a system that just needs some serious tweaking.

So what is Romney proposing? Boilerplate stuff mostly. Significant in that it is a departure from the Federal government expansion and the pure cronyism we have seen since the second GW Bush term straight through Obama. The thing is, I trust that a man who has a reputation of rolling up his sleeves and getting down to the business of turning a failing enterprise around is just what we need. We don't need empty soaring rhetoric from a man with his nose up in the air anymore.

Here are the simplified economic policy directions Romney promises to pursue, right from his website:  
My comments in red.

Individual Taxes
   -Make permanent, across-the-board 20 percent cut in marginal rates
   -Maintain current tax rates on interest, dividends, and capital gains 
   -Eliminate taxes for taxpayers with AGI below $200,000 on interest, dividends, and capital gains
   -Eliminate the Death Tax
   -Repeal the Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
All of these are fine with me - but we see nothing about broadening the tax base and eliminating loopholes that advantage only the very rich as is noted in Paul Ryan's plans

Corporate Taxes
The U.S. economy’s 35 percent corporate tax rate is among the highest in the industrial world.
True, it is a fact, but almost no corporation pays this, with loopholes etc etc many huge companies pay next to nothing
    -Cut the corporate rate to 25 percent
    -Strengthen and make permanent the R&D tax credit
    -Switch to a territorial tax system
    -Repeal the corporate Alternative Minimum Tax (AMT)
Again all of these are fine - but we see nothing about eliminating loopholes that will force gigantic companies to pay something allowing start-ups and small companies a chance to compete

Regulation
    -Repeal Obamacare
    -Repeal Dodd-Frank and replace with streamlined, modern regulatory framework
    -Amend Sarbanes-Oxley to relieve mid-size companies from onerous requirements
    -Initiate review and elimination of all Obama-era regulations that unduly burden the economy
I agree with all of these, the last one is critical -  I suspect there are time-bombs in store for us on the regulatory front...

Reform Environmental Regulation
    -Ensure that environmental laws properly account for cost in regulatory process
    -Provide multi-year lead times before companies must come into compliance with onerous new environmental regulations
Would like to see a focus on putting the EPA under the authority of Congress

Adopt Structural Reforms
    -Impose a regulatory cap of zero dollars on all federal agencies
    -Require congressional approval of all new “major” regulations
    -Reform legal liability system to prevent spurious litigation
Good start

I find most these positions acceptable but worry that not much is outlined for getting spending under control. I realize if the economy takes off again revenues will rise - but the spending is so beyond what a growing economy can cover for. I don't freak out over reasonable deficits, but Obama's deficits are not even close to reasonable.

Just getting President Obama out is reason enough to vote Romney, but frankly this policy direction is a less than it needs to be.

Mitt, go bold, please.



CW

By Any Measure...

Obama is a failure. Shocker, I know. Sure I can take a chart/graph and try drive home a point while someone can come along with another graph posing slightly different data points and contradict mine. But when chart after chart, graph after graph piles up on my side it begins to be an overwhelming case. It's called the preponderance of evidence. Here, in the case (national economy) against a second term for President Obama, I'll let these charts do the talking.

 

Case closed!!!





CW

President Negligence

How would the media spin this after a major international (terrorist) incident that more than half the time, the President does not attend his own daily intelligence meetings. We know how they would have reacted in the Bush years. While Bush did attend his daily intelligence meetings  - for eight years - they still went after him for not connecting the dots once bin Laden was accused of perpetrating the 9/11 attacks.

Kudo's to the Washington Post, a big time mainstream newspaper for at least putting this out there. The U.S. is still officially in a war and it would seem that these meetings would be important. Maybe it is ceremonial, but if a situation arises that was discussed - or should have been - at these daily briefings then I would expect the media to hold President Obama to the same standards as they did President Bush. They won't, of course.

Obama has been re-auditioning for a job he already has for the last 2 years. He fund raises, campaigns and plays golf. He isn't even bothering with the act of governing. All of his executive orders have been vote getting plays, and most of them extra-constitutional. The roll-over Congress does nothing to strike back because it would only help Obama with the constituency group he is favoring with his executive decrees. The media would be screaming bloody murder if Bush had done some of these things, and even FOX News drops the indignation when the next new shiny object passes before their camera lens.

It's no secret that I am not a supporter of Barack Obama - I not only find his policies repugnant but it's the "cult of Obama" that sickens me the most. How can anyone look at the state of America and say to themselves we need four more years of that? How can the media be so uncritical?

If there were even the slightest hint of light at the end of the tunnel then I could see it, maybe. But despite 30+ months of job growth and a buoyant stock market and rosy corporate profits 25 million people are out of work or have jobs way below their potential and millions have given up looking all together. The work force has fallen to 1980's levels but our population is massively larger. By any measure this administration is a dismal failure on the economic front for the middle class. And considering the attention he gives to the security of this country we are one incident away from his abject failure on the foreign policy front.



CW

Clinton the Absurd

It is laughable to see ads on my TV with Bill Clinton advocating for the re-election of Barack Obama. His assertion that President Obama's plan for reviving the middle-class is superior to Mitt Romney's is just absurd. The middle-class has suffered more since the inauguration of Obama than ever before. The rich may not "as rich" as they once were, but they'll be fine. The poor have been helped by this President in so far as more "safety net" money has been spent than in any time in the history of the world. The ranks of the poor have swelled precisely because the middle-class is dwindling.

It has been estimated that the middle class has lost 39% of it's wealth since 2008. Median household income has declined by a whopping 7.3% since Obama became President. We have become poorer as a nation faster than any time in memory. The poverty rate is likely to soar from the current 15.1% to as high as 15.7%. Poverty is spreading at record levels across the nation, from underemployed workers and once self sufficient suburban families to the poorest of the poor.

For Bill Clinton to sit there and tell us that Obama has a better plan is ludicrous - where is it!!!

There is no plan to revive the middle-class. If there were why would the administration not have started working on that instead of starting the re-election campaign in Nov 2010 just days after the mid-terms. He has been auditioning for a job he already has instead of doing the damn job.

The structural troubles this country is in will not be solved by kicking the remaining stilts out from under it. The weak dollar policy pursued by Bush and Obama in some mistaken notion that it will (ultimately) help exports is offset by a decline in purchasing power and inflation. The bullshit that inflation is low is just that, bullshit. Tell that to every family who uses a supermarket or fills the tank with gas. You can argue "but an IPad is hundreds of dollars cheaper this year than last" until you're blue in the face, that doesn't fill bellies or gas tanks. Prices for the very basics have skyrocketed at a time when wages and jobs themselves are in decline.

Add super low interest rates held down to help government preserve a modicum of solvency by keeping debt payments lower and you end up ushering just the type of real estate bubble we just lived through. The policies responsible for this mess stretch across party lines and administrations - but Obama's answer has been to triple down. There's nothing new or reformative in his policies.

The 2009 stimulus has been proved to be a exercise in pure cronyism and the result speaks for itself.

Bill Clinton is absurd and he has to know it. Why would he shill for this guy? Is there something going on that we can't comprehend? Even Clinton knows that Romney is anything but radical. Does Clinton want to see the complete destruction of the once powerful middle-class in this country. He must.


CW

Havasu Falls (new painting)

 "Havasu Falls"

20 x 24 acrylic
by Craig Willms
2012

A painting done on commission for an old High School friend as a present for his wife who took the original photo years ago. I really hope she likes it.

Check out more of my paintings here ---> http://www.static-art.blogspot.com/


CW

Incommunicado... sort of

On a vacation of sorts. A long weekend in northern Wisconsin with my son and his buddy. We will eventually go fishing I'm sure, but for now I'm enjoying the fine northern air and trying to unwind. You all have a great weekend too!



CW

The Chicago Miracle, or not

The President is now touting Chicago as a shining example for America. Chicago is in indeed a great town in many respects. Sitting at the crossroads of the east and the west it was always destined to be great. But it is a great city despite the prevailing leadership of the 20th and nascent 21 centuries.

The Daley machine and it's legacy have made Chicago a tough place, a rough and tumble place. It is ruled by the unions in the government sector and business has always adapted by folding that reality into the cost of doing business. Greasing the palms of the union bosses and the "inspectors" to get anything done in a timely manner is legend in this town. Politicos also have to kiss the ring of the union bosses and the Daley machine in order to have a chance of getting elected. Election fraud is expected not just tolerated.

To hold the view 'Chicago Is an Example of What Makes This Country Great' as Obama does is clearly his local pride talking because he can't be serious that the "Chicago Way" is the way the rest of the country should work. In truth Chicago is an example of everything wrong with politics. Win at any cost and ignore legalities and consequences.

As the linked article eludes to: not many of us wants to live with the consequences of Chicago style government. In fact more Chicago residents - 228 - have been killed so far this year in the city than the number of  American troops killed in Afghanistan - 144 - over the same period. The war zone-like statistics are not new. Some 2,000 U.S. troops have been killed in Afghanistan since 2001, contrast that to the more than 5,000 people have been killed by gun fire in Chicago during the same time. Is it a source of pride that Chicago's murder rate is currently quadruple that of New York and double Los Angeles' rate? God, I hope not.

Chicago is a great place to visit, but like California I couldn't live there, by the number of people who flee both places I'm guessing I'm not the only one who feels that way.



CW

Romney/Ryan - good ticket, very good

Couldn't be more pleased that Paul Ryan was picked by Mitt Romney as his running mate. There were many who wanted Ryan to throw his hat in during the primary season - me too - but this should work out well.

The Democrats are not going to pull a Sarah Palin on this guy. He is one - squeaky clean, and two - an intellectual. They won't pull the dunce card, but they will pull the evil card. The budget plans he passed in the House are going to misrepresented as radical - dangerously so. Yes they are radical in the sense that he is actually addressing real problems with real solutions. If left stuck in liberal la la land these structural fiscal problems are going to destroy this country. But the Democrats will continue to demagogue and then prescribe higher taxes as the solution for everything.

Honest people can disagree with specifics, but Ryan and Romney are serious about addressing these huge issues and not just sloganeering. Obama has largely succeeded in getting the country moving in his direction, but it is clearly the wrong direction and the economy is the measure of that (if the economy was actually ever a real concern of his). If we want more poverty and food stamps, slow to no growth and crippling deficits then Obama is your man. If we want a rising tide then it's time for a change of direction.

Romney and Ryan have got to hone their message to a fine point. They have to offer a path away from the Federal government usurping more and more power and responsibility from the middle class. They must convince the middle class that self empowerment (by way of a strong economy and plentiful jobs) is what they want.

More to come on this...



CW

Recession no more...

Maybe I'm the only one tired of the mainstream media telling us economic news through the filter of what it will do for the re-election chances of President Obama. What about what the economic news (the real news) does to the American people. It seems fairly obvious that Obama is a disaster. It's time to let someone else in there who has a pro-growth (for the private sector) agenda. We are on the brink of economic disaster and this administration is either, one clueless or two fomenting it.

Ladies and gentleman this is no recession it is a depression. The only thing preventing a full blown depression is high government spending, and that can't go on forever. The advent of the modern welfare state is preventing the reality of the true economic situation from becoming a stark reality to the masses. Food stamps and food shelves have become the modern soup kitchen.

Consider:
- One in seven people in this country are on food stamps
.
- 48% of food stamp households are working households

- Vacant properties have increased by 43.8 percent nationwide since 2000

- banks are preparing to ramp up their foreclosure efforts again (they have to)

- Under any factual reporting the real unemployment rate should be well over 22%

- When, not if, China quits buying U.S. government debt then the entire house of cards starts tumbling down

 -without some real leadership (ha ha ha) taxes are about to be raised on all of us to the highest levels in U.S. history

 The rose colored glasses of  mainstream reporters in an effort to aid the President's re-election - for reasons that are frankly beyond me - take news like this: 365,000 people applied for unemployment benefits in July, but analysts were forecasting 370,000. Off by 5000 individuals yet reported as “better than expected job numbers”. Contrast the 163,000 new jobs that were added in July and its a net loss. Of course this is being reported as “good news” for Obama’s re-election. The official unemployment rate rose to 8.3 from 8.2 and that is, of course, statistically unimportant.

U.S. corporations are sitting on billions of dollars that could be invested in the economy. Why? They don't know where this administration is going, or they do and they don't like it enough to risk their capital.

I personally have a decent enough job and make a good living by historical comparative standards and yet I am squeezed every month. My bills are being paid but there never seems to be much left over. What of my savings for retirement? I'm just throwing good money after bad - it's going the wrong way!!!

Something has to be done. The first thing has got to be sending Barack Obama and Joe Biden to the unemployment office in November and then let the healing begin.

 That's my 1 cent worth.



CW

There ought to be a law! Oh, wait there is...

These things are just so outrageous that if it doesn't make you mad then you are either dead or numb. [ or see the post immediately preceding this one ]

Fake Drivers Licenses and Welfare Benefits
We learn that getting MN drivers license is all that's needed to open up the vast resources of our welfare state (Minnesota). If one is good then 10 is even better, right? How could it not occur to the issuers of both DL licenses and welfare benefits that people would use fraudulent methods to obtain both. Worse, how could they not have set up investigative and law enforcement provisions?


We are to believe the Minnesota Department of Vehicle Services IS seriously concerned about people trying to defraud the system. Four years ago the MN DVS received a federal grant to use facial recognition software to electronically compare the facial features in photos from driver's licenses and state IDs.

This effort, 11 million photos in the vehicle services database, had the software finding nearly 1.3 million matches. These photos then had to be looked at one by one by human eyes. Many were dismissed with reasonable explanations - newly married, name changes, harmless pranks, twins etc...

What was left were about 23,000 records that have a good chance of being fraud. That's 23,705 cases of possible fraud to be exact.

As of now, about 10,000 of these driver's licenses have been canceled. However, not much else has been done. We learn that not a single name has been given yet to the Department of Human Services to check for welfare or food stamp fraud, and no names have been given or the Secretary of State to check against the voter rolls. And criminal prosecution? None.

All told 5,500 cases have been referred to an agency who can take any action necessary. But the state won't say which law enforcement agency. With 23,000 potential fraudulent IDs, shouldn't we know who's job it is to hold people accountable? Shouldn't someone know?

The problem of using fraudulent means to obtain "free" or "subsidized" benefits is rampant. 

It turns out that an administrative assistant in the Secretary of State's Office has been accused of using an alternate identity to receive more than $18,000 in low-income housing help from the United States Department of Housing and Urban Development. This person has spent seven years working in Minnesota government, though none of her alleged crimes involve her post directly. (As far as we know)

Yet, when it comes to state-issued identity cards -- real or fake -- the Secretary of State Mark Ritchie is already smack-dab in the middle of the controversy as an outspoken opponent of the voter ID referendum on the ballot in November, which would require voters to have a valid state ID.

I just bet that this person voted for Mr. Ritchie in the last election since she didn't even need to present her fake ID.

The irony of the indictment was not lost on Minnesota Majority, the group campaigning for the amendment. Ritchie, however, is out of state and has been unavailable for comment. Don't hold your breath on this one.

Social Security sets new record
The number of workers taking federal disability insurance payments hit yet another record in July, increasing to 8,753,935 during the month from the previous record of 8,733,461 set in June, according to newly released data from the Social Security Administration. The 8,753,935 workers who took federal disability insurance payments in July exceeded the population of 39 of the 50 states. Only 11 states—California, Texas, New York, Florida, Illinois, Pennsylvania, Ohio, Michigan, Georgia, North Carolina and New Jersey— have more population. In other words if all these recipients lived in one state it would be the 12th largest state in the union. 

Keep in mind this 8+ million is not the retirees receiving justly deserved benefits. It's just hard to imagine that there isn't a huge percentage of these people that are frauds. There is an entire legal industry set up to help people - deserving or not - get "their" Social Security Disability benefits. Everyone, I'm sure, believes in helping those truly disabled, but fraud is just rampant at all levels of this culture.

Food Stamps for Mexico!
Now we learn the Mexican government has been working with the United States Department of Agriculture to increase participation in the Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), or food stamps. This has been going on since 2004, signed into existence during the Bush II era, that being said spending on food stamps has doubled since 2008, it is reasonable to suspect that the Obama administration has ramped up whatever partnership may have preexisted it.

What it is in short: the USDA sees to it that the Mexican Embassy and Mexican consulates in America provide USDA nutrition assistance program information to Mexican Americans, Mexican nationals working in America and migrant communities in America. The information is specifically focused on eligibility criteria and access.

There are rules for who is eligible, but it's safe to assume the standards are enforced with the enthusiasm the Obama administration shows toward other illegal alien activities on this side of the border. States are supposed to verify this so-called eligibility but verification standards vary widely. Applicants need only attest that they are citizens of the United States, and the state must accept that attestation as conclusive.

So, it's not bad enough that billions of dollars are obtained by fraudulent means by people from all walks of life and apparently from all countries, the government is soliciting for even more. We as a society, a culture have our hand out to help the less fortunate and all the while there are those who take our largess with one hand while the other is in our wallet taking even more.

All this fraud damn near gives corporate welfare a good name!


CW

Apathy

noun: [ap-uh-thee]
 feeling of having no interest in or enthusiasm about anything, or of not being willing to make any effort to change things


Apathy is a huge problem in the modern world, I just wish I gave a damn...








CW

This man is an idiot, seriously...?

What a maroon. (Oh I wish it were so... I wish he was just a fool)

President Obama said in a speech  in Roanoke, Va.: "If you've got a business — you didn't build that. Somebody else made that happen."

In other words the government did, or the union did, or your teachers did. What he is so clumsily trying to say is that if you're successful you didn't do it on your own. Wow, brilliant. What the hell is this supposed to mean?

To Obama it means you should be more than glad to give up (even) more of your money to the true source of your success - the government. A high school graduate didn't graduate without the massive help of others either, presumably then he or she should be willing to give up a large share of their gift money to taxes, right? Let's see how that one flies.

The successful and the "un"successful have had the same government-supplied foundations. Yes the roads, schools and police and fire protection are the same for all. It's not as if the risk takers and entrepreneurs get to take a special off-ramp that gives them advantages. (Unless you're an immigrant). Ask any successful small businessman and they'll tell you it took a ton of hard work that had nothing to do with government help beyond what anyone else had access to. In fact they were successful DESPITE government in many, many cases

Steve Jobs, Bill Gates, the founders of Google, Facebook and Twitter, as well as Thomas Edison, Henry Ford and Alexander Graham Bell of generations past have only taken and never contributed anything, is that what we are to believe? That none of them would have, could have succeeded without government? Rather than celebrate the symbiotic relationship between the entrepreneurial spirit and government sponsored foundations this friggin idiot diminishes the accomplishments of these risk takers and visionaries to justify the confiscation of their profits for his redistributionist policies. Take from the producers and give to the free loaders all the while insulting the producers. This is right out of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged.

What he doesn't realize, or more likely doesn't care is that the taxes that businesses currently pay can be crushing - property, payroll, business, income, WC, etc. Are these Americans not just as righteous as the union worker? Every one's tax money paid for the "investments" in roads & bridges including and especially businesses? This is Obama, it's alright for him to insult business because we all know business is evil, right?

How much more idiocy are we going to take from this guy? Are we going to wait until he has completely destroyed the country? I would say he's clueless, but I don't believe it. Everything does and says is a calculated move further destroying the traditional model to be replaced by a purely socialist one. The method is and has been to hamstring free market capitalism on one hand while encouraging abuse and deceit (directly or by looking the other way) on the other hand until it's time to pounce. Once the capitalist model is discredited with the help of the compliant mainstream media no drastic government intervention is even questioned. They say to us in so many words "see, capitalism is a failure, we have a better way." The problem is that capitalism while being unequal carries many along in it's wake. In contrast socialism just smashes us all into the rocks on the shore. Since it does it equally it's therefore good.

For the love of this country President Obama has got to go.



CW

Politivcal Correctness vs Political Correctness

Political Correctness was always on a course for self destruction, it is the inevitable conclusion as the hosting culture dies under it's repressive weight.

Almost everyone at one time or another regardless of political affiliation shakes their head in disgust over the stupidity of political correctness. Imposed by faceless bureaucracies it's easy enough to separate yourself from the inherent insanity of it. For me I'm bothered by the insidiousness of it, starting out as it does on the periphery of good manners, and dare I say common decency. Like all things on the left (make no mistake PCism is a construct of the left) it always goes too far until it's divorced from common sense and partnered with evil.

It's when one value of PCism collides with another that the delicious irony tastes so sweet. In a HumanEvents.com piece "When political correctness collides with political correctness…" by Roger Hedgecock we can revel in a little comeuppance for the nemesis of common sense. Read on...

What happens when one politically correct notion collides with an opposite politically correct notion?  Disastrous chaos if you’re the pessimistic type, but hilarious comedy if you’re an irony fan.

Take the true story (dailymail.co.uk) of British feminist journalist Cinnamon Heathcote-Drury.

She was standing in line behind a Muslim couple at the supermarket check-out, incensed at the indifferent attitude of the Muslim husband as his hajib covered wife struggled to load their many groceries on the conveyor belt.

Cinnamon confronted the husband, demanding to know why he didn’t help his poor wife with the groceries.

When he ignored her, Cinnamon brushed by him to help the woman herself in solidarity with her oppressed sister. Cinnamon later said “this is what feminism’s all about–women helping women”.

Husband and wife called the cops and had Cinnamon arrested under Britain’s “hate crimes” law, charging her with interference with their religion.

Seems the Muslims believe that women should do all the work in the household (including grocery shopping) and that the only reason the Muslim husband was in the supermarket in the first place was to accompany his wife who, without him, could not go out in public at all.

What a hilarious confrontation.

The feminist journalist thought to bully the husband into acting in accordance with her politically correct feminist views.

The Muslim couple defended the politically correct thought (espoused by progressives everywhere) that no culture is superior to another and that they were protected by British law to practice any (to non-Muslims) misogyny Islam allows.

The politically correct Left gave the Muslim couple absolutely no reason to adapt to Western ways.  To the contrary, Cinnamon’s progressives have indoctrinated immigrants to believe that their culture is as good as any—and they continue to believe it is superior to any Western notion of culture.

In fact, the Muslim couple used the weakness in Cinnamon’s own culture to attack her by invoking the “hate crime” law!  LOL!

The jury returned a Not Guilty verdict, but I doubt Cinnamon will be confronting Muslim shoppers any time soon.

Surely we in the west don't understand (fathom actually) the Muslim attitude towards women, but we have basically told them and ourselves that all cultures are equally good. You are welcome to practice your culture as you see fit inside ours. If that's the PC view then what right does the woman have to impose her PC views of gender "equality" on the Muslims? 

What's next? Is she going to tell the Muslim man he must sit when he pees? No more standing urination for you. Oh yeah, its coming to a city council near you.



CW

How the Washington Post Survives: (Hint) Government subsidies

Not direct subsidies of course, but just the same, without them the paper would fold. What I'm talking about is a wholly owned subsidiary called Kaplan University. Kaplan is for-profit university similar to Capella University and the University of Phoenix with most of its 66,000 students studying online. The Washington Post bought Kaplan a decade ago in what now looks like an incredibly shrewd move. Kaplan accounted for 58 percent of the company's revenue — and it was profitable. In contrast, newspaper and magazine publishing accounted for only 19 percent of revenue, and those activities lost money. Barron's reports that the Washington Post Co. is worth about $8.5 billion — and $5 billion of that value is from Kaplan.

So, one of the country's most influential newspapers survives and Kaplan educates thousands, what could possibly be wrong with that?

Critics claim Kaplan operates vocational training programs that over enroll students using Federal loans that leave low-income student indebted and unemployed. A quick search online and one can easily find hundreds upon hundreds of complaints lodged against Kaplan for financial abuse and impropriety regarding student billing practices. Also, Kaplan is known to market directly to black single mothers with three children or more - that is what the training manuals for their telemarketers actually instruct them to do - as this is the demographic which defaults at the highest rate. Not coincidentally, they have one of the highest default rates of any such university, only about thirty percent of their enrollees actually earn a degree. Yet they still collect the full amount from the federal government. This is what is said to keep the Washington Post afloat.

With the Post Co. raking in the kind of money they get from an operation like this, you begin to understand that the newspaper is a mere sideline - a tax write-off. It's all a bit unseemly for a reputable guardian of the people - "the press" to operate an outfit like this. Some of this is just coming to light in the last few years as reports that their training manual's also directs their telemarketers to target returning Iraq and Afghanistan vets, because, basically, they're dupes with lots of government benefits to drain. It's been alleged more money, real estate, and staff are directed to their telemarketing operations, than to their actual educational faculty and operations. The allegations have some weight. "If you look at some of the reports to the Securities and Exchange Commission, you will see that the advertising budget is immense … on par and even sometimes exceeding the instructional costs of the institution," says David Hawkins, director of public policy and research at the National Association for College Admission Counseling.

There have been official investigations into specific Kaplan programs and like any operation with vested interest in getting government money they have deflected, obfuscated and misled their students and the government. In 2007 the Department of Education (DOE) began looking into the allegations of Title IV fraud on behalf of Kaplan. Suddenly, in late 2008, SurgeTech program curiously disappeared from Kaplan’s degree offerings even though it was one of the college’s most popular programs.  At the time the program vanished we now know state accrediting agencies were threatening to withdraw accreditation.

The program in question, one of their most profitable disappeared overnight. Interesting. Why? It seems that Kaplan knowingly, over a ten year period, misled by omission, prospective students, their accrediting body, and the U.S. DOE causing the government to approve tens of millions of dollars of Title IV student loans for a program that students would be unable to finish. All this based upon false data.

Meanwhile Kaplan, and their investors and shareholders skated to the bank on government subsidies and the Washington Post conveniently concealed the story.
The university system, both private and public have become a massive special interest group, whose actual interest is the government student loan gravy train. They overwhelmingly support Democrats and liberals who promise more and more government spending on "higher education". With one of the most important newspapers in the nation involved at this level we can be assured that reporting on abuse of the financial aid system will be squelched.

Guardians of the people huh, keeping the government honest. Yeah. But who is going to keep them honest?


CW

We Have Lost: It's a Tax! It's a Penalty!

A difference without a distinction

The Supreme Court lands another blow on the American people. I remember being dumbstruck by the Kelo Decision. In that landmark decision the Court ruled in favor of the City of New London, Connecticut which essentially acted as a strongman by seizing private property from one group of people (homeowners) for the benefit of a more powerful private interest (a giant pharmaceutical company). Ordinarily private property can only taken if there will be direct benefit to the public at large. The tragic irony is that the company never did build on the site - the economy tanked, remember.

In the case against the Affordable Care Act or Obama-Care I am not at all surprised the court ruled for the President's side. It remains to be seen if it will help or hurt the President's re-election chances, but this monstrosity will hurt the country as a whole. What may be constitutional is not necessarily good policy. You buy insurance or you pay a tax/penalty.

With these words the justification was found to allow the Affordable Care Act to stand in it's entirety... “Members of this Court are vested with the authority to interpret the law; we possess neither the expertise nor the prerogative to make policy judgements.  Those decisions are entrusted to our Nation’s elected leaders, who can be thrown out of office if the people disagree with them.  It is not our job to protect the people from the consequences of their political choices.” (Chief Justice John Roberts, 27 Jun 2012)

So we move on.

Already 13000 pages of regulations have been written - but as yet not put into practice. The IRS will be hiring 800 new auditors immediately with a eventual goal of 16000. This is going to improve the health care system - even I can see that. However...


Medical schools are already seeing a dearth of new medical students. Why would any bright young person spend years training while racking up mountains of debt only to find they will be forced to become unionized government workers like postal carriers and teachers. Don't think that's the goal? It's time you wake up.

Somewhere in that ridiculous bill is a law against doctor owned hospitals. Does it matter at all to you that doctor owned hospitals and clinic systems have been the best run, most mistake free and successful health institutions in the country? The innovation that has given America the most dynamic and advanced health care stems from doctors and systems being allowed to take risks and chances on new therapies and procedures. This phenomenon is already being destroyed by just the fear this new law instills in corporate lawyers. Hospitals have begun forcing doctors to perform surgeries and procedures in a system-wide approved manner only. Innovation is already dying.

This and many other tragedies await us all if this monstrosity is allowed to stand. Of course you won't read or hear about these kinds of esoteric things. You'll only hear that the Republicans want to kick your ADULT child off your employer's health plan. You'll hear that Republicans want to deny insurance for all per-existing conditions and force 10 million people to use emergency rooms for their health care. Frankly that is as much the Republican's fault as it is the rascally media's. They need to clearly articulate a better plan, but they won't (because they're idiots).

We have lost. Don't kid yourself, this will bankrupt the country and the actual health care system will deteriorate - and you'll pay a lot more for it.




CW

We Have Lost, So it's Welcome to Meximerica

He does whatever he wants...

President Obama is above the law. He can decide which laws he likes and which laws he doesn't and with the executive privileges afforded him by the constitution he rides herd over timid and/or paralyzed Congress and does what he wants.

He wanted to take over the school loan program and so he did, no discussion, no debate and certainly no legislation. Last week he decided he didn't like the way the "Dream Act" voting turned out in Congress so he declared that he is just not going to enforce the immigration laws that now exist. Of course it was an election year ploy to bolster the Hispanic vote in his favor. Nonetheless, he did what he wanted regardless of what the law says.

Everything with this guy is partisan and political, everything. He is by far the most divisive politician this country has ever seen. He never engages with Congress, not even with his own party. He spouts shibboleths and propaganda and the adoring media just carries the water. If one of them steps out of line they get booted or at least ostracized until they crawl back into fold with unending hymns of praise. Right Mark Halprin?

Obama isn't at all serious about solving this country's problems only forwarding his radical ideological agenda. Congress has twice rejected his budgets with zero votes in his favor  -   that's zero Republicans and zero Democrats. He simply isn't serious about being a leader. He convinces no one with his sophomoric rhetoric and then just declares what will be so. Congress and the media just roll over  -  and we will see in November whether the "people"roll over too.

Yesterday the Supreme Court upheld the key element of the Arizona immigration enforcement law. Namely they affirmed the provision that local law enforcement CAN try to determine citizenship status when investigating possible crimes. They threw out 3 other aspects of the Arizona law, but the immigration status issue was one that got the lawsuit all started.Obama wins 3 to 1 right? Miffed that he didn't get all he wanted what do you suppose the imperialist did? The petulant brat immediately ordered ICE and the Justice Dept. to sever all ties with Arizona law enforcement. In other words when Arizona has illegal aliens to turn over to ICE the phone won't be answered.

President Obama just does whatever he wants, damn the constitution. No one in Congress really challenges him. The Republicans are a joke, they are clearly on the right side of this debate and they just roll over and play dead because they are so afraid of offending Hispanics. It's just sad. Have some guts you pansies!

With this ruling the Supreme Court essentially said immigration is in the Federal government's corner - which is absolutely true. The constitution gives the Federal government the DUTY to safeguard our country from foreign invaders, but Obama is blithely shirking this duty and inviting invasion. This should be a crime, hell, it is a crime.

No one I know, and not one Republican or conservative is "against" immigration, but most of us are against illegal immigration. President Obama spits on all who obey the law and follow the rules to get into this country.

Welcome to Meximerica.


CW

The Middle Class: The True Wild Card

The middle class must be destroyed

Have you heard about the report released last week showing the American middle class has lost 39% of it's wealth over the past few years. In other words we have been transported back in time to 1992 wealth wise. That's just the fact. While it seems incomprehensible, it has happened, and it seems almost as if it was planned...

The powers that be, if you are into grand global conspiracy theories, came to realize 30 or 40 years ago that the middle class in the Western world had to be destroyed. Particularly the American middle class. Considering where we are right now, our place and time in history, it's literally the only thing that makes sense.

Why else would the powers that be continue to suppress the modern global economy, bottle-up the true potential of America, Canada, Australia and Western  Europe? In the past 30 years we've seen technology explode and thereby shrinking the world in the process, making nearly everything more efficient and productive. There is no need or reason for poverty, illiteracy or hopelessness anymore, all of it could be stamped out here in the 21st century. Yet it won't be. Billions will continue to live in poverty without the hope of ever seeing and end to it. Why? Simple enough, the poor and desperate can be controlled. So now you see the problem of the middle class.

The middle class was a powerful force, an unpredictable force for those who want to control things. The main problem with an economically powerful and rising middle class is the "cat herding phenomenon". They just continue to do what they want because they frustratingly act in their own self-interest. When they are so flush with money you can't get these people to stop building their far flung suburbs and driving their SUV's so you can force them into your cute choo choo trains in the city

The problem for the controllers, the mega business/government conglomerate, was devising a way to carefully, cleverly separate the middle class from their wealth without necessarily fomenting a revolution. Revolutions are even more unpredictable, messy and sometimes bloody too.

Can you imagine the brainstorming session that must have been...

"We can destroy their jobs, move whole industries to slave labor in China..." Cue head nodding.
 
"We can encourage them to become investors in equities, we'll even match them dollar for dollar, promise a rosy retirement (while they shovel their money into our pockets) and then pull the rug out from under them - over and over." Cue uproarious laughter.
 
"We can get them to sink all their money into the "American Dream" of home ownership, enticing them with cheap money and a promise of ever rising home values. Encourage them to use their homes as ATM machines, run up their personal debt into the stratosphere then we'll bring it all down like a house of cards." Cue high fives all around.
 
"We'll dumb down the schools, but require a college education to get a decent job thereby separating parents from their money or saddling the kids with a mountains of debt and then hope they don't realize we were lying about the jobs anyway." Cue thumbs up, winks and nods.

Until recently the industrious middle class and hungry young entrepreneurs kept reinventing reality and climbing out of the hole the corrupt government and big business had dug. I fear this is coming to an end. Europe is on the brink right now. America is not far behind. Canada and Australia won't fare well when the big economies collapse. Even Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRICs) will suffer immensely.

The horrifying thing is that the human suffering will be unfathomable when the collapse happens. The collapse will be precipitated by the middle class finally succumbing to the fiscal and financial corruption of the proverbial powers that be.

I ask again and again. To what end? Who would benefit by a global systemic economic collapse. It all seems so insane when we as the human race have it within our power to make hunger and poverty go away. We need only to unleash the shackles holding the economy back. But then, maybe the powers that be want the sort of cleansing that will come about with a massive die off of human life.

I find the idea of this cynical and frankly sickening.

What if the middle class doesn't succumb? What if we tighten our belts and start demanding our governments right this ship. What if we recognize the liars among the populists and the patriots who say one thing (anything) to get elected and then fall into the corruption they promised to fight against. What if for once we have a politicians and powerful business leaders who desire to do the right thing for the country, for humanity instead of the singular focus of feathering their own nests while the mighty oak tree withers and dies underneath them? Well... One can dream.



CW

Is Calfornia lost? In a word, yes

Once the envy of America, perhaps the envy of the world California had everything. Every passing year the Golden State dies a little more. It's sad and tragic, for no other state in America has the abundance, beauty and climate California has. Soon California will be bankrupt, correction, they are already bankrupt amassing a 16 billion dollar annual deficit while facing $500 billion in unfunded liabilities. There is no rescue in sight and it's hard to imagine the Federal government bailing the state out without huge concessions.

For decades now, state legislatures (and the citizens who support them) have ignored rational calls for fiscal responsibility. Corporations large and small are relocating. The so-called rich forced to pay higher and higher taxes have been voting with their feet too. There won't be enough wealthy corporations or wealthy individuals left to pay the ever increasing tax rates. Yet the electorate keeps voting in the same ultra liberal Democrats who gleefully promise to stick it to the rich. How soon will a bankrupt state run out of coerced money from nonexistent taxpayers? What we have a bankrupt state, dominated by Democrats where Democratic legislators keep their number one constituents fat and happy - the public unions - and the non-taxpaying citizens are promised the world.


The "Golden State" has become the "Welfare State". Perversely a recent study showed that $69 million in welfare cash is being spent in Vegas casinos, cruise ships and Hawaii every year. Yet, any talk of cuts in benefits for the so-called poor or from bloated pension plans is met with derision and smears. Don't even bring up benefits for illegal immigrants...


Here's the rub - the national Democratic Party favors the exact policies California has enacted over the past 30 years. Somehow we are to believe things will turn out differently for the rest of America.

It might be instructive to read what some distraught Californian's have to say in response to a recent CNSNews.com article about the state they love...

Douglas:
California is done.  Lived here for 20 years and have watched the hand-out politicians being elected and reelected by a touchy, feely public who steadfastly refuse to acknowledge the reality of their decisions. Even if Moonbeam's reforms pass, it will only close about half of the deficit. Businesses are exiting in droves and high income earners who can are moving out of state. Yet, Democrats hold every state wide office.  It's like watching someone who is killing themselves with drugs refuse to stop. Decisions have consequences: 3 - 5 years, tops, California declares bankruptcy and all the pensions are gone.

RogerDane:
Been in CA since '73 and in a few short years the liberal policies of obviously "socialist leaning" Democrats has ruined the state. America, LOOK to CA and your future is there for the reading. Continue to allow small groups of union management to knife the rest of society in the back, continue to elect "entitlement" minded politicians, continue to allow education to applaud the decline of our Constitutional Democracy and to "unionize" small minds with "free lunch" ideology; continue to eat away at the foundations of America's ideals and the whole of the United States will look like California.

LucidThought:
Agreed!  If I have any sort of "cultural identity" at all, it is that I am a Californian, and it is utterly heartbreaking to see the most beautiful place on the planet destroyed by feel-good, mindless twits who would vote for a monkey if it had a (D) behind its name.  Could it be more obvious?  California.  Illinois.  Michigan.  New York.  Democratic governance results in dysfunction and bankruptcy.  Idiots, and the tribalism of party politics are dooming our state.

And finally, and fittingly,

Travalot:
I was raised in CA, during which time Ronald Reagan was governor.  He gave CA the first budget surplus since WWII.  CA had the best schools in the nation - or the world for that matter.  The food production in the Central Valley was the envy of even the bread basket states of our nation.  The climate and beauty of the state was matched only by it's innovation, production, and growth.  People from all over the country and the world flocked to CA to take advantage of the incredible opportunities there.  It was a wonderful, magical place.  But then the Democrats took over.  The radical liberal hippies who used to haunt Haight Ashbury somehow got themselves elected or ensconced in the education system and law profession.  Their poisonous ideology soon permeated, and I, too, fled the state as the taxation mounted and the regulations increased.  From my new home in Texas, I watched my home state further decline into the morass of liberalism that can only lead to destruction.  I watched from afar in hopes that sanity would be restored and I could some day return to the place I loved so much.  But it was not to be.  I'm 60 now.  That was a long time ago.  My heart hurts as I realize that there is no salvation there.  I return occasionally to visit loved ones.  I no longer recognize it.  It looks like a 3rd world country there.  My heart is broken.

All of our hearts should be broken. There's nothing I would love more than to dream of retiring in California. We can still visit California, for now, and enjoy the weather and the beauty, but California Dreamin' is becoming more of nightmare, and that's extremely sad. 


CW

Amazing Statistic

From Michael Barone's DC Examiner article on the Wisconsin recall:

Public employee unions insist that dues money be deducted from members' paychecks and sent directly to union treasuries. So in practice, public employee unions are a mechanism for the involuntary transfer of taxpayers' money to the Democratic Party.

Walker's law ended this practice and gave public employees the choice of whether to pay union dues. The membership of AFSCME, the big union of state employees, fell from 62,818 to 28,785.

This is amazing!

When union members have a choice they choose in vast numbers to leave the union behind. What is more amazing is that these are public sector employees.

I am thrilled that Walker survived as much for the fact that I agreed with his policies as for the fact that recalls should be reserved for malfesance and not just disagreements. Walker's bill passed lawfully. The voters would have had the chance to throw him out in 2014.

I have a real problem with public unions and their benefactors in elected office creating sweatheart deals that go far beyond the norm for the times. Public employees work hard - of that I am sure - but they work no harder than the rest of us stiff's who pay thousands out of pocket for our health care and retirement.

I shed no tears for the losers in Wisconsin.



CW

Media Bias:They can't help themselves PART II

It's way too early to let the nascent presidential race dominate this space. After the conventions, well, that will be another story. (OK, OK, nascent is a misnomer, there is nothing nascent about it. Neither Obama nor Romney have stopped campaigning since 2008). Still, it's hard to let certain things pass without comment.

In this The Atlantic "Wire" story we have claims that the mainstream media is not, I repeat, not in the tank for President Obama. The proof is the number of negative stories about the President compared to Mitt Romney over the same period. For one, Obama is the incumbent and has a record, a bad one at that, and Romney was the most moderate, least controversial candidate among a field of scoundrels, fools and radicals competing in a party endorsement process.

Measuring a story for positive or negative treatment of a candidate is dicey at best. Many of the negative Obama stories are of the devil's advocate type. Where the reporter or commentator will spill the argument against the president while the dripping condescension and utter dismissiveness is palatable. Usually the end of the story will portray the President as above it all.

What I see clearly is the combative attitude of the President's mainstream media supporters. That attitude is on full display when a Romney supporter is being questioned. The inquisitions are confrontational, the questions tough and the answers already concluded. The job of the interviewer is always to get the Romney guy to end up admitting something unflattering about the candidate. If at first they fail they twist and turn the question until they get what they want. Sometimes I'm embarrassed for the reporter and can't image other viewers/listeners are not also taken aback by the confrontational tone. The same is almost never true when questioning an Obama guy.

So, by golly, these guys can cite statistics all they want, but intent and nuance is almost never measured in raw numbers. Heads up to the Mainstream Media: No amount of cheer leading - or kid gloves - will help if the economy is this bad or even worse by October.


CW