The Heritage Foundation reported on Thursday, February 12, that the true cost of the Stimulus Bill will be $3.27 Trillion, based on the Congressional Budget Report examining the baseline spending created by the bill.
Here's the article explaining the numbers.
Ronald Wilson Reagan was born on February 6, 1911.
One of my favorite quotes is from the speech he gave at the Republican National Convention on October 27, 1964:
We have so many people who can't see a fat man standing beside a thin one without coming to the conclusion that the fat man got that way by taking advantage of the thin one.Read More......
I was more than pleasantly surprised to find that ALL of the House Republicans voted "NO" on the "Stimulus" Package and I'm working on thanking them via email and fax. But.....please pardon my suspicious nature. Along with many others, I've seen this movie before and sequels are rarely an improvement upon the original.
The original? First round vote on TARP. Those of us who were opposed from the start knew that all it would leave behind was scorched earth. Set in flames in its path were Constitutional principles, Capitalism, and the few remaining shreds of a decent legacy for Pres. Bush. Attached to his reputation was the future credibility of Republicans who would attempt to engage in defending free market principles.
Many of us who shut down the Capitol switchboard and website in unprecedented numbers to inform Congress of our opposition to the bill's passage were very heartened when the House voted the bill down. Just following the vote, House Republican leadership stepped in front of the cameras. It would seem reasonable and common sense to expect a shot across the bow of both George Bush and Congressional Democrats; a definitive statement, a line in the sand. These naive hopes soon evaporated like mist. Actually, we were all slapped in the face. And our faces are pretty swollen and sore after the last eight years.
Minority Leader Boehner and Congressman Cantor explained the reason for the bill's failure. Was it principled opposition to a damaging, massive spending bill? No! It pains me beyond imagining, but I actually, for once, found myself agreeing with Barney Frank. Apparently, Republican feelings were hurt. If only Nancy Pelosi had been nice. Her highly partisan speech given on the House floor moments before the vote was given the reason for the bill's failure. Pelosi's scary little show would have righteously diminished her if left alone. Cited as a rationale for voting against a damaging bill, I was left disgusted and disillusioned.
Unfortunately, lack of conviction by many politicians does NOT surprise me, but it was not unreasonable, under those very particular circumstances, to expect something different and something better. Literally everyone in front of a microphone and TV camera said the situation was unprecedented. The word "crisis" and phrase "Great Depression" were being used every few minutes at this point, but Nancy Pelosi and the Republican leadership's behavior was absolutely politics as usual.
For people who had just started paying attention or those not fully informed, it would have only been right to question whether or not the "crisis" was as serious as portrayed if Congress was behaving in the same manner as has become the custom.
Trouble is, the crisis was and is unprecedented. Anyone capable of doing a minimal amount of research can discover that the United States of America is in big trouble financially. That makes the infantile rantings of Pelosi and the impotent whining of Republican leadership even more despicable. It is the equivalent of Nero fiddling.
Knowing at the first round of votes on TARP that a real crisis did loom, the common sense, logical thinker must ask the following question: Was Republican leadership completely so totallyl ignorant of the facts or did they simply really care so little about the outcome that they were only out to play politics? Or, far worse, were they aware of the true circumstances and happy to engage in consolidating even more power into the Federal government? In other words, it was either incompetence, negligence, or a power grab.
Whatever the reasons, these maneuverings were used as a marginal negotiating tactic. But once the bill failed, the public had to be convinced. The media was only too happy to help. Coverage, including Fox News, became palpably and suddenly Orwellian. Everyone from Shepard Smith to Bill O'Reilly lectured viewers on how they just didn't "get it". Even Sean Hannity seemed muffled. The only person appearing clearly skeptical about TARP on the whole network was Neil Cavuto.
A few prominent voices on Conservative talk radio, namely Rush, Glenn Beck, and Mike Gallagher were unambiguously opposed. Outside of that venue, the message was clear: "Main Street doesn't want to bail out Wall Street" and the average citizen just "didn't get it".
Many Republicans and a few skittish Democrats, used their "no" votes, as noted, as a minimal negotiating tactic. Little changed in the bill (it only went up to $850 billion, that's all) and of course, it passed. (I'm still wondering how the manner in which the vote took place was constitutional, by the way. As a spending bill, it should have originated in the House. Since it failed in the House, how could it be moved on to the Senate?)
In any case, any Republican who voted for TARP, in either house of Congress, helped Barack Obama win the presidency, and castrated all Republicans for a long time to come. It is my concerted opinion that John McCain nailed his campaign's coffin shut, permanently, when he voted for that bill.
I realize that statement is virtually impossible to prove. But, let's look at it logically. Anyone in doubt that Republicans have been castrated need only watch a little TV. You don't need to go to MSNBC or any other left leaning network. Go to Fox News and watch a discussion as to what should be done about the current "stimulus" package. Anytime a Republican or Conservative mentions free market alternatives, uses the word Socialism to accurately describe what the "stimulus" package encompasses, and note the Leftist response.
Bob "the Heckler" Beckel throws out the name "George W. Bush" every time he's involved in a discussion of the subject. Nina Easton blurted out the same message with decent clarity the other evening on Hannity's show. Michael Steele tried to correct her, acknowledging that Republicans on Capitol Hill might have a difficult time making a free market argument, but grassroots Conservatives were always opposed. Such a statement only confirms the point. Republicans on the Hill, by participating in drafting the bill, rather than out and out opposing it, castrated themselves and seriously damaged the Republican brand.
To further make the point, all you have to do is look at voter turn out on election day. The word "apathetic" doesn't begin to cover it. Prior to the "bail out" any principled Conservative was going to have a difficult time, as McCain's mother put it, "holding their noses and voting for him."
Republicans, had a golden opportunity to turn the rapidly deteriorating situation around. Imagine if McCain and the vast majority of Republicans had stood together against George Bush and TARP. Obviously, the overwhelming majority of the public was opposed. It would have been Nancy Pelosi, Harry Reid, almost the entire Democratic Congress, and by default, even if he wouldn't commit, Barack Obama siding with George Bush. John McCain, Sarah Palin, and Congressional Republicans would have been on the other side.
From a purely political perspective, I still scratch my head wondering what on earth Republicans thought they had to gain in aligning themselves with George Bush on the whole issue. Could there have been a lamer duck? His approval ratings were in the 20 percents.
Pelosi and Reid had handed Congressional Republicans a golden gift when they shut Republicans out of the negotiating process. Republicans could have stayed ten miles away from the infectious plague of a bill and claim no hand in it. John McCain was the Typhoid Mary of the day.
There is no proving, as I acknowledged, that I am right about how much the handling of TARP by Republicans damaged the party and its candidates. Of course no exit pollster asked anyone about the issue. One can, however, draw some logical conclusions by putting together the unprecedented number of phone calls and emails in opposition to TARP with the outcome of the overwhelming majority of votes on social issues in various states, answers to some actually pertinent questions from exit polls, studies of demographics of voter turnout, and the immutable fact that a large chunk of the electorate was woefully under-informed due to the "slobbering love affair" (hat tip to Bernie Goldberg) coverage of the media throughout the election cycle.
It doesn't take a rocket scientist to draw the following conclusions from the above information: America is still a traditional, "center-right" country. Typically conservative voters largely stayed home. People, regardless of party voted by in support of traditional values, even if they had to "split their ticket" to do so. Those questioned about the RNC clearly sent the message that the Republican party is not too conservative and the party had lost its way. Only a small percentage of people describe themselves as "liberal". Finally, can anyone actually doubt that the electorate was woefully mis or under informed?
I wish I could pick the brains of large numbers of Conservatives. How many of them actually voted for Barack Obama because they wanted to send a message to the Republican party and in the hopes he would be Jimmy Carter 2.0, thereby bringing forth the next Ronald Reagan? I actually seriously considered doing so myself. The prospect of voting for John McCain made me want to hurl. It was only when I spent hours reading about Obama's background, including the topic of Black Liberation Theology and Saul Alinksy's Rules for Radicals that I firmly decided that I really had to vote for John McCain. I know I am not so unique that I could be the only Conservative who considered giving the Republican party a clear message and force it to reset.
Despite what I and the others in the 46% decided, there's no getting around that all of the above adds up to a clear message for the Republican party: You've screwed up.
Knowing these facts it would seem that the concept of common sense began to be violated about a nano second after the election. What were the obvious moves that should have been made by the party? Every last member of leadership should have resigned. It would have been a clear sign that the party as a whole understood they no longer had credibility.
But what actually happened? The only change I noted was Roy Blunt resigned and John Boehner did a very serious tap dance. It didn't impress me. I honestly don't give a flying fig how wonderful John Boehner or Mitch McConnell are as men. After TARP, they don't have a shred of credibility. Sen. McConnell, in particular, is just pathetic, as evidenced by his recent behavior and statements. If the party is to have any hopes of surviving, McConnell should be replaced, right now.
I truly appreciate that all of the Republicans in the House voted "NO" on HR1, what Rush so aptly calls "Porkulus". But, again, going back to where this started, what reason on earth do any of us have to believe its not just another negotiating ploy?
Republicans have literally, nothing to gain from "negotiating" with the Democrats on this bill. Let Democrats pass it on their own. Let them take the responsibility for fulling campaign promises and saddling generations to come with unfathomable debt.
To stand against the bill is not obstructionist. It's not saying "no"'; it's saying "YES" to the free market, "yes" to sound budgetary practices, and "yes" our children can have future. It's the only right thing to do.
Unless that bill contains genuine tax cuts for actual taxpayers, a reduction in the corporate rates, unless it has spending cuts, and government hiring freezes, it's going to hurt the country, not help it.
We will all be watching to see whether the Republican party decides to commit suicide. Let's help them all stay alive and develop spines by thanking the House members for voting "No" and writing and phoning Senators to tell them to do the same.
When I heard former Senate Minority Leader Tom Daschle was Obama's pick for Health and Human Services Secretary, I was kicking myself that I had allowed myself to be convinced by family (and wishful thinking) to throw away my rather large leftover stock of "DUMP DASCHLE" bumper stickers when we moved from South Dakota to Nebraska.
I hadn't realized that within about two years, we'd soon be living in a parallel dimension, so I was convinced that Daschle would not reappear to haunt us. How naive.
In between sorting through the mess that is is the Republican party, scanning the horizon to found an articulate Conservative leader only to despair of finding one, and trying to figure out what nightmares are contained in the "Stimulus" Package, I have only intermittently considered the scary prospect of Tom Daschle as head of the HHS, let alone what could be done to stop his appointment.
A very faint glimmer of hope has appeared on the horizon.
Fox News just reported that the former Senator is one more in a growing list of problematic Obama appointees to either have conflicts of interest (think Billary) or, as in this case, tax problems. Fox has not posted anything on its website yet, but the Wall Street Journal put something up here.
From the perspective of a former (and likely returning in the future) South Dakotan, the fact that his state voted him out of office even though he held the influential position of Minority Leader should say a lot, considering the population of +700,000. He found it a very delicate tight rope walk to vote just enough the right way to keep South Dakotans happy and pander to the left, as evidenced by this discussion on the Daily Kos.
You know what they say about a man serving two masters.
It is my firm opinion that one of the many mistakes made by Daschle was his very visible support of the Gore campaign during the Election 2000 mess in Florida, including a conference call with other prominent Congressional Democrats. A CNN transcript, found here, gives a taste of how Daschle handled himself.
Daschle's position was ridiculous and not at all well received by his constituents, considering his state supported George W. Bush at a rate of over 60% to a very weak 37% for Gore. I saw it as the beginning of the end.
Of course, Daschle disappeared from the state of South Dakota the minute he was ousted from office. A perusal of tonight's Journal story gives us some clue as to what he's been up to. Regardless of these activities, he would be a total nightmare as head of the HHS when there's no mistaking that Universal Health Care is on the way.
I'm aware of some of his great ideas for health care as administered by the US government, which, includes the creation of a board just like the Fed, literally called "Fed Health". Good God. That Fed sure has done a bang up job of keeping our financial system healthy, hasn't it? Let's just rush to start up another Fed-like board, but instead of the monetary system, let's turn our health care over to something like that. As Tony Blankley's pointed out in his excellent summary of Dachle's book on health care in The Washington Times on November 26, 2008 , Daschle thinks things like angiograms are wasteful spending, and that physicians can't "help themselves" from doing something about blockages in the arteries, "however slight".
The moral of this story? Tom Daschle needs to be dumped, again. His $100,000 "oversight" in paying for a free car and driver provides some kind of opening to doing that. His appointment is not directly related to the financial crisis as was Geithner's so the "urgency" factor is going to be harder to exploit. Also, there is the piling on factor. How many lobbyists and tax evaders can you appoint, even if you are Barack Obama, before it becomes to difficult to justify ignoring?
So, a shout out to Senate Republicans, "Hello!! Is anybody home?" How many more immoral, unethical, non-taxpaying appointees are you going to confirm?
Anyone who gives a darn should at least try to stop Daschle's appointment by contacting their Senators.
One of the funniest things I have heard in a while is a comment by a caller into the Mike Gallagher show. She assessed Republicans and "so-called" Conservatives who have been going along with all of the bailouts, stimulus packages, and other Leftist measures, as suffering from "Stockholm Syndrome".
For those not familiar, this "condition" is defined as, " An extraordinary phenomenon in which a hostage begins to identify with and grow sympathetic to their captor."(1) The syndrome is so called based on the reaction of hostages taken in a violent 1973 bank robbery in Stockholm Sweden. (More, here.)
Mike Gallagher's witty caller was certainly funny. Like I said, one of the funniest things I've heard in a while. Sometimes it does seem like the Democratic party leadership on Capitol hill must be at least, intermittently, holding some Republican politicians and even some "Conservative" pundits hostage. I've often wondered if there's some bizarre catch and release / re-catch and re-release program going on behind the scenes.
Perhaps the whole bunch has been undergoing a Patty Hearst type of brainwashing in some Congressional closet. The caller might be on to something....
While an amusing explanation, I'm buying this explanation about as much a I bought into the Simpson Dream Team's explanation of "if they do not fit, you must acquit."
As attractive as a million amusing and innocuous explanations may be for what appears to be a near total collapse of principles in the Republican party, no amusement, no explanation explains, let alone begins to deal with the truth that must be faced.
Sources:
1) "Definition of Stockholm Syndrome". Medicine.net
Fox's Griff Jenkin's played "chase the politicians" on Capitol Hill Thursday for Bill O'Reilly. As much fun as it was to watch Chuck Schumer speedwalking down a Washington corridor, there was more information available. Why does O'Reilly tell only part of the story? Are we too dense to pay attention long enough?
On Thursday's O'Reilly Factor, the "No-Spin master" did another half story on an issue. I'm becoming more convinced than ever, that either Bill thinks his viewers have the attention spans of gnats, or he has one of the worst research teams in the media business, who don't even seem to know how to use the internet.
In any case, the half story this evening regarded the Conservative Speech Suppression (aka "Fairness") Doctrine. He sent reporter Griff Jenkins, to Capitol Hill to do one of those amusing deer-caught-in-the-headlights segments where a reporter chases politicians or other miscreants with a bright light and tries to stick a microphone in their faces whilst they proceed to look like the speedwalker in the banned Mr. T Snickers commercial.
Griff's mission was to question lawmakers about their position on the Doctrine. During Mr. Bill's "Talking Points Memo" the audience was treated to the surgically frozen smile of House Speaker Nancy Pelosi.
The second lawmaker to be questioned, and to his credit, the only one of the three who actually stood still, was New Mexico Senator Ted Bingham.
Sen. Schumer of New York, was the third "contestant" and the one which most reminded me of the speedwalker. It's just too bad Griff hadn't brought along the tank, the Snickers, or, Mr. T.
Ok, let's just pause a second an enjoy the visual on that one. [Pausing....visualizing....] Who among us wouldn't love to watch Mr. T machine gun Chuckie Schumer with Snickers bars?
I can't embed the O'Reilly video here, but "Talking Points" is the default listing that comes up on the O'Reilly portion of the Fox site. Click the title for the November 20 "Talking Points Memo" 'Will Fairness Doctrine be reimposed?'
Of course the "Fairness" Doctrine is an important issue and the comments and reaction to reporters' questions on the issue are interesting and informative viewing.
But, as has become obvious to me, and perhaps I'm just slow-witted or too willing to give the benefit of the doubt, it seems that Bill O'Reilly only tells part of most important stories.
Towards the end of his "Memo" O'Reilly commented that he spoke with Schumer sometime after Grif attempted to speak with him on Thursday afternoon, and Schumer said he "didn't care about the issue, nor should he". O'Reilly labeled this response as "a ruse".
According to Merriam-Webster online:
ruse (noun): a wily subterfuge
Is anyone else tired of tap-dancing? Mr. Schumer's statements to Bill were neither a "subterfuge" nor "wily".
Let us call things what they actually are. When a feathered, beaked creature quacks, we call it a duck. When someone says something that is not true, we call it a lie.
And Chuckie Schumer did lie. On November 4, Election Day, on Foxs News Channel, Schumer equated talk radio with pornography. Perhaps after the imbecility of those comments, the estimable Mr. Schumer decided he'd better stop "caring" about the Fairness Doctrine, really quickly. He is right about one thing (kind of like a broken clock, it is accidentally right twice day) he shouldn't care.
As if the pornography analogy were not enough, Chuckie has additional reason to continue to distance himself from the issue. Apparently he's taking heat from people. I mean real people, not just people with pointy heads and huge egos.
On Monday, November 17, Mark Levin received a call to his radio show from a woman named Carla, from Brooklyn, New York.
[You can listen to the Monday Mark Levin show by clicking HERE. The conversation with Carla occurs about 48 minutes into the broadcast (as long as that version doesn't contain commercials, like the Podcast).]
Here is a transcript of the conversation:
Carla: Hi. I am so glad to talk to you and I'm also kind of nervous because I don't want to end up like Joe the Plumber. Um, I had, an, let's just say, an altercation with Charlie Schumer in the airport, at La Guardia, on Saturday night, that was pretty extensive and kind of -
Mark: Well, wait a minute, by "altercation" you mean a discussion.
Carla: Well, yeah, a heated discussion, about the Fairness Doctrine. I was deplaning, he was ahead of me, there was a fawning Democrat chick, who came over to him, and was like all over him and I had heard what he had said on, I think it was Fox News, on Election Day, I had heard his comments, about uh, about talk radio, and about the Fairness Doctrine which really repulsed me. So, I saw him there and he had this big smile on his face.
And I just said to him, "Don't you dare try to take my talk radio away from me."
And he said to me, "I'm not trying to take your talk radio away from you, but we can't allow people to be nasty and rude and, and say things that aren't true."
And I said, "Are you kidding me? That's what our democracy is about. Our democracy is messy." I said, "Our democracy is about being able to be nasty and rude and sarcastic, and wrong when we want, and say opinions that may be wrong when we want. That's what makes us different than Europe."
And he, he just started lashing out at me. He told me how ignorant I was. And that they were not going to permit -
Mark: Wait a minute, wait a minute. So in other words, so in other words, he was shrill, and rude, and vile.
Carla: Well, he was obnoxious and shrill, and it was attacking my intelligence and uh, and my I.Q., [Mark: Gee whiz.] and I was dumb. And I told him that there was a very good country that believed in his philosophy and it was called Red China and it sounded like he was talking right out of, uh, Mao's Red Book, and that that was not what our country was about and that our democracy was unique in that we allowed our discourse to be messy. And that we allowed our discourse to be wrong when it's wrong. And that's the nature of democracy.
Mark: Well, let me tell you something. You're a patriot, uh, I wish more people would engage like you; politely but firmly, confronting the Left. Uh, and you're not stupid, he's a moron. And let me tell you Carla, what, what's really upsetting Schumer. You know what it is, Carla?
Carla: No. I didn't notice anything upsetting him, he looked pretty smug.
Mark: It's me. Because he doesn't like me, my mocking him. I know it gets under his skin because he thinks he's greater and better than the rest of us. That's why I mock all of them, to knock them down two or three notches. But when he says, "shrill" and all of that, he's talking about me. Because he doesn't like me 'cause I'm in his face, because I've challenged him, because I've urged him to come on this show, because I know he's coward. But he's a menace, he's a menace to this country, he's a menace to this society, he's a menace to the judiciary. I think he should call a hearing. I think he should invite me and a couple of the others, we'll come up there, and I'd be more than happy to testify under oath, assuming of course, that he would swear in, too, so he could be punished under penalty of perjury. I'd be more than happy to do that, Schmuckie. I'd be more than happy to educate you about the First Amendment, political speech, and if you don't like it, it's none of your damn business. I'd be happy to educate you, Schmuckie. What do you think of that, you dope?
And Carla, you're I.Q. is twice of his. So you're I.Q.'s about 140.
Carla: Yeah, well, I told him. I said I will fight to the death, for my, for my talk radio, for anyone else, to be obnoxious, to be as loud and as nasty as they want. Because -
Mark: But is he not the most obnoxious member of the Senate?
Carla: Of course, of course he is. But I said the point of our democracy is that we don't censor our tones, we don't control our tones.
Mark: Well, of course, of course, you're right. And you're extremely intelligent. But he wants to do by brute government force what the Constitution doesn't allow him to do. You see, the Founding Fathers had dealt with people like Chuck Schumer; they'd dealt with people who would punish people dared to say things they didn't believe in. They tried to squelch dissent, they tried to squelch free speech and that's why, when they, when they passed the Bill of Rights, the very first one included the right to free speech, uh, and they would be appalled by Chuck Schumer. But Chuck Schumer doesn't give a damn. He's a power hungry menace. Thank you, Carla, God Bless You, and good job. You take care.
The Washington Times' story yesterday regarding how the Change.gov website was "scrubbed" sometime over the weekend is a red flag to all those who wish to see truth preserved.
The Times reported that the Obama agenda previously listed there, largely copied over from the Obama campaign site, has been replaced with vague statements.
As many bloggers, and even some reporters know; this is not the first time information has evaporated from the internet regarding Barack Obama. In fact, the scrubbing of unflattering and questionable data intensified in the last months of the campaign. Any question regarding whether this practice would be routine during an Obama Presidency, have now been answered.
Bloggers need to be cognizant of this fact and act accordingly since there are few news outlets who will not plead amnesia in the future should an issue arise referencing documented information that has disappeared.
Further, it's obvious that President-elect Barack Obama's penchant for saying, "I've consistently said...." or "this has always been my position..." or "I've always said...." or "I have said so repeatedly...." would be a lot easier to back up if there is no proof of prior statements or contrary information available.
The Obama campaign, transition team staff, and coming administration have had a great deal of help in "protecting" information. Besides things disappearing off the 'net, there have been things that have "disappeared", difficult to access, withheld, or even altered in the "terrestrial" world. There are several incidents of which bloggers are likely aware that include the removal of the "Obama Youth" video from Youtube which was only re-posted because some shrewd blogger had permanently downloaded it and put it back up on the site. Besides that video on Youtube, there have been reports of disappearing Jeremiah Wright videos and NBC's aggressively monitoring and immediately demanding videos including any NBC footage be pulled, such as Barney Frank's appearance on CNBC in July of this year when he stated that Fannie Mae was a sound investment. This video was the basis for the Bill O'Reilly ambush of Frank in October.
Besides the video pulls, there are a number of people who were disturbed by a trend on the Real Clear Politics site, wherein negative Obama reader articles would mysteriously disappear and the user accounts deleted. It's unclear at this date whether that issue was ever resolved. All inquiries to the webmaster, even by prominent blogger Roger Gardner of Radarsite, went unanswered.
There are some scrubbing incidents which I personally discovered in the last six to eight weeks of the campaign, primarily involving ACORN. On October 10, I had a post regarding Barack Obama having been a member of the legal team that sued Citibank in Chicago for allegedly "red-lining". I assert that this is yet another Obama connection to ACORN. The two plaintiffs were likely referred to Obama's firm by that group. These kinds of suits, which bullied banks to grant unprofitable and non-viable mortgages to people in areas with historically high rates of default, contributed to the "Sub-prime mortgage meltdown". Citibank ultimately settled that suit.
In researching ACORN, I found a site called Tax Exempt World, where a large amount of data on tax exempt entities is available to the public. Some of the information is available for free, some for a fee. On October 9 amd 10, when I was doing this research, I pulled up an ACORN detail page on Tax Exempt World, using this link:
Trouble is, the page didn't look exactly like it does now. There was further detail below the the Google ads, stating where ACORN's funds were held, which was an account in the British Virgin Islands. Below is an image I prepared showing where the information existed on the page as of October 10, but disappeared within about a week, when I went back to look more carefully:
Certainly it's easy to make an assertion like I've just done without any back up. Besides the fact that I had no real reason for doing so, I referenced the fact in my article, intending to go back and do further research:
"Further, the tax-exempt database I linked for the ACORN address above displays that ACORN keeps its money in an offshore bank account in the Virgin Islands, which I find just plain odd."
Apparently, the efforts to silence dissent against President-elect Barack Obama have already begun. And it looks like he can count on the youth, if not so much as he would have liked, at the ballot box, in policing their peers.
Lincoln, Nebraska, radio station 1400 KLIN reported this morning that two Omaha high school students have been suspended for making "inappropriate remarks" about Mr. Obama that "had racial and religious 'undertones'".
A search for a more in-depth report on the incident finds an Omaha World Herald story which reveals that the incident that occurred Wednesday is not the only one in which action was taken against an area high schooler.
In Bellevue, Nebraska, police and the Secret Service were called by a high school student who had received a text message from a fellow student that the recipient deemed "threatening". Apparently, the two students were arguing about the outcome of the election. No action was taken, as the threat was not deemed "credible", although it was labeled as "inappropriate".
These incidents should disturb us all. Of course, racial epithets and threatening language should not be tolerated in a civilized society. But, in the case of the suspended students, the words "inappropriate" and "undertones" were used. I find that, unfortunately, not surprising, but very outrageous. How many people, for the last eight years, made more than "inappropriate" remarks with actually violent "overtones" against President George W. Bush? How many calls were made to the Secret Service, how many students suspended? Apparently it's ok to disapparage, ridicule, and slander a white Christian guy, and that's about it.
What I find most disconcerting is that the first incident, which resulted in the suspensions, was not reported by the classroom teacher, it was reported by students who left the class and contacted the administration. And the administration took it seriously.
Perhaps the reporting students will be the first to sign up for President-elect Obama's National Civilian "Security" force.
Homeschooling, anyone?
Fox News Channel is part of the mainstream media.
Pathetically, unless you want to spend an entire broadcast yelling at the pinheaded, kool-aid drinking anchor, its the only available news network. It is better than most other networks because there are some real conservatives available by way of some guests and Sean Hannity, but let's not fool ourselves. It's becoming more "mainstream" (mainstream = out of touch) by the minute.
In some ways, its no surprise; there's little investigative journalism anywhere in the news business these days, and cable news spends too much of its time myopically covering and recycling the same small handful of stories. Fox has always had somewhat of a tabloid-type flavor to it, especially during non-primetime hours. Ever turned the channel on from about 9AM - 5PM (central)? Besides Neil Cavuto's Your World (including when delightful fill-in Stuart Varney makes an appearance) and the occasional Megyn Kelly smackdown, you can see as much footage of overturned semis on I-90 near Atlantic, Iowa, as you can handle. It doesn't help the network's "cred" rating, in my opinion, that every woman on the network besides Julie Banderas must have her colorist on speed-dial to touch up those roots.
Even in primetime, the situation is sketchy. Mr. Mountain-sized Ego, otherwise known as Bill O'Reilly, prides himself on being one of the toughest interviewers on television. Poppycock. If ranting, turning red, and pointing fingers at the camera and screaming, "Coward!" at Barney Frank passes for "toughness" then I'm a monkey's uncle. (And that can't be; I'm a woman.) Instead of playing the miles of footage of Barney Frank attacking regulators of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac, and confronting him, loopy statement by loopy statement, Mr. Ego pitched a fit.
What was worse than that was O'Reilly's coverage and interview of Barack Obama. Who does his research? Skipping over the birth certificate question (which is a diversion), the "he's a Muslim" dead-end, where was the coverage of everything else? He said, "I don't have a problem with Mr. Obama." Super. Then, the night before the election, he and regular contributor, Dennis Miller, giggled their way through a conversation that was essentially about how ridiculous it was that Barack Obama was about to be elected. Joe Wurlzebacher revealed more for us about Barack Obama with one question than Bill O'Reilly did in twenty minutes. Yeah, he's real tough.
The biggest problem, I have, though, is with Brit Hume's daily show, Special Report, and his overall coverage of Election 2008. He is managing editor of his own show, so he must have some input into the members of his illustrious "All-Star panel". The same tired parade of people is rotated and recylced for all election coverage, which Hume anchors. Nary a real conservative in the bunch. There have been random appearances of Bill Sammon, formerly of the Wall Street Journal, and now deputy managing editor at Fox News, and he's a straight shooter, but that's about it.
First of all, would someone please, please poke Mr. Hume with a stick? For at least six months, he's been nearly napping his way through his on-air time. Sometimes when the camera moves onto him after coming out of commericial break, especially on longer nights during the primaries and debates, his mouth is literally, hanging open. Someone hand the man a napkin, he needs to wipe the drool off the corner of his mouth. He's gone into retirement a little too early.
Regulars on Humes glittering panel include Juan Williams, of NPR, who committed random acts of actually rational analysis of Mr. Obama's troubling background, during the primary season, but nearly burst into tears the night Obama gave his convention speech in front of those Grecian columns in Denver.
NPR is not under-represented on Hume's panel; there's also the penetrating Mora Liason. About a week and a half before the election, the esteemed panel was discussing the wisdom of the McCain campaign beating the "William Ayers" drum. Liason actually stated, "Ayers was just someone who lived in Obama's neighborhood and their kids went to school together." Nary a word from Hume or anyone on the panel to correct her. The statement was a virtual copy of the answer David Axelrod floated after the question of the extent of Obama's association with Ayers first surfaced during the primaries. There's at least a twenty year age difference between the Obama and Ayers children, and the relationship between the two has proved to be very extensive, reaching back at least to 1995, possibly 1987, when their wives worked at the same law firm in Chicago. Obviously, all of these "stars" are just filling air time, not actually have real, informed discourse on real issues that affect real people.
Other regulars include Mort Kondracke of Roll Call, Bill Kristol and Fred Barnes, Executive Editor of the Weekly Standard, Nina Easton of Fortune, and syndicated columnist Charles Krauthammer.
Nina Easton was widely quoted on Fox during "Bailout Fest 2008", including in a David Asman piece that attempted to carefully dissect the entire debacle. It was one of the best pieces of journalism on the subject, truly, but trotting out Easton, who repeated her favorite phrase everywhere possible, "The people on Main Street don't want to bailout the 'Wall Street Fat Cats'" was insulting to our intelligence. It didn't help that Asmen introduced the clip of the wise Easton by saying, "Many Americans just don't understand." Easton was able to work in her take on the bailout on several occasions during her turn on Hume's "panel". But that wasn't her only gem. My personal favorite was her statement during a discussion of the media's bias in favor of Obama. I wish I could remember her exact words, but she literally looked perplexed when her turn came and said that she didn't think it would really effect the outcome of the election.
Krauthammer and Kristol are definately the most thoughtful of the bunch. One hears decent insight from them on occasion. Unfortunately, like the overwhelming majority of pundits, they are looking at the world through their permanently fixed inside-the-beltway prisms. The most ridiculous moments are when they are asked what the American people, or the electorate specifically, are "feeling" about a particular policy or event.
The most egregious offender attending Hume's tea parties is Fred Barnes. If one didn't know better, one would often think Mr. Barnes was the editor of a liberal publication. Listening to him talk makes me want to reach through the TV and punch him right between the eyes.
On Thursday, during the august panel's pontification on intepreting the outcome of the Presidential race, Mr. Barnes informed Republicans that they must recognize that they have to change their strategies moving forward; essentially, they must move to the left.
But this was the second night in a row that "conservative" editor Barnes had made that kind of statement. And this is just another in a long line of the same kind. As a "conservative" he wasn't too bothered about the Bailout bill. At least Bill Kristol was clear that it was going to be a bad piece of legislation.
Perhaps I shouldn't pick on Mr. Barnes quite so much. He's probably taking the brunt of my frustration on the whole issue of perhaps well-intentioned "conservatives" in Washington who have not clue one as to how the majority of American people "feel", do not do any real homework, do not call eachother out when one of them spews falsehoods, and observe "crisis"' situations in the same bored, lofty voices as they would commenting on the weather.
The whole panel needs to be scrapped, along with its moderator. There isn't one, real tough-but- fair questioner on all of news after 3:00Pm (central). If Fox wanted real probing questions, and real diversity of real opinion, they would put Neil Cavuto or Stuart Varney in Hume's time slot. The "All Star" panel should be turned into the "All America Panel" and have one articulate pundit from each side of the aisle, and rotate through a group of articulate, "average citizens", two at a time, one from each side of the aisle, each night.
I'd start with Joe the Plumber on the conservative side. A conversation among that kind of group would prove far more interesting than the elitist pap that's served up by the "All Star panel" everynight.
Minnesota Representative Michelle Bachmann spoke to Mark Levin on his radio show Wednesday afternoon, after winning a second term in Tuesday's elections.
Mark asked Congresswoman Bachmann for her opinion on Rahm Emanuel being appointed Barack Obama's Chief of Staff:
Mark Levin: You've dealt with this scoundrel, my word, not yours, Rahm Emanuel, he's going to be chief of staff to Milhouse, Barack Milhouse Obama. Now the issue here is, he's a very nasty guy who plays really knuckle politics. This doesn't look like "change" and "hope". Does it to you?
Rep. Bachmann: Well, it looks like The Sopranos. I mean that's kind of what we're looking at. This is knuckle Chicago politics. And that's what's going to be in the White House now. I mean, we have been, Conservative Republicans have felt the brunt of Rahm Emanuel, this election cycle, last election cycle. It's unlike anything anyone has ever seen or heard. And now it's going to come forth out of the White House.
[crosstalk]
Mark Levin: Does this guy, does this guy reach across the aisle, does he ever reach across the aisle? I don't see it.
Rep. Bachmann: No, it's called shame and humiliate your opponent. That's what it is; it's shame and humiliation.
Mark Levin: So what kind of signal does this send to Republicans in Congress?
Rep. Bachmann: I think what it says is, people are not going to be running for office as Conservative Republicans unless they really mean it and feel it. To go through the kind of brutal lashings that the Democrats are going to be holding out for future office holders, um, you'd really have to think twice, just about your position, your reputation. I'm a mom of five, I had twenty-three foster kids and I worked professionally as a federal tax lawyer, and we've started our own business. And to go through something like this, where, really for eighteen days, your name is mud, your ruined, your reputation is destroyed.
And for what? I believe in freedom, I believe in this country. Believe in what you're trying to talk about everyday on your show, I mean, I'm a huge fan of you, Mark. And you've got, you've got normal people who want to run for office, 'cause they just love this country, and want the next generation to enjoy freedom. And let the world have a haven to repair to for freedom. And this is what we're up against.
Because it literally what is now the choice between socialism and those who still believe in the initial foundational principles of freedom. I'm never going to let go of those principles. I don't care how hard they beat me and humiliate me. I am never letting go of those principles, because I do think they are going to be under assaalt and this is Day 1 of the assault of socialism. But we need strong-minded leadership in D.C. to take these people on.
Mark Levin: Well you are a very, very strong person. We admire you enormously. And as you need to come on, you let us know. You need to do one favor for me, will you make me one promise?
Rep. Bachmann: What?
Mark Levin: Don't go on "MSLSD"* anymore.
Rep. Bachmann: That you don't have to worry about, my dear. You absolutely don't have to worry about that.
We lost some great colleagues last night. I mean true freedom fighters. Tom Feeney, Tim Walbert, Marilyn Musgrave, Steve Shaba, Thelma Drake. We lost true freedom fighters. We hung onto some; Scott Garrett, whose a real hero of mine. So it was brutal and it was bloody, but for those of us who made it through the smoke, it's because of the generous involvement of your listeners.
And I'm not going there just to put my head under the radar screen. I'm going there because we have to fight. Because if we don't fight, there is no alternative. That's what you told us when you spoke to us. We're it, we're all that's left. And if we don't fight, the only alternative is, is full-bore rampant socialism. You'll hear from me, you'll hear from Scott Garrett, you'll hear from my colleagues. We're going to go down swinging, we're not going to let them just roll over us. We're going to go down swinging. We're going to let the public know, from the front lines, what we see and hear everyday.
Mark Levin: Well, you are, you make us all proud. My buddy, Scott Garrett, thank God he won, too. And, uh, Congresswoman, God Bless you, and go get 'em.
Rep. Bachmann: We're going to do it. And thanks a million to your listeners, thank you for making this happen, thank you.
*If you want to know more about what's being referred to at this point in the conversation, read this post.
Rep. Bachmann is not painting a stilted picture of Rahm Emanuel. He once said, "Republicans can go f*%$ themselves." But then again, according to a Chicago Tribune reporter who followed him throughout the 2006 Mid-term election cycle, Emanuel's sentences are laced with profanity and he "extends his middle finger with some regularity". The Tribune reporter, Naftali Bendavid, was only allowed to report in detail on Emanuel and his tactics after the elections. It's a long, detailed piece, and while it provides insight into just how Emanuel master-minded Republican defeat, it blasts to shreds the flimsy hopes anyone has of the "new kind of politics" promised by Barack Obama during his campaign. The full story can be read by clicking here.
Constant use of profanity and "flipping the bird", while endearing qualities in any White House Chief of Staff, are not the sole talents Mr. Emanuel possesses. He is also, apparently, very entertaining when wielding a steak knife. A practially crowing article in the Huffington Post appeared today entitled "Rahm Emanuel: Knife Figher, A Look Back", details how Emanuel vented his frustration at "enemies" at an after-election dinner with fellow campaign workers. After screaming out a name, Emanuel apparently "stabbed" the table with his steak knife, screaming "Dead!"
We can all only wait to see who will be the next delightful appointment to the coming Obama administration.
$120,000 must be the new $150,000, no, it's the new $200,000, no, the new $250,000. Huh??
New Mexico Governor Bill Richardson, in a radio interview on Denver, Colorado radio station 850 KOA today stated that people with incomes under $120,000 would receive tax cuts:
After months of stating that Obama would give tax cuts to "all working families" that made less than $250,000, that number has changed four, perhaps five times this week.
Those numbers for people who will have tax bulls-eyes tacked to their foreheads just keeps changing. In the whole "spreading" or redistributing the wealth scheme, those who will have their wealth "spread around" seem to be making less and less from one day to the next.
On Wednesday, "Oh, That's Just Joe Being Joe" Joe Biden said the Obama-Biden tax plan would lower taxes for everyone making less than $150,000:
Perhaps in a "slow economy" or "financial crisis", we just need to redefine the definition of "rich". Wednesday, apparently, rich was $150,000, during Obama's thirty minute indoctromercial, it was $200,000.
Perplexed by the four different numbers now floating, Fox News Stuart Varney, filling in on Neil Cavuto's Your World, invited an Obama spokeswoman on to clear things up.
**Warning - Duct Tape Alert**
Please wrap your head securely in Duct tape prior to viewing as your head is likely to explode about 90 seconds in:
This link will take you to the Fox News site where you can view the video.
Miss Law seems to lower the threshold now to $45,000 - $50,000 if I get anythinng that makes any sense out of what she said.
If Mr. Obama, his running mate, a former Ambassador to the U.N. and sitting governor, or his "spokeswoman" can't walk a straight line, let us do so here. Let's examine some of the ways in which Miss Law tried to tap dance around directly clarifying which particular number is the one we are to believe:
Miss Law really cleared things up, didn't she? Let's see if we understand her correctly, taking these explanations, one at a time and correcting the circular logic:
Let us examine the definition of the word "equivocate", courtesy of Merriam-Webster's:
equiv·o·cate
1 : to use equivocal language especially with intent to deceive 2 : to avoid committing oneself in what one says
2 : to avoid committing oneself in what one says
Seems like the whole loopy discussion is the definition of "equivocate".
Finally, let's move totally into the land of common sense and sound reasoning. Is there any real doubt about what's going on here? We're being bombarded with so many amounts at this stage, so later, if elected President Obama can stake a claim on whichever amount is most convenient.
Nebraska is supposedly "solidly red" but has high taxation and a recent string of governmental bungles. Three of these embarrassing episodes displaying poor policy and lack of common sense have made national news in the last few weeks. Are these Nebraska events just coincidentally happening within a short period, are they symptomatic of systemic bad decision making, or are the current events here just illustrative of what plagues government in most of America?
This is a long post. I've had it with government incompetence and elitist arrogance. Probably a self-indulgent rant, I admit. But also possibly a lot of examples of where we're going wrong in this country. We seem to be living in a land where there is no longer any common sense or moral standards.
I'm finding out that life-long convictions should be kept if they are based on sound reasoning or even a gut instinct with a good track record. One of mine, previously long held, was that I would never live in the state of Nebraska. Because of a promotion offer made to my husband, we tried to ensure the compensation agreement settled on covered the increased cost of living. Calculated numbers can't tell you everything. The "won't live in Nebraska pledge" was based on a lifetime of personal observation regarding the state's tax policies. What I've realized since is that a state's tax policies are likely to be an indicator of other flaws.
Unfortunately, Nebraska made national news recently multiple times, and at one point, last week, three days in a row. The headlines regarded a loopy state senator's lawsuit, a newly implemented "Safe Haven" law, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln's invitation to William Ayers to speak to students. There's no question, I'm embarrassed to say, "I live in Nebraska." The sad part is, I really did know better and I just tried to convince myself otherwise. Sometimes the lessons we learn come in the form of having our head rammed into a brick wall. While I have adequately learned my lesson about maintaining convictions, it doesn't prevent me from wanting to scream. National embarrassment is actually the least of my concerns. The most recent headlining-making incident affects my family directly, and really sets my blood boiling. But some of the most irritating policies and recent bungles haven't made national news.
My opinion about living in Nebraska developed based on it's tax policies in contrast to its immediate neighbors to the north, South Dakota, and east, Iowa. Since I lived for long periods in both of these two states in communities immediately adjacent to Nebraska until two years ago, my observations of the contrast were first hand. Considering the many issues that arise in any region throughout it's history, the three state convergence provided me with many examples from which to learn. As would be expected, tri-state area demographics are used for decision making by businesses, such as whether or not to open a nationally popular chain restaurant. Manufacturers have been able to take advantage of the available labor base while having the option to pick and choose which specific state's tax structure is most advantageous. In an effort to stay informed, I'd seen many debates and decisions of that kind. Most often, businesses did not choose to locate in Nebraska.
Besides my observations of the business climate as an adult, I was left with an impression as a young adult that you didn't want to live in Nebraska if you already owned or wanted to own a nice car. The motley collection of clunkers crossing the Missouri River with Nebraska plates told the tale. I would occasionally hear personally of people who had moved into the smaller Nebraska city across the bridge from Iowa, then later were turned into the Nebraska State Patrol by a neighbor with some kind of grudge for having Iowa license plates although they'd been living in Nebraska for several years. The state, of course, charges basic licensing and title fees comparable to others, but there are several other taxes and fees: personal property tax is assessed on vehicles annually, there is a "wheel tax" in many counties, and upon the purchase of any new or used vehicle, the same sales tax rate is applied to the as if one were buying toilet paper, a refrigerator, or a pair of blue jeans, which is 7% almost everywhere in the state. Perhaps that laundry list of taxes and fees is standard practice in many states, but it wasn't and isn't in Iowa or South Dakota.
My early and vague impression about Nebraska and the expenses associated with owning a vehicle here have only been reinforced since our move. Iowa applies the base state sales tax rate of 5% at the time of the purchase. South Dakota has a special vehicle purchase excise tax rate of 3%, again, applied upon purchase. Neither of the two states has a personal property tax, at least not on vehicles or on any item I ever owned while living in either state, and neither have a wheel tax.
Since I'm frugal or thrifty....ok, since, I'm cheap, I found myself whining annually when renewing my license plates in the state of Iowa. The best illustration I can give of differences among these three states is to use my own vehicles and their respective cost to license in each. Certainly, this little illustration will reveal a number of things about my husband and myself, such as the unavoidable truth that we ran the gambit from living within, above, and then below our means in the span of the last fifteen years. So be it. At least we've learned something.
In the state of Iowa in 1994, the cost to license a 1993 Ford Taurus sedan was $150 per year, and we paid $425 in sales tax when purchased. Three years later, the licensing fee was still $150, but when moving to South Dakota it cost just $45 for a full year. In 1998, we bought a 1997 Ford Expedition. It cost $630 in sales tax and a whopping $75 to license it in South Dakota. The clerk looked sheepish when she pushed the bill across the counter. "This is the highest rate we charge, because it's a truck and it's so new. It will stay that high for a few years. The law just changed and the costs went up," she said apologetically. I almost wanted to kiss her but wasn't surprised by the amount. Employing the same logic as we had done when purchasing a vehicle in Iowa, we'd checked prior to buying. In some cases, the taxes and fees can be a deal breaker. $630 is nothing to sneeze at if you value a dollar, but it wasn't $1400, which would have been the cost had we resided in Nebraska at the time. And that's just the sales tax. I don't want to know what the personal property tax would have been.
We continued to pay that "high" $75 fee for a few years. It dropped to $56 and then $45. The clerk told me at the $45 drop that that would be the lowest price it would ever hit. Same clerk who originally waited on me and she was only slightly less apologetic. Every year, I made sure I expressed my gratitude to the County Treasurer and staff at the reasonableness of the costs, and they were pleased. At least I had the sense to appreciate a good thing when I had it.
In 2006, when we licensed the same 1997 Ford Expedition in the state of Nebraska, the total for the license, title fee, personal property tax, and wheel tax was almost $450. At renewal in 2007, it cost over $350. My renewal is coming up soon and can't wait to see how much an eleven year old truck will cost. In 2007, we added a 1999 Ford Taurus Wagon to our "luxurious fleet". All of the taxes and fees amounted to over $400. That's on a vehicle we paid $3800 and gave over a clunky van that had to be jump started (yeah, yeah, redneck, what can I say?) to get it to the dealer. The thing booked at around $5000. Renewal in 2008 was $130+. These are nearly or over ten year old vehicles, for Pete's sake. We've become economic "freaks" in recent years, having adopted a no-debt policy (other than our mortgage). Obviously, we're not like so many people who buy new vehicles every five years or even more frequently. Yes, our Expedition was high end at the time we purchased it. I've already acknowledged we've lived above our means at one point. We're not going to replace that truck anytime soon but I wonder how other people can afford not only hefty car payments, but the increased cost of all the fees that must be sky high on an equivalent vehicle today. I would guess many roll those expenses right into their car loan. We would probably have considered that if we'd lived in Nebraska at the time. If we were dumb enough to go into that much debt on a vehicle, we'd likely have been dumb enough to finance the taxes and fees, too. What are people getting for all of these taxes and fees? I wish I could say that there is something special about the state of Nebraska in that the roads are generally better constructed, in better repair, or noticeably clearer in the winter, but I can't. I can't figure out what the heck we are getting for our money.
I can say where at least some portion of that money goes in Nebraska and one reason why Iowa also costs more than South Dakota; that state's county Treasurer offices don't fool around mailing reminders to people when it's time to renew. Wonder of wonders, they expect people to remember to do it themselves. If after sixty days, their is a failure to comply, there is a summons issued. I never knew anyone who found themselves in county jail for that offense. What I found even more interesting was the local news eight years ago detailing how people from Nebraska and even Iowa had been caught in the attempt to avoid the hefty licensing fees in their homes states by opening post office boxes in small South Dakota towns and then using that address as a "residence" basis for licensing in South Dakota. To the best of my recollection, that particular loophole was closed; vehicle licenses in South Dakota are established with residential addresses, post office boxes are no longer accepted.
Although one would expect to, and does see lots of out of state plates in a state university's home city, it seemed upon moving here, we saw a disproportionate number of South Dakota plates. State officials apparently noticed it as well. Last spring, local news reported investigations by the Nebraska State Patrol of suspected circumvention of licensing laws. The investigations, the report detailed, included actually following cars with South Dakota plates to see if they went to Nebraska residences. The probe went further and we personally experienced what it's like to become targets of a government witch-hunt, if only on a minor scale.
About a year and a half after moving to Nebraska, and therefore seventeen months after licensing our vehicles here, we and several thousand of our fellow citizens received threatening letters from the Nebraska State Patrol, on the governor's letterhead. The letter stated, "Our records indicate that a vehicle (or vehicles) has been registered in your name in another state." The letter also informed that we might not be in violation but "there will be an investigation to evaluate this information." We were also warned that failure to comply with state law is a felony and we would be prosecuted, but were urged to comply voluntarily.
One wonders at the total expense of this effort. Postage and printing of the letters alone had to be significant. My husband and I always title our vehicles jointly, and as would be expected from oh-so efficient government, there was apparently no effort to weed out duplications by address, joint ownership, marital status, or otherwise. We each received our own letter, so there was double the expense. It may seem trivial, but the paper was heavier than the cheapo standard office stuff, was virtually full of print, included several of those official state seals, and was printed in two colors of ink. Further, there is a statement at the bottom: "Printed with soy ink on recycled paper." Super! We all know that recycled stuff is so much more cost effective than that which is traditionally manufactured. Glad our tax dollars are not only subsidizing farmers' with a myriad of government programs, including ill-advised corn-based ethanol, but that we are helping out with soy bean prop-ups as well.
Besides just the cost of sending out these letters, the entire basis for making the contacts must be questioned. What was the criteria, after all? Common sense tells us (now, there's a concept) that the letters my husband and I received provide decent information with which to make some reasonable surmises about the general plan employed by the state. The letter was sent to our Nebraska residence. Since it doesn't make any reference to a particular vehicle, we have to do some guessing, but the options are finite. When we moved from South Dakota, we owned two vehicles and a boat. Within thirty days of the move, we licensed the two vehicles in Nebraska. Within a year we made the aforementioned trade of the clunky van for that luxurious station wagon. The wagon was promptly licensed in Nebraska. So, both of our passenger vehicles were licensed by June of 2007. The boat we owned never left the state of South Dakota as it was stored and used there. In 2007, we renewed the licenses for the boat and its trailer, but changed the address on file to our residence in Nebraska. This way of handling the situation was exactly according to the letter of the law in both states; location of majority use determines where a boat is to be licensed. And it took all of ten minutes for me to verify that information, including looking up the necessary phone numbers for the appropriate government agencies. Within a couple of months of renewing the license, the boat was sold by consignment through a South Dakota dealership. In other words, we haven't owned a "vehicle" of any type licensed in the state of South Dakota since the summer of 2007, under any address.
There are only a few ways that the state could have used to determine their basis for mailing letters to "violators". Regardless of which one chosen, it was clearly all erroneous. Since the letter was received through and addressed to our residence in Nebraska, the only logical explanation is that the state of Nebraska requested and paid for a list of licenses held in South Dakota with Nebraska addresses and the list included boats as well as passenger vehicles. The letter quotes the state law requiring the licensing of passenger vehicles. Why they would pay money, and you know they had to have paid for the cost of generating such reports, for dated lists that included a lot of clearly useless information is rather mind boggling. In addition to this incompetence, the very basis of trolling for people actually using a Nebraska address with "vehicles" licensed in another state is just plain stupid. People who are truly subverting the law don't use their Nebraska address; they use a phony one, one of a relative, one for an empty piece of land, one for a hunting cabin they use once a year, and so on. I know this is what goes on, because I know you can't license a passenger vehicle in South Dakota with a Nebraska address. I also know its bogus because we've been in full compliance with the law the entire time. It's all so ridiculous.
In addition to the cost of obtaining the "fresh" list of supposedly felonious peoples' names from the neighboring states of South Dakota and Iowa, there would also have been fuel costs for following vehicles around, apparently, to see where they live, the man hours lost on this hot pursuit, the incalculable costs of crimes committed while the State Patrol was looking the other way, and time spent by state officials' and attendant PR departments dealing with the ugly backlash that followed the news stories and receipt of the letters. Likely, there ware man hours in the State Attorney General's office at some level, as multiple attorneys stated their angry objections to the language of the letter and advised the public to ignore the letter, since in their opinions, several aspects of it were unconstitutional.
We took the free "advice" of the enraged attorneys. I was more than ready to field any silly inquiries of the State Patrol and happy to produce the proper documentation. Nearly six months later, I haven't heard a peep out of the state. Have they been following me? Don't know, don't care. I abide by the speed limits, wear my seat belt, etc., etc.
So...the state of Nebraska clearly expended a good chunk of change so they could pursue dead ends and actually do little to deal with getting people to comply with properly licensing their vehicles.
Is there any method that would actually be effective in catching the non-compliant? I can't think of one that doesn't remind one of checkpoints with a uniformed guy saying, "Papers, please." I do have a radical idea: how about lowering the cost of licensing vehicles in the state of Nebraska? It's amazing how compliant people are when these costs are kept reasonable, in fact, how well they can actually remember to comply, on their own, when this is the case. It seems to me that the costs have to be as high as they are just to fund all of the nonsense I just detailed. It's fantastic to watch our tax dollars at work.
Nebraska's vehicle taxes and licensing fees are just the tip of the tax iceberg. It has the highest overall tax rate in a nine state region, when considering income , personal property, sale, and real estate taxes. For a family making over $27,000 per year, the income tax rate is 6.84%, in Iowa the same family would be taxed 6.8%, if they made over $40,000, the rate would be 7.92%, over $60,000, 8.98%. (Click this link to check the source of this information.) In South Dakota, there is no income tax. It's obvious why my family moved from Iowa to South Dakota. Nebraska's real estate property tax is 1.74% of value, compared to Iowa's 1.25%, and South Dakota's 1.30%.
One would think our state is in big financial trouble. What other reason could there be for such high taxes? Not so, in the last few weeks, it was reported that there is a $500 million dollar budget surplus, and state officials are debating about whether that money should be held in reserve or, gasp!, returned to the taxpayers, or double gasp!!, whether taxes should be lowered. Wow, tough question.
Believe me, I've already kicked myself a number of times for going against my previous conviction about living here. Besides learning not to get into debt, I've also learned one would benefit tremendously by subscribing to the newspaper of a city or town which one is considering moving to for a time prior to making the final decision. So, another lesson learned. But we tried to be smart; we ran all of the numbers, not just taxes. We did make one serious mistake; we assumed that this city would have similar or lower costs for groceries and fuel as compared to the smaller, more rural area from which we were moving. We based that assumption on knowledge of prices in Nebraska's largest city, Omaha. We all know what happens when one assumes things. At least we had checked everything else, right down to the cost of cable TV. Our weekly food costs went up 25% and gas cost at least $.25 more gallon than we'd previously paid. And that was prior to the overall rises people began experience about year to a year and a half ago.
Incompetence and high expense are not isolated to the state government here. We have the misfortune to have moved to the city in Nebraska with the highest cost of living, and apparently with the most incompetent municipal government. Within six months of our move, there was a city-wide property tax increase in addition to the expected increase resulting from an updated assessment, both of which increased our monthly mortgage payment by $100. After getting settled in to our new community, we discovered that the City of Lincoln has been running budget deficits for several years and have been debating the implementation of a city income tax. Super! At at time when the local newspaper was busy running stories such as the one entitled "A Broke City", complete with photos of failing infrastructure, the mayor proposed a housing industry stimulus package that would have given a $5,000 - $10,000 bonus to first-time or new construction home buyers. Wonder of wonders, the new home construction industry in the city has been slowing down. This proposal, and a competing one from a City Council member was made a couple of weeks prior to the Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac meltdown and the subsequent financial crisis. It's mighty interesting that not one word about said stimulus has been uttered since...from anyone.
There are a number of other examples of total lack of common sense applied by both the state and local government here, but all that I've already mentioned gets the point across amply. When coupled with the several national headlines that appeared last week, three days in a row, any lingering doubts about whether our move was a mistake, have been erased. It's almost like God heard my internal dialogue and decided to send me a message.
The message came in the form of weeks of national news reports culminating with three days in a row. The first point worthy of note to national press was that a state Senator filed a lawsuit against God. Yes, I did just say "God", as in Yahwey, the Alpha, the Omega, you get the picture. The case was filed almost a year ago, and last Wednesday, October 15, a judge dismissed the case. It begs the question: why on earth did it take that long? My favorite column or headline regarding the adventure is entitled, "There's Just No Cure For Stupid" found in the Royse City, Texas, Herald-Banner, in which columnist John Browning examines not one, but two stupid Nebraska cases, among others. "Maybe there's something in the water in Nebraska", he mused. Yeah, maybe...
The next, and most frequently reported on Nebraska issue generating national press buzz really ginned up a few weeks ago. In the Unicameral's 2008 session, those genius state Senators, in reaction (over-reaction?) to an infant abandonment incident at an Omaha hospital, decided to pass a Safe Haven law. Prior to this, Nebraska had no legal way for a parent to legally abandon their child. Oh, the horror! I understand the purpose of Safe Haven laws, but there was not an epidemic of abandoned or dead babies in this state prior to that lone incident of a mother abandoning her baby in the hospital bathroom.
In any case, the over reaction was palpable. The legislature quickly passed a Safe Haven law. Somehow, and no one seems to be able to explain it, the law was written in such a way that allows any child up to the age of nineteen to be abandoned at a hospital without legal recourse. In the last four weeks, 19 children have been abandoned in Nebraska, two of which were trucked in out of state. One mother actually drove all the way from Michigan to dump her teenager off in Nebraska. All of the children were over the age of 2, and all but three of them were teenagers. One of the stories I found in the national press was this AP story chronicling the Michigan mother's abandonment. When two days in a row saw multiple drop offs, one of which was five children from the same family, local news began reporting about government official's debating over a potential special session of the legislature to change this very poorly written law. Nebraska doesn't allow the governor to call a special session. He's stated the law needs changing, but he's not sure a special session is necessary. State senate leaders have said the same. Some apparently powerless members of the Senate have called out for a special session, to no avail. This debate began when fewer than a dozen children had been abandoned. As of today, Friday, October 24, a total of 19 have been abandoned, two of which were dropped off in the last 48 hours. Perhaps the debate about a special session will continue long enough that it will be time for the regular session to convene in January. Wonder how many kids will be scarred for life after being abandoned as teenagers by their parents?
The most recent, and most embarrassing in the series of headline splashes, and it appears we're going for the tri-fecta, is that the University of Nebraska - Lincoln College of Education and Human Science had invited William Ayers, to speak to its students in November. Fire and brimstone hailed down on the college the minute the word hit the streets, in the form of floods of phone calls and emails. College of Education Dean Marjorie Kostelnik said, "It's been a universally negative response." How shocking!
I happened to hear this wonderful tidbit from Rush Limbaugh. I was incensed. Within two minutes I was dialing the Office of Admissions. It just so happens I have a high school senior who is corresponding currently with six different colleges in an effort to narrow down to his top three to four choices. Among his six prospects, one won't find any ivy league school on the list, but one would have found UNL, until a week ago. It may be that we can't afford to send him to his preferred conservative schools and since so many colleges and universities are incredibly liberal, why pay $20,000 per year for indoctrination when you can pay $7,000? UNL was the fallback choice only because of the in-state tuition and the ability to cut expenses by living at home. I was struggling with my distaste for this option, and once again, it's like God was urgently phoning in a message. He said, "Wondering about sending your kid to UNL? Wonder no more, my child!" What in the world are the odds that as several early decision dates loom and the Obama / Ayers connection is being hotly debated in the media, my state's, nay, my city's university invites the guy to speak? Coincidence? I think not.
I called the Office of Admissions specifically, because I wanted to let that department know how the invitation to Ayers would affect my son's decision to attend. One thing I've learned in life; I'm not unique. If I'm thinking something, so is someone else. There have to be other parents out there who feel exactly the same way as myself. Trouble is, so often, people don't take the time or trouble to voice to the offending party what caused their decision. I thought that voice needed to be heard. Upon reaching the receptionist, I was transferred to a counselor, who, unbelievably, had neither ever heard of Ayers nor had any knowledge of the invitation. I let this poor woman, who must have been living under a rock for the past six months, know who William Ayers is. I sketched out his background and I made sure I told her that I hadn't just taken someone else's word for it, I'd looked into the issue myself. I informed her that if the University had William Ayers on it's campus, my son would not being choosing UNL next fall and neither of my other children would seriously give the school its consideration in the future. I further informed that there are some people who should be the object of universal scorn in our society, and this fellow is one of those people. I compared Ayers' impending visit to that of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's to Columbia University in 2007.
The very polite, kind counselor informed that she was unaware of this particular issue but appreciated that I was expressing my concerns and my opinion. She further informed me that the University was open to all points of view. PC message received, loud and clear. I accepted the offer to be transferred to the Communications Director.
Finding myself connected to the voice mail of that director rather than the live person came as no surprise to me, as I imagined how many phone calls she was now receiving. I left a message for her. Considering the "We Are the World" attitude I was given by the Admissions' Counselor, I felt it important to take on the ridiculous world of academia nonsense regarding taking into account "all points of view". Finally, I expressed my concern as a taxpayer, who had zero desire to participate in funding such an endeavor. I was actually very pleased to have gotten the voice mail; I didn't have to talk to a PC press person but was able to get my message across.
At the time I made my calls, the University was sticking to its invitation. The next day, Friday, October 17, my husband handed me a copy of the Omaha World-Herald for my reading "enjoyment" on a flight. The headline read "UNL invitation to Ayers raises furor". Towards the beginning of the article, I was pleased to read that one of the regents, a Randy Ferlic, urged donors to withhold funds and gave his opinion on how the decision to invite Ayers reflected on the University's Chancellor and staff, "[it] speaks volumes of the arrogance". And how. Not much further reading in the article allowed readers to sample some of that arrogance.
Chancellor Perlman stated, "In this instance, it is unfortunate that a lecture directed toward an academic subject has become implicated in a political campaign. Nothing in his presence suggests that the university supports his personal or political philosophy or condones any of his former conduct."
I'm with Randy Ferlic. Speaks volumes of the arrogance, alright. What is actually most arrogant about it is that it is possible for a man who oversees the education of thousands of students every year, to be completely ignorant of the fact that Mr. Ayers didn't stop being a radical just because he "went on to gain a measure of respect in the education world", as the Herald informed its readers in the typical mainstream media oh-so-unbiased-way. Ayers acceptance in the world of academia is not an endorsement of Bill Ayers; it's an indictment of academia. One wonders whether Mr. Perlman has bothered to read the "100 academic articles and 17 books" that Mr. Ayers has written. No one can accuse Bill Ayers of being stupid, that's for sure. He is actually very intelligent. He realized he could have more impact on radicalizing society by infusing his Marxist, anarchist viewpoint into the academic world. He teaches teachers how to teach. Not only is he an unrepetent terrorist who wanted to overthrow American society, he decided he could do a better job of that by tinkering with the educational system. And apparently, the educational system is only to warmly ready to accept him.
The defense of the invitation and explanation of its history is definately more arrogant even than the Chancellor's ignorance and an insult to the citizens of the state of Nebraska who took the time to let their voices be heard. The school was very quick to point out that a private donation was being used to fund the event at which Ayers was scheduled to speak. It was actually money raised by the University of Nebraska Foundation. This is a fantastic group. This isn't the first time its done something marvelous like this; there has been another statewide flap recently (yes, another one) regarding an effort to repeal Affirmative Action throughout the state. This helpful foundation has used some of its funds to fight this effort.
The chronicle of the process of engineering the invitation, and its review by the College of Education is just too rich:
Education Dean Marjorie Kostelnik said that when the college invited Ayers to the conference in February, some on the selection committee were vaguely aware of his controversial past, 'but it wasn't high on their radar screen'. They were focused on his academic credentials.
Officials in the college learned more about Ayers after he became a figure in the campaign. They decided then not to withdraw the invitation but to make clear to him that he was to speak only on his research.
Well, that's just fantastic. I'm sure that would do the trick, really.
But Kostelnik's rationalization and defense of the decision to hold to the invitation gets even better. Somewhat ironically, one of the better stories quoting Kostelnik appeared in my hometown's newspaper on Thursday, Oct. 16. The Sioux City Journal article reports:
She said Ayers is an expert in two areas that are of interest to the university's teaching students: teaching methods that help assure students of all socio-economic backgrounds receive quality education; and research designed to increase teachers' understanding of how people think and learn.
Kostelnik said Ayers was invited before he emerged as a controversial figure in the presidential campaign but that faculty members who decided to invite him, including herself, had a superficial knowledge of his past.
During a faculty discussion of whether he should be invited, his violent past "never came up," Kostelnik said.
When his invitation was announced at a faculty meeting in August, a faculty member asked if the group knew who Ayers is. Kostelnik said more research was done on his radical activities, and the group that decided to invite him stuck with its initial decision.
"The group was very clear to me they were purely interested in his research perspectives," she said.
I'd love for one of these pinheads to define a "quality education" and what the hell someone like Bill Ayers has to substantively say about educational "research".
I like Regent Ferlic more and more as I think about what he had to say about the arrogance. But he had even more to add:
If the university invites Ayers to speak on educational reform, he said, perhaps the university might want to consider having Osama bin Laden to speak about religion.
This is not about a Democrat or Republican issue, or the elections. This is about the University of Nebraska, and we should not allow staining of the people's university.
Amen, brother! This guy deserves a Bozo button, a medal, something. This is real straight talk. Meanwhile other university Regents, the President of the University, for Pete's sake, and the state's governor, were all doing the political tap dance of offering a negative opinion but stating that their respective offices provided no outlet for stopping Ayers' attending the event. Can anyone say "No controlling legal authority?" Good grief.
Citing "safety concerns", the invitation was rescinded on Monday of this week. A pointy-headed spokesperson breathlessly informed that there had been threats of violent disruption, even a vague death threat against Ayers. Ok, maybe, but likely poppeycock. There have been reports that big money donors threatened to withhold funding if Ayers visited the campus.
I'd withhold my funds anyway. I know that after listening to the staements of some of these university people, I'm still not going to consider sending any of my kids to the school, rescinded invitation or no. And like my phone call, I'm going to be sure to let them know why. I actually think this issue, the world of academia is the biggest threat to our society. The whole sorry situation with Ayers being invited to UNL and its fallout is a beautiful illustration of why. I'm just mightily embarrassed that it happened in my state.
Of course, it's obviously not the only thing to be embarrassed about. South Dakota's looking reeeaaal good right about now....
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