Monthly Archives: February 2013

The End of the Story…

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The Cass County Commissioners ended the horror story of the Cass County Broadband Initiative Monday of this week. The initiative was sold as bringing high-speed internet to everyone, every rural resident, in the county. Unfortunately, the supposed return on the county’s investment was a fantasy. The initiative would never have been self-supporting and would have been a fiscal anchor in the county’s budget for the foreseeable future. I’ve written about this project before, here and here, as well as having a few Letters-to-the-Editor published in our county newspaper.

In a 2 to 1 vote, on Monday of this week, the Commissioners voted to disband the project.

Unfortunately, the spending can’t end yet. While the project existed, it put the county deeply in debt. The county will have to cover those debts or declare bankruptcy. The up side is that no more money will be thrown down the rathole.

The legal investigations on where the money went, for what, and who benefited, is ongoing. Several millions are still unaccounted for. At least three, at my last count, former county politicos, are under investigation. The FBI is involved because some of those missing funds were provided by the USDA.

For the last forty years, Cass County has been controlled by a political oligarchy—mostly democrats. That ended in 2010 when the ‘Pubs won all three commissioner seats. Unfortunately, one, the newly elected Presiding Commissioner, was ousted by the democrat Prosecutor, and the other two ‘Pubs were members of the oligarchy. Nothing changed except for the political labels. The only member who espoused conservative principles was the one booted out.

The vote to end the project did not go by party lines. Jeff Cox, the ‘Pub Presiding Commissioner, and Luke Scavuzzo, the dem South Associate Commissioner, voted to end Broadband. Jimmy Odom, the ‘Pub Northern Associate Commissioner, voted to continue spending and the project.

Scavuzzo had originally been in favor of the project. In favor, that is, until it was disclosed that the county did not own the Right-of-Way on the roads that were to be used to lay the fiber. The county had been maintaining these roads but did not own them. When the cost of adding easements for the fiber was added to the existing cost projections, it was too much.

I didn’t vote for Luke Scavuzzo. He’s in the county south and I’m in the north. I must say that he has impressed me since his initial appointment a year ago and his actions since winning his current position last November.  Not that I’d vote for him. He’s still a dem.

Still, in this case, Luke Scavuzzo has demonstrated fiscal restraint and good practices. I wish I could say the same for the other ‘Pub associate commissioner.

Here’s the official report as it appeared in the Cass County Democrat Missourian.

Cass County broadband project dies

By Bethany Bashioum, Wednesday, Feb. 27, 2013

The Cass County Broadband Project initiative has lost all of its steam.

Cass County Commissioners decided Feb. 25 that there is little to no feasibility left for the county’s broadband project, and made the decision to ultimately kill it during a public meeting by a 2-1 vote.

The project, conceived two years ago, looked to build a broadband fiber network in order to bring high-speed Internet access to 11,592 households and 701 businesses in rural areas of the county.

But after swiftly moving through a short list of other agenda items during Monday’s meeting, Presiding Commissioner Jeff Cox entertained a motion to approve a resolution in regard to the county’s Request for Proposals with general contracting firms to take the broadband fiber to homes in rural Cass County.

Associate Commissioner Jimmy Odom made a motion for approval, but the question quickly died due to the lack of a second.

In response to the previous motion, the following agenda item, a resolution to authorize the publication and release the broadband project’s RUS Form 515 became moot.

A few moments later, Cox then asked the Commission for the authority to disband the project.

Associate Commissioner Luke Scavuzzo seconded the decision.

In a brief statement, Cox cited a number of reasons for his decision after spending nearly two months studying the project.

Part of the decision, he said, was linked to the issue that although the county has requested a 60-day extension to the United States Department of Agriculture for the county’s 2011 audit as well as releasing a reimbursement of $326,000 that the county has spent on recent engineering costs.

Cox said that to date, the USDA has refused to release those funds.

“USDA funding is still frozen and we’re continuing to incur engineering costs that are not being reimbursed from the federal government,” Cox said. “We’re basically at the point where we can either take the monies out of the general fund to pay the engineers or we can just default on our contract with the engineer. Or, we can take the money out of the Certificates of Participation, which are supposed to be used for non-USDA eligible costs.”

…

When Cox opened the floor for the other commissioners to voice their perspectives, Odom, who has supported the project for it’s prospect to enhance economic development in the county, said he wants to hear more about the audit issues and why the USDA funds aren’t being released.

“I’ve never seen anything like that in government where we’re that far behind and I would like to know why,” he said.

On the other hand, Scavuzzo voiced his disapproval of the project, but thanked Freeman for her work.

…

Concluding the discussion, the Commission carried the vote to disband the project 2-1.

Cox and Scavuzzo voted in favor of ditching broadband.

“Initially, what I will be doing will be notifying all the parties involved now that the Commission has given me the authority to do that,” Cox said. “We will then have to deal with getting all those final bills paid.”

Cox said that there are few options available to deal with the debt that’s been accumulated, one being that it can be rolled into the county’s existing COP funds since the county is already paying the full interest on those funds.

“I think we need to return our focus to providing the core services that county government is responsible for,” he said. “I think it’s important that we get out now while we still can afford to do so.”

The county should have never gotten into this project. Jeff Cox restated that this project did not fall into any core responsibilities of the county government.

“I think we should return our focus to providing the core services that county government has a responsibility to provide, such as road and bridge and law enforcement. The things that the people in the rural areas, that this initiative was meant to help, are the people that I have seen hurt the most out of all of this because all the money that has been diverted from those core services.”

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The Return of the Vigilantes

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California has a history matched by few states. It has a history of dealing justice when the “official” law enforcement organs can’t or won’t meet their obligations. The Vigilantes of San Francisco first appeared in 1851 and a few years later in 1856.

The San Francisco Committee of Vigilance was a popular ad hoc organization formed in 1851 and revived in 1856 in response to rampant crime and corruption in the municipal government of San Francisco, California. It was one of the most successful organizations in the vigilante tradition of the American Old West.

These militias hanged eight people and forced several elected officials to resign. Each Committee of Vigilance formally relinquished power after three months. — Wiki

Now, move forward 157 years. The Vigilantes have returned for the same reasons, unconstrained criminality and the refusal of law enforcement to perform their function.

Oakland Neighbors Policing Their Own Streets As They Lose Faith In Cops

February 26, 2013 11:22 AM
This surveillance image shows three men preparing to break into an Arcadia Park neighborhood home in Oakland. (CBS)

This surveillance image shows three men preparing to break into an Arcadia Park neighborhood home in Oakland. (CBS)

OAKLAND (KPIX 5) – Oakland’s crime problems have gotten so bad that some people aren’t even bothering to call the cops anymore; instead, they’re trying to solve and prevent crimes themselves.

KPIX 5 cameras caught up with a half dozen neighbors in East Oakland’s Arcadia Park neighborhood Monday as they walked the streets on the lookout for crime. The vigilance has never seemed more necessary than now; 25 homes in the neighborhood have been burglarized over the last two months alone.

In a neighborhood that has started to feel like the wild west, people have even started posting “wanted” signs.

“You have to walk around in your house with a gun to feel safe here,” said Alaska Tarvins of the Arcadia Park Board of Directors.

Over the weekend, one home was burglarized twice in a 24 hour period, once while a resident’s nephew was inside.

“He was on with 911 when those men tried to kick into his room. That was very frightening,” said the woman, identified only as Inca.

Now, Arcadia park neighbors are taking the detective work into their own hands.

KPIX 5 found a woman who identified herself as L.E. patrolling her neighborhood by car. She said she recently chased down a couple of robbers herself.

“There was an armed robbery in progress and the owner yelled ‘help me’ and I ended up going after them,” L.E. recalled.

The people who live in the area are nothing if not gutsy, but they need help. A plan to gate their community has been stalled. With the police force stretched painfully thin, they may be forced to follow other Oakland neighborhoods and hire private guards.

“We don’t have a choice. Either die or we hire some security ourselves, because we can’t depend on the police department,” said Tarvins.

Remember the adage loved by 2nd Amendment supporters, “When seconds count, the cops are minutes away.” In Oakland, they just don’t come at all.

Some lefties like to boast that California leads the nation. I surely hope not. I don’t want anarchy to come to Missouri like it is, increasingly, in California. Decades of overspending, higher unsupported debt, massive influx of unrestrained illegal immigration and infiltration of gangs and the drug cartels, all the failed and frankly unworkable liberal policies are coming home.

The cities in California pay their elected officials multi-hundreds of dollars salary all while cutting the budgets of their police and fire departments. This is leading to some innovative solutions by Californians—by individuals, not the municipalities. The article below leads with events in New Jersey and continues with similar activities in California.

Alana Semuels,  February 21, 2013

Roles once held by police are now becoming commonplace for private detectives and security firms.

CAMDEN, N.J. — In an office in a sleepy town in southern New Jersey, Harry Glemser’s phone rang. With no buxom secretary to take a message, he answered it himself.

It was a dame, looking to hire a private eye.

But this was no scene from a noir novel. The woman was calling because someone in a car kept lurking in her driveway, the engine running, when her husband wasn’t home. She’d called the police, but they couldn’t help. She hoped Glemser could.

Detectives like Glemser across cash-strapped states have been getting more calls like these as cities and towns cut their police forces to contend with deep budget cuts. New Jersey alone lost 4,200 officers from 2008 to 2011, according to the Policemen’s Benevolent Assn., which tracks the state’s most recent data. As police focus more on responding to crime rather than preventing it, private detectives and security firms are often taking on the roles that police once did, investigating robberies, checking out alibis, looking into threats.

“The public is frustrated by the police,” said Glemser, a retired cop of 63 whose gold chains, white hair and bulky body might make a stranger worry he’s on the wrong side of the law. “The citizenry is quick to say that the police don’t do anything for them. They should be saying the police can’t do anything for them because of this budgetary issue, this manpower problem, this directive we have that came down from the chief.”

…

In California, where many cash-strapped cities cut police budgets during the recession, residents are turning to detectives, security firms and even the Internet.

After police cuts in Oakland, resident Dabney Lawless encouraged 400 neighbors to sign up on a website so they could send alerts to one another when they noticed suspicious people around; she also pays extra to an alarm company to drive through the neighborhood. Ron Cancio, the manager of a Stockton security firm, said that since the city’s budget battles, residents often have called his firm for minor complaints, because they know he’ll respond more quickly than the police.

…

Roger Arrella, the owner of TSInvestigations in Corona, said he’s getting a lot more calls from people who say police won’t help them in investigating burglaries, suspicious suicides or identity theft. But once they hear his rates, which are around $150 an hour, they usually balk.

“We get the phone calls — people are upset that someone broke into their house, or stole their car, and the police aren’t doing what they should be doing,” he said. “But then you tell them the price, and they say, well, maybe it’s not worth it to me.”

It’s another facet of how income inequality is playing out in America — as cities are forced to cut their budgets, even police protection is more accessible to those with cash.

“Wealthy neighborhoods are buying themselves more police protection than poor neighborhoods,” said Samuel Walker, emeritus professor of criminal justice at the University of Nebraska at Omaha and the author of 13 books on policing.

Those who can afford it use private police—retired officers, detectives and security firms. Those who cannot afford that price are left with themselves to prevent crimes…and dispense justice. We call them Vigilantes.

We, here in Cass County, are fortunate to have a Sheriff who understands duty and commitment. It’s too bad, Californian elected officials aren’t like him.

Welcome to the Progressives’ world.

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Snow day!

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Everyone seems to be taking a snow day today…and maybe tomorrow as well. I underestimated the snowfall last week. Once I got outside and made some measurements, we averaged 14″ in our yard. Our deck had a drift more than two feet deep. Fortunately, about half of the snow melted over the weekend.

Last night and continuing through today, we are receiving more snow. Using my Mark I eyeball, I would estimate we have around 8″ of new snow, so far. It’s a wet, heavy snow, clinging to trees and power lines.

Some 55,000 homes across Kansas City are without power including Mrs. Crucis’ cousin who lives in Kansas City.  We had a power ‘blink’ sometime during the night but it was brief. In our neighborhood, the power lines to houses are buried and the above ground lines are free of trees.

Here’s a couple of obligatory photos.

Snowstorm_02262013_tblet-1Snowstorm_02262013_tablet-2

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Shenanigans.

The dems are using twitter  to send pro-gun control tweets to ‘Pub congressmen. I suppose I can’t really complain since we conservatives do too—to ‘Pub congressmen.

Republican rep claims Obama backers using fake Twitter accounts in gun-control blitz

Published February 25, 2013, FoxNews.com

President Obama supporters appear to be using fake Twitter accounts to send pro gun-control messages to members of Congress, Texas Republican Rep. Steve Stockman and conservative bloggers who also reviewed the messages said Monday. 

Bloggers first spotted the trend and said they suspected some social media funny business because the senders had sent no other tweets, had no followers and followed nobody.

In addition, blogger Stacy McCain said his review found the majority of the accounts supporting Obama’s gun-control campaign were created less than 48 hours before a member of Congress was contacted.

The tweets in question included the #WeDemandAVote hashtag – which President Obama told gun-control supporters to include in their Twitter messages to Congress.

Stockman is among 16 members of Congress who appear to have received the tweets.

On Monday, the congressman suggested “Obama’s anti-gun activists” were behind the allegedly computer-generated messages, which his office called a “scam” similar to those selling “male enhancement pills.”

Stockman also said accounts are linked directly to a former Obama staffer and called on the president to denounce the spamming.  

“Obama’s anti-gun campaign is a fraud,” Stockman said in a statement. “The White House has some explaining to do. To what extent is the White House involved in this attempt to defraud Congress?”

The White House did not respond to a request for comment.

‘Nuff said.
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Monday Moments

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It is bright outside here near KC. That won’t last. According to which track you’re following and which model your local forecaster is using, we’ll get between 8″ to over 12″ of snow in the next 36 hours. One local station estimates up to 18″. My wife teaches on Tuesday nights. She is expecting a snow day.

KC Storm Watch February 25, 2013

KC Storm Watch February 25, 2013

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South Carolina democrats are planning to hire private detectives to “discover” dirt on their ‘Pub opponents. It’s not an new tactic. In South Carolina, the purpose is to “cripple” the  legislative agenda of the ‘Pub state leadership and Governor Pat McCrory.

Liberal groups lay out blueprint for attack on state leaders

By Mark Binker

Raleigh, N.C. — A strategy memo circulated recently among liberal-leaning groups prescribes “crippling” legislative leaders and Gov. Pat McCrory with bad press and pressure tactics.

The memo, which was first reported by The Charlotte Observer, details communications strategy, political tactics and polling data that progressive groups can use to push the policy agenda in Raleigh, where Republicans control both the governor’s mansion and the legislature. 

According to documents included with the memo and interviews, the strategy outline was produced by Myers Research and Strategic Services for Project New America. It was originally provided to Progress North Carolina, a liberal nonprofit that has aggressively attacked McCrory during the 2012 campaign and his early term in office. Progress North Carolina shared the memo with Blueprint NC, a nonprofit that coordinates the activities of liberal-leaning nonprofits. In turn, Blueprint NC distributed it to its member organizations.

An electronic version of the memo appears to contain at least three separate documents. One is an email from outgoing Blueprint NC Communications Director Stephanie Bass describing the material and emphasizing that it is “CONFIDENTIAL to Blueprint, so please be careful – share with your boards and appropriate staff, but not the whole world.”

Sean Kosofsky, Blueprint NC’s director, said his group did not pay for or commission the research. “We were just forwarding it on,” he said.

On Saturday, two days after this post originally published, Kosofsky distanced his group from most inflammatory parts of the document, although acknowledged it was distributed at a meeting organized by Blueprint NC. Click here to read more about what Kosofsky says about the controversial memo.

The second document is a “talking points memo” that outlines strategies for progressive groups. Policy wins for the political left, the memo said, would likely be defined as “mitigating” legislation, rather than pushing their own agenda items.

“The most effective way to mitigate the worst legislation is to weaken our opponents’ ability to govern by crippling their leaders (McCrory, Tillis, Berger, etc…)” the memo reads, referring to the governor, House Speaker Thom Tillis and Senate President Pro Tem Phil Berger.

The memo goes on to describe a “potential two-year vision” during which the groups would “eviscerate the leadership and weaken their ability to govern.”

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Need a job? Get paid to be a Gun Control supporter. Progressive USA Voters can’t get enough members to make an impact in Chicago’s ongoing battle against guns and the 2nd Amendment. They’ve found a solution. If there isn’t enough support, buy some!

Liberal astroturf group offering $9 to $11 per hour to join its gun-control campaign

10:12 AM 02/24/2013

The liberal organization Progressive USA Voters, which is housed in the same progressive Denver office building as a chapter of the infamous left-wing astroturf group ProgressNow, is offering an hourly wage of between $9 and $11 to join its gun-control campaign in Chicago, according to a flyer that was photographed and posted to Reddit Friday.

“Join the Campaign to Stop Gun Violence” reads the flyer, which also notes, “Hourly Wage: $9-11/hr.”

…

Progressive USA Voters is specifically focused on the April 2013 special election for Jesse Jackson Jr.’s vacated House seat in Illinois’ Second Congressional District. The group is targeting Democratic primary candidate Debbie Halvorson, who accepted more than $10,000 from the National Rifle Association, according to the Progressive USA Voters website.

Halvorson is running against former state representative Robin Kelly, who has received the endorsement of New York Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s super PAC, Independence USA, which is also attacking Halverson on the issue of .

“Progressive USA will be going door-to-door in this important race in the coming weeks in order to educate voters about Halvorson’s record,” according to the group’s website.

Progressive USA Voters is a project of Progressive USA, which claims to “advocate for sensible policy solutions, hold our nation’s elected officials accountable for their actions and take head-on the flawed policies and hypocrisy of the radical right.” The group does not list its staff or directors on its website, and does not disclose its donors to the Federal Election Commission.

I don’t contribute to democrat politicians…but I’m tempted to send a few pennies to Debbie Halvorson.

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Greed!

Chicago Teacher Union Prez Karen Lewis led a strike against Chicago Schools and Rahm Emanuel’s education reforms. Lewis won pay raises of 17.6 percent and now she’s under pressure—because she didn’t extort enough concessions and money. If I were the editor of the Chicago Tribune, I’d title this article as “Feeding on their own.”

Union boss who led Chicago teachers strike faces leadership challenge

6:19 PM 02/24/2013
Karen Lewis, the tough-talking boss of the Chicago teachers union who led the strike last September that derailed many of Mayor Rahm Emanuel’s education reform plans, will face a leadership challenge in May.

Some members of the Chicago Teachers Union are dissatisfied with Lewis’s leadership. They think she should have won more concessions from the city.

“We struck, we fought, we gave Karen Lewis all the power she needed, but she didn’t deliver at the bargaining table,” said Tanya Saunders-Wolffe, a school counselor who plans to run for CTU president, in an interview with the Chicago Tribune.

As a result of the strike, Lewis was able to win teacher salary increases of 17.6 percent over the next four years. The compromise also gutted Emanuel’s proposal to tie teacher evaluations to students’ performances, and kept in place benefits and job protection for teachers with seniority.

Emanuel came away with his sought-after extension of the school day. He also turned the situation into an opportunity to push for school choice reforms.

Lewis wasn’t entirely happy with the deal and called it an “austerity contract.”

Evidently, some teachers agree with her. Saunders-Wolffe will run as part of a slate of candidates opposing Lewis’s leadership.

Lewis previously faced criticism for joking about the underclass murdering rich people.

Lewis is a nasty piece of work as is Rahm Emanuel. On one hand, it’s great to see two parasites fight one another. On the other hand if Lewis loses her re-election, Chicago will be saddled with a worse union goon boss.

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My final topic today is an ad the NRA is running in some states. They acquired some DoJ documents that prove Obama really is planning to confiscate guns from US citizens.

NRA uses Justice memo to accuse Obama admin of wanting to confiscate guns

By Associated Press, Saturday, February 23, 2013

WASHINGTON — The National Rifle Association is using a Justice Department memo it obtained to argue in ads that the Obama administration believes its gun control plans won’t work unless the government seizes firearms and requires national gun registration — ideas the White House has not proposed and does not support.

The NRA’s assertion and its obtaining of the memo in the first place underscore the no-holds-barred battle under way as Washington’s fight over gun restrictions heats up.

The memo, under the name of one of the Justice Department’s leading crime researchers, critiques the effectiveness of gun control proposals, including some of President Obama’s. A Justice Department official called the memo an unfinished review of gun violence research and said it does not represent administration policy.

The memo says requiring background checks for more gun purchases could help, but also could lead to more illicit weapons sales. It says banning assault weapons and high capacity ammunition magazines produced in the future but exempting those already owned by the public, as Obama has proposed, would have limited impact because people now own so many of those items.

It also says that even total elimination of assault weapons would have little overall effect on gun killings because assault weapons account for a limited proportion of those crimes.

The nine-page document says the success of universal background checks would depend in part on “requiring gun registration,” and says gun buybacks would not be effective “unless massive and coupled with a ban.”

The administration has not proposed gun registration, buybacks or banning all firearms. But gun registration and ownership curbs are hot-button issues for the NRA and other gun-rights groups, which strenuously oppose the ideas.

Justice Department and White House officials declined to provide much information about the memo or answer questions about it on the record.

The memo has the look of a preliminary document and calls itself “a cursory summary” and assessment of gun curb initiatives. The administration has not released it officially.

But the NRA has posted the memo on one of its websites and cites it in advertising aimed at whipping up opposition to Obama’s efforts to contain gun violence. The ad says the paper shows that the administration “believes that a gun ban will not work without mandatory gun confiscation” and thinks universal background checks “won’t work without requiring national gun registration” — ideas the president has not proposed or expressed support for.

“Still think President Obama’s proposals sound reasonable?” Chris W. Cox, the NRA’s chief Washington lobbyist, says in the ad.

Last month, White House spokesman Jay Carney said none of Obama’s proposals “would take away a gun from a single law-abiding American.” Other administration officials have said their plans would not result in gun seizures or a national gun registry.

A Justice Department official who would only discuss the issue on condition of anonymity said the NRA ad misrepresents Obama’s gun proposals and that the administration has never backed a gun registry or gun confiscation.

While the memo’s analysis of gun curb proposals presents no new findings, it is unusual for a federal agency document to surface that raises questions about a president’s plans during debate on a high-profile issue such as restricting firearms.

Obama wants to ban assault weapons and ammunition magazines exceeding 10 rounds that are produced in the future. He wants universal background checks for nearly all gun purchases. Today, checks are only mandatory on sales by federally licensed gun dealers, not transactions at gun shows or other private sales.

His plan also includes tougher federal laws against gun trafficking and straw purchases, which occur when a person legally buys a firearm but sells it to a criminal or someone else barred from owning a weapon.

Interest in the gun issue has intensified since the December shootings in Newtown, Conn., that killed 20 first-graders and six staffers at an elementary school. The Democratic-led Senate Judiciary Committee plans to write legislation addressing some of Obama’s proposals in the next week or two.

The NRA’s Cox declined to say how his organization obtained the memo.

He said the commercial is running online in 15 states, including many Republican-leaning states where Democrats will defend Senate seats next year, such as Alaska, Arkansas, Louisiana, Montana, North Carolina, South Dakota and West Virginia. There are also ads in papers in five states.

The memo was written under the name of Greg Ridgeway, acting director of the National Institute of Justice, the Justice Department’s research arm. It is dated Jan. 4, nearly two weeks before Obama announced his plan for restricting guns, and Ridgeway’s first day as acting chief.

The article is long and I included only a portion. Please follow the link and read the entire column. Obama may not get the legislation that he wants but we’ve already seen that he ignores congressional and constitutional constraints whenever they obstruct his goals.

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Speaking truth

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There were three instances—events where truth was spoken this week. One was well known, another slightly less so, and the third was a TV show. I doubt many caught the connotations and the truth in that TV show although it was not hidden.

The TV show was NCIS-LA. In the episode shown February 19th, a 1970s violent, radical group reappeared. One of the original members was found murdered, the other remaining members were in prison or thought dead.

At the same time a new group, feeling the Occupy protests were ineffectual, decided to add violence, to exploit peaceful protests.  In the end, the perpetrator, the mentor behind the new radicals, was a member of that original group. He was their mentor. The show described him as the same as Hitler’s mentor, Dietrich Eckart. The character was a university history professor who had been indoctrinating his students over a thirty-year period. The last few minutes went into detail how socialist infiltration of our education system was fermenting disruption, dissent and terrorism.

It’s a rare event when Hollywood truthfully acknowledges the radical takeover of education and their real motives. This episode is worth viewing if you didn’t at the original broadcast.

The  next instance occurred on the Mark Levin radio show last night. He read most of an article by Angelo Codevilla in Forbe’s Magazine. The column is worth a full read. It is quite lengthy but confirms other reports about the ineffectiveness of the ‘Pub establishment and how they are now blocking reform movements in their home states.

As Country Club Republicans Link Up With The Democratic Ruling Class, Millions Of Voters Are Orphaned

By Angelo Codevilla, 2/20/2013 @ 4:49PM

On January 1, 2013 one third of Republican congressmen, following their leaders, joined with nearly all Democrats to legislate higher taxes and more subsidies for Democratic constituencies. Two thirds voted no, following the people who had elected them. For generations, the Republican Party had presented itself as the political vehicle for Americans whose opposition to ever-bigger government financed by ever-higher taxes makes them a “country class.”  Yet modern Republican leaders, with the exception of the Reagan Administration, have been partners in the expansion of government, indeed in the growth of a government-based “ruling class.” They have relished that role despite their voters. Thus these leaders gradually solidified their choice to no longer represent what had been their constituency, but to openly adopt the identity of junior partners in that ruling class. By repeatedly passing bills that contradict the identity of Republican voters and of the majority of Republican elected representatives, the Republican leadership has made political orphans of millions of Americans. In short, at the outset of 2013 a substantial portion of America finds itself un-represented, while Republican leaders increasingly represent only themselves.

By the law of supply and demand, millions of Americans, (arguably a majority) cannot remain without representation. Increasingly the top people in government, corporations, and the media collude and demand submission as did the royal courts of old. This marks these political orphans as a “country class.” In 1776 America’s country class responded to lack of representation by uniting under the concept: “all men are created equal.” In our time, its disparate sectors’ common sentiment is more like: “who the hell do they think they are?”

The ever-growing U.S. government has an edgy social, ethical, and political character. It is distasteful to a majority of persons who vote Republican and to independent voters, as well as to perhaps one fifth of those who vote Democrat. The Republican leadership’s kinship with the socio-political class that runs modern government is deep. Country class Americans have but to glance at the Media to hear themselves insulted from on high as greedy, racist, violent, ignorant extremists. Yet far has it been from the Republican leadership to defend them. Whenever possible, the Republican Establishment has chosen candidates for office – especially the Presidency – who have ignored, soft-pedaled or given mere lip service to their voters’ identities and concerns.

Thus public opinion polls confirm that some two thirds of Americans feel that government is “them” not “us,” that government has been taking the country in the wrong direction, and that such sentiments largely parallel partisan identification: While a majority of Democrats feel that officials who bear that label represent them well, only about a fourth of Republican voters and an even smaller proportion of independents trust Republican officials to be on their side. Again: While the ruling class is well represented by the Democratic Party, the country class is not represented politically – by the Republican Party or by any other. Well or badly, its demand for representation will be met.

If you read between the lines, this column is a call for the creation of a third party. The core premise is that the current republican party has isolated itself from its roots and those roots, acknowledging their isolation, are looking for alternatives—a new means to re-establish their representation in government.

As I said, it is lengthy. I urge you to read the entire column here.

The third instance acquired nation-wide attention and was the headline on the Drudge Report all yesterday afternoon. It was a monologue by Rush Limbaugh. I don’t know if he had read Angelo Codevilla’s article but it echoed many of the same tenets.

For the First Time in My Life, I Am Ashamed of My Country

BEGIN TRANSCRIPT

RUSH:  Folks, I’m sorry here.  I can’t help but think that we are all being played for a bunch of fools, a bunch of suckers on this sequester business.  I don’t know.  Are you like me?  Do you really think 800,000 people are gonna lose their jobs in the Pentagon because we cut $22 billion?  Do you really think air traffic control’s gonna shut down?  Do you really think there aren’t gonna be any meat inspectors?  Do you really think that all of these horror stories are going to happen?  I don’t. 

I feel like I’ve been here.  This is deja vu all over again.  I remember the 1995 budget battle.  That involved a legitimate government shut down.  That wasn’t just $22 billion we were not gonna spend.  We’re still gonna spend $3.5 trillion.  We’re just not gonna spend $22 billion, if it happens.

…

RUSH: Everything gets repeated. The cycle, the claims, the threats, the crisis, Armageddon, it’s the same. And we’re talking $22 billion. It’s not as though we’re not gonna spend anything. If the sequester happens, the first year is $44 billion. Half of that’s defense. We’re still going to spend $3.5 trillion or $3.3 trillion, even if we don’t spend the $22 billion. Then there’s this guy who draws an analogy to the Oklahoma City bombing.

Plus, we have our old buddy Ron Fournier. He used to be at AP, and is now at the National Journal. This is quite instructive, actually. Let me just read a portion of this to you. “You May Be Right, Mr. President, But This Is Crazy — Your federal government is almost certain to blow past the March 1 deadline for averting $1.2 trillion in haphazard budget cuts that could cost 700,000 jobs.” But see, it’s not $1.2 trillion.

It is over ten years, but it’s not this year and it’s not next year. This year’s portion of it is $22 billion. Besides, does anybody really think that, even if the sequester happens, it’s not gonna get fixed for ten years? Anyway… “Don’t worry. We know who to blame. President Obama makes a credible case that he has reached farther toward compromise than House Republicans.” He has? Well, I guess he has, since the media says so. “President Obama makes a credible case that he has reached farther toward compromise…”

“But knowing who’s at fault,” writes Mr. Fournier, “doesn’t fix the problem. To loosely quote Billy Joel: You may be right, Mr. President, but this is crazy. Is this fiscal standoff (the fifth since Republicans took control of the House in 2011)…” Is that not an interesting perspective, by the way? It’s not “the fifth standoff since Obama was inaugurated.” No, no. It’s “the fifth standoff since Republicans took control of the House” two years ago. “Is this fiscal standoff … just about scoring political points, or is it about governing?”

Unbeknownst to Mr. Fournier, he has now swerved right into my theory: Political points versus governing, and he says it’s all about politics. “If it’s all about politics, bully for Obama. A majority of voters will likely side with the president over Republicans in a budget dispute because of his popularity and the GOP’s pathetic approval ratings.” Speaking of that, I don’t want to depress you out there, but Obama’s approval rating is as high as it’s been since 2009. It’s 55%.

The Republicans’ approval is as low as it’s been since 2009. Chris Christie goes on Letterman, eats a doughnut, and he’s at 74% approval. Christie is at 74%. Obama is at 55%, his highest approval in four years. But then Mr. Fournier writes, “If it’s all about politics, bully for Obama” but “[i]f it’s about governing, the story changes” for Obama ” Yes, siree, Bob. That’s my whole point. “You see,” as Mr. Fournier writes, totally unaware that he’s totally confirming my brilliant theorem of last week, “If it’s about governing, then the story changes for Obama.”

…

Fournier highlights an op-ed written by a Republican who blames everybody on both sides for it and we all gotta get together and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. That’s what Fournier thinks Obama needs to read. “With a few tweaks, Obama could make it a presidential address. … ‘Americans are fed up with the jousting.… There is a lot of public posturing but apparently not much genuine conversation.'” That gets to the root of what’s bothering me here. The jousting never ends. I just feel like I’m being played for the fool here to get sucked into this narrative and this template every day.

I’ve cut a lot from his transcript due to space limitations.  A number of “pundits” are speculating Rush is calling for a third party due to the ineffectiveness of the establishment ‘Pubs and their lack of initiative and leadership combating the continuous push by the dems and libs toward tyranny. If the ‘Pubs won’t or can’t do that job, then, perhaps, it is time to find another party or organization that will. (No, I’m not joining the Libertarians. They are as much a collection of fools as are the dems and ‘Pub establishment.)

All three examples spoke truth this week—one, a Hollywood TV show acknowledged liberal infiltration in education. The second is another confirmation of the existence of The Ruling Class, how they work to maintain their personal political power at the expense of the country. The third documents the lack of leadership and the ineffectiveness—the uselessness of the ‘Pub establishment, in fighting the lies and propaganda of the left.

Levin commented on his show last night, as best I remember, “Perhaps, like the Whigs, it is time for the republican party to fade into history.

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Dinosaur Media Watch

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Over the last few years I’ve posted numerous times about the death of media dinosaurs—here, here, and here. The Boston Globe is one such. It was up for sale some years ago and there were no takers. It’s owned by the parent company of the New York Times who is also on shaky ground. The NYT is putting the Boston Globe up for sale, again.

New York Times puts Boston Globe up for sale again

By Jennifer Saba, NEW YORK | Wed Feb 20, 2013 6:06pm EST

(Reuters) – The New York Times Co is putting The Boston Globe on the auction block for a second time as it seeks to focuses solely on growing its flagship newspaper.

The company said in a statement that it had hired Evercore Partners to advise on the sale, which also includes the Worcester Telegram & Gazette.

The sale is expected to come at a big loss. Ken Doctor, an analyst with Outsell Research, estimated that the Globe could fetch about $150 million. The New York Times paid $1.1 billion for the newspaper in 1993.

The New York Times is putting all its effort into being a global information source and “the Globe is a distraction,” Doctor said.

Morningstar analyst Joscelyn MacKay said in recent years revenue at the Boston Globe had declined much more than at the New York Times.

…

The New York Times first put the paper up for sale in 2009 as it struggled with losses. But it halted the sale process and decided to hang onto the paper after winning concessions from Globe’s unions and implementing cost cuts.

Most print media organizations in the US, and in Europe,  have umbilical cord ties to unions. The unions block modernization that would reduce production expense while demanding higher wages and benefits. The unions have been sucking the economic blood from their partners until, one by one, major metro newspapers are dying.

Given the fact that newspapers have devolved into liberal propaganda tools, their passing is a good thing. The internet—and bloggers, are replacing them. And that, too, is a good thing.

***

Illinois tyrants are trying to kill free speech in the state. Illinois state Senator Ira Silverstein wants to prohibit the use of “anonymous” comments on websites. Now on one hand, I can sympathize. Ninety percent or more anonymous postings are spam of one form or another. Another six or seven percent are vitriol by opponents of the post or of the author and use “anonymous” to hide their identities. I’ve had a few of those on my website as well. The remaining percentages are those who don’t have an internet identity they wish to publicize.

It is the last two catagories above that involve free speech.  As much as I hate the rants spewed by liberals directed to my site by the Democrat Underground or the Daily Koz, they do have a right to say their message—just as I, as a website owner, have to right to remove their posts when they exceed the bounds of propriety.

Silverstein wants the state to enforce those prohibitions. Why? The site owner may approve of the statements and if/when those same statements offend Silverstein or his liberal buds, he has no recourse to force the removal of those statements.

His bill would grant him that authority regardless whether the website owners agree or disagree with Silverstein’s demands. It’s nothing more than another liberal attempt to stifle free speech.

Illinois state senator pushes anti-anonymity bill

3:42 AM 02/21/2013

A recently introduced bill in the Illinois state Senate would require anonymous website comment posters to reveal their identities if they want to keep their comments online.

The bill, called the Internet Posting Removal Act, is sponsored by Illinois state Sen. Ira Silverstein. It states that a “web site administrator upon request shall remove any comments posted on his or her web site by an anonymous poster unless the anonymous poster agrees to attach his or her name to the post and confirms that his or her IP address, legal name, and home address are accurate.”

The bill, which does not ask for or clarify requirements from entities requesting the comment removal, would take effect 90 days after becoming law.

Pseudonymous and anonymous comments have long been a critical part of U.S. public discourse, though, and the bill may be on shaky legal ground.

The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) noted on its website that the “right to anonymous speech is also protected well beyond the printed page.”

“Thus in 2002 the Supreme Court struck down a law requiring proselytizers to register their true names with the mayor’s office before going door-to-door,” wrote EFF, noting that the Supreme Court protects Internet commentary as it does pamphleteering.

The bill is part of a larger trend of lawmakers seeking to censor anonymous online speech.

Of course we must realize this is Illinois.  New York tried to pass a similar bill last year by establishment ‘Pubs. They failed.

***

This last item needs no added comments. It speaks for itself. New Yorkers, the British are coming. Where is your militia?

Report: Prosecutors to pursue felony charges against ex-soldier for possessing high-capacity magazine

New York prosecutors will pursue felony criminal charges against retired special forces soldier Nathan Haddad, who was arrested in LeRay, New York in January for allegedly possessing five 30-round AR-15 magazines, according to conservative law blog Legal Insurrection.

Prosecutors had reportedly offered Haddad a plea bargain that would spare him jail time if he admitted to five misdemeanors, according to Legal Insurrection. But Haddad’s attorney told the blog that Haddad, who currently works at the Department of Defense, will not accept the deal.

It is unclear how Haddad was arrested or discovered with the magazines.

Haddad was deployed four times during his ten-year Army career, and was once injured during special forces training in South Korea. He was discharged in October 2010.

A website established to pay Haddad’s legal expenses has collected more than $35,000.

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The Crazy Years

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No, the title isn’t about the years of Obama’s tyranny. It is taken from Robert A. Heinlein’s future history. In his timeline, the period of the Crazy Years started in the 1960s and continued through 2000. Heinlein was correct when this period started. He was incorrect stopping it in 2000. The Crazy Years are still with us.

RAH_Future_History

Today’s post isn’t about Heinlein…although he is always a good topic, being a “neighbor” and all. He lived in Nevada, MO. I met him twice in the years just before his death, but that’s another story.

There are two stories in the news today that illustrate today’s post title.

HURT: Anti-gun zealots going ‘cuckoo’ from coast to coast

By Charles Hurt, Tuesday, February 19, 2013

In New York, they are rounding up the crazies. In Seattle, they want armed police invading the homes of law-abiding gun owners for annual “inspections.” In Denver, plans are under way to levy new taxes on gun owners to raise millions for the state’s strained coffers.

If this sounds like science fiction from the Cold War era or grainy reels of the Gestapo in the run-up to World War II, then you have not been reading the papers.

The column continues at the website and I urge you to read it. It appears the liberal group-think follows wherever they go. The Colorado metro areas have been receiving California and Westcoast refugees for a couple of decades, more since the liberal policies there has been dragging those state down into the sewer.  When they migrated to Colorado, they brought their groupthink with them thinking the policies that failed in their former states would work in Colorado.

They don’t.

Now, the metro clusters around Denver, Boulder and Ft Collins down to Colorado Springs, controls the entire state. The 2012 election placed libs in control of both state houses and the Governor’s mansion. Those same libs immediately began their march to “enlighten” Colorado, to do a make-over of the state into California’s image. They’ve legalized marijuana and this week voted to enact a series of infringements on gun-owners.

In Washington state, liberal democrats proposed new gun-control laws that violated the 4th Amendment of the US Constitution as well Article 1, Section 7 of their own state constitution. In essence, the proposed bill would grant Law Enforcement Officers the right to enter any domicile, at will and without warrants, to “inspect the storage of firearms.” The law would eliminate the protections granted citizens by both Constitutions.

The second example of craziness is the article below. It documents the craziness occurring nation-wide in our schools. The concept of “Zero-tolerance” is the epitome of stupidity. On one hand, progressives preach moral relevance while claiming moral decision based on our Christian-Judeo heritage corrupt, mean-spirited, irrelevant and hateful.

The column below appeared in The American Thinker today. It documents events occurring in schools that would have been unthinkable fifty years ago before the progressive infestation in education. What was morally valid fifty years ago is still valid today. These occurrences of “Zero-tolerance” simply provides educators an out, an escape when difficult situations arise. Zero-tolerance removes risk when administrators enforce their own moral equivalences—agendas contrary to the morality and desires of those they supposedly serve.

The article below is written by a home/private school advocate. That, however, doesn’t invalidate his premise.

Schools Jump the Shark

By Michael Geer, February 20, 2013

Around the ranch we usually mutter and shake our heads, but now they’ve gone too far.

Public school officials at Heritage Middle School in Meridian, Idaho put the school on ‘lockdown’ because a teenage boy was seen ‘roaming the halls’ with a … ready? … a folding military style … shovel.

A shovel.

No report filed on whether it was a high capacity shovel. Might have been high capacity in the hands of Big John, loading sixteen tons. Certainly not in the soft un-calloused hands of a school bureaucrat.

A middle school teenage boy was spotted in the halls with a ‘suspicious’ object and the school “resource officer” leapt into action. Only trouble was the boy was on an errand for a teacher who had forgotten the folding entrenching tool, meaning shovel. A prop for a history lesson on WWII.

Local police said no charges would be filed. So the kid’s got that going for him, which is nice.

Meanwhile, quoting the KTVB article:

 … Nearby Rocky Mountain High School, Paramount Elementary, Prospect Elementary, Sawtooth Middle School were put in “shelter in place” mode, which means students weren’t allowed to leave those schools while police responded to Heritage Middle School. Exline says those schools took the measure as a precaution.

Dear God. Whatever happened to a proud and resilient people who took pride in the phrase “One Riot. One Ranger“? Are our public schools really captained by idiots and Peter Principle bureaucrats? Has it really come to this, that a boy with a shovel is a threat to the community?

Yes.

There’s the boy who brought kombucha tea to school in his own lunchbox.

The six year old Maryland boy suspend for making gun-hand gesture and saying … gasp … Pow!

The Hyannis School District’s threat to rid themselves of a boy, age five, who made a gun out of Legos!

The Arizona high school freshman suspended for being in possession a blankety blank picture of a gun.

A Loveland, Colorado 2nd Grader playing at being hero during recess in a make believe game of saving his friends by throwing an imaginary grenade into a box.

(take the blood pressure pill, Geer)

The five year old suspended in Mount Carmel, Pennsylvania and actually accused of being a terrorist for playing with her ‘Hello Kitty Bubble Gun’. No, I did not make that up. Wait, I typed that wrong. Suspended for talking about playing with her bubble gun.

Melody Valentin was searched, harassed, interrogated, chastised, yelled at by school officials, ridiculed by her classmates and suspended for the crime of having a piece of paper with her that sorta kinda resembled a gun. Quote: “He [school official] yelled at me and said I shouldn’t have brought the gun to school and I kept telling him it was a paper gun, but he wouldn’t listen.” She was even called a murderer.

Paper bullets, anyone? A grown man yelling at a little girl, making her cry in public? He needs to meet Trace Adkins.

A Waco, Texas four year old boy suspended for hugging a teacher’s aide.

A San Diego teen suspended for bringing his Bible to school, and the horror of sharing his faith while at school.

Alyssa McKinley thought her Monument, Colorado friend was having an asthma attack and shared her asthma inhaler with her. That’s how they got thrown out of school. For an act of kindness.

Suspended for taking a picture of a teacher napping on the job. Yep, Mustang, Oklahoma. Not the teacher. The student.

And the infamous Jello suspension. Don’t do Jello, kids. Not in school anyway.

Yes, being employed in the teaching professions is hard work, and Lord knows these brave men and women get little to no help from parents who treat school like a Government Baby Sitting Entitlement Program. But c’mon. Be serious.

A West Michigan school district is seriously considering raising teacher salaries to $100,000 in order … and I quote … “attract the best talent”.

How about we start with school administrators and their minions on down to the teacher being tested for common sense, traditional values and hard headed character? You know, like the Rev. Martin Luther King wanted? Content of character? Instead of The Indomitable Fortress of Rule-Gods and their Holy Book of Ever Expanding Rules? 

For pity’s sake, even Wikipedia now has an entry for The War On Kids. You can go here to see what Wiki is referencing.

Here is my analysis. Not American Thinker’s analysis. My analysis. The war on kids, authoritarian bullies sucking up massive paychecks on our dime, the impenetrable wall of ideological ignorance married to an intensely juvenile and callow state of mind fostered and nurtured by American Higher Education has produced a hell children must not be exposed to. The active propaganda and literal Pavlovian behavioral training that goes on in public schools to force and reinforce a Progressive agenda is disgusting at best and terrifying in reality. If they know how to rewire a child’s brain in pursuit of reading skills, do I need posit the next obvious postulate?

Expelling a child for supposed gun related issues at 4, 5 even 6 years old is behavioral modification taken to the level of brainwashing.

Get your children out of public schools. Do not sacrifice your children. Get out now. Because John D. Rockefeller meant it when he said “I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.”

Why do I mention John D.? Because it was John D.’s money through the Trust that founded the National Education Association. The largest labor union in America.

In 1936, the National Education Association stated its position, from which they have never wavered; “We stand for socializing the individual.”

The NEA in its “Policy For American Education” stated,

“The major problem of education in our times arises out of the fact that we live in a period of fundamental social change. In the new democracy [we were a Republic] education must share in the responsibility of giving purpose and direction to social change. The major function of the school is the social orientation of the individual. Education must operate according to a well-formulated social policy.”

Paul Haubner, specialist for the NEA, tells us,

“The schools cannot allow parents to influence the kind of values-education their children receive in school; that is what is wrong with those who say there is a universal system of values. Our goals are incompatible with theirs. We must change their values.”

“Education for international understanding involves the use of education as a force for conditioning the will of the people.” – National Education Association, Education for International Understanding in American Schools, page 33 (1948)

“Schools will become clinics whose purpose is to provide individualized, psycho-social treatment for the student, and teachers must become psycho-social therapists.”- National Education Association, “Education for the ’70s,” Today’s Education, January 1969

“Far too many people in America, both in and out of education, look upon the elementary school as a place to learn reading, writing and arithmetic.” – Association for Supervision and Curriculum Development, National Education Association Yearbook, 1947

“The NEA’s ultimate goal is to tap the legal, political and economic powers of the U.S. Congress. We want leaders and staff with sufficient clout that they may roam the halls of Congress and collect votes to re-order the priorities of the United States of America.” – Terry Herndon, NEA Executive Director, 1973

“We are the biggest potential political striking force [union] in this country, and we are determined to control the direction of [public] education.” – NEA President Catherine Barrett (1972)

“In the struggle to establish an adequate world government, the teacher can do much to prepare the hearts & minds of children for global understanding and cooperation…. At the very heart of all the agencies which will assure the coming of world government must stand the school, the teacher, and the organized profession.” – The Teacher & World Government by former editor of the NEA Journal, Joy Elmer Morgan, 1946

“NEA and its affiliates are effective advocates because we have power, and we have power because there are more than 3.2 million people who are willing to pay us hundreds of millions of dollars in dues each year.” – Bob Chanin, NEA General Counsel

“I don’t want a nation of thinkers. I want a nation of workers.” – John D. Rockefeller, created the General Education Board (GEB) in 1903 to dispense Rockefeller funds to the National Education Association.

You serve up your child to a godlessness always roaming  in the world since the days of child sacrifice to Moloch. I beg you, get your children out of public schools.

I cannot say more. When our local schools attempt idiocies as those above, it’s time for heads to roll. The first heads MUST be the administrators who allow such retaliation against students, the second are those teachers who report and initiate the retaliation and the third set of heads to roll are school boards who allow such acts or when reported, refuse to remove those teachers and administrators. School boards are the representatives of the parents—those whose taxes finance the schools, and through those parents the children. School boards are not rubber-stamps of the NEA/AFT nor any education union.

It is our right, as voters and taxpayers, to insure the education of our children—education, not political, progressive indoctrination.

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