About Me

Name: Katy Grimes
Email: fetchingjen@gmail.com Biography
Loading...

Create Your Own Blog Find Other Townhall Blogs

Comments

Blog Roll

 

Neighborhood Association Back in the hands of Voters

Several months ago, I wrote a column Downtown Neighborhood Doing Battle about the Land Park Community Association and the long time, entrenched, vicious haridans running it. And then it all started to crumble when two brave board members decided to fight for the neighborhood and waged war. Through the democratic process, they successfully organized a group of Land Park Association members who helped lobby against the old, closed style of board, and through a vote of the membership, voted all of the old members out and/or they resigned. We voted on bylaw changes that imposed term limits, created an open election process and expanded the board from 10 to 15 board members. 
 
This past week, the membership held the annual meeting where 19 Land Park residents ran for board positions! The membership elected 14 to the board; three of those running were incumbents.
 
The Land Park Community Association has completed the final step in democratizing the association, and the two brave board members who led the fight were the two top vote getters and resoundingly reelected. They have a mandate.
 
While the rest of the state and country are in a dangerous socialistic swing, our little neighborhood voted to bring Democracy back and prove that every vote matters.  
 
And congratualtions to the two brave guys... Craig Powell and Terry Grimes - yes, my husband. He's a fighter too.
 
Land Park Community Association http://www.landpark.org/
and
(my column in The Sacramento Union: http://www.sacunion.com/pages/columns/articles/11347/)
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Free Speech Under Attack

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas in written discussion on yesterday's ruling cracking down on indecent language on television, Justice Clarence Thomas called the policy "problematic" and a "deep intrusion into the First Amendment rights of broadcasters." Justice Thomas  stated that "the number of over-the-air broadcast stations grew from 7,411 in 1969 ... to 15,273 by the end of 2004."
However, behind the scenes, the FCC is operating on a different plane, organizing local liberal groups all over the country, to begin the silencing of conservatives.
 
The Sacramento Media Group/Common Cause, proudly publishes their goals:
  • Oppose media concentration of ownership by fewer and fewer corporations.
  • Encourage higher standards in locally produced news and public affairs programming.

  • Preserve funding for community media, public education and government access to airwaves.

  • Monitor corporate media and regulatory bodies to ensure broadcasters meet public interest obligations.

  • Increase awareness of public rights-of-way to public airwaves and the world wide web.

  • Advocate for re-establishment of a Fairness Doctrine to regulate balance in media coverage.

I attended a recent meeting sponsored by The Sacramento MEdia Group and Common Cause, called a "community forum," supposedly to have an open discussion about media. The meeting was so closely controlled and manipulated, and we were silenced when we tried to speak up if it wasn't our "turn." They had "facilitators" at every table who tried very hard to direct the discussion topics. The meeting was filmed and sent to the FCC. Creepy.
 
They state: "As part of our efforts to provide feedback, our Community Advisory Panel members met with local station managers and news directors to urge stations to meet community needs for locally produced election issue coverage. We have worked to build public influence on commercial television broadcasters to attend to community interest needs and improve what they provide in public affairs programming and public interest activities."
 
Who is representing the other side - the side that defends the rights of the Broadcasters, newspapers, bloggers and radio?
 
 
read the WND story about Justice Thomas: HERE
and look at the Sacramento Media Group/Common Cause website: HERE
And be sure to read about Access Sacramento http://www.accesssacramento.org/ also part of the "community Forum"
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (6) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Feds Demanded Total Secrecy In NYC Flyover

Doug Hagmann of the Canada Free Press posted a column today: "By now, everyone has likely heard the account of the White House “photo op” gone bad. If not, the official story is simple and brief., and readily accepted by most in the media without question. The back-up Air Force One, flanked by two F-16 fighter jets, flew at “near building height” over lower Manhattan on Monday morning, ostensibly so that Air Force photographers could take iconic pictures of the presidential plane using NY landmarks as symbolic backdrops. The problem, however, arose when no one bothered to report this event in advance to the public. The result was as predictable as it was shameful; the sighting of a large aircraft and military jets flying in close proximity to NY skyscrapers caused many to fear that another murderous attack was about to take place. Several of New York’s tallest and most prominent buildings, including but not limited to the Empire State Building, the Chrysler Building, the Woolworth Building, and other facilities were evacuated. People were running in the streets to escape from an anticipated impact."
According to a memo obtained by NYC CBS Channel 2, “Federal officials knew that sending two fighter jets and Air Force One to buzz ground zero and Lady Liberty might set off nightmarish fears of a 9/11 replay, but they still ordered the photo-op kept secret from the public.” Why? What was the motive?

read the entire story here  http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/10661
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Obama World Tour - 100 Days

I recently read a headline: "Obama - The 100 Anxious Days." As insufferable as Obama is, he is also a well-crafted political beast.
The first 100 Days of President Obama is getting more hype than American Idol... but then so did Obama's campaign for President. The media has been campaigning for him so long, that he continues to campaign instead of governing. The correct title should be, "Obama World Tour - 100 Days."
 
Regardless of how the media fawns over him, covers for him, or continues to campaign for his radical policies, many Americans aren't buying it. I've seen him described as on "intellectual autopilot," relying so heavily on his teleprompter, that his aids are getting jealous.
 
Criticizing the President for hypocracy, City Journal writer Michael Knox Beran writes about "the candidate of change," "If the president were seriously interested in original thinking about community regeneration, he would take on those on the Left whose cultural iconoclasm continues to undermine the country’s neighborhoods. He would express support for “New Urbanists” like Léon Krier, who seek to revive, at the local level, the cultural tradition of the town square and village green. He would take on the mandarins of the teachers unions, whose progressive policies make it difficult for teachers to hand down to the next generation of Americans the cultural capital that makes a town square possible.

Progressive iconoclasts reject the older culture precisely because it is for them a rival power, an obstacle to their plans to mold a national community under the aegis of the state. A hundred days in, President Obama, though he campaigned on a platform of change, appears committed to the stalest of the old progressive orthodoxies.
 
Obama is either a egomanical buffoon or more radical than the 20th Century dictators... or perhaps a combination of both.
 
Charles Murray from the American Enterprise institute writes, "We have a president who, from the time he entered Honolulu’s Punahou School as a teenager, has lived a magical life. Everything has gone right for decades now. Nor are any of his aides crouching beside him in the chariot whispering, “You too are mortal.” On the contrary, if we are to judge by Larry Summers, even his most astute advisers suppress what they know to be true to accommodate Mr. Obama’s wishes.

Down the road, the president’s economic policy will engender a new crisis that, to be met, will require him to reassess his assumptions and to defy his political base — and we haven’t a shard of evidence that he is able to do either of those things. Down the road, a hostile world will require him to make a foreign-policy decision with no good option, only a choice among bad options, in the face of horrific consequences if he is wrong — and we haven’t a shard of evidence that he is able to do that. Worst of all, he will come to those pivotal moments serenely confident that whatever he decides will work out.

How do I think about the Obama presidency as I look ahead? I’m scared stiff."
 
I think he speaks for most Americans - and now, especially for the moderates who voted for Obama.
 
Jay Nordlinger of National Review summed Obama up this way: "His wife said that she had never been proud of America until he got politically popular. The president seems to share this mindset. To me, we have had a long hundred days. Only 2,820 days to go."
Obama says he's anti-earmark, but signed a bill with 9,000 earmarks in it.
Obama sks his Cabinet to cut costs in their departments by $100 million -- a whopping .0027%! That's like cutting a $50,000 a year salary by $135.00
Obama "did not know about the Tea Parties."
Obama cozied up to foreign dictators on his World Tour.
Obama took the 2010 National Census from the Department of Commerceand brought it into the White House.
Obama reversed all of President Bush's Executive Orders.
Obama to Republican Congress: "I won," instead of involving them in Stimulus talks.
 
"For now, Obama's back-pedal on the bipartisanship promise just makes him look insincere. But the real consequences of the mistake will be felt soon enough. As Presidents Bush and Clinton could tell him, congressional majorities do change -- and at some point, Obama will need Republicans on his side. He'd be smart to spend his second 100 days making up for the serious snubs of his first."  -- Meghan Clyne (DC-based writer)
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Specter, Schwarzenegger and Other Phonies

There is a time to go for the win and a time to be steadfast in ideology. We tried to go for the win during the last Presidential election with a weak candidate, and lost. California went for the win post-Gray Davis recall, and got Arnold Schwarzenegger, who at first seemed to be conservtive enough, but has since gone to the left of Arlen Specter.
 
I fully expect Schwarzenegger to jump ship soon.
 
Specter has never been a Republican to count on ideologically. He votes with political expendiency in mind. "In finally abandoning the Republican Party, Pennsylvania Sen. Arlen Specter showed his true colors not just ideologically, but personally. It's all about the liberal Specter maximizing his own power." I(Investors Business Daily http://www.ibdeditorials.com/IBDArticles.aspx?id=325810081394462)
 
"Let's be honest — Senator Specter didn't leave the GOP based on principles of any kind," Michael Steele, chairman of the Republican National Committee, said in a statement. "He left to further his personal political interests because he knew that he was going to lose a Republican primary due to his left-wing voting record. Republicans look forward to beating Senator Specter in 2010, assuming the Democrats don't do it first."
Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., said the prospect of the Democrats having a 60-vote majority was "a danger for the country. There won't automatically be the ability to restrain the excess that is typically associated with big majorities and single-party rule," he said.
 
According to Andrew Malcolm at the L.A. Times, "Now we know, by Biden's own account, that some of his time on the train has been spent trying to sway Specter, a moderate Republican who was once a Democrat, to leave his party.
"I have been working on that in earnest for the past four years and double-time for the past 100 days," Biden said at a Democratic National Committee fundraiser in Houston on Tuesday."
 
My favorite commentary is from the National Review online editors: "Arlen Specter belongs to a type familiar to Congress: the time-serving hack devoid of any principle save arrogance. He has spent three decades in the Senate but is associated with no great cause, no prescient warning, no landmark legislation. Yet he imagines that the Senate needs his wisdom and judgment for a sixth term. He joined the Republican party out of expediency in the 1960s, and leaves it out of expediency this week." read it http://article.nationalreview.com/?q=YjFlNDlhM2JmYjkwMTE2YmQ3NTA3YzYxNzExYjEyMzM=
 
There will be other defections, picked off by Democratic party thugs offering promises of reelection guarantees. Specter may feel like a big man right now, but he will have the weight of Republican ideology on his back in no time - something he is vastly unfamiliar with and should fear.
 
Arnold should beware the same, regardless of our kooky lib California voters. Betrayel in America is never forgotten and never rewarded. Remember Jumpin' Jim Jeffers? Who, you ask...
 
Short term pleasure is just that - short term. It might feel good right now, but it won't last.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Air Force One Buzzes Statue of Liberty

Earlier today the big story in New York City was the appearance of a low flying airliner over the city accompanied by F-16 fighters. You can understand that New Yorkers might be a big sensitive about those things.
Was this just insensitive or a deliberate attempt to desensitize New Yorkers to the sound of being attacked? An outrageous thought perhaps, but given how the President and his administration have behaved the past 100 days, many Americans are fearful of another impending attack on our soil.
 
From the HolyCoast blog: Here's one New Yorker's view from Red State:
This isn’t going to be a major story, but I’m awfully sore about it, and I’m not the only one.

Shortly before 10am this morning, a low-flying airliner buzzed New York Harbor just south of Manhattan, tailed by a pair of fighter jets. In case you weren’t here one dazzling September morning eight years ago, that’s exactly the flight path taken by the airplane that hit the south tower of the World Trade Center.

So what do you do when you hear that sickeningly familiar sound? Of course: you go into near-panic and evacuate all the office towers. That’s pretty close to what we did.

Now, we’ve come to find out what it was all about. If you haven’t heard this story, please brace yourself.

It was one of Barack Obama’s planes. It was one of the 747s used as Air Force One. They flew it past the Statue of Liberty. To snap some publicity pictures.

Why are we hopping mad about this? Because no one bothered to tell us. Apparently, DHS informed the New York police, but then instructed them not to say anything about it. The only thing I can guess is that they were afraid one of our friendly neighborhood terrorists might take the opportunity to fling a shoulder-launched missile at the thing.

So people I talked to (who were there on 9/11) said they heard two really loud flybys, and ducked because the next sound they expected to hear was a big crash. If you’re not from here, it’s hard to explain how sensitive people still are about this.

Why on earth did our President do this to us? Was he just plain thoughtless? Or was the insensitivity willful?
 
I am outraged, and I am in California. Imagine the shellshock New Yorkers are feeling still.
Our President is a twit... and so are his people.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Is George Soros Running America?

Who is really running the country?  Human Events story about George Soros' Liberal Agenda Will Carry Weight In Obama Presidency, by  Rowan Scarborough - don't discount this dangerous guy.

http://www.humanevents.com/article.php?id=29359
 
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Obama: Dangerous Mystery Man?

The first 100 days of President Obama are terrifying. Where is the outrage? We need more than another Tea Party if we are going to stop President Obama and his dangerous political agenda:
 
Obama reversed President Bush's stem cell research policy allowing federal taxpayer dollars to fund significantly broader research on embryonic stem cells because "medical miracles do not happen simply by accident," and promised his administration would make up for the ground lost under President Bush.
 
Obama pushed through a ruling that carbon dioxide is a dangerous pollutant that threatens the public and therefore must be regulated under the 1970 Clean Air Act. This so-called "endangerment finding" sets the clock ticking on a vast array of taxes and regulation that EPA will have the power to impose across the economy, and all with little or no political debate. When America's Founders revolted against "taxation without representation," this is precisely the kind of kingly diktat they had in mind." (WSJ http://online.wsj.com/article/SB124052921804450391.html)
 
America must understand that President Obama has a specific political agenda and is relying on Saul Alinsky's methods from his book, “Rules for Radicals,” ...
TAXES:

The composition of the tax hikes in the 2010 budget is frighteningly similar to the Revenue Act of 1932, the much-maligned Hoover tax hikes that put the “Great” in Great Depression by putting an enormous tax burden on millions of Americans, largely through excise taxes. While the overall tax hike is smaller than 1932 (0.9 percent of GDP versus 1.6 percent of GDP) and the excise/energy component is only half the size (0.4 percent of GDP versus 0.8 percent of GDP) there is every reason to believe that the bite of the cap-and-trade tax will increase considerably beyond the initial projections, making this plan even more resemble 1932.

The cap-and-trade provisions are designed to get much, much more expensive over time, making the total impact hard to quantify but likely to be as or more expensive than the 1932 Revenue Act. In fact, Obama’s version of cap-and-trade is much more expensive than last year’s already outrageous Lieberman-Warner bill, mandating emissions cuts of 83 percent versus 63 percent in last year’s version.

In 1932 the rate was hiked from 20 percent to 45 percent, and in 2010, under Obama’s proposal (which is hidden in a footnote in the budget) it will go from zero under current law to that same 45 percent rate.
 
H.R. 1388 was passed behind our backs. You may want to read about it. It wasn't mentioned on the news... just went by on the ticker tape at the bottom of the CNN screen: Obama funds $20M in taxpayer dollars to immigrate Hamas Refugees to the USA. This is the news that didn't make the headlines...
By executive order, President Barack Obama has ordered the expenditure of $20.3 million in "migration assistance" to the Palestinian refugees and "conflict victims" in Gaza.
The "presidential determination", which allows hundreds of thousands of Palestinians with ties to Hamas to resettle in the United States, was signed on January 27 and appeared in the Federal Register on February 4.
Few on Capitol Hill, or in the media, took note that the order provides a free ticket replete with housing and food allowances to individuals who have displayed their overwhelming support to the Islamic Resistance Movement (Hamas) in the parliamentary election of January 2006.
 
And there's more: Let's reviewsome of Barack Obama's most recent actions since his inauguration:
 
His first call to any head of state, as president, was to Mahmoud Abbas, leader of Fatah party in the Palestinian territory.
 
His first one-on-one television interview with any news organization was with Al Arabia television.
 
His first executive order was to fund/facilitate abortion(s) not just here within the U.S., but within the world, using U.S. tax payer funds.
 
He ordered Guantanamo Bay closed and all military trials of detainees halted.
 
He ordered overseas CIA interrogation centers closed.
 
He withdrew all charges against the masterminds behind the USS Cole and the "terror attack" on 9/11.
 
Now we learn that he is allowing hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refuges to move to, and live in, the U.S. at American taxpayer
expense.
 
These important, and insightful, issues are being "lost" in the blinding bail-outs and "stimulation" packages.
 
And another list of mystery items that shoul,d be public record for American's President:
1. Occidental College records -- Not released
2. Columbia College records -- Not released
3. Columbia Thesis paper -- "Not available"
4. Harvard College records -- Not released
5. Selective Service Registration -- Not released
6. Medical records -- Not released
7. Illinois State Senate schedule -- Not available
8. Illinois State Senate records -- Not available
9. Law practice client list -- Not released
10. Certified Copy of original Birth certificate -- Not released
11. Embossed, signed paper Certification of Live Birth -- Not released
12. Record of baptism -- Not available
No one can seem to find any articles Obama published as editor of the Harvard Law Review, or as a Professor at the University of Chicago. 
 
Who is this guy and why is the media covering for him?  Saul Alinsky's infamous rules for radicals. So is the President, having been a disciple of Alinsky's teachings since his days as a community organizer.

These rules are now being employed at the peril of our economy.

Alinsky's eight rule advocated keeping up pressure so critics are kept off balance. We have seen this is the relentless march toward the heavy regulation of our financial and manufacturing sectors to the brink of nationalization.

Alinsky's ninth rule advised making the threat more terrifying than the reality. It is the exactly the opposite of FDR's first inaugural assertion during the Great Depression that the "the only thing we have to fear is fear itself." Today's dire assertions about the futures of GM and Chrysler without government involvement plays into this strategy

Then there is Alinsky's twelfth rule of personalizing and polarizing targets, with a preference of demonizing individuals rather than institutions. That's what we saw with the AIG executives before and are seeing now with General Motors's Rick Wagoner.

What must not be forgotten is Alinsky's first rule: "Power is not only what you have, but what the enemy thinks you have." In whipping up the anger and the fear of the American people, Obama is attempting to blind people to the power of the free market. (read more HERE)
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Partying With San Fran Nan

I felt so left out on Saturday when my invitation to the $10,000-a-plate Nancy Pelosi fundraiser dinner at the home of Phil Angelides did not arrive. So I had a little party of my own... just down the street.
One friend of ours, Mark Williams and wife Holly, marched down the street and snagged a few interviews. Several of us followed and watched Mark do what he does so well. Mark shared his "chat" with the always controversial John Burton:
 
"I grabbed him as he was leaving. 
He tells me what's going on inside
Defends Pelosi on the torture memo thing
Every penny the state is spending is being spent well; to cut anything means houses will burn down, schools and parks will close, the blind and elderly will be left to fend for themselves -- we have a budget problem becasue we are not taxed enough
Blames it all on Prop 13  (Prop 13 "...is the biggest problem") and says that we would not have that prop if he had been in leadership at the time
.
 
Naturally, I forwarded this exchange to Howard Jarvis Taxpayer Association President Jon Coupal. Unfortunately for California, John Burton is the newly elected head of the California Democratic Party.
 
The swoiree was billed as a dinner, but seemed to wrap up early - about 7:30 guests started leaving the Angelides home. I've not seen such tasteless attire in one place since my last visit to the state fair.
 
However, bad taste and poor judgment aside, we did get a photo of a big black suburban with Washington D.C. license plates - Madame Pelosi had her D.C. Suburban flown out from Washington to California. Her carbon footprint is bigger than her Botox eyes and face.
 
Senator Darrell Steinberg and Assemblyman Dave Jones made brief appearances as did Baghdad Bob Mullholland.
 
There was one lone protestor and a wide-eyed reporterette and camera man, who made no effort to interview any of the guests or politicians.
 
The Dems did their best to keep this event quiet; it appears they succeeded as it was never reported in the MSM - only KTKZ's Eric Hogue covered it on his show on Friday at noon. I am looking forward to Hogue's show today for a little follow up.
 
Why the secrecy? Why the party at the downtown home of Governor wanna-be Phil Angelides? Where is all of this transparency they talk about?
 
Oh - most of the guests were parked illegally, but the Highway Patrol present gave out NO tickets. But when my friends park in front of my house more than one-hour, the tickets are handed out like candy.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (1) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Planned Parenthood - Grossly Profitable

The very profitable Planned Parenthood is showing $85 million is profits for fiscal year 2007-2008. Included in their budget was $350 million in government grants - one-third of it's entire budget!
 
Supporters of Planned Parenthood are also the same people who oppose the death Penalty, decry our presence in Iraq because our military is made up of killers, and of course, they abhor the "torture" of war criminals and terrorists. But they'll kill babies in record numbers.
 
Read this great column in the American Spectator by David N. Bass: HERE for more on President Obama's abortion record and policy - it's only going to get worse.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

American River College Election Results Tampered With?

Were the election results tampered with by faculty at American River College as alleged?

http://tinyurl.com/d98rga

If so, what are the repercussions? And if so, shouldn't we be outraged?

 

Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Liberty or Tyranny: What Next?

Am I missing something? Why do liberals think socialism is Nirvana when they too will be taxed up to their earlobes? Or am I missing out on the vast left wing conspiracy where only the right is taxed?
 
In a Time magazine cover article today, Democratic party hack Joe Klein writes "But now Obama went further, using a parable from the Sermon on the Mount — the need for a house built on rock rather than on sand — to describe a future that was nothing less than an overhaul of the nature of American capitalism."
 
Capitalism. Sssssssss. Such a dirty word.
 
Klein continues his Ode To Obama: "His house built on rock had five pillars — new rules for Wall Street, new initiatives in education, alternative energy and health care, and eventually budget savings that would bring down the national debt — which did sound a bit prosaic. Democratic politicians have been promising one or another, if not all, of the above since Franklin Roosevelt reinvented American government in the 1930s."
 
Liberals unadulterated love for FDR and now Obama only proves my case that they don't know their history or are hell-bent on rewriting it. Mark Levin, scholar and author of Liberty and Tyranny described FDR's presidency as "breaching the constitution's firewalls," "exceeding limits of federal constitutional authority," "violating state sovereignty  and private property rights."
 
President Obama is demonstrating his disdain for America as he breachs the constitution's firewalls just as FDR did. Another New Deal with more federal projects, taxes, expanded entitlements and gross regulations that are shaping up to end liberty in America as we know it. The New Deal broke us away from the founding principles of America as well as the constitutional limitations.
 
Obama and the Democrat congress, together with the screamingly liberal media have the insatible appetite of a tomato worm for control and power. Yet most individuals still apprecate the focus of the Founding Fathers and their principles. Regardless of our suspicions about this government takeover, we now feel as if we are watching it in slow motion - except it's happening a blinding speed. And as Levin puts it, "liberty once lost is rarely recovered."
 
So what do we do?
 
Conservatism is the the only anti-venom... a return to founding principles of a "Free people living in a civil society, working in self-interested cooperation, and a government operating within the limits of its authority..." Levin describes Conservatism as the antidote to tyranny precisely because its principles are the founding principles."
 
Contrast Levin's word to Joe Klein's: "The legislative achievements have been stupendous — the $789 billion stimulus bill, the budget plan that is still being hammered out (and may, ultimately, include the next landmark safety-net program, universal health insurance). There has also been a cascade of new policies to address the financial crisis — massive interventions in the housing and credit markets, a market-based plan to buy the toxic assets that many banks have on their books, a plan to bail out the auto industry and a strict new regulatory regime proposed for Wall Street. Obama has also completely overhauled foreign policy, from Cuba to Afghanistan. "In a way, Obama's 100 days is even more dramatic than Roosevelt's," says Elaine Kamarck of Harvard's Kennedy School of Government. "Roosevelt only had to deal with a domestic crisis. Obama has had to overhaul foreign policy as well, including two wars. And that's really the secret of why this has seemed so spectacular.
To be sure, the historic unpopularity of the Bush Administration has been a convenient foil for Obama. He has also been lucky in his enemies, a reeling Republican Party that lurches from gimmicks to hissy fits, including frequent, unbidden appearances by such unpopular characters as Karl Rove, Dick Cheney and Newt Gingrich, whose rants about everything from Obama's decision to repudiate the torture of enemy combatants to his handshake with Chávez seem both ungracious and unhinged."
 
Do we even live in the same America?
 
and then buy Mark Levin's book: Liberty and Tyranny: A Conservative Manifesto
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Intolerance Exposed!

An Ivy League college student conducted his own secret investigation at Jerry Falwell's Liberty University, expecting to find unbearable intolerance by the religious right. Instead he met regular people just like him. The intolerance he found, came from the left when he published his story.
 
It's a great story from Newsbusters:
He met students who use Bible class to score dates, apply to top law schools and fret about their futures, and who enjoy gossip, hip-hop and R-rated movies _ albeit in a locked dorm room.
 
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

California Going Out-Of-State to do Business

You know that California's economy is upside down when even the state is shopping outside of the state for vendors.
 
The following communication was received by one of my sales reps from a client of his at a State of CA agency:
 
Hi XXX,
 
Would it be possible to postpone lunch for another time. Sorry. I am taking next week off and will return in May to work on Fund Your Future project. I will be sending bids out at that time. We are also looking at out of state printing to reduce cost.
Sincerely,
 
XXXX
XXX XXXX
916.526.
916.526. FAX
 
This is not the first memo of this kind that we have received. Over the past few months, our sales reps have been repeatedly been told by several of the state universities and other agencies that we do business with that they must shop for printing in other states because it's too expensive to do business with California printers and they haved been ordered (from the top) that they must get the lowwest prices, even if it means going out of state.
 
Unfortunately, most of the state workers don't see any correlation between the "high" prices and WHY California vendors are "higher."
 
In my industry, we jokingly call it non-profit because there is no more profit in it - it is a capital intensive business anyway, but now we are so over regulated, that we can't compete with out-of-state companies; even in Nevada, Arizona and Oregon, and certainly not the midwest.
 
The commericial printing industry is the fourth largest industry in America (no bailouts). It is also made up of many small business owners ranging from little quick print shops to companies with huge presses and hundreds or thousands of employees. Our company has been as large as 250 employees and we are now under 100. We have four large presses, a huge bindery a sales staff and shipping department... pretty good sized, but not huge. It is still a small business and solely and privately owned. Most businesses like ours have been swallowed up by much larger companies - usually to get rid of the competition in the area.
 
And many owners have gladly sold because of the outrageous cost of doing business in California:
Workers Comp Insurance - phony lawsuits for "injured workers" - it still costs us legal fees to be defended;
Disability
Unemployment Insurance
Safety regulations
Air Quality regulations and restrictions
Discrimination regulations
Sexual Harassment regulations
EEOC
OSHA
Fire Department
INS
US Dept of Labor
IRS/FTB
Green business regulations - greenhouse gas emissions, being green enough, getting "green" certifications;
mandatory recycling (we always did anyway, but now it is mandatory);
mandatory carpooling and/or bus use (we had no bus line until I complained);
mandatory health care for former employees (COBRA);
Liability insurance
mandatory mealtime laws
flexible schedule regulations
FMLA and Paid Family leave
Fees, taxes and assessments
getting enough available credit for business
 
And on top of all of this, union companies (competitors) are not subjected to the same labor laws we are - they negotiate many of them right out of hteir contracts.
 
Being an employer in California is a no-win situation - especially now that even state agencies are going out-of-state to do business. I honestly do not see a solution unless and until California has no private businesses left to support the state.
 
... and don't get me started on the grossly mismanaged Office of State Printing (OSP). We often lose bids to them, even though they are double the price of our bid. They are overstaffed, always over budget, inefficient, corrupt and produce garbage much of the time, which is why state agencies put bids outin the private sector. But that's another column for another day.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive

Feeding The "Homeless" Problem

Sacramento Mayor Kevin Johnson is facing and trying to deal with Sacramento's expanding "Homeless" problem.

One of the discussions that is not taking place about Sacramento's homeless is that thousands of vagrants who refuse to work, are filling up shelters, making it mpossible for those who are truly in trouble, to get better quality services and care.

What do we do about this and why do so many "homeless" get away with their lifestyle?
For starters, most of the homeless already receive financial assistance through either Social Security and/or county welfare. They can pay for a home of sorts, they just refuse to. In Toronto, city officials advertised that they would give money and/or $100 pre-paid Visa cards to people who agree to pretend they're homeless when cities conducts their needs assessments of those without shelter. If this is taking place in Canada, it's probably already happening in America - especially with Federal funds involved. Wanted: Fake homeless | Toronto & GTA | News | Toronto Sun
 
Then there are the poser homeless... those panhandlers who are not really homeless but panhandle for drug money. Never give panhandlers money. Money should only go to legitimate charities, and preferably charities that do not take government money.
 
Anytime people receive something for nothing, it only makes the problem worse. Sacramento should get more creative with our homeless problem: offer people help for work or volunteerism - you  give, you get. Sacramento has thousands of charities that need help in addition to the areas that city cutbacks are affecting: park maintenance, road work, revitalization and cleanup, just to name a few.
 
According to many Homeless advocates, there is a small group of homeless, many of whom are involved in heavy drug use, who don't want any help. But there is yet another group of individuals who are chronically homeless; they have been living in the streets, parks and shelters for long periods of time. Homeless Studies report that, although this group of homeless only makes up 10 percent of the homeless population, it uses 50 percent of the homeless resources. 
 
Supporting my argument for private charities to deal with the homeless, James L. Payne author of The Culture of Spending: Why Congress Lives Beyond Our Means, writes: "Why do government welfare programs keep failing? Much of the problem can be summed up in one word: dependency. Government programs reinforce social pathologies they are trying to cure: they pay people for being out of work-and encourage unemployment; they pay people to have children they can't support-and encourage larger welfare families.

Nowhere is this pattern more dramatically illustrated than in programs to provide shelter for the unhoused. Governments keep increasing their efforts, only to reap ever-growing numbers of homeless. In New York, for example, to help street people the city has built 26,700 units of permanent housing, and has provided 23,000 temporary beds. Yet after spending $2 billion on these programs, the city's homeless problem is more acute than ever, with 50,000 now sleeping on the streets. The mayor's own commission on the homeless concedes defeat: "The current system must be seen as the failure it is."

At the root of the failure of the government programs is irresponsible giving. When a person gives away his own, hard-earned funds, he wants to get full value for his sacrifice. He wants to make sure he is really helping someone, and not just throwing his money down the proverbial rat hole. In government welfare programs, legislators and administrators are not spending their personal funds. They are spending tax dollars, money taken involuntarily from other people. Hence, they lack a keen, personal interest in seeing that welfare dollars are spent constructively.
 
Until we tell the homeless "as long as you refuse to participate in your own financial, mental and emotional recovery, we will not help you. If you accept the responsibilities as a member of a civilized society, we will assist."
 
Any handout should have strings attached. When our kids use to whine that we always attached strings to our loans, my husband and I smiled and told them to get used to it. We allowed them to work off debt, and we encouraged them to work for something they wanted, often matching them dollar for dollar. We liked incentives. We did it to teach work ethic. Our government hands money out for the opposite reason - dependency.
 
Are you listening Mayor Johnson? If you really want to offer assistance to the homeless, offer them work in exchange for housing and food. Eventually some will choose independence, some will drop off the radar and some will at least have food and shelter. Don't feed the habit, feed the ethic.
Email ItEmail It | Print ItPrint It | CommentsComments (0) | TrackbacksTrackbacks (0) | Flag as offensiveFlag as Offensive