The election season is heating up. Locally we’re seeing some revelations about a candidate for Cass County Public Administrator. Not all counties have Public Administrators. They are elected public officials whose job it is to oversee the physical care and finances for those unable to do so themselves. Many of the clients are mentally and physically disabled and need someone to oversee their finances and any others needs that may be present.  It is a position that requires trust.

The ‘Pub candidate, Melody Folsom, is the incumbent and views her job as a Ministry of service. Her opponent, Michelle Cornforth, is new to the county. In the first candidate forum a  week or so ago, Cornforth can across to the audience as cold and bureaucratic.

Today, we have addition information about Cornforth that brings into question her ability to manage the funds of the county’s clients. There are allegations that Cornforth filed for bankruptcy shortly after filing to run for Public Administrator.

An elected official who has filed for bankruptcy will cost the county a large amount just to acquire the performance and trust bonds required by the state. According to public documents, Cornforth and her husband have only $20,000 in assets and $210,000 in debts. If the allegations are true, how can we expect Cornforth to manage the assets of the county’s clients when she cannot manage her own?

(h/t to Garett Houghton)

It would be nice if the Cass county democrats could run candidates for office who are actually…competent and qualified for the positions and who have the best interests of the county’s residents in mind instead of just receiving a public paycheck while performing the minimum necessary for the job.

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Many, especially dems/libs, assume Russia is our friend after the collapse of the Soviet Empire twenty years ago. Welcome to the real world, it’s not true.  Russia is as expansionist as it has been for centuries from Ivan the Terrible, through the Romanovs, Lenin, Stalin and now Putin.

Expansionism is enbedded in Russia’s culture. It lives now just as it did earlier centuries. The expansionist attitude of Russia lives in Putin. The libs in the west will not see the threat. It’s contrary to their political doctrine. Obama and Hilliary shout, “Reset!” Unfortunately, there is no reset, just a short break while Russia recovers.

We have parity on the number of nukes with Russia. Obama would like that to be cut further again. As I remember, we and Russia have around 1,000 nukes each. Obama wants to cut that down to 300—less than the number in the Chinese arsenal. Now Putin has declared he won’t renew the limitation treaty.

Russia says it will not renew arms agreement with U.S.

MOSCOW | Wed Oct 10, 2012 4:00pm EDT

(Reuters) – Russia will not renew a decades-old agreement with Washington on dismantling nuclear and chemical weapons when it expires next year, Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov was quoted as saying on Wednesday.

The death of the 1991 agreement, which had been renewed twice, is the latest in a series of hitches in relations between the United States and Russia and casts doubt on the future of the much-vaunted “reset” in relations between the Cold War-era foes.

“The basis of the program is an agreement of 1991 which, by virtue of the time when it was conceived, the way it was worked out and prepared, does not meet very high standards. The agreement doesn’t satisfy us, especially considering new realities,” Interfax quoted him as saying.

…

The project, intended to dismantle nuclear and chemical weapons in the former Soviet Union, was last ratified by Russia in 2006 and is due to expire in 2013. Aides said it had resulted in the deactivation of more than 7,650 strategic warheads.

Ryabkov said that Russia now had the finances to carry out its own programs and that Moscow was interested in continuing partnerships in third countries.

…

A number of bilateral agreements including the latest START nuclear arms treaty, put in force in February 2011, have built the foundation for the U.S.-Russia “restart” initiated by Washington when President Barack Obama took office in 2008.

That treaty lowers the ceilings on stocks of long-range weapons.

But recently ties have been strained, most notably by Moscow’s decision to close the office of the U.S. Agency for International Development in Moscow, which critics say is part of a broader Kremlin crackdown on pro-democracy groups.

Obama and Hilliary have created the impression of weakness in the US all the while crippling our national security and our ability to defend ourselves at home and around the world. Putin, like the Chinese and others, see this weakness, a real weakness in many cases, as an opportunity to recapture the strategic position once owned by the Soviet Empire.

The Chinese see our weakness as an opportunity to seize the oil and mineral rich South China Sea, an area also claimed by Japan, Viet Nam, the Philippine Islands and Taiwan.  The Chinese have already sent warships into the area, has rattled sabers and issued threats to every nation with interest in the South China Sea.

This is no time to be, or to be perceived to be weak.